The Strike - What it means for You

[Flybrian]

What GM's Strike Means to Car Shoppers

Link to Original Article @ KickingTires

At 11 this morning, the United Auto Workers union went on strike at American GM plants. This basically shuts down production of many new GM cars, trucks and SUVs for the foreseeable future. But does that mean you won’t be able to find that new GM car, truck or SUV when you go car shopping in the immediate future?

According to the latest inventory numbers, GM on average has enough vehicles for 67 days at the current rate of sales. Some hot vehicles like the Buick Enclave — built in Lansing, Mich. — only had a 26-day supply, which is roughly 3,600 vehicles, as of Sept. 1. Trucks and SUVs like the Chevy Silverado (90 days) and GMC Yukon (139 days) won’t be hard to come by, however.

Another big issue is how new cars built at striking plants will suffer. Those new cars include the 2008 Cadillac CTS, on which GM has already spent millions of dollars in advertising and marketing. If the strike drags on, the CTS could be hard to find, especially because it has received so much positive buzz. GM is also heavily betting on the all-new Chevy Malibu, which was set to begin production next month. We’d guess the strike will be resolved by that time, however.

[jbartley]

Oh shiz! forgt the advertising money wasted on enclaves and cts's that might not be on dealer lots. what about the build quality?

you can't tell me that having a strike, stopping and starting production, and having plant workers focused on the strike doesn't negatively affect build quality. Especially on vehicles that GM's turnaround is depending on....

[Newbiewar]

Oh shiz! forgt the advertising money wasted on enclaves and cts's that might not be on dealer lots. what about the build quality?

you can't tell me that having a strike, stopping and starting production, and having plant workers focused on the strike doesn't negatively affect build quality. Especially on vehicles that GM's turnaround is depending on....

it'll only be a few models... shouldnt effect anything

it will be interesting to see next year if buick with its new model enclave, will be right on par with lexus?

[caddycruiser]

Yeah, right now, it's hard enough even to find an Enclave (one of the models being talked about) to see, let alone get one.

The worse part is a LOT of people who've ordered them, especially on one main Enclave owners site, have been waiting 2+ months, and now some of them are even thinking to just either give it up or be disappointed and try to find something they could deal with on a dealer lot. Then again, that too poses a problem, as the dealer stock is low, and now--even if just for a few days--the impression is that all there is to pick from is what you can find already built, and dealers might start being even pushier with price, as they already have been because of the fast sales.

Same for the CTS, with lot models going pretty quickly, and a LOT of customer orders in the pipe line, and all of those people waiting, and waiting...and now this.

Hopefully, it doesn't last long, but earlier today, I could see in what I was reading the change in attitude on some boards for the "hot" models, from people. Even a couple of days has an effect, for sure, and then you have people worrying about quality during that time, etc.