So here I am, on the phone to a car dealer to hook-up a test drive in the "new" Ford Focus. As I type, I'm on hold, listening to an ad for Stop and Shop. While I'm sure the message is part of a radio station plug-in, why the Hell should I call a car dealer to be sold groceries? Anyway, Dennis comes on the line forty-nine seconds later to tell me that they've got one, and it's on the showroom floor. Great! I'll come down for a test drive. When are you interested in buying the car? I resist the urge to blurt out "when my penis exceeds 12 inches." Before I can say "soon" he goes off on a rant on how some people want to test drive cars that they're only interested in buying six months hence, and how his manager is not enamored with test drives related to purchases within this time frame. Five minutes later, I get a return call. We're good to go. Do you have a vehicle to trade-in? And that's it, save a sudden desire to take a shower. Still. this process keeps us in touch with what you go through, and I gotta say, it ain't pretty. As Ford doesn't have a whole lot of exciting cars in the showroom or pipeline, perhaps they ought to use this interregnum to sort some things out at the sharp end.
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Don’t go too far speculating with the Canadian prices. Certainly, failing to honor warranties in order to prevent arbitrage is poor customer relations, but it does not take an industry-wide cartel to fix prices to have them abnormally high relative to US prices. Given historical purchasing power parity, their prices are still at market equilibrium; the real exchange rate is simply changing now and the adjustment is facing sticky prices. If you translate European car prices into dollars, they look much higher; these are only nominal prices, and we only care about that disparity in Canada because they are close enough to practically take advantage of the fact.
I’ve actually had good experiences at dealerships here in Missouri. Most of them are stuffing you in the car before you can blow your rape whistle, even if you told them you are just looking around and can’t buy for say, 6 months. That is the main reason (behind reliability, resale, and economy) I bought a Civic. No pressure, no gimmicks, no buyer’s remorse. That, and a three year old trade-in cost $2K more than the new car I bought. Same car, but mine is a LX, the other was an EX with 40K more miles.
In any industry where you have commission as the main source of salary you will have this sort of behavior. You also have high turn-over so most will have poor product understanding. Until you can have a car supermarket with 10-20 brands altogether and sales reps that work on a salary this will continue.
You know what I don’t like? 7 & 8 speed transmissions. 4-speed transmissions are complicated enough to break often and cost thousands to fix – why is it always assumed that new innovation has to yield significantly increased complexity?
Steve_S: Car supermarkets with no-commission sales staff? Caramax tried it and it (unfortunately) didn’t work nearly as well as expected. I’m not holding my breath for a better dealer experience from any brand.
I’ve been to many car dealers over the years. By far, Ford dealers are the absolute worst to deal with in just about every respect. I’m not just talking about one bad experience here. Each time I’m interested in driving a Ford product, or I go with a friend who’s interested in one, I make sure to try a different dealer, hoping they’ll be better than the last. They never are. There seems to be a definite trend where they’re very reluctant to let you test drive a car. Hmm… I wonder why that could be.
My favorite was a big fat guy who kept going on and on about how they should stop making cars with manual transmissions because they’re stupid and he doesn’t understand why anyone would ever buy one. All the while, he was eating popcorn and bits and pieces were flying out of his mouth. Finally, he admitted that he didn’t know how to drive a stick. He must have called me 10 times after that one visit.
$0.02 here: We recently purchased a 2008 Saturn VUE XR AWD (wife’s car). The dealer experience was pretty good; tried to lowball our trade but corrected it w/o much hassle, took our GM discount with no reluctance.
Now, the Vue has a 6-speed trans and I’m working out why. These new cars don’t have much power, when I say power I mean torque. For this reason, they need granny gears for 1st and 2nd so you feel like your new car has tons of power. Up top it’s turning about 1,600rpm at 90mph which should save on gas. Whatever; it works very well and sports a 5-year 100k mile warranty.
From what I remember Carmax had one or two new car franchises. I’m talking about new cars similar to their used cars. So someone could look at 20 brands at one time. Imagine being able to look at BMW, Audi, MB, Infiniti, Lexus and Acura all at the same time. Doesn’t matter which one is better for your customer, doesn’t matter if they compete as long as one is bought.
Car purchase needs to be changed from a brand-centric model. Imagine having to go to the Proctor & Gamble store, the Nabisco store and the Kraft store to buy food? Sounds stupid doesn’t it, same goes with the current car buying method.
Inventory would have to be a lot lower with more ordering or transferred from warehouse to have port installed options added and then to customer. If they don’t want to wait you can transfer a vehicle from another superstore, take from your inventory or buy from your large inventory of no haggle used cars.
Imagine, you can line up a Mazda 3, Corolla, Caliber, Civic and go from one to another, comparing the materials, the style, the driving experience back to back. If the 335i you want is beyond your means they can show you a used 330i that hits your price range and offers a similar experience.
LOL on the Stop and Shop message on hold. My health care company (in California)plays Hawaiian music on hold, has nothing to do with our business or California, but the clients seem to like it, puts them in a better mood they tell me. Remember the initial Infinity car ads, they showed the ocean, beach etc and not the car. I loved Jay Leno’s remarks about it at the time: “The cars haven’t sold, but the demand for rocks and sand has gone way up.” The place I purchased my new truck had a showroom from the 1970’s, fake wood paneling, metal desks, everything but the disco ball. In many ways dealers are clueless.
From today’s Detroit News article on the launch of the Focus, offered with no comment:
“This could be the finest small vehicle that Ford has ever produced,” Mulally said during a speech to mark the formal start of production at the Wayne Stamping and Assembly Plant. “This is the vehicle for the next generation.”
Frank:
Perhaps Ford is taking the Harley-Davidson road with the new Focus. You know, “Yesterday’s technology at tomorrow’s prices.”
I saw a new Focus on the highway on the way home from work today. Appropriately enough, it had a Budget Rent-a-car temporary tag on the back. At first I couldn’t figure out what it was. After I did, I wished I hadn’t.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Sebring has a new official competitor in the fleet wars.
I suspect the car will be better than previously, to drive, especially in 5 speed form but but did Ford have to make it look like a rejected korean design study? Maybe big in Korea is the new Big in Japan.
But it will be cheap enough to slap a turbo kit on from Rousch.
Canadian prices – gotta love market segmentation.
Have you guys compared prices in the US with Mexico to get the full NA price spread?
@chanman:
They have the Mk2 European Focus in Mexico.
Yep.
B*st*rds.
after reading Justin B’s piece and rushing to ford mexico’s website – only agree with last comments AND they’ve got the bloody ST. Well done Ford