Vehicle reconditioning is an essential process for every used car department. It not only gets vehicles ready for consumers’ eyeballs, but when it gets them front line ready fast, it can mean more gross on every sale. Every used car manager knows this intuitively. I’m not...
In our first of three articles discussing how to drive time and cost wastes out of the reconditioning process, we took a look at how lean manufacturing workflow principles when applied to automotive reconditioning, improves outcomes. That article outlined the fundamental processes for how to move...
If you still run your recon department on "gut feel" and not metrics, you're losing money. Metrics -- hard performance data -- is the road map to flowing gross from your recon to your bottom line. Manage by the facts and you'll flow significant gross to your...
When I first got into the car business in the late 80's, the term Margin Compression was something relating to industries other than Auto. Back in those days, a dealer normally had a 60-90 day period to maximize their gross profit. Unfortunately those days are...
Blame - assign responsibility for a fault or wrong. Most dealership personnel will associate the term Reconditioning with Time-to-Line, although TTL involves much more than the normal "mechanical and cosmetic" processes. When I was in the dealership, the majority of the reconditioning of a used vehicle was...
“What is the difference between managing Reconditioning time and Time-to-Line? The active involvement of the GM. If you are still trying to hold people accountable for the reconditioning cycle instead of TTL then I have some great news. Recon is of course a vital part of...
One of the last opportunities in the modern dealership to make money is the reconditioning department. Unfortunately, most general managers don’t appreciate this function’s role in a well-run used car operation....
Dealers who have the most efficient reconditioning time consistently average three to five days from recon start to front line. They also know where every car is at all times because every step has a clear owner who is connected to it through their mobile...
Getting your cars through reconditioning and PDI is only the halfway mark to "sale complete" and ends when the "funded" deal is sent to accounting. Both recon/PDI and deal-flow are perfect candidates for workflow technology, but with different sets of rules and users. The need...
While on a recent conference call with a dealer group president, he asked the following question: "What is the single most important factor in successfully managing time-to-market (TTM) in a dealership?" My answer was, "The commitment and active involvement of the general manager". At the...
