In my case, the car sat in B/G for a period of time after being built, because in part it was being transported by train to the west coast, plus inspection time.[/QUOTE]



How long was the train ride? Did your car get shipped to Ohio first like many others or did it come a more direct route?

 

I have a bad feeling that this holiday season is going to be very long and sad for a lot of folks with a pending order for a new C7.

 

Don't say that! Lol.

 

How long was the train ride? Did your car get shipped to Ohio first like many others or did it come a more direct route?[/QUOTE]

Yes It did go to Ohio, it sat for 10 days waiting for enough cars going west. Plus weather was a factor, it was dead in the middle of winter. Snow on the ground. Actual travel time was about 4 days. I was able to track the train car that held my car.

 

Don't say that, first off your on the east coast so your delivery is going to easier than ours on the west coast. Second your getting a vette how many people would love to be in your shoes.

 

I do worry about the possibility of my new car being transported from Bowling Green to southern Ontario in the middle of winter. The thought of all that road salt blasting the bottom of my new car makes me cringe. I know the car is wrapped in the white protective cover but it doesn't cover the underneath. That nasty road salt gets everywhere too, especially if the roads are very wet and salty and it's spraying up from the transport trucks tires.

 

I know your worried, but the truck will deflect some if not all that kind of junk. Second it arrives at the dealership wrapped, if push comes to shove ask the dealer if you can store it there till the roads clear, now you may have to pay storage fee but if you have a great dealer he might help out.

 

The dealer actually did offer to store the car there, in their indoor warehouse/showroom as long as necessary, free of charge too. But I'll be anxious to get it home as soon as I can, so I'll wait for the first dry road day to bring it home. We usually get quite a few days every winter where the roads are nice and clean. I got to drive my C6 almost once per week all winter long last season.

 

There you go, have fun enjoy

 

Given the factory will have been down for close to three months plus a six week (or so) quality check after the factory starts up of course they will produce the high profit margin cars first thereby delaying the production of base Stingrays.

 

Let me try to answer some of your questions. You're not going to like this, but things actually vary by dealer.

Some dealers will input your order into GM's order system as soon as you specify exactly what you want and put down your deposit (if they require a deposit). As soon as your order is entered into GM's order system, they can give you your order number. Your order will sit at 1100 until the dealer gets an allocation that allows all of your options/colors/etc.

On the other hand, some dealers will not enter an order into the GM system until they actually have an allocation to which they can assign your order.

Makes no difference which method your dealer uses, as nothing will happen to your order until that all important allocation is matched to your order (this matching is done by the dealer).

Allocations are normally communicated to dealers on Thursday along with the nationwide constraints. The dealers allocations will specify exactly how many of what, with which constraints, they have available to them. Dealers have a couple of days (not sure precisely on this, it may be Saturday) to assign their orders to their allocations. This entire process is known as a consensus cycle.

Once your order is assigned to an allocation, your order will progress to 2000 by the following Tuesday. Once you are at 2000, you have past the whole allocation/constraint hurdle and you are on your way to having your car built.

Allocations have a TPW (Targeted Production Week) associated with them (the constraint reports show this TPW), but this is just an early estimate of the TPW. Your TPW will become more firm as you progress to somewhere in the 3000 range (again, I'm not sure the precise status that the TPW becomes fairly stable). TPW's are always on Monday's and it represents the best estimate as to which week your car will be built (sometime during the week that starts that Monday). Actual build dates can differ from the TPW. During start-up, it is likely that the TPWs will slip somewhat. When things are humming along, the actual build date can occur the week prior to the TPW.

Constraints can definitely impact the order process. First of all, you need to understand that constraints are given as the % of the particular vehicles nationwide will be allowed to have that particular option during that consensus cycle. For the sake of an example, let's pretend that Torch Red Stingrays are constrained at 10%. Nationwide, only 10% of all Stingray models will be allowed to be ordered with Torch Red. The percentage at any given dealer can vary from that nationwide average. A low volume dealer that only gets 3 or 4 allocations in a consensus cycle can't get .3 or .4 Stingrays that allow Torch Red, so they probably get zero. Do that nationwide and you can see that there are "extra" Torch Reds available. These typically go to the larger dealers so they may wind up with 28% or 30% or however the overall math works out.

Given the combination of allocations (how many of what each dealer gets per cycle) and constraints (what has limited availability) change weekly (sometimes less frequently, but let's just stick with weekly), a dealer really doesn't know what they are going to have next week. So, they really can't tell you how long it might take to get your specific car assigned to an allocation. In addition, dealers might have a waiting list of customers and your order within that list will also impact the process.

Hopefully, from this description you can see that:

1. There are definite advantages to working with the large dealers because they will have larger numbers of allocations and will likely be less impacted by constraints.
2. The process is fairly complicated and I have actually simplified it somewhat, and nobody has a crystal ball to know what the next week will bring.
3. Many dealers (excluding our forum dealers) will not openly discuss allocations and constraints because if they do you are likely to take your business elsewhere.

I hope this helps.

 

Zymurgy, thanks for that excellent explaination. I'm on my 3rd C7 order and would have loved this info years ago. Please make your reply into a sticky. Thank you!

 

Both Kerbeck and MacMulkin have posted in this thread to say that base Stingrays are indeed getting allocations though.

 

Thanks. Excellent summary. Repeated your key points as to why I buy from large volume dealers! Ordered my last 3 Vettes from Volume Dealers. Kerbeck, who sponsors this forum page, for example is the largest Vette dealer in the country;sells ~1200/year, ~25 per week.

When my C7 Z51 came up for production there was a constraint of ~20% on the Visible Carbon Fiber Roof. My order went into production since they were ordering enough cars that did not request that option!

When I recently placed my order for the Grand Sport with Kerbeck, the brake package was constrained, delaying some orders. No problem for my order. So in addition to getting an excellent price I was able to get exactly what I ordered; machined faced wheels, red seat belts, red brake calipers, manual trans, Stage 2 aero package, carbon flash badge package. If anyone of those options or a standard Grand Sport feature was constrained, and they did not have enough allocations would have to wait or drop the option.

I was able to find a small Chevy dealer some 30 miles away who was willing to do Courtesy Delivery $250. Although they sell Corvettes and have a C7 trained mechanic they have a very low allocation. Did not even ask them or the large Chevy, BMW, Mercedes dealer in town for a price! Did not want to hassle with price and availability, etc issues! Can't blame a car salesman as from your description, when taking your order they don't know what will occur with constraints, their allocation position etc.

With a large volume dealers you're improving your odds significantly of getting what you want at the shortest possible time!

 

Zymurgy- I'll say it helps. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!. I now understand it a lot better and it appears that my dealership is one that does not enter an order into the system until they get that allocation. This explains why for 7 weeks I could not get an 1100 status code and it appeared that my order had not ever been entered.

I had written another post aimed at understanding why this had happened which I am now going to delete.

 

I really agree. This actually explains the ordering process in a very understandable way. Will a moderator make this a sticky as it is needed by a lot of people.

 

Excellent post by Zymurgy! But, after reading the whole post, I think this one is maybe the most important because it can impact every buyer who is ordering, and varies from dealer to dealer.

In this one paragraph, you have 5 or more things happening to, or at the dealer level, some/most of which they have little control over like allocation and constraints. Maybe it's unkind or unfair to also say that many dealers have little experience with ordering a Corvette, which adds another level of potential problem.

"---Given the combination of allocations (how many of what each dealer gets per cycle)

---and constraints (what has limited availability)

---change weekly (sometimes less frequently, but let's just stick with weekly),

---a dealer really doesn't know what they are going to have next week.

---So, they really can't tell you how long it might take to get your specific car assigned to an allocation.

---In addition, dealers might have a waiting list of customers and your order within that list will also impact the process."

 

What a stupid way to run a business. You really gotta want a new Corvette to go through all that.

 

^^^

I don't know, he who sells the most gets the most! That is why UPS and FedEx give ~75% discounts to large users and small businesses like mine get 15%!

Lot's of businesses support the folks that support them with deeper discounts, this is done with allocation!

I'm under the impression that most folks who buy from a local dealer, have a trade and/or want to see what they are buying! Then all the issues about ordering are only the dealers! They have in stock what they have and you could care less how they got it!

 

We do!

Things are a lot easier now than they were when the C7 first came out! It was much harder to get one, there were way more constraints and a lot more demand than supply. I know two guys here in Ontario that placed their orders for 2014s almost as soon as the C7 was announced and neither of them ended up with 2014s at all, they both ended up having to wait for the 2015 model year! There were just too many constraints and not enough allocation for the demand up here, so a lot of potential buyers ended up frustrated.