GM Aggressively Attempts To Liquidate Saturn and Pontiac Inventory
General Motors Co. needs to move large inventories of discontinued Saturn and Pontiac vehicles and plans to offer dealers large incentives to do so, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The move to liquidate these products could inflate the company's December sales and offer a cost cut of up to 46 percent off of the sticker price for buyers.
In what is being billed as a year-end fire sale, GM has informed dealers that it will pay the $7,000 for every new Pontiac or Saturn that is moved to rental or service fleets that are operated by the dealers. This will allow the vehicles to be sold at a more attractive price as a used automobile as technically the dealership would be the first owner.
The offer expires on the final day of GM's December sales month, January 4, and the company will book the sales as fleet deliveries.
Under the government backed stimulus program, GM has removed Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer and Saab brands from its lineup of brand, while focusing on the company designated core brands, Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC.
This move will speed up the restructuring process of GM, but will increase the cost of deleting the two brands. The cost of this move has not yet been disclosed publicly.
GM has an estimated two to three months of inventory of Pontiac and Saturn vehicles on the lots totaling 14,500 new automobiles according to Ward's Auto Reports.
Another car-data service, Edmunds estimates that the incentives will allow the company to sell 10,300 cars to reduce inventory to 4,200.
"Our goal is to provide these dealers with another tool to help them reduce their inventories of noncore brands," GM spokesman Tom Henderson said.
Customers will have to settle for what is available and will take the risk of buying a car that will no longer be in production.
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