Does anyone else here have experience of buying an imported car through Honda UK? I'm a little surprised that despite ordering at the beginning of July I still don't have a VIN. I've been told delivery is likely mid-August but surely meeting the deadline means that the car must now have been built in Japan?

Is it just that Honda UK won't give the dealer the VIN until the car has actually arrived in the UK?

Seems kind of odd to me that the dealer still has absolutely no idea when the car will arrive and in fact they admitted they don't really know that it ever will although that's a worst case scenario.

It all seems a rather lackadaisical way of doing business.

Andrue,

I am in the US (California), but have had a similar experience with my dealer. They did tell me what date the car would be built in Japan (July 6), but after that, every time I called all they could tell me was that it was built on that date. I just called yesterday and they said it is now in California, but they still couldn't tell me when it would be at the dealer. The sales guy told me that he couldn't tell me the date it would be here until he saw them unloading it off the truck.

You would think that once it was on US soil (and less than 400 miles away) that they would be able to tell me (within a couple days, anyway) when it would arrive. I am hoping it will come in the next week or so....

Good luck!

PS - I ordered mine in early June and just now got the VIN (which I think maybe corresponded with the car arriving on US soil?).

Shawn, it sounds like your dealer is smoking some really bad-*** stuff. Ours (in Oklahoma) was able to tell us when the car reached the POE and when it reached the distribution center in KC. We were also given the VIN well in advance.

I wasn't given the VIN till the car was in the hands of the dealer. They said they couldn't release the VIN in case it was in a accident or something like that. They wanted to make sure the dealer actually received the correct model. I also coudn't get the loan work done till I got the VIN.

Who knows.

I ordered a HCH in early April, told me that was supposed to deliver it 15 July, but after several calls they told me that they expect delivery in December! and this will not be confirmed until September!!

I ordered the car in Cyprus, where the car specifications are the same as UK (especially right hand driving)

Well my dealer called me on 7/22 that they had a hybrid coming in and I was immediately given the VIN and the car arrived on 8/1 and I took delivery today. The entire process of inquiring into the hybrid and driving off the lot took about 4 or 5 weeks.

Still no news here. My dealer was confident enough that they asked me to come in and sign the paperwork. If it goes pear-shaped I can always get my money back but they aren't really concerned. Just sympathised and said they had to wait for Honda UK.

I suppose it could be the result of the car being built outside of the UK. Everything else is being made here. In fact ISTR that we are now exporting some models to the US. Maybe Honda just don't have enough vehicles come in from Japan to make frequent trips :-/