With new dealership acquisitions in the U.K. as well as purchase of one of Brazil’s largest auto retailers, a new board member appointment, and a Douthern hail storm that affected four of its New Orleans dealerships, news was streaming from Group 1 Automotive last week.  Unfortunately, the Feb. 24 hail storm was not the first […] [Read More]

General Motors Financial announced its 2012 Auction of the Year winner as part of the company’s nationwide Auction of Excellence program. For the fourth time, this top honor went to Rawls Auto Auction of Leesville, S.C. Since 2006, GM Financial named the Auction of the Year winner at its annual Auction Summit in Arlington, Texas. […] [Read More]

Larry H. Miller Dealerships announced a chief financial officer appointment late last week, as another dealer group launched a sales drive for the month of March. Dean Fitzpatrick, president of Larry H. Miller Dealerships, named  Rourk Kemp CFO for the dealership group. Kemp previously served as vice president of finance for Miller Automotive Operations. In […] [Read More]

BANDON, Ore. — It is appearing to be a successful tax season for dealers if the February data from CNW Research is any indication. CNW said the number of subprime buyers of used vehicles soared 53.2 percent in February versus the same month a year ago while purchasers with FICO scores below 550 is up […] [Read More]

CARMEL, Ind. — J.D. Byrider watched the fourth quarter become the largest growth period in the history of the buy-here, pay-here dealership chain. To generate $142.6 million in sales from October through December, the company turned a record number of vehicles during the fourth quarter, moving 12,054 units to bring the year-end total to 50,634. […] [Read More]

DETROIT — Ally Financial launched a new advertising campaign for its U.S. automotive business today as the company continues to look to grow and diversify its dealer client base. With the new theme, "Ally. It's more than our name, it's our promise," the company highlighted the campaign features dealers sharing compelling stories of business and […] [Read More]

TUCSON, Ariz. — Vendor Transparency Solutions, an Arizona-based compliance management company, and Michael Dougherty of Weltman, Weinberg & Reis, a large creditors' rights law firm, are announcing the launch of a series of free Consumer Financial Protection Bureau compliance webinars. Organizers indicated the webinars, each covering different CFPB topics, will be made available to auto […] [Read More]

For their respective certified pre-owned programs, Hyundai and Volkswagen both celebrated their best February ever, and Mercedes-Benz pushed its CPO sales up 26 percent. These are just a few of the storylines that were developing in the certified market as automakers began reporting monthly CPO sales late last week. Starting with VW, its 7,301 certified […] [Read More]

The number of units flowing into the auction lanes this year is expected to jump to about 7.9 million units, according to the 2013 Used Car Market Report from Manheim. This would be a 5-percent increase from 2012, the report indicated. And while still down significantly from the 10 million-unit-mark reached in 2003, this growth […] [Read More]

Along with offering another update on how the company is navigating the costs associated with processing vehicles destroyed during Superstorm Sandy, Copart highlighted the early success of its mobile apps that were launched at the end of the second quarter of its current fiscal year. Copart said 30,000 users downloaded the apps for Android, iPhone […] [Read More]