An anonymous TTAC Tipster has made it possible for me to fulfill my promise to our Best and Brightest. Click here for a pdf list of all Chevrolet and Cadillac dealers slated for closure. Our secret number cruncher created the document by using the information recently provided by another, long-time TTAC source. Thank you both for helping this website realize its raison d’etre.
|
1978 Ford Mustang Stallion |
|
1952 Mercury Custom Sedan |
|
1990 Buick Reatta |
|
1981 Toyota Corona Wagon |
|
1994 Volvo 960 Sedan |
|
1991 Dodge Shadow Convertible |
|
1987 Volkswagen Fox |
Congratulations.
Are you concerned though that some of your 1.1 (?) million readers in the affected areas will read this and it will exacerbate the staggering effects that the closure of a rural dealership entails?
86er:
These consumers have the right to make an informed choice; it’s their tax money that’s supporting GM.
very sad to see Gillogly Chevrolet in West Seneca,N.Y. is closing. I started selling cars there 26 yrs. ago as a green pea. The store has been open about 60 years. Mr. Gillogly was a bomber pilot during WWII and a POW. we sold a LOT of cars and did much for the community.very sad day indeed!
On the one hand, it’s the right move in general for GM to be cutting dealerships. They had too many, and many were of poor quality.
On the other hand…It really hurts to see so many of what are small, rural businesses close. I’ve been to a number of dealerships on this list.
Just one for example: Mike Stolarcyk Chevy in Whitney Point, NY, is the biggest business in the little town. I’m sure it’ll impact what is already a depressingly impoverished area. Those who can afford a new car now (or who need warranty repair work) face a 30 minute ride to the closest dealership for any brand.
In a sense, closing these places is like shuttering the post office. No, I don’t think GM has an obligation to have outposts in every town. But it’s sad nonetheless.
I see that GM has the same hate for Tacoma, WA, that Chrysler did. Tacoma loses both of its Chevrolet dealers, after having lost both its Dodge dealer and its Chrysler dealer.
Awesome work to everyone that was involved in putting that PDF together. Two dealers in Maine are closing that I’m surprised about – Frank Galos and Goodwin. I guess this means there will be no more cheesy Frank Galos infomercials on TV.
Would all the dealers on this list know that they’re closing yet? Just curious if GM has bothered to notify them since I’ve heard nothing on the news. This sort of thing is big news in Maine.
@fincar1:
“I see that GM has the same hate for Tacoma, WA, that Chrysler did. Tacoma loses both of its Chevrolet dealers, after having lost both its Dodge dealer and its Chrysler dealer.”
Maybe it is because Tacoma has hate for GM…I know that area and it is big in the tank for liberal, greenpeace, Prius-drivers.
Can’t not buy their cars, then bitch when they close up and leave town.
I can tell you unequivocally this is not a complete list and somewhat suspect. I have personal knowledge that cannot be disputed that two dealerships are missing from the list that are in wind down. I think you will find more people who know of others.
Great work putting together this list. Found that searching by local telephone number area code, “(972)”, in my case, was the fastest way to find culled dealers close to me.
Mark MacInnis :
Maybe it is because Tacoma has hate for GM…I know that area and it is big in the tank for liberal, greenpeace, Prius-drivers.
Can’t not buy their cars, then bitch when they close up and leave town.
But you don’t know what kind of car fincar drives. He’s not a hypocrite just because his neighbors don’t buy GM cars and he’s disappointed about the dealer closing.
Blanck Chevrolet of Brownsburg, IN was supposedly culled and closed doors on July 7th.
Dellen of Greenfield, IN and Pedigo Heartland Crossing in Mooresville, IN both had similar rumors.
My bad. Only published half the list (Chevy). Eddy’s fixing it now.
I think that some of these dealers are losing a brand not the their whole dealership. I know of one on the list that sells Chevy-Cadillac that they were losing Cadillac, but that they would continue with Chevrolet. Their Cadillac business was minimal (small town dealer) and so it really isn’t any loss to the community. Is this correct? Or does inclusion on this list mean that the dealership is gone completely?
hmmm, a US only list. I wonder what the Canadian list will look like.
Is Ford going to do this as well? On my way to my favorite beach there’s a Ford dealership in a town so small you’d miss it if you sneezed. It’s footprint is small and they don’t carry much inventory, but still their survival amazes me. Funny thing is, they are often the first dealership to get scarce hipo Mustangs (Mach 1s, Bullitts) and they seem to sell them quickly enough. Maybe there is hidden wealth around there somewhere.
Back to the subject at hand. Yes, in some of those smaller communities it’s going to hurt. I guess they all end up commuting to jobs at Walmart so they can sell some Chinese shit to other people who don’t have a pot to piss in.
I know closing dealers is necessary…but it still sucks for a lot of people that don’t deserve it.
Just a tip:
To find dealers in your are quickly, do a search on the area code, that way you don’t have to remember the dealers name.
There seems to be a lot dealers in the 610 area code closing (eastern PA outside of Philly).
RK Chevy in Vineland, NJ is going down. I remember when they sold my brother-in-law an X body Citation. It seemed like a great car at the time, and I was amazed at how it handled the snowy roads in my hometown (my first experience with fwd). He didn’t have it long though. Too many problems and he got rid of it as soon as could.
hmmm, a US only list. I wonder what the Canadian list will look like.
I recall something about ~400 dealers getting the axe in Canada. In my neck of the woods there’s 3 small rural dealers getting the axe (Sask.).
I don’t understand the logic in closing rural dealerships. I can sort of understand the logic in closing dealers in urban areas that competed with each other, but rural dealers in the middle of nowhere have semi-monopolies, with minimal competition from other brands, especially foreign brands.
Only half the list? Uh, oh.
I did a quick scan and the number of rural dealers closing is frightening. It’s already a 45-60 minute drive for dealer service for GM owners local to me (hell, the Porsche dealer is closer), and I recognized several dealers on the list from places I’ve been where you’re going to be looking at a 75-100 mile haul to get dealer service.
And while I’m no fan of slimy dealers, it seems like many on the cull list are the Mom and Pop variety places, not the “Mal Wart” big box dealers. I hope there’s some way to fill the economic holes these closures are going to make.
Wow… my local Chevy/Caddie dealer is on the list.
I don’t understand the logic in closing rural dealerships.
Owners less litigious?
I am speechless. I grabbed a name at random, googled it and up came a small-town, family-run Iowa dealership that’s been in business since 1947.
Then I went back to the list and searched on “Main St.” to see how many listed that as their address. After a couple of pages, I gave up, having counted 42.
It’s easy to hate the indifference that GM showed to its products and sustainability over the years (OK, decades), but being from a small town, I know what kind of an impact this is going to make on local life.
Take a look at which LETTER the dealership got. What I saw is that many rural dealers were losing their Caddy franchise. Well, in fact, many dealers everywhere are losing their Caddy franchises. I am a bit surprised at how many Chevy dealers in my area are going too, but they tend to be small, and close to others.
I’m with a lot of folks here: GM needs to reduce their dealer network, but it will hurt rural areas. At least one dealer got BOTH a Chevy and Cadillac letter. Ouch.
But my quick scan of the list shows at least a couple in my metro area are doomed, too. And NEITHER of them was mentioned in the one (and only) article on this subject that appeared in our local fishwrap.
Which brings me to my point: This info needed to be put out there, and thanks to TTAC for doing it. Relying on the dealers themselves to tell you they’d be closing is ridiculous. And expecting the local paper (whose very existence hangs by the thread of auto dealer ad buys) to tell you the whole story is even more so.
Wow, quite the list! I’ve never owned a GM, and my family hasn’t in about 30 years (but have considered a few along the way, including an Aurora, Intrigue, GTO, and Enclave). But, alot of dealers that I knew of, from the places I’ve lived, are being closed. And, they were definitely dealerships that had been around for a long, long time.
@SOF in training:
GM is using this cull to get their showroom brand combinations in order. Chrysler did the same thing by culling anybody who wasn’t selling Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Dodge Truck under one roof. GM’s going the other way, though, by cutting off Caddy supplies from anybody who isn’t selling Cadillac in a separate showroom. No surprise that a lot of rural Caddy dealers are falling victim to that. They wouldn’t have the money to build and support two showrooms for two brands.
A lot of Chevy/Caddy dealers got Cadillac letters. Can’t have the CTS slumming it with a lot full of unsold Aveo5’s now, can we? That would be like trying to sell Alfa 8C Competiziones and Dodge Calibers in the same– Wait. What?
Our small town Cad-Chevy dealership is also losing Cad. but not Chevy.
Wow! Maine is losing all Cadillac dealers except 1 – In Bangor. The population center in Maine is around Portland, over 2 hours from Bangor. I guess they just don’t plan to sell Cadillacs any more? Seriously, that’s 10 out of 11 dealers statewide, I think.
Good point 86er – this knowledge could hasten the downfall of GM, and add some more pressure on the economy. Still, I’d hate for my grandfather out in the country to plunk down cash on a new Silverado only to have to drive 60 miles each way to get it serviced. I think we can talk him into an F150 instead.
I wonder what’s in store for the remaining GM dealers? I’ve heard that GM will knocking on their doors requiring expensive facility updates. The question remains how many of those GM dealers will commit to the expense given the current product line up. I know of one GM dealer thus far that has voluntarily given his point back after being included in the new GM. Rumor had it that GM mandated he build a new facility and he passed on the keeping the franchise.
lawmonkey:
Indeed, my point was that we just don’t know all the details at this point, and those who scan this list will assume their dealership is getting boarded up.
Rather, are they just losing a Cadillac franchise? Will they live on like the former Ford dealer in Nipawin, Sask. with newfound access to the new tech. to allow for local repairs of brand new metal?
Remember folks, this just means that GM is pulling their franchise license from these dealerships. Will many of them board up afterward? Yes. Will many live on as used car lots with full service bays as per above? Yes.
The majority of California dealers culled are in the LA, SF or SD metro areas, so there are plenty others within a reasonable distance. Some of those are combined with Japanese brands anyway.
Felix Chevrolet, for one, should never have been given a combined Cadillac franchise in the first place. In urban areas, Cadillac stores need to be completely separate to compete with German and Japanese Luxury brands.
I think Sopp was culled because they specialized in fleet sales to local government agencies. Budget cuts combined with GM probably wanting to cut down on the percentage of fleet sales got them.
+1 for WTF with closing so many rural dealerships? One of the few solid areas of support for GM.
How expensive can it be to support the rural guys in the dealer network? Can’t you shift most warranty training to the internet and all back office support functions online and distribute parts via UPS?
It’s alot of the suburban/exurb dealers that have to go….but wait, I’m guessing that they’ll have better lobbyists.
You know this wouldn’t be an issue if the level of service you received at a “supporting” dealer was the same as the level of service you received at the “purchasing” dealer…
The internet is a wash in stories about peeling chrome wheels, squeaky suspensions and mysterious vibrations where if you take the car back to the dealer where you bought the car… They go “Sure we will fix that under your warranty” or we’ll cover that under “good will” but if you take the car to a different dealer you get “I’ll have to check with the DSM first”. I pity the poor people who buy a car and then move to a different town.
I hope NEW GM will be putting in place some standard level of service that you can expect to receive from ALL of its dealers… Ya right… we have been waiting for that bit of news since when… 1982?
So, does this mean the dealership is losing it’s respective Chevy/Caddy brand or the GM franchise altogether (since many are multiple-brand dealers)?
baabthesaab :
October 1st, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Wow! Maine is losing all Cadillac dealers except 1 – In Bangor. The population center in Maine is around Portland, over 2 hours from Bangor. I guess they just don’t plan to sell Cadillacs any more? Seriously, that’s 10 out of 11 dealers statewide, I think.
They’re closing all but one in WV, too (7/8). Not a huge state, but we do have 1.8m people. My hometown (state capital, largest city in the state) is keeping one of their two, but my college town is losing theirs, one 20 mi away, and one 60 mi away, meaning the nearest is 95 mi away in Pittsburgh. They’ve sold tons of CTSs around here, too…
Not to look a gift horse in the mouth… but
What about Buick dealers?
I went into our local Chevy dealer recently and wondered why there were so few cars in the showroom… I had my suspicions and now they are confirmed.
Luckily, they also have a Honda franchise. That side of the building was hopping.
Anyone know how we can see a Canadian list of ex GM dealers? In this small rural area the two GM dealers are both supposed to close, whereas in the nearest large Town, both GM dealers stayed open!
Wow, just this morning I stopped by Peach Chevrolet-Buick-Pontiac-GMC-Cadillac in Brewton, Alabama. My wife and I are in the market for a minivan and I was curious if Chevy still made the Uplander.
It turns out Chevy no longer makes a minivan, but they do have a butt-load of suvs and cuvs (which I do not want). I know GM never really got the minivan thing right, but how are they and their dealers going to survive in they do not have the vehicles potential customers want to buy? This is GM, not Subaru or Mitsubishi.
Peach also owns a Ford store in Brewton, but Ford doesn’t make minivans either. I looked at the Transit Connect which is a neat vehicle, but its commercial grade interior is not suitable for a family car.
Great investigative journalism. Hopefully, this will damage the wind down dealers even further.
After review, I can assure you that the list is flawed.
Wow, here’s a little story for the old timers.
Back in the late 1990’s I was just breaking into the auction business. I used to do this one sale on Thursday nights that was an absolute joy to do. It was a family owned enterprise where everyone knew everyone, and would likely remain so for decades on end. Great place.
Anyhow, Riverside Chevrolet used to bring their trade-in’s there. The usual thing before the sale would be to hang out. Have a nice conversation. Talk about the car business. The usual. Except not for the axe-hoe rep from Riverside Chevrolet.
That skinny little upright prig wouldn’t even acknowledge such underlings… who happen to be the ones pulling the extra $200 per sold vehicle. We decided it wasn’t worth busting our tails for such a creature and slapped the vehicle out of the lane on the first bid.
So if you’re the used car sales manager who used to send your vehicles through Days… go find yourself a Twinkie and start chompin’!
I wonder what the Canadian list will look like.
If you want to amuse yourself, use Google Maps to plot the car dealers in your area. Play with expanding the range to 30km or so. I did this on southwest Toronto—where I used to live—several years back.
It’ll become immediately apparent how insane GM’s dealer structure is when you see just how damn many dealers there are in such a small area.
+1 on CamaroKid. No Buick or GMC letters??
Great job to all involved in the list.
We are witnessing the end of two Empires; as GM goes, so goes the USA. I am truly saddened to be a witness to this. If they do actually recover they will both be hooked up to life support systems until they finally do expire.
@Joe McKinney,”I was curious if Chevy still made the Uplander.”
No, Chevy Uplanders are no longer in production.
However, a GM co-worker here in Warren told me they found two new 2008 Uplanders at their local Chevy dealer yesterday. The salesman gave him a bargain on top of the GM employee discount and his wife is loving her new 2008 Uplander.
You might find one in dealer inventory near you.
I doubt Ford will do anything similar to this massive slaughter of the small town dealers. Contrary to all the spin from GM and Chrysler, the local dealers are independent businesses which make the franchiser money. They are not creators of losses. Forcing small dealers in rural areas to close down is going to hurt GM and Chrysler in just the kind of places which have been their last market refuge!
Ford is benefiting from being much, much more cautious in slowly slimming its dealer network. Recent sales number support this view.
“Mark MacInnis :
Maybe it is because Tacoma has hate for GM…I know that area and it is big in the tank for liberal, greenpeace, Prius-drivers.
Can’t not buy their cars, then bitch when they close up and leave town.
But you don’t know what kind of car fincar drives. He’s not a hypocrite just because his neighbors don’t buy GM cars and he’s disappointed about the dealer closing.”
I live about 20 miles from Tacoma, and haven’t bought cars there for years, but I did live there for a few years right after I married a Tacoma girl. I was mostly surprised that Washington’s second largest city that is right next to Fort Lewis and McChord AFB would lose the four dealerships that it did.
It is certainly true that western WA is a liberal hotbed…most of my wife’s relatives are in that group, buying everything Obama sells.
fincar1: PFE (Puyallup fucking exists).
Also, the main auto-dealer strip along South Tacoma Way has been in the sights of the planners as the new “urban revitalization district” for a decade now. Eventually it’s going to have a streetcar and everything. I’m guessing those dealer owners will get more from selling out to condo developers than they will from continued operation in that location.
Still too many dealers. Why don’t they do it right, instead of cutting only a few? Seriously.
Lansing, MI. will still have 5 Chevy dealers w/in 11 miles of the city center. All we’re loosing is the dealer in Mason (Andrews Chevrolet) which is 5 minutes from Lansing.
I still have one .7 miles away, another 5.6 miles away, another 5.8 miles away, another 6 miles away, and finally one a whopping 10.1 miles away. But thank God they’re closing Andrews because that was 10.8 miles out – just too far to go :-)
They’re going to regret not being more aggressive in the culling process -really.
There’s too much sentimentality about small town dealers.
In small towns, half the people have a job in the city, so they are in the city 5 days a week.
Those who don’t work in the city probably go there once a week for shopping.
Those who don’t make a weekly shopping trip to the city probably go monthly for cultural events not available in Smallville.
It’s silly to think that someone can’t drive 20-25 minutes once every 5 years to buy a new car.
The only downside I see is this – as long as farmer Jones is having to go to Big City to buy a car, he may as well check out the offerings from the Toyota/Honda dealer. But, given GM’s declining market share, one suspects that farmer Jones has been doing this right along.
“It’s silly to think that someone can’t drive 20-25 minutes once every 5 years to buy a new car.”
You are familiar with service and repairs, right? Both the warranty and the non-warranty kind.
The only downside I see is this – as long as farmer Jones is having to go to Big City to buy a car, he may as well check out the offerings from the Toyota/Honda dealer.
I’ve heard this Honda/Toyota nonsense for years, and I’m sick of it. Japanese cars are not that great. My Toyota was the most unreliable piece of s*** I ever had. My Mitsubishi was so unreliable and dangerous on slippery roads that I had to dump it for my own safety. I haven’t had a single problem with my Lincoln Town Car. It drives and rides like a dream. People have an unjustified Toyota fetish.
How many Bothan’s died bring us this information ?
@fincar1
I work on a military base and see few recent domestics in the hands of servicemembers of any rank, lots of Toyotas (including Tundras), some Hyundais, and European vehicles among higher ranks.
The few new American-brand vehicles are owned by civilians over 40 years old (usually 50+).
Yup, today was the last day of business for Backus Cadillac-Pontiac here in Savannah, GA. Notwithstanding they were the only Caddy shop in all of Chatham County, population over a quarter million, and the next nearest dealer that I know of is in Hilton Head, 35 miles away and in another STATE. If GM is giving the Caddy franchise to either the Buick/GMC or the Chevy dealer in town, they aren’t saying now. I’m betting on the Chevy guy because he has an empty standalone building, having just sold his Hyundai franchise to the Dodge dealer that got yanked by Chrysler. (Sounds like musical chairs doesn’t it?)
I still don’t see how eliminating dealers is a logical move for GM. Dealers are the actual customer of the company. Generally, businesses do not thrive by reducing the number of their customers. Further, if the notion of customer service means anything to the overall success of the company, the more convenient locations you have to serve the customer, the more customers you’re likely to have. Ask McDonald’s. Then, too, there is a customer base for all those closing dealerships, and those customers are simply being cut loose. The notion implicit in this move seems to be that these customers will go to another GM dealer, but once these customers can no longer reflexively go back to the dealer with whom they’ve dealt for years, there’s no reason to believe they won’t (as someone else observed) just go to the nearest Toyota store.
GM isn’t losing money by having too many dealers. It makes money selling cars and parts to dealers. If the dealer doesn’t make a profit, it goes under. But, if it is profitable, why would GM want to cut off a customer for what it produces?
Sure, the conventional wisdom, or excuse, is that there are so many dealers that they compete with one another and thereby bring down the price paid buy the buyer, reducing the profit to the company. But that’s nuts, too: GM determines the price at which it sells to the dealer. And, anyway, if lowering the price cheapens the brand, then GM’s the one doing it with all of their rebates and promotions. Dealers aren’t selling the cars below their cost.
Instead of all this, GM will have big empty closed dealership buildings in all these places, serving as an ever-present reminder of just how healthy and thriving the company truly is.
None of this makes any sense. The company is being stupid. A foolish consistency, so to speak.
You are familiar with service and repairs, right? Both the warranty and the non-warranty kind.
The only new cars my wife and I have ever bought are Hondas, so no, I’m not familiar with warranty work at all. Never had the experience.
We do take the car in for service, at the dealer, but I still don’t see this as a big burden for rural residents. A small burden, yes.
@fincar1, you’re absolutely right. My parents live on the edge of Tacoma and my dad commented that a bunch of people were upset with what Chrysler did in Tacoma. It’s not like it’s a small city. I realy don’t get it. This time though, he’ll be upset since he owns a Chevrolet.
The rural closures will definitely hurt. Not only employment, but be a big inconvenience for people that need warranty work done on their cars in the town.
I looked at the Illinois dealers and most were outside the Chicago metro area, so as others said the rural dealers are the bulk of closed. Two dealers closed were in Belvidere Il. which makes Chrysler products. I looked at many of the names when going thru the list and many had Pontiac in it.
Pretty obvious that GM is making the Caddy dealers sort of exclusive and stand alone. Seems to keep them in the bigger cities.
I’m wondering when we’ll see who got the GMC and Buick letters? Did I miss something?
Impressive list! And +1 on the request for Buick and GMC dealerships.