Ford and Chrysler are chasing after the General Motors "Red Tag Sale," Ford with its own year-end sales blitz called "Keep It Simple" and Chrysler with a "Miles of Freedom" free-gas and extended-warranty offer.
Ford describes its plan as a move back to the one-price selling that appealed to car buyers during the summer employee-pricing sales extravaganza. Ford will print new window stickers for most of its Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brand vehicles. The stickers will show the MSRP, the "Simple" price, cash incentives and the bottom-line price.
GM's "Red Tag" price is slightly higher than the price someone getting the supplier discount would pay.
Ford provided several some examples of how much consumers might save with Keep It Simple.
A 2006 Ford Escape that stickers at $20,685 would cost $17,294 under the program. A 2006 Lincoln Navigator with a sticker price of $53,175 would have a new bottom-line price, including $2,500 in cash rebates, of $46,747.
Keep It Simpleruns from through Jan. 3, 2006. All 2005 and 2006 models are included except for the Ford Fusion, Lincoln Zephyr, Mercury Milan, Ford Mustang and Ford GT.
Chrysler, rather than increasing cash incentives, is launching a year-end promotion that offers two years' worth of free gasoline and scheduled maintenance, as well as an extended mechanical warranty.
Chrysler's "Miles of Freedom" program runs from Monday, Nov. 21, through Jan. 3. It includes:
• A debit card for $2,400 -- the amount of money Chrysler calculates is needed to buy 12,000 miles worth of gasoline for two years at the Chrysler group's corporate average fuel economy rate of 21.8 mpg. The plan is based on a $2.15 per gallon price of gasoline.
• Free scheduled maintenance for as many as 24,000 miles.
• A five-year, 60,000-mile full mechanical warranty, compared with the standard three-year, 36,000-mile warranty.
Excluded from the program are the 2005 and 2006 Chrysler 300; Dodge Viper, Magnum, Charger and Sprinter; and all SRT8 vehicles.
Customers can choose existing Chrysler rebates instead of the program. Those rebates range from $1,000 to $7,000 cash back on 2005 and 2006 models. The existing rebates are scheduled to end on Nov. 30.
