Production slots. How do they work?...

[fred3]

So I've been getting an education. Pretty sure it's not complete, but It's getting there. I know that each dealership here in the U.S. gets so many production slots per month(one slot=one car). I guess that also means they get a total for the year. Once their allotment for the month is gone they have to wait for next months. The question is do they get a set number for the Mini Cooper and a set number for the CooperS, or can the total number of slots be filled by either model(I guess the convertable falls in there somewhere)?

Any enlightenment in this would be appreciated. Thanks.

[BlueCS]

All the dealers work on an allocation system, so its not a fixed number of cars per month (unless the dealer just opened). This is affected by turnover rate, CSI (slightly), and how many cars they have in stock/pipeline. Factory generally sets a limit for the number of cars in the total 3 month pipeline (meaning stock, cars already produced/shipping, & order bank), and will use that to help determine the next month's allocation.

Essentially the factory will give the dealership X number of cars per month (= X production numbers), however that number varies each month and can vary in percentage of Coopers to S models to convertibles. The ratios generally stay close to the same, but sometimes vary quite a bit. This isn't even a system I completely understand after a year & a half, but they have also been revising it to even out the stream of cars the dealerships get (as we complain to no end when we get a total of 10 cars in a month & then get 60 the next), so its changed twice already at least.

Basically, all you need to know is whether the dealer you're planning to buy from has an available production number for the model you want. If not, find out how long the list is and a ballpark for when they expect to get to you a production number (= a car in the production line).

Note: if you get a production number, sign onto the owner's lounge and find the configuration is different, its usually because they modified another car, and owner's lounge doesn't update realtime. Give it a few days in that case for the factory site to catch up.

Hope that helps.