"the secondary market" (mild rant, again...)

[quk@isham-research.demon.co.uk (Phil Payne)]

In message <43f9e55c.352f09e3@aol.com> MHLIGGINS writes:

>      In short, after the initial warranty period, the Audi owner is a
> liability, not an asset.  Should the owner decide to buy another Audi, they
> would then be moved back into the asset column.  (Sorry, Jeff, but I can't
> ever get debit and credit right, but I know asset/liability.)

This is also true in the UK, despite Audi's desire (expressed by their
UK marketing director Len Hunt) to increase residual values.

It seems to me that this strategy has been very tightly focussed - on
the transfer of title at the end of the initial finance period.  A
high resale value at this point encourages the original owner (whether
individual or finance house) to go back to Audi.  Daimler-Benz and BMW
have both been successful with the same stragety, to a point.

Unfortunately, after this first transfer of title, Audi lose interest
_COMPLETELY_.  The second owner is not supported by Audi at all - it
is impossible, for instance, to obtain the vehicle's service history
out of Audi's computers. The short-sightedness of this strategy can be
seen in the present free-fall of used A8 values in the UK.

>      In addition it would seem that the Audi owners who would work on their
> own vehicles are a special abomination.  People working on these machines
> without all the special tools?  Blasphemy!  And to change factory parts into
> renewable resources? (bomb recharge thread comes to mind)  What must they
> think?

True.  In my case, self-wrenching has been forced on me by the total and
utter lack of skills at the dealerships.  I discussed having my fuel
injection problem looked at by a local dealership, but the service
receptionist stopped me halfway through my description of the symptoms
and said they had _NO_ diagnostic ability other than replace-and-see.

--
 Phil Payne
 Phone: 0385 302803   Fax: 01536 723021
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