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E-mail StoryBig trucks still rolling off the lots in Kern
| Saturday, May 10 2008 12:00 PM
Last Updated: Friday, May 9 2008 11:11 AM
It takes more than the recent run-up in gas prices to wreck Kern’s love of big trucks.
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1. Ford F-Series
Number sold in Kern County in March 2008: 182
(2008 Ford F-150 XL two-door regular cab styleside)
National base price/MSRP: $17,700*
Fuel economy (automatic transmission): 15 mpg city, 20 mpg highway
Horsepower: 195
Maximum towing capacity: 8,200 pounds
3. Toyota Tundra
Number sold in Kern County in March 2008: 71
(2008 Toyota Tundra Grade two-door regular cab SB)
National base price/MSRP: $22,290*
Fuel economy (automatic transmission): 15 mpg city, 19 mpg highway
Horsepower: 236
Maximum towing capacity: 5,100 pounds
4. GMC C/K Pickup
Number sold in Kern County in March 2008: 64
(2008 GMC Sierra Work 1500 Work Truck two-door regular cab)
National base price/MSRP: $17,500*
Fuel economy (automatic transmission): 15 mpg city, 20 mpg highway
Horsepower: 195
Maximum towing capacity: 8,200 pounds
5. Dodge Ram Pickup
Number sold in Kern County in March 2008: 42
(2008 Dodge Ram Pickup 1500 ST two-door regular cab SB)
National base price/MSRP: $21,215*
Fuel economy (automatic transmission): 14 mpg city, 19 mpg highway
Horsepower: 215
Maximum towing capacity: 9,100 pounds
* These are national base prices and do not necessarily reflect the Kern County market
Sources: Edmunds.com, Cross-Sell Report
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Despite gas prices hovering around $4 per gallon, Bakersfield is a truck town and trucks like these at Motor City Auto Center are still selling well.
Bakersfield is very much a truck town, and the nearly $4 per-gallon price of gasoline hasn't had much of an impact on truck sales. Trucks like this 2008 GMC 2500HD Diesel are still selling well, according to the folks at Motor City Auto Center.
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Large SUVs are another matter. As local gas prices shot up 26 percent between late 2005 and early 2008, people in the market for a new set of wheels in the county did the economical thing in many cases and bought a small SUV instead of a full-size one.
But this was truck country long before SUVs came along. Over the same 30-month period ended March 31, sales of full-size pickups increased as a share of all new vehicles sold, from 21.7 percent to 23.4 percent, according to data from the Kentucky-based Cross-Sell Report.
Could it be that Kern people don’t care what it costs to fuel up so long as they get to own a brand new Ford F-150 or Chevy Silverado?
Local truck salesmen say it’s not quite that simple.
For one thing, factory incentives these days favor big trucks to the tune of several thousand dollars per purchase. And if you need to tow a boat, motor bikes or a fifth wheel, a small car won’t cut it.
Perhaps more to the point locally, it can be jolting to switch to a sedan when you’re used to driving a vehicle that seats five or more with room in back for whatever you need from the hardware store.
“When you look at it, people have big families,” said Chad Manning, general sales manager at Jim Burke Ford in Bakersfield.
“They have a lifestyle that they need, or they have a lifestyle that they enjoy, and most of the time a pickup truck fits into that need.”
Not to be overlooked is the fact that vehicle sales are down significantly across the county. Cross-Sell data show they fell by about a quarter to 2,102 a month between October 2005 and March of this year.
The slowdown extended to full-size pickups. Sales of those vehicles declined by a fifth to 492 over the same 30 months, while purchases of most other kinds of vehicles dropped off even more steeply. Sales of full-size SUVs, for example, dropped to 128 in March, down by more than half from October 2005’s total.
Across the country vehicle sales rose by nearly a fifth over that same period to 1.35 million.
Meanwhile, full-size truck purchases slowed nationwide. They slid as a share of all vehicles sold from 12.1 percent in October 2005 (a particularly slow month; the figure was up to 16.4 percent the month after) down to 11.9 percent in March 2008, according to Edmunds.com, a Santa Monica automotive information service.
Edmunds analyst Jessica Caldwell said the nation’s move away from big pickups may reflect growing sensitivity to rising gas prices and economic uncertainty. Seen that way, she said, buying a small or mid-size car is “the safe choice.”
“On the national level, I think fuel prices definitely affect a lot of consumers,” she said. “If they don’t really have a need for trucks ... (new vehicle shoppers) probably are not going to buy (them).”
Clearly Kern’s needs are different than the rest of the country’s.
Work drives many local truck purchases, especially for people in the oil and agriculture industries, Bakersfield dealers say. But they also point to soccer moms who consider trucks a more versatile alternative to SUVs.
Recently a woman with two children and two or three great Danes drove out of Bakersfield’s Motor City Auto Center in a new, full-size pickup. A sales manager at the dealership, Richard del Rosario, said the mother was able to put the kids’ car seats in the truck’s crew cab and her dogs in the bed.
“The truck happens to be the perfect truck for her,” he said.
Large pickups also make sense financially for many shoppers. Detroit automakers are offering rebates as high as $7,500 toward the purchase of a full-size truck.
“They’re trying to compensate for the gasoline,” said Tommy Owens, a sales manager at Haddad Dodge in Bakersfield, where he said about 60 percent of all sales are trucks.
It’s not that buyers are going with a big truck over a more economical commuter car, he said.
“What we’re seeing out here,” he said, “is that people are buying a commuter car (for) in town, and for the trips they’ll buy a truck and keep rolling.”
Last week the balance between the two tipped toward small, more fuel-efficient cars on the “front line” row of new vehicles for sale along Pacheco Road outside Motor City Auto Center. On Tuesday, the dealership finished removing nearly all the trucks and SUVs that have long made up the bulk of the line.
Not far behind can be seen plenty of full-size pickups and SUVs.
“It’s still Bakersfield, after all,” said del Rosario, the sales manager there. “People still buy that.”