THE VEHICLE DEALER’S NEWS SOURCE · Auckland City, 1030. Ph. 09 309 2444. autotalk.co.nz...

MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF AUTOTALK.CO.NZ – VOLUME 9 | ISSUE 2 | MARCH 2018

T H E V E H I C L E D E A L E R ’ S N E W S S O U R C E

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Confidence for the road ahead.

Dealers are getting on with the job, despite the arrival of stink bugs on car carriers from Japan

causing havoc in parts of the automotive industry.

Those spoken to by AutoTalk about the situation are doing their best to cope with delivery delays.

GVI general manager Hayden John-ston says he’s aware the stink bug issue has cost people in some parts of the industry their jobs.

“We’ve heard a few dealers and busi-nesses in some regions, such as panel beaters and compliance shops, have lost staff.”

Thankfully, GVI has been unaffected in that regard, he says.

“We’re getting some relief now but four weeks is a long time for people who are not geared up to wear something like this.”

GVI has a number of vehicles on the delayed ships, including several electric

cars, Johnston says.The chief executive of 2 Cheap Cars

Eugene Williams says his business has been hit by the delays.

“We’ve had millions in stock delayed on affected ships.”

Sales and stock levels are still good, thanks to other ships landing, although the company’s been keeping a close eye on the situation.

Williams says the problem has meant an increased workload for his accounts

Job losses caused by unloading delays

Exactly how stink bugs got on to the car carriers in Japan is unclear.

An industry source told Auto-Talk there’s all sorts of possibilities, with the ships carrying used and new vehicles, along with heavy machinery.

“There’s all sorts of accusa-tions around,” the source says.

“It could be on machinery like cranes and diggers working on construction sites and farms.

“It could be new vehicles that are manufactured and sit around for quite a while.

“It could be used cars or it could be the vessels themselves.”

AutoTalk understands testing is underway to find out where the bugs have come from.

As the magazine went to print, the Tokyo Car was undergo-ing a staged unloading at Ports of Auckland, with the Sepang Express next in line.

It’s understood the Courageous Ace and Glovis Caravel are head-ing to Singapore to be treated be-fore returning to New Zealand.

Where did the bugs come from?

Continued on page 6

AdTorque Edge expands into NZ 4Dealers learn about anti-money laundering 7It’s results time again 11Turmoil for import market 26

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The discovery of brown marmorated stink bugs on vehicle carriers from Japan has caused huge disruption for

importers.As a result, the team at Bay of Plenty-

based Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) has taken the opportunity to personally thank ap-proximately 30 dealers in the area for their patience.

“We acknowledge that the turning around of the car carriers would have

an impact on their business and we appreci-ate their support and understanding of our border biosecurity,” KVH operations manager Peter Mourits says.

“Dealers have appreciated the visits from KVH. They were interested to learn more about the brown marmorated stink bugs. Many of the dealers have vehicles on one or more of the car carriers.”

The dealers visited appreciated the im-portance of keeping the pest out for all New

Zealanders and accepted the inconvenience, Mourits says.

“Many sell vehicles into the horticulture sector and understand the value of the sector to the region.”

A new report prepared by the New Zea-land Institute of Economic Research for Hor-ticulture New Zealand shows if the bug gets in GDP could fall between $1.8 billion and $3.6 billion by 2038, and horticulture export value between $2 billion and $4.2 billion by 2038.

KVH also took the chance to provide information about the bug to dealers, who were asked to pass pamphlets on to their car groomers. They were also issued a hotline number (0800 80 99 66) to report any finds.

Staff such as car groomers could find the bugs which like to hide in dark, confined spaces, Mourits says.

Although KVH doesn’t plan to visit deal-ers outside the Tauranga-Te Puke area, it is encouraging those around the country to familiarise themselves with information about the brown marmorated stink bug.

Information on the KVH website and MPI website provides valuable tips on what to look for when keeping an eye out for the bugs.

Growers thank dealers for patience

Peter Mourits

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Kiwi dealerships want moreN

ew Zealand deal-ers want more than they’ve been getting

in the field of online market-ing and other services, and AdTorque Edge plans to fill the gap.

The Australian company has now opened in Auckland, offering a “one-stop shop” for services from building web-sites through to analytics.

“We’ve set up camp here to provide our full service to the New Zealand dealer network,” AdTorque Edge founder John O’Neill says.

“One of the great things here is the access to data and the willingness of deal-ers to share, and the willingness to do something with that data.”

O’Neill says something AdTorque Edge does well is map-ping the custom-er journey.

“Up until now,

the customer journey has been considered to begin when they cross the pavement into the dealership or make contact by phone or email.

“For us the customer journey starts way back, maybe beginning with a response to a brand advertisement

and not a dealership one.“There are other possible

touch points - maybe an ad in a newspaper or Google Adword or Facebook or pos-sibly all of those things.

“We measure the custom-ers’ journey - whether it’s by social, digital or traditional media - to ensure the biggest return for the dealer’s spend, to optimise their campaigns.

“When the customer jumps into the funnel, we can tell how he got there.

“This is the tool that Matthew Wales at Andrew Simms uses every day to understand his custom-ers and where they come from.”

AdTorque Edge is al-ready working with several New Zealand dealerships such as Farmers Auto Vil-lage in Tauranga, Andrew Simms in Auckland and the Enterprise Motor Group.

It also works closely with another Auckland company, AutoPlay, or other CRM

providers.“I’m really excited to be

here,” O’Neill says. “Timing is everything and

this is the time when Kiwi dealers need the services that AdTorque Edge can provide.”

Email Gavin Cox at [email protected] for more information on AdTorque Edge services.

A Kiwi high flyer in the automotive sales mar-ket of the 1980’s who

went on to become a mover and shaker in Aussie vehicle sales, advertising and finance is back in New Zealand, of-fering specialised marketing services to Kiwi dealerships.

He is John O’Neill and his company AdTorque Edge is spearheading changes in the way Kiwi car dealers do busi-ness in 2018.

O’Neill has been in-volved in the auto industry for almost 40 years and is passionate not only about it but mostly about the people who work in it.

He left New Zealand in the

1980s for the United King-dom where he worked in sales management roles for both Lancia and Fiat.

Returning to Auckland in 1982, O’Neill joined Torino Motors, then owned by Colin Giltrap and Hugh Berry. For the next eight years he worked across all the brands including Fiat, Lancia, Ferrari, Hyundai, Saab, Scania and Iveco.

He acquired New Zea-land’s largest Mitsubishi dealership in the 1990s with Richard Holden, before go-ing on to head up the New Zealand Subaru business.

Then he moved with Inchcape PLC as sales and

marketing general manager for Subaru Australia.

In the late 1990s O’Neill joined the Politis Group as dealer principal for the Thompson Automotive Group in Sydney and then took up a general manager’s role at the Ford-backed Retail Joint Venture, which comprised 22 Ford dealer-ships in Sydney.

In 2003, he founded STW Automotive Advertising as a joint venture with Aus-sie advertising guru John Singleton’s STW business, providing marketing solutions specifically for the automo-tive industry in Australia.

After a three-year partner-

ship, O’Neill bought out STW and renamed the business AdTorque Strategic Services.

Last year AdTorque Strategic Services and Edge Online Consulting merged to become the largest supplier of marketing solutions to the automotive industry in Australia. It has since opened offices in Singapore, Manila and now Auckland.

During the early 2000s, O’Neill also launched the global finance renewal plat-form Chrysalis to the Asia/Pacific market. It is now at the forefront of retention in the automotive finance space, working with global automo-tive brands, finance compa-nies and banks.

A Kiwi prodigal son returns

AdTorque Edge partners Gavin Cox, left, and John O’Neill.

AdTorque Edge’s NZ national dealer consultant James Hendry.

For more on AdTorque Edge see page 10.

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team as they deal with the shipping companies to find out what’s going on with the vehicles.

DNA Motors director Dmitry May-orov, who has three dealerships in Auckland, says the delays haven’t been a major problem.

“We can manage for now with our stock currently in the country. Cars off those ships have already started show-ing up on our yards anyway so we don’t see much of an issue there.

“Delays are expected though, as the entire supply chain is becoming over-loaded.”

As a rule, DNA doesn’t lay off staff when issues such as this crop up, he says.

Turners Group chief executive Greg Hedgepeth says his organisation hasn’t been hit hard by the stink bug issue, with only about 10% of its stock being imported directly from Japan.

But it’s likely some of the grow-ing turnover in Turners stock is a result of the delays caused by stink bugs, Hedgepeth says.

“Some of the dealers out there have been looking for stock. We’ve got stock for them to buy, which fills the gap, while the other stuff is held up.”

Hedgepeth hopes the situation is sorted out sooner rather than later.

“The good thing is everyone is working together to solve the problem.

“On that front it’s probably af-fecting the small operators who operate on a day-to-day, car-to-car arrangement.”

Hedgepeth also suspects the delays have hit the new car market harder than the used car market.

“People looking for used cars generally have a look around and buy something.

“But with new cars people have often ordered the red one with the sun roof. Nothing can be done to appease those people.”

However, Armstrong Motor Group managing director Rick Armstrong says the stink bug issue has had minimal impact on his business.

“It’s predominantly affected our Subaru dealerships in Christchurch and Wellington and our Nissan dealership in Wellington.

“Overall, it hasn’t had a big impact on us to date. My view is it’s short term pain.”

And it’s an opportunity to clear some of the stock already in the country, he says.

“The trouble is New Zealand always carries too much stock. For a small country, there’s a hell of a lot of cars coming in.

“There’s definitely a bubble of vehicles coming in, from ex-rentals to used imports.”

Job losses caused by unloading delaysContinued from page 1

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NEWSTALK

Workshops around the country have been helping deal-

ers get ready for law changes that will require them to re-port suspicious transactions.

From July 1, 2019 dealers and several other profes-sions will have to report cash transactions over a yet-to-be-determined threshold and will be encouraged to report suspicious activity.

Drug dealing, child pornography, tax evasion and anti-terrorism meas-ures are all crimes that can encourage money launder-ing, dealers were told at the workshops run by Protecta Insurance and the Financial Services Federation.

Protecta national training manager Erin Mills says the workshops are a great way of getting information out to the dealer network.

“It’s about educating them to know it’s okay to report anything suspicious.

“A lot of our dealers already have policies where they won’t take more than $1000 or $2000 as a deposit.

“It’s all about process and about them understanding why it’s important to adhere to the new legislation.

“It’s a really serious busi-ness we’re talking about.”

The consequences for ignoring the legislation could be serious, with fines or ar-

rest both possibilities.Dealers who attended the

sessions had mixed reac-tions, she says.

“Some don’t want to jeop-ardise a sale. But they’re not telling the customer they’re reporting them.”

Financial Services Federa-tion executive director Lyn McMorran says suspicious behaviour can take many forms.

“It’s not just high-end

vehicles. Suspicious activ-ity could include turnover of a number of low-value vehicles to get the money in the system.

“We’re not necessar-ily talking big wads of cash. Other activity could be in-herently suspicious anyway.”

McMorran says some deal-ers were a bit surprised they’d have to report taking cash over a certain threshold.

Dealers brush up on anti-money laundering changes

However, she empha-sised dealers only have to start the process by report-ing suspicious behaviour.

“It’s not up to them to do anything beyond that. Then the information goes to the New Zealand police.

“They’re all threads of information that come together. It gives police, IRD or Immigration the informa-tion they need to go after somebody.”

And it’s not a theoretical problem, with previous po-lice operations discovering money had been laundered through second-hand motor vehicle sales, McMorran says.

“They would go around and buy small, low-value vehicles with cash and trade

Continued on page 8

Erin Mills and Lyn McMorran.

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• Last-minute changes in set-tlement such as changing the bank account providing the funds for the asset.

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them in.“They don’t care there’s less money

in trade-ins. Their primary thought is to make the money look legal.

“No one questions those lower val-ues. If enough dealers report it, it starts painting a picture.”

Cockram Nissan business manager Alice Brydon of Christchurch found the workshop useful.

“It’s good to have a chat in a group setting with everyone to find out how they handle cash payments.

“There’s different things to look out for, different scenarios you wouldn’t think about.

“There was advice on ways to handle people paying with cash for vehicles and ways people try to clean up dirty money.”

Her dealership doesn’t get a lot of

people paying cash for vehicles.“It’s case-by-case. Sometimes we’ll

take a small deposit.”If someone wants to pay thousands

in cash, one option is to ask them to deposit it in the bank and return with a bank cheque, she says.

“If it’s a bank account, it’s much easier to transfer it over. Extra security is needed when holding large amounts of cash. There are better ways to go.”

In her experience, used car dealerships have a higher per-centage of people buying with cash.

Dealers brush up on anti-money laundering changes

Continued from page 7

Factors that could warrant a suspicious activity report:

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It’s the time of year when publicly listed companies release their half-yearly profits. Here is a selection of

results from big players in the automo-tive industry.

Colonial profits upThe Colonial Motor Com-

pany’s half-yearly after-tax profit to December 31 has jumped 15.9% to $11.9 million.

Growth in heavy truck sales and volume from its Kenworth and DAF brands was one of the key factors behind the result, says a company state-ment released on the NZX.

But a slowing growth rate impacted on the profitability of its new car dealerships, which include Ford and Mazda.

“The car dealerships trad-ing profit was lower than the record result a year earlier but

above that achieved in both 2015 and 2014,” the statement said.

“Segment shifts within the market continue with the es-tablished pattern away from sedans and hatches into SUVs and light commercials.

“This trend affects Ford and Mazda differently. Mazda is strong in the important SUV segment, while Ford is suc-cessful in the light commercial sector.”

Looking ahead, the compa-ny predicts the total new vehi-cle market will keep growing. It says it has strong forward orders for heavy trucks.

“However the pace of growth has slowed from a year ago and business confi-dence is more cautious.”

Lending boosts gainsMarac Finance’s parent company

Heartland Bank’s half-yearly after-tax profit was strengthened by impressive growth in motor vehicle loans.

Heartland’s profit was $31.1 million for the half-year ended December 31,

up $2m or 7% from the same period in the previous financial year.

Loans on its motor vehicle ledger jumped 15% or $62 million to $886.3m.

It’s reporting time again

Continued on page 12

http://www.ibcjapan.co.jp


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Overall, its lending book increased by $237.2m to $3.8 billion, with strong per-formances from its personal loans, reverse mortgages and Harmoney online lend-ing business.

“Looking forward, un-derlying asset growth is expected to continue, with strong household, business and rural volumes projected through execution of Heart-land’s strategy,” the company said in a statement on the NZX.

AHG’s solid returnsAutomotive Holdings

Group (AHG) has presented strong growth figures in its automotive business for the first half of the financial year 2018.

It managed an overall A$40.7 million (NZ$40.3

million) operating net profit before tax – down slightly by 4.1%. Group revenue was A$2.87 billion (NZ$308 bil-lion).

The company’s solid returns come courtesy of its acquisition of the Hunter Motor Group in Newcastle, Australia, with brands Honda, Volkswagen, Subaru and Isuzu Ute, plus Essendon Ford and Mitsubishi dealer-ships in Melbourne, and the 51% stake it now holds in Carlins Auctions.

It also recently boosted its New Zealand portfolio of dealerships to nine after acquiring Auckland Motors Mitsubishi and Manukau

Hyundai.But it’s not all posi-

tive news as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission applies its tightening regulations over the financial and insurance industries, which affected the company’s add-on insurance commissions.

Managing director John McConnell says the full ef-fects of the clampdown are yet to be seen.

“Restricted and tightened lending have already hap-pened but legacy impacts are yet to be seen,” he says.

“We write sensible rates for people and we’re not firmly in the sights of regula-tors because we deal with customers who are quite savvy and we set achievable rates.”

The company has also yet to confirm the securing of its refrigerated logistics business by Chinese company HNA, saying it expects to finalise the sale by the end of June.

McConnell describes the improving market in Western Australia as another jubilant windfall for the company.

“It is particularly pleas-ing to note the broad levels of increased consumer and business confidence in the WA market,” he says.

He also points out 2018 has started strongly, with plenty of energy in the auto-motive sector.

“Some of the January-February market is quite good at the moment... lots of action, plenty of brands advertising,” he says.

Although private con-sumers continue to deliver the better profits, there has been uptake from business buyers.

“We will enjoy slightly higher margins from private buyers than fleet buyers, but

we’ve seen a stronger re-covery in business and rental markets than we’ve seen in private,” McConnell says.

Expectations exceededAustralian parts retailer

Bapcor’s expansion into the New Zealand market via its acquisition of Hellaby Holdings’ former businesses seems to be paying off.

The New Zealand arm, which includes the likes of BNT, posted an after-tax profit of A$15.6 million (NZ$16.5 million) in the six months ended December 31, BusinessDesk reports.

Its overall revenue was A$148.2 million (NZ$ 159 million), accounting for

about 22% of group earnings and 24% of sales.

“Bapcor New Zealand performed very strongly in the half year and in New Zealand dollar terms, re-corded revenue growth of 8.4% and ebitda growth of 28.5%, compared to Hellaby’s reported result for H1 FY17 excluding Hellaby corpo-rate head office costs,” chief executive Darryl Abotomey says.

“Bapcor New Zealand’s largest business, the BNT trade business, achieved same-store sales growth of 8.5% reflecting the success of organisation changes, range expansion and market growth.”

Bapcor bought Hellaby for $352 million and delisted it in 2016.


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in Japan & UKChris Nichols is getting Smart at his Metro Christchurch dealer-

ship.In fact, he’ll have even

more Smarts soon – that’s as in the Smart Fortwo (for two people) electric drive car.

The third-generation Smart electric drive (ED) has a 55kW electric motor with a 17.6kWh battery pack.

Metro has three of the Smart EDs – plus a fuel one, which feature alongside other electrics, hybrids and petrol cars at the Upper Ric-carton dealership.

The yard has only had about four Smart electric cars before now and a few petrol ones as well.

Nichols says although few Smarts come up for sale in

Japan, he always keeps an eye out for them.

The Smart EDs are suit-able for Type 2 charging, similar to a Nissan Leaf, so they can be charged up at home or at supermarkets like New World.

They take about four hours to charge fully, ranging from about two hours on a medium charger to seven hours on slow.

The Smart electric (the

Metro Christchurch gets Smart

Chris Nichols

Simplify launches Recommendr ™

One of New Zealand’s largest automotive finance brokers is further growing its presence,

offering more than just finance to its customers.

Simplify also assists in the sourcing of vehicles through its dealer contacts. It works with dealers to get the customer the best car that suits their needs and manages the process to make it seam-less for customers.

It can also arrange test drives, trade-ins and even delivery of the vechicle, so the customer doesn’t have to visit the dealership.

Head of innovation Rob Chamber-lain says a new tool, Recommendr, is set to simplify the process even further. The website tool runs through a series fo questions that assist in identify-ing models. A Simplify agent will then respond to them with recommended vehicles that suit their needs based on their data model and system.

Chamberlain suggests industry needs

to continue to innovate to keep up with customers and the way they shop in the modern world.

“The way the market is working with modern buyers, Millennials, etc., cur-rently, is not very sophisticated,” Cham-berlain says. “The buying journey has changed in many other industries such as finance, retail, travel and car buying lags behind and needs to be more inline

with consumer expectations.” He says the system allows people

to shop in a way that suits their mod-ern approach and reduces the buying process from several days or hours to under an hour.

The intention is to work with deal-ers - not work against them.

“We are not a dealership, we are not taking market share from anyone,” he explains. “We are just providing a service that allows people to buy a car through their mobile.”

The intention is to act as a partner to dealers, particularly those that may not have their own developed finance business.

“We have got dealers who under-stand we are bringing them business, and they sell more cars without having to do much” he says.

Simplify is focussed on consumer finance and improving the way people can buy their next car and at this stage does not offer floor plan products.


http://www.jevic.co.nz


brought in before the 25-year mark,” Appelt says.

“The logic behind having to check chassis numbers on 25-year-old Nissan R32 GTRs which don’t compete against a new Australian-delivered GTR ... once a car stops being sold in Australia, we should be allowed to bring it in as long as it meets the SEVS criteria,” he says, referring to the Specialist Enthusiast Vehicle Scheme.

“There’s no reason why we should be restricted; we don’t compete against new cars. Dealers won’t be selling new stock against us.”

Appelt says AIMVIA’s an-nual meeting raised prob-lems with the definition of the term “variant” in the rarity criteria governing whether a vehicle is allowed into the country, as well as the ad-ditional costs expected to be lumped on small businesses.

“Every model variant has to be listed separately, meaning a separate listing and new application for ev-ery variant is required, which needs re-applying for every two years.

“Each time this will cost $600-$800 where it was once free.

“Even then, you’re not guaranteed to get a pass verdict and it’s a bit rich when we have to do all the research for the vehicle. It’s a huge time impost on busi-nesses and the department.

“The definition of ‘variant’

has had sub-clauses added which will make things easier for us, allowing factory-tuned variations on a model to be allowed.”

Despite the concerns, Appelt says infrastructure minster Paul Fletcher has been making considerations for importers.

“The minister is actually listening to us on this one and has been quite recep-tive. They have a brief to not exert any pressure on small businesses which helps.

“In its current form however, if it (the Bill) goes through, we’re in strife - we’re expecting a three-quarter shrinkage of dealers and workshops.”

AIMVIA says the Govern-ment needs to consider the prospects for small business if they close the wharves to vehicle imports.

“The irony is you’ve got a Government wanting to improve safety and emissions but the first things import vehicle dealers will do is become classic car dealers selling cars far more than 25 years old with huge emis-sions and zero safety,” Appelt says.

“It will backfire on them if there’s no compromise.”

One key loophole set to tighten is the ability to ship relatively late-model people-movers under the guise of becoming specialty camp-ervans.

NEWSTALK

Aussie importers won’t go quietly

Aussie Importers are threatening to “rat-tle the cage” when it

comes to new vehicle laws. The Australian Imported

Motor Vehicle Industry As-sociation (AIMVIA) says it refuses to be ignored when it comes to the Department of Infrastructure’s proposed changes in the Road Vehicle Standards Bill.

AIMVIA and its members want the fed-eral government to “prove it” when it comes to supporting small business

It says the Bill threatens 132 workshops, up to 40 businesses and affiliated logistics operators, shipping lines, tow trucks,

servicing and repairers. “We want to offer and cre-

ate jobs but we’re about to lose over 1000 jobs,” AIMVIA vice-president Kristian Ap-pelt says.

“We’re being pushed into a position where we may need to become adversarial and rattle the cage to get what we’re after.”

The association continues to lobby the department,

advocating for small businesses which could be squashed out of contention if the cur-rent version of the Bill passes unchanged.

“We’ve only asked for one thing really - for relaxation of the

current rule that a model sold in Australia can’t be

AIMVIA vice-president Kristian Appelt.

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NEWSTALK

“All the noise about Nissan Elgrands and campervans etc happened because import dealers were squeezed too tightly, leaving them with such a narrow range of ve-hicles to choose from, they either had to get creative with the legislation or their businesses would fold.

“I think we’re being ignored - there’s a lots of smiling and nodding but not a lot of action, which is a shame because we’ve devel-oped a pretty good relation-ship with the minister.”

AIMVIA figures show that, of the 840 vehicles currently on the SEVS eligible regis-ter, just 20 vehicle models were imported in numbers exceeding 20 units in 2014.

Appelt says that doesn’t pose any significant threat to new dealers.

“Dealerships are not the mum-and-dad dealerships they once were; many are large corporate entities buying up multiple dealer-ships and casting a wide net, so when they talk about competition in the market-

place, you’d argue it’s not as competitive as it once was.

“Even the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) came out in favour of the two Castalia reports, a produc-tivity commission report and a competition review, and we’ve had conversations with Canberra’s politicians who’ve said this isn’t a logi-cal response, it’s a political one.”

Another highly political issue for importers is dealing with low-level asbestos in imported vehicles.

“AIMVIA is just after pre-dictability and consistency because right now, you send a car to one port and get certain things allowed and then another port says you can’t come in and you find the process is completely different,” Appelt says from first-hand experience.

Importers have had to adapt to various country’s nuances, which means doing plenty of homework.

“From the most common countries that cars are com-ing from, we’re developing

strategies,” he says. “The United States is the

biggest problem because they consider less than 1% [asbestos] to be asbestos-free. So we could fit pads from the US but they could still be considered banned and get picked up here.

“In Japan, for comparison, it’s a bit of a problem. In the US you can take the brakes out and put [the vehicle] in the container but in Japan it’s roll-on roll-off and you can’t really do that without brakes.

“It pays to do the re-search but as always, it forces up prices for import-ers and the consumer pays.”

Appelt says some regular shippers out of the US have developed solutions such as quarantine and providing Na-tional Automotive Dealership Association (NADA) approved testing which is often suc-cessful.

“It comes down to what the regulators consider ‘suffi-cient assurance’ - that you’ve made appropriate efforts to remove all traces,” he says.

“The various shipping lines

are working through these things as best they can; it’s just difficult finding people around the world to do it.”

Appelt describes one unique situation with a cus-tomer.

“I have a guy trying to bring in a 1968 Mazda Luce which has tested positive in the brakes and clutch,” he says.

“It’s an exceptionally rare car and they’ve basically had to make brake pads from scratch to fit.”

The current atmosphere of shutting out import deal-ers could be self-defeating, he says.

“Dealerships are forget-ting they too can bring in cars and access all the same things we can – and we’re not trying to block them from bringing in and selling cars.

And anyone who thought AIMVIA would dissolve in the wake of the new laws is mistaken, Appelt says.

“It’s not our intent to be a one-issue group - we’ll remain operational once the new RVS Bill passes.


two-seater hatchback is made by Daimler AG’s Smart division – hence the name) has a range of around 120km-140km.

It’s primarily designed for urban driving.

The Smart’s beginning is attributed to Swatch watch inventor Nicolas Hayek who wanted a fuel efficient, environmentally responsible small car that would fit in small parking spaces.

Now marketed in more than 46 countries, the Smart is especially suitable for empty nesters and senior folk to get around town.

Nichols first saw the cars come up for auction in Japan

and says the electric version provides an alternative to other EVs on the market.

The near-new cars are quite a bit cheaper too, at around $18,000 to $20,000.

The Smart EV is easy to drive, with dashboard-mounted gauges clearly showing battery power and energy use - the latter a bit like a rev counter.

Steering wheel paddles provide three modes of regenerative braking.

Stalks for the lights, wipers and other functions are sim-ple and within easy reach.

The two high-backed seats are very comfortable and there’s enough room in the boot for the shopping.

It has plenty of zip – it’s able to hit nearly 100kmh in just over 11 seconds and is likely to reach a top speed of 130kmh.

Safety is good too. The Smart has a high safety rating and front and side airbags are included.

“They’re ideal for Christch-urch city as it’s mainly flat and everything is within a 30km radius,” Nichols says, adding that Christchurch has a high interest in EVs, par-ticularly as the Christchurch City Council is encouraging their use.

He says the Smart ForTwo appeals to people who like slightly quirky cars.

Nichols says his wife drives

a Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric and the Smart’s range is bet-ter.

It is among about 20 EVs Nichols is bringing into his yard - most of them are Nissan Leafs, and there’s a couple of I-MiEvs.

Metro was started by Nichols’ dad Colin in 1972. He’s now retired although he still helps with the driving and other work.

Sons Chris and Phil-lip have run the yard at its Blenheim Rd location since 2000.

After leaving university at 19, Chris went to live in Japan in 1992. He stayed for three years, buying cars for the yard back home. Now he returns to Japan on many monthly buying trips.


Metro Christchurch gets Smart

SHOWROOMNEW VEHICLE INDUSTRY AND PRODUCT NEWS


When Holden New Zealand gave Kiwi journalists the chance to drive the new Commodore

last week, the hardest job had already been done.

Marketing manager Marnie Samphier explained that dealers had been intro-duced to the new German-sourced car the week before in Queenstown, and, for some, it was a tough sell.

“They love the car now and they really didn’t want to believe in the new car. It was emotionally charged.”

But, she says, time in the driver’s seat turned the most important critics around, something Holden is hoping will happen with the public as well.

“If you can get people into the car it will sell itself,” Samphier says.

“We are working with dealers on ways we can get people into dealer-ships for test drives.”

A local campaign that will be bold and unapologetic is being built for the car.

Although cars are arriving now, most marketing will be deferred to give the Holden Equinox campaign, which has just kicked off, some space.

Holden doesn’t talk numbers, though Samphier is hoping to maintain the volume of the old model.

Discussions are underway with rental fleets, and the police have already be-gun taking delivery of their new genera-tion vehicles.

Four or sixThe new Commodore range has

been heavily discussed already, though it is worth going over again.

Sourced from GM’s former Opel division in Germany - now part of the PSA group – rear-wheel drive has gone in favour of front-wheel drive or an advanced “Twinster” all-wheel-drive system.

Holden is marketing the new model as coming in three different styles: a liftback, a Sportwagon and a tourer. The latter is a marginally raised Sportwagon

with additional body cladding. It is also the likely pick of the range and the flag-ship for marketing purposes.

Lower models get four-cylinder power and front-wheel drive. The 2-litre turbocharged unit puts out more power than the outgoing 3-litre six-cylinder unit, at 191kW and 350Nm of torque.

The six-cylinder drivetrain is only fitted to Australian and New Zealand versions of what is a global car and produces 235kW and 381Nm.

Both engines get a nine-speed auto-matic transmission.

A 2-litre turbocharged diesel uses just 5.6 litres per 100km, with 125kW and 400Nm on offer, and is paired to an eight-speed automatic.

The ranges start with an LT, rising though RS, RS-V, Calais, Calais-V and VRX.

We won’t go into too much detail on specification but notable features include autonomous emergency brak-ing and lane keeping systems on all models, reversing cameras and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto on all mod-els, and heated and ventilated massage seats, a 360-degree camera, adaptive cruise control, dual-panel panorama sunroof, adaptive LED headlights and head-up display further up the range.

Prices are lower, opening at $45,990 – $4000 less than the current Evoke – for the LT 2-litre four-cylinder petrol

model, and reaching $67,990 for the sporty VXR model.

Local tuningInterestingly, Holden claims this car

was under development for production in Australia before local manufactur-ing ended. It can be argued GM killed off rear-wheel drive, not the death of assembly.

Local input is said to be extensive, especially on the Australasian-only six-cylinder models.

Holden vehicle development manag-er Jeremy Tassone told AutoTalk.com.au at the Australian launch drivability was the focus for Holden engineers over the “fuel economy at all costs” at-titude seen elsewhere.

“Australians have grown up with Commodore and that’s meant we need to deliver something that’s great to drive - that’s why we come to work,” Tassone says.

“It starts with the architecture and, being brand-new, we can use the latest manufacturing techniques and materi-als.

“All-wheel drive and V6 was impor-tant to us but we’ve also got the premi-um 2.0-litre engine from Europe. It’s the best base engine we’ve ever had in the Commodore - so we’ve got Europe’s best engine as our base engine.”

‘Emotionally charged’ roll-out for new Commodore




Please apply with a cover letter and CV to Rachel Kirkland, Executive Assistant [email protected] by COB 22nd March 2018.

Your role will include, but will not be limited to:§Ensuring strong sales performance, teamwork and

accountability§Driving high performance and promoting overachievement

across your team§Meeting and exceeding sales targets, managing and

maintaining profitability§Building and maintaining strong relationships with

Manufacturers§Ensuring strong relationships across the industry and the

Group§Supporting, developing and implementing processes and

practices that ensure customer and client expectations are exceeded

§Developing and leading strategic initiatives to grow the business and achieve market share

To be successful in this role you will have:§Proven business and financial management experience in a

large dealership§General Management or Dealer Principal experience or a mix of

sales, service and business development§Leadership experience for a minimum of 5 years§Communication, influence, negotiation and relationship

building skills§Strong PC skills/knowledge of CRM, DMS and other sales

management systems

Dealer PrincipalThis is a multi-faceted position which requires in-depth knowledge of all aspects of dealership operation as well as the communication and negotiation skills to achieve manufacturer and Giltrap Group targets and KPI’s.

BMW’s X range now makes up 48% of its registrations in New

Zealand so it’s completely understandable that new high-riding models are com-ing thick and fast from the brand.

A new X3 has just arrived, a new X4 is on its way and a new X7 will arrive next year. A fully electric version of the x3 is set for sale in 2020 - by the latest.

BMW New Zealand managing director Florian Renndorfer says it’s the right time to be expanding the X range.

“We are convinced com-ing now with a wider range of X cars is the perfect fit and the perfect timing.”

The subject of the day, however, is the X2, which sits in what BMW calls the UXL segment. And it is a busy one with sales up more than 70% last year.

What is UXL? Think Mercedes-Benz GLA and Audi Q2.

BMW already has one small SUV offering, the X1 - two if you add in the Mini Countryman on which it is based.

Even-numbered BMW of-ferings usually indicate sport coupe versions of a model, though New Zealand prod-uct manager Tom Michael-son says the X2 is supposed to something different.

“The X2 isn’t meant to be a baby X4 or miniature X6. It is meant to be a unique model with a character in its own right.”

Instead of an angular coupe body, the X2 looks more like a chunky hatch-back. To this journalist’s eyes, it seems more like a mod-ernised and chunky 1-Series than an X2 but with a taller

ride height and chunkier lower body cladding.

A BMW roundel on the C-pillar is said to be a nod to the famous BMW CSL of the 1970s.

Two models are on of-fer initially: an sDrive18i and an sDrive20i. Both are front-wheel drive and use a seven-speed dual clutch transmission.

The xDrive all-wheel drive is expected to arrive eventually and diesel is un-der consideration.

The 18i is powered by a three-cylinder 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol en-gine, producing 100kW and 220Nm. The 20i uses a 2-litre turbocharged pet-rol producing 141kW and 280Nm. Fuel consumption is extremely low for the per-formance on offer: 5.4 litres per 100km and 5.9 litres per 100km respectively.

Standard specification on the 18i includes 18-inch wheels, LED headlights and fog lights, parking sensors and a reversing camera, dual-zone climate control, satellite navigation, an auto-matic tailgate and the BMW “Connected” suite of digital services. Lane departure warning, speed limit info, automatic high beam and collision warning with city braking are also standard.

The 20i gets a new “M Sport X” styling pack-age - think rally style to the

The wave of Xs continues

optional M Sport’s track style. Also added to the model is a leather steering wheel, anthracite headliner, sports suspension, sports front seats with heating, 19-inch

alloy wheels and adaptive cruise control.

We are impressed by the way the X2 drives, with the 20i providing ample per-formance. The new seven-speed transmission is slicker than most. The chassis is firm yet the ride is good. It would take an experienced driver to work out this is a front-wheel drive vehicle.

We love the look, with the low roofline a real standout. The interior is functional and stylish although it feels a little dated compared to the rest of the car.

The 18i is priced at $60,900 and the 20i at $70,990 - that puts it in line with the GLA and a little more expensive than the Q2.

http://autotalk.co.nz/opportunities/dealer-principal-schofield-holden



Subaru continues to ‘Do’S

ubaru New Zealand is coming off the back of a record year and

although stink bug delays could change things, it’s hoping for a similar effort in 2018.

Last year it moved 3343 vehicles, ahead of its 3000-unit target, thanks to the additional allocation of cars from a very happy factory.

The brand is usually very supply constrained; it sells what it can get.

“And we did it profitably, which is very important,” managing director Wallis Dumper says.

“We hope this year the factory will give us even more cars. We are at risk of being a few short.”

The brand is getting good results from its “Do” cam-paign, launching localised material for the Australian-led campaign.

Dumper was in front of journalists for the launch of the 2018 update to the Legacy sedan and Outback wagon range, the latter the brand’s top seller.

It is relatively easy to un-derstand the effort put into Outback because in a world that is going SUVs, it fits the

brief. The Legacy takes a little more explanation.

“Is the sedan market dead? I don’t think so,” Dumper says.

“There is still a huge op-portunity as we meet people who say we don’t want a SUV, we want a sedan. We are going to persevere in that market.”

He says the model re-ceived a bump last year as buyers looked for alterna-tives to the Commodore and Falcon, and marketing the Legacy has the spin-off that it sells more Outbacks.

The company is working with a reduced range. The price-leading entry-level 2.5i Sport model is gone, with just a 2.5 Premium and 3.6R Premium continuing. The 2.5i is priced at $49,990 and the 3.6R at $54,990.

Changes to both models include new headlights and

front-end treatments, front and rear bumpers, headlights and revised 20mm shorter wing mirrors and revised al-loy wheel designs.

On Premium models, au-tomatic headlights have been upgraded to an LED turning system with an adaptive driv-ing beam system. Front and side cameras have all been added.

Subaru’s standard Eye-Sight driver assistance pack-age now includes lane keep assist, on top of adaptive cruise control, lane depar-ture warning and autono-mous emergency braking.

Inside the infotainment screen has been upgraded to an eight-inch unit, with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto now included. On Pre-mium models, the navigation system now uses TomTom software with live traffic updates.

The Outback gets the same updates on premium models, though it retains the entry-level 2.5i Sport at $44,990, the 2.5i Premium is $49,990 and the 3.6R Pre-mium at $59,990. The Sport does not get the upgrade in screen size, though does get Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

Auto Media Group had the chance to try both cars on a loop south of Auckland. The trip confirmed both models are extremely competent - offering comfort, space and great dynamics.

On a short off-road sec-tion, the Outback impressed with its ability to pull through slick and slippery conditions, even if it did spend time slithering on its undersides.

Downsides? The interior is potentially beginning to age, though being well laid out and of substantial quality, it is hard to criticise.



Please apply with a cover letter and CV to Rachel Kirkland, Executive Assistant [email protected] by COB 22nd March 2018.

General ManagerThis is a fantastic new position for an ambitious, results driven leader to increase market share and take control. You will be managing a small team of dedicated sales, aftersales, parts and administration staff, utilising your experience in Sales Management within the automotive industry (or similar).

Your role will include:§Ensuring strong sales performance, teamwork and

accountability§Driving high performance and promoting overachievement§Meeting and exceeding group and manufacturer sales

targets§Managing and increasing profitability across all

departments§Building on and maintaining strong relationships with

Manufacturers§Enhancing brand awareness and promoting model line up §Supporting, developing and implementing processes and

practices that ensure customer and client expectations are exceeded

§Developing and producing strategic initiatives to grow the business

§Maintaining and building on a strong and close-knit team

To be successful in this role you will have:§Proven Sales Management experience or a mix of sales,

service and business development skills§Communication, influence, negotiation and relationship

building skills§PC skills/knowledge of CRM, DMS and other sales

management systems

A new seven-seat ver-sion of the popular Volkswagen Tiguan

and the release of a new sixth-generation Polo range will expand the market share of the “people’s car” brand in New Zealand, says distributor Tom Ruddenklau.

The Tiguan is already the best-selling VW here and the addition of six new seven-seater models to a five-seat range pruned back to three variants will increase the penetration of finely chiseled SUVs into one of the most popular segments.

“I expect 45-50% of VW sales in 2018 will be Tiguans, with close to 2500 sales,” Ruddenklau says.

Compare that to the 500-odd Tiguan models sold in 2017 to get some impression of the potential impact of the new seven-seater models on the SUV segment.

They are quite a bit bigger than the five-seat models, with the wheelbase stretched a further 110mm to make way for the third row seat-ing, contributing to an overall length increase of 215mm.

Slight design revisions to headlights, grille and exhaust exits make it easy to identify the seven-pew Tiguan from the five.

The new models have a bit more bling through their added chrome, which befits the tastes of their manufac-turing region. The seven-seater is made in Mexico, whereas the five-seater will continue to be sourced from Germany.

Pricing for the new seven-seat Tiguan Allspace range starts at $47,990 for a front-

drive Comfortline model, powered by a 110kW/250Nm 1.4litre turbo-petrol engine driving a six-speed DSG twin-clutch gearbox.

Adding the adaptive four-wheel-drive system, 132kW/320Nm 2-litre turbo-

petrol engine, and extra gear of the rest of the range requires the spending of a further $8000, with the cloth-upholstered Comfortline 4WD model costing $56,990.

Highline four-wheel drive versions can be purchased for $64,990 with the 2.0 tur-bo-petrol engine, or $68,990 with a 140kW/400Nm 2.0 turbo-diesel capable of producing lab test fuel use results starting with a five instead of a seven.

Two R-Line models top the range and add exclamation marks to the driving experi-ence via increased perfor-mance. The 162kW/350Nm 1.8 litre R-Line TSI turbo-petrol costs $72,990 while its 176kW/500Nm turbo-diesel equivalent costs $76,990. Both R-liners are capable of reaching 100kmh from rest in less than seven seconds.

The four-wheel drive Tiguan Allspace models can tow up to 2500kg and the 1.4 front-drive Comfortline can cope with 1800kg. If the trail-ers have no brakes, both are rated to lug 750kg.

Also making its debut in

‘People’s car’ set to expand its market share

New Zealand VW dealerships is the sixth-generation Polo range, which also will trade on the appeal of a larger body.

Polo is now the size of the Golf models that Volkswa-gen used to produce three generations ago and is genu-inely capable of serving the needs of most families.

A key selling point will be the increased efficiency of the new 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbo-petrol engine that powers four of the five models of the new range. It combines with the smoother airflow management of the new body (drag coefficient

reduced from 0.32 to 0.29) to produce fuel use test results any hybrid would be happy to claim as their own.

The $25,490 Polo TSI manual is the real fuel-miser of the range, with a com-bined city/highway figure of 4.5litres/100km, despite pos-sessing just five forward ratios where most triple-pedal cars come with six these days.

That figure rises to 4.7 for Polos equipped with heavier seven-speed twin-clutch gearboxes, which include the innovative “Beats” model which adds extra audio qual-ity and adventurous cabin


http://autotalk.co.nz/opportunities/general-manager-giltrap-skoda


By David Crawford, CEO of theMotor Industry Association of NZ (Inc).

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INDUSTRYTALK

While we still face the punishing impact of the delays to ve-

hicles triggered by the brown marmorated stink bug, the other challenge facing the industry has yet to go away.

The Takata airbag recall rolls on and hit the headlines in recent weeks with a compulsory recall ordered in Australia for vehicles with “Alpha” bags – those most likely to fire potentially fatal shrapnel at the face of the people sitting opposite them.

New Zealand has so far been relatively lucky, with no fatalities hitting the headlines. In Australia, they have not been so lucky, with at least one confirmed fatality and one confirmed serious injury.

So far 23 people have been confirmed dead worldwide and ten times that number seriously injured.

Motor Industry Associa-tion chief executive David Crawford recently issued a statement saying around 320,000 new and used vehicles in New Zealand are affected by the Takata recall process - not necessarily

with Alpha bags.The owners of approxi-

mately two thirds of those vehicles have received letters (recall notices) and around 134,000 have brought their vehicles in for the recall to be

completed.“This is large and com-

plex logistical issue affecting new and used vehicles with two different types of Takata airbags and current owners of vehicles having a choice as to whether they want to close out the recall,” Craw-ford says.

“At present, there is no mandatory process requir-ing owners of vehicles to undertake a recall if they are notified by the manufacturer to do so.”

The MIA has called for the Government to find a way to force owners to bring their vehicles into dealerships for repair, and prevent used import vehicles from passing compliance until it can be demonstrated they have had

their recalls completed.The second part is argu-

ably controversial – and neither the MIA or VIA agree on an interpretation of the current law.

Having been through the supply chain process a number of times in Japan, I am not sure it is a particularly easy thing to do either.

To compel owners to bring their vehicles in for a recall is arguably easier.

In an interview with Radio New Zealand earlier this year I discussed the reluctance of Kiwis to take their vehicles in for a recall.

I suspect that for some owners, particularly those with older, cheaper cars, there is a fear it will cost something. No matter how many times a letter says “at no cost”, the impression is still there.

Could a check at Warrant of Fitness time and a refusal to issue one work? Perhaps, though it would not happen straight away.

It is also taking time for distributors to work their way through parts supply for all the vehicles affected. A 2020 deadline for this could work, though it could be argued people are driving unsafe

cars until then.Whatever the solution, it

needs to come quick. A Takata airbag fatality

in New Zealand would be a tragedy. A fatality without a solution in place would be at least partially in the hands of the authorities and the industry.

It’s not just a new car distributor responsibility

The used car industry needs to play a role in work-ing through the recall issue. To dismiss it as a problem for the new vehicle distributors is short-sighted and arguably arrogant.

New vehicle distributors have taken responsibility so far and I believe this is gener-ous and public-minded.

To argue they built the affected vehicles in the first place ignores the fact many local operations are separate businesses, often with differ-ent ownership. They are also dealing with models they never chose to sell in New Zealand.

Continue to support their efforts, for one day the current process might become one where at least some of the costs fall on the importer.

How do we solve the recall problem?

David Crawford is taking a brief break from his column. This month our managing editor Richard Edwards steps in.

http://www.marac.co.nz

http://www.marac.co.nz

http://www.heartland.co.nz


INDUSTRYTALK

Chris KnightSales Director, Trade Me Motors09 924 [email protected]

In our digital world, more and more transactions are being initiated through an online experience. It’s important to put your best foot

forward - to attract buyers and help them understand what they are sign-ing up for.

Great photos are important for attracting attention and providing po-tential buyers with visual reassurance.

The vehicle description plays the role of the virtual salesperson - a compre-hensive outline is key to driving enquir-ies and provides details of the vehicle’s condition to appeal to the correct audience.

Trade Me regularly conducts con-sumer research and our results show buyers value trust in the seller and trust in the vehicle.

Regardless of the buyer’s level of motoring knowledge, a vehicle’s his-tory is something most care about and they want to check out the vehicle’s background. Call it a case of “where it’s been will determine where it’s go-ing”.

So why is a vehicle’s history so im-portant to buyers? The answer is simple - the financial risk involved when buy-ing a vehicle.

Second to purchasing a house, buy-ing a car is typically one of the biggest investments Kiwis make so the more information they have, the easier it is for

them to make a decision. Another reason is the potential

trauma and hassle that goes with buy-ing a dud - losing money is never a great experience.

We’ve narrowed the main concerns buyers have when buying a car down to four main points:

Is the vehicle stolen?Buying a stolen vehicle is not a case

of “finders keepers, losers weepers”. A stolen vehicle means another party has a legal claim to the asset and could result in the buyer losing their vehicle and being out of pocket - never a good situation.

Is there money owing on the vehicle?A buyer’s risk increases when a per-

son or company has a financial interest in a vehicle – that is, there is a regis-tered security against it.

Situations where there could be a registered security against a vehicle could include if the vehicle was pur-chased on finance or with a loan; if the vehicle was used as collateral for other purposes; or it could be due to an out-

standing repair bill on the vehicle. If the money owed isn’t repaid,

the vehicle could be legally repos-sessed by the secured party or sold to recover the part of the money owing, leaving the buyer out of pocket and without a vehicle.

Is the vehicle a damaged import?Knowledge is power and we believe

buyers should be alerted to vehicles imported into New Zealand with obvi-ous damage or deterioration. An alert would give buyers the chance to have the vehicle fully inspected to ensure the damage won’t affect its safety, opera-tion or value.

Has the vehicle been re-registered?A re-registration might not always

be all doom and gloom. For instance, where a vehicle has been unlicensed for more than 12 months, it will have to be re-registered to reinstate its licence. However, vehicles that have been previ-ously written off then repaired will also have been re-registered. Buyers alerted to this are able to get the vehicles thor-oughly inspected to ensure their safety, reliability and value won’t be jeopardised.

We believe in giving buyers all the information they need and we will continue to invest large amounts of re-sources to ensure sellers are as upfront as possible.

Give buyers the full picture

http://www.motorweb.co.nz

http://www.motorweb.co.nz


MARKETINGTALK

Matt Darby works for AutoPlay which specialises in pre-sale lead management tools. To find out more about AutoPlay services email [email protected] or visit www.autoplay.co.nz

The first month of the year is done and dusted and with it came a return to normalcy in the volume of leads, test drives and sales captured by AutoPlay customers

(approximately 80% of the franchise market by volume). Where December saw a lull in the number of leads cap-

tured, January returned to normal levels which resulted in big increases across the board - leads rose by 17.3%, test drives by 15.7% and sales by 16.5%.

Leads captured increased across all sources with the “Web – Dealer” source up 22.4% from December to January to regain the top spot as the most common source of leads for Kiwi dealers.

“Web – Classified” slipped from first to second but still rose by 13.6%. After a 33% decrease in December, brands re-bounded and the number of “Brand” leads jumped by 41.9%.

In January Web – Dealer rose by 20.9%, “Direct” increased

by 21.9% and Brand by 21% - knocking Web – Classified off the number three spot.

Because leads decreased in December, there probably wasn’t a huge number of December-created leads waiting to

be converted in January to test drives. That shows many of the leads generated in January were being closed in the same month.

In December the Brand source was the only lead source to buck the trend and experience an increase in sales from November to December.

In January big increases in sales generated from Web – Dealer (up 41.2%), Web – Classified (up 19.6%) and “Repeat” (up 23.4%) saw the Brand source disappear from the top three sources of sales.

In particular, sales from classified sites jumped back into the top three – helped by the fact that in December 6.8% more test drives were captured from sites like Driven, Au-totrader and Trade Me.

Make sure to check out next month’s issue of AutoTalk to see how leads, test drives and sales by source changed in the month of February.

January returns to normal levels




MARKETINGTALK

1Top 3 Sources for Leads, Test Drives and Sales - New Zealand Dealerships February 2018 ( vs January 2018)

Web - Classified 12.3%

Repeat 3.2%Web - Dealer 23.7%

SALE

S

Brand 11.3%

Direct 22.2%Web - Dealer 19.2%

TEST

DRIV

ES

Web - Dealer 20.9%

Web - Classified 5.4%Brand 48.2%

LEA

DS

Peter [email protected] or 021-940 318

Over my many years, I often have had time to reflect on what

were the key elements that separated a top-performing dealer from his peers?

What were the key elements that allowed one deal-ership to achieve a net profit before tax on revenue per-centage that was double that of a fellow dealer of a similar size?

Deloitte’s benchmark surveys of the top 30% of performing dealers often provide a number of valuable reasons.

However, in my assess-ment, lip service is often paid to these surveys and I have never fully understood why.

In today’s very competi-tive retail market environ-ment three core elements are front and centre of any dealer operation, be it fran-chise or non-franchise.

First and foremost, cus-tomer focus has to be the raison d’etre of any dealer business. If you are not in business to meet your customer’s wants and needs, why are you in business?

With the customer as the centre of your business universe, the next obvious step is to surround yourself with competent and effective people.

The third element, clever dealer processes, is the sub-ject of this month’s article.

When it comes to adher-

ing to marketing and sales processes the accepted rule of thumb is this: the larger the dealership, the sharper the focus on process.

The best examples of

dealer digital processes are often found in the United States. Retail auto customers there tend to be more pre-pared to carry out internet interface with a dealer.

As a result, business development centres (BDCs) and dedicated internet sales departments are common-place in the US market.

In Australia and New Zea-land, the customer is not so inclined but that will change over time.

I wish to share a Febru-ary Digital Dealer article to highlight a number of astute business processes put in place by 24-store dealership group Atlantic Auto Group based in Long Island, New York.

Toni Anne Faradette, a mother of two children, juggles the dual demands of home and her work which is concentrated on group digital marketing.

Reporting to her are 19 separate dealer BDC manag-ers and reporting to them are 82 appointed co-ordinators. Between them all, they

deliver 5000-5600 units a month.

Here are the recommendations Toni Anne has to offer:

People:• First off, make sure you

have the right people • Have a solid interview-

ing and hiring process in place

• Evaluate existing staff by a combination of an interviewing-counsel-ling-coaching sessions

• Identify issues with any staff who don’t fit with your culture.

• Use Facebook to locate the right staff.

Once the right people are in place, the next step is all about metrics. It becomes a daily conversation covering the following:• How many calls are they

making?• What is their connection

ratio?• How many appoint-

ments are they making?• What is their show per-

centage?

Typical duties in the day in the life of a BDC manager (in a dealership with no BDC, this role could be held by a sales or internet manager):• Sifting through overnight

internet leads• As the BDC should be

the first customer touch point, they send out the first personalized video

email to the customer• Reviewing the leads that

came in yesterday to check if the customer showed up

• If the customer showed, did they purchase or lease?

If they were a no-show, the customer is called by the manager and not by the person who scheduled the appointment

The BDC then reconfirms appointments that have not been reconfirmed for the day

Each day the BDCs are required to attend 15-30 minute group training ses-sions with their coordinators. Subjects can cover customer relationship management (CRM), skills, leadership or motivational sessions

Then 10-15 minutes are spent with each coordinator to find out where they are in relation to their sales objec-tive and how they can help them. They then develop a joint plan of action

BDCs are also responsible for the daily review of their dealership website

Both BDCs and internet managers are disciples of the dealership CRM. Their CRM system has become the group’s most indispensable piece of technology.

Visit www.autoplay.co.nz to learn more about a smart digital marketing process for the NZ market.

Customer focus + effective people + clever processes



Vinsen’s ViewThe monthly update from VIA chief executive, David Vinsen

MARCH 2018

ADVANTAGE

WHAT DO WE DO?

Advice and advocacy for the used vehicle industryIf you have technical questions, compliance problems, consumer complaints, staff issues — we can help.

For more information: www.via.org.nz | Free phone: 0800 842 842 | Phone 09 573 3058

Until a few weeks ago, most of us prob-ably thought of stink

bugs as fairly harmless green critters you might find in the back yard.

The events of February 2018 have painted quite a different picture.

Since Waitangi Day, when a cache of live brown marm-orated stink bugs was found onboard a car carrier origi-nating from Japan, we have all learned far more about this organism and its relative, the yellow striped stink bug, than we ever imagined.

It’s no exaggeration to say this is already the most significant biohazard we have come up against in my time at VIA.

But first, the good news.I understand the signifi-

cant impact this is having on all parts of our supply chain – for both used and new vehicles.

At the time of writing, no type of cargo has been iden-tified as the sole carrier of the bugs so supply channels are being investigated across all kinds of vehicle - from pas-senger and commercial cars and vans right up to oversize industrial equipment.

Indeed, some of the first brown marmorated stink bugs that made their way to our border were found in Christchurch inside sealed panels on a mobile concrete plant from Italy.

The presence of the bugs has, in fact, been tracked by the Ministry for Primary In-dustries (MPI) for more than 20 years.

That’s how its staff were able to spot the current jump in numbers – from a handful of dead bugs to 15 live ones in the Christchurch case.

That shows our bios-ecurity border checks are working well.

Attacking the problemAfter the initial announce-

ment that bugs had been found on a car carrier, VIA attended a meeting with MPI, along with a range of our businesses from various points in the supply chain.

When the magnitude of the problem became appar-ent, a cross-industry work-ing group was established rapidly to tackle the threat.

Actions have centred around three main priority areas: immediate, ongoing and future.

Immediate: MPI was able to advise the group on pro-posed immediate treatment measures for ships already affected, carrying stock that might have been contami-nated. The ships involved are right now (as of writing)

undergoing treatment, sys-tematic testing and con-trolled discharge of cargo as appropriate.

Ongoing: As of the last week in February, shipping lines and importers are now trialling a proposed treat-ment programme and sys-tematic testing, to establish if these are effective at killing the bugs on the vessels de-nied entry.

Future: Alongside these measures, we are working to develop treatment and inspection procedures to ensure no infestations of the bugs or any other pests. That will relate particularly to the next stink bug “season”, from October 2018, and beyond.

An association, through thick and thin

It’s challenges like these, just as much as the good times, that bring the value of a group like VIA into focus.

From the outset, we have been able to work readily with the Government, the Motor Industry Association and other key organisations to take immediate action on the threat.

We have maintained a strong, open presence

The enemy at the gate


Advice and advocacy for the used vehicle industry

CORPORATE PARTNERS

NZTA are aware of the disruption to vehicle imports from Japan due to the stink bug challenge,

in particular relating to the new ESC regulations.

To support the industry in dealing with the delay, NZTA has announced that exemptions from the new require-ments (which took effect on 1 March) may be possible for used class MA vehicles (over 2000 cc) delayed by this biosecurity issue.

Importers will need to provide

evidence that their vehicles were pur-chased in Japan on or before 26 Febru-ary 2018, and could not be border-checked before 1 March.

“VIA will assist all importers in com-pleting applications for exemption as required,” says VIA Technical Manager Malcolm Yorston. “To apply for an exemption, you will need to provide for each vehicle an invoice from your supplier showing the purchase date, auction sheets, an export certificate and confirmation from your pre-shipping

ESC exemptions following stink bug delay

VIA members know our Technical Manager Malcolm Yorston for his

decades of expertise in all things mechanical. However, in his life outside VIA, he is also Dad to five children (two natural and three adopted), and a foster carer of more than 30 years’ service.

On 9 March, Malcolm and

his wife Brenda will travel to Parliament, to be recognised for Excellence in Foster Care by the charity Fostering Kids New Zealand and Oranga Tamariki – the Ministry for Children.

We salute Malcolm and Bren-da on this honour, and say thank you on behalf of our commu-nity for supporting children and families in their time of need.

Recognising Malcolm Yorston

inspection company that the vehicle had been booked into the TRS.”

For more details or to apply for an exemption, contact Malcolm on 0800 VIA VIA (842 842) or email [email protected].

T-Tech 201819-20 March

Auckland

Examining trends, innovations, challenges and opportunities, the T-Tech Transport Innovation Conference is organised by Intelligent Transport Systems New Zealand (ITSNZ).

Join representatives from across industry and government, for keynote speakers and expert discussion on seamless transportation, mobility solutions and liveable communities.

Guest speakers include international transport and cities expert Greg Lindsay and VIA Policy Analyst Kit Wilkerson.

For details and to register, visit www.ITSNZ.org/t-tech

for our industry in media coverage, highlighting our commitment to New Zealand’s biosecurity standards.

We have also issued continuing communications to our membership, keeping everyone advised of develop-ments.

Ironically, the situation has also brought certain upsides – one of which has been building greater awareness and understanding with industries that normally don’t feature in our “business as usual” routine.

This week we received a letter of support from Kiwifruit Vine Health, the

industry group for kiwifruit growers, thanking the vehicle industry for its vigilance in dealing with the unexpected pest.

We have shared its message with our membership and it’s my pleasure to share it with you.

While the event itself has been dif-ficult, our response as a group has brought out the best in our ability to work together.

The vehicle industry will continue to work alongside all Government agen-cies and other businesses to ensure our biosecurity is protected and the nation’s interests are best served.


JAPANESE MARKETPLACE


No high-stakes roller could have predicted the complete and

utter turmoil Japan’s export marketplace to New Zealand would be in by the end of February, even as recently as the last few days of January.

The chaos caused by the discovery of the brown mar-morated stink bug aboard several vessels arriving in New Zealand has had a ripple effect all the way up the supply chain, with the primary issue being that, in a relative vacuum of reliable information about effective solutions, every exporter and New Zealand buyer is effectively forced to gauge for themselves what their response will be.

On the ground at the Jap-anese auctions, it is business as usual of course since the overall volume of vehicles exported to New Zealand out of the auction system is comparatively low and has little, if any, effect upon standard Japanese domestic market stock values.

But the crisis could not have come at a worse time for New Zealand buyers.

They were already hang-ing off buying stock over the Japanese winter and the unseasonably high prices in the hope that “March Mad-ness” and the taxation penal-ties that apply to company assets – vehicles - held in stock on March 31 would see compliant stock entries rise and prices fall as Japanese competition moves to sell, not buy, leaving Kiwis in the box seat to take advantage and buy up in volumes.

Just when the glimmer of hope that is March loomed on the calendar, stink bugs

have thrown a rogue spanner in the pricing works.

The outcome is that no-one really knows whether the right thing to do is to buy less stock, buy more stock, buy nothing or simply wring their hands.

Those hoped-for price drops have generally failed to materialise, although the last week of February is really too early to make a call on a March trend.

Kiwis have been starved of good-quality lower mileage stock at affordable pricing for too long and thus our own

Kiwi competition is now too strong to allow a bargain to go past.

As we commented last month, even without the threats of stink bug ship-ping delays, there are fears pressure from New Zealand will simply drive up any Japanese domestic buyer withdrawal with our own pricing competition, leaving the overall prices largely unchanged.

Prices on non-ESC compliant stock naturally fell away in the second half of February as the March 1 border-check deadline was imminent.

Buyers brave enough to gamble on shipping certain-ties were able to cherry-pick the better quality stock, leav-ing the older, higher-mileage and rougher non-ESC stock to plummet in value.

Particularly hard-hit has been the over-2000cc multi-seater marketplace, including

Mazda MPV, Toyota Alphard, Toyota Estima, Honda Odys-sey and Nissan Elgrand.

The vast majority - if not all, in some cases - of exam-ples are non-compliant and therefore now history on the New Zealand freshly import-ed market landscape.

That has raised serious questions about what, if anything, can replace those models, given that the larger family multi-seater market-place is particularly price-sensitive for Kiwi consumers, who simply cannot afford to make the considerable step

up in price to purchase a compliant model.

As an example of this, non-compliant Honda Odys-sey models are suddenly comparatively worthless in Japan while the normally ESC-fitted Absolute models have risen in value to the point where they are simply out of reach for many.

The gamble then, even if you managed to secure stock during the latter half of Feb-ruary, was getting it home.

There is no doubt what-soever that sailing schedules and space have been sig-nificantly disrupted and are likely to be for some time.

That has led to greater uncertainty by smaller vol-ume buyers, particularly New Zealand dealers, to travel to Japan and commit to large numbers of units with independent agents without knowing if they are going to receive them in weeks or months.

Hardest hit are those who are obliged to pay for stock either on sailing dates or production of a bill of lad-ing, with the risk of capital flowing outwards for stock they might not see - as in the case of the Tokyo Car - for months.

It appears that Japanese larger-scale exporters are able to absorb these po-tential delays at least in the short term but the inevitable questions over exactly who is going to pay for additional storage costs off wharves if required and the longer-term tie-up of exporter’s capital remain to be seen.

It would be fair to assume these costs will somehow end up in the New Zealand supply chain pricing at some point soon.

New Zealand dealers might also be facing a cash-flow impediment that no-one foresaw, with GST returns now being prepared for the month of February and those buyers who held off buying- or were not paying for stock now stranded in transit - facing hefty GST bills for the first time in years just as the month-on-month cycle of buying balanced against sales is disturbed.

February 2018 might be viewed as one of the dark-est months the industry has faced in many a year.

Whatever the outcomes during March, losses sus-tained are already almost unimaginable.

And spare a thought for the smaller businesses “down wind” who are wholly reliant upon a consistent supply of units off the boats to stay afloat.

For some of them, any good news in March might already be too late.

Clouds over Kiwi importers

Those hoped-for price drops have generally failed to materialise, although the last week of February is really too early to make a call on a March trend.

BY GRAEME MACDONALD

JAPANESE MARKETPLACE


Tokyo’s premium Hotel New Otani has added a unique new feature

to its complex - a luxury used car dealership.

The space is being run in conjunction with Corne Motors, and features imported cars from Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Bentley and more.

The dealership is hoped to attract high-end local

and tourist clientele, and be less imposing than a tradi-tional showroom.

“It is easier to close the deal with hotel guests staying with their fami-lies because staff at the showroom can hear views from their wives who have control over the purse strings,” Cornes Motors said in a statement to The Asahi Shimbun paper.

Trade in prices can be given on site.

This is the second Cornes showroom in a

hotel, with a similar setup in Osaka’s Rihga Royal Hotel successfully operating since March last year.

Japanese dealer group Gulliver finally has one of its own team in the

managing directors posi-tion at DVG Automotive, the West Australian dealer group it acquired three years ago.

Managing director Lou Divirgilioin has stepped down in favour of Takayoshi Udagawa. He will focus on his other role as chairman.

DVG was founded in 1996 by the Divirgilioin family, who retain a third share. The family have now all stepped away from management

roles, with two remaining on the board.

DVG has 24 dealerships across Perth, though it has been undertaking cuts due to

a struggling car market.“DVG is an excellent busi-

ness with a fantastic reputa-tion,” Hatori told the West Australian.

“We recognised that when we bought the majority shareholding in 2015. The business is what it is today because of the hard work and commitment shown by Lou, his brothers and the wonderful team at DVG.”

Nissan’s e-POWER drivetrain took the Nissan Note to the top of the Japanese sales charts last year, and has now been added to the Serena minivan

range.e-Power uses a small battery pack and petrol engine

to provide energy to an electric motor that drives the vehicle. The engine is not direct connect to the wheels. Essentially it is a series-hybrid, and can not be plugged in to charge.

Nissan claims the vehicle is quieter and easier to drive, with an ePedal function similar to the all-electric Leaf. Fuel consumption nearly halves to 3.8-litres per 100km.

The e-POWER Serena also comes with Nissan’s Pro PILOT range of semi-autonomous driving features.

Nissan adds e-POWER minivan

Used car dealership in Japanese hotel

Gulliver takes control of Perth dealership


F&ITALK

James Searle is general manager of DPL Insurance Ltd

It doesn’t seem too long ago that my children went through the phase of not wanting to try food they hadn’t

eaten before.When they were tod-

dlers it was easy to get them to eat just about anything.

All you had to do was make some airplane noises and wave the food around in the air. They’d open their mouth and it was mission accomplished.

Then all of a sudden they devel-oped this skill set that allowed them to determine whether or not they wanted to venture into a new food group, by simply looking at their plate.

That process is similar to the one the automotive industry experienced when finance and insurance (F&I) menu option selling was first intro-duced.

All it took was for business man-agers to give the concept a chance. Once they did, they learned to like it.

Over time, business managers became more comfortable with the process and saw their product penetra-tion and incomes go up.

They discovered that menu op-tion selling doesn’t just help them stay compliant - it’s quicker, draws in more revenue and results in higher customer satisfaction.

In the past, it wasn’t uncommon for dealerships to present customers with a skewed and limited view of the prod-ucts on offer.

The temptation was always to present the most expensive product in the hope of persuading the customer to spend more than they needed to, or to present only the easiest to sell products.

Stricter regulations put a stop to that kind of misleading practice, by requiring dealerships to present all finance and insurance products to every customer in every instance.

In fact, from my experience, I can say unequivocally there is a direct correla-tion between how well the F&I menu option is executed and the overall com-

pliance level of a dealership’s sales and F&I departments.

Although necessary, the regulations had the unfortunate effect of forcing

customers to deal with large amounts of complex information.

Despite mean-ing greater

transparency, it also created significant customer confusion because they had

to assemble an F&I package from long lists of available elements themselves.

Menu option selling was originally an antidote to this overly complex and sometimes misleading structure of finance and insurance sales.

Breaking up the products on offer into convenient packages, streamlines the process significantly so instead of long, rambling, complex lists, custom-ers are presented with easy to under-stand packages of products from which they select what they need.

An unexpected side effect of menu option selling is a sweeping increase in revenue for the dealerships that use it well.

Rather than being deterred from making purchases, customers are en-couraged.

Because they’re given clear in-formation, they’re more confident, inclined to select more products and sign on the dotted line with less per-suasion.

Ironically, a methodology originally developed with regulatory compliance in mind has proven to be a boon for business managers.

One reason it works so well is its

transparency, which, of course, is a regulatory requirement. But it’s also a great aid in getting the customer on your side.

In menu option selling, all the avail-able products are laid out in a very accessible, easy to understand manner. Customers can clearly see what they are buying and how much each pack-age will cost them.

That transparency inevitably reduces the pressure in the relationship between the customer and the business man-ager.

And the reduction in customer resistance means the pressure to sell is removed.

The business manager is no longer perceived as an antagonistic figure, someone who’s trying to lean on the customer to buy a particular product. Instead, the business manager is more like an equal partner in finding the right solution.

Menu option selling isn’t a sales technique so much as a decision-

making technique.Instead of selling, what the dealer

is doing is sharing information so the customer can clearly see all of the ben-efits of every product. That removes the pressure on the business manager to persuade the customer to buy.

Instead, the products themselves do the selling - the business manager’s job is simply to present the information and help guide the customers in making the appropriate selection.

We have found using a well-con-structed F&I menu significantly boosts revenue.

Some dealerships say it has in-creased their revenue by as much as 20% per retail unit.

So the old methods of simply pre-senting only the top-selling products or the most expensive items might actually have been working against dealerships.

Traditional package selling is slow and inefficient, turning off custom-ers and resulting in a loss of potential revenue.

If you want to discover how we can help you increase your F&I revenue while improving customer satisfaction, talk to us today.

Menu selling a great option

Menu option selling helpsdealerships stay compliant.

It’s quicker, increases revenueand customer satisfaction.

Can increase revenueby as much as 20%.

www.autosure.co.nz | 0800 267 873

INSURANCE

• Mechanical Breakdown

• Payment Protection

• Loan Equity

• Motor Vehicle

If you’d like to become an Autosure Approved Dealer, contact us to find out more.

We’ve got New Zealand covered!And we’re here to help you provide the best insuranceprotection for your customers.



F&ITALK

By Jacques Gray of Provident Insurance


Last month Steve Owens talked about “responsible” sell-ing of finance and insurance products – but it is equally as important to understand your obligation of “disclo-

sure” while selling those products.

These days we all need to comply with so much regula-tion to meet the require-ments of the Motor Vehicle Sales Act (2003), the Fair Trading Act, Credit Contracts & Consumers Finance Act and the Anti-Money Laundering Act.

Registered motor vehicle traders need to upskill them-selves to make sure they comply and therefore protect their businesses and the rights of their customers.

I would like to reinforce to traders and lenders alike the importance of “disclosure” under the Responsible Credit-Related Insurance Code and the Responsible Lending Code, and your responsibility to your customers, especially under the Credit Contract and Consumer Finance Act.

Traders and lenders have a duty to disclose all the relevant information in a simple and easy to understand format.

An informed decision can then be made by the customer as to whether entering into a credit contract is within their means, and if the insurance related products offered suit their personal circumstances.

As a lender or insurance provider, you have a duty to ad-vise what products are on offer and how they are designed to assist and protect the customer.

Ensure you disclose to your customer:• The key benefits and features of each insurance policy• The key exclusions of a policy• The amount of the premium• The total amount of interest charged, noting that interest

is charged on the policy offered• Advise that the policy is optional• The duration of each policy• The cooling-off periods for each policy

Your customer then needs to make an informed decision as to whether the following applies:• Does the policy provide appropriate cover for my per-

sonal circumstances?• Will the provision of the policies prevent financial hard-

ship?• Do I understand the terms and conditions of the policies?• Have I had sufficient time to consider the benefits of the

policies?We recommend you use a disclosure form to adequately

Meeting your obligation of disclosure

http://www.providentinsurance.co.nz

http://www.cfsfinance.co.nz


OUR NEW TRADE

DIRECTORY

Phone: +64 9 309 2444

Mobile: +64 21 446 214

Email: [email protected]

DO YOU SELL YOUR SERVICE TO THE TRADE?Talk to Dale or Fran about advertising your business in

TRADE DIRECTORYThe comprehensive guide to every service a dealer could use

Go to dealer locator to find your local dealer

www.tyres4u.co.nz

Leading international provider of open platform software solutions to the automotive retail market.

[email protected] 623 6020

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Cox Automotive™

AUCTIONS

HEIWA AUTO

+64 90 9614 [email protected] specialist of exporting quality used vehicles, provid-ing the best service in the car industry.

MANHEIM AUCTIONS

09 918 0500www.manheim.co.nzManheim is New Zealand’s largest provider of automo-tive auction services. Auctions held weekly.

NICHIBO09 374 4436www.nichibojapan.comWe have a wealth of knowl-edge and experience in auto auctions throughout Japan which we know will enable us to assist you in making your next purchase.

NIKKYO0211-740-258 http://www.nikkyocars.comDespite changing times in the industry our focus on customer satisfaction and quality cars has kept us going for 22 years.

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STATSTALKUSED VEHICLES


TOP 10 USED IMPORT COMMERCIAL MODELS

MAKE MODELFEB

'18MAKE MODEL

FEB'

17TOYOTA HIACE 300 TOYOTA HIACE 367NISSAN CARAVAN 74 MAZDA BONGO 78NISSAN NV200 41 NISSAN CARAVAN 67MAZDA BONGO 38 NISSAN VANETTE 46TOYOTA DYNA 35 TOYOTA REGIUS 33NISSAN NV350 29 NISSAN NV200 29TOYOTA REGIUS 28 ISUZU ELF 28ISUZU ELF 24 MITSUBISHI CANTER 26HINO DUTRO 23 TOYOTA DYNA 21TOYOTA TOYOACE 22 TOYOTA HILUX 21

USED IMPORT COMMERCIAL MAKES

MAKE FEB'18 FEB'17 Movement% Change

Market Share

TOYOTA 407 466 -12.7 42.9NISSAN 203 191 6.3 21.4HINO 49 31 Up 4 58.1 5.2FORD 48 35 Up 2 37.1 5.1ISUZU 47 45 Down 1 4.4 5.0MAZDA 41 94 Down 3 -56.4 4.3MITSUBISHI 41 40 Down 2 2.5 4.3CHEVROLET 19 15 Up 1 26.7 2.0HOLDEN 16 19 Down 1 -15.8 1.7FIAT 15 9 Up 1 66.7 1.6OTHER 62 53 Down 1 17.0 6.5TOTAL 948 998 -5.0 100.0


The total number of used import passen-ger cars sold in

February was down ever so slightly on January’s numbers.

That’s despite the rapid slowdown in deliveries caused by the stink bug issue and traders quickly burning through stock on hand.

A total of 12,048 passen-ger vehicles were registered, down just 12 cars or 0.2% for the same month in 2017. For the first two months of the year, registrations are up 2%.

Toyota topped the sector with 2872 units, down 5.5% for a 23.8% market share.

Nissan took second on 2220, up 0.9% for an 18.4% stake, and Mazda was third on 1996, up 6.7% for 16.6% of

registrations.Honda was fourth

most popular with 1232 vehicles, down 5.8% for a 10.2% share, followed in fifth by Subaru, up 27.5% and one ranking spot, to 696 and 5.8% of registrations.

The Suzuki Swift topped the charts of the used import sector with 581, followed by the Mazda Axela with 572.

The Toyota Corolla was

Tiny drop in February imports

third on 517, followed by the Nissan Tiida 514 and the

Mazda Demio 499.The Subaru Legacy

was the top-selling large car on 328, the Toyota Wish the top people mover on 255, the Volkswa-gen Golf the top

European on 216, the Toyota Prius the top hybrid on 214, the Mitsubishi Outlander the top SUV on 172 and the Nissan Leaf the top EV on 146.

Light commercial regis-trations did take a hit for the month, with registrations down 5% to 948.

Toyota leads at double the total of its next rival with 407 units and a 42.9% market share although it is down 12.7% from the previous

year’s result of 466 units.

Nissan comes in second with 203 light commercial registra-tions and a 21.4% mar-

ket share. It is up 6.3% on its year-on-year result.

Hino takes out bronze with 49 registrations in the sector, moving its way up four spots. It is followed





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THE 17 LEADING USED IMPORT PASSENGER MAKES – YEAR-TO-DATE 2018

AU

DI

BM

W

CH

EV

RO

LET

DA

IHA

TSU

FOR

D

HO

LDE

N

HO

ND

A

HY

UN

DA

I

MA

ZD

A

ME

RC

ED

ES

MIT

SUB

ISH

I

NIS

SAN

PE

UG

EO

T

SUB

AR

U

SUZ

UK

I

TO

YO

TA

VW

OT

HE

R

TO

TAL

YTD 18 32 11 50 93 75 38 104 119 77 413 848 11 101 1972 722 3232 445 506 13719YTD 17 34 6 32 65 50 32 86 177 73 388 870 20 93 1926 622 3396 467 522 12933

%diff -6 83 56 43 50 19 21 -33 5 6 -3 -45 9 2 16 -5 -5 -3 618-Feb 192 467 63 8 122 39 1232 2 1996 250 325 2220 16 696 682 2872 366 500 1204817-Feb 227 528 53 19 109 61 1308 30 1871 267 413 2200 19 546 643 3038 439 489 12260

% diff -15 -12 19 -58 12 -36 -6 -93 7 -6 -21 1 -16 27 6 -5 -17 2 -2YTD 18 442 990 128 16 237 85 2588 29 4306 460 765 2629 42 1505 1404 6104 811 1006 25767YTD 17 491 1096 109 33 211 104 2616 55 3850 542 882 4468 31 1089 1265 6434 906 1011 25193

%diff -10 -10 17 -52 12 -18 -1 -47 12 -15 -13 -41 35 38 11 -5 -10 0 2

USED IMPORT COMMERCIAL MAKES – YEAR-TO-DATE 2018

CH

EV

RO

LET

DO

DG

E

FIA

T

FOR

D

HIN

O

HO

LDE

N

ISU

ZU

MA

ZD

A

MIT

SUB

ISH

I

NIS

SAN

TO

YO

TA

VO

LKSW

A-

GE

N

OT

HE

R

TO

TAL

18-Jan 13 8 35 45 26 22 57 78 36 210 441 3 50 102417-Jan 19 4 23 30 19 13 41 83 33 197 404 10 52 928

% diff -32 100 52 50 37 69 39 -6 9 7 9 -70 -4 1018-Feb 19 3 15 48 49 16 47 41 41 203 407 8 51 94817-Feb 15 2 9 35 31 19 45 94 40 191 466 10 41 998

% diff 27 50 67 37 58 -16 4 -56 3 6 -13 -20 24 -5YTD 18 32 11 50 93 75 38 104 119 77 413 848 11 101 1972YTD 17 34 6 32 65 50 32 86 177 73 388 870 20 93 1926

%diff -6 83 56 43 50 19 21 -33 5 6 -3 -45 9 2


close behind with Ford with 48, Isuzu 47 and Mazda and Mitsubishi equal with 41 each.

The Toyota Hiace was top on 300 units, followed in second by the Nissan Caravan on 74. Up next was the Nis-san NV200 on 41, the Mazda Bongo on 38 and the Toyota Dyna on 35.

EVs close to 8000 goal

New Zealand’s EV fleet size is closing in quickly on this year’s

8000 target, reaching 6884 in February.

Light EV registrations for the month totalled 281, compared with 230 for February last year, latest Ministry of Transport figures show. It was just 62 in Feb-ruary 2016.

Used light pure electric vehicles continue to lead the field, with 3664 recorded in February 2018 – up 172 on the previous month.

New light pure electrics reached 1358 in February, up 30 on January.

Close behind are new light plug-in hybrids on 1292, 63 more than January, and used light plug-in hybrids are fur-ther back on 491 – 13 more than last month.

Heavy EVs have barely moved – they’re up by just two on January at 79.

New Zealand has a goal of reaching about 64,000 EVs on the road by the end of 2021, aiming to double the number each year until then.

The target is 8000 by the end of this year and 16,000 by the end of 2019 to achieve the goal. It is likely to be met much earlier at this rate.

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20 TOP USED IMPORT PASSENGER MODELS

MAKE MODELFEB'18

MAKE MODELFEB'17

SUZUKI SWIFT 581 MAZDA AXELA 570MAZDA AXELA 572 SUZUKI SWIFT 551TOYOTA COROLLA 517 NISSAN TIIDA 540NISSAN TIIDA 514 HONDA FIT 468MAZDA DEMIO 499 MAZDA DEMIO 447HONDA FIT 461 TOYOTA COROLLA 445SUBARU LEGACY 328 TOYOTA WISH 279MAZDA ATENZA 264 TOYOTA PRIUS 271TOYOTA VITZ 264 SUBARU LEGACY 269TOYOTA WISH 255 VOLKSWAGEN GOLF 263VOLKSWAGEN GOLF 216 MAZDA ATENZA 257TOYOTA PRIUS 214 TOYOTA MARKX 245MAZDA PREMACY 210 TOYOTA VITZ 224TOYOTA MARKX 203 MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER 205NISSAN NOTE 174 MAZDA PREMACY 202MAZDA MPV 172 HONDA ODYSSEY 186MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER 172 BMW 3 SERIES 180NISSAN DUALIS 160 TOYOTA ESTIMA 175SUBARU IMPREZA 154 NISSAN DUALIS 172NISSAN LEAF 146 MAZDA MPV 171

20 TOP USED IMPORT PASSENGER MAKES

MAKEFEB'18

FEB'17

Movement% Change

Market Share

TOYOTA 2872 3038 -5.5 23.8NISSAN 2220 2200 0.9 18.4MAZDA 1996 1871 6.7 16.6HONDA 1232 1308 -5.8 10.2SUBARU 696 546 Up 1 27.5 5.8SUZUKI 682 643 Down 1 6.1 5.7BMW 467 528 -11.6 3.9VOLKSWAGEN 366 439 -16.6 3.0MITSUBISHI 325 413 -21.3 2.7MERCEDES-BENZ 250 267 -6.4 2.1AUDI 192 227 -15.4 1.6FORD 122 109 11.9 1.0LEXUS 79 76 3.9 0.7CHEVROLET 63 53 Up 3 18.9 0.5LAND ROVER 54 71 -23.9 0.4VOLVO 52 74 Down 2 -29.7 0.4JAGUAR 49 39 Up 2 25.6 0.4HOLDEN 39 61 Down 2 -36.1 0.3MINI 30 44 Down 1 -31.8 0.2DODGE 28 25 Up 2 12.0 0.2OTHER 234 228 2.6 1.9TOTAL 12048 12260 -1.7 100.0

AROUND THE COUNTRY PASSENGER REGISTRATIONS

District FEB'18 FEB'17% CHANGE

WHA 276 260 6.15AUC 5713 5861 -2.53HAM 826 812 1.72THA 122 121 0.83TAU 466 513 -9.16ROT 180 143 25.87GIS 69 56 23.21NAP 219 249 -12.05NEW 175 181 -3.31WAN 99 92 7.61PAL 315 321 -1.87MAS 64 77 -16.88WEL 896 1019 -12.07NEL 254 234 8.55BLE 66 64 3.13GRE 35 26 34.62WES 3 13 -76.92CHR 1571 1554 1.09TIM 116 118 -1.69OAM 19 33 -42.42DUN 380 381 -0.26INV 184 132 39.39TOTAL 12048 12260 -1.73

The number of regis-tered traders rose to 3518 last month – up

eight from January.The rise occurred with

83 new registrations as traders, being offset by 75 dealers whose registrations

expired, were surrendered or cancelled.

According to the Motor Vehicle Traders Register, the number of dealers at the end of February was up by almost 100 (3436) since June last year.

Delays caused by vehicle carri-ers stuck at sea

because of stink bugs appear to have had some impact on the number of cars coming into the country.

The figures have been questioned further because some vehicles on ships turned away were counted as having landed in

the country.Latest Customs figures

show 17,568 cars crossed the border, down from 18,356 in

Customs figures show mixed results

Dealer numbers edge up

November.But the figures look

even worse when go-ing back to December, which saw 21,833 cars come into the coun-try and in November 25,528 cars arrived.

Just 9525 used cars arrived in February,

compared with 10,423 in January, 13,097 in December and 14,576 in November.

The number of new cars was up slightly in February on 8043, compared with 7933 in January.

But it was down on the December and November figures, which were 8736 and 10,952 respectively.




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STATSTALKNEW VEHICLES

NEW VEHICLES COMPETITIVE FINANCE

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:


NEW PASSENGER MAKES

MAKEFEB'18

FEB'17

Movement% Change

Market Share

TOYOTA 1013 990 2.3 13.7MAZDA 773 755 2.4 10.4HOLDEN 602 654 -8.0 8.1SUZUKI 577 624 -7.5 7.8KIA 512 513 Up 3 -0.2 6.9MITSUBISHI 489 547 Up 1 -10.6 6.6HYUNDAI 489 606 Down 1 -19.3 6.6HONDA 412 373 Up 1 10.5 5.6FORD 395 611 Down 4 -35.4 5.3VOLKSWAGEN 342 355 -3.7 4.6NISSAN 269 346 -22.3 3.6AUDI 169 176 Up 2 -4.0 2.3MERCEDES-BENZ 166 245 -32.2 2.2SUBARU 157 305 Down 2 -48.5 2.1BMW 144 160 -10.0 1.9JEEP 142 56 Up 4 153.6 1.9SKODA 104 104 Down 1 0.0 1.4PEUGEOT 86 48 Up 3 79.2 1.2LAND ROVER 76 93 Down 2 -18.3 1.0MINI 70 45 Up 3 55.6 0.9Other 428 444 -3.6 5.8TOTAL 7415 8050 -7.9 100.0

NEW PASSENGER MODELSVEHICLE MAKE

MODELFEB'18

MAKE MODELFEB'17

SUZUKI SWIFT 307 TOYOTA COROLLA 351MAZDA CX-5 276 KIA SPORTAGE 279TOYOTA COROLLA 250 MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER 217KIA SPORTAGE 223 HYUNDAI TUCSON 213HOLDEN COMMODORE 214 MAZDA CX-5 213TOYOTA RAV4 205 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER 203MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER 170 HYUNDAI SANTA FE 189HONDA CRV 169 FORD ESCAPE 178HYUNDAI KONA 141 MAZDA MAZDA3 178NISSAN QASHQAI 140 VOLKSWAGEN TIGUAN 176

MAZDA CX-3 137 SUZUKI SWIFT 171

TOYOTA YARIS 137 SUZUKI VITARA 162

VOLKSWAGEN TIGUAN 132 HOLDEN CAPTIVA 148

MAZDA MAZDA3 131 TOYOTA RAV4 148

FORD ESCAPE 128 SUBARU OUTBACK 135

TOYOTA HIGHLANDER 128 MITSUBISHI ASX 133

MITSUBISHI ASX 121 SUZUKI IGNIS 132

VOLKSWAGEN GOLF 119 FORD FOCUS 131

HOLDEN CAPTIVA 112 NISSAN X-TRAIL 126

HONDA JAZZ 112 HONDA JAZZ 125

New car registrations are down 2% for the month of February,

the latest Motor Industry As-sociation (MIA) figures show.

That’s a drop of 254 units on 2017.

However, year-to-date the market is up 3% (751) compared to the first two months of 2017.

“While the market for new vehicles remains strong, some vehicle segments were constrained by low stocks levels, which will continue into the foreseeable future,” MIA chief executive David Crawford says.

Registrations of 7415 pas-

senger and SUV vehicles for the month of February were down 8% or 637, while com-mercial vehicles grew 10% to 4116.

Toyota remains the overall market leader with 17% market share or 1959 units. It was followed by Ford with

New vehicle registrations dip slightly

10% or 1183 and Holden with 8% market share or 968.

Toyota grabbed 14% market share of the passen-ger and SUV segment (1013 units) followed by Mazda with 10% (773) and Holden with 8% (602).

In the commercial sector, Toyota regained the market lead with 23% market share (946) followed by Ford with 19% (788 units) and Nissan with 9% market share (384).

The four top-selling mod-els of February were all light commercial vehicles.

The Ford Ranger was back at the top of the bestselling vehicle model table with 735 registrations, followed by the Toyota Hilux with 703 and the Nissan Navara with 384.

c









BROUGHT TO YOU BY:


NEW COMMERCIAL MAKES (UNDER 3500KG)

MAKEFEB'18

FEB'17

Movement% Change

Market Share

TOYOTA 946 747 26.6 23.0FORD 788 713 10.5 19.1NISSAN 384 346 Up 1 11.0 9.3MITSUBISHI 368 282 Up 1 30.5 8.9HOLDEN 366 364 Down 2 0.5 8.9ISUZU 304 255 19.2 7.4MAZDA 169 186 -9.1 4.1VOLKSWAGEN 110 76 Up 2 44.7 2.7LDV 102 101 Down 1 1.0 2.5HINO 68 45 Up 5 51.1 1.7Other 511 619 -17.4 12.4TOTAL 4116 3734 10.2 100.0

NEW COMMERCIAL MODELS (UNDER 3500KG)

MAKE MODEL FEB'18

MAKE MODEL FEB'17

FORD RANGER 735 FORD RANGER 664TOYOTA HILUX 703 TOYOTA HILUX 533NISSAN NAVARA 384 HOLDEN COLORADO 351MITSUBISHI TRITON 368 NISSAN NAVARA 346HOLDEN COLORADO 362 MITSUBISHI TRITON 282TOYOTA HIACE 208 TOYOTA HIACE 196ISUZU D-MAX 195 MAZDA BT-50 186MAZDA BT-50 169 ISUZU D-MAX 161SSANGYONG ACTYON SPORT 63 HYUNDAI ILOAD 95HYUNDAI ILOAD 61 LDV V80 63

Australian Febru-ary vehicle sales have smashed

last year’s results with nine out of the top ten manufacturers record-ing increases.

February’s sales total of 95,999, based on registrations, is a 7.8% increase on February 2017, surging the 2018 cumulative total to 184,550 for the year-to-date.

In order of rank, Toyota, Mazda, Hyun-dai, Mitsubishi and Ford take out first to fifth, and Nissan, Honda, Kia and Volkswagen placed sev-enth to 10th.

Holden in sixth with 10,408 year-to-date sales based on registrations, saw a 2500-sale (19.4%)

drop over its 2017 result of 12,908. With 5724 sales in February 2017, last month’s 4689 result was an 18.1% slump and left it the only brand in the top 10 without an improvement.

By comparison Honda had a stellar February,

notching up a 55% monthly improve-ment over 2017 and an impressive 43.2% jump in year-to-date sales, at 9543 in 2018, versus 6666 by this time last year.

Toyota smashed the 30,000 barrier, no doubt with help from 2017 plate clearances. It has racked up 33,587 thus far in 2018, compared with a more conserva-tive 28,862 by end of February 2017.

The increasingly popular SUV segment marches on with a 41.5% market share (up 12.1% over February 2017), cour-tesy of small-SUV models selling 21.4% higher than in the same month last year, medium models selling 17.1% higher and large SUVs rising by 12.9%.

Record sales for Aussie market

NEW AROUND THE COUNTRY PASSENGER

REGISTRATIONSDIST

FEB'18

FEB'17

% CHANGE

WHA 175 195 -10.26AUC 3176 3596 -11.68HAM 502 535 -6.17THA 100 78 28.21TAU 338 357 -5.32ROT 151 91 65.93GIS 39 33 18.18NAP 209 216 -3.24NEW 144 156 -7.69WAN 97 96 1.04PAL 224 279 -19.71MAS 98 56 75.00WEL 790 807 -2.11NEL 103 93 10.75BLE 64 72 -11.11GRE 10 16 -37.50WES 1 5 -80.00CHR 703 814 -13.64TIM 74 87 -14.94OAM 9 16 -43.75DUN 235 306 -23.20INV 173 146 18.49TOTAL 7415 8050 -7.89










BROUGHT TO YOU BY:


NEW PASSENGER MAKES

ALF

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OM

EO

AU

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ER

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CH

RY

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18-Jan 12 178 187 0 1 7 846 0 777 524 553 82 762 73 62 1025 188 77 626 423 89 54 140 82 342 591 2490 300 57 250 10798

17-Jan 7 154 198 2 1 15 778 0 1381 405 540 71 603 111 55 779 222 73 647 478 73 58 106 60 236 728 1644 474 44 207 10150

% diff 71 16 -6 -100 0 -53 9 -44 29 2 15 26 -34 13 32 -15 5 -3 -12 22 -7 32 37 45 -19 51 -37 30 21 6

18-Feb 5 169 144 0 1 4 395 0 602 412 489 142 512 76 69 773 166 70 489 269 86 35 104 64 157 577 1013 342 47 203 7415

17-Feb 3 176 160 0 4 23 611 0 654 373 606 56 513 93 62 755 245 45 547 346 48 22 104 93 305 624 990 355 48 189 8050

% diff 67 -4 -10 -75 -83 -35 -8 10 -19 154 0 -18 11 2 -32 56 -11 -22 79 59 0 -31 -49 -8 2 -4 -2 7 -8

YTD 18 17 347 331 0 2 11 1241 0 1379 936 1042 224 1274 149 131 1798 354 147 1115 692 175 89 244 146 499 1168 3503 642 104 453 18213

YTD 17 10 330 358 2 5 38 1389 0 2035 778 1146 127 1116 204 117 1534 467 118 1194 824 121 80 210 153 541 1352 2634 829 92 396 18200

%diff 70 5 -8 -100 -60 -71 -11 0 -32 20 -9 76 14 -27 12 17 -24 25 -7 -16 45 11 16 -5 -8 -14 33 -23 13 14 0

NEW COMMERCIAL MAKES (UNDER 3500KG) – YEAR-TO-DATE

FIA

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FOR

D

FOT

ON

GR

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ALL

HIN

O

HO

LDE

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UN

DA

I

ISU

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LDV

MA

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A

MER

CED

ES-B

ENZ

MIT

SUB

ISH

I

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SUBI

SHI

FUSO

NIS

SAN

SSA

NG

YO

NG

TO

YO

TA

VOLK

SWAG

EN

OT

HE

R

TO

TAL

18-Jan 101 808 66 66 16 46 385 64 258 153 172 57 318 284 94 780 165 204 4037

17-Jan 63 788 67 45 0 42 383 68 271 87 154 40 219 276 83 698 123 266 3673

% diff 60 3 -1 47 10 1 -6 -5 76 12 43 45 3 13 12 34 -23 10

18-Feb 59 788 47 50 8 68 366 64 304 102 169 48 368 384 63 946 110 172 4116

17-Feb 64 713 66 35 8 45 364 97 255 101 186 51 282 346 52 747 76 246 3734

% diff -8 11 -29 43 0 51 1 -34 19 1 -9 -6 30 11 21 27 45 -30 10

YTD 18 160 1596 113 116 24 114 751 128 562 255 341 105 686 668 157 1726 275 376 8153

YTD 17 127 1501 133 80 8 87 747 165 526 188 340 91 501 622 135 1445 199 512 7407

%diff 26 6 -15 45 200 31 1 -22 7 36 0 15 37 7 16 19 38 -27 10

The six-cylinder is from the same family as the unit in the old Commodore but it’s heavily revised.

“There’s not much of the old V6 left in its character; it’s responsive and has more power and torque than before and the nine-speed transmission has really transformed it,” Tassone says.

“Holden put its hand up to design the architecture to take the V6.”

The VXR performance

variant was also developed by Holden at the Nurbur-gring motorsports complex in Germany, using General Motors’ dedicated nearby facility.

The Twinster all-wheel-drive system uses a twin-clutch rear differential system that gets torque vectoring.

“It’s a really unique system which does away with a conventional rear differential, with a clutch pack on each side, delivering torque inde-pendently to either side.”

Four-cylinder surprisesWe got the chance to try

most of the Commodore range on a 400km route through Otago.

The most striking im-pression was how good the turbocharged engine is - quiet and refined, with a beefy midrange and a lot of urgency in the way it responds.

The six-cylinder is also re-sponsive but lacks the push-in-the-back feeling of the turbo. It sounds good too, so much so that the noise

enhancement system in the VXR sounds a little awkward.

Grip and ride are a step above competitors such as the Mazda 6 and Toyota Camry, though we felt the steering was a tad too arti-ficial.

With the four-cylinder models, we could not get an accurate feel for what show-room models will be like because the test cars had yet to be fitted with new local-spec dampers.

Interior quality feels de-cent and the design - which appears similar to the Astra – seems thoughtfully laid out.

Entry level models do feel a little dated, even in comparison to the outgoing model, and the upper mod-els don’t feel as sumptuous as the previous car.

Still, space is efficiently used for front-seat passen-gers. In the rear, legroom is excellent although the mid-dle position feels a little tight for a large vehicle.

‘Emotionally charged’ roll-out for new CommodoreContinued from page 16




STATSTALKSECONDHAND


SECONDHAND REGISTRATIONS − FEBRUARY 2018SALE TYPE WHA AUC HAM THA TAU ROT GIS NAP NEW WAN PAL MAS WEL NEL BLE GRE WES CHR TIM OAM DUN INV TOTAL

Cars 2017

Public to Trader 282 4626 957 157 530 117 79 370 153 153 947 112 1101 229 79 18 1609 114 4 359 269 12265

Public to Public 1927 13906 3163 699 1950 971 431 1480 966 602 1665 487 3055 1054 445 171 25 5316 536 104 2046 1093 42092

Trader to Public 573 5546 1250 279 765 370 139 552 329 270 715 221 1478 320 146 71 5 2077 178 36 660 400 16380

Cars 2016

Public to Trader 232 4474 1097 98 552 64 52 349 229 124 704 73 1143 201 113 30 1670 129 12 426 258 12030

Public to Public 1918 14380 3401 543 2107 804 382 1498 1036 480 1636 378 2857 1056 405 189 77 5221 544 175 1960 954 42001

Trader to Public 524 5239 1342 230 848 263 152 527 365 177 706 160 1413 317 155 66 15 1972 228 58 632 383 15772

Cars % Change

Public to Trader 21.6 3.4 -12.8 60.2 -4.0 82.8 51.9 6.0 -33.2 23.4 34.5 53.4 -3.7 13.9 -30.1 -40.0 -3.7 -11.6 -66.7 -15.7 4.3 2.0

Public to Public 0.5 -3.3 -7.0 28.7 -7.5 20.8 12.8 -1.2 -6.8 25.4 1.8 28.8 6.9 -0.2 9.9 -9.5 -67.5 1.8 -1.5 -40.6 4.4 14.6 0.2

Trader to Public 9.4 5.9 -6.9 21.3 -9.8 40.7 -8.6 4.7 -9.9 52.5 1.3 38.1 4.6 0.9 -5.8 7.6 -66.7 5.3 -21.9 -37.9 4.4 4.4 3.9

Motorcycles 2017

Public to Trader 3 130 34 24 2 7 5 6 21 2 59 7 2 39 1 21 6 369

Public to Public 62 581 130 24 129 27 12 68 52 17 72 17 163 61 27 7 7 239 30 9 71 37 1842

Trader to Public 12 123 37 4 35 8 1 8 10 7 21 5 51 8 4 48 6 14 8 410

Motorcycles 2016

Public to Trader 7 121 26 28 1 4 6 3 26 2 42 12 1 37 3 16 4 339

Public to Public 74 612 146 18 96 38 14 86 69 22 69 14 179 64 31 15 5 263 37 7 82 46 1987

Trader to Public 15 108 28 8 18 7 2 9 14 5 20 6 55 13 4 1 37 5 3 12 5 375

Motorcycles % change

Public to Trader -57.1 7.4 30.8 -14.3 100.0 75.0 -16.7 100.0 -19.2 0.0 40.5 -41.7 -100.0 5.4 -66.7 31.3 50.0 8.8

Public to Public -16.2 -5.1 -11.0 33.3 34.4 -28.9 -14.3 -20.9 -24.6 -22.7 4.3 21.4 -8.9 -4.7 -12.9 -53.3 40.0 -9.1 -18.9 28.6 -13.4 -19.6 -7.3

Trader to Public -20.0 13.9 32.1 -50.0 94.4 14.3 -50.0 -11.1 -28.6 40.0 5.0 -16.7 -7.3 -38.5 0.0 -100.0 29.7 20.0 -100.0 16.7 60.0 9.3

Trucks 2017

Public to Trader 61 597 229 35 88 24 18 66 38 22 121 18 108 58 34 8 214 23 3 60 74 1899

Public to Public 314 1754 502 106 358 143 86 249 175 114 248 88 326 171 78 42 12 750 77 36 309 180 6118

Trader to Public 115 684 264 49 157 50 52 108 67 26 130 31 175 62 43 15 7 286 38 15 152 81 2607

Trucks 2016

Public to Trader 59 511 191 8 87 36 33 72 33 22 125 25 93 51 43 11 225 31 1 74 66 1797

Public to Public 347 1538 482 93 371 138 74 205 164 100 259 82 353 179 82 48 11 773 107 33 257 198 5894

Trader to Public 109 625 233 42 147 60 45 114 62 39 136 55 132 71 44 16 4 341 40 12 136 80 2543

Trucks % change

Public to Trader 3.4 16.8 19.9 337.5 1.1 -33.3 -45.5 -8.3 15.2 0.0 -3.2 -28.0 16.1 13.7 -20.9 -27.3 -4.9 -25.8 200.0 -18.9 12.1 5.7

Public to Public -9.5 14.0 4.1 14.0 -3.5 3.6 16.2 21.5 6.7 14.0 -4.2 7.3 -7.6 -4.5 -4.9 -12.5 9.1 -3.0 -28.0 9.1 20.2 -9.1 3.8

Trader to Public 5.5 9.4 13.3 16.7 6.8 -16.7 15.6 -5.3 8.1 -33.3 -4.4 -43.6 32.6 -12.7 -2.3 -6.3 75.0 -16.1 -5.0 25.0 11.8 1.3 2.5

Second-hand vehicle sales were up during February but it’s not clear if that will continue as the stink bug

issue creates a shortage of fresh import stock.

It’s possible some dealers will shift to the second-time-round market to keep cashflow moving as they wait. The longer the ships are delayed, the more

likely growth in second-hand demand will rise.

Dealer-to-public sales are already heading up, with sales growing 3.9% to 16,380 units, while dealer purchases were up 2% to 12,265 units.

The public transactions totalled 42,092, up 0.2% year-on-year.

The bike market had a huge month

in February, with dealer sales up 9.3% to 410, and public-to-trader registrations up 8.8% to 339.

Public-to-public sales were down 7.3% to 1842.

In trucks, sales by dealers were up 2.5% to 2607 and dealer purchases up 5.7% to 1899. Public transactions were up 3.8% to 6118.

Second-hand sales rise to continue?

All the Auto Industry HOT NEWS every day as it happens on www.autotalk.co.nzSubscribe online for FREE twice weekly updates direct to your email


STATSTALKTRUCKS

STATSTALKBIKES


NEW BIKE MODELSMAKE MODEL FEB'18TNT MOTOR ROMA 2T 37SUZUKI GSX150 FDZA GIXXER 23SUZUKI UZ50 22FORZA CICLONE 17KAWASAKI EX 400G L 17KTM 390 DUKE 17FORZA CAPRI LX 16PIAGGIO ZIP 50 2T 16SUZUKI GSX150 DXA GIXXER 13APRILIA SR MOTARD 50 11TOTAL 764

USED BIKE MAKESMAKE FEB'18 FEB'17 % CHANGE MARKET

HARLEY DAVIDSON 80 72 11.1 33.1HONDA 31 23 34.8 12.8YAMAHA 19 12 58.3 7.9DUCATI 16 23 -30.4 6.6SUZUKI 16 16 0.0 6.6TRIUMPH 16 25 -36.0 6.6BMW 15 27 -44.4 6.2KAWASAKI 12 13 -7.7 5.0HYOSUNG 7 0 #DIV/0! 2.9KTM 5 10 -50.0 2.1Other 25 24 4.2 10.3TOTAL 242 245 -1.2 100.0

NEW BIKE MAKES

VEHICLE MAKEFEB'18

YTD'18

FEB'17% Change

Market Share %

SUZUKI 122 263 123 -0.8 16.0YAMAHA 82 185 73 12.3 10.7HARLEY DAVIDSON 68 150 91 -25.3 8.9HONDA 63 122 49 28.6 8.2KAWASAKI 54 98 29 86.2 7.1TNT MOTOR 42 66 35 20.0 5.5TRIUMPH 38 77 32 18.8 5.0KTM 37 74 32 15.6 4.8FORZA 33 60 18 83.3 4.3APRILIA 24 55 21 14.3 3.1INDIAN 23 53 13 76.9 3.0VESPA 23 56 15 53.3 3.0BMW 20 53 22 -9.1 2.6PIAGGIO 18 32 28 -35.7 2.4ROYAL ENFIELD 15 26 15 0.0 2.0MOPED 13 41 13 0.0 1.7MOTO GUZZI 11 15 6 83.3 1.4DUCATI 10 16 12 -16.7 1.3FACTORY BUILT 10 21 23 -56.5 1.3TGB 9 20 4 125.0 1.2Other 49 88 84 -41.7 6.4TOTAL 764 1571 738 3.5 100.0

Talk to Dale Stevenson about advertising your business here with AutoTalk – in print and online

Phone: + 64 21 446 214 | Email: [email protected] | www.autotalk.co.nz

Do you sell or deal with Motorcycles? your

ad here

Bike registrations were up again as the warm-est summer on record

continued in February.Total new bike regis-

trations were 764 for the month, up 3.5% year-on-year. For the year, 1571 bikes have been registered.

Suzuki continues to lead, though its own result was down marginally, by 0.8% to 122 units, a 16% market share.

Yamaha was second on 82, up 12.3% for a 10.7% share, followed in third by Harley Davidson on 68, down 25.3% for an 8.9% stake.

Honda was the fourth

most popular brand on 63, up 28.6% for an 8.2% share, followed by Kawasaki on 54, up 86.2% for 7.1% of the market.

A scooter returned to the top of the market in Febru-ary, with the TNT Roma 2T on 37 heading off the recent champ, the Suzuki GSX150 Gixxer on 23.

The Suzuki UZ50 was next on 22, followed by the Forza Ciclone, Kawasaki EX300G L and KTM Duke on seventeen units a piece.

Steady for usedUsed registrations were

relatively steady year-on-year, down 1.2%, or three

Steady rise for bike market

units, to 242.Harley Davidson domi-

nated, with 80 units regis-tered, up 11.1% for a 33.1% market share.

Honda took second on 31, up 34.8% for a 12.8% stake, while Yamaha was third on 19, up 58.3% for a 7.9% share.

AUTOTALK MARCH 2018 | www.autotalk.co.nz | 41 AUTOTALK MARCH 2018 | www.autotalk.co.nz | 41

NEW TRUCK MAKES (OVER 3500KG)

MAKEFEB'18

FEB'17

% CHANGE

MARKETYTD'18

YTD'17

ISUZU 109 94 16.0 24.9 175 167HINO 68 45 51.1 15.5 114 87FUSO 50 65 -23.1 11.4 116 132MERCEDES-BENZ 28 23 21.7 6.4 62 42DAF 27 15 80.0 6.2 48 28FIAT 22 25 -12.0 5.0 59 50KENWORTH 20 14 42.9 4.6 52 29UD TRUCKS 17 19 -10.5 3.9 39 37VOLVO 16 34 -52.9 3.7 37 55IVECO 15 15 0.0 3.4 38 27Other 66 64 3.1 15.1 154 161TOTAL 438 413 6.1 100.0 894 815

USED TRUCK MAKES

MAKEFEB'18

FEB'17

% CHANGE

MARKETYTD'18

YTD'17

HINO 49 31 58.1 24.9 75 50TOYOTA 42 29 44.8 21.3 75 53ISUZU 36 44 -18.2 18.3 91 78MITSUBISHI 23 27 -14.8 11.7 42 41NISSAN 10 10 0.0 5.1 29 21IVECO 5 1 400.0 2.5 6 3MERCEDES-BENZ 5 1 400.0 2.5 7 6FIAT 4 1 300.0 2.0 14 3FORD 4 5 -20.0 2.0 5 6MAZDA 3 6 -50.0 1.5 9 7Other 16 19 -15.8 8.1 38 38TOTAL 197 174 13.2 100.0 391 306

Phone: + 64 21 446 214 | Email: [email protected] | www.autotalk.co.nz

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Talk to Dale Stevenson about advertising your business here with AutoTalk – in print and online

Isuzu is leading the pack for new truck registra-tions for the month.The company had a 25%

market share for February and was up 16% year-on-year with 109 registrations, NZ Transport Agency figures show.

Hino was in second place with 68 registrations for the month and a 15.5% market share. It was up 51% year-on-year.

Fuso came in third with 50 and a 11.4% market share. It took a hit on its year-on-year result, falling 23% after registering 65 units in Febru-ary 2017.

Mercedes-Benz followed with 28 and a 6.4% market share, up 21.7% year-on-year.

DAF had 27 for February, up 80% year-on-year having registered 15 in February 2017.

Isuzu’s new trucks lead the wayMeanwhile, Fiat registered

22, down 12% year-on-year; Kenworth had 20, up 43% year-on-year; UD Trucks 17, down 10.5% year-on-year; Volvo 16, down 53% year-on-year; and Iveco 15, equal year-on-year.

Hino led the market in used truck registrations for the month.

The company had a 25% market share for February and was up 58% year-on-year with 49 registrations.

Toyota was in second

with 42 registrations for the month and a 21% market share, up 45% year-on-year.

Isuzu was third with 36 and an 18% market share. It took a hit on its year-on-year result though, falling 18% after registering 44 units in February 2017.

Mitsubishi was down 15% year-on-year with 23, Nissan stayed equal with 10, Iveco and Mercedes-Benz had five each, Fiat and Ford had four each and Mazda had three.

STATSTALKTRUCKS


TRIBUNALTALK

In September 2017, the purchaser, a company, paid $13,100 for a 2007

Mazda CX7 with an odom-eter reading of 72,126km.

It bought the vehicle to be used by a director of the company for driving to and from work, and for family purposes.

The day after taking pos-session, the director noticed a ticking noise from the engine when the car was cold. The vehicle was later diagnosed as having a fault with its timing chain and VVT actuator.

The trader declined to pay the full cost of repairing the fault, claiming the Consumer Guarantees Act did not cover the sale because the vehicle was purchased for business purposes.

It offered to supply re-placement parts but insisted the purchaser was responsi-ble for the repair costs.

The vehicle offer and sale agreement (VOSA) dated September 12, 2017 was in writing and included that both parties are in trade, and the vehicle was sup-plied and acquired in trade.

The trader supplied the vehicle as a motor vehicle dealer and the purchaser is a transport company.

The VOSA also contains a clause whereby the parties agreed that the Act did not apply to the transaction.

Th adjudicator indicated, however, he was not satis-fied it was fair and reason-able that the parties should be bound by the exclusion clause, noting the vehicle was of a type normally used domestically and it was used in that way.

“(The purchaser) advised that he used the vehicle to drive to and from work and for personal use outside of work hours. I accept his evidence and am satisfied that, despite the clause in the VOSA that states the parties agreed the vehicle was to be used for business purposes, this vehicle was not acquired for business purposes.”

The adjudicator said there was an imbalance in bar-gaining power between the trader and purchaser.

The agreement was on the trader’s standard form and its terms did not appear to have been subject to negotiation. The trader was a registered motor vehicle dealer but the purchaser did not have the same experi-ence in dealing with or ne-gotiating motor vehicle sale

and purchase contracts.He also noted neither

party sought legal advice, although he acknowledged it would be unusual for a buyer or seller to seek such advice before buying a $13,100 motor vehicle.

“However, it is relevant to my assessment of fairness and reasonableness that the purchaser received no advice, either from a lawyer or the trader, on the exist-ence and effect of the exclu-sion clause. The trader knew of the existence and effect of the exclusion clause. It is contained in the VOSA, which is the trader’s own standard form agreement.”

The purchaser advised he had not read the exclu-sion clause and did not understand it meant he had agreed to contract out of the Act.

“Ultimately, the Act is consumer protection legisla-tion,” the adjudicator said.

“(The purchaser) is a consumer – it purchased a vehicle of a kind ordinar-ily acquired for personal, domestic or household use, and the vehicle has been used for that purpose.

“Given the imbalance in the respective bargaining power of the parties and the

absence of clear evidence that (the purchaser) has knowingly agreed to con-tract out of the provisions of the Act, (the purchaser) is entitled to the protections contained within the Act.

“I am therefore satisfied the parties have not validly agreed to contract out of the Act and that the protec-tions of the Act apply in this case.”

Did the vehicle meet the guarantee of acceptable quality? It had been as-sessed by a Mazda franchise repairer, who considered the timing chain and VVT actua-tor required replacement. The trader estimated repairs would cost $2019.20.

The tribunal’s asses-sor said the symptom was common with this model of vehicle as the VVT actua-tor became noisy when the vehicle was cold. The noise reduced as the vehicle warmed up but eventually it would become permanent as the timing chain stretched further.

The tribunal found the car failed to meet the standard expected. The trader was given ten working days to repair the fault with the vehi-cle’s timing chain and VVT actuator.

An imbalance in powerAmritz Carrier Ltd vs Autopost Ltd t/a Vehicle Import Centre

In September 2016, the purchaser, a com-pany, paid $6720 for a

2006 Hyundai Tucson with 114,516km on its odometer. The car was being sold on behalf of another company by the registered auctioneer.

The purchaser did not inspect the vehicle, instead

claiming to have relied upon the trader’s “Basic Vehicle Condition Guide” which con-tained information about the mechanical and cosmetic condition of the vehicle. Turners also published nu-merous photographs of the vehicle.

The purchaser’s director

says the vehicle had dam-age that was not adequately disclosed and had a cambelt rather than the disclosed timing chain.

He alleged the vehicle did not meet the standards of acceptable quality under the Consumer Guarantees Act.

The trader denied the al-

legations, saying it had no li-ability under the Act because it was not a supplier for the purposes of that Act.

Further, it said it had not engaged in misleading conduct in relation to the disclosure of damage to the vehicle or the failure to dis-

The ‘Condition Guide’ A Tec Designs Ltd v Turners Group NZ Ltd t/a Turners



TRIBUNALTALK

disclose this information. Have your customer read the form

in conjunction with a description of the main “features and benefits” of each insurance product.

List all products on the disclo-sure form and ask your customer to answer yes or no to accept or decline each individual product.

Make sure you obtain their signature to confirm the process. Involving your customer and keeping a record achieves two important procedures: • It confirms that the offering is not

a casual sales pitch and that the protection offered under such policies should be taken seriously.

• A record of the disclosure process will protect you as the Trader, should a customer portray at a later date that they were not of-fered protection, or the disclosure was not correctly undertaken.

As professionals, we should all take disclosure seriously and we should not preconceive the requirements of an individual customer. Unless you disclose, you will have no idea how you can assist and protect your customer.

Lastly, you will all know of custom-ers which have enjoyed the benefits that insurance cover provides in rela-tion to mechanical breakdown insur-ance, consumer credit insurance and guaranteed asset protection.

Draw on those experiences and use them as testimonials.

If you disclose your products cor-rectly and you understand how to overcome the main objections and misconceptions, the benefits and features will allow the product to sell itself.

Remember, offering protection makes for a better customer experi-ence - “insurance is the one thing that you can’t buy when you are in imme-diate need of its protection”.

If you or your staff need further advice, training or assistance to understand your responsibilities or to more effectively sell finance and insurance products, call me now and I’ll be happy to help.

Meeting your obligation of disclosureContinued from page 30

close that the vehicle had a cambelt rather than a timing chain.

The adjudicator found that because the vehicle was sold at auction, the trader could not be held liable under the Act.

The question remained, however, over whether the trader had engaged in mis-leading conduct under the Fair Trading Act.

The purchaser claimed the condition guide failed to note a number of issues, including a dent in the rear corner, a hole in a taillight, missing screws in the rear bumper and scuffing on a sill.

The adjudicator agreed most of the issues were not

fully identified in the condi-tion guide.

“I am satisfied that, by publishing the condition guide and photographs, (the trader) represented that all reasonably identifiable defects and damage were disclosed in the condition guide and photographs.

“The condition guide conveys that the vehicle has been inspected by (the trader) and that all reason-ably identifiable defects and damage have been noted on the condition guide.

“In reaching this conclu-sion, I note that the condi-tion guide states, in a clear manner, that is not a war-ranty and that prospective purchasers are advised that

it is a superficial inspection only, in that parts have not been dismantled and diag-nostic testing has not been undertaken. (The trader) also recommends that prospec-tive purchasers obtain a full mechanical inspection prior to purchase.”

However, he did find the condition guide would give a reasonable consumer the impression all reasonably detectable damage had been identified.

Consumers would then have a reasonable expec-tation that the trader had disclosed all reasonably identifiable damage to the vehicle.

“The condition guide did not adequately disclose

all reasonably identifiable damage. The vehicle had reasonably identifiable dam-age to its driver side taillight, missing bumper screws and a significant scuff to the rear driver side sill that was not adequately disclosed.”

By failing to adequately disclose all identifiable damage, the adjudicator was satisfied the trader had breached the Act. He found the same with the condition guide indicating the car had a timing chain when it had a cambelt.

The adjudicator awarded the purchaser the costs of replacing the cambelt, though he noted it was unlikely to suffer a loss from the damage to the vehicle.


decoration, including a matt-red dashboard to match its choice of three exterior body colours – red, black or white.

The $29,990 “Beats” will set you back an extra $2000 above the $27,990 base

twin-pedal Polo but many will consider it a price worth pay-ing in terms of the personal image enhancement that it offers.

The $32,990 Polo R-Line DSG turns up the boost on the three-cylinder turbo,

producing 85kW and 200Nm power and force peaks, pruning a second from the 0-100kmh sprint interval at the cost of increasing fuel consumption to a still com-mendable 4.8litres/100km.

That’s a nice “half-way hot”

Polo hatch model to consider until the real performance hero, the $38,490 Polo GTI DSG, becomes available later this year. Expect 147kW and 320Nm outputs from the 2.0 turbo-petrol engine of the heaviest-hitting Polo.

‘People’s car’ set to expand its market shareContinued from page 19


DIARYTALK

THE DIARY AutoTalk’s group editor Scott Morgan looks at the month gone by on AutoTalk.co.nz


February 1 Five-star safety for Commodore Holden’s upcoming ZB Com-modore will land in New Zea-land early this year with a full five-star ANCAP rating – and a full suite of intelligent safety features.

The now German-sourced model scored well across a range of crash tests, achiev-ing an overall adult occupant protection score of 93% and a child occupant protection score of 85%.

AA Motoring Services gen-eral manager Stella Stocks says these results make the vehicle a safe pick for families.

Suzuki partners with Protecta Suzuki New Zealand has launched a range of insurance products for its customers in partnership with Protecta Insurance.

Products on offer include mechanical breakdown insurance, guaranteed asset protection, payment protec-tion and vehicle insurance for cars and motorcycles.

Suzuki Motorcycle Insur-ance has been available since October 2017 and has had a very positive dealer and customer response with very good sales volumes, says the announcement statement from Protecta.

Damaged vehicles should be ‘flagged’ The Motor Trade Association is

right behind the Government’s move to close loopholes which allow damaged cars to be imported, repaired and sold without the buyer being fully informed.

Vehicle safety is of huge importance to the 3600 MTA members who fix, fuel and sell cars throughout New Zealand, MTA chief executive Craig Pomare says.

“What we need is a simple, transparent system that easily allows consumers and traders to check the damage history of a vehicle – whether it is an import or not.”

February 2 Another record start to the year For the fifth year in a row, sales have kicked off with a record.

New vehicle registrations of 14,834 meant yet another record month of January. Registrations were up 7.3% (1011 units) on January 2017.

Passenger car and SUV registrations of 10,797 units were up 6.4% (647 units) on January 2017. Commercial vehicle registrations of 4,037 units were up 9.9% (364 units) on January 2017.

Write-off review welcomed A government review into whether dealers should have to reveal that a used import was a statutory write-off in its home country is being ap-plauded by the Motor Industry Association.

The issue came to light af-ter the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal raised concerns about cases where buyers were not told used cars they purchased were imported after being written off in Australia.

“When people purchase a vehicle, new or used, the whole history should be discussed at point of sale,” Motor Industry Association chief executive David Crawford told AutoTalk.

February 7 Imports start year with a bang The used import market has started with a record: The big-gest January ever for passen-ger car registrations.

A total of 13,719 units were sold, up 6.1% year-on-year. Commercial registrations also showed a strong gain, up 10.3% to 1024, the sixth big-gest January on record.

In passenger vehicles, Toyota leads on 3232 units, though this was down 4.8%, with a decline in market share to 23.6%.

February 8 VIA clarifies stability control VIA has advised members and the market that vans with seats will require electronic stabil-ity control, though not for another two years.

MA class vehicles – pas-senger cars – with engines of 2 litres or larger will require the safety technologies from March 1, 2018.

There has been some discussion about whether van-type vehicles with seats

could be considered MA but the association says that’s not possible.

Nichibo launches dealer app Vehicle importer and dis-tributor Nichibo has launched a new dealer app it says is already generating sales for customers in the field.

Part of the Optimus Group, Nichibo has been importing vehicles into New Zealand since 1988.

Director Robert Young says while visiting dealerships he regularly observed test drives and walk-in business being recorded on note pads or not at all.

February 12 Bug-infested ship turned around Mazda New Zealand is one of the distributors affected by a bug-infested ship being sent back to Australia.

The Courageous Ace was turned around from the Ports of Auckland on February 6 after the Ministry for Primary Industries found 50 dead and one live brown marmorated stink bug, and one live yellow stink bug.

The bugs have the potential to decimate New Zealand’s agriculture industry.

February 13 Price rise for updated Mustang The Ford Mustang will arrive with significant upgrades from this April but the price tag has been upgraded as well.

The range now opens at $62,990 for the EcoBoost

http://www.heiwa-auto.co.jp


DIARYTALK



model, topping out at $84,990 for the GT Convert-ible automatic. This compares to $59,880 and $82,880 for the existing range – with all the models in between seeing a similar rise.

However, the extra cost is arguably worth it, with significantly more features and performance on offer.

Holden turns down offerHolden has declined British billionaire industrialist San-jeev Gupta’s offer to buy the Elizabeth assembly plant in Adelaide.

It was reported a Gordon Murray electric vehicle was a potential candidate to be built on the site by Gupta’s GFG Alliance, which is currently owned by Pelligra Group.

Holden declined the pro-posal, saying in a statement that assets had already been arranged for global reuse and the two companies were at no stage close to an agreement.

February 14 Industry to meet over bug-affected ships Members of the vehicle logis-tics, compliance and shipping trades will meet with govern-ment officials as the number of vessels found to carry brown marmorated stink bugs hits four.

Carriers Tokyo Car, Glovis Caravel, Courageous Ace and Sepang Express have all been found to carry the bugs.

The four ships are carrying a range of new and used cars and heavy machinery. Equip-ment is not available in New Zealand to fumigate ships of their size.

February 15 Covers off new Commodore The head of General Motors international operations has made a brief stop to meet with

dealers and pull the covers off the new Holden Commodore.

General Motors Interna-tional president Barry Engle says the new model redefines one of the company’s most famous nameplates.

“This new generation of Commodore will redefine one of GM’s most famous name-plates. Commodore is now a truly global car for GM and offers levels of technology, engine options and body styles that will challenge perceptions of the car.”

Options sought on bug issue The flow of vehicles – both new and used – out of Japan appears to be coming to a halt as solutions are sought on how to stop the brown marmorated stink bug coming to New Zealand.

Four ships have all been found to carry vehicles affect-ed by the bugs, which have the potential to decimate the agriculture industry.

Around 7000 vehicles are understood to be stuck on the water.

February 16 Crisis brings VIA chief homeVIA chief executive David Vinsen is coming home two days into a 12-day holiday in Australia to deal with the stink bug crisis.

“There’s been nothing more serious in my 15 years in this role. In terms of a crisis, this has the potential to stop the industry in its tracks with the risk it poses to the agricul-tural sector.”

A working group formed at an industry meeting was convened at VIA’s Auckland headquarters.

February 16 Japan’s supply getting trickyThe head of one Japanese brand distributor says the effects of the stink bug issue will carry on for months, even

once the initial problem has been solved.

A range of distributors who source from Japan, or on the same shipping routes, have vehicles stuck offshore.

Subaru New Zealand is one, with managing director Wallis Dumper indicating 250 cars are part of one consignment that had been turned away.

February 19 ‘Pathways’ to be shut down Agriculture and Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says the stink bugs affect-ing the shipping of cars from Japan will not be allowed anywhere near New Zealand.

He told Newstalk ZB the bug could cause billions in damage to the economy and he is not letting it anywhere near our shores.

“We cannot afford to let it in and we will shut down the pathways wherever we find them.”

MITO scholarships awarded Forty-nine individuals will have their careers furthered by MITO’s 2018 scholarships.

The scholarships can be put towards apprenticeships, training programmes and business skills qualifications.

February 20 Court upholds write-off decision Dunedin car dealer Mervyn Cottle’s attempt to have a Mo-tor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal decision overturned has failed.

He sought a judicial review in the High Court of a deci-sion which awarded Stephen and Diane Loach a full refund of their vehicle.

The tribunal decided Cot-tle should have told them the Volkswagen Amarok they bought from his dealership, McBride St Cars, which trades as Tokyo Auto Town, was a statutory write-off in Australia.

Campaign aimed at

driver safety Driver Safety New Zealand has teamed up with Supercheap Auto to reduce the number of young driver fatalities.

The “Check it” campaign aims to reduce the number of fatalities and injuries as a result of vehicle factors by highlighting the importance of vehicle maintenance.

Research commissioned by Driver Safety New Zealand has found the ability to undertake general vehicle safety checks is “becoming extinct” with a third of drivers under 25 years surveyed not knowing enough about their car to do basic safety checks.

February 21 Driver licence corruption slammed Allegations of corruption among driver licensing officers are a huge concern for one industry leader.

An RNZ investigation has revealed three testing offic-ers are under investigation, with claims some were paid hundreds of dollars to illegally pass drivers.

Up to 350 people will have their licences cancelled or have to re-sit the test, while fake overseas truck licences and course certificates could have been used to get New Zealand heavy vehicle licenc-es, RNZ reports.

February 22 Vehicle lending boosts profit Marac Finance’s parent company Heartland Bank had its half-yearly after tax profit



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strengthened by impressive growth in motor vehicle loans.

Heartland’s profit was $31.1 million for the half-year ended December 31, up $2m or 7% from the same period in the previous financial year.

Loans on its motor vehicle ledger jumped $62 million or 15% to $886.3m.

February 23 Dealer numbers down Dealer numbers fell by 27 over the holiday season, accord-

ing to figures from the Motor Vehicle Traders Register.

From a high of 3537 at the end of November, the number of registered motor vehicle traders fell to 3510 at the end of January.

February 26 ESC lifeline for importers The New Zealand Transport Agency is throwing importers hit by the stink bug delays a lifeline.

It has decided used MA class vehicles (over 2000 cc) bought in Japan on or before February 26, 2018 will be eligible for exemption from electronic stability control requirements.

NZTA’s current rules state used passenger cars over two litres must have ESC from March 1.

February 27 New leaders for AHG dealerships Automotive Holdings Group (AHG) has announced two new leaders at its largest Ford and Mazda franchise dealerships.

Long-serving sales man-ager Paul Ah Kuoi has been promoted to dealer principal at John Andrew Mazda and Phil Saunders has been names the new John Andrew Ford dealer principal, after four years as Nissan New Zealand national sales manager.

Retailer of the Year named It’s official – the Mercedes-Benz 2017 Retailer of the Year award has gone to Mercedes-Benz North Shore for the second year running.

The overall award recog-nises the exceptional per-formance of New Zealand’s

Mercedes-Benz retailers and their staff, including new ve-hicle sales, pre-owned vehicle sales and the service and parts components of the business.

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February 22 Thousand of Mitsubishis recalled Mitsubishi Motors Australia has issued multiple recalls across its range of ASX, Out-lander and Lancer vehicles for a range of faults.

Nearly 70,800 2013-2015MY ASX and 2013-2016MY Outlanders could be at risk of developing a parking brake fault which could see vehicles roll away if parked on a slope.

The company says the park brake/hand brake might have an improper seal on the brake caliper which could allow water to enter the mechanism and cause corrosion, mak-ing the brake shaft potentially stick.

Indonesian cars in Oz?

Indonesia could export cars to Australia as the two coun-tries finalise the Comprehen-sive Economic Partnership Agreement.

Indonesia’s 30% tax on se-dans is waived when cars are exported overseas, meaning the country’s sedan manu-facturers could boost pro-duction selling to Australia.

Mercedes celebrates anniversaries Mercedes-Benz is blowing up balloons and lighting the can-dles for the 30th anniversary of the front passenger airbag.

At the same time, it’s also cheering for 20 years of the side window/curtain airbag which debuted on the 210 model E-Class back in 1998.

Top approval rating for Lexus Roy Morgan’s Car Manufac-turer of the Year award has

gone to Lexus Australia. Lexus was voted the top

auto brand for customer satis-faction for the fourth time in a row, with a rating of 96.4%.

It also took out the inaugu-ral overall Customer Satisfac-tion Award.

Daimler AG’s top shareholderChina’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group chairman and founder Li Shufu has become the top shareholder in Daimler AG.

The 7.3 billion-euro stake represents the biggest invest-ment by a Chinese company in an overseas automaker, Bloomberg News reports.

February 27 New AHG chairman takes reins Automotive Holdings Group (AHG) has announced Rob McEniry as the company’s new chairman.

McEniry takes over from David Griffiths, who has been in the role since November 2010.

Booran Hyundai takes dealer title Cranbourne Hyundai has been named the National Hyundai Platinum Dealer of 2017 across all categories.

Also sharing the platinum award are Berwick, Dan-denong and South Morang Hyundai as run and owned by the Booran Motor Group.

Industry welcomes new deputy PMThe Australian automo-tive industry has welcomed new deputy prime minister Michael McCormack.

McCormack will also take the reigns as minister for in-frastructure and transport. He replaces beleaguered Barnaby Joyce.



DIARYTALK

TransportTalk DiaryTransportTalk New Zealand editor Nigel Moffiet looks at the month gone by on www.transporttalk.co.nz

EVTalk Diary EVtalk New Zealand editor Geoff Dobson looks at the month gone by on www.evtalk.co.nz

February 5Leading the Charge tour starts March 14Preparations are nearly finished for the Leading the Charge EV road trip over 5000km from Bluff to Cape Reinga from March 14 to April 3.

EV owners are being invited to join in on any leg or attend some of the 26 events.

February 8“Huge” response to new Leaf The new Nissan Leaf should be available new here towards the end of the April 1, 2018, to March 31, 2019 financial year.

That’s the belief of Nis-

san New Zealand managing director John Manley who tested it at the Nissan Futures event in Singapore where the Leaf’s sale in seven markets in Asia and Oceania was an-nounced.

February 9EV rise continuesElectric vehicle numbers reached 6603 in January, up nearly 400 on December.

That’s pushing even closer to the 8000 goal by the end of the year, a target that’s likely to be passed months ahead of schedule

February 15PM launches all-electric car-sharing

The Southern Hemisphere’s biggest deployment of all-electric cars and largest EV car-sharing model has been launched by prime minister Jacinda Ardern in Christch-urch.

Yoogo Share, adopted by the Christchurch City Coun-cil, will have a pure EV fleet of 100 cars, 10 hubs and 100 chargers around the city.

February 16EVs affected by stink bugs Electric vehicle importers are among those impacted by the stink bug discoveries which have led to four car carriers turning away from New Zea-land waters.

“I think everyone has cars stuck on these boats,” says Henry Schmidt of Autolink Cars in Auckland, which spe-cialises in EVs.

February 22AI Day conference on March 28Autonomous shuttle devel-opers Ohmio Automotion’s research and development coordinator Mahmood Hik-met will be among about 20 speakers at AI Day.

Described as “New Zealand’s premier artificial intelligence event”, it’s on March 28 at the ASB Water-front Theatre in Auckland.

February 26Electric spark to car eventsCar events are increasingly taking an electric focus.

Electricarna, a new event for EVs coinciding with Americarna, was held in New Plymouth on February 24.

February 7Penske to deliver 36 MAN trucksTruck dealership Penske New Zealand is celebrating a “sig-nificant deal” with one of the country’s largest freight firms.

It is set to deliver 36 MAN trucks to TIL Logistics Ltd, bringing the transport operator’s total MAN fleet to around 200 units.

It makes TIL Logistics, which operates brands such as Hooker Pacific and Roadstar, the largest commercial opera-tor of MAN in Australasia.

February 8Mitsubishi Fuso boss

in NZMitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation president and chief executive Marc Llistosella has touched down in New Zealand.

Llistosella spoke to in-dustry leaders at Auckland’s Hilton Hotel ahead of his resignation from the world’s largest truck maker Daimler AG.

He is stepping down from his role in March with Hartmut Schick taking over for the business in Asia on April 1.

February 15Fletcher Building’s financial falloutFletcher Building chairman Sir Ralph Norris is stepping down in light of the firm’s heavy

financial downgrades.The business recently

announced a further $486 million in projected losses. It leads to a total projected loss of $660 million for the 2018 financial year in its Building and Interiors divi-sion.

Norris says he will resign no later than the company’s 2018 annual shareholders’ meeting to allow for an “or-derly transition” of the board.

February 16Southpac wins Kenworth awardNew Zealand’s Southpac Trucks has been named Kenworth Dealer of the Year 2017.

The accolade is regarded as the one of the industry’s most sought-after prizes for dealers and is open to Ken-worth distributors across Australia and New Zealand.

The award is based on a points system across five main areas including overall dealer performance, truck sales, parts sales, finance and customer support.

February 26Safety alert on towing connectionsA safety alert has been issued over faulty truck drawbeams, drawbars and towbars.

The NZ Transport Agency says all towing connections fitted by Peter Wastney En-gineering must be assessed for a new certification by a heavy vehicle specialist certifier (HVSC).

The agency requires the equipment to be checked for signs of cracks “or other failures”.

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THE VEHICLE DEALER’S NEWS SOURCE · Auckland City, 1030. Ph. 09 309 2444. autotalk.co.nz...

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