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

[Cheshire]

I remember in 2003, I special ordered the coveted 1st gen Rubicon (still have it). I looked all over and could not find what I wanted and dealers were charging 10k over sticker if you found one at all. So I started calling around and finally talked to a knowledgeable sales person at a small east Texas dealer. He suggested just ordering one, he would sell it to me at 500 over his cost. I asked why he would do that, he said a sold order for a Rubicon gave him an allocation for 2 more Rubicons he could put on his lot and he was happy for the buisness. 4 months later on Christmas eve, it showed up and was in my garage for Christmas morning. Those were the days.
So after reading thru this exhausting post I am trying to understand the issue, because never in the history of car sales ,as far as I know, has a sold order impacted a dealers allocation for stock units. Am I to understand that because I placed my order with a small dealer that may be allocated 50 broncos, my order takes away from that total, so if I am number 51 of their orders, I won't get mine, is that right? That makes no sense for Ford or anyone. It also means that a small dealer just won't process orders that may take away from their allocation. It also seems like levines comment was very snide because there is no way 98% orders were processed thru large dealers, but anyway.
I am sticking with my very knowledgeable and solid small town dealer with my highly constrained Wildtrack order because all I got is time. Hopefully it all works out, in the mean time the 04 Rubicon is still rocking the streets and trails occasionally, I must admit I don't offroad like I once did, but still love the vehicles. Cheers

I was the first kid on the block (Boston) to get the 'new' Wrangler Rubicon. I actually bought another Wrangler in June to use for the summer and the dealer agreed to give me a good trade in value when the Rubicon came it. I think I got in September or October. No one knew what they were and 4 doors didn't exist yet. I ended up selling it to my friend a year later when I moved. It was in his garage at his Vermont ski house when there was a fire. The house and the Rubicon got completely torched. Pretty much only ashes left.

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[CPL_Rabbit]

Finally, someone answered the question because honestly I didn’t know. My questions weren’t out of sarcasm.

If you knew the line was long, then you have to wait. I don’t see why many have a problem with that. If you knew, still did the deal, then fine. I have no issue with that.

However, other stores that don’t have a nearly 1000 order list shouldn’t have to wait to get their allocated stock units until all those customer orders from small stores like Granger get filled. That’s not their problem.

It's supposed to be one line. Reservations. Reservation #1 to Reservation #150,000.

It's not a Granger line, and a galpin line, and a Chapman line, and a Smith Ford line.

The expectation, and promise by Ford, was to fill that line, commodities allowing, in order. Stock allocations should come where that's not possible. Like all of the soft-top Big Bends that they can build in between what was reserved, and buildable.

 

[niterider006]

Very true, but why is it that Ford is affected by years and I can order a Jeep Rubicon tomorrow and be driving it in less than 100 days? Ford is doing something wrong here.

This! Jeep pumped out 46,043 wranglers in the last 3 months alone. They own Ford right now in this segment and it's not even close.

 

[Bronc-O]

I read they have 800+ reservations. That means even if they got double the allocation for 2022, there are STILL hundreds pushed out to 2023 or longer.

I would never place an order with them if I was told this in advance. That begs the question, did they tell people that?

I think its more like 1200 according to them. I recall them being asked a few times about reservations and allocations and they held the numbers close. I didn't really fault them for that at the time. It just seemed like good business practice.

 

[mpeugeot]

Finally, someone answered the question because honestly I didn’t know. My questions weren’t out of sarcasm.

If you knew the line was long, then you have to wait. I don’t see why many have a problem with that. If you knew, still did the deal, then fine. I have no issue with that.

However, other stores that don’t have a nearly 1000 order list shouldn’t have to wait to get their allocated stock units until all those customer orders from small stores like Granger get filled. That’s not their problem.

Unfortunately, Ford made the mistake of saying reservations would be all filled before dealers got stock units. Honestly, there is a fair way of doing this, but no one seems willing to make a reasonable compromise.

Sure, dealers (all dealers) should get SOME stock units. This allocation SHOULD be based on whatever formula makes sense to Ford and their silly little dealership cabal. However the majority of units should be allocated to reservation holders, regardless of what dealer is awarded the business, because the reservation timestamp is supposed to be king (otherwise, why have a reservation system that isn't just local?).

If Ford were to build 15,000 Broncos per month, that would be 180,000 Broncos (an attainable number). Now, there are going to certainly be constraints and other problems which will limit production of some models. So obviously, constraints could alter the order of delivery for some, if not almost the majority reservation holders, so there is room to work.

If a maximum of 80% of builds were allocated to reservation holders, that would be 12,000 Broncos per month (and enough to clear out 144,000 reservations). If Ford doesn't have 12000 buildable reservations, well more stock units. The other 3000+ per month would be stock orders, obviously based on the allocation formula, not every dealer would get a Bronco every month due to volume differences, but it's reasonable to think that of the 36,000 Broncos per year for dealer stock that some bigger dealers might get as many as 36 per year and some might get as few as 2 per year in 2022.

This keeps the promise of largely building reservation holders first. A larger dealer would be expected to have a larger share of reservations anyway. The few exceptions where smaller dealers are successful in growing market share doesn't mean that they would benefit until the next model year with regard to allocation. There is no way to know if Granger has all the early reservations, or as in my reservation a later reservation (my second Bronco is a late reservation - Jun 2021).

I shouldn't be able to leap to the front of the line by picking the right dealer (like I did with my 2021 2 Door 2.7 Advanced 4x4 OBX Lux Tow Bronco). My expressing interest in 5 Jan 2021, ordering 4 May 2021, shouldn't have gotten me a VIN on 24 May 2021 and built on 5 Aug 2021!!! How is that fair, it's not. I jumped ahead of all those people just because I went to someone who had allocation (military auto sales) - but that's exactly what happened, and honestly, I stopped someone from getting the Bronco they probably had a 1st night reservation for!

 

[Crowza]

Not trying to place doubt on anyone but the formula that Granger posted a few days ago...has anyone actually seen this in a direct message from Ford? or is it hearsay from Granger after speaking to someone with Ford? just wondering how official this formula is...cause I have not seen anything from them yet. But I may have missed this transmission from them. haha

Granger has been totally upfront and 100% honest about communications, as has SAC... Ford on the other hand.. well they have been less than truthful throughout the entire process.

I would trust what Granger has to say before I trust Ford.

Just my $0.02.

 

[Atomicdog]

I think its more like 1200 according to them. I recall them being asked a few times about reservations and allocations and they held the numbers close. I didn't really fault them for that at the time. It just seemed like good business practice.

That is not true at all. They told EVERY person who had a reservation with them where their place in line was and if you were expected to be MY21 or 22.

 

[Bronc-O]

2% of 195K is still almost 4,000 Broncos.

I keep seeing 120k as what ended up being converted out of 195k.

 

[_finack]

Granger customers are and continue to be in line, what's the issue? Their line just happens to be the one at the very far side of the stadium that a TON of people think is the secret fast line of awesomeness, but only has 2 employees taking tickets so it ends up being a slow line.

"... secret fast line of awesomeness..." I love that

 

[Bronc-O]

No one knew allocations would move from being 50% based on the number of reservations (which already broke a promise) to 12.5%. No one could have guessed @Ford Motor Company would bend over their reservation holders that bad.

It seems like with the new formula, if you are at a bigger dealer, you'll likely be driving a Bronco in 22. Levine seemed to agree with that as well.

 

[Caseoftexas]

Very true, but why is it that Ford is affected by years and I can order a Jeep Rubicon tomorrow and be driving it in less than 100 days? Ford is doing something wrong here.

Let’s see Jeep stop making Wranglers for 25 years, then reintroduce the model in 2046 in the middle of an epidemic caused by another novel coronavirus that wreaks havoc on supply chains. Only then can you compare ordering a bronco to ordering we a wrangler.

 

[Atomicdog]

Let’s see Jeep stop making Wranglers for 25 years, then reintroduce the model in 2046 in the middle of an epidemic caused by another novel coronavirus that wreaks havoc on supply chains. Only then can you compare ordering a bronco to ordering we a wrangler.

Job 1 was originally scheduled for Dec 2020 with ramp up by 2nd quarter 2021. Ford was fully aware of supply issues at that time. Today in Oct 2021 they are barely trickling out.
Yes it's not the same and Jeep should be producing more but Ford has bungled the Bronco production outside of supply issues.

 

[Bronc-O]

Capitalism is great, Ford can choose to tilt the playing field any way they can to maximize profits or to be spiteful to a subset of their dealers.
Unfortunately what works the best financially is not always the best way to build a "Lifestyle Brand" which Ford has stated is their goal. They don't have a clear concept of what they want and it shows in this disaster of a launch.

I doubt the average Ford customer is even aware of most of the goings on. They are living life and checking in with their dealer to look for updates on their Bronco. The 5% of us here are so close to the source that we see all of the ups and downs and some overreact to each one of them.

 

[Bronc-O]

Lies!

Chapman is 5mins from me. And I transferred out and got another dealer local to me (10mins) to commit to MSRP with no issues.

Not sure who these 6 other dealers you called, but I guess I must've got lucky and found the only one you didn't call. (odd too, it was literally the first other dealer I called)

I signed a buyers order with them in January when I ordered for MSRP. Zero issues.

Sorry, I tried to stay out of this thread after my thread blew up. But misinformation to support the narrative of 'no dealer would agree to MSRP' is simply just adding gas to the fire.

It's simply not true.

My dealer hare in AZ is at MSRP. They told me they've never in history charged ADM on any vehicle and wern't about to start with Bronco.

 

[Arrowbear Rider]

I just did a search: How many Ford locations are there in the United States in 2021? There are 3,005 Ford locations in the United States as of September 28, 2021.

On this site it says 700-800 per day when 75% are Bronco, but we know that hasn't happen, so if they produce 10,000 -15,000 per month depending on the supply chain how many have been produced to date?

Let's for easy math sake, say it's 60,000 to date... I don't think they even got there yet (give me the real numbers if you have them). But for simple math, that's only an average of 20 units per dealer, there is no way a larger dealer with a great deal of lobbying power and money is going to let smaller dealers take any of their allotment. Ford may be taking the hit publicly wise, but in reality it's those dealers that are forcing Ford to shut down Garger's pipeline of what they think is their allotment due to Garger using the reservations system to sell units that they didn't already have, own or have any control over.

Ganger would need 40 units a week to fill 800 reservations in a year, that's full time job at a large metro dealer, did they really think a truck was going to show up at their dealership every day with Broncos while driving by every other dealer screaming for units?

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