I have a dealer allocation available PA (pre-ordered by dealer, msrp)

[sammy134]

I agree with what you are saying, but you are missing one key piece of information here. Ford doesn't want to you pick options a la carte. They want you to be forced to by options that you don't't want to get the options that you do want. That is how they increase the price from the base model so fast.

One day we will be buying direct from Ford with no dealer in between. We will be able to pick everything down to the color of the stitching in the seats. That day is not today. Today we have to deal with having pointless upgrades shoved down our throats and we pay for them, happily, just to get the one option that we really want.

The Canadian Price & builder is forcing the "Raptor Exterior Graphic Package" with the base of the truck, and we cant un-check it.

This is the US 35" $1075 sticker package, which is OPTIONAL for the US customers. We Canadians have to get it, and included in the price. My Canadian built truck is $91,714. The USA equivalent is $70,100. That means they are using an exchange rate of ~1.31 which is high, but whatever. When you remove the USA sticker from the truck, falls to $69,025 which gives a rate of ~1.33, which is ********. I don't even like that sticker, and will ask the dealer to remove it before delivery. Making me pay for something that I am going to throw out anyways, pretty frustrating.

The 37's sticker is not bad though, I guess I'd keep that if it was shoved on me (still wouldn't pay for it, if I had the choice). 35's stickers are FUGLY.

 

[ganooch]

Playing a little bit of devil's advocate, packages can actually save customers money over a la carte. For example, if everything in the 801A package had to be ordered a la carte, it would likely cost more than the package itself. The downside is that few would opt for all the features in the package, but most probably want enough of them so that they are still saving money. Other packages though, that's clearly not the case.

And of course, packages are going to lower costs and result in fewer mistakes during production, which can be a plus for customers indirectly. This should be less of a concern though as we have more automated production.

Ideally, I would want to see a la carte options overlapped with package deals for commonly grouped options to get the best of both worlds. Or some sort of model where options get cheaper (less profit margin for Ford) the more options you add.



Besides the unnecessary cost to the consumer, I get the distinction that automakers do this sort of thing because they don't want customers picking option combinations they don't think reflects well on Ford. They don't want potential customers seeing a lot of base Raptors with just 37s and nothing else. They want customers seeing others with blue and thinking that's what they should pay extra for. Similarly, resale value matters to Ford. A high resale makes people want the truck more, and also helps justify higher new sale prices. So they don't want people picking unpopular combinations of options.

I agree with everything you are saying. I still think that the real answer is somewhere in the middle. For example, the black interior of the truck with the 35s is very nice. Seems strange to force people into the blue recaro interior to get 37s.

Customers speak with their wallets though. There are more people wanting the Raptor with 37s than there are trucks to be had, despite the blue interior. All these people saying they refuse to get 37s because of that interior, yet they are all sold.

Will be interesting to see how this goes in the future.