It's worse than that. I monitor the Bronco forums. It's not just the mark-ups. Even worse is dealers selling ordered/reserved vehicles out from under the person who ordered the vehicle. Sometimes this happens when a dealer springs ADM on the buyer at the last minute. But other times the buyer doesn't even get that option, from what I read.
A "reservation" at Ford means NOTHING. Ford sends e-mail updates, even pictures from the end of the assembly line for "your" Bronco ... and then your dealer just sells it to someone else. Then, months later, Sirius XM calls these people to extend their trial period for a vehicle they never received.
Two recent examples:
Another example: Ford offered "price protection" for early Bronco reservation holders. Meaning, if your order got pushed back you wouldn't have to pay price increases along the way. In my case, there was a $975 price increase early 2022 and a second $1500 price increase later in 2022. The $975 price increase was applied at the time of purchase. But my dealer said the $1500 would have to be mailed to me later. Why? Maybe I'm cynical, but I subscribe to the theory that shady dealers were just pocketing the price protection on reserved Broncos and selling to someone else. In order to get the second round of price protection Ford needed to see a name match, buyer name matched reservation name, only verified after purchase and registration.
I was lucky, I dealt with a very straightforward dealer (Serramonte Ford, near San Francisco). Bought at agreed upon price. Great communications. All discounts honored.
Next battle Ford will face is whether to extend price protection out to 3-4 years. Why? Because some reservations holders from Day 1 and Day 2 reservations still don't have Broncos. Why? Because many people switched to honest dealers but Ford won't change dealership allocations to match those moved orders. Ford would rather reward larger (typically) dealers with stock inventory Broncos than fulfill reservations roughly in order.
It's a mess over there.
