Prime Time

[Mustang]

Investigates car dealers next Monday 5th Dec on RTE1. I for one will be watching.

[soc]

Investigates car dealers next Monday 5th Dec on RTE1. I for one will be watching.

sh!t I'll be away so will miss it..... I'd say it'll be an interesting program...

[Myfeckin FTO]

This will be interesting but probably more for what they miss out on than anything else. I get the feeling I'll be screaming at the TV a lot. I'd be particular interested to see if they bring up any evidence of cartel pricing, clocking, selling 2nd hand cars in bad condition without any warranty/NCT etc.

[Muad_dib77]

Anybody out there with a dvd recorder?

I wont be able to see this as I'll be out...

If I can get a recording I can stick copies onto dvds for other unlucky peeps.

[soc]

Looks like I'll be able to watch this afterall ...... bloody training camp is postponed due to lack of snow - feck this global warming anyway!

[Muad_dib77]

I don't believe in global warming.. I'm always cold!

[soc]

I don't believe in global warming.. I'm always cold!

hehe,

seriously though, in the past 5 years I've watched the ski season get later and later each year - you used to be guaranteed some snow in early december but now there's really nothing until closer to new year..... and they're even cancelling races in norway now where you should be sure of snow from November on....!!

[Muad_dib77]

That is true..

When I was a kid the waters around the Danish Islands used to freeze solid.
I actually remember one yeat somebody drove from denamrk to sweden on the ice..
(There's a bridge now - so now it's not really much of an achievement)

..now the same waters just become a bit slushy..

Also there used to be relatively frequent """snow storms""" (not really snowstorms.,more like loads of drifiting snow) catching peeps out so they'd get stuck in their cars on some road in the middle of nowhere..
I used to watch these massive big armoured vehicles driving around rescuing the unfortuante buggers on the news... none of that now..

Something funky is happening for sure.

This should make all of you FTO owners with de-cats think.. you broke the weather!

[kevinod]

Just watched that, some pretty damning evidence! They came down pretty hard on Citroen especially, I can only assume thats the brand they had most hard evidence on.

Tbh I had no idea there was that much price fixing, even within one brand.

The delivery charge being set I could understand though - putting places beside port vs the opposite corner of the country on equal footing.

The Dublin dealer wasn't very well hidden, you could see his glasses, moustache, and side profile fairly clearly, I'd say if you've dealt with him you'd recognise him straight away. His neighbours he accused of clocking certainly will!

All in all a good report though.

[Kace]

What did they say about the clocking in general and did they tell the public what to watch out for ?

Any mention of cars coming from across the water (same as ours) and the clocking that takes place on the boats coming over ?

[kevinod]

What did they say about the clocking in general and did they tell the public what to watch out for ?

Any mention of cars coming from across the water (same as ours) and the clocking that takes place on the boats coming over ?

They just said clocking happened, not much more. They hired a guy to clock a car from 87000 to 50000 for €100, and followed a car (Merc) bought at Merlin auctions with 136k on the clock to a dealers where it had 80k on the clock.

No mention of import clocking specifically. They didn't really say what to look out for, other than the NCT notes the mileage, so you could check old test reports.

[IrishPhoenix]

Yeah it was quite interesting. How do you know if your car was ever clocked. It got me a bit paranoid. My dad suggested I call the guy in japan who owned it lol!

Its not suprising that there is price fixing in the car industry when every other area (retail etc) rips us off either. We just complain but do nothing about it. Its like all the grannies complaining that the bus is late to each other but when it comes they dont complain to the driver. We have a very apologetic attitude in this country and thats why we are walked on.

Enough early morning anger vented lol

[CJ]

I have to say, I wasn't surprised by anything in the report, clocking has been going on for years and everyones seen the 'milage correction' ads in the B&S and AT, you'd wanna be living on another planet not to realise what thats all about.

Ditto on the dealership cartel front, anyone whos ever bought a new car can attest to the fact theres theres little or no differences between the prices quoted from dealer to dealer, I would have said this is the rule rather than the exception.

Citroen certainly came in for some flack, the idea that they were trying to get Peugeot to increase their prices to come in line with the Citroen price list was scandelous. Ford also got a mention but I would tend to agree with Kev in that they probably didn't throw the sh!t at everyone because of a lack of evidence, it would be naive to think that price fixing does not (or did not) happen right across the industry.

What about Volvo laying down the law that no Irish based C70 could be sold to NI buyers? Open market my @rse!

It will be interesting to see what the long term fallout from this report is, lets hope that the consumer comes out smelling of roses for once...

CJ

[Mustang]

Ineterting show alright. Regarding the citroen issue. I thought it was resonably acceptable to agree on a standard delivery charge, whereas the show was citing this as a price fixing arrangement. I suppose it depends on the nature of the delivery charge, is that from country of origin to your local dealer or is it from Irish port to local dealer?

They came down heavy on citroen alright but as said above probably because of evidence and time constraints, it would be naive to think that this was no going on elsewhere though. There must be price fixing going on accross different brands as well though.
Take citroen for instance, IMO they are a bland imageless brand, making dull Euro boxs (although some recent models have tried to addrees this), same as opel, and to a lesser extent ford. These are all run of the mill mainstream motors that suffer from fairly heavy depreciation from new.
I would expect them all to be preapred to discount heavy just to shift the cars.
If for instance you had decided on a C4 and found very little or no price differences betwen dealers, but you could get an equivalent ford focus for say €1000 less based on a dealer discount. Wouldn't you buy the ford
If citroens price fixing was being done in isolation, I think that would only work if we were a nation of citroen loving fanatics and would buy at any cost! There has to be cross brand collusion, otherwise citroen prices would be much higher and significantly less competitive which would surely lose them sales and market share.


CJ wrote

Ditto on the dealership cartel front, anyone whos ever bought a new car can attest to the fact theres theres little or no differences between the prices quoted from dealer to dealer, I would have said this is the rule rather than the exception.

Not so sure about that CJ, acting as proxy, I have been shopping around for a new car. And the levels of discounts available between dealers was reasonabley competitive. Most were charging a €500 delivery fee but a small fee were not. That left them at a €500 price advantage before they started offering discounts

I felt sorry for that poor woman with the cut and shut golf

[kevinod]

I felt sorry for that poor woman with the cut and shut golf

Ya, that was pretty rough alright, but surely she had some comeback, it was left like she was out of pocket with no car and that was that. Her solicitor would have been rubbing his hands looking forward to taking the dealer to the cleaners!

On the other side of it, there was some pretty obvious problems on the car that should have been found pretty easily. Had she brought someone along who knew cars, or had an AA inspection done they would have spotted the problems straight away. It highlighted the limitations of the NCT pretty well.

[pergau]

Re the girl with the Cut and Shut Golf

Didn't she say that she just bought it from a guy and that he wouldn't return her calls. I'm surprised that Prime time didn't track him down. Answering my own question: presumably they couldn't and that's why she has no comeback.

My favourite bit was with the clocked Merc. when she told the dealer that it was clocked, he said it wasn't and then "come back in an hour and I'll show you" they should have let him clock it back to the original reading.

All in all a good show but they never said if the info they had was being passed on to the police etc. I'm sure that it will be but it would be nice to know.

[Mustang]

Re: The cut & shut golf. I've seen the English mags mention this numerous times I genuinely didn't think it happened here though

The clocked merc was priceless, yer man was really cought with his pants down that time Looks like the merc is not being advertised anymore, perhaps someone in fairy land bought it.
I see he also has a ferrari F360 for sale. I wonder what kind of history that car has

[soc]

Re: The cut & shut golf. I've seen the English mags mention this numerous times I genuinely didn't think it happened here though

I've a mate who's dad bought a newish 2nd hand 3 series about 10 years ago from a reputable dealer and it turned out to be a cut and shut and the dealer didn't even know - he replaced it free of charge with an equivalent age 5 series as compensation....

[Muad_dib77]

I've a mate who's dad bought a newish 2nd hand 3 series about 10 years ago from a reputable dealer and it turned out to be a cut and shut and the dealer didn't even know - he replaced it free of charge with an equivalent age 5 series as compensation....

That's extremely impressive.. I think you'd be very unlucky to end up with a cut & shut from a reputable dealer though...
..if word got out that a dealer was selling cut & shuts...the dealer wouldn't be dealing for long that for sure.

[soc]

I've a mate who's dad bought a newish 2nd hand 3 series about 10 years ago from a reputable dealer and it turned out to be a cut and shut and the dealer didn't even know - he replaced it free of charge with an equivalent age 5 series as compensation....

That's extremely impressive.. I think you'd be very unlucky to end up with a cut & shut from a reputable dealer though...
..if word got out that a dealer was selling cut & shuts...the dealer wouldn't be dealing for long that for sure.

Exactly why I didn't mention any names- suffice to say they were shocked and I'm sure the upgrade to a 5-series at no extra cost was to keep a lid on the matter and prevent their stupidity getting out for taking in a cut and shut in the first place....