I wonder if anyone has an explanation as to why ‘orders all all over the place’ ? It couldn’t be anything to do with the individual dealers perhaps?
The answer to this (which happens with many manufacturers, but certainly BMW and VW) is always the same – build slot allocations. Most people don’t understand that when they ‘order’ a car at a dealership and it shows up on the Motability system, the vehicle has often not been ordered! To explain – what the dealer does with the customer (paperwork etc) is just admin. It’s not an order. When the dealer inputs what you want on the Motability system, and it shows up on your online account, all this means is that Motability have approved that the dealer can order the car for you. It is still not confirmation that the car has actually been ordered. Any delivery date shown is purely an educated guess inputted by the dealer.
The order actually happens when the dealer places it on the manufacturer factory orders system. However, and this is them key thing, each dealership has a certain number of ‘build slot allocations’ for each model of car each period (usually per month). If the dealer has used up all their slots for the current period (as often happens), they have to wait until the next available period before they can order. However, there will often be others ahead of you in the queue and they may also prioritise some customers (such as private buyers) over others. So it is not uncommon for a dealer to ‘sit’ on your ‘order’ for a month, or several months, until it is actually placed with the factory. The problem is that dealers almost never come clean about this and will often imply that a car has been ordered when it hasn’t.
The best policy is to ask the dealer directly “do you have any immediately available build slot allocations for the i4?” (or whatever car you are after). When dealers realise that you know how it all works they are more likely to be honest with you, although some will still blag to secure the order. You will get different answers from different dealerships, so worth shopping around. So if two people ‘order’ a car at different dealerships on the same day and one gets the car 2 months before the other, it is because one dealer was able to place the order with the factory 2 months before the other!