Carter Saab in Seattle is now a Subaru outlet
It would be quite remiss of me to let this week pass without acknowledging the closure of Carter Saab in Ballard, WA.
When we were planning the great TS Pacific Northwest Meetup a few weeks ago, one of the contingency plans, if we had anough time, was for a drive through Ballard. It’s like Little Sweden there, apparently, with a very European flavour and Saabs all over the place. The number of Saabs is due, largely, to the excellent Saab facility and services provided Carter Saab in Ballard.
We heard rumours prior to the drive last weekend that a Saab dealer in the area was considering closing its doors, but none of the Seattle people that I met last week were able to confirm it. The news came via a local blogger in Ballard, writing at myballard.com
As of last Thursday, Ballard’s Carter Saab is no longer selling new Saab vehicles. When we called to get the details, we were told that General Motors pulled the plug and decided that Carter will become a Subaru dealership. The folks at Carter Saab apparently weren’t excited about the change from Swedish-made Saabs to Subaru, but didn’t have a choice.
That sounds only half accurate to me, though I’m sure it’s the story that Carter wouldn’t mind conveying.
GM can certainly press for the closure of a Saab-only outlet, but they can’t make the decision that that outlet will now sell Subaru. That’s a decision that Carter make. GM dont have anything to do with Suraru (anymore) so I’d be hard pressed to see a dealer being ordered by the mothership to sell a competing brand.
When Steve Shannon sat at the Saab Owner’s Convention last year and said that SaabUSA were happy with the number of stand-alone dealers they had (as compared to the number of combined Saab-Caddy dealers), no-one would have guessed that a supposedly strong dealership like Carter Saab would end up on the chopping block.
Just like Saab’s presence in the police forces and ski towns of Denver, it seems like another pocket of traditional Saab ownership has been forsaken and discarded like it doesn’t matter. Saab owners in the Ballard area, and there’s a considerable number of them, will now have to travel a lot further for their service work, as Carter won’t be able to do that.
How long do you think it’ll take for Saab’s supporters in that area to switch to realiable, occasionally turbocharged, AWD Subarus, which are already quite popular on the west coast?
Cultivating and maintaining small communities is pretty important to a brand like Saab, but obviously it’s less important to GM. And I here I was thinking they’d try to hold on to every friendly market they could get.
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Thanks to Tim S for the link.
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Guess I will be driving to Fife now for warranty maintenance! That is really too bad and a huge loss to one of the biggest SAAB driving cities in the US.
Chris
Well. there are all sorts of “either/or” restrictions about competing brands at the same dealership, and, confusingly, they vary from region to region and according to the terms in place at the time that they signed on. I know that the Bart Starr (yes, the famed QB) dealership in Birmingham was, back in the ’80’s, forced to give up the Saab franchise when they signed a deal to sell Mitsubishis at the same location. Something in their T&Cs with Saab made that combination not possible (Mitsubishi was then owned in large part by Chrysler), and they opted for the higher volume of the Mitsubishi brand.
I suspect that this dealer told GM that they were signing the Subaru line and that GM informed them that it was against the terms of their dealership arrangement. This forced the dealer to choose and they chose Subaru.
a very sad state of affairs.
Sad to see the only Saab dealer in Greater Seattle area closing, if the rumors are true. I almost bought a ‘93 9000CSE there, actually. It was very well priced and the sales staff were helpful …. at the end it was all the taxes and surcharges of bringing the car across into Canada that prevented the transaction. As luck turns out, soon after that a fella bought that very same 9000 and became a member of both SCS and NWSOC. Craig R. if you are listening or reading this, hi from Ken. Hope you still have the white shark as well as your 99T.
If it’s of any consolation to the broader Saab community in all of Pacific NW, for a few years now Greater Vancouver has had to do with a single Saab dealer (Lansdowne Saab in Richmond) after three others in the region stopped selling Saabs. Earlier this summer, Lansdowne Saab was purchased by the local Dueck family who owns many GM franchises. The new Dueck Saab Saturn is not only moving to a new location in Richmond with a large, brand new showroom (Swade can talk more about that !), but they also plan to add Saab to TWO MORE existing Cadillac/Hummer/Chevy dealers in the city, with a possible THIRD additional Saab outlet somewhere in the North Shore, bringing a potential total of FOUR Saab dealers in Greater Vancouver within a couple years’ time. All good news for Saabers and the increased presence and sales of Saabs. Ironically that’s the number of Saab dealers we had originally about 4-5 years ago.
I can’t say I blame them for wanting to switch to Subaru. The car sales industry, especially in these tougher economic times, is all about product, product, product, and right now Saab has almost no real product that’s appealing to anyone other than the die-hard Saab lover.
I’m sure that the 9-4X and 9-5 replacement will be great cars, but will there be any dealers left a year from now to sell them?
Ski towns of Denver? Do you mean ski towns of Colorado?
It certainly appears that current USA sales volumes are insufficient to keep many long-time dealers in business. As they go under, the brand becomes a progressively less practical option for would-be buyers, no matter what is being offered in the showroom. I see nothing on the horizon to reverse this process, either. How much more of this can Saab USA take?
After hearing about this at the northwest meet last week, I tried to verify by doing a dealer search on the Saabusa web site. Carter was not listed as a dealer.
According to the Carter web sites, they has been selling Saab since 1960 and Subaru since 1976. They are the #4 volume Subaru dealer in the country. I think that after the closure of the Saab dealership, they chose to move (or expand?) their Subaru dealership to the Ballard location which is across the street from their other dealership - Carter Volkswagen.
Carter Saab was also one of five Saab dealers nationwide to be named GM dealer of the year for 2007 and the only GM dealer in the state to receive a dealer of the year award.
I suspect that this dealer told GM that they were signing the Subaru line and that GM informed them that it was against the terms of their dealership arrangement. This forced the dealer to choose and they chose Subaru.
Carter is also a long-time Subaru franchise operating just north of Seattle-proper. Now that Saab is gone, expanding their Subaru franchise into the old Saab building is a no-brainer considering that Subarus are freakin’ everywhere, and there is no dealer within city limits.
Since the trend of GM consolidating Cadillac-Hummer-Saab into one franchise, could it be one reason why Carter had its franchise pulled? I hope one of the C-H dealers in the Greater Seattle area could pick-up the Saab franchise (I’m guessing Doug’s Cadillac-Hummer in Shoreline comes to mind). Tacoma-Fife is too far for me.
Anyway, this is a major disappointment for Seattle-area Saab owners and potential buyers, and the third or fourth Saab dealer in the area to close in the last 10-15 years. I test-drove a 9-3 Turbo X SportCombi from Carter a month ago, and took it around Shilshole Marina/Golden Gardens on a nice sunny day.
I too was shocked to hear that Carter is no longer an authorized Saab dealer, as they were the only Saab store lefter in the Seattle area proper. The only Saab dealer remaining in Western Washington is near Tacoma, 45-60 minutes south of downtown Seattle. All of the Saab drivers in Seattle and on the Eastside will have to travel a LONG WAY for Saab warranty service.
In Ballard, Carter also has a VW dealership, only a couple of years ago did Carter build a new Saab showroom. I bought my first Saab from Carter Saab/VW in 1996. They’re such an institution in Ballard, I can’t imagine them not selling Saabs. I wonder whether Carter is relocating their Subaru store from Shoreline to Ballard, or whether they’ll sell Subaru out of both locations?
Seattle is a pretty big market for Saabs, but without anyplace convenient to test-drive or buy Saabs, I would imagine their sales in our region are going to fall. I was contemplating whether any local Cadillac dealers would pick up the franchaise; Doug’s Cadillac/Hummer in Shoreline is a pretty small facility. Brotherton Cadillac in Renton is nicer. Perhaps someplace on the Eastside would be a better fit than Shoreline or Renton.
In any case it is pretty disheartening. How does Saab expect to sell any cars to people living in Seattle and areas north if they have no dealers here? GRR.
I’ve have 2 dealers in my area close. One of them was on a busy highway and was where I purchased my car.
I’m not sure how Saab will survive as when any new models come out there will be;
a.) Fewer places to try and buy them
b.) Fewer places to get them serviced
c.) Longer service waits at my closest dealer as they pick up work from the closed dealers.
I’ve counted at least 3 new BMW dealers opening in the area though.
Despite the quotation it sounds like a rather natural change to me (Saab to Subaru). I know people disagree but I’m in the ‘Subaru is the new Saab’ camp. It’s not like they went from Saab to Land Rover or Kia.
Yes, IMHO Saab and Subaru are definitely kissing cousins. During my endless search to replace my 9-5, I spent much time driving Legacies and they are really fine little cars. Definitely have moved way up in the world and are nearly Euro-class. And ironically, in Van Nuys the Saab and Scooby franchises are owned by the same dealer. I know we’re not supposed to invoke the “q” word, but I liked things about Scooby like AWD, turbo boxer engine, a sense of character that you’re not getting in the mainline Japanese contenders like Camry and Accord.
Some of the things that held me back - still have frameless doors (my mom is 80 and relies greatly on leaning on the door frame), they “say” you can get XM but it’s a dealer add-on and a kludge that ends up putting the antenna on the windshield in the driver’s field of view, and even though I’m only 5′10″ the cabin was snug and the seat wouldn’t go back quite far enough for my taste (I grew up driving a Fiat so I need to sit way back). And if you don’t pop for nav, there’s a gaping barely covered hole in the dash that tells everyone what you’re too cheap to pay for. You can get kickass leases on the things, though, and in LA a Legacy is still somewhat of a rarity. Just like a Saab, eh?
Will be interesting to see what Toyota’s ownership of Scooby will do to them. I would expect overall quality and equipment levels to rise, hopefully without diluting too much of their quirky character. There, I said it.
I wonder if Bellevue Cadillac will pick up the screaming chicken?
Last time I drove by, they were in the process of moving (or moving out completely).
I’ll drive by tonight to see what’s going on.
I’m starting to wonder if I made a mistake by buying a Saab two weeks ago. Yikes, is the company going down the drain?
The same thing happened here in the Triad, NC area (Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem, NC). We have two Saab 9-3 in our family. The local Saab franchise FLOW AUTOMOTIVE annouced via letter that GM forced them to consolidate their Greensboro and Winston-Salem Saab stores into the Winston-Salem store. The same thing happened to their Hummer stores. They would still service Saab at the Greensboro store, but no longer sell or do warranty repair there.
For me the bottom line is that Saabs retail pricing is completely misaligned with the market. You can get a almost fully equipped Infinity G37 sedan for $35K retail today. Saabs 9-3 Aero pricing in the low $40s is equivalent with BMWs 335i base pricing and as much as I or we love our Saabs, that will never ever allow them to attain any significant market share in the US because the current 9-3 cannot compete with these automobiles in the general public. Period. A Saab 9-3 would even struggle to compete at Honda Accord pricing because for the general consumer it is much less automobile for the same price even in that class. So the problem is that Saab today with its models will continue to be relegated to a very, very minor enthusiast position.
Dropped by the Bellevue (in greater Seattle region) Cadillac/Hummer/Chevy dealer. No dice. They don’t have Saabs as a potential for considerations as a product offering. The sales rep’s take on the reasoning? “…Saabs just aren’t doing well enough. But we can service any GM car in our service department, so you can bring your Saab into our shop for great GM service…”
Um… Thanks, but no thanks.
To Francoism, if it’s news to you that Saab is not in the best of shape, then you didn’t make a very informed decision and yes, you might have made a mistake. If you realize that even if sales end service will continue, then what’s the problem? No manufacturer can just pack up their tent and leave in the middle of the night anymore; that’s one reason there are lawyers.
If you needed an ironclad guarantee that your carmaker of choice would still be around in 10 years, perhaps a Toyota?
My wife and I purchased a 2006 9-7X from Fife two weeks ago (If Saab did this good of a job with an aging GM SUV line, imagine what they could do creating their own SUV from scratch. I hope they do…). We live in Ballard and before packing our suitcases for the trip to Fife, stopped at Carter to look at their inventory. The salesman we were working with told us that the Saab portion of the dealership was closing and being replaced by Suburu, as previously reported. He also mentioned that Carter would be continuing to service Saabs in Ballard, but that all warranty work would need to be done in Fife. The salesman also mentioned that the reason for the closure was that GM had made the lease options for Saabs less attractive. As a result, leases of new Saabs were significantly down from previous years which forced Carter to close that part of the dealership.
Man. I leave for a week and a half for a honeymoon and Hurrican Ike hits, the Stock Market almost crashes, and then I hear my “Local” Saab dealership is shipping out?!? This probably surprised me the most since during my whole trip I was yearning to drive my 07 9-3 A.E. again. Its good to hear they will still service Saabs, but for all the warranty work, I guess I’ll have to drive 3 times as far throuh degrading Washington State traffic…not so happy about this. I’m waiting to hear the official word and letter from Carter explaining the details of this change.
Apparently Jamaica has absolutley NO Saabs that I noticed. Only saaw (1) BMW 5, (1) A4, (2) Mercedes, and (1) Lexus.
I called on Saturday to get a app’t for an oil change and the service rep told me that they would no longer have Saab. Carter was hoping that GM would let them become a Cadillac/Saab dealer, but it didn’t happen like that. Apperiently because Carter has Subaru already they (subaru) has “first right of refusal” and jumped at the oppurtunity to have a Seattle store. According to the rep Carter was going to keep servicing warrenty repair for the next couple years, then Friday GM said they wouldn’t allow it. Also he told me that Carter has only moved 60 new Saabs since start of 2008. Good thing I didn’t get an extended warrenty.
GM Is a jerk for saying no to Carter Saab.They are a great dealership and it suck that GM is plugging the plug on them. Hopefully in the future they bring them back.I gets I would have to drive all the way to fife to get my Saab work on.