Vw moving to a direct sales model

MrMusician18

From 2026, VW is moving to a direct sales model for all it's brands and existing dealership contracts will be terminated. Dealers are now going to be offered a handover and service contract instead.

It's not clear to me if service centres will still offer test drives and a show room experience but what it does mean is that all sales are now going to be direct through VW. It also means only a single trade in price being offered.

While this move is undoubtedly good for VW as they will now capture the dealers margin, will this extra efficiency be any good for the consumer?

hoodie6029

The really important question is how they will upsell a poorly applied paint protection to your new car via online.

Vicxas

So no more showrooms? Or will we have VW owned showrooms?

goochy

bad idea - dealer relationships very important and if they not making decent profit they cant suck up warranty costs etc. - saw a new amorak in clare last week - bought in waterford as obviously got ' a better deal '

Fine Day

A few VW dealership gone in the last few months already. Wonder is the same going to happen to Skoda, Audi and seat

goochy

what vw dealers gone ?? seen ford dealers going - audi dealers invested too much in premises and do well from workshop business

Gerrymandering reborn

Does this mean I'll be able to get my Porsche 911 at the RRP in 10 years time?

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122194632#Comment_122194632

Al Hayes is a VW service only now.

n.d.os

Its a great concept when buying a new car but a terrible one when trying to sell it back to VW in 3 years.

CrowdedHouse

Surprised that Al Hayes Portumna gone recently, seemed sell a lot of VW. Just a Service sign now.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122194589#Comment_122194589

According to the Irish Times...

VW Group Ireland will sell new vehicles directly online to customers across all its six brands - Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Skoda, Seat, Cupra, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Audi.

https://www.irishtimes.com/motors/2024/05/28/vw-group-to-sell-cars-directly-to-irish-customers-for-all-its-brands-from-2026/

bazz26

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122194658#Comment_122194658

He took over the Skoda franchise in Ennis a few years back and sells plenty of them in the region.

elperello

They are selling it as the best of both worlds.

I'm not so sure.

One dealing entity with which you have no business relationship ?

https://www.breakingnews.ie/business/vw-group-to-sell-cars-directly-to-irish-customers-for-all-its-brands-from-2026-1630944.html

Mad_Lad

If VW offered me one of their cars for free I wouldn't take it, I don't like this tesla approach of minimalist interiors and crappy software for everything making the screen the focal point of the car, digital instrument clusters with information overload, in fact most of their cars now are just digital junk boxes.

Bigger screens in cars than houses had 30 years ago and I can't wait for the insurance companies to ramp up premiums because after all, if the risk goes up the premium should too, it was enough people were using their phones while driving now the car itself is a digital playground when people should be focusing on their driving, it's absolutely astounding that a well established German auto maker known for it's ergonomic interiors should take such an extreme backward step in cockpit design.

I had an ID3 and it drove me nuts, too many menus and software glitches, so now I have a much more basic car and I love it, and I'm gone back to petrol manual too, no thanks, they can take their over priced high tech toys and shove it up their ass !

denismc

,,

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122195152#Comment_122195152

Looks like whatever the computer says is what your trade in value is going to be, is what it will be.

Avatar in the Post

curiously, no mention of Porsche in Times article (not behind paywall). Will be interesting to see what happens to the middleman margin.

You’d wonder how bothered would the showroom be in checking your car for bumps and dents if trading in.

CrowdedHouse

Who has to move on the trade in?

Seth Brundle

I honestly couldn't see myself ever buying a car (new or otherwise) without being able to test drive it (or a similar model) first. How will VW cater for this common expectation?

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122195428#Comment_122195428

Dealers I guess. By moving to an agency model VW will be able to almost fully control the second hand market in their used vehicles up to 5yo.

I suspect VW will sell on the used vehicles into their dealer network and will be able to reward their best performing agents with access to better used cars or better prices.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122195916#Comment_122195916

Agents it looks like will operate demo show rooms but sales will be through VW direct - according to the above linked article.

All the other brands apart from the Japanese and Koreans are moving to this model and the new EV brands have gone with this way from day 1.

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122194658#Comment_122194658

Sold the world of VWs. You could see his sticker on a back window of a car in any part of the country. I never bought a new car but I believe he was hard beating on price with a new car.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122195933#Comment_122195933

This. The traditional business model for dealerships is becoming outdated by technological progress, and this can only accelerate with the move to EVs

On the whole this should be good for the consumer, since currently the dealership requires a margin that the consumer must pay, in addition to the manufacturer's margin. The OP suggests that the manufacturers will simply trouser the dealer's margin but a more likely outcome is that it will partly accrue to manufacturers and partly to consumers, in the form of lower prices. With purchasing conducted online, and only a single trade price for each model, price comparison is going to be a lot easier, and that should put downward pressure on prices.

Buddy Bubs

I was in 3 separate VW brand dealerships many times in last 2 years, buying an Etron with my father, cupra for myself and ID5 with my uncle.

The Audi and especially the VW were packed full of staff, oversized and had so many lights on I was just thinking that the customer is paying big time for this and it's so unnecessary. Not to mention building the place. Cupra was a lot smaller but they wouldn't do the volume so each customer paying big time there too.

Can only be a good thing for pricing and I assume that's the reasoning, although they'll still jockey you as much as they can get away with.

What is the deal with test drives and going to see a car in the likes of Tesla? I've never been to a Tesla centre before.

Calahonda52

I wonder how much control they will keep on the servicing costs, especially when within warranty, with a standard schedule of charges.?

fits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122196324#Comment_122196324

the one in sandyford is basically a shed attached to a garage with very little parking outside. They’ve a few test drive vehicles scattered around. It’s definitely not fancy.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122196332#Comment_122196332

One of the reasons why the dealership business model is broken is that service costs, as a component of the lifetime cost of a car, are getting smaller and smaller, and this trend accelerates with the shift to EVs. A dealer is less and less motivated to sell you a car by the consideration that he is starting a servicing relationship that will be signficantly remunerative. Modern cars are much more reliable than they used to be, and EVs have many fewer moving parts, and many fewer components that can fail; increasingly the only proprietyar value that servicing will be able to add will be making sure that software is up-to-date.

carsfan2

BMW/mini are doing this also.
It seems to be trend in manufacturers now to want control of the retail end as well.
I can’t see it benefiting the consumer in any way.

Vicxas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122196558#Comment_122196558

The dealers were never champions of customer satisfaction either so not sure who's worse.

Montage of Feck

The move to EV is bad for customers and worse for the environment. Cars are now to be throwaway products bought on the never never.

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122195916#Comment_122195916

Follow the Tesla model?

Direct sales to customers, but still have a few showrooms for test drives… (Tesla even have cars located at some of their superchargers set up for remote test drives)