Ford's CEO Admits Quality Problems Will Take Several Years To Fix

The quality of Ford products has been on a slow decline for years, but its CEO, Jim Farley, is well aware of the problem and is intent on fixing it.

Ford Authorityreports that Farley recently made a statement at the Ford Retired Engineering Executives (FREE) group, which is a fairly tough audience to talk to. Members of this esteemed organization include Ford Motor Company retirees that used to be in supervisory or higher positions.

"Fixing quality is my No. 1 priority," Farly told FREE. "It is the most important initiative in the whole company. And it's going to take several years. We didn't lose it in just one or two years. Until we fix quality, nothing else matters."

In short, Farley admitted that the quality problem is endemic and that it didn't simply start overnight. We respect a CEO who can admit to his company's flaws, but there's still an open-ended question about how it happened.

One theory is that it's the result of dedicating billions to developing EVs while allowing legacy products to slip, even though these same quality problems often haunt even the new arrivals.

The 2022Consumer Reportsreliability surveywas published in late November, and Ford suffered quite a bit. Most notably, theMustang Mach-Elost its coveted "recommended" rating because itfell short in the reliability department. This leaves the door wide open for Hyundai and its Ioniq 5 since reliability is supposed to be one of the positive attributes of an EV. Contrastingly,Consumer Reports also recently found that the Tesla Model 3 and Nissan Leaf are themost reliable EVs you can buy.