Just curious....

[Gerry Laughlin]

If I owned the store I would do it this way. A car is worth what a car is worth, what you have in it does not matter to the end customer, its value is its value. The fact that you had to put a set of rotors on it and a transmission in it does not matter to the person buying the car, it has no affect on the value, no matter what he pays he expects the car to go and stop. I would establish a sale price for each vehicle prior to going thru the shop. The car would then go to the shop with parts and service realizing that the less money that is put into the car in recon the more money will go to the bottom line of the store. Parts and Service would be expected to be competitive, they would be held to the same standards as a retail customer would expect of them, or at least to the same standards that used cars would hold an outside shop to.

[Stevenspeaking]

I can see it now. Two weeks after the sale a brand new water pump leaks. Try to tell the customer to bring it to Joes garage to have it fixed under warranty. Well they are the one who did the repair. We are there to make money for the dealer not just one department. Time to all (you, used, DP, and owner) sit down together and get to the bottom of it.

Good luck
Steven

P.S. How long has the used car manager been with you?

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Its like a big lifesize chess game.

[GMFXDOPSMGR]

I have had the same issues with stores before also. I just put things in prospective. UCD manager, how would you like it if all my customers I send down to CarMax because they can get the same car a little cheaper than here.

Work together! If UCD has a vehicle that is border line and they want to keep it to sale, give them a break. Most of the vehicles should have a price to inspect, and control the techs so they do not make a weeks pay on the vehicle. Our Owner will not allow any UCD vehicle off the lot. We may have to negotiate a better price to make it possible to sell avehicle, but I work with my UCD manager for the work. I do not discount very much and when I do, it is no more than I would do for a retail customer. Keeps the customer happy.

[KLINK]

Quote
"If I owned the store I would do it this way. A car is worth what a car is worth, what you have in it does not matter to the end customer, its value is its value. The fact that you had to put a set of rotors on it and a transmission in it does not matter to the person buying the car, it has no affect on the value, no matter what he pays he expects the car to go and stop. I would establish a sale price for each vehicle prior to going thru the shop. The car would then go to the shop with parts and service realizing that the less money that is put into the car in recon the more money will go to the bottom line of the store."

This is the way we price our used cars. The only downfall is it can end up putting some cars on our lot that are not up to our reputations standards. If the car is brought into the system at to high of a cost for its current condition, it limits the amount of money available to recondition the vehicle. an example would be a 2008 Caliber with 30,000 miles on it thats averages $10,000 dollars retail on the internet. You buy one at the auction for $7000 and get one traded in at $8,000, If you want to hold your gross profit you are limited to possibly not totaly reconditioning the vehicle, or putting a substandard vehicle on your retail lot.

Now the upside
We sell more used cars!

The fix
We are looking into averaging our used car reconditioning costs. I have have been running a spreadsheet with each cars auctual reconditioning cost a couple of ways.
1. What the used car manager approved and fixed.
2. What I would have approved and fixed.
Then I am taking these averages and sorting them by several different ways and getting a new overall average.
1.By year vehicle
2.By vehicle mileage
3.By vehicle model
4.By car or truck
5. Certified or not, ect.
You would be surprised at the results.
Our only hold up at this point is accounting.

[pjpeery]

here's the way i explained it to my dealer:

i took a stack of dollars and had them in my pocket , and i said when you send a car out for repairs that money goes away and does not come back , but when you fix the car in house the money goes in YOUR other pocket and stays their , after that i had a pissed off ucd manager but he got over it . the dealer understood that he would be keeping profit in house

(today it would be a borrowed stack of dollars)

[skittlecar1]

Internal used car work to the dealership as a whole your only paying for the techs hourly wage, and parts at cost. The rest is just playing with numbers and peoples paychecks.

[KevvyG]

They all get fixed in our shop. Managers who don't follow this rule find themselves working somewhere else!!

[X476]

When you take the example up front you might also explain that when thats done it jacks with the everyone in the fixed ops dept pay checks and takes money from their pocket. it might only be 5-10 bucks but that might be enough for them to buy there kids a happy meal. Family is important to everyone and when Used cars is screwing with someones pay check it will be remembered. The next time that manager comes back and asks for help on a deal even if it just changing over plates those people will remember. This sets your dealership up for failure. Everyone!!!! must work together or you can close the doors now. You DP and UCM need to sit down with the fixed ops people and hammer out a solution, before this virus closes you down. We charge matrix to used cars and have for years. If the need help on something big they come to the Service Manager and Parts Manager and we work out something, but that does not happen often. Sorry abount the rant but I have seen business crash due to the hostility between Dept.

[Tyler Robbins]

I work with a dealer group who has many brands and they do it this way:

Obviously, they are expected to perform the work within the specific dealership that owns the unit, but they are authorized, for off make brands that they have within their group to send it to another store within the group (this includes their body shops).

Any Used Car Manager who sends a vehicle outside of the group is charged "double". In other words, if Accounting gets an invoice from another body shop or service facility and the bill is say, $1000 - accounting makes an equal amount entry to the unit so that the amount charged to the unit is actually $2000. The extra $1000 is credited to the Management Company. Only a few of the groups Used Car Managers had to "Experience" this charge for that problem to go away!

[2GREGJ]

ARE YOU KIDDING ME !!!! Anyone caught sending work outside our dealership would be fired. And they would be caught. My dealer sets the internal labor at retail and the parts at retail. He does'nt care about the high profit. IT'S ALL HIS !!! It's controlled because parts issues all po's. You have to keep all the money in-house.