First and Foremost

Rapid Recon VinSight will protect your profit for New Car Sales with trades and all Used Car Sales. VinSight is a plug & play scanner that going forward, must be used on 100% of used cars.  

VinSight is a VINTEL ODB2 scanner integrated with Rapid Recon and does not require training or technician involvement. We have extensive proof based on many thousands of scans that scanning 100% of cars results in a $500 average parts & labor costs than must be used to price in or avoid for every used car in advance of reconditioning. 

This process change may be disruptive if getting a “deal on the board” is more important than profit per vehicle but the results far outweigh any hesitation. All current Rapid Recon customers should add a scan by VIN completed step as the first step in their workflow.  

Accountability  

Group Reporting was designed from the ground up for accountability across multiple stores. Every action is connected to the Average Days in Recon (ADR) and Time to Line (T2L) metrics. Store by store, the scoreboard on the front page is a real-time report card for recon and sale-ready performance.  

When group leadership published these metrics and recommended process improvements, we saw very different results. The starting point where 10 or more stores are included has always landed in the same range of a 16-day T2L until the old recon processes were challenged.  

What follows is the template that we recommend to Group leadership based on the result of a partnership with a top-tier public group and best practices from stores achieving a 6-day average T2l across 12 dealerships selling 2,000 cars per month.  

These 12 franchises included multiple BMW and Toyota locations, as well as Honda, Chevrolet, Porsche, and a volume of used-only dealerships. This success was made possible by an experienced and respected Regional Fixed-Ops Director, who was regularly reviewed by his CEO, and whose requests to Rapid Recon were to confirm accurate T2L and ADR metrics.  

At the start, the average T2L for these 12 stores was steady at 16 days. Once the Group metrics were added to their internal reporting, several stores led by savvy used car GMs consistently demonstrated a 4-day T2L at volume. Getting each store to this level, especially ones that were adamant early on that they were already at maximum throughput, was challenging until a Rapid Recon Performance Consultant was inserted. Afterward, the average T2L dropped by 10 days and remained in the 6-day average after 6 years. Others who dragged their feet, hoping this was another initiative, ended up running out of excuses and eventually fell in line or were replaced.  

After working with hundreds of Groups, both public and private, from my experience, $1.5M of revenue per dealership can be added and sustained while improving sales CSI. I don’t see this as a “stretch” goal, but rather as a recurring process improvement. Once dialed in, it becomes the norm. Stores that do not show progress must be required to report on their progress, or lack thereof, with input interpreting performance and recommending process improvements.  

We monitor aggregated data across Groups, regions, divisions, and individual stores. This allows us to interpret patterns and best practices from the data to help existing and new customers improve ADR and T2L. The average number of units sold per month for these 12 stores is 150, ranging from under 100 to over 300.  

From our experience, once you get reconditioning dialed in— including ongoing team- driven recurring process improvements—everyone wins, from customers to dealerships to Group earnings and earnings per share at the investor level.  

The following actions warrant Group leadership endorsement and involvement of at least one assigned Rapid Recon Performance Consultant. Their commitment to providing the reporting, best practices, and store-by-store checkups gives you convincing arguments for overcoming resistance to change:  

1.  Like the Group example above, no matter how convinced you are that your recon is dialed in, unless you are making weekly adjustments to improve processes, all or a significant portion of $1.5M of added gross—$800K from 2 more turns and $700K in eliminating unexpected mechanical recon costs—are not being captured.  

You will know how your stores compare after a brief best-practice review by a Rapid Recon Performance Consultant. T2L is today's prevailing performance metric in vehicle reconditioning, from acquisition to front-line/sale ready. A GM-monitored recon operation can eliminate five days from a typical 10-to-12-day recon cycle by streamlining the workflow communications process and gaining two more inventory turns. Each additional turn with $4k from and back gross per vehicle, across 100 cars per month, results in $800k in gross.

2.  Used Car appraising has always carried the risk of unplanned mechanical repairs. VINSight eliminates that uncertainty. Based on thousands of scans, 60% of all used cars you acquire will need mechanical repairs that a 30-second plug-and-play ODB2 scan, which we call VINSight, will show. With VINSight automatically added to Rapid Recon, you have a parts & labor estimate to add to any cosmetic work and a complete condition picture.  

Requiring 100% OBD2 scans of trades and auction vehicles stops code reset gaming and missed mechanical and system issues. Data from thousands of cars scanned resulted in a conservative $600 per car savings in chargeback losses. Based on using VINSight on 100 cars a month to identify otherwise undetectable mechanical expenses, we estimate your savings at $700K.  

3.   Buyer CSI: With VINSight and a customer with a trade, there is a good chance that the customers are predisposed to thinking they will get lowballed on their trade. You should be able to make money on every trade, even if you wholesale it. By asking the customer if they would allow a VINSight scan and providing the one-page Diagnostic Status Report (DSR), a “fair offer” expectation can be set. Sharing the DSR summary builds credibility and will come back in the CSI rating for the sale and trade process.  

We have a long history of getting it right. A Group starting with a typical 16-day T2L should be at 6 days. Using 100 cars/month as a guide, every 2.5 days of T2L reduction adds one turn times your estimated front and back. That’s a convincing argument for risking change to grow profit per vehicle.