I am remiss in not mentioning the other family members who worked at the dealership. At the time of the closing there were my sister-in-law Dona, nephews Kit, Justin and Drew, brother-in-law Doug, Keith's uncle Chuck and my father-in-law Doug Sr. Over the years there were many family members who worked there including Keith's Aunt Muriel, my other 3 brother-in-laws Bruce, Tom and for many years Tim, All or most of Keith's cousins and assorted family members. My son, Michael worked there a few summers. During the 70's, many kids, friends of the Dalgleish's, worked there too. Believe me, I have heard some funny stories. Someday...
When writing about the dealership, I might use the word "we" or "our" but I use that word through my marriage to Keith. I never worked there. I did spend time there. Every day, Keith came home with a story. It put bread and butter on my table. For many years when asked about the dealership, I would refer to it as my husband's family's dealership. I guess after 25 years of marriage, I claim this crazy family as my own...
The media was calling daily looking for information: "Were you terminated? Do you know any one who was terminated?". They didn't give them any information. They felt they had to get a better handle on this whole deal.
A "wind down" agreement showed up at the dealership shortly after the initial termination letter. It was 6-8 pages long with a whole lotta legal mumbo jumbo stuffed into it. Call the lawyer.
Dealers were given 10 DAYS to decide whether to sign the agreement or not. Let's call them options.
1. If you signed the agreement, you gave up all rights as a GM dealer and any future claims against
GM. You also had permission to stay open until October of 2010, although you could apply for
an earlier termination.
2. If you did not sign, you would be lumped in with "old bankrupt GM" and you will not be a GM
dealer, effective immediately.
If our dealership had chosen option 2, we would have been stuck with $4-5 million worth of inventory that we had already paid for. Since we would not have been an authorized dealer, we would have been required to sell these new cars as used cars. They would not be eligible to be leased, have no rebates and would carry less warranty. It would have given other dealers an advantage and have been extremely costly to get rid of these vehicles.
New cars and parts are paid for by the dealer before they even leave the factory. GM required authorized dealers to purchase many parts and tools to have on site. Our dealership also had several hundred thousand $ worth of parts that GM was never going to be buying back.
We do not know of ONE dealership, nationwide, who chose option 2.
So really, there were no options, at least no good ones. Do you lose all your money or almost all of it? We were all screwed.
No dealers were talking in our area yet. No one wanted to let the cat out of the bag. One reason was that there were millions of $ worth of inventory to sell yet. Who was going to buy it if they thought you were done for? Would people try to take advantage?
During this 10 day period, Fritz Henderson appeared before Congress and states that there is an appeal process. We were like "what the !#%!. There was no appeal process that was presented to us... not until the day after he said this, anyway. An email came stating "If you want to appeal your decision, you can send an email to this address." It was just window dressing. Of course we appealed! An email was sent back consisting of this answer: Your appeal is denied.
Picture yourself: you're operating under extreme pressure to make correct decisions that affect a lot of people. The atmosphere is rank with fear and you are facing off with the largest corporation in the world who is backed by the United States Government.
Please, if you have any questions or comments, post here on the blog or FB if you want.
 |
| GM used this for a publication |
No comments:
Post a Comment