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Here’s something from the 2014 AutoTrader.com Certified Pre-Owned Study that might surprise you about what CPO shoppers are really after.

In the portion of the study dealing with owners of certified cars, AutoTrader discovered that all of the intricate details of a given manufacturer’s CPO program were not as pertinent to the consumer as the details of the specific car.

The study was released as part of a presentation on Thursday morning in Detroit, and Auto Remarketing caught up with AutoTrader’s Michelle Krebs and Rick Wainschel — who led the presentation, along with Manheim’s Tom Webb — by phone later in the day to talk about the study.

“The way that I was thinking about this was, people are buying a car with the reassurance of the program; they’re not buying a program with the details of the car,” said Wainschel. “I think that, sometimes, some of the communications that are associated with CPO get into the nitty-gritty details … when really what consumers are looking for is, ‘I want to find a car that I really like, at a price that I can afford, with features and benefits that I want in it.  And then I’ll make a decision about whether doing a CPO version of that makes sense for me.’

“And for many of them, it does, because it provides that peace-of-mind and reassurance, and (knowing that) if it breaks down, they’ll fix it, and if it breaks down, they’ll come get me or give me a rental car and whatever else,” he continued. “And people are satisfied with those aspects of the programs, but they’re not really swayed in making the purchase decision by the details of the program. They’re swayed by the details of the car, with the reassurance of the program helping them to make the CPO portion of that decision come into focus.”

Krebs added: “I could envision an advertising campaign that focuses on the car, just as every bit as the new car, but blanketed in this peace-of-mind aspect.”

And quality of the brand comes into play, too. As Krebs and Wainschel emphasized, the quality of the individual vehicle and the equity of the brand play a much vital role, versus, say, comparing the number of inspection between two programs.

In other words, there’s not a “one-upsmanship on the quality of the program and the specifics of the program,” Wainschel said.

“I think it’s a reassurance of the quality of the car and the quality of the brand, and the fact that program exists to reinforce and reassure people about those characteristics of that brand,” he noted.

 “And that the assurance that the manufacturer is the one that’s backing it, standing behind its product,” Krebs added.

That last point can be crucial, particularly given what Krebs noted elsewhere during the conversation: many consumers believed the dealer was the one to certify the vehicle, and didn’t know that it’s the done via OEM criteria with a manufacturer warranty.

“What we also found that kind of fits with that is that peace-of-mind is the big thing with those buyers,” she added. “They were much more interested in considering a CPO when they understood that it was a manufacturer behind those (vehicles).”

Wainschel will provide more detail on these findings during his presentation on Tuesday at the CPO Forum during Used Car Week.

Go to UsedCarWeek.biz or cpo.autoremarketing.com to learn more.