Auto Dealers Mastered Art of Squeezing Max Profits

Washington DC June 1, 2009; The AIADA newsletter reported that although most of today's successful dealers have abandoned a squeeze-the-consumer sales approach, many feel they are now being haunted by the ghosts of the past, allowing them to be portrayed as disposable bad actors in a domestic automobile industry fighting to stay alive in a floundering national economy.

The Detroit News reports that dealers say they accept normal attrition, the kind caused by hard times, tough competition and, in some cases, poor management.

But they resent the argument—made by Wall Street bankers, the car companies that borrow from those bankers, and the White House automotive task force now charged with saving GM and Chrysler from ruin—that more of them must close their doors because too many of them remain in a shrinking market.

As the auto market shifts, dealers hope to make their message known: dealers matter.

To read the Detroit News' full report of dealers' struggle to maintain their viability, click here.