What Holidays Are Car Dealerships Closed?
No doubt, dealerships are the best places to go when you want to buy a new car – whether you’re buying a brand-new car or a used one. Like many businesses, dealerships vary in their opening days. Some close on major holidays, and others are closed on weekends.
What holidays are car dealerships closed? Each dealership has its own operating policies and business model. For example, while some close on Labor Day, others may stay open until noon. There is simply no one-rule-for-all when it comes to holidays that dealerships respect.
Although many dealerships run holiday sales and remain open, it’s not a universal practice. This article lists the most common holidays respected by most dealerships nationwide.
| Holiday | Are They Open? |
|---|---|
| New Year’s Day | Closed |
| MLK Day | Open |
| Presidents Day | Open |
| Easter | Closed |
| Memorial Day | Open |
| Juneteenth | Open |
| Fourth of July | Open |
| Labor Day | Open |
| Veteran’s Day | Open |
| Thanksgiving | Closed |
| Christmas | Closed |
Are Dealerships Open on Holidays?
Several holidays are celebrated yearly, from New Year holidays to Ramadan (for Muslims), Easter, Thanksgiving, and even Christmas.
During these holidays, most car manufacturers advertise and offer sales at certain dealerships. Besides the auto manufacturers’ sales, some dealerships run their own holiday sales. Most dealerships are open on holidays, but they may close on major ones like Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, and Easter.
Some dealerships extend their hours during holiday sales, even staying open for 24 hours. Others might open for just six hours, closing by noon or before 4:00 pm. If you plan to shop for a new car during the holidays, check if your dealership is open and ask about any special offers.
What Holidays Are Car Dealerships Closed?
Different dealerships may choose different holidays at which they’d be closed or opened based on various factors best known to them. But a vast majority of dealerships nationwide remain open on Labor Day – some even stay for longer hours than their usual work hours. This is basically because they do record more sales on such holiday days.
More so, a lot of dealerships offer sales discounts on public holiday days to draw more “new customers” who are at home on those “free days.” But this is not the same for all dealerships; of course, some will remain closed for every public holiday celebrated throughout a calendar year. The most common holidays respected by a vast majority of dealerships include:
- New Year’s Day
- Easter
- Thanksgiving
- Christmas
Other state-based holidays are most often not respected by dealerships, as they may even extend their work hours on such days.
Are Car Dealerships Open on Veterans Day?
Yes. Veterans Day, November 11, is one of the busiest selling days of the year and almost every dealership stays open, often with extended hours. It is not a holiday the industry closes for.
It is also one of the better days to buy. Most manufacturers run a military appreciation program, and that bonus normally stacks on top of whatever national incentive is already live rather than replacing it. Dealers also schedule Veterans Day sales events to move inventory before year end.
Two things worth doing before you go. Check the manufacturer offers running that month so you know the baseline, then ask the dealer to apply the military bonus on top of it. If they tell you the two cannot be combined, get that in writing, because on most programs they can.
The same applies to Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day. Dealerships stay open on all three and treat them as sales weekends, so the question is rarely whether they are open and usually whether the advertised discount is better than what you could negotiate on an ordinary Tuesday.
How To Get Car Dealership Holiday Deals?
If a car dealership is running a holiday sales season, they’d announce it on many channels, including running commercials on TV and social media platforms. Some may only print fliers and share them with their target audience. However the dealership decides to do it, the sales discount notification would spread abroad.
You do not have to wait for a flier to find out what is on offer. We track every manufacturer lease, finance and cash incentive each month and rank them by what they actually save you, so you can walk in knowing which offers are real: see this month’s best car deals, or go straight to the current 0% APR finance offers, which manufacturers tend to push hardest around holiday weekends.
So, you should keep your head high when a holiday is approaching and look out for social media ads that talk about car dealership discounts. If you’re on forums like Quora, Reddit, and the likes, you should follow “Auto” topics; some members of the group/community would definitely post discount information when they come across any.
Furthermore, if you have a favorite dealership, you should follow them on all social media to know when they’re up to anything “cool” you may like. You can also walk into dealerships that are open on holidays and check if they’re running promotional sales that may entice you; ensure you carefully go through the sales promo document and what it entails. It also helps to know what the car should cost before you walk in, so you can tell a genuine holiday discount from a repackaged one. Compare prices from local dealers on the model you want first.
