GM Employee and Supplier Pricing Have Changed. What happened?

Perhaps some of you work either for GM or a supplier of GM. You believe you can purchase a new Tahoe or Silverado 2500 at a pretty good discount from MSRP, and you contact a Chevy dealer that actually has one in today’s tight inventory environment. But, you are told you cannot use that discount on the vehicle. What is going on?

First of all, thank you to all of the GM employees and their families as GM has been a wonderful partner to us. Our interactions with employees from GM have been 99% positive, and we have a lot of respect for the people we work with daily at GM to help sell its really great lineup of Chevrolet products. Additionally, thank you to all of the GM Suppliers and their families that support GM in its efforts. GM and its suppliers’ strength becomes our strength as a dealer that represents Chevrolet.

You may have noticed all of our vehicles other than Corvettes have had at most a price of $250 off MSRP. Why is it only $250? It is $250 instead of $0 off MSRP because if there is no discount whatsoever, and it shows MSRP, you may be a bit confused as to whether that is the price as many dealers don’t bother pricing other than MSRP on all vehicles. Additionally, we are making an effort to deliver at least a little bit of extra value over our competitors that are selling that same vehicle at minimum at MSRP, but often with a “market adjustment” of thousands of dollars. The “market adjustment” is just a way to say it costs more than MSRP. On some vehicles, we have heard of an $8,000 “market adjustment” which means the vehicle is priced at $8,000 over MSRP.

When your GM Supplier discount provides a lower price than MSRP, or in the case of GM Employee a substantially lower price than MSRP, GM will help us out financially if we show the vehicle was sold at the discount. Unfortunately in today’s environment, that isn’t enough financial help to adequately bridge the gap between the discounted price and the MSRP on the vehicle. With some dealers having only one Tahoe or one Silverado HD, and with it priced as thousands over MSRP, they are not going to give up the thousands over MSRP AND the discount from MSRP and honor the discount program.

For all of you GM Employees, GM requires a $75 documentation fee on the sale. In our case, we have a $199 documentation fee, so there is a small amount of savings. But, some of these dealers, have $900 documentation fees, and using the GM Employee discount costs the dealer the ability to charge the higher documentation fee. For GM Suppliers, there is no provision, so you will need to pay the dealership’s documentation fee. Click here to learn more about our guide to navigating quotes and some of the fees.

You might think we are just bad-mouthing other dealers – except we have had multiple examples where we sell vehicles to customers that tell us the dealer that had the vehicle they wanted would not honor the discount. This is certainly the prerogative of that dealer to sell a precious inventory unit for what they believe they need to sell it in the marketplace as those dealers are often right that the market dictates the higher price than MSRP. And with limited inventory, that dealer may believe it needs that extra profit because it may sell few vehicles. And dealers can elect NOT to participate in the program on an individual vehicle.   

In our case, we believe it comes with the territory, though. So we are willing to sell the vehicle for the GM Supplier or GM Employee price with the appropriate authorization numbers required and with NO SHENANIGANS. Don’t ask us to use a friend’s authorization number under some wink-wink when the program rules don’t allow it. We try to be good partners with GM and comply with these program rules. Could the market for new vehicles go so crazy that we have to charge over MSRP? Never say never as we don’t know what could happen with GM production. As of now, we are holding to selling at no more than MSRP, and we are honoring the GM Supplier and GM Employee discounts.

The GM Supplier and GM Employee prices are different on each vehicle, and while we like to arm our customers with all of the information that is available, putting that information on the website is just too onerous to make happen at this point. But, if you are in the market, and you want to know what those prices are on any of our inventory, feel free to reach out to us, and we can provide that information on a vehicle of interest. Click here to see all of our inventory available.

Finally, not every vehicle has a discount program even available from Chevrolet, meaning they do not support the selling at a discount. It is pretty easy right now, though, as only the Corvette does not qualify for the discount programs. The 2022 Bolt EUV and EV do not qualify for the normal program, but instead, have rebate dollars available for GM Supplier and GM Employee. Those rebate numbers are shown on our Bolt listings on our website. As of August 2021, they are $1500 on GM Supplier and $3000 on GM Employee with $750 CCR on GM Supplier and $1500 CCR on GM Employee for leases. Click here to see our Bolt inventory.

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