Saturn cars - Pricing of final inventory

General Questions
#1

So I’ve read recently that GM is looking to clear the Saturn and Pontiac vehicles off their books. I mean the actual cars, not just the brands. So it appears that they will be sold to dealers and somewhere in this process is a $7000 discount. If you were to buy the car, it would technically be a used car (but with a new car mileage)

So 2 questions… Is Saturn still a no-haggle brand? Any idea how they’ll be handling these "used’ cars? My cars are getting on in years (8 & 9 years) and miles (167K, 80K, respectively). I wasn’t really looking to replace them just yet, but the 2002 Olds with all those miles isn’t going to last forever.

#2

You have an Olds and now you want to upgrade to a Pontiac or Saturn. You really know how to pick winners ;).

At this point in time, you can haggle away. These cars are being dumped as quickly as possible, and there are not going to be too many takers. Not if they’re considered used which may limit their warranty. Plus, the lack of parts. A thing of note: The $7000 is a dealer’s incentive and is not a rebate you get. You can use your knowledge of this dealer’s incentive as part of your negotiating strategy, but it’s not a given. I found that out when I wanted to buy a Toyota. When I was negotiating, I mentioned that I new the dealer was getting a $2500 incentive, and the salesperson said to me That’s the dealer’s incentive!.

If I were you, I’d look at a Pontiac G8 which at least got good reviews and is one of the more popular cars. Plus, it’s possible the G8 may live again as a Chevrolet Caprice, so you might still be able to get parts.

Note that GM is also offering a $6500 rebate on NEW cars, so the Pontiacs and Saturns won’t be included in that deal.

See the NYTimes Wheels Blog for more information. A quick quote:

#3

The irony is not lost on me. But I figure if I’m going to drive the car from cradle to grave, it shouldn’t matter much if the brand is a GM orphan. My cost of ownership is lower.

It only was on my mind today because the Olds wouldn’t start this afternoon. I came home from work expecting the worst… sort of like when your mother-in-law calls to tell you news about your 99 year old grandmother-in-law. It’s usually that she won at bingo or needs a new hearing aid, but you know one of these days she’s just not going to turn over in the morning. This time grandma… err… the Alero, just needed a jump. My wife left a heated blanket plugged into the auxiliary power outlet.

#4

Here’s the deal with that whole thing. GM is offering the dealers $7000 for each car they have left in their new inventory of Saturn and Pontiacs to put them into the dealer’s own service or rental fleet. They have to sit there for 30 days before they can be resold as used cars.

Most of the dealers are not going to take this offer as 1) there is very little inventory left, 2) the GM incentives still apply ($6500 in rebates plus additional discounts may be applicable), and 3) financing available on used cars isn’t as attractive as new. Neither of the Saturn dealers I do work for are going to take the offer.

If a dealer does not accept the offer, (and they are under no obligation to do so), they will continue to sell down their inventory as new cars with all the rebates and finance incentives that apply. I just purchased an 09 Saturn AURA (the first year it came to market it won North American Car of the Year). The MSRP was about $26500, and I got a discount for belonging to a Credit Union, plus $6500 more off. I got it for just over $19000.

The AURA is the same car as the Pontiac G6 and the New Chevy Malibu. Parts will not be a problem and neither will warranty service. Saturn is still No Haggle, No Hassle (at least at my two dealerships.) You can negotiate the price of your trade in. They can’t give any more than what’s being offered by GM because there was never much mark-up to begin with. The dealers can’t and won’t lose money on the cars if they can help it. Taking GM’s lame buyout offer is a sure fire way for them to lose a ton of money.

Both of the dealerships I do work for have purchased other dealer’s excess inventory and are selling quite well right now, but quantities are very limited. When I spoke to one of the General Managers last night, they were down to 5 left.

No offense qazwart, but most of your post is absolutely wrong.

#5

As has been mentioned above, your entire post is moronic, perhaps with the exception of your anecdote about “dealer incentives.”

Thousands of cars are no longer in production that you can easily obtain parts for, plenty of them even 20 or 30 years old. Parts availability simply is not a factor or a good reason to decide not to buy these cars.

#6

I just checked our area’s 6 Saturn dealers. They have a total of 124 cars left (ranging from 4 to 35 per dealer) and 74 of them are Auras.

Happy hunting.

#7

How can I check to see what’s available in my area? I don’t like to waste a lot of time doing face-to-face stuff that I can do on my own. Before I head into a dealership I’d like to know what they have available so that I can price stuff out before I get there.

#8

Good luck. I’ve been looking for Pontiac G8 for a while now…the official site lists cars that are no longer available, and even individual dealer sites are not terribly reliable.

#9

Good luck-my dealer sold his entire inventory in one week. My wife was in the market-I guess she will have to look for a new car.
Is Saab doing something similar? They are not long for this world!

#10

Just go to the Saturn site, click on “Locate a Dealer” and type in your zip code.

#11

I was curious about this topic the other day and I used Autotrader to check out the availability of the Saturn Astra. You can put in your zip code and indicate the max distance you’d like to search. I’d select to search dealers only and first try new cars only. Then I’d switch to used cars only, put the model year to 2008 and newer, and then search the results according to the mileage, low to high. That will give you the cars the dealer has taken the $7000 on, and are considered used, but with very few miles on the odo.

Searching inventory from the Saturn website is good too, but I’m not sure you can customize your search as much as with Autotrader, and I’m not sure if the “used” cars will show up there.

#12

The websites are not going to be extremely accurate right now as dealers are trading back and forth and the inventory is selling too fast. The best thing to do is call your area dealers and ask what they have left. Don’t dally. Do a little research on the Saturn site so you know what the salesperson or sales manager is talking about when you call, ie: XE vs XR and the packages that are standard on each. You won’t be able to be picky about color, but they are all gorgeous. I ended up with my 5th or 6th color choice because the options on the car were more important to me. Mine is the 4 cyl XR in Silver Moss. I had a 6 cyl AURA before and I was unsure about the 4 cyl, but I’m liking it and I’m especially liking the better gas mileage.