Hi all - I'm new to this forum so please bear with me. . .

I'm fortunate enough to have a retired Ford employee friend connect me with the Xplan. I have the pin #, etc. and ready to order the truck. When I'm at the dealer, he tells me I'll qualify for the Ford incentives that are available at the time of delivery, not the time when I order it. Then he says it could take anywhere between 6-12 weeks to get the truck delivered after ordering. It seems odd to me that I should order a truck, with a deposit, not knowing how much it'll end up costing me when I come to pick it up.

My Ford friend says this is nonsense and I should have all the current incentives locked in, knowing the full/total price at the time of the order. She's suggesting I should walk away.

Anyone have any similar experiences to share? Thanks!

 

The dealer doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Find another dealer who does.

 

1) Do not put a deposit down, that is ridiculous to do. Absolutely no need.

2) Yes the dealer can lock them in. It takes a few minutes of their time to submit to Ford.

I agree, walk away.

 

Agree with walking away and finding another.
Incentives should be locked in now and then checked at delivery and you should get whichever is better.

Order time varies, so 6-12 seems right, 8-10 would be more realistic.

Where are you located, may be worth driving somewhere to get a better deal?

 

I’d say it’s at least worth giving the sales rep a chance to ask their manager specifically about Ford’s Incentive Protection Plan. That’s how they can lock in the incentives now, and even after doing that if the incentives are higher at the time of delivery you can switch to those.

There have been enough threads on here talking about it that it’s clear some sales reps just don’t know about it. But if they go ask their manager about the plan mentioned above, they’ll probably come back with a different answer - they all need to learn too and I don’t think dealers really train this piece.

 

Without question you receive any discounts available on the date you sign the contract.

In addition, I’ve always received any new or increased discounts available right up through the date I’ve taken delivery. Just check the online ads for the dealership the day the you pick it up. The dealership just gives me a check for the added discounts.

 

All of this has been covered in detail in various recent posts. Searching is your friend -- you'll get a lot of information and experiences by searching these topics.

Deposits are normal and there's nothing nefarious about it. Quid pro quo. The dealer is assuming some risk (particularly at this time of year) by investing time, energy, and resources to order a vehicle with the expectation that a buyer has already been identified. Same with other capital purchases of real property, such as buying land, building a house, etc. Some nominal deposit to demonstrate commitment is generally requested by the seller. Some dealerships don't require a deposit, some do. The ones that don't aren't necessarily better than those that do.

Incentives are locked in at the time of order. It's supposed to give the buyer the advantage. If Ford corporate incentives get better, you can take those when you buy ... if they get worse, you get to select the old ones that were in place when you ordered. Win-win. If the dealership doesn't know how to lock in an incentive, just go up the chain a bit. If nobody there knows how to do that, then it's time to find a new dealer.

X-Plan is a good starting point. It's about the same as invoice (~6% off MSRP), but has the added advantage of limiting any dealership fees to $100. I bought my F-150 under X-Plan. This time around, I got $1,200 lower than X-Plan. $1-3K under X-Plan is fairly common, but not automatic. You can shop around a bit, if you want to save a tad more. For anyone else, if you don't know a Ford employee or have other access, you can simply pay $25 and get X-Plan ... just know that membership-based X-Plan access requires 60 days to be valid (not all dealerships will verify, but it's a hard rule of the Ford X-Plan program).

Read up on PCOs here. This can net you another $2,500+.

 

Just from reading other posts, it seems like most of us have done considerably better than X Plan when ordering our trucks. Doc fees are the big question mark but like everything else, they’re negotiable. If you can wrangle the fees down on your own or if you happen to live in a state that has a reasonable cap on them, you can save quite a bit over X Plan. Of course, X Plan eliminates any negotiating and makes things easy-peasy and that may be valuable to you too. And yes, you can lock your incentives but if the incentives are better at the time of delivery you can take the better offer. It’s really a win-win for you.

 

This could be a regional thing, but admin/doc/dealership fees are technically not negotiable in my experience. They will always be on the final paperwork and will be there in full. That's why it's critical to include them in your discussions.

If you work hard to drive to a $10,000 OTD price, you will find your paperwork with: $10,000 + $500 = $10,500 bottom line (assuming this dealer has a $500 fee). And, when you go back and say, "Umm, no ... we agreed on a OTD price of $10,000 and I have a check for $10,000," the final paperwork will look like: $9,500 + $500 = $10,000 bottom line. That fee isn't going anywhere. Ever. Not in my experience (which may not be your experience).

The last three car purchaes I've made all worked exactly the same way -- the agreed upon price + fee, followed by my disapproval, followed by them reducing the purchase price to accommodate the dealer fee. The fee doesn't move ... the price does. I've never been able to get a dent on the fee ... they just adjust the price. To me, it's all the same, but to the dealer it matters. And, it also matters because it's not going to be a good plan to assume that you can just negotiate the fees away.

I only mention this so that your shopping process includes it ... constantly make sure that the numbers you discuss are inclusive of fees. With X-Plan, it's much easier, because it will be $100. Capped by Ford.

 

When I used my X plan it stated plain and simply that incentives were applied at the time of purchase, not at the time of ordering. It said so right there in plain english on the order system. As such, I missed out on a military discount but another had 'kicked-in' by the time my truck arrived (I think it was 6 or 8 weeks).

They also had an incentive for taking a loan which I could then pay off after 3 or 4 payments. I passed on that as it wouldn't have been worth it after figuring dock stamps (loan fees), etc. So I passed on that.

Shop around. If you find exactly what you want at a price you like, get it. If not you always have the x plan to fall back on.

 

You can lock in incentives of Xplan, many have done it including myself twice.

You also do not have to keep any Ford loan for 3-4 months. Once you sign, you get the rebate immediately and you can refinance it from that day forward with zero penalty to you.

The 17 fusion I ordered got locked in on Xplan. When it got delivered, the rebate dropped and the financing changed from 0%/72 to 0%/60. The locking on Xplan got me the 0/72 and the larger rebate even though they ended over a month prior to it showing up at the dealer.

 

Thanks for the comments everyone; I'm going to visit another dealer tomorrow.

 

Why not? On the last three cars you bought, you made them go away. Can’t we all assume that we can do the same thing? Like you stated, whether they go up in smoke or force a reduction in the sale price, we don’t care. Depending on what state you’re in, the reduction in sale price may be beneficial since the vehicle may have different tax treatment than the fees do. I guess my point is, yeah, I’m going to assume I can make them go away..... one way or the other.

 

A dealer I was talking to about possibility ordering a new F250 (under A Plan pricing), said I would get the rebates/incentives available right now, or the rebates/incentives available at time of delivery of the truck, which ever were better.

Ultimately, I decided to stick with my HDPP equipped 2014 F150.

 

The incentives can be protected by the dealer once a VIN has been issued by Ford. If the incentives get better, you can go with them. The VIN is usually issued once the vehicle is scheduled for production, which varies. I just ordered an F250 on Thursday, and the dealer estimated VIN issuance in 2 - 3 weeks. At that time, he can protect all incentives, including the PCO I have.