New order - can someone explain allocation and wait times and ETA?

[BalsaDust]

Allocation is something every dealer has to be able to sell new cars. Dealers are allowed a small number for "stock" units and the balance for retail sales.
Now a dealer is not going to tell you he is only allocated X number of MME's for the year and he only has two spots left in DECEMBER 2022! because he wants your business or at least your order even if you cancel later on. When I ordered my MME, the dealer told me honestly that my order wont be accepted by Ford for scheduling until Sept 21' when my spot in his allocation was available.
My dealer was honest with me and I appreciated his honesty especially when his regional manager said all dealers were booked for the year already.
True to form, my order was allocated in Sept. and then converted to a 22 model year on 10/1.
I may have a special situation since I am friends with the sales manager and I have purchased over four cars from them in the past 20 years.

Tony

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[Mach1E]

Allocation is something every dealer has to be able to sell new cars. Dealers are allowed a small number for "stock" units and the balance for retail sales.
Now a dealer is not going to tell you he is only allocated X number of MME's for the year and he only has two spots left in DECEMBER 2022! because he wants your business or at least your order even if you cancel later on. When I ordered my MME, the dealer told me honestly that my order wont be accepted by Ford for scheduling until Sept 21' when my spot in his allocation was available.
My dealer was honest with me and I appreciated his honesty especially when his regional manager said all dealers were booked for the year already.
True to form, my order was allocated in Sept. and then converted to a 22 model year on 10/1.
I may have a special situation since I am friends with the sales manager and I have purchased over four cars from them in the past 20 years.

Tony

Has anyone had an order rejected by a dealer because they were “out of allocations?”

If so I don’t ever remember reading about it.

I think allocation has to do with the few units they can order for inventory, not for customer special orders.

In other words, if 10 people ordered at the same time from a small dealer, all 10 could still get their cars.

 

[AaronTV]

Another data point. It's been 7 months since I placed my order (7/14/21) and I don't even have a build date yet. It's a premium, extended range from my local dealer in Wisconsin with a priority code of 10 (which should mean a priority build for that dealer's allocation).

I've seen folks with October orders already get scheduled for production. So, it's a pretty big mystery!

 

[1969Camaro]

Another data point. It's been 7 months since I placed my order (7/14/21) and I don't even have a build date yet. It's a premium, extended range from my local dealer in Wisconsin with a priority code of 10 (which should mean a priority build for that dealer's allocation).

I've seen folks with October orders already get scheduled for production. So, it's a pretty big mystery!

you have patience. I gave up at 6 months knowing without a build date your looking at another 3+ months if things start rolling along.

 

[Mike Curtis]

VROOM has several 2021's with very low miles available.

Thanks, but looking for a new '22

 

[Bigfeets]

First, the good news. Fordauthority reports that the Cuautitlan Assembly plant is back at full capacity (15 Feb).
Ford has some sort of system for "allocating" MME production from this plant (the only source of MME for US, Europe, Canada) that distributes by batches (guessing here) to non-US buyers. Within the US, Ford MME distribution is apparently biased in favor of ZEV states (guessing here) and within states biased to high-sales dealerships (guessing again). This makes it very difficult for a retail buyer to figure out when Ford might actually deliver. (Plus, as is commonly understood, their deliveries have lagged more from the microchip shortage than say Tesla and buyers have been frustrated by yet more postponements of their build and delivery dates.)

 

[Mike Curtis]

First off, THANK YOU ALL for taking the time to comment! I'm new to this game, first time I've ever pre-ordered a car, and only my third new car ever (I'm still driving the first two). My last new car was over a decade ago, the last year they built the Honda Element which is my daily driver. That and the Acura RSX a decade before it I just reached out to all the dealers I could with a spec and sought out the best price. Even then, pretty much all of them gave a very slight discount and "We'll match any price!" - so very frustrating. I SO wish all would to go a more Tesla like approach - here's the price, guaranteed, and you'll get it around X date. The dealer allocation process is such a prioritization of the dealer's wants over us buyers - I honestly don't give a damn how many each dealer gets; the way Ford presents/implies it as "specify what model you want, then pick the dealer where you want it delivered" is so far from the truth of "pick a dealer blindly hoping that the number of orders ahead of yours and how many cars Ford feels like sending them is favorable to you" is far too opaque, unfair to customers, and frustrating. It should be like a delicatessen - come in, get a number, wait for it to be called, then order what you want. I realize with parts shortages Ford is prioritizing more profitable models, and I can't really blame them too much for that. Prioritizing states with Z-EV incentives benefits me in California so I won't gripe about that either, but for others I see how it is a valid sore point. I wish there were publicly available data that would help us find the quickest path to getting the car we want - I'd gladly travel to pick up my car (I flew Austin to Houston to pick up the Acura RSX Type S when they were a brand new model, and the dealer was great and fetched me from the airport).

I'd just settle in and wait, since I have two working cars, but the used car premium may well be gone by the time my order comes up, so I'm thinking of trying to get one for a few thousand over sticker in the next several months if any dealers will accept that.

In any case, I think I'm going to take two paths:
1.) Wait for the car
2.) Offer $3K over MSRP and see if any dealer will bite - that's what I'm guessing (totally winging it) my two cars will depreciate over that time (2011 Honda Element AWD EX and 2002 Acura RSX Type S).

Thanks again all!

-mike

 

[nvabill]

Here is a great article I got off the Bronco 6G forum about how some Bronco reservation holders are being pushed way down the line because they ordered from Granger Ford who does not have enough allocation to fill all orders received.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...-99s-my-bronco/ar-AATK0l8?ocid=BingNewsSearch

 

[Mike Curtis]

Here is a great article I got off the Bronco 6G forum about how some Bronco reservation holders are being pushed way down the line because they ordered from Granger Ford who does not have enough allocation to fill all orders received.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...-99s-my-bronco/ar-AATK0l8?ocid=BingNewsSearch

Good to know! So I searched to find out the kind of volume the dealership I selected has, and it turns out Galpin Ford is one of the higher volume sales dealerships in California, so that bodes well.

(I selected them because they were highly rated for favorable sales experience)

 

[nvabill]

Good to know! So I searched to find out the kind of volume the dealership I selected has, and it turns out Galpin Ford is one of the higher volume sales dealerships in California, so that bodes well.

(I selected them because they were highly rated for favorable sales experience)

Yeah I found the article pretty interesting as it was known Granger took a lot of Bronco orders because they were discounting. This article really breaks down how bad the situation had become. I'm with you, the larger dealers are better when you order something due to a higher allocation, in my opinion.

 

[Mike Curtis]

I'm with you, the larger dealers are better when you order something due to a higher allocation, in my opinion.

Yeah, but I only did it out of blind luck - discovering they were high volume was after the fact. Also, just blind luck that I happened to place the order 2 days before they were "closing" - but (just now checked up to the point of entering credit card info) it seems they are still taking orders.

 

[nvabill]

Yeah, but I only did it out of blind luck - discovering they were high volume was after the fact. Also, just blind luck that I happened to place the order 2 days before they were "closing" - but (just now checked up to the point of entering credit card info) it seems they are still taking orders.

Check this out from Walnut Creek Ford, seems the order banks are not closed yet.

https://www.walnutcreekford.com/mache.htm

 

[Tngo23]

Just pointing out that Ford said "28+ weeks" not "28 weeks". Most of us here tend to ignore the "+".

Good point and everything nowadays is subject to change.....Chip shortage, etc....

 

[Mike Curtis]

...so based on that I ordered an Iced Blue Silver otherwise same as Rapid Red I'd ordered from Galpin - I could go either way on the color. Lets see who comes in first.

Dealer rep called within two minutes, had a nice conversation, and when I mentioned I knew it would be a while he said something about probably 8 months (grain of salt etc).

Interestingly, the two orders (one placed 2/10/22 in evening, 2nd placed 2/15/22 2pm-ish, are 13,472 apart - does that number increment based on ALL Ford sales (my guess), or just Mach E's? Anybody know?

 

[Mike Curtis]

Curious, would you defend FORD if they delivered your MY22 in 2032? Cause you know +..

Nope, I wouldn't defend Ford if it took that long, but I think the OP is reasonably pointing out that Ford is saying it'll take at LEAST 28 weeks - to presume 28 at this point is naively optimistic, IMHO.

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