Low Fuel Warning Light

lutter94 · Oct 21, 2014

Orange, what you don't understand is if they are going to sell a car for 20k, and can save 10 bucks a car, they're not going to lower the price by 10 bucks. That turns a $10 cost in to a $10 profit, per car.

ttocs · Oct 21, 2014

lutter94 said:
Orange, what you don't understand is if they are going to sell a car for 20k, and can save 10 bucks a car, they're not going to lower the price by 10 bucks. That turns a $10 cost in to a $10 profit, per car.

Exactly. Do you think ford lost some sleep that you lost your low fuel light, or that they saved over a million dollars?

Orange 94 · Oct 21, 2014

They can add the $10 onto the consumer price... hell add $20 and make an extra $10 profit on each car.
I understand they'll make a lot of money by saving on a part. Yes I get that, less parts = less cost. duh. But make the consumer pay! They're not going to notice $20 on a 20 000 car.

When you talk about mass production a single wire and light bulb costs next to nothing per car. Yes it adds up over all the cars, but they can easily charge a little more so it doesn't cost them anything.

Doesn't that make sense?
It obviously wasn't worth saving the little money if every car afterwards still has it.

lutter94 · Oct 21, 2014

Yes I understand your theory, but from a manufacturability stand point, there are a million little options they could include. Say they had 50 options that each cost $20, thats $1000 in added cost to the car, you say they can stack in on top of the price, but they still need to be competitive in the market. Some options make it to production, some stay on the cutting room floor.

ttocs · Oct 21, 2014

ok I see your side. It would be a whole lot easier to raise the price $20 then to do a complete process change. So why didn't they? Hope I am not makin ya mad as that is not what I am after just enjoying discussion.

Orange 94 · Oct 21, 2014

Yeah I totally understand what you guys are says. I just don't think it was cost alone why they didn't put it in.

I suspect it was because sn95 was a rushed design. Ain't nobody got time for an idiot light. Or the current standard parts didn't work with the new setup and it doesn't make sense to make a custom part for a useless feature.

lutter94 · Oct 21, 2014

Another question, why does my Fusion have lights that don't shut off automatically in a minute or two, when others do? Its an option I realize, but my lights will shut off after about 15 minutes. So it never will kill the battery. I suppose it gives the more expensive versions more "value"....the different programming has zero cost added

ttocs · Oct 21, 2014

is there a reason that you don't think that ford made that decision based on the bottom line? Do you think they didn't like the color of the bulb?

Orange 94 · Oct 21, 2014

The focus's map lights are always given power, just normally not enough to light them up until switch on. So when I put LEDs in that little bit of constant power is enough to create light. Haha.

mcglsr2 · Oct 21, 2014

lutter94 said:
Yes I understand your theory, but from a manufacturability stand point, there are a million little options they could include. Say they had 50 options that each cost $20, thats $1000 in added cost to the car, you say they can stack in on top of the price, but they still need to be competitive in the market. Some options make it to production, some stay on the cutting room floor.

True - but keep in mind that this was an existing feature on previous Mustangs...

ttocs said:
ok I see your side. It would be a whole lot easier to raise the price $20 then to do a complete process change. So why didn't they? Hope I am not makin ya mad as that is not what I am after just enjoying discussion.

That was my original question, why did they get rid of the light?

My guess (and it is only a guess) is more in line with what Orange says below:

Orange 94 said:
I suspect it was because sn95 was a rushed design. Ain't nobody got time for an idiot light. Or the current standard parts didn't work with the new setup and it doesn't make sense to make a custom part for a useless feature.

...this. I bet you are on the right track. I bet there was some slight change (perhaps in the EEC IV?) that did not easily translate from the Fox body to the SN95 platform. I'd be curious to know if the 93 Mustangs had a light, but the 94 does not. I'll see what I find on the Google. It's possible it wasn't worth the effort at the time to carry over the light.

And ttocs, I get what you are saying regarding cost, but I don't think it's as simple as you are saying. It's a single cost to design it the first time, but for simplicity will ignore that cost. To use your number, $10, assume it does cost Ford $10 to add that part in to the Mustangs, and would cost $1.7 M. But step back and put it in perspective: that means the TOTAL cost of the car, across the total number, is like over a trillion dollars. Assume Ford makes a 50% profit on the car (which I think is super conservative, I think the profit is much less), then that means the car cost Ford $10,000 to build, which means across the numbers you listed that's like a cost to Ford of $1,680,000,000. If that's true, you think Ford really cared about saving a measly $1.7 M? The reality is, like Orange is saying, the cost is passed on to the consumer. Ford will include features that they think people want and will pay for, and they charge for it.

lutter94 said:
Another question, why does my Fusion have lights that don't shut off automatically in a minute or two, when others do? Its an option I realize, but my lights will shut off after about 15 minutes. So it never will kill the battery. I suppose it gives the more expensive versions more "value"....the different programming has zero cost added

Are you talking about head lights? It's interesting to watch new features on cars become "standard." Headlights that turn off automatically are an example. They start out on some cars as a way of making the car stand out, be distinctive. As time goes on, and more manufactures copy the example, it becomes "standard." Another good example is one-touch power window switches. I bet any of you a dollar that in 5 years, all cars will have a one-touch power window switch, at minimum on the driver window, if not at all windows (assuming they don't already). My Mustang: apparently it was an option for just the driver. My 2011 STI has one-touch driver window standard. My fiance's A4, all windows are one-touch IIRC. I bet the STI, in 5 years, has one-touch on all windows, as does every car. And some kid is going to come across a car that has no one-touch, and think "wow, this is strange, this car doesn't have one-touch power window, how weird is that!"

ttocs · Oct 21, 2014

mcglsr2 said:
And ttocs, I get what you are saying regarding cost, but I don't think it's as simple as you are saying. It's a single cost to design it the first time, but for simplicity will ignore that cost. To use your number, $10, assume it does cost Ford $10 to add that part in to the Mustangs, and would cost $1.7 M. But step back and put it in perspective: that means the TOTAL cost of the car, across the total number, is like over a trillion dollars. Assume Ford makes a 50% profit on the car (which I think is super conservative, I think the profit is much less), then that means the car cost Ford $10,000 to build, which means across the numbers you listed that's like a cost to Ford of $1,680,000,000. If that's true, you think Ford really cared about saving a measly $1.7 M? The reality is, like Orange is saying, the cost is passed on to the consumer. Ford will include features that they thing people want and will pay for, and they charge for it.

ok you lost me here now. Where did you pull this trillion from? I am just surprised that people don't think that a manf would generally make most of their decisions based on $$$$.

Like I said above the way I see it ford didn't care about the light as much as the millions but to each his own.

mcglsr2 · Oct 21, 2014

ttocs said:
ok you lost me here now. Where did you pull this trillion from? I am just surprised that people don't think that a manf would generally make most of their decisions based on $$$$.

Like I said above the way I see it ford didn't care about the light as much as the millions but to each his own.

You were saying it would cost Ford, for example, $10 to add that light. By not adding the light, they saved $10 per car. Across the production run of like ~160,000 1998 Mustangs, that's where you got the $1.7 million in savings.

What I am saying is think about the big picture. The rest of the car wasn't free for Ford to produce. It cost them money to have an engine there, and wheels, and an interior, etc. etc. So, if the light was $10, assume everything else that made the car whole cost Ford $10,000 - I'm making up a number here because I don't know what it cost Ford to build a Mustang. But they sold it for around $20K, so I was conservatively assuming they would price the car to make a 50% profit, thus the $10,000 I came up with for Ford's cost to build the car. If I then take that $10,000, and add it across the production run of 160,000 cars like in your fuel example, that means it would have cost Ford $1.6 trillion for that year. In light of this, $1.7 million saved on the fuel light doesn't seem so significant.

Perhaps a better way of saying this is if it cost Ford $10,000 to make a Mustang, did they really care about removing *an already existing* fuel light to save $10? And maybe the answer is "yes, they did."

mcglsr2 · Oct 21, 2014

Did some internet reading ('cause we all know the internet is made of truth). It looks like Ford dropped the fuel light in 90, with the 89 being the last year to have it. So the 90 to 93 Foxes don't have the light either. Scratch the theory it was an issue with the new SN95 platform. Also, the first EEC-IV showed up in 1983 platforms, so I don't think it was a "new computer" issue. Apparently, the slosh module behind the dash (which is where the fuel level signal went to for the gauge) was responsible for the fuel light in the 89's and earlier.

I have also read of issues with the light not working properly, staying on even with a full tank, etc. etc. I wonder if there were reliability issues with the light/slosh module not working properly? So Ford was like "Eff this, it's causing more trouble than it's worth, let's get rid of it and we'll save a couple bucks in materials at the same time." Hmm.

ttocs · Oct 21, 2014

am I the only one that doesn't make sense too? I mean the crazy number you are just pulling out of the thin air make it hard to take seriously. Saying that it costs 10k to make a mustang and they sell it for 20k then that means that they profited trillions as well and we all know that isn't the case. Yes if they were making trillions of dollars per year off of just the mustang I would expect it to be as well set up as a maybach and your driver would have a low fuel light.

mcglsr2 · Oct 21, 2014

Alright, answer these questions. Guess to the best of your ability. I don't know the answers below, but this is the only way I can think of right now to explain the point I am trying to make.

A) How much did it cost Ford to make a 1998 Mustang? Answer:

B) How many Mustangs did Ford make in 1998? Answer:

C) Total cost of Mustang production in 1998 (A * B)? Answer:

D) How much would it cost for Ford to add the fuel light to a Mustang (this was your $10 from above)? Answer:

E) How much would it have cost Ford to add it to Mustang production in 1998 (B * D)? Answer:
(Note: this is where you got your $1.17 M cost from - and thus savings since Ford didn't make them)

NOW: Compare C (Total cost of production run) to E (total "savings" by not having the light). E is a very, very small portion of C, which means there isn't really a significant savings there.

By the way, I got the trillion number using the same method you got the 1.17 million number, if the trillion doesn't make sense or seem likely, then I would also think the 1.17 million number doesn't make sense or is not likely. Your argument was that Ford eliminated the light likely due to cost savings, and used the $1.17 million as "a lot of money" and as the backup to that statement. I was saying that, when compared to cost of the rest of the car, the savings on removing the light is insignificant and thus likely not what motivated Ford. This is all speculation of course

Edit: I reread your post to make sure I was getting the numbers you used correct - I wasn't. You were saying a saving of 1.17 million across ~116,000 cars produced. I though you had said ~160,000, and 1.7 million. My bad. I correct the above to have the correct-ish numbers. Sorry about that.

Edit edit: but after all, savings is savings. So Ford could very well have removed the light for savings reasons, even if it was a small amount compared to the total cost of the production run. As you say, if it really saved 1.17 million, that is not trivial. So maybe savings is the reason.