Modern technology has been embraced by motor retailers, with parallel retailing directing customers to bricks and mortar sites. Cars cannot be serviced remotely, and customers still overwhelmingly...

by Graham Filmer Fortis Lease is set to exit the auto retail finance market in the UK at the end of the year. Having previously ceased operations with a number of smaller retailers and brokers, it is...

A fully managed, pay-as-you-go service, maintenance and repair scheme has been introduced for Renault van owners under the iCare banner. Users pay for it on a pence-per-mile basis, monthly in arrears....

by Steve Banner Ford’s 550 dealerships need to put their commercial vehicles “on show” if they want to sell more vans in what remains a tough economic climate, says Steve Clary, Ford...

Vauxhall’s move to a lifetime warranty on all its new cars is “great news” for its retail network, according to John Genge, aftersales consultant at Trend Tracker and regular...

Skoda is planning to build on its good showing in customer satisfaction surveys, such as Auto Express Driver Power, with two key aftersales initiatives. The programmes are designed to further boost CS...

UK businesses which issued trading statements on H1 performance, ahead of an official announcement. The company said it expects results to exceed management expectations as all units are trading ahead...

by Chris Oakham Eighteen months ago the (then) Transport Minister announced the results of a review of MoT testing frequency. Primarily on the basis that accidents might increase, he said that any...

by Mike Jones The auto retail KPIs for the first five months of the year reflect perfectly the sentiment at the time that 2010 had started strongly; not least as a result of the scrappage scheme....

Shares in Inchcape dropped sharply on the announcement of the company’s half-year results to lose some of the substantial gains made earlier in the month. The losses came despite analysts...

by Rupert Saunders To even begin to make some sense of the official June 2010 new car registration figures, you need to go back 12 months to this time last year. Scrappage was in its infancy, so...

The Office of Fair Trading has issued a guidance document intended to help auto retailers comply with two important pieces of consumer protection law. The guidance follows the publication in March of...

£50 million: that’s how much profit the UK’s franchised auto retail network is missing out on every single year through lubricants wastage. Or, to put it another way, approximately...

As the LCV market is driven almost entirely by business demand, sales of LCVs are probably more influenced by the state of the economy than the new car market. The bulk of new LCVs are acquired by...

by Peter Cooke The LCV market is significantly smaller than the new car market in the UK but recorded steady growth until 2007. Demand in the LCV market is closely related to economic activity and...

by Hugh Hunston Saab is bidding to re-establish itself as a ‘premium alternative’ brand with the launch of the new 9-5 saloon into the premium executive sector which is dominated by BMW,...

It has been another challenging month for global auto stocks with almost all companies registering share price falls. Confidence seems particularly weak in the UK and US auto retail markets where many...

We’ve had a credit crunch, a recession, a new government and an emergency budget – all in the space of three years. So is that it? Will everything go back to ‘normal’ now? Yes,...

by Mike Jones  The financial results for the year to April show a continuation of the strong results for the first quarter with national average profitability finishing at 1.8% of turnover. This...

At a time when some well established families are looking to get out of the auto retail business, the Shokar family is buying in. Just over two years ago they took over Romford Mazda, a...