Hey Guys and Gals,

Just finished having our regular noon meeting here in the showroom and future Honda production was touched upon. As some of you might already know, there is a dispute taking place at ports in the West Coast, which Honda uses to bring in parts from Japan.

Click here for a quick refresh.

Honda decided to airlift parts in order to avoid slowing down production, but it cost them tens of millions of dollars, which does not appear to be the best solution for an ongoing problem. Until the situation changes, production of vehicles in North America will slow down, not quite to Tsunami 2011 levels, but enough to affect inventories at dealerships nationwide a few months from now.

We are not expecting to see normal levels of vehicles coming in the second quarter of this year.

And the main reason why I'm sharing this? If you are in the planning stages of buying any Honda, regardless of what part of the country you are in, choosing to do so sooner will benefit you.

I was working for Acura at the time of the 2011 Tsunami. With the shortage of vehicles coming in, all dealerships in the area were not offering many discounts on vehicles in inventory. While not such a big deal for a Honda, since the mark up is much smaller than an Acura, I would not be surprised if some dealers ask for prices over MSRP at some point.

When the Fit started to arrive in the NY/NJ area, we were probably the only dealer in the area not asking over MSRP on units in our inventory. Plenty of customers who came in after visiting a different dealership shared how some were either asking over MSRP on cars or loading them up with bunch of accessories.

Things might not be so bad, but I figured I would share this with everyone, regardless of which Honda you are looking to get this year.

Hope this helps. Feel free to ask any questions.

 

I wonder if Fit parts are coming through ports in Mexico?

 

That's a very good question, especially in regards to the transmissions for the Fit, which are mainly built in South East Asia.

It would make sense that they go straight to Mexico, but I am not sure.

 

Yeah- my house is just a few blocks from the beach- I can see SHIPS (there were like 23+ and that was a few days ago) from the second floor of my house in the harbor- just waiting to get unloaded.


Hopefully the shutdown will be solved soon- since Obama's Administration is now involved in trying to get this mediated.

 

The federal mediator was a complete waste of time, now Obama is finally sending out the Labor Secretary. Lets see what happens. I personally hate unions, I think they are outdated and unnecessary. Like all companies they exist to make money too.


Airfreight costs way too much. Any plants on the west coast ports are pretty much screwed for import parts. Mexico ports shouldn't be affected I think.


Either way, the port slow downs (essentially striking) all US companies and abroad will feel the ripple effects for months to come.