Now that the proverbial axe has freed General Motors from the financial obligations of too many brands, the company has to face the other side of the double-edged sword (all about the proverbs today). The negative end of the equation, among other things, is the potential loss of customers and market share that comes with having less brands. In order to combat this, GM is offering strong incentives to current Saturn customers.
How strong? Between February 2nd and the end of March, current Saturn owners are being offered $2,000 in cash to stick with another GM vehicle.
The catches are few and mild. Owners are required to have owned or leased their Saturn vehicle for at least 6 months. Besides that, GM is not requiring anything; customers do not even need to trade in their Saturn vehicle. In addition, the $2,000 offer is on top of any other currently running incentives. This could amount to serious cash on the hood for some GM vehicles.
General Motors needs to take any customer retention it can get, especially with Saturn owners. In fact, research shows that Saturn buyers are the least loyal to the parent GM, which is quiet logical as Saturn was always intended to be a “Japanese auto maker within GM” – a unique brand compared to other GM products. As such, Saturn customers are (were?) not you average GM buyer (if such a profile exists).
As of the end of January 31, 2010, Saturn inventory was at an all-time low of 405 vehicles (compared to 32,647 at the end of May 2009).
Comments
I am a gm retiree from truck and bus.My grand daughter graduated high school in 2012 and is going to U M flint.she saved her money and bought a used Saturn sl2.Now she finds out the the Saturns use oil a lot.Hers uses more than a quart in 1000 miles.If this car quits she will have lost everything because of GM s poor engine piston ring design.It would be a customer retention incentive if GM did some correction for owners.iF SHE DOES NOT GET HELP I WILL NOT REPLACE MY TWO gm PRODUCTS with another Gm car Derek Somerville aGM retiree
Seriously Derek? You have a problem with a USED car that’s more than a decade old… and that most likely has over 100,000 miles… and you’re complaining that it drinks too much oil?
Have you considered the possibility that the car was in some way mis-treated and mis-maintained before ranting and raving to GM?
Saturn has a history of engine problems and my grand daughter was not aware of this.There are many cars that go 20000 thousand miles gm was aware of this as they put out a notice on the problem and sold an upper engine cleaner to free up the stuck rings.If you look saturn blogs you will see the problems.
Derek how many miles does the car have? Do you have a history of maintenance on the car?
the saturn will be sold for parts and i will buy her a Toyota Corolla.problem solved.
So by avoiding the question entirely, you are admitting that you can’t blame a 10 year old car with 6-digit mileage with who knows what kind of service/maintenance record for needing more oil than a brand new car. Good to know that ignoramuses still exist in today’s society.
at least i am not afraid to put my name on the site.