The Most FRUSTRATING Experience with Ford Dealership

[Jxmmm3]

Six months ago, I ordered a Mach-E online, put $500 deposit and chose to deliver to a nearest Ford dealership to me. When it’s finally arrived recently and I was ready to pick up my car, the sales person told me I need to pay about $10k markup, which they never mentioned during my 6 months wait time.

(Then I did some research in this forum and learned that I should get a signed agreement with dealership at the very beginning. Whoever see this post, please make sure you get that)

And I realized they have listed my car on their website and marked it as available, because at this time, they already found another customer who would like to pay the markup.

The dealer had no patience serving me at all. They refused to provide a test drive and told me I can test drive other Mach-E anywhere else like going to a Carmax. The sales person had a bad attitude and all they want is kicking me out of the game and selling the car to the person who has agreed on the markup, or maybe already sold.

Now I just wasted 6 months waiting for nothing. Not to mention being prioritized for the purchase, I wasn’t even allowed to see the car unless I can bid over the other person.


The whole experience is just extremely exhausting, frustrating and ridiculous.


=======

The dealer is Putnam Ford of San Mateo in California bay area

Sponsored

 

[stephanieag88]

I’m so sorry to read about your experience. I didn’t know they were able to do that since the car came in your name! It was your order!

 

[mep1952]

I’m so sorry to read about your experience. I didn’t know they were able to do that since the car came in your name! It was your order!

Sorry to hear about your situation. I waited 8 months for delivery and I would be totally pissed if that happened to me. I think you should let everyone in the forum know the name of this dealer so we can all stay away from them. Hopefully in the long run they will lose more business then they are going to make on this one ADM. Who's the dealer?

 

[Jonno21]

I'm lost for words...

 

[empowah]

When you order online, there should be a "Dealer Selling Price" and a field showing the difference from MSRP. Was the $10K ADM listed when you placed the order online?

From what I understand, Ford penalizes dealers for exceeding a certain percentage of custom ordered vehicles sold as retail (i.e., to a different buyer). Definitely reach out to Ford (perhaps Mike Levine on Twitter?) with documentation. You basically gifted an extra allocation to the dealer that they wouldn't have gotten if you didn't order from them. Frustrating!

 

[Jxmmm3]

When you order online, there should be a "Dealer Selling Price" and a field showing the difference from MSRP. Was the $10K ADM listed when you placed the order online?

From what I understand, Ford penalizes dealers for exceeding a certain percentage of custom ordered vehicles sold as retail (i.e., to a different buyer). Definitely reach out to Ford (perhaps Mike Levine on Twitter?) with documentation. You basically gifted an extra allocation to the dealer that they wouldn't have gotten if you didn't order from them. Frustrating!

The "Difference from Total MSRP" field in my order is $0.

But the dealer don't want to honor this price.

I contacted Ford customer service and they said there is nothing they can do... It sounds like Ford has very limited control over the dealers.

 

[tesla2mme]

Six months ago, I ordered a Mach-E online, put $500 deposit and chose to deliver to a nearest Ford dealership to me. When it’s finally arrived recently and I was ready to pick up my car, the sales person told me I need to pay about $10k markup, which they never mentioned during my 6 months wait time.

(Then I did some research in this forum and learned that I should get a signed agreement with dealership at the very beginning. Whoever see this post, please make sure you get that)

And I realized they have listed my car on their website and marked it as available, because at this time, they already found another customer who would like to pay the markup.

The dealer had no patience serving me at all. They refused to provide a test drive and told me I can test drive other Mach-E anywhere else like going to a Carmax. The sales person had a bad attitude and all they want is kicking me out of the game and selling the car to the person who has agreed on the markup, or maybe already sold.

Now I just wasted 6 months waiting for nothing. Not to mention being prioritized for the purchase, I wasn’t even allowed to see the car unless I can bid over the other person.


The whole experience is just extremely exhausting, frustrating and ridiculous.

I am so sorry to hear about your experience. I think this is another reason in the long list of reasons that the stealerships will be extinct soon. Not soon enough, unfortunately.

It would be nice of Ford Corporate could do something for you. It's so atrocious for them to sell your pre-order out from underneath you because you won't pay ADM, when they should absolutely not do so unless you're going to forego the vehicle.

Unacceptable, sadly, there are no consequences for stealerships that do this =/ or if there are, they must not be particularly severe.

 

[BigMach-E]

I am so sorry to hear about your experience. I think this is another reason in the long list of reasons that the stealerships will be extinct soon. Not soon enough, unfortunately.

It would be nice of Ford Corporate could do something for you. It's so atrocious for them to sell your pre-order out from underneath you because you won't pay ADM, when they should absolutely not do so unless you're going to forego the vehicle.

Unacceptable, sadly, there are no consequences for stealerships that do this =/ or if there are, they must not be particularly severe.

Actually, the consequences can be pretty severe. No more allocations. Sending messages to the standard For Customer Service line isn't going to get much here. I would agree best course of action here is to tweet Marc Levine.

 

[Reign of Ravens]

I’m so sorry to read about your experience. I didn’t know they were able to do that since the car came in your name! It was your order!

Technically, it was the dealership's order, and Jxmmm3's reservation. Ford's website uses wording that makes you think it's ordered in your name and really your vehicle, but it isn't. There's supposedly a penalty to the dealership if a customer order is sold to someone else, but given the wait times I'd imagine they make excuses to Ford (I heard from dealerships in my area about how customers' situations had changed and they passed on the car... makes you wonder if they really jumped ADM on them and the customer abandoned it in disgust, instead). If not that, then perhaps the outrageous ADM that they're getting away with more than makes up for any penalty Ford is applying.

Not to give the dealerships a pass on this scummy behavior, but Ford is really misleading all of us who did our reservation (not order) online.

When you order online, there should be a "Dealer Selling Price" and a field showing the difference from MSRP. Was the $10K ADM listed when you placed the order online?

Just a note on this... that number can change. The number was zero for me when I placed my "order" online, and then two months later the difference from MSRP changed by a few thousand. When I called the dealership out on it, they said that they don't control what's on the website; Ford does. Additionally, they said that while Ford had previously not permitted dealerships to add ADM to online customer orders, now they were being allowed to - but they would honor my original price, and ignore the website.

Do I believe everything they told me? Nope - the bit about the cost changing on the website being out of their hands sounds ridiculous. But the point is, if you haven't checked your reservation recently, you log in now, and see that the number changed... it could be something like that. My car should be delivered in 1-2 months, so I'll find out if they stick to their word at that time.

Actually, the consequences can be pretty severe. No more allocations. Sending messages to the standard For Customer Service line isn't going to get much here. I would agree best course of action here is to tweet Marc Levine.

Mike Levine was originally pretty active about this, but more recently it seems like he's not getting involved. There were two other Ford executives people would Tweet at, sometimes with some success... but I'm not sure if the executives either got tired of it, or maybe they realized it's so widespread that they can't fight it (possibly leading to Ford's splitting their divisions between traditional internal combustion engine vehicles and electric vehicles, with a plan to sell EVs more like Tesla).

Jxmmm3 has nothing to lose in this situation, so fire off those Tweets and see if it does something. Ford phone support told me previously that all pricing is handled by the dealer and they can't (or won't) get involved. They sounded pretty sincere in acknowledging that pricing issues and deceptive practices from dealerships were pretty awful, but I get the impression that Ford has less power than we'd like to think in this matter... there are a lot of local laws that empower dealerships, and unfortunately the traditional auto manufacturers have no choice but to rely on them.

 

[Mach-Lee]

The "Difference from Total MSRP" field in my order is $0.

But the dealer don't want to honor this price.

I contacted Ford customer service and they said there is nothing they can do... It sounds like Ford has very limited control over the dealers.

Can you complete the purchase online? You should see that button show up when it's delivered, you can sign online and they have to deliver it to you for the price shown.

 

[Sam2084]

This has happened before. Name and shame. The only way for them to change their mind of if they are pressured by potential customers and ford. File a complaint with corporate ASAP as well.

 

[StillWaitingForMachE]

Six months ago, I ordered a Mach-E online, put $500 deposit and chose to deliver to a nearest Ford dealership to me. When it’s finally arrived recently and I was ready to pick up my car, the sales person told me I need to pay about $10k markup, which they never mentioned during my 6 months wait time.

(Then I did some research in this forum and learned that I should get a signed agreement with dealership at the very beginning. Whoever see this post, please make sure you get that)

And I realized they have listed my car on their website and marked it as available, because at this time, they already found another customer who would like to pay the markup.

The dealer had no patience serving me at all. They refused to provide a test drive and told me I can test drive other Mach-E anywhere else like going to a Carmax. The sales person had a bad attitude and all they want is kicking me out of the game and selling the car to the person who has agreed on the markup, or maybe already sold.

Now I just wasted 6 months waiting for nothing. Not to mention being prioritized for the purchase, I wasn’t even allowed to see the car unless I can bid over the other person.


The whole experience is just extremely exhausting, frustrating and ridiculous.

Read this post, as well as the post it was replying to. As best I understand, your $500 deposit is called consideration. They legally cannot sell it to someone else unless you explicitly tell them you no longer want it. And due to that deposit they have to honor the original order sheet price.

If they still won't play ball, lawyer up.

 

[Logal727]

Name and SHAME. This is so messed up.

 

[MyLittlePony2022]

This really sucks and I am very sorry to see this happen to anyone. I think there is a great deal of peopel on this forum that have had very bad experience from their dealers. Not wanting to honor the price, not allowing X-plan discounts, ADM, excessive prices for minor add ons, playing games with financing, to just down right bad service, etc. As much as I hate not being able to try to get the cost down on a car, the one price model has some merit. Remember the Saturn model... this is what you pay and there is no negotiation. Add this to on line ordering and financing, and even have it delivered to my house, and I would be happy. Not setting foot in a dealership, is fine with me. Most of what I have seen, the sales guys do not know anything about the cars, do not do their research and know even less about Ford policy, incentives, updates, etc.

 

[Jxmmm3]

The name of the dealership is "Putnam Ford of San Mateo" in California bay area. STAY AWAY

And it's actually the same dealer in this story: https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/dealer-sold-my-reserved-car.17224/

Sponsored