Mk 8 facelift 2021

[Eric Bloodaxe]

47 minutes ago, Richard b said:

The story is they bring it back on the list at the end of 2022 when they have replenish there semi conductors they hope  

I've seen a couple of reports that suggest manufacturers are, for now, diverting what chips they can get into EVs, which tend to be higher margin, and stripping features out of lower margin cars (like a Fiesta I guess) so that makes sense.

What will happen when EVs really take off though? I believe EVs use even more chips than ICEs, so the situation will have to be resolved somehow.

 

[Ryan E]

I saw a video of the new Fiesta the other day that showed it having BLIS (settings visible on the screen and you could just about make out the symbol on the mirrors) and folding mirrors. It was a real car at a show (in Germany I think) although it may well be that it's just the pre production cars that have these features and they're dropped for the mass produced models. 

[Mavroz]

51 minutes ago, Ryan E said:

I saw a video of the new Fiesta the other day that showed it having BLIS (settings visible on the screen and you could just about make out the symbol on the mirrors) and folding mirrors. It was a real car at a show (in Germany I think) although it may well be that it's just the pre production cars that have these features and they're dropped for the mass produced models. 

Are they not putting Blis on new models? Ours has it.

Surely it will be in a "pack" if not standard.

[Ryan E]

11 hours ago, Mavroz said:

Are they not putting Blis on new models? Ours has it.

Surely it will be in a "pack" if not standard.

It's not mentioned on the price list as standard on any trim or available as an option so it's not clear whether they're not putting it on or they've just forgotten to show it on the list.

[Mavroz]

35 minutes ago, Ryan E said:

It's not mentioned on the price list as standard on any trim or available as an option so it's not clear whether they're not putting it on or they've just forgotten to show it on the list.

I would have thought it will be either standard or available through a pack. I think ours was in the driver assist pack with the rev camera, sensors, auto park etc.    

[Eric Bloodaxe]

2 hours ago, Ryan E said:

It's not mentioned on the price list as standard on any trim or available as an option so it's not clear whether they're not putting it on or they've just forgotten to show it on the list.

I've not seen it either, though it's not something I'd be bothered about anyway. It may be, as we've discussed earlier, it's been temporarily dropped due to the chip situation and will reappear later.

Same thing seems to be happening with other manufacturers - I was speccing an Audi A1 on the configurator and couldn't find a mention of automatic climate control which was available as an option previously.

[Eric Bloodaxe]

Has anyone made an enquiry on likely availability of the facelift?

I lurk on various forums and I'm seeing some very lengthy lead times mentioned. A guy ordered a BMW 1-Series in August and is now being advised delivery in August 2022. Similarly facelift Polos are being quoted as 12 months plus, while prospective buyers of the Hyundai i20N have been quoted deliveries in 2023.

[martinf64]

23 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Has anyone made an enquiry on likely availability of the facelift?

I lurk on various forums and I'm seeing some very lengthy lead times mentioned. A guy ordered a BMW 1-Series in August and is now being advised delivery in August 2022. Similarly facelift Polos are being quoted as 12 months plus, while prospective buyers of the Hyundai i20N have been quoted deliveries in 2023.

I've had a pre-facelift on order for around 6 months although I believe the dealer had the car on order since March/April and simply modified it to my required spec. The original delivery date was October, then pushed backed to December. I've now been told (2 weeks ago) that Ford are no longer going to be building the pre-facelift and all orders are now the face-lift model.

The dealer has said they have no idea when mine will be built, only saying they may know more in January once Ford swap over the production line to the facelift model. They have suggested March/April for delivery but I won't hold my breath. It also looks like I will end up paying more for a slightly lower spec'ed model due to Ford changing the available build options for the new model.

I design electronic boards for the company I work for and know the situation well regarding the semi-conductor shortage...it is a serious situation, we can't get our boards made because of long component lead times with many being on over 12 months. Designing new boards is extremely frustrating at the moment, but all we can do is wait and hope the situation gets better soon.

 

[Eric Bloodaxe]

18 hours ago, martinf64 said:

The dealer has said they have no idea when mine will be built,

Looks like the same situation all round then. It seemed bad enough when I and many others on here were waiting 6 months plus for our current cars, the problem then supposedly being availability of leather seat material.

I got an email the other day from my usual dealer about Ford's 24 hour test drive promotion but as far as I can see there's nothing available that I'd want to test drive anyway. 

I'm interested to see what the Ford Performance branded seats in the facelift ST are like, so it looks like spring/early summer, then!

 

 

[TomsFocus]

I don't understand how the manufacturers can financially support such low numbers of cars being produced at the moment.  It seems to be the majority of manufacturers with long waits now, I'm not sure of any that can churn out a car within weeks rather than months now?  I know people that are still waiting for Golf's ordered 12 months ago and new ones are being quoted as 12 months away...  

[Eric Bloodaxe]

I was reading an article in one of the financial sections which suggested that, for manufacturers, a situation where demand greatly exceeds supply is not necessarily a bad thing. They sell fewer cars but at a greater margin as I imagine they're not falling over themselves to offer discounts at the moment. 

Another point made was that manufacturers are taking advantage of the situation to wrest control of the sales process from dealers. More and more are moving to a model where the price of the vehicle (or finance plan) is set by the manufacturer and the dealership gets a flat fee for physically handling pdi, handover etc. 

Meanwhile residuals on what used cars do come onto the market are being kept high, which I guess makes used car sales managers happy, and probably helps keep monthly finance payments on new cars down also.

 

[Marky146]

Do Ford actually make any seats? AFAIK, they've always used their Tier 1 supplier for seats and seat runners on all their cars.  In Ford's case tha is Recaro GMBH.

[TomsFocus]

I thought it was the vag group that make seats?

 

[Marky146]

Dunno. There are only three major seat makers in the world really. Recaro are the biggest. I've seen seat runners and bits from various Fords over the years and they've all had Recaro stickers or stamps on them. They make them to Ford's spec like any Tier 1 supplier would, but a lot of the detail design work is done by them on Ford's behalf.  

[unofix]

Adient (used to be 'Johnson Controls') make the seats for Nissan UK.

[Marky146]

Yep. It's perfectly normal to contract out Seats. Even Lamborghini seats are VAG units. They just cover them in house. Mind you when I visited the factory everything bar the Exhaust on the Gallardo came out of VAG boxes. Bodyshell included.

I think Tesla are the exception in they make their own seats start to finish.

[unofix]

3 minutes ago, Marky146 said:

I think Tesla are the exception in they make their own seats start to finish.

sounds like a Bum deal 🤣

[Mavroz]

Evans Halshaw in Hull have no new cars in their showroom! All the display cars, only about 6 of them were all second hand. The manager told us this, they had all had their plates removed and valeted.

He did say also that if ordering a new Fiesta today, they could not give the customer a lead time for delivery as of yet.

They were hoping for improvement as they had been told that new factory builds and back orders were going into overtime production from the 2nd week of December. If I understood also, he said production would run fully through the usually quiet Christmas shutdowns to get back on track.

Hopefully things will get back to normality early 2022.

[Nismex]

I guess for Ford this whole situation may have come at a good point? I think I’ve read they’re transitioning a few factories/production lines over to producing EVs. Plus the fairly short time with the Fiesta and Focus facelifts they might be using the current low production rates to do in depth re purposing of their supply chain?

I imagine it must be really difficult to change over production lines/re tool factories when operating at high production output? 

[Marky146]

Ford like most manufacturers tend to have a two week major factory holiday in July/August. This is when they swap out the major press dies for body panels and stuff and re-jig any production robot programs and processes for building the next model. When folk come back they start the training and a quick build run happens then stops as they check QC and makes sure everything works. On a Facelift its far easier as the welded Shell doesn't change and the small rejigs grab new shape bonnets from the press are really all that bit needs. All the Dies are usually changed as they wear and need replacement, hence updating and facelifts are minimal cost.

 

I learned all this researching why my Ford Sierra Sapphire had a weird back panel on it. Turned out my car was a 4P prototype! Used as the brochure car two years running having bene resprayed then sold to a Ford Employee and on to me several years later. I even found the build sheet tucked in the roof behind the trim!  

[Eric Bloodaxe]

Interesting one on this cropped up on another forum.

Basically, a Mk 8 owner had a front end bump and wondered if the facelift (Mk 8.5) parts would fit? Its a bit like the many queries on converting a Mk 7 to a 7.5 that we get here.

Afaik the bumper, bonnet, lights etc, are certainly different and no doubt wiring etc but not sure about the wings. Has anyone been able to make that detailed comparison between a Mk 8 and 8.5 yet?

Quite interested in this one myself. In view of the short life of the Mk 8.5, I wouldn't be surprised if front end body parts could be hard to come by further down the line, especially used. The looks of the facelift front end don't seem to have met with general approval and I could see owners of Mk 8.5s that have suffered front end damage looking to go the other way, i.e. convert to the Mk 8 front end.

[wordchild]

On 7/7/2023 at 11:21 AM, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Interesting one on this cropped up on another forum.

Basically, a Mk 8 owner had a front end bump and wondered if the facelift (Mk 8.5) parts would fit? Its a bit like the many queries on converting a Mk 7 to a 7.5 that we get here.

Afaik the bumper, bonnet, lights etc, are certainly different and no doubt wiring etc but not sure about the wings. Has anyone been able to make that detailed comparison between a Mk 8 and 8.5 yet?

Quite interested in this one myself. In view of the short life of the Mk 8.5, I wouldn't be surprised if front end body parts could be hard to come by further down the line, especially used. The looks of the facelift front end don't seem to have met with general approval and I could see owners of Mk 8.5s that have suffered front end damage looking to go the other way, i.e. convert to the Mk 8 front end.

My two penn'orth which may be worth little as I've not done a detailed comparison, but looking closely at pics of pre and post-facelift mk8s it seems the wings *might* be the same. However, I note that the bonnet's leading edge is higher on the facelifted cars so wonder if this means the front cross-member would be different? Converting to a mk8 front end wouldn't seem a simple job, esp as the facelifted cars don't have separate fog lights and I think some have LED dipped headlights as standard too? Could well be wrong on much of this tho....

[Eric Bloodaxe]

4 hours ago, wordchild said:

Converting to a mk8 front end wouldn't seem a simple job

No, I don't think so either. The guy on the other forum seems to have come to the same conclusion and dropped the idea!

[Eric Bloodaxe]

15 hours ago, wordchild said:

looking closely at pics of pre and post-facelift mk8s it seems the wings *might* be the same. 

Yes, just  been comparing mine with an original Mk 8 brochure I have**and I think that may well be the case. The lights are clearly very different but the shape at the rear seems to be the same.

That would seem logical and make the facelift a bumper/bonnet/lights job as with the Mk 7//Mk 7.5.

(**Our TV seemed to have "lost" some of its channels after a thunderstorm yesterday so it passed the time while I was waiting for the retuning process to complete!😀)

 

 

 

[Eric Bloodaxe]

Now that Fiesta production has ended, and presumably most people who have ordered one will have got it, just wondering what owners thought of the Mk 8.5 compared to the Mk 8.

I've certainly noticed a good few deletions compared to my Mk 8 ST Line X, some of which have been mentioned elsewhere and in some cases applied to late Mk 8s also:

 Folding mirrors

One touch window switches (now one touch to open only, and only on drivers door)

Illuminated cup holders

Sunglasses holder in roof console

B&O badges to Speakers (where applicable)

Leather covering to handbrake on higher spec models

Owners manual etc. folder (now general on all models it seems)

Removable storage tray under armrest.

Centre speaker on dash 

Spare wheel even as an option

There may be more - I seem to keep noticing more stuff (or rather NOT noticing it) as time goes by.

Also:

Noticed the gap between the A pillar and wing now seems to be stuffed with a black bin liner which has also been mentioned in the Mk 8.5 Focus. I asume this is a soundproofing measure and it may be effective but certainly looks like a bodge!