Owned a 1975 ford from 77-78 and never again.

If the purchase process is streamlined and pricing is transparent I am in.

Fixed pricing or no, they'll still have to be competitive with GM, Ram, Toyota, etc.... If a customer can get a truck with no haggle for the same price as one they have to fight for, they're going to take the no haggle option every time. If Ford goes the other way and says our MSRP is the same as our competitors, but we're not going to move off of it, then they'll die a quick death if the others keep dealing.

I think we'll see that COVID killed dealerships as we know it. No more need to inventory a bunch of vehicles, or have a bunch of employees. It'll be like how Tesla does it. Very small store, a car or two inside, and then you order what you want and come back in 6 weeks or whatever to pick it up. Much lower cost model.

If Ford can take the money the dealer gets out of the equation, they're already on par with the competitors and pocketing all of the money for themselves. They'll just have to figure out service.

I agreed with this until I remembered that cockroaches can even survive a nuclear blast.

Service departments are the future revenue generators for the dealerships.

Wonder what that will do to impulse buying.

My last 2 trucks were "impulse" buys while I was getting an oil change service!

Yep, the one I have now was an impulse buy, got it on my way home one day. Just because.

How does Tesla do service? Never asked or even looking into it, interesting concept though.

Almost every dealership owner I've ever met was an egomaniacal buffoon. And I met a lot in my line of work. Good riddance.

Gumbeaux is right. GM and the others will eat them alive by under pricing them. Never met a CEO that didn’t have a bloated ego.

you think Ford cares? Ford sees what everyone else but tesla and Amazon sees…

A) biggest recession in US history is shaping up currently.. Cutting costs and over head is a must
B) most profitable and quickest way to adjust prices is direct to consumer model.
C) most profitable division is always internal credit/loans, direct to consumer model is more competitive in offering Ford credit this way

GM just got their company back from Goverment, I wouldnt bet on anything the company does

I’ve seen a lot of manufacturers go to fixed prices. On the first day when someone sells it for less, that model goes right out the window.

I remember GM’s Saturn experiment with fixed prices. Didn’t go well.

Local Ford dealership tried that. The true blue, pre-negotiated pricing model didn’t last.

I wouldn’t mind if vehicles were all a set price. It’s the hassle of haggling and inflated msrp’s and dealer premiums that pizz me off.

I haven’t bought a Toyota in years but they used to stay extremely close to sticker….maybe come off $500 but that was about it.

I never bought a Toyota, but that's the way most of the luxury European cars work. You may get a few bucks off, but nothing like the $10-15K I used to get off of Ford trucks.

The big hurdle is going to be the decades of history they have to overcome. The price hasn't been the price for decades.....when they now say the price is really the price, no one is going to believe it and they're not going to buy for full MSRP unless that MSRP is competitive with the fully discounted deals that GM and Chrysler offer.

100% true. Local F*** dealer General Manager told me the same (not "our" F*** dealership, another close-by) and that he was one of the last in the Nation to refuse the $100K worth of equipment and another $80K in advertising for the EV stuff. F*** threatened the franchise agreement. He was ticked because at the time, they had about 12 new vehicles on the lot due to supply issues.



Pretty sure that was before Saturn was fully engulfed by GM. That was when Saturns did not have any GM parts or engineering.

COVID taught corporate America that they can make more by producing less and charging more

It’s the new way.
So pay up and like it.

^^^

Yep, embrace the suck!

The Ram dealer I am using right now is fixed 11.5% off msrp on new truck orders before incentives.No haggle. Trade in and financially is not talked about at time of order. They are the number one volume Ram dealer in in the country with this business model. I think this is the future all new auto sales are headed to. Other than the wait it has been a wonderful experience. Ford gets it. People are tired of the used car salesman tactics. A local dealer manager asked me why I would not buy from him. I told him because I found a fixed price out of state almost $11,000 cheaper than what he was able to offer. Really better than that, because mine has more add on packages with it.

Where is this Ram Dealer?

Mark Dodge, Lake Charles. But know orders for 2023 HDs closed a few days ago and pricing on the 2024s is not available yet. The ramtrucks build website does not reflect ordering closed, but it was reported on an HD truck forum.

This^^^^^

I really don’t think we need to worry about ‘no haggle’ truck pricing in the future. Too much competition in the marketplace to allow it to survive. It’s just some dumb a__ idea from some unseasoned new guy that thinks this is a radical new winning idea to sell trucks. Probably not old enough to have watched the dumb a__ Saturn disaster that was going to be a radical new idea to sell cars.

I was in corporate America for a long time, and I observed some seriously brain deficient ideas from folks in high positions. Our job as underlings was to say out loud “you are a genius Big Guy”, while thinking “God have mercy on us, this is stupid”.

My boat mechanic bought a new 1/2 ton RAM about 2 months ago for over 7K off sticker price in Eastland.