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Audi A6

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What is this discussion about? Audi A6, Sedan

Messages Page 646 of 693

#6445 of 6920 Re: 2007 A6 4.2 [anthonyp] by sfcharlie

Jul 16, 2006 (8:17 am)

Replying to: anthonyp (Jul 15, 2006 3:14 pm)
Anthony, Mark ... I appreciate the way you've hung in there with me.
 
Looking back (mea maxima culpa) I believe the initial influences on my decision were not only CR (and it was much more that 90+ percent of current owners were reported to have said they'd buy the car again, than it was "predicted reliability") but also a review in USA Today, in which the reviewer essentially said this was the LPS all the others were trying to be. That, and an over-involvement (naively encouraged by me as benign, I have to say) by other family members. Also, working against Audi was a mediocre experience with the local VW/Audi dealership service department during the two years a new 1999 Passat was under warranty.
 
Nonetheless, I overrode my "I want this car" after I drove a 3.2 S-Line, neither just saying "ok, lets negotiate, nor "let's sit down and order me a 2007 4.2 S-Line" -- either of which I could have done right then. So, you know, in college in fell heavy for Kierkegaard's notion that responsibility (for individual choice) cannot be sloughed off onto so-called objective determinants. The feeling I got when I drove each car I test-drove was me telling me all I had to say to myself about what I wanted. I ignored that subjective truth.
 
Now, Kierkegaard also famously said that life is best understood backwards but must be lived forwards anyway. So, I'm trying to conjure up options.

#6446 of 6920 Exictement (or lack thereof) about A6 by sfcharlie

Jul 17, 2006 (6:57 am)

There is a very infectious excitement about the Infiniti M35, which is not understandable simply as something manufactured by "research" outfits, such as CR and JDP. It raises a question for Audi: why don't Audi buyers give as many gold-stars to themselves for having purchased an A6 as do buyers of the M35?
 
For example, Strategic Vision (SV) has been rating consumer enthusiasm about products in many markets for about a decade. They're method is not one of problem-counting. Rather they try to measure (as social psychologists have long done) qualities and attitudes: satisfaction with complete ownership experience; perception of quality; emotional attachment to vehicle. The A6 finished last in their "Luxury Cars" category, when SV asked 29,000 buyers (who bought 2006 models in October and November of 2005) how they felt about their purchases, with regard to the three factors I just listed. The top five were: BMW 7-Series (928, out of a possible 1000 points); Infiniti M35/M45 (908); Mercedes-Benz CLS-Class Sedan (908); Jaguar XJ (905); and the BMW 5-Series Sedan (904). Audi was last of ten cars with a score of 893.
 
Would anyone want to hazard a guess/theory about why a community of owners who (if this forum is any indication) are very enthusiastic about their Audi A6s, not convey that excitement in a different-from-CR type of survey?

#6447 of 6920 Re: Exictement (or lack thereof) about A6 [sfcharlie] by cdnpinhead

Jul 17, 2006 (8:03 am)

Replying to: sfcharlie (Jul 17, 2006 6:57 am)
The thing I find most interesting is that the worst score (Audi) still represents a pretty positive result, at 89.3% of the possible points. The best score is 3.5% higher, with the other 8 distributed along that tiny percentage.
 
Whoop-de-do. If the best were 98.5% and the worst 54%, I think we'd all have more to talk about.
 
This is akin to the magazine & TV ads that show bar charts illustrating some factor or other, where 95% of the chart is truncated. How many people notice that? I'm guessing, not many.

#6448 of 6920 Re: Exictement (or lack thereof) about A6 [cdnpinhead] by sfcharlie

Jul 17, 2006 (9:42 am)

Replying to: cdnpinhead (Jul 17, 2006 8:03 am)
Helpful clarification ... led me to delve a bit more into the Strategic Vision website, and I found this:
 
"The correlations derived from this complex procedure are transformed into a 1000 point scale to facilitate comparisons. The scores typically range from 750 to 900. Generally, scores over 800 are terrific, although in some segments a score in the low 800's is not very competitive."
 
That is in line with your take, with the implication that all the LPS cars are experienced by people who have bought them as "terrific," but statistically, some of these cars appear to generate more "wow" feelings than others. The other comment I found on the SV website speaks to that:
 
"Typically, differences of 3-5 points in this scoring system are significant depending on the nature of the sample, i.e., variation, differences in factor scores, etc."
 
With regard to that, the 15 point difference between the M35 and the A6 would seem significant statistically (assuming those tail-end qualifying comments about "depending on the nature of the sample" don't play a big role in this particular sample), but, I'm still inclined to say, they don't matter as much if, as you intuited (good catch!), all those differences equate to are degrees of "terrific-ness" -- a factor which probably shouldn't over-ride "I like that one best".
 
So, perhaps, the SV survey, after all, reveals the opposite of what I first thought it did -- Audi owners (along with all the other LPS car owners) said "yes, my car is terrific."

#6449 of 6920 Re: Exictement (or lack thereof) about A6 [sfcharlie] by habu

Jul 17, 2006 (10:27 am)

Replying to: sfcharlie (Jul 17, 2006 9:42 am)
I filled out an SV questionairre in May on my '06 Avant purchase. Maybe it's just me, but when "delightful" was the best response I could give for many of the questions ("excellent was #2) I could not choose that word. Perhaps we A6 owners are less emotional about our vehices. As with all surveys, the wording and the audience can skew the results. I did see a TV show recently where some managers from GM and DC were talking about introducing new products and how important making an emotional connection was to the success of the machine.
Finally, the worst evaluation available for many of the questions on the SV survey was "complete failure". People who buy luxury cars and then rate their choice as a complete failure should be very few.
Best part of the survey was the promise to enter me in a drawing for $30,000 if I sent the survey back, rather than sending me one dollar with the survey. When I win, it won't pay off the Avant completely, but it will help. That will be DELIGHTFUL.

#6450 of 6920 Re: 2007 A6 4.2 [sfcharlie] by anthonyp

Jul 18, 2006 (1:35 pm)

Replying to: sfcharlie (Jul 16, 2006 8:17 am)
In my case I was coming from Lexus and as I had had lexus so long, and the experience with the dealer so good, i was concerned....before the order and after the order, i spoke with the manager at Audi, and pointedly wanted assurances that they would take care of me with no bs....As you have had a poor dealer experience with vw/audi I would have also been on guard about going back....Possibly if they had put in writing that you would be given all consideration, then maybe things could have been given another chance...It really is getting hard to be a consumer, with all the discounts and then no service, or vice versa....Maybe in the future you`l be able to justify a little quicker trade, and then if any of us can remember--go with the gut---and not read all the other influencial articles until after you have made the decision---that way make them talk you out of the deal and not into the deal...Your Fellow Consumer Tony

#6451 of 6920 Car dealers are sitting ducks. . . by markcincinnati

Jul 18, 2006 (2:44 pm)

. . . according to the book "Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy."
 
Of course I also like to look at it like this:
 
Car Buyers are sitting ducks.
 
But the problems dealers face are certainly not entirely of their own making. We customers demand ever lower prices and ever higher services -- that we seem unwilling to pay for. We buy our cars off the Internet, then we wonder why we have virtually no one to turn to at the dealership when something goes bump.
 
It reminds me so much of Home Theater and the mom and pop home theater store it is frightening. My high end home theater retailer does discount, but no where near the discounts of some of the mass marketers. But much of what the specialty store sells is not sold at the big box stores. So the mom and pop place sells at discount some of the same stuff and "hopes to make it up in volume."
 
Seriously, the mom and pop store sets everything up, programs the remotes, balances the speakers with an SPL and calibrates the new HD TV. The Big Buy box store delivers the product and asks to be paid to have skippy the wonder installer come out and give your new TV, speakers and receiver the lick and a promise set up.
 
Everything is a la carte -- yet car and home theater buyers, perhaps for the reason that the purchases are usually 5 figure affairs, think that the Service is "included" in the price. The dealer has ever lower margins.
 
My car salesperson, I'll call him Bob (not his real name), has been with the Audi store for, OH, I'd say, 80 years and I know him and his wife, well. He shares that the commission on an Audi A4, A6, or A8 (or even Porsche) are very close to each other these days. The big ticket commission of yesteryear has been replaced with a smaller commission -- although there are spiffs to sell that $128,000 A8 W12 -- they are rarely earned during the incentive period.
 
I remember when my car dealer was a consultant there to help me configure my order and educate me about the product. 3/4ths of all Audis USED to be ordered, now it is perhaps 1/5th (and that is probably optimistic.) People don't want to wait for their cars to come in, at most they will pick up the car "this weekend." The customer's expectations have changed, apparently, even for high end LPS cars.
 
I cannot imagine NOT ordering one of these cars -- yet it seems that I am in a shrinking minority of folks.
 
The customer wants to "pay invoice," get attractive lease or financing rates and essentially expects quantum levels of time (post sale) be made available to him even though the dealer has slimmer margins and the sales reps lower commissions and often no holdbacks these days.
 
We have met the enemy and it is us?
 
Now, don't get me wrong, I have little sympathy for car dealers -- I know of very few of them that are not "fat dumb and happy" even with the difficulties facing some of the auto manufacturers.
 
But, the Internet is threat to them -- AND to high customer sat -- at least it can be.
 
The Internet, the "new economy" is "deconstructing" industries such as auto retailing while creating new opportunities for others. In Blown to Bits it is asserted that the "glue that holds today's value chains and supply chains together" is melting, and that even "the most stable of industries, the most focused of business models and the strongest of brands can be blown to bits by new information technology."
 
Car Dealers, so they say, are sitting ducks.
 
We customers are not without blame, too.
 
The Audi Advantage and the BMW 4/50 full maintenance plans were ways to overcome some of the resistance to repurchasing -- resistance that, in part, comes from the "dole" of money for maintenance, even if intervals are 10 to 15,000 miles.
 
Audi still baffles me by dropping the program -- for when oil changes cost $100 there is just something that rubs most folks the wrong way. Free is, of course, not really free -- but it feels so much better to get the oil and filter changed, the new wiper blades and all the rest and have the invoice read, $0.00 amount due.
 
We're all sitting ducks, perhaps.
 
I have nuttin' but love for my Audi dealer -- so it is hard to relate to the bad dealer experience comments. I would think that both the dealer (largely) and the customer (a little bit) have some responsibility in creating the climate that I assume must be out there between customers and dealers.
 
I do not assume my dealer is out to screw up or screw me.
 
I do not assume my dealer is perfect.
 
I do assume my dealer ought to make a profit -- just not all of his profit on my deal.
 
I wonder when I read these love stories about Lexus how the great experiences are funded -- Oh wait a minute, now I remember.

#6452 of 6920 Re: Car dealers are sitting ducks. . . [markcincinnati] by liferules

Jul 18, 2006 (5:25 pm)

Replying to: markcincinnati (Jul 18, 2006 2:44 pm)
I'm sure I'm opening a bag of worms with this comment, but I have to say, I have issues with car salesmen getting upset if they don't get a great commission on a sale. I personally spent about 1 hour with my salesman before buying my car, and another hour going though the process of purchasing the car. That's 2 hours of his time with me. Why then should he get $5,000?
 
I know, we can argue that he's spent many more hours showing the car to people that don't buy the car, but why should I pay for them? You can also throw in the cost of the dealership and inventory expenses, but why should I pay for that based on my 2 hours of use of the dealerships time? I don't know of any other industry (except maybe real estate) in which the commissions are so good for so little investment of time on an individual basis.
 
I'd like it if the whole scheme of selling cars were revamped. Its so old school with the manager, salesmen, financial person, negotiations, etc... My dream would be to have no dealerships per se but instead places where we go and can test drive a car for a fee. Maybe even a place where they have some driver's courses to test the capabilities of the car in cornering and accelerating and stopping. They could specialize in a particular make, or type of car, or be general in autos offered.
 
We could then purchase autos directly from the manufacturer and do away with the middleman. (kind of like buying a Dell computer...check it out at the kiosk but buy it online for delivery)
 
Or maybe just leave everything as it is...

#6453 of 6920 Re: Car dealers are sitting ducks. . . [liferules] by markcincinnati

Jul 18, 2006 (5:41 pm)

Replying to: liferules (Jul 18, 2006 5:25 pm)
The sales rep may receive 1% -- $500 not $5000.
 
And, there seems to be a trend that the rep gets capped.
 
If a rep sells ten cars per month, he may get $10,000. It is increasingly likely it will be more like $5000. Selling 10 cars per month is about 1 every other day.
 
I am not suggesting you should pay more than a fair price.
 
And, if you spent one hour with the guy, perhaps he added very little value.

#6454 of 6920 Well, . . . by cdnpinhead

Jul 18, 2006 (5:51 pm)

I've brought this up before, so I'll bring it up (so to speak) again.
 
I could give a rip if every traditional car dealership disappeared tomorrow. I've bought more than one car without having driven it (ordered a configuration not stocked), and I keep them long & drive them hard. I use independent repair shops (or do self-maintenance) & try to acquire vehicles that don't require monthly warranty work. Yeah, I know. . .I'm. . .different.
 
In (my) perfect world, buying a car would be much like buying a Dell computer -- choose the options you want on-line & get the thing in 10 days or fewer (color, interior, engine, suspension, everything just as you want), delivered at a company-owned facility that only needs to provide test-drives & delivery, provided by salaried "professionals" (as if there were such a thing in this business).
 
I've had it explained to me on other Edmunds boards (since shut down) that the vast majority of people acquiring (includes leasing) cars can't really afford them &/or don't know what they want. They need to be provided with upside-down financing and otherwise made to feel that they're worthy. (disclosure -- I've eaten two chocolate-chip cookies at my local Lincoln {God's waiting room} dealership)
 
Include me out.
 
That said, I'm willing to posit that one or more manufacturers will adopt this model. Want to guess who'll be first? Want to bet whether it'll work?
 
It certaintly won't in the cheapy-chugger market (that'd be most of it), but in the land of people who know what they want and don't want to waste time or money?. . .

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