Auto Car Haulers strike, gas prices, and the tsunami drive new car buyers into dealer showrooms with income tax refunds fueling pent-up demand and lack of cheap used cars.
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MARCH MADNESS… not basketball, not weather… it’s all about CARS! |
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Updates on car crisis here and abroad.
First let me update you on the latest obstruction in the road to car sales recovery,
a CAR HAULERS STRIKE. Yup, the car haulers are on strike, which means vehicles are sitting at port and in rail yards across the country.
In addition to the pier environment not being great for the car finish (salt air/seagulls and seawater), the economy doesn’t need another disruption in this country’s second largest industry. Chrysler and GM have sued Allied Haulers to get their cars released to other truckers, Toyota is threatening the same.
Japan update. Lexus, Toyota and Nissan are restarting plants this week, while Honda and Mazda reorganize their parts distribution around suppliers in chaos. Employees are anxious to rebuild their country by demonstrating the unified work ethic that made Japan a formidable economic empire, however, concerns about the safety of food, water and air quality persist. Here in the US, Japanese automakers are saying the Tsunami will upset distribution for as much as 60 days. The response has been a rush to dealer lots, especially for gas-saving models. TOYOTA dealers are selling Prius models for 2-3k OVER MSRP in California. Locally most dealers are trying to hold MSRP, especially on the Pkg 2. model at $24k. If you can afford to hold out on some of the Japanese models: Prius, Fit, Versa, Yaris, MAzda3, do so. I don’t advise paying over MSRP without some incentive.
Meanwhile, US auto makers have not seen a huge uptick in their sales, and Hyundai/Kia have made no mention of increasing production to fill in the gap of their foreign competition. In fact, both Kia and Hyundai are already operating all their plants at 100%, triple shift.
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