RE: Audi of America, are you listening?

["Dave Eaton" <Dave.Eaton@clear.net.nz>]

ahh, a soapbox, now where is that ladder  :)

osman, you raise some interesting points.  however as a counterpoint: -

1) we are not talking about razors here.  as much as the ownership
experience of some cars will always be better than others, the satisfaction
level is very different.  lexus, for instance, may make very fine cars, but
here in new zealand they have all the charisma of a bar of soap.  and what
does that say about the owners?  exactly.  it's called credibility, and when
you own a car, you've got cards in the game.  you drive an a8 in nz, or m -b
(more so) and you have a lot more cred than if you drive an ls400.  what is
toyota doing about it?  well, ownership surveys be damned - they're entering
formula 1, race at le mans, and have raced in the wrc for years (without
ever seeming to make mileage of the fact).  last week, their chairman  went
on record as saying that they need to appeal to a younger audience.
conservatively i would estimate their motorsports-related expense to be
>$500 *million* per year once formula 1 is underway.
2) put this another way.  credibility is what gives you your resale value.
more than (but not instead of) of ownership satisfaction.  when you have a 6
month waiting list to get an s4, a tt, or an clk320, you're talking about
very healthy residuals, and happy owners.  sure, if the cars accelerate in
an unintended fashion :-0  then the public gets the message, and the
credibility drops.  and people point at you or laugh at you.
3) the car as a design statement is being pioneered (arguably) by audi, and
they started in 1994 with the a8, followed by the a4.  bmw is still trying
to figure this one out but like ibm, cisco and now microsoft, bmw have the
disadvantage of their ownership base.  yes, i said disadvantage.  i remember
london in the late 1980's where owning a porsche had a significantly
negative social connotation.  if you wanted to do this, you chose your
friends very carefully.  porsche had absolutely 1st class customer service,
but found that they had to work very hard to get out of the hole they
themselves dug by appealing to the clientele they did in the hedonist years.
basically a bunch of spoilt tossers.  ferrari did not make the same mistakes
(barely).  by treating the car as design, audi is (albeit some years after
the fine tradition of Italian coachbuilders) following the trail where the
owner is affirming a whole list of qualities about himself with the car
*regardless* of the quality of that experience.  welcome to the late 1990's.
understated elegance and expense is in.  and that is precisely why owners
are beating a path to the door.  will they come back?  that depends if the
"audi as design" thing is still relevant in 3 years time i guess.  Hell I
see people enjoying masarati' bi-turbos these days.  And replacing the
electric's very 2 years.  Look at jaguar, a sick joke for so many years, yet
the focus of so much passion.
4) ownership surveys are bumph.  you've filled them out as have most of us.
we all lie.  what it does though is give the company your address and some
pi about you, and your tastes.  which takes us back to the credibility
issue.  the more the product marketing types know about you, the more they
can produce products which fit your requirements.  hell, i like telling them
that i still listen to lps (those funny old black round vinyl thingy's).
5) the "ownership experience" of older cars is an interesting item. i
appreciate phil's and your point about the heritage and audi helping owners
here, and i can certainly see the point.  as the previous owner of probably
the most expensive audi every to maintain (the wr ur-q), certainly the thing
which i would have appreciated the most was simply lower parts prices.  i
understand that these have been dropping as audi gets the message.  about
time i guess.

having said all this, i am very very careful about the dealer i use.  i am
prepared to flatbed my car 400miles to take it to the dealer i trust, rather
than to use the one which is 2 miles from where i live.  and i own a 10 y.o.
car which has appreciated in value significantly during the last 2 years of
ownership, and another that hasn't.  this other car i got a committed buy
back price in writing from my dealer, so that i have a quantifiable
downside.  this is the same dealer which invites me to driving days with new
cars, takes me cruising in fine launches and sends me nice little reminders
about warrants of fitness and service intervals.  and i've spent over $300k
with them over the last 7 years.  ownership satisfaction?  this isn't a text
book exercise.  when i put my money on the table, i knew exactly what i was
getting myself in for.  you pays your money....

regrets, i've had a few (sing along now...)

:-)

dave
'95 rs2
'90 ur-q

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

Date: Sun, 07 Feb 1999 19:29:51 -0500
From: Osman Parvez <oparvez1@nycap.rr.com>
Subject: Re: Audi of America, are you listening?

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