GM employee pricing

An interesting post with lots of reader commentary on Autoblog about the new GM “employee pricing” promotion.  A lot of the commentary focuses on the fact that you can get a Saab 9–2X, which is essentially the same as a Subaru WRX, for $19K vs. about $23K for the Subaru.  Additionally, there is good commentary about what will happen to auction prices on used vehicles.

I recently received a notice from a local dealership that they would pay me full market value (is that low blue book or high blue book?) on my current vehicle if I came in a bought an employee-priced vehicle before July 5 (when this current employee pricing promotion ends).  If there is a negative impact on auction prices for GM models because of the pricing scheme, then how can the dealership possibly afford to pay me a good blue book value on my used vehicle?

I looked on the GMC site at offers on Yukons in the Western region just to see what else was being offered, and found that they are offering a $3K cash back or 0% for 36 months, 1.9% for 48 months, or 2.9% for 60 months — I wonder if this is in addition to the employee pricing or if the employee pricing trumps these offers. 

To try out a few more things, I then launched the payment estimator and looked at a GMC Yukon Denali.  The estimator plugged the price of the Yukon in at absolute full retail value of around $51K with a 4.9% APR on a purchase.  Based on this, it makes me wonder if you choose employee pricing and want to finance, you have to go through GMAC at a 4.9% rate.  If that’s the case, you might be better off negotiating with a dealer on the price and going with a 0%-2.9% APR depending on how long you want to finance the vehicle.  Nowhere on the GMC site could I find specific T&Cs that stated that employee pricing had to be financed through GMAC, but it would make sense that GM is recouping the near zero profit on the vehicles through the 4.9% APR rather than the 0% APR for 60 months that has been used in prior promotions.

If I were to be looking at purchasing a GM vehicle with employee pricing, I would certainly do some more research into the benefits of 0%-2.9% financing with dealer negotiation vs. employee pricing at a potential 4.9% APR.