In message <
[email protected]>
JD <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Austin Shackles wrote:
>
> > On or around Thu, 16 Mar 2006 19:11:36 +0000, "Paul S. Brown"
> > <[email protected]> enlightened us thusly:
> >
> >>Austin Shackles wrote:
> >>
> >>> why TF do LR so persistently underpower their vehicles?
> >>>
> >>
> >>To keep RPI, Allisport and Overfinch in a living?
> >
> > heh. could have a point there.
> >
> > but John Jones the Farmer doesn't want to have to fart about, he wants
> > something that works out of the box. If Dai Davies down the road has a
> > nissan and says hey this is great, lugs my sheep trailer far better than
> > the
> > landy ever did, then JJ is going to go an buy one. increasingly few LRs
> > around this area and a lot more Jap double-cabs.
> >
>
> Landrover lost this market in Australia and most of the rest of the world to
> the Japanese over twenty years ago. Mainly due to better dealer network,
> price and comfort, to some extent power and quality control. Landrover, by
> concentrating on luxury cars has sent a clear signal they don't want this
> market. There is a rumour here that they are about to close all dealers
> outside of the state capitals, which shows just how much they want this
> market. (How would you be if your ECU needs resetting 1000km from the
> nearest dealer?)
> JD
They pretty much did that here - a whole raft of dealers who could not/
would not stump around £1 million to have their premises tarted up
to look like a glorified hairdressing salon lost their franchises, the
net result being that those most likley to want one have to travel
into a city (or large town) to get one, and even worse, to get
it serviced (and be given a Nissan Micra coutesey car!).
Having said that though, the double cab trend is doing a Dihatusu
round here - everyone dumps LR in favour of the latest trend, then
come back to LR (were talking Defender *users* here, not the Life
Style bridage).
It seems to very much depend on the individual dealers though - round
here Defender sales (and the follow-on sales from the rest of the
range) are *very* strong again after a bit of a pasue while the
first Td5's were "tested") - personaly I believe that has a lot
to do with having two big dealerships within the same distance
from the user base, i.e. competition. You have a hell of a job
getting a second hand Defender at all, and it's been that way
for some time now - indeed a half decent early 90 is fetching
around £1000 more than the same vehicle would have 3 years ago.
Richard
--
www.beamends-lrspares.co.uk [email protected]
Running a business in a Microsoft free environment - it can be done
Powered by Risc-OS - you won't get a virus from us!!
Boycott the Yorkshire Dales - No Play, No Pay
