What am I getting? Bad dealer behavior?

[RushMan]

While waiting for my Badlands, ordered 5 months ago, I've been biding my time reading everything I can about my new car and watching hundreds of YouTube videos.
When I got a copy of my Monroney (window sticker), I discovered something unexpected:
PRM WRAPPED HTD STR WHL
All Badlands are supposed to have the Premium wrapped steering wheel, but this one says, "Heated?"
That's supposedly only on Badlands with the Premium Package (leather seats, B&O radio, heated steering wheel, etc.).
I started looking at window stickers for Badlands for all the dealers in the area. I discovered that some of the cars without the Premium package, just say:
STEERING:TILT/TELESCOPE

My Monroney has that and the following entry:
STEERING:TILT/TELESCOPE,
CRUISE & AUDIO CONTROLS

Am I really getting a heated steering wheel even though I don't have the Premium package? Maybe only time will tell when I get delivery in a couple more weeks.

And now for the punchline to my headline:
While perusing all these dealers, I find a car configured exactly as the one I've ordered.
With a minute, it has the same VIN as my order!

Needless to say, I was on the phone immediately screaming at the dealer for advertising the car that I ordered for sale.
They claimed they didn't do it, and hat Ford places all orders on a dealer's website.

They did remove the listing for MY car from their web sites within an hour after I called them.

The other thing that I found, this dealer owns 2 Ford franchises, one in NJ and one in PA. The cars advertised on the 2 web sites are the same. When I looked at the Monroney's, the PA cars had Monroneys showing NJ deliveries.

Is this false advertising? They are advertising cars that they don't have at that dealership, and worse, IMO, cars that are ordered to retail customers and cars that are "In Transit."

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[Jmuns]

Dealers websites always show all cars coming in, regardless of them being special orders or not. This is common practice what you are seeing with your car showing on the website.

 

[RushMan]

Dealers websites always show all cars coming in, regardless of them being special orders or not. This is common practice what you are seeing with your car showing on the website.

I was even more disturbed when MY car had 17 inquiries on it and the others only had 3 or 4 inquiries. That's inquiries, not just views.
For Ford,
Green Monroney is customer ordered (aka retail), and Blue Monroney are dealer ordered cars. A Green Monroney car can be sold after the ordering customers refusal.

 

[Jmuns]

I was even more disturbed when MY car had 17 inquiries on it and the others only had 3 or 4 inquiries. That's inquiries, not just views.
For Ford,
Green Monroney is customer ordered (aka retail), and Blue Monroney are dealer ordered cars. A Green Monroney car can be sold after the ordering customers refusal.

Yep. In my opinion this is just smart business. It generates leads for them from interested buyers and they can then push dealer stock orders, or if the buyer refuses delivery they have people lined up for the sale. At least you know you ordered a car that quite a few people are interested in!

 

[RushMan]

Yep. In my opinion this is just smart business. It generates leads for them from interested buyers and they can then push dealer stock orders, or if the buyer refuses delivery they have people lined up for the sale. At least you know you ordered a car that quite a few people are interested in!

All it takes is one newbie salesman to screw up and sell a customer's ordered car.
I really don't like it, but I don't think the new CARS law to be enacted next summer covers this practice.
I fully intend to personalize and screw up my new car when I get it?
Look for my Batman thread. OK, that's just for fun and overkill, but in the direction I am planning.
https://www.broncosportforum.com/forum/threads/what-would-batman-drive.9350/

 

[Deleted member 6350]

All it takes is one newbie salesman to screw up and sell a customer's ordered car.
I really don't like it, but I don't think the new CARS law to be enacted next summer covers this practice.
I fully intend to personalize and screw up my new car when I get it?
Look for my Batman thread. OK, that's just for fun and overkill, but in the direction I am planning.
https://www.broncosportforum.com/forum/threads/what-would-batman-drive.9350/

So !!! do you have a Heated wheel or not ???

 

[RushMan]

So !!! do you have a Heated wheel or not ???

I won't know until the car gets here. I was hoping to find a car on a dealer's lot with the same items on the window sticker to check it out.
I did find a one car with that item on the window sticker, but the car hasn't been delivered to the dealer yet.
My dealer has 2 Badlands on order for stock, not yet delivered. Both of them show similar items on their Monroneys.

Other Badlands that I found on other dealers sites do not show the PRM WRAPPED HTD STR WHEL item, only the other item that I highlighted here.


I was watching a CarEdge live stream last night and they commented that the OEMs push the car listing to the dealer's websites when the VIN is issued, even before the car is built.
That practice sucks. They are selling for sale items that they don't have in possession.

 

[Granger Ford]

While waiting for my Badlands, ordered 5 months ago, I've been biding my time reading everything I can about my new car and watching hundreds of YouTube videos.
When I got a copy of my Monroney (window sticker), I discovered something unexpected:
PRM WRAPPED HTD STR WHL
All Badlands are supposed to have the Premium wrapped steering wheel, but this one says, "Heated?"
That's supposedly only on Badlands with the Premium Package (leather seats, B&O radio, heated steering wheel, etc.).
I started looking at window stickers for Badlands for all the dealers in the area. I discovered that some of the cars without the Premium package, just say:
STEERING:TILT/TELESCOPE

My Monroney has that and the following entry:
STEERING:TILT/TELESCOPE,
CRUISE & AUDIO CONTROLS

Am I really getting a heated steering wheel even though I don't have the Premium package? Maybe only time will tell when I get delivery in a couple more weeks.

And now for the punchline to my headline:
While perusing all these dealers, I find a car configured exactly as the one I've ordered.
With a minute, it has the same VIN as my order!

Needless to say, I was on the phone immediately screaming at the dealer for advertising the car that I ordered for sale.
They claimed they didn't do it, and hat Ford places all orders on a dealer's website.

They did remove the listing for MY car from their web sites within an hour after I called them.

The other thing that I found, this dealer owns 2 Ford franchises, one in NJ and one in PA. The cars advertised on the 2 web sites are the same. When I looked at the Monroney's, the PA cars had Monroneys showing NJ deliveries.

Is this false advertising? They are advertising cars that they don't have at that dealership, and worse, IMO, cars that are ordered to retail customers and cars that are "In Transit."

I wouldn't get too worked up about it. Ford does automatically dump inventory into our website feed and if the communication from the office staff who inputs that information and whoever is control of the website aren't communicating well, sometimes it'll end up online. Sounds like they took it down ASAP so they did the right thing.

 

[RushMan]

I wouldn't get too worked up about it. Ford does automatically dump inventory into our website feed and if the communication from the office staff who inputs that information and whoever is control of the website aren't communicating well, sometimes it'll end up online. Sounds like they took it down ASAP so they did the right thing.

Yes, they did remove it right away. That doesn't change my opinion of their (Ford Motor Co. and the dealer's) business practices however.

 

[69cuda340s]

When I special ordered mine it never showed up on dealer web site or on Fords search.

I don't see heated wheel as standard on Badlands in the '24 Order Guide or on there web site. But its a legal issue if its on the window sticker and not on the car. So we don't know if its bug in window sticker generation or its actually installed.

Ford removed fog lights from Big Bend on a year change over but were still on window sticker but not on car. Thread on here some where. So Ford had to give those ppl something to compensate cause legal issue for window sticker to list something and not installed....

 

[RushMan]

When I special ordered mine it never showed up on dealer web site or on Fords search.

I don't see heated wheel as standard on Badlands in the '24 Order Guide or on there web site. But its a legal issue if its on the window sticker and not on the car. So we don't know if its bug in window sticker generation or its actually installed.

Ford removed fog lights from Big Bend on a year change over but were still on window sticker but not on car. Thread on here some where. So Ford had to give those ppl something to compensate cause legal issue for window sticker to list something and not installed....

According to the Order Guide, the heated steering wheel only comes with the Premium Package. I found a couple Badlands with the dual listing of the steering wheel as in my previous post, and a couple which only listed the Wheel/Tilt/Telescope/audio controls.
I wouldn't mind Ford taking a few bucks off the price if this was a mistake on the window sticker.

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