NextGear Capital, a Cox Automotive brand, has appointed Joe Carusella to be national vice president of its Canada operations. Carusella brings more than 21 years of auto industry experience in the areas of operations, sales and finance. “We are excited to have Joe in the Canadian operation team in this newly created position,” John Wick, […] [Read More]

The auto finance industry has new terminology for what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau refers to as arbitration — "contract gotchas." Ahead of a field hearing scheduled for later today in Albuquerque, N.M., the CFPB early on Thursday released its proposed rules that would prohibit mandatory arbitration clauses that the bureau said denies groups of […] [Read More]

The certified pre-owned vehicle market climbed more than 8 percent in April and approached 233,000 sales for the month, according to Autodata Corp. Releasing figures late Wednesday afternoon, Autodata said there were 232,853 CPO sales last month, which beat year-ago figures by 8.3 percent and pushed the year-to-date tally to 879,211 sales (up 5.9 percent). […] [Read More]

Before launching Sales Performance Management during the NADA Convention & Expo, CallSource spent a year previewing the end-to-end call management system with a few dealers. While the company found some encouraging results from the pilot testing — call-to-appointment climbed for the dealers above 30 percent; the industry average is 8 percent, CallSource said — a […] [Read More]

Summer might not officially arrive for another six weeks, but Black Book identified a potential new trend that signals that the end of the spring market may be around the corner. According to this week’s Black Book Market Insights report released on Wednesday, analysts noticed that many car segments saw weakening retention, which is a […] [Read More]

Possibly the death nail in Takata’s airbag inflator business could mean major headaches for franchised dealers and their service departments. Under the Amended Consent Order issued to Takata this week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is expanding and accelerating the recall of Takata air bag inflators. The company is required to make a […] [Read More]

Whether the cars were being sold online or in the auction lane, first-quarter volume climbed double digits for the ADESA auction business unit of KAR Auction Services. The auction chain lifted its overall volume by 17 percent year-over-year, with physical auction volume climbing 12 percent, according to earnings results released by the parent company. Meanwhile, online-only volume […] [Read More]

Search Optics, a provider of digital marketing services to the automotive industry, has hired Ryan Soffa as vice president of global enterprise solutions. Soffa, who has more than 20 years of auto industry experience, will help further expand Search Optics’ international reach by helping auto dealerships strengthen their retail business.  “During his extensive experience in […] [Read More]

Released a day after AutoData Corp. indicated April new-vehicle sales rose both sequentially and year-over-year, Black Book released results of its recent survey taking the pulse of the finance company community. And that community is pretty upbeat about its prospects for continuing to fill portfolios. A total of 61.29 percent of finance company executives surveyed […] [Read More]

Top executives at Security National Automotive Acceptance Co. (SNAAC) highlighted how they are executing an aggressive growth plan based on a strategy to add a significant number of dealership customers throughout the United States. To accomplish these goals, SNAAC recently bolstered its workforce with the appointment of two senior-level leaders and the addition of 11 […] [Read More]