Invited After Transferring to ZEV State Dealer

[Nick Gerteis]

Seems like a very fair and reasonable approach taken by the dealership. They should have told you that's what they're doing, but to take "personal relationship out" and make it about simply rewarding the people who help drive their business is a more than reasonable thing to do.

Those aren't shenanigans -- that -- or something similar to that is how a good / reputable dealer should allocate their prioritization.

Absolutely, but they should be able to honestly answer questions about it at the time. And Ford needs to understand that most of their future revenue will not come from people that have been buying their vehicles for the last 50 years. If they play it better than they have here, it just might come from newer, younger customers. That’s just biology.

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[jfried]

Absolutely, but they should be able to honestly answer questions about it at the time. And Ford needs to understand that most of their future revenue will not come from people that have been buying their vehicles for the last 50 years. If they play it better than they have here, it just might come from newer, younger customers. That’s just biology.

As was covered earlier in the thread, they're going to get those newer, younger customers anyways by simply being first to the mass market.

Sure, they might marginally offend a few people on forums who are REALLY into it and don't figure out how to make it work for themselves... but the reality is, the vast majority of reservation holders will simply "wait for the call" from ford/dealer for their time to order. People will start seeing these things on the road in July/August, and at that point, most of the early ones will probably be no more than 2-3 months away from ordering.

They'll probably fill every single reservation for somebody who wants one, before a Silverado, Ram, or Cybertruck hit the road with a customer behind the wheel. Rivian's a legitimate threat -- especially with it being "much less of a pickup" and smaller, but of course has consumer confidence to overcome.

 

[Deleted member 9341]

You would have a point if Ford had announced from the get go that reservation order was just one of several inputs to convert to order. Or if they had said, on 5/19, that they would later allow people with lots of prior purchases to skip line. That would’ve given everyone 7months to spend every last penny on Ford vehicles, leveling the playing field. According to you everyone that would’ve spent the money would’ve thus built a warm and cozy relationship with the dealer, and thus would’ve received a priority slot and an early invite.
But of course none of this happened because Ford was simply unprepared for the huge demand for the Lightning and only made these changes to the process after dealerships prodded them into it.
As to your equivocating about the definition of fairness: Fairness might not be easily defined, but its absence is noticed immediately. Hence all the valid complaints on this forum. Heck, any five year old will tell you that it’s not fair to skip line. No matter how much money you’ve previously spent.

If only we had sent our dealers a box of “relationship cookies” before the 12/17 deadline for them to submit their prioritizations!
NayNay probably does deserve some gifts from all of us for her genuinely helpful insights.

 

[Nick Gerteis]

As was covered earlier in the thread, they're going to get those newer, younger customers anyways by simply being first to the mass market.

Sure, they might marginally offend a few people on forums who are REALLY into it and don't figure out how to make it work for themselves... but the reality is, the vast majority of reservation holders will simply "wait for the call" from ford/dealer for their time to order. People will start seeing these things on the road in July/August, and at that point, most of the early ones will probably be no more than 2-3 months away from ordering.

They'll probably fill every single reservation for somebody who wants one, before a Silverado, Ram, or Cybertruck hit the road with a customer behind the wheel. Rivian's a legitimate threat -- especially with it being "much less of a pickup" and smaller, but of course has consumer confidence to overcome.

The opposite is true. They already have a lock on their long standing customers who aren’t REALLY all that into it. The new conquest customers are the ones they are fighting for and need to concentrate on, even if that means they are marginally offending some of the longer standing folks.

 

[NewAccount]

I'm looking for advice. I'm based in Maryland but reserved at a dealer in Mississippi near most of my family. I was 1st on the timestamp for the MS dealership (5/19 at 10:06pm) but the dealership moved me to #3 and put two salesman ahead of me. Apparently only the first salesman has received the invite to order.

Should I move my reservation to a MD dealership? The MS dealership had no markup but I'm not sure when I'll get the invite. I was definitely hoping for the Pro. Considering the XLT now.

Thanks!

 

[jfried]

The opposite is true. They already have a lock on their long standing customers who aren’t REALLY all that into it. The new conquest customers are the ones they are fighting for and need to concentrate on, even if that means they are marginally offending some of the longer standing folks.

Not when those longstanding customers call up their salesguy to make sure they can get one of their first ones, and the salesguy has to tell them "sorry -- we / ford don't really care about your purchase history or loyalty -- guys with the fast fingers on the computers get the trucks".

The objective sense of entitlement from somebody who's purchased a bunch of ford vehicles in the last ~10 year should be a lot higher than somebody who was in the right place at the right time with $100 to put down on a credit card.

 

[Nick Gerteis]

I'm looking for advice. I'm based in Maryland but reserved at a dealer in Mississippi near most of my family. I was 1st on the timestamp for the MS dealership (5/19 at 10:06pm) but the dealership moved me to #3 and put two salesman ahead of me. Apparently only the first salesman has received the invite to order.

Should I move my reservation to a MD dealership? The MS dealership had no markup but I'm not sure when I'll get the invite. I was definitely hoping for the Pro. Considering the XLT now.

Thanks!

First day reservation and #3 in line is pretty good. You’re getting a truck by the end of this year.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Should I move my reservation to a MD dealership? The MS dealership had no markup but I'm not sure when I'll get the invite. I was definitely hoping for the Pro. Considering the XLT now.

Pro is sold out, wait until MY23 ordering opens late summer, chose the most trust worthy NO ADM dealer you can and move when or if the email comes to you, ideally wait for the Pro, but if XLT is ok to, good luck

 

[Nick Gerteis]

Not when those longstanding customers call up their salesguy to make sure they can get one of their first ones, and the salesguy has to tell them "sorry -- we / ford don't really care about your purchase history or loyalty -- guys with the fast fingers on the computers get the trucks".

The objective sense of entitlement from somebody who's purchased a bunch of ford vehicles in the last ~10 year should be a lot higher than somebody who was in the right place at the right time with $100 to put down on a credit card.

If Ford had not given in to dealer pressure the dealers would have had the perfect out, they could have just told people “it’s not us, bad corporate is making us do it”. As it is they simply have the next batch of not-quite-as-bigwig customers mad at them. And while there’s certainly a lot of sense of entitlement at play here, I don’t think there’s such a thing as an “objective” sense of entitlement. Always bound to be subjective, almost by definition.

 

[EVTruckGuy]

Are you 100% sure about the bolded?

Yes.

 

[jfried]

If Ford had not given in to dealer pressure the dealers would have had the perfect out, they could have just told people “it’s not us, bad corporate is making us do it”. As it is they simply have the next batch of not-quite-as-bigwig customers mad at them. And while there’s certainly a lot of sense of entitlement at play here, I don’t think there’s such a thing as an “objective” sense of entitlement. Always bound to be subjective, almost by definition.

Again with the "dealer pressure"... what pressure? It's Ford in control here. They're the ones who make the rules. You keep alluding to this pressure like Ford "begrudgingly gave in"... why? Do you not understand that Ford & Dealers are on the same team? That giving dealers the power to get loyal customers to the front of the line serves everyone's business interests.

Yes, the dealer could have had an "out" that it's "big bad corporate"... but why does Ford want to be viewed as "big bad corporate" to it's loyal owners??

With respect to sense of entitlement, objectively, I think we can both agree that somebody who's bought say, 10 vehicles from Ford over the last 5 years, should have a greater sense of entitlement than somebody who put down a $100 deposit at the right time.

 

[jfried]

Yes.

Any documentation on that?

 

[EVTruckGuy]

Any documentation on that?

I'm not even sure what you mean by that. What sort of documentation could you possibly think exists for that, other than the fact many of us went through the process of buying a Mach e and are telling you from first hand experience how orders were handled.

 

[jfried]

I'm not even sure what you mean by that. What sort of documentation could you possibly think exists for that, other than the fact many of us went through the process of buying a Mach e and are telling you from first hand experience how orders were handled.

A forum post from a dealer saying a year or so ago "this is how it's gonna work"? Maybe a youtube video like Granger does?

I've seen the posts from people who observed their cars coming in roughly in the order that they believe they were placed; but that's not really confirming that dealers had absolutely no power over getting customers to the front of the line or in the "First Edition" models.

That being said, I guess it is kind of moot with respect to the MME with scale. The first one was delivered just over a year ago if I recall. There was what, 40k reservations, which of course did not all turn into orders, so they cleared that bank in what, 4-5months?

Could have very easily been a situation where they looked at who were reserving these things, maybe they weren't even existing ford customers because of how much people didn't like the name, and said let's just sell these things as fast as we can.

 

[Deleted member 9341]

Not when those longstanding customers call up their salesguy to make sure they can get one of their first ones, and the salesguy has to tell them "sorry -- we / ford don't really care about your purchase history or loyalty -- guys with the fast fingers on the computers get the trucks".

The objective sense of entitlement from somebody who's purchased a bunch of ford vehicles in the last ~10 year should be a lot higher than somebody who was in the right place at the right time with $100 to put down on a credit card.

Man this is like a seriously broken record already. We all got your point of view LONG ago. Clearly very few agree, but we all wish you the very best of luck getting what you want from your salesperson. Your fierce loyalty clearly entitles you to anything you want from them, and I’m sure you’ll get it if you just buy one more vehicle from them…preferably before the end of the month! No reply necessary. I’m going to take advantage (for the first time) of the wonderful “ignore” feature on this site.

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