OT: Take ford, one bullet and a foot

[Ferret]

Lol, internet riot time!

The pesants are revolting!

Here (http://culturegarage.com/2008/01/11/ford-sometimes-i-think-you-want-to-fail/)

[repenttokyo]

not the first auto manufacturer to do this to an online club.

[Ross]

Millions spent on marketing to enthusiasts negated by one junior dildo in the law dept.
Combine these antics with the rubbish offered as cars and the writing is on the walls clear for all but them to read.
Sadly indicative of how out of touch the US auto manufacturers are.

[repenttokyo]

It's not just US car makers. Mitsubishi was using online club forums to track which Evo's were drag racing or attending track racing events, using their license plates to get the VIN numbers of the cars, and then distributing those VINs to dealerships and voiding their warranties. A little bit worse than not being allowed to make a calendar.

[CharlesAFerg]

And you guys think this is bad, it's only the just barely the beginning of the copyright wars...

[Ferret]

It's not just US car makers. Mitsubishi was using online club forums to track which Evo's were drag racing or attending track racing events, using their license plates to get the VIN numbers of the cars, and then distributing those VINs to dealerships and voiding their warranties. A little bit worse than not being allowed to make a calendar.

I'd love to see the legality of the above 'its online so it must be true'...

...it'd open the doors to the your mom's an x y z because it's in print on the internets routine.

Obviously if there's in-the-act photos involved this would class as decent proof - but if there's a photo of a car with some text next to it saying 'it was drag raced' It'd be lawyers at dawn.

EDIT: Also if it states in the warranty 'no racing' and you get caught doing it, you cant really complain... I mean the cars are not supposed to take drag racing abuse and remain fault free...

[repenttokyo]

the Evo is a factory race car. To expect owners to not race it on a track or drag strip is ridiculous. can you imagine the same prohibition for Corvettes?

Yes, there were in the act photos, that's how they documented the racing - photos posted to web forums. It wasn't just 'it's on the internet so it's true"....

Here is an article describing how warranties were voided for participating in AUTOCROSS events!


http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040705/FREE/407050725

Companies will do anything to avoid paying up.

Interestingly, Ford takes the opposite stance:



One rare exception is track day events organized, sponsored and sanctioned by the national Ford SVT Owners’ Association and local Ford/SVT dealers. Owners bring their cars, and the association and participating dealers agree to cover any mechanical failures brought on by normal track use.

"Owners can participate in the instructional days without automatically voiding their warranties," says Ford Performance Vehicles spokesman Alan Hall. "Obviously if they abuse it [the car] on the track, or there’s a part that breaks due to aggressive driving, that will not be covered under warranty. But your warranty will not be voided across the board by just participating in that event. We don’t automatically void a warranty unless above-normal abuse is shown on a vehicle."

[Ross]

The statement by Ford you quote is pretty ambiguous.
"above normal abuse" WTF would that be? And certainly no aggressive driving on a racetrack.
Selling a car by touting it's performance capabilities is great, paying for the associated failures when that performance is tapped is a less agreeable consequence.
Warranty wording often excludes the very acts depicted in the advertising that sells the product.
This has been so forever.
Just a tip for those inclined to track days etc. Polish your windows! Otherwise, when some dust settles on your car the image of shoe polish markings on the windows can reappear.

[repenttokyo]

an even better solution is to get either vinyl numbers that stick onto your window or a permanent NHRA number when you join as a member :)

[Nick.Hay]

Amazing that such a massive, profitable company would carry on so greatly with regard to a tiny group of enthusiasts making a measly couple of hundred dollars off a few calendars!!

Must have been a slow day in Ford's legal department!!

It wasn't that long ago that even the giant car companies would come to the party for enthusiast groups... What a sad reflection on the affect of greed in today's corporations.

[fin]

I read an article about the big 3 last year that said there are a lot of very smart people working in Detroit and it may take them a while but with determination and hard work, they will drive themselves out of business.

Instead of hiring lawyers, they should deploy the marketing guys and push their wares instead of chasing them away.

All the car companies are doing this unfortunately. A big VW/Porsche engine rebuilder/supplier in Georgia was hassled by lawyers from said automakers for using the words Beetle, Bug, VW etc.

And by the way Ford is anything but profitable. Which makes their actions even dumber.

Never underestimate the stupidity of groupthink in large bureaucracies.

A story of a company shutting up their legal dept. is LEGOs. Someone hacked the operating system to the Mindstorm robotic toys shortly after LEGOs introduced it. The legal dept. advised legal action (Duh, what else would they suggest?). The marketing guys stepped in and pointed out that sales moved up significantly after the hack was published. LEGOs smartly encouraged the public use of the operating system and raked in the cash.

Cheers,

Fin