{"id":806054,"date":"2020-04-04T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=381428"},"modified":"2020-04-04T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-05T00:00:00","slug":"in-spite-of-difficulties-summit-county-auto-dealers-keep-the-wheels-rolling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/in-spite-of-difficulties-summit-county-auto-dealers-keep-the-wheels-rolling\/","title":{"rendered":"In spite of difficulties, Summit County auto dealers keep the wheels rolling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With local public transportation options limited and car-shares currently prohibited in Summit County during the COVID-19 crisis, private vehicles have once again become a lifeline for those who still need to get to a worksite, grab groceries or even reach health care services.<\/p>\n<p>Across the United States, automobile dealers are coping with local restrictions on retail auto sales, but in Colorado, dealerships and their service departments have been recognized as essential services \u2014 with some new controls on how sales are conducted. Auto manufacturers have also rolled out incentive programs to make it easier to finance a new vehicle or to defer payments until the summer, as well as prioritizing online sales.<\/p>\n<p>J.R. Musser, general sales manager at Summit Ford, says he\u2019s been able to keep a full workforce in both his sales and service departments, thanks to the cooperation of state and county governments. Business, he says, has been difficult, but he hopes that being included in the current iteration of essential services helps provide some stability, and prevent layoffs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDay by day over the last month, everything changed and rules that were in effect at 9 a.m. were different by 4 p.m., which is pretty challenging,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen we were initially not on \u2018OK or not OK\u2019 list, we contacted the board of county commissioners, and Elisabeth Lawrence did a great job of helping us get a lifeline to operate. We\u2019re very fortunate to have the designation we do.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div class=\"row sd-donation sd-donation-mobile p-0\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/SDN-logo-white-1.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/SDN-logo-white-1.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/sdn-banner-paypal.jpg)\" class=\"col-xl-8 p-3 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/donate\/?utm_source=article&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=donation&amp;utm_term=&amp;utm_content=mid-article\">Donate<\/a><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>He also credits the assistance of Alpine Bank, which has been accommodating in offering the dealership flexibility with payroll and operating costs, as sales volume has waned.<\/p>\n<p>Musser says social distancing rules meant the closure of Summit Ford\u2019s showroom, but the business has adopted a policy of allowing outdoor vehicle walkarounds for customers, as well as conducting sales transactions either online or on the phone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the best we can do, as we continue to walk the tightrope that the state has put out for us,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe\u2019re doing the best to be good corporate citizens, and we shut the showroom to preserve employee health.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jeff Zeiter, general manager at Groove Subaru, which also sells Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler products, said March actually proved to be the busiest month in the dealership\u2019s history for service volume, as he says many customers finally had time on their hands to have recall or maintenance work completed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been bringing vehicles in and doing full sanitizing to help keep our technicians healthy, and we also offer local pickup and delivery for most services,\u201d Zeiter says. \u201cWe are here, if you need to get work done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zeiter says Groove has also switched to online or phone transactions for vehicle sales, and can deliver new vehicles to customers\u2019 homes or offices \u2014 and even offer fully sanitized, come-to-you test drives for likely customers, without a salesperson in the car.<\/p>\n<p>He says customers have largely been understanding of the changes and are still free to drive through the dealership\u2019s lot to look at new models, though every day is now like Sunday when it comes to a hands-off shopping experience.<\/p>\n<p>And with some new flexible payment deferral and zero-interest financing deals from both of the manufacturer families he represents, Zeiter says it\u2019s an unusually affordable time to buy a new vehicle, for those who have the resources to do so.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have had to say \u2018no\u2019 to the occasional person who\u2019s contacted us and offered us half the retail price for a new vehicle,\u201d he says. \u201cThings aren\u2019t quite that bad. We all believe this will pass.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/in-spite-of-difficulties-summit-county-auto-dealers-keep-the-wheels-rolling\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With local public transportation options limited and car-shares currently prohibited in Summit County during the COVID-19 crisis, private vehicles have once again become a lifeline for those who still need to get to a worksite, grab groceries or even reach health care services. Across the United States, automobile dealers are coping with local restrictions on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-806054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-17 06:16:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}