FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — After spending five years as senior vice president of loan originations at Prestige Financial in Salt Lake City, Scot Seagrave has a new position with a different company. Seagrave has been hired by AFS Acceptance, a full-service auto finance company serving the subprime financing needs of franchise and independent dealers, as […] [Read More]

In the results of a survey released Wednesday, AAA has discovered that the bulk of drivers are extending their vehicle ownership periods and not going out to buy a new car because they would like to avoid the financial burden of making such a purchase. [Read More]

It appears the supply dynamic will soon get back to normal for Japanese automakers, which have recovered on the production front quicker than expected. However, supply issues still plagued these automakers in July as their new-vehicle sales suffered, according to the American International Automobile Dealers Association. Overall, there were 555,383 import sales in the U.S. […] [Read More]

DealerRater recently launched an enhanced feature of its certified dealer program that’s intended to enable store managers to better integrate and leverage online reviews on Facebook. Supplementing an already existing program feature that enables a dealer’s reviews to automatically feed to a custom tab on its Facebook fan page, DealerRater explained this new update can […] [Read More]

On the same day the company unveiled a new Fiat dealership, AutoNation revealed its retail new-vehicle unit sales for July. AutoNation tabulated Wednesday that it moved 18,949 new units in July, a figure 4 percent lower than the same month last year. It appears that the production issues plaguing Japanese automakers played a role in […] [Read More]

In the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake that halted vehicle production and pushed down the amount of trade-ins coming into dealerships, Rod Emmons — like many dealers selling certified pre-owned Japanese-brand cars — “had to get creative” when it came to sourcing CPO-worthy inventory. “It’s getting harder to obtain pre-owned Acuras,” said Emmons, who is […] [Read More]

Brian Benstock, a Honda and Acura dealer in Queens, N.Y., responded with shock. What inspired this top Honda dealer to such emotion? On Monday, Consumer Reports announced it simply cannot recommend the redesigned Honda Civic, going so far as to call the vehicle "mediocre." In its report issued Monday, Consumer Reports called the redesigned 2012 […] [Read More]

Similar to another Japanese automaker, Toyota Motor Corp., shared Tuesday that it suffered significant financial setbacks during the first quarter of the 2011 fiscal year. But Toyota leadership is so confident in its future that it raised sales and revenue expectations. By how much did the OEM boost its forecast? Toyota believes it will move […] [Read More]

The economy remained sluggish and the debt ceiling crisis was on the worried minds of many. But neither of those things apparently stopped consumers from buying what TrueCar said was the priciest assortment of vehicles it has ever observed. Thanks to a pricier product mix, limited inventories and the dearth in dealer discounts/OEM incentives, average […] [Read More]

Ford told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration it will recall more than 1 million trucks to replace fuel tank straps. The recall includes these units: —Ford F-150 from 1997 through 2004 model years. —Ford F-250 with a gross vehicle weight rating of less than 8,500 pounds from 1997 through 1999 model years. —Lincoln Blackwood […] [Read More]