What might have happened to your order... (warning, LONG LONG post)
Tannman,
On April 15, there were three "order" systems which were completely swamped starting at 14:00 Eastern:
- The AutoBook tool
- The VOM (Vehicle Order Management System)
- The solstice1000.com EOP dealer registration web site
There have been many many folks who related that their dealer didn't fully understand the process.
A long while back, at the request of Solsticeman, I wrote a FAQ which covered the question
link to: FAQ: How do I know if I got one of the 1st 1000? (Checklist & other info) It bears reading. It will answer many of your questions, and provide some additional information that you may not have thought of.
Here's the way it was supposed to work:
- Customer registers on apprentice web site and gets a registration number starting on April 14th.
- Customer takes registration number to dealer on April 15th.
- Dealer logs into the solstice1000.com web site at 14:00 Eastern using the account name and password they were FAXed from EOP Head Quarters.
- Dealer enters customer's registration number into the solstice1000.com web site.
- Dealer sees a page saying "conditionally complete" OR "Pending" with a confirmation number on the screen.
- Dealer prints the confirmation page
- Dealer then goes back and enters registration number for the next customer.
- Some time before April 24, Dealer returns to solstice1000.com with a VOM number for customer and associates the VOM number with the 1st 1000 registration number for any conditionally complete or pending customer.
If instead of seeing "conditionally complete" or "Pending", the dealer sees "wait list", then the supply of the 1st 1000 cars has been exhausted and the customer is wait listed.
NOW, don't under stand me so fast! I believe that in your case, things did NOT go as shown above. At the dealership that I went to, most of the other salesmen were confused, and were also trying to enter AutoBook and/or VOM orders during that time. Those systems were also swamped, because many dealers didn't understand that the only time critical step was the registration number entry into the "solstice1000.com" web site. The VOM and AutoBook systems cleared up at about 14:30 and I believe that your dealer simply put a VOM order in for you, completing that step at 14:35 and sitting back thinking all was well.
Now, your dealer may still be able to log into the solstice1000.com web site and check your status. You'll probably find that
if you did indeed register on the Apprentice web site (www.pontiac.com/apprentice) on April 14th that your status will show as "registered" when your dealer enters your registration number, but I'm not even sure that the site will let you do any query against the database anymore anyway.
The meaning of the statuses is as follows:
- "Registered": customer visited www.pontiac.com/apprentice and enter address, phone, and driver's license last 4 digits.
- "Waitlisted": customer visited dealer between April 15 at 14:00 eastern and April 24 18:00 Pacific and dealer entered the registration number into the solstice 1000.com web site, and at the time that this entry was made, no remaining 1st 1000 units were available.
- "Pending" or "Conditionally Complete": customer id was entered, and one of the 1st 1000 units has been assigned pending verification of eligibility.
- "Confirmed": all confirmation processes and verification of eligibility have been performed by the Early Order Program Headquarters, customer will receive a 1st 1000 unit.
- "Disqualified": during the eligibility verification process, the customer was disqualified by having a member of his family or a person residing in his house eligible for the GMS discount (in effect, a family member or house mate is a GM employee), or failing to meet other requirements as set down by the terms of the First 1000 Exclusive Retail Orders portion of the Early Order Program.
The point is that neither Pontiac nor the Early Order Program Headquarters can check your time stamp for you.
Sigh....
Now, let's look at where we go from here:
You probably have a VOM order in the system by this point (you probably had a VOM in the system on April 15th). What becomes more important now is to watch for the status of your VOM order to go to code 3000 and later to code 3300. For more information on this, see:
link to: Target Production Week Survey. Don't vote in the poll until you've visited your dealer and seen your code 3300 Target Production Week date. The poll is not supposed to be for guesses, desires, or wishful thinking.
YOU WILL GET A SOLSTICE!
You said it yourself, you are your dealer's first order, and now, you need to find out from your dealer how many units your dealer has for his/her first 4 month allocation.
Sorry that your dealer seems not to have sufficiently understood the process.
The same thing happened to many of the folks on this forum. :brentil: But, take heart! You will get a Solstice, now you can work on fretting about when.