Used Car News

NEBRASKA
Dennis Bennet, general manager, Lincoln Auto Auction, Lincoln, Neb.:
“We run four lanes and sales have been great.
“We’re averaging about 340 vehicles per week. We’re probably up a slight percentage compared to this time last year.
“I attribute that to new accounts we’ve been getting. Those have mostly been on the new-car dealer trades.
“We also sell fleet-lease units, which make up about 15 percent of our volume. That’s been pretty steady.
“Overall, our sales percentages are in the mid-60s. That’s been pretty close to what we were doing last year.
“We’re getting a couple of hundred dealers in the lanes, between 200 and 250. It just depends on the week. That’s down a little from this time last year.
“Our dealers are coming from Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska.
“We also get some from South Dakota. We’re seeing new registrations every week.
“The buyers are still looking for new markets.
“Overall, the mood of the dealers has been good. Everyone enjoyed a good tax season this year, February through April.
“Now, things are leveling off, though. In Nebraska, we’re fortunate. Our economy doesn’t have the highs and lows (like other places). Everyone’s pretty consistent.
“Our fleet-lease units come in cycles, so it (the amount) changes from week to week. We’ll run about 40 cars per month.
“We do not have a salvage sale.
“We run a quarterly specialty sale. We’ll get everything for that, from boats, bikes and cars to off-road vehicles, cars, even campers. We’ll take anything.
“We’ve been running about 100 units in those sales and selling a solid 50 percent. We just had one of those sales in June so our next one will probably be in September.
“I’m optimistic about where we are. Since we’re an independent auction, we have the ability to respond immediately to a customer’s needs and I think that’s our greatest strength.
“Our average vehicle price coming through the lanes here is about $3,700.
“Vehicle prices are definitely up.
“You know we’ve seen vehicles come across the block that we saw sold a year or two ago.
“They’re averaging $800 to $1,200 more for the exact same car with the additional miles.
“It seems we can sell anything we get.”
SOUTH CAROLINA
Dan Dorsey, general manager, Acacia Augusta Auto Auction, North Augusta, S.C.:
“We’ve been here three years. Sales have been pretty good. We’re up from where we were last year and the market seems to be  pretty strong in the Augusta area.
“We have two lanes and we run them both each week.
“We’ll run 175 units per sale. I’d say we’re up about 20 percent.
“Our average sale results in about 60- to 65-percent sales percentage.
“Those are probably 10 percent higher than they were last year.
“We average between 100 and 120 dealers in the lanes each week.
“That figure fluctuates. We’ve got a pretty good dealer base here that’s committed and supports us pretty well.
“Our dealers are coming from the local area. But we do get them also from Tennessee, the Atlanta area, North Carolina – they come from all over.
“Right now, the dealers seem to be very positive. Everyone’s selling cars.
“The majority of our buyers are independent dealers.
“Our fleet-lease units make up about 30 percent of our total volume. That includes bank and credit union accounts. That’s been pretty steady. I think they’re going to stay that way. I expect the same (trend) with repossessions.
“Our average price car is about $3,000 to $3,500. That’s been going up. About three years ago, our average sales price was about $2,200.
“You know, the Cash for Clunkers could have something to do with it.
“Sport utility vehicles are doing great. We just can’t seem to be getting enough of them. Down here, it doesn’t matter if they’re two-wheel drive or four-wheel drive.
“The salvage stuff is struggling.
“We have a monthly sale. I don’t know what the price of metal is right now, but that might have something to do with it.
“We normally run 50 salvage vehicles per month.
“About once every quarter, we’ll run a U.S. Marshals sale, made up of seized items. We don’t have a regular schedule, it just depends on how the court system works and how many units they seize.
“We’ve run anywhere from five units to 50 units.
“One of the strangest things I’ve ever sold was a Husqvarna (Viking) sewing machine. But I’ve sold cars, boats, even a hot tub.
“We’ve got a strong economy here in Augusta. We were ranked one of the top 20 in the country, with government agencies, hospitals and the military here. So we’ve got a good economy. I’m positive for the economy in the coming year.”

Indiana
Jeremy Trent, buyer, Trent AutoSales,Vincennes, Ind.:
“My dad and my grandfather started the store in the ‘70s.
“I’ve been here for about 10 years.
“Retail sales have been pretty good.
“They’re a little low, but you run into that everywhere.
“We have a lot of repeat customers. We’re in a small town.
“Everybody knows everybody.
“We usually sell 10 to 15 units a month. A good five of those sales are repeat customers.
“We try to keep 10 or 12 units on the lot.
“It seems like no matter how many you have, you never have what they’re looking for.
“We just sold a 2010 Malibu that we got for a repeat customer.
“We can get just about
anything.
“We keep a mix of SUV and trucks, along with a couple of foreign cars.
“We just a sold a convertible Mercedes CLK 325 the other day.  We got $15,000 for it. It was an ‘02 with 78,000 miles on it. That was a pretty good price.
“We focus a lot on wholesaling.
“Between my dad and myself, we hit six sales a month. We buy at two and we sell at four.
“We take most of our inventory to the auctions these days because we’ve found we can get more out of them there than we can get from the public.
“With financing the way it is now, we don’t see the point of keeping a whole lot of inventory on the lot.
“We try to go through the local banks. We try to keep it local.
“They’ve treated us pretty good, although the times are different than they used to be.
“We have a lot of luck with the credit unions. Generally, we don’t do any in-house financing.
“Most of our customers end up getting their own financing.
“About 70 percent of them can do that.
“But we see more people that can’t get financing all the time.
“That’s why we focus on the wholesale side.
“We can sell to J.D. Byrider or Superior that focus on
secondary finance. They’ll pay more for the cars because they sell financing more than they sell the cars.
“The cheap cars have really boomed.
“Cash for Clunkers really hurt us. It took a lot of decent cars off the road.
“I had a guy come in a while ago and he said he didn’t see how that hurt us. He’s in the cattle business and I asked him, ‘If they took a bunch of cattle off the market and didn’t butcher them, what would happen to the price of meat?’
“We keep trucks and SUVs morethananything,
especially diesel trucks.
“We have a lot of farmers in our market.
“We sell a lot of the Fords with the 7.3 liter diesel engines.
“The guys who are buying them are using them for work.
“We’re not seeing the young kids who want to pull a boat on a Saturday any more.
“There aren’t any big
corporations around here. It’s mostly small businesses and farms.
“We’ve got some small
factories in the area, like one that makes seats for Toyota.
“There’s not a lot of work, but the town isn’t hit as hard as some big cities.”

Oklahoma
Monte Shockley, owner, Shockley Auto Sales, Poteau, Okla. :
“Sales are good. They’re up a little bit from last year. It’s steady.
“There’s still business out there if you have the right inventory at the right price.
“The right inventory is hard to find.
“The right inventory is anything that’s clean – crossovers, economy cars, some pickups.
“Our part of the country is always pickup country. Gas prices don’t affect that.
“I used to go to sales once or twice a week for years.
For the last four or five years, I buy everything online.
“I use SmartAuction.
“We have to go all over the country to get them after we buy them, but that’s what we do.
“I have some car drivers I rely on. I ship a lot of them throughReadyAuto Transport.
“My customers are doing OK getting financed
“Most of what we sell is current-year.
“We go through different banks, like Chase Auto Finance and CitiFinancial. That’s been working really well.
“It hasn’t been an issue. The buying parameters are a little tighter than they used to be, but that’s understandable.
“We don’t do as much advertising as a lot of places. I run ads in the weekly bargain newspapers around the area. That’s effective for us. I don’t do any radio or TV.
“We don’t do any repairs here. It’s just straight sales.
“We offer a service contract through NAC.
“We’ve had a good relationship with them for many years. They’re affordable and they pay their claims.
“I’ve had very few, if any,  complaints about them.”

Kansas
Brook Phillips, vice president, Mid America Auto Auction, Wichita, Kan.:
“Sales are pretty good.
“We are averaging a little over 400 vehicles per week, maybe 425. We have five lanes and we’re running steady with four.
“That’s about the same as last year. But we’re 100 off from where we normally were a couple of years ago.
“We’re off about 25 to 30 percent on consignment, but we’re only off about 10 to 15 percent on sales. (Our conversion rates) are in the high 60s and 70s.
“In Kansas, we don’t have double-digit unemployment, we didn’t have the housing (crash) or foreclosures. We stayed pretty steady. Our big industry here is aircraft and it stayed somewhat consistent.
“We got a Ford dealer here selling 400 to 450 cars  a month and another Ford dealer is selling 300 a month.
“They’re doing business, but they’re not trading for as many cars and they’re keeping cars a little deeper than they used to, with a little more miles.
“The Cash for Clunkers program hasn’t helped. My base car was a $5,000 car.
“The other problem were the storms out here. There were 200,000 cars that got hail damage in Oklahoma City. That’s shortened up supply even more.
“About 90 percent of our offerings are dealer consignment and the rest are fleet-lease and repossessions.
“We do a pretty good job for  Enterprise Rent-A-Car, so we get a lot of their cars. We’re actually getting Enterprise to send us all of their hail-damaged cars and they’re taking all of their non-damaged cars to (Oklahoma City to replace the damaged ones).
“We’ll sell those vehicles as-is. We’re in tornado alley, so we’ve got a lot of hail damage (repair) people here. My roommate has been in Oklahoma City for a month doing hail repairs. I’ve got 2010 Tahoes, Suburbans and 300Ms with (low mileage) that have $4,000 worth of damage.
“Plus there were another 200,000 cars in Nashville, Tenn., damaged by the floods.
“About 300 dealers are coming to the lanes every week.
“That’s actually about the same as this time last year.
“Most of our dealers are coming from Kansas, but we also draw from Oklahoma, Missouri and Nebraska.
“The dealers in the lanes are frustrated. Everybody wants the same car, so (the prices) are higher than heck.
“Outside of that, though, everybody’s pretty positive.
“Our repossessions are steady. But what’s big down here are the title loans. We get all those cars. I don’t necessarily agree with (title loan business practices), but somebody’s going to sell them.
“Our average price is about $5,000. That’s up from this time last year. I believe that’s up because of the (tighter) supply.
“Trucks always do well here. We’re a domestic-driven market. The Fords, Chevys and Dodges do well. That $7,000 to $10,000 car, whatever it is, is doing well.
“The $1,500 to $2,500 car is a hard car to sell right now. Tote-the-note guys are selling a lot of cars for cash because a lot of customers are nervous about having payments. They’re nervous about the economy.”

New Mexico
Ray Vickers Jr., owner, Farmington Auto Auction, Farmington, N.M.:
“Business is good.
“We run about 100 to 125 a week. We have two lanes and run one.
“Volumes seem to be down from this time last year. I think the Cash for Clunkers program took a lot of cars out of the market. Plus, not as many new cars have been built, so there’s not as many trade-ins, so there’s just a shortage of cars in the market.
“Sales percentages are up to about 60 percent.
“The number of dealers in the lanes may be up as well, compared to this time last year. Normally, we’ll get 75 to 100 each week. But dealers are working the sales harder, going to different places to find cars.
“Many of our dealers are local. We also get a lot of dealers from southern Colorado.
“There have been some new dealers in the lanes. Our registration of dealerships is up.
“The mood of the dealers is frustration. They’re having to pay more for cars. Since the (retail) sales are not that great, I don’t understand why dealers are paying so much for cars everywhere.
“Fleet-lease make up about 20 percent of our business. But volumes have gone down.
“Repossessions have been up a little bit. More people just aren’t making their payments.
“We also run a few salvage cars on sale day. But we don’t do a  whole lot.
“Our average price is about $3,200, the last time I checked. I would say that’s up $300 or $400 compared to this time last year.
“I’m also seeing more higher mileage cars. I think it’s because the cars are (more durable) and people are hanging on to them longer.
“But I’m not seeing a change in the mix of vehicles offered.
“I’m seeing that online has picked up.”

MICHIGAN
Matt Koning, general manager, Broadmoor Motors, Caledonia, Mich.:
“We’ve been in business 22 years. We have one location.
“On average, we’re keeping about 80 vehicles on our lot.
“That’s more than we were carrying this time last year. It’s just because we’re growing.
“We’re selling between 43 and 55 units per month. So we’re selling about 10 more per month on average. We’re setting records for ourselves. We’re fortunate that we’re having a good year, although now it’s getting a little slow. We did get a lot of business during tax season.
“I attribute the increase to a lot of Internet development and buying the right inventory. There’s a number of reasons.
“We’re strictly a retail business. We don’t do buy-here, pay-here or subprime.
“We deal primarily with one credit union (to get financing for our customers). We have some other banks that we’ll use from time to time. But the one credit union is the strongest and most aggressive.
“Ten years ago, the lending was all from banks, but now it’s mostly credit unions.
“The average model years on our lot are 2006 to 2007. Average miles are about 40,000.
“For the last five years, we’re been bringing in some higher-mileage import stuff , just to have something different from other dealers. So that’s brought our average mileage up.
“It’s harder to get that nice low-mile stuff. But we still buy a lot of off-lease stuff.
“Most of our vehicles are bought from auctions. But we’ll also buy some off the curb, from Craig’s List and from other dealers.
“We’ll use Manheim Metro Detroit in Flat Rock, Mich., a lot.
“I would say we carry 60 percent domestic and 40 percent imports.
“There are some people here that will only drive domestic, but since Chrysler and General Motors took money from the government, it’s broadened people’s perspective.
“They’re now considering both Ford Motor Co. vehicles and imports because they’re ticked off about the (bailouts).
“We carry 50 percent cars and 50 percent trucks, if you include minivans with trucks. We sell a lot of minivans.
“With SUVs, that’s one area where I think people are overpaying.
“Our average retail prices is around the $13,000 to $15,000 range.
“About 70 percent of our customers first find out about us through the Internet. If people drive in to check out a car, more than likely they’ve seen it on the Internet first. We’re definitely paying more attention to the Internet. Spending more time on finding out what people look for and why they chose us over someone else.
“The most recent vehicle we sold was a 2004 Mini Cooper. It had 34,000 miles and sold for $12,500.
“We were named the Michigan Quality Dealer of the Year and will compete for the National Quality Dealer of the Year award this summer at the National
Independent Automobile Dealers Association’s annual conference.
NORTH CAROLINA
Karen Barbee, vice president, Troutman Motors, Concord, N.C.:
“Business has improve greatly. We have one lot and keep about 70 vehicles that are actually ready for sale.
“We’re trying to stock more vehicles, but they seem to be harder to find.
“This year, from January through April, we’re averaging about 73 sales per month. That’s up a few from this time last year.
“People seem to be more comfortable with the economy now than they were a year ago.
“We’re strictly retail and we work with banks and credit unions (to get credit for customers). It takes a little longer to get people approved than it used to. The reason is they’re verifying a lot more information than they did in the past.
“However, it’s still better (getting approvals) than what it was a year ago.
“Our average price ranges between $7,000 and $8,800. Our average model year range is 2006 to 2007. That depends on what we can find.
“Mileage is also creeping up.
“We carry more cars than trucks, maybe 90 percent to 10 percent. It’s used to be more like 70 to 30. We just don’t see as many people asking for trucks. I think it has to do with gas mileage.
“We used to carry a lot more imports, but now it’s probably 65 imports to 35 domestics.
“The Toyota recalls have not affected demand.
“Our vehicles come from auctions and some franchise dealers. We just bought 19 units from a franchise dealer.
“It’s been a little more difficult to get cars. It seems like we’re already paying retail at auctions. It’s harder to come home and sell that vehicle for a profit.
“We’re trying to be more proactive in using our website with Cars.com and AutoTrader.com.
“We’re also trying harder to make sure to post (good) pictures and descriptions.
“Almost all of our customers are going to the Internet.
“The last car we sold was a 2002 Acura with 130,000 miles. We got $8,000.”