July is usually a great month of for car-shoppers and for this year automakers are hopeful that July will once again prove to be the lucky month for them. And since its only days before the highly anticipated month of July various automakers have started preparing all the gimmicks they knew just to capture the attention of buyers.
July is one of the months in a year where car buyers would be able to save a lot in purchasing vehicles since lots of incentives and rebates are to be given as automakers take advantage of the numerous opportunities to make sale in an effort to reduce their inventory.
The Consumer Reports magazine has identified two of the biggest deals that have the potential of giving buyers with up to 30 percent off the snicker price of a Jeep Liberty Sport 4WD while up to 29 percent off on the fun to drive Ford Focus ZX4 SES sedan.
General Motors is to offer zero-percent financing for three years with an additional $1,000 cash-back on selected vehicles. This is GM's way of helping to boost its sales at the end of the month. However such offer will only to be given to qualified buyers.
GM brands like Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Pontiac will offer discount program from June 26 through July 9. Similarly some 2006 and 2007 models of the Chevrolet HHR, Tahoe and Silverado, the Buick Lacrosse and Lucerne, the Pontiac G5 and G6, and the GMC Envoy, Yukon and Denali are all included in the discount program.
Ford Motor Co. is also expected to announce anytime this week its new incentive program. Both GM and Ford have held incentive spending largely flat this year as their way of moving away from the type of sales and volatile monthly tallies that for years have determined results for Detroit automakers.
Detroit's automakers are known for offering big consumer incentives especially in the summer months as part of their strategy to lower down their inventory levels in preparation for the released of their new model launches which usually are presented in the fall.
With the coming of Toyota in the scene, Detroit's automakers have struggled hard to retain their retail market share amidst the record-high gasoline prices.
Meanwhile, Toyota has announced that it will be giving a rebate for its new Tundra pickup truck of up to $3,500.
Acura, the luxury brand of Honda maker of the high quality will also be offering incentive not to customers but to dealers on the 2007 Acura RL with Navigation. The incentive will amount to $3,500 and since it's given to dealer this is not usually revealed to consumers but are presented in a way that would make the luxury sedan to have more room for negotiation.
The Consumer Reports Bottom Line Price factors such as the hidden dealer incentives and holdbacks aside from rebates and invoice price are good points for negotiations. And presently for the RL, the Bottom Line Price shows a total potential savings of up to $9,188.
Experts from Consumer Reports would like to stress the point that a great price does not necessarily mean that it's a good deal. This is also the reason why each of the vehicles included in the Consumer Reports' Best New Car Deals list has received the organization's highly coveted Recommended Rating.
In order to be recommended by CR a vehicle needs to perform well during testing, receive average or better reliability ratings, and should perform well in both government and insurance industry crash and rollover tests.
Sluggish Sales
It is no secret that the US auto sales have been sluggish starting from the day that Japanese and other foreign automakers have entered the market scene. The US auto sales were able to climb barely under 1 percent in May and it's already adjusted for an extra selling day. Meanwhile, GM's sales was able to increase by 6 percent while Ford sales again dived by 10 percent.
The average incentive spent by GM per vehicle through May this year was $2,775 which was up slightly from $2,704 a year earlier and its according to an estimate made by the industry tracking firm Edmunds.com.
Ford's average was slightly down by $3,084 from $3,131 a year earlier.
