TylerBurich

That's exactly how I felt watching the tracking website with no updates. It will be worth the wait. What did you order?

Wildman_grafix

I f the dealer is right I'll be right at a year, feel like you.

Is RAM and GM having the same issues? I do have a friend that his wife's HEMI Jeep took I think 8-9 months to get.

techman

YEP! I ordered a RAM Cummins in March and there has been zero movement on it even being scheduled to be built. The RAM orders are running between 6 to 8 months from order to delivery. Some are showing up within 3 months and others are over a year. No rhyme or reason as to why. It doesn't seem to matter based on location, options chosen, trim, etc.

One thing is very consistent, the ability to get trucks shipped is very difficult. On the RAM side (Mexico assembly), there are built trucks sitting in the desert for months waiting for a ride. CRAZY!!!

MAXIMUSXXX

iTrader: (1)

I ordered ‘22 F450 Platinum. You would think at some point, Ford would say ‘hey, if you ordered a ‘22 and haven’t gotten it by September, your name will go on top of list for ‘23’s or you can opt out all together’. Never have I experienced suck poor communication and a lack of I don’t give a **** attitude. Amazing but at the same time, not so much.

Wildman_grafix

Oh they do not care if you opt out, they will sale the truck when it comes in no worries. I think that is one of the reasons it is so screwed up they know there is a buyer at a much higher price waiting.

MAXIMUSXXX

iTrader: (1)

It appears that way. At some point, soon I’m betting, much like housing bust, we’ll experience an auto bust as well. Taking loans out for $125K for a truck worth $85k is not sustainable. Question is, can you manage thru it or does your livelihood depend on you having a truck. I just need it to trailer my boat to poker runs, so I’m managing for now.

Sydwayz

iTrader: (1)

It's kind of wild that GM and others are already delivering 2023 new vehicles, yet others can't deliver on 2022s that were ordered a year ago.

techman

They are?! The model year flips in September. My GM contact said no 2023's expected to be on the lot until after the new year.....WAY after the new year.

Slippery

You would think at some point, Ford would say ‘hey, if you ordered a ‘22 and haven’t gotten it by September, your name will go on top of list for ‘23’s or you can opt out all together’. Never have I experienced suck poor communication and a lack of I don’t give a **** attitude. Amazing but at the same time, not so much."

​​​​​​"Oh they do not care if you opt out, they will sale the truck when it comes in no worries. I think that is one of the reasons it is so screwed up they know there is a buyer at a much higher price waiting"

I'm not really sure where to start, so let me just throw some things out there to think about...

While I can't speak about all dealers, I can tell you Every. Single. Dealer. that I'm aware of - both GM and Ford - are furious over the lack of communication we're getting from our manufacturer RE vehicle delays. We can only pass along the info we're provided & the dealers end up with egg on our faces because nobody believes a "company like Ford/GM can't or won't provide better info. There's no way they'd leave you hanging like that". That's just on the production end. Don't even get me started on the various shipping delays. Coming in from out of the country ? Add Border Covid protocols, rail car shortages and shipping container shortages to the mix. I'm personally tired of every instance of ****ty service being blamed on the pandemic, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck....the supply chain, in terms of labor and parts, production and shipping, was beyond broken.

I'm not sure who "They" are, that's being referred to, but for the most part , the "they don't care" isn't strictly true, either. I know it may seem that way sometimes, especially given some of the current circumstances, but ....

At the manufacture level, a customer backing out doesn't affect them because because every single one of those vehicles on order is already sold - to the dealer.

Even if "you" back out, the vehicle is still sold as far as the mfr is concerned. Think of it this way; GM, Ford, Ram, etc didn't sell a single vehicle last year, dealers bought them.

However, at some level the mfr's do care because their holy grail is shareholder responsibility and profitability, combined with market share, which is how the guys with shiny shoes earn those big bonus checks. The mfr makes its money selling the product to the dealers, but if enough customers defect, it affects market share, and without market share dealers inventory less because they aren't selling the product...which affect profits and those bonus checks.

RE dealers not caring due to some version of we'll sell it to someone else and make more money on it.

I'm sure that's an accurate description for a small percentage of dealers, but not the ones I know. As a general rule, dealers want happy, loyal customers; it's been proven time and time again that it's far more cost effective to retain an existing customer than get a new one. If a customer opts out of an order they're waiting on, they're probably not happy about it .

As far as selling it to someone else ? Yup, because that's what dealerships do, sell vehicles, ...but we'd much rather sell it to the person it was ordered for.

Here's the deal...earning allocation is all about turning inventory, days supply, and earning new product. A vehicle ordered for someone who takes it, is generally going to have a faster "turn time" and affect a dealer's days supply less than one we have to find a buyer for due to a customer opting out. FYI Chevy is taking our days supply calculation out to 4 decimal places ... every dealer is not only pushing for a delivery "today", we'd rather have the delivery at 10 am than 5 pm.

2nd, it's not enough to have the allocation for the truck, you also have to have the stars line up and have the correct options be available for the truck. Say you're customer "B" in line behind customer "A" and you want similar trucks. He orders his and the next several weeks some of those same options aren't available so your order is backed up waiting for the allocation....then he doesn't take his. You could've had his spot and had your truck, but you got backed up because someone opted out. That's best case. Worse case is the mfr closes the order bank on that model because they have enough orders to build everything they have parts or paint for and you're out for several more months. The way we've tried to explain it is when you're ordering a vehicle, not only are you committing to a vehicle, you're committing to a spot in line, and nobody wants to get delayed, or worse, lose the opportunity, because someone in front of them wasted a spot.

Re. the "sell the vehicle for a higher price". There are some dealers taking advantage of the situation; charging MSRP - or more - and/or no longer honoring employee or supplier purchase plans or jamming unwanted (or useless) options on the vehicle.
If you run into those dealers, shop around. There are still several dealers - us included - who have refused to go down that path.

As a last thought re "charging more"...this will be unpopular, but the reality is this....retail businesses create a market plan based on overhead costs and profitability per piece of inventory sold at a given volume . As an oversimplification, let's say you make a living selling widgets, and the guy who supplies you your widgets says he can supply 750 widgets per year. Your price model reflects overhead costs covered by profit on a sales volume of 750 / year. All of a sudden, you're overhead costs go up 25%, and your supplier says he can only get you 250 widgets for the next few years. Your overhead is up 25% and you need to cover that by selling 60% less widgets than last year. How do you think that story ends ?

It's screwed up because the supply chain - production and delivery - was destroyed, not because the dealers or manufacturers don't care...even though is sure seems that way at times. Could the manufacturers do a better job getting the info to the dealers, so we could pass that along to the customer ? Hell, yes...it sure seems to me like they could, because the info we do get today, might not be the info we get tomorrow and often times the info conflicts the previous day. The biggest single complaint I think most of us have is the perception that the manufacturers don't care. That's what they need to fix, you'll get no argument from any dealer I know. And...late to address this, but I agree that I think both Ford and GM should be more proactive re the idea they should be reaching out and confirming customers whose orders are being bumped a model year are getting preferential treatment for allocation of the new model year.

Sorry...don't mean to get up on a soap box and preach, but it's incredibly frustrating when we - dealers - are stuck in the middle with no info and we hear "you don't really care because you'll just sell it to the next person". The best advice I can give you is if you really believe your dealer doesn't care about helping you buy your vehicle, you should find another dealer.

Sorry for the length, and the rant, but it's a Monday, and 110 is damn near $10 / gallon lol.....

d

Slippery

Frustrating.

They're producing vehicles somehow not affected by chip shortage while we've got vehicles delayed for literally months...some not yet in production, some have been produced and sitting for months waiting for either chips, or quality checks due to being produced at a new plant, or waiting on shipping, or all of the above...