Subaru's Shrinking New Car Inventory And Why You Aren’t Leaving The Brand Now

Will customers buying the 2022 Subaru Forester, 2022 Outback, and Crosstrek remain loyal with shrinking inventories? Until now, Subaru enjoyed the highest customer loyalty rate. Will that change now, or will customers remain faithful to the brand?

In the 2021 J.D. Power Automotive Brand Loyalty Study, Subaru of America ranked number one in customer loyalty beating Toyota and Honda. But will Subaru keep those customers if they can't find a 2022 Forester, Outback, or Crosstrek on retailers' lots? That's the dilemma of all car brands, according to a report from Automotive News.

Augusto Amorim, senior manager for U.S. vehicle sales forecasts at LMC Automotive, said automakers working through these inventory issues should be thinking right now about customer loyalty. If top loyalty brands like Subaru lose customers to other car brands that do have vehicles on their lots, "It means that it will be difficult for automakers to win those customers back."

photo credit: Crosscreek Subaru

Consider "someone who was driving a Fusion," Amorim posited this month when discussing the long-term impacts of the chip crisis. "Ford's hope was that person was going to move to Escape. But what happened this year? If that person needed a new car, they went to a Ford dealer, and there were no Escapes to be bought. So they went to a Toyota dealer, and they could still get a Camry if they wanted a car, or they could buy a RAV4 because Toyota still had inventory."

Further analysis from IHS Markit, brand loyalty among U.S. consumers for new vehicles dropped to a six-year low in June. Research of new vehicle registration data through June indicates that the overall brand loyalty rate of 51 percent in the U.S. market is the lowest since August 2015 due to low inventory levels.

photo credit: Crosscreek Subaru

Tom Libby, associate director of loyalty and industry analysis at IHS Markit, says, "Obviously a major risk is that due to lack of inventory, a brand's existing owners now are more likely to defect to another brand than they have; in quite a while."

A high percentage of Subaru Forester and Outback customers are return customers trading in a Subaru vehicle. Some customers could defect with the inventory shortages and lack of new Forester, Outback, and Crosstrek models on retailers' lots. But it looks like the majority of its loyal customers won't leave the brand.

Subaru still holds the Best Overall Brand in its 2021 Brand Image awards on Kelly Blue Book's brand watch report. Subaru is also the most trusted brand and the best performance brand, according to KBB.

photo credit: Crosscreek Subaru

Is Subaru losing customers now because of low inventory?

Subaru's demand for the 2022 Forester, Outback, and Crosstrek remains strong, and customers are ordering their new model and are willing to wait for it to be shipped to the dealer. We spoke to a source close to Subaru, and he told us, "I've taken more orders for new Subaru models in the last couple of weeks than at any time in my entire seven-year career at Subaru!" He said he is pre-selling more Forester compact SUVs, and Crosstrek is a close second.

Another problem affecting new models is that Subaru Forester and Crosstrek vehicles are backed up at the Port of Los Angeles due to a lack of workers to unload the ships from Japan. Check out a report here.

Subaru is not alone in challenges with low inventory of new vehicles. The refreshed 2022 Subaru Forester, 2022 Crosstrek, and 2022 Outback are coming in, but most if not all have been pre-sold to loyal customers who are willing to wait for their new all-wheel-drive vehicle.

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Denis Flierl has invested over 30 years in the automotive industry in a consulting role working with every major car brand. He is an accredited member of the Rocky Mountain Automotive Press. Check out Subaru Report where he covers all of the Japanese automaker's models. More stories can be found on the Torque News Subaru page. Follow Denis on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Photo credit: main image Subaru of Glendale