I ordered the Caliber on June 12, 2006. So far I have the VON, the status is in "C", and my dealer says this car is his allocation. What steps are next? Is the "D" status next? My dealer is not very helpful and when I call customer service all they can do is look up the status with no further information on how long or what the next steps might be; customer service stated that the "C" status indicates that all the items in the order are ready for the build but no build date has been scheduled.

Any help would be great! Thanks!

Rob

 

Once you get allocation, it will go to D status which is gateline schedule. D status basically means that its on the schedule to be scheduled to be built if that makes any sense, but there's not a definite build date yet. You should get a VIN once it goes into D status, or at least the last 8 digits. After D status is D1 status. After it goes into D1 status, your Caliber will be built very, very soon, within the week if not the next week most likely. When in D1 status, you should be a definite build date. After it goes through the gate and is on the assembly line it will take approx 10-20 hours to build from start to end, so about a day roughly. After its built, it s usually held at the assembly plant for approx 3-5 days while it goes through a very thorough audit. Almost all Calibers go through this for quality control which is a good thing.

After its released from the plant (KZ status), it will be transported to the rail yard near Chicago, IL. Then its in the hands of the rail company (Union Pacific). Depending on where you live from Chicago, IL, it will take anywhere from a week to 2 weeks to be shipped to the nearest rail yard to you. The train may not even leave the rail yard in Chicago for a few days while they load and unload all of the railcars (remember your car isn't the only thing on that train). Then once the train leaves (KZM status 1st Rail Departure) it will make many stops before it gets to where your Caliber will be unloaded. It may sit in a different rail yard on the way for a day or two. Hopefully the train or railcar doesn't have an issue or else it will significantly delay the arrival to the nearest rail yard from you. Once it arrives at the nearest rail yard it will be unloaded (how fast depends on the rail yard) and then sorted and put on a truck. Then it goes out for delivery and will then be in KZX status (delivered to dealer).

You can be in D status for quite a while. I was in D status from June 5th to August 10th. The assembly plant issues seemed to be fixed and are now producing Calibers at 100% full capacity now. So order wait times should start to decline once you get an allocation which it sounds like you got. It took 7 days for the train to go from Chicago, IL, to Buffalo, NY if that gives you any idea of how long the train transporting takes. So basically depending on how far from the assembly plant you live, it takes about 1.5-2 weeks from the time its built till the time it arrives at the dealer. From scouting around this forum and some others, it seems like all of the April and May orders have been fulfilled so June and July orders should be coming up soon. So just continue to be patient. Its well worth the wait, trust me.

Note that once it goes into D status, dealers usually won't let you make any changes to the car so if you want to make any, now is the time to do it. I think only certain things can be changed when in C/D status. Once it goes into D1 status, no changes can be made. Also, once it goes into D status, possibly even C status, the car order cannot be canceled by the dealer and has to be built. So if you back out on the deal, the dealer is kinda screwed and the car has to be built even though you backed out on it.

 

Thank you very much for the very thorough explanation! I feel better knowing the process and what to expect once the various stages of production are completed. The bottom line is patience which is hard but it sounds like it should be worth the long wait! When we ordered our Dakota in 2001 it was less than 2 months and I never thought that we would have to wait so long for the Caliber.

Again, thank you for the explanation - I wish the dealer was as forthcoming and knowledgeable (I keep updating him on the production issues based upon the great information in this forum although I'm not sure he appreciates it...)

 

Don't forget you also need to sacrifice a chicken at sunrise, and throw a virgin into a volcano

 

I think I can handle sacrificing the chicken at sunrise but both the virgin and volcano are going to be hard to find locally....