Dyn

Emphasis on spotty. The Sewell dealers in North Texas provide ridiculously good customer service. I honestly don't know how they do it. I brought my caddy in with a slightly louder than normal DVD player motor, and they replaced the entire system with a smile on their face. I am pretty sure they ate the $4,000 price tag. Even if they didn't, they likely had to fight GM for the reimbursement. Also replaced a leaky headlight with the same gusto.

Honestly, Classic Chevy in Grapevine has pretty darn good cust service too.

Contrast that with Grapevine Ford with has nightmarishly bad customer service.

Yea, I am a freak. I own, and like, both GM and Ford. ...and I also have a Dodge. *gasp*

NSC5

And sometimes even good dealers suddenly go bad. I had bought a long string of cars and pickups from my local GMC/Cadillac dealership but my 2008 CTS ended that string. It started with the CTS build somehow getting lost in the preferencing system and I finally had to use a series of contacts at GM to get my car built after 5 months. The dealership general manager then asked me if I could get a couple of other orders taken care of-at first I thought it was a joke but he was serious. Things got worse when the CTS OnStar module was recalled and it took 4 separate visits for the dealer to install and initialize a module that had BT because the first two trips they installed the early 2008 production module that didn't have BT connectivity and the third trip resulted in the right module but they didn't program it so trip four finally resulted in a working setup with Blue-tooth even though the service manager told me on each occasion that they had tested it and it worked with BT which was quite a trick since they kept installing a module that didn't even have that capability. The final straw was when I went in to see about ordering a new pickup and the salesperson I had used for years was looking quite upset and I found it was because he had just lost his commission on a loaded Escalade that another long-term customer had ordered but then showed up 3 hours early for delivery while the sales rep was out with another client so the new salesperson who delivered the ordered vehicle received the commission per the new sales manager's rules. I decided that given my recent experience as a customer and how they were treating employees it wasn't a good place to patronize for the future.

I found an OK but not great Cadillac dealer nearby but the best dealership currently is a fairly small town Chevrolet dealer in Eureka IL (where President Reagan attended college) and they have done a wonderful job with my Corvette servicing. I wish I liked the Chevrolet HD pickups as well as the GMC because I would much prefer working with that dealership for my upcoming truck purchase and I am currently trying to reprogram myself to prefer the Chevy pickup styling and content.

davepl

You'd be surprised. If GM lost the "over 60" market for the Corvette I bet it'd be a huge hit!

I think a lot of what you wrote sounds like standard "Kids these days" stuff though. Like the notion that cars are too complicated to work on! They just happen to do it with a laptop, not a 9/16". And HPTuners is simpler than a Quadrajet for a lot of folks.

I'm no psychologist but I think it's largely about youthful freedom. You turn 16 and you can get out of the house and FAR away from your parents. The car becomes not only the means but also a symbol of that freedom. When I was 17 everything about my life centered around my car.

But if your social structure isn't hanging out at a drive in but a mall, you take a bus to the mall and hang out with your friends there, no car required.

Pretty soon cars will drive themselves better than humans can, and the places where you're able to drive your old car will be fewer and fewer. And that'll save tens of thousands of lives every year, but we'll all lose a little something in the process.

And in other news...

I just bought a Tesla P100D and realized that in a very real sense it is NOT a car, it's a piece of TECH. Like my phone or laptop. Which is also how it's marketed and sold.

JerriVette

I still say most corvette owners through their years still buy another corvette model continuously so of course the average age of corvette buyers keeps going up..

The brand loyalty is highest amongst corvette owners...

Once you buy one it tends to be something you always have in the stable...

I don't agree the corvette is an old mans car...it's simply the corvette is so amazing when it comes to buy your next sports car...

Nothing really competes when you balance all the attributes....

Jmo

LoneStarLizzard

I agree with all of this. That said, Corvette's "issue" is filling the pipeline with younger buyers.

When a python swallows an animal, the animal works its way through the python's body, slowly being digested. But the python must eventually eat another animal or starve. Whether or not Corvette can attract the "next animal" is the question being debated.

To continue the snake analogy, there are fewer edible animals out there for the python to catch, and there are more snakes all trying to catch that diminishing number of animals.

the Lizzard (a Lizzard will eat anything that doesn't eat the Lizzard first)

16C7Z51

Because all they care about is snapchat.

Drew Alexander

Because we sit around in our vintage t-shirts with meaningless participation medals and we never achieved or invented anything that future Generations could potentially use

DWillys

Except for the iphone.

Tommy79

Add multiple video screens.... Maybe a gaming console controller to drive the car. Sell a car called "iPhone."

The kids will come running.

Elk

The issue is not selling to "kids."

Corvette's problem is it is unable to sell to Generation X, the current 40 to 60 year-olds.

LIStingray

I am not seeing that in our area - many of the new Corvettes I see are being driven by older Gen-Xers (as an aside Gen X is people from age 38-55, not up to age 60 who from 56-73 are Boomers) - those in the 45-55 age range whose kids are old enough to have their own cars such that a Corvette can be a primary car or those who have made enough money so that they can afford it as a third car.
The only caveat to that is many Gen-Xers who can afford a Corvette as a third car, can also afford a Porsche 911, and at least where I live they sell very well. Contrary to what anyone believes, the Corvette will never be real competition for Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren or the even more exotics.

Elk

There is no precise agreed upon definition of any generation, so do not fixate on this. The reference to Generation X was to contrast this group from "kids" and Millennials with whom this forum is obsessed.

Yes, some Corvette sales got to 45-55 year-olds. But with an average buyer age of 61, for every 50 year-old buyer there is a 72 year-old purchasing the car - far from a young demographic.

And, as you point out, many of this age group is vastly more interested in a Porsche, etc. The average age of a Porsche 911 buyer is 52; of a Boxster, 47.

Corvette, like Harley, is aging out.

Thus, the focus on the C8. An entirely new car for which chrome wheels and a manual are no longer offered - fixations of the superannuated crowd but of no interest to the younger buyers GM is attempting to attract.

roadbike56

The only problem with this statement is, it's not true. Let me explain:
The C6 was the last pure Boomer generation car. The average age of a new Corvette buyer when it entered production was 54. When it bowed out in 2013, the average age had increased to 61. Using the 1946 to 1964 age range of the Boomer generation (yeah I know, some say it ended in 1960) that puts the youngest Boomers at 50 years old when the C7 entered production. During the lifespan of the C7 the average age of a new buyer has varied between 59 to 61, but it didn't increase like the C6 did. By 2019 the oldest Gen Xers are 54 if you use 1965 as the beginning of Gen X years. The only way an average age of not more than 61 was maintained is if Gen Xers started buying C7s like no Corvette before. Did more Boomers buy new Vettes than GenX? Sure, that's true, but Gen X was the target of the C7 and, to some degree, it worked. The C7 appeals to them way more than the C6 did. If you use the Gen X age range of 1960 to 1980 as some suggest, the number of Gen Xers buying new C7s rivals Boomers and is almost equal in 2019.

Litfuse

I’m sure Chevy has released statistical data on its buyers. No reason for people to guess.

Elk

So your thinking is the demographic of selling to 60 year-olds almost remained the same.

Not very encouraging, but not complete doom and gloom.

joemessman

Too expensive and impractical. The only people I know of that like them, for the most part, are old men and prepubescent kids.

mschuyler

And that's all these answers are: guesses based on anecdotes. What evidence is there that Gen X is NOT buying the Corvette? Does anyone have rock solid evidence? All we're doing here is dissing on other generations with platitudes, prejudices, and generalities. We don't really know what the figures show. You are not required to list your age on a sales order. This would have to be extrapolated from drivers license data and compiled. If GM did this for Corvette, it is unlikely they wouldn't do it for all their models across the product line because that sort of data is as important for a Bolt as it is a Corvette. My guess is that GM periodically commissions a study from a marketing firm which would use sample data, which has its own issues, to come up with a figure. Is there any evidence even that has been done? If it has it is proprietary data and GM has no obligation to release it to the public.

A couple of things that COULD be done. You could ask the major dealers to provide the data from their sales orders, hoping no one would complain about privacy issues. You could buy registration data from every state's DMV and cross-correlate the data from other sources. That would be a gargantuan and expensive task for Big Data, but it could be done. Any way you look at it the task is huge, and of you DO find something that sounds authoritative, I would question it. Just how did they get their data? They could be blowing smoke as easily as someone who posted here.

SilverGhost

Chevy got greedy in the '70's and it cost them the youth market

A 1968 chevrolet impala cost msrp $2,850
A 1982 chevrolet impala cost msrp $8,358
A 293% price increase

A 1968 C3 cost msrp $4,320
A 1982 C3 cost msrp $21,800
A 504% price increase

If the Impala price increase of 3 times in 1982 what it cost in 1968 can be used as the inflation factor for that period
The C3 initial 1968 msrp to 1982 msrp of FIVE TIMES what the initial MSRP was for the final year production C3 is simply 200 percent more greed. Gone was the guy just entering service being able to buy a vette to store until his return, like they could during the 'nam years. No newly recruited soldiers could even begin to afford a 1982 vette.

​​​​​​In 1968 two identical college grads, 1 instantly a family man, and one a single guy, could buy either the vette or the impala. Family man chose impala, single man chose vette, only $1,470 diff
no way either 1982 college grad could make the nut on a $21,800 C3 vette, with a recession and 12 percent interest rates. I think the interest rate in 1981 on my new TR8 was 16.81%. My first Home Mortgage in 1985 was 12.25%.

Pretty much what 2020-forward is going to shape out as, with vette prices now THREE times what they were then.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/compa...133725312.html

and GM telling old Vette geezers who love the traditional Vette, with cash flows independent of salary checks, to go pound sand.

I will, in some other car makers sand lot.

RGHIIZ06

I'll be honest I read the intro but not every post. Just showing some love, here is Lucille below. I am a millennial.. 29 and this is my 3rd vette. Earned from hard work not my mom and dad. It shows you anything is possible if you're determined and work hard. Currently building the engine with a F1a94.

Cheers

Vet Interested

Not sure where you are from but that is NOT a problem here. Not even close.