Car Dealers Seek to Better Their Ties to Auto Makers

Maverick car dealer Ron B. Tonkin, on a nationwide tour to pressure car manufacturers to improve relations with dealers, breezed into car-crazed Southern California this week in hopes of enlisting some of the country’s largest dealers in the campaign.

Tonkin, a combative 58-year-old car dealer from Portland, Ore., who is president of the National Automobile Dealers Assn., said he plans to deliver to the board of the 800-member Southern California Motor Car Dealers Assn. today the same message he has brought to the rest of the nation’s 25,000 car dealers.

“The reality of today’s market is that about half the dealers are losing money or just breaking even,” said Tonkin, who sells 10 brands of automobiles at his Portland franchises. “We have to get the attention of the manufacturers. The auto makers have to realize that they are in jeopardy when we are in jeopardy.”

The friction between auto makers and dealers was highlighted this week when General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Corp. announced rebates on many 1990 models even before they’re introduced. The aim was to keep sales from plunging during the remainder of this year. But dealers complain that rebates are an overused sales ploy that has created confusion and angered consumers.

The rebate debate follows a skirmish earlier this year over the U.S. Customs Service’s plan to imposed a tariff on mini-vans and sport utility vehicles. While domestic auto makers favored the levy, dealers opposed it on the grounds that it raised the price of vehicles and made sales of some vans and utility vehicles more difficult.

But tough-talking Tonkin believes that dealers must become more publicly aggressive toward auto makers to solve their financial woes. But manufacturers and some dealers disagree.

“We’ve had very good relations with NADA in the past,” said Robert Ogden, who heads GM’s dealer relations office. “But I would say relations are perceived as not as good (now) because (Tonkin) is president . . . and because it hasn’t been a banner year for dealers.”

Even some dealers, especially some of the larger Southern California franchises whose help Tonkin is seeking to enlist, favor a more low-key approach.

Avid Collector

“Both parties have a mutual interest in sitting down and working out the problems,” said George Lucas, general manager of El Monte-based Longo Toyota, the nation’s largest car dealer. “We don’t favor a public debate.” ’ Yet as more dealers expand into multiple franchise operations with relatively high volumes, clamor has increased for change in the dealer-auto maker relationship. Car manufacturers want dealers to bear more of the cost of marketing and to devote more attention to their individual brands.

But Tonkin, an avid collector who owns 30 cars, said some dealers have begun to balk at some car makers’ requests to build free-standing, autonomous sales facilities only for those brands rather than display the cars in one showroom along with other makes.