Ask a Ford salesman anything (Incentives, Inventory, etc)

[darkbuddha]

Originally Posted by darkbuddha

You and me both... I don't know what else I can do as a customer. I make requests and get reassurances, but no action. Very frustrating, especially since I brought everything to them. I came to them about the car. I busted my ass to convince them that they should want me to buy the car there (I have no particular good reason not to buy somewhere else, even several states away). And I've had to follow up on every little thing, from initiating the pre-order to making sure the order was placed when the order banks opened, to having them register me for the GoPro incentive, to this now. I'm working 100 times harder than they are to keep my business there, and I'm starting to wonder why.

Anyway, I will call them later today about getting registered for the early order program.

Following up, after pursuing it over and over and really getting no response from the sales person or the dealership as a whole, I finally resorted to reaching out to my contacts involved in the ST program at Ford. They contacted the regional folks who contacted my dealership and walked them through the process of doing the early enrollment. Success at last! Now I just hope getting them to realize that X plan is available and sorting out the revised deal won't be nearly as problematic.

BTW, speaking of X plan, I have no idea why folks would ever pay a dime over X plan pricing on a new Ford vehicle (though I understand that it is sometimes possible to negotiate under it). I say this because there are so many ways to become eligible for X plan that there is literally absolutely no reason not to be eligible if you want to be. Heck, just joining either the Mustang Club of America or the SVT Owners Association gets you eligibility, plus you'd get to be a member of a cool Ford product related club.

Anyway, thank you again for all your help and responses. You're a heckuva a guy to do this for this community. Keep being awesome!

[rgonyer]

Sorting out the deal shouldn't be problematic. So far they have ordered the car and that's it. You probably signed a contract at a certain price with them. All they have to do is write up a new contract with the revised price. I had my dealer write up a contract at invoice + fees, but made a note on the paperwork that Z plan would be used instead if it was available from Ford. At the time it was unclear, so that protected both of us. He'll just have to write up a new contract when the car comes in.

[darkbuddha]

Yeah, the problem I've had is that they still haven't acknowledged that AXZD discount pricing is available on the Focus ST, in spite of the fact that it's been 2 weeks since it was announced. Based on their responsiveness to my order issues, I'm not terribly optimistic that they'll be any better about this, especially when it will lose them money.

[imccrea]

Well I think it is weird that they announce no Plan pricing then announce a few weeks later, oh ya we'll do it.

Makes us dealers look stupid, well the ones that don't follow Ford as much as others (ahem me).

[darkbuddha]

Knowing that they can simply refuse to honor X plan pricing is what's concerning me most now. If they drag me on and then refuse to do it, I'm stuck going to another dealer and placing a new order and losing my place in line. That would suck! Do you know if it's possible to simply move an order from one dealer to another without canceling and reordering?

[imccrea]

Originally Posted by darkbuddha

Knowing that they can simply refuse to honor X plan pricing is what's concerning me most now. If they drag me on and then refuse to do it, I'm stuck going to another dealer and placing a new order and losing my place in line. That would suck! Do you know if it's possible to simply move an order from one dealer to another without canceling and reordering?

You cannot move an order, the only thing you can do is try and get the dealer to trade for the Focus you ordered but they'd more than likely hold it just to ensure you don't get it perhaps?

Ruthless I know.

[SDJ88]

awesome thread, although I'd be lying if I said I read ALL 127 pages to find my answer, so I apologize if dupe. Anyways:

I saw a flier on another forum that had the 2011 Incentive Protection Program for Ford. I'm looking at an F150 actually, but there's a 750 trade assist right now. I have to factory order and the incentive expires early July. The dealer confirmed that my other incentives could be locked, but wasn't sure about this one. As of 2011, it looked like an excluded one. Do you know what the deal is with the trade assist for 2012? If it isn't guaranteed, any idea what the odds of the program being carried over for another month are (or incentives in general atleast holding steady?)

Appreciate the help.

[imccrea]

Originally Posted by SDJ88

awesome thread, although I'd be lying if I said I read ALL 127 pages to find my answer, so I apologize if dupe. Anyways:

I saw a flier on another forum that had the 2011 Incentive Protection Program for Ford. I'm looking at an F150 actually, but there's a 750 trade assist right now. I have to factory order and the incentive expires early July. The dealer confirmed that my other incentives could be locked, but wasn't sure about this one. As of 2011, it looked like an excluded one. Do you know what the deal is with the trade assist for 2012? If it isn't guaranteed, any idea what the odds of the program being carried over for another month are (or incentives in general atleast holding steady?)

Appreciate the help.

What we do is print out the rebates when you order and if the rebates go down you are guaranteed the higher of the 2. Now incentives could change and you could have $3,250 now with trade assistance and in July it could be $3,500 without having trade assistance it just all depends.

You can lock in trade asst, everything can be locked except for the private offers which have an expiration date on them for the customer specifically.

[SDJ88]

Yeah I was really hoping to lock them all in because I was happy with the total number, but unfortunately the dealer didn't even realize you could do this (or atleast played dumb), so I wanted a second opinion before I heard back from them on the trade assist one specifically. Now if they go up when I take delivery in July...

Thanks for your help. This is probably one of the only time I've seen an "Ask a Guy" type thread where the OP actually follows up for more than a day (let alone over a 100 pages)

[imccrea]

dealers will say that you can't lock-in and that's so they can sell from stock.