There were two key factors driving down used-car gross margins for Asbury Automotive Group during the third quarter, but the period had some very positive results in both pre-owned and overall results.  Starting with some of the used operational results, Asbury’s Q3 same-store used retail gross profit was up 1 percent at $31.9 million.  Executive vice president […] [Read More]

Sonic Automotive reported its third quarter results today, highlighted by several all-time records. In addition to setting an all-time record for new retail unit sales (36,301 units, up 6.5 percent year-over-year), Sonic also set a new all-time record for pre-owned gross profit, revealing a 5.8-percent increase year-over-year with a pre-owned gross profit of $41.2 million. […] [Read More]

Dealers who participated in KeyBanc Capital Markets’ monthly automotive retail industry update survey gave some candid comments about their used-vehicle prospects, especially in light of 44 percent of respondents saying they expected gross profit per unit to soften by about $50. Despite that gross-profit expectation, the vast majority of dealers surveyed in September (78 percent) […] [Read More]

Auto/Mate Dealership Systems announced this week a product development that company management says will streamline dealership workflow. The company has integrated its dealerships management system with etfile’s electronic document management solution. Now, dealers using the etfile document imagining, filing and retrieval system can now get deals from F&I and repair orders from service, via delivery […] [Read More]

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration urges owners of more than 4.7 million vehicles originally manufactured by Toyota, Honda, Mazda, BMW, Nissan and General Motors to act immediately on recall notices to replace defective Takata airbags. Federal officials stressed that their message comes with added emphasis, especially for owners of vehicles affected by the regional […] [Read More]

Add more than a million vehicles to this year’s record-breaking total of recalls as Chrysler Group and Volkswagen of America rolled out a combined three separate campaigns. With this year’s total now well above 20 million in the U.S. alone, the figure grew because Chrysler’s newest two campaigns stem from an alternator issue and the other […] [Read More]

The folks at Swapalease.com released a blog post on their site this week regarding photo-taking mishaps to avoid when selling a vehicle online. While most of these tips are aimed at private sales, these guidelines are good to keep in mind for dealer sales, as well. The following 11 suggestions from the Cincinnati-based marketplace are situations […] [Read More]

As part of a reported recall of more than 1.6 million vehicles worldwide, Toyota Motor Sales USA announced plans to conduct a voluntary safety recall of approximately 423,000 Lexus vehicles for an issue with the fuel-delivery system. Included in the U.S. campaign are: — Lexus LS from the 2007 through 2010 model years — Lexus […] [Read More]

With the launch of the company’s “No Surprises” initiative, TrueCar Certified Dealers must now share “upfront information” on any non-governmental fees in the transaction — like document fees — as well as the costs for any accessories they add on to the vehicle. These fees and costs must now go alongside the Guarantee Savings off […] [Read More]

The board of directors for the National Automobile Dealers Association has elected its 2015 chairman. Chosen for the post during the board’s annual meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz., is Bill Fox, who is currently NADA’s vice chairman and also represents New York’s franchised dealers on NADA’s board.  He is a partner in Fox Dealerships, which includes […] [Read More]