How long does it take AOA to.....

[s4nAri]

I have searched the forums but have yet to find one concise thread:

How long does it usually take once an order is placed to find out when the build-shipment-delivery date, and an order bank status # are released?

I ordered my Audi over a month ago but when I checked with my SA yesterday there had yet to be any dates updated.

Unfortunately there was no manual in the dealers allocation so they were not able to simply customize an S4 that was already ready for production. No Ti package or custom paint or any other delaying option.

Like many people the wait after a car is ordered can turn into a mental game like a child waiting to open the gifts under a the christmas tree...And once the wait is over it will all be worth it.

[Kandiru]

I can tell you one thing for sure, it took exactly a month after the car was "produced"
ie delivered to the German truckers for shipment to port to receive mine. At beginning
of production an ETA is formulated, my car beat it by 10 days.

[AofC_RR]

Ok there's been a great many threads on this. Try Audiworld, I have a clear cut explanation of the process posted there from years ago.
Here's a basic run down of the "statuses"
5- You ordered your car, it's waiting for the factory to accept it and is still a changeable unit.
10 - Factory order bank, waiting for an allocation/factory run. (can sit here for as many months as it takes typically 30 days)
15 - Production stock, they're building it. (roughly a month)
20 - In transit from the factory (3 weeks give or take with hurricane season)
30 - Port stock (a few days to a 2+ weeks to clear)
40 - In transit inland (days depending on how far you are from port)
50 - Dealer stock

[dreaddontdie]

my timeline is in my signature below...it will be almost 3 months exactly from the time i ordered june 20th. i feel your pain... i waited about a month before emailing back for an update and luckily within that time, my car moved to production. i couldn't believe it. from there you have much more comfort since you have ETAs and can track the ship, etc. hang in there!

[Pworld]

Hold on, it takes a month to build the car? or after build it takes a little over a month to have delivered (was i was told)

[PutTogether]

It goes like this:

You place your order with us.

We input the order into Audi Inventory Management, labeled as 'sold' with your information. At this point, it is called 'IS Order Bank'

When that month's allocation gets decided, we tell Audi to pull your sold order. NOTE: Allocation is when Audi says 'hey dealer, you now get to order 12 A4s, 7 A3s, 6 S4s, etc etc on down the line through the model. Allocation happens once a month, and it isn't always at the same time. When we gets slots allocated, we assign sold orders first, then we use up any remaining allocation to order cars to keep for inventory.

Order get's 'pulled' and goes into status: 'Factory Order Bank'

At some indeterminate point, but usually within 1-3 weeks for a 'normal' car, Audi builds the car, and the status goes to: Production Stock At this point, the order can no longer be changed or modified. I don't know exactly how long it takes Audi to physically build the car, but no, it does not take a month. A car will usually only show Production Stock For a few days, or a week, and I seriously doubt it takes that long to actually build it.

The next step along the way is In transit from Factory. This can mean anything from sitting at the factory waiting to go on a boat, to already being on a boat and ready to dock. For us on the west coast, this is usually right at 30 days as the ship crosses the Atlantic, goes through the canal, and ports in San Diego.

Next comes Port Stock. Just like it sounds, the car is at the Port. This can be 2 days, or 2 weeks, depending on how busy the Port is. Cars marked 'sold' will USUALLY get processed first, but no guarantee. Occaisionally, a batch of cars can be marked Port Hold to be inspected at the port, software updates done, or any other reason.

There is TECHNICALLY a few more statuses that are exactly what they sound like, including Intransit Inland (which means that the car is literally on a truck and on it's way. More often than not though, even when cars are dropped off at our dealer, their AIM status still shows as Port Stock for a couple of days. That said, my dealer is VERY close to the port we take delivery from, so your mileage may vary there. In either case, Intransit Inland is the last step before Dealer Stock.

I've long wondered why a lot of you have such a hard time getting ordered cars, or suffer extremely long waits. Outside of very special cars (TTRS, R8, etc) it almost never takes us more than 90 days to have a car delivered from a fresh order. I can only guess that a lot of you are either working with dealers that have very limited allocation, or for whatever reason, your dealer doesn't give priority to an order marked sold. (NOTE: A dealer doesn't HAVE to assign sold orders to be built first, and it doesn't happen automatically. Audi's ordering system has a shortcut button to click that will pull all sold orders BEFORE stock orders, but the dealer does have to click it) Limited allocation is probably the major culprit though.

East coast gets cars quicker, mostly due to a much shorter boat ride.

If a dealer has a decent inventory pipeline, theoretically, they could ALMOST always modify a FACTORY ORDER BANK car to fit a customer's spec, so the customer isn't stuck waiting for the next month's allocation. Worst case, for a west coast dealer anyway, would be Wait for allocation (1-30 days) Pull the order (1 day) Sit in Factory Order Bank, waiting to be built (7-20 days) Production to loading cycle (7-14 days) On the boat (27-36 days) Port cycle (2-10 days) Transit to dealer by truck or by rail (1-10 days, depending on location) We can USUALLY eliminate the first step by modifiying a current Factory Order Bank car.


One last note:
The day an order is input, the Dealer has literally NO idea when to expect your car. The day AFTER the order, Audi will at least publish ESTIMATED dates of shifts into different status'. Audi's estimate though, will ALWAYS only be narrowed down to a particular week, and aren't always that accurate. As the order moves through the pipeline, the estimated get revised, and get more and more accurate.

[dreaddontdie]

Once again, PutTogether, thanks for another great contribution to the community! Sticky please!

[s4nAri]

The day an order is input, the Dealer has literally NO idea when to expect your car. The day AFTER the order, Audi will at least publish ESTIMATED dates of shifts into different status'. Audi's estimate though, will ALWAYS only be narrowed down to a particular week, and aren't always that accurate. As the order moves through the pipeline, the estimated get revised, and get more and more accurate.
Thank you for your clear and expert opinion.

If this is the case, how come my dealer has no estimated dates even though my order was placed and received OVER A MONTH AGO?

This is the 4th car I have ordered from the factory (3-Audi, 1-BMW).
I Know that I should most likely have to wait around 90 days before I take delivery on the West coast but the idea that there has not been any estimated dates released for my car even after a month has me a bit worried. I did not order any options that should delay the vehicle (NO: special paint, Ti ex.).

[DavidB8]

I got mine in 6 weeks from order but they pulled strings and pushed buttons. They took a dealer stock car that was a day away from production and altered it to my specs. I had a 4 day window to get the car. I even had it in my contract that if they didn't have my car ready for delivery by the date I specified (allowing a 4 day grace period) that I could cancel the contract. I also had it agreed in writing that they had the option of shipping the car to me at their expense if the car was delayed. Like most though the car arrived early.

[B8_Jim]

If this is the case, how come my dealer has no estimated dates even though my order was placed and received OVER A MONTH AGO?


I'd suggest you ask your dealer to send you a screen cap of the status of your car from the computer. I know there has been some indications that some dealers take orders without having allocation for that specific car for months - so the order would just sit in "IS Order bank" until they get an allocation for that particular vehicle type.

[DavidB8]

If you do a search on the A4 forum I posted a long time ago about tracking your car once it left the factory. I found out who Audi uses for ocean crossings and figured out the ship that it was on based on port to port searches and matching approx departure dates. I then tracked it from one port to the next via GPS tracking. It's all kind of of cool. I listed the info over a year ago though so it may be a bit of trick finding the old post and how I did it.

[Pworld]

PutTogether dropping knowledge again. Need more dealer and sales rep presence on here.

[s4nAri]

Thank you to everyone that is helping to figure out my question (especially PutTogether).

I am not looking for an answer on how long it takes once a car is ordered, or how to track the car, all I want to know from my dealer is when the car might actually go into production.

The dealer is a major US dealer that sells around 120 Audis a month but they were unable to change there allocation for me because they never order manuals for the lot. So I guess they couldn't simply change an allocated auto S4 to my manual.

I figured that after a month Audi should be able to give a build date estimate but when I was at the dealer and we searched my build vehicle no dates were listed on the page. This isn't a huge deal but if I have 3-4 more months to wait I might just wait for the refresh, or find a car I want at another dealer. But I want to give the sales to my local sales rep who has done a great job helping me out (except for this).

Luckily in California a deposit is 100% refundable for any reason so unlike DavidB8 I don't need any special contracts.

[DavidB8]

The dealer is a major US dealer that sells around 120 Audis a month but they were unable to change there allocation for me because they never order manuals for the lot. So I guess they couldn't simply change an allocated auto S4 to my manual.

Actually they can and that's exactly what the dealer did for my car. Since they had one allocated for their lot as an Auto they simply put in a build change and altered it to what I wanted. They specifically told me that their allocations where all Autos as they don't stock 6mt's

[B8_Jim]

Actually they can and that's exactly what the dealer did for my car. Since they had one allocated for their lot as an Auto they simply put in a build change and altered it to what I wanted. They specifically told me that their allocations where all Autos as they don't stock 6mt's

The 6MT may be the issue - I believe the allocation is specific to the transmission type - if the dealer doesn't have a 6mt allocation it will just sit in the IS order bank and no date will be avail, right?

[DavidB8]

The dealer changed theirs to a 6mt. Maybe something has changed in the last year. I don't know why the allocation would be specific to transmission when they all order Auto as a rule. You would have to think there would be allowances to change for customers that like to drive their cars ;)

[B8_Jim]

The dealer changed theirs to a 6mt. Maybe something has changed in the last year. I don't know why the allocation would be specific to transmission when they all order Auto as a rule. You would have to think there would be allowances to change for customers that like to drive their cars ;)

Hmmm, I know they told me they only had allocations for auto trans cars, no 6mt. Maybe it was because when I ordered mine it was in Nov '08 - they had just released pricing/etc for the 6MT here in the states - perhaps Audi hadn't given the OK to order 6MT cars at that point. At any rate, apparently I got one of my dealer's late Nov/Early Dec allocation slots and the car arrived in late Feb.

Good luck s4nAri.

[PutTogether]

The 6MT may be the issue - I believe the allocation is specific to the transmission type - if the dealer doesn't have a 6mt allocation it will just sit in the IS order bank and no date will be avail, right?

You are exactly correct. Allocation is indeed specific to transmission. S-tronic cars and 6MT cars have different model codes associated with them, and so Audi's inventory sees (and allocates) them as different vehicles. You can not turn an S-tronic into a 6MT, nor a 6MT into an S-tronic.

David B8 - what likely happened with your dealer, is that they traded allocated (IS ORDER BANK) cars with another dealer. If I have an available, but unsold, slot for a 6MT, and a dealer offers me the same in S-tronic, I'll generally make the switch. Favors work both ways.

OP - I can't say exactly what the hold up would be with your dealer, but it is likely an allocation issue. If they don't have a car allocated them, they can't do a thing to move the order along. If they don't get an allocation slot, the only thing the can do is try to get one from another dealer in a swap. You say it has been over a month though, which if true, would mean that an allocation cycle got run during your wait. It seems a LITTLE weird they'd make it through an allocation cycle without getting at least ONE 6MT S4 slot, but it could be they had an order or two in front of yours.

[nobbyv]

PutTogether: thank you very much for taking the time to spell out the entire process. I remember being in this boat a few months ago, and having no idea what these terms meant. Hopefully this clarifies it for those waiting on their cars.

[s4nAri]

PutTogether: thank you very much for taking the time to spell out the entire process. I remember being in this boat a few months ago, and having no idea what these terms meant. Hopefully this clarifies it for those waiting on their cars.

I want to second the thank you to PutTogether!!
Now if only my dealer could tell me ANYTHING a month later I could use all this info!!!