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      12-01-2012, 11:36 AM   #10
Stohlen
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Drives: AW 135i
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Waterford, Mi

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2008 BMW 135i  [5.66]
Quote:
Originally Posted by RWD4Life View Post
My guess is that they want to get rid of a many parts as possible before the car goes out of production and unfortunately it seems the best way to do it is by screwing customers over. I don't care if BMW are not the only doing that, that's not an excuse. No manufacturer should do that, period.
It has nothing to do with trying to "screw you over". Options are moving towards packages because it is cheaper to produce. On the assembly line they want to minimize as much variation as possible from the vehicle build to make things run quickly and efficiently. More options means more variation from car to car which means more time spent assembling the car to accommodate that variation and a larger source of error when building the car that must be fixed later. Its a lot cheaper and easier to build a car with 5 variations than it is to build one with 50.

BMW isn't making much money when you decide that you want the heated seats over regular seats. Most car companies are making their money off of the financing, not the vehicles themselves. Toyota last year made 1.6 billion dollars in the U.S. However, they lost 0.8 billion dollars on actual vehicle sales, the profit resulted in the 2.4 billion they made in financing.


Remember... the reason the model T was so cheap and thus sold so well... was because it had NO options.
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