Letter from a Dodge Dealer

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I'm going to edit a few of the more blatant political posts in this thread. If your post gets edited, consider it a formal warning.
 
Chrysler was doing fine, "merged" with Diamler and German mindset broke it's stride, Chrysler then bought by Cerebrus who just knew they could fix it and then "flip" it for a profit, Cerebrus gets sweetly digested by a market they have no business getting into and Chrysler winds up in bankruptsy court.
Bankruptsy laws were changed a few years ago to favor the people who hold the paper, hence this letter.
Would be OK if I add the lobbying industry to the list of people to blame?
 
Great, now my favorite site has gone censored. Guess I won't hang out here much anymore.

Everything is political when the government owns GM and Chrysler.
 
Originally Posted By: crw
Great, now my favorite site has gone censored. Guess I won't hang out here much anymore.

Everything is political when the government owns GM and Chrysler.


If you can't control yourself, that's a good idea. RSP has not been allowed here for a long time now.
 
It is certainly a sad story. I wonder what his attorney said to him when he got the letter. I guess the only thing he can do is appeal to the public for sympathy and support.

I'm sure the same thing happened to dealers of other, defunct brands. My local Oldsmobile dealer completely remodeled his store about a year before GM pulled the plug on the brand. Wonder what happened to his investment?

Business in America is all about managing risk. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. I'm sure his franchise dealer agreement spells out the exact terms of contract dissolution. He may run a private business but he signed a legally binding dealer contract to gain the franchise rights.

How in the United States of America could this happen? Simple, this is a nation of laws. He had a contract. The terms of the contracts were rescinded. He can now use the law to sue Chrysler for breech of contract or whatever, but I'm sure his attorney has advised him properly on this issue.

I do feel sorry for all the employees, their local business partners and suppliers, and especially to everyone in the community who will no longer enjoy the support of this business. Car dealers are usually very involved in their local communities and are depended on for all sorts of support. All that is gone now.
 
The bit about his franchise being "given" to another dealer does not pass the smell test. Proof required, please.
 
See, the thing about franchise is that while the HQ depends on the success of the franchisee, the franchisee also depends on the support of the HQ.

There is a reason why McDonald's are so successful. They demand the owner of the franchisee to be an MBA and to be already a millionaire. They did the analysis on the location before opening a new store. They did most of the things so successful that McDs are to be blamed as the cause of obesity.

Now look at Chrysler. They were running a sales bank regardless of how many can they really sell, they were messed up by the 2 previous owners (Daimler and Cerebus), and they have a horrible lines of products that people wouldn't buy. I'm sorry for the dealers, but there is no way they can run a dealership that sell unsellable cars and expect to stay the course forever.

Could it have been better? a more gradual exit? sure, but unless Fiat is given permission to sell 500k cars tax free in the US and all of a sudden people starts buying cars like it is 0% APR and free fuel for 10 years with jobless guarantee, I don't see that the dealerships can be saved.

Maybe they can sell the facilities to the Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Tata, or Chinese imports, and any other willing party, but I don't think it would sell well until the market recovers.
 
risk in inherent in any business.
I am a small business owner and I keep my costs low so I can pass the savings to my clients.
freemarket, lolrotf, it is by the business, for the business... I don't remember this paricular stealership whining when they sold cars at a premium to the sticker price or charged grandma $1000 for leaky tranny seal etc.
every chuwawa has his day.

while we are enraged about this guys 1.5 mil AIG is paying out billions of our money at 100% redemption rate on assets worth less than the parts at this dealership
 
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I saw this on the news last night and heard about it on the radio.

There is no rhyme nor reason on how dealerships were chosen...not based on very poor performance...the reason is P so we just can't talk about it.

Want to talk about the politics? There's a board setup JUST for use BITOG'ers: http://bigthree.proboards104.com There we can make the world right in RSP land.
 
Chrysler dealers were chosen based on sales peformance and how their respective dealerships looked.

We had 2 dealers close here.1 dealer was given notice because his store is outdated,the other,poor sales and some other issues I won't go into here.

We also lost 2 Chevy dealers over the weekend,again one has a way outdated store and the other has a new store,but poor sales.

Bottom line is that with fewer dealers,there will not be as much competition and allegedly the dealers will be more profiatble.The 3 Toyota dealers here never want to deal,but yet they sell cars.Whether that strategy will work for the US auto makers remains to be seen.Bt until the "big 3" start making a car that does what the imports do,they will still be behind the 8 ball.
 
Sad situation, but I'm sure we're not getting the entire story. Local jeep dealer closed its doors a few months ago. He must have seen the writing on the wall. The Chevy dealer ..been here for ..heck ..probably 50 years (small in town/old) went south about the same time.

Eh
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There WILL be LESS buyers.

The cost of vehicles will be going up. The cost of fuel will be going up. The taxes will be going up. Electric power will be going up.

Everything will continue to increase. That is before HYPER inflation happens.

Our salaries will stay close to the same (if we are lucky) or some of us will loose our jobs.

Folks hang on.

It is ugly and we have just seen the tip of change.

Smart people will hold on and try to wait it out to see what happens. Others will try to continue with spending more than they need to and wonder why they can not pay the bills.

Amazing.....
 
I'm ready ...yeah, right. Just like the "other half" of the Titanic passengers were ready. Not much to be done about it but, as you said, hang on and hope that you make it through.

I have two years left on the mortgage. I was laughed at when I suggested that costs were going to soak up all of the savings. I think that I was overly optimistic.

I'll never have another car payment. I'll patch together beaters if I can't afford to fuel the jeeps.
 
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Folks hang on. It is ugly and we have just seen the tip of change.

There is nothing to worry about as long as they managed their money wisely and did NOT financially overextend themselves.

But I can tell you one thing for sure.... so many people now look back and wished they didn't blow cash on [censored] they didn't need in the first place.
 
Originally Posted By: Gary Allan

I'll never have another car payment. I'll patch together beaters if I can't afford to fuel the jeeps.


If everybody thought like you, and this 10 million units instead of 17 million continues... Cars will be junked ON AVERAGE at 20 years instead of 12... where are those beaters going to be? It may be discovered that America can finally engineer/build/maintain a car that lasts longer than our level of patience used to be! Since those cars were built in they heydey of 17 million/yr, there'll be more 1990 and y2k decade cars clattering around than anything since.

Autoparts stores will have to expand warehouse space for all the odd generations still running, needing parts.

OE suppliers will have to dust off tooling for aftermarket sales. Sales will be brisk but unpredictable... with shortages and gluts.

I just got a beater running with only a serpentine belt tensioner... those days might be dwindling (but not yet-- a ray of sunshine)... I had been having fun with my motorcycle and not watching craigslist for repairables... Pop that screen up and 48 hours later found the car! And I'm not in a major population center. Yes it'll be like Russia if everyone starts doing it but Gary's ahead of the curve. It's unsustainable like "free fryer oil from McDonalds" won't fuel more than .1% of the diesel fleet.
 
Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette
Quote:
Folks hang on. It is ugly and we have just seen the tip of change.

There is nothing to worry about as long as they managed their money wisely and did NOT financially overextend themselves.

But I can tell you one thing for sure.... so many people now look back and wished they didn't blow cash on [censored] they didn't need in the first place.


I really didn't see how people did it. I saw (still see) people that I know made/make less ..a lot less ..with more of everything. I couldn't figure it out. They did more ..all the time. I figure that they just managed more payments ..continually restructured their debt ...or just never figured out why there was always too much month left at the end of the money. They use their cellphones like they were free ..and have the latest high $$ version. They have every premium channel on cable ..and the latest flat screen television ...etc..etc.
 
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