Is Ford Mispricing the Maverick on Purpose?

[Drew]

I believe the Mav is underpriced by Ford as a strategy:

What price do other 4 Door Hybrids cost new?

What price do other 4 Door Turbo AWDs cost new?

…& they aren’t even trucks!

How is Ford doing it? Did Ford somehow discover a rift in spacetime that dropped their cost of materials & labor?
-No, in fact both are up!

So, the more important question is:

>Why did Ford price the Maverick so low?<

1. The advertised artificially low price gets huge attention, & brings people to Ford dealerships for possible upsells

2. Pulls buyers away from other vehicles & brands,

3. Incentivizes people to order & wait, & wait, & wait… locking them up, keeping them from purchasing other brands

4. While buying time for Ford to navigate it’s way through the supply chain nightmare & eventually get back up to speed…

5. Ford dealers are also given the opportunity to make some bucks on marking up cancellations & used Mavs, helping keep them afloat until Ford factories fully come back online.

Ingenious actually…

I think it might be a year from now before Ford is able to meet demand & deliver Mavs in a reasonable time frame, & I predict that by that time Ford will pivot to bring the Mav’s price more in line with other car companies’ offerings thereby reflecting the true cost of profitably manufacturing, marketing, & delivering the Mav in a timely manner to it’s customers… but for thousand$ more than the low price-leader, attention-grabbing, wait-placating price it is now.

Thoughts?

Edit: I don’t think Ford is intending to sell Mavs at a loss. My saying artificially underpriced means just that. The closest offerings from other manufacturers that are Hybrid or Turbos or AWD all cost substantially more. Our buying behavior, -your’s, mine, all the other thousands of buyers of Mavs behavior & the used market prices all demonstrate that Ford could charge much more for their Mavs. I’m exploring why they aren’t & why they choose to price them so low.

I don’t see a conspiracy, I see possibly an admirable business strategy that I myself am benefitting from. I’m not criticizing Ford. They’re not victimizing anyone. If I’m right I admire Ford management even more for making the best of the situation & getting a great little truck out of the factory every now & then. I am a very happy EB AWD XL owner & am waiting on 1 Hybrid XLT & 1 EB AWD 4K.

Sponsored

 

[MLowe05]

I'm not sure it is underpriced. It's not "technically" a truck from an engineering standpoint.. more of a crossover with a bed. The materials they use are all very cheap and the build quality seems questionable. That is why they are priced the way they are.

That said, once you move away from base models... unless you just absolutely need a bed, you can get far superior vehicles - in terms of build quality, materials, fit/finish - for very similar cost.

My Lariat Lux Hybrid is $2k more expensive than the 2022 Civic Touring that we purchased in January of this year for my mother. And having owned a Maverick for a month/2,000 miles I can tell you these two vehicles are lightyears apart in terms of how well they are put together.

 

[Maverickman74]

I'm not sure it is underpriced. It's not "technically" a truck from an engineering standpoint.. more of a crossover with a bed. The materials they use are all very cheap and the build quality seems questionable. That is why they are priced the way they are.

That said, once you move away from base models... unless you just absolutely need a bed, you can get far superior vehicles - in terms of build quality, materials, fit/finish - for very similar cost.

My Lariat Lux Hybrid is $2k more expensive than the 2022 Civic Touring that we purchased in January of this year for my mother. And having owned a Maverick for a month/2,000 miles I can tell you these two vehicles are lightyears apart in terms of how well they are put together.

What exactly can you get withg a bed and 4x4 for 30k that has a bunch of options? Only lariat trims compare on price to other trucks.

 

[TedTX]

Mostly to meet federal guidelines for gas efficiency across the whole company. Dropping ‘cars’ left Ford without a way to balance out a F250 and higher gas hogs. They sale likely at a slight loss, but make it up with a overpriced F150 trim it offsets.

 

[MLowe05]

What exactly can you get withg a bed and 4x4 for 30k that has a bunch of options? Only lariat trims compare on price to other trucks.

This is why I said in my post:

unless you just absolutely need a bed

 

[reciprocating_ravioli]

I'm not sure it is underpriced. It's not "technically" a truck from an engineering standpoint.. more of a crossover with a bed. The materials they use are all very cheap and the build quality seems questionable. That is why they are priced the way they are.

That said, once you move away from base models... unless you just absolutely need a bed, you can get far superior vehicles - in terms of build quality, materials, fit/finish - for very similar cost.

My Lariat Lux Hybrid is $2k more expensive than the 2022 Civic Touring that we purchased in January of this year for my mother. And having owned a Maverick for a month/2,000 miles I can tell you these two vehicles are lightyears apart in terms of how well they are put together.

Exactly! The Mav is cheap. It's built in Mexico with cheap labor, cheap materials and crappy fit and finish. And yet people want to think "OMG how did Ford do this!?!? They HAVE to be losing money"

No, they aren't losing money on them.

 

[Captain]

I believe the Mav is underpriced by Ford as a strategy:

What price do other 4 Door Hybrids cost new?

What price do other 4 Door Turbo AWDs cost new?

…& they aren’t even trucks!

How is Ford doing it? Did Ford somehow discover a rift in spacetime that dropped their cost of materials & labor?
-No, in fact both are up!

So, the more important question is:

>Why did Ford price the Maverick so low?<

1. The advertised artificially low price gets huge attention, & brings people to Ford dealerships for possible upsells

2. Pulls buyers away from other vehicles & brands,

3. Incentivizes people to order & wait, & wait, & wait… locking them up, keeping them from purchasing other brands

4. While buying time for Ford to navigate it’s way through the supply chain nightmare & eventually get back up to speed…

5. Ford dealers are also given the opportunity to make some bucks on marking up cancellations & used Mavs, helping keep them afloat until Ford factories fully come back online.

Ingenious actually…

I think it might be a year from now before Ford is able to meet demand & deliver Mavs in a reasonable time frame, & I predict that by that time Ford will pivot to bring the Mav’s price more in line with other car companies’ offerings thereby reflecting the true cost of profitably manufacturing, marketing, & delivering the Mav in a timely manner to it’s customers… but for thousand$ more than the loss-leader, attention-grabbing, wait-placating price it is now.

Thoughts?

Answer a simple question please. When you ordered your Maverick did your dealer try to “up sell” you? I’ve read almost every post on this forum and have never once heard of a Maverick buyer being “up sold”. Ford saw a market, jumped on it, the same market they saw with the Bronco. The truly sad thing is Ford clearly doesn’t know how to bring a new vehicle to market…. Even before the pandemic…. Just look at the Bronco..

 

[Snax]

Exactly! The Mav is cheap. It's built in Mexico with cheap labor, cheap materials and crappy fit and finish. And yet people want to think "OMG how did Ford do this!?!? They HAVE to be losing money"

No, they aren't losing money on them.

1. Yes, labor is less expensive in Mexico. But I don't think that it can be fairly stated that Mexicans make less-durable cars.
2. Less expensive doesn't always mean cheap. While there are fewer expensive "soft touch" materials and the like, I'm hoping that they aren't using "cheap" materials. Many inexpensive cars that I've owned from Honda and Toyota have less-expensive materials, but they were still durable.
3. My truck actually has really nice fit and finish. In fact, I really haven't seen anything bad on that front that I find problematic.

Many manufacturers find ways to make inexpensive vehicles without making them cheap. In fact, the long-term reliability of inexpensive models is often superior. I suspect that less-fancy tech and older more-proven components often get used in inexpensive vehicles because people who are willing to pay more usually want the latest and greatest (and lots of extra stuff = more changes of failure)

It'll be interesting to see how the long-term durability of the Maverick compares to other Ford vehicles. I'm not expecting it to be much different--for better or worse. Fingers crossed (and extended warranty purchased.

 

[dalola]

Being basically a parts bin vehicle, that greatly reduces R&D costs, amortized production costs, and parts cost (commonality), all of which factor heavily in MSRP.

Ford has botched a lot of new model launches lately, but they do understand very well the development & production cost of their products. In this regard, they executed the Maverick project extremely well by those metrics, and are enjoying the benefit of that, despite the disaster provided by the rest of the launch team.

 

[Clock Doc]

The entire history of the Ford Motor Company starting with the model T was to sell vehicles that everyone can afford. Nothing has changed. They have always had affordable low cost vehicles in their lineup.
They do not want dealers marking up their veh. That's the whole reason for eliminating dealers and selling direct to consumers.
No conspiracy here.
My dealer priced my Mav. at ordering at msrp. no hidden fees. If you payed more you went to the wrong dealer.

 

[Bobinmi]

This is pretty much me....in or about my hybrid Maverick.

 

[Hoagus]

Exactly! The Mav is cheap. It's built in Mexico with cheap labor, cheap materials and crappy fit and finish. And yet people want to think "OMG how did Ford do this!?!? They HAVE to be losing money"

So, is the Bronco Sport, made in the same plant, also that crappy?

 

[reciprocating_ravioli]

So, is the Bronco Sport, made in the same plant, also that crappy?

I don't know.. is it? It starts at 7-8 grand more than the Maverick, so I'd hope it's a slightly higher quality.

 

[Timothyd]

I believe the Mav is underpriced by Ford as a strategy:

What price do other 4 Door Hybrids cost new?

What price do other 4 Door Turbo AWDs cost new?

…& they aren’t even trucks!

How is Ford doing it? Did Ford somehow discover a rift in spacetime that dropped their cost of materials & labor?
-No, in fact both are up!

So, the more important question is:

>Why did Ford price the Maverick so low?<

1. The advertised artificially low price gets huge attention, & brings people to Ford dealerships for possible upsells

2. Pulls buyers away from other vehicles & brands,

3. Incentivizes people to order & wait, & wait, & wait… locking them up, keeping them from purchasing other brands

4. While buying time for Ford to navigate it’s way through the supply chain nightmare & eventually get back up to speed…

5. Ford dealers are also given the opportunity to make some bucks on marking up cancellations & used Mavs, helping keep them afloat until Ford factories fully come back online.

Ingenious actually…

I think it might be a year from now before Ford is able to meet demand & deliver Mavs in a reasonable time frame, & I predict that by that time Ford will pivot to bring the Mav’s price more in line with other car companies’ offerings thereby reflecting the true cost of profitably manufacturing, marketing, & delivering the Mav in a timely manner to it’s customers… but for thousand$ more than the loss-leader, attention-grabbing, wait-placating price it is now.

Thoughts?

It wasn't just the low price although it was a factor. The Mav hybrid checked most of the boxes.

 

[Scott Asheville]

I've said from the day it was introduced that the base hybrid is a loss leader, but I accept pushback from others that I can't prove that. So I'll just say it's a deliberately low margin vehicle.

The Maverick does good things for Ford. (1) It pulls younger buyers into the brand so Ford can upsell them down the road (if you're old, Ford does NOT care that you exist). (2) It helps with CAFE bigtime. (3) And as a bonus it generates a generally positive Ford narrative in the automotive press (well, before 5 recalls in the first year).

That's why I really don't think you'll see Ford bending over backwards to increase production. All Ford's money is going into BEVs (which I suppose could include something called Maverick some day). I think they're content to build to the capacity of Hermosillo and no more. Because who would want to invest a billion plus in a factory to make even more low margin vehicles? The Maverick has already accomplished it's mission. Minimal expenditure by Ford. Maximum effect.

And that is my completely speculative answer, with absolutely no facts to back it up.

Sponsored