GM Cuts Dealer Recognition Programs

Frank Williams
by Frank Williams

GM dealers are catching it from all directions. The General cutting back on leasing (with a very sharp knife) even as the troops wait for central command to fix the mix, And now the corporate mothership's gutting the dealers' GM Mark of Excellence 2008 Recognition Programs. A message to dealers outlined the "difficult" changes that resulted in canceling "select rewards" but added new cheaper incentives. Travel rewards are toast. In their stead: prepaid $1k debit cards and "exclusively yours®" reward points. "GM PerQs" are also gone, whatever the Hell they are. On the positive side, GM's cut the dealers' monthly enrollment fee by 50 percent. However, any refunds for prepaid feeds will "be applied to the Dealer's Open Account." Click here for a PDF of the complete communique. If a GM dealer or an industry-savvy member of our Best and Brightest can parse this for us, we'd be much obliged.

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  • Redbarchetta Redbarchetta on Aug 12, 2008
    mikey I want GM to get the hell out of the way to make room for something new. Something not based on the robber baron era, like GM runs their business right now. I want a new era of American auto manufacturing to take it's place. You have worked in the organization all your life you know the corperate culture is the problem, how can you possibly believe things are going to get better when the big problem isn't even being addressed. I personally don't think it can be fixed, the executives aren't going to fire themselves and every bad apple that diseases that company. I'm sorry that your in the firing line, and I have suggested repeated times to jump ship while the opportunity is good since I have had to go through a similar situation in the airline industry. Unfortunately we are all going to have to pay for GM's problems, but avoiding them and propping them up doesn't make the problem go away since GM IS THE PROBLEM. I would gladdly live through the major pain that is coming because of them to come out the other side smarter, stronger and with an organization American's can trust and be proud of. GM's collapse might be the greatest thing this country has seen in the last 50 years when everyone tied up in the mess gets set free to truely great things automotive or otherwise. Sometimes you just have to tare down the old to build something brand new. The steam era is the first thing that comes to mind but their are hundreds of examples. And I wish it was an '81 Citation, then it would be in the past. But no I trusted they had really changed, like they repeatedly said(a bout of major stupidity) and got a 2000 Cadillac DeVille thinking it's the best they make this should be a shining example of the 'new' GM, boy was I wrong. That car is working out to be a $20,000 total loss, that got very little use by my family. The worst part is I'm not an isolated case, there are millions of people like me that have been badly hurt by GM's wonderful corperate culture. What about the elderly people who bought the same model DeVille to find out the brake pedal pin falls out at highway speeds leaving you with no brakes then the airbag doesn't deploy when you have the inevitable 70 mph crash, I guess they should be rooting for GM to survive also. It's not an attack on you, but I can't in good conscience hold my tongue to this situation anymore. The rift it has created between my in-laws hasn't been fun either, but I say what's on my mind love it or hate it. You would be happy to know they bought 2 Impala's, probably from your line, and the mother-in-law drives a Trailblazer that is starting to sh*t parts. All saying the same stuff as you, blindly following what they hear in the media, that GM is to big to fail.
  • Neil Neil on Aug 12, 2008

    Dealers, just like the executives you mention, are responsive to incentives. Well, cash, at least. Will people leave as we continue to pile on incentive programs that have less actual value for the recipient than the cash equivalent? It will be interesting to see. Sometimes getting an incentive is more compelling than the incentive itself...and some people play the lottery for the fun of rubbing a piece of paper. In both cases, folks are not motivated by a statistical reality. This is in contrast to executives. Most are pathologically-incentivized at a personal level. I have already heard of several GM directors who have looked at the road ahead and jumped over into more profitable jobs outside of GM. There is little demonstration that a collective good is valued--it is every person grabbing as much as he can, however he can. I am not sure what the solution is.

  • Netrun Netrun on Aug 12, 2008
    mikey if you were running the show at GM, I'd be right there with you. But, sadly, you're not. Instead there is a team of scoundrels being overseen by a bigger set of jackasses who are ramming the ship into the ground as fast as they can. GM is going Tango Uniform before 2010. Sell your shares now.
  • Ronin317 Ronin317 on Aug 12, 2008

    Redbarchetta, well played, sir. My parents were in the same boat on the DeVille, but with an '01. They took up the lease from my late grandfather, and bought it off lease against better advice, only to have the engine piss off at 52k on the clock. It's a known problem, a third party garage was able to diagnose it (head), and 3 local Caddy service centers failed to find it, fix it, or know about it, despite service bulletins. The dealer never could get the load leveling system right. or figure out why it ate a quart of oil every 2 months. How about the '03 Trailblazer that I bought with 0% financing and 10K in incentives in late '02, only to barely make it out of '05 with the damn thing. 3 Transmissions in 2 weeks, rust in the valve body that they couldn't figure out at 2 different dealers, horrible brakes and rotors that warped at 8k mi, O2 sensor, faulty radio, faulty steering wheel integrated controls, faulty lift-gate arms, power steering lockup, thrice replaced tail-lights that shorted, 2 Ball joints, a control arm and a partridge in a pear tree. I'm lucky I got out of that piece of trash when I did, and still had $8k of + equity from my original $12k down. That was in 3 years of ownership under warranty. All told, I spent about 2 full months in those 3 years driving a loaner Oldsmobile that had sheet metal screws holding the interior door panel in place, which rattled on idle. I spent so much time going to the dealer before or after work that GM should have had me on payroll. Mikey, I feel for you. I know what it's like personally to be on a ship that could go down, as I got downsized last year from my job and took a year to find another comparable one- but the writing is on the wall. And GMs execs put it there, and they don't care f**k-all for you, which should be apparent in their decisions. I grew up in big caddy's and olds, and loved them. I still look at 70's caddy's like "damn...that's style". but practically everything they were is long long gone. The bad taste in my mouth is from experience, and it appears, according to the forums I see, to be a common one. I have no sympathy for a person that makes their own problems, then has to deal with them (in general, not directed at you, mikey), and sure as hell have less sympathy than that for a company that does the same.

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