I'm going to post a bit of a long thread, telling my story about a recent purchase, as a way of educating U.S.A. buyers who may not already know this. The tldr (too long didn't read) version of this story is--you are not buying a car from Ineos. You are buying it from a dealer. The dealer orders it for you. When it arrives, it's theirs. Then they sell it to you, if you agree to their price.
So, here goes.
I ordered an F150 Lightning (the electric truck) in June of 2021. I got a call from the dealer in August 2022, saying they could allocate one to me. So, I went through the Ford website, chose my color and options, and placed the order with Ford. Everything on the Ford website made it look like I was buying directly from Ford. The price was set at MSRP. (At the time, there were people paying WAY over MSRP. $10,000 over was about average.) The dealer signed off on the order, and left the "additional markup" line blank. I thought I had a deal at MSRP.
Later, after reading forums, I learned that dealers were accepting orders, then telling people that they were charging above MSRP after the order was placed. You could switch dealers between pre-order and order, but not after the order was placed. So at that point they think they have you. If you refuse to pay their markup, then they get an even bigger markup from the guy who can walk on the lot and buy one and skip the line.
So I started looking back at my order from Ford. It sure looked like a contract. The web page did have a FAQ button, though. I clicked that, and on that other page, Ford clearly states that your "order" is not an agreement to purchase at a set price. It only allows Ford to build a vehicle for you and send it to the dealer. Final price is negotiated between the dealer and the buyer.
I called my dealer, and sure enough, they told me they wanted $5,000 over MSRP. Told me if I refused it, they could sell it for $10,000 over (which was true at the time). I told them that I believed I had a contract, and that they had their opportunity to add the markup when the order was placed. There was even a box for the markup. They submitted the order with that box blank.
When the truck arrived in October 2022, I went to the dealer, looked it over, and said "Looks good. I can write you a check for MSRP and take it home." They would not sell it to me for MSRP at that time. So I walked. They threatened to sell it out from under me if I walked out. I turned around and said, "No you won't. That's my truck, and I'm buying it at the price we agreed to." I waited 3 days, and they called again and threatened to sell it. (All of this was accompanied by emails to document our conversations.)
Finally I got a standard "Thank you for buying from us" email from the general manager. I replied to that, telling my story, and copied a mid level manager that I knew from previous purchases. He called me, apologized, and told me to come get the truck at the agreed price.
So here's the deal. In the USA, in most states, manufacturers can not sell directly to car buyers. Tesla and others have been trying to break those laws down, with varying success. But in the case of Ineos, they clearly are not going to fight the fight. They are using existing dealers.
The bottom line--you will not know what your vehicle will cost until you make a deal with the dealer. It is their car to sell. I am hoping that Ineos has paid attention to the Ford fiasco, and has chosen dealers who will not do what the Ford dealers were doing. (Many of these dealers had their vehicle allocations reduced by Ford in response to their shady tactics.) So, GET YOUR DEAL IN WRITING FROM THE DEALER AHEAD OF TIME!!! Don't just order it and hope the dealer sells it to you for what you expect. Otherwise, when it gets there, there will be someone willing to pay $20,000 more than you ordered it for, to jump the line and buy the vehicle sitting on the lot. That's quite an enticement for the dealer to sell it to someone else.
Perhaps someone in contact with Ineos can add some insight into their dealer contracts, so we can have some peace of mind. Maybe they have made them sign a deal that says "You get to sell our vehicles if you sell them for what we tell you to sell them for." If not, when these things hit the US, the prices may be insane for a while.
So, here goes.
I ordered an F150 Lightning (the electric truck) in June of 2021. I got a call from the dealer in August 2022, saying they could allocate one to me. So, I went through the Ford website, chose my color and options, and placed the order with Ford. Everything on the Ford website made it look like I was buying directly from Ford. The price was set at MSRP. (At the time, there were people paying WAY over MSRP. $10,000 over was about average.) The dealer signed off on the order, and left the "additional markup" line blank. I thought I had a deal at MSRP.
Later, after reading forums, I learned that dealers were accepting orders, then telling people that they were charging above MSRP after the order was placed. You could switch dealers between pre-order and order, but not after the order was placed. So at that point they think they have you. If you refuse to pay their markup, then they get an even bigger markup from the guy who can walk on the lot and buy one and skip the line.
So I started looking back at my order from Ford. It sure looked like a contract. The web page did have a FAQ button, though. I clicked that, and on that other page, Ford clearly states that your "order" is not an agreement to purchase at a set price. It only allows Ford to build a vehicle for you and send it to the dealer. Final price is negotiated between the dealer and the buyer.
I called my dealer, and sure enough, they told me they wanted $5,000 over MSRP. Told me if I refused it, they could sell it for $10,000 over (which was true at the time). I told them that I believed I had a contract, and that they had their opportunity to add the markup when the order was placed. There was even a box for the markup. They submitted the order with that box blank.
When the truck arrived in October 2022, I went to the dealer, looked it over, and said "Looks good. I can write you a check for MSRP and take it home." They would not sell it to me for MSRP at that time. So I walked. They threatened to sell it out from under me if I walked out. I turned around and said, "No you won't. That's my truck, and I'm buying it at the price we agreed to." I waited 3 days, and they called again and threatened to sell it. (All of this was accompanied by emails to document our conversations.)
Finally I got a standard "Thank you for buying from us" email from the general manager. I replied to that, telling my story, and copied a mid level manager that I knew from previous purchases. He called me, apologized, and told me to come get the truck at the agreed price.
So here's the deal. In the USA, in most states, manufacturers can not sell directly to car buyers. Tesla and others have been trying to break those laws down, with varying success. But in the case of Ineos, they clearly are not going to fight the fight. They are using existing dealers.
The bottom line--you will not know what your vehicle will cost until you make a deal with the dealer. It is their car to sell. I am hoping that Ineos has paid attention to the Ford fiasco, and has chosen dealers who will not do what the Ford dealers were doing. (Many of these dealers had their vehicle allocations reduced by Ford in response to their shady tactics.) So, GET YOUR DEAL IN WRITING FROM THE DEALER AHEAD OF TIME!!! Don't just order it and hope the dealer sells it to you for what you expect. Otherwise, when it gets there, there will be someone willing to pay $20,000 more than you ordered it for, to jump the line and buy the vehicle sitting on the lot. That's quite an enticement for the dealer to sell it to someone else.
Perhaps someone in contact with Ineos can add some insight into their dealer contracts, so we can have some peace of mind. Maybe they have made them sign a deal that says "You get to sell our vehicles if you sell them for what we tell you to sell them for." If not, when these things hit the US, the prices may be insane for a while.
