So I watching some YouTube videos last night and you know how random related videos pop up to the side so I had to watch it. I'm not familiar with John Cadogan but he had this video on the top lemons sold in Australia. He could have condensed this 20 minute video into 5 minutes by simply getting to the point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVxxPMh1oUk
Anyway I was surprised that he said Peugeot and Citroen only sold around 100 cars per year (each company?) in Australia? Surely he said or meant per month. I'd have to go back and watch the video.
I realize the car buying population is much smaller in Australia than the United States but "100" seems to be the magic number when it comes to the nail in the coffin. Whenever a foreign car company only sells 100 cars per month, they know it's game over and it's time to leave. If domestic, they drop the car from production.
Don't quote me on this but seems like Peugeot were only selling 100 cars per month in 1991 when they pulled out of the US market. I'm wanting to say it was the 405 which was the only model they sold in the US. Same thing happened with Alfa Romeo around 1994 with their 155 and Spider lineup.
How can a car company justify selling this small amount of cars in country and still find it profitable?
Maybe it's just harder to get into the US market with our strict regulations and pressure from mafia style auto unions when it comes to selling imported cars in the US.
Daihatsu was one of those companies with a short run. They were only here for about four years from 1989 to around 1993. They sold the Charade and the Rocky. They seemed to do well at first here and have done well in other countries but for some reason sales dropped here.
Of course what people buy always seems to follow the price of petrol. When petrol goes up, people stop buying large cars and SUVs, when petrol goes down, they stop buying small cars.
Which makes no sense. If your going to spend US$70,000 on a luxury SUV then why bitch about the price of petrol it takes to feed it? My 1998 Chevy van get's horrible gas mileage but I didn't pay that much for it used and it still runs fine for it's age and mileage.
When gas hit a record high of $4.45 for a US gallon back in 2007, the only car GM seemed to be selling was the Chevrolet Cobalt which I once owned. The market was saturated with these cars. Then to make matters worse, the market was also flooded with SUVs that nobody wanted because gas was so high.
Anyway, I'll have to say he is right about modern cars. I'm afraid to buy anything new that has been in production within the past 5 to 10 years with all this electronic touch screen gizmos they put on cars today. I'm afraid I won't be able to troubleshoot or fix the car myself and have to pay out the nose for the dealership to fix it.
I've been lucky so far. I have not had to depend on the dealership to repair my 2003 Subaru I bought new. I've replaced one of the inner CV joint boots and an oxygen sensor and that's it. The car only has 78,000 miles/125,000 KM on it which is actually low for a 2003 model. Most Subaru built in 2003 have well over 400,000 KM by now.
My Chevy van needs my attention every now and then. The last repair was a front brake job and a power steering hose that was spewing fluid but both were an easy and cheap fix.
People think I am nuts keeping my old cars on the road but they are easy to repair and even though I may have to order parts directly from Europe for some of them, they are not really that expensive to maintain compared to more modern cars.
One car that sticks out in my mind as being of the worst cars my family ever owned is the mk2 Chrysler minivan for one reason.
The mk1 "shortys" introduced in 1984 had a Chrysler 2.2 liter engine (some had turbos) with either a 3 speed automatic or 5 speed manual. Then later Chrysler started using Mitsubishi drive trains. The engines were not that bad, the problem was they used Mitsubishi's "shit-box" 4 speed automatic and no manual option. You could bet at 60,000 miles/96,000 KM the transmission was going to fail and sure enough they did. Once at 60,000 miles then again at 120,000 miles. Dad sold the van to one of his friends and when the transmission went out the 3rd time, it went to the junkyard like all the rest of them did.
To this day I am skeptical of anything Mitsubishi produces just because of these shit box transmissions they put in these vans. Even their TVs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVxxPMh1oUk
Anyway I was surprised that he said Peugeot and Citroen only sold around 100 cars per year (each company?) in Australia? Surely he said or meant per month. I'd have to go back and watch the video.
I realize the car buying population is much smaller in Australia than the United States but "100" seems to be the magic number when it comes to the nail in the coffin. Whenever a foreign car company only sells 100 cars per month, they know it's game over and it's time to leave. If domestic, they drop the car from production.
Don't quote me on this but seems like Peugeot were only selling 100 cars per month in 1991 when they pulled out of the US market. I'm wanting to say it was the 405 which was the only model they sold in the US. Same thing happened with Alfa Romeo around 1994 with their 155 and Spider lineup.
How can a car company justify selling this small amount of cars in country and still find it profitable?
Maybe it's just harder to get into the US market with our strict regulations and pressure from mafia style auto unions when it comes to selling imported cars in the US.
Daihatsu was one of those companies with a short run. They were only here for about four years from 1989 to around 1993. They sold the Charade and the Rocky. They seemed to do well at first here and have done well in other countries but for some reason sales dropped here.
Of course what people buy always seems to follow the price of petrol. When petrol goes up, people stop buying large cars and SUVs, when petrol goes down, they stop buying small cars.
Which makes no sense. If your going to spend US$70,000 on a luxury SUV then why bitch about the price of petrol it takes to feed it? My 1998 Chevy van get's horrible gas mileage but I didn't pay that much for it used and it still runs fine for it's age and mileage.
When gas hit a record high of $4.45 for a US gallon back in 2007, the only car GM seemed to be selling was the Chevrolet Cobalt which I once owned. The market was saturated with these cars. Then to make matters worse, the market was also flooded with SUVs that nobody wanted because gas was so high.
Anyway, I'll have to say he is right about modern cars. I'm afraid to buy anything new that has been in production within the past 5 to 10 years with all this electronic touch screen gizmos they put on cars today. I'm afraid I won't be able to troubleshoot or fix the car myself and have to pay out the nose for the dealership to fix it.
I've been lucky so far. I have not had to depend on the dealership to repair my 2003 Subaru I bought new. I've replaced one of the inner CV joint boots and an oxygen sensor and that's it. The car only has 78,000 miles/125,000 KM on it which is actually low for a 2003 model. Most Subaru built in 2003 have well over 400,000 KM by now.
My Chevy van needs my attention every now and then. The last repair was a front brake job and a power steering hose that was spewing fluid but both were an easy and cheap fix.
People think I am nuts keeping my old cars on the road but they are easy to repair and even though I may have to order parts directly from Europe for some of them, they are not really that expensive to maintain compared to more modern cars.
One car that sticks out in my mind as being of the worst cars my family ever owned is the mk2 Chrysler minivan for one reason.
The mk1 "shortys" introduced in 1984 had a Chrysler 2.2 liter engine (some had turbos) with either a 3 speed automatic or 5 speed manual. Then later Chrysler started using Mitsubishi drive trains. The engines were not that bad, the problem was they used Mitsubishi's "shit-box" 4 speed automatic and no manual option. You could bet at 60,000 miles/96,000 KM the transmission was going to fail and sure enough they did. Once at 60,000 miles then again at 120,000 miles. Dad sold the van to one of his friends and when the transmission went out the 3rd time, it went to the junkyard like all the rest of them did.
To this day I am skeptical of anything Mitsubishi produces just because of these shit box transmissions they put in these vans. Even their TVs.
