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It seems many Car Dealers are being Culled which will affect us on Motability as for one I choose my Car that has a dealer close as possible but it seems it maybe a big problem if after getting your car the dealer shuts down and the next maybe miles away. I also see BYD in china some dealers have gone bust so we need to keep an eye on chinese built cars as they already have thousands of written off cars in undergrowth as the Chinese Govt is as we know putting state money into mass everything production will it all be shut down if the losses are high. There is a Chinese guy on youtube that says Chinese built cars are very fragile and parts not good. So when my lease comes up although tempted by there cars I will stick to euro built cars, that being said BYD new Surf or Seagull as in China is being produced in Hungry so whether it is true about quality is in reliability. Marshall Motor Group is experiencing a period of dealership closures, impacting both Volkswagen and Peugeot franchises. Specifically, Volkswagen dealerships in Horsham and Aylesbury are closing, while several Peugeot dealerships across the country are also at risk of closure due to Stellantis terminating its contract with Marshall. These closures are expected to lead to job losses for affected staff.
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Some interesting points – personally I wouldn’t want a Chinese car on principle.
The great thing about Motability is – if you have a problem they always, in my experience, do their best to sort it out.
I have had a car stolen from my drive, they replaced it within a day – I had someone run it to the back of a car whilst parked – again – provided a replacement whilst it was being repaired.Motability takes all the concern or worry out of a purchase at what I consider to be a very fair price – so my concern would be if they ever went bust!!
Some interesting points – personally I wouldn’t want a Chinese car on principle. The great thing about Motability is – if you have a problem they always, in my experience, do their best to sort it out. I have had a car stolen from my drive, they replaced it within a day – I had someone run it to the back of a car whilst parked – again – provided a replacement whilst it was being repaired. Motability takes all the concern or worry out of a purchase at what I consider to be a very fair price – so my concern would be if they ever went bust!!
Yes you are right Tillyman I wonder if my ex fiat dealer can still service my car.
Our Local Suzuki dealer is now basically a satilite dealership where you can place an order only, they have no new vehicles on site and no demonstrators. The main depot is 30 miles away, we are seeing a lot of main dealership closing down. It all going online.
Unfortunately I have suffered a brain injury and occasionally I get confused and often say the wrong thing.
More and more people are buying cars online so really the dealership model has changed quite a bit. Where it leaves us, is I guess an unknown. I already live in an area where many car dealers are not. Renault have moved out of the area the dealership is now fully Hyundai, yet fiat have moved in with Nissan. So to me it’s nothing new. If you want a certain car as ones locally don’t tick all my boxes or the ap is too high, then I need to travel and that doesn’t always apply to servicing. As the Renault service can be still done locally at Hyundai.
I decided to get a Volvo this time and there used to be a local dealership, but it closed quite a while ago now, they still had a service centre. Well in feb they went bust and closed the doors. So now the other dealers which there are two are 15 to 20 miles away are extra busy now. So for them to just look at my car was 6 weeks. So that’s a bigger issue also. Although with an EV charging at home it doesn’t cost as much to drive there as in a ice car.
EX30 SMER Ultra
I live in NW Surrey – there has been the odd closure but nothing like you are describing – not sure where you are – but could it be a regional thing ?
I tried to post this a while ago in reply to Oscarmax – but didn’t work – then had message that the thread had been closed. – hhmmm confused 🤔
I live up on the North coast of Northern Ireland about 70 miles from Belfast. Increasingly I am finding dealers within a 20 mile radius losing franchises and either becoming used car dealers or service agents and Brands focusing on large franchises in Belfast.
Yesterday I started looking for my next car and was told by the VW dealership that they would stop supplying new cars after September. Fortunately the BMW dealership is not planning to change.It is really serious as if you have ongoing problems you need a dealer close by or like my disabled neighbour his MG EV had to be taken away on a trailer and to be fair they left him with a petrol MG but if like me you have hand controls then that would not work.
I do think that there should be a local vat reg garage that could take over if things are ongoing if Motability will agree, if you buy a new car I was told you can take your car to any VAT Garage as long as they used Manufacturers parts and warranty would still be in place.
I wouldn’t be concerned about a dealer group going bump in China, it’s not, as if dealer groups don’t close here or change from on manufacturer to another, besides China’s internal market is different to that of ours.
It isn’t unheard of when a manufacturer withdraws sales from a country anther manufactures dealership will take over service and warranty work or if a manufacturer goes into administration, you hope a buy out will happen or the warranty comes null and void!
China is at least 5 years ahead with EV’s, are they fragile, well we know China, along with every other country doesn’t have the same safety standards, as Europe but, to sell cars in europe, they have to meet our safety standards and go through the same euro NCAP testing, as european cars and many of the Chinese cars have met 4 or 5 stars, as european cars do.
You have also got to consider the number of european manufacturers with Chinese partners building cars in China for the Chinese market and also shipping them back to europe to be sold – Cupra Taviscan, BMW iX3, Citreon C5x, Dacia Spring, DS9, Smart#, Volvo EX30, Tesla…. There’s also the fact 90+% of european built EV’s use Chinese battery cells and modules etc.
The Youtube myth of Chinese cars sitting in undergrowth has been debunked many times over, as has the one in France.
I have seen the pictures it is no myth china is subsidising mass production whether anyone does or does not want there cars and eventually the bubble will burst like the uk old days of stockpiles of cars rotting in fields and we were not even subsidising cars in them days except Austin Rover which we the taxpayer owned.
I have seen the pictures it is no myth china is subsidising mass production whether anyone does or does not want there cars and eventually the bubble will burst like the uk old days of stockpiles of cars rotting in fields and we were not even subsidising cars in them days except Austin Rover which we the taxpayer owned.
Got the link to these pictures by anychance?
If you do your research you will find it even a google search but it is common sense thy are undercutting our and Europe’s price cars as we cannot lower wage bills and feed rice to our workers.
Interesting read to the real reason why there are so many abandoned cars in China’s undegrowth. The second link perhaps goes into a bit more detail, but more importantly touches on Tesla’s 2023 price war that ignited the price war that spilled out of China and also hurt foreign manufactuers inside of China particularly VW.
Chinese dealerships are starting to warn manufacturers not to put too many cars on them, due to a looming price war, this time started by BYD. Whether it will be as bad, as the one started by Tesla in 2023 is yet to be seen!
The third link shows similar scenes of EV’s in fields undergrowth but this time it’s in France and for a very similar reason to that of China, resulted from a failed car sharing scheme, not faulty batteries as youtube would have you believe.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-china-ev-graveyards/
https://www.carscoops.com/2023/08/the-real-story-behind-chinas-graveyards-of-abandoned-evs/
Hi Kezo,
NCAP doesn’t check for this safety issue:
Hi Kezo, NCAP doesn’t check for this safety issue:
It really is an interesting subject and the Morning Midas is just the latest of a growing number carrier fires, it makes you wonder if this is becoming the new norm.
The Morning Midas was chartered by Anji Logistics, which is a subsidiary of SAIC Motor according to Bloomberg and reports suggest it departed from Yantai, Shandong province, in eastern China, where there is also a SAIC-GM factory producing the Buick Envision electric. Great Wall motors about 140 cars onboard but were quick to say none of their cars on the ship were battery electric and Chery refused to comment.
However it’s understood the fire started on the deck carring around 800 electric cars and the ship reportedly deployed and exhausted it’s carbon dioxide suppressant system and they then called the coast guard.
So it seems battery electric cars are going to cause trouble on the high seas because fires on ships are challenging to extinguish because of the heat generated and risk of reignition, which could burn for days and are becomming a big concern for insurers.
The owners of the car carrier Felicity Ace that sank in the Atlantic in 2022 carrying 4,000 luxury cars including Porche Bentley, along with VW id4’s are suing both Porche and VW on two accounts for the fire originated from the lithium-ion battery of a Porsche model and allege VW failed to inform them of the danger and necessary precautions needed to transport such vehicles.
What’s causing it to become frequent, is it salt water from rough seas getting in or don’t batteries like to swayed back and forth, especially in rough sea’s?
Whats the anser is the question! Do ship owners fire retard decks carrying battery electric cars or do manufacturers contain them in fireproof boxes before shipping, cus it’s clear Co2 isn’t satisfactory where battery fies are concerned?
Thankfully that isn’t our job to decide the next course of action!
Yes I saw that in the news too and had similar thoughts.
If the batteries were separate from the car would that make any difference or is it more likely to be a faulty battery that’s waiting to happen – in which case the testing before leaving the factory needs to be more vigorous.
Im sure there are a lot of clever minds working on it.
There are going to be a lot of disappointed customers that will have to wait longer – I wonder if anything is was salvageable.
An EV battery is made up of over a thousand (often 5-9000) cylindrical batteries – number depending on required total power and also on cell type. Lithium ion batteries are chemically vulnerable to heat and/ or damage. A single cell can experience a thermal runaway, emitting a highly toxic and flammable gas. The chemical reaction also generates its own oxygen to sustain the fire which is why it is highly resistant to conventional extinguishing by smothering and oxygen denial. The single cell fire causes a chain reaction igniting all other cells within the overall battery protective casing the gas will seek any escape and often causes a flame thrower effect affecting adjacent cars.
In Germany, a brand new fire station housing 13 brand new electric fire engines was completely destroyed, which is more than a little ironic.another Ro Ro car transporter caught fire off Rotterdam and burned for several weeks before being towed into port. There was a video of MB EVs being craned off and immersed in a giant skip of water as a precaution. Another MB burned 140 cars in a Korean underground car park, and was not being charged.
media often report that Diesel cars caused the Luton fire and others. Hmm.roll on new tech and solid state batteries.
PS the Azores loss was blamed on a Porsche Taycan, obviously not being charged and on board were Bentleys and Lamborghini Aventadors. The factory had to restart the production that had ended. An expensive event for VAG with the court case yet to be settled.
Good knowledge- makes you wonder if EV’s weren’t under the oh so cool green banner there would be much stricter safety restrictions on them – but the tech seems to be moving at pace due to the likely profits involved.
As to the subject of dealerships closing, this has been going on for some years. There was a Land Rover / Range Rover dealership in our village and the owner told me that he’d had to surrender the franchise as JLR said that he’d have to invest over £1m on modernising the dealership in order to keep it.
In many parts of the country, car dealerships are vacating city and town centre locations in order to relocate to edge of town locations, where rents are lower, they have more space and customers can get to them easier. For example, many car dealerships in and around Bristol have closed and Cribbs Causeway (Jn 17 M5) now has large dealerships for almost every brand you can think of, from Ford to Aston Martin!
With one in six cars registered being a Motability car, they really can’t survive on the small “admin fee” given by Motability to facilitate the transaction.
There was an old MG dealer who has been with the brand since demise on MG and they were a small family dealer had great service feedback and customer care and Motability but they had there franchise taken away as MG like many brands want fancy large dealerships instead. This is a tragedy as some of these dealers offered a more personal service much better than large dealers.
I once ordered a Mazda as the dealer is at the top of the road. A week later they went bust and the nearest dealer was then a 70 mile round journey. HOWEVER, Motability were happy for the local Renault garage to carry out the servicing. Happy days.
Skoda Enyaq Race Blue
Our Suzuki is serviced at our local Toyota dealership.
Unfortunately I have suffered a brain injury and occasionally I get confused and often say the wrong thing.
With one in six cars registered being a Motability car, they really can’t survive on the small “admin fee” given by Motability to facilitate the transaction.
The admin fee is only a part of what a Motability order is worth to them. Cars ordered for Motability customers can count towards their volume targets, which generate discounts on all their orders plus they count towards volume related financial incentives. That’s why some dealers will offer AP discounts equal to 2 or 3 times the admin fee. Rest assured, they are still making a healthy profit on those cars!
With one in six cars registered being a Motability car, they really can’t survive on the small “admin fee” given by Motability to facilitate the transaction.
The admin fee is only a part of what a Motability order is worth to them. Cars ordered for Motability customers can count towards their volume targets, which generate discounts on all their orders plus they count towards volume related financial incentives. That’s why some dealers will offer AP discounts equal to 2 or 3 times the admin fee. Rest assured, they are still making a healthy profit on those cars!
also don’t forget the service side of the dealership business.
I hadn’t noticed any dealerships closing, but this morning when I had to come through Telford, the big Volkswagen dealer which is based there seems to have closed. If I remember correctly the dealership is only a few years old.
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