New from Québec,Canada

[funnylionking]

Hi, I am a finance manager (F&I) from Québec, Canada. Things are pretty slow for my GM dealership. I just come here to look fro any kind of idea to boost sales or marketing. I will just keep on reading you all to try and find a solution. Thank you all :)

[Lhansen]

Welcome:
Things are slow in the Midwest, too. How's your internet traffic? Here, there are still a lot of inquiries, but people are just not speding like the used too. Hope you enjoy the forum, lots of good input.

Linda

[funnylionking]

Toyota and Honda seems to have wind in their sails. GM I think as a problem competing with them. Too many options and different ways of building a vehicle do not help. Giving a High price and then reducing it by giving big rebates, employees cost, gaz coupons, interest rates at 0% and having the sales representative still cutting that price makes no sense to me. We even give lifetime oil change for free here at the dealership. Can't we just give a good price at the beginning? Toyota and Honda here in Quebec have a fair market pricing that is fixe by headquarters and customers do not bargain. Could it be a way to do it. I don't think either that GM understand that putting XMradio and Onstar onto their vehicles to upgrade price helps them. What the customer wants these days is reliability. If you are adding equipment you are putting yourself at risk. Why not return to the basics. I am sure that more warranty on GM vehicles would mean to the world that we are confident in our GM's cars and that reliability means GM. Just for example, to quote a extended warranty to a customer I have a 30 page booklet with prices.....hello GM...maybe too complicated...Haven't you heard of Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS). Imported cars understood that long time ago. Wake up GM before it's too late.

[mchastek]

You're right on Sylvain. GM's cars just can't compete with the import brands in terms of reliability. And then the chain follows - poor reliability = low resell value = lower initial price = heavy discounting/rebates/incentives = GM loses money. I've said this many times before (and I'm sure that I am not the only one!), but GM needs to build a good, reliable vehicle that people WANT to buy.

Just sitting in the driver's seat of a GM vehicle compared to an import, you can immediately tell the difference. GM uses cheap plastic parts, and the imports just seem to much better built.

This is a problem that needs to be attacked from the ground up.

How're gas prices in Quebec? We're seeing around $3.30 - $3.50/gallon here in Los Angeles. I am sure this must be taking a toll on a lot of the large vehicles that GM sells.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling - good luck to you, and let us know if we can help at all!

Mark

[funnylionking]

You're right on Sylvain. GM's cars just can't compete with the import brands in terms of reliability. And then the chain follows - poor reliability = low resell value = lower initial price = heavy discounting/rebates/incentives = GM loses money. I've said this many times before (and I'm sure that I am not the only one!), but GM needs to build a good, reliable vehicle that people WANT to buy.

Just sitting in the driver's seat of a GM vehicle compared to an import, you can immediately tell the difference. GM uses cheap plastic parts, and the imports just seem to much better built.

This is a problem that needs to be attacked from the ground up.

How're gas prices in Quebec? We're seeing around $3.30 - $3.50/gallon here in Los Angeles. I am sure this must be taking a toll on a lot of the large vehicles that GM sells.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling - good luck to you, and let us know if we can help at all!

Mark
Hi Mark,
Gas price here is around $4.40 us gallon, which is why the Toyota Yaris sells like crazy and our big trucks are hard to sell. But I anm keeping my hopes that somebody at GM headquarters thinks like me. How about you and me going there and teaching them....lolllll. Thank you for your comment.

[mchastek]

You're welcome! I actually test drove the Yaris yesterday, just to see what it was like. At $13,xxx BRAND NEW, it was quite a little car! Toyota/Honda/etc are quick to make market moves, and GM is pathetically slow. This is hurting them, big time.

[funnylionking]

Hi Mark,
Gas price here is around $4.40 us gallon, which is why the Toyota Yaris sells like crazy and our big trucks are hard to sell. But I anm keeping my hopes that somebody at GM headquarters thinks like me. How about you and me going there and teaching them....lolllll. Thank you for your comment.

Hopefully, your friend Icebreaker will be able to do something about that in the near future. :D