Tracking Progress on your Polo and Polo GTI

[broxigar1983]

Morning Carol has disappeared again, probably won't be on radar for another week as it passes deepest darkest Africa. Tombarra must be very close to South Africa now????...surely
Yeah, the strike threat is a real worry, might have to break through the union barricades and drive my car off...perhaps Fast & Furious 6?

Just hope it makes it past the stormy Cape of Good Hope

F&F5 was actually a good movie , best F&F IMO

[GTI JOE]

I think the main worry for all concerned is the upcoming Stevedores national strike this weekend. I hope they end it soon, otherwise the wait for shipping from Europe to Australia will seem like a "blink of an eye"

[gavs]

Wallenius Wilhelmsen maintain the whole shipping cycle of the car and seeing as boats are still being sent here to unload, I would say that if the Patrick Stevedores strike is going to affect things, they will commision P&O to do the offloading etc. There is more than one warfie company down there Getting it to the dealer though, that's a different story....

[Corey_R]

Why would you strike if there was someone else to take over your work? It'd kinda defeat the purpose. I'm pretty sure that some other company can't just come in and take over (easily).

[Ohmang]

They may divert the cars to another port in Australia but I thought the strike was nation wide.

They can't strike forever as the car carriers will just keep piling up out off the port. This will hopefully be resolved like many other disputes within a week.

Another thing they need to realise is that If the people who are striking don't go back to work, there will always be someone else on this earth that will do the job cheaper...

[LRich]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum, but have been browsing since I ordered my Polo (77tsi pepper grey, sports, audio, leather) in December last year. The delivery co-ordinator at my dealership has been ridiculously unhelpful - numerous unreturned emails and phone calls for the last couple of months and I've finally gotten a VIN # today. Apparently my car was supposed to ship yesterday but still looks to be sitting on the dock. Is there any way I can find out what ships were supposed to leave yesterday / are leaving soon? Does anyone know how long the ship takes from Sth Africa to Melb?

Really appreciate your help!

Thanks,
Laura

[gavs]

hi Laura, welcome to the forum and to Polo boat watching

Unfortunately for you, your dealer has probably told you fibs (for a change) because if it was meant to have been shipped yesterday, it would show up as loaded on vessel in the status. It should show that it is at least "booked" but there are no booked cars showing up when I just searched The last cars loaded on a vessel were loaded on the 11th of April, the next vessel to arrive in Port Elizabeth is the Toreador on 18th April, then you will have to wait until the Tombarra which is the 30th of April.

Sorry for the bad news...

[gavs]

Ok, spoke with VGA customer care today, the guy was actually rather helpful which was good. After a brief chat about how my car is currently playing boats somewhere off the west coast of Africa and how I am tracking it through the VIN, we got onto talking about the Patrick Stevedores industrial action at the Webb dock here in Melbourne and the potential effects it will have regarding supply of cars etc. Now, take this with a grain of salt as we all know the level of truth that can come out of VGA but this person I spoke to seemed pretty clued up.

According to the logistics area (which I believe this person is involved with), there are no reports of the Stevedores action affecting the delivery of any VW models as yet, so far, it is only affecting Japanese based ships, none of Wallenius Wilhelmsen ships have been affected yet, both the Torino and Manon have discharged their cargo basically on time, the Torino based cars dispatched 8 days after arriving which is pretty good, based on that, those of you with Manon cars, they should hopefully be dispatched today if all goes well.

That being said, those of us who have another 3 weeks and 6 days, 2 weeks 6 days for those on the Tombarra, we might face a different scenario...

[gavs]

Crap, forgot the other 2 things I was going to mention!

Corey's post: There are 2 major companies that work the Melbourne docks, I'm not sure if Patrick's controls the Webb dock or if it is shared between them and P&O. If indeed it is shared, WW can turn around and say no to patrick and yes to P&O stevedores.

Patricks logistics who do all the pre-delivery stuff (remove spring spacers, pull of plastic screens, put owners manuals in teh cars, compliance plates etc) are a separate division of Patrick's, they're Patrick's logistics so they aren't affected by the strike action.

Ohmang: Yes, you are right. Where there are no striking workers, ships are being dierted there already. One has been diverted up to Port Kembler, a couple of others to Geelong so the cars will get off the boats ok. Like I said before, so far WW haven't been effected so fingers crossed, they won't be!

[LRich]

Thanks gavs.

any idea of how I can get some accurate information out of VW? it seems as soon as the contract is signed, customer service is no longer a concern to them!