Tomas

http://consumerist.com/5173710/where...om-dealerships

This has also been happening at various GM dealerships nationwide, but I have not yet heard of it happening at Toyota/Scion dealerships.

Let the rest of us know if you see this happening in your area, ESPECIALLY at any Toyota/Scion shops...

Bad times are here, worst times are coming. It's ugly out there.

rallying_the_scion

this happened to a mitsu dealer in town....toyota is doing decent here

tCb00b

iTrader: (1)

Lies all of it. Enjoy freedom while it last! Don't believe anything they tell you!
Anyway, weird. I wonder where they are going.

Metro273

This happened to an Infiniti dealership, I used to work for...

A friend told me that this dealership got their new and used cars seized by the banks. They couldn't pay their bills. Oh well, good thing I went to Nissan...

draxcaliber

this to me makes no sense...dealerships have cars they can't pay for because they can't sell enough of them...so the manufacturers who depend on the dealerships to sell them come and take them away...what are they going to do with them? sell them to an auction company? the manufacturers can't sell them to anybody...on their own can they? maybe just move them to a dealership that is having better sales...

richmond2000

I know in australia there is / was an issue with GMAC / genworth that these banks owned the cars NOT the manufacturer and the banks are taking the cars / not buying them

cobb

My toy dealer is booming service wise, but no sales. I had 3 sales people attack me they went new then used cars, why I needed both. I explained I had an 09 xb in the shop and a 97 tacoma at home, they left.

I use to work for a company that handled aichi trucks. They had a buy back agrement, if we could not sell the trucks, they would buy em back, so all we had to do was put em on the lot and demo them. We sold them without the buy back.

Orataro

A Nissan dealership near my home disappeared within a week. Not really sure of the reason but they were there one week and gone the next. Dealership in question was located in Mission Hills, CA.

BlackberryPie

Banks own the cars in most cases. Dealerships have what is called a "floor plan" in that, when new cars are scheduled for delivery to the dealer, the paperwork also goes to the bank which has the floor plan for the dealer.

The bank pays GMC, Ford, etc.

While the unsold cars sit on the dealers lot, he pays interest only to the bank on the outstanding notes. When the car is sold, the dealer pays-off the note.

Banks regularly send reps to the dealership to check inventory; it's not unknown for a dealer to sell a car and not immediately pay for it. Bad idea; it's a good way to get your floor plan pulled.

Obviously, these dealers cannot even pay the interest on their notes.

They've been repossessed by the banks.

And they can be sold.

I used to be the F&I at a Lincoln/Mercury dealership. My husband was with one of the financiers who held our floor plan. An advantage, too, of holding the floor plan is that the dealership will finance their loans through the same bank.

bc

move them to other dealerships is the answer. This isn't something new, back during the 70's oil embargo it was a lot worse. The dealerships that are closing shop were on the verge if doing that anyways. In many cases another dealer has purchased the franchise but is moving the inventory to their current location to keep costs down, specially if the dealerhip losing the vehicles is renting their property. For example, Criswell purchased the local Nissan dealerhsip in Gaithersburg, MD and is moving the vehicles to their Germantown location. We even purchased a number of Sienna's from a Toyota dealership in WV that is struggling to boost our inventory. Hopefully the WV dealership survives this.

JDMJim

the cars seized around here went to the auction blocks

shorberg

No worries Tomas. We're doing fine here in SPFD MO

GQQSE13

alot of the used car dealerships are completely bare now, the dealerships i'm not sure about i just know they've canceld their big 'tent event' sale for this year.... toyota/scion dealership is selling quite a bit lately still (toyotas )

draxcaliber

well news channels have been saying that more people are 1. fixing up their old cars instead of buying new cars. and then that the sales of used luxury cars is higher than before. and then new cars are being priced to be less than used cars of the same make and model....

JDMJim

now the news story is it's better to buy a new ar than a used car. I wonder who was behind that story? GM maybe?

BlackberryPie

If the dealers are cutting their profit low enough to compete with used cars, it IS a better deal to buy new. If nothing else, look at the freebies (warranty, rebates, free maintenance, lifetime tires, and more). Less instant drive-off-the-lot depreciation too.