In the local paper a Peugeot dealer for 50 yrs - 2 outlets 10 miles apart throws in the towel.
His side of the story was that Peugeot wanted him to refurb the outlets - last done 5 years ago with new facades, tiles etc etc. There maybe more to it but that is his version.
One outlet will close (Flats as it is next to a station??) the other becomes Suzuki.
Shame really - another family garage business if not folding is contracting & 10 people lose jobs. It seems all the car companies want are massive chains rather than quality service from a local dealer.
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>> It seems all the car [CUSTOMERS] want are massive chains rather than quality service from a local dealer.
It's a pity, but that is the driving force.
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Local Peugeot dealer in Settle changed a few years ago. There was lots of customer loyalty. Old dears driving around in 205/306/307 which got changed every few years. The garage is still trading, but independently without the Pug franchise.
I surmise that Peugeot wanted a major investment in the building and it simply wasn’t viable.
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>> >> It seems all the car [CUSTOMERS] want are massive chains rather than quality service
>> from a local dealer.
>>
Yep - manufacturers do surveys and customers want glass palace dealerships.
I keep thinking the way cars are sold has to change, but no sign of it yet.
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Actually they want well equipped modern dealers who can deal with everything and where they can view the latest models in comfort and show them a good range of used vehicles if they don't want new.
There are plenty of online alternative s to using your main dealer if that is what you want.
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Here in NZ, Toyota have recently shaken things up: no more sales commission for dealerships, and fixed price cars. Idea is that punters take test drives at the dealers and then configure and order their new car online. No discounting, same prices for everyone, but lower prices than previously. We shall see if it works...
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I’d imagine all franchise agreements set out standards to which the franchisee is expected to keep, which can be expensive I’m sure! And they have a choice; invest if they thing the returns warrant it, or give up the franchise if not. I’d hardly call that falling out - parting company because ten commercials didn’t stack up, fair enough. I know our local VW dealer had to move when VW upped the number of cars that had to be on display in the showroom to, from memory, a minimum of 8 because their site wasn’t big enough. And I can see where VW are coming from - you want your potential customers to have the range available to actually see and touch. In the case of Peter Cooper VW they obviously the investment was worth it, despite having a very well invested, albeit small, site. Fortunately for them Renault in Chichester (or perhaps not just in Chichester...) were on the slide, so they could take over their showroom and rebrand it :)
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>> I’d imagine all franchise agreements set out standards to which the franchisee is expected to
>> keep, which can be expensive I’m sure! And they have a choice; invest if they
>> thing the returns warrant it, or give up the franchise if not.
I guess the issue is when the goal posts move, as apparently happens quite a lot.
Another thing that takes choice away from consumers is the way manufacturers seem to focus on larger dealership groups and then operate a 'market area' strategy. Our new Honda dealer is useless - but the two possible alternative dealerships are both owned by the same group and even share some senior staff, although that may be a function of Honda's terrible sales performance.
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>> I guess the issue is when the goal posts move, as apparently happens quite a
>> lot.
>>
>> Another thing that takes choice away from consumers is the way manufacturers seem to focus on larger dealership groups...
While that’s true, the franchise agreement will, I’m sure, cover that and they entered into it knowing that the requirements could change. If they’d been a UK car dealer for 50 years they should have know what that meant!
I agree on the Dealsr Group thing, but on the flip side as a consumer it’s never been easier to get a good deal on a new car. DriveTheDeal, CarWow etc make pricing much more transparent. Service wise it’s more of an issue, but more and more manufacturers are moving towards fixed price servicing anyway, the price of which doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. My BMW will, in three years, cover 36,000 miles and need just one service and a brake fluid change. That’s around £300 in total. I might need front pads as well, but they’re a fixed price item. If many people just keep cars three years that’s cheap motoring I think. It doesn’t want a full service until 4 years or, currently, 41,000 miles. Which means if I keep it for 5.5 years it’ll only need two services :O
The biggest challenge is not buying or maintaining, but fixing cars when they actually go wrong...but that’s always been the case...
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>> I agree on the Dealsr Group thing, but on the flip side as a consumer
>> it’s never been easier to get a good deal on a new car. DriveTheDeal, CarWow
>> etc make pricing much more transparent.
Don't be mislead by that - you're having to go to some degree of trouble (I've used CarWow and would agree it's not much trouble though) to get the price the car should have been in the first place. And you may end up having to deal with a remote dealer, which can be a nightmare.
Same as deposit contributions - it's a nonsense that you can get £2750 (as we did on wife's Tiguan) deposit contribution and immediately Withdraw but keep the contribution. Yet you can't have it as straight discount.
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A colleague is leasing a VW. He got a good deal. Monthly payments over 2 years (10k miles limit) are £240pm. His first up front payment was more but he got money back from the dealer.
Makes you wonder if it's worth buying or have a PCP if you can lease rather than take a PCP for less with almost no up front contribution.
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.
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>> Makes you wonder if it's worth buying or have a PCP if you can lease
>> rather than take a PCP for less with almost no up front contribution.
>>
I reckon adding £8k of options to a MINI makes leasing/PCP look rather unattractive. I imagine not many have that much of an impact on residual value... the CHILI pack maybe, but the rest...?
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>> Don't be mislead by that - you're having to go to some degree of trouble
>> (I've used CarWow and would agree it's not much trouble though) to get the price
>> the car should have been in the first place. And you may end up having
>> to deal with a remote dealer, which can be a nightmare.
>>
>> Same as deposit contributions - it's a nonsense that you can get £2750 (as we
>> did on wife's Tiguan) deposit contribution and immediately Withdraw but keep the contribution. Yet you
>> can't have it as straight discount.
>>
But it’s much easier now than it used to be... 5 minutes on CarWow building the spec you want, and within a few hours you’ll have 5 prices, with and without finance offers, to chose from. Far better than visiting the local dealer, who know you’re local, and playing them off against ones further away, who know you’re not local and won’t give prices over the phone. I’ve bought 4 cars now from ‘remote’ main ddealers - Edinburgh, Cardiff, Dundee and Liverpool. Each has been easier than going local, because there was no expectation I’d actually go and see them. Three cars were delivered and one I collected, by choice. They’d have delivered it, but the timings didn’t work for us.
Should the price be the price? That’s a different matter... but all manufactures will, at different times, have cars they’re keen to sell or production lines to fill, so I don’t see that happening any time soon.
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I have been looking at some PCP prices on a Qashqai, one a 6 months old and one brand new.
The 6 months old car is about £5k cheaper than the new car but the PCP interest rate is high - up in the 9%. On paper it looks a great way to get a newish car and still be paying the same monthly payment (which is all that some folk will look at). However, the same finance amount would effectively be £100 a month less if I was able to finance it with a loan from Nationwide.
On the new car, you are getting a dealer contribution, a Nissan contribution and much cheaper PCP interest rate! Which actually brings the monthly payment down to less than than the used vehicle!
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>> On the new car, you are getting a dealer contribution, a Nissan contribution and much
>> cheaper PCP interest rate! Which actually brings the monthly payment down to less than than
>> the used vehicle!
>>
When we got Tiguan we needed it quickly and first thought was to look at nearly-new cars. Due to discounts and deposit contribution on new, you had to go back to cars in excess of a year old before they were cheaper, and those cars were older engines and didn't have sat-nav, so quite big differences. We didn't need finance but was 4.9% on new, VW used was 10.9%.
As it happens, dealer got us a new one in 8 days.
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>> it's a nonsense that you can get £2750 (as we did on wife's Tiguan) deposit contribution and immediately Withdraw but keep the contribution. Yet you can't have it as straight discount.
Does that always work out for the buyer, or just occasionally? I think I remember that a certain gent at the other place did not approve of that method of achieving a discount.
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>> Does that always work out for the buyer, or just occasionally?
It appears to. To be honest I've no idea why - if you Withdraw it's as if the deal never existed, yet there's no suggestion the deposit contribution needs to be repaid. Even it was, you could always delay a little and Settle the finance. This will cost a bit more as you have to pay a couple of months interest but would be worth it to get £K's of discount.
I did see it stated that one manufacturer finance company (it might have been Peugeot, but not sure) that they reserve the right to ask for the contribution back but never enforce it.
There must be some legal reason why it's not done - no way would VW (etc) let people keep several £K if they didn't have to.
>> I think I remember
>> that a certain gent at the other place did not approve of that method of
>> achieving a discount.
>>
It drives me mad - it's a stupid game. I just want to buy a car. Honda "forced" us into a PCP when buying a car for one of my daughters.
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>> There must be some legal reason why it's not done - no way would VW
>> (etc) let people keep several £K if they didn't have to.
>>
I’d always assumed it was because the consumer credit act prohibits charging customers different prices if paying cash or taking finance, but that a ‘deposit contribution’ sailed just the right side of offering the same discounted or undiscounted price of goods, while offering an incentive to those who do take the finance? Which is another example of the nonsense of trying to control things; you can bet that the legislation was originally drafted thinking that those taking credit were going to be disadvantaged! Now it’s those paying cash that are disadvantaged...
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The settlement process on these regulated arrangements is enshrined in law. By demanding the money back they would in effect be charging an illegal settlement amount. Of course it is a bit blurred because the settlement goes to the lender and the deposit contribution comes from the dealer and/or manufacturer but I wouldn't fancy their chances in court: and I imagine that's the last place they want this to be ruled on.
Last edited by: Manatee on Sun 3 Jun 18 at 22:50
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>>It appears to.
Thanks, Bill Payer.
Last edited by: Clk Sec on Mon 4 Jun 18 at 08:25
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Peugeot - Pug dealer for 50 yrs falls out with manufacturer - No FM2R
