Rock star Ted Nugent, dubbed the most heavily armed rocker in the world because of his passion for guns and hunting, has teamed up with Snap-on Tools to introduce a new line of cabinets and accessories. Snap-on says it is for technicians who love...
When a dealership handles 4,000 repair orders a month, service advisors can get bogged down scheduling appointments. That was the situation at Kings Toyota in Cincinnati, OH. With such high volumes, Service Director Dave Chilton sought a way to...
I started a presentation to dealers by asking, How much does your dealership pay for a roll of toilet paper? The looks were priceless. Here sat a group of talented entrepreneurs, and this guy is asking about toilet paper! Are you surprised none...
A car dealership's customer-relationship management system should touch virtually every profit center, from the new-car showroom to the service department. But employees of some departments are easier to train on the high-tech systems designed to...
In their quest to achieve 2.0 to 2.5 hours per repair order, many dealerships hunt for the magic pill. Many believe it's in fluid sales because vendors and distributors promise increased sales and additional gross profit. They convince the service...
Slowly but surely, spare tires are being phased out as original equipment on new vehicles, as auto makers turn to run-flat tires or inflation kits to save space and reduce weight. Run-flats, which have been on the market for years, are on average...
Riding high from a windfall that has the long-suffering loonie on par with the U.S. dollar, Canadian consumers are railing against auto makers for allegedly blocking cross-border shopping. A Toronto law firm has filed a class-action suit...
While repairing a customer's 2002 Audi, technicians at Jim's Automotive learned they would need a special computer code to remove the car's radio to get to a component behind the dashboard.
On a visit to a dealership to work with a new service manager, I had the following conversation: Service Manager: I just handed out paychecks yesterday and a lot of my technicians had really low flat-rate hours for the pay period. Me: When did you...