Employee discounts to continue

Ford will continue its discount program through Labor Day, while Chrysler says it will continue its program "indefinitely". While GM announced that it would be ending its employee discount program, expect it to stay in place for leftover 2005 models. That makes sense, as this would be the bad time to put the brakes on a promotion that's been effective in clearing the older models off the lot. While much of this points towards the establishment of common-sense pricing for 2006, many models from Ford and GM will retain an MSRP similar to that of '05 models. GM, for example, excluded only two models from its employee pricing promo, but yet will be making dramatic cuts in the sticker price of only about half its models. It's hard to see anything but incentives in store for the other half of its lineup. Ford, meanwhile, will actually be offering employee discounts on some 2006 models such as the Expedition, Escape, Econoline, and Navigator.