[ImprovedSilence]

I know right? I have a couple college friends working for GM. They get some awesome employee discount, and can flip it and buy a new car every 6mo or year or so. But they still have to go through dealers to buy their car. It's crazy. They can see their car in the GM lot, as it's being built, but they have to wait until it's shipped to a dealer, pay through a dealer, pick out their options through a dealer and submit a build sheet through a dealer, and still wade though dealers trying to up sell them on crap sitting on the dealer lots, just to "buy" their car.

[rprasad]

Part of the GM dealer franchise agreement prohibits GM from competing against its dealer franchises, i.e., by selling directly to customers straight from the factory.

It's not a law, it's simply a contractual provision that the dealers negotiated to protect their investments.