Dealer removal of ordered/sold unit from their website?

[genestoy]

GM automatically posts an "In Transit" vehicle on a dealers website after it is produced and "In Transit" to that dealer. Is it common practice for a dealer to remove the vehicle from their website if it is a sold/customer ordered vehicle soon after it gets posted by GM?

 

[Banks22]

I’m sure some dealers do that so they don’t get bothered with phone calls asking if it’s available

 

[SerialNo1]

GM automatically posts an "In Transit" vehicle on a dealers website after it is produced and "In Transit" to that dealer. Is it common practice for a dealer to remove the vehicle from their website if it is a sold/customer ordered vehicle soon after it gets posted by GM?

I've made phone calls seeing if a vehicle listed on their website is available and they tell me it's already been sold. I'll check again a few weeks later and the same one is still listed.

 

[Steebu]

It is probably dependent on the dealer. I found one dealer that had a vehicle that was my #2 choice and I asked them if it was sold and they said yes. That was almost 6 weeks ago. It’s still on the inventory website as “In Transit”.

On the other hand, my local dealer had some vehicles show up on a Thursday, got sold over the weekend, and they’re now gone from the inventory website.

So … probably 100% on the dealer.

 

[Doubeleive]

I’m sure some dealers do that so they don’t get bothered with phone calls asking if it’s available

Why not just contact the dealer and ask them?

 

[Stbentoak]

They WANT it to show that, while mostly knowing long before, that it is sold. 99% of vehicles showing "In Transit" are presold vehicles. Not ALL of them are, but the very vast majority are.
Why would they show in transit anyways? Because they want you to call so they can potentially talk you into something else that they do have available. I called about many "In Transit" vehicles, but by the lucky grace of God, the one I got wasn't sold yet. They had 4 incoming on the carrier and listed on the website, 3 of the 4 were presold 6.2's, the last was a Dmax orphan. But little did they know that was the only one I wanted. Just blind luck really.
I also believe that as soon as they get a VIN they can list it as "In Transit" even though it may take 4-6 weeks or longer to actually get on the ground.

 

[Banks22]

I think OP’s question got confused. He asked is it common for a dealer to remove that unit from their website if it’s a pre sold unit? I think some dealers do yes cuz they get annoyed with 10+ callers per day asking if available. Some dealers like people calling like stbentoak said to tell u what else is incoming. I was lucky on my 21 Tahoe, our order got denied by GM so we searched and I found exactly what we wanted to order minus summit white instead of iridescent, called dealer they said sold. Next day same salesman called me back and said we have exact same one coming, they had ordered 2. Feldman in michigan, huge dealer. We bought on the spot.

 

[Square1Services]

GM automatically posts an "In Transit" vehicle on a dealers website after it is produced and "In Transit" to that dealer. Is it common practice for a dealer to remove the vehicle from their website if it is a sold/customer ordered vehicle soon after it gets posted by GM?

I was told by a dealer after calling about an “in transit” vehicle that GM showed on the corporate website for the dealer that GM requires them to keep it listed on the dealer website until the vehicle has been delivered and paperwork has been signed. When a dealer says it is “sold” already that just means someone has put down a deposit on it already. Even though it’s highly unlikely, there is a chance the deal doesn’t get done once the vehicle is delivered for a number of reasons (customer doesn’t come for pickup within a set timeframe, financing falls through, customer changes mind once they see in person etc.). Don’t bash me if this isn’t 100% true. It’s just what I heard and it seemed to make sense.

TL;DR
GM requires the vehicle to be listed on a dealers website until the vehicle has been delivered and a customer has taken possession of the vehicle.

 

[GoHeels]

Our Tahoe would periodically disappear from our dealers website and chevys inventory. It reappeared a couple times but never for more than a day. I never asked the dealer about it, but my assumption was the same as others… they didn’t want to be bothered with a bunch of calls on a sold vehicle.

 

[PaulGA]

My Yukon got taken off the site about 2-3 days after I made the deal.