Hi Rene I think its a correct statement and yes I do have an order number on my invoice but it’s not a manufacturers order number but a simple local dealer order number or if you like an invoice number. Its a simple numeral number and AFAIK VW order numbers contain both numbers and letters. I don’t know but maybe some dealers give you a manufacturers order number as I know many private customers get one but mine is just an invoice number for sure.
I always make the assumption that if the dealer is unable to give you a proper manufacturer order /tracker number then there’s a fairly good chance that they haven’t ordered the car yet. We learnt the hard way with our first Motability car as we didn’t understand how it all works at the time. The VW dealer had no available build slot allocations and therefore sat on the order for a few months before he could place it, but didn’t tell us. We wrongly assumed that it was ordered the same day that we thought we had ordered . Had I known about build slot allocations I would have asked the right questions and shopped around other VW dealers to see which, if any, could order immediately.
When ordering now (whether Motability or privately) I always ask exactly where they are with build allocations for the specific model. When customers ask the right questions it’s a lot harder for dealers to give BS answers. When we ordered our BMW our nearest dealership was honest with me and said that they didn’t have any allocations but hoped to get some the following week when they got allocated their next batch. I told them that if they couldn’t do that I would cancel as another dealership 50 miles away had immediate slots. To be fair, they got me a slot the next week and provided me with a factory order number. They also updated me every time the status changed and would even contact me to say that they had checked the system and nothing had changed. It’s hard to believe now, just 9 months later, that we got our car in less than 4 months from ordering when 9-18 months seems to be the norm now.