Sorry this is so long
I decided in early December to buy my wife a new Mustang for Christmas. I drive a C5 Corvette and a 2006 Eddie Bauer Edition Ford Explorer. My wife drives a 2003 Mustang loaded up with the pony package and V-6 engine. We bought the car new and it has been perfect, absolutely zero factory defects. The car currently has 47K miles and the only thing it went in the shop for was new tires a few months ago. I foresee buying a new vette in a couple of years and decided that even though her car is running great and still looks new (because of the low miles and being garage kept) now is the time to replace it. Especially since Ford did such a great job improving the 2011 GT.
I told my wife we were going to order a new Mustang this winter using the X-Plan pricing. We rented a 2011 with a 6 cylinder for the weekend (highly advisable to help you decide what you like and don’t like) and were super impressed with the improvements. I told her I couldn’t get her what she wanted so ordering one was the way to go, the only drawback was the 6 week wait.
My wife decided if we were going to order a new Mustang, she wanted: A Kona Blue GT Premium with Automatic Transmission, Stone or Charcoal interior, and any wheels other than the stock set, she also wanted the Hood Scoop, Side Scoops, and Pedestal Deck lid Spoiler.
I emailed my local dealer here in Tucson and told them what I wanted and the date I wanted to pick it up (23 December). I told them that if they couldn’t get one with the spoiler and scoops that was no problem because I could order them on line from North American Tuning pre painted for the entire set for under $1,000. December 14th I got an email from the Tucson Dealer telling me they had my car with everything I wanted but the spoiler and scoops. I was pumped until I read the spec sheet. The car had saddle interior. Not exactly what I wanted. My wife would have killed me if I gave her that for Christmas. I decided that my local dealer was not listening to me so I better change dealers and talk to someone that was going to get me what I wanted, not what they wanted to give me.
I went to the Phoenix Ford internet site and emailed them what I wanted. A salesman called me the same day. I explained that I wanted to buy a Mustang for a surprise Christmas present for my wife and I wanted to use the X-Plan for the purchase. The salesman was very happy that I wasn’t trading in a car and that I was using the X-Plan. He said it would make the deal super simple, (no dickering) the price was set by Ford. I was going to have to drive two hours but it looked like I had a dealership that wanted to help me get what I wanted and not try to change my mind on colors. The next day the salesman called back and said he had a Kona Blue GT Premium with Charcoal interior that he could swap the wheels out for $950 and add a front scoop and rear Spoiler for $1,100. Sounded great! He took my credit card over the phone for a $1,000 down payment. I called him back the next day and reminded him that I also wanted the side scoops. He said no problem he could get them for an additional $200. I said I would see him the 23rd.
Tuesday the 21st I called the salesman to verify everything was going on schedule. The salesman said everything was great. The car was in paint getting the scoops and spoiler painted and installed. I told him I needed to pick the car up around noon so I could get back to work by the end of the day. He said to come at 1pm instead. I had scheduled with a window tint business to take the car Thursday afternoon and tint the windows first thing Friday morning. So the car was hid in their building Thursday night and in my neighbor’s garage Friday Night. Everything was working out Great for a surprise for my wife!
Thursday morning at 10:30 I called the salesman to make sure everything was on schedule. He said everything was and that he would see me at 1pm. Up until this point everything was going as good as could be expected with a new car purchase with the exception of having to drive two hours to Phoenix. But that was going to work out Ok because all I had to do was drive there, look at the car, sign the paperwork, and drive home. The paperwork should have been fast because I had a pre approved loan from Bank of America, was only financing $20K, and the price was set by the X-Plan.
Here is where my experience went bad. I showed up at 1:05pm. The salesman met me when I walked in the door. He told me that the car was not ready because he had them repaint the spoiler. He said it was not the right color, (too purple, I think is what he said). I told him I wanted to see the car before I signed the paperwork. The car was in the paint shop area with a guy holding a heat gun on it, (drying the paint I think). The next problem was that the side scoops were not installed. The salesman said that one of the scoops were broken so they had to order new ones. He told me that he wasn’t going to charge me for them. I would have rather paid for them and had the car perfect when I gave it to my wife, but there was nothing I could do. He said he could send them to my house and I could install them myself if I didn’t want to drive back to Phoenix. That sounded good. The salesman took me to his desk and said I had to fill out loan paperwork even though I had a preapproved loan. I wasn’t happy about that since I was on a time schedule.
Then they (the Salesman and a Sales Manager broke out the paperwork. This should have been easy. The sticker price was $35,480, the X-Plan price reduced it to $33,342, the wheels cost an additional $950, the scoop and spoiler $1,100 more (950 + 1100 = $2,050) for a $2,050 increase bringing the price up to $35,392. Add Sales tax of $3,200 and price goes up to $38,592. Deduct two rebates (500, & 1,100) totaling $1,500 bringing the price down to $37,092. Add a $100 documentation fee that they said I had to pay plus the $600 license registration cost brings the Total cost up to $37,792. I wanted to keep my financing down to $20K, simple math says I need to put down $16,792 on top of the $1,000 down payment I gave on December 15th.
The Sales Manager brought over an unusual form listing columns both vertical and horizontal with all the costs and deductions, to include, taxes, documentation fee, rebates, wheels, scoops etc… The bottom line showed me paying $20K down and financing $20K. This caused me to break out a pen and paper and put the costs and deductions in a vertical column. It was easy to show that his numbers did not add up. The sales manager said they had a new program that was responsible for the error. The salesman said that the problem was that the Rebate was not included in the first set of numbers. I am not sure if rebates were not deducted from the total number but they were listed in one of the columns. The Sales Manager brought me another form to sign and this one was still off (I think around $500). He again blamed the program. He brought me a third set of numbers that were pretty close to what I had listed above so I was satisfied. Again, this should have been simple since I was using the X-plan pricing. At the time I was pretty sure that they were trying to jip me on my X-Plan pricing discount. At this point I was very concerned that everyone was not being honest.
If you remember from above I drove two hours to get here and I needed to get back to Tucson to drop of the car before the window tint business closed and I needed to get back to work. The dealership was not really concerned about it because they sat me in the waiting room. At 3pm I called the tint business and told them that I wasn’t going to make it by the time they closed at 5. I then started calling friends trying to find somewhere to hide the car for the night. At 330 I started thinking that if this was going to take any longer then I might as well go home because there was no way I was going to be able to get home without my wife figuring out that something was going on and probably ruin the surprise for Christmas. If I couldn’t make the car a surprise then there was no advantage to buying it this day. I walked up to where the Finance mangers were to see if there were any customers in with them. There were not any customers in the offices. At 3:40 I went over to the Sales Manager and told him that if he couldn’t get me in to the finance manager immediately I was leaving and going back to Tucson. The sales manager became very upset and said he was not going to lose $1000 that he put into the car and if I left then I was going to lose my money. I told him that I had a deal with the salesman that we would do the paperwork at 1pm and that I needed to get back to Tucson. It was now 340 and I needed to leave. Anyway he was more concerned with a thousand dollars that he said he wasn’t going to lose. I am still not sure what he was talking about, and he wasn’t listening or aware of my problem but he took me back to the finance manager to purchase the car.
The time with the finance guy was long but pretty much uneventful. My preapproved loan had my interest rate for 60 months at 2.69%, he got me 2.59%. Once aging all the prices and costs changed from when I was at the salesman’s desk. Remember I was using the X-Plan. Well they didn’t charge me the X-Plan price of $33,342. They charged me $35,480, but they didn’t charge me the $2,050 for the wheels, spoiler, and scoop, so I didn’t notice until today when I went over the paperwork. The difference was an $88 increase cost to me for this error. So according to the Retail Installment Sale Contract I signed, I paid $35,480 for the car, $3,160 for Taxes, $100 for a documentation fee, $587.50 for registrations fees, for a total of $39,327.50 before the rebate. Subtract the rebate of $1,500 and my out the door price is $37,827.50. Real close to my simple math that had the total at $37,792.
When I left the Finance office I went to the car. While looking over the car the Sales manager apologized for all of my inconvenience and promised to make it up. He said he had no idea that I was under such time constraints.
All in all a bad day. I need to send this to Ford.

 

So did it make her happy?

 

Unless Ford changed it, the maximum processing/documetation fee a dealer can charge you under the X-Plan is $75. So there's another $25 the dealer ripped you off.

I suffered through your whole story and am still wondering: Did you get it to your wife the way she wanted it? Was she surprised? Was she happy! Let's include the ending of the story next time!!

 

**** , thats a long story for me to read..hope things worked out

 

Ok so i read your story , but no way i'm reading it again, so my point is did you get to drive the car back home and give it to your wife on time for Christmas !!!!!

 

That column of text hurt my hungover brain today. Sounds like it all worked out after the headaches. How do you like the car so far?

PS - a few returns between paragraphs would help my brain comprehend that better

 

Sounds like maybe the salespeople were trying to work you a bit knowing that you probably would pay a little more than calculated just to surprise your wife

All in all I wouldn't call it a horror story.. just unfortunate and inconvenient. A horror story would have been waiting for all that and still not getting the car to surprise your wife

SO, like everyone else is asking, how did your wife like it???

 

Sorry to hear man, I feel your pain.

My dealer tried to rip me off to, by telling me one thing than trying to change it and hope that I didn't catch it...and boy did I catch it and make them pay for it.

They had told me that they would give me $2000 towards my car for recylcle your ride program, then the day of pick up they decided to change it to $1000...and tell me that it was never $2000. It was never $2000, but they had told me $2000 and put it in the computer as that much as well...their mistake not mine...and based on the pricing they told me, I had decided to do rust proofing...boy did I let them have it...in the end they looked stupid and I made them pay for their mistake...either they would have had a 2011 mustang GT sitting on the lot at the beginning of a cold winter, or they paid for my rust proofing and made up the rest of the costs to me...well they did make up the costs and paid fo rmy rust proofing, and my sales person told me to make sure I let them know I wasn't happy when the survey comes in the mail so that they'll do a bit more for me.

The thing that really pissed me off about the whole situation is no one wanted to take responsibility for their mistake...and tried to make me pay for it...HELL NO thats happening...they even tried to give me the sob story of how their manager was at a funeral for his mother and nothing can be done....ok great i feel sorry for him..but ITS A BUSINESS...someone can do something...you can't say your shutting down a ford dealership because your manager isn't there

hope everything worked out in the end...some dealers will try and pull a fast one because once you sign the paper...they're safe

 

I said it before, i have bought 3 new vehicles, and none of them have been a pleasant
experience. The amount of time i wasted there was incredible.

 

Wow, you got owned by the stealership. They treated you like garbage, if what you said is true. I would never put deposits down - let them earn your business and let them take the risk. The customer is the boss.

 

I'm wondering too. This is like one of those TV shows that you watch for an hour, and right at the best part they come up with..... 'CONTINUED NEXT WEEK'

 

Too LONG. And really, if the interior was the only thing wrong with the other car, you simply email back, or call, and say "um, NO, I want this interior. Find it."

Simple. But that's just me.

Anyone going in thinking a car deal is going to be perfect is drinking some kinda awesome kool aid. It is rare you get things right and timely. Because, invariably, *something* isn't right about the car/paperwork/numbers/etc...

/If it is, you need to buy a lottery ticket while you're at it.

 

WELL?!? WE'RE WAITING!! (Did she LIKE it?, Did it work out in the end?)

 

She got nothing and liked it!

 

Sounds like you've had some horror stories with car purchases.

 

Maybe he's still stuck at the dealership !

 

Steve get a life you post *****, your catching up on me...

 

Jeez Dan, don't get so testy about my posts!

I feel that I contribute where I can. And, to Houtex's point, the purchase of my GT was the smoothest and easiest transaction of my 3 new vehicle purchases to date. It could be that I ordered it, but nevertheless, it went without a hitch, and required no flak from me to make things happen.

 

No, I'm a realist, and I work IT in the car dealerships. I see plenty of smooth deals... heck, Awesome's was one of them, and I still can't figure out how that happened...

But I've also seen plenty (and had enough too) of deals that turn into... well, this, and so I stand by it.

/I like your avatar! *ponders*

 

Oh, I've been through a bad deal myself, so I know it can happen. You've got a good seat to see things to hell quick too. It's sad that some can go smooth and others can be so awful that people want to leave the brand.