POLL! Who killed the Car industry here?

niceirishfella

Your Vote and Your Thoughts please?

corkandproud

The banks/finance houses

Dealers, supported by finance houses offering finance on fourth hand cars, alloys, new radio and this weeks shopping.

Madness I tell ya, it'll all end soon - oh yeah, it did.

:pac:

guil

The banks/finance houses

i say the dealers, i know of one who used to get uk cars with massive mileage, get them clocked and then sell them fro nearly double what they paid for it

mikemac

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

The dealers.
We're in the EU so if you can import a car with a higher spec a cheaper price and still come out with a better deal after paying VRT , fair play I say.
And why are the industry professionals expecting people to pay more for less?

The end of easy credit. It's just not sustainable to buy new cars on credit every year. I understand people buying new cars but not basically buying the same car with a new number plate. You can't do that on credit indefinitly. So in some ways it's good if people concentrate more instead of waiting for possible repossesion.

2qk4u

The Green Party influencing the Government

The dealers dont do themselves any favours but the govt should have been more in control....

kikel

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

We need multilpe voting on this one.

• Dealers and over inflated prices.
• Government for VRT
• Greens for the introduction of new motor tax rates
• finance house for getting people to borrow to much

It's a nasty one, couldn't blame anyone specifically

Edit: just realised there is multiple voting

kdevitt

The dealers themselves ripping people off

Greens - without fail. Unless the question is ignoring private sales. The new tax rules are a mess.

L-M

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

Greens for some aspects, other than that there is just waaayy to much finance out there.

lafors

The banks/finance houses

kikel wrote: »

• Dealers and over inflated prices.
• Government for VRT
• Greens for the introduction of new motor tax rates
• finance house for getting people to borrow to much

Exactly as I'd put it!

CrowdedHouse

The banks/finance houses

I voted dealers but in a way it's the consumers fault too.

Too many people thought they were flush with money because of the 'celtic tiger' and just paid the prices they were asked and queued up to buy without a care - 'I want it and I want it now'

Tipsy Mac

The dealers themselves ripping people off

VRT killed it, low sterling killed it, crappy dealers who had the same attidude as the builders killed it.

I actually voted Fianna Fail and Greens in the one vote, it let me :cool:

peasant

Actually, there is another option missing;

The car industry itself, i.e. the makers and distributors.

It is idiocy, in a country with such a small customer base as this, to insist on dealers having to build multi-million show rooms just to stick with the "corporate identity".

All very well in a German city, where you have a potential customer base of 0.5 million + people ...but in piddly little places like Thurles, Sligo, Kilkenny, etc? Lunacy !

Country garages in Germany somehow escaped this. There you still get small little garages that can focus on customer service rather than recuperating the insane cost they had to invest just in the site and showroom.

maidhc

Well basically the problem is people don't have much money right now for various reasons such as

... job gone
... investments gone due to shares
... people saddled with mortgages on 2nd houses they can't rent
... poor consumer sentiment generally (it is a recession!)


People don't buy new (or even s/h) cars unless they have surplus cash or finance is easily available.

I don't think it is fair to say the car industry is dead. They way things were 2 years ago was disneyland stuff and unsustainable, reality is starting to dawn for dealers like it is for builders. Reality is nearly always a good thing.

cantdecide

The answer to the question is a) VRT b).to a lesser extent, dealer greed.

NOBODY thinks that their new car is worth the appalling asking price even if they can get the loan. NO government will give up the cash cow that is Irish motoring and it isn't the current or any recent government's brainchild.

Don't forget that the banks are bankrolling VRT by the million

bikki

The dealers themselves ripping people off

Easy answer

VRT

Savman

bikki wrote: »

Easy answer

VRT

And not the people who pay it?

gurramok

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

Once enough of people import by themselves, the govt will have to act on VRT and the dealers will have to react or go out of business.
This is even more so in a recession and i believe mass importing by individuals is taking off to be noticed by the industry and govt itself.

cantdecide

gurramok wrote: »

This is even more so in a recession

The only motoring recession phenomenon apparent in Ireland is that the unjustifiably massive expense of any new car is quickly and quite rightly dismissed as un-necessary. Now jobs are being lost because of it.

The good feeling that goes with our boom times made people think that they could have a new car that wasn't supplied by their employer. It all started with the mk1 FIAT Punto in the mid to late 90s. Now, our new car industry right back to 1995.

It's like every other motoring related topic in ireland- it always boils down to VRT and that's because it's and cruel and so wrong and is only justifiable at the best of times.

cantdecide

Savman wrote: »

And not the people who pay it?

Don't go where I think you're going....

bikki

The dealers themselves ripping people off

Savman wrote: »

And not the people who pay it?

Il give u a example,

A 08 subaru impreza sti hatch back in England would cost me 32k euro. To buy the exact same car here in Ireland it would cost me 65k. The VRT is actualy more than what the car is worth.

So il say it again its VRT, its artificually inflatting the price of cars.

jimmycrackcorm

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

bikki wrote: »

Il give u a example,

A 08 subaru impreza sti hatch back in England would cost me 32k euro. To buy the exact same car here in Ireland it would cost me 65k. The VRT is actualy more than what the car is worth.

So il say it again its VRT, its artificually inflatting the price of cars.

Because of our taxation base, all cars here are more expensive than in the UK, They have been all this time, so this argument doesn't indicate what has happened so suddenly.

I think the simple answer is that the motor industry mirrors the construction industry collapse. For years people got money to buy houses and new cars. Now that funding has dried up, very few are buying either.

junkyard

The Green Party influencing the Government

Fianna Failure and the Green are the biggest problem here, between the VRT the tax on fuel the road tax and all the new VRT crap brought in last July they finally broke the camels back, just like the fishing industry, the farming industry, the building industry, taxis, manufacturing, the list goes on, as they break one they move on to the next. It's only a matter of time before there is no businesses left and it won't be long by the looks of it. I know many retail business are only staying open untill Christmas in the hope they can sell off their stock and once Christmas is over thery're gone. Next year is going to be absolutely terrible, I dread to think tbh:(.

Cool Mo D

There's a pretty simple reason why tax in Ireland is so high. We have no native car manufacturers, so any money spent on new cars goes abroad. This is generally bad for the countries finances, so the Government taxes the life out of new cars to discourage this from happening (and raise funds).

Unless Ireland develops large native car manufacturers, VRT will always be extortionate. And VRT isn't illegal in any way, so we're stuck with it.

thebman

The dealers themselves ripping people off

The Fianna Fail Government - for not setting up a proper financial regulator (or proper regulators and consumer interest groups that actually take action in general). I don't think any Irish consumer has any faith in our regulators (at least not the people with brains).

The Green Party influencing the Government - Sort of. Green policies don't help and are insane when there is no proper public transport available for at least half the population. You can't create a situation where people need a car and then tell them they should give it up. That is just moronic.

The dealers themselves ripping people off - Completely. Name one person you know who trusts a car dealer? I mean come on, seen as some of the most dodgy people in the country and there are enough horror stories that people should not be trusted. Again no regulation means the cowboys are still in business at the expense of the decent dealers.

The banks/finance houses - Again, there fault as why were they lending money to people who couldn't pay it back. No regulation means it can't possibly be their fault entirely as another bank would have done it if they didn't and then would buy their shares? Basically since they were allowed to do it and not doing it put them at a huge disadvantage then it is really the lack of regulation that forced the banks to do this.

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k! - Actually its worth 3,500 and bought with savings :P

Basically I think lack of regulation and the regulatory bodies not having powers and not using the ones they have is to blame and that is basically Fianna Fail's fault. They set a lot of them up and the ones that were there before either don't have the power they need or haven't been given the kick in the arse they need to do their job.

mumhaabu

The dealers themselves ripping people off

OP you forgot the SIMI, A real bunch of ****€rs if ever they were.

Darragh29

Sing to "The Auld Triangle"...

"Ahhh Hungry Feelin'....

Came 'ore me stealin.....

An' a customer was squeelin....

In a new BM.....

An da auld main dealer....

Says please bend over....

As he takes out, a finance deal..."

......

Robertr

Me?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=176389

Biro

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

It's not all the local dealers fault. Picture you going in to your VW garage, buying yourself a brand new Golf diesel cause you want a new car and that's supposed to be the car that suffers least from depreciation. Next year you walk in and are told that it'll cost you €9,000 to upgrade to a new one. How can this be? Every other year it only cost €4,000. You complain - he's not being fair to you, he was fair every other year. But the fact remains that today he has to compete with people going across the water. So your car is worth less. How is that the dealers fault? Everyone wants dealers to give you a used car for feck all, but also want them to give you more for your car than it's worth. Complain either way.
VRT really killed the market the most. People can't stomach what their car is worth now. People bringing in cars from the UK, clocking them and selling them on are killing the 2nd hand market. Money is going out of the country. It might not be fair, but it'd be in the country's best interest if they made it uneconomical to bring in cars from the UK. Don't know how, and I'd be unhappy if they did, but that's what needs to be done from an economical point of view.
Building the glass house showrooms was a joke too.

smash

The dealers themselves ripping people off

The dealers themselves ripping people off

this option shouldn't really be there. Due to higher VAT on cars and VRT on top of that - the dealers don't have much room when selling new cars. The prices are over inflated, but that's the governments doing and not the dealers.

This also reflects on the 2nd hand market. If someone trades in then the dealer will give them a good price for the traded in car to make the price of the new car look more appealing. In doing this, they still haven't made a fortune on the new car sale and they have to sell the traded car for more than what they got it for in order to make a decent profit - it's how business works!

They have massive overheads to cover!

niceirishfella

The dealers themselves ripping people off

steve06 wrote: »

They have massive overheads to cover!

They chose to build empires with the massive overheads - no one put a gun to their heads.:P

Ice_Box

The banks/finance houses

Distributors giving us the paddy spec cars. Take a look at the new skoda superb. Irish elegance model has fake leather. UK model has real leather and touch screen sat nav AND COSTS LESS. Why would anyone in their right mind buy from an Irish dealer?

smash

The dealers themselves ripping people off

niceirishfella wrote: »

They chose to build empires with the massive overheads - no one put a gun to their heads.:P

Lets face it, you wouldn't buy a car of a dealer with a crap looking premises would you?

javaboy

Cool Mo D wrote: »

There's a pretty simple reason why tax in Ireland is so high. We have no native car manufacturers, so any money spent on new cars goes abroad. This is generally bad for the countries finances, so the Government taxes the life out of new cars to discourage this from happening (and raise funds).

Unless Ireland develops large native car manufacturers, VRT will always be extortionate. And VRT isn't illegal in any way, so we're stuck with it.

Some car distributors in Ireland are fully Irish owned so a lot of the profits are staying here. But yeah you have a point, a lot of the profits inevitably go abroad. But the idea that Ireland could support a large native car manafacturer is preposterous imo. The biggest manafacturers here will maybe shift 30,000 new cars or less a year. So even if this new Irish car maker was instantly the biggest seller here, they would still need to export huge amounts of cars to make profits. It's an issue of economy of scale. There is simply no point setting up a large car manafacturing operation in Ireland when you can go to a low cost labour country and make far more money.

steve06 wrote: »

Lets face it, you wouldn't buy a car of a dealer with a crap looking premises would you?

Good point. Some of the showrooms are way too extravagant and expensive but there are a lot of people out there (myself included) who would choose the flashier showroom because it looks more professional and subconsciously at least you expect better aftercare/service.

niceirishfella

The dealers themselves ripping people off

steve06 wrote: »

Lets face it, you wouldn't buy a car of a dealer with a crap looking premises would you?

Ehhhhh, yes - if the price was right.
Who give a monkeys about having a nice plush premises to buy a car out of.........its not the flashy premises you're driving - its the DEAL and the CAR!

Biro

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

niceirishfella wrote: »

They chose to build empires with the massive overheads - no one put a gun to their heads.:P

They were told by headquarters to do that or loose the dealership.

niceirishfella

The dealers themselves ripping people off

Biro wrote: »

They were told by headquarters to do that or loose the dealership.

Most went over and above.

Boskowski

The banks/finance houses

like VRT, dealer rip-off kartels and fkn stupid buyers.

For years and years we've been buying lowspecced tincans for crazy money (VRT) 'cos we wouldnt want to be seen dead in a 05 car. And we've been doing it on borrowed money cos - hey - everybodys doing it and - hey - we're riding the big boom money waive arent we?

So we asked to be ripped off, we didnt care.

Now that u can hardly find a car older than 06 on Irish roads this was going to slow down eventually. Even without the so-called recession it was going to happen right?

Same with the houses. FFS one can only have so many houses. Did people really think all this was going to last forever?

galwaytt

The dealers themselves ripping people off

Ice_Box wrote: »

Distributors giving us the paddy spec cars. Take a look at the new skoda superb. Irish elegance model has fake leather. UK model has real leather and touch screen sat nav AND COSTS LESS. Why would anyone in their right mind buy from an Irish dealer?

That's two points, not one. Paddy spec is in order to keep OMSP down, to keep VRT down. Adding leather, etc, also adds to VRT and VAT bill. You can't have it both ways.

Which means Paddy spec is actually caused by .......the consumer, who didn't want to pay extra for them, which is caused by...........the VRT/VAT thing, again............:o

The 'cost' argument is almost a purely taxation one - nothing to do with garages or distributors (to a point, anyway...)

smash

The dealers themselves ripping people off

niceirishfella wrote: »

Ehhhhh, yes - if the price was right.
Who give a monkeys about having a nice plush premises to buy a car out of.........its not the flashy premises you're driving - its the DEAL and the CAR!

rubbish, if a place doesn't look professional then you wouldn't buy from them because the cars probably aren't any good. If you have no interest in making your business look decent then chances are that you have no interest in selling a decent car!

Biro

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

steve06 wrote: »

rubbish, if a place doesn't look professional then you wouldn't buy from them because the cars probably aren't any good. If you have no interest in making your business look decent then chances are that you have no interest in selling a decent car!

Silly attitude in a way. We're talking about main dealers here who were forced to build fancy premises. Before some of them had tiny premises. There's a Subaru dealer in Limerick that looks like a corner hardware store. Should I conclude that the brand new Legacy inside is a piece of crap cause the place looks stingy?

alias no.9

The banks/finance houses

steve06 wrote: »

Lets face it, you wouldn't buy a car of a dealer with a crap looking premises would you?

Damn right I would. The mrs was looking at a 3 year old micra in one of the dealers in liffey valley with their plate glass showrooms a couple of years ago. The female sales person was really doing the hard sell, we can do it for you at X price if you buy today, sign here, don't even bother calling your other half, etc...Thankfully, she did ring me. I told her to stop what she was doing that if the car was still available tomorrow, she'd still get it for the same price and if it wasn't, there's plenty more micras out there. We did a bit of shopping around that weekend and she ended up with a different micra, same year, a colour she preferred, lower mileage, but still from a main dealer, Murphy Chambers in dundrum, albeit one without the flashy showroom. She saved €1500 on the transaction which equated to about 20% of the transaction.
What was the difference between the two? A fancy showroom and a pushy sales person, the two almost always seem to go hand in hand. It's also ironic that a female sales person would treat a female buyer so badly

javaboy

niceirishfella wrote: »

Ehhhhh, yes - if the price was right.
Who give a monkeys about having a nice plush premises to buy a car out of.........its not the flashy premises you're driving - its the DEAL and the CAR!

I'd say an awful lot of people would go with the plush premises unless the non-flashy one was significantly better on price. If a place has a fancy showroom many people will assume the staff will be better trained and due to a higher number of sales they will know the cars better and so the aftersales will be better.

Another point is that people don't always shop around especially between main dealers. They sometimes expect the dealers will have consistent prices and so only try one. If you're only going to try one, you'll probably go to the biggest one.

If a showroom is big and flash it's reasonable to assume that they are selling more cars and consequently they can afford to offer lower prices based on economies of scale.

On a related note when it comes to trade-in you might expect a better trade-in value from the big dealer who is likely to be able to sell your car quicker.

Admittedly not everybody thinks of these things but they do play a part. Car dealers are mainly interested in making money. For the most part the big flashy showrooms aren't about having a comfier place to work, they are about generating more sales and profits. They wouldn't do it if it didn't work.

Appearance means a lot in retail.

Boskowski

The banks/finance houses

javaboy wrote: »

If a place has a fancy showroom many people will assume the staff will be better trained and due to a higher number of sales they will know the cars better and so the aftersales will be better.

Funny enough the BMW dealership down here has all that and aftersales & repairs seem crap. Went there for a few services and a repair and it was pricy and badly carried out. In one case them realigning the wheels led to the destruction of brand new tyres within 3 months.

Going to a small independent guy now who is actually enthusiastic about cars & engines and takes pride in his work and I fare much better. Mind he has 'no' showroom at all.

javaboy

Biro wrote: »

Silly attitude in a way. We're talking about main dealers here who were forced to build fancy premises. Before some of them had tiny premises. There's a Subaru dealer in Limerick that looks like a corner hardware store. Should I conclude that the brand new Legacy inside is a piece of crap cause the place looks stingy?

You might conclude that Subaru aren't doing too well if one of their main dealer's premises looks stingy and then wonder to yourself why they can't have a decent showroom when other car manafacturers can?

I know the counter-argument is that Subaru aren't wasting their money on fancy showrooms while the others are and that's a good point.

But it's naive to think that the look of the showroom doesn't enter into the equation for many prospective buyers.

Slig

The banks/finance houses

I think politics in general, doesnt matter whether it was the greens for the new tax regieme or the Fianna Fail for VRT. Mismanagement of public finances in the first place and the knee jerk paniced attempt to put as much money back in the kitty as quickly as possible has left us screwed in every sector!
The blame game doesnt work, ALL our political parties are basically in the same boat, fianna fail take the credit when things go good, fianna gael blame fianna fail when they dont but refuse to step up to the mark and the greens throw in every proposals they can think of in the hope that they get something right. Its the Irish condition our lifestyles over the last 10 years was completely unsustainable and couldnt continue but its all somebody elses fault when the bubble bursts. How many people here are complaining about paying VRT and how many people have actually tried doing something about it.
Its like that bloody safe foods add where your man gets the undercooked chicken and doesnt complain to the waitress, what it doesnt mention thoughis that when he came home he probably complained about it to anybody else that would listen.

javaboy

realcam wrote: »

Funny enough the BMW dealership down here has all that and aftersales & repairs seem crap. Went there for a few services and a repair and it was pricy and badly carried out. In one case them realigning the wheels led to the destruction of brand new tyres within 3 months.

Going to a small independent guy now who is actually enthusiastic about cars & engines and takes pride in his work and I fare much better. Mind he has 'no' showroom at all.

Hey I'm not saying for a minute that good showroom implies good aftersales but I bet that showroom nets them plenty of business simply by being there while your small independent mechanic is relying on word of mouth for his business.

S.I.R

we are all to blame, but everyone makes mistakes: problem is, we made massive ones by going out and buying the car of our dreams with the SSIA fund, then getting a 20k loan for a family car.... then the resession bombshell hit and most everything collapsed.


but yes, dealers have always had big prices, thats how they make money...

green party messed up also, thats their job

fianna fail... there new name... finna FAIL!...

thats just me though....

galwaytt

The dealers themselves ripping people off

S.I.R wrote: »

we are all to blame,.....we made massive ones by going out and buying the car of our dreams with the SSIA fund,............

Oh No we didn't !!

S.I.R

galwaytt wrote: »

Oh No we didn't !!

still waiting for the purchase of the new twin turbo m5 engine myself to stick in this....

[HTML]http://daihatsumidget.co.uk/images/P1010024.jpg[/HTML]

i just pray i never have to turn the yoke !

WannaST

The banks/finance houses

i'm currently looking to upgrade my car... i tried 3 different main dealers on the outskirts of cork, each surprisingly valued my car for exactly the same amount, 17.5k... at least there is consistency across the board.

i took min 1 car for a test drive from each place, (took 3 from one of them). each time i walked in i'd pass the usual comments of how slow things were and they'd all openly tell you nothing was moving. i'd then ask to take a car for a spin.

moments later i'd be handed the keys and sent off on a gallop around the south link and to check out the ecoustics of the JL tunnel. not once did a sales "executive" (the use of that word makes me laugh!) come with me to point out any features of the car that might help a sale.

on return i'd be asked was i trading in, i'd say "yes", they'd then get me the price from "da book!" subtract it from the price in the window and hey presto, as far as everyone of them was concerned that was the job done. no mats, no free service, no fuzzy dice, no hubs, no tax, no tank of fuel, nothing. completely haggle free. everytime i asked whats the best offer you can make me. not a budge, nothing!

at least they were all consistently useless.

nothing governmental here, no vrt constraints on s/h car... just pure crap sales staff. the art of the haggle is long gone, blame the c-tiger for that one. we'll see how welcome they'll be in jan when the price of second hand '08 UK cars go through the floor and the VRT for a bmw520 works out at 3k.

had to listen to that muppet cullen on the radio the other week professing how great a business it was, then the simi ads advertising "deals"... rubbish.

even if there was a car manufacturer in this country you'd still probably pay VRT to 'register' the car anyway.

jetfiremuck

A little reflection is in order.Remember during the early 90s or so the total volume of car sales was 30-50k units a year. Dealers made money, those that didnt closed. Most cars were sold from substandard garages but people still bought.The market was balanced based on the conditions at the time. Fast forward to 2003-08 Did the population explode to the levels that sales peaked during 04-06? The internet and savvy customers created the enviornment that created opportunity for Mega glasshouse forecourts. How could Tom Hogan sell the premium brand Lexus from the old Maxol offices on the Dock road Limerick for so long. The market will adjust itself if left alone just like the rural petrol garages that were everywhere. No one complains about it any more as people change habits to suit. Same with the dealers.