Problem with new mustang

Well there are many companies out there that make thousands of $ profit per car sold. Especially on SUV's which get marked up sometimes over $10K. In my area we one of the dealers had 03 Explorers with a sticker of $33K. They were selling them for $22K to get rid of them quick before the end of the year. According to my source from the dealer they are still making a $1K profit plus get about another $2K in hold back from the factory. So, how much do you think Ford makes out on this? Ford's not loosing money. The prices are set so the dealers can make money. They set the prices based on what people are willing to pay. People see the Mustang more like a toy now. And more and more wealthier people are buying Mustangs. Again, like the T-bird, this whole new retro, cool, re-live old memories look is not geared for the average consumer. We love the Mustang because its plain, simple and we can make it go fast. But there are people out there that are willing to pay more so that who they want to attract. It doesn't cost much for the auto manufacturer to build a car. Especially today with all the state of the art plastics and metals they use. Also, they use different suppliers for their parts. They just go out and who ever has the lowest price that day gets the contract. Most cars share the same platforms and interchangable parts. Buying in bulk saves a lot of $. As far as employees, they have more people doing the paperwork then they do in the factories. They have robots and machines today that do most of the dirty work. So yeah, cars today are more tech advanced but back in the day they were also built using the best they had back then, but they had to use all metal parts and more expensive materials. Wood trim, was actually real would. Anyone remember chrome? What happened to chrome? Things were done more manually back then. They didn't have computer like we do know. Most of these automakers also have spread into other areas such a finance, ie: Ford Credit, GMAC, etc. I work with mortgages now, and a some people are paying off their homes to Ford and GM. These guys play the stock market game, they get help from the government, lobbyist, campaign contributions, etc. If they were hurting for money they would not be out buying all these other companies. Look at Chrysler, in the 80's they were about gone, the government bailed them out and gave them a time limit to get back on their feet. What saved them was the mini van. They opened a new market and made a killing because everyone had to have one.
 
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A side note on SUV. I started out working for a John Deere diesel engine distributor. Now the government does not want us to go to alternative fuels, at least not just yet. They haven't figured out how they could tax it yet. So, thats why they have been slow in that area. But in order to look good and keep the EPA and tree huggers of there back, they need to show some progress. They gave grants to many bus, trucking and transport companies to change over to natural gas. John Deere developed a Natural gas engine. Automakers have began playing with hybirds and natural gas, etc. In some of the dealing I've had, I have learned the many auto manufactures raise the prices of what the EPA considers environmentally unfriendly vehicles such as trucks, SUV's, etc because they get tax credits. Now lets thinks about this for one minute. They don't pay anything extra for it. We pay the gas guzzler tax, its usually on the sticker price. So, basically the more they charge us for a car the more they get to write off on their taxes. Basically the government is paying them to charge us more for vehicle they have rated as being bad for the environment. So, the automaker not only gets more from the consumer, they also get a nice big tax right off at the end of the year. So you tell me what end of the stick we are getting. FoMoCo, GM, Chrysler, ToMoCo, Honda, etc. They all have more power and influence in Washington then the 280 million people living here in the U.S. have.
 
While it is true that Ford is into financing. They are not dealers. Whatever the dealer charges goes into the dealers pocket. And if you look at recent history Ford was losing a lot of money every year. That's part of why it's stock was so low. As for the gas tax. I did not know it was in effect on SUV's yet. But it is a tax that the government gets. Not extra that Ford charges.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/26/4064.html
http://www.liberalartsandcrafts.net/contentcatalog/autos/guzzlertax.shtml
 
Some comments;

Lee I Accoca pitched the minivan to ford when he was there an they told him to get lost. If they only knew.

I'm sure your'e all aware of the SUV tax credit available to consumers right now. It was something written into the code to give farmers and contractors (ie people who use these vehicles for work) a tax brake. Something about "any vehicle with a GVW of over 6500 lbs...", I'm not entirely sure how it works so if anyone could clarify it, please do. I know it does represent a big chunk of cash back for the owner.

I won't fault any SUV owner for taking advantage of this loophole to get some money back. The tax payer generally get's bent over a barrel on a regular basis, so, anytime they can get some back is a good thing. However, on principal, I have a BIG problem with this whole deal. I'm a good guy and I pay my taxes. Why can't I get money back? Why does some soccer mom that goes out and buys a new Hummer H2 get a $10k (maybe more) rebate from the federal government and I don't?
 
67coupe said:
If anyone didn't read the MM & FF interview with John C. on the reason the '03 cobra got a blower, you need to. It was great. This is the kind of man we need at Ford. I'm excited, Ford is on the rise again.

Right on the money. The story about the Alpo is priceless! :banana:

I met Colleti and spoke with him for about 15-20 minutes in the SVT parking area during the Ford Centennial back in June. He's a boomer just like me who grew up in the muscle car era, and he's producing this era's equivalents. To know what's in the guy's heart all you have to do is look at the late model bodied Boss429 that he had built. One of the SVT engineers was doing 300 foot burnouts with it during the SVT engineering tours in June. Sweet.
 
You have to use the vehicle for your business in some capacity. Why this all came out (and the laws are going to be changed because of) was because of the hummer h2. Accountants were encouraging anyone that could use it for work to buy them. You got a 50k truck for 8k to 13k after the write off. A regular person that works 40 hrs for someone else cannot use this as a write off. You have to own your own business.
 
falchulk said:
You have to use the vehicle for your business in some capacity. Why this all came out (and the laws are going to be changed because of) was because of the hummer h2. Accountants were encouraging anyone that could use it for work to buy them. You got a 50k truck for 8k to 13k after the write off. A regular person that works 40 hrs for someone else cannot use this as a write off. You have to own your own business.

Yes, I hate that Frickin loop hole, at my last job the frickin CEO did that. The guy is worth multi millions and the jack*ss goes and "buys" an H2 and sticks it to the tax payers. I think it is a great thing for small buisnesses and Farmers.
 
Ron Jeremy said:
SPANKY442 is 100% RIGHT here. I couldn't agree more. Prices of Mustangs and all other cars have got out of hand. I remember back in the early 70's when a nice American car cost only $3,000 to $4,000. Yes, I do agree that inflation has played a BIG role with the astronomical prices of cars. But still, cars are 5 to 7 times MORE EXPENSIVE today than they were back in the early 70's. And people's salaries have not gone up by much since the mid 70's

And what did a gallon of milk sell for in 1972 vs now? Or a loaf of bread?

Everything is more expensive now, not just cars. A 2003 base level V6 Mustang is about the same price as a comparably equipped Mustang in 1972 in constant dollars. IOW although the price has increased, it hasn't increased more proportionally than other things. And today's base Mustang comes with EFI, airbags, disk brakes, etc and is more car for the money.
 
The local hummer dealership was saying it in their TV ads, Suggesting people talk to their accountants about the federal tax rebate. I also wonder just how stringent the "use for business" qualifications are.
 
Snake03 said:
And what did a gallon of milk sell for in 1972 vs now? Or a loaf of bread?

Everything is more expensive now, not just cars. A 2003 base level V6 Mustang is about the same price as a comparably equipped Mustang in 1972 in constant dollars. IOW although the price has increased, it hasn't increased more proportionally than other things. And today's base Mustang comes with EFI, airbags, disk brakes, etc and is more car for the money.

Average wages have not increased at the same rate. In 1979 I was making $4.80/hour (which was considered average) at my fulltime job and I could have bought a brand new base Mustang for $6800. Today, I know many people who make about $6.00/hour (and that is higher than the minimum wages of $5.80 THAT'S RIGHT $5.80 is the current minimum wage around here) Average wage around here is about $9-$10/hour so that is around 100% more. Now a brand new base mustang is about $24000 and that is 250% more. How is that even. A loaf of bread then was $60 I can still get it for $1.35, again a wee bit more than 100%...Car prices are getting out of hand. Crappy entry level cars like the new Aveo (not much better than a crappy Geo Metro) is sticker priced at $17,000...Cars cost the maufacturer about 1/4 to 1/3 of what we end up paying. We are all nuts to be paying the prices but we do because we love our cars. If we stopped paying the sticker price or buying new cars, things would change very quickly.
 
Wylde said:
Average wages have not increased at the same rate. In 1979 I was making $4.80/hour (which was considered average) at my fulltime job and I could have bought a brand new base Mustang for $6800. Today, I know many people who make about $6.00/hour (and that is higher than the minimum wages of $5.80 THAT'S RIGHT $5.80 is the current minimum wage around here) Average wage around here is about $9-$10/hour so that is around 100% more. Now a brand new base mustang is about $24000 and that is 250% more. How is that even. A loaf of bread then was $60 I can still get it for $1.35, again a wee bit more than 100%...Car prices are getting out of hand. Crappy entry level cars like the new Aveo (not much better than a crappy Geo Metro) is sticker priced at $17,000...Cars cost the maufacturer about 1/4 to 1/3 of what we end up paying. We are all nuts to be paying the prices but we do because we love our cars. If we stopped paying the sticker price or buying new cars, things would change very quickly.

Dude, where have you been car shopping? Base mustang is the V6 model which does not sell for 24k. Hell, they sell for 13-15k on average. They don't sell a base GT so that can't be what your saying. The GT does sticker for about 24-25k, but lets compare apples to apples here. In 79, even if you got a V8 mustang, you still only had about 140hp. Handling was crappy, comfort level sucked etcc... The base V6 these days will walk all over that 79 V8 in every way. And I regularly see them in the Houston paper selling for 13k. Thats a 100% increase over your $6800 base 79. Minimum wage in 79 was around $2.50 I believe. At $5.80 now, that is over 100% increase. If anyone is making $6 an hour, they need to finish high school or something. We have manual labor people working in our company as contractors making 8-10 an hour.
 
The aveo is $9000 up to $11000 sticker. No where near 17000. That car is also a korean import and thus not subject to the huge salaries of US autoworkers. In my opnion it should be less then that.
 
falchulk said:
The aveo is $9000 up to $11000 sticker. No where near 17000. That car is also a korean import and thus not subject to the huge salaries of US autoworkers. In my opnion it should be less then that.
Agreed. And it probably would be but for the import tariffs we have in place to protect the huge salaries of US autoworkers.
 
Well, in the 1979 140 HP was good considering the gas crunch and all that was going on. It was comparable to cars of its time. Just like today, there are better and worse cars. 20 years froms know they will be even better. They are going to have the latest technology for the time. I remember a VCR cost over $800, now you can get one for under $100. More recently, my PC in 1995 was $4,000 with 166mhz. My current PC was $1,500 with 2.0gb. I mean technology is supposed to get cheaper as it develops. Today auto makers are using plastics and metals and technology that is cheaper than what was available in the past. As far as the SUV tax cut, if you own your own business their is a lot you can write off if you use it for work, or say you do. But, they still hike up the prices not just on SUV's and trucks but also mini vans, and other cars. They charge what people are willing to pay.
 
spanky442 said:
Well, in the 1979 140 HP was good considering the gas crunch and all that was going on. It was comparable to cars of its time. Just like today, there are better and worse cars. 20 years froms know they will be even better. They are going to have the latest technology for the time. I remember a VCR cost over $800, now you can get one for under $100. More recently, my PC in 1995 was $4,000 with 166mhz. My current PC was $1,500 with 2.0gb. I mean technology is supposed to get cheaper as it develops. Today auto makers are using plastics and metals and technology that is cheaper than what was available in the past. As far as the SUV tax cut, if you own your own business their is a lot you can write off if you use it for work, or say you do. But, they still hike up the prices not just on SUV's and trucks but also mini vans, and other cars. They charge what people are willing to pay.
Technology does to some extent get cheaper with age. But The computer example should show you how over priced they were back then. not how cheap they are now. I had my brother put together my 1.8gb system. And I'm $700 into it. And really don't need anything more added to it. They other thing you have to look at is how many cheap computer companies have been around. Acer/emachines/etc. They helped bring the price down. That and the fact that unless you talk about new computers. We are hitting a kind of saturation point. And eventualy there will be little improvement to be had for the personal user. Metals however don't usually get cheaper with age. They have somewhat of a tendency to stay with inflation. And plastics are getting more developement than before. 20 years ago you wouldn't have been able to make the saturn the way it is now.
 
Consumer electronics can not be compared to autos. First , most computer parts are made in tiwan, malysia, and indonisia. The initial high cost is from th processor. There are a lot more processors then cars sold so the money on eng and tooling up of the factory is recovered quickly. The longer a car remains unchanged in production, the cheaper it is to make (for instance Ford/lincolns big v8 cars cost about 13500 to make) I can also promise you that none of the companys that were involved in making your pc were paying 3 shifts of janitors $30 an hour. As long as we all get raises every year, things are going to cost more. We cannot expect companys to pay salary increases that will put the whloe company under. The only choice they have is to rasie prices. The crappy thing is all these companys moving jobs offshore. When that process is complete, it wont matter how much things are becasue 75% of us will never be able to pay fo them anyway.
 
Wylde said:
Average wages have not increased at the same rate. In 1979 I was making $4.80/hour (which was considered average) at my fulltime job and I could have bought a brand new base Mustang for $6800. Today, I know many people who make about $6.00/hour (and that is higher than the minimum wages of $5.80 THAT'S RIGHT $5.80 is the current minimum wage around here) Average wage around here is about $9-$10/hour so that is around 100% more. Now a brand new base mustang is about $24000 and that is 250% more.

Well, first of all a brand new base mustang is not 24K. You can get a well equipped GT for that price.

In 1972 I was making $11k a year. Now I'm making $110K. People who are working unskilled minimum wage jobs are always going to be making minimum wage unless they educate themselves and improve their lot. The minimum wage may have not kept pace with inflation, but most skilled work, ie factory, nursing, engineering, etc have considerably more than doubled in the 32 years since I entered the workforce. We have high school graduates working in the plant where I'm located making 35-38K entry level, and 45-50K with a few years experience and a good work record. My son will graduate from college in May and will probably find a job paying 50K plus, right ouf of school.

I can assure you, changes in the minimum wage certainly do not reflect changes in wages and salaries in general.
 
Only 2% to 5% of the American population make $100,000+ per year annual salary. Most Americans make between $22,000-$45,000 per year. Wylde was right in his post that salaries in this country have not increased at the same rate as the consumer prices for cars and other consumer goods and services. Why do you dispute this? And most decent white collar and blue collar jobs that are available right now are paying an average of $10-$12 per hour. You call that a lot of money? Try paying rent or buying a home and a car while making $10-$12 per hour. You won't be able to pay your bills. It's not enough money. Like Wylde said in here. The cost of cars has gotten out of hand just like the cost of living has. You have to be blind or a total idiot to not realize this. Especially if you are an adult and if you remember how cheap everything was and how low the cost of living was back 25-30 years ago. Get real. Do some research and look back at how everything cost less money 25-30 years ago in this country. People weren't making lots of money, but their salaries went further than they are today. Don't dispute this because you are very wrong if you do. Everything costs more money today than it did 25-30 years ago and people's salaries have not increased by much with the higher cost of living. Don't be stupid and acknowledge this. It's not a lie. It's fact.
 
Ron Jeremy said:
Only 2% to 5% of the American population make $100,000+ per year annual salary. Most Americans make between $22,000-$45,000 per year. Wylde was right in his post that salaries in this country have not increased at the same rate as the consumer prices for cars and other consumer goods and services. Why do you dispute this? And most decent white collar and blue collar jobs that are available right now are paying an average of $10-$12 per hour. You call that a lot of money? Try paying rent or buying a home and a car while making $10-$12 per hour. You won't be able to pay your bills. It's not enough money. Like Wylde said in here. The cost of cars has gotten out of hand just like the cost of living has. You have to be blind or a total idiot to not realize this. Especially if you are an adult and if you remember how cheap everything was and how low the cost of living was back 25-30 years ago. Get real. Do some research and look back at how everything cost less money 25-30 years ago in this country. People weren't making lots of money, but their salaries went further than they are today. Don't dispute this because you are very wrong if you do. Everything costs more money today than they did 25-30 years ago and people's salaries have not increased by much with the higher cost of living. Don't be stupid and acknowledge this. It's not a lie. It's fact.

So am I stupid because I managed to pay rent and buy my Cobra on $11.00 an hour? I pay my bills just fine. Yes everything cost less back in the 70's. But many people are doing just fine on $10-$11 an hour.