New-car dealers in the Chicago metro area, colloquially known as Chicagoland, recently donated more than $121,000 to the USO of Illinois and local troops. Seventy Chicagoland dealers collaborated to put on the USO Barbecue for the Troops fundraiser, the mid-July culmination of a month-long fundraising campaign to help support the military. The Chicago Automobile Trade […] [Read More]

Lithia Motors is again saying “aloha” to potential customers in Hawaii by adding a fourth store within the state to the dealer group’s portfolio. On Tuesday, Lithia announced it acquired Acura of Honolulu, a dealership the company indicated will add $50 million in estimated annual revenues. Back in March, Acura of Honolulu moved into a […] [Read More]

Edmunds.com offered a couple of  statistics in the certified pre-owned vehicle space to illustrate how CPO sales continue to surge. The site’s latest Used Vehicle Market Report indicated that CPO sales in the second quarter came in 53 percent higher than the same quarter five years ago. And during that span, the percentage of all […] [Read More]

The entry-level luxury car has been a solid play on the car side of the new-vehicle market, with many consumers preferring utility vehicles over cars these days. Not to mention, says Autotrader senior analyst Michelle Krebs, marketing the luxury cars that are in smaller sizes and price brackets has given luxury brands the chance to […] [Read More]

It’s possible that dealerships are losing as much as 84 percent or more of their inbound sales calls that are not converted to a deal. That’s according to a recent analysis by IHS Automotive, commissioned by CallSource, which studied the performance of over 540 of the latter’s dealer customers over a year-long period (from April […] [Read More]

AutoNation’s store count now is on track to surpass 250. The dealer group today announced that it has signed agreements to acquire 13 stores in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee from Carl Gregory Enterprises and a trio of stores in the Baltimore market from Valley Motors Auto Group, representing over $600 million in combined annual revenue. […] [Read More]

Two OEMS — FCA Canada and Mazda — both announced enhancements to their service departments on Monday. First up, the new Mopar Service Capacity Analyzer is being adopted by FCA US dealerships to assist in planning and handling current and future customer service demands. Mopar describes the new online tool that helps dealers to assess, […] [Read More]

Larry H. Miller Dealerships, in conjunction with Safe Kids Arizona and local first responders, announced Wednesday the group will host car seat safety checks throughout the month of September for National Child Passenger Safety Month. LHM dealer locations from Phoenix to Tucson, Ariz. will host the events every weekend in September from 9 a.m. to […] [Read More]

Not only are there more franchised dealerships in the United States than there were at the end of 2014, but the average number of new-vehicle sales per dealership is also trending toward an all-time record. That’s according to statistics from Urban Science, which has released its 2015 midyear Automotive Franchise Activity Report. The data shows that the number […] [Read More]

There continues to be a great deal of misconception in sales managers’ thinking about why they’re not able to increase used-vehicle volume. Industry metrics confirm that those dealers not performing at a minimum 1-to-1 new-to-used retail sales ratio are just not participating in the opportunities of the current market. So why do our managers continue […] [Read More]