You've got great points ToyRolla

I would definitely be worried if I were top brass at GM. I see what has been happening to them as something that happened to us a few years ago. I work for a Hampton Roads dealer group that branched out to have 11 stores at one time. We thought that more stores = more volume = more profit, but found it to be just the opposite. Our profitable stores were carrying the weight for our non-profitable stores. We downsized to 5 stores and have never been so profitable!

Another Hampton Roads dealer group currently has 23 stores and they're seeing the same thing. The difference between my dealer group and that dealer group is the other one is buying and buying more and more franchises to make the business more appealing to a larger national auto group to purchase. Only downside is those national groups take one look at the stores' financial statements and see that they're going to have to do a lot of work to bring the non-profitable stores up to par. In the meantime the local auto group's price gets lower and lower, as he gets older and older with nobody to leave it to.