Ford is still selling 30 000 per month compared to 10 000 4Runners sold by Toyota. Pretty amazing they can outsell by 3 to 1, probably it is because of the price difference at initial purchase???

With all the incentives they give you to buy a Ford (or many domestics), its not a suprise that more people buy them. I'm more than happy being a small group in a great product.

Another thing to consider...most small towns in USA have American dealerships only. Country folks still only buy American due to convience (dealership is close by) and their old beliefs in American products.

My small town only has a Chrysler and Ford dealership. Toyota dealership is over 30 min. away. Lexus is nearly an hour away. In my town, i only see American trucks, rarely a Tundra.

I never thought of that. I guess I have seen very few non-American dealerships in small towns.

It is different for those of us who live in larger metro areas to see some of the very small dealerships that some small towns have

Could not agree more! I looked at the Explorers, but after hearing my fiance's parents' issues with their Explorer (among many customer reviews) I decided against it. This is my first Toyota (as well as first non-coupe), and I couldn't be happier with it! Toyota's fit & finish is wonderful. My only gripe is the muddy-ass non-JBL stereo.

Fleet sales: company vehicles, rental vehicles, taxi cabs, etc.

Ford rolls Explorers on lower credit scores. I guy at a shop across the street could not even qualify for a 4Runner got an Exploder for nothing down and snapped it up.

This thing was a loaded 04 and looking at his paper work he got $17k off the original sticker. And you wonder why Ford is rolling a lot of Exploders..... And I've never seen so many goodies on a moving vehicle....dual entertainment centers!!!

Depends where you are. In my BC mountain town of ~20,000, there is only Ford, Dodge and Toyota dealers in town, with Honda, GM/Chev, and another Toyota dealer 1/2 hour away. The Ford dealer does NOT even stock Explorers or Tauras' for the last 2 years.

When I looking for my T4R, I made the rounds to all the various makes.

I have posted my findings in other posts, but I must say that the Ford Explorer
was my second choice, what turned my off was the very large dealer I visited,
all the ones(3) that I wanted to drive had dead batteries.

They were second in build quality, but I still found unplugged plugs and parts missing,
also some paint problems.

As far as good prices, well what the dealers are doing is taking the rebate discount out
of the trade-in value. The dealers have been cutting a fat hog on the buyers.
If you don't have a trade they don't want to do any dealing.

Cliff s

Could it be that the majority of buyers don't know anything about vehicles? They buy the color or the room they need or the price they can afford. Most of us are car guys, or we wouldn't spend any time on these sites. Like the Lexus salesmen I talked too about the new VVTi 4.7 V8's that were coming for the 2005, LX/GX models. He thought they already had VVTi since the LS400 and GS400 had it. He even opened the hood of a 2004 GX470 and discovered that it was not VVTi. The guy had been selling Lexus for the past 5 years and he never had a customer ask him about anything other then color/and luxury features. People buy it because its a Lexus and they are "good" cars. Face it guys we are different

Pitbull, I can hear you now, I'll take the pretty blue one over there, by the way, what is it?

That would be true if you were talkin about computers. A man gots to know his limitations.

Well, Pitbull, I guess you're not a Ford customer.

I can't get over the stupidy of the average American. Things I've heard from domestic buyers over the past year or two:

Imports are smaller.

Imports rust.

Imports cost more. (in the long run, an unreliable, depreciating domestic will cost you)

American cars support American jobs (really? look on the window sticker idiot)

Imports are underpowered (import HP < domestic HP???)

Imports have as many problems as domestics. (CR and JD Power are wrong?)

I got a huge rebate.



A co-worker has a 99 Explorer that has gone through 2 rear diffs, won't start if you park it on a incline, lost the radio backlight, power window problems, and find this acceptable/OK and would buy another. They need to look up the word 'reliable' in the dictionary.

I owned several new Ford Explorers before "moving up" to my lst. 4-rnr back in 2000. Yes, I feel it definitely was a move up for a variety of reasons, other than cosmetics.

My lst. test drive on the 2000 sold me. The overall intergrity of the truck felt better to me, I liked the pickup, tighter handling, better towing features (I often tow a boat), and the fact that it felt a whole lot less "tippy" to me than the 2000 Ford, which I was also test driving at that time.
Being pretty was not something I remember considering.

I had also owned a Landcruiser, which I dearly loved, but it was a bear on gas and for my own personal conservation beliefs, I couldn't justify buying another one.

Now I am on my 2nd. 4-rnr. and lovin every single minute of it.