swajames

2859 sales in September, slightly down on the same period last year. The E-class by contrast sold 5608, up 47% from September 2009.

Petes550i

...and your point is?


Still way too early to judge the car. The F10 has only been out for 3 months. Also, the E-Class comes in more variations than the F10 so it's not really a fair comparison in that respect either.

The F10 will be fine. I have no doubt.

swajames

Poor sales are poor sales, Pete. The numbers are what they are, and so far the F10 sales have been weak.

The point, as you already knew, is that many of us have been debating the extent to which BMW taking its eye off the ball and adding weight and reducing sportiness to the F10 is contributing to these sluggish numbers. While it's reasonable to conclude that the sales may in part be depressed due to the unavailability of certain models, my own judgment is that these numbers are still short of where they would have been had BMW stayed true to the engineering philosophies and principles that characterized the E39 and E60.

bha7176

yeah, why does there HAVE to be a point, he's just sharing information. My guess is probably because the F10 is a piece of shit.

kidding. calm down.

bm323

Are you aware that the number last Sept for the E60 with all its variants was 2861? ie the F10 with limited models is down by only 2 cars with 2859?Merc September 2009 E class sales was 3,812. So applying your reasoning and judgment, the E60 must be inferior to the Merc E class. Btw, your argument appears to be higher sales mean a superior car??

Petes550i

As I said earlier, to judge a car only 3 months into its life cycle is simply NAIVE.

Also, some people have forgotten that the X-drive models account for a HUGE portion of sales in North America, and the F10 X-drive variants have not even been released yet. I'm sure a lot of potential F10 customers are just waiting for those models to come in. (As an example, my dealership's inventory of E39 and E60 X-Drive models account for over 90% compared to non-X-drive models.)

Also, there's been very little public exposure of the F10 as it came out mid-year. By next spring/summer, after the NY and Chicago Auto shows, you should see a big bump in sales as inventory is increased.

swajames

What is naive is to take a limited sample from a reasonably small market and assume you can simply extrapolate those limited observations across the entire population.

If we were however prepared to accept anecdotal evidence for the purposes of discussion, you're clearly forgetting that xDrive models are pretty rare in California which tends to be the biggest market in the US for most manufacturers. It's much the same throughout the other large auto markets such as Texas and Florida. I suspect the north east is the only major market where xDrive models might represent a significant proportion of sales. Some parts of the Midwest may also have a preponderance of xDrive models, but the Midwest in general isn't as significant a market for the premium manufacturers as others. Simply put, the release of the xDrive models alone isn't going to make as big a difference as you seem to suspect.

The auto show point is a total non-sequitur, few people outside of the enthusiast community have the remotest interest in such things. BMW is already marketing the F10 reasonably heavily, the question is whether BMW's marketing strategy is connecting with buyers. In other threads we've discussed the transition away from "the ultimate driving machine" to "joy"', something that I personally consider to be a significant and highly revealing change. BMW's marketing is simply not as sharp as it should be these days, Audi is but one manufacturer which is, and please forgive the pun, running rings around BMW right now from a brand and marketing perspective.

Da_Meister_22

I like the new 7 series better than the new 5

Petes550i

All I got to say is your observations are way too premature, swajames.

By this time next year, we'll see the numbers and then we'll know who's right and wrong.

bm323

swajames, still persisting in your line of argument?? posting about this in another thread and starting this thread subsequently just on this. If no reply on the above, I'll be posting a reasoned "judgment" (as you term it) on your prejudice. Meantime, good night or is it good morning to you