Quote:
Originally Posted by Propagator
Yes, but presumably, the profit margin per car in those countries is greater than that in the USDM to warrant such customizability. It is well known that the US is the most price competitive market, and the pay off is large volume. With the new line system, I would expect that a substantially smaller portion of their production is now "oddballs".
I am sure BMW is aware that they will lose some sales due to these new limitations. The only rational reason they would go for it despite that is because they have done the calculation, and the cost saving outweighs the small loss of sales.
That is backward. I'm sure designers and/or marketers worked their butt off to make sure they would minimize the loss of sales coming from the limitations. But it doesn't make sense to say that BMW implemented a new strategy that will lose sales without any cost saving benefits just to please the dictatorial urges of its designers. I don't think anyone runs a company that way.
It's not true that you could get any combination of options with the E90. Not everything was a stand alone option. What if you wanted a chrome-line window surrounding in a sedan, but still wanted the sports suspension, or sport seats? You couldn't get it. What if you wanted a regular suspension with the sport steering? You couldn't get it. Those restrictions were there because it saved BMW cost without losing too much sales. They just went further down that road.
I also liked that BMW allowed you more flexibility compared to the Japanese brands. I would've liked BMW to stay that way as well, by cutting corners somewhere else. But just reading this forum, it's clear the buyers demand every single gadgets and luxury features available in other cars. It would be very costly for BMW to offer them all, just like everyone else, and then also offer the virtually unlimited flexibility. So I think the fact that they offer more options than ever is directly linked to the fact that now you have a lot more restrictions on the combinations.
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Well it will be interesting to see if they extend this "line" crap to the 1-series or the M3. If it is a cost measure, then it should definitely be extended to the 1-series.
We'll see if this is now the BMW way or some 3-series exec's epic fail.
It just irks me that the only way I can get sport seats is to choose black, red, or grey leather.