Is there a way to see what cars/configs are headed to a dealer? Is there a website I can check out with this info. I could've sworn I've read about people ordering and checking incoming inventory and such..
The VW of America website is pretty good at providing information to find a car, even ones on the way to dealers.
1. Go to
http://www.vw.com and click on "BUILD YOU OWN" on the left of the page. Enter your zip code. Go through the process and configure the exact one you're looking for. When you're finished, you should be on the "SUMMARY" page.
2. Scroll down on the "SUMMARY" page a bit and look in the middle for "INVENTORY" and click it.
3. Click on the blue "VIEW INVENTORY", and check out the cars available in the sales district of the dealer closest to the zip code (see below). The ones on the way will show "IN TRANSIT" below the picture of the car. Click on the picture to show the dealer.
If you want to contact the dealer through the VW website, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on "CONTACT DEALER" but be careful. Make sure you scroll up a bit to where it says "Let's Meet" and click "The dealer with this car" otherwise by default it's your local dealer.
Now, here is something I learned from a salesman.
Don't know if this applies everywhere, but in SoCal it does.
The inventory you see in the search is grouped by VW dealer districts, not by geographic area. The databases are separate.
You won't see a match 10 miles away if it's in a different district.
And it can be crazy. A dealer 10 miles from Los Angeles is based in the San Diego district with dealers 120 miles away.
The zip code you entered for the search in step 1 determines the inventory that is searched. So change zip codes and do more searches to find everything in your area.
The easiest way is to go to the inventory search results page (not the dealer page) and scroll up to "Inventory near You".
On the line below you can change the zip code.