GM "Employee Discount for Everyone" Event!

[Career Prole]

I kid you not! It's their latest sales promotion!

GM Employee Discount for Everyone Event

From now until July 5, 2005, enjoy the GM Employee Discount on almost all 2005 GM vehicles across all divisions.* For the first time in history, everyone in America gets the GM Employee Discount.

It's a great price. You pay what we pay. Not a cent more. At participating dealers only.

http://www.gm.com/employeediscount.do?cmp=JB_Offline

"Just to show you that we'll do whatever it takes to get you in the door, we're going to shitcan 25,000 employees and give you...that's right, give you their employee discounts!
Stop by your local GM dealer today! This deal's too good to last!

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. On this basis I'll take two of those yellow hummers!

[Old and In the Way]

2. I'm waiting for the -1% interest rate offers.

Sure sounds like a distressed "going out of business" sale strategy.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Every GM vehicle I have ever owned

has been a piece of shit. I am surprised they have stayed away from bankruptcy as long as they have.

[rkc3]

6. I think the joke is:

GM and Disney were to develop a new car for 2006 - the plan was scuttled when Disney learned GM had been making Mickey Mouse cars for 50 years.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. That's good

My last new GM car - a month after I bought it, the AC vents crumbled and fell in pieces inside the vent system. They had to take the dashboard apart and clean the vents all out. The car had less than 2000 miles on it.

A year later, the electric window on the driver's side went out. It was out of warranty and cost me $350 to fix.

Then the radio went out at about 50,000 miles.

I had to spend over $500 on new tires about every 18 months.

At 60,000 miles, the engine started giving me expensive problems. The warning light went on and stayed on permanently even after I had problems repaired.

At 90,000 it was stolen - and it had an alarm system. We got it back but it was never quite the same.

At 100,000 miles, the car was pretty much dead.

Then I bought a Honda. It has 70,000 miles on it now and I have not had ONE problem. AND it still has the original tires.

No more GM cars for me. Hubby said he would leave me if I bought another. And I do kinda like hubby and want him to stick around.

[ProfessorGAC]

22. Funny That!

We have a Buick from 1995 that has 120,000 miles and the only thing we've had repaired (aside from consumables like brake pads and struts) is the driver's side window motor. That's it.

And, the one we had before that, and the one we had before that.

Everyone got a piece of crap except for my wife and i? Seems pretty hard to believe.
The Professor

[Kingshakabobo]

25. I worked for a Buick dealership for 11 years.

Buick makes a fine car.

It cracks me up when I hear people bash American cars as if imports NEVER have problems.

[ProfessorGAC]

27. You Made My Point Far More Explicitly

I have never had anything but GM's and Chryslers and i have never had but one problem. (Blown headgasket on a Olds, but i bought it used as a work car and put 96k on it before the problem.)

I have never failed to get a car to at least 140,000 miles. Not once.
The Professor

[rkc3]

33. I think a lot of car problems come from the people who drive them.

Once drivers learn that gas and oil are your car's best friends, they tend to get a lot of miles out of the cars they own - regardless of manufacturer.

I work with a guy who has had to replace all four motors for his power windows. Granted, it's a Cavalier, but still, a window motor should last more than 40,000 miles regardless of manufacturer.

[proud2BlibKansan]

41. I disagree

We maintain our cars well. The Chevys have all slowly fallen apart. Fords have been a little better. But the Hondas and Toyotas have given us the least amount of problems.

We had a Cavalier back in the 80s. It ran till it had 150K on it. But it also slowly died - windows, radio, etc went out long before the engine did.

[proud2BlibKansan]

40. I have owned two Hondas

that have been virtually problem free. Hubby drives Toyotas and loves them. So we have honestly had more problems with Chevys.

[proud2BlibKansan]

39. I've never owned a Buick

Maybe that's why I have had such bad luck.

[BigBearJohn]

35. I'm the opposite, I've 2 chevy's in the last 20 years - NO PROBLEMS at all

[DemoTex]

4. Excludes 2005 Chevrolet Corvette and medium duty trucks.

However, the deal does include all Saabs.

[smoogatz]

5. Doesn't apply to the Solstice, apparently

They're a 2006 model year designation.

[patcox2]

7. Its a real discount, and its not hypocritical, vis a vis the layoffs.

That is what struggling companies do, they cut labor costs and try to sell inventory.

If they could sell these cars at list, they would not need to lay anyone off.

That said, its a real and serious deal, GM dealers I know are shocked GM is going this far, if you want a GM car, buy it now.

[Career Prole]

10. They could have discounted the same amount

and called it some other name in light of the news, surely?

[patcox2]

16. I just hope they survive.

The employees would be a lot worse off if the biggest employer and biggest manufacturer in the US goes under.

[Pithlet]

19. I don't want them to go under for that reason

But, only that reason. My father works for them, and has since I was 6. I'd hate to see him and others lose their jobs. The economic devestation to the areas of production would be massive. But, GM has had this coming for years and years. It won't be immediate, because such a giant company won't go down fast. But, with things continue as they are, it will happen.

[Career Prole]

28. I heard on CNN this morning that Toyota is discussing

raising their prices in order to "help out".

That, if nothing else, should convince folks of just how serious a problem this is.

[rkc3]

34. I heard that a few weeks - came from their president.

[Carni]

8. GM SUCKS

God don't get me started!

As soon as I saw there latest promotion I thought to myself "in other words GM is no longer going to give an employee discount to their employees"

Little did I know they would just can 25,000 of them (and you can bet your ass they will all be replaced by contract workers from here or more probably from abroad)

[lectrobyte]

29. Your subject line is pretty inflammatory, but it does annoy me to

read they are using engines made in China (Equinox, whatever that is) with some kind of loopholing around the content-labelling laws the same week they are announcing layoffs.

[Carni]

36. My subject line is inflammatory because they deserve such treatment

I would be happy to elaborate if I hadn't signed something that bound me to keep my mouth shut, but trust me on this...the welfare of their customers and their employees is not exactly a concern of theirs.

[Jacobin]

9. So, if I buy a GM car, does that mean I also get laid off?

What a deal!!

[yashuryabetcha]

11. And exactly with

what oil are we supposed to run these things with? Yes if *hole succeeds in spreadin bef8ckedracy all over the middle east we'll have some for awhile but at what price, with all these new jobs (not) and our booming economy ya'll will have to resort to parking these hulks in your yards and growing your medical marajuana in them. And those with enough money to buy one of them humvees can live in it after the market crashes. nice. Ya let's support GM's going out of business sale. I'm in a good mood today.:nuke:

[spanone]

12. I just saw a commercial where GM claimed to be #1.

How the freak can they do that when they're tanking????

[hatrack]

13. GM's "We Can't GIVE This Shit Away" Discount now in force

Wonder what the discounts on Hummers are like these days.

[Career Prole]

14. Required downpayment: one tank of gas

"If you can fill it up on one paycheck you can take it home!"

[burythehatchet]

17. How pefectly ironic

lay off 25,000 people and discount those POS cars for everyone.

By the way GM, is the new Hummer ready yet?

[Pithlet]

18. You mean the "We eliminated the employee discount!"

promotion. What a joke. I saw the ads. I bet a big fat bonus went to the marekting suit that came up with a way to cut a benefit, and then market it to the public as a sales promotion.

[Carni]

37. Maybe GM is using Karl Rove for their marketing now?

This is classic bush admin type marketing!

[gpandas]

20. there are so many experts in the automobile area that i would ...

never give my story. All I ever did was work for them for thirty years, and belong to a family (sibs both union and management)that has enabled college attendance for every one of the children in these workers; this is progress, this is what makes things go around, the nice salary and benefits employ millions of other americans, including doctors, nurses, teachers, small businessmen, ad infinitum. every time i hear some anecdotal story concerning smart-assed comments about general motors, i am reminded of the fact that all americans are willing to turn their backs on each other for thirty pieces of silver.

[Career Prole]

21. "smart-assed comments about general motors"

Could you clarify, please?

[lectrobyte]

23. smart-assed comments? I'm not seeing what you're getting at,

can you clarify? I don't think I've seen anything that comes close to "smart assed" except some comments about GM management, and it's probably tamer than they deserve.

[gpandas]

24. gm sucks

[lectrobyte]

26. Well, I can't say if GM still sucks, since I haven't bought a GM

product from them since the early nineties. I can say that GM sucked hard around 1992: my Pontiac dealer specifically, and the regional GM rep, could dechrome trailer hitch balls at 50 feet.

I'm sorry folks are losing their jobs, but look it at as a management problem. Too many cookie-cutter SUVs, killed the Camaro, lame advertising, lame product, no hybrids, etc. At least Ford is trying: They have a hybrid SUV, that cool new Mustang, and the 500. If I was in a position to afford a new car, that'd be 3 I'd be looking at.

[Career Prole]

30. That particular subject line was a bit general in nature.

Although the hands at the helm of GM over the past quarter-century or so have steered their ship of commerce to these waters where they now find themselves foundering.

Like the man in the e-mail to CNN said a couple of days ago..."Whose bright idea was it that the Hummer was the car of the future?"

I think it's fair to say the controlling powers at GM have indeed sucked. The ones who make the big decisions. Absolutely.
:shrug:

[kittenpants]

31. I'd like to buy a GM to support them since they have good

benefits for their employees, patriotism, economy etc... but even their smallest cars don't have great MPG. They've just been soooo short-sighted in the design dept. It reminds me of the car Homer designed for his brother.

[midnight armadillo]

32. They're guilty of zero imagination

They made huge profits on trucks & SUVs, then concluded that future profits would work exactly the same way. You know, they drew their market prediction charts, and extrapolated all the growing sales of SUVs to infinity, and claimed that no one wanted cars. So their cars (for the most part) languished. And they missed the hybrid boat, and the market for 'crossovers'. And now that buyers have been freaked by rising gas prices so much that there seems to be a consumer mindset shift in progress towards smaller vehicles, GM is caught with their pants down. Even their small cars with promise (the new Chevy Cobalt, for example) don't get great mileage.

I 100% blame GM's top management. Lutz is an ass - he is still claiming that SUV sales are down because the models are old, and last I read he still commuted to work by helicopter. When the management is that clueless, they're screwed.

I have no doubt that GM has tons of engineering know-how to build much more efficient cars. Saab developed a variable compression engine that was 1.6L, put out ~220 hp, and would deliver high 30's gas mileage on the highway. You can't buy one...GM surely has many such tech. tricks on the shelf, but is so committed to big V-8's that they'll never use them.

[Carni]

38. It is absolutely the top management that guided this ship into an iceberg

GM used to spend God only knows how much money on market research to determine what the public wanted and then when the results were in it wasn't uncommon for some chief of staff engineer to decide he didn't care what the research said.

Unless they have changed tremendously in the past decade... they have been on this collision course since the late 80's. That is about the time when they decided to put all their eggs in the truck suburban (and later SUV) basket.

I am appalled at the thought of what their going under will do to the economy and their employees... but I absolutely think the upper management at GM has indeed SUCKED for years!