Ford/Lincoln

Ford, GM August sales drop

Published by G

From the AP

DETROIT – Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday its U.S. sales fell 26.5 percent in August, as the struggling automaker’s results — even worse than July’s dismal figures — showed that the U.S. auto sales slump may not have bottomed out.

Toyota’s sales dropped 9.4 percent from August of last year, a further indication that the woes in the U.S. auto market are continuing, but Nissan — the only major automaker to show a sales gain in July — reported another improvement, with a 13.6 percent increase in August sales.

Meanwhile, General Motors Corp. reported a 20.3 percent drop in sales from a year ago but a 31 percent improvement over its July totals, mainly thanks to offering all buyers employee pricing on many models.

Ford sold 155,172 light vehicles last month, down 3.6 percent from 160,990 in July, which was the industry’s worst month for U.S. sales in 16 years.

The Dearborn-based automaker said its Ford, Lincoln and Mercury car sales dropped nearly 9 percent, while truck sales were off more than 32 percent last month.

The company also doesn’t expect a sales rebound in the second half of the year. It said Wednesday that it plans to cut 50,000 more vehicles from its production plan in the second half of the year, reducing its output to 890,000 in the last six months of 2008.

FULL ARTICLE

Funny how Nissan is the only automaker to post a rise in sales. I must be because of the attractive leases and low APR financing (Like the  EX). Overall, this article clearly shows that most americans are shifting over to more fuel efficient cars than ever before. I just hope most people doing so aren’t panicking and taking a major loss on their SUVs.

Ford and GM to Make Leases More Expensive

Published by G

Article from LA Times states that Ford and GM will begin raising prices on some of their cars (particularly trucks and SUVs) to make them less attractive. They aren’t getting out of the leasing game like Chrysler did, but it doesn’t look good if you are shopping around for an American car to lease. Of course, you can still lease from a 3rd party lender, so it is not the end of the world. What I find rather funny is that American cars have not been leasing well through most of the year anyway (with the exception of Hummers, which they are trying to unload desperately), so this move will only make those leases worse. If you are looking for that Cadillac CTS or Hummer H3, better do it sooner than later.

June 2008 Lease Rates for 08 Ford Fusion

Published by G

Fusion I4 SE
36mo/10.5k – lease rate 2.5% (.00104) – residual 52%

My Take: Talk about an odd lease, 10.5k miles per year? and the residual drops to 52% after 3 years? If I were Henry Ford, I’d be haunting someone’s dream right about now.  I think that the Fusion is actually a decent car and consumers (based on Edmunds.com) seem to think highly of the Fusion (9.5). The Edmunds editor’s gave it a 7.8 which is a “GOOD”. Thats pretty sad, since when is getting a “C+” considered “Good”? Someone’s standards are a bit low.

Employee Pricing for Ford F-Series Pickups

Published by G

If you are in the market for a gas guzzling, rugged, American-built Ford F-Series pickup, you are in luck. Ford is offering “Employee Pricing” for all until the end of June. [Read Article on Edmunds.com]

The logic behind the move is obvious, the F-Series is outdated and they are trying to clear room for the newly design 09 models. But that’s all! With gas around $4+ a gallon, no one really buys a truck unless they need one. So this “best-selling” truck has become the truck that no one really wants. Oh the cooler Harley-Davidson and and chassis-cab models are not available at Employee Price. Hurray for Ford!

Kudos to B for bring this story to my attention. I thank you for all your past, present and future contributions 🙂

Edmunds Forecasts April Auto Sales

Published by G

Gotta love Edmunds. They are my primary source for invoice pricing whenever I shop around. It is very educational, if you want to spend all day reading all the information they provide, its well worth the time. Anyway, here’s a story that popped up yesterday on Businesswire regarding April Auto Sales forecast.

If you read the article and pull up the numbers up, you’ll notice that only Toyota, Honda and Nissan experienced growth in the month of April, compared to the same month last year. Now I don’t read too much into Nissan’s double digit growth since the bar was set rather low due to poor sales last April. I’m actually more surprised with Honda and Toyota’s achievements, even modest gains at their level is a great accomplishment.

In any case, this only mean a couple of things; American automakers keep on losing ground to the Japanese, and they still don’t get it. With crummy lease incentives and rates, I’m sure most people who want lease, still opt for imports.

April 2008 Lease Rate for 08 Lincoln MKX

Published by G

36mo/12k miles/yr – residual 50% – money factor .000937

There should be a $2,000 lease incentive here (to offset the crummy residual)
I’m sort of allergic to Ford (yeah i know Mazda is partially owned by Ford, but its not a complete hostile take over so to me, Mazda is still mostly Japanese) so I can’t find it in me to recommend Ford brands.