FORD to eliminate dealerships ?

[VAMike]

No doubt and if Farley really wants to do something that can set Ford really apart from the pack, just re-invent the dealership model, jettison the con artists and fortify the guys that are doing it right already. We have 3 dealerships within a short commute of my house, two could go and nobody would be crying. One is a gem. I bought my truck from a gem, but they are too far for warranty work, etc.

And for those who want it, an option to just buy the f'ing truck from ford on the internet without having to bargain with a dealer like it's a 12th century bazaar. I just want to buy what I want without any drama, the way I buy every other thing in my life that isn't a vehicle.

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[deleriumtremor]

And for those who want it, an option to just buy the f'ing truck from ford on the internet without having to bargain with a dealer like it's a 12th century bazaar. I just want to buy what I want without any drama, the way I buy every other thing in my life that isn't a vehicle.

Absolutely and the customer can choose to come down to a dealer and take delivery, maybe buy a few frills that strike their fancy, or not and if they see a blemish, have the dealer write it up as a claim and get it addressed stat. The dealer network can be an enormous advantage over a company like Tesla, if a CEO understands what is wrong now with that advantage and address the problems, while amplifying the obvious advantages.

What drive me nuts is the notion that Tesla’s sales and CS model is a brilliant idea for mass market volumes.

Elon sees the future pretty darn well. There is a reason he is selling billions and billions of dollars of Tesla stock and it ain’t because he ever planned to buy Twitter.

 

[VAMike]

Absolutely and the customer can choose to come down to a dealer and take delivery, maybe buy a few frills that strike their fancy, or not and if they see a blemish, have the dealer write it up as a claim and get it addressed stat.

No, I don't want that thing. I don't want to deal with a dealer at all. I want the company I'm doing business with to send me what I ordered and I sure as hell don't want to sit through an upsell.

Maybe then the manufacturer would have an incentive to get things right at the factory and stop all this bs where obvious errors get fixed by the customer wasting time at a dealership trying to sort out things that should have been done right before delivery. Yeah, cars are complicated--but we've been accustomed to accepting a level of bs when buying vehicles for 10s of thousands of dollars that we don't put up with buying anything else.

 

[deleriumtremor]

No, I don't want that thing. I don't want to deal with a dealer at all. I want the company I'm doing business with to send me what I ordered and I sure as hell don't want to sit through an upsell.

Maybe then the manufacturer would have an incentive to get things right at the factory and stop all this bs where obvious errors get fixed by the customer wasting time at a dealership trying to sort out things that should have been done right before delivery. Yeah, cars are complicated--but we've been accustomed to accepting a level of bs when buying vehicles for 10s of thousands of dollars that we don't put up with buying anything else.

OK, you can take delivery at home, or a service station or a body shop, or…. I said, you can choose to come down, I didn’t say you had to take delivery at the dealer.

But if what you want what Tesla is doing, I think you have another thing coming how happy you will be about your idea, when you see what they drop off in front of you…

Today some people get really perfect Tesla’s dropped off for them, I know a few that got Teslas with lots of problems.

 

[VAMike]

OK, you can take delivery at home, or a service station or a body shop, or…. But if what you want what Tesla is doing, I think you have another thing coming how happy you will be about your idea, when you see what they drop off in front of you…

Today some people get really perfect Tesla’s dropped off for them, I know a few that got Teslas with lots of problems.

Why do you keep talking about tesla? I'm talking about what I want from Ford. Tesla does some things right and some things wrong, but they're not my personal guide to what I want out of life and probably shouldn't be anyone else's model for how to do things.

As for what happens if someone drops off a POS in front of me...I just won't take it. Again, why do we put up with a level of BS when buying a car that we don't accept when buying anything else? The idea that the way we've been buying cars for 120 years is the only possible way to buy a car is nuts. Ford is charging something like $1300 as the "delivery fee" on a ranger. Are you telling me that in no possible reality can you find someone who will get the car to the right spot and check it over for $1300 without the current dealership model? Let's say I personally hand-deliver just 3 cars a week at $1k per...that's $150k+/year. We're paying a lot of money to get shitty service because of protectionist regulations on car dealerships. It's a market ripe for innovation and disruption. (My favorite example: that "destination charge" is supposed to cover shit like the dealer making sure the tire pressure is right and filling up the washer fluid. Wanna guess whether I got a rebate when my dealer didn't do that?)

 

[deleriumtremor]

Why do you keep talking about tesla? I'm talking about what I want from Ford. Tesla does some things right and some things wrong, but they're not my personal guide to what I want out of life and probably shouldn't be anyone else's model for how to do things.

As for what happens if someone drops off a POS in front of me...I just won't take it. Again, why do we put up with a level of BS when buying a car that we don't accept when buying anything else? The idea that the way we've been buying cars for 120 years is the only possible way to buy a car is nuts. Ford is charging something like $1300 as the "delivery fee" on a ranger. Are you telling me that in no possible reality can you find someone who will get the car to the right spot and check it over for $1300 without the current dealership model? Let's say I personally hand-deliver just 3 cars a week at $1k per...that's $150k+/year. We're paying a lot of money to get shitty service because of protectionist regulations on car dealerships. It's a market ripe for innovation and disruption. (My favorite example: that "destination charge" is supposed to cover shit like the dealer making sure the tire pressure is right and filling up the washer fluid. Wanna guess whether I got a rebate when my dealer didn't do that?)

I keep bringing Tesla up because Tesla is a no dealership, all online model that Jim Farley has brought up on multiple occasions in interviews I have seen on business channels as something inspirational to him.

To be fair, he also says Ford will do it better and perhaps that means blending what he has now with much more of the online sales model

As far as why do we keep putting up with your list of grievances? The answer: you don’t have to!

They don’t call the car business “consumer discretionary” for no reason. But, unless there is an alternative that exists that addresses your list of grievances, you just get to pick which motor company you want to be disappointed by, at least, when you have to replace what you are driving today.

But that is the point I made from the start, Jim Farley has a tremendous opportunity to transform and lead the auto business, time will tell if he is as good a CEO as many analysts think he is.

 

[VAMike]

I keep bringing Tesla up because Tesla is a no dealership, all online model that Jim Farley has brought up on multiple occasions in interviews I have seen on business channels as something inspirational to him.

Insperational != "doing exactly the same thing". so using tesla as a rebuttal is just kinda meaningless as nobody expects ford to do exactly the same thing as tesla. In general all of tesla's nuts-and-bolts stuff is kinda half assed, they don't really seem interested (for example) in dealing with the inventory management needed to keep spare parts in stock. On the other hand, their software and the customer experience with same is in a whole different league than the legacy automakers. I keep wondering whether one car company will ever manage to be good at both hardware and software.

As far as why do we keep putting up with your list of grievances? The answer: you don’t have to!

They don’t call the car business “consumer discretionary” for no reason. But, unless there is an alternative that exists that addresses your list of grievances, you just get to pick which motor company you want to be disappointed by, at least, when you have to replace what you are driving today.

There's a reason I only buy a car every decade or so, and the process never makes me want to buy another car. I keep hoping that next decade I won't have to deal with the same bs (hope springs eternal). I'm also not a very loyal customer, as I keep looking for a manufacturer than won't disappoint me. This was actually ford's second chance since '93, but looking at where they're going with the next gen and looking at the competition, my current plan is to run my '19 into the ground and then look at something that's not a truck. (I'm not willing to compromise on a short bed four door, and I'm not thrilled that they're increasing the front dimensions--reducing forward visibility and creating a fugly giant wall--to accommodate a larger engine I don't need or want.)

FWIW, I think it's somewhat disingenuous to call cars "discretionary" as much of the country has been built up in such a way that it's practically impossible to function without one. So the real choice is between a new car and a used car, also known as "six of one and half dozen of some other guy's mistakes". Yes, in theory there are options, but the current realistic alternatives for most people are limited to the dealerships within a reasonable drive.

 

[deleriumtremor]

Insperational != "doing exactly the same thing". so using tesla as a rebuttal is just kinda meaningless as nobody expects ford to do exactly the same thing as tesla. In general all of tesla's nuts-and-bolts stuff is kinda half assed, they don't really seem interested (for example) in dealing with the inventory management needed to keep spare parts in stock. On the other hand, their software and the customer experience with same is in a whole different league than the legacy automakers. I keep wondering whether one car company will ever manage to be good at both hardware and software.


There's a reason I only buy a car every decade or so, and the process never makes me want to buy another car. I keep hoping that next decade I won't have to deal with the same bs (hope springs eternal). I'm also not a very loyal customer, as I keep looking for a manufacturer than won't disappoint me. This was actually ford's second chance since '93, but looking at where they're going with the next gen and looking at the competition, my current plan is to run my '19 into the ground and then look at something that's not a truck. (I'm not willing to compromise on a short bed four door, and I'm not thrilled that they're increasing the front dimensions--reducing forward visibility and creating a fugly giant wall--to accommodate a larger engine I don't need o

FWIW, I think it's somewhat disingenuous to call cars "discretionary" as much of the country has been built up in such a way that it's practically impossible to function without one. So the real choice is between a new car and a used car, also known as "six of one and half dozen of some other guy's mistakes". Yes, in theory there are options, but the current realistic alternatives for most people are limited to the dealerships within a reasonable drive.

Consumer discretionary isn’t my title, it is what the whole world of economists call it.

I get it loud and clear you don’t like the status quo. If it meant more to me, I might feel your angst a little deeper.

Right now I have a great dealer singled out to do my windshield recall work (or at least sub out my window recall), the truck gets 8 mpg better than my last truck and I really do need a truck, so I am pretty happy all in all.

But again, maybe if I thought about it much at all, I might be more fired up.

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