Shoppers can Find Discounts, Incentives on Trucks
by Jim Henry
It's a buyer's market for trucks, as General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Division duke it out with incentives aimed at moving their big trucks, especially pickups, while Chrysler Group is pushing its minivans.
Bargain hunters know it pays to zig when everyone else zags.
While everyone else looks at the new 2008 models, which the dealers are pushing close to full retail, the deals are on outgoing models, in this case the 2007s. Now is the time to get a great bargain!
Three-dollar-a-gallon gasoline may have other people thinking twice about big pickups and SUVs. But incentives on trucks, like a $2,000-plus rebate, and/or low-interest financing, can help pay for a lot of gas.
The hybrid gasoline-electric Toyota Prius is hot right now, but light trucks - pickups, SUVs and minivans -- are still the bread-and-butter models for the U.S. domestic brands. Even "green" Toyota is pushing a new, full-sized pickup, the Tundra, with rebates of up to $3,000 and 0% for up to 48 months through September 4th.
That competition works in the buyer's favor.
Through June, car and truck sales combined were about even with the first half of last year - down about 2 percent. The Detroit 3 automakers were all down, but sales for Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., which includes Toyota and Lexus, were up about 9 percent.
As always, the car companies are putting their dollars where their priorities are.
For instance, General Motors recently had its heavily advertised "Transform Your Ride Sale," tied to the "Transformers" movie. Offers included zero-interest, 36-month loans plus $1,000 cash on certain 2006 and 2007 models, mostly trucks.
GM ended the promotion as planned on July 9, but the company is hardly out of the incentive business. Through September 4th, GM is offering 0% financing for up to 60 months on extended-cab or crew cab 2007 Silverado and Sierra pickups.
In June, sales of the redesigned Tundra were more than double the year-ago month, while the Silverado and Sierra were off sharply.
Through the third quarter, GM is also making an unusually lucrative offer to waive up to six lease payments, to get owners out of their leases early on SUV models like the Envoy, TrailBlazer, Ranier, Equinox or Torrent, and into a 2007 model.
Currently, Chrysler Group is offering cash up to $4,000 on its 2007 Town & Country minivan, or zero- or low-interest financing, in a promotion called "Zero Plus."
Meanwhile, rival Ford Motor Co. renewed its "2007 Model Year Clearance" incentives on July 9, continuing the deals until Aug. 31.
Ford is offering zero-percent financing or cash back on all 2007 cars. But on Ford pickup trucks and SUVs, the company is offering zero-percent financing plus $2007 cash back.
If it seems like "model year clearance" is getting earlier and earlier, you're right.
Historically, model year clearance sales have been in August and September, but GM pulled it ahead two years ago, when it kicked off "Employee Pricing for Everyone" in June 2005, and its domestic rivals followed suit.
Art Spinella, president of CNW Market Research, Bandon Ore., said, "It is significantly earlier for year-end close-outs than in the past."
Published on Tuesday, August 9, 2007 - Email to a friend
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