4 ms·

It's possible to configure a car to your specifications, but you have to find a dealer willing to commit their order quota to it and wait a few months for the c

It's possible to configure a car to your specifications, but you have to find a dealer willing to commit their order quota to it and wait a few months for the car to arrive. Do not expect much haggling if you take this path.

Technically 6y ago
What's the value of a dealership to the consumer?
toast0 6y ago
Yes, but depending on the manufacturer, you might not have nearly as many options as you might like. And then it sometimes comes wrong anyway. Source: ordered a 2017 Chrysler Pacifica. Couldn't order 15" wheels with premium trim. Ordered a spare tire, and got the built-in vacuum instead (this worked out OK, the donut spare, ordered separately, fits under in the middle seat stowage, if you finagle it). Still would have prefered 15" wheels over 17" or whatever we had to order, but not enough to buy new wheels. Would not recommend buying that early in the model cycle, but that's somewhat separate from ordering; except that they had no Pacificas on the lot to sell anyway, so it wasn't too hard to convince them to order one.
- rconti 6y ago
  Yeah, that's a good example. My Golf R only had 2 option packages to choose from. Can't get a sunroof. Can't get a spare tire, even though it fits. (order the parts at retail from Europe at a HUGE retail markup, install them yourself). Something like 5 color choices. No wheel options. Can't get the great cloth seats available in Europe.
  - shuckles 6y ago
    It seems like this thread is missing the history of mass car manufacturing entirely, which began with a single SKU for the Model T. Customization to your heart’s content was never the strength. Especially for non-luxury brands. Try working through a Porsche configuration: you can select the color of the stitching!
    - fomine3 6y ago
      It's interesting that US car culture still affected from Model T. At least in Japan, any car (except commercial vehicle) is somewhat or very customizable for interior/exterior even in $10k.
93po 6y ago
Heck, even just ordering a Macbook Air M1 with a terabyte SSD yesterday showed that it was going to take a month to get to me

Technically 6y ago

What's the value of a dealership to the consumer?

toast0 6y ago

Yes, but depending on the manufacturer, you might not have nearly as many options as you might like. And then it sometimes comes wrong anyway. Source: ordered a 2017 Chrysler Pacifica. Couldn't order 15" wheels with premium trim. Ordered a spare tire, and got the built-in vacuum instead (this worked out OK, the donut spare, ordered separately, fits under in the middle seat stowage, if you finagle it). Still would have prefered 15" wheels over 17" or whatever we had to order, but not enough to buy new wheels. Would not recommend buying that early in the model cycle, but that's somewhat separate from ordering; except that they had no Pacificas on the lot to sell anyway, so it wasn't too hard to convince them to order one.

rconti 6y ago
Yeah, that's a good example. My Golf R only had 2 option packages to choose from. Can't get a sunroof. Can't get a spare tire, even though it fits. (order the parts at retail from Europe at a HUGE retail markup, install them yourself). Something like 5 color choices. No wheel options. Can't get the great cloth seats available in Europe.
- shuckles 6y ago
  It seems like this thread is missing the history of mass car manufacturing entirely, which began with a single SKU for the Model T. Customization to your heart’s content was never the strength. Especially for non-luxury brands. Try working through a Porsche configuration: you can select the color of the stitching!
  - fomine3 6y ago
    It's interesting that US car culture still affected from Model T. At least in Japan, any car (except commercial vehicle) is somewhat or very customizable for interior/exterior even in $10k.

93po 6y ago

Heck, even just ordering a Macbook Air M1 with a terabyte SSD yesterday showed that it was going to take a month to get to me