Delivery/Tracking

[SRGTD]

VW’s Uitenhage factory in South Africa was closed from late March with plans to restart production in early May, so possibly 6 weeks of production lost - assuming production did actually restart in early May. VW were then applying a phased approach to restarting production in their factories - presumably this meant production would initially be well below normal operating capacity, and would gradually be ramped up over time. So potentially, production of a specific vehicle that had been allocated a build week but not built due to the temporary factory closure could be delayed by 6-10 weeks (a guesstimate). Add to this any COVID-19 related interruptions to the transit of cars from the factory, and the 6-10 week delay might become a 10-14 week delay.

A report in the Guardian on 5 June states that South Africa had seen a large jump in Covid-19 cases since lockdown restrictions started to be eased. Could this mean the South African government might reintroduce previous lockdown restrictions or new ones? Who knows. If so, could this impact the manufacturing sector? If it does, then there could be additional delays. If some UK customers cars that were ordered early this year aren’t delivered until next year when the Brexit transition period will have ended, could this also mean some sizeable import tariffs being applied to those cars in the event of no Brexit trade deal being agreed?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ndemic-hit

Lots of if’s, but’s and maybe’s. IMO VW has never been good at communicating with customers, and quite often they’re not good at communicating within their own organisation. There are many dependencies affecting vehicle production and delivery from VW Uitenhage, and not really anything individual customers can do to speed up the process. The UK dealerships won’t have any influence either, although there’s no excuse for lack of communication updates - even if there’s nothing new to communicate.

As for the Polo GTI being removed from the configurator and only available from stock at present - other models with certain engine options have also been removed. VWUK have apparently confirmed the Polo GTI will be back - I dare say that the focus is on clearing the outstanding car builds at the factory before accepting any new orders, hence the reason for removing the GTI and other models. This has happened before - think it was during the WLTP debacle.

[Ima]

I spoke to my dealer and there’s a 10 week delay on build date from original date and it’s a wait until September now as earliest arrival is mid August. He’s said all new builds for basic Polo without spec changes are 8 months and GTI is coming back but not until existing backlog cleared.

[lancslad1985]

Morning all. Very approximately, how long does it take to get the car from Germany to the UK? My dealer has said my exact spec of car is currently in transit to Germany if I’m prepared to wait (which I am if the figures are right this afternoon). There’s only three cars in their whole system and two are in transit.

[PhilArnold]

Morning all. Very approximately, how long does it take to get the car from Germany to the UK? My dealer has said my exact spec of car is currently in transit to Germany if I’m prepared to wait (which I am if the figures are right this afternoon). There’s only three cars in their whole system and two are in transit.

I think it's about 2-3 weeks usually, but unsure how covid has affected it
Those may be on the same ship mine is on, finally arriving in Germany today after nearly 4 weeks at sea

[POLO Clive]

Morning all. Very approximately, how long does it take to get the car from Germany to the UK? My dealer has said my exact spec of car is currently in transit to Germany if I’m prepared to wait (which I am if the figures are right this afternoon). There’s only three cars in their whole system and two are in transit.

Mine was 7 days from arriving in Germany to arriving in the UK, but it's then another week to arrive at the Dealer, and a further few days for the Dealer to get it ready for collection, but this was in 'normal' times before Coronavirus hit us.

[lancslad1985]

Cheers both. My only other question is can you set the gti to long life? I do 15,000-18,000 a year So don’t want to be in every six months!

[stuartrendall]

Mine will be on long life. I do 18,000+ miles a year and my car will have its first service at 10k miles and then there after it will be every 20k miles. Just ask the dealer and they should set it up for you as they have done for me.

[SRGTD]

The default service regime from the factory is flexible / long life. The car’s data sticker (attached to the boot floor?) should have code Q16 as one of the option codes for the car. Q16 is the code for flexible servicing.

[Dazeredo]

At least on Portugal I needed to call the dealership to get updates about the delivery. Every week they received a list of the production queue of the cars ordered, with the expected fabrication date and after fabrication, the vin and expected delivery date.

[PeteJ-]

My leasing company informed me yesterday that they can’t even get hold of the dealers to enquire about my car. They are ignoring phone calls and emails. For a car that was due to be delivered to the dealers a week before lockdown I am beginning to get angry about this and about to cancel my order.


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[JacobNorton]

My leasing company informed me yesterday that they can’t even get hold of the dealers to enquire about my car. They are ignoring phone calls and emails. For a car that was due to be delivered to the dealers a week before lockdown I am beginning to get angry about this and about to cancel my order.


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I am getting the same... I would love to cancel mine as well, but I don't think there any hope with the contract im tied into.

Promised a mid Feb delivery, but will most likely be July - Ridiculous.

[PeteJ-]

Just been informed by my lease company that my car is built and in Germany. Delivery to dealer in 4 weeks. So looks like 5 weeks time. Looks like I’m stuck with the wait as I can’t find anything in stock that I want to lease as an alternative. So would have to order and wait 10 to 12 weeks. Just hope the car is worth the wait now.


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[lancslad1985]

Well I’ve got the car tagged with a refundable deposit in case I don’t like Sundays test drive (unlikely). Mine was build week 13 and is currently in transit somewhere to/from Germany and expected in the next five/six weeks. Never waited that long for a car, but I’ve wanted a red gti since I was five years old and this was too good an opportunity. The long wait begins!

[JacobNorton]

Just been informed by my lease company that my car is built and in Germany. Delivery to dealer in 4 weeks. So looks like 5 weeks time. Looks like I’m stuck with the wait as I can’t find anything in stock that I want to lease as an alternative. So would have to order and wait 10 to 12 weeks. Just hope the car is worth the wait now.


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I've just requested the location since you got told yours, I think it will be the 6th time I've asked.

I'm expecting it to be delivered in two weeks based on the last update I had. Don't want to get my hopes up though.

[JacobNorton]

I got an update today from my lease company, the director of the company envisaged that it is 4 weeks away.

It's been 4 weeks away since February.