Fox News - Fair & Balanced
Search Site

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 as of 11:14 AM ET

Economy

Carina Sonn

Chicago, IL

comments

GM’s “60 Day” Promotion… Is it Working?

October 19, 2009 - 1:46 PM | by: Carina Sonn

Just over a month into General Motor’s new promotion and the automaker is calling it a success.

I told you last month about GM’s “60 day satisfaction guarantee.” Essentially buyers are being asked to purchase a General Motors vehicle – Chevy, GMC, Buick or Cadillac – drive it for at least 30 days, and if you don’t like it you can return it for your money back, minus a couple hundred dollars in fees.

We found Karen Boeck at a Chevy dealership outside of Chicago a month ago. She traded in her foreign car for a Chevy Malibu, telling us that she wanted to give American cars a chance. But it wasn’t the ads for GM’s marketing campaign that brought her into the dealership.

“I walk my parking lot at work and I look at all the different models that are available and there’s a couple of Chevy Malibus and there’s all different kinds of makes and I thought ‘that’s kind of a nice looking car.’ ”

She told us right after buying her car, “Today I feel that I’m pretty sure I’m going to keep it… I feel very confident that one way or another, that everything will turn out for the best. That’s what I hope for.”

And recently, after the one-month mark, “It’s been 30 days and no I don’t believe I’ll be taking it back. I’ve made up my mind, I really like the car.”

Karen has until 60 days after her initial purchase date to change her mind.

If new car buyers don’t take the guarantee they get a 500 dollar rebate instead. A spokesman for General Motors says that across the nation, about 90% of new car buyers know they’re going to keep the vehicle, so they’re taking the rebate. Only seven customers nationwide have returned their cars – so far.

The car maker says consideration of the the brand is up by about 10-15 %. We’ll know how that translates into sales when new figures come out at the end of the month. No word yet on whether General Motors will extend the promotion, which is scheduled to end November 30th.

blog comments powered by Disqus