ice-capades

Agreed. A terrible business model.

I know that I posted a message recently about Ford making big changes to it's incentives program. Due to the impact of the microchip shortage on production and distribution, Ford's been reducing and/or eliminating incentives to reflect the "Supply vs. Demand" situation. The whole rebate scenario didn't exist until the Spring of 1986 when the old General Motors introduced retail rebates to increase sales and clear out inventory causing the rest of the industry to follow suit in order to remain competitive. Over the years, customers got so accustomed to the rebates that even a slight reduction in rebates caused sales to drop as customers waited for a better/increased incentive on the vehicle they wanted. The constant rebates reinforced customers' opinions that the product was overpriced, reinforcing the continued need for the OEM's to offer rebate incentives. As of yesterday, Ford has basically eliminated the standard Retail Customer Cash rebates on most vehicle lines with the exception of the following vehicle lines. The examples below are for the New York Region only. 2021 Transit Passenger Van - $500 2021 Transit Van - $500 2021 Transit Connect Van - $500 2021 Transit Connect Wagon - $500 The primary focus now is on providing Retail Trade-In Assistance Bonus Cash to existing customers. Hopefully this will lead to a more stable pricing scenario going forward, with far less use of rebates and incentives, and an opportunity for Ford to actually increase the potential profit margin (MSRP vs. Dealer Invoice).

Ford's posted a notice to Dealers about a special Dealer Broadcast on Monday, June 7th with a full product reveal prior to the public reveal on Tuesday, June 8th.

SiriusXM's customer service is horrible and they should offer subscription options online, including pause or cancellation, but instead they force customers to call them. All the TV streaming services (Hulu, Paramount+, etc.) all customers to make changes online including pause or cancellation. And if you cancel, they'll send you an offer a few months later with another free trial to get you back.

There have been a lot of good examples included in the discussion here of potential fleet and commercial applications for the Maverick. Ford may not like selling vehicles at the entry level or lower end of the price spectrum but price is a driving force for fleet sales. Even if there's minimal fleet incentives for the Maverick, the substantially lower price point compared to Ranger will make it attractive for many fleet and commercial applications that need only a low cost, basic vehicle to meet their needs. We'll know better when Ford releases the 2022MY Maverick Order Guide.

IIRC Terminix bought 1,000 extra Ranger's when Ford announced that they were dropping the last generation Ranger. Similar to what the L.A. County Sheriff's Department did when Ford dropped the Crown Victoria. Both wanted to make sure they had enough vehicles available for their fleets until they could decide on a replacement.

Ford must have changed the Window Stickers for "Plan" retail orders and is no longer displaying the customer name. I just went looking for samples and found the attached for one of our customers. It's an X Plan order (Identified as Item #13-9999 O/T X) but doesn't include the customer name. I also checked an A Plan sticker and that didn't show the customer name either, just the Order Type. 1FTFW1EDXMFB66961_WS_X Plan.pdf

Yes... A/X/Z/D Plan

Ford Window Stickers for retail orders, including "Plan" orders, are green, stock orders are blue and performance vehicles (Shelby, ST's, etc.) are red for easy identification. The green stickers for the retail orders also make it easy to identify them at the final rail destinations in order to help expedite delivery to the dealerships. Regular retail orders have no customer identification on the Window Stickers but those for "Plan" orders have the customer's name included in the equipment/options list.

That's the 4 minute "preview" video.

Ford's notice to Dealers is all screwed up. They posted a preview video last night yet the note on that page says it was published June 3rd! Other note tells Dealers to watch the broadcast today but doesn't tell when. Typical mess. They might mention a planned production start but we'll know for certain when they include the production timetable in the FDNB report, which could be included in Friday's FDNB report that'll be released over the weekend.

The changes to the 2022MY Super Duty are minor. This isn't the first time Ford's started scheduling retail orders ahead of the "Okay to Buy" status but there's no way to know in advance that they're making an exception to the regular scheduling process until they notify Dealers.

It's old news to those here. It's only news to unaware Dealers and the public.

2022MY Super Duty scheduling starts tomorrow, not today. This is an exception that Ford's making to the usual procedure of not scheduling retail orders until the 'Okay to Buy" status is achieved. And it is not "preliminary" scheduling, whatever that is. It's actual production week scheduling.

SCHEDULING TOOLBOX - SCHEDULING PLAN This is the tentative scheduling plan for the production period. This is just a guide for scheduling. This information is tentative and may change at any time. THIS INFORMATION APPLIES TO UNSCHEDULED ORDERS ONLY. I just realized that I somehow overlooked uploading the scheduling plan for this week! FYI... My dealership has a Retail 2022MY Super Duty (F-350 Lariat 4x4 SuperCab, #618A, 7.3L, FX4 Off-Road, Tough Bed Spray-In Bedliner, Lariat Value Package) showing on this morning's "AM Preview Scheduling Report" that is showing that it will be scheduled for production the week of July 26th rather than the the week of July 12th as indicated in Ford's Scheduling Toolbox. Blue Oval Forums_Production Week Scheduling_2021-05-31.pdf

As I posted in other threads... Retail 2022MY Super Duty orders will start scheduling tomorrow.

If it's showing "In Production" and "Sent to Plant" it's in the early stages... just wait until next week but give it time.

22MY Super Duty Startup Scheduling – On Thursday, June 3, retail 22MY Super Duty orders will begin scheduling.

21V709 Mat also be referenced as F21709

Post or PM the dealer name and location and I'll look up the Dealer Code for you.

The following updated/revised order guides have been uploaded to the Dealer Order Guides section and are now available for download. 2021 Bronco Sport Order Guide 2021 Bronco Sport Order Guide (Canada) 2021 Escape Order Guide (Canada) 2021 Escape Plug-In Order Guide (Canada) 2021 Expedition Order Guide 2021 Explorer 4-Door Order Guide 2021 F-150 Order Guide (Canada) 2021 F-150 Police Responder Order Guide 2021 F-150 Police Responder Order Guide (Canada) 2021 Medium Duty F-650 & F-750 Order Guide 2021 Mustang Order Guide 2021 Mustang Order Guide (Canada) 2021 Mustang Mach-E Order Guide (Canada) 2021 Police Interceptor Utility Order Guide (Canada) 2021 Super Duty Chassis Cab Order Guide (Canada) 2021 Super Duty Pickup Order Guide (Canada)

There are a number of updated Ford Order Guides (U.S. and Canada) that I downloaded and processed earlier this morning. I'll upload all of them when I get back later this morning.

No problem... understood.

As of this morning, there are no updated Lincoln Order Guides. I'll check again later just to be sure they're not released late.

Yes, Intel is playing catchup to their computers but their stock buybacks instead of increased R&D investment isn't what's affecting or created the general microchip shortage across so many industries that are trying to react to the tremendous increase in demand for consumer products.