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this whole thing has illuminated how the dealership mafia is bad for car owners. elon was right. Direct to door has to happen

BadSquatch21

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Car dealerships and realtors fit in the same box. Completely outdated business models with people in between making too much money for the (lack of) work they do. Unfortunately it's the lobbyist's who make it stay.
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ColoradoGuy

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But why should you need to? Ford took your rsvp, they let you do the B&P, they communicate with you about the build and delivery dates...why do you even need to go to any dealer, let alone a "good one"?

I understand many people are going through Granger, and they seem like stand up folks, but why does it make sense that a customer should have to drive or fly to a dealership at all?

Cut out the dealer profit, create Ford Concierge, and make it service based. Somebody delivers the vehicle, prepped, ready to go. They teach you about the vehicle, set up your profile for tech and seats...all that stuff. The dealers can become customer service centers, where they focus just on customer needs, but door delivery concierge is where its at.
Until all state laws change that prevent this (around 10 of them including Texas have a ban on direct sales and another handful have limited sales), there is no way Ford will change to the direct sale model.
 

Big Boss

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I agree for the most part the dealership model is outdated but there needs to be some sort of inventory on hand for people to purchase that day.

When my Focus died on me I needed to find something to replace it that weekend. Had I had to order something and wait 8-12 weeks for it to be built I would have been SOL
 

rugbysecondrow

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Until all state laws change that prevent this (around 10 of them including Texas have a ban on direct sales and another handful have limited sales), there is no way Ford will change to the direct sale model.
I don't disagree, but the market and customer expectations will change around them. My 14 and 11 year old kids would never understand why there needs to be a middle man in this relationship, especially when Carvana and other entities make buying and selling so easy.

In addition, dealerships ruin the car buying process. They take something which should be fun and exciting, buying a new car, and they dick it up. The car buying process is something I tolerate, but I absolutely hate it. The process itself likely keeps me from buying more new cars. And, I can say, that had I not been able to RSVP online, and Ford forced me to go to a dealership to start the process, I likely wouldn't have started down this path.

Did I mention that I dislike dealerships? Lol
 

Rick Astley

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It's interesting that the same logical fallacy persists in the automotive "uninformed" as it does on a dedicated car forum that when you discuss a dealership you believe the only product to be new car sales.

There is absolutely no doubt that a car salesman is not the most informed person as to the corporate sales structure, products or newest information of a yet-to-be-released product. But that's not their job.

Dealerships primary roles are as a finance broker and repair facility.

Quoting the holy bong-water of Tesla as changing the business model is pretty far off the mark from what is possible as a change to the structure.

Tesla, by and large, is dealing with wealthy customers (I refer to "wealthy" as somebody who doesn't need to engage in any lending beyond prime or at worst, market rate). Your typical auto dealership is HOPING to have 1 in 10 customers have a FICO high enough to breeze through this process.

Auto repairs: The vast and overarching regulations over an OEM and how long they produce parts and service vehicles is astounding. You can take in any vehicle that a manufacturer has ever made and get parts (federal regs are to produce parts for 10 years after production stops, but common parts are readily available), or the vehicle serviced by trained mechanics that have tooling/tools to do the job (obviously the human factor arises when talking about labor).

Tesla outsources to facilities that want to buy their diagnostic program and proprietary software and have highly skilled monkeys who know how to use a USB port and can actually read the English language! If you needed to know how to restart your computer to fix all problems, these are your guys! Anything that's not functioning? throw it away and put in a new one. Legos are fun!

Note that Tesla's strategy doesn't really service your car. And having some friends with Teslas (It's not difficult to see a dozen of these taxpayer mobiles on every commute..... 4 miles as the crow flies for me), there are horror stories of Tesla "Mechanics" being unable to diagnose brake rotor run out and wanting to replace the entire unsprung suspension assembly, or waiting on a replacement trim piece for 6 months because Tesla doesn't really make enough spare parts to keep the factory lights on as they must sell cars to be alive. Tesla is not, at this time, a fully functioning automotive brand and if you had to deal with what Tesla actually is for your personal vehicle maintenance and safety, I don't think you would be quite as impressed.
 

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rugbysecondrow

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It's interesting that the same logical fallacy persists in the automotive "uninformed" as it does on a dedicated car forum that when you discuss a dealership you believe the only product to be new car sales.

There is absolutely no doubt that a car salesman is not the most informed person as to the corporate sales structure, products or newest information of a yet-to-be-released product. But that's not their job.

Dealerships primary roles are as a finance broker and repair facility.

Quoting the holy bong-water of Tesla as changing the business model is pretty far off the mark from what is possible as a change to the structure.

Tesla, by and large, is dealing with wealthy customers (I refer to "wealthy" as somebody who doesn't need to engage in any lending beyond prime or at worst, market rate). Your typical auto dealership is HOPING to have 1 in 10 customers have a FICO high enough to breeze through this process.

Auto repairs: The vast and overarching regulations over an OEM and how long they produce parts and service vehicles is astounding. You can take in any vehicle that a manufacturer has ever made and get parts (federal regs are to produce parts for 10 years after production stops, but common parts are readily available), or the vehicle serviced by trained mechanics that have tooling/tools to do the job (obviously the human factor arises when talking about labor).

Tesla outsources to facilities that want to buy their diagnostic program and proprietary software and have highly skilled monkeys who know how to use a USB port and can actually read the English language! If you needed to know how to restart your computer to fix all problems, these are your guys! Anything that's not functioning? throw it away and put in a new one. Legos are fun!

Note that Tesla's strategy doesn't really service your car. And having some friends with Teslas (It's not difficult to see a dozen of these taxpayer mobiles on every commute..... 4 miles as the crow flies for me), there are horror stories of Tesla "Mechanics" being unable to diagnose brake rotor run out and wanting to replace the entire unsprung suspension assembly, or waiting on a replacement trim piece for 6 months because Tesla doesn't really make enough spare parts to keep the factory lights on as they must sell cars to be alive. Tesla is not, at this time, a fully functioning automotive brand and if you had to deal with what Tesla actually is for your personal vehicle maintenance and safety, I don't think you would be quite as impressed.
It is clear we are talking about the dealership as a model for selling cars. For many of your other points, there is competition. I choose to I to use the service department at a dealership. I choose to use their financing. In those areas, dealerships have kept pace because the competitive marketplace demands they improve. I have no choice.

There is not incentive for the sales department to improve because they don't need to.

I am not aware of what Tesla's model is, but Carvana, CarMax, to name two, are great models. Customer service, easy, the ux is great, clear communication, no skeevy folks playing the "sit in my office and make you feel uncomfortable" game.

Lastly as a customer, it doesn't matter if I am "informed", what matters is my perception, because that influences my purchases. The dealerships could add a multitude of value that I don't understand, but if they do a shitty job of demonstrating this value, then that is their fault. It still leaves many customer wanting something better, and other entities willing to meet that need.
 

Old Guy

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Was talking to my dealer yesterday. Ford did propose that they move to a order and ship, dealer becoming service center only. Massive uproar from dealers. That is fair though, as Ford has dictated what dealerships need for showrooms, and they invest a lot to meet that. It is a complicated issue, and to paint the dealers as evil, is unfair. I would say instead, it is better to look at it, as the world is changing, and that model is likely no longer a good choice. Also remember, these are businesses who are very worried about what would happen to them. These are people and jobs, and I think we sometimes forget that.

Dealer said the UK is primarily a vendor type system (I wasn't aware of that), and that cars are just ordered and delivered to them. At this point, my dealer said they are only able to order cars that associated with a customer owner. They are decent sized dealership, and the lot is very empty, and they run a skeleton crew.
 

Cousin Eddie

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Too many people want to take home a car the same day for dealer lots to go away entirely but I would love a world where at the end of B&P we clicked add to cart and could select 2 day shipping.
Don't know about you but I have never had a dealer have a car ready for me to take home the day I decided to buy.
 

Cousin Eddie

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Dealerships are only good for any warranty work and most screw that up.
But they're not really good for warranty work, because they're squeezed from both ends. If they acknowledge that the issue is warranty-related, they have to get it approved by Ford and then they receive a very limited reimbursement for the work depending on how much time Ford decides it should take and how much the job is worth. For non-warranty work, they have much more flexibility in diagnosis and repair in order to maximize profit (read: wring out the customer). So dealerships have every incentive to avoid claiming something is eligible for warranty coverage.

I've had dealerships flat out deny my car was leaking oil in order to avoid having to do an extensive warranty repair. Instead they claimed it was transmission fluid and was "repaired" by tightening a drain plug on the transmission, for which I was charged $70 (no parts replaced = no warranty coverage). The oil was dripping again as soon as I got home.

Or how the same dealership continues to be "unable to replicate" a pervasive, obvious issue for which there's an existing TSB, I assume because the fix is incredibly labor-intensive and they would lose money by doing the fix because Ford wouldn't reimburse them enough. So I've paid them $70 twice now for diagnoses that accomplished nothing and I keep getting cracked in the head by a liftgate that closes itself.

My wife actually overheard the employees ask each other why they were doing warranty work for us even though we didn't purchase the car there. That's not how warranty work works - it doesn't matter where we bought the vehicle, if it needs fixed it needs fixed, factory warranty doesn't hinge on where I bought it.

If you really believe in the free market, then allow competition between dealerships and direct-to-customer sales and see who survives.
 

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HotdogThud

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I despise the entire vehicle purchase experience no matter the brand
A long long time ago, I bought a Saturn as a young person starting out in my early 20's. And that was the last time I had a good experience buying a car. They were genuinely onto something with the whole "it costs this much, no matter how well you think you can negotiate. Let's help you get set up with some financing".

Naturally, GM killed it.
 

Rick Astley

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It is clear we are talking about the dealership as a model for selling cars. For many of your other points, there is competition. I choose to I to use the service department at a dealership. I choose to use their financing. In those areas, dealerships have kept pace because the competitive marketplace demands they improve. I have no choice.

There is not incentive for the sales department to improve because they don't need to.

I am not aware of what Tesla's model is, but Carvana, CarMax, to name two, are great models. Customer service, easy, the ux is great, clear communication, no skeevy folks playing the "sit in my office and make you feel uncomfortable" game.

Lastly as a customer, it doesn't matter if I am "informed", what matters is my perception, because that influences my purchases. The dealerships could add a multitude of value that I don't understand, but if they do a shitty job of demonstrating this value, then that is their fault. It still leaves many customer wanting something better, and other entities willing to meet that need.
It's clear we're talking about dealerships. Those include sales/finance/service. You can't cherry pick one with the exclusion of the other without resetting the entire landscape.

That landscape essentially cannot be reset due to the myriad of labor agreements, franchise laws, OEM/Franchise contracts, federal regs, etc.

So you must look at what they are, not what you want them to be.

And frankly, for 95-98% of customers, the dealership works just fine for sales. the vast majority of customers haven't done the legwork to determine their own credit score, let alone competitive financing to compare against captive. Yes, this is slowly changing with the lending applications being available online and in ways that require near-zero customer knowledge about the process.

What "we" (as in the 1% of owners who are focused and informed and interested in a specific vehicle and features, plus we understand more about the automotive sector as a whole) expect from our dealership experience is unrealistic. I see this regularly in my daily work. My clients do not associate "value" with the accuracy of their tax return, or that complex tax situations were recorded properly and in full IRS regulatory compliance. They associate "value" almost exclusively to "how much was my refund?". Nothing could be further from the truth for what value was provided but I must understand that is their perspective and almost exclusively the only metric that they use to conceptualize "value". Again, the vast number of customers are uninformed as to what they want and most have no clue what they are looking for beyond "a vehicle", and could not articulate their needs to another human. How do you provide a vehicle purchasing environment which that person will associate with "value"? How do you cater to "I have no clue what I want, but you aren't answering my non-questions properly"?

Frankly, there's a lot of drug use in the auto sales industry and you have a career path that many find requires zero specialty knowledge, training or experience to enter the field.

Tesla hasn't changed much aside from having an incredibly small client base of quasi to well-educated, well-heeled buyers which are so far above the "average car buyer" that it's laughable there are connections made to John Q Public.

FWIW, i've been in sales during my late teen years and dealt with the cash-only drug dealer customer, and the tweaker person who won't remember they were even there, or rich person trying to show of to some beautiful cheap floozie and get some action before his marriage collapses. John Q Public is vast and scary in how extreme it can be. Dealerships must work with them all and frankly, the line they hold is one that works with that variety, surprisingly.
 

John Bronco_ I am here

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Between the Carvana and Tesla business models, dealerships will definitely be a thing of the past sooner or later. I wouldn't be surprised if in 30 years we all have electric cars that we pay for via a subscription service. A few manufacturers have tried it already but it's not quite there yet.
I can tell you are not one to modify your vehicles.

Until all state laws change that prevent this (around 10 of them including Texas have a ban on direct sales and another handful have limited sales), there is no way Ford will change to the direct sale model.
Yeah, and some states made it illegal to pump your own fuel to save minimum wage jobs. Everyone has to play ball eventually; times... they change.



Oh, one more thought. It is only the uninformed buyer that feels they were taken advantage of.
 

Wanted33

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It's interesting that the same logical fallacy persists in the automotive "uninformed" as it does on a dedicated car forum that when you discuss a dealership you believe the only product to be new car sales.

There is absolutely no doubt that a car salesman is not the most informed person as to the corporate sales structure, products or newest information of a yet-to-be-released product. But that's not their job.

Dealerships primary roles are as a finance broker and repair facility.

Quoting the holy bong-water of Tesla as changing the business model is pretty far off the mark from what is possible as a change to the structure.

Tesla, by and large, is dealing with wealthy customers (I refer to "wealthy" as somebody who doesn't need to engage in any lending beyond prime or at worst, market rate). Your typical auto dealership is HOPING to have 1 in 10 customers have a FICO high enough to breeze through this process.

Auto repairs: The vast and overarching regulations over an OEM and how long they produce parts and service vehicles is astounding. You can take in any vehicle that a manufacturer has ever made and get parts (federal regs are to produce parts for 10 years after production stops, but common parts are readily available), or the vehicle serviced by trained mechanics that have tooling/tools to do the job (obviously the human factor arises when talking about labor).

Tesla outsources to facilities that want to buy their diagnostic program and proprietary software and have highly skilled monkeys who know how to use a USB port and can actually read the English language! If you needed to know how to restart your computer to fix all problems, these are your guys! Anything that's not functioning? throw it away and put in a new one. Legos are fun!

Note that Tesla's strategy doesn't really service your car. And having some friends with Teslas (It's not difficult to see a dozen of these taxpayer mobiles on every commute..... 4 miles as the crow flies for me), there are horror stories of Tesla "Mechanics" being unable to diagnose brake rotor run out and wanting to replace the entire unsprung suspension assembly, or waiting on a replacement trim piece for 6 months because Tesla doesn't really make enough spare parts to keep the factory lights on as they must sell cars to be alive. Tesla is not, at this time, a fully functioning automotive brand and if you had to deal with what Tesla actually is for your personal vehicle maintenance and safety, I don't think you would be quite as impressed.
Thanks Rick, very sensical as usual. Seems this Bronco buying experience has taken a toll on some here. The comment about Carvana not having lots set me back a bit. Carvana has a holding facility in my town that sits on approx. 30 acres of land with tons of cars. Just because you don't see the lot doesn't mean there ain't one. And, it wasn't too many years ago that Carvana was hemorrhaging money. I haven't looked lately to see if that has turned around. I'm sorry that some can't find a good dealer in their area. Luckily I have a local hometown family owned dealership that I deal with. They treat everyone with respect, and have always treated me right. I'm sure it's different at the mega dealers, but I wouldn't know for sure as I'll never darken their doors. As far as my Bronco I went with another small town dealer as mine can't touch the deal I got. So I'll travel a bit, and use my local dealer's service dept. for any work that may be needed.
 
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PWillette

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A long long time ago, I bought a Saturn as a young person starting out in my early 20's. And that was the last time I had a good experience buying a car. They were genuinely onto something with the whole "it costs this much, no matter how well you think you can negotiate. Let's help you get set up with some financing".

Naturally, GM killed it.
Early 20s certainly was A LONG LONG time ago! In the past 26+ years since I can't recall a truly positive dealer experience.
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