Saturn in Trouble
An article in by The Associated Press talks about how General Motor’s brand, Saturn, is in big trouble to survive. GM has said that its restructuring plan that it presented to the U.S. government has Saturn running until 2011. Chinese and Indian automakers, who would like to enter the U.S. market, are the most likely candidates to take over Saturn, but nothing has really been discussed as of yet.
Saturn is a unique company. Their salespeople are considered laid-back, because there is no haggling for prices. A family member actually recently went to a Saturn dealership in hopes of getting the Saturn Aura. It’s a nice sedan that has a ticket price of between $22,000 and $27,000 depending on the model. He went looking for a used Aura, in the price range of $15,000. There was one there for $17,500, and no matter what, even during these hard economic times for automakers, there was no discussion of price or any talking the salesman down on the price. It was $17,500 and that was that. What’s interesting is that several weeks later, the Aura was still sitting there unsold for $17,500. Saturn has prided themselves on the ease and lack of stress that it takes to buy a car from them, but in the case of my family member, it was more annoying than anything that the salesman wouldn’t budge!
There are mixed feelings by Saturn dealership towards GM. Some of the dealerships are happy to see some changes coming and look forward to a new buyer that would “bring innovation to the product line.” Some other dealerships are angry with GM for having a lack of support. Either way, it looks like the Saturn/GM partnership is coming to an end. Hopefully someone picks up Saturn, because it would be sad to see it completely be gone.