Chevrolet, Ford outsell Toyota in April

[MikeMike]

perhaps Toyota is getting hit with their declining perceptions...
perhaps Toyota is getting hit with fears of them causing the loss of US jobs.
perhaps it is an anomoly
perhaps the guarantee program for vehicle payments, is something that actually works!

April sales: Chevrolet, Ford outsell Toyota
05/01/2009, 2:03 PM
By Andrew Ganz

For the first time all year, not one but two Detroit brands outsold Toyota. Chevrolet and Ford both posted brand sales that exceeded Toyota?s figures, proving that there are some silver linings, at least in Detroit, in the continuously cloudy new car market in the United States.

We?ll continue to update this space as more automakers release their sales figures. Remember that these figures are to be compared against April, 2008, sales. If you?re curious about market trends, you?ll want to compare to January, February and March figures.

The good
Honda sales were down ?just? 24.5 percent, the least of any large brand so far.

Both Chevrolet and Ford outsold Toyota for the first time in 2009. Toyota?s 112,345 cars and trucks couldn?t match Chevrolet?s 115,265 or Ford?s 116,263.

Chevy?s Traverse crossover sold a reasonable 8,2004 units, its best month this year, while HHR, Tahoe and Express passenger van sales were all up, as well. Overall GM sales were down 33.7 percent to 173,007 units.

Ford?s Fusion, including the 2009 and redesigned 2010, which recently hit dealers, had its best-ever April with 18,321 units sold.

The bad
Mitsubishi?s sales were down 55.9 percent to 3,919 - which works out to an average of just over nine cars sold per dealer.

Though sales across the board at GM weren?t too bad, all things considered, three of the four brands it will jettison or close posted greater than 50 percent drops. Hummer sales were down 61.6 percent, Saturn down 56.4 percent and Pontiac down 54.9 percent. Given GM has announced the closure of Pontiac, we?d expect May sales to be much lower than April for the brand.

Sales of the Smart fortwo were down an incredible 49.9 percent compared to the same time last year, when the Smart was still a fresh and new vehicle. Smart sales are still up 2 percent for the year, but is this the beginning of the cooling-off many predicted for the brand?

Toyota Prius sales were down 61.5 percent, reflecting lower inventories ahead of the all-new Prius? launch in May, as well as reduced demand for hybrid cars as gas prices hover under $2.00 per gallon.

Lincoln sales were down 42.2 percent, a 9 percent drop-off compared to March?s 33 percent slide.

The ugly
Acura, down 32.3 percent to 8,813
Buick, down 29.5 percent to 8,928
Cadillac, down 41.9 percent to 8,337
Chevrolet, down 26.7 percent to 115,265
Ford, down 30 percent to 116,263
GMC, down 35.7 percent to 20,467
Honda, down 24.5 percent to 92,216
Hummer, down 61.6 percent to 913
Infiniti, down 48.3 percent to 4,932
Lexus, down 39.2 percent to 14,195
Lincoln, down 42.2 percent to 5,973
Mercedes-Benz, down 28.1 percent to 14,565
Mercury, down 40.7 percent to 7,662
Mitsubishi, down 55.9 percent to 3,919
Nissan, down 36.3 percent to 42,258
Pontiac, down 54.9 percent to 10,838
Saab, down 43.5 percent to 892
Saturn, down 56.4 percent to 7,367
Smart, down 49.9 percent to 1,345
Toyota, down 42.2 percent to 112,345
Volvo, down 36.9 percent to 4,503

http://www.leftlanenews.com/ap...009-sales-figures.html

 

[cubby1223]

Originally posted by: MIKEMIKE
perhaps Toyota is getting hit with fears of them causing the loss of US jobs.

Toyota vehicles sold in the U.S. are built in the U.S. by U.S. workers.

I would guess people are shying away from the higher cost of the hybrids, going with the cheaper traditional gasoline engine vehicles Ford & Chevy make.

 

[MikeMike]

Originally posted by: cubby1223

Originally posted by: MIKEMIKE
perhaps Toyota is getting hit with fears of them causing the loss of US jobs.

Toyota vehicles sold in the U.S. are built in the U.S. by U.S. workers.

I would guess people are shying away from the higher cost of the hybrids, going with the cheaper traditional gasoline engine vehicles Ford & Chevy make.

not all Toyotas sold in the US are manufactured in the US, but then again no car company in the US has only US workers... There are vastly more US employees of GM/F/F'sler...

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: cubby1223

Originally posted by: MIKEMIKE
perhaps Toyota is getting hit with fears of them causing the loss of US jobs.

Toyota vehicles sold in the U.S. are built in the U.S. by U.S. workers.

I would guess people are shying away from the higher cost of the hybrids, going with the cheaper traditional gasoline engine vehicles Ford & Chevy make.

I would say that the OP is spot on in the "payment plan guarantee" that Ford and GM now have in place. It worked for Hyundai and they were only set up for 3 months payment. The 12 months by Ford and 9 by GM make quite a few people feel better about purchasing a car right now.

Quite a few dealerships are now offering their own guarantee on job loss so that you can return your car if you lose your job with no ding on your credit history. Not nearly as nice as 9-12 months of guaranteed payments but it could be worse.

 

[jpeyton]

GM and Ford, armed with the heaviest set of rebates and margin-gutting discounts possible, barely sold 4,000 more cars than Toyota in April.

You know why GM/Ford and others have to offer a payment plan guarantee, 10-year warranties, and huge factory rebates to sell vehicles when Toyota can sell the same number of vehicles without giving away the farm?

 

[soccerballtux]

Perhaps rednecks are being protectionist? Quality sure hasn't picked up in the last 5 years.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Perhaps rednecks are being protectionist? Quality sure hasn't picked up in the last 5 years.

So only rednecks buy domestics? Please! Quality has most definitely picked up over the last 5 years as new models are being released. Buick and Cadillac have moved up the chain to as high as #1 (Buick) as well as certain segments of Ford (Fusion for example) and Chevrolet (Malibu for example). Don't kid yourself for being a foreign car fan only.

 

[TruePaige]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Perhaps rednecks are being protectionist? Quality sure hasn't picked up in the last 5 years.

What an elitist thing to say. Domestic companies make a lot of great cars.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Perhaps when you sell vehicles at rock bottom prices, with tons of incentives, you can just barely surpass Toyota in sales...too bad that pricing model is not sustainable.

What an elitist thing to say. Domestic companies make a lot of great cars.

True, but domestic companies have a lot of lemons and poorly designed vehicles in their line-ups. The American auto industry has too many brands...too many models...and too many narrowly marketed products...not to mention a long lead time of concept to production.

 

[Double Trouble]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Perhaps rednecks are being protectionist? Quality sure hasn't picked up in the last 5 years.

Now this post is fail on so many levels, I don't even know where to start.

 

[jman19]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Perhaps rednecks are being protectionist? Quality sure hasn't picked up in the last 5 years.

Wrong.

 

[BrownTown]

Originally posted by: TruePaige

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Perhaps rednecks are being protectionist? Quality sure hasn't picked up in the last 5 years.

What an elitist thing to say. Domestic companies make a lot of great cars.

not to mention alot of the "foreign" car manufacturing plants are in the south, so "rednecks" are the sorts of people building alot of these foreign cars.

 

[Hacp]

So you're telling me that if you cut labor costs and reduce prices, you'll sell more cars? Amazing! We need all the union workers making 30 dollars an hour to be making 10 dollars an hour in order to be somewhat competitive.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Hacp
So you're telling me that if you cut labor costs and reduce prices, you'll sell more cars? Amazing! We need all the union workers making 30 dollars an hour to be making 10 dollars an hour in order to be somewhat competitive.

Why? Toyota workers in Georgetown, KY made more on average than UAW members did in 2007 and Toyota did just fine! It's the legacy costs (pensions, especially health care, etc) that's killing the former big 3 more than anything else right now. Just give it time though, we (the US taxpayer) will get to pick up all of the former pensions and healthcare of the retirees as the former big 3 sheds them to the government.

 

[Mani]

GM in particular has come out with some great cars lately. I just convinced my dad to buy an Enclave and he loves it.

 

[Vic]

Subaru, down 6.7 percent to 15,649

 

[Acanthus]

Chevy and Ford are cutting prices more aggressively.

Toyota hasn't had much in the way of incentives and financing deals.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Perhaps rednecks are being protectionist? Quality sure hasn't picked up in the last 5 years.

Ford has made tremendous changes in quality over the last 5 years.

The Ford 500 (now the new Taurus), Fusion, Fusion Hybrid, Escape, Escape Hybrid, and Focus are all fantastic cars.

 

[Synomenon]

Maybe it's those government backed warranties you now get w/ some American cars.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Perhaps rednecks are being protectionist? Quality sure hasn't picked up in the last 5 years.

lol


idiot

 

[geno]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Perhaps rednecks are being protectionist? Quality sure hasn't picked up in the last 5 years.

It absolutely has.

Look at the improvements made in build quality of some of the Big 3's "bread and butter" cars :

Taurus -> Fusion
Old Malibu -> New Malibu
Cavalier -> Cobalt
300M -> 300/300C
Old Cadillac CTS -> New CTS

Those are just some of the ones which come to mind at the moment. There's no contest between the old and the new. I'm not talking "newer is better than older", that's a given. I'm talking about bringing out products which actually compete with competitive / established makes. Not to mention the huge steps each has taken in the past half-decade in improving the quality of their respective pickup truck lines. I don't get how you can rationally say "quality hasn't picked up" when it really has almost entirely across the board.

 

[dawp]

Originally posted by: Hacp
So you're telling me that if you cut labor costs and reduce prices, you'll sell more cars? Amazing! We need all the union workers making 30 dollars an hour to be making 10 dollars an hour in order to be somewhat competitive.

Would you really want to buy a car made by minimum wage workers? I wouldn't.The only reason they sold more are the incentive programs they have.

edit:

And i think they only did that to move the stagnant inventory.

 

[MovingTarget]

Because the domestics don't make cars people want to buy unless the unions....errr.....wait. This isn't an anti-union circle jerk.

I say good for them. They have been putting out some really good cars lately as quality has gone way up. The low prices via discounts you can knock all they want, but they are a good legitimate tactic to sell more. If only they would put out a car the rest of us could afford - below 10 or 9k.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

I'm guessing that Toyota didn't offer as many discounts as the American companies. In other words, they were beaten on price IMHO.

 

[PingSpike]

Maybe Americans took a look in their empty wallets and realized they didn't want to pay several thousand more dollars for the privilege of being treated like shit at a Toyota dealership.