Ford in all its wisdom ran into a wall just before GM and Chrysler did, and so Chrysler and GM got snagged in the Wall Street Collapse in 2008 when no banks had any money to loan them like they did with Ford. So, in other words, Ford ran out of cash actually before GM & Chrysler, so they hocked everything they had left to get bank loans to keep them going. The timing for Chrysler & GM was not so fortunate, so when they needed the cash, the only place to get it was the government. But since Ford did not technically go bankrupt, although they would have if their timing was a couple months later, they were able to get their loans and are still paying them off. All three companies were run badly which led them to their respective situations, and part of their struggle was UAW healthcare costs and other negotiated agreements that were no longer sustainable. The bankruptcies cleared all that out (bad management and the UAW had to get sensible). Alan Mulally of Ford has stated that if Chrysler and GM had gone down, they too would have failed because their suppliers were much the same and could not have survived on Ford business alone. And the UAW would not have made reasonable agreements with Ford unless they were forced to do so because of what happened to Chrysler and GM.
Yeah, you can go buy a Ford today but the most recent ratings show them near the bottom of frequency of repair statistics list, although much of that is the "My Ford Touch" electronics in their cars that don't work well. And they have had something like 7 recalls on one of their 2013 Hybrid models and multiple recalls on the new Focus. GM on the other hand is near the top of the ratings with some of their cars now and Chrysler continues to make steady gains.
