Ford Motor Company’s Logo

Ford Motor Company, an American multinational automaker headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan has recalled 1.3 million trucks after the doors on the 2015-2017 F150 and 2017 Super Duty due to a frozen door latch or a bent or kinked actuation cable in the affected vehicles, that may result in a door not opening or closing. Ford produced $6.4 million vehicles in and earning $7.4 billion in 2015. The recall will cost an estimated $267 million just to install water shields to side door latches.

2016 Ford F-150

Recalling products for a company is a difficult process to do. However, it is essential that a company does this to retain their brand image. Although Ford’s brand image is slightly tainted, it’s a positive and responsible action to recall products. Consumers of Ford can choose between two sides either losing trust in the brand or gaining trust. Personally, I feel that I can trust Ford more based off how quickly they were able to release a statement about the recall of their trucks. To Ford, $267 million is minuscule in comparison to their yearly revenue; which was $7.4 billion in 2015. The faulty doors didn’t harm any consumers which is a much more preferred reason to recall products, compared to earlier this year when Samsung had to recall their Galaxy Note 7‘s due to them catching fire. Ultimately, consumers weren’t extremely concerned over Ford’s doors having mechanical failures and in return the consumers still held a strong image for Ford. They voluntarily recalled the products and can be seen as research and development.

2017 Ford Super Duty