As a follow up to this thread, a couple of things have happened.
(1) Several months ago, I was able to get a response from an executive in charge of the WL platform, who referred me to their Customer Cares Executive Referral Manager (ERM). Nobody gets to talk to him unless an executive refers the person to him, but he has a 'magic wand' with regard to handling these situations. I've been working with him on doing a trade assist replacement through my dealer. That person is the executive 'fixer' who helps people who meet a presumably high bar with regard to their situations and level of problems. I used a site called rocketreach.co, which apparently has a backend API to all of LinkedIn and Facebook, etc, with emails, phone numbers, and every other point of data on those sites (education, career, job title, etc) to find top executives who I might be able to get some help from, which is how I got to the ERM.
(2) Around the same time, I had also gotten fed up with the protracted timeline of repairs and parts availability via the regular 'Customer Care' department, and asked to be put in touch with the buyback department to discuss options. A couple of months went by with no further communication on that, and I was now working with the ERM above.
One day, the ERM said, to his surprise, my car had been approved for a buyback. I think he thought I was intentionally continuing to run two channels at once (like a vote of no confidence in him, it may have seemed) but I had no idea I was even being considered for a buyback b/c I'd never spoken to or so much as received an email from anyone in the "Buyback Dept".
So, now, I have an approved buyback, and the ERM has told me to see what they offer from the Buyback Dept (BD offer is full retail buyback plus tax/reg/etc, plus $1k for PPF, and no diminished value for miles driven. The last two are an exception not generally offered, but I have no loan and no lawyer, so I'm a 'cheap' buyback in that regard. Then we see whether to do a trade assist via the ERM, or a hybrid situation where the BD takes it back, and the ERM arranges the deal on the replacement.
As with all huge multinational corporations, they all have their respective budgets, so it could go either way. Bottom line, my buyback is approved, but in my state (WY), the lemon law only provides for straight buybacks (not replacements) so the replacement side of the deal requires either me working with the ERM (no brainer) or me just starting from scratch with the dealer on a replacement as a standard 'new order'.
As I really want Midnight Sky and the new I6TT motor, I've been kind of happy to see this drag on vs wanting it all done right away. I was told by the ERM Midnight Sky was scheduled to start production 4/25, but that doesn't seem to have happened. I also really, really want the new turbo 6 (my Hemi only makes 290hp at my elevation, less over mountain passes, while only averaging 15mpg over the last 7k miles). As a car guy who uses this for road trips and towing, I'd LOVE to have an extra 135+hp and even more torque along with better fuel economy, but I haven't gotten any indication from the ERM re production of that being anywhere near, and they're certainly not going to tell *me* about something like that before it's announced.
I'd love a loaded Midnight Sky Grand Wagoneer with the I6, but I doubt anyone at Stellantis loves me enough to sufficiently discount on one of those for me to justify it (I could buy one, but no way am I spending that much money on any SUV).
I'll be in Africa for all of July, so I don't really need this to happen until August, and I'll be gone another few weeks at the end of August into September, so if I had to wait until then to get the I6, I would. I'm hoping to know more this week, we'll see. In the mean time I've been having new problems (transmission clunk shifting for passing manuevers/towing, cruise sometimes doesn't slow down when adjusted (ie keeps going 55 when adjusted to 45, etc etc etc), but so far the car remains drivable, if extremely annoying (terrible door panel vibrations from the stereo, CarPlay randomly works or doesn't, auto high beams don't work, etc etc etc).
Overall, if everything worked, it's still the best vehicle for my use case. The I6 would make it vastly more appealing, too.
