[urq] CORRECTION : shorty Fuba Betina mast still available : 000 051 560

[Ben Howell]

My experience at the dealership taught me that parts that were on the way out (e.g. NLA and obsolete stuff) had the price cut significantly. They do that because slow moving and obsolete parts get destroyed. Then, when they do get destroyed, the write-off doesn’t look at bad on the books.

The LA depot manager told me a story of destroying 410 VW Fox dashboards, but it wasn’t as bad as it sounded because it was only ~$700 in parts. When I asked how that was possible, he said that VW dropped the price to $1.70/ea because they hadn’t sold a single one in 38+ months, they gave them “obsolete” status and they knew they were going to destroy them.

…and that was just one instance. He told me they do it all the time and it has NOTHING to do with what car it fits. They have NO idea what the application is, they just know the part number. So, if an urq valence (for example) doesn’t sell for 5 years because it’s $2000, they could very easily drop the price by as much as 90% and then destroy it. I don’t know if they actually destroyed any urq valences, it just sounds like a good example. Sad thing is, we would NEVER know. They don’t tell the dealers, they don’t put out a flyer, the price just gets dropped for 30-90 days and if it doesn’t get ordered, it could get trashed.

Ben 


-----Original Message-----

>> Could it be that Audi heard us years ago when we complained about the high
>> prices for regular wear items ? Since a year or so, I am often surprised
>> that some parts are actually very competitively priced : upper strut
>> mounts
>> (44$), cowl water separator (36$), hood cable (14$), exhaust gasket-donut
>> (18$). In 2001-2002, I am sure, these parts were much pricier, the strut
>> mounts were 125$ each and the exhaust donut was 75$.
>>
>> Maybe after all they are listening to this list, and think the
>> preservation
>> of older Audis is a worthwhile task?
>>
>> Louis-Alain