Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) When is a Delivery Date any more than a Guess?

This is the German price list for the A Series and on page 93 there is a collection service if I am able to understand correctly?

https://www.mercedes-benz.de/passengerca...V177_190325.pdf

It's us island monkeys that don't get it! whoops did i say that outloud.

Check they will honour the purchase price as well.

We have had a few instances where company car Mercs were delayed and then we had to pay the new, higher price.

About 6 years ago I had to wait over 7 months for an Audi A3, no dealer updates unless I spent time chasing them

After owning it for just over a year, I got a call out of the blue saying they had finally got the A3 demo available to test that I had asked for ??, prats !

Buying my X3 was a very different experience. At every stage of the manufacturing process I got email updates, including when it was shipped, landed and arrival at the dealers. Very different to my Mito...the only notice I got was that it had missed its ship and was stuck on a dock for two weeks 🙄

Latest news I have is that Mercedes is moving A Class production around between 3 sites in Europe (one is the former SAAB site in Sweden), and changing the proportion of diesels to petrol (what a surprise), so many previously quoted build slots are being revised..backwards.

I also discovered that many of the cars shown on the Mercedes New Car Locator website are listed based on delivery assumptions from the time of order, and are not updated so may not be there at all.

It is all rather disappointing: not until a car is on a transporter on the way to a dealer is the delivery date really trustworthy. It must be challenging for the dealers: I can see why they try to sell from stock and don't like bespoke orders.

In my recent experience delivery dates are no more than finger in the air guesses..

In July 2017 bought a new Range Rover Autobiography, a lovely car. Bought off the showroom floor so no wait. But after 9 trips back to the dealer for various fixes which still were unresolved, in October I rejected the car and ordered a new 2018 version. Delivery was estimated as week 2 January 2018.

This slipped to February, then in March I was told they now have a provisional build date of May! But the dealer anticipated this would slip again. At that point I cancelled the order and bought a Velar that the dealer had on call down, saving a shed load of money too.

Then more recently (March 19) I decided that the Velar wasn’t really the car for me, it never went wrong as such but I never entirely trusted it so decided to trade for something entirely practical (now having the Morgan and Swmbo 124 Fiat (mx5) for fun).

Fixed on a Skoda Superb estate, did the deal 7 March, car on call down so will definitely be with you this month. So today it’s 2 April and I’m in the dealers courtesy car (Kodiaq) and delivery “should be” this week.

Drives you mad..

Best experience I’ve had was with Morgan, where in fact the car was ready 2 weeks earlier than expected so had to sit at dealers as cash wasn’t available until January 2019..

Delivery has been revised, again.
It is in transit and due to arrive at the dealers on 11th April.
So, 3 weeks late.
Do I believe that date?
No, I'll believe it when I see it.

My experience of the E63 delivery was that once in it had left the factory they were pretty good. The only slight delay was in the MB UK trans-shipmnent point before it left for the dealer. They allowed two days but it was just post new registration so it took four. A whole consignment came in and they did not have a processing order so it depended on when they got around to getting it on the truck to the dealer.

The AMG A35 is in England!!
Landed on Thursday, the dealer expects it on the 9th and I can collect on the 11th!!

At last....

Just had a thought.
Remember the days of cars stockpiled in fields to keep the assembly factories running?
Go to a dealer, order a car, they check the stocklist.
Yes, sir, we have your car in stock. We will get it down quickly.
Images of dragging the damp, dirty car out of a muddy field. Surface rust already taken hold. Dealer gets the car, pre-delivery checks ( ) done.
Pick your car up.
These days with JIT in place and desire to limit money held in stocks would mean putting a car into the build schedule and letting the computer do its work of scheduling parts and build slot collation.
I remember working in a car radiator factory.
Trying to manage JIT and overcome old practises ( but we have always done it that way...GRRRR). Each department doing its own thing with poor cooperation and team work.