General Information
Introduction
Specifications
How to Order
During Your Order
At Delivery Time

Maintenance
Oil Change
Automatic Transmission
Coolant System
Rear Differential
Fuel System
Transfer Case/4x4 System
Part Numbers

Trouble Spots
TSB's
Recalls
Unsolved Mysteries

Tips and Tricks
Trailer Tow Mirror Lights
New FoMoCo Cupholders
Torque Converter Diagrams
Turbo Bolt Wiring

Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I get Fuel?
How long does it take to break in?
Why should I get a diesel?
How much can I legally haul?
What is a good price?

How to Order a New Vehicle

SmokeyWren has done a great Job on this, I let him take it from here

Facts (and Opinions) about ordering

Ordering a truck is a great thing to do. You pick exactly what you want on the truck and you don't pay for what you don't want. FoMoCo has a pretty smooth order process to which this section is devoted.

Before you sit down with your dealer, get informed. Know what you want to order and about what it’s going to cost you. To do this, first pick up a SuperDuty brochure from a Ford dealer. If you plan to tow a trailer or haul a camper with the truck, then also ask the dealer’s helpers for a "2000 RV & Trailer Towing Guide". Take these home to study - so you’ll order the right truck and not one that’s too light-duty to get your job done. (A big mistake made by many is to believe that an F-250 with the "camper" package will handle a heavy camper. It won’t! Or that an F-250 with a trailer package will handle a big 35-foot double-slider fifth-wheel trailer. It won’t!).

For more details on gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) and gross combined weight rating (GCWR), click here.

Figure out what you want (and need, and can afford), then use the internet "car" pricing services and price out the specifications for your dream truck. Their prices may not be exact, but the total price should be within a few hundred dollars of the actual price when you order your truck.

If your dream truck is over your budget, then you may have to compromise on some of the specs and/or options - but decide BEFORE you go see the dealer. There are numerous free pricing services available. Here are a few :

www.carprices.com

www.kbb.com

www.carpoint.com

And there are links to other pricing services at: www.carbuyingtips.com

Picking your dealer

Now, an important part of the process is to pick your dealer. It’s more complex than at first it seems. You want a good price, but you also want a dealer that can deliver your new truck to you within a reasonable time of six to eight weeks. Many dealers can do this, but many others cannot (or will not - at least they won’t at the price you want to pay)! You also want a dealer that can handle your warranty and service requirements, so the best price on the new truck may not be the best price in the long run.

If price is a very important factor to you in picking a dealer, you might want to select 3 or 4 dealers based on price, then check out only those few dealers to determine the other important factors about those dealers. One way to find the dealer candidates with the best prices is to send out, or "broadcast", a FAX or e-mail to several dealers. In your FAX or e-mail, include exactly the specs and options of the truck you are planning to order. And don’t ask for the price of the truck - ask for the ampunt of the "gross over invoice".

A big problem is that for many configurations of Ford SuperDuty pickups and trucks, demand is still higher than supply. Every dealer would love to just tell Ford what the dealer wants, and Ford delivers. But Ford cannot deliver enough Super Dutys to meet the current demand without building another "factory". So Ford has to ration the hot-selling SuperDutys to its dealers. The rationing process is called allocation.

Dealers have lots of vehicles ordered, for various types of customers - fleets, commercial sales, special groups such as Ford employees, dealer stocked vehicles, and special orders for you and me. To tell Ford which of all his orders the dealer wants first, he places a priority number on the order form. So you might care about the "priority" the dealer assigns to your order.

So, to choose your dealer, in addition to service and warranty concerns, you need to determine how that dealer will handle your deal in several areas.

Price

What is a "good" price for a new SuperDuty PSD? It depends on exactly which one, but generally about $500 over invoice is considered a good deal for a unit that you order and wait for it to come in. For some vehicles that are in extremely short supply (Lariat LEs and CrewCab 4x4 Lariats, for example), $1,000 to $1,500 over invoice would be a good deal. And if you find a new SuperDuty on the lot that you can take home without waiting, consider anything under $2,000 over invoice to be a good deal.

There are other opinions about price. We don’t endorse this guy’s opinions, but you might want to read what he thinks at http://www.carbuyingtips.com

Allocation

If a dealer orders more SuperDutys than the dealership’s allocation of SuperDuty trucks, then the extra orders will probably NOT be filled. Dealers are allocated a total number of trucks they can order in each build cycle. The number of trucks each dealer is allocated is based on their past sales experience with selling retail F-250 thru F-550 pickups and trucks. This is called "turn and earn". Here is a more detailed explanation of the allocation process written by a guy with lots of experience in this business, Ford Super Duty, the Inventory Manager at a large Ford truck dealer:

First, let’s try to understand the basics of allocation with an oversimplified example:

With no turn and earn and ALL regions and ALL dealers being equal this is how allocation would work: (These numbers are for illustration only!)

1. There is a national pie of 10,000 trucks for 1 week.

2. There are 20 pieces (regions, etc,) so each piece gets 500 trucks.

3. There are 10 zones per region, so each zone gets 50 trucks.

4. There are 10 dealers per zone, so each dealer gets 5 trucks.

5. The 5 oldest retail orders per dealer gets scheduled for build by the assembly plant.

NOW, throw in that the dealer has 2 identical units scheduled. One was ordered in August and another in October, both are priority 10. There is a commodity control of 20% on the something these trucks have in common (4x4 SRW for example). In this instance ONLY 1 truck will be scheduled, that being the OLDEST unit, the one ordered in August.

Now, back to real numbers:

There are approximatley 15 regions plus various cats and dogs, (fleet, bailment pools that build bodies, and other intersted parties). Each one of these have a percentage of the total production based on a turn and earn policy. Within each region, each dealer then get's a percentage of the region's pie - also based on turn and earn. This is the allocation for the build cycle, normally 4 weeks. The allocation is earned on each line, SuperDutys, F-150s, Expeditions, etc. There is NO breakdown as to body / trim / engine, etc. Generally, allocation is determined based on the history of vehicles sold over about a 3 year period with the last year weighing more heavily. Therefore, a "small" dealer in the Texas farm and ranch country that has "always" sold lots of F-250s and F-350s might have a higher allocation of SuperDutys than a "big" back-east city dealer that sold very few heavy duty pickups before the SuperDuty became so popular with the surburbanites and the RV set.

Within the dealer’s allocation we can order units as retail, stock, lease renewal, small commercial, fleet, and a few other catagories. GENERALLY, the oldest retail orders are given the highest priority by the dealer. In this context small commercial and retail commercial lease (RCL) renewal are considered as retail. The dealer will then prioritize the stock units to be ordered behind these "sold" units.

Orders for vehicles under the plans that are for Ford employees and families, the A, X, and Z plans, fall into the other cats and dogs catagory, IF THE DEALER ORDERS THEM AS SUCH!, otherwise they would be retail. If ordered with the proper codes, these orders do not reflect on the dealer's allocation

In a perfect world if a dealer has an allocation for 10 units, his 10 oldest retail orders will be "pulled" for build, with any additional allocation going to stock units. In REAL LIFE within the allocation system we have commodity restraints which impact on the units that get built. If a Dealer or region has a restriction of 20% SRW 4x4's and ALL of the dealer's retail orders are SRW 4x4's only 20% of them will be built. So if the dealer has an allocation for 10 trucks, that means that dealer will probably only have 2 of their sold units scheduled. If the region does the "preview" on Wednesday night they may see that dealer "A" has additional 4X4's to schedule and Dealer "B" has none, they will then give dealer "A" Dealer "B"'s 20% of 4x4's and give dealer "B" dealer "A"'s percentage of something else.

Believe it or not, it may be a Rube Goldburg system but in general it REALLY does work!

-Ford Super Duty

Let’s talk a little more about the commodity restraints mentioned by Ford Super Duty.

SuperDutys are assembled from various components and parts, called commodities. For example, a CrewCab body is one commodity, a 4x4 drivetrain is another commodity, and a PowerStroke diesel engine is another commodity. The planners at Ford try to guess how many of each commodity will be needed in the next few weeks or months, and order those commodities from their suppliers. But sometimes they miss their guess, and several commodities will be in short supply while there is an excess of others.

The region advises dealers as to which components are in limited supply and how the available components will be allocated. For example, the region might tell dealers that only ten percent of their allocated orders can be CrewCabs this cycle. And that only ten percent of their allocated orders can be 4x4s this cycle. And that V8 5.4L engines cannot be ordered for the next 3 months. So under this example, if you wanted a CrewCab 4x4 with a 5.4L engine, your truck will not be scheduled for build for several months.

And if that dealer has an allocation of 10 SuperDutys this month, only one of those 10 can be a CrewCab 4x4. If the dealer orders more than one CrewCab 4x4, the others will probably NOT be scheduled for build until a later ordering cycle.

Priority

When your truck is ordered, the ordering dealer will assign a priority code to the order. The lower the number, the higher the priority (Priority 10 gets built before 11...). The dealer can set the priority number at any level they wish to choose but 10 is the highest priority they can assign. The dealer uses the priority system to advise the factory in which order the dealer wants his trucks scheduled for build. You cannot compare the priority assigned by one dealer to the priority assigned by another dealer - without knowing all the priorities assigned by both dealers. In other words, a priority 20 assigned by one dealer is not necesarily better than a priority 40 assigned by another dealer.

Ford Super Duty said:

The priority the dealer assigns is for that dealership only - based on the dreaded commodity restraints. This is how a priority 15 could pull (be scheduled for build by the assembly plant) before a priority10 at the same dealer. By the same token even though Ford makes every effort to pull retail orders first, if I have no retail 4x4's (yeah, right!) but have stock 4x4's in the order bank my stock unit COULD be pulled before another dealer gets a retail unit pulled. OR before one of my retail's get pulled if the retail vehicle includes a non-available commodity.

 

Thats about it. You may want to go on to the next section after you place that order.