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

[j.koenig]

Excellent example.  VAG and/or VWoA juggle parts prices around for several reasons, mainly 
concerning financials, not the market, and certainly not the enthusiast market.  I guess 
destroying 'obsolete' parts is about warehousing cost, or something.  I know one reason 
for lowering pricing on newer parts is to lower warranty cost.  It all seems such a shame!


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ben Howell" <bhowell at rmi.net>
To: "Martin Pajak" <martin at quattro.ca>; "Louis-Alain Richard" <larichard at plguide.com>
Cc: <urq at audifans.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 12:22 PM
Subject: Re: [urq] CORRECTION : shorty Fuba Betina mast still available : 000 051 560


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