ice-capades

I no longer have access to the production schedule information.

The 2025 Mustang Order Guide is now available for download in the Dealer Order Guides section.

2025 Mustang Order Guide View File 2025 Mustang Order Guide LATE AVAILABILITY – Subject to Change ● None Submitter ice-capades Submitted 07/22/2024 Category Mustang  

This morning's gas prices in Hamden, CT (New Haven)  $3.54 Regular (Cash) @ Gulf  $3.65 Regular (Cash) @ Citgo

CT has been a 2-plate state for years. However, our dealership has had a longstanding policy to never install the front plate bracket on Mustangs unless the customer specifically requested and approved the front plate bracket installation. Even so, I've never heard of anyone in CT being cited for not having the front license plate installed. MA on the other hand will look for any excuse to write a citation. I was once driving my Mustang GT demo to our MA dealership and got pulled over and cited by a MA State Trooper because the Window Sticker wasn't visible!

When the Taurus and Explorer Police Interceptors were first introduced, the municipal orders skewed to more of the Taurus PI Sedans the first year. After a year's experience, the PI order banks skewed very heavily to the Explorer PI primarily due to the space limitations and other factors with the Taurus PI's.

The original 'Anti-Theft' package!

This morning's gas prices in Hamden, CT (New Haven)  $3.54 Regular (Cash) @ Gulf  $3.69 Regular (Cash) @ Citgo

Jeep People... Couldn't resist sharing!

No question that smaller vehicles are more price sensitive and under more pressure to achieve the desired profit margins. Ford's problem is that management makes short sighted decisions, abandons market segments to the competition, and then years later realizes that it needs to re-enter a market segment and then struggles to achieve positive results to any degree because customers have defected to the competition. Part of the problem is that Ford prices the smaller entry level vehicles at prices that leave the Dealer margin at less than $200 per vehicle, leaving little profit incentives at the dealership level. Add in the floorplan costs and the inventory costs raise to a whole different level.

Regarding the large SUV's, I'm not sure that "Dealer profit taking" is the issue. There are a lot of Dealers in smaller markets or in markets where the GM competition dominates sales, and the Expedition and Navigator vehicles get lost. A lot of those Ford Dealers order Expeditions to have one in stock, in markets where they only sell 1 or 2 per year and end up trading them to other Ford Dealers in part because they ordered vehicles with the wrong specifications (Model Trim and specifications) for their market. In particular, they make the mistake of stocking high end Expeditions that are beyond what their local market actually sells. They then try to sell those Expeditions at prices that their local market won't accept, and those customers buy the industry leading GM competitors.

The following updated order guides are now available for download in the Dealer Order Guides section. 2024 Edge Order Guide (Final) 2025 Explorer Order Guide

Jumps 14 Spots in the J.D. Power U.S. Initial Quality Study https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2024/06/27/ford-jumps-14-spots-in-the-j-d--power-2024-u-s--initial-quality-.html DEARBORN, Mich., June 27, 2024 – Ford leaps 14 positions in the J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Initial Quality Study, while Lincoln also improves its performance. Bronco Sport was named best small SUV for initial quality, outperforming 18 other models for the title. Ford jumped 14 spots to No. 9 from No. 23 and a number of Ford vehicles performed well in the study, which is based on feedback from drivers and data on vehicle repair visits during customers’ first three months of new vehicle ownership. Lincoln also improved its rank from No. 28 to No. 25. “We are making a lot of progress on quality and customers with our latest vehicles are benefiting from it,” said Jim Baumbick, Ford’s vice president of Product Development and Quality. “We have more work to do, as our ambition is to have best-in-class quality and we won’t be satisfied until we achieve and sustain it.” “Ford’s achievement of receiving the award for the Bronco Sport in the Small SUV segment shows their continued commitment to Initial Quality,” said Frank Hanley, senior director of auto benchmarking at J.D. Power. Additionally, 2024 Explorer, Maverick and Super Duty performed well, ranking second in their respective segments.

Ford Management Shakeup Puts Detroit in Control of Europe https://fordauthority.com/2024/06/ford-management-shakeup-puts-detroit-in-control-of-europe/ Ford Europe has been in the midst of a major shakeup over the past couple of years, which began back in 2022, when The Blue Oval announced that it would no longer operate as its own separate entity after 55 years of doing precisely that. Instead, Ford has ended its regional earnings reporting and is instead reporting financial results from its five total businesses – Ford Blue, Model e, Ford Credit, Ford Pro, and Ford Drive. Now, a recent management shakeup at the automaker has resulted in an even bigger change, it seems. According to Automotive News, Ford plans to downsize its management team in Europe – from nine directors to four – following the departure of Martin Sander, general manager of Ford Model e Europe, who is heading back to Volkswagen next month. Rather than replace Sander, Ford will eliminate his position and the deputy role, leaving FoMoCo’s U.S.-based management team in charge of its European operations. Thus far, Ford has only two of those four European director roles sorted – Rene Wolf will remain manufacturing director of the automaker’s European plants, while Christian Weingaertner will continue to oversee marketing and sales in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. A third position will be filled internally, while Ford will look outside the company for the fourth. Additionally, personnel manager Rainer Ludwig will retire, and all remaining, lower-tier executives will now report to Dearborn. All of these changes are set to take place on the first of July. “This change simplifies our administrative and management structure in Germany, gives us more speed of action and allows the management team to concentrate fully on its operational tasks and lead Ford into a successful future,” Ford Germany Supervisory board chairman Kieran Cahill said in a statement. In the meantime, Ford’s future in Europe is a bit murky at the moment after the automaker nixed its plans to go all-electric across that region’s lineup by 2030 or sooner. At the same time, Ford has been trimming its European workforce for months now, but it reportedly isn’t done laying off workers there, either.

I'd expect that other than visible items that are reported that there's probably feedback from those involved in the assembly process reporting issues along with suggestions, etc.

This morning's gas prices in Hamden, CT (New Haven)  $3.54 Regular (Cash) @ Gulf  $3.65 Regular (Cash) @ Citgo I've seen several articles lately forecasting gas prices to drop by as much as 10% this summer, yet Citgo prices went up this morning and are now $ 0.15 higher than the Gulf station only a few hundred feet away.

With numerous ownership changes for Chrysler over the years, along with the lack of attention and overall mismanagement, I'd doubt very much that Stellantis would ever consider selling off Jeep or Ram. Jeep has to be a cash cow and Ram's volume has increased tremendously over the years with the development of models that are finally competitive. Chrysler and Dodge have been neglected for years so there's always the possibility that they could be sold off. What they're worth and what anyone would be willing to pay is a different matter.

The major aspects of product quality start with the engineering. Assembly is a different issue but may involve minor engineering adjustments to address issues found during post-production inspections. These inspections may also uncover quality issues with vendor supplied components.

Car-Dealer Chaos Across U.S. and Canada as Massive Cyberattack Continues https://www.autoblog.com/2024/06/21/car-dealer-chaos-across-u-s-and-canada-as-massive-cyberattack-continues/ A dealership in Phoenix is handwriting paper contracts and gauging creditworthiness with guesswork. A Jeep owner in Alabama keeps calling about when a replacement part will be in stock. A family in New Jersey is waiting for word on when they can take delivery of their new Audi. Such is life for auto retailers and their customers across the U.S. and Canada after CDK Global — a software provider to some 15,000 dealers — was waylaid by debilitating cyberattacks. The barrage began June 19, costing U.S. dealers a burst of business on a federal holiday. CDK has warned that a second incident Thursday is likely to keep its systems down for several more days. The attacks have had a crippling effect on an industry that topped $1.2 trillion in sales last year just in the U.S. CDK’s core product — a suite of software tools referred to as a dealership management system, or DMS — underpins virtually every element of auto retailers’ day-to-day business. There are only a handful of DMS providers for dealers to choose from after decades of consolidation. That’s left thousands of retailers highly reliant on each of the select few software companies that enable them to line up financing and insurance, manage vehicle and parts inventory, and complete sales and repairs. CDK’s parent, Brookfield Business Partners LP, had its worst trading day since October, plunging 5.7% on Thursday. Stock in dealer group AutoNation Inc. fell 3.6%, their biggest drop in two months. Group 1 Automotive Inc., Sonic Automotive Inc. and Lithia Motors Inc. shares also slumped. For Joshua Adams, the Jeep owner in Millbrook, Alabama, CDK’s outage comes at an inopportune time. He’d already gone weeks without his 2020 Renegade sport utility vehicle as he waited for a warranty claim to be sorted out. This week, he called his dealership to check if the final part needed to fix his vehicle had arrived, as expected. The service center was unsure, saying it was impossible to know because of the hack. “They can’t tell me where my part is or when it will arrive,” Adams said. “We are just up in the air.” He expects the delay will cost several hundred dollars in additional expenses for a rental car he’s driving in the meantime. In New Jersey, the Lanni family was excited to take delivery of a new Audi Q5. Daniel Lanni and his wife had removed the child seats from their old vehicle so they’d be ready for plopping into the new SUV. But on June 19, their dealer called to say the store’s computer system was down, and it wasn’t clear when they’d be able to take delivery. Lanni and his wife re-installed the car seats for their children – ages 3, 5 and 8 – and said they hadn’t heard more from the dealer as of Thursday afternoon. “The kids were really excited,” said Lanni, a 41-year-old commercial real estate broker. “They’re upset and now they’re just regularly asking about it.” Alex Padron, a sales manager at a Nissan dealership in Phoenix, said that business was “almost at a standstill” on Thursday. Everyone who’s purchased a vehicle from the store since 2014 — when it began using CDK’s software — has data stored in the system, he said. “It’s probably more than 50,000” customers, he said. The dealership is now handwriting paper contracts and finding novel ways to get deals done. He said workers in the finance department have had to “guess” customers’ creditworthiness based on “whatever information they can gather.” Since the attack began, the dealership has been able to process about half the transactions it usually can. Anything complicated — say, a purchase involving a trade-in or unusual financing — simply can’t get done. “For this store, I’d like to have 10 complete deals done a day,” Padron said. “Five, six, seven would be nice today.”

Cyberattack Having Big Impact on Dearborn Ford Dealership https://fordauthority.com/2024/06/cyberattack-having-big-impact-on-dearborn-ford-dealership/ As Ford Authority reported earlier this week, CDK Global was forced to shut down most of its automotive dealer management systems following a cyberattack, which is notable given the fact that it currently serves close to 15,000 dealerships in the U.S. at the moment. Since then, the company has been working to get those systems back online, but those efforts were hampered by a second cyberattack that occurred shortly thereafter. While some dealers are managing to get by in spite of this big problem, that isn’t the case with at least one Ford dealership, it seems. That Ford dealership is Village Ford of Dearborn, Michigan, according to Automotive News, which is in the midst of hosting its big annual tent sale that has taken place for 40 years now. The problem for this specific Ford dealership – which uses CDK’s systems – pertains to contracting, meaning that it’s able to complete most of the sales process up until the very end, though it has to rely on other vendors to get there, too. However, without the contracting piece present, it’s also unable to deliver vehicles to customers. “We have never experienced something like this, where we are just shut out of our operating system for two days,” said Jay Sturtz, Village Ford’s general sales manager. Sturtz admits that this problem has been a “wakeup call” for the dealership, noting that it plans to be better prepared for any future outages. Meanwhile, it continues to hammer out deals and try to figure out ways around its contracting issue. “For us as a dealership, we are always pretty innovative and we can adapt to situations,” Sturtz said. “That’s what dealers do.” In recent years, as automobiles become more and more connected and digitized, concerns over cybersecurity have followed. Ford has worked to get ahead of potential cyberattacks in a number of ways, while various U.S. government agencies attempt to do the same. Regardless, there’s still some work to be done, as is evidenced by these widespread cyberattacks.

Ford EV Tesla Charging Adapter Still Facing Delays https://fordauthority.com/2024/06/ford-ev-tesla-charging-adapter-still-facing-delays/ As Ford Authority reported back in late April, some Ford F-150 Lightning and Ford Mustang Mach-E owners have been facing delays in receiving their complimentary Tesla charging adapter, which enables Ford EV owners with the Combined Charging Standard (CCS) plug to utilize the Tesla Supercharger network and its North American Charging Standard (NACS) chargers. At that time, FoMoCo blamed supply chain issues for this delay, and now, it seems as if Ford EV owners are still facing delays for the very same reason. “The supply is constrained,” Ford spokesman Marty Gunsberg told the Detroit Free Press. “Sales are up and customers continue to reserve their complimentary adapter. We keep getting reservations. We’re not overwhelmed. This is what we anticipated. While we’re shipping weekly, reservations continue to come in. We appreciate our customers’ patience as we work on getting their fast-charging adapter to them.” Gunsberg stopped short of naming which specific company might be causing this delay, only saying “we aren’t providing details on which supplier is constrained.” While select Mach-E and F-150 Lightning owners have in fact received these adapters over the past few months, others have gotten emails informing them that their shipments have been delayed by, in some cases, several weeks. In the meantime, F-150 Lightning and Mach-E owners can head to this new site to order their NACS adapter, and it will be available to do precisely that now through June 30th, 2024. It will enable them to utilize the Supercharger network, but after the cutoff date, this part will be sold for a retail price of $230. As for Ford Pro commercial customers, they’ll be contacted this spring with instructions on how to order their own adapters, too.

I use that phrase all the time about New England weather!

Besides whatever it costs CDK in ransomware fees, it's costing their Dealers a lot in lost business until this is resolved. In addition, it costs Dealers a lot of money for the monthly software fees paid to CDK. At a minimum, CDK is going to be crediting the Dealer accounts for the lost services. The DMS contracts often run for 5-year terms with monthly fees easily exceeding $10,000 depending on the services that a dealership subscribes to.

Thousands of Car Dealers Crippled by 2-Day Cyberattack Attack on vendor CDK cripples sales, back offices, parts and service operations https://www.autoblog.com/2024/06/20/thousands-of-car-dealers-crippled-by-2-day-cyberattack/ Auto retailers across the U.S. suffered a second major disruption in as many days due to another cyberattack at CDK Global, the software provider thousands of dealers rely on to run their stores. CDK informed customers Thursday of the incident that occurred late the prior evening. The company shut down most of its systems again, saying in a recorded update that it doesn’t have an estimate for how long it will take to restore services. “Our dealers’ systems will not be available at a minimum on Thursday,” the company said. On what otherwise would have been a busy U.S. holiday for business, dealers reliant on CDK were unable to use its systems to complete transactions, access customer records, schedule appointments or handle car-repair orders. The company serves almost 15,000 dealerships, supporting front-office salespeople, back-office support staff and parts-and-service shops. AutoNation Inc. led shares of publicly listed dealership groups lower Thursday, falling as much as 4.6% in intraday trading. Lithia Motors Inc., Group 1 Automotive Inc. and Sonic Automotive Inc. also slumped. Greg Thornton, the general manager of a dealership group in Frederick, Maryland, said his stores’ CDK customer-relations software had been down since early Wednesday morning. “I can only assume that CDK is working all hands on deck to resolve this,” said Thornton, whose group includes Audi and Volvo stores. “We’ve had no conversations with them in person or over the phone.” The National Automobile Dealers Association said Wednesday it was actively seeking information from CDK to determine the nature and scope of the cyber incident. CDK was spun off by Automatic Data Processing Inc. in 2014, then agreed to be acquired in April 2022 by the investment company Brookfield Business Partners in an all-cash deal valued at $6.4 billion.