My car was built 6/10 and has been at Midlothian since 7/18. It had an estimated "2nd week of August" delivery date, which has now passed. I spoke to my dealer on Monday and he said that the problem was that there was an issue with the appearance package cars - he said that the first cars with them weren't turning out right, so there is a delay on new appearance package cars. He wasn't specific, but I would guess this means they are changing how the package is installed, or even changing the parts, which is leading to the delay. It could also mean they are backordered (like other people have encountered with rotary accents, etc), and the dealer was just avoiding saying that. Either way, I'm now on indefinite hold because my car has both the appearance package and the rotary accents

I intended to take it on a road trip on Monday, but now I have to delay that a week. I really hope it arrives before Sept 1st, or I'll have to scratch the trip.

I'd be happy to just add the rotary accents on later (buying a different car for instance), but I would really rather have the appearance package installed at the port.

Has anyone received an appearance package car in the past couple weeks?

 

A dealer told me today that they were understaffed at port and that was creating a backlog for cars with port-installed accessories. He said they are about 2 weeks behind.

 

Nash, I think the dealer is full of it. My car was built on 6/24, and I didn't add the appearance package until the last week of July when it was already at port. My car arrived two weeks later with appearance package attached. There must be something else going on there.

 

I believe that the appearance packages are causing delays. My car has been at port since 7/12/03 with an initial ETA of second week August. As of 8/18/03 the car is still at port and the ETA was revised to first week September!! Of the 10-12 RX-8s I've seen only one had the appearance package.

 

Maybe because I have a rarer color there were plenty of them or something. Are they painted to match the car or do they come in different colors as ordered?

 

In the Gulf Region, cars with the Port installed options are running a bit behind schedule. There are several reasons for this. Demand exceded the supply and an not enough people to install the parts. On top of this you have a very large number of other models that have just gone through buildout:ie Protege, MPV and PR5 that are hitting the inland Ports at this time. The Protege and PR5 inventories are especially high because the Mazda 3 won't be here until January so they had to build enough to last until that time. This has caused a backlog for the transport companies. My RX8 deliveries have been averaging 7 to 10 days from the time the cars are released to the transports and when they hit the dealership. We are finally starting to see some of the cars with the appearance pkg and other options arriving though so there is not a problem with the parts themselves. Mazda has deverted all the Dealer installed options that are also Port options to the Ports to help with the supply there. Dealers should be able to get the parts again in mid to late Sept.

 

My car, at port sicne 7/24 with AP and RA packages, had initial ETA of 4th week of July. Then 2nd week of August. Now, it still says 2nd week of August even though it is already past and they still havn't updated the ETA. This is terrible and yet another blunder. I was supposed to be 1st allocation too...

 

Elara, the parts come painted - so maybe it was quick for you because of the rare color. Also, I think most people are experiencing delays at the Midlothian port, whereas you probably came through an east coast port.

I'm only so frustrated because I'm trying to plan trips around when the car arrives (I want to drive the car on the trips), and I can't commit to anything because I have no idea when the car will arrive

 

I was told my car is at the Tacoma Washington port, which makes little sense for a St. Louis destination. I would have expected Midlothian port.