Pricing

[dac_beth]

Have you seen this article:Canadian News Article (http://tinyurl.com/1hly)

[5bird7]

Thanks for the article link. I had heard that was going to happen from previous reports last spring.

[whvt01]

If it has the same equipment why shouldn't
they price it in line with a US counterpart.

Can't blame the people for going someplace
to get an exact product for less.

[5bird7]

That kind of discrepency in pricing between the US and other countries is worldwide. I can go to Austrailia and buy
a fancy sewing machine for quite a bit less than I'd have to pay for one here in the States.

The real killer for the US Ford dealers is that the wholesale cost to dealers in Canada was less than the US dealers
were having to pay, which is why the cars were cheaper in Canada. That's why a number of US brokers went to
Canada to buy their cars.

[whvt01]

More of US momma and papa having to take
care of the rest of the world.

The less you know the better or

would be :cussing: all the time.

[DavidA]

It's not quite an exact product. The speedometer is in Kilometres rather than miles, the odometer counts in Kilometers as well. In some cars, the temperature is in Celcius rather than farenheit and can't be switched, and there are some safety differences as well as wiring differences. All Canadian cars must have daytime running lights where here, the only domestic manufacturer supporting DRL's is GM. As Dot said, pricing is different from country to country and models are different too, it depends on the local markets. Remember, you can go to Germany and take delivery of a BMW or Mercedes there and save plenty, usually enough to pay for the trip. This is nothing new. The only difference is Canada is next door for many and it's easy to go back and forth.

[whvt01]

The deal with Germany, you would go there to buy the car cheaper. The canadian should
come to the US to buy the thunderbird
cheaper. Would think the country of
manufacture would be the cheapest.
Were any of the Birds built in canada.
Thought they were built here, shipped over,
than shipped back. Could see if Ford built
a downgraded version for canadians, but
seems like this would be a bigger
manufacturing headache.

With automakers building plants
all over the world, on some cars where
is the true point of manufacture. But the
Bird is US.

[5bird7]

DavidA, the differences between the Canadian models and the US models are minimal as far as equipment is concerned. The speedometers are the same - just check out yours - km is printed on your speedometer and you can switch your trip odometer to Kilometers by the push of a button. The only real difference is in the pricing; we're talking about a couple of K or more $ difference - in the wholesale cost.

(add in) - All the Thunderbirds were built at the same plant so technically, you're right that they should cost less here in the states but it's not the way the system is working.

In the case of the sewing machine - the exact same model in Australia was about $1200 cheaper even after figuring in the rate exchange.

[tr cruiser]

is that prices in the US are artificially high.
If Ford can make a profit on the cars shipped to
and sold in Canada, they must be making an even
greater profit on domestic sales. I can
understand why this might be. First, the auto
maker is in desperate need of profits this year in
the wake of 9/11 and an overall downturn in the
domestic economy. Second, if Ford doesn't claim
the bounty, dealers will with their aftermarket
markups. The flow of goods back and forth over
the border is a natural result of NAFTA and buyers'
efforts to seek the lowest price, however, so it
shouldn't come as a surprise that middlemen take
advantage. I'm not sure that this is a bad thing,
if you advocate free trade.

[bluebird]

The automakers price the Canada autos less than the US ones because if they raised the sticker price as much as the exchange rate changed, there would be severe sticker shock and customers would go to another brand that did not raise the price as much.

For hot cars like the T-bird, a lot of money can be made reselling in the US so Ford raised the Canada price to slow this down. Ford will make a good profit on the northern T-birds now but at the expense of the customers and brokers.