Sailor

Regarding dealer "hold back", up to now I basically have never bought a brand new vehicle. Instead, I'll buy pre-owned and save thousands of dollars. I usually buy pre-owned from the brand's dealer and negotiated down from whatever he's asking on his lot. (I've done this happily with BMW, Acura, Lexus, Honda, and Mercedes in recent years...never any problems.)

So, I'm very glad to know about the hold back. There used to be (maybe still is) a new car factory incentive offered to dealers sometimes, which took the dealer cost below what you could look up, so at times you really didn't know what his real bottom line was. I think the purpose was to move excess or model year end inventory off the manufacturer's books.

Is that the same, essentially, as this strangely-named "hold back"? What is it that is being "held back", and who is holding it back? Can you look up the amount somewhere?

mmdpg

I'm not sure where the term "hold back" comes from but it's my understanding it is the amount paid by Ford to the dealer to cover
the interest on a 90 day loan to buy the car. Ford wants dealers to have a selection of inventory on their lots for people to see and buy from,
dealers want as little inventory as possible because it takes up space and costs money to finance.
If the dealer sells the car on day 2 they get to keep the rest of the money. If they sell it on day 90 they kind of break even.
If the cars sits more than 90 days then the dealer is losing money by paying interest on the loan.
This is one of the reasons dealers want to sell quickly and turn over inventory.
It is almost impossible to know what the hold back figure is and dealers will never tell you but you know when negotiating when they say
they are losing money if they sell you a car for invoice price they are not telling the truth as long as the car has been on their lot less than 90 days.

Camster

Yeah,"losing money on every deal" and making it up on volume. ;-)