I ordered a white ILX Tech in August. There were no white ones available in Canada then. I was told the color white was one of the last on the production run. I was given a delivery date of Oct 2 which was fine with me. Mid way through Sept I was given the VIN, subject to confirmation when the vehicle arrived. On Oct 1, I was told the delivery date had been moved up to Oct 1 so it should arrive at the dealer that day. On Oct 3, I received an apology because the car had not arrived and the dealer had no idea why and had no process for determining why the car was late and where the car is in the system. I've had no communication since then. The dealership is in Kingston, ON and has been open for less than a year. I am becoming suspicious that something has happened and I'm not being told.
Has anyone experienced this lack of communication? Might my car have been redirected to a more important customer? Is it true that dealers have no process for investigating this kind of thing?

 

I'd elevate the issue passed the dealer. This is strange and they wouldn't be able to provide a vin sans the car being in production. Can you search the vin and see if it shows up in another dealer's inventory?

 

Send a message to Acura Client Relations on Twitter. They can investigate for you.

 

I wish I could help you. Unfortunately, my computer system only "sees" cars for "American Honda". I am unable to see production and transit details for cars destined for Canada.

One possibility is that the intended production date slipped. This is still happening for us, cars scheduled for production on a certain day don't (apparently) get made on that day. We don't know why this occasionally happens, but it could be that there weren't enough orders of your color/trim ordered for them to run the line to make your car as scheduled. Of course, this only applies if the car hasn't been produced yet.

Once the car is made, and it begins its journey from Indiana to your dealership, it is generally trackable at different railheads along the way. However, there is a process called an "on order trade" where dealers can request a color/trim combination through the internal network. If another dealer has it already manufactured and en route, I trade can be arranged without incurring any additional transit costs.

If none of the above happened, another possibility that there is a third-party between Acura and your dealership. This is how it is for us in Hawaii. Acura drops the cars off on the West Coast and Matson or Pasha ships the car to us. In this scenario, Acura has "delivered" the car and they stopped tracking. It is between us and the shipper to determine the cars whereabouts.

Finally, it's possible that the car arrived and was accidentally sold. This can happen and while uncommon it happened to me a couple of months ago with a 2013 RDX. Simply put, the car arrived, I had a sold sign in it, but when the mechanics did the predelivery inspection he moved the sold sign from the dash to the seat. Another salesman didn't see the sign (or so he said) and another sales manager didn't know it was already spoken for. Within two hours it was gone and there was nothing we could do about it.

Fortunately, my customer was very understanding, he told me, "I know you didn't do it on purpose, and I know that you don't get paid until the car is sold, so why would you do that (to yourself)?" He switched colors to take a car arriving in two weeks and ended up buying a second one for his daughter.

 

^you're lucky you had an understanding customer...some customers are a-wholes and would've demanded a whole host of extras.

 

Thanks for that info Colin. I'm going to visit the dealer tomorrow. Today is our Thanksgiving holiday so it's closed.

 

The car arrived today but I don't yet have an explanation of what happened to it.

 

^^ Of course it's easy for me to say, but in my opinion, I wouldn't overthink it. Unless all of the other cars in the shipment arrived a week ago and only yours arrived today it's likely things just got delayed. These things happen. If anything, the dealership might have done a better job preparing you for a "range" of delivery times. In my situation, I never "promise" a specific date since there are too many variables out of my control.

Having said that, if all of the other cars arrived a week ago and yours "arrived" today, you might be concerned that there was shipping damage and they're not letting you know about it. Before everybody starts jumping up and down and screaming that they have to tell you, I believe the requirements for such disclosure vary from state to state. This is not to debate the merits of good or bad karma, just to set the record straight on the legal requirement.

 

It isn't really that big a deal. I was told the delivery date was Oct 1 but the truth was Oct 1-6, a date range instead of a specific date. Oct 6 was last Saturday and this past weekend was a holiday weekend in Canada. So in terms of business days, the car is one day late beyond the date range. The piss off is the sales rep not telling me that it was a date range. He called me Oct 1 and said it should be here that day. Anyway, I got a couple of accessories for my trouble. They just gave them to me. I didn't demand them.

 

Yes, he was very understanding and also pragmatic about the whole thing. With his car delayed it turned out that his daughters car arrived first. We had fun surprising her, she had no idea he was buying him a car.


That is good, I also added some extras for my customer without him asking.

 

Well, glad you got the car and got some small gifts too.

 

As a Chinese American raised in the Midwest, if/when I finish med school I am for sure gonna move to Hawaii. Great weather and friendly Asians who can actually speak English, awesome!