Dealers fighting termination make case with personal tales

Dealers who object to Chrysler LLC's termination of their franchises are using personal stories to buttress their case.

The Committee of Chrysler Affected Dealers filed a motion yesterday objecting to Chrysler's proposed asset sale and asking the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to delay hearings that would approve the sale and the rejection of 789 dealer franchise agreements.

The motion includes eight case studies as exhibits. These tales of individual dealers who are being terminated include the dealers' histories, the number of employees to be affected by the franchise termination and the role each dealership plays in its community.

Here are two of the dealers' stories.

Guy Willey, general manager of the family-owned Willey Auto Group, told the tale of his two Iowa dealerships, in Nevada and Ames.

The stores were profitable in the first quarter, he said in the court documents. In fact, while Chrysler LLC's sales dropped about 45 percent in that period, "our dealerships' performances have thus far remained flat," Willey said. "Combined, our two dealerships are currently running 14 percent over Chrysler sales objectives for 2009."

Willey sells Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Suzuki vehicles. "From statements Chrysler has made in the news, it appears likely that our dealerships were targeted because we also own Ford and Suzuki franchises," he said.

Since Chrysler released its list of rejected dealers, Willey Auto has suffered a 20 percent drop in service calls, Willey said.

At its two locations, Willey Auto has 78 Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles and more than $150,000 worth of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep parts.

"Most of this inventory was accepted as a result of intense pressure from Chrysler to purchase additional, unneeded stock," Willey said. "Earlier this year, our Chrysler representative called us multiple times per day, strenuously urging us to accept additional inventory in order to help Chrysler stave off bankruptcy."

Now the dealership will be forced to sell its stock of parts "for pennies on the dollar to surviving Chrysler dealers," he said. "Forcing us to suffer this extraordinary loss of value only compounds the injustice, particularly as we only agreed to purchase the additional inventory as a favor to Chrysler in the first place."

Or consider the testimony of Nicholas Parks. He is the president and general manager of Rogers Dodge Inc., which runs Rogers Dodge of Alvin in Alvin, Texas.

The dealership is owned by Parks' uncle -- who bought his first dealership from Parks' grandfather, who previously had bought the dealership from Parks' great-grandfather, who had started in the automotive business as a motorcycle repairman in the early 1900s.

The store is profitable, thanks to what Parks called "innovative use of Internet sales."

In the first four months of 2009, new-vehicle sales rose about 50 percent from year-earlier levels. In April 2009, Rogers was ranked among the top 100 Dodge dealers in new-car sales by volume and qualified as a Five Star dealer, Parks said. The dealership has 190 new Dodge vehicles and $120,000 worth of Dodge parts in inventory.

The dealership recently hired a professional photographer/videographer "to allow us to post studio-quality images of our inventory on our Web site," Parks said. Rogers Dodge also added an additional service adviser, service manager and three master technicians.

Said Parks: "Our goal is to offer our customers 24-hour, seven-day-per-week service by the end of 2009."

That won't happen, now that Chrysler has told Parks his franchise will be canceled.