POLL! Who killed the Car industry here?

niceirishfella

Your Vote and Your Thoughts please?

corkandproud

The banks/finance houses

Dealers, supported by finance houses offering finance on fourth hand cars, alloys, new radio and this weeks shopping.

Madness I tell ya, it'll all end soon - oh yeah, it did.

:pac:

guil

The banks/finance houses

i say the dealers, i know of one who used to get uk cars with massive mileage, get them clocked and then sell them fro nearly double what they paid for it

mikemac

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

The dealers.
We're in the EU so if you can import a car with a higher spec a cheaper price and still come out with a better deal after paying VRT , fair play I say.
And why are the industry professionals expecting people to pay more for less?

The end of easy credit. It's just not sustainable to buy new cars on credit every year. I understand people buying new cars but not basically buying the same car with a new number plate. You can't do that on credit indefinitly. So in some ways it's good if people concentrate more instead of waiting for possible repossesion.

2qk4u

The Green Party influencing the Government

The dealers dont do themselves any favours but the govt should have been more in control....

kikel

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

We need multilpe voting on this one.

• Dealers and over inflated prices.
• Government for VRT
• Greens for the introduction of new motor tax rates
• finance house for getting people to borrow to much

It's a nasty one, couldn't blame anyone specifically

Edit: just realised there is multiple voting

kdevitt

The dealers themselves ripping people off

Greens - without fail. Unless the question is ignoring private sales. The new tax rules are a mess.

L-M

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

Greens for some aspects, other than that there is just waaayy to much finance out there.

lafors

The banks/finance houses

kikel wrote: »

• Dealers and over inflated prices.
• Government for VRT
• Greens for the introduction of new motor tax rates
• finance house for getting people to borrow to much

Exactly as I'd put it!

CrowdedHouse

The banks/finance houses

I voted dealers but in a way it's the consumers fault too.

Too many people thought they were flush with money because of the 'celtic tiger' and just paid the prices they were asked and queued up to buy without a care - 'I want it and I want it now'

Tipsy Mac

The dealers themselves ripping people off

VRT killed it, low sterling killed it, crappy dealers who had the same attidude as the builders killed it.

I actually voted Fianna Fail and Greens in the one vote, it let me :cool:

peasant

Actually, there is another option missing;

The car industry itself, i.e. the makers and distributors.

It is idiocy, in a country with such a small customer base as this, to insist on dealers having to build multi-million show rooms just to stick with the "corporate identity".

All very well in a German city, where you have a potential customer base of 0.5 million + people ...but in piddly little places like Thurles, Sligo, Kilkenny, etc? Lunacy !

Country garages in Germany somehow escaped this. There you still get small little garages that can focus on customer service rather than recuperating the insane cost they had to invest just in the site and showroom.

maidhc

Well basically the problem is people don't have much money right now for various reasons such as

... job gone
... investments gone due to shares
... people saddled with mortgages on 2nd houses they can't rent
... poor consumer sentiment generally (it is a recession!)


People don't buy new (or even s/h) cars unless they have surplus cash or finance is easily available.

I don't think it is fair to say the car industry is dead. They way things were 2 years ago was disneyland stuff and unsustainable, reality is starting to dawn for dealers like it is for builders. Reality is nearly always a good thing.

cantdecide

The answer to the question is a) VRT b).to a lesser extent, dealer greed.

NOBODY thinks that their new car is worth the appalling asking price even if they can get the loan. NO government will give up the cash cow that is Irish motoring and it isn't the current or any recent government's brainchild.

Don't forget that the banks are bankrolling VRT by the million

bikki

The dealers themselves ripping people off

Easy answer

VRT

Savman

bikki wrote: »

Easy answer

VRT

And not the people who pay it?

gurramok

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

Once enough of people import by themselves, the govt will have to act on VRT and the dealers will have to react or go out of business.
This is even more so in a recession and i believe mass importing by individuals is taking off to be noticed by the industry and govt itself.

cantdecide

gurramok wrote: »

This is even more so in a recession

The only motoring recession phenomenon apparent in Ireland is that the unjustifiably massive expense of any new car is quickly and quite rightly dismissed as un-necessary. Now jobs are being lost because of it.

The good feeling that goes with our boom times made people think that they could have a new car that wasn't supplied by their employer. It all started with the mk1 FIAT Punto in the mid to late 90s. Now, our new car industry right back to 1995.

It's like every other motoring related topic in ireland- it always boils down to VRT and that's because it's and cruel and so wrong and is only justifiable at the best of times.

cantdecide

Savman wrote: »

And not the people who pay it?

Don't go where I think you're going....

bikki

The dealers themselves ripping people off

Savman wrote: »

And not the people who pay it?

Il give u a example,

A 08 subaru impreza sti hatch back in England would cost me 32k euro. To buy the exact same car here in Ireland it would cost me 65k. The VRT is actualy more than what the car is worth.

So il say it again its VRT, its artificually inflatting the price of cars.

jimmycrackcorm

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

bikki wrote: »

Il give u a example,

A 08 subaru impreza sti hatch back in England would cost me 32k euro. To buy the exact same car here in Ireland it would cost me 65k. The VRT is actualy more than what the car is worth.

So il say it again its VRT, its artificually inflatting the price of cars.

Because of our taxation base, all cars here are more expensive than in the UK, They have been all this time, so this argument doesn't indicate what has happened so suddenly.

I think the simple answer is that the motor industry mirrors the construction industry collapse. For years people got money to buy houses and new cars. Now that funding has dried up, very few are buying either.

junkyard

The Green Party influencing the Government

Fianna Failure and the Green are the biggest problem here, between the VRT the tax on fuel the road tax and all the new VRT crap brought in last July they finally broke the camels back, just like the fishing industry, the farming industry, the building industry, taxis, manufacturing, the list goes on, as they break one they move on to the next. It's only a matter of time before there is no businesses left and it won't be long by the looks of it. I know many retail business are only staying open untill Christmas in the hope they can sell off their stock and once Christmas is over thery're gone. Next year is going to be absolutely terrible, I dread to think tbh:(.

Cool Mo D

There's a pretty simple reason why tax in Ireland is so high. We have no native car manufacturers, so any money spent on new cars goes abroad. This is generally bad for the countries finances, so the Government taxes the life out of new cars to discourage this from happening (and raise funds).

Unless Ireland develops large native car manufacturers, VRT will always be extortionate. And VRT isn't illegal in any way, so we're stuck with it.

thebman

The dealers themselves ripping people off

The Fianna Fail Government - for not setting up a proper financial regulator (or proper regulators and consumer interest groups that actually take action in general). I don't think any Irish consumer has any faith in our regulators (at least not the people with brains).

The Green Party influencing the Government - Sort of. Green policies don't help and are insane when there is no proper public transport available for at least half the population. You can't create a situation where people need a car and then tell them they should give it up. That is just moronic.

The dealers themselves ripping people off - Completely. Name one person you know who trusts a car dealer? I mean come on, seen as some of the most dodgy people in the country and there are enough horror stories that people should not be trusted. Again no regulation means the cowboys are still in business at the expense of the decent dealers.

The banks/finance houses - Again, there fault as why were they lending money to people who couldn't pay it back. No regulation means it can't possibly be their fault entirely as another bank would have done it if they didn't and then would buy their shares? Basically since they were allowed to do it and not doing it put them at a huge disadvantage then it is really the lack of regulation that forced the banks to do this.

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k! - Actually its worth 3,500 and bought with savings :P

Basically I think lack of regulation and the regulatory bodies not having powers and not using the ones they have is to blame and that is basically Fianna Fail's fault. They set a lot of them up and the ones that were there before either don't have the power they need or haven't been given the kick in the arse they need to do their job.

mumhaabu

The dealers themselves ripping people off

OP you forgot the SIMI, A real bunch of ****€rs if ever they were.

Darragh29

Sing to "The Auld Triangle"...

"Ahhh Hungry Feelin'....

Came 'ore me stealin.....

An' a customer was squeelin....

In a new BM.....

An da auld main dealer....

Says please bend over....

As he takes out, a finance deal..."

......

Robertr

Me?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=176389

Biro

I don't give a monkeys cos i drive a s*itbox worth less than 1k!

It's not all the local dealers fault. Picture you going in to your VW garage, buying yourself a brand new Golf diesel cause you want a new car and that's supposed to be the car that suffers least from depreciation. Next year you walk in and are told that it'll cost you €9,000 to upgrade to a new one. How can this be? Every other year it only cost €4,000. You complain - he's not being fair to you, he was fair every other year. But the fact remains that today he has to compete with people going across the water. So your car is worth less. How is that the dealers fault? Everyone wants dealers to give you a used car for feck all, but also want them to give you more for your car than it's worth. Complain either way.
VRT really killed the market the most. People can't stomach what their car is worth now. People bringing in cars from the UK, clocking them and selling them on are killing the 2nd hand market. Money is going out of the country. It might not be fair, but it'd be in the country's best interest if they made it uneconomical to bring in cars from the UK. Don't know how, and I'd be unhappy if they did, but that's what needs to be done from an economical point of view.
Building the glass house showrooms was a joke too.

smash

The dealers themselves ripping people off

The dealers themselves ripping people off

this option shouldn't really be there. Due to higher VAT on cars and VRT on top of that - the dealers don't have much room when selling new cars. The prices are over inflated, but that's the governments doing and not the dealers.

This also reflects on the 2nd hand market. If someone trades in then the dealer will give them a good price for the traded in car to make the price of the new car look more appealing. In doing this, they still haven't made a fortune on the new car sale and they have to sell the traded car for more than what they got it for in order to make a decent profit - it's how business works!

They have massive overheads to cover!

niceirishfella

The dealers themselves ripping people off

steve06 wrote: »

They have massive overheads to cover!

They chose to build empires with the massive overheads - no one put a gun to their heads.:P

Ice_Box

The banks/finance houses

Distributors giving us the paddy spec cars. Take a look at the new skoda superb. Irish elegance model has fake leather. UK model has real leather and touch screen sat nav AND COSTS LESS. Why would anyone in their right mind buy from an Irish dealer?