Prioritizing customer orders over dealership lot orders!?

[TankerTrash]

Just finished my weekly FCA Chat with “Maurice” and he “confirmed” that production was prioritized for customer orders... Anyone else believe it? I still don’t have a VIN, but keeping the faith, maybe too optimistic to see a March delivery?!

 

[marksouth]

Just finished my weekly FCA Chat with “Maurice” and he “confirmed” that production was prioritized for customer orders... Anyone else believe it? I still don’t have a VIN, but keeping the faith, maybe too optimistic to see a March delivery?!

I believe that is the case... at least for the most part. All orders at my dealer were Dealer Stock, and for whatever reason, they couldn't change them to Sold Orders when people put down deposits. 2 have VINs in D status, mine (LE) is in C status, and I'm not sure about the 4th one. Curious to see if my LE gets picked up fairly soon, or if either of the 2 that have VINs get picked up before the end of Q1.

 

[Brad1331]

Just finished my weekly FCA Chat with “Maurice” and he “confirmed” that production was prioritized for customer orders... Anyone else believe it? I still don’t have a VIN, but keeping the faith, maybe too optimistic to see a March delivery?!

I believe that is a "half truth" the correct phrasing should have been:

"production is prioritized for customer orders from dealers with available allocations"

If your dealer put in an order and didn't have an allocation for you your build will not be prioritized over unsold dealer lot stock orders that have an allocation.

It is a frustrating way to do it and prevents dealers from actually having to compete against each other and earn your business by offering you the best deal. If all customer sold orders were prioritized then the dealer with the lowest advertised price would sell every single TRX that was ordered well below MSRP. The dealers that only get 1 or 2 allocations might bitch and moan about it to you but secretly they know it means they can sell the ones they do get at a premium and are glad that is how it is done

 

[STRADALE]

Just finished my weekly FCA Chat with “Maurice” and he “confirmed” that production was prioritized for customer orders... Anyone else believe it? I still don’t have a VIN, but keeping the faith, maybe too optimistic to see a March delivery?!

For “Maurice”

And still everyones favorite:

 

[KnightMare]

I was just talking about this in a video but they are on track to make all launch editions by March. 103 LE built in 9 days would mean about 800 by March (100 LE's for Canada). If that's the case then we will find out in a couple months if it's true or not

 

[Agonza11]

I believe that is a "half truth" the correct phrasing should have been:

"production is prioritized for customer orders from dealers with available allocations"

If your dealer put in an order and didn't have an allocation for you your build will not be prioritized over unsold dealer lot stock orders that have an allocation.

It is a frustrating way to do it and prevents dealers from actually having to compete against each other and earn your business by offering you the best deal. If all customer sold orders were prioritized then the dealer with the lowest advertised price would sell every single TRX that was ordered well below MSRP. The dealers that only get 1 or 2 allocations might bitch and moan about it to you but secretly they know it means they can sell the ones they do get at a premium and are glad that is how it is done

Brad. When I look at my order it shows scheduling priority 1 sold order and build priority 01. Does this mean anything? The dealer said that the district manager told him that they had one coming and mi e was the first that was ordered. I think that was the allocation

 

[Brad1331]

Brad. When I look at my order it shows scheduling priority 1 sold order and build priority 01. Does this mean anything? The dealer said that the district manager told him that they had one coming and mi e was the first that was ordered. I think that was the allocation

scheduling priority 1 is what it says on all customer sold orders, build priority I'm not sure anyone has decoded what it actually means but i know there are a lot of people (including me) that have a 99 under build priority on their initial POC that got a VIN and build date of Q1 2021 from the email Ram sent out the end of december as well as people that have a 01 for build priority. Maybe someone has figured out what it means but from what I can tell there is no rhyme or reason to how they are choosing what order to build trucks in other than seemingly they are building batches of certain colors at the same time mainly black and anvil

 

[tripleB]

Brad. When I look at my order it shows scheduling priority 1 sold order and build priority 01. Does this mean anything? The dealer said that the district manager told him that they had one coming and mi e was the first that was ordered. I think that was the allocation

scheduling priority 1 is what it says on all customer sold orders, build priority I'm not sure anyone has decoded what it actually means but i know there are a lot of people (including me) that have a 99 under build priority on their initial POC that got a VIN and build date of Q1 2021 from the email Ram sent out the end of december as well as people that have a 01 for build priority. Maybe someone has figured out what it means but from what I can tell there is no rhyme or reason to how they are choosing what order to build trucks in other than seemingly they are building batches of certain colors at the same time mainly black and anvil

As I understand it, Build Priority is specific to each dealership and is their way of telling FCA which order they want orders built when all else is equal. This means that nothing useful can be determined from the build priority without knowing all other orders that your particular dealership has open as well. All orders default to 99 when entered and most dealerships just leave them there which is why most orders will show that. Even then, this number only gets used when all else is equal, allocation, parts availability, etc. All Scheduling Priority 1 Sold Orders already exceed priority of any build priority of dealer stock. So my 99 could still get built before another customers 1 from another dealership if it was my dealerships turn for a build on the line.

 

[tkdr6]

Almost feels like a random lottery with no reasonable logic behind it

 

[tripleB]

Yea, it would be nice to have more transparency because I'm sure there is logic behind it from the top but from our very narrow window of information it seems purely random.

 

[KnightMare]

So I'm going to give a stab at it after researching for the past 2 weeks... Stay with me now...
All orders are entered into the system as a 99. Using my POC's as an example, My order was entered in as a 1-99 on my configuration preview. Scheduling Priority 1 is customer order, 4 is dealer order. Build Priority 1 is top priority, 99 is last priority to get built. Also if for example you used affiliate pricing, I've seen several post say they are kept at 99 as well.

When my order was accepted by the plant and I was given a VON, I was still 1-99. Now this can mean a couple different things. 1, my dealer didn't change my priority to a 1 because he didn't have an allocation and set other orders in front of mine to a 1 to ensure they get picked up first. Or 2 he just left it because from what I've been reading sometimes dealers just never change the code. I believe he didn't have an allocation because I was waiting a few extra weeks after everyone else were getting VINs that ordered around the same time I did.

So lets say for example your dealer only has 2 allocations and you order 3rd. He'll set their builds 1 or 2 and yours a 99. Those 2 builds will get picked up by the plant first, yours will be in the next round of allocations. So you'll be stuck like I was in BG until it is your dealers turn again for another allocation. Luckily for me that was only 3 weeks from ordering and I've been sitting in D status ever since. And you'll see I changed to a 1-01 once I got into D status, which doesn't matter as you'll see below.

I've seen probably 50ish POC's sent to me since I've started to do the tracker and plenty of people got confused why they were 99 priority. If your POC says BA- pending order, it's always going to be 99. This post sums it up once you get into C status.

Just to summarize. You want to be Schedule Priority 1 for Customer sold order, not 4 Dealer order. If you are in one of the BG/BX/(Maybe BGL?), you want to make sure your set to 1 to be top priority for a build for the next round. But that might not be possible because your dealer might have other allocations set ahead of you. This is the most logical explanation why I still can't get out of D status. My dealer has 4 builds ahead of me, 1 built day 2 of production, 2 LE's set to get built in January, and The Johnny's truck (Ordered at the same dealership) that is scheduled for a build in February with a March delivery. Based on that info, I would assume my truck won't be built until March with either a March or April delivery date

 

[tkdr6]

So what about orders that are customer sold with priority 1 across the country/globe?

Meaning, wonder how they are choosing priority across different states and dealerships across the globe?

Any logic or reasoning behind that?

We all know that many of us ordered on August 18 with dealerships that had allocations, but yet we are seeing trucks getting built that were ordered way after the August 18 date.

 

[KnightMare]

So what about orders that are customer sold with priority 1 across the country/globe?

Meaning, wonder how they are choosing priority across different states and dealerships across the globe?

Any logic or reasoning behind that?

We all know that many of us ordered on August 18 with dealerships that had allocations, but yet we are seeing trucks getting built that were ordered way after the August 18 date.

Heck everyone was making a mad dash day 1 to get a build. Just because it was entered in Day 1, doesn't mean the dealer had enough allocations. Some dealers had 1, some had 17, some ordered too many LE's. We seen 1 example of that happen when an LE get cancelled because they ordered too many. Just because the dealer had 17 allocations doesn't mean the plant is going to schedule them all at the same time, they have to spread out allocations to other dealers

If you look in the tracker, there are a lot of VINs in the top 300 with order dates all within the first week of ordering. So it is a relationship between order date and VIN. Doesn't mean you going to be the first 300 built, it just most likely mean you were one of the first 300 put in the plants system. So if you were the 3rd person to order on day 1 at your dealer, the plant probably picked up a couple of his orders, then did other dealers orders, then came back to your dealer and then bam you got a VIN that's in the in the 500-800 range or in MillerZ28nos case, VIN 2780 ordering on 8/18. So that would explain the jumps in VIN's. Obviously if your dealer had 5 allocations, they aren't going to build all 5, they going to spread out builds based on whatever formula they use. If dealerships were on the build sheet then triple could pull that data and we can confirm the theory of spreading out builds. If you we could get order dates, could do a heat map as well to see how it looks based on order dates and location. It's only a theory without data.

I personally believe part of it is based off of logistics as well. That one Alaska truck built for example, why build it if a train isn't going to be available in 90 days for example compared to "We're building 46 LE's for Canada, lets send that Alaska truck as well since a train is heading up there." And if you look at all the current built trucks, with the exception of Guns22 9/11 order, the other forum members order dates are within the first week of allocations. Guns22 order is a headscratcher, maybe his dealer pulled some strings to get his order built? Wouldn't be the first time this has happened (cough cough TFL). So probably a formula of logistics, dealer allocations, sales volume, satisfaction, and whatever other ways they choose. So that's why I believe I won't see a truck till April. I'm the 5th order at my dealer. He had 1 built in December, 2 coming in January, 1 more in February, and then based off this trend mine will probably be next in March/April for a April delivery. Luckily for me my dealer actually communicates the other allocations he has.

 

[OkieTRX80]

I'm still waiting to get assigned a VIN as well.

Worst part is I work in the service dept for the dealer I bought from haha!

 

[Kerry0805]

So I'm going to give a stab at it after researching for the past 2 weeks... Stay with me now...
All orders are entered into the system as a 99. Using my POC's as an example, My order was entered in as a 1-99 on my configuration preview. Scheduling Priority 1 is customer order, 4 is dealer order. Build Priority 1 is top priority, 99 is last priority to get built. Also if for example you used affiliate pricing, I've seen several post say they are kept at 99 as well.
View attachment 2181

When my order was accepted by the plant and I was given a VON, I was still 1-99. Now this can mean a couple different things. 1, my dealer didn't change my priority to a 1 because he didn't have an allocation and set other orders in front of mine to a 1 to ensure they get picked up first. Or 2 he just left it because from what I've been reading sometimes dealers just never change the code. I believe he didn't have an allocation because I was waiting a few extra weeks after everyone else were getting VINs that ordered around the same time I did.

View attachment 2182

So lets say for example your dealer only has 2 allocations and you order 3rd. He'll set their builds 1 or 2 and yours a 99. Those 2 builds will get picked up by the plant first, yours will be in the next round of allocations. So you'll be stuck like I was in BG until it is your dealers turn again for another allocation. Luckily for me that was only 3 weeks from ordering and I've been sitting in D status ever since. And you'll see I changed to a 1-01 once I got into D status, which doesn't matter as you'll see below.
View attachment 2183

I've seen probably 50ish POC's sent to me since I've started to do the tracker and plenty of people got confused why they were 99 priority. If your POC says BA- pending order, it's always going to be 99. This post sums it up once you get into C status.
View attachment 2185


Just to summarize. You want to be Schedule Priority 1 for Customer sold order, not 4 Dealer order. If you are in one of the BG/BX/(Maybe BGL?), you want to make sure your set to 1 to be top priority for a build for the next round. But that might not be possible because your dealer might have other allocations set ahead of you. This is the most logical explanation why I still can't get out of D status. My dealer has 4 builds ahead of me, 1 built day 2 of production, 2 LE's set to get built in January, and The Johnny's truck (Ordered at the same dealership) that is scheduled for a build in February with a March delivery. Based on that info, I would assume my truck won't be built until March with either a March or April delivery date

A very good summary. Interestingly, I was the first to buy (on the one LE allocation) at my dealer. There would be no other orders ahead of me at my dealer, yet I am still D status, build priority 01...there must be something on FCA's end of this.

 

[1OF1ACR]

Heck everyone was making a mad dash day 1 to get a build. Just because it was entered in Day 1, doesn't mean the dealer had enough allocations. Some dealers had 1, some had 17, some ordered too many LE's. We seen 1 example of that happen when an LE get cancelled because they ordered too many. Just because the dealer had 17 allocations doesn't mean the plant is going to schedule them all at the same time, they have to spread out allocations to other dealers

If you look in the tracker, there are a lot of VINs in the top 300 with order dates all within the first week of ordering. So it is a relationship between order date and VIN. Doesn't mean you going to be the first 300 built, it just most likely mean you were one of the first 300 put in the plants system. So if you were the 3rd person to order on day 1 at your dealer, the plant probably picked up a couple of his orders, then did other dealers orders, then came back to your dealer and then bam you got a VIN that's in the in the 500-800 range or in MillerZ28nos case, VIN 2780 ordering on 8/18. So that would explain the jumps in VIN's. Obviously if your dealer had 5 allocations, they aren't going to build all 5, they going to spread out builds based on whatever formula they use. If dealerships were on the build sheet then triple could pull that data and we can confirm the theory of spreading out builds. If you we could get order dates, could do a heat map as well to see how it looks based on order dates and location. It's only a theory without data.

I personally believe part of it is based off of logistics as well. That one Alaska truck built for example, why build it if a train isn't going to be available in 90 days for example compared to "We're building 46 LE's for Canada, lets send that Alaska truck as well since a train is heading up there." And if you look at all the current built trucks, with the exception of Guns22 9/11 order, the other forum members order dates are within the first week of allocations. Guns22 order is a headscratcher, maybe his dealer pulled some strings to get his order built? Wouldn't be the first time this has happened (cough cough TFL). So probably a formula of logistics, dealer allocations, sales volume, satisfaction, and whatever other ways they choose. So that's why I believe I won't see a truck till April. I'm the 5th order at my dealer. He had 1 built in December, 2 coming in January, 1 more in February, and then based off this trend mine will probably be next in March/April for a April delivery. Luckily for me my dealer actually communicates the other allocations he has.

That's a good theory and thanks so much for your research. Problem is, we aren't factoring in available feature parts and color problems. As I said in a different post I ordered my silver color on 8/9. I was the first of 3 trucks at the dealership, got a VIN and everything right away. I am a sold order. I am still stuck in D status. Then I find out last week that the 2 other trucks that were ordered at the same dealership on 10/8 (2 months later) are in D1 status with a ship date. Both those trucks are black and all the same options as mine. I'm sure there is a reason on there end, but there is no theory that can give us true answers. I also think their build order is constantly changing as well so why be transparent when the answer is changing daily. i.e. available parts and color problems.

The dealership owner (a long time friend) talked to his rep yesterday and he said they've had a problem with silver, but he will confirm and get back to me.

 

[KnightMare]

A very good summary. Interestingly, I was the first to buy (on the one LE allocation) at my dealer. There would be no other orders ahead of me at my dealer, yet I am still D status, build priority 01...there must be something on FCA's end of this.

And that's where I would think the all the dealer factors comes in. Sales, volume, satisfaction, location, all these could be in whatever formula the plant uses to allocate builds. Then you got to factor in colors, parts availability. But from what I read, once you are in at least C status, you get into the plant system, and it all in the plants hands when the order gets scheduled first. You could be the first order at your dealer and be the first of his to arrive. You could be the third order and come first or second depending on the plant.

Based on Google search, there were around 2500 FCA dealers. Lets say they build 300 TRX's in a month, they would only have enough trucks for 12% of their dealers. They would have to spread out the allocations. So to me that is why you could be first at your dealer to order but it doesn't mean they are going to be first to get selected by the plant. Only a handful of dealers are going to get a piece of the pie at a time.

In my situation my dealer is like 3 hours from the plant, so they are within trucking distance. Based on proximity to the plant, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, the region accounts for 25% of the current US production numbers. So based on that my dealer has 3 builds that are going to be built by the end of this month, then wait his turn until next month, and then again for mine. He has a black, 2 Anvil, and 2 Granites. Anvils and blacks getting built first from what we've seen and granite is back towards the end based on #'s. And that's where the colors and options could come in play. All 5 of the allocations were done within the first 2 days. Maybe if I ordered black I could of leaped over the granite build?

 

[KnightMare]

That's a good theory and thanks so much for your research. Problem is, we aren't factoring in available feature parts and color problems. As I said in a different post I ordered my silver color on 8/9. I was the first of 3 trucks at the dealership, got a VIN and everything right away. I am a sold order. I am still stuck in D status. Then I find out last week that the 2 other trucks that were ordered at the same dealership on 10/8 (2 months later) are in D1 status with a ship date. Both those trucks are black and all the same options as mine. I'm sure there is a reason on there end, but there is no theory that can give us true answers. I also think their build order is constantly changing as well so why be transparent when the answer is changing daily. i.e. available parts and color problems.

The dealership owner (a long time friend) talked to his rep yesterday and he said they've had a problem with silver, but he will confirm and get back to me.

Honestly you answered your own question. The other builds were black, second most produced color. You were silver, second to last in produced colors and the rep said they are having a problem with silver. All have the same options, so that's not holding up the build, just the color. Like the other post said, once you get into at least C status, Build Priority doesn't matter. The plant dictates what order is going to come first. In your case availability caused your order to be pushed behind the black trucks.