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YouTubeNew York Times wrote Detroit’s Shrinking Sales Take a Toll on Dealerships
COLUMBUS, Ohio  In the glory days of Detroit carmakers in the 1960s, Leonard J. Immke Jr. used to sell 200 new Buicks a month from his vast downtown showroom here filled with gleaming Electras, Rivieras and Skylarks.
Now, it takes Len Immke Buick at least a year to sell 200 new cars from its smaller location on the city’s blue-collar east side. In May, it sold 10.
Most days, only a handful of customers wander in; in rain or snow, there might be none. The pace slows even more at dusk, when the salesmen turn their attention to emptying wastebaskets and vacuuming the carpet. They assumed nightly chores two years ago when the store had to lay off the janitors and other workers to stay in business.
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Len Immke Buick in NYTimes
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JonMyers
HCMC ✈
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Posted 3 years ago # -
holt
NW German Village
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Another issue with the Big 3 automaker dealers is that are way too many of them.
Alot of these are legacy dealers from when the GM, Ford and Chrysler were the only major car manufacturers and so they could afford a dealer network that over staturated cities. Business is bad with Buick especially because of their product line and their intended customer base is skrinking... but I think even the popular car makes are stuggling with too large a dealer base then what the market needs.
Like in any industry.. I think capitalism is taking its toll. The dealers in bad locations, ones that have poor performance, or that have no size advantage will probably get eaten up by the bigger fish. I know one of the main guys at Ricart... they are getting hit alittle by economy/detroit line-up issues.... but they are still doing extremely well.
Posted 3 years ago # -
columbusguy20
5XNW
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The new Buick LaCrosse is pretty damn sweet!!!
Posted 3 years ago # -
sjack
the east side
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The people who run that dealership are slime.
Last year I went there with my 75 year old mother who was car shopping. Her car had gotten hit by a tree and she was in a rental, so she was anxious to get another car. She test drives a car there, and she and the salesman decide on a price. By the way, the showroom was empty the entire time she was there -- a few people here and there; I am pretty sure she was the only customer there. She comes back the next day after the loan approvals, or whatever paperwork was completed. She's sitting there at the salesmans desk and guess who stops by? The manager, who then tries to raise the price of the car. She had already agreed on a price with the salesman and this manager guy tries to strong arm her into paying about 800 or so more. I was so pissed I got mom out of there telling them she had to go home and think about it. I begged her to look elsewhere and NOT go back. Anyway, the next day she bought a Saturn -- they don't hassle about the price there, it's fixed. When they "presented" her with her brand new cleaned up Saturn she was almost in tears, she was so relieved. Of course the salesman from the Buick dealership called that same afternoon. Ha!!! My mother told him his manager cost him a sale and for him to communicate this to the manager. What a lowlife thing to do -- pressuring an old woman into paying more money after she's agreed to buy their shit car. I know they pressure everybody but it seemed to me that they could have played fair with her and just sold her the car at the agreed price. I can only imagine what they're doing to other old people who don't have someone younger to car shop with them. I also went through something similar at Oldsmobile the last time I bought a new car. To make a long story short I ended up leaving the place in tears and being told to "get this woman out of here" by the manager after I had given them a thousand dollar deposit on a car. I got my money back and went next door to Honda. I'm still driving that same Accord 8 years later.
I guess what I'm trying to point out is that at least some of the blame for American car makers not doing so well lies with them. They've had over 30 years to make cars that could equal the reliability of the foreign cars. They've had 30 years to develop new technologies that would increase fuel efficiency. They kept the way they sold cars the same -- allowing dealers to sell the same car at different prices to different people. So now nobody can afford their crap gas guzzlers, and if they can, prefer to buy a foreign car they know they can count on for years. They did it to themselves, and I have absolutely no sympathy for them.
Posted 3 years ago #
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