Ford CEO Farley Says Dealers Who Price Gouge Could Get Fewer Vehicle Allocations

[fergthulhu]

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[Phil]

Ford needs the dealers right now that's why they coddle them and don't truly punish them when they stomp on the customer Ford sends every car they make to a dealer who borrows money to pay for the cars so Ford gets paid up front they can't "punish" the dealers Ford have no leverage and the dealers knows it

 

[North7]

Farley is manning the truck again.

 

[604Bronco]

This statement by him is as bad as "mY dEaLeR sAiD..." - I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Last Ride Bronco]

If you believe that, I have some land I’d like to sell you

 

[Drex]

Cutting allocations means less units, means the dealer is motivated to charge even more ADM on the ones they have. In any event, this was a well-documented statement he made regarding the EV vehicles. It is not relevant to Bronco sales. Ford continues to offer the same exemplary concern about the reservation holders as they always have.

 

[phocion]

There's both a constrained supply and relatively high economy-wide inflation. People can talk a big game about holding the line on prices, but the market clearing price for a lot of vehicles (and certainly the Bronco) is above MSRP. Either the dealers will be selling cars at that price, or flippers will be buying them up and doing it.

My expectation is that dealers will honor prices they negotiated with customers. That's where I think Ford needs to be vigilant. But if this reservation mess continues on and the auto market goes through another 10-15% inflation in 2022, how willing are the dealers going to be to take a serious bath to keep a promise made in Jan 2021? How willing will Ford be to hold them to it? I think the answer to both is "not much".

 

[Gotdesl]

Ford is full of shit. The corporate actions already taken are directly contrary with Farley's statement, and would actually make Ford appear complicate with those dealers charging above MSRP (except in cases that have attracted negative public attention). To top it all off, Ford has destroyed any level of trust, faith, or goodwill that I might otherwise have with them.
Let's see the return of allocation to the dealers charging less than MSRP and consistent action against ANY dealer charging above MSRP (with a 0% tolerable threshold) and they might earn some of that trust back, along with my potential future business.

 

[Rednek]

 

[BroncOBabe2.7]

I was listening to the earnings call yesterday when he made this statement. He was responding to an investor question about leaving money on the table if the dealers were able to charge so much more above msrp and get away with it. Basically saying, maybe Ford's invoice pricing was too low and all that extra money was going into dealer pockets. Farley made sure to acknowledge that he recognized this was a concern for investors and the dealerships were being dealt with accordingly. I didn't realize until then how that would look to potential investors and shareholders. Honestly, Ford should absolutely be putting the hammer down on these dealerships because it doesn't look good for them from an investor and shareholder standpoint. They can't really risk raising invoice/msrp in the inflated market right now so they have to put these dealers in check. There is probably more going on with that behind the scenes than we realize.

 

[JBlanco]

IMHO, the only way to deal with ADM is the way everything works in a capitalistic economy, vote with your wallet.
I ordered from Chapman Ford of Horsham because of the discount and an email from the vendor stating no ADM.
Will I have to drive or fly to NJ, yes, and that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for a dealer that shows values. Previous buyers from them have also very positive comments for Chapman Ford.

I believe that's where the strength of online forums lie.

 

[Captain Howdy]

The guy from town and country estimates a total of 180,000 reservations waiting to be fulfilled. At the current monthly production rate at the factory, it'll take another 18 months to produce those broncos. That's assuming all is smooth sailing.

Now, Ford is promising Raptor models to be delivered this summer. They are manufactured on the same line as the regulars. That means there will undoubtedly be heightened wait time for reservation holders, while Ford fast tracks the higher dollar model.

 

[Gritty]

Farley is manning the truck again.

Farley....#1 in the #2 business

 

[heynow14]

“We have very good intelligence of who they are and their future allocation of product will be directly impacted because of that policy,” CEO Jim Farley said Thursday on a conference call with analysts. “We have about 10% of our dealers last year in the supply constrained environment that were charging above MSRP to the best of our knowledge,”

This shows you how full of shit they are. There isn’t a single dealership in California that isn’t charging ADM. 10%????

I took delivery a week ago from Fairway Ford in Orange County, CA. Zero ADM, zero nonsense. Zero point zero.

 

[tyrobronco]

IMHO, the only way to deal with ADM is the way everything works in a capitalistic economy, vote with your wallet.
I ordered from Chapman Ford of Horsham because of the discount and an email from the vendor stating no ADM.
Will I have to drive or fly to NJ, yes, and that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for a dealer that shows values. Previous buyers from them have also very positive comments for Chapman Ford.

I believe that's where the strength of online forums lie.

I agree with the theory.

Where Ford earns complaints is my constraining smaller dealers.

It should work like this:

Dealers get orders

Dealer submits orders

Ford builds orders in the order submitted

When Ford is done filling orders they build for general sales based on their special formula.

We couldn't vote with our wallets in the capitalistic way (for the Bronco) because Ford Corporate and dealerships constantly lied / or changed agreements on their own.

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