chicagopjp

Thanks. Here's a couple the dealer sent me before I took delivery.

I always hate it when someone drops into a forum, seeks advice, then is never heard from again. Since you were kind enough to weigh in on my plight, I figured I'd give you the short version of how this ended: Nobody at the dealer would even hazard a guess as to what Ford would ding me for, and how much the bill would be. Ford exclusively uses a third party to do lease end inspections; the dealer is never involved other than as a mailbox for dropping off and picking up the cars, basically. My guess is Ford does that to take the dealer out of the equation. Otherwise, you could picture the dealer overlooking lots of things in the interest of selling a new vehicle. Just a guess. Anyway, I'd gotten a quote from a highly-regarded wheel repair shop in the Chicago area of $200 each to recondition those wheels. In addition, with the dealer's help, we identified a number of other issues on the body. None seemed major, but several would have exceeded the lease-end guidelines. Again, nobody would speculate about which of them Ford would charge me for, let alone how much. So, having settled on either a CR-V or an Escape (with a slight edge to the Escape), I set about cutting my best deal on one with the dealer. From the published data you can find at KBB or Edmunds, for example, I got a price well below market. I purposely hemmed and hawed about the lease return though, and the sales manager proposed that I basically pay him to take over the risk on damage. In the end, we added $800 to the price of the new Escape, and wrote out an agreement that if Ford sends me a bill for damage to the Edge, the dealer will take care of it. Maybe he'll get the better end of that deal, but to close off the risk on my side, for the same price I thought it would cost me to repair the wheels alone, seemed like a good solution to me. So now I'll head over to the Escape (we wanted to downsize) forum. Thank for your input and best of luck with your Edges. PS - My deal at Fox Ford Lincoln on Elston Ave in Chicago started off a little rocky, but Fred Dino (Sales Manager) and Evan Wolford (Product Specialist) did a great job going the extra mile to right the ship. They're in a beautiful, brand new, built-for-them facility, and if you're in the area, you should go check it out.

Here there are, in all their majesty. I don't know how well the rash shows up here, but I don't think touch up paint will save me.

Go Wings. We'll see. It's possible, but a Ford isn't at the top of our list. I think I'll bring it to a local dealer and see if anyone is willing to give me some feedback on what we're talking about. Some initial research says that I might be able to get the wheels reconditioned for around $200 a corner. That's obviously cheaper than replacing them, and I assume less than Ford would charge.

No comment, but that's not wrong. And, to be fair, living in a very urban environment is another reason. Sometimes you're in a jam and you need to get that beast, with those gigantic wheels, parked. It happens. Finally, throw some snow, ice, and all-around blizzard conditions into the mix, and this is what you get. When the snow is piling up and you have to park on a street, you can't always tell where the curb is.

The contract doesn't get down to that level of detail. It's Ford's guidelines for reasonable wear and tear which say, I believe, 6" per wheel.

I've got a Sport coming off-lease around year-end, and those 22s have seen better days. Each wheel has been scraped against a curb to one degree or another, and some are longer than the 6" allowed for in the lease-end guidelines as reasonable wear and tear. At least some of my rash is well longer than that. Does anyone have any actual experience with how this will be treated? I'll gratefully take any information you have, but among my questions are: Does someone who works for the dealer do the inspection, or is it someone else (like a third-party service)? In either case, what is your experience with their "flexibility" (willingness to cut me a break)? Are they going to ding me for replacement cost on the wheels, or some lesser amount? Is there a way to get a preliminary assessment, so I can figure out whether I should get the wheels repaired on my own before the "real" inspection? Is there a different forum or website I can post to, considering that this isn't necessarily specific to Edges? Thanks very much for any insight you may have.

I was surprised to see that I lost a center cap on one of my 22s the other day. I don't have any idea how or when that happened, but so be it. What's my best bet for replacing it? I don't see any on ebay right now. I do see some sites offering them as supposedly OEM, but the sites seem a little sketchy to me. Is there a consensus on a solid OEM vendor? Thanks in advance.

I've located a 2013 Edge Sport with the exact combination of options I'm seeking. It's a dealer demo with about 4000 miles on it. I'm told it's been driven by a salesman at the dealer. The sticker is $43,275, and the dealer quoted me $40,026 (before incentives). That's 8.5% off sticker. I'm struggling with how to determine what kind of a discount is fair for the miles on the car. My only frame of reference is a quote from another dealer for an exact copy of this demo, but brand new. The price on that one, which isn't to the dealer yet but is in transit, is $41,816 (again, pre-incentives). It seems to me that the 4000 miles on the demo should be worth more than that $1800 difference, but I don't really know. Any thoughts?

There are a couple in the Chicago area, but not many. I'm going to try to order one in the next couple of weeks.