rs43506

Hello all

I had the chance to speak to my dealer today and the Sales Manager said that I should expect a call from Ford in the next week or so. Apparently Ford is trying to solve the ordering fiasco by contacting each person who special ordered individually to confirm their order. Ford is of the belief that the problem is two fold. First, the same buyers are ordering the same cars from multiple dealerships and plan on taking the first to arrive. According to the SM they Ford found a guy in Florida that had ordered the same car from 12 different dealerships. The second part of the problem is that Ford has caught dealerships ordering cars for dealer stock and entered them as customer orders. Ford wants to stop this too.

So Ford's solution is to require the dealerships to provide a list of customer names and orders and they will call each customer to confirm and then delete multiple/fake orders to alleviate the backlog.

Don't know if there is any truth to this, this is just what I was told.

Ryan

CelticNut

That sounds fair enough. A dealer I went to and spec'd out a car made a point of "entering it into the system" even though I wasn't prepared to officially order. I made this point abundantly clear to him that if he got the car I wanted, I wouldn't necessarily take delivery on it because I was still shopping around for the best price. He said it wouldn't matter. We hadn't even discussed price! Apparently, he was more interested in getting a car into "the system." That might be a euphemism for placing a faux order.

Fraud, waste and abuse is everyone's concern. If ethically-challenged dealers are clogging up the system with bogus car orders, we'll all suffer. I know now not to give too many details about what I'm looking for, and I certainly won't provide anyone else with contact information!

Thanks for the heads up...

I plan on ordering my car on Saturday, March 19th.

Altoid

People like this are the reason dealerships require deposits.

jwede

That sounds logical. I never thought about that situation, but it doesn't suprise me.

1 COBRA

Revenge... how sweet it is!

outdoorstom

I really hope this is true. Guaranteed there are tons of bogus orders out there!
Worse case scenario.....Ford calls and talks to somebody's wife right after an argument...she cancels the order.

jwede

OH NOOOOOOO.

Kerri, DON'T YOU DARE!!!!! :worship:

Barricade

This doesnt sound right. What does Ford care? It goes against the dealers allotment. Ford is not sending anymore than the dealership requested. It is up to the dealership to sell them. If they dont sell them then they get less allotted.
Ford will pump out as many as their research tells them the dealerships can sell. Dealerships get their allotment based on sales...Correct? Also your phone number and info is not privy to Ford but to the dealership. Maybe its at your dealership (level) that is calling because they dont wanna get stuck with them but that doesnt seem right either. Shoot my dealership didnt even want a deposit. They said if I didnt want it they would be able to sell it in two days time. They would not be out anything.
If the dealership was concerned about getting stuck with a car they wont be able to sell quickly then they would get a HEFTY deposit and not refund it when people back out. That would cover the sales downtime. Just my 2 cents.

DeathMonk

I am one of them.

It will be 3 months in less than a week of nothing but clean and unscheduled for my first order. I'm getting fed up, so I went to a bigger dealership and ordered another one a little over a week ago. They seem to think they can still get it sooner than my first order...

rs43506

I didn't have to put any money down at all either and I'm buying at invoice. According to the dealer, having no trouble selling them is exactly the problem. He said that Ford customer service has been overwhelmed with phone calls from irrate order placers. The problem lies with the dealers with the larger allotments. Ford has told them that they are not to order any GT's for stock so as to allow customer orders at smaller dealerships to be filled. These dealers, however, are refusing to pass up their allotment and are placing bogus orders. Believe it or not, I saw the actual print out of the e-mail from the regional sales manager this morning. The dealer handed it to me and said "check this out." Then he went on and elaborated what I said above. The letter basically explained that Ford would be requiring that the dealer provide a name and phone number for all customer orders still waiting. Apparently this is Ford's attempt to solve what the dealer said the regional sales manager called a "PR Disaster"

Ryan

Barricade

But orders come from their allotment....
They are not seperate. They can request over their allotment all they want but Ford will only build the dealerships allotment. What that dealership wants is then placed with a priority number so Ford knows what to build that they are allotted.
:scratch:

It would be a big step up if Ford distinguished between the regular dealership ordered allotment and our special orders. Right now they dont. An order is just an order. Filled by priority based on allotment.

wsmatau

I can't wait for my call! Poor customer service agent

rs43506

But if they don't have enough orders to completely use up their allotment, they go ahead and make sure that they use up 100% of their allotment instead of forgoing part of it. Basically, they are taking 100% of what they have coming regardless of whether their is a customer order or not. Basically, Ford is tired of getting phone calls from irrate customers.

Barricade

They are taking 100% because the demand and sales are there.
If you could sell all you could get your hands on wouldnt you?
How is Ford to distinguish the orders? Sounds like a huge step
in the right direction if they would do that. Seems like they could
place a designation on the order number indicating it is for a customer
but what prevents the dealership from saying they are all ordered special
so that they get their allotment before the market is flooded? :nono:
Even order names and numbers can be doctored. Doesnt look like there is an easy fix for this. Basically get ahold of a honest good dealership that will tell you the truth. Few and far between?

rs43506

I kind of have the same thoughts and won't be sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring. How the heck could they call all of the people on the order list. I'll be surprised if anything happns. I just wish that Ford would somehow publish where allotments are or even allow you to do a nationwide search for a particular car. :bang:

Oh well, the wait continues....

Ryan

KUcurt

Darth bob, I am also one who had the deposit waived, mainly because my brother-in-law buys $$$ trucks (Excursions, big Power Stroke 4 x 4s) from them nearly on an annual basis. Kind of a goodwill deal, I guess. honestly, I hope I do get the call from Ford. i'll be nice about it, but I think I'll have to ask why Ford doesn't have a tighter rein on some of their dealers, who are takiong advantage of this situation. I agree, this mess is a PR nightmare in the making. 11th week and C/U.

billsstang

Man I sure hope this is true, maybe a step in the right direction. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel, alot of you guys and gals have been waiting a long time for your car. But I pitty the poor custermer service person calling, because I think he or she is in for some PooP!

jwede

I don't expect that there will be any calls. About a month ago I had to sign a form at my dealer stating I wanted the car. I guess getting a phone number, which is something a little more concrete, might get the dealers to let go of the cancelled order. There is always that possibilty that they might actually call the number and I would assume that the dealer would not like that if they did call a cancelled order.

Could there possibly be repocussions? Probably not.

OSUstangfan

People like this are the reason dealerships require deposits.
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people wouldnt have to go to multiple dealerships if they werent given the run around constantly. How many insane stories have been posted of horrible dealerships?

StangNut

That's probably the only way to fix this. As stated above all the other solutions can be doctored.