There is a strange phenomena vehicle buyers are witnessing today. Which is why the prices of trucks are dropping left and right. Americans, not too long ago, were obsessed with trucks for a long time. Everyone who was considering buying a new vehicle or to replace an existing one, used to seriously consider trucks as a viable option.
About a decade or more ago, trucks were enjoying their day in the limelight. It was very hard to pry the car buyers away from dreaming of owning a Ram, F-150 or Silverado. Lately, this has changed totally the opposite way. People are not buying trucks anymore.
Nowadays, if you are in the market for a new truck, you are in luck. This lack of interest and weaning demand for trucks creates the best opportunity for you to buy one. If you know where to look and how to precisely time your buying decision, you can save some serious dough.
What caused the drop in prices of trucks?
In the last decade, the slow but steady rise in gas prices as well as introduction of roomy and comfortable sedans, especially with the electric and hybrid engine technologies, reduced the demand for large vehicles like pickup trucks. Yet, manufacturers still produced them like no such thing is happening, causing the inventory to balloon up at the dealerships.
Dealerships live and die by how fast they can turn the inventories around. Any vehicle sitting on the lot another day without getting sold, costs money to the dealership. Multiply these unsold vehicles by tens or hundreds, you can then see the picture. It is not in the dealership’s best interest to wait for the right buyer to pay the top price to their vehicles sitting on the lots.. Sometimes, it is better to sell the vehicles at or very close to the cost of acquiring them, so that dealership doesn’t get tied down with financing costs for those vehicles.
As you can imagine, manufacturers making trucks like there is no tomorrow, intensified by car buyers not wanting to buy trucks anymore, put the dealerships in a pickle. So, most dealerships started doing what is expected of them: Dropping the prices. This is how we came to where we are today.
Other than the cost of raw materials, the price of something is really what the market can bear, i.e., supply and demand ratio. Automotive industry, especially trucks, are no exception to that. More trucks get produced, yet less people want to buy them, creating an over saturation in the marketplace and the prices are going down to make them more enticing to the customers.
Monthly payments are going down
Are you in the market for trucks? Do you want one ? Does your business need one or may be more? Well, you are in luck. There hasn’t been a time like today in a very very long time for the buyers. There are several factors putting an extreme downward pressure on the prices.
The most important one is, the automotive market has never seen so many successful years of sales it has seen this past decade in a row since the 1920’s. Which also means, there were a lot of cars leased to their new owners. Most leases are 36 months old and are starting to come to an end. So, there is a glut of late model, relatively new cars, being returned to the dealerships as lease returns. Of course this is causing the dealerships to sell them as certified pre-owned vehicle pricing, which is only about a thousand dollars more than a conventional used car. In other words, they are a very attractive option for the buyers.
Another phenomenon being observed today is the general market shift from sedans into SUVs and pickups. As a result of this, most high end luxury vehicle makers, such as Mercedes Benz or Cadillac are caught in a tight spot. Some car makers could not augment their SUV and pickup manufacturing lines fast enough to respond to the growing market demand, while the interest for their flagship products waned.
These two facts alone combined, created a surplus of new trucks, sitting on the dealer lot while the interest in buying trucks is dropping like a rock. As a result the prices of these vehicles have dropped down to rock bottom levels, unseen for a long time.
What does all this mean to you as the customer? Well, your dreams of driving a new truck might have come true. With this market turmoil taking place, all manufacturers and dealerships are offering incredible deals on the trucks, making the monthly payments extremely affordable. According to many sources, GMC is offering about $11,000 of the MSRP on their new Sierra 1500 line of trucks. The same sources also report that Chrysler’s flagship trucks RAM 1500s have a zero percent financing for 60 months on top of up to $5,550 cashback dependent on the trim level of your choice. Late Japanese entry to the market Nissan Frontier also has the same zero percent financing offer alongside upto $3,500 cashback offer.
How can you find the best deals on trucks
Although the deals on trucks are plenty and all around, finding the best one for you is not effortless. Once you decide that you want one, you need to watch for all the offers around you. The best starting point is by searching deals on the internet. Most, if not all manufacturers, go online to offer deals, with the hopes of reaching a larger target audience. Going online also allows you to check the dealer inventory without stepping foot into the dealership and knowing what has been spitting on the lot for a long time. You know those vehicles which are not selling will be offered with the best discounts.
Also, it is best to check the local dealerships’ special sales. You know that they have a large stock of vehicles which they are willing to make sweetheart deals to move them off their lots. When you encounter one of those, you can immediately jump on it and score the best possible deal.
If you always wanted to drive a truck but were afraid that you could never afford the payments on it, your ship has just sailed in. The opportunities in the marketplace are great. But if you don’t act on that desire, there is a high likelihood that they are not going to be around for a long time. Every good thing will come to an end.
