Dealer Body Links 66 Car Brands to Lower Resale Values and Slower Repairs

• The Australian Automotive Dealer Association (AADA) wants the federal government to pause new car brands entering Australia, with 66 now on sale by CarExpert’s count against 50 in 2021.
• The AADA warns that the brand influx is pushing down resale values and stretching parts supply and repair times, while BYD says it holds more than 580,000 parts locally and fills 95 per cent of dealer orders from them.
• Before signing for a new car, ask for parts stock, service and repair waits and any guaranteed future value in writing, and know that the Australian Consumer Law gives a refund or replacement for a major fault and a free repair for a minor one.

Your Trade-In Is Caught Up in a Fight Over Brand Numbers

The Australian Automotive Dealer Association (AADA), the national body for new-car dealers, has asked Canberra to pause the entry of any new car brand to the market. The pause is one of 10 recommendations. The association ties the growing brand count to three costs that reach buyers: lower resale values, late parts and longer repairs.

Counting every brand that sells new cars, SUVs or light commercial vehicles gives 66 today, up from 50 in 2021. Of the brands that arrived after 2021, only Cadillac, Cupra, GMC and Ineos are not Chinese. The AADA says a flood of mostly Chinese brands is hammering its members.

Read the resale claim as a dealer-side view. The AADA speaks for the businesses that sell new cars, and they have just posted their first negative quarterly profit in almost 18 years. AADA chief executive James Voortman links the problem to stock and price cuts:

“Pushing excessive stock onto dealers is fuelling a race to the bottom. Aggressive discounting erodes margins and devalues vehicles while dealers carry the financing costs and risk of unsold vehicles.”

Voortman says discounting devalues vehicles, and a vehicle’s value is what you get back at trade-in. No resale percentage accompanies the claim, so the size of any fall for a given brand is something to test with a dealer and with used listings. The same resale question is being asked of Chinese electric cars in the UK.

The Numbers Behind the Warning

Sales show why dealers feel squeezed. Last year set a sales record of 1,241,037 new vehicles, a gain of 0.3 per cent. The first ten months of 2026 run 2.5 per cent ahead of the same period in 2025. Deliveries in 2021 totalled 1,049,831, a total that leaves out brands such as BYD, Mahindra and Tesla. If sales hold flat this year, the market will have gained 16 brands and fewer than 200,000 vehicles from that starting point.

Analysis by Blue Flag, commissioned by the AADA, puts Australia at 54 brands for every one million annual sales. The same measure gives 19.8 in the UK, where Chinese cars reached one in ten sales, 18.9 in Canada and 16.4 in Germany.

More are coming. Avatr, Hongqi, JMC, Nevo and Rox Motor plan to launch before the end of 2027. Chery is adding Exlantix, Freelander, iCaur, Jetour and Luxeed, and most or all of them will sell through separate dealer networks. By 2028 the tally reaches almost 80 brands, and the AADA says dealers cannot keep pace.

The dealer results show the strain. The third quarter of 2026 gave the industry its first negative quarterly profit in almost 18 years, the last coming in the final quarter of 2008 in the middle of the Global Financial Crisis. Lee Peters, managing partner of Deloitte Motor Industry Services, puts dealers’ average net profit for that quarter at -0.2 per cent. Peters adds that fixed costs rose by over half across a decade and by more than 30 per cent after COVID began. Voortman says headline sales hide the damage:

“Strong headline vehicle sales can conceal serious financial distress at the businesses making those sales. Dealers cannot keep absorbing higher costs, lower margins and greater stock risk indefinitely,” said Voortman.

“Dealers are facing intense competition, relentless pressure to take more stock and rising business costs.”

“Too often, they are left to absorb the financial consequences of decisions made elsewhere in the supply chain.”

What the Dealer Body Wants From Canberra

Voortman makes the case for the pause in two passages:

“There are simply too many manufacturers operating in this market and we need a pause on further car brands entering this market. At a time when other countries are trying to slow the rate of change and number of brands, Australia is allowing unfettered access to this market.”

“This is a clear warning that the commercial settings underpinning our industry are becoming unsustainable. The sheer number of brands arriving in Australia at a rapid pace is having profound consequences for Australian consumers and businesses alike.”

For Canberra, the AADA also wants the previously announced Unfair Trading Practices protections fast-tracked, the Australian Consumer Law reformed to improve clarity for consumers, and barriers removed so smaller and family-owned dealerships can restructure more easily. From the makers it wants dealer councils, with which makers should set “realistic” sales targets, relief for excess inventory including help with aged stock, quick compensation for dealers when a maker cuts prices, and a pause on “non-essential capital demands” such as showroom upgrades, corporate identity changes and “discretionary” investment requirements.

These are requests, and nothing in them changes the rules for anyone buying a car today. On choice and competition, Voortman said:

“Australians benefit from choice and competition, but manufacturers’ growth ambitions must reflect what this market can support,” Voortman said.

BYD Says It Already Has the Parts

BYD answered the parts question with numbers in October. The brand says it stores more than 580,000 parts locally, fills 95 per cent of dealer orders from that local stock, and targets a wait of under seven days to book a service. The brand also opened a parts facility in Melbourne covering 15,000 square metres with a team of 40, and promises dealers their parts within 24 hours, stretching to a week for remote and rural areas. Stephen Collins, chief operating officer of BYD Australia, says some other brands are behind:

“I think it’s a big part of the whole ecosystem that BYD is investing in. Some other brands, I won’t name them, but you probably know them, are lagging behind in this area,” Collins said.

“We know that some brands are way beyond that [a seven-day servicing wait], and we think that’s just not acceptable.”

“I think it’s just a basic requirement and expectation for customers when you get your car serviced or something goes wrong, we have the parts available, we have the service bays available,” Collins said.

The AADA’s own July 2026 report describes the other side of the counter. Dealers admitted that customers, EV owners especially, can wait between six and eight weeks just to have a fault diagnosed, with workshop backlogs behind the delay. Some manufacturing faults take months or years to diagnose correctly. Dealers have refused tow-ins or diagnostic work on cars sold from another showroom, and some point at the car makers for slow fixes.

Collins says BYD’s spending was planned before that report appeared:

“We made the decision well before that [the AADA report],” Collins said.

“We took over from an independent distributor in July last year [2025]. Before that time, we’d already made these investment decisions.

“It was very much a part of our longer term strategy not driven by any pressure or any political pressure.”

Both sets of figures come from interested parties: BYD’s numbers are the company’s own and the repair findings come from dealers. BYD is one brand of 66, so a buyer comparing another badge needs the same figures for that badge.

Your Rights When a New Car Has a Fault

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) sets out what a buyer is owed under the Australian Consumer Law, and the rules cover products bought from a business, and the ACCC’s page on car buying says the consumer guarantees apply to new and second-hand cars bought from a licensed dealer. A business that sells a product failing the consumer guarantees must offer a solution. It must not tell the buyer to take the problem to the manufacturer or importer.

The remedy depends on how serious the fault is. A major problem means the product is unsafe, differs greatly from its description, has one serious fault or several smaller ones that would have stopped the purchase, or cannot be used normally and cannot easily be fixed within a reasonable time. The buyer then chooses between a refund and a replacement. A refund is the full amount paid, with no deduction for use.

A minor problem gets a free repair, and the business need not offer a replacement or refund. If the business cannot or will not fix it in a reasonable time, the buyer can have it fixed elsewhere and be paid back the reasonable cost, take a refund or replacement, or keep the product and be compensated for the drop in value the problem caused.

The ACCC says what counts as a reasonable time depends on the nature of the product or service, and its page sets no number of days, so a six-week wait for a diagnosis is judged case by case. The guarantees give no remedy for a change of mind, for a problem caused by the buyer misusing the product, or for a problem the buyer knew about before buying. The ACCC also tells car buyers to check with their state or territory agency for state-specific rights. A business cannot rely on store policies or terms that deny these rights, and a manufacturer at fault must reimburse the seller for the repair, replacement or refund. The ACCC does not resolve individual disputes or give legal advice, but it accepts reports about businesses.

The guarantees respond to faults. A lower trade-in price or a thin parts shelf is a risk to price in before signing.

Questions to Ask Before You Sign

Ask how many days a part for your model takes to arrive when it is not in stock, and what share of orders is filled from local stock. BYD’s 95 per cent figure gives a benchmark for any brand.

Ask how long the wait is to book the first service and a repair. BYD targets under seven days, and Collins calls longer waits unacceptable.

Ask whether the nearest workshop will take a car that was sold elsewhere, as some dealers refuse tow-ins and diagnostic work on those.

Get every answer in writing, and ask whether a guaranteed future value comes with the car. Omoda Jaecoo, a sister brand to Chery, launched its Future Price Promise in June 2025 with the buy-back company Valeur on every J7 and J8, offering a guaranteed minimum future value whether or not the buyer finances the car. Its chief commercial officer, Roy Muñoz, put the case this way:

“We believe in transforming the way Australians experience vehicle ownership. The Future Price Promise gives our customers peace of mind, value retention, and the freedom to choose how they buy – without compromise,” Muñoz said.

“This isn’t just a program; it’s a promise that backs the confidence we have in our vehicles and our commitment to Australian drivers.”

Omoda Jaecoo says terms, conditions and eligibility criteria apply, and fleet buyers, rental fleets included, are not eligible. A raft of makers offered such programs at that time, and recent arrivals including Cupra and Genesis had launched them to reassure buyers. Ask what conditions apply and whether the offer is in the contract, and not just the brochure.

After you buy, keep service records, which also protect resale, as a poor maintenance history can tank resale value, and keep dated written reports of every fault. If a major problem appears, those records support a refund or replacement claim. If the business sends you to the manufacturer, tell it the Australian Consumer Law requires the business to offer the solution, and report the business to the ACCC.

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Reviewed by Preetam Gadekar