places

Unless they can get you what YOU want it's an easy pass. Assuming it's a 63, that's a lot of money. No way compromise even if the dealer tries to throw some freebies. The steering wheel wouldn't bother me but the leather would 100%. If they can't change the order, see how long will it take to place a new order and ask for some compensation for your inconvenience.

mikapen

Unfortunately, what is included or excluded with various packages seems to vary day to day.

I am in a similar situation. I watched my Salesman go through my order line by line, during which he said a couple of times "That's strange, I could have ordered that combo yesterday when I ordered another but now it's not accepted."
A week later, he called and said my leather combo was back up, and that I had at least a week to make changes. THEN, two days later he called and told me that M-B order system went directly from green (can make changes) and went red (locked). It skipped yellow (Hurry!), so the handful of changes I was saving up couldn't be entered.
So now I have a car coming that's not quite right - and I'm still torn about taking it or not.

FWIW, your steering wheel changes aren't a surprise as they have gone back and forth over the past few months.
The same thing happened with our 2019 GLC, and I ended up taking it even though the last change from M-B was that Run-Flats were forced and a spare kit was eliminated.

In the end it's a decision on my part to start over again and wait, or spend $98k on the wrong color and no 3D Burmester.
Since options availability, production schedules and shipping are all over the board (just look at all the threads on this forum about delivery frustrations), I'm leaning towards taking the car - it will be a really nice one.

I even revisited my 2nd and 3rd choices - SQ7 and Cayenne - over the past two weeks and landed back on the AMG53 with ARC. It's stellar.

WolfStagen

Sorry to hear that you are in a similar situation as me. I also started doing the same as you and revisiting other potential options, but keep coming back to the AMG. It just seems to be the better car. Hopefully, Mercedes gets it together and starts being more consistent with the options, it's really annoying when things like these sneak up on you. It sucks to have to make this decision, I am personally leaning towards not accepting anything less than what I wanted. It's too much of my hard-earned money not to. But as others said I will probably have to wait longer for the car which sucks. Too bad the factory doesn't allow them to make last-minute changes in situations like these. It would probably solve a lot of issues for customers like us and the dealerships.

superswiss

Just to add to that. Due to COVID there are definitely some strange things happening with the order process currently. I've heard they have parts shortages and to still build cars, they are building them with whatever parts they can get. There are increased reports of the factory dropping options when the order gets locked in and even strange configurations leaving the factory. In OP's case the mistake may not have been made by the sales person, but the factory may have changed the order. Happens frequently.

Just a couple of recent strange configurations that have been reported. Somebody on here ordered a C43 with the AMG Drive Unit. According to the final invoice and window sticker, the option was dropped by the factory, but the actual car came with the AMG Drive Unit on the steering wheel, however it is non-functional. The guts of it are missing. They don't light up and don't do anything. Another case is of a C300, which according to the invoice etc. is supposed to have the analog instrument cluster, but the actual car has the digital instrument cluster, however, several of the features are missing. For example the owner can't change the layouts/design of it, so it seems they ran out of the analog cluster, put in a digital cluster instead and made it work more like the analog cluster. It seems ordering a car currently is fraught with potential issues due to the supply chain disruptions. It seems at the moment, even if you get your order in as desired, there is no guarantee the car will actually arrive that way and I suspect the other brands face similar challenges.

WolfStagen

Wow, thanks for the heads up, that's insane.

TNS550

Agree. Defeats the whole purpose of special ordering exactly what you want!

superswiss

I'm not sure what the situation is in other markets, but because of how car sales work in North America, where most people buy from dealer inventory and as I mentioned above, ordering a car is not binding at least in the USA, the factory doesn't really have much of an incentive to build cars exactly the way they are ordered. Once it arrives at the dealership, it is dealer inventory and the invoice has to be paid, so the car is sold either way from the factory's perspective. If the customer who ordered it refuses delivery, they just sell it to the next guy who wants it. It's the dealership's problem now.

When I ordered my C63 I did European Delivery and I double and tripled checked throughout the process to make sure the order is correct all the way to the factory. The good thing about ED was that MBUSA sent out the invoice periodically, because it's needed to take delivery of the car in Germany, so that served as the final confirmation that the car was actually built as ordered. Last thing I wanted is show up in Germany and find out the car was not built as ordered, however, I've heard of cases like that and they would allow the customer do their ED with the car as built, but then order them a new one exactly to their spec and offer to do another ED or ship it directly to the USA. It seems ED when it was still offered gave the best guarantee that you got what you ordered, because you were essentially dealing directly with MBUSA and Germany. The dealer was just a facilitator.

nmsu1999

The other way to look at it is that you are still waiting for the car that will get delivered to you somewhere in between 4 weeks and 24 weeks. You can still order the EXACT car you want that will get delivered to you somewhere in between 4 weeks and 24 weeks.

TexAg91

Bummer on the quilted leather, it is very nice and luxurious if you can afford it . The AMG drive units on the steering wheel wouldn’t bother me. That said, not having the quilted leather if that’s what I wanted would bother me, especially if I could have it at an agreed to price I was happy with. I would make them reorder, or I would cancel and order from another dealer. How long ago did you order? That would be the expected delay.

WolfStagen

I placed the order last week. That's why I was surprised that it got locked so quickly.

places

Thats a good point, still have time to put in a new order.