Advertisement DTI Parts Click Ad to pop-up full view

The model year change argument brings out the best and the worst of manufacturers and dealers and their respective associations.

For all the meetings, and all the committees, and all the conferences … the dealers and manufacturers, even with the good intentions of RVDA and RVIA, still can’t get everybody in the same room, around the same table, and come out with a mutually acceptable agreement that settles the argument once and for all.

Advertisement MaxxAir Vent Corp.   Click Ad to pop-up full view

Why can’t this industry agree upon a formula that would not really hurt anybody, but would help many people, including the very dealers and manufacturers who spend so much time arguing against such a plan?

I think back to my youth and the excitement that always awaited us after the Summer school vacation. Back then, all new automobiles were introduced after Labor Day. The new cars came in on auto haulers and were covered with tarps so that you couldn’t see the new designs and exterior embellishments. The newspaper ads announcing the arrival of the new models were just teasers that would show a headlight or taillight and leave the rest to the unbounded enthusiasm and excitement that everyone looked forward to.

Yes that was many years ago. But guess what … it worked. Look at the automobile industry now, and learn from the decisions they have made.

New models are released randomly throughout the year and with no logic or forethought. New models carry a nameplate and year that could be two years away without any comprehensible reason, except self-preservation and confusion. There is no such thing as a model year in the automotive world anymore. Neither is there any youthful enthusiasm associated with new model introductions.

Is there a lesson to be learned from all of this? Can the RV industry, before it is too late, realize the importance of a standardized program and model year introductions that will serve the best interests of the manufacturers who have to make them, the dealers who have to sell them, and the RV consumer who we hope will continue to buy them?

I think so.

There are many ways to gain a competitive advantage over others without causing confusion in the marketplace. Of the three groups that are critical in the selling of an RV, the manufacturers, dealers and consumers; the two that always win are the manufacturers and consumers and the one that always loses is the dealer.

By the time you read this editorial, many dealers have already seen the new model year offerings at private dealer days being held throughout the country. With less than half the year gone from the calendar, dealers have been forced to switch their thinking process and begin to focus on what is coming to their lots in the next few months. The next thing that hits them is the need to empty the lot of existing inventory, even if it means they must give up precious profit to stay in tune with the dictates of the manufacturers they represent.

Consumers are smarter these days, and realize that if they didn’t buy during the Spring show season, then they might as well wait until the dealer reaches the panic point and must dump inventory and start the cycle all over again.

Utopia isn’t that far away, if everybody would just agree to it. I believe everybody wins if we change the way we do business.

How would life be in the perfect RV world, with perfect manufacturers, perfect dealers and perfect consumers?

If the industry would simply select the month that makes the most sense to introduce new models, and then have the guts to implement it, then all manufacturers would agree not to release new models to the public until the first day of that month. Let’s select September as the ideal month, and let’s do it like they used to do it in the automotive world. Let’s decide that no new model introductions would be allowed until after Labor Day, and that new model must carry the model year of the next calendar year.

This will allow manufacturers to maximize their production capacity over a longer period of time and reduce the cost per unit that would be realized by volume purchasing, operating efficiencies, and a longer manufacturing cycle.

Dealers could then extend their selling season and maximize their profits because they would be less likely to get caught with last year’s models when a competitor has the latest and greatest sitting on the lot down the street.

Consumers would quickly learn, and appreciate, the industry-sponsored standardization and could plan their first or future purchase in accordance with an established pattern that is the same, year after year.

Manufacturers obviously want to retain their right to bring out a new product whenever they want, and put whatever model year on it that they decide will serve them best. But is that really what is best for the industry?

Don’t we have industry associations to plan and enforce what is right for the industry, not any one particular member? Let’s work harder at making it work with new model year introductions.

Dealers would sleep better and make more money if they could rely on a standardized system that would allow them to plan a full year of business without wondering what was going to happen next Summer and which manufacturers, that they represent, would change everything with decisions that they have absolutely no control over, or input to.

Consumers would appreciate logic to the buying process and would not feel like they are out of sync with the rest of the RV world with new product introductions coming randomly throughout the year, and in some cases, with model year designations that make absolutely no sense at all.