Nationwide Dealership

[SGT]

Based on a previous post "WORST MONTH OF THE YEAR", I thought I would throw this out there for those who do dealership work to see if there is a nationwide trend. In our area, Northeast PA, all of our dealership accounts are not selling cars at the volume they used to.

How are your dealerships fairing around the country?

[ProView WR]

We don't service car lots as of now...but I believe nationwide auto sales has been very low recently all over.

[GlassStarz]

With 20+ yrs in autosales prior to moving to WR I can tell you historicaly Dec and Jan are the slowest months if you do 25% of the busy months volume you are doing well that said domestic dealerships are down huge numbers nationwide throw in the usual slow time of the year and some folks are gonna go hungry. That said now is the time to prospect new accounts and add other services to your offering find something that is different than what your competetors offer and move on it I added paint repair in winter 05 and increased my volume 5x

[harrellbenjamin]

With 20+ yrs in autosales prior to moving to WR I can tell you historicaly Dec and Jan are the slowest months if you do 25% of the busy months volume you are doing well that said domestic dealerships are down huge numbers nationwide throw in the usual slow time of the year and some folks are gonna go hungry. That said now is the time to prospect new accounts and add other services to your offering find something that is different than what your competetors offer and move on it I added paint repair in winter 05 and increased my volume 5x

Yes I agree 100% with you.I also was in the Dealership biz for many years in sales and its just what he says.For me to control my income I have to do other things also.Paint touch-up and scratch repair/headlights really help to even out your income.This way it becomes not what you do but how many hours you want to work.Its easy to put a day together anytime if you diversify your services.

[Bois]

Not to sound like an echo, but I've seen a great decline in repairs from dealers over the past 2 months. 1) They're more selective on what gets repaired (guess business is slow) and 2) while the number of cars traded in or purchased at auction remains the same, the number of vehicles needing repair is lower.

[glassdoctor]

Some auctions are having repairs done... some fleet cars are already repaired, like the "frontline ready" GM stuff (well... they are supposed to be, but I still find chips on them) and I think the "program" units (lease, rentals, etc) make up more of the volume than we used to see. These kinds of cars just don't have as much reconditioning to do.

I have seen a trend the past few years that car lots slow down earlier... but seem to pick up earlier in the spring too. I used to stay busy right up until about thanksgiving before it died. But now sometimes it goes dead off and on starting @ Sept. I hope that things pick up early next spring like they have the last couple years. Last year I think March was real good... but Jan and part of Feb the weather was terrible so you can guess how biz was then.