GM Launching Dead Brand Fire Sale
According to Reuters, GM has sent a letter to its dealers offering $7,000 for every new Saturn or Pontiac they can move to a rental or service fleet between now and January 4. The plan would essentially make dealers the first buyer of the remaining Pontiacs and Saturns, which would then be operated as fleet vehicles or be sold as low-mileage used cars. In any case, the single objective is clear: get those dead brands off the books at all costs. With 7,900 vehicles left at Pontiac as of the 14th of December and upward of 5,000 left at Saturn as of the beginning of the month, the cost to GM could easily approach $100m. But as they say in the advertisements, their loss is your gain…. as long as you’re interested in one of the G6s or Auras that dominate the dead-brand straggler inventory. Where’s Oprah when you need her?
On a happier note, Automotive News [sub]’s data shows 1,000 new G8s left in America as of the beginning of December. If you’re in a haggling mood, this might just be the time to get a screaming deal on the best Pontiac in decades.
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What was the dealership arrangement like in the US? Here in Canada it used to be Saturn-SAAB-Isuzu. Talk about snake eyes... 'they can move to a rental or service fleet' why just them? I don't get it.
Nice, GM. They're getting rid of them, but this won't up their "declining" fleet sales figures, since GM counts delivery to a dealer as a "sale." If the dealer shuttles it on to Hertz or Avis, GM rings up their weakly defined "sale" as retail. Also, Hertz has been getting tons of new GMs. I don't know if they're coming from dealers, too, but we've been getting '10 Impalas, G6s, Malibus, Traverses, Cobalts, Aveos, and Equinoxes like it's going out of (business?) style. Not much else coming in, except for Nissan Versas (though no other Nissan products).
The only vehicle that would remotely be a 'good deal' would be the Toyota Matrix-based Pontiac Vibe and, oddly, from the inventory search feature on the Pontiac website, it's not listed. Are the Vibes actually all gone or is this some subtle manipulation by GM to unload their crappier lines of vehicles?
Rudiger you can still configure and search the inventory for the Pontiac Vibe here in Canada (that and the G3 and G5). So, maybe you can swing the same deal on a grey market import. :)