DealersEdge Professional Forums

I first posted this on the service manager's board, but felt it might be better suited here.

How many have seen their expense skyrocket under the new DA report. I have many examples where dealers were under expense in Dec, and now are over expense.

In one case the swing was $20 -- from $15 under the peer group, to $5 over. This swung the "excessive expense" calculation from negative $11,000 to overspending by $4,000! The dealership did nothing wrong.

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** Rob, Editor WD&S **
Help is only a message post away!
robc@dealersedge.com

We recently found out that our peer group changed to include quite a few non-Chevrolet dealers.. The rep for our new store has until now only been an Olds rep.. We've been fortunate to have some insight.. We found out also that a markup in labor rate varies from Chevrolet/Olds/Gm/Pontiac.. The change on our DA seemed a little surprising to us, too..

AS A CADILLAC/OLDS DEALER THE COMBINED REPORT PUT US AT 20.00 UNDER PEER INSTEAD OF THE 15.00 UNDER BEFORE. THIS IS WITH A HIGHER COURTESY TRANS EXPENSE, DUE TO CADILLAC SAME-DAY RENTALS. YOU MIGHT WANT TO TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR WARRANTY SCHEDULE. HAVE YOU HAD A LARGE GROUP OF CLAIMS PAID IN JANUARY THAT WERE IN A HOLDING PATTERN DURING THE RE-ORGANIZATION?? A LARGE ONE-MONTH SPIKE CAN CAUSE THIS. THE LABOR RATE IS STILL ADJUSTED TO A WEIGHTED RATE. AS TO THE REP SITUATION, WE NOW HAVE A REP WHO WAS A BUICK REP BEFORE. HE DID NOT KNOW WHAT THE GOLD KEY COURTESY TRANSPORTATION MANUAL WAS. I WOULD WATCH THE NEXT COUPLE OF MONTHS OF CREDIT MEMOS, SEE IF YOU SEE ANY TRENDS, ALSO MAKE SURE YOUR WARRANTY ADMIN IS GETTING CLAIMS CORRECTIONS IN IMMEDIATELY AFTER THEY RETURN. IF THE PERSON IS SAVING THEM IN LARGE BATCHES, THIS CAN ALSO CAUSE A SPIKE DUE TO THE LIKELIHOOD OF AN UNRELATED REPAIR NEEDED TO THE VEHICLE LATER. IF BOTH CLAIMS PAY IN THE SAME 3 MONTH WINDOW, YOUR PER-VEHICLE SKYROCKETS..THIS FIGURE IS BASED ON PAY DATE, NOT CLAIM DATE.

Our new combined DA report went down a lot. I believe the change is due to the addition of Buick and Olds to our report. These cars are usually lower costs to repair than the Chev and GMC trucks which tend to drive our cost per vehicle up.

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JC

A NUMBER OF MULTI-LINE DEALERS I KNOW HAVE HAD MIXED RESULTS FROM THE NEW FORMAT. IT ACUTALLY GIVES A CLEARER PICTURE OF THE WAY THE DEALERSHIP MANAGES GM WARRANTY DOLLARS. FOR SOME DEALERS THIS IS BETTER, FOR SOME IT LOOKS WORSE, ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE A CHEVY OR GMC DEALER WITH A CADILLAC FRANCHISE. THESE ARE THE HIGHEST COST VEHICLES TO REPAIR ON AVERAGE.