Last year, Ford’s F-150 Lightning arrived on the scene with no small amount of buzz and plenty of auto buyers interested in purchasing what looks to be a powerhouse electric pickup. Ford allowed buyers to reserve Lightnings, which also involved selecting their preferred local dealers. So far, so good. But apparently, some dealers have been taking advantage of the reservation system to charge customers additional fees. And now, Ford has pushed back against this practice.
Jalopnik is reporting that Ford recently issued a bulletin to dealerships warning them about abusing the trust of people who have placed reservations. The document was also uploaded to a Ford owners’ forum, but seems to have been taken down since then at the automaker’s request.
In the excerpts from the bulletin quoted on Jalopnik, Ford takes a firm stance against dealerships requesting more money from reservation holders, reminding them that such a practice is a violation of their agreement with Ford. Continue these practices, the company warns, and the dealers won’t receive the Lightnings that had been allocated to them for the 2022 model year.
It’s a relatively unambiguous warning — and one that will, one hopes, have the desired effect of getting any dealerships that are engaging in this behavior to cease doing so. Jalopnik has some more analysis about Lightning sales and reservations in the article, all of which offer an interesting look at what the next year could hold for this eagerly-anticipated pickup.
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