Struggling car dealers beg for government assistance
Car dealers have just started begging for a government bail-out thanks to the zombie apocalypse. This significant group of arseholes are, apparently, running out of toilet paper…
In a dramatic turning of the tables, car dealers are crying poor as the zombie apocalypse sees hordes of the undead sinking their teeth into the necks of Australia’s Armani-suited ankle-grabbers.
Upon the other foot the shoe is.
James Voortman (aka Jimbo Voorty-bart-fast, as I prefer to think of him), who could’ve been cartoon Clark Kent, but chose instead to be CEO of the Triple-ADA, the Australian Automotive Arsehole Dealers Association, said this recently:
“Dealers are big employers, pay large amounts of taxes and duties and operate as generous and upstanding corporate citizens in the communities they serve.”
Voorty-bart-fast esq.
Allow me to retort to Jimbo, on behalf of sanity.
Actually, Jimbo, I’d suggest car dealers do not “serve communities”. They sell cars. That’s all they do.
They’re neither generous nor upstanding - unless of course you are talking about car dealers in a completely different universe. And don’t take my word for this:
“The ACCC is deeply concerned about the level of non-compliance with the Australian Consumer Law in the new car industry.”
Dim Sims, ACCC
That’s Rod Sims, big cheese of the toothless tiger we call the ACCC, August 2017, following an extensive investigation into the car industry, which revealed some pretty grubby conduct by those allegedly generous, upstanding community-servers.
The report, the findings for which I suggest have not changed the way brands and dealers behave in any significant game-changing way, further added:
“One woman reported to the ACCC she was having transmission problems with her new car.
When she took it back to the dealer to try and enforce her consumer rights, she was blamed for the problem and advised to drive ‘more like a man’.
This advice was provided even though the car model had a known defect with its transmission and she was entitled to a remedy.”
ACCC
That’s a direct quote flowing from that ACCC investigation - and it’s just one example of countless more, where dealers treat consumers like the milkable sow, vulnerable and dripping with cash.
It’s also an example, perhaps, of ‘serving’ a member of the community, and electing not to use lubricant while doing so. A Triple-ADA member in action right there, perhaps.
“Stand on the X, sign here, here and here…”
So, Jimbo, poor strategy, mate, playing the altruism card.
Free advice: Personal opinion; dealers are a plague, showcasing the worst anti-consumer behaviour in the entire commercial domain. Here’s how to beat them >>
I mean, it’s essentially, in my view, a business model that extracts maximum profit through face-to-face negotiation on a retail product - that’s how the Mafia operates, only without the negotiation bit.
What happens if the consumer fails to negotiate with a dealer’s sale person and goes all-in full-price on a car? Does your upstanding member of the community feel sorry for the old duck or the mother-of-three and, say, gives them 15 per cent off?
Maybe the bright, cheerful, young couple who need to trade their old shitbox for a bigger car for the impending arrival of their first-born will get your generous corporate sales manager’s first-born discount or maybe free servicing for the life of their car. That’ll help them afford nappies and breast pumps and all the paraphernalia that cometh their way - what a wonderful surprise the dealer principal would get seeing that on the monthly sales reports.
And as for these taxes and duties, which they allegedly (quote) ‘pay’: They don’t ‘pay’ them. The customer does. It’s on the sale contract for every car. Stamp duty, registration fee, etc. The customer pays. All the dealer does is collect the payment and remit those funds paid by the customer to the government. So I call bullshit on that too, frankly.
Thinks & Says: Thinks: I’ve got plenty of margin, but let’s play hard to get. Says: “I’ll see what the manager says about 5% off”.
Voorty-bart-fast went on:
“Governments need to understand that new-car dealers operate on very low (profit) margins and turnover alone is not a metric that can be used to determine their survivability in such adverse trading conditions.”
J.VBF, AAADA
He’s nothing if not enthusiastic.
So, thank you, Jimbo, for highlighting the terrible problem of poverty among car dealers. Those altruistic, tax-paying, community-serving dealer principals and their low profit margins. Sleeping rough. Living in their cars. Strapping on the same-old tailor-made Versace suit every day, that Tag Heuer, motivated by the selfless goal of paying ever more taxes and duties, and serving their communities ever more diligently.
“I’m so grateful to my upstanding local car dealer right now…”
Ghandi and car dealers.
The Red Cross and car dealers.
Medicins sans fronieres (Doctors Without Borders, FYI) … and car dealers.
Bogart, Becall … and car dealers.
Fred, Ginger and … car dealers.
#Respect. Graceful, seamless partnerships … I think you’d agree.
It’s such emphatic bullshit.
Back when I was a consultant, I was retained for this car industry event at the Palazzo Versace on the Gold Coast - the kind of place Satan would book out for the second coming. If Las Vegas was already taken. The event is a dealer conference - and the term ‘conference’ here is semantically promiscuous. It’s a real expensive piss-up that the carmaker hosts, to get their dealers revved-up about the year ahead.
There’s like 200 car dealers and sales managers - and their third or fourth wives - sometimes both - packed in this massive ballroom, having a conference kick-off piss-up and gluttony competition. So it’s fake tits, ball gowns, botox, bad Armani and Rolexes - lots of hair product and conflicting cologne - while champagne flutes runneth over.
They’re all mainlining Veuve Cliquot and chucking back $20-buck beers, and bitching and moaning loudly about how there’s no money in selling new cars any more. Completely blind to the hypocrisy of adopting this position. Like, take a look around, motherfuckers. You’re standing at the epicentre of your own null hypothesis.
“With state and federal governments issuing advice strongly discouraging the public from leaving home, (the number of people) visiting dealerships is severely restricted. New-car dealers across Australia have mostly managed to keep their doors open and service the needs of their customers, but we are concerned the impact of the coronavirus will push some dealers over the edge.”
Voorty-B
Jimbo Slarty-bartfast again there. And to his members I would say: Join the friggin’ club dickheads. It’s gunna be a tough couple of months. For Australia, for the world. Man up and deal with it.
Cars are gunna keep breaking down. You’re gunna keep fixing them and supplying the parts.
Sales are going to be slow, but not zero. The real story is that the car industry has been experiencing 24 months of what those other barrow-pushing arseholes, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, would call ‘negative growth’. (But which non-arseholes would call ‘falling sales’.)
Hands out
Car dealers are just feeling bitch-slapped that the government is splashing cash at small business, and they’ve been left out of the feeding frenzy.
This is an excuse to grab some cash in the face of a decline that started two years ago. The pain car dealers are in right now has nothing to do with the fact that brain-dead zombies have stripped supermarket shelves of toilet tissue and hand sanitizer.
The fact is: the Australian new car market has grown unsustainably, and it is currently over-serviced with automotive brands, and the dealers. And it is now experiencing a correction.
Dealers have systematically exploited customers over things like finance for so long that the regulators have had to step in and protect ordinary consumers from their disgraceful practices. So I would say to Jimbo and his members: It’s time for some healthy attrition. Bring it on.
I’ve had a gutful of businesses like car dealers spending all their time bitching about big government, the burden of tax and compliance, regulation of the financial services sector, etc., moaning like the spoilt brats they are when times are good…
And then, when things go tits up, commercially, the first thing those morally ambivalent cockheads do is get down on their knees and beg to commence (let’s call it) docking procedures with some taxpayer funding.
To dealers and Jimbo Slarty-whatever I would say: Leave the Australian taxpayer out of your grubby dealings on this. Because you’re asking ordinary Australian taxpayers to prop you up. And frankly, I would argue Mr & Mrs Taxpayer out there have had a gutful of propping up the automotive industry. Surely there are more pressing concerns to address at this difficult time.
Appeasement be with you
You neo-con dealer arseholes have no right to beg for socialised welfare, particularly as you so detest socialised everything else.
You hate contributing for the greater good. You resent every cent you’ve ever paid to the government. You are therefore not entitled to an each-way bet of such enormously hypocritical proportions.
If you dealer mother-lovers really need financial support at this difficult time - balls in a vice; we all know that’s unpleasant - except of course if the vice is made of neoprene and a Ming Moll is turning the screw…
How about you dealers make the submission for that support to the parent carmakers whose products you sell? They’re the ones with a vested interest in keeping you afloat. If you need assistance, perhaps you should be looking at them to provide it.
I wish you every success with that, but I’m not confident you’ll succeed.
Do let me know how that submission goes, however, because I’ll bet the farm you’ll get a two-word response. The one involving sex and travel.
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