GM expects a $1,000 decline in its incentives per vehicle

March 14, 2006

BY MICHAEL ELLIS

FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

General Motors Corp. expects the amount it spends on sales incentives to fall by an average of $1,000 or more per vehicle this month, despite the launch this week of its March Madness sale.

GM told dealers on Monday that from March 16 to April 4, it will offer a cash bonus of $500 or $1,000 on vehicles that have been sitting on dealer lots for 120 days or more.

In addition to current incentives, consumers will get another $500 cash back on all cars and $1,000 back on Cadillacs, pickups, minivans and SUVs that arrived in dealer showrooms before Nov. 17.

"We're still continuing to bring the incentive spending down," GM spokeswoman Deborah Silverman said Monday.

GM's incentives fell by an average of $1,000 per vehicle in January and February, Silverman said. In an effort to break its feast-or-famine cycle of huge incentives, GM slashed the sticker price of most vehicles by an average of $1,300 in January.

The March Madness incentives, launched in tandem with the NCAA basketball tournaments, will help dealers clear out some poor-selling models.

The Hummer H1 SUV and the new 2007 models are excluded from the new incentives.

Link: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article.../603140333/1014

this is good for GM...

the vehicles that have been on the lots for an extended amout of days have higher stick prices on them anyway... so it just comes out of the dealerships pocket just like GMS and red tag sales... the only thing GM is doing here is for the vehicles that have 120+ days 1000$ which... just helps to clear inventory to make room for more...

probably most will be old tahoes and suburbans... not a huge loss here for GM anyway... 120 days is a long time... seeing that the average vehicle stay is around 30 days last i checked...