Ken7

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I think there’s an echo here. ?
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dbsb3233

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The second bullet is surprising as I would've expected dealers to have test vehicles before customers start receiving deliveries. It sounds like the first adopters may not get to test drive until they are getting their delivery.
I thought it would need to go this way even from the original timing. When there was talk of the first units being available for sale around September, it just didn't seem like the demos were going to be in place much before that (if at all).

Keep in mind though that they're only talking about the "first" batch of customer deliveries. That could be a pretty small number arriving concurrent with the demos. For those people, the test drive probably WILL be their actual vehicle.

There is one very good aspect about some of them arriving same time as the demos... it means some of those buyers will post reviews and experiences, which is valuable info that helps the rest of us. I'd rather get some cars in their hands ASAP rather than wait until a month or two after the demos are in place.
 

Ken7

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But regardless, you will only know if a car fits you once you get into the driver’s seat. Unless you really know someone’s taste in cars, it only goes so far. Some will call a ride sporty and I may call it too firm and hard. Even the seat itself could be a deal-break.
 

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Firstly, there is no return period after you sign the purchase order and/or financing contract at delivery. Secondly Ford has always said that you will have the opportunity to test drive before you take delivery.

Don’t confuse the order with Ford to produce the vehicle with the purchase order agreement between you and the dealer that you sign at delivery. Those are two different things.

Once you take delivery from the dealer that’s it. Done deal. Now, the dealer could out of the kindness of their heart agree to cancel the purchase, but they are not obligated to do so.
Thank you for being the voice of reason. Every time this topic comes up some people bring out the torches and pitch-forks. There is no way a company like Ford will risk angering potential buyers and getting bad, bad press by forcing anyone in the US to put in a non-refundable deposit sight unseen. As for the test drives, only the people with reservation # in the 4,000 may have a real short period between a actual test drive car in the dealership until their delivery. But for those 10/15/20k range, they would have plenty of time to test drive and sleep on it before the delivery date. At least thats my take on it. (Just like this pandemic...stay calm.)
 

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I am making an uneducated, unsubstantiated, random, SWAG that if you didn't order a First Edition, you'll have at least weeks to test drive before yours arrives. 50k cars / year means approx 1,000 / week. They are likely to have at least few thousand FE orders. This means a few weeks before non FE starts arriving. I have no sources or citations to back up these claims though, so use whatever numbers makes you happy in place of mine and speculate away!
 


Ken7

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I am making an uneducated, unsubstantiated, random, SWAG that if you didn't order a First Edition, you'll have at least weeks to test drive before yours arrives. 50k cars / year means approx 1,000 / week. They are likely to have at least few thousand FE orders. This means a few weeks before non FE starts arriving. I have no sources or citations to back up these claims though, so use whatever numbers makes you happy in place of mine and speculate away!
I think you're probably right. I suspect with my reservation # in the 46,000s, I'm looking at about a year's wait from today. If true, with my impatience, that's too long for me.
 

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I'm putting as much good faith/energy into getting mine this year as possible (for tax purposes). I'll be a bit screwed if it's delayed until next year.

Hopefully my FE reservation (6038) will put me near the start of deliveries. As much as I'd like to test drive it beforehand, I'm not opposed to taking delivery beforehand.
 

Ken7

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I'm putting as much good faith/energy into getting mine this year as possible (for tax purposes). I'll be a bit screwed if it's delayed until next year.

Hopefully my FE reservation (6038) will put me near the start of deliveries. As much as I'd like to test drive it beforehand, I'm not opposed to taking delivery beforehand.
You're far braver than me. For that kind of money I want to sit in it and test drive it. At least with your # you've got a decent shot at getting it this year.
 

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I can't speak for other states (or even if it is a state law), but here in the garden state no contract is legally binding for 3 days. So, in the typical case of walking onto car lot and buying a car, you actually DO have three days to back out. In the case of a delayed delivery I don't know when the "final" contract is signed, but suspect that the law is still on the consumer's side and one would have some kind of grace period. With that said, I agree that it would be foolhardy of Ford not to offer customers a way out. The one hitch in the US is that the order is placed with the dealer and thus the refund-ability of the deposit is determined by the dealers' contract.

Rather than "grabbing the torches and pitchforks" with no information, I suggest waiting until ordering actually begins and you have the discussions with the dealerships and see their actual order contracts to decide how outraged to be.
 

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I'm putting as much good faith/energy into getting mine this year as possible (for tax purposes). I'll be a bit screwed if it's delayed until next year.

Hopefully my FE reservation (6038) will put me near the start of deliveries. As much as I'd like to test drive it beforehand, I'm not opposed to taking delivery beforehand.
We have about the best chance of a 2020 delivery as anyone out here and certainly will have some of the first in the mid-Atlantic. Ford has been clear the FEs will be the first to arrive (mine is 5541, Grabber Blue). I'm just hoping the demos come long enough before the FEs to get a test ride in a demo. While I'm quite confident I'll like it, there are things you don't know until you drive it. I've had cars where I liked the styling but turned out to have huge blind spots that make driving very annoying.
 

dbsb3233

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I'm just hoping the demos come long enough before the FEs to get a test ride in a demo.
I'm puzzled at the "long before" talk from people. Ford has already said we can back out of any sale until we get to do a test drive, so what does it really matter how long in advance we get to do the test drive? To me it seems like we just do the test drive as the final part of the process, think it over for a few minutes, then give them a Yes or No to the purchase. Pretty much like buying any other car.

The only issue I can see is if the dealer requires a deposit, and there's any difficulty getting that deposit back. But we already know the actual orders (where presumably any deposit is paid) were going to be 5-6 months before the first vehicles arrived. So that was a given.

Again, I see it as good news that some of the actual customer vehicles are being delivered at the same time as the demos, rather than not showing up until weeks/months later. If I were one of the first people in line, I'd rather test drive my actual vehicle than a different demo anyway. Plus we'll have the early buyers posting about their experiences before all the rest of us a little further down the list have to decide. That's very valuable info to me -- what actual range they're experiencing, what miles/kWh they're experiencing, what quirks they find, what features they love, etc.
 

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I can't speak for other states (or even if it is a state law), but here in the garden state no contract is legally binding for 3 days. So, in the typical case of walking onto car lot and buying a car, you actually DO have three days to back out. In the case of a delayed delivery I don't know when the "final" contract is signed, but suspect that the law is still on the consumer's side and one would have some kind of grace period. With that said, I agree that it would be foolhardy of Ford not to offer customers a way out. The one hitch in the US is that the order is placed with the dealer and thus the refund-ability of the deposit is determined by the dealers' contract.

Rather than "grabbing the torches and pitchforks" with no information, I suggest waiting until ordering actually begins and you have the discussions with the dealerships and see their actual order contracts to decide how outraged to be.
I'm not a lawyer either. But here is my experience based on my 25 years in an auto finance company. The 3 day cooling off period does not apply to auto sales. That's not to say that the dealer could not offer such a thing, but that would be up to the individual dealer and their store policy, not Ford or your finance sources' policy.

The cooling off period is mostly for door to door sales, where an unsolicited transaction came to you. Doing a car sale you are the one seeking out the transaction, not where the transaction is coming to you unsolicited, so the assumption is you knew what you were doing. Most auto finance contracts (depending on the vendor/finance source) specifically call out in the fine print that there is no cooling off period (check the back of the paperwork).
 

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I'm puzzled at the "long before" talk from people. Ford has already said we can back out of any sale until we get to do a test drive, so what does it really matter how long in advance we get to do the test drive? To me it seems like we just do the test drive as the final part of the process, think it over for a few minutes, then give them a Yes or No to the purchase. Pretty much like buying any other car.

The only issue I can see is if the dealer requires a deposit, and there's any difficulty getting that deposit back. But we already know the actual orders (where presumably any deposit is paid) were going to be 5-6 months before the first vehicles arrived. So that was a given.

Again, I see it as good news that some of the actual customer vehicles are being delivered at the same time as the demos, rather than not showing up until weeks/months later. If I were one of the first people in line, I'd rather test drive my actual vehicle than a different demo anyway. Plus we'll have the early buyers posting about their experiences before all the rest of us a little further down the list have to decide. That's very valuable info to me -- what actual range they're experiencing, what miles/kWh they're experiencing, what quirks they like find, what features they love, etc.
When I have car shopped in the past, I've had the ability to drive one or a few with different options. I could then go to a dealer with another car I may be comparing against and try that. I could go home, think about it, go back to test drive the one I preferred. This was the process when I bought my Tacoma and was comparing it against the Nissan Frontier.

Folks here talk about MME vs Model Y, vs Polestar, vs iPace, etc. A normal buying experience involves trying competing cars and deciding before dropping $40,000-$75,000.

If all you get is "here's your exact car, take it or leave it", it's a different car buying experience.
 

Ken7

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I'm puzzled at the "long before" talk from people. Ford has already said we can back out of any sale until we get to do a test drive, so what does it really matter how long in advance we get to do the test drive? To me it seems like we just do the test drive as the final part of the process, think it over for a few minutes, then give them a Yes or No to the purchase. Pretty much like buying any other car.

The only issue I can see is if the dealer requires a deposit, and there's any difficulty getting that deposit back. But we already know the actual orders (where presumably any deposit is paid) were going to be 5-6 months before the first vehicles arrived. So that was a given.

Again, I see it as good news that some of the actual customer vehicles are being delivered at the same time as the demos, rather than not showing up until weeks/months later. If I were one of the first people in line, I'd rather test drive my actual vehicle than a different demo anyway. Plus we'll have the early buyers posting about their experiences before all the rest of us a little further down the list have to decide. That's very valuable info to me -- what actual range they're experiencing, what miles/kWh they're experiencing, what quirks they find, what features they love, etc.
Tim, I think for some aspects of the car's operation that feedback can be helpful. However for the really important things like ride comfort, seat comfort etc., only you can make that determination. There's far too much subjectivity in some of these evaluations to be of much use to me. That's why when you see reviews from different people for the same car, one will say, "Wow, that seat is so comfortable" and the next guy will say, "Were they kidding with that seat design?". Same with ride & handling. Sometimes you think they're looking at 2 different cars. ;)
 

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When I have car shopped in the past, I've had the ability to drive one or a few with different options. I could then go to a dealer with another car I may be comparing against and try that. I could go home, think about it, go back to test drive the one I preferred. This was the process when I bought my Tacoma and was comparing it against the Nissan Frontier.

Folks here talk about MME vs Model Y, vs Polestar, vs iPace, etc. A normal buying experience involves trying competing cars and deciding before dropping $40,000-$75,000.

If all you get is "here's your exact car, take it or leave it", it's a different car buying experience.
Those days are a thing of the past I'm afraid... new world order
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