Hi all-new to the forum wanted to get some perspective on a dealership I’m going through.

Ordered a 2022 super duty in early June. Planning on trading in a 2018 super duty here in the next 2 weeks (truck is shipped and scheduled to arrive by end of month).

I’ve been pretty disappointed from basically day 1. Salesman seemed annoyed during my order process (ordering a $70k vehicle and telling him I have x plan pricing) -and me adding on 1 extra option after inputting everything into system seemed like a huge hassle for him (took less than 3 min).

I asked him several times to make sure my email was in the system to get direct updates from Ford; never did it. I fully understood it was going to be a long wait, but was keeping up with scheduling, parts , etc delays on this forum. When seeing AS was causing delays I try and contact him to remove it hoping I got scheduled sooner. Multiple emails, texts, voicemails all go unanswered. I even went into the dealership to find him but he was in with a customer, had another salesman tell me they’d talk to him directly-nope. Finally I got lucky and got ahold of him.

When I tell him I want to remove AS to get truck sooner he says “ya, I heard about that”. But apparently decided to not contact me and inform me. After another 2 weeks of him sending updated order sheet to the wrong email he calls and asks why I haven’t responded with the signed order sheet. Note I’ve sent him 5 emails at this time, text his personal number with very detailed information (email, etc). So, eventually got order updated but he either doesn’t care or is incompetent (I.e. can’t do a search in his email or read a text).

I get notified by the dealership that I bought my ‘18 truck from that I have a PCO-no word from this dealership. Truck is scheduled, built and shipped-not a word from him/dealership. I emailed him today to ensure he knows it’s been shipped and hopefully be showing up soon.

I have a family friend who is close with owners of dealership-Do I provide the feedback to the owners and run the risk I tick off salesman and get hosed over on my trade in? Considering I have no leverage at all anyways. Or go through owners and see if they do me a solid on the trade in (fair is all I’m looking for).

This is one of the larger ford dealers in the Chicago area and they are high volume, so I’m sure I’m just a drop in the bucket. At this point I would not buy another vehicle here just due to the lack of communication/responsiveness on a major purchase.

Overreacting? Do volume dealerships even care about this type of stuff?

I just don’t know the dynamics of owners and the day to day at dealerships.

 

Salesman have no power, sales manager is the boss. Have your buddy have the owners have the sales manager call you.

 

I don’t think you’re overreacting at all. I try to choose a dealer, not solely on the best price, but good customer service before, during, and after the sale. Of course, you can’t always predict that with any degree of certainty. If you want to rip the dealership, which I certainly would, I would wait until you get the customer survey. This will be well after the deal is done. The dealerships really depend on receiving a good rating on these things. The last unfavorable one I left, I got a call real quick from my salesman practically begging me, and bribing me with some freebies, to change the ratings. I told him to keep the free floor mats and told him he earned the unfavorable ratings. He and his sales manager were not happy.

 

salesman has 0 effect on your trade value. My salesman was good but I had to go to the sales manager to get a few things taken care of.

 

When I bought my new 2020 it was from a dealer an hour away. Everything, including trade value was taken care of over the phone and email directly with the sales manager. What a time saver.
When I arrived to pick up the new truck, the sales manager just handed off the final paper shuffle to a salesman. In a short time I was out the door and heading home with a new truck.

 

It should go without saying that you got some very poor customer service. Maybe some of that covid-level service. You should demand more. Don't let people do that to you. I would have made an unambiguous stand at this point and told him that he was not providing good service. But it's probably too late now with your truck on the way. No consequences for him with a completed process and by then, you just want it to be over. You should have negotiated your trade by now. Doing the negotiation with your shiny, new truck sitting right outside the front window puts you at a significant disadvantage. Understand what other offers are out there for your truck. You need a baseline. Get ahold of Carmax and the like to get an offer before seeing what the dealer is offering. You have a lot of options.

 

That salesman would LOVE it if you walked away! At this point he’s taking a huge hit on the price.

 

It's so easy to be salesman today. These guys are just taking orders. Some day it may turn around but right now even a blind squirrel could sell a truck

 

Call the dealership, ask to speak with the Sales Manager or the General Manager, which ever is available.

Tell that manager your frustrations when trying to work with the salesperson, ask that another more responsive sales professional be assigned to your transaction. If the manager refuses then take your order elsewhere.

 

OP, I'm sorry to learn of your poor experience and the lack of customer service provided by your sales rep and dealer. I don't know if it has anything to do with the X-Plan pricing but, that plan removes most of the profit from the sale of your truck.
I hope that you can find a favorable outcome and purchasing experience.

As mentioned by several other members, I would suggest looking to Carvana and Vroom for an estimate on your trade. You can print these out and bring them to the dealership to show them the quotes and compare to their estimates.

Mike

 

Thanks all-I’ve got several offers online that I’ll use while negotiating-trying to get in before new truck arrives to negotiate trade in. Also have 2 private offers from individuals to leverage too. Problem is the sales tax (7.75% here)-that’s a big hurdle to overcome when not trading in.

will be calling sales manager this afternoon also.

Curious what others have seen in terms of trade in value? Just relative to KBB, carmax, vroom, etc. a bit of a range from $58-62 (‘18 Lariat, diesel, 47k miles nicely equipped)

 

Here in Missouri (though it's been a few years since I've done this), it doesn't have to be a direct trade-in. Any vehicle SALE within a certain period (30 days? 60 days?) of the PURCHASE can be netted out to calculate what you pay your sales tax on. Check on it in your state.

 

I hear you about dealers being reluctant to do work. The one I ordered my F450 Lariat from didn't add rear mud flaps when I'd asked him to try (no VIN or schedule at this point). Then when I wanted to add adaptive cruise and heated steering wheel while it was previewed to be scheduled (no VIN yet) he said he tried and couldn't. I believe that was a big bunch of bull****, and they are just really reluctant to make order changes after submission.

 

My experience with a big dealer here in Oregon hasn't been stellar. Salesperson is nice, but seems uninformed and unresponsive most of the time. They entered my email wrong when I made the order, and I kept going in to tell them I wasn't getting emails. Finally they figured out they put it in incorrectly when I didn't get the email saying I'd been scheduled a build week. I can understand the mistake, but then not catching it when I call, text and come in repeatedly to ask them to make sure it's correct.
I'm not looking forward to the pricing talks when the truck comes in. I have it in writing on the invoice where I made my deposit that I will pay my X-plan price when I receive the truck, but I'm sure it's going to be a fight to have them take off the $250 price increase that happened since I ordered, and who knows what else they'll try to pull. X-plan was supposed to make it stress free, but I have a feeling that a mix of incompetence and wanting to take my money will make it more of a hassle.
All in all, they seem like nice people, just incompetent and disinterested in really trying to provide good customer service. Feels like they want to make money without putting in much effort. It makes me think I'll probably go somewhere else rather than use their service department, even thought it would be awfully convenient since it's just down the street. I kind of just want to get my truck and split. Hopefully just another month or so of waiting as I'm scheduled to be built next week (hopefully).

 

He's working for you. I know its hard sometimes, as most of us don't want to be a jackass, but we should have zero tolerance for poor service. I've had the poor service too and I won't deal with it anymore. Dealerships are hurting for trucks, not truck salesmen. Unless it's his father in law, the general manager values YOU a lot more than him. Its OK to be understanding, but demand the service you're paying for.