Ford prices havnt half gone up

cougar1235

cougar1235

Well-known user
Mar 19, 2010
255
21
Catshill Bromsgrove
I had to order a new oil filler cap for my Cougar V6 yesterday as the seal has split on the old one I cannot believe the price increase since I had to buy one for one of my old Cougar C2 its cost me 24.66 and ive got to wait 5 to 10 days for it as its a factory order I found the invoice for the one I bought for the C2 that was 12 quid in 2010 and I got that the next day.
 
Halfords sell generic ones, might have found something that matched.

Ultimately, these are old cars with the added bonus the public really didn't like them one jot.

Upshot, Ford have absolutely no interest in supporting anything to do with the Cougar any more and why would they want to tie up stock value in bits for them? Much easier to keep one central European stock of parts until they give up all hope on selling parts for them beyond filters and suspension bits.

Regards,
Andy
 
Ford parts prices do seem to be high, I just had a quote on a clutch pedal switch and it was three times the price noted in the FINIS thread.

local stealer also quoted me £120 for a VSS last year :eek:

on the subject of oil caps, I have one of these coming (badge is just a sticker!)

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and should arrive this week or next, if it doesn't fit then all it's cost me is £3.11 ;)
 
spjmorris said:
Ford parts prices do seem to be high, I just had a quote on a clutch pedal switch and it was three times the price noted in the FINIS thread.

local stealer also quoted me £120 for a VSS last year :eek:

on the subject of oil caps, I have one of these coming (badge is just a sticker!)

0


and should arrive this week or next, if it doesn't fit then all it's cost me is £3.11 ;)
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And if it does fit.....linky pls ;)
 
benham said:
Upshot, Ford have absolutely no interest in supporting anything to do with the Cougar any more and why would they want to tie up stock value in bits for them?
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Sure, there's nothing in it for them. They'd rather sell you a new car and stock parts for that. But...I can't say as I blame them and nor would any shareholder. They're in the business of making money, and the cars are a by-product of that.

benham said:
the public really didn't like them one jot.
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I disagree. What the public didn't like was the initial price of the things. But they were extremely popular with large companies who run fleets, such as Barclays.

I believe that the mass-produced coupe in this country was at least partly killed off when lease-plan policies demanded four doors for (most) company cars. Which started happening around 1999.
 
Mako said:
Sure, there's nothing in it for them. They'd rather sell you a new car and stock parts for that. But...I can't say as I blame them and nor would any shareholder. They're in the business of making money, and the cars are a by-product of that.



I disagree. What the public didn't like was the initial price of the things. But they were extremely popular with large companies who run fleets, such as Barclays.

I believe that the mass-produced coupe in this country was at least partly killed off when lease-plan policies demanded four doors for (most) company cars. Which started happening around 1999.
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I don't blame Ford at all, like you say it's perfect business sense for them.

Whether you can claim the public include fleet-buyers or not I don't know, it'd be interesting to compare numbers sold to say the 3-Series Coupé as this was about the time the German's started the deep discounting in the fleet sector, something they still continue with until this day....

Remember until this happened the fleet market was reasonably stagnant, the Japanese have never tried to capture the market successfully, BL were in a hell of a state by the mid-1990s and sold vanishingly small numbers of 800s in to the fleet sector compared to former glories, this left the French car makers - only weirdos like me like French cars....

This realistically would have left Ford or Vauxhall, accordingly these held the main strongholds in the market, so whether the Cougar was purchased out of brand allegiance, deep Ford fleet discounting practice or due to genuine preference could be contestable; I don't have the answer. Vecta-B was a disaster and the Calibra had been dumped by the mid 1990s so Vauxhall put themselves out of the running.
I don't think it's possible to they were popular with Barclays, other than Barclays did buy a fair number of Cougars. Which other big fleets bought large numbers of Cougars? How many Mondeos, 3-Series, C-Classes and Passats did Barclays have at the same time?

Wouldn't surprise me if you couldn't spec' a fleet special 3-series without PAS or electric windows even today :(

The Cougar was dropped after a handful of years, that (unjustifiably) means it was unpopular in the market... This is a fact; unfortunately so. Welcome to capitalism!

Regards,
Andy
 
Andy, I think it's fair to question the contribution of the fleet market since they do have a limited choice after all. But I can say that the Cougar (and the Rover Coupe before it) were definitely the pick of the litter among those that were entitled to have them in Barclays and HSBC at the time. The 3-Series was rare and the Passat was unheard of. Of course the Passat CC didn't exist then.

I realise I'm asking you to take my word for it here, but I've worked for both banks, so...yeah.

Can't really debate the fact that the Cougar's lack of sales were down to the fact that it was unpopular with the British public, but I will say that there's unpopular and then there's unpopular. Ask anyone who's debadged theirs how many times recently they've been asked what it is and where they can get one.

In 2001, they would've asked, "You paid what?" In 2013 they ask the same question but in a different tone of voice.

[/Thread Hijack]
 
I think there are 2 issues here. Low volume sales of the Cougar, either due to poor demand from the fleet market or maybe that it was just not marketed very well. I think Ford missed a trick when they could of sold the car as a replacement for the Capri. As far as part prices are concerned this is not so much due to Ford's ability to hold stock (which they do not wish to do) but the set up costs for a supplier to make a run of parts. Gone are the days when a parts manufacturer would have sets of tools lying around waiting for one of us to order a part. Plus the fact a lot of the suppliers who produced parts for the Cougar/Mondeo back in the 90's unfortunately may not exist anymore due to the economic downturn or rationalisation of the supply base.
 
IMO, Ford did more than slip up by marketing the car as the PROBE replacement, when infact it had nothing at all in common with the probe even though the original idea was the "Mk2 Probe" which Ford decided to drop like a hot potato and threw it over to the Mercury division to play with, hence the split from Mazda. Any hint at a Capri replacement immediately says "coupe" so that's also a killer.
 
...And of course Mercury had absolutely no presence here at all (or anywhere else now that they've been shut down).

We've done this discussion before, (probably to death to be fair) but if the later high-end Capris had been sold as Mercurys (as they were in the States) and the Probe had been too, there is a very good chance that Ford could've stolen the march on Lexus, Holden, Infiniti...or any other sports/lux brand that exists now.
 
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