The recession has well and truly reached the market for new cars, with worrying new figures for all in the automotive and car parts industries, published by the SMMT on the 6th of October. September's national registrations figure was approximately 329,000, a drop of 91,000 cars against the same month in 2007.
Several franchised car dealerships have been closed, after the reported 21.2% decrease in the number of new car registrations in September. Dealerships such as Streets Skoda, William A Lewis Volvo, Caffyns Vauxhall and Lookers Jaguar/Land Rover will be closing down.
Lookers closed its Bury St Edmunds Jaguar and Land Rover dealership on October 1st, and made eight sales staff redundant.
In theory this should make the market for new and used car parts larger, as people look to make do and mend with new or used parts than buy new cars. The feedback from our members suggests that this is a tough time for all though, with one member having to take payment for a used engine from a customer who had to use 3 seperate credit cards for the transaction.
The news that Euro Car Parts took no due diligence when attempting to save LSUK (Lucas) Car Parts suggests that cool heads are required in the current business climate. A statement from Euro Car Parts read "No due diligence was taken as the initial acquisition was made very quickly to protect the 600 staff with rent and salaries being paid." Euro Car Parts came to the conclusion that it was no longer feasible to run the company, realising that Lucas "was not the business they thought it was."
This report was compiled by Justin Woodcock on behalf of Find-a-Part - Car Parts Search Specialists since 1978.
