PHOENIX -

I have to give kudos to Tony Moorby and his excellent historical perspective during his presentation at CAR. The one key piece I focused on and pondered during the entire conference, because it intrigued me, was when he reminded us all that when we thought the sky was falling when governments outlawed odometer and title "adjustments," the market adjusted — and no one wants to ever go back there.

Now the sky is falling because transparency means data history flows, recall and insurance data, etc., and the "fear" of vehicle devaluation stares us in the face.

Really, it's the right thing to do, and as with all things, the market will adjust. And in the future, we will glad we didn't stay in the dark ages of wholesale versus the brighter light of retail.

Prior to one of the panels, I asked some of the panelists if I could call "BS" if I heard it, and they were kind enough to say, yes. And this is where I think the "BS hit the road." 

Everyone speaks to complete transparency to data storage for consignors on recalls and other items, the need for more detailed information on insurance industry hits and related, but the real story is this: 

IF everyone truly wanted COMPLETE TRANSPARENCY at the wholesale level, the old story that VHR data is flawed would go to the wayside, because, really, do we truly believe that block issued announcements are less fraught with error then data streams? Do we even work to obtain both VHR major streams at the auction level and mandate their use and under NAAA, arbitrate for errors? Do we actually go to the CFPB and tell them insurance company lobbies are stopping the industry from giving all the information to the ultimate retail consumer?

Clearly the answer is NO, as the CFPB and others push us in other areas. And we comply, don't you think it makes sense that we LEAD, create our own baseline not wait until another directive is mandated to us that we might not appreciate as much as our own? 

In this area, I state to IARA and others, that it is both the responsibility of your organization to push your members to provide all of this information on their consignment to the auctions about their consignment and not the auctions responsibility to chase and pay for that information and then get backlash from our buyers when items are not properly disclosed. Transparency should be a consignor driven initiative that creates buyer confidence and ultimate retail crossover.

At DAASW.com, we developed a proprietary program that we call "Carfax Transparent Transactions." 

EVERY unit has a green, yellow or red sticker on the windshield and any additional announcements from the consignor. Think about the uptick of a green Carfax to a seller, who announces everything "as is" and the deletion of "BS" to a dealer announcing GUARANTEED on a red sticker and it crosses over to the retail side.

Transparency should not be a "buzzword" in 2016, is should be a reality, let's stop worrying about share, arbitrage, the cheapest fee and stating that everything can sell on the net.

Let's start creating deeper condition reports on all consignment, increased data histories on every car, including recall information, because there are real people that are going to be buying and driving these vehicles we sell each day.

And we all have an ethical and moral responsibility to ensure that each of those individuals has all of the information they need to make an educated purchase, because that person might just be your son, your daughter, your wife.

As always, just one man's opinion.

Editor’s Note: Jim DesRochers is vice president at Dealers Auto Auction of the Southwest. As with any contributed content, the opinions expressed in this and other editorial columns are solely that of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of Auto Remarketing or its parent company.