Anyone willing to share their most up-to-date order process experience?

[brtnstrns]

So from what I can gather, to order the truck you want, you configure the basics on Ford.com and then have to rifle through the various configurations on the "View Matches" page to hunt down the detailed options like power deployable running boards or bedliners, etc.

Most of the more optioned out ones seem to be the ones that are 10 days or four months out.

There's some pretty significant discounts on in-stock configurations, but you don't know unless you go to the actual dealership webpage and find the truck on their website and match the VINs with what's shown on Ford.com

Am I missing anything here?

And has anyone gone through purchasing one of the configurations that had a 10+ day delivery and ultimately gotten any discounts at time of sale? Or did you just end up paying the price as shown on Ford.com?

Has anyone gone through the process to ultimately end up doing a lease instead? Curious to hear experiences there as well.

Thanks!

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[climateguy]

So from what I can gather, to order the truck you want, you configure the basics on Ford.com and then have to rifle through the various configurations on the "View Matches" page to hunt down the detailed options like power deployable running boards or bedliners, etc.

I recently used the Ford.com --> Shop --> Build & Price website to facilitate my purchase of a 2024 Flash. What you describe is how that site works. "Ford Video Guy" Tim Bartz at Long McArthur Ford in Kansas says this is the only way to order a LIghtning now.

There's some pretty significant discounts on in-stock configurations, but you don't know unless you go to the actual dealership webpage and find the truck on their website and match the VINs with what's shown on Ford.com

I live in Washington state. No dealer here is offering discounts on Build & Price. I found one dealer in Idaho, and one dealer in Oregon that had listed $3k to $4k discounts as a "Dealer Adjustment".

I spent a lot of time studying how Build & Price (a.k.a. Build & Buy) works, in April 2024. I placed what Ford calls an "order request" on April 21. The request was sent to the Oregon dealer who had listed a $4K "dealer adjustment". He never accepted it.

I was able to find VINs from Build & Price details pages of specific vehicles only by examining the webpage address for a specific vehicle. A VIN appears as the last part of the webpage address. No dealer at that time had a vehicle advertised on their dealer website with a VIN corresponding to a vehicle listed on Build & Price.

If you change your preferred dealer and move around to dealers in a state or nearby states you'll find, on Build & Price, that the same VIN vehicles stated to be 'in transit" to a particular dealer, are stated to be "in transit" to any number of dealers in that entire region. Ford says they are sending the vehicles to "regional replenishment centers", so dealers don't have to carry them in stock. Customers are supposed to test drive something a dealer has in stock, then order something more like what they want on Build & Price to be delivered fairly quickly to a specific dealer. The dealer is expected to live up to the price listed on Build & Price, but nothing is cast in stone until a purchase agreement is signed at the dealer upon delivery.

As for the reason why the dealer never accepted my order request, I wondered if the dealer was regretting posting a $4K discount. Periodically I would inquire, to be told they were unable to find the vehicle in the Ford system.

Eventually I contacted the dealer implying I was going to cancel out if something did not happen. Their claim was that reality is nothing like what is stated by Ford on Build & Price, i.e. they said they knew where the regional replenishment center was and there was "nothing in it". I didn't believe much of what the dealer told me about this or any other thing.

However, by this time, Ford was actually shipping a lot of Lightnings they have been holding in Dearborn since January on a massive "quality assurance" hold. This Oregon dealer said they could shop around on dealer lots nearby and find something almost exactly what I had wanted from Build & Price, trade with that dealer for it, and sell it to me at the price listed on Build & Price, including the $4K dealer adjustment.

So I bought it.

Your mileage may vary.

 

[brtnstrns]

I recently used the Ford.com --> Shop --> Build & Price website to facilitate my purchase of a 2024 Flash. What you describe is how that site works. "Ford Video Guy" Tim Bartz at Long McArthur Ford in Kansas says this is the only way to order a LIghtning now.



I live in Washington state. No dealer here is offering discounts on Build & Price. I found one dealer in Idaho, and one dealer in Oregon that had listed $3k to $4k discounts as a "Dealer Adjustment".

I spent a lot of time studying how Build & Price (a.k.a. Build & Buy) works, in April 2024. I placed what Ford calls an "order request" on April 21. The request was sent to the Oregon dealer who had listed a $4K "dealer adjustment". He never accepted it.

I was able to find VINs from Build & Price details pages of specific vehicles only by examining the webpage address for a specific vehicle. A VIN appears as the last part of the webpage address. No dealer at that time had a vehicle advertised on their dealer website with a VIN corresponding to a vehicle listed on Build & Price.

If you change your preferred dealer and move around to dealers in a state or nearby states you'll find, on Build & Price, that the same VIN vehicles stated to be 'in transit" to a particular dealer, are stated to be "in transit" to any number of dealers in that entire region. Ford says they are sending the vehicles to "regional replenishment centers", so dealers don't have to carry them in stock. Customers are supposed to test drive something a dealer has in stock, then order something more like what they want on Build & Price to be delivered fairly quickly to a specific dealer. The dealer is expected to live up to the price listed on Build & Price, but nothing is cast in stone until a purchase agreement is signed at the dealer upon delivery.

As for the reason why the dealer never accepted my order request, I wondered if the dealer was regretting posting a $4K discount. Periodically I would inquire, to be told they were unable to find the vehicle in the Ford system.

Eventually I contacted the dealer implying I was going to cancel out if something did not happen. Their claim was that reality is nothing like what is stated by Ford on Build & Price, i.e. they said they knew where the regional replenishment center was and there was "nothing in it". I didn't believe much of what the dealer told me about this or any other thing.

However, by this time, Ford was actually shipping a lot of Lightnings they have been holding in Dearborn since January on a massive "quality assurance" hold. This Oregon dealer said they could shop around on dealer lots nearby and find something almost exactly what I had wanted from Build & Price, trade with that dealer for it, and sell it to me at the price listed on Build & Price, including the $4K dealer adjustment.

So I bought it.

Your mileage may vary.

I’m in Seattle myself.

Seems Sound Ford in Renton has the most availability with the largest discounts. Did you happen to interact with them at all in your purchasing ventures?

 

[climateguy]

I’m in Seattle myself.

Seems Sound Ford in Renton has the most availability with the largest discounts. Did you happen to interact with them at all in your purchasing ventures?

I was shopping earlier this year. I only looked at their website. I was interested to see their ads offering what sounded like significant discounts on the 2024 Flash.

At that time, they were posting the pre-April 2024 Flash window stickers so they could advertise a Flash MSRP of $5000 more than the actual Flash base price. Their discount was that $5000 plus the federal clean vehicle credit of $7500. In other words their tremendous "discount" was zero. I didn't bother to visit the dealership. I didn't preserve a copy of the webpages.

I visited their site just now. They are still calling the federal tax credit their own dealership discount. An SR Lightning I glanced at did seem to have an actual discount. The Flash trims were "On Sale" for "Please Call". Perhaps they are offering an actual dealer discount now.

 

[brtnstrns]

Ah I’m looking at the Platinums that have like $12k discounts on their site. Assuming that must just be dealer discount since they don’t qualify for the tax credit.

 

[MagicalTrev]

I actually wasn’t aware of them until I saw this thread and their discounts are bogus. I inquired about a platinum trim and was told it’s msrp minus irs tax credit and whatever rebates you can get from ford. No reaction when I pointed out that the platinum does not qualify for the irs tax credit. Interestingly, their pictures don’t line up with their window stickers either. Seems like a shady operation.

 

[brtnstrns]

I actually wasn’t aware of them until I saw this thread and their discounts are bogus. I inquired about a platinum trim and was told it’s msrp minus irs tax credit and whatever rebates you can get from ford. No reaction when I pointed out that the platinum does not qualify for the irs tax credit. Interestingly, their pictures don’t line up with their window stickers either. Seems like a shady operation.

That's definitely weird.

 

[MagicalTrev]

That's definitely weird.

You can check it out easily. Just filter for platinums and look for window stickers showing power running boards and you will see fixed in the pictures. Also, I was wondering why their window stickers showed a significantly higher msrp than some of the dealerships near me. Makes a lot of sense if they are still posting pre-price drop window stickers. Like I said, shady.

 

[MrKing7]

Ordered a 24 Plat 7/3 through Build & Buy, dealer accepted right away. My salesperson also ordered a secondary truck matching my specs mentioning that they could get it quicker as a dealer order versus a BnB order. Neither order at this point have progressed any further than the ”ordered” stage.

Any idea how accurate the projected “drive date” Is?

 

[TaxmanHog]

Ordered a 24 Plat 7/3 through Build & Buy, dealer accepted right away. My salesperson also ordered a secondary truck matching my specs mentioning that they could get it quicker as a dealer order versus a BnB order. Neither order at this point have progressed any further than the ”ordered” stage.

Any idea how accurate the projected “drive date” Is?

Do you have a VIN to safe of either truck?

 

[MrKing7]

Do you have a VIN to safe of either truck?

Not yet.

 

[John Becker]

Any word on when MY 2025 Lightings start production? Or the expected changes from MY 2024?

 

[TaxmanHog]

Any word on when MY 2025 Lightings start production? Or the expected changes from MY 2024?

I have not heard of any change of plans when MY24 schedule was announced, which appears to be running to last build week starting 12/30/2024, then MY25 occurring either 1/6/25 or 1/13/25 after end of year plant maintenance.

 

[Green1]

I tried to use the Ford website, it told me that there were no vehicles available at all period. Which I knew was complete BS because all of the local dealers were advertising ones on their websites, I ended up just going to the dealer that seemed to have the most on their lot. In hindsight I'm not sure I made the right choice of dealer, but Ford certainly wasn't helping anything.

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