#Dealerships

With the CT6 and XT5 hitting the floor soon, Cadillac is working on a new dealer incentive program to encourage improvement of the buying experience at its stores.

Automotive News reports the program could bring as much as $850 million to $1 billion USD “in incremental profit” for the brand’s dealership network over the next four to five years, according to president Johan de Nysschen:

If we want to have a strong brand, we need to have a strong franchise. To do that, it means the dealers are profitable and that they’re able to invest in the business and to build the customer experience.

The Ford Focus ST and Subaru WRX were the two finalists in my new car search and the Focus ST seemed to be winning out due the extra incentives that were being advertised. I emailed a few Ford dealers in my area to negotiate an ST2 and a few Subaru dealers to see if they were offering any discounts that were not advertised.

The 2015 Focus ST might appear to be the best deal if you go by the advertised prices, but the 2016 WRX ended up being a great deal after talking to a few dealers. I was interested in the ST2 model of the Focus and got quotes of about $24,800 on a 2015 and around $26,700 on a 2016 based on all the discounts for which I qualified.

General Motors dealers in Russia are unhappy at the compensation the automaker is offering as it pulls out of the country, Wards Auto is reporting.

Russian dealers want more than it cost to start their dealerships, the report details. Negotiations stalled on how much GM would discount service contracts for thousands of GM cars currently on the road, and how much GM would offer dealers who need to change their businesses after GM leaves the country. The latest round of negotiations stalled in July.

GM sold more than 247,000 Chevrolet, Daewoo, Opel and Cadillac cars in Russia in 2014, which was down more than 24 percent from the prior year. This week, Cadillac CEO Johan de Nysschen said the luxury automaker would focus on sales in Russia — and also China and the Middle East — even after GM announced it would be leaving that country.

Taking a page from the old Saturn playbook, Lexus will test no-haggle pricing at a dozen dealerships this year, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The pricing strategy will apply to new and used cars, and service and maintenance at the dealers.

According to Lexus general manager Jeff Bracken, no-haggle pricing could be initially difficult.

“The dealer has to be willing to let the customer walk away or word gets out and the model falls apart,” Bracken told the Detroit Free Press.

Nissan has told its dealers to stop selling specific models of the Maxima due to unspecified quality issue, Automotive News is reporting.

The issue involves Maximas with a specific VIN, not a model type. It’s unclear if those cars have been delivered to dealers or customers. According to Automotive News, Nissan hasn’t identified how many models would be affected by the stop-sale, nor how many of the models may have already been sold.

Nissan hasn’t made available details about the VIN number or how to identify the held cars.

A Denver-area Nissan dealer said he wasn’t aware of the stop-sale at all.

Details between the AutoNation and TrueCar split are becoming clear, Automotive News is reporting.

After yesterday’s announcement that the web service and nationwide dealership chain were splitting up — in which AutoNation laid most of the blame on unreasonable demands by TrueCar during contract negotiations — the company’s respective CEOs have been getting nasty.

“Our partnership with AutoNation just turned into, in a very real sense, a choice for the consumer,” TrueCar CEO Scott Painter told Automotive News. “It really makes them our competition.”

Volvo announced today it will warranty any replaced part and labor, not including wear-and-tear items and accessories, for the life of the car. The coverage extends only to service at dealerships.

Volvo owners will pay for the initial replacement parts and labor on vehicles with expired warranties, but Volvo will pay for any additional service on that part for as long as the owner has the car. The parts warranty covers all models from all years and will be honored at all North American Volvo dealerships, according to the automaker.

The Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday its results from Operation Ruse Control, a collection of investigations over deceptive dealer practices.

While visiting a dealership is de rigueur for most, an increasing number of consumers are turning to technology to buy their cars.

Want to go boutiquing for your next Cadillac? Brand CEO Johan de Nysschen has plans to make that a reality.

After five years of fighting and a U.S. appeals court ruling, four former Chrysler dealerships could have a shot at opening their doors once more.

As you all know, the TTAC Zaibatsu prides itself on not having to worry about things like upsetting brands for telling it like it is for a given product. Of course, this does sometimes mean we get blackballed by said brands for not drinking the Kool-Aid, but we have our ways around those roadblocks.

Alas, Edmunds doesn’t have those ways, resulting in a series of ads retracted after a number of dealers took issue with the content.

Honda and General Motors dealers beware: If you’re not strictly adhering to the rules laid out by the certified pre-owned overlords, you might find yourself suspended until conditions improve.

Ever wonder what would happen if Dethklok decided to go into the automotive business, especially with the virtual band’s use of pain waivers as a legal means to protect themselves from whatever death and/or dismemberment would likely occur during a concert?

Wonder no more: Honda is asking its dealers to ask their customers to sign a waiver acknowledging the used car they’re about to buy off the lot may have an Takata airbag that, in the event of a crash, could kill them upon deployment.

Though most automakers prohibit sales of their wares to exporters, and though the government can sometimes block an export despite such exportation being legal, exporters in the United States are finding themselves in the crossfire over premium vehicle exports to Chinese consumers who prefer to pay lower U.S. prices over higher local prices.