GM does not have all that much control over their dealers. State franchise law is generally on the side of the dealer in franchise disputes and for GM to terminate a dealer for cause takes a lot of legal effort and expense. GM will use allocation and other incentive to keep dealers in line but from time to time, guys like Heard keep rolling along. Never mind that Sonic is facing a big problem with identity theft at their (now closed) Los Angeles Cadillac dealership but an AutoNation Chevy store in El Monte, CA was the star in a “hidden camera” sting that sent several guys to the pokey.

It’s everywhere, the consumer has to go with the gut feel If it is too good to be true….

Jesus Christ…!

That is the cheesiest, sleaziest low-rent auto website I have ever seen. It looks more like the site of someone trying to get you to buy pictures of arses and boobies than to buy automobiles.

Seriously who in their right mind would go there and be reassured that this is an honest and trustworthy dealer to do business with?

This is a common case of “Buyer beware.”

That’s all. Let the stupid be fleeced.

Toyota does the same thing. The Tundra can’t tow over 86 deg F. It says so in the owners manual. Does the dealer point his out?

No.

A new Heard Chevy dealership opened here in the Phoenix area and they have been advertising very low prices. Since it was a new dealership and since the prices were so low I thought it might be a GM Company store set up to help the local Chevy dealers unload their inventories:-)

So this news about Heard has given me a chance to check my assumptions. I enjoy having my thinking shaken up.

There has to be a better way to sell cars.

Two or three scorched earth type actions, cautorizing the infection will do huge amount of good for the public and hopefully regain lost trust, trust that GM needs to survive. And reducing dealer networks is all to the good since the market is wildly overserved right now.

Power booking, lying about income, etc. all sound like the types of loan fraud that went on during the housing market boom… some perpetrated by the customers and some by the middle-men, but all of it ignored by overseers who were asleep at the wheel (banks, GMAC, federal government, investment funds, etc).

My God, that would absolutely send me through the roof.

Would a former prosecutor do? That guy who used to work for the state of New York might have some time on his hands.

The length and depth of the paper trail visa-vis Bill Heard and his EXCLUSIVE arrangement as an all GM mega-dealer sure invites suspicion. Most of the really big dealer groups represent a large number of manufacturers. Is there any other group of Heard’s size which only fronts for one company?

I would bet that there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of customer complaints and lawsuits on the record. Some agressive prosecutor out looking to make a name for him or herself as a defender of the regular person could have a field day with this situation.

The fact is that traditional Chevrolet dealers know how to sell more cars than cookies-in-the-lobby, no-haggle, Saturn dealers. Of course, once the buyer realizes he/she has been ripped off, the buyer makes a point of NOT being a repeat customer.

GM has probably had thousands of complaints re: “Mr. Big Volume” over the years and never did anything due to Heard’s ability to move sick amounts of metal.

One can only deduce that Heard’s antics finally started costing GMAC some $ and that’s why GMAC suddenly saw the light.

Yes, the dealer is the first one seen by the customer, but it is actually the dealer that is the customer of the manufacture. Once the car is on the lot, the manufacture doesn’t really give a damn. When GM states that they are making cars that their customers want, they are talking about the dealer network, herein lays the conundrum. The dealers are as myopic as the manufactures.

At 3500 miles I took a new Silverado in for an oil change. When I went to pick it up the bill was $165.00. When I inquired why the bill was so high they informed me the mandatory 3500 mile fuel injection and throttle body cleaning was done using Wynn’s products.

After a very vocal and vitriolic discussion with the service manager in front of a number of customers they voided the entire invoice and sent me on my way.

This was the final abuse I was willing to take at the hands of GM dealers.

Maybe now that the profit margins are thinner than ever, a volume dealer like BH will finally get whats coming to them. One can hope.

But the bigger question at this point is this: Can GM afford a lawsuit? Maybe they should see if they could try this one in “The Peoples’ Court.” Is it even still around?

It might not be a bad idea! After all, everbody makes “some” money in The Peoples’ Court, even the loser of the case. Furthermore, the General could get the midday soap opera crowd on its side, maybe sell an SUV or two sitting on one of those rot lots.