Horrible Wimpy Switch Design.

Tijoe said:

I see that in 2019, the switch could be purchased for under $10.00. In 3+ years, the price has doubled. I am sure there is no greedflation involved.

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pbethel said:

Did you hear about the time they shut down the country in a knee jerk reaction to a new strain of an old virus? And paid people more to stay home than they would make working?
$14. and change from Rock Auto. Not doubled.

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Asdrew's post is from 10/19 so call that 3.66 years ago. Now of $11.33 on Lasco so 5% per year increase (not 5.4% ... cuz compounding)
List price has gone from $14.89 to $16.09 so 8% total ove that time so less than 2% per year increase.

FYI average inflation since 1960 is 3.8%

So the FACTS seem to point to franchise greed dealers as the issue in THIS case not the pandemic or FOMOC.
(may in fact be worse dealer greed as there could also be additional increases baked into the crazy shipping fees for on-line ordering). Not defending FOMOC or most all other industries. Looking at prices/profits there is no doubt that they have been excessively greedy over the time period being discussed. Perhaps more tax cuts/de-regulation/corporate control of the gov't would help. BTW - I do like that word greedflation ... gunna steal that.

Back on topic.
FWIW $16.50 isbest landed price I found with google shopping
Maybe retrofit a higher quality switch or others ?

My earlier comment was reactionary and I did not look at actual "MSRP" prices. Via "Ford.com" today's retail price is $25.20. From the old thread, the retail price was $14.80.
In 3.66 years, Ford has raised the price by 41%. Via the official CPI inflation index calculator, the switch should be priced at $17.45, a 15% increase that tracks the inflation number media keeps talking about.
We all know that in the auto industry, supply problems and shortages have let them increase prices above and beyond the call of duty in order to make record profits;

• Ford Motor gross profit for the quarter ending March 31, 2023 was $6.805B, a 25.09% increase year-over-year.
• Ford Motor gross profit for the twelve months ending March 31, 2023 was $25.025B, a 23.89% increase year-over-year.
• Ford Motor annual gross profit for 2022 was $23.66B, a 9.08% increase from 2021.
• Ford Motor annual gross profit for 2021 was $21.69B, a 50.71% increase from 2020.
• Ford Motor annual gross profit for 2020 was $14.392B, a 32.14% decline from 2019.

Dang. I could have saved $0.41 cents if I had spent the time to find and order the switch via Rock Auto! But I searched for ordered P/N5F2Z-14018-F rather than 5F2Z-14018-E,
and Rock Auto didn't have 5F2Z-14018-F listed.

Tijoe said:

record profits

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Gross profit is not a particularly good measure for the financial performance a business that has high fixed costs/overheads. Net income is more meaningful ... especially over the long run ... you know ... bottom line?? Neither necessarily has a strong correlation to pricing since it is highly dependent on volume. Of course in the short run there can be all sorts of financial shenanigans or other non recurring transactions ... see $800M profit in 2022 on sale of remaining stake in Rivian. BTW - not sure where they stand these days, but IIRC the financial arm, not auto sales is where F has made a lot (most?) of their profit for many years. You'd need to dig into the financial statements to get a handle one that.

My CPA dad taught me a long time ago that the #"s in a financial report are pretty much meaningless, unless you can understand what is in the footnotes. And even at that, those are just the minimum the corporate crooks feel that they need to disclose to stay close enough to compliant with financial reporting requirements.

Net income can be defined as company's net profit or loss after all revenues, income items, and expenses have been accounted for.

• Ford Motor net income for the quarter ending March 31, 2023 was $1.757B, a 156.5% decline year-over-year.
• Ford Motor net income for the twelve months ending March 31, 2023 was $2.886B, a 75.05% decline year-over-year.
• Ford Motor annual net income for 2022 was $-1.981B, a 111.04% decline from 2021.
• Ford Motor annual net income for 2021 was $17.937B, a 1502.42% decline from 2020. (typo here ??? )
• Ford Motor annual net income for 2020 was $-1.279B, a 2821.28% decline from 2019.

Dunno how much of this is the reason for or caused by current efforts to transition to becoming an EV manufacture. But that's a different discussion.