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Just like many folks on here, my reservation and ordering experience hasn’t been all that great in terms of the lack of communication from VW or my dealership. I had a wrinkle occur late last year (details on that below) and my car that left the factory in December still hasn't arrived in mid May, so I reached out to VW Customer Care to see if they could confirm that my order was in good shape.
At first, the person I spoke with just confirmed that my car had arrived in the US and was at port, but after I asked if they could dig a little more, they responded with this:
From that I gather that a decision was made to hold off on delivering new orders, or that maybe they caught an issue with my particular car and determined that the software update would solve it. I'm not exactly sure, but if anybody else has been stuck on status code 30-1 for a weirdly long time, this may explain the hold up.
For anybody interested, here's my reservation experience in detail:
Finally, I just wanted to note that VW Customer Care has been helpful and good to work with, so any frustration I've had has been due to the lack of communication from VW (more emails along the way would be nice), the fact that I had to do the leg work to solve the dealership change, and that my dealership—under new management—has become much less helpful and engaged throughout the process.
Anyway, hope this helps anybody in a similar situation.
At first, the person I spoke with just confirmed that my car had arrived in the US and was at port, but after I asked if they could dig a little more, they responded with this:
They went on to say that I'd be getting an email when the car heads towards the dealership and that they'd put a message in my Owner’s Portal to keep me informed.
From that I gather that a decision was made to hold off on delivering new orders, or that maybe they caught an issue with my particular car and determined that the software update would solve it. I'm not exactly sure, but if anybody else has been stuck on status code 30-1 for a weirdly long time, this may explain the hold up.
For anybody interested, here's my reservation experience in detail:
- I placed my reservation on April 4, 2021.
- I decided to change the color on May 20.
- My order locked on June 21.
- This is where things get weird. Sometime in the early fall my preferred dealership was acquired by a bigger dealership and while they kept the same car brands and the service center, the name was changed.
- Because of this, when I logged into the Owner’s Portal my order status seemed normal, but the preferred dealership displayed an error (probably because it was removed from the database of dealers and this is how the website handled that).
- I was concerned and since I was bringing my current Passat in for service I figured I'd ask. While I was waiting on my car I walked up to the sales floor and talked to an associate at the dealership. They said they didn't know what was going on and that I should reach out to VW Customer Care.
- I spoke with VW Customer Care and they followed up letting me know that in the situation of my dealership changing ownership, their system hadn't automatically updated my reservation and they would need to take some steps to correct that.
- VW Customer Care refunded me my $500 deposit, then charged me again, as if we went through the ordering process and got right to the lock step.
- By October 27 my reservation was back on track.
- I don't remember the timeline for steps 15-1 through 20-2, but I remember 15-1 took a while and then it quickly moved through the steps to get to 20-2.
- On December 3, my order changed to 30-1.
- Again things got weird. In early February I saw my status go to 30-2 and the next time I checked it was at 35-1.
- I was expecting to pick up the car in February, but a couple weeks later my status went back to 30-1.
- Based on the whole dealership changing situation I chalked it up to an error in the system. I thought that either it accidentally got moved up to 35-1 and then someone caught it and moved it back, or that my car was involved in the tanker that sunk in the Atlantic (which didn't add up as to why my status made it to 30-1).
- Again, getting service done on my current car, I spoke to someone at my dealership to see if they could find any info on why my status changed. The person there pulled up what looked like their version of the Owner’s Portal and it just showed my VIN, my confirmation number, and my status. I believe they could have looked at another source, but the person I spoke with seemed uninterested in really digging into my question.
- At this point I decided to wait it out until I reached out to VW Customer Care and got that info above.
Finally, I just wanted to note that VW Customer Care has been helpful and good to work with, so any frustration I've had has been due to the lack of communication from VW (more emails along the way would be nice), the fact that I had to do the leg work to solve the dealership change, and that my dealership—under new management—has become much less helpful and engaged throughout the process.
Anyway, hope this helps anybody in a similar situation.
