Honda customers are being forced to wait up to two years for their new car, joining the growing list of brands with a lengthy queue.
Thousands of Honda customers in Australia are being forced to wait between four months and two years for their new cars as the company grapples with production constraints and shipping bottlenecks across its skeleton line-up of four models.
The new boss of Honda Australia, Carolyn McMahon, told media this week the new Honda Civic Type R hot hatch rolling into showrooms already has a waiting list that stretches beyond two years.
Honda Australia would not reveal how many customers are on the waiting list – though it is estimated to be close to 1000.
However, one source within the company told Drive Honda Australia is negotiating with head office in Japan to increase its allocation of vehicles.
Ms McMahon also confirmed wait times for the Civic hybrid “are out to the middle of next year” and the HR-V small SUV has wait times of up to “seven months” for the hybrid – and four months for the petrol variant.
The Honda HR-V has averaged about 450 sales per month since it launched in April 2022 – across petrol and hybrid power.
Ms McMahon said Honda is working to improve vehicle supply – ”it will get better, volume will get better” – but could not say when that might be.
“I can’t say definitively when it’s going to be fixed. I don’t think anyone can.
“There are so many factors. It’s not just the supply from the factory, it’s port congestion, so we’re dealing with a lot of factors.”
Honda is working to manage customer expectations, the executive said.
“We believe the best approach today is just communication. Keeping them updated, and that’s both at the time of sale – being up-front about what the realistic wait time is … with the customer – and of course keeping the customer updated across the journey.”
An exclusive Drive report revealed at least 60,000 new cars across most brands are caught up in a quarantine traffic jam on a scale never seen before in Australia.
Expert cleaning teams are struggling to treat the volume of incoming vehicles for serious biosecurity hazards such as seeds and pests that threaten Australian agriculture.
Stevedores who specialise in car transport told Drive it normally takes 24 hours – working around the clock – to unload a vessel carrying 3000 new cars, disembarking approximately 125 new cars per hour.
However, quarantine cleaning teams can only process vehicles at a rate of nine cars per hour – during normal business hours – as the vehicles need to be thoroughly checked and cleaned.
Ms McMahon said Honda already takes significant steps to minimise biosecurity risks related to its imported vehicles.
“For many, many years Honda has had a very proactive approach to ensuring compliance with biosecurity requirements. We’ve worked very closely with our factories and have a lot of preventative measures in place.
“There’s lots of commentary around why it’s happening [now]. Whether cars are just being left for too long out in the elements before shipping… I don’t know that there’s anyone immune to it. It’s just how you manage it.
“The positive thing for us is that the [fixed-price sales] model is working and demand is okay. Demand is where we want it to be. Our job is to secure more supply.
“We’ve got good support and we’ve just got to ride it until it gets there.”
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