Originally posted by Hudson@Jul 23 2004, 04:04 PM
Melvin:
While you're technically right (Silverado sales are up 915 units), Silverado sales are basically flat, rising only 0.3%. Since the market is up 2.2%, the Silverado has lost share. The Sierra has done better, rising 6,860 units (up 7.5%). F-Series is up 30,897 units (+7.7%) and the Ram Pickup is flat (up 68 units or less than 0.1%).
The other points being missed are that Chevy's flat sales are with incentives that are considerably higher than Ford, Dodge, Toyota (up 8.3%), or Nissan have on their full-sized pickups.
Ford's "older design" was older than Chevrolet's by two model years. Ford's sales were setting a record pace even when Chevrolet introduced their "new design," which was basically the old styling on an all-new truck.
I tend to look at GM trucks together when I'm trying to assess how well an overall design is doing, since there's not much difference between the two.
Obviously GM trucks aren't losing ground to Dodge if GM's sales are up more than Dodges, which proves gmswag wrong on one point.
True, GM has been carrying higher incentives, but with an older truck, more design and tooling costs are paid for and there's more room for incentives. I know Ford's new F-150 is more expensive to build than their previous design, whereas GM's was designed to be built more efficiently than the previous design, so I really have to wonder what the manufacturers' margins on the actual sales are. Do you know of any place to get that kind of data? It would be interesting to see. If GM's costs are lower, then they should be selling for a lower price, whether by sticker or by rebate.
With another new player in the game (Nissan), it's not surprising if most manufacturer's market shares lose a bit - it's only natural. And Ford's market share is up, but with an all-new design, it certainly should be. If not up now, when would it ever be?
Ford's "older design" was older by 2 model years, but wasn't the previous F-150 introduced in very early '96 as a '97? The model year may be '97, but I think the truck is at least a half year older than that. As I recall, GM introduced their '99's in late summer/early fall. OK, that's a nitpick.
GM kept their styling similar because the vast majority of current owners liked the styling of their trucks at the time. Ford had a backlash when did the somewhat radical redesign of the F-150 in 1997. I'm convinced that Ford wouldn't have sold as many Super Duties in the years since then if they had styled the F-150's more conservatively. I know Ford guys who simply bought a Super Duty even though they didn't need one to get away from the F-150's styling. And even though a radical new look worked wonders for Dodge in 1994, they had absolutely no where to go but up, so they had nothing to lose. Now that they have a respectable share, their 2002-2003 redesign was fairly subtle. They learned Ford's lesson too.
lasma:
