Interesting information on delivery issues was revealed this evening in a call to my person at Edwards Kia in Council Bluff, IA.
TLDR: vehicles are getting backed up at the railroad delivery -> semi-transport
Deets:
My car was entered into KFOS on 7/15/20. 1st ETA was 11/5. It got a
VIN on 9/24. 2nd ETA was 10/23 (as of 9/17). 3rd ETA was 10/22 (as of 10/6).
In between there and today I did have exchanges with my person during which he informed me that there's a gap of knowledge that they (the dealer) have in truly knowing the transit status, particularly in knowing when a vehicle will be delivered via railroad and when it will subsequently be delivered via truck. I was informed that the variance they have seen is anywhere from approx 5 days early on ETA to as much as 7 days later than ETA.
This evening I had a phone call with my person and got some more intel on the process, and issues, which I found really helpful in me just chilling the f out about my burning desire to just finally get this sweet Telly in my hands already, "knowing" it should be here.
- there is a backup at the railroad delivery port of KC (in my instance)
- as the factory ramped production back up, the overland trucking didn't anticipate/know/whatever and is getting backed up
- there are currently so many cars in the holding lot, awaiting truck transfer, that the rail cars are sitting in the station awaiting offloading
- my dealer is seeing 1 - 3 truck deliveries daily. but on a per-dealer basis this seems to vary. this dealer in particular doesn't see deliveries on Saturdays
- my particular vehicle has been located on the lot, but it's unclear what priority it has in getting onto a delivery truck
- the lack of clarity on ordering once in the lot wasn't presented very clearly to me
My person did a great job of explaining all this to me, and I am very grateful to get the insight. It was a 5m phone call at most. In general it sounds like it's a little bit of mayhem going on in the transfer yards (or whatever the proper terminology is for vehicles off-train awaiting truck transport), as factory shutdowns and productions due to C19 had reduced staff on rail delivery > trucks, and now that factory production has ramped back up there's an understaffing issue in arranging / actually doing of the vehicles from rail > trucks.
For now I am complacent in waiting for what happens next. It's amazing what a 5m phone call does to ease one's mind. I thought I'd share for others who are anxiously (like me, who first decide I wanted this car more than a year ago), waiting for their baby.