Looming Disaster? If GMAC Defaults 40% Of GM Dealers Go Under

My father owns a dealership in a small farming community in MN. He and his co-owning brother are currently working for NO paycheck, just to keep the dealership afloat. He's had to let 2 salesmen go, and has combined the service and parts department, letting one worker go in the process. Its definitely hard times in rural MN.

In addition, GM has been raising the rates of maintaining the Chevrolet and Pontiac franchise as well, farther pressing down on small town dealerships.

That's capitalism, folks! Yes, this is the market at work. BACK OFF. AND A SIMPLE REMINDER:

Dealers got themselves into this shit hole. HOW? By overcharging for their product, and by making buying their product a tremendously expensive and unpleasant hassle.

NEVER make your customers wait in your stupid lobby 3 hours to see the bottom line price.

NEVER subject your customers to needless usury.

NEVER charge your customers DOUBLE for parts and service.

NEVER equip cars with options your customers don't want in hopes of forcing them to pay more for options they DO want.

NEVER LIE TO YOUR CUSTOMER.

please don't make generalizations like this about all dealers-- there are plenty of us out there doing business in an honorable fashion (many of whom are still suffering). Do the "bad" dealers get their due? We certainly hope so, but those of us who work hard to do the right thing don't need to have things made harder.

That is a bit over the top don't you think?

The dealer does not set the price rather the OEM does. If a vehicle from say Toyota has an MSRP of 20,000 and invoice of 18,000 well, that IS the price! You can't expect a dealer to sell below invoice. They are in the buisness to move cars and make money. Try walking into a Home Depot and haggle over the price of anything there. It wouldn't happen.

Do a some research on features, power, safty etc that vehicle have now vs about 5 yrs ago...even 2-3! Bang for buck we are geting more efficient, powerful, safer and better featured over all vehicles for not much more with inflation factored in.

I lurked on this site for quite some time and could not believe the simple views many people have. It's comments like this that made me sign up.

If you don't like the price, don't buy it :)

The disaster (aka no one buying your car) already happened. Dealerships going down is the solution.

So that means there will be a variety of dealerships in a general area instead of GM owning the whole section of leased dealership spots with theirs? I am up for that.

GM doesn't own dealerships. The individuals who own the lots own franchise rights with all the positive (exclusivity) and negative (certain conditions that must be kept up) stipulations. Any dealer that wants to stop carrying any brand simply would end their franchise contract at the earliest opportunity via buyout or waiting until expiration.

To clarify when I said exclusivity I meant the exclusive rights to sell X brand within Y geographic area.