Ford dealership wins against forum community after tagging Bronco

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The drama surrounding Ford Bronco reservations and reservation holders to be hit with the mark-ups gets worse. And sometimes it ends with the dealer getting what he wants while the customer gets screwed. A tip sent by the reader b4crimes details the drama that unfolded around a Bronco reservation holder on Bronco owner forums, Bronco6G.com.

The original poster, a Sherminator, detailed when and how he placed his Bronco reservation.

Booked 7/13 within first 45 minutes, placed my order in January, built on July 2, Dirt Mountain through September and delivered on 10/14.

I was checking the pizza plotter yesterday and noticed it was delivered to DCH Ford of Eatontown.

I’ve contacted my seller (who I’m friends with) over the past few weeks and he’s acting slightly differently.

I give him a call at 11am today (I’m off this week) so he tells me they’re scoring them 10,000 now. I go to the dealership after the call, I talk to my salesman, then I talk to the manager and he tries to do some bullshit with this “value” talk and I basically cut the BS and ask them directly if they gonna take it off….I proceed out the doo and tell them to push the Bronco where the sun doesn’t shine and a bunch of four letter words.

Needless to say, I’m furious at this point.

As I pointed out before, Ford has (supposedly) price protection for Bronco reservation holders. The price protection covers bookings made before March 19 this year. Ford also recommends a written and sign purchase agreement, something another forum member asked if Sherminator had. He responded with an image.

This sheet you see here is a WBDO (Web Based Dealer Ordering) sheet. Something like this can only be printed by the dealer. As you can see at the bottom, Sherminator’s information has been blacked out along with what appears to be an agreement signed by him. Two things, however, make this sheet of paper nearly useless: Sherminator didn’t get the dealership to sign. His signature of “I Scott ____ agree that…” is basically that he acknowledges the command and builds. Nothing more. Additionally, and this is the most glaring one that many have pointed out, the sheet does not list the final sale price. It’s just the MSRP plus the options.

After the forum became popular, things heated up for the dealership. As it has been shown before, consumers can pressure dealerships through negative reviews online, especially in places like google, Yelp, and negative comments on Facebook. The online community has come together to support Sherminator on the issue. Here’s another dealer using the excuse of market conditions to be greedy. The dealership was getting hammered with one star reviews. Reviews referencing the Bronco reservations situation have poured in amid existing negative sales and service reviews. It got so bad on Yelp that a disclaimer at the top of the business page reads “This business is being monitored by Yelp’s support team for content related to media reports.” People were even reporting the dealer to local news networks.

Then all of a sudden, things changed. People started noticing some of the negative reviews and comments on Facebook, Yelp, and Google were changing. Some suspected that the company created fake accounts and went around countering negative reviews with positive ones. Someone counted that there were 69 new five-star reviews in less than 24 hours. People started asking how the dealership was responding to the negative reviews. A Bronco owner forums user noticed comments on the dealership’s Facebook page were manipulated.

I no longer see the most recent reviews on this item other than mine on the Google page, but this reseller has changed the settings and used their admin privileges to combat negative reviews. On Facebook, they controlled the addition of newer posts and also applied settings to most relevant posts or no posts shown. Someone had posted a screenshot of the 5 star reviews and I had seen one created earlier in the day which coincidentally had to comment on all the 1 star reviews saying they were just a bunch of people trying to tear this business down for no reason and now I can’t find him.

Forum comments were a mess. Much came after Sherminator himself on previous comments he made about Bronco reservation holders getting their vehicles from another dealership called Granger Ford. Because of these comments, some weren’t on his side, with one saying “OP was going after all the people in Granger, calling them idiots, just a few days ago. Now that he’s getting fucked he can choke on a bag of cocks for all I want.

Reviews and forum responses aren’t the only things that have changed. Sherminator’s responses also changed taking a middle-of-the-road approach from both sides. For example, he pointed out that the dealership and people defending it were using fake accounts to post reviews, which could mean both parties are wrong.

His tone shifted again, pretty much calling out forum members he approached for help to make the situation worse while saying he didn’t blame them for what happened.

Some, including myself, believe the dealership threatened legal action over what was happening regarding the reviews, which may explain the sudden change in tone. But the latest update Sherminator released all but confirmed that the dealer had won.

Not only does he not get his Bronco, but he needs to apologize and ask people to delete the negative reviews they posted in support of him trying to force the dealership to give him the Bronco at MSRP. It all adds up to the fact that the dealership has one more Bronco in their inventory to be greedy with someone else.

And tell her they’ll help her get another reservation at another one dealer instead of doing the right thing and selling him what he ordered at the right price only adds insult to injury. Deleting negative reviews is exactly what happened. The negative reviews that were posted on Yelp during the debacle have disappeared. Negative reviews from Google are still on the rise along with responses from dealers.

This is all a prime example of how and why the dealership model has to die and how Ford messed up the Bronco rollout with its reservation system. Ford should have better explained to customers how reservations work. In a perfect world, Ford would have explained to dealers that the price reservation holders see online after specifying their vehicles is the price they will pay at the dealership. But this world is not perfect. The company almost allows dealerships to overcharge people who have waited more than a year for their vehicle at the last minute with an unnecessary price protection clause.

Update: Looks like Sherminator is getting his Bronco! Mike Levine, product communications manager at Ford, and Sherminator himself contacted me to update me on the situation.

“I have reached an agreement with the dealership to re-order a 2022 MY Bronco for me as they approached me in good faith after the incident. Ford is expediting the order for me and I will receive a contract for ‘signed purchase at MSRP once the order is placed. I currently need to get in touch with my seller (who I’m not sure is today) to place the updated order.’