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Filed under: Car Buying , Ford , Lincoln , Mercury 2008 has been a historically woeful year for the auto market, but Ford dealers have been in the crosshairs of a sales decline for over a decade. That brutal reality, along with financial incentives of up to $700,000 or more from the Blue Oval, has lead to the closure of over 500 dealers since mid-2006, and over 150 so far in 2008. To close still more dealers while giving remaining stores a heads-up of future happenings, Ford is embarking on a series of meetings with Ford and Lincoln Mercury dealers. Among the topics of discussion will be future products, product volume and market conditions. Though Ford isn't stating publicly how many dealerships it wishes to close, the Blue Oval is hoping to have enough departures to make the remaining dealerships healthy. Ford would like to see Ford brand dealers with 1,500 sales per month and Lincoln Mercury dealers with 600 sales per month, which is far higher than what Ford's 3,900 stores are...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Etc. , Government/Legal If you believe the Johnston family, owners of Wildcat Mitsubishi in Tucson and Ideal Automotive in Sierra Vista, Arizona, they have a little communication and paperwork problem. If you believe the soldiers at the Army base in Fort Huachuca, the Better Business Bureau, the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions, the Arizona Transportation Department, the police department, and at least one civilian customer, the Johnstons have a much larger number of far more serious problems. The Army base has banned personnel from patronizing the dealerships, alleging its soldiers have been abused. Soldier James Tuman traded in an SUV and a motorcycle and got financing from Ideal Automotive to buy a used car. When he tried to return the car because of mechanical issues, the Johnston's wouldn't give him his money back, instead saying he could buy another car on the lot. When he threatened to complain, they said they'd declare the car repossessed...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Japan , Marketing/Advertising , Toyota , Lifestyle Kids in the U.S. want computers in their cars, but kids in Japan want computers instead of cars. Add that craziness to Japan's dwindling population and popular mass-transit options and you'll understand why the Japanese car market dropped to just 5.3 million vehicles, a 27-year low. Toyota, Japan's sales leader in America, is not immune to the sales downturn , accounting for 2.26 million of those new car sales. In order to catch the attention of younger potential car-buyers, Toyota has taken drastic measures: opening its own mall, complete with 220 stores, restaurants and... car dealerships? Not only are there a number of dealerships integrated into the mall, but there are Toyota's littered throughout the walkways. In addition to showcasing its latest new vehicles, Toyota is also showing off its high-tech robots, some of which, oddly enough, play musical instruments. [Source: AP via Motor Authority...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Sedans/Saloons , Sports/GTs , Auction Action , BMW Apparently all is not kosher in corn country. BMW of Lincoln, Nebraska posted an auction on eBay for a brand new M3 Sedan for $60,000. Perhaps they were hoping for the kind of eBay madness that would push the price to six figures ( something other dealers are doing right on the show floor ). If that's what they were after, well, they didn't get it. The car was won by a gentleman in California for the listed price: $60,000. The problem is that the dealer doesn't want to give him the car. Not long after the auction ended, the winning bidder got a call from BMW of Nebraska telling him the auction was "a mistake," and that he couldn't have the car. In spite of the fact that the dealership changed the Buy It Now price twice -- and so was paying attention to the auction -- and eBay rules that make it clear that if someone wins the auction then you must complete the transaction, the buyer is...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Etc. , Lifestyle On March 1, 2008, Second Life will host the grand opening of the Automobile Dealer Relations Center (ARDC) called AutoLand. While that sounds like the kind of place where you'll have to run for your life from a cyborg Yul Brenner , it will actually be home to a multi-brand showroom in the virtual life sim that was created by customer relationship management software maker iMagic. What's more, you'll be able to chat with up to 50 dealers nationwide about pricing, availability and service issues. We have to admit that we find the idea of a virtual car showroom kind of funky (disclaimer: this blogger has never been in or on or at Second Life before today). After all, Second Life's graphics aren't cutting edge, so at best you'll only be able to look at chunky representations of the car you're interested in buying. As for chatting with dealers, virtual sales don't affect the brick-and-mortar bottom line much, and if the...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Hyundai In 2007 Hyundai had a US sales target of 555,000. That number was set by HQ in Korea, and when it was clear they weren't going to make it, they revised it downward to just over 500,000 . By the time the bell rung, even that number proved a little beyond Hyundai's reach: they sold 467,009 cars last year. That still represented a 2.5-percent gain over 2006 sales. Hyundai's goal this year is a 20-percent increase in global sales. For the US, though, the goal is 500,000 units, which is the goal set by the folks in the US, not Korea, and even though nearly everyone has predicted a sales downturn , that goal is "regardless of what the industry is doing." To achieve those sales, the automaker has revamped numerous aspects of their dealer incentive operation. Hyundai dealership profit was down five-percent last year, and only two-thirds of dealers benefited from company incentives. This year, the dealer incentive has been streamlined and set...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Buick , Chevrolet , GM , GMC , Pontiac , Toyota , Earnings/Financials At the end of World War II, GM "put a dealership in every little hamlet" to keep up with the postwar boom. Sixty years later, in 2005, long after that boom had ended and every domestic maker was losing market share, GM had 15,094 dealerships. By 2007 GM had reduced that to 14,118 dealers. But if GM plans to compete financially with its overseas competition, it will need to shrink that number a great deal further. Chevrolet has 4,000 dealerships. Toyota, to sell the same amount of cars, has just 1,244 dealers. Put another way, the typical Toyota dealer moves 1,766 cars per year. The typical Chevrolet dealer moves 554. And the other domestics fare about the same: the usual Ford dealership rolls 556 vehicles off the lot every year, while a Dodge dealer does 374 per year. GM is looking at consolidating Pontiac, Buick, and GMC shops into one. However, state franchise laws don't make...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Etc. , Marketing/Advertising Most people that purchase a brand-new car from the dealer lot have heard about the forthcoming customer satisfaction survey that will be mailed to their home. While some dealers will ask you to fairly...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Trucks/Pickups , Toyota Earlier today we referenced Toyota disputing Edmunds.com claiming that the Tundra was sold in July with $6,861 of incentives per vehicle. That would've been the highest amount of incentives for any full...
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