Right, but about the inventory you even said it...."they had a couple on the lot..."
Certainly a business model to exhibit a "supply shortage" which keeps prices up.
Go to Ford and they have 50 Explorers on the lot, covid or not.
I wasn't aware the Defender was supposed to be a limited production vehicle.
It still makes me wonder why so desperate for a deposit, a fairly large one at that if they were not concerned about selling it if the buyer backs out?
Ford dealers are PRAYING people back out of their Bronco deposits. Guess why.

LRJ finally has something people want to buy for under 80k and the supply just isnt there.
The supply issue, the whole every dealer asking for 5k deposit (mine as well), the order timeline, etc just seems a little manufactured to me.

 

i think in my case it was that I had a very specific build. So they wanted to make sure I wasn’t just shopping. Seems fair; my deposit was $2500 which is a chunk — but again, against the very build I wanted. P300, steelies, all the off-road bits.

 

Thats pretty much what Im looking at and a few more options. Basically a loaded p300s.
I cant see spending 9 some more grand for a bigger engine.

 

i didn’t even do the S. Stuck with the base, cloth seats and all. I sort of wanted the 6, but I could — as you pointed out — get a whole lot of gubbins for the price. Off-road pack, towing pack, cold climate pack, Premium headlights, etc. Worked out cheaper than the S and still had everything I wanted.

 

In 2019 Ford sold 2,396,532 vehicles in the US and Jaguar Land Rover sold 122,397 vehicles. There is one JLR dealer in the state of Oregon. There are 14 Ford dealers within the greater Portland Metro area. Seems kinda crazy when you look at it that way right? I guess they have their reasons...

 

Order in with expected delivery of 7-16-21. Dealer had me pay $2500 deposit and said it was fully refundable. They said they expect the pretty standard options Defender 110 SE I ordered would sell within hours of me backing out of the deal...

 

Do you supposed the Ford dealers would work on the new Defender if you were in a pinch? I mean Ford owned Land Rover for many years and stole most of their designs. The new Exploders look like Range Rovers.

 

BMW also owned Land Rover, and the gen 1 M5 was the result. Same too, with the Explorer.

Land Rover engines are now all their own design and I expect Ford dealers purged all their Land Rover parts from their dealers after the phase out transition period.

Maybe if you own an LR4 with the Lincoln-Mercury engine in it, some Ford parts might still fit? And likely a few other parts (like the wiring connection design for brake controllers) may stay with the Ford approach?

Interesting question.

 

The reason I say that is because my son was driving a Ford Explorer and got stranded 3 hours from his home. He called the local Buick dealer and they towed the vehicle to the dealership on a Saturday, ordered parts on Monday, and had it repaired in a couple days. This was an inconvenience because he needed a ride back to his house while he waited for the car to be repaired, then had to drive back up there during the middle of the week to get it once it was finished. But the point is a car dealer will repair other brands.

 

That's quite questionable. For example - not every indie VW shop will touch your old Porsche, despite the close relationship of the companies, large number of shared parts, etc.