Taking Pre-Orders in Canada

What kind of crappy inventory system does Hyundai have? Seriously, how can one dealer know nothing and another everything? And how can they do business like that?

 

All I can say is unreal !!!!!

 

Just sat in one - no VESS button like in Europe. I guess it's mandated by law that we keep it on.

 

So, here's perhaps a precautionary tale for anyone still awaiting delivery/VIN information. I will apologize in advance if this runs long. It's been a very frustrating couple of days.

SO - I was told by my dealer that "within 3 weeks" I would have my car. Week one - silence. No problem that's to be expected. Week two - silence. Odd, I thought I'd have a VIN or at least a text from my dealer saying that it'll be here on X day. This upcoming Monday will be exactly 3 weeks from when my dealer told me my vehicle would be in. I messaged her yesterday for more information. She replied promptly that there have been no updates, no information and they have received no vehicles for any of their orders. So I asked when I could expect my vehicle, to which she replied "It could be a while.." Keep in mind - I was completely open to colours so my order was submitted without any selection and therefore no VIN was ever assigned.

So I was a little disappointed. I had a trade in with an agreed-upon value on the line and I asked her if the vehicle took another month to arrive whether Hyundai would still honour the trade in value they'd appraised. She said she would have to speak with her manager. I called 3 local Hyundai dealerships within a 30 minute drive of my house. One had 5 units coming in on the 28th, 3 of which had been sold and 2 of which were canceled orders. The manager was happy to sell me one as they had no other orders on their books. The other had 3 coming in the first week of Feb, 2 of which were sold and one that was canceled. Again, he would be happy to sell me the canceled order if I wanted it. The third dealership I called had received 5 units already, 3 of which were sold, 2 of which were canceled orders that they decided to keep anyway. As the sales person was on the phone with me, one of the 2 available units were being test driven and would likely be sold. I told him I would be in tomorrow (today) to have a look.

I immediately texted my original sales person and told her to cancel my order because I'd found one available for sale TODAY. A couple of hours goes by and the GM from my original dealership called my cellphone asking me where I had found one and what would it take to keep my sale. I told them I was EXTREMELY disappointed that I was able to do my sales persons job in about 5 minutes on my drive home and that I was told they would actively look for a vehicle for me. He told me he understood and would speak to the dealer principal and regional manager in the morning to discuss our options. I told him I wouldn't make any decisions until I heard from him.

At midnight that same evening, I got a text stating that he had been on the phone with the dealer principal as well as the regional manager for the last few hours and that they show no available stock at any dealership in Ontario and that what I had been told was a lie because dealers are mandated to send all unsold stock or canceled orders BACK to Hyundai so that they could continue to fulfil confirmed orders.

I messaged him back this morning stating that I would tell him if it was true or not when I arrived at the dealership. I got to the dealership a couple of hours later and sure enough - there was the beautiful red Kona electric fully charged and ready for my test drive as promised. I told the GM of that dealership what my initial dealer had told me and he said he had never heard of that and that the vehicle available for sale within their stock system. So I test drove the car, canceled my sale at the initial dealer and signed with the new dealer. They were completely honest, honoured my initial trade-in value even though I had another 3,000 km on the vehicle and gave me a decent deal on all weather mats, cargo tray and tint.

When I canceled the original deal, the GM was livid and said that whatever dealership I was at (never told him) would face consequences for not following the rules. I told him that his regional manager didn't give him correct information because I physically sat in and drove a vehicle that he told me "didn't exist".

Moral of the story. DO NOT wait for your dealer to find you a car if you don't have one allocated to you yet. Do your own search, call around and if you find one but want to maintain a relationship with your dealer - tell them where it is and to bring it in for you. I would have done that with my dealership but they told me the vehicle didn't exist and that the dealership I was talking to was lying to me.

On a more positive note - I'm the proud new owner of a 2019 Kona Electric - delivery scheduled for this coming Monday!

 

Beauty! Good work on chasing them down and keeping them honest!

 

Yes Wayne (from another Wayne) and the most surprising part is that I did my pre-order on August 9th, and that since then I've never had any communication from Hyundai Canada (no gift cards, no monthly news or $100 thank-yous). I wondered if my pre-order was lost.

 

Make sure you rag on your dealer. I had the same issue. I called customer service in December and they told me they had no record of my order, even after I sent them a copy of my dealer form with all the details. Turns out there was an email address goof on their end but thankfully the order is placed and supposedly on a train. It's supposed to be here around the 2nd of Feb, I'll believe that when it shows up!

 

Wow! Great job. And it also means there are cars in Ontario.

 

I am just astounded at how Hyundai just keeps breaking it's own records for incompetence. What exactly was the point of pre-ordering? Apparently it's so you could be at the back of the line.

 

Hey Brennan, which part of Ontario was this from?

 

And where are you, Shawn?

 

I live just outside Sarnia Ontario but my dealership is London Ontario as Sarnia wasn't EV certified.

 

Okay, thanks. So I am going to go around my clueless dealer and see if clueless customer service can track my car now that I have the VIN.

 

Haha, that's about it!

 

Yes! There are several - just an FYI. Hamilton Hyundai are getting several. Milton is getting 1 on Monday that’s still available apparently!

 

Thanks! Someone’s gotta do it!

 

From Hamilton but purchased in Guelph. Original dealership was Burlington Hyundai.

 

The people running Hyundai Canada must have rocks in their heads. If you told this story no one would believe it. Short of Tesla, who could get a $1000 deposit from that many people for a car you have never driven or seen or a spec. you don't know for an unknown price and an unknown delivery date. Then you promise to set the price in August or September and then wait until January to do it and promise to keep everyone up to date on delivery then not bother to do it, then promise VIN numbers prior to delivery then make a complete hash of it. Then deliver un-allocated cars to dealers while leaving customers on the waiting list in the dark.

Anybody believe this story?

For the life of me I can't understand why an organization would not recognize these customers as golden. These are the people that are going to sell these cars by word of mouth and evangelism. Surely it would be easy to let people who cancelled have the option of being first to get the preferred option and have the decency to tell them when they will arrive.

I'm not holding my breath.

 

While your comments make perfect sense to me and everyone else wanting an electric, to play the devil's advocate, maybe they don't really actually want to sell them but are only following the trend of compliance? Either they know we want them so bad they don't care, or they actually just don't care lol

 

There's no "compliance" in Canada. That's an American system. Canada has no provincial or Federal hard mandates for EV sales. And I vote for "Just don't care."