Quote:
MKW said:
Volume is profit , because most of it is in service work, not new sales . In the industry, it's well known that many MBZ are never brought back to dealerships unless it's warranty work, since there are many independent " Hanz and Franz " dusty German repair shops, many with better reputations than dealership. Not the case with Lexus - owners continue to bring even their older cars back to dealerships for the lucrative off warranty work because of the way they are treated. Doesn't matter to a dealership owner if he is fixing the Nav system on an S-class or C-class- gets paid the same amount for time . Same goes for a dealer fixing a 7er or 3er. There's a reason a Lexus dealership changes hands for 4-8x what a MBZ store changes hands for ( if you can even buy one ) : the number crunchers know what the profit potential is over the next decade.

The " passion " here has nothing to do with the cars each sells - it's all about the $$$.



Volumes and revenues for car cos. are interesting superficial stats, but smart investors may then ask "what are the profit margins?". Selling lots of units w/0% financing, dealer incentives, etc is a great game....just ask Ford, GM, etc.

Obviously, dealers have different economic drivers vs mfrs. in terms of profit from new car sales, used car sales, svc, warranty work, etc....

If Bimmer truly has won the volume, margin, overall profits and branding games vs Merc, it's not clear why M5 wouldn't be priced at a material premium to E55 and why BMW wouldn't be able to outsell S55/600 w/its 760....I doubt Bimmer is holding back on premium pricing or on attacking the $100K+ league just to be more affordable to an allegedly hipper/ more driving-focused buyer base....I suspect an analysis of the net worth/income stats of the Merc vs BMW buyer base may shed some light....