Inside the F-150 Shortage: What Ford Dealers Are Facing

On this episode of Inside Automotive, Nick Anderson, General Manager of Chuck Anderson Ford and Chairman of the Missouri Automobile Dealers Association, discusses how Ford dealers are navigating ongoing F-150 inventory shortages while adapting to growing FTC scrutiny around pricing transparency and advertising practices.

Anderson explains how supply disruptions tied to aluminum supplier issues have significantly reduced truck availability during peak selling periods, forcing dealers to rely more heavily on factory orders and used inventory strategies. He also shares how transparent pricing practices are helping dealerships reduce customer friction and maintain trust as regulators increase oversight of online advertising and dealer fees.

Key discussion points include:

•  How the F-150 production shortage is impacting dealer operations and customer demand 
•  Why factory ordering has become more accepted by consumers post-pandemic 
•  The rising value and demand for used F-150 inventory 
•  FTC pricing transparency expectations and evolving compliance pressures 
•  How dealers can reduce friction with clear, all-in pricing strategies 
•  Anderson’s outlook on EV adoption, Ford market share, and Chinese automaker competition

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Transcript

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:07

Welcome to Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick. The Ford F-150 has become harder to find on lots, forcing dealers to rethink sell strategies and have different conversations with customers. At the same time, increased scrutiny from the FTC around advertising and pricing is raising the stakes even further. Joining us now to talk through how this is all playing out at his dealership. And right there on the ground is Nick Anderson, general manager of Chuck Anderson Ford. He's also chairman of the Missouri Automobile Dealers Association and chairman of their next gen dealer program. So Nick, thanks so much for joining us on the show today. Very much uh appreciate you taking the time with us.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Thanks for having me, Jim, and thanks for everything you guys do for the industry.

Why F-150 Inventory Vanished

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:48

Thank you very much for those kind words. We uh we're work at it, we work hard at it every day. So, how did the F-150 shortage impact your inventory? And where did this all come from?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

No, it diminished it. Um it made our 2026 truck month uh not non-existent. Wow. Uh we uh normally we stock 60 to 70 F-150s. Um this year during truck month, like the most I had on the ground at one time was nine. Um and so that makes it hard to sell them and if you don't have them. Um it all started back in the fall last year when the aluminum uh plant that supplies the aluminum to Ford Motor Company to produce them um caught fire, um, slowed production, canceled a bunch of orders. Um they worked diligently and then and Ford and the company together to to get it up and running. And then shortly after it got up and running again, it caught fire again. And uh it it resulted in us losing uh I think it's 58 2025 F-150 orders that were previously scheduled that uh they couldn't produce.

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:50

Wow, that that's uh that's not good. That's not good. And uh what percentage of your overall business is typically Ford F-150s?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

About 40.

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:58

40 percent. Wow. That so that puts a real hurting on you big time.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

It was brutal. It uh it's just hard because you have customers that come in that buy every two or three years and they're hoping to find their next truck a lot, and we don't have it. Yeah. Uh doesn't mean that we won't try to find it or try to locate one, but uh everybody in the country is dealing with the same thing. So getting somebody to trade an F-150 and not getting F-150 back is uh pretty challenging.

Keeping Buyers Engaged With Orders

Jim Fitzpatrick 2:23

Yeah, I would imagine. How do you keep those customers engaged um and and uh having to wait for the vehicles still? How do you manage those expectations and and keep the the the you know the buyers engaged without losing them altogether to competitors?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Fortunately, we uh I think COVID, uh if anything positive could come from COVID, I think it uh gave us the necessary uh transparency as far as ordering goes and order straight from the manufacturer.

Jim Fitzpatrick 2:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

And it kind of set the set the expectation for customers that hey, if we can't produce you something today, um, six to seven, six to eight weeks, something like that, we can have you in a vehicle. Um and it and at that point, all my salespeople are pretty comfortable um selling that route. So we we have taken a lot of orders.

Jim Fitzpatrick 3:06

Okay. What's the forecast look like for that? When do they tell you things should be back to normal?

SPEAKER_00 3:12

So April, which finally we're on the tail end of April. April is the gonna be the lowest uh volume in stock. Okay. So May, June, July is all gonna start ticking up.

Pre-Owned F-150 Prices Spike

Jim Fitzpatrick 3:23

Yeah, well, that's good. That's good. Good news. Okay. So uh I would imagine when somebody rolls in in a pre-owned uh F-150, a couple of years old, you're you're paying all the money on that, on that vehicle.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

We are. They've uh I mean I'd argue that they've probably gone up between eight and twelve percent in the last 90 days. Oh, yeah. Uh just because you can't get a new one.

FTC Pricing Rules And One-Price Reality

Jim Fitzpatrick 3:43

Yeah, for sure. Every salesperson's got a long list of people just waiting for a great, you know, uh pre-owned F-150 to come in. So at the same time, you not not that that's not enough to deal with. The FTC is putting more of an emphasis on transparency, as you know, to get real advertised pricing straightened out with consumers and and dealers. How does that change the way that you market vehicles today?

SPEAKER_00 4:07

For us, fortunately, it didn't change anything. Uh, we advertise our online price, what anybody could walk in the store, buy it. Um, we've done that since the beginning. Oh, it's I've I've always been under the understanding, and I guess uh selfishly, I I would rather focus on selling cars rather than spending a bunch of time explaining to customers why it's different than what they thought it was.

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah.

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:28

So is it different? Is it safe to say you're a one price uh environment? Is that is that what you're you've got set up there?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Um similar. I mean, we do negotiate prices, but our our price online is if you came in with a check, what you can buy it for.

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Um and even if you don't talk to us or anything, just walk in the door, hand us a check, we'll hand you the keys.

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:49

Okay. And is that does that include do you have a dock fee? And if so, does that is that included in the online price?

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah, we have an administration fee, and yes, that is included.

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:57

Okay, okay. And um, and then you don't play games with, I should say play games, you know, I I don't mean to hurt dealers out there, but do you play games with the hey, this comes with the military, this comes with a uh conquer conquer uh conquest, you know, incentive, this comes with a loyalty incentive, you know, that price, uh or where where do you fall on that?

SPEAKER_00 5:16

So first off, it is absolutely playing games uh when dealers do that. Yeah. Uh we may we make all of our customers, we have uh pages on our website that give all of Ford's uh we call them extra incentives that you may or may not qualify for. We don't tie it to any pricing with an individual vehicle. Um if if uh fortunately if the customer does qualify, like they get that on top of what we offer. Uh but we don't uh I don't believe in advertising that in any particular vehicle, making anybody think that uh they could buy for that.

Jim Fitzpatrick 5:45

Yeah. Nick, do you um do you get this message out in your marketing to your consumers in in your market? Is that is that part of your marketing to say we don't play games? This do you the price you see is the price you pay?

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Absolutely. Yeah, we uh we bank on that. And uh like I said, I'd I'd rather spend time selling the vehicle or helping the customer answer questions rather than having to uh negotiate with the customer's mad at me because they felt like I lied to them.

Jim Fitzpatrick 6:11

Sure. Do you ever get that customer that calls and says, hey Nick, I, you know, I'm on I'm on cars.com or I'm on your website, and your cars are more expensive than you know one of your competitors down the road or in another city or what have you. What's the deal there? Are your cars cost more? Or you know, do you ever get that call where they're accusing you of be charging more for your cars than somebody that's not as uh not as compliant as uh should we say with their pricing structure?

SPEAKER_00 6:37

No, oftentimes we'll get the opposite we'll have customers that either either working deals with us or they call in and they just say, hey, so-and-so has it marked at this price. Could you match that or beat that or whatever it is? And at that point we will pull the the dealership's uh vehicle description page on whatever vehicle they're looking at and kind of walk them through and say, Hey, so if you don't, if you don't have this, don't have this. And by the way, these two can't stack at all, uh, but it's gonna be$3,000 higher. And at that point, our price is$600 cheaper. So if the customer allows you the opportunity to kind of walk them through the transparent side of it, uh more oftentimes than not, it works in our favor.

Jim Fitzpatrick 7:14

Okay. Yeah, that's great. And then I'm I'm sure that as part of the repertoire that a uh a salesperson or your BDC might share that with a customer when they're calling in on a specific car, that the price you see is the price you're gonna pay. We don't play games.

unknown 7:29

Correct.

Reporting Dealers And Conflicting Laws

Jim Fitzpatrick 7:30

Yes, sir. Yeah. And and the FTC now uh has has come out and said, well, we'd we'd like you dealers that are are compliant and you know doing doing right on this um to turn in your fellow dealers that you feel uh might not be. What is your take on that?

SPEAKER_00 7:46

I have such mixed feelings about that. I I want everybody to do it the right way. I don't believe it's my responsibility or should be my responsibility to enforce that. Right. Um the the FTC asking dealers to more or less rat out other dealers is uh is is an interesting take on on their job. Yeah. Uh at the at the end of the day, I think everybody, I mean, there's a right way of doing it, wrong way of doing it. So everybody needs to do it the right way. Yeah. The dealers that are gonna hold on to the wrong way as long as they possibly can, they should be fined or punished or whatever, consulted. Um, but I don't necessarily think it's mine or my fellow dealers' responsibility to to have to jump on that bandwagon to do that.

Jim Fitzpatrick 8:26

Right. Yeah. That's kind of crazy that they're they're gonna turn turn the industry, you know, upside down and and everybody turning, you know, somebody in or their fellow dealer in to say, hey, that person's not compliant with the laws or what have you. There's also the factor of, and I've spoken to a lot of dealers about this, where the state law doesn't align with the federal uh regulations and the federal laws on this. Have you come across that as well, where it's there's just kind of like a mix match and mismatch there of um of rules and regulations on this from the state to the federal?

SPEAKER_00 8:59

And this this this guy, the FTC guideline isn't the first time that's happened. Um and so more or less uh the good rule of thumb, and I mean I I can't speak as an attorney, but every attorney I've spoken to on the matter, the good rule of thumb is whichever one is more uh stringent is the one you need to follow. Um in this case, um the FTC's uh belief is that the federal law supersedes anything written in state statute. Um and so what they say goes, regardless of what your state says. Yeah. Uh are there gonna be states or dealers that file lawsuits? Probably. Yeah. Uh but unfortunately I'm not I'm not really sure if there's a a very bright light at the end of that tunnel.

Jim Fitzpatrick 9:40

That's right. That's right. When you read some of the comments, whenever we uh you know, on at CBT here, whenever we post articles about this, we will get um consumers that will, you know, come across our site or our social media or what have you. And and uh they're you know, they're very, you know, um uh uh what should I say, passionate about the message to dealers where you know the the message is kind of oh it's about time that the FTC does this because dealers haven't been doing it right, and I bought a car and you know dealers you know played around with the numbers and what have you. So I think to your point, I think it comes at a at a time that's right in the industry as well, because it we we have to get our can ourselves uh we have to self-govern this, right? And and do right on this with consumers.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

The hard thing with that is that like uh the automobile industry, we take a lot of slack um whether our vehicles are too expensive or we charge too much for service or whatever it is. But in in the reality of it, our profit margins are smaller than 80% of the other business industries out there.

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Uh the industries that uh are gonna be most affected by the FTC's new guidelines are going back to hotel industry, um, Airbnb, um airfare, all these things that they have like 30% of whatever the face value is and fees on top of that they don't give you until you're you're purchasing. Right. Um those are gonna be the industries that take the biggest hit and I think are squirming around the most. Overall, dealers, um, there are gonna be changes because they're having a dealer doing it the wrong way. But overall dealers, I'd say, are probably 70 set 70 percent, 75% compliant as is. Um, but we do catch 90% of the slack from the internal public.

Outlook For Ford And The Market

Jim Fitzpatrick 11:21

Oh, yeah. It's very popular to hate your local car dealer if you're a consumer, isn't it? That's that's uh that seems to be the case for a very long period of time. But uh they maybe don't realize how much you actually do for the community. But uh yeah, and and I I agree with you. I think the resort and or the hotel industry, the hospitality industry, I should say, will take a hit because as we all know, you go up and you look at you look at the number on the bill and you're like, what's this resort fee for$79? You know, can I can I get the hotel without the resort? You know, it's just such a such a just a little add-on, another 70 bucks a a night, you know? And uh yeah, that irks me every time I see that. But uh so that's gotta now be in the hotel rate. We'll we'll see how they do that, or we'll see how they do on that, right? Yes, sir. So so um jumping around here, well, how's how how's the um rest of the year looking for you? Uh with with all of these things that dealers are dealing with, and certainly you are there in Missouri. How are you feeling about the balance of the year?

SPEAKER_00 12:21

I'm really I'm really excited. Um I I think that uh the F-150 is coming back into stock and it's gonna make a huge swing for us um and every other Ford dealer in the in the country. Um Ford has taken a very strong approach to market share. Uh unfortunate enough to be in the Kansas City market where we have a very strong market share, um, usually second or third in the in the country as far as Ford goes, um, which is really good. Uh the downfall of that is sometimes uh Detroit doesn't think it's as important to incentivize vehicles in Kansas City as they do elsewhere because they already have the market share they're hoping for. Yeah. Um but overall, um, I think that Ford has uh a strong growth mindset and uh the dealers are ready to kind of pick up the torch and continue that run.

EV Demand After Tax Credits

Jim Fitzpatrick 13:06

Sure. That that's that's fantastic. Um I've spoken to some dealers recently and they said they saw an increase in the interest of EVs, and of course they've they've seen more sales because of the gas situation. Have you experienced that as well?

SPEAKER_00 13:20

No, sir. No, I would guess that those those dealers are in the states or they're not in Missouri. They're not in Missouri.

Jim Fitzpatrick 13:29

Nor nor were they ever in Missouri, right? We wouldn't literally No, I I totally get it. I've I've heard the same thing from uh dealers that are in the Midwest and uh and yeah, they're like, nah, we're we're not selling EVs.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

So uh at the end of the day and the EVs, I mean dealers, I mean, we're gonna sell whatever we have to sell. Um and so like it's not that we don't want to sell EVs. Yeah, if if the market was supported for so long with uh federal tax credits, um since the OEMs had certain numbers they had to hit to sell, they over incentivized the EVs to get them to sell. Um and now since there is no federal tax credit and there's no number for the OEM to hit, the mark the market is is the true market. And so rather than being six or seven percent of the registrations, now it's gonna be three or four percent. Right. Um and the people that want to buy them, buy them, and the people that don't, they don't have an extra incentive to try it.

Chinese Vehicles And Dealer Association Work

Jim Fitzpatrick 14:20

Right, right, absolutely. Hey, another hot topic that's circulating. In fact, we we do a lot of coverage on it here, is uh the the notion that uh Chinese may be entering the market at some point in time. They've obviously Canada now has allowed some 50,000 vehicles to be sold, Chinese vehicles to be sold in Canada. We're uh, you know, based on what the experts say, Michael Dunn being one of them, that we talk to here at CBT a lot, uh, where America is the last is the last you know holdout that we're not allowing that. What what's your take on that? Do you think uh under a limited basis that Chinese should be able to sell cars here or keep them out altogether?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

I'd say keep them out altogether. I I think that uh it would disrupt our industry something terribly. Um and I and I am a a very conservative free market thinker. Yeah. So I understand that uh the market dictates what the market gets.

Jim Fitzpatrick 15:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Importing a bunch of Chinese vehicles to sell at incredibly low prices is is saying that there is similar to if you were to buy all your clothes and household goods off of uh Timu. And uh you're getting when you're spending not very much money, but the product you're getting is not very good either. Yeah, so it hurts the industry as a whole.

Jim Fitzpatrick 15:34

Yeah, yeah. You say keep them out all together. Yes, sir. I gotcha. I got you. Nick Anderson, general manager of Chuck Anderson Ford, chairman of the Missouri Automobile Dealers Association. What's on your to-do list uh with the association?

SPEAKER_00 15:48

We've been uh I've been spending a lot of time down at the Capitol um this year. Uh we've had a couple bills that we've been trying to get through legislation. Very good. Uh so kind of kind of tail into that now. Um unfortunately it looks like a couple of them are gonna be uh 2027 initiatives.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Uh but uh overall just kind of keeping Missouri a great state to to be a business in.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:10

Yeah, for sure. How many dealers make up the association?

SPEAKER_00 16:13

About 360.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:15

360?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Okay. Well, 360 new car dealers. We have uh 80 to 100 RV dealers and power sport dealers and then uh 2,500 used car dealers.

Jim Fitzpatrick 16:25

Oh, that all in the association? Yes, sir. Oh, that's pretty cool. You've combined all that. Okay, that's great. So you got a little muscle there in uh in Missouri, that's for sure, with the state house. Yes, sir. Yeah, very good, very good. Nick Anderson, thank you so much for joining us here on CBT News. It's always a pleasure catching up with you. Best of luck to you with these Ford F-150s now rolling back in. Sounds like that's the business that you're in there with 40% of uh uh penetration there of Ford F or F 150s. So uh congrats on that. So thanks so much. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Thanks for watching Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick.