At Least When You Lie, Make It A Good One - French VW Unit Overstates Sales By 800,000 Units So They Look Good

There’s nothing like the antics automakers get up to when fierce rivalry or falling sales forces an emergency pressing of the desperation button. Just last year, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles found itself in quite a bit of hot water after its long-running sales-recording practices came under the federal microscope. Mounting pressure eventually forced the company to dial back its monthly figures, shattering some advertisement-friendly sales streaks.

Across the pond, Volkswagen now finds itself with egg (quiche?) on its face following a report by its internal auditors. According to German publication Der Spiegel, the automaker plumped up its French sales tallies for years — to the tune of at least 800,000 vehicles.

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TheSteve - 7/6/2017 2:22:54 PM

+5 Boost

Assuming this report is true, it might explain why VW was claiming to be the world's No.1 manufacturer.

Good thing this doesn't happen anywhere else[1].

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[1] Sarcastic, thinly veiled reference to Audi's suspect 78 consecutive months of always-increasing unit sales. BTW, VW owns Audi.

PUGPROUD - 7/6/2017 2:32:32 PM

+1 Boost

Lying runs in the VW family so to speak.

zairnaim - 7/6/2017 3:29:24 PM

+3 Boost

Reminds me of Audi's 50 or 60 month sales gain streak. Anyone who's put in any thought knows that it is just a bunch of bs. It would be understandable if it was a massive increase in sales, but being lucky enough to just squeeze in a gain every single month? I don't buy it.

TomM - 7/7/2017 7:09:28 PM

+2 Boost

The industries reliance - even at the dealer level - often results in a lot of creative accounting - especially during off peak times when you need to sell a certain number of vehicles to maintain your dealer rebate - which is generally where dealers make their money to begin with. It does not surprise that a person who wants to keep his job - when faced with a really good month of sales - carries a few of them over to the next month (which may be slower month). Happens all the time - and even at the wholesale level with dealer reps too.

MDarringer - 7/7/2017 10:05:23 PM

0 Boost

Maserati "encourages" dealers to buy stock to be used as courtesy cars and then pay dealers after the sale an incentive for selling the cars which are then put out to CPO and places like CarMax. Some also go to wholesale. Nothing illegal in this scheme, but it came AFTER FCA had encouraged Maserati dealers to "sell" cars, report them sold, but delay licensing so as to be able to back the sales out. In some cases the same cars were sold in multiple months and then backed out. When word of this got out the whole thing went poof.

Mitsubishi cooks numbers by sending new cars to wholesale.