Featured Is Ford dumping its dealers?

GOOD!

The dealers love to 'bait and switch' buyers to traditional ICE vehicles. Absent a 24x7, fast DC charger, they provide no value to EV customers.

Perhaps some EV reviewers bring value? Credibility is a problem but read them all and collect the common impressions.

Bob Wilson

 

And where would customers have their vehicles serviced?

 

There was some complaints about some dealers' behavior with the online ordering process with the Mach-E. This could be a warning to the less progressive ones.

 

Believe that the future for Dealers will be Service, Vehicle Delivery and Test Drives.

After buying our last vehicles through an online process, it would be hard to buy from a Dealer again.
Once you buy online the traditional model of going to the Dealer and haggling out a price has no appeal.

I like the concept of buying a vehicle should be like buying a can of green beans, with the price clearly established with regional cost of living figured in as maybe an add on. You click on the vehicle you've decided on and the Dealership Delivers to your home or lets you pick it up at the Dealership. Financing, registration etc all done online.

Maybe keep a couple of Car Salesman on the payroll for people who enjoy having, variable secretive pricing and knockdown dragout battles over final pricing or not familiar with the internet.

 

I don't mind online purchases at all. The test drive would be handled by some period of no-question asked return policy. I read somewhere that Ford is not the only one planning to shift the sales to purely online. But I sure hope they will put some means to service their vehicle locally. The online repair will not fly even without the need for an oil change.

 

I agree! A two week, no questions asked return with a modest 'rental fee' of say $50/day works for me.

Bob Wilson

 

A used car dealership I've used in the past had a 5 day return policy, but that was used cars.

Is that enough to cover the depreciation on what is now a used car they have to sell?

 

The echoes of Tesla's disruption of the auto market continue... I could just imagine the biggest Ford stealerships sitting down with the board of directors and saying they have a problem with selling EVs because maintenance and repair revenue projections for selling them looks awful and then them proposing some ideas for how to force EVs into their shop for unneeded maintenance at huge prices and Ford is like, "You know what... Our revenue projections look much better if we just eliminate you from selling EVs entirely." And they're like, "But... Wait... That's not what we meant." Lol... Another nail in the coffin of car dealerships.

 

it is amazing how many wall street gangs and reviewers keep prognosticating the 'tesla killer', only to find a short time later that they're back in the war room trying to figure out what went wrong

 

We all know people who see it this way about life... They think their old lazy inefficient greedy ways is a gravy train that never ends...

 

yes, i've owned stock in several of these types of companies. the boobs at the top walk away with millions either way.
(why do i see them as boobs when they're clearly more financially successful than moi? )

 

And why as something as delightful as a boob?

 

I've bought 3 cars online. By online I mean I got the quote, it was exact to the penny, I showed up at the dealer with a check, 15 minutes later I drove off with no upselling pressure. And in normal times, each buy was a $4-5k under MSRP purchase.

Supply and demand being what it is, I don't expect that level of discount. But I do expect a similar frictionless and angstless experience.

 

Agreed, Boobs are beautiful... @bisco is way out of line!

 

L

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder LOL


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Dealers are scum. They only exist because the archaic system for buying new cars still exists. Good riddance!

There is literally no worse consumer experience than sitting at the dealer for 4 hours waiting for finance man to bait you into buying more bullshit you don't need. I have owned over 100 vehicles in my life and only ever bought one at a dealership, I will never do it again.