Hard to sell cars if you won’t fill customers’ orders

I’ve heard the same lament—criticism, really—three times in the space of 48 hours. Maybe you are hearing it, too. Two of the criticisms concerned Mercedes and one the Opel division of GM. In each case, as we chatted about the travails of the automotive industry in general, people told me they very recently approached their local dealers in search of a new car, but were told that nothing would be available for months.

Two of the people I spoke with said they made it very clear they would take almost any color, and were not very picky on the options available; they actually had a need for a new car. One of the Mercedes was a company car, for a molder that actually supplies parts to that OEM, so likely there was little chance of a financing problem, and the Opel was a low-priced car that, with a trade-in, almost anyone could afford.

Didn’t matter—"Sorry, eight weeks or more," was the reply.

I’ve noticed that the Mercedes dealer in the city near where I Iive has stopped replacing cars on its lot. For years I‘ve driven by it, and I’ve never seen an empty spot on his very large lot. Now the lot looks like a checkerboard,with all of the white squares open. I’d assumed it was a cash flow problem on the dealer’s end, but could it be that the carmakers just have trimmed back their production so far that they are unable to meet current orders?

That’d be a sad and ironic side note to the problems across the industry. I’d welcome a market insider’s thoughts on what is happening here, because what it is ain’t exactly clear to me. —matt.defosse@cancom.com