Chevrolet Employee Discount__thoughts

All they've done is piss away their Resale Value even more. Poor Chevrolet. Toyota's Rock!

GM's employee discount program is designed to sell the excess vehicle inventory prior to introduction of 2006 model year vehicles. Whether GM will continue it after the current one ends depends on whether they sell enough vehicles to easy dealers' inventory burdens in the current promotion. The amount of remaining inventory on dealer lots will dictate the next level of incentives.

Other manufacturers will watch to see how successful GM's promotion is and its effect on their own sales. If their own dealer inventory is too high then they will have to offer an enticing promotion of their own or lose market share. The manufacturer most likely to be impacted heavily by the program is Ford, whose dealers also seem to have a fairly high days supply.

Not so sure about that part. GM trucks seem to hold value well. A friend of mine just bought a Chevy 2500 4x4 crew cab long bed with a diesel and it was several thousand dollars less than a Dodge. He was close to buying a Dodge before they killed the rebates on the Cummins trucks the first of June and while the Dode was cheaper than the Chevy was in May (because GM had no real rebate on Dmax trucks then) The lower costs by added a 3000 rebate on top of employee price and he got nearly 11K off of sticker and more than he could on a Dodge even in May. He tried to buy a Dodge still one day before he bought the Chevy but they were about 3 grand more for a like model so he went with the Chevy instead and got a proven 5 speed auto instead of a 4 speed too. If Dodge had matched the prices, he might have bought the Dodge but Dodge screwed up by not matching prices of Ford and GM trucks in June and the Dodge trucks he was looking at are still sitting on the lots too a few weeks later and the Chevy trucks here are going fast and nearly gone now! Never seen them move so quickly this time of year.

They are merely stealing future sales and ruining (further) the resale value of their brand. A short term strategy at the expense of long term health of the company. They SHOULD have closed factories after 9/11 and fessed up to the fact that the demand was just not there. Instead they pumped more and more and more unwanted vehicles on the public by ever upping the ante with price cuts disguised as rebates. It's now 4 years later and they much worse off for it.

GM has extend the sale until the end of July. Ford and Chrysler have been matching GMs discounts on most models.

The only real difference from one brand to another today is style and price and price sells the vehicle. When I was still in retail the last question a customer would ask my salesman before signing on the dotted line was always "How much is my monthly payment?" ;)

mike hunt

Lomax wrote:

That is a common misconception.. The true value of a used vehicle is the percentage of the original drive home price, retained at a particle time, not the original MSRP.

I. E. Brand Y and X have an MSRP of 30K when new. Brand Y is worth $4,000 more than Brand X in two years, but brand Y cost $6,000 more to drive home when new, than brand X. Therefore brand X has a far better resale value used. The buyer that is really effected is the buyer that paid more to by HIS Brand X previously

mike hunt

The Real Picard wrote:

I was watching a news (probably FOX) channel a few weeks ago. One of the GM dealers, I believe in Chicago area, was selling all their SUV types at 25% off MSRP. Said with gas prices, to the interviewer, that they were still moving off the lot slowly.

resale

I do tend to agree with you that they should have bitten the bullet after 9/11 and tightened their belt but it will check itself one day because labors costs are killing detriot and vehical prices are getting rediculous and the new pricing which is really nothing new as employee price is invoice minus the 3% dealer hold back and I will not not buy a car that it not at or below invoice before any rebates and the current promo just places the discounts on the table for all to see. GM is considering doing away with the sticker/Invoice thing all together to boost long term sales. There is going to be a rocky road for Detroit until they get the costs under control and I see a VERY BIG UAW strike in the next few years about it too.

The UAW is the problem but in all fairness management is too. The UAW is milking the cow to death and management, which sees this death coming, is trying to grab all it can while it can. It might be too late...it's just too big an organization to deftly switch course.

Truck always move fast. The number one selling vehicle in the country is the Ford F150 and has been for 28 years, at a rate more than twice that of the number one car, the Camry. The Ford 'F' Series is the number one selling truck line. Ford sell more of them than all of Toyota and Lexus car and trucks combined. Americans love trucks. The Chevy Silverado is number two in sales and the Dodge is number three, all outselling the nearest cars by hundreds of thousands per year. GM is actually the number one seller of trucks, not Ford, but GM sells TWO trucks brands, chevy and GMC, not one as does Ford. Same is true of cars, GM sells more cars than anyone but as more brands The number of trucks sold in the USA today by GM, Ford and Dodge is greater than the total of ALL of the vehicles, cars and trucks, sold in the US in 1980. Total vehicle sales today is more that double those of 1980. The is why GM, Ford and Chrysler sell more vehicle today then they did back then even with their smaller share of the market today. Back then there were less than a half dozen brands, now there is over twenty.. All competing for your dollars and that is why the prices are so good, its a buyers market.

mike hunt

SnoMan wrote:

Use your head man. The transportation, travel and hotel industry had dropped off the map and thousands were being laid off. Demand for all the services use by those industries was dropping off fast as well, with the prospect of thousands more loosing their jobs. Economist credit GMs going to Zero financing, forcing the auto industry and others to follow, preventing the county from going into a deep recession or even a depression after 9/11, just as the country was starting to come out of a minor recession.

mike hunt

"D.D. Palmer" wrote:

Today the Japanese have the advantage of lower wages and fewer benefits, lower costs of parts they use that are mostly made off shore, no US federal income taxes and higher drive home prices because many wrongly think they are better cars.. Worst of all there are a $#it load of Americans willing to send the jobs of their children and grand children off shore, along with all the profits the Japanese take out of the courtly with them. The greed of the American consumer defies logic. We should be as smart as the Japanese consumer, they buy things made in their own county and only buy imports that they do not produce.

mike hunt

"D.D. Palmer" wrote:

But the Japanese manufacturers haven't resigned-themselves to making mediocre products that rely on patriotism to maintain market share. They aggressively pursue growth.

I mean, come on, look at GM's car line-up. (Still) the biggest car manufacturer on the planet, and what a bunch of crap!

That may be you opinion but it is the opinion of a minority. As you noted, GM sells more vehicles than any other manufacture because more buyers obviously believe GM cars are better.

mike hunt

dizzy wrote:

"Lomax" wrote in news:tEmve.21547$FP2.7823@lakeread03:

Bad idea for buyers of most vehicles as it will kill any chance of reasonable resale value. But if you plan on keeping for long term this point may be moot. I doubt other makers will follow except for rebates on certain models.

GM's trucks seem to hold their values as has been pointed out. Also the Saab 9-2X is a rebadged Subaru and is eligible for the promotion. Decent car IMHO.

Are you saying that most people by GM? No? Then there's no evidence that my opinion is shared only by the minority of car buyers.

Wrong again, top-poster. Many GM buyers don't even shop the foreign competition, as you well know. GM's rapidly-declining market-share is proof positive that they are not producing competitive products.

I'm not sure there will be much of a UAW in the next few years. If there is, then I'm not sure there will be a GM.

Agreed. I bought a Chavy Colorado this year after owning Toyota trucks since 1981, but that was because I honestly liked it better than the new Tacoma. I can't say the same about any of GM's cars. What do they have that could possibly compete with the Corolla for quality/value ratio?