Big Den

After the initial threads following the announcement of the price reductions on UK Impreza WRX's, when some poor guy got flamed for suggesting a 'united protest' by writing to Subaru UK, I wondered if anyone had actually written to Subaru on the subject.

If yes, what was the reply?

Den

MowbrayWRX

Erm,
I think we can take that as being a no then ........?

Big Den

Looks like it!

Come on guys someone must have taken the initiative or did no-one feel strongly enough to put pen (or printer) to paper?

Den

johnfelstead

bloody hell, do we live in a now now now society or what? You asked the question an hour ago FFS!

sammyh

iTrader: (1)

Calm down John

I believe some people have written to Subaru and are awaiting a response.

Edcase

Is it true that Subaru sold the entire stock allocation for the UK within a few weeks of the price cut? When I did my test drive last weekend I was told they had no cars left at the dealers for sale, and only 2 left on Subaru central stock computer, one of which I bought. I have to say I was worried he was spinning me a yarn at first, but he was very annoyed with Subaru himself as they now have no Impreza stock to sell until well into next year.

SCOSaltire

if thats true.. then i think my trade-in value just went up

SCOSaltire

or not

pslewis

There was only 2 left!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nice one salesman!!

What absolute bollox!! Why would they still be running an EXPESIVE advert campaign if they had all been sold??????????????????????

Pete

Edcase

Yeah I know what you are saying, but bear in mind ad slots are booked in blocks well in advance. Also is it not highly illegal to mis-inform? Something I would have thought a registered Subaru main dealer would not do? I mean, it makes no difference to me, I was buying the car anyway. But I may ring around some other dealers tomorrow purely out of interest. I know there are still some on forecourts but he reckons central stock is 100% sold out.

Chins

My dealer has a garage full of them. Central is out, but dealers have quite a few. Most dealers bought a load when the reduction was made.

Jonathan

bogie

Hi Big Den,

I was extremely pi**ed off by this dumbass Subaru "initiative" as they call it, it really boiled my pi**!!

I wrote them a letter explaining how there are a lot of naffed off MY01/MY02 owners, here is the full reply. (sorry for the long bit but I thought everyone should see it, this reply only came back last week)....

"Thank you for you letter dated 25th October 2002, we are sorry if your reaction to the recent Impreza campaign has caused you some displeasure.

This is an unusual situation that has been forced upon ourselves and our dealers at very short notice by the negative market conditions we have faced this year.

We have traditionally been able to avoid such activity. However, our necessity to clear stocks since the premature disclosure of the 03 model year vehicle recently has forced this action upon us.

The Impreza 02 model year are soon to be replaced by the 03 model year variant, and it is common for all motor manufacturers to offer additional discounts at the end of a particular product life cycle.

Although it is not possible to predict depreciation of your vehicle, the current campaign for the Impreza involves a limited number of cars for a limited period. Therefore, the impact on residual values is expected only in the short term. In the medium to long term, the values should stabilise and may be mitigated further by the dealer utilising any discounts or bonuses that may be available at the time of trade-in.

Thank you for taking the time to contact Subaru (UK) Ltd, I am sorry that we are unable to do more for you on this occasion as we are unable to offer compensation for, what is, a legitimate initiative."

What a load of cheesy nads, they would have been as well writing "bend over and squeel like a piggy" weee weeee weeee

Bogie

Eagle7

well, squeal then!

Big Den

Bogie

So much anger! Surely, the love of our Impreza's outweighs any bad feelings we may have towards Subaru UK!

Could be worse they could have gone for the "you sure do have a pretty mouth"!!!!

John - what's wrong with now! now! now!? Time waits for no man. If there was a sh4g on offer I'll bet the responses would have been quick enough!

Den

bogie

Big Den,

Yes loads of anger, now can't be bothered with Scoobies anymore.

Volkwagen here I come!

No more pennies for Subaru from me, hopefully get shot of mine before the next service is due.

Hope the MY03 gets a crappier reception than old bug eye did.

Subaru SOOK MA TAW!

Bogie

Tim Bomford

Seems strange to me to get upset about this. It's just one of those things in life.

An example:

You buy a cd when its 1st released and it costs you £12.99 but if you waited 3 months it'd be in a sale somewhere for £8.99

At this point do you get all upset and write to those that have affected this price drop or do you accept it and get on with your life?

My point of view on this is I'm sure if it'd happened to me I'd be annoyed too, but then I'd have to accept it and get on with it.

Tim

scoobyslut

Well, its like everything else, come the end of the "stock" and now its time for a "new" product line, so they are only following the trend of an "end of season/line sale". If you owned a shop and had some last remaining stock, rather tahn throw it away as the new stuff came onto the shelf, you'd cut the price and sell, sell, sell. Afterall, they had a hard enough time selling it after they decided the shape was all wrong and nothing moved out of stock.
I just want to know when to look out for some better national advertising coverage for the 03 motors, why is it that other manufacturers advertise like there is no tomorrow yet, subaru dont even run a single tv advert on the uk network, moreso relying on newspapers that the massed majority dont even look at let alone buy.

chiark

It's life, unfortunately.

What are IM expected to do? Sit with stock just to keep you happy?

Given that dealers in Holland can sell these for 16-17 grand all day every day and still make a profit, is it any surprise that the UK importer can afford to drop 3 grand off the price?

I wish you all the luck in the world, but at the end of the day this is a commercial decision. And look how much press they've got for doing it...

My advice? Buy from Holland and you avoid this sort of game.

Nick.

mark d

No offence Tim but you don't buy a CD considering it's retail value - it is a consumable, which a car isn't.

I'm particularly p****d off as I have spent £26k on a Prodrive Sti which is going to be worth far less than I expected from February because Subaru have decided to bring out a replacment model in less than a year. One of the things that helped me make my decision was the low depreciation of the Scooby, I can't afford to loose 40% of the value in the first year.

And then to get find out that they will have PPP for the new versions from launch when they can't supply it for the Sti7 is unreal. I will never, ever buy a Subaru again.

Tim Bomford

Mark d

No offence to you either but.....

A car is as consumable as a cd, neither last forever but should do.

As a few of us have said, that's life and you will have to live with their decision. If you didn't want to pay so much you should have imported a car to start with...............

Tim

Vate

Problem is Subaru never get it right first time.
Where othe manufacturers make a subtle styling change to a model after 2-3yrs or maybe an engine change like BMW 323>325 etc.
Subaru fortunately or not depending on your point of view seem to listen to owners/public reaction and look at sales and then act accordingly to update their Impreza range on pretty much an annual basis.
Look at the 'classic' evolution.
lights, spoiler, gearshift, brakes, wheels, turbo, engine mgt., etc, etc.
I personally think this is a really good thing but....this really only goes to show that IM probably take a rather larger (from the consumers' point of view) profit margin than most. On the basis that IM are a business I doubt that they are willing to pay more than the tax free EU prices we can tap into and so the margins they normally enjoy may equate to as much as £5k per car before the dealer takes a share. Dropping £3k is hardly going to kill them. The biggest amount of national advertising I have ever seen from Subaru UK is the current campaign selling the discounts. Lets be honest some people are still going to look at MY02 for £18k and wait for an imported MY03 for less money anyway. Short term kill for the second hand market but all should be well by middle of 2003.

mark d

Tim,

By consumable I mean the marketing/business definition - a car doesn't really fit into this as you don't throw it away when you have finished with it, you sell it on - hence the annoyance with a company that thinks nothing of making a quick buck out of it's customers.

Subaru (and maybe some of the dealers) knew before I bought my car that they would be releasing a completely new model within a year but denied it. They knew the effect that this would have but deliberately kept that information to themselves otherwise far less people would have bought the MY02 Sti.

Dave P

UMMMM didn't ford, volkswagon, audi, mercedes, bmw all chop their prices last year when they were told to.

It seems like a reasonable response to me.

FYI I bought mine in March, except I didn't, I leased over 2 years at a very competetive price from a dealer who put £20k down as the on the road price.

Dave "hoping to get an MY04 STI wife getting a Forrester permitting" P

ChrisB

There's been talk and confirmed knowledge that a redesign has been on the cards for the MY01 for nearly 12 months now. It's not been hidden IMO.

http://www.scoobynet.co.uk/bbs/threa...ThreadID=59145

http://www.scoobynet.co.uk/bbs/threa...ThreadID=59663

IMHO, that's part of the home work if you're buying now. How far into the product life cycle is the car? Any restyle plans on the cards? etc etc

Caveat Emptor!

tittiecarcar

when i first started looking for an sti i went to mill lane and was very green about subaru. the dealer never mention anthing about the reskin to me, i then went to bell & covill in west horsley & was told by the sales man not to waste my money as next year it was going to be changed , so i got a classic shape instead .so i feel sorry for all those who spent their hard earned on the my02 only to find they could have got it for 3 grand less had they waited , but thats just bad luck surely, pluse if you got your car on a p.c.p you must have agreed a trade in price at the end of the term and that still stands .the best thing imo is to just wait it out ,things will settle down.there will allways be a market for second hand cars because we cant all afford a new one.

chrisp

Always better to check scoobynet before buying anything

I hear that some dealers get their info off here as well

[Edited by chrisp - 11/14/2002 1:27:21 PM]

speedking

Premature on who's behalf? It was Subaru who showed the car at Paris. Before that even the diehard scoobynetters could only guess at the changes that would be made. I think this statement is wrong and throws doubt on the integrity(?) of the rest of the letter.

Eldar

No wonder the UK is so expensive for cars - the price is reduced, and people complain! If you spend the best part of 20 grand on a car, it would seem sensible to do some research.

Before I got my MY02, I checked prices in Holland (£16,500), but the delivery time was too long for my needs.

Ended up contract hire from my local dealer, seemed a much better deal than buying. Even better now, as the falling residual works in my favour, should I wish to buy the car at the end of the deal...

Colin.

bogie

I am with Mard D on this, as in I too, will never buy another Subaru.

Paid £25k for my UK300 last October and have now been offered a whole £16,200 trade in. All the money I put down on deposit has now gone, along with my feelings for the car.

Haven't washed it for about 4 weeks (used to be weekly), revved the nads off it today into the red and hit the cut out, just cause I felt like it. Never been like this with my last 2 scoobs nor any cars before.

Cheers International Muppets!!!!!

This has really sickened me, last car rip off for me.

Bogie

PS I am normally a happy chappy, just not on Scoobs.

Big Den

Bogie

You turncoat!! I can't believe you mean this!! You know you never make money on cars.

I don't believe either that you haven't washed Suzy for 4 weeks

It's still the same car & you didn't buy it because of the price, you surely bought it because it was a Subaru Impreza - performance, engine noise, etc.

In the words of Mr McEnroe "You cannot be serious!"

Den