Sad we cant expect the same from chevrolet.

Ram has had strong sales gain from 09 to now.

Let's see if GM can get some positive numbers going here.

Chevy

YTD -7%.

Monthly vs 2013 0%

I can't imagine buying a pickup with a 7 year loan. But that's the manufacturer's hope with today's huge MSRP. Most Americans are tapped-out and just don't have as much disposable income as before.

If you need a 7 year term to buy a rig, you flat out have no business buying it. The only time that would ever make sense would be if they were offering 0% interest and would actually let you stretch it out for 7 years.

I never bought a brand new vehicle until I had graduated from college and had a solid job. I also buy all my vehicles cash unless there are very favorable loan terms.

We got guys on here (that have noted how they are unemployed/broke/etc.) that "claim" stuff like they are gonna buy a new SRT Viper, a nitrous blown PowerWagon, a twin turbo SRT Jeep blah, blah, blah... and we wonder why this country has problems with student loans, underwater mortgages, etc.

Dav, I don't think its your business to worry about other peoples spending habits. I would just worry about yourself.

@ John,

People have the right to be as stupid as they want, but I don't expect my tax dollars to bail out or subsidize that stupidity.

Unfortunately, my tax dollars do, so I think I can comment on that stupidity. When I no longer have to help morons pay for their stupid financial decisions, I won't say a word... cause then it won't be my business any more.

Geez, you guys are looking at sales numbers as if it makes a better vehicle to sell the most.

This isn't football.

There are many vehicles that are great and sell in small numbers.

The most, biggest, fastest, strongest, etc doesn't make the best.

Supersize my McDonalds please as it makes a McDonalds meal better than what can be had at any decent restaurant. Not.

Who has the newest pickup that's paid off?

I am happy that my GM truck will last me 10 years or more and give me over 500,000 trouble free miles. My 06 Silverado just turned 350,000 miles. Just think, maybe in another two years I may need a new pickup again but I doubt it. Enjoy your truck payments all you Ford and Ram boys, I will keep my money to myself until I need a new pickup.

John - a wise man would be a little more concerned and see parallels to the housing bubble just a few years ago that brought the economy to it's knees.

"Labor Day....experts are predicting....sales.....strong"

PUTC, Hold on now! Didn't you hear about the govn't shutdown?

The govn't closed at 4pm today and all of the workers have gone home, and will be closed tomorrow, closed Sunday and closed again on Monday.

Will we survive? Will the dealers survive this Labor Day? Will the over 1/3 of Americans on welfare survive?

I guess we'll hear more on September 3rd on how the govn't shutdown slowed sales.

Or will the govn't shut down and things still be functioning? How can that be?

Chris, I wouldn't count on that because we're in another 3 day government shutdown. I'm still alive though. I hope my local Ram dealer will make it through Labor Day. But how will my Ford dealer live without that government site or that stupid agency the USDA? I was going to visit the Federal Building tomorrow morning and volunteer for an audit at the IRS office. Now what?! Damn these government shutdowns! September 2nd couldn't come fast enough.

@Tom#3 - you expecting an honest answer?

I purchased my 2010 F150 around labour day and it is paid off. Has been for a long time.

If its made in Mexico I wont buy it. If I can't pay cash for it I can't afford it. Handing 40k over to a truck dealer knowing in five minutes it will be worth 30k is hard to do. Actually its impossible for me. There's not much on a truck that can't be fixed unless it melts. I guess my 88 F150 XLT Lariat will be passed to my grand children if I ever have any.

@John -- it most certainly is the business of anyone who owns plans to purchase one outright as the lax lending standards and financing terms very much contribute to not only the inflated price of new vehicles -- it has carry through effects to the used market as well.

The fact that you have not ascertained this really changes nothing.

when they find out that the market is going to plunge in a year or so because everyone bought a truck in 2014 what will they cost then? GM might want to ask for some GOVT money soon because they will be the first in trouble. they sold so many new 14's around me you can just drive down any road you want and they are in a drive way or driving by you its insane how many were sold in my area. do they think that more people have the money to pay more and more with inflating prices every year? NO SORRY THE GAME IS ABOUT TO BE OVER.

Sad we cant expect the same from chevrolet.

-You can't get anything from Chevrolet anymore unless it's a race car. Denali? Nope. Cold rolled steel beds like the GMC? Who knows. You for Sure can't get wheel well moldings to prevent rust like GMC has. All wheel drive? Nope. High quality interiors in base trims? Nope. Chevrolet is the butt of jokes now thanks to GM/GMC. The Bowtie is in the toilet.

@Ed, very true. I think you summed up why Chevrolet is failing in large part. I'd add that Chevy's just aren't all that attractive either. Many here and elsewhere have discussed Chevrolet's fall in the looks department on their trucks stemming back to 2003. Their cars aren't much to look at either. They just don't bring it anymore unless it's on a track. All of their other products are second rate-second place compared to the competition. No doubt, the blame is on GM's shoulders. I always thought not going to a one company format was a huge mistake going forward. Oh well. It's why we have Ford, Nissan, Dodge and Toyota.

I had considered buying a one or two year old used truck, but it's just not worth it when I can buy a brand new truck for slightly more, sometimes even less with the right rebates. I have never and will never get a loan for anything other than my house and my business. I've been watching new truck prices like a hawk that last year. I haven't seen any labor day specials advertised yet that are really even special. Prices have been pretty consistent where I live for about the last 4 months, although ram has recently had some big discounts. The advertising changes, but the prices have been pretty consistent.

I figure you could be dead tomorrow so if you can afford it and a new truck makes you happy then go for it!
Every year pickups are getting more and more expensive so the longer you put it off the more you're going to pay.
Resale values on 2-3 year old pickups are the highest they ever been.
My rule is take $10K off the sticker price and start there where a higher end model will go for a bigger discount than a cheap model.
All dealers want top dollar for the 4 door crew cabs, if you can get away with a super-extended cab you'll get a better discount.
Always prove to the dealer you can afford it, they will be more excited dealing with you (fill out a credit app)
Play the wait and stalling game with the salesman, tell him you're going out for lunch and you'll be back, that drives them crazy cause they think you're making an excuse to leave and never come back. A liar thinks everybody else is a liar.

Here's a bargain! Used 2014 Ram 1500 4x4 , $26K
http://www.blueknobauto.com/used/Ram/2014-Ram-1500-1dbb58ec0a0a00b50563343496c0928c.htm

This is better than reading the funnies.

@Tom#3--Good rules, never be too anxious there will always be another truck and another dealer if they won't deal. It is also better to come from the vantage of not having to need that new truck now. If you current truck is reliable you can take your time and look for what you want at a price you are willing to pay.

Lmao! At randy. So true!

What's wrong with a 6 year loan? Are you saying a new truck won't last 6 years?

Boy, is the fur flying today!

It's really simple, guys. You need to know what the dealer's cost for the truck is. He's a retailer, pure and simple. He wants to sell it for more than he paid.

The dealer buys trucks from the factory on the easy payment plan. Typically the truck can sit on the lot for as much as sixty days before the dealer has to pay for it.

1. That means if you plan to trade a late-model used Ford F150 to a Ford dealer, just remember he can get brand new ones from the factory for little or no money down.

2. If he can rotate that stock in thirty days or less, he can charge his customers more for the trucks and still sell trucks and still make a profit.

3. If you don't know exactly what his cost is for the truck you want, you cannot accurately calculate what you should get for your trade, or what the final out the door price should be.

Zero percent interest is a great deal for someone like me who has no installment debt. Taking a car loan right now would actually raise my credit score. No one who can't afford the truck should buy until he's sat down and figured out the budget. It's different for every buyer.

@papa jim,
I do believe your advice is good.

Everyone should right now have an idea on what vehicle they want to buy and their credit score/rating.

If you don't then why go out and buy something you don't know about.

Work out what you want to pay for a vehicle. That is the actual amount you will give the dealer, the change over price.

Wheel and deal, don't walk into the Fiat dealer and give them a hint that you are a Fiat fan and want a Fiat 1500. It will cost you. Tell them how great the Titan, F trucks, Silverado's, Tundra's are etc.

Let them think you aren't one of those brand fan types.

Don't worry about how much your trade in is, or how much discount he's giving you on the new vehicle. Concentrate on your affordable CHANGE OVER PRICE. No other price matters.

Don't option up your vehicle with accessories. This is the cream for the dealers.

An interest free loan for a vehicle might entail a higher vehicle cost, nothing is for nothing.

If you can, pay as much cash as possible to incur the smallest level of debt and don't borrow to your credit limit.

Don't let the salesman become 'involved' in your requirement as he will attempt to talk up the sale and deliver crap you just don't need in your vehicle.

So, if you have a $15 000 limit for a change over, that's all you spend.

Buy and live within your means, there's no second prize when you go assup financially.

@Big Al--Sometimes it is better to take the zero or low interest loans because on certain brands such as Honda and Toyota because as a general rule they will not discount. You can get them to throw in winter packages or floor mats but they will not budge on price. As for GM, Ford, Chrysler it is different you can negotiate and you can usually get them to include other things. I didn't need the 0.9% interest on the CRV but since I could not get anything else off the price and I got a good trade in and a winter package without any additional charge I took the loan. I have never before bought any vehicle on credit but as papa jim said I left my money invested and I raised my credit score.

Another thing is I will take extra options if I do not have to pay extra for them. My Isuzu had everything on it including a tow package, electric seats, heated leather seats, fog lights, auto dim mirrors. Since it had been sitting on the lot the longest of any of the dealer's stock they were willing to negotiate (10k off was not a bad deal). The Isuzu had more than I wanted or needed but it was too good of a deal to pass up.

2. If he can rotate that stock in thirty days or less, he can charge his customers more for the trucks and still sell trucks and still make a profit.

@Jeff and Big Al

Number 2 above is the key to the kingdom.

Unless you know how LONG that truck's been on the dealer's inventory--you cannot know how low he'll go to sell it. If he's had it less than two weeks you can expect little in the way of discounts or other forms of financial consideration (the freebees).

If it's on Day 59 of a sixty day plan, you've got him by the short hairs but if you don't get enough for your tradein or if you ignore friendly loan rates or if you cannot afford to "walk" then you might miss a great opportunity.

It's easy to track inventory of used cars on CARFAX but not so with new cars. Plus dealers in a syndicate will shuffle cars around to different towns to keep the inventory fresh on slow moving items.

Lastly, Big Al, the advice you give on not buying more than your can afford is a nice platitude but it won't save you money on a deal, apart from buying more than your budget allows.

You also said "Don't option up your vehicle with accessories. This is the cream for the dealers."

Option packages is where the profit is for dealers. If you have a resource like Consumers Report you can closely calculate the dealer markup on options (usually between 10-40 percent). Their MSRP on the base model is easy to calculate, but unless you have a price guide you'll get confused with the option packs.

Here is where the nuttin' starts, because the sales manager has a lot of leeway to discount the packages as long as the overall deal stays within their ideal profile for a particular model.

Jeff S is right about Honda, Subaru and a few others who generally only add about 10 percent when they calculate MSRP. What you pay for options on a Honda is a very big deal, and if the Zero financing is available TAKE IT. Just be prepared to be upside down on the car until you can pay it down.

@papa jim and Jeff S,
The length of time the vehicle sits in a lot is important, even in Australia.

Another issue I found here in Australia, is it seems all car salesperons must receive identical training.

It seems there is a process they use when selling, essentially SOPs. Try and identify that and upset the salesperson's technique.

This will keep him on his back foot more often. Give him some line, then reel him back to reality.

I bought my BT50 for $46K when the asking price was $51k (the price doesn't include on roads/accessories, the actual driveaway price I paid was was $51k). This was the new BT50 and had been released for only 2 months.

I walked in on a Wednesday afternoon and bought the truck and picked it up on a Friday morning, cash no trade-in. The truck was accesorised with a bulbar and towpackage. It didn't need anything else. Oh, and a full tank of diesel.

I had spent a week and a half ringing around and worked out a realistic price that I was prepared to pay for the truck.

There was a copper red one for sale about 60 miles away. The colour was sh!t and that was the price I used plus $2k less.

It worked, but you must do your homework and not go into a car dealer and talk sh!t yourself or you'll be acting like the saleperson who's generally a dipsh!t on a commission.

Also, you must be prepared to up and leave the car dealer if they don't meet your expectations, even if the price is close, because they will ring you up a day or two later.

Stick to your guns, but be realistic. Set a realistic change over/price and don't budge.

This is a great exercise for those that troll on this site. It would be interesting to see how well they can manage dealing when purchasing a new vehicle. It involves actual research that will cost you money if you screw up.

@Big Al & Papa Jim--It is true what papa jim said about being upside down on a loan but this is a 5 year loan and I usually keep a vehicle for over 10 years so I took the loan. Papa Jim you are correct about the optioned vehicles in that the profit margin is much more and this gives the dealer more flexibility in negotiating along with any hold backs the manufacture offers. I ended up talking to the owner of the dealer because I could not get anywhere with the sales person. The owner was for the most part on the up and up and we came to a reasonable deal where I got a good deal and he moved a truck that had been sitting on his lot for almost a year (it was an early 2008 model manufactured in August 2007 and delivered to the dealer in September 2007 that I bought in late June 2008). It also helped to buy during the financial meltdown and the spike in fuel prices that left dealers with lots of trucks and few customers. I really wasn't in the market for a new truck but it was a good deal and I had the extra money to write them a check on the spot. They offered me a low trade in on my S-10 which at the time had 82k miles and was in perfect shape. I decided to keep the S-10 which has cost me relatively little for upkeep and which I use for picking things up and getting rid of them. The S-10 now has 103k and runs and looks as good as the day I bought it (does not use any oil and usually I change the oil well before 3k--it runs like it will easily go another 100k or more).

@Jeff S

Here's some friendly advice from a former S10 owner. Keep it!

No dealer will ever offer you anything reasonable for it--because he can get them (and old Rangers) at the auctions all day long for peanuts.

No matter what the dealer pays you for it, he can't get more than about 7-8 thousand dollars retail for one in absolute cream puff condition. Also there is no collector market for S10s or Hombres or the little GMCs from that period, apart from the factory turbo's and supercharged trucks like the Syclone.

Other good reasons for keeping the S10 would be that it's cheap to fix. Replace water pump? Easy. Replace alternator? Easy and cheap (rebuilt).

A/C repairs can get pricey for the early S10s that need a conversion to modern refridgerants, but after about 93 they had the new style compressors from the factory.

The 4.3 engine and the 2.5 engine are easy to work on and rebuilts are cheap. The stick shift Sixes are kind of rare but the 2.5 was sold with a lot of base trims that had a stick--cheap to fix and hard to break.

Brakes? Cheap and easy. Weatherstripping? Is a hassle but if you have a helper it's not that hard for DYI.

Interiors are loaded with chintzy plastic bits but so were most cars in those days.

Keep your S10 until it dies.

@papa jim--Thanks I will. It runs like it will never quit. It has been one of the most reliable vehicles I have ever had next to a 73 Chevelle with a 350 V-8 which was one of the smoothest running vehicles I ever had. 5 to 7k are about what the retail selling price the dealers charge but the most I could get would be 3k which is what the dealer offered me in 2008. The S-10 has long since paid for itself and at this point I will keep it unless a family member needs it which I would give it to one of them. You are right about the plastic-- the seat latches, glove latch, and tail gate cables are the worst and have been replaced. The 2008 Isuzu has much more plastics and the hardware is even cheaper quality than the S-10. Also I didn't realize that the 2008 doesn't have any grease fittings but the S-10 does (life time lube which is the life of the part until it runs out of grease). I cannot do too much about the cheaper components but by the time I am finished with the 2008 I will have more than gotten my money out of it from use.

Good advice. I was tire kicking for fun with one of my sons this summer. Our town has a big "super sale" at the fair grounds where all the dealers in the area set up shop. I was curious about the Ecodiesel. They claimed that they sold out all of the time and I'd have to put a deposit on one to test drive it.
They tried their damnedest to sell me a Pentastar Ram. I took one for a test drive. It shifted up smoothly and had decent power, the ride was nice but it had a real rough downshift into 1st at a few traffic lights. I looked over at the sales-guy and he pretended not to notice.
To make a long story short they phoned me a few days later saying that they had several Ecodiesels in stock for me to test.
No thanks.
I'm happy with my truck.

I'm gonna give Ram the benefit of the doubt and say that the transmission softwares are generally tuned a little "tight" from the factory and they have the adaptive intelligence that will eventually tune itself to your driving style and conditions.

On the other hand, I wish Ford GM and Ram had not abandoned the manual shift in their base trucks, especially those equipped with six cylinder engines. Not only would a six-stick package offer a significant savings when new, the gearbox and clutch would last a longtime without hiccups as long as you don't completely abuse it.

@papajim - I had a Grand Caravan that did the same thing. The problem never went away. Reflashes of the ECU helped for a year or so then it started all over again.

No thanks.

Hard downshifting is a known issue on Ram trucks.

@papa jim--I miss the manuals in trucks as well. My S-10 has a manual. Eventually you won't be able to get a manual in any vehicle but hopefully that will still be several years away. It does sound like software programming, but I have heard similar stories to Lou's on Chrysler products starting in the late 80's. I had a Chrysler 5th Avenue that was a decent car but it had electrical problems and the body hardware was sub par. The 318 V-8 was the good part but the electronically controlled carb. was troublesome. I can't complain too much because it had 200k miles.

And what does a comment about gay men have to do with Labor Day deals on new trucks?

My local Ford dealer has been advertising 15,000 off F150;s for 3 weeks and sales are strong. I like to see business do well so this is great but I do wonder if this is because it takes these big discounts for people to qualify for a loan.

The dealers want to clear out the 2014 inventory before the 2015 F-150s arrive. All the attention is being directed to the all new F-150. Also there is a lull before the introduction of the new models.

The dealers want to clear out the crap 2014 inventory before the 2015 F-150s arrive. Once the new F150 are out the old ones will look like even bigger POS than they already do (until the recalls start on the new ones).

So go on Ford fags go out and get a deal....lol

Enjoyed reading the lot
Owned a Toyota which I can not afford to buy again
Now own 2004 Nissan and the 2014 look so tinny and electric network is a hair
Might look at ford but not because of my life style
Perhaps the s10 oldies will just let all the banks know we like "simple stupid"
And yes they can keep their big box houses or empty payments

My first two trucks were Chevy
Will never own anything but a truck
Now the question is??? Which one???
Honda can keep their high jump back wings
Who can load?
Are the roads going to be smaller?
What train will you be in?