Mad Andrew ([info]madandrew) wrote,
@ 2009-05-01 11:29:00
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An odd observation from the car shopping...
What I heard multiple times, which really confuses me, is that people tend to have A brand of vehicle that they purchase, and then they stay within that brand. Which is somewhat odd, if you think about it. The Honda dealership salesperson said as much to us, they get some crossover sales from folks who own Toyota, or Nissan, but not many from Ford owners. Likewise, for when other dealers asked what I was test driving, I always got some surprises when I mentioned the Ford Escape. Maybe I don't understand humans that well. If I was say, buying carrots, I don't particularly look at the brand. I will note that I tend to buy certain brands of say, milk, but that's mainly convenience. To scale things up, people don't always select the same homebuilder, do they?
Which brings us to the subject of bias: to the very end in this process, the Escape was a real contender for purchase. Is it because I previously owned a Ford? I like to think the numbers included the Ford in the same range as the Toyota, et. al, but is that my bias? Is there some additional comfort that comes from buying within a given company? How is basic economics failing here, because the few data points I have seem to indicate that it does? What's special about car shopping?

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[info]deifire
2009-05-01 05:07 pm UTC (link)
I'll admit to my Ford bias, but it has a specific origin: my maternal grandfather spent most of his life building the damned things. This not only means a certain emotional attachment to the brand and concern about the company's well-being, but also that I get to partake of the immediate-family-of-retirees discount.

It didn't stop me from test driving the equivalent Chevys, Dodges, Toyotas, etc., but it may have subconsciously led me to put more points in the Ford column when I was weighing them in my head. (It's hard to say. More car for less money was kind of a major deciding factor.)

I don't mind the extreme brand loyalty phenomenon in car buyers. If it didn't work, the manufacturers wouldn't sponsor stock car racing, and I'd be substantially less entertained on Sundays.

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[info]ike2100
2009-05-04 05:23 am UTC (link)
I think it has to do with a few things.

A) Nobody (or nearly nobody) buys a car for the very short term. Everyone or nearly everyone plans on keeping a car at least 5 years, and most hope to keep that car for 10, 15, or even 20 years (OK, 20 might be a pipe dream, but nearly everyone dreams that somehow they stumble onto the one car that just can't die). This is the biggest factor that contributes to cars immediately decreasing in value as soon as they are driven off the lot. Buyers figure that if you are re-selling a car so soon, there must be something wrong with it. Especially if it's still under manufacturer warranty.

B) Because of this, I think people experience more pain than they might otherwise when a car they have owned turns south faster than they expected. Ford might be a fine company now (and from what I have heard, they've really improved the quality of their vehicles). But back when I was a kid, we supposed that Ford stood for "Fix Or Repair Daily", primarily because the two fords my parents owned were absolutely horrendous. Name a part that goes on a car, and it probably broke on one or both of those cars. My parents, and their kids, haven't gone back to Ford since. Up until the last few years, our family has had great luck with Pontiacs though...My Grand Am though was the first car out of 7 Pontiacs that really had a whole lot of issues. And because of that, I had already made the decision that I probably wouldn't be going back to Pontiac. Of course, in the near future, there won't be a pontiac to go back to...in large part I think because of the grand am....Anyway, when it comes to cars, people first hold grudges. Then if they feel like they've gotten a lot of value out of their ride, they tend to go back, thinking they'll get that same value again.

C) As I found out on our round of car shopping this fall, it's a process that can really eat up a lot of your time. And it can be pretty stressful too. I think that a lot of people feel that way at least, and if they have a brand they think is reliable, they'd rather just get the whole 'car buying experience' over with in one day.


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