Pino Harris Chinese LDV vans in Ireland and UK

goochy

There was a thread on this recently but got closed as somehow got heated !!
It turns out now Harris has got the LDV agency for uk as well as Ireland and a quota of 3,000 vehicles to sell !
Wish him best of luck , see theres building work going on , on Naas Road - assume its for these vans.
anyone driven the new version ? think resale values will put many off buying as they aren't well known.
Also making people aware of the brand will be a problem , Harris's wouldn't be great at the marketing side - if they got involved with sports sponsorship - teams / radio/ tv shows might work.

Its surprising that they got uk agency as LDV's owners SAIC already have substantial presence in uk through MG.

Notch000

Who is Harris and what is your connection to him ???

mgbgt1978

Notch000 wrote: »

Who is Harris and what is your connection to him ???

If you have to ask you must never have been anywhere near the Red cow/ Long Mile Road area...........ever..;)

mickdw

Notch000 wrote: »

Who is Harris and what is your connection to him ???

Everyone knows Harris.
These vans would need to be seriously cheap to sell here. I just had a quick look.
They look crap but they do have a 5 year 200000 km warranty and seem to come with reasonable spec. Still id say they are fairly crap.

goochy

No connection , the new Transit doesn't look great so I don't think you can hold the looks against them. The risk of buying an unfamiliar brand and reselling will be main problems.

colm_mcm

The main issue here is that if you want to sell loads of them you have to do lease deals to major companies. LDV traditionally did well out of the Royal Mail and other UK state and semi state companies, probably through patriotism.
There is no goodwill there now that these are being built overseas, and as your van has to create the right image, I couldn't see any fleets taking on such an unknown brand.
Then you have things like aftersales, parts supply and availability, resale value, limited configurations etc etc.

As for MG, they have made a total bags of selling their cars, (the uk arm is only a token effort to give the brand more credibility as a European make in China) I wouldn't put them in charge of a lemonade stand.

goochy

MG cars are rubbish and the car market is much more competitive than van market so you cant really compare.
They have had no trouble appointing dealers for the cars in uk but are only going to sell about 3,000 cars in uk this year.

The Harris group is a well run operation but don't think marketing / promotion is their strong point and the dealer networks not great either.

I see Harris is also importing Chinese Higger coaches also. Isnt their something about Hino trucks not meeting emissions in certain markets ?

goochy

passed by Harris's today , looks like he has sold/ leased aload of vans to An Post ! assume he gave them very good deal as they normally use transits. but either way its quite a coup .

noticed no Hino tippers/ mixers around , are they able to be sold here now with emissions ?

very few Ssangyong around the compound , they really have not been a success and with the likes of the new hyundai Tucson the Koronda cant compete.

colm_mcm

https://www.facebook.com/ldvireland/photos/a.1433316863649893.1073741830.1431085543873025/1508104466171132/?type=3&theater

colm_mcm

colm_mcm wrote: »

https://www.facebook.com/ldvireland/photos/a.1433316863649893.1073741830.1431085543873025/1508104466171132/?type=3&theater

I would have thought they'd be green

CIP4

Augeo wrote: »

I would have thought they'd be green

An post don't buy green vans anymore if you look at their 14/15 Reg caddys kangoos etc on the road they are all white. I suppose it's cheaper to buy them in white and when you sell them on they are easier to sell and possibly worth a bit more too no brainier as they still have sign writing on them so you still know it's An post.

Guy:Incognito

They bought a heap of Doblos too. They're all in the Agnelli compound.

CIP4

We will quickly find out how decent the LDV vans are based on whether they buy them again. They have a high enough standard to live upto being compared to transits.

cerastes

Ive always thought they looked, slightly different, wasnt sure what customers bought them new or why, but never looked down on them.
What kind of engines are in them now? chinese? emissions? economy/mileage?

Do they really compete directly with transits? Ive seen them kitted as small buses hat seemed bigger than transits, I guess I presumed they were cheaper but that there was no real significant problems.

colm_mcm

I think it's a vm engine in them

ba_barabus

colm_mcm wrote: »

I think it's a vm engine in them

Aye. I had posted pictures of them on the road. VM engine, all very old school tech, sounded exactly like a mid 90s Transit.

Tbh the only thing I reckon they have going for them is a cheap price but I don't think they're particularly cheap.

ba_barabus

As for MG UK, they're a bloody joke. I could wrote a lot about them but I won't. Having said that I do fancy importing one in the future as I'm a gluten for punishment.

savagethegoat

the thing is though many Asian brands started out as poorly built jokes and now are good quality and selling well and don't forget the reputation that Skoda had once, or SEAT . Everyone starts somewhere and they can and will gain market share

Marcusm

ba_barabus wrote: »

As for MG UK, they're a bloody joke. I could wrote a lot about them but I won't. Having said that I do fancy importing one in the future as I'm a gluten for punishment.

They have a nice showroom on Piccadilly opposite Fortnum & Mason. An old MG TF is about the only interesting thing in it. I expect it is there so Chinese tourists can see it in a prominent area in London. I'd be shocked if they got a single serious inquiry a week and certainly doubt that they sell more than 1 a month through it.

colm_mcm

ba_barabus wrote: »

Aye. I had posted pictures of them on the road. VM engine, all very old school tech, sounded exactly like a mid 90s Transit.

Tbh the only thing I reckon they have going for them is a cheap price but I don't think they're particularly cheap.

it would have to be pretty modern to meet emissions. id day there's massive discount available. remember the cityrover and how greedy mguk were with the list price vs the £1600 or so that were getting them for

Corpus Twisty

On the LDV(SAIC?) van front, a company down the road bought one last year and I noticed they bought two more this year, so they seem happy enough with them. I'm also starting to see quite a few of them trundling around the various industrial estates. The vans actually look alright - quite a few seem to have been dressed up with nifty signwriting/lightbars etc. On the mechanical front, I have no idea what engines/transmissions they use in them, whether they use another manufacturers driveline or make their own. Anyone else know what driveline is in them?

They'll probably sell ok, at the price for business customers if you knock 5 years out of one relatively trouble free people won't be overly bothered about resale.

5/7 ths of the purchase price would be ran through the books than and the buy price is low so the interest on a business loan would be small too of course.

To be fair they wouldn't have to be great to please people more than a Renault/Opel offering with a sh@gged gearbox after a few years

newcavanman

there are plenty of companies out there with medium size fleets who buy mainly based on price. The list prices are probably set to allow for big discounts for fleet orders, same as companies like Citroen, Peugeot Fiat etc. You will very seldom see an owner driver buy something like that . Personally im driving Sprinters and their predecessors for nearly 30 years and i wouldnt be bothered changing. But mark my words, An Post arnt the first and wont be the last fleet group to buy these vans .

goochy

seen plenty of post vans around but not much other ' LDVS' around this part of country .

Anyone know how well they are doing ? are they leased or sold to An post ?

pity anyone who bought an SsangYong in recent years , their terrible sales cant be good for residual values.

colm_mcm

you can see commercial sales on beepbeep.ie.
far as I know the an post vans are all WH reg so should be easy to see how many are regged

goochy

Just noticed in my local sorting office some 161 wh reg transits With later regs. Then ldv s . Wonder was original plan to buy transits too or did they just stop buying ldvs ? Havent seem many ldv around ?

ba_barabus

goochy wrote: »

Just noticed in my local sorting office some 161 wh reg transits With later regs. Then ldv s . Wonder was original plan to buy transits too or did they just stop buying ldvs ? Havent seem many ldv around ?

They bought in a batch which I assume is for assessment. They have many different types of vans on the fleet.

I'm seeing a lot of them on the roads with smaller business branding on them.

goochy

seeing a few of these in cork , but sales figures still low and no sign of an post buying anymore .
Wonder how they are selling in uk , they have loads in stock on Naas road - is it moving at all ?

Think Harris group are really bad at marketing , selling cars and vans not the same as trucks.
They should be trying to improve knowledge of the vans amongst white van man , ads in the tabloids , sponsor a league of Ireland team or sports programme - radio/ tv.

They have also made a mess of SsangYong , inferior product at similar price to established brands.

jimbis

The an post order was delayed by quite a bit due to a fault in them that had to be rectified. From what I heard there was a bunch of Chinese lads (great bunch:p) over that had a few thousand vans to get through.
My brother got one of the first ones to arrive in Ireland, it's been back a few times and just last week it got a new clutch (55k hard miles) but he's happy enough with it.

goochy

So you're brother works for an post ? Thought the drivers hated them ?

jimbis

goochy wrote: »

So you're brother works for an post ? Thought the drivers hated them ?

No he doesn't. But I have asked any of the drivers that deliver to me and they all like them.

goochy

see they sold only about 300 of these in uk last year - similar to figures here despite much bigger market and more brand awareness of LDV over there.

They have recently appointed a new uk sales manager , not sure if that's due to low sales or recent sad developments in Harris group mean Mark Barrett has extra work to do in Ireland.

considering Harris agreed to take 3000 vans , its going to take a long time to clear .

Guy:Incognito

They seem to have stopped the work on the new /refurbed building. Was that around the time pino died? Hadn't been paying attention.

goochy

that's strange as planning said Harris Hino but hino hardly sold now - they have got that far that it doesn't make sense to stop work . However hard to see why they needed it.
Harris group have done really badly with SsangYong - not good vehicles and pricey - not sure if another distributor would have done better. SsangYong did ok under Nissan irl. last time around.

TheDriver

What's the story with sino?

goochy

a Chinese hino - by importing them in low nos. - they don't have to meet latest emissions standards due to low volume ? something like that

TheDriver

Don't think I ever saw one

ba_barabus

goochy wrote: »

see they sold only about 300 of these in uk last year - similar to figures here despite much bigger market and more brand awareness of LDV over there.

They have recently appointed a new uk sales manager , not sure if that's due to low sales or recent sad developments in Harris group mean Mark Barrett has extra work to do in Ireland.

considering Harris agreed to take 3000 vans , its going to take a long time to clear .

They've only started to market them recently in the UK. Don't forget commercial van sales in the UK is extremely competitive with the big players that currently operate there.

goochy

in fairness they have been marketing them since early 2016 in uk , I have been following developments - they picked up a lot of old LDV dealers and have a good network in uk. its shockingly bad .

colm_mcm

From cvdealer.co.uk

The company behind the UK and Ireland’s Hino network has been busy whilst waiting for Euro 6 Hino products to materialise and gone to the Chinese for some products to sell. Ireland-based Harris Assemblers have been importing Hino kits and assembling them in Ireland for many years, so have plenty of experience of managing this type of operation and have a nationwide network of Hino dealers ready to take up the challenge of marketing a Chinese Built truck alongside the Japanese Hino.

Harris Vice President, Liam O’Neill explained that Harris went looking for a heavy truck manufacturer and were most impressed with Sinotruk and their ‘can do’ attitude.

Originally involved in a partnership with Volvo, Sinotruk are, more recently, involved with MAN for technological input. Manufacturing some 350,000 trucks a year, Sinotruk are no stranger to exporting, as some 170,000 of these are sold outside of China.

The technology hasn’t stretched as far as Euro 6, however, with Harris bringing in Euro 5 trucks under Small Series Type Approval – which allows 250 trucks for the UK market and 250 for Ireland per year. The Chinese-built 10-litre 380 hp Euro 5 engine is coupled to a 9-speed manual ZF transmission and Harris are hoping that by June 2016 the Euro 6 13-litre engine will be ready.

The 8×4 A7 will be on the market from June this year, either as a chassis cab or ready bodied mixer, as was on show. O’Neill was keen to point out that Harris are now the “only heavy duty truck assembler in Eire and the UK.” Plans are afoot to extend the range to 6×2, 6×4 and 4×2 rigids also, with the potential for a 3.5 tonner and a 6×2 tractor unit.

May will be spent getting the spare parts inventory established – Harris are confident this programme will go ahead – the question is are the UK and Irish operators willing to try the 10,240 kg truck?

lomb

Harris had no interest in driving Chinese himself! I remember seeing him driving very slowly alot years ago in a 600SE w140, apparently went to 7 Series after that.
Anyone seen the crash tests on Chinese cara/vans on youtube:eek:

ba_barabus

goochy wrote: »

in fairness they have been marketing them since early 2016 in uk , I have been following developments - they picked up a lot of old LDV dealers and have a good network in uk. its shockingly bad .

Any word on how the vans are performing in the field? Reliable?

goochy

Harris had a Rolls Phantom and a no. of other Rolls after the Mercedes and Bmws

Duke O Smiley

goochy wrote: »

Harris had a Rolls Phantom and a no. of other Rolls after the Mercedes and Bmws

He had a 2004 760i followed by a 2008 LS600h..both are in DoneDeal at the minute!

..among a many number of others no doubt