Strong but normalizing. That’s how analysts with Black Book and Cox Automotive characterized wholesale vehicle values in May, as the fast start to the year gives way to seasonal changes and high gas prices. “The spring market outperformed historical expectations this year, extending for roughly 15 weeks compared to the six-week average seen prior to […] [Read More]

TrueCar announced two hires Thursday to boost its automaker partnerships and help build out its insurance vertical, respectively. The company named former Fair.com, Esserman Automotive Group and Land Rover North America executive Syl Raymond as senior director of OEM and has appointed former Tesla and Marsh executive Nik Huyeng as vice president of insurance and […] [Read More]

Fusion Auto Finance shared monthly performance details that’s positive for not only vehicle leasing, but perhaps the used-car business, too. The company said its flagship CU Xpress Lease program generated the strongest month in its history in April, including a year-over-year increase in booked leases of 115%. And Fusion pointed out April wasn’t just an […] [Read More]

Dealerships have invested heavily in technology designed to improve customer engagement, marketing performance, service retention, and operational efficiency. Most stores are not short on tools. They have CRMs, DMS platforms, website providers, marketing automation systems, service schedulers, equity mining tools, and reporting dashboards. The issue is that too much customer information still lives in disconnected […] [Read More]

Along with adding two new member companies to the board of directors, the National Automotive Finance Association also held its annual membership meeting to pick its 2026–2027 executive committee leadership. Selected during the 30th annual Non-Prime Auto Financing Conference this week in Irving, Texas, were: —Chair: Suzi Straffon, director of finance company markets at Allied […] [Read More]

What the New York State Department of Financial Services deemed to be a discrepancy with charges to get payment extensions has left Santander Consumer USA to pay a $400,000 penalty and more than $275,000 to eligible impacted consumers. According to a news release from Empire State regulators distributed this week, a licensed lending institution like Santander […] [Read More]

ACERTUS has a new chief information officer. The automotive logistics-as-a-service said Thursday that it has hired Margaret Cartwright for the role. Cartwright was most recently senior vice president of data intelligence at US Foods. She previously was the CIO at AgAmerica. In her new role as CIO at ACERTUS, Cartwright will head up the company’s […] [Read More]

Here’s a sign that vehicle diagnostic technology is in demand at both dealers and auctions: CarDr’s diagnostic intelligence platform has seen its utilization rise by more than 500% year-over-year. In fact, the company said this week that less than halfway through the year, the CarDr platform utilization had eclipsed full-year 2025 levels by more than […] [Read More]

Last year’s bankruptcy filing by Tricolor Holdings and subsequent federal fraud charges levied against former chief executive officer Daniel Chu prompted five financial experts at the Federal Reserve to do extensive research to learn about how the buy-here, pay-here dealership segment functions. While their resulting report perhaps didn’t reveal anything that operators didn’t already know, […] [Read More]

There’s an uncomfortable truth hiding in plain sight at most dealerships: fixed operations, the department that should be the most predictable and profitable engine in the building, is running on duct tape and good intentions. Not because the people aren’t talented. They are. But because the infrastructure underneath them was never designed for the complexity […] [Read More]