Comments on: GM Employee Pricing: You Pay LESS Than What They Pay

By: Turbo G

Turbo G — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:23:23 +0000

No but many Chevy dealers would not accept GMS pricing for the regular C6 Vette. One particular dealership in Tucson told me in writing that GM doesn’t allow GMS pricing on the Corvette. Needless to say many, many dealers on corvetteforum.com proved them to be liars.

By: jerry weber

jerry weber — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 02:10:11 +0000

Yes, the reference that you could buy any car from GM except the corvette at a discount is no longer true. Corvettes, are laying around the dealers lots just like the regular chevys. It is a long time from when a dealer got one or two corvettes a year and sold them at a premium or at least retail. The corvette is also a victim of this economy, high fuel and insurance costs and a relatively small group of motorheads who collect them. As the new ones are hard to sell, the used ones are softer on the market. I have a corvette crazed friend who ordered a new convertable every year from his chevy dealer. He used to put out $4-5K for the trade. Last year, it was over $9K out money and he cancelled the order. Point is that even the hallowed corvette is not the money tree it was for GM and the dealers.

By: ZCline

ZCline — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:10:51 +0000

And if anyone was curious, its about 6-7k off. Pretty good deal to get a base model ‘Vette for 40k.

By: ZCline

ZCline — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:08:40 +0000

This is slightly off topic, so feel free to delete this Robert, but this sort of made my head spin. I decided to price out a new Corvette, mostly just because I think its fun to dream, but I wanted to see if they’d present any discounts to me. I went to gm.com, clicked on cars, and then a handy selector box asked me what type of car I wanted. I clicked on ‘Sport/Convertible’, wondering what else would be there beyond the Corvette, and the first vehicle? ‘08 Grand Prix. Wow.

By: Potemkin

Potemkin — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 18:15:20 +0000

GM’s core business used to be return customers. When they pissed off a lot of these customers they relied on employees to buy what they build. Now in it’s continuing effort to be the worst run company in history GM is pissing off their employees. The net result will be more sales for anyone other than GM.

By: Deepsouth

Deepsouth — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:58:27 +0000

The cavalier(no pun) attitude of GM charge backs spills over into the buyer’s ownership experience.If GM denies a legitimate warranty claim that the dealer made on behalf of the customer, the dealer eats the repair bill.Sometimes warranty claims can run into several thousand dollars easily. Thus, he becomes conservative, almost brow beaten because GM has the ultimate authority to charge any and all warranty claims. Thus, the customer has to go through a process of the dealer asking the manufactor for a repair.If it’s a true concern, even on a big ticket repair, there should be no fear of charge back.

By: Happy_Endings

Happy_Endings — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:52:48 +0000

Assuming GM losses $1B a month, that means they lose $33M every day (30 days in the month, to make the math easy). In an hour, they lose about $1.4M. So if GM gets all $450,000 in the lawsuits, they will end up spending it in about 20 minutes.

By: rudiger

rudiger — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:18:08 +0000

Ah, good ‘ole GM and their horrendous timing. If ever there was a company in US history that was able to make business decisions to extract the absolute worst publicity, it has to be GM.

What’s amusing is, as previously pointed out by others, the GMS deal just ain’t that great and GM needs to worry more about selling their vehicles at any price. The only reason any rational person would buy a miserable GM product is because of the low price that undercuts far superior products from foreign competitors (and even that has a price since it so adversely affects resale value at trade-in time). GM taking legal action to stop anyone from buying a GM product (at any price and for any reason) is simply asinine.

By: Deepsouth

Deepsouth — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:11:15 +0000

What kind of message does this send GM employees and dealership employees? Most GM vehicles are sold GMS anyway. To people who are tied to GM in some fashion. GM apparently values people off the street more(what little there are) by allowing them to use the GM card but denying their core audience.Sets at a bad tone. Once again, it’s GM. Go figure.

By: allegro con moto-car

allegro con moto-car — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 10:31:02 +0000

I remember the sensationalist “Exploding” pick up truck gas tanks fabrication via some zealot journalist.

What ever happened to GM’s famous line “we are not in the business of lawsuits?”

By: Mrclean

Mrclean — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 08:50:43 +0000

GM should concentrate more on getting some Pesos for their vehicles. Since GM has pulled away from US employees for some time now and become Mexico’s #1 employer. Maybe they should move ALL their cars to Mexico and sell them there? Oh, I forgot, most of their Mexican workers don’t make enough money to afford a new car. Isn’t that ironic??? Good night sweet GM prince……..parting is such sweet sorrow…..not…..OMG my side hurts.

By: Turbo G

Turbo G — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 06:53:43 +0000

As someone who qualifies and uses GMS (employee) pricing to occasionally buy new GM cars, I can assure that although the pricing is a good deal, almost anybody could negotiate a like price on almost any GM model without too much fanfare.
Maybe not on a Corvette but pretty much anything else I imagine…

By: Dimwit

Dimwit — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:31:19 +0000

Just what is the point in all this? GM is nuts as well as stupid. Just move the metal, morons… end of story.

Nice to see you back Robert. Hope the lightbulbs are all changed.

By: autoemployeefornow

autoemployeefornow — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:59:53 +0000

As an employee familiar with employee purchase programs I know that GM, Ford, and Chrysler routinely audit their employee purchase programs to find rule breakers. GM’s tactics seem extreme but I’m sure it is meant to scare the hell out of future employees willing to roll the dice. You would think that selling a car is better than letting it sit but they have to draw the line somewhere.

By: GE Levecque

GE Levecque — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:41:45 +0000

I too read the article in the Detroit papers about GM going after Widows, and others, shame on them and maybe some of you will find it hard to believe this buts its a true story

By: golden2husky

golden2husky — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:32:19 +0000

This reminds me of Levi Strauss. Levis so missed the boat on today’s trends in jeans that yesterday’s hero has become the GM of the apparel industry. So, instead of hitting the competition with both barrels to regain marketplace acceptance, the company has let loose a barrage of lawsuits on any apparel maker who’s jean pocket details even remotely look like any Levi pattern, past or present. What is with this corporate mentality? GM, invest that effort in product! You’ll get way more payback than you will ever see in “fraudulent” use of rebate points.

By: claudster

claudster — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:21:19 +0000

Completly different story than
I was expecting. Knowing GM, I’m not surprised at all.
A question. How much does a dealer make on these deals? Does GM pay the dealer to make up the difference.
My last experience buying a Grand Prix under a very similar scheme (GM sullier discount) saw local dealers do all sorts of sleezy things like add “manditory” VIN etching that GM requires for all cars bought under the pricing program, a GM preicing registration fee, on top of an outragiously high admin fee. One dealer even printed a bogus invoice that showed his cost to be $2000 higher than what I was given from the corporate office.
GM told me to deal with dealer on those issues.

By: morbo

morbo — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:18:37 +0000

In Workers Paradise Detroit MI,
General Motors You!

By: Guzzi

Guzzi — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:17:21 +0000

wowza, GM. In other words, “We screw the other guy and pass the savings on to you!”

By: blowfish

blowfish — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:59:53 +0000

I take when u get desperate u try to sue anybody whether dead or alive.
Some of thes employees must be buying one after another, I knew one guy was getting thru his cousin, but in the end the Vette cannot be export to Canada so deal was kybosh.
Few mths later he got the deal of the century as one old Canadian dealer jump ship went to Suzuki so GM, Chebby is no more. This left over Vette orphan went for CA$61,000 it was a rag top. Is kind of pretty cheap. In the hey days is lucky to get a free set of mat.

By: oboylepr

oboylepr — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:56:34 +0000

Welcome back Robert, hope you had a restful week.

By: Strippo

Strippo — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:45:51 +0000

So is it fraud if a non-GM employee cashes in a GM card for an employee?

My head hurts.

By: jaje

jaje — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:43:43 +0000

Now if they will only go after the select few UAW employees who get almost free prescription drugs and sell them on the black market.

By: ferrarimanf355

ferrarimanf355 — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:16:04 +0000

Doesn’t this kinda defeat the whole purpose of calling it “employee pricing”?