How long is too long of a delay when ordering a car?

You’ve kind of already answered your own question by saying that you’ve already waited a year for delivery. Saying no to this one and ordering another might see a similar delay and you’d be back to square one. And a year older. Like many brands, Isuzu deliveries were adversely affected by global supply-chain problems and the world shortage of silicon-chips needed to make on-board computers work.

There are two issues with a car with last year’s build date. The first of these is that the motor trade uses the year of manufacture when calculating retained (trade-in) value. So, if you don’t plan to keep the car long before trading it in, then maybe that’s a concern. If you plan to keep it for 10 years or so, then an extra birthday will have very little affect on its trade-in value by then. This is something you might be able to negotiate on with the dealership you’ve purchased from

As for warranty, Australian Consumer Law states that motor vehicle warranties start form the date of first registration, not the build date. So even though the car might technically be six months old when you get it, the factory six-year/150,000km warranty will start from the day it’s delivered to you as a brand-new vehicle. The exception to this is if the car was originally a dealer demonstrator, when the warranty would start form the time it was registered by the dealership. If that’s the case, this should be reflected in the purchase price as it’s no longer a brand-new car you’re buying.