mgoleta said:
Rat,
Did they give you a VIN #? If not how likely is the car to actually have been built?
Call me skeptical.
No, no VIN yet. I believe it has been built because:
1) Nissan called me when the eTec program expanded to the Bay Area (actually the day before) to see if I wanted to upgrade. That was a Wednesday, the announcement by Ecotality was Thursday. The Nissan rep told me my car was going on the assembly line that Friday so I had to decide quick.
2) I checked the dashboard configuration. Where the color was shown, there was the edit button next to it so I could still change the color at that time. After getting a price from the dealer on the upgrade to SL+QC I called Nissan back and authorized the change that evening. The rep said he would put in the change that night.
3) My dashboard did not change the next day. It still shows SV to this day. However, on the Friday he said it would be in production, the edit button on the color disappeared. That button has never reappeared. So I conclude it has already been painted.
4) My dashboard changed to show April delivery sometime around there. Later it changed to May.
5) I have called both Nissan and my dealer a couple of times and they verify that my request to change to SL was received and the car was shown as being in production, but no one could say whether an SV or SL was actually built.
6) The dashboard still shows SV and the color is still not-editable. Still shows May.
If the car was built in early February, then why is it not due here until May? They did not put the April date in until after the car was in production. So what changed after it was built? The explanation about diverting to fill Japanese orders does not make sense with this set of facts. The car was supposedly built to my specification. If they diverted mine to someone in Japan, then they would be building mine, i.e. a second one for me, later and the color should become editable again. They did not tell me how long it takes to come off the assembly line, but I can't imagine it takes three weeks per car. So presumably it has been built and is sitting there waiting to be shipped or maybe it's being tested somehow. If they are suddenly holding up a shipload of cars that are already built an extra month, then I can only figure it's either a QA problem or glitch of some kind, or they have committed the shipping to Europe or elsewhere transocean, but not Japan.