It's actually much worse than the numbers imply. There were 2082 cars sold this month. During the summer of 2008 they were selling over 5000 Mini's a month. The drop is only 15% because the January 2008 numbers were low due to people waiting for the Clubman to be released.

It's going to be brutal later this year when there are high prior year sales to compare month to month.

 

Yep, looking at those numbers we are going to have to start worrying about dealers staying in business. All the dealerships in Southern California don't exactly look like they have low overhead (rent, utilities, etc).

I was expecting low numbers (see posts from a few days ago), but this is much lower than I would have guessed.

It's ugly and is going to continue to get worse for at least the next 12 months.

 

The information provided was released on the "Dow Jones News Wire" dated 2/03/09, 16:06 ET (21:06 GMT) and is only refuring to MINI USA, no other car types or countries, year to year (2008 January vs 2009 January)compairison.

Don

 

The data seems very consistent year-to-year. January has the lowest sales while climbing with peek sales around August, and then tapering off again.

i don't see why MINI should be worried about their sales........yet.

 

Man, are you the optimist! I had time to look back and compare the hardtop only sales were 1482 cars which is the second lowest sales volume EVER. The only lower figure was March 2002, the first month of US sales.

The month to month sales of the hardtop and Clubman are shocking.

 

Agree, January is always a bad sales month; plus the recession and stuff. They have been setting record numbers for most of the year, just because they are still not setting records means that MINI is in trouble. Jan 09 is only 378 cars lower than Jan 08. While yes they would like to see an increase that is not exactly realistic with the economy how it is now. Plus one bad month is not enough to send people into a panic.

 

Sarcasm?

 

Ah, no sarcasm.

How many Mini dealers are there in the US? Divide the number of car sales by the number of dealers. Figure average sales price of 28K. Give the dealer full MSRP (doubtful now). Take 2.8K as gross profit, multiply by number of cars sold. Now take all your costs: flooring (known as interest on inventory), rent, salaries, utilities, business taxes, etc, etc and if the dealership is not well capitalized or has other car lines suffering. You better hope you don't have a lot of bank loans as the bank may reevaluate the businesses loans / credit lines and reduce them.

Bottom line I suspect weaker dealers will not make it through the year.

 

The dealers get more money on a car than just what they make from the customer, they get bonuses from MINI for meeting sales goals ect. Plus the small number of dealers is good, that means that they will not be loosing competition to other MINI dealers that might be in the area. Most MINI dealers are somewhat spread out, so if someone wants a MINI they don't have a whole lot of choices. Also, when they were selling 5,000 cars a month, record numbers, the dealers were not scraping buy, they had plenty of money. Yes, flooring cost will increase as cars start to sit on the lot longer, but if MAs are not selling cars they they are not being paid as much so that cost goes down. Also, dealers are not solely supported by sales, the service department still makes money; peoples cars break regardless of the economic conditions and prices are still the same; dealers get paid for warranty work too. MINI dealers are attached to BMW dealers which are also seeing a drop, but provide a second carline that is not as affected by the economic downturn as most other brands.

I don't think that sales numbers taking a little higher than historically predictable drop for 1 month is going to cause dealers to start closing their doors. If numbers continue to fall and do not start to get higher as warmer weather comes then I think you have to start looking at MINI being in trouble. Even then I would be shocked if they started closing dealers. If a dealer has to close their doors anytime soon it is due to bad dealership management; dealers knew they were not going to be selling record numbers of cars forever and if they invested and took out loans thinking they were then it is there own fault.

I am not says that MINI will be completely unaffected by the economy, as it is obvious they all ready have been. But going from making a ton of money to making enough money to get buy, to dipping into the reserves, then operating in the negative for a while then going out of business is a long road and sales would have to drop drastically for dealers to close in the next year. It is way to early to know what the rest of year holds in store for the economy, gas prices and sales numbers to say that dealers will be closing.

 

Exactly! Funny, but sales in Jan 09 were higher than Jan 07. It is unrealistic to sustain the growth occurring last summer when indicating summer of 2008 they were selling over 5000 Mini's a month. So I guess the expectation is they should had been up to 10,000 per month by now; gotta be realistic. Sales were excessively high because due to the price of gas and consumer were flocking solely to cars with high MPG. How quickly consumers forget and they go back to their hold habits once gas prices fall.

Given the economy and the state of the automakers, seems Mini did quite well to say the least.

 

Exactly! If you look over the trend from month to month, Jan 09 is consistent with lower sales for the months of Jan-Feb, but again compared to other automakers, seems MINI is doing VERY well..how quickly those forget that 08 was the best year EVER for MINI.

 

Not sure if this statement is a joke or serious

Sales are simply leveling out to a realistic level prior to last summers surge.

Sales for Jan 08 plummeted to 2460 from 3562 in Dec 07; don't think dealers were running scared then about closing their dealers. Sales will go up and go down like the stock market, but getting hung up on a month to month sale is like be a day trader on the stock market and those that pulled out all their funds cause the market has been down.

The same is true now with hybrid sales which were down 10% for 2008. I don't see Toyota phasing out the Prius anytime soon due to the decrease.

Granted MINI, as will all auto manufacturers, be effected this year, but compared to most auto manufacturers, MINI is in probably one of the best situations given the type of product, MPG, etc.

 

Down is down, up is up. MINI sales were down. That's not as good as up.

Not suggesting that the two brands are in any way comparable, but Subaru sales were up. Up is better than down.

 

Hyundai had the best sales of all brands; exceeding Lexus, Toyota, Honda

 

That shouldn't be surprising. Hyundai now builds a decent car for the price. If you are looking for a commuter car and want one that is relatively inexpensive then Hyundai is a viable option.

It's not always worthwhile comparing % increases or decreases accross auto makers. Toyota is a high volume producer. While it's sales overall have decreased there might be some specific models that do as well, or better, than Mini. Also, we don't know what the breakeven point is for a low volume niche producer like Mini. A drop of 500 cars/month for Mini might be much more significant than we think.

BMW and Mini aren't going anywhere though. The only relevance of these sales declines for potential customers is whether we are going to see any discounts. You can get some pretty nice used luxury cars for the same price as a new Mini S (e.g., low mileage 2007 BMW 328i sedan or coupe, MB E class, Lexus 250AWD etc.). No, they are not Minis and don't have that go cart feel but they are alternatives with quite different advantages.

 

hyundai's sales are also up 14% due to their "lose yr job in a year, bring it back" promo. genius!

 

Hyundai now builds a decent car for the price. Seems to be far superior based on not only the current sales, but reviews of leading publications that rank Hyundai quality and reliability models highest in their class.

Kind of funny though as I always enjoyed hearing how Toyota was superior and their higher prices were worth it for the Corolla and Camry. Seems like many of the problems the Big Three have experienced is now occurring for Toyota.

 

I rented a Hyundai Genesis for work travel recently and it was one of the nicest rentals Ive ever had, fast, refined, and luxurious. But it is so that anymore if the car rental company has Hyundais available, I will take it over any other brand.

 

ever since Toyota started building many of their products here, build quality and reliability has taken a sharp downward spiral (like snapping camshafts in the "Truck of the Year." ) Must be the water...

 

This is my last post on this topic.

I seriously don't think a lot of you who say "it's not an issue" get it economically. Any serious examination of the month by month sales figures of the last six months COMBINED with what is going on economically in the US should make you see that there are going to be weaker dealers that will not be in business in December 2009.

Will it be most of the Mini dealers? No.

Is Mini itself in jeopardy? No.

Look, I still enjoy my car, am happy I purchased it, and recommend it to any one who asks me if it's a good car to buy.

But we are living in very strange times and there is a lot of greed, fraud, and losses that still need to be flushed out of the system. Couple this with the attempts by government to tinker with / fix a free market system that would inherently self correct, and all bets are off. The only real near certainty is that any government fix will in fact make it worse (at least short term).

If you've never read Atlas Shrugged, I highly recommend it because it's about to play out...

 

What gets me were all these Toyota fanatics that has this ridiculous mentality on how Toyota are basically indestructible. Kind of funny now that Toyota is trying to play with the big guys, they quickly learned that they are no different nor immune to rebates, sales drops, recalls, drops in reliability.

 

Not sure what you mean by the fix is going to make it worse, but definitely agree this problem has been in the makes now for several years while those running Washington DC chose to overlook and focus on other issues in the world...now its in our own backyard.

Things won't change over night, but at least it has begun.

 

Had a problem with my dealership. On the S that I ordered, I opted not to get the sunroof. After considerable thought, I changed my mind, but the car was already on the boat. Bec the deposit was refundable, I am OK, but now the sales manager is pissed and wants 2000 over MSRP for a reorder, as opposed to 650 under. I am sorry about the whole thing but, in my mind, this reaction is unreasonable as well as counterproductive since what is done, is done. By taking this attitude, all that's gonna happen is that a neighboring dealer is going to get any easy sale. Anybody else have any experience with backing out of an order?

 

Never done it but i can understand why they are not thrilled. 2000 over MSRP is a bit steep. I would understand straight up MSRP though.

 

Actually can kind of understand where the dealer is coming from. However, it would be totally different if they had not ordered the car as you had configured it, however you indicated you opted to not get the sunroof, but then wanted to change your mind. Not sure what the price of the car was, but now they have a vehicle configured exactly how you would want it, not sure how easy they might get someone else now to buy it.