Finding your place in line at the Dealership

[COrocket]

Has anyone found a way to determine your place in line at a dealership through Ford directly? Dealer says they don’t have that information but seems others on this forum have received that info so it’s hard to believe them. Not sure if my dealership is oblivious or just doesn’t want me to speculate how long it’ll be before I can put my order in.

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[FlasherZ]

The dealer knows and can look up how many orders they have, and where they are in priority order. The sales manager should know how to do this - I've found that unless you're there to pick up a vehicle, the first line salespeople want to push you away. The vultures have other people to pick on.

 

[Oneand0]

Not only did mine do that, but looked at a friends order number and compared to his list, to see where she might land if she switched dealers. GM did it for me.

 

[metroshot]

Not thru Ford.
Your dealer knows exactly how many reservations and where you are in line.

Ford will invite you to order only if the dealer you chose has allocations.

Be wise to choose a dealer that has high allocations.

 

[lakeguy55]

This whole process seems to be seperating the good dealers from the bad (and in my view, foretelling which may survive in the long run. My money is on the good).

I got to test drive a Pro last Friday at my dealer in NH. The dealer is calling every person on their reservation list to offer them an appointment for a test drive. They initiated the contact, not me.

They have a well-earned reputation as being a very honest, fair dealership. I walked in, she handed me the fob, and said just bring it back in 30 minutes. I commented about some dealers not even letting people sit in their demos. Her response, "A demo vehicle does us no good unless we are using it for Demo drives!"

Ater returning, I asked about my place in their queue, and she then spent a good 5 minues going through their reservations list and manually calculating it for me.

The bad news is this is when reality hit. I knew I was late to the game. Didn't reserve until late July when the numbers were about 130K. I am #65 on their list. Down from #85 due to approximately 20 cancellations so far. They got 2 MY2022 trucks! So pretty sure I'm looking at MY2024. Yet they still took the time to call me and set up the drive. They also confirmed no ADM. All units they get will go for MSRP.

 

[ivan256]

Not thru Ford.
Your dealer knows exactly how many reservations and where you are in line.

Ford will invite you to order only if the dealer you chose has allocations.

Be wise to choose a dealer that has high allocations.

Where's the list of which dealers have how many allocations?

Hard to "be wise" if you need to base it on information that isn't available.

(PM me if you know of a high-allocation dealer with no ADM I can move my day-1 MA reservation to, since my dealer expects single-digits again and I'm double digits down the list)

 

[metroshot]

Where's the list of which dealers have how many allocations?

Hard to "be wise" if you need to base it on information that isn't available.

(PM me if you know of a high-allocation dealer with no ADM I can move my day-1 MA reservation to, since my dealer expects single-digits again and I'm double digits down the list)

You have to do the legwork and homework..

No one will spoon feed you dealer allocation numbers unless you happen to work for Ford.

I spent a whole day on 5/19 (Launch day 1) calling around dealers to find out their special order allocations, specifically for trucks, Raptors, fleet, etc.

Then on the second day (5/20) I decided to go with a high allocation dealer 2 counties away and made the reservation.

Paid off - got an order in on April.

Dealer received 50 Lightning allocations.
My nearby local small dealers received 2-5.

Glad I did my homework!

Delivered 2 days ago.

 

[ivan256]

You have to do the legwork and homework..

No one will spoon feed you dealer allocation numbers unless you happen to work for Ford.

I spent a whole day on 5/19 (Launch day 1) calling around dealers to find out their special order allocations, specifically for trucks, Raptors, fleet, etc.

Then on the second day (5/20) I decided to go with a high allocation dealer 2 counties away and made the reservation.

Paid off - got an order in on April.

Dealer received 50 Lightning allocations.
My nearby local small dealers received 2-5.

Glad I did my homework!

Delivered 2 days ago.

That may sound reasonable to you, but it sounds ridiculous to me. Whatever makes you happy, I guess.

The whole appeal of the Lightning was that it was a normal truck with a normal price that you could buy from a normal company that also had the benefits of being an EV. If you have to play stupid games getting into the secret club of people "who know" for the privilege of paying $80k for a luxury vehicle, that's further than I'm willing to go. Putting my name in the hat and checking the forums once a week for news is my max effort to get somebody to take my money.

Someday soon Ford will have exhausted the pool of eager early adopters and they're going to have to appeal to regular folks in the face of increasing competition. Your story here is a great example of how they're messing it up big time.

Anyway, enjoy your truck!

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