Factory Order FAQ's
05-13-2018, 11:11 AM
#1
Senior Member
Thread Starter
Factory Order FAQ's
I am creating this thread in hopes it will be made a sticky. With that being said I dont intend this to be an ongoing thread for Factory orders other then people asking questions I haven't originally addressed. Please ask your questions and I will add them with the answer in this,original,post.
I have noticed on the Traching thread!! VIN's with Build Dates thread that every few weeks the same questions keep getting asked. That thread is so long people dont go back through it to get answers to questions that have been asked time and time again,with that in mind I wanted to answer some FAQ's and hopefully it will be made a sticky thread so people who have factory ordered and are thinking about doing a factory order can quickly get some of their questions answered.
I am going to go through the ordering process from start to finish as a way to try answer questions in the process that always seem to arise.
1 When you place a factory order most dealerships will give a computer printout of your truck as it is spec'd. This is a dealership printout and not a true copy of the order that is submitted to Ford. Always ask your salesman/sales manager for a copy of the Dealer Order Receipt Acknowledgement (DORA) The DORA is what has been submitted to Ford it is easiest to catch mistakes here as the next time you will be able to catch mistakes in the order wont be until they truck goes into production and the window sticker is generated which is too late to make changes to the order. REMEMBER some options can be added by the dealer or by yourself without much trouble but somethings CANNOT ex. SyncConnect is not a dealer installed option and is a great pain to add it yourself. Other things are much easier to install that they dealer wont such as the 36 gallon fuel tank. REBATES & INCENTIVES are locked in at the time of order (except for certificates) If the programs change between when you have ordered and when the truck comes in you can use the locked in programs or the new ones depending on what is more beneficial to you.
2 Once your order has been submitted to Ford Ford has to "pull" the order before it will show up in cotus ( Customer Order Tracking US COTUS ) Several factors go into how fast your order will show up in cotus. Ford pulls orders on Thursday each week... smaller dealerships will usually have their orders pulled faster then large volume dealerships that have to go through the allocation process.
3 In December ford halts production for 2 weeks for the Christmas/New Years holidays and also for maintenance and adding mid-year changes to the line.
4 You can make changes to your order before it shows up in cotus and it will not effect when the truck will be built. Once the truck is in cotus you will see an order date. This is the date that Ford pulled the order. On cotus it will show your truck being "in order processing". This will be the first place you can see the VIN number
5 Usually once the truck shows up in cotus the dealership can look on their internal Ford system and it will show them a build date. For the first week or two the build date will show as a "week of" date as in "week of Feb. 19-26" then the build date will get updated to a specific day. Once the build date has been scheduled you can still make changes to your order but it will likely reset your place in the que.
6 Your truck will go into production 6-10 days before the actual build date. When it does it will show in cotus as "in order processing completed" with the date and it will show "in production". 24 or so hours from when your truck goes into production the window sticker link will be active (this link only appears in cotus once you have entered production"
7 On the window sticker at the top center you will see some numbers over the word blend that look like this 220180227 this is the build date aka when your frame is blended into the production line. It breaks down like this: 2=? 2018=year built 02=month built 27=day built.
8 Also on the window sticker in the field where the MSRP is you will see a box that says "method of transp." This is how the truck will leave the FACTORY not how the truck is being shipped to you, it will either be RAIL or CONVOY. So if you live in Florida and see the method of shipping is CONVOY they arent truck transporting the truck all the way from Dearborn. They will transport it to an offsite ramp and be put on a rail car there. One ramp they use is the CSX ramp in New Boston MI 20 miles or so from the factory. If the method of transport is RAIL then they truck will be put on a rail car right at the factory. If you use the satellite view on google maps of the Dearborn factory you can see the loading ramps on site.
9 Once your truck is built it will show "awaiting shipment" and the date that it finished production will be shown. Normally it will sit in awaiting shipment a day or two and sometimes it will go from in production to awaiting shipment to "in transit" within a few hours. Occasionally it will sit in awaiting shipment longer. Ford does extended QC testing on random trucks and this could cause a delay in this step. A spray in bed liner could also cause a delay here.
10 When your truck leaves the factory either by rail or convoy cotus will update to "in transit". It can take a while to get the truck from the factory to your dealership for many reasons. Ford ships trucks at the most beneficial cost to them to get the best cost they have to ship so many trucks to a certain rail head. Jessup MD is the largest rail head on the east coast and Ford probably has to ship so many rail cars with so many trucks on them to get a good price. With that knowledge your truck might be sitting at the ramp at the factory end until enough trucks are built for the rail cars that are going to the destination ramp. Once your truck is on a rail car it might have to go through a number of intermediate yards to switch trains before arriving at the final destination and finally when it is at the destination ramp it can sit for a number of days before enough vehicles are going to your dealership / in that direction, to multiple dealerships, to fill a car transporter. All of this can add days/weeks to transportation time.
You can also track your truck using the JCT portal This is only good to see if your truck has left the destination rail head and is on its way to your dealership. It will show as pending until it is actually loaded on the car transporter so it is not really useful as a tracking tool as that is usually only a couple hours at most before it gets to the dealership and as soon as it get there cotus updates quickly to show it being delivered. I called my salesman as soon as I saw on cotus it had changed to delivered he told me it rolled off the truck 20 minutes before my call.
That's the basic factory order process
Q Does Ford produce trucks on Sunday?
A Yes they run the plant 7 days a week 3 shifts a day
Q How do Priority Codes work?
A I will post a link to a previous thread in the Raptor forum as the best way to answer this as it is quite detailed.
https://www.f150forum.com/f118/answe...-built-292380/
I am sure I have left a ton of questions out that I and others hopefully can supply answers for so if you have any please reply here or PM me and I will update this post
I have noticed on the Traching thread!! VIN's with Build Dates thread that every few weeks the same questions keep getting asked. That thread is so long people dont go back through it to get answers to questions that have been asked time and time again,with that in mind I wanted to answer some FAQ's and hopefully it will be made a sticky thread so people who have factory ordered and are thinking about doing a factory order can quickly get some of their questions answered.
I am going to go through the ordering process from start to finish as a way to try answer questions in the process that always seem to arise.
1 When you place a factory order most dealerships will give a computer printout of your truck as it is spec'd. This is a dealership printout and not a true copy of the order that is submitted to Ford. Always ask your salesman/sales manager for a copy of the Dealer Order Receipt Acknowledgement (DORA) The DORA is what has been submitted to Ford it is easiest to catch mistakes here as the next time you will be able to catch mistakes in the order wont be until they truck goes into production and the window sticker is generated which is too late to make changes to the order. REMEMBER some options can be added by the dealer or by yourself without much trouble but somethings CANNOT ex. SyncConnect is not a dealer installed option and is a great pain to add it yourself. Other things are much easier to install that they dealer wont such as the 36 gallon fuel tank. REBATES & INCENTIVES are locked in at the time of order (except for certificates) If the programs change between when you have ordered and when the truck comes in you can use the locked in programs or the new ones depending on what is more beneficial to you.
2 Once your order has been submitted to Ford Ford has to "pull" the order before it will show up in cotus ( Customer Order Tracking US COTUS ) Several factors go into how fast your order will show up in cotus. Ford pulls orders on Thursday each week... smaller dealerships will usually have their orders pulled faster then large volume dealerships that have to go through the allocation process.
3 In December ford halts production for 2 weeks for the Christmas/New Years holidays and also for maintenance and adding mid-year changes to the line.
4 You can make changes to your order before it shows up in cotus and it will not effect when the truck will be built. Once the truck is in cotus you will see an order date. This is the date that Ford pulled the order. On cotus it will show your truck being "in order processing". This will be the first place you can see the VIN number
5 Usually once the truck shows up in cotus the dealership can look on their internal Ford system and it will show them a build date. For the first week or two the build date will show as a "week of" date as in "week of Feb. 19-26" then the build date will get updated to a specific day. Once the build date has been scheduled you can still make changes to your order but it will likely reset your place in the que.
6 Your truck will go into production 6-10 days before the actual build date. When it does it will show in cotus as "in order processing completed" with the date and it will show "in production". 24 or so hours from when your truck goes into production the window sticker link will be active (this link only appears in cotus once you have entered production"
7 On the window sticker at the top center you will see some numbers over the word blend that look like this 220180227 this is the build date aka when your frame is blended into the production line. It breaks down like this: 2=? 2018=year built 02=month built 27=day built.
8 Also on the window sticker in the field where the MSRP is you will see a box that says "method of transp." This is how the truck will leave the FACTORY not how the truck is being shipped to you, it will either be RAIL or CONVOY. So if you live in Florida and see the method of shipping is CONVOY they arent truck transporting the truck all the way from Dearborn. They will transport it to an offsite ramp and be put on a rail car there. One ramp they use is the CSX ramp in New Boston MI 20 miles or so from the factory. If the method of transport is RAIL then they truck will be put on a rail car right at the factory. If you use the satellite view on google maps of the Dearborn factory you can see the loading ramps on site.
9 Once your truck is built it will show "awaiting shipment" and the date that it finished production will be shown. Normally it will sit in awaiting shipment a day or two and sometimes it will go from in production to awaiting shipment to "in transit" within a few hours. Occasionally it will sit in awaiting shipment longer. Ford does extended QC testing on random trucks and this could cause a delay in this step. A spray in bed liner could also cause a delay here.
10 When your truck leaves the factory either by rail or convoy cotus will update to "in transit". It can take a while to get the truck from the factory to your dealership for many reasons. Ford ships trucks at the most beneficial cost to them to get the best cost they have to ship so many trucks to a certain rail head. Jessup MD is the largest rail head on the east coast and Ford probably has to ship so many rail cars with so many trucks on them to get a good price. With that knowledge your truck might be sitting at the ramp at the factory end until enough trucks are built for the rail cars that are going to the destination ramp. Once your truck is on a rail car it might have to go through a number of intermediate yards to switch trains before arriving at the final destination and finally when it is at the destination ramp it can sit for a number of days before enough vehicles are going to your dealership / in that direction, to multiple dealerships, to fill a car transporter. All of this can add days/weeks to transportation time.
You can also track your truck using the JCT portal This is only good to see if your truck has left the destination rail head and is on its way to your dealership. It will show as pending until it is actually loaded on the car transporter so it is not really useful as a tracking tool as that is usually only a couple hours at most before it gets to the dealership and as soon as it get there cotus updates quickly to show it being delivered. I called my salesman as soon as I saw on cotus it had changed to delivered he told me it rolled off the truck 20 minutes before my call.
That's the basic factory order process
Q Does Ford produce trucks on Sunday?
A Yes they run the plant 7 days a week 3 shifts a day
Q How do Priority Codes work?
A I will post a link to a previous thread in the Raptor forum as the best way to answer this as it is quite detailed.
https://www.f150forum.com/f118/answe...-built-292380/
I am sure I have left a ton of questions out that I and others hopefully can supply answers for so if you have any please reply here or PM me and I will update this post
Last edited by mdphotographer; 05-14-2018 at 10:52 AM.
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05-13-2018, 12:16 PM
#3
Senior Member
Thread Starter
I went in to my dealership on 12/18 after totaling my '16 XLT. I was originally going to let them DX a truck in for me. I could of gottent $3000 in rebates and the GM (who I know because I used to sell for him 20 years ago) said he could also offer me a $1000 certificate. The rebates and certificate ended on 1/2 I decided to order a truck instead which I did on 12/19. The rebates were locked in but the certificate could not be.
05-13-2018, 12:18 PM
#4
certificates arent the same as private cash.......they are given out by the dealership.
I went in to my dealership on 12/18 after totaling my '16 XLT. I was originally going to let them DX a truck in for me. I could of gottent $3000 in rebates and the GM (who I know because I used to sell for him 20 years ago) said he could also offer me a $1000 certificate. The rebates and certificate ended on 1/2 I decided to order a truck instead which I did on 12/19. The rebates were locked in but the certificate could not be.
I went in to my dealership on 12/18 after totaling my '16 XLT. I was originally going to let them DX a truck in for me. I could of gottent $3000 in rebates and the GM (who I know because I used to sell for him 20 years ago) said he could also offer me a $1000 certificate. The rebates and certificate ended on 1/2 I decided to order a truck instead which I did on 12/19. The rebates were locked in but the certificate could not be.
05-14-2018, 09:01 AM
#6
Dealers can prioritize orders within their own dealerships allocation. Those codes they assign cannot affect overall priority at the factory among all the orders. However Ford has there own set of priority codes they can use that trump dealer orders. If a dealer wants customer orders to go ahead of their regular stocking orders they do this by setting a lower priority code. (and vice versa)
Somewhere there's a much more detailed description of the dealer priority code process.
The following users liked this post:
Husker (05-14-2018)
05-14-2018, 10:53 AM
#7
Senior Member
Thread Starter
Might be worth adding "Priority Codes" to the FAQ.
Dealers can prioritize orders within their own dealerships allocation. Those codes they assign cannot affect overall priority at the factory among all the orders. However Ford has there own set of priority codes they can use that trump dealer orders. If a dealer wants customer orders to go ahead of their regular stocking orders they do this by setting a lower priority code. (and vice versa)
Somewhere there's a much more detailed description of the dealer priority code process.
Dealers can prioritize orders within their own dealerships allocation. Those codes they assign cannot affect overall priority at the factory among all the orders. However Ford has there own set of priority codes they can use that trump dealer orders. If a dealer wants customer orders to go ahead of their regular stocking orders they do this by setting a lower priority code. (and vice versa)
Somewhere there's a much more detailed description of the dealer priority code process.