Car brand loyalty
Discussion
In no particular order...
Fiat x3 (X1/9, Uno Turbo I, Uno Turbo II)
Suzuki (SJ413)
Land Rover x 2 (Series 2)
Rover (P6)
Triumph (Spitfire)
Nissan (X-Trail)
Honda x 2 (CRV, Civic)
BMW x 12
Big brand loyalty and enthusiasm for BMW has grown mainly via 3 series and the M Division. Not keen on the latest gopping grille offerings though!
Fiat x3 (X1/9, Uno Turbo I, Uno Turbo II)
Suzuki (SJ413)
Land Rover x 2 (Series 2)
Rover (P6)
Triumph (Spitfire)
Nissan (X-Trail)
Honda x 2 (CRV, Civic)
BMW x 12
Big brand loyalty and enthusiasm for BMW has grown mainly via 3 series and the M Division. Not keen on the latest gopping grille offerings though!
Balmoral said:
Most folks seem to have had allsorts and are showing no or very little loyalty.
Back in the day brand loyalty was very strong, almost football club tribal, even into the late eighties. People would talk about being a Ford man or a Vauxhall man and that's what they'd stick to for a lifetime. Car manufacturers/dealers would offer salesmans incentives for what was known as conquest sales, such was the difficulty getting someone to change if they'd managed to at least get as far as a rival showroom.
The brand loyalty in those days was also down to relationships with local dealers. My FiL bought a new Ford every 3 years off the same local dealer. My dad's mate was Renault dealer so we had a succession of them. Next door neighbour only drove Saab. In those days, 1960s, Saab was a very left field choice. I think he was an engineer. Back in the day brand loyalty was very strong, almost football club tribal, even into the late eighties. People would talk about being a Ford man or a Vauxhall man and that's what they'd stick to for a lifetime. Car manufacturers/dealers would offer salesmans incentives for what was known as conquest sales, such was the difficulty getting someone to change if they'd managed to at least get as far as a rival showroom.
Edited by Balmoral on Thursday 17th January 09:11
My FiL was very similar with regards to the dealer relationship. He always had Rootes (Hillman which became Talbot which became Peugeot). He was on a two year change cycle, didn't do many miles and always kept his cars mint, to the degree that the dealer had people waiting for John's cars to come into stock and they would be sold before he'd collected his new one. Then the dealer switched to Skoda (in the Estelle days) and so he switched to the dealer next door which was VW, he's been with them ever since. 30 odd years with Rootes cars then 30 odd with VW.
1 x Ford Escort (1.4 GL - First car - I killed within two weeks of passing my test)
1 x Citroen (ZX 1.4 - It killed itself because it's French)
14 x Honda (Various - FD2, EP3, S2K etc. Not even a warning light flicker in any of them - even when heavily modded)
1 x Audi (2015 S3 Saloon - modded, no issues)
1 x Merc (W204 2011 - C63 - not modded and built like a tank)
1 x Alfa (2008 159 2.2 SW - Loads of warnings and dashboard lights but turn it off and back on again and all is well)
Mrs is a Renault fan - had five and they've been as reliable as any of Hondas
I agree with the comments regarding dealers. Bought my first Honda, had fab customer service right up to the point they were bought over by a large NW chain and all of a sudden I couldn't make a deal with the guy sat in front of me because he had to keep running to Dealer Principle to agree a price...patronising in the extreme. Bought the Audi and Merc from a guy in Ulverston simply because he was a pleasant chap to deal with.
The Alfa was an ebay purchase that was only meant to be two month stop gap but I've had it 8 months and I'm really enjoying a car that I don't care what state the dogs are in when in the boot or where I park it.
I'm probably anti certain brands...inverse brand loyalty I guess.
1 x Citroen (ZX 1.4 - It killed itself because it's French)
14 x Honda (Various - FD2, EP3, S2K etc. Not even a warning light flicker in any of them - even when heavily modded)
1 x Audi (2015 S3 Saloon - modded, no issues)
1 x Merc (W204 2011 - C63 - not modded and built like a tank)
1 x Alfa (2008 159 2.2 SW - Loads of warnings and dashboard lights but turn it off and back on again and all is well)
Mrs is a Renault fan - had five and they've been as reliable as any of Hondas
I agree with the comments regarding dealers. Bought my first Honda, had fab customer service right up to the point they were bought over by a large NW chain and all of a sudden I couldn't make a deal with the guy sat in front of me because he had to keep running to Dealer Principle to agree a price...patronising in the extreme. Bought the Audi and Merc from a guy in Ulverston simply because he was a pleasant chap to deal with.
The Alfa was an ebay purchase that was only meant to be two month stop gap but I've had it 8 months and I'm really enjoying a car that I don't care what state the dogs are in when in the boot or where I park it.
I'm probably anti certain brands...inverse brand loyalty I guess.
1 Chrysler Simca
1 Daimler Sovereign
1 Jaguar XF
1 Austin Metro
1 Aston Martin Vantage
2 Vauxhall Nova's
2 VW Golfs
3 BMW 3-Series
3 Fiat Ducato's
3 Alfa Romeo's
28 Ford's - Capri, Cortina, KA, Focus, Fiesta, Mondeo, Kuga
I've always liked Ford and consequently work for them, though all those above were privately purchased, as opposed to company cars. I also have certain brands I'd never buy such as Kia, Hyundai, Renault, Vauxhall so a kind of inverted brand loyalty. I liked the older BMW's but all of them gave me problems. The Alfa's were fun and no trouble, the Golfs were also plagued with issues and the Simca took everything a 17 year old could throw at it and just got on with it. The Metro wasn't very nice but it lasted 5 years and 60,000 miles and was utterly reliable and pocket money to run.
1 Daimler Sovereign
1 Jaguar XF
1 Austin Metro
1 Aston Martin Vantage
2 Vauxhall Nova's
2 VW Golfs
3 BMW 3-Series
3 Fiat Ducato's
3 Alfa Romeo's
28 Ford's - Capri, Cortina, KA, Focus, Fiesta, Mondeo, Kuga
I've always liked Ford and consequently work for them, though all those above were privately purchased, as opposed to company cars. I also have certain brands I'd never buy such as Kia, Hyundai, Renault, Vauxhall so a kind of inverted brand loyalty. I liked the older BMW's but all of them gave me problems. The Alfa's were fun and no trouble, the Golfs were also plagued with issues and the Simca took everything a 17 year old could throw at it and just got on with it. The Metro wasn't very nice but it lasted 5 years and 60,000 miles and was utterly reliable and pocket money to run.
Edited by j4r4lly on Thursday 17th January 14:46
ChasW said:
Balmoral said:
Most folks seem to have had allsorts and are showing no or very little loyalty.
Back in the day brand loyalty was very strong, almost football club tribal, even into the late eighties. People would talk about being a Ford man or a Vauxhall man and that's what they'd stick to for a lifetime. Car manufacturers/dealers would offer salesmans incentives for what was known as conquest sales, such was the difficulty getting someone to change if they'd managed to at least get as far as a rival showroom.
The brand loyalty in those days was also down to relationships with local dealers. My FiL bought a new Ford every 3 years off the same local dealer. My dad's mate was Renault dealer so we had a succession of them. Next door neighbour only drove Saab. In those days, 1960s, Saab was a very left field choice. I think he was an engineer. Back in the day brand loyalty was very strong, almost football club tribal, even into the late eighties. People would talk about being a Ford man or a Vauxhall man and that's what they'd stick to for a lifetime. Car manufacturers/dealers would offer salesmans incentives for what was known as conquest sales, such was the difficulty getting someone to change if they'd managed to at least get as far as a rival showroom.
Edited by Balmoral on Thursday 17th January 09:11
Sometimes I be given one simply to get it out the way and would either sell it on for beer money or run it 'till it dropped.
Best freebie of all was a battered R12 estate that everybody borrowed for lugging stuff about and that I used mainly as a tip run car while I was renovating a house. I ran that on the odd secondhand part and scrapyard tyres for ages. One of my mates dropped a ladder on it from some height leaving a huge crease in the roof and I couldn't care less. Once I'd finished taking the piss I just laid down on the back seat and kicked it out.
Being able to do that with a car is very liberating.
hondafanatic said:
1
I agree with the comments regarding dealers. Bought my first Honda, had fab customer service right up to the point they were bought over by a large NW chain and all of a sudden I couldn't make a deal with the guy sat in front of me because he had to keep running to Dealer Principle to agree a price...patronising in the extreme. Bought the Audi and Merc from a guy in Ulverston simply because he was a pleasant chap to deal with.
This is one of the things which stymied BL and Rover twice. When BL collapsed in 1975 the incoming government-appointed management took the (badly overdue) decision to cut costs by streamlining BL's dealer network, which had never been rationalised since the merger of Austin and Nuffield in 1952 and then expanded further by bringing Jaguar and Rover/Triumph into the fold. Even small country market towns in the middle of nowhere could have four or five BL dealers all selling different ranges. I agree with the comments regarding dealers. Bought my first Honda, had fab customer service right up to the point they were bought over by a large NW chain and all of a sudden I couldn't make a deal with the guy sat in front of me because he had to keep running to Dealer Principle to agree a price...patronising in the extreme. Bought the Audi and Merc from a guy in Ulverston simply because he was a pleasant chap to deal with.
In itself, a great idea. Except that many of those dealers had customers who had been repeat buyers for 20 years or more, knew their market and their 'patch' inside out and were basically acting as small-scale one-on-one marketing teams. It was also two years after Britain entered the EEC and a year after we reached the gentlemen's agreement within Japan over imports from there. So suddenly there was demand (and a strong business case) to start selling European or Japanese cars. BL chopped about 45 per cent of its dealers with very little goodwill, most of whom immediately took on VW/Renault/Fiat/Datsun/Toyota franchises and took most of their customers with them - the latter were loyal to their dealer rather than their badge and when they came to trade in their Austin 1300 they drove out in a Datsun Cherry or a VW Golf and never gave British cars another consideration.
BMW did the same thing in the mid-1990s, finding that Rover's dealer chain was far too big and fragmented for its size and aspirations and decided to cut the cloth to fit and build up a new network of big, modern out-of-town dealerships (the model which had worked for selling BMWs in the UK). Many of the long-established dealers that had survived the 1975 cull were chucked out and many found good work selling rival brands. In my neck of the woods the three local Rover dealers all closed down - the one which sold my Dad his last Rover became an Audi franchise, one was taken over the big local Ford agent and the other just shut up completely. The latter was a tiny family outfit which operated out of a corner-shop-sized premises facing straight onto the pavement of a village high street. They had no forecourt, just enough space behind the window to put a couple of Metros or 200s on show, then a 'service bay' in the courtyard out the back which could work on two cars at a time. They had a small compound in an old stable block round the back of a hotel on the other side of the street where they kept the rest of their stock and also sold petrol, kerosene and red diesel from a row of ancient Proteus-branded pumps. They had been in business since the 1900s and had been Morris/BMC/BL/Rover agents since the 1920s and apparently had sold multiple cars to generations of the same local families since then. A complete anachronism but their customer service and loyalty was sky-high. I doubt any of their customers trekked 10+ miles to an inpersonal glass box on the outskirts of Andover to buy their next car just so they could get another Rover.
Very interesting topic OP..
And some very interesting data from all posts
My frequency below over 33 cars
Late addition forgot I had an inherited BMW in barn... so BMW = 5
And some very interesting data from all posts
My frequency below over 33 cars
- Teens & early 20s: Ford & Leyland/ BMC... Escorts, Cortinas, Triumphs, MG, Jaguar, Ascona, Renault etc... short lived and do'er uppers.
- Early 20s & Early 30s: Company Cars,... Toyota, Saab, Alfa, first BMW
- Mid 30s to now: Cars I really wanted: Mercedes, BMW, Land Rover, Jeep, Maserati... oddball projects VW Kombi...
Late addition forgot I had an inherited BMW in barn... so BMW = 5
Edited by AndrewCrown on Friday 18th January 00:33
1 Citroen
1 Honda
1 Vauxhall
1 Mini
3 Ford
6 Volkswagen
VW's are a hobby car to me being into old air-cooled stuff as well as early water-cooled. Current fast Ford's are just brilliant IMO and make for perfect fun daily drivers, as much as I love old VW's the current stuff just doesn't do it for me.
1 Honda
1 Vauxhall
1 Mini
3 Ford
6 Volkswagen
VW's are a hobby car to me being into old air-cooled stuff as well as early water-cooled. Current fast Ford's are just brilliant IMO and make for perfect fun daily drivers, as much as I love old VW's the current stuff just doesn't do it for me.
Balmoral said:
Most folks seem to have had allsorts and are showing no or very little loyalty.
Back in the day brand loyalty was very strong, almost football club tribal, even into the late eighties. People would talk about being a Ford man or a Vauxhall man and that's what they'd stick to for a lifetime. Car manufacturers/dealers would offer salesmans incentives for what was known as conquest sales, such was the difficulty getting someone to change if they'd managed to at least get as far as a rival showroom.
Aussie and NZ still have that level of loyalty. Guy at work thinks Holdens trump everything and gets aggressive when anyone bags them. Even though his ex-police Commodore is always broken, its apparently still better than Aussie and Euro Fords. Back in the day brand loyalty was very strong, almost football club tribal, even into the late eighties. People would talk about being a Ford man or a Vauxhall man and that's what they'd stick to for a lifetime. Car manufacturers/dealers would offer salesmans incentives for what was known as conquest sales, such was the difficulty getting someone to change if they'd managed to at least get as far as a rival showroom.
Edited by Balmoral on Thursday 17th January 09:11
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