Motor Trade RIP (1888-2008)

maidhc

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

Go on, go for it.

If you can come up with a better solution i'm with you.

We need more exports that bring wealth into the country.The motor trade at best on recycles money all ready here, and at worst is responsible for large swathes of cash leaving the country.

My better solution is to let what is happening take its course. Architects, solicitors, engineers, not to mention builders are being left go by the thousands. Teachers will be struggling to get work next year.

No one has the money to buy houses or cars, nothing is going to change that fact.

Drummerboy08

My point is that there are alot of people still buying cars - in the english market.

Can we not encourage these people to spend their money in Ireland, and try to boost the irish economy rather than keeping the Brits afloat?

cowenstaff

I'm emigrating to Poland!

Doodee

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

People just dont seem to realise how important the motor trade is in this country.

What happens if every dealer in the country closes down? All the employees who bought their bread in your uncles bakery, their meat in your sisters butchers, got their hair cut in your brothers barbers, bought their TV's in your fathers electrical shop, cant afford it.

Now none of the former employees of the motor trade can afford to spend money in your family's or friends businesses, or spend it in companies that you or your friends and family work in. Which means your company takes the hit too. Then there's no VRT coming into the government, so they have to raise your taxes in order to subsidise the entire country.

There are thousands of people employed both directly and indirectly in the trade. See how funny you are when your taxes are raised to pay for all of these people's dole payments.

Like it or not, the motor trade is a massive part of this countries economy.

Well its a bit stupid to think that people should be patriotic and buy for the sake of the country. The fact is that people were being ripped off by typically Irish [strike]Thieves[/strike] business men.

We are living in a more Global society now, Borders are becoming a thing of the past and people have a marketplace that is global instead of local. If this major part of the Irish economy can't keep up with the times then it deserves to go.

I'm so sick of hearing this patriotic bull**** that people bring forwards as a valid excuse for high prices in this country.

As regards the bakers, well theres plenty of jobs for them available in Germany.

cowenstaff

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

My point is that there are alot of people still buying cars - in the english market.

Can we not encourage these people to spend their money in Ireland, and try to boost the irish economy rather than keeping the Brits afloat?

I think the figure is about 60000 imports so far this year - if these were native used cars the idustry would be in a better position, maybe only bad position instead of dire. I think the figure for last year was about 70,000 (approx. 50% of new car sales). Make no mistake if the used cars were going in the other direction, the UK government, free market or no free market, would knock it on the head very quickly.

cowenstaff

Doodee wrote: »

Well its a bit stupid to think that people should be patriotic and buy for the sake of the country. The fact is that people were being ripped off by typically Irish [strike]Thieves[/strike] business men.

We are living in a more Global society now, Borders are becoming a thing of the past and people have a marketplace that is global instead of local. If this major part of the Irish economy can't keep up with the times then it deserves to go.

I'm so sick of hearing this patriotic bull**** that people bring forwards as a valid excuse for high prices in this country.

As regards the bakers, well theres plenty of jobs for them available in Germany.

If there was no VRT, prices would be very similar. new car magins are very small in comparison to other products.

maidhc

cowenstaff wrote: »

I think the figure is about 60000 imports so far this year - if these were native used cars the idustry would be in a better position, maybe only bad position instead of dire. I think the figure for last year was about 70,000 (approx. 50% of new car sales). Make no mistake if the used cars were going in the other direction, the UK government, free market or no free market, would knock it on the head very quickly.

There is only 1 reason cars are being bought in the UK. Price.

Believe it or not, going to mancherster to buy a car is quite inconvenient, and you won't bother unless you are saving a 4 figure sum after paying for the ferry, VRT and associated costs.

Btw in 2002~2005 a large number of new cars were being exported, unregistered to the UK from Ireland. That was when sterling was stronger.

L-M

Ugh.. I hate this ****.

I hope every small supermarket who charge's 2 euro and more for milk when it can be got cheaper else where's. In fact, i hate every small shop, where things can be gotten cheaper else where. I hope the small shop industry dies and everyone in it losses their job.

Doodee

Limerick-man wrote: »

Ugh.. I hate this ****.

I hope every small supermarket who charge's 2 euro and more for milk when it can be got cheaper else where's. In fact, i hate every small shop, where things can be gotten cheaper else where. I hope the small shop industry dies and everyone in it losses their job.

It happened to the Small family run hotels so why not.

maidhc

Limerick-man wrote: »

Ugh.. I hate this ****.

I hope every small supermarket who charge's 2 euro and more for milk when it can be got cheaper else where's. In fact, i hate every small shop, where things can be gotten cheaper else where. I hope the small shop industry dies and everyone in it losses their job.

Think of the farmer who gets 30c/litre either way; despite having massive overheads and labour costs.

cowenstaff

maidhc wrote: »

There is only 1 reason cars are being bought in the UK. Price.

Believe it or not, going to mancherster to buy a car is quite inconvenient, and you won't bother unless you are saving a 4 figure sum after paying for the ferry, VRT and associated costs.

Btw in 2002~2005 a large number of new cars were being exported, unregistered to the UK from Ireland. That was when sterling was stronger.

Somehow I dont think these guys were allowed drive aroung dor 6 months on Irish plates - PC plod woudl throw the book at them.

Driving around for 6 months in an imported UK car is tax avoidance and should be treated as such by revenue and cops alike. Dont get me started on the insurance / penalty points / toll charges fiasco either.

L-M

maidhc wrote: »

Think of the farmer who gets 30c/litre either way; despite having massive overheads and labour costs.

I'm was just making a point, everyone has to make money.

The more money in, the money out. Dealers have spent millions on there showrooms, upkeep, risks in taking in cars, paying costs all around the place etc. etc. Offer people warranty, again another risk, pay there salespeople etc. etc. etc. And when it gets in trouble, people relish the fact that it's dying.

Drummerboy08

Doodee wrote: »

Well its a bit stupid to think that people should be patriotic and buy for the sake of the country. The fact is that people were being ripped off by typically Irish [strike]Thieves[/strike] business men.

We are living in a more Global society now, Borders are becoming a thing of the past and people have a marketplace that is global instead of local. If this major part of the Irish economy can't keep up with the times then it deserves to go.

I'm so sick of hearing this patriotic bull**** that people bring forwards as a valid excuse for high prices in this country.

As regards the bakers, well theres plenty of jobs for them available in Germany.

Borders are becoming a thing of the past? Bo**ix to that. Send them to Germany then.

Would you send you child to school all the way in france, while your missus works down the local in Spain? Whether you like it or not, you live in this country. When you buy soemthing as expensive as a car in the UK, your country loses out on a lot of money, while your busy paying the social for some fella in England.

Nice one, people like you seem to be the problem with this country.

omega man

AudiChris wrote: »

Hooray, the motor industry's dead! The stealers have gotten their comeuppance! The customer wins again!


If anyone wants to PM me their phone number, I'll pass it on to one of the six employees that got let go on Friday from the garage where I work.
I'm not sure if they'll want join you in your celebrations though...

We're expecting another 2 people to go in the next day or two. I'm hoping I'm not one of them.


This thread is entirely inappropriate. You're talking about people's jobs here.
If you don't want to pay €100 per hour, DON'T GO TO A GARAGE THAT CHARGES THAT RATE!
If you want to sell your car privately and buy your car in the UK, go for it!

The consumer has always had the power to vote with their feet - pricing finds it's equilibrium when enough people say yes or no to a particular service offering.
Over the last decade we as a nation were too cash-rich and too time-poor to actually to bother doing anything about any of this.

FFS, don't revel in the plight of an industry that employs (directly and indirectly) tens of thousands of people.


There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling right now...

Man I have been working in the airline business for 12 years now and every year brings a new 'crisis'. I have seen hundreds of collegues let go in that time including my wife so the current car industry 'crisis' is nothing special or different to me. However I do agree that there is no time or place for gloating over peoples jobs.

maidhc

Limerick-man wrote: »

I'm was just making a point, everyone has to make money.

And my point is that no one has a right to earn money.

L-M

maidhc wrote: »

And my point is that no one has a right to earn money.

If we didn't earn money we wouldn't be much of a country.

Drummerboy08

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

Borders are becoming a thing of the past? Bo**ix to that. Send them to Germany then.

Would you send you child to school all the way in france, while your missus works down the local in Spain? Whether you like it or not, you live in this country. When you buy soemthing as expensive as a car in the UK, your country loses out on a lot of money, while your busy paying the social for some fella in England.

Nice one, people like you seem to be the problem with this country.

So basically what your saying is we should pay more for our cars here rather than save money and buy a car in the UK. Come on thats madness its like trying to get people to spent there money in Dublin rather than save large amounts of money by taking a trip to New York. Are you saying you would buy a car here even if you could save say even a 1000 euro by going to the UK. Only a fool would buy the car here.

L-M

Thaddeus Prickly Nutshell wrote: »

So basically what your saying is we should pay more for our cars here rather than save money and buy a car in the UK. Come on thats madness its like trying to get people to spent there money in Dublin rather than save large amounts of money by taking a trip to New York. Are you saying you would buy a car here even if you could save say even a 1000 euro by going to the UK. Only a fool would buy the car here.

Why do people buy all fags here, when they could go out foreign where they are much cheaper due to the goverment not taxing the bollixs out of them. Nearly 56% of the price of some cars can contributed to the goverment. How do we compete.

copacetic

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

Borders are becoming a thing of the past? Bo**ix to that. Send them to Germany then.

Would you send you child to school all the way in france, while your missus works down the local in Spain? Whether you like it or not, you live in this country. When you buy soemthing as expensive as a car in the UK, your country loses out on a lot of money, while your busy paying the social for some fella in England.

Nice one, people like you seem to be the problem with this country.

actually if you import a second hand car, you pay VRT straight to 'your country'.

If you buy from a dealer here, they charge you a lot more and pocket a lot more (or have done up until recently).

I bought a new car from an Irish main dealer 2 years ago, they were particularly unhelpful when I was looking to change as were all the main dealers I talked to. They just didn't want my trade in at any reasonable value (which is fine - bad market). The killer is that they appeared to believe that even in a collapsing market they could fool me into paying over the odds for their stock. I've been trying to do a deal with an Irish dealer for 6 months. No joy, in my experience they are always looking to 'find the sucker' and if you're not it then move along.

Guess what? I'm going to buy in the UK now that I have my own car sorted. Why would they think that having gone to the trouble of sorting out my own car I would then go back to them to spend my money?

I'm not happy to see Irish dealers go to the wall or people lose the jobs, I'm not surprised though.

Anan1

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

Borders are becoming a thing of the past? Bo**ix to that. Send them to Germany then.

Would you send you child to school all the way in france, while your missus works down the local in Spain? Whether you like it or not, you live in this country. When you buy soemthing as expensive as a car in the UK, your country loses out on a lot of money, while your busy paying the social for some fella in England.

Nice one, people like you seem to be the problem with this country.

This may amaze you, but i'm as much European as I am Irish. The days of 'Guaranteed Irish' are gone, and I for one don't miss them a bit.

Hal1

Motor trade in the ROI may you rust in piece's. :pac:

traco

The industry cannot compete due to taxes - the pre tax value of a car in Ireland is very competitive but when you add the taxes we're screwed. As for importing - its all used cars that are coming in and up until now the 4% VAT difference alone could offer considerable savings. The VRT system was never accurate enough to protect the irish motor industry and for anything that was a few months old the system fell out of line with actual values.

This has now been compounded with the drop in sterling and will be further screwed up by a VAT differential of 6.5% in the coming months.

All that aside some of the dealers forgot the simple basics of customer service due to the market over the last few years. I voted with my feet and purchased from a dealer that was interested and I will continue to support them providing that they maintain their level of customer service. Labour is €100.00 per hour plus VAT and that times are fair and transparent.

It is a pity so many will go under and some of those possibly do deserve all they get, others do not and I feel sorry for them.

Sadly though the lack of initative from the powers that be are crippling any chance we have in being a competitive ecconomy. I also cannot blame someone for travelling abroad to buy a car if it saves them money - they have earned their money and paid tax on it - why should they have to be hit again.

L-M

traco wrote: »

I also cannot blame someone for travelling abroad to buy a car if it saves them money - they have earned their money and paid tax on it - why should they have to be hit again.

They are going to pay tax's anyway (VRT), which is more than the government would get out of an irish secondhand sale.

traco

They would have already got the VRT on the sale at new for a much higher figure, hopefully they don't decide to that - stamp duty on transfer of ownership of cars.

recycle

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

People just dont seem to realise how important the motor trade is in this country.

What happens if every dealer in the country closes down? All the employees who bought their bread in your uncles bakery, their meat in your sisters butchers, got their hair cut in your brothers barbers, bought their TV's in your fathers electrical shop, cant afford it.

Now none of the former employees of the motor trade can afford to spend money in your family's or friends businesses, or spend it in companies that you or your friends and family work in. Which means your company takes the hit too. Then there's no VRT coming into the government, so they have to raise your taxes in order to subsidise the entire country.

There are thousands of people employed both directly and indirectly in the trade. See how funny you are when your taxes are raised to pay for all of these people's dole payments.

Like it or not, the motor trade is a massive part of this countries economy.

I hate this kind of pc waffle

I think your trying too hard not to offend.

I dont know any lady butchers, however i do know a few butch ladys but thats it.

The motor industry is no different to any other, many will be forced to radically restructure if they wish to survive.

fm

vrt has been the main reason for the car trades demise,if the price of a new car here is higher than the uk,the price of a second hand car will be higher.it doesnt benefit anybody that the trade is shagged here.dealers and private sellers are struggling to sell and jobs are been lost.yes dealers screwed people but not all,i have had good and bad experiences with them

maidhc

fm wrote: »

vrt has been the main reason for the car trades demise,if the price of a new car here is higher than the uk,the price of a second hand car will be higher.it doesnt benefit anybody that the trade is shagged here.dealers and private sellers are struggling to sell and jobs are been lost.yes dealers screwed people but not all,i have had good and bad experiences with them

But VRT is an equal burden tax. It affects UK imports just like Irish cars, and with the current OSMPs, maybe even more so.

P.C.

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

Increase the VRT on imported vehicles, decrease the VRT on Irish vehicles.

When did Ireland start manufacturing vehicles?

Did I miss something?

E92

ned78 wrote: »

Not so! The place I work has dropped a few thousand off their cars every 2 months.

I don't really care whether a garage uses space age technology or not, all I care is that they service my car properly, and should anything go wrong with it, then I expect them to be able to quickly diagnose what's wrong with it, and fix whatever is wrong, and bill me for whatever is actually needed, not 4 other things that were actually working fine and didn't need to be touched.

To be honest, I don't care about the glass showroom or not, I care that they know what they're doing, or at the very least give me the impression they know what they are doing.

You might say that the price of used cars has dropped; it has but the price of new cars has dropped more percentage wise, I mean I found this 06 520d on sale for €43k; why oh why would anyone buy one of these when you could have a 09 one in 6 weeks time for €4k more?(I know the 520d in the advert has the all important automatic gearbox and leather upolstery so a compartable new one is really closer to around €14k more, especially in M Sport trim as featured here)

Like I saw 06 520ds of similar spec going for only a small bit more(maybe €2k or €3k) back in February.

At the end of the way, used cars on dealers forecourts are still too dear, and the proof of this is the fact that cars are just sitting there not moving; meanwhile UK imports are as strong as ever(interestingly the 520d I linked is also a UK import).

People hardly want to go to the expense of the ferry and the general inconvenience of it all, but they do because they know they will find much better value for money.

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

Have to agree with Ned here. Too many people too quick to jump the gun against the dealers. If all the dealers go down the tube, it means not only all the dealer staff and their families are in trouble, but also the other businesses who depend on motor dealers for alot of business - Bodyshops, tyre centres, motor factors, finance houses, etc. Now look at all the people suddenly in trouble.

I agree with you until you got to the "buy Irish" bit.

Dealers/the SIMI are adopting the backing 2 horses approach, when things are going well, they want us to support the free markety right wing ideology, which I'm in favour of, but when things go badly we're now supposed to adopt a left wing communist style protectionist approach.

I bet dealers wouldn't have liked the left wing socialist approach when things were going good, where there could have been maxium chargable prices and things like that now would they:rolleyes:?

Biro wrote: »

Ah don't give me that crap. How is a 2.0 TDI Octavia cheaper to service than a 2.0 TDI A6?

Well said. Speaking of which, why does Audi want €1,900 of your money to go from a 143 bhp common rail diesel in the A4 to a 170 bhp common rail diesel in the same car, when Skoda only requires you to shell out €700 more to go from a lower tech PD engine with less power(140 bhp) to the same fancy higher tech 170 bhp common rail engine in the Superb?

Anyone want to explain that one to me, especially as the Audi is in a lower VRT band and all, meaning that it should be cheaper theoretically??

It's easy to blame dealers, particulary as this thread was started off bemoaning the closure of dealers, but they DO NOT control everything.

maidhc wrote: »

Fair point. I think a lot of main dealers, despite being astute businessmen have been somewhat misled by manufacturers.

They have taken the risk in building mult million euro outfits to conform with corporate identities, but now are in the unenviable position of holding the baby.

To be fair, I do feel sorry for dealers that they were as you say forced into investing the possibly hundreds of millions required for the glass showroom. Then again if they didn't they would lose their franchise.

That's called being caught between a rock and a hard place.

Hand on heart, I *genuinely* feel sorry for the small country dealers which are going to have to go out of business as a result of this, because in general they are SO much nicer to deal with than the large city dealers AND they charge you less, much less for the privilege of servicing your car with them.

I'm not talking about independents either. I'm talking about the franchised dealers here. The loss of these small garages where they charge you reasonable prices when you service your car with them, knowing their stuff, but most of all are so helpful and just pleasurable to deal with is the real tradgey here. You feel like you're valued when you go to these places, and when you come back they know who you are.

Sadly political interference(EU and block exemption) and all this glass showroom nonsense(importer/distributor requirements as a result of above) means these guys won't last too much longer.

pburns wrote: »

We may moan and bitch about main dealer rip-offs but who was only too happy to pay them over the last decade while things were going well?

Absolutely. We as consumers let ourselves get ripped off. It's not the dealers fault that people are stupid.

We have only ourselves to blame for putting up with it.

Hellrazer wrote: »

Agreed-Dealers are terrified of being sued by customers over the most ridiculous things.

I hope you tell customers in no uncertain circumstances to f**k off in situations like these:D!

AudiChris wrote: »

There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling right now...

Well on a personal note, I hope you're not one of them. As I said already, I feel sorry for the good small country dealers, and any of the decent guys in the larger dealers(rare they might be but they are there alright;)).

I genuinely hope that the good people stay, and that the bad people go.

It's always bad to lose people who are honest, courteous, professional and are keen to strike a decent deal, no matter what way any anti-dealer person chooses to spin it.

Biro wrote: »

The country needs the money generated from VRT, like it or not that's the cold hard fact of the matter. Ironically, that's what's causing the biggest problem in the motor industry. What's the solution though? Abolish it completely so that it's not worth while go to England to buy a car? Or substitute it with something different?

VRT just has to go. The real problem is that dealers can't get rid of extra stock to the UK at a reasonable price because of... VRT. That means that we, the consumers can't buy new cars unless we are in the fortunate enough situation to be able to buy a car for cash, or have something so old that we'd never get anything for it even in the best of times.

It would be better for dealers, and for consumers if it was abolished.

If taxes go down, business make more money, because people have more disposable income, and lower taxes encourages people to spend. More people are emplyed and that means any loss in VRT is gained by increased income tax renvenue as a result of more people out working, and the Government will save money by not having to dish out dole money either, so there's 2 ways it will actually help the Government.

TheBazman wrote: »

UK have just cut their VAT from 17.5% to 15% - cheaper UK motors down the line - another nail in the coffin for Irish dealers

In the wider scheme of things, 2% on a new car is only a few hundred quid at the most.

Where this 2% VAT cut is really going to make a difference is for things like clothes and that where people are going to be even more likely to shop in the north than down here. As much as political ideology want want to dictate otherwise, the north contributes *nothing* towards enriching the coffers of this country(the "26 counties", God I hate calling it that).

It just goes to show you how stupid the recent VAT hike was.

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

My point is that there are alot of people still buying cars - in the english market.

Can we not encourage these people to spend their money in Ireland, and try to boost the irish economy rather than keeping the Brits afloat?

When things are better value for money then yes I'm very confident that people will "buy Irish" once more. We are finally, after allowing ourselves to be ripped off for years(and don't interpret this as just a bitching at dealers rant, everything was costing a fortune, and that was costing dealers a lot of money too don't forget, so we all lose when things are expensive, especially those in business), getting on top of it and we actually understand this thing called "value for money" now, previously this thing was alien to most of us.

green-blood wrote: »

bought new for first time ever in Sept 07, 2 months later some sandal wearing twat knocks 3 K off the new price and charges 180 a year less in road tax... recessionand low demand for 07 diesels means my car is worth half of what we paid.... The main dealer is a feckin joke.

To be honest, I don't have a lot of sympathy here. I completely understand the fustration, but when you're buying something as expensive as a new car, you do need to research the thing in detail first. The Government announced a full 10 months before you bought your car that they were going to be changing things, and besides Septmeber is not a great time of the way to buy anyway, because when January comes the car is already another year older no matter how late in the year you buy your new car.

You really should have waited till you heard the budget in December, it would only have been another 3 1/2 months max anyway and at that stage you could get a 08, and know exactly where you stood in relation to VRT.

I know it's not what you wanted to hear, but it had to be said, particulary as people have started to use this thread as an excuse to bitch and moan about things that they themselves could have done something about.

It's not entirely the dealers/Government's fault you know!

traco

It is and if you run an example at 30% VRT and the same pre tax invoice value for a given car then over a period of 5 years the figures are very close. See below - BTW this is only a very basic spread sheet for a quick check and depreciation year on year is 15%. Took 1.54 as an exchange rate as it would be more applicable to 05/06 models


So in theory the VRT system should equalize out the prices but we all know it does not in reality.

So what is happening?
Are we depreciating at a lower rate than the UK?
Have we an over inflated valuation system for our cars?
Does the UK market devalue more year on year and if so is if due to the fact that 15% in the UK in real money is a lot less than 15% of the higher UK irish value and therefore more acceptable to the consumer?

Look at the figures from New to year 1, the depreciation is almost 50% more in real money terms.
Ireland = €7k
UK = €5k

Comments welcome as I did this just off the cuff, more or less working towards a nominal few k value at end of life - 15 years old