VFacts Jan 2012 Falcon 950 sales!!!!!!!!!

[csv8]

Local hero no longer top dog in the Holden showroom as Australian-made cars continue their sales slide.

For the first time in its 34-year history the Holden Commodore has been outsold by a car in its own stable.

Having last year lost its crown as Australia’s favourite car for the past 15 years to the Mazda3, the Commodore suffered a further ignominy in January by being outsold by its smaller Cruze sibling.

Preliminary figures show the overall sales leadership for the month went to the Mazda3, which roared into the early lead with more than 4000 sales, putting it comfortably ahead of the Toyota Corolla (3300 sales) which led the market for the last four months of last year. The Cruze was a distant third with 2400 sales, ahead of the Commodore (2200).


Meanwhile, the Ford Falcon recorded its weakest sales month in more than 50 years.

Ford sold an estimated 950 Falcons in January – the first time on record the nameplate has dipped into a three-digit tally.

Ford Australia spokeswoman Sinead Phipps said Falcon sales were dented by hail damage to cars waiting to be trucked from the Broadmeadows factory to dealers. my comment..really!!! I think thats a poor excuse.

“There was a significant number of Falcons and Territorys that couldn’t be shipped because of hail damage during a storm [at Broadmeadows] on Christmas Day,” Phipps told Drive.

Toyota was the biggest-selling brand in January with 14,000 sales, ahead of Holden (9000), which only narrowly beat Mazda (8500).

Korean car maker Hyundai has started the year ahead of Ford (6500 versus 5800 sales).

The preliminary figures come as Holden last night announced up to 200 job cuts and a restructure of its Adelaide production line, a little more than a week after Toyota Australia declared it would slash 350 jobs from its Melbourne factory workforce.

Managing director Mike Devereux said the jobs of Holden’s 2400 full-time factory workers were secure. However, about 100 casual jobs are in doubt and up to 100 fixed-term contracts may not be renewed.

The car maker is scaling back its capacity from 460 cars per day to 400 and cutting back to one shift instead of two on the general assembly line.

Holden said it will build the same number of cars as it built last year – approximately 90,000 – but would do so more efficiently.

“No permanent Holden employees are going to lose their jobs as a result of this. People on the afternoon shift are going to join their mates on the day shift,” Devereux told the Herald.

“Rather than have a slower line speed and two general assembly shifts we’re going to have a faster line speed with more people on one general assembly shift.”

Holden had grown its casual workforce in anticipation of reviving its export deals to North America and the Middle East. “[But] due to the high Australian dollar, the forecasted [export] growth that we were anticipating in our production for 2012 is not going to materialise,” he said.

Holden had known of the worker cutbacks for some time; late last year it told dealers it planned to wipe 5000 Commodores from its 2012 production forecast.
http://brisbanetimes.drive.com.au/mo...202-1qtzp.html

[1TUFFUTE]

wow we all new that was coming...and in one word....CRUZE

[geckoGT]

Lets not mention that mkII is soon to be released and therefore many will hold off, especially considering there is some exciting stuff coming out with mkII.

Lets not panic, I feel 2012 will be a good year for Falcon.

[Fez WQ]

Hailed damaged falcons dont sell

[Redrum]

Ford were offering customers who had ordered new Falcons that were hail damaged a $500 discount to take them, wow.

Local car industry not looking good at all, bring back tariffs.

[falconnut]

Only $500 for Thousands of $ worth of damage? Typical Ford Australia, cant say i dont feel bad, which i dont.

[burnz]

how did the terry go; anyone know??

[GTP owner]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Lets not panic, I feel 2012 will be a good year for Falcon.

Not panic? Hell, the falcon is effectively a minor bit-player with those numbers. It could be classified a niche. Ford will soon be 7th in terms of vehicle sales in the next 12 months based on projections from the past 10 years. Is this where they want to be? Is this where we want them to be? If not - then something really needs to change.

[Nikked]

Oh my god people!

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by falconnut

Only $500 for Thousands of $ worth of damage? Typical Ford Australia, cant say i dont feel bad, which i dont.

No, that was for lightly damaged vehicles repaired prior to delivery using paintless dent repair.
Buyers were advised and if not acceptable, replacement vehicles would be built but be delivered in February.

About 1500 cars were hit with hail damage which was most of December's production and then the plant
was closed for a few weeks over the break so combined sales of around 2000 odd isn't too bad
considering what happened and that Ford were only back in production for 10-15 days...

Falcon 931
Territory 804
Ute 394
Mondeo 364
Focus 1575
Fiesta 888

[Rico 110s]

Originally Posted by jpd80

No, that was for lightly damaged vehicles repaired prior to delivery using paintless dent repair.
Buyers were advised and if not acceptable, replacement vehicles would be built but be delivered in February.

About 1500 cars were hit with hail damage which was most of December's production and then the plant
was closed for a few weeks over the break so combined sales of around 2000 odd isn't too bad
considering what happened and that Ford were only back in production for 10-15 days...

Falcon 931
Territory 804
Ute 394
Mondeo 364
Focus 1575
Fiesta 888

Well if this is what happened then that's not bad at all really, Holden don't have an excuse for such poor sales other than they must be happy with the Cruze white anting the Commodore.
It also doesn't help Ford sales when all news corporations report the poor sales of Ford but not say why or that Ford has taken a 102 million dollar loan when if fact Ford has not. (Green innovation fund 50m and the Ford NA 52m).

[Spammy]

Buyers don't want or need large rwd local cars and if they do they tend to buy a commodore - the sales nunbers have been telling us that for the last 4 or 5 years.

Even fleets have given up on Falcons/commodores - my neighbour used to get a new commodore every 2 years as part of his govenment job. He now gets a new Mazda3 every 24 months.

[Road_Warrior]

Oh FFS...

The local heroes never do well in January because of plant shutdowns and everything else that goes on over Xmas/NYE. Add 1500 hail damaged cars to the mix, which couldn't be shipped to dealers for delivery (VFacts is based on new vehicle registrations) and it was always going to be a disastrous month.

But, of course, the sky is falling...

[Wretched]

keen to see Feb and March figures. A better indication.
Should be no excuses then.

[geckoGT]

Yes as usual there could be no logical reason such as reduced production and natural disasters, the sky must be falling and falcon must be dying. That is why I said lets not panic, lets not forget that the Falcon has weathered some big storms before but old faithful keeps on ticking.

[Brazen]

The hail must of missed Toyota's factory in Victoria....

[Stagg]

It seems a bit sad really, that Australians are no longer interested in Australian cars... People will gladly part with money for a car manufactured in Korea or China, and not think about the jobless Australians because of it.

In my opinion from friends and work colleagues, the car is the soon to be disposable consumer product which is replaced every year or so... just like microwaves, TVs, dishwashers, products that people buy and just discard soon after. With such mentality, the Australian car which is designed and build to last for years (think about how many HZ holdens are still on the road) is no longer wanted because of the assumption that it will only last three years before it has too many problems.

In my opinion, the image of Australian cars needs to change, which it certainly will with the Falcon EcoBoost, in line with the SIDI injection from Holden. I would also like to be interested in understanding the operations in which Ford sales consultants use to achieve sales figures. Are they telling the customers about the longevity of the Falcons compared to overseas manufactured cars?

[Windsor220]

If the cars damaged by hail is accurate and there were about 1500 damaged, does that mean Falcon would of outsold Commodore if no hail occured?

[smally289]

Originally Posted by csv8

Ford Australia spokeswoman Sinead Phipps said Falcon sales were dented by hail damage to cars waiting to be trucked from the Broadmeadows factory

Intentional pun?

[Professor Farnsworth]

Cruze, popular? I test drove one last week and it was TERRIBLE.

[Ford_The_Win]

Originally Posted by Brazen

The hail must of missed Toyota's factory in Victoria....

Considering that there's about 30-40 kays between the two factories, it's likely.

[EgoFG]

I posted in another thread falcon platform made over 77% of Commodore's figures.
This is not bad.

If The territory was called "Falcon Territory" this news would not be very sensational.

And now let us see 6cyl sedan vss 6cyl sedan in that same segment !

[prydey]

some people seem to have trouble following along. it was predicted in november that falcon sales in december and january would be very low.

why is no one talking about the 2200 commodore sales. the gap between the 2 marques (unsurprisingly) is still pretty much the same.

i really do wonder why some people bothered signing up to a ford forum.

Originally Posted by Wretched

keen to see Feb and March figures. A better indication.
Should be no excuses then.

i don't buy into the month by month analysis!! 2012 has the potential to be a big year with the new stuff coming online but things don't happen overnight. the 2nd half of 2012 and in to 2013 may be a better indication.

Originally Posted by jpd80

No, that was for lightly damaged vehicles repaired prior to delivery using paintless dent repair.
Buyers were advised and if not acceptable, replacement vehicles would be built but be delivered in February.

About 1500 cars were hit with hail damage which was most of December's production and then the plant
was closed for a few weeks over the break so combined sales of around 2000 odd isn't too bad
considering what happened and that Ford were only back in production for 10-15 days...

Falcon 931
Territory 804
Ute 394
Mondeo 364
Focus 1575
Fiesta 888

hey mods, can we get this guy banned!! can't let all this truth and fact ruin a good story!!

[mik]

Originally Posted by Road_Warrior

Oh FFS...

The local heroes never do well in January because of plant shutdowns and everything else that goes on over Xmas/NYE. Add 1500 hail damaged cars to the mix, which couldn't be shipped to dealers for delivery (VFacts is based on new vehicle registrations) and it was always going to be a disastrous month.

But, of course, the sky is falling...

all true, but the sky is always falling for some on here.

[burnz]

Originally Posted by Brazen

The hail must of missed Toyota's factory in Victoria....

no!! they can afford to put a roof over their cars..

[naddis01]

February should be a big month if there is normal sales as well as 1500 hail damaged cars are registered as well.

[imugli]

Originally Posted by Brazen

The hail must of missed Toyota's factory in Victoria....

Quite possibly...

The storms did most damage across the nothern parts of Melbourne. It was hailing to the north but sunny down around the bay.

[whales]

Coffey Ford in Dandenong now have some Falcons in their yard. This would be the first time in 4 or 5 weeks so sales figures might start to pick from now on

[MrZ]

Originally Posted by falconnut

Only $500 for Thousands of $ worth of damage? Typical Ford Australia, cant say i dont feel bad, which i dont.

I'm assuming that $500 discount *includes* repairs to the hail damage. I doubt they could legally sell a brand-new car with existing damage.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Lets not mention that mkII is soon to be released and therefore many will hold off, especially considering there is some exciting stuff coming out with mkII.

Lets not panic, I feel 2012 will be a good year for Falcon.

FGII deliveries started just before Christmas.

Originally Posted by Brazen

The hail must of missed Toyota's factory in Victoria....

It did, but Camry was smashed in sales too, 900 odd like Falcon.