Used Car News 6/19/17

Used Car Market Shows Signs of Strength

By Ted Craig

There are some signs the used-car market was surprisingly strong in May, although others point to continued concerns about weakness.

Wholesale used vehicle prices increased 2.6 percent month-overmonth in May.

This brought the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index to 127.9, which was a record high and represented a 2.8 percent increase from a year ago. The index adjusts wholesale prices for mix, mileage, and seasonality.

“The May index result challenges concerns that increasing wholesale

supplies from near peak of-lease volumes and rising rental volumes would lead to rapidly declining used car values,” said Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke.

“Indeed, the opposite appears to be happening. Higher commercial volumes at auction are providing the used vehicle market with quality and choice that ofers a compelling value to consumers.”

One indication that consumers are willing to invest in used cars comes from Edmunds.

The firm reports that used-vehicle buyers put down an additional $93 on average in May, an increase of

3.8 percent compared to May of last year.

“Buyers want pricier cars with more bells and whistles, leading to the troubling trend of trading longer loan terms for lower monthly payments,” said Edmunds executive director of industry analysis Jessica Caldwell. “But now that interest rates are also on the rise, something has to give.”

The average loan term, monthly payment and amount financed on used vehicles showed slight dips in May, Edmunds reports.

Not all indicators are positive, however.

Black Book’s Used Vehicle Retention Index fell to 112.3, down from 113.1 in April. On a 12-month basis, the index has dropped 5.6 percent. The Index is calculated using Black Book’s wholesale average value on two- to six-year-old used vehicles, as a percent of original typically equipped MSRP.

“It is expected that we will see more declines in the index in the months ahead as we move deeper into the year, particularly driven by softness among car segments,” said Anil Goyal, Black Book’s senior vice president of automotive valuation.

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IADA Hires New President as Long-Time Exec Retires

By Jeffrey Bellant

Lois Keenan has retired after 43 years with the Virginia Independent Automobile Dealers Association, including 24 years as executive director of the group.

Keenan passed the reins to Leigh Dicks.

Sandra Moss, past president of both the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association and Virginia IADA, praised the work Keenan has done over the years.

“To condense all that Lois has done for and meant to the members of VIADA is a difcult task,” she said.

“She has been a leader of the Virginia IADA family for so many years. She handled every issue, every request in her calm lady-like way. She was very adept at handling any situation that might arise.

“Lois has been someone I respected and she will be genuinely missed.”

Keenan said it’s been gratifying to see how members volunteered and stepped up

when needed.

“(I’ve enjoyed) seeing our volunteers become confident leaders as they shared their skills to enhance VIADA’s presence,” Keenan said.

“I have been blessed being surrounded by those who truly went the extra mile to help VIADA be successful.”

Keenan said one of the biggest challenges was keeping dealers informed of changes in laws and regulations in a timely manner.

“Fortunately we have had knowledgeable employees through the years who had dealership experience, understood the industry lingo, and were qualified to counsel our members,” she said.

Keenan said the growth of technology and regulation were the biggest changes she saw over the years.

Moss said Dicks is a good choice to lead the association.

“I look forward to Leigh Dicks’ leadership,” Moss said.

Dicks has been involved in association management for 27 years and is a Certified

Association Executive.

Dicks said she already has ideas for some improvements in the group.

“There are a couple of things when I was hired that I was asked to do – foremost was to improve communications via new technology,” she said.

The association has updated the wiring in its ofces to

accommodate a new phone system and faster internet access.

Dicks will begin using Constant Contact to send emails to members. This will allow her to keep track of opens and clicks to see what really is of interest to members.

Dicks will also be updating the information in the IADA database so she can begin

texting important messages.

Learning a new industry can be challenging, Dicks said. She is doing her homework and also relying on the association’s ofcers for help.

“They know the industry and can explain the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats they must deal with,” she said.

NEWS BRIEFS

Bank Launches Mobile Shopping Tool

Bank of America has launched new capabilities for mobile clients to complete the auto financing process with the company.

Clients can now search for a car from participating dealerships on their mobile device or computer before visiting a dealership.

The program will begin with a pilot period in the Carolinas and expand across the country in a phased rollout that will continue throughout the year.

Most digital shopping tools send users’ phone and email information to local dealers at the time the user makes an inquiry, but Bank of America’s does not.

After a car and dealer are chosen and a loan amount is approved, client information and the loan approval will then be shared with the dealer in order to complete the transaction.

Bank of America’s car shopping resource is available to all consumers, whether or not they bank with Bank of America.

There is no obligation, and clients can change their mind at any time. At the dealer, they may decide on a diferent color, diferent options, or a completely diferent car.

CarMax Celebrates Store Opening

CarMax Inc. celebrated the grand opening of its 17th store in Florida, located at 6450 Pensacola Boulevard in Pensacola.

The CarMax store has the capacity to stock approximately 140 used vehicles of nearly every make and model. CarMax customers can also request transfers to Pensacola of almost any vehicle from other CarMax locations throughout the country.

In celebration of the Pensacola store opening, CarMax and The CarMax Foundation awarded $8,000 in donations and grants to Blue Angels Elementary School. The school is closely located to Naval Air Station Pensacola and approximately 31 percent of students are from military families.

The contributions will help fund after-school tutoring, enrichment programs and a special multi-sensory room.

The CarMax Foundation also donated a Rigamajig to Blue Angels Elementary School through its partnership with Kaboom, which is focused on making play more accessible to children of veterans and military families. Rigamajigs are building kits that engage kids in creative play that is physically challenging and collaborative.

CarsArrive Acquires ConsumerFocused Firm

CarsArrive Network recently acquired the vehicle transportation business of Dependable Auto Shippers (DAS).

The addition of DAS will extend CarsArrive’s transportation and logistics solutions into the growing consumer market segment.

CarsArrive currently delivers vehicles to private homes on behalf of selling dealers, but with the addition of DAS, will extend their integrated network to serve consumers directly.

Carvana Reports Results

Newly public Carvana Co. announced financial results for its first quarter.

Retail units sold totaled 8,334. Revenue totaled $159.1 million.

Total gross profit was $9.7 million.

Total gross profit per unit was $1,169.

Net loss was $38.4 million.

Dealers’ Image Improves

Public trust in car dealers seems to be on the rise.

Temkin Group’s Trust Ratings report finds that auto dealers had a 14-point increase in public trust according to the research firm’s

benchmark.

Mercedes-Benz tied with grocer H-E-B for the tops in the 2017 Temkin Trust Ratings. The ratings are based on a study of 10,000 U.S consumers, looking at 329 companies across 20 industries.

Auto creditors and Navy Federal Credit Union finished third and fourth.

USAA, Navy Federal Credit Union, Advantage Rent-A-Car, Ace RentA-Car, Mercedes-Benz, and credit unions all outperformed their industry averages by 15 points or more.

Detroit Drivers Pay Most

Detroit has the highest car insurance rates in the country, followed by Brooklyn and New Orleans. CarInsurance.com analyzed rates for a 2016 Honda Accord with full coverage in nearly all ZIP codes in the U.S.

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Editorial: Ted Craig, Managing Editor Jeffrey Bellant, Staff Writer

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Dealer Admits to Fraud

A Tennessee car dealer pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud for his role in a conspiracy to defraud his dealership’s customers and floor planners.

Randl Arthur Roth, the former owner of Murfreesboro-based Nashville Motor Cars Premier, was charged in April. According to the charging document and plea agreement, Roth and two employees devised a scheme to defraud their customers, the banks that financed their car purchases and the dealership’s floor planners. The fraud

started in May 2014.

Roth and his co-conspirators told numerous customers and their banks that Nashville Motor Cars had clean titles to the cars they sold when, in fact, Roth knew that there were existing liens on those cars.

On numerous occasions during the same period, Roth and his coconspirators told their floor planners they possessed certain cars, when they had actually already sold the cars in question.

Roth faces up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

Dealers Hone Cost Cutting

By Ted Craig

Buy-here, pay-here dealers keep hoping for relief, but while signs of better conditions seem visible, they remain distant.

Inventory still costs too much, despite a decline in wholesale prices. And subprime finance sources still provide too much competition, despite some tightening of their credit standards. But those days are long gone.

Dealers had a few good years, from 2009 to 2011, when many customers experienced damaged credit and traditional finance companies were keeping their funding tight.

Chuck Bonanno, the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association’s Twenty Group director, told attendees of the recent National Alliance of Buy-Here, Pay-Here Dealers that they must control the factors they can.

An example is advertising expenses.

“Target what you spend on things that work,” Bonanno said. “Throw away what doesn’t.”

Dealers should also look for ways to cut overhead.

Some factors seem less in their

control, but there are more dealers can do about them, such as customers’ performance.

“Our job is to keep people driving,” Bonanno said. “It takes no skill to repo a car.”

Bonanno said the biggest issue with buy-here, pay-here customers is they aren’t good problem solvers. When they run into an issue, they give up.

Dealers need to work with them on these problems, whether they involve repairs or financial challenges.

Dealers also need to reduce their risk by keeping credit terms short and not following subprime finance companies into 72-month terms.

“After five years, there is what we lovingly call ‘payment fatigue,’” Bonanno said.

Dealers also need to evaluate their own credit situations. Bonanno said the biggest and best operators he knows are all deleveraging right now.

It comes down to a question of cash flow, he said.

There are bound to be months with low sales or high charge-ofs, but large debt payments, overhead expenses and other costs still must be made.

Salvage Auction Chains Expand

The two largest salvage auction chains have been expanding facilities across the country.

Insurance Auto Auctions Inc. announced the expansion of its Savannah and Tifton, Ga., facilities.

The Savannah facility is adding approximately 30 acres.

The site is designated to accommodate additional volume due to customer need as well as potential volume resulting from catastrophe responses.

The branch’s coastal location strategically positions it for efective hurricane response.

The Tifton site is adding approximately 19 acres.

It also can accommodate additional volume due to customer need as well as potential volume resulting from catastrophe responses.

IAA also announced the grand opening of IAA Portland West, its newest branch in Portland, Ore.

This marks IAA’s third facility in the state, with additional branches in Portland and Eugene. This new facility expands the overall capacity needed for this marketplace by nearly 15 percent.

Meanwhile, Copart Inc. announced the expansion of its locations in Ebensburg, Pa., near Altoona; and Eight Mile, Ala., near Mobile.

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MANAGING TODAY’S EMPLOYEES

YOUNG WORKERS CAUSE SHIFT AT DEALERSHIPS

By Ted Craig

Everybody by now has heard how millennials are diferent than the generations that came before them.

They grew up with cell phones and shelves full of participation trophies. They were both more exposed to the world through social media and more sheltered thanks to their helicopter parents.

So how are dealers supposed to manage today’s employees? Do they need to replace all their desks with foosball tables and all the chairs with beanbags?

Chuck Bonanno, national director of Twenty Group operations for the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association, said millennial employees definitely difer from older employees.

“It’s a diferent set of values as far as what’s important,” Bonanno said.

He said millennials are very intelligent and connected to the world. But they want more of a worklife balance.

“We need to understand what are the incentives that are going to make them happy, what is the culture that is going to make them happy,” Bonanno said. “It is our future. We can’t fight it.”

Dealers can’t cave on everything, but they need to have some flexibility.

This might mean allowing more telecommuting for non-sales staf. That is something old-school dealers find especially difcult to come

to terms with, Bonanno said. They want to know employees are working, but today’s employee doesn’t like somebody looking over her shoulder.

It’s most important to have transparency for rules such as how employees can use their cell phones at work. Millennials are willing to follow rules, Bonanno said, as long as they understand them.

The interactions between

dealers and their young staf need a diferent approach, as well.

Millennials want constant feedback and coaching rather than training, Bonanno said. And they want re-enforcement along with a paycheck.

They also often value their time more than money. A PwC survey of college graduates finds millennials place flexible working hours ahead of cash bonuses when ranking benefits they want from an employer.

That creates a problem for dealerships used to working 12-hour days and selling a lot of cars on Saturday.

“They’re interested in things we’re not interested in them being interested in,” said Ingram Walters, owner of several dealerships in North Carolina.

“Maybe the way we sell cars is going to change.”

The challenge for dealers is that if they don’t give young employees what they want, other companies will.

Brent Carmichael, a Twenty Group moderator with NCM Associates, said some dealers are finding they need to accept 80 percent from an employee. This means adding more staf than before.

Personnel expenses have gone up a little as they hire more people to do the same job, Carmichael said.

One option many dealers are looking at as a result is

investing more in technology rather than people.

Young employees bring opportunities along with challenges.

The most obvious is that they better understand today’s customers.

These customers come to the store with information on all aspects of the process, from vehicle to financing, Walters said. Dealerships will need to set themselves apart by selling an experience as much as a vehicle, Walters said.

“The world of their future is going to be customer service,” he said.

Young employees understand this. They also understand how easily the unsatisfied customers can afect business.

“One voice can impact your business far greater than they ever have before,” said Steve Hall, president of Driversselect in Dallas.

The louder voice of millennials –a combination of attitude, technology and sheer numbers – is the biggest diference from past generations, Hall said.

In the end, much of what millennials want is what older employees have also wanted – more transparency, more work-life balance, etc.

“We’re not going to change it,” Bonanno said. “It’s a shift in society. We’re just going to have to manage.”

Feds Look at Jeep Air Bags

DETROIT (AP) – The U.S. government is investigating complaints that air bag control computers in some Jeep Liberty SUVs can fail, preventing the air bag system from operating properly in a crash.

The probe covers about 105,000 of the vehicles from the 2012 model year.

The National Highway Trafc Safety Administration says in documents posted recently that it has received 44 complaints about the problem involving a computer that detects crashes and controls air bag deployment. No related injuries have been reported.

Fiat Chrysler says it is cooperating with the probe and that the only safety device afected is a headrest that moves to prevent injuries if a crash happens.

Many drivers told the agency that an air bag warning light came on. In some cases the problem was corrected by replacing the computer, while others kept driving their SUVs with the light on.

One owner said in a complaint that the light came on and he took the Liberty to a dealer, where he

was told that he’d have to pay to fix the computer.

“This is a safety issue which should be covered by the manufacturer,” wrote the person. Others wrote that the repair cost $375 to more than $500.

NHTSA said in the documents that complaints appear to be less frequent in the vehicles from model years before 2012, which was the last year the SUV was built. The government will investigate how often the problem happens and the potential safety consequences. The agency could seek a recall or it could determine there’s no safety defect.

In other recall news, Southeast Toyota Distributors LLC is recall ing 1,325 model year 2013-17 Toyota Tundra and Sequoia vehicles ac cessorized with Southeast Toyota accessory 20-inch Rockstar wheels installed by Southeast Toyota or a Southeast Toyota dealer. The Rock star wheels were installed with lug nuts that may crack and detach.

The recall is expected to begin June 23. SET’s number for this re call is SET17A.

Study Shows Size Matters

By Radiance Cooper

A new study helps finance companies better assess the risk of working with dealerships of diferent sizes.

The study from General Forensics looked at two key metrics: inventory replacement rates and the likelihood of a dealership staying in business.

“They (automotive finance companies) want to avoid doing business with dealers that won’t be here tomorrow,” said data scientist Josh Wortman.

In the inventory portion, the study found that dealerships that carry less inventory tend to replace it less quickly. Wortman said this might be

due to a number of reasons, ranging from the dealership’s inventory strategy to a lack of available financing.

The replacement rate ofers only some guidance in predicting the long-term prospects of any dealership. That was the reason for the second part of the study.

Using online advertising measures, General Forensics found only 72 percent of dealers with fewer than 20 cars would still be advertising after nine months.

This means smaller dealerships carry more risk. But that doesn’t mean finance companies should stay away from them.

“We just have to account for that,” Wortman said.

RETAIL MARKETS

IOWA

Christy Taylor, ofce manager, Midwest Auto, Ottumwa, Iowa:

“My parents, Lisa and Ed Black, own the dealership and a service lot. I run the used-car lot. We also have nine rental cars.

“This is our 10-year anniversary, but they have been in the used-car business for 21 years.

“We keep about 40 cars on the lot. We sell about 45 to 50 per month. Our goal is to sell one per day. Our inventory is never the same. Our goal is to move cars of the lot in a week.

“We do buy-here, payhere and we do some indirect lending. We have more subprime than prime. Probably about 75 percent of our sales are buy-here, pay-here.

“We don’t have an average down payment. Some of the cars we have out there are $3,500 to $4,500, with only tax, title and license down. Some are $15,000 and we want $2,500 to $3,000 down.

“Most of our stuf is probably $7,000 to $8,500. We get our vehicles from all over. We go to auctions Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and do an online auction on Friday. We hit about six auctions a week. We also get trade-ins and we wholesale with new-car dealers for their trade-ins.

“Our average term length is 24 months. We try not to go longer than 24 months.

“We do not use starterinterrupts or GPS. Our repos are very low. We have a good reputation for working with people. We want the payment, not the car.

“Average model year is about 2007 to 2010. Mileage is right around 100,000.

“About one-third of our lot is cars, one-third is trucks and one-third is SUVs. If they want a lower down payment, then usually it’s a car they’re going after.

“We have a lot more domestics than imports.

“It’s hard to give an average reconditioning cost, because some require a lot

and some don’t require anything.

“I actually designed our website so we do all that in-house. We do radio advertising but have slowed down a little on that. A lot of people are listening to (satellite) radio or they plug in their phones or listen to CDs. We also do a little TV and a little in newspaper.

“We recently sold a 2011 Chevy Cruze. I believe it had 140,000 miles. We got $6,000.”

MINNESOTA

Jamison Rohrbeck, general sales manager, Mathison Motors, Clearwater, Minn.:

“The dealership itself –the Mathison name – has been around for 27 years. Our former general manager, who is now the owner, bought it in 2014.

“We keep about 130 to 140 (on the lot) in any given month.

“We sell about an average of 94 a month.

“We source our vehicles

in the typical way: dealer trades, through auctions and from customers of the street. We have a great dealer network that we can get inventory from. Fortunately, I worked for Manheim for almost six years, so I have a vast network of guys I used to work with.

“We are primarily buyhere, pay-here. Our average retail price is $8,499. The average down payment is around $500. Our average buy-here, pay-here term is 30 months.

“The average model year is about a 2008 or 2009 and the average mileage –last time I checked – was 137,000, I believe. That works well for the service plan we provide.

“Our inventory is predominately cars. They make up 70 percent. There isn’t the perfect truck for buy-here, pay-here. We have a high demand for SUVs.

“We try to stick to mostly domestics because we know the product. But we’ll get Hondas and Toyotas, which

Compiled by Jeffrey Bellant

are reliable. The problem there is people drive them into the ground, so they are hard to find on the wholesale network.

“We run just north of $500 on average for reconditioning.

“We do everything inhouse. We mainly work on our own cars. We have nine lifts.

“For advertising, we’re conforming to the ways of the internet, that’s for sure. Facebook has been huge for us. You also have the vendors like Carsforsale.com. It’s digital. We just try to push as much into digital as possible.

“We recently sold a 2005 Ram 1500. It had 177,000 miles. We sold that one for $10,999.

“This year has been an interesting year. I don’t think anyone had the tax surplus that we would have expected. But we have no complaints.

“We’re always optimistic. We have a game plan and we stick to it.”

70 Years Can’t Be Wrong!

WHOLESALE MARKETS

ALABAMA

Jim Clark, general manager, Center Point Auto Auction, Birmingham, Ala.:

“We’ve been in business since 1993. We have just one lane.

“On average, we run about 125 units. This year has been of a little bit. We’re down probably about 5 percent. I really don’t know why.

“Everybody I talk to says the same thing: they only say their sales are down a little bit. In our business, a lot of the dealers are keeping the nicer stuf and trying to retail it.

“Our owner has 10 or 15 new-car stores, so we run a lot of his cars.

“About 70 percent of the volume is from his dealerships and we have about 30 percent from other dealers.

“We’re going to change the day of our sale and go after some more new-car dealers. So we’re changing from a Monday night sale to a Thursday day sale. We

want to get more higherend consignment. We want to bring in some more outside dealers. We’re changing on June 29.

“Our conversion rates are right around 75 percent.

“We average, in a given night, 85 to 90 bidders in the lanes. That’s about the same as this time last year. It’s holding up pretty good.

“A lot of our dealers have been talking about the tax season and saying it was of a little bit this year.

“We don’t have many repos. However, we have a salvage sale that we run every other week. That’s salvage and in-ops. We average about 12, but sometimes we’ll get as many as 25 to 30.

“Our average price (on the block) is $4,200. That’s higher than last year. I think the average price then was about $3,800 or so.

“We’re running more (higher-priced) cars in the $10,000 to $15,000 range and selling more.

UCN-9x6-Feb.pdf 1 2/16/16 4:04 PM

“It seems dealers have a better attitude this year

compared to the last couple of years.”

WASHINGTON

David Blake, general manager, DAA Seattle, Auburn, Wash.:

“We just celebrated our fourth year anniversary.

“We’re running all six lanes.

“Our dealer consignment is strong. We ran almost 800 units (on June 2) and then during a promo week we’ll run over 1,000.

“We were hovering in the low 60s (conversion rates), but dropped a little (at the end of May, early June).

“We’re in the mid-400s in bidders. That’s climbing.

“We’re up 20 percent for consignments compared to this time last year. We have increased our lease portfolio and our commercial account relationships. We’ve been able to leverage our relationship with Kansas City (KCI) and Spokane (DAA Northwest).

“We’ve also been able to identify a market in need in the Seattle area. Having an

independent in town really helps give these national accounts another option.

“We’ve also been able to begin building dealer consignment relationships. They’ve seen us run for a few years and know we’re not going anywhere.

“They get to experience – from an independent auction – customer service, personal approach, on-site decision-making and operational care and passion.

“We’ve seen our largest growth in dealer consignment. But 25 percent of the sale is Canadian units. We also have a ‘heavy metal’ (salvage/in-op) sale every other week.

“We just started organizing a specialty sale – a video screen sale – for all of our oversized units and motorsport products. Our first sale will have about two dozen. Those will be motorcycles, RVs, boats, box trucks and oversize units.

“Online we use Edge Simulcast. We’ve been getting really aggressive to

Compiled by Jeffrey Bellant

(improve the) experience for our online buyers. The objective every week is to get 100 percent of our vehicles with pictures and 75 percent of those units with condition reports online, based on the time they drop it of. We sell 20 percent of our units online.

“Our average price on the block is $11,000.

“Here in the Pacific Northwest, it’s a truck market. Out here, even soccer moms drive jacked-up pickup trucks.

“Last year was a year of growth. We even expanded eight acres and renovated an additional two acres. There was a lot of focus and energy to get us prepared for this year.

“Regardless of what’s happening with volumes nationally, we’re kind of an anomaly. We’re in a strong market.

I heard on the radio recently that (the Seattle market) could be one of the strongest economies globally.”

PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

AIM Exec Retires

Jim Yates, president and CEO of Alliance Inspection Management, has announced

dustry with clients that include Ford, Nissan, Hyundai and Toyota.

AIM is a multimillion-dollar company with more than 1,500 employees who inspect in excess of 12 million vehicles throughout North America and Canada annually.

his retirement from the company and is moving into a 12-month consulting role efective immediately.

Yates began his career at an auto dealership in 1975 and was one of the original founders of AIM in 2005. With his guidance, the company has become a leading inspections provider in the automotive in-

Prior to forming AIM in 2005, Yates spent some 30 years in the automotive industry starting out as a car dealer and later working at Chrysler, Subaru of America and Nissan North America.

J.D. Byrider Taps CEO

J.D. Byrider recently appointed Craig Peters as CEO, replacing Steve Wedding, who served the company for 25 years.

Wedding will support the transition as an advisor to the J.D. Byrider board of directors.

Most recently serving

as chief operations and technology ofcer of Barclaycard U.S., Peters was responsible for delivering a new technology platform to support the launch of a new consumer lending business while driving efciencies and improving quality at the company. He brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in consumer finance to J.D. Byrider with a broad base of global experience across operations, collections, risk management and technology. Peters also worked at HSBC and Capital One.

ADESA Names GMs

ADESA announced management changes at three of its auction locations.

Rance Rudy has been named general manager of ADESA Phoenix.

Rudy has more than two decades of auto

auction experience, including more than 14 years with ADESA. He has served as assistant general manager at ADESA Phoenix since 2015.

Previously, Rudy was

fleet-lease manager at ADESA Golden Gate. Rudy also has prior experience as fleet-lease manager and assistant general manager at ADESA Dallas and as executive sales director of national accounts for ADESA.

He holds a bachelor’s

degree from Texas Tech University.

Jay Smith will serve as general manager of ADESA Knoxville.

Smith joined ADESA in 2005 and has nearly two decades of industry experience.

He has served in a variety of roles at ADESA Cincinnati/Dayton, including management positions in sales, marketing, fleet/lease, accounts and dealer sales and services.

He oversaw daily operations at ADESA Queen City, a satellite location, as auction manager.

Smith was promoted to assistant general manager at ADESA Cincinnati/Dayton a year ago.

He holds a bachelor’s degree from Ohio Christian University.

At ADESA Sarasota, Lisette Minton has accepted the position of general manager.

Minton has more than 25 years of experience in the auto auction industry. She began as a dealer

registration clerk at Bayside Auto Auction and by 1999 had been promoted to fleet manager at ADESA Tampa. She spent nine years at ADESA Atlanta as commercial accounts manager before transferring to ADESA Sarasota in 2013. Minton was most recently assistant general manager at ADESA Atlanta.

Across

1. A5 or R8

3. Cruze, Camaro and Malibu, for example

10. Kia compact

11. Dashboard abbreviation

13. Abarth and 500

14. Auction ofers

17. Compact SUV from Honda

18. Accelerator

20. Kind of chart in Excel

22. Hyundai subcompact

24. Tires

25. U.R.L. ending

27. Placed above

28. Cadillac Escalade, for one

30. Classic Chrysler car brand

34. Tom Hanks flm

35. Popular car in France

36. Honda compact

38. Pertinent

40. Short term car rental, ___ car

42. Tire most needing replacement

44. 90s Geo

45. Move to a lower gear Down

1. Car driven by James Bond in “Octopussy,” for short

2. Former Dodge model

4. Kind of top

5. Energy

6. Jeep Wrangler and Toyota Tacoma, for example, 3 words

7. A Hyundai compact

8. What keeps a car ride smooth

9. Chrysler model

12. LAX time setting

15. Lincoln model, Mark __

16. Digital photo

19. Trafc jam honker

20. Exclusive custom sports car

21. Ford’s ___boost

23. Victorian, e.g.

26. You can get one in a Jif y

29. Car ID

31. Dark green color

32. Engine component

33. Old Geo

37. Type of car buyer

39. ___ Cruiser

41. Brake ___

42. Big name in luxury autos

43. “Sesame Street” watcher

AROUND THE BLOCK

AUCTION CELEBRATES 70 YEARS

Bel Air Auto Auction celebrated its 70 years in the auction business with a sale that featured more than 2,000 vehicles and more than 1,000 dealers in attendance.

The Oriole Bird mascot was on hand to welcome sellers, buyers, and many special guests as a multitude of items, gifts and food

were given away.

“The company has grown from a single general auction business to a group of highly specialized businesses that include automotive dealer wholesale auctions, power sport, truck, equipment, real estate asset and financial services, and management companies,”

said R. Charles Nichols, president of BSC America.

“In 1947, the late Paige Richardson of Bel Air, Md., started the first Bel Air Auto Auction in a former livestock auction facility. After many years in business, it was sold and later acquired to become a part of BSC America’s business group.”

Nichols recalls that BSC America was originally opened as Nichols Auction Company by his parents, Raymond C. and Elaine G. Nichols.

As the anniversary sale was gearing up, other gears were turning in nearby Riverside, where construction is nearly complete on Bel Air Auto Auction’s new 175-acre facility.

Bel Air’s future home will boast a 75,000-square-foot, 10-lane auction house accompanied by a 45,000-square-foot Vehicle Enhancement Center.

Compiled by Jeffrey Bellant

Facility Displays Green Upgrades

Manheim Orlando will save 951 tons of carbon per year as a result of installing indoor and outdoor LED lighting at its facility – the equivalent of more than two million miles driven by the average passenger vehicle. The installation replaces 7,452 bulbs and 1,311 fixtures, will require less maintenance and will save $133,000 in annual energy costs.

Manheim Orlando and its 350 team members also recycle an average of 262 tons of waste each year.

“Upgrading to LED has greatly improved the quality of our lighting in and around each of our 19 buildings, not only saving energy but increasing safety for our team members and clients,” said Butch Herdegen, general manager of Manheim Orlando.

Funded by Cox Conserves, this LED project supports Cox Automotive’s sustainability goal to be carbon neutral by 2044.

We invite news items and top-quality photos from our readers to be considered for “Around the Block.” Please include the name of a contact person and a telephone number. Send items and photos to: Jeffrey Bellant. Mail: Used Car News, 24114 Harper Ave., St. Clair Shores, MI 48080. Fax: (586) 772-9400 e-mail: jeff@usedcarnews.com