Voicing anger over General Motor’s actions surrounding its sale of Saab to Spyker in 2010, a majority of the surviving U.S. Saab dealers have asked the American automaker to cover warranty repairs on 2010 and 2011 Saab models.
Leonard Bellavia, an attorney who is representing 165 Saab dealers, told Automotive News “there’s a groundswell of frustration over GM’s conduct” before its sale of Saab to Spyker. “The sentiment of dealers is that GM knew full well that Spyker wasn’t adequately capitalized and didn’t have the experience to carry the franchise forward.”
The Saab dealers will use their petition to place Saab Cars North America in Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a means to “investigate the circumstances surrounding the sale of Saab by GM to Spyker,” said Bellavia in a statement.
Saab dealers have also reached out to Massachusetts Senators Scott Brown and John Kerry for assistance to “get GM to sit down with our dealers,” according to Ray Ciccolo, the NADA line representative for Saab and president of Charles River Saab in Boston.
GM, which blocked attempts by Chinese automakers Pang Da and Youngam to acquire the Swedish company over concern for the safety of its intellectual property, has stated it will only honor warranties up to 2009.
GM spokesman James Cain said: “Since the bankruptcy we’ve done a lot of work to be sure customers can get warranty repairs and that dealers can get paid to perform the work. But our obligation ends with the last Saab car built by General Motors and those were the 2009 models.”
