[LRS]

These ‘lead times’ and ‘build slots’ are a bit of a mystery.

I read over on the XC60 group about being able to order a car under the ‘Rental Scheme’ and receive it within weeks. But if you order a car as a ‘purchase’ you will be waiting for months. It may be that the rental scheme cars provided by Volvo UK are pre-set specifications.

As I used to understand it, each Volvo dealer was allocated a number of ‘build slots’ at given intervals by Volvo HQ. The dealer could then play around with these slots as they wished – they could even negotiate with other dealers and their build slots.

For example: if you where a loyal customer the dealer could bump you up the build slot line to get your car sooner – unfortunately someone else would then be bumped down as a consequence. Obviously, the dealer’s ability of moving peoples build slots around can only be done for a period of time until the build is ‘locked’.

Dealers also order cars to be built for their showrooms allowing those customers the ability to walk in off the street and buy and drive away. Dealers can also use these (showroom) build slots and convert them to customer purchase build slots, where the customer can change the spec to their liking as long as a build lock has not been set yet.

You then finally add the build slot orders that Volvo UK place – for those rental scheme agreements that customs place directly with Volvo UK.

So, it’s the dance of the Build Slots. And from what I’m hearing the Volvo UK rental scheme agreement orders are taking priority over local dealer orders. This may also tie up with the UK Gov intentions of banning the private ownership of cars in the future.

Ultimately, car makers want to remove any ability to customise the car specification of an order and to move all sales transactions away from local dealers to online through their HQs – just like buying any other online purchase. I would never be surprised if one day soon you will be able to buy your new Volvo through Amazon!