is Polaris watching?
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They are watching. I ran into a couple of engineers a while back and they asked who I was on the forum. When I told them they both knew the name!
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Just be to very clear and make sure you understand, dealers are NOT getting VIN numbers on Friday. They are suppose to receive "order/shipment" updates on Friday. Polaris's "intent" is to ship 2 in the first half of November. This leaves a very open window for more changes to shipping. And if dealers only receive one it could be a longer wait.
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which dealer did you purchase from and which SS did you get.
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Any engineering team that can put together such a
It's tough to be in their shoes right now I bet. 99% of them have probably been busting their butt to get the product out the door. But they can't step in and tell their side of the story due to corporate policy. Getting a new design like this out the door is very difficult.
I'm guessing the problems getting the slingshot out the door are the same for any new production line: parts availability, parts lead time, last minute QA corrections, it all adds up to delays and headache. I know a lot of people here would like Polaris to be transparent but that is just not good business to air your dirty laundry. Remember the old saying: "It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it".
Confessing to production headaches is only going to undermine confidence. And as pissed as we are, the core enthusiasts, the majority of the public does not care and is not thinking about the Slingshot. If Polaris were to own up to all their difficulties it would only serve to lower their brand value in the majority of the public.
Be patient. Be assured, Polaris is watching and they care about this product. It is just that appeasing the core audience of enthusiasts right now will do more harm than good with the general public. It will come and it will be awesome.
David
Engineers are normal people too (well mostly). They care about their work and take pride in what they do. And most certainly they are computer literate so I would be surprised if most did not watch the site. But they have to be very careful about participating, I'm guessing Polaris has pretty strict rules about speaking as a representative of the company or sharing proprietary information.
It's tough to be in their shoes right now I bet. 99% of them have probably been busting their butt to get the product out the door. But they can't step in and tell their side of the story due to corporate policy. Getting a new design like this out the door is very difficult.
I'm guessing the problems getting the slingshot out the door are the same for any new production line: parts availability, parts lead time, last minute QA corrections, it all adds up to delays and headache. I know a lot of people here would like Polaris to be transparent but that is just not good business to air your dirty laundry. Remember the old saying: "It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it".
Confessing to production headaches is only going to undermine confidence. And as pissed as we are, the core enthusiasts, the majority of the public does not care and is not thinking about the Slingshot. If Polaris were to own up to all their difficulties it would only serve to lower their brand value in the majority of the public.
Be patient. Be assured, Polaris is watching and they care about this product. It is just that appeasing the core audience of enthusiasts right now will do more harm than good with the general public. It will come and it will be awesome.
David
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Interestingly, the fax was dated 10/18/14, though. It wasn't released till today, though. But I figure Polaris must have had some intention of releasing it Saturday.
Maybe the fax line was down?
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My guess is the only guy old enough to remember how to send a fax went home early that day!
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I appreciate your post David, but I completely disagree. This is not about problems or getting it right. They have 1500 plus vehicles ready to ship sitting in warehouses. These will be the same vehicles in November or December that they are right now. You don't send your VP Mike Jonikas on a major News station and say "dealers will start seeing these by the end of October " and then send out a fax instead of deliveries! Open your mouth or keep it shut, you're already a fool. If I was the VP and my honor was on the line I would ship 10 if that's all I had to keep my word and maintain my credibility. But we know they have more than ten. So honesty means nothing to Mr Jonikas does it?
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CT I love common sense!
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I don't know (or care) if Polaris is watching. I did find it curious that when I talked to my sales rep about pulling my deposit due to the travel situation, that he A. assured me they had the storage capability to keep it until my return and B. Stated they would get it to me in an enclosed trailer if the weather had turned. Almost like he knew there was an announcement pending, maybe not the content of it, but I believe he knew.
My apologies about that, I could have sworn I took that back. That was a case of fat fingers lil phone. I hit disagree by accident while scrolling through.
How do you know this? Do you know for a fact that there are 1500 plus vehicles that are all ready to go just sitting and waiting? Why would Polaris just sit on them and wait? I highly doubt your information to be 100% correct and would think that you would want to question your source as well. I know several people involved in building these great vehicles at the Spirit Lake plant and definitely don't know everything (far from it) but have heard some things that counter your statement. I can't say exactly what I've heard and I don't know everything but Polaris isn't going to just hold them back for shits and giggles even if it is 1500 vehicles which probably isn't the case either.
David probably has it right. Last minute changes/improvements are probably a good guess on why there may be some delay (which it still isn't much of a delay to think shipping first week of Nov. is very very close to end of October). It is a new product and you have to expect some of those issues David was talking about. If they start shipping units in the first week of November even the 2nd week of November 2 weeks later than planned/stated isn't too big for a brand new product launch. There are a ton of companies that announce a new model and they don't show up right away or the ship dates move back, it is pretty common. There is a lot that goes on creating something new. Not trying to make excuses for Polaris, but it happens. They find a better part or a small problem and instead of pushing an inferior part or problem onto the customer they fix it before sending them out. I would rather get any upgrades or fixes that they know about before getting my unit even if it means waiting just a little bit. I'd love to be out cruising while it is still nice out, I want one now, but I really don't think Polaris is holding these back just because they can or want to have more to send out all at once. I could be wrong but don't think I am.
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I wrote that the slingshot was sold out in Quebec because a sales men tell that he stop to sell because he don't know if some of # 20 or 25 will get it in 2015 . and 1 week after they send a Polaris guy at the dealer to countinu as well to sell the Ss
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If holding them for updates is the case then why wouldn't they at least communicate that much to their dealers in the fax that was sent? Rather than defects I tend to believe the theory that a decision was made up top to delay shipments until more units could be staged for delivery to an greatly expanded list of dealers.
This expanded dealer pool requires more units (a great explanation for why they now can only ship two instead of three units) and they also require additional display's (which have to be installed and ready prior to receiving units). A delay in getting these displays out to the dealers could also be part of the issue here. There is a warning that they must be setup or you could miss the first wave of deliveries but you cannot have it setup of they have not shipped one to you yet.
Bottom line, holding shipments due to last minute updates would not effect total numbers going out to dealers. In fact, that scenario would allow for additional units coming off the line. I think they drastically underestimated consumer demand which in turn means a much larger number of dealers signing on to sell. I agree with CT in that the right thing to do is to ship units to the first dealers that signed on and in the numbers they were promised. Dealers that sat on their thumbs doing the wait and see game should have to wait, period.
Why would they? Look at how fast that fax was put up here. Many dealers hadn't seen it before we saw it online. If you were Polaris would you want everyone to know everything that was going on possibly ruining someone's confidence in the product.
Say Polaris found that after 150,000 miles of testing that part x starts to fail, they find a better way of making the part or a better vendor and decide to go with that part. If they advertise that oh we aren't releasing this product right now because we are replacing all of the "part x"s that can hurt the companies image and some people are only going to remember oh that company doesn't make a good product they found all these part x's that weren't good etc.
Why, as stated earlier, "air dirty laundry in public"?
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