TACOMA, Wash. -- A local car dealer is taking a personal hit as a result of the Chrysler crisis. Tacoma Dodge has been turning a profit, but on Wednesday it was shut down.

Tacoma Dodge mechanic Tony Morgan found out Wednesday morning his job is gone.

"It's a finished ordeal, I'm losing my job," Morgan said.

Forty Tacoma Dodge employees lost their jobs as Chrysler pulls franchises from dealers nationwide. Some 788 out of 3,200 dealers can no longer can sell new Chryslers.

General manager Dan Kiekenapp could not believe the news.

"I was sick to my stomach. I never thought in a million years that we were going to be on the list," he said.

Kiekenapp says their business has been profitable all of the past 15 years, employing hundreds of local workers in that time. His dealership ranked 76th out of 3,200 dealerships nationwide in parts sales.

He tried to appeal.

"The judge wasn't willing to listen," he said.

The echo in this now empty showroom may be the sound of a federal bail out backfire. There are members of Congress now lobbying the president to stop closing profitable Chrysler dealerships.

"This struck me as being totally unfair," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash. "The message to the president is we want you to look into this... We think the federal government is working with these companies we want this to be done fairly."

Taxpayers now have an 8 percent interest in Chrysler as part of the federal bailout. The company has given Larson Chrysler, just two miles down the road, the only franchise in Pierce County.

Larson ranks first in retail sales statewide. But that means little to employees at Tacoma Dodge, where layoffs are hitting full families.

"Technicians are the ones I'm going to miss the most," said Morgan, a husband and father of three. "Some of these people have been here since high school."

Tacoma Dodge reopened Wednesday as Tacoma Auto Mall, specializing in used cars. In the meantime, Kiekenapp is headed to a congressional hearing Friday with Congressman Dicks as part of a coalition that hopes to bring attention to these kinds of dealership closures.