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...the main dealer is scarcely impartial. I'd be less sanguine about it being stood in a compound for a year or more than Simon though - I wouldn't want one of those at all.
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I think that the dealer is giving you a bit of false information, probably to try and put you off buying from a car supermarket. I don't know of any manufacturer that starts their warranty period from the build date of the car. Can you advise us about which manufacturer you are talking about?
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Well I've just deciphered the VIN number of my car to use as an example. My car is a two year old Ford Focus ST170, which was first registered in late November 2004. It was bought from a Ford main dealer and is to all intents and purposes a UK car, not an import from the likes of a car supermarket.
So I can now reveal from deciphering the VIN number that the car was built in March 2004, which was eight months prior to it first use on the road. So effectively my car had stood about somewhere for these eight months prior to me buying it. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest and it doesn't bother me either. I think that you will find a lot of the run of the mill UK sourced cars are of a similar age when they are first registered. (This excludes your special factory orders).
Have a look at your own vehicle and find out how long it had been built before it was first registered. If you want, post up your chassis number and I'll decipher it for you. I'm not promising I'll be able to but I know how to do the Ford ones easily now.
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Build dates are stamped on BMW Front suspension towers (as well as build locations in plain English or even German !)
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>>Build dates are stamped on BMW Front suspension towers
Well that makes it even easier then, any BMW owners can compare that to the date of first registration on their V5 document.
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Many manufacturers(including Ford)will not build a car unless they have a firm order.So where do these cars come from? Some may be held by dealers-others have been returned from dealers who over ordered-remember the more they buy,the cheaper they get them and,even if you order an unusual colour or spec,it may still take a few months to reach you.Even the build date shown on the vehicle only shows the date of final assembly-engines,gearboxes and other assemblies may have been made months before-it's easier to produce theses components in batches.
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Many manufacturers(including Ford)will not build a car unless they have a firm order.
Ford knock out the cars and keep them in storage months. I have seen supermarket cars built over a year prior to registration. In fact the last one I looked at had been built over a year before it was registered to 'Drive Assist' (a company which loans out cars as accident cover vehicles). I gather Drive Assist is one of GM's biggest customers. I guess that the VM's keep output as constant as they can in the short term and so any over-production is stockpiled. Then they clear the backlog with a good deal to the hire fleets or accident cover companies.
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No wonder they're going bust. Who else invests thousands of pounds in creating a product and let's it lie around for months, a year, or more, before they get any return?
Does this mean that some manufacturers are locked into a downward spiral where the buyer expects to walk into a dealership and have choice on instant delivery and a discount (after all, if it's sitting there waiting to be sold) whereas other manufacturers have precisely the opposite situation; you expect to wait and you expect little or no discount? Fill in names to choice, but think of this - what about the Koreans? They're doing ok.
I think some words of wisdom from HJ are called for - what REALLY does happen in car manufacturing? There will be odd exceptions, but in the main?
JH
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UK and Irish markets are obviously RHD so makers have to estimate sales and then schedule the factory to build X-number of cars. For the Far East makers there is at least 6-8 weeks delay before the boat gets here with the cars, so 'build to order' and 'just in time' is not easy for them! Typically the UK importer has to predict the required product mix (engine sizes, colours, auto/manual) etc months in advance and then place an order. Each dealer will then get their 'allocation'. Sometimes they get it wrong, so everybody wants to buy the 1.6 engine, but the next boat in is full of 1.4's - and so on.
Car production cannot be turned on and off like a tap, so if demand for, say, Focus, dips then Ford will keep on making them at the same volume and build up a stockpile in the hope that sales will pick up. The UK new car market is highly cyclical, of course, so stockpiles are actually needed to meet demand peaks twice a year.
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"No wonder they're going bust. Who else invests thousands of pounds in creating a product and let's it lie around for months, a year, or more, before they get any return?"
Chrysler USA have 550,000 unsold cars . Not a misprint. They have fired their Sales and marketing Director....
madf
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Does this mean that some manufacturers are locked into a downward spiral where the buyer expects to walk into a dealership and have choice on instant delivery
That's exactly how mainstream cars are sold in the US - you drive in, do the deal, then drive out in your new car. American's wouldn't dream of waiting 12-16 weeks while their car is built.
That even applies to some extent to 'prestige' brands - look at US car dealers stock of Merc's & BMW, for example.
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manufacturer is BMW even the supermarket show the warranty left as 3 months ( out of 2 years)
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Good grief, it's been sitting around in a muddy field for 21 months? I'd run screaming from it, rather than buy it.
Maybe a good example of the odd one that gets forgotten?
JH
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Didn't Vauxhall have that when they found an old unregistered mk 3 Astravan hidden among a load of new mk4 Astravans during a stocktake of unregistered stock the other year?
Pretty sure Auto Express reported on this in the last couple of years.
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Bear in mind that BMW have been a bit sluggish on sales of 1's and 3's this year. They have pre-reg of both and are offering 15% to brokers (I have this 'second hand' as it were, but I'm pretty sure its accurate info). Apparently projections for retail sales were a bit overambitous for this year and they have cars to shift. If its a 1 or a 3 then try calling a broker.
Warranty should be from date of registration, I have never heard of warranty applying from manufacturing date - that sounds very odd.
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I can confirm that brokers should be able to offer at least 14% off a 1 series, since I bought one in June with that level of discount! Drive the Deal were advertising even higher levels of discount earlier this month, and not just on 1s but 3s and 5s as well. Doesn't bode too well for BMW at the beginning of next year though if they pull so many sales into this year ;-)
Peter
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If this BMW that Alapppy is looking at definately only has 3 months warranty remaining, then my guess would be that it has already been pre-registered and hence that is why the warranty has been ticking away. So although the car may be new, my guess is that you won't be the first registered keeper for it.
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Eight years ago i purchased a brand new Nissan from Motorpoint. The car was an Irish import and i was fixed up with a Pan-European warranty. With nissan, such warranties start from the build date (May) rather than the date of regestration which was September. So I lost 4 months warranty; but the thing was totally reliable and i didnt need it in the end as it turned out. Trev
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All I can think is it won't have done the air-con, engine/gearbox seals and suspension any good.
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I'd be more worried about the considered and kindly treatment handed out by the "lads" who move the vehicles around. The boss can't see what's happening at the end of the airfield, where up to 20,000 cars are parked up, until there's a crash. Handy to have a repair/tyre fitting facility on site. Unfortunately the clutch/gearbox damage is not so overt. Look at former airfield sites on Google earth etc.
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It wasn't one of those sat in the sunken ferry for a year was it ;-)
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It wasn't one of those sat in the sunken ferry for a year was it ;-)
Quite possible - as long as the badge was undamaged they'd be quite saleable ;-)
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True, but the majority of cars are moved many times between the end of the production line and when you first pick up your new car from the dealer. Lets assume that your car is made abroad, it will encounter a similar sequence of events as to what I have described below:
Once the car has been made its normal first journey is around the factory test track, then its gets parked in a storage yard. After a while it will get loaded/driven onto a transporter and get taken to the docks. Then it will be driven off the transporter and parked in another yard at the dockside. From there it will get driven again onto a ship, it will cross the sea from wherever it comes from, and then get driven off the ship into another dockside yard. From here it will get driven onto another car transporter and taken to another storage yard, which could be one of the huge ones situated on old airfields and such like. Once it arrives there it will get driven off the car transporter and parked up.
Now here is the critical bit, if it is destined for a particular customer, it won't be there long, but to get to that customer it will again be driven onto another transporter, with a load of other cars to be delivered to that dealer/area, then once taken to that dealer it will be driven off the transporter once again. If it isn't destined for a customer and is going to be one of those cars in storage indefinately, it will most likely just sit in that storage yard for months and months. They are not in the habit of moving cars round this yard just for the fun of it, so the chances are that once it has been parked it will not be moved again until it is being picked up by a transporter to go to a dealer.
Once the car has reached the dealer, it is likely that it will get moved round a few times, probably because dealers have very small compounds and often need the car at the back first etc, then it will be in and out of the workshop for its pdi and roadtest.
So in summary there are quite a few different people who will actually 'drive' your car before you ever do. It will rarely be the same person twice apart from when it is loaded/unloaded from one car transporter. Do you honestly think that all of these people are going to be 100% kind to your car? It is fair to say that 'the lads' at these huge storage yards probably are the least careful of the lot, but by no means are they on their own in that respect.
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The vehicles are not moved willy-nilly, but they sometimes need to get a particular car out. That means shifting the blockers. Like Chinese chequers, but in a hurry. Then there are the quiet hours: if you've had a hankering to try a V8, or maybe a warm hatch, and the boss is away, the temptation is there. BTW, I know a little of what happens as a close relative worked at a former airfield, although she wouldn't bother racing. She kept the job, until something better and warmer turned up, unlike some of the lads who were too enthusiastic, shall we say. Cost a fortune in tyres.
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The car you really dont want is the one that has been used to ferry the drivers around the compound. Many years ago we had a Renault that was used to run drivers to and fro from compound to ship. When eventually sold to a customer it was discovered to be bent up at the front from slamming on and off the ramp frequently whilst overloaded and carelessly driven.
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There used to be a big BMW storage depot by the river in Barnby Dun just outside Doncaster - don't know if it is still there
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the bmw yard near doncaster was for the end of lease cars i.e. contract hire and pcp cars.
Vauxhalls similar to bmw go to peterborough.
Upper heyford near oxford is good for jaguars,land rovers old rover and mg's also this site is used for end of lease cars from most of the major finance houses
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It's not just car supermarkets that sell "old" brand new vehicles, at our main dealers we sold someone a Mondeo brand new on an 05 plate that had sat in our storage yard since just after it was built in 2003! Nothing really wrong with that though, I only remember it as it was commented on by the manager as been the oldest new car he'd sold.
I have to say I don't let these things worry me, I expect that a new car has probably been driven by a dozen people, normally for very short distances on stop-start runs, it won't have been driven kindly, and it's probably been pranged lightly and resprayed in the car park.
It's all part and parcel of buying a new car! It still amazes me how clueless most of the public are though, one of our customer once saw her new car sitting in the compound with mud on the tyres and dirt on the paint, she was really suprised and asked for another car as that one was too dirty for a new car. She had absoloutely no concept that ALL new cars arrived like that and they're only clean when the customer gets them 'cos they're given a good valet!
Blue
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I'm sure someone has commented on here that part of the PDI on some new cars now is to zero the electronic odometer - so your new car could have done a load of miles and you'd never know.
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>>All I can think is it won't have done the air-con, engine/gearbox seals and suspension any good.
Do not forget the tyres. Pressure slowly dropping and flats developing after a few months of no movement, leading to balance problems. I know this as once I had a vehicle I did not use for 6 months and all the tyres had to be replaced because of flats developing.
--
Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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Yes.My last BMW warranty ran 3 years from when I bought it new,NOT from the manufactured date(4 months previous)
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Main dealer claims the warranty is from build date not registration thus it has only 3 months warranty left on it I suppose it depends on the make of car as well
Most manufacturer warranties run from the date of the Pre Delivery Inspection (PDI), that was certainly the case for 2 VW Golfs which I imported in 2001.
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How can any manufacturer justify a warranty that starts from the date of manufacture? What possible use could it serve and who would claim on such a warranty if a fault occurred before the car (or any other item for that matter) was sold?
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confirmed with BMW Uk sold cars the warranty starts from reg. Imports build date. It really is misleading as I am sure many UK cars have been about for some time. decided not to go ahead main dealer price is only about 2 k more Should be newer and with 3 year warranty also slower depreciation than an import so it seems a better deal
alan
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confirmed with BMW Uk sold cars the warranty starts from reg. Imports build date.
I guess there's some sense in that - the only reference BMW UK (or the UK arm of any other manufacturer) would have is to the build date. They wouldn't know what had happened to the car prior to it being registered in the UK.
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One way to be fairly certain a new car really is new is to specify an optional extra so that the car doesn't come out of stock. Ask the dealer to track the car from the factory to their premises ~ I've had this done more than once without having to ask.
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L\'escargot.
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The warranty is not the big problem. The problem is resale value. When you go to trade it in the dealer doesn't care about first registration date. You will get quoted a price based on build date.
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I've worked in 3 dealers and none of them used build date to value a part exchange, just reg date...
Blue
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I've never known a dealer to use a build date to value a part exchange. As long as it is the right model for the year, ie not an old style version registered at a later date than expected, then all they tend to ask is whether it is an 2003 '53 reg or a 2004 '53 reg for example.
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there are fields upon fields full of new cars stockpilled by most of the leading makes near corby
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I know Peugeot / Citroen have a site near Corby & im pretty sure Ford also have a site in that area.
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Just seen a supermarket selling a Mazda Tribute with an 06Reg - I thought they stopped selling Tributes in 2004. I know they are still sold in the USA but not over here.
They want £12K for an 06 Reg car that could be nearly 3 years old !
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