The sorry tale of my order

[jericho]

so I had posted that my dealer didn't contact me about my order, and I finally realized that I had missed out on some options (as i was too trigger happy) and ordered the standard, instead of the premium (once you add the options i wanted, it wasn't that much difference in price). I finally decided to call them. However, i was given the runaround (not unexpected, i have NEVER had good luck with any Ford dealership). First was, oh, i'll get someone to call you back, wait, oh, Ford tightly controls this, please call their 1800 number. After i almost blew my top, the sales person finally said "my manager will help you change the order". a week passes, i call him - oh, we just launched the bronco, so things are busy, please wait.

I finally call the 1800 number - person say, once the order is confirmed, it's in the hands of the dealer. I told her my story, and she insists that they have the proper resources to change anything I want. She goes as far as to call the dealership for me, but gets a voice mail - go figure. She leaves my info, and tells me that they should be contacting me. I got no call, it's been 2 days. The dealership is ghosting me.

So here i am, 23 days after placing my order, while it was accepted on the same day - no one in the dealership seems accountable for this. I asked the customer service person if i can cancel and bring my order to another dealer - she told me, sorry, it's in the dealers hands, and they would be the one offering me a refund of the 500$.

sigh, as much as i am excited by the car (and generally like Ford), the dealerships really drive me nuts. This is becoming yet another bad experience. I'm reduced to ranting on the board, not sure how to proceed. A part of me just wants to place another order with another dealer - but i don't want to be out 1000 and having to deal with 2 bad dealerships.

sigh.

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[portlandg]

so I had posted that my dealer didn't contact me about my order, and I finally realized that I had missed out on some options (as i was too trigger happy) and ordered the standard, instead of the premium (once you add the options i wanted, it wasn't that much difference in price). I finally decided to call them. However, i was given the runaround (not unexpected, i have NEVER had good luck with any Ford dealership). First was, oh, i'll get someone to call you back, wait, oh, Ford tightly controls this, please call their 1800 number. After i almost blew my top, the sales person finally said "my manager will help you change the order". a week passes, i call him - oh, we just launched the bronco, so things are busy, please wait.

I finally call the 1800 number - person say, once the order is confirmed, it's in the hands of the dealer. I told her my story, and she insists that they have the proper resources to change anything I want. She goes as far as to call the dealership for me, but gets a voice mail - go figure. She leaves my info, and tells me that they should be contacting me. I got no call, it's been 2 days. The dealership is ghosting me.

So here i am, 23 days after placing my order, while it was accepted on the same day - no one in the dealership seems accountable for this. I asked the customer service person if i can cancel and bring my order to another dealer - she told me, sorry, it's in the dealers hands, and they would be the one offering me a refund of the 500$.

sigh, as much as i am excited by the car (and generally like Ford), the dealerships really drive me nuts. This is becoming yet another bad experience. I'm reduced to ranting on the board, not sure how to proceed. A part of me just wants to place another order with another dealer - but i don't want to be out 1000 and having to deal with 2 bad dealerships.

sigh.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to visit your dealer IN PERSON. Bit hard to ignore you/fob you off of you are stood in front of them. Just a thought.

 

[jericho]

Perhaps it would be a good idea to visit your dealer IN PERSON. Bit hard to ignore you/fob you off of you are stood in front of them. Just a thought.

sorry, getting frustrated over the phone is one thing, storming out of a dealership mad is not something I want to risk. No car is worth that

 

[cjljr41]

I'm also having a hard time getting my $500 refund from the dealer. They keep claiming that it's Ford who owes it to me...Ford says no, it's the dealer...

 

[dbsb3233]

So here i am, 23 days after placing my order, while it was accepted on the same day - no one in the dealership seems accountable for this. I asked the customer service person if i can cancel and bring my order to another dealer - she told me, sorry, it's in the dealers hands, and they would be the one offering me a refund of the 500$.

Sorry to hear that. Hopefully they come around.

I have my own dealership battle going on that I detailed in another thread. They basically hijacked my reservation by turning it into (pending) order status without my approval. Before I got a chance to confirm purchase details with them (i.e. confirm X-Plan pricing, no other add-ons, and refundable dealer deposit should I decide to back out after finally getting to sit in one). It was probably by mistake since they got nearly everything wrong about how the Mach-e order process actually works. But when I called the Ford Mach-e helpline, they said once it's moved from reservation to order status (even just pending, before hitting SUBMIT), it apparently can't be moved back to reservation status (although the rep on the helpline didn't exude 100% confidence either). Meaning it's now locked to that dealer. Proceed or cancel (losing my spot in line) appear to be the only paths now, although I'll make another attempt with Ford to fix things if the dealer doesn't get it right.

 

[dbsb3233]

sorry, getting frustrated over the phone is one thing, storming out of a dealership mad is not something I want to risk. No car is worth that

I'm the same way. I'd much rather deal with it from home where I have all my info laid out and it's easier to keep the emotions in check if things get messy. I go even one step further, insisting on communicating by email whenever possible rather than phone. That way I've got everything in writing and can print it off later if they try to bait & switch at delivery. I can also more carefully and precisely word things as needed. In person I tend to fumble and forget pieces.

My dealership's last email said they thought customers actually purchased the Mach-e directly from Ford, and the dealership was only the pick-up point. I WISH!!!

 

[JamieGeek]

My dealership's last email said they thought customers actually purchased the Mach-e directly from Ford, and the dealership was only the pick-up point. I WISH!!!

That is funny! The dealership is so ignorant they don't even realize that there are laws in place (depending on your state, of course) that make that impossible (hence Tesla's many trials and tribulations in various states...).

 

[TheSteelRider]

Thanks for sharing your story, I am sad to hear this bad experience. This is what the internet is good at, transparency. We know from other posts in other threads there are folk from Ford Corporate that read this forum, and we also know that there are some dealerships and/or salespeople that read this forum as well. I hope they are reading these negative experiences and taking them to heart.

In addition to lawyers, dealerships are almost universally hated. We all have our bad experiences. I have a truly horrific story of my own that involves a complicated bait-and-switch with forged documents and layers of lies. Since I had that experience, all my interactions with dealers are, I show up pick a vehicle, state a price, I answer "no thank you" to every question they ask, and I just walk out if they drag it on too long, etc. You'll be surprised how many people will call you begging to come back when you walk out. I had a nice gentleman at a dealership literally run after my car as I was leaving. Quite satisfying. Rage Against the Machine said it best, gotta take the power back .

 

[janitorjim]

here is my tale which really isn't bad until I the future when I find out I don't really have an order. I tried to order on the internet but kept getting a transaction unsuccessful error when trying to place the deposit. Tried several times even called my credit card to see if there was issue and they said no but that that the dealership was canceling the order as soon as it came in.
So the next day I go to the dealer to the order in person and the special order manager did it in 5 mins but said someone would call me to get the deposit later in the week. That afternoon I got an email from ford that I have an order number. This was a saturday. Well monday comes around and I see 7 pending transactions from the dealer for $500 dollars.
I freaked out. Call the dealer no one willing to help me. Get sent to service billing they send me to voice mail of accounting which I leave my number then call the credit card company and they say since it is pending nothing they could do now but to see if it drops off because it was probably from the internet orders that were cancelled. 3 days later they have dropped off and I still have an order number for a premium ER and still have not paid my $500.
So either I will get a delivered MME without paying the deposit or will not have MME come next year.

 

[dbsb3233]

I had a nice gentleman at a dealership literally run after my car as I was leaving.

And you were smart enough to not give them the keys to your car to evaluate for trade-in. We've had that happen a time or two, then they basically hold your keys hostage doing through the usual arm-twisting gauntlet. The last time that happened (and it will be the last since we'll never do that again) we ended up raising our voices and threatening to call the police if they didn't give us our keys back NOW! (Actually we knew enough to only give them a spare key... if we had to we'd have just walked out and used our regular key, since the car was still parked out front.)

We got hit with an "advertising fee" pass-thru one time too, not realizing that's a rip-off.

 

[buzznwood]

Sorry to hear of your troubles and hope it all gets sorted out. The day dealers are confined to the history books and replaced with service only centers the better. The whole dealer experience can be replaced by a website cutting out the needless middle man.

I was hoping that Ford would have made it possible to do the whole thing online while still offering going through to dealer to get around antiquated laws that now only serve to benefit dealers while being a detriment to consumers and manufactures.

So far the only options for a complete online experience are limited to the Telsa and the Polestar 2, hopefully as time goes on that number will increase significantly.

 

[TheSteelRider]

And you were smart enough to not give them the keys to your car to evaluate for trade-in. We've had that happen a time or two, then they basically hold your keys hostage doing through the usual arm-twisting gauntlet. The last time that happened (and it will be the last since we'll never do that again) we ended up raising our voices and threatening to call the police if they didn't give us our keys back NOW! (Actually we knew enough to only give them a spare key... if we had to we'd have just walked out and used our regular key, since the car was still parked out front.)

We got hit with an "advertising fee" pass-thru one time too, not realizing that's a rip-off.

Indeed! Sounds like we've both been burned a time or two by the same ole tricks. Which is sad that these shenanigans are so prevalent.

 

[JCHLi]

I'm also having a hard time getting my $500 refund from the dealer. They keep claiming that it's Ford who owes it to me...Ford says no, it's the dealer...

Was the a deposit paid for an actual order, or the deposit paid online with your reservation?

 

[cjljr41]

Was the a deposit paid for an actual order, or the deposit paid online with your reservation?

Deposit was paid on an actual order.

 

[JCHLi]

Deposit was paid on an actual order.

So if it was an actual order (assuming USA) the $500 deposit is paid to the dealer. If you look at the credit card transaction (assuming you paid by cc) it should show the name of the dealership.

The only deposit paid to Ford was with a reservation.

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