If (When) MG Rover go bust will I still be able to get spares for my MGF?

Enough for about 1 months worth of spares then if my coupe is anything to go by ;-)

I could be wrong here and this is only speculation, but as far as i understood it new cars on a dealers forcourt will not have been paid for by the dealer yet and are effectively the property of Rover.

...But if a dealer sells the car to a customer then it becomes the property of the customer, but the dealer doesnt have to pay Rover for several weeks afterwards.

The dealers are probably owed money by Rover and are unlikely to get it, so the best way for them to recover this is to sell Rovers property (the cars) and then refuse to pay Rovers invoices (since their own invoices for warranty claims etc have not been paid by Rover) - in this case the dealer doesnt really care about the usual profit margins and targets, he just wants to clear the stock, recover his money and probably move on.

Feel free to rip this theory to shreds!

David Bevan

reduction in

In a nutshell:

- Receivers need to sell large stocks of cars quickly

- Dealers buy cars in bulk at rock bottom prices

- Dealers sell cars with huge discounts

- Dealers able to move stock quickly and at a good return

- Residuals adjusted right down the line.

reduction in

In a nutshell:

- Receivers need to sell large stocks of cars quickly

- Dealers buy cars in bulk at rock bottom prices

- Dealers sell cars with huge discounts

- Dealers able to move stock quickly and at a good return

- Residuals adjusted right down the line.

We'll see. I do accept that existing stocks will be sold at a discount. I do not accept that they will be 'given away'.

Kev

They won't be given away because there will be a point at which they would be worth more as bits than they are as complete cars. Of course, there is the school of thought that reckons the factory only assembled the things because that was the easiest way of ensuring the dealer got most of the bits needed to build the car ;-)

Ron Robinson

Why? The interests of the buyer is to get the best for the least. If a seller, the maximum they can get.

I personally don't give a stuff about the 'motor trade' since they - in general - don't give a stuff about me.

Supply and demand, Kev. Thought you were a Tory?

Well......... yes. I work for a firm that has £1.5 million of spares in its stores and it only services a small park of vehicles mainly based in Cardiganshire. £40m of stock for a National park of volume built vehicles is probably the very minimum that they can get away with from day to day with not too high a percentage on back-order. Expect immediate availability of non dealer stock items to seriously deteriorate in the medium term. This is particularly bad news in the car industry because dealers and Caterpillar logistics tend to keep the minimum possible stock items and they have got away with this for so long. In the longer term then the dust will settle and the OEM's and others will continue to supply faster moving parts through the likes of Partco though probably not through Cat logistics to dealers because the manufacturer and dealer infrastructure no longer exist.

My franchise [not Rover] also use Cat and the manufacturers policy means 24 hour delivery of most urgent parts for vehicles up to 30 years old but I seriously doubt that Rovers stock of £40m allows for more than one or two of each slow moving parts. Most of these will be replenished as used of course but some less common items will become increasingly difficult to source new at a relatively early stage if the OEM also fails. I am thinking here of major engineering assemblies and electronic systems perhaps.

Huw

Exactly - and the seller is the motor-trade. That's why they wont want to see residual values on MGs and Rovers fall through the floor. They have existing new and used stock that they have already paid for and they will lose out if they start 'giving away' these cars. They will also want to sell alternative replacements to existing MG and Rover owners and they will find that hard to do if residuals on MG/Rovers collapse.

I am - and it's supply and demand that will ensure that residuals on MGs and Rovers don't collapse. Once the fuss has died down and people realise that MGs and Rovers are still driving around and parts are still freely available they will still prove an attractive second hand buy for some. People wont suddenly stop buying used Mk1 and Mk2 Passats when the new model comes out in June. People still buy used Sierras and Cavaliers - even though they have not been produced for years.

Kev

Haha! One of the reasons Rover went bust was that no one wanted their cars... so much for the demand side factors propering up the RVs.

They won't plumet as they have an intrinsic value - spares at least! But they will drop further.

Scott

It was supply and demand that killed MG Rover. They were supplying cars=20 that there was no demand for and as a result the whole company, not just=20 the residuals, collapsed!

I bought an MGF because I wanted a small two seater convertible, if I'd=20 seen an MX5 or MR2 at the right money in the right condition I wouldn't=20 be driving the MGF now, my decision was purely financial not from any=20 sense of brand loyalty. I know spare parts aren't going to be an issue=20 but I'm under no illusion about my cars value.

The cars you're talking about, Sierra and Cavalier, are old cars and=20 cheap, really cheap, you can buy one for a couple of hundred quid and=20 both Ford and Vauxhall are still in business! My dad recently sold his=20

1995 Sierra 2.5 V6 Ghia, it had A/C, Cruise, full leather and all the=20 extras, it had done 45,000 miles and had a FSH. He sold it for =A3450, you= =20 couldn't put 4 new tyres on it for that money!

People will pay hundreds for something obsolete but who in their right=20 mind will pay thousands?

As soon as the new pricing structure is announced I've asked my local=20 dealer to call me, I'd be happy to buy a TF but it has got to be at the=20 right price, too high and I'm not interested.=20

Pricing was part of MGRs problem, when I went to the dealers they had a=20 TF in the showroom at =A318,600 just down the road I can get a brand new=20 Subaru Impreza WRX on the road for =A315,450, MGR are going to have to do= =20 something pretty special with the prices to make people buy them now,=20 something so special that rock bottom residuals won't put them off.

One of the MGR dealers near me has already moved all the MGR cars out of=20 its showroom, to who knows where, and is now selling Kia models, as far=20 as they are concerned MGR is dead and it's business as usual.

--=20 Regards

Nick

Wrong again. Whilst it is true that not sufficient people wanted their cars, to say that 'no-one' wanted them is clearly incorrect. There are now limited stocks to shift and there will be enough people who want Rovers who will buy them. I went with my son yesterday as he was picking up a used car that he had just bought (Passat not Rover - although not a patch on my 75!). I spoke with the owner of the used car dealership about the situation with Rover and he told me that he had just been out to auction that morning and bought three Rovers. He said they are popular with used car buyers and he has no worries at all about selling them. Now that doesn't sound to me like someone who feels that Rovers are going to become worthless. Does it to you?

We'll see. I certainly see no evidence of that to date.

Kev

What it partly boils down to is this:

There is one set of people in this country who simply cannot recognise that the quality of Rovers is pretty much the same as many other cars around today. As though the hundreds of millions put in by BMW achieved absolutely nothing, which really doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense.

There is another set of people who are perfectly happy with their Rovers and MGs.

The first set of people, which includes some of the press, seem very happy to bad-mouth Rover yet don't seem to bat an eyelid when someone like Mercedes-Benz issues a recall on more than million cars, as happened recently. A "fault remedy in response to customer dissatisfaction" is branded a "product enhancement campaign toward ensuring continued customer satisfaction".

In other words, negative news on Rover always seems to carry a lot more weight than negative news relating to other car manufacturers. How much responsibility for the failure to overcome that hurdle lies with Rover's ineffective advertising and brand promotion, I'm not sure, but the odds have often been stacked against them rather unfairly in my view.

Michael

I couldn't agree more. Whilst it is true that apart from the 75, the rest of Rover's range was dated, they had been modified and upgraded over the years and many people found them to be perfectly satisfactory and comfortable transport. To dismiss these cars as 'rubbish' etc is ignorant nonsense. The

75, of course, is still a superb motor car and plenty of road test reviews contain comments such as: "could teach Mercedes a thing or two about refinement" etc. The 75 was developed by BMW and contains many BMW components (even the engines on the diesels). For those who are not badge-obsessed, the 75 made an excellent and economical alternative to the other compact execs on the market - and still does for those with sufficient nouse to recognise a real bargain when they see one!

Kev

Exactly - looking at the woes of owners of, say, Renaults to pick an example at random(ish), there are a lot worse cars to own than a Rover.

It's why I wanted to replace the Peugeot with an MG originally.

Richard

I spoke to a friend of a manager at a large insurer, and apparently last week they were getting dozens of claims for Rovers being "stolen" and torched.

Gareth

Gareth A. realised it was Thu, 21 Apr 2005 11:05:36 GMT and decided it was time to write:

Doesn't prove anything.

What I'd like to know: was there ever a time when they weren't getting dozens of claims for Rovers being "stolen" and torched? Probably not.

I too have been to the auctions this week, I'm looking to pick up a cheap TF, and I suspect your dealer bought the three Rovers as a bit of a gamble. A good percentage of the Rovers I saw going through the auction didn't reach their reserve, a clear indication that dealers weren't prepared to pay much for them. Those that did sell went very cheaply, probably to people who felt able to risk the outlay on a bit of speculation. I was unlucky, there were only a couple of TFs one failed to meet it's reserve and the other was older than I want.

Let's face it your dealer isn't going to buy three Rovers and then stand there and tell you that he hasn't a hope of shifting them and I'm sure at the right price he'll find buyers.

Dunno what they think they'll achieve. They'll only get market value anyway.