We Got Lucky

[60sFordGuy]

Last July, my wife and I put down a $500 deposit and ordered a 2021 MME, Premium, AWD, ER, Iconic Silver exterior, Light Space Gray interior, from our Tucson, AZ dealer. We got a flurry of propaganda e-mails designed to keep interest and excitement up (and it did), but no actual information on when we might receive the car. Following the news on the internet, we learned of various reasons why there were production problems at the one and only MME assembly plant in the world. We discovered the internet feature whereby you could examine Ford dealers' MME inventory, if any, and started following the availability within 125 miles of Tucson, which included Phoenix. Then we got an e-mail from Ford telling us that our choice of exterior colors was no longer available - pick another. We picked Space White Metallic. Then we got another e-mail from Ford telling us that 2021 model year car production was shutting down, but that our order was changed to 2022 model year and that we were near the front of the line. We heard that production was to restart November 29th. We constantly bombarded our poor salesman with questions about when our car would arrive, and he gave us his best estimates which, unfortunately proved to be inaccurate. We went up the chain of command and got a spread sheet of build and price information. We discovered this forum and put our build information on the list amongst the other thousands of people wanting to know when they would get their cars. Then on February 14th, as I was reviewing dealer inventory, and getting the usual zero for the Tucson dealers, I was shocked to see that two of the Phoenix dealers had just received five MMEs, and one of them was exactly the way we had ordered ours. I called the Phoenix dealer and confirmed they had the car and it was for sale. I bought it over the phone, sight unseen. We drove up to Phoenix the next day and drove it home to Tucson. Surprisingly, it was built in December as a 2021 model. So the wait is over. When we got it home, I looked on the forum's order list (I was #1938) and there was still no information on a build date for our car. So I filled out a change form, giving you our actual VIN, build date, and delivery date. The Tucson dealer refunded our $500 deposit. I'll still hang around the forum as there is a huge amount to learn about these cars even though we had already had an EV for the previous four years (2017 Chevy Bolt).

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[Nklem]

Congratulations. That Ford Search tool is how I found my star white premium ER AWD. Sitting on a dealers lot for 3 weeks At MSRP.

 

[60sFordGuy]

I wish I could be as pleased with the two dealers I dealt with as Norm in Maine and the gentleman from Ohio whose name I have lost. I would have been pleased if I could have gotten the car for MSRP, but the Tucson dealer I started with put on the dealer add ons and drove the price up into the $60 Ks. He wouldn't honor X-plan pricing, but he would give me a $500 military discount. And I did get a written price quote with everything in detail. The Phoenix dealer where the car was hit me with a price of $70,000. I said, "No way!" even though I knew I was probably throwing away my only chance to have a car in forever. They also insisted on the dealer add-ons and would not even give me the paltry military discount. I did finally get them down to within $3000 of where the Tucson dealer was, which I viewed as a small victory. They were disappointed when I would not finance the car. I would characterize both dealers' behavior as essentially typical - not reputable, which would be at MSRP, and which admittedly in this case would leave a lot of profit money on the table, but not unbelievably greedy like the one in Virginia ($113,000). I'm just glad we have the car.

 

[RickMachE]

I wish I could be as pleased with the two dealers I dealt with as Norm in Maine and the gentleman from Ohio whose name I have lost. I would have been pleased if I could have gotten the car for MSRP, but the Tucson dealer I started with put on the dealer add ons and drove the price up into the $60 Ks. He wouldn't honor X-plan pricing, but he would give me a $500 military discount. And I did get a written price quote with everything in detail. The Phoenix dealer where the car was hit me with a price of $70,000. I said, "No way!" even though I knew I was probably throwing away my only chance to have a car in forever. They also insisted on the dealer add-ons and would not even give me the paltry military discount. I did finally get them down to within $3000 of where the Tucson dealer was, which I viewed as a small victory. They were disappointed when I would not finance the car. I would characterize both dealers' behavior as essentially typical - not reputable, which would be at MSRP, and which admittedly in this case would leave a lot of profit money on the table, but not unbelievably greedy like the one in Virginia ($113,000). I'm just glad we have the car.

You made a mistake not financing the car, then paying it off the next week. $1,000 or $2,500 lost in incentives from Ford Credit.

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