Car Manufacturers in trouble? Not here!

Tulipone

Tulipone

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Chris
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I seem to be finding that there is no recession, at least for the reported ailing car industry.

I decided that as my car is now over three years old with 60k miles on the clock I would look into changing it for a new one. My local Ford garage had two salesmen, one reading the paper, the other doing some paperwork. Neither were interested in helping me. To be honest, I was thinking of buying a Nissan Qashqai so was not that bothered.

Smiths Nissan in Peterborough have run out of all QQs - sold all their demos but think that they could order one in for me. Marshalls in Cambridge have a couple, claimed it had been the busiest 3 months in memory. Did not really try for a deal.

I have visited a number of other garages, if there are deals out there I want to find it. Not had any luck so far. Mostly salesman apathy.

So is the news all crap? Or is it that peoples mortgages are now so low that they are now buying and the dealers telling me the truth? Are we in recession? Why do I need to subsidise Car manufacturers if they are having trouble keeping up with demand? Are Nissan/Honda/Ford laying off just to get to a more efficient business model?

Looks like I'm keeping the old car.

Interested in your findings.

Chris
 
I'd agree...i practically had to bone someone to get a salesman to pay attention and finally sort the paperwork on my car.

And getting a 'deal' was next to impossible. That's what happens if you're not buying a Citroen, Pug or Renault where they practically pay YOU to take them away.
 
Mid range car dealers can shift them fast enough, BMW, Audi and Mercedes are having to get in touch with people who they have sold cars too recently and offer them over the odds in order to get good used stock on the forecourt.

Audi have had one of their best years in recent history, really doing well as they have a great line up of cars at the moment.

Low end stuff people are not bothering at all, Ford have just released a new KA, Kuga and Fiesta and people are wanting them so they dont need to discount or do decent deals to shift units.

Its the very low end of the market and the very high end niche stuff that just isnt selling at all and all these companies are owned by or atleast in part by the big 3, so say they are doing ok selling one car under one brand, they are making big losses under another.

The only company who are bulletproof through all this are Porsche, only a small % of their turn over is actual car sales as they have other business interests.

See this for who owns what and more importantly component sharing, one company not selling cars has a big impact on a company that is selling them. - Cant beat a good graph :D

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/2470/3311703422b4c1a032ceo.jpg
 
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Mancunian Lee said:
Mid range car dealers can shift them fast enough, BMW, Audi and Mercedes are having to get in touch with people who they have sold cars too recently and offer them over the odds in order to get good used stock on the forecourt.

Audi have had one of their best years in recent history, really doing well as they have a great line up of cars at the moment.

Low end stuff people are not bothering at all, Ford have just released a new KA, Kuga and Fiesta and people are wanting them so they dont need to discount or do decent deals to shift units.

Its the very low end of the market and the very high end niche stuff that just isnt selling at all and all these companies are owned by or atleast in part by the big 3, so say they are doing ok selling one car under one brand, they are making big losses under another.

The only company who are bulletproof through all this are Porsche, only a small % of their turn over is actual car sales as they have other business interests.

See this for who owns what and more importantly component sharing, one company not selling cars has a big impact on a company that is selling them. - Cant beat a good graph :D

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/2470/3311703422b4c1a032ceo.jpg
Click to expand...

So when the component manufacturers say that they are going out of business because cars are not selling, are they telling the truth? Far far more low end cars are sold yearly than high end - and ultimately if I end up paying to support BMW/Merc/Audi because no one wants their high priced items then sod them. Is that Gordon and his oppos just want to pick up a cheap car on the way from the Cabinet?

If I own a business producing things that no one wants to buy, should my business be supported by the tax payer? Why did we not bail out Woolworths? No one shopped there until they gave the stock away.

It may well be that the mortgage rate has put more cash in your pocket and that folk are dashing out to buy the new car - if this is true, why is the government considering chucking £2000 for scrapping a 9+ year old car? Is it just that Labour are really lovely and just want to help out?

I have noticed I have just started frothing at the mouth.....
 
If new cars are selling then people aren't trading in their old ones, the auctions are nearly empty and anything half decent is doing strong money, most mid-priced auction fodder (£5-10K) is doing £1-1500 MORE than it was worth a Christmas, when prices should at the most be the same, if not less.

I watched a 57 plate Vauxhall Corsa Life 1.2 with 12000 miles on do £6400 (plus approx £200 premium) at auction - Arnold Clark are selling an almost identical one at £6688....
 
Its not really a brand specific thing, its not about saving Saab because at the moment no-one is buying Saabs its about 30,000 jobs across Europse in just Saab alone and the other firms that rely on Saab for business. In total the loss of Saab could lose 120,000 jobs across europe many of them skilled and motor industry specific. Unlike the unskilled labour of woolworths there's nowhere else for these people to find work without retraining.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
If new cars are selling then people aren't trading in their old ones, the auctions are nearly empty and anything half decent is doing strong money, most mid-priced auction fodder (£5-10K) is doing £1-1500 MORE than it was worth a Christmas, when prices should at the most be the same, if not less.

I watched a 57 plate Vauxhall Corsa Life 1.2 with 12000 miles on do £6400 (plus approx £200 premium) at auction - Arnold Clark are selling an almost identical one at £6688....
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Dealerships dont have the ex fleet stock to go back onto forecourts so have a huge shortage of used stock. Companies cant afford to renew fleet contracts and give out company cars so the cars they usually hand back arent getting handed back.
 
Mancunian Lee said:
Its not really a brand specific thing, its not about saving Saab because at the moment no-one is buying Saabs its about 30,000 jobs across Europse in just Saab alone and the other firms that rely on Saab for business. In total the loss of Saab could lose 120,000 jobs across europe many of them skilled and motor industry specific. Unlike the unskilled labour of woolworths there's nowhere else for these people to find work without retraining.
Click to expand...

SAAB are part of GM and GM are on the brink of going tits up, so they're desperately trying to offload SAAB to generate some cash.
 
Mancunian Lee said:
Its not really a brand specific thing, its not about saving Saab because at the moment no-one is buying Saabs its about 30,000 jobs across Europse in just Saab alone and the other firms that rely on Saab for business. In total the loss of Saab could lose 120,000 jobs across europe many of them skilled and motor industry specific. Unlike the unskilled labour of woolworths there's nowhere else for these people to find work without retraining.
Click to expand...

Okay, we are shown fields of new cars, pictures of ****ed off Car workers being laid off - and potentially a picture of me with a shade under £20k trying to buy a new car. Not selling me a car is not helping anyone. It would appear that Main Dealers are **** scared of holding stock that they cannot move, so their stocks are low of decent cars. Nissan in Peterborough were not confident of how long it would take for them to get me a car and after I placed an order would be able to tell me.

Something does not add up to me.
 
Tulipone said:
Okay, we are shown fields of new cars, pictures of ****ed off Car workers being laid off - and potentially a picture of me with a shade under £20k trying to buy a new car. Not selling me a car is not helping anyone. It would appear that Main Dealers are **** scared of holding stock that they cannot move, so their stocks are low of decent cars. Nissan in Peterborough were not confident of how long it would take for them to get me a car and after I placed an order would be able to tell me.

Something does not add up to me.
Click to expand...

Its all smoke and mirrors, cars are always stacked up on old air fields, they are only there a few days till they are picked up. The government want us to go out buying cars so they take less of a blow bailing them out.

Useless sales staff is nothing new, ive got friends queuing up to spend £25k on the new Focus RS but people are not that fussed about selling them.

The future seems uncertain, so dealers dont want stock, they want just enough to sell, nothing more nothing less. Place and order and they will tell you when your build slot is, they are not booking build slots incase they cant fulfil orders.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
SAAB are part of GM and GM are on the brink of going tits up, so they're desperately trying to offload SAAB to generate some cash.
Click to expand...

That was just an example of how many jobs are at stake, Saab and Vauxhall are in a lot of trouble because GM see them as a burden.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
No retailer wants to hold more stock than they have to right now
Click to expand...

They have to sell cars. Not selling cars is not a good thing when it is your primary business. They need stock - else they close. I have no idea what the Main Dealer gets from selling a car - I guess more than they'd like you to know. They claim that they earn money from servicing don't they?
 
Tulipone said:
They have to sell cars. Not selling cars is not a good thing when it is your primary business. They need stock - else they close. I have no idea what the Main Dealer gets from selling a car - I guess more than they'd like you to know. They claim that they earn money from servicing don't they?
Click to expand...

Each dealer makes profit from different things, VW have a huge mark up on cars but Seat dealers dont, they make money on the back end. If they sell 200 cars every 3 months they get a big bonus from Seat. So there cars are all sold at rock bottom prices to make up the numbers, they make next to nothing on the cars but make a tidy profit from the bonuses.
 
Tulipone said:
They have to sell cars. Not selling cars is not a good thing when it is your primary business. They need stock - else they close. I have no idea what the Main Dealer gets from selling a car - I guess more than they'd like you to know. They claim that they earn money from servicing don't they?
Click to expand...

I think you'd be shocked at how little the main agents make on a new car, the real profit is in the finance and all the add ons like extended warranties, plus whatever bonuses the manufacturers are offering if they reach their targets.
 
I think that my 'recovered' overpayment on my mortgage will be returned to Nationwide - no point sitting with cash that is not spendable. I still maintain that there is something odd when you are in this position, probably with inaccurate reporting more than anything else. If it were me - and I accept that I'm greedy - I would keep a minimum stock level, maintain and know my supply route and sell as many cars as I could.
 
There are signs that things are slowly starting to recover, the housing market has shown some promising signs in Scotland recently for example.
 
The Scottish housing market doesn't appear to have taken the hit the English one has - a house up the road from me just sold for £1.2 million :nuts:
 
Ford are doing well - both in the US and in Europe
They're the only one of the Big 3 in the US that didn't ask for a bailout... mostly due to sales of the F-150 pick-up and the re-vamped Mustang that came out in 2005.

Saab haven't made a profit in 15 years and in the past eight they've lost an average of 15m per year.
GM should have killed it off and switched production in Saab plants years ago to build stuff that people actually want like Vauxhall/Opel, who are also doing well and are desperately trying to distance themselves from GM in order to stay afloat...likewise Holden in Australia, who did most of the development on what is now the new Signum and VRX models - tell me you didn't notice the VXR-8 is a rebadged Holden Commodore, which sells as a Pontiac in the USA?

GM have so many fingers in so many pies it almost calls for a Gene Hunt quote...no wonder they're going under trying to manage that lot.

Porsche have cut their working week to four days as have BMW, Mercedes and VAG due to reduced demand... it's all over the news here in Germany where it's the mid-range market that's suffering. Rich people always have cash to spend so the luxury market is that same as before and first time buyers still buy cars - in the mid-range, people who were thinking of upgrading are hanging on for another couple of years, hence the German government's 2,000€ cash-back scheme on cars over 6 years old when you buy a new car.

Not good in the long run - all those perfectly good 6-year old cars are being scrapped, more new cars are sold but only for now and the second-hand market really suffers. Never mind the environmental impact.
And now the UK govt are introducing it too...?
 
Was in my local Honda Dealers and was surprised to find so many other makes of s/h cars in the front row, these were not p/x's as the salesman explained their buyer was just picking up any car that he felt would sell, he pointed out a really attractive Audi, IIRC an A3, that he said would not be around for long because it was in red.
 
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Tulipone said:
So when the component manufacturers say that they are going out of business because cars are not selling, are they telling the truth? Far far more low end cars are sold yearly than high end - and ultimately if I end up paying to support BMW/Merc/Audi because no one wants their high priced items then sod them. Is that Gordon and his oppos just want to pick up a cheap car on the way from the Cabinet?

If I own a business producing things that no one wants to buy, should my business be supported by the tax payer? Why did we not bail out Woolworths? No one shopped there until they gave the stock away.

It may well be that the mortgage rate has put more cash in your pocket and that folk are dashing out to buy the new car - if this is true, why is the government considering chucking £2000 for scrapping a 9+ year old car? Is it just that Labour are really lovely and just want to help out?

I have noticed I have just started frothing at the mouth.....
Click to expand...
Other than BMW, who build the Mini in the UK you won't be expected to support Merc or Audi as they don't build cars in this country.

The reason Ford are fairing alot better than other manufacturers in Europe is because, apart from having a range people want to buy, they have already done alot of restructuring in their plants etc. America is in the process of doing the same. GM and Chrysler have been too slow to respond. Deals on new cars are out there. We recently had a flier at work for the new Mondeo Titanium in dealer stock, about £4,000 off list price.
A load of my mates bought new Kugas on options just before Xmas. £1,000 down and no more to pay for 13 months, after which they could finance the rest or hand the car back. £1,000 for 13 months rental ain't bad going really.

Oh and Ford USA have offered to loan suppliers money so they can remain in business.
 
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nilagin said:
Oh and Ford USA have offered to loan suppliers money so they can remain in business.
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That's not really a surprise, for many years Ford have effectively been a finance company that just happens to build cars, as have General Motors. The reason that GM are in so much more trouble is that they, in the guise of GMAC, were behind a large number of the toxic home loans in the US.
 
I'll give it to you striaght from the horses.... I work at Toyotas Derby factory. 18months ago we were building (and selling) 350,000 units of Avensis and Auris. Now we are down to 150,000. We have dropped the night shift off of one of our two assembly shops which hit affected employees to the tune of £300 a month in shift premium. We like many have not had a pay rise this year (not a problem given the ecomonics) but we have had a 4 1/2 day week imposed on us. That equates to loosing 10% of your pay! So if i lost my night shift premium and the 10% it would mean a hit of about £400 a month.

Why should teh goverment subsides us.... well it emables businesses like Toyota to keep afloat smaller suppliers. Toyota have had several key suppliers close to going bust. The media have not publicised the fact that we have pumped money into keeping those biusinesses afloat. Why should we do that? We could just get our bits else where and b****r them.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
That's not really a surprise, for many years Ford have effectively been a finance company that just happens to build cars, as have General Motors. The reason that GM are in so much more trouble is that they, in the guise of GMAC, were behind a large number of the toxic home loans in the US.
Click to expand...
GM sold off GMAC last year.
 
Notts_Dave said:
I'll give it to you striaght from the horses.... I work at Toyotas Derby factory. 18months ago we were building (and selling) 350,000 units of Avensis and Auris. Now we are down to 150,000. We have dropped the night shift off of one of our two assembly shops which hit affected employees to the tune of £300 a month in shift premium. We like many have not had a pay rise this year (not a problem given the ecomonics) but we have had a 4 1/2 day week imposed on us. That equates to loosing 10% of your pay! So if i lost my night shift premium and the 10% it would mean a hit of about £400 a month.

Why should teh goverment subsides us.... well it emables businesses like Toyota to keep afloat smaller suppliers. Toyota have had several key suppliers close to going bust. The media have not publicised the fact that we have pumped money into keeping those biusinesses afloat. Why should we do that? We could just get our bits else where and b****r them.
Click to expand...
I work at Ford's, Dagenham. Our press shop is having lay offs as and when needed. They are on lay off this week so effectively 4 days lay off. They still work three shifts but there is usually no Monday morning or Friday late and night shifts. This means a four day week with loss of shift allowance for the lay off shift. Fortunately in my area where we build new press tooling for future cars we don't have to have lay off, although people have volunteered for a week lay off at a time as the money they save on fuel cancels out the loss of shift allowance.
We work double day shifts at the moment but expect to go onto 3 shifts soon as we are falling behind with the work due to not being allowed to do overtime anymore.

Arkady said:
Ha! Blue-Oval Rules...:woot:
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Of course they do. :thumbs:
 
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its a tricky situation really isnt it. Some of the suppliers that we use have gone bust, oddly, the ones that DIDNT react by shoving up their prices when times got hard are the ones still in business.
 
vibrantcolour said:
have you tried JS Holmes in Wisbech St Mary for Nissan?
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Nope, I gave up. Something in me says that if its a fight to do something either be determined or give up. I chose the later!

I still don't understand why, if the industry us doing so well, exactly why people are going bust? I don't understand why main dealers can't get stock of new cars - and I don't understand why shifts are being cut if there are too many cars that are not being sold if I can't buy one. Yes, I have read the thread, no is still does not make sense.

Chris
 
If dealers have stock plies of cars they can't shift, there is no point in building more. If you want a new car, built to order a manufacturer will need a number of orders before it's worthwhile building. They're not going to call their workers in to build just one car, then send them off home again.
Last month Ford's Southampton plant had orders for just 22 vans. Our press shop supplies panels for Transits, Land Rover, Jaguar, Range Rover and Volvo, plus a few other Ford models. Even with that varied supply we still don't have a full working week, but Ford's lay offs haven't been as drastic as alot of other manufacturers.
 
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