This is the reason it will be hard for Ford to compete with Tesla

Dudeduke

Active Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2020
Threads
5
Messages
28
Reaction score
44
Location
USA
Vehicles
Tesla model 3, Ford focus electric
Country flag
Ford needs to find a way to get themselves away from the dealership model. That is their Achilles heel. They need need to start doing direct transaction with customers as Telsa does.

Here is my story/situation and what I experienced recently.

I currently own a Tesla Model 3 and have a leased Ford Focus Electric. I have a Mache on order, which should be arriving soon.. My lease is ending soon, and my buyout is low. It seems that there is some positive equity in the leased vehicle that I would like to get.

First thing, Ford doesn't allow trade-in/Sell their leases to 3rd party dealers which most of other manufacturers do. So that being out of the question, I decided to buyout the focus electric and then sell it as I don't want to pay the disposition fee when I can walk away with some money out of this. I am already loosing the state tax by not being able to sell it directly to other dealership.

Ford also doesn't allow buyout of the vehicle directly from them. They ask us to go through the dealerships(stealerships). Now I am far from the original dealer I got the car from, so ford told me to contact any local dealer to buyout the vehicle.

I contacted my closest dealer and they said they can help me with this and I would just need to fill up a Credit Application even though it was all cash buyout. I was skeptical to provide my SSN, but asked them to make sure not to pull the credit. I made the appointment to come to the dealership to buyout and to start with, the person who I talking to was not even there. I emailed him last night to confirm that I will be coming in. He even told me to come in day time to allow inspection and I need to drop it at the service first. So after some time they send me to a different person, who kept on looking for my file. Eventually he finds it and started working on it. It took almost an hour for him to get it papers ready.

One good thing I was to test drive Mache ca route 1 while I was waiting for all this. It is super nice to drive, it doesn't have the pull/acceleration of my Tesla Model 3, but it it way better fit and finish. The road noise is so low compared to my tesla.

After the test drive I noticed, there was a notice board with all the Mache listed that they have or coming for sale with all of them marked up +3K. I mean it a good car, but come on it would gladly get a model y than to pay these dealers this markup. On top of it, this is the same dealer who told me when I was planning to order the Mache that the $500 deposit is non-refundable. I ordered from another dealer. So if they did not refund the customers who ordered these maches from this dealership, they are basically making $3500 on top of MSRP for each one of them. That is where Tesla works well. You know what you are going to pay and not have to deal with middle man. There was a customer there who was interested in the mache and was inquiring about it. They told him, that there is 3k markup on each. So he asked if that would be the case if he ordered online and they said it won't be but they might not get the car till next year. They are trying all their tactics to gouge more money. That person if cross shopping with model y, would just go back home and order it online and get it in a months time without dealing with all this.

Enough of that, coming back to my lease buyout. After a long wait for the finance manager, we go in to buyout my car and while signing the documents I see the total amount due, which was way higher than the payoff balance from Ford Financial. I knew that I would be paying taxes( which is again unnecessary if they allowed selling to third party) but it still did not add up. I asked the manager for the breakdown, and in there i see a $395 inspection fee. I was shocked to see that. When asked what was that, he said let me get the leasing person back to explain it to me.

That persons comes in and tells me it a California requirement. I stated looking into on my phone immediately and did not find anything like that. Then the finance manager comes back and tells me that this the fee for inspecting the car and check if everything is good. I was like, it is my car and I know everything works. He started showing me that he is working here for 17 years and this is common practice. I was still not convinced. I asked him is this same for every dealership? He said it may be little different. I was not even told once about this fee till that last step. I told him to wait till i call my original dealer and ask them about it. When I asked them they were confused about inspection fee and said that they don't charge that. I was on the speaker it front of that manager and he heard that. I told him, why should I pay this fee and it is not even required. So the person lied by saying it a California requirement. I made sure he shreds all the paperwork before I left the dealership. So I wasted my 2 hours there for nothing.

The problem is, why doesn't Ford financial allow me to buy it from them directly? These dealerships are there to rip-off people.

After that I called few other dealers around in the area and 50% of them were asking for $400 to $500 in different names. Either as "Acquisition Fees" or "buying option Fees". It is clearly stated on my original contract that there is no fee associated if I buy it at the term end.

What I am getting at is that I wish Ford would start transitioning away from dealers and start have more direct relations with customers like allowing buyout directly.

It is good that they allowed ordering mache directly from ford, but they should have changed it a bit. Say for example, it a buyer backs out they should have given an option to any new reservation holder with the same model living in same area to get that vehicle. If no existing reservation holder claims it for a week then allow dealership to sell it. A lot more people would have bought Mache if they would have done it differently. I am sure I would not have found 5 Maches in that dealer lot if it was sold to people waiting for it at the MSRP. Demand is high, but these practices might turn people away from a great car.

This just happened, so I apologize for the rant.
Sponsored

 

Maric

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2020
Threads
20
Messages
887
Reaction score
2,218
Location
NorCal
Vehicles
Grabber Blue FE
Occupation
Engineer
Country flag
Ford needs to find a way to get themselves away from the dealership model. That is their Achilles heel. They need need to start doing direct transaction with customers as Telsa does.
All excellent points and examples.
 


kdukart

Member
First Name
Kyle
Joined
Jan 26, 2021
Threads
2
Messages
21
Reaction score
49
Location
Minneapolis, MN
Vehicles
Chrysler Pac Hybrid, Mazda CX-5, Suburu Outback
Country flag
On a related note, my wife told me she would rather walk 10 miles to work than go to a dealership again in her life to buy a car. It is always a miserable experience. So when I get cars these days, I say this upfront to the dealer. We can do this, but my wife cannot be asked to come here to sign anything or the deal is off. My 9 year old has two places he refuses to go. Ikea and a Car Dealer.

My most recent experience at a Chrysler dealer (for the Pacifica Hybrid) had the finance guy spending 20 minutes trying to convince me that if he were my financial advisor he would have me take their shitty apr local bank kickback offer over the 0% 60 month offer from Chrysler. I told him my spreadsheet wouldn't allow it. It just never can be pleasant. I'm sure we all have stories. A couple more are popping into my head but alas...
 

BDC

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2021
Threads
5
Messages
94
Reaction score
135
Location
San Diego
Vehicles
Mach E Premium
Country flag
Sadly, I have to agree. My experience so far with a reasonably good dealer - a car identical to my order, down to the color appeared on their lot. So exact I checked the VIN just to make sure! The only difference? The one on the lot was $5K more. The car has now since sold at a nice markup, presumably not to someone who has been waiting a year for their car. If this had been Tesla, I believe they would have gone to people waiting for similar cars (at least, that is what I have heard happening). There is just no incentive for the dealers to handle it that way. I expect this will end up getting better as wait times reduce, but the baggage of the dealer model is going to hamper Ford's ability to innovate and try new things (look at how clueless the dealers are on Ford Options).
 
OP
OP

Dudeduke

Active Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2020
Threads
5
Messages
28
Reaction score
44
Location
USA
Vehicles
Tesla model 3, Ford focus electric
Country flag
On a related note, my wife told me she would rather walk 10 miles to work than go to a dealership again in her life to buy a car. It is always a miserable experience. So when I get cars these days, I say this upfront to the dealer. We can do this, but my wife cannot be asked to come here to sign anything or the deal is off. My 9 year old has two places he refuses to go. Ikea and a Car Dealer.

My most recent experience at a Chrysler dealer (for the Pacifica Hybrid) had the finance guy spending 20 minutes trying to convince me that if he were my financial advisor he would have me take their shitty apr local bank kickback offer over the 0% 60 month offer from Chrysler. I told him my spreadsheet wouldn't allow it. It just never can be pleasant. I'm sure we all have stories. A couple more are popping into my head but alas...

I totally agree. In contrast my telsa buying experience was super smooth. I had already signed some docs online and few at delivery. Copies were emailed to me and off I go. No going to from one room to another.

On the side note, can't wait to get my Mache.

Hopefully I don't have to go through all this to get x-plan and Ford options discounts/rates correctly applied at the time of purchase. Fingers crossed, it is different dealer.
 

mixduptransistor

Well-Known Member
First Name
joe
Joined
Feb 28, 2021
Threads
12
Messages
455
Reaction score
492
Location
Atlanta
Vehicles
2021 Rapid Red Mach E Premium Extended Range RWD
Occupation
Systems Engineer
Country flag
Having gone through the Tesla model, it's great in that you won't get ripped off (or attempted to) but getting information from them, or having a firm timeline, or understanding how much you're going to get for your trade before you commit to a $50,000 transaction, to not sitting around for hours for delivery when there's no finance man waiting to upsell you, to the absolute abysmal process to get the car serviced--it's not always better

I think dealers, and the huge network that is in place that doesn't have to be built from the ground up is a big advantage. Ford just needs to crack down and get the sleaze out of the industry. Don't know how they do it, but the correct answer is probably somewhere in the middle. At Ford's volumes, there's no way to go direct to consumer though
 
OP
OP

Dudeduke

Active Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2020
Threads
5
Messages
28
Reaction score
44
Location
USA
Vehicles
Tesla model 3, Ford focus electric
Country flag
Having gone through the Tesla model, it's great in that you won't get ripped off (or attempted to) but getting information from them, or having a firm timeline, or understanding how much you're going to get for your trade before you commit to a $50,000 transaction, to not sitting around for hours for delivery when there's no finance man waiting to upsell you, to the absolute abysmal process to get the car serviced--it's not always better

I think dealers, and the huge network that is in place that doesn't have to be built from the ground up is a big advantage. Ford just needs to crack down and get the sleaze out of the industry. Don't know how they do it, but the correct answer is probably somewhere in the middle. At Ford's volumes, there's no way to go direct to consumer though
I am not saying Tesla's are the best but getting tesla serviced is not bad at all, specially here in California. Few clicks on the app and you are set. For some small fixes they come to you home in do it at your place.

I know they can't just get away from from dealer network and there are some perks of it. They should at least look into transitioning out. They could have started by selling on EVs directly. That could have been a good starting point, as EV volumes are still low.
 

mixduptransistor

Well-Known Member
First Name
joe
Joined
Feb 28, 2021
Threads
12
Messages
455
Reaction score
492
Location
Atlanta
Vehicles
2021 Rapid Red Mach E Premium Extended Range RWD
Occupation
Systems Engineer
Country flag
I am not saying Tesla's are the best but getting tesla serviced is not bad at all, specially here in California. Few clicks on the app and you are set. For some small fixes they come to you home in do it at your place.

I know they can't just get away from from dealer network and there are some perks of it. They should at least look into transitioning out. They could have started by selling on EVs directly. That could have been a good starting point, as EV volumes are still low.
They couldn't actually, they have agreements with the dealers and multiple states have laws preventing it. Even if they did the Tesla acrobatics to get around the states where it's not allowed, their contracts with dealers wouldn't allow it
 

malba2366

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2019
Threads
7
Messages
448
Reaction score
427
Location
NY
Vehicles
911 C2S
Country flag
The higher end makes have taken most of the nonsense out of the dealership experience, probably because the clientele is more sophisticated than mainstream makes. Ford is targeting this same clientele with the Mach E, Bronco and higher trims of F150...so the dealers need to wake up and stop with the games when they are trying to sell $50-80K vehicles.
 

SteelMach

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2021
Threads
3
Messages
666
Reaction score
725
Location
Michigan
Vehicles
2021 Mustang Mach-E
Country flag
Honestly it's not the dealer experience that worries me, that's a one-time thing.

It's the DC Fast Charging. There's no way they can compete when they haven't even bothered to fix the huge issues and slow speeds due to lack of preconditioning. I am NOT happy when I plug in my "150 kW" vehicle and get 36 kW because the pack is chilly. It's 2021, random people on Facebook know batteries don't like being cold... why doesn't Ford?
 

zvez

Well-Known Member
First Name
chris
Joined
Dec 31, 2020
Threads
10
Messages
1,060
Reaction score
883
Location
ga
Vehicles
2021 Rapid Red Metallic RWD, standard range
Occupation
retired
Country flag
Ford needs to find a way to get themselves away from the dealership model. That is their Achilles heel. They need need to start doing direct transaction with customers as Telsa does.

Here is my story/situation and what I experienced recently.

I currently own a Tesla Model 3 and have a leased Ford Focus Electric. I have a Mache on order, which should be arriving soon.. My lease is ending soon, and my buyout is low. It seems that there is some positive equity in the leased vehicle that I would like to get.

First thing, Ford doesn't allow trade-in/Sell their leases to 3rd party dealers which most of other manufacturers do. So that being out of the question, I decided to buyout the focus electric and then sell it as I don't want to pay the disposition fee when I can walk away with some money out of this. I am already loosing the state tax by not being able to sell it directly to other dealership.

Ford also doesn't allow buyout of the vehicle directly from them. They ask us to go through the dealerships(stealerships). Now I am far from the original dealer I got the car from, so ford told me to contact any local dealer to buyout the vehicle.

I contacted my closest dealer and they said they can help me with this and I would just need to fill up a Credit Application even though it was all cash buyout. I was skeptical to provide my SSN, but asked them to make sure not to pull the credit. I made the appointment to come to the dealership to buyout and to start with, the person who I talking to was not even there. I emailed him last night to confirm that I will be coming in. He even told me to come in day time to allow inspection and I need to drop it at the service first. So after some time they send me to a different person, who kept on looking for my file. Eventually he finds it and started working on it. It took almost an hour for him to get it papers ready.

One good thing I was to test drive Mache ca route 1 while I was waiting for all this. It is super nice to drive, it doesn't have the pull/acceleration of my Tesla Model 3, but it it way better fit and finish. The road noise is so low compared to my tesla.

After the test drive I noticed, there was a notice board with all the Mache listed that they have or coming for sale with all of them marked up +3K. I mean it a good car, but come on it would gladly get a model y than to pay these dealers this markup. On top of it, this is the same dealer who told me when I was planning to order the Mache that the $500 deposit is non-refundable. I ordered from another dealer. So if they did not refund the customers who ordered these maches from this dealership, they are basically making $3500 on top of MSRP for each one of them. That is where Tesla works well. You know what you are going to pay and not have to deal with middle man. There was a customer there who was interested in the mache and was inquiring about it. They told him, that there is 3k markup on each. So he asked if that would be the case if he ordered online and they said it won't be but they might not get the car till next year. They are trying all their tactics to gouge more money. That person if cross shopping with model y, would just go back home and order it online and get it in a months time without dealing with all this.

Enough of that, coming back to my lease buyout. After a long wait for the finance manager, we go in to buyout my car and while signing the documents I see the total amount due, which was way higher than the payoff balance from Ford Financial. I knew that I would be paying taxes( which is again unnecessary if they allowed selling to third party) but it still did not add up. I asked the manager for the breakdown, and in there i see a $395 inspection fee. I was shocked to see that. When asked what was that, he said let me get the leasing person back to explain it to me.

That persons comes in and tells me it a California requirement. I stated looking into on my phone immediately and did not find anything like that. Then the finance manager comes back and tells me that this the fee for inspecting the car and check if everything is good. I was like, it is my car and I know everything works. He started showing me that he is working here for 17 years and this is common practice. I was still not convinced. I asked him is this same for every dealership? He said it may be little different. I was not even told once about this fee till that last step. I told him to wait till i call my original dealer and ask them about it. When I asked them they were confused about inspection fee and said that they don't charge that. I was on the speaker it front of that manager and he heard that. I told him, why should I pay this fee and it is not even required. So the person lied by saying it a California requirement. I made sure he shreds all the paperwork before I left the dealership. So I wasted my 2 hours there for nothing.

The problem is, why doesn't Ford financial allow me to buy it from them directly? These dealerships are there to rip-off people.

After that I called few other dealers around in the area and 50% of them were asking for $400 to $500 in different names. Either as "Acquisition Fees" or "buying option Fees". It is clearly stated on my original contract that there is no fee associated if I buy it at the term end.

What I am getting at is that I wish Ford would start transitioning away from dealers and start have more direct relations with customers like allowing buyout directly.

It is good that they allowed ordering mache directly from ford, but they should have changed it a bit. Say for example, it a buyer backs out they should have given an option to any new reservation holder with the same model living in same area to get that vehicle. If no existing reservation holder claims it for a week then allow dealership to sell it. A lot more people would have bought Mache if they would have done it differently. I am sure I would not have found 5 Maches in that dealer lot if it was sold to people waiting for it at the MSRP. Demand is high, but these practices might turn people away from a great car.

This just happened, so I apologize for the rant.
the buying process is one thing, but for me, tesla isn't a real consideration, the well documented issues with build quality when the nearest tesla service is over a 100 miles away makes it a no go for me. My ford dealer on the other hand is 3 miles from my house.

A friend has two model 3s he loves, but he recently spent a whole day driving up to atlanta and waiting all day for them to replace the cpu/ecu.
 
 




Top