Production Impact to Dealers

[succeed23]

Anyone aware of the impact all these shortages are having on dealerships? I'm surprised that I haven't seen any reporting of smaller Ford dealerships closing. As a consumer, I tend to think about the impacts I'm experiencing but I'm aware of at least one story where a salesman quit because he apparently wasn't getting paid because he had no cars to sell. I'm wondering how long small dealerships can last in this environment.

[danglin]

My small town dealer is buying vehicles at Auction now. The Sales Manager has joked that they have become a used vehicle dealership now!  They are part of a Family of Dealerships though which should help them "weather the storm".

[succeed23]

I'll add some information I got from Jim Farley's interview on CNBC. Ford is looking into the idea of stock piling chips, and changing more of their components to fit multiple types of chips. Ford is also planning to work directly with chip companies rather than go through a middleman. Hopefully changing the components is something that can be down sooner than later; this would effectively/hopefully reduce the impact of the shortage and thereby increasing sales.

[todd270]

There is a Chevrolet dealership in town that doesn't have one new full-size truck on their lot.  I tried to sell them my F-250, but they wouldn't get anywhere close to what I ended up selling it for.  Guess some dealers aren't hurting too badly.