Two months of weak sales has seen Ford Australia forced to temporarily shut its car manufacturing operations in Melbourne for two days a week to rebalance its stocks of unsold locally made Falcon and Territory models.
The shut down will last for the next three weeks, with five day a week work resuming on March 28 as it prepares for the new Territory SUV.
The news came several days after the monthly industry figures showed a dip in sales for the month and especially for big six cyclinder vehicles.
Sales of the Falcon fell 37.5% to 1572 units, after they dipped to a 15 year low in January of only 1157 cars.
Sales of the Falcon have tumbled more than 43% over the first two months of the year, and sales of utes were off 22% last month and nearly 14% so far this year.
After two months in 2010, Ford had delivered 4,832 Falcons against the 2,729 registered so far this year.
Media reports yesterday said Ford was discounting the Falcon to try and drive sales, with cuts of $12,000 a vehicle reported.
The Territory (which is based on the Falcon) has also lost ground, seeing sales fall 10% in February and nearly 6% over January and February.
There’s a new one due in a month or so that will have a diesel engine finally, after years of requests from owners and prospective buyers.
But Ford Australia is selling record numbers of imported Fiestas (1160) and a record month for Mondeos (735) and this is the segment that is currently booming
But the locally made cars are not in high demand.
Last year Ford Australia built 38,615 Falcons and 11,558 Territorys for a total of 50,173 cars.
It sold 29,516 Falcons last year, meaning it already had a stock overhang at the end of December.
The slow sales in January and February have seen stock levels rise again.
As a result stocks at the Melbourne plant need to be cut and the plant will be shut for two days a week.
Ford says part of the problem is that it is suffering from a lack of LPG model variants, which make up around 20% of Falcon sedan sales and almost 50% of its ute volume.
A new LPG system won’t be available until mid year (the old system did not meet design rules).
Large cars, such as the Falcon are down nearly 23% this year and sales of medium cars are also slipping, down 13.4%.
Ford says the shut down will mostly impact its Broadmeadows assembly plant, but the the Geelong-based casting and engine plants will also be affected.
The down days at that plant could be fewer because it works ahead of the car making plant and Ford says it’s easier to juggle output there.
Ford said employees would be paid either 50 or 60 percent of their usual pay for the non-production days, and were able to use annual leave and other entitlements to top this up if they wished.
