UPDATE: After making this post, I was contacted by a former customer who had ordered a 2022 F150 Lightning with Asheville Ford. His customer Order was marked up by the dealer by $20,000 when his truck arrived on the lot. Very shady tactics for a customer who is willing to wait for an ordered truck…
The only way to tell the whole story is to start from the beginning..
This story has been building for over 12 years. It all began more than 12 years ago at a dealership called Mathew’s Ford in Asheville, North Carolina. Although it wasn’t a major issue, the dishonesty began here. At this particular point in time my mom was looking for a new vehicle, but her credit wasn’t in the perfect spot like it is today. Before we wasted our time and got our hopes up looking at cars, we decided to reach out to the dealership before making the drive to ensure that we could even qualify for the financing. We sent over all the information required and mentioned the lot number of the vehicle we were interested in purchasing, and patiently waited for two days. Finally after two days someone from the sales team emailed me back and told me that we were pre-approved, to come on over and get the car. We went to test drive the vehicle, liked what we seen, and went to sign the paperwork. We ended up waiting for two hours while they tried to track down our pre-approval. Turns out no one had in fact ever ran our credit. There was no pre-approval, that was just a poor attempt to get us to come in to the show room. Not only did they waste our time but they wasted their own time, because the financing was not approved.
Me being me, I am not one to write someone off for one bad experience. So roughly 11 years ago I was working full-time, and had begun to build my credit. I had a particular truck in mind that I wanted, and I searched high and low to find it. That landed me at Asheville Ford in Asheville North Carolina and was a used 2012 Ford F-150 Platinum. I knew with my large down payment that financing wasn’t going to be an issue, but the job i had at the time was a temporary position. I wanted to make sure that temporary position turned into a full-time position before finalizing the paperwork. I am very goal driven in my daily life, I try to set a goal and work as hard as I can to get to that goal as quickly as possible. That in mind I decided to go over to Asheville Ford to look at the truck that I had in mind. At this point they were no longer Matthew‘s Ford, and had moved to their new location. The salesman brought the key out, started the truck up and let me look at it, and was trying hard to make a sale. I explained to him that it was my goal to come finalize the paperwork and buy the truck within the next 30 days. When he found out that I was not buying that day he turned the truck off, locked it, and walked away. I understand that you feel like your time was wasted, but you could’ve at least been decent about the situation and possibly made the sale within the next 30 days.. As it would happen the temporary position did not mature into a full-time position, and the goal was lost.
I like to work on a three strike system, and I felt Asheville ford deserved that third strike. It had been nine years since my last interaction with them, when I decided to find myself a new truck. This time I was looking on the brand new lot, and I wanted an F150 platinum (still). I pulled up in my car, parked it and began walking the lot. I walked across their entire lot, several salesman seeing me, walking by me, saying nothing. I guess I just didn’t fit the appearance they expected of anyone having money, so they wouldn’t even talk to me. Having had bad experiences leading up to this, and seeing that not a single thing had changed in over 10 years, that was the push I needed to write off Asheville Ford forever.
Then we go to the current year.. Now, remember I am a three strikes person. Asheville Ford hit strike 3 two years ago. So with no intention of purchasing at all, I went to Asheville Ford today because they have a brand new 2022 F150 platinum lightning on display. I just wanted to put hands on the truck and get a feel for what I would be expecting when I place my order in the coming weeks. The salesman was trying hard to make a sale, which made no sense to me because you can’t even order these trucks right now… Well, it made some sense to me being i had just pulled up in a $160,000.00 Tesla.. He was trying his best to tell me about all the cool and neat things about the truck, but he didn’t know anything about it. I asked him what the difference between a platinum and a lariat was and he told me he couldn’t tell me the difference.. It didn’t take long to realize why he was pushing hard for the sale, apparently he was authorized to sell the demo model. The sticker in the window showed $93,000, his asking price? $129,000.
I am just completely shocked that dealers have the balls to continue to try this bull crap, while the owner of the company Jim Farley is telling them he will shut them down if they continue..
When I told the young salesman that I was a sticker price only buyer, he got real defensive with me and started making smart comments. Stuff like you’ll never find one any cheaper, and good luck getting one before 2024.
I honestly wasn’t sure if he was really that stupid, or just trying to suppress information to try to get me into this one at nearly $30,000.00 over retail. But I feel like anyone within the company should know at this point the order banks open next week.. I don’t even work for the company and I know that.
To be fair, I likely wouldn’t have purchased it even if he offered at sticker because Asheville Ford has already received their three strikes. I will not give my money to companies that are run poorly or do not have their customers best interest in mind. Furthermore I will never work with another dealer again who has taken advantage of this economic crisis, and added markup to brand new vehicles to try to make a profit above MSRP.
I cannot wait for the end of the dealership, I hope I Asheville Ford is first.
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