- Every year Cars.com buys its best of winner.
Now that's a car that we in the editorial department
name as the best of the year, as far as innovation,
quality and value, it's our most prestigious award.
And for 2022, that's the Ford Maverick, a compact pickup
so unique, so innovative,
we're still in awe that such a vehicle exists.
When deliberations ended in early November
and we turned to buying a Maverick.
We knew we were in for a potentially long process.
The great inventory shortage meant a popular truck
like the Maverick could mean ordering one
and waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
But through a combination of determination
and really sheer luck,
we were able to buy a Maverick Hybrid
from a dealer without ordering.
And the whole process took 12 weeks from start to delivery.
And here's how we did it.
November 2nd, we named the Maverick best of,
and immediately turned to shopping for one.
At this point, gas only Mavericks had been on sale
since about mid to late September,
but hybrids weren't on sale yet.
You know, we could see inventory for hybrids
that were planning on coming to dealerships
and our hope was to intercept one at that point.
What we wanted also wasn't that common,
because we wanted the hybrid.
That's really the star of the show here,
37 miles per gallon, $20,000 starting price,
1,500 pounds payload.
This is what we wanted.
And in addition to that, we also wanted two packages.
The Ford Co-pilot360
and the luxury package on the Lariat or the XLT.
So we're really narrowing our choices here.
We're in Chicago, we wanted the heated seats
and the heated steering wheel's a nice touch too.
We found seven dealerships with claims
to matching Mavericks that would be delivered
to their dealership.
And the answer was the same to all of them.
You can't have 'em.
They were either sold and in production, and in transit,
or they had an unknown status and weren't able
to be reserved.
Striking out at this point,
on November 8th, we decided,
well let's just place an order for one.
So we placed an order through Ford's website.
They linked us up with a Chicago suburban dealership
who eventually placed the order for us
for a Lariat Hybrid
with the luxury and Co-pilot360 packages,
and their estimated delivery time was six to eight months.
Ouch, that would've put us at May, ordering in November.
We were antsy, we wanted to see
if we could get something now.
So we turned to the gas only Mavericks,
the 2.0 Turbo Charge 4 cylinder.
But in the configuration we wanted,
they were really hard to find.
We called 16 dealerships with claims
to such configurations and 13 of those had no trucks at all.
The remaining three dealerships had trucks on lots,
but they were all XL or XLT trim levels
without the features we wanted.
A few weeks later we noticed
more Maverick Hybrids popping up in national inventory,
and that coincides with the hybrid's
late November on sale date.
So we found a couple with matching features and trims,
what we wanted.
One was in California and one was in Ohio,
and they both were available and we could buy them,
but they wanted $5,000 markup in addition
to the $30,000 asking price.
Now there was a third Maverick at a dealer in Ohio.
They said the truck was also available
and it met our requirements.
It was the Lariat Hybrid with a 360 and luxury package.
And it was $31,000 with destination.
And they said it was gonna be there in a week.
So at this point we wanted to give them all of our money.
We want it now, we asked to reserve it.
A follow up call with a dealer
on November 30th revealed that this truck
was ordered back in July, but they couldn't find the buyer.
And if they couldn't find the buyer,
they would sell it to us for $2,500 above retail.
How generous of them.
Also the expected delivery date was rescinded.
There was no ETA on the truck.
So at this point we were left
without a truck, without a reservation.
So we were way, way up.
We thought we had our Maverick
and then we were back to zero.
December 10th rolls around and the dealership
had done more sleuthing trying to figure out
whose Maverick was this?
And it turns out, it was theirs.
There was no missing buyer,
they actually ordered the truck back in July
for their own stock.
And we were the first to call about it to try and buy it.
So at this point, we put down a $500 deposit on the truck.
Of course, still somewhat skeptical
that it would actually come through.
But we started to feel lucky again
because they told us after our initial call,
a couple days before, they received 26 inquiries
and we were first.
To give an example
of just how in demand Maverick Hybrids were at this point,
Ford shut down orders in early December.
You could not place any more orders
to build a 2022 Maverick.
In fact, you won't be able to until summer of 2022
when the 2023 is open for orders.
A week later, and we were still skeptical
that this deal would happen,
we were notified that the truck had been built, released,
and it was a waiting the shipping company to be shipped
to the dealership.
And it should arrive between January 12th and 18th.
on January 17th, our salesperson texted us photos
of the truck inside the dealership perched across the floor
from a couple of F-150s.
So on the 18th, we signed the paperwork and paid $34,085.
Now that also includes $800 in shipping
because we paid to have the truck shipped
from Ohio to our home in Chicago.
So we were delayed a couple more days
because the shipping company couldn't find a driver,
and there was weather that impacted the area.
So, we didn't receive the car until January 25th,
but when it showed up on that flatbed
we were still in shock,
but we were the owners of new Ford Maverick Hybrid.
We have our truck,
we're gonna own this Maverick Hybrid for year,
So stay tuned for more coverage on cars.com.