OCONTO – Village Auto, which has sold used vehicles on the south edge of the city for more than 15 years, closed on Friday.
The Green Bay-based dealership cited “the current inventory challenges” in the auto industry.
“The availability of pre-owned vehicles is way down,” said operation manager Darren Spencer. “We don’t see an end in sight. Not that it won’t, but it appears it will be a while before there will be a good supply of pre-owned vehicles.”
Management had a target to keep at least 50 vehicles on the Oconto lot before the pandemic, he said.
“Even with extra effort, we struggled to maintain numbers in the mid to high 20s,” Spencer said. “Demand has consistently and significantly been greater than supply, for almost two years.”
Village Auto’s two Green Bay locations – at 1650 Velp Ave. and just off State 29 near Maplewood Meats – face the same problem.
“But with Oconto’s inventory being distributed between the Green Bay stores, combined with a sustained effort put towards acquiring vehicles, we will build and maintain strong inventory numbers,” Spencer said.
Three of the four employees in Oconto were retained.
“We have been very impressed with the positive reactions and efforts from our employees during this process,” Spencer said.
Village Auto – which is a family-owned business – opened its original location on Velp Avenue in 1991, while the location off State 20 opened just over 10 years ago.
“We would like everyone to know how appreciative we are of the years we spent in Oconto,” Spencer said.
The other primary dealership in Oconto, Koehne Chevrolet-Buick, stopped selling vehicles in 2018. The dealership continued to use its repair shop, mainly for its vehicles, for about another year, said owner Chad Koehne.
The Oconto location – just across the roadway from Village Auto – was shut down because of the difficulty of finding enough employees to staff it and its larger Marinette location, he said.
“We brought them all up here,” Koehne said of the Marinette location, W1760 U.S. 41. “Being just 20 minutes away, we figured we could cover the Oconto area with the Marinette store.”
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Contact Kent Tempus at (920) 354-6075 or [email protected].