DealersEdge Professional Forums

Good morning.
We are a midsize dealer. Our parts manager quit and now they dumped it on me.
We've been using OEConnection for a while. And we just saw GM invoice that there are 3 OEC bill.
EPClink, Virtual Performance Coaching and RepairLink. What is the virtual performance coaching and if it's worth to keep RepairLink when we only have two garages using us? I know EPClink used for dealer locator and not sure about the Virtual PC. It kind of wasted spending over $500 and not really do anything for dealer.
Any input would appreciate it.

OEC is good if your trying to grow the wholesale business. If your not then I would personally remove repair link but keep Collison link.

pushit7 wrote:Good morning.
We are a midsize dealer. Our parts manager quit and now they dumped it on me.
We've been using OEConnection for a while. And we just saw GM invoice that there are 3 OEC bill.
EPClink, Virtual Performance Coaching and RepairLink. What is the virtual performance coaching and if it's worth to keep RepairLink when we only have two garages using us? I know EPClink used for dealer locator and not sure about the Virtual PC. It kind of wasted spending over $500 and not really do anything for dealer.
Any input would appreciate it.

If your a small store with only 2 wholesale accounts i think your throwing away money with OEC. We are a small store. My owner understands it. He would rather me focus on our shop then deal with wholesale/body shops were you make very little and then get hit with there returns and everything. Just not worth it anymore. The big boys can have it

I WOULD GET RID OF ALL OF OEC . BUT I CANT. THE ONLY THING THAT ITS GOOD FOR IS THE D2D LOCATOR.

COLLISION LINK- DO THE BTC REIMBURSEMENTS YOURSELF THROUGH GMLAM
REPAIR LINK. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO HAVE THE PART NUMBERS ? DO YOU WANT THEM TO SHOP AROUND?
NOTHING WORKS PERFECTLY ON OEC IT WORKS ONLY HALF ASS. ITS ALWAYS BEEN HALF ASS. IT WILL NEVER WORK LIKE THEY PROMISE.

IF I COULD GET RID OF IT I WOULD. THEY FORCE THAT STUFF ON US AND THEN MAKE US SPEND GOD AWFUL AMOUNT OF MONEY.429 A MONTH FOR ME AND ITS GOING UP IN AUGUSTAROUND 40 A MONTH.

UNLESS YOU ARE GETTING INTO WHOLESALE MEANS THAT YOUR PURCHASES ARE OVER 1,000.000 A MONTH. IF IT IS NOT EVEN CLOSE THEN YOU ARE NOT IN THE WHOLESALE BUSINESS. DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY. AND WHEN THE SALESPEOPLE CALL FROM OEC TELL THEM NEVER TO CALL YOU AGAIN UNLESS THEY HAVE A CHEAPER PRODUCT

IT LOOKS LIKE STARTING IN APRIL THE BTC CLAIMS WILL BE REDUCED FROM 14% TO 12 % ONLY IF YOU MANUALLY CLAIM THEM.

gcus-9-12567

I GUESS ANOTHER WAY gm IS FORCING US TO USE/PAY FOR SOMETHING THAT WORKS HALF THE TIME(OEC) .

I WONDER IF THEY HAVE THE SAME I.T. TEAM

I agree, got us over a barrel. Getting too close to the falls for this guy. Retirement is looming in my near future.

Genstar Capital owns OEC with GM & Ford retaining minority investments. I imagine this is similar to being a little brother to AC Delco; where GM likes to double-dip.

Thanks for the input guys. We decided to get rid of RepairLink and Virtual Performance. Unfortunately, nobody in the dealer knew who signed up for it and it locked us for 12 mo since the day we signed up. So we're stuck for another 5 months but that's ok at least them money suckers are going away. I wish we could just register to just D2D locator/Express.

pushit7 wrote:Thanks for the input guys. We decided to get rid of RepairLink and Virtual Performance. Unfortunately, nobody in the dealer knew who signed up for it and it locked us for 12 mo since the day we signed up. So we're stuck for another 5 months but that's ok at least them money suckers are going away. I wish we could just register to just D2D locator/Express.

general rule of thumb in purchasing a service from a vendor- If you can't offer me month to month, I can assume your service is substandard. OEC is no different... in fact, I would say they are the reason I realized this.

camaroman wrote:I agree, got us over a barrel. Getting too close to the falls for this guy. Retirement is looming in my near future.

interesting to think what GM thinks the next step is when dealers are finally fed up? Certainly a tough sell to new, young, talent and the old hats aren't being incentivized to stick around either. Really banking on either not needing dealers at all in 10-15 years, or that the other auto corporations will make similar poor policies that squeeze the dealer further. It'll be interesting to see what is left of GM.

the people that purchase Repairlink or consumerlink are the big problem that we are all going down. Giving the consumer/servive shop the part numbers just puts us parts personnel out of business.