Invoice

[jtl]

I thought this was interesting for a boring Monday. I have a copy of my invoice dated 12/13/2013 with the VIN. The ETA on this vehicle according to the dealer is Wednesday, two months between invoice and delivery to the dealer seems like a long time but they say that is normal. Just goes to show how far in advance they order cars, at least the ones from Japan. I used to think that manufacturers did not issue a VIN until the car was built, but I now longer think this is the case. Anyway back to your regularly scheduled programing.
John

 

[njaremka]

Once a car build is scheduled, it gets a VIN to track it through the process.

Also, it takes at least a week to go through the actual build process, but it could be up to two weeks for the car to be built once it receives its line number at the factory.

Then, once its actually built, it has to be scheduled for transport across the ocean - by boat, which can take more than a week or two.

 

[jtl]

Once a car build is scheduled, it gets a VIN to track it through the process.

Also, it takes at least a week to go through the actual build process, but it could be up to two weeks for the car to be built once it receives its line number at the factory.

Then, once its actually built, it has to be scheduled for transport across the ocean - by boat, which can take more than a week or two.

Well, that still leaves almost a month.

 

[Dimcorner]

Freight across the pacific takes about 10 days.
So lets say it takes 7 business days to actually build the car + 5 days of backlog to actually START to build the car (give or take).

How long does it sit in a holding area to ship it to the US? I'm sure they don't ship a few cars every day. I would say ship every 7 days or so in order to accumulate enough inventory to actually ship (they do ship to other countries so probably takes that long to accumulate the inventory for a country).

so now we are at about 1 month in and it JUST landed in the US.
Takes about another 5 days or so to go from Cali to FL (assuming it flies off the ship and parachutes on to the car carrier). I doubt that is the case so give it another 3-5 days of just "paperwork". So now you are about 40 days into the ordeal and I'm guessing this is a best case scenario.

I'm guessing the way it goes is that it lands in to US sits near the ship yard for a few days. Then when it's cost effective they will ship to regional distribution center and sits for a few more days, then it gets to the dealership. I would be pretty crappy logistics if some dealership in HighPoint,FL needed ONE car and they just get a car carrier right away to send that one car across the US.

FWIW it takes about 2 weeks to get a 10 packs of strings shipped from Taiwan. Guy put it in the AIRMAIL Feb 5 and I'm probably going to get it sometime next week.
Usually gets stuck at customs for about 3-5 days and the transfer between taiwan post to US post is another day.

 

[jtl]

"so now we are at about 1 month in and it JUST landed in the US.
Takes about another 5 days or so to go from Cali to FL (assuming it flies off the ship and parachutes on to the car carrier). I doubt that is the case so give it another 3-5 days of just "paperwork". So now you are about 40 days into the ordeal and I'm guessing this is a best case scenario."

I guess you haven't heard that we have ports in FL. They don't ship cars from CA to FL they arrive in Jacksonville. This original post for just for information not to start a debate.

 

[Dimcorner]

I guess you haven't heard that we have ports in FL. They don't ship cars from CA to FL they arrive in Jacksonville. This original post for just for information not to start a debate.

I lived in Miami and know of the ports, but I don't know if it's more economical to dock in Cali and ship by rail from Cali or take the whole boat through the Panama canal (and pay whatever they charge there) to go across. My company shipped by rail from south fl to cali and it was noticeably cheaper than just trucking a container. I'm sure there is a rail hub is in Jacksonville and it only takes about 4 days by rail from Cali.

Anyhow the 10 days of boat transit was from Japan to Washington state. If you want to go through the canal then you have to probably add another 5 or more days anyway. Not saying it's not possible, but if you are Mazda, are you going to send 2 boats to 2 coasts or send them just to one coast and distribute from there?

 

[jtl]

I lived in Miami and know of the ports, but I don't know if it's more economical to dock in Cali and ship by rail from Cali or take the whole boat through the Panama canal (and pay whatever they charge there) to go across. My company shipped by rail from south fl to cali and it was noticeably cheaper than just trucking a container. I'm sure there is a rail hub is in Jacksonville and it only takes about 4 days by rail from Cali.

Anyhow the 10 days of boat transit was from Japan to Washington state. If you want to go through the canal then you have to probably add another 5 or more days anyway. Not saying it's not possible, but if you are Mazda, are you going to send 2 boats to 2 coasts or send them just to one coast and distribute from there?

I only know that my salesman who was in the top 5 for Mazda USA last year told me that Mazda ships the cars to Jacksonville and they are then trucked to his dealership. Hopefully he knows what he is talking about. I imagine that cars for South Florida come into Miami, but I don't claim to know anything about it.
John