Which auto/truck manufacturers (other than Ford) allow factory ordered vehicles (for consumers, not fleets)?
To listen to most dealers, one would think ordering vehicles is not possible.
(at the risk of irritating dealers, I would think manufacturers would advertise that factory ordering vehicles is an option)

 

Not exactly sure what you mean, but...

Most European cars can be built-to-order. Most new MINI's are customer spec'd and ordered. Go to a MINI dealer and you'll find very few new cars on the lot and in the showroom. Most cars delivered are sold before they are built.

My VW was ordered per my specifications and I waited 10 weeks for it to be built and delivered to my dealer. My dealer made an attempt to find a car that fit my option specs, but I knew they would fail. Jetta wagons are rare cars to begin with. Diesels version even more so. Add a few select options and I have a car with few identical twins in the US. I left my $500 deposit and counted the days...

Most European makes also have a "Euro-delivery" option where you can order the car you want and pick it up at the factory, drive around Europe for a few days, then bring it back and they ship it do the dealer of your choice for final delivery. For some strange reason, this can actually be cheaper...

If I were buying a new car or truck today, I'd build it online, print it out, and walk into a dealer saying "this is what I want." If they happen to have something on the lot that's reasonably close, fine - but don't expect me to pay for options not on that build sheet. Considering the amount of money we're dealing with, I'm patient enough to wait a month or three for the exact car/truck I want.

I don't know if US makes are less flexible. But given that there are usually a few dealers for the same make within a reasonable distance of one another, I can't see any dealer turning down what is basically a sure sale with little haggling.

 

The problem is mostly due to the dealers that only want to sell you what they have in stock, but sometimes the factory isn't much help. It's usually easier to order a domestic product vs an import (especially a Japanese-made one), but even that varies. If the plant making the model you want is in Japan, it can be quite difficult to order one the way you want, not to mention it will take forever. If the plant is here (Honda plant in Ohio, for example), then it's pretty easy, and they seem to get them built and shipped faster than either Ford or Chevy.

My dealership actually prefers that you order it the way you want, right from the plant. Then again, we don't carry a huge inventory, and the savings on all the interest we DON'T have to pay on a big inventory is passed on to the customer.

 

Well I know chevy does. Because my dad ordered every option that he wanted and left off every option he didn't want.

Our local GM dealer does it all the time. Simply because he can't keep them on the lot and he figures the costumer would rather have the exact vehicle they want. He does his normal orders just for instock stuff too, but I would say a lot more special orders go through.

 

The car biz is a now business for a very simple reason- no one gets paid until the car or truck actually gets delivered. Pay me now... or pay me later?

It really depends on the model, and the availability on the ground. In passenger cars, they're typically pretty straight-forward until you get into the luxury brands. What package, what color? Luxury brands are different- I'd hazard a guess that half of our Corvettes are ordered, and we're furiously writing orders for Tahoes and Suburbans. The Super Duty business seems to involve a lot of special orders as well. Part of that is availability, and part of that is that folks that spend upward of 50 large tend to have very specific ideas of what that car or truck should be.Then there's the Fleet business, which is almost all special order to bid spec.

One thing you'll never see is manufactuers advertising the benefits of a sold order. Their customers are their dealers, actually, and the dealers generally prefer to sell out of stock.

 

Thanks.
I was hoping that the Asian companies did not allow factory orders, even with manufacturing plants in the US.

 

As I understand it, they don't- in the traditional way. The dealer can request a specific color or trim level, though. Jeff can probably tell us about Soobaroos, but Toyota, Honda, and Nissan ship cars to dealers with pre-allocated profiles.

 

Mazda will let you order a made in Japan MX-5 (Miata) but I'm not sure about their other models.

 

Subaru's (at least the Forester, which I helped my mother shop for last year) don't seem to come in enough variations for it to matter. There were three trim levels, two transmissions, and a handful of colors. Everything else was dealer-installed accessories. You couldn't even mix and match exterior and interior choices (i.e. if you buy a red Forester, it has a tan interior. If you buy a blue one, it has a gray interior. End of story.)

 

a kid up the street ordered a scion tc to customize. it took 6 month to get here from japan, but he got it with some things and without alot of things.

 

tjc transport has it about right.
We have a LOT more imports here than you guys do over there, and imports usually don't have many (if any) factory fitted options, you can choose the colour, trans, spec level and engine, and thats about it.
There are usually a LOT of dealer fitted accesories however.