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Production Issues


zhuskers1

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33 minutes ago, COOP said:

I think the problem is they dont know if they will be able to deliver. And Malibu isnt the only brand that has this problem.

I agree and that too should be communicated if it’s a possibility. 

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1 hour ago, COOP said:

I think the problem is they dont know if they will be able to deliver. And Malibu isnt the only brand that has this problem.

If this is the case, even more reason to communicate, communicate, communicate. 

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2 hours ago, Trizzil said:

Personalized communication would be too much, but a letter from the CEO addressed to all PENDING order customers with an update would go a looooong way. 

The CEO should empathize, provide a plan, and reassure the customer that they will deliver (regardless of whatever that timeline looks like). Most importantly, take extreme ownership even if it’s not their fault.  

There’s simply too much inconsistency across Malibu dealers that some customers get updates while others are just expected to wait in silence. 
 

The dealer letter that was shared in this thread is a great example. One dealer provided it to their customers while others only communicate if you reach out to them. 
 

I understand it’s frustrating for everyone involved, but the best thing you can do in situations like these as a manufacturer and dealer is to over communicate. Even if it’s no news. 
 

I might be out outlier, but if you’re going to charge $100k+ for your product, your quality, service, etc. should match. 
 

Dear Malibu: happy to have a productive conversation to discuss solutions.

 

- Patiently Waiting Customer 

 

11 hours ago, Trizzil said:

The bigger frustration for me is seeing orders placed after mine being sprayed and delivered before mine.  Ordered in October...original spray date mid-April...new spray date mid-June (if I’m lucky). 
 

For a toy as expensive as this one, even some manufacturer communication (not dealer) should be expected. The fact that we all get more from this forum vs. directly from Malibu has been surprising and disappointing. 
 

That said, they’re clearly in uncharted territory as a manufacturer and I can only hope client experience leaders are viewing this and the several other threads like it for feedback on how to improve. 
 

P.S..First time Malibu buyer so no long term fan loyalty...yet. 

I couldn’t agree with you more on production not based on order dates.    I recognize production grouping to drive efficiency, but this seems to be beyond that strategy. 

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So to offer some hope we ordered a 23 MXZ in early October (I think that translates into holding a build slot, we gave them a deposit), provided build details in late December, and received it last week.  It is still being prepped for delivery, pictures to follow.

I agree 100% Malibu could do better communications but ...... given the complexity of accurately forecasting each build and the fact that this should be a one season issue there is probably not a business case for them to build that kind of enhanced tracking.  

Just to throw out a number let's say they are going to build 400 boats before the 2022 model launch and each boat according to the letter that was shared has 2,000+ components.  Any time one of those components can't be sourced and a build has to be delayed every boat downstream gets shuffled, you could see build dates shift by weeks one way or another more than once before a particular unit is shipped.  How do you notify 400 customers that they are no longer on schedule, possibly multiple times?  What if a shortage allows boat A to be built earlier and boat B will miss their ship date, are they obliged to keep this new delivery date?  If they end up with surprise parts to build boat B on time but only if boat A goes back to its original build date who gets to call the future owner of boat A and ruin their day.

Part of the reason I am putting this narrative out is that four weeks before our late March spray date they cut two weeks off the spray date and stuck to that.  The most likely explanation to me is that builds were swapped due to a missing part.  Another 23 MXZ before us wanted an option that was not available so we got built and they dropped back by two weeks to our slot.  Who knows, perhaps the Rev 10's helped our build date.

Edited by Surf4FamFun
uses a plural where it should have been singular, should have read twice before I posted I guess
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On 4/7/2021 at 11:14 PM, Trizzil said:

The bigger frustration for me is seeing orders placed after mine being sprayed and delivered before mine.

Full disclosure, I'm making all this up based on reading tons of posts on here and have no real knowledge.

However, from reading many posts, I've come to the assumption that maybe it goes like this. Dealers are assigned certain spray date slots, and maybe that there are gaps in between that are assigned to customer orders. If this is true, maybe your dealer used up all of their "assigned" spots and the gap spots are fully sold out. Now your boat has to get at the end of the line at the time of order? If this is the case, if you bought from a successful dealer, and a month or 2 later I bought from a slower mover, my guy may still have assigned spots in the line. Mine might be delivered first.

Can anyone confirm this assumption to be true or just plain made up garbage? 

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ahopkins22LSV

You also cannot compare timing from dealer to dealer. For example, Tommy's has 7 dealer location now. Most have 1 location, some have 2 or 3. Tommy's has much more flex in their builds than a dealer with 1 location. They could take a stock boat's slot from a dealer location and turn it into a customer order for another location. Or bump a customer order back to fulfill someone else depending on those specific customer needs, like maybe the guy who lives in Florida and boats year round is willing to wait until, say a 2022 build slot to get someone's boat in Michigan built better who sometimes have more offseason than on. It is on the dealer to manage the timing in my opinion. They have direct lines to Malibu's production schedule and get updates. Keep in mind, even in a non all time order high, all time high stressed supply chain, you don't know your spray date until 3-4 weeks from when it is actually going to occur. 

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11 hours ago, ahopkinsVTX said:

You also cannot compare timing from dealer to dealer. For example, Tommy's has 7 dealer location now. Most have 1 location, some have 2 or 3. Tommy's has much more flex in their builds than a dealer with 1 location. They could take a stock boat's slot from a dealer location and turn it into a customer order for another location. Or bump a customer order back to fulfill someone else depending on those specific customer needs, like maybe the guy who lives in Florida and boats year round is willing to wait until, say a 2022 build slot to get someone's boat in Michigan built better who sometimes have more offseason than on. It is on the dealer to manage the timing in my opinion. They have direct lines to Malibu's production schedule and get updates. Keep in mind, even in a non all time order high, all time high stressed supply chain, you don't know your spray date until 3-4 weeks from when it is actually going to occur. 

When I ordered my boat in the late 2019 for spring 2020 delivery my dealer said spray dates are assigned on a monthly basis somewhere near the middle of the preceding month.  I got my date about 2 weeks before the boat entered production.  Spray date was in the first week or so of the month.   It was sprayed and then stuck in the factory COVID shutdown.  Life will go on.....

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23 hours ago, ahopkinsVTX said:

You also cannot compare timing from dealer to dealer. For example, Tommy's has 7 dealer location now. Most have 1 location, some have 2 or 3. Tommy's has much more flex in their builds than a dealer with 1 location. They could take a stock boat's slot from a dealer location and turn it into a customer order for another location. Or bump a customer order back to fulfill someone else depending on those specific customer needs, like maybe the guy who lives in Florida and boats year round is willing to wait until, say a 2022 build slot to get someone's boat in Michigan built better who sometimes have more offseason than on. It is on the dealer to manage the timing in my opinion. They have direct lines to Malibu's production schedule and get updates. Keep in mind, even in a non all time order high, all time high stressed supply chain, you don't know your spray date until 3-4 weeks from when it is actually going to occur. 

Thank you for the information.   The problem is that Malibu Dealerships are geographically protected based on delivery location.  Therefore if the dealer in your geographic area is smaller, you are at a disadvantage.  I know......before someone says it......this is business.    But it does put a smaller dealer's customers at a disadvantage from a build perspective.   If you are going to force clients to purchase in their geographic area, all orders should have somewhat equal weight (taking into consideration production scheduling and other issues).

It is not like the Automotive industry where you can order your vehicle from a larger dealer in a different city to get it sooner.  

This situation is causing "stress" and "stress" always exposes the strengths and weaknesses of any process.

I still love Malibu and I am patiently waiting......

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3/25 spray date and boat arrived at the dealer on 4/8. We ordered in September but told the dealer we didn't want it till late March. Got pretty close. Texas boat

Edited by Merk
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ahopkins22LSV
11 minutes ago, zhuskers1 said:

Thank you for the information.   The problem is that Malibu Dealerships are geographically protected based on delivery location.  Therefore if the dealer in your geographic area is smaller, you are at a disadvantage.  I know......before someone says it......this is business.    But it does put a smaller dealer's customers at a disadvantage from a build perspective.   If you are going to force clients to purchase in their geographic area, all orders should have somewhat equal weight (taking into consideration production scheduling and other issues).

It is not like the Automotive industry where you can order your vehicle from a larger dealer in a different city to get it sooner.  

This situation is causing "stress" and "stress" always exposes the strengths and weaknesses of any process.

I still love Malibu and I am patiently waiting......

That is not what I said. Big dealers don't force other dealers out of build spots, they have the ability to swap their own build slots. The bigger dealers just have more build slots, I am pretty sure each location gets the same ratio for each model and then the dealers choose how they fill those. Malibu doesn't bump a smaller dealer because Tommy's or Minnesota Inboards wants a boat built.

And it works exactly the same in the auto industry though if you are ordering a vehicle. If you order though a giant dealership network then they are going to have more allocated build slots than a small mom and pop dealership. Just because it isn't geographically locked in, doesn't mean that the allocated build slots are even to every Ford, GM, FCA (or whatever they are now) dealer out there.

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1 hour ago, zhuskers1 said:

But it does put a smaller dealer's customers at a disadvantage from a build perspective.   If you are going to force clients to purchase in their geographic area, all orders should have somewhat equal weight (taking into consideration production scheduling and other issues).

Just be glad you didn't buy a Mastercraft this year.

1 hour ago, ahopkinsVTX said:

Malibu doesn't bump a smaller dealer because Tommy's or Minnesota Inboards wants a boat built.

This is exactly what Mastercraft is doing to some dealers. I doubt they'd do this for custom orders but dealer stock slots had some redistribution to their larger markets.

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12 hours ago, ahopkinsVTX said:

That is not what I said. Big dealers don't force other dealers out of build spots, they have the ability to swap their own build slots. The bigger dealers just have more build slots, I am pretty sure each location gets the same ratio for each model and then the dealers choose how they fill those. Malibu doesn't bump a smaller dealer because Tommy's or Minnesota Inboards wants a boat built.

And it works exactly the same in the auto industry though if you are ordering a vehicle. If you order though a giant dealership network then they are going to have more allocated build slots than a small mom and pop dealership. Just because it isn't geographically locked in, doesn't mean that the allocated build slots are even to every Ford, GM, FCA (or whatever they are now) dealer out there.

Sorry, I misunderstood you.  This is very good to hear, I certainly had the wrong perception.  Thanks for sharing this information.  

I will just have to keep "patiently waiting".........

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Has anyone heard any updates about how production is running the last few weeks or is forecasted to run in the next 30 days?  Is it back to normal or still many large issues?  Just curious - I have a build date of May12th?

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On 4/10/2021 at 10:49 AM, NWBU said:

Just be glad you didn't buy a Mastercraft this year.

This is exactly what Mastercraft is doing to some dealers. I doubt they'd do this for custom orders but dealer stock slots had some redistribution to their larger markets.

:dontknow:

We are a smaller dealer and didn't get any slots bumped, nor did we hear of any others having that happen.

We are sold out of boats, and could definitely have used more build slots. However, we got just as many slots allocated to us as any other recent year. They are just selling faster than we can get them in.

I think that is more of an assumption from some dealers, because they are sold out and can't get more allocations.... Its frustrating.

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7 hours ago, Pnwrider said:

I heard that every time you change the title of this thread, your boat gets delayed another week. 

No one has changed the title of this thread....so my boat must be on schedule. :)  

Thank you for your thoughtful response

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11 hours ago, zhuskers1 said:

Has anyone heard any updates about how production is running the last few weeks or is forecasted to run in the next 30 days?  Is it back to normal or still many large issues?  Just curious - I have a build date of May12th?

Ive heard it pretty much week by week right now. 

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2 hours ago, zhuskers1 said:

 

Thank you for your thoughtful response

I'm going to steal this line when dealing with some of my family members. Thanks for the idea.

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2 hours ago, COOP said:

Ive heard it pretty much week by week right now. 

I just heard from my dealer.    Our build has been bumped from 5/12 to 5/24

He said model year usually changes over in July

Our dealer is doing a great job managing a bad situation with integrity and concern. 

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Anybody else getting bumped? My build date is June 1 but that seems so far out based on what I’m hearing about May dates being bumped. My dealer said all his dates are holding so far . He’s delivering 2-3 boats per week by what I see on IG . We just got that June 1 date at the beginning of this month . Ordered in October 

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Retail orders are between the dealer and customer. When a dealer submits an order to Malibu, Malibu knows it’s an ‘end user’ if the dealer properly clicked the right box but Malibu has no clue who the actual retail customer is so there is no way they could contact you if they wanted to. 

 

Second, they have been keeping dealers updated daily/weekly, if you’re not getting communication, speak with your dealer. 

 

Third, if they were even able to update the retail customer (which they can’t as previously stated) then they would be updating you on an hourly basis as the global supply chain is more stressed than any other time in history. They will get a call about receiving a truck of materials only to have the truck never show up but then get 2 trucks of the wrong material when nothing was scheduled to begin with. They are at the mercy of a completely wrecked global system and would fill up your junk box with all the changes. It’s never been an issue before, but these are vastly unique times that are hard to understand if you’re not in manufacturing but issues that you cannot put solely on Malibu. This is affecting all industries world wide.   Try to order a GM SUV with a HD tow package. Not happening right now. 

 

 

 


 

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32 minutes ago, Brianborder said:

 

 

Retail orders are between the dealer and customer. When a dealer submits an order to Malibu, Malibu knows it’s an ‘end user’ if the dealer properly clicked the right box but Malibu has no clue who the actual retail customer is so there is no way they could contact you if they wanted to. 

 

Second, they have been keeping dealers updated daily/weekly, if you’re not getting communication, speak with your dealer. 

 

Third, if they were even able to update the retail customer (which they can’t as previously stated) then they would be updating you on an hourly basis as the global supply chain is more stressed than any other time in history. They will get a call about receiving a truck of materials only to have the truck never show up but then get 2 trucks of the wrong material when nothing was scheduled to begin with. They are at the mercy of a completely wrecked global system and would fill up your junk box with all the changes. It’s never been an issue before, but these are vastly unique times that are hard to understand if you’re not in manufacturing but issues that you cannot put solely on Malibu. This is affecting all industries world wide.   Try to order a GM SUV with a HD tow package. Not happening right now. 

 

 

 


 

1,000,000 % accurate statements here.  The global supply chain is a mess.  Nearly all industries are affected in one way or another.  

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