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Comment by panopticon | Hacker News Reader

I bought an EV earlier this year. I ended up with a LR Model 3 because the dealership model really sucks still. I called Hyundai and VW dealerships in the tri-state area around me, and none of them could say when I'd be able to actually get a car. Instead I went to Tesla's website, placed an order, and got an ETA. Super simple; loved that experience.

If it weren't for the crappy dealership model I probably would have bought the Hyundai Ioniq instead.

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It's not just the ETAs that are pushing me away, but just the entire dealership process generally is annoying. I wanted to order a vehicle from GM and I have tried close at least 10 dealerships at this point in the PNW. No one is straight up on the process of either getting an order in or what pricing will look like or when they might get an allocation. Some just say "sure, you're on the list" but who knows what that even means. One dealership (Bellingham, WA) wanted 25K deposit to even take an order.

I basically gave up on that vehicle not because I can't wait or am not willing to play the price, but the BS process of going through one of these dealerships is too infuriating. Rivian I put my order in and at least I have an order date and understand that I'm in the queue and should be sometime MY24. If Cadillac came out with the exact same process as Rivian and it said I could get my vehicle ordered and enqueued for 12month deliver I would do it.

I think this is why Ford has said it’s going to do electric vehicles direct. I can’t remember if they’ll use a different brand or not.

In Utah, where I am, it’s going to be a bit of a hill. I hear we have some laws to protect the local dealerships. Tesla dealers are just showrooms here and I don’t think they sell anything on-site. Could be wrong about all this.

I don't think Ford's doing them direct. They did tell dealerships they couldn't raise their prices.

I believe it should be the same brand, but they've split the business into Ford Blue (ICE vehicles) and Ford Model e (electric vehicles) in March of this year: https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2022...

The Ford CEO has mentioned earlier this year that they're less than pleased at the various markups applied by dealerships, and would want to do set price, online sales (eg. https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/02/ford-wants-to-sell-evs-onl...).

> Rivian I put my order in and at least I have an order date and understand that I'm in the queue and should be sometime MY24

Is that "Model Year 24"? So they gave you an estimate of a year-long window, but also did not guarantee the date? How is that much different than "Youre on the list" with a traditional dealership?

Dealership lists are more like we'll call you if one comes in, and we'll call everyone else on the list right after. First one here gets to buy it. Also, if we have a buddy that wants it, we'll give him a heads up before we call you.

Exactly. Also, many of them are very coy about what dealer markup will apply if they ever do get an allocation. You could also be on a list at a dealership that never gets an allocation for you, because they don't get many cars and there are too many people ahead of you. It's not only opaque but also untrustworthy.

I think some companies just distribute cars between dealerships and let them sort it out, others allow people to actually order a car they like. I tried with Toyota, and they weren't able to get me the car I wanted or even tell me where one could be around, for months - and looks like different dealership don't talk to each other so unless I make deposit with every dealership around, I won't be able to get what I want. Subaru, OTOH, allowed me to place order for exactly the vehicle I liked and get ETA (though not a definite date, just approximate) - even though lead times are still pretty long.

I guess it's just in which inconvenience you pick.

It seems like there is no EV that is free of something stupid that the car manufacturer is making you put up with.

Maybe Tesla it's these general annoyances. Or collision repair or out of warranty service annoyances.

I test drove a VW ID.4. It sounds like if I bought one I might deal with annoyances (markups, delays) trying to buy the car because dealers are annoying. The flip side is if I bought one and it needs service I can walk home from the local VW dealer to my house pretty quickly. Hyper Local service is rather nice.

> If it weren't for the crappy dealership model I probably would have bought the Hyundai Ioniq instead.

I went looking for a Bolt EUV recently (that price point for Super Cruise is really attractive), but they were marked up everywhere by upwards of $6K and it's impossible to reserve one from the manufacturer and actually get any guarantee that it will be purchasable at the listed price.

I have seen quite a few Ioniq's around. They seem to have just hit the streets.

I have also been seeing various flavors of BMW electrics, for some time.

A chap around here, owns one of those BMW electric "supercar" looking things (i8?). I don't know him, personally.

One thing to note about BMW is that they are heading in a direction that is not going to be good for anyone if the entire industry adopts it.

An $18/month subscription for heated seats. This is quite frankly absurd. And I know, Tesla is the one that started it (partially), but for things such as heated seats, this is taking it completely to the next level.

Soon enough we will start seeing microtransactions to even turn the car on? Not a good look for the automotive industry as a whole and shame on BMW for this.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/14/business/bmw-subscription/ind...

Not just that they are cracking down on their parts as well. I can no longer get brake pads or rotors at OReillys or AutoZone. I was forced to use crappy knock offs for the same price as I couldn't wait on ordered parts.

Went through the same thing with a recent starter replacement. They no longer offer OEM bosch (this was oreilly not sure about AZ) and they no longer sell Bosch OEM even remanufactures.

Again they explained to me this was due to BMW themselves.

I'm going to ride my 328i into the ground, but once its repairs outweigh the value of the car (doing the repairs myself now, had to become my own mechanic to avoid a $1700 bill and 2 week wait for a starter replacement),I am never touching one of their vehicles again.

When in the dealership in Seattle 2 years ago for an oil change and fluid top off/inspection it was a horror show.

They only added about 3 quarts of oil to my car out of the almost 7 needed after a change (light came on immediately as leaving and oil level was - null-). They never did their whatever-point inspection, never did the fluid top off, and left my oil filter cap loose! My 'account manager' was supposed to go over some stuff with me- never saw him. Was told he'd left notes on my file- did not.

While waiting I saw three different people come in with problems with their EV batteries no longer charging. The 1st two were told they'd be covered under warranty. I heard the reps talking amongst themselves about how bad it was getting and whether there would be a recall. 3d person was a lady who was pissed as she'd just had her battery replaced under warranty, it'd happened again and this time they wanted her to pay for a new one. She threatened to sue and they comped everything they could think of for her.

Now with this heated seats fiasco BMW has officially nuked the fridge.

Edit to add- if anyone is interested check out the starter replacement [1], absolutely fucking ridiculous the way cars are now engineered to stop the layman from affecting their own repairs.

Used to be starter replacement was something anyone could do and was all of two to four bolts and a wire and took ten minutes of time. You could even just replace the solenoid half the time for a few bucks.

I've now replaced brakes, rotors, control arms, shocks, struts, starter, window actuators, headlights, radiator, mass airflow sensor, ECM, spark plugs and ignition coils, cleaned the O2 sensors etc. Some of the steps are insane especially the radiator which was 600 just because California ones have a stupid sensor on them that cant be used on an off-brand radiator.

So much blood and sweat because why leave room to work on anything.

Seriously fuck BMW.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwwARNcUBWE

Ubik here we come.

The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.” “I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.” In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip. “You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug. From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door. “I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.

Tesla buying experience is way better but the ETAs are famously off. Mine has been pushed back 4-5 times and always about 3-4 weeks before it's due to get delivered, so it's impossible to plan around.

Also, the strange thing is it is off in both directions. I had a family member order a Model X with a 5 month delivery timeline. He was super surprised to get the call to arrange delivery 3 weeks later.

Yeah, the ETA wasn't incredibly important to me for planning purposes. It was just nice to know that I was getting <exactly this car> in <roughly this timeframe>. As opposed to "keep calling and maybe we'll have a Hyundai Ioniq allocated to us that'll arrive a month or two after, oh an enjoy your $10k 'market rate adjustment' to the MSRP."

Fwiw my car was delivered in the middle half of the original ETA, but I know that others have had lots of issues with their ETAs.

You can order a new car, configured as you like, with almost any brand. You'll get an ETA and a tracker that shows when it's going into production, when it's leaving the factory, when it's on a ship/boat/truck to your dealer, and when it's ready for pickup. You can get most dealers to agree in writing not to add any markups if you reserve a car with their dealership as the delivery point. That's how most people are buying EVs of any make right now, not just with Tesla.

You technically can sometimes, but in my experience it's really difficult to actually do that. Dealerships get limited custom order bank allocations, and if you're not really early when the MY order bank opens your order will potentially slip a model year or even more (at least for in-demand models).

For Hyundai specifically I was looking for the Limited trim, and I've been told they're only allocating custom orders to dealerships with level 3 chargers. And even then the order bank for MY 2022 had already been closed when I started shopping around. I would have had to wait for the MY 2023 bank to open.

I've done it twice with VW for ID4s. There's no special time period to order, and you don't need to talk to a dealership first, you can order from the VW website any time. If your car doesn't go into production until after a model year rolls over, then you get that newer model year.

What's your ETA?

I remember when everyone was excited to pre-order Teslas when their actual production was several years out...

Ordered late March, delivered first week of June. It ended up being about in the middle of the ETA range I was originally given.

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