Rate lock - how does that work?

[snowfreak]

I ordered 1/28/22, and my car (Prem AWD Ext. Cyber Orange) is supposed to show up at the dealer in about 2 weeks (TBD, I know it'll likely be later).

I have been reading here that many people were pleasantly surprised that they were rate locked into early-2022 APRs from Ford Financing in the 2.5ish% range, when current best-case APRs are near 5%.

I just spoke with my dealer (Sound Ford near Seattle), and he said there was no such rate lock available. I tried to push, but I don't have any real data on how that works.

Any info on these rate locks? Any specific stuff I can suggest they look up? I would love to cut that finance bill in half.

Thanks in advance for any help!

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[DaveP]

I ordered 1/28/22, and my car (Prem AWD Ext. Cyber Orange) is supposed to show up at the dealer in about 2 weeks (TBD, I know it'll likely be later).

I have been reading here that many people were pleasantly surprised that they were rate locked into early-2022 APRs from Ford Financing in the 2.5ish% range, when current best-case APRs are near 5%.

I just spoke with my dealer (Sound Ford near Seattle), and he said there was no such rate lock available. I tried to push, but I don't have any real data on how that works.

Any info on these rate locks? Any specific stuff I can suggest they look up? I would love to cut that finance bill in half.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Pull Smart Vincent Protection date - lookup by dealer to gauge incentives from time of order. This will determine value of financing due to rate and incentives. This video was done by a Ford employee -
Im also in Seattle and expecting delivery in next month so interested in what you find out.

 

[snowfreak]

Pull Smart Vincent Protection date - lookup by dealer to gauge incentives from time of order. This will determine value of financing due to rate and incentives. This video was done by a Ford employee -
Im also in Seattle and expecting delivery in next month so interested in what you find out.

Thanks for this!

I decided to email the sales manager, a person I had worked with early after my order to get a written assurance that they'd be selling me the car at MSRP, and instead of asking IF they could do this, I said:

"Hello Joe - it's been a while, but it seems we're getting toward the end of this order process.

My Mach-E is now scheduled for delivery in early-mid November. I called to ensure that my incentives are based on my order date, but the person I spoke with at your dealership didn't seem to know what I was talking about. Here's a video explaining the process in Smart Vincent to pull the incentives per my "protection date" (that link should take you directly to 4:49 where he talks about protected incentives). Would you mind pulling that info and letting me know what my protected incentives breakdown looks like?

Thanks for your help throughout this process."

He just called me a minute ago, and seemed genuinely surprised that they could pull rates from the order date, but said he'd look into it, review that video, and call me tomorrow afternoon.

We'll see - I'm about 50/50 that they just come back and tell me that they don't know what the video guy is talking about and they can't do it, but this is at least something.

I actually bought an ID.4 recently because my order for THAT came first, and so I don't NEED to buy the MME, but if they offer me a near-MSRP trade on the ID.4 and a protected rate on the MME... would be hard to say no to that.

 

[DaveP]

Thanks for this!

I decided to email the sales manager, a person I had worked with early after my order to get a written assurance that they'd be selling me the car at MSRP, and instead of asking IF they could do this, I said:

"Hello Joe - it's been a while, but it seems we're getting toward the end of this order process.

My Mach-E is now scheduled for delivery in early-mid November. I called to ensure that my incentives are based on my order date, but the person I spoke with at your dealership didn't seem to know what I was talking about. Here's a video explaining the process in Smart Vincent to pull the incentives per my "protection date" (that link should take you directly to 4:49 where he talks about protected incentives). Would you mind pulling that info and letting me know what my protected incentives breakdown looks like?

Thanks for your help throughout this process."

He just called me a minute ago, and seemed genuinely surprised that they could pull rates from the order date, but said he'd look into it, review that video, and call me tomorrow afternoon.

We'll see - I'm about 50/50 that they just come back and tell me that they don't know what the video guy is talking about and they can't do it, but this is at least something.

I actually bought an ID.4 recently because my order for THAT came first, and so I don't NEED to buy the MME, but if they offer me a near-MSRP trade on the ID.4 and a protected rate on the MME... would be hard to say no to that.

Let me know what they say. Good luck. I k mm ow others in Seattle got it so no reason you shouldn't.

 

[RedDragon]

The sales guys are playing dumb. You definitely can get your financing rates as at the time of order. They do this upfront to see if they can catch people who haven't done their research.

 

[DaveP]

The sales guys are playing dumb. You definitely can get your financing rates as at the time of order. They do this upfront to see if they can catch people who haven't done their research.

Problem is the dealership would like nothing better than you not buy the car so they can upsell it.

 

[MnSparty38]

Stuff like this is why the dealership model is destined to fail, or just keep ticking off people to eventually pick another make of EV.

 

[Tragic Apology]

Just went through this, my sales person acted like I was absolutely nuts but agreed to reach out to Ford for clarification.

Two days later I received an apology saying that they were wrong and I was approved for 2.49% and $1,000 Ford Options credit.

 

[Jay_in_Austin]

I was surprised when my dealer immediately told me that I would be getting the Jan '22 rate of 2.49% and the $1000 incentive. I was expecting them to quote the current rates until I threatened to go to my credit union.

 

[voxel]

I actually bought an ID.4 recently because my order for THAT came first, and so I don't NEED to buy the MME, but if they offer me a near-MSRP trade on the ID.4 and a protected rate on the MME... would be hard to say no to that.

I rarely go to the VW forums but there was somebody there trying to trade in an ID.4 for a new Select MME and was surprised at the low trade in values for the ID.4 (I think $43K for a $50K MSRP AWD Pro). I severely doubt you will get near MSRP for the ID.4 as that EV has always been in low-demand and used car values are in the toilet. The entire market has dropped 10-15% in the last 3 months.

I laughed at posts in the VW thread using KBB values with inflated trade in values.. that's not what dealers use to gauge values. You need to find out what MMR and BlackBook values are for your ID.4

 

[snowfreak]

I rarely go to the VW forums but there was somebody there trying to trade in an ID.4 for a new Select MME and was surprised at the low trade in values for the ID.4 (I think $43K for a $50K MSRP AWD Pro). I severely doubt you will get near MSRP for the ID.4 as that EV has always been in low-demand and used car values are in the toilet. The entire market has dropped 10-15% in the last 3 months.

I laughed at posts in the VW thread using KBB values with inflated trade in values.. that's not what dealers use to gauge values. You need to find out what MMR and BlackBook values are for your ID.4

Fair enough - we'll see how this all plays out.

 

[snowfreak]

Update: Sound Ford came back and said their new car finance person said that there was no way to get rates/incentives based on when I ordered. They suggested I call Ford for any more questions. So I did.

CSR at Ford said she saw my order had “incentive protection” but claimed her Smart Vincent couldn’t show her what that actually was. She did seem to think I was concerned about price protection through, despite repeating myself over and over that I was looking for rates and incentives. She told me to tell them to look again and refer to their ”dealer playbook.”

I have now emailed my contact at the dealer, insisting they try again with a screen cap from the relevant Smart Vincent screen. I said if he can’t pull these, then he should refer me to his manager.

I know it’s cliche at this point, but making us work this hard for what should be fucking basic is the reason dealers deserve a painful death (figuratively). This is not adding value. Quite the opposite.

 

[DaveP]

Update: Sound Ford came back and said their new car finance person said that there was no way to get rates/incentives based on when I ordered. They suggested I call Ford for any more questions. So I did.

CSR at Ford said she saw my order had “incentive protection” but claimed her Smart Vincent couldn’t show her what that actually was. She did seem to think I was concerned about price protection through, despite repeating myself over and over that I was looking for rates and incentives. She told me to tell them to look again and refer to their ”dealer playbook.”

I have now emailed my contact at the dealer, insisting they try again with a screen cap from the relevant Smart Vincent screen. I said if he can’t pull these, then he should refer me to his manager.

I know it’s cliche at this point, but making us work this hard for what should be fucking basic is the reason dealers deserve a painful death (figuratively). This is not adding value. Quite the opposite.

Can I ask what dealer in Seattle this is? Praying its not mine..

 

[snowfreak]

Can I ask what dealer in Seattle this is? Praying its not mine..

Sound Ford in Renton.

 

[RickMachE]

I know it’s cliche at this point, but making us work this hard for what should be fucking basic is the reason dealers deserve a painful death (figuratively). This is not adding value. Quite the opposite.

Here's the problem with that statement - there are 3,000 Ford dealers in the U.S. SOME of them suck. MANY of them don't. MANY of us have had zero issue with this process, zero requirement to educate dealers. ZERO.

Yes, SOME dealers need to be educated.

Yes, SOME dealers are going to screw customers regardless.

I could take any company you do business with and make the same broad statement.

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