Auto giant General Motors has plans of moving cars from its now defunct car lines, Pontiac and Saturn, off of dealer lots as soon as possible in what’s called a “fire sale,” and the good news is that buyers will likely benefit greatly from deep discounts. According to the automaker, now is the time to begin selling off the cars; to do so, it plans to offer incentives that will convince dealers to buy cars to make the considered “used” for customers.
Pontiac and Saturn Fired
In March and April 2009, GM officially said goodbye to two popular car brands, Saturn and Pontiac months before filing for bankruptcy. While Saturn was only about 20 years old, Pontiac had been a major player in the auto industry for over 80 years. However, in 2008 Pontiac and Saturn saw meager sales of 267,348 and 188,004, respectively, as compared to Chevrolet, which sold over 1.8 million.
Now that the brands will cease to be manufactured, GM is looking for ways to move them off auto dealer lots, hence the incentives.
GM’s Fire Sale and Dealer Incentives
As a car buyer looking for a way to get a good deal on car, it’s good to know what GM has up its sleeve. According to recent reports, GM is planning to offer its dealers incentives to purchase cars from its own lots. The incentive will be a payment of $7,000 per car that they can move off of their lots.
Under the plan, the dealers will become the first owners of the cars to clear them off of GM’s books. Then the lot owner will be able to pass on the incentives to customers by selling them used cars at deeply-discounted prices, hopefully as much as the $7,000 that the dealers are offered by the manufacturer. The deal for lot owners is set to expire on Jan. 4.
What This Means to You
According to the automaker, the two brands combined have only about 15,000 vehicles left in inventory through the country. So if you’re looking for a Pontiac or Saturn, the coming weeks would be a great time to take advantage of rock-bottom prices. Also, GM has promised that it would stand behind warranties. And as for resale value, models like the Pontiac G6 that has a lot of competition could suffer more in resale value than more unique models like the Pontiac Solstice.
If you’re looking for a new car, early January may be the time to get in on the action. So look out for ads in the coming weeks to take advantage of great prices, and possibly auto loan rate discounts on new cars.
Too bad those cars aren’t actually nice looking. Nor do they drive well. I guess it’s better than a 20-year-old Geo Metro, though