KansasCityTim

Hey guys, I know this is a stupid question, but how important is the allotment number of a dealer to the time it will take to get your car. I live in KC, and one dealership told me they could have my GT convt by March b/c they had such a large allotment. I have a hard time believing they could promise that. Ultimately, I went to another dealership, which is a bit smaller, but still large relative to most. They told me it would be May or June, which sounds more realistic. They also gave a better price by $2000. Anyone have any thoughts on the effect of allotments?

Altoid

More allocations the faster the car is serialized.

holderca1

The allotment is very important. Say dealership A get 4 Mustang GTs per month and dealership B only gets 1 per month. Which do you think you would get your car faster?

mstang

Allocation is very important, but more important is how many sold units must be covered before yours will be selected.
If dealer A has 4 but has 10 sold orders in the system and dealer B has 1 with no sold orders, obviously you will get the vehicle through dealer B earlier.
Before you order, ask how many orders will have priority ahead of yours.

A convertible ordered now delivered by March? Possible I suppose, but I highly doubt it. There would probably be "delays" so you would get it in May anyway.

Better to deal with the dealership that is levelling with you about timing, AND saving you $2,000!
No dealership can guarantee March timing unless yours will be their highest priority. March allocation has not beeen finalized yet.

Just my $0.02

Kluski

I think if I ordered from the dealer with 1 allotment I would get it quicker if no one ordered from dealer with 4 allotments.

On a serious note; If you went in the same day to both dealers in your example and placed the identical order. And both orders were the first allocation, I do not think there would be a difference. Or am I wrong?

Altoid

I want to say size/sales would have something to do with who would win out. Common sense would say who ever sold more gets more, as there’s no such thing as equal distribution in a this game.

KansasCityTim

Well, one of these dealers is I believe the largest in the Kansas City Metro Area. The other is smaller, but not that much. When you go to both of them, you would not think there was a difference b/w the two. Clearly there would be an allotment difference b/w either of those and some little dealership in BFE like Bowling Green, KY (sorry...my hometown), but I would think any dealership in a major metro area would be on par with another.

Altoid

Not always, a lot of things factor in the allocation numbers. Such as, size, location, sales of the vehicle. Possibly how long it’s been around, etc. I’m sure all of those are taken in to consideration when forming the allocation numbers for a dealership.

mstang

Allocation is mostly based on "turn and earn" (sales), but there are other factors like Customer Viewpoint, the dealership's relationship with Ford, their market share and current or incoming stock.

Actual build date will also depend on whether the allocation is at the beginning or end of the cycle (usually 4 weeks). After it is serialized, Ford scheduling dept determines when it will be built within the production week.
Therefore, the timing of two top priority orders from two different dealers could vary by up to a month.