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Mustang Buying Basics + COTUS Guide

Aaleck

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Mustang Buying Basics



This is a one stop thread for a lot of information you might be looking for when you’re new to ordering. This is information for you if you’re thinking about buying a Mustang or have already purchased one but not quite sure on where to go next.

If anything needs to be added or changed due to a mistake please feel free to contribute; I will update regularly.




BASICS



How do I check my order? For the most accurate information it's best to contact your dealer or FordService/Rachel. Other avenues (most popular) would include using COTUS; things you need to know is your order number and dealer number that can be found on your DORA. If you know your VIN number that can also be used. It is not necessary to contact Rachel or your dealer excessively as there is not much to update until the car actually hits the assembly line and is shipped either by convoy or rail.

What is COTUS? Customer Order Tracking United States. It’s located at www.cotus.ford.com or wwwqa.cotus.ford.com

What is a DORA? Dealer Order Receipt Acknowledgment. You should have gotten one of these from your dealership at the time of ordering. This will contain your order number and the dealership number.

When will my car get a build date? Typically all cars will get scheduled on Thursday. This includes VINs and build dates.

How is my car scheduled? Orders are scheduled based on the following information: priority code, dealers allocation for each production week, the ordered option content (assembly plant discretion) and the receipt date. The receipt date is a factor when breaking ties for orders with the same priority code. This information has been provided by Rachel.



What’s a priority number? When you do a custom order from Ford each order is given a priority number. The lower the number means the sooner it will get built. Retail orders will generally be given a code from 10-19, store inventory cars will be given a 20-89 number. Regional managers have the ability to give orders numbers 1-9.

Can I get an X Plan? Yes. Easiest way to get an X Plan would be by becoming a member of the MCA (Mustang Club of America). An in depth explanation of the X Plan and how to get one can be found HERE

What is Ford Private Cash? Ford Private Cash is a program offered by Ford that goes towards the purchase of a new vehicle. Typically most people get them by filling out this form HERE (link to Ford). You can either get an offer via e-mail or snail mail. Not everyone who submits their information gets them. You can use other people in your house hold, multiple e-mail address and/or multiple mailing addresses. 



What is a blend date? Blend date is the date your Mustang gets on the assembly line. The blend date can be found at the top of your window sticker. The date on the sticker will read, for example, “120141009” which reads 10/09/2014. PLACE HOLDER-YEAR-MONTH-DAY.

What is EDD? Your EDD is your Estimated Day of Delivery. This can be found in the later stages of your order on COTUS when it gets closer to getting built. If you’re checking COTUS quite often you will notice the date will sometimes bounce around. This is typical.



COTUS is having issues displaying my cars information! Help! COTUS hasn’t officially been released to the public and is very much still in development and testing phases. Your car will randomly not be available in COTUS, some options will not appear in COTUS, this is all normal. For a better idea at where you’re at in your order contact your dealership or Rachel.



Do I really need to break in my engine? Follow your owners manual. On page 188 it explains: “You need to break in new tires for approximately 300 miles (480 kilometers). During this time, your vehicle may exhibit some unusual driving characteristics. Avoid driving too fast during the first 1000 miles (1600 kilometers). Vary your speed frequently and change up through the gears early. Do not labor the engine. Do not tow during the first 1000 miles (1600 kilometers).”



Where can I find the owners manual? A PDF link to the owners manual as well as other literature can be found HERE

When will I get my window sticker? The window sticker link will typically show up 5-7 days before your car gets on the assembly line on COTUS. It will take some time for the link to work though so be patient.




COTUS STEP BY STEP

I just placed my order for my dream car, now what? Awesome! Now begins the long tedious wait until your car gets delivered. If you’re like most people you’re not a very patient person and you’ll want to check up on the status of your car at least everyday. Now what’s the best way to do that? As explained above COTUS will probably be your best bet for daily updates. To reiterate COTUS is still in development and the quality of information pertaining to everyones car will vary person to person but it should fill that need to check up on your order.

So where do you begin? When you placed your order from your dealership your sales representative should’ve gave you a piece of paper called a DORA which stands for Dealer Order Receipt Acknowledgment. Somewhere on that paper you will have an (1) an order number and (2) a dealer number. This information is required to begin checking on your information on COTUS. 



STEP ONE — THE FIRST CHECK

Using COTUS for the first time. Now that you have your DORA in hand you can visit COTUS. You will be presented two options: using your above information to login or using your VIN. You haven’t been issued a VIN yet but hopefully after the first Thursday after your order you will. VINs and build weeks are issued on Thursdays and sometimes at the end very of the day so you might not see anything until Friday morning.

What am I looking at? Once you login you will see a bunch of information ranging from the vehicle you ordered, order date, order number, dealer details and hours and at the bottom you’ll notice all of your options on the car. Please note that not all of your options may be present and that is normal. Besides all of this there isn’t much else to know. The wait begins.

I tried logging in but my order can’t be found! Most dealers submit the order at the time of your visit but sometimes the dealer might wait for reasons beyond me. Give it some time. You are not alone if this occurs. If your order doesn’t show up within a day or two I would shoot them a call or an email.

STEP TWO — GETTING A BUILD WEEK



It’s the Thursday, I should get assigned a build week, right? Yep! The day has come; under normal circumstances you should get assigned a build week and receive a VIN today. Once you get assigned a build week you will notice at the top left on COTUS under your order date and order number there will be a third field with your VIN number.

Where does it say my build week? For your build week the easiest way would be to contact FordService aka Rachel here on the forum or to contact your sales representative. Please note at this stage it’s a Build Week rather than an actual day. When you get closer to your build week an actual day will be assigned.

It’s Friday and nothing’s changed! Please understand that many things can effect the production of the cars and sometimes Ford will halt further assignment of VINs for a week or two. This shouldn’t happen very often but do understand it can. To find out if this is happening currently all you have to do is check the first 10 or so posts in the Order, Price, and Tracking forum and most likely there will already be a post from other members talking about it.

What now? Sit and wait. Not a whole lot, if anything, will change until you get closer to your build date. Sit back, relax, surf the forums and dream about cruising around in your car in a month or two.

STEP THREE — BUILD WEEK

Now that you’re closer to your build week you will may have noticed or will notice you will have a Estimated Delivery Date (EDD) located under your VIN number with the amount of days displayed to the right of the progress bar of your car. If you haven’t done so already contact FordService aka Rachel or your sales representative and he/she can most likely give you an estimated day. Please remember this is an estimation and it can vary within your week.

STEP FOUR — SPRINT TO THE END


About a week before your estimated build date (not week) a window sticker link should appear at the bottom of the page. It may not work until the actual day or even more. The progress bar may or may not have changed from “IN ORDER PROCESSING” to “IN PRODUCTION” You’re getting closer, don’t worry.


If it hasn’t happened already sometime during getting a window sticker link and your build date it should show that your car is in production. At this time your window sticker should be visible. At the top of the window sticker there will be a Blend Date. The blend date is the date your Mustang gets on the assembly line. The date on the sticker will read, for example, “120141009” which reads 10/09/2014. PLACE HOLDER-YEAR-MONTH-DAY.



A day or two after your blend date your car will go into the AWAITING SHIPMENT stage. This varies person to person it could stay in this stage for a few hours or a couple of days. This is the part where Flat Rock lines up transportation for your car from the factory to your dealer.



After your short or long wait to get a spot on a semi or a train it should go into the IN TRANSIT stage. This date will vary based on your location. For me (as of the date I’m writing this, I’m still awaiting delivery of mine but I’m just 4 hours north of Flat Rock and hardly any trains run up this far so the entirety of my journey is done by semi so it should only take a few days. If you live in say in California your car is most likely taken most of the way on a train then finished off on a semi or just driven from the rail yard to the dealer.

How do I track my car if it’s on a train? (This information has been provided from forum user HalfMoon) You need to get your rail car number (also often called an "ETTX" number) from your dealer. This can actually start with "ETTX", or it may not.

Once you have that number you can track it via the phone:

CSX:

1. Call CSX at 1 800-235-2352
2. When prompted for location or weight, press 1 on your phone for location
3. When prompted for the car initials, say them and wait
4. When prompted for the 6-digit car number, say or key-in your 6 digit car number
5. When prompted for the next car, either say 'Done' or press the pound sign (#) twice

Union Pacific:
1. Call UP at 1 800-877-5123
2. Follow phone prompts for Trace
3. Say the rail car number completely and clearly. Example CNA704103 all together
4. Listen for your update

Only one may track your rail car or both from what I have read. In HalfMoon’s car both were updated and gave slightly different information at different parts of the journey so he used both.

How do track my car if it’s on a semi? As far as I know the only way to do this would be to contact the dealer (Rachel may or may not have this information). If you have any information to add please reply to this thread and contribute.



STEP FIVE — TAKING DELIVERY

Well this is it. Your car is almost at the dealer, is at the dealer and getting ready to get delivered or in your drive way. I hope this somehow helped you along your progress. The final step is to post a picture of your beautiful car for all of us to see and let the guys that just ordered stare in envy.




CREDITS

Special thanks to the following people for contributing:

FordService or Rachel
Stang Nut
HalfMoon
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Stangnut

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Mustang Buying Basics




How do I check my order? To check your order the best method would be to contact your dealer. Other options would include using COTUS or asking FordService aka Rachel; things you need to know is your order number and dealer number that can be found on your DORA. If you know your VIN number that can also be used.


What’s a priority number? When you do a custom order from Ford each order is given a priority number. What numbers are which has been greatly debated but for the most part the lower the number means the sooner it will get built. Retail orders will generally be given a code from 10-19, store inventory cars will be given a 20-89 number. Regional managers have the ability to give orders numbers 1-9. Typically a code of 19 is given.



What is a blend date? Blend date is the date your Mustang gets on the assembly line. The blend date can be found at the top of your window sticker. The date on the sticker will read, for example, “120141009” which reads 10/09/14. XXX-YEAR-MONTH-DAY. I'm not exactly sure what the beginning three numbers are.
A couple of of things I think need to be changed:

Checking Your Order:
In most cases the dealer is not the best method for checking your order. Most salesmen don't want to bother with updating you every few days or even weeks. Once you find out when your order should get pulled, COTUS is the best way to check your status.

Priority Numbers:
There shouldn't be any debate on this. You have the numbers correct.
A priority code of 19 is not typical. If anyone has a 19 they should be pretty upset with their dealer. 10 is the most common Followed by the next few numbers.
90-99 is for orders the dealer puts in the system, but doesn't actually want Ford to pull.

Blend Date:
The first number (1) is a place holder. The next FOUR are the year... 2014 or 2015. The rest is correct.
 
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Aaleck

Aaleck

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A couple of of things I think need to be changed:

Checking Your Order:
In most cases the dealer is not the best method for checking your order. Most salesmen don't want to bother with updating you every few days or even weeks. Once you find out when your order should get pulled, COTUS is the best way to check your status.

Priority Numbers:
There shouldn't be any debate on this. You have the numbers correct.
A priority code of 19 is not typical. If anyone has a 19 they should be pretty upset with their dealer. 10 is the most common Followed by the next few numbers.
90-99 is for orders the dealer puts in the system, but doesn't actually want Ford to pull.

Blend Date:
The first number (1) is a place holder. The next FOUR are the year... 2014 or 2015. The rest is correct.

Thanks for contributing! Knew I'd get some stuff wrong.

I re-worded the first section... For the most accurate information it's best to contact your dealer or Rachel? I think most would agree?

I removed the bit about the debate. I thought 19 was the go to number for retail orders but since it's being debated I'll leave it out. I haven't seen too many orders with a priority 10 personally but if a few people agrees 10 is the go to number I'll add that bit back in. I think it would be beneficial if we could get this part hammered out as quite a few new people seem to wonder about priority codes and how they rank compared to the rest of us.

I knew about the priority numbers that were used that the dealer didn't want pulled right away due to whatever reason but I thought it was just code 99?


Third part I feel totally stupid for, never occurred to me that it was a 4 digit year.
 

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detailz03

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Woah, this answered all of my questions that I've been lurking for.
 

FordService

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Mustang Buying Basics



This is a one stop thread for a lot of information you might be looking for when you’re new to ordering. This is information for you if you’re thinking about buying a Mustang or have already purchased one but not quite sure on where to go next.

If anything needs to be added or changed due to a mistake please feel free to contribute; I will update regularly.
...
Great information, Aaleck! Thanks for putting it together. :thumbsup:

Rachel
 

tsunami

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My dealer submitted a Prority 10, even without me asking.
 

humster21

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Thanks. Over the last couple months lots of us have been answering a lot of these questions. This will help.
 

detailz03

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My dealer submitted a Prority 10, even without me asking.
Mine never told me. I wonder if I could ask? I feel like I'd be too annoying though. I got my VIN and it'll come when it comes I suppose.
 

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LHousePhoto

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Rachel told me my priority number, but I had it already.
 

Stangnut

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Hey Aaleck, how about a COTUS tutorial? It would show what actually gets posted on COTUS, and what to expect and when.
 

davekro

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Hey Aaleck, how about a COTUS tutorial? It would show what actually gets posted on COTUS, and what to expect and when.
This is certainly not a Cotus Tutorial, but from Aaleck's idea, I did take pics of the 12 Mustangs on my dealer's lot 2/5/15. Plugged all the VINs into Cotus to compare the various dates and #@ of days between the different stages for those 12 cars. It gives an idea of what can happen for a cross section of Mustangs.

http://www.mustang6g.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17050

Dave
 
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Aaleck

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Hey Aaleck, how about a COTUS tutorial? It would show what actually gets posted on COTUS, and what to expect and when.
Interesting idea. So pretty much a step by step from beginning to end using cotus and what all of the little things mean and how many days for each part, etc?

This is certainly not a Cotus Tutorial, but from Aaleck's idea, I did take pics of the 12 Mustangs on my dealer's lot 2/5/15. Plugged all the VINs into Cotus to compare the various dates and #@ of days between the different stages for those 12 cars. It gives an idea of what can happen for a cross section of Mustangs.

http://www.mustang6g.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17050

Dave
Glad I helped! :)
 
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Aaleck

Aaleck

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Added a new section based off Stang Nut's suggestion. Since I haven't been through the entire process yet the last half might seem rushed. As always, if I missed something, got anything wrong or something needs to be added feel free to contribute :)
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