Campbell Ford to Institute Fixed-Price Sales Policy : Automobiles: Dealership will also eliminate its finance and insurance division as part of its efforts to end what its owner has called the adversarial relationship with buyers.

The owner of Campbell Ford, one of the nation’s largest Ford dealerships, will launch a fixed-price sales policy Friday after having successfully introduced the unusual approach at two smaller dealerships.

And in a major refinement of the system he began at his Mazda dealership at the end of February, John Campbell, president of Campbell Automotive Group in Santa Ana, said he will also eliminate the finance and insurance division at the Ford dealership as part of what he has termed an effort to end the adversarial relationship between car dealers and buyers.

The so-called F&I; department at many dealerships is a major profit center where sales agents try to convince customers already committed to buying a car that they also need extended warranties, dealer financing and accessories such as alarm systems or protective coatings for the paint and upholstery.

Campbell said buyers at his other fixed-price stores have complained that, while they enjoyed shopping and buying under the no-negotiating system, they still felt pressured by salespeople in F&I.;

So at the Ford dealership, located in Garden Grove, buyers will simply be escorted into an area where flyers, pamphlets and other written material describing each available product, warranty and financing option will be displayed.

“They can pick whatever they want, and that’s what we will sell them, with no pressure,” Campbell said. “Or, if they have their own financing and don’t want anything else, that’s fine, too.”

Campbell said he plans to eliminate the F&I; departments at his other fixed-price stores: Campbell Mazda, where he inaugurated the no-negotiating system on Feb. 28; and Campbell Buick-GMC Truck in Corona, which switched to the program June 5.

Under the unusual system--Campbell has the only new-car dealerships in Southern California outside of the Saturn network that sell from a posted fixed-price list--each car on the lot has a price tag that shows the manufacturer’s suggested retail price for that make and model, the average price at which similarly equipped models are sold at competing dealerships and the Campbell price. The fixed pricing applies to all sales at the dealerships, including trucks and used cars.

Campbell’s salaried sales agents are available to answer questions about the cars but are not allowed to negotiate on the price, which can range from just a couple of percentage points to as much as 18% below the so-called sticker price.

Rick Heronime, general manager of Campbell Mazda, said he has lost several sales because he could not reduce the price but says the system is popular.

At a time when car sales are down about 15% nationally from last year, they have jumped at Campbell’s fixed-price showrooms. The Mazda dealership sold 380 new and used cars from March through June, up 24% from 306 sales in the same period last year. And sales at the Buick-GMC Truck dealership have jumped 20% to an average of 22 a week, compared to an average of 18.3 a week before the fixed-price program started.

Campbell said that, while he has not projected Ford sales under the program, “I think this might be the most successful of our operations because we will be very, very different from other Ford dealerships. Large-volume operations like Ford and Chevrolet typically are much more hard-sell oriented than smaller dealerships like Mazda because there are so many dealers competing in an area.”

There are 13 Ford dealers in Orange County, for example, and only seven Mazda dealers.

Campbell Ford, with 1991 revenue of $41.1 million, was ranked by Auto Age magazine as the nation’s 98th-largest Ford dealership and 311th-largest new-car dealer.

A spokesman at Ford’s western regional headquarters in Anaheim said the manufacturer is likely to monitor the Campbell program closely.

Ford has had tremendous success with a fixed-price program of its own, the spokesman said. The company advertises four models of its entry-level Escort at a fixed price of $10,900, he said, “and customers tell us they love it, that it makes car buying much easier.”

Under Campbell’s program, those four Escort models will be priced at $10,182 beginning Friday.

Campbell, who also has the exclusive Orange County franchise for General Motors’ Saturn division, said he was introduced to non-negotiable pricing by Saturn, which encourages the practice and awards dealers large exclusive territories so that they don’t have to worry about competitive price discounting.

He said he decided to expand the program into his other dealerships after hearing buyers rave about the pressure-free atmosphere in Saturn showrooms.

Outside of the Saturn network, however, there are only a handful of fixed-price car dealers in the country. The oldest, Gordon Chevrolet near Detroit, has had the system in operation for only 3 1/2 years.

“I’m surprised others haven’t followed me” into fixed pricing in Southern California, Campbell said. He and his general managers have been contacted by dozens of other dealers, he said, and have talked up the program whenever the opportunity arises.

But instead of being copied, Campbell said, “I still get quite a few nasty letters from other dealers telling me I’m hurting the business.”