From the March issue of UCD
By Doug Turner
You’ve been to the auction and secured a vehicle you hope to add to your inventory. Now, the work begins to protect your exposure and also get the vehicle to the front line for a return on your investment.
Like with many operations around a dealership, putting together a consistent action plan is the key to making sure you remain efficient and eventually profitable from your presale routine.
Here are a few best practices to get vehicles from the auction lane to the front line with minimal pain points and disruptions.
Our action plan starts with how to get the vehicle back to our lot. Is it worth saving a few dollars if the vehicle’s delivery is going to be delayed? Most likely not, especially if you are potentially losing time in the arbitration window and missing out on guarantees from the auction. You need to get the vehicle to your shop quickly to conduct the post-auction-sale inspection as soon as possible to keep your exposure limited.
You hope the person that bought the vehicle did their due diligence, but it doesn’t hurt to get a second set of eyes and ears on the vehicle.
You may not be able to get a complete checklist completed on a vehicle within 24 or 48 hours of delivery, but you can get one of your best automotive technicians to take the vehicle for a 10- to 15-mile test drive. This test drive, which includes getting up to highway speed, will allow a chance to see how the transmission is shifting, the engine sounds, and help identify any big-ticket items during the arbitration window or potentially losing money by overspending additional service repairs. Immediately after the test drive, get the vehicle on a lift to check for any structural damage or issues.
If the vehicle passes the test drive and lift inspection, you have little time to move it to the staging area to perform a more thorough checklist.
The next steps are dependent on staffing in your service department. You should know your service department technicians and their skill set to help support the next step. Your best-skilled technician should perform the checklist. They will likely understand the difference between repairing and replacing. Where a junior technician may whip out the pencil and mark down to replace everything, someone with a more advanced skillset will know what can be repaired, saving parts costs.
With all recon considerations, the focus should be on safety and reliability. You want the car to be a good, safe, quality product for the retail customer. The goal of reliability is keeping the customer on the road so they have confidence in what they bought and can get back and forth to work to make their car payment.
After the checklist is the important step of shopping for the right parts. A certain percentage of the parts in the repair process can be used, body parts, and some of you will need to purchase new, batteries, starters or alternators are a few examples. Leave the purchasing to a service manager or office assistant so your technicians are turning wrenches and staying productive working on the vehicles.
Once all the parts are received, the vehicle can be brought back into the shop for the reconditioning process. You don’t want to start the work on the car before all the parts are received in case something is tied up on back order, leaving one of your lifts occupied with a torn-down vehicle.
Back in the shop, you want to utilize your staff correctly based on their skillsets – parts hangers, diagnostic technicians and heavy line technicians. Assigning the right people to the correct tasks could avoid throwing parts at a repair if it’s not needed.
After you are confident the repairs are made, it’s time for the post-recon test drive. You want to make sure all the repairs were done and the vehicle is as safe and reliable as possible for the customer, as the vehicle is likely going from the shop to the front row. You also don’t want that vehicle to not start or have something happen on their test drive to create a bad experience for the customer.
Also, a good rule is to have a lot attendant or someone on your service team spend 30 minutes each day starting and inspecting each vehicle on the front line before the potential retail customers arrive. This is a pro-active step to help ensure the customer has a good experience in the purchasing process.
