rai

I have always said that fleet sales from the so-called big three were huge. They can sell xyz number of cars/trucks and they are the sales leader for so many years running etc..

Now I just read Ford and GM have decided to cut back a little on fleet sales. I guess they figure its better to lay off tens of thousands of workers and 'cut the crap' (I mean cut out selling millions of cars/trucks for minimal or no profit).

reading fridays paper that Fords sales down 19% and GMs down 17% for January.

They said this slump was because of Ford/GM lowering the fleets sales. Fleet sales for Ford were 39% of sales last year.

Good lord, they were selling almost half of their cars/trucks to rental and corporate fleets.

IMO the fleet sales underscore the problem with GM/Ford. As an analogy, look at those cheap-o appartment buildings. Lets say they include washer/dryer as a perk. You know they are going to buy the cheapest things on the market. Lets say they can get a washer and dryer for $300 a pair. Well they'll buy them doesn't matter if they are not top quality all they are looking for is how cheap they can buy them for.

The same thing with rental and taxi fleets. They don't care so much about the quality or style they just want the bottom line. These products cars/trucks were selling OK according to the bean counters, its cheap to keep making the same old good enough crap. So (IMO) Ford went along as long as they could when people were buying a shit load of Explorers and Expiditions etc.. in good times, but when people stop buying those products they have nothing to fall back on and (IMO) not enough talent to make up the gap between good enough for fleets and the best of the rest of the world Honda/Toyota etc..

topcat7111

They need to make more Corbra GT500....and tell they're Dealership to stop been greedy....Sell it at MSRP and i'll buy one in a second...

bjohnston

39% of all Ford sales were fleet sales!!!??? Is that just for cars, or does it include trucks? That's really an amazing statistic. You really have to wonder what Ford has been thinking. I remember some years ago, when their SUV sales were riding high, Ford had somewhere around $23B in cash on hand. But, clearly, they didn't invest much of that in product development (no new Focus, took forever to replace the Taurus, took forever to release a decent crossover, took forever to replace the 3.0 duratec, etc., etc.). Trucks, Mustang, and V6 Probe GT (which was developed by Mazda) aside, everything Ford has done for the past 15 years or so has been a failure. And, I see nothing of any promise coming from them in the foreseeable future. I think just about the same could be said of Chrysler. The 300 is a nice product, but everything else pretty much sucks, and I see nothing of any promise from them either in the foreseeable future. Why can't Ford and Chrysler get it right? GM, though, really seems to be turning itself around, finally.

rai

[QUOTE=bjohnston,Feb 5 2007, 07:04 AM] 39% of all Ford sales were fleet sales!!!???

vader1

I have always wondered what they did with their r&d money. Somewhere there is an ex Ford exec that must have embezzled billions.

F-150, good. Mustang, good. Fusion, a Mazda 6 copy five years after the fact. The rest of the lineup is seriously lacking in modern technology. OK, I'll give you the Escape Hybrid. But you look at all of the innovative stuff from everyone else in the industry and they have done VERY little.

Where did all the money go?