GM’s Used Car Sales Site Stumbles

Automakers know that buying a car is far from the most seamless path to purchase out there, and figuring out whether a used car is a steal or a lemon is even tougher. However, that doesn’t mean when one of the Big Four American manufacturers tries to update the process by moving it online that things will go smoothly.

Automotive News reported that General Motors’ Factory Pre-Owned Collection portal, the manufacturer’s latest attempt to rebrand and modernize its direct-to-consumer used car buying process, has already hit several snags. Though the site went live on Tuesday (Feb. 9), various automotive dealership industry groups have hit back at what they see as GM’s attempts to cut them out of the car-buying process. Brian Maas, president of the California New Car Dealers Association (CNCDA), penned a letter addressed to Alan Batey, president of GM North America, in which he alleges that the new site breaches not only California laws regulating car sales but also GM’s own agreements with partnering dealerships in California.

“There are a whole host of issues relative to the Pre-Owned Collection program, and it’s not clear to us, based on what we can surmise from the program itself, whether [GM has] thought about these issues,” Maas told Automotive News.

Choice among the CNCDA’s complaints is that GM’s new website puts them in direct and unfair competition with the 169 partnering dealers part of the CNCDA’s 1,1000 members already operating in California. Moreover, Maas alleges that GM has not gone through the proper legal channels to begin selling cars on a state-by-state basis and that the Kelley Blue Book prices it advertises on the site are not accurate.

GM counts about 4,245 dealerships nationwide as part its new digital car sale program; depending on Maas’ next move and GM’s willingness to resolve the problems, that number might need to be revised.