Video: Car Crash: Dealers Say Slow Post 'Clunkers' Interest Signal Hard Times Ahead

cars ^ | 9/1/2009 | cars

[wrrock]

Auto dealers are already starting to see consumer interest drop off now that clunkers is over. Watch video: http://www.cardealerreviews.org/?p=117185

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Nobody could see this coming, could they? / s

[Pessimist]

Cleary the only answer is a permanent subsidy on car purchases! :)

[john in springfield]

When you have to pay people $4,500 to buy a car, you know something’s out of whack.

[norraad]

Also a factor, the used cars we have and already paid for are bigger and more comfy than the little golfcart toys you want us to get suckered into . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g7tIz6Stf8&feature=channel_page

[Erik Latranyi]

Consider that the tax credit for buying a home ends as well, which will cause housing sales to drop and you have the makings for a nice crash starting to form.

[dfwgator]

Auto dealers are already starting to see consumer interest drop off now that clunkers is over.

File under "D" for "Duh!"

[perfect_rovian_storm]

When does that end?

[AngelesCrestHighway]

No more Clunker stimulus?....Oh well,

[KeyLargo]

I will be buying new next month.

Any tips?

[KarlInOhio]

Wait until the end of the month when the dealer will do anything to sell one more car in the month.

[MissesBush]

I won’t say we predicted this, but we predicted this. All this did was take demand that was out there and compress it all into one month. The lag for new, post clunker demand is going to put the hurt on the auto industry.

[TC Rider]

I’m betting appliance sales are drying up as we keep hearing about some future ‘cash for fridges’ deal in the works.

[bicyclerepair]

Toyota camry looks pretty nice.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Camrys are nice.

This might be just an odd quirk related to only me and I have no explanation at all. Feel free to ignore this completely. But make sure you’re comfortable in the seats.

I drive an older (2000) Toyota Avalon, which is built on the same chassis as a Camry. Which makes this story even more unbelievable. Recently, during an overnight service, the dealer lent me a brand new Camry 4-cyl as a loaner. I wasn’t all that thrilled with the lack of pep, but that’s to be expected 4 vs 6. But I tell you, I could NOT get the seat to fit my bod. I’m ordinarily not that picky, but for the life of me, I simply could not get the seat to fit me comfortably. The Avalon has electric every-which-way (which again, isn’t that big a deal, I figure you set the thing once and leave it there for the most part) I can’t recall if the Camry was manual or electric. But I futzed around with it for a solid ten minutes, no exaggeration, and could NOT get it to a comfortable position.

Anyway. I drove 60 miles in the Avalon and thought I’d need back surgery, it was that extreme.

[GOPJ]

Nobody could see this coming, could they? / s

Good thing was dealers saw it coming and spaced out profits - same with all the sales people. They banked the big money knowing there would be slow sales for months... /s

[calex59]

Good thing was dealers saw it coming and spaced out profits - same with all the sales people. They banked the big money knowing there would be slow sales for months... /s

I know you are being sarcastic, but I have to ask: What profits? These people haven't been paid their "stimulus" money yet, for the most part and I suspect many of them never will be. So, now they are hurting two ways, sales have dried up and they have 100s of thousands of dollars out there(each dealer, billions total)in unmade profits. Soon there will be defaults, or repos if you will,and they will once again take it in the shorts. Maybe next time the government comes up to them and says, "I'm from government and I'm here to help!", they will run screaming into the night!

[OrangeDaisy]

I bought a new Toyota this past Saturday. At 3 pm on Saturday afternoon it looked like at least 2 other people buying a car. The dealer’s inventory was severely depleted, and the 2010 cars don’t come out until October. I was lucky enough that the car I wanted was on the lot, but it was the only RAV4 the dealer had.

This dealer wouldn’t give me a deep discount. Why should they with the supply and demand like it is? Toyota was offering $500 cash back on top of the discount already on the sticker. It looked like the discounted sticker meant that the car was marked up about 6% over invoice (I looked at KBB invoice amounts for new cars). The dealer gave me a good price on my trade in plus a little more plus the rebate plus the sticker discount, so I think we split the markup about 50/50.

This Toyota dealership told me that they added an extra fee during cash for clunkers just because the demand was so overwelming and the extra work required to process each car.

[Joan Kerrey]

Wait until the end of the month when the dealer will do anything to sell one more car in the month.

---

Yup, units sold is the standard in all dealerships. In every dealership one need not look very hard to find a whiteboard listing by name of salesperson the number of units sold. End of month brings about panic as each salesperson stives for that last sale which usually means more money in their pockets.