Global sales through August 2012: Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz

[-=Hot|Ice=-]

I hate the way the new 3 looks. Hate, Hate, Hate.

 

[Poverty]

Sorry but that comment was a case in contradiction, first you say you prefer MB for their extra "exclusivity" compared to BMW/Audi, then go on to say how people shouldn't care about sales figures so much? And if we're deciding who's the most reliable, maybe we should take a look at this
http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/what-car-reliability-survey-2012/263555

Its not contradictory at all, I dont know why you came to such a conclusion.

Yes I prefer exclusivety, and yes people shouldnt put such an importance on sales figures, as thats not necessarily indictive of how well a company is doing. Case in point being Porsche and GM, both opposite ends of the scale.

You dont need to sell 100k more cars than your competitor to be deemed as succesful, your overall profit margins is what matters, and a company that sells 800k cars vs one that sells 1million cars yet still makes higher profits after deducations is a company to me that looks to be a better bet. Its never good to get too big, at some point that high point will come back down.

 

[Levi68]

Its not contradictory at all, I dont know why you came to such a conclusion.

Yes I prefer exclusivety, and yes people shouldnt put such an importance on sales figures, as thats not necessarily indictive of how well a company is doing. Case in point being Porsche and GM, both opposite ends of the scale.

You dont need to sell 100k more cars than your competitor to be deemed as succesful, your overall profit margins is what matters, and a company that sells 800k cars vs one that sells 1million cars yet still makes higher profits after deducations is a company to me that looks to be a better bet. Its never good to get too big, at some point that high point will come back down.

It is not all about profit. If the cars make profit but I have no desire to own any of them, for me it is worse than a company that makes less profit but desirable cars. Well, then, what a desirable car is, that's personal.

 

[Poverty]

but at the end of the day its all about money. For the consumer they dont care about company profits, just beautiful cars, but if that company of beautiful cars isnt making profit, it probably wont be making cars for long

 

[DblPen]

Wow, BMW's quality is pathetic right now, look at them plummet in those charts. Go to the Bimmer boards and all kinds of issues are arising which shouldn't. It doesn't matter how how technically big or small, if it's a problem, it ruins your experience with the car. For example, my W212 has too many on and off rattles, it's effectively all but ruined my relationship with the car. People reported improper door sealing on the F10 which resulted in wind noise on some random models.... that is enough to completely ruin an experience with a car, especially when paying "Luxury Car Dollars". People have reported numerous cases of complete operational failure whilst driving their 5ers, and also things as small as buttons peeling on some owners cars show lack of effective R&D by BMW.

Everything counts, when it comes to quality! At least if it's an engine issue, you take it in and it gets fixed. Little things are sometimes the most painful, because you get the runaround at the dealer, the "it's normal" crap, not to mention the fact that it's hard to decipher and explain some of these nuanced issues that only a prime-driver of a specific car will experience. I dealt with some of those on my W211 and it drove me nuts. Also, if a manufacturer is improperly engineering simple things like switches or sealings, or buttons, or panels which rattle, etc. then it simply says a lot of (bad) about their capabilities and/or care and/or execution.

I do worry how now new bmw's will fare 10 years later, or even more than that. And what about those turbo engines from 5 or something years ago that had major problems already in their first years of use

 

[Merc1]

No problems for me!


M