Wow that's kind of an odd add. Sorry for the hurricane we donated 1Mil. (That's cool) If you lost your car come buy another one at only $750 off. ( kind of a cheap sales add after a disaster) I really don't think the people in NJ / NY affected by hurricane Sandy care about buying new cars right now. If others not in the NE don't know most people affected the hurricane are still without power or cant even get back to their houses to see if they even have a house. People are still living in Red Cross shelters and getting food from food banks.
Interesting, there was a long post on The Truth About Cars today, saying that some 250,000 cars were lost via Sandy, and there will be any number of solicitations over the coming months as some portion of these get replaced. Looks like it's starting...
Good on them for donating to the folks who need help. That $750 off a new MINI is kind of laughable though.
For what it's worth, they did say a little help. Relief for the most part will be piece meal, would be a better thing if all Auto makers gave discounts to those affected in the area...
Lady Gaga also donated $1 million to the hurricane relief effort lol. Being someone who was affected by the hurricane, $750 is appreciated but that is essentially the same discount they offer through out the year for various events. To put these donations into scale, the Red Cross was received over $115M in donations which is awesome. But the total damage costs are over $50 Billion.
For a $30K MINI, $750 is only a 2.5% discount. I think that might be smaller than 'a little help', but I guess it is better than nothing.
I guess the main gesture to be appreciated out of this is that they donated to the Red Cross for relief, period.
If we look around at what others offered are out there we find. Chrysler offers a $500 cash allowance. GM offers a $500 cash allowance. Ford offers a $500 cash allowance. Chrysler, Ford and GM programs all have exclusions. Nissan North America offers employee pricing. So while you beat on MINI for ONLY offering $750, it is better than any other offer out there right now. Donations BMW/MINI Gave $1 million to Red Cross Toyota Gave $1 million to Red Cross Chevrolet is donating 50 Express cargo vans, Traverse crossover utilities and Tahoe full-size SUVs to the American Red Cross. Volkswagen donated $500,000 to the Red Cross Honda donated $500,000 to the Red Cross Mercedes-Benz Gave $1 million to Red Cross
Let the solicitating begin... I am seeing a lot of commercials on the TV now for superstorm sandy deals for all different companies.
Being from New Jersey, I don't think it's in poor taste at all. If I had a MINI that was destroyed I'd take that 750 credit real fast.
Volvo is offering $1000 off plus employee pricing. And while it's true that people affected have more important things to worry about, in many cases their car insurance company has written them a check for the lost car and they may still need transportation to get to work, etc. I was really lucky - as close as I live to the Jersey Shore, we had no serious damage, no flooding - just no power for about 8 days and lots of trees down. After the 2nd day of no power, I got out my 1500W power inverter, hooked it up to the MCS, and ran the furnace! It wasn't powerful enough to run my fridge or freezer, so we lost alot of food - but having heat was a huge help. And when my furnace cycled off, I ran the power to my neighbor and ran his furnace. The downside was that all that idling really killed my average MPG for that tank!
I read that the VDC was not impacted much but a warehouse nearby where BMW / MINI of Manhattan was storing some cars took a massive hit. Upwards of 140 BMW's and 45 MINIs damaged. I can't verify this info, it's just something I had read elsewhere.