Nearly 1 in every 5 dealerships will close this fall!

[jwrebholz]

Originally Posted by MonaroSS

As bad as this may be for the dealerships, their employees and their families and communities, it's actually one of the few good things to happen for GM who has too many dealers.

At least it's a good thing that Bill Heard is closing down. That guy was a ruthless crook, an irredeemable slimeball. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[GMCSonoma]

I'm lucky, there are 38 employees in my dealership!!!

When we took over the competeing dealer in our town, they had 22 employees, and their owner only gave them 10 days notice of closing...

It was a sad situation where the former owner of the dealership we bought only cared about themselves, as I was even privvy to such information from my owner of the takeover for over 5 months!

[roteague]

Originally Posted by t-rex

Maybe having 228 employees per dealership was part of his problem!

...

Seems like even an average-sized dealership would be seriously overstaffed once payroll hit 100 employees.

It's doubtful that they had that many a each dealership - remember, IT, Accounting, HR, Training, etc. Those functions probably wouldn't be at the dealership, rather they would be at the headquarters. We also don't know if the employee count includes their financing arm. I would suspect their dealership counts are probably normal for the industry.

[Rocket 88]

Where I live there are now 25 Chevrolet Dealers alone within 20 miles, after 3 of them went out of business. There are also 18 Toyota dealerships in the same area.

It seemed like a lot but that was before I found out there are 100 Dunkin Donuts stores within 8.5 miles!

My point...none. But 100 Dunkin Donuts within 8.5 miles!!!

[mobyss]

Here in the Phoenix suburbs, the trend is definitely towards bigger dealerships in auto malls, located off major freeways. The stand-alone dealership and the "auto lane" model of dealerships up and down a major surface road is going away. West Mesa emptied out in about 12 months once the auto mall in Gilbert opened up, but then they built a few dealerships by the new Bass Pro Shops. The Bill Heard Chevy that closed up was about three miles away from that.

There's one Chevy dealer a few miles away that may or may not make it - they did a lot of construction truck volume but that's dried up. They might move to the automall too.

I like the idea of clustered automalls with about 15 to 20 miles separating each mall, but it will be hard on the old "downtown" dealers while it happens.

[RedVee8]

Originally Posted by MonaroSS

As bad as this may be for the dealerships, their employees and their families and communities, it's actually one of the few good things to happen for GM who has too many dealers.

I was thinking the same, cold comfort for the folks involved tho.

[rivieraranch]

Originally Posted by jwrebholz

At least it's a good thing that Bill Heard is closing down. That guy was a ruthless crook, an irredeemable slimeball. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I have often said that GM's biggest problem is not product, not financing, not anything other than some crooked, detestable dealers that needed to have their franchises yanked.

[Ambalanche]

Some of these new car dealerships may just drop their franchise and move to selling used cars exclusively. There's always more margin in used cars anyway.

[texassierradude]

Originally Posted by jwrebholz

At least it's a good thing that Bill Heard is closing down. That guy was a ruthless crook, an irredeemable slimeball. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Bill Heard bought Fletcher Jones Chevrolet in Las Vegas in the late 90's. I think Fletcher saw the handwriting on the wall, and chose to take the money and build a totally new beautiful Mercedes-Benz store on West Sahara. I made the mistake of shopping at "Mr. Big Volume" and was never so disgusted with the sales tactics. Good riddance indeed!

[burningsquirrel]

bill heard was a jerk dealership, with a plenty long history of ripoffs and terrible, predatory customer service. they deserved to be shut down, economic crisis or not.

[calgaryhhr]

Originally Posted by rivieraranch

I have often said that GM's biggest problem is not product, not financing, not anything other than some crooked, detestable dealers that needed to have their franchises yanked.

I completely agree with what you have said. I think one of the areas that seriously needs to be addressed by GM is to overhaul the dealership and sales aspect of the company. They need to get in there and clean up the trash and standardize the sales procedures.

Dealerships are the link between the cars and the company and the consumer. The corporate guys can only do so much in terms of product design and meeting the customers needs until it gets handed over to the dealerships which play a big role in establishing a reputation for GM.

To me it makes no sense to have dealerships 10 miles apart all able to offer different prices and incentives. Maybe some customers like driving around for hours trying to get the best deal from different dealerships. I like to go in, find what I want and know that I would get the same deal if I went down the street.

If GM could start doing corporate internet sales (ie. allow consumers to directly order a vehicle through the GM website) and have the car built and delivered to a dealership for pick up and to sign the papers that would be the greatest thing ever. I would think that directly dealing with GM as opposed to a dealership should net a lower price for the consumer due to less overhead costs. The dealership would make some money on the PDI and could charge an administration fee for taking care of the paperwork.

Maybe that's another approach that could be considered. Set up various small locations which have a GM owned fleet of vehicles for a consumer to test drive. Then have the consumer place their order with GM (either at that location or at home) and either have the car built or have it brought it from a GM holding facility.

The time has come to revolutionize the sales procedure.

[WTHRASHER]

Bill Heard main problem was his average gross profitper unit was $80 per unit (inc. lot pack)
That simply will not keep the doors open.

[doh]

Originally Posted by MonaroSS

As bad as this may be for the dealerships, their employees and their families and communities, it's actually one of the few good things to happen for GM who has too many dealers.

Not necessarily, GM will loose sales with fewer dealerships guaranteed. Family, friends and to people the next closest GM Dealership have pissed off in the past.

[prototype66]

Originally Posted by AndrewGS

His dealers in Houston, especially Landmark, were freakin' huge. They probably had a total of 75 salespeople, 100 more in parts, another 50 in the shop, plus all the other positions like porters, finance, accessories, etc. Between Landmark on the Northside and Bill Heard in Sugarland there were about 750 employees.

HOLY CRAP!!!!
THATS FRIGGIN HUGE!
Bud Kouts has 76 ft and 4-5 pt.
That would suck fighting over ups with 70+ guys breathing down your neck!
Screw that!

[Ming]

I bought from Landmark once, didn't know it was a Bill Heard place. It was huge, and they played their typical games with me, but I would not back down and ended up with a deal that I liked.