Here is my story. I decided about 2 months ago to buy a Mustang because I always wanted one and now that I'm 52 and have a very good job in a Steel Mill, I can afford one. I study all the Magazines and lurk on the forums and then June 14 I order a Windveil Blue deluxe V-8 from a dealer who I have lease 2 trucks from. He tells me he has an inside person at Ford to push the order though. Well after 1 month the ERL still says "Clear and Unschdeule" so I decide to change my order to a GT/CS on July 14. I call my salemans after a week only to find out he couldn't change the order deluxe to a preinum) so he just place a new order. So I got to start all over again. I do my own search and find several cars close to mine at a dealer 160 miles away. He won't do a Dealer trade. Then the question comes up about you must order the Comfort Pkg. with the GT/CS to make a good order. Well I didn't have it on the list I gave my Dealer, so I call him and "oh, yea you got to have the Comfort Pkg. so I just added it to your order" without telling me about it. Well the GT/CS is "Clear and unschedule" even with his inside man working out the details. I go in last week to try and speed thing up and find out he has 17 Mustangs on order for other customers and he is a big time Saleen Dealer and acts like he doesn't want to be bother with me.
Well I find a Black GT/CS at a Dealer 20 miles away and have called a salesperson to see if they will take my x-plan. I will find out Monday morning. If I take the Black one I will lose a nonrefundable $300 from the other dealer. The Black has the Sirus and anti-theft that I will never use and doesn't have the 3.55 gears I wanted but don't want to wait any longer. So, am I the bad guy or is the 1st dealer the problem.

Thanks for reading dly

 

When is the deposit nonrefundable if your order hasn't been serialized? I'd push to get the deposit back. Doesn't sound like you are considered to be a particularily 'valued' customer at the dealership.

By the way, having the anti-theft on your car will usually lower your insurance premiums.

By the way, you can see my order is 30 days in the system without being serialized either, just the extra wait you gotta take when ordering through a small dealer.

 

I agree with Shatter, I'd go in there and demand the deposit back. That's lousy of them to treat you and your order that way.

Apparently when you custom order a car with a dealership, it does not count against their standard allotment. So they can usually cut a better deal then if you buy one off the lot because to them it's a "bonus" car anyway, so anything they make on it is extra profit for them. This might explain why they were willing to deal on a custom order, but objected to doing a dealer trade (because that would count against their allotment).

 

Not sure if it's still this way, but when I sold Fords back in the '90's, the dealership would not do a dealer trade on A, X, or Z-plan sales because they would take a net loss on the deal. All of the plan prices are below invoice. When we got a vehicle from another dealer, we had to pay the other dealer the invoice price for their vehicle (this I know, because I physically carried checks to the other dealer when picking up a locate-vehicle on several occassions). The amount Ford reimbursed the dealership for the 'Plan' deals was less than invoice, so there was no incentive to make that deal.

But, that was 10 years ago, so it may have all changed since then. I can tell you this . . . there was never such a thing as a NON-refundable deposit.

If the other dealer will do the X-plan deal and you like the car, buy it.

My $0.02.

Clint

 

Well my luck continces to hold out. The dealer wants full sticker price and not a dime less on the Black GT/CS, so I'm still waiting on the Red GT/CS to come in. As of today it's 'Clean and unschedule". Oh boy I'm I getting tired of hearing that after 3 weeks on the order.