Ford, bowing to pressure from GM, matches deal

DETROIT (Reuters) -- Ford Motor Co., bowing to pressure from General Motors, said on Tuesday that it was matching its larger, crosstown rival's employee discount program.
Under the program, which takes effect on Wednesday and will be called the "Ford Family Plan," Ford will shave thousands of dollars off the sticker prices of most 2005 model vehicles, company spokesman David Reuter said.
The program will run through Aug. 1, he said. Like the GM plan, Ford will sell its vehicles to anybody at the same prices Ford employees pay.
"It's a great deal that we're going to deliver in a simple, consistent way to customers," Reuter said. "We're going to advertise this widely, in a huge significant way throughout the month."
The Chrysler unit of DaimlerChrysler has said it will respond to GM's program by rolling out its own employee pricing program on Wednesday.
GM's "Employee Discount for Everyone" program was launched last month and the company extended it through Aug. 1 earlier on Tuesday. It drove GM's sales up 46.9 percent last month, which was the company's best sales month in 19 years.
Ford, which has seen its U.S. sales fall for 13 consecutive months, can ill afford not to remain competitive with GM. It has already warned that its core automotive operations may not be profitable this year.

 

so is it going to be X Plan, A Plan or which plan pricing?

 

from what I know, on a Ranger my dad was looking for its about 800 bucks cheaper than xplan pricing. He is glad he waited.

msrp- 18,340
xplan-16,834
family plan-16,042

We are going to see it, and most likely take it home

 

This is also bad news to many ford employees I bet, no money for them for giving pins out
lol

 

If this will up sales and some good old profit for Ford, which it will, then I'm all for it. Granted there may be some unhappy employees but in business you need to appeal to the consumer. But this won't include the Mustang so I've heard. This is overall a good decision for Ford

Go blue oval

 

Does this include Lincoln and Mercury as well?

 

Yes . .if you go to ford.com it shows you actual cost with discount added for each vehicle in the Ford, Lincoln & Mercury lineup.

 

yeah i think its cheezy that ford won't offer it for the mustang. If there was a Cobra, I could understand that, but not the regular mustang.

Same goes for Chrysler, they're not discounting the 300 b/c sales are so good. but they ARE discounting the crossfire, probably b/c they don't sell well.

 

The whole point of these discounts are to move the products that are sitting there. The moneymaking products won't get the discounts.

GM did the same thing with the H3 and Corvette being exempt from the discount.

 

Does it go for Mazda as well?

 

I would believe so. I could be wrong though

EDIT: I'm wrong, it doesn't appear to cover Mazda on the site.

 

i understand what the point is, but i still think its cheesy.

 

who asked you??

 

Question: now that Ford offers employee discount does that mean that all those dicsounts that Ford offered before are no good now?

 

 

I'm not sure what you are asking. What discounts? Are you saying you would rather take the one or two thousand discount rather than the family plan which is a bigger discount. Ford more or less just increased the discount you get. Maybe I am misinterpreting what you are saying though.

 

Well, last Saturday my dad and I went to Ford dealer because my dad is looking for a pickup truck to buy. On 05 F-150 MSRP was around $31,000 and after all discounts price was $25,900 (this was before Ford offered employee discount).

So if Ford now offers employee discount on a MSRP then the price has not changed.

 

Just looked up an F-150, not sure which one exactly your dad was looking at. An F-150 XLT Supercrew has an MSRP of $31,995. The Ford Family Price on that truck is $23,888.50, so you are getting a better discount with this discount.

 

wow! $8,000 Discount. That's insane!

 

My wife and I are actually going to go look and see what we can get for the Element. We'll of course still have the Olds too.