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Filed under: SUVs , Ford , Lincoln Click above for a gallery of the 2008 Lincoln Navigator The window sticker on a 2008 Navigator shows a mighty low 12 mpg in the city, and only 18 on the highway, so Ford went back to the drawing board to improve on that number next year. The Blue Oval's blinged-up luxury sled boasts a fuel friendlier average of 14/20 for 2009, a marginal improvement, but an improvement nonetheless. Ford says those numbers are good enough to put the Blue Oval at the head of the luxury SUV space that includes the Cadillac Escalade, Lexus LX570, and the Nissan QX56. Ford was able to increase fuel economy by almost 15% on the big SUV by implementing some of the same engineering tricks employed on the 2009 F-150, which itself gets up to 15/21 in SFE trim. Changes were made to the idle speed and the transmission, as well as some fancy software engineering that regulates gas consumption by using aggressive deceleration fuel shut-off. Ford also made standard several items...
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Filed under: SUVs , Euro , Crossovers/CUVs , Ford , First Drive Click above for high-res gallery of the Euro-spec Ford Kuga The grass, they say, is always greener on the other side of the fence. Though that often appears to be the case, most of the time it isn't. Dearborn's new "One Ford" initiative promises that we'll soon be able to stop gazing longingly across the ocean at what the company offers overseas buyers, as Ford endeavors to integrate its global product line-up into one cohesive range for every market around the world. In the case of the new Fiesta, that's a good thing. Less so with regards to the Kuga. Follow the jump to read why. Gallery: First Drive: 2008 Ford Kuga Photos Copyright (C)2008 Noah Joseph / Weblogs, Inc. Continue reading First Drive: Ford Kuga (Euro-spec) Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: Economy , Sedans/Saloons , SUVs , Euro , Plants/Manufacturing , Ford click above to view more high-res shots of the Euro-Focus News flash: small cars like the Ford Focus are selling beyond expectations (ours anyway) while trucks and SUVs are sitting on dealer lots much longer than auto manufacturers would like. For this reason, Ford is moving as quickly as possible to switch a few of its truck plants into car plants, including its Michigan Truck plant where behemoth SUVs like the Expedition and Navigator were being built. The switchover is going to cost the automaker since these are not flexible manufacturing facilities, with the first bit of retooling ringing the registers to the tune of $75 million bucks -- and that's just for a new bodyshop. The total cost to retool the plant will be in the hundreds of millions. As they say, it takes money to make money. While the plant is being refurbished, workers will be shuffled to the nearby Wayne plant to build even more Focuses...
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Filed under: Aftermarket , Tuners , SUVs , Ford , Lincoln Do you often wonder why putting your foot down while driving your Ford Expedition or Lincoln Navigator doesn't deliver the response for which you'd hoped? Well, that could be because you're driving an enormous beast of a vehicle saddled with an overburdened 5.4L V8 producing 300 horsepower. Well, Saleen now has the solution for more power that Ford has not been willing to offer. The SpeeLab division of the American tuning house has announced the availability of its Series VI twin-screw supercharger for the current-model Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator. The forced inductor, already on duty in the Saleen S331 Sport Truck , provides an extra 100 horsepower and 100 lb-ft of torque in the SUV. The result? Substantial extra pulling power, for one, while acceleration is said to be vastly improved, dropping the 0-60 run into the sixes while improving 35 - 65 mph passing times by 30 percent, all the while making a negligible...
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Filed under: Coupes , SUVs , Trucks/Pickups , Ford The tremendous pressure on the auto industry is rapidly unraveling even the most carefully laid out plans. Fuel economy is king right now, and trucks and SUVs have gone from cash cows to the 6,000-pound albatross around the necks of automakers. Ford has been giving us a steady flow of news regarding its plans to weather this wicked storm, including the decision to switch truck and SUV plants into facilities that can produce fuel efficient cars and the delayed launch of the 2009 F-150. Now we're hearing from Mike Levine at Pickuptrucks.com that the Blue Oval has all but killed the once promising Boss V8 engine program. The powerful V8 engine was slated to appear on models ranging from the new Mustang to the best-selling F-150 and Super Dudy, but a stop work order has narrowed the Boss' available engine bays down to one model. Ford President of the Americas Mark Fields told Levine that while the program isn't being killed completely...
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Filed under: Hybrids/Alternative , SUVs , Government/Legal , Green , Ford The Blue Oval has gifted the U.S. Department of Energy a one-of-a-kind vehicle: a plug-in Escape Hybrid that can run on E85, has a 30-mile range on pure electric power at up to 40 mph, and gets 88 mpg in the city and 50 mpg on the highway. Yes, you read that correctly. But you might want to read it again. The Escape uses a 4-cylinder engine assisted by a 10kW lithium-ion battery pack made by Johnson Controls/Saft. In pure electric mode, the battery pack runs until it is 70-percent depleted, and then the gasoline engine kicks in. The vehicle's emissions are estimated to be 60-percent less than that of a traditional gas vehicle, and that could climb all the way to 90-percent less if the car used cellulosic ethanol. This is one of 20 vehicles that Ford is giving to government and research bodies in order to help push the growth and penetration of hybrid vehicles. Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas...
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Filed under: SUVs , Plants/Manufacturing , Ford , Lincoln Click on the above image to see our Ford Expedition gallery May was apparently a tough month for Ford's big SUVs. With consumer demand understandably cold for the gargantuan utes and their hard-to-swallow 12 mpg city ratings, Lincoln Navigator sales slid 37 percent while Ford Expedition sales were down 43 percent. As a result, Ford Motor Company has announced that its Wayne, Michigan, plant that assembles these vehicles will close down for nine weeks starting on Monday. While the plant sits idle, Ford will increase production of its passenger cars to better meet market demand for smaller and much more fuel efficient vehicles. Like we didn't see this coming... Gallery: 2007 Ford Expedition EL Gallery: 2008 Lincoln Navigator [Source: Automotive News , subs. req'd] Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: Coupes , Sedans/Saloons , SUVs , Trucks/Pickups , Euro , Plants/Manufacturing , Crossovers/CUVs , Hatchbacks , Ford For reasons that everyone is aware of, American carmakers have been shutting down and idling plants that make trucks and SUVs. According to AutoSavant, however, Ford is not going to simply shutter plants, it is going to retool some of them to build its Euro-market cars for the American market. If this is true, we're so giddy we don't even want to paraphrase it, so we'll just quote directly: " Our sources at Ford say that Mr. Mulally has already made the decision to convert at least three truck/SUV production facilities in North America as soon as possible to produce Ford models currently sold in Europe.... The timeline Mulally prefers, according to insiders, is 'yesterday'. " The reasoning is ostensibly that with the American market going to more frugal cars, it's time for Ford to start spending the money to provide them -- even...
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Filed under: SUVs , Trucks/Pickups , Euro , Plants/Manufacturing , Ford , Lincoln Ford's recent announcement to reduce its white collar workforce costs by 15% shows that Mulally & Co. are dead-serious about turning around the Dearborn, MI automaker. The newest twist in the FoMoCo saga takes the situation from serious to near desperate, as plant managers and union leadership are convening in Dearborn to discuss switching factories from truck to car production. Such a move is much easier to make in one of Toyota or Honda's flexible manufacturing plants, but Ford has plenty of facilities that are hardwired to build only one or two products. Analysts say that costs could be $250 million a year or more, which would make for a huge dent in Ford's already shrinking bank account. The good news is that Ford is looking at its European products as the vehicles it needs to build State-side. We enthusiasts have been drooling over the Euro Focus, Fiesta , Mondeo, S-Max and Kuga for quite...
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Filed under: SUVs , Plants/Manufacturing , Ford , Canada On one end, General Motors is announcing its intention to wind down SUV and truck production, while at the other, Ford is just gearing up production of a vehicle that's plenty large in its own right. Ford Flexes are now beginning to roll off the line in Oakville, Ontario, and the plant even has plans to bring on new hires in order to meet production demands. Considering the current rise of gas prices, one might think Ford's boxy people carrier will quickly meet its demise. However, despite its full size stature, room for seven humans and a few cold drinks , the Flex doesn't attack your gas budget like Cookie Monster on a binge. Its 3.5L V6 engine gets a respectable 24 mph on the highway, assisted by a high-tech six-speed automatic transmission. Down the road, when the Flex is available with a turbocharged direct injection Ecoboost option, its fuel economy should raise a bit more. Gallery: 2009 Ford Flex [Source: Detroit...
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Filed under: Economy , Sedans/Saloons , SUVs , Trucks/Pickups , Crossovers/CUVs , Ford , Honda , Earnings/Financials Click above for high-res gallery of the Ford Explorer America Concept For years, the success of vehicles such as the Ford F-Series pickups and Explorer SUV kept the Blue Oval brand from improving its line of mostly uncompetitive sedans. Automakers like Honda, though, never went the way of body-on-frame trucks and SUVs, preferring instead to continually improve its range of cars and crossover utility vehicles. That strategy is paying dividends in these days of high fuel prices, and Ford has taken notice. Asked whether he would prefer a more car-oriented model-mix, like that of Honda or Toyota, CEO Alan Mullaly recently answered, "Absolutely. We just don't have enough of those small or medium-sized vehicles yet, and that's what we need to concentrate on." Of course, all is not lost. As Automotive News points out, Ford has a new F-150 on the horizon, which...
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Filed under: Gadgets , SUVs , Tech , Ford , Lincoln When Ford launched its new SYNC in-car communications system in the Ford Focus, the crew in Dearborn may not have known just how popular the option would prove to be. While the SYNC system has started to infiltrate the rest of the Blue Oval line, its integration is apparently not moving fast enough for many consumers. Doug White, Vehicle Personalization Marketing & Planning manager at Ford says, "Customers and dealers were telling us that we needed SYNC on our flagship SUV and we felt we needed to respond to those concerns as quickly as we could. They essentially said, 'If you have it on Focus, why not Navigator.'" Sounds pretty reasonable to us. Considering that the Lincoln Navigator is the flagship product for Ford's up-market brand, it should be available with all the best techno-goodies available in the Ford arsenal. The retrofit kit is now a dealer-installed option for all 2008 model year Navigator and Navigator...
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Filed under: SUVs , Government/Legal , Ford By now everyone knows the story about Bridgestone's massive recall of tires that were used as original equipment on Ford Explorers from 1991 to 2001. The faulty tires had been linked to some fatal crashes that were caused by either blowouts or the tread separating from the tires. Many people who own Explorers from this period were miffed that the value of their SUVs dropped solely on account of Bridgestone's mistake, so they did what most Americans do when they're angry: they sued Ford. Yesterday a judge in the Sacramento Country Superior Court approved a settlement for this class-action lawsuit on behalf of approximately 800,000 Explorer owners that will cost Ford a sizable chunk of change, but it's not the Explorer owners who got the most money. As part of the settlement, Ford has agreed to hand out discount certificates valid for one year that these plaintiffs can apply to the purchase or lease of a FoMoCo product. The discounts...
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Filed under: SUVs , Safety , Ford About this time last year, a case was under review in California involving a woman that was paralyzed after she rolled her 1997 Ford Explorer while trying to avoid an object in the roadway. The case has been bouncing around the courts since the crash took place in 2002, and when it was orginally brought to trial, the jury initially awarded the plaintiff $369 million, with $246 million in punitive damages. Over the past six years that sum has been cut down to $82.6 million (of which $55 million is classified as punitive damages), but no money has been paid out. The 4th District Court of Appeal in California was asked to re-review the case after Ford appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that the vehicle met federal safety standards and hence, wasn't liable in the case. The court approved the $82.6 million payout yesterday and we're assuming that Ford is either cutting a check or crafting a new legal strategy. [Source: Detroit Free Press ]...
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Filed under: SUVs , Recalls/TSBs , Safety , Ford Another day, another recall. This time it's Ford with two separate recalls that involve its big SUVs and full-size vans. The first affects 124,000 Ford Expeditions and Lincoln Navigators built from 2007 to 2008. Apparently the spring system inside their door handles could break. While not a life threatening defect, Ford says there is the possibility of the latches opening in a side crash. No injuries or accidents have been attributed to the faulty door handle assemblies, but Ford will replace all those affected at no charge. The second recall, which involves 57,000 E-Series full-size vans and 2007 Expeditions and Navigators with the 5.4L V8, is a bit more serious. The defective part is the engine's fuel rail crossover hose, which could crack and leak, potentially causing a fire. Again, no reports of injuries or accidents have been associated with the defective hose and dealers will replace them at no charge. If you've got an affected...
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