SCarGuy

Not sure what corporate could even do, as they have no influence over this. The unfortunate issue is down to sheer timing and miscommunication by the dealer, nothing more. While it certainly is a massive inconvenience, retaining your business is up to the dealership alone.

Yes the salesperson should feel it but at the same time, the overwhelming majority of them, frankly, stink. They’ve likely never been a buyer at this level and as such, have little true understanding of how to treat a client. I can safely say that as someone who’s been the client more times than most of my clients, across
luxury brands.

SteveKo

I think corporate / customer service could have done a couple things. First off.. Honoring the orders they already have in the pipeline. A note or a call stating they exceeded their capacity for 2019 Q8, there will be a delay of x weeks but they will be providing a 2020 in it's place. Why would that be a problem for Audi to do? What I got was, We've never seen this before, not sure what happened, we will investigate and get back to you.. and then not get back to me. Is there any difference in the 2019 to 2020 year change?

Another thing corporate/customer service could and should have done was contact the dealership and let them know what happened and direct them to let us know about the delay and honor the 2019 pricing.

By doing nothing but throwing our order back to us they lost a sale. Audi is in the business of selling so loosing a sale is going in the wrong direction for any business.

SCarGuy

This is again, where the dealer makes or breaks the experience and the transaction. Audi USA is at the mercy of Audi AG. When you are so late into the MY19 ordering schedule, this is where any good dealer will tell a client, up front - this may get bumped, if it does, do you still want to proceed? This should be communicated up front, to set the expectation, in advance, so there are no surprises.

I can't fathom how they have never seen it before - I've been the industry 2.5 years total, and have ordered 6 cars from various brands thusfar, and I've seen it happen more than three times thusfar. Is it common? No. Is it possible, absolutely.

I have not sat down and done a line by line comparison of the MY20 Q8 yet

SteveKo

Just wanted to share the follow up. I just got an email back from Audi Customer care which explains what happened. At least this makes some sense.

To clarify what happened with your Q8: any vehicle orders that the dealers place go through a specific order portal. If a customer custom orders an Audi, the dealer needs to place a “sold” status on the vehicle order so that the manufacturer can prioritize those vehicles during production, vessel loading, customs clearance, and delivery to the dealer. Other orders that are being delivered to dealerships with no specific purchaser in mind are given a lower priority. Moreover, depending on the number of orders placed, production may cut off sooner than expected if demand for a certain model exceeds production capacity.

In your particular instance, I was advised that the dealer did not immediately mark your order with a “sold” status. By the time there was a sold status placed on your Q8, production capacity had already been filled for 2019. This was the reason why your particular order could not be fulfilled.

I then get a note from the salesman at the local dealership. Maybe it's just me but I really didn't need to be reminded that we've been involved in this process for nearly 3 months. If he would have taken ownership of his mistake and provided the repricing of the 2020 Q8 asking if we would still be interested he would have done something. Right now I think we'll keep the vehicles we have.

It's been nearly 3 months since you visited our showroom and much has changed in that time. With new manufacturer incentives and a fresh inventory on our lot we would like to offer you a complimentary repricing of the Audi Q8 you were interested in. Feel free to reply to this email or give me a call to discuss this further.