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Bargains By The Truckload In New Models

An aircraft-parts manufacturer shopping for 14 medium-duty trucks approaches a truck dealer for Brand A. The dealer works with the customer to determine specifications that would satisfy the parts maker's needs, and then qoutes the lowest price that would allow a reasonable profit.

The parts manufacturer next visits a dealer for Brand B. The second dealer, unable to meet Brand A's price for 14 equivalent trucks, calls the factory's sales department. There, dealers can obtain the truck manufacturer's price assistance to help clinch a tough sale. The dealer for Brand B gets factory money to sweeten the deal and, as a result, gets the sale. The buyer gets a great price.

That's how it is in the medium-duty truck market now. And good values are also available to buyers of light trucks, namely those in weight Classes 1, 2 and 3, which are trucks up to 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight (GVW).

Automotive analyst Ann Knight, in the New York office of the investment firm of Paine Webber, Inc., estimates that car and light-truck price increases will trail inflation by 2 to 3 percentage points over the next few years. Sales incentives, she predicts, will be needed for a long time to reduce dealer inventories of cars, pickups, vans and some utility vehicles. The incentives may be smaller than those of previous years, but they will still be there for the dealing, particularly late in the model years.

The competition is even stronger for sales of medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks, that is, trucks in Classes 4 through 8, weighing 14,001 pounds GVW or more. Production capacity for trucks in those weight classes exceeds demand. Many companies have merged in recent years, and there are rumors that more mergers are still to come.

In 1987, the makers of medium- and heavy-duty trucks sold a total of only 288,335 vehicles in the United States, down from the peak-year 1979 output of 374,791 vehicles. The manufacturers of Class 8 (33,001 pounds and above) over-the-road vehicles divided up 131,156 sales, down from 173,543 in 1979.

# posted by Medical Information : 3:22 AM