Hummer Sales up 84.1%

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Almost totally due to the H3.

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Almost totally due to the H3.

[HummerNewbie]

A friend of mine who has an H2 was telling me at lunch that he has heard that the H3 sales are hurting. I told him that they have already sold more than they expected to sell through Dec. Am I remembering correctly? Anyone know what the figures are for Hummer sales?

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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by HummerNewbie:
A friend of mine who has an H2 was telling me at lunch that he has heard that the H3 sales are hurting. I told him that they have already sold more than they expected to sell through Dec. Am I remembering correctly? Anyone know what the figures are for Hummer sales? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Projected sales for the first year H3 were 25K. As of last month, I believe sales were around 22-23K, and there is still about 8 months left for 2006 model vehicles.
H2 sales are steady with a small growth (last I heard). H3 sales are not hurting. Hell, if they didn't sell anymore, they have already sold as many as they projected for the year.

[HummerNewbie]

Good info fstop, I will pass it on. Wherever he heard this had mentioned that a lot were showing up at auction. Figure that is going to happen anyway let alone the fact that Budget is renting them so I am sure many are about to come out of their fleet and go to auction. Sales of the H3 are just incredible.

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Those auction vehicles certainly are not out of the GM company car fleet. Per the GM tagging site, more people are looking than there are H3s available.
You will have some company vehicles show up out of the MI/IN/OH area, since GM employees hate to go out of state to pick up a vehicle, and if they are not tagged when they come out of service, they are sent immediately to auction.
Other vehicles that go to auction are the captured test fleet vehicles, which have been filtering out of service. Many of these are not taggable by GM employees.
There are two reasons a large amount of vehicles suddenly appear in the company car fleet. One, they are not selling, and two, IRS regs. Two weeks ago I was at the GM company car (PEP) lot in Pontiac, switching out a SSR for a Saturn VUE, and they had twenty H3s just delivered. Per the PEP person, they were ordered per IRS regs. (IRS states that since these are cars for evaluation, they must be put into service per ratio of the number of vehicles selling.) So, even if a vehicle is a hot seller, GM is required to put a certain number into service to keep the IRS from screwing with them.

[HummerNewbie]

Thanks for the info. I knew there had to be an explanation.

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I just thought of something, the only other large surge of H3s, or any other type of vehicle right now, could be due to the floods. Everyone has to be cautious when purchasing a used vehicle in the next year. Insurance companies pay off claims on flooded vehicles, then sell to a broker, and in some states, it is very easy to obtain a new "clean" title, then send the vehicle to auction.
Just read an article the other day that some of the Katrina flood vehicles are appearing at auctions.
I also heard that GM lost quite a few dealers in LA (as well as all other mfgrs), plus the dealers that are still around lost cars due to flooding; putting thousands of cars/trucks out there, and there are a lot of low life people out there.
You can also bet they will ship out of state for the auctions.