Car Buying Tips

Guides and advice for purchasing new and used vehicles

Car Buying Tips

The One KPI That Predicts Chargeback Success: Rate Over Raw Count

In the 1970s, when Toyota first introduced quality circles to American manufacturers, they discovered something counterintuitive: the best way to predict manufa...

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Car Buying Tips

The One KPI That Predicts Deal Jacket Audit Success: Weekly Finance Manager Completion Rate

Seventy-two percent of dealerships that track deal jacket audits weekly see CSI scores that are 8 points higher than stores that audit sporadically. That's not ...

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Car Buying Tips

The One KPI That Predicts Subprime Deal Structure Without Losing Store Success

Your finance manager just locked a deal on a 2019 Toyota Corolla with 87,000 miles. The buyer has a 580 credit score, put down $1,200, and is financing $14,800 ...

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Car Buying Tips

The One KPI That Predicts F&I Manager Success: Product Attachment in Week Two

You know that moment when you hire a sharp new F&I manager, run them through your dealer-mandated compliance training, and then watch them sit down with their f...

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Car Buying Tips

The One KPI That Predicts GAP Insurance Penetration Success

In 1982, a Japanese businessman named Soichiro Honda was touring a Ford dealer in Michigan and asked a simple question: "How much do you make on the sale versus...

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Car Buying Tips

The One KPI That Actually Predicts Your Back-End Gross by Store

The One KPI That Actually Predicts Your Back-End Gross You probably spend a lot of time staring at back-end gross numbers, trying to figure out why Store A is ...

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Car Buying Tips

The One KPI That Predicts Spot Delivery Contract Risk Success

Back in 1982, when spot delivery contracts first became standard across American dealerships, nobody had dashboards or real-time data. A finance manager took a ...

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Car Buying Tips

The One KPI That Predicts Dealership Success: Back-End Gross Done Right

Back in 1987, when most dealership record-keeping still happened on paper, a service director in rural Iowa named Frank Hutchins noticed something odd. The deal...

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Car Buying Tips

The One KPI That Predicts F&I Compliance Success (And It's Not Back-End Gross)

Your finance office is probably measuring the wrong thing, and it's costing you compliance headaches and real money. Most dealers obsess over back-end gross per...

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Car Buying Tips

The One KPI That Predicts Whether Your Dealer Lender Relationships Actually Pay Off

You're sitting in a dealer meeting, and your F&I manager just told you the average finance reserve per deal dropped from $1,200 to $847 last quarter. Your first...

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Car Buying Tips

The One KPI That Predicts Finance Income Per Retail Unit Success

The One KPI That Actually Predicts Finance Income Per Retail Unit Success Most dealerships are chasing the wrong metric when it comes to F&I performance. They'...

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Car Buying Tips

The Loaner and Demo Rotation Myth That's Costing You Money

The Loaner and Demo Rotation Myth That's Costing You Money About 73% of dealerships rotate loaners and demos into retail inventory within 12 to 24 months. It s...

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