Does VW delay shipping diesel powered Passats?

big_ole_truck · Jun 16, 2012

Just looking over some of the VW manuals today and noticed a printout (sticker) placed in the warranty booklet.

There's a date of Mar 17 2012 and I assumed it's the date of manufacture but the dealer did the PDI on May 25 and it was sold to me last weekend. The dealer does PDI almost immediately upon taking stock so again, it's my assumption the car was delivered to them a day or two max before.

Does anyone know if the plant held back shipping the TDIs? If so, why? It's purely curosity on my part.

tdiatlast · Jun 16, 2012

"...purely curosity..." on your part, and now you've made ME curious.

Why are you curious?

Rico567 · Jun 16, 2012

And let's examine the logic here. Every day's delay after manufacturing costs VW money. That's enough for me.

Tim Bramble · Jun 16, 2012

Our Passat was manufactured the first week of May (#99,390). It has still not been delivered to the dealership in metro Atlanta, 100 miles away. Maybe there is something to it...

usarmy132 · Jun 16, 2012

How do you know which passat number is yours? And how can I find out?

Niner · Jun 16, 2012

My passat has a sticker dated Jan 11th, I believe, maybe jan 13th, 2012. I believe that may be the start of manufacture date sticker. When I went in for my 6000 mile/ 3 month courtesy check up, I was told that my car was assigned a Jan 17th 2012 build date. So I believe the sticker is the start of the build and the completion date comes 5 6 or 7 days after the build start date. YMMV, this is just my educated guess.

tdiatlast · Jun 16, 2012

Tim Bramble said:
Our Passat was manufactured the first week of May (#99,390). It has still not been delivered to the dealership in metro Atlanta, 100 miles away. Maybe there is something to it...

VWoA has had logistics issues re: delivery from day one with this totally new plant/design/distribution, at least from the consumer perspective.

I can't believe for one moment that there's any reason to willfully delay delivery. It makes absolutely no sense, business or common.

Tim Bramble · Jun 16, 2012

usarmy132 said:
How do you know which passat number is yours? And how can I find out?

Our car was supposed to be in this week. I saw that the dealership showed it in inventory on their website. It showed the VIN there. The salesman confirmed that it was our car, but said that it had not been delivered to them yet.

Tim Bramble · Jun 16, 2012

tdiatlast said:
VWoA has had logistics issues re: delivery from day one with this totally new plant/design/distribution, at least from the consumer perspective.

I can't believe for one moment that there's any reason to willfully delay delivery. It makes absolutely no sense, business or common.

I agree that it makes no business sense, and I doubt that it's intentional, but it sure is frustrating!

gerry100 · Jun 16, 2012

I've tried tracking the delivery of my new cars based on bits of info and paperwork.

Nothing you think you learn affects anything and you'll drive yourself crazy.

It gets there when it gets there.

Driver_found · Jun 16, 2012

They plan to increase TDI production by 25% for 2013 models. I would suspect/hope that the distribution has been, or will be fixed shortly. So that those extra cars get to where they are supposed to get to in a timely fashion.

big_ole_truck · Jun 16, 2012

There's no angle to my question other than curosity. Automakers generally push out their wares to the dealer quickly in order to book the sale. However, in the past, when an automaker stalls delivery, it's usually for a reason. Some examples: parts supplier notifies an automaker of an unusual number of failures in random testing, assembly line problem recognized but some vehicles may need further attention before being released but the automaker isn't quite sure of the extent of impact, shippers not capable of delivering all the vehicles in a timely fashion (highly unlikely), etc etc.

It seems kind of long for VW to ship a car to the dealer. In my case, from March 17 (assumed build date) to May 25 (dealer PDI date, assuming it was same day of delivery to dealer).

VW may simply decide to hold onto finished, assembled cars at the plant so the dealers maintain smaller quantities of inventory (and lower floor costs), and help maintain prices higher than if VW were to dump large inventories onto the dealer.

I suspect it's the pricing thing. I doubt VW is having production problems with the Passat.

Ace Deprave · Jun 16, 2012

I just found the build sticker for mine. Build date 5/9 and I took possession on 5/30.

Niner · Jun 16, 2012

big_ole_truck said:
There's no angle to my question other than curosity. Automakers generally push out their wares to the dealer quickly in order to book the sale. However, in the past, when an automaker stalls delivery, it's usually for a reason. Some examples: parts supplier notifies an automaker of an unusual number of failures in random testing, assembly line problem recognized but some vehicles may need further attention before being released but the automaker isn't quite sure of the extent of impact, shippers not capable of delivering all the vehicles in a timely fashion (highly unlikely), etc etc.

It seems kind of long for VW to ship a car to the dealer. In my case, from March 17 (assumed build date) to May 25 (dealer PDI date, assuming it was same day of delivery to dealer).

VW may simply decide to hold onto finished, assembled cars at the plant so the dealers maintain smaller quantities of inventory (and lower floor costs), and help maintain prices higher than if VW were to dump large inventories onto the dealer.

I suspect it's the pricing thing. I doubt VW is having production problems with the Passat.

I agree with this theory. That said, I have always been one to buy what's on the dealers lot instead of order.

tdiatlast · Jun 16, 2012

I don't believe it's a production issue. I think it's a delivery issue. The volume of cars they've sold and delivered is far exceeding what they had planned, and I just don't believe they have the distibution system working as quickly as the production line. Consider that they probably arranged for a finite number of train cars/trucks for delivery, based on their initial "guess" of how well these cars would sell. Once they're working at capacity, they just can't move any more.

Total speculation on my part!

Niner · Jun 16, 2012

With a build date of jan 17th, my car was on the dealers lot by Feb 16th in San Diego, CA, for me to go in and buy it. I have no doubts this was a dealer order, not a cancelled order. As to when the dealership ordered it, I have no idea. The 6 speed manuals remain a mystery as to how and where you will find them.

IXLR8 · Jun 17, 2012

big_ole_truck said:
Just looking over some of the VW manuals today and noticed a printout (sticker) placed in the warranty booklet.
There's a date of Mar 17 2012 and I assumed it's the date of manufacture but the dealer did the PDI on May 25 and it was sold to me last weekend. The dealer does PDI almost immediately upon taking stock so again, it's my assumption the car was delivered to them a day or two max before.

VW did an update of the manual about that time, maybe it is just the date of the revision of the manual, not the build date of the car. Your dealer should be able to tell you the actual build date. Did you check the sticker on the B pillar for the build date?

big_ole_truck · Jun 17, 2012

Yup, sure did. It says 03/12.

Niner · Jun 17, 2012

big_ole_truck said:
Yup, sure did. It says 03/12.

In your bag of paper work goodies that came in the glove compartment should be a build sticker, that was created when your car started on the production line. It's a maybe 4x4" sticker, still on the backing. It will have your start date of the build, down to the day in March.

IXLR8 · Jun 17, 2012

big_ole_truck said:
Yup, sure did. It says 03/12.

Now I understand your curiosity factor. Sorry I can't answer your question.

VeeDubTDI · Jun 17, 2012

Our car was built the same month we took delivery of it (April).

Niner · Jun 17, 2012

VeeDubTDI said:
Our car was built the same month we took delivery of it (April).

Yeah, but you may as well have taken delivery of it right off the truck.... that's not normal... they just happened to have what you wanted coming in on the truck the next week. Just try that with a 6 Man the next time, on the Left Coast.

VeeDubTDI · Jun 17, 2012

That was a direct response to whether or not VW is holding Passats. Gonna have to go with "no," at least not with ours.

Does VW delay shipping diesel powered Passats?

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