News Alert...

In a current article in the New York Post on the current inflation, there was this short mention:

"You can expect to wait months for delivery of a Toyota 4Runner, and some people who ordered 2021 models months ago will never receive them."

Appears to be the situation.

 

Ouch!

 

Wow - makes me feel fortunate.

 

Same here.

What looks like the long/slow deliveries of the 2022 Models, you have to wonder if Toyota will be forced to delay the introduction of the 6th Generation for another year ?

 

Same here as well. Things are going to get more weird before it gets better.

 

if you want it bad enough you will find it

 

Sounds almost as ridiculous as the Bronco roll-out, except that when people finally receive their 4runners the roofs probably won't be leaking.

 

I'm a Bronco lover from the 60's, but the NEW Bronco debacle has been a major disappointment. Ford screwed the pooch, then along came covid. It'll make a great movie........someday.

 

Ford v shooting themselves in the foot, the highly unanticipated sequel to Ford v Ferrari.

 

Ford Bronco being a major disappointment, totally predictable.

 

have you looked at prices? Local dealer told me the cheapest they have sold one for was $15k over sticker. It was hard not to laugh

 

Hard to believe. But probably true. Next year, dealers will probably have smaller inventories. But will attempt to sell everything at MSRP or above to make up the difference.

 

I talked to a buddy that works at a dealer. He says they are marking vehicles up to stay open because of the shortage of vehicles. I call BS, but he insisted.

 

I believe your buddy. I think even the MSRP dealers (which are still out there) will be forced to go higher to survive.

 

I can not blame dealers for the markup, need to keep the lights on....lots are bare.

 

I feel lucky to have gotten mine at all...and extra lucky that I don't feel like I was totally hosed on the price. The salesman I bought from thinks dealers will never go back to the days of having 100s of cars on the lot, and that we may move to more of an "order what you want and come back in two months to get it" model.

 

I read an article a little while back that Ford is planning on doing this, something like a 50/50 split of showroom stock and build to order.

 

I’ll sell you my 19 for twice what it’s worth

 

Just saw a commercial last night, Ford pushing order what you want sale.

 

I see the same ads every night from Ford to custom order your vehicle and build it online.

I have a friend down south at a large dealer network in the Carolinas who said that dealer network is making more money in profit than they ever have. Obviously volumes are down but the markups are sky high and the profits year to date are way up for many brands.

If the supply is throttled down while demand is high this happens. It seems to work in across all industries.

 

This, I can believe. Only they know what their overhead is and we all know they have many ways to profit from the sale of a vehicle, new or used. Times, they are a changing.

 

I never understood why car makers didn't follow Saturn when they went with that process. It was such a great experience to know exactly what every package or option cost, and then to just pick every last detail about the car when you ordered. There was no haggling over price and you didn't get stuck with a bunch of worthless overpriced "port installed options".

 

Is Saturn around still? Clearly, other companies aren’t willing to give up all that profit from stupid overpriced port options that you get stuck with.

 

Yeah, no. Saturn went the way of Pontiac, Oldsmobile, etc.

GM needed to thin it all out.

 

Yeah, they are gone. They were too big of a threat to the rest of GM's divisions. GM was very much a fiefdom driven company, with long chain of management succession and inefficient processes built up over decades. Saturn was the new guy that came in and shined a bright light on the deficiencies of several of the other brands. Rather than adapt other divisions to get rid of bad managers and be more efficient and streamlined, they killed Saturn.

 

It didn’t help that instead of making original cars, towards the end of their life Saturn was essentially selling rebadged Opels.

Of course that has something to do with the fact that they had more or less become starved of any investment for new product development and were expected to get by through badge engineered vehicles.

 

Yep, that was the work of GM managers protecting their divisions by starving Saturn to death.

 

when people finally receive their 4runners the roofs probably won't be leaking.

 

I had an original Saturn. Base model. The seats were torture but otherwise it seemed an excellent car for the money. The manual steering was fantastic. Great road feel and handling. Good shifter. Liked the plastic body panels. Then got one of the new rebadged ones -- and a day later returned, it under its no-hassle return policy, when I realized I could get the much better Accord for a little less money. I had that Accord longer than I've had any other vehicle. Saturn had a lot going for it at the start, but by the time the new generation came out they'd become just another crappy American car.

 

Yeah, it was a real shame, because they started out making really good cars with a no-frills style and a simple buying process. And the other divisions of GM forced them to start sharing parts and designs with the other divisions and starved them of design dollars forcing them to reuse designs from other GM divisions. They were a threat to other GM divisions and the UAW by showing how well and cheaply cars could be made in the US without all the layers of bureaucracy and union BS thrown on top.