Tommys vs Malibu

[justgary]

52 minutes ago, eubanks said:

Tommy’s closed in Forth Worth. And Malibu is telling me my north Texas dealer is Texas Malibu…about 3.5 hour away. No thanks. 

My "local" dealer has always been about 3.75 hours away... I guess I'm lucky that it isn't even more now.

[Sparky450]

6 hours ago, dizzygti said:

The dealer locator says enter a postal code, not a state.    It works for me if I put in a ZIP code.   

The  dealer locator does not work for me either. if I put in state or zip code. I still get the no dealer or whatever.
But, I have been using VS Marine for many years, Including  servicing my 07 when it was something I could not do myself.
As much of a Malibu person as I am. If I had to buy or service from Larsons/Tommy’s., I would not have bought, and I would not be buying a Malibu.  
The people at VS Marine are great people!  

[NorCalSurfer]

19 hours ago, SodaBay said:

The dealer we purchased our boat from closed a year after our purchase.  We have been using Tommy’s in Rancho Cordova, CA and have an appointment tomorrow to have our screens replaced (under warranty) along with normal service. 

What I find interesting is when you go to find a dealer on the Malibu website and type in our zip code, we get No Results.    We are in Northern California.  Find it hard to believe the site would not direct me to a dealer, even if it is 300 miles away.

I will post an update tomorrow after our boat is dropped off. Thanks to all who have posted informative updates on the current situation. 

I wish you good luck. My experience has been horrible with them since I bought the boat last year. 

[Chattwake]

15 hours ago, Mystic said:

We have a deposit in with Tommy's on a new build. Manager said the bank now owns our boat under receivership. We would like our deposit back and buy a used boat elsewhere. What are the chances of getting that deposit back?

Sent you a message

[IXFE]

 Everybody needs to relax…

There will be new Malibu dealers in EVERY affected market by July 1st and many well before that. 

Sit tight and just watch the show. Surely you can survive without a dealer for 50 days. 

🍿

[23LSVOwner]

9 hours ago, IXFE said:

 Everybody needs to relax…

There will be new Malibu dealers in EVERY affected market by July 1st and many well before that.

Same thing I heard as well. Most all already in place just waiting on the final stuff that has to be done.

[granddaddy55]

On 5/6/2024 at 11:50 AM, bwski said:

Who knows what the reality is, but Tommy's and their associated businesses own pretty much the entire "downtown" area of Walloon Lake Michigan.  The comments regarding personal property in Boyne City could be referring to these properties.

  They pretty much rebuilt the entire Walloon Lake downtown in northern Michigan.  Walloon as a very upscale lake for the area and the downtown area was very run down and not a destination other than the lake until around 2013, when Tommy's opened.  They dumped a TON of $ into the area.  They own 2 great restaurants and a very nice hotel.  They just completed an upscale condo building and another is about 75% completed, both with retail areas.  The area they developed is incredibly nice and we visit often, we are hoping all of this does not have a negative effect on that area!   

and how do you think they paid for that expansion😂

[COOP]

Been seeing a few post in the FB group that a couple Tommys are locked up. I hope people are able to get their boats out.

 

[dizzygti]

56 minutes ago, COOP said:

Been seeing a few post in the FB group that a couple Tommys are locked up. I hope people are able to get their boats out.

 

Yeah, seeing lots of this and people that had no clue this was happening. 

[SodaBay]

We dropped off our boat yesterday at Tommy’s in Rancho Cordova.  Business as usual,  and our boat is scheduled to be ready next week.

Interesting thing. The Malibu dealer finder has Tommy’s back up for the Nor Cal dealers.  Maybe they worked something out. 

[bwski]

3 hours ago, granddaddy55 said:

and how do you think they paid for that expansion😂

One has to wonder????  

One thing Malibu is certainly guilty of here is putting WAY to much power with one dealer.  It seems incredibly risky to make a single dealer or group responsible for over 1/3rd of your total volume.  Then to make matters worse, convince them to take on way too much inventory.  While someone at the dealer has to okay the inventory, someone at Malibu also thought it would be okay to shove a huge pile of inventory on a essentially a single dealer even if they are spread throughout the country.  If that single dealer was crazy enough to take on too much, you risk losing distribution for 1/3rd of your volume!!!  Additionally, if one dealer is selling 1/3rd of the volume that  dealer had potential for incredible influence on the company. 

 

[oldjeep]

4 minutes ago, bwski said:

One has to wonder????  

One thing Malibu is certainly guilty of here is putting WAY to much power with one dealer.  It seems incredibly risky to make a single dealer or group responsible for over 1/3rd of your total volume.  Then to make matters worse, convince them to take on way too much inventory.  While someone at the dealer has to okay the inventory, someone at Malibu also thought it would be okay to shove a huge pile of inventory on a essentially a single dealer even if they are spread throughout the country.  If that single dealer was crazy enough to take on too much, you risk losing distribution for 1/3rd of your volume!!!  Additionally, if one dealer is selling 1/3rd of the volume that  dealer had potential for incredible influence on the company. 

 

The joy of publicly traded companies.  Chasing the next quarterly report

No different than tech companies laying off thousands and then next quarter having to try to hire people back - because they view every decision based on the next report.

Edited May 8 by oldjeep

[cowwboy]

51 minutes ago, bwski said:

One has to wonder????  

One thing Malibu is certainly guilty of here is putting WAY to much power with one dealer.  It seems incredibly risky to make a single dealer or group responsible for over 1/3rd of your total volume.  Then to make matters worse, convince them to take on way too much inventory.  While someone at the dealer has to okay the inventory, someone at Malibu also thought it would be okay to shove a huge pile of inventory on a essentially a single dealer even if they are spread throughout the country.  If that single dealer was crazy enough to take on too much, you risk losing distribution for 1/3rd of your volume!!!  Additionally, if one dealer is selling 1/3rd of the volume that  dealer had potential for incredible influence on the company. 

 

Tommy's is tiny compared to group 1, penske, auto nation etc. 
Big chains seem to be what manufacturers want to work with. 

[23LSVOwner]

Didn't Tommy's start out with just a few locations and then suddenly start buying up a bunch of existing Malibu dealerships?

[85 Barefoot]

Didn’t wizard lake used to run absolutely crazy numbers?

[bwski]

15 minutes ago, cowwboy said:

Tommy's is tiny compared to group 1, penske, auto nation etc. 
Big chains seem to be what manufacturers want to work with. 

In the world of Malibu they are MASSIVE.  Lets say Tommys was a Ford dealer and not Malibu.  It would be the same as if 300 dealers were out of trust and lost their franchise and were nearly out of business.  To make it even more eye opening is imagine if those 300 dealers sold 660,000 new fords last year!  That would send a big shockwave through the system.  Yes, manufacturers like big groups, but in Malibus world Tommy's is huge.  Lithia Motors was the number 1 auto group in 2022, selling 670k units, it would be the equivalent to losing that group, BUT they all sold for one manufacturer.

Edited May 8 by bwski

[teamerickson]

4 hours ago, SodaBay said:

We dropped off our boat yesterday at Tommy’s in Rancho Cordova.  Business as usual,  and our boat is scheduled to be ready next week.

Interesting thing. The Malibu dealer finder has Tommy’s back up for the Nor Cal dealers.  Maybe they worked something out. 

I'm not seeing that?

[SodaBay]

We dropped off our boat yesterday at Tommy’s in Rancho Cordova.  Business as usual,  and our boat is scheduled to be ready next week.

Interesting thing. The Malibu dealer finder has Tommy’s back up for the Nor Cal dealers.  Maybe they worked something out. 

I'm not seeing that?

 

I might be crazy but it was definitely there a few hours ago.  You are correct, it is gone now. 

[oldjeep]

1 hour ago, 85 Barefoot said:

Didn’t wizard lake used to run absolutely crazy numbers?

Not sure.  I thought that local MN dealer was #1 for a long time, even when Wizard was still around.  I assume those awards were single location.

[oldjeep]

1 hour ago, 23LSVOwner said:

Didn't Tommy's start out with just a few locations and then suddenly start buying up a bunch of existing Malibu dealerships?

I think they bought Boulder, which had been buying up or expanding like crazy.

[belmont]

6 hours ago, oldjeep said:

I think they bought Boulder, which had been buying up or expanding like crazy.

Boulder had 3 locations. Tommy's bought them and a bunch of others.

[jeffmx]

8 hours ago, teamerickson said:

I'm not seeing that?

I don't see that either on the dealer finder.

In California  our present options are Salinas,Atascadero, Madera, Redding,San Diego and the old factory in Merced.

 This will be interesting to see how it shakes out over the summer.  Personally, I have had 5 Malibu boats....

and I miss Boat Country.

Edited May 9 by jeffmx

[COOP]

16 hours ago, SodaBay said:

We dropped off our boat yesterday at Tommy’s in Rancho Cordova.  Business as usual,  and our boat is scheduled to be ready next week.

Interesting thing. The Malibu dealer finder has Tommy’s back up for the Nor Cal dealers.  Maybe they worked something out. 

I'm not seeing that?

 

I might be crazy but it was definitely there a few hours ago.  You are correct, it is gone now. 

Hopefully you dont show up to pick it up and they are locked up.

I dont think there would be any warning for the employees.

[Sparky450]

must 

maybe it is Apple and their IOS operating system. 

[Sparky450]

8 hours ago, jeffmx said:

and I miss Boat Country.

Brent is awesome. They moved to Ripon. Just have to do Master Craft, Moomba, or Supra, 🤮

 😁😁 If they were to become a Malibu dealer AGAIN. I would have no problem going to them.