Gather round folks for the another chapter of my ridiculous story… I have been refreshing my tracking page for weeks on end and there was really no update after my status went to built some weeks ago. I for sure checked the page before leaving work Friday afternoon since I was getting excited when the UAW strike was being settled at Ford factories.
Saturday afternoon I get a call from the salesman at the dealership who says my car was just delivered and it would be ready in a couple of days. I immediately logged into the ford website and saw that my car had skipped the shipping step and went straight to the final stage. The salesmen told me to come in Sunday (next day) to get my trade-in approved and prep paperwork. I go in Sunday and ask to see the explorer but he says it’s not at the dealership, it’s at their storage lot. I didn’t question that since I’ve seen car carriers and dealership stock in some of the mall lots around the area before. The salesman gets word from whoever inspected my trade-in that they’ll offer me 7k and not a penny more. I have a 2014 Jeep grand Cherokee altitude package with 83k miles on it - KBB and Carfax quoted around 11,500 trade-in value conservatively. I was surprised at how low the dealership went on my trade in value and was a little peeved they wouldn’t work with me on price at all (especially after all this explorer BS), so I told them to forget it and I would sell the Jeep myself. We prepared some of the other details for the explorer deal and scheduled for me to pick it up on Tuesday the 31st.
I left the dealership and visited a neighbor who was in the market for a used car. I told the neighbor if he wanted the Jeep, I’d be happy to give him a great deal on it rather than have ford rip me off, and besides I had to move it fast to transfer the plates/registration on Tuesday. He agreed to buy my Jeep on the spot. It was a very quick process but after all, he is a neighbor and knows me and the car to some extent. We agreed that as soon as I get the ford on Tuesday I would drop off his Jeep.
Monday afternoon comes around and I’m starting to get excited, i arranged for a ride to the dealership and head to the bank to get a certified check for the purchase. I had all my paperwork ready in a pile when my phone rings. It’s the ford salesman. He says ~ ‘I don’t know how this happened, but your explorer is still in Dearborn MI. I don’t know when it will be delivered but I am told soon. Ford initially said it was delivered to us, but it was a screw up’
At that point I was just silent for a while, then I told him I had already made a deal to sell my Jeep and this nonsense is putting my family in a very bad position. My salesman offered me zero empathy and even had the balls to tell me “imagine how I feel.” He told me he would let me know when the car was ready when I hung up without saying a word.
At this point I don’t know what’s more ridiculous, the fact that Ford motor company can’t deliver operable cars and they have a tracking system that can be so completely wrong, or the fact that my salesman/dealership couldn’t give two shits about the trouble they’ve put me through. I have asked multiple times if they would do anything to keep me in the deal or to alleviate the troubles, and they just simply shrug the question off and change subjects…
At this point, my wife and I are still committed to getting the car which makes me feel stupid. They don’t deserve our business at all. If there was any way for me to cut my salesman out of the equation I would love to do it. All he had to do, at any point along this journey, was just pretend to be fighting for me. I guess we will see what happens next…