We placed our first order Last July. We went through many difficulties, detailed below. Chris Farnham entered the picture, and here, today, we now have our custom-ordered JSW TDI. Oh Sweet Day.
Skip all the words and just check out 18 photos of our Candy White with Pure Beige, topped with a Pano Roof, Manual JSW TDI.
Like many, I waited several years for this car to be released. It was to be my first TDI, and first VW. It was a car perfectly suited for my needs, and pretty much the only car that qualified. I waited. I checked TDIClub forums every few days for news, watched this thread grow to over 1,000 posts and then over 5,000. I was ready.
Once the order guide was leaked, I promptly printed out a copy and marched down to my local dealer, O'Brien VW of Salem. They said they'd take my order for MSRP and that I was first on the list, and I gladly gave my $500 deposit in July of 08.
We all know the story from here: IS Order Bank Hell was where my ordered resided for more than 6 months. The dealership claimed they weren't getting
any JSW TDIs, but I was still first on the list. Whether I was being lied to or not, the fact was I didn't have a car, a production date or anything else. I was never able to get any bit of info out of my local dealer, but they were happy to hold onto my $500.
Every other dealer in the region was asking $2k - $5k over MSRP to even place an order. None had cars on the lot. As has been told here by others, the whole process was horrible and defeating.
Out of desperation, I got in touch with Chris Farnham--the man, the legend. That is, of course, the precise moment when things started getting better. Chris looked up every car at, or going to, dealers on the west coast for me, and sent me the incredibly small list. He didn't even try to sell me a car. The list had nothing I was interested in, and most of the cars were probably already promised to someone else anyway.
I got back in touch with him and asked if he had anything for me, or any suggestions how I could get one of these darn cars. He had a couple on the lot, or on the way, but none were precisely what we wanted (hey, I waited for years for this car, I was going to get the EXACT one I wanted). I told him we were interested in ordering one, and Chris informed me he had heard word that they were soon to get an allotment of orders for manuals from the factory, and he'd be in touch.
About a week later, toward the end of January, he called with the good news: He could take an order for our car, exactly as we wanted and it would be in production within a month. He offered $600 over invoice, and that was that! Within a couple days, I had an order number and a copy of the production schedule. No deposit, just our word, and his word in return. Dealing with him compared to our local dealer was night and day.
The last complication was selling our Scion xA that the JSW would replace. We knew that trade-ins always screwed the seller, so not being able to trade it in at the local dealer was no problem as we had intended to sell it ourselves in the first place. Turns out that selling it in this economy was rather tougher than anticipated; it was expensive enough that most people would have to get a loan to buy one, and maybe you've heard--banks aren't giving out loans like they used to.
As our delivery date approached, our Scion remained unsold, and we were getting more and more worried that we wouldn't sell it in time and would miss the chance at our dream car. When Chris emailed to say the car had arrived at port towards the end of April, we hadn't sold our Scion yet, and thought all was lost. Chris said it was no problem, and that if he didn't go retrieve the car directly it would stay at port for a bit and not get delivered to the dealer until May, and that he would hold onto till the 20th of May to try and give us more time to sell our car. NOTE: Chris had no reason to do this, at all. He could have sold the car right then to the many people who are desperately clamoring for a JSW TDI. But he didn't.
In fact, as we were on the threshold of selling the car, Chris once again gave us an extra couple of days we needed even though it meant taking a risk that the car might not be sold in the month of May. Luckily we sold our car, and everything went through just in time: the official date of sale was April 30th.
Throughout the whole process Chris Farnham was 100% honest and genuinely helpful in getting us our car. Time and again, he went beyond what we thought we could expect and made every possible effort to assist us.
Due to work schedules, we ruled out driving the car back from PA, as fun as that would have been, and opted to have the car shipped to us. Chris recommended
Dependable Auto Shippers (DAS) as he had used them previously and had good experiences. I did a little research and they seemed like a good option, not the cheapest, but with perhaps the best reputation. It should be noted for anyone researching autoshippers that every one of them has some bad reviews on the web, but some have more than others. In the end DAS delivered better than promised, shipping our car 3,000 miles in 11 days for $800. The car arrived in 11 days even though they quoted 18, and was in perfect condition, though a little dirty from the journey. They also provide GPS tracking during shipment which I enjoyed and manually added the locations to google maps so I could watch our car on its maiden voyage:
Here is the map, and yes, I am a nerd.
I went and got it detailed and waxed today, as well as VAG-COMing it so the keyfob could open and close the windows and roof. Last step is the window tinting next week--and that's all the modding for me.
I've put a couple hundred miles on it in the last few days and absolutely love it. The manual transmission is ten tons of fun and I love having the excuse of breaking it in to put a little extra oomph in my driving. It gets lots of oohs and ahhs from all who see it, and the car detailer, an old, crusty veteran of the industry with his own shop in downtown Portland told me today, "That is a beautiful car." I said thanks sheepishly, and he said, "No, really. That is one beautiful car."
I couldn't agree more.
