Australia's top 10 carmakers: five of them are duds and nearly all of them are off the pace, sales-wise. In the lead-up to end of financial year, find out what the soft targets are, and exactly where to hit them. Toyota is the king - of mediocrity. The big T also leads the market, shedding a little bit of market share every year. They also have fingers in every pie, segment-wise, which is one of the reasons they’re so successful. The big T is down six per cent in a market down eight - so not a great deal of unusual opportunity there, discount-wise.
Mazda is in second spot, but substantially behind Toyota. They were down four per cent last year, and they’re down another four so far this year - so not too much pressure being felt locally by Mazda.
Mitsubishi has up-ended Hyundai and secured third spot in sales so far this year. They’ve been strafing our screens with a massive advertising offensive, which appears to have worked - albeit at a cost. Mitsy is not such a soft target right now, safe to say.
So Hyundai (in fourth) is under significant pressure right now, falling three per cent (in line with the market) last year, but plummeting 13 per cent this year. So they’ve hit the brakes about as hard as Mitsubishi has accelerated this year, and the positions have reversed.
This is a real opportunity for you, as the financial year draws to a close. There will be extreme pressure from Seoul to recoup some valuable lost ground on the sales front.
Hyundai does a particularly good job on Santa Fe, Tucson, and i30 (especially the N and N-Line variants there). And they’re lining up to occupy the space Toyota occupied with hybrids, only with mainstream EVs.
Ford is in fifth spot, plummeting faster than the market in all the recent years you can count on one hand, at least. Falling sales is business as usual for Ford. And there will be bargains advertised, but it’s a dog of a brand, featuring the double-whammy of under-cooked engineering and customer service straight from De Sade.
No matter how good the blue oval deals seem over coming weeks - Ford remains far too costly at any price.
Kia is in sixth spot - and they’re bucking the trend. Seriously bucking the trend. More on that in a sec. But suffice to say desperation levels are nonexistent for Kia dealers at the moment.
Volkswagen (in seventh) has kinda fallen off a cliff - down 10 per cent this year. So there will be some pressure at Volkswagen dealers as the financial year checks out. You just have to make friends with the astoundingly poor reliability and the breathtaking lack of morality back at Volkswagen Central. They’re great looking shit cars that drive really well…
Those chumps at Nissan (starting from eighth position on the grid, currently) are trading off a reputation with a use-by date that expired in about 2008. Sixteen per cent off the pace so far this year.
Some of Nissan’s current inventory approaches mediocrity (on a good day) but every one of those Nissan-badged shitheaps is objectively inferior to close competitors from other brands.
Holden is in ninth spot - but the red lion will soon disappear up its own black hole, the better to investigate what it had for breakfast, and drop out of the top 10 for good. Holden is 33 per cent down last year; 24 per cent down so far this year.
These are spectacular falls in a long line of spectacular falls. If there was a gold medal for eff-ing up so dependably and at such an elite level, we’d see Holden on the Podium in Tokyo.
So, with Holden, you’ve got the triple-whammy of bad ideas: poor quality and engineering leading to poor reliability (that’s just the first whammy).
Then there’s appalling customer support. And (whammy number three) resale on your shiny new Holden (if you’re that dumb) is going to tank.
Honda - rounding out 10th spot. Down 18 per cent this year. Honda got brain damage in the GFC and never recovered. The product today objectively sucks.
It’s reasonably reliable, except for the oil dilution issue that I hear plagues the only new engine they’ve released in years (the 1.5T) but in every other respect Honda (like Nissan) remains asleep at the wheel dreaming self-delusional dreams of one day achieving mediocrity.
Honda’s fall from grace is one of the most outstanding and sad automotive tragedies of the modern era. They were Nipponese BMW - but look at them now.
Outside the top 10 you’ve gotta look hard at Subaru, in 11th spot. They’re excellent cars (Outback is a bit old now, and gagging for replacement, but the rest of the inventory is pretty contemporary). Decent reliability; excellent customer support.
But sales are way down. But let us not be detained by any latent sympathy for Subaru; doldrums for them is great news for us.
Despite the recent launch of the all-new Forester, Subie sales in Shitsville have fallen off a cliff. Down 34 per cent so far this year. There’s a bargain on a good new car, gagging for a place to happen, I’d suggest.
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