Ford Motor Co.’s strong third-quarter earnings of $1.65 billion met some resistance Wednesday from an investment community wanting assurances the fourth quarter won’t disappoint.

That is what happened a year ago: High expectations for the automaker with a history of outperforming expectations led to fourth-quarter results lower than Wall Street anticipated. The subsequent fall from grace saw Ford stock fall in a correction of sorts — shares are down more than 30 percent in the last year, according to The Detroit News.

Ford stock closed at $11.87 Wednesday, down 4.5 percent for the day.

Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth found himself fielding questions about the cost of launching new vehicles in the fourth quarter and any further hits from commodity prices.

Both were factors in last year’s disappointing fourth-quarter results, which saw earnings of only $190 million.

Booth and CEO Alan Mulally assured nervous investors that Ford will be profitable for the full year, even with challenges in Europe, which is embroiled in economic uncertainty.

“We delivered solid results for the third quarter despite an uncertain business environment,” said Mulally, noting the company is on track to exceed last year’s $8.3 billion pretax operating profit with $7.7 billion through the first nine months.

“Our product plans remain on track,” Mulally said.

No cutbacks are planned, but global engineering and efficiencies have reduced structural costs to $1.6 billion for the year — less than the $2 billion projected.

Capital expenditures also will be less costly at about $4.6 billion, compared with $5 billion to $5.5 billion forecast as part of the full-year plan.

Brian Johnson of Barclays Capital was reassured.

“Ford delivered a quarter that was stronger than on first glance,” he said in a report later in the day.

“And we are not taken aback by the absence of a dividend announcement, which we see more likely following the full year release,” Johnson said.

Booth said he recognized that investors wanted more specifics than the automaker wanted to provide, including when dividends will be restored. The last dividend was 5 cents, paid in September 2006.

“We want to return to paying a dividend as soon as we think our balance sheet can stand it,” Booth said.

Shareholders can expect modest amounts initially, but payouts will be more than token amounts, he said.

The balance sheet is shaping up for dividends to resume next year.

Ford announced third-quarter earnings of $1.65 billion or 41 cents per share, making it the 10th consecutive profitable quarter for the company, even though earnings decreased by $38 million from a year ago.

Widely watched pretax operating profit dipped $111 million to $1.9 billion or 46 cents per share which beat analysts’ expectations of 44 cents in earning per share. It was the ninth straight month of pretax profit.

Operating profit took a $350 million hit because prices fell on hedged commodities.

Standard & Poor’s said Ford would have had better results now if not for volatility in commodity pricing.

The company now expects U.S. sales to hit 13 million for the year. Booth said a few months ago he thought sales would be closer to 12.9 million.

But that has been revised after a good September and expectations that October sales, which will be reported Tuesday, will also be strong.

“Ford is still benefiting from good will for not taking a bailout. Ford is getting higher margins because people are choosing to buy their cars,” said Stephen Spivey, senior industry analyst with Frost & Sullivan in San Antonio.

Edmunds.com senior analyst Michelle Krebs said the near-record results for the quarter are partly attributable to higher average transaction prices, at $32,391 per vehicle sold in the U.S.

“Ford’s solid third-quarter financial performance relied on the winning formula of higher sales volume, lower incentives and healthier transaction prices,” said Krebs.

Booth said Ford is adding production in the fourth quarter. Two-thirds of production will be trucks and SUVs, which are the most profitable vehicles.

As a result, transaction prices are expected to remain strong.

Pretax operating profit from automotive operations was $1.3 billion for the quarter, which is $45 million more than a year ago. North American operations generated a pretax profit of almost $1.6 billion — flat compared with a year ago — but Ford lost money in Europe, Asia Pacific and Africa during the quarter.

Last week, two ratings agencies, Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s, bumped Ford up to one notch below investment grade upon ratification of the new labor agreement that kept labor costs to less than 1 percent annually.

Booth said on Wednesday that the company is starting to see the benefits of the ratings upgrades on Ford’s spreadsheets.

DEARBORN — The Ford Motor Company on Wednesday said profit fell 2 percent in the third quarter, to $1.65 billion.

It was the 10th consecutive profitable quarter for Ford, which last week secured a new labor contract with the United Automobile Workers union and said it was close to restoring a dividend to shareholders.

Nearly all of the profit — $1.6 billion, the same as a year ago — came from North America, while losses in Europe increased 56 percent, to $306 million, reported The New York Times.

“We delivered solid results for the third quarter despite an uncertain business environment by continuing to serve our customers around the world with best-in-class vehicles,” Ford’s chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, said in a statement.

The overall profit is equal to 41 cents a share and brings the carmaker’s total earnings for 2011 to $6.6 billion, 4 percent more than the first nine months of 2010. Ford earned $1.69 billion, or 43 cents a share, in the third quarter of 2010. Revenue increased 14 percent to $33.1 billion.

The company earned a third-quarter pretax operating profit of $1.94 billion, or 46 cents a share, $111 million less than a year ago. That figure, which excludes special items related to job cuts, the end of the Mercury brand and dealer-related actions, is slightly above the consensus analyst forecast of 44 cents a share.

Operating profit was reduced by a $350 million noncash charge related to commodity hedges after prices declined significantly at the end of September, Ford said. It projected that structural and commodity costs for all of 2011 would be $3.8 billion higher than 2010, less than its initial forecast of $4 billion.

Ford said it reduced its automotive debt by $1.3 billion in the quarter to $12.7 billion. It reported positive automotive cash flow of $400 million, but automotive gross cash declined by $1.2 billion to $20.8 billion.

Its chief financial officer, Lewis W. K. Booth, said the company was on track to surpass its 2010 full-year operating profit of $8.3 billion, even though its automotive operating margins would be slightly lower. Its operations have earned $7.7 billion so far in 2011.

“The core of the business is very strong,” Mr. Booth told reporters at Ford’s headquarters. “We’re doing all this while we’re investing for the future.”

Ford workers on Oct. 19 ratified a new four-year deal with the United Automobile Workers that the company said would increase its labor costs by less than 1 percent annually. Most of the company’s 41,000 U.A.W. members will get bonuses of $6,000 and profit-sharing checks of about $3,750 this month.

The new contract prompted Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings to upgrade Ford’s credit rating two notches, to BB-plus, which is one level below investment grade. Moody’s is considering a similar upgrade.

With the labor issue settled, analysts now say they expect Ford to resume paying a dividend to shareholders as soon as 2012. The company suspended its quarterly dividend in 2006.

Mr. Booth said Ford would restore its dividend “as soon as we think our balance sheet will stand it,” but he declined to give a specific timeframe.

Brian A. Johnson, an analyst with Barclays Capital, predicted in a note to clients this week that Ford would announce a dividend early next year and pay 36 cents for 2012, increasing to 55 cents in 2015.

“The key debate around Ford continues to be the sustainability of — or potential for improvement in — Ford North America pretax profits, especially in light of tailwinds from pricing and what may turn out to be lower than previously guided headwinds from commodities and structural costs,” Mr. Johnson wrote.

Shares of Ford fell 4.5 percent to close at $11.74 on Wednesday.

For the first time since the global economic crisis brought the American automobile industry to its knees in 2008, all three Detroit automakers appear poised to post a profit.

Ford Motor Co., the strongest of Detroit’s Big Three and the only one to make it through the crisis without a taxpayer bailout, is scheduled to report its third-quarter earnings today. All indications from the company and analysts are that it will be Ford’s 10th consecutive profitable quarter, reported The Detroit News.

Chrysler Group LLC is due to report its results Friday. The Auburn Hills automaker last reported a quarterly profit in the first quarter of 2011.

General Motors Co. is slated to release its third-quarter results Nov. 9. It is expected to report a profit.

With three new national contracts with the United Auto Workers that preserve competitive gains made in tougher times — including Chrysler, which appeared Tuesday to have won ratification of its agreement with the UAW — America’s automakers seem to be making the most of their new lease on life.

“It’s the reincarnation of the industry,” said analyst Michael Robinet of IHS Global Insight. “It’s a new focus on content — delivering to the customer — and bottom-line profitability, versus yesteryear, which was about keeping your labor pool busy at all costs and expanding your top line with little focus on your bottom line.”

Last week, two ratings agencies raised Ford’s debt to one notch below investment grade. That was partly a result of the new national contract the company negotiated with the UAW, but also a testament to progress the company continues to make.

“The upgrades to Ford’s ratings reflect the automaker’s strong financial performance and continued debt reduction through the first nine months of 2011,” Fitch Ratings wrote Oct. 20. “Fitch expects slowly strengthening global automotive demand and Ford’s competitive product portfolio to drive continued (free cash flow) strength.”

Fitch said Ford’s credit rating could be restored to investment grade within the next year. That is significant, because once two of the three major ratings agencies return Ford to investment grade, the Dearborn automaker will be able to redeem all of its U.S. assets — including the Blue Oval itself — which were pledged as collateral for the $23.6 billion it borrowed in late 2006 to fund CEO Alan Mulally’s turnaround plan.

To achieve that, Ford needs to continue to chisel away at debt, which stood at $14 billion at the end of June.

Ford investors are looking for a resumption of dividend payments, suspended five years ago.

Last week, Ford Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said dividends could be restored prior to achieving investment-grade status. Barclays Capital analyst Brian Johnson expects Ford to pay a dividend of 36 cents next year, increasing to 55 cents by 2015.

At Chrysler, the big news will be the earnings themselves. Chrysler posted a profit of $116 million in the first quarter of 2011, the first since it was taken over by Italy’s Fiat SpA as part of a 2009 bailout deal brokered by the Obama administration.

The company said it made money in the second quarter, but used all that cash to pay back loans from the U.S. and Canadian governments. Now Fiat, which is struggling because of weak sales in its home market and declining demand in key overseas markets like Brazil, needs Chrysler to begin generating positive cash flow.

Speaking in Rome on Tuesday, Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne promised it would.

“Chrysler is giving a fundamental contribution to Fiat’s profits as it takes advantage of the improved U.S. and Canadian markets,” he said. “It is running at almost double the speed compared with Fiat.”

Recently, analysts have expressed concern that Chrysler could drag down Fiat. But Marchionne disputed that.

“Neither Fiat nor Chrysler would have made it alone in the long run,” he said. “Fiat was too small, too penalized by the European business model to have some chance of success. Together, in 2011, we will sell 4.2 million cars, and we’ll become the fifth-biggest carmaker in the world. By 2014, we will sell 5.9 million cars.”

General Motors has posted six straight quarters of profits since emerging from bankruptcy two years ago.

But GM is not only posting big profits. It is also flush with cash. The company ended the second quarter this year with $39.7 billion in liquidity. The biggest question facing the Detroit-based carmaker is what to do with it all.

Analysts have suggested that GM might use its large cash reserves to buy back some of the U.S. government’s remaining stake in the company.

American taxpayers became the largest owners of GM stock after giving the company $49.5 billion in 2009. The federal government sold off 412 million shares following the company’s initial public offering last year, but the Treasury Department still holds 500 million shares — an overhand that some analysts say is spooking investors and weighing down GM’s share price.

They say GM could remedy that by buying back some of those shares. CEO Dan Akerson was asked about that in a June interview with The Detroit News, but he declined to comment on the suggestion.

Ford Motor Co.’s reliability ranking in the Consumer Reports annual auto survey tumbled as its namesake brand slid to 20th from 10th last year among 28 brands while Japanese automakers captured nine of the top 10 spots.

Ford’s ranking suffered because the new Explorer SUV, Focus compact and Fiesta subcompact all scored below average for reliability, the Yonkers, New York-based publication said in a statement. Buyers reported problems with dashboard touch-screens used to control entertainment functions in some Ford vehicles. Chrysler Group LLC’s three rated brands all improved, reported Bloomberg.

Ford and General Motors Co. have shown profit and market- share gains, built in part on the perception of improved quality. Today’s results may damage that reputation, said David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports’ Automotive Test Center.

“Ford took a big drop with their new cars,” Champion said in a telephone interview before the study was released. “They have been on a roll over the past five years. They need to get a handle on some of their new technologies.”

This year’s results are similar to last year’s when Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. tied with the most models with top scores, and Ford was the only U.S. automaker receiving top marks. Toyota’s youth-oriented Scion brand was No. 1, Lexus placed second and the Toyota brand ranked sixth. Honda’s luxury marque Acura ranked third, while its namesake brand finished fifth. Mazda Motor Corp.’s Mazda was fourth.

Consumer Reports surveyed 5 million of its subscribers and received feedback on 1.3 million vehicles for the study.

Fiat SpA-controlled Chrysler made improvements. Its Jeep brand placed 13th and was the highest-ranking U.S. brand. The Chrysler brand moved up 12 spots to 15th and Dodge ranked 21st.

Chrysler’s newest models were ranked average or above average for reliability, Champion said. That bodes well for future model years because automakers typically make improvements after a new model goes on sale, he said.

“This is good news for Chrysler,” Champion said. “It shows that they are starting with a good basis for improvement.”

For Ford, the chief complaints were related to the company’s MyFord Touch and MyLincoln Touch audio, entertainment and navigation systems and a new fuel-saving transmission, Champion said. Malfunctioning touch screens had led to a plunge in Ford’s ranking in J.D. Power & Associates study of new-car quality earlier this year.

The Consumer Reports survey is “a lagging indicator,” Wes Sherwood, a Ford spokesman, said in an interview. “We’ve been working through these issues and we’re seeing improvement.”

In the Consumer Reports study results released today, GM’s top-selling Chevrolet brand held its ranking at 17th. Buick and Cadillac each fell six places to 24th and 25th, respectively. GMC finished 22nd.

The Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid was GM’s most reliable car in the survey, Champion said. This is the first year the Volt was reviewed by Consumers Reports.

Toyota, which was plagued by recalls of millions of U.S. autos in 2009 and 2010 related to unintended acceleration claims, had good results in the Consumer Reports survey, Champion said.

The top 10 included Nissan Motor Co.’s Infiniti brand in seventh, Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd.’s Subaru eighth and the Nissan brand ninth. Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co.’s Volvo ranked 10th. The namesake brands of Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. were 11th and 12th.

Other than Volvo, all European brands finished in the bottom half of the survey.

Volkswagen AG’s namesake brand placed 16th while its Audi luxury brand finished 26th. Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz ranked 18th. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s BMW was 19th and its Mini brand came in at No. 23. Porsche SE’s Porsche plunged from second last year to 27th and Tata Motors Ltd.’s Jaguar was last.

“The Europeans have been doing poorly for the last four or five years,” Champion said at a press briefing in Detroit. “The Europeans have a different sense of the market. In the U.S., cars are more like appliances and people expect to turn it on and everything should work. In Europe, cars are more an extension of your personality.”

Ford Motor Co. said its total annual labor expenses will increase less than 1 percent over the four-year term of its new contract with members of the United Auto Workers union.

The contract’s lump-sum payments to workers, including a $6,000 bonus to be paid to each of Ford’s 41,000 UAW workers for ratifying the contract, will cost Ford $280 million this year, company officials said on Thursday in a presentation to analysts. The bottom-line impact of lump-sum payments will be $80 million this year and about $80 a year in each of the next four years, the company said. Other changes and benefits in the contract will lower Ford’s labor costs by $10 million this year and $20 million next, Ford said.

Costs of the contract will “be more than offset by improvements in manufacturing flexibility,” said Mark Fields, president of the Americas for Ford.

Changes include adding flexibility to plants and other steps to increase productivity, according to The Wall Street Journal. Structural costs are not anticipated to increase materially over the period of the contract, said Lewis Booth, the chief financial officer.

Ford plans to hire 12,000 new workers over the course of the contract. If U.S. sales of vehicles stays at current levels or increases slightly, Ford said it still plans to hire most if not all of the workers based on the current need, Mr. Fields said. Ford’s 41,000 hourly workers ratified a new four-year contract this week with 63 percent vote in favor of the contract.

Ford was the most vulnerable of the three Detroit auto makers because its previous contract didn’t have a “no strike” clause that was included in contracts held by General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC.

Ford said it will invest a total of $16 billion in the U.S.—$6.2 billion directly in plants—through 2015. It also raised the entry-level and top-end wage for newly hired workers, a key goal of the UAW to begin to close the gap in wages between long-time employees and new ones.

Ford is planning to buy out skilled tradesmen for as much as $100,000 a worker. Ford said it would like to reduce the number of tradesmen by between 900 and 1,000 from the 9,000 it now has, said John Fleming, group vice president of manufacturing and labor affairs.

Mr. Fleming told analysts that by the end of 2015, Ford’s U.S. work force would be composed of around 8 percednt of so-called “second-tier” workers who make a lower starting wage.

Fitch Ratings on Thursday upgraded its rating of Ford Motor Co. to “BB+” from “BB” with a positive outlook to achieve the last notch below investment-grade status in the wake of successful ratification of a new labor agreement.

“The upgrades to Ford’s ratings reflect the automaker’s strong financial performance and continued debt reduction through the first nine months of 2011, as well as the recent completion of the United Auto Workers labor agreement,” the ratings agency said in a report.

Auto sales are still slow to recover, but Fitch cites Ford’s “continued net pricing strength” and a lower cost structure. That should allow the automaker to generate strong margins and free cash flow in a weak market while continuing efforts to reduce its debt load to $10 billion by 2015, reported The Detroit News.

The move does not come as a surprise as rating agencies in recent months said they would look at upgrading Ford’s credit status upon successful completion of its labor negotiations.

Ford Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said earlier Thursday he thought the labor contract would be favorably received by ratings agencies. Ford is hoping to return to investment-grade status again soon, but achieving it “is not an absolute necessity to pay dividends,” Booth told investors.

“Our shareholders have been very patient. It would be nice to get investment grade ahead of time, but that’s not in our control,” Booth said.

Barclays Capital on Thursday said contract ratification paves way for a quarterly dividend of 8 cents.

“With the contract behind it, Ford is likely to consider instituting a regular dividend,” said Barclays analyst Brian Johnson. He expects Ford to pay a dividend for 2012 of 36 cents, beginning with an 8-cent dividend in the first two quarters of 2012, ramping up to 10 cents per quarter in the second half and 55 cents by 2015.

But Ford could announce a dividend when third-quarter results are released next Wednesday, Johnson said.

Fitch expects Ford’s rating could be upgraded in the next 12 to 24 months, but said reaching investment grade — “BBB-” would require financial assurances Ford is strong enough to withstand the cyclical pressures on the auto industry.

The agency does not want to assign investment-grade ratings to Ford unless it is reasonably confident the automaker has the liquidity, cost structure and profit-generating potential to maintain the status even in a period of economic stress.

But elevating Ford to “BBB-” or higher is likely if the company continues with its current business plan, Fitch said.

“We continue to make progress on our plan, and we are pleased with this positive step,” said Ford spokesman Todd Nissen. “Ultimately, the credit rating agencies determine when we return to investment grade. Our job is to stay focused on making progress on our plan.”

Mark Fields, Ford president of The Americas, said Thursday that Ford’s mid-decade outlook remains intact with the terms of the new labor agreement.