Taking Pre-Orders in Canada

Looks like Toronto area (Newmarket) are getting their Konas soon. Just got an email from the dealer. Mine will be arriving Feb 4, then go in for PDI.

I’m assuming PDI will be a couple of days. So I’m probably 8-10 days away. Hopefully our weather will improve by then!

 

It occurs to me that we've not heard from anyone in this group east of me. I'm in Eastern Ontario. Nobody from Quebec or the East Coast on here? I'm curious to track the roll-out. If anybody has been lurking please chime in.

 

I'm the wife of another user, waynewardle. I've been following this thread for the past couple of weeks and thought I'd update everyone on our experience over the past week, and share another example of the wonderful customer service Hyundai seems to be so good at.

So our car arrived at the dealership last Tuesday. We were told when we pre-ordered to expect it early February; we only pre-ordered in October so we were quite happy to wait. Without any contact or updates from our dealer, last Tuesday we saw that they posted a picture of a truck full of Konas' on their facebook page. We were number 11 when we pre-ordered and Wayne went to the lot after work Tuesday night and counted six Konas. Given the cancellations we'd read about on here and elsewhere, we were hopeful one was ours.

Wednesday afternoon we hadn't heard anything so Wayne gave the dealership a call and they confirmed one of the cars were ours. Perfect. We were told they didn't have any paperwork for the car so they couldn't even tell us which one was ours. They couldn't start paperwork on the car or take it into the shop for prep until they got it. Weird, but okay. They told us it would take two days to get the paperwork, then probably one more day to put it in the shop and get everything ready for us. We had to replace the windshield on our car ready for a trade-in so this worked out perfectly for us. Friday comes around and we still haven't heard anything. Wayne called Monday morning and they still hadn't received the paperwork needed to sell the car. Now I don't know how it all works, but the cars delivered all had stickers with VINs on the windows, and they made it all the way from Korea to our little dealership on Vancouver Island. How do they get that far but then they can't get sold because there's no paperwork for them?

Anyway, our dealer called this morning to let us know that the paperwork came through and we can pick up our Kona on Thursday. He also gave us our VIN which seems a little pointless by now but nice to have I guess. Wayne stopped in on his way to work earlier to start some paperwork on the trade-in and was told our car is in the shop being prepped. But when he left he counted six cars on the lot. When he got to work he phoned the dealership to make sure the correct car was being prepared. The dealer reassured him that it's ours and said that they had seven Konas delivered. The night they were delivered there were definitely only six, but maybe they put one in the showroom? I don't know.

Then an hour ago Wayne messaged me from work to say that there are three white Konas for sale on the dealerships website, including one with our VIN? Trying not to read too much into it but it's a little unnerving when you think how incompetent Hyundai have been.

The last week has just been very weird. I don't understand how a car can reach a specific dealership with no paperwork attached to it. I don't understand where the extra car came from. And I don't understand why there's a car for sale on their website with our VIN on it!! I don't think I'll relax until we're driving off the lot in our new car.

One last thing, while having to wait nine days to get it off the dealership is a little annoying, we're still grateful it's here at the end of January, especially after reading all the posts on here about people waiting 8+ months and still haven't heard anything. We both hope everyone gets some good news soon. BUT.. we're still pretty pissed off that we were told we couldn't get the ceramic blue. I think Wayne posted a few days ago and mentioned that our dealer had told us their not taking any orders for the blue colour in Canada. After he read the post on here from the user from Duncan who had just picked up their ceramic blue Kona he mentioned it to our dealer who said he got that information from a third party?! Am I wrong for thinking that makes it even worse?!

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Just had to get all this out somewhere!

 

Oh dear! That is all I can say. The whole saga is just so messed up. We are supposed to get Ceramic Blue, but then again we have been told since November that our car would be here in December, January and now it's February. We were told we would be given a VIN and then we would know our car was close to getting here. No VIN still. Welsh Canuck let us know when you actually have the car!

 

You can order a ChargePoint charger to be installed at your home from ZapBC (on the Scrap-It website, scroll to the bottom of their home page). Essentially you pay the installation cost and get the charger for free. To apply for one you need your VIN so that's one reason the dealer may have given it to you.

 

My car arrived without paperwork too. The dealer had already finished the deal and took my money, but the insurance couldn't be applied because they did not have an invoice from Hyundai Canada. So they put dealer plates on the car and I drove it for 5 days until the invoices finally came in. What a way to do business! They need some changes in management at HQ.

 

I must say,
Aside from my saga at Burlington Hyundai and them promising me 3 weeks to delivery and then going back on their word after the 3 weeks had come - I’ve been pretty lucky! I was able to call another local dealer and pick up a canceled order that they’d just had delivered. I finally took delivery this morning and according to them - I’m the first official Kona delivery in Ontario! I don’t know if that’s actually the case or they were just trying to make me feel special. But I did see 3 others in the parking lot that had just completed PDI waiting on their new owners.

After having the car for only a few hours and not having much time to play around with it, I must say I’m extremely pleased with what I see so far! Build quality is excellent. There’s hard plastics pretty much everywhere but they have somehow made it not look cheap. The infotainment system is incredible and the screen looks large and crisp. There’s about an inch of empty black screen real estate around the entire screen, it makes me want to find a hidden “full screen” button. I’m not sure why the GUI doesn’t take up the entire screen. Feels like we’re gettinf jipped out of an inch of screen!

The seats are wonderful. Firm and very supportive. The driver seat is power operated while the passenger seat is not. The center console area is really nice. The contrasting colours look great and I love the “cockpit” feel that it adds. I love the instrument cluster display as well. Everything you need is right there and it’s slightly customizable!

I thought the HUD would be a gimmic but honestly, I found myself rarely looking down at the instrument cluster as all pertinent information was within my line of sight.

Driving the car is incredible!! It’s so quick yet feels extremely stable. There were squals while I was driving home from the dealership and the car felt planted and secure - it never broke traction once and I wasn’t exactly driving with a light foot. The regen is amazing. It truly is one-pedal driving. I think I applied the brake one time in my 40+ km drive home from the dealer. Holding the left paddle does the same thing! So far I’ve gotten pretty used to regen level 3 and I’m confident that’s where it’ll stay. You have the ability to program the level of regen per driving mode which is neat.

So far, the ALKA (Active Lane Keep Assist) has to be the BEST feature. It really is comparable to tesla’s Autopilot. I drove over 10km, only touching the wheel lightly when it asked me to. The car did an incredible job staying in the middle of the lane - even when the lane markings were partially snow-covered! I need to get used to the car coming to a stop on it’s own though. I must admit, when cars in front of me started braking at a red light, I got nervous and reached for the brake - only to have the car slow down and come to a complete stop on its own as it was supposed to!

I cannot wait to drive more and be able to play around with settings and features more thoroughly. It’s supposed to get down to -31C tonight in my area so I’ve plugged it in to my standard household plug. I’ve programmed my pre-warning as well. The BlueLink app will take a few days as the Konas are so new to Canada that the VINs haven’t all been registered yet.

I’ll provide more reviews as I go along!
Be patient everyone, it’s WELL worth the wait if you haven’t gotten yours yet!

 

The red is looking pretty sharp! Thanks, Brennan.

 

Well after a week I am finally getting my car today. The seven cars that arrived last Friday have had there PDI done and are ready to be picked up. I really can't understand why they weren't in a screaming hurry to get these cars out of the door.

 

Best of luck with it. Be sure to let us know how it goes.

 

That is great news for you! Give a blow by blow of what you think when you get your lovely car.

 

I will give everyone a full account of proceedings today and my first impressions of the car . Right now I will be putting my negotiators face on and drive home just how they can make things better for Hyundai's poor business practices.

 

Good for you Wayne. They need to hear some truths. In our neck of the woods (British Columbia) it seems that several dealerships have cars sitting on their lots (perhaps cancelled orders) and yet people who have pre-ordered haven't been informed of this or been given the option to get one of those cars or go elsewhere for a car or even have the car brought to the dealership where they ordered. I am tempted to buy elsewhere where they have available cars, but we have a negotiated trade in price (and have gone through this twice already since ordering) and Michelin tires at dealer cost in our deal. So we are waiting for that "first week of February arrival" date to give them benefit of the doubt. However Feb.14th, is my cut off date for having the car. I may be making a mistake by not grabbing an available car from another dealer right now, but hubby thinks we should wait it out for that ship arriving this week as we would be also having to take a car without the colour and interior we want. I keep reading comments on various forums that customers can't get their cars as the dealers don't have the invoices so they won't service/prep them until they have the invoice. All of this seems so chaotic.

 

I am in Nanaimo and the invoice thing has been a "problem" for them . What color are you looking for? I will see if they have any cancelled orders on the books. So if I understand you correctly the dealership is including winter tires ( no cost) in your deal?

 

Sorry after rereading your post I see cost for tires .

 

Thanks for the offer, but my husband thinks if we jump to another dealership it is more headache than it is worth due to us trading in our car. We have the blue with light interior on order.

 

I was just browsing some photos of Canadian Konas and something jumped out at me. The chrome strip at the bottom of the doors appears to be gone. That was a nice design flourish and I really miss it. The website still shows the strip in many shots but not in others. Anybody else notice or care?

 

Got my Kona today and man is it super fun to drive. The immediate power makes it way to easy to speed but I had a blast driving home from the dealer. The LKA is truly remarkable being able to steer the car. The Regen is far stronger than I was expecting and I can't wait to drive it more.

While speaking to my sales rep we talked a bit about the cluster F that this will out had been and he was sympathetic and agreed that it had made no sense. He told me that they have had people who put their deposit down in September and October get their car than people who did in July and it makes no sense what Hyundai is doing. I truly feel for the early depositers who have yet to get their cars. He also said they had about a 50% cancel rate as they were telling people mid to high 40's for price but it ended up at mid 50's but the cancelled units were almost immediately sold once they were available.

Driving around the lot they had at least 5 more that he said we're sold just awaiting pickup

 

Nice that you are happy! Any photos of your car? My husband will love the LKA --when we finally get the car. Glad that you have yours and look forward to your comments about how it is going for you.