Generally speaking, where do the cars come from which end up for sale by the Ford Direct scheme?
My assumption is that they can be anything from ex lease to Ford
dealer ex hire cars? Or am I mistaken?
Thanks
Tony
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Speaking from experience (I used to work for a Ford dealer) the cars mostly come form the following sources:
-ex daily rental eg Hertz etc
-ex Ford employee cars (they benefit from various car buying schemes/incentives so change car regularly)
-ex Ford management cars
-ex Ford press fleet cars; ex business sales demo fleet etc
-the ex lease cars you mention
-(and, not so sure about this one) cars returned to Ford under the Committment scheme ie rejects but not sure if Committment is still on the go.
-dealers used to be able to prep their own Ford Direct cars so general trade-ins up to a certain age could be sold as Ford Direct after an RAC inspection. Again, not sure if this still happens.
Cheers
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Hmmm, "Ford Direct", if I had been looking to buy a Ford I would have taken that to mean they had been delivered "direct from Ford" and were better than the average trade-in.
I find that very misleading.would the Office Of Fair Trading or Trade Descriptions be interested or do they state the sources of their "Ford Direct" cars in small print!.
Mal.
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Quite a few of these sources seem to equate to "thrashed to within an inch of their life"ie rental/press cars. One to avoid I'd say.
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My father bought a Ford Direct car about 3 months ago, a Focus 1.6 Ghia Automatic. It was 14 months old and had done only 1800 miles - apparently it had been run by the wife a a Ford Executive. When I saw it I have to admit that it was virtually indistinguishable from new.
Having said that he is now looking to sell it because of the "diabolical" fuel consumption. It does only about 28 mpg and he finds this hard to cope with after being accustomed to diesels and 50+ mpg. He has had it back to the dealer but they could not find a problem.
Brambob
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Ford (and others of course) also have agreements with the big (BIG) corporates to supply a quantity of vehicles over a period. The cynical might suggest it keeps their new car sales figures ticking over quite nicely. Some banks for example take the cars freom new and only run them for 3 months then hand them back with only 10K on them and the driver gets 4 new cars a year! The V5 might give you a clue but sometimes it only shows the finance company as the registered owner.
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I have owned three Ford Direct Mondeo's in recent year, one had Ford Motor Company in Brentwood as the previous keeper, the other two were ex-rental, Hertz and Otis respectively.
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Davie - very enlightening info. Thanks very much.
Tony
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Time was when Ford Direct cars went to a refurbishing facility, somewhere near the Dagenham factory I think, and were prepped and serviced to a high standard which Ford would back with an enhanced warranty. They also get some sort of holographic sticker on the front windscreen to authenticate them. I don't know about sources but the list above sound right; a colleague of mine changed a 2 ltr Probe for a a 2.5 and got a lot of grief from the dealer about it, even though he was only exercising the rights given to him by Ford!
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Had 2 Ford Direct Mondeos, one ex rental, the other ex lease. Both were 11 months old and around 12k miles. Did 70k in the first one with no problems whatsoever, current one has now done 40k only problem so far has been CV joints both replaced under warranty (they reckoned damage was due to speed humps)
Buy at one year old and trade in at 3 years when the unlimited mileage warranty runs out is my plan. So far this has proved to be a very cost effective way of privately financing my high mileage commuting habit.
Cheers
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Certainly when I worked for Ford the above list of vehicle sources would be correct. Many of my ex-company cars ended up on the Direct reconditioning line (new car every 2 months? That'll be the Ford employee with a company car).
Ford certainly did have a recon and refurb plant and were VERY picky about the cars they took. Mileage, history and condition had to be pretty much spot-on for the cars to go through the plant, at which stage they were brought back to near as possible new condition.
I have to assume that this is still the case. Try giving Ford at Brentwood a ring and asking for details.
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