I'm looking for a base AcuraWatch AWD RDX in a specific color. I'm in CA, but the closest dealership with stock is in Indiana! Several dealerships have offered to special order the vehicle. Can members who have had experience ordering their RDX from the factory share their experience and insight?

Two dealerships have warned me against special ordering because: (1) Acura may or may not deliver the vehicle in the ordered configuration and (2) the delivery ETA is very unreliable. Some other dealerships have stated that special ordering is not an issue and have given an ETA of 2-3 months.

Have you encountered any issues with your special order? What confirmation did the dealer provide of the order? And how long did it take to receive your RDX? Any other advice?

Thanks in advance!

 

Ordered my 2016 RDX advance In the color I wanted 19 May and supposed to be here Monday or Tuesday

 

Dealers want to move inventory, not special orders, so dealers will lie to you to dissuade you from placing a special order.

Any dealer that tells you that you may not get what you special ordered is full of brown smelly stuff - isn't that the whole purpose of a special order? The factory rarely makes a mistake on the order but dealers frequently place an intricate order wrong - but how wrong can you get "I'd like a base Trabant in chartreuse please"?

The dealer will get a ballpark ETA and will get updated, but tracking often isn't the best. Parts availability may cause delays if you're ordering the car with the maroon widgets since they are often in short supply.
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There are two downsides to special ordering a car:

You might not get the best price because the dealer has no incentive to cut you a deal and there is no instant gratification

 

lol

 

In the 60's, in Eastern Europe, I had a Trabant and you could not get it in chartreuse. You had to be thankful if you could get one in any color you could . The issue now is that it is too much choice!!!???!!! Just kidding

 

True dat. The most common colors were Lindgruen, bananengelb or Marmorweiss - the first two were almost chartreuse.

I'm not quite sure why they bothered printing brochures or giving color options, because you waited 15 years to get one and you took the color they had.

The banana yellow was in itself telling - since bananas were nearly unheard of in the DDR. But then calling themselves the German Democratic Republic was kind of funny too.

Just for grins, here is an English catalog in pdf

 

OK, OK, so that was in the 60's. Modern ones were much better, right? Here is another brochure (in German only, since they gave up trying to export it to the west a long time ago). This one is from 1986 - just three years before the wall came down.

Please note the extensive safety features in the interior - the deep dish steering wheel and the sharp bits ready to amputate body parts.

The engine was virtually unchanged, still a 2 cylinder two cycle (mix oil with gas 1:50) putting out 26hp. Zero to 60 is measured in minutes and 62mph is still the top speed.

Bod made out of fiberglass/cardboard/plastic. Burned nicely.

Special order only, waiting time was still 15 years. One day after the wall came down they were readily available - but nobody wanted them - see, back on topic.

 

Acura, and I presume Honda, has an extensive logistics software program/system. When I went to purchase, and nothing was on the lot, my dealer looked at what was going into production in the near future that was scheduled for shipment to other dealers in our general vicinity. He found a car being manufactured the following week, in the colors I wanted, being shipped to another dealer close by. He called that dealer and they agreed to trade inventory before the car was produced. One the car was assembled, it was shipped to my dealer. So basically, I "special ordered", the car was made the following week, and I should pick it up this week which is about 3 weeks later.


I presume there are some reasons why dealers might not want to do this, but the process exists and works well from what I can see.

 

I was getting a total blank here as I recognize neither the model nor the color.
Anyway thanks for the lesson in automotive history.

 

Congratulations and welcome to the forum. That was a very useful first post .

 

Thanks for sharing your experience and congratulations on your purchase!

One of the dealerships near me in the LA area kindly looked up other dealerships in CA, AZ, OR, and NV to see if any would receive stock of the configuration that I am looking for. Turns out there are three in Northern CA. He couldn't facilitate the trade because they were too far, so he gave me the dealership information, so that I could contact them myself. He also confirmed what I'd heard from other dealerships, which is that Acura only has a "request" system and not a special ordering system. The "special order" that any dealership submits may or may not be fulfilled by Acura in a timely manner.

 

Wait wait wait... So there is special ordering? Could I have gotten a Basque Red Pearl/Ebony???

Too bad I wanted the savings on the soon-to-be going-out-of-style (at the time) 2015. I'm highly considering a wrap on this thing.

 

No. That just means that you can special order one for yourself right from the factory - but you are still limited to the available options, packages and color combinations.

 

Doing an online order exchange before the car is built has zero correlation to what state you are in. I'm in Pennsylvania and to order swaps with dealers in the Midwest, west coast, deep south, etc. all the time. Since the car has never even been built and it's an order for order exchange, it takes some searching but then is button clicks.

What color combination is so difficult to find on an AWD base AcuraWatch? I'll take a look myself for you. AcuraWatch cars are low production due to low demand, that's the only downfall.

Color combination? Feel free to private message me if needed, glad to help.

 

Basically concur with beach109. Location is not necessarily relevant to online order exchange. But in my case, my dealer already had a good working relationship with the other local dealer, so it was quick and smooth. By the way, picked up my RDX today 3 weeks after the online order exchange. Very satisfied with the vehicle (AWD, Tech, AcuraWatch).

 

Guys, you don't need to special order an RDX ever, since the RDX is already a "special car" .

 

dthlin, I'm assuming the special color is Basque Red Pearl or Kona Coffee.

I'm not sure how new you are to the Acura universe (welcome ), but the RDX has become an increasingly popular vehicle and by Fall 2015 and especially Spring 2016, all colors/models will be readily available.

If your wife is holding a firearm to your head and demanding immediate gratification, then you'll want to continually pulse your local dealers for updated inventory or indeed, place an order for your exact vehicle. The downside, as others have mentioned, is that you lose leverage on negotiations.

Otherwise, remember that patience is a virtue, especially in new models, and know that as inventory ramps up, color/model options increase and the prices will normalize.

 

"You might not get the best price because the dealer has no incentive to cut you a deal"


In my experience ordering a car is the best way to go. 1. You get exactly what you want. 2. You get the best deal because it's purchased immediately upon arrival. The dealer essentially doesn't have to own it, it's known in the business as a "sold unit" transaction. That said, I don't think there is any such thing as a special order in the case of Acura, rather the dealer basically picks out one already coming down the pipe and puts your name on it.

 

What your up against is a dealership / sales person who doesn't want to work and/or are not willing to risk you backing out of the deal. If that dealership won't order what you want (with a down payment of coarse) then go somewhere else.

The one exception is when builds are coming to a close. You might have a hard time going this route if trying to order after April of any yr.

 

First priority is to sell you one they have. Second, one they can easily get (dealer swap). Special order is down the list and they are not wild about it but a sale is still better than no sale. Old Indian saying where I come from: "Little fish better than no fish."