Average dealer satisfaction with manufacturer finance fell slightly from the summer to the winter in 2015 in the National Franchised Dealers Association’s (NFDA) Winter Report.
In it, dealers were asked to score a number of questions out of ten. When asked: "How satisfied are you with the competitiveness of your manufacturer’s finance programme?" The average score was 7.2, down from 7.4.
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There was notable variance between manufacturers, however. Mercedes dealers were the most satisfied with their finance programme, scoring it on average 9.2 (down from 9.3).
Toyota, Ford and Alfa Romeo all also scored well, with an average score of 8.2 for each. In Alfa Romeo’s case, this was up from 6.9 in the summer.
Hyundai and Jaguar dealers were the least finance, with average scores of 4.9 and 5.3 respectively. Both of these constituted a notable drop from the summer, when Hyundai dealers gave a score of 5.9 and Jaguar dealers 6.1.
When asked how satisfied they were with the reasonableness of the finance penetration and renewal targets set by their manufacturers, the average response fell from 7.1 in the summer to 6.8 in winter.
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By GlobalDataAgain, Mercedes came top with an average score of 9.0, however Lexus came in second with 8.3, followed by Suzuki, at 8.0
When asked how satisfied they were with the reasonableness of the underwriting stance and customer service aspects of their manufacturers finance programme, dealers responded with an average score of 7.2, down slightly from the 7.1 recorded in the summer.
While Mercedes dealers again scored their OEM finance programme well at 8.4, Ford dealers were slightly more satisfied, with an average score of 8.6. Land Rover, Lexus, Nissan and Suzuki dealers all also gave an average score of 8.0 or above.
Pressure to self-register
Dealers remained less satisfied when asked about their manufacturer’s inducement to self register vehicles. On this topic, the average score remained 5.0. Some companies scored low on this. Renault dealers gave their manufacturers an average of just 2.9 out of ten, while Peugeot and Seat gave average scores of 3.4 and 3.9 respectively.
When asked, overall, how they would rate their manufacturer out of ten, the average dealer score was 6.1, down from 6.2 in the summer.
Again, this overall number hid some significant differences between manufactures. The average Mercedes dealer score was 9.3, while Lexus dealers scored 8.9. Kia dealer’s scored 8.4.
At the other end of the spectrum, Jaguar dealers gave the lowest score, 3.7, while Alfa Romeo, Peugeot, Renault, Seat and Volkswagen dealers all gave average scores of less than 5.0.
Sue Robinson, director of the National Franchised Dealers Association, said: "The relationship between car dealers and car manufacturers recorded an average score of 6.1 – 0.1 points lower than the summer 2015 survey. This is the lowest score recorded in the past 8 surveys, suggesting that a number of dealer networks are slightly less satisfied with their relationship with their manufacturer."
