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Online Building, Retail Ordering, Ford Scheduling & Production, Delivery Tracking and Window Sticker
INTRODUCTION
This thread is meant to assist with the Building and Ordering of a Ford Super Duty and also how Scheduling, Production and Tracking work. It is meant to be comprehensive, and may be updated from time to time to better reflect understanding of the process. It may be a little long winded in some places, but was written with a completely "new buyer" in mind who may have no familiarity with the process.
Below you will find sections pertaining to each step of the process along with a description of what happens during that step. There are also tips along the way for you to be better informed about the status of your order.
QUICK LINK AREA - ALL OF THE LINKS BELOW IN ONE PLACE FOR QUICK REFERENCE
Orders for new trucks fall into one of three categories: stock, fleet, and retail. Fleet buyers likely know the ordering process so we won't cover that here. Stock orders are generally orders placed by a dealership that don't have a buyer and are ordered with the intention of being placed on the lot for sale. The ordering of stock trucks has a real science to it. Some dealers hire companies to evaluate what stock trucks are best suited to their location (and thus sell quickly). Occasionally a dealer will order a stock truck and then find a buyer for it before it arrives at the dealership. If you are in an extreme hurry to get a truck, you may want to ask your dealer what stock orders they have in the pipeline, and if you find one that suits you, place a deposit on it.
Retail orders, on the other hand, have a buyer from the beginning. The buyer selects their desired model, trim, and options and the dealership submits their order to Ford to be built. When the truck is ready, it's delivered to the dealership and the buyer is notified. But what happens in the meantime?
BEING PREPARED
There are two kinds of buyers, the well planned buyer, and the seat-of-the-pants buyer. The latter may be someone who came into the dealer looking to buy a stock truck, but ends up ordering a retail truck right then and there because the dealer did not have what they are looking for in stock. The well planned buyer, on the other hand, would want to know everything they can before they walk into the dealer. This guide will be for those buyers.
ORDER GUIDE
Surely if you are interested in purchasing a Super Duty, you have either picked up a hard copy of the Super Duty Brochure at your dealership, or you have downloaded a copy from the Ford website. In addition to the Brochure, dealers are provided an Order Guide. This has all the options for an available vehicle as well as their three digit option codes. While the Order Guide does not have prices, it is very useful to determine what is standard on a specific trim, what options are available, and what options are contained in a specific package. Here is a link to the 2022 Order Guide:
You are likely aware of the Build and Price website. Customers often build 100s of iterations of a truck before settling on the final options. After you configure your order, it is a good idea to make note of the total price. When you go to place your order, if the total from your dealer does not match, it may indicate that they forgot an option. Before the order is placed is the best time to catch any missing options.
MEETING WITH DEALER AND PLACING THE ORDER
When you are ready to order, you'll typically sit down with your sales person and come up with your truck build. They will then usually print and provide you with a build sheet. This does not mean that your order was submitted. Some dealers have just a few people place orders, other dealers have the experienced sales staff place orders, so depending on who your dealing with, they may be the person to submit the order to Ford or it may be someone else. On rare occasions, orders are not placed timely because of poor communication between the sales staff and the order people, so it is wise to check back with your sales person a few days after ordering to make sure it has been submitted.
PRIORITY CODES
Orders are assigned a priority code when it is placed. Dealers can assign a priority code of 10-19 for retail orders and 20-80 for stock orders..
Retail orders default to 19, unless your dealer changes it. Priority codes are used to prioritize the unscheduled vehicles that a dealer has on order. A lower priority code will be scheduled before a higher priority code if all other commodity restrictions are met.
You can ask your dealer for a lower priority code, and they may be able to provide a lower code, but you are essentially asking to cut to the front of (or further up in) the line.
Priority codes only come into play when Ford is scheduling trucks. If your dealer has allocation, Ford will attempt to schedule the trucks submitted by your dealer with the lowest priority code. If they have enough allocation, then higher priority codes will be scheduled, and continuing on until the scheduled bank is full. The remaining unscheduled trucks remain in the bank of unscheduled orders until the next round of scheduling. Once your truck is scheduled, priority code becomes irrelevant.
Some dealers have a policy regarding changing of priority codes. It wouldn't be fair if only some buyers get a low priority code while others do not, so while you may want to ask for a lower priority code, do not be disappointed if your dealer can not provide.
COVP
In June of 2021 Ford implemented the Customer Order Verification Program ("COVP"). This is meant to authenticate retail buyers and avoid dealers from submitting stock orders as retail orders. Ford has made good strides in prioritizing Retail orders, and COVP has helped in that respect.
Dealers must submit a signed buyers order and a copy of the buyers driver's license to Ford. I think by now most dealers are familiar with the COVP process, but it does not hurt to make sure it gets done. My understanding is that a retail order will be treated like a (lower priority) stock order if the COVP information is not submitted.
POST-PRODUCTION OPTIONS
Beginning with the 2022 model year, Ford is prioritizing Retail orders over Stock orders. Retail orders traditionally are more heavily optioned than Stock orders. This has led to an increase in the number of post-production option installations, and the option installers seem to be operating at maximum capacity. In order to prevent a backup in post-production, Ford limits the number of trucks scheduled on any given week containing some of these post-production options.
IMPORTANT - Let say for example (completely made up numbers) Ford produces 7,000 Super Duties a week, but can only install 2,000 spray-in bedliners in a given week. That means that if they have 10,000 trucks with spray-in bed liners in the unscheduled pool of trucks, only 2,000 of them can be scheduled for the week that they are building the schedule for. Another option which seems to be limited by installation capacity are tonneau covers. When you have several capacity-limited options, scheduling can be further delayed until a scheduling week opens up where all the options are available. If you are in no hurry for your truck to be scheduled and delivered, then by all means, select these options when you are ordering your truck, but if you want to avoid the possibility of being passed over on weekly scheduling until these commodities become available, then you may want to add these options after you receive your truck.
A list of post-production options will be posted when available.
Last edited by Y2KW57; 09-14-2021 at 12:53 PM.
Reason: Removed vb code modifiers []
Orders for new trucks fall into one of three categories: stock, fleet, and retail. Fleet buyers likely know the ordering process so we won't cover that here. Stock orders are generally orders placed by a dealership that don't have a buyer and are ordered with the intention of being placed on the lot for sale. The ordering of stock trucks has a real science to it. Some dealers hire companies to evaluate what stock trucks are best suited to their location (and thus sell quickly). Occasionally a dealer will order a stock truck and then find a buyer for it before it arrives at the dealership. If you are in an extreme hurry to get a truck, you may want to ask your dealer what stock orders they have in the pipeline, and if you find one that suits you, place a deposit on it.
Retail orders, on the other hand, have a buyer from the beginning. The buyer selects their desired model, trim, and options and the dealership submits their order to Ford to be built. When the truck is ready, it's delivered to the dealership and the buyer is notified. But what happens in the meantime?
BEING PREPARED
There are two kinds of buyers, the well planned buyer, and the seat-of-the-pants buyer. The latter may be someone who came into the dealer looking to buy a stock truck, but ends up ordering a retail truck right then and there because the dealer did not have what they are looking for in stock. The well planned buyer, on the other hand, would want to know everything they can before they walk into the dealer. This guide will be for those buyers.
ORDER GUIDE
Surely if you are interested in purchasing a Super Duty, you have either picked up a hard copy of the Super Duty Brochure at your dealership, or you have downloaded a copy from the Ford website. In addition to the Brochure, dealers are provided an Order Guide. This has all the options for an available vehicle as well as their three digit option codes. While the Order Guide does not have prices, it is very useful to determine what is standard on a specific trim, what options are available, and what options are contained in a specific package. Here is a link to the 2022 Order Guide:
You are likely aware of the Build and Price website. Customers often build 100s of iterations of a truck before settling on the final options. After you configure your order, it is a good idea to make note of the total price. When you go to place your order, if the total from your dealer does not match, it may indicate that they forgot an option. Before the order is placed is the best time to catch any missing options.
MEETING WITH DEALER AND PLACING THE ORDER
When you are ready to order, you'll typically sit down with your sales person and come up with your truck build. They will then usually print and provide you with a build sheet. This does not mean that your order was submitted. Some dealers have just a few people place orders, other dealers have the experienced sales staff place orders, so depending on who your dealing with, they may be the person to submit the order to Ford or it may be someone else. On rare occasions, orders are not placed timely because of poor communication between the sales staff and the order people, so it is wise to check back with your sales person a few days after ordering to make sure it has been submitted.
PRIORITY CODES
Orders are assigned a priority code when it is placed. Dealers can assign a priority code of 10-19 for retail orders and 20-80 for stock orders..
Retail orders default to 19, unless your dealer changes it. Priority codes are used to prioritize the unscheduled vehicles that a dealer has on order. A lower priority code will be scheduled before a higher priority code if all other commodity restrictions are met.
You can ask your dealer for a lower priority code, and they may be able to provide a lower code, but you are essentially asking to cut to the front of (or further up in) the line.
Priority codes only come into play when Ford is scheduling trucks. If your dealer has allocation, Ford will attempt to schedule the trucks submitted by your dealer with the lowest priority code. If they have enough allocation, then higher priority codes will be scheduled, and continuing on until the scheduled bank is full. The remaining unscheduled trucks remain in the bank of unscheduled orders until the next round of scheduling. Once your truck is scheduled, priority code becomes irrelevant.
Some dealers have a policy regarding changing of priority codes. It wouldn't be fair if only some buyers get a low priority code while others do not, so while you may want to ask for a lower priority code, do not be disappointed if your dealer can not provide.
COVP
In June of 2021 Ford implemented the Customer Order Verification Program ("COVP"). This is meant to authenticate retail buyers and avoid dealers from submitting stock orders as retail orders. Ford has made good strides in prioritizing Retail orders, and COVP has helped in that respect.
Dealers must submit a signed buyers order and a copy of the buyers driver's license to Ford. I think by now most dealers are familiar with the COVP process, but it does not hurt to make sure it gets done. My understanding is that a retail order will be treated like a (lower priority) stock order if the COVP information is not submitted.
POST-PRODUCTION OPTIONS
Beginning with the 2022 model year, Ford is prioritizing Retail orders over Stock orders. Retail orders traditionally are more heavily optioned than Stock orders. This has led to an increase in the number of post-production option installations, and the option installers seem to be operating at maximum capacity. In order to prevent a backup in post-production, Ford limits the number of trucks scheduled on any given week containing some of these post-production options.
IMPORTANT - Let say for example (completely made up numbers) Ford produces 7,000 Super Duties a week, but can only install 2,000 spray-in bedliners in a given week. That means that if they have 10,000 trucks with spray-in bed liners in the unscheduled pool of trucks, only 2,000 of them can be scheduled for the week that they are building the schedule for. Another option which seems to be limited by installation capacity are tonneau covers. When you have several capacity-limited options, scheduling can be further delayed until a scheduling week opens up where all the options are available. If you are in no hurry for your truck to be scheduled and delivered, then by all means, select these options when you are ordering your truck, but if you want to avoid the possibility of being passed over on weekly scheduling until these commodities become available, then you may want to add these options after you receive your truck.
A list of post-production options will be posted when available.
Last edited by Y2KW57; 09-14-2021 at 12:53 PM.
Reason: Removed vb code modifiers []
Once your order has been submitted and IF your dealer properly added your e-mail address to the system, you should receive a confirmation e-mail from Ford. It is not uncommon for a dealer to leave off your e-mail address, so just because you do not receive an e-mail does not mean your order has not been placed. If receiving periodic e-mails from Ford is important, ask your dealer to add your e-mail to the order to that you can receive updates.
ORDER CONFIRMATION - Here is an example of an order confirmation e-mail:
THE WAIT
So your order has been placed. If there are any commodity issues (for example, Ford stopped offering an XLT Tremor) then your dealer will contact you to discuss. If it is an option in short supply, you may be given the choice to leave that option on your build and have a longer wait until you are scheduled, or dropping the option to get scheduled sooner. Other times Ford just no longer offers an option and therefore it would have to be deleted for your order to proceed. As long as your order has no commodity issues it will show in your dealer's system as "Unscheduled-Clean". That is good and it means that your truck is available to be scheduled the next time Ford schedules trucks. It does not mean, however, that your truck will be scheduled next. Ford is currently running an unprecedented back log of trucks, and it may take a few weeks, or in some more rare cases, a few months to get scheduled.
UNSCHEDULED SPREADSHEET
Below is a link to spreadsheet for buyers whom have placed an order, but are not yet scheduled. You may find this useful to see what options are or are not being scheduled, and to see how many other trucks are scheduled, or still waiting to be scheduled. Currently, there are over 200 trucks on the unscheduled spreadsheet and 300 on the tracker spreadsheet, so that is indicative that there are nearly as many buyers with unscheduled trucks as there are scheduled!
Schedules are typically released late on Thursdays. You may want to know the next time trucks will be scheduled. User Ice Capades over at Blue Oval Forums posts the Production Week Scheduling Information. This is released late in the week to indicate what vehicle lines will be scheduling the following week.
Here is an example:
In the example above, Retail trucks that are selected for scheduling during the week of 9/6 will be built the week of 9/27.
Here is a a link to the thread so you can find the most recent information:
Another resource for those waiting to be scheduled are the Ford Weekly Scheduling Notes. This thread is also maintained by Ice Capades at Blue Oval Forums. (Big Thank You to Ice Capades if he ever reads this, for his tireless efforts)
On the scheduling notes, you will find information for dealers letting them know of any commodity shortages which may affect an order. Here is an example of the scheduling notes:
Here is a a link to the thread so you can find the most recent information:
SCHEDULING NOTIFICATION - When your truck is scheduled and if your dealer has entered your email address in the system, you will receive an email like this:
If you're not getting emails, then your dealer will (theoretically) contact you to let you know that your truck has been scheduled. NOTE - Its never too late for your dealer to enter your email address in their system]
You'll want to get some information from your dealer. Be sure you ask for your:
1. VIN Number - When your order is scheduled, a VIN number will be assigned. You'll want this to be able to track your truck.
2. Order Number - This is a four character/digit code. It is actually created by your dealer when they submit your order, so you may already have it. It will generally be 1 letter followed by 3 numbers, or just 4 numbers. If you don't already have this in your paperwork, be sure to ask your dealer for it.
3. Build Week - When your truck is initially scheduled, it will be scheduled for a build week (a Monday). As the actual build week approaches, that date will be refined into a Build Day.
RESCHEDULE NOTICE - If your truck is rescheduled from its original Build Week, you may receive the following email:
Last edited by Y2KW57; 09-16-2021 at 12:07 AM.
Reason: vb code formatting
Once your truck has been scheduled, you will have several options to track its progress through production and delivery:
1. Ford Vehicle Order Tracking Page - Ford's tracker. Shows nice rendering of your vehicle, but does not provide all the critical dates that some of the other trackers do, such as release date.
2. Mach-E Tracker - A wonderful tracker with lots of information. Important stuff will return in the table, but you also have an option of clicking a button at the bottom to see the "raw details". This is the JSON data that is available from the Ford customer information server which the trackers draw from, and the catalyst for me to build the tracking spreadsheet.
4. Dynamic Super Duty Tracking Spreadsheet - An auto-updating spreadsheet which updates each user's information approximately every 2 hours. Users submit their information by a form, and then are added to the spreadsheet. The Spreadsheet has a ton of data, and can be a bit overwhelming, but for those that like all the details, you'll have fun examining the data. The Spreadsheet also has a "Delivered" tab which calculates the amount of time to reach certain stages (released, shipped, delivered) and compares them with the expected ETA.
Here are some of the terms used on the various trackers:
Order Date - The date your dealer submitted the order to Ford. May be the date you gave your order to your dealer and made a deposit, or it could be a few days later.
In Order Processing - Technically your truck is in order processing from the time the order is submitted, but you are unable to track it until you have a VIN number. When you first track your truck,, you can expect the status to be In Order Processing.
In Production - Normally (no shutdown, no reduced production) trucks are "Sent to Production" about 7 days prior to the build date. When a truck is Sent to Production a couple of things happen:
1. The status on the trackers changes to In Production.
2. The Window Sticker is issued. It can take up to 24 hours for your window sticker becomes available.
Looking at the tracking spreadsheet, you can click on the STP DATE tab and this will put the entries in STP date order. Trucks are built in STP date order.
STP Date - the date your truck was sent to production, which is typically 7 days before the build date. This date is on the window stickers as shown below.
Production Date - The day your truck is produced. Note that the data that feeds all the trackers is delayed by at least 24 hours, so if you are monitoring the trackers to determine if your truck is built, it will not update for 1 - 2 days after it is produced.
MOMENT OF BIRTH - Here is a possible way to determine if your truck has rolled off the assembly line: Shortly after you receive your VIN, you can enter it into the "My Ford Pass" app available on iPhones and Android phones.
When you enter your VIN, it will add it to the app but not much information will be available (see example below).
Here is the interesting part - it seems that once the truck is physically built, a button becomes available in the app to "Activate Vehicle" which would pair your phone app with the truck. You can press the button to request activation, but no one will likely press the button in the truck to accept the request. The important part is that the button becomes available. One theory is that when the Sync is fired up for the first time it causes the button to become available.
BUILD NOTIFICATION - Once your truck is built, and if you are receiving status e-mails, you'll receive an email similar to the following:
Note that some options, such as the spray-in bedliner and tonneau cover are installed after the production date. The trucks are taken off-site, have the options installed by a third-party, and then shipped. The spray-in bedliner can delay shipping by as little as one day, but typically 2-3 days. Tonneau Covers frequently seem to take more time. It may partially be because the bedliner must be installed first (assuming that is selected as an option), cured, and then the tonneau can be installed.
Release Date - After all the post production options are installed, and final inspections are complete, the truck is "released" and is able to be shipped.
Shipment Date - The day your truck is shipped. The vast majority of trucks are loaded in rail car and shipped to off-loading facilities across the U.S. and Canada.
It's possible for your truck to be produced, released and shipped all on the same day, but that would be unusual. Typically, if a truck has post production options, it will be released 2-10 days after it's production date. 10 days would be more typical of a truck with several post production options.
Once it is released, it may be shipped right away (same day or next day), or it may sit for up to 10-14 days. A lot of factors go into shipping thousands of trucks a week such as rail car availability, train schedules, and more recently worker shortages. Don't be discouraged if your truck does not ship immediately.
SHIP NOTIFICATION - Once your truck is shipped, you'll receive the following email:
Last edited by Phoenixfla; 09-10-2021 at 07:07 AM.
CSX handles the rail lines East of the Mississippi, and Union Pacific handles the shipments headed West.
If your truck starts out by rail, you may be able to track the rail car. A day or so after your truck has shipped by rail, the rail car number will be available to your dealer. This information is available to them in the detailed screen of the vehicle visibility report.
Here is an example of a VVR printout with a rail car number:
Some dealers have a difficult time finding the rail car number because there are not looking at the "Full Table" in the VVR. You can let them know they must click on "Show Full Table" to access that information:
HOW TO TRACK YOUR RAIL CAR
CSX does not allow online tracking to anyone but CSX customers, but you can track a rail car by phone. Please note that calling the CSX begins with automated tracking, but can connect you to a live person. Although CSX is transporting our trucks we are not the customer. Please do NOT speak with a live person if possible. They have a lot of more important things to do than track our trucks. If the live representatives are overwhelmed with super duty buyers calling, our ability to track with the automated system could be limited. The members who have spoke to CSX representatives said they were helpful and friendly, but please try to avoid having to speak with a live representative if possible.
A few notes on CSX Rail Car tracking.
1. Here is a typical rail car number TTGX975089. They start with 2 to 4 letters followed by up to 6 digits.
2. The voice recognition does not work well BUT you can put the numbers and letters in with your keypad. The menu eventually tells you how to enter the letters, but here is a summary.
You first press the number that corresponds with the letter on your keypad, then you press 1, 2, 3 or 4 to indicate what position that letters is on the corresponding number.
Therefore to enter the rail car letters of TTGX, you would:
8-1-8-1-4-1-9-2
Make sense? The "T" was the 1st letter under number 8, whereas the "X" was the 2nd letter under number 9.
If you have trouble speaking the letters and numbers, try entering them with your keypad.
The number for CSX Tracking is 1-800-235-2352
3. You'll first be asked if you want "location" or "weight". You need to say "location" and when prompted say (or enter on your keypad) the rail car letters, and when prompted, the numbers. The system will then wait for the next car number, or for you to say "Done".
It will then return the departure time from the last stop, and the name of the next destination. I've found it typical for rail cars to travel a few hundred miles, then sit for 12 - 24 hours until departing for the next stop.
You can call each day to check where it is and what its next destination will be.
SPEED DIAL FOR YOU FREQUENT TRACKERS - Here's a trick for those of you who are calling the CSX railcar tracking phone number frequently courtesy of Skyler.WA:
If you save the right string of numbers, pauses, and # signs as a contact on your phone, you can automate the entire input process so you don't have to type or say anything.
First, put one or two pauses between each part of the process. On most phones, entering a "pause" gets represented as a comma in the string.
Second, for the part where you need to enter the letters for the railcar initials, use a series of two-digit numbers where the first digit is the keypad number with the letter you want and the second digit indicates if you want the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th letter for that keypad number. For example, the letter "T" would be 81 and the letter "X" would be 92. After the last number, enter a # sign.
Third, for the part where you need to enter the railcar numbers, enter a # sign after the numbers.
Last, for the part where they ask you to say "Done", enter two ## signs.
Put that all together and you'll get a contact phone number which looks like this: (800)235-2352,1,81814192#,983148#,##
ETAs AND TRANSIT DATE TIMES
Once your truck has been produced, an ETA will be available. The Ford tracker only provides the ETA End date, which tends to be very conservative. The trackers and the Spreadsheet also provide an ETA Start date. The 6 day window of time between the ETA Start and ETA End is when Ford expects the vehicle to be delivered by, with a buffer built in.
When it is closer to shipping, a Transit Time (In # of days) will also become available. Adding this to the ship date will typically result in the ETA Start date or earlier.
According to the delivered tab of the tracking spreadsheet, trucks are delivered BEFORE the ETA Start Date / Transit Time about 80% of the time. So there is a good chance your truck will be delivered before the ETA start, but not always. Sometimes they need the full amount of time to deliver and rarely trucks are delivered after the ETA End (train breakdowns, transport driver shortages).
RAIL YARD TO DEALER TRACKING
Eventually Ramp Codes may be tracked and associated with local transport companies, some of which offer online tracking. Stay Tuned!
Last edited by Phoenixfla; 09-24-2021 at 07:58 AM.
Ramp Codes appear to be associated with the geographic location of your dealer. This tells shipping which rail car to load your truck on. Ramp Codes beginning with an "R" designate Rail, and Ramp Codes beginning with a "C" are Convoy.
Here is where the confusion comes in. Most of the trucks marked Convoy still start out on Rail. I haven't determined what the distinction is. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can comment.
Eventually, I would eventually like to have a list of all Dealers and their Ramp Codes, but that would be a big project. For now, I would like to compile a list of all Ramp Codes.
Here is a link to what appears to be a list of all the rail yard locations and if they load or unload a particular brand of vehicle at that location:
The below link is a Google Docs spreadsheet based on the above Automotive Facility Guide. The locations showing Ford or Multiple have been extracted and entered into the Ramp Codes Spreadsheet. As new Ramp Code Locations become known, they will be added to the spreadsheet..
In order to complete this spreadsheet - if you know the location that your truck was taken off the train and transferred to a car carrier - provide me that location (which is hopefully one of the facilities on the spreadsheet) plus the ramp code on your window sticker. +50 Bonus points if you can determine the name of the shipping company transporting from rail to dealer.
If I could build a database of all the ramp codes it would be very helpful. Each location could have more than one code. I'm not sure yet. I believe at least one ramp code for Taft, FL (Orlando) is CF29. I've filled that one in on the spreadsheet.
If successful, we can correlate the built truck delivery dates to the ramp codes to see which locations are fast to deliver to their final location, and which ones are slow.
VIN DECODING
Ford has a 2021 VIN Decoder available at the link below, but I have not located a 2022 version. It is an interesting read - you will find the first 1/2 of the VIN is predetermined by manufacturer, year, make, model and some options.
09-04-2021, 01:52 PM
