Facebook group on the hunt for banned trader · Facebook group on the hunt for banned trader A...

MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF AUTOTALK.CO.NZ – VOLUME 10 | ISSUE 3 | MARCH 2019

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

INSIDE

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Iconic site up for lease 6We check out Renault Auckland 7 Rating dealers with BuyerScore 10How utes sell alongside trucks 13 13

Facebook group on the hunt for banned trader

A Facebook group set up to chase down a banned trader

has found him - although so far that is all they have managed to do.

The “Find Brent Smith” Facebook page was established to find the trader, also known as An-tony Solen Basturkmen - or as he has been dubbed “The Wolf of Church Street”.

Smith operated under various names, most commonly Motor Me and No Re-serve Cars. He has left scores of unhappy customers in his wake, and has been the subject of at least 17 Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal cases - most of which he has lost and then failed to follow the directions of the tribunal.

Of the Facebook group members,

11 have cases against Smith - and none have received any of their money back.

The tribunal acknowledged the group in a decision late last year - Joyce vs No Reserve Cars Limited:

“However, in concluding that Brent Smith and Antony Solen Basturkmen are the same people, the Tribunal com-mends Mr Joyce and his Facebook associates for their efforts in finding

Continued on page 4

Certification consultation ends soon

Consultation for the NZ Transport Agency’s review of conflicts within the

vehicle certification industry closes this month - and according to the boss of one company involved, everyone in the used import trade should be taking notice and mak-ing a submission.

The “Managing integrity of used vehicle certification inspection and inspection organisations” at least partially stems from issues around the merging of some players in the import supply chain into the Japanese-listed Optimus Group.

Concerns were raised last year by an anonymous group of in-dustry members to media and the agency around how the merger was handled and allowed.

The group claimed, incorrectly, that Optimus’s JEVIC and VINZ units were complying vehicles imported by its Nichibo operation. VINZ claims the vehicles are, with relatively few exceptions, imported and owned by independent dealers.

Nonetheless, the review is set to clarify rules and strengthen controls

Continued on page 9

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Lenders to refund fees in Commerce Commission settlements

A total of $590,000 is set to be returned to finance customers following settle-ments between two finance firms and

the Commerce Commission.Motor vehicle lender Auto Finance Direct

Limited (AFD), part of the Optimus Group of companies, has agreed to return around $460,000 in fees which the commission viewed as unfair.

It accepted that between April 2015 and August 2018 it charged more than 7200 fees which were likely to be unreasonable under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act 2003. The fees, which were charged to more than 5000 borrowers, included an establish-ment fee of over $190, an early settlement fee of over $65 and a variation fee of over $55.

It should be noted AFD has not been changed or convicted of anything – it has accepted the fault and worked with the com-mission to put the issue right.

In the second case, Pacific Loans, which includes some vehicle lending in a broader spread of business, agreed that it breached the Fair Trading Act 1986 (FT Act) by representing that it had the right to add interest and fees to loan accounts after repossession and sale of borrowers’ assets, when this was not the case.

Adding those costs was prohibited under the Credit (Repossession) Act 1997 (now repealed, see background), under which a loan balance was frozen when repossessed assets were sold.

Pacific Loans has agreed to return a total of $134,779.23 to 82 affected creditors.

“Consumers will benefit because both

these lenders have entered settlement agree-ments with the commission, have changed their practices, and have agreed to remediate borrowers who were affected by their con-duct,” commissioner Anna Rawlings says.

“The commission has been actively moni-toring credit fees charged by lenders to as-sess whether fees cover costs that are closely related to the particular loan transaction, as required by consumer credit law. Proper fee setting enables borrowers to better compare the cost of different loan products.”

The commission’s work in this case follows on from the long-running “Sportzone” case that centred on fees charged by lender MTF.

In May 2016, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the commission’s view that credit fees should only cover costs that are closely related to the particular loan transaction. The Court said that “[i]t is not permissible to take all operating costs (or virtually all) and allo-cate them to one fee or the other.”

Auto Finance Direct responds: “Auto Fi-nance Direct is working with the Commission to ensure that everyone entitled to a refund is reimbursed,” says Robert Young, a director of the company “If the loan is open the refund will be applied to the balance owing. If the loan has been paid off in full we will issue a refund. We are attempting to contact those people via email and through the dealer from whom they purchased their vehicle.”

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Brent Smith, and expresses a sincere hope that action is now taken by the appropriate authorities to assist Mr Joyce and other affected parties to obtain the outcome they deserve.”

The creator of the page, Miriam Hayward, told Auto-Talk the idea for the group came up in July last year.

“The idea came about after many hours of trawling the internet for ‘Mr Smith’ and trying to connect with other victims so that we could share information,” Hayward says. “At that stage, I was finding people through the decisions page of the Motor Vehicle Disputes

Tribunal website with limited success.”

Hayward’s story is typical of those that have a case with Smith.

“We purchased a 2006 Suzuki Swift Sport that we had seen advertised on Trade Me in August 2017. There were issues with it, so we took it back to the yard to be repaired,” she explains. “They gave us a ‘courtesy vehicle’ that was unwarrantable but yet warranted and full of trash while the repair of the gearbox took four weeks.

They found the vehicle by ringing around local me-chanics, and found it unfixed and with a broken wing mirror.

While waiting for the car to be repaired Hayward says they told Motor Me they wished to reject the vehicle, and they offered to replace it with a similar model from the yard. This did not happen as the replacement vehicle was sold to another buyer.

“Motor Me offered to repair the vehicle, but after our previous experience with their mechanic we refused this offer and insisted on us-ing our own mechanic.

“The quote given to us by our mechanic was close to the price we purchased the car for. Motor Me refused phone calls and any discus-sion of a resolution, so we rejected the vehicle in writing and took Brent Smith to the MVDT.”

“We won the case, but he did not pay his debt.”

So far the group has taken part in a range of actions, both successful and unsuc-cessful - including searches through the courts, a financial assessment hearing, which it is pending, a complaint to the Commerce Commission and a complaint to the Motor Vehicle Traders Register - which resulted in a ban. The ban went in place late last year for five years, though Hayward notes little is done to enforce it.

They have had media at-tention from Stuff.co.nz and One News.

The most significant find was an address for Smith and the uncovering of the Antony Basturken name.

“One member found out which company their fi-nance was being forwarded to. Another member noticed that the owner of the com-pany shared the same date of birth as ‘Brent Smith’ as

per his details on the motor vehicle traders register,” Hay-ward explains.

“Once we found out that Brent Smith and Antony Basturkmen were the same person we could find his address allowing us to order bailiffs and take other action through the court.”

While multiple attempts have been made to use bailiffs to collect money from Smith, they have been unsuccessful. This has left many of the members in a weak financial position.

“Some group members have spent almost all their money on their vehicles with nothing to show.”

Hayward says there should be stronger deter-rents for traders that fail to follow the rules.

“There should be criminal consequences for people that trade without a mo-tor vehicle trading license like Mr Smith has,” Hayward says. “At this stage, the police have not been inter-ested in the matter, and I do not think Mr Smith will stop trying to sell cars until he is imprisoned.”

The group is supportive of one industry activity - the growing number of ratings.

“Buyerscore.co.nz is a positive force in the industry. It needs to be easy for buyers to see who may be untrust-worthy.”

AutoTalk has commu-nicated through text with Smith and offered him the chance to comment on this story. He indicated he has been in hospital and will communicate with us at a later date.

Facebook group on the hunt for banned traderContinued from page 1

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franchise or large scale used car opera-tion, has become available for lease.

Offering up to 90 display carparks, a large showroom and workshop, as well as mezzanine offices and gener-ous storage, the site is located at 174-190 Great North Road.

The immediate area has seen many new real estate develop-ments recently, including a num-ber of new high-end apartment blocks, a recently opened prestige vehicle dealership, and a big box hardware merchant.

The 1810 square-metre site has formerly been operated as a fran-chise dealership for Honda and

Alfa-Romeo, as well as the home to sev-eral successful high-volume used vehicle operations including the current tenant who is relocating to a new location.

Sole agent Michael Greer from Ray White Parnell (City Realty Ltd) says this is a once-in-a-decade opportunity for an industry entrepreneur or corporate vehicle marketing group to establish a multi brand new car dealership in a high traffic location on the city fringe.

Greer says viewing is strictly by ap-pointment.

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Lifting the standard of the customer experience

The recently appointed dealer principal of the Auckland Renault/In-

finiti dealership is determined to lift the standard of the customer experience.

Shaun Moses (right) ad-mits that he’s not one who likes to stay seated in an office, but prefers to be on the showroom floor engag-ing with both customers and staff to create the best pos-sible ownership experience.

Moses comes to the Renault/Infiniti dealership with more than two decades of experience in the mo-tor industry and a desire to provide nothing but the best possible customer service.

His passion for the French brand started from the day he first sat as passenger in his grandfather’s Renault 12 TL.

“I’m very passionate about the brand’s more than 120-year history, particularly in motorsport, and I like to

remind people that Michael Schumacher started his Formula 1 career in a turbo-charged Bennetton Renault car,” says Moses.

“I want to take this dealership on a journey by engaging with the owners of classic Re-naults as well as building upon the current cus-tomer database that we have,” Moses says.

“I’m determined to im-prove our service delivery and make sure we listen to the customer through their ownership experience.

“Selling a new or used vehicle is only half the journey, we need to offer customers the support of loans vehicles and the prompt availability of parts and replacement panels, and I’m determined that the buck stops here,” he says.

“The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance has a huge

global presence, offering great product like the Clio which is the number one selling vehicle in its class in Europe, and the Renault brand has

led the European commercial market for decades. We need to capitalise on the brand’s strengths of design, efficiency and safety in our market.

“With Infiniti we offer pre-mium luxury performance vehicles which suit a more individual and discerning customer, so it will be nice to set the true ownership experience for them, by offering a more personal service worthy of the brand,” Moses says.

The arrival of the new Megane R.S in February will be followed by more new Renault Commercial and Infiniti products as the year

progresses, bringing new op-portunities to the Greenlane operation.

The Renault product line-up for 2019 will offer SUVs,

commercial vans, electric vehicles, and a high-per-formance hot hatchback. The Infiniti line-up offers premium luxury perfor-mance sedans, hatches, and SUV models, including the gargantuan QX80 luxury off-roader.

As well as new and used vehicle sales and service, the multi-million dollar dealer-ship offers its customers the use of a fully equipped con-ference and function room with a full kitchen. Both Renault and Infiniti custom-ers are treated to exclusive monthly events catered to by well-known local chefs.

NEWSTALK


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around conflict of inter-est. It further proposes that for any new ap-pointment or renewal, the agency would no longer permit an inspection organisation to carry out entry certification activities for a vehicle if that inspection organisation or a related party has an interest in or conducted border inspection.

Such a rule would have the potential to cause significant disruption for Optimus and other companies. Complicating issues is that the NZTA is set to renew appoint-ments for inspection purposes by late this year.

VINZ chief execu-tive Gordon Shaw says the review and process is rushed, and the changes have the po-tential to be hugely disruptive.

“It has the potential to be extremely disruptive,” Shaw says. “Everyone needs to sub-mit, that is not just the import-ers and compliance shops; it is everyone; they need to make a submission and tell the agency what they need to know.”

He notes it goes against global best practice, which is not to remove the possibility of a conflict of interest, but to use processes to manage it.

Shaw suggested to Auto-Talk significant changes with-in staff at the NZTA has led to a disconnect and reduction in knowledge with how the sup-ply chain works amongst the regulators. Industry feedback will assist with this.

“It is clearly evident with some of the people that have left the agency; the agency is really struggling with a level of understanding of the intri-cacies of the supply chain.”

He notes the review has

already ground investment and development within the compliance industry to a halt - with firms unclear what they will be allowed to do next year.

Shaw does feel the proposed changes specifi-cally target VINZ and will hit it the hardest - though he notes other supply chain businesses have investments in the compliance process.

“Our view is that NZTA has been captured by a small group within the industry, and

they are not taking a good policy approach to it, it appears to be very reac-tive,” he says. “Depending on what their strategy is around re-energising their regulatory strategy, there are other areas they

should be focusing.”VIA chief executive David

Vinsen agreed with the need for members of the trade to take note of the consultation and submit - as VIA will be doing.

He explains the organisa-tion is right down the middle on the issue between Opti-mus and those who are con-cerned about its structure.

“We understand the right of all businesses to organise themselves to be as efficient as possible and make their own commercial arrange-ments,” Vinsen says.

“We believe that it is the role of the regulator to man-age any conflict of interest - or perception of conflict of interest - when it comes to the safety of vehicles.”Find more information on the consultation here: htt-ps://www.nzta.govt.nz/about-us/consultations/managing-integrity-of-used-vehicle-certification-inspection-and-inspection-organisations/

Certification consultation ends soonContinued from page 1

Gordon Shaw

David Vinsen



DEALERTALK

Motorcentral in high gear despite failed acquisition by Trade MeD

igital solutions provider Limelight is best known for its Motorcentral web-based dealer management

system and is almost better known for Trade Me’s attempt last year to acquire the company – a move blocked by the Commerce Commission.

That does not appear to have stalled the companie’s plan to move forward, or for that matter integrate with Trade Me – evidenced most by the launch of its BuyerScore rating system onto New Zealand’s largest vehicle trading platform.

Motorcentral general manager Mark Greenfield says even without the acqui-sition there are synergies between the two firms.

“I think through that process, which was a relatively long period, we be-came pretty close and understood each other’s businesses quite well,” Green-field says.

The time since has been working on

how many of the initiatives that would have come from being part of Trade Me, can still be delivered to the market.

“It completely makes sense, and we’re gonna stand true to pretty much what we were going to do anyway under their ownership.”

Greenfield says the firm’s vehicle listing site, NeedaCar will continue to operate on its own – and does not conflict with Trade Me’s website.

“NeedaCar does its thing, in its space. It is a niche. It is just motor vehi-cle dealership listings.

“There are no private listings on there,” he explains. “It still allows us to showcase technology; it allows us to understand consumer journeys and their buying journey - and how we can continue to evolve in that space to cre-ate something unique and special.”

He explains traffic to the site has been good, with around 200,000 unique visits in the last 12 months, and

a very high percentage of return visitors.

Greenfield also notes it as an excellent plat-form for the launch of its BuyerScore product, the first local system to rate and review buyers experi-ences with traders.

Greenfield says one of the ideas behind Need-aCar was to showcase the dealer better. Motorcen-tral has already produced and manages websites for dealerships.

“We’re very pro-increasing dealerships’ market share against the private seller,” Greenfield explains. “We use Need-aCar as a way to promote the benefits of purchas-ing from a motor vehicle

dealership.”“BuyerScore plays into that with rat-

ings and reviews. But we’re also pretty respective of how customers want to search - a lot don’t know what they want to buy, so we have lifestyle search functionality in there along with afford-ability search.“

The site was also ahead of the curve locally in adding finance and insurance information to vehicle listings – some-thing since followed by Trade Me.

The most significant partnership is likely to be on BuyerScore, announced last August as joining the Trade Me Mo-tors product portfolio. Traders signed up to the service through Motorcentral now have their ratings displayed on the site next to their listings and reviews within their showrooms.

“I know that from Trade Me’s per-spective, the credibility of the listings on their side has always been impor-tant. Consumer protection and aware-ness, are an important part as far as delivering that experience to custom-ers – BuyerScore naturally feeds into that and helps showcase ratings and reviews from customers that have past experiences with dealerships.”

Greenfield explains the benefits are more profound than just the display

Continued on page 12

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NEWSTALK

of a rating for dealers. Information fed back from BuyerScore to the trader al-lows service to be improved. And unlike Google or other overseas review ser-vices, only verified customers are given a chance to have their say.

“There’s a natural lift in customer service once sales people know that customers are going to be surveyed about their experience with them and the dealership,” Greenfield says.

“So it’s kind of some organic im-provement that happens. I’d love to say that it has resulted in increased sales across the board. And I think in some dealership cases it certainly has aided in conversion.

“Ones that were already doing an amazing job anyway, probably not as much, but it is then allowing them to reconfirm what they knew.”

The trader can choose not to have their BuyerScore be published publicly initially, as they first take on feedback and make changes.

“Most dealerships go public with it more quickly than they would probably

have anticipated because they are gen-erally pretty impressed with the feed-back that comes in,” Greenfield says.

“But the ones that learn some quick lessons about the dealership, about the customer experience, they can take that on board and understand what can they improve.”

Greenfield says some things that may not even be part of the sales process can make a difference in ratings – such as a lack of customer parking.

Some traders have also begun using BuyerScore as part of how they rate and remunerate sales staff - accepting that the best salesperson on the team may not be the one selling the most

vehicles.“Some dealerships have looked at

it that way - that’s another benefit of BuyerScore to them. It gives them a monthly breakdown; it provides them real-time feedback on the customer’s experience with their salesperson. And if their salesperson is negatively affect-ing a customer, they can deal with that, and they can work with that feedback from the customer.

BuyerScore is available as a stan-dalone product for any dealership whether it be motor vehicle, trucks, marine, motorcycle or motor homes. BuyerScore can work from all major DMS’s.

Motorcentral in high gear despite the failed saleContinued from page 10

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Thanks to the addition of the new X-Class ute to the product port-

folio, Mercedes-Benz and Freightliner Trucks dealership Trucks & Trailers Ltd now offers a complete range of light and heavy commercial vehicles from a gross vehicle mass of two tonnes through to 250 tonnes.

When the X-Class was first confirmed for sale there was some internal debate amongst the team at Trucks & Trailers as to whether the prospec-tive buyers would be completely different to those of vans and trucks – it turns out they are not, dealer princi-pal Mark Wright says.

“Many of our customers for heavy trucks also buy vans and utes, but all of our customers are buying the vehicles for commercial application, so we focus on the needs of the customer rather than just upon how we best sell the product to them,” he says.

“Building and maintaining relationships is very impor-tant, making a phone call

every three years isn’t going to cut it, so we strive to be in constant communica-tion with our commercial customers.

“All of our customers have wants and needs that differ hugely and this is where we have do have in-house

specialists in utes and vans to cater for the light commercial buy-ers and truck spe-cialists for the heavy commercial buyers who often have very specific requirements for their vehicles.

“We have a phenomenal new

product line up with van, ute and truck, which share a lot of design DNA particularly the safety features, electrics, hydraulics and mechanics. The Vito Crew Cab drives just like a car, and in this health and safety conscious world we are supplying vehicles with some of the leading safety features available in the commercial market.

“We are not a car deal-ership per se, our point of difference is having a com-mercial focus by taking a vehicle and making it fit for

our customers purpose, by offering turnkey solutions where required, as well as a breakdown service, and en-suring minimum downtime and maximum uptime where

possible.“That’s quite a different

proposition to other retail ute sellers,” Wright says.

Trucks & Trailers Limited

Mark Wright


NEWSTALK

Focussed on commercial vehicle users

http://www.motorcentral.co.nz


is one of four Elite Support certified Daimler Truck & Bus dealerships in Australasia, and the first in New Zealand to achieve this status.

Elite Support is a Daimler Truck & Bus initiative which involves meeting around 130 criteria that result in an outstanding standard of product and service delivery. Elite Support ensures this standard is continuously met through constant feedback

and evaluation of opportuni-ties for improvement and provides the tools to make changes and improve.

“In Auckland, we have a workshop with seven techni-cians purely dedicated to vans and utes, and we are also setting up a dedicated service facility for these light commercial vehicles in our Palmerston North branch,” Wright says.

“The customers’ expec-tations on us as a service provider is the same regard-

less of the type of vehicle they have purchased for their business. There are limitations, especially for the heavy trucks which often have specialist functions, but we try to mini-mise vehicle off road (VOR) situations by stocking as many parts and consumables as we can.

Wright says while the X-Class has had a soft start in the busy ute market, the customers who have driven

the vehicle are very positive towards it.

“We are the new kid on the block with a premium product offer, but it’s start-ing to gain more momen-tum as levels of inquiry grow.

“The new V6 X-class is a great product, there’s a certain level of expecta-tion which is justified, and customers who have already taken delivery are rapt with it,” Wright says.

Continued from page 13

NEWSTALK

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INFORMATION & TECHNOLOGYFEATURE

Ingham Motor Group is one of New Zealand’s largest multi-franchise au-

tomotive dealership groups.From grass roots farming

needs to prestige motor-ing, Ingham Motor Group provides a wide range of lo-cations, brands and options, all underpinned by consist-ently excellent service.

One of the most proac-tive automotive industry users of customer retention (CRM) functionality, CEO John Ingham strives to lead the market in customer experience and has a plan of creating a visibility of choice for all customers, no matter

whether they responded to advertising or simply walked into a showroom.

“We wanted to create a situation where customers could see across the entire group’s offerings and would enjoy a consistent level of service and care no matter what the initial contact point was,” Ingham says.

“With fast-growing cus-tomer and prospecting data-bases we also needed to do something about centralising these and then cleansing our information. We are in an ex-pansion phase and as we add locations some of the client information we inherit from

other systems isn’t always in great shape.”

Tracey Atkins, GM of Sys-time Automotive Solutions ex-plains: “Ingham Motor Group exclusively uses Autoline as its business system of choice, Systime was able to commis-sion a central CRM hub for the entire group, with all locations both feeding the hub and drawing information from it.

“With the CRM hub in place, extensive data analy-sis and business intelligence improvements became avail-able and Systime consultants worked closely with Ingham Group staff to implement these,” Atkins says.

“An early example of a di-rect benefit was highlighted by the analysis system. Many vehicles in the database had been imported (from other systems) without valid or current Warrant of Fitness expiry dates.

“An exercise was immedi-ately undertaken using Sys-time’s integrated Transport Agency links to the Motor Vehicle Register to update current WOF expiry dates for these vehicles.

“This resulted in greatly increased return rates in all Ingham Group service de-

partments,” Atkins says.The Systime GM says

Ingham Group also benefits from the central CRM hub in other ways. “With Auto-line’s master debtor feature, debtors and trade customers who have multiple points of contact with the group can receive a single, consolidated account each month.

“Naturally, this has led to considerable savings in group administration and happier trade customers,” she explains.

Another benefit of Autoline’s master debtors reported by Ingham admin-istrators is centralised credit control which is updated on a live basis, ensuring every point of sale at each location has up-to-date information at all times.”

With Systime staff help-ing where necessary, Ingham Group continues to analyse and improve data quality con-stantly. “We are here to make the motoring experience memorable for all the right reasons,” Ingham says. “And Autoline is a key part of our delivery of this promise.”

Systime Automotives Solu-tions is part of the TSI group.

• NZ’s most installed and fasted growing dealer management system

• Seamlessly handles dealership sales, service and parts in a wide range of industries

• Integrated Options: Fleet Management Asset Management Rental/Leasing

• Installation, configuration, training and phone & email support from the industry’s best

Orion Sales Orion SupportOrion AU [email protected]

Contact DetailsP:

E:

+64 9 583 2451+64 9 583 2455+61 1300 852 243

Getting the most from your DMS

John Ingham, group CEO

http://www.orion.co.nz



Like most industries, automotive innovation is increasingly reliant on

technology. As automation and digitisation continue, certain trends are appearing that are starting to shape the way we move.

As the digital transfor-mation continues to streamline our lives and challenge incum-bent industries, cars are fast on their way to becoming tech accessories. While a vehicle’s fundamental purpose of getting us from A to B remains unchanged, both owner-ship models and vehicles’ other, value-added charac-teristics are now related to digital capabilities, shifting the focus from hardware to software content. Yet our reason for the vehicle remain unchanged – mobility.

As vehicle innovation ac-celerates, we need to ensure we match this with comple-mentary, innovative services to the automotive sector.

So, what do these digital shifts look like for the mobil-ity industry in 2019?

Cause and effect: consumer behaviour

Is it the chicken or the egg? Consumer behavioural patterns can both influence and be the result of automo-tive trends, with use patterns both a driving force and a consequence of evolv-ing automotive technology. Shared mobility and Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) solutions are expected to continue to become prevalent across different levels of automotive innovation.

An example is the global popularity of EVs (electric vehicles) – EV development is being influenced by purchas-ing decisions brought about by increasing petrol prices, tightening regulation and environmental awareness, among many other factors.

Suppliers such as Tesla, Nissan, VW, BMW and count-less others have both capitalised on and spurred market demand for EVs, providing both the vehicles and neces-sary infrastructure

for their continued rollout. Volkswagen has goals to be the most profitable electric car company in the world, committing to a whopping AU$70 billion in spending between 2019 and 2023.

With digital transforma-tion, the growing focus on user experience is evident, already fundamentally affect-ing automakers, dealerships and their suppliers. Custom-ers increasingly demand an integrated tech environment, which has translated to an expectation of a seamless user experience across the vehicle sales and aftersales processes.

This has meant that au-totech solutions providers are breaking ground, seeing value in further building out their digital capabilities and maximising clever, compat-ible intercompany opportu-nities to ultimately benefit both manufacturers and end users alike.

Big, bold dataLike rum on the high seas

for pirates, gold for the Mid-

dle Ages and oil for the 20th century, these days data is so valuable it could (and has) been used as currency. Just as our smartphones track and provide data in enor-mous quantities, the mod-ern car’s bells and whistles collect data in many different ways. Cars generate data about how they are used, where they are, and who is behind the wheel.

With increases in shared mobility, progress in powertrain electrification, car autonomy, and vehicle connectivity, the amount of data generated by vehicles will also continue to grow rapidly.

Similarly, the way that data is collected and shared is fast evolving.

CV2X (cellular vehicle-

• Automotive DMS & IMS Solutions

• Drive Results in every area of your business with Autoline

• Autoline, the most globally endorsed DMS, is a flexible, scalable solution

• Supported by New Zealand’s largest DMS provider

Admin Support

[email protected]

Contact DetailsP:

E:

+64 9 583 2482+64 9 5832424

Down the road: What 2019 has in store for automotive technology

Gary Martin is an automotive industry expert, hav-ing spent over 30 years in the industry across multiple international markets. Gary is CEO of Marque Group, an international collective of automotive technology com-panies consisting of AutoPlay, Aura Corporation, Smart Loyalty, THREE60 CRM and Vital Software.


Gary Martin




to-everything) technologies such as 5G are enabling the impending rollout of autono-mous vehicles, communica-tion between and among vehicles on the road, the introduction and success of smart traffic signs, and just about anything else part of the IoT.

Today’s connected vehicle has more than 40 micro-processors and uploads a staggering 25 GB of data per hour to the cloud, includ-ing telematics and driver behaviour. There will be many important benefits to harnessing this data includ-ing predictive collision avoid-ance technology.

Notwithstanding some privacy concerns and chal-lenges like the introduction

of regulation such as GDPR, automotive technology or-ganisations will continue to utilise vehicle data to provide a better customer experi-ence, pre-empting end users’ needs and preferences.

Efficient ways of process-ing automotive data will further allow autotech firms to implement new services around predictive mainte-nance.

AI for autoArtificial intelligence,

and “machine learning”, are already having a significant impact on a wide range of industries and sectors. For automotive to improve safety, comfort, and vehicle performance.

AI is also key to the devel-opment of accurate voice-

control systems, shared vehicles will soon recognise individual driver preferences, while AI-powered infotain-ment systems will make our journeys more pleasant

Automotive manufacturers are investing in their capabili-ties around simulation testing, image recognition tech, image processing, and deep learning for more accurate decision-making.

Systems that monitor driv-ers, including cameras and sensors to track the alertness of the person behind the wheel are already standard on some luxury models.

Carmakers are now even looking to experiment with brain-to-vehicle technolo-gies to enhance car safety. AI is an important pillar of these developments, and its wide

range of applications will only expand as the technol-ogy grows. Importantly, it will also provide even more data to automotive technology suppliers to provide innova-tive, cost-effective solutions to the wider automotive industry, better serving customers and producing outstanding experiences.

2019 and beyond: The future looks bright

Augmented reality (AR) has a yet-to-be explored range of uses.

The trends in automo-tive technology will provide automotive technology or-ganisations the ability to help buyers better connect with the complex high-tech cars of the future.

Down the road: What 2019 has in storeContinued from page 17

Tech shift brings Titan to NZA

ustralian dealer man-agement software firm Titan says a “seismic

shift” in technology use in dealerships is part of the reason it has chosen to enter the New Zealand market.

“The acceptance, use and demand for technology within dealerships globally has seen a seismic shift in recent years”, Titan DMS managing director Matthew Kroll says.

“Dealers and manufactur-ers are now actively seek-ing out technology-driven solutions to their everyday processes,” he says.

Titan is already operat-ing in 27 markets around the world. It will have its full product offering available in New Zealand from day one.

Titan’s range of supporting mobile applications continue to grow, with current prod-ucts encompassing business

intelligence, parts and vehicle barcoding, technician clock-ing, and vehicle appraisals.

Its core offering is the Titan Dealer Management System, a cloud-based “software as a service” solu-tion that is built on the latest technology. Using the adage of “follow the bouncing ball”, the Windows-based DMS leads staff through the pro-cess, step-by-step, ensuring things are done correctly – first time, every time.

“In an industry that sees higher than average staff turn-over rates, cost savings asso-ciated with training new staff are highly sought-after,” Kroll says. “Many Titan customers have revealed that after only a couple of hours their new staff not only know their way around the Titan system, but can begin working indepen-dently in their new role.”

Titan also offers inte-gration between all dealer departments to provide immense visibility across the entire dealer group; integra-tion with manufacturers to minimise manual processes whilst delivering timely information; and integration with third party providers to deliver dealer-specific solu-tions that are driven by their own dealership data.

Working for Titan is well-known Kiwi DMS expert Paul Wilkinson, who says he relishes the opportunities he now sees dealers have within their reach.

“New Zealand dealers now have access to a world-class software solution that can grow with their business – and I’m excited to share that journey with them,” Wilkin-son says.

Internationally, Titan has

significant experience work-ing with, and integrating with, distributors systems. In Thailand it was recently endorsed as the sole DMS system for all of Mazda’s 160-plus dealers.

“We competed against global providers that already had operations and dealers in market in Thailand. What makes this achievement so rewarding is that our tech-nologies, references and achievements to date were so compelling, we managed to overcome our lack of presence in the Thai market,” Kroll says.

The Titan Dealer Manage-ment System, has been adopt-ed by franchised automotive dealerships covering more than 45 different automotive brands throughout Australia, Africa, Asia, Pacific Islands, the Middle East and Europe.



Social media in the dealershipS

ocial media certainly has its place in dealerships with the most common platforms for dealership

consideration being across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.

For many, the thought of covering these bases is overwhelming and they don’t know where to start, especially if they don’t have any dedicated resourc-es to make some headway with social presence. Social media channels needs to be looked at as being a complimen-tary mix of advertising and business branding and awareness.

Each channel has a slightly differ-ent user base and following, yes there is overlap of users, however, everyone doesn’t use everything, and all will have their main priority go to for content and information.

Many an expert in these areas will tell you, that you need to define your social media strategy as a starting point

… all very well if you have some exist-ing understanding of these platforms, but for the majority, coming up with a strategy is another exercise that is just all too hard.

So what I will cover here are some real basics of what you could do to have some presence with limited time on social media as a simple starting point to build from.

With Facebook a dealership needs to decide whether their page is all going

to be about promoting cars for sale, or about building a social profile around the business, or a mixture of both.

But if it’s all about cars for sale you can run the risk of not being that en-gaging or interesting, therefore there isn’t a lot of interaction with your posts, or worse yet, people that once followed you don’t anymore, because they are sick of seeing cars for sale, after they have already purchased one from you. This is where if you have any involve-ment in your local community by way of sponsorship, support or activities be sure to post photos and content regu-larly about these here.

Build a profile around your business that is of interest to those that you interact with and is complimentary to building credibility and trust in your community.

You can link your Instagram prolife so all of your posts on Facebook get

posted across to Instagram, this is super useful as it means you can build your profile across the two platforms for one lot of work.

You can have a Shop Now button on Facebook that displays vehicles you have for sale if someone is in-terested to look and can link to your dealerships website, which is a much less in your face sales pitch.

Advertising vehicles on Facebook (not on your timeline with posts) is a great way to target specific vehicles in-front of the most likely buyers and there are various tools available to make this super easy to do, however, this is done away from your dealer-

ships Facebook profile page. These same ads can also find their

way across Instagram again killing two birds with one stop as far as time and efficiency are concerned.

YouTube is a great tool to use to do a video showcase of your dealership, your people, and even your cars. Once any video is uploaded to YouTube it is easily shared across other social channels, embedded in your website, or even used to send to a prospective custom-

ers giving them more than just photos. You can now also include the video

links in your listings on some sites like Trade Me and Needacar. Video is a great way to give your prospective customers more personal insight into your dealer-ship and your vehicles. If you have rare, classics or special interest type vehicles you’ll be surprised the following you will gather from enthusiasts.

LinkedIn is an interesting one for dealers and not many have much pres-ence there.

However, I would suggest due to LinkedIn being focused around business connections (as opposed to personal) I would say any new car franchise deal-ership needs to have a presence and also the sales team individuals within them.

New models could be featured and you could really build an expert profile around the brand/s that you sell making you the go to person for anyone looking to purchase a company vehicle.

So social media channels have their place because they can provide you with access and reach across custom-ers that you may not get anywhere else.

Social allows you to build your busi-ness profile and present vehicles (where appropriate) in front of likely buyers before they have even thought about purchasing a new car.

It gets you in front of them for con-sideration for when they do, and before they have entered other channels where you have a heap more competi-tion. If people comment on your post, make sure you comment back and engage with them.

Don’t ignore social. You can be there in a small way, or a big way. But if you are going to be there, make sure some time is dedicated to it keeping it up to date and relevant.

Mark Greenfield, general manager, [email protected]


NEWSTALK

http://www.cfsfinance.co.nz


NEWSTALK

Cutting down on complaints

AT MTA we have a terrific team of people who try to sort out com-plaints members of the public

have about businesses that sell and repair their vehicles.

Our mediation service deals with around 1500 complaints a year. When I talk to the team to see if anything new is on the radar, there generally isn’t.

Most disputes seem to boil down to two common denominators, poor communication and poor paperwork.

There seems to be a particular is-sue in the dealer sector – where it often seems there’s a ‘she’ll be right’ approach to the paperwork as sales staff rush to push the deal through. However, this just creates unnecessary headaches in an era when consumers are more aware than ever of their rights, and not afraid of an argument.

Sales managers (they’re the ones often left with the aching head) could save themselves the pain if they made sure staff followed good processes in their paperwork.

Some of the common issues centre on what has been recorded on the CIN card and the Vehicle Offer of Sale Agreement (VOSA). These two documents are abso-lutely crucial if you end up in a dispute.

If you negotiate a different purchase price, make sure you handwrite it on the CIN card so it is clear you have agreed to a different price that the one printed on the card.

If you’ve had the car in the yard for

a few months, update the CIN card to show the latest odometer reading. Be absolutely clear whether the price includes (or does not include) on-road costs, or if it was a damaged import.

As for the VOSA, again, every part of your sale agreement should be noted. Also make sure the CIN and the VOSA record the same information. And, if you offered to put a tow bar on, write that into the agreement. People get very grumpy if a promise made in the

yard is not reflected in the sale docu-ment.

Finally, a plug for our MTA mediation team. These guys are very experienced and can help de-escalate a problem. We give advice to the customers of members and non-members alike.

However, only MTA members can reach out for our specialist knowledge, and for access to our legal service. If you’re a member, the number is 0508 682 633.

Craig Pomare

http://www.mta.org.nz

http://www.mta.org.nz


CRAWFORD’S CASE

INDUSTRYTALK

Poorly thought out policies

Last year we saw the charm of-fensive from the Labour led Government, mixed with a degree

of scepticism from industry as business confidence surveys took a dive for most of the year.

Readers of my column will know my views on why business confidence is low.

As discussed in my January col-umn, driving the downward trend in business confidence is the pending avalanche of new Government policies and regulatory changes which inevita-bly adds compliance costs.

If we had any doubt last year about the extent of Government policie’s impact on the business sector, this year has removed it. Two months down in 2019 and already we have seen several policies aired in public, all of which un-derpin the trend of Labour-led govern-ments to be interventionists, centralised and favouring policies for redistribution of wealth.

While the need for review of how our polytechnic system in New Zealand needs serious examination, the extent of Hipkin’s proposals around vocational training came as a big surprise. Centrali-sation of vocational training was a failed policy of the past, that is why we moved away from it.

While centralisation of the poly-technic bit of the system might, at a stretch, work rolling up the industry training organisations into this and then creating a whole new system of industry skills bodies risks re-creating the initial problems we faced with the ITO model.

We had too many, and over the years these have coalesced into 11 reasonably well working organisations. The pro-posals, while devoid of much detail, will result in a distinct lack of competition in the design and provision of vocational training.

The much-anticipated tax review, while not yet Government policy, fur-ther supports the long-held notion that

political parties of the left try and tax their way into prosperity.

The tax working party was respond-ing to the brief given to it by the current Government and they were asked (among other things) how to make a capital gains tax work.

Personally, I am not necessarily op-posed to a capital gains tax so long as it treats all capital in the same way to avoid investment distortions. But the bit of the report that got me (and I suspect many others) concerned was the rate of tax.

Granted, capital gains up to the time the tax is introduced (if one is) would be exempt, as it should be, but the rate of tax would be a killer. It smacks of Government wanting to have its cake and eat it to.

Add to these two areas of policy in-tervention are proposals to amend rules around migrant workers. The driver to these proposals is found in NZ First’s election manifesto.

The Labour/NZ First agreement commits them to “ensure work visas issued reflect genuine skill shortages … [and] take serious action on migrant exploitation.” Taken at face value these are laudable outcomes, but in reality it is code for jobs only for New Zealanders.

The policy proposes a new gateway process which will in our view impose significant regulatory compliance and costs on our sector than current ar-rangements. It also will change the process for accreditation requiring all employers to be accredited if they want to employ a migrant worker.

The period of accreditation is pro-posed to be reduced to 12 months from 24 months which is a retrograde step. We also worry about Immigration NZ’s ability to process applications in a timely manner.

What Government fails to appreci-ate with these proposed immigration changes is that our sector first and foremost tries to source employees from NZ, as the cost of bringing in an

overseas person is much higher, both in relocation costs and time taken to get the person here.

The current system already places considerable incentive on the automo-tive sector to find a suitable NZ resident person.

Perhaps the most pernicious of the immigration proposals is raising the remuneration rates for migrants to $37.50 per hour which takes the current complying salary from $55,000/year to $78,000. It would effectively strangle our sector.

If the Government presses ahead with these immigration changes the view of MIA, VIA and the MTA, who met recently to discuss these, is that we would see a systemic shortage of skilled workers build up over time. The system barely keeps up with our sector now.

The proposed changes essentially would lock out most of our current options for employment of migrant workers.

To make matters worse the indecent haste combined with short periods of consultation for such fundamental pol-icy changes with wide ranging impacts reeks of arrogance and pre-determina-tion. Our views don’t seem to matter.

Sadly, we will all pay the cost for poorly thought out policies.

David Crawford, CEO of the Motor Industry Association

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as it happens


In an increasingly competitive market it’s important to find the sweet spot between developing your brand

awareness and showcasing your ve-hicles.This will lay the foundations for great brand awareness in the long term while helping the sales hit your till in the shorter term.

Brand awarenessBrand awareness is defined as “the

extent to which consumers are familiar with the qualities or image of a particu-lar brand of goods or services.” Buyers make purchasing decisions based on their awareness of a particular brand.

Establishing brand awareness is valuable when marketing and promot-ing your company and products and just because it isn’t always possible to directly measure the value of it, doesn’t make it any less important. Here’s why:

It builds trustOnce a buyer has a positive experi-

ence with your brand, they’re more likely to make repeat purchases without much thought to any other options. Brand awareness gives your brand a personality and an opportunity to be sincere, receive feedback, and tell a story. These are ways that we, as humans, build trust with one another and it’s no different when build-ing relationships with brands.

It builds brand equityBrand equity refers to a brand’s value,

which is determined by buyers’ experi-ences with a perception of your brand. Positive perceptions result in positive brand equity, and of course the reverse

applies for negative perceptions. When you’ve got positive brand equity you’re able to: • Charge higher prices for your

vehicles due to the higher per-ceived value of the brand.

• It’s easier to expand a business through line extensions that carry the same positive brand equity.

Once buyers are aware of a brand, they specifically look for it when they’re about to make a purchase. This brand preference also drives referrals and rec-ommendations to friends and family … it’s the power of the good old fashioned “word of mouth”.

Showcase your vehiclesFirst impressions matter, so make

sure you’re positioning your vehicles for sale in front of the largest targeted au-dience as well as making sure that your listings stand out and don’t fade into the background. Here are a few things to consider:

The power of imagesWe live in such a fast-paced world,

with most of us dealing with large amounts of information each day. We scan through this information while we’re on the go like while waiting for the bus, sitting at our desk eating lunch or waiting for our next appointment. We skim over content and take what we need and ignore the rest.

So how do you get buyers to stop and pay attention to your listing? Well here’s another cliche - “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Why’s that?

Well it turns out that vision is our dominant sense and seeing takes up to 50% of your brain’s resources, making us literally hardwired to respond to images.

Large images will catch attention while having a scrollable gallery will let buyers flick through all the images of your vehicles at a glance before moving onto the next steps in their purchasing cycle. The important thing is that you’ve caught their attention from the begin-ning.

Appearing in the correct search results matters

Nothing is more annoying than searching for something and not find-ing exactly what you’re looking for - of course it’s super cool when you strike gold first time round - and that’s what buyers are hoping for.

It’s about appealing to the right buyers at the right time with the right message - all crucial elements to clos-ing the purchasing gap.

Finding the sweet spot between brand awareness and showcasing your listings really can help attract more leads and grow your bottom line.

INDUSTRYTALK

Claire Beyers Marketing Specialist - Trade Me Motors [email protected]

0800 42 88 [email protected]

www.trademe.co.nz/motors

New Zealand’s#1 vehicle listing site.

Find the sweet spot




MARKETINGTALK

After a down December saw AutoPlay customers capture significantly fewer leads, test drives and sales than the month prior, January 2019 saw a significant

increase in activity across all key KPIs. The volume of leads (up 16.1% from Dec 18), test drives

(up 19.5%) and sales (up 16.2%) all returned to normal levels in January 2019.

Web – Dealer regained the top spot as the most common source of leads for Kiwi dealers in January 2019 – up 15.7% from December 2018.

This pushed Web – Classified down to the second most common source of leads, increasing by 8.1% from the month prior. In December 2018 the volume of Brand leads suffered the most as brands wound down for Xmas – de-creasing by 38.8%.

In January Brands increased marketing activity back to normal levels and subsequently dealers using AutoPlay reported an increase in leads from this source of 29.7% from December 2018.

With the number of Test Drives captured overall increasing by 19.5%, we saw an increase in Test Drives recorded against each source.

Web – Dealer (up 10.5%), ‘Direct’ (up 20.1%) and Web – Classified up (8.7%) sources all saw increases in Test Drive volume.

Continuing the trend, sales increased across the board in January 2018. Sales attributed to the Web – Dealer source increase by 13%, Web – Classified increased by 8.7% and repeat increased by 6.5% from December 2018 to January 2019.

Make sure to check back in March to find out the most common sources of Leads, Test Drives and Sales in February 2019. To find out more about the range of reports available via AutoPlay contact us on [email protected] or +64 9 361 1505.

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

Top 3 sources of leads, test drives and sales January 2019 (vs December 2018)

1

Top 3 Sources for Leads, Test Drives and Sales - New Zealand Dealerships January 2019 ( vs December 2018)

Brand 6.5%

Web - Classified 8.7%Web - Dealer 13.0%

SALES

Web - Classified 8.7%

Direct 20.1%Web - Dealer 10.5%

TEST DRIVES

Brand 29.7%


LEADS

http://autoplay.co.nz



MARKETINGTALK

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

Web - Classified 2.8%

Repeat 9.9%Web - Dealer 6.2%

SALE

S

Brand 1.7%

Direct 11.4%Web - Dealer 4.6%

TEST

DRIV

ES

Brand 2.0%


LEA

DS

Peter [email protected] or 021-940 318

The constantly evolving world of SEO

This month we turn to a digital mar-keting subject that is often overlooked as a key component.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a digital marketing component that enables potential customers to find your website when they carry out an internet search.

It is appropriate to make reference to a digital marketing 101 comparison between SEO and SEM, as it is one that often can cause confusion.

Wikipedia’s definition for SEO is: “Search engine optimisation is the process of affecting the online visibility of a website or a web page in a web engine’s unpaid results - often referred to as natural, organic or earned results. SEO is not to be confused with SEM or Search Engine Marketing.”

By comparison Wikipedia’s definition of SEM is: “A form of internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages primarily through paid advertising.”

SEO techniques applied at the time a website is developed can often go without update for a very long time. As a result, these inaugural techniques can quickly become outdated, and so too your search engine, optimisation fails to be effective as it once was.

Google has evolved and released many significant SEO updates, however, your website SEO may not have kept pace with the degree of change initi-ated by Google.

So what should a dealer do when this is the situation arises?

In this regard I refer to an industry leader and speaker on the subject, Phil Gifford.

Phil is the vice-president at DealerOn, has had 17 years of online marketing experience and he speaks internationally at both automotive and SEO conferences.

Phil’s February DD Magazine article, “The Biggest Thought Shift You Need to Make This Year” provides the follow-ing valuable insights to current SEO practices.

Phil advises: SEO does not equal adding lots of “location” landing pages to your website. Google wants to see quality content - quantity does not re-ally matter.

Google’s algorithm (problem solving computer program) wants to see quality content that answers the questions that users are asking. Google uses multiple algorithms, not just one. For dealers, and anything related to the dealership, Google uses the local algorithm.

Physical address and proximity are massive factors in the local algorithm - which means they are huge factors for all dealers as it matters where your dealership is located.

In a competitive market, users searching near your location, say Grey Lynn will see you ranking much higher than users, say in Manukau City.

Adding weak pages, known as “door-way pages” targeting nearby cities won’t help you show up in those cities, in fact if you overdo it Google will penalise you.

One of the most weighted signals that Google uses to rank sites is in-bound links (other sites linking to your dealership site).

It is one of the most beneficial sig-nals, but most dealers don’t do anything with it and most website providers avoid

it as they see it as too time consuming. They believe its easier to prove

perceived value with pages of content, since dealers can “see” what’s being done.

For this reason, Phil emphasises that for all dealers the biggest thought shift they need to make this year is that your website is the end-all-be-all source for SEO.

Your Google My Business (GMB) profile is your new home page and not your website home page.

In the past, every dealership website homepage would receive tons of traffic just because users wanted to source your phone or directional information. Now all that information is, or should be, on your GMB profile.

As GMB is your number one priority you need to make sure each element is filled out completely. Upload lots of videos and photos and make sure you come back each month and add more photos and videos.

You can add as the primary number one that is a tracking telephone number so long as you also add your local num-ber. Category choice also needs to be carefully referenced within your GMB.

You should also be sharing Google posts weekly. You should be sharing promotions, since posts are seen before customers even get to your website. GMB can also become your Q&A sec-tion, in lieu of your website.



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

MARCH 2019

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

“The times, they are a-changin’ …”

The title and opening lines of Bob Dylan’s 1964 protest song neatly capture the political and legisla-

tive situation that the motor vehicle industry is going to have to deal with.

For the past few years, I’ve been able to report, quite accurately, that “we are in a benign political environment”. We have had no major legislative initiatives to negotiate or deal with. This is all about to change. The government has either for-mally announced or indicated significant changes that will affect our industry.

The changes fall into three main categories: Safety, environment and biosecurity.

The last one is the easiest to com-ment on, because there is no argument

about the need for robust biosecu-rity procedures. When the coalition government took office, an external assessment identified earthquakes and biosecurity as the two principal threats to the New Zealand economy.

We are still largely reliant on our primary products, in agriculture, horti-culture, viticulture and other areas, and into this mix we can add tourism; if we suffer a major biosecurity breach, such as foot-and-mouth disease or an insect infestation, tourism will also suffer.

So, no argument about the impor-tance of biosecurity. But designing a robust biosecurity system is far from easy, especially when the risks keep changing and evolving.

Last year, all sectors of the motor vehicle supply chain, including shipping, logistics and the border inspectorate, col-laborated with MPI, and invested heavily to deal with the stink bug issue. And al-though stink bugs are seasonal, the work to protect against them is ongoing.

We’ll just have to get used to dealing with biosecurity as a dynamic issue, which may require different treatments and processes from time to time.

Safety is also easy to comment on, but once again, making it hap-pen is anything but. The government has adopted a holistic “safer systems” approach to road safety that takes into account roads, vehicles, drivers and speed. This approach says that

although people make mistakes, the consequences should not be fatal or catastrophic. The system itself should mitigate the effects.

Within the system, the motor industry is principally concerned with vehicles. Although no new safety leg-islation has been introduced for some years, we are still implementing the successive phases of the ESC rule.

Government has indicated they now want to deal with vehicle safety again. This is easier said than done; as always, there are two strands to consider: Vehi-cles already in the fleet, and those, such as fresh imports, entering it.

A second question is whether the focus should be on vehicle age, which may be considered a proxy for safety. We have an old and ageing fleet, and there would be health, environmental


Advice and advocacy for the used vehicle industry

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Health and Safety

and safety benefits if its age was reduced over time. But how to achieve that, and what new safety features should be mandated?

Comments we’ve heard suggest the government will adopt two approaches. One is to continue with safety-related recalls. The Takata alpha recall is mandatory, and the motor industry is working through the affected vehicles already in the fleet.

NZTA has also indicated that it will enforce current procedures at Entry Certification to ensure no vehicles with outstanding safety-related recalls are certified until the recall has been completed. Industry is also preventing vehicles with outstanding safety-relat-ed recalls being imported.

The other initiative government has mentioned is reducing the number of one and two-star safety-rated vehicles. The first difficulty will be to identify such vehicles … then to decide what to do

about them. This will soon be the subject of proposals, consultations and submis-sions. We have experience in dealing with such, so we’ll await announcements of likely initiatives with interest.

The third point may be the most problematic: The environment. To achieve its Paris Climate Agreement commitments, which it has said it’s committed to doing, the Government will have to deal with the transport sec-tor, which contributes a significant per-centage of greenhouse gas emissions.

New vehicle manufacturers are

already building vehicles that meet

reduced CO2 emissions targets for EU, USA and Japanese jurisdictions. The challenge in New Zealand will be to set appropriate targets for vehicles enter-ing the fleet and then design effective legislation to achieve them.

So, interesting times ahead!


JAPANESE MARKET REPORT


A steady month for the Japanese market during February, with auction numbers (vehicle entries,

or “exhibited”) holding up in the depth of the Japanese winter as a relatively strong new-car market enabled a con-tinuation of the cascading of trade-in stock in to the used market system.

While not quite as attractive as the pricing window that briefly appeared at the end of 2018 and in to the first few weeks of January, New Zealand stock buyers still found opportunities to purchase stock in sufficient volumes to satisfy logistics requirements.

There appears to be a lessening in demand for stock amongst Kiwi volume buyers, as the market uncertainties back home coupled with a tightening of credit flexibility from traditional industry lenders has impacted upon the demand and therefore competition on the auc-tion floor.

With this easing, New Zealand buyers are tending to be more selective in what they source - at least, for the popular and common models, where prices for very low-mileage and high-grade stock - even back to 2005-2007 - remain extremely strong.

There is no shortage of - and plenty of opportunity to buy - older, higher-mileage stock such as Tiida, Axela, Auris, Fielder, Note, March, Demio and Swift, over 80,000km and towards 120,000km, with the Y100,000FOB entry price barrier able to be broken with relative ease.

The problem arises though, when

there is push-back by New Zealand consumers looking for later model and lower mileage stock, a bracket that is still not particularly accessible without paying over the odds.

In the higher value sectors, prices of Mazda products - particularly Axela and Atenza - have remained stagnant, giving Kiwis plenty of options for stock, including the BJ-series 2009-2014 Axela which has become particularly attractive to target, and even the cur-rent BM-shape which is imminent for replacement by the new model within weeks.

Higher-mileage later-model hybrid stock such as Prius, Aqua, Fielder etc, has also seen a shift back in values across the auction floor, giving Kiwi buyers access if they are prepared to accept 80,000km and upwards as a benchmark.

Very late model or low mileage hybrids, particularly Toyota, still com-mand strong prices paid by Japanese domestic dealers and so almost shut out New Zealand markets unless value is of no concern.

Commercial pricing has remained steady in to February, with demand in New Zealand now being capably met by supply from Japan.

Whether or not we see a rise in volumes and inevitably pricing through inter-agent competition towards the end of 2019 remains to be seen, as buyers either consider replacement sector pricing, or simply cease stocking market-acceptable vehicles in to 2020 and the final phase of the ESC Stability Control regulations.

Nissan Leaf pricing continues along a unique path, with demand from Aus-tralia for specific models outstripping the Kiwi market ability to compete.

Latest model 40kw Leafs are now being seen in reasonable numbers through auction, snapped up by Kiwi agents as they appear.

As mentioned in previous columns, the demand from New Zealand for used Nissan Leaf models has now almost certainly reached the point where it has outstripped supply - Japanese consumers have simply not purchased enough new Nissan Leaf models over the past 4-5 years to enable our uptake to increase much beyond current levels.

This is compounded not only by Australian market demand, but by the simple logic that not every used car, once reaching 2-3 years old, will be ei-ther suitable for New Zealand (with high mileage, accident damage or poor con-dition) or will be available for trade-in or sale by the existing Japanese owner!

As we move in to March, we are less than four weeks away from the tradi-tional “end of fiscal year” stock dumping by Japanese dealers and corporates to avoid taxation liabilities on March 31.

Given that this opportunity hardly arose during this time in 2018, eyes are carefully watching to see if there is a brief relaxation of both reserve pricing, and Japanese domestic dealer demand, to create the chance for a spend-up by Kiwis in those last, crucial weeks of March.

Lower demand from Kiwi buyers BY GRAEME MACDONALD

Avanti Finance has you covered.

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JAPANESE MARKET REPORT


Japanese dealers expecting 5.3 million car sales this year

Lexus hits 10 million mark

Japanese new vehicle sales are expected to rise this year - to a total

of 5.3 million units.The rise is expected to be

assisted by an approaching consumption tax hike of 2% in October, Shinichi Koseki, head of the Japan Automo-bile Dealers Association, told a news conference in Tokyo.

Such a result would indi-

cate a third year of growth for the trade. Sales in 2018 were up 0.7%, off the back of strong demand for Kei cars.

At the press conference, Koseki said that the market lacks strength, and felt there were not enough interest-ing new vehicle launches to spur sales.

Consumption tax increas-es are usually followed by a

fall in sales. This time the government plans to cut other taxes to counter.

Still, Koseki called for the need to drasti-cally simplify the country’s complicated vehicle tax system.

Japan’s first true luxury vehicle brand, Lexus, cel-ebrated its 10 millionth

vehicle sold in February.The mark was hit with the

announcement of 668,515 sales in 2018 - 4.5% on the year before. Sales are expected to accelerate from here with the addition of the UX small SUV to the range.

Interestingly, hybrid sales were up 20% for the year - reaching 1.45 million units sold.

“Lexus continues to enjoy substantial growth around the world, expand-

ing its footprint in emerging markets as well as reaffirming its strength in es-tablished ones,” Lexus interna-tional president Yoshihiro Sawa says.

“The brand’s clear focus on amazing prod-ucts and guest experiences provided by the finest dealers will support its global growth for years to come.”

Lexus launched in 1989 with a flagship sedan and a guest experience that helped define the premium auto-

motive industry. In 1998, Lexus introduced the luxury crossover category with the launch of the Lexus RX.

Ghosn expecting release

While Carlos Ghosn remains in a Japanese jail, the legal team for the former Nissan chair-

man say they have hopes a third request for bail will be successful.

Defence lawyer Junichiro Hiro-naka told a press conference this week Ghosn promised to accept camera sur-veillance as a way to monitor his activi-ties if he is released from the detention centre where he has been held since his arrest in November.

Ghosn has claimed innocence against charges of falsifying financial

reports and breach of trust. “We have put in a request that we

believe is convincing,” Hironaka told journalists. “We must win Mr Ghosn’s acquittal and restore trust in Japan from the international community.”

Hironaka is considered a star lawyer in Japan, and has won a number of prominent acquittals in a justice system with a 99% conviction rate.

He has questioned the grounds of Ghosn’s arrest and calls the case “very peculiar.”

Hironaka contends Ghosn’s case

is largely an internal Nissan company matter that was known to other execu-tives for a decade. He says the long detentions in Japan of suspects before trial are unfair, because they mainly af-fect those who insist they are innocent.

Japanese prosecutors argue that suspects may tamper with evidence or flee. Ghosn earlier offered to wear an electronic tether and hire security guards, but such methods are not used in Japan for bail.


F&ITALK

Finding and keeping F&I professionalsO

ver the years at Autosure we’ve seen dealerships thrive as a result of having excellent F&I

professionals. On the other hand, we’ve also seen many who’ve regretted mak-ing the wrong choice employing people in these roles.

Finding and hiring a true F&I profes-sional is the goal of many dealerships.

If you don’t have the right person in this key position, customer satisfac-tion, retail sales, F&I sales and dealer-ship net profit can all suffer.

Unfortunately, we’re often creatures of habit. As such dealers can put the wrong person in the F&I office, because they continue to use the same method-ology and philosophy they used when they hired their last person - hoping somehow it’ll work out better this time.

Disaster often happens when a dealer fails to implement a process to select, hire and train people for this essential dealership position. Some-times, using only a cursory interview or “gut feeling”, they pick someone who’s destined to fail because they lack the ability, experience or personality. Then when that person fails, they fire them and do it all over again.

There are four main areas to find a prospective F&I professional from: - Your own sales department. - Sales or finance professionals from

outside the industry. - The competition. - Through a specialist recruitment

company.

Look withinYour own sales department is nor-

mally the first and best place to search for a potential candidate. Most dealer-ships prefer to promote from within.

The natural choice would seem to be to promote the “best” sales con-sultant. Unfortunately, the skill set for selling tangible products is completely different from the skill set necessary to sell intangible products.

Selling a tangible product requires creating desire. Customers can fall in

love with the car’s appearance, the smell the features, the colour – all of which stimulate the senses. Selling in-tangible products requires a completely different approach. Customers have to see a need for the product or they won’t buy it.

It may seem difficult to determine if a sales consultant has what it take to be a great F&I professional, but it really isn’t.

Start by checking out a salesper-sons average gross profit. If two sales consultants sell the same number of vehicles, but one has consistently higher grosses, that person is already good at selling an intangible product. That’s the reason he or she is able to maintain higher grosses.

Additionally, evaluate your sales con-sultant’s paperwork. If he or she can’t or simply won’t complete their paper-work, it’s not going to improve simply because you moved them into the F&I office.

Look outside Unfortunately, not many dealers have

a qualified or interested F&I candidate in the sales team. However, there are many potential candidates outside the industry who have the necessary attrib-utes to succeed in the F&I role.

Look for those who are already in-volved in intangible sales, eg, insurance professionals, investment brokers or direct lenders within finance companies.

But bear in mind, a career in finance does not guarantee sales ability.

Look at the competitionThe competition is also a great place

to find a F&I professional. They may have an experienced someone who is dissatisfied with his or her current situ-ation.

However, be wary when hiring from a competitor.

While there are some very talented individuals you might be able to hire, it’s critical you determine why they’re looking to move.

When hiring an experienced man-ager, also keep in mind that you might be inheriting existing habits and beliefs. It’s critical for that candidate to have a clear understanding of, and believe in your dealership’s philosophy, F&I sales process and performance expectations.

Look at recruitersDon’t be afraid to invest in a good,

reliable recruiting company. They’re busy all the time doing what you only do occasionally. The good ones are very professional, understand your busi-ness and will be interested in a long-term business partnership.

Retaining your talent Regardless of how experienced your

new recruit is, it’s imperative to train him or her in the F&I process you want them to utilise, as well as your dealer-ship’s sales philosophy and perfor-mance expectations.

Even the most talented people can-not succeed in a vacuum. Continuous, ongoing training, focused on improv-ing consultative skills is crucial to a F&I professional’s success.

Today’s F&I professional is responsi-ble for more than just arranging finance and selling insurance products. They must also protect the dealership by ensuring compliance with laws and regulations.

The F&I department is a crucial source of profit for dealerships and those with highly professional business managers are seeing F&I profit’s strong returns.

If partnering with a market leader who will truly add value to your busi-ness over the long term is important to you, talk to Autosure today about your recruiting, training and development needs.

James Searle is general manager of DPL Insurance Limited

www.autosure.co.nz | 0800 267 873

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F&ITALK

From time to time it’s a good idea to look at what you’re doing and

how you’re doing it, and put yourself in your custom-er’s position.

This simple approach can get you off to a bet-ter start by demonstrat-ing empathy with your customers and shifting your focus from trying too hard to sell them prod-ucts to a position of offering your products and making it easier for your customer to understand and accept.

I spend a lot of my time working with dealerships throughout the country and believe the biggest objection to a customer’s acceptance of finance and insurance products often lies in the approach, and I’m not just talking about the way the products are pitched to the customer, but when, how and why they are presented.

I’ve observed poor perfor-mance with business manag-ers overselling and exag-gerating, but the worst of all is the lazy business manager who just goes through the motions, simply not trying hard enough, not building that essential rapport with

their customers and then not offering 100% of their products to 100% of their customers 100% of the time.

On the other hand I’ve seen some great examples of business managers spending that crucial first 5 minutes building rapport with their customers, asking open-ended questions, relating their own personal experi-ence and (only) then walking their customer through the process of introducing their products, the benefits of their products based on the information the customer has told them, and enabling the customer to see the need for the products.

To change your focus from trying to sell to offer-ing relevant products with full disclosure and enabling the customer to make an informed decision, there are three things you need to do:- i. Build rapport - Spend that

By Steve Owens of Provident Insurance

The Provident

PromiseWe don’t make promises we can’t keep. This is ours to you. To remain true to our values of passion, integrity, competence and commitment. For the hundreds of dealer businesses that we already work with, you’ll know that Provident accountability goes beyond just doing what is acceptable. Things aren’t always black and white but you can rely on us to do what’s right, for your customers and your business.

Our team listen, review, focus to make sure that Provident products and services meet your business needs now, and for the road ahead. Provident products and services are constantly reviewed to ensure that they are meeting the changing needs of the market. And because we’re 100% NZ owned and driven, we can adapt and adjust accordingly.

You can be confident that we keep you at the centre of all that we do; through tailored support designed around your specific business needs, nimble thinking, and a commitment to our long term partnership with you.

Being 100% NZ owned and NZ driven, I believe, gives us the edge; we know NZ drivers and what they need to protect their investment on the road. We also understand this market and we listen to your feedback and work hard to deliver what you tell us is important to you and your customers. It’s what we promise to help keep driving your business forward.

You have my word on it.

Steve Owens,CEO Provident Insurance, NEW ZEALAND.

Time to change your approach

Sell Features/Benefits

Close

Build Rapport


http://www.providentinsurance.co.nz

SHOWROOMNEW VEHICLE INDUSTRY AND PRODUCT NEWS


Kia sees opportunity in declining marketT

he New Zealand arm of Kia Mo-tors is on a roll and is aiming to crack more than 7200 sales of

new passenger vehicles in 2019, thanks to the introduction of the new 2019 Cerato range, which offers four hatch-backs and two sedans in the c-segment which is led by the Toyota Corolla.

It’s an ambitious call for a distributor that does have any light commercials in its line-up, but Kia Motors New Zealand finished in 6th place in overall passen-ger vehicles last year with 6885 units, moving up from 7th place overall in 2017, 9th place overall in 2016, and 11th place overall in 2015.

Kia Motors New Zealand man-aging director Todd McDonald says the total sales of 6885 units is lighter than it could have possibly been, given that the company ran dry of new Cerato stock in August 2018.

But McDonald points out that a number of high volume competi-tors have left the market such as the Mitsubishi Lancer (2311 units), the Nis-san Pulsar (1958) and the Holden Cruze (1420).

McDonald says excluding the num-ber of rentals, more than 10,000 new c-segment cars are sold to private and business buyers, with private buyers making up 40% and business buyers 60% of the sales split.

“When you deduct the amount of rental vehicles in the c-segment you can see that it is a declining market, but the exit of three major players has left the door open for the Cerato to com-pete and we have increased the number of available models to match customer demand,” he says.

“The business market has contin-ued to grow and that’s where we see the opportunity for sales of the new generation Cerato model, which we feel will redefine the hatchback seg-ment while offering value for money,” McDonald says.

McDonald also points out that since the advent of the Toyota Drive Away Pricing retail model - the pricing of the

Toyota Corolla has repositioned the whole segment.

“The goal posts changed, and even though there has been an increase of technology and specification across the segment, we are seeing the cars getting cheaper - it was a significant change in the price bands of the small car market,” he says.

“Sales of models over 40k in the C-segment are stagnant while sales of models under 40k are declining,” Mc-Donald says.

Kia Motors have added a fourth vari-ant to the Cerato hatch line up in the form of the 1.6-litre turbocharged GT with a 7-speed dual clutch transmis-sion at $41,990 plus on-road costs.

A 2-litre 6-speed automatic Cerato GT Line hatch will retail from $39,990 plus on-road costs. The Cerato EX 2-li-tre 6-speed automatic hatch or sedan will retail from $35,990 plus on-road costs and the Cerato LX 2-litre 6-speed automatic hatch or sedan will retail from $31,990 plus on-road costs.

The GT receives four years of free scheduled services every 12 months or 10,000km while the 2-litre models have three years of free scheduled service every 15,000km or 12 months.

McDonald says while the GT Line doesn’t feature the GT’s turbo engine and spirited performance, it does have similar sporty styling and equipment.

“The GT is most definitely a car for enthusiasts, while the GT Line will attract buyers who prefer a blend of sporty style and comfort,” he says.

The 2019 Cerato offers a suite of active safety technology across the

range, including an autonomous engine braking system incorporating pedestrian and cyclist recognition, to achieve a 5-star ANCAP safety rating. Rear-view camera and front-rear parking sensors are standard.

The new Cerato is larger than the outgoing car, which translates into more passenger and luggage space (the hatchback’s 428 litres VDA making it the largest boot in its class).

Kia has styled the new Cerato hatch with a longer bonnet, stretched roofline

and more sloping tailgate, giving it the appearance of a classic “shoot-ing brake”. It is lower than the previ-ous model, with the GT some 10mm closer to the ground and other mod-els 5mm lower.

All models get an 8-inch touch-screen for controlling the infotain-ment system, with the GT and the GT Line versions incorporating SatNav (other models can access satellite navigation through the standard Apple

CarPlay and Android Auto). The GT and GT Line models also feature wire-less phone charging. GT also gets an 8-speaker JBL premium audio system.

There’s increased space for pas-sengers in the larger cabin, with extra headroom, additional legroom, and rear occupants have more rear shoulder room.

Suspension is also upgraded in the new Cerato, with the ANZAC devel-opment programme fine tuning the front independent McPherson struts and semi-independent tubular beam rear axle to further optimise ride and handling.

The GT hatchback gets a fully in-dependent suspension system, further tweaked by the ANZAC team. They introduced sport mapping for steering sharpness and weighting, coupled with more precise gear shift points in Sport Mode, plus a more aggressive suspen-sion tune with the overall result aided by larger 305mm x 25mm ventilated front discs and 18-inch sport rims shod in Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres.



MG Motor on the hunt for dealersT

he MG brand is returning to the New Zealand market, this time in the hands of its giant Chinese

parent company – and finding dealers is high on its to-do list.

SAIC Motor, Chinese largest listed automaker has taken the distribution back from British Motor Distributors, operated by John Fairhall. While an-swering to Australia, the “lease has been signed” on a local office, and former Mercedes-Benz Vans national sales manager Anthony MacLean appointed as brand manager.

Peter Cao, chief executive of SAIC Motor Australia & New Zealand, believes the brand will appeal to Kiwi buyers.

“In studying the market in depth, we see New Zealand as the perfect fit for MG; as a global brand, MG has evolved to stand for great value, impressive

design, and high-quality manufacture, and we anticipate it will appeal to New Zealand customers.”

Cao acknowledges the work of Fair-hall and his team.

“The MG marque is going through a powerful transition – I would like to thank John Fairhall and British Motor Distributors for their professionalism and

stewardship of the brand in recent years.”

He also welcomed the experience MacLean brings to the brand.

“Anthony brings with him a wealth of experi-ence, and will work to ex-pand our dealer network,” Car says. “We have a strong focus on building trust, and creating jobs in the local market, engaging experienced, enthusiastic retail partners, to represent MG in New Zealand.”

Dealers wantedMacLean told AutoTalk at the event

that while the brand is close to signing its first dealers – the target is eight to 10 around the country – but still keen to talk

to interested businesses.“After today’s launch, probably our

highest priority is to find the right dealer partners for New Zealand,” he says. “We are having discussions with a number of partners.”

Existing dealers have not been re-tained.

“No, we are starting with a clean slate

in New Zealand. We want dealers who see where the brand is going, rather than where it has been.”

MacLean says the preference is to work with established new vehicle dealers – rather than the used car dealers some new brands partner with at launch.

“Any dealer we talk to will be a well-recognised operator in the area where they operate.”

Three models at launchThree models have been announced

as available from the brand when sales begin later this year – an updated MG3 hatch starting at $17,990, an MGZS small SUV starting at $23,990 and the existing MGGS SUV priced at $27,990.

Having two small SUVs is likely to give the brand the best chance of good

start – the sector is one of the fastest growing in the market. While a 1.5-li-tre four-cylinder is the main engine found in the range, the ZS has the op-tion of a modern 1-litre turbocharged unit.

All will be available with a five-year warranty and roadside assistance. The brand has managed to hold on to the same customer services number for the small number of existing MG owners.

AutoTalk had the chance to inspect the vehicles at the event briefly. Both the MG3 and MGZS look crisp and modern, and the spacious both look – and measure – as large for their segments. Interior build quality and finishes felt solid and ahead of other Chinese vehicles we have seen launched here to date – if still behind Japanese standards.That said, the prices are well down

on other cars of the size. The MG3, for example, undercuts an equivalent Su-zuki Swift by $4000. The ZS undercuts a Honda HRV by $6000.

The MG3 carries a three-star ANCAP rating, the ZS a four-star and the GS the first five-star on a Chinese vehicle tested in Australia.

Anthony Maclean



3-Series continues fight in SUV worldS

ince it was first released in 1975, the 3 Series has been one of the

most important vehicles in the BMW stable. It was the original Compact Sports sedan and created a whole new category and an imme-diate flurry of fans. Now in its 7th generation, supporters of this iconic car have just had their loyalty rewarded.

But in a world of SUVs, is there still demand for tradtional sporting sedans? BMW themselves are quick to point out that globally, over 33% of their sales are made up of Sports Utilities, while locally this figure is actually doubled. But they’re also sure that having a well-engineered and technologically ad-vanced driver’s car is still very vital.

BMW New Zealand is launching with two models. The 320d (at $77,500) and the 330i (at $89,500). This is es-sentially a $4000 increase over the previous models but both come with M-Sport packages that include the trim and adaptive M-Sport suspension as standard.

The M340i, and 320i models are due to be here in the second half of the year.

For plug-in fans, a 330e will be released later this year as well.

BMW NZ would not be drawn on sales expectations.

The new BMW 3 series in-tegrates design cues from its previous models and merges them with their progres-

sive new language. It has a sportier low road stance and its larger trademark kidney grilles extend out wide to the sedan’s headlights.

Inside, the 12.3-inch instrument cluster is fully electronic and highly adapt-

able, the head-up display is bold and clear, while the partially recessed infotain-ment touchscreen possesses live cockpit 7.0, a raft of “personalisable” widgets and introduces the advanced version of BMW’s Intelligent Personal Assistant (IPA).

BMW’s IPA is an intel-ligent, voice-controlled application that, over time (around a week) learns your behaviours.

With the phrase “Hey BMW” (this can be changed to the address of your choice), you can ask the

system anything from “how far to our destination” or “where’s the nearest cafe?” to simply “I’m tired” or “vi-talise me”, where, with the latter, it will turn the lighting green, make the temperature blow cold air and even open

the sunroof, all for around three minutes.

With regards to its “learn-ings”, if you regularly do things like, always put your heated seats on, the IPA will make that suggestion for you freeing up time and impor-tant headspace.

On the road, both models ride incredibly well. BMW has spent a lot of time on the suspension, introducing spe-cial dampers, every level has been refined and it shows. The handling is precise and well balanced, excelling in virtually every corner.

Both engines feel pow-erful, however, my per-sonal preference was the 330i, 190kW of power and 400Nm of torque through an 8-speed sport AT.

The sound from the 2-litre , 4-cylinder engine may be

enhanced, but was enjoyable all the same, especially on the downshift in Sport.

Driver’s assists such as “Narrow Passage Support” that can cope with obsta-cles such as roadworks, “Reversing Assistant” that recalls your last 50m and can retrace reverse and Ac-tive Cruise Control are also welcomed assets. Road noise is minimal (even on run flats) and there is also an acoustic glass and laser light option, should you require.



Ford balances business with new Focus and Endura

Ford New Zealand’s boss suspects the brand is often seen as a one car company and hopes with the

launch of two new models this week; it can show it has a lot more depth.

“I feel like we are beginning the strengthening our entire passenger and SUV range,” Ford New Zealand man-aging director Simon Rutherford told journalists at the launch of the new Focus and updated Endura this week.

“We’ve been accused of being the Falcon car company in the past, and now the Ranger car company, which I wouldn’t say is a bad thing [because of numbers].

“But we’ve got another product that deserves to be higher ranked in its seg-ment than it has been,” Rutherford ex-plains. “The way that we do that will be a combination of product and services that we offer. It’s ownership; it’s the total package that we’ve got to deliver.

“That is why we’ve kept our powder dry until now we didn’t have the new-ness that we have now.”

Following on from the “soft launch” of the previous and arguably, interim Endura model, the updated version comes in a full range with far more of a fanfare.

Its new 2-litre, four-cylinder diesel engine produces 140kW and 400Nm and transmits it through an 8-speed automatic transmission. There are both front and all-wheel drive options.

Fuel efficiency is reported to be 6.7-litres per 100km, aided by its intel-ligent AWD system that will disconnect the rear coupling when not required.

Visually, the exterior is enhanced with features such as a Ford trapezoid grille, anti-glare headlights, a high belt-line and doors that wrap into the sills. It offers “best in class” 2nd-row leg and shoulder room.

Standard safety features include post collision braking, evasive steer assist and a 180-degree camera. The interior has been dramatically improved with a soft-touch dashboard that flows down to your knees and a dial for transmis-

sion selection. The Endura’s entry price has

dropped $20,000, down to $53,490 for a front-wheel drive Trend; an all-wheel drive Trend is $64,990, the ST-Line $64,990 and the Titanium $68,990.

Rutherford says he is not concerned with Endura having only five seats in a predominantly seven-seat market.

“I’m not overly worried about the seven-seater factor. Our position is space and luxury.”

“‘My expectation is that we will dou-ble the numbers of the model we came in with, around 60 a month. At the end of the day, we’ve brought the RRP’s back, in order to have visibility across the range.”

The all-new Focus comes on a whole new platform. It features a spritely 1.5-litre, 134kW 3-cylinder Ecoboost engine that will reduce to 2-cylinder when not under load, giving an extra 5% fuel saving. Fleets will en-joy the option of a diesel wagon with 110kW and 370Nm outputs.

It has a longer wheelbase than the outgoing model to increase passenger comfort, flat floors in the rear and ex-panded rear door glass to offer greater

visibility and less chance of motion sickness.

It too comes with a whole raft of driving aids and safety that includes what Ford claims is the only heads-up display compatible with polarised glass-es, adaptive cruise control with lane centring assist, fully automated parking (both in and out), rear cross traffic alert and active braking.

Should you fall asleep at the wheel, the Focus will reduce power and bring the vehicle to a stop.

Announced last year, pricing for the Focus starts at $31,990 for a Trend hatch, rising to $36,990 for the ST-line and Active models, the Trend wagon is $37,990 and the Titanium $41,990.

“The Focus nameplate has got great rep, and it’s a successful global name-plate. It was always a great car, now it’s got an all-new platform, all-new everything and it just takes it back to the enjoyment of driving, involved and dynamic,” Rutherford says.

Anticipated sales numbers for the Focus were not discussed, but there appears to be high optimism about its new look and drive.


STATSTALKUSED VEHICLES



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TOP 10 USED IMPORT COMMERCIAL MODELS

MAKE MODELFEB '19

MAKE MODELFEB '18

TOYOTA HIACE 339 TOYOTA HIACE 300NISSAN CARAVAN 77 NISSAN CARAVAN 74MAZDA BONGO 46 NISSAN NV200 41NISSAN NV200 40 MAZDA BONGO 38TOYOTA DYNA 36 TOYOTA DYNA 35NISSAN NV350 33 NISSAN NV350 29HINO DUTRO 30 TOYOTA REGIUS 28TOYOTA REGIUS 29 ISUZU ELF 24ISUZU ELF 26 HINO DUTRO 23FIAT DUCATO 24 TOYOTA TOYOACE 22

USED IMPORT COMMERCIAL MAKES

MAKEFEB ‘19

FEB '18

Movement% Change

Market Share

TOYOTA 437 407 7.4 43.7NISSAN 213 203 4.9 21.3MAZDA 61 41 Up 3 48.8 6.1FORD 48 48 0.0 4.8HINO 45 49 Down 2 -8.2 4.5ISUZU 42 47 Down 1 -10.6 4.2MITSUBISHI 29 41 -29.3 2.9FIAT 24 15 Up 2 60.0 2.4CHEVROLET 22 19 Down 1 15.8 2.2HOLDEN 13 16 Down 1 -18.8 1.3Other 66 62 6.5 6.6Total 1000 948 5.5 100.0

Imports continue downward trendP

oor import figures have been followed by poor registrations for

February – with passenger cars down 7.6% year-on-year.

A total of 11,129 cars were registered, compared to 12,048 in 2018. For the year the market is down 12%.

Commercials fared a little better, up 5.5% for the month to 1000 units. In

2019 so far registrations in this segment remain down 2%.

At the top of the passen-ger market, registrations of Toyotas continue to suffer – down 16.2% for the month to 2406 vehicles, taking 21.6%

of sales.Nissan took

second on 2207 units, down 0.6% for a 19.8% share, while Mazda was third on 1780, down 10.8% for a 16% share.

Honda was fourth for the month on 1224 vehicles, down 0.6% for an 11% stake, while Subaru round-ed out the top five on 621, down 10.8% for a 5.6% share.

Suzuki was next on 601, followed by Mit-subishi on 531, BMW on 395, Volkswagen on 344 and Audi on 210.

The Mazda Axela con-tinues to be New Zealand’s most popular import passen-ger car on 590 units – up 18

from this time last year.Second was the Honda

Fit on 558, followed by the Continued on page 38





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USED IMPORT COMMERCIAL MAKES – YEAR-TO-DATE 2019

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

19-Jan 19 1 30 58 35 19 39 40 35 206 399 6 50 93718-Jan 13 8 35 45 26 22 57 78 36 210 441 3 50 1024

% diff 46 -88 -14 29 35 -14 -32 -49 -3 -2 -10 100 0 -819-Feb 22 9 24 48 45 13 42 61 29 213 437 9 48 100018-Feb 19 3 15 48 49 16 47 41 41 203 407 8 51 948

% diff 16 200 60 0 -8 -19 -11 49 -29 5 7 13 -6 5YTD 19 41 10 54 106 80 32 81 101 64 419 836 15 98 1937YTD 18 32 11 50 93 75 38 104 119 77 413 848 11 101 1972

%diff 28 -9 8 14 7 -16 -22 -15 -17 1 -1 36 -3 -2

Vehicle imports are down in February, NZ Customs motor

vehicle statistics show.The total number of all

vehicles hitting the wharves, including trucks and buses,

was 20,227 for the month. This com-pares to 24,397 in January.

The total number of cars for February was

16,639 com-pared to 20,941 in January.

This includes 7875 new car imports which were up in Feb-ruary compared with 7462 the previous month. It was the 8764 used car imports that saw a fall compared to 13,479 the previous month.

The total number of

vehicle imports for the year to date, including trucks and buses is 44,624.

Commercial vehicle imports improved slightly for February with the total number of truck and van

arrivals for the month up to 3407 compared to 3349 in January.

New truck and vans made up the majority of these ar-rivals with 3144 units on the

AROUND THE COUNTRY PASSENGER

REGISTRATIONS

DISTFEB '19

FEB '18

% CHANGE

WHA 263 276 -4.71AUC 5219 5713 -8.65HAM 772 826 -6.54THA 106 122 -13.11TAU 447 466 -4.08ROT 135 180 -25.00GIS 59 69 -14.49NAP 242 219 10.50NEW 152 175 -13.14WAN 112 99 13.13PAL 343 315 8.89MAS 69 64 7.81WEL 844 896 -5.80NEL 203 254 -20.08BLE 60 66 -9.09GRE 22 35 -37.14WES 4 3 33.33CHR 1434 1571 -8.72TIM 97 116 -16.38OAM 20 19 5.26DUN 353 380 -7.11INV 173 184 -5.98TOTAL 1129 12048 -90.63

Suzuki Swift on 530.Fourth most popular im-

port was the Nissan Tiida on 527, while the Mazda Demio

rounded out the top five on 440.

The Mitsubishi Outlander is the top SUV on 330, the Toyota Prius the top hybrid on 298, the Nissan Leaf the top EV on 274, the Toyota Wish the top MPV on 264, the Subaru Legacy the top large car on 263 and the Volkswagen Golf the top European on 228.

Toyota claimed the top spot on the commercial seg-

ment – as usual – with a 437 vehicle haul. This is up 7.4% on last year for a 43.7% share of the segment.

Nissan took second on 213 vehicles, up 4.9% for a 21.3% share, while Mazda was third – though well be-hind – on 61 units, up 48.8% for a 6.1% share.

Ford was fourth on 48 units, followed by Hino on 45.

The Toyota Hiace con-

tinues to be New Zealand’s favourite used commercial, topping the ranks with 339 hitting the road.

The Nissan Caravan was second on 77, followed by the Mazda Bongo on 46.

Nissan’s NV200 took fourth on 40 vehicles, fol-lowed by the Toyota Dyna on 36.

Car imports down in February



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20 TOP USED IMPORT PASSENGER MAKES

MAKEFEB '19

FEB '18

Movement% Change

Market Share

TOYOTA 2406 2872 -16.2 21.6NISSAN 2207 2220 -0.6 19.8MAZDA 1780 1996 -10.8 16.0HONDA 1224 1232 -0.6 11.0SUBARU 621 696 -10.8 5.6SUZUKI 601 682 -11.9 5.4MITSUBISHI 531 325 Up 2 63.4 4.8BMW 395 467 Down 1 -15.4 3.5VOLKSWAGEN 344 366 Down 1 -6.0 3.1AUDI 210 192 Up 1 9.4 1.9MERCEDES-BENZ 171 250 Down 1 -31.6 1.5LEXUS 113 79 Up 1 43.0 1.0FORD 79 122 Down 1 -35.2 0.7VOLVO 51 52 Up 2 -1.9 0.5LAND ROVER 41 54 -24.1 0.4JAGUAR 40 49 Up 1 -18.4 0.4CHEVROLET 39 63 Down 3 -38.1 0.4MINI 38 30 Up 1 26.7 0.3DODGE 33 28 Up 1 17.9 0.3HOLDEN 24 39 Down 2 -38.5 0.2Other 181 234 -22.6 1.6Total 11129 12048 -7.6 100.0

20 TOP USED IMPORT PASSENGER MODELS

MAKE MODELFEB '19

MAKE MODELFEB '18

MAZDA AXELA 590 SUZUKI SWIFT 581HONDA FIT 558 MAZDA AXELA 572SUZUKI SWIFT 530 TOYOTA COROLLA 517NISSAN TIIDA 527 NISSAN TIIDA 514MAZDA DEMIO 440 MAZDA DEMIO 499MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER 330 HONDA FIT 461TOYOTA PRIUS 298 SUBARU LEGACY 328NISSAN LEAF 274 MAZDA ATENZA 264TOYOTA WISH 264 TOYOTA VITZ 264SUBARU LEGACY 263 TOYOTA WISH 255TOYOTA VITZ 256 VOLKSWAGEN GOLF 216VOLKSWAGEN GOLF 228 TOYOTA PRIUS 214MAZDA ATENZA 223 MAZDA PREMACY 210SUBARU IMPREZA 219 TOYOTA MARKX 203NISSAN NOTE 212 NISSAN NOTE 174NISSAN DUALIS 197 MAZDA MPV 172MAZDA PREMACY 195 MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER 172TOYOTA AQUA 184 NISSAN DUALIS 160TOYOTA AURIS 155 SUBARU IMPREZA 154NISSAN X-TRAIL 147 NISSAN LEAF 146

wharves.New trucks and vans un-

der 3500kg saw 2755 imports

and vehicles over 3500kg there was 389 imports.

The total number of buses and coaches was also up

with 181 arrivals in February compared to 107 the previous month.


EV numbers head towards 13,000

Electric vehicles are closing in on the 13,000 mark in New Zealand,

latest Ministry of Transport figures show.

About 12,725 EVs and PHEVs were recorded to February 2019, up about 525 on January registrations, ac-cording to statistics released

on March 5.Used light pure electrics

remain the most popular, with 7354 registered – up 354 on January’s 7071.

Next in line are new light pure electrics, coming in at 2152 – 80 more than the 2072 recorded in January.

That’s followed by new

light plug-in hybrids with 2104 registered by the end of February 2019, 116 more than January’s 1988.

Used light plug-in hybrids were up 44 – 983 recorded in February compared with 939 in January.

Heavy EVs continue their slow rise, up two to 132.

In Australia, new electrics/

PHEVs recorded 151 sales for the month of February compared with 1503 new hybrids – the latter the most popular there.

New Zealand’s end of year goal is 16,000 EVs – with just over 3000 more EVs to go to attain that.

THE 17 LEADING USED IMPORT PASSENGER MAKES – YEAR-TO-DATE 2019

AU

DI

BM

W

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EV

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LET

DA

IHA

TSU

FOR

D

HO

LDE

N

HO

ND

A

HY

UN

DA

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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

19-Jan 177 417 44 8 90 31 1270 23 1873 149 552 2328 2 653 653 2450 391 487 1159818-Jan 250 523 65 8 115 46 1356 27 2310 210 440 2629 26 809 722 3232 445 506 13719

% diff -29 -20 -32 0 -22 -33 -6 -15 -19 -29 25 -11 -92 -19 -10 -24 -12 -4 -1519-Feb 210 395 39 8 79 24 1224 20 1780 171 531 2207 9 621 601 2406 344 460 1112918-Feb 192 467 63 8 122 39 1232 2 1996 250 325 2220 16 696 682 2872 366 500 12048

% diff 9 -15 -38 0 -35 -38 -1 900 -11 -32 63 -1 -44 -11 -12 -16 -6 -8 -8YTD 19 387 812 83 16 169 89 2494 43 3653 320 1083 4535 11 1274 1254 4856 735 947 22727YTD 18 442 990 128 16 237 85 2588 29 4306 460 765 4849 42 1505 1404 6104 811 1006 25767

%diff -12 -18 -35 0 -29 5 -4 48 -15 -30 42 -6 -74 -15 -11 -20 -9 -6 -12




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STATSTALKNEW VEHICLES

NEW VEHICLES COMPETITIVE FINANCE

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:


NEW PASSENGER MAKES

MAKE FEB '19FEB '18

Movement% Change

Market Share

TOYOTA 800 1013 -21.0 10.6MAZDA 758 773 -1.9 10.0KIA 580 512 Up 2 13.3 7.7SUZUKI 580 577 0.5 7.7MITSUBISHI 547 489 Up 2 11.9 7.2HOLDEN 545 602 Down 3 -9.5 7.2HYUNDAI 528 489 Down 1 8.0 7.0HONDA 512 412 24.3 6.8FORD 416 395 5.3 5.5NISSAN 355 269 Up 1 32.0 4.7VOLKSWAGEN 309 342 Down 1 -9.6 4.1SUBARU 299 157 Up 2 90.4 3.9BMW 163 144 Up 2 13.2 2.2MERCEDES-BENZ 152 166 Down 1 -8.4 2.0LAND ROVER 128 76 Up 4 68.4 1.7AUDI 120 169 Down 4 -29.0 1.6SKODA 108 104 3.8 1.4LEXUS 76 69 Up 3 10.1 1.0PEUGEOT 72 86 Down 1 -16.3 1.0HAVAL 64 30 Up 5 113.3 0.8OTHER 466 541 -13.9 6.1TOTAL 7578 7415 2.2 100.0

NEW PASSENGER MODELS

MAKE MODELFEB '19

MAKE MODELFEB '18

MAZDA CX-5 292 SUZUKI SWIFT 307

KIA SPORTAGE 273 MAZDA CX-5 276

SUZUKI SWIFT 245 TOYOTA COROLLA 250

TOYOTA COROLLA 235 KIA SPORTAGE 223

MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER 229 HOLDEN COMMODORE 214

MITSUBISHI ASX 188 TOYOTA RAV4 205

HYUNDAI TUCSON 180 MITSUBISHI OUTLANDER 170

HYUNDAI KONA 160 HONDA CRV 169

HONDA CRV 156 HYUNDAI KONA 141

NISSAN QASHQAI 156 NISSAN QASHQAI 140

HONDA HR-V 149 MAZDA CX-3 137

HONDA JAZZ 144 TOYOTA YARIS 137

NISSAN X-TRAIL 141 VOLKSWAGEN TIGUAN 132

FORD ESCAPE 123 MAZDA MAZDA3 131

HOLDEN COMMODORE 123 FORD ESCAPE 128

HYUNDAI SANTA FE 123 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER 128

FORD FOCUS 116 MITSUBISHI ASX 121

MAZDA MAZDA2 114 VOLKSWAGEN GOLF 119

SUZUKI JIMNY 113 HOLDEN CAPTIVA 112

VOLKSWAGEN TIGUAN 113 HONDA JAZZ 112

Market rise a good sign for market

Passenger car registra-tions in February were up on last year, though

other indicators show the heat may still be leaving the market.

There were 11,699 vehi-cles registered in the month of February, up 1.5% (168 units) on February 2018. It was still the second strong-est February on record. Of this, passenger registrations were up 2.2% year-on-year, while commercial registra-tions were virtually static at 0.1% up, or just three units.

That figure will be of

concern to some, as utes have pushed both volumes and profits for dealerships in recent years.

Motor Industry As-sociation chief executive David Crawford believes the result is a positive one.

“The out-turn for February 2019 was pleasing, being the sec-ond strongest February on record behind 2017. It indicates the market, while not growing, is











BROUGHT TO YOU BY:


steady as she goes.”For the month of Feb-

ruary, Toyota remains the overall market leader with 14% market share (1617 units), followed by Ford with 11% (1234) and Mitsubishi with 9% market share (1053).

Toyota was also the mar-ket leader for passenger and SUV registrations 11% market share (800 units) closely

followed by Mazda with 10% (758) and then Suzuki with 8% market share (581).

The top selling passen-ger and SUV models for the month were the Mazda CX-5 (292 units) followed by the Kia Sportage (273) and the Suzuki Swift (246).

In the commercial sector, Ford retained the market lead with 20% (818 units), closely followed by Toyota

also with 20% and just one unit behind Ford (817) and Mitsubishi third with 12% market share (506).

The Ford Ranger retained the top spot as the best-selling commercial model with 17% share (699 units) followed by the Toyota Hilux also with 17% share (686) with the Mitsubishi Triton in third with 12% market share (505).

Vehicle segmentation for February 2019 continued recent trends with SUV’s and light commercials dominat-ing the market.

The top two segments for the month were SUV me-dium vehicles with 17% share followed by the Pick Up/Chassis Cab 4×4 segment with 16% market share and the SUV Compact in third with 15% market share.

NEW AROUND THE COUNTRY PASSENGER

REGISTRATIONSDIST

FEB '19

FEB '18% CHANGE

WHA 170 175 -2.86AUC 3212 3176 1.13HAM 553 502 10.16THA 110 100 10.00TAU 328 338 -2.96ROT 154 151 1.99GIS 38 39 -2.56NAP 216 209 3.35NEW 161 144 11.81WAN 111 97 14.43PAL 241 224 7.59MAS 88 98 -10.20WEL 756 790 -4.30NEL 87 103 -15.53BLE 71 64 10.94GRE 9 10 -10.00WES 4 1 300.00CHR 794 703 12.94TIM 76 74 2.70OAM 9 9 0.00DUN 260 235 10.64INV 130 173 -24.86TOTAL 7578 7415 2.20


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

FIA

T

FOR

D

FOT

ON

GR

EA

T W

ALL

HIN

O

HO

LDE

N

HY

UN

DA

I

ISU

ZU

LDV

MA

ZD

A

MER

CED

ES-B

ENZ

MIT

SUB

ISH

I

MIT

SUBI

SHI

FUSO

NIS

SAN

SSA

NG

YON

G

TO

YO

TA

VOLK

SWAG

EN

OT

HE

R

TO

TAL

19-Jan 51 888 32 73 33 53 353 76 283 120 163 84 445 338 33 594 99 278 3996

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

% diff -50 10 -52 11 106 15 -8 19 10 -22 -5 47 40 19 -65 -24 -40 36 -1

19-Feb 44 818 23 73 33 51 302 76 246 140 196 76 506 335 43 817 119 221 4119

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

% diff -25 4 -51 46 313 -25 -17 19 -19 37 16 58 38 -13 -32 -14 8 28 0

YTD 18 95 1706 55 146 66 104 655 152 529 260 359 160 951 673 76 1411 218 499 8115

YTD 17 160 1596 113 116 24 114 751 128 562 255 341 105 686 668 157 1726 275 376 8153

%diff -41 7 -51 26 175 -9 -13 19 -6 2 5 52 39 1 -52 -18 -21 33 0










BROUGHT TO YOU BY:


NEW COMMERCIAL MAKES (UNDER 3500KG)

MAKEFEB '19

FEB '18

Movement% Change

Market Share

FORD 818 788 Up 1 3.8 19.9

TOYOTA 817 946 Down 1 -13.6 19.8

MITSUBISHI 506 368 Up 1 37.5 12.3

NISSAN 335 384 Down 1 -12.8 8.1

HOLDEN 302 366 -17.5 7.3

ISUZU 246 304 -19.1 6.0

MAZDA 196 169 16.0 4.8

LDV 140 102 Up 1 37.3 3.4

VOLKSWAGEN 119 110 Down 1 8.2 2.9

HYUNDAI 76 64 Up 1 18.8 1.8

OTHER 564 515 9.5 13.7

TOTAL 4119 4116 0.1 100.0

NEW COMMERCIAL MODELS (UNDER 3500KG)

MAKE MODEL FEB '19

MAKE MODEL FEB '18

FORD RANGER 699 FORD RANGER 735TOYOTA HILUX 686 TOYOTA HILUX 703MITSUBISHI TRITON 505 NISSAN NAVARA 384NISSAN NAVARA 335 MITSUBISHI TRITON 368HOLDEN COLORADO 299 HOLDEN COLORADO 362MAZDA BT-50 196 TOYOTA HIACE 208ISUZU D-MAX 153 ISUZU D-MAX 195FORD TRANSIT 119 MAZDA BT-50 169TOYOTA HIACE 108 SSANGYONG ACTYON SPORT 63HYUNDAI ILOAD 72 HYUNDAI ILOAD 61

Short, hot Feb snuffs Aussie market sales hopes

Australia’s new car market sales hopes have been snuffed out as consum-

ers turn to light commercials and ditch passenger cars.

According to VFACTS data supplied by the Fed-eral Chamber of Automotive Industries, new car sales in February were down 9.3% compared with February 2018.

From January 1 to the end of February sales reporting, the market has sold 169,096 vehicles, a significant 8.4% less than to the same point in 2018, with Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger and Mitsubishi’s brand new Tri-

ton the top three sellers in the summer-ending month.

Mazda 3 was the highest-selling passenger car with 2655 units reportedly sold last month, 9.5% down on Febru-ary 2018, whereas Mitsubishi continues its strong perfor-mance, with Triton reportedly up more than 66% to 3155 units, behind 3377 Rangers (down 4.7%) and number-one Hilux on 4431 (up just 0.1%).

Mazda CX-5 remains the top-selling SUV in fifth, up 7.6% to 2357 reported sales compared with February 2018, with the Mitsubishi

ASX in

sixth and a strato-spheric 135% reported sales increase, up from 902 in Feb-2018 to 2122 reported sales in Feb-2019.

The usual front-runner Corolla had a sluggish end to summer, finishing seventh on 2070 reported sales and drop-ping 36% compared with Feb-2018, beating the Hyundai i30 which also dropped 11% to finish Feb-2019 on 1929, ahead of Toyota LandCruiser in ninth (1804 reported sales, up 0.1%), and RAV4 (down 11%) in 10th.

Every state recorded limp sales performances, only the

Northern Territory and Tassie managed a gain over their respective February 2018 reported sales figures.

NSW and Victoria were both down 11%, Western Australia lost 8.3%, Queensland lopped more than 6%, South Australia dropped over 5% and the ACT stumped to the tune of 6.5%.

The best the NT could do was just 44 sales more than Feb-2018 (814 reported sales in total), and the Apple Isle finished Feb-2019 on 1519 reported sales, up 28 units or a modest 1.9%.

NEW PASSENGER MAKES

ALF

A R

OM

EO

AU

DI

BM

W

CH

ER

Y

CH

RY

SLE

R

DO

DG

E

FOR

D

GR

EA

T W

ALL

HO

LDE

N

HO

ND

A

HY

UN

DA

I

JEE

P

KIA

LAN

D R

OV

ER

LEX

US

MA

ZD

A

MER

CED

ES-B

ENZ

MIN

I

MIT

SUB

ISH

I

NIS

SAN

PE

UG

EO

T

PO

RSC

HE

SKO

DA

SSA

NG

YO

NG

SUB

AR

U

SUZ

UK

I

TO

YO

TA

VO

LKSW

AG

EN

VO

LVO

OT

HE

R

TO

TAL

19-Jan 17 111 130 0 0 0 606 0 689 450 551 110 710 179 76 1052 247 65 803 370 107 60 113 72 382 592 1718 374 68 290 9942

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

% diff 42 -38 -30 -100 -100 -28 -11 -14 0 34 -7 145 23 3 31 -16 28 -13 20 11 -19 -12 12 0 -31 25 19 16 -8

19-Feb 9 120 163 0 1 0 416 0 545 512 528 55 580 128 76 758 152 41 547 355 72 49 108 55 299 580 800 309 64 256 7578

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

% diff 80 -29 13 0 -100 5 -9 24 8 -61 13 68 10 -2 -8 -41 12 32 -16 40 4 -14 90 1 -21 -10 36 26 2

YTD 18 26 231 293 0 1 0 1022 0 1234 962 1079 165 1290 307 152 1810 399 106 1350 725 179 109 221 127 681 1172 2518 683 132 546 17520

YTD 17 12 347 331 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

%diff 117 -33 -11 -50 -100 -18 -11 3 4 -26 1 106 16 1 13 -28 21 5 2 22 -9 -13 36 0 -28 6 27 21 -4




STATSTALKSECONDHAND


SECONDHAND REGISTRATIONS − FEBRUARY 2019SALE 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 2019

Public to Trader 195 4591 953 180 553 148 63 409 178 161 573 96 949 150 93 20 1802 118 2 475 270 11979

Public to Public 1888 13432 3223 652 2040 986 381 1469 913 604 1542 536 3029 980 462 165 35 5294 508 134 2030 1170 41473

Trader to Public 534 5424 1322 289 811 343 180 636 402 246 731 199 1459 262 149 51 7 3004 173 26 745 402 17395

Cars 2018

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 % Change

Public to Trader -30.9 -0.8 -0.4 14.6 4.3 26.5 -20.3 10.5 16.3 5.2 -39.5 -14.3 -13.8 -34.5 17.7 11.1 12.0 3.5 -50.0 32.3 0.4 -2.3

Public to Public -2.0 -3.4 1.9 -6.7 4.6 1.5 -11.6 -0.7 -5.5 0.3 -7.4 10.1 -0.9 -7.0 3.8 -3.5 40.0 -0.4 -5.2 28.8 -0.8 7.0 -1.5

Trader to Public -6.8 -2.2 5.8 3.6 6.0 -7.3 29.5 15.2 22.2 -8.9 2.2 -10.0 -1.3 -18.1 2.1 -28.2 40.0 44.6 -2.8 -27.8 12.9 0.5 6.2

Motorcycles 2019

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 2018

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 2019

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 2018

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

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Traders turn to second-hand stock

Dealers are selling more second-hand stock according to regis-tration figures, with reports from

the industry suggesting it will continue as margins are squeezed on imports.

Dealer sales to the public were up 6.2% in February to 17,395 units, though dealer purchases from the public were

down 2.3% to 11,979 - ex-rental, whole-sale and auction stock making up the difference.

Public transactions were down 1.5% to 41,473 units.

In bikes, dealer sales rose 9,3% to 410 bikes, while dealer purchases were up 8.8% to 369 - the trend matching up to

a busy month for new bike sales. Public-to-public sales were down

7.3% to 1842.In trucks, dealer sales rose slightly,

by 2.5% to 2607, while purchases were up 5.7% to 1899. A total of 6118 trucks were transacted by the public - a rise of 3.8%.


STATSTALKTRUCKS

STATSTALKBIKES


USED BIKE MAKESMAKE FEB '19 FEB '18 % Change

% of Market

HARLEY DAVIDSON 93 80 16.3 37.2TRIUMPH 38 16 137.5 15.2HONDA 26 31 -16.1 10.4DUCATI 22 16 37.5 8.8BMW 20 15 33.3 8.0YAMAHA 15 19 -21.1 6.0SUZUKI 13 16 -18.8 5.2MOTO GUZZI 4 4 0.0 1.6KAWASAKI 3 12 -75.0 1.2KTM 3 5 -40.0 1.2Other 13 28 -53.6 5.2TOTAL 250 242 3.3 100.0

NEW BIKE MAKES

MAKEFEB '19

YTD '19

FEB '18

% Change

Market Share %

SUZUKI 158 340 122 29.5 19.2YAMAHA 89 199 82 8.5 10.8HONDA 72 141 63 14.3 8.8TRIUMPH 62 97 38 63.2 7.6TNT MOTOR 59 92 42 40.5 7.2HARLEY DAVIDSON 55 131 68 -19.1 6.7KAWASAKI 32 93 54 -40.7 3.9BMW 30 78 20 50.0 3.7FORZA 30 64 33 -9.1 3.7FACTORY BUILT 29 49 10 190.0 3.5KTM 26 60 37 -29.7 3.2ROYAL ENFIELD 22 38 15 46.7 2.7VESPA 20 42 23 -13.0 2.4MOPED 18 44 13 38.5 2.2DUCATI 16 27 10 60.0 1.9APRILIA 12 26 24 -50.0 1.5INDIAN 12 26 23 -47.8 1.5ZNEN 11 18 9 22.2 1.3SYM 9 13 1 800.0 1.1HUSQVARNA 7 13 4 75.0 0.9Other 52 95 73 -28.8 6.3TOTAL 821 1686 764 7.5 100.0

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

NEW BIKE MODELSMAKE MODEL FEBTNT MOTOR ROMA 2T 53SUZUKI UZ50 37YAMAHA YZF R3 AJ2 21HONDA NBC 110BN 19FACTORY BUILT ARIIC 18SUZUKI GSX150 FDZA GIXXER 16FORZA CAPRI LX 15FORZA CICLONE 15SUZUKI GSX150 DXA GIXXER 11YAMAHA MT-07 LAJ 11

Motorbikes continue growth

The motorcycle seg-ment appears to be a bright spot in the

market in 2019 - recording healthy growth in February.

New bike registrations - not including bikes sold solely for off-road use - were up 7.5% for the month to 821 units from 764 this time last year.

Year-to-date new regis-trations have hit 1686 units.

Suzuki has come off the back of a few slow months of new sales with a huge 29.5% gain to 158 units from 122 a year ago, taking a 19.2% share of the market.

Yamaha was second on

89, up 8.5% for 10.8% of the market, followed in third by Honda on 72, up 14.3% for an 8.8% stake.

Triumph was the first non-Japanese brand on 62 bikes, up 63.2% for a 7.6% share, followed by Chi-nese brand TNT Motor, up 40.5% to 59 units and 7.2% of the market.

Harley Davidson was sixth on 55, followed by Kawasaki on 32, BMW and Forza on 40 and factory built on 29.

As usual, scooters lead the trade - with the TNT Motor Roma 25 on 53 and Suzuki UZ50 on 37 at the top of the

chart.The Yamaha YZF R3 was

third on 21, followed by the Honda NBC 110BN on 19

and the factory built ARIIC on 18 units.

Used import registrations rose for the month as well, though not by the same level. Registrations were up 3.3% to 250 units from 242 in 2018.

Harley Davidson topped the used chart on 93 bikes, up 16.3% for 37.2% of the market.

Triumph was second on 38 bikes, up 137.5% for a 15.2% share, followed by Honda on 26, down 16.1% for a 10.4% share.

AUTOTALK MARCH 2019 | www.autotalk.co.nz | 45 AUTOTALK MARCH 2019 | www.autotalk.co.nz | 45

New and used com-mercial vehicle reg-istrations remained

healthy in February, up a combined 11% year-on-year.

Total registrations of new trucks and buses over 3500kg GVM sits at 475 units for the month.

This is up 8.4% compared to the 438 in the same pe-riod the previous year.

Isuzu is market leader for the month of February with 93 units registered and a 19.6% market share. The brand was down 14.7% year-on-year with 109 registered in the same month in 2018.

Fuso is in second place for the month, up 48% with 74 registered and a 15.6%

market share. Hino comes in third, down 25% year-on-year with 51 registered and a

10.7% market share. Mercedes-Benz follows,

up 14.3% with 32 units regis-tered. Kenworth up 40% with 28, Iveco up 46.7% with 22, bus manufactur-er Alexander Dennis with 21, Volvo up 31.3% with 21, Fiat down 18.2% with 18 and MAN up 63.6% with 18.

Meanwhile, total used imported truck and bus registrations were up 2.5% year-on-year with 202 units registered in February. This compared to 197 in the same period

in 2018.Hino led the used

commercial import market for the month with 45 units registered and a 35.7% market share. This was down 8.2% compared to 49 in the same period the previous year.

Toyota came in second, down 7.1% with 39 registered and a 31% market share. Isuzu third, unchanged with

36 and a 28.6% market share. Mitsubishi follows, un-

changed with 23 units, Nis-san up 70% with 17, Ford up 100% with eight, Mazda up 100% with six, DAF up 150% with five, Fiat unchanged with four and UD Trucks with three registered units.

Isuzu NZ general manager Colin Muir says February was a “reasonably good month” for the brand and achieved what was expected in terms of registrations.

Good enquiries are com-ing on the back of Isuzu’s Rugby Wold Cup Japan promotion as well as recent upgrades to tech accessories and telematics and new in cab safety and driver aid op-tions across the range.

“We’re already ahead of 2018 by 20 or so units with a big drive in medium-sized 4x2.

“The pipeline is excep-tionally healthy and there still seems to be a lot of busi-ness out there despite the doomsday predictors,” Muir says.

NEW TRUCK MAKES (OVER 3500KG)

MAKEFEB '19

FEB '18

% Change

% of Market

YTD '19

YTD '18

ISUZU 93 109 -14.7 19.6 197 175FUSO 74 50 48.0 15.6 147 116HINO 51 68 -25.0 10.7 104 114MERCEDES-BENZ 32 28 14.3 6.7 49 62KENWORTH 28 20 40.0 5.9 50 52IVECO 22 15 46.7 4.6 37 38ALEXANDER DENNIS 21 0 4.4 45 7VOLVO 21 16 31.3 4.4 73 37FIAT 18 22 -18.2 3.8 40 59MAN 18 11 63.6 3.8 36 25Other 97 99 -2.0 20.4 215 209TOTAL 475 438 8.4 100.0 993 894

USED TRUCK MAKES

MAKEFEB '19

FEB '18

% Change

% of Market

YTD '19

YTD '18

HINO 45 49 -8.2 35.7 80 75TOYOTA 39 42 -7.1 31.0 77 75ISUZU 36 36 0.0 28.6 72 91MITSUBISHI 23 23 0.0 18.3 44 42NISSAN 17 10 70.0 13.5 39 29FORD 8 4 100.0 6.3 11 5MAZDA 6 3 100.0 4.8 9 9DAF 5 2 150.0 4.0 8 5FIAT 4 4 0.0 3.2 6 14UD TRUCKS 3 0 2.4 4 0Other 16 24 -33.3 12.7 36 46TOTAL 202 197 2.5 160.3 386 391

STATSTALKTRUCKS

New and used commercials stay steady

TRIBUNALTALK

The right action taken to slow

In May 2018, the purchasers paid $9800 for a 2006 Mazda MPV with 107,950km on the clock from the

trader.Approximately 10 weeks later, after

they had driven the vehicle around 8000km, numerous engine warning lights appeared on its dashboard. The purchaser also noted that the vehicle was using excessive engine oil. She took the vehicle back to the trader for assessment and repair.

The trader had the vehicle for five weeks, then returned it with a recondi-tioned engine. A further three weeks later, she was driving the vehicle to Whangarei and another engine light appeared on the dashboard. The vehicle was returned again to the trader for repair.

The purchasers claim they made several attempts to contact a techni-cian in the trader’s service centre, to find out what was wrong with their vehicle and what the trader was going to do about it. On September 28, the technician advised work on the car was still in progress and that it had been sent back to the workshop that replaced the engine.

On October 9, the purchaser spoke again with the technician, who told them while an official diagnosis had not been made it was suspected there was an issue with the turbocharger.

The purchaser says he told the technician he and his wife did not think the vehicle was fit for purpose and that they wished to reject it, but that they knew they would need to ring the traders branch manager - but he was away. The purchaser then spoke to the trader’s business manager, who told him that she could not make decisions and that he would need to talk to the branch manager directly.

The purchaser finally spoke to the manager on October 15, and told him they wished to reject the vehicle as it was not fit for purpose and that this was the second major fault it has had.

The manager asked for the purchaser to put everything in an email so it could be put to the general manager. This was done the same day, and the emails forwarded on four days later.

Records showed repairs by this time were already under way, with the repairer ordering a new turbocharger on October 9. The technician texted the purchaser on October 18 to let them know the vehicle was repaired and ready for collection - they have never picked it up.

The trader’s position is the purchaser had no right to reject the vehicle. It says she asked it to repair the vehicle and cannot change her mind after having done so. Moreover, it says the turbo-charger failure was not a failure of a substantial character.

While the repairs were being carried out, a loan vehicle was provided to the purchaser. A loan vehicle was also sup-plied for the second repair, and this repair was believed to have cost around $2000.

The purchasers position is they never agreed to the turbocharger repair. They claim they were not properly informed by the trader as to what was happen-ing with their vehicle and that, overall, the communication from the trader has been poor.

The purchaser also believe the turbocharger fault was a failure of a substantial character.

The trader acknowledged to the Tri-bunal that it took too long to diagnose the turbocharger fault and advise the

purchasers what the problem was. However, the delay was partly

because they initially sent the vehicle back to the workshop that replaced the engine. The final repair was done elsewhere.

The adjudicator agreed with the criti-cism over communication, and noted it should have told the purchasers what was wrong with the car and what repairs it proposed to carry out before it went ahead with those repairs.

“It is a continuing obligation of a trader to provide a consumer with suf-ficient information to allow the con-

sumer to make an informed decision whether to reject the vehicle or have it repaired.”

The adjudicator also noted that while the trader felt the purchaser had bought the car in for repairs, when the request to reject the vehicle was made, they should have halted the repairs and provided them with adequate informa-tion so that they could be fully informed in their decision-making.

“Adequate information in this context means the precise nature of the fault, what repairs were proposed and the cost of those repairs.”

Were the faults of a substantial char-acter?


Guenther-Leslie v Buy Right Cars (2016) Limited


TRIBUNALTALK

The adjudicator and his expert believe the first failure requiring the engine to be rebuilt was a failure of a substantial character. At nearly $8000, the repairs cost almost as much as the price of the vehicle itself. A reasonable consumer is unlikely to have purchased a vehicle knowing that its engine would fail and need to be replaced within three months of purchase.

They found the failure of the turbocharger the follow-ing month was less serious.

“That is clear from the much lower total repair cost, around $2000. The two failures were not shown to be linked and I do not see any justification for treating the engine and turbo failures as cumulative. There was no evidence that failure of the turbocharger related to a pre-existing defect. Rather, it indicates the vehicle lacked durability.”

As the failure of the turbo-charger was not of substan-tial character, the purchaser is not entitled to reject the vehicle for that reason alone - this would only be allow-able if the Tribunal were to conclude that the trader had

not succeeded in remedying the failure of the turbocharg-er within a reasonable time.

While the trader acknowl-edged the repair took too long, the Adjudicator noted it acted reasonably in its effort to have the repairs done. Secondly, the purchaser was provided with a loan vehicle for the time that her vehicle was out of action.

“Any inconvenience to her associated with the delay was therefore reduced. That

is a relevant factor in assess-ing whether the delay was unreasonable.”

Thirdly, it was noted by the time the purchaser wished to reject the vehicle, repairs were already under way.

The Tribunal’s assessor pointed out the purchaser now has a vehicle that is likely to be in better condi-tion than the vehicle they agreed to purchase, with a rebuilt engine and a new turbocharger.

The Tribunal acknowledges they have suffered inconven-ience, in part because of the time taken to repair the vehi-cle and also because of the trader’s poor communication.

However, now that the repairs have been com-pleted, there is nothing to suggest that they will not be able to use and enjoy the vehicle as they had origi-nally intended.

The rejection was dis-missed.


The law:Was the failure of a substantial charac-

ter?[27] Section 21 of the Act sets out the

circumstances in which a failure to comply with the guarantee will be of a substantial character. It provides:

1. Failure of substantial characterFor the purposes of section 18(3), a

failure to comply with a guarantee is of a substantial character in any case where -

(a) the goods would not have been acquired by a reasonable consumer fully acquainted with the nature and extent of the failure; or

(b) the goods depart in 1 or more sig-nificant respects from the description by which they were supplied or, where they were supplied by reference to a sample or demonstration model, from the sample or demonstration model; or

(c) the goods are substantially unfit for a purpose for which goods of the type in question are commonly supplied or, where section 8(1) applies, the goods are unfit for a particular purpose made known to the supplier or represented by the supplier to be a purpose for which the goods would be fit, and the goods cannot easily and within a reasonable time be remedied to make them fit for such purpose; or

(d) the goods are not of acceptable quality within the meaning of section 7 because they are unsafe.

What does this mean?While the trader has acted well, and

spent a lot of money to repair the vehicle, slow processes could have cost them a lot more. Just fixing the vehicle is not enough - it must be done in a reasonable amount of time.


crucial first five minutes building rapport. Remem-ber the old sales triangle (on left) and how it’s changed (to right). Also remember that “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”.

ii. Focus on the customer – Focus on what is best for that particular customer, based on what they have told you and what you believe

their needs to be. This is where you may have to ditch the pitch, change your presentation and just focus on what and why you believe it’s best for them.

iii. Build your knowledge – “Knowledge = success”. The more you know the more success you will have. The great thing is that knowledge is avail-able in abundant supply everywhere around us. Just ask me and I’ll show you.

Ninety per cent of all objections relating to F&I start in your own head. Either you will offer your customer the benefits of your products or your customer will offer you their objections to your products.

There is nothing more satisfying than to see a cus-tomer who originally may have indicated “no” to your products, because they may have been ill-informed, to saying “yes” once you have provided sufficient informa-tion to enable them to make

an informed decision.If you want to change

your results, you may need to change your approach. At Provident we have specific workshops designed to help build rapport, focus on the customer and offer relevant products, effectively, with full disclosure and integrity.

“You don’t have to try too hard to be better, you just have to try to be different, and by being different you will become better.”


Time to change your approach


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We had a massive week with New Zealand’s top automotive technicians, sharing with them

the latest in our electric vehicle training. Our approach to training is to leave

no stone unturned. It’s much like going to one of our favourite local restaurants in Napier, the food is amazing, and you come away full and happy!

This is how we feel about our train-ing. We want you to be full of knowl-edge, also having the hands-on aspects so you apply this on returning to your place of work.

At AECS we spent days upon days in summer just on research and develop-ment to create two new seminars.

Why spend so much time on this? When working on EVs the largest

threat to your wellbeing is electric-ity. Working with 400 volts-plus you must know what you’re doing. Safety is paramount!

The first of our training is a continu-ation of EV Diagnostics & Maintenance in our part two (part one was released last year). In this we cover HV air-con-ditioning diagnostics, servicing R134a aircon, including cooling and heating systems, and how to diagnose levitat-ing coolant pumps - their control/feedback systems.

Wheel alignment and braking sys-

tems have a major impact on battery range. We go in-depth with wheel alignment and stability control, with basics on toe, camber, setback and thrust angle adjustments. Functions of the ABS modulator will also be covered, such as EBD, VDC, BLSD and BAS.

One of the areas we go into much detail is high voltage distribution and the role of the power dis-tribution module (PDM).

We will bring a PDM for you to see so you can understand how each of the components operate. Of course, more will be covered.

The second of the new training programmes is EV Battery Diagnostics & Repair.

This where it gets exciting. Each component of this training is broken down so it’s easy to understand. Simple chemistry will change your thinking about HV rechargeable batteries.

We take a look at EV battery construc-tion and chemistry, and the way batter-ies are connected (including individual anodes and cathodes) to the busbars. Knowledge such as this is necessary for you to be an expert on EV batteries.

We worked with first responders in EV/hybrid vehicle impacts and crashes in which we share the outcomes on

what best practices are when an EV/hybrid high voltage system is damaged.

Importantly, we’ll go into battery cell quality diagnostics, testing and evaluation of individual batteries from Nissan and Renault, removal and opening an HV battery through to cooling, ventilation and sealing. You’ll learn how to safely measure, diagnose and equalise an HV battery. Also covered will be breakers, SMRs

and rush resistor.Who would have thought there is so

much to an EV? With our training all of this is ex-

plained in detail, and we have compo-nents from an actual EV that helps with understanding.

AECS is about empowering work-shops and keeping you trained with the latest technology. If you want to be at the top of your game, then training is key.

Finally, perhaps you’re not a techni-cian but work in the industry or own an EV - we have something for everyone.

There’s training for vehicle sales, insurance assessors, and EV owners through to first responders. Call 06 874 9077, email [email protected] or visit training.aecs.net for more information.

NEWSTALK

At the top of your gameMARK THOMPSON - MARKETING MANAGER OF AECS


DIARYTALK

THE DIARY AutoTalk’s editor Richard Edward looks at the month gone by on AutoTalk.co.nz

February 1Dealer numbers fall – seven months in a rowFor the seventh month in suc-cession, the number of regis-tered motor traders has fallen.

While the reduction in the total numbers of dealers is rela-tively small – down by 83 over the past seven months – the trend is considered significant.

From almost 3500 registra-tions last July, numbers have dropped to just over 3400 (3413) at the end of January.

February 4Online reservation first for Skoda Kodiaq RSSkoda has announced the offi-cial recommended retail price for the high-performance Ko-diaq RS in New Zealand will be $71,990 plus on-road costs.

In New Zealand, the Kodiaq RS is the first Skoda to be launched using an online res-ervation. The first units avail-able have just been released for RS fans who want to be in pole position for customer deliveries.

February 5Ranger leads softer 2019 start for new vehicle registrationsNew vehicle registrations in January 2019 have fallen by 6% (896 units) year on year to 13,938 units but not with-standing the lower result, it was still the second strongest January on record according to industry body, the Motor Vehicle Industry Association of New Zealand (MIA).

The Ford Ranger started 2019 as New Zealand’s best-

selling new vehicle and best-selling light commercial with 837 registrations, followed by the Toyota Corolla with 669 registrations, and the Mitsubi-shi Triton with 445 units.

Boomer January for used car arrivalsUsed car arrivals got off to a healthy start for 2019 with 13,479 vehicles crossing New Zealand wharves in January, continuing a trend which start-ed in November with 11,301 units arriving, and 12,448 units arriving in December 2018.

Arrivals of used trucks and vans under 3500kg GVM, tal-lied 561 units in January 2019, up from 464 in December 2018.

However, arrivals of used trucks and vans over 3500kg dropped to 64 units in January 2019 from 128 units in De-cember 2018.

February 11Tesla boss confirms Dog and Sentry mode comingTesla Motors chief executive Elon Musk has confirmed via Twitter, that the US-based luxury electric vehicle manu-facturer will be adding both Dog mode and Sentry mode to its cars as part of the next software update.

According to a tweet from Musk on January 27, the new Tesla Sentry Mode will play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue during a robbery, while the car records the miscreant burglars through the dash-board mounted camera.

February 12NZTA board accepts all QC recommendationsAn independent inquiry report

by Queens Counsel Kristy Mc-Donald into the performance of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) in relation to Dargaville Diesel Specialists (DDS) has been released today.

The NZTA board is welcom-ing the findings and is accept-ing all recommendations made by McDonald in her report.

February 14Award hat-trick for Mercedes-Benz North ShoreFor the third year in a row, Mercedes-Benz North Shore has claimed the top spot as Mercedes-Benz Cars “Retailer of the Year” for 2018.

For the first time, Mer-cedes-Benz North Shore won the award becoming the Mercedes-Benz Vans “Retailer of the Year”.

Following the introduction of the X-Class range of utes, Mercedes-Benz North Shore has demonstrated exemplary performance in commercial sales, allowing the dealership to take the top spot for 2018.

February 15Huge online response to Kia Niro EVKia New Zealand has released further details on the forthcom-ing Niro EV SUV, following a huge online response since the vehicle was announced in 2018.

“We’ve been very encour-aged by the huge response to the Niro EV to date,” Kia Motors New Zealand general manager Todd McDonald says.

“Its combination of appeal-ing design and SUV practicality appears to have been a mas-sive hit with local fans.”

Buyers frustrated by banned trader selling cars on FacebookA banned motor vehicle trader listing vehicles for sale on his personal facebook page has raised the ire of people who have previously purchased a car from him.

Last year Brent Smith, also known as Antony Solen Bas-turkmen, was banned from selling vehicles by the Motor Vehicle Traders Register until the 25th of September 2021.

He has also been banned by Trade Me from listing vehicles for sale on its website.

MIA says leave MITO aloneThe industry body representing the new vehicle distribution sector does not support the proposed roll-up of industry training organisations in a con-sultation document released this week by the education minister Chris Hipkins.

“MITO, the ITO for the automotive sector, is working well for vehicle distributors and their franchised dealer networks. It does not need changing,” Motor Industry Association chief executive officer David Crawford says.

February 18Seventh-gen BMW 3 Series on sale in MarchThe new seventh-generation BMW 3-Series sedan will be on sale in New Zealand dealer-ships from March.

BMW Group New Zealand says the range will launch with a 320d sedan and 330i sedan.

Recommended retail pric-ing, excluding on-road costs will be $77,500 for the 320d and $89,900 for the 330i.

Vehicle inspector Michael Cox suspended from issuing WoFsThe NZ Transport Agency has immediately suspended vehi-cle inspector Michael Cox and his two inspecting organisa-tions – Auto Super Shoppe Hamilton Central and Hamil-ton Automotive Repairs Ltd.

Cox admitted to allowing four unauthorised people to use his credentials to carry out Warrant of Fitness (WoF) inspections over a 10-month period.



DIARYTALK

February 11Subaru dealers to complete Takata recall earlySubaru Australia is close to completing its role in remov-ing more than a quarter of a million Takata airbags from Australian circulation.

Out of nearly 283,000 cars with Takata airbag inflators in its vehicles going back about 15 years, Subaru Australia tells AutoTalk its dealer network has been instrumental in getting them out of harm’s way.

February 13New Mahindra dealer for central QueenslandMahindra Automotive Aus-

tralia has a new dealership in Rockhampton under the In-dian brand’s rapidly expand-ing franchise network.

Closing the gap between the brand’s Maryborough and Proserpine dealer footprint, Weigh Auto Group is now open as a Mahindra franchised dealer.

February 15AHG opens new Sydney Mazda siteAutomotive Holdings Group has opened an all new Liver-pool Mazda dealership after a full site redevelopment.

AHG says the dealership’s previous version had been going about its business in western Sydney for three-quarters of a century.

February 21

Toyota Australia cyber attack confirmedToyota Australia’s head office has come under cyber attack, the company confirms this morning.

Toyota Australia says in a statement its computer net-work received an attempted cyber attack, which was thwarted.

Dealers: Don’t rush to ban point-of-saleThe Australian Automotive Dealer Association says the federal government needs to take a deep breath before forcing new car retailers to fully license their finance departments.

The AADA suggests legislation put forward this week that would restrict dealerships from offering fi-nance without fully licensed creditors could see increased costs passed to consum-ers and could hurt regional small business.

AHG gains BlackhallAutomotive Holdings Group

has announced David Blackhall will leave his full-time role to take up a board position with the automotive retailer.

The Australian Automo-tive Dealer Association has confirmed current chief ex-ecutive Blackhall will cease his full-time leadership in mid-2019 to continue on an advisory basis as the AADA continues working through a crucial political period.

February 26Toyota customers cough up Luxury Car TaxOrdinary Toyota consum-ers have forked out more for Luxury Car Tax than the actual luxury and prestige buying elite.

The other half have paid less of the $5 billion in Lux-ury Car Tax raked in by the federal government since its introduction than buyers of the most common brand in the Australia carpark, CarAd-vice reveals.

AussieTalk Diary AutoTalk Australia’s editor Scott Murray looks at the month gone by on autotalk.com.au

February 19Focus ST joins Ford Performance NZ line-up in 2020The Ford Performance New Zealand line-up will see the Ranger Raptor joined by the Focus ST and Fiesta ST in early 2020, offering local enthusiasts a broad choice of niche models.

Ford Australia and New Zealand boss Kay Hart says sales of the previous Focus ST, Focus RS, and Fiesta ST to local enthusiasts have made it clear there is a desire for engaging and fun-to-drive performance hatches.

New generation Hiace set for NZ launchToyota is gearing up for Toyota is gearing up for the release of its all-new Hiace 15 years since

its last upgrade. A New Zealand launch for

the popular van, operated by everyone from couriers to taxis, is set for May.

Heartland announces half-year resultsHeartland Group Holdings (Heartland) has reported a net profit after tax of $33.1 million for the six months ending December 31, 2018.

This is an increase of 6.5% from the previous corre-sponding reporting period, and was achieved during a period of corporate restruc-ture.

February 21EV funding round opensApplications are open for the sixth round of the Government’s low emission vehicles contest-

able fund, closing on March 21. The new round was

opened on February 21 by energy and resources minister Megan Woods.

“The Government has a comprehensive work pro-gramme to transition our economy to a low-emissions, renewable future,” she says. “Helping to get more low emissions vehicles on the road, and helping more Kiwis take advantage of this technol-ogy, is a key part of that plan.

February 22New Cerato targeting business and private marketKia Motors has introduced four all-new 2019 Cerato hatchbacks and two sedans to the New Zealand market as it targets both business and private buyers.

The new top-of-the-range Cerato GT hatch features a 1.6-litre T-GDi (Turbocharged Gasoline Direct injection) en-gine and 7-speed dual-clutch transmission (DCT) priced from $41,990 plus on-road costs.

February 23Meth, guns in golf cart batteriesMillions of dollars worth of methamphetamine along with two handguns have been re-covered from imported EV golf cart batteries.

Two men were due to ap-pear in the Auckland District Court on February 25 in rela-tion to the Customs NZ and police investigation.

Customs officers inspected a shipping container in Janu-ary with three six-seater golf carts inside imported from the US.



DIARYTALK

TransportTalk DiaryTransportTalk New Zealand editor Nigel Moffiet looks at the month gone by on www.transporttalk.co.nz

February 5Triton overtakes Hilux in new commercial registrationsRegistrations for new com-mercial vehicles in January 2019 fell by one percent (48 units) year on year, but the biggest surprise was the Mit-subishi Triton overtaking the Toyota Hilux to sit in second place behind the perennially market-leading Ford Ranger.

The Ranger achieved a 21% share (837 units) fol-lowed by the Triton with 11% share (445) with the Hilux in third also with 11% market share (434).

Ports of Auckland

tests new wharfThree container vessels have berthed at Ports of Auckland’s Fergusson Container Terminal for the first time.

The Gottfried Schulte became the first container ship to berth at the new Fergusson North Wharf, which is not yet operational, while two other vessels were serviced at the main wharf.

February 7Strong start for heavy commercial vehiclesIt was a strong start to the new year for registrations of new heavy trucks and buses (over 3500kg GVM) which was no doubt pleasing for the

OEM distribution network.There were 518 new

heavy truck and bus (over 3500kg) registrations in January 2019, up from 456 in the previous correspond-ing period, an increase of 13.6%.

February 13Mainfreight appointed ATA memberGlobal logistics provider Mainfreight has joined the Australian Trucking Asso-ciation (ATA) as a corporate member.

The firm was voted in dur-ing a recent ATA general coun-cil meeting. It means Main-freight can now participate in the development of ATA policy, internal committees and the ATA general council.

February 15Northport spur line ‘critical’, Govt toldKiwiRail acting chief ex-ecutive Todd Moyle is urging the government to build a 20-kilometre spur exten-sion to link the Auckland to Whangarei line to the port at Marsden Point.

Moyle told Parliament’s transport and infrastructure committee on Thursday that the link is “critical” to sup-port freight volumes from the region’s growing expert industries.

EVTalk Diary EVtalk New Zealand editor Geoff Dobson looks at the month gone by on www.evtalk.co.nz

transporttalk.co.nz/subscribe

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equipment news

February 7App to ease ‘range and charge anxiety’An app for electric vehicle journey planning popular in Norway is being adapted for New Zealand EV users.

Auckland energy compa-ny Vector and Dutch start-up Chargetrip have teamed up to ease ‘range and charge anxiety’ by tailoring the app for New Zealand conditions and to individual drivers.

February 12Taupo EV dealers put range to the testTaupo-based electric vehicle dealers George Knights and Steve Greenwood put a Re-

nault Zoe to the test around the Forgotten World Highway, a 150km route winding from Taumaranui to Stratford.

Knights and Greenwood operate Taupo’s Drive EV dealership, and say the high-way was the perfect place to try some “real world” range testing on their electric cars.

February 15Huge online response to Kia Niro EVKia New Zealand has re-leased further details on the forthcoming Niro EV SUV, following a huge online re-sponse since the vehicle was announced in 2018.

The New Zealand distrib-utor says the online response

was unprecedented with thousands of people signing up to the Kia Motors web page for more information.

February 21EV funding round opensApplications are open for the sixth round of the Govern-ment’s low emission vehicles contestable fund, closing on March 21.

The new round was opened on February 21 by energy and resources minis-ter Megan Woods.

February 25Meth, guns in golf cart batteriesMillions of dollars worth of methamphetamine along with two handguns have been recovered from imported EV golf cart batteries.

Customs officers inspected a shipping container in Janu-ary with three six-seater golf carts inside imported from the US.

February 26Mercury rising “New Zealand has enough commercially feasible renew-able electricity generation for every car, truck, ferry, train, domestic plane, bike and scooter to be electric. And then some.”

That’s the message from Mercury chief executive Fraser Whineray during the presentation of the energy generator and retailer’s sec-ond half of 2018 report.

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