Price Protection After the Fact People

[anthafied]

Mine was 12/28

Sponsored

 

[regentscholar]

Given the large collection of folks asking about Lightning price protection reimbursement checks showing up after purchase and not a single person giving an example, it's not looking likely...

 

[boggle]

My truck is sitting in the lot, dealer signed a makeshift contract stating they'd forward me a rebate IF Ford ever reimburses that. How would we even be able to follow up on that? Not holding my breath and Ford has provided zero clarification on the matter. Dealers shouldn't have to stick their necks out because Ford can't balance a checkbook.

 

[regentscholar]

My truck is sitting in the lot, dealer signed a makeshift contract stating they'd forward me a rebate IF Ford ever reimburses that. How would we even be able to follow up on that? Not holding my breath and Ford has provided zero clarification on the matter. Dealers shouldn't have to stick their necks out because Ford can't balance a checkbook.

I mean I've seen quite a lot of folks in forums that got their dealership to honor price protection at time of purchase... so I'm not really doubting that Ford can honor that if they so desire, I'm just doubting that this "post-purchase rebate check" is actually a thing at all (i.e. once the sale transaction is done there is nothing more coming to the buyer).

 

[jimfigler]

My truck is sitting in the lot, dealer signed a makeshift contract stating they'd forward me a rebate IF Ford ever reimburses that. How would we even be able to follow up on that? Not holding my breath and Ford has provided zero clarification on the matter. Dealers shouldn't have to stick their necks out because Ford can't balance a checkbook.

Problem is that Ford MSRP price protection has been around for years. They know how it works. There is no sticking their necks out. Vehicles pricing is honored at the price it was at the time of ordering and Ford reimburses the dealer 45 days later.

 

[boggle]

Problem is that Ford MSRP price protection has been around for years. They know how it works. There is no sticking their necks out. Vehicles pricing is honored at the price it was at the time of ordering and Ford reimburses the dealer 45 days later.

Except there are plenty of dealers that genuinely don't know how it works. Many are confused by the varying application of the PCO and price protection and aren't sure both can be paid out on the same invoice. If the correct price level isn't dated back automatically, these dealers don't want to front us the difference in the event Ford doesn't pay out the rebate in 45 days. And we as buyers have no method of tracking price protection rebates are even in process, nevermind sent back to the dealer. Can't get contact info for the regional managers to disseminate the required information and Ford's CS is useless and just points you back to the dealer. Hence this thread.

 

[metroshot]

Problem is that Ford MSRP price protection has been around for years. They know how it works. There is no sticking their necks out. Vehicles pricing is honored at the price it was at the time of ordering and Ford reimburses the dealer 45 days later.

This is correct but remember dealers are independent businesses and when they see a negative sale (in the red), they get scared.

Some dealers like @FordVideoGuy will front the price protection by sticking their necks out knowing that the negative sale at the time of contract will turn to positive in about a month or 2.

Shame that some dealers are not informed nor willing to have the sales manager approve a negative sale without the funds being there.

It's probably the owner or GSM that told the SM and FM not to ever sell a negative profit vehicle so the customer will end up having to wait for a refund check after the purchase.

 

[boggle]

It's probably the owner or GSM that told the SM and FM not to ever sell a negative profit vehicle so the customer will end up having to wait for a refund check after the purchase.

As much as I loathe the dealer model I won't fault them for not wanting to take a $5K hit to free cash flow for 2 months because Ford can't be bothered to invoice the dealer to the correct price level.

All of us in this thread were clearly open to accepting the funds after the sale when the dealer receives the rebate, but there is still zero documentation or guidance from Ford detailing how we can expect to receive the difference for price protection at a later date.

Ford is high if they think that we can trust that their dealers will actually reach out to us to say they got the rebate. They've already screwed us at every turn up this point, why stop after the sale?

 

[metroshot]

As much as I loathe the dealer model I won't fault them for not wanting to take a $5K hit to free cash flow for 2 months because Ford can't be bothered to invoice the dealer to the correct price level.

All of us in this thread were clearly open to accepting the funds after the sale when the dealer receives the rebate, but there is still zero documentation or guidance from Ford detailing how we can expect to receive the difference for price protection at a later date.

If you look at a sister forum site: Mustang Mach E - someone has started a price protection check refund thread:
https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/price-protection-refund-tracking-add-your-status.20179/

 

[boggle]

If you look at a sister forum site: Mustang Mach E - someone has started a price protection check refund thread:
https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/price-protection-refund-tracking-add-your-status.20179/

I did see that, so we are really just going by the honor system? If I undestand correctly, I have to hound my dealer to monitor their Dealer Payment Statements for a $5,000 rebate from Ford, at which point I then have to hope they'll then cut me the check for it. What happens when a scumbag dealer inevitably plays dumb and claims it never came through?

 

[metroshot]

I did see that, so we are really just going by the honor system? If I undestand correctly, I have to hound my dealer to monitor their Dealer Payment Statements for a $5,000 rebate from Ford, at which point I then have to hope they'll then cut me the check for it. What happens when a scumbag dealer inevitably plays dumb and claims it never came through?

Better change to an honest and transparent dealer.

My chosen Ford dealer is very transparent - have known the owners for over 15 years.

 

[Oneand0]

Picked up our Pro at Capital Ford on 12/13 and received the $7000 check about two weeks later in the mail. They gave us the 5k protection up front.

 

[boggle]

Better change to an honest and transparent dealer.

My chosen Ford dealer is very transparent - have known the owners for over 15 years.

That does us no good when Ford hikes the prices up after we've already placed the order deposits and committed to that particular dealer. How could we have anticipated how a dealer would handle this scenario when the orders were initially placed? At that point we just had the PCO to worry about but at least that was explicitly detailed and distributed through Smart Vincent. Hell, we considered ourselves lucky just to find a dealer without ADM.

Price increases happen for all models throughout the year. How this is not a universally understood and detailed process for dealers is inexcusable. It's clearly a communication issue from Ford with how many more users are finding ourselves in this situation. The fact that the MachE forum had to even start tracking rebate checks on their own is embarrassing.

 

[metroshot]

Picked up our Pro at Capital Ford on 12/13 and received the $7000 check about two weeks later in the mail. They gave us the 5k protection up front.

Whoa, that was an opposite way of writing up your contract...

Usually the dealer gets an immediate credit using the certificate number for the PCO.

It's the Price protection money that is not immediate and delayed...

 

[jimfigler]

This is correct but remember dealers are independent businesses and when they see a negative sale (in the red), they get scared.

Some dealers like @FordVideoGuy will front the price protection by sticking their necks out knowing that the negative sale at the time of contract will turn to positive in about a month or 2.

Shame that some dealers are not informed nor willing to have the sales manager approve a negative sale without the funds being there.

It's probably the owner or GSM that told the SM and FM not to ever sell a negative profit vehicle so the customer will end up having to wait for a refund check after the purchase.

I still feel that there is no sticking their neck out. Ford has the program place. From what Tim has said, it started in 2016. It didn’t start with the Lightning. People should not have to hope their dealer is going to honest and let the customer the money arrived after the fact. That’s not the way it is supposed to work.

Sponsored