Bmw Do It, Land Rover Have Started, Older parts supply

[onthecut]

Hi all.

Browsing through a Landy mag the other day, I see that the company are belatedly starting to put themselves forward as a sensible place to go for parts if you have an older model. Given that Landy bits are generally dirt cheap by modern standards, LR will have to be competitive. Likewise, I believe BMW offer genuine parts at reduced prices for older models. Wouldn't it be oh so nice if someone at Citroen could just see the light with regard to their older models. The recent talk on the forum regarding strut tops strikes me as a classic example. With a price tag of over £300 each the reality is that when they fail, many cars -- otherwise good -- will simply be scrapped as uneconomic to repair. More XMs lost -- Citroen left sitting on stock that no one, by and large, will buy. Truly a lose - lose situation. Strikes me as a classic example of the madness of accountancy. Dealer buys bit in for £200. Sits on shelf a while, gets written down to £0.01. Dealer throws part in skip and is only losing £0.01. NO YOU'RE NOT !!!!! You're throwing £200 in the bin !!!!!!!!! With the current obsession with climate, who knows -- maybe some of these ludicrous practices will have to stop -- to the benfit of all of us.

Mike.

[Ciaran]

If only Mike!

You make a very good point, we can only hope someone at Citroen will see the light, as you say. I would write to them and state the same, but I can't help but get the feeling they ignore customers anyway.... let alone who would you direct your query to?

Theres still a considerable market for older cars, specially ones that last like XMs, and even Xants, I just wish they would wake up and realise that they could actually shift half of this stuff if they gave people an incentive to buy it...

Be interesting to see if they see what other marques are doing and follow suit, though I won't hold my breath sadly.

Ciarán

[dean]

I think the problem is that if you buy a cheep car, parts will be dear, they have to make their money somewhere. My dad has a range rover 4.6 vogue ,top of the range beast and parts from the dealer are so cheap its unbelievable, Jaguar has now classed the xjs a classic, and as such they offer 50% reduction on parts and 20% (i think) on labour. Now that i think is a very good idea for helping people keep these cars going.

[onthecut]

Hi Dean.

Don't forget the XM wasn't a cheap car from Citroen, just as the C6 isn't now. Probably part of the reason XMs are so cheap now is exactly because of Citroen's attitude toward it; a mistake they are plainly bent on repeating with the C6. My local official dealer recently went belly up and | can't help but think their 'sod it' attitude towards anything outside the mainstream models may well have played a part.

Mike.

[dean]

Yes your right the xm was not a cheap car, but Citroen themselves are generally a manufacturer of cheap cars as is Renault, Peugeot, ford etc etc and all of these manufacturers seem to sell parts at very high prices.
An example, Range rover electric mirror switch is near identical in operation to the xm one, but Citroen want as near as makes no difference £50 and a land rover dealer.......£24,The chances are I'm wrong with my theory but I cant help but wonder how this difference in price occurs.

This post has been edited by dean on November 07, 2007 06:36 pm