Enough is enough! The 2021 Ford Bronco has is putting an end to reservation abuse. Or at least the new Ford Bronco is trying to stop dealerships and owners from profiting from the limited supply of SUVs. 

The 2021 Ford Bronco wants to end reservation abuse 

Things haven’t gone smoothly for the 2021 Ford Bronco. The launch struggled with delays caused by the ongoing Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Then there was a supply shortage that included hardtop supplier issues. 

On top of that, quality issues caused Ford to replace every single hardtop and moved all unscheduled orders to 2022. Ford Bronco reservations are currently paused due to ongoing supply shortages and a massive quantity of orders that need to be filled. 

Some dealers and owners are taking advantage of the situation to gain significant profits. They are marking Bronco prices up well beyond their MSRP, and owners are flipping their models. This creates reservation abuse, and Ford has a new policy to try and prevent it. 

The Bronco abuse prevention plan 

According to Ford Authority, Ford sent an email to Ford dealerships outlining a new Ford Bronco sales match policy. The goal is to prevent customers, dealers, or dealership employees from creating fake Bronco reservations. 

The fake reservations may be created for non-existent people or for those who don’t intend to purchase a Bronco to bypass the allocation system or to generate additional dealer stock. 

It’s officially titled the 2021 Bronco Customer Name Match Audit and Integrity Policy Reporting platform. It should ensure fairness across the board and provides dealerships to view all of the Bronco reservations in one location. 

Under the policy, dealerships must maintain a 60 percent name and match between converted reservations and final sales on each 2021 Bronco model. Ford will monitor the reservations every month. 

Dealerships will be considered in compliance with the policy until they sell five Bronco models. Then they will be evaluated to ensure compliance. 

What happens if they don’t follow the 2021 Bronco policy? 

If dealerships violate this new 2021 Ford Bronco policy, they will get a warning. If the rules are violated a second time, then the dealership will lose its future Bronco allocation for one month. If the policy is violated a third time, then the penalty will be lengthed to three months. 

It’s difficult to determine how much lacking Bronco models would hurt a dealership. Also, we don’t see how this policy will help limit Bronco markups or stop owners from flipping their brand new models. 

But the policy is designed to prevent dealers from gaming the system to increase allocations. So, hopefully, one dealership won’t receive more Broncos than another. Also, it prevents customers from making multiple reservations with fake names or by using someone else’s name. People could be using those Broncos to sell for profit. 

By preventing those from hoarding Bronco models, customers waiting to accept the delivery of their model may not have to wait as long. This is a step in the right direction toward cleaning up the Bronco mess.