Please help save our Chrysler dealership & wake up the U.S!

Please help save our Chrysler dealership & wake up the U.S!

Postby 85KCar » Thu May 21, 2009 3:42 am

I know I'm a new member; and I don't normally do stuff like this at all. but please help. This is more than a well known dealer that has been open over 70 years; this is us sending a message to our goverment. we chave become famous in the last two weeks. Out of the 789 Chrysler dealers told to close; we are the only one fighting this! If you have received this as a chain letter, I sincerely apologize for contacting you in this fashion but I think you need to know this information before it is too late. If you don’t want to help, simply delete this message.



I hold one of the approximately 100K jobs that is set to be lost in the automotive dealership franchise closures dictated by the US Government.



YES SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE FOR THE ECONOMY



The fallacy with closing automotive franchise dealerships is that they make money for the manufacturer. “How is this you ask?” As an automotive franchise dealership we pay for all product up front. That is to say we purchase the vehicles from the manufacturer. We purchase parts from the manufacturer. We purchase specialty tools from the manufacturer. We maintain our storefront as dictated by the manufacturer. We update our service departments as dictated by the manufacturer on a regular basis. If we need additional bay lifts, that money comes out of our pocket. If we need additional training, we pay for it. Advertise? We pay for it.



SO WHY ARE YOU PAID SO MUCH?



We only wish we could compensate our employees as much as you’ve seen for factory workers. We are not part of the ‘factory’. We are not part of the corporate manufacturer office. Most, if not all, of us are non-union. We do pay our employees a living wage. Most of our employees deserve more but as the economy slumped so did all our employees wages and benefits. We do not make the $70,000 figure you have seen flying around.



IF YOU MAKE MONEY FOR THE MANUFACTURER WHY ARE THEY CLOSING YOUR STORE?



It is simple. The manufacturer stands to make more money BY CHARGING YOU MORE. “What?” Yes the intention of closing dealerships is to artificially raise the price of vehicles due to less competition. Once stores have closed who is to say that the franchise buy in won’t be significantly higher than it ever was in the past? That is likely. This will also mean higher costs past down to you.



WHO IS TO SAY THAT IN SIX TO EIGHTEEN MONTHS TIME THERE WON’T BE A CALL FOR NEW FRANCHISES AFTER THE CURRENT ONES HAVE BEEN CLOSED?



Yes this will likely happen but once you shut down a dealership franchise it is gone for good. The owners of that store will be bankrupt and have no startup capitol to answer this call. A well running machine will be lost along with all of its benefits and contributions to the local economy. It is a sad day in America to see first second and third generational family businesses forced out of business into bankruptcy when they did nothing wrong and did everything that was asked of them by the manufacturer except close.



I KEEP HEARING CONFLICTING INFORMATION



We have too. One paper had the dealer franchise closing story at the top of the page and Chrysler looking for new dealers story at the bottom of the page.



DOESN’T THE MARKET DICTATE WHO WILL CLOSE AND WHO WILL STAY OPEN?



Not this time. It is our government and the bankruptcy court.



FORCING FAMILY OWNED BUSINESS TO CLOSE



The public is being told that closing dealerships is necessary for manufacturer bankruptcy. Although horrible to think about, this would make some sense only if all dealerships were to close. If all stores closed, then we could clearly see store closures were market influenced. But all independent franchise dealerships have not been given the close notice.

In fact, the manufacturer has gone as far to ask that the stores they put on the list to continue to hold onto product so they can pick and choose at their leisure. We have been asked by the manufacturer to not dump everything to auction so we may satisfy a portion of our dept to our lenders. This makes sense for a brief second until you remember that this product has been purchased by us and our bank. It is not owned by the manufacturer. We have a responsibility to our bank to pay this money back. If we can’t we will be bankrupt. We can’t do this in the short amount of time given.



WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING? YOU CAN JUST GET ANOTHER MANUFACTURER RIGHT?



It is not that easy. We have current product that must be sold. Our current manufacturer WILL NOT BUY ANY product back. Without a franchise agreement in place we are unable to sell this product. In other words we’re left holding the bag. This whole bankruptcy and partial dealer shutdown appears to have modified elements of a Ponzi scheme of macro-economic proportions.



SO YOU WANT YOUR OWN BAILOUT?!



NO! We absolutely do not want a bailout for automotive dealership franchises. We want the opportunity to sell product. Period.



SO ISN’T THIS MANUFACTURER BANKRUPTCY JUST A SOPHISTICATED METHOD TO GET AROUND FRANCHISE LAWS?



Yes. It appears to be orchestrated this way.



YOU HAVE CONVINCED ME. WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?



Please write to your governmental representatives. Please write to Chrysler. Make a stand. Not just for us; but for the US.



Contact List:
http://www.timberlinedealerships.com/wp ... ntacts.pdf

********************************
********************************
** Please forward this by email,
** twitter, facebook and word
** of mouth to those who don’t
** know and to those who want to
** make a difference for America
********************************
********************************

Sincerely,
The Hard Working Employees at Timberline Chrysler Jeep Dodge Sprinter in Portland, OR

link-backs:
http://www.timberlinedealerships.com/save-our-store/
http://www.youtube.com/timberlinedodge
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Re: Please help save our Chrysler dealership & wake up the U.S!

Postby Purplegrasshopper » Thu May 21, 2009 2:31 pm

SPAM

It's a shame dealerships are closing, but that's how a free market economy works. Supply and demand.
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Re: Please help save our Chrysler dealership & wake up the U.S!

Postby Baron » Thu May 21, 2009 4:04 pm

Spam or not (I don't honestly know), I think it made some valid points. Just don't have an answer to the problem. I do remember the proposal for closing the franchises as part of the bankruptcy proposal did say this would eliminate the smaller dealer/sellers so the bigger franchises could make more money, as they would inherit that traffic as well as their being less competition so they could get better prices because the consumer couldn't just go down to the dealer on the next corner and ask for a better deal. So yeah, probably will cost us more. Why not, we get hit with it all in the end anyway.
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Re: Please help save our Chrysler dealership & wake up the U.S!

Postby 89ARIES » Thu May 21, 2009 4:29 pm

Its no spam. Its 85KCar of Vancouver, Washington. Take a closer look guys. 85Kcar is the one with the black Le
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Re: Please help save our Chrysler dealership & wake up the U.S!

Postby 1of10K » Thu May 21, 2009 10:28 pm

seeing the big Belvidere IL. Chrysler plant slowly expiring right here in my "neighborhood" brings this one close to home. On Wednesday, the local paper announced that Chrysler laid off another 992 workers there, which puts the local depressed economy in an even more depressed state! There are two very local Chrysler dealers who are on the "to be killed" list. One is in downtown Rockford IL, they have been there for 75 years, the other is in Belvidere IL itself, The Belvidere one is in an excellent location, good reputation, and plans to convert to a large used car dealer and continue to offer repairs, etc, and probably will do very well or better after the franchise is pulled. The other one in Rockford will be hurting. I have had bad service experiences there, and am not the only one. They are in an extremely "bad" part of town and I don't know what they will do after the big switch.

I can't understand why Chrysler would cancel anyone's franchises. Even if the dealers only have a few sales, it all still adds up. Even the small dealers all contribute to building the brand, advertising, and promotion. In Belvidere, the surviving dealer will be the mega chain type that sells Jeeps, Cadillac, and GMC from their site( also Pontiac, but not for long). I think is it all a ploy to try and make Fiat happy, by promising them they will have only large successfull mega dealers to market their cars from.
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Re: Please help save our Chrysler dealership & wake up the U.S!

Postby dodgeariesguy » Thu May 21, 2009 11:46 pm

Is everyone on here just blaming Chrysler? GM just closed my cities Pontiac, Buick, GMC dealer as well as many other dealers around. As well as the fact myself and my fellow colleages believe there have always been too many dealerships for every brand not just Chrysler. I'm tired of seeing this everywhere. I give up. I've lost 2 different automotive jobs because of this issue. It's gonna happen I've tried to fight it but I find all we can do is lay down and let the economy roll over us again and again. And don't call me self absorbed for not caring about others but at the moment in my life it the only way to stay alive. Job losses? Get used to it. The End.
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Re: Please help save our Chrysler dealership & wake up the U.S!

Postby Baron » Fri May 22, 2009 2:40 am

Hey 85K, I didn't notice you were from Vancouver. How long you been there? I graduated from Hudson Bay High School (a long time ago, I'm afraid. When I lived there Vancouver was like 40,000. Went back for a visit a couple of years ago and it was 400,000. I about drove the car off the road when I saw that on the city limits sign. I knew it had grown- but 10 FOLD?????

Also drove down Sandy and around some of the other parts of Portland I had memories of. Probably drove right past your dealership (in my Intrepid). Shame about it losing its franchise and affecting your employment. Don't know what the answer is. Except, I do believe its not going to be too long before people are really going to start rebelling against the few megastores that seem to control everything. I'm getting so tired of having to deal with them whenever a product isn't right. They take your money, but you have to do all the work to get it back.

Anyway, hope things turn out OK for you (and your K car :)
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