The article doesn’t say it was voluntary for the dealers. That’s an entirely different conversation.

BMW corporate voluntarily decided to stop sales, dealers were forced to comply.

I’m stating that, in my area, two longtime BMW dealers lost their BMW franchise because those dealers did not meet BMW’s expectations. Voluntary? No such thing. When BMW barks, you jump.

I was referring to the dealership I buy from; I don’t own a dealership. The owner lives in my neighborhood. He still made deals on bikes but did not deliver, had the same customer counts, etc. They were still able to operate, just not deliver. There are financial/sales models which are updated regularly. If there is a substantial deviation from the model, you lost sales. If you meet or exceed sales, traffic counts, etc., there was no impact. Pretty basic high school business class concepts. Have you seen one person here on this forum, which has a massive contributor population, say “That’s the last straw, I’ll never buy a BMW because of this stop sale.”? Love the brand, hate the brand, or are indifferent about the brand, BMW sales are up this year, and they’ll continue to grow, guaranteed.

Not sure what you’re trying to argue here. Did BMW say that it was voluntary or not? It says it right in the quote in the article you are replying to.

The people reading this article probably constitute a substantial percentage of the non-industry people who even heard about the stop sale. Do you seriously think someone decided not to go look at bikes last Saturday afternoon because of this? 99.99% of the buying public didn’t even hear about it. Two people I know who own BMW motorcycles weren’t aware of it. It isn’t like BMW was going out of their way to publicize this.

No, the only realistic metric for lost sales due to this order is people who got to the point in the process where a salesperson told them they’d have to wait until the stop sale was lifted to take delivery of a bike.

Most people who were seriously contemplating a purchase were unlikely to be deterred by this. It’s not exactly an impulse purchase triggered solely by a commercial seen during a Sunday NFL game, and the only way a prospective customer is likely to hear about the stop sale is from a salesperson who is well versed in explaining it in a way that won’t scare off a customer.

The BMW-haters here should pause before projecting their feelings on the general buying public.

So you’re the dealer and come to a forum to tell everyone that? Ooooookay.

If you are the dealer, how could you possibly know if you lost a sale that never happened? While you might not have had cancellations, you can’t begin to say you never lost sales from thise who decided not to walk through the door becauae of the stop sale.

Show me the list of dealers that did not comply.

Those aren’t my words. BMW said it was, do you have specific knowledge that they are lying?

True. However with them canceling the stop sale like they did it would seem it was more suspected than knowing.

Voluntarily in that they chose to do it knowing what could happen to them later if they didn’t do it, and the problem turned out to be as bad as they thought it might be.

Voluntary in the sense that not doing it would be gambling.

It’s like not selling a shotgun without until you’ve measured multiple times to make sure the barrel is long enough. It’s your choice, but if you’re wrong….

No notice from the EPA is necessary. Once they knew about it, they became liable to do something about it. If and when the EPA gets involved, they can subpoena internal memos, emails, etc., determine when BMW knew about it, and then penalize them based on how many bikes they sold KNOWING there was a problem.

Google Sarbanes-Oxley.

Maybe you should lighten up or grow a thicker skin.

Do you slide in when someone makes a comment about Harley’s. Nope, its fair game right?

It seems few of you can laugh about about anything if its related to BMWs, sacred cows such as they are.

When a manufacturer finds a problem and issues a stop sale or recall themselves it is called “voluntary”.

If the EPA, CARB, or the NHTSA finds the problem and forces the manufacturer to fix it the stop sale or recall is called “mandatory”

All the word voluntary tells us is that BMW found the problem.

Their evap canisters are faulty which means they are not in compliance with EPA or CARB emission regulations

Knowing selling vehicles with faulty emission systems will rack up some BIG fines for a manufacturer

I doubt many, if any, sales were lost over this—a buyer who has researched and selected a product and has financing or funding in place is pretty unlikely to jump ship and start all over, settling for his/her second choice.

None of this BMW Motorrad stop sell order (it’s a voluntary order?) made sense based on the information that was publicly disclosed so I concluded that it must have been the result of government regulators behind the scenes.

You are usually pretty thoughtful in your responses. This one was petty. I’m Not a BMW owner. (I don’t like Starbucks either). Lighten up bud. World is bad enough.

You’re rather sad. BMW envy?

Voluntarily.. yeah, right.. 🙄

Hahahahahaha…
You forget.. BMW engineers NEVER make mistakes. Whatever this was, it was clearly the dealers and/or owner’s fault. 😉

Since when is a stop sale ORDER voluntary? If it was voluntary, the dealers would have opted out. I think it was voluntary in the sense that BMW Motorrad North America “voluntarily” agreed to stop selling bikes that were not complying with regulations until an agreement could be reached with the regulators how best to fix the problem.