fuzzymoomoo Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 (edited) I completely missed that. Why is market share being brought up like its the end all-be all again? Edited March 3, 2015 by fuzzymoomoo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 What if he's just been trolling us this whole time? I would laugh Then I will create a DDOS attack on blueovalforums.com to make his life miserable! I'm kidding. I would never do that. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 I completely missed that. Why is market share being brought up like its the end all-be all again? Because that's what doom and gloomers do. Pick a (perceived) negative and run with it! Retail F-Series sales were up, which means ATPs were up on F-Series. That's more important than market share. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpd80 Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 We know that Ford is deliberately product constrained so the true measure of effectivnes would be inventory levels. Go look at GM, are they talking about slowing up production at some plants? Production capacity is leverage and high inventory levels are the tell tale that companies wasted resources building too many vehicles and mow have to spend more money to get rid of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Because that's what doom and gloomers do. Pick a (perceived) negative and run with it! Retail F-Series sales were up, which means ATPs were up on F-Series. That's more important than market share. Which is why I was wondering why market share is even being brought up, when in the end, ATP drives profit more than Market Share does Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 We know that Ford is deliberately product constrained so the true measure of effectivnes would be inventory levels. Go look at GM, are they talking about slowing up production at some plants? Production capacity is leverage and high inventory levels are the tell tale that companies wasted resources building too many vehicles and mow have to spend more money to get rid of them. If the Fiesta inventory is sitting at around 20,000 right now, my guess is Cuactitlian is going to have to be idled for a while to trim that down. I've heard rumors at MAP over the past week that we will be idled for a few weeks soon if Focus and C-Max sales keep tanking. This report doesn't ease my fears at all, combined with the sea of cars just sitting in the holding lot not moving and then intrepidatious posting his month old car was actually build a year ago tells me there's still a TON of 14s out there unsold. My money is on MAP being idled for at least a total of a month this summer, maybe more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Gas prices are on the way back up, which should help small car sales somewhat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Because some people are upset that Ford isn't building the vehicles they want them to build and declining market share is the only way they can even attempt to support their assertions that Ford is building the wrong vehicles. Also - some people don't understand the difference between profit and market share, even when you point out that GM was #1 in market share and was losing Billions and went bankrupt. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Gas prices are on the way back up, which should help small car sales somewhat. It might help Focus sales, I'm far less optimistic about the C-Max. The FE rating changed absolutely killed it. I doubt that unless the MCE for the European gas version makes it over here that there is a snowballs chance in hell it ever gains year over ever again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 It might help Focus sales, I'm far less optimistic about the C-Max. The FE rating changed absolutely killed it. I doubt that unless the MCE for the European gas version makes it over here that there is a snowballs chance in hell it ever gains year over ever again. I agree. I don't think there is much help for the C-Max. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 I agree. I don't think there is much help for the C-Max. Sure seemed like a good idea at the time - a dedicated (North America at least) hybrid body style like Prius. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Sure seemed like a good idea at the time - a dedicated (North America at least) hybrid body style like Prius. Yes it did, but I think the MPG adjustment hurt its credibility. Plus, it isn't a Prius. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Sure seemed like a good idea at the time - a dedicated (North America at least) hybrid body style like Prius. We've been building some plug in versions for Europe on and off since October. Weird since the 2015 body for NA is different than Europe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ice-capades Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 I'm going to take a hopefully quick break from working on my store's inventory and websites to share a few thoughts and notes about this thread's conversations and comments so far... As of a moment ago, Ford's stock is down $ 0.41/share, a shareholder reaction to today's sales report. No question that the Winter season has affected sales but Ford by comparison did poorly in February compared to GM & Fiat/Chrysler. Fleet sales can be important, especially to corporate fleets vs. the rental fleets which often have a negative impact on residual values. Everything Ford's done in recent years has been based on profits... from plant scheduling, incentives, etc. Unfortunately, along the way Ford keeps losing Market Share. No question that a profitable company has more resources to make continuing investments in future products. However, consider the bearing that Market Share can have long term in regards to building a customer base for repeat sales. Ford is cautious in matching competitors' incentives, which I understand, but at what point does the Company continue to lose Market Share before looking for an answer moving forward? Ford and its Dealers still face a lot of issues in growing the business in North America. At this point I have to think that Alan Mulally probably feels that he left the Company at the right time. There are numerous manufacturing issues, especially based on commodity issues that are never ending and change on a daily basis. Dealers are forced to deal with the commodity issues each week in order to get orders scheduled, often buying vehicles that they don't want because the vehicles they want cant be scheduled due to the scheduling commodity issues. The 2015 Fiesta & Focus are great vehicles yet subject to gas prices. The C-MAX line has been a big disappointment lately and needs attention. Fusion should be doing much stronger sales volume considering it's quality, styling, etc. vs. the competition but Ford has been reluctant to match the competition's incentives which may be wise but hurts at the dealership level. Our store could sell a lot more 2015 Fusion's if we could get more Fusion "S" models to support dealership advertising but we can only get them in small quantities at certain times because Ford wants to build mostly the SE & Titanium models with a lot more profit potential. Ford offered Dealers a lot of 2015 Mustang allocation early on but now that sales are taking off we're fighting to get new allocation! Ford uses its own creative math when determining the allocation it offers. In our store's case, we'd sold and delivered (3) 2015 Mustang GT's out of our stock inventory last month by the cut-off date and Ford offered us NO Mustang's for April production. We asked for April allocation for 3 Mustang's to replace the units we delivered but haven't heard yet what our April allocation will be. Since then, we're written factory orders for another Mustang GT and an EcoBoost Premium Coupe. So we've now sold (5) 2015 Mustang's in the past month at a store that only sells about 12 per year and we're now fighting to get allocation to maintain our inventory and get customer orders scheduled and built. Of course, getting Mustang's scheduled and built is one thing... getting them actually shipped is another issue! I won't bore anyone with my comments on the SUV/CUV/Truck sales. However, there are a lot of concerns at the dealership level with the OTD (Order to Delivery) times on a number of vehicle lines. Order a Fiesta, plan on it arriving at least 3 months or more after its scheduled. The Fiesta transit/shipping time is easily a month or longer to a Northeast Dealer. C-MAX OTD can be 3-4 months due to Ford scheduling and plant issues. Fusions out of Mexico ship pretty quick and arrive in a mostly reasonable time. Mustang scheduling and shipping is probably among the worst and has been for years. The old Transit Connect (Turkey) took 4-4.5 months for OTD prior to production moving to Spain. Now a Transit Connect takes at least 4.5-5 months for OTD. The new big Transit that's built in Ohio? Our store has already sold and delivered about 10 times the number of 2015 Transit's compared to our total E-Series sales in the past 4-5 years, yet the OTD for the Transit is at least 12 weeks. As such, there are both manufacturing and transportation issues that are affecting dealerships' ability to increase sales. If we can't get the product we need in a timely manner... I'm out of time and spent more than I should have but wanted to share these thoughts and comments, although I'll expect that a lot of others will take exception. Ford has the best designed and best quality vehicles in its history and I want to see both Ford and its Dealers to excel both in sales volume and profitability! Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Thank you ice-capades, I'm glad someone on the dealer level can give us good insight on how things work on that level. It sounds like Ford has a transportation issue bigger than its production issues. I know that nationwide, there is a shortage of rail cars (and locomotives amongst class I railroads) which contributes to the delayed shipping times. I think part of the delays coming out of Flat Rock have to to with the city of Woodhaven's battle with Canadian National and their track that feeds into Flat Rock Yard. It's a single track that crosses over a major road and trains routinely block the road for an hour or more sometimes. They've been putting massive pressure on the Railroad and the State/federal governments to help that. Combined with the rail car shortage it's a perfect storm of fail. It's amazing they aren't building more Fusion S models, yet they're building more Focus S models than I've seen since I started working at MAP almost 2 years ago. Also, the new full size transit is built at KCAP, not OHAP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 As I've said before I think we're still seeing the effects of several years of cost cutting at both the engineering and factory levels and the massive undertaking to consolidate global platforms at the same time. I think they're beginning to recover - hiring more engineers e.g. and I think now that the global platforms are done and F150 and mustang updated we'll start to see a shift in products and manufacturing. I still don't see them chasing market share at the expense of profit but there is probably room for a little more volume and more production without going overboard. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Where is production going to be added? I'm not sure of the status of the ROW plants, but in NA, there really isn't many places to add production without building an all new Facility. Makes you wonder if they should have mothballed Twin Cities instead of demolishing it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sullynd Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Flex is in a nose dive too. Nose dive? It's pretty consistent, no? It's been outselling the C-Max most months (narrowly lost this month). The Flex is no where to be found. I need to replace my Escape. I'm holding out for the 2015 Edge, but don't love it, so I thought what the heck, get a second Flex. Each dealer within driving distance of me has 1 or 2. None have a two tone (white/silver roof), which is what we'd want, many are Ecoboost, which I'd love, but is more than I'd like to spend. Depending on how I like the Edge when I sit in it, I may hope the Escape holds out until the 2016 Explorer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Nose dive? It's pretty consistent, no? It's been outselling the C-Max most months (narrowly lost this month). The Flex is no where to be found. I need to replace my Escape. I'm holding out for the 2015 Edge, but don't love it, so I thought what the heck, get a second Flex. Each dealer within driving distance of me has 1 or 2. None have a two tone (white/silver roof), which is what we'd want, many are Ecoboost, which I'd love, but is more than I'd like to spend. Depending on how I like the Edge when I sit in it, I may hope the Escape holds out until the 2016 Explorer. Order a Flex. You won't be disappointed! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJensen Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Everything Ford's done in recent years has been based on profits... from plant scheduling, incentives, etc. Unfortunately, along the way Ford keeps losing Market Share. No question that a profitable company has more resources to make continuing investments in future products. However, consider the bearing that Market Share can have long term in regards to building a customer base for repeat sales. Ford is cautious in matching competitors' incentives\ They're losing market share because, unlike GM and Chrysler, they had to work their way through the last recession, and that means they had to cut production to be able to survive a recession. GM and Chrysler floated through the recession on government money, and therefore, they are less profitable than Ford on a per unit basis, and still have a lot of that 'good times' manufacturing foot print that is going to bite them in the butt at the next downturn. You need to look past this current sales boom and into the next bust; there's always going to be another downturn, and you need to plan to thrive during that downturn. Ford has done that. GM and Chrysler have not. The worst thing that Ford could do now is add capacity in order to match incentives in order to match market share in a market where GM is admittedly outdoing the competition in subprime financing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Exactly. How long can the competition continue to pull ahead sales with big incentives? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Exactly. How long can the competition continue to pull ahead sales with big incentives? Until the people with at best questionable credit default on their gaurenteed approval 7 year financing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fgts Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Until the people with at best questionable credit default on their gaurenteed approval 7 year financing. You totally on Kool-Aid if you don't think any Fords are sold that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanh Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 (edited) note to people NOT involved in the selling and financing side....only people with good credit and better qualify for loans over 60 months through Ford or Banks that have RESPECTABLE interest rates.....now banks such as Santander etc may finance anyone, and if an individual defaults on a loan, the onus is on the Loan institution...so Ford plays its pretty smart.... Edited March 3, 2015 by Deanh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 You totally on Kool-Aid if you don't think any Fords are sold that way. No, I know that there are Fords sold that way, but not through Ford Credit, and not at as high of a rate as some others, I'm looking at you Kia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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