cbd@ihu1e.UUCP (Carl Deitrick) (05/23/84)
I tagged along when a friend of mine went shopping for a new van. He's looking for something mid-way between a stripped cargo van and a fully-converted rolling lounge. We stopped at a dealer who happened to have ~25 of the latter on his lot. My friend balked at the $20K price and asked if they had any that were not fully converted. The salesman said they didn't and offered the opinion that such were not available even through a special order. The reason he gave was that his "allocation" had gone to the companies that do the conversions. Joe and I thought this was a typical horsesh*t story a car salesman would use to get you to buy the loaded model - "you can't get anything except what I have here, so you might as well buy from me." Does anyone out there in net-land know about this "allocation" business? Is it for real? Who sets these allocations? How does a dealer get "allocated" a given number of vehicles? If this allocation business is for real, isn't it considered restraint of trade or some such? (sorry about this one. I'm by no means a lawyer.) Setting an allocation seems like an awfully arrogant thing for an auto maker to do, especially when Detroit is just recovering from a brush with death, so could this all be a symptom of terminal complacency? Carl Deitrick ihu1e!cbd
stanwyck@ihuxr.UUCP (Don Stanwyck) (05/24/84)
> I tagged along when a friend of mine went shopping for a new van. He's looking > for something mid-way between a stripped cargo van and a fully-converted > rolling lounge. We stopped at a dealer who happened to have ~25 of the latter > on his lot. My friend balked at the $20K price and asked if they had any > that were not fully converted. The salesman said they didn't and offered the > opinion that such were not available even through a special order. The reason > he gave was that his "allocation" had gone to the companies that do the > conversions. > > Does anyone out there in net-land know about this "allocation" business? I have been shopping for a regular 8-15 passenger van, no frills, for almost nine months. They are remarkably unavailable. I have heard the same story consistantly from dealers for all of the big three auto-makers. It is one of two stories, actually: 1. The conversion companies bought up almost all of the van chassis for conversion. We couldn't produce more, and what was left went to corporate carpools/etc. 2. (above + ) with the divestiture of AT&T, all the old telephone vans went to the BOCs, so AT&T bought up all of the production capabilities that weren't already committed to conversion companies. Since the two are nearly the same, and I have heard it again and again, I am beginning to believe that something of the sort is true. Which one? Your guess is as good as mine. -- ________ ( ) Don Stanwyck @( o o )@ 312-979-3062 ( || ) Cornet-367-3062 ( \__/ ) ihnp4!ihuxr!stanwyck (______) Bell Labs @ Naperville, IL