Honestly, I think we all suffer from a lack of information when delays start happening. I believe I actually know more than my dealer. But, I think it's easy to become obsessed with this forum and head down a dark path. I'm not in a great place about the process. I have learned that there are better dealer deals than I got and if I choose, I'll blow up my deal and order a 2024. My truck was built Feb 25th and because it likely won't be delivered before my 32 day RV trip, that will push acceptance to mid-July. What's another 2 months to order a 2024. My big RV trip will be missed.
Ram Heavy Duty Forum
Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
2023 HD Crowdsourced Order Tracking & Waiting Room
- Thread starter OfficerDirtySanchez
- Start date
This forum really is a great thing I feel like if not for it then most of us wouldn’t even know our trucks were involved in hail damage incident and I’m sure if any damage was done they will fix them where it would be almost impossible to tell but it’s the whole idea of buying a NEW truck and paying the average 70-100 k for it only to know it’s been “fixed”
Exec_DetroitDiesel
Member
- Messages
- 52
- Reaction score
- 41
- Points
- 18
Yea exactly. My delivery date is may 28, I think if it doesn’t come in by then, or if the hail makes it’s way onto my order, I’ll get something on their lot that matches, lot of inventory these days.
Hi all,
Ask your dealer for a print out like this. This is for my truck. Interesting that the tracker does not show it as shipped, but at the moment it's in Illinois. It appears that some here have activated "UConnect" and can see their truck's location.
Below is link to NOAA website where you can select dates from a calendar and it provides locations of hail events in the US. Looks like there were hail storms in Houston area on April 5., but not much after that (only looked to April 12). I can't find any hail storms records for Mexico.
Ask your dealer for a print out like this. This is for my truck. Interesting that the tracker does not show it as shipped, but at the moment it's in Illinois. It appears that some here have activated "UConnect" and can see their truck's location.
Below is link to NOAA website where you can select dates from a calendar and it provides locations of hail events in the US. Looks like there were hail storms in Houston area on April 5., but not much after that (only looked to April 12). I can't find any hail storms records for Mexico.
Exec_DetroitDiesel
Member
- Messages
- 52
- Reaction score
- 41
- Points
- 18
Interesting I assumed my sales guy was mistaken but mine is taking the same route as yours. Belvidere to Baltimore. Mines there at belvidere now, tracker still says it hasn’t shipped.
The forum is where I started for ideas around what to add to my RAM. I have a pile of boxes. I used the RAM tracker to track progress on the build. When the est delivery changed to TBD, I turned to this forum and @brv10. The RAM Tracker is a great idea, but it doesn't seem to be very accurate and doesn't provide enough info. This forum provides great info, but it can also lead to speculation and anxiety...me personally. I think the solution is that the RAM Tracker becomes more timely, accurate and provide the levels of facts that @brv10 has and include shipping info. Otherwise, RAM will likely always have negative speculation and that's bad for the brand.
Exec_DetroitDiesel
Member
- Messages
- 52
- Reaction score
- 41
- Points
- 18
Yea it’s not like the BMW tracker, years back that thing gave you the ship it was on, track the ship, track the trains, down to the minute.
Husker1972
Member
- Messages
- 58
- Reaction score
- 76
- Points
- 18
It has amazed me over the years how tone deaf car/truck manufacturers are to their customers, and, for that matter how they seem to lack basic common sense when it comes to customer satisfaction. There are quite a number of books out there about management decisions that pushed the car companies to the brink of (and sometimes into) bankruptcy. This is a good example. Most of us here are paying upwards to a 100k for a new truck and Ram can’t spend a few bucks to make us feel appreciated by keeping us updated on the status of our orders. Heck, I can track my FedEx, Amazon, UPS, etc orders almost to the minute through their systems but we get treated as if going the extra mile for the customer is considered a waste of money by Ram. This isn’t rocket science — good customer service for this order goes a long way toward cementing the choice for the next order. End of rant.
No sir you are correct in this , I really try to find bright side in any situation but even with this hail damage situation many of us are going through I completely understand this is an act of nature that is out of everyone’s hands but it just seems like a corporation this size would have a memo out to all dealers with individual vehicle stating what damage occurred and what had to be done to fix it and offer you a choice on whether you still want said vehicle, as in minor damage are you ok with few PDR repairs, or if you agreed to buy still offer some kind of extra discount or if it really got trashed having body panels replaced paint redone give you the option to put deposit on vehicle in stock or do another order but instead it’s like yep it happened it be ok you’ll never know unless we tell you or you really dig deep into it and find where it was disassembled and reassembled again, it does have me upset to point I am no longer comfortable having it delivered to me I feel like I need to go look at it before I wire 50k down payment on it , my apologies I’m done with rant as well
Back of me hand
Member
- Messages
- 60
- Reaction score
- 57
- Points
- 18
I am feeling the same way. I am not sure I want to spend $86k on an already damaged and repaired truck. That being said, my dealer has been very gracious during this whole process. When they sent me the picture showing it was on a hold due to hail damage they offered to order me a new truck immediately. They said I could come take a look at the potential hail damaged one when it comes in and look it over and decide if I want to take it or wait for the new order.
Who knows though, perhaps the new order will arrive before considering how fast some of the more recently placed orders are flying through the process.
It does blow my mind that Ram has this tracker but then vehicles can sit for months at a time without any movement and the customer is just left in the dark. If someone a few pages back in this thread didn’t bring up the hail damage hold, I would have never even known. All I would have thought is that it was sitting in Mexico waiting for a train.
Who knows though, perhaps the new order will arrive before considering how fast some of the more recently placed orders are flying through the process.
It does blow my mind that Ram has this tracker but then vehicles can sit for months at a time without any movement and the customer is just left in the dark. If someone a few pages back in this thread didn’t bring up the hail damage hold, I would have never even known. All I would have thought is that it was sitting in Mexico waiting for a train.
Yes this forum has been the greatest thing about this whole process and if your dealer offered that right off then that’s good that is really all I’m asking for I believe I’m going to call first thing Monday and request a copy of movement on truck I just don’t think that it’s right to expect someone to pay a new price for a new vehicle that’s incurred damage no matter how big or small it’s not right unless it’s something you agree to or are ok with and as far as everybody who is on this forum please keep doing what your doing if it wasn’t for everybody posting this gentleman is right most would never have known I know if it’s just held up because it’s being inspected then that’s fine I’m glad they are taking time to do job properly but I believe it’s definitely been damaged and had to go back to plant to be repaired or it wouldn’t have rode all the back to plant just for inspection
I understand that hail season in Texas is March through May. I guess next time I will need to order in May. Somewhat concerning that it happened last year and no solution was implemented to prevent it from happening again. I guess it cheaper to fix or eat cost of a few trucks than ship in enclosed cars and carriers. Do other car makers have this problem?
Alligator John
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 355
- Reaction score
- 623
- Points
- 93
Volkswagen was using hail cannons or storm cannons a few years ago to prevent the hail, or try to, and was sued by area farmers and so stopped using them. I think they and other factories down there now use at least some hail canopies. I have no idea if Stellantis uses them or not. Like ones you might have seen at some dealerships probably. I don't remember seeing anything that looked like them when I looked up satellite imagery of the factory one night when I was bored.
Acts of God are unpredictable and lots of companies fix, repackage and sell refurbished items as new. My focus isn't about the hail itself, but about the communication process. My life saying is "attention is retention". It works with relationships and customers. RAM has a tracking tool published, but they are not consistent in updating it. As for the hail damage, those impacted by that and other delays go into communication limbo. Why should someone have zero information about their stats for as long as some of these folk have waited? Attention is retention. Also with regard to the hail, does RAM tell somebody that does not ask that their truck was refurbished due to hail damage?
square_wombat_poop
Member
- Messages
- 32
- Reaction score
- 23
- Points
- 8
This looks like the main staging area for vehicles at the Saltillo plant:
Google Maps says this is from 2023 imagery. So relatively recent.
Looks to me (rough estimate) like there are 3000+ vehicles sitting out in the open that could have been damaged by hail.
edit: link to Google Maps if anyone else wants to look at it
Yes, I agree. I checked the weather history at the airport north of the city and it was calm with no precipitation between April 5 and 12.
Hard to say. My weather in Houston often flows west to east from Mexico and California. Sometimes it comes in from the South as a hurricane and sometimes from the North via an artic air mass. Others have mentioned hail and that may or may not be true. All I can factually say is that my truck completed its build Feb 25th, missed the estimated Apr 15th delivery and it's supposedly in JB. That's all I know.
That would have to mean that at some point after entering the USA, all the trucks were unloaded from the autoracks for some reason, stored out in the open, and loaded back onto the autoracks. But, where and why?
You can clearly see the truck staging area at the plant, you can clearly see the autorack loading area with the yellow ramps staged for trucks to drive into the rack, and you can clearly see that the autoracks they are transported on are covered and protected.
If the truck stays on the same autorack car from Saltillo all the way to unloading for truck transport to the dealership, where is the central location this could have happened?