Brand equity, you say? Let's take the extreme case, if there was only one Chevy dealer every 500 miles. What kind of brand equity are you going to have then? Chevy isn't Ferrari, people don't worship their cars, so they can't get by with as few dealers as Ferrari can.
And yes, the manufacturers do regularly review dealers for standards and such, and do often threaten them with the loss of it, but.........When I was at Ford, it was mostly due to customer service issues, as well as lame attempts to get them to order more cars
......Not due to costs of doing business. The amount of time spent on each dealer is not as much as people think. When I was with Ford, the small rural dealers were treated to maybe 2-3 phone calls a month. Does having fewer dealers make things more efficient, yes, but for you to say that it will automatically help sell more cars?? Jigga pleaz....... that's where I called bs.
And when this is a Democrat administration that is allegedly supposed to care about jobs........
Seems like the only jobs Democrats understand are factory (union) jobs......Not dealership jobs, which are small businesses that the average big-city Democrat doesn't appreciate, other than spouting off a few pandering soundbites during election time. BOTH parties are sacks of shit that are just guessing WTF they are doing.