GM Cuts Dealer Recognition Programs

Dealers, just like the executives you mention, are responsive to incentives. Well, cash, at least. Will people leave as we continue to pile on incentive programs that have less actual value for the recipient than the cash equivalent? It will be interesting to see. Sometimes getting an incentive is more compelling than the incentive itself...and some people play the lottery for the fun of rubbing a piece of paper. In both cases, folks are not motivated by a statistical reality. This is in contrast to executives. Most are pathologically-incentivized at a personal level. I have already heard of several GM directors who have looked at the road ahead and jumped over into more profitable jobs outside of GM. There is little demonstration that a collective good is valued--it is every person grabbing as much as he can, however he can. I am not sure what the solution is.

Redbarchetta, well played, sir. My parents were in the same boat on the DeVille, but with an '01. They took up the lease from my late grandfather, and bought it off lease against better advice, only to have the engine piss off at 52k on the clock. It's a known problem, a third party garage was able to diagnose it (head), and 3 local Caddy service centers failed to find it, fix it, or know about it, despite service bulletins. The dealer never could get the load leveling system right. or figure out why it ate a quart of oil every 2 months. How about the '03 Trailblazer that I bought with 0% financing and 10K in incentives in late '02, only to barely make it out of '05 with the damn thing. 3 Transmissions in 2 weeks, rust in the valve body that they couldn't figure out at 2 different dealers, horrible brakes and rotors that warped at 8k mi, O2 sensor, faulty radio, faulty steering wheel integrated controls, faulty lift-gate arms, power steering lockup, thrice replaced tail-lights that shorted, 2 Ball joints, a control arm and a partridge in a pear tree. I'm lucky I got out of that piece of trash when I did, and still had $8k of + equity from my original $12k down. That was in 3 years of ownership under warranty. All told, I spent about 2 full months in those 3 years driving a loaner Oldsmobile that had sheet metal screws holding the interior door panel in place, which rattled on idle. I spent so much time going to the dealer before or after work that GM should have had me on payroll. Mikey, I feel for you. I know what it's like personally to be on a ship that could go down, as I got downsized last year from my job and took a year to find another comparable one- but the writing is on the wall. And GMs execs put it there, and they don't care f**k-all for you, which should be apparent in their decisions. I grew up in big caddy's and olds, and loved them. I still look at 70's caddy's like "damn...that's style". but practically everything they were is long long gone. The bad taste in my mouth is from experience, and it appears, according to the forums I see, to be a common one. I have no sympathy for a person that makes their own problems, then has to deal with them (in general, not directed at you, mikey), and sure as hell have less sympathy than that for a company that does the same.