NEW YORK: There’s little doubt the F-150 is taking the brunt of the sales hit for Ford lately, as it completely rebuilt two huge F-150 plants to accommodate the new construction and manufacturing processes needed for the first fully aluminized half-ton pickup truck.
These aren’t leftover 2014 models we’re talking about. The production issues have supposedly been fixed, and so despite having only half of its normal inventory in June, Ford expects to be back at full capacity by September.
Why incentives don’t necessarily mean trouble Here’s the short answer: Probably not, but it’s worth watching.
The discounting is unusual because the highly revised 2015 F-150 is relatively new in the market. Every new pickup, no matter how popular, has some level of incentive attached with some of its models. Fortunately, the consumers saw through that and shortly after the new F150 went on sale, the company was unable to meet the demand for the new truck with just one plant building them.
In hard to compensate for the missing commissions during the last month or two, Ford has developed a few hostile motivator deals on the latest half whole lot 16 foot moving truck, supplying potential customers in several service locations the ability to safeguard about usd10,000 in a 2015 Ford F150. However, discount giving has been started by the company already, as pointed out in a report by the Bloomberg.
“By offering discounts on a hard-to-find, pricier model, Ford can boost showroom traffic with minimal risk to profit margins”, Rocco writes.
It is even true that, in the right part of the country, with the right combination of options, one can “build” a pickup on Ford’s website that will have a discount that breaks $10,000.
Sales fell 8.9 percent in June for Ford’s F-Series pickups, its top-selling line and most profitable vehicles.
Also, he says, Ford is spending less on incentives overall than a year ago.
The new F-150 has faced its share of challenges coming to market.
The real development to watch is to see whether Ford moves out the incentives from being regional to nationwide. Of that, the manufacturer’s incentive is $7,050 off a particular version of the 2015 F-150 XLT SuperCab 4X4 when equipped with the 2.7L EcoBoost engine and the Chrome or Sport Appearance Package. Some discounts definitely are specific to the F-150 pickup truck, even though the company is of the view that the discount level is pretty modest, as compared to the standards of the big pickups’ discounts.
We’ll know more when Ford releases its second-quarter earnings report later this month, and we’ll know a lot more about the strength of the new F-150 relative to its competitors when Ford has full inventories this fall.
