How Long Should You Really Have To Wait For A New XR5?

[nswst170]

Just letting everyone here know what happen to my car order!! - Was meant to be an XR5 Orange with leather!

Back in April 2006, I placed an order with my local dealer, a small country town in New South Wales (my order was placed before the first unit landed in Australia; I knew they were coming here).

During late April, my local dealership got a Silver XR5 with cloth seats as a stock allocation, at that stage there was only two people interested in them from the area, I was given first preference for the XR5 on the floor.

I passed because I was told that I could have what I wanted by the end of June 2006 and I thought that it was only fair to let the other person have it, and at that stage I was a very patient person. I was also told that my order was being pushed forward because I got in early, that comment was very weird at that stage.

Now since then, I have had my dealership tell me that the vehicle has gained so much interest that my ordered car would not be here until August 2007, then October 2007 and then December 2007, January 2007 and finally February 2007 but still no car.

It was not until I rang Ford Customer Relation Centre that I was to find out that, I should have been given a temporary sido number when I placed the order, that the dealership and myself could keep track with, so I could find where the vehicle was in the production line.

Now upon that time, I thought that that was weird that I did not have this, so I rang my dealer and they were not given one by the operation manager at that stage because of unprecedented demand. They could not generate this for them, the dealership.

This then began to worry me, I took it upon myself to find out the rough delivery times it had taken other larger dealership to source XR5's for their customer orders and whether or not they were given temporary sidos. It was then that I found that their orders where filled between 6 to 8 months and yes they had had sido numbers given to them by the operations managers.

Now with that in hand I requested from my dealer a copy of the original order that was faxed to the operation manager and also if they could find the sido number that should have been generated upon the initial order. Not five minutes later the dealership had found my order and faxed it out to me, but they were still waiting for the operation manager to give them the sido number.

Now Ford CRC rang me last Friday with the information that I will not see my car until August 2007.

Now with a little bit more of my patience worn away, I told them what I had found out about rough order times and the missing sido number, I then asked if they could get the operation manager to ring me because this was totally unacceptable and I believe that this had nothing to do with either my dealership or the staff at Ford CRC.

After this phone call I had the salesman from the dealership ring me to say that Ford had found four cars for me, black, orange, Colorado red and silver. Now being mildly ****ed off I requested that they find out if they had leather or not.

No reply until the following Monday, where I was told that the orange XR5 had leather, so the next question was where is it and why is it not in my door step, I was then informed that the vehicle had manual rear windows, so I then raised the question of "will they fix the window issue and when can I have my vehicle".

Now on Thursday I received another phone call to tell me that there was a car was sitting at the dealership and would I come and have a look, now it was orange and had leather, but had manual rear windows, when I got there the vehicle was gone, I was then told that the vehicle was not for this dealership and it had since moved on to the correct place.

Not to mentioned I had just travelled in from where I live 40klm away.

Now after this I receive another call from my dealership to say that there was now no units that they could supply me and that I would have to what until August 2007. Also I have been repeatedly told that the manual rear windows are a running product change, this came from my dealership and I hope that they are wrong.

Now with this in hand I would like to know from all of you at there, have any of you had problems like this.

I believe that this is totally unfair; I was told that my car would not be here until the dealership sold the total number of Focus to allow them for another allocation of an XR5. Also did my initial order get lost all those months ago or am I just being discriminated against because I bought from my local dealer and not from a massive Sydney based dealer who can fill their Focus allocation in a week. I thought that I was doing right by buying my car from my own town but that must not be the case or maybe Ford just does not care about all the people that live over the mountains from Sydney.

I have, for last eight years, bought new cars from my dealership, I have had two new Laser (One in which I waited 4 months for) and two brand new ST170 (Now that is 2 at of 140-150 ST170 that where brought to Australia), and I am still driving one. Does this not warrant me to be slightly ****ed off? I have been a great customer for Ford, I did not even complain when may door trim where scratch on my new laser or when I only got the secondary keys for both of my ST170.

I would like to hear your views and opinions.