Quote:
Originally Posted by XD 351 Ute
My opinion only, but less traditional Aussie Buyers each passing year doesn't help.
Granted there was some uptake of our Aussie machinery, but a larger percentage preferred to have vehicles similar to what they used to drive back home.
Couple that with brand snobbery, cheaper and better offerings
from other manufacturers, and that probably sums most of it up.
Our manufacturing offshoots also managed to do their best in digging their own graves
by poor customer service, cost cutting on items that SHOULD have been much better
than they were, X series door handles I hear the cry, but I've never broken one..  ;
E series cooling systems, B series brakes, suspension bushes etc, etc.
The Territory really had a chance to shine, but suffered from the above in a number of
areas.
Dealerships and after-sales servicing are a category all on their own.
My local blue ovoid dealer lost my patronage forever after issues with purchasing a
second hand vehicle.
Anyway, just my thoughts..
Ed |
When Ford took their design and specs of the Territory to the US .... Ford gave them the go ahead ... albeit on a small budget.
Ford US couldn't have the Aussies build something better than them ... so they came up with the Freestyle but in "what they thought would be a better packaged platform being FWD based". It was a flop and was as shocking vehicle from the get-go.
Now if they hadn't have been the way they were ... and actually took on the Aussie design/platform ... and Globalised it back then (keeping it true to the Aussie design) .... it would have been a very different story indeed.
Especially when you look at the sales figures in Australia compared to the "global" Toyota Kluger platform .... The Territory outsold Kluger by a country mile.
Now if that was offered to all the Global RHD market ... and had some $$$$ through at it to have it adapted to the LHD market as well. Things would have been very different.
But ... as mentioned ... the carmakers in the US don't seem to accept anything outside of the US.
Even though everyone in the US has been asking to get the BARRA and its RWD pletform for years ... seems to keep falling on deaf ears.