I have never had the tracking work either when I enter an order on the web.
There are a couple of things I have learned about ordering from Van's:
1. Van's web ordering system is archaic. It is not in real time. They download the orders once a day at about 1pm for the previous day's orders. So if you order on Monday, they download the order on Tuesday and will probably not get to it until Wednseday at the earliest. I gave up on web ordering a long time ago due to the delay in processing.
2. They give priority to orders that have some kind of expedited shipping requested such as next day, 2 day or 3 day. Orders with expedited shipping usually get shipped the same day they get the order. Orders without expedited shipping may not ship for a couple of days.
3. It is best to place an order by phone. If you call them before about 11am their time, they can usually get the order out that day, especially if you asked for faster shipping.
4. I usually use FedEx 3 day shipping. It is more expensive than ground, but a lot less than next day. When I do this I almost always get an email with the tracking info before the end of the day I placed the order.
5. I should buy stock in FedEx