"Q: How long could it take to receive a product from the time it is ordered?

"A: We encourage customers to plan ahead to allow extra lead time for their products to be delivered. The length of these delays vary from product to product on a daily basis but fulfillment delays for some products have recently been around 8 to 12 months."

-- Bosch Supply FAQs

This is near and dear I my heart. I don’t work for an appliance manufacturer, but I work for a company that supplies them, as well as automotive and lots of other industries. Manufacturers of practically everything are struggling right now to meet demand - big time. Why? The perfect storm is happening:

• there is a massive labor shortage - worse than at any time in the history of our country. When I looked about about a month ago the Bureau of Labor Statistics was reporting there are 20 million more open jobs than there are people looking for jobs.
• the people who ARE working are missing more time at work than ever before. They either have COVID, have a symptom that could be COVID so they have to stay home until they get a negative test, have been exposed to COVID, are caring for someone with COVID etc. Last month our unplanned absenteeism resulted in lost work hours equivalent to 10% of our workforce. Until vaccination is much more widespread this will continue.
• everybody and their brother decided to spend money during the pandemic. This was wholly unexpected. In spring of 2020 many companies (and economists) were forecasting a massive recession, and laid off workers in order to survive it. But oops - we were all wrong, and the economy boomed instead. Had to replace all those people and by then many had found jobs, so instead new people were hired and they all had to be trained.
• this huge consumer demand has the trucking and transport industry stretched to the max. We are struggling with this mightily where I work. I just last week saw US govt data that says that for every truck driver there are 79 flat bed loads in need of a driver and a truck. So that’s 78 loads that can’t go anywhere even though they are ready. Plus the transpiration industry is still trying to catch up from the massive impact of the freighter that got stuck in the Suez Canal. 10% of all global transport goes through that canal, and couldn’t move for weeks. The ripple effect is still being felt.
• there is a worldwide shortage of computer chips. Given that almost every appliance made has chips in it, that’s a huge problem if you’re waiting on appliances (or hundreds of other items). Where I work we are only getting 10-20% of the chips we need each week. We have a standing meeting every week to wrestle with which customer orders will get the chips.

In 30 years of working in manufacturing leadership I’ve never experienced such a challenging set of circumstances. You have my sympathy for sure - the situation stinks. But I can assure you that the manufacturer of your appliance wants nothing more than to deliver it to you. It’s not fun, nor good for business, to have your customers mad at you and have limited ability to ease their frustrations.

Oh geez ^^^ I don’t know why the bullets and spacers that I put in that response aren’t showing up. My apologies to anyone trying to read all that 🤷🏻‍♀️.

COVID19 is behind most of the problems. A nearby GM plant had to cease vehicle mfg. operations temporarily last month because a particular computer chip was unavailable from its country of origin.

@lwfromny what a great answer. Thank you so much from your first hand knowledge and experience. I've been perusing refrigerators for a couple months just keeping an eye on prices and ratings and availability and it feels like it's gotten better.

I keep hoping none of my appliances bites the dust until the situation improves which I expect will be a year or longer. Same with my cars.

Browsing German appliance website is rather scary. Either the manufacturers are predicting delivery dates of up to three months (Miele), Bosch/Siemens are saying that certain dishwasher models are expected to be available by the second quarter next year... or machines are simply disappearing.

We expect to have the Bosch dishwasher for our beach house by next summer when the season starts up again. Luckily our existing dishwasher works fine, it's just loud and old.

My 10 year old DW quit and was not worth repairing last June. I narrowed my choice to 2 brands. I went to 2 retail stores and checked a third one online. I asked which ones do you have in stock in your warehouse, and can be delivered ASAP? I chose the best of the 3 (based on Consumer Reports, price point, repair history, and reviews) and had a brand new Bosch installed within 2 weeks. I love my new DW and was very happy with the process.

My 18yo dishwasher has a bad rinse aid dispenser (drips out continuously). I'm repairing it. Not replacing as long as parts are available.