I have been waiting for my TCH to go into allocation for 68 days. I have been "#1 on the list" for magnetic gray/NAV/bisque interior orders for the last 3+ weeks. I left a message for my sales rep today, asking for status, and he called me back and said that he spoke to his general manager about the length of my wait. The GM agreed that it was a long time, and said that when this Friday's allocation comes, if my car is not in it, they will do some swapping with other dealers and make it happen. They said that by next Monday, they will have a date for delivery for me.

Now, I realize that I don't really know what goes on behind the scenes, and with car dealers who knows what the truth really is, but if they follow through on this promise, I will be very pleased. There hasn't really been any pressure to have the car delivered, besides the 9/30 tax credit deadline, but after reading these forums for two months, well, let's just say my appetite has been thoroughly whetted.

I'm starting to get cautiously optimistic now. I think the end is in sight...

Good luck, Paul...don't jinx it!

I know your pain, so I'll keep my fingers crossed for ya!

Don't beleive the "dealer swap" story unless the other dealership is owned by the same owner and they don't have someone waiting for the same car. Bascially if your dealler does not get your allocation you need start thinking about your options, which coudl mean waiting even longer (maybe miss the $2600 tax credit) or settling for a car without NAV or some other option that makes your desired car rare,

Hi Kluken, thanks for the advice. I'll give him til Monday, as he promised me a delivery date by then. Then I'll start exploring other options.

Kluken has a good point regarding thinking of other options as a back up. A safety net so to speak.

However, dealers very often swap vehicles even if not in the same auto group or the same geography. I had a tentative sale with a dealership out here, and they swapped with a dealership in a completely different 'region' to obtain the car I was going to buy. They had the vehicle on their lot within a week. We couldn't get the numbers right so I went elsewhere.

Granted, swaps may fail if all of the units of a certain color and build are presold, but the good news is, if you miss this allocation and the dealer is able to swap for it, you may get your vehicle sooner.

crossed fingers,
Esk

When we got to the top of our dealership's waiting list our dealer started requesting our vehicle as their "preference" in the allocation. Our dealership is the highest volume dealer in CT, so I guess it might be possible that they get their "preferences" slightly more often than other dealerships, but they did tell me that they don't always get their preference. But, fortunately for us, they were given their preference (our car) in the allocation.

When we first placed our order we asked our dealership if they did "swaps" for vehicles with other dealerships and they said they did, but only within the tri-state area, and that it was very difficult to get another dealership to swap a hybrid, because they are almost always all sold before they arrive on the lot around here.

OK, we got good news today. My car now has an official port arrival date: 9/10. This is still 3 weeks away, and then it'll be another week or two before it is delivered to the dealership, but it will still come in before 9/30, just under the wire for the tax credit. It's a big relief. Thank you all for your words of advice and encouragement.

- Paul

I happened to get lucky with my dealer. They had a Titanium allocated for me (they had requested Mag Gray), but they found a dealer in Indiana that had a Mag Gray allocated for a customer that wanted Titanium. The swap worked out nicely - they even caught it early enough to have it shipped direct to my dealer instead of Indiana.