Ford owners aren’t the only ones who need to go pay a visit to their local dealerships. General Motors has a fix for one of their smaller cars. There are many reasons why cars are recalled by their manufacturers. Whether it’s a faulty engine or gearbox problems, auto makers are being extra careful these days with the fear of losing its customer base over the most minor of infractions.
Having said that, it comes as no surprise to us anymore that about 44,451 Saturn Vue models are being sent back to production plants because of…wait for it…sticky door handles.
We’re right in the middle of summer and it seems that everybody’s just about ready to put on their sun blocks and head out for a vacation. But before doing so, you might one want to hear about this interesting new promotion by General Motors:
The 72-Hour Sale.
While this sale doesn’t exactly translate into GM cars being offered at slashed prices at discount bins, it does allow prospective – and well-qualified - buyers to be offered a low-rate financing of 0 percent for up to 72 months on a number of 2009 and 2010 cars, including the Chevrolet Silverado, the GMC Sierra, GMC Yukon XL SUVs, the Chevrolet Impala, and a slew of Pontiac models including the Vibe, the G3, the G5, the G6, and the G8. Other GM models also have their own reduced rates of financing of 0 percent for up to 60 months – also for well-qualified buyers. For more information on this once-in-a-lifetime program, including a full list of current offers, conditions, and eligible vehicles, prospective buyers can log on to http://www.gm.com/shop/currentoffers/
After having endured so much in the past months, it was about time that General Motors caught a break.
And it seems fitting that the Camaro - one of GM’s most popular brands under Chevrolet – would be the one to break them out of their doldrums.
Despite the state of the economy these days, car buyers are still ordering the Camaro in droves so much so that GM is apparently having trouble meeting the skyrocketing demand for the American car icon. It’s a welcome breath of fresh air for General Motors after having to endure a year that has seen them teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
The demand for the 2010 Camaro has also given its dealers reason to smile considering that orders are continuously being punched like lotto tickets despite selling the cars for $500 to $2,500 above its SRP (standard retail price)
Just when Toyota opened its doors to a new partner in Aston Martin, it closed another door on a 25-year partnership with General Motors.
With news circulating that the Japanese auto giant and Aston Martin have forged a partnership together to produce Toyota’s iQ car in the UK under the Aston Martin brand, it came as a surprise to a lot of people when General Motors announced that it would discontinue its relationship and forego its ownership stake in the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) partnership the Detroit-based automaker created with Toyota 25 years ago.
GM’s announcement came on the heels of its decision to completely drop the Pontiac brand from its roster of cars – a decision that has virtually made the Nummi plant in Fremont California, where the Pontiac Vibe was being produced, meaningless to GM.
It’s beginning to look like Hummer is not moving to China after all.
Weeks after it was reported that General Motors was on its way to selling the beleaguered car franchise to investors from the East, strong objections towards the impending sale may have killed all the talks between GM and the Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Corp.
China’s planning agency was apparently behind the blocking of the sale, saying that purchasing the Hummer would go against China’s new energy-saving policies.
In addition to that, China’s National Development and Reform Commission also noted that while the Hummer remains one of the most popular SUV brands in the world, selling it off to a buyer that has neither the expertise nor experience to produce the Hummer would only hurt the franchise’s credibility in the long run.
You may recall the surprising news a while back that General Motors found a suitor for the Hummer from China, which caught a lot of people by surprise. And now, it may not come to fruition, after all.
We haven’t heard any response from General Motors yet, but with the strict laws in China regarding foreign purchases – they require regulatory approvals, by the way – it’s becoming more and more likely that GM should open the possibility of having to look for a different buyer for the Hummer franchise because as it stands, the Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Corp may have been pulled out of purchasing the Hummer by its own government.
This is a television ad from the Ad Hoc Committee of Consumer Victims of GM and Chrysler urging the President and Members of Congress to make sure consumers are still protected from defective Chrysler and GM vehicles. Those are some pretty harsh words being spoken to the American automakers. It’s enough to make you think twice.
The whirlwind of activity surrounding General Motors these days appears to be far from over. The latest piece of news we’ve heard is that GM is discontinuing the Pontiac Vibe, two weeks after it said that it had plans of continuing the car through next year.
It wasn’t that long ago when GM said that of all the Pontiac cars earmarked for 2010 releases, only the Vibe and the G6 would be rolled out with the G6 specifically earmarked only to fleet customers.
Now, it appears that the Vibe won’t even make to September as GM has just confirmed that production of the Vibe will finish this August, with poor sales – down 35% through May – being largely attributed as the culprit regarding the Vibe’s untimely demise.
In times like this, any form of good news is reason enough for auto manufacturers to jump for joy. So when word came out that J.D. Power and Associates, a marketing and consulting company, released their annual study of vehicle quality and gave flowering remarks to Ford, GM, and Chrysler, you could imagine that these three manufacturers pumping their fists in excitement.
With word coming out from the consulting company that the three automakers have made marked improvements on the quality of their vehicles compared to last year, a collective sigh of relief could be heard coming from Detroit.
Yet despite this vote of confidence, the study also revealed that the three local brands have a lot more work to do before it can catch up to its foreign competitors.
Despite having been bailed out by the government from bankruptcy, the car manufacturer is still looking for ways to become a more efficient company and one of the ways it plans on being one is by eliminating 4,000 jobs by October 1.
After coming so close being shut down, GM is looking at laying off all these employees as a way to cut costs while they try to recover from the worst economic beatdown the company has experienced in its history.
According to GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson, the company has already addressed its employees of the pending lay-off and is looking for volunteers to give up their jobs – with a promise that they will be offered retirement and buyout incentives. In the event that GM doesn’t get enough volunteers by August, the company will be forced to make involuntary lay-offs, as to which, Wilkinson said is a ‘last case scenario’.
“GM is offering enhanced benefits to employees who volunteer to retire,” Wilkinson said. “Those not eligible to retire who volunteer to leave will get as much as six months’ severance, or as much as a year for executives.” he added.
Finally, the truth comes out. When dissecting the U.S. Government’s decision to bail out both General Motors and Chrysler from the mountain of debt they have incurred throughout the years, it’s easy to point out that Uncle Sam could’ve had ulterior motives in doing this. Perhaps a national stake in ownership of the future automotive conglomerates is what they are looking for?
Yet, when you look at the big picture – we mean the really big picture – you’ll understand that there was a lot more to the deal than meets the eye. Ford Motor Company Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. nailed the bull right between the eyes when he said that it wouldn’t just be GM and the pentastar that would suffer if the government hadn’t decided to step up and rescue them. According to Ford the second, the entire automobile industry would’ve taken a very, very serious hit. “It would have been so catastrophic to have a supply-base meltdown because it would have brought down all the auto manufacturers and frankly some other industries as well," Ford Jr. told CNBC TV.
“The United States would’ve been in a lot of trouble if Chrysler and GM were left for dead.”
In so many words, Ford even went as far as saying that the entire U.S. economy would have plummeted if Chrysler and the General went under. If the government hadn’t taken the steps it did, then the bankruptcies would’ve caused a complicated – and maybe cataclysmic – chain of events that would lead to other industries filing their own Chapter 11s, the most affected industries being those with vested interests in the auto industry, including those who supply both GM and Chrysler with the parts they need to build their lineup of cars. It’s a simple case of supply and demand. When there’s absolutely no demand for these parts, why even bother generating any supplies.
It’s easy for all the skeptics to point out that the US government only made the move bailout the automakers for their own self-serving interests; but Henry Ford Jr couldn’t have made the truth clearer when he said, “The United States would’ve been in a lot of trouble if Chrysler and GM were left for dead.”
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