- First Name
- Todd
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2021
- Threads
- 0
- Messages
- 48
- Reaction score
- 148
- Location
- Houston, TX
- Vehicle(s)
- 17BMW330i, 70Porsche911, 22BroncoBadlands
- Your Bronco Model
- Badlands
Great summary. I am a day-one reservation that finally got scheduled for 12/13, phew... . The past year and a half have been beyond a soap opera - a true cluster F***. I appreciate your level-headed explanation and your maturity in keeping to the facts and the high road. Those of you with recent reservations and production schedule dates, congratulations. Please be humble and thankful. Try to put yourself in our shoes and I think you would be upset too.I will admit there is a lot of whining and boasting on all ends... That is the essence of social media... it is a narcissistic driven media full of schadenfreude. I would suggest people walk a mile....
Just for clarity for those that are new and have no idea what this saga has been like here is a not so brief summary (far from comprehensive) of what most of us early reservation holders have gone through. Early reservation started mid July 2020, mid day/evening (depending on time zone) July 13th. The system was a not ready and was in an out of crashing so many of us were left with an unclear feeling whether our reservation made it through even from day 1. It was still sketching into day 3 I believe.
Keep in mind people were reserving vehicles based on what Ford showed us, used for marketing purposes (sure there was no promise this is what they would look like, but.....), donut doors, white tops, two tone top and bottom paint, black mod tops, different interiors, higher lifts, etc., etc., Preliminary build and price was just that, preliminary. It evolved or devolved depending on how you want to look at it. We all planned and guessed about packages and components, we invested loads of time sleuthing out the packages and what would be possible. There were no vehicles to lay your hands on or crawl around in, much less test drive. Even once ordering time came in January 2021 we have paint samples to look at, but we did not have interior materials to look at, and different components were still being worked out, but the majority of people still gladly converted their reservations to orders. Many did not, many cancelled for lots of reason, but a big one was lack of vehicles to actual touch coupled with rumors of component issue and a few confirmed component issues. At this point most early reservation holders have changed their actual build 1-2 times already from what they envisioned they would be getting. At this point most have additional deposits in the game too, ranging from 400-3000. Some don't.
Months trickle by and lots of rumors of component constraints, the first build dates appear in April. The rest of us are promised a build date in May, then the end of May, then nothing but a May 28 'Dear John' letter from Ford indicating they more or less f'd up..... but hang in there..... thank you for your patience, click the link to register for Off-roadeo....
Running into June, the MIC and MOD top issues are being scandalized throughout the forums. Many of us wanted the Mod top, in fact our vehicle were suppose to come with them, but we proactively ordered the MIC top as advised, but hey if you kept your MOD top order a little longer here is 200,000 ford pass points for being clueless... June 25 email, Ford officially announces they will provide hard top prep kits for 4 dr soft top orders. Keep in mind, First Editions can't change to a soft top, Wildtrak can't change to a soft top and all 2dr versions no matter trim can't change to a soft top. Also, many had duel tops on order and had no idea that meant their order was essentially 99'd....
One key element here is the dealers also had no idea what was going on or they were not telling their customers anything. Some GMs/inventory managers knew what was going on, Ford was having meeting updating them, but that info wasn't making it to customers for obvious reason. Most of us spent months calling and emailing our dealers just to get some info, most of us finally just popped in to our dealer and waited to be seen. Many dealers have made an about face and it is a different world going in to order a bronco now. These 140,000+ "early" reservation holders were basically in the dark, given bits and piece of information from Ford and small leaks showing up in the forums.
Jump ahead to August and we get another bombshell...... Essentially you have a few weeks to switch to a soft top available trim (wildtrak still not available with softie, 2dr not available, and we will be build all first editions in 21...) and style or you vehicle will be pushed to 2022..... We know it's no consolation for the delay but for 2022 you'll have access to new colors, new options, and new special editions. More details on 2022 ordering will be sent out in September. Your dealer will reach out at that time to place your order and see how they might be able to help with any vehicle needs, making the wait for your Bronco a little more bearable. As a reminder, your reservation timestamp will remain with your order for scheduling priority in the 2022 model year.
Dirt mountain, tops, QC issues, and air bags, cancelled first editions.... This has been discussed to exhaustion, if you want to geek out on it, dig it up through the forums.
A brief light at the end.... well at the last minute some 21 orders that thought they would be a 22, MIC on order were scheduled for November and December build dates...... This gave those of us waiting on our hard tops hope. The thing is we were all in the same boat then. The 2dr people knew where they stood, the 4 dr people either holding on to their MIC orders or 99'd Mod top knew where they stood, first editions were going to be built, and if we don't get our build date we should have it by the end of the year for an early 22 build. But wait, Ford is send over a rogue wave to capsize this vessel..... We are changing the allocation system.
The thing is over the past months there has been a continual string of lies coming from Ford and promises they apparently had no intention of keeping. The past two scheduling events have proven this to be the case. That is a nice and objective as I can put it. Ok, OK every statement has lots of caveats, but there are 10s of thousands of customers that have come to understand that the system was X and now the system is nowhere near X. It is almost as if a directive came down to prioritize recent orders to save face in the ordering system, leaving reservation holders (many of whom are already pissed off) to continue to be upset. Simple way to view it is that Ford is cutting their loses, instead of chasing their tail.......
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