It has been four straight years of record growth for Mazda’s certified pre-owned program, which said it has increased its sales 260 percent since 2010.

And with this pace of growth outpacing the overall industry’s rate of improvement, Mazda’s CPO market share has jumped 1.2 percent in the same time frame.

It was 2010, of course, when Mazda launched a revamped version of its certified program. Since then, the growth has been exponential.

Such strides in CPO can be attributed to a multitude of factors, says Mazda’s Roger Basa, not the least of which is strong dealer engagement.

“Success of the Mazda certified pre-owned program is related to support from our field staff and our dealers. Mazda has received overwhelming engagement from our dealers, with an average of 81.5 percent ‘active dealers’ throughout 2013,” said Basa, manager of CPO and remarketing, for Mazda North American Operations.

“All this is driven by a CPO program that is trusted, consistent and very robust in its offerings. It allows dealers to confidently offer CPO vehicles to customers, knowing that it is a program full of many features and benefits for the customer,” he continued.

In what ended up being a record year, Mazda sold 37,886 certified vehicles last year for a 39.1-percent increase. The industry as a whole – which also showed record sales – saw CPO sales increase 15.2 percent.

Mazda commanded 1.8 percent market share for the year, an improvement of 0.3 percent.

“In the last four years, Mazda’s CPO program has seen outstanding growth and continuous improvement,” said Ron Stettner, vice president of sales, MNAO. “We want to provide confidence to our CPO customers and in doing so we have added things like three-year AutoCheck® Buyback Protection and extended the limited warranty on newly purchased Mazda CPO vehicles.”

Mazda upgraded the CPO program in September. If a customer purchased a Mazda CPO vehicle after Sept. 4, the buyer received an additional 12-month/12,000-mile limited warranty.

Mazda also extended the model-year and mileage eligibility ranges for potential CPO vehicles. Previously, it was five years from current model year and 60,000 miles. Now it is six years and 80,000 miles.