Prius Team: provide process, once order has been submited

I'm sure there is another dealer in your area that can give you a more specific ETA. Have you called/e-mailed other dealers?

I know my dealer has told me exactly when my 2010 is scheduled to arrive. It appears that others have also received an ETA from their dealers in various parts of the country.

 

Perhaps someone from Toyota can give a full (or at least more correct) answer, but I'll give it a go in the meantime.

As I understand it, Toyota doesn't do factory orders. What I mean to say is that your order through your dealer doesn't end up in the hands of a general manager of one of the two Prius plants. I believe Toyota has set the build plan for X weeks or months, based on what they believe will be popular. Once the build is entered into the system, I don't know where the information goes. I don't have any idea whether regions get an information prior to delivery of the cars to the ships in Japan.

I believe your dealer order goes to the region, and the region tries to put a car matching the order into that dealer's allocation. If that can't happen, then either the dealers try to do their own trades or the regions do trades. (At this point I really hit pure speculation, so I'll just stop!)

If all of the above is just confusing, then ignore it and have some chocolate.

 

A Priori, you are pretty close. There are a few more little details, but essentially, you are correct. The regions tell toyota what to build, but that is months in advance of what people order. It is almost hit or miss with orders.

With all that said, we can do a custom order. I'll be optimistic and say you will see your car within 8 months. That is assuming a region somewhere wants the same type of car built. If you ask for a V with SR and AT, you will not get it since no region can build that car. If only the west coast gets III w/ SR, and you live on the east coast.. there is a chance you will get it, but it will take MONTHS. That is really a regional trade instead of a dealer trade.

 

I agree. We are in Eastern Pa. I see a lot of posts for people taking deliveries and getting delivery dates. My dealer says they could not take an order and still do not have regional pricing. We have been on the list with a deposit since last June. I just contacted another dealer and was told they expect first vehicles in 2 weeks. Looks like we picked the wrong dealer to do business with. It certainly looks like Toyota is sending us whatever is left over after the ship stopped on the west coast. Why would they not build vehicles for customers who want them and play the car shuffle game with leftovers?

 

ya know. i couldnt track mine... wasnt interested in doing so, in fact, my dealer (who only got one 2010 in at the time!!) couldnt even give me my VIN (as if getting it early would have made a difference because when i went done there, i called my insurance company who couldnt find the VIN on their file, like the car is new and you wont!!. i had to have dealer fax them the VIN. but they emailed me once acknowledging my being in priority program. then a few weeks later, emailed me again. said it would be in within a week. then they called 4 days later, left message. i went over a few days after that and got car.

but all in all. my dealer simply didnt seem to know much info in advance. in fact, the first email i received was when they found out they were receiving a 2010 that early

 

Priority orders are for the long standing members of the prius community. You wouldn't have qualified for it anyway. And your dealer could have taken an order any time he wanted, he CHOSE not to do it.

Really, your beef is with your dealer and Gulf States Region, not Toyota. This is going to sound mean, and I don't mean it to be. If you want to be able to track every car that comes in, buy a toyota dealership and have fun. Other than that, your dealer can see what is coming in.. and should be able to tell you.

 

Yes this is a very dealer-specific situation. Some stores are not at all interested in booking future orders for anything even to the point of refusing them. The stores pay their bills monthly by selling what's on the lot, not what's going to arrive within 90 days.

That's cold but that's the gods-honest truth.

A sales person wants to please the customer that's in front of him. If a buyer wants to order a vehicle then the sales person is a fool to send him down the street to another store. But the boss of that sales person may have little or no interest in a bunch of future orders. That salesperson's time should be spent reducing the inventory on the lot. The Prius' when they come in are going to be sold anyway so preselling them serves no purpose.

Again cold but true.

Toyota's ordering system is somewhat different in that specific vehicles ( VINs ) are not assigned to specific orders until the vessel actually hits the dock at the port. Then that vehicle is linked to a specific buyer. This is all controlled at the regional level. Torrance has nothing to do with it.

Your post should be directed to the regional office of the area in which you live.

[the foregoing is the perspective from the sales front line]


Now some stores are all about being flexible and being customer-directed. While this is good even these stores are limited by the regional office. Every store takes its orders from the regional office. Thus every store has to wait until the regional office downloads the data into Dealer Daily ( Toyota's intranet ). Until that time nothing is known for sure at the local level.

Many sales people are intimidated by the Prius, the hybrids and high tech new features in general. They are not much different from the general population. They have the same concerns and fears and uncertainties about innovations. Some are much more comfortable with trucks, some with sedans, some with minivans.

 

Jabber, you're partially right, but partially wrong.The cars you request on order as a custom order are a 90-120 day wait out of Japan BUT they displace any normally allocated car.I have a 2009 4Runner that's very unique ordered for a client in Texas. When his car is built and shipped, I will get that car in lieu of any 4Runner unit I am being allocated at the time. If I have none earned, they will take away a "like model" such as possibly a Highlander.That said, we could all sit and do the incessant paperwork to have all of the Prius everyone wants special ordered, but if you only earn 10 a month and you have 30 orders, you will not get 30 cars. YOu will get your 10 a month and pray to the high holy heavens that you will start to earn more. I will elaborate more on how allocations are done when I have more time, but it's not a sit-click-order at all. No way. It's far harder to get it right... and you cannot imagine the stress we all go thru at allocations for popular cars! Dianne

 

Jabber, why would you answer this in that fashion?
I found it combative, and I am unsure why?
PM me if you like?

 

I don't know Jabber, but he and every other dealer rep posting here have never been anything but helpful on this site from what I have seen. And they have invariably taken the high road despite some uncalled for shots at dealers in general. Keep up the good work guys, I am sure he did not mean it as combative...

 

Seems like there must be a business opportunity in here somewhere. In markets where I work, there's a lot of profit to be made in matching supply with demand. What I'm hearing here is that customers complain that Toyota and its distribution system aren't very good at supply vs. demand; in fact it sounds like some dealers and/or regions just don't care.

That should present an opportunity for some enterprising third party to grease the skids, if Toyota itself won't do it. Wouldn't people pay a bit extra to get the exact car they want now rather than 3 months from now, and wouldn't dealers save money by being able to collect a payment right away and move a car out quickly to someone anywhere in the country who wants a car they have? I wonder....

 

This is a great discussion to have. I was in the the steel business for 30 yrs before I retired. International shipments are notoriously subject to events beyond the control of man. This is especially true of sipments by vessels. Vessels do actually sink at sea with all hands lost along with all the cargo. There was a famous picture within the last two years of a Ro-Ro vessel off the coast of Oregon I believe that went aground .... and tipped over on its side... with a bunch of Mitsubish vehicles on board. This is just one consideration.

In fact Toyota has the premier inventory/ordering system in the entire industry. All the vehicle makers want to copy it. It is based on a 'pull' theory. When one unit is sold then one unit replaces it.
5 units sold may have 6 units replace it. 20 units sold may have 22 units in replacement. However if a store is expected to sell 20 units of a vehicle and only sells 10 then future allocations are cut so as not to over-supply that store and not to over-produce. If a store misses another sales goal the supply is cut again. OTOH if a store is continually selling its vehicles faster than the region its in then that store seems to be growing and doing something right so that store gets more and more and more til it maxes out.

The net effect is that growing agressive and capable stores always seem to get more and to get the vehicles faster. Sleepy, sluggish stores slip down and down til they find their 'Peter Principal' level.

This is all overseen and controlled at the regional level. What we are seeing now in this time of no supply is demand far in excess of supply. Four months from now, assuming that the vehicle sales don't skyrocket to the moon, no one will have the least interest in these issues because there will be Prius' all over every lot in America. Drive up and pick one out. But this is an interesting discussion to have for a short period of time.

 

A clarification on Priority Ordering: Toyota reached out to a very small handful of folks who mostly were not only long-time owners, but also who showed through their contributions here and elsewhere that they were enthusiasts and advocates for the car and the technology. This group received, among other things, the opportunity to pre-order their 2010s in one of a limited variety of packages and to be among the first in the nation to receive one.

 

Thank heavens you said LONG TIMERS and not OLD TIMERS! :rockon: