By William Maley
Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com
February 12, 2013
Right now isn't a good time to be Lincoln. Executives recently had to deal with frustrated dealers at National Automobile Dealers Association Convention and Expo in Orlando, FL. The frustrations stem from the lack of the new MKZ on dealer lots. Don Chalmers, a Ford and Lincoln dealer from New Mexico tells The Detroit News that with the lack of inventory, they're losing sales from customers who want to buy.
Lincoln sales in January were to say in the least, abysmal. Total sales was around 4,191 vehicles, an 18% drop when compared to last year. MKZ sales suffered badly; Lincoln only sold 453 vehicles for the month, despite the MKZ having the biggest number of pre-orders in Lincoln history.
The small number of sales is due to the numerous quality checks going on at Ford's Hermosillo, Mexico assembly plant to make sure each MKZ is just right. In fact, Ford is shipping some of the MKZs to a factory in Flat Rock, Michigan for a closer inspection. Analysts believe Ford is going to these measures to to avoid therecall issues that have plagued recent launches including the Escape and Fusion.
Ford executives say Lincoln dealers won't have a full inventory of MKZs till April.
Source: The Detroit News, Bloomberg
William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.
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