When a car dealership goes from profitable to shuttered in three months, the vacant lot where the cars once sat is a stark reminder of our economic woes.
Such was the case with Roberti Saab, a car dealership in Kingston that closed its operations Nov. 25, with the 70 vehicles on his lot taken away and auctioned off.?“I had a great year right up until August,” said owner Lou Roberti, who started the business at his home in 1987 and moved it to a showroom and lot location on Foxhall Avenue in 1995. “September and October were wipeouts.”
He blamed the nation”™s economic downturn, weakness in the auto industry and the ongoing credit crunch, and he said more dealerships are likely to close.?“You are going to see a lot of wreckage in the auto industry before it”™s done,” Roberti said “Auto sales are down by about 40 percent across the board, and people are having more difficulty getting credit.”?Robert Vancavage, president of the New York State Automobile Dealer”™s Association, did not return calls seeking comment on the current state of the business.?Roberti said his business was doing well, but became “untenable” when General Motors Acceptance Corp., the dealership”™s main credit source, suspended the financing of leases for Saabs in September. Roberti said that cut his sales by 75 percent. He did not want to detail the problems between his company and GMAC, but said, “I can just tell you Big Brother was not very nice to me.” Â
Michael Stoller, spokesman for GMAC North American Auto Finance, did not return a call seeking comment.
But Roberti reeled off several dealerships in the area he said have already closed, including a Begnal Jeep-Chrysler in Catskill and Cerami Pontiac on Route 17 in Orange County. He said he was aware of others that are in serious trouble but he cannot talk about them. “There”™s a ton of them,” he said.  Â
A pioneer of using the Internet to sell cars, Roberti”™s business increased several-fold, he said, when he began marketing on the Web in the late ”™90s. “We were one of the first dealers to do so and it changed things overnight,” he said. While the core of Roberti”™s business remained regional, he also drew heavily from the New York Metropolitan area to become what he advertised as the nation”™s premier used Saab dealer. At its height, Roberti Saab was selling between 600 and 700 used Saabs a year, he said.
Roberti said his business model was to purchase used Saabs, in most cases 2 or 3 years old, with low-mileage that were coming off lease. The dealership also did a brisk business in older Saabs as people traded up. Some used Saabs were purchased at auction and refurbished at Roberti”™s shop, which featured a certified repair operation that Roberti said serviced more than 6,000 cars last year. Repair revenue topped $1.8 million in 2007, he said.?Roberti”™s numerous repair bays also did warranty work on new Saabs. Roberti sold about 100 new models last year. SAAB owners with cars under warranty will be formally advised by letter from Saab of alternative certified repair shops within a month.
Roberti said there are hundreds of Roberti SAABs under warranty and they could be traveling to either Albany or Poughkeepsie for warranty work.?As for routine repair on the thousands of Saabs in the region, Roberti said there are a number of experienced shops with trained mechanics locally. Most of his certified mechanics have accepted jobs in the area, he said.?For now, Roberti expects to work for Potamkin Motors in Manhattan, serving as something of their de-facto Saab specialist. He also hopes to “come full circle” and open a home-based used car business in the spring, “When the economy improves,” he said. Â
