While the activity might remain stable once the vehicle enters the wholesale market, Manheim expects repossession volume to climb “modestly” this year based on one simple reason. There are more outstanding vehicle installment contracts in finance company portfolios nowadays. Cox Automotive chief economist Tom Webb insisted “it will take some time” for the industry to […] [Read More]

The Northwood University/Cox Automotive Interactive Dealer Summit is coming up Thursday at the university’s campus in Midland, Mich.  The event designed for networking and to spark important discussion surrounding marketing and retailing trends in the industry. It’s scheduled for from 8:30 a.m. (ET) to 5 p.m. on Thursday in the university’s Griswold Communication Center.  The summit […] [Read More]

There are over 47 million vehicles in the United States that have at least one unrepaired safety recall. That’s according to a recent analysis from Carfax, who pointed out that these 47 million vehicles are being driven, bought and sold, or sitting on a lot somewhere in our country, either because there’s not a fix […] [Read More]

Hyundai has taken the top brand spot in Kelley Blue Book’s 5-Year Cost to Own Awards, while Acura has earned top honors among luxury brands. KBB also recognized 22 segment winners, which were distributed across a fairly  wide array of brands. Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota each had four segment winners, and Buick had three. These […] [Read More]

A new survey from TransUnion again emphasized the value of accurate information available to collectors as a pathway to improve skip-tracing success. Officials found that more than nine in 10 collectors — 95.2 percent to be exact — have improved their right party contact rate since using online databases and sophisticated technology. TransUnion also determined […] [Read More]

Consolidated Asset Recovery Systems (CARS) is hosting a free, one-hour webinar aimed at answering common questions about the purpose and importance of service level agreements (SLA). Garrett Cline, CARS’ director of sales for the Eastern U.S., will lead the session that’s scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. ET on Feb. 16. Cline intends to cover: […] [Read More]

The recent Iowa caucuses are in the books and it’s time to shift the political focus to Tuesday’s New Hampshire primaries. Similar to the tight legislative races vying for each party’s presidential nominations, the Edmunds.com data for New Hampshire shows that many of the state’s new-car buying tendencies are similar to the national averages. Let’s […] [Read More]

The Denver Broncos may have prevailed over the Carolina Panthers to clinch the Vince Lombardi Trophy this weekend, but there were many more competitors vying for viewer attention during Super Bowl 50. And as usual, the competition within the automotive space was particularly potent. Honda’s singing sheep did a fine rendition of Queen’s “Somebody to Love” while […] [Read More]

Franchised dealers have increased their used-car sales for six straight years, according to data from NADA cited in Manheim’s 2016 Used Car Market Report. But one caveat shouldn’t come as a surprise: Used margins are slimmer. In fact, the 25 straight quarters (through Q3) of increasing same-store used unit sales for the public dealership groups is […] [Read More]

Don’t expect to see a huge residual value impact from the decision to transition Scion to the Toyota brand. According to Eric Ibara, Kelley Blue Book’s director of residual values, Scion vehicles tend to hold their value better than others. But the challenge was from increased preference of utility vehicles over cars — something that […] [Read More]