Penske Pulls Saturn From Canada

by Edward Niedermeyer

Published: August 31st, 2009

Fox News reports that GM has confirmed Roger Penske’s decision to pull Saturn from the Canadian market. Saturn’s 46 remaining Canadian dealers sold 18,726 vehicles last year. According to GM, “a business case could not be made” to keep Saturn operating in Canada. Sorry Canucks, but there will be no Renault/Samsung loving for you.

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Ffdr4 on Aug 31, 2009

This just leaves the field wide open for Magna Opel to establish the Opel brand to Canada.

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Kendahl on Aug 31, 2009
“We require a $500 good faith check before talking price on any Sky”. A local Subaru dealer tried the same nonsense on us 11 years ago when we were shopping for a Legacy wagon. The other two Subaru dealers in town were more sensible and we bought from one of them. The way to handle this sort of thing is to tell the salesman that his isn't the only dealership and that you intend to continue shopping until you find a dealer that actually wants your business.

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Monty on Sep 01, 2009
MikeInCanada : August 31st, 2009 at 1:07 pm As per standard operating procedure, a couple fitting the demographic for a Sky, got ignored for 20 minutes in the showroom - only after I started pulling out the doughnut tire and resting it up against the reception desk. “No, we don’t do test drives”, “We require a $500 good faith check before talking price on any Sky” so, after an hour we left. This is one of the biggest reasons for GM's failure. I had a very similar experience with a P/B/G dealer and then less than a week later with a Saturn dealer. Mrs. Monty vowed never to visit a GM dealer again. I couldn't even get a price for a Vibe from the P/B/G salesman without tendering an offer. Essentially they wanted me to commit to purchasing without knowing the price. By then end of the ordeal the salesman, finance manager and sales manager were all in the office exerting immense pressure on us to conclude the sale, and not once would they give us the price of the car. The Saturn saleswoman outright lied about the Vue, telling us it was class leading, and obfuscating about the fact that it had a Honda engine. She totally denied it, then to add insult to injury claimed that the Vue had better interior space than our Voyager van. Even after I explained to her about the amount of research I had conducted prior to test driving any vehicles she still continued with her claims. GM essentially lost us as a future customer, along with my son and the rest of our family. Not only did they lose a sale, and the service etc., it eliminated GM from consideration for the next several potential sales (between us, my son, my FiL and BiL, we have since purchased six new vehicles). I won't mourn the loss of any GM dealer, or even an entire sales channel. I can go to my local Hyundai, Ford or Kia dealer and receive far better customer service.

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Tigeraid on Sep 01, 2009

Where does it leave them? To sell bikes apparently. The "Collins Family of Dealers" here in London used to be Suzuki (cars and bikes), Saturn, Isuzu and Saab. Within the next year, they'll be Suzuki only. Can't imagine that works too well for them. Not sure why Penske bought into this--I'm thinking a Cerberus-style deal where he just tries desperately to turn a profit over the next few years, then sells it off.

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