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Filed under: Car Buying , Etc. , Marketing/Advertising , GM This Independence Day might be the time for waving the red, white, and blue, but GM wants to nab some green, too. The automaker is extending its 0-percent financing sale, which it kicked off on June 24th as the "72-hour sale," until July 7th. The extension of the special financing offer allows dealers to capitalize on the increased floor traffic that GM's advertising onslaught generated. The sale and advertising frequency get people in the door, but many car buyers hem and haw, making it tough to close a deal in just a week's time. The extension gives salespeople a reason to ring up prospects and offer them the sweetest deal they can muster on a new General Motors vehicle. While we'd love to get a C6 Corvette for $20,000 off invoice and 0 percent terms on the loan, our blogging income likely supports a Certified Used vehicle instead. On that end, GM is also offering financing between 2.9 and 4.9 percent on...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Buick , Cadillac , Chevrolet , GM , GMC , Pontiac , Saturn During a dealer teleconference today, General Motors announced it would be launching a zero-percent financing sale beginning tomorrow, while simultaneously raising the prices of its 2009 vehicles. The "72-hour sale" will run from June 24th through the 30th, and will offer customers 0-percent interest rates for 72 months on most Chevys, Buicks, Pontiacs and GMC vehicles. So far, there's no word on whether the offer will extend to Cadillac and Saturn. GM will also offer $500 in "bonus cash" to buyers who opt to purchase GM products outright rather than leasing them. At the same time, the General is going to be raising the prices of 2009 models by an average of 3.5-percent "across the board," something that was bound to happen, according to Mark LaNeve, GM's vice president of vehicles sales, service and marketing. On the production front, GM will be adding a third shift...
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Filed under: Car Buying , SUVs , Trucks/Pickups , Green , GM If you've been holding your breath in anticipation of General Motors redesigning its trucks and SUVs, you're probably going to pass out so start breathing again. According to reports, it's gonna be a while. GM has announced that it's postponed any planned redesigns of its pickups and SUVs to a future date sometime beyond their previously planned 2012 redesigns. What'll it do with the extra time and money? Pouring over its entire product lineup to provide the most fuel efficient vehicles possible to a demanding public. The General announced the move in response to this drastic consumer shift away from trucks and SUVs. GM isn't the only automaker to make product decisions based on the current vehicle market, as Toyota , Honda , Ford and others have all announced that they are shifting their lineups to include more fuel efficient vehicles. If you haven't noticed, $4-a-gallon gasoline seems to have changed...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Auction Action , Marketing/Advertising , Chrysler , GM , Lexus Way back in February, General Motors announced it would be listing all of it Certified Pre-Owned vehicles on eBay Motors, and it took until now to actually make that happen. To go along with GM, Chrysler and Lexus have also joined up, with eBay Motors making a special section of its website specifically for CPO vehicles. The new site, which can be found here , went live yesterday and is sponsored exclusively by Lexus. It's also provided at no cost to any dealer looking for another outlet to advertise its inventory. A quick check of the new hub shows that both eBay's classic auction-style listings and regular classified ads are listed together. The site's search functionality allows users to find vehicles located near their zip code, meaning it should prove awfully easy to find that brand-spanking-used Chrysler Sebring you've been foaming at the mouth for. [Source: Automotive News - sub...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Chrysler , Ford , GM Even after posting a $3.25 billion loss , General Motors won't resort to fleet sales to ease their pain. In the automotive industry, fleet sales typically represent the lightly equipped, and heavily discounted, vehicles sold to rental companies or corporations. The numbers are significant , and fleets sales of a particular model may even exceed the volume sold at retail. Often laden with special financing incentives, the sales are less profitable for the automaker, and they hurt the used-vehicle market when a large number of the same model are dumped into the marketplace simultaneously. Last year, GM sold about 700,000 units to fleet sales. In 2008, that number is projected to drop to about 575,000 units. By 2009, it will decline even further with a sales projection of just over 500,000 fleet units. GM isn't the only automaker following this path. Ford's sales to rental companies are down 16 percent from the same quarter last year...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Marketing/Advertising , Chevrolet , GM , UK Click above for a high-res gallery of Chevy's "fitting rooms" In what has to be the most ridiculous or utterly ingenious marketing ploy to date, Chevrolet has set up a drive-in fitting room outside a London dealership to allow consumers to "try on" their car before they buy. According to GM's research and marketing hacks, three out of four consumers consider their car to be a status symbol, despite 95-percent of people having no idea what they look like inside their car. As strange and admittedly vain as this campaign is, we can't help but think that it isn't an entirely bad idea. However, we doubt that it's going to make the trek across the pond and redefine our dealership experience. GM's full press release is available after the jump. Gallery: Chevrolet Drive-In Fitting Room Continue reading Chevy caters to insecurity, trials drive-in fitting room Permalink | Email this ...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Garage , Hatchbacks , GM , Saturn , Driving Click above for high-res gallery of the 2008 Saturn Astra Enthusiasts here in the States have long wondered why they couldn't buy Ford and GM small cars from Europe, and at least part of the answer has been that Americans don't want to pay big bucks for premium small cars. Spiking gasoline prices have quelled that argument, and fuel economy is now towards the top of shoppers' lists when looking for a new car or truck. While Ford is still more than a year away from bringing over the Euro Focus and Fiesta, GM has made the cross-Atlantic jump by importing the Opel Astra to our shores. The Astra is a hot-selling hatch in Europe with high-end amenities and very good fuel economy, and the model is shipping to the U.S. differentiated from its Euro twin by some Saturn logos and little else. We were itching to get our hands on an Astra to see if it were as good as advertised, and our tester came equipped with everything...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Sedans/Saloons , Chevrolet , GM The 2008 Chevy Malibu has snatched up awards and media accolades, and JD Power data shows that customers are paying Chevy dealers handsomely to own one. The average transaction price of a Chevy Malibu is $22,358 -- $5,000 higher than the inherently uncool last-gen 'Bu. Twenty-one percent of buyers are also opting for the top-of-the-line LTZ vs. only 5% for the outgoing model. The news isn't all rosy, however, as most of these customers are trading in other GM products to get themselves into the North American Car of the Year. Only 1.4% of buyers traded in a Toyota Camry, 1.3% swapped a Nissan Altima, and less than 1% turned in a Honda Accord. Those aren't exactly the kind of numbers GM will want to brag about, but at least the General is pulling in the equivalent of two Tata Nanos more per car than the last generation model did. [Source: Detroit News ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: Car Buying , Marketing/Advertising , Cadillac , GM , HUMMER , Saab Among the many ills plaguing automakers, and General Motors in particular, is an excessive amount of dealers selling their wares through competing outlets. GM has decided to rectify the matter by combining its top three "luxury" marques - Cadillac, HUMMER and Saab - into megastores that aim to provide consumers with a variety of choice without watering down each brand's distinct niche. The plan involves consolidating the 1,400 Cadillac dealerships with the 238 Saab and 170 HUMMER outlets to form a one-stop shop for all things at the high-end of the General's spectrum. There have already been a few cases where GM has helped larger dealers buyout Mom and Pop operations that weren't willing to expand or were looking to get out of the retail game entirely. While the move has the potential to make it easier for consumers to get everything they want under one roof, the amount of capital GM might...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Auction Action , GM eBay Motors and General Motors have announced a new agreement that will see the automaker's entire inventory of certified used vehicles go up on the digital block of the internet's most popular auction service. GM doesn't say exactly how many vehicles it will add to eBay Motors' listings, but there are currently over 3,900 dealerships selling certified used vehicles for the General. For its part, eBay Motors will be charging GM dealers zilch to list their certified used vehicles for sale on its site, which is a much better deal than you get when trying to unload that '99 Malibu. [Source: GM, Photo by Rick Gershon/Getty ] Continue reading GM to list all certified used vehicles on eBay Motors Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: Car Buying , Etc. , Crossovers/CUVs , Pontiac click above for more high-res images of the Pontiac Aztek... if you dare The Pontiac Aztek may be the butt of more jokes than Britney Spears, but even two years after its demise , the world's ugliest crossover of all time is still selling. In fact, Pontiac dealers chalked up a whopping 25 sales in 2007, and we'd like to meet the visually impaired customers who drove them off the lot and into a lifetime's worth of ridicule. Actually, we'd like to visit the 25 Pontiac dealerships that risked the embarrassment of keeping a two-year old "new" car on their lots. Any mention of Sales Person of the Year should include the fine men and women who pushed, dragged and pulled those Azteks off the lot. How do you explain to the new car shopper why his new car no longer has that new car smell? OK, we're done. PS: We're well aware that there are many satisfied owners out there who appreciate the practical design...
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Filed under: Car Buying , China , Buick , GM GM is in a market share dogfight here in the States, but in emerging markets like China, the General is quickly gaining a strong foothold. Rick Wagoner and company are progressing so splendidly in the world's fastest-growing market that the automaker became the first manufacturer to sell one million units within a calender year. That millionth vehicle was a Buick Park Avenue , which is fitting since Buick is hugely popular in the land of the Great Wall. The speed with which the General attained this level of success is impressive as well, as GM sold 100,000 units five years earlier. With a population of 1.6 billion and an insatiable appetite for automobiles, China seems like as good a place as any for GM to increase its global automotive presence. With more and more automakers turning their attention (and funding) to China, however, GM's exponential growth since 2002 will likely begin to stabilize. For now, however, China is to GM what...
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Filed under: Car Buying , GM , Toyota The J.D. Power people compiled their annual list of automaker customer retention rates, and Toyota came out on top, followed closely behind by General Motors. Almost 69-percent of Toyota owners continued their relationship with the manufacturer, compared to GM whose owners returned to the automaker's brands about 65-percent of the time. Honda came in third, with 63.3-percent, while BMW and Ford following closely behind at 56.9-percent and 54.4-percent respectively. It deserves note, however, that Toyota, GM, Honda, BMW and Ford all benefit from having a number of companies under their corporate umbrella. The way J.D. Power comes to its conclusions is to include each automaker's individual brands within the parent company. So Scion owners are likely to upgrade to a Toyota, Chevy owners might buy a Buick, and MINI buyers might take a step up into the newest 3-series - all of which skews the figures in favor of larger manufacturers. However, lacking...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Trucks/Pickups , Marketing/Advertising , Chevrolet , GM , GMC General Motors had a good August, bucking the industry trend with a year over year sales increase. A big part of that success came with zero-percent financing on the...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Maintenance , Etc. , Buick , Cadillac , GM , GMC , Lexus , Pontiac , Saturn The General's chief product guru, Bob Lutz, responded to questions regarding GM's reliability in the company's FastLane Blog's most recent video Q&A...
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