Cali and NY are green states and sales of hybrids in green states are probably helpful to Ford somehow. Just guessing tho.

I would also guess that fleet sales are helping to keep supply low. I'd give priority to someone buying 50 over someone buying 1.

 

Yep, I normally wouldnt have paid in full, except the bank had a promotional rate, and I had to lock it in. It was a good rate, and the bank was ok with me pre-paying.

Advertising something you can't produce is a very poor buisness practice.

 

So you are complaining that the advertizing worked?"

 

That doesn't seem fair I ordered mine around valentines day and got it on the 22nd of march. I might have ordered it sooner but the mecury ford dealership near me went out of business

 

OK, here's the rant: Please don't hang a personal financial decision (which now appears to have been made out of greed and done in error) on our friends at Ford. Or the rest of us for that matter. Ditto the advertising thing: That's planned in advance and Ford is not intentionally trying to **** us off, so please spare us the blaming. The dealer in question sold very few hybrids historically so they have a tiny allocation. It stinks, I agree. We all do. But there are other dealers who sell more hybrids out there. Another poor choice, as seen in hindsight.

It's been well-established that this supply problem happened very quickly, like over a 30-60 day period. It's a highly unusual situation so please let us also stop accusing Ford of creating the situation intentionally. They didn't. There are a lot of good people working very hard at Ford to make a car, but with less than 100 batteries per day it's impossible to fill a thousands of orders that were placed at once. They are a huge company and can not turn on dime in reaction to sudden market changes.

2 months ago Ford had an estimated 58 day supply. That's less than the magic 90 number but still not bad. Now it's about 15 days and shrinking, last I saw it was estimated at 13 days. Which means, basically, they are sold out.

When I bought in early March, many dealers had sat on units for weeks. My particular dealer sells a fair number of them and said only 2 or 3 people had even test driven any of their 3 hybrids. I was the only one who'd made an offer and they were glad to sell any of theirs at (or below) invoice just to get rid of them.

Slower-than-expected sales typically leads to lower production. Incentives come next. Notice Ford added a $500 rebate on April 3 for any units already in dealer stock. That decision was based on the slow sales in February and March. In April and May buyers began to appear in large numbers and Ford cranked up production. The rebate was allowed to expire.

That's what happened. Anyone who wanted a Prius in 2004 can probably relate to the situation, except with Ford they will at least build a specific car for you and tell you something about it. Toyota builds whatever it has parts for and tells you nothing until the cars are built and on a boat to the U.S.

Insert end of rant here.

 

Exactly. I think ford and all hybrid manufacturers were simply caught off guard. gas prices, being green all factored in. simply put, demand is exceeding demand thereby driving up prices and wait times.

 

well said mtberman

 

It doest seem to be a Hybrid issue, Saturn has several 07(I think) on there lot. There were quite a few Highlanders also sitting around at dealerships.

I just like the Mariner the best out of all them. All the info on this site was helped me make that decision.

Ford is now extending me an offer to sell me any other Ford vehcile at invoice. Plus rebates so fourth. What a great deal for a corporation, get a bunch of orders, then try to utilize that techniqe to sell the rest of yor product that is sitting around. I don't know whether thats the intent they had, but if it is, it will certainly catch up to them.

I faxed 6 different dealers today vehicle purchase requests. I will see if I can find someone with an allocation available that really doesnt have a real order attached. It sounds like dealers trying to have extras on hand is what is creating the real problem.

 

who wants a saturn? GM is crap. they tried to create a new brand. the SL1 was brilliant and bold yet they crushed them. see "who killed the electric car". i wouldn't buy a saturn 1st on principal and 2nd, GM is crap.

 

Would you consider an escape hybrid?