Yesterday, I drove past my local Chevy dealership. Overall, the new car lot was noticeably bear. I counted just 2 Silverado and just 1 Suburban/Tahoe on the new lot. There were some on the used lot.
Same day, the GMC dealer appeared to have 10 new full size pick ups.
This morning I went past my local Ford dealer, two new F-150's and zero F-250+
My Ram dealer seemed to have a good supply, certainly good compared to the others.
A local, popular independent used car lot in a former gas station usually has 50 cars. He barely had 20 and the cars are not as nice.
Another, similar independent lot (which seems like a nice business) usually has 20 cars. He has one. A Ford Fusion.
Our former baby sitter and close family friend wrote me this last night
Let me know if you see any deals on a truck I kinda want one!
Since she has 3 boys I'm sure she meant a 4 door truck. I just chuckled!
On 3/25 a friend who has access to behind the scenes pipeline info told me the 69 day inventory outlook looked terrible, and he sent me this:
There are no more Ford Super Duty trucks being produced until the 2022 model year, it’s nuts. The Chevrolet store up the street usually has 350 cars in stock, they have 22….
I’ll use World Toyota in Atlanta because that’s a fairly big Toyota store you’ve probably seen in person. They have 140 new in stock total. 4 4runners, 2 Tundra, 1 Sequoia, 25 Corolla, etc.
There are 9 total 4runners on the ground in the Baltimore market, and I’d bet they’re gone by Sat. it’s crazy
Looks like he was right.
Manufacturers (and employers in general) are having severe labor shortages related to stimulus payments and PPP. Dealers sold everything they had the past year, and now manufacturers can't keep up with demand.
A Porsche dealership near me has zero cars on the lot. Zero.
I just rolled through my Toyota dealer.
4 Tundra, 2 Taco, 0 4Run on the new side. Surprisingly, 1 Sequoia.
No less than 25 Rav4
A friend of ours was car shopping and wanted to pay cash for a used Subaru for their daughter. It was like $9000. The dealer refused because they did not want to trade in anything. REFUSED A CASH SALE! This was in Lagrange Georgia. Similar experience in other dealers in the area.
She ended up going to Macon, traded in the Highlander and got a Tahoe.
Crazy rimes.
A typical dealer sale has 3 separate profit elements.
- Vehicle sale
- Vehicle financing and the add-ons like warranty, True Coat, etc.
- Trade in
Sadly, your buddy was perceived as a bad customer because he only offered one of the three elements.
Can confirm. We rode through the local Ford lot the other day. They usually have over 200 vehicles in stock. They had maybe 10 F-150s, a smattering of 20-30 Edges and Escapes, one Mustang, and about 5 Bronco Sports. That's it.
A customer at work has a local Ford dealer as a client and he said they dealer was slotted 17 new F-150s for one month..!
I think a lot of it has to do with the plants shutting down do to chip shortages.
miatafan (Forum Supporter) said:
I think a lot of it has to do with the plants shutting down do to chip shortages.
Came here to post this. Inventories are super low everywhere. Manufacturers can't make vehicles.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/02/a-silicon-chip-shortage-is-causing-automakers-to-idle-their-factories/
Hey, why are used car sales ridiculous these days?
68TR250 said:
A friend of ours was car shopping and wanted to pay cash for a used Subaru for their daughter. It was like $9000. The dealer refused because they did not want to trade in anything. REFUSED A CASH SALE! This was in Lagrange Georgia. Similar experience in other dealers in the area.
She ended up going to Macon, traded in the Highlander and got a Tahoe.
Crazy rimes.
Not crazy. They don't make money on car sales, they make money on financing. Especially if you have bad credit and they can ding you at 29% interest or whatever your state's maximum is. And then, if they are lucky, you will default, they repo the car, and get to sell it again.
NEVER say that you're paying cash, at a dealership. They will basically do everything but actually shoo you out the door.
local ford dealer told a friend it is 12-14 weeks on any new truck orders. chevy and dodge are 4-8 weeks
Pete. (l33t FS) said:
Not crazy. They don't make money on car sales, they make money on financing. Especially if you have bad credit and they can ding you at 29% interest or whatever your state's maximum is. And then, if they are lucky, you will default, they repo the car, and get to sell it again.
And this is disgusting. Predator lending...
In reply to singleslammer :
It is. But the attitude of "They are bad with money, screw em, they should know better" is prevalent among people who are more financially secure, so little is done about it.
Eight to twelve weeks for delivery sounds about right someone I know will finally get a new Ranger next week, he put down a deposit in early Feb. There is the chip shortage, there is talk of a rubber shortage, and one you may not of heard about paint tint. Paint tint you say - I bought indoor paint in the last couple of weeks we got to talking and it seems most of the tint produced in North America comes from a few plants in Texas and Oklahoma. Guess what happened there yes the pipes froze creating a possible tint shortage.
In reply to Appleseed :
...and the attitude "I can do whatever berkeleyed up thing I want to financially, but should still have the right to cheap money even though I am a high risk" is also prevalent.
Yes, 29% is really high. But don't forget, they have a proven track record of poor choices and being a bad risk, and someone is getting paid to take another chance on them.
There are a lot of interim steps before anyone gets to the highest level allowed by law.
Would YOU loan $30K to someone who has proven themselves to be untrustworthy? I wouldn't.
Duke
MegaDork
4/17/21 11:51 a.m.
Inventory doesn't seem to be an issue in Delaware. Don't know about trucks specifically but the Subaru dealer I see every day is full up on both their main and overflow lots.
All the other dealerships on the row - Mazda, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Chevy, Chrysler-Jeep-Ram - all seem to have decent front line stock, but I don't know where their storage lots are.
My local Ford dealer shows 158 F150s today, that's about one third of their normal levels. Total new vehicle inventory is 710, again well below normal.
Chevy dealer shows 318 vehicles, 22 Silverado 1500s, and about heavier Silverados.
As for interest rates, etc.....both the Ford dealer and GMC dealer reps told me that 90% of their "sales" are leases. The Ford guy was dumbfounded that I wanted to buy a truck and no financing needed.
The GMC lot I drive past every morning has been using creative parking to enhance the appearance of stock for almost a year now.
In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :
No! Those people should not be borrowing money. Instead you have companies that take advantage of people who are poorly educated about financial matters by actively seek out them out, knowing that they won't be able to repay that loan. Anyway, we can't fix any of this one here and I will be quiet now.
In reply to singleslammer :
Except that if they didn't make the loans, that same people who complain about "predatory lending" would be complaining about lack of access to loans. The fact is, most of the people who have to pay the poor choices tax learn and work their way out of it. They don't repo 100% of the cars sold on high interest loans and they wouldn't want to- repo is a cut your losses solution, not a money making solution. I do agree with you, they shouldn't be borrowing money. But that should be their choice to make, for better or worse.
Back on topic, our whole supply chain is pretty messed up right now, and not looking much better any time soon. It's a seller's market, if they have goods to sell. Not a good time to make any big purchases. Lack of new cars means lack of people trading or selling used cars. Stimulus money in the hands of millions of potential used car buyers has driven up demand.
In reply to Boost_Crazy :
I don't see how stimulus money makes demand high. If you're so poorly off that a $600 check makes you feel rich, you're not buying a $50,000 truck, you're splurging for the name brand mac and cheese.
Supply chains being broken resulting in low supply, THAT I can see. The demand isn't higher, the supply is lower.
Yea, chip shortage.
Been watching Chevy Truck Locator for penis wheel trucks. Pre-shortage there were usually 150 ZR2's in a 250 mile radius from my zip, down to 39 and dropping at the lowest during the shortage. Two days ago they started appearing on site as "In Transit".
Truck forum member local to the plant said no rail transit had been seen for weeks. He counted 55 loaded rail cars that went out today.
Reportedly, GM was allocating chips to the big sellers (read profit), trucks and large SUV's. Shutdowns affected about 10 models across the board at one point. They built as many vehicles as they could even w/o chips then parked them on site but eventually shut the plant down due to shortage.
I remember at least one F-150 plant shutting down, that says a lot. Other mfgrs. were in the same shortage boat.
