Car Dealer Daily

Fresh with a new lineup of brands and new models quickly heading to showrooms, the New General Motors is looking to further alter its image at dealerships. GM is encouraging dealers to remodel showrooms in order to bolster the brand’s image. Luckily, GM is offering to foot some of the bill for updates.

Should dealers require support from GM for the remolding, they must first ensure that GM brands are not sold alongside non-GM brands, which could pose issues for larger auto dealerships. Other requirements are that dealerships must have the remodeling completed within three years. Interestingly, repayment is also contingent of sales figures, not the costs associated with the remodeling. Repayment for remodeling will be made within five to 10 years. Continue reading ‘GM Wants Dealers to Conform’

The restructuring of General Motors has been well underway in light of the billions of dollars at stake from the government. As a result, GM has clustered certain brands together, while other brands have gone into “strategic review” and face being sold or eliminated. While restructuring is far from over, what is known is that GM simply has too many brands, too many dealers, and too few customers at the moment.

One of the GM brands that has remained unscathed in the shuffling at GM is GMC. GMC is brand that has offered rebadged Chevrolet trucks, vans, and SUVs for years. While these vehicles are made side by side Chevy models, and are largely identical, GMC has somehow managed to be a small notch more upscale than their Chevy counterparts, perhaps thanks to models like the Yukon Denali.

With a lineup of trucks that are essentially identical to Chevy’s lineup, the question is why GMC has remained a core brand under the GM umbrella? Chevy is a no brainer, Cadillac is the brand’s true luxury marquee, Pontiac is going to work towards becoming a sport-oriented specialty brand, but what value is GMC providing wonders customers at New Orleans Chevrolet? Already, there are too many dealers pushing domestic brands with too little demand, so why maintain a brand that doesn’t offer a unique product lineup, and frankly doesn’t offer a true brand identity?

Of course, badge engineering is cheap. That goes without saying, as GM has taken this strategy to the extreme across its brands. Even Saab was forced to sell the Chevy Trailblazer-derived 9-7X SUV. But even so, the inexpensive process of throwing a GMC badge on a Tahoe doesn’t make it necessary.

The real answer comes down to the dealers says one Cleveland Chevrolet dealer. GM has worked hard to cluster its brands at the dealer level creating Chevrolet-Cadillac dealerships Hartford Pontiac Buick GMC and Buick-Pontiac-GMC dealerships like GMC Washington DC. If Pontiac does eventually become a specialty brand, it will likely remain low-volume just like Buick is in its current state. This means that dealers need GMC to offer mainstream trucks and SUVs that offer more sales volume.

Regardless, no matter how you look at it, GM’s lineup remains a bit awkward, with plenty of redundancies. Despite brand loyalties across the plethora of current brands, Orlando Chevrolet dealers recognize that GM will have to make bold concessions, just has Ford has already done, to keep afloat while consumers and the auto market change. Continue reading ‘Will GMC Remain an Important GM Brand?’

General Motors has been faced with plenty of negative press and criticism lately. With the stalled bailout to add to falling new car sales and the fact that they continue to bleed cash, many wonder why the mammoth automaker doesn’t change its ways before it’s too late. But GM affirms that change is already underway, and that pundits and politicians simply have failed to talk with customers and dealers and see the newest wave of vehicles they’re producing for themselves.

Among the news that has helped confirm GM’s changing ways is a new Sales Satisfaction Index Study from J.D. Power that shows that GM dealers like Detroit Chevrolet dealers or Lubbock Chevrolet dealers are providing some of the best customer service in the auto industry, rivaling that of foreign brands. While GM strives to make additional improvements to its model lineup and dealer network, the automakers contends that change is already in place and is not just wishful thinking.

Quality is another area where General Motors continues to uphold. GM reduced warranty repairs by about 40 percent between 2002 and 2006, and cut such repairs down by 14 percent between 2006 and 2007. Quality is important to car buyers these days, especially when imports have exuded much higher quality than domestic vehicles for quite some time, which has certainly helped fuel sales among Toyota dealers Olympia. As such, GM claims that quality has already improved dramatically and they appear to be on track for continuing to improve quality and manufacturing efficiency.

GM can reference plenty of studies and products that have received kudos recently, but have largely gone unnoticed by the mainstream media in recent weeks. For example, the award-winning Chevrolet Malibu was the segment leader in the J.D. Power and Associates Initial Quality Study and remains a strong seller at Lewis Automotive and overall within Chevy’s lineup. Additionally, brands such as Chevrolet, Pontiac, Cadillac, and Buick, all ranked well in J.D. Power’s Initial Quality Study, which was no surprise to Chevrolet Tuscaloosa dealers who have seen commendable improvements in quality in recent years. Other GM brands that also ranked above average in the study included Cadillac, Hummer, Saab, and Saturn.

So for many car shoppers looking for a new car, GM is not folding up and calling it quits. Although the talk of the bailout is far from over, the automaker plans on making progress in the future and continuing the progress it has made so far. Continue reading ‘Don’t Ignore Progress from General Motors’