I'm at a loss as to why the percentage of blame here matters in the least. I've worked on the corporate side of the automotive industry my entire life. I know the inside baseball and all the warts that go with it. 98% of consumers don't.I'm not here going to deny, the way they set up the system is flawed. And I'm not saying Ford isn't wrong on some aspects. I'm just not sure why more people aren't bothered with the dealers? I'll say it again, they own the relationship with Ford. Not us. They know how allocations work and how Ford delivers cars, etc... we don't. It's their business. I'd like to think they understand how it works.
Customers went to the Ford Motor Company website, gave $100 in exchange for a reservation and were instructed to choose a dealership to do business with. No reasonable consumer would have any other expectation than to complete that process with the dealer they selected.
Ford knew in the first 24 hours if they had created a problem with supply and demand as it relates to the allocation process. Instead of pulling the dealer selection process off the reservation website, they let it ride and continued to set customer expectations. Meanwhile they quietly changed the Terms and Conditions on the backend to protect themselves. Ford could have easily looked at the reservations for a given dealership and sent an email to anyone that ordered a Bronco through that dealership to let them know that due to supply constraints and allocations they may not be able to purchase their car through that dealership. Instead they let it ride again. Not for 1-3 months. Not for 6-12 months. But for over a year while more people paid money to make a reservation and choose a dealer.
All of that is on Ford Motor Company.
As a side note, Chevy allocates Corvettes based on a given dealer's past number of Corvette sales. So if your dealership sells a lot of Corvettes, you get more Corvettes. The top two in the nation sell at MSRP, communicate transparently, take care of customers and sell exponentially more Corvettes than any of the rest of the 3000+ dealers in the network. Anyone can choose to compete with that if they want. Chevy is one example of a manufacturer that decided it was time to reward dealerships that take care of customers. Creme rises to the top. And that's on a product that sells a whole lot less than the Bronco's potential numbers. Ford could easily fix this and still keep dealers happy. There are a whole lot more Bronco's to go around than Corvettes.
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