De Vries calls in Receivers!

[Geoffers]

Taken from tonights "The Press" in York.

A car dealership which has a branch in York has gone into receivership, placing dozens of jobs at risk.
The De Vries Honda dealership has branches in Hull, Scarborough, Stockton-on-Tees, Northallerton and York.
The York branch, based at Poppleton, employs about 25 people and overall the firm employs more than 100 staff.

The York branch is where I bought my Jazz in June!

[RichardA]

I understand customers who'd put money down on new cars will have to join the queue behind the creditors.

Sidlow garages in Surrey and Sussex (Alfa Romeo, Audi, Seat and VW) went bust recently and some staff were not paid for the last month of work. I know of someone interested in the new Alfa Mito but that's off his list as the nearest Alfa dealer is now Epsom or Canterbury.

Both my local Honda dealers are family run businesses with only one site. The dealer who'd I bought my Jazz from also had a MG Rover branch elsewhere which luckly was able to become a Honda dealer after MGR collasped.

[guest745]

I believe DeVries have been on borrowed time for some months now. A year ago they were late filing annual accounts at Companies House (by some months) - generally a sign that things are not good - then the results indicated large losses.

The rumour I have heard is that JCT600 may be taking over. Whether thats all five branches or not. I guess they will take the larger ones but our local Scarborough branch may not be as lucky.

Given there are rumours of JCT600 it may be that they negotiations were already under way, but administrations has been used to clear some baggage from the business - such as branches they don't want.

All will no doubt become clear very soon, but it answers why we were waiting the call to say iShifts are in stock as demonstrators - no salesman allowed to sell us a car.

Perhaps I will post on the 'who'll be first to drive' thread - as a soon to be owner. Not from DeVries - and bought yesterday at a DISCOUNT.

[Geoffers]

Cribbed this from the "UK Business Park"

JCT600 has acquired the Layerthorpe VW dealership in York and the Priory Park VW dealership in Hull for £10m. 04-May-2005

If they combine dealerships then York & Hull may be saved!

[guest745]

I don't know if they would consider combining - certainly benefit from synergies - parts delivery - same general manager ?

York and Hull is certainly what I would expect - anything extra would be a bonus for staff and existing customers.

[guest745]

The latest I hear is that Scarborough and Northallerton have shut Hull, York and Stockton are being run for a couple of weeks with the support of Honda HQ and the Administrators. After that they will shut if a buyer does not come forward.

The clock is ticking.

[Geoffers]

Fingers crossed!

[RichardA]

If they did go under completely, where would you go? Dealer location is important when choosing a car. I crossed the Suzuki Swift off my list last time as the dealer had just closed and the next nearest was 30 miles away.

[guest745]

This is something I sent a complaint in to Honda about a few years ago - which of course received no acknowledgement.

DeVries is not the only case, but they were allowed to build a monopoly for the North and East Yorkshire - and Cleveland areas.

The end result is lack of choice of dealer you want to work with, and I found DeVries to be someone I personally couldn't do business with. And being in Scarborough we are on an extreme limb - needing to travel about 70 miles outside the DeVries area. Its a good job Honda's are reliable.

The choices for me are the small family dealer at Scunthorpe (who I have heard good things about - or Stratstone in Leeds or Harrogate (both ex Dixon's and the latter being my choice).
If you are in York its no problem to get to Harrogate. But if DeVries does go I'm sure that someone will eventually take up a franchise in at least the York and Hull areas. (Although look at Nissan which has had no real North Yorkshire representation for some months now.)

The manufacturers need to take a close look at themselves - for many reasons !! If they want a market share outside the large cities they need to develop the presence. The same rules can't apply. At least Ford and Vauxhall seems to keep smaller family dealers going.

My daily transport is a Honda --- scooter. A couple of years ago there were loads of local dealers. Now they have nearly all gone. Honda decided that the dealers needed flashy showrooms etc. The large investment would not be paid for with the few bikes they sold new each year. So they all told Honda where to go. The result being that many now sell (the less reliable) Peugeots. And the Honda website has a link asking people if the want a bike franchise !

Its just another example of rural deprivation. We need our transport - but don't have proper support for ensuring we can keep rolling.

[Geoffers]

Well, I have a good independent to go to but, of course, they can't handle warranty work. There's always Harrogate for that though.

We lost our Renault dealership in York a while back and we still don't have a Renault garage in York!

[Geoffers]

From the beeb!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/7878504.stm

York, Hull, Scarborough and Stockton-on-Tees are saved!

[guest745]

You are on the ball Geoffers.

I am surprised by our local Scarborough site though.

Hopefully a new owner may bring a new philosophy - that I suppose depends on who is in charge locally - as these sites are all north of Marshall's normal (wide) Anglia operating zone.  They will need to drag a key person up north to manage the area I guess rather than relying on someone from the old DeVries regime.

Just done a credit search on them (handy facility I have through work) - they are big. I think the bulk of their cash (wealth) comes from aerospace activities. If they ever went 't@ts up' there would be problems.

[RichardA]

[topic merged with exisiting DeVries topic]

Good to hear some good news. The Fiat garage in Eastbourne where I bought my Punto from in early 2002 has closed and is now an Autowise independent garage. Funny enough, they are right next door to Kwik Fit...!

We lost our Suzuki dealer 18 months ago and Russells Renault have closed their Bexhill branch and sold my local dealer to Lifestyle - a larger dealer group with dealers in Kent. Both of these were family run businesses I understand.

My nearest Honda dealers - Collins and Bexhill Honda - are both family run. Down here we appear to have a couple of 'big' local monopoly groups like Birchwood (Ford/Nissan/Skoda/Mazda), Chandlers (many BMW sites in Sussex), SLM and Caffyns (virtually everything else). A lot to lose if it all went balls up, as demostrated recently when Sidlow went bust taking several branches around Gatwick with them.

[Geoffers]

Just had my letter from the new owners - Marshall Motor Group, Cambridge - confirming the new situation. They have 45 dealerships representing 20 brands and have worked with Honda since 1992. They also say that all the Honda staff have transferred to them!
An Open Weekend has been arranged for next Friday thru' to Monday for "delicious food and drinks"!

See www.marshallweb.co.uk

[guest684]

At such a tough time I am baffled why dealers such as Chiswick don't organise weekend 9-5 opening of their servicing/MOT workshops!!  There must be so many customers like me who are unable to come down during the working week that end up using other garages to fit brake-pads etc.