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Success has come regularly, however has now been capped off in the kind a three-row crossover SUV named after Colorado ski city. Kia’s award-winning Telluride is promoting so quick that its West Point, Georgia, manufacturing unit can’t make them quick sufficient.
Kia dealers have, on common, a 15-day provide of Tellurides on their lots, in accordance with knowledge from Cox Automotive. In actual phrases, that signifies that these SUVs are going out nearly as quick as they arrive in. By distinction, GMC dealers have a mean 76-day provide of the Acadia and Toyota dealers have a mean 51-day provide of the Highlander. Both are opponents to the Telluride.
Ben Burton, basic supervisor at Parkside Kia in Knoxville, Tennessee, stated he already has a purchaser lined up for every Telluride he expects to get from now via September.
“As soon as I get a VIN number, people are like ‘OK, that’s the one I want,’ he said. “They have not seen the automobile, they have not touched the automobile, they have not smelled the automobile and so they’re contracted on the automobile and so they’re able to go.”
The Telluride excelled in virtually every way, said Mark Rechtin, editor-in-chief at MotorTrend, from design to ride and handling and interior functionality.
“It was nearly a unanimous determination to make it SUV of the Year,” he said. “They nailed it.”
Production troubles
The big, roomy Telluride was very much an American project. It was designed at Kia’s Irvine, California, design studio with the goal of creating a spacious SUV that would appeal to Americans, said Kia spokesman James Bell. Much of the development testing was done at Kia’s test track in Mojave, California.
Beyond its own attributes, the Telluride happens to fall into a market segment that’s doing relatively well at the moment. Auto sales are down due to the coronavirus, but midsize SUVs are among the sort of vehicles that have been doing best, according to data from Kelley Blue Book. (Pickups and small crossovers are doing even better.)
Telluride production started in February, 2019, but the factory shut down for the month of April, 2020, due to concerns about coronavirus and because of parts supply disruptions caused by the pandemic. The factory began ramping up production again starting in early May, and is now running three shifts nearly around the clock producing Tellurides, smaller Sorento SUVs and Kia’s new K5 sedan.
But even at that pace, production can’t keep up.
As a result, some dealers are charging more than the sticker price for Tellurides, something that rarely happens in the auto industry. Usually customers negotiate discounts from dealers. In this case, dealers are telling customers: If they want a Telluride, they need to pay more.
On average, Kia Tellurides sell for 3% over the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, according to data from TrueCar, an auto pricing website. Toyota Highlanders are selling for 7% below MSRP and Ford Explorers 8% below. Even the similarly-sized Hyundai Palisade, which shares much of its engineering with the Telluride, sells for slightly below the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, or MSRP.
The differences between the Palisade and Telluride are so slight that customers’ preference for the Kia mostly comes down to styling, said Rick Case. He owns a chain of car dealerships including several Hyundai dealers and two Kia dealers.
Case insists his dealers never charge above sticker as a matter of policy. “It’s too short-lived and too lengthy remembered,” he said of the profit taking practice.
Making things even more profitable for Kia and its dealers, the Tellurides customers want most aren’t the base model but more luxurious trim levels with more options and higher starting prices.
Sticker price for the base model Telluride LX starts at about $32,000. Prices for the SX, the top trim level, start at $10,000 more. That includes features like 20-inch wheels, two sunroofs, a high-end 10-speaker stereo, more chrome on the outside and more leather inside.
“The ones that we have been testing have been in the $46,000 to $48,000 worth band and we have been taking a look at one another and saying, ‘This is nicer than a Mercedes,'” said MotorTrend’s Rechtin.
Gradual changes
Not too many years ago, Kia’s brand image could be summed up in a single word: cheap.
That’s been changing over the years as the Kias have begun looking more stylish.
Kia’s global head of design, Peter Schreyer, previously worked at Audi. Kias also usually provide a sharper driving feel than than competitors, such as Toyota and Nissan. Cars like the Kia Stinger compete credibly against German sports sedans, at least in terms of performance and available features, if not refinement.
The brand is also earning a reputation for quality. Kia finished at the very top among mass market auto brands in J.D. Power & Assoc. Initial Quality survey for each of the past six years.
That’s a big change from Kia’s early days in the US market, said Burton, who has worked with the company for nearly 20 years.
“We used to take bets to see how quickly any person would return in a Sportage or a Spectra with a ‘Check Engine’ mild on,” he said.
Those days are long gone, he said, and now people are waiting their turn to buy SUVs costing as much as $50,000.
“The autos, went from actually a throwaway automobile the place you’d purchase it, you run the wheels off of it then you definitely toss it,” he said. “Now persons are shopping for this stuff as a result of it is, in some circumstances, a luxurious vehicle.”
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