Year-to-date certified pre-owned sales stood at 2.41 million units at the end of November, according to Autodata Corp., and this was up 3.6 percent and all but certain to break the 2015 sum of 2.55 million units sold. 

That would extend the streak of best-ever years for CPO sales to six.

So what is driving this CPO momentum?

“From the CPO perspective, it really — being a car dealer for many years — gives the consumer the peace-of-mind and legitimizes the fact that that car has been, if it were out of spec or something needed to be addressed, it’s put back within factory specs for that year, that model, with that range of mileage on it,” said Mark Scarpelli, the 2017 chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association.

Scarpelli serves as president of Raymond Chevrolet and Raymond Kia in Antioch, Ill. He is also the co-owner of Ray Chevrolet and Ray Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram in Fox Lake, Ill.

He talked with Auto Remarketing in December about, among other things, two of the top trends in the used-car retail space: CPO sales and the emergence of standalone used-car stores.

Commenting further on CPO, he said, “You’re looking at it from the manufacturer perspective and it gives people great peace-of-mind. And in many cases, it gives them additional warranty benefits and it’s a really thing to put people’s minds at ease, if you will.”

Scarpelli added:  “And many of these cars that become CPO cars … have come out of short-term lease programs, factory program type cars. And that supply of cars continues as the market turns.

“It’s a great place for a consumer to get an awesome deal with an extension of warranty and peace-of-mind, because it’s a CPO car. Sometimes those cars come with finance programs and low interest rates,” he said. “It’s a great thing for a consumer.”

Perhaps another smart move by franchised dealers in the pre-owned space has been the launch of standalone used-car stores.

Penske Automotive Group announced in December that it had signed a deal to buy CarSense, a Northeast-based standalone used-car retailer whose no-haggle model focuses on late-model units.

Sonic Automotive and Asbury Automotive Group each have used-car standalones in EchoPark Automotive and Q auto, respectively. In October, AutoNation revealed plans to begin rolling out its own.

“It’s all about the fleet that’s out there and the cars that are coming (back into the market), whether trade-ins or lease programs,” Scarpelli said of the benefits to this model.

 “There’s a supply of them obviously. And in our case, it’s brand-building, whether you’re an independent dealer or a large dealer group,” he said. “It builds loyalty and brand-building to some of those dealer groups that you had mentioned and it’s also an opportunity to hone and drive home certified pre-owned sales. It’s just another avenue to sell that automobile to the buying public.”