General Motors is apparently looking to have identified an additional 1,700 dealerships that it will plan to close in the near future in order to meet the June 1 restructuring deadline imposed by the Obama administration’s auto industry team.
The Detroit automaker has already closed 200 dealerships this year and it will seek to terminate franchise agreements with an additional 1,700 within the next six weeks. Though the dealerships won’t necessarily close by June 1, their fates as GM outlets will be decided.
The automaker is banking on a spin-off or closure of Hummer and Saturn to account for about half of the closed dealerships, according to Reuters. Otherwise, it will look at closing underperforming dealerships, mostly in major metropolitan areas.
Albeit on a smaller scale, the process will move similar GM’s decision to close Oldsmobile, which ceased operations five years ago this month. GM spent more than $1 billion closing and transferring Oldsmobile dealerships.
04/16, 9:41 AM
posted by:
CADDY-V
shut down 1,700 dealerships? That should help sales!!
04/16, 9:50 AM
posted by:
teahead
Pretty sad. A lot of people will lose their jobs.
Of course, closing Saturn and Hummer dealerships makes sense, should they close Chevrolet and Cadillac dealerships?
04/16, 11:08 AM
posted by:
mmmfloorpie
How bout merging the Pontiac/Buick/GMC dealers and the Chevy/Cadillac dealers into one? That would reduce the number by half!
04/16, 11:10 AM
posted by:
Borat
That what makes bankruptcy an excellent tool not to spend money on closing dealerships. Especially if money comes from taxes.
04/16, 11:25 AM
posted by:
j-dubb
1,700 times avg of 20 people per dealership about 34,000 jobs gone in 6 weeks !! wtf? Im sure a wave of panic is sweeping arcoss the GM floor from from manufacturing to corporate boardroom. My only question is why? the government is reaping havoc thru GM like a flesh eat worm by the time GM emerges it will be a lifeless shell.
04/16, 11:28 AM
posted by:
yarddog82abn
DON’T CLOSE THEM CONSOLIDATE THEM!!! STUPID GM!!!
04/16, 11:41 AM
posted by:
Lariat Luxury Locomotive Liner No.3
How long will it take for people to realize the party is over? And how much money will be further wasted during that time?
04/16, 1:12 PM
posted by:
strongbad
The sooner we are in a Chevy/Cadillac world, the better.
Mass layoffs suck, but look at every other sector in the economy, its not like they are having much fun either. Hello consolidation! It already happened to everyone else, join the party.
04/16, 1:20 PM
posted by:
ricky_b
Close/consolidate… what’t the difference? You’re still closing locations and making people redundant.
I’m with Caddy-V, I think it’ll help to improve sales so that one dealer doesn’t cannibalize sales from another.
04/16, 2:35 PM
posted by:
CP92804
j-dubb said average of 20 people per dealer is a bit low. i work in the service dept of a very small domestic dealer and there are 42 employees here. The Caddy GMC dealer across the street has 150. So I would bet that MOST dealers are around 70-100 so do the math again, it wont be just a hit to a few dealer employees but many others in the community that depend on their dollars being spent. The city, county’s and state governments also wont gt that tax revenue generated by car sales in their cities which will get passed back to us as higher property and sales taxes. SO on one hand a good thing for the mega dealers on the other not so good for the overall picture. worst part of all may be that if you live in a town that lets say has 5 Chevy dealers today and in 6 months time there is one, that Camaro that you are wanting so bad WILL be more like buying a new model BMW M3 instead of that $30,000 dollar sticker it will become $40,000 because they are the only game in town now and as an old sales manager that I worked with at a BMW dealer for 15 years “You wanna play ya gotta pay!”
04/16, 3:09 PM
posted by:
beemerdude
“General Motors is apparently looking to have identified an additional 1,700 dealerships that it will plan to close in the near future,,.”
More bad writing by LLN. Manufacturers can’t “close” dealerships (because they don’t own them). Only the franchise holders can.
LLN should have said “GM plans to terminate the franchises of…”
04/16, 4:39 PM
posted by:
shane train
Good to see they care about the people working for them, to provide them with such dignified severence at such a time as this.
04/17, 12:01 AM
posted by:
jdasch1
Dealerships stock and sell GM’s cars and trucks. They PAY GM for these vehicles before they sell them to the public. I’ve always been confused where MORE dealers costs GM money?? I cannot imagine less dealers selling more cars….I think the warrenty costs would be lower because customers will have to wait for repairs and drive longer miles to get to a dealer. Maybe thats the savings plan….screw the customer out of free warrenty repairs. Smart.
04/17, 2:30 AM
posted by:
fan
pathetic… sad for the employees…