Speeding – and Limping – Out of Showrooms
April 28, 2008

By Michelle Krebs

German-brand cars zoomed off dealer lots nearly as fast as they arrived while Suzuki- and Korean-brand models limped out of showrooms, according to Edmunds.com’s days-to-turn analysis for March.

The just-introduced smart fortwo had the lowest days to turn. BMW and Mercedes-Benz were low as well. In contrast, Suzuki, Hyundai and Kia had the highest days to turn.

The smart fortwo took the lowest average number of days to sell, from the time a vehicle arrives on the dealership lot to the new owner driving it away. The smart car's days to turn was a scant nine days.

The single-digit days-to-turn is not surprising considering parent company Daimler AG just began filling dealerships with the tiny cars since January. Company executives claimed they had a bank of about 30,000 orders.

BMW was at 31 days to turn in March; Mercedes was at 33 days.

In contrast, Suzuki had the highest days to turn at 127 days.

Hyundai’s days-to-turn was 105 days in March. Worse, Hyundai has been offering hefty incentives to move its vehicles. In March, its Total Cost of Incentives (TCI), Edmunds.com’s proprietary formula for calculating incentives, was at $2,012 per vehicle. March was the third highest level TCI for Hyundai since Edmunds began such calculations. Kia’s days to turn was at 95 days.

For both Kia and Hyundai, March marked the second highest number of days to turn since Edmunds.com began keeping such records in January 2002.

Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds.com’s manager of Pricing and Industry Analysis, provided the analysis for this report.

Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:03 AM under Analysis , Companies | Comments (0) | digg this | Seed Newsvine