Granger Ford -2022 Bronco Allocation - No one said it was going to be easy

[rugbysecondrow]

If the




Just to be clear, anti-trust laws prevent Ford from telling independent businesses how to price. And as I understand it the dealer principles have a lot of pull with Ford and the local governments for that matter, but if any of the reasons for the allocation formula mentioned in this chat were true I will be willing to sign a class action lawsuit alleging collusion.

A class action lawsuit claiming what?

How have you been harmed?

What damages would you seek?

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[Bison]

Ford's new allocation formula bases 25% of allocation on Bronco Sport sales. This is completely unfair of Ford to not have told dealers this sooner. While Zach at Granger and other small dealers were selling Escapes and Explorers and F-150s to their customers, they could have been pushing them toward Sports if that's what Ford wanted.

Where I live, the Sports seem to be concentrated in the affluent areas of our metropolis. Granger is a very tiny, rural community. I doubt a ton of local folks said, Hey, let's order one of those newfangled Bronco Sports to replace our old, reliable F-150. Ford didn't tell the mom and pop dealers that they should push people toward Sports when they come in asking for an Escape.

No, Ford, likely through pressure from their good old boy dealer network, looked at what they could put in their formula that looked fair on the surface, but would make their preferred mega-dealers get all the Broncos while cutting our Stephen's and Granger and every small dealer out there.

This is comparable to how I and other teachers curve tests. We grade all the tests and plot all the scores. We look at the mean and the median. We have a lot of flexibility with how to use that data to decide of final grades for these teenagers. Nothing in our job requirements says that we have to use a certain formula for curving, but it has to be fair.

What Ford has done with there new allocation formula would be like me looking at the data and coming up with a formula for curving that looks fair, but gives A's to the kids who brought me Dutch Bros a few times this semester, and F's to the kids who wore NY Yankee logos on their shirts (I grew up going to Fenway Park).

Ford looked at the data and said, what can we put in the formula that looks fair, but will undercut Stephen's and Granger. "Oh, look," Ford excitedly says. "Granger and Stephen's sell a lot of F-150s, so we can't let that be part of the formula, but ooh, lookie, yay, neither of them has a ton of Sports sales. Let's put THAT in the formula!"

It is my hope that somehow in the next month or so Granger and Stephen's both sell a record number of Bronco Sports. If I had a ton of expendable income, I would buy 1000 Sports from each of them just to prove to Ford that in this modern hyper-connected world, they need to change their sales model, not try to force consumers into buying their product from their preferred, albeit unscrupulous dealers.

Anybody know some altruist billionaires who want to buy a few thousand Bronco Sports?

Ford would just start using allocations for the sports limiting granger in how many of those they could actually get as well. They really don’t care about customers. And here I thought it was just the asshole dealerships.

 

[DaveH]

Given that there are 37 pages on this thread (and it is not the only thread on this topic), I see surprisingly few tweets to @mrlevine and @jimfarley98, and the ones that I do see seem to be coming from a relatively small number of people. We need to keep up the heat on public forums. That is far more effective than discussing it here or calling Ford customer service, AND make sure your tweets are public. There is only power in the tweets when they are open for all to see.

Same with the Ford page on Facebook. Every time there is a tweet, FB post, or gram, we should be responding with a note about our displeasure with the '22 allocation formula.

 

[HotdogThud]

A class action lawsuit claiming what?

How have you been harmed?

What damages would you seek?

You're not wrong, the barrier to class-action land is pretty high. It would take someone more legally clever than me to figure out a way to spin the dick dance Ford has put everyone through into 'damages'.

I think people are just trying to think of any means of recourse to actually get their trucks before the next presidential election. If you're a Grangetober order, that might not even remotely be the case

 

[DaveH]

You're not wrong, the barrier to class-action land is pretty high. It would take someone more legally clever than me to figure out a way to spin the dick dance Ford has put everyone through into 'damages'.

I think people are just trying to think of any means of recourse to actually get their trucks before the next presidential election. If you're a Grangetober order, that might not even remotely be the case

By the time a class action lawsuit is settled, even Grangetober reservations will be filled. The lawyers will get most of the settlement money, and we will get a coupon for 50% off a hammock. (No disrespect to the hammock. I intend to enjoy mine.) The only way to get resolution in a reasonable period of time is through the court of public opinion. Tweet, post on FB, post on Instragram. Make sure to tag Levin, Farley, Ford and/or reply to their posts and tweets. Send the story to online magazines asking them to publicize the issue. Bring the issue to the attention of local press.

 

[Altitude]

So Ford is graciously telling us small dealer reservation holders that the best and only way to get our Bronco orders filled for 2022 is to spend the week randomly calling all 3100 Ford dealers in the country and see if they think that they can get our Bronco in 2022 and agree on a price and then Ford will allow us to move our reservation? This of course is based on the hope that dealers even understand their allocation and wouldn't lie and say 'yes' even if they don't know, and certainly is still no guarantee of getting a Bronco in 2022, regardless of the date / time stamp of your reservation. Someone needs to makes this trend on a social media platform to get some public outrage going.

 

[rugbysecondrow]

You're not wrong, the barrier to class-action land is pretty high. It would take someone more legally clever than me to figure out a way to spin the dick dance Ford has put everyone through into 'damages'.

I think people are just trying to think of any means of recourse to actually get their trucks before the next presidential election. If you're a Grangetober order, that might not even remotely be the case

I feel for you all and it's shitty that you all are in this situation.

Ford should, and likely will, find a way to take care the customers with orders while also disincentivizing other dealerships from attempting the same discount model. I don't think there is a scenario where current, early, order holder are pushed into 2023, unless there is another supply chain issue.

 

[DaveH]

I feel for you all and it's shitty that you all are in this situation.

Ford should, and likely will, find a way to take care the customers with orders while also disincentivizing other dealerships from attempting the same discount model. I don't think there is a scenario where current, early, order holder are pushed into 2023, unless there is another supply chain issue.

Why should they do this? Many dealers discount and have done so for decades? And if Ford does try to so, shouldn't they also penalize dealers who ADM?

 

[jonwithanelcamino]

In case you forgot over the weekend @ford_motor_company ‘s official stance on all small market dealers .

 

[RBF 1401]

Anyone that jumped on the Granger band wagon was sold short. First by Ford and then by Granger.
Who ever thought that ordering from a dealer with that many potential orders would be a good idea?

Wait, what?

Granger still has never sold any of us short. Well, except for Albert passing away, but that's not their fault.

I don't understand what you mean. Yes, Ford sold us short, and Ford sold Granger short, but Granger has yet to do anything that sells us short.

I think it's funny how many people who have never spoken to anyone at Granger keep making comments about them that shows how little they know about who these people are.

There are customers who are willing to wait FIVE years to get a Bronco so they can buy it from Granger instead of their local crooked dealer. There are people like me who, because Granger is 1401 miles away, aren't really saving money, but are not being treated like dirt the way my local dealers treat their customers. There are people who are giving up the Bronco dream to by a Jeep or Ram truck from Granger because, well...

Until you work with the people at Granger, you cannot possibly understand why so many of us will stick by Granger longer than we will stick by Ford.

And going with a dealer with a lot of reservations isn't the problem, there are plenty of dealers in the giant city north of me who have HUGE numbers of reservations, but Ford specifically wrote the new formula to guarantee those criminals still get to fill all their orders in 2022 and honest people like Stephen's and Granger and Chapman Horsham will not.

 

[phocion]

So Ford is graciously telling us small dealer reservation holders that the best and only way to get our Bronco orders filled for 2022 is to spend the week randomly calling all 3100 Ford dealers in the country and see if they think that they can get our Bronco in 2022 and agree on a price and then Ford will allow us to move our reservation?

The other issue I see is that if the speed at which your Bronco is delivered depends much more heavily on your dealer than on your timestamp, this sets up a nice situation for dealers to extract ADM from order holders. Want a slot at a dealer that can get you your Bronco in Q1 2022 instead of 2023? How much is it worth to you?

 

[ekim]

Anyone that jumped on the Granger band wagon was sold short. First by Ford and then by Granger.
Who ever thought that ordering from a dealer with that many potential orders would be a good idea?

I did. Works fine when ordering a Jeep. I just need to decide on a color today and I'll have an order in for a "limited supply" 392 Rubicon. Easy peasy. I didn't have to ask about allocations, supply chain, current order book, etc. I may have to wait a couple of months for delivery.

This is 100% a Ford issue that's driven by some archaic good ol' boys dealer network and they are loosing thousands of customers over it. I'm sure they take the attitude that it doesn't matter, we'll still sell every Bronco we build. My answer to that is what comes around goes around and if you treat customers like crap, intentionally or not, there is an impact at some point.

 

[lobbs611]

In case you forgot over the weekend @ford_motor_company ‘s official stance on all small market dealers .

Link to this tweet? I'm feeling froggy this morning and will do my best to light him up.

 

[jonwithanelcamino]

This is clickable

Link to this tweet? I'm feeling froggy this morning and will do my best to light him up.

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