lancslad1985 wrote: Sat Mar 19, 2022 6:38 am
Apart from my GTI, which I ordered as it had to be what I wanted, I’ve always bought new from existing stock in the dealer group. My Tiguan was a car sat at the dealer that a customer had decided they didn’t want it so I had it within a week. My GTI I waited four months for, but that’s because I pinched another order for a test car that fit my specs.
Not sure with the massively long lead times I’d order to be built again. All I keep hearing from my local VW is that they are still struggling with chip shortages, due to new VWs all having multiple screens.
The most optimistic view I’ve read in the media of semiconductor supply shortages is that it’s expected to gradually improve during the second half of this year, but VW has a huge backlog of customer orders to clear, so IMHO very long lead times can be expected for some time to come; I read sometime during the last couple of weeks on one of the Golf forums of 60 week lead times - and I thought a wait of 8 months for my mk6 Golf back in 2011 was excessive!
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The semiconductor shortages are also having a knock-on impact to some vehicle manufacturers car spec levels, as some manufacturers are opting to delete or downgrade some items of spec so they can continue to build cars; e.g. Ford has deleted folding door mirrors and the upgraded sound system on some models and BMW is fitting smaller screens in some of their cars. Wiring harness may may become the new semiconductor issue in the short term for VW, as much of its supply of wiring harnesses comes from Ukraine. Some of VW’s production facilities have already felt the impact of wiring harness supply issues - some production facilities have either been temporarily shut down or have been running at reduced capacity.
The information below was posted during the last week on the Golf GTI forum by a forum member who used to be the General Sales Manager at a large VW dealership and now works for Select Car Leasing. I’d expect information supplied by car manufacturers to vehicle leasing companies to be accurate, so have no reason to believe it’s not correct;
Options removed from ordering;
- LED Matrix Headlights
- Illuminated Grill
- Harmon Kardon Sound System
- Side assist including folding door mirrors
There’s the expectation that the above affects both new and existing orders. Not sure if it’s just the Golf that’s affected, or whether other models in VW’s model line-up may also be affected. However, some customers may find their new cars are delivered with items of spec missing. I’m not sure how I’d feel if I’d waited for many months for my new car, only to find it wasn’t the spec that I’d ordered…….
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Even though it appears to be regarding the new Golf.
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