Just kill off Buick already!!!

Yeah, I have a Pontiac / GMC store and have been inquiring about adding Buick. They’ve pretty much told me no. I’m a rural dealer that is such a strength to GM, and they’re about to cut my throat.

Thanks guys…

Absolutely nobody here has liked my suggestion that GM diversify into even more brands. That’s where acquiring Chrysler would have come in handy: GM could have added several more brands, plus the ability to resurrect Plymouth. If GM also resurrected Geo and Oldmobile, as well as split Hummer into several divisions (a youngish, Scion-like Hummer, the regular Hummers and a new, upscale luxury Hummer division), there’s the potential for several dozen brands.

^and that would help in what ways HMD?

There are already TO many damn dealers, no offence injunraiv! I personally think if there were about a third of less dealers, especailly in the metro areas it would be a big help for not only those in the metro areas, but also smaller rural dealers lik injunraiv. More is not always better imho.

Well I dont see how adding Buick would help any dealer lol …unless you move your dealership to China

But don’t you see, you’re an idiot. Oh wait, you don’t see that, that’s why you still post here…

i thought they stopped opening new dealers period

I’m not a new dealer. GM is pushing the BPG ‘brand’, and they’re making it difficult for any of the 3 individual brands to stand on their own, but won’t let us consolidate. Bunch of frigging idiots if you ask me…

So injunraiv, if you had to pick one model to add to Pontiac’s lineup and one to take away what would those be?

Folks, Buick is a cash cow for GM.

Buick’s average buyer age has dropped from the upper 60s to the low-mid 50s. The LaCrosse is built on a 22 year-old platform, while the Lucerne’s platform is turning 18 this year. So the engineering and tooling for them has long since been paid off. Both cars have a decent profit margin.

And then there’s the Enclave, which is selling very well, at a great margin, as well. Buick is best positioned to pick up GME’s smaller vehicles in the future, because its higher transaction prices and more upscale image will not only pay for the more expensive Euro architectures that keep the Astra’s price high, but they could be marketed with Buick styling and features and sold as “premium small cars”.

Saturn can’t be the one to do this because their dealer body is way too small, and sales are terrible despite the fact that the lineup is 400% bigger than it was when sales were at their peak.

Cadillac can’t be the one, either, and they’re JUST starting to get their credibility back and need to do battle more directly with BMW, Benz, Audi, and Lexus.

injunraiv, you are a lowly high school drop out car dealer. Do you really have the right to call your peers idiots?

LOL
Injunraiv didnt make it to high school lol He was one of the guys who smoked and drank budweiser,had a garage band and had some old american ****box on blocks in the hopes of restoring it one day
Now hes selling Pontiacs but not for long ……Hope he enjoys the soup line
Thats what he gets for not selling quality cars like Honda and Toyota

theres to many options. 3 automotive groups underone room, one not just make them all one. givem one name.

Buick needs to go. I dont care how much of a cash cow it is. It hurts GMs image. Buick and GMC need to go just as bad as Ford needs to drop mercuy. You can only rebadge a car so many damn times

Once upon a time, each of the GM brands only made one or two vehicles. If they cut the badge-engineering crap they could get rid of the fat and sell only the cars that are great examples of design and truly represent each brand. One possible lineup could be: the CTS for Cadillac; Corvette, Malibu and Camaro for Chevy; some sedan for Buick and maybe the Enclave; the G8 for Pontiac; GMC Yukon; a bunch of Chevy trucks; and one or two good Opels for Saturn. That would certainly reduce the current line-up of NINETY-THREE models to something more manageable.

And, they could sell it all under one roof: GM.

Every dealership would be branded a GM dealership, and lord knows there will be fewer of them under the bailout plan, so by having all GM-branded dealerships, the company could solve the geographic coverage issue that will arise when they start cutting all the sub-brand dealerships.

Oh, and for all of you bickering about whether to keep, sell or close Buick, it all comes down to this: pride. GM can’t let itself sell a brand to China that does so well there, but struggles here. It would be an admission of defeat. Same goes for closing the brand.

And, finally, can Rick Wagoner just go away already.

Hard to believe how car history books list Pontiac as the HOT division at GM in the 60’s.

All the mojo was lost in the 80’s I think. Now it’s a shadow of itself selling Chevy clones.

Sad.

injunraiv and inline6 are both correct in a sense but the under lying issue is the simple fact that Buick is GM and the core brand. The Buick line is far more profitable than Chevrolet or Saturn and we have been told by GM when we requested the line to go with our GM/Pontiac store the same thing. No. Dealers generally don’t ask for a line unless they have data to support a business plan. Buick isn’t going anywhere and it will be the brand that the Euro’s will come.

I happen to like badge engineering when they have completely diff. exteriors and interiors.

What, you want LESS choice?

Who cares if the frame, suspension, and engines are the same?

inline6 where do you get your numbers from? The LaCrosse is build on the W-body, which debuted in 1988, making the “w-body” 21 years old. However, you being such a genious, tell me what the 2009 LaCrosse has in common with the 1988 Regal, other than the body designation code.

Stevo’s got it right. Call all the dealerships “GM” and only sell the good stuff from each line.

Ambitious plans? Those 3 brands suck so much they DO NOT SELL ON THEIR OWN. That’s pathetic, not ambitious.

@ johnny;

Interesting question. And the answer is a full size, FWD V6 powered sport luxury car, like we had in the Bonneville. It MUST be available as a stripper with a bench seat, and also have the ability to be loaded to the gills like the SSEi used to be.

Second, remove the Cobalt SS from the Chevy lineup and make it a Pontiac.

Third (and I KNOW this isn’t going to happen) bring in the Corvette.

Lets forget about the hideous G3, the Vibe & Torrent are GONE, and give me a retro Firebird/GTO to bring the car nuts back in.

Oh, and one thing would be really frigging SWEET: a joint venture with Honda – just give me a Honda I can rebadge as a Pontiac. I want to see 1115’s head just pop off!

Olds307:

1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2007 2009

I count 22 years there. Of course, you might only be able to count to 21, once you take your pants off.

And I don’t know what, technically, has carried over from 1988. But it’s more than just the “code”. The car has never had a full redesign in its 22 seasons of life.

erm…that second 2007 should be a 2008, but you get the point. The LaCrosse is on a platform in its 22nd season.

Well if you had a Pontiac with Honda underpinning it would actually sell instead of sitting on the lot like Pontiacs current lame ass lineup
Its not too far off bc Honda made the L66 3.5 engine for the Saturn VUE redline a few years back
Of course Honda didnt think much of saturn bc they didnt want the name on the engine and I agree with Honda I wouldnt want my engine in such a vile pile from the general but Honda did it for the money

If they keep Pontiac they should only have rear drive performance cars with little overlap A G8 and a coupe version. A Firebird based on the Camaro and maybe some mid size rear drive replacement for the G6.

Buick A version of the Opel Insignia just like they have in China Update the Lucerne and build that Regal concept thing from a few years back

GMC All trucks should have a GMC badge on them. Discontinue the Chevy trucks. Also they can have the Acadia but not the Terrain

Chevy- Get rid of the trucks but keep the Perverse and Equinox bc they are CUV’s. The only performance cars should be Camaro and Vette THATS IT and even that is pushing it

Saturn Die no need for you That money should be invested into Buick

Hummer Sell

Saab I say keep them but make the Saabs be true to their heritage and keep the rebadging down
9-3, 9-5, 9-4X and give them the Saturn Sky platform and make it a roadster but just have heavily upgrade the interior to Saab like standards

Caddy Only rwd performance LUXURY cars CTS STS I guess the ESC and Escalade can stay but the DTS must be dropped. The SRX has to stay as well Caddy is going to be fine

Hope you have a warm jacket

1115,

Pontiac has the Vibe, which is based on the Corolla/Matrix platform. It sells okay, but not anywhere near Corolla/Matrix levels. And the Honda-engined Vue didn’t exactly sell like hotcakes, either.

If you want Saab to get back to its heritage, it can’t be selling RWD vehicles. FWD/AWD is all they’ve ever sold. So the Sky (kappa) platform would not work for Saab.

And the DTS outsells the STS 3 to 1. I think that they should replace both with one model, but that it be closer to the DTS in size, and compete with the likes of the 7-Series, S-Class, A8L, and LWB Lexus LS. What Cadillac needs to do after that is throw in a small Alpha-based sedan to fight in size under the CTS.

And your Chevy v. GMC trucks would work in theory, but not in practice. While GMC is GM’s second highest-volume brand (behind Chevy), the Chevy brand is almost better known FOR its trucks. Chevy trucks outselll comparable GMC models 2 to 1, at least. Plus, in order to keep from losing business, they’d HAVE to dual all Chevy dealers with GMC dealers. Which is extremely complicated. Besides, Toyota and Nissan don’t have separate brands for their trucks.

I think that GM should operate 3 channels: Chevrolet, Buick-GMC, and Cadillac.

Well the Pontiac Vibe is a Toyota and Toyota is a different company from Honda The VUE was a Saturn and it wasnt well know (bc Honda knew better) that Honda made the engine. Even with the engine the GM body and creaky cheap interior surrounded the engine so GM has to put forth more effort inside and them put the superior Japanese engine in and then they are more likely to have a winner

That Saab concep roadster is sure to be a RWD and the 9-7x was based AWD but based on the Ranier which is RWD so Im sure they can deal with a rwd roadster The important thing is to have the core vehicles the 9-3 and 9-5 be true Saabs Maybe even make a 9-1

Caddy doesnt need a car smaller than the CTS the CTS should be their entry level vehicle Get rid of the FWD DTS and make the new one RWD and call it whatever Just make one model and it should be more of a 5 series 6 series competitor

If you say Chevy is know for trucks then get rid of GMC They do NOT need both

You left out Pontiac Hummer and Saturn

Re: Pontiac making a Honda-based car…what was your point, exactly? You said “if you had a Pontiac with Honda underpinning it would actually sell instead of sitting on the lot like Pontiacs current lame ass lineup”. But do you think that GM would advertize everywhere that their Pontiacs were based on Hondas? They’d advertize it just as much as they did the Honda V6 in the Saturn Vue.

My comments about Saab still stand. Saab has NEVER made a RWD car, just FWN and AWD. Yeah, like the 9-7x is any example of what Saab should be doing in the future. If you want Saab to get back to its roots, why would they make a total departure in their 60+ years of vehicle production by builing a RWD car? If anyone knows how to make a FWD car handle, it’s Saab. The sports cars Saab made in the past were all FWD. And GM is working on a 9-1. It was previewed as the 9-X Biohybrid concept cars.

Cadillac could use a car smaller than the CTS…a RWD 3-Series-sized sedan. While the CTS competes on price with the 3, it’s bigger than the 5.

GM’s cancellation of Oldsmobile proved that buyers couldn’t be counted on to return for another division’s equivalent model. Your suggestion of closing either Chevy Trucks, which is responsible for 1.25M units/year, or closing GMC, which is GM’s second best-selling brand (with 400k annual units) is silly. Not only would GM lose massive volume on their most profitable vehicles, but they’d have to PAY the 1700 GMC dealers in the country billions in order to buy them out of their contracts and close them down. GMC costs GM so little (just like Mercury costs Ford so little) that the added volume more than pays for the division’s level of distinctiveness. The last thing GM needs to do is close down their most profitable divisions (Buick and GMC).

Pontiac should either be closed down, or shrink to just the Solstice’s Alpha-based replacement and the G8 line. Saturn should be sold to SAIC (rumor has it they’re interested), and Hummer should either be sold off or closed down.

GM made a big blunder when they dumped Saturn’s unique plastic bodies, platforms, engines and factories and made it just another badge-engineered GM division.. had they left it alone they could have quickly sold the entire brand to the Chinese years ago, and instead given the Astra and Aura to Pontiac/Buick/GMC dealers as badly-needed G5, G6 and LaCrosse replacements.

teahead.. badge engineering was a great idea in the 1970s when the products were consistently updated and fresh, inexpensive to maintain and own, and over 70% of US buyers were still primarily purchasing American cars. Not so great an idea these days when the majority of American cars are riding on 10-15 year old platforms and there are plenty of newer, fresher, more reliable foreign alternatives available. Not much sense in making four versions of one vehicle if more than 50% of the market wouldn’t think to consider even one of them!