{"id":37276,"date":"2011-03-16T13:00:37","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T17:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=37276"},"modified":"2011-03-16T13:00:38","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T17:00:38","slug":"would-you-wait-for-a-japanese-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2011\/03\/would-you-wait-for-a-japanese-car\/","title":{"rendered":"Would You Wait for a Japanese Car?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Honda buyers are among the most likely to wait out a product shortage, says CNW research.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How much do you really want that new sedan?\u00a0 Would you sit tight for that sports car?\u00a0 Will you wait several months for that big SUV?<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s continuing crisis has already resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of new cars, trucks and crossovers, whether damaged by Friday\u2019s massive earthquake, the subsequent tsunami, or simply through lost production, most Japanese automakers unsure when they\u2019ll be able to get their assembly operations back up-and-running.<\/p>\n

Even in the U.S., the natural disaster\u2019s effects are being felt, Subaru halting production at its Indiana plant, while Toyota cuts all overtime.\u00a0 And, now, even some Detroit makers could feel the pinch if shortages of Japanese-made parts begin to develop. (Find out more…<\/em>Click Here<\/span><\/a>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Helping Worthy Causes!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe impact of this has yet to unfold,\u201d Mark Reuss, president of General Motors\u2019 North American operations cautioned today, stressing that the quake\u2019s impact on the Japanese supplier network could be \u201cbigger than anyone knows today.\u201d<\/p>\n

One test will come if consumers begin to experience product shortages at the dealer level.\u00a0 American buyers have traditionally preferred to buy whatever they can find on a dealer lot, rather than placing a custom order that might take weeks, even months, to come through.<\/p>\n

So, will buyers who can\u2019t find what they want go somewhere else?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Ford buyers - especially truck shoppers -- are especially loyal, the CNW data show.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cYes, they would,\u201d suggested Art Spinella, \u201cthough that\u2019s very brand specific,\u201d adds the chief analyst for West Coast-based research firm CNW Marketing.<\/p>\n

Among those likely to sit things out as long as necessary, he says, are \u201cdomestic truck buyers, who are very brand-loyal and will wait out a delay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Likewise, even if they couldn\u2019t get the car they wanted for 90 days, only 8% of Honda customers would go somewhere else, CNW research suggests.\u00a0 That would jump to 14% of Toyota shoppers and 19% at Nissan.\u00a0 So-called second-tier Japanese brands, and Chrysler among American makers, would see potential shoppers go elsewhere rather quickly if the vehicles they want aren\u2019t available.<\/p>\n

Despite its booming sales, Subaru truck buyers are among the least loyal.\u00a0 Nearly 29% would go elsewhere if they had to wait 90 days.\u00a0 But only 13% of Subaru car buyers would grow impatient and move on.<\/p>\n

Significantly, Ford has some of the most loyal buyers in the business.\u00a0 Only 6% of its customers would shift to another brand after a 90-day wait.\u00a0 And among Ford truck buyers, the figure plunges to 2.8%, according to CNW research.<\/p>\n

The only brand that has a more loyal customer is Jeep, with 2.8% of buyers unwilling to wait 90 days if their SUV were unavailable.<\/p>\n

Ford\u2019s loyalty rate is a sharp turnaround from what CNW found in a similar study five years ago.\u00a0 Back then, said Spinella, \u201cthey\u2019d abandon the brand in an eyeblink.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2006 study found that Japanese customers, especially for top-tier makers Toyota, Nissan and Honda, would generally wait as long as necessary.\u00a0 Today, however, that\u2019s only true of Honda, noted Spinella.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s bad news for the Japanese, who once could count on product shortages working to their advantage.\u00a0 Back in the 1980s, so-called \u201cvoluntary\u201d import quotas let Japanese makers raise prices substantially higher than for comparable domestic products. \u00a0And dealers were quick to tack on additional premiums.<\/p>\n

Today, however, Spinella cautioned that Japanese makers might have to offer \u201cloyalty bonuses,\u201d another word for incentives.<\/p>\n

The first Japanese assembly plants went back to work today, but those three Mitsubishi plants will likely have little impact on the potential problem.\u00a0 Toyota plans to start some parts plants back up, in the coming days, which could relieve pressure on the maker\u2019s U.S.-based assembly lines, but it is already facing short supplies of some hotter models, notably including the Prius hybrid.<\/p>\n

Nissan hopes to start rolling several of its lines by week\u2019s end, but other plants will remain shuttered.\u00a0 At least 1,300 of the maker\u2019s Infiniti luxury brand vehicles were destroyed by last week\u2019s tsunami while waiting at the Port of Hitachi, which will complicate the maker\u2019s situation.<\/p>\n

If the bulk of Japanese vehicles operations aren\u2019t back up within \u201c30 to 45\u201d days, the situation could grow dire, warned Spinella, but George Peterson, chief analyst with AutoPacific, Inc., told TheDetroitBureau.com that sizable problems could become apparent \u201cby the beginning of April.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Japanese makers could be hit hardest, even Detroit brands are vulnerable.\u00a0 Japanese suppliers serve most domestic assembly lines.\u00a0 Japan produces about 22% of global automotive semiconductors, a product particularly difficult to find alternative sources for.<\/p>\n

So, few in the industry want to see the situation drag on much longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How long would you wait for that Japanese sedan? Would you sit tight through a shortage of domestic pickups? New research shows that many customers won’t hang around if the crisis in Japan delays the vehicle they were looking for. TheDetroitBureau.com has more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37276"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37276"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=37276"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=37276"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=37276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}