CARBIZ

What's with all the old white guys? Seems like a nice enough car. I'll reserve final judgement until I see it in the flesh. Cool color, though!

+1

Well, not to rain on your parade, but if all the manufacturing jobs are gone to China, and all the service sector jobs to India, nobody is going to need an education here. I mean, how much talent does it take to say, "Would you like fries with that?"

Yes, yes, yes, but the employee must get an authorization #, which then has to be matched to another # that the dealer must get. Sure, signatures and 'authorization' could be fudged, but I've seen the GM audit guys: they must have all been fired from the tax office for being too rough. Any misuse would have to come from the 'employee,' who could (theoretically) 'sponsor' his neighbor's wife's butcher for a new car - if he/she wanted, but they are swearing to the relationship in writing. Seems to me to be an awful lot of trouble for $500, since many of you on this board insist you would 'never' pay more than $500 over invoice.

Still didn't stop my mother from buying one. Just proves that any idiot with a CR membership can be fooled.

It's not a matter of GM dictating anything: it's what they recommend. Five years ago, every sales seminar we got packed off to taught us a million ways to stay off price. Joe Verde is one of the industry's biggest hacks. I have been to see him (forced at gun point, I might add) 3 times over the past 12 years. Every time one of his clowns say "I used to be on the floor.." I want to spit! (If you were so successful, why aren't you still selling cars, bub? Oh, that's right: you're getting paid more to sucker our dealer principle into paying your organization $1,500 apiece to send us to snore through your seminars for 30 hours!) Now, GM has changed their tune and they 'recommend' we give everything the customer asks for. Okay. But if 8 other dealers are replying to the 'request,' what are the chances of actually making a sale? ZERO. OC, I am not sure what you are considering internet customers. Up here, there are a myriad of ways a customer can contact us: directly on GM Canada's website, through GMAC pre-approvals (those are about the only internet customers that are worth replying to - but naturally the managers divy out those with great care!), through 3rd party contacts like AutoTrader (very big up here) or by replying directly to the dealer's website. There is another method, via kiosks and shows that GM puts on - most of those are total garbage: some innocent Joe at a 'kite fest' fills out a form for a 'free car' and then we get stuck with cold calling him because his postal code is in our area. The GM Canada 'queries' are mostly garbage to. Those range from a 15 year old dreaming about the price of a Corvette, to some bored postal employee at their desk wondering how much a Traverse will be when his Corolla lease is up in 3 years. GM (and the dealership) rightly expect us to treat them all the same, because there is no way of knowing which ones are total garbage and which ones are truly 'in the market;' however, to quote them at full list or even decent gross is just another waste of time, because likely this is not the only query they are making. Let's face it, if there is no return phone number, no address of any kind, there is little hope in establishing any type of relationship. There is no point in pitching the vehicle, pitching the dealer, pitching my 12 years in the biz, etc. because this type of customer does not care. Like I said about the guy from Timmins the other day - why would he drive 8 hours each direction to come see us? Clearly he only wants numbers to beat up his local dealer. The only good thing about these internet customers is that IF (that's a big 'if') they actually show up, it's a done deal because they have the best price. Although, I've had some of those want to hammer away at a $500 deal on a Malibu. GM is the party that benefits the most. Since we are not paid until we sell something, it greatly benefits GM to have us running around in circles, giving out quotes left and right for no gross, because whether we make money or not, GM doesn't give a crap. Since I am told GM is below 10% market share in the GTA these days, and since the Toronto economy in general is in the toilet, GM dealers are dropping like flies around here (about 10 have closed in the past 3 or 4 years) and since P-B-GMC not only has more models to sell, but more models that Torontonians like (Vibe, Acadia, Sierra,) Chevy dealers are bearing the brunt of the downturn. BTW, most of the dealers that have closed around here are Chevy stores. We are told that Toronto is a 'mature' market, which means they don't give a frack about buying 'domestic.' And all that is fine, but as my fellow professionals are now making HALF what they were 5 years ago, many are considering getting out altogether. If GM (and the dealers) expect 'professionals' who can keep on top of the whimsical changes of GMAC and the frequent gyrations of model changes, understand and empathisize with our customers AND work every weekend for the rest of our lives, they are going to have to find another way other than the current commission structure to keep said professionals. Oh, yeah - and GMAC stopped leases a month ago. 40% of my portfolio was from leasing.

No, it was based on remarks I had made about 2003 Monte Carlos we still had on ground (3 years later). They did an inventory search and that was the final 'piece.' I know I was a little 'creeped out' at first, but nothing I post here is untrue. To paraphrase FOG, I may be 'over opinionated,' but I am pro-GM all the way. Nobody is affected more by their bone-headed decisions than the front liners like us. A lot of the 'lifers' at Oshawa and Detroit may get bounced around, but they still make their $80k a year and get their fancy demos every 4 months with company gas card. I know I have cut down on my personal chatter a lot since I was 'outed.' :AH-HA_wink:

And I've categorically stated that that is not the case here. Nobody I know who works the internet leads makes money at it. Even the used cars have to be advertised with a heavy discount just to get people to respond. If you read my reply, General Motors in Canada wants us to give the customer ALL the information on our reply: prices, payments, features - everything. Most people never bother to reply once they have what they want and most of our internet 'leads' have no address or phone number to follow up with. How is one supposed to sell the dealer and yourself with that type of customer? I'm glad that YOU are having success, but the only sales my present dealer, my last dealer, or any of the people I know in the business are having is when they literally give the vehicle away. How could it be any other way, unless the customer is completely stupid? Blanket email 20 dealers (as one did just last week on an Aveo) and sit back to let them eat each other alive. Besides, the 'average' dealer around here is only selling 50-60 new vehicles a month. Big, big difference than in the States, wouldn't you say? The hay-days of the car business in Toronto are long gone. The top dealer in the city only sells 140 a month - and they have P-B-GMC and Cadillac to draw on.

Click of the mouse? I just did a deal with a retired Ohio employee. It was more than just a click of the mouse for him and for us. Something is rotten and GM has every right to be pissed about it.

Yeah, but you can buy it for around $28k and get 0 financing for 72 months (which will save you another $7k or so, if you 'lock up' your cash in a GIC) The RWB Uplanders are going for $16k around here. Cheaper than a HHR and the same price as a Cobalt.

I was 'outed' by our zone manager about a year ago. He pointedly addressed me as 'carbiz' when we were being introduced for the first time. Oops. They must have gone to considerable lengths to figure out who I was because I had never revealed which dealership I was at (there were over 40 GM stores at the time in the greater area) and I had been careful not to post my pics, etc. Well, now I don't care. If I've been overly critical of the dealership system, promotion, pricing, etc.: tough. I think they do listen, however, it's just that there are so many challenges for them to deal with and those targets keep moving.

They're such auto experts that they got the engine in the Malibu wrong. The 2.4 was never in the 'last generation' Malibu - it was the 2.2.

???? Is it the wild, wild west down there? Without an authorization number from GENERAL MOTORS, the discount does not get assigned. Simple. The employee must call their HR people and get that number, then we have to call our dealer line and match the autorization number with another number that we get from head office in Oshawa. I just did a retiree employee from Ohio and the paperwork is a nightmare. If their is fraud, it would have to come from the employee, not the dealer. We don't get any of our 'memo money' unless all the authorization numbers are matched - and each one has to be generated new, plus the 'employee' has to sign off on it. Again, it's the games from the employees that cause the havoc. They know the dealer sells for cost and gets 5% 'kicked back' in compensation, so the employee shops the 5%. In a nasty letter from head office last year, GM threatened the dealers and the employees that if the guidelines are not followed TO THE PENNY, the deal will be charged back to the dealer and the employee could be fired for fraud. In a rare flash of brilliance, GM declared they will audit the salesman's commission slips, since that is the true proof of gross. Many dealers were playing games with stuff like 'throwing in' extended warranties, etc. to mask the deeper discounts they were giving, and I guess the union got fed up with all the games. Saturn pulls the same crap with their 'no haggle pricing.' But which came first: the chicken or the egg? I've had many GM employees want to negotiate 'cost.' WTF? I'm glad to see GM finally cracking down on this. Frankly, it is impossible for a dealer to follow the rules, because the employees themselves will just keep looking until they find a dealer desperate enough to sell them the vehicle the way they want to buy it.

Well, I've said this before: it's a different world south of the border. BTW, I was mystery shopped in March by an internet lead and my example was held up in front of the GMDA meeting as an example of excellence. They want us to do a sales pitch and give prices for finance, cash, etc. for EVERY quote. I am not new at this, but replying to internet leads is a huge waste of time and I think the dealers should boycott them all. My previous dealer was involved with AutoByTel about 9 years ago and because I was the only person with computer skills then, I got sucked into doing all of them. I remember in December 2000, as an experiment, I set up a template on my computer to expedite my replies so that I had a grid with the vehicle requested, options, and leasing/financing options all spelled out. I sent out 80 repllies that month (all with $800 gross which was HALF what we would have normally accepted in those days) and sold ZERO vehicles. I gave the portfolio back to the manager and we cancelled our association with AutoByTel. Even if I'd sold one or two vehicles, the amount we would have made, the running around with dealer trades and the nightmare those types of customers are in real life (nitpick over everything), it just isn't worth it. Believe me, it's not my attitude, it's the attitude of the internet shoppers. And in case you haven't noticed, OC, many of them are on C&G: they could care less if the dealer makes a dime and most of them already have numbers from their dealer across the street and what they are looking for is something to browbeat them with. Look at it from the customer's point of view: they lose nothing. For 20 seconds on GM's website, they can get 15 dealers to jump hoops and work out leasing, financing and cash numbers on any number of vehicles - and I wager half the inquiries are not even seriously in the market! It's lose-lose for the dealers. We are quoting $600 gross deals over the internet now, no admin fees - nothing, and maybe selling 4 or 5 vehicles a month from it. What's the point? You don't think we haven't tried being cute and coy to lure them into the dealer? 90% don't have a phone number or address on their inquiry - what does that tell you? Mahybe I should move to Nevada, if your customers are stupid enough to be lured into the dealer without numbers first. Case in point, I had an inquiry from Timmins Ontario (about an 8 hour drive north of the city) yesterday! WTF? Does he think I am that stupid? Is he going to drive 8 hours and spend $200 in gas to buy a Silverado? All he will do is take my numbers (in writing on the internet) and go to his local dealer and badger him with it. Frankly, what I plan to do is highball the guy so the dealer in Timmins can make some money. He has specifically requested 'my best price.' What's unequivocable about that? Do you think a sales pitch on the internet is going to work? He could give a f$#k about my dealerships high CSI standing, my 12 years in the biz or any other crap. He wants to steal the truck and would throw his grandmother in with the deal if it meant saving another $50. It's a suckers game. We do all the work and get a flat deal, if we are lucky. Now, if the dealer wants to double our 'flats' and we'll just quote everyone at cost, well that's another matter!

You're in good company, 'bu. Changing dealerships and being in the wrong brand in the wrong area (who buys Chevies in an area of $1million dollar homes?) has hurt my bottom line. I knew '08 would be tough, but..... I'm thinking of investing in some real estate, though: CARBOARD_BOS.bmp I figure if things get tough enough, I can move into one of these.

In '97 I only had seen 6 anniversaries of my 30th birthday. :AH-HA_wink: My '91 Caprice wagon was still running strong (with about 130k miles on it). I spent a great couple weeks on Georgian Bay on my boat. I was still with my ex. I was NOT yet in the car business, which meant I had my sanity and time off. I had just moved to Toronto. Ah, yes, the good ol' days.

This is a tough business to keep one's integrity in, believe me! Case in point: a young woman (she was pretty hot - even I'd do her!) came in on Thursday. She wanted a Malibu. She'd already been somewhere else, driven one and knew what she wanted. We worked the numbers, she was happy and wanted to do the deal. I told her I needed her driver's license, insurance information, a $500 deposit and then she would go see the business manager who would do the paperwork. Oh, she says, I don't have my debit card or visa on me. Okay, I replied, let's just do the paperwork and you can bring me the deposit later. She agreed, but when I came back with some paperwork after my boss had checked things over, she suddenly had to get her kid from daycare and would be back 'in a half hour' with $500 cash. Fine. Three hours passed. I left a message on her cell, warning her we were closing in an hour. No reply. It's a truism in this business that when a client claims to not have money or credit for the deposit that there is a big problem. Saturday morning, I left a second message, still keeping my tone polite and calm, even though I wanted to rip her face off through the phone. At 5 pm Saturday, she called me, wondering why I hadn't called her. It turns out she had given me her work #. Oh. She wanted to come in right then but she was on the other side of the city and we closed in less than an hour. She agreed to come in at 10:30 on Monday. I worked 12 hours on Monday because I came in at 10:00 for her and she never showed. She has not returned any of my subsequent calls either. So I've been 'had.' I can live with that, except that I came in 4 hours early for my shift and wasted my entire day. Yesterday, one of the guys spent 3 hours with a younger guy (he was a bit of a freak) who 'bought' an Aveo, then it turns out his credit is horrible. No deposit from him either. I suspected this punk had already been turned down by Kia, which is where he'd already been. The salesman was pissed. Do these idiots not realize that we all use the same credit bureau? So next time you get a bitchy salesman, give him a break. You don't know what kind of people he has already put up with that day. It is a two way street.

I've had my cars broken into 3 times. Most recently, about 2 months ago. They stole my portable XM radio. The radio itself GM replaced for free, but it was the $200 window that pissed me off. I am still vacuuming glass out of my car. Pity the perp if I ever caught him in the act. In my neighborhood, though, it's the crack addicts looking for Cds and what not to hock for drug money. The joys of living downtown. The cops don't care. I have a$1,000 insurance deductible so I don't have to mortgage my house to pay for the premiums. Buy a Fisher Price baby monitor. Put the transmitter hidden in your car and keep the receiver with you while you're working late. You'll be able to hear the f$#ker break in and maybe get to your car in time. I know someone who did that and then videotaped the thief. The cops eventually nailed the a-hole in another crime and nailed him for both.

As much as your banker will allow. If you make $60k a year, then a $60k car could be affordable. I wouldn't go higher than that. So much depends on what your other debts are. I know many people who pay their home off, kick the kids out and then treat themselves to an expensive toy. However, with kids and a mortgage, 25% of your annual salary might be too high.

We do internet quotes all the time. They are a huge waste of time. 90% never even have the courtesy of getting back to us. I especially love the ones from 4-500 miles away: clearly they are just keeping their local dealer honest. I think it can be argued that this type of shopping is not going away, but the dealer body is going to have to come to terms with it. These deals tend to be very low 'gross' deals. I've seen my commissions drop in half this past year. Since the dealers are often protected by the manufacturer (there are all kinds of kickbacks that the dealer gets that we aren't supposed to know about), it is really only the sales staff that are getting screwed, since we are paid on 'gross' only. The Corvette deals are the worst. It takes a very long time to properly 'deliver' a Corvette. Initiating OnStar, showing them how to use the Nav system, going over the owners manual, making sure the car is flawless, checking up on the PDI guys, chasing the insurance companies, the paperwork is from hell - and all that for $200? I'd rather sell an Aveo, thanks. These Corvette guys get all puffed up like they are buying the Hope Diamond, but the reality to the sales staff is - who cares? When I would make a $3,500 commission on a $75k car, damned right I'd do cartwheels and fetch coffee, but for $200? Get your own damned coffee! It is harder and harder to put that smile on and eat the $h! these Corvette guys spew. The amount of training that we have to do, compared to 10 years ago, is incredible. The paperwork and processes for delivering a vehicle are unbelievable. It usually takes 2 hours to sell a car, then another 2 to properly deliver it - and that assumes we have it in stock! The hours we put in suck. When people were making $80k a year, we would put up with a lot of crap, but those days are gone. If $200 is going to be an 'average' commission, the dealers are going to have to figure out a different pay plan very soon, or the well-trained staff will just go elsewhere. Then your dealer experience is going to be like a trip to Future Shop where you'll get a bunch of pimply-faced kids who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground and whose eyes glaze over the moment you tell them you are 'just looking.' The new reality in Canada is dealers selling 50-60 new cars a month and 6-8 salespeople fighting over those scarce customers. Customer loyalty is at an all-time low. Guys I know who were selling 20 cars a month 5 years ago, are now selling 8 or 9. And don't think it's just GM. One of my best customers (he has bought 4 vehicles from me) got 'outsourced' from his well paying insurance job, so took a package and went to work as a business manager at a Mazda dealer in a highly Asian area of the city. He quit after 3 months. He hated the atmosphere, hated the amount of sleeze - and they weren't selling any cars there! I guess he was surprised that he had to actually work for half the money he was used to making!

My bad. I was thinking the general rule of not spending more than a person's annual salary, since most people pay them off over 4 years....

I don't understand your irrational hatred of dealers. It's one thing to buy a sweater or hockey cards online, quite another to spend 4 years salary. Would you buy your house online, without even seeing it? Maybe mommy didn't breast feed you, but I suspect that as soon as you walk on the lot, salesman scatter. Your attitude betrays you. If you treat the sales staff like $h!, they will just dish it right back. It's a truism in this business that price whores are not worth the time or money. I wish you luck at buying your next car online. We've heard this story for 10 years. Someone still has to show you the car (because you may think you know everything, I'd wager you do NOT), explain the differences you may not be aware of and then, of course, you'll want to drive it. If you don't think that is worth paying for, then I guess you're the kind of guy who prefers to stay at home because internet porn is so much better than actually having to relate with real human beings.

BenoA, if you're , you may want to consider the Cobalt instead. With the $2k in stackable credits (and free sunroof on the 'Team Canada Edition) the payment on the Cobalt is only about $15 a month more than the Aveo LT Team Canada. For the difference, you're getting about 40 hp more, 1 mpg less, side airbags, ABS, traction control, 16" alloys, automatic headlights,OnStar for a year and a host of other stuff. The '09 Cobalt is a blast to drive. Don't listen to the crap about airbags. In a small car, the more airbags the better. Also, the Uplander is being whored out for around $16k here, which (if you're paying cash) is actually cheaper than the Aveo LT.

So? 5% still means we should be paying around $1.05 a litre, not 1.24.

I'll bet it handles like a grocery cart. What's the wheelbase 12"?