New car order: extras 'not available in configurator'

[Rainer]

I have ordered a new car, comfortline, manual, dap, which (apparently) hasn't been built yet...

My question: Has anybody been successful in the past in ordering extras that are not 'standard' or available to the Australian market?

On VW's German site, options such as sports seats, engines etc can be added individually to an order.
(Ideally I would have liked the 150hp highline engine instead of the 120hp option available for a manual non-gti golf)

[JustCruisn]

You are going to be limited to what VW Australia want to sell.
If the planned free trade agreements actually get implemented we may be able to import directly, this would open up the individual options a lot more, but would need to get right hand drive.

[Dutch77]

You'd still be bound by what VW HQ would sell you, they'd direct you to VWA.

Guess you could buy from a dealer, not sure how the warranty claim would go if they wanted to see the car.

[brad]

If they let you buy it then they have to provide after-sales support (warranty, spares, training to techs on how to fix). You haven't got a chance. They won't even let you choose overseas colours.

[Eaglehawk]

They won't even let you choose overseas colours.

There have been a few exceptions. Someone managed to get the Passat Alltrack in red. Wasn't there also a run of Mk6 GTIs that came in a non-available Australian colour too?

[brad]

There have been a few exceptions. Someone managed to get the Passat Alltrack in red. Wasn't there also a run of Mk6 GTIs that came in a non-available Australian colour too?

There's been some exceptions but I believe there was some wrist slapping associated with it too.

I find the Australian VW / Skoda colour choices so boring. Wife refused to buy an Alltrack because the colours were all "old man choices".

I think colour should be one thing that you can get a special order on - maybe with a non-refundable component in case you decide to bail out after the build is locked-in.

[Dutch77]

I've argued that point for years - there is absolutely no problem for VWA to do it, and if the customer is willing to pay whatever is deemed a fair non-refundable deposit so the dealer doesn't get stuck with a purple GTI at a loss than what is the harm? Besides VWA actually giving a crap about its customer base.. ha yeah ok there's the answer.

[booba]

The only variation that i ever managed to get was ordering shadow blue on a MY08 GTI after they discontinued that colour on MY08.

[Eaglehawk]

I managed to get my Golf TDI Mk5 with an all black interior. (Leather was optioned) Apparently you get that vanilla colour if you get dark leather, we told them no thanks