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Hey folks, Lenny Lawson here, the car guru.
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I have been online for the last hour and a half trying to accomplish one simple task and that's
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to get a refund on the airline tickets that I didn't get to use and my wife didn't get
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to use to go to Las Vegas last week.
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Well, it was the eighth.
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We're supposed to leave on the ninth and come back on the 11th.
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It was the Ford National Convention where Ford was going to tell us all about their future
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plans, hopefully most of which will be good.
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But we didn't get to go and I was having a lot of pain in my left leg.
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Now I had hip surgery, hip replacement surgery there and for some reason I did great for
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And then on day 36 it just started hurting.
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Well, I went to the doctor and everything's fine but was still hurting pretty badly the
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day before the trip so I had to cancel it.
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So that's what I did.
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But thankfully I had purchased, well, hopefully, thankfully, I had purchased trip insurance
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and so I don't know, I really don't know what's going to happen.
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I started to get frustrated with the way this thing was progressing but I knew what
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the motive was behind all of these little twists and turns.
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They were trying to get me to give up.
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They picked the wrong person because I wasn't giving up.
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Here's what they did to try to make me give up.
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Number one, I was on a clock and I finally read the fine print about that.
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If you delay too long, they'll kick you out.
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And I got kicked out twice.
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And I'd gotten about halfway through and it was to the point where they were wanting
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Well, I didn't have the documentation right with me and I had to pull it from
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different folders and print out a couple forms, the doctor's excuse and the
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Expedia itinerary, which is gone now.
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I just had a couple emails that showed us so thankfully I was able to find that.
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Pulled all the documents together, started submitting it and I got to
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this one page and there's no place to proceed.
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You know, you fill in all the information.
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There should be an arrow, right?
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Or next, you know, something.
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I looked all over the page.
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I couldn't find it anywhere.
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Finally, I looked way, it scrolled way down to the bottom.
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And in mouse type, I mean, that is like the fine print that car dealers use.
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There it was, continue.
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I mean, it wasn't even close to the size of the other fonts, you know,
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It was teeny weeny.
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So I clicked continue and I found you.
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I will not be defeated.
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And so that got me to the next page and then I had to continue again.
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Oh, yeah, I knew where to look.
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Finally, I have a claim number and they emailed it to me.
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And so it's sitting there and they have anywhere from seven to,
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what was it, 10 to 15 days to respond to my claim.
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I guarantee they denied.
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There will be something that I said that will give them a reason to deny the claim.
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I mean, it's $1,216.72.
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It wasn't my fault.
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And that's why I bought insurance, trip insurance.
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So we'll see what happens.
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Okay, so I know that you go through this when you're trying to file a claim.
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Isn't it funny how insurance companies work, health insurance companies,
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physical damage insurance, homeowner's insurance?
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You know, some, they act pretty helpful and make the claims process easy.
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Makes you want to stay with that company.
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You know, that's one of the true tests of a warranty company or
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an extended service contract company that you could buy at a car dealership
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or buy one of those online or maybe from a TV commercial.
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And, you know, they're great.
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Sometimes the ones on the TV and the solicitations that you get in the mail,
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they sound pretty cheap.
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But, you know, when you get to the claims process, that's when you're
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wishing that you had gone through maybe a manufacturer extended service contract.
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So if you buy a Toyota or a Ford or a Chevrolet or whatever brand you're
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buying, buy the one that is offered by the manufacturer.
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Because, you know, the same people that are going to be providing you the
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warranty services as far as your vehicle is concerned, that same company is
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You don't have to go through a third party.
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For example, if you buy a Ford warranty, then you can go to any Ford dealer
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and they'll honor it.
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If you go and buy some aftermarket warranty, some of them are fine,
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but there are a lot of dealers that just won't honor it.
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And you'll have to go through a few extra steps.
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So just find out, you know, if you're out there buying a car and they offer
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to sell you a, they'll call it an extended warranty, but it's not.
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It's an extended service contract does basically the same thing.
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It, it will take care of covered repairs.
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Just make sure you know what's covered by an exclusionary policy, one
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that, that states what is not covered rather than states, everything
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that is covered because you're liable to miss something, you know, if,
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if you have to try to, unless you know what every part on a vehicle is
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called, you better buy something that, that states what's not covered.
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And then you know what you have, but ask them in the finance office,
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is this the factory backed service contract?
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Or is this backed by some insurance company or, you know, by you or,
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And hopefully they'll tell you, they may squirm a little because
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that particular dealership, you know, it could be a Toyota dealer that
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doesn't offer the Toyota warranty because they can make more money
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offering an off-brand warranty.
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And if, if they say, well, we don't offer those, then you can go
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to another Toyota dealer that does offer them and you can buy a
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warranty from them.
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You don't have to buy an extended service contract from the dealer
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where you're buying a car.
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You can go to any dealer and buy it.
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Matter of fact, you can shop around for them before you buy anything.
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Let's say you buy the car in a couple of days later and you say,
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yeah, you know, I think I do want that extended service contract.
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You call that dealer, get a price from him, call another dealer,
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get another price from them.
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I guarantee those two prices will be different.
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One will be lower and that's what you're looking for, right?
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Okay, I'll be back in just a minute.
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We're going to talk about, a little bit about the Ford Motor
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Company and it's not, I'm not pushing Fords.
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It's a historical review that I think is worthy of observation.
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I'll be back in just a minute.
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Okay, I'm back talking about Ford.
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Saw some disturbing news.
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When I became a Ford dealer in 2005, I was invited to Dearborn
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Michigan, flew up there, went through an orientation.
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I was a General Motors guy and a Mazda guy at the time.
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And I didn't, you know, Ford was the competition for me for my
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entire life, but then all of a sudden I own a Ford dealership.
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So as my mom used to say, it's a poor jockey that doesn't
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praise his own horse.
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So I was riding the Ford horse and I needed to praise it.
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And so I went to Dearborn.
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They put me up at the Dearborn Inn, which was owned by, well
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still is owned by the Ford Motor Company.
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I got to spend time there in the Ford World Headquarters and
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in another training center where they did a lot of the
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We went to the Henry Ford Museum.
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We toured a couple assembly plants.
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And we even went to Henry Ford's house, which is called
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Fairlane, and had dinner.
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I went to his bedroom, went up the stairs, walked into
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this room, and there's the bed that Henry Ford died in.
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You know, there is no Mr. General Motors.
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I mean, there was a guy, a couple guys that put that
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together, William Durant and several others, but nobody
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celebrates their home, I don't think.
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I mean, Ford is just a part of America.
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And so we went to the World Headquarters there on
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It was built in 1956 when I was born.
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And a lot of people have passed through that place since
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then, and I just wanted to talk about some of them.
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And I thought it was kind of interesting to reflect on
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all the people that have been in leadership roles as the
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CEO of the Ford Motor Company since 1956.
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Do you know who the CEO was in 1956?
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Well, he had been the CEO since 1947.
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And lasted until 1979, and he was Henry Ford II, which was
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Henry Ford's actual grandson.
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That's also in 1956 when Ford went from being 100% family
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owned to a publicly traded company.
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That happened in 1956.
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So Henry Ford II led the revival of Ford
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after World War II.
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He did transform it from a family run business
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into a more of a modern public corporation.
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But Ford still owned controlling stock.
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They didn't own the majority of the stock.
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They just owned something called the preferred stock,
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which allows them to trump any decision made by the
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stockholders in total.
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And Henry was an innovator for sure.
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He brought all kinds of new efficiency and modern
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management practices.
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Under his leadership, Ford performed significant work
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Now, all through the late 50s, especially, and a lot of
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people were getting killed in cars.
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They just didn't have the safety that would come
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And a lot of race car drivers and just the general
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public were dying left and right because the cars
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The cars were fast, faster than people's ability to
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drive them, and really faster than the cars were
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capable of safely managing through the handling
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So a lot of people died.
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And Ford decided we're not going to do racing.
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And the government said that they pretty much
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mandated it, that racing of automobiles was going
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But that didn't last, and they realized that
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racing was a great way to promote the company
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and to get people to go to races on Saturday
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and buy cars on Monday.
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Under his leadership, Ford performed significant work
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on the GT40 project to challenge Ferrari and
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Wyn Le Mans, which they won first, second, and
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He reorganized the company, especially in Europe,
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and they merged the operations of their British
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operations and their German operations.
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And it was then called Ford of Europe.
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Now the second president, after Henry Ford the
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second, was a guy named Philip Caldwell.
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He was the CEO from 1979 to 1985.
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He was the first non-Ford family member to be
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the CEO of the Ford Motor Company.
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He oversaw and approved the development and the
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launch of some pretty popular cars, namely
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the Ford Taurus and the Mercury Sable.
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You know, it was a pretty radical design at the time.
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I remember as a Chevy dealer, we laughed at it.
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We didn't laugh for long because at one point in time
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the Ford Taurus was the best-selling vehicle
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or the best-selling car in the country.
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Yes, it outsold the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord.
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And Mr. Caldwell emphasized quality, reliability,
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improved labor relations, job security.
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He created a profit sharing plan for all Ford employees.
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He guided Ford through some pretty tough recessions,
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rising fuel prices, foreign competition,
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and the Ford Motor Company was very profitable
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under Philip Caldwell.
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Guy named Donald Peterson was next from 1985 to 1990.
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You know, wasn't there a long time,
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but he did push for change in the corporate culture.
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You know, these auto companies,
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they had gotten really arrogant over time.
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And during this time period,
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they were getting their rear ends kicked by Honda and Toyota.
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You know, Honda came out with the Accord
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and the Civic Toyota with the Corolla and the Camry.
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And Peterson's job was to match the quality.
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He was pretty much, he gave up at that point
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and a guy named Harold Polling,
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or they called him Red, was his nickname Red Polling,
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he was the CEO for a very short time.
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He came in, he was a financial guy,
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and he was there from 1990 to 1993.
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He did help Ford steer through two back-to-back recessions
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and he had a background in European operations
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and was also instrumental in returning
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Ford's North American operations to better profitability,
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which kind of turned out to be a blessing and a curse
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because of the next guy to come along.
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His name was Jacques Nasser.
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Now, he was the CEO from 99 to 2001.
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Now, what he focused on was something
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that almost pushed the Ford Motor Company
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into a similar bankruptcy that General Motors
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and the Chrysler Corporation faced.
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He focused on diversification beyond making cars
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into services, finance,
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and something called the Premier Automotive Group,
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where he started buying other automakers,
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Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover.
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They already owned Mazda
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and he tried to turn Ford into a conglomerate
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that would rival General Motors.
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He dealt with some pretty high-profile situations.
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You may remember when the Firestone Tire debacle happened
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with the rollover situation that they were having
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with Ford Explorers, mostly in hotter climates,
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Texas, Florida, but they were having blowouts
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of Firestone Tires and then the vehicles would roll over
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and a lot of, well, I don't know how many people
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exactly died, but it sure blew up in the press
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and Ford attacked Firestone, Firestone attacked Ford
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and that was so ironic because Harvey Firestone
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and Henry Ford were like best friends.
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Well, Thomas Edison was thrown into the crowd.
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They were called the Vagabonds
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and they used to travel all over the country
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on these big excursions.
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I've talked about them in the past,
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but yeah, they were big buds and Firestone and Ford
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were kind of connected at the hip,
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but this broke them apart and caused a great divide
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between those two companies.
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But then came William Clay Ford Jr.
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And Bill Ford was the CEO from 2001 to 2006.
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He oversaw the company during a transitional period.
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He was the first Ford to come back in and get involved
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or the Ford family member to come back
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and get involved in the company.
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He had been involved.
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He was the chairman of the board at the time
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and decided to take over the company.
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But under his leadership, there was an emphasis
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on refreshes which the Ford Motor Company
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desperately needed to refresh some of their products
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and also global coordination.
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But he proceeded the Great Recession era
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and laid some groundwork for later restructuring
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that Alan Mulally, who was the next CEO,
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would come and be able to take advantage of.
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Now, Alan Mulally, I don't know if you've ever heard of him,
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but he saved the Ford Motor Company.
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And he created a scenario where Ford was able
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to survive without taking any government bailout money.
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He was the CEO from 2006 to 2014.
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I actually remember a trip to meet him.
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It was not just me, but the entire Ford dealer body
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flew to Dearborn, Michigan and went to the,
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I don't remember what it's called,
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where the Lions play football, Detroit Stadium, I guess.
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But we went and the entire floor of that stadium
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and a lot of the stands were covered
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with Ford dealers and Ford representatives
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and they were there to hear Alan Mulally
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lay out his plan for saving the Ford Motor Company
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and to fire everybody up.
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So he came in and one of the first things
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that happened with Alan Mulally is he went
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to Ford World Headquarters.
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He was actually driving a Lexus
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when he showed up at the company and they said
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he had a parking pass or they sent him a parking pass
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that would get him to the main parking garage
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which resides underneath the Ford World Headquarters.
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He goes in and he drives in and he starts looking around
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and he didn't see any Fords.
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He saw Land Rovers, Jaguars, Volvos, Mazdas,
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but no Ford products.
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He goes upstairs and starts observing things
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going on up there and he said,
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you know, this is very interesting about this company.
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Nobody's wearing name tags.
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Every time somebody sees me they run in the other direction
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and they don't sell the Ford Taurus anymore.
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What happened to the Taurus?
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And the executives that were there said,
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well, we gave up on it.
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What'd you do that for?
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Why didn't you just redesign it?
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I mean, it was the best selling car
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in the country for many years.
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So it was that and it was so many other things
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that he looked at that thought
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that the company needed changing.
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Now, how did he avoid the government buyouts
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and survive the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009?
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Well, he created this thing called the Way Forward.
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It was a restructuring plan
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and he did a lot of cost cuts.
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He closed plants, he renegotiated labor contracts.
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He focused on quality.
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He borrowed heavily.
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He mortgaged everything, including the Ford logo.
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He sold off and spun off all of those other companies
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that Jack Nasser had acquired, Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo,
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even Aston Martin, all of them were shed.
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And he resurrected Lincoln.
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So he changed the company for the better.
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But the lessons didn't stick very long.
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I mean, he did have a protege
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and his name was Mark Fields.
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He was the next CEO.
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When I first ran into Mark Fields,
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he was the CEO or the North American CEO of Mazda
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and he did a great job.
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But he had jumped to Ford,
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which Ford at one time owned 30% of Mazda.
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But Mark Fields was the CEO from 2014 to 2017.
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And he was pushed out.
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He was forced out because Ford and the board
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wanted to bring in an outsider.
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They thought it was time to bring in a fresh perspective
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and not hire somebody that was from the automobile world.
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So they hired a guy named Jim Hackett.
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And he lasted from 2017 to 2020.
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He was actually the CEO of another company called Steelcase
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and they made furniture.
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He had retired from Steelcase
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and the Ford family went after him
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because of his lack of automotive experience.
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They thought he could bring a new perspective.
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And I think everybody realized pretty quickly
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that he was not the answer.
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But there was another person lurking in the shadows
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that was the answer.
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And I'll tell you who that is or was in just a minute.
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Okay, so who was this person in the shadows,
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this employee that had been with the company
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He had come from Toyota,
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had a long career with him.
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And everybody thought that eventually
21:02
he would be the head of Toyota in North America.
21:05
But Ford was able to prime away
21:07
and it was primarily because of his family background
21:10
with the Ford Motor Company.
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This gentleman's name is James D. Farley Jr., Jim Farley.
21:18
You may remember Chris Farley,
21:20
who was famous from Saturday Night Live and Tommy Boy.
21:23
It's his first cousin.
21:25
So Jim Farley was in charge of another transformation
21:29
of the Ford Motor Company around electric vehicles.
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Connected vehicles, which that means
21:35
that we're all connected to the internet
21:38
as we drive down the road, whether we like it or not.
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He has delivered stronger profitability.
21:43
He has turned Ford into more of a tech enabled company.
21:48
Under his leadership, Ford invested heavily in EVs.
21:51
That's where they built the big plant,
21:54
the Blue Oval City out in Stanton, Tennessee.
21:57
And it was a bad guess because look what's happened
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since Trump got elected, EVs.
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Well, really it was before Trump got elected.
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They were trying to cram EVs down people's throats
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and we just weren't ready for it.
22:13
The infrastructure wasn't there
22:16
and the technology wasn't there
22:18
in order to just create something of value.
22:21
People don't wanna buy a car
22:23
that's gonna depreciate in half in the first year.
22:26
And basically be unsellable at what would be the middle age
22:33
of the typical internal combustion engine vehicle
22:37
People look at an EV as being done.
22:41
And who wants to buy a $25,000 battery?
22:44
There's so many obstacles to EV adoption
22:47
that the politicians and the people that were pushing them
22:50
just didn't see the light
22:53
until the sales started going down.
22:56
And people stopped paying premiums to buy Teslas
22:59
and to buy Ford Lightning trucks.
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I mean, we had people during the pandemic
23:05
when the Ford Lightning first came out,
23:07
people were paying $30,000 and $40,000
23:10
over Windows sticker out in California
23:13
for Ford Lightning pickup trucks.
23:15
Now you can hardly give them away.
23:17
There just aren't the buyers.
23:19
I think everybody that wanted one got one.
23:22
So that's who we have now.
23:24
He's modified his position.
23:27
I wish I could have seen him speak in Las Vegas,
23:29
but for obvious reasons I couldn't.
23:32
But from what I understand,
23:34
folks are gonna be happy with what Ford's doing.
23:36
New products and products that are more affordable.
23:40
They're doing what they can to drive down the cost
23:42
and not just of EVs,
23:44
but of internal combustion engine vehicles as well.
23:46
So we'll see what happens.
23:48
Well, thanks for listening
23:49
to this edition of My Car Guru.
23:50
If you have any questions,
23:52
don't hesitate to send me a text 423-552-2020
23:56
or an email to Lenny Lawson, 2020 at gmail.com
24:00
and I'll see you next time.
