I know Mark is a fine dealership and they have to be taking the abuse. its like a server taking the hit for the kitchen messing up. but this is the letter they send to explain why. It does help a little ...but still stinks
Hey there Scott,
We definitely understand you guys frustration and we are working our best to get some answers. Since August, we've been working with Ram directly on getting these orders scheduled in a manner that is back on track. If you look back you'll see that things got all out of sorts back in August/Sept where we had gotten up over 180 in D1 status but it was all lopsided and was literally every single order placed after August 20th. That was resolved for the most part but we've still seen them have to go in an un-schedule large batches of orders again and again. Last week it looked very reasonably (albeit slow) this week was lopsided again.
Our communications with RAM have been beyond our Regional Rep and Regional Supply Chain Manager, and have been passed from Anthony and I to our GM and our owner. This is not just us sending in an IT request out to the void.
We've been doing this on the macro level (literally the same charts that Anthony has been posting on the forum) and also on the micro level of specific vin numbers and specific orders.
We've given them specific VON's of orders to show how nearly identical (sans body-vendor items) from April/May were unscheduled while being surpassed by later orders. Some of those personal examples have gotten ahead, some have not - we'll never know for sure which ones were caused by our highlighting, and which were not. I can say for certain the youtuber Tim's VIN was not the first one we highlighted, and won't be the last. There is a tactical difference between saying "give me all of our trucks" and "here are some examples of ones that absolutely should have been built by now, and here's why".
Our very first order placed has been built, and in storage.
2nd order, a guy who has bought three trucks from us, not yet scheduled.
A repeat customer we highlighted who had bought one of our first orders of a 392 last year and one of the first RHO orders, built, not shipped.
A repeat customer who was explicitly told by the brand manager of Ram directly to him, that his truck would be prioritized - that didn't happen.
We’ve been down this road before of having a few hundred anxious folks on order, waiting for a vehicle, and getting very frustrated at the pace or sequence of vehicles being built. We do have to stick to our policy of one order one deposit. Meaning, we are not going to place multiple orders for the same person, knowing full well that they intend to only purchase one truck. That’s a good way to get flagged as fraudulent on our end for trying to circumvent the no-stock order policy from RAM on this vehicle, as well as erode any good-will we have with them listening to us about the problem if we simply make it messier. Furthermore, RAM does not have to accept a cancellation request from us at any point – they can just ship the truck, bill us, and then penalize us on future items (financially or availability wise) once we have then sold truck #123 to a customer who was not on the original buyers order/POC. If a dealer is willing to do that with their single-digit sold order reputation and track record, that is a risk that they’ll take and I can’t blame them! They’ll get one or two extra RHO’s and be happy to have em. For us, as the largest Ram dealer in the country and largest RHO dealer 5x the nearest competitor, that’s not a game we’re willing to play.
All that being said, there’s a thousand ways to interpret statistics. My favorite professor in college said that 1+1 is whatever he wanted it to be. The anomalies will aways get the most attention, both good and bad.
Our original expectation when ordering in April, May, June was that we’d see the first rounds of trucks arrive in Q4. They did…. Dead center in the middle of Q4. Just need there to be a larger wave than the slow trickle.
