First Indiana Dealers Acknowledge Receipt of GM Letter
By Stan Lehr
5/15/2009

General Motors is leaving it to individual dealers to announce whether they're losing franchise agreements in the company's recovery effort. Only a handful of Indiana's GM dealers have acknowledged getting those notices today--and the letters came with a hope for appeal.

Mendenhall-Roy Chevrolet in Grabill and Gene Reeg Motor Sales in Columbia City are on the list. Both have been told their agreements will not be renewed when they expire October 31, 2010.

But Mendenhall-Roy President Ray Mendenhall says the letter indicates that GM's "planning in this regard is not finalized." The company offers dealers until the end of this month to "submit any information that you like."

Mendenhall says he takes that as an opportunity to appeal. His dealership has been profitable through it's entire 16-year history. "Including this year", he says. "It is a little distressing to get a letter like this."

Mendenhall points to GM's loss of market share in the east coast, the west coast and big cities. He says the company's strength is in the Midwest. He says for GM to say, "We're going to centralize dealerships and force people to drive further and somehow that's going to sell more vehicles doesn't make sense."

Gene Reeg Motor Sales is another story. Denise Reeg owns the dealership along with her mother and two other family members. She says, "We were thinking we would probably get the letter." They sell only GMC and Pontiac vehicles. They were already destined to lose Pontiac with GM eliminating that nameplate at the end of 2010.

Reeg says she's concerned about the company's nine employees and she intends to work for another 30 years herself. For those reasons, she may reinvent the dealership to sell and service used cars.

She says it's hard to give up on the dealership founded by her grandfather in 1949. Upon his death in 1969, her grandmother become one of the nation's first female car dealers.

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