Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America said Monday that it has seen an 80-percent decrease in reports of acceleration-related concerns from customers since April when its SMART evaluation program was rolled out. With these efforts to address acceleration-related issues being so successful, TEMA said its SMART program will be enlarged to tackle other areas of […] [Read More]

While acknowledging that import brands have the lead in the San Francisco Bay area where her family dealership resides, dealer Carolyn Lehmer Anderson contends that the product her store offers is stronger.   Concord Buick-GMC chief financial officer Darren Anderson — her son — even boasts that the “right marketing” can help the dealership grab even more conquest sales.   [Read More]

Import automakers saw year-over-year lift in new-vehicle sales during September as they remain on a “gradual” and “steady” uptick, according to the American International Automobile Dealers Association. Sharing figures from Autodata Corp., AIADA noted that import brands moved 525,483 units in September, a year-over-year gain of 25.4 percent. Through nine months of the year, import dealers have […] [Read More]

Ford and its Northern California dealers recently contributed $25,000 to help in the aftermath of the gas explosion that took place in San Bruno, Calif., earlier this month. The funds were given to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s San Bruno Fire Fund, which will determine which non-profits benefit. Basically 100 percent of the donation will […] [Read More]

BMW of North America revealed late last week that it is recalling about 198,000 models to fix a potential power-breaking problem. The company said it would be notifying the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration via letter that it planned to pull the vehicles. Included in the voluntary recall are particular V12 and V8 models of the following vehicles: BMW […] [Read More]

vAuto announced one merchandising workshop and four Velocity Webinars for its customers later this month. Tracy Noonan Fred, senior director of performance management, will be leading the events. “The Effective Merchandising Workshop will focus on dealership online classified and presence that can help maximize a dealership’s online presence,” according to officials. [Read More]

Scion made its Canadian debut earlier this week, boasting a dealer network of 45 stores throughout Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. The automaker said it will add dealerships in additional markets. As Scion’s demographic tends to be a younger crowd, officials said Scion will one day have dealerships “in any Canadian city with a vibrant youth […] [Read More]

With Mercury set to be phased out, Ford will soon have just one premium brand standing: Lincoln. The automaker appears to be getting a jump on this, as it is ramping up marketing efforts for Lincoln with a new ad campaign that rolls out Saturday and includes both TV and print elements. Officials say the “Smarter Than Luxury” […] [Read More]

Porsche AG officially has a new chief executive officer with the changeover from Michael Macht to Matthias Mueller taking place during a ceremony in Paris on Wednesday night with the Paris Auto Show set to kick off today. Macht will be a member of the group board management at Volkswagen AG, where he will head […] [Read More]

On Wednesday Saab chief executive officer Jan Ake Jonsson confirmed the automaker has struck a new deal with BMW to supply gas engines for future Saab models. Via the deal, BMW will supply Saab with 4-cylinder 1.6 liter turbocharged gas engines from 2012. The engines will be adapted to meet the automaker’s specific requirements. “It […] [Read More]