"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 12:16:32 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

Using my numbers, the second 100,000 miles is almost free!

the way we look at it, we break even on the purchase price around 75k
- the rest is a freebie.

and if those idiots at ford ever offer zero percent financing again,
well probably finance it.

We purchased a new Ford Focus for my daughter last year as we could not pass
up the rebates and employee pricing offered to all buyers..........we got
the car for about 25% off sticker. We could not even have purchased a used
2004 Focus at the price we got.

The Big 3 sold their souls/shot their wads with the employee pricing,
rebates and 0% financing over the past couple of year. Folks who may not
have purchased a new car for several more years down the road took advantage
of those deals, taking them out of the picture for car new sales in 2006 and
2007. So besides losing money on the incentives, the Big 3 has a smaller
pool of prospective buyers over the next couple of years.

Add to the mix the financial/benefit commitments the Big 3 made to their
workers (most importantly health benefits to retirees) and the increasing US
market share of *imports* (many now made here) and you have a very unstable
future for the Big 3.

Not a good thing for the US.