Nissan themselves say 50% of their sales are to fleets...

 

Funny thing about the rouge, I personally know 7 people with them. It's for some reason THE default choice for people who don't care about cars at all and want something with AWD

 

Its cheap, they're decent looking. My cousin had one, he just traded it in on a Jeep Cherokee (from mediocrity to mediocrity)...it was reasonably good looking, capable but SO slow. I drove it to and from WV one time and in the mountains on the highway it was so underpowered.

 

Yes, that's true. The low price, versatility of a crossover, and a simple cheap way to get AWD is basically what sells them. I haven't counted them all, but there are more than 7 of them just in my condo townhouse development.

 

They aren't necessarily saying that 50% of Rogue sales are to fleets. The Altima and Sentra, for example, have been very popular in fleets.

 

Nissan's loose credit policies have something to do with this.

There's a reason nissan is the most common new car in bad neighborhoods.

 

392 credit score go brrrrrrrrr! lol!

 

Mitsubishi has a reputation for marketing to even lower-income/lower-credit people than Nissan....but Nissan, at least, still has a string of dealerships. Mitsubishi has allowed their American-market dealerships to dwindle down to almost nothing.

 

Chicken or the egg on that front. No sense operating a vast dealer network if nobody's buying your cars.

 

Damn, I was really rooting for the Ford Transit van.....🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

A business reality that is always ignored lol

Come on Transit Van! You can do it!

 

We've discussed this issue before in Car Chat....the chicken or the egg? Which caused which? Did sales fall off because the manufacturer allowed too many dealerships to close up, dealerships, or did dealerships close because they simply could not sell enough vehicles to make a profit?

While there is an element of truth in both views, I personally am of the opinion (and rather strongly) that you cannot sell what you don't have outlets and dealerships for. The more dealerships shut down, the fewer of them remain....and the harder it is for the remaining customers and potential customers to reach them.

I ran into this first-hand with a friend of mine a few years ago, who lived in Carson City, NV. He was interested in a new Mitsubishi Outlander Sport, primarily because of its versatility, low price, long Hyundai-like warranty, reasonably good build quality, and a cheap simple way to get AWD. So, I did a dealer-search for him, and the nearest Mitsubishi dealership was some 80 or 90 miles away, on the other side of Lake Tahoe, in California. That, unfortunately, put an end to that.

 

If you used a bit of critical thinking you would have reached a different conclusion

 

80 or 90 miles away is not that far away. A friend of mine drove to Ventura, CA which is over 300 miles from his house to pickup up his M4340i. In 2019 I drove to Orange County, CA, nearly 380 miles from my home to look at and buy a low mileage 2nd Gen IS350 Sport. Your friend didn't really want it that bad, and I say he made the right choice

 

This is a conclusion reached with no business knowledge or experience.

A business cannot pay the overhead for a dealer network if they don't have sales to justify that network. A company that reduces their number of dealerships did so because their sales no longer justified having that many dealerships. It becomes a vicious cycle, because like you say lack of dealers keeps customers from being able to buy the product...but if customers were buying enough of the product they never would have closed the dealers. A business can only pay non performing overhead for so long hoping for a turnaround until they have to make hard decisions and reduce that overhead. Also bear in mind that carmakers don't own and operate dealers, they are independently owned and operated. With nobody wanting to buy Mitsubishi cars, those owners decided not to continue with their Mistubishi franchises and closed them down. Again...no buyers...no dealers.

"Hope" is not a strategy.