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NEWS
Volkswagen supercharges its value equation
Capped-price servicing across the line-up and low-interest Golf finance address one of Volkswagen's Achilles heels: costAfter a year or more of speculation, Volkswagen has confirmed it will have capped-price servicing in place across its line-up by the end of 2013.
The company will formally announce its full-range servicing program by mid-2013, Volkswagen Group Australian Managing Director, Anke Koeckler, told media earlier this week.
This means it’s most likely to be announced with the launch of either the new-generation Beetle in February or, more likely, the seventh-generation Golf (pictured) at the end of April. Volkswagen’s capped-price service program has already in fact begun, with the launch of its sub-light up! in October 2012.
The move addresses two bugbears the German giant faces in its bid to overtake Toyota as the world’s number one car-maker by 2018. Firstly, customer perceptions of the brand’s product as costly to maintain, and secondly, the commercial white-anting Volkswagen and its dealers have suffered at the hands of third-party repair shops charging far less than dealers for services, even using genuine parts.
Capped-price servicing is a crucial means of allaying consumer anxieties in an increasingly competitive and cost-sensitive market. Most of Volkswagen’s sharpest competition has already introduced it, including Toyota, Ford and Nissan.
Ms Koeckler is confident it will help shift popular perceptions of Volkswagen as a costly maintenance proposition, aligning it with an increasingly competitive purchase pricing strategy.
“We’ve had very positive feedback from dealers and customers since introducing it with the up!,” she told motoring.com.au.
The up! program covers the car’s first 90,000km or 72 months, with scheduled services at 12 month or 15,000km intervals. Service prices range from $280 to $369.50 for the 48 month/60,000km major. In aggregate, six years of scheduled servicing comes in comfortably under $2000.
Since announcing its Strategy 2018 roadmap in 2010, Volkswagen has sharpened pricing across its range, tempting consumers away from Japanese and Korean competitors by allaying popular perceptions of European cars as inherently costlier than Asian fare.
Ms Koeckler wouldn’t be drawn on pricing before launch. “Suffice to say we’re always looking at competitors, but we’re also ensuring we get the pricing logic right on our own product.” Read: expect razor-sharp pricing.
The Golf 7 will launch in April into one of the most hotly contested market segments ever. At the base end is Mazda3, the country’s top-selling car, and Toyota’s newly launched Corolla.
Upspec Golf models, meanwhile, face a new invasion by Mercedes-Benz’s new A-Class, set for launch in February starting from around $36,000 with few holes in its equipment list.
With the Golf, VW’s most popular model, in run-out, the company’s finance arm is helping dealers open showroom and garage space for the newcomer with 1.5 per cent interest on offer across the Golf line-up.
This includes the ever-popular GTI and the top-shelf R variants, even though we won’t see Mk7 versions of them until late this year for the GTI and some way into 2014 for the R.
Volkswagen posted a 22.6 per cent sales increase with 54,835 registrations in Australia last year and shows no sign of slowing down in 2013.
Passenger vehicle sales were up 16 per cent on 2011 to 42,785 cars (18,112 units or 42 per cent of which were Golfs) and commercial vehicles up a hefty 52 per cent to 12,050 units, thanks in large part to the highly successful Amarok one-tonner.
“2012 has been our eighth year of consecutive growth for Volkswagen in Australia,” said Ms Koeckler.
“The brand delivered another important step in our long-term plan, thanks to our growing dealer network and dedicated staff. With the arrival of the iconic new Beetle and class-leading new Golf, we are looking forward to another strong year for Volkswagen”.
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Written byJeremy Bass
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