Buying a second hand nearly new car from Ford Direct via a Main Ford Dealer

Lady-Jane_5

Hi All,
Before we went to our local Ford Dealer on Saturday we printed many details of cars we were interested in from the Ford direct website, which is a link from the main Ford website. At the time we went to the dealer we decided to go for a hatchback car not an estate so left all irrelevent printouts at home. Whilst at the main Ford dealers we decided to go for an estate car after all, but as our printouts were at home we had to rely on the dealer's internet info, which we thought would be the same as that for the general public. We completed the sale in the showroom for the car although wondered why it seemed over our budget, but put that down to the extras that we purchased with the sale. When we got home, we sorted through our printouts & found the details of the car we had just purchased. On the 'joe public' website this car was advertised for £1,250.00 less than what we had been quoted at the Dealer's Ford Direct Traders website for EXACTLY the same car details & registration number. My complaint is, why do the 2 different websites have 2 different prices? We contacted the salesman to lodge a complaint as that is who our contract to buy was with & he maintains that it is a 'mistake' by Ford Direct & that it has happened to other customers before. Ford Direct are a HUGE UK company, & I feel that they are misleading the general public. There is no excuse these days as they could get the 2 websites linked in some way so that they both show the same prices.
I know that we have made the deal now & have agreed it at the more expensive price, but how can we stop this sort of thing happening in the future? I am not necessary looking for any compensation or whatever (although that would be nice!), but what gets me is the principle behind the two prices.
How can we stop the big cat companys winning against us little fish?
Has any one else had a problem like this?
What is our legal stand on this?
What are your thoughts?
:mad: :question:

skintlass

Don't you get a cooling off period - I would have thought you can withdraw. My experience at a Ford dealers is the more desperate they are to sell a car the better deal they cut you. I have recently been offered the same car at a saving of £1500 to me over the previous offer from the same garage, same car.

plane_boy2000

Think this is common with FD. Each dealer can sell any car for as much or little as they like - your dealer is taking you for a ride. Have you tried to take it up with ford customer services?

May also be a trading standards issue as they have charged you more than the advertised price.

Lady-Jane_5

Thanks for your comments so far.
I've lodged a complaint with trading standards & have been in contact with consumer direct - these will contact me if they need any more info etc, but it seems I may not hear from them again as they make their own judgements on the case & any follow ups are done on their own behalf.
I also contacted the advertising standards authority, but sadly this sort of advertising is not covered by them!
We are in the middle of composing a letter to the Ford Customer Relationship Centre.
We complained to the dealer who explained that they are part of the Summit Autogroup & are just an agent for selling Ford Direct cars & have nothing to do with the pricing & advertising of Ford Direct cars (but they take your money easy enough!!!). They seemed reasonably appologetic & could see my point, but of course, our problem is with Ford Direct & not with them. As a good will gesture they have offered us a voucher for a free Ford service when it's due next year.
Yes, there is a cooling off period, but we still want this particular car & have our own reasons for not wanting to cancel, although the Dealer & Ford Direct don't know that bit. It seems that they aren't going to budge on the price at all. They also made it quite clear that we seemed 'happy' with the price at the time we signed all the paperwork etc & it wasn't until we got home & looked at the original printout/advertised price from Ford Direct that we noticed the difference - in other words - the deal has been done. I think that a large part of the problem is that there are 2 companies involved & they are playing us off each other.
We will see what Ford Customer Relationship Centre have to say (if anything) when they receive our complaint.
We really want to stop this sort of thing happening for other people in the future & somehow get Ford Direct to link their prices so that they are the same on each of their websites - the one for the public & the other one for the trade - surely that's not too much to ask them to do?

skintlass

Theres always another car out there - cancel the deal and look elsewhere or swallow the £1250 loss - really I think thats what it boils down to in the end. If theres some reason you have to sell your current car that you haven't disclosed to the dealer is that worth the loss?

james.f.thomas

You will find that a lot of the cars on the Ford Direct website are not in dealer stock. By searching a wider area you will usually find the same vehicle at different prices from different dealers. Are you sure that the lower price you found was listed against the dealer that you purchased from?

Networkguy

As a test (and this will surprise you).

Go to the FD website, put in your postcode and do your search.

Now put in a postcode from somewhere else in the UK and do the same search (do this for a few different areas).

You will be amazed in the difference in the prices "for the same cars".

A lot of FD stock is held centrally so the dealer justs ships it in when somebody wants to buy. Each dealer just puts their own margin on hence the difference in cost.

Of course the dealer could just be pulling a fast one.