just to share the info I gathered from my extensive calls when I was looking for the right CS...
I think it was back in October when working notice from my last job I had plenty time to make calls and send emails. It was pretty clear to me the vast majority of cars coming in were for stock and not customer orders so I thought end of year would be a good time to buy.
There were really no discounts or deals to be had back in October but a few dealers were obviously getting several cars in and I reckoned they wouldn't all sell at list before year end so its worth ringing around to see whats in stock although pressure might be less for them to shift cars right now v end of Quarter.
I would say only a small percentage of the 25 or so cars I identified coming in had bucket seats which I was surprised at. Quite a few poverty spec base cars with no options - I think dealers were caught out with VW pulling ordering and had probably used a slot with a base spec car expecting to change it later. I know at least 2 dealers who confirmed that they were ordering cars to use a slot but because they were not for a customer, VW pulled the CS slot and turned it into a regular GTi slot.
I think of all the cars I found, only 1 was spec amendable and for a short time but no discount so I didn't do a deal otherwise I would have done to spec my ideal car.
IN terms of colours, I would say maybe 70-80% were white, mostly solid I guess because the base price is high. I would say maybe 10% tornado red, 10% silver/carbon/black. I guess the white shows up the black elements most but I have to say when I saw a red one I thought it worked really well. Out of all the cars I found I think there were 3 red ones, but one had DSG and the other no bucket seats.
Will be interesting to see if dealers start pushing discounts but I guess given the generally good reviews in the press they wont have to hack a big % off, 5-8% would seem to be it, which will be good for residuals.
I think its a bit of shame the ordering thing was badly communicated so a lot of cars are arriving for stock without customer spec and things like the buckets are not optioned on that many. If VW had been clearer on the run out times I for one probably would have specced my own.
Would be nice if VW confirm exactly how many have been / are built for the UK market.
