New Cars

Bad car news round-up

Even a passing glance at the trade press at the moment confirms that things are following a pretty steep downward trend.

Not only are manufacturers and suppliers facing hard times, but dealerships of new and used cars are closing at a frightening pace.

As far as manufacturers go, a familiar story emerges. For example, SsanYong Motors, a South Korean manufacturer, has filed for court receivership due to low SUV sales.

As we've previously stated, larger and luxury vehicle sales have fallen badly. A recent UK casualty of this trend appears to be the Rybrook Jaguar Dealership in Wales, which ceased trading at the end of '08.

That's not to say small car manufacturers are immune of course, as the 380 agency layoffs at the Mini assembly plant in Oxford testify.

However, as a note of optimism for SsangYong, receivership in Korea is more of a formal and legal restructuring – and reassurance has been given to UK car buyers that operations will continue as normal. What that means in practice remains to be seen.

Honda hogs the headlines

One car maker in particular has been making the news in the UK recently.

Honda announced last week that they were to halt all production at their Swindon plant for 35 days during April and May - in addition to closing the plant in Feb and March. Honda hopes that this measure will help avoid redundancies at the plant. However, the Japanese manufacturer has also announced that they'll produce 56,000 less vehicles domestically in 2009.

Meanwhile, a Honda dealer group in north England has gone into administration. The De Vries Group hopes that only one of their five dealerships will have to close, but the fact that Honda dealer Amethyst ceased trading earlier in the year won't fill the staff with too much hope.

Comments from the top...

All of this appears against a backdrop of grim pronouncements from government bodies and leading industry figures.

First of all came the worrying claim from the EU's industry commissioner that the car industry has a “brutal” future ahead of it. He added that current EU rules against unfair competition and state aid meant that government bail-outs for struggling manufacturers would not be sanctioned, although loans may be available from the EU investment bank. He went so far as to say that this may well mean that some high-profile makers will go out of business.

In a similar vein, the chief executive of Ford has told the Financial Times that he doubts whether car production in the US will ever return to its pre-recession peak. He (Alan Mulally) added a positive point in that he expects ford's sales to pick up in the latter half of '09.

As always, if you're looking to sell a used car – get in touch with us for a fast, easy sale!