Visited My Favorite Chevy er Chevrolet Dealer Today

I've been gone from the area for two months with health problems and just got around to visiting my Chevy, lest we forget the 'New' General Motors issued a directive that they are not 'Chevy's' the are now Chevrolet; but anyway it is a moot point for me, she is no longer a Chevy Dealer.

Here we sit in a town of 6,000 and our dealership who is a second generation dealer is now in the used car business and happy. You see when the vaunted government task force took over our auto industry you all remember all the closings going on. Not for any particular reason other than the Task Force said it 'would save money'. What they didn't understand is that the dealers were Sales dealers and created sales, not expense.

You see they couldn't get away with closing my dealer because she is a woman number one, and she is Native American number two ... but of course they couldn't do it with a frontal assault to they found other ways to drive a long time dealer out of the market. There next ploy was to 'require' (they're doing it all over the nation) the dealers remaining to in her case build a completely new building and shop. A cost to her of about $3 million. In this economy?

So they got what they wanted - she sold it to another dealer locally who handles Chrysler (the bullets been fired there just not dead yet) and he is building the building. But my friend told me it was such a relief to be out from under GM's heavy hand that she couldn't be happier.

Her and her partners have morphed their business into a mini-CarMax of sorts. They are creative and resourceful about finding good quality used cars at the price point of our local market and they cut inventory, which GM wouldn't let them do and things are better for them.

And I learned a few things about GM dealership 'franchising' as they loosely call it. She pointed out to her sign out front, a single GM dealership sign and said, "I no longer have to pay GM $3,000 a month for the 'lease' on that sign. She told me earlier about GM requiring Starbucks carts in every showroom - a mere $5,000 charge. And then there are the computer systems required by GM that comes with thousands of dollars in costs.

I said, "You know McDonald's and the like only charges probably 7% to 10% franchise fee. She said, "Well, we figured up all our GM costs just for the 'privilege' of being a GM Dealer and it comes to over 30%?" Unbelievable! It is sad but I am now happy for them that they are out from under the company with no leadership.

When it comes to investing in that new GM that the CEO is bragging has paid the government back when they really haven't (that's another story), think twice, long term they aren't in a position to win ... blu, blub, blub.