Comments on: Vehicle Sales Halve

By: willid3

willid3 — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:14:38 +0000

i am sure GM (and the rest) had lots of losses last year. after all, all of them had a major turn in market demand, followed by another, followed by another. never mind we are talking making financial products which have infrastructure attached to make them. so none can change that quick. and then there was the minor problem of not understanding their business. like thinking they had 2000 in labor per car. nope, not even with made up labor costs. i saw the report for how many hours it takes to make a car. most take less than 15 hours to build. even given a made up number of $100 per hour (not even close) thats 1500. what does make it bad is that low end of $1000 rebate up to $10000 rebate. and that only exists because tehr are to many cars on dealers lots. or at the plants. or piled up on the coasts (take your pick as to who’s car at pile up where as they all have them this way). i saw one article that if we keep the market as small as it appears to be this year, at least 50 car plants from all of the companies will be shuttered. no need for them. if i had been running GM i might have shut the plants down until the days supply was down to realistic level. even if that took until June of 09. might have been cheaper. but the dislocation of the supply chain would have been horrendous, parts makers would be gone as would a lot of dealers.

By: Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:32:25 +0000

Meh, happy to have my paid-off diesel Benz, just ticked over 418,000mi.. Maybe give her to a nephew at 500k, or donate.. Who has money to throw at depreciation in this economy? And don’t get me started on the comprehensive insurance you need when financing… I’ll never buy a new car again, unless I win the lottery or have some other windfall…

Motorcycles, on the other hand.. ;)

By: Pat G.

Pat G. — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:42:01 +0000

Our new Sonata has about 800 miles on it. Nice vehicle. Lots of standard features. Great warranty. But what I like best about it is how much we paid for it. Was going to buy an Elantra but our local dealer only had two 08′s. Told him I’d buy an 09 Sonata if I could get it for the price of an 09 Elantra. Sold. Hell of a deal.

By: JoWriter

JoWriter — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:08:43 +0000

AT @ 8:01 pm.

For a while, I was getting tons of extended warranty calls for my 9 year old Nissan. The tone and attitude of the caller was peremptory and sounded like a bill collector, “This is the last call we are going to make…blah, blah, blah.” I always expected them to conclude by saying, “… before we turn this over to our attorneys.”

A few months ago I wanted to buy a new digital camera at our local camera store. The sales clerk really, really tried to sell me an extended warranty. I asked why I should and she told me the cameras broke often. I said, gosh, why should I buy a camera that is expected to break? Blew her circuits.

She continued to stress the likelihood of breakdown. I said none of my other cameras has ever needed a repair except for the one my baby dropped on the sand at the beach. Guess I better not buy something that must be that shoddy. Walked out of the store. Later, I got a really great one at Costco – no hassle, no extra repair warranty selling.

By: trackerman

trackerman — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:09:05 +0000

Ken H.

Agree 100%.

When the auto companies started using 72 and 84 month financing for an asset that basically depreciates to zero in 48-60 months, you had to know that end was near. If they had tried to develop affordable cars with as much enthusiasm as they developed their financing games, they might still be selling cars to Joe Sixpack.

By: AGG

AGG — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:44:45 +0000

Umm…
Why haven’t the sales prices halved too?
2009 Camry LE same dealer:
October 2008 $20,078
February 2009 $18,680
March 2009 $19,100

Are these guys nuts or do they CDSs on Toyota?

By: capt dave

capt dave — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:37:34 +0000

Lew Rockwell did the math on GM losses and said that GM lost $4000 on every car it sold last year. Is this a sustainable business plan? As long as we make up the losses, nothing will change. As long as GM, the unions, and bond-holders think we will keep bailing them, the hard decisions and cramdowns will never be made. If the Gov had walked away at the beginning, they might have tried to save themselves. Now they rely on lobbying and threats to keep the party going.

By: usphoenix

usphoenix — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:25:23 +0000

@franklin411 agree
@willid3: wage destruction? New term I like it. Better connotation. Nails the situation perfectly. Why hasn’t a corporate CEO used that term, Oh, I know. Shareholder value. Who exactly are those shareholders?

Rumor has it pension funds were once a great way to juice your stock price, if you could get them to buy in.

Oh well, guess that time is over. Who now?

By: royrogers

royrogers — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:00:17 +0000

what about bicyle sales ?? on the positive side…
bet they are up, and less air pollution

By: Andy Tabbo

Andy Tabbo — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:01:38 +0000

grumpoldvet:

you get the same calls with a GM owned vehicle. Extending warranties must be the biggest waste of money/scam of all time….Never ever get the extended warranty…it’s sort of like paying huge monthly health insurance…you’d be better off just putting in the money in an annuity, and then if anything happens to you or the car, just pay it out of pocket. You’ll be better off in the long run.