Many Calgarians return to work this week as the city continues to clean up and recover after massive floods.
But for car dealers the damage extends much further than a few weeks of lost sales.
Dale Byrnes, general manager of Maclin Ford in Calgary, said he hasn’t been able to get very closely but he believes all 55 new cars he stored there — and the 200 to 300 stored by others in the Calgary Auto Mall — will likely be written off.
“Most of them were covered at least to the roof,” said Byrnes.
“The rule of thumb is that if it gets over the dash water depth, they’re pretty much writeoffs.”
The damage will be covered by insurance, he said, adding that he’s not sure if the cars could have been moved in time.
“It happened so fast. They had the underpass blocked off Thursday morning at the end of Heritage Drive because it was full of water, so it was pretty tough,” Byrnes said.
Jim Gillespie, The Executive Manager of the Motor Dealers Association, says dozens of vehicles on dealers lots and in storage will be written off.
“There were a few hundred in there that were submerged in eight feet of water, so that inventory’s gone, some were luxury, some were not, so there’s a significant loss there.”
Gillespie added that new vehicles will be brought in and he expects business will pick up again within the next few weeks.
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