Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
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Stories from the Sales Frontlines
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Unfortunately, this practice is applied just as much to new as it is to used.
Rarely do these people need a car that just want something new or they want a new toy. Most of my clients have five or more vehicles and a couple of my clients have thirty or more vehicles.
There is just a lot more relationship building then in most other brands as well.
More likely the result of a pin stroke or a closed-head injury.
Since they fall into the dealer category, can you ask them if they would like to post here on our slow days?
Don't tell me they are all garage kept on their own premises.
jmonroe
'15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl
Matchbox cars and die cast models don't count.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
As I said, it is NOT because of some boycott that is so wll publicized that I had never heard of it and I am a conservative politically.
How bad is it at Ford?
1) I am a fleet manager for a manufacturing company. I have 15 cars in my fleet, 12 of which will be replaced this year. Ford signed a contract with the parent company to give us great pricing. My drivers want to hold on to their 3-4 year vehicles (mostly Chrysler) than drive new Fords. I am NOT making this up. (Personally, I am happy as my fleet expense will be lower as they don't drive a ton of miles).
2) I attended a Ford presentation. The average age of the people presenting were 50+. And the presentation showed that. No enthusiasm at all. Big yawn.
When Detroit downsizes, all the newly fired people (mostly young) get laid off and the new fresh talent never gets hired. That applies to the engineering, manufacturing and even the marketing.
And all that has nothing to do with some silly boycott.
Gay people buy food too. Is the "Family Rights" group going to ask grocers to stop selling to them as well?
Probably. This guy in the street behind ours is building what looks to be about a 16 car garage(2 story) for his "collection".
Gonna wait till he's done building it, then check to see if it is up to code. :P
2018 430i Gran Coupe
He is a collector he buys and sells four or five cars a year always rotating stuff in and out of his fleet.
Nevertheless, it sounds like Ford needs all the buyers it can get: gay, straight, foreign, native, alien (illegals and Area 51.) Maybe they should start broadcasting ads through gamma waves to the rest of the Milky Way.
I will be taking my LR3 in about 2 weeks on a 1,000 mile trip and I'll report back on the outcome. This vehicle is awesome!
Sales story... When I purchased my LR3, my "sales-guide" had his desk positioned right on the showroom floor. I never had to visit the F/I office as everything was taken care of right at his desk. There were not any other sales-guide desks close by for anyone to over-hear our conversation/negotiation. I felt that I got a fair deal with my trade and on the new 2006 vehicle. Trading one SUV for another can't be too bad!
Mark156
Since we now go from 9 planets to 12 in the solar system I'd say that Ford is looking good...
But as usual things are only expressed in one point of view. Maybe the market was saturated with Ford dealerships. I certainly don't find that suprising, and if anything the cutbacks are exciting to people like me at the dealerships that will benefit from faster turn around.
It's been tough to keep some models in stock (oddly enough Mustang GTs on one end of the spectrum and Focus on the other.)
This isn't the first time a situation like this has come about, and it won't be the last. And Ford certainly isn't the only company to have its ups and downs. What I do notice though, for whatever reason, is that when something isn't going perfectly right at Ford, its VERY well publisized.
Regardless, and despite the negetivity, there is a lot to be excited about regarding the Ford family of car lines. They DO make good quality cars and trucks, and they are constantly re-invinting and improving. The 07' Fusion with it's massive array of standard safty features and available AWD is looking great, the new Edge looks to be very competitive in it's class, the Escape and Escape Hybrid are showing very strong sales, and gas prices are moving Focus out the door at a very high rate. (And this is all just the Ford line.)
Bottom line is, Ford is in the middle of a much needed transitional phase. And I really think as time goes on the positive effects of that transition will show and you'll see a huge turn around in both financial outlook and the media attitude towards Ford.
Oh and by the way, I've already got my business cards in orbit around Pluto. I expect calls soon.
It certainly looks ugly but the whole story is a little less ugly. Ford has managed to do quite well outside the US market, they are actually profitable until you figure in the US losses....the US sales arent living up to expectations, and thus the US sales numbers paint a poor outlook....they have a tough road ahead for the domestic market. They have some good product out right now and even better stuff in the pipeline...hopefully consumers will agree.
I didn't know that Mickey's dog could drive.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Several things:
1) Ome of the reasons why the company's issues are so well publicized is the ownership structure where the family controls more voting control of their company than the % of their shares.
2) Their acquisitions haven't paid off as they promised Wall Street.
3) They put the bulk of their new products into larger vehicles and allowed their car selection to grow stale. I mean, look how long they went with the Taurus ...
4) They have had BIG issues with their new products. How many recalls did they have with the Focus before they get it right?
5) Look at the MAJOR quality issues over the past 10 years -head gasket and transmission issues on the Taurus/Windstar, exploding gas tanks on the Crown Vic Police Interceptors, the tire issues on the Explorers. What other major OEM has had that kind of publicity?
6) In my family, we bought Ford products almost exclusively. I switched back to GM after several problems with my 2 Mercury Topazs and rarely see my mechanic and I am at 120k. My sisters have both switched to Toyotas.
Well yeah, If Goofy can Pluto can too. You'd be amazed what Disney characters can do when they put thier minds to it. :P
Please don't bring this up. All the 'explosions' of police cars that I've read about happened when the car was rear-ended while stopped, emergency lights operating, by a drunk driving at high speeds. One where the impact speed was estimated to be 70mph!
A punctured gas tank and fire are expected results of something like this. A Crown Vic isn't a tank.
I agree with you to a certain extent. However, if you look at the cases across the board, the CSPI had a much higher incidence of fires than did the Police Impala OR the Police Caprice.
However, it was a highly publicized case. Perception is as important as reality.
And it wasn't even an especially fast turtle.
I thought of this after hearing a friggin ton of car commercials while listening to baseball games this weekend. I figured that even with deep incentives, there must be some 06s that simply go unwanted. Especially if the 07 is a re-do.
I guess maybe a way to tie this into the topic would be to ask the various dealers out there what the biggest discount was that they ever gave on one of these types of "get it off the lot at any cost" sales?
Selling at or below invoice with a large rebate is reletivly common, as are financing terms that are very favorable such as 0% APR for extended financing (60-72 months in some cases.) This typically makes the models so easy to move over the newest that they clear out pretty easy.
If there WERE any leftover and they were on the lot a very long time, most likely they would go to auction. Hope that helps answer your question.
There is no such thing, every car gets sold. It may be sold at deep discounts, my first new car was a leftover from the previous year (and it was in April that I bought it) and it was something like 25-30 off of sticker. However don't expect prior years cars to be on the lot that long.
Other times they might be wholesaled off, traded, donated to some charity or cause, or returned back to the manufacturer to be used for whatever purpose.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
The local Lincoln dealer is still trying to unload new 2005 Aviators.
The San Jose area has a lot of independent car lots with newer cars that have to be coming from somewhere. I'm presuming they're getting them from places that have sent them to auction for whatever they could get.
But a car has to be really beyond current model year, and likely the newer car has to have a redesign before they get that desperate.
I never audited a dealership with inventory that old. I would have thought they would have done something to get rid of it.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Plenty of examples....I remember last year, Pontiac had a bunch of '04 GTOs left on the lot. The '05 model got a new 400 HP corvette engine with 50 more HP than the '04 models, which made the '04s even less desireable than they already were. There were enough factory and dealer incentives on them that some actually bought an '04 for something like $10K off MSRP (around $22-$23K). They sold all of them to someone at some point.
Local Ford dealer had about 6 new Taurus' sitting on his lot on all of them showing a price of around $15K, I believe. After about 2 months, they were all gone.
Audi just had '06 A6s with a $6K factory to dealer incentive on them. Two local Audi franchises advertised $9K off (obviously, giving the customer the incentive and deeply discounting the cars) any A6. I think there are maybe 2 A6s left in the entire city.
It's human nature to buy bargains....
Who knows why they were left over. Could be they came in at a bad time (like mine, a roadster arriving at dealer in December), or maybe not as popular a color (like the Anniversary Yellow that someone else mentioned). Whatever, if it fits the buyer's framework, it's a fantastic find.
Actually, its human nature to knock the seller over the head with a club and take what you want.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
And one of the dealerships in Cincinati was selling leftover 2005 Taurus SEs for $11.8k. Eventually ALL cars are sold. It is just a matter of when the dealership decides to take the hit.
Speaking of Freelanders, I saw one drive down a local street on Sunday that may have been the worst-maintained late-model car (they only go back to 2003, right?) I've ever seen. And it wasn't being driven by a kid, nor was it a commercial vehicle. It was just beaten up almost beyond recognition.
The difference in operating procedures between the detroiters and the transplants is significant in how many of one model year may be going stale as the new model year comes out.
Toyota and Honda have a 'pull' type of supply chain all the way back to the raw material suppliers. As one is sold one is pulled from the most recent allocation one is built at the plant with the materiel and parts being pulled from the suppliers.
It's not done one at a time but it's done by overall turnover. A specific dealer with a certain history may sell 80 trucks every 15 days. As the year progresses, subject to seasonal demand, each period the RDR's from that store are monitored to ensure that the 'normal' deliveries are being made. If a store begins to fall behind others in its region then that store is penalized by not being given it's 'normal' share of new inventory. OTOH if a store is booming and growing, exceeding its allocation goal every month, it's rewarded with extra vehicles to sell. Thus the strong sellers get more than the weak ones.
In addition when a store makes significant plant and facility improvements it too is rewarded - in advance - with additional units to help it defray the cost of the expansion. The expectation is that a newer facility will generate higher unit sales.
Since the system is built on a sales-driven 'pull', barring some dramatic outside event one can forecast with very very good accuracy how many of a given vehicle will be built, shipped, sold by a given date - say the launch date of the 2007 MY. Very very often the last one or two of an older MY will be sold on the day or week that the new MY vehicle begins to arrive.
A significant difference in philosophies between the two groups of producers is that there is little or no 'push' by the transplant factories onto the retail outlets. With a weak market for large SUV's and trucks we have received almost no Tundras, 4Runners or Sequoia's for 8 weeks - and we are the largest in our district in each vehicle class.
Yeah that 13 Freelanders is accurate too. The model was basicly discontinued in the US by middle of 2005. Some Land Rover dealers were kind of dumb and when the last order call came in for freelanders they actually ordered Freelanders. We did not which was a very, very good thing. The couple of times we needed to get a freelander for someone we just bought them from another Land Rover Dealer. It kept us from having to have them in stock when they were basicly unsellable.
May we ask what it was about the Freelander that made it unsellable?
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Now in 2002 when they came to the US they were the most advanced Land Rover.
Only land rover with a 5 speed automatic with comandshift program and sport program. They were also the only SUV in their class with those features.
Only land rover with a fully independent suspension.
Only Land Rover with a unibody or monocoque chassis.
Now in 2003 with the New Range Rover came out it was light years beyond any other vehicle on the market. Nothing even came close and it really showed how inadequate the Freelander was.
The freelanders were either good or very very bad. There was no middle ground. By 2005 everyone knew freelanders were the lease reliable Land rover ever made and the lease residuals were in the 30 something percent range for a 36 month lease.
They actually drive ok but have all kinds of ergonomic weirdness and just about guaranteed transmission failure at around 50,000 miles.
I can imagine this backfiring in some cases--dealer gets more allocation but doesn't sell it, and has to carry the extra inventory on top of paying for the facility improvements--ouch!
Word is out on the Neons. They've been around too long and there are too many alternatives.
More than likely, they have. It's up to the dealer to take that money and use it to sell the vehicles. If they don't, the manufacturer has done everything it can.
As for old/dead inventory, it's a fact of life for all businesses that makes or sells "stuff". Every once in a while, you have to look at it and bite the bullet. You sell it cheap, donate it, or throw it away.