GM to Restart Lucerne, DTS Production
GM will resume production of Lucernes and DTS' at its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant on April 28, ending a four-week shutdown. They had closed the plant because of a parts shortage caused by the American Axle strike. GM won't say where the axles are coming from; the Detroit News quotes "sources familiar with production" as saying only they're buying parts "from another supplier." At the time of the closure, GM had a 111-day supply of Lucernes and a 57-day supply of DTS. Now that they've gone a month without any new product entering the pipeline, their inventory should be a bit more in line with sales. Let's see how long it takes "other suppliers" to come up with the parts to restart other plants affected by the AA strike as their inventory levels come down into a reasonable range.
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To Redbarchetta, If they are not going to discontinue the DTS, then they really need to. Take the Lucerne to the grave and put it out of its misery as well. Better yet, the entire Buick line.
I suspect that this is where many of the lost fleet sales opportunities GM reported as a consequence of the strike will be made back up. Both vehicles are high end fleet queens. Normally Cadillac dealers have a good stock of current or one year prior model year DTS' with 20-30k miles on them on hand and for sale at $25k-$30k. Check your local craigslist and you will find scads of them like this: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/car/652127604.html Lucernes like this are constantly on the market as well. They can be a lot of car for the dollar value at around $20k like this one: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/car/643244899.html During the strike the rental companies probably just stretched their upper mileage sell-off point a bit.
MY MIL had her Northstar equipped Caddy's engine replaced TWICE before she pawned it off on some poor fool. Now she drives a '96 Sierra 2500. I'm surprised though she stuck with GM. I'd have headed down the road to the Toyota dealer for a truck.
Car services and Avis are recjoicing as we speak.