Posted on 06/24/2008 8:16:02 AM PDT by tobyhill
DETROIT -- General Motors Corp. told dealers Monday it plans to raise prices on 2009 models by an average of 3.5% despite a tough market that is forcing the automaker to cut production and discount its 2008 models.
Company officials said in conference calls to dealers that the increases will allow GM to recover only part of the rising cost of steel and other commodities and the cost of safety and other features on the new models. The increases will amount to about $1,000 per vehicle.
GM already had increased the prices of its 2008 model year vehicles twice because of rising commodity costs, spokesman John McDonald said. The move comes a little more than a week after Chrysler LLC announced a 2 percent increase in the price of its remaining 2008 vehicles.
GM also said Monday it will run a sale June 24-30 to help clear out high inventories of 2008 pickups, sport utility vehicles and larger cars. The sale includes zero percent financing for up to 72 months.
U.S. auto sales were down 8 percent through May due to the weak economy, low consumer confidence and high gas prices, but sales of trucks and SUVs have fallen even more sharply. Sales of the Chevrolet Silverado large pickup were down 26 percent through May, while sales of the Chevrolet Tahoe large SUV fell 30 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
LOL people still buy this crap?
Sales are down so what do you do? Raise prices! That’s the ticket!
That last vehicle that GM makes is going to cost a fortune!
GM has never been accused of being too smart.
The GM is going in the way of AMC.
Damn! Who’s running the auto industry? The newspaper industry?........
Gane set and match goes to automakes like Toyota, Nissan, Honda.
No kidding. They need to pare down their model offerings. I mean, they STILL sell (or try to sell) corporate twin cars - Cobalt/G5, Impala/Bonneville,for example.
All quality surveys and scientific measurements indicate that GM is making a quality car and that the gap with the Japanese is mostly perception, but most of their “profit” is still going to payouts and legacy expenses.
I’d buy a GM car any day if the price were right.
They must be Demokratz. Revenues are down, so raising the prices/taxes is the only alternative they can think of.........
They should drop Pontiac altogether.
Same frame, same engine, but tons of added plastic trimming (and red lighting).
The Chevy line is pretty attractive, now that the Cavalier is finally gone in favor of the Cobalt.
Their initial quality is pretty close to the Japanese... but their long term quality, especially on UAW-built models, is still bad and their customer service is just awful.
Also, JD Powers is suspect as a rating/survey system since they stopped allowing peer review of the data a number of years back.
...I guess the part about the $1000.00 price increase was purposely left out to guilt trip Americans into hugging more trees.
I’d buy another GM vehicle if they could shed themselves of the UAW. Only way I see that as possible is bankruptcy & reorganizations.
Actually, they *should* kill Pontiac, but they need to transition two models over to another brand - the G8 and the Solstice.
The upcoming GTO could be rebadged as a Chevelle.
Or alternately, rebadge the G8 as the Buick Park Avenue (which they already do in China) and rebadge the GTO/Monaro as the Buick Regal - which is what it *really* should have been.
Or keep the Pontiac badge just for specialty models, like the GTO.
What is the new platform for the revised GTO?
Another Holden or something American?
I have never had a problem with my Pontiac but when I went to look for another vehicle I saw that the foreign vehicles had better warranties, more features and lower prices.
It’s a Holden again, the next-gen Monaro. Same thing with the G8, it’s a Holden.
We don’t have any good RWD sedan engineers left at GM USA, save for the Cadillac guys. The new CTS is *amazing*.
GM intends to protect the Chevrolet brand and the Cadillac brand. Everything else can go.
I’ve been pinning my hopes on the Chevy Volt for my 40 mile a day commute but they keep moving the production date back and the price up. They were talking 30k when they announced it but now they are looking at 50k. 50k will buy a whole lot of $5.00 gas for my ‘94 S10.
And should. There is NOTHING in Buick’s US lineup right now that’s worth saving, for example.
The CTS is FANTASTIC.
But, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why anybody would pay $100K for a Corvette with an ugly Cadillac body. The XLR is just atrocious.
Have you driven the XLR?
It’s a Corvette with a *real* interior, not something lifted from the Impala. Though at least this year you can get *real* leather in the Corvette with an interior materials upgrade option. I rather like it.
Bonneville? They stopped producing the Bonneville in 05.
...And as you so astutely point out in the title of the thread, the US Automakers and the Greens are doing everything they can to destroy this industry. It's even scarier to hear people like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh touting Green friendly products.
Don't get me wrong; it's not that I have anything against keeping our air and land clean, but the Greens don't employ any common sense measures to do so.
Hate to tell you this, but this past month we’ve picked up crated machinery to be shipped BACK to Japan at Toyota (KY) and Honda (OH).
(Cap and trade, carbon tax, anyone? Buehler? Buehler? Buehler?)
I meant to say the Unions.
A lot of GM woes can be traced to their bad union contracts, mostly involving health care. Take a look at the demographic coming out of a GM plant at closing time. Ask yourself: Would I want to underwrite the health care for this bunch?
That’s before you add in the “retirees,” who outnumber the workers supporting them by about 3 to 1.
The Solstice is the same as the Saturn Sky. The Sky was actually in development first, although the Solstice hit the market first.
Okay, so I missed the demise of an utterly forgettable automobile. Blah.
Then I retract that pairing and use another - Tahoe/Yukon.
It’s not so much Greens and Unions as it is just plain old crappy design. Since 1991 I have gone out looking to buy an American car every time me or a family member needed a new one. I wanted to buy an American car. What I have wound up with are Honda, Mercedes, Subaru and Audi. I may try one of those Chrysler 300 but if experience holds true I’ll buy a foreign car. I buy big sturdy cars for cash and keep them, on average, 9 to 11 years and put 150,000-200,000 miles on them and most American cars are not designed for that type of service.
They’re not *quite* the same, the Solstice is cheaper and starts off stripped. The Sky is better equipped and has a much much better interior - but it costs more, too. They also don’t drive quite the same.
The Solstice would fit right in to the Chevy lineup below the Vette.
Now you're just being picky. ;o)
Just like the tv commercial...we can’t improve the product but we can increase the price.
Not really, the Sky may share platforms, but the car is actually quite different. It’s like the Corvette/XLR pairing - not twins at all.
Not quite. The Hyundai has the 10/100 warranty, GM’s is still 5/100.
I can do 100K in 5 years, but I drive a lot. Most people can’t. The interesting thing is that GM matched the *mileage* but not the *time* of the Hyundai warranty - which tells me that they don’t want to pay the repair costs when their vehicles start falling apart in 5 years and 1 day.
Gotta srop them Chinese and Indians from wanting/driving cars like us!!! ( See article in FT and WSJ saying Chinese have agreed to pay a 96% increase for iron ore etc etc from Evil Mining Companies!!)
Every liberal I have ever known drives Jap or Kraut cars, while I drive American. liberals want to save the unions, but they fail to put their money where their mouth is.
You’re right and never looked at it that way. I don’t put 100,000 miles in 5 years, maybe 8 years, so that would be a factor that should be looked at.
I thought the new GTO was going to the new Camaro with a front clip change? Since the Firebird/Trans Am was said to be a no.
Every year the costs of cars keep rising and with the number of boomers retiring increasing, I don't see a very optimistic future for increasing sales in the auto industry like they have thru the 90's and 2000's. I think the only thing that saved the auto companies was the invention of the leased car agreements but ultimately thats flooded the used car market.....
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