Ford Inventory Discussion

[rmc523]

1 hour ago, mackinaw said:

 

I did read someplace a few weeks back that customer orders are way up.  Wish I could find the link, but it appears that some would-be buyers are content to order a vehicle and wait.

 

Yeah, dealers have next to nothing in stock for people to just walk out with, so the choice is order or no car.

 

You'd have to get EVERY dealer to operate in "order-only" mode, and everyone would flock to the one that didn't because they could get what they want day of rather than waiting.

 

Most people are impatient.

[ice-capades]

14 hours ago, jasonj80 said:

Not sure if it’s just typical downtime on the A/X/Z site but every vehicle is showing as N/A for pricing. Also a few dealerships I checked around Metro Detroit that normally list the plan prices just show sticker price. 
 

Is Ford is suspending AXZ sales with the inventory problem?

 

Ford dealership websites are hosted by one of four automotive web hosts that a dealership can choose from. MSRP, Ford incentives and other pricing information is sent to the web host that then displays the vehicle pricing per the Dealer's pricing structure. Not all Dealers display pricing for A/X/Z Plan sales. D Plan prices are never displayed as D Plan pricing is restricted to dealership employees only.

 

I checked a number of dealership websites last night and again earlier this morning and the pricing is screwed up on all the sites, regardless of which firm is hosting the individual sites. 

[ice-capades]

12 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

That's because nobody has anything in stock for someone to just walk in and leave with. 

 

And the F-Series, both F-150 and Super Duty, are the most difficult because there are so many different models, trims, configurations, etc. 

[HotRunrGuy]

14 hours ago, jasonj80 said:

Not sure if it’s just typical downtime on the A/X/Z site but every vehicle is showing as N/A for pricing. Also a few dealerships I checked around Metro Detroit that normally list the plan prices just show sticker price. 
 

 

Jason, I'm currently logged-in to the AZ-plan site, and plan pricing is shown.

 

HRG

[jasonj80]

46 minutes ago, ice-capades said:

 

Ford dealership websites are hosted by one of four automotive web hosts that a dealership can choose from. MSRP, Ford incentives and other pricing information is sent to the web host that then displays the vehicle pricing per the Dealer's pricing structure. Not all Dealers display pricing for A/X/Z Plan sales. D Plan prices are never displayed as D Plan pricing is restricted to dealership employees only.

 

I checked a number of dealership websites last night and again earlier this morning and the pricing is screwed up on all the sites, regardless of which firm is hosting the individual sites. 

Yeah looks like it is all fixed, must have been some unplanned maintenance going on, normally they post when they are doing that. Got concerned with the inventory issue if Ford was going to say no for a bit to plan sales.

 

Talked to a dealer on Friday when looking at the Bronco Sport who said they were calling every customer with a lease coming due before the end of Jan 2022 and having them come in a get their order in for their next vehicle. He was saying people kept saying no I don't want to turn my lease in early and weren't understanding that  the call wasn't to turn their lease in. It was to make sure they had a car when their lease was up even though it is 6+ Months away; They had no clue about the shortage. He is also desperate for F-Series on the used lot, said Super duties with the diesel are in crazy demand. 

[Flying68]

15 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

I like your suggestions GearheadGrrl ma'am. They have great potential for cost savings that benefit automakers, dealers, and consumers.

 

However, in the U.S. there is a unfortunate tendency of new car customers to reject the "sold order" approach. Automotive News wrote an article about this 5 years ago. Sadly not much has changed since then. Maybe the shortages of new cars right now will cause consumers to change their mind and embrace the approach you mentioned? Why Americans reject build-to-order cars (autonews.com)

 

 

 

 

11 hours ago, rmc523 said:

 

Yeah, dealers have next to nothing in stock for people to just walk out with, so the choice is order or no car.

 

You'd have to get EVERY dealer to operate in "order-only" mode, and everyone would flock to the one that didn't because they could get what they want day of rather than waiting.

 

Most people are impatient.

 

I have found that it is dealers that discourage customers from ordering, at least in my experience.  They always seem to push you to the one that they have in stock because they need to sell that one in order to get it off their books.  The automakers are at fault for this also because they sell to the dealer, so once it hits the dealer lot they made their sell.

 

How to change this would be to have a tester of each trim level with the basic options and one that is fully loaded, plus color and interior samples.  Then make the order process faster.  The dealer order system should be able to spit out exactly how fast an order will arrive.  There should also be no more than 2 weeks from time of order to customer delivery.  The only reason it takes 8+ weeks now is because they are building stock orders for dealer inventory.  If they instead focused on filling production with sold retail orders, they could get them to customers faster.  Make the dealer stock orders only as secondary production to smooth line flow (keep those as basic trim levels with few to no options).  Eliminate allocation, make all retail orders 1st come 1st serve so that production is built and sold that way, no more needing to wait because some small dealer doesn't have allocation.  This will force dealers to compete on customer service and treatment.  Pricing should inevitably rise, but maybe not as much as some might think.  One upshot of a faster order/delivery timeline is much lower unsold order inventory.  Take the deposit, two weeks later car shows up.  Much less opportunity for the situation to change.

 

I would order every time.  Only needed to twice.  Our Lincoln the dealer found one for us that matched exactly what we wanted to order.  My Expedition I found on the internet, which had every option I wanted and the exterior color was one of the ones I would take, plus the deal was too good to pass up.

[ice-capades]

6 minutes ago, Flying68 said:

 

 

I have found that it is dealers that discourage customers from ordering, at least in my experience.  They always seem to push you to the one that they have in stock because they need to sell that one in order to get it off their books.  The automakers are at fault for this also because they sell to the dealer, so once it hits the dealer lot they made their sell.

 

How to change this would be to have a tester of each trim level with the basic options and one that is fully loaded, plus color and interior samples.  Then make the order process faster.  The dealer order system should be able to spit out exactly how fast an order will arrive.  There should also be no more than 2 weeks from time of order to customer delivery.  The only reason it takes 8+ weeks now is because they are building stock orders for dealer inventory.  If they instead focused on filling production with sold retail orders, they could get them to customers faster.  Make the dealer stock orders only as secondary production to smooth line flow (keep those as basic trim levels with few to no options).  Eliminate allocation, make all retail orders 1st come 1st serve so that production is built and sold that way, no more needing to wait because some small dealer doesn't have allocation.  This will force dealers to compete on customer service and treatment.  Pricing should inevitably rise, but maybe not as much as some might think.  One upshot of a faster order/delivery timeline is much lower unsold order inventory.  Take the deposit, two weeks later car shows up.  Much less opportunity for the situation to change.

 

I would order every time.  Only needed to twice.  Our Lincoln the dealer found one for us that matched exactly what we wanted to order.  My Expedition I found on the internet, which had every option I wanted and the exterior color was one of the ones I would take, plus the deal was too good to pass up.

 

Sales representatives are generally trained to sell from stock. The dealership makes their money sooner and the sales representative gets paid their commission sooner. When the customer wants a vehicle with specifications that aren't in stock, Dealers will usually try to locate the vehicle needed and trade with another dealership. However, there are times when a customer has very specific needs and it's better to order it. 

 

When inventory is tight, it's harder to meet a customer's requirements and easier to order the vehicle, especially if the customer doesn't need the vehicle ASAP and there's an incentive from Ford. The dealership takes the customer out of the market initially and still has their stock inventory to sell to another customer. Later, when the ordered vehicle arrives, it's a paper transaction with the vehicle being delivered within days of arrival and the dealership has no inventory floorplan expense. 

[rmc523]

3 hours ago, Flying68 said:

 

 

I have found that it is dealers that discourage customers from ordering, at least in my experience.  They always seem to push you to the one that they have in stock because they need to sell that one in order to get it off their books.  The automakers are at fault for this also because they sell to the dealer, so once it hits the dealer lot they made their sell.

 

How to change this would be to have a tester of each trim level with the basic options and one that is fully loaded, plus color and interior samples.  Then make the order process faster.  The dealer order system should be able to spit out exactly how fast an order will arrive.  There should also be no more than 2 weeks from time of order to customer delivery.  The only reason it takes 8+ weeks now is because they are building stock orders for dealer inventory.  If they instead focused on filling production with sold retail orders, they could get them to customers faster.  Make the dealer stock orders only as secondary production to smooth line flow (keep those as basic trim levels with few to no options).  Eliminate allocation, make all retail orders 1st come 1st serve so that production is built and sold that way, no more needing to wait because some small dealer doesn't have allocation.  This will force dealers to compete on customer service and treatment.  Pricing should inevitably rise, but maybe not as much as some might think.  One upshot of a faster order/delivery timeline is much lower unsold order inventory.  Take the deposit, two weeks later car shows up.  Much less opportunity for the situation to change.

 

I would order every time.  Only needed to twice.  Our Lincoln the dealer found one for us that matched exactly what we wanted to order.  My Expedition I found on the internet, which had every option I wanted and the exterior color was one of the ones I would take, plus the deal was too good to pass up.

 

Ford has been working on reducing build combinations for vehicles.

[akirby]

It does benefit the dealer to sell from stock but that’s how most buyers want to buy.  They want to see it and test drive it and drive it home.

Also retail (customer order) vehicles are always built before dealer stock if possible based on priority.  

[jasonj80]

53 minutes ago, rmc523 said:

 

Ford has been working on reducing build combinations for vehicles.

Were working on that. The past 12 months that has changed. The escape, bronco, bronco sport, explorer and f150 have actually gained build combinations. The actual packaging on the BS is also just crazy. It makes no sense as to what is included or not included on each trim. Hopefully that gets fixed for 2022. 
 

 

[GearheadGrrrl]

Did a search on cars.com for pickups within 50 miles of my rural home, came up with 60 total- 36 Ram, 18 Chevrolet and GMC, and only 6 Ford. Price wise, the cheapest pickup was a Ram and the cheapest Ford was $10K more- That makes Ram tempting even if you're a Ford driver. Even if chip supplies returned to normal tomorrow it'll take at least the rest of the year for inventories to return to the "normal" 60 days and with crop prices up the farmers will be looking for trucks to buy before the end of the year to reduce their tax liability. It may be outside their "comfort zone", but Ford and the dealers need to quickly learn how to market and incentives BTO sales to survive.

 

[rmc523]

1 hour ago, jasonj80 said:

Were working on that. The past 12 months that has changed. The escape, bronco, bronco sport, explorer and f150 have actually gained build combinations. The actual packaging on the BS is also just crazy. It makes no sense as to what is included or not included on each trim. Hopefully that gets fixed for 2022. 
 

 

 

Who knows, maybe Farley is going away from that - or honestly, right now, it could just be a commodity thing - normally they'd like to stick to having packages A, B, C, D, but right now they can only get parts for half of A, 1/4 of C, 1/3 of D or B, so mix and match?

 

I know a long of folks over at 6g don't like a lot of the available combos of options (especially odd interior color options/limitations) for the big Bronco - but then again, they literally nitpick everything on that vehicle to the point where you wonder why they're even buying one.

 

Interior wise, I think they should've just offered gray, tan, or black in cloth or leather, or black MGV on all trims and been done with it, and left the unique interior colors (blue, etc) to the trim of the year.  But what do I know lol.

 

24 minutes ago, GearheadGrrrl said:

Did a search on cars.com for pickups within 50 miles of my rural home, came up with 60 total- 36 Ram, 18 Chevrolet and GMC, and only 6 Ford. Price wise, the cheapest pickup was a Ram and the cheapest Ford was $10K more- That makes Ram tempting even if you're a Ford driver. Even if chip supplies returned to normal tomorrow it'll take at least the rest of the year for inventories to return to the "normal" 60 days and with crop prices up the farmers will be looking for trucks to buy before the end of the year to reduce their tax liability. It may be outside their "comfort zone", but Ford and the dealers need to quickly learn how to market and incentives BTO sales to survive.

 

 

I think Ram still makes the old "Classic" 1500 alongside the new model, which gives them a pricing advantage.

[jasonj80]

32 minutes ago, rmc523 said:

 

Who knows, maybe Farley is going away from that - or honestly, right now, it could just be a commodity thing - normally they'd like to stick to having packages A, B, C, D, but right now they can only get parts for half of A, 1/4 of C, 1/3 of D or B, so mix and match?

 

I know a long of folks over at 6g don't like a lot of the available combos of options (especially odd interior color options/limitations) for the big Bronco - but then again, they literally nitpick everything on that vehicle to the point where you wonder why they're even buying one.

 

Interior wise, I think they should've just offered gray, tan, or black in cloth or leather, or black MGV on all trims and been done with it, and left the unique interior colors (blue, etc) to the trim of the year.  But what do I know lol.

 

 

I think Ram still makes the old "Classic" 1500 alongside the new model, which gives them a pricing advantage.

I think that is some if it now, the Badlands is gone for the rest of 2021 for ordering as is the moonroof across the board among other issues. The Outer Banks and Big Bend are almost the same on the BS where you can almost get a Big Bend to a Outer banks and the Badlands is a weird combo of exclusive features but also missing features all at the same time. The Features are weird 2.0L (Badland),  rain sensing wiper (Other Banks), heated wiper park (Outer Banks), front camera with washer,(Badlands) rear camera with washer (Big Bend & Outer Banks) Ambient Interior Lighting (Outer Banks) Locking Rear end (Badlands) Even the different names for Co-Pilot Assist+ or 2.0. Would have been easier to just make it a Badlands Package and offer it on Big Bend or on Outer Banks rather than a full trim line. Ford also has way to many trims on the Bronco too. They should have really had 4, one base with a few options 2 with the mid/high/lux  package. One designed for Style and one for Off Road and one that is just Fully loaded with both packages.

I agree they don't seem very happy over there, they are angry about everything, some of that is the way Ford has handled this but other is seems every person in the US is miserable right now and is just looking for a fight so it just carries on there. 

Edited May 10, 2021 by jasonj80

[rmc523]

59 minutes ago, jasonj80 said:

I think that is some if it now, the Badlands is gone for the rest of 2021 for ordering as is the moonroof across the board among other issues. The Outer Banks and Big Bend are almost the same on the BS where you can almost get a Big Bend to a Outer banks and the Badlands is a weird combo of exclusive features but also missing features all at the same time. The Features are weird 2.0L (Badland),  rain sensing wiper (Other Banks), heated wiper park (Outer Banks), front camera with washer,(Badlands) rear camera with washer (Big Bend & Outer Banks) Ambient Interior Lighting (Outer Banks) Locking Rear end (Badlands) Even the different names for Co-Pilot Assist+ or 2.0. Would have been easier to just make it a Badlands Package and offer it on Big Bend or on Outer Banks rather than a full trim line. Ford also has way to many trims on the Bronco too. They should have really had 4, one base with a few options 2 with the mid/high/lux  package. One designed for Style and one for Off Road and one that is just Fully loaded with both packages.

I agree they don't seem very happy over there, they are angry about everything, some of that is the way Ford has handled this but other is seems every person in the US is miserable right now and is just looking for a fight so it just carries on there. 

 

Yeah, it's definitely not been the smoothest launch, but for me, with all that's going on in the world, it's the worst time to launch a vehicle, so I'm more understanding than most there.  Everyone is also shocked and further angered by additional delays/changes, and I frankly can't understand why they're surprised - shutdowns from last year have had a ripple effect across multiple industries.  Obviously they're going to have issues with different things right now.

[jpd80]

Ford inventory May 1 2021

F Series.....................84,900

 

Anyone following F Series inventory will know that in normal times it’s roughly 230k-250k.

Given how many are stored without ECUs, this is looking pretty ugly as far as May sales are looking. Hopefully, more chips are inbound soon as plant ramps up production.

[mackinaw]

1 hour ago, jpd80 said:

Ford inventory May 1 2021

F Series.....................84,900

 

Anyone following F Series inventory will know that in normal times it’s roughly 230k-250k.

Given how many are stored without ECUs, this is looking pretty ugly as far as May sales are looking. Hopefully, more chips are inbound soon as plant ramps up production.

 

Meanwhile, GM keeps pumping out new pickups with virtually no interruption in production.  GM has done a masterful job in making sure their pickups have a constant supply of computer chips.  Ford on the other hand, has done a terrible job. It wouldn't surprise me if this is the year that Chevy sells more pickups than Ford.  

[rmc523]

3 hours ago, jpd80 said:

Ford inventory May 1 2021

F Series.....................84,900

 

Anyone following F Series inventory will know that in normal times it’s roughly 230k-250k.

Given how many are stored without ECUs, this is looking pretty ugly as far as May sales are looking. Hopefully, more chips are inbound soon as plant ramps up production.

 

Yeah, that's not good at all.

[fuzzymoomoo]

8 hours ago, mackinaw said:

 

Meanwhile, GM keeps pumping out new pickups with virtually no interruption in production.  GM has done a masterful job in making sure their pickups have a constant supply of computer chips.  Ford on the other hand, has done a terrible job. It wouldn't surprise me if this is the year that Chevy sells more pickups than Ford.  

I know a guy who works at Flint Truck. They’re doing the same thing Ford is and building them without the chips they can't get. 

[jasonj80]

36 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

I know a guy who works at Flint Truck. They’re doing the same thing Ford is and building them without the chips they can't get. 

Ft Wayne as well, parking lots are full of new Silverado's and Sierras; they also are just building without certain features as well. 

RAM is just using parts from the Classic to build the new trucks the best they can and Toyota isn't even making the Tundra right now. 

One idea that was floated is to start shipping the trucks to dealers and then sending the parts to dealers. The dealers can then install them on a sold unit or as the parts come in. It just becomes very costly this way on the backside but dealers have inventory on their lot. The parking lots around Detroit are becoming packed with Ford, RAM, and Jeep's. 

[Exit32]

22 hours ago, Flying68 said:

 

 

I have found that it is dealers that discourage customers from ordering, at least in my experience.  They always seem to push you to the one that they have in stock because they need to sell that one in order to get it off their books.  The automakers are at fault for this also because they sell to the dealer, so once it hits the dealer lot they made their sell.

 

How to change this would be to have a tester of each trim level with the basic options and one that is fully loaded, plus color and interior samples.  Then make the order process faster.  The dealer order system should be able to spit out exactly how fast an order will arrive.  There should also be no more than 2 weeks from time of order to customer delivery.  The only reason it takes 8+ weeks now is because they are building stock orders for dealer inventory.  If they instead focused on filling production with sold retail orders, they could get them to customers faster.  Make the dealer stock orders only as secondary production to smooth line flow (keep those as basic trim levels with few to no options).  Eliminate allocation, make all retail orders 1st come 1st serve so that production is built and sold that way, no more needing to wait because some small dealer doesn't have allocation.  This will force dealers to compete on customer service and treatment.  Pricing should inevitably rise, but maybe not as much as some might think.  One upshot of a faster order/delivery timeline is much lower unsold order inventory.  Take the deposit, two weeks later car shows up.  Much less opportunity for the situation to change.

 

I would order every time.  Only needed to twice.  Our Lincoln the dealer found one for us that matched exactly what we wanted to order.  My Expedition I found on the internet, which had every option I wanted and the exterior color was one of the ones I would take, plus the deal was too good to pass up.

I ordered my first new car 50 years ago. It was a 1971 Mercury Cougar XR7. Back then, most dealerships were small mom-and-pop businesses with an emphasis on service. Inventory at my local Lincoln-Mercury dealer was comprised of "sample" vehicles to represent each brand, model, and trim level that was available. A showroom display presented paint colors and interior samples to the customer. It was very much like Flying68's scenario, and my new Cougar was delivered to me about three weeks after I placed the order.

 

What's more, the list of available options was endless back then. The buyer was able to choose from among four or five different engines, three or four different transmissions, two or three different radios, and decide if power windows, seats, steering, and brakes were really necessary. A/C was an option, and you could even specify the rear-axle ratio. All that, and Ford was able to deliver a new vehicle -- exactly like the customer wanted -- in just a few weeks. Those were the days!

[GearheadGrrrl]

If Ford wants to sell out of dealer stock, it would help if they improved the search feature on the website. I've been shopping for a Transit Connect wagon with Trailer Tow Package and the default is within 20 miles so it shows me only the one dealer within 20 miles with inventory of zero. Toggle out as far as possible to 100 miles and I get all of three, and neither has the Trailer Tow Package. So what I had to do is keep inputting zip codes about 100-150 miles out and repeating the search, which netted me over 100, 10 of which had the Trailer Tow Package I need. I'm on a Transit Connect Facebook group where a lot of folks are shopping for Transit Connects and they're having to use the same strategy, for example in the San Fransisco Bay Area they're having to go to southern California to find Transit Connects.

 

That's a lot to ask of customers, and most will give up and buy another brand. I get that Ford and the dealers that run Ford Direct are trying to drive customers to the local dealer, but is the local dealer 70 miles away with the two nearest Transit Connects going to tell me there's another one with the option I want another 50 miles away, or will they keep me in the dark so they can sell me what they have in stock? 

[ice-capades]

10 minutes ago, GearheadGrrrl said:

If Ford wants to sell out of dealer stock, it would help if they improved the search feature on the website. I've been shopping for a Transit Connect wagon with Trailer Tow Package and the default is within 20 miles so it shows me only the one dealer within 20 miles with inventory of zero. Toggle out as far as possible to 100 miles and I get all of three, and neither has the Trailer Tow Package. So what I had to do is keep inputting zip codes about 100-150 miles out and repeating the search, which netted me over 100, 10 of which had the Trailer Tow Package I need. I'm on a Transit Connect Facebook group where a lot of folks are shopping for Transit Connects and they're having to use the same strategy, for example in the San Fransisco Bay Area they're having to go to southern California to find Transit Connects.

 

That's a lot to ask of customers, and most will give up and buy another brand. I get that Ford and the dealers that run Ford Direct are trying to drive customers to the local dealer, but is the local dealer 70 miles away with the two nearest Transit Connects going to tell me there's another one with the option I want another 50 miles away, or will they keep me in the dark so they can sell me what they have in stock? 

 

Ford Dealers have no involvement with FordDirect which is run solely by Ford Motor Company. 

[akirby]

14 minutes ago, GearheadGrrrl said:

If Ford wants to sell out of dealer stock, it would help if they improved the search feature on the website. I've been shopping for a Transit Connect wagon with Trailer Tow Package and the default is within 20 miles so it shows me only the one dealer within 20 miles with inventory of zero. Toggle out as far as possible to 100 miles and I get all of three, and neither has the Trailer Tow Package. So what I had to do is keep inputting zip codes about 100-150 miles out and repeating the search, which netted me over 100, 10 of which had the Trailer Tow Package I need. I'm on a Transit Connect Facebook group where a lot of folks are shopping for Transit Connects and they're having to use the same strategy, for example in the San Fransisco Bay Area they're having to go to southern California to find Transit Connects.

 

That's a lot to ask of customers, and most will give up and buy another brand. I get that Ford and the dealers that run Ford Direct are trying to drive customers to the local dealer, but is the local dealer 70 miles away with the two nearest Transit Connects going to tell me there's another one with the option I want another 50 miles away, or will they keep me in the dark so they can sell me what they have in stock? 

When you select inventory search from the Ford website you have an option to let Ford do a nationwide search for you.

 

Or your dealer can do a much wider regional search in about 30 seconds.

 

The tools are available to do exactly what you want to do.

[HotRunrGuy]

47 minutes ago, GearheadGrrrl said:

That's a lot to ask of customers, and most will give up and buy another brand. I get that Ford and the dealers that run Ford Direct are trying to drive customers to the local dealer, but is the local dealer 70 miles away with the two nearest Transit Connects going to tell me there's another one with the option I want another 50 miles away, or will they keep me in the dark so they can sell me what they have in stock? 

 

Grrrl, there are a couple of dealer employees involved with BOF, so if you don't trust your local dealer to be honest with you, post your zip code, how far you're willing to travel, and the wish list for the vehicle you want.  Nobody can help you if you don't provide basic location and vehicle information regarding what you want, and maybe you'll get a PM from one of them with some options to consider.

 

HRG

 

[akirby]