Chris

Okay, maybe I'm being silly, but I FINALLY found a ship (one that's close enough to the east coast to broadcast positions) on marinetraffic.com. It's called the "Lapis Arrow." It's a ro-ro ship that is destined for Brunswick, GA that just left Providence, RI earlier today. It was in the English Channel about a week and a half ago. I'm still trying to track down it's port history (and future ports) to know where it's be, and where it's going.

Does Audi ever have ships that stop off in RI also?

I think I'll keep an eye on this ship ...

997C2S

How do you see where your car is in the production/shipping process? I know with BMW you would just go online to owners circle and track VIA order number. It would show exact stage of where you car was in process...

elocutionist

I believe Audi uses the Davisville port in RI. I suspect my car was on the Athens Highway which made port calls in Davisville, RI and Brunswick, GA before arriving in Houston this weekend.

NWS4Guy

Wow, nice diligence Chris! I think you found your vessel!

Chris

I've had to call/contact my sales guy each time I wanted info about the process. The last few production milestones passed for my car were: factory inspected (10/22), and ship loaded (10/26). The future ETAs for me are port arrived (11/23), release from port (12/02), and dealer delivered (12/07).

It's kindof a pain to get information though. I wish they had a consumer-accessible website where you could track production/shipping like you mentioned for BMW.

Chris

Oh, okay. The ship may have been in Davisville. I was looking at a map that showed the tracking history of the vessel's position and the map was zoomed out to the point where Davisville didn't show up. I assumed that it was Providence.

NWS4Guy

I'm definitely NOT on that one, I think you sailed without me and Shadow :P

Mine is due in to port of Houston on 12/07 now - wtf?

Chris

Damn! So have you even set sail yet then?!

I'd like to say that I would have wanted to wait ... but I can't.

NWS4Guy

To be honest I don't know. My SA quit and the person I was handed off to didn't send me an email greeting, call, nada. I was less than enthusiastic when I walked into the dealer 2 days after my original SA quit to talk to the manager - who happened to be the person who greeted me.

The new person was in, and said "Oh! You were on my list to email today." I was a little stunned, as when I worked in retail/sales (granted this was back in college, but still) I was VERY proactive, and expect the same from others - especially when you are handed a deal already packaged with no real work for you to do. This new lady has emailed me twice now, and when I asked for specifics, I got -

"All I see in the information is "port deliver expected 12/07 and dealer delivery expected 01/04, but we have been seeing things sooner, so I would expect closer to 12/28."

I explained that there are 2 pages, I have them printed out and that there is MUCH more detail to it like the things I didn't have dates for yet:

- factory inspected
- departure port arrived
- ship loaded

She did agree to attempt to get me the ship name, but since she seems under the impression it won't happen till 12/07, I doubt she will look sooner and the last time I was supposed to be on a ship arriving in Houston 11/30, so how this was pushed that far back is beyond me when I have confirmation mine was built the week of 10/12 (unless it arrives already broken in with 1,200 miles on it and lap times around the 'Ring).

Chris

Ugh. That sucks. I have wished, more than once, that my sales guy was a little more proactive too. I know I'm not the only customer they have, but how long would it take to shoot me a one or two sentence email. Seriously.

Anyhow, I can tell you, seeing that the factory inspected and ship loaded milestones have passed is a good feeling. I know it's on the water "somewhere," and that's it's on its way now! I hope yours arrives sooner than scheduled.