The UGLY Truth About Ford (SHOCKED The Auto Industry) | Episode 920

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It's noon here in Ventner City, New Jersey and our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

And this is Car Edge Live for Tuesday, September 9th with your hosts,

Me, Ray, here in Ventner, and well, Zach, down in Washington, D.C.

How are you today, handsome?

I don't understand you, but I'm good, man.

Happy Tuesday, September 9th.

Thank you for tuning in and being a part of today's Car Edge Live.

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We're going to thank our friends over at DeleteMe in about eight minutes,

but Pops, the big story this morning.

Yes.

Yet another recall for the manufacturer leading the league in recalls.

You look at this chart that comes from National Highway Transportation Safety Administration

all the freaking time and the red section here is Ford up to 110 recalls.

The latest one, Dad, impacting not a million, not a million point one,

not a million point two, not a million.

1.5 million vehicles being recalled right now by Ford.

We are up to.

I downloaded all the data.

Yes.

Put it into this column right here.

We are up to, Dad.

Summing that up, 9,327,866 vehicles recalled by Ford so far this year

on a quest to recall over 10 million vehicles.

Let's start here.

Another 1.5 million vehicles recalled.

What is going on?

Well, you know, here's what's interesting.

You put in today's headline of the show,

The Ugly Truth About Ford Shocked the Auto Industry.

Well, for Ford, it's just really another day.

Okay.

There ain't nothing shocking about Ford at this point.

It's like, well, it's Tuesday.

Let's have a recall.

It's Wednesday.

Let's have a recall.

It is not shocking to the industry anymore.

It's not shocking to Ford.

It's not shocking to their customers.

It has become almost a daily expectation as to,

well, what's the problem now that I have to take my car into the dealership for?

You know, it is, it's almost like beyond parody

because I think if you go back to that pie chart,

my guess is is that you, if you added up all the other brands recalls,

it might not have up to 110 for the rest of the industry.

Yeah.

And that, that, that's the staggering part.

It's not that it's shocking anymore.

It's just, it's just, well, it's Tuesday.

This recall for what it's worth is one of

the less serious ones.

So I think that's like something to give Ford some credit here for a moment.

They're only recalling the 1.5 million vehicles

because the rear view camera can have issues causing inverted distorted or blank images.

Now that being said, it is impacting 1.5 million vehicles

and these need to be inspected and replaced.

This is not a software update.

These are for 2015 to 2019 Lincoln MK, MKC's excuse me.

Lincoln Navigators, Mustangs, F-250s, F-350s, F-450s, F-550s, the Ford Expedition,

the Edge, the Transit Connect, Echo Line and Ranger.

So on the bright side here, it's a camera issue.

On the downside here, you have to actually inspect

and replace all of these.

You can't just do a software update.

So you can't say, well, it's not really that big of a deal.

I mean, that impacts 1.5 million owners.

Yeah, so you can't say, oh, it's just not that big of a deal.

I mean, yeah, it's a safety recall, but you know,

it's only the backup camera.

It might be blank.

It could distort everything.

It could maybe there'll be a sign that says everything in this backup camera.

It probably appears further away than it really is.

I don't know, but for the 1.5 million people

that have to take time out of their day,

one of these days to go to their local Ford dealership

to wait around for the car to get pulled into the service department

for them to do the inspection,

for them to figure out if they need to replace the camera.

You know, how much time is that wasting on that customer's behalf?

Four hours, five hours, six hours?

You know me.

I like to round up.

Let's round up.

You know, it's like when you can always round up

because it's a much bigger number.

But take 1.5 million customers

who are going to have to invest probably somewhere around six hours

because they have to drive there.

Then they have to wait for the damn car to get fixed.

Then they have to drive back and pick up the car or drive home.

So let's say it's six hours of time times 1.5 million.

How many millions of hours of people's time is Ford wasting

just on this recall?

And that's not to say that after the people invest six hours

for this recall, that a week later on, say, a Wednesday.

They get a notice that, well, there's something else

that Ford needs to fix on their car

and they need to bring it back.

Dad, you've got a funny comment here from DB.

I own three Fords.

If I don't get a recall twice a year, I feel ripped off.

And Igor's got a really good comment here.

I'm very interested in your take on this.

It's a great day for Ford dealerships.

Recalls mean money for the dealers that do the service work.

So talk to me about this, Dad.

Are the dealers actually happy that they see these recalls coming up?

Well, yes.

And the reason they're happy is, well, there's one.

Well, what was the total number?

It was 9,800.

9.3 million vehicles so far this year.

Okay.

So there's 9.3 million service opportunities

that should come into service departments,

hopefully this year.

Ford is going to pay the service department to do the inspections

and do the repairs, even though the labor rate

and the times that they pay for warranty repairs

like this or recall repairs like this aren't the same rate

as say customer pay, it's still found money

for the service department.

So yeah, service managers love it, okay?

Sales people, if they're smart,

couldn't figure out how to love it

because Ford is creating, at least with this last recall,

1.5 million opportunities for a salesperson to have a customer,

okay, because that service customer has to come

into the dealership and they have to drop off the car.

And, well, there's an opportunity there

for a salesperson to latch on to one of those service customers

and say, hey, have you ever thought

about maybe trading that car in and looking at something

newer, what if I could show you a way to get out

of that dog that you have

and we can put you into a new dog?

So it should be good, ultimately,

not only for parts and service

because it definitely will be good for them.

But if the sales staff at these dealerships plays it right,

it could increase sales

because you're bringing in Ford customers

to your dealership.

Well, why not try and sell a new one?

Yeah, so it's got two benefits.

One is, obviously, Ford pays for these recalls.

This is a service order like you were describing that,

or a repair order, and there's going to be 9.3 million of them

this year if everyone who's had a recall vehicle takes it

and actually gets the recall addressed.

That's one of the issues here

is do people actually get the recalls fixed?

In some cases, you know, more than others.

But that being said, there's 9.3 million repair orders

that can be written this year that are recalls

that Ford pays for.

And last time I checked that,

Ford is spending a lot of money

on those warranty costs and on these recalls.

So we know, you know, this is an article from last year,

Ford to appoint new head of quality

to try and rein in warranty costs.

They've been challenged with that.

Yeah, that's worked out really well.

So that's one aspect.

That's the other aspect is to your point.

Then you have a customer near the dealership,

at the dealership in the service drive,

and so they can try and sell you a new car.

I don't know. I'm a Ford customer

and I'm getting all these recalls.

I don't know how likely I would be to buy another Ford,

but there you go.

At least it's an opportunity for the dealership.

Absolutely, yeah.

It's kind of crazy,

but it does create fresh sales opportunities

and it is just a godsend for parts and servers.

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Okay, so we have the recalls going on over at Ford, Dad.

That's a big story this morning.

Susanna wants to know,

does the liability insurance cover that for Ford

or is that out of pocket for them?

This is out of pocket for them.

This is one of their biggest cost centers, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, you know, they, they,

they took what was it a $570 million right down

or cost adjustment in the last quarter

due to excessive recall repairs

and warranty repairs that needed to be done.

You know, the, the, the being counters,

the actuaries look at the warranty

and they can figure out over the course of time

approximately what it's going to cost Ford

per every new vehicle sold.

And I believe it was the second,

it was either the second quarter or third quarter.

They were only off by $570 million.

Okay, that's a lot of scratch.

I don't know any other way to say it.

That's, that's just a lot of money.

And yes, you can factor it in,

but they're not, they have not been factoring

in anywhere near enough money for,

for warranty repairs and recalls.

And even though their bottom line numbers

are still good,

yeah, if you're an investor,

you have to say to yourself,

well, there's probably a billion dollars a year

that's taken away from potential profit

because we just don't build a quality vehicle to start with.

Yeah, it's pretty wild.

Well, let's switch gears pops.

Let's get away from Ford.

Let's talk about the car market.

There was a really interesting story

that the team over at car dealership guy is covering.

Did you see this?

That tricolor auto is filing for bankruptcy sources say,

this is a really large independent used car dealership group.

They are in many states.

I think they say here in the article,

I think they're like the seventh largest independent.

Yeah, there it is right there.

Tricolor auto group is the seventh largest independent used car

retailing chain in the U.S.

And they're expected to file for bankruptcy today

according to an internal source

close to the company situation.

They laid off 80 to 90% of their workforce

in Texas, Arizona and California

suspending operations as well.

It seems like dad, some of the conversations you and I

have been having about how things in the car market

are not, you know, not healthy at the moment.

You know, we're seeing that here with this,

with this seventh largest independent used car dealership

group going out of business.

That's, I did not see that article and that's,

that's pretty unnerving to a certain degree.

But then again, you know, with the name of tricolor auto,

it's like, well, why do I want to go and buy a car

that's three different colors or three different shades

of the same color?

It just, I just the name itself doesn't,

doesn't inspire in my mind confidence.

But you know, why, why do they call them tricolor autos?

Are, are they several different shades of brown work?

I'm sorry.

You know me, I can make.

No, I'll let you go full screen.

Here, how much air?

No, no, I'm done.

I'm done.

There's, there's something interesting here.

You want to go three color, go three color.

Here it is.

I was just trying to make a yoke.

A little bit of a joke.

That's all.

Three colors, tricolor.

Yeah, there you have it.

Tricolor, I'm done.

I told you, I'm done.

Come on, come on.

You got at least three shades of gray.

I did it.

I'm not buying a car that's three shades of gray.

Okay.

Maybe if it was 50 shades of gray,

but not three shades of gray.

Okay.

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Why would an independent car dealership group

be going out of business right now?

Dad, I thought the car business was great,

money galore, everything's perfect.

Why would something like this be happening?

Well, because the cost of buying used cars has gone up

and it's harder to get people financed for cars.

And there are two quality issues.

The quality of used cars has gone down dramatically.

And in many cases, the quality of the credit

for the people who are trying to buy the lower quality

used cars is equally down.

And so it's more difficult for some of these,

some of the types of customers that an organization

like Tri-Color Auto would appeal to.

So unless you have your own bank, kind of sort of like

Carvana seems to or CarMax seems to, you know,

because we know at CarMax or Carvana,

in order to qualify for a loan through them,

you have to have an income of $5,000 a year.

Less than a hundred a week, ladies and gentlemen.

So, but that's because, you know, they're packaging

all their loans because realistically,

when you look at Carvana, they are a loan originator

and the vehicles that they use to originate loans

just happen to be automobiles, okay?

And so they've been able to get away with it.

Tri-Color, you know, isn't selling in large enough volumes

or doesn't have a large enough finance arm

that they can get away with it.

So it's the quality of the cars,

the expense of used cars today.

And when you are a purveyor of some of not the nicest cars

out there, you typically attract the customer base

that is a credit challenge to say, to put it nicely.

It makes me wonder a little bit about the floor plan situation

at this dealership group as well.

I mean, if they've got these cars just sitting, sitting, sitting,

we've talked about it ad nauseam for years now.

The longer a car sits, the more expensive it is

for the dealership group.

They don't have customers who are buying these,

you know, potentially more subprime customers,

potentially more affordable vehicles,

but to your point, not high quality,

then they're just sitting there and then Tri-Color,

the dealer is the one paying all that interest

to have the privilege of letting those vehicles sit there.

Eventually the bank's gonna repossess those vehicles

if you don't make payments on them

and obviously laying off 80 to 90% of your staff

and all the things that go into going bankrupt,

which is a lot of work I imagine.

I mean, there's some serious expenses there

that they've now had to cut 90% of staff

just to maybe try and hold on, but they go bankrupt out.

I mean, the bank's gonna repossess the vehicles,

they're gonna end up at auction.

It's not a good sign for the health of auto industry

to see a group like this go under.

We've had a number of major retail use card dealer groups go under.

This is not the first, nor will it be the last.

There have been others, and if you really look closely

at the ones that have gone out of business,

that have gone bankrupt or just closed,

there's one common thread.

What's that?

It's subprime customers.

That's the common thread.

They have built a business that is based upon selling

to people with bad credit.

Well, at a certain point, many of their lenders

because they don't have their own finance company,

many of their lenders have just looked at the quality

of the customers that they keep submitting for car loans

and they're going, no, even we won't touch this.

And that becomes the issue for them.

So, that's the one commonality that all of these major

used car retailers or regionalized used car retailers

have in common.

They all cater to the same group of customers

and that is people with bad credit.

And yes, you can get away with that for a while.

Obviously, in many, many cases, you can't.

And this is just another example of you can't.

It'll be interesting, Dad.

We track credit acceptance corporation, for example,

their quarterly earnings and they've had to increase

their loan loss provisions significantly

because they anticipate fewer and fewer of those auto loans

that they made over the past few years

are actually going to get paid back in full.

So, I wonder if this will show up.

Obviously, it's showing up with some of the independent

dealership groups.

I wonder if it'll show up at the financing level as well.

Another angle to the auto industry in turmoil, Dad,

and it's not the most convenient or easy to follow,

but we can connect the dots here.

I just saw this.

Cox Automotive acquires full-stake

and a wholesale vehicle inspection partner.

But look who they bought it from.

Nissan.

Yeah, they bought it from NEMAC.

Nissan Motors Acceptance Corporation.

This is so interesting.

So, Cox Automotive bought an inspection business, essentially.

They owned half of it Nissan Motor Acceptance Corporation

owned the other half.

Nissan, Dad, liquidating another asset

to try and get some cash on hand.

Well, that's really what it says.

That's what it says, yeah.

Yeah, the fact that Cox is going to own 100% of it.

My guess is that they didn't buy the remaining 50% stake

at a premium, okay?

My guess is that Nissan offered them a good deal.

Do us a favor.

Take this off our hands.

Wouldn't you really feel better if you owned 100% of it?

Isn't this incredible?

Think about it, Dad.

Like Nissan is in financial turmoil.

We've said this for a long time.

They're closing down manufacturing plants globally.

We've been documenting their challenges for about a year now

and especially this guy kind of doom and gloom

when they had potential talks

or they had talks about a potential merger with Honda

and Honda walked away from the table.

Ever since then, things have looked pretty dire over at Nissan.

They've sold off stakes in other automakers

and now they're selling off stakes in an inspection business

that they owned.

It's just fascinating.

Like the story here for our audience is not the type

that Cox now owns 100% of an inspection business.

Who cares?

The story is Nissan is struggling to find cash

and they're selling off their assets

to try and fund their operation.

So interesting.

It's harder.

It is harder to bring the new vehicles to market

that Nissan needs to survive

when you don't have the money to do it.

So in order to bring those,

I think they have like 26

or 28 new vehicles or refreshes planned

over the next couple of years.

They have to raise the cash to do that.

And so, you know, they're selling real estate holdings.

They are putting their corporate headquarters.

If they haven't already, they have spoken

about putting their corporate headquarters in Tokyo

on the market because they figure they can get

a whole lot of money for that.

They are selling as many things as they possibly can

in order to raise enough cash

so that they can continue to move forward

with all the new vehicle launches

that they hope will save their collective asses

in a couple of years.

But it takes cash to do that.

And, you know, they're liquidating things.

It's like, wow, just go to a pawnbroker for the sake.

It's a little bit what it feels like.

Dad, let's do a little bit of a live experiment.

So back on caredge.com.

If you Google search car incentives and car edge,

it'll take you to our best new car deals

for September 2025 page.

Or you can just do this from the car search as well.

I'm curious, Dad.

So let me change my location really quickly.

Let's go to two, zero, whoops, eight, nine, five.

So that's here in Maryland.

And now I want to do Nissan.

And let's just do a quick, we'll do the rogue.

We'll start there and we'll look at the SL trim.

I'm just curious what the incentives are right now

over at Nissan for this particular vehicle.

Let's scroll down here.

$1000 cash incentive.

That's really not going to move the metal that much.

Let's see on the finance side, no special financing lease.

We're at 3.65%, which is good, but not great.

Yeah.

You know, like, this is pretty interesting to me.

I would expect more on the road.

What if we did something like, I don't know,

which vehicle you want to do?

Maybe they can't afford to do more.

I mean, that is part of their issue.

It takes money to do this.

Okay.

And, you know, a year ago, it was, the headline was,

Nissan has a 12 to 18 month runway of cash left.

Okay.

Well, we're 12 months into that 12 to 18 months.

So what is that translating to it?

It means that you don't necessarily have the financial

wherewithal to do all the things that you need to do

in order to move your stale vehicles that you have out there

and to be able to develop and bring

to market the new fresher ones.

So it's, it is, it's a conundrum form

and which is why we're seeing them sell off

as much stuff as they are.

I'm kind of curious.

Now let's go over to the car search.

You were me for a moment here.

And what I want to look at that is the available Nissan inventory.

And I want to look by oldest.

I'm just kind of curious.

So we'll do days on market oldest.

We're looking at new ones.

There's probably going to be some anomalies here.

So let me skip a couple pages ahead.

Or you know what?

Let me, let me do the year filter here.

So let's say it has to be a new 2025.

So I want one and we'll go to 2024.

Let's see.

700 days, 700 days, 700 days.

I mean, dad, there are some of these vehicles.

Yes.

That Nissan's had out there.

Pathfinder.

I mean, look at this 15,000 miles on it.

Like the dealership just gave up and put it in service loan

or fleet.

There's just a lot of these vehicles that Nissan hasn't

been able to sell.

Yeah.

And 700 days.

So, you know, some of them are, are, are getting very,

very excited about celebrating their second birthday on the,

on the dealers lot.

That's not good for the customer.

That's not good for the dealer.

I mean, you know, we have talked about lot brought for years

that as vehicles sit, they break down.

Okay.

If you have vehicles that have been on the lot for 700 days

and they don't get moved or driven often, then every one

of the tires is going to be flat spotted.

So all of a sudden you have, you have to invest another

$800 to $1,000 in tires.

What other issues might develop?

There's any number of things that can happen.

My goodness, you're probably going to have to detail it

for the third or fourth time to make it look presentable.

So it's just, it is so costly for the dealership

and it is such a struggle for, for the customer

because the customer is going to expect a really,

really good deal.

Yeah.

And the dealership, sales managers looking at it,

well, if I sell it for what the customer is willing

to pay for it, then I am paying the owner to have

come to work today instead of him paying me

because it's going to be a negative profit deal.

And so sales managers many times will say to themselves,

I ain't willing to take that loss.

Now the dealer might be, but the sales manager

isn't, he's passing on the deal.

And, and so it just, it just, just gets ugly for both

the dealer and the customer.

Yeah.

Look at this.

I just, I just filtered to 2025, 2026 oldest days on lot.

Nissan Leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan

Leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan

Leaf, Nissan Leaf, these – oh man, it's a tongue twisted and they're all Nissan Leafs.

Well, you know, one time the Leaf was the – was a desirable electric car, but that

was it one time.

It's not at this time.

And think about it.

We have the tax credits coming to an end shortly over here.

I mean, if you can't.

You can't sell these leafs now.

You ain't never going to sell them.

Yeah.

I was about to say, you ever sell them?

Let's come down here.

I want to look at incentives.

Have to go quick.

I have to get off.

I have a Uber to catch.

Zero percent financing for 36 months.

This is the one that they're pushing, but they still can't sell it.

All right.

You've got a Uber to catch.

You're coming to Washington, DC.

We'll call it a show for today.

If we can help you out with anything, folks, caredge.com.

Like I said at the outset as well, if you're not using our free Windows sticker

tool you need to, just Google search caredge, Windows sticker, and it'll pop right up.

Dad, safe travels here to DC this afternoon.

I can't wait to spend tomorrow with you.

Yeah.

We'll be back then.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

See you all back tomorrow in our nation's capital, Washington.

What the hell was it?

We'll see you from Washington tomorrow at noon Eastern.

Thanks, everybody.

Love you.

Handsome.

See you soon.

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Ford Expedition

Ford F450S

Ford F350S

Ford Ranger

Ford Edge

Nissan Rogue

Nissan Pathfinder

Nissan Leaf

About this episode

Original notes