Serramonte Ford Mach-E Specialist Here

[yngwenli]

I agree that the PP credit should be upfront to the customer. My concerns are that customers have far fewer resources/time to manage/deal/fight this than dealerships since it's the dealerships job to deal with stuff like this day in, day out, NOT a customers (they have their own jobs).

I used to work in sales and can submit credits all the time for customer's accounts. That's a bit different, but the dealership is given a choice on how to handle PP and your dealership takes the less desired approach. No way to sugar coat it. I don't think customers care (or should care) the issues. It's not their problem.

Dealerships are multi-millionaire dollar businesses and asking customers to float this is just pretty bad policy IMO. Is Ford really going to stick it to the dealership? Doubtful.

I hope my dealer doesn't do this and I have to 'wait' for a check in a few weeks. I don't think anyone will agree that this is good policy for customers no matter the situation and certainly would lower satisfaction scores for these dealerships.

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[Avelli]

I hope my dealer doesn't do this and I have to 'wait' for a check in a few weeks. I don't think anyone will agree that this is good policy for customers no matter the situation and certainly would lower satisfaction scores for these dealerships.

Especially since we floated $500 for over a year, with many promises on timelines broken (from Ford).

 

[Avelli]

@Gloff

I really want all dealerships to offer the great service I continue to get at Putnam and hope that something can be done to address things at Serramonte Ford.

paging @car_driver_guy

 

[car_driver_guy]

OP - You sound a lot nicer than the guys at Putnam Ford!!

 

[Gloff]

It doesn't get a lot of attention, because I don't think it's a common order, but I'd bet that base Selects (no conf+tech) get scheduled relatively quickly due to less commodity demands (i.e., no BlueCruise, 360 camera, etc.). I ordered a Select w/ comf+tech and am currently at 22 weeks. My car probably has the same number of microchips as Premium/CAR1 and it's looking like the timeline to delivery is just as long.



This is exactly right. My dealer told me a couple weeks ago that there were 15 orders ahead of me in their queue. I checked again the other day and now there are 3 ahead of me. There appears to be a lot of grumbling on this forum about lack of transparency/communication from Ford but your dealer should be able to let you know where you're at in terms of queue/allocation for their location. I don't have a build date yet but based on the communication from my dealer I'm fairly confident that I'll be scheduled soon. I'd encourage those who have been waiting for a build date for a long time, and are starting to get discouraged, to simply check with your dealer to see where you're at on their list.

Sean, would you second this? I imagine you're also able to provide such updates for your location?

Correct.

Problem is some dealers, I'm sure, aren't maintaining a list of orders as diligently as others.

 

[Gloff]

Geoff, thanks for being willing to come on the forum and answer questions.

My car has been at the dealership for over 3 weeks now and they can't get the updates to install. They're in contact with Ford engineers but that's been true for the last 3 weeks and nothing has changed. The dealership has given me a rental from Enterprise, but it's not the car I paid for and has restrictions on it (who can drive, no pets etc) that don't work for me.

My questions are:
1) Is there anything I can tell the dealership to try that may make the updates work?
2) What sort of compensation should I ask for from the dealership/Ford corporate?
3) If I switched to Serramonte Ford (I'm in the Bay Area), what would you be able to do differently?

1. If they're working with Engineering, they've taken it pretty far already, I don't think there's anything that can be added. It may be an issue with that dealer or the vehicle itself.
2. This would be personally up to you, bear in mind, the dealer doesn't want the car longer than it has to be, so I'm sure they're trying to get it resolved as quick as possible.
3. I'm not in the service department, so my view is limited. Like #1, if Ford Engineering is involved, it sounds like it's escalated beyond the normal steps.

 

[Gloff]

Do you know if Serramonte Ford review own list of MME orders in order to minimize compatability issues?

We did, we have 0 Compatibility errors in our queue, all orders are Clean and ready for scheduling.

 

[Gloff]

What is the reason why your dealership makes the customer wait?

As I mentioned before, there's too much room for human error. We've been given that option, and that's what we've decided will minimize issues. We're tracking each sold Retail order (not just Mach-E) and following up on their price protections.

 

[RickMachE]

What is the reason why your dealership makes the customer wait?

Easy to answer. Because they don't trust Ford to make the payment to them, and therefore put the customer on the hook instead of them, figuring Ford will yield when the customer screams to to them that the dealer isn't giving them the $2,000 because Ford didn't give it to the dealer.

 

[Gloff]

Are the GTs valid for the $2000 CVRP Rebate?

According to CVRP's rules, no. The Base MSRP is now $61,995. They haven't excluded it in particular, but I'm sure they will catch up to it eventually.

 

[Gloff]

Sean- what a community service thanks for putting yourself out there and spending the time. Karma owes you ?

quick question - there’s no info online reptions, can you shed some light on rate and balloon (I’m SoCal). I’m expecting late July or early August so expecting things may change between now and then.

Thanks much!
MJ

The rates and residuals are leaked here relatively often. Depends on the trim/options though. Your dealer should be able to communicate those to you as well depending on what you have on order.

 

[Gloff]

Thanks Sean @Gloff. I really appreciate your willingness to wade in and share your experience.

My dealership was completely clueless about price protection. I gave them copies of all the information shared on this forum, and they insisted it was all news to them. Anyway, I paid (cash purchase) the full sticker price, and they said they would send a $2k check if they were reimbursed by Corporate. I asked how would they be eligible for price protection reimbursement if they hadn't actually honored the price protection, but just let it go, knowing if I didn't take my car, they would mark up the price and sell it to someone else. I was shocked when about 3 months later, the dealer called and said they had a $2k reimbursement check which they would send to me. I think they were as shocked as I was.

When we picked up our car, after completing all the sales paperwork, the guy just handed us the keys and said, "Your car is parked out front. Bye". That was it. Very different from every other car buying experience. Because we happen to live in a state where EVs are pretty rare, maybe the dealer staff just aren't that comfortable with these cars. Which brings me (finally) to my question. How do I figure out which dealer has actually invested in training and equipment for servicing MMEs? I don't want to go back to the purchase dealership, and don't mind traveling a reasonable distance to one that has the capability and experience. Just wondering if there are some general benchmark standards I can ask about before scheduling service or whatever.

Good question. Under Ford's Find a Dealer, if you click advanced options, you can filter dealers that are EV Certified: https://www.ford.com/dealerships/?gnav=header-finddealer

It's hard to say until you have to have it serviced which dealers will be knowledgeable about the car unfortunately. This will likely change going forward with Ford's announcement about Ford Blue and Ford Model e, but that will take time to implement.

 

[RickMachE]

As I mentioned before, there's too much room for human error. We've been given that option, and that's what we've decided will minimize issues. We're tracking each sold Retail order (not just Mach-E) and following up on their price protections.

Minimize issues for the dealership. Not for the customer. It's the dealership's job to deal with the issues, not the customers. For example, the update process isn't going well, and dealership have unfairly had to shoulder the burden of trying to apply them, failing, and having issues all over the place. So should the customer have to do the updates instead? No - because the dealer has chosen to be a Ford franchisee, and therefore has the responsibility of dealing directly with the manufacturer they chose to work with. If that manufacturer comes up with a plan, such as this price protection plan which they've had for a long time, that has the dealership hanging for many months for lots of money, that's unfortunate - but, the dealership chose to work with Ford so they have to take the good with the bad. Saying to the customer (whether Ford gives you the option to or not) that THEY should finance $2,000 more, impact their residuals with Ford Options, and wait until Ford processes the funds and then the dealership sends out the funds because "there's too much room for human error" is simply wrong IMO. Sure, from YOUR position as a business it may be more advantageous to YOU, but YOUR role is to keep YOUR customers satisfied. After my dealership held a $500 deposit for 49 weeks and counting awaiting my Mach-E coming in, if they even though for a second of not giving me the funds right away I can tell you that would be the end of our relationship. I would take the new vehicle and be gone forever.

 

[Gloff]

It wasn’t your question to answer. Stay in your lane. The dealership doesn’t trust Ford, but we should trust the dealer. That’s crazy.

Minimize issues for the dealership. Not for the customer. It's the dealership's job to deal with the issues, not the customers. For example, the update process isn't going well, and dealership have unfairly had to shoulder the burden of trying to apply them, failing, and having issues all over the place. So should the customer have to do the updates instead? No - because the dealer has chosen to be a Ford franchisee, and therefore has the responsibility of dealing directly with the manufacturer they chose to work with. If that manufacturer comes up with a plan, such as this price protection plan which they've had for a long time, that has the dealership hanging for many months for lots of money, that's unfortunate - but, the dealership chose to work with Ford so they have to take the good with the bad. Saying to the customer (whether Ford gives you the option to or not) that THEY should finance $2,000 more, impact their residuals with Ford Options, and wait until Ford processes the funds and then the dealership sends out the funds because "there's too much room for human error" is simply wrong IMO. Sure, from YOUR position as a business it may be more advantageous to YOU, but YOUR role is to keep YOUR customers satisfied. After my dealership held a $500 deposit for 49 weeks and counting awaiting my Mach-E coming in, if they even though for a second of not giving me the funds right away I can tell you that would be the end of our relationship. I would take the new vehicle and be gone forever.

As I posted previously, I understand both sides. They're both valid points of view. I didn't come on here to talk the merits of how dealers conduct business.

Our reputation within various enthusiast communities is well documented (Focus RS, Bronco6G, and hopefully MachE/Lighting). We've earned trust of those communities through transparency and action. I didn't dodge the questions, and am doing the best I can to explain why and how we're implementing procedures. This level of dealership operations is not often shared, and doesn't really need to be.

This thread is becoming counterintuitive to the community's goals in my view. I can give you insight, but I'd rather we focus on the vehicle itself rather than the merits of individual dealership policies.

As an aside, I mentioned it earlier: The residual is not impacted by Price Protection, its actually benefiting the customer as it gives a higher effective residual regardless of how it's processed due to the higher MSRP.

 

[yngwenli]

According to CVRP's rules, no. The Base MSRP is now $61,995. They haven't excluded it in particular, but I'm sure they will catch up to it eventually.

This is untrue actually. The CVRP only cares about the base model of the car, namely, the Select lowest priced model at $43,895.

If you search for Ford, you can see the MME is still there:
https://cleanvehiclerebate.org/en/eligible-vehicles

This was heavily discussed in the sedan vs. SUV threads and I even wrote the epa to get it revised. The 2022 model is now a Small SUV (vs. Station Wagon for the 2021 model...maybe Ford took care of it, but it's "fixed" now in case there is ever (never) a Build Back Better EV deal).


At the end of the day, this back and forth with the PP boils down to which dealer would you want to deal with? A dealer that I have to wait to get the PP check in 45 days or one who simply credits me now and will "deal with it" themselves and doesn't hassle me if Ford has push back (why is this my problem anyways)?

As a consumer, it still looks like some dealerships care more about themselves than the customer. There is no denying that plain fact.

Why some people just buy stuff from Costco simply for the no-fight return policy for "most" things.

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