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Ford Motor Company April 2015 Sales Results


Anthony

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Bell Weather Midsize sedan sales

Toyota Camry 34,066
Honda Accord 27,251
Ford Fusion 24,954
Nissan Altima 22,108
Chrysler 200 18,850
Hyundai Sonata 18,340
Chevy Malibu 17,430
Kia Optima 13,666
VW Passat 6,623
Subaru Legacy 5,276
Mazda6 4,995
Buick Regal 1,647

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http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/upshot/you-can-rent-whatever-you-want-as-long-as-its-an-impala.html?referrer=

 

I assume the 'other than non-rental/20%' is fleet. You are right, none of the older model is retail. It's probably too embarrassing for Chevy to break out the actual retail sales of the New Consumer Reports' Favorite Child Impala.

Is there still a police version of the old Impala for sale?

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I was hoping that Ford's national numbers would be even stronger but the numbers in CT always trail the national numbers. We had a good but not great month for new vehicle sales but a very strong month for used vehicle sales.

 

One competing dealer had very strong April new vehicle sales but as a regular sales tactic gives away half of the holdback money to produce numbers which is just a matter of whoring the market. We don't deal on holdback as our customers have no problem paying for Ford vehicles. A lot of our customers are conquest sales from other brands but we don't just try to sell the vehicles. We sell the entire dealership and the customer experience, etc. The dealer "whore" just cheapens the market overall and gives up profits unnecessarily to make numbers and as a result hurts everyone else.

 

Every month we have to fight with Ford to get more vehicle allocation than they offer us. We can sell "X" number of a Ford model this month and they can offer us no production allocation the following month. Even to maintain our inventory we need to be able to replace the inventory we've sold and delivered, let alone increase our market share. It's a regular battle that goes on month after month, year after year.

 

Transportation problems are another longstanding issue. Ford doesn't get paid for vehicles until they're delivered to dealers yet our vehicles routinely sit at the final rail ramp for at least a week and a half or longer before being delivered to the store. In other cases, it's the Order-to-Delivery time that is a problem. A Fusion built in Mexico will routinely arrive in 6-8 weeks maximum but a Fiesta will take 3-4 months. A full-size Transit built in Kansas runs 3-3.5 months, etc. Looking for a Mustang and you'll find shipping out of Flat Rock to be a disaster. We just had a 2015 Mustang V6 arrive that sat at the plant for 10 weeks before being shipped but we sold it exactly 2 hours after it finally arrived at the dealership. It's hard to sell inventory when it doesn't arrive in a timely or reasonable manner!

 

Just sharing some general feedback from the trenches!

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feel the pain Ice-capades....I wonder what April numbers would have looked like had we actually HAD a good supply of inventory...FINALLY the 2015 Edge is trickling in, but 2015 F-150s are still short...2016 Fusions now arriving, but for the life of me cannot understand the full size Transit Wagons being as rare as they are,,,,

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http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/upshot/you-can-rent-whatever-you-want-as-long-as-its-an-impala.html?referrer=

 

I assume the 'other than non-rental/20%' is fleet. You are right, none of the older model is retail. It's probably too embarrassing for Chevy to break out the actual retail sales of the New Consumer Reports' Favorite Child Impala.

You're confusing total fleet sales as equaling only daily rental sales when it also

includes commercial sales and possibly government sales too.

 

Impala limited goes mostly to daily rental sales but others go to commercial and maybe/maybe not government too.

 

Do'h grbeck beat me to it...

Edited by jpd80
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feel the pain Ice-capades....I wonder what April numbers would have looked like had we actually HAD a good supply of inventory...FINALLY the 2015 Edge is trickling in, but 2015 F-150s are still short...2016 Fusions now arriving, but for the life of me cannot understand the full size Transit Wagons being as rare as they are,,,,

 

They must all be coming here....I've seen several new Transit wagons (by wagon you mean the passenger version, correct?).

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At over 13,000 sales, Edge answers the question of why it was chosen over a Fusion station wagon.

 

Just under 11,000 Transit sales shows how effective the new Van is in the market,

I expect that Ford is scrambling to build enough inventory, maybe why wagon is scarce?

 

(Are we still comparing GM Vs Ford strategies with mid size truck Vs Van?)

 

While Fusion may be just over 24,000 sales, add the Edge to it and that becomes 38,000.

We can do that because Edge is the extra Ute between Escape and Explorer...

Edited by jpd80
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Every month we have to fight with Ford to get more vehicle allocation than they offer us. We can sell "X" number of a Ford model this month and they can offer us no production allocation the following month. Even to maintain our inventory we need to be able to replace the inventory we've sold and delivered, let alone increase our market share. It's a regular battle that goes on month after month, year after year.

This is where Ford is now clearly a little too production constrained and not able to take advantage of feedback

from dealers in getting more products to them. I'd love to know how much maximizing production efficiency

is costing in terms of potential lost sales.. there has to be a trade off somewhere but maybe being al little

more positive with build numbers for popular products may work..

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One competing dealer had very strong April new vehicle sales but as a regular sales tactic gives away half of the holdback money to produce numbers which is just a matter of whoring the market.

 

Try this on for size. A family member had sourced a very particular used vehicle and walked into the dealership on the last Saturday of the month with financing in hand, and the dealership, rather than taking the money and turning a nice fat profit on about half an hour's work from the F&I rep at a time when they were swamped with customers, told them they couldn't accept an easily verified cashier's check from the 3rd largest bank in the country, and they would have to refinance with the SAME bank at the SAME rate through the dealership if they wanted to buy the car that day. Then they tied everyone involved in the purchase up for over an hour while they redid the paperwork. All to get their little sliver of holdback on a four digit car loan.

 

So, yeah, thanks for being one of the good guys.

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Rich, sometime a Dealerships buy rate through the SAME bank can be a point or so less than what a consumer can lock in themselves...i wonder if it was just to make some reserve....otherwise the whole scenario is just stupid...

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Oh, it was all about the (the way I figure it) couple hundred bucks they stood to make on the difference.

 

My guess is they could've easily made $2,500 in half an hour by writing up the purchase order & title transfer, but instead they drug out the process another hour and made maybe $3,000. On a day when the dealership was just swamped.

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Bell Weather Midsize sedan sales

 

Toyota Camry 34,066

Honda Accord 27,251

Ford Fusion 24,954

Nissan Altima 22,108

Chrysler 200 18,850

Hyundai Sonata 18,340

Chevy Malibu 17,430

Kia Optima 13,666

VW Passat 6,623

Subaru Legacy 5,276

Mazda6 4,995

Buick Regal 1,647

Encouraging, hopefully new Malibu and the Fusions/200s heat can put an American car in the top 3.

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Encouraging, hopefully new Malibu and the Fusions/200s heat can put an American car in the top 3.

My guess is that new Malibu and Malibu Limited will push Fusion all the way for third spot.

Remembering that GM is looking at increasing ATPs as well as sales volume..

Edited by jpd80
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Yeah, well, they're only going to get one of those probably.

Ah but then, they divorce low ATPs from their Malibu Limited fleet sales from new Malibu getting higher ATPs.

Much as they did with Impala double act......it's just GM talking out of both sides of its mouth.

 

How much money do they really make with keeping the old car versus cutting it, dropping a shift

and just selling new Malibu to fleet as well as retail?

 

The fact that GM seem unable to do this right now should be of concern...

Edited by jpd80
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Actually, only 2 American cars....Ford and GM. The 200 cars are British owned.

FTFY since FCA is "officially" a London-based company

 

But still not in the eyes of buyers it's Italian and the Chrysler slide of FCA is still ran out of Auburn Hills.

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