What GM's India pullout means to a Chevy owner

General Motors’s second innings in India lasted around 20 years. Even though its sales were tepid during this period, it managed to cultivate a presence in major cities and towns across the country. Today, many Chevrolet owners will feel like they've been left in the lurch after GM suddenly decided to wrap up its domestic operations. Though GM has promised to continue aftersales support, its decision most definitely will impact the customers. We try to decode this impact.

Aftersales support for your Chevrolet
While its sales outlets will shut down by December 2017, Chevrolet has promised to maintain a service network across key locations. However, it has not yet specified where these locations will be. Some dealers may choose to continue with their service centres because of existing investments in workshop tooling and infrastructure, while others may shut shop and move their business elsewhere. This could mean a significantly reduced presence of workshops and long-distance travel for customers to reach an authorised workshop.

Servicing your Chevrolet
Customers can get some confidence from the fact that GM will continue to manufacture cars in India and has promised to continue providing spare parts support. It remains to be seen what happens to the spares support once a vehicle has reached the end of its lifecycle. Will the company still stock inventory specifically for these older cars? Also, how committed would they be to provide spare parts in the long run for vehicles that were not manufactured in India, like the Trailblazer or the Captiva?
GM has committed to honour all warranty, extended warranty and service package agreements, which will provide some consolation to owners.

Selling your Chevrolet
A brand shutting shop is never good news for the resale value of its vehicles. Just ask erstwhile Peugeot or Daewoo owners who saw their resale values plummet. Chevrolet vehicles were never the best when it came to resale price, and this scenario will see them drop even further as used-car buyer sentiment could be wary of the ambiguity over aftersales support and spares in the long run.

Buying a new Chevrolet
You can expect it to rain even more discounts as dealers liquidate stocks and clear their inventories. While some brave buyers will definitely be tempted to avail these, future aftersales support, spares and resale value should be factors that need to be kept in mind while making the buying decision.