Thousands of F-150 pickups await final quality check
Stockpile near airport was built while prototypes were still on roads
Ford is conducting final quality checks on thousands of early-production F-150 pickups that are stockpiled in lots around Metro Airport as dealers clamor for deliveries of America’s best-selling truck.
Ford factory employees at the Dearborn Truck Plant have been working to meet an insatiable demand for the 2021 F-150. That meant Ford had to build trucks while the prototypes were still being driven as test models.
Those trucks from the early build make up the stockpile of vehicles that are plain to see parked near the airport lately, and they are undergoing a final assessment, according to Ford. New F-150s coming out of the factory in recent weeks have been loaded directly with no delay onto truck haulers and trains to go to dealerships around the country, Ford said.
“Trucks are on their way to dealers now and in customer hands,” Ford spokesman Said Deep told the Free Press on Tuesday. “We do have this other batch of 150s that were built before those shipments began and they’re going through a final quality check before they’re released.”
Deep said quality reviews may indicate the need for things like software updates or parts adjustments, but he didn’t provide detail on these trucks.
Customers who have already taken delivery of the new pickups have raved about them while dealers’ lists of interested potential buyers grow.
CEO Jim Farley, who assumed leadership of the company Oct. 1, has assured Wall Street analysts that quality control is his top priority as is reducing overall warranty costs for the company.
Automakers often store vehicles temporarily after building them, but this latest stockpile of the first redesign since 2015 has attracted attention from readers who see what appears to be thousands of them.
A source close to the situation who was not authorized to discuss the matter told the Free Press in recent days the stockpile in lots around the airport was larger than usual, possibly 6,000 or 7,000 trucks.
Ford declined to provide specific numbers, acknowledging “a few thousand.” Deep did say there’s a quality testing site where trucks are being driven and reviewed prior to shipping, an extra step following factory inspec