Volt Birth Watch 160: Chevy Volt Now On Sale!
One of our Best and Brightest, Kixstart, sent us this heads-up:
Jeff Belzer Chevrolet in the Twin Cities is running a newspaper ad today suggesting you “Order Your 2010 Chevy Volt! 230mpg EPA City!” Who could resist? When I called the dealer, “Mary Jo” answered. After a preliminary question or two Jeff Belzer, himself, called me back. Yes, they’re really taking orders. They want $10K down. The price of the Volt will be $40 to $50K, plus $10K on top. (Belzer wasn’t even slightly embarrassed by the surcharge.) If I wanted, I could pick a color. But there are no specific delivery dates. If I don’t like the car when it arrives, I can have my money back. According to Belzer, this is not a dealer cashing-in before time. “It’s official.”
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I hate to go completely off track... But looking at the "selection" of cars this dealer sells... Chevy medium duty trucks.. Kia cars Dodge And Chevy vehicles. I thought Chrysler was pushing dodge / chrysler / jeep to consolidate its dealerships.. and WAS cutting dealers who don't have all 3.. P.S ajla- : You sir, are going to be waiting an AWFULLY long time on that G8 ST.
The 2010 Prius is already selling for a small discount in my neck of the woods, MSRP minus $400. A well-equipped example is $25K. By this time next year, the discount will probably be $1K or more. It is nothing short of nuts to pay 2x the cost of a Prius for what is almost certain to be an undercooked Volt, assuming the Volt ever sees light of day. Given all the hype so far, the Volt will no doubt bask in the white hot glow of media spotlights as soon as reports of production problems start rolling in. The priceless part will be the "special" look on faces of early Volt customers, as resale value of a car they paid way too much for goes rapidly into a death spiral.
Jeff Belzer Chevrolet gives me a bad feeling inside; when I went there with my wife looking at cars to consider for our C4C deal (I was interested in seeing an M/T Cobalt and M/T Kia Soul), we were met at the door by a salesperson (it may have been Mary Jo, actually) who whined about the upcoming C4C deals she was going to have to run and then impatiently grabbed us the keys to 2 auto-trans versions of the cars we wanted to see. Then we went on 1-mile test drives of each before she unceremoniously dumped us so she could pursue more profitable customers. Needless to say, my wife and I bought a Honda Fit Sport from Walser Honda and had a much better go of things. The experience made me very leery about the way Belzer goes about selling cars. You can bet we won't be stopping there when it's time to replace my wife's aging Lumina - there are many more hospitable places to buy a car in the Twin Cities metro, places that emphasize treating customers with respect instead of selling vaporware like the Volt.