Dealers Fear They'll Be Cut
Car dealers used to be the guy everybody was sure was smiling all the way to the bank. He had the big house in the right neighborhood - always with, not one, but several shiny new cars sitting around. And he usually drove a different car every day or week, whatever he felt like! Not anymore.
Owning a new car franchise means sitting on a time bomb these days. Too many cars that don't seem to sell. Too many employees and bills that would choke any bank account. Now they fear they'll be cut by auto dealer bailout package that seems sure to cut the number of franchises GM & Chrysler can have. • • • • • Return to Motors.com Home Page.
GM IS LOOKING TO CUT DEALER COUNT
As recently as the year 2000, coming off a boom time for the auto industry, GM had 8,150 dealers. Because of market share loss they are down to 6,400 and Rick Wagoner, CEO, told Congress he intends to further reduce that number to 4,700 over the next 3 years!
So isn't it time for Mr. Buick Dealer to eliminate that Friday morning standing tee time at the BushWood Country Club and go back to working on cutting expenses at his shop? The saying goes, "Expenses Walk on Two Legs." In other words his general sales manager is about to get the pink slip. So is that extra lot porter and so on and so on. Return to Motors.Com Home Page
Having a Honda or Toyota Store Helps When You have to Close Your Pontiac or Hummer Dealership
Some domestic auto dealers had the foresight to add foreign brands to complement their Dodge or Ford deal. Today they look like geniuses. If GM tells them there are too many Pontiac stores in their market and shuts them down it helps if they can just move their office over to the Nissan store they own across the street.
I remember when the Honda passenger cars first came out. They had been selling scooters for years. But these little death trap mini cars were so tiny! And who picked that paint color: some strange shade of orange, I swear, they were all orange! Dealers laughed. I remember my dad was offered a Subaru dealership. He didn't give it much thought. Maybe it was leftover prejudice from World War II. People just didn't have a high opinion of things "Made in Japan" at that time. A Honda store or Toyota would have been a better investment.