Agreed, although I find it interesting that the 2 major corporations that he rescued have both had major safety cover-up scandals in 2019.

 

Haha that is a good point. Who knows what he had a hand in. But overall the product at least on Ford's side was miles ahead of what it was

 

I think the Boeing scandal is definitely unrelated to him as he was long gone by the time they developed the 737 MAX.

The question is just how much he knew about the Focus issues at Ford. It seems like Fields operated fairly independently under him and this isn't something that would have been elevated to Mulally's desk...especially given that it's a cover up.

 

Mulally and Mary Barra make the big overall decisions. So yes you're probably right that Mark Fields likely had more of a hand in covering up transmission issues since he worked under and had some autonomy.

 

Also I think this confirms my belief that there are 2 Ford Motor Companies.

There's the company that produces trucks and SUVs. This company gets resources because it's a giant money printer.

Then there's the company that produces cars. That company is dying off and has been starved for years.


If you read the article, they said that they'd had a similar concern come up with the transmission for the trucks in development, but it got a 100% different response from management. Which makes sense because the truck transmissions have been rock solid since the mid 2000's, perhaps best in class(to the point where GM uses the Ford designed 10-speed)

 

Ford Motor Truck Company

Ford of Europe



I believe the Mustang transmission for 2015- somewhat current had some issues as well. Also I believe it is manufactured in China.

 

The manual transmission? I have indeed heard bad things about it. The automatics have been shared with the F-150. The 6R80 from 2015-2017 and the 10R80 from 2018+. Other than some programming flaws common to a new transmission, i believe those have both been fine.

 

Yes I believe it was the manual transmission that the issues.

 

True, but there is no credible reason for them being starved and dying off, other than they seem to be doing that GM is trying to do....force customers out of passenger cars into higher-profit SUVs.


GM and Ford jointly co-developed the latest RWD 10-speed.

 

Yes and no. While GM had some input, it was a Ford design.

They teamed up to cooperate on 9 and 10 speed transmissions. GM would design the 9 speed and Ford would design the 10 speed and then they would both use them in their vehicles, modifying them as needed.

The result was that both companies have adopted the 10 speed in their lineups(Ford moreso than GM). Ford did not, however, adopt the 9-speed GM designed it. They made a significant number of changes, reducing it to an 8-speed for their use.

 

Yes, I know that Ford opted not to use the FWD 9-speed. They felt that it did not add enough fuel economy to justify its complexity, though I get very good mileage with that unit in my Lacrosse.

 

I have a 2019 Camaro 2SS w/ the A10 tranny. People are reporting GM did a much better job with the tuning of it , then ford all over the Camaro forums and these people reporting had both the mustang and the camaro. GM did a much job with it then Ford. Its on par with the 8 speed in the RCF, because I had an RCF before and IMO they are the same performance wise.

 

I wonder why they just don't use the ZF8 speed as it's far better than any of the other trannies. I wonder if the cost per tranny is too much vs in house solutions?

 

The Ford-Getrag PowerShift dual-clutch transmission uses dry clutches whereas the first-generation VW unit used wet clutches. Wet clutches, bathed in oil, are known to be smoother but less efficient than dry clutches because the wet clutch may slip.

The rough operation of the Ford-Getrag may be attributed to the fact that it uses dry clutches but the other problems may not be.

The second-generation VW unit switched to dry clutches.

 

I wish the new camaro had an RCF tranny, but this 10 speed is honestly nothing to complain about. It impressed me coming from an RCF. For some reasons 10 speeds seem more natural when the car changes gear.