racergirl12 Posted January 24, 2022 Share Posted January 24, 2022 I believe I mentioned this in another thread, but I placed a special order for a 2022 Ford Explorer ST at the end of last August. I knew going into it, it would be a timely thing with the 2022's not going into production until the end of September as well as labor and chip shortages. My order was confirmed the beginning of October in the Ford system and had a tentative build date of 12/16. It then moved up according to the tracker for a blend date of 11/23 and the window sticker showed up. According to the tracker, it sat in the "in production" status until right before the new year. The issue was I plugged my VIN into one of the tracking sites back at the beginning of December and saw that it had been delivered to an Auto Auction in Chicago. My husband reached out and it was indeed there. The whole time, my dealership kept telling me I would know more than they would and that any new news, I probably get it before they did. I reached out to them and told them about the Auto Auction and they said the car was put on the wrong truck and they had sent a truck to get it. Following that, it look a week and a half of phone calls, emails and texts to the dealership to see what was going on. FINALLY, they told me it wasn't supposed to leave the factory at all because it was missing chips and that it was being sent back so they had no idea when it would actually arrive. Fast forward to the end of last year, when I finally receive the email saying my car has officially been built. I checked my tracker to see if there was an update, but I had been locked out as it said my car had already been delivered which it had not. Not only has my dealership not been much help, but since it was taken to a different location when it wasn't supposed to be, every time I called or used the chat feature on the Ford website, they told me it had been delivered when it hadn't been. Last week the dealership said it had been released and that it would take anywhere from 2 weeks to 30 days to arrive. Mind you, I understand completely the shortages on everything and the delays it can cause, but now I am seeing people who placed their orders without special high priority codes and with things like the tech package and moonroof like I have, have their cars arriving at their dealerships. I've always been a Ford girl, but I am super frustrated with the whole process. Has anyone else had this much trouble with their custom orders? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottK1 Posted January 24, 2022 Share Posted January 24, 2022 27 minutes ago, racergirl12 said: I believe I mentioned this in another thread, but I placed a special order for a 2022 Ford Explorer ST at the end of last August. I knew going into it, it would be a timely thing with the 2022's not going into production until the end of September as well as labor and chip shortages. My order was confirmed the beginning of October in the Ford system and had a tentative build date of 12/16. It then moved up according to the tracker for a blend date of 11/23 and the window sticker showed up. According to the tracker, it sat in the "in production" status until right before the new year. The issue was I plugged my VIN into one of the tracking sites back at the beginning of December and saw that it had been delivered to an Auto Auction in Chicago. My husband reached out and it was indeed there. The whole time, my dealership kept telling me I would know more than they would and that any new news, I probably get it before they did. I reached out to them and told them about the Auto Auction and they said the car was put on the wrong truck and they had sent a truck to get it. Following that, it look a week and a half of phone calls, emails and texts to the dealership to see what was going on. FINALLY, they told me it wasn't supposed to leave the factory at all because it was missing chips and that it was being sent back so they had no idea when it would actually arrive. Fast forward to the end of last year, when I finally receive the email saying my car has officially been built. I checked my tracker to see if there was an update, but I had been locked out as it said my car had already been delivered which it had not. Not only has my dealership not been much help, but since it was taken to a different location when it wasn't supposed to be, every time I called or used the chat feature on the Ford website, they told me it had been delivered when it hadn't been. Last week the dealership said it had been released and that it would take anywhere from 2 weeks to 30 days to arrive. Mind you, I understand completely the shortages on everything and the delays it can cause, but now I am seeing people who placed their orders without special high priority codes and with things like the tech package and moonroof like I have, have their cars arriving at their dealerships. I've always been a Ford girl, but I am super frustrated with the whole process. Has anyone else had this much trouble with their custom orders? That's the craziest story I've heard here. Why would a new vehicle go to an auction? But the time is not unexpected. My F350 took 9.5 months to delivery. Missed the auction though :). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sceve Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 Mind sending me your VIN? This all seems extremely fishy to me and I really doubt an unfinished vehicle got shipped, let alone to an auction yard... New vehicles are never shipped to an auction in the first place unless a dealer sends it there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GearheadGrrrl Posted January 25, 2022 Share Posted January 25, 2022 The late lamented St.Paul plant used to rent space at a nearby auto auction lot when vehicles waiting for parts overflowed the plant's lots, perhaps Ford is doing something similar now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tk421 Posted January 26, 2022 Share Posted January 26, 2022 On 1/24/2022 at 7:54 PM, GearheadGrrrl said: The late lamented St.Paul plant used to rent space at a nearby auto auction lot when vehicles waiting for parts overflowed the plant's lots, perhaps Ford is doing something similar now. That would make quite a bit of sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gom Posted February 6, 2022 Share Posted February 6, 2022 I like the storage waiting for parts theory, makes sense. As for the OP's question of whether or not other people have similar experiences... yes. Is their experience identical? No, but more or less a very large number of people across multiple brands of vehicles have similar stories of frustration, slow builds, slow responses, bad information, unresponsive dealerships, etc. The list just goes on. Think of their end of things, too. New car dealers are huge. Huge lots, huge sales rooms, massive overhead. Let's just say $100k a month. Then think of a nice sized used car lot. Maybe $10-15k of overhead. Both of those numbers are probably really low but I'm just trying to make a point so please bare with me. What you've got is these new car dealers trying to stay afloat and operate with a used car budget but maintain a new car dealership. When I go into a new car dealer looking at the new car side -- they don't approach me to ask if I want to buy their new car. They come out and ask me if I'm willing to sell my truck. No joke. These dealers are in a bad spot. I get people aren't all big fans of dealers. I'm just trying to offer maybe a little insight into why your, and many others, experience is less than ideal. I don't expect that to be changing anytime soon. Ford's CEO saying they're going to penalize dealers that price over MSRP is going to make things worse, I'm sure. My local Ford dealer doesn't appear to get much in terms of new inventory at all -- and they have at least a thousand spots on that lot that used to have new vehicles on them. Their lot, just as empty land, is probably worth 20+ million because of where it's located. They've got to be losing money hand over fist. Doesn't mean you don't have every reason to critique them or be frustrated. Times suck for a lot of people in a lot of ways. We're really lucky that our problems involve frustrating buying experience of vehicles that cost more than my first home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted February 6, 2022 Share Posted February 6, 2022 Again - don’t confuse empty lots with no sales. They’re just selling everything as soon as it comes in. Ford sales for 2021 were only down 20% over 2019. And profit per vehicle is WAY up. Dealers are doing just fine. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tangiora Posted February 7, 2022 Share Posted February 7, 2022 6 hours ago, akirby said: Again - don’t confuse empty lots with no sales. They’re just selling everything as soon as it comes in. Ford sales for 2021 were only down 20% over 2019. And profit per vehicle is WAY up. Dealers are doing just fine. I agree with akirby on this. I have a good friend who is a salesperson for Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, Jeep. (Sorry for those who think I was swearing) She says 2021 is getting her one of her best bonusses ever because their profit per vehicle is so high. They have sold most of their trucks (as special orders) before they hit the lot and they have an average lot time of 4 days for every other vehicle. They don't give discounts except where required by manufacturer and they have hefty markup if you didn't order it so they do really well when they get a vehicle that they ordered for their lot. In my humble yet synical experience, I have asked my dealer if he knows what is holding up my f150 platinum. I have tried not to bother them to much. I have contacted them about once every 3-4 weeks. They frankly admit that they can't be bothered looking at scheduling notes that ford sends out, ( and kinda were surprised I knew about such things). I get the feeling they would be happier if I left them for someone else so they can sell it for a bigger markup. If I hadn't invested so much time in waiting already I would go somewhere else. Now I plan to buy from them just so they can't add their ADM..... That is a long way of saying they aren't hurting to sell me a vehicle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ice-capades Posted February 7, 2022 Share Posted February 7, 2022 11 hours ago, Tangiora said: In my humble yet cynical experience, I have asked my dealer if he knows what is holding up my f150 platinum. I have tried not to bother them too much. I have contacted them about once every 3-4 weeks. They frankly admit that they can't be bothered looking at scheduling notes that ford sends out, (and kinda were surprised I knew about such things). I get the feeling they would be happier if I left them for someone else so they can sell it for a bigger markup. If I hadn't invested so much time in waiting already I would go somewhere else. Now I plan to buy from them just so they can't add their ADM..... That is a long way of saying they aren't hurting to sell me a vehicle. Geesh... It doesn't bother them taking your money though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tangiora Posted February 7, 2022 Share Posted February 7, 2022 3 hours ago, ice-capades said: Geesh... It doesn't bother them taking your money though! Yep, That is why I say thanks for posting your information so we aren't completely in the dark. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sil Posted April 11, 2022 Share Posted April 11, 2022 I placed my order for a 2022 Ford Explorer ST on July 1st. Still haven't received my order, its sitting at Manheim Auto Auction. They say its waiting for microchips. Help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slingha Posted April 11, 2022 Share Posted April 11, 2022 How would you want someone to help you here? Talk to your dealer, cancel your order, or sit and wait. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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