I wonder what will come of this
I hope it’s not related to them inflating residuals. If so, it will effectively kill most bmw lease deals …
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Not at all. They’re just bringing sales forward. They’ll pay a fine to give the SEC their pound of flesh, and then everyone can move on with their lives. Probably a Nissan attorney blowing the whistle after being too bloody bored.
EDIT: Upon a deeper dive, they’re going after the aggressive use of registering cars as loaners that most dealers do. The same loaners most of us get steals on. That could definitely spell trouble for us here!
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How many other companies do this? I think they are alllll shady in some way!
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Definitely not…
“Sale punching occurs when a company boosts sales figures by having dealers register cars as sold when the vehicles actually are still standing on car lots.”
I suspect the tricky part will come with cars being punched as “loaners” or “demos” but never seeing service as either. BMW doesn’t require any minimum amount of service time in those roles before selling again, I don’t think.
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“The SEC is looking into the Munich-based auto maker’s sales practices in the U.S. to determine whether the company engaged in a technique known as sales punching, according to people familiar with the matter. Sale punching occurs when a company boosts sales figures by having dealers register cars as sold when the vehicles actually are still standing on car lots.”
This happens with every single dealer and every single brand. The dealers do it to get their unit bonuses from the manufacturer and I imagine the manufacturer is ok with it since it helps with their monthly projections and stock prices. The probably SEC does not like them manipulating sales numbers and therefore stock prices, but it is a very open secret if not common knowledge this happens so investors are not necessarily being misled. Edit: I should add I do not think the manufacturers are encouraging dealers to do this, but it is not being discouraged.
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Bingo.
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While accurate, I think BMW goes harder on loaners than any other brand by a mile! 
Does this mean less BMW loaners, in the future, to choose from?
I doubt it - I think what you’ll find is what other brands do, like Volvo, which is keeping them in service for a defined period of time/mileage before selling them. May reduce their sales numbers a bit, but will keep them on the up and up.
100% but there are a lot of BMW dealers that all provide loaners to their service customers. What will probably happen is loaners will just not be reported as “sold” in BMW’s system like they are now until it reaches an actual customer.
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Local dealer’s website has many cars sold in the USED catgory with 0 miles…
This is common practice, when i was at a competitor, every year the GM from distribution would ask what I had in my pool. I had a mix of cars wrecked or destroyed, exec demos, nonsalable pre-series and internal employee lease vehicles. They would push to punch as many cars as possible. We would use internal dealer codes for the wholesale and retail. This pushed the cars out of sales tracking, I’d have to pull them into my “pre-owned” inventory which allowed me to track what I had. It was an absurd exercise, but that’s how desperate the rivalry was.
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Of course when you’re publicly listed on the NYSE, recognizing revenue for vehicles you never actually sold could be a problem.
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Not with every brand I believe, and that’s why the SEC is after them. Like @28firefighter said, others (Volvo, MB I think) actually require punched cars to get to certain mileage which forces dealers to use them as loaners. Looks like BMW encouraged its dealers to punch cars to boost sales without requiring them to be used as loaners.
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Volvo is the biggest culprit of this, not BMW.
BMW depending on size has a cap amount of service loaners per dealer.
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Do you see many Volvo loaners available for lease with 1-2k miles or less? 
Even if they don’t have a cap they manage it somewhat.
And maybe that BMW cap is also under scrutiny? Maybe the SEC thinks it’s too high.
But it would be naive to think that manufacturers do not close their eyes on punching.
BMW is trying to take the lead in the U.S. Luxury market against Mercedes so that’s probably why