July 7, 2014 ÝÛÛ~
USED CAR NEWS
RETAIL MARKETS CALIFORNIA
Mehdi Chitgari, president, Classic Chariots, Vista, Calif.: “We have one location. We’ve been in business 25 years. “I keep, on average, 150 cars in inventory. We get our vehicles from repos, lease returns, some rentals and trade-ins. We also go to auctions. “On average, we’re selling about 75 cars per month. We’re doing a little bit better this year compared to last year. “The average retail price is about $16,000. “We just sell straight retail. We have a good selection of banks and rates. “Right now, we’re carrying more cars than trucks because the industry is short of trucks. “But four years ago we used to sell more trucks. “So right now, one-third of my inventory is trucks. About 15 percent is SUVs and the rest are cars. “I sell more domestics than imports. IAG_UCN-jun2_All.pdf “The average model year 1 is 2011. The average mileage
is about 40,000. It’s almost the same as it was last year. “We service our own vehicles. I have a phenomenal service department. “We service every car before we sell them. We check brakes, rotors, tires, etc. I have about 12 bays. “My reconditioning costs average about $800. That’s about the same as last year. “We do most of our advertising online. We do AutoTrader.com, Cars.com and our own website, ClassicChariots.net. “We also do things in the community. We’re involved in the chambers of commerce in Vista, and Oceanside, Calif. “We have a lot of customers at Camp Pendleton and we service a lot of Marines. About one-third of our customers are military (families). “We also support local schools and give away some Thanksgiving dinners. “I’m a board member of a local hospital foundation and I’m president of the Tri-City Navy League. 5/13/14 2:12 PM “This is looking like a good year.
Compiled by Jeffrey Bellant “We just sold a 2010 Dodge Charger. It had about 70,000 miles on it. I believe we got $16,000.”
ILLINOIS
Joseph Mok, owner, Gmotorcars, Arlington Heights, Ill.: “We’ve been in business six years. My dad and I own the business. Before this I was in the IT field and my dad was a mechanic. Cars have always been our passion. “We started out with three cars in a driveway. Now we have 80 to 100 in stock. We sell between 55 and 65 a month. “We turn our inventory 8.5 times a year. I use statistics. If a car makes $200, $300 over cost – it’s gone. I don’t care. “I can replace anything. I’m sick of hearing people say a car is irreplaceable. “We did $7.8 million in sales last year. The winter was horrible. We got destroyed. We were $60,000 in gross behind, as of the beginning of May. “But May was really
strong. June has been up and down. “We do straight retail, no buy-here, pay-here. “The average car on the lot is about $14,000 (retail). That’s the same as this time last year. “We are heavy into using CarMax auctions (to get vehicles). We’re also heavy into Enterprise. We do what we can to limit our buy fees. “The average model year is 2007. The average mileage is about 60,000. “It’s absolutely been a challenge to get cars with (lower mileage). “We just search high and low. It’s a scavenger hunt. But if you buy Enterprise cars, for example, they are generally 50,000 miles or less. “We carry 80 percent domestic and 20 percent imports. That’s the same as last year. “We carry about 60 percent trucks and vans, with 40 percent cars. We have a phenomenal commercial market for cargo vans like the Dodge /Mercedes Sprinters and (Chevrolet) Expresses. That business is
consistent. “I think the economy is still volatile. It’s definitely better than what it was, though. We forget what it was back in 2008. “But back in the day, gas prices used to drop by pennies and go up by pennies. Now they drop by quarters or rise by dollars. So I don’t think the economy has stabilized. “We do our own service and we do outside business. We have six lifts and a full detail shop. “We do our own reconditioning. Our average recon is about $800. It’s the same as last year. There are not a lot of peaks and valleys with recon. “Our goal is to have a 36-hour turnaround (for reconditioning). “For advertising, we use Cars.com, Cargurus.com and Craigslist. We used Autotrader.com for a long time. But I just didn’t see the performance with them. So I took that money and put it into Cargurus.com. “We’re heavily active in our community and chamber of commerce.
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