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Comment by rconti | Hacker News Reader

I remember being so disappointed, when I was finally able to buy my first-ever new car, to find out that you CAN'T really get it the way you want it, not anymore.

Too many decades of Americans buying whatever car happens to be sitting on the lot today (usually in silver paint with beige interior) means that most vehicles aren't available with any real selection of options (they're typically packaged together), no interesting paint colors, and dealers that are uninterested in finding what you actually want. It's staggering to me that people apparently feel they don't have any power to get what they want when laying out a huge chunk of money.

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It's possible to configure a car to your specifications, but you have to find a dealer willing to commit their order quota to it and wait a few months for the car to arrive. Do not expect much haggling if you take this path.

Yes, but depending on the manufacturer, you might not have nearly as many options as you might like. And then it sometimes comes wrong anyway.

Source: ordered a 2017 Chrysler Pacifica. Couldn't order 15" wheels with premium trim. Ordered a spare tire, and got the built-in vacuum instead (this worked out OK, the donut spare, ordered separately, fits under in the middle seat stowage, if you finagle it). Still would have prefered 15" wheels over 17" or whatever we had to order, but not enough to buy new wheels. Would not recommend buying that early in the model cycle, but that's somewhat separate from ordering; except that they had no Pacificas on the lot to sell anyway, so it wasn't too hard to convince them to order one.

Yeah, that's a good example. My Golf R only had 2 option packages to choose from. Can't get a sunroof. Can't get a spare tire, even though it fits. (order the parts at retail from Europe at a HUGE retail markup, install them yourself). Something like 5 color choices. No wheel options. Can't get the great cloth seats available in Europe.

It seems like this thread is missing the history of mass car manufacturing entirely, which began with a single SKU for the Model T. Customization to your heart’s content was never the strength. Especially for non-luxury brands. Try working through a Porsche configuration: you can select the color of the stitching!

It's interesting that US car culture still affected from Model T. At least in Japan, any car (except commercial vehicle) is somewhat or very customizable for interior/exterior even in $10k.

Heck, even just ordering a Macbook Air M1 with a terabyte SSD yesterday showed that it was going to take a month to get to me

Same! What’s especially misleading is that most of the car manufacturer websites have a “Build your own” tool where you can select the features and options that you want, only to discover that no cars exist in that configuration.

Just go to the dealer and spec the car like you want it, put a deposit down and wait a few months for it to arrive. If you want something bespoke you can't expect it to be in inventory.

I generally buy Nissan because the local dealer is good. Generally the base models have what people want, it's only fancy interior or exterior add-ons that make you wait. Base models have ac, sat nav, cameras etc already. Generally you don't have to wait too long because the car is already built or there is one to that spec being built soon. I think the most I had to wait was 2 months

I don‘t get the problem. In germany you go to a desler and tell them you want this specific configuration, you sign a contract and 3-4 months later your specific build is delivered to the dealery.

Most car dealers in the US, at least for “normal” (ie, non-premium) car brands are extremely reluctant to custom order cars and often outright refuse to do so. They also tend to put subtle pressure on customers to buy something of the lot right now instead. The car buying experience is very different over here compared to Germany.

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