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Even with Sierra sales added in, GM’s trucks just couldn’t keep up with the Ford F-Series juggernaut this month. Ram, meanwhile is playing a distant third and the Japanese entries might as well not even exist. On the other hand, when it comes to compact and mid-sized pickups (chart after the jump), the Japanese entries are doing quite a bit better. Unfortunately for them, the top three compact-mid pickups combined couldn’t match the F-Series last month. Big trucks still sell in big numbers…
36 Comments on “Sales: Pickup Trucks, March 2011...”
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Who in their right mind buys these? If you don’t own a business, farm, or are a contractor, why would you deliberately own a full-size gas hog in this economy? Sounds like I’m ranting; I’m not, but I’m puzzled at why anybody would buy a full-size truck if you couldn’t obtain some sort of tax write-off for business use. Daily driver? C’mon now! In the past, I owned two full-size trucks and practically jumped for joy when I got rid of them. Of course, gas was under a buck a gallon, too, although it hit $1.18 in 1980 for a while.
EDIT: I forgot to add that they are cool, though, and part of me still likes them!
Gas was down to about a buck a gallon for a little while, about a decade ago.
Businesses, contractors, and farmers are the the biggest purchasers of these trucks.
I think that the vast majority of today’s new pickup truck buyers are people who actually need a truck. Besides the various trades, you also have people who are big time into horses, boats, dirt bikes and the like who need a truck for their play time activities. Some of those buyers cannot afford to buy or park an extra vehicle and thus also use the truck for routine commute duties when they are not able to go out and play.
12,000 miles a year in a 15 mpg truck against a 25 mpg sensible car amounts to about a $107/month premium at $4 a gallon.
A bigger car remains a relatively cheap treat for yourself.
Businesses, farmers, and contractors had been putting off purchases of things like trucks for a few years now.
Don’t forget that today’s full-size trucks are amazingly economical. The decontented F-150 returns better mileage than some full-size cars. It’s a point commonly missed by the turbodiesel manual wagon’s enthusiasts.
I didn’t jump for joy when I sold my C2500 – but monthly gasoline costs went down and parking in town became so much easier.
A full-sized pick up for me, now needs to be classified as a second vehicle, i.e. toy hauler.
“Even with Sierra sales added in, GM’s trucks just can’t keep up with the Ford F-Series juggernaut, which has already cracked 125k sales this year so far”
F- Series YTD sales = 126,647
Silverado + Sierra YTD sales = 126,400
Silverado + Sierra + Avalanche + EXT YTD sales = 131,335
Can’t keep up? YTD looks pretty dern close to me. Which is good; I love me a good (proverbial) knife fight. Still, an impressive March for Ford…there’s no explainin’ away that 9000+ edge over GM trucks last month.
FWIW, due to the existence of the Sierra, I doubt Silverado will ever outsell F-Series.
I think this whole thing is about monthly sales.
F-Series= 53,272
Silverado + Sierra + Avalanche + EXT YTD sales = 45,981
Almost 7k less this month.
Except, The Spin Against GM used the year-to-date number of 125k+, not the March 2011 number.
The Spin Against GM *should* have said: “Even with GM pulling back on incentives in March, Ford’s trucks just can’t catch up with the GM Silverado / Sierra / Avalanche combined sales juggernaut, which continues to outsell the F-series year after year.”
That would be the actual truth.
SVX: OK, let’s get this straight. The phrasing there was misleading, and I apologize for that. No need to overcompensate though.
First of all, GM may have dialed back incentives in March, but it still put more cash on the hood than Ford.
Second, as philadjl points out, Sierra, Silverado and Avalanche combined for more YTD sales than Ford, but they came up short in March. 45,832 for GM, 53,272 for Ford. Again, I see how the wording was confusing though.
Third, in recent years, Silverado alone came within about 50k units of F-Series. On the macro level, Ford’s trucks are gaining. Maybe I’ll post a long-term sales chart though, so we can get this out in the open.
Finally, I think it’s funny that someone who reads TTAC as often as you would interpret this as a way to slam GM. Why would I care who sells more trucks? The facts speak for themselves. If you must whine about your free analysis, call it sloppy. The drive-by bias accusation of bias (especially when supported by an incentives argument that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny) is irritating and unfair.
Ed: No apology needed or desired. Having been reading for a long time, it appears that is a very clear bias at TTAC against on GM, based on selective reporting of fact and selective comparison. This isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last. For a site which claims to be “the Truth”, it’s better to admit that you’re biased against GM, rather than getting all defensive.
1. GM had $800 less on the hood than in Feb, still higher than Ford, yes. And even higher average transaction price than Ford, as usual. GM historically has higher incentives and higher transactions. Ford starts lower, discounts less, and ends up lower. Comparing incentives only holds relative to company history and relative to market, but is completely meaningless in an absolute sense. When you say GM has a higher incentive than Ford, it is a completely stupid thing to pay attention to at all. What matters if if the incentive went up or down, and whether that change is faster or slower than the competition. So GM having massive incentives in Feb is noteworthy when the competition doesn’t follow suit. Similarly, GM pulling back by $700 in March is similarly noteworthy when others (e.g. Nissan) open the gates.
2. The wording was very confusing, because it was wrong. GM usually sells more trucks combined, and has generally done so. Feb was an exceptional month for Ford, and will require confirmation for multiple months before I’d use the word “juggernaut”, which implies some sort of sustained trend like how GM outsells Ford, or how Hyundai is growing gangbusters.
3. Please do so. It’s good to see the numbers. I’ll try not to quibble too much.
The incentives argument is sound and correct. GM held a big sale in Feb, with very big incentives. They got a big pull-ahead on sales. GM dialed back by $700 in March and sales suffered dramatically as a result. Ford went the other direction on incentives, with more in March than Feb. Relative to each other, GM prices went up by about $1k, or Ford prices went down by about $1k. GM had the big price advantage in Feb, and reaped the rewards that month. Ford had the big advantage in March, and reaped similar rewards. Those are the underlying facts, and they clearly explain the results.
There is also a bit of a numbers game regarding the Ford numbers. When Ford says they sold X number of F-series trucks they are including everything from the light duty F-150 all the way to the medium duty F-650 and F-750. For Chevy and GMC, the Silverado and Sierra lines only encompass the 1500 through 3500 models and do not include the medium duty line. If you saw the Ford numbers broken down to show only the F-150, F-250, and F-350 the story might well be different.
Medium duty unit sales are in the hundreds per months and don’t move the bar very much.
Besides, is it Ford’s fault that GM simply gave up on the medium duty truck market and abandoned that segment all together?
http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2010/06/report-gms-missing-mediumduty-trucks-hurting-lightduty-sales.html
GM still has their medium duty lines:
http://eogld.ecomm.gm.com/NASApp/mediumduty/gmmd_home.jsp
http://www.wseriestrucks.com/
Well, selling products made by others is often just to “keep in the game”. Profit margins really aren’t the same. OTOH this is what dealers do so …
Both I am my neighbor have become fathers over the past six years and have been building families. Between the two of us, we have a half dozen kids with a new one on the way. When our second kids arrived, we both ended up selling our trucks and I replaced my with a minivan and he replaced his with a midsized crossover. We were being responsible as we had been told to be by everyone who isn’t making babies and raising kids. Our women even thought we were being responsible for trading our trucks in.
Three years later we have both decided independantly to ensure that our next vehicles are trucks again. Simply put, nothing beats the ability to work as well as a truck. Whether it is outdoor work which is beginning now, or indoor work which both he and I have been doing this winter, we have struggled getting around the lack of a truck.
You do something? A truck helps you do it. Today’s trucks get good mileage and give dads the ability to stow kids too. One of our buddies just bought a new extended cab Dodge with a back seat capable of moving his kids. So, we are both jealous. Not the price he paid, but the fact that he can do stuff now that we struggle to do.
Sorry, I tried. I need a truck.
“You do something? A truck helps you do it.”
V’Dude: Yeah, there’s that, too. Absolutely correct. A Ranger worked well for me for several years but it was small.
Too small if you have kids. You can’t have them in the front seat. You can’t have them riding without a car seat. Next, Washington is going to demand we make our kids wear helmets in vehicles. A Ranger is OK if you have a kid big enough to sit next to you.
There are a lot of folks thumbing their noses at us large vehicle buyers who are simply ignorant of how much of an impact child safety demands have made on the kind of vehicles we need to meet all their child safety regulations. These peole have, maybe one kid or two, or have had their kids a decade ago or more. You have more than two kids today, which I do and so do most of my friends, well, we need vehicles that can hold all the crap Washington demands you encase your kids into. Instead of having a Villager with a rear-facing seat holding three kids, we now have to have nothing smaller than a minivan.
Washington’s antics are counter-productive. They don’t want you to drive without having your kids wearing air-bag diapers surrounded by roll cages, they don’t want you to drive anything getting under 30 miles per gallon. Face it, these boobs don’t know what they want, but we’re stuck with them passing laws independant of reality and it’s screwing everything up.
I know what I need and have the money to pay for it. And no way do I waste my money faster than they waste my money. You want efficiency? Don’t depend on a bureaucracy.
“Washington’s antics are counter-productive.”
Automotive accident deaths per mile traveled have continued to go down for years now. Safety standards, seat belt laws and such have had something to do with that.
At the price of encasing kids in what look like little jails?
I would die of a claustrophobic panic attack if someone put me in one of those things.
Is there any documentation on how many lives this has actually saved?
D
V’dude: “all the crap Washington demands you encase your kids into” is limited to a car seat for very young children, no?
And I would blame the Insurance lobby, whose action in this case ironically keeps your insurance rates low, before blaming the big, bad, intrusive government.
And with 3 kids, I can’t imagine a truck works better than a minivan or even conventional wagon…if you could find one.
Vanilla – I have three young children and a minivan. It is certainly not my favorite type of vehicle but just as practical as a truck unless work for you happens to be as a contractor/builder. If you have an office based job, lets say, then a minivan holds as many if not more people than a full crew cab truck. The deep trunk behind the THIRD row can hold a lot and if you just need to carry 5 people then the space behind the second row seats with the third row stowed is massive. Certainly enough for a home depot visit. And even if it doesn`t quite cut it for a Home Depot visit hire a Home Depot truck for $19 an hour. I wouldn`t base my decision to buy a truck with the attendant poor fuel economy on needing to do some gardening a few times a year.
+1. Short of hauling loads of loose gravel/soil/sand or towing, I don’t see what a pickup can do for you versus a minivan. And as regards safety with kids, I’d think the ability to avoid an accident is far superior in a minivan with its lower CoG, better dynamics to a BOF pickup, etc.
But of course it’s all theoretical since I am not and don’t plan to be “making babies and raising kids” any time soon. Though when my extended family is in town, including nieces/nephews and their car seats and various accompanying gear, the rented minivan does a great job of getting everyone around in relative comfort, and a lot more economically than the 14/20 MPG of the Ram Pickup mentioned in Jack’s earlier article.
We graduated to a minivan at child #3, and are now on our 4th minivan (5 kids and done). The kids are beginning to move to other stations in life, so I can see the day coming when a minivan won’t be the right choice.
But the utility and relative economy of a minivan vs. a truck has been impressive over the last 15 years of ownership. I’ve hauled a lot of stuff inside our minivans, and even towed a U-Haul with the whole gang across the country last year.
A truck would be more heavy-duty in many respects, but as a suburbanite doing light hauling from time to time, the minivan makes a lot more sense.
Another reason people buy trucks is manufacturers have pulled the plug on tow ratings for just about anything but trucks. For a couple times a year renting is probably best but If you need to haul every couple weeks, nothing beats a trailer.
I run a small gardening business. I’m a target demographic for truck sales. Rather then everything rattling around in the bed, and having to choose between bulk loads and tools, I drive a ’02 Hyundai Elantra hatchback. I Haul all the tools inside, and if I need bulk loads I put its #3500 tow rating to use. Too bad they seem to be catching on, their tow ratings are also shrinking.
Rating is not everything though. RAV4 has 3500# rating and goes 24 to 28 mpg, but its load capacity is zero when towing, because the tongue load is about 10% and the trucklet is only rated for 350 lbs load.
No, the Rav is rated for a 350 lbs tongue load (with V6 and tow package)
Its load capacity is in the range of 1000-1300 lbs depending on options.
A 350 lb load capacity. That wouldn’t even carry a passenger. In the bacon belt it wouldn’t even carry a driver.
I own an 01 Elantra. I had thought there is no way that car has a 3500-lb towing capacity; that’s what my 09 Sedona has. But I looked it up – your 02 has a 3086-lb tow limit with trailer brakes, but only 1212 lbs without them. Either is quite a bit for such a small car.
I have brakes on my trailer. I routinely haul 1.5 yard loads of mulch and 1 yard loads of compost. Depending on how wet things are either load is about a ton. I do have to downshift even more then usual on hills, but I’ve not noticed much affect on braking, other then planning further ahead when driving. 136K on it so far and no weight hauling related failures so far.
I suggest you read your owner’s manual again. 350 lbs in the back, period. 75 lbs on the roof. Everything else is passengers.
Radimus- GM Medium Duty is no more. They are not manufacturing ANY trucks. Done. Over.
Trucks have been very heavily discounted by the big three in Canada for at least a couple years now, to the point where it doesn’t really pay to buy used for anything vaguely new. Ten grand off on the website, before dickering, has been almost standard for a new F150/Silverado/Ram.
So even with our higher gas prices the domestics have sold tons up here, IIRC a quarter of the F150’s Ford made last year were sold in Canada.
Right. I didn’t take a very good look at the websites I links. My bad.
Hanging onto the 2004 Silverado long-bed 4×4 until a heckuva deal on a Chevy long-bed cargo van creeps up and compels purchasing as an alternate abode.
A V-6 will be fine.
Driving minimized to evade the feeding too often of the 4.8L V8.
Meticulously maintained and less than 70K miles with perhaps 4K added yearly.
Hoping the selling price will meet or exceed the van’s cost.
A van will ease stealth vehicle living as decrepitness wraps its tingly-with-soon-to-be-last-gasp-for-airedness that accompanies old age for those gathered around the dumpster beating back the horde of younguns still out of work from the depression of 2007 to 2015 that worsened as the calender crept into the ’30s and the Boomers departed and the elites owned 97 percent of the national wealth.
And the leak from Japan’s reactor core still defied valiant efforts at repair until an US Army private dumped in a bottle of Bars-Leak and a general took the credit.
The end.