Smart Dealerships closing

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Permalink Reply by Scott Mankewitz 1 day ago

Julie,

I agree, they need to step up their advertising. I know the dealer here in San Antonio has about 2 dozen cars on the lot and I haven't noticed too many of them moving.

Also, they seem to lose a lot of repeat customers because of the cost of upkeep with the dealer. I recently took my '08 Passion coupe in becasue both of my headlights burned out at the same time. The service call was $50, just to tell me that the smart can't handle the slightly brighter bulbs I installed. Then they wanted anoth $130 to install 2 bulbs!! I did it myself for $33 and took me 5 minutes. I blasted them in the smartusa survey they sent me afterwards.

I think Penske needs to take a look at how they are running smartusa and kick them in the butt.

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Permalink Reply by Forest 1 day ago

smart USA Has a new President who has been on the job for all of a week,

She used to be the head of Saturn and made her relationship with Penskie during the failed Saturn negotiations


We should start to see some changes soon

AS to the closing dealers, 2 just closed, one was because the dealer network was sold

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Permalink Reply by Dave Stephenson 1 day ago

Interesting, however GM went bankrupt by? I love my smart car. However by not offering diesel, electric, and a true barabus model, they have left Americans with little choice other than colors and 3 models to choose from. Gas is down to under 3 dollars a gallon and pickups are selling like hotcakes again.

Now if my car was a diesel and got 70mpg then I think we wouldnt be talking about dealers closing. Or perhaps a brabus model with 100hp would draw the 20 somethings toward us as well. But now 3 years in, and the shine is wearing off, with nothing new to offer the consumer, a lack of sales of a Specialty vehicle is not surprising. Every car MFG brings out new models EVERY year, Smart is esentially the same as it was introduced.

As of the brand dissapearing? Not in my lifetime. So dont worry about warranty support, just enjoy being one of not quite so many in the US.

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Permalink Reply by mr bad example 13 hours ago

i'm seeing more smarts out and about as i drive here. my dealer has been calling me now and then, wanting me to trade my '08 for a new '09 or '10, seems they aren't moving as fast these days. i am getting tired of manually cranking the windows of my pure (first in state!), if i do trade it in, it will be for a black passion (less hassle with the condo association, same car, different wheels!)

now that i have a "real job" (been temping since 6 months before i got my smart, unemployed 5 months as well, along with other major life changes that cost $$$$) i might go for a '10 passion (i have a solo exhaust waiting for warm weather, to be installed)

smart doesn't really need to spend $$$$ on advertising, just give current owners pamphlets to hand out, i have a stack of smart center business cards that i hand out to the curious, i bet i've sold more than a dozen! my video on youtube has been averaging 1200 views a month for the last 2 years (1/21/08), the day i got my smart. (not counting the dozens of websites that have pirated it out to theirs, i googled myself (oooh! mj style! LOL) and found over a dozen websites that feature my video of my smart. the people who want a smart, will find it, sooner or later. i found smart in car & driver many years ago, then followed it on the net, and signed up when they offered info for the USA. i saw a few in spain in 2005, along with a few other really small cars, if i wasn't being dragged along by my then future, now current ex-wife, i'd have taken pics and done research on them as well (seeing that we may be getting new fiat 500's here soon)

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Permalink Reply by Julie O. 13 hours ago

I've given out more than 200 of the pamphlets, but my dealer says they have less than a 1% return on those. It's going to take a lot more than viral videos on YouTube and current owners handing out info cards to get the kind of traffic that a well-timed national TV ad campaign can generate. We're talking hundreds of thousands of potential buyers -- possibly millions -- rather than just a couple of thousand.

My L.A. dealership is one of the most successful in the country, but they've only sold two (yes, TWO) cars this month. Their overhead for the dealership (payroll, etc.) is based on a minimum of 10 cars sold a month. That's not happening. The dealership is in danger of closing.

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