Littleton – Daniel Ortiz waited until Monday, the last day of General Motors’ Employee Discount Sale, in hopes of getting “the best deal” on a 2005 GMC Yukon Denali XL.
Ortiz, 48, of Highlands Ranch got the price he wanted. But he chafed at the trade-in offer made for his 3-year-old Ford Excursion. He left without the Denali, but considered coming back later in the evening.
Beginning today, he and others won’t have the rock-bottom prices.
GM, the world’s largest automaker, dropped employee pricing Monday as it hoped to wean customers off incentives and establish its brands as a good value. But it said it would still try to lure buyers with lower prices on its 2006 models.
The employee-discount program proved extraordinarily successful: GM’s sales jumped 41 percent in June, and Ford and Chrysler followed with their own employee-pricing plans in July.
At Burt Buick Pontiac GMC, where Ortiz shopped, “We have 143 new vehicles on the lot,” said John Osborne, general sales manager. “Normally we have 300 to 350 new vehicles on the lot.”
The dealership at 5850 S. Broadway has seen sales triple over the past two months, Osborne said. During the promotion, an average of 10 cars were being sold on weekdays. This past Saturday, 22 cars were sold.
Hoping to gradually move customers from deep discounts, GM on Monday discontinued employee pricing but said it is lowering the prices on 30 of 76 models. It will also add features to other models to make them more competitive.
“Regardless of what any of our competitors are doing, we think this is the right play for us,” said Brent Dewar, GM North America’s vice president of marketing and advertising.
Under the new pricing, the base price of the Chevrolet Malibu, for example, is $17,990, or $1,835 below the 2005 model, while the base price of the Saturn Ion sedan is $12,490, or $2,455 lower than the 2005 model.
Buick and Hummer vehicles will get a four-year, 50,000-mile warranty previously reserved for GM’s luxury Cadillac and Saab brands.
Dewar said GM wants to use incentives more sparingly, targeting them at specific vehicles rather than showering them on every vehicle.
“Incentives will still play a big role, but we want to make sure we’re closer to the transaction price,” Dewar said.
According to research firm Autodata Corp., GM spent an average of $4,458 per vehicle on incentives in June, higher than any other automaker.
Toyota Motor Corp. spent $1,090, the lowest of any automaker.
Rebecca Lindland, a senior analyst for the consulting firm Global Insight Inc., predicted consumers will like the new pricing because they don’t like wading through incentives and trying to find a good deal.
Ortiz, who shopped Monday with his 15-year-old daughter, Victoria, acknowledged he wouldn’t have considered the GMC Yukon Denali were it not for the employee-discount promotion.
Along with the Yukons, “I have been looking at the Chevy SUVs,” he said.
Before the employee discount, the manufacturer’s suggested retail price on the Denali was $54,025. Including the discount and a $3,000 rebate, the new sticker price was $42,852.
With the employee discounts in place, customers didn’t need to shop around for the best price, sales manager Osborne said.
All they had to worry about “was finding the right vehicle,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Staff writer Marcus W. Vanderberg can be reached at 303-820-1209 or mvanderberg@denverpost.com.
