General Motors confirmed its Saturn brand will be around until at least 2012, but a recent dealer meeting revealed many of the automaker’s dealerships – regardless of brand affiliation –might not make it to that date. In a bid to make the company more financial viable, GM announced a plan to cut 400 dealers per year until 2012.
GM’s submitted viability plan to the U.S. government included reducing its dealer network from 6,375 stores to about 4,700, and it looks as though this is the first step in deploying that plan. However, GM says that its goal to eliminate 400 dealers per year is not set in stone.
“We might only get to 1,500 rather than 1,700 dealers being eliminated,” GM spokes woman Susan Garontakos told Automotive News.
GM hasn’t set specific elimination criteria as of yet, but the automaker will base its decision of the age of the dealership, location, volume and customer satisfaction, according to Automotive News. Further details are expected to surface when GM hands in its final viability plan to Congress on February 17th.
Although the concessions are necessary for the automaker’s survival, the move is understandably creating friction between GM and its dealers. “I have never heard so much outright hostility and negativity between GM and its dealers,†one dealer said.
