Full List of Culled Chevy and Cadillac Dealers
By Robert FaragoOctober 1, 2009
An anonymous TTAC Tipster has made it possible for me to fulfill my promise to our Best and Brightest. Click here for a pdf list of all Chevrolet and Cadillac dealers slated for closure. Our secret number cruncher created the document by using the information recently provided by another, long-time TTAC source. Thank you both for helping this website realize its raison d’etre.
Posted in Dealer News | News Blog | 62 comments 
Penske Pulls Out Of Saturn Deal
By Edward NiedermeyerSeptember 30, 2009
The Wall Street Journal reports that Roger Penske has pulled out of a deal with GM that would have kept the Saturn brand in business. Per the WSJ report:
The deal called for Penske to initially acquire vehicles from GM but eventually branch out to sell products from Renault SA (RNO.FR) and its Samsung Motors unit, which is based in South Korea. Penske Auto said Wednesday that it negotiated a supply agreement with “another manufacturer,” but that company’s board rejected the deal.
“Without that agreement, the company has determined that the risks and uncertainties related to the availability of future products prohibit the company from moving forward with this transaction,” said Penske Auto.
Reuters confirms the story, adding “GM said in a separate statement it would wind down the Saturn brand and its dealership network.”
Posted in Branding | Dealer News | Industry | News Blog | 72 comments
Rejected GM and Chrysler Dealers Launch YouTube Channel
By Robert FaragoSeptember 30, 2009
Make no mistake: GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy horrendously over-dealered. GM was carrying more than twice Toyota’s 1500 dealers (with a lot less than twice the market share). The automakers’ needed to cut their franchise network down to size for reasons elucidated here on numerous occasions. The fact that the culled dealers are dogging the federally-subsidized carmakers for cash—well, you, really—is neither here nor there. It’s on YouTube! In their own words . . .
Posted in Dealer News | News Blog | 31 comments
GM Abandons eBay
By Edward NiedermeyerSeptember 29, 2009
GM’s grand experiment with Ebay will be over by the end of the month, reports Automotive News [sub]. GM had extended the program once, and was considering continuing it into October. So why didn’t they? Paging GM spokesfolks… we have a cleanup on aisle nine…
The need to roll eBay out nationally isn’t there as it was when we first rolled out the pilot. At the time we had no large, national marketing programs in the system, so that made sense at the time. What we’ve come up with since then are two large, national programs that are already in place.
In other words, failure was not an option… but only because there were no parameters for failure. Gosh that sounds exactly like what Mark LaNeve said when he was asked why the program was being extended despite generating what can only be described as weak sales. Come to think of it, how was the California-only Ebay experiment a substitute for a “large, national marketing program?” More importantly, did GM sell a single vehicle on Ebay?
Posted in Dealer News | New Cars | News Blog | Sales | 29 comments
If A GM Dealer Isn’t On This List, It’s Dead
By Robert FaragoSeptember 29, 2009
Before I leave TTAC, I will find and publish the list of GM dealers culled during the “transformation” from Old GM to New GM. In sworn Congressional testimony, GM’s CEO Fritz Henderson promised—begrudgingly—to provide the list of dead dealers trading to Senator Jay Rockefeller. This on the same occasion that Henderson pledged that New GM would be completely transparent to its new owners (the U.S. taxpayer). Post-hearing, Rockefeller’s office refuses to talk to me about the list; they no longer answer my calls. So either Rockefeller received the list of GM’s dead dealers from the nationalized automaker and suppressed it, or GM reneged on its promise to provide the 411. CNN’s Chris Isadore and others in the MSM couldn’t give a shit. They see the list as proprietary information critical to GM’s competitiveness. I see this as a travesty. GM and its political cronies are withholding critical information from consumers considering GM products. Consumers who own the company. So . . . I’m getting close.
Posted in Dealer News | News Blog | 47 comments
Axed Chrysler Dealer’s Smoking Gun
By Robert FaragoSeptember 25, 2009
Jim Tarbox is not a man who suffers in silence. Since New Chrysler handed his Jeep dealership its walking papers, Tarbox has been a man on a mission. “I was a top performing dealer,” Tarbox told me. “The executives terminated my dealer out of spite.” Tarbox ain’t just whistling Dixie. The video above features audio from U.S. Bankruptcy Court testimony from Peter Grady, Chrysler Director of Dealer Operations. Tarbox’s lawyer, Len Bellavia, confronts Grady re: a letter that says, in no uncertain terms, that New Chrysler shit-canned Tarbox because of a prior territorial beef. “He is a belligerent combative dealer who litigates and protests any new Jeep franchise in the Provo [Providence, Rhode Island] area. So management made decision to cut him. He has not operated in good faith.” Uh, what about selecting dealers to cull based on an objective, performance-related formula? Grady agrees to the idea, in principle. In practice . . .
Posted in Dealer News | News Blog | 26 comments
Nobody Expects The Cash For Clunker Inquisition!
By Edward NiedermeyerSeptember 2, 2009
The National Auto Dealer’s Association is warning its members that a government audit of the $3b CARS program is imminent. “We expect that a high percentage of dealers will be audited,” NADA explains in a letter reported in Automotive News [sub]. “Please make sure that all transaction paperwork and trade-in vehicles are in order.” Widespread fraud has been reported in the German clunker rebate program, particularly in regards to vehicle disposal. Or, rather, the lack thereof. Apparently pretending to destroy a vehicle and then driving it to Poland (Mexico in our case) for sale on the black market is is not an approved disposal method. Anyway, investigating fraud seems like the prudent thing to do after spending $3b in a few short weeks, but try telling the dealers that.
Posted in Dealer News | Government | News Blog | 13 comments
Cash for Clunkers: Under Budget but Underachieving
By Edward NiedermeyerAugust 26, 2009
The Freep reports that final cash for clunker numbers show the program coming in under its $3bn budget. $2.877bn was spent on 690,114 deals, according to government data. The bad news? C4C did a mediocre job stimulating the domestic firms; according to the Detroit News. GM, Ford and Chrysler captured just 38.6 percent of all clunker sales, down considerably from their joint 45 percent market share in July. Toyota captured 19.4 percent, GM snagged 17.6 percent, while Ford only ended up with only 14.4 percent—just ahead of Honda which had 13 percent. Check out the NHTSA’s PDF postmortem press release on the program here. Though the Detroit Three didn’t do so well in the “cash” portion of cash for clunkers, it swept the clunker list. Ford alone had five of the top ten clunker trade-ins, with GM and Chrysler rounding out the list. Hit the jump for top ten buys and trade-ins by model.
Posted in Dealer News | Government | New Cars | News Blog | 38 comments
Quote of the day: Cash for Clunkers meets Postman Pat via Dr. Who Edition
By Robert FaragoAugust 25, 2009
Our UK readers my be interested to learn that the Obama administration has introduced a rival to Postman Pat: Preliminary Pat. “The White House Council of Economic Advisers gave the [Cash for Clunkers] program a preliminary pat on the back Monday,” The Detroit News reports. “Saying it created or saved 21,000 jobs in its short, four-week life by forcing automakers to boost production and add shifts.” That, however, is not our money shot. A little wood, please, as the Council addresses the question of whether or not C4C simply bribed buyers to buy earlier than they would have. Stimulating new car sales but not actually increasing them. The Council admitted the possibility, but wasn’t fussed. “This time-shifting is valuable if the economy is in recession because the economy is likely to be closer to full employment in the future.” All the birds are singing, and the day is just beginning. Pat feels he’s a really happy man.
Posted in Dealer News | News Blog | Sales | 21 comments
Porsche disappears 2010 inventory from dealer websites
By Robert FaragoAugust 25, 2009
VW has dreams of moving 150,000 Porsches per year by 2012. Meanwhile, Stuttgart’s finest is struggling with a nightmare market. Porsche spokesman Tony Fouladapour told TTAC that the automaker’s franchised dealers are now holding more than a 100 days’ worth of 911s, Caymans and Boxsters. (That’s up from the 92-day supply reported by Automotive News for August 1.) Not to mention the 100 to 150 box-fresh units already heading stateside. Responding to the glut, Porsche’s pulled 2010 inventories from all their dealers’ websites; some 273 Porkers have disappeared into the ether. Or is that from the ether? Either way, Porsche’s hit delete on all but a few ’10 special editions (e.g., the GT3 and Cayenne S Transsyberia). When will the 2010s return to cyberspace (or any other marketing venue)? “When the inventory situation improves.” To that end, the brand’s launched “The Porsche Moment”: 1.9 percent financing. [Thanks to The Comedian for the heads-up.]
Posted in Dealer News | News Blog | Sales | 38 comments
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