I used to be as anti-pickup as the next Jalop, with my largest vehicle purchased being an Impreza hatch. Then I got a 2 year lease on an F-150 Lariat while working at a Ford dealership. Holy hell was that a pleasant place to be. Once you get past the fact that it isn’t going to be a fun vehicle to drive you can revel…

We once had an Explorer come with one cloth seat while the rest of the interior was leather....

I couldn’t drive stick until I taught myself as an adult. Despite being an enthusiast from a young age, I never had access to a stick shift due to unfun parents. My first vehicle was also an auto, and because my parents helped me buy it “your mother has to be able to drive it”. Queue to my first job at a car…

Don’t forget it is the full size truck most likely to kill you in an accident. The platform had top safety marks when it came out...a decade on, not so much. 

Mercedes FTW.......I think that is my most repeated comment

Thanks! I’m pretty excited

Yeah one in the same. In about a week and a half I’m about to start my new job as their sales manager!

They don’t own the vehicles, they have loans on the inventory, and have to pay interest on them until they sell. On a monthly basis its a small amount per vehicle, but as a vehicle sits, the total accrued cost can really screw your profitability on that unit.

Floor Plan is 100% a thing in car dealerships. This is the main motivator behind sales with “massive savings on THESE SPECIFIC STOCK NUMBER”

I grew up in a last gen Canadian Tercel.....I need to go berate my parents.

This is 100% Ford’s approach, it is stated exactly as such in their info for dealers.

You most definitely can just use the strongest one that fits the space, but a large number of our customers wants the OE replacement. The AGM determination, like you said is usually start stop, but not always. All three of the applicable batteries in this case are fairly close in cranking strength, but are fairly…

I work for a battery company and they are still doing this shit. Example: 2013 MB C300. It can have either a Group 48, 49, or 94R in it. Some are AGM and some are not. The only way to know what the correct replacement is, is to see whats already in there, as there is no relation to VIN or build date as far as we can…

Exactly this, blast out the accessories at full pop then residualize as needed. Just like going low on trade value so it can be artificially inflated later, or held for extra profit ideally. I used to work for a pretty scummy dealership and that’s part of why I left.

Ford started letting you residualize official Ford accessories on leased vehicles for 2019. Why pay full price for bed liner when you know you aren’t going to use all of it. The only reason why it isn’t more commonly known, is that it is a giant pain in the ass to calculate everything compared to just adding the…

The company I work for restructured and stopped paying for gas. I got rid of my F-150 for a GTI.

While the Journey is a terrible vehicle, it is phenomenal in terms of the engineers absolutely maximizing the size to cost ratio 

Fusion didn’t get the same PowerShit transmission I dont think?

Usually just for the first model year. Same thing happened with the GT350 and the Ecoboost Raptors when they came out. Markup at the start of selling, then selling for full list no discounting, now you can get a discount on some of them.

Cullinana