I ordered an AT/Navi TL towards the end of February from a central NJ dealer and was told that the car would be there by 3/15. Up to now things seem to have proceeded accordingly. Last week I was informed that the car would be built on 3/5 and on the lot between 3/10 and 3/12 (I know that's pretty fair turnaround compared to some folks I've seen on the forum but assume that high-volume dealers in the NYC metro area probably benefit somewhat). Called yesterday and today and am still waiting for a definitive answer...the best I've gotten was a confirmation that those dates should still be correct.

The guys I'm working with have seemed to be pretty reliable and aboveboard so far... but I'm curious as to how many people in this position have or have not gotten their TL in the originally promised timeframe...so I can better figure out whether I'm sweating bullets for nothing!

 

Mine was actually delivered a day early.

 

Ordered mine (5AT Navi ABP/Quartz) on 1/17, and they told me it would take "about a month." I ended up getting it on 2/18, so that was pretty darn close.

 

Delivered before promised -- Friday instead of Monday.

 

Delivered almost 2 months early- go figure. I had them write onto the contract that if they couldn't get the car in approx. 9 weeks, then deal was off. Called me a little over a week later and told me to pick it up. Talk about surprised.

 

Well, I just had a phone call informing me that my car was supposed to have been 'built' on Tuesday and that a VIN had been assigned (I note that they now say Tuesday rather than last Friday as originally stated as 'fact'), but that the assignment was 'pulled' with no reason provided nor obtainable and that they now have no idea what my new date will be but must wait a couple of days for the 'new computer stuff' to come in.

Q: any reason I shouldn't be pissed?

 

i ordered mine anthracite/ebony 6speed navi towards the end of feb also....dealer said it will come in in april...

 

I had one delay on mine. Original delivery date was 2/15...that was set back to 2/29....but it turned up at the dealership on 2/26...picked it up on 2/27 and been driving with a smile ever since. Great car!!

 

Yes, it was.

 

mine was built on 2/11 as I was told and it was available on 2/20 3 days early. I took delivery a couple of days later with 1.8 miles on it.

 

Dkrudop,

I'd love to see what yours looks like with that spoiler, I'm thinking of the lip one myself. Not sure I want a wing on the TL.

 

Actually, I ordered it with the lip spoiler....but when it was delivered, lo and behold, there was the wing. I thought it would be kind of overbearing....but the more i see, the more I like it. Looks good in red, too!

I'll try and load a pic for ya

 

My TL was a few weeks late but that was mainly because the factory shut down over Christmas and New Years. My original quote was 1/20/04 and it arrived on 2/4/04 which was about 2 weeks late which was almost exactly how long the factory was shut down for the holidays.

 

delivery was 2 days early

 

Mine was ordered two weeks ago with an expected delivery at the end of this month, but my salesman says it rolled off the truck today! (5AT/Navi)

 

pick it up and have fun

 

mine was delived on time. i asked the dealer what would happen if it didn't come in time, he told me i would get a loaner, i had him put it in writing and signed by the manager.

 

tlnyc: how do you qualify for a loaner..? did you do the financing and paper work yet..?

 

right on time.... as promised

 

I got mine in Houston in November. I went to the dealer in October, told him what I was interested in, and it was waiting for me with my name on it the next time I showed up, and I drove it home that day.

 

Pissed over what??? A two day delay that may or may not effect the delivery. My sales guy never gave me a build day but he did give me a build window of 3-4 days. I took delivery a day or two late because my car was held up in the rail yard over Christmas.

Don't be pissed..........be thankful you are in a position to purchase a car like this. By the way.........good luck with it when it arrives.

 

Yeah Kurt be pissed. Hold the dealershiop responsible for something that is completely out of their control. Also, be sure and yell at your salesman, b/c they ARE the ones responsible. Be sure and completely forget that your original build date isn't even here yet. While you are forgetting things, don't even take into account that they are building a highly complex vehicle in a matter of days. And that something could hold that up. Please don't take into account just how many parties this vehicle touches before it gets to the dealer.

 

Ahh. Well, having moved well into adulthood and garnered a fair number of experiences with car dealerships, I guess I can only defend my obviously petty attitude by saying that I've plenty of reason to start from a less-than-trusting place. Though the folks I'm working with have seemed pretty decent on this go-round, I found getting a completely different story every few days, culminating in a weird story about the build getting pulled and no idea what's going to happen or when they'd have the next date, a little strange and frankly it put me very much in mind of other folks problems documented on this forum regarding their high-demand cars turning out to have been sold from under them. Wondering but being completely unable to tell if you're about to be jerked around big-time is bothersome to me. So sue me.

As it turns out, I was able to get hold of my salesman today and the guy who was handling my communications over the last day+ seems to have his head up his *** and I now have a VIN and a car that's arrived at the nearby port which should be here just a few days late, which I got no problem with and never would have if I'd been getting straight talk. For whatever it's worth, he appeared to be pretty amazed by the high-flying BS I was handed yesterday as well. Basically the guy had no clue and was winging it.

mattlana: reread my post...the communication to me was not just the 2-day delay from the original build date, but that my car was essentially "lost", with no info to be had about when I'd get another. Better?

Sorry you took such personal offense, jrudd....should I ever post out here again, please do us both a favor by disregarding my sad drivel and just move on to the next post, OK? I'm sure neither of us needs the extra stomach acid, OK? Thanks.

 

Kurt...my apologies for sounding so harsh. Its just that I have been around this business for a long time and get tired of people not treating dealerships with respect. I understand that the lack of trust comes from the past, but its the past. I try to treat every person I deal with right until they show me otherwise. Keyword "they", not anyone from the past. Dealerships have a harsh stigma that noone lets them shake. I truely believe you would be shocked if you treated the dealership with the utmost respect and trust. Also, it really helps if you only deal with your salesperson. I am really not as harsh I came across, again it just gets old never being trusted. I understand why we are not, but if you were in my shoes you would see that we fight a near impossible uphill battle with many customers.

 

jrudd:

Understand your viewpoint and appreciate the apology very much as, illogical though it is, I've been stewing over this little tiff with a complete stranger for hours.

One suggestion I'd have is that if you read my post thoroughly, you'd understand that I was trying to get a sense of whether I SHOULD be assuming the worst or just didn't understand some elements of the process. I mean, my original post was,

"The guys I'm working with have seemed to be pretty reliable and aboveboard so far... but I'm curious as to how many people in this position have or have not gotten their TL in the originally promised timeframe...so I can better figure out whether I'm sweating bullets for nothing!"

Pretty tame stuff and with at least tentative benefit-of-the-doubt to the dealership, would you agree? The problem was with the multiplicity of stories with no explanation of the changes, and I didn't get really upset until I was told "we don't know what happened to your car and won't for several days". Considering that the last message before that was that the GM was off at a sales meeting with the only copy of the inbound list (Can you provide a reality check here?) you can hardly blame me for at least wondering if my vehicle could've ended up in a horse trade between two guys with suboptimal scruples. As it is, though I withhold final judgment 'til I've got keys in hand, it looks like simple indifference and incompetence got in the way for 24 hours....happens where I work all the time.

I've learned not to worry too much about life being "fair" to me, because it simply isn't in too many areas. Not much you can do most of the time about other guys' subjectivity, prejudices, etc. Another thing I've learned (hmmm...sounding a little too "wise" and I'll stop soon) is that most stereotypes exist because they are, in the generality, true or mostly so. The key is to give individuals the opportunity that they are their own person and can't be categorized like that. Like it or not, car guys as a group have the rep for a reason. Are things changing? I don't buy often enough to know. Is my guy a good guy? I kinda think he probably is, but the jury's still not in, and the complexity and BS of negotiating car deals is such that it's still really hard to know when you're getting a straight-shooting deal. Since I will never get to know this fellow well enough to really judge his character, I have to be a little careful for my own sake. I guess for someone like you that feels that you ARE a square dealer and a pretty honest person, my advice would be that you bend over backwards and then some more to show the people you deal with that you are that sort and that there are no hidden cards up your sleeve, etc. It's the only way to overcome the unfair expectations that a lot of them will have when they start their interaction with you.

Meantime, you can be an agent for change by responding to guys like me with facts about the process and its inherent control problems rather than getting upset. It's a great place for setting the record straight where possibly hundreds of people will have the chance to get their attitudes changed by a little missionary work on your part.

If I go on like this too often, I may not be so welcome out here, eh? Well, thanks for letting me get THIS off MY chest. No offense intended on this end, either, and I'll see you around the forum. Thanks again for taking the time to straighten things out.

 

Just got a call from my dealer. My March 26 delivery date may be pushed back up to 3 weeks. 3 WEEKS! :smackhead

The week after I placed my order at the end of January, they did call to advise me that my car is on their March 15 - April 15 allocation. The reason I was given for this delay was that Acura didn't build enough Green/Camel/6MT/Navi's as it's one of the least ordered combinations. They did say that if I wanted Anthracite/Ebony or Red/Camel or the same car in a 5AT, I could have the car a lot sooner. They also said they'd try to find one from another dealer to meet my delivery on time and they'll let me know Monday.

 

Ordered my ABP Navi AT Jan 10, and was given an approximate delivery date of 3/15. I was pretty patient until I learned on Tuesday, 3/8, that the car had arrived at the railyard and thought that delivery should have been moments afterward. On Thursday PM, I actually saw the delivery truck loaded with my TL on the freeway, heading to the dealer! I finally picked it up yesterday (Friday), and it is sweet.

 

Mine is arriving on time this Tuesday, but if I were told I had to wait 3 to 5 more weeks I'd do the following:

1. Call a large Acura dealer in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Central, and Southwest.

2. Assuming they didn't have the car outright, ask them to do a regional search for one.

3. With about 30 dealerships covered within 1500 miles of my home, one is bound to come up in the lot ready to go.

4. Do all the paperwork over the phone.

5. Buy a $250 one-way ticket to wherever the car is.

6. Fly into town in the morning, grab the car after breakfast, hit the road by lunch and spend the next 24 hours having a hell of a fun time driving the open road.

Wait three weeks instead? Ha ha ha!

BJ

 

Just got another call from my dealer, only this time it was the General Manager. He was extremely apologetic for the potential delay and said they'd try to meet the scheduled March 26 delivery date by trying to get one from another dealer. Given the color/trans combination w/navi he said it probably won't be easy, but they'll try.

He didn't attempt to sell me on another color or a car w/o Navi because he knows I've had my heart set on exactly what I ordered. One of the issues he said they're up against is that Acura still hasn't 'gotten it' given the low pecentage of these cars still being made with Navi. He also said anyone who wants a 5AT w/o Navi can almost name their price as they and most of the other dealers are swimming in inventory of them.

As compensation, he offered to loan me a car in the meantime if I needed it.

To me, that's an honest dealer who cares!