DieselFumes
2015 4x4 2500 170 Crew
First, story time. Then, a question for the combined expertise of the forum.
I ordered a 4x4 on the first day of availability, October 2014. I found a dealer who offered to meet me half way between invoice and MSRP. This is at a time when most were asking for MSRP or above. Good deal, right?
Fast forward to mid-May. I ask for an update, and am told the van will be at the dealership June 1.
June 1, no van. More emails and calls exchanged over the next couple of weeks (mostly at my prompting). Finally, I’m told “Oh, apparently that was the date your van landed at Lasdon, not the dealer date.” New date “About a month.”
4th of July weekend, it’s still in California waiting to be trucked up to the Pacific North West. Delivery finally happens on Sat 11th July while I’m on a mountain bike vacation I wanted to use the van for (and had already sold my old truck).
I get a text on Monday 13th morning with pictures of the van. The color looks a little off but that could be just cell phone cameras. Also, it has alloy wheels and I ordered steel. And are those fog lights? That wasn’t part of any package I ordered.
I let the dealer know that things looked weird. No response. Maybe it was a nice dealer surprise to say sorry for the van being so late. I arranged to cut my vacation short and drive back to pick up the van on Weds 15th.
On Weds, I arrive with wife and dog, dusty from our trip, and the sales person proudly shows me my new van. Only it isn’t. No suspension seats. No Active Safety package. An alarm system (not much use in the middle of a forest where we camp). A second battery (useless considering I have a LiFePo battery in the garage waiting to go in to the van). Becker GPS (I prefer Google). Wrong color. Wrong (higher) sticker price. Definitely a surprise.
So a conversation ensues. Turns out my van got sold on June 6 or 7. It was “A feeding frenzy” to quote the sales person. In other words, they got above MSRP for it. Probably not very upset not to sell it to me.
Apparently no customer names are assigned to 4x4 orders, so they didn’t think the one that came in was mine. I mean, it’s not like is has a VIN they can check or anything, or that it arrived when mine was due in. **Miraculously**, they had done a dealer trade for this second 4x4, which they thought was mine. Really? They found a similar spec van from California completely by chance without in the slightest realizing that they’d screwed up and needed to make good? Hmmm.
The sales person told me “I would walk away if this happened to me.” I bet he’d like me to do that, because then he could sell this other van for above MSRP too, rather than the below-invoice price that I’m sitting in the dealership for 3 hours negotiating. In fact, he admitted he already had it sold. What’s crazy is that at this point they were STILL trying to highball me, and running the “I’ve got to talk to my manager” game, until I stood up and said I’ll go with the sales person to talk to the sales manager.
I took the van home with me that day (without parting with any money). It's a nice van, but it's not what I ordered. The dealership manager (who was out on Weds) finally called at noon today (Thursday), and was still trying to not lose money on their screw-up. Of all the people who are potential candidates for helping him recoup his losses, I think I'm pretty far down the list. Sales person who sold my van, quite high up that same list. He didn't seem to see it that way.
Giving a dealer a deposit doesn’t appear to constitute a contract. Or even if it does, they don’t care.
I’m not going to name the dealership (yet).
My question is, in my position, what would you do? What would you be happy negotiating as a deal? What would count as compensation?
I am NOT looking for macho responses that are impractical. I don’t find shouting at or threatening dealers to be particularly constructive. I want to know that I haven’t left anything on the table before I give money to a dealership I never want to go near again.
Also, if you bought a 170 4x4 in Blue-Grey somewhere on the West Coast during the first few weeks of June without having put an order in, let me know (PM me). Don't worry - I'm not mad at you, it's an awesome van!
Some more details…
Original order: 170 4x4 Blue-Grey. Xenon, Active Safety, suspension seats, cruise control, hitch, etc. ~$58k MSRP. The list is long because I didn’t choose packages if I could just get the single piece I wanted cheaper. Most of the inside was coming out anyway for a DIY conversion.
Actual van: 170 4x4 Silver Grey, Driver Efficiency (Becker, rear view camera, fog lamps), Premium Appearance (alloys, xenon), Additional Battery, hitch, power outlets, alarm system, overhead control panel, cheapest basic seats, ~$58.5k MSRP. Basically, lots of stuff that looks bling and sells vans on forecourts but has little practical use in a conversion.
I ordered a 4x4 on the first day of availability, October 2014. I found a dealer who offered to meet me half way between invoice and MSRP. This is at a time when most were asking for MSRP or above. Good deal, right?
Fast forward to mid-May. I ask for an update, and am told the van will be at the dealership June 1.
June 1, no van. More emails and calls exchanged over the next couple of weeks (mostly at my prompting). Finally, I’m told “Oh, apparently that was the date your van landed at Lasdon, not the dealer date.” New date “About a month.”
4th of July weekend, it’s still in California waiting to be trucked up to the Pacific North West. Delivery finally happens on Sat 11th July while I’m on a mountain bike vacation I wanted to use the van for (and had already sold my old truck).
I get a text on Monday 13th morning with pictures of the van. The color looks a little off but that could be just cell phone cameras. Also, it has alloy wheels and I ordered steel. And are those fog lights? That wasn’t part of any package I ordered.
I let the dealer know that things looked weird. No response. Maybe it was a nice dealer surprise to say sorry for the van being so late. I arranged to cut my vacation short and drive back to pick up the van on Weds 15th.
On Weds, I arrive with wife and dog, dusty from our trip, and the sales person proudly shows me my new van. Only it isn’t. No suspension seats. No Active Safety package. An alarm system (not much use in the middle of a forest where we camp). A second battery (useless considering I have a LiFePo battery in the garage waiting to go in to the van). Becker GPS (I prefer Google). Wrong color. Wrong (higher) sticker price. Definitely a surprise.
So a conversation ensues. Turns out my van got sold on June 6 or 7. It was “A feeding frenzy” to quote the sales person. In other words, they got above MSRP for it. Probably not very upset not to sell it to me.
Apparently no customer names are assigned to 4x4 orders, so they didn’t think the one that came in was mine. I mean, it’s not like is has a VIN they can check or anything, or that it arrived when mine was due in. **Miraculously**, they had done a dealer trade for this second 4x4, which they thought was mine. Really? They found a similar spec van from California completely by chance without in the slightest realizing that they’d screwed up and needed to make good? Hmmm.
The sales person told me “I would walk away if this happened to me.” I bet he’d like me to do that, because then he could sell this other van for above MSRP too, rather than the below-invoice price that I’m sitting in the dealership for 3 hours negotiating. In fact, he admitted he already had it sold. What’s crazy is that at this point they were STILL trying to highball me, and running the “I’ve got to talk to my manager” game, until I stood up and said I’ll go with the sales person to talk to the sales manager.
I took the van home with me that day (without parting with any money). It's a nice van, but it's not what I ordered. The dealership manager (who was out on Weds) finally called at noon today (Thursday), and was still trying to not lose money on their screw-up. Of all the people who are potential candidates for helping him recoup his losses, I think I'm pretty far down the list. Sales person who sold my van, quite high up that same list. He didn't seem to see it that way.
Giving a dealer a deposit doesn’t appear to constitute a contract. Or even if it does, they don’t care.
I’m not going to name the dealership (yet).
My question is, in my position, what would you do? What would you be happy negotiating as a deal? What would count as compensation?
I am NOT looking for macho responses that are impractical. I don’t find shouting at or threatening dealers to be particularly constructive. I want to know that I haven’t left anything on the table before I give money to a dealership I never want to go near again.
Also, if you bought a 170 4x4 in Blue-Grey somewhere on the West Coast during the first few weeks of June without having put an order in, let me know (PM me). Don't worry - I'm not mad at you, it's an awesome van!
Some more details…
Original order: 170 4x4 Blue-Grey. Xenon, Active Safety, suspension seats, cruise control, hitch, etc. ~$58k MSRP. The list is long because I didn’t choose packages if I could just get the single piece I wanted cheaper. Most of the inside was coming out anyway for a DIY conversion.
Actual van: 170 4x4 Silver Grey, Driver Efficiency (Becker, rear view camera, fog lamps), Premium Appearance (alloys, xenon), Additional Battery, hitch, power outlets, alarm system, overhead control panel, cheapest basic seats, ~$58.5k MSRP. Basically, lots of stuff that looks bling and sells vans on forecourts but has little practical use in a conversion.