President Trump happily signed the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on Friday; a pact that replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). And a trio of Cox Automotive experts also shared an upbeat assessment of the actions that might eventually trickle down to auctions and dealerships as new models become used vehicles. “The USMCA […] [Read More]

The Jim Butler Auto Group wanted to know more about consumer appeal of digital vehicle subscription services. So the group that’s comprised of eight dealerships orchestrated a survey as it began to pilot its own subscription service. On Thursday, the Jim Butler Auto Group released findings from its 2018 Automotive Technology Survey. What perhaps pleased […] [Read More]

In the earnings call with investors for the third quarter of 2018, TrueCar chief executive and president Chip Perry outlined several new initiatives of interest to dealers. This article highlights these and provides a brief financial summary. In his comments, Perry noted new initiatives to improve TrueCar’s value to dealers — including a new trade evaluation tool […] [Read More]

No doubt about it: New-car sales have remained strong this month, albeit down a bit from year-ago figures. But there are headwinds picking up speed, including some originating from the used-car market. First, the new-car metrics expected this month: According to Cox Automotive, the 1.36 million new-vehicle sales (including fleet) expected for November would be close […] [Read More]

Two dealers have traded in well-worn trade-in practices for a new model. The new one is based on appraisal-to-delivery ratios that sell more cars and creates more downstream F&I and service revenues. They call this strategy appraisal effectiveness. “I want to appraise every car, whether a trade, a private sale, cars in the service lane […] [Read More]

Subaru and Land Rover are taking home the 2019 Residual Value Awards from ALG in the mainstream and premium brand categories, respectively. Subaru has now topped the mainstream category seven straight years, ALG said.  In addition to the brand categories, the RVAs recognized the 2019 model-year vehicles in 26 individual segments that are expected to […] [Read More]

Edmunds is calling for 3 million used-car sales this month, and while that would be lower than what the market reached in October, the company is calculating that the seasonally adjusted annualized rate for November will actually be higher. Specifically, Edmunds is projecting a 39.8 million used-car SAAR for November, compared to 39.6 million last […] [Read More]

After seeing data from the Federal Reserve, Swapalease.com expected its vehicle-lease transfer approval rate to improve in October. Site officials determined lease credit applicants registered a 70.9 percent approval rate in October, a slight rise from the September rate of 69.8 percent. The year-over-year improvement was much more robust as Swapalease.com mentioned just 55.6 percent […] [Read More]

Subaru and Jaguar topped the overall mainstream and luxury brand categories, respectively, in ALG’s third annual Pre-Owned Value Awards announced last week, while Nissan and Mercedes-Benz led the individual model portion with three wins each. The 2019 Pre-Owned Value Awards, also known as POVAs, recognize the 2-year-old used vehicles that are expected to have the […] [Read More]

The focus is on pre-owned, but there’s a bit of “new” going on at Used Car Week this year. To borrow from the real estate industry, we’ll start with location, location, location. While this ain’t our first rodeo in Scottsdale, Ariz., it is the first time Used Car Week has visited the Westin Kierland Resort […] [Read More]