2nd Oldest Chevrolet Dealer Closing
 

A sad day for GM -

So it had been 35 years since the last time I purchased a new Chevy. In June of this year the news for GM wasn't very good so I decided to buy a new HHR SS to help the old gas bill and do our part to try and help GM. We had to travel over 100 miles to find a 5 speed but with the local Chevy dealer being only 4 miles from our home, we knew any service or warranty work would be a snap. So yesterday the headline in the local paper read that Bell Motor Company, the second oldest Chevy dealer, after 85 years is closing its' doors.

Just my luck. The nearest dealers now are 30-40 miles away.

Are any of you having to travel that far for service from a dealer?

I run about 50 miles to go to the dealer that I bought the car from... not because its the closest, (there are 2 dealers within 5 miles from my house) but because they are the only ones around here that know what they are doing...

3 Chevy dealerships within 15 miles of my house. In the '60s there were 2 within r miles my dad worked at one of them.

To me that is just damn sad :( :(
85 years in business and having to close.

The oldest
 

I guess I bought mine at the older Chevy dealership in the country, right here in Queens, NY! They haven't seen me back since I bought my SS in early July. Now, after almost 3000 miles I guess I am going for my first service and oil change.

There's quite a few dealers within 100 miles, but I haven't had to take mine back to the one 5 miles away in 7400 miles. :smile:

if gm would stop making cars in 3rd world counties then the cars would be a better quaility and they could up the price and keep the dealers open. man i was SO pissed when i found out my SS was built in mexico. if i wanted a mexican car i would have drove there and bought i NEW 1969 bettle. but now im stuck with 08 mexi-moblie...

Except they don't make the Old Beetles anymore.........I have been buying VW's for quite a few years and most were built in Mexico........I have no problem with the Mexican built car Build quality........Besides, if you did your homework before you bought the car you would have known were it was built!!

ya ya ya. but it NEVER crossed my mind that i was shopping for a FOREIGN chevy.

If it was built in Texas, who do you think would be assembling it? Yep, Mexicans.

And no, I don't believe the quality differs because of where it was built. The people on the line should have very little impact on that. The engineers and accountants decide that part.

That's why I got rid of our Saturn. THe dealers close to me were promised to be built and never were, the next closest dealers shut down.
So I had a car with proprietary service, using GM parts that the Chevy/Buick/GMC dealer near me could not touch.
I HAD to go to Saturn. Fifty miles is a long trip with a broken car. So away went our Saturn.


Bought a Chevy because Chevy dealers are everywhere, and another GM dealer, ( but not a Saturn dealer ) could repair them.
Now the Chevy dealers are closing. One next to my dad's house closed, now he has to travel to fix his Chevy.


Sorry you now have the same problem.
It does not bode well for GM does it?

"Market correction" I'm sure some elitist will say.........:roll: :roll:

i would not have a problem with that cuz that means they are working US citizens and would be helping the US economy and providing jobs here in the US. im NOT racsist, i think thats what you meant by your comment. im all up for anyone that wants to be here in the US working and living here and being productive. when it boils down, if i wanted a forgein car more than likely i would have bought a toyota. after further research i found that i have very high chance the toyota i would have bought would have been built here in the US.

Things are tough right now for all the domestic dealers. We have made all sorts of cuts and reductions in our operation, all of our employees from the top down have accepted a cut in wages just to help keep the dealership solvent.

The hard fact is there are too many dealers for most GM divisions. Chevy dealers at one time were well over 2 to 1 vs Toyota.

With falling market share there is little need for a large number a weak dealers when fewer dealers will provide a stronger network.

Many of the dealers that are closing are too small or poorly operated dealers that contribute little to the big picture. Time has passed many by. It is sad as I always like dealing with the smaller dealer where you know the salesman will be there a year later because he is the owner.

But this is the real world and all endings are not fuzzy and warm.

The American auto industry as a whole have way more dealers than needed. Look for many GM, Ford and Chrysler dealers to close or be absorbed by larger dealer networkds.

It matters little where cars are built.

Kind of like splitting a dollar with 4 people vs 10 people. The 4 will do much more with their cut vs the 10 with there small cut.

Only the strong survive and the weak will wither and die.

http://images.stltoday.com/stltoday/...ed625sep18.jpg

AFTER 68 YEARS IN ST. LOUIS...

Our local Feld Chevrolet dealership is a third-generation family owned and operated dealership that has been selling and servicing Chevrolet’s since 1940 here in St. Louis, closed their doors last week...

Kind of weird seeing a lot that was weeks earlier filled with new and used Chevrolets and now just a bare vacant slab of asphalt after all these years.

They are facing legal action from GMAC LLC, the financing company allied to General Motors Corp.

The dealership's lot sits empty and padlocked. Calls made to the sales, parts and service phone numbers listed on the dealership's website were not answered.

According to the Missouri courts website, GMAC filed two lawsuits in St. Louis County circuit court — one on Monday and another on Wednesday — against the dealership.

And the Better Business Bureau of eastern Missouri and southern Illinois said on its website that the dealership's membership was suspended last Friday because "the company appears to be out of business."

Luckily in the St. Louis region we have quite a few dealerships to choose from (at this time), but that could change.

This one was within a mile from my home so now I'll be driving a bit farther.

Except then we couldn't afford the HHR. Instead of 23k for it they would be asking closer to 30k. Just remember there made in 3rd world Countries due to UAW needed $30-40hr and 80% of health Care covered.

Hell were still paying into someone's retirement who hasn't worked in 15-20yrs.

i dont mind paying more for things made in the USA,atleast i know the it will help us and more than likely be a better quaility. man you dont even want to get me started on unions. lol..

thats truly a sad sight....

It is kind of like the people I work with that hate Walmart. They say they would pay more to local people but in the end I see them at Wally World checking out because price rules in todays market.

I hate to see the small hardwares going away because of the big box stores but few can survive with the lower prices. Even Lowes and Home Depot both are killing each other and are not in great shape. It is a very competitive market any more.

It is no different with dealers.

People in this country all want to be millionaires and have it all but just don't want to work for it or pay for it.

Greed is king and everyone is at fault in this MTV cribs world.

ya i try to avoid Wally world as much as possible. i know they are HUGE china importers. my company ships alot of equipmet oveseas (yaa! for selling our stuff overseas!) but the last couple months of the year we are lucky to get anything on the boats cuz wally has most of ships on call for bringing in all the china junk.

And yet another big Chevy dealer closes. But this group has a terrible reputation. Their business tactics cost them their dealership.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/sep...s-metro/?imw=Y

The Bill Heard group is shutting down. There are two Bill Heard dealerships in Florida as well as many others throughout the country. 2600-2700 of their employees join the unemployed.

Sigh,
We are all living on the same planet, no matter what abitrary border you cross.

Remember that.

We all are equally important, no matter what borders we are born behind.

Remember that to.

The real problem is if the playing field is level. Although I am in management, I work in Union shops. People here work hard, they live decenet lives and are good Americans. Their high wages are not the problem.
The problem is if the other countries taking the jobs are held to (near and in context) the same environmental, plant safety, and regulations that we are here in the states. How can one hope to compete if the other side cheats by dumping pollution, slaving workers, and using government subsidies above and beyond what is done here.

I beieve that any factory that I have ever worked at can compete with any around the world if on "equal" terms. Union wages included, and health care.

No need for the walmart-ification of factories, or avoiding foreign products, or union destrucution. Just let everyone compete as fair as possible, and America will come out on top.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?se...cal&id=6384016

BH is closing its lots here in houston too. i bought my SS from the sugarland lot.

Just imagine what a Toyota will cost you when they run all the domestic car mfg's out of business.

And what's sad is that most of the people that buy them doesn't realize that their money goes to Japan.

I very rarely go to Walmart, even though it is close by. I shop mostly at Target. And recently, my daughter just started a job there. The prices are a little higher, but it is so much more of a pleasant experience there. I hate waiting in long lines, or not being able to get any help from the employees. And almost every piece of electronics that I did buy at Walmart has been defective and had to be returned. Thus I stopped shopping there.

Yes, greed is rampant in the US. That is our culture, and it's sad. I personally don't want to be a millionaire. I just want to support my family and not have to worry about how to pay bills. But that comes down to being financially fiscal, and not buying over your head. Too many people buy houses that are way bigger than what they need, or cars that are way too fancy. Allowing certain people to buy on credit is like feeding alcohol to an alcoholic.

Since Bill Heard is mentioned in a previous post of this thread I thought I would mention an article in the business section of todays local paper.

Says that Heard filed bancruptcy for ALL of the dealerships that it ownsin the entire US. While it is trying to sell a few, the rest are on the auction block to apparently resolve SOME creditor issues.

Heard enterprises has $269 Million in past due liabilities......almost all of that is applied to the banks and companies that finance their floor plans. The rest is wages, taxes, "daily" debts.

Statement says they were losing 5-6 million a month since mid 2007. Also stated they had a problem eliminating a huge inventory of trucks, suv's...when the gas crunch occurred.

They own dealerships in several brands...Chevrolet, BMW, Chrysler to name a few.

To bad, times are getting tougher also.:(

Secondary Note......Power Automotive, the nations largest dealer network, announced it will be closing one of it's Chevrolet dealerships here in Phoenix. This particular one is located in an automotive corridor that retains a lot of sale attivity.

Although, I'm NOT an advocate of subrogating jobs and products to other countries, I'm not sure that statement is entirely true.

As an example.......visit the history of the electronics industry, camera industry, optic industry, clothing industry, small appliances of a sorts. All these products were, at one time, produced in abundance within the US. Quality started to faulter JUST BEFORE AND DURING the transition to produce overseas. As production costs decreased with the foreign product, it became MORE feasible for companies to move more and more operations to other countries. And product quality increased.......cameras, TV's, video and audio equipment, as an example.

For the "old timers" here.....remember when KODAK and Polaroid were their respective market leader...how about RCA and Zenith......Tom McCann and Florshein.

Quality essentially requires GOOD ENGINEERING and GOOD ASSEMBLY CONTROL. The product can be produced anywhere, if these 2 issues are strictly maintained.

My 2 cents (which is worth less in todays market....I may need to offer my 6 cents);)

Just saw on the news here Good Chevrolet in Alameda, The GMC dealer in Colma and Los Gatos Chevrolet all closed.

Bill Heard went belly-up and it is their own fault. These guys were constantly advertising $0 down, paying off your old car, we finance anybody.......

Bad loans caught up with 'em when credit got tight and they couldn't borrow to cover their own paper. TFB.