It's been the worst sales month for a lot of company's including mine and our families, not just the big 3. My work is down but that don't mean I'm gonna work for less money than needed. Ford have to make a certain margin on these vehicles to make them worth selling. Same as i don't get out of bed for below my Daily rate. If the customer don't want to pay that then they can go elsewhere. Also it may have dropped 50% since last year but they ain't in a position like the other 2 are. Even if ford sell 50% of what they sold last year they are still making a big wedge of cash. Just don't expect them to be doing offers like the other 2 are.

 

I agree that they aren't with GM and Chrysler yet, but Ford still lost 5.9 billion in the last quarter and 14.6 billion last year. Based on the accounts I've read, they had roughly 13 billion of cash left at the end of their latest fiscal year and they were going to draw about 10 billion from their credit lines. So that gives them a projected buffer of roughly 23 billion. It won't take many more quarters of losing 6 billion before they are standing right next to GM and Chrysler . . .

The bottom line is that they need to start selling vehicles soon. They DON'T have the luxury of being able to let their inventory sit for a year while they ride this out. That could mean disaster. In the short-term, they could start moving trucks for a price slightly exceeding their variable costs to produce them, as that would still be more beneficial to them as a whole compared to letting them sit on dealer lots. Over the long-term they need to recoup their fixed costs as well, but in times like these they should be more concerned about their very survival.

Make no mistake, Ford is not in a position to manage their operations like they are Honda or Toyota.

 

It's the economy, nobody is buying cars right now. The industry went from 17 million units a year to probably less than 10 million!

Cheap used cars are doing well, but late model used and new are in the pits, I mean absolute disaster for so many dealerships.

 

Damn Raoul, that's a sweet deal!

 

EXACTLY - The most intelligent post in those whole string. People keep saying Ford must sell these vehicles at a profit. I agree that over the long term F must make a profit but in this current climate all domestic automakers are going to run at a loss. What is really key for them is to generate cash flow THIS YEAR! On the new F150, significant fixed costs were incurred to develop and bring the truck to market. The drain on cash flow from these costs were incurred in prior years (ie design, rd, retooling plants,,etc) so at this point it is history from a cash flow perspective.

When they sell an F150 their concern has got to be recovering their variable costs and maximizing the total amount of fixed costs they recoup FOR THIS YEAR. The fixed costs they recoup will be a positive addition to cash flow THIS YEAR. They maximize that fixed cost recovery by leaving the incentives low as long as possible and then increasing them to entice more buyers to the market SO LONG as the increase in volume offsets the increase in incentives.

MY OPINION is that Ford is keeping the incentives at there current level because they believe there are still some "early adopters" in market. As those buyers complete their purchase, demand will wane and the overall market will become more finnicky as to what incentives it will take to entice it. At that point, IN MY OPINION, Ford will adjust incentives. There are a lot of things coming down the pike that will work to that end, including summer gas prices, Ford's own need to generate positive cash flow and the overall soft market for cars.

MY OPINION is that we will see 0% financing at some point. I'm not saying that we will see rebates plus 0% but I bet we will see the interest rate incentives once Ford believes it has wrung all the early adopters out of the market.

Right or wrong, thats what I'm betting and I'm willing to hold out a while and see how things shake out over the next few months.

 

[QUOTE=Cougar Guy;3617909]The bottom line is that they need to start selling vehicles soon. They DON'T have the luxury of being able to let their inventory sit for a year while they ride this out. That could mean disaster. In the short-term, they could start moving trucks for a price slightly exceeding their variable costs to produce them, as that would still be more beneficial to them as a whole compared to letting them sit on dealer lots. Over the long-term they need to recoup their fixed costs as well, but in times like these they should be more concerned about their very survival.
QUOTE]

EXACTLY! The deals I've seen now are not that much better (within maybe 3%) than I was able to negotiate on an F150 in March 2008. The economy is definately in rougher shape and mark my words, F WILL be asking the Fed for aid in a few months. I disagree with the poster who says he won't get out of bed for less $. In my business, I've got people coming in daily rebidding their contracts to stay competitive and to stay working. In my business, unemployment is about 18%...those people would LOVE to have your job. This is a depression folks, those lucky enough to have jobs have frozen their buying, and standard offerings are not going to get them out to buy a new truck.

 

That's a shame you won't be driving a nice new F150 for a few months just to try and save maybe $1K.

Ford will either open up employee pricing to F150s OR do a 4-5K cash back (as opposed to the 3K right now). However, they will eliminate other incentives. I could also see a 0% APR for 36mo, 1.9 for 48 and 2.9 for 60 deal down the road, but you forgo the cash back. Same as always. So basically you guys are going to wait for them to shuffle things around and pay about the same you would today. Nice.

Truck sales are down. Car sales are down. For EVERYONE. GM/Dodge are wacking even MORE off their price tags and 0% APR and STILL MOVING LESS UNITS THAN FORD. So, if you are Ford looking at the compitition... they have even bigger discounts and still moving less trucks than you... what's the incentive to slap bigger incentives on your trucks?!!! "Oh if we offer up employee pricing + $3,000 cash back + 0% APR I bet we could sell 500 more units in March!!! Guess what? They would LOSE money vs keeping their already solid incentives in place. It's not worth losing money vs the minimal sales increase.

Let's look at the numbers: (YTD sales, Jan 09)
No. 1: Ford F-Series
25,237 -38.6% YTD
January 2009: 25,237
January 2008: 41,125

No. 2: Chevrolet Silverado
23,987 -33.6% YTD
January 2009: 23,987
January 2008: 36,122

No. 3: Dodge Ram
12,843 -35.5% YTD
January 2009: 12,843
January 2008: 19,902

Yeah yeah, Ford lost 0.3% of their market share. Whooptie doo. Nissan lost a full point. Toyota 0.5%. Chevy gained nearly 2%. Good for them.

No need to panic at Ford.

Go buy your trucks guys and help out FoMoCo.

 

I understand what you are saying, but $1,000.00 is $1,000.00. That's more I can spend on a cap or some other accessory that I plan on buying anyway.

I can get 3.9% right now for 60 months at my credit union, so the cash rebates and incentives are huge for me.

 

[QUOTE=willywaxer;3618701]
The deals on the 08's are different to the 09's I take it your talking about 08's as in march 08 there was no build and price available for the 09's. I had to wait until end of may if i remember correctly before prices were available?


Also the reason i wont work for less than i feel the need to is because if people in my trade start undercutting each other, you decrease your wages so much that you may as well go get a job in wal-mart. ok knocking 5-10% of your hourly rate is fine to get the work but when you start doing it for cheaper than the next person you find the trade you was in getting $30-$40an hour in is now paying no where near that for skilled labor. This happened in the UK with the polish workers doing all the work for 1/3rd the money the UK company's could. You cant compete with people like that when you have a legit company to run. Drop your prices to much and you will devalue your product be it building or making cars or what ever else you sell. Look at pioneer for an example. They make maybe the best tv's in the market. They now cant compete with the prices some of these other brands are doing. So what do they do! They either drop prices or close down. Well they close down. Pioneer no longer have a TV brand made by them. It's just the way these big company's work. They have to make a certain margin to be worthwhile to run. Don't make that margin and you may as well shut down.

 

And if you set aside $83.33 per week you'd have your $1,000 in three months. If you would have done that as soon as you started to think about buying a new truck I'd guess you'd have $2,000 or more right now. You could have purchased the truck already and added great mods.

Sounds to me like some folks don't budget well and expect Ford to make up for it in the name of a bad economy. Or are trying to purchase more truck than they can afford.

Go buy your trucks people!!!

 

Thats a great rate Jard. We and my wife have a 800+ credit score and ample income to afford repayment and best we could get over 60months was about 6%. Even with my father in law to boost our Credit score as co signer they wouldnt do anymore than 6%. What credit union is that. Ours is member 1. Also the only reason the bank gave us that rate is because a familey member works for them. They wouldnt even give the loan to us before that. Also when we done the finance through the dealer we got maybe 10-12 reply letters from the banks. Everyone except 1 said no. The 1 that said yes said to call them and they would give us a new rate. That rate was 9%apr lol.

 

This is a reason the economy is taking so long to get back on track. Everyone is waiting for bargains before buying. Be it shares, Cars, TV's, Tools and what ever else people buy. My bro in law's been waiting 8 months for a bike he wants to drop in price lol. It's gone up $200 since then lol

 

Let me walk you through the math: the difference between 0% financing and 4.9% on 60 month, $36K truck loan is over $4600. ...I think that is worth waiting for. If it doesn't happen, I'll be honking at you from my new Ram or Silverado this summer. Like I said, it has nothing to do with whether we can afford it, it has more to do with GOOD budgeting in this economy. After all, it's just a truck....most of us currently have trucks that will easily run for another year.

 

You would rather drive a Ram or Chevy because of a Better rate? You want what you want for a reason and not because of price. I have never bought something i didnt want because it was cheaper. The reason being is because you want what you want for a reason. Be it more expensive or not. If your baseing a purchase on just money then perhaps buying a truck at this time is not a great idea. If you aint worried about what you want to drive then go save your self some cash and go with Dodge or GM. Also beaware that none of these other brands are offering incentives and 0.0%apr. They might advertise they are but just like the 09 f150 some offers cant be combined.

 

Umm..yes! To me a truck is a business tool. I use them for awhile then replace them. There is nothing wrong with the Chevy Silverado or Toyota Tundra. We had them before and they were great. I may prefer the Ford, but It's not worth $5-8K more off my bottom line, at least in this current economic climate. In 2003-2007 I wouldn't even have given it a second thought as my profits were booming.


Also, if one looks at the month-to-month auto sales figures, not the year-to-year, it shows that Ford actually LOST the market share gains they had made over Chevy. Why is that? Chevy says it was due to stronger incentives so they clearly DO work.