Worried !! Ford halting production

[Farva5803]

Touche, Sir. I still may try it...I have one reserved and nothing to lose.

 

[melvimbe]

I believe a majority of the order sitting are a combination of stock and customer orders. Also Ford has announced they will not be keeping big inventories for the long term future.

Ford Inventory Levels Will Not Return To Pre-Pandemic Highs

Ford inventory levels will not return to pre-pandemic highs, according to Kumar Galhotra, president of the Americas and International Markets Group.

fordauthority.com

The part about lower inventories for a long time is rather interesting, and a positive overall I think. Seems like it's not just a reflection of pandemic shortages, and hype for new vehicles, but that dealers and customers have adapted and have come to a point where perhaps things will be done differently long term.

What I mean by that is that Ford probably has an unprecedented volume of pre-order/reserves, probably higher than in recent decades. Between the mach-e, bronco, raptor, lightning, and maybe even maverick...customers are willing to commit to purchase in advance, no test drive, sight unseen in much higher numbers. Why have a big inventory at the dealership, knowing that you're going to have to dumb a bunch of them at invoice price once a year, if you can sell them at MSRP while maintaining very little inventory?

Of course, that's not good news if you're thinking you will wait a few years and grab a Raptor for cheap when the hype goes down a dealers have to many on the lot. That may not happen. At the same time though, dealers are still going to want to have vehicles on the lot for the more impulse buyers, don't want to wait, or just prefer to do things the old way. So it seems likely that used vehicle prices are going to stay elevated for a long time.

I guess it's not necessarily positive, depending on what sort of customer you are. Definitely a different market.

 

[melvimbe]

This may be a dumb question, but lets say some of our orders start being delivered when the MY22 order books start opening up. Any thoughts on trying to talk the dealers down on price, even if at MSRP, since MY22 Raptors will be made/delivered right on the heels of 21s? Why pay full MSRP for a truck that will be a MY older in a few months?

Unless you signed a contract where they promised to deliver by a certain date, I don't think you'd be able to manage that. Even then though, the dealership probably has 10 people lined up behind who don't care about the MY.

 

[Farva5803]

Unless you signed a contract where they promised to deliver by a certain date, I don't think you'd be able to manage that. Even then though, the dealership probably has 10 people lined up behind who don't care about the MY.

Good point. Going through the friend of a friend, so I was hoping to maybe leverage that relationship.

 

[melvimbe]

Good point. Going through the friend of a friend, so I was hoping to maybe leverage that relationship.

That will help you get MSRP when the dealer could sell it to someone else for $10k over. The seller has all the leverage when the supply is low.

 

[GordoJay]

I guess it's not necessarily positive, depending on what sort of customer you are. Definitely a different market.

Good points. In the market you visualize, I'd be calling around looking for a dealer who wanted to increase their volume and would sell at invoice. That has worked for me in the past.

 

[Frank N]

And Ford raises prices usually quarterly, so that 65k base will probably be 66 or 66.5k for the 22 when the books open.

 

[Farva5803]

And Ford raises prices usually quarterly, so that 65k base will probably be 66 or 66.5k for the 22 when the books open.

That was going to be my other question. Thanks guys.

 

[melvimbe]

Good points. In the market you visualize, I'd be calling around looking for a dealer who wanted to increase their volume and would sell at invoice. That has worked for me in the past.

The volume of sales will be limited by supply, not by how many the dealer can sell. Agreed that a dealer could probably do better selling 20 vehicles at invoice then 5 at MSRP....but the dealer is only able to get 5 vehicles. Selling 20 at any price isn't an option.

And to be clear, there will be regular f150s, explorers, and such that can be had for better prices. Not to mentioned good used vehicles. You might get those for more reasonable prices.

 

[Roc Nichols]

Dealer just told me that Raptor production will stop also. Don't shoot the messenger