Have you driven a Ford lately?

I'm thinking maybe quality wasn't Job 1 or at least this particular feature wasn't one of Ford's better ideas. When we left Airdrie Marilyn noticed that she didn't have a signal light on the right rear on the Exploder. In my usual fashion I procrastinated dealing with it until this afternoon. Procrastination isn't always bad though because by the time we got here I had ruled out the connector on the cubevan and had zeroed in on the light assembly on the truck. That wasn't all that difficult because I happened to notice that we didn't have a signal light even when the truck was being used by itself.

So today I tore it apart and it didn't take long to figure out what was going on. If you look closely at the picture you can see a couple of little wires that have rotted themselves away from the little clip on ends that are supposed to attach them to some pissy little diode affair which in turn attaches to the light assembly. Those little crimp on ends are notorious for corrosion failure which would be why they are never used by OEMs. Apparently in this case they were used and closer inspection of the picture will reveal why. This truck apparently has a wiring harness intended for the European market where they have 3 light assemblies rather than the 2 light assemblies we use here (we combine brake/signal lights - they have separate brake, signal & tail light filaments). Evidently the Ford bean counters must have figured out that they could save $2.37 (or less) per vehicle by cobbling together the boogy setup in the picture in order to avoid using a 3-light assembly. Sheeeeesh. Don't worry about the fact that this setup is guaranteed to rot out. I can only imagine how fast they rot out in climates more conducive to rust. This truck has spent most of its life in a very dry climate and it rotted out in 4 years. They must have been failing under warranty in more moist climates.

This may very well be the last Ford I ever own. Make that the last North American vehicle I ever own. I've been a vehement advocate of a buy North American attitude all my vehicle buying life but enough is enough. GM & Chrysler deserved to go broke. If the government had any brains they would have let them disappear. How Ford managed to avoid bankruptcy is a complete mystery to me but I suspect we haven't heard the last of that one either. When I look into my crystal ball I see an old diesel Mercedes in our future.