Can we not have a little equitable reporting here, please?
The Big Three “struggling to move inventory”? Please. They’re struggling to move thier Trucks and SUVS — well guess, what, SO IS HONDA. Chrysler might be struggling to move their car lineup, but GM isn’t, and Ford DEFINITELY isn’t.

Ford had the largest percentage increase in retail car sales of ANY manufacturer last month by a WIDE margin — 16%. The Focus had it’s second-best-selling month EVER. The Fusion had it’s best-selling month EVER. Both are under 20 days inventory — that’s 70% LESS than the industry average and, even 25% less than the venerable Toyota’s average passenger car supply.

Thank you! Jeesh. I read this and thought, you could have fooled me. The local Ford dealer is down to 5 Fusions and 7 Focuses. Their stock is normally about 30-40 of each. People follow the trucks carrying Escapes to the dealership to buy one. They’ve even cleared out of their Tauruses!

The only vehicles not really selling are the big ones: Expedition, Explorer. Even the F-series is still selling in decent numbers, just not as much as before.

On the last sales call, Jim Farley mentioned that Ford is looking at expanding Focus production by an additional 40,000 units over what they already announced. The Escape and CDs are causing no lack of questions about capacity in the glass house.

Trouble moving inventory indeed.

I’m happy for Honda. I love it when the good guys do well.

I would personally rather have a civic than 3 ford fukass, pleeeeeasee.. but we obviously can agree that car buyers’ biggest decision making influence is usually personal preference, after the main factors of concern are considered (quality/longevity, fuel economy, looks, comfort, handling, function, reputation, driving enjoyment, etc etc …

by the way, most everyone i know would also rather own a honda than a ford. Lets face it: Ford’s reputation and all associated with it has diminished over decades of bad management.

Wow…two stories in a row that start out talking about the trouble the Big 3 face when the subjects of the articles themselves have almost nothing to do with the troubles the Big 3, you know, face.

The Fit’s an excellent little car. And I like the Civic a lot, too. It’s good they’re selling so well. But geez, LLN. Get off of the doom-mongering.

Are you, guys, seriously suggesting that ANY Big Three Civic-sized car can seriously compete with anything made by Japanese manufacturers (some of it made in Japan, some of it made in the USA)? Even American Focus sucks compared to it’s European namesake.

There’s one notable exception – GM’s Saturn Astra, which is a European car to irs very core. There you have it.

Anyone who, for a year old car, pays $1k over the price of a new car is an idiot. Even if I am too chicken to negotiate I can go on carsdirect and get a 2008 Civic EX for $400 under sticker. Those auctions must be like the eBay-tards who simply must win the “I can outbid you” battle.

http://www.carsdirect.com/build/options?zipcode=78728&acode=USB80HOC021D0&restore=false

LOL I’ve noticed that the people on LLN are finally admitting the Japanese superiority to the domestics. Before everyone was denying it just bc I told the truth in a ****y way

Honda makes great cars that have excellent resale bc they are so reliable and I can understand why they cant keep up with the demand for the Civic and Fit

“People follow the trucks carrying Escapes to the dealership to buy one. They’ve even cleared out of their Tauruses!”

LOL that is the funniest thing I have heard all day maybe even month

kitko, this isn’t an article about whether or not the “Big Three” can make cars that compete with the Civic or Fit, nor were there any comments about that. The issue is whether they SELL or not, not whether or not they’re “better cars”.
Whether the Focus is a better car or not is a moot point in regards to whether the Focus is selling well or not, which is most definitely is.

It wasn’t more than two years ago when I would have trashed Honda and their puny little Civic and Fit, but I gotta admit that they deserve the success they are having with these. The Fit especially I have found to be untouchable in its class when it comes to interior appointments and especially interior volume! The Civic is also a fine entry although I think the Mazda3 and Lancer tromp it on style and features/price.

The Civic is also a fine entry although I think the Mazda3 and Lancer tromp it on style and features/price.

I dont know about the Lancer but the Mazda 3 is a great car. I dont think it can touch the Civics reliability & certainly not on resale value but in my opinion the 4 door is more attractive than the 4 door Civic

If the 09 Mazda 6 is any indication of Mazda’s styling direction then the next 3 should be even better looking

I have been seeing those new Corolla’s everywhere and they dont look as bad in person. Nothing exciting but definetely needs an update in 4 years.

“Honda dealers struggle to maintain Civic, Fit inventories” absolute misnomer for the article. The headline should state that Honda dealers can’t invent markup high enough. They would like to screw consumer on price as much as Ford or GM would, but there is agreement with Honda of N.A. which sort of precludes them from doing it. There is so much you can charge for pinstriping and all models come with specific option levels. Other then that, you can get all Malibu, Ford Fusion or Focus you want for a price you want, but not Honda. Guys, if you hate Honda there deals to be had on 50K SUV’s going for mere 35K. Honda makes it easy for you as well. Happy hunting.

“I have been seeing those new Corolla’s everywhere and they dont look as bad in person. Nothing exciting but definetely needs an update in 4 years.”
If you dont have anything nice to say…..STFU

Yep, I was just at the Honda dealership, and they didn’t have any Fits in stock, and only 10 Civics, half of which were sold already. They said they had a couple Civics come in that morning, but people had already put downpayments on them. We started looking at the Accords lol. At least they will haggle on them. Beautiful cars they are…

SigmaHyperion – My post was more a reaction to some of the comments on the perceived LLN bias than to an article itself. I went a bit overboard, deliberatelly, to point out that people have good reasons for choosing Hondas not small Chevys or Fords.

Sure, we can argue about what’s a better car, but if Civic, Mazda 3 or Corolla were not better, we’d probably see The Big Three running out of stock of their minis, small and midsized cars. People do not drop F150 or Silverado in favor of Focus or Cobalt, they dropped them in Favour of Civics and Corollas (my personal preference would be a Mazda3 as I own one, but Mazda’s more of small series manufacturer compared to Honda or Toyota)… F150 was dethroned by a Japanese not an American car.

As for the Focuses, I was comparing European and American version. The chassis platforms are different and European Focus has the edge – it drives much better. I really can’t understand this Ford’s policy as it has to develop two cars instead of one, especially in the situation like this. It has been looming for a while. If Ford could offer something better than the current Focus, people would probably flock to Ford’s not Honda’s dealership.

P.S. I believe this is not our first exchange on this forum I hope it’s not the last one…

Hey LLN, we’re out of G5 and G6 on my lot, too. You know, those cars that have as good an EPA fuel economy numbers as any import? And the better warranty? I can’t get GM to build them fast enough right now either. Maybe you could do an expose…

Kitko — I don’t disagree that there are better versions of the Focus out there or that it’s not as good of a car as a Civic(though I don’t think the Focus is nearly as bad as people often make it out to be). But I do disagree that buyers displaced from F-150s (et al) aren’t looking to the Focus (et al).
Retail sales of the Focus are up a WHOPPING 100% over last year. The Corolla, while still a respectable gain, is only up 12%. The Fusion saw it’s best sales month EVER, boasting 30% retail sales growth, while the Camry actually LOST sales year-over-year. Total retail sales of Ford cars was up a whopping 20% — no other manufacturer came even remotely close to that.
There is absolutely no doubt that would-be Truck/SUV buyers are turning to the Domestics for their cars. Unless you want to argue that all these people leading to huge increases in Ford’s car sales were former Toyota buyers

As for the F-150 it wasn’t so much dethroned by a Japanese car as it was by itself. It didn’t fall from 1st to 5th because everyone else moved up, it fell because IT moved DOWN the sales ladder three times faster than the competition was moving up.

SigmaHyperion – F-150 was dethroned by people turning away from IT and moving to something ELSE.

such as
http://www.leftlanenews.com/what-market-slump-honda-shatters-several-sales-records-during-may.html

Can, you, please, past me the link(s) for the statistics and numbers you provide? I don’t doubt them, it’s that I’m seriously interested. Thank you.

Yet another story that is not shocking.

@mayer_ray_nagin:
Have you tried actually submitting that price? That’s only a target quote, not a guaranteed price. Once you press the submit button, your quote goes to dealerships. I’d bet you wouldn’t hear back from any Honda dealerships.

Anybody want to buy my Civic? 2007 EX 11K miles silver/gray auto. The bidding starts at $40K

Hey LLN, we’re out of G5 and G6 on my lot, too LOL
Retail sales of the Focus are up a WHOPPING 100% over last year- That was because they sold 0 that year lol

Oh the joy. There we go about Japanese vs. American cars, this time in the small / compact cars segment. To each its own, I think we can agree that this LLN article is misleading. It singles out the two small cars in Honda to prove a point that Honda can’t keep enough inventory of them, but neglected to mention if Honda has any difficulty moving their truck and SUVs. All the while, it compare the inventory of Civic and Fit to the Big Three in general terms. That is NOT a fair comparison. Small cars in general are moving while large SUVs aren’t. Maybe LLN should have done a little more homework and lay out the inventory numbers of Civic / Fit vs. Focus vs. Caliber, etc.

“Ford had the largest percentage increase in retail car sales of ANY manufacturer last month by a WIDE margin — 16%. The Focus had it’s second-best-selling month EVER. The Fusion had it’s best-selling month EVER. Both are under 20 days inventory — that’s 70% LESS than the industry average and, even 25% less than the venerable Toyota’s average passenger car supply.”

The problem with that statement is that you have to consider that its operates on a percentage, therefore if your sales were previously **** and you receive a spike in sales, it will reflect here. To show a true scale you need to look at the actual number of units sold, not how much of an increase occurred.

tripleonefive — Ford will sell more Ford Focus’ this year than Mazda will sell of every single vehicle it makes put together. I mention Mazda as I know you are a fan (as am I, I own both a 6 and a 3). Though I know you were exaggerating, it’s also exaggerating to presume that the Focus doesn’t sell very well when it is, in fact, one of the best-selling vehicles in the country, on-track to sell some quarter-million units. That’s roughly the same number of Civics that were sold in this country just 2 years ago.

‘Yota is having similar issues.
Used Priuses are approaching $25k.
With 30k+ miles here in NYC!
Is there any reason to think these vehicles will lose popularity anytime soon?
DrFill

victorRaikkonen — Ford, even despite it’s significant downturn, is still a huge automaker. Even it’s worst-selling models sell in what would be huge quantities by most automakers standards. It’s not like the Focus went from 1000 to 2000. It sold 32000 units in a single month — a number, that prior to this year’s recent surge in small car demand, would have been a best-selling month for just about any model of small car in the country.

Besides, that’s why I also mentioned Days Supply — a statistic generated to better level the playing field amongst different brands and models regardless of sales volume.

Sigma
Corolla and Prius days supply is measured in hours, not days.
Camry sold 50k+, and Yaris is setting sales records itself, so try and sell that to some rube.
That won’t fly around these parts.
DrFill

corollas suck ass i seriously dont understand who buys them, im assuming uninformed retards because everything else on the market is a more complete and certainly better looking car. The 3, lancer, civic, cobalt and even the caliber are better in every way in my book, the only thing that the focus lacks next to the corolla is looks – frankly cause the focus is absolutely hideous and repulsive since its major facelift, but id also rather go buy a 2 year old focus hatchback than a brand new corolla. The hatchback better make a return… this coupe crap is awful.

DrFill — I never said that Toyota and others weren’t also doing very well. I simply said that, despite the articles opening headliner, the Domestics are absolutely not having trouble moving inventory of comparable vehicles.
The Camry always sells well, so it’s no surprise it’s still selling so well. What IS notable is that sales of the Camry actually went DOWN in May, despite almost all the competition going up.
And I’d interested in where you got that the Corolla had inventory measured in hours. While the Prius certainly does, I haven’t seen any figures putting the Corolla much under 20 days anytime recently. With their average car inventory sitting at (an incredibly low) 24 days right now, I find it hard to believe that BOTH the Prius and the Corolla are selling in hours, as that’d mean that the poor Camry’s and Avalons must be sitting there for months for the average to be 24.

What a lovely debate

Toyota is trying to build more Camry’s in Tundra plants.
Corolla is just finishing their Ramp-UP from February.
Toyota has more Prius’ than batteries, and they have no batteries.
And Yaris is selling 15k a month when they predicted 10-12k.
And, by the way, Ford sells Mustang, along with Taurus, so they have Two models they can’t sell, versus Toyotas Avalon!
Focus has been underachieving for years until recently.
If Camry and Corolla are over 50k a month, and Ford is feeding 3800 dealers nationwide, versus 1400 for Toyota, and not breaking 40k on their cars, provide a link where Toyota’s supply could possibly be higher!

Let me know when you have a leg to stand on.
DrFill

DrFill, I can’t possibly have a “leg to stand on” in an argument that I was never participating in to begin with.

I never said Toyota or Honda or anyone else was doing anything less than very well with its car sales or that there were in some way underperforming (except the Camry which, while selling very well as it always does, bucked the general trend of increasing sales last month). I never said that every model Ford made was selling well. I didn’t disagree with a single statement that you made — if the conversation had ANYTHING at all to do with the health of Toyota’s sales they would all be very useful and insightful comments.
But the fact is, no one was talking about how well or not well that Toyota was doing. The conversation was about whether the Domestics, namely Ford, are having “trouble turning their inventory” as the article asserts. And my position was that, in comparable vehicles, they aren’t having any problems whatsoever.

You can’t have it both ways
Make some sense.
Or stop talking!
Thanks!
DrFill

gas is 2 high, so honda is getting rich. they all need new small cars

The Civic has been the best selling car in Canada for many years now. I guess since the US is now paying as much for gas as Canada has for the past 5 years or so, it’s no wonder the Civic and Fit are doing well. Half the cars in the parking lot where I work are either Civics, Corollas, or Mazda 3s.