It's those dealers that give all dealers a bad rap.

 

Not to call all dealers sleazy and I'm sure Frantz is a stand up guy, but in buying A LOT of cars, truck, RV's, and powersports over the years, I've seen a LOT of sleazy things happen. Either happen to me when I was more inexperienced or attempt to happen to me when I was educated enough to say... nope. Now I question everything as a self preservation technique. And, since I'm a research fanatic, I like to find it in writing and share when I can to help others avoid some of the mistakes I have made in the past. I realize the dealer has to make money and I'm fine with that. Just don't lie (too much) to me and try to retire on my deal. Yes, it's a stereotype that dealers are out to screw you but stereotypes are formed for a reason. If, for example, I catch 7 out of 10 dealers doing something underhanded, what am I going to go into the next deal anticipating???

 

That's typically how it's done, and then we reduce the cost of the vehicle on the buyers order accordingly. About the only time I ever have customers sign for the check to go to them is for commercial upfit rebates, because often it's something they want done after the deal is done (like adding graphics or racks, but they wanted to shop their own, or I just wanted to close the deal). Then the customer is paying for something and Ford is paying them back. Not that you couldn't get a check directly from Ford, but I've yet to ever not put a rebate into the deal being financed. It would be possible to sign for the rebates but not have it on the buyers order and therefore the sleezy dealer could keep it as added profit, but that couldn't be done without the customer signing. I suppose I wouldn't put it past some to sign on the customers behalf and just hope the signatures pass an audit. I suppose based on the number of dealers, there may well be one or two that would actually try and pull that off. Still I find the avg consumer isn't clear on how X plan works. You could do X plan and 0% and be told you don't qualify for additional rebates and that may well be completely accurate. As I said before, most often I have folks work with me and negotiate below X plan (our TrueCar pricing is below X plan for example) and a customer will think they are being a smart shopper by bringing up X plan at the end. It's not a golden ticket, and as has been said many times on this forum, is a good price, but not the best for most markets.

Also as I've said many times, the sleezyness is often consumer driven. I have lost more deals being honest with folks, because honest numbers look higher than lies. Customers want to make sure they get the best deal so they'll go check out the too good to be true figures, find out they were not what they thought, but the friendly guys there will work with them to match or beat my upfront honest figures. And regardless of how nice I am, who really wants to travel back 30 minutes to say "Doug you were right" when they can just wrap it up with the same truck there and now. It's the nature of the business. Thankfully I'm at the point where about half my monthly business is repeat customers, so we don't have to fight. But getting to this point meant giving up a good chuck of cash in my pocket. With the industry being mostly new folks with high turn over rates, sleeze pays the bills quicker because of how customers shop.

 

And in this area of the country "That is HUGE my friend, HUGE"

 

Frantz, thanks for the detailed data.


I was talking to the local Dealer's Sales manager and asked what would be the price of a 17 F250 SRW KR. I explained to him that I am retired Navy and would be using the Navy Federal buying program (which I think is 300 below x-plan) and he stated that they do not support any of the buyer programs other than X-plan because it costs the dealer to much to participate. Is that true? I thought the buyer programs (TrueCar, Navy Federal, etc) were supported by Ford Corp.


Thanks again,
David