The dealer doesnt know what is happening, and where your car is…that applies to all Motability dealers. The only time the Motability dealer knows, is when the car arrives at the garage. My current car, when I went to order it, the Motability Dealer was the son of one of my Ex’s. That was a surprsie! I actually re-connected with his Mom after 25 years. His Mom odered a car (Not Motability ) at the same time as myself and they cars arrived within 2 weeks of each other. There is no priority for cars that are paid in cash over a Motability vehicle. That will not fit with a few of the posters on here. The Motability guys who dealt with my order did NOT have any information about the production dates from the manufacturere AT ALL. He only knew when the car was received through UK customs. That was the ONLY time he knew the status of the order, both Motability and Cash Sales. Once the car landed on UK soil, they knew it would be a minimum of 2 weeks before it landed in the forecourt.
That’s not true Betty. Most manufacturers (if not all) have very detailed order and tracking systems and the dealer can tell you exactly what stage your order or build is. Having ordered cars from both BMW and Hyundai over the last 18 months, both dealers were brilliant and kept me updated throughout from order through to delivery, and they were spot on at each and every stage.
The problem that many Motability customers have is that they understandably don’t understand how manufacturers build slot allocations work, and many unscrupulous dealers will take advantage of peoples ignorance about this. They will imply that the order has been placed when in fact they sit on it for months before they are able to assign it to a build slot allocation. From my experience, VW dealers are particularly bad at this. If you get a car much later than someone else who ordered at another dealer at the same time, it’s nothing to do with it being a hit and miss system. It’s always due to the supplying dealer having sat on your order or prioritising other customers.
On that last point, manufacturer have been very transparent that private customers are getting priority and lease vehicles are at the back of the queue, priority wise. Motability orders fall into the lease vehicle category. Thankfully, this problem is now easing and some manufacturers (such as Nissan) are now getting lease orders through quite quickly.