Ford: Bad idea!

[Mooseman]

Yeah, glad GM aren't doing this, just keeping the vehicles at their storage yards until the chips come in.

Ford may ship unfinished vehicles to dealers due to chip shortage

Technicians would be responsible for installing the missing parts

driving.ca

 

[6716]

Just because it is a terrible idea doesn't mean corporate won't do it.

 

[Eric04]

I thought the title a bit redundant. In this specific case, even worse than normal.

 

[Mooseman]

Well it will come back and bite them in the ass because of the poor soldering skills of intricate parts by a regular shop tech. How many times have we seen components failing because of poor soldering even by a machine. Computer chips have hundred of pins to solder unless they will be the type that can be inserted like computer processors. Still risky for failures.

 

[cornchip]

Well it will come back and bite them in the ass because of the poor soldering skills of intricate parts by a regular shop tech. How many times have we seen components failing because of poor soldering even by a machine. Computer chips have hundred of pins to solder unless they will be the type that can be inserted like computer processors. Still risky for failures.

I'd say your wrong with assuming dealer tech's will be doing board level assembly. It's more likely finished modules will be shipped to dealers to be reunited with an empty harness plug.

 

[Mooseman]

That's not what it sounded like in the article because they talk about "chips" although it would make more sense to ship complete PCMs.

It seems that Ford Motor Company is in the throes of debating whether or not to ship unfinished vehicles – specifically, ones affected by the ongoing chip shortage – directly to dealers and training local technicians in the skills required to sort everything out when parts finally become available.

Not sure what training techs would need. Install PCM and program it, which I'm sure they already know how to. Still a bad idea. I was talking with my dealer and they instructed their employees to park their own personal vehicles in the lot so they don't look closed and abandoned because they are so low in stock. However, if Ford were to do this crazy plan, imagine someone who ordered and is waiting for their vehicle to see it parked at the dealer unable to run. It would just make a bad situation worse. The dealer told me that plants are using one PCM to move each truck from the plant to the storage lot. It's probably programmed with VATS disabled to allow to run in each of those trucks.