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Future Vehicles Future Crown Vic and Grand Marquis
152 messages, Last post on Jun 07, 2008 at 4:54 PM
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It takes about six weeks to order and actually program the car for manufacture...two more weeks to start up the plant to make your car and your car only...then it takes another six weeks to locate a geezer who can only drive 50 miles per day before needing to stop for the night...assuming you live 1000 miles from the assembly plant, that adds another 4 weeks (5 weekdays x 4 weeks is 20 days; 20 days x 50 miles per geezer day is 1000 miles)... OK, I made all this up... 
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Replying to: ionosphere1 (Dec 29, 2007 4:23 pm) In the case of the Grand Marquis and Crown Victoria, there are a couple reasons. Normally there are production stops around the Christmas/New Year holidays, as union contracts require much higher wages for Sundays and holiday work (e.g.: Christmas Eve & Christmas, New Year's Eve & New Year's day). So most factories close down for the 2 or 3 weeks around that time, since as many as 6 or 7 of those days would require premium pay anyway, and it allows them to bring in mechanical engineering teams to service and adjust the production machinery. So there goes a few weeks of your wait time anyway. Also, the Wixom (Michigan) plant that produced Town Car was shut down, and Town Car production was moved to St Thomas (Canada) plant where Crown Vic & Grand Marquis is produced. So CV & GM production had to be interrupted while Town Car tooling was put in place. That caused several weeks of delayed production. As I understand it, the plant's full production starts again this coming Monday. So barring some other problem (like the dealer's lack of allocation, which I doubt), you should probably see your car arriving at the dealership within 4-6 weeks or so. And for your edification, if someone wants and orders a Grand Marquis, they probably wouldn't end up buying a different car. It is nearly impossible to find a new RWD, large car, similar to the Grand Marquis; especially a very loaded car for well under $30k after incentives. For the few who cannot wait, the dealer can always dealer-trade to get a unit similar to what the person wants. On a car like this, in relatively well populated areas, there are usually many dozens of stock units to choose from within a 100 mile radius of a given store. Often a dealer will absorb the cost of transporting the vehicle, to get the sale today rather than in 2 months; besides, that customer that gets the itch, might go looking around elsewhere, and another dealer may end up scratching his itch, and he end up in a similar car sooner. So it amazes me that your dealer didn't at least make an attempt to locate you a Norsea Blue Grand Marquis, and remove you from the market. |
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If you do an inventory search of dealers around here, you'll see a lack of inventory for Grand Marquis. Most have none. Maybe dealer already knew that so didn't even bother looking. Another thing I'm wondering about is why the Lincoln Town Car is almost double the price of the Grand Marquis. Aren't they basically the same car? Is the Town Car that much more luxurious to justify the difference? I also find it odd that as the $5,500 rebate deadline of 1/2/2008 passed, they just advanced the expiration date to 1/8/2008. Strange to just add 6 days, isn't it? I know for awhile last year they had a $7,000 rebate on the Grand Marquis. I'm hoping they increase the rebate before my car is ready so that I'll get a bigger rebate.
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I was wondering about the 6-CD Audiophile option, which I am getting. The model I testdrove did not have that option, so I never got to hear one and am hoping it is real good, as sound quality is important to me. Most cars appear to have a brandname stereo, but the Mercury Grand Marquis doesn't and there is no brand marking on the unit. Because of this I have been unable to find any reviews of the unit and I have spent a lot of time looking. Do you know who manufactures it and also who manufactures the speakers and no of any reviews of them? |
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Replying to: ionosphere1 (Jan 04, 2008 7:24 am) IIRC the GM/CV have a solid rear axle and the Lincoln has independent rear. -mike |
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Replying to: ionosphere1 (Jan 04, 2008 7:24 am) The Town Car is NOT double the price of the Grand Marquis. A loaded '08 Grand Marquis can sticker out at almost $32,000, while it's impossible to get an '08 Town Car to sticker for even $50,000. So it's priced more like 50% more. Even back on the '07 model Town Car, you'd have been hard pressed to get that car to price out at $53,000, and even that's on a car with Navigation System and THX Sound System. The Town Car is engineered to be significantly more luxurious than the Grand Marquis, much less NVH (Noise, Vibration & Harshness), and significantly more available toys (i.e.: Pwr. Open/Close Trunk, HID Headlamps, Climate Controlled Seats, Memory Seats, Dual-Zone Climate Control, 17" Wheels, etc.), and more. But value is in the eye of the buyer; there are some who feel the image boost of the Town Car alone is worth the extra money. Often Christmas/New Year incentive programs are extended a few extra day, because the bean counters need to assess the market conditions and the size of their marketing purse. Most often the extension is not more than 2 or 3 days. In this case, I guess they felt they needed more research time. Production capability has been reduced, especially since the Town Car allocation will be eating up some of the plant's capacity, so I doubt that you'll see the $7,000 rebate level again, if any time soon. But as I informed you before, generally Ford will honor whatever the incentives were at the time of your order, or at the time of your vehicle delivery, but not any of those in between. Talk to your salesman about that. But don't worry about it, whatever it is, it is. Just take what's there and enjoy your new car. Don't worry about what could have been. I believe the Audiophile Sound System is made by Ford itself, but I'm not sure. Ford actually has a very robust sound systems production capability. Audiophile was originally created by Alpine, which is a high end European producer of audio sound systems. Unfortunately, the audience for cars like the Grand Marquis, don't tend to be as brand conscious as the yuppier crowd. The Town Car is construed to be in the luxury segment, and branded sound systems are just part-and-parcel of those segments. Hopefully now you have enough extra ammunition to keep you busy researching.
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Replying to: peetiedog (Jan 04, 2008 5:17 pm) -mike |
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| Thanks for all the information. Regarding inventory, I myself recently looked on the Mercury website and looked at inventory of about 10 dealers in this part of the state: my dealer had 1 (the one I testdrove) and none of the oher 9 had a single LS and only 1 other dealer had 2 GS's. I checked this about a week ago so it's probably still the same. | |
| What part of Washington are you in? Must be western Washington, near Spokane and Coeur D'Alene, ID area. If so, the dealers out in that area that carry Mercury are usually smaller and are combo stores (Ford/Mercury or Ford L/M). Otherwise one would think that in the greater SeaTac region (from Bellingham, WA down to Salem, OR, and from Aberdeen, WA over to Walla Walla, WA), there would be more of a selection available. There are multiple times more than 10 Mercury points in that region, and the dealer can run a regional locate as quickly as a cross town locate. For a customer who's anxious to have his car sooner, I would. If the exact car exists, maybe the customer would be willing to pay $100-$150 more in transport charges, to have the Seattle dealer trade to get the car from the Portland dealer. Then he could have the car within a day or two, rather than in 3 or 4 months. Also the dealer can have the sale today, rather than months from now; and take the chance that the customer becomes disillusioned and changes his mind on the whole purchase. Maybe it would be worth the dealer splitting the transportation charges, as a smaller bird in the hand may be worth more than a larger bird in the bush. Besides, customers shouldn't have to search out surrounding inventory, not when dealers have the tools to search more efficiently. But, that's how I think; maybe my thinking is warped. I'm just an old factory trained guy who thinks that customers still appreciate service. | |
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I looked at the inventory of all the dealers Mercury's website included for my Seattle zip code, which showed dealers near the coast and Canada too. Is a rare car in these parts. My dealer didn't even have a model for me to see when I went there. I had to wait a few weeks them to have one and they said it took them a few months to get it.
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