13 car dealerships in 6 states
2700 employees
2007 revenues: $2.13 Billion
Number 13 on the Automotive News Top 125 U.S. dealer groups.

The doors are closed.

There was a time when working for a large dealer group was safe. There was a time when the top selling Chevrolet store (or group of stores) would have been untouchable. These are different times.

Bill Heard Enterprises apparently notified dealer General Managers at 2 pm yesterday that their stores would be closing. High fuel prices, canceled floorplan financing from GMAC, lagging truck sales, the national economy and local market challenges are all being blamed for the closures. Stories are being told of service departments calling customers to get their cars out and new car customers arriving to take delivery, only to be handed the keys to their trade in. Some stores are already gated.

The big winners in all of this must be neighboring dealers, who will be able to pick up on substantial service business, not to mention new and used car sales. For once, finding technicians to fill the gaps should prove easy.

This should be a pretty hefty wake up call to the rest of the auto industry!

Source Automotive News

Unfortunately many car dealerships are going the way of the dinosaur and closing their door or selling to new ownership after the financials start showing red ink. . One Massachusetts Chrysler dealer is closing after decades in business leaving a pink elephant literally ready to pack his trunk. Peabody Chrysler Jeep purchased “Pinky” for $10,000 from a Maine car dealership in 1978. The elephant is 12 ft. tall, 20 ft. long, and bolted to a flatbed trailer.

Owner Jim Medeiros waxed poetic about the Pinkster’s storied life at the dealership. “He’s been the mascot along the highway for almost 30 years. He’s been stolen three times as a college prank, damaged twice, and was missing for 10-12 days in one incident. For many years Pinky was seasonally attired, with ear muffs in the winter and sun glasses in the summer. But they stopped that after those were stolen, too.”It appears Peabody Chrysler obviously did well selling security systems if Pinky’s woes are indicative of the fair city of Peabody. In the latest report, if the deal finalizes, Pinky appears bound for a new home promoting a business on Rt. 127 in Gloucester on the North Shore of Massachusetts.

The price disparity between the United States and Canada affects more than just cars, it affects most consumer items. Yesterday, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty met with the Retail Council of Canada and retail company executives to discuss what changes need to happen to bring prices into line. The end result of this meeting was essentially that Flaherty is barking up the wrong tree and that consumers will have to be patient.
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When you’ve worked in the car industry for a long time, you often get the feeling that you’ve seen it all. Every now and then though, you stumble across something new that defines description. Imagine going to buy a new car and the dealer wants all the usual info from you and then asks for you to leave a thumb print! That’s exactly what happened to Lorna from Lornamatic. She refused. They refused to sell her the car!

Now every dealer is working hard these days to combat the theft of new cars, many even going so far as to have security consultants that specialize in auto theft on staff. But thumb prints? Come on!
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Yipee, Mark Tapscott has been able to catch up with life enough that he’s resurrected the Carnival of Cars this week. It’s so exciting, as I’ve missed my Friday tour around the blogosphere.

Be sure to watch on September 5 over at AskPatty, as they are about to host their first series of blog carnivals. This one is going to be all about car advice for women. This should be lots of fun.

Travelling through the north eastern States over the years, the number of little Big 3 stores are dotted around the landscape. It always seems like every little crossroads town of 1000 people has one store representing each brand. I can only suspect that they must have had the same strategy in larger cities too, as Ford has announced plans to cut back on it’s dealer body. By strengthening the stronger dealers, Ford hopes to increase market share. While the dealer body supports this action, the problem seems to be that none of them actually want to give up their store. The next 18 months should be interesting as the big fish eat up the little fish.

via Autoblog

Over the years, the new car dealer service department has developed quite the reputation for lying, cheating, misdiagnosing and just plain old bad service. Of course, this reputation didn’t occur because all service departments are golden, much of it is deserved. Don’t get me wrong, there are tons of great people working in the service industry, but there are almost as many losers as there are superstars. Why is this?

I’m a firm believer that the lack of training is the cause of most service department failures. Training should be a no brainer, but the reality is that most new service advisors receive little if any training. A Chrysler dealer I worked for years ago said that it takes 3 years of front line work to make a real service advisor, yet my training was “there’s your computer….now write work orders.” Unfortunately, this is the training that far too many newcomers receive.

The position of Service Advisor may be one of the toughest jobs in the auto industry. The advisor has to be an organizational whiz, know the different maintenance requirements for all vehicles he sees, needs to be an effective communicator and the combined qualities of a baby sitter and a shrink. Often a flustered, poorly trained advisor will blurt out the first nonsense that comes to mind when asked a difficult question rather than seeking out the correct answer. It is human nature. The advisor doesn’t want to look like he doesn’t have the answer so he makes one up. When he is caught, the consumer feels like the scumbag has lied.

The consumer ultimately bears the brunt of this lack of training and that’s inexcusable. So what is the consumer to do? How can the consumer get solid service advice? That’s what we are going to attempt to help with in this series. Some of the advice will be common sense, some will hopefully make sense and a fair bit may be flippant and tongue in cheek. The intent for all of it will be to help you help yourself to get the best service ever.