The Great Cab Chassis Shortage

Have you noticed that you can’t find a new Chevy cab chassis to purchase anywhere? Our dealership is in Ft Payne, AL, about 45 minutes southwest of Chattanooga, TN on I-59. Within 300 miles of us includes Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Memphis, Huntsville, Birmingham, and Montgomery. In that 300 mile radius of us, there are exactly two crew cab chassis showing at Chevy dealers on the ground. When we expand to include vehicles also on order from Chevy dealers as of 8/7/21, that total grows to 71. Donohoo Chevrolet has 23 of them. And if you want crew cab chassis that are gasoline instead of diesel, we have 6 – all of them. Not a single one on order with any other dealer. If you would like to see the available cab chassis, click here for our inventory. And, you can search for cab chassis in our HD inventory that is not built but on the way here. (View HDs on Order)

What happened?

Chevy needs to build all of the vehicles it can for retail purposes as the supply to retail customers has plummeted. Fleet ordering of heavy-duty (HD) trucks was cut off around January 1 of 2021. No order has been allowed since. Additionally, even before then, Chevy prevented many dealers from building cab chassis due to a need to direct them to build more retail desirable HD trucks. That has created a huge dearth of supply on cab chassis. Chevy has done this because it makes better money selling a high country 2500 than a less optioned out cab chassis for work purposes. And fleet-level pricing tends to have more discounts than retail rebates. There has been a massive restriction in the supply of cab chassis trucks.

So how does Donohoo Chevrolet have so many?

We are a high-volume HD seller, aggressively pricing our product to move so as to deliver great value to our customers. GM rewards high-volume sellers with replenishment of products, so we have built ourselves into a high-volume carrier of HD trucks. That means we can both order the High Country 2500 HD and order the cab chassis 3500 and have products to serve multiple sets of customers. Fleet ordering opens up in August, and we doubt GM will be able to supply all of the demand that will exist in the HD space. If you are smaller and do not have a fleet account number with GM, that option is not open to you, so a dealer must have stock units of cab chassis 3500s to service you. If you are large enough to have a GM fleet account number, we encourage you to contact our commercial fleet department ASAP about us utilizing that avenue to order these limited supply trucks. We have a very experienced fleet staff that works closely with GM Fleet Operations. We sold over 1000 fleet units last year, so we know many of the ins and outs. And though customers with fleet account numbers can order with us, how long that option will be available is unknown given manufacturing supply chain issues.

What is the catch on these cab chassis?

One of the ways to get these cab chassis ordered was to order LT trim instead of the work truck WT trim. Unfortunately, vinyl seats are not an option on an LT, and for many businesses, they would rather have vinyl over cloth. There is an option to add aftermarket leather if that helps along with floor liners. But there is no getting around the fact that an LT is going to be priced higher than a WT. Before you get too down, we are pricing all of our HDs at $250 less than MSRP before any GM incentives. And before you think that is high, we regularly see 2-3-year-old HD units with thousands of miles bring MSRP or more in wholesale auctions, so that is a pretty good deal. Sure, it is higher than in the past, but have you tried to buy lumber, dishwashers, vehicles, houses, etc. in the last 6 months. Everything is up. The real value is the availability to get the truck you need to run your business. We have partners that can provide multiple service body configurations for you.

What is the urgency?

Our best guess is that cab chassis volumes to build will be limited, and once these cab chassis have been sold, there may not be the availability to go back to the well to get more. That will be reflected in market prices for the ones that left and in the availability of them in the marketplace. With one of the gas cab chassis units from the 2021 model year, we had a customer come from the Bay Area in California to buy it because it was the only one he could find in the USA.

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