Ford Marketing / Protection Issue!?

[sajohnson]

Not yet, I have some legal matters I’ve been attending to and have been doing lots of prep, for my first two day camping trip, to the mountains, with my brother, before we go to the NH Off rodeo, in September.

By legal matters I assume you mean something other than this issue. When you have time, I think you may find the thread I linked to above (in post #10) helpful. If the dealer doesn't realize the gig is up when they are presented with memos from Ford stating that your BS is price protected, then maybe the attorney you are working with could write them a letter. That usually does the trick.

Have a great time camping! It may be too late for this trip, but a serious cooler is really nice to have. The big name of course is Yeti. They're nice, but very expensive. We ended up with this one:
https://www.costco.com/cascade-mountain-tech-80-quart-rotomolded-cooler.product.100480699.html

Still expensive, but more reasonable than a Yeti. There are other sizes. They keep ice for days and (unlike the typical Colemans, Igloos, etc.) are very solidly built -- "Certified Bear-Resistant by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee". If you haven't seen the actual Grizzly bear tests they are hilarious. It's the last cooler you'll ever buy.

There are a bunch of YouTube comparison tests of coolers that show the differences in construction and performance. There may be better values now -- the Cascade seemed the best when I bought it a few years ago.

The Off-Rodeo sounds fun. I've gotten a lot of emails about it. Off course NH is beautiful. The hold-back for us is that we'd have to drive both the Badlands and our View (RV) because we have a South African Mastiff/Rottweiler that is both a bad-ass (chases bears away) and the biggest mama's girl on the planet. She acts like the world is ending when my wife goes to the grocery store without her. I suppose we could find a pet-friendly hotel but we could not leave her alone because she would bark and howl the entire time. There's just no good way to handle it.

Actually, the northern section of our road is not county-maintained and is a 2-track Jeep trail, but it doesn't hold a candle to serious off-roading trails.

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[jimharrison1950]

The issue is with the dealer, not Ford. I'm surprised that Chapman is doing this. They have been a pretty good dealer based on the G6 site. That could really rub some people there wrong as they sold a bunch and most were under price protection.

Chapman is price gouging right now. $5000 over MSRP and San Tan is $10000 over. Crooks. The only fair ones out there is Rodeo.

 

[sajohnson]

I copied what Escape2Bronco wrote, for context:

Escape2Bronco said:
"The issue is with the dealer, not Ford. I'm surprised that Chapman is doing this. They have been a pretty good dealer based on the G6 site. That could really rub some people there wrong as they sold a bunch and most were under price protection."

Chapman is price gouging right now. $5000 over MSRP and San Tan is $10000 over. Crooks. The only fair ones out there is Rodeo.

There seems to be some ongoing confusion between orders, and "off the lot"/in-stock sales.

Orders (like the OP's) are covered by Ford's "Price Protection Program" which guarantees that a buyer will pay the agreed-upon price when their order was placed. In a perfect world, a "program" would not be necessary -- OF COURSE a customer should pay the price they were quoted -- but in car sales apparently the mfr must confirm that in writing to (hopefully) get the dealers to behave ethically.

In-stock sales are different. Anyone who has read my posts knows that I am not exactly a defender of dealerships, but unless their franchise agreement stipulates otherwise, they are free to sell a vehicle that they own for whatever the market will bear. It's not any different from any of us trading in or selling a car -- we want top dollar. Why should we sell a vehicle for less than its value, just to have the buyer turn around and flip it and pocket the difference?

Believe me, I've been on the wrong end of ADM several times over the years. It was aggravating, but the dealer knew that someone with more money than sense would pay the mark-up. So I walked. There's nothing more you can do -- try to haggle with them or buy something else.

The main issue is the existence of "MSRP". People have (rightly) come to believe that, in an ordinary market, MSRP is for 'suckers and losers'. "No one pays MSRP" -- let alone thousands of dollars OVER MSRP. Of course, this is not a normal market. With high-demand vehicles like the BS, buyers will pay MSRP for special orders, but generally over MSRP for a BS on the lot.

I don't like it either, but it's 'the free market' at work. Those willing to order and wait months can save thousands of dollars. If a buyer needs a car immediately, the dealer knows they can charge more.

Edit to add: There are exceptions to MSRP for orders -- like Granger, see the thread '6% under invoice'. AFAIK, that deal is still being offered. They are an exception though. The vast majority of dealers are doing orders for MSRP plus a bs "Doc Prep" fee (amount varies by state).

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