One top car brand has a serious perception problem in South Africa
Ford, one of the most popular car brands in South Africa, has a much worse media sentiment rating than its main competitors, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Suzuki.
This was revealed in Press Pulse’s latest report, which tracked media sentiment across South Africa’s top business and motoring publications.
Ford’s poor media sentiment is not unexpected. Recent developments have raised concerns from owners about safety.
In July 2025, Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa announced a recall campaign that affected more than 5,700 vehicles in South Africa.
A month later, the company issued another recall campaign affecting over 20,000 vehicles, including the Ranger, EcoSport, and Everest.
One of the issues related to the infotainment screen freezing or turning black, which can cause the rear-view camera image to be frozen, missing, or delayed while reversing.
Some Ford Ranger models were recalled due to a potential temporary loss of brake boost, requiring increased pedal effort.
Soon after the recalls, the company’s South African division announced that it would be retrenching hundreds of workers.
Ford explained that these retrenchments were linked to lower European orders for its Ranger pickup truck, driven by recent tax changes in the UK.
Media coverage highlighted the concern from trade unions, including Solidarity, and analysts that this move signals structural fragility.
Another issue which has been haunting the car brand for many years is the Ford Kuga fire crisis, which made headlines a decade ago.
Despite happening so long ago, the Ford Kuga problem continues to be found in articles about the company in 2025.
These issues compounded to make Ford the only top car brand in South Africa with a negative media sentiment rating over the last three months.
The chart below shows Press Pulse’s media sentiment ranking for Ford, Toyota, Hyundai, Volkswagen, and Suzuki.
About Press Pulse
Press Pulse developed an artificial intelligence (AI) sentiment-measuring system for online media reports.
The system focuses on South African business reporting from top-tier media publications and measures companies’ success in achieving positive exposure.
The sentiment ranking is based on the number of positive, neutral, or negative articles and the reach and influence of the publication where they are published.
Simply put, the more positive articles a company receives, the better its sentiment ranking. The inverse also holds.
Online media in South Africa is highly influential, which is why companies invest heavily in public relations and content marketing to get positive exposure.
However, before Press Pulse’s new sentiment system, it was difficult for companies to track their performance accurately.
The good news is that new advances in artificial intelligence have made it possible to measure media sentiment objectively.
The system uses natural language processing and deep learning for accurate sentiment detection.
Press Pulse makes it easy for companies to track their online media sentiment and gain insight into how they can improve.
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