FCA Group took bottom four NFDA Dealer Attitude places on finance

FCA Group’s brands have been singled out by their dealer networks for a lack of competitiveness on finance offers, according to the latest NFDA Dealer Attitude Survey (DAS).

The DAS Summer 2019 rated franchises on a range of criteria from dealer profitability and volume targets. When asked “how satisfied are you with the competitiveness of your manufacturer’s finance programme?” the average score was 6.5 out of 10.

Alfa Romeo was rated the lowest score on finance offers at 3.4, while Abarth was close behind at 3.6.  Fiat and Jeep scored 4.1 each, rounding out the bottom four. All four have seen a decline in sentiment on how competitive finance offers are compared with the previous Winter 2018 survey.

Citroën was in fifth place, with a rating of 5.1.

While Abarth only had a response rate of 51% from the dealer network, Alfa Romeo had a 77% response rate from its network, Fiat’s was 80% and Jeep was 86%, so the reaction is a good representation of how the network is feeling.

Kia was at the other end of the spectrum, with the highest rating on finance offers of 8.4, Suzuki was a close second at 8.3 and Toyota was in third place
with 8.2.

While the dealer networks have made their distaste for FCA Group’s retail offers clear, AM’s data of compiled representative examples doesn’t fully tally with the sentiment.

While Alfa Romeo’s APRs are lower or on par with Kia’s 5.9%, both Fiat and Jeep have a range of affordable 0% deals in Q3.

Fiat has 0% across the board to tempt customers before the end of September and Jeep also has 0% on volume models such as the Renegade and Compass to support the dealer network.

Fiat’s 500X Urban crossover is more affordable than Kia’s entry-level city car model, the Picanto, at £155 a month (albeit with a higher deposit level), compared with £170.84.

The issue is the large deposits demanded. With FCA’s depreciation reputation, customers could be throwing their cash away. By contrast, Kia’s offers show a 5.6% APR across its popular Sportage, Picanto and Stonic models, which offer a higher level of profit for the finance house and dealers.

AM’s finance data for Q3 2019 shows that the average monthly price across all models and manufacturers is £358.63 and every Fiat model at least is priced below that level.

The distaste for FCA Group’s finance offers may actually be more to do with the wider results. Abarth, Alfa Romeo and Jeep were rated as the bottom three manufacturers in terms of how dealers rated franchises overall, with scores of 2.6, 2.6 and 3.4 out of 10. The average was 5.6.

BMW, Audi and Citroën were all rated worse than Fiat, which came in seventh place overall in the bottom 10.

The theory that sentiment in the overall rankings filters down to other questions asked in the DAS holds up for Kia, too. It was rated as the best in the UK, in joint first with Lexus at 9.1.