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Old 08-18-2010, 09:21 AM   #1
XDCX
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Default Plainview Dodge to close on 08/31/10

News reports indicate that Plainview Dodge will close their dealership at the end of this month. For the full report - click here

While I'm not familiar with the market the dealership's website shows they're a full-line Chrysler dealership that carries 269 new vehicles and 335 used vehicles. The news report indicates they're part of a dealer group that has other Chrysler franchises.

Here's an excerpt from the story that caught my attention - Kevan D. Wilson, chief operating officer of Plainview Dodge's parent company, AutoInc, made the announcement via a news release late this afternoon.
He said that as part of Chrysler's ongoing consolidation and restructuring produce, the local dealership has agreed to surrender its franchise agreements and close the Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram Truck franchise point in Plainview, effective Aug. 31.
"We have come to the end of a long process with Chrysler," Wilson said. "We regret that this is the outcome."

Is Chrysler still trying to reduce the number of dealerships as part of Project Genesis or is there more to this story than what was reported in the newspaper?
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Old 08-18-2010, 10:36 AM   #2
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Looking at the Google maps picture of the store it appears they have less than 50 total vehicles at the location (before closure). I am guessing that the numbers you refer to also include the Lubbock and Amarillo AutoInc location. It would be impossible to service a lot holding over 600 vehicles with the 8 employees reported in the story.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=plainv...N&hl=en&tab=wl

Last edited by Txflyer; 08-18-2010 at 10:41 AM. Reason: added Google Maps link
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Old 08-18-2010, 11:46 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Txflyer View Post
Looking at the Google maps picture of the store it appears they have less than 50 total vehicles at the location (before closure). I am guessing that the numbers you refer to also include the Lubbock and Amarillo AutoInc location. It would be impossible to service a lot holding over 600 vehicles with the 8 employees reported in the story.
Good catch - thanks for the detective work.

I'm still baffled why the COO states his company had to surrender their franchises and they regret the outcome. In fairness to Chrysler, it's possible the dealer group decided to close the store on their own but crafted their press release to infer they were forced to close down.
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Old 08-18-2010, 01:24 PM   #4
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I was through there several times this summer going to and from Colorado...the Chevy store there closed down early in the year, there is still a GMC/Buick store operating and a Ford store. the DCJ store in Slaton (south side of Lubbock) has appeared to be in the process of closing since last summer, but still has about 10 new trucks on the ground and looks like no used inventory. Is this the Lubbock store you're referring to Txflyer?
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Old 08-18-2010, 01:48 PM   #5
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Is this the Lubbock store you're referring to Txflyer?
No, I was referring to Frontier Dodge and Sprit Chrysler. The story in the link says that AutoInc owns them also.
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Old 08-18-2010, 04:19 PM   #6
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I was through there several times this summer going to and from Colorado...the Chevy store there closed down early in the year, there is still a GMC/Buick store operating and a Ford store. the DCJ store in Slaton (south side of Lubbock) has appeared to be in the process of closing since last summer, but still has about 10 new trucks on the ground and looks like no used inventory. Is this the Lubbock store you're referring to Txflyer?
Thanks for the info. The more I hear the more I'm convinced the dealer is blaming the closure on Chrysler to fade some heat from the community and his employees.

While Chrysler has stated they want to complete Project Genesis by the end of next year, I have not heard anything indicating they want to further reduce their store count. The store in this thread was a full-line CJDR dealership.
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Old 08-19-2010, 06:51 PM   #7
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It's sad to see all this. Whether they're closing because of Chrysler's direct manipulation or the result of the public's view of Chrysler in the marketplace, either way there are more people unemployed, more careers dashed against the Pentastar, and another community that becomes disenchanted with the brand. Nothing worse than seeing a dealership dry up in the sun and blow away. It reflects directly on the Franchise. Bad news travels fast and good news not fast enough. You can hear the discussions at the dinner tables in these towns, "Well Fred Smith Motors was around for 50 years...sad to see what Chrysler has turned into. Their products are not what they used to be, and Fred Smith just couldn't make it." I've heard through the grapevine, a lot of people in my old town say they'll never even look at a Chrysler product again after seeing what happened to me. A long slow death in a small town leaves a lasting impression. In their eyes, Chrysler took their local dealer away.
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Old 08-20-2010, 06:55 AM   #8
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It's sad to see all this. Whether they're closing because of Chrysler's direct manipulation or the result of the public's view of Chrysler in the marketplace, either way there are more people unemployed, more careers dashed against the Pentastar, and another community that becomes disenchanted with the brand. Nothing worse than seeing a dealership dry up in the sun and blow away. It reflects directly on the Franchise. Bad news travels fast and good news not fast enough. You can hear the discussions at the dinner tables in these towns, "Well Fred Smith Motors was around for 50 years...sad to see what Chrysler has turned into. Their products are not what they used to be, and Fred Smith just couldn't make it." I've heard through the grapevine, a lot of people in my old town say they'll never even look at a Chrysler product again after seeing what happened to me. A long slow death in a small town leaves a lasting impression. In their eyes, Chrysler took their local dealer away.
Ralph you are so right. I'm afraid the real backlash has yet to be seen in rural America. I know these are the smallest dealers but they do support the bottom line, particularly in slow times. I'm afraid the powers in charge do not see this, suprise...suprise. Speaking of slow deaths, the grim reaper is near for the remaining wind down dealers for GM. Remember to say a short prayer for these stores. Sad so sad.
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Old 08-20-2010, 12:53 PM   #9
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After i had already posted that question, I read the full story and saw that the "all American" stores in Slaton were also owned by AutoInc. So they had a string of all the CDJ stores all the way from Amarillo to Slaton...2 large metro areas and the small towns in between and adjacent to them. The "All American" GM store right next to the CDJ store in Slaton has a lot full of inventory...new and used...while the CDJ store is bare to the bones. Looks like maybe they are considering closing it like they did the Plainview location.
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Old 08-20-2010, 01:14 PM   #10
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Originally Posted by steve_biegler View Post
Ralph you are so right. I'm afraid the real backlash has yet to be seen in rural America. I know these are the smallest dealers but they do support the bottom line, particularly in slow times. I'm afraid the powers in charge do not see this, suprise...suprise. Speaking of slow deaths, the grim reaper is near for the remaining wind down dealers for GM. Remember to say a short prayer for these stores. Sad so sad.
So sad and So true. Brings to mind what I was told by the long time Zone Mgr for Chrysler back in 1984 when I was talking to him about opening my own CDJ store. A couple of months earlier, I had listened to the President of GM tell a room full of dealers at a Southwest Regional meeting in Dallas, that personally he would hate to try and survive as a small GM dealer selling less than 500 units a year in the future, because they were going to make it SO expensive to BE a GM dealer with new requirememnts for equipment, technology changes, training requirements, facility requirements etc... that he didn't think a small dealer would be able to absorb the costs and remain competitive with larger stores that could amortize the costs over a greater number of units. He said that to a room full of about 500 dealers in which about 75% fell into that "small" category. I asked the Chrysler Zone Mgr. (who had been there for 30 years) if he felt the same way. His reply was "Absolutely NOT...we will never do anything that would put our small dealers at a disadvantage, because we all remember that those small town mom & pop stores are what kept us alive during 79-83 when we were on the edge of bankruptcy. The little dealers still sold product for us when no one else could because of their reputation and personal relationship with their customers...ya'll are heroes to us". Funny how the "long memories" they had back then were completely different from Jim Press's day, huh? That Zone Mgr. left Chrysler after serving in that job for 34 years...about 90 days after Daimler took over, along with 80% of the senior personnel in the corporation. The personal relationship between the factory and its long time dealers left at the same time.
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Old 08-20-2010, 02:23 PM   #11
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Since that manager left, it has been a company that exists as a host for the parasites in the industry. Chrysler had the biggest cash reserve of anyone when Daimler and Eaton wrote the famous "merger of equals" speech. Within 24 months Mercedes was retooling every plant they owned and spawned a dozen new platforms. We were broke.

Then Cerberus...then the US Treasury and Fiat. Need I flesh this out any futher?
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Old 08-20-2010, 03:07 PM   #12
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yep...that was when it started to stop being a fun business for me...we still had alot of good years from a business standpoint, but the personal relationships we had built over 20 years were almost all gone in a 3 month period after the merger. We had the same Zone Mgr. for sales and the same Branch Mgr. for Chrysler Financial for the entire time I was a dealer until the merger. In the next 5 years we had 9 different managers in those positions. I got a call from the auction at some point after the merger, saying CF had kicked back some drafts...I called the new Zone Mgr. and went ballistic...he said they did it because I had exceeded my floor plan limit. I told him that was the first time in the 20 years I had been in business with them, that anyone had told me I HAD a limit of any kind, and that I had had alot more $$$ than that floored many times in the past. He looked at my file and agreed that I was correct, but said they would be operating more "by the book" in the future. Prior to the merger, I might be talking to the Branch Mgr. and mention I was buying a bunch of program cars because they were selling cheap, and he'd say "just do whatever you think you need to do". They knew us individually and knew how we ran our businesses...all that got lost, and I missed it.
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Old 08-21-2010, 06:22 AM   #13
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Oh Man! Thank for that memory refresh. CFC was there to help back then. Without them I would never have built what I did in the 80's and 90's.
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Old 08-21-2010, 11:56 AM   #14
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It's really a sad reflection on the direction things are headed, but I feel that we small town rural dealers are an endangered species.
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