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Mid Sized Fleet Queens by Rank


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:hysterical2:

 

What? No they don't "want to rent Fords". The vast majority of people who rent cars couldn't care less what brand it is. Additionally I've never heard of a rental company that uses the car brand as a selection factor when renting out. Cars are rented by class, not brand. You want a midsize sedan, you might get a Fusion or you might get a Malibu. It all just depends on what the rental company has available when you come to pick up your car. The majority of the time the renter doesn't even know what kind of car they're getting until they show up at the rental agency. There is not some large group of rental car customers out there who are specifically requesting Fords when they rent cars.

 

Now, having said that. Doesn't NYPD buy a lot of Fusions to use as both patrol cars and fleet cars for their detectives? I know I've seen a lot of photos of Fusions used by them. I'm thinking they aren't the only city along the northeast corridor that has bought Fusions because it makes more sense in a dense urban environment than does the larger Crown Vic or Charger. Could it be that a lot of the Fusion fleet sales are going to police departments? I don't know what that's going to do to the resale value, but it's a possible explanation.

That's right, Fleet sales are not necessarily daily rentals but another interesting statisitc is that Ford said that fleet sales dropped off 16% last month

so maybe the market is changing quicker than journalists or statistics can keep up. i don't doubt that fleet sales were higher for a few months

due to bulk purchases but maybe July's ebbing fleet sales is indicator of a pull forward on fleet sales?

 

 

Soundbites: July 2012 Sales

 

Ford Motor Company's U.S. retail sales increased 2 percent in July versus year-ago levels, driven by strong retail customer demand for fuel-efficient vehicles. Ford Sales Analyst, Erich Merkle, says fuel economy appears to be the driving force in both cars and trucks.

 

Click on speaker2.jpg to hear audio. Use right mouse click to download.

 

Cut #1: speaker2.jpg "Yes it certainly was, it's really fuel economy, but it's fuel economy across entire segments. So we saw it in pick-up trucks, for instance in EcoBoost, continues to do very well in the market place, we saw it with our Fusion, on the car side and also with the Focus, Focus performed very well for the month too." :20 sec.

 

 

Merkle says Ford Fusion led the way, with its best July ever.

Cut #2: speaker2.jpg "We saw it in cars and in trucks, when we saw Fusion… Fusion had its best July ever, which surpassed its record July sales of last year by 21 percent, so not only did it have its best July, but it was up 21 percent over its best July last year." :19 sec.

 

In addition to that, Mustang also saw a jump in sales.

Cut #3: speaker2.jpg "Mustang increased in sales 8 percent versus last year, selling 7,371 vehicles. This represents the third straight month of sales gains for Mustangs since the 2013 model started arriving on dealership lots." :17 sec.

 

In spite of all these increases, however, the overall sales were down 4 percent in July… Merkle says a lot of that had to do with fleet sales, but commercial sales helped to balance that off.

Cut #4: speaker2.jpg "We expect to remain on pace with our fleet throughout the rest of this year. On the commercial side of the business, our commercial sales are up 9 percent year to date. So we've been performing very well on the commercial side, but we've been very mindful, we've managed really very well the daily rental portion of our business. Gotta make sure we don't want to put too much into daily rental, but a little is fine, so there is a healthy mix that we've been able to maintain over the years." :28 sec. Ford

 

Motor Company's July U.S. retail sales totaled 173,966, which compared to year ago sales were up 2 percent.

Edited by jpd80
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Rental Fleet Sales= BAD!

NO!

 

Ask Kevin Koswick or Linda Silverstein at Ford's North American Fleet, Lease & Remarketing Operations whether Ford's customers in the daily rental segment are "BAD". If you need their contact info, send me a PM message.

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Rental Repos the way Ford used to do them, were bad.

 

Ford's current rental repo agreements are much better.

 

In the past, Ford wasn't as concerned about the trim level of the vehicles that rental agencies took. This led to 1) poor impressions of Ford products by rental customers and 2) a lot of very very cheap one year old Fords on Ford dealer lots.

 

Now they seem to require rental agencies to purchase a mix of vehicles that matches, roughly, what the buying public is purchasing. Rental agencies, if they want repo agreements, have to purchase Fusions with moonroofs and leather seats, etc.

 

This presents a better impression of Ford, and it means that the year old repos are, on average, carrying much higher prices.

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Granted this is from 2010 but:

 

Fusion 14.2% to rental fleets

Camry: 16.3% to rental fleets

Malibu: 28.3% to rental fleets

 

Could be worse...

 

Sebring: 74.3% to rental fleets

 

Here are the latest figures for rental fleet registrations as a percentage of total registrations. The dataset is from R.L. Polk, published in Bobit Media's 2012 Automotive Fleet Fact Book Guide, and covers calendar year 2011:

  • Fusion: 20.5%
  • Camry: 13.5%
  • Malibu: 30.2%
  • Chrysler 200: 36.0%
  • Accord: 0.51% (yes, < 1%)
  • Altima: 24.2%
  • Legacy: 3.0%
  • Mazda 6: 42.3%
  • Passat: 10.8%
  • Sonata: 11.8%
  • Taurus: 28.3%

Edited by aneekr
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Here are the latest figures for rental fleet registrations as a percentage of total registrations. The dataset is from R.L. Polk, published in Bobit Media's 2012 Automotive Fleet Fact Book Guide, and covers calendar year 2011:

  • Fusion: 20.5%
  • Camry: 13.5%
  • Malibu: 30.2%
  • Chrysler 200: 36.0%
  • Accord: 0.51% (yes, < 1%)
  • Altima: 24.2%
  • Legacy: 3.0%
  • Mazda 6: 42.3%
  • Passat: 10.8%
  • Sonata: 11.8%
  • Taurus: 28.3%

 

In other words, the Fusion is pretty mid-pack in daily rental contribution. Sounds about right.

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:hysterical2:

 

What? No they don't "want to rent Fords". The vast majority of people who rent cars couldn't care less what brand it is. Additionally I've never heard of a rental company that uses the car brand as a selection factor when renting out. Cars are rented by class, not brand. You want a midsize sedan, you might get a Fusion or you might get a Malibu. It all just depends on what the rental company has available when you come to pick up your car. The majority of the time the renter doesn't even know what kind of car they're getting until they show up at the rental agency. There is not some large group of rental car customers out there who are specifically requesting Fords when they rent cars.

 

Now, having said that. Doesn't NYPD buy a lot of Fusions to use as both patrol cars and fleet cars for their detectives? I know I've seen a lot of photos of Fusions used by them. I'm thinking they aren't the only city along the northeast corridor that has bought Fusions because it makes more sense in a dense urban environment than does the larger Crown Vic or Charger. Could it be that a lot of the Fusion fleet sales are going to police departments? I don't know what that's going to do to the resale value, but it's a possible explanation.

I USED to think that way until i rented a Hyundai and a Corolla....bloody awful cars both of them, much prefer a car that has an inkling of driver "involvement" and isnt just strictly a get from a - b appliance that is cheap for rental comapnies to aquire.
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Perhaps that 38% figure quoted includes something like 22-25% daily rentals and 13-15% Commercial and government fleets?

 

The CY 2011 numbers from Automotive Fleet indicate that 12% of total Ford Fusion registrations were to Commercial fleets and another 2.2% were to Government fleets. Your estimates are in line with these yearly figures.

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My cousin is a phamcutical sales person for Pfizer. She gets a company car, a Ford Edge in fact. She keeps the car for 4 years and use it as her primary car. She takes care of it just like any person who get a new car. But because her employer is the one buying the car (it definitely was a corporate sale), it is considered a fleet sale by everyone. Now, how is this a "bad" thing per se? The fact that Honda doesn't do fleet sale is a reflection their poor corporate sales strategy and product mix - corporate clients generally want commerical vehicles too so they go to companies that can supply everything. Honda has no pickup truck and no vans for them to buy so therefore, those companies also not interested in Honda's cars. That's an indictment on Honda, not Ford.

 

 

The fact is that almost 1 out of 3 new vehicle sold in the US is purchased by a fleet customer so lack of fleet sales for mass market brands like Ford (or Chevy, Toyota, Honda etc) means the company is not very good at addressing the needs of 1/3 of the new car market. It is ignoring a huge segment of the market. That should be a big problem, not somthing to be celebrated.

Edited by bzcat
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Here are the latest figures for rental fleet registrations as a percentage of total registrations. The dataset is from R.L. Polk, published in Bobit Media's 2012 Automotive Fleet Fact Book Guide, and covers calendar year 2011:

  • Fusion: 20.5%
  • Camry: 13.5%
  • Malibu: 30.2%
  • Chrysler 200: 36.0%
  • Accord: 0.51% (yes, < 1%)
  • Altima: 24.2%
  • Legacy: 3.0%
  • Mazda 6: 42.3%
  • Passat: 10.8%
  • Sonata: 11.8%
  • Taurus: 28.3%

 

Thanks for the newest info.

 

It's worth noting that Toyota and especially Honda pulled many of their cars away from fleet last year due to supply issues from the tsunami. It will be interesting to see where the numbers stand this year.

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My cousin is a phamcutical sales person for Pfizer. She gets a company car, a Ford Edge in fact. She keeps the car for 4 years and use it as her primary car. She takes care of it just like any person who get a new car. But because her employer is the one buying the car (it definitely was a corporate sale), it is considered a fleet sale by everyone. Now, how is this a "bad" thing per se? The fact that Honda doesn't do fleet sale is a reflection their poor corporate sales strategy and product mix - corporate clients generally want commerical vehicles too so they go to companies that can supply everything. Honda has no pickup truck and no vans for them to buy so therefore, those companies also not interested in Honda's cars. That's an indictment on Honda, not Ford.

 

 

The fact is that almost 1 out of 3 new vehicle sold in the US is purchased by a fleet customer so lack of fleet sales for mass market brands like Ford (or Chevy, Toyota, Honda etc) means the company is not very good at addressing the needs of 1/3 of the new car market. It is ignoring a huge segment of the market. That should be a big problem, not somthing to be celebrated.

heres a few others....Nestle, Yum Yum, Astrazeneca, DPR Construction.....I could add a multitude, because I deal with em on a weekly basis in the form of Courtesy Deliveries.....they are MASSIVE companies, and like I have said..they have choices, the fact they stick with ford I think is a reflection of good product....
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You interpret numbers like a democrat. 38% is a lot closer to 1 of 3.

 

Woah, there, stay with the GOP playbook: Only godless commie liberals use math; after all, everyone knows "Al-Gebra" came from Mooslims like Hussein Obama Sotero, who learned it at his Kenyan elementary school. Holy Republican Crusaders use "faith based" calculation. Anyone who can count past potato isn't allowed entrance.

 

Spotted at entrance to RNC: "If you can read this, you're at the wrong convention"

Edited by Noah Harbinger
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Rental and fleet are the same thing? Hmm, I guess me pushing for 71 new Fords that we purchased in the last 8 months was a bad thing? And the 3 priuses and 3 leafs were a good thing?

Hmmm, who knew? :headspin:

 

And yes people DO ask for particular vehicles when renting. Maybe not all, but everybody I know who rents, asks what the car is, then decides if they want that or what ever else is available for the same price. Too generic to say nobody cares because some do.

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