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Automotive News & Views Dude, where did all the dealerships go?
650 messages, Last post on Nov 08, 2009 at 5:47 PM
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In my area the Caddy dealer changed hands and moved from its location of some 35 years - I think it was leased land, now in demand for high density residential use (once the recession ends). Now they share a location with the Hummer dealer, which I think is under the same ownership. So, we have GM's best and GM's lamest in one spot. The other local dealers seem to be surviving in their locations. There are small startup highline used car dealers that seem to appear and fail every year or two. |
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Replying to: euphonium (Nov 20, 2008 9:16 am) But I think the big news is outright dealer atttrition, and certainly that is mostly what we have had in the Bay Area - dealers going away and NOT being picked up by a different dealer elsewhere. In California Big 2 market share is only like 22% between the both of them, so it makes sense that there shouldn't be 3 Chevy and 3 Ford dealers for every Toyota dealer.
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 20, 2008 1:27 pm) It has happened here, one Metro point closed in the spring. Ford and the surrounding Metro Points participated in the buy out. The closer your store was to the closing point the more you paid.
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Replying to: joel0622 (Nov 20, 2008 5:19 pm)
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 21, 2008 8:17 am) My money would be on the Chrysler dealership. He's got Chrysler and Dodge which leaves him with nothing new of interest to me. He does have a fair number of used cars but they are overwhelmingly Chrysler products as well. The other dealers in town are a Pontiac-Buick-GMC and a big "family of dealerships" that sells Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Jeep, Suzuki, Nissan and Honda. Maybe at one point he'll replace the Suzuki dealership with something else but he does seem to sell enough of the things.
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I searched for how many dealerships there are in my area. Within a 25 mile radius, there are 21 dealerships that sell Chevy. 19 that sell Ford, 18 that sell Toyota, and 16 that sell Dodge. Oh, and 8 Saturn dealers. Well, 7, as the finder included the now-closed Saturn of Bowie.
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Replying to: andre1969 (Nov 21, 2008 9:16 am)
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Replying to: fezo (Nov 21, 2008 8:36 am) andre: you sure about those numbers? That sounds awfully high. A 25-mile radius is an area of 1962 square miles, or roughly 40x50. And as a for instance, I would be VERY surprised if Toyota allowed an area that size to have more than 10-12 dealers, even if it were very densely populated. There is only one Cadillac dealership in my county, which also sells about five other brands including Hummer and Hyundai. They WERE making big plans last year for a major expansion of teh Hyundai portion, but those seem to have fizzled out. They are still selling the Hyundais out of a shack on wheels out past the end of the lot for the other brands. it's no wonder they don't sell very many - Hyundai is obviously the redheaded stepchild over there! In the next county over, all of the Buick and GMC dealers have gone in the last 2 years, although one of those dealers continues to sell Cadillac and Mazda and appears to have very recently picked up Pontiac. How about THAT for a mix? Pontiac-Mazda-Cadillac. I think I would rather see bailout money for these dealerships than for the automakers: half of these dealerships are small family businesses and all of them provide other services that they could continue in order to be viable (especially service and repair including manufacturer warranty work). These are local businesses that impact my friends and neighbors and are being strained through no fault of their own. |
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 21, 2008 9:42 am) Just for the heck of it I checked and there are two Ford dealers within 25 miles of me. If you expand it to 28 miles you get three more including one that's just Lincoln Mercury.
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Replying to: nippononly (Nov 21, 2008 9:42 am) Well, that's what the internet said, and it wouldn't lie, would it?  One thing though, the way these mapping things work, it's 25 miles as the crow flies. For instance, it plotted the dealership I bought my Intrepid from at around 12 miles away. It's more like 16-17. So I'd say that some of these places that the mapping features thought were only 25 miles could really be more like 30 or even 35 to drive them. Still, a 25 mile radius from my zipcode, 20769, basically encompasses my whole county. Also everything within the Washington DC Beltway, which includes parts of Virginia. About half of Baltimore also fell into that swoop. Going into southern Maryland, it just swallows up Waldorf, which I think is the biggest town down there. And going east, it just reaches across the Chesapeake Bay. So I'd imagine there's about 2 million residents, if not more, within the boundaries of that radius. Also, some of them are paired up. For instance, the dealer I bought my Intrepid from also sells Chevies. Interestingly, just a few years ago, a disproportionate amount of their business was Dodge. So now with Chrysler's fallout, I wonder how they're faring? |
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