Mike Levine saying outright he does NOT care about Granger/Chapman/SAC

[Gamecock2010]

That is the sad truth; however, these days are numbered.
The model forward, and it appears to be accelerating, is EVs and the direct to customer sales. With a significant change in what maintenance is needed, which is a huge revenue generator for dealerships, It will be interesting to see how the Legacy manufacturers can carry the weight of an outdated system and still compete.

THIS! What would have really benefitted everyone here is if they went to the direct to consumer model and cut the dealers out of the bronco all together. the business model is good for ford when they have to move other vehicles and someone else is buying in bulk and building the maintenance network. But, for something where they already had 100k + customers signed up and ready to go they could have moved to the D-T-C model and avoided the allocation mess. just my 2 cents. leave the dealers kicking and screaming instead of the customers who ultimately put their money up for your product!!

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[aj_benedetto]

I am all for smaller stores offering great deals to attract customers. I've spoken to Tom at Chapman (who isn't exactly a small store) and I don't have a single bad thing to say about him or his store. Likewise, I am sure the Granger and SAC are amazing as well, and judging by the overwhelming support for both stores on this thread they have built up a cult following (in a good way) here on Bronco6G.

What Ford has done with the 2022MY allocation formula clearly shows that they are going back to the way they have conducted business for decades (in terms of allocation) a Larger, high-volume store will always get a larger allocation no matter which way you cut it. I was surprised that Ford originally doubled down on reservation timestamp and even rewarded "smaller stores" with added allocation due to the amount of reservations they were receiving. In my opinion Ford simply didn't anticipate this, and the new allocation formula is only righting the ship in their eyes. When the original formula was released, I am sure that Ford thought that all dealers would be selling at MSRP, since the demand for Bronco is high, and there isn't really a need to add incentives/ discounts to this product. If pricing was equal across the board, then larger stores would likely get a larger number of allocations.

This is where Granger, SAC, and Chapman come into play and throw a massive wrench into the Ford allocation formula. Offering a great deal attracted so many buyers that I had customers in our own backyard (PA) asking about Granger and matching their price. I pushed our owner to match the offer, but after many conversations between our Ford Rep, and dealer owner we decided that MSRP was the way to go for now. This is where I started to get a feeling that there was something going on behind the scenes, as each time we asked the Ford rep about Granger, SAC, and Chapman he simply couldn't understand why they were offering this deal, and he was concerned that switching to those stores would likely cause unforeseen delays. Like I mentioned before the demand for Bronco was and still is through the roof, and financially it didn't make sense for us.

I am sure that at some point Ford began to get complaints from some of its larger stores about how some smaller stores are offering this amazing deal, and "poaching" customers from their own backyard. Ford as a company is really starting to trend toward having a uniform price structure, regulation of what price you can openly advertise, and a complete departure from rebates. Even though I can understand the change, I can't fully support it. At the end of the day the people who are getting hurt here are the consumers. You switched to Granger, SAC, and Chapman for a great deal, and amazing customer service; you shouldn't be punished for that.

Lastly, I can't speak for all stores, but many Ford stores are selling at MSRP and you would be surprised at the level of customer service you can get from your local Ford store. I know there are some bad apples who jack up the price, don't respond to calls/emails, etc... but that shouldn't deter you from reaching out to a local store and seeing what they can do for you. I have helped countless individuals on this site with their Bronco order, and I have even suggested Granger, SAC, and Chapman to those who wanted a better deal than what I could offer. I truly hope that Ford can find a middle ground here, so that many of us can get our Broncos sometime in the near future.

AJ
Hoffman Ford

 

[Techun]

Just sharing this because I see one of the dealers was brought up in this thread. We traded a few emails in the past about my 21 order (7/31/2020 reservation date). The 13th arrived and I go to send an email about the banks opening and this happened right after. No, I didn't attempt to email 3 more times. I only sent 1 email. The previous email was cc'd with 3 others on it. I don't know how to take this.

Yeah, I got an email later from the dealer, no idea who but it had the @dealername on it. They asked if I had any changes to my 22 bronco and to respond to the email and they would update the order. The email had bronco information but it had no signature, name, address, etc on it.

I know the dealers emails are active. To do this to a customer? I kinda feel like a sucka. Bamboolzed. Black balled by this dealer.

Do you think they have you blocked or something? 99% chance it's a technical issue, not some nefarious plot to block you. If they wanted to ignore you there are easier ways to do it. Give them a call.

 

[7722 Bronco]

I went with a small dealer that only had 6 allocations. They haven't received any Broncos yet. Mine will be their first. It is on the train. I thought it would be to my advantage not to be a small fish in a big pond. This is working for me. 7th hour res, ordered 3/12/21. No, mine is not a priority order with my dealer, the owner got that and should. His was #1, mine #2 and I will get mine first. There has been only 1 Bronco spotted in my county, soft top 4dr, and 1 in the neighboring county. Mine should be here in 2 weeks. Yes, it was a DM.

Did the same thing. Small dealer that has been nothing but straight with me over the years, no reason to jump ship. He's had some of his '21 orders come in and delivered so no reason he won't get his '22's. Just quietly watching all this unfold and everyone flocking to a random dealer across country. I feel a sense of commitment to this dealer as I'm treated like family with them. No reason to think my Bronco order would be handled any differently than a F350 or GT 500 order that I've had with them over the years. I'll see it when I see it. Some of ya'll going to stroke out from stress over this before you even get your Bronco.

 

[Heffe66413]

And the chant went out……..let’s go Levine!

 

[subshooter]

I was never impressed with this guy Levin or any of the executives at Ford. They are disconnected from their dealerships and their customers to say something like that...... And I am not a customer from one of those dealerships either.

 

[Dads_bronze_bronco]

When I placed my reservation (7/14) I chose the local dealership. A couple of months went by and I had not heard from them. I started searching the internet for information and found this forum. I assumed pricing would be MSRP across the board. Ford at the time said reservations would be filled before stock units.

Granted I did not know how the dealership model worked with Ford but became more educated on this site. I saw the deals being offered by Granger and SAC. I didn't immediately switch dealers. I started contacting my dealer and three others in the area. I could not get two of them to respond to my emails. I exchanged a few phone calls with another about pricing and after a week was basically ghosted. My emails went unanswered. My dealer said probably MSRP and when I explained the SAC deal he basically told me I was full of shit and no dealer would be doing that. I offered him SAC website information and he refused and cut me off.

I waited a couple of weeks wondering if I should make the change. I saw many on here getting MSRP answers from their dealers. Driving 3.5 hours to SAC would save me $3000. I made the change November 11, 2020. This was just a few weeks before the allocations were announced and a panic came across the forum. We went from being in the driver's seat with our reservations to having to decide to shop dealers. At that point the dealers with allocations had the upper hand. They didn't need to compete with lower than MSRP. I decided I didn't want to shop my reservation. I ended up being #104 out of 109 allocations at SAC.

At what point did I make the wrong decision? I saved $3000. I got great communication from SAC. I was within their allocations. I realized I might not get a 2022 because of how far down I was but I thought it was worth it to stay with them.

I think it is pretty screwed up that this is somehow my fault for wanting a good deal. It is my fault for not sticking to my local dealer when I could not get them to set a price. It is my fault for wanting more transparency and better communication.

I don’t think you necessarily made the wrong decision - and would think if the supply constraints correct, you’ll probably get your discounted Bronco in 2022.

That said, being outside the 1st half though, you were always at risk of 2022 based on constraints even if the top situation hadn’t happened.

Agreed the introduction of allocations and removal of XPlan price protections were a major FU to consumers. We knew Ford cannot be trusted to serve consumers versus dealers when we ordered January - March.

 

[Nodrama43]

Yep, I didn’t - nor did I trust Ford’s word because they had already broken it on XPlan for example - and that is why I decided not to risk going to SAC or Chapman.

Smart of you. Congrats.

 

[Hiwater123]

I am all for smaller stores offering great deals to attract customers. I've spoken to Tom at Chapman (who isn't exactly a small store) and I don't have a single bad thing to say about him or his store. Likewise, I am sure the Granger and SAC are amazing as well, and judging by the overwhelming support for both stores on this thread they have built up a cult following (in a good way) here on Bronco6G.

What Ford has done with the 2022MY allocation formula clearly shows that they are going back to the way they have conducted business for decades (in terms of allocation) a Larger, high-volume store will always get a larger allocation no matter which way you cut it. I was surprised that Ford originally doubled down on reservation timestamp and even rewarded "smaller stores" with added allocation due to the amount of reservations they were receiving. In my opinion Ford simply didn't anticipate this, and the new allocation formula is only righting the ship in their eyes. When the original formula was released, I am sure that Ford thought that all dealers would be selling at MSRP, since the demand for Bronco is high, and there isn't really a need to add incentives/ discounts to this product. If pricing was equal across the board, then larger stores would likely get a larger number of allocations.

This is where Granger, SAC, and Chapman come into play and throw a massive wrench into the Ford allocation formula. Offering a great deal attracted so many buyers that I had customers in our own backyard (PA) asking about Granger and matching their price. I pushed our owner to match the offer, but after many conversations between our Ford Rep, and dealer owner we decided that MSRP was the way to go for now. This is where I started to get a feeling that there was something going on behind the scenes, as each time we asked the Ford rep about Granger, SAC, and Chapman he simply couldn't understand why they were offering this deal, and he was concerned that switching to those stores would likely cause unforeseen delays. Like I mentioned before the demand for Bronco was and still is through the roof, and financially it didn't make sense for us.

I am sure that at some point Ford began to get complaints from some of its larger stores about how some smaller stores are offering this amazing deal, and "poaching" customers from their own backyard. Ford as a company is really starting to trend toward having a uniform price structure, regulation of what price you can openly advertise, and a complete departure from rebates. Even though I can understand the change, I can't fully support it. At the end of the day the people who are getting hurt here are the consumers. You switched to Granger, SAC, and Chapman for a great deal, and amazing customer service; you shouldn't be punished for that.

Lastly, I can't speak for all stores, but many Ford stores are selling at MSRP and you would be surprised at the level of customer service you can get from your local Ford store. I know there are some bad apples who jack up the price, don't respond to calls/emails, etc... but that shouldn't deter you from reaching out to a local store and seeing what they can do for you. I have helped countless individuals on this site with their Bronco order, and I have even suggested Granger, SAC, and Chapman to those who wanted a better deal than what I could offer. I truly hope that Ford can find a middle ground here, so that many of us can get our Broncos sometime in the near future.

AJ
Hoffman Ford

Wow, sounds like PA has an overabundance of stand-up dealers... (I'm getting my bronco thru Chapman Ford ) you guys need to open a store in Tennessee!!!

 

[Rev]

Do you think they have you blocked or something? 99% chance it's a technical issue, not some nefarious plot to block you. If they wanted to ignore you there are easier ways to do it. Give them a call.

It could have been a technical issue who knows. I called after I got that email reply. I told them what I said in my email to them. The conversation on the phone was like talking to a deer in headlights.

 

[Vigor]

What an obnoxious and condescending response to this. No one (I'd bet including you!) on this site knew anything about allocations and formulas and all that before this all started, much less could have predicted that it would have changed after MY21. The notion that you were "within your dealers allocation" based on your timestamp indicates that you had the same mistaken beliefs as everyone else on here. People read and relied upon Ford's (repeated!) statement that reservations would be served first, and in order, and then went out to get the best deal they could. They made the decisions that were best for them based on the facts they had at the time, and now Ford has changed the facts. Even allowing for shadiness of the car industry, how could they have possibly known that Ford was going to go in such a different direction?

I just want to add that we did in fact know about allocations. I remember it being a huge thing around here why allocations existed for reservation holders.

My dealer refused to tell me where I stood in their allocated Broncos for 2021. I'm an early day 3 reservation holder. I was pretty nervous I wouldn't make it.
The only reason my blend date is today is because I switched to soft top. Otherwise I'm sure I wouldn't have made my relatively small dealers allocation.

I don't think that other guy was bragging. I think @Dads_bronze_bronco was just being pragmatic. It absolutely was a risk going with these small dealers who historically couldn't fulfill a third of these orders (and that's me being generous in the ratio). I don't think Ford is in the right. But taking a step back and knowing the facts and history (allocation was always a 'thing')... you can see how going with these smaller dealers was a gamble

 

[Bullitt]

My response:

 

[ekim]

My dealer told me to go buy a Jeep. I think they are as frustrated as we are.

For the money of a loaded up bronco, why not just get one of these?

Ordered yesterday, have a vin today....

 

[Nodrama43]

I personally decided between the SAC and Chapman deals, and my local dealer at MSRP when I ordered in March. Both SAC and Chapman were up front when asked about where I would be in their allotment. Outside the bubble for 2021 (with a mid day two reservation). I chose MSRP at my local dealer where I was in the first third, and still am rolling to 2022. The primary reason I made that choice was 2022 allotments vs dealer stock, and dealing with a dealer three to four states away who also has a local market to serve, were risks.

Anyone in the Granger / Chapman / SAC predicament today, especially those outside the original allotment, took a gamble to get a few thousand off. They knew Ford was fluid and unpredictable. They knew dealers and markets were pressuring Ford to swing the balance. And they knew all bets were off after the 2021 known state. Or they should have.

It's that simple.

Exactly. if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. Yes it’s Ford’s fault. Trusting big corp has always been a bad idea.

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