Matt Marks, the executive director of the International Automotive Remarketers Alliance, has passed away. Marks died Sunday morning, ServNet chief executive officer Pierre Pons said in a message to ServNet’s membership on Monday. “Matt was the original director of IARA, overseeing not only the organization’s expansion, but establishing it as a credible and critical voice […] [Read More]

Donlen chief executive officer Gary Rappeport will retire at the end of the year, and stepping into the leadership spot at Donlen on Jan. 1 will be Tom Callahan, who is the currently the company's president and chief operating officer. The news was announced this morning by the Hertz Corp., which acquired Donlen last year. […] [Read More]

Dominion Dealer Solutions has released a new equity alert tool that’s meant to further empower dealers to pull in-service customers into the buying market.   The company explained DealActivator can mine the store’s database for highly-qualified equity customers from sales and service, delivering data to the dealer daily.  Dealers can locate quality inventory at better prices, […] [Read More]

The third quarter was strong for Lithia Motors in its used-car operations, but the dealer group has its sights set higher — and management says there’s some work left to do. The retailer has raised its monthly used-vehicle sales goal by 25 percent, and during Wednesday’s quarterly conference call, president and chief executive officer Bryan […] [Read More]

Less than seven days after announcing it was selling insurance business interests in Mexico, Ally Financial on Tuesday reached an agreement to sell its Canadian auto finance operation, Ally Credit Canada, and ResMor Trust to Royal Bank of Canada, the country's largest bank by assets and market capitalization. Ally said it will receive an approximately […] [Read More]

As luxury units remain scarce this fall season, one new dealer-to-dealer sales website aims to “ease the burden” of finding quality, highline vehicles for franchised dealers. Highlinesale.com, a site dedicated to wholesale luxury vehicles, touts 10,000 pre-screened luxury vehicles and is “expanding daily,” Cliff Varn, vice president of sales told Auto Remarketing.  And of those […] [Read More]

During Tuesday’s quarterly earnings conference call, an analyst asked Asbury Automotive Group management about what led to such a strong uptick in the gross profit for the reconditioning/preparation part of the company’s parts and service business, given the more modest increase in used retail sales. In answering, Asbury’s Michael Kearney turned to the 121 Program, […] [Read More]

While the days’ supply level hit a year-high, a trend CNW Research spotted at both franchised and independent dealerships indicates October used-vehicle prices continued to decline both month-over-month and year-over-year. In the opening days of this month, CNW president Art Spinella determined franchised dealerships were asking an average of $11,419 for used models, off 0.34 […] [Read More]

Used-vehicle prices continue to decline at a moderate pace, but some segment prices are dropping faster than others, while others are bucking trends right and left. According to Black Book’s Ricky Beggs, one of these outliers is the group of pickup truck segments. As gas prices remain high, Black Book data shows all three pickup […] [Read More]

Manheim has named a general sales manager for its Northeast market and also appointed a general manager at Manheim Dallas-Fort Worth. Named to Northeast market GSM post is Bill Harbourne, while Nicole Graham-Ponce is taking on the GM role at Manheim Dallas-Fort Worth. Sharing a bit more on their backgrounds, Manheim began with Graham-Ponce. They […] [Read More]