Ask a car salesman anything...anything at all.

[Fast Bug]

Stella Tortoise said:

Butter Face said:

Got mine all lined up, finance done, radios programmed and ready to rock and roll!

What's the deal with the radios?

Attention to detail?

Years ago when I sold Rovers they had 6 presets for stations. I had radio 1 through 4 and the 2 big local ones tuned in the last 2 slots

[Butter Face]

Stella Tortoise said:

Butter Face said:

Got mine all lined up, finance done, radios programmed and ready to rock and roll!

What's the deal with the radios?

Tune in the DAB, set the presets, change the name on the systems (when I say ‘radio’ I also mean the software on the systems that say ‘Hello XXXX’ on startup and the like.)

Just generally get the car ready to rock and roll so you’re not messing around with that stuff tomorrow.

[Buster73]

Fast Bug said:

Attention to detail?

Years ago when I sold Rovers they had 6 presets for stations. I had radio 1 through 4 and the 2 big local ones tuned in the last 2 slots

A simple but nice touch.

[Sheepshanks]

jamoor said:

I personally don’t think the registration plate thing is a big deal anymore.

I don’t know anyone that cares about it anyway

I think the March one is still a very big month for registrations compared to other months.

[Stella Tortoise]

Butter Face said:

Tune in the DAB, set the presets, change the name on the systems (when I say ‘radio’ I also mean the software on the systems that say ‘Hello XXXX’ on startup and the like.)

Just generally get the car ready to rock and roll so you’re not messing around with that stuff tomorrow.

That's a nice touch.

My current car started displaying 'hello nobhead' on the media screen shortly after I bought it, no idea how it works but I like it.

[Fast Bug]

Sheepshanks said:

I think the March one is still a very big month for registrations compared to other months.

Target wise March and September are fairly even for us. I've got a stupid number of registrations to find this month!

[MG CHRIS]

We are shut tomorrow commercial dealership but just done 3 pdi today ready for valet Monday then going out on Tuesday. Week before however did 15pdi variety of 19 plates and 2 20 plates which have already gone out to a company ready to start on Monday.
Van commercial sales do operate different to cars and tbh we only ever see a slight increase on march or September.
However on the workshop we do see a big up shift in mot/servicing etc around feb/march/april/may then sep/October/November with December/jan and july/august seeing a marked down trend in service/mot. However we have more warranty work in dec/jan and july/august generally as the companies will put them in for repairs just before warranty ends.

[jamoor]

Ford to close half of it’s dealership network,

I’m right as usual, other manufacturers to follow

Although I kind of expected them to shut down due to going broke rather than closing due to an announcement.

[The Mad Monk]

jamoor said:

Ford to close half of it’s dealership network,

I’m right as usual,

No. you are not right, you are wrong.

It's its, not it's

[MG CHRIS]

jamoor said:

Ford to close half of it’s dealership network,

I’m right as usual, other manufacturers to follow

Although I kind of expected them to shut down due to going broke rather than closing due to an announcement.

It's the small ford dealership that will be axed the big ones will stay. Tbf within a 25 mile radius of me I can count 7 ford dealers without any effort. Also there are over 700 ford dealers over twice as many as the beast nearest brand. So even after half do close ford will still have the market share in the uk

[93DW]

jamoor said:

Ford to close half of it’s dealership network,

I’m right as usual, other manufacturers to follow

Although I kind of expected them to shut down due to going broke rather than closing due to an announcement.

I think Ford are realising they've got too many dealers. Someone I know has just given his notice to Ford to stop being a dealer, 5 years ago he spent nearly 30k refitting the showroom to Ford standards only for ford to now say it needs another 15k thrown at it or stop being a dealer.

[Buster73]

93DW said:

I think Ford are realising they've got too many dealers. Someone I know has just given his notice to Ford to stop being a dealer, 5 years ago he spent nearly 30k refitting the showroom to Ford standards only for ford to now say it needs another 15k thrown at it or stop being a dealer.

£30 k ?

Couple of coats of paint and some new floor tiles needed ?

[Fast Bug]

Renault did this a few years ago, in the small town that I live in, we had 2 dealers within a 5 miles radius. Between them they probably sold 50 new cars a year.

And yeah, dealer standards are flipping expensive. If you don't spend the money to comply, they'll happily cut back end bonus money or terminate your agreement. For all the tea in China I wouldn't want to own a new car dealership. Vans maybe, cars definitely not!

[jamei303]

Buster73 said:

£30 k ?

Couple of coats of paint and some new floor tiles needed ?

I'm guessing mandatory orange plastic chairs and an orange plastic wall.

[MG CHRIS]

93DW said:

jamoor said:

Ford to close half of it’s dealership network,

I’m right as usual, other manufacturers to follow

Although I kind of expected them to shut down due to going broke rather than closing due to an announcement.

I think Ford are realising they've got too many dealers. Someone I know has just given his notice to Ford to stop being a dealer, 5 years ago he spent nearly 30k refitting the showroom to Ford standards only for ford to now say it needs another 15k thrown at it or stop being a dealer.

Yep with over 700 dealers its a staggering figure and with electric vehicle range with ford growing within 10-15 years there wont be enough demand to have 700+ dealers. The next nearest is Vauxhall with around 300.
If you look at new vehicles sales the focus and fiesta are constently top in jan this year 6000 fiesta and 5000 focus were sold being number 1 and 2. Look at commercial number 1 is the transit custom with 3000 units number 2 is the transit with 1900 number 4 is the transit connect with 1400 on pick ups yep the ranger takes number 1 with 2000 units sold that's just in January.


Most brands would love to even get close to the market share that ford has.

[Sheepshanks]

Buster73 said:

£30 k ?

Couple of coats of paint and some new floor tiles needed ?

I was thinking that!

The newish Honda dealer near me was mentioned in a local newspaper article as having cost £6M - it's a split site, so maybe that was the cost of the whole thing, but even £3M seems insane (for Honda).

Apparently Honda is reducing its dealer network to around 100.

[Butter Face]

We (Renault) did it in 2012 and it was a great idea, 400 dealers is a lot and makes sense to slim that down if they can.

[jamoor]

MG CHRIS said:

93DW said:

jamoor said:

Ford to close half of it’s dealership network,

I’m right as usual, other manufacturers to follow

Although I kind of expected them to shut down due to going broke rather than closing due to an announcement.

I think Ford are realising they've got too many dealers. Someone I know has just given his notice to Ford to stop being a dealer, 5 years ago he spent nearly 30k refitting the showroom to Ford standards only for ford to now say it needs another 15k thrown at it or stop being a dealer.

Yep with over 700 dealers its a staggering figure and with electric vehicle range with ford growing within 10-15 years there wont be enough demand to have 700+ dealers. The next nearest is Vauxhall with around 300.
If you look at new vehicles sales the focus and fiesta are constently top in jan this year 6000 fiesta and 5000 focus were sold being number 1 and 2. Look at commercial number 1 is the transit custom with 3000 units number 2 is the transit with 1900 number 4 is the transit connect with 1400 on pick ups yep the ranger takes number 1 with 2000 units sold that's just in January.


Most brands would love to even get close to the market share that ford has.

Exactly the business model of sell them a car then charge them for maintenance won’t work in the future so they have to shut down the dealers in anticipation.

[Sheepshanks]

Butter Face said:

We (Renault) did it in 2012 and it was a great idea, 400 dealers is a lot and makes sense to slim that down if they can.

You might not have thought it was great if you worked at one of the dealers that closed!

[The Mad Monk]

93DW said:

I think Ford are realising they've got too many dealers. Someone I know has just given his notice to Ford to stop being a dealer, 5 years ago he spent nearly 30k refitting the showroom to Ford standards only for ford to now say it needs another 15k thrown at it or stop being a dealer.

From my lofty perch, those figures look pretty small beer to me.

30k? Price of a modest family runabout.

15k? Price of a modest used family runabout.