Vw moving to a direct sales model

MrMusician18

From 2026, VW is moving to a direct sales model for all it's brands and existing dealership contracts will be terminated. Dealers are now going to be offered a handover and service contract instead.

It's not clear to me if service centres will still offer test drives and a show room experience but what it does mean is that all sales are now going to be direct through VW. It also means only a single trade in price being offered.

While this move is undoubtedly good for VW as they will now capture the dealers margin, will this extra efficiency be any good for the consumer?

hoodie6029

The really important question is how they will upsell a poorly applied paint protection to your new car via online.

Vicxas

So no more showrooms? Or will we have VW owned showrooms?

goochy

bad idea - dealer relationships very important and if they not making decent profit they cant suck up warranty costs etc. - saw a new amorak in clare last week - bought in waterford as obviously got ' a better deal '

Fine Day

A few VW dealership gone in the last few months already. Wonder is the same going to happen to Skoda, Audi and seat

goochy

what vw dealers gone ?? seen ford dealers going - audi dealers invested too much in premises and do well from workshop business

Gerrymandering reborn

Does this mean I'll be able to get my Porsche 911 at the RRP in 10 years time?

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122194632#Comment_122194632

Al Hayes is a VW service only now.

n.d.os

Its a great concept when buying a new car but a terrible one when trying to sell it back to VW in 3 years.

CrowdedHouse

Surprised that Al Hayes Portumna gone recently, seemed sell a lot of VW. Just a Service sign now.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122194589#Comment_122194589

According to the Irish Times...

VW Group Ireland will sell new vehicles directly online to customers across all its six brands - Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Skoda, Seat, Cupra, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Audi.

https://www.irishtimes.com/motors/2024/05/28/vw-group-to-sell-cars-directly-to-irish-customers-for-all-its-brands-from-2026/

bazz26

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122194658#Comment_122194658

He took over the Skoda franchise in Ennis a few years back and sells plenty of them in the region.

elperello

They are selling it as the best of both worlds.

I'm not so sure.

One dealing entity with which you have no business relationship ?

https://www.breakingnews.ie/business/vw-group-to-sell-cars-directly-to-irish-customers-for-all-its-brands-from-2026-1630944.html

Mad_Lad

If VW offered me one of their cars for free I wouldn't take it, I don't like this tesla approach of minimalist interiors and crappy software for everything making the screen the focal point of the car, digital instrument clusters with information overload, in fact most of their cars now are just digital junk boxes.

Bigger screens in cars than houses had 30 years ago and I can't wait for the insurance companies to ramp up premiums because after all, if the risk goes up the premium should too, it was enough people were using their phones while driving now the car itself is a digital playground when people should be focusing on their driving, it's absolutely astounding that a well established German auto maker known for it's ergonomic interiors should take such an extreme backward step in cockpit design.

I had an ID3 and it drove me nuts, too many menus and software glitches, so now I have a much more basic car and I love it, and I'm gone back to petrol manual too, no thanks, they can take their over priced high tech toys and shove it up their ass !

denismc

,,

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122195152#Comment_122195152

Looks like whatever the computer says is what your trade in value is going to be, is what it will be.

Avatar in the Post

curiously, no mention of Porsche in Times article (not behind paywall). Will be interesting to see what happens to the middleman margin.

You’d wonder how bothered would the showroom be in checking your car for bumps and dents if trading in.

CrowdedHouse

Who has to move on the trade in?

Seth Brundle

I honestly couldn't see myself ever buying a car (new or otherwise) without being able to test drive it (or a similar model) first. How will VW cater for this common expectation?

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122195428#Comment_122195428

Dealers I guess. By moving to an agency model VW will be able to almost fully control the second hand market in their used vehicles up to 5yo.

I suspect VW will sell on the used vehicles into their dealer network and will be able to reward their best performing agents with access to better used cars or better prices.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122195916#Comment_122195916

Agents it looks like will operate demo show rooms but sales will be through VW direct - according to the above linked article.

All the other brands apart from the Japanese and Koreans are moving to this model and the new EV brands have gone with this way from day 1.

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122194658#Comment_122194658

Sold the world of VWs. You could see his sticker on a back window of a car in any part of the country. I never bought a new car but I believe he was hard beating on price with a new car.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122195933#Comment_122195933

This. The traditional business model for dealerships is becoming outdated by technological progress, and this can only accelerate with the move to EVs

On the whole this should be good for the consumer, since currently the dealership requires a margin that the consumer must pay, in addition to the manufacturer's margin. The OP suggests that the manufacturers will simply trouser the dealer's margin but a more likely outcome is that it will partly accrue to manufacturers and partly to consumers, in the form of lower prices. With purchasing conducted online, and only a single trade price for each model, price comparison is going to be a lot easier, and that should put downward pressure on prices.

Buddy Bubs

I was in 3 separate VW brand dealerships many times in last 2 years, buying an Etron with my father, cupra for myself and ID5 with my uncle.

The Audi and especially the VW were packed full of staff, oversized and had so many lights on I was just thinking that the customer is paying big time for this and it's so unnecessary. Not to mention building the place. Cupra was a lot smaller but they wouldn't do the volume so each customer paying big time there too.

Can only be a good thing for pricing and I assume that's the reasoning, although they'll still jockey you as much as they can get away with.

What is the deal with test drives and going to see a car in the likes of Tesla? I've never been to a Tesla centre before.

Calahonda52

I wonder how much control they will keep on the servicing costs, especially when within warranty, with a standard schedule of charges.?

fits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122196324#Comment_122196324

the one in sandyford is basically a shed attached to a garage with very little parking outside. They’ve a few test drive vehicles scattered around. It’s definitely not fancy.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122196332#Comment_122196332

One of the reasons why the dealership business model is broken is that service costs, as a component of the lifetime cost of a car, are getting smaller and smaller, and this trend accelerates with the shift to EVs. A dealer is less and less motivated to sell you a car by the consideration that he is starting a servicing relationship that will be signficantly remunerative. Modern cars are much more reliable than they used to be, and EVs have many fewer moving parts, and many fewer components that can fail; increasingly the only proprietyar value that servicing will be able to add will be making sure that software is up-to-date.

carsfan2

BMW/mini are doing this also.
It seems to be trend in manufacturers now to want control of the retail end as well.
I can’t see it benefiting the consumer in any way.

Vicxas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122196558#Comment_122196558

The dealers were never champions of customer satisfaction either so not sure who's worse.

Montage of Feck

The move to EV is bad for customers and worse for the environment. Cars are now to be throwaway products bought on the never never.

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122195916#Comment_122195916

Follow the Tesla model?

Direct sales to customers, but still have a few showrooms for test drives… (Tesla even have cars located at some of their superchargers set up for remote test drives)

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122196324#Comment_122196324

What is the deal with test drives and going to see a car in the likes of Tesla? I've never been to a Tesla centre before.

From time to time Tesla have a new Model 3 parked at their Athenry supercharger, and it's set up for remote test drives… you just register online/via their app, and then arrive at your designated time and the app will give you access to the car… can all be done without interacting with a single human being.

Outside of they they have the 3 showrooms on the island, as well as some pop up showrooms/test drive locations from time to time in random areas…

SharkMX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122195078#Comment_122195078

Im pretty sure the cause of my death will be the touch screen on my fancy new car that i got 6 months ago. I spend more time looking at it to try and get the right menu or touch the right button than i ever did looking at my phone. Even getting the heater on or the radio. Its a death waiting to happen.

bazz26

None of this will benefit the consumer. Yes it will reduce operational costs for manufacturers but that's the main objective here, those savings certainly won't be passed on to consumers.

Mad_Lad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122196721#Comment_122196721

My Missus hated driving the id3 and said it was really dangerous and she hated the steering constantly pulling against her and the fact that turning it off was buried in menus.

The id3 was definitely a frustrating car with crap interior, I'd turn up the stereo and the doors would rattle like they were about to fall off, plastics you'd see in the caddy van.

But, the entire VW range is almost like this and it's just lazy copy paste design, they all look the same inside, few minor differences here and there but the money they save just plonking a screen on the dash to control everything, it's the same in every car, they can change the software for different models and job done. Lazy.

Seat and Skoda are following suit now too, maybe not so heavily but this tech is creeping in.

Yep I think the insurance companies are going to ride people in the future for all this nonsense.

I'm not anti tech but this technology for the sake of technology is not good, it's just an excuse for manufacturers to make a lot more money, SUV = massive premiums over the hatchback and add to this the tech. People have fallen for it.

Last week I was in a garage after getting a roll for lunch and had sat in the car, a young Woman, in her 20s got out, phone in hand and from the time she got out of the car to the time she filled up the car her head was in the phone the entire time and she couldn't even walk in to pay for the petrol but her head was still in the phone.

Definitely a Zombie apocalypse.

colm_mcm

My initial thought is this will reduce competition between dealers and make shopping around not an option.
On the other hand, there’s a tiny possibility that it might make the process of buying a car more efficient, and could reduce their overhead which might make them more competitive.
My gut feeling is that this won’t benefit the customer overall, but VW still have to be competitive vs other brands.

Mad_Lad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122196722#Comment_122196722

Nothing the car manufacturers do is to benefit the customer, all they want to do is keep regulators happy with emissions and make profit, look how much they charge people for the SUV, thousands more compared to the hatchback and people have fallen into the trap. Estate cars are far more practical but you hardly see one now, all these gigantic SUV and getting larger and more and more expensive.

BailMeOut

buying a car from a dealer is one of the things I always absolutely dread (and I have bought a lot of cars). They play games with you and you always feel completely shafted so I for one will be quite happy ordering a car like I order something from Amazon.

User1998

What about their used car sales? Tesla don’t sell used cars so curious how VW will approach this

useless

Will be interesting to see how it'll play out in the early stages with tradein values. My brother does high mileage and changes his car for approximately the same model every two years. Does a tour of four different dealers of the same marque in his part of the country, takes a whole bloody day and he has to listen to an inordinate amount of salesman BS, but generally his price to change drops by several thousand euro over the course of the following week as the dealers call him back. I think last time out the first offer (price to change) was 17,500 and the final one (from the same dealer) was 13,000.

With this new sales model, I assume he gets one offer, take it or leave it, and I'd bet my house it'll be a lot closer to 17,500 than 13,000 as per the example above. I can't see any other outcome here except for the end customer paying more for cars.

In addition, VW Group are really going to need to up their game digitally over the next 12-18 months in preparation for this. Their current websites are muck, really confusing configurators, random lines of code displayed on screen, really slow performance, lack of information on options etc. Hopefully they'll bin it all and start with a group platform that they can use for all their brands.

yagan

It will certainly test brand loyalty. It's a great opportunity for rivals to offer a VW trade in discount, kind of like the deals mobile phone companies offer to switch to their network.

BrianD3

Will this change by a big player like VW encourage the further "appliancification" of cars? It seems good that parasitic middlemen (salesmen in glass palaces) are cut out, also the practice of "doing deals" with sleazy salesmen and "trading in" cars long before they have reached the end of their service lives are anachronisms. I would like to see new cars get considerably cheaper and changes in consumer beahviour with people keeping their cars much longer. There would still be a second hand market but it would be smaller and there would be fewer used car dealers and generally much less bullsh*t.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122196721#Comment_122196721

have a look at this thread…

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058351760/euro-ncap-touchscreen-reliance

goochy

large dealer groups in the uk are making huge profits and being bought by US dealer groups - manufacturers see this and what more of the pie but they dont realise whats involved in a motor trade business

Calahonda52

The shut up dealer ships will give more accommodation for the IPA, or what ever its called now

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122196905#Comment_122196905

That VW Lane Assist feature is not suited to Irish rural roads. I'd be fine with it on a motorway or good dual carriageway but it keeps interfering with the steering on narrow rural roads. I can turn it off but if you stop and and set off again, the bloody thing is back. Can't find anything in their menu to turn it off by default. Anyone any idea?

fits

Another feature I genuinely have no issue with. It works find for me. I don’t live in a metropolis.

ThreeGreens

I can imagine this pushing buyers away from VW.

Up to now, if you were interested in a VW model, you went to a dealer and got a price/trade in value. If you wanted to shop around, you went to another VW dealer. If you still weren't happy, you could go to another VW dealer, chasing the best price for the car that you wanted.

Now, it seems that your trade in price will be set and the same across all dealers. So if you want to show around, you'll have no option but to at least consider other brands and check them out. At least some of those people, who wanted a VW, will change their mind after looking at a difference brand, which they probably would never have looked at before.

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122197718#Comment_122197718

Might be worth checking if you can disable it via VCDS or something like OBDEleven.

If so it might be worth investing in the latter or getting an independent dealer with access to the former to take a look.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122197736#Comment_122197736

I can drive fine on rural roads without having the steering pulled this way & that on some ad hoc basis. There's no lines or lanes on these road, just a ditch at variable distance to the road. It should be possible to turn this assist off by default and then switch it on if you want it, not the VW way of thinking though. Unless I'm missing something.

Mr Q

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122198183#Comment_122198183

I don't think it is just a VW thing. I think for the NCAP rating to be better it is always on when you start a journey, with the option to turn off.