Well, this really breaks my heart but I am discusted at the lack of engineering (or deliberate mis-engineering) of recent Ford products. After Ford recovered from its poor quality debacle in the early eighties I've purchase three Ford products. Two of the three are great examples of durability(they date from 91 to 94). However, I recently purchased a used 2001 Mustang GT that died as a no-start in my garage. I isolated the problem to the fuel pump that was open. In the Mustang trunk (or luggage compartment), they have a spare tire well where Ford could have easily placed an access port to remove and replace the fuel pump from above the fuel tank. No! The entire fuel tank needs to be removed at about $400 to drop the fuel tank and another$200 for the fuel pump assembly.

I remember (back in the 70's) Datsun's had the fuel pump mounted to a rail near the fuel tank so that if the pump failed you could replace it without major repairs although the fuel pump was not cheap.

I asked my Ford dealer to give me back the fuel pump and I did a post-mortm on it. The windings on the motor were ok but the method of brush contact with the commutator had failed. Overall, the motor contstruction reminded me of the cheap junk that Ford puts in the power windows of their products.

We are getting sold cheap junk at high repair prices and I am no longer a Ford customer.

Martin

Buy a Toyota for your daily driver.

Use your Ford / Chevy as a hobby. I have two old Hot Rods, The Model A runs a chevy 350, the Model T a 302 Ford. Both a ton of fun. I gave up on the "Big 3" for my daily transportation vehicle in 1992 when I bought a brand new GMC Jimmy. 20,000 miles later the front rotors were rusted tight and the 4.3 vortec V-6 had freeze plugs leaking on the back of the block, not to mention all the rattles and leaks. And it wasn't from abuse, I am a fanatic about maintaining my vehicles.

I traded the P.O.S. Jimmy on a Toyota Tacoma. Toyota's are a superior engineered product.

Oh, by the way. You know how Toyota pickup beds used to rust away in just a few years. That was because Toyota was held to a trade agreement with the US government that said that a certain percentage of the vehicle had to be built here in the U.S.

Yep you guessed it! The bed was made here in the U.S. Man it's sad but it is the truth.

did you just say but a toyota and superior in the same response you got to be kidding???

I'm thourghly convinced that the longevity of your vehicles is directly related to the care you put into it. Every country goes through periods of industrial booms thus leading to advances in thechnology which improve upon the quality of products. If you do a bit of research, you'll find that Japanese good arounds the WW2 era were junk. For example, shoes produced there would litteraly fall apart if it rained. So Japan isn't the super producer that some think that it is.

I think i would prefer a mustang or any ford over a rice burner. I cant believe we are having this conversation on a ford forum.