ROI is a way to ask: “Did this idea make money compared to what it cost?” Dealers use it to decide if spending on things like marketing or new tools is paying off.
This is a recurring part of the show focused on the service side of a dealership—like repairs, parts, and how they treat customers. It’s usually about improving the dealership’s day-to-day operations.
NADA is a national organization that represents car dealers. When they talk about bills and committee actions, it’s because those rules can change what dealers are allowed to do and how they operate.
Term
foreign connected car bill
This is a proposed law about connected cars—cars that use internet features. If it passes, it could force dealers to follow new rules when selling or servicing those cars.
Term
RO plus
In a service department, an “RO” is basically a service job ticket. “Revenue per RO” tells you how much money you make for each job you process.
This is an automated tire tool that can do tire work with robots instead of people doing every step. The benefit is usually faster service and more consistent results.
A “pilot” is a limited trial of a process or technology before rolling it out more broadly. Here, the robotic tire machine is described as moving from a pilot phase to a wider operational rollout.
If the number of service job tickets (“ROs”) is going down, the service department is getting fewer jobs. That can hurt revenue and can also point to problems in marketing, scheduling, or customer trust.
Term
sub 40 minute oil changer
This means an oil change process that’s designed to be done in less than 40 minutes. The idea is to make service quicker so customers feel it’s easier and more trustworthy.
This is a proposed U.S. law focused on keeping internet-connected cars secure. It’s meant to help prevent hackers from interfering with a car’s systems or stealing data.
This is a proposed rule that would limit how much Chinese companies can own in automakers that sell cars in the U.S. It’s designed to reduce foreign control over those car companies.
This phrase means whether a car company is partly owned by Chinese investors. If it is, the company could be affected by the new rules being discussed.
Vehicle affordability is about whether people can really afford to buy and keep a car. When it gets worse, customers may delay repairs or spend less in the service department.
Retention here means getting customers to keep returning to the dealership for service. The more they come back, the more predictable and profitable the service department becomes.
An RO is the paperwork/job for a customer’s car when it comes in for service. “Dollars per RO” means how much money the dealership makes per service visit.
“3 get 1 free” is a deal where you pay for three tires and get an extra one for free. Dealerships use promos like this to get more customers into the service/parts pipeline.
Brand
tire Mag by 3 get 1
This sounds like the name of the dealership’s tire deal. They’re using a consistent brand name so customers can easily spot the promotion.
Revenue per RO means how much money the dealership makes for each service job. If it goes up, it usually means customers are buying more or the average service bill is higher.
Tires are a common service item that dealers can sell and install. Since selling new cars is harder, dealerships often make money by selling tires to customers they already have.
The used car market is where people buy and sell cars that aren’t brand-new. If fewer people are buying new cars, dealerships lean harder on used-car customers and what those cars need afterward.
Warranty reimbursement is how a car dealer gets paid by the manufacturer for warranty repairs they do. If the dealer misses paperwork or doesn’t follow the process, they can lose money even though the customer’s repair was covered.
Door rate is a benchmark dealers use to estimate how much warranty work they should be getting compared to how many customers/vehicles they have. If the actual warranty work is lower than the door rate, the dealer may be missing claims.
Term
CP side
“CP side” is a shorthand dealers use to track performance for a particular type of service work. In many dealerships, it refers to customer-pay work, which is tracked separately from warranty work.
A dealership’s “used car department” is the internal sales operation responsible for sourcing, pricing, and selling pre-owned vehicles. The speaker is contrasting those customers with retail tire buyers, implying that tires can be a cross-sell opportunity tied to used-vehicle customers.
Term
Rack and Goodyear
This is a tire service setup where a tire company (Goodyear) makes it easier to get tires delivered and installed. The point is that it’s convenient, so customers may choose it over going to a dealership.
Concept
service industry customer churn
This is about customers leaving a dealership’s service shop and going to another place. The speaker says tires are often the first reason they switch, and then they may keep doing other work elsewhere.
“Tire game” just means how a dealership tries to make money and keep customers by selling tires and doing tire-related service. It’s not only about the tires themselves—it’s about getting the customer to return for future work.
“15k” here refers to a mileage interval (15,000 miles) for scheduled tire replacement. Tire life is commonly discussed in mileage terms, and dealerships use these intervals to plan service offers and promotions.
“Three for one” is a deal where you get three things for the cost/benefit of one. Dealerships use it to make the offer sound bigger and get people in the door.
“Target price” means the dealership tries to sell the service for a specific price the customer expects. The point here is that relying on that number can lead to heavy discounting and less profit.
Service advisors are the people at the dealership who talk to you about what your car needs and what it will cost. If they explain things well, customers are more likely to say yes without discounts.
Target pricing means you pick the price you want to hit so you don’t lose money. Then discounts are managed so the final price stays close to that goal.
Price matching with proof means the dealer will match another price, but only if you show evidence of that lower price. It helps prevent random discounting.
Matrix pricing is a rule-based way to set part prices. Instead of guessing, they use a consistent formula—starting from what the part costs them.
Term
list
“List” is the sticker price the manufacturer publishes for parts. They’re saying that sticker price doesn’t always move the same way as what the dealer actually pays.
Term
escalators
Escalators are automatic price adjustments over time. They help pricing keep up with rising costs instead of falling behind.
Term
price breaks
Price breaks are discounts that kick in when you meet a certain level, like buying more. It’s a way to offer a better deal without cutting profit everywhere.
Concept
McGovern University
McGovern University sounds like a structured training program. Here it’s where the dealership is building and rolling out its customer retention approach.
A playbook is a step-by-step guide the dealership uses so everyone follows the same plan. Here it’s about how they handle retention and customer follow-up.
Service marketing is how a dealership advertises and promotes car service. The goal is to get customers to return for things like maintenance and repairs.
Reactivated customers are people who hadn’t been coming in for service, but then return. It’s a common metric for whether a dealership’s reminders and offers are working.
Fullpath is the company they’re talking about that helps with customer retention tracking. The idea is that it gives better reporting on customers who come back for service.
Cox is the company mentioned as the buyer in an acquisition. That matters because it can change what tools a dealership uses for customer tracking and retention.
This describes customers who bought a car but haven’t brought it in for service yet. Dealerships try to reach them because they’re a big opportunity to turn a new sale into ongoing service visits.
X-time digital platform is the dealership’s software system for digital marketing and customer communications. They’re saying the new data from Cox/FullPath will connect into it.
A “Lifetime Warranty” is a warranty that’s supposed to cover the car for as long as you own it. But it usually has rules about what’s covered and sometimes who has to be the owner, so you should check the fine print.
A “Video Multi-Point Inspection” is when a shop checks your car in several areas and records what they find on video. It helps you see the issues for yourself instead of just hearing about them.
A “customer pay RO account” is dealership service money from repair orders where the customer is paying. It’s a way to measure how much repair work customers are choosing to pay for themselves.
“RO” means “repair order,” which is the paperwork that starts and tracks a repair job. An “RO account” is how the dealership reports and measures that repair work.
Onboarding is the dealership’s training plan for new sales people. It helps them learn what to do and how to do it so they can start helping customers faster.
A walk-around is the in-person inspection of a vehicle with a customer, where the advisor points out features, condition, and key selling points. In training, it’s often paired with a script or checklist so the advisor covers the same important items every time.
Word tracks are basically sales scripts—specific phrases the salesperson uses. The goal is to help them say the right things at the right time during the conversation.
They’re talking about an AI tool that helps train sales advisors. It can “grade” how the advisor talks to customers and show them how to improve.
Term
MPEL
MPEL is a tool dealerships use to keep track of customers and their online behavior. The goal is to know when someone is likely to need service so the dealership can reach out at the right time.
“Oil changes near me” is what people type when they’re looking for a place to do routine maintenance. If a dealership sees that kind of search, it can treat it like a sign the customer may need service soon.
“Oil prices” means how expensive oil is in the market. When oil gets more expensive, it often makes both gasoline and the oils used for car maintenance cost more too.
In a car dealership, “fixed operations” usually means the service and parts side—not selling cars. It’s the area that handles things like oil changes and repairs, so when fuel and oil get more expensive, it can change what customers do and what it costs the dealership.
“Gas prices” are what it costs to buy gasoline. If gas is expensive, it can make people feel the pinch in their daily budget, which can affect how they handle car maintenance.
“Cost of ownership” means what it really costs to keep and use a car over time. If gas and maintenance-related costs go up, owning the car becomes more expensive.
A service contract is like a plan you buy that helps pay for certain repairs and maintenance for a period of time. Dealers talk about it because it can reduce surprise costs for customers.
Reimbursement rates are how much money the dealer gets paid back for certain covered work. If the rates stay the same but parts and supplies get more expensive, the dealer ends up making less money on each job.
Recycled oil companies collect used (waste) oil from businesses, process it, and re-refine it into usable oil products. In this context, they can pay dealers for waste oil, turning a disposal cost into a potential revenue stream.
Labor rate is what the shop charges per hour for the mechanic’s time. If it goes up, the shop can make more money per job—assuming customers still feel the price is fair.
Term
video multi-points
Video multi-points means showing customers a video inspection that points out several things on their car. It helps people understand what needs attention and why, without guessing from a checklist.
Concept
buy three, get one for free
“Buy three, get one for free” is a deal where you have to come back multiple times, and then you get an extra service for free. It’s meant to make customers return instead of going elsewhere.
LIVE
We're doing better as a result of social media presence.
It doesn't do those three things then it's on the chopping block.
It's in return on investment discussion.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Daily Dealer Live.
I'm your host, Sam Darkin.
Thanks for choosing to join us on this Friday, July 24th.
Today's fixed ops Friday.
Three topics are on my mind today and we're going to touch on all three
throughout today's show.
First up, we've got Mike Stanton, president and CEO of NADA.
Mike's going to walk us through some big news out of senate committee.
The foreign connected car bill made it out of committee this week.
He'll share what that means for car dealers and what you might do next about that.
Then we swing into true fixed ops territory with Danny Nogalha,
corporate fixed ops director at McGovern Automotive Group.
40 rooftops across the northeast.
Danny was here back in April and he's returning with an update on those robots.
We're excited to talk about that because what are those robots doing and how are those working?
Thousands of deliveries logged in a nice bump in revenue per RO plus that fully robotic tire
machine graduating from pilot.
You won't want to miss it.
Rounding out today, Chris Skinner, fixed ops director at Grandbury Nissan.
Chris joined us in June and he's back to talk accountability, customer experience,
and the real enemy declining RO count plus how speed and transparency
like that sub 40 minute oil changer building trust and winning customers back.
Those are both teases into topic two and three for today.
We're streaming as a reminder live across all CDG social media platforms.
Post your comments into the show.
We'll bring you and your comments into today's show.
And by the way, I love fixed ops Friday because it's one of our most active days.
We've already got a ton of comments in the chat.
So thanks for being there.
Everybody including Paul Salisman, automotive retired guy.
Eager is back into it today.
Love it.
Eager K fixed ops Friday and auction day for me.
Great Mannheim auction day and automotive retired guy comes in eager.
South Florida is muggy and it's hot.
So I love the conversation happening today as the show goes among our audience.
Well, now let's dive into today's automotive industry headlines.
First up this Friday, urban sciences latest Harris poll study finds that nearly a third
of car buyers are now prioritizing price over brand loyalty up significantly from a year ago.
And 44% say they're spending more time researching before buying adding to that.
One in four say they're more likely to purchase entirely online than they were just 12 months ago.
That's a lot.
25% are more likely than a month a year ago.
12 months ago for dealers.
This tells us that brand affinity alone isn't holding buyers the way it used to.
And it's worth double checking that you have tighter digital follow up better targeting
and a clear value story.
That is a great happening with an automotive will continue to follow that here at car dealership guy.
Also this week, Chinese brands just hit 17% of new vehicle sales in Mexico.
And in the first half of 2026 up from 7% in 2022.
That's a 10 point jump in that period of time.
Even as Mexico has imposed tariffs that were meant to slow the expansion,
total Chinese brand's vehicle sales in Mexico climbed to 137,000 units in the first half of
this year.
And that's up from 107,000 a year earlier.
The concern for us policymakers is that Mexico and Canada could become back channel entry points
into the North American market.
The Trump administration has already warned Canada.
It won't allow Chinese EVs to cross into the US and the Senate bill we're going to cover here
in a second is designed in part to close that door permanently.
But before we get into the Senate bill,
Penske Corp in Metsui this week announced a $3.8 billion proposal to take Penske Auto Group
private offering 210 per share in a cash, which is above the stock's all time high for context.
Together, they already own about 72% of PAG.
So a competing bid is essentially, well, it's off the table.
Also worth noting that the deal values the full company at roughly 13.8 billion bucks.
That's about 10 and a half times forward earnings higher than any major public dealer group has
ever received.
Presidios president told CDG News that private dealers shouldn't expect much
to change at the local level right away since more than 90% of dealer transactions are already
private to private.
That said, if the deal goes through, it means one thing for sure, Penske
becomes more nimble without shareholder oversight.
And finally, closing out with the saga unfolding the Senate Commerce Committee this week advanced
the Connected Vehicle Security Act, approving a 15% cap on Chinese ownership of automakers
selling vehicles in the United States.
For context, that's a threshold that would put some OEMs, Mercedes-Benz, as an example,
potentially in hot water, given that Chinese entities own about 20% of the company.
Naturally, Ben's lobbied hard to raise the cap to 25%, but at the moment didn't get it.
Senator Reino said the automaker would have until 2030 to comply.
And they could also seek waivers, which would be granted potentially.
What we're tracking is that the bill now moves to the full Senate.
For dealers, it's a developing story worth watching.
Nothing changes immediately.
But future decisions could reshape the competitive landscape for automakers
with Chinese ownership ties and not just Mercedes-Benz.
And actually to provide a little commentary background and highlight into that story,
let's turn and welcome, as our first guest up today,
President and CEO of National Automobile Dealers Association, Mike Stand.
Mike, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Great to be with you again.
It's great to have you back.
We always appreciate your perspective on the show.
And I know NADA is always hard at work on the Hill.
And you've got a variety of interests in the dealer body across the entire country
that you're representing in that.
Tell us a little bit about your take on this bill that just passed committee.
And maybe what does it mean and what are some of the next steps?
Where does it go from here, Mike?
Words you rarely hit here in Washington, D.C.
is unanimous in bipartisan support.
And that's what we got just a couple of days ago.
It's been a great week.
As you may know, NADA has been on top of the situation that's been evolving in China
with the car companies there for, gosh, over three years.
We visited China.
We have talked with dealers around the globe that represent Chinese brands.
And we've got alignment with our board of directors of 65 that represent just about
every area in this country, certainly every state.
We have been out to share that information with state and metro dealer associations
and the dealers that are represented there.
And the word I think about right now is momentum and alignment.
Not only do we have a lot on the Hill, but we have alignment with our car companies.
We have alignment with our dealer body.
And as all of us know, when we're thinking about the greater good of the, not just the
industry, but our customers and our country, and we're aligned on an action plan,
we're going to win.
And so far, it feels like we are winning.
There's a lot of work to be done.
Yeah.
Mike, I think one of the challenges with this bill on a national level, and I've said this before,
Don Hall and I debated this at the VADA meeting.
We sat on stage and went back and forth.
I don't know that there's been enough publicly said about the threat that this poses.
And a lot of Americans, some Americans look at this as being anti-competitive.
I don't think it's the case.
What is the challenge of having connected Chinese vehicles on the roads in the U.S.?
They're inexpensive.
Some of the tech, some people would claim is better than what currently exists on roads today.
What's the threat, Mike?
Well, the threat, it's really national security.
It's consumer privacy.
We always talk about competition and dealers are some of the fiercest competitors out there.
And when I've always said when dealers compete, consumers win.
But it has to be a fair level playing field.
And our manufacturers, they compete with each other.
But to compete with the Chinese government, and what the Chinese government is attempting to do,
which is dominate and decimate a vital industry in our country, is unacceptable.
And you would think that selling this idea of keeping the Chinese out to dealers
who love to sell anything to anybody would be a challenge, because it really hasn't been a challenge.
As I mentioned, dealers compete every day, but they also have the ability to collaborate,
to work together for that greater good that I mentioned before.
And it really has not been a tough sell.
Let me bring up something that I learned this week or last week that was new to me
as an argument for supporting this legislation.
I'd never thought of before.
So at Ziggler, we represent many OEMs.
One of the OEMs held a meeting.
I won't say who because they asked privacy in it.
But they held a meeting and they talked about one of the threats to U.S. national security
with Chinese expansion and automotive is our ability to manufacture vehicles.
So it was much on that manufacturing capacity that we were able to win wars.
This World War II is an example and defend freedom here in the U.S.
Our manufacturing capacity has diminished over the decades as we've kind of moved more
towards the service industry and technology and the like.
China's has expanded and it's a fair point.
It's an interesting point that in times of war or conflict,
a lot of that manufacturing automotive alike turns into warbuilding.
And if we lose that capacity, we lose a major prong in our national defense.
Is that part of the claim, Mike?
Is that part of the life?
And the Trump administration has been all about that.
And we're seeing our car companies building more here in the United States.
I don't have the numbers in front of me, but not only are we seeing increased levels of production,
we're seeing big commitments from manufacturers to move production here to the United States.
So to that end with the Trump administration has been trying to do, it's working.
And that's not just good for the car business.
It is good for defense.
It's good for national security.
Seating that to other parts of the world was not something that at least I personally
think was a good idea.
So this is a good thing and it's nice.
I just can't believe.
I mean, at NADA, we are tasked with bringing kind of diverse points of view together.
We don't have that problem with this issue.
We are aligned.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, it's interesting.
Did you watch the committee meeting?
Did you watch the debate?
I wasn't there, but I watched it on YouTube.
Can I tell you something?
That is something I would recommend to everybody who could do it.
And I don't know what the next steps are.
Maybe you could share with us.
But I spent about an hour watching that debate and I learned a lot.
And I thought it was fascinating to see those senators kind of not.
It wasn't a vigorous debate on it.
Ted Cruz brought up a couple of points that were OEM specific.
Senator Moreno came back with points that I thought were really intelligent.
One of the foreign OEMs that has the largest production capacity in the U.S. is BMW.
They have doubled down on manufacturing here in the United States.
They build a large part of their vehicle sold here in the U.S.
So the U.S. benefits from that production, that technology.
And then the vehicles are sold and many are exported from here.
And that's a strength.
That's something that any OEM could repeat and any OEM could do.
And so a lot of what this bill is trying to accomplish
has already proven successful with some of the other technologies.
Mike, what happens next?
So it's out of committee.
Where does it head now?
To your point, Sam, I do encourage your viewers to take a look at this.
There's about 10 minutes of it in probably the, I guess, the third, the second third of the video
where Senator Moreno and Senator Cruz are going back and forth.
And what you see is a civil, smart discussion that really could help your viewers learn about the issue.
In terms of next steps, I did have a chance to speak with Senator Moreno yesterday.
And we're in a little bit of a holding pattern right now waiting for his direction.
Because when the NADA decides to motivate its grassroots network,
that's something that's very powerful.
But we want to be able to make sure we do it in a concentrated sense.
So that we're not used or that we are using dealer.
You want to do it at the right time, right?
You want to do it at the right time.
Timing is very, very important.
You want to make sure that you can cut through the clutter that is Capitol Hill.
So I would just ask your viewers to stay tuned.
We have it engaged.
We'll continue to obviously engage on this.
We love the momentum.
We've got to make sure we get it right.
And there is a right time.
And the right time is coming.
It's not today.
There's not a call of action today or probably tomorrow.
But I would say in the next couple of weeks,
be looking for those alerts from NADA and from your state and metro dealer associations.
We will move this machine all at once in a coordinated and strategic fashion.
So, Mike, before we let you go, talk a little bit about that.
How do you nail timing on this sort of thing?
There are so many issues that are important in the world today.
You know, we're going to talk a little bit about straight-of-whore moves still,
having challenges, oil prices going up,
and what that means to fixed operation departments across the country,
how they're dealing with it.
We'll get into that with our guests today.
But with so many important topics out there in automotive,
how do you kind of cut through the noise to get accomplished the things
that are most important to dealers?
And in this case, as Moreno talks about it,
this connected car bill is important to many dealers.
You say there's bipartisan support for it.
Well, our Congress people, they take a lot of heat.
They have difficult jobs.
They've got a lot on their plate.
They're supposed to be an expert about everything.
And that's where lobbyists slash educators come in.
So you want to make sure you're there at the right time,
right message, you need to be concise.
And the way that works is through relationships,
great relationships like we have with Senator Moreno
and his colleagues in the Senate and in the House.
But also, and I can't underscore the importance of this enough,
the relationships that we have with our state and metro trade associations
and the ability to all speak as one voice,
same sheet of music at the same time, that's what cuts through.
And you can't do that every day.
You have to pick your time.
And again, it's the relationships that will guide us through
how we get to the next step on this.
And as I mentioned before, we represent the dealers
from across all brands, the whole industry.
So we need to make sure that we get this right for the whole industry.
And we're going to work to do just that.
You know, Mike, I think you've said in places 95% of the board backs
keeping this bill intact.
5% might think otherwise.
What's the counter or the contrarian opinion on it?
Like, anybody who objects this, what are they, what's kind of their...
Well, say it was an anonymous survey.
Oh, it was.
I don't know.
I like to think that we're at 100% now on that survey.
Good.
It happened about a year ago.
And sometimes we're guilty of checking a wrong box on a survey.
Maybe that was error.
We've got no verbal discussion about this going on.
No debate right now, as I mentioned before.
We are on the same page as NADA and as State and Metro Dealer Associations.
And Mike...
Mike Stan, we absolutely appreciate you coming on,
joining, sharing your perspectives and NADA's perspective.
We'd love to invite you to come back whenever that next action item is
and maybe even have you and Senator Moreno educate our audience.
And again, to anybody listening, watch the committee meeting.
Watch it as it goes through the Senate because it's a fascinating process.
And I learned a lot.
I was pulled more in the direction than ever,
just because of some of the logical arguments that support it.
You know what I can do, Sam, quickly?
I will send you an email.
I have that link and it's bookmarked at the right spot.
So you don't have to suffer through all of the stuff at the beginning.
I will email that to you right now and maybe you can put it in the chat.
And yes, I'd love to be back.
Thank you for everything that you and our dealership guy that they're doing for the industry
and getting the word out on a lot of different issues.
So we appreciate you guys.
We'll put the link in the chat, Mike.
Look forward to having you back.
Mike Stan, President, CO, National Auto Dealers Association.
Thanks for joining the show to share your perspectives, Mike.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
Always love having Mike in.
That's a wrap on today's Auto Industry Headlines
and welcome to Fixed Ops Friday, everybody.
All right.
So a lot of comments coming into the chat.
Igor Kay obviously is stating he feels like this bill is an anti-Chinese ban all about
politics and protecting the U.S. economy, seeing a lot of other opinions coming in.
But we appreciate Paul Salisman and others saying, hey, it's a great piece.
Oh, let's see.
They're talking about a particular article.
The great things about our audience is they have a show within a show.
There's a show that happens right behind in the chat that's going on there.
So if you want to join on that and you're watching the live show,
feel free to come into the post and post your comments
and we'll bring them into today's show.
First up today, Danny Nogalha, Corporate Fixed Operations Director, McGovern Otto.
Danny, welcome back to the show.
Hey, Sam.
Great to be back.
It's always a pleasure.
Great to have you back.
You were last here April of 2026.
So just several months ago.
How's biz this July 2026, Danny?
I tell you, it's been a great first half of the year for us
and we're pacing some pretty strong revenue across the whole group.
And I think it's going to be a record year for McGovern in fixed revenue.
So business is great.
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
You know, all right.
So I brought up, before we get into robots and retention and all the things,
one of the stories that's fascinating me right now
is the Strait of Hormuz has not been settled yet and oil prices have gone up.
And we've got to start getting pressure from OEMs and suppliers on rising oil prices.
What's your take?
Is this a troubling trend?
Have you done something to defend yourself
against potentially rising oil prices?
And what should the dealer body be doing about that in 2026, July?
Danny?
It's definitely been unique.
No question about it.
Cut into some of the profitability that is part of our business.
However, we've always looked at oil and oil changes as lost leaders.
So we got pretty competitive.
We did a competitive market analysis on how we compare to the independence.
And believe it or not, across the group, we were a lot cheaper than what they were
with a lot more to offer.
So we did adjust.
We adjusted a little bit upwards, but not to a point where we're more than the independence
or at the independent rates.
But mostly thinking about getting that customer back in the door and being able to provide them
transparency without pricing and convenience to get their service work done.
So I think that'll change at some point.
We've had some pretty good vendor relationships where they've held back on the price a little bit
and they've worked with us because of the volume we do.
So yeah, it's been unique.
But I think we're overcoming it by being transparent in terms of pricing.
Yeah, so it's a loss leader.
It continues to be a little more of a loss leader, but you continue to work through it.
So last time you were on, we talked robots, we talked retention.
Now it's protecting every dollar in the RO.
What's the focus and what caused you to sharpen the focus on every dollar in RO?
Well, as you know, I think the next couple of years are going to be pretty challenging,
especially to the dealerships in ways we haven't experienced, I believe,
vehicle affordability, it continues to pressure consumers,
service departments have been asked to carry more of the dealership's profitability.
So we adjusted earlier on because retention is important.
We want to retain the dollars per RO.
And what started that was tires.
We created our own brand tire Mag by 3 get 1.
That's really contributed to our growth year over year when it came to customer pay units.
We've seen about 119% more customers.
Our revenue per RO went up about $8, $8, $9.
And our tire sales went up about 24% year over year.
It was huge.
We didn't invest quite a bit in it because we absorbed the free tire.
But the results on the service and part side contribute to more retention.
And it was a good investment.
It's not going away because it's branded everywhere now.
Yeah.
Did I hear you right?
You branded your own tire or it was a tire program?
Tire program.
So 3 get 1 free.
3 get 1 free and it's everywhere on our websites, on our communications.
And regardless of what maker brand, that's the program.
And I'm fortunate enough that the staff has bought into it and has embraced it because
they've seen the results from a revenue perspective.
And what was the economic factor that made you say, hey, this is important to do,
focus on tires and ultimately end up with nearly 25% increase in tire sales?
Well, we know that we're not selling any more new cars than we used to.
And one way to retain them was to make a presence to the public that we do sell tires.
And most of the time, they don't know that dealerships sell tires.
And that was important because we know that the used car market is what it is.
We sell a lot more used cars than we're selling new.
So we have to retain these customers that we sold cars to the last couple of years.
And I think this is going to be a challenge over the next five years.
And I don't really think that I think that most of the successful dealers are going to be much
more proactive about monitoring a labor performance, parts margins, warranty reimbursements,
missed billing opportunities, and being more efficient in those areas.
And I think we're ahead of the game because we've been disciplined with it.
And it's not so much the bigger dealerships.
It's the ones that are holding their teams accountable and operational visibility.
I think that's important.
So you mentioned warranty reimbursement, right?
That made your list of priorities.
Where are dealers leaving money on the table in warranty reimbursement?
And what did you do to help get that back?
It's amazing.
When you acquire stores, the low hanging fruit, you see some, you look at your market,
you look at your door rate.
Here's my door rate for the group.
And I want to be 100% warranty to door rate on a CP side.
We're running 90%.
And the reason for that is we're smart about our repair pricing, our grid pricing,
without pricing ourselves outside of the market.
So we analyze this monthly.
And when we acquire stores, a lot of them just don't look at warranty reimbursement
because they forget about it.
It's not part of the day-to-day or their monthly analysis.
But it's been a big win for us, not only on the labor side,
but the profits profit as well.
Is there a tool you're using to help make sure you're capturing all that warranty reimbursement?
Or what's the process that's helped you tighten that up, Danny?
So we definitely look at our grid pricing.
That definitely helps.
Effortive labor, it's a pretty strong with an organization because we've got to retain
the dollars.
And then we work with William, who is an accountant firm that will analyze
a projected labor and parts increases with the manufacturer, the OEMs.
But that's becoming a lot more hard nowadays because they're
intending to add different things in there that shouldn't be,
which lowers the reimbursement amount.
But we're working.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Interesting.
A lot of comments online, Danny, bringing a lot of feedback on this.
David Cerquera, what a great way to keep your customers coming back home.
Great job, Danny.
Igor K comes in.
My biggest customers who buy tires, my own used car departments,
not retail customers, unfortunately.
So that's a big opportunity for Igor.
And then the automotive retired guy, the sales at GM and Ford are horrible.
Too many other alternatives now.
The Rack and Goodyear now come to your home, et cetera.
So some dealers are saying, hey, tires are a tough area to compete in such a highly
competitive marketplace.
You see other places like Costco and other tire distributors that will
provide additional service.
But Danny, that's probably not a reason not to play in that space.
That's probably a reason to play in that space because if you can win at that,
it'll cascade down to others.
What would you say to somebody that said, hey, you know what?
There's just too much competition.
We're going to focus on other things, Danny.
I would say that they need to focus on selling tires.
And that's where it all starts.
A lot of reasons why we lose customers in the service industry is because they go
elsewhere to have tires done because they think the dealer is too expensive.
So when that, and if we're not convenient and they go elsewhere and have tires done,
what else do they get done at the independence?
That's right.
All the competitively priced stuff that we work so hard to keep
because of the perceived, the perception, right?
So get into the tire game.
It's OK if you don't make a whole lot of money in the tires,
but you will retain a customer and look at the big picture of the next five,
10 years and how much that customer is going to bring to the table.
Yeah.
Dale in progress comes in and says, going to buy a new car at the end of the year
and we'll change the tires at 15k to a very nice set.
Three for one is a good reason to go to the dealer in July of 2026.
And I agree with you.
I think it's a competitive space.
It's a tough sell.
But if you can create a process or if you can create an ad campaign
that pulls people in in this cost-conscious world we're in,
that's something that will earn you a customer for a life.
Agreed.
Danny, let's shift to discounting practices.
You've talked about that as a way you're defending.
What's the sneakiest way a service department discounts away its own margin in 2026, Danny?
I think it's target price and discounts I believe are a big crutch in the business.
I think it comes from not having the proper selling skills with service advisors,
which we're investing in now.
It's a lot easier to discount as opposed to talking through it and educating the customer
on the pricing part and being transparent.
So we've limited a lot of discounts by just utilizing the ones that are on the web,
the ones that we want them to use that will help protect that margin.
And honestly, we've seen a nice reduction in that group-wide.
Not by not want to take care of the customer and make sure the experience is good,
but there is a fine line there because we've got to retain the dollars in the RO.
And discounting is one of them.
We've seen quite a big difference there by just target pricing.
Yeah, so target pricing helps with discounting.
Jim Sabino comes into the chats, takes us back to the tires, Danny.
You're hitting a nerve there.
Tires are a great retention tool.
Keep them in your loop.
And then automotive retired guy.
Actually, the dealerships can price match with proof.
The dealership will get reimbursed.
And Eric is a Moodio 5477.
Why are sales extremely slow this July in California?
If anybody in the chat has an opinion on that, you're welcome to come into that conversation.
Danny, parts pricing keeps climbing, 3% to 4% a year from the OEM.
How are you protecting margin against the price increases that we're continually seeing?
And potentially, we may start to see more force leaving in that oil arena, Danny.
Well, we have matrix pricing on our parts pricing.
So we always matrix from cost up, not from list up because that's a changing.
When the OEM raises the cost, they sometimes don't raise the list.
And with our price breaks and our escalators,
they're meant to focus on the lower dollar amount costs because that's what we sell the most of.
So that will retain our margins because it's not a big number, but we do a lot of it.
And it's definitely protected the margins over the years.
Now, a lot of it's shifted to prepaid.
We have a lot of prepaid in our group.
And we've seen the margin take a hit there because that's a fixed price.
However, we see more prepaid.
We see more customers.
So it's been a balance in that because the parts margins have been challenging this year.
And I think you don't want to go out and increase your pricing,
but you want to be smart about targeting the customers that you can decrease your pricing
so that we get them back in the door like higher mileage vehicles.
We've seen a lot more of that and being able to get more of that from a revenue perspective.
We had another guest on the show actually that runs a wholesale parts operation in Indiana.
And his strategy as he came in, he has a tech background, Danny.
And he said, look, I went and raised all of our prices.
And he's like, we're more successful at delivering value on the parts than we are
that race to the bottom.
Is parts turning into more of a value proposition versus race to the bottom?
Because you can't win in volume in a wholesale if you're losing money today in 26.
You can't win in volume unless you have a pretty good program for the manufacturer
with the price matching, which wholesale has been a pretty good part of our business this year
because of that.
And with addition of some other acquisitions, it's been a big part of the parts business.
But from a service perspective, our parts to labor ratios have dropped.
Not only have our labor prices increased a little bit, but they've dropped.
And just by changing those or moving up a little bit, we'll make a big impact on
what that's going to cost the customer.
So we have to be very careful there.
I think we'll look at just more volume and be smart about what we're selling
and make sure the customer, we're transparent with the customer.
I think that's going to be the most important thing.
So you talked last time that you wanted your own in-house retention program
instead of OEM reporting.
And obviously, Tires is part of that.
Where does that overall program stand today in July of 2026, Danny?
So it's still in progress.
It's going to be part of McGovern University.
We have quite a bit of, we have a playbook that's already started there.
And I'm up to about 30 pages, but there's still a lot of more refinement needs to happen there.
The good news is we've required, we became a little bit more strategic with our service
marketing.
And we're working with a different company that's going to be able to provide us with
better retention reporting in terms of reactivated customers.
Who's that?
Full path.
Full path.
Okay. Very good.
Full path just acquired by Cox.
So how are they doing that?
What are they doing to help you on the retention side?
It's amazing.
Their product is absolutely amazing, I think.
You know, it's got that AI understanding of what customers I do for service,
how many registrars in your area by zip code.
And it can get so granular that you can literally dial into anything.
A little too much though, but we've noticed because of what they have,
better information in terms of customer history and email addresses and things like that.
We're able to see a lot higher response in those inactive, sold-not-serviced,
lapsed customers.
And what's really been good is that it's made our service managers, marketers.
They need the market.
And as uncomfortable as that is, they're embracing it.
And I think it's going to be, do really well with us,
especially now that they're part of Cox that'll tie into our X-time digital platform.
So have you been with, with FullPath for a while,
pre their acquisition by Cox?
So I believe our sales department had started with them at some point last year.
We got on the fixed side, I'd say end of May, late April.
Yeah, so I'm curious if, you know, as they've been acquired by Cox,
we had the CEO of Cox, we've had the CEO of FullPath on.
And we asked, you know, how will that acquisition benefit both sides of the coin?
From your perspective as a FullPath customer,
have you started to see some of the Cox data get infused into that tool?
And if so, what is it?
How has it benefited you in this quest for retention with customers, Danny?
That's a great question.
And as a matter of fact, we just spoke about that the other day.
As they get more involved with Cox,
they've requested some of the things that we look at from a service,
a fixed platform in terms of reporting.
And they're starting to infuse that, but it's not fully there yet.
So they're starting to combine, you know, that operational reporting
that's important, you know, the retention component and things like that.
But it's not there yet.
So at some point, I think it will be, and it'll be all one platform
where we can just really get the results and the reporting
that's going to help us continue to improve our performance.
Yeah, props to Cox and FullPath.
If they're able to pull that off and they can kind of lower the lines
of or the barriers between the two companies
and share all that data information and technology,
it's going to make both sides very lean as they go to market.
So we'd love to get an update from you on that as you go down the road.
So last question as we wrap up today,
if Protect Every Dollar in the RO is your 2026 mission,
what does winning look like, Danny, by year end?
And obviously, you've already had some pretty big success
and wins the first half of 2026.
What do you need to do to win 2026 in December of 2026?
Definitely not have any more snow days like we did in January, February.
That's for sure.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Yeah, but a big one for us is to maintain our employee retention,
maintain our customer experience, and then at the end,
it's going to be all about the profitability.
But those two things that are the most important
continue to hold people accountable in a positive way.
And we can't wait till the end of the month to make sure that our profit
is going to be where it needs to be.
We need to work on that every day.
Roll up our sleeves, and if we do that consistently,
we're going to have another successful year.
But it's going to be a lot of work second half of the year.
That's awesome.
And then thinking about the biggest threats in the business
or the thing that concerns you most you're trying to solve for,
Danny, as we round out the second half,
what do you see as some of the biggest obstacles in 2026?
Well, I think it's going to be the new car sales,
not having new cars coming into our stores.
What's going to hurt us in 2027, we're going to have to figure out
how to continue to improve our AI.
I think that's important.
And developing, training people, and also retaining our technicians,
I think that's always going to be an obstacle.
But I think we have to look in the mirror,
and we have to hold ourselves accountable.
If we don't perform, then we have to figure out a way to perform.
And I think that's always an obstacle,
being able to push ourselves to the next level.
So full path is part of their product.
This just came to me, so I'm going to ask it.
Sorry for a couple extra questions.
Yeah, that's fine.
Full path does a CDP, so they'll cleanse the data,
and they'll help enrich the data.
Did you go through that process,
and did you get any sort of a lift,
as you did that with full path, if you did?
Fortunately, I didn't.
But sales departments had done that earlier.
We tested our one of our newer Jeep stores,
at most recent acquisitions,
and they saw a huge lift from better data,
and accurate email addresses, which are really important.
They're just a nightmare in the DMS that we currently use.
So yes, we saw a big lift, a very big lift.
Very good, very good.
Well, and finally, let's wrap out on robots.
Yeah.
It was a robot update, Danny.
Where are the robots?
What are they doing, and how's it going?
You know, the biggest hit in efficiencies
are technicians walking instead of turning wrenches.
So we've saw some really good.
We saw more technician productivity,
more billable hours, less downtime,
higher productivity and proficiency,
and more labor gross profit.
What does that mean?
20 minutes per day was an extra,
based on our average yield hours,
an extra $1,800 in revenue every day.
Wow.
So they've done over 2,100 miles,
and we're getting ready to launch our fifth robot
and then use store,
but really works in high volume stores.
That's an extra half a million revenue in 12 months.
So yeah, they're doing great.
And who's the company that's providing those?
We'll give them a round of applause on the show.
Or Riotek.
Yeah.
Riotek.
Very good.
Well, Danny Nogala,
Corporate Fixed Obstetrics Director
of McGovern Automotive Group,
Boston, Massachusetts.
Thanks so much for joining the show today,
sharing your perspectives.
Pleasure.
Thanks for having us.
Appreciate what car dealership guys do.
Thanks for being here.
It's great to be part of the industry.
We appreciate you being on and contributing.
Your voice has been important in this.
So thank you very much, Danny.
Thank you.
All right.
We always appreciate catching up with Danny.
Let's talk Experian.
Today's episode is brought to you by Experian.
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with Experian Automotive,
reach in-market shoppers,
boost loyalty and service revenue,
and activate powerful automotive audiences
across 30 plus platforms.
Click the link in the show notes below
to learn more and props to Experian
for supporting today's content,
including that conversation we had with Mike Stanton
about the connected car bill
that just made it out of committee,
headed on its way to the Senate.
And then Danny,
just a touch base on all things robots, AI,
and ways that they're looking to increase retention
second half of 2026.
Always appreciate Danny's voice in automotive.
Thanks to Experian.
And also as a note,
I know as soon as Hannah gets the link from Mike Stanton,
we'll post that into the chat as well
and into the podcast notes.
You can watch that Senate committee.
I would encourage everybody to watch it.
I watched almost the whole thing.
And again, it was fascinated by some of the arguments
that I hadn't thought of before,
but thought was just very, very interesting
going down the road on that.
So up next,
let's turn quickly over to Chris Skinner,
fixed operations director,
Granbury Nissan,
Granbury, Texas.
Chris, welcome back to the show.
Hi, Sam. Thanks for having me.
It's great to be here.
Pumped to have you back on the show.
So how's business July of 2026, Chris?
July is booming.
For the past six months, we've been booming year over year,
year to date.
I mean, we've seen increases of upwards beyond 20, 30%.
We're tracking actually close to 50% on our sold.
And we're actually tracking over 66%
in gross profit on the CP side.
Yeah. Well, last time we talked to your buildings.
Yeah. No, those are huge numbers.
We appreciate you sharing those with us.
Last time we talked,
you were building the accountability piece
around customer experience.
And you talked a little bit about Lifetime Warranty
and Video Multi-Point Inspection,
that they were icing on the cake.
Icing on top of what foundation exactly?
What's the foundation you're building
on this accountability piece, Chris?
It's got to be trust.
I mean, it's got to be trust from all the way around.
It's got to be trust from inside the dealership internally
with everybody being on board.
And then ultimately the trust of the customer.
I mean, retention is what every dealership
should be chasing right now.
We have so many people.
There's articles beyond articles of dealerships losing
customers to the app market facilities and shops.
And the biggest tool that we should be working with
is anything that can help that retention build back up
and get the trust back from the customer.
All right. So speaking of customer trust,
customer pay RO account is up 19% year over year as of June.
Walk us through, Chris, what actually moved that number?
Was it one decision or a stack of smaller ones?
There was a couple of things.
The biggest one was employee.
Changing out, getting some right employees, training.
We changed our onboarding process definitely helped
with getting advisors, specifically getting them
acclimated a whole lot faster into the process.
Made the process simpler.
Again, kind of going back to make it easier
to make it transferable, make the skills a little bit
more transferable, focusing on the actual selling
and the relationship building part of the process
when the advisors talk to the customer.
Even things narrowing down and practicing walk-arounds,
ensuring that the advisors are really connecting
with the customer from the time that they arrive.
Who's training on that, Chris?
Who's training on the walk-around and word tracks
and what to say and how to say it, when to say it?
Who's doing that?
Well, right now I'm doing that.
I'm trying to...
We've talked to a couple of companies
that kind of helped as well.
I actually spoke to Tim Marble actually yesterday.
He's got a fantastic tool that's actually really cool.
It's an AI program that basically is a grade system
that teaches advisors on how they speak with customers.
It's actually a pretty cool tool.
So shout out to Tim Marble for that.
But things of that sort, like just...
And a lot of times, again, it's more so of just getting back
to the really simple basics of customer appreciation
and just even think.
Sometimes it's even as simple as thanking people
for their business.
But some of the things that has led to our success
are prosidium, lifetime warranty repair.
Basically, our motto is you pay once,
you don't have to pay again, especially for breaks.
I've seen so many initial declines on breaks, break sales,
where customer will come back later and say,
you know what, I've actually shopped around,
whether you guys are the most expensive or the cheapest,
understanding that I'll have lifetime-free breaks,
it's a no-brainer.
And we get a lot of response to that.
And then something else that has really been kind of working
in the background that we weren't really...
We didn't see for the first couple of months,
but I got to be honest, getting back into the system
and talking to them and seeing what they've done is MPEL.
MPEL is an AI system, AI tool that has helped us
with the retention aspect as well.
The communication from MPEL is impeccable.
They're reaching out to customers that bought new cars,
ensuring that they know who to talk to and who to address.
One of the things about the initial part
of the priority list was getting the right people involved.
We did hire a delivery service system from sales to service.
So we actually have a person who, after the sale,
there's one of their main focuses is to get that customer
into service, introduced into the service team.
And then the service team is there to imprint on them,
talk to them about the hours, how warmth he works,
how their oil change, maintenance plan works,
and what to expect and things of that sort.
So had a lot of recent changes that have increased that.
So talk to us about the MPEL change.
So what is MPEL?
What does it do in your operation?
And what's been the return since you implemented it?
What is it?
The biggest thing I can try to,
if I had to say one word, Sam, it would be communication.
A lot of times what I've seen in the past is
when the customer buys a car, whether it's new or used,
it's the communication after that that retains that customer.
And I think that's where low hanging fruit
that a lot of dealerships are missing.
And a lot of times it's on the basis of,
it's on the basis of you get an email three to four months
after you bought the car and saying,
hey, you might be due for service now.
With MPEL, they actually track the customer's
different aspects of the customer's life,
what they're searching for, what they're looking for.
If a customer searches something like
oil changes near me, they kind of red flags it and say,
hey, you know that place that you bought the vehicle at,
it's actually a really good place to visit,
especially, and I have to throw out
those things that are happening in our store.
We have an Einstein bagel full menu restaurant in our store
that has also attracted a lot of people.
There's actually been a couple of times
where they sold a car to customers and it came in for bagels.
But you have an Einstein bagel store inside the store
in the Nissan store?
Absolutely.
Now, how did that come to be?
It's not that big of a store for a retail store like that, is it?
Well, I mean, this one is.
I mean, it's not a standalone, obviously, but it is.
I mean, it has its own kitchen.
It's got its own, you know, it's a full menu.
Who owns it?
Who runs it?
We do.
It's our franchise.
Okay.
What made you guys decide to get into the Einstein bagel business
inside of Nissan?
Because no one else is doing it.
Yeah.
You know, I think, too, there's also some history.
A couple of the owners and myself have come from Honda stores
that have restaurants, you know, small cafes.
But we wanted to take it up a notch and, you know,
and go after some, you know, pretty big name retail,
you know, food retails.
And we reached out to a couple of people and ended up settling on,
I had to say that we didn't settle, but we ended up partnering with Einstein.
So is Einstein profitable inside Granbury and Nissan?
Does it make money every month?
Yes, it does.
And what is it?
How do you gauge that?
I mean, obviously, there'd be a retention play to your service and sales,
because you're bringing people into the dealership,
maybe that wouldn't necessarily be there.
But how do you think about profitability on that restaurant inside the store?
I think it obviously depends on how you use it,
as it's just another tool, just like anything else.
You know, if I get somebody here who's a waiter that comes in for an oil change
and we end up upselling, you know, some services,
it's an easy way to say, hey, thanks for doing business with us, have lunch on us.
You know, if a customer's waiting and waiting for finance,
or there's a couple of people already in finance,
but, you know, you got a deal going, hey, listen,
it's going to be a little bit before you get into finance.
Won't you enjoy lunch on us?
You know, a lot of times, most, most of the time when situations like that happen,
a dealership is responsible and they got to get that customer down to,
you know, a local food place, or they got to, you know,
hey, we have a shuttle service, we can run you down to the mall,
or whatever's close to you, in this particular sense,
it's like, you don't even have to leave, come grab your kiddos,
if you got kiddos and stuff like that with you, so.
So what was the decision maker between a donut shop and Einstein bagels?
I mean, bagels, you could argue,
is marginally more healthy than a donut shop would be.
Why go with the bagel shop?
I think that's fun.
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is from, well,
I guess from both of the logistics as well as a judicial standpoint,
they were really Nissan, they had to get a bunch of, you know,
people required approval from Nissan, which Nissan did give us the approval,
you know, during the build and during the, you know,
during the initial build concept.
But we did talk to several other restaurants and they said no.
But Einstein said, absolutely, that sounds like a great plan.
You've never been in a dealership, you know.
Was it tough to get the approval from Nissan?
It was less tough to get it from Nissan as it was tougher to get from the city.
Yeah, yeah, because you got a shop inside of it.
That's, you know what, I think that's fun.
Paul Salisman comes into the chat says,
Hey, I've never heard of a franchise food store inside of a franchise dealership.
That's amazing.
I'd say in Texas, you see it often, right?
There are large mega dealers that have all sorts of food stores.
You don't see it as much in single point, smaller, maybe, maybe stores.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I could be wrong, Chris.
You tell me if I'm wrong, but it makes me smile at our motor sports store in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
We've got a restaurant called Trackhouse.
And it is a great meeting and gathering point for customers looking at vehicles,
interested in vehicles and the hours for that restaurant are actually longer than the motor
sports store.
And so it gives people exposure to the store and to the brand outside of, you know,
the normal buying cycle.
Chris, what are the hours for this Einstein bagel inside your store?
Is it longer than the store's open or is about the same?
Because it's considered a, I want to say a breakfast, a more of a breakfast style,
you know, retail restaurant.
Yeah, actually is it's open earlier and it does close about five o'clock,
but it is open on Sundays.
Which is really delicious.
Well, so it continues to stay open, you know, seven days a week.
Wait, so you're closed on Sundays due to blue laws, right?
So does that give customers exposure to the store in a way that they wouldn't have otherwise?
They have to walk into the store and they have to walk past five or six new cars.
Yeah.
In order to get to the Einstein, you know, in order to get to the town.
That's cool.
All right.
I am not going to ask you to admit this, but do salespeople ever hang out at the Einstein
shop on a Sunday just seeing who shows up on that day?
I can tell you this.
I've had to look out my office because it's right behind my office.
I had to look out my office a couple of times and tell my technicians, what are you doing?
Yeah.
Oh, I'm just getting a drink.
I'm just getting a bagel.
Lunchtime is over.
It's been four hours.
What are you doing?
You know, so it's, but you definitely do have a lot of salespeople and stuff hanging out over there.
That is pretty cool.
Dave Rogers comes into the chat says that is a brilliant, brilliant idea.
So Chris Skinner, talk to us a little bit about the oil issue.
If you've seen any impact from this, you know, straight up Hormuz continues to be challenged.
We've seen price of oil going up.
I'm interested in what fixed operations departments are seeing.
How is it impacting?
And what are you doing to better serve the customer through the challenge?
Well, I think it has a major impact on us.
I think, as Danny said, you know, all changes are lost later, right?
We're not looking to make a whole lot of gross or anything like that.
I mean, profitability standpoint, you do want to make a little bit on it,
but that's not where your goal is.
What we try to do is we try to maintain a sense.
I would say a general emphatic understanding around it, because along with oil prices
and to the dealer that are purchasing those oils also comes with something that's not
really seen inside of the dealership, but it's also gas prices.
You know, the gas prices being affected as well, you know, cost of ownership is
on any automobile has gone up just, you know, for people trying to get around on a daily basis.
So in a couple of ways that we've tried to navigate this,
we actually just got done talking to a business that I'll keep confidential,
but we've actually, because we're not done with it yet,
but we've actually talked to a company about setting up, you know, offering oil changes
to our customers as part of just buying a new car from us and offering it in a way where,
you know, there's obviously some, you know, tools on our back end that we can use to
not set that we're, you know, unused oil changes and service contracts, stuff like that.
But at the end of the day, our biggest point is to try to alleviate that as an additional,
you know, cost to the customer and try to help them come back.
But, you know, from a sense of impact, I mean, we just recently, especially at Nissan,
we just recently got the new list of oil costs and a couple of the oils with Nissan has gone up,
you know, tremendously.
What does tremendously mean? How much?
Quite a bit.
There's one of the oils that went up.
It was a shade under 350 and it's gone up over to 470.
So, again, and just in general, the reimbursement rates also,
unfortunately, the reimbursement rates didn't go up, you know, so it's definitely cutting into the,
you know, but I can tell you, I've talked to a couple of companies that I've seen coming out,
and this is something that just overall in general, if you're a dealer and you're looking for
some type of help on this, there are a lot of companies that I've been speaking to recently
that are recycled oil companies.
And what they're doing is they're picking up, use the oil, recycling it, filtering it,
and putting it back into usable, you know, oil opportunities.
And they'll pay you for the oil, right? They'll pay you for that waste oil.
They will pay you for the oil.
We're actually getting paid for picking up the waste oil.
Obviously, they're going to go back out and do what they need to do to sell it.
But, you know, get in contact with some of those companies around you.
It might help you save some money, especially for non-OEM products.
You know, if you have tanks or if you have things like that for non-OEM products,
it might be something to look at for the recyclable oil.
My insurance background says, hey, you got to make sure whoever takes that away,
make sure they're well insured.
They do something with it rather than leave it somewhere,
because that can create a little bit of liability and challenge in 2026.
All right, Chris, props to you for your increase in labor rate,
all the success you've had so far this year.
Another dealer principle looking to duplicate what you've done.
You've got many different prongs you're focused on in order to increase retention.
What would be your top piece of advice for that dealer looking to duplicate your success this year, Chris?
Get into video multi-points.
Get into really deep dive into retention tools.
There's a lot of companies out there that are practicing
becoming experts on customer retention.
There's a lot of different ideas.
Try not to overcomplicate it.
Get back to the basics and start trying to get these customers back in.
I love Danny's idea of the buy three, get one for free.
I think that's absolutely amazing.
If you're not in the tire game, you're definitely missing out on that.
That definitely is a retention piece, but you know.
Some people think the tire game's too competitive.
Let's not get into it because I'm not going to be able to compete.
But I agree with you, man, we got to go after everything.
We got to own all that world.
McGriffin comes into the chat last up because I know we got to go.
He said, I got Sam's question.
Can't sell cars on Sunday, but I'm betting there's a few sales pros
showing up and chatting with customers at Einstein's to build interest and relationships.
Now, Chris, I would never say you guys would be playing that game,
but you know, it's there.
Einstein's is open and every sales guy needs a breakfast on a Sunday morning, Danny or Chris.
Yeah. I mean, if you forget keys to a car or something, you need to get them back in the box,
you know, what's a guy to do when they're closing out your month?
Chris Skinner, fixed ops director, Grandberry Nissan.
We appreciate you being on the show, giving us an update on your success.
Love to have you back in the coming months to give us another report out.
Chris, thanks for joining today.
Absolutely. Thanks, Sam.
I had a blast today.
The only topic we didn't cover, and I would love to find someone out there to come on the show
to talk about it. Fascinated by this whole open AI, open AI jumped out of its sandbox this week
and went got test answers from another AI.
I don't understand it, but it's led news and I think it's fascinating and relevant to automotive
as we think about AI and how it will be relevant in automotive in the future.
So if you've got to take on that, reach out to the show, Hannah, myself, you can DM me on social.
But to you, our Daily Deal Alive listening audience, thanks for watching Daily Deal Alive
today, where we break down the biggest moves in the car business as they happen.
Do not forget we're live here every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 1pm Eastern.
I'll be broadcasting live this Monday from Boston Mass where I'm doing a keynote.
And so if this is your world hit like, subscribe, turn on those notifications
so you never, ever, ever miss a beat. We'll see you next episode. Thanks for being here, everybody.
About this episode
Fixed Ops Friday ties together policy and day-to-day dealership execution. Hosts recap connected-car legislation momentum, including the “Connected Vehicle Security Act” and how dealers should time alerts and coordinate messaging. They then pivot to fixed-ops growth levers: faster service, robotic efficiency, tire promotions, warranty reimbursement capture, and pricing discipline using matrix pricing. The team also covers retention tech and marketing—FullPath/Cox reporting, AI advisor coaching, and MPEL communication triggers—plus real-world KPIs like customer pay RO up 19% and gross profit strength on the CP side.
Today's show features:
- Mike Stanton, President & CEO at National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA)
- Danny Negalha, Corporate Fixed Ops Director at McGovern Automotive Group
- Chris Skinner, Fixed Operations Director at Granbury Nissan
This episode is brought to you by:
Experian – Experian Automotive helps marketers identify and engage high-value auto shoppers, strengthen customer loyalty, grow service revenue, and activate 1,100+ automotive audiences across 30+ advertising platforms. Learn more here: https://carguymedia.com/3RTNi9H
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