Car Shoppers Focus on Reliability

CARS.COM - In the wake of several massive recall campaigns, reliability appears to be making a big comeback as a factor that influences car buyers. Meanwhile, an extended period of bargain gas prices is likely responsible for the decline of fuel economy as a purchasing prerequisite.
According to the just-released J.D. Power 2016 U.S. Auto Avoider Study, reliability has risen sharply in terms of how it influences car shoppers, with 55 percent of new-car shoppers citing it as a leading reason for their purchase. That's compared with reliability cited 51 percent of the time last year and just 48 percent three years ago. Moreover, 17 percent of shoppers report reliability issues as a reason to avoid certain models versus 14 percent the previous year.
"Study findings show that buyers who avoid models for reliability reasons tend to also have concerns regarding resale value, cost of maintenance and even safety," J.D. Power said in a statement, noting the "ripple effect" of reliability issues.
This latest J.D. Power study could be evidence that the recent spate of high-volume, high-profile recalls for critical safety issues is affecting consumers. At the height of media attention to the massive GM ignition switch recall in 2014, the automaker's new-car sales still, for example, increased 3.9 percent through October of that year; that figure fell short of the industry average at the time of 5.5 percent but was still remarkable amid GM's nearly 26 million recalls up to that point. Despite also having heavy recalls at the time, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Toyota posted sales increases of nearly 16 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
A 2014 study, however, showed that automaker recalls were increasingly on consumers' minds, with 60 percent of people in the market for a new car demonstrating awareness of specific recalls in the preceding two months. This latest J.D. Power study, now in its 13th year and conducted between July and September 2015, surveyed more than 26,000 vehicle owners who registered a new car in April and May 2015.
While widespread media coverage is likely a primary contributor to reliability's rise for the first time in nearly a decade, big headlines - and big savings - are also a likely factor in the decline of fuel economy as a factor. Amid the recession of 2008 and spiking gas prices, the preceding SUV era of the late 1990s and early 2000s gave way to increasingly mileage-conscious car buying. But since gas prices have been on the decline for more than a year now - reaching a national average of less than $2 before Christmas - and are projected to remain low through 2016, that trend appears to be reversing. Consumers cited gas prices as a top reason for their vehicle purchase only 51 percent of the time versus 55 percent the previous year.
"In fact, gas mileage has reached a five-year low as a reason to purchase a specific model," J.D. Power stated. "It is also cited less frequently as a reason to reject other models that were considered."
Despite reliability's influential gains, exterior and interior styling unsurprisingly remain the two biggest factors. Exterior styling was cited 59 percent of the time as the top reason shoppers select a certain car, and also the top reason they dismiss one, with 31 percent saying so. Interior styling and price were also top turnoffs, with 18 percent each.

by: CARS.COM

Car Shoppers Focus on Reliability....................... www.redlineautosales.ca/car-shoppers-focus-on-reliability.htm

Consumers Want Cars That Help Them Drive, Not Fetch Them Coffee

Auto buyers value their cars' autonomous features, but are less enamored with convenience tech, say two J.D. Power experts.

There's a disconnect between what automakers think buyers what from their car tech, and what those buyers actually find desirable and useful, say a pair of technology data experts from J.D. Power. And sometimes, consumers don't even know they have certain features on their cars--or they have no idea how to use them.
Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show today, Renee Stephens, vice president of U.S. auto quality, and Kristin Kolodge, executive director, driver interaction and HMI, said that in general, auto-buyers value their cars' autonomous features, but are less enamored with connected convenience tech like email and data connectivity.
Here are some of their key findings, based on tracking of customer satisfaction ratings and adoption rates for new vehicle technologies.
Consumers love current collision protection and crash avoidance tech:  Across all areas of in-vehicle technology --including entertainment and connectivity, comfort and convenience, and driving assistance--auto buyers have the highest overall satisfaction levels (752 out of 1000 points) with collision protection technology.  Navigation systems ranked last.
Device links and mobile WiFi often go unused: While 69% of consumers who have blind spot warning detection use the technology every time they drive (a higher utilization rate than radio and HVAC usage), 30% of customers don't even know if they have in-vehicle voice texting or smartphone navigation interfaces.  Forty-three percent said they never use in-vehicle concierge services and 38% said they never use in-vehicle mobile routers.
Automation features rank high: Some of the "most wanted" features on customers' wish lists: Blind Spot Warning (87%), Park Assist (82%), Adaptive Cruise Control (71%); Low Speed Collision Avoidance (71%), Lane Keeping Assist (69%).  The lowest ranked items on the wish list: E-Mail integration, Apple CarPlay, Health & Wellness Systems
Today's semi-autonomous features are "the ultimate enabler": Consumer interest in these emerging semi-autonomous features are a precursor to building their confidence in self-driving vehicles.  The key will be building trust with these technologies.

by J.D. Power

Consumers Want Cars That Help Them Drive, Not Fetch Them Coffee.......... www.redlineautosales.ca/consumers-want-cars-that-help-them-drive--not-fetch-them-coffee.htm

Carfax parent company buys CarProof

IHS, the parent company of Carfax, announced Monday morning it has purchased CarProof Corp. for $650 million CND, which translates to about $460 million USD. CarProof is a vehicle history report provider in Canada. IHS bought Carfax in July 2013.
Jerre Stead, chairman and chief executive officer of IHS, said: "Like Carfax, CarProof is a high-growth business and gives IHS the opportunity to expand our vehicle history report services into Canada.
"By combining the capabilities of CarProof and Carfax, we also will accelerate product development to better serve the needs of our customers. This acquisition will add a highly accretive revenue-growth and EBITDA-margin business for IHS, and provide significant room for further growth."

By Auto Remarketing


Carfax Parent Company Buys Carproof......... www.redlineautosales.ca/carfax-parent-company-buys-carproof.htm

Ford in Talks with Google to Build Self Driving Cars

Google is said to be in talks with auto maker Ford Motor Co to help build the Internet search company's autonomous cars, Automotive News reported, citing a person with knowledge of the project.

The contract manufacturing deal, if finalised, is expected to come during the annual International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas during the first week of January, Automotive News said.

A Google spokesman told Automotive News that the company would not comment on speculation, although Google officials confirmed that the company is talking to auto makers.

Earlier this year, Google began discussions with most of the world's top auto makers and assembled a team of traditional and nontraditional suppliers to speed efforts to bring self-driving cars to the market by 2020.

In June, Google began testing tiny, bubble-shaped self-driving prototype vehicles of its own design on public roads around Mountain View. The company has also started testing self-driving prototypes in Austin.

Google is expected to make its self-driving cars unit, which will offer rides for hire, a stand-alone business under its parent company, Alphabet Inc, next year, Bloomberg reported earlier.

Ford, although lagging behind most competitors, ramped up its pace to develop self-driving cars earlier this year and said it would expand advanced safety technology, including automatic braking, enabling hands-free operation of cars under certain conditions by automating such basic functions as steering, braking and throttle.

This was to be included across its global lineup over the next five years.

Reuters could not independently reach Ford Motor and Google for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

By: Automotive News


Ford in Talks with Google to Build Self Driving Cars............ www.redlineautosales.ca/ford-in-talks-with-google-to-build-self-driving-cars--automotive-news.htm

Traffic floods Bryan Honda’s Facebook sales beta test

When Bryan Honda of Fayetteville, N.C. decided to sell vehicles in real time directly within the Facebook platform, the dealership team wanted to see if the traffic would come - would people actually be interested?
And this Cyber Monday, when the social sales tool was beta tested, the dealership got its answer.

In the words of Rico Glover, e-commerce director at Bryan Honda, "Our theory is, you put the product out first, and then you fix it. I threw the product out there, and it broke, which is good."

What Glover means by "broke" is the sales platform, run by Stripe.com, was so overloaded by users, it couldn't handle the traffic.
In the first hour, Glover said roughly 500 to 600 people tried to use the Stripe.com platform. But just because the system was overloaded didn't mean these leads went to waste.
"The good thing about it is, though, I'm a trained lead provider," said Glover. "So I have all of those contacts in my database. By the end of the day, I had over 1,000 interactions on the product. What that did is gave me proof of sale and interest, and a working model to actually launch the Facebook program in full."
And that might not be too hard, as software companies looking to partner with the dealership on further beta testing are now contacting the store directly in an effort to be involved.
As for those customers that tried to use the Facebook platform and were drawn to the dealership through social engagement on Cyber Monday? Many of those leads were converted, as well.
"Instead of going through the process completely online, we still connected with them and sent them information or brought them into the dealership," Glover said.
And this social surge of customers spelled a large increase in both Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales for the store.
Glover explained the dealership "went real hot and heavy" on social media for both the Black Friday holiday and Cyber Monday, using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to drive leads.
And the work paid off. This past Black Friday, the store did 29 sales, compared to 19 sales in 2014. And on Cyber Monday, the dealership sold 19 vehicles, compared to just seven during the 2014 holiday.
A 'social focus'
So, why the focus on social media?
Glover said when he was working in auto sales about seven or eight years ago, he noticed everything was trending toward online. Think Google and growing online sales platforms.
And then another shift occurred.
"Google got expensive. If you wanted to have paid advertising on Google, it got pricey. So, I started looking at the social side of things," Glover said.
He shared the words of one of his mentors that lead him to start doing more with social media and Facebook, in particular.
"One of my mentors said, 'Facebook is the most accurate and intelligent survey ever created in the history of the world. It allows you to get any message in front of any person at any time anywhere in the world.' And that has stuck with me ever since," Glover said.
And Facebook also gives dealerships a platform to "listen" to their customers, which is key to things that come down the road such as social selling, Glover said.
"Most dealerships try to use social media and they go straight to social selling, which is really the last level when you are trying to sell anything online," Glover said. "The first thing you have to do is listen. What Facebook does in the best way possible is they listen to what people are saying, and then you can actually target and tailor your product or service to users."
To Glover, it's a no-brainer decision to focus on Facebook.
"In front of you, you have a system that will tell you when someone is looking for a vehicle, when they have purchased a vehicle, when they might be looking to get another vehicle, and if you know how to do it correctly by listening, you'll sell more vehicles," he shared.
Glover credits Bryan Honda general manager Tim Roussel, who he called "a forward-thinking manager," with giving him the opportunity to really dig in on the social side of things.
And it's paying off.
"We were doing maybe 200 cars a month, and now we are in the 300-350 range some months," Glover said.
And with social comes a focus on the demographic who uses it the most: millennials.
"According to reports, Cyber Monday was the biggest online sales day on record with $3 billion in sales, and millennials are driving a lot of that," Glover said.
That was certainly true for Bryan Honda.
For the week of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, online impressions for the store were dominated by the 25-35 age group, with the 35-44 age group in second place.
And as far as leads go, the No. 1 source for the holiday week was social engagement, from Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
The dealership is making a concerted effort to reach these social shoppers and actually employs a social relationship management (SRM) team, whose members are taught how to talk directly to consumers through social, "because that's where they want to be met," says Glover.
Changing the game to serve millennials
Glover says it's important to realize that millennials aren't anti-social, growing up in the age of instant messaging and texts, "it's just the fact that they talk different."
For example, they might not want to walk through a meet and greet and 12-step sales process.
"They grew up in the Google age where they ask a question, and they want it answered first, and they want to know that you have listened to them before they go on to the sale," Glover said.
One way Bryan Honda does this is employing what Glover calls a "sales vortex" rather than a traditional "sales funnel."
To create this vortex, Bryan Honda pulls leads from all the social sites, as well as street teams, which Glover explained as a group of salespeople in Bryan Honda vehicles touting a logo that says, "Bryan Honda Street Team," that go out into the community and engage potential customers.
"What a funnel does is you take people or leads, and you push them down and gravity has to work to push them from the beginning out the bottom to make a sale. A vortex works in a completely different way," Glover said. "It works with a spinning motion and gravitates and pulls, and instead of gravity working, with the simple force of being able to relate and engage with these people, they will drop out on their own, and you will get so many more sales."

AutoRemarketing
By Sarah Rubenoff

Traffic Floods Bryan Honda's Facebook Sales Beta Test.......................... www.redlineautosales.ca/traffic-floods-bryan-honda-s-facebook-sales-beta-test.htm

VW Canada outlines ‘thank you’ package following apology ad

Volkswagen Canada kicked off December with a nationwide apology campaign, utilizing ads featured in over 100 newspapers across the country as well as a digital campaign to apologize to the Canada's Volkswagen owners for the company's damaged reputation following the diesel scandal uncovered earlier this year that is still not entirely fleshed out. Thomas Tetzlaff, VW Canada's manager of media relations, spoke with Auto Remarketing Canada to help clarify the situation, saying that the point of the message was not only to apologize to the Canadian VW ownership and fanbase, as well as VW dealers, but also to thank them.
"The campaign explains the impact of this situation on our proud legacy, values and trust in the Volkswagen brand," Tetzlaff said. "We take great pride in the base of support we have built in Canada and felt we owed it to our employees, dealers and customers to publicly acknowledge the damage done to Volkswagen's relationship with Canadians and to declare our full commitment to restoring faith in our brand. We hope that our customers will go to our microsite for additional information, and to register directly with us so as to facilitate further communication about this issue. By registering at the site, affected TDI owners will initiate the process to receive our appreciation package."
Tetzlaff said that the package is not intended as "compensation," but more as a sincere "thank you" for customers and dealers maintaining their patience while the company works on a remedy for the vehicles alongside regulators.
Similar to the deal offered in the United States, the VW Canada said the "thank you" package includes:

• A $500 pre-paid credit card for use anywhere credit cards are accepted
• A $500 dealer credit, which can be used at the Volkswagen dealer of their choice for service, parts, accessories or as payment towards a car purchase
• 3 years of complimentary roadside assistance (an added three years for customers that still have their "original" roadside package in place)

"Thus far, we have received positive feedback from our customers, many of whom have already registered on the site," Tetzlaff said. "We are hoping to reach as many of our affected owners as possible, as this will improve the flow of information, and will expedite the repair process when it has been established."

by:AutoRemarketing


VW Canada Outlines Thank You Package Following Apology Ad......... www.redlineautosales.ca/vw-canada-outlines--thank-you--package-following-apology-ad.htm

9 best new vehicles as honored by AJAC

The Automobile Journalists Association of Canada has released nine "Best New" category winners for 2016, including double wins for both Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.
The nine vehicles are now in the running for the overall Canadian Car of the Year and Canadian Utility Vehicle of the Year awards, which will be announced at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto in February.
For 2015, the Subaru Legacy was named the Canadian Car of the Year, while the Ford F-150 took home the award for utility vehicles.
AJAC will also announce the winners of its Canadian Green Car of the Year awards at the Vancouver International Auto Show in March.
How were the nine winners chosen? Well, the race was on when some of Canada's best-known auto journalists gathered this past October in Clarington, Ontario for a four-day test-drive evaluation of brand-new or significantly changed models for an event known as "TestFest" held at the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
"TestFest is the most intensive new-vehicle evaluation process on the planet," said Gary Grant, co-chair of the Canadian Car of the Year committee. "No other organization employs such stringent testing methods to determine its award winners."
During the event, 71 auto journalists each drove vehicles in their categories - one after another on the same day and under the same conditions to ensure objective comparisons, AJAC shared.
"Our program is absolutely testing-based," said Justin Pritchard, also co-chair of the Canadian Car of the Year committee. "We have dozens of experienced vehicle testers driving dozens of vehicles, back to back, over the course of several days. This testing process generated 1,911 test drives, producing over 110,000 data points and 1,701 category ballots. It's important to note that every aspect of this testing data is shared online via our website, so shoppers can see how any given vehicle won its category, or how it stacked up to the category winner."
The results were tabulated by KPMG, which works with AJAC and its Canadian Car of the Year awards, and the categories cover segments ranging from Best New Sports/Performance to Best New SUV/CUV.
And most of these core categories are divided into price ranges to better provide fair and relevant comparisons, giving dealers another marketing tool when working with customers within a specific price budget. The winners are as follows:
2016 CANADIAN CAR OF THE YEAR "BEST NEW" AWARDS
SMALL CAR
Honda Civic
FAMILY CAR
Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen 1.8TSI
SPORTS/PERFORMANCE under $50K
Volkswagen Golf R
SPORTS/PERFORMANCE over $50K
Mercedes-Benz AMG C-Class (C 63 S)
PRESTIGE/PERFORMANCE
Mercedes Benz AMG GT (S Coupe)
PICKUP
Chevrolet Silverado
SUV/CUV under $35K
Mazda CX-3
SUV/CUV $35K - $60K
Kia Sorento
SUV/CUV over $60K
Volvo XC90

By Auto Remarketing Canada Staff




9 Best New Vehicles as Honored by AJAC.............www.redlineautosales.ca/9-best-new-vehicles-as-honored-by-ajac.htm