focusfh56 said:
Skelly. Car was built on the 20/07/17 and released same day so hopefully will clear Romania before shut down. Apparently its only the factory that closes down. Deliveries keep coming. Has a ETA at dealer for 09/09/17 so it looks as if they still take the 12 weeks. Poor delivery service by Ford on all models really. They want dealers to get the orders, which most do, but then they can't deliver!!
Focusfh56. Had your vehicle been the only car built on 20/7/17 by Ford Europe I would have agreed it would be poor delivery performance. However, it was one of several thousand made in the plants in Romania, Germany and Spain on that day all of which were making their way to consolidation points across Europe and 2 ports of exit from continental Europe for the UK market. As mentioned in my previous post, your vehicle would have travelled by rail to a consolidation centre at Vllissigen,near Zeebrugge, where it would be held amongst 20,000 vehicles until loaded onto a ship bound for Dagenham jetty which carries between 600-1000 vehicles daily, 5 days a week.
You are probably not aware that right hand drive cars are not built every single day in mainland European plants, Ford or otherwise, but have to be sequenced in batches hence a delay in production time. Once produced the Bmax are taken to a compound and wait for a space on the train. The train journey takes several days from Romania to Vlissiggen where it has to wait possibly 2-3 weeks due to the sheer volume of cars before it is loaded onto the ship .
Once taken off the ship at Dagenham it is then determined where your supplying dealer is located in the Uk. If local it will be segregated with other cars destined for that region and then arranged into sub groups of 10 cars (loads) which will either be loaded onto Ford's own fleet of car transporters or a contractor's transporter. If your dealer is located near Liverpool or Scotland the car would be sent by rail and then transported by road.
All of these operations have dwell times where a vehicle will wait until capacity becomes available. Also, irrespective of what you have been told, deliveries do slow down over the summer shutdown as the majority of Ford transport petsonnel are on holiday.
If deliveries continue through shut down it will be at a reduced rate carried out by contractors who would pick up loads prepared before the holidays.
I ordered a Kuga in early June 2017 and was advised today it will be ready for collection in 4 weeks time which is about 12 weeks and to the best of my knowledge, the industry norm.
All the very best with your new car.
Skelly
(retired manager,new vehicle logistics,Ford)