Holden's computer meltdown left its national network of 238 dealers in disarray.
Source: Supplied
COMPUTER geeks put the brakes on Holden sales in February.
An experimental computer system said "no'' to the struggling car maker last month, restricting how many vehicles its dealers could report as sold.
In some cases the computer system told dealers a car was still on the production line when in fact it was in their showroom.
In other examples vehicles were in transit but couldn't be released because the computer system wouldn't allow it.
The computer gremlins prompted Holden to report its lowest monthly result in almost seven years, about 7500 sales according to preliminary figures revealed to News Limited.
The last time Holden sales dropped this low was in April 2006, just three months before a new Commodore arrived.
Coincidentally another new Commodore is now three months away.
The massive computer meltdown left about 1500 cars - about one-in-five of Holden's normal delivery rate - unaccounted for and its national network of 238 dealers in disarray.
The computer crash came at a sensitive time for Holden as it tries to clear run-out models of the locally made Cruze small car and Commodore sedan to make way for new versions.
It also came just one month after the Commodore recorded its lowest month of sales in the 35-year history of the nameplate - when the computer system was still operating as normal.
Holden insists the faulty computer system is not an excuse to disguise weak sales and that the numbers reported in the coming months will reflect this.
"The computer system is not the sole reason behind all of the decline in February, it's clearly a very tough market, but it does represent the majority of our missing numbers,'' Holden executive director of sales and marketing, Philip Brook, told News Limited.
"We've submitted preliminary numbers for February but they could change when the official results come out. They could go up or down slightly once we go through the figures forensically."
Dealer sources said Holden is the first test market for a new global computer network to be rolled out across every General Motors division around the world.
Holden says most customers were able to take delivery of their new vehicles and the system will be fixed by the end of March.
The drama has shone an uncomfortable spotlight on the flaws in the reporting of new-car sales figures. All sales numbers are supplied voluntarily by car makers and dealers - they do not necessarily correlate with new vehicle registrations in the same month.
For example in some cases a car can be reported as "sold'' in one month so that a dealer can take advantage of a rebate from the manufacturer - but the car may not be sold to a customer for another couple of months.
However a car can only be reported as sold once, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries says.
In Holden's case, once it finds the missing cars it will report those as sold in the next month or two - even though they may have been delivered in February.
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