Ford CEO Responds to Price Markups

[Mavonorder]

Dealers need love too

Would you rather the employees of all dealerships were on unemployment instead? Back in the 1980s 1 in 7 jobs in the USA was related in some form to the US automobile industry. Most required no higher education and many were unionized with great wages and benefits. Now I believe it is less than 4 related jobs and people are constantly claiming there are no good Blue Collar jobs to support families anymore. Be careful what you wish for.

Dealerships
are about as much loved as lawyers; however, at least there was room for price negotiations so without dealers, I'd guess prices will go way up. A car company would be a monopoly for the brand. Although it seems service directly from a car company may be more honest. Hard to say really how it turns out but dealers days are now numbered.

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[FloodingdowninTX]

I believe this is what is commonly referred to as a false dichotomy.

Yes, students of rhetoric may also recognize the term as the False Dilemma. Then, there comes the concept of Sunk Cost, which many of us may be feeling in the Maverick context. Another clever technique, among about a dozen is called Hasty Generalization. And the classic is Red Herring.
No judgement here on the posts preceeding, no politics, no side taken. Just appreciation of your astuteness.

 

[Maverstang]

I have no sympathy for dealers… they have done it to themselves with greed and shady practices for years.

Autoline reported yesterday that dealers are having their most profitable year EVER, by exploiting the shortages. Hardly any need for sympathy there.

Also, individual dealers have been bought out to create a small number of dealer supergroups that only add an expensive corporate overhead layer to car sales. Dealers have nothing to do with small business these days.

Jim Farley has stated dealers add $2-3,000 to the selling cost for each vehicle, strictly overhead with no added value. He wants to move to a model whereby sales are done online and selected former dealers become delivery and service centers only. He will have to in order to compete with direct selling manufacturers.

The writing is on the wall… if you are a car salesman, get rid of those checked sport jackets and look for a real job.

 

[DeeZee]

Personally, I love the idea of Ford offering a direct to consumer option. Once I order the vehicle, it would be mine and not the dealers which would mean no unnecessary add-ons or dealership marketing decals. Unfortunately, there is far too much greed and dishonesty among dealers today. I realize there are amazing dealers out there, especially those found on this forum, but there simply aren't enough of them. The pandemic has definitely played an impact on vehicle pricing and availability, but its time to make changes in how we purchase and order vehicles because there are too many people out there looking to take advantage of others during difficult times. It's time to put them on notice. Will any of this ever happen? With laws and contracts already in place, probably not anytime soon. Let's just hope Ford sticks to their promise.

Small thing but I notice vehicles from Texas and other states with the dealer logo (sometimes more than 1) on the paint and license plate frames. In California that simply doesn’t happen. License plates yea but that’s it. Sorry for the sidebar…..please continue with more important discussions

 

[DeeZee]

could not be further off the mark. I worked multiple hourly jobs in auto repair and related growing up. I also worked union jobs in a school district and also Aerospace/Defense and those experiences were horrible and basically only helped union officers get richer, protected lazy and incompetent people and added tons of cost and delay to products being built. I would never do it again...

I also completed a technical course offered at a local community college to get my license as a CA State Certified Smog Inspector. THAT was where I learned a lot of history on the auto industry and how it produced jobs in the USA. Our current president is a shill for the unions and you always hear him promising "good paying union jobs" everywhere he can injected into all govt policy- because they tend to funnel a lot of campaign donations to elected officials like protection money in a circle of quid pro quo.

My point was not that UNIONS=GOOD, but when people push for things that may sound good on the surface, there almost always are unintended consequences that happen to make a "solution" worse than the "problem" people thought they were fixing. "Progress" isn't always what it is made out to be.

Excellent post

 

[FattyMasterJ]

Dealers just need to be honest. When you order a car/truck, be upfront with the price. There should be no surprises after waiting 12 months. If dealers have there own retail stock they can put whatever price they want.

If there is anything I have learned from this forum, it’s get a signed agreement when ordering.

 

[Jmav2152]

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I have zero love for the dealer model but if you think direct to consumer is going to bring you lower or fair prices you are being ignorant. OEMs will increase the price on their own, you'll just think it's a good deal since it's at MSRP.

 

[PlantMan]

Maryland is one of the states that has mandated the 3-level distribution model. Car dealers are a very powerful lobby and the odds of getting this overturned are slim indeed.

 

[nosehairdreadlocks]

I just went to the dealer to pick up a Maverick that I ordered about a year ago. They wouldn't sell it to me for anything less than $8,000 over MSRP. I had to walk away.

 

[Nugget]

Inventory will solve everything. It keeps prices down for customers. Ford isn’t disciplined enough to match production to demand. Ford likes dealers when the dealerships are paying floorplan on 500K units.

 

[cavemold]

i watched the video he never says ford is really going change what they already have in place. kind of click bait . He goes over why there are ADM everywhere in ford dealerships and the laws but we already knew that. Its 80% matched orders cant use 3rd party brokers.

 

[cavemold]

Until congress changes laws to where the manufacture has more say in sells price on new and gently used trucks , ADM is not going anywhere. First of all it should be against the law sell a used vehicle with less than 2k miles over 5k MSRP as long if its with in the same year of production date. Like 2022 ford maverick that's has 1k miles on it.. Ridiculous that it is. If that was fixed a huge chunk of these mark ups would go away. Most of these market ups are on gently used cars/trucks. Its the dealers way of getting around matched orders. Dealer trys to sell it customer doesn't want it because of financing reasons outside of MSRP. Dealer drives it as demo for 50 miles and sells it as used truck. Happens all the time.

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