How long will it take a new car to be ready for collection, once you have bought it?

By Stuart Johnston 

We put this question to man who has had experience at all levels of the retail motor industry, including a stint at a franchised new car dealership. Mike Bruce, of Paul Kietzman Auto Exchange,  answered this question the way we predicted he would:

“How long is a piece of string?”

There is no hard-and-fast rule for delivery time

That reply needs clarification, of course, but illustrates the point that there is no hard-and-fast delivery time for a car, even once all the required  paperwork has been completed.

“Delivery time can vary immensely, from dealership to dealership, and, especially regarding the way a deal is structured.

“During my time with Lamborghini (Bruce worked at Investment Cars in Randburg  when this group was the Lamborghini agent in South Africa), there was one famous case where a customer walked into our dealership on a Friday,  paid for a brand-new Gallardo, which we happened to have in stock, and the next day, a Saturday, he arrived and drove off in his new Lambo.”

That sort of scenario doesn’t occur often. There are many formalities that have to be dealt with, even once the sale has gone through (in other words, the dealer has received the payment for the car).

Formalities include number plates and a PD Service

These include the registering of the car with the traffic authorities in the owner’s name, the ordering and collection of number plates, affixing those number plates to the car, and giving the new car its Pre Delivery Service.

“In the case of new cars, one of the rulings is that a new car doesn’t have to pass a roadworthy test,” says Bruce, “ and this can speed things up. But various snags can always arrive, so it is best to give the customer an indication of when the car will be ready, and then stay in communication regarding the exact time of the hand-over.”

In the case of placing an order, and then being able to drive the car home, once again the time can vary enormously, depending on circumstances, and also whether the car ordered happened to be in stock in the showroom, in the right colour and specification.

In the case of special options specified, cars can months to be delivered

Often in the case of dealers not having the desired colour in stock, they will phone around to other dealers of the same manufacturer, to see if they can do swop with a similar model they have on the floor. But with more specific specification being ordered, and the huge array of options now on offer (especially in the case of expensive imported cars), placing an order for a specific car can entail a lengthy wait.

“Some expensive new cars, which are factory-fitted with an array of options, can take six months, even more to deliver,” says Bruce. “In these cases a deposit is usually paid up front.”

A representative of a manufacturer trading in high-performance sports cars confirmed that the wait can be six months, and even longer when very rare models are ordered and there is a global waiting list.

“In this case,” said the spokesman, “a 10 percent deposit is paid upon the order being placed. That deposit is not refundable, and also requires that, should there be a price increase during the time the car was ordered, the owner will be liable to pay the full, new price at the time of delivery.”

But those same-day deals do happen….

On the other hand, in rare cases, it is indeed possible to walk into a dealership, hand over the money, and drive off in the car on the same day. This occurred in Pretoria a few decades ago, where a man walked into a Maserati dealership in Andries Street, hauled the required amount of money out of a suitcase and paid for a brand new Quattroporte, than walked across the road to a Nissan dealership, where he managed the same trick with a spanking new Nissan 300Z sports model.

In both cases, he took delivery on the same day, as that was part of his personal requirement. Apparently, it was quite a large suitcase he was carrying!