What I meant about the earlier Peugeots being good
enough to keep you out of the bad Peugeot dealerships
is that they were simple and very reliable. Prior to
the 505, Peugeot had a very low profile in the U.S.;
but what reputation they had was excellent. It was
when they finally got serious about the U.S. market
and targeted it with the 505 with all of its power
accessories that Peugeot deemed necessary to sell a
a car here in that price range ( a correct
assumption)
that Peugeot completely screwed up their reputation
because the early 505s had numerous faults. They were
advertising much more than ever, making their product
much better known in the U.S. than ever before, and
creating a horrible reputation for quality. Now, the
dealer network may nave been poor; but they did not
build the car. It was a terrible set of cicumstances
to have created the most visibility for their product
in the U.S. at the same time that they were building
a car with the poorest reliability they had ever
made.
The French and Italians, as much as I love their
cars,
are notorious for blaming all their problems on
anything else but themselves. Again, I reiterate,
because you seem to be dwelling on the assumption
that I disagree with you about the dealership
quality,
that I agree about the dealership quality; and even
though a better dealer network would have helped the
situation, nothing could have saved Peugeot in the
U.S. at that time. Peugeot should have stayed and
improved their dealer network and imported better
cars
in order to fight back and regain a good reputation,
instead they tucked their tails between their legs
and
ran. Does that seem like a familiar scenario for the
French? And the early Japanese car dealer networks in
the U.S. were pretty crummy also, so the Japanese
made
cars that didn't need to be completed at the dealer
during the PDI; but instead built cars that didn't
require much dealer attention as even the best dealer
networks have their problems. They made sure the
quality was built in and that they alone controlled
the destiny of their products. This is not my own
opinion or made up version of what happened, but was
well documented at the time by the trade journals and
enthusiast magazines. And those of us in the dealer
network saw it happening and along with the Peugeot
reps did all we could to get Peugeot to rectify the
situation as fast as possible, but it was too little,
too late. So you can think all you want that the
dealer network singlehandedly destroyed Peugeot in
the
U.S., but that's simply not the reality.
- "Ruggeri, Robert" <Robert.Ruggeri@suny.edu> wrote:
> I'm not interested in splitting hairs over what I
> said in an off-handed remark to the list.
> Subsequent to your first email, however, I spent the
> weekend in Newport, RI where I drove my 91 505 SW8.
> A French gentleman stayed at the same hotel and
> approached me about the car. We began chatting in
> French about Peugeots and he was amazed I owned 4.
>
> It turns out that he is the head of Peugeot export
> sales to Europe. He was familiar with the lay-offs
> at PNA in New Jersey and was hoping that the company
> would return to the US. He agreed wholeheartedly
> that the dismal dealer service was a key reason for
> the brand's failure in the US and would have to be
> completely changed before they ever return. He
> claimed that they do have a great dealer network in
> Mexico now.
>
> I told him that while I currently have 4 Peugeots
> for fun, I would never, like most US consumers,
> spend real money on a new one unless this time they
> really had proper dealer support. He readily
> agreed.
>
> As for your comment that the pre-505's were good
> enough to keep one out of the bad dealerships, I
> disagree. I owned a 404 wagon and several 504's
> during that era and the dealers were usually the
> only people who'd work on them in most parts of the
> country. And I generally only encountered
> "horrible" dealers along the East coast of the US.
> It doesn't take long for the average consumer to
> lose interest in that kind of hassle.
>
> I think you make a common mistake: many remaining
> Peugeot owners do much, if not all, of their own
> servicing and don't fully appreciate what a
> nightmare it is for the rest of us to find proper
> service for these cars. A key reason the brand went
> downhill here is that the average consumer has no
> interest in becoming a shade tree mechanic just to
> keep his car on the road. It's bad enough now. Back
> when people were buying these cars new for real
> money, the frustration was overwhelming.
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gary freeman [mailto:riven2649@yahoo.com]
> Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2005 6:00 AM
> To: Ruggeri, Robert; peugeot-L@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: [Peugeot-L] keith of PMOA last day
> today
>
>
> Well, that explains it as I pretty much agree about
> the dealer situation; but you said "I can't believe
> he
> ever worked for Peugeot" which means not the dealer,
>
> but the manufacturer. If you worked for a dealer,
> than
> you didn't work for Peugeot, you worked for whomever
> owned that particular dealership. And even though I
> agree about the overall poor dealership network,
> most
> imported cars of the time were just as bad; and the
> earlier Peugeots were good enough to keep you out of
> those horrible dealerships. Unfortunately, when
> Peugeot
> decided to get serious about the USA market, they
> put
> out the 505 with all sorts of power accessories that
> they never believed in; and with the French penchant
> for reinventing the wheel, some of their accessories
> really let them down. Unfortunately, the fuse box
> design caused many of these problems; but by the
> time
> that was rectified, the reputation of Peugeot was
> soiled beyond repair at a time when they had more
> popularity than ever in the USA. So, we don't
> disagree
> at all, it was just semantics that got in the way.
> And
> yes, I worked at one of the most infamous of all
> Peugeot dealers, Overseas Motors in New Orleans. We
> hardly had a floor plan and got cars from other
> dealers
> all over the country, our owner didn't believe in
> advertising, we had a competing dealer in a one
> point
> town, and our service dept. was a big zero. But, my
> salesmen and I would take off our jackets, tuck in
> our
> ties, open our tool boxes, and fix all the little
> things while the customer waited(including changing
> the
> fuse boxes);and this made us the 6th largest selling
> dealer in the country and 20 out of 24 months, the
> top
> selling dealer in the central zone which included
> much
> larger cities such as Houston, Dalls, and Chicago.
> It
> was crazy, but the most fun of my life.
>
> Gary
>
> --- "Ruggeri, Robert" <Robert.Ruggeri@suny.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > I don't know where you got your Peugeot serviced -
> > it couldn't have been Midtown Motors; Gino's;
> > Maplewood or any other member of the Hall of
> Shame.
> > Peugeot service/dealers were notoriously awful.
> Are
> > you, perhaps, writing from outside the USA?
> >
> > Even Keith would agree with me that many of the
> > dealers were terrible. The horrible service and
> > attitude of the dealers was, in my view, what
> helped
> > kill them off in the US. We, the fanatics remain,
> > but the average consumer, understandably, had no
> > patience with the dealerships.
> >
> > I love the way the cars ride and, most of all, the
> > Pininfarina design. I've owned almost a dozen of
> > them since 1970 - starting with a 404 wagon. The
> > service was always a disgrace. Oddly enough, even
> > otherwise good dealers, like Keelers (a
> > Jag/BMW/Mercedes/Range Rover/Audi dealer), had
> lousy
> > Peugeot service.
> >
> > I think you're confusing the manufacturer (which I
> > don't have a problem with) and the independent
> > sellers/dealers in the US (which are universally
> > regarded, even o this list, as terrible.) Since
> you
> > worked at a dealership you probably are quite
> > knowledgable about cars and maybe even work on
> them
> > yourself. For the rest of us in the car buying
> > public, that is not an option and the Peugeot
> > service network was a nightmare.
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: gary freeman [mailto:riven2649@yahoo.com]
> > Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 3:42 PM
> > To: Ruggeri, Robert
> > Subject: RE: [Peugeot-L] keith of PMOA last day
> > today
> >
> >
> > I don't understand the comment"he was so helpful
> > and
> >
> > provided such good service, I can't believe he
> > ever
> > worked for Peugeot." because I've worked for
> many
> > including Rolls-Royce; and without a doubt, the
> > nicest reps I've ever dealt with have been with
> > Peugeot. They were extremely helpful, and
> Peugeot
> > dealer support was the best. The type of
> > electrical
> > wiring diagrams that most manufacturers use
> today,
> > I saw first at Peugeot. I most recently worked
> for
> > a BMW dealer, and they were rushing these new
> > software loaded cars to market so fast that not
> > only
> > did they have many problems; but they had huge
> > gaps
> > in information to support them. You love Peugeot
> > cars
> > so much that I don't understand why you would
> > think
> > the people in the organization are such
> > incompetent
> > people who are incapable of assisting both the
> > owners
> > and the dealership. Do you think the cars
> designed
> > and built themselves without any human
> > involvement?
> > Their worst period was the first 505s which
> > Peugeot
> > went against their own conservatism to
> accomodate
> > American requirements in that market segment,
> and
> > most of their problems were attributable to the
>
=== message truncated ===
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Received on Tue Aug 2 11:09:09 2005
