Hood alignment

[Chris21]

I am seriously contemplating purchasing a Ranger but when I went to test drive yesterday, all of the hoods on all of the rangers on the lot were not flush. The salesperson said they make them to sit on the fenders, not flush with the fenders. When opened up, there are these flimsly rubber foam pieces toward the window and then rubber tracks along where the hood is supposed to seal. I feel like that is going to cause a lot of problems later on. Salesperson said that is how they are made. I guess I am looking for reassurance it is a good option to buy. I have a frontier that I love but is 17 years old and not a 4x4 which is needed where I live. I would replace the frontier but no extended cabs are left in my area and they are jumping right to the 2021 instead of putting out 2020's. 2021 is whole new redesign and I hate buying the brand new ones.

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[mtsoxfan]

Mine was built in 6/2019. I picked up when it was raining, this April. Gave it a bath next day and noticed the hood. Can't unsee something like that. Selling dealer drove around shop, I didn;'t even have a chance to open email before they came back, and said I had to make appt. for a body shop. Took to local dealer, that doesn't have a body shop, they tried, but only adjusted the hood. Well, loosened and tightened hood. No marks of movement. Said it would have to go to local body shop. When I brought in for them to install leveling kit to maintain warrantee, they did cash work, but didn't send to body shop. I put myself in the live with it club for now. When installing to tonneau cover, I noticed the tailgate was off by about 3/16 of an inch. That's one side had 3/16" bigger gap. That is not as noticeable, maybe because I rarely walk behind, and with the seal installed, I'll live with that too.
I guess I will fix myself, as I don't have much confidence in the quality of this or selling dealerships work. Times have changed since the 80's - 90's when I worked at a dealership. Completed work had to get by a shop foreman, and he was the one that had to deal with unhappy customers, so he made sure things were right.

 

[Jake596]

I was able to loosen a few bolts and move mine out 1/10" or so, made it easier to look at.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Crap..

You guys suck..

Now I want to go look at mine to see how it's aligned.



Edit..

Yep it had an overhang. Was able to get it pulled out to where it's nearly perfectly lined up..

 

[VAMike]

I am seriously contemplating purchasing a Ranger but when I went to test drive yesterday, all of the hoods on all of the rangers on the lot were not flush. The salesperson said they make them to sit on the fenders, not flush with the fenders.

You forgot the first rule of car shopping, which is to ignore the salesperson because they do not know what they are talking about but will say something anyway. Body panel alignment can be an issue, as it can be on any car. At this price you're simply not paying for perfection. Sometimes it's better or worse, and whether it matters to you is personal preference. If you search you'll find some threads showing how people adjusted theirs, it's not a huge deal. I haven't seen any sign that the hood on a ranger works in a fundamentally different way than the hood on any other car, and I wouldn't lose sleep over it. The weather strip under the hood is pretty common on cars these days. I don't know its exact purpose (keeping air either in or out, I assume, but whether that's for aerodynamics or cooling or something else I have no idea) but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with holding the hood on.

And seriously, just ignore anything the salesman says and do your own research. You actually care about the purchase (and the answer) and will spend time finding the right answers, that guy doesn't care about anything other than making the sale and just wants to make any questions go away.

 

[CO2Ranger]

Crap..

You guys suck..

Now I want to go look at mine to see how it's aligned.



Edit..

Yep it had an overhang. Was able to get it pulled out to where it's nearly perfectly lined up..

I had the same reaction. It didn't bother me until you all said you pulled the fender tops out with ease.

Needless to say, mines darn near perfect now too. ?‍?

 

[Bluebeastsrt]

Ford can build stuff FORD TUFF. But they cant build anything straight. My Mustang had crooked panels. This ranger has a jinky hood. I want a job with the Ford QC dept. Great pay, no work load.

 

[BHunted]

I had the same reaction. It didn't bother me until you all said you pulled the fender tops out with ease.

Needless to say, mines darn near perfect now too. ?‍?

My hood had the same problem but I caused some of it and fixed it.

Two things I know that affect it after the fact.
We as a whole, have a habit of adding all kinds of goodies.
-Loosening the hood to add ditch light brackets, removing the shroud, loosening or removing the hood latch, etc...

Solution as mentioned, pull out fenders. But once I got hood aligned with fenders, still had a prob. You just in most cases, still adjust the hood latch. You'd be surprised how much that thing being off, screws up alignment, closing easily, throwing off hood etc.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Ford can build stuff FORD TUFF. But they cant build anything straight. My Mustang had crooked panels. This ranger has a jinky hood. I want a job with the Ford QC dept. Great pay, no work load.

You need to go work QC for GMC or Peugeot/Nissan if you want a job with no work load.

 

[VAMike]

You need to go work QC for GMC or Peugeot/Nissan if you want a job with no work load.

This isn't a manufacturer-specific inability to do QC. The bottom line is that you get the quality that you pay for and the manufacturers focus their QC on the things that will either cost them sales or open them to liability. It's like all the bitching people do about stuff made in china. It's not that the chinese can't make stuff to a high standard it's that the person you're buying from specified a lower level of quality to save money. If it was made in the USA to the same specifications it would still suck. I've seen examples of chinese products at various QC levels, like "for $X you get this, and for $Y you get that" and the differences are obvious, and the western companies tend to pick the cheap option because that's why the went to china in the first place. They could make a better product, but they were told to make a cheaper one instead.

Anyway, if you want perfect body panels you're really asking either for stricter tolerances in the entire manufacturing process or for more hand work--either way, the truck would cost thousands of bucks more--and the reality is that for all the complaining, nobody is actually willing to pay for that.

 

[RedlandRanger]

This isn't a manufacturer-specific inability to do QC. The bottom line is that you get the quality that you pay for and the manufacturers focus their QC on the things that will either cost them sales or open them to liability. It's like all the bitching people do about stuff made in china. It's not that the chinese can't make stuff to a high standard it's that the person you're buying from specified a lower level of quality to save money. If it was made in the USA to the same specifications it would still suck. I've seen examples of chinese products at various QC levels, like "for $X you get this, and for $Y you get that" and the differences are obvious, and the western companies tend to pick the cheap option because that's why the went to china in the first place. They could make a better product, but they were told to make a cheaper one instead.

Anyway, if you want perfect body panels you're really asking either for stricter tolerances in the entire manufacturing process or for more hand work--either way, the truck would cost thousands of bucks more--and the reality is that for all the complaining, nobody is actually willing to pay for that.

I've been told that many Chinese companies will bid a job low in order to win the contract and initially will make parts to spec with high quality, but over time will gradually substitute cheaper and cheaper parts - the Chinese have learned well how to become Capitalists - caveat emptor. People I know that have been involved with Chinese outsourcing say you have to constantly watch the output from the Chinese factories otherwise they will gradually reduce the quality to save them money. As soon as you stop watching carefully the quality will degrade.

I'm hopeful that Covid will spur some more movement of manufacturing back to the US. I know automation/robotics has helped to level the playing field a bit.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

I've been told that many Chinese companies will bid a job low in order to win the contract and initially will make parts to spec with high quality, but over time will gradually substitute cheaper and cheaper parts - the Chinese have learned well how to become Capitalists - caveat emptor. People I know that have been involved with Chinese outsourcing say you have to constantly watch the output from the Chinese factories otherwise they will gradually reduce the quality to save them money. As soon as you stop watching carefully the quality will degrade.

I'm hopeful that Covid will spur some more movement of manufacturing back to the US. I know automation/robotics has helped to level the playing field a bit.

Hi Rob,

I can give a bit of a back story on a horrible experience at the Edison Assembly Plant. The first batch of aluminum wheels from China hit the assembly line. I just happen to be there when shit hit the fan. The tire/wheels are put on just before the vehicle drops down onto the flat top final line. The first vehicle with these rims dropped on to the flat top and by a couple stations the vehicle had 4 flat tires. Then the whole final line was full of flat tires on all the aluminum wheel vehicles. The plant had no choice but to drag the Rangers off the line into the prestage line, resulting in the tires being trashed. There were about 30 or so affected units until the plant could put steel wheels on all units and only ship those where steel wheels were part of the package. Stock was found to be pours. It was quite a panic at the time. Further action was to pull new builds with aluminum wheels out of the build schedule for a week or two until certified stock of aluminum wheels could be shipped and put on line.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

 

[Porpoise Hork]

I've been told that many Chinese companies will bid a job low in order to win the contract and initially will make parts to spec with high quality, but over time will gradually substitute cheaper and cheaper parts - the Chinese have learned well how to become Capitalists - caveat emptor. People I know that have been involved with Chinese outsourcing say you have to constantly watch the output from the Chinese factories otherwise they will gradually reduce the quality to save them money. As soon as you stop watching carefully the quality will degrade.

I'm hopeful that Covid will spur some more movement of manufacturing back to the US. I know automation/robotics has helped to level the playing field a bit.

This makes sense for so many things.

Hopefully more US companies will shift manufacturing back to the US as a result.

 

[VAMike]

I've been told that many Chinese companies will bid a job low in order to win the contract

Enough said. If I hire someone today in the US to build me a widget, or pave my driveway, or run my helpdesk, or whatever, and I pick the cheapest guy who bids way under the other guys there will be one of two outcomes: the work will suck, or it will go over budget (I guess both at the same time is a third possibility). You can mitigate by either not hiring the suspiciously cheap guy, or spending more time/money checking his work. People underbidding contracts isn't a china thing, it's a contract bidding thing. If a US company is crying that they went with the lowest bid, don't want to do their own QC, and want to blame someone else for a shit outcome, the problem is with the US company. Doesn't matter whether they outsourced to china or dubuque. (In the IT industry I hear damn near exactly the same complaints about on-shored outsourcing that I heard about off-shored outsourcing...the problem isn't where the work is being sourced, the problem is with the people doing the outsourcing and their ability to write/manage the contract.)

People I know that have been involved with Chinese outsourcing say you have to constantly watch the output from the Chinese factories otherwise they will gradually reduce the quality to save them money. As soon as you stop watching carefully the quality will degrade.

welcome to life. if you can't deal with suppliers, you're going to have issues running a business.

I'm hopeful that Covid will spur some more movement of manufacturing back to the US.

I don't know what outcome you expect, but unless US companies and US consumers stop demanding the absolute lowest prices with no concern about quality you should not expect any changes. Don't fall for the "it's all China's fault" rhetoric, the real problem is here.

 

[RedlandRanger]

I don't know what outcome you expect, but unless US companies and US consumers stop demanding the absolute lowest prices with no concern about quality you should not expect any changes. Don't fall for the "it's all China's fault" rhetoric, the real problem is here.

I agree to a point. I believe part of it is the "lowest common denominator" but I also blame spreadsheet MBAs for some of this. They think that just because their spreadsheet says it will save money, it will. What it doesn't account for is things that are difficult to quantify (such as quality) - just because it isn't on their spreadsheet, doesn't mean it doesn't affect costs. The other thing I see consistently is a "as long as it doesn't hit my budget" mentality, meaning poor decisions are made for the company as a whole because someone is afraid it will cost their budget money, when in reality if you were looking at it from a bigger picture, it would SAVE the company money to do it right.

Sorry, I got off on a tangent - I see this every day and it frustrates me to no end..... We were talking about hood alignment issues and somehow got off on Chinese part quality.

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