Comments on: GM Veep LaNeve: “Nearly” 60 GM Dealers Get Reprieve

By: Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:42:31 +0000

“if this is how GM is dealing with the dealership file, I doubt they will ever make it out of C11″

You and Dr. Farago are on the same page on that one.

By: folkdancer

folkdancer — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:04:35 +0000

fincar1 :
Considering the circumstances, I think a letter like that is as good as can be expected from someone who has the job of thinning down the number of dealers at a manufacturer.
Good lord, it’s hard to fire one person. He is effectively firing thousands.

Lokkii :
Robert – I just think you have expectations of quality work that are just too high for who you’re dealing with.

I agree.

It is easy to second guess but lets remember that GM is dumping 4 brands, dumping medium trucks, partially dumping Opel/Vauxhall, dumping over a 1000 dealers, fighting with hundreds (maybe 1,000’s) of lawyers, being second guessed by federal and state politicians, hoping to get the US Government/taxpayers off their backs, and perhaps someday making cars somebody will buy.

Try to imagine chopping off 20% of your home and the decisions you would have to make on how to live in the remaining 80%.

Is this grand experiment to save jobs and our auto industry a good idea? Who knows. Will mistakes be made? Of course. Will the experiment succeed? That is the exciting part.

And the comments on the way people look are just plain not nice.

By: oboylepr

oboylepr — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:14:27 +0000

LaNeve is an embarrasment to GM.

You’re right, he is but Gangster Motors just doesn’t realise it yet.

By: Potemkin

Potemkin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:11:27 +0000

This is another example of things as usual at the Ren. Once again a screw up will go unpunished. There will be lots of “we don’t want to assign blame just fix the problem”. The real problem is that for years no one has been held reponsible for anything and those that screwed up usually got promoted.

By: fincar1

fincar1 — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:42:25 +0000

Considering the circumstances, I think a letter like that is as good as can be expected from someone who has the job of thinning down the number of dealers at a manufacturer.

Good lord, it’s hard to fire one person. He is effectively firing thousands.

By: Rod Panhard

Rod Panhard — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:42:02 +0000

Poor bastard. That’s a terrible photo of Mr. La Neve. He looks like he’s from central casting of a George Romero’s latest film, “Bailout of the Dead.”

By: akear

akear — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:31:22 +0000

He has a glum Jack Kevorkian-like expression on his face. How many more dealers will he give the neddle to?

By: solo84

solo84 — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:29:53 +0000

LaNeve is getting harder and harder to look at…

By: Lokkii

Lokkii — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:16:50 +0000

One of my friends is a Master Mechanic at a Fort Worth area GM dealership. His dealership is apparently one of those which got a reprieve, as last weekend he was telling me that the dealership had received two letters – the doom letter first and then the reprieve. Since he’s a mechanic and not in the front office, he didn’t have many details.

He says that the dealership has been pretty busy lately from his perspective…. as reported elsewhere there’s a shortage of some popular models and that they’ve had 25 Camaros that have left the dealership almost straight from the truck that brought them in.

As for why the reprieves, I understand exactly (from my perspective as a bureaucrat of many years) how this came about. First there was denial by senior management that didn’t permit the lists of closure candidates to be drawn up “Just in Case” (”That would look too pessimistic and the boss would be angry if he found out. We must be postive about our ability to succeed!”) . So the lists had to drawn up in a great hurry after the axe fell and there wasn’t time to proof the database from which the decisions were made. Remember that there are thousands of dealerships on the report – each with multiple data point. That they only screwed up on 60 is really a pretty good error rate… but it’s likely a lot higher than that.

Robert – I just think you have expectations of quality work that are just too high for who you’re dealing with.

By: mel23

mel23 — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:28:51 +0000

So GM projects saving $180k per ‘rooftop’ in support costs, after it kills these dealers. Does anyone expect their total sales to go up as a result of this? Surely not. Sales will fall, but of course it’ll be impossible to attribute any real numbers to the contribution of fewer dealers to future sales loss, so no one will ever know if this was a good plan or not. It’ll go down as a positive move of the new (improved) GM, and won’t even merit an asterisk to their final obit. Fritz has to go ASAP.

By: Detroit-X

Detroit-X — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:28:08 +0000

LaNeve is an embarrasment to GM.

By: superbadd75

superbadd75 — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:15:11 +0000

That pic looks like Mark is just waking up from a hard night of drinking. Or maybe his face caught on fire and someone put it out with a golf shoe.

With every passing day my fondness for GM fades a little more. Why they won’t just release a list and put everyone at ease is beyond me.

By: PeteMoran

PeteMoran — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:13:09 +0000

May was our best month of the year and June is running well ahead of May. In fact, June should be our strongest retail month by far of 2009. Fleet will be off a planned 50% but retail appears to be improving along with consumer confidence.

But the ~~profit~~ loss per unit was wider than ever….

“We lose money on every sale, but we make up for it in volume.”

By: Ronman

Ronman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:08:48 +0000

I’m sick of this Dealer crap, either terminate them or don’t, if this is how GM is dealing with the dealership file, i doubt they will ever make it out of C11