Michael Phipps
Member
OK, so I just received my truck from Mark Dodge yesterday, and I wanted to leave a review of the process. It's still not 100% complete, but we're 99.9% there so I'm comfortable with my feedback as being comprehensive.
TL
R It went great, better than expected.
First off, I was apprehensive about ordering from halfway across the country, and doing everything over the phone and email. I don't trust dealerships in general and my wife was even more suspect of the entire thing. I needn't have worried. This process was smooth and simple, and just required a ton of patience on my part.
To start with, I spent days on the configurator on ram.com. I knew I wanted a 26, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to switch from a power wagon to a diesel or just another power wagon. I asked lots of questions on this site and people were awesome here. The level of knowledge and experience here cannot be overstated. Problem was that the configurator was only for 25 trucks, and there was little information about the 26s available. Once I was about 80% sure of my decision, I finally reached out to Anthony Boi from Mark Dodge from their link on this site.
By the way, I was also considering a F250 Tremor at the same time. I’ve driven Fords and never had a problem, but ultimately Ram’s interior won me over again. Ford is just too spartan and plasticky for me. I need a truck I can put clients in and be comfortable as well as tough enough to go rock climbing when I get time.
Less than an hour later I recieved an email from him. He answered all of my questions about the process, the timeline, options, their approach. etc. over several emails. The next day I decided to move forward. Things moved very quickly from that point. Anthony scheduled a meeting with me to go through my needs/wants and to put together a quote. The meeting took 45 minutes and was simple because I'd done my homework. He had a formal offer in front of me that day.
As I'd explained to Anthony I wanted to confirm the savings and the pricing before I decided to make the purchase decision. I have 4 Ram dealers in my metropolitan area. I took Anthony's direct quote to each of them and asked them to get within $1000 of that quote. (I'd added $1k because that was the initial estimate to deliver the truck to me). Three of the four got back to me the next day and said they couldn't touch Anthony's price and one even accused me of "fabbing up" the document and said they'd send it to Mark Dodge so they know I was using their letterhead. The fourth one never responded, even after a couple of attempts. They all tried to sell me on "local dealers" and "better customer service" but none could get even within $5000 of Anthony's price. Mark Dodge’s price was “impossible” according to one dealer. Needless to say Mark Dodge won out. By quite a bit.
There were a couple of hitches in the process here as the color I wanted wasn’t available from the factory yet, and I had a couple of questions about how certain things would work. We worked through those and Anthony even offered to “hold” my order until the options became available, but I wanted to move forward now so I settled a little.
I called Anthony back and made the commitment. He sent me wire instructions and that afternoon I wired him my $1000 required initial down payment. The next day I received an email from Ram that my custom order was received and showed me how to check status on it.
Here’s an important aside. I placed my order on July 15. Anthony told me it would be 4-6 months before I accepted delivery. I received the truck yesterday, September 21. So fast doesn’t even describe how quickly this went. While I was waiting I had a couple of additional questions that I sent over to Anthony, but it was pretty quiet during the build time. I obsessed over the status updates in the meantime.
About a week before the truck arrived at Mark Dodge, I noticed an anomaly with the status website and reached out to Anthony for an explanation. He found that my truck was already in Texas and was imminent. A couple days later I received an email from someone telling me my truck was on the way to the dealer and that they needed to get everything squared away for the delivery from the factory. We talked through his needs and I ended up not trading in my current truck to Mark Dodge. I received a better offer from Carvana and I didn’t want to have to either drive to La or ship my current truck to them.
Here’s where the plot thickens. Less than a week later the truck arrived at the dealer. They called me over the weekend and we not only received pictures but also did a live walkaround of the truck after it came off the delivery truck. There was an option that I thought I’d selected for the truck that wasn’t present in the pics, so that Monday I reached out to Anthony because I wasn’t happy. We talked through it and I found there had been a misunderstanding. Apparently you cannot get Aux switches on a powerwagon no matter what options you choose. I was pretty unhappy about that and contemplated walking away from the deal. However once I chilled out and realized there was no way to get a power wagon with them, I decided to continue on the path.
I wired my actual down payment to Mark Dodge on a Tuesday. I sent in the required documents and followed their process. We met with the Finance manager and went through all of that process. There was a little bit of negotiation there because I’d found better rates locally than he was offering, but we were able to get to a more than acceptable rate by pushing back on the lenders and they actually beat the rate I was offered locally. Because of the electronics in the vehicle I was/am worried of when they may start getting buggy, so I did take the extended warranty. It was more expensive than I’d hoped, but not egregiously so. Now all that awaited was delivery to me.
Rob at Mark Dodge did an outstanding job of keeping me up to date and sending me pictures every step of the way. They picked up my truck by Friday, and it was delivered to a parking lot near me on Sunday. They couldn’t get the truck down my narrow short road or they’d have delivered it to the house. I thought it was a fair tradeoff. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to bring a semi and trailer down my road.
I discovered upon delivery there was one minor issue with the paperwork, but Mark Dodge made it abundantly clear what it was, what they needed from me, and even included a Fedex packge pre-paid to send the paperwork back to them.
So far there is only one issue with the truck and I’m trying to figure it out today. Otherwise it was delivered in perfect condition and with everything I ordered. The issue isn’t major and I’m sure it’s something I can address by messing with the configuration so I’m not worried about it.
Overall I have to say that Mark Dodge killed it. They were fast, communicative, organized, and did an outstanding job. So outstanding that now I’m thinking about replacing my wife’s Jeep with them in the near future.
TL
R It went great, better than expected.First off, I was apprehensive about ordering from halfway across the country, and doing everything over the phone and email. I don't trust dealerships in general and my wife was even more suspect of the entire thing. I needn't have worried. This process was smooth and simple, and just required a ton of patience on my part.
To start with, I spent days on the configurator on ram.com. I knew I wanted a 26, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to switch from a power wagon to a diesel or just another power wagon. I asked lots of questions on this site and people were awesome here. The level of knowledge and experience here cannot be overstated. Problem was that the configurator was only for 25 trucks, and there was little information about the 26s available. Once I was about 80% sure of my decision, I finally reached out to Anthony Boi from Mark Dodge from their link on this site.
By the way, I was also considering a F250 Tremor at the same time. I’ve driven Fords and never had a problem, but ultimately Ram’s interior won me over again. Ford is just too spartan and plasticky for me. I need a truck I can put clients in and be comfortable as well as tough enough to go rock climbing when I get time.
Less than an hour later I recieved an email from him. He answered all of my questions about the process, the timeline, options, their approach. etc. over several emails. The next day I decided to move forward. Things moved very quickly from that point. Anthony scheduled a meeting with me to go through my needs/wants and to put together a quote. The meeting took 45 minutes and was simple because I'd done my homework. He had a formal offer in front of me that day.
As I'd explained to Anthony I wanted to confirm the savings and the pricing before I decided to make the purchase decision. I have 4 Ram dealers in my metropolitan area. I took Anthony's direct quote to each of them and asked them to get within $1000 of that quote. (I'd added $1k because that was the initial estimate to deliver the truck to me). Three of the four got back to me the next day and said they couldn't touch Anthony's price and one even accused me of "fabbing up" the document and said they'd send it to Mark Dodge so they know I was using their letterhead. The fourth one never responded, even after a couple of attempts. They all tried to sell me on "local dealers" and "better customer service" but none could get even within $5000 of Anthony's price. Mark Dodge’s price was “impossible” according to one dealer. Needless to say Mark Dodge won out. By quite a bit.
There were a couple of hitches in the process here as the color I wanted wasn’t available from the factory yet, and I had a couple of questions about how certain things would work. We worked through those and Anthony even offered to “hold” my order until the options became available, but I wanted to move forward now so I settled a little.
I called Anthony back and made the commitment. He sent me wire instructions and that afternoon I wired him my $1000 required initial down payment. The next day I received an email from Ram that my custom order was received and showed me how to check status on it.
Here’s an important aside. I placed my order on July 15. Anthony told me it would be 4-6 months before I accepted delivery. I received the truck yesterday, September 21. So fast doesn’t even describe how quickly this went. While I was waiting I had a couple of additional questions that I sent over to Anthony, but it was pretty quiet during the build time. I obsessed over the status updates in the meantime.
About a week before the truck arrived at Mark Dodge, I noticed an anomaly with the status website and reached out to Anthony for an explanation. He found that my truck was already in Texas and was imminent. A couple days later I received an email from someone telling me my truck was on the way to the dealer and that they needed to get everything squared away for the delivery from the factory. We talked through his needs and I ended up not trading in my current truck to Mark Dodge. I received a better offer from Carvana and I didn’t want to have to either drive to La or ship my current truck to them.
Here’s where the plot thickens. Less than a week later the truck arrived at the dealer. They called me over the weekend and we not only received pictures but also did a live walkaround of the truck after it came off the delivery truck. There was an option that I thought I’d selected for the truck that wasn’t present in the pics, so that Monday I reached out to Anthony because I wasn’t happy. We talked through it and I found there had been a misunderstanding. Apparently you cannot get Aux switches on a powerwagon no matter what options you choose. I was pretty unhappy about that and contemplated walking away from the deal. However once I chilled out and realized there was no way to get a power wagon with them, I decided to continue on the path.
I wired my actual down payment to Mark Dodge on a Tuesday. I sent in the required documents and followed their process. We met with the Finance manager and went through all of that process. There was a little bit of negotiation there because I’d found better rates locally than he was offering, but we were able to get to a more than acceptable rate by pushing back on the lenders and they actually beat the rate I was offered locally. Because of the electronics in the vehicle I was/am worried of when they may start getting buggy, so I did take the extended warranty. It was more expensive than I’d hoped, but not egregiously so. Now all that awaited was delivery to me.
Rob at Mark Dodge did an outstanding job of keeping me up to date and sending me pictures every step of the way. They picked up my truck by Friday, and it was delivered to a parking lot near me on Sunday. They couldn’t get the truck down my narrow short road or they’d have delivered it to the house. I thought it was a fair tradeoff. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to bring a semi and trailer down my road.
I discovered upon delivery there was one minor issue with the paperwork, but Mark Dodge made it abundantly clear what it was, what they needed from me, and even included a Fedex packge pre-paid to send the paperwork back to them.
So far there is only one issue with the truck and I’m trying to figure it out today. Otherwise it was delivered in perfect condition and with everything I ordered. The issue isn’t major and I’m sure it’s something I can address by messing with the configuration so I’m not worried about it.
Overall I have to say that Mark Dodge killed it. They were fast, communicative, organized, and did an outstanding job. So outstanding that now I’m thinking about replacing my wife’s Jeep with them in the near future.
