Does Buick Even Want To Sell The Regal TourX?
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The Buick Regal TourX strikes a different chord in today’s market. While most buyers gravitate towards high-riding crossovers and SUVs, the Regal TourX sets itself apart as (of all things) a wagon. The long roofline gives it tons of extra cargo room (74 cubic-feet with the rear seats folded), while the standard all-wheel-drive system and ruggedized cladding make it decent off the pavement. All told, the Buick Regal TourX makes a rather attractive argument in a market absolutely saturated with SUVs and crossovers. However, according to some of the comments we’ve gotten from different readers over the past year, it doesn’t seem like Buick is all that interested in actually selling the Regal TourX.
“I drive an Audi Allroad and love it but tired of the service on it,” writes one reader. “About a month ago, I went to my local Buick dealer to look at the TourX. They had two on the lot but didn’t offer a test drive or to even pull the car around for me to look at. No other customers in the dealer at the time.”
Unfortunately, that particular reader’s experience wasn’t unique. “Put in my information to be contacted about the TourX,” writes another. “Dealer called me once and said they would call me back when one came in stock in ‘about a week’, and that was a month ago. Never heard back. How do they expect to sell these cars like this?”
And another: “Currently have a BMW 328i wagon but TourX really caught my eye when they announced it. Went in to test drive one. Drove it and loved it. Started talking numbers then the salesman got another customer who was looking at a truck so he told me to wait. I waited for 30 minutes… he didn’t even come back so I left.”
And one more: “I have called my local Buick dealer four times about the new Regal Wagon. They take my information every time saying that a salesperson will call me back but I have yet to hear back.”
We have even more comments from other readers, and they’re along these lines. It’s unusual for a salesperson to neglect to engage with an interested customer, and even weirder for a salesperson to walk away from what seems like a lock. Something definitely seems wrong.
There are a few possibilities here. For starters, Buick sales staff might not know all that much about the Regal TourX, making it a difficult sell on their side. It’s also possible that a Regal TourX sale isn’t really lucrative for a dealer nor for a salesperson when compared to hot-ticket items like GMC and Buick crossovers or GMC pickup trucks.
Surprisingly, Regal sales are still up for Q1 of 2019. However, those figures take into account both the Sportback and TourX body styles. What do you think is going on? Sound off in the comments section below.
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Lazy salesman and the reason so many don’t stay at one place very long. Its not hard if your in the business to know what the cars offer. If I sold automobiles I would definitely subscribe to many of the magazines out there so you know what is coming out or options and features of competing makes and models. To many of them look at the money right now and not long term customers and profits from selling more cars with less profit. It all adds up in the long run but it seems many car sales man are just like waiters and waitresses go to where they can make a quick buck and move along. Yes its nice to sell less to make more money but helping the buyer buy the car they want can always turn into more sales from family and friends.
Unfortunately, there are businesses, auto or otherwise, have much to learn about treating a customer, welcoming and respecting their valuable time for making an effort to visit a certain business. Lack of information from a supplier or a manufacturer of a product could be the case as well. A Regal from Germany probably doesnt show up frequently as shipping from Europe is lengthy–up to 3 months total from order to arrival I’ve been told. Majority of reps that I’ve dealt with are pros in their profession; especially the career minded ones, not the fly by nighters/
I was at my Cadillac GMC Buick dealer 2 weeks ago getting a car for my Grand daughter and we looked at the Regal Tour X and they were giving them away. Now I know that this is a very good car but she said it looked like a Hearse and all they had was white. So from the mouth of babes comes the truth. I think it is a color sensitive car. The Graphite Grey looks good to me. But what do I know. We leased her a Terrian she loved it for taking it to school in Idaho.
I want the TourX to be my next wagon (currently have 13 CTS base wagon). GM is very motivated, as $10,000 discounts were offered through 5/31. This car is fantastic; however, Americans don’t want wagons. Fortunately, Buick has SUV’s for the mediocre masses. Like the LaCrosse, the Regal will continue to be under-appreciated. it’s just what happens to some models.
If I was the owner of a particular GMC/Buick dealership and found out my sales staff were treating potential customers like this they would be fired on the spot! FIRED
Unfortunately, if the offender was in a protected class, you would have a lot more work on your hands. Or an EEOC claim…. Its never that easy.
There is no “protected” class. The truth is, you have to prove you were fired for an illegal reason and that is impossible to prove if it didn’t happen.
My experience is similar to the ones described. My mom drove the car and loved it but the dealer could not sell her the car she drove because it was a service car or something like that.
So he said he would call when they get a new one in stock. 4 months later… no call. I guess mom will stick with her E350 Wagon for the time being… but this kind of incompetence is troubling to me. Who doesn’t want to sell a car and make some $$$ for crying out loud!!!
I’m sure GM doesn’t want this. They need to control their dealers better… or better yet close down the dealers and open their own stores like Apple.
Rob, I can tell you have never been in the car business. first of all, if a vehicle is in the Service Loaner Fleet, it has to be there for three months or 3,000-miles, then it can be pulled and sold. Secondly, if the manufactures took over sales of vehicles, you would be paying MSRP (sticker price), just like you do for all of your “wonderful” Apple products. Believe it or not GM is a big part of the problem with the lack of sales and or leases on the Buick TourX. How many ads have you seen for the TourX? When you order one it takes 3 or more months for it to arrive. The sales and lease incentives from GM for the TourX are pitiful. But you are right there still are some sales people in the automotive business that should not be there, just like any other profession.
Yes, GM should be chided for a lack of marketing/ lease incentives – but you’re completely glossing over the dealer/ salesperson’s inability to respond to a live lead. Guarantee you if they’d said they were interested in a Sierra or Yukon, they’d have received calls from no less than three salespeople.
GM can ask more of its marketing staff and agencies – but exactly what control does it have to ensure basic courtesy and competence of its salesforce?
The reality is people in America are just not wagon people anymore. Though the CUV models are just taller wagons it makes a difference in appeal.
Every traditional wagon that played it straight as a car has failed or had to survive on global sales. Magnum, CTS, Now Buick. While the HHR and others that really were just tall wagons sold in six figures easily.
GM took a shot and it just did not work.
I was at one of the largest auto shows in the country. The X was front and center. I went to sit in it and could have sat there and ate my lunch as no one even stopped to look at it. Yet there were lines for the Buick SUV models.
The few people that are wagon fans can twist this anyway they like but the reality is the American market does not want a true car based wagon.
You’re missing the point of this car. The TourX does not need to sell in sky high volumes to work. That’s what Buick crossovers are for… and they will sell or are already selling in healthy volumes.
What the Tour does is bring a totally different kind of customer to the show room. It creates a very solid niche. Sell these people the car, keep making it better with each year and generation, and sell them another one, and one thereafter. These people will tell their friends, and their friends will go buy a Buick (though not necessarily a tourX)… bit a Buick, rather than a VW or Subaru.
My mom is a perfect example. She typically would have never set foot in a Buick dealership… she has had Audi and Mercedes all her adult life. The TourX attracted her. She went in and pretty much had the worst automotive experience of her life because of the dealer, while loving the product.
She would have bought one right then if they would have sold it to her. But they didn’t want to sell it to her. So on to another Audi or Mercedes for her.
Point is, this is a niche car, but GM needs all the noches it can get. This particular niche in the states is affluent and isn’t that small. But in typical GM fashion, they are screwing up the implementation.
“I was at one of the largest auto shows in the country. The X was front and center. I went to sit in it and could have sat there and ate my lunch as no one even stopped to look at it.”
It would have been funny if you found the keys in the glove box. Hmm, Scott3 thinks. He looks left: nobody is looking at him. Looks right: even fewer. Puts the keys in the ignition. Starts it. Smiles.
Shifts into drive.
I agree with you that “the American market doesn’t want a true car-based wagon” — IF that wagon is not properly marketed and sold. The article is about the lack of dealer support making it tougher to move TourX, and the lack of GM support for TourX is clearly the impetus for that. We simply can’t know if your statement is indeed true as it applies to TourX unless we actually see the TourX properly marketed. Which we clearly have not. Now we could also say you are wrong outright as Subie has sold 76k+ Outbacks this year alone according to an article this week from another auto site (rhymes with autohog). Car-based? Yeah I’d have to guess so as it’s not on a truck platform. Outback is just a raised wagon. Put some great marketing support behind TourX and I have no doubt it would sell in very respectable if not very good numbers. I’ve worked in marketing the past 27+ years and I speak from bona fide experience. Great, consistent marketing support can make all the difference in the world.
I think Subaru sales would counter your argument that Americans don’t want wagons, that’s all they sell and they outsell Buick 3:1. The Europeans also sell a lot of wagons (BMW, Mercedes, Audi in particular). Yeah, they don’t sell in the volume their SUVs sell but they also don’t make as many. I’ve been interested in a TourX for a while and my local dealer hasn’t even had one in at least 4 months. I have a wealthy friend in California who could have any type of car but he bought a TourX. Other info I’ve seen indicates that the TourX buyers have the highest average income of any Buick buyer… interestingly this is also the case for the Mercedes E-class wagon. This may not be a huge market, but it is an important one.
Dealers chasing potential customers away with their indifference is just a self-fulfilling prophesy. It’s the same BS we see for the few models that offer manual transmissions. They are rarely available and dealers don’t want to order them so they argue there is no demand… but used they bring a value premium when they do appear.
I suspect that there are very low margins with these cars being bought from PSA. In this case there is little reason to advertise and accounts for why I have never seen a Regal ad on its own and likely justifies why I have only seen one on the road here in Vancouver.
Even though a Regal would be my first choice based on it being a good fit for my needs, the lack of marketing will likely ensure it will have a poor resale value because nobody knows what it is. It would be wiser for me to buy something in which its manufacturers shows some pride.
Experience last week at a Buick dealer: salesman told me the Lacrosse had been discontinued. None in stock.
Unable to lease, pricing out like MB GLE
Crazy & unfortunate !
Auto Salesmen are treated poorly , by most everyone. The job is a 7 day,12 hour a day job.
It’s a job that people take when they can’t do any better.
Auto dealers hire too many salespeople, and continually impose fees and “packs” that are not commissionable. Most dealerships pay a $100 minimum flat fee for selling a car.
The Dealerships are so competitive that profit per sale is so low, there is nothing left for the salesperson. The buyer can get online & shop until there is no commissionable profit..
It’s not the kind of job a guy can support family or buy a house with.
Cars are high ticket items with poorly remunerated salespeople, until that changes, we are not going to get good treatment from career sales people. So Just shop price & buy where you find it.
Be sure to buy a brand that has several locally available dealerships, so you can pick a decent service department, because the techs suffer the same circumstances
@Denny Arnold:
Very well said. I know. I’m in a dealership. I’m going to do my own post below and it may be long. So for here I will just say you are totally correct.
I bought one back in April my dealership in NC had 4 on the lot. I love it I wasn’t going in to get the TOURX but it caught my eye and everywhere I go people tell me they love it
If someone came in looking for a Regal TourX, we would roll out the red carpet! I like them so much I bought one for myself. We de-cladded it, painted the wheels gloss black, and tinted the windows 35%. I get a lot of compliments on it. It’s hard to sell a vehicle that GM is not advertising. Unfortunately, the TourX will probably go the way of the Lacrosse and the Cascada.
Now if I can only figure out a way to make it go faster…
@Larry you can get a tune for it to make it faster! Search https://buickforums.com/forums/forums/2018-buick-regal-sportback-and-tourx-forum.135/
I may get this down the line myself.
Would love to see pics of your decladded wagon! And ballpark cost of that project. Thanks!
How did you handle the front fender/bumper cladding? Can you post photos of your de-cladded TourX. Thanks
I have Regal Cross Hatch, lots of room, much more attractive and performance is great. Buick needs to get rid of the black wheel cutout trim and appeal Seniors.
I am so sick of SUV’s but my wife wants utility. I wanted to look at one but the 3 closest dealers to me do not have any in stock. After that the next one is a 12 hour round trip. Might explain why I’ve never seen one on the road. One of these days I may drive to find one, though start/stop and odd option requirements like no automatic AC until you get to the $40k option packages may doom it anyway. I agree it seems GM simply doesn’t want to sell them.
Given the demise of autos I may finally have to part with GM. Mary Barra’s determination to sell cars people want does not include me or most of the people that ride in my 2015 Impala. My theory is that the 2025 Obama 55 mpg standards are so unrealistic that the car companies are simply choosing to get out of the car business and become truck only companies. In other words, just as CAFE did I. The 1970’s, fleet fuel economy will actually decrease based on regulations trying to force increases that consumers do not want.
There are workarounds for the Start/Stop, including shifting into manumatic, max ac, tapping the brake, a tune that includes s/s defeat, or a module that costs ~ $130. Don’t let that stop you from enjoying this great car. The distance to find one…that does seem odd. Have you contacted Buick, or looked at autotrader / cars.com ? I’m in the Midwest, bought mine in February and they were 12 deep at one dealer, 3 at another, 8 at another, plus more…all local to me.
Forcing car companies to have better mpg is pretty much the only way to get them there, they certainly aren’t doing it on their own and earth is literally in the balance. Late ’70s car ads show 30+ mpg for sedans, 40+ for compacts. Yes they didn’t have all the extra safety features of today but that was 40 years ago and it’s reasonable to posit that proper science/research investments would have paid this out by now. We all know that mismanagement is certainly a big part of a lot of these companies.
As a sales consultant at a Buick/GMC store i can tell you interest in the vehicle is extremely low. I only have 2 in stock and both are demo’s. There are no leases on them. As for the folks who didn’t get a call back that is on the dealer not Buick. In my market we lease 80% of the vehicles we sell and having no leases on them hurts the vehicle. I think Buick missed the mark on it bringing the version they did versus the non cladded version you can get in Europe. If you look at a Volvo XC70 or a Subaru Outback there is more space between the top of the tire and the bottom of the wheel arch and makes it look like SUV not like the Tour X that looks like a standard wagon with some black bits on it. It reminds me on the outside like a Avalanche or dare I say it an Aztek. Its a great car but looks are not its strong suit.
As a former GM sales consultant, I’m not surprised. We had similar experiences with Regal & LaCrosse – year-over-year sales were so low that new inventory wasn’t even ordered, and customers didn’t notice them missing. Without historical data to base a take rate on or expressed interest from walk-ins, dealers will be reluctant to order a brand new model in for stock, never mind having a range of trims. Even if they ordered in 1-2 at launch time, they probably took forever to sell or were (gleefully) dealer-traded (or relegated to service loaners). The TourX isn’t even sold here in Canada, where I think a wagon might actually sell. I think the non-cladded version would have done better here, too; they should have left cladding on the list of accessories.
The poor leasing on the Regal is likely the #1 reason its in the tank. I had heard last time i got a car leasing was 2/3 of the new sales (chevy). I am a bit surprised but not shocked at the 80% number. How are you supposed to sell a car that they simply will not make attractive as a lease?
I just started to look into leasing my 3rd Regal, but the comments from several local Buick dealers is the same, “you’re better off buying the car”. Once I started to receive quotes between $600 – $700 for monthly payments, I realized that Buick is definitely out of the sedan market. Too bad Buick is just for the China market.
Did they tell why the lease payment is so high? What were the terms? How about the residual?
Buick just announced plans to add the Encore GX to its U.S. lineup…
http://gmauthority.com/blog/2019/05/2020-buick-encore-gx-announced-for-united-states/
… and we expect it to add the XT4-based Buick Enspire (potentially called Envision GX) in the near future:
http://gmauthority.com/blog/2019/06/upcoming-buick-enspire-spied-testing-alongside-cadillac-xt4/
So I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s “only for the Chinese” market.
This is what I suspected, they drove people out of the sedan and wagon market, because they make way more money off of the ugly crossovers and SUV’s.
I’m in the market for a wagon in the next year or so. 6 months ago, I casually walked into a dealership in Columbus, GA and they had one in stock and a sales guy was happy to go around it with me and sit in it. I wish I had asked to test drive it as a month ago, I was at a much larger dealership next to Mall of Georgia and they not only didn’t have one in stock, they didn’t even have an idea if they would get one in stock… The sales guy lamented with me that wagons and even the Buick convertible were so unpopular. I explained to him, I wouldn’t even consider a GM product for a car except that it is one of the few wagons available to buy. GM really doesn’t want to sell this thing. If they took the cladding off, dropped the AWD, put in some cheaper interior bits, stuck a Chevy badge on it, and called it a Caprice Wagon I’m sure they could increase their margin and make these things move.
Only that at that point, it would be a Malibu Wagon 🙂
No , SUVs rule except it had a chance to market the Avenir sport coupe and it didn’t . Huge mistake as it was an incredible design and would have spun off a sedan , perhaps . So it would have eaten into Caddies bailiwick , so what ! Cadillac cancels more of its products than any other division . So they move caddie back to Detroit , wow what an astute move , now the bosses and the old shareholders can enjoy the pathetic sales first hand . Just park the array of defunct and soon to be so out side the main office and gaze out the windows of the ivory tower !
Add the 3.0L Twin-Turbo Cadillac just killed and it’ll sell like cold beer on troop ship.
The I-4 is nice but a HO V-6 option might generate some further customer interest in the Tour X. Dealers will not stock a multitude or variety of models such as the Tour X that are not marketed strongly by GM and don’t sell well. My local GM-Buick dealer is very aggressive but they do not like to stock in depth slow moving models.
I sat in one at my multi line GM Chrysler Mazda dealer while waiting for my Mazda CX-5 to be serviced . I like the idea and it is good looking to me but I slide in and out of my Mazda but fell into the Buick and had to climb out of it so it’s a no go unless they add a air suspension that can raise and lower the car. That said no one in the dealership seemed interested in talking about the car while I sat and looked at it for 10-15 minutes at a time when the crickets were chirping louder that the Muzak at my dealership