I had an interesting conversation with someone over the weekend…

I was asked what kind of discounts we, Mercedes-Benz, are giving on cars.  I gave him an answer that I don’t think he expected.  His reply to me was he thought everyone was doing “like 25% below invoice on new cars”.  I explained to him we don’t have that kind of markup in our cars. 

This has been a common conversation/question for the last 3 months or so.  I would like to thank the news media, with their normal bad news/negative news reporting, for grouping the entire auto industry as a whole and tagging all automakers as being in one big mess.  Let me just say not everyone is as bad off as is being portrayed.  Yes, no one had a great year last year, but some of us had year after year of sales growth.  To note Mercedes-Benz had 14 straight years of record growth, and I believe that BMW was along side of us with those numbers.

I thought that I would post the numbers of where most everyone finished last year.

Luxury Brands

• Mercedes-Benz down 11.2%
• BMW down 15.2%
• Lexus down 21.2%
• Infinity down 11.1%
• Cadillac down 24.9% 

 Other Automaker totals:

• GM down 22.9%
• Ford down 20.2%
• Chrysler down 30%
• Toyota down 15.4% (includes Lexus brand)
• Honda down 7.9% (includes Acura brand)
• Nissan down 10.9% (includes Infinity brand)

For the majority of the automakers what these numbers don’t show is things were going good for the first 3 quarters of the year. 

In summary, while we were down for the year in 2008, we are not giving away cars, we are not going out of business or filing for bankruptcy, we are not even in a state of panic, but we are being a little more aggressive in pricing.  

If you are interested in a new vehicle, we are open for business so please don’t hesitate to call.  I would be happy to assist you with your car buying needs.

Adam Denault

www.mybenzguy.com