Posted on 05/14/2009 1:18:46 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
HOUSTON -- Chrysler is revoking their franchise with six Houston-area car dealerships.
The dealerships include Rogers Dodge of Alvin, Baytown Chrysler Jeep Dodge, Archer Dodge in Stafford, Archer Chrysler-Plymouth in Houston, Archer Chrysler Jeep West in Houston and Jim Archer Chrysler-Jeep in Houston.
Chrysler made the announcement as part of its bankruptcy court filing Thursday morning.
The franchises will be revoked by early June, the company said.
Through his secretary, dealership owner Robert Archer told 11 News he would have no comment today.
(Excerpt) Read more at khou.com ...
He said Chrysler was making plenty of money off him. They even charge him $1000/month lease for the Chrysler signs for his franchise, and $3.50 each for pamphlets.
Claimed he's being forced to close in June, and they won't take his car or his $300,000 parts inventory back, either.
He also said he was told it was Fiat who made the closure decisions. Of course, this was a caller to a radio show, but it's insane, if it's true.
Wow !!
Just wait until until these tyrants get their grubby paws on America's health care system. Are you a registered Republican, outspoken conservative? Imagine your local Federal Government Obama cultist overseeing your medical treatment.
No it is not listening to the customer wanting a better fuel efficient car! Let alone maintence at the big three dealerships. Do some research you will see Toyota, Honda, Nissan have been gradually out saleing the big three for many years. Look at the low maint. cost on Japanese enginered. Look at how closely the japanese enginered vehicles, to german engineering vehicles. I am talking about the entire vehicle. Look how dodge put Mercedes Benz diesel engines into there vans. Dodge cannot build that quality type of engine, why, they did want to change there business mindset! Did not listen to american customers!
That's what bankruptcy courts are for.
Its called culling the herd. The manufacturers know that their share of the market is likely to never come back to the goodd old days so they must close some dealerships to allow the more preferable ones - usually the better locations to survive.
Dealerships really make very little money on new cars so they must have a good volume of new cars, a good used car operation, and a good parts and service business to be profitable.
They are going to close a dealership not too far from Fort Knox, even though the base is about to receive an influx of around six thousand new personnel.
So why did they close the biggest volumne dealership in Denver and let the smaller ones stay?
The dealers were chosen by some method other than a business based method.
Good question. Most states had franchise laws that were very pro dealer. Then, in the mid 1990s the manufactures started taking on the state franchise laws state by state to get them overturned.
Even though state franchise laws applied to most all types of franchises, the battleground was automobiles franchises. Always the first thing the manufacturers would do was to try to get into Fed court ASAP. Even the states were in on the game because I saw many times were the Fed Courts would revert back to the states to clarify the law and the states would ignore or not respond to assist the dealers.
In every case I became aware of the Fed Courts were doing everything they could, usually through technicalities, to prevent the substantive rights of the dealers under state franchise laws from prevailing.
I could not understand why until I came across a 4000 word article in the June 1999 National Law Review - I still have a copy somewhere - that outlined how the Fed Courts were pro-actively doing everything they could to overturn or nullify the state franchise laws.
I know it sounds paranoid, but back then I thought the Fed Courts under direction to make it easier for the Manufacturers to move quickly and compete more efficiently in a one-world economy at the expense of the dealers because they would no longer have to spend five to ten years in court and pay out the ass to compensate the individual franchises.
Perhaps, instead, it was part of a long-term plan for the Fed Gov to more easily nationalize the industry. Most of the dealers who are about to lose their franchises now will likely get very little compensation. I understand that they are not even going to be required to buy back the dealers new inventory ... a major hit to some dealers as they will be forced to sell them off at huge discounts ... loses. The selected dealers are going to get screwed BIG TIME.
I sure hopr the closings of these dealerships is not related to who a person votes for or what race they are.
Nothing would surprise me anymore.
But the dealerships are privately owned businesses. If they can survive the competition, that should only help the carmaker. It should be survival of the fittest.
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