Ford, PLEASE let us buy parts direct, sick of (some) greedy dealerships.

[Jdyount]

I’m confused what the problem here is. I thought it was common knowledge that local dealerships charge list price for parts. At least all the ones around here do. If you want a discount then you shop the net for one of the few dealerships with online stores, they choose volume discounts as a business model. Regular dealerships set a margin against list and stick to it weather it’s a spark plug or cv.

funny story, there is a certain “online parts store” that has healthy discounts on the web store (that doesn’t advertise the linked dealership). Walk into the dealership, you pay a lot more.

That's definitely what they do, it's ridiculous, thus the whole point of my post. They take advantage of ignorant people who don't ask questions or shop around.

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[choppersean]

My MY22 Sasquatch CV axle part number is MB3Z3A427A and I am doing searches online from Ford dealers all over the place.........MSRP is over $400 for that part, but many places are selling at like $260 to $290. Some dealers won't move off MSRP, but I think many will sell much lower than that. Pays to do a little research and be patient is my belief.

 

[Rusty Sheckelford]

I find it super odd how many stealer shills here have apparently never heard of price matching? Or bothered to read OPs post to the end where he just asked for a slight discount to earn his sale as opposed to making no sale and no profit at all. I have a side job at pizza hut, and i'll give people discounts all day long: military, senior citizen, or the special of the day. I'll even manually massage the price if a customer wants to make a big enough order. Seems like bad business to me to tell you to screw off and make zero money after the time spent talking and lookin up the part. Their loss though, good on you OP for not paying MSRP and finding a better deal elsewhere.

 

[Tex]

I don’t think we’re that far off. Dealerships can sell for whatever they’d like. OP can buy online if he prefers. Both the online seller and the dealer seem to make enough money to stay afloat.

It’s worth mentioning Ford doesn’t “make” much of anything. They assemble these Broncos from components purchased from third party suppliers. How far back in the supply chain should we be able to purchase?

I like buying tires from TireRack and picking up at the Delaware DC to save a few bucks. Some people walk into PepBoys and buy off the rack. Either way no one is complaining that Michelin won’t sell them tires factory direct.

Yeah the rabbit hole of parts origin goes pretty deep, but I think all we really need to do is eliminate the dealership step, as it's redundant and really only serves to add additional cost to the end product for no apparent benefit to anyone except the dealership at this point. Wherever the dealership gets those parts from can simply ship it straight to the buyer instead, and still ship straight to a dealership or shop or whoever else needs the parts. It would probably require setting up a simple online store and hiring a few personnel to handle that side of things but otherwise nothing would really change, some dealerships make enough money doing this that they've made their own online store. They're all basically carbon copies of each other, so the official Ford parts website could be identical to them. Show stock in whichever warehouse has it, shipping options, etc. Hire a single team to take care of phone orders in a call center for the entire distribution network. A few more employees, managers, and some restructuring is hardly a drop in the bucket for a company like Ford that hires and fires an order of magnitude more personnel on a regular basis. I'd gladly pay a little more from a website where prices across the board are the same everywhere and I didn't have to search through three or four different dealership websites to find a part in stock or the lowest price with shipping, it'd be all there in one spot and make ordering parts that much easier. Just one place to go for all OEM purchases, and you'd know you wouldn't be overpaying by visiting the wrong website or dealership. Finding a 3.0 rack in stock for the right price took me several days of browsing around until I found one close by with cheap shipping, had to go through nearly two dozen dealer websites to get it.

The whole Ford>dealership>customer model was ideal pre-internet and I completely understand how it evolved in that era, but today it's about as archaic as comparing a Sear's catalog to Amazon. The internet has revolutionized the ability for the customer to find exactly what they're looking for, and for businesses to consolidate numerous storefronts into a few large distribution warehouses with great success. The dealership/msrp model would still have a small place today regardless, if they reliably had the parts in stock to sell. However, if the dealership could be circumvented, any number of auto parts stores would happily fill that niche. Those would be the places to go if you needed the part today and were willing to pay more to get it.

 

[rizion]

Not sure how this shows the dealership model is broken. This is exactly how most businesses work. Dealerships try to make money off things they sell just like any other place. If they sold everything at cost or discounted, you’d have no dealership to begin with

I think that’s the point. Dealerships aren’t necessary

 

[Ducati1098]

I think that’s the point. Dealerships aren’t necessary

Who is going to service your vehicle?

 

[Tex]

Who is going to service your vehicle?

Anyone that's qualified to service your vehicle, obviously.

 

[Ducati1098]

Anyone that's qualified to service your vehicle, obviously.

So.. a Ford technician.. at a Ford dealership. Because that’s the only person Ford is going to allow to do warranty work.. obviously. Doesn’t sound like a dealership is unnecessary to me

 

[Tex]

So.. a Ford technician.. at a Ford dealership. Because that’s the only person Ford is going to allow to do warranty work.. obviously. Doesn’t sound like a dealership is unnecessary to me

Plenty of Ford certified mechanics work outside the purview of dealerships. Ford is the only one that stipulates dealerships for warranty work. If Ford discarded the dealership model, they would simply continue the same method of certification for independent shops and mechanics in the place of dealerships. It's not hard to grasp, all you really have to do is imagine the relationship between Ford and a dealership and then replace the dealership with a local shop with the proper credentials instead. They can do all the same things, including certifications and authorized repair centers. Being a dealership certainly doesn't guarantee they do a better job, that much is self evident if you cruise around any automotive forum for a bit, it just means they went through the training.

Any way you look at it, dealership models are simply money skimming redundancies when you compare it to direct sales and certified service models.

 

[Ducati1098]

Ford is the only one that stipulates dealerships for warranty work.

Yes that’s all great in theory, but Ford isn’t going to change this, which makes dealerships a necessity and the rest irrelevant.

 

[Rusty Sheckelford]

So.. a Ford technician.. at a Ford dealership. Because that’s the only person Ford is going to allow to do warranty work.. obviously. Doesn’t sound like a dealership is unnecessary to me

I thought there were right to repair laws that stipulated dealers had to allow independent dealers to perform warranty work?

 

[Ducati1098]

I thought there were right to repair laws that stipulated dealers had to allow independent dealers to perform warranty work?

I've never heard of any law like this.

I believe you are thinking of the Magnuson-moss act, which is something different. That allows independent repair shops to repair things without worry of warranty being voided. That doesn't mean they can complete base warranty work nor will Ford pay for it.

 

[atimberwolf]

It's interesting to see the argument that dealerships couldn't keep the lights on if they didn't mark parts up 50-100%.

How is it places like Tasca and Granger stay in business selling parts at a discount and the OPs local dealership can't?

Sorry that argument just doesn't hold up. In today's world I'll save the money and support a dealership that is charging a fair price that allows them to keep the business running without gouging the customers. If it wasn't possible places like Tasca would have folded years ago.

 

[swooshdave]

Keep in mind that the biggest customer of a parts department isn’t customers walking in, it’s their own service department. Selling to walk in customers is a distraction and by charging at or above MSRP it’s to get you to either make them a decent margin or to make you go away.

 

[flip]

I thought there were right to repair laws that stipulated dealers had to allow independent dealers to perform warranty work?

This has to do with access to the manufacturers computer systems/software and being able to get into it with equipment available for anyone to purchase either OEM or aftermarket. Farmer lawsuits against John Deere are probably the most visible example but it does trickle down to the automotive business. Anyone can buy a FDRS, VCM 3 and pay for access through Motorcraft. We have well a lot of independent customers that do this exact thing. Having the equipment to get into the vehicle is not the hurdle, it's the knowledge to know what you're doing that's valuable. The knowledge comes from continuing factory training the dealers have to pay a ton of money for. I think the aftermarket wants access to all of this too but without any of strings attached. Basically, they think it's the manufacturers responsibility to offer or provide it with no benefit to Ford. This isn't just laptops, it would include security, 100X more tech support, upsizing their server farms by a factor of 20 and hiring hundreds of additional trainers.

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