SalesmanSean

I wish I had the time. There are so many books on the list of things I want to read, and just no time to get to it.

who own the

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I think that realistically those people have long been in the minority. I just paid my car off back in March, and honestly I would love to trade for something different, but I won't even realistically entertain the thought of doing something I know I can't afford like that. I think the larger number of people that do hold onto their vehicles are probably more like me, they don't keep them because they don't want to trade, they keep them because they can't afford to do otherwise. I don't hate, or even dislike, my current car, but I bought it because it fit my budget and needs, not because it excited me. I would love to buy something that I'm actually excited to own, instead, but that just isn't in the cards.

Very, very few of the customers I see have their vehicles long enough to pay them off, and I've not done a lease yet, so even the non-lease customers often will never reach and end to payments. Heck, most of them are out looking to trade while they're still upside down on the car they want to trade in.

Industry wide this is definitely true, though for some reason it is not remotely the case in our location. We are lucky to get maybe 10% of sales as leases, most it seems would rather just try and get extended terms to get that payment down.

This stuff just continues to confound me. Tesla operating direct-to-consumer isn't going to be the death of dealerships. People still need factory mechanics for warranty work, someplace that will take their trade, help in navigating the details of financing and legal paperwork, etc., and that is what those dealerships provide. You aren't going to suddenly see GM start selling direct to consumer like this because they would face huge losses in lawsuits from their former dealer networks on top of the massive cost to replicate their already existing network so that they can maintain their sales volume. It would be a nightmare undertaking for the existing manufacturers to try and emulate Tesla. In the end what Tesla wants to do hurts nobody, but the fight against them definitely is damaging their images a bit in the minds of a lot of people. Already most people had a negative view of dealerships as greedy and untrustworthy, and this just reinforces that belief, it's really counterproductive. On top of that, people who maybe weren't considering a Tesla before will now be intrigued by the "forbidden fruit" aspect of it.

I'm the same way. It makes it even bigger that I travel all the time for work so I'm never home. Vacation for me would be a week in my own bed. That said... if I ever get caught up at home, i'd like to go back to Boulder, CO again and spend a week hiking. Going away for vacation always sounds good until you actually get there. Then you find yourself in a hotel room that isn't as comfortable as home, away from the various things you're used to, paying a lot more for food because your well-stocked fridge isn't right there. Then you actually go to some attraction or another where things get more expensive and you wind up blowing your budget on the souvenirs everyone just HAS to have. Then again, if I'm doing something like that, it isn't for me, because my fun will be minimal. I would do all that for my son, though, and no matter how much it sucked it would be worth it to see him have a wonderful time. So, I get wanting to just stay at home and relax for vacation, it is my ideal option generally, but I also get the draw of a getaway vacation, at least if you have kids.

I may find myself out of a job very soon, although sales has been good to me for many years, car sales has not been in this first year of doing this.

master

couple of Swedish

Going all Weezer today previous track "No One Else", now playing "Possibilities", up next "Only in Dreams".

$40k for a Buick Regal?!?! No way is it worth it. Could get a year old 335i or IS350, C-class, etc. Probably a year old CTS even for that money. I'm with you on the CTS.... Not sure what CSpec's tastes are, but the others wouldn't even enter into it for me, just plain ugly boring cars. Not that the Regal is that exciting in the looks department, either, but a little better at least.

We just got a red ATS coupe in used, was a former company car, only 45 miles on it. Man, those things are sweet. If I was thinking about a new Buick, I would definitely check out a used Cadillac if I could get one for the same or close to the same money. ATS is definitely a well-put-together car in my opinion.

Pile

Pontiac was definitely my number two choice, for much the same reason I chose Mercury, I want to see GM have a performance division, I want them to have cars to compete with FCAs SRTs and FoMoCos RSs.

Alright, since my hand was tipped in the thread that was going the other direction I'll do this one now. What one brand do you think is truly expendable? What one brand of car would you get rid of, why, and would you do anything with the products it is currently making? I know GM is already shutting down the plants but so far planning to keep the name, but I say let Holden go. There are a couple of their vehicles which have already been rebadged under the Chevrolet umbrella, and I say go ahead and do that with the remaining models that don't have straight-up matches already in the Chevy line-up. Most importantly, this gives the opportunity to bring back the El Camino badge and start selling them in US again (thank you Holden Ute HSV Maloo). It would also be an important step towards presenting a common strategy worldwide for GM branding.

Whatever you want, just maybe try and make it make at least a little sense for the brand that you're resurrecting to do it.

That was going to be a separate thread later.

Good luck. I know that wouldn't work out here, because at that point there is just nothing in it for us anymore, but depending on where you are, bigger dealers in bigger cities are sometimes more willing/able to take a bigger loss on things like that, especially depending on how long it's been on their lot.

Supplier price usually doesn't work with any other rebates or incentives (some exceptions may apply), and that dealer discount is just about guaranteed to be just that, a combination of all available rebates and incentives, some of which you may qualify for and others you won't. Probably once you find out which you qualify for the supplier price will turn out to be the better bargain. Edit: That kind of advertising is deceptive, but not technically false advertising because it's possible, though highly unlikely, to qualify for all of the possible discounts. It tends to make for angry customers when they get into the store and find out that they can't get that advertised price, but it's pretty common practice across the industry.

Well, Mazda hasn't jumped all over that CVT bandwagon yet, and with them partnering with Toyota to share SkyActiv and hybrid bits back and forth, maybe we can hope that Toyota will find some more fun in their cars again somewhere in the future.

As I'm quite bored (there's nothing like pouring rain on a car lot to make things very slow and boring), I thought I'd pose a question. If you could resurrect one, and only one, now defunct car brand, which would you choose, why, and how would you do it? I've been thinking about this and it's a tough call. Part of me wants to say Pontiac, because I would love to see GM work harder on performance models, but my heart says Mercury. My first car was a 1982 Mercury Cougar station wagon, to me Cougar has always brought a feeling of excitement to mind (even in that wagon, at least a little bit, I'm not sure why, but that is how I thought of them as a kid and it never left me, maybe it's just because the name was cool), and I have "Mercury Blues" currently stuck in my head. For me, this would be the Ford version of what I would want GM to do. I want Mercury to return as a performance division. Forget RS or whatever versions of otherwise forgettable vehicles like Focus, Fusion, Fiesta, etc. Give me cars designed from the start to be performance vehicles. They wouldn't need to go crazy, I still think it should be more performance for the masses like Ford is currently doing with the aforementioned vehicles, but I'd rather see them as separate vehicles. To the average person if you tell them you have a Focus RS, the only part of that they hear and understand is the Focus part of it. I'd rather have a car that by the name alone people know that it's made to be faster and more fun. Clearly from the RS models we know Ford has the ability to make these kinds of vehicles, they just need to separate them from their more boring counterparts. It all starts with a brand new Cougar that exemplifies everything that is great about FoMoCo's performance ability and only gets better from there.

, a brand by

Bad news, one of the guys she flipped on is out of prison now and just ordered a pizza. Nothing like resurrecting dead threads when you're bored, right?