Tracking Your Volt Order

[Chevyconnects]

Thanks Larry! I'm still crossing my fingers for a wed/thurs delivery. Cmon Santa!

Yeah Dan that would be a Christmas Miracle for sure! Its going to be at least 3 days on rail, one unload and one for delivery in the perfect no delay or issues scenario. There will without doubt be stops and transfers along the way. And then actual trucking to dealer could take a few days in reality. My bets is that you will have it before New Years though. But I will keep my fingers crossed for that miracle just the same.

[Chevyconnects]

My car was dropped at the dealership last night and is being prepped. Just so's you know, the Cassen's tracking site still shows it as not delivered, so there obviously can be a long delay on that status.

Might be picking it up today, but timing with a party we're going to tonight is going to make that a close call. Either way by tomorrow I'll post some pictures of it, since we'll be going to the dealer to see it and go over paperwork.

Since I may or may not be driving it away tonight, I'm keeping a lid on being too excited, and there are still some lease discrepancies that need to be worked out before we actually have a deal. But I'm very relieved at least that the car finally appeared after leaving Hamtramck on Tuesday.

See it was not lost like you thought. Yeah the cassens update wont happen until the driver logs in and updates their system. Some do it at every stop. Others do it at the end of their trip. Hope you get it for your party tonight. I am sure everyone would love to see it. Larry

[bookdabook]

Book's train had a 12/15 shipping date and CSX still says Louisville since 10 PM yesterday. Larry says Illinois is next, so maybe the next update will be there. Too bad GM can't leave OnStar on so each Volt could be tracked that way!

Yes, I just checked and this is the case. My Volt is sitting in a Lou Railyard as we type. My brother lives there. I could send him down to take pictures but I'm sure he would never find it ... let alone agree to do such, you know, brothers. I also reached 4150 so told my dealer to do some workups on buy vs lease. We'll see how fast he follows through on that. Very cool to hear all of the received stories, those that made it to garages and those that got held up for whatever reason.

-Waitin' on #135, -Book

[Cari]

My car was dropped at the dealership last night and is being prepped. Just so's you know, the Cassen's tracking site still shows it as not delivered, so there obviously can be a long delay on that status.

Might be picking it up today, but timing with a party we're going to tonight is going to make that a close call. Either way by tomorrow I'll post some pictures of it, since we'll be going to the dealer to see it and go over paperwork.

Since I may or may not be driving it away tonight, I'm keeping a lid on being too excited, and there are still some lease discrepancies that need to be worked out before we actually have a deal. But I'm very relieved at least that the car finally appeared after leaving Hamtramck on Tuesday.

Glad to see it showed up! We are proud of you keeping a lid on being too excited. My concern is we will be so excited to have a Volt that we will not be able to see hidden issues within our lease terms. We hope you will post your concerns and what changes they made from start to finish on your lease neg. under a lease thread here. Need to know what dealers are pulling or getting wrong over US Bank terms told to them.

[ChrisC]

transit times for railcars bound to East Coast destinations

plus links to rail cartracking info

You can get your railcar info from the Volt Advisor line after the car get loaded onto the rail system. You can then track your railcar using the CSX tracking instructions here. We've seen that the phone tracking status lags reality by a couple hours. The times reported are local to car location, meaning ET if in Detroit, PT in California, etc.

East coast rail transit times are about 4-5 days. West coast rail transit times are about 12 days. Texas is about 1 week. After it arrives at the destination railyard, it takes at least a day or two (possibly 4-5) to get unloaded and trucked to your dealer, then your dealer needs a day for PDI.

Below is the data on the first three railcars that we watched cross the country headed for east coast destinations. I kept track of the first three railcars that we knew of heading to the east coast, so we could get an initial idea of how things move. For those nervous owners-to-be that come behind us

Railcar number                  ETTX 800301                     ETTX 810251                     ETTX 852457
Forum user(s)                   ChrisC/284                      dankum/331                      foypat/271
dep Hamtramck (truck)           Dec 15th  4:51am                Dec 17th
arr New Boston MI (by truck)    Dec 15th  8:51am                Dec 17th  4:00pm
dep New Boston MI railyard      Dec 17th  7:07am
arr Walbridge OH railyard       Dec 17th 11:08am                Dec 18th  2:17pm
dep Walbridge OH railyard       Dec 18th  8:40am                Dec 20th 12:36pm                Dec 20th  5:04am (?)
                                via Cumberland MD railyard      via Collinwood OH railyard
                                                                  via Selkirk NY railyard
                                Dec 19th  6:55am arr Jessup MD  Dec 22nd AM arr Newark* NJ      Dec 20th  2:20pm arr Newark* NJ
                                Dec 19th  later  railcar empty                                  Dec 21st midday  railcar empty
                                Dec 21st 10:00am  on truck
ultimate destination            No. VA dealer                   NJ dealer                       NJ dealer

* The Newark NJ CSX railyard is called "Doremus Avenue", which the CSX automated info line does a poor job of pronouncing
* If you hear "IHB" on the CSX status line, here's more about that.

[LGA]

I read in the paper this morning that my dealer in Seaside, CA, (near Monterey) took delivery of 2 Volts, VIN # 003 and 004. They were apparently pre-sold to "Silicon Valley executives" who had connections at GM. Good news that Volts have made it to my town. I'm expcting mine right after the first of the year. I'm next on his list.

[Chevyconnects]

I'm moving again! Well, me and whoever's on the railcar with me.

OK, since we now know of two railcars moving to the East Coast, I'm going to keep a record of their transit times here, so that we get an initial idea of how things move. For those nervous owners-to-be that come behind us

Railcar number                  ETTX 800301         ETTX 810251
Forum user(s)                   ChrisC/284          dankum/331
dep Hamtramck (truck)           Dec 15th  4:51am    Dec 17th
arr New Boston, MI (by truck)   Dec 15th  8:51am    Dec 17th  4:00pm
dep New Boston, MI railyard     Dec 17th  7:07am
arr Walbridge, OH railyard      Dec 17th 11:08am
dep Walbridge, OH railyard      Dec 18th  8:40am
arr Cumberland, MD railyard
ultimate destination            No. VA dealer       NJ dealer

I did check the CSX line at around 9:45am today and it still had the old info. When I checked again at around 11:15am it knew about the Cumberland departure that had happened at 8:40am. So there is definitely some lag in the reporting.

ChevyConnects, should we expect to get intermediate location info as it rolls on the long legs, e.g. Walbridge OH to Cumberland MD in my case? I'm hoping that by Monday morning I'll have a sense of when it's going to arrive at the end of the line.

Chris, you and I are of the same mold.. I love data..collecting....looking for trends etc. bahahahahaha!
Actually it is remarkable that they can keep such good track of all those railcars. A couple hour lag is really pretty good in the whole big picture of knowing where your car is. Once it gets to the railyard listen untill you hear the magic words empty. That will be the signal that you are availble to the trucking company for dispatch. Larry

Edit..oooops i missed your question but Lisa pointed it out
You can get a location along the way if it happens to get scanned as it moves thru a rail station. Or if it is placed on a side track for any reason. There are many different status posts on CSX that can be related to specific movements of the railcar. More than likely you will at the very least be constructively placed on a stageing track near the final terminal.

[Electric Lurker]

My car was dropped at the dealership last night and is being prepped. Just so's you know, the Cassen's tracking site still shows it as not delivered, so there obviously can be a long delay on that status.

Might be picking it up today, but timing with a party we're going to tonight is going to make that a close call. Either way by tomorrow I'll post some pictures of it, since we'll be going to the dealer to see it and go over paperwork.

Since I may or may not be driving it away tonight, I'm keeping a lid on being too excited, and there are still some lease discrepancies that need to be worked out before we actually have a deal. But I'm very relieved at least that the car finally appeared after leaving Hamtramck on Tuesday.

Great news, volt11! Keep us posted...

[volt11]

See it was not lost like you thought. Yeah the cassens update wont happen until the driver logs in and updates their system. Some do it at every stop. Others do it at the end of their trip. Hope you get it for your party tonight. I am sure everyone would love to see it. Larry

Thanks, Larry, and again thanks for your help! -Bob

[WopOnTour]

It's funny and sad at the same time, especially for a company that's been in this business for a century and publicly acknowledges how important this product is to their image and future plans. I know a couple of GM folks who are less than happy about how well the launch is being handled so far. But don't know how high up the chain that dissatisfaction goes, at least not yet. These are the GM folks who "get it", realizing that each Volt customer is going to be questioned like crazy by probably hundreds of people about how they like the car, etc., and every negative experience they have buying or owning is likely to end up in that communications chain, including all over the internet. I know I intend to be very public and frank about my experiences, both positive and negative. No sugar coating here.

As I posted yesterday, when I spoke to a Volt Advisor, who like you gave me old information, he was interested to find out about how we're able to track the cars better than the information they are given, and I don't know if he'll be using the Cassens.com or chevroletconnects sites, for example, but it sounded like a definite possibility! We agreed with each other that he can only do his job to the extent that he's provided helpful information and resources from GM, and the empowerment to be effective. He didn't say as much, but I could tell in the subtext he was not satisfied with what he's being given. That made 2 of us!

OMG
You guys gotta get a grip.
Remember camarotracking.com, chevroletconnects.com, and gmconnects.com ARE NOT GENERAL MOTORS WEBSITES!
Having consumers tracking their cars on carrier trucks and railcars via a 3rd party web-site isnt something GM generally expects or plans for. Those codes you guys have become so well versed in are generally reserved for GM zone distribution specialists within the company (and dealership sales people) for locating product enroute for a variety of reasons. (why would you even think a a Volt Advisor would have that information?)

Generally once a vehicle is ordered the consumer would typically rely on the dealer to provide information as to when it is expected to be delivered. They certainly arent expecting consumers to be calling the dealer or VA with 3rd party tracking data asking WTF?
This is supposed to be the FUN part! i.e. watching your Volt make it's trek across the country, NOT something to complain and gripe about.
Certainly these shipping processes are generally not scrutinized to ths level and IS NOT considered as being a formal aspect of the "vehicle delivery" process -that commences AFTER the car gets to the dealership.
There's no "GM executives dissatisfied with how its going" as its all happening "normally" and going according to plan to this point.
Let's all breath and and take a "reality check"
WopOnTour