Been on this forum for a while and salivating at every delivery posted on here, wondering IF I'd ever actually see mine. So now I have renewed hope.
Here goes... So, last year in June while watching the Bronco reveal and getting my reservation in for a First Edition, Jeep snuck in that HEMI teaser... I was intrigued since I'm a Jeep guy for more than 3 decades, but I got sucked up in the Bronco Hype. Nonetheless, I followed the HEMI announcement. So in November, when it was official, I was first "in person" reservation at one of Texas' largest dealerships. I was told I was number 2 on their allocation (of 9) but my salesguy gave me the "wink" that since I was the first to come in, I was #1. Cool! Over the next 5 months, I pinged them almost weekly to see if they had pricing information, ETA even if just a guess, ANYTHING and I'd either not get a returned phone call or at best, I got the canned dealership response of "no, no news at all." Long story short, my original dealer never cashed my deposit, never gave me a VON let alone a VIN, and kept stringing me along for months with zero info. Well, come late March, I got a text from my salesguy's "replacement" that my Jeep should be in soon and he asked me when can I come in and pay. At this point, they STILL never gave me a total, so I asked about sticker price. He said $78k and change, plus $7k market adjustment. I told him previous sales guy guaranteed MSRP. I was told "management is doing 10-15K on all 392's. We are doing a deal for you since you ordered so early." (which, since they never cashed my deposit check, I questioned how that was an order?) Anyways, at this point, I had already converted my First Edition Bronco to an order and it was supposed to be in by June (Hah! Foolish me!) so I basically told them where they can stick their "deal." His response? "We'll get $20K over once it hits the showroom floor." So I walked.
Now, getting close to summer, news of the first 392's hit, and the news of the Bronco failures begin to surface. I was in immediate "regret" stage. So I started searching... and searching. Found that anything not already sold had ADM on it - which I refuse to pay. So enough time was wasted in my search that Jeep had now announced the XR package. Figuring I'd have to order anyways, I'd wait until June to order with the Xtreme Recon package. I decided to go with a smaller dealership this time. Placed my order 6/14. Paid a deposit, got a VON. All good. So I thought. After a week of no updates and no email from Jeep, I started asking about status. No updates. Kept reading folks on here had their VINs in a couple days, week tops. Still kept asking, but no emails no updates. But given today's car climate, I knew LOTS of folks were in the same boat, so I didn't harass but did "ask" every week or so...
Well, it got to a point that I requested to meet face to face and have a look in their system. First meeting, the salesguy and sales manager brought out "my" build sheet (I say "my" because, yes it was my specs, but still had customer listed as dealer.) It was BE status. I was like "dude, that means something is wrong with the order..." They replied "no, it just means schedule is still pending." Whatever... guess they don't believe I'm capable of simple look up tasks. Told them it was an error code, not a standard "pending" code. The next words from the sales manager's lips were "Oh, there was a supply problem with the gorilla glass on all Jeep orders, but Jeep fixed that. It's actually a good order now but our system hasn't updated yet." No lie. THAT'S what he told me - you know, because it's not like this system is connected to a LIVE data set that's pulled on the fly! Anyways, I was pissed that I couldn't get a straight answer so started pulling the "can you give my the number to call for customer complaints on the dealership" card. Sales guy excused the manager and told me "there's a corporate meeting Thursday and the General Manager is supposed to get updated on supply chain issues and order status. I promise I'll have some news for you then." This was Tuesday. I called at noon on Thursday. Told that they were still in a meeting. Called back at 3:00. Told my guy was with a customer. Called at 7'ish. Told my guy had left for the day. So I called at 9:00 Friday. He told me his team hadn't been briefed by the GM yet, and he'd get back to me. I let it go until Saturday morning. Now the next event sent me over the top - and if anyone wants to know THE south Texas dealer to avoid, PM me and I'll tell you... This is exactly what I was told: I'm so sorry to be the one to tell you this, I feel sick to my stomach having to. But the GM told us that they were only allocated 2 and he put the 2 orders in back in May for dealer inventory for $20K ADM because they are LIMITED EDITIONS" WHAT???? Okay, we all know they won't be made forever, possibly ending with the '22 run... but NOT limited editions. I even asked HOW they could do that to me with my order IN HAND??? He said GM said it's what the market demands right now. I told him to tell the GM do go duck himself. And remember autocorrect: It's never duck.
So I started calling dealerships all over REALLY hard. Was getting a lot of hot air, but several had quite a few similarities: MY '21 orders close on the 7th and 2022 is open to order on the 8th. So I called a friend my local Toyota dealer and asked him if he had any contacts in the Jeep world. He gave me a number of one of his buddies and I called him Thursday the 7th. Asked him about the 22's. He said absolutely, and they open at 9:00. I was there at 8:45!!! Got the order submitted and a copy of the build. Sweated bullets for the next eight days waiting for a VIN and priority to change from 99. The following Saturday I got the VIN and a build priority of 01 AND my name is actually listed as customer. Finally! Some HOPE!
Thanks all for reading my book! Just figured I'd share my horror story. Maybe it'll make some of your bad experiences seem a little less horrific!
Here goes... So, last year in June while watching the Bronco reveal and getting my reservation in for a First Edition, Jeep snuck in that HEMI teaser... I was intrigued since I'm a Jeep guy for more than 3 decades, but I got sucked up in the Bronco Hype. Nonetheless, I followed the HEMI announcement. So in November, when it was official, I was first "in person" reservation at one of Texas' largest dealerships. I was told I was number 2 on their allocation (of 9) but my salesguy gave me the "wink" that since I was the first to come in, I was #1. Cool! Over the next 5 months, I pinged them almost weekly to see if they had pricing information, ETA even if just a guess, ANYTHING and I'd either not get a returned phone call or at best, I got the canned dealership response of "no, no news at all." Long story short, my original dealer never cashed my deposit, never gave me a VON let alone a VIN, and kept stringing me along for months with zero info. Well, come late March, I got a text from my salesguy's "replacement" that my Jeep should be in soon and he asked me when can I come in and pay. At this point, they STILL never gave me a total, so I asked about sticker price. He said $78k and change, plus $7k market adjustment. I told him previous sales guy guaranteed MSRP. I was told "management is doing 10-15K on all 392's. We are doing a deal for you since you ordered so early." (which, since they never cashed my deposit check, I questioned how that was an order?) Anyways, at this point, I had already converted my First Edition Bronco to an order and it was supposed to be in by June (Hah! Foolish me!) so I basically told them where they can stick their "deal." His response? "We'll get $20K over once it hits the showroom floor." So I walked.
Now, getting close to summer, news of the first 392's hit, and the news of the Bronco failures begin to surface. I was in immediate "regret" stage. So I started searching... and searching. Found that anything not already sold had ADM on it - which I refuse to pay. So enough time was wasted in my search that Jeep had now announced the XR package. Figuring I'd have to order anyways, I'd wait until June to order with the Xtreme Recon package. I decided to go with a smaller dealership this time. Placed my order 6/14. Paid a deposit, got a VON. All good. So I thought. After a week of no updates and no email from Jeep, I started asking about status. No updates. Kept reading folks on here had their VINs in a couple days, week tops. Still kept asking, but no emails no updates. But given today's car climate, I knew LOTS of folks were in the same boat, so I didn't harass but did "ask" every week or so...
Well, it got to a point that I requested to meet face to face and have a look in their system. First meeting, the salesguy and sales manager brought out "my" build sheet (I say "my" because, yes it was my specs, but still had customer listed as dealer.) It was BE status. I was like "dude, that means something is wrong with the order..." They replied "no, it just means schedule is still pending." Whatever... guess they don't believe I'm capable of simple look up tasks. Told them it was an error code, not a standard "pending" code. The next words from the sales manager's lips were "Oh, there was a supply problem with the gorilla glass on all Jeep orders, but Jeep fixed that. It's actually a good order now but our system hasn't updated yet." No lie. THAT'S what he told me - you know, because it's not like this system is connected to a LIVE data set that's pulled on the fly! Anyways, I was pissed that I couldn't get a straight answer so started pulling the "can you give my the number to call for customer complaints on the dealership" card. Sales guy excused the manager and told me "there's a corporate meeting Thursday and the General Manager is supposed to get updated on supply chain issues and order status. I promise I'll have some news for you then." This was Tuesday. I called at noon on Thursday. Told that they were still in a meeting. Called back at 3:00. Told my guy was with a customer. Called at 7'ish. Told my guy had left for the day. So I called at 9:00 Friday. He told me his team hadn't been briefed by the GM yet, and he'd get back to me. I let it go until Saturday morning. Now the next event sent me over the top - and if anyone wants to know THE south Texas dealer to avoid, PM me and I'll tell you... This is exactly what I was told: I'm so sorry to be the one to tell you this, I feel sick to my stomach having to. But the GM told us that they were only allocated 2 and he put the 2 orders in back in May for dealer inventory for $20K ADM because they are LIMITED EDITIONS" WHAT???? Okay, we all know they won't be made forever, possibly ending with the '22 run... but NOT limited editions. I even asked HOW they could do that to me with my order IN HAND??? He said GM said it's what the market demands right now. I told him to tell the GM do go duck himself. And remember autocorrect: It's never duck.
So I started calling dealerships all over REALLY hard. Was getting a lot of hot air, but several had quite a few similarities: MY '21 orders close on the 7th and 2022 is open to order on the 8th. So I called a friend my local Toyota dealer and asked him if he had any contacts in the Jeep world. He gave me a number of one of his buddies and I called him Thursday the 7th. Asked him about the 22's. He said absolutely, and they open at 9:00. I was there at 8:45!!! Got the order submitted and a copy of the build. Sweated bullets for the next eight days waiting for a VIN and priority to change from 99. The following Saturday I got the VIN and a build priority of 01 AND my name is actually listed as customer. Finally! Some HOPE!
Thanks all for reading my book! Just figured I'd share my horror story. Maybe it'll make some of your bad experiences seem a little less horrific!
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I went down the same rabbit hole as you with the Bronco; boy Ford blew that. If my 21 392XR doesn’t get built as a 21, I may order another Raptor. I’d like to think I could order a Bronco Raptor, but i bet ADM will be north of $25K on those. Good luck to you - I hope you’re finally on the right path.
. I am sure your story will have a happy ending!
