Women and Cars: The Blog!

The chaos on Wall Street is having a very real affect on auto dealerships.

Dealers are reporting sales down 30 percent as dealers across the country face a staggering credit crisis, which has made it hard for some customers to get loans and hampered some dealers from buying inventory. Fears about the economy have also reduced the number of potential customers pulling up on car lots.

“You have to really get to the point now where every customer that walks through your doors has to be a sale, no matter what,” said a sales manager at Metro Chrysler. “You have to treat them like gold.”

About 70 percent of customers are getting turned down for loans now compared to 60 percent before. Like other dealers, Metro Chrysler is looking for ways to cut back on expenses.

The general sales manager of Metro Acura, started seeing a drop in sales last month as U.S. banks started failing one by one.
“We were holding on okay until August, and the last month we definitely felt it. The start of this month isn’t great,” he said.