Automakers: Page

Six Sigma to save Ford $300 million

Ford Motor Co. expects its 15-month-old quality improvement system, consumer-driven Six Sigma, will add $300 million to its bottom line this year, says Louise Goeser, the automaker's vice president-quality. The boost, which comes on the heels of a $52 million gift in 2000, will come from warranty cost savings and improved manufacturing efficiency. Ford also will require its suppliers to adopt stricter

By Compiled by the staff of: WARD'S AUTOMOTIVE REPORTS • July 1, 2001

Fiber Meets Frugality

Two cars shriek to a stop at a red light: a luxury Mercedes-Benz S600 and a Ford Taurus. As an onlooker, can you guess which car will boast a better sound and navigation system in the near future? You might be surprised at the answer, because luxury car technology will soon be available to more frugal consumers. D2B SmartWire, developed and introduced in 2000 by Communication and Control Electronics

By MAYA RHODES • July 1, 2001

Explore the Trendline➔

Top 5 stories from WardsAuto

Automakers are evaluating their long-term strategies, revisiting their product mix, and approach to both retail and manufacturing approach along the way.

By WardsAuto staff

MINI PREPARES TO GRANT 70 DEALERSHIP FRANCHISES

MINI, a new division of BMW of North America, sent letters of intent to 70 dealer candidates, generally located in major metropolitan and progressive urban areas in 29 states. The letters signify MINI's intent to give dealership franchises for the new generation of MINIs, a small vehicle which BMW plans to sell worldwide. The brand plans to sell 18,000 annually in the U.S. when the $18,000 Cooper

July 1, 2001

Ford to expand number of Hispanic-owned dealerships

Ford Motor Co. will expand the number of dealerships owned by Hispanic Americans by 50 over the next five years as part of a partnership between the automaker, Latino Initiatives for the Next Century (LINC) and Millennium LMI. "The fact is, independent Hispanic dealers, adequately capitalized and effectively managed, are essential to the successful marketing and sales of Ford products," says George

By Tim Keenan • June 29, 2001

GM/ Daewoo Talks Stall, Top Negotiator Resigns

SEOUL- General Motors Corp.’s attempts to acquire the assets of bankrupt Daewoo Motor Co. Ltd. have stalled for the second time in two weeks, following the resignation of the Daewoo negotiating team’s managing director, Han Young-Chul. No decision has been made as to where or when talks will resume. Negotiators for both sides met for a second time in Hong Kong on June 21 to try and iron out price

By Vince Courtenay • June 28, 2001

Ford gets out of the dealership game; leaves dealerships to dealers

Like General Motors Corp. before, Ford Motor Co. is getting out of the automotive retail business. Ford is ending a three-year experiment in which it tried to run dealerships in mid-size urban markets. The automaker announced today that it will sell the auto "collections" it runs in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City and Rochester, NY. Started in 1998 as a reaction to dealership consolidators such

By Tim Keenan • June 26, 2001

F&I

TOP 20 AT A GLANCE - F&I LEADERS Top 20 F&I Revenue     Top 20 F&I % of Total Revenue   Ricart Ford $ 32,459,848   Maroone Honda of Miami 12.0% Galpin Ford $ 24,374,142   Norm Reeves Honda Superstore 11.0% Universal City Nissan $ 16,659,431   Hudson Toyota 9.0% Longo Toyota $ 14,277,000   Universal City Nissan 7.7% Hudson Toyota $ 14,250,000   Ricart Ford 7.4% Landmark Chevrolet $ 12,804,000   Potamkin

By WDB • June 22, 2001

Customer service drives the best of the best

The overriding similarity among the top 10 dealerships in the Ward's Dealer Business 500 is their commitment to customer service. No. 1, Longo Toyota of El Monte, CA, refers to its customers as "guests" and is re-doing its entire dealership with an eye on making it more guest-friendly. No. 3 Galpin Ford in metro Los Angeles, re-examined its service department to improve CSI in that area. No. 4 Fletcher

By Tim Keenan • June 21, 2001

Longo Toyota long on success

Longo Toyota on the San Bernadino Freeway in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte has been among the nation's leading deal-erships since it moved to that location 13 years ago. What better way to celebrate being atop the Ward's Dealer Business 500 than spending $10 million over the next two years to revamp the entire facility. "Hopefully in a year or so we'll re-launch a new Longo," says Greg Penske,

By Tim Keenan • June 21, 2001

Back-End Operations Continue to Prove Their Importance

Talk about record breaking sales numbers may be the sexier subject for the automotive retail industry, but car dealers know all too well that a more revealing indicator of a dealership’s health may be the strength of it’s back-end operations. According to Morton Zetlin, co-owner of American Service Center, an Arlington, VA Mercedes dealer, “The car business is a continuum. Every department depends

By Cliff Banks • June 18, 2001

Trying to change the “worst” part of buying a car

When it comes to acquiring a vehicle, some car buyers find the financial process the worst part about their purchase. A program called Toyota Quality Financial Management is trying to change that. Customer satisfaction scores and dealer profits have risen at participating dealerships. Financial services managers, sales managers, general sales managers, general managers and dealers who have participated

June 12, 2001

GM improves its minority dealer efforts

General Motors Corp.'s minority dealer program hit all of its growth targets last year but its future may be even tougher than its imperfect past. The number of GM minority dealers grew from 320 in 1999 to 350 last year, 70% of them owned their businesses and 77% of GM's minority dealers were profitable. Those numbers are in stark contrast to 1998, when only 62.5% of GM's 280 minority dealers were

By Frank S. Washington • June 1, 2001

Connecticut dealership switches franchises from Jeep to Dodge

The former Stahl's Jeep of Derby (CT) is now Stahl's Derby Dodge. The new name reflects its new inventory of Dodge cars and trucks exclusively. The family-owned company dates to 1917. It started out repairing batteries. It started selling Hudson cars in the 1940s, then AMC products. It was a Jeep dealer for 30 years before switching to Dodge this year. Our new focus gives us a tremendous opportunity

June 1, 2001

Can This Guy Work Magic?

With breathless excitement, the U.S. Big Three automakers joined hands in February 2000 and declared war on inefficiency. Having pursued separate paths in launching business-to-business e-commerce strategies, Detroit's brass realized how wasteful that would be. They were ecstatic over the prospect of melding each company's initiatives into one colossal Internet exchange that could manage the entire

By Tom Murphy • June 1, 2001

You Need Green to be Green

Who'd have thought the two biggest players in the U.S. auto industry would be at odds with the White House over global warming with the automakers competing to get ahead of the environmental curve and the Bush Administration moving in quite the opposite direction? It wasn't that long ago that the auto industry fought increasingly stricter federal tailpipe emissions and fuel economy mandates with all

By David C. Smith • June 1, 2001

GM Axes New Crossovers

General Motors Corp. has delayed indefinitely or possibly axed completely the Epsilon-based Pontiac Banner and Buick Signia crossovers, sources say. Code-named GMX390 and GMX391, the sedan-like vans were due in the 2003-2005 timeframe. Banner was supposed to replace the Pontiac Bonneville and Signia (see cover story, Feb. '98) was to take the place of Buick LeSabre, sources say. Portions of the Epsilon

June 1, 2001

Ford and Goodyear band together to replace tires; Firestone goes on the attack

Ford and Goodyear are working together to assist customers affected by Ford's massive recall of all Firestone Wilderness AT tires on the automaker's vehicles. Meanwhile, Bridgestone/Firestone, which went through a bitter corporate divorce with Ford, is going on the attack, claiming the Ford Explorer is defectively designed, and asking the federal government to investigate the popular SUV. Several

By Steve Finlay • June 1, 2001

Avalanche of Opportunity

PALM SPRINGS, CA General Motors Corp.'s mantra, of late, has been that it intends to be a leader in innovation and technology. Specifically, the automaker has set a goal for half of its vehicle portfolio to be innovative vehicles or vehicles with innovative features and technologies, moving to 100% in five years. Though vague in terms of what constitutes the goal appears ambitious, and suggests a

By MICHELLE KREBS • June 1, 2001

GM top scientist to reinvent global R

General Motors Corp.'s six science laboratories once were the envy of the industrial world. The brainpower harnessed on its Warren, MI, campus enabled GM to become a renowned product innovator. But in recent years, the reputation of its laboratories has sagged in concert with its market share, and GM has been criticized for not being able to spin research and development efforts into marketplace gold.

By Compiled by the staff of: WARD'S ENGINE AND VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY UPDATE • June 1, 2001

Toyota Financial hits $100 billion

It began with a loan on a used car. Seventeen years later, Toyota Financial Services (TFS) has surpassed the $100 billion mark for the financing of automotive-related retail and lease contracts. That includes retail and lease volume in the U.S. on 5.4 million vehicles. TFS has grown from a small company with eight associates to become the third largest captive finance company, and the ninth largest

June 1, 2001

Good employees make a big difference

In sunny Southern California, a place not normally associated with rough and tough Chevy trucks, Connell Chevrolet in Costa Mesa had a banner year for new vehicle sales on the strength of Tahoes and Suburbans. As a result, they jumped 83 spots from last year to land at number 297 on the Ward's Dealer Business 500 with 2,474 new retail units sold, increasing total revenues from $82 million in 1999

By Christie Schweinberg • June 1, 2001

Ghosn guides Nissan off critical list

Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. is back in the black after posting record earnings for 2000. On May 17 the Japanese automaker reported a consolidated net profit of $2.7 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2001. The earnings beat Wall Street expectations and Nissan's own forecast of $1.8 billion made last October. The Nissan Revival Plan has produced the best financial performance in the company's history

By Compiled by the staff of: WARD'S AUTOMOTIVE REPORTS • June 1, 2001

FORD ADVISES SOME DEALERS ON FRANCHISE EXIT STRATEGIES

Ford Division announced a program to advise its 1,600 lowest-volume dealers, selling 250 new vehicles a year or fewer, on franchise-termination strategies. The option is entirely voluntary and affects retailers not on the regular list, according to the division's officer in charge, Timothy Witte.

June 1, 2001

Toyota Considers Corolla, Echo, Camry, Yaris for Mexico

Toyota Motor Corp. announces it will establish a sales arm in Mexico City beginning in 2004, but denies it will begin manufacturing there anytime soon. Toyota Motor Sales de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc., will begin planning for sales, marketing and service operations slated to begin in Mexico City by Jan. 1, 2004, when the North American Free Trade Agreement

June 1, 2001

Brazil production up, but energy crisis looms

April was the second-best April in Brazil's automotive history, with vehicle production totaling 168,000 units, up 24.1% over the same month last year. Compared with March, however, production dropped 8.3%. Brazil's automakers group, Anfavea, says the record for production was set in April 1997, with 194,000 units. Brazil's automakers in April sold 135,519 cars, buses and trucks, for a four-month

By Compiled by the staff of: WARD'S AUTOMOTIVE INTERNATIONAL • June 1, 2001