My daughter wanted a Ford KA so we visited Ford Directs web site and entered our criteria - KA under £5K and came up with 33 . I rang our local Ford dealer at Yeovil and they said to visit them and they would find a KA for us. When we spoke to the salesman he could not find any KAs less than £5,500 on his data base. I then showed him the site we visited showing 33 KAs less than £5K. We selected 5 KAs and their registrations from the web site, he went and searched again and could not find any matches. He had no reason for this but they were all shown against the Yeovil branch on the web site. At this point we conceded that we would not get one from this branch and went home. Has anybody else had this experience?
|
Not familiar with the way Ford Direct works it's www operation, but at the £5k mark, wouldn't you be able to find a few more £$£$£ & get a NEW one?
All the deals & free insurance/low interest/discounts would sound attractive to me.
do you not have a 'friendly' independent garage, that has access to the Ford closed auctions - they need to meet a strict criteria to buy in one - he'd be able to source you one, to the same standards. save some £$£$ too.
Or buy a Fiesta, instead, or a Panda. or a Kia, or...sorry thats starting another thread!!
VB
|
|
|
I cant answer for what F/D say.but I was looking for a motor a while ago.found what I wanted.rang the co.Asked me to go there.when I arrived was told car had been sold two days before (why they didn`t say on the phone I don`t know)I was told the webb site was only updated one a week.I dont expect others are that bad.but it was annoying.Better luck next time?
--
Was mech1
|
I suspect the dealer in Yeovil punched in the wrong "dealer code". AKA "Profit Margin".
I worked for Ford when Direct was first launched and Yeovil were one of the dealers on my patch. They get to key in a code when they search for stock in front of a customer. When you add a "0" to it, that's the added profit margin the dealer wants. Seems your local dealer was feeling a bit bullish; may I suggest a trip to Taunton or Wincanton?
I expect the Ford Mafia will be round in the morning with a horses head or two.
Alan
|
Motorpoint have lots of 53 reg Ka under £5000.
A bit far from Yeovil though...
|
Ford Direct is good if you want a 2nd-hand car with the reassurance of a 2-year warranty (which is also more likely to be honoured than by some of the discount shift-em-quick car supermarkets). And for some other hand-holding goodies.
But Ford Direct's web site obviously suffers from a lack of care and maintenance.
Specifically, there are 33 KAs under £5000 listed for Yeovil, but the first two on the list are also listed at Swanson's of Teignmouth (don't know where the other 31 went!). So one or other, of the Ford dealers isn't maintatined their list properly, and I'll bet it's Yeovil.
Ian
|
A more careful check of www.forddirect.co.uk shows than what I wrote above isn't exactly the case.
Whatever town you select, if you don't specify any price restrictions you always get the same list of cars - but the prices vary. Yeovil is cheaper than Teignmouth, which is cheaper than Coalville etc.
So presumably the list of cars is being maintained centrally by Ford Direct, and the prices are being maintained by the dealers. And some dealers aren't keeping their price lists up to date.
Ian
|
|
I thought FD was a kind of 'auction' system whereby the dealers all have access to a central list of cars and can register a price to buy at. The different prices reflect the different profit margins the dealers are prepared to work for.
|
Ford Dealers have access to a Ford Direct database of vehicles for them to purchase to sell on to the public.
The Ford Direct website only lists vehicles which dealers are selling.
Another point that is not always made clear is that there are two types of Ford Direct vehicle.
Stage 1 - Prepared by a Ford conditioning centre, usually ex Ford Motor Company or rental cars etc.
Stage 2 - Dealer prepared, typically a private trade in or auction sourced, and in my opinion not normally up to Stage 1 standards at all.
Both Stages come with minimum 24 months unlimited mileage warranty and vehicle specific RAC cover.
I too have found the Ford Direct website to be very inaccurate with what is available where and at what price. Always best to speak to the dealer directly.
PP
|
|
|
|
