Production delay

[VINDIC8R]

Face it you are dealing with a seriously screwed up company, supplier and distribution network. So my suggestion is simple. VIPER.

Oh I hear you. I certainly appreciate the sales of C7s are about 4 times what the 2013 C6 sales were and perhaps no one predicted the amount of parts inventory that would be required to fulfill orders.

[sigh] I will hang on for now but I reserve the right to gripe

 

[VINDIC8R]

If your dealer has a 2nd allocation, he has a good idea when the car will arrive. I have a buddy that sold his C6 last April. He immediately ordered a Z51 expecting a '14...no luck. His dealer gets two 15's & told him to expect the car next May.
My dealer got one '14, I drove it home Jan 20.

Thank you. It may have been you who had replied back saying you got your C7 in January. I have no problem waiting until the snow clears for delivery of my C7 next Spring. I just wish I knew what the timeline is. Dealer says I am next up. But s that in this week, month, year, decade? I would stop my weekly chats with GM Live Chat if nothing will be delivered until 2015.

I would also like the C7 in my own garage for the winter so I can at least hear it rumble as I bring it up to hot and play around with all the do-dads.

Suffice it to say the plot sickens.

 

[Black 03 Z06]

Ok, maybe someone can explain how this works then. I realize I have a simple mind.

You go into a GM dealership and you want to order a car, a Corvette C7 to be exact. So first you have to determine if the dealership even has the right to sell you a C7 of any description. You have no choice to believe what they tell you, only later you find out that the order is really only a hope on their part. First fault in logic.

Now you have to determine what you want on your C7 from a vast option sheet, that was something I thought they were trying to rid themselves of many years ago. So you pick out what you want and sign the deal. The order goes nowhere, just sits. Second fault in logic.

Now the customer sits and wonders what the status is of their order and the dealership tells them all sorts of nonsense about the build and delivery time frame. Big money put down to secure the order in some cases and that does not ensure you will actually get a car because you cannot be sure the dealer really can sell it in the first place. And if GM accepts the order they cannot build it they can't get parts. See above.

Now the orders are in but GM runs out of parts because they have never seen the order. How can you forecast to a supplier what you need when you have no idea what is in the pipeline? So the high demand speciality items just grind the order/build process to a halt. Third fault in logic.

So now you have customers who really want your product and despite having placed an order it really does not mean a thing.
Some orders apparently were never placed. What benefit this has for the dealer is beyond me. Maybe they just like to argue about the non refundable deposit you gave them. In a small Canadian market the demand is equal to the American side just smaller percentage of vehicles based on the population. Still a sale is a sale unless you are dealing with GM and then maybe a sale is really not a sale at all.

So what am I missing? As Ricky would say "You got a lot of splain' to do Lucy".

I worked for two different companies suppling equipment to GM. They, GM, had they committees who would come to your manufacturing facility and tell you what you were doing wrong, that this process should be changed and that is not right. Get that done and maybe we will order something. Finally get the order and then wait and wait for payment. This is a company who should never ever offer advice on business to anyone, including governments. They seem to struggle to be in the car business.

 

[Keith Tedford]

Won't Put On A Second Shift

If they keep on running the company the way they are, they won't be needing first shifts either. They went bankrupt in 2008 and the same people are still at the helm. I worked there for 41 years as a tool and die maker and don't have a lot of confidence in those managing the company. I would have felt a lot more confident in the company if a wholesale change in management had been made back then.
http://www.autonews.com/article/20131004/OEM01/131009911/high-demand-to-limit-corvette-supplies

 

[C7Driver]

Well you have a car where demand is overwhelming supply so there is a lineup , you need to get in line. Adding to that issue is how dealers are allocated vehicles, that is based on what they sold historically , so if your dealer didn't sell many C6's they aren't going to get many C7's. That's the problem for all of Canada, very few C6's got sold here, partly because GM Canada decided to sell the car at a premium to U.S. pricing. So a lot of Cdn buyers figured out ways to buy their C6's in the U.S , which hurt the Cdn numbers even worse. That's the reality of the C7 and who gets what in Canada. Fair, maybe not but it is reality.

Eventually that will smooth out, meantime GM has a hit, is selling as many as they can build so first thing a buyer in Canada needs to understand is the above. Does your dealer have an allocation , how many do they have and what is the wait time or how big is their wait list given they do have allocations. The dealers are part of the problem because obviously some are not being honest. When I went into my local dealer in London he told me flat out, heh I might get a couple of cars in 2014 but they are spoken for so I can't really help you unless your willing to wait for the '15's. I then went to Toronto and found a allocation. It should get better this year , however with all the great articles coming out on the C7's, all the driving shows talking about it and how great it is maybe, just maybe demand actually stays strong or gets stronger. A whole lot of BMW, Porsche guys are going to be looking at the C7 as a far more viable option than was the previous generations of 'Vettes.

 

[VINDIC8R]

Well you have a car where demand is overwhelming supply so there is a lineup , you need to get in line. Adding to that issue is how dealers are allocated vehicles, that is based on what they sold historically , so if your dealer didn't sell many C6's they aren't going to get many C7's. That's the problem for all of Canada, very few C6's got sold here, partly because GM Canada decided to sell the car at a premium to U.S. pricing. So a lot of Cdn buyers figured out ways to buy their C6's in the U.S , which hurt the Cdn numbers even worse. That's the reality of the C7 and who gets what in Canada. Fair, maybe not but it is reality.

Eventually that will smooth out, meantime GM has a hit, is selling as many as they can build so first thing a buyer in Canada needs to understand is the above. Does your dealer have an allocation , how many do they have and what is the wait time or how big is their wait list given they do have allocations. The dealers are part of the problem because obviously some are not being honest. When I went into my local dealer in London he told me flat out, heh I might get a couple of cars in 2014 but they are spoken for so I can't really help you unless your willing to wait for the '15's. I then went to Toronto and found a allocation. It should get better this year , however with all the great articles coming out on the C7's, all the driving shows talking about it and how great it is maybe, just maybe demand actually stays strong or gets stronger. A whole lot of BMW, Porsche guys are going to be looking at the C7 as a far more viable option than was the previous generations of 'Vettes.

I do hear that for sure. After I inked the deal I asked how many Vettes they sell. Typically it is around 6 annually. Not sure if the numbers will bump up with the popularity of C7. There is a lot of many in The Blue Mountains area. I have seen 4 C7s in the area each a different colour.