No. of Recommendations: 2
The 'dysfunction' - do you base that on research, or real world experience and if so, from the dealer point of view or OEM?
----------------
The dysfunction I referenced exists both between makers and dealers and between makers+dealers and buyers. Makers and dealers have misaligned incentives around unit volumes. Makers want to report steady or increasing manufacturing numbers which "count" once they push a car to a dealer. Dealers would prefer not accepting new deliveries when sales are slow but pushing back to the maker can mean reduced allocations in the future or allocations of less popular models / trims / colors that will impair the dealer's ability to turn inventory. Makers and dealers together face supply-chain issues with parts and labor that encourage them to minimize unit volumes while maximizing unit price which drives up prices for high-end vehicles and curtails supply of affordable cars. A strategy of lower total volume and maximization of high-end revenue is hurting first time buyers and lower income buyers AND is hurting all of us if a societal goal is to get 20-year ICE vehicles off the roads in exchange for "eco-friendly" hybrids or electric vehicles.
As another meme-derived observation, there are channels on YouTube dedicated to stories captured by auto mechanics from owners dropping off cars for repair. These started years ago and predominately illustrated the comic stupidity of owners unable to identify root cause of obvious, simple problems. In the last few years, though, sprinkled among the comic examples are many more examples where a car is brought in for problem X but the mechanic inspects the vehicle and finds some other catastrophic problem that the client refuses to fix or triggers the shop to refuse ALL repairs to the car because it isn't even safe to put on a lift for the original repair. The lack of affordable cars in the $17,000 to $25,000 range (which is STILL far beyond the means of many) means twenty year old rust buckets with failed suspensions and disintegrating chassis could be headed YOUR way on a two-way road today because few manufacturers are making efforts to make simple, safe, reliable econoboxes. It's like manufacturers have simply decided to price average consumers out of life.
WTH
