There was so much news from this week’s Automotive News Congress that I decided to break out something Ford CEO Jim Farley said about quality, which was an admission that the company has had a difficult time staying focused on it.
“I saw Ford fall in and out of love with quality four times,” he said, talking to Automotive News Publisher KC Crain. Farley isn’t a Ford lifer, having jumped to the company in 2007 from a long turn at Toyota, including with the much-missed Scion brand. That was right before the Global Financial Crisis and Ford, barely, avoiding bankruptcy.
The modern roots of Ford’s quality concerns go way back to the 1980s, when the brand launched a series of ads stating that at Ford “Quality is Job 1.” This was a reaction both to the rise of Japanese automakers and a sense that the company’s cars lived up to the derisive Fix or Repair Daily backronym.
As Autoweek writes, the original first priority for car companies in Detroit was to try and get cars out on time with less concern for how quickly they came back. Then something changed.
In 1978, a year before he became CEO of the company, Ford President Philip Caldwell wrote a note to himself before a meeting: “quality – number one.” Caldwell later decreed at the management meeting, Main wrote, that quality would become a new priority for the automaker.
Donald Petersen, Ford’s president in the early 1980s, who later became CEO and chairman, also embraced the quality push and the slogan was soon plastered across Ford. A 1982 commercial turned the words into a jingle and featured workers describing specific quality updates on vehicles. The phrase also appeared in print ads, like one that boldly placed “Bug Killers” atop a Ford assembly line. “Nobody wants to buy a car that hasn’t had the bugs worked out,” the 1982 poster read. Lining the bottom of the ad was the Job 1 slogan.
Even popular slogans tend to run their course, so it’s incredible that Ford managed to keep the same line for 17 years. I grew up assuming that was the only Ford tagline.
Ford moved away from the verbiage and, depending on who you ask, away from quality. I’m not sure I can pinpoint each of the four times he’s talking about it, though the most recent time is almost certainly the Jim Hackett era of Ford, which Farley is now having to clean up. Cars from Hackett’s time have ended up needing massive and ongoing recalls, leading Farley to make quality a priority yet again. Is it working?
Earlier this year, Ford did perform better than Lexus in JD Power’s Initial Quality Survey, coming in third behind Porsche and Genesis. While IQS is focused on just the first 90 days of ownership, that’s still a massive improvement from the company’s 14th position the year before.
Farley says he’s not content with that:
“I don’t see any comfort at Ford at any level with what we’ve achieved in JD Power’s IQS,” Farley told Automotive News Publisher KC Crain. “Our [dynamometers] are literally running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, breaking every powertrain we have or plan to announce in the next few years. Across the whole board, I just see a team absolutely dedicated to not disappointing the customer, and I haven’t seen that really since I left Toyota.”
Ford’s quality turnaround required a complete overhaul of company culture, focused on accountability, controlling costs and listening to experts, Farley said.
“It required new people — a lot of new people,” Farley said. “It required a different culture around lean [manufacturing], and it required a complete obsession with the details.”
Some of this involved hiring back the same people Ford assumed it could replace with AI.
As with anything reputational, earning the trust of a customer takes years and years, whereas losing that trust can happen in a moment. With the launch of the Ford Fathom, the company will have another chance to show it can take a big swing and not trip on the way to first base.
Top photo: Ford
As a Brit, the American (and Australian) sense of threat from Japanese brands has always seemed strange to me.
Ironic perhaps, but here in the UK, no Japanese brand has ever outsold Ford.
Regardless of how reliable they might be*, the Japanese approach to cars has never really caught on here. We prefer German names. Japan has even been overtaken by Chinese brands, already.
* Saying that, I’ve owned a 7yo Ford for six years now and nothing has ever gone wrong anyway.
Ford’s current quality strategy under Farley is to blame suppliers as much as possible. He made some statements eluding to this a few years ago.
When I was at a supplier, if there was a quality concern in the general vicinity of our part, we would be blamed and bombarded with meetings, then having to provide all the data to prove we were not the issue before they would so much as look at anything that was related to Ford in-house processes, etc. Or if multiple supplier parts were involved, it would fall to weakest Ford engineer and the supplier he/she was responsible for, which always seemed like it was us, as we had a revolving door of responsible engineers on most programs (this was not unique to Ford, but a problem with the entire industry post-Covid… story for another day).
Most of the time we’d end up having to adjust our fully in-spec part to match up with something out of spec from the Ford side (e.g. stampings). We’d always push back, and thus Ford would pay for the change, but I could see some suppliers bending over and eating the cost, with the way the quality concerns are presented to suppliers.
Guilty until proven innocent.
“Our [dynamometers] are literally running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, breaking every powertrain we have or plan to announce in the next few years.”
Well there’s your problem! Stop breaking every powertrain!
Find an automaker that couldn’t break their engine in testing and I’ll point to a liar.
Jim, how about you remove wet oil pump belts that require a full timing job to get to from the F150?? The engines already have a chain driven pump you can plug and play.
While you’re at it, take a look at what people are paying to replace a led taillight on the same truck.
If quality was truly number 1 you’d never be able to fall out of love with it.
Great. Now I’ll have Heavy Pettin’ stuck in my head the rest of the day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU7QctbqVBE
I still don’t trust them. The wet timing belt ridiculousness isn’t the straw to break the camel’s back, that thing was turned to dust a couple years ago. It might’ve been before Farley’s time that those were developed and implemented, but I cannot trust a company who thought those were a good idea. Even if they somehow didn’t fail at a rate to make Stellantis blush, just the IDEA is bad. You know belts shed over time, and all that detritus is ending up in the oil and what, you’re just banking on the screen and filter taking care of it? But somehow never getting clogged?
So Quality was Job 1. And then Job 10. And then Job 1. And then Job 16. And then Job 1. And then Job 8. And then Job 1 again?
I’ve owned or supported a couple of Kia’s from 2018-2019, a Niro and a Sportage. Both developed oil usage issues just past 100k, with the Sportage actually munching its engine. In contrast, my 2025 Maverick has been rock solid for 40k miles so far. Ford is okay in my book.
Honestly, given the issues with Toyota, Honda, Kia, and GM engines, and Stellantis anything – I’m not sure what’s a safe bet anymore.
> the much-missed Scion brand
genuinely can’t tell if this is sarcasm
Those that miss it, miss it very much.
Fields and Hackett certainly left a mess to clean up. Bill Ford is more hands off then he should be. He might need to go back to being ceo as well until the next ford generation is ready. Farley talks the good fight but if he can’t get something decent out what’s the point.
It’s like listening to a newly born zealot coming out of a corporate “visioneering seminar”.
Oh, I just love speaking of synergies…
The ever present pair of dimes.
That sounds like something with the potential to enhance stakeholder value. We should include that at the next scrum.
Let me just look at this book from 1986:
1. Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services
…
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality
4. End the practice of awarding business on price alone; instead, minimize total cost by working with a single supplier
5. Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production, and service
6. Institute training on the job
…
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the workforce
11. Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management
12. Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, and eliminate the annual rating or merit system
….
For a naive troglodyte, which book is this?
Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming.
https://asq.org/quality-resources/tqm/deming-points
Deming, the true GOAT of quality.
Thank you for posting this. The writings of W. Edwards Deming are pure genius. I had the distinct pleasure of attending one of his courses shortly before he passed away in 1993 and I will never forget it.
Deming tried to teach the American industry how to do quality control, but no-one would listen. When Japan was in the process of rebuilding after WWII, they took to his teachings like a duck to water. To this day, he is revered in Japan. There is a street named after him and the annual Deming prize is still awarded to the individual or team that makes the best contribution to quality control systems.
He didn’t just teach how to do quality control, he also taught how to treat people right so that they always give you their best. When you follow his way, people will actually WANT to work for you and will go the extra mile.
> he also taught how to treat people right so that they always give you their best
Deming understood that no amount of process is going to result in great quality unless the people running those processes are fully bought in. And this is why his ideas resonated in Japanese culture and not in America, a place that lionizes the myth of the individual genius over the team, and short term profits over long term stability.
Then Toyota tries to teach GM at NUMMI and the survey says?
Created an account just to add this other “backronyn” we used to say. We had two maybe you remember both?
Fix Or Repair Daily
Found On Road Deserted
Reminds me of a joke I heard many years ago about the English company TVR:
Did you know that 96% of TVR’s ever built are still in the road today?
.
.
.
.
.
The other 4% made it home.
Fix It Again, Tony! Shit wrong brand.
“You’re thinkin’ of a Fiat, Dale.”
“Fix…it…again…”
I don’t get how so many alleyway discussions over cheap beer could be funny, but KotH pulled it off.
No more empty beer cans in the door cavities? Damn cost cutting…
Store brand flavored seltzer. Sounds exactly the same, saves almost $2 per unit.
Damn de-contenting! The OEMs think we won’t notice but we do.
I’d take a gamble on a Fathom based on Ford’s record with the Mach-E and Lightning. If it meets other needs, that is.
I can more than double that record, as I’ve owned nine Fords.
It seemed like Chevy used “Like A Rock” for more than a decade. It made Bob Seger a ton of money.
Or The Heartbeat of America
Or We Build Excitement for its stable mate. Though Ride Pontiac Ride was I think a single year only, though it feels so much longer than that.
I think he is accurate in his assessment, from my experience with Ford products. His candor in this is refreshing, he I think is as close to seeing the auto industry as anyone has since its inception. His observations on Chinese competition is honestly astonishing. Farley is a far cry from Brock Yates description of Grosse Pointe myopians. Honda, and Toyota are remarkably consistent in terms of quality. Hopefully Ford can become similar.
I’m so tired of overpaid executives just saying what they think people want to hear.
The topshot of the CEO wearing a high-vis vest caused me to ignore the entire post. I can’t stand a CEO who tries to cosplay someone who actually works for a living.
See also politicians. Seriously, we all know what your job is, just do it, you don’t need to roll up your sleeves or put on a high vis vest just to talk to us, its pandering, performative nonsense
Side tangent – anybody wondering how many Iowa Hawkeyes jerseys will be showing up at Eric Schmidtt’s office this week?
Michael Dukakis in a tank anybody?
Yeah, at least if the speech/photo op were on the factory floor, you could argue that the PPE is required, but absolutely everything else in the shot blows his cover.
Every now and then one of the corporate muckety-mucks will feel the need to have a new video produced for one of the safety meetings. They’re almost always recorded spouting their words of wisdom while standing in a warehouse or on a dock wearing full PPE.
That always gets a hearty chuckle from the employees.
I’ve worked with Ford from an industry side, and I trust them most of the Detroit-three.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Yeah, very “damned with faint praise.”
Here’s my chance to refer to my favorite retrospective/rarities title!
My buddy worked at Ford in the 1990’s. He said the employees just rolled their eyes at the “Quality is Job One” slogan.
I think most
employeespeople roll their eyes at corporate slogans.Remember when Google said “don’t be evil”?
Remember when Dodge’s pitch for the 300 was “Imported . . . from Detroit?”
Their parent company had slightly more claim to that than others, since FCA/Stellantis does operate the only assembly plant entirely within Detroit city limits. However, it built absolutely none of the Chrysler product range at the time that slogan was used.
The 200 came the closest, built about 25 miles north of the city and in a totally different county
Maybe they were leaning into being north of Canada a bit too much.
I have owned about 1/2 doz Ford cars and trucks built From the 1960’s to 1990’s and Yes they have been hit or miss. I would own a Ford again but I would worry a bit.
Very hard to regain trust lost over many years. The stock market has no patience for long term investment. I would not even look at a Ford car, when they made them. Had Toyotas and Honda (Acura) for the past 4 decades and have not been disappointed. First foray is my 2027 Bolt. An initial quality failure of the infotainment screen and some ongoing gremlins with implementation of Google Maps are my only complaints. Otherwise enjoy it in my retirement life.
Ford still makes some cars, just not here, the Ford Mondeo and Lincoln Z are alive and well-ish in China
I like the current version sold as the Taurus in the Middle East. Always makes me wish we could have a Mondeo version here in the states, maybe sold as a Torino.
Its really not a bad looking car, but, then, the last Fusion we got here was pretty attractive, too
I have a low-key thing for the Chinese market Ford Evos (aka the Fusion Active we were supposed to get, pre 2017 tariffs). It’s my idea of what a crossover should be.