A little over a year ago, Ford dealers were caught spreading false information about the Mustang Mach-E to potential customers. It goes to show that Blue Oval franchises could spend a few more dollars on personnel training, but the mess-ups keep coming. Take, for instance, a Florida dealership that sold a mannequin-spec Bronco Sport to a retail customer even though the dealer wasn’t allowed to sell it under the contractual obligations of the Ford Courtesy Transportation Program.
Adam Sidoti, who traded his Volkswagen Jetta for a brand-new Bronco Sport on December 22nd, got a call from the sales manager one day after driving off the lot. The conversation basically went down like “give it back or else,” and the sales manager didn’t back down even though he was in the wrong.
As you know from our FCTP story on the mid-size Bronco, dealerships are required to keep demo vehicles in service for a certain number of months - four in the case of the Bronco Sport. Breaching this agreement forfeits one month of future allocation, which is a huge mistake considering how fast the Bronco Sport is flying off the showroom floor. Given this information, Adam refused to return the vehicle, forcing the dealership to accept defeat.
The Blue Oval worked things out to save face, more so because Ford has already disappointed Bronco customers with delays and limited options. Remember how the Dearborn-based automaker left reservation holders in the dark about the seven-speed manual gearbox in combination with the Sasquatch Package? Yeah, that kind of avoidable disappointments.
At the time of writing, the Bronco Sport is available from $26,820 excluding destination charge. Only the top-of-the-line Badlands trim level features a four-cylinder engine, while lesser versions make do with the 1.5-liter EcoBoost from the Escape, which is not exactly potent for this application.
As for the body-on-frame sibling, the two- and four-door body styles kick off from $28,500 and $34,795 for the Base trim level. The Wildtrak is the most expensive specification available, starting at $46,980 and $49,475, respectively.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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