New truck

[Camping family]

While placed an order for the new truck 2022 f350 king ranch back in September was supposed to be deliver in December. Just got an e mail it will go into production end of March. Man by the time I receive it the 2023’s will be coming out. This has been some very strange times for sure. But it will arrive one day.

[JRTJH]

Originally Posted by Camping family

While placed an order for the new truck 2022 f350 king ranch back in September was supposed to be deliver in December. Just got an e mail it will go into production end of March. Man by the time I receive it the 2023’s will be coming out. This has been some very strange times for sure. But it will arrive one day.

It will arrive one day.... Sort of gives a whole new meaning to the term, "Back to the future"..... At least be "thankful" it'll be here before the 2023's are out... Hopefully, not at the same time as the 2024's, eh ????

[Skillet173]

I was blessed while waiting for a 2022 Chevy and found an almost identical one in transit. The one I ordered still has no production date.
Good luck!!

[jasin1]

Originally Posted by JRTJH

It will arrive one day.... Sort of gives a whole new meaning to the term, "Back to the future"..... At least be "thankful" it'll be here before the 2023's are out... Hopefully, not at the same time as the 2024's, eh ????

You probably seen this already

[wiredgeorge]

The Ford dealers around this area are telling folks the smart way to go is to order that new vehicle to get it exactly as you like. I suspect they are trying to get folks to sign on the dotted line and hope price increases don't cause folks to just eat their down payments.

[Roper46]

Originally Posted by Camping family

While placed an order for the new truck 2022 f350 king ranch back in September was supposed to be deliver in December. Just got an e mail it will go into production end of March. Man by the time I receive it the 2023’s will be coming out. This has been some very strange times for sure. But it will arrive one day.

Bob, I ordered my Sierra 3500 the middle of November 2021. Got an ETA yesterday to the dealer of 3/12/2022. Good luck with your order.

[Camping family]

Originally Posted by Roper46

Bob, I ordered my Sierra 3500 the middle of November 2021. Got an ETA yesterday to the dealer of 3/12/2022. Good luck with your order.

That’s faster then mine. My e mail I received was scheduled for production end of March. I’m thinking will be at dealer mid April

[Camping family]

Originally Posted by wiredgeorge

The Ford dealers around this area are telling folks the smart way to go is to order that new vehicle to get it exactly as you like. I suspect they are trying to get folks to sign on the dotted line and hope price increases don't cause folks to just eat their down payments.

The ford dealer here is telling customers the same thing. Order what you want. The good thing is you don’t have to put anything down to place the order and when it comes in if you don’t want it you just walk away. They have so many people wanting new trucks they don’t care if you take it or not. Dealer told me if I didn’t want it that’s fine he will have it sold by the end of the day.

[LnS]

Originally Posted by Camping family

The ford dealer here is telling customers the same thing. Order what you want. The good thing is you don’t have to put anything down to place the order and when it comes in if you don’t want it you just walk away. They have so many people wanting new trucks they don’t care if you take it or not. Dealer told me if I didn’t want it that’s fine he will have it sold by the end of the day.

I think it's likely that the auto retail business model will change, OEMs won't build a breadth of product just have something to sell today. Dealers will have a few items on the lot and become order takers in a mostly build to order business model with low sitting inventory. They both will find this to be a lower cost business model.
Cracks in the 'old' dealership protection laws are being pried open by Tesla as they sue in several states and as the traditional OEMs move to EVs and with more EV vendors arriving these vehicles will be more modular builds with higher percentage of common components across models accompanied by firmware and software differences for differentiation.
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Change is the only constant and so far it's served us well.

[jasin1]

Originally Posted by LnS

I think it's likely that the auto retail business model will change, OEMs won't build a breadth of product just have something to sell today. Dealers will have a few items on the lot and become order takers in a mostly build to order business model with low sitting inventory. They both will find this to be a lower cost business model.
Cracks in the 'old' dealership protection laws are being pried open by Tesla as they sue in several states and as the traditional OEMs move to EVs and with more EV vendors arriving these vehicles will be more modular builds with higher percentage of common components across models accompanied by firmware and software differences for differentiation.
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Change is the only constant and so far it's served us well.

I can’t see it changing too much…maybe the EV market but that has so far attracted a crowd of people that are willing to wait for what they want it seems…(Fisker EV) for example

For the big auto manufacturers it is probably easier and cheaper to keep the machine rolling as long as there are no material/supply shortages..Americans buy up all the cars anyway..largely because they drive by a dealer and they have the exact car or truck they saw on a tv commercial or magazine sitting right there just a signature away.

And someone will jump in and flood the market with their vehicles to fill the need.
People are fickle and don’t like to wait for things …if you give them too much time they may realize they don’t need or want it anymore

When Henry Ford completely shut down his plants to retool from the model T to the model A it cost him millions in market share…Chevrolet had record sales that year…it almost cost Ford everything

It’s like McDonald’s wouldn’t do as well if you went into the restaurant and had to sit down and place an order with a waiter and wait for the cook to get to your order..people would go elsewhere

And until we have a complete and total change in how the average American likes to shop then nothing will change …that will take many many years IMO

EV sales can’t really be compared to regular car sales ..it’s like powerboaters and Sailboaters…two philosophicaly different human beings …
….
sailboaters are almost like martians to powerboaters…and I’m sure they think the same of me lol

( I’ve had a few sailboats but it wasn’t for me)

[Skillet173]

I follow a GM forum where there are members who have been waiting a year for trucks and still have no insight on eta for delivery. As mentioned I ordered my truck in September and as of today still have no date for production. If it were built today it wouldn’t have half of the items I ordered due to the chip shortage, and with the “supply chain issue” I likely wouldn’t see it delivered this year anyway.
I started looking at trucks “in transit” which were close to my order and put a deposit on one. Even that took almost 2 months just to get it freed from Flint and delivered 400 miles away. But I now have my truck and I am thankful for it.
I can’t see how any company can go with an order only model in todays world of “I want it now.” I’m pretty sure GM isn’t the only company dealing with it but they sure suck at giving information to those who are waiting on order fulfillment. I understand manufacturing has a host of moving parts outside of the actual build but if Amazon can track a package from the other side of the country to my door, I don’t see why GM can’t tell someone when to expect an $80k truck to be delivered.
Ok. I’m done. Hopefully you will have better luck than most!

[flybouy]

I'm no auto industry expert but I do understand the migration a couple of decades ago to the "just in time" assembly model. In bygone eras the big 3 built just about everything in a vehichle except the tires. Ford not only had its own steel mill on premises but even owned the coal mines and railroad to fire it. They had complete control. That model required a tremendous amout of space and made them vulnerable to strikes and higher wages.

Fast forward to today and auto manufacturers don’t build anything (for very little) at the assembly plant. Parts come from all over the world and if one part is missing then it throws the entire process (into chaos. If say a component buried deep in the dashboard is missing they aren't going to build it, store it, then tear it apart again to finish it. So while Covid, the ship stuck in Suez Canal for 6 days, and then some sanctions on truckers and others things ground to halt. Just like the mail, the store shelves, medicine, etc. I'm not defending the auto industry or the transportation industry but it's the unfortunate reality. I do beleive if they could build more vehichles they would as apposed to playing "whack a mole" with getting deliveries.

[{tpc}]

Yes I would say custom order is the way to go right now. Any sales guy worth their salt can put your order in the system for you, and also let you know what options could hold up delivery.

As for walking away from the order because the dealer can sell to someone else, I’m not sure that’s always the case. Some will want a down payment, some will not. I believe in the case of Ford, ford retains the right to pull that custom order back from the dealer and give it to another dealer, if you walk. I’m not sure how often that happens though.

It is a crazy market right now. I was able to custom build my current truck and trade my lease in almost 5 months early, which they paid off and found extra equity in to use as a down payment on the next truck. And I was 2000 miles from going over my allotment. Ordered the truck in October and got it in December right after Xmas.

[JRTJH]

"As for walking away from the order because the dealer can sell to someone else, I’m not sure that’s always the case. Some will want a down payment, some will not."

Consider this: Dealerships are "screaming for inventory" and the factory is putting their "screams" on the back burner, trying to produce "customer orders which have been sold". The priority at the assembly plants is to fill the "sold orders" before building vehicles to sit on a lot, with hopes to find a buyer...

So, dealerships "lure customers" to special order a vehicle, take a minimal deposit that they often say is refundable, and put in the order... That gives the dealership a "priority order to either sell or put in inventory"... As was said in a previous post, "the dealer said that if I don't want it, they'll give me back my deposit because they can sell it as soon as it hits the lot"... The problem for most dealers is that they don't have anything on the lot to sell and if they can "find a way to get inventory" they have buyers waiting.

Yesterday, I went by the Ford and by the Chevrolet/GMC dealerships. There were only 3 new vehicles in front of the Ford showroom. One Escape, one Fuzion and one regular cab Ranger. Over on the used car side, there were about 10 vehicles, only 1 of which was a Ford.

Lots at the Chevy and at the GMC dealer were similar, a few SUV's and a couple of cars, no HD trucks and sparse LT trucks, most of which looked like "Fleet Sales" regular cab, stripped down utility trucks rather than option heavy crew cabs.

I'd guess that a major part of the "push by local dealers to get customers to special order" is with the hope that the vehicle will at least be in their inventory even if the customer backs out of the order.

[wegone]

Seems the truck manufacturers have learned the BOEING business model....

[CampNBrew2]

Originally Posted by Skillet173

I now have my truck and I am thankful for it.

Glad you got a truck! I just received a TPW of next week for mine, ordered 11/5/21. We'll see if its actually built then, with what missing parts, and how long it sits for transit after. Luckily I didn't have to put any $ down and can walk away if it takes too long. The 23's may be upgraded anyway.

[wiredgeorge]

If memory serves, computer chips were coming from Taiwan and they were very short supply a couple months ago with many finished trucks sitting waiting for those chips. Did that situation get resolved?

[CampNBrew2]

A couple of guys on the GM forum work on the truck line and say there is no chip hold but many other random parts and spray-in bedliners are where there are bottlenecks. They don't know what trucks they are building until they get to work and see what parts came in. Then when finished, a serious backlog of shipping them out still exists. It's a mess.

[wiredgeorge]

Originally Posted by CampNBrew2

A couple of guys on the GM forum work on the truck line and say there is no chip hold but many other random parts and spray-in bedliners are where there are bottlenecks. They don't know what trucks they are building until they get to work and see what parts came in. Then when finished, a serious backlog of shipping them out still exists. It's a mess.

I recall pictures of pickups lined up in some field... hundreds with no chips. Guess all the supply chain issues are the reason these long lead times for members ordering their new truck. Thanks

[CampNBrew2]

Likely the Fords lined up in Kentucky, though there are lots full of GMs as well.