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Truck Dealership Business Booming With Oil and Gas Development
Posted: Mar 7, 2013 4:49 PM by Morgan Frances - MFrances@kristv.com
Updated: Mar 7, 2013 5:29 PM
BEEVILLE - The oil and gas boom in South Texas has put a lot of extra cash in people's pockets and, in turn, they're spending that extra money on new cars and trucks. Louie Alaniz, General Manager at Aztec Chevrolet says business has always been pretty good.
"Back in 2007 before the Eagle Ford really took off, you know, business was pretty decent," he said.
Now, however, things are booming at the Beeville dealership right along with oil and gas. With more of an influx of money, a lot of people are, not only buying cars and trucks, but they're paying larger down payments for them.
"A lot of them are fairly young that are coming in with this money and they don't have a lot of credit so, in order to establish credit, they're putting quite a bit of chunk down," Alaniz said.
In fact instead of paying their trucks off in 72 months, new buyers at Aztec Chevrolet are completing their payments in 24-36 months which is at least half the time. As a result, the dealership has seen a significant sales increase.
Alan Pilgrim, General Sales Manager, said, "This year we're already over 14 percent of what we were last year so you can see in advance every year right now and a lot of it is due to the Eagle Ford Shale."
Not only has Eagle Ford Shale impacted Aztec's sales but it's also impacted their service. For instance, the lifts they normally use have a capacity of about 12,000 pounds. Recently, though, they've had to install bigger lifts to accommodate the bigger and heavier trucks. With a lot of oil field workers packing their trucks with heavy equipment, the new lifts that can hold 30,000 pounds have become a necessity in the service department.
"They're just normal pickup trucks," Alaniz said, "Just one ton trucks but they're just loaded to the gills."
Whether it's servicing trucks loaded to the gills or selling them, the people at Aztec are just happy to be blessed with the business. Alaniz also said the increase in business has also allowed them to expand their showroom. The only struggle the dealership is having is getting workers since so many people want to work higher paying jobs in the oil field.
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