The same day President Trump announced a 25% tariff on imported vehicles, Ford announced a new deal to bolster sales: employee discounts for everyone. Ford employees and their immediately family members can buy vehicles at or below true cost. The employee discount seemed like a Ford deal too good to be true. And of course if you read the fine print, there’s a very important asterisk. Ford dealerships don’t have to honor the deal.

How good is the Ford employee discount?

The Ford “A discount” is available to employees and their immediate family. A dealership is required to take the vehicle invoice and actually subtract holdback and advertising fees. They’re only allowed to add a $275 program fee.

The result is a vehicle that may cost you less than it cost the dealership to advertise and sell. It’s such a good deal, that if you are an employee or a family member and tell the sales person you get the “A discount,” they’ll probably roll their eyes. Even dealership employees don’t get a price this sweet. One employee can only use the discount four times a year, for themselves or others.

In the past, Ford has offered the employee discount to everyone to boost sales. On April 3rd, the automaker announced it was rolling out this pricing again. But there’s an important caveat this time.

The fine print of the Ford employee discount “to America” is important

Ford announced the discount on Instagram, writing “We’re committed to America. That’s why Ford and Lincoln are offering employee pricing to everyone in the U.S.” So far so good. But then it added, “Disclaimer: Dealer participation is discretionary.”

There were multiple other caveats, such as “Limited US states only” and a series of special editions that are exempt (this includes the entire Raptor family, Mustangs such as the Dark Horse and GTD, or the chassis-cab Super Duty F Series). But the key disclaimer is that any dealership can choose to not partake. That begs the question, why would a dealership opt in?

Perhaps, if a Ford dealership was really struggling with sales it would want to offer the employee discount. Or maybe if it had a ton of 2024 models leftover that were costing it money to keep around, it would be willing to sell them at a loss. But in truth, dealerships always had this option.

That’s right, if a dealership ever needs to get rid of a late model year vehicle, it is welcome to sell the car or truck at a loss. So for all Ford’s proud proclamations that it’s “committed to America,” offering the employee discount for all–at dealership discretion–doesn’t change a thing. You can race down to your local Ford dealership, but you’ll be bargaining like it’s any other day.