Lakeland joins auto arbitration
Lakeland Auto owner Tom Manthy joined more than 50 Chrysler and General Motors dealers in Wisconsin in filing last week with the American Arbitration Association to have their dealerships restored. All have lost or are targeted to lose their franchises.
"We're very confident we're going to get our GM truck and Chrysler franchise back," Manthy said of his business at N48 W36216 Wisconsin Ave. in Oconomowoc.
General Motors and Chrysler eliminated dealerships across the country as they entered bankruptcy and embarked on taxpayer-supported restructurings.
Chrysler shut down 789 dealers in June. GM told 2,000 dealers it plans to revoke their franchises by October.
Nationwide, 1,573 dealers have filed for arbitration to have their franchises restored. Of those, 51 are in Wisconsin, said Wayne Kessler, vice president of corporate communications for the arbitration association.
The opportunity to take cases to arbitration is the result of legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association.
Going to arbitration doesn't come without costs.
"We're telling members to expect over six figures" in costs associated with the process, said Bill Sepic, executive director of the Wisconsin Automobile & Truck Dealers Assoc. "And that's only to win your franchise back."
Manthy said it's worth it for him and Lakeland, which has been part of the greater Oconomowoc community for 35 years.
And even with the unavailability of new car inventory coming in from GM, this hasn't slowed his dealership down. Manthy said he's been obtaining new inventory from other dealers.
"We'll be a new GMC truck dealer until we either win in arbitration, but if we lose we are still a new dealer until October of 2010," he said, again adding that he is confident Lakeland will win.
AP reported that the number of new vehicles registered in Metro Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin in December increased compared with the same month in 2008, figures show. But the number of registrations for all of 2009 was down compared with the previous year.
But locally Manthy said this January is pretty comparable to last year and that sales have picked up dramatically since last fall. He said consumers are still cautious, but they are buying.
No matter what comes of the dealership changes, Manthy said Lakeland is here to stay. It will continue to offer full service, parts and warranty work on vehicles as long as possible. He also added that GM has allowed Lakeland to do service and warranty work on Saturn vehicles and with that, Lakeland has been purchasing many low-mileage 2009 Saturns which are GM used car certified; Lakeland is a GM certified dealer.
"They can all be certified General Motors," as Lakeland is a certified dealer, Manthy said.
He said he has had customers concerned about how much Lakeland will be affected by the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies.
"As we told them in the past, no matter what happens, we are not closing. We will be here," he said.
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