We've joined a great family of brands. Read more here.

Attracting and retaining employees depends on your management. Now, more than ever, you need to inspire your managers to inspire their teams. Which of these 7 qualities get their boxes checked at your dealership? Which need work? Read about the 7 traits dealership employees look for in management.

Reconditioning is the step in the supply chain where value is added to every vehicle, and resale profit is made. That’s why getting Recon right is so important.

What do you use to measure your reconditioning operation? With so many activities that comprise the end-to-end process to make cars ready for resale, you need a system that reliably and consistently tracks all the work by all the stakeholders. 

My company makes software to handle this for dealerships, auctions and rental car operations; but I'm curious to learn of successful systems (manual or other software) you use to track and improve recon operations. I'm especially interested in what works well, but also about areas that still challenge.

I read a comment recently in one of the other online forums for Used Car dealers. The poster, a dealer principal, wrote: “With reconditioning cost through the roof these days I prefer to buy as ready as possible. I feel my money is better spent on the frontline ready car..”

Really? Of course it’s great if you can score a vehicle where all you need to do is wash it and go, and no buyer should pass on those rare opportunities. But limiting yourself to only those gems can put you behind your competitors and leave money on the table.

If you’re shying away from vehicles that need some reconditioning because of the cost, then you need to take a hard look at your recon process. Reconditioning should be one of the most profitable parts of your operation, allowing you to acquire at lower costs and selling at higher margins. When you buy a frontline-ready vehicle, chances are that someone else has done the reconditioning, and is marking up your cost in the process.

So don't walk away from profit. Improve your reconditioning operation to become more efficient and you'll sell more cars at higher margins. Check out the full article here.

A single system for managing all components and contributors to automotive reconditioning surpasses the capabilities of other offerings by integrating every facet of reconditioning into a single digital platform.

PARKLAND, Fla., December 2, 2020 (Newswire.com) - AutoMobile Technologies announces the release of their newest automotive reconditioning software product. Repair360™ enables dealerships, auctions, recon companies, rental car companies, and any organization bringing multiple vehicles through reconditioning to manage and control every aspect of their operation.

"We've found many operations are using multiple systems to facilitate reconditioning - different systems for workflows, parts management, vendor management, timekeeping, work approvals, service requests, and more," said Eric Meahan, EVP Operations at AMT, "This kind of setup can be exhausting as managers have to 'swivel-chair' from one system to another just to complete the process for each vehicle. Repair360 puts it all in one software system accessible to all stakeholders, so teams and departments have access to real-time status for every vehicle from acquisition to frontline-ready."

Repair360 manages all facets of reconditioning, including:

• Workflow Management
• Repair Planning
• Repair Execution
• Parts Ordering and Inventory Management
• Team Collaboration
• Vendor and Employee Management
• Service Requests and Scheduling
• Accounting, Billing, and Expense Tracking
• Reporting and Analytics

​Repair360 is currently in use by 400 clients in North America, with an additional 200 scheduled to go live in the coming months. For more information or to arrange a demonstration, visit repair360.com or amt.company/repair360.

Are your customers buying older cars than you are willing to sell?

Does your dealership automatically wholesale out all trade-ins more than three or four years old? You might be ignoring a large and profitable sector of the used car buying public. Read more...

Dealers looking to add to their Used inventory are finding surprises.

Early signs of a resurgence in used car buying are waking up the industry from its pandemic-induced doldrums. We’ve heard from two large clients in the past few days that auction prices are higher than anticipated as dealers across the country seek to increase their inventories. Read more...

Time for the industry to step up (again)...

With the bankruptcy of Hertz Global Holdings, Inc., there will soon be an extraordinary volume of vehicles on offer, creating a bulge in a pipeline already constricted by the global pandemic. Hertz, down to their last billion dollars, will need to accelerate the rotation of their inventory as a cash resource to replace missing revenue from their operations. Read more...

The door you reopen could lead to a very different business than the one you had to lock....

No matter how many years or how many generations your business has been in existence, you are starting a new business. Changes in our economy and society related to the pandemic have reset nearly everything from employment to operational practices to consumer priorities. Your business will need to adapt in order to survive. Now is the time to reinvent your business to operate in the new environment. Read the article.

For obvious reasons now, the concept of essential and non-essential employees and remote workers has been thrust upon nearly every business in the world. How do you keep your team safe while keeping your business open? Read the article.