Has anyone considered contacting the media?

(25-10-2011 08:27am)Urban Splash Wrote:  Uk customers always have the longest to wait for Audis. Mainly because we are stupid enough to accept it. People are so desperate to get into a q5, they are happy to wait over a year....

I don't understand the uk's obsession with damn Audis!

Not just the UK, I looked into a Q5 before the Evoque, and this would be through the spanish network and was quoted minimum lead time of 8 months but likely to be a year. As for profit margins, the Q5 SE Tdi (140ps) was £35k before options, same car in the UK was around £28k. (So much for the great british rip off)

(10-11-2011 08:52am)mark_n Wrote:  Token's link and the articles referred to in it are interesting. Looking further, there's an argument that the UK market is being starved of cars because of the low value of the pound against the euro and this applies to both European and domestic manufacturers.

For European manufacturers, they have to keep their UK prices down to get sales and profits suffer compared to selling them elsewhere. Case in point. My 911 turbo cost £115k in 2009 and the exact same car/specification in the dealership next to the factory was €169k. It's clear the profit to Porsche of selling cars in Europe is much greater than selling them in the UK, so why not divert production from the UK?

It works the same for LR products too. If they can take advantage of the weak pound to sell elsewhere at a higher profit compared to the UK, the obvious thing to do is to restrict production for the UK, to the frustration of scum like me. We see reports of lots of cars going for export and there's no doubt cars are being churned out but the UK market is being starved.

That, I think, is the real reason for the (as we see it) chaotic supply situation in the UK.

One sobering thought is that with all the euro problems, you might expect Sterling to be a safe haven but as the exchange rate is stalled, it's clear the markets think we are in the same do-doos as the Europeans.

I would have thought that international car manufacturers should have Treasury departments hedging against currency risk... or maybe I'm giving them too much credit??

(10-11-2011 07:58am)Acwats Wrote:  There's a quarter page article in this week's Autocar. Sounds like they've picked up on a forum users case.
I can't find a web link but as usual comments from LR are guarded and unconvincing.

Yep, it's basically the same article that was shown on their website last week (without a name check tho), with a little extra about the dealership losing orders. 'The average delay is three to four weeks' is laughable, from what I have seen on here the average delay must be at least twice that, my own is looking like 9 weeks! (at the moment ), and for LR to say the supply problem is back to normal has to be absolute rubbish.

Link to original http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticl...ue/259839/

As for the stalling FX rate between the sterling and Euro, this is a deliberate ploy by BoE and UK gov, to ensure that the UK is cheap in comparison to the Euro, so it still has an economic advantage, but also to stop it being priced out in international trade terms.

This is done by the quantative easing program, which devalues the pound on purpose. Whats worrying is that an extra £75bn has had minimal impact, and is only maintaining the status quo, which shows you really how deep the euro is in the s**t.

Down side of this is the increase in inflation which is due to the £ weakening against other currencies around the world. It is a careful balancing act. Energy prices are in dollars, so purchases of gas, oil etc becomes more expensive as a result, even though it looks like the price is falling in $ terms.

My conclusion FX is a b**ch.