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Originally Posted by dmboone25
Surely this initiative is limited to the X vehicles produced in South Carolina, right?
There is no way I could get a 3 series from Germany in 2-6 weeks...it took both of my E92s and my E82 8 or more weeks to get to my driveway...
Unless the Spartanburg plant will start building cars as well....
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I ordered my 135i as I wanted it, and it was delivered to me at my dealer within 6 weeks. Some take even shorter. If there is a car already in the "pipeline" that is ready to be built close to what a customer wants, then if your salesperson can get the slot they can reconfigure the options to meet the customers wants. It can shorten the delivery by 2 weeks.
The longest part of the whole deal is the ship transport and then getting it from the port to your dealer.
BMW has an excellent process by which to customer order and build, but the shipping is the slow down, as some cars have to wait at the shipping port for a ship. If BMW were to bring 1 and 3 series manufacturing to the states, we could custom order and have our cars in less than a month!
It sucks that US car companies can't even do this with cars built right here in our own country. I've asked about a Mustang getting ordered an built and it's pretty darn near impossible. The sales guys just steer you away from that idea saying it would take too long.
I'm patient though. I'd still be willing to wait 2 months if I can get the car options exactly as I want.
There was a time in the US where a customer could order a long list of factory options and get what they wanted, from colors, gauges, engines, performance exhausts and transmissions, to cosmetics, radio's, etc...
But, times got tough in the 70's and economy of scale allowed for lower manufacturing costs. So, building a bunch of identical cars kept prices lower, and people wanted the lower prices, but lost the customization.
The US auto market hasn't recovered the customization since then.
Even Japanese/Asian cars can't reliably or quickly be customized.
Last year when the Hyundai sport coupe came out, I asked if I could custom order what I might want, and was told, No. The dealer said he gets what they send, though they do get some say in certain things. But, once the order is put in that's it. And, the dealers want to sell what's on their lot as it costs the money to keep the cars on the lot. I say it would be better to allow customers to order cause that's a SOLD car, opposed to the dealer picking lot cars that just sit there cause they ordered too many options or not enough, with the wrong transmissions.
Audi/Porsche, and BMW really have their act together, and their sales shows that it works.