Ford rejigs the pricing of its big cars

Ford is reducing the official prices of its largest cars, the Mondeo saloon and the S-Max and Galaxy people carriers. The company has traditionally pitched its list prices at high levels in order to leave plenty of room for it to negotiate the big discounts its fleet customers expect, but has found this approach increasingly difficult to sustain.

For example, company car users' P11D-related benefit-in-kind taxation is based on list prices rather the actual prices paid for cars, so these customers have been penalised for choosing Fords over cars with lower list prices but similar actual selling prices. Also, private customers in particular dislike haggling and are often left wondering whether they got the best deal.

Ford's latest initiative, which involves making seasonal promotional price reductions permanent, will narrow the gap between actual and list prices, a move that will be reinforced by reductions in dealer discounts. The official starting price for the Mondeo is now a highly competitive £17,295, while S-Max and Galaxy list prices will start at £20,645 and £22,945. One impact of the changes is to make the Golf-sized Focus – which isn't subject to the same sort of price correction – look a bit pricey compared with these bigger cars.