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grober

MB Master
Joined
Jun 22, 2003
Messages
31,622
Location
Perth, Scotland
Car
W204 ESTATE
Found these rather depressing pictures of stockpiles of unsold cars:( .
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/gallery/2009/jan/16/unsold-cars?picture=341883529

Bit chastening to think people may be buying these cars in a couple of years time ( assuming the whole economy/banking thing hasn't imploded) Yes Sir, its a preregistered car but its only got 11 miles on the clock :) ( and 18months in a ploughed field :crazy: )
 
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or worse than standing in a field...


Left standing in the docks for 18 months with a stiff sea breeze and plenty of salt.

You'd think we'd be starting to see heavier discounting on new cars anytime soon.
 
I'm sure there are a lot of unsold cars out there but are the pictures just jumping on the band wagon?
For instance this picture has the caption "Peugeot cars await shipment to Italian dealers at the port of Civitavecchia". It could say "look at all these lovely cars we've built and exported to Italy". When they unload the ferry they don't have 1,000 people ready to drive them to dealers. Of course they store them at the port until they can be collected :rolleyes:
xpeugeot-8962.jpg
 
What I find amazing is that every time I have ordered a new car, I have had to wait months for it to be built.
 
What I find amazing is that every time I have ordered a new car, I have had to wait months for it to be extracted from the middle of the 1,500 cars blocking it in the car park .

Typo corrected :devil:
 
Thats a fairly normal view.. Go to Rio de Janeiro and check out the docks... just like the pics..

Thats just where they are stored before they go off to their dealers..
 
But the port of Longbeach (I think) has recently rented all it's spare land out to BMW, Volvo and someone..
The cars really are just sitting there and now the level of ships moving goods is down as demand is dropping.

You would think that it was now prudent for manufacturers to have a knock down sale but I bet they don't.
 
You would think that it was now prudent for manufacturers to have a knock down sale but I bet they don't.

Discounting is anathema to corporations. If they can discount prices now people know they can in the future. The downturn will be a few years but try clawing prices back up after people have get used to a 30% discount. They would rather have the pain for a few years with much reduced sales than lower prices for the next decade or 2.
 
What I find amazing is that every time I have ordered a new car, I have had to wait months for it to be built.

Have you been buying MBs? I believe many other cars are bought more often from the showroom while MBs are ordered for a personal selection of options and (mostly) cannot be produced in advance.

My W221 took 9 months from order to delivery, I don't remember when it has been less than 6 months except that for the coming W212 it should take less than 4 months.

I have not seen MB figures but in Europe I would not expect a lot of ready made unsold cars while in the US they have a lot of them.
 
Discounting is anathema to corporations. If they can discount prices now people know they can in the future.

I had already thought through that angle, but if they don't act soon they might not be looking at decades of selling.

I think the buying public is going to whip some Corporate Ass...
 
Have you been buying MBs? I believe many other cars are bought more often from the showroom while MBs are ordered for a personal selection of options and (mostly) cannot be produced in advance.

My W221 took 9 months from order to delivery, I don't remember when it has been less than 6 months except that for the coming W212 it should take less than 4 months.

I have not seen MB figures but in Europe I would not expect a lot of ready made unsold cars while in the US they have a lot of them.

My previous cars were Audi, Lexus and BMW and all had waiting times of over 2 months. Some were worth the wait and some were not. The Mercedes of course is still, after over a years ownership, able to bring a smile to my face whenever I drive it.
 
These days the waiting lists for MB are because the cars are built to order and there are so many complex options that cars cannot be built to a 'standard spec' and expect a customer to buy it .

In years gone by , it was because demand exceeded supply and people actually paid premiums over the list prices in order to 'jump the queue' .

Of course , in those days , Mercedes only had three or four ranges of cars ( compact 180/190 series ; larger 220/300 ; SL and 600 ) with relatively few options available on all but the 600 .

Since virtually every car was sold before it left the factory , discounting was unheard of .

Perhaps they should consider rationalising their ranges and getting back to a similar situation .
 
Wouldn't that mean selling a lot less cars, which would probably finish them in todays marketplace.
 
I'm sure it would mean selling fewer cars ( although the car division always used to be only one part of the larger company : vans/trucks/buses/military/agricultural machinery and engines for marine and other uses were also significant parts ) .

The cars that would remain ( which ones ought to be kept in the rationalised range would make an interesting debate ) would be more profitable and cutting unneccessary production / closing costly plants would save on overheads - so the company could end up being leaner/fitter/more profitable than before .

Instead of trying to make products to fill every corner of the marketplace , and perhaps not doing so well in some areas , thus tarnishing their reputation , they would do well to stick to what they're good at and make fewer but better cars .

Perhaps the cars would cost a bit more to buy new ( back in the 1960's even a humble 190 cost the price of a small house ) but the other side of the coin would be that residual values would improve due to the restoration of the demand/supply equation .
 
My two most modern Mercs were bought 'off the peg' and not made to order. There are good economic reasons for this! The build dates of the cars are 5 months (S Class) and 4 months (ML) prior to their registration dates.
They have to be somewhere for that time (quote Eccles?:eek: ) and I guess the ML spent some time on a boat from the deep south of the US of A. I agree the stock levels are higher than noramal, but if the average time from build to registration is maybe 2 months, that is still a lot of stock cars!
 
My previous cars were Audi, Lexus and BMW and all had waiting times of over 2 months. Some were worth the wait and some were not. The Mercedes of course is still, after over a years ownership, able to bring a smile to my face whenever I drive it.

With Audi, Lexus and BMW it takes 2 months to find your car with your spec in the mass of cars in the stockpile.:eek: ;)
 

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