My dealer supposedly made a trade with another dealership so that they could get my PW xB at port. This was one week ago. I have repeatedly asked for the VIN so that I may inquire about insurance, but he says that he won't know that until the vehicle is a little closer. Is this true?
Second, I was told last friday, that I would have my xB in three weeks. I live in Iowa. Is this too long of a wait? It seems to me that it shouldn't take 3 weeks to get a car from one side of the country to Iowa. Opinions, please. Help is much appreciated.

I live on the opposite end of NY from where the port of NY is, and my xB is at port as well. I was told it would take a week to a week and a half to get my car from there.

call your dealer and see if they'll get you the VIN for your insurance, see what they say.

:lol: From my experience of selling the scions and toyotas in general. If your dealer does a dealer trsde with another dealer then they should have immediate access to the vin number because that is the first thing that is needed to complete a dealer trade. But if your dealer is waiting for a vehicle to get to the port then to you, then they wont have the vin number until the vehicle is 3-5 days out. That should help you out.

:lol: From my experience of selling the scions and toyotas in general. If your dealer does a dealer trsde with another dealer then they should have immediate access to the vin number because that is the first thing that is needed to complete a dealer trade. But if your dealer is waiting for a vehicle to get to the port then to you, then they wont have the vin number until the vehicle is 3-5 days out. That should help you out.

Yup. What he said.

ok, this I understand, but 3 weeks to get it here? That sounds a little long.

Why wait for Iowa to get you one. I could not wait and drove to Louisiana to pick one up.

I could have had them ship me one from Ohio, but that would have cost an extra 700 bucks. For that much money, I'll get more accessories, besides, that kind of a road trip with a brand new engine isn't my bag. I don't know how good it is on your engine to drive it like that when it's so new, especially when I've heard break in horror stories about this engine.
Besides, it's THEIR job to get me my car in a timely fashion, not mine.

Where in Iowa are you?

actually this is something thats happened to me before. the majority of times the VIN number is not available until the car is done processing at the port. in my region we have a couple different status'es. M, A, I, W. if it's in M (match) we probably were just allocated the car. it might still be on its way to port. usually cars are 20-30 days in M, and we HAVE to wait till it counts down. once it goes into A the car is having the port accessories added to it (factory alloys/wheel covers or upgraded CD players). when it flips to I it's inbound on a truck or about to be put on a truck. after I is W which means its on the ground at a dealer.

trust me it's frustrating for dealers too to have to wait for a car. they want to deliver it as fast as you want to pick it up, and sometimes we both just have to wait. it took 5 weeks once to get a BC xB MTX. hope this helps.

EDIT oh btw...as far as dealer trades go yes we have the VIN if the car is inbound or already on the ground and being traded for. in that case paperwork is done and VIN's are swapped. if a car is traded for while it is in match then no paperwork is done. we just log into our regional mainframe and swap inventory.

That is exactly what I wanted to know! Thank you very much, I'll shut up now!

Same thing for us. We have A, F, and G status. A means that the vehicle is allocated to us but not yet in our inventory. F means it is in transit from the port, usually a week to 10 days out. G means it is on the ground. We don't get the vin and stock number until the vehicle is in F. We can do trades at the port but we may not have the VIN yet.

When we do trades with dealerships who have the car on the ground (which is 99% of the trades) we get the vin instantly.

Hope that helps.