GM obviously targetted those of us the have mucho respect for the M3 but think it costs way too much for what you get.
Dealers will also recognize that this car looks and performs like a BMW M3. They will price it accordingly.
So I am predicting near M3 prices for the first 6 months.

 

More importantly;
Will GM get control of these problems before the Camaro hits the dealerships??...first impressions could make or break it, could welcome customers in by droves or send them packing to the competition.
I'd hate to have to search the NET and drive to BFE to get a fair deal.

 

As of now GM can't stop a dealer for charging what they want.
I haven't heard of GM trying to fix this problem either.

But you are right about one thing. In a matter of days we will all be looking at the first spy shots of Challenger mules, and we will all be drooling like the first time we saw the Camaro. So GM needs to get creative and solve this dealer problem.

 

There's nothing there, to "get"... since there is no such thing as 'artificial demand' It simply doesn't work in an efficient market (that is, one where the true value of an item is quickly and easily known), to try and force a ridiculous price on people. They simply go somewhere else to buy! Honestly, I don't know how to make this any more simpler for you. IF on the other hand, it's found that the true market price is well above MSRP (as has been documented in the case of the Ford GT), then that is what they will sell for to the vast majority of buyers. Don't like it? Then DON'T BUY ONE... or just wait till the gotta-have-it fever of the early buyers cools off. But there isn't much chance of a carmaker forcing independent dealers to sell at MSRP, if a car is above that in the free market (hence, Ford's move to increase the GT's MSRP)

Gads, what's the point in trying to convince you? Only possible scenario... huh? Hey it's fine with me, if you can't admit the examples I gave have refuted your claim. Yet the evidence is here for all to see.

And as usual - the tendency to beat on Pontiac's wonderful GTO emerges . The GTO (especially its LS2 variant) has been an incredible value in performance coupes, even if sold at or above its sticker. World-class quality... big back seat... modern ergonomics... 400 HP/TQ. Say what you want... but the car was easily worth its price. If some of the less stellar dealers overpriced it, well I'm sure they seldom came out on the top in the end after waiting months to move the metal. Nonetheless, it's still their right to set their price.

This is an apples-oranges comparison and is flawed from the start. Those shopping for a performance car like the G8 are simply NOT going to 'go away' and buy some plain-jane wimpmobile, since they are in the market for performance to begin with. Instead - they will compare the G8 with its performance sedan competitors like the Hemi Charger. Just my opinion, but I believe the G8 stacks up pretty darn well against that. So maybe it does deserve a premium over the Charger and its ilk, in the free marketplace? If it does and dealers demand it, don't come here whining about it (somehow I get the feeling you still will).

Baloney. Pontiac doesn't need to 'take over the world'. It just needs to make a profit in its niche, and I'd bet the GTO for example, was nicely profitable for GM. PROFIT is more important than revenue.

Well look at that... sexism! You should meet my sister then. A diehard NASCAR fan, she's familiar with Pontiac and Chevy racing history. And maybe you haven't heard of Milka Duno



(She's the one with the long hair )

Clearly you need more remedial training:

http://www.milkaduno.com/news/070128.htm

 

Not to butt in on what seems to be a wonderful internet argument, but I think you're missing the concept here a little bit. Of course if the price is too high people won't buy them. I don't think anyone here is seriously worrying about paying too much for the car because they....won't. The point is that nobody will, hence the car will not sell, hence another terrific car will bite the dust because the dealers don't understand basic enconomics. They hike the prices before seeing what the demand for the product is. That would be like hiking the prices of snow shovels in the month of June in anticipation of a possible snowstorm in February.

 

How many here seriously think the majority of Pontiac dealers were too inept to price the GTO right? They sold very well in Cali. They sold fine in Detroit (from my own observation, all at or even below sticker here). In between here and there, there was a smattering of the overpricing issue (from the paltry anecdotal evidence I've seen on the web) in a selection of dealers, mostly in small towns from what I've read, where it is more difficult for buyers to find a competing Pontiac dealer nearby (Moral of that story: if you live in a small town, lots of things will be costly for you unless you are willing to go some distance to get to a competitor). I simply do not believe, that 'big prices' were scaring away GTO buyers at multitudes of dealers. Hogwash.

 

I can tell you that in the Chicago area, where there are literally dozens of Pontiac dealers within driving distance of each other, the dealers COMPLETELY screwed the pooch on the GTO - mainly during the first 3/4 of 2004. They acted as if they had the last one of one, numbers matching, 1969 Trans Am convertible. Markups of several thousand dollars over MSRP were common. Test drives were not allowed. And dealer arrogance was unbearable. You really, really, needed to completely lust for a GTO during this period, to put up with their crap. Unfortunately for the dealers, they miscalculated on the level of lust, and overshot their crap level.

 

Yeah, it seemed like at some point 3/4 through year 1 they went from $5000 markup to $3000 rebate in less than a month.

 

Citgo is communist.

 

In South Florida the dealers all agreed to price the car $10,000 above sticker. I know because a salesman told us so, and every dealer in fact had this market adjustment.

We bought one the next year for $26,000. Sold it two years later for about $16,000.

 

Later in the same post.

Ok, now which is it? Because first you said that you CANNOT force a price on people and they will buy elsewhere. Then you said you can and they will? Now apparently you're attempting to make a distinction between the performance car buyer and the average buyer, but we were talking about performance car, even if a specific one the whole time... If anything you've got less of a chance of forcing a price on an enthusiast because they're educated on the subject regardless of how hot a car may or may not be.

I get the feeling we've danced this waltz before... Everything you have said is true, and I challenge you to find where I posted anything to the contrary.

Of course the IF, its found that sticker price, is well above market price, people will take your advice, and not buy it. If enough people do that, there will be problems. Thats all Im saying, I, personally, never suggested GM could or should do anything about dealer prices because I know they cant.

Ok, this is a failure of reading comprehension. Lets review.

I posted that you are claiming your point negates mine, and then stated that while true, your point does not negate mine because each are possible outcomes for any given car.

In your respose, somehow claim that when I said, "only possible outcome" I was talking about my example, which I was not, as evidenced by the fact I used the word, "you".

Review over. Pop quiz...

If you sell your oranges at $50 each... How much do my apples sell for? The answer? Who the hell knows. Because how much your oranges sell for has nothing to do with my apples, which have similiarities to your oranges, in that they are both fruits... But are in no way they same product or even scenario.

Any car, or product for that matter, can potentially do any one of these three things... Sell at MSRP, sell above MSRP, or sell below MSRP.

However the fact that Cavaliers sell below MSRP in no way proves Corollas or Civics will. Likewise Corvettes selling above MSRP in no way "negates" the fact that Camaros didnt.

Never said anything to the contrary.

Ok, and what about if the market doesen't demand it and dealers do? Can I whine about it then?

You're arguing 2 or whatever small percentage you can come up with is even relevant compared to the roughly 150,000,000 women in the country.

Clearly you need this.

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html...sin=0738920762

 

Nope. To most readers, I believe it would be clear, I was saying - PERFORMANCE car buyers unsatisfied with a high price on one PERFORMANCE car at a given dealer would go to another dealer to buy a PERFORMANCE car. It would not turn them into a buyer of a 4-cyl Accord. Will it drive them to buy a Hemi Charger instead? Possibly - but again only if price is more important to that buyer than having the new G8 at its natural market price for a new and unique product. The G8 might hit the market with a true street price above the Charger (who knows?)... but it will be a natural market force at work if it does.
It's not my 'advice', it's my observation - which in its full context (left out by you) said the vast majority of buyers will buy the car at whatever the true street price is. The uninformed minority who overprice their inventory aren't going to have any real effect on the success of the model.
Maybe so. The question is - by whom? I'm done here - I've made the points I intended to make. It's been fun

 

I Gotta disagree with ya on this one bro. Pontiac dealers as a whole scared away a massive number of buyers with their markups and stunning arrogance on selling the GTO. Off the record & away from microphones, most all GM people familiar with the subject will tell you the same thing. You'd think the dealers were selling the cure for cancer.

My personal experience in looking into and at the time buying a GTO seems to have been repeated outside of California. There's plenty of people here who posted their experiences at the time.

But the final and most damming evidence on how Pontiac dealers screwed up GTO is simply looking at the monthly sales figures of the GTO and correspond those numbers to the specials or incentives GM added.


In August 2004, the GTO sold 967 cars, it's best month up to that point. This was the tail end of dealer scalping, the car had been on the market for 7 months already, and the general consensus was that like me, most potential GTO buyers said screw Pontiac, and moved on.

In September 2004, GM started a red tag sale that as I remember, essentially forced dealers to sell at a particular price in order to get a part of the incentives they were offering to the public.

GM averaged a 20% sales increase that month.

GTO saw a 177% increase.

The only way to explain a jump from 967 cars to 2678 is that pressure from dealers who wanted a cut of the incentives & priced their cars accordingly forced other dealers to price their cars in line with what GM was advertising. (Jason can chime in here on this since he was actually a Pontiac dealer.... one of the far more honest ones!).

July was 897, June was 598, 638 in May, 650 in April, March 719, February 606, & 476 in January.

The numbers pretty clearly show a pent up demand for the GTO. The only thing that changed in September was that dealers were brought largely under control, and the sales increase was off the charts.


FWIW: October sales were 1258, November's: 1130, and Decembers: 2952. After the deluge of pent up buyers, GTO sales settled to average around 1100 per month.

 

They don't want this car, well all the ones I know in MA don't. When my father got the email of photos and specs from our area rep he and the rest of managers cringed. The first reaction was "great, another car from australia that will get stuck on the boats for months and then sit on the lot for ages". This is comming from a dealership that didn't sell goats for over sticker unless they had roadblock or some aftermarket product on them. A lot of the other dealers i know in the area are preparing for GTO part II

 

Sorry, I don't believe this story for a minute.

Dealers order their cars, and can buy whatever they want for their lots. If they don't want G8s, they simply don't order them. If they only think they'll sell a couple, they order a couple. If they want to trade their allocation to another dealer for something else, they can. They can also simply forfeit their allocation completely, leaving more for dealers in other areas that have no problem selling them.

Unlike what Chrysler was doing, GM is one of the better automakers regarding giving dealers a free hand (which as GTO showed, isn't always a good thing). A dealership pays intrest for any vehicle on it's lot, and they are going with cars they either can move or make a serious markup on. The last GTO fell into the latter...... and backfired on alot of them.