by Mary-Kate Roan
Staff Writer
At one time, Jacksonville’s used car industry was inundated with eager buyers anxious to pick out a vehicle from the variety of makes and types of automobiles available. Things were booming for the auto industry, and sales were on the rise.
Compared to today’s used car market, those days were Utopia as the picture is less than appealing and car lots are losing customers yet keeping vehicles.
“The general consensus from my clients is that (the market for used cars) is down,” said Dan O’Brien, branch manager of Insurance Auto Auctions located at 14492 Kings Rd.
O’Brien’s clients buy wrecked cars from the auction houses in order to repair or recycle the vehicle’s parts, and he thinks part of his auction house’s problem is the price of steel is $364 per pound, a significant drop from just last August when steel was closer to $690 per pound according to Grede Foundries.
“We’re about 40 percent off in sales,” said Randy Caldwell, sales manager for Ed Tillman’s Beach Boulevard location that is in the process of relocating. “We’re struggling through it though.”
With Ford contemplating selling Swedish automaker Volvo and cutting its CEO’s yearly pay to $1 if the company borrows money from the government — something Robert Nardelli, CEO of Daimler Chrysler, and Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, have agreed to do alongside Ford’s Alan Mulally — to help with its restructuring, the good news doesn’t seem to be on the rise for the national spectrum of the automobile industry. And the problems are trickling down to Jacksonville.
“You always hope for one more sale,” said Paul Collins, a manager at Richard’s Car Company on Beach Boulevard. The company’s lot contains 40 cars with prices ranging from $18,000 to $55,000.
Collins added that buyers of the 30-40 cars sold per month by Richard’s Car Company vary between local, national and international locations.
Pam Harris of Richard’s Car Company had a different opinion from her colleague. She said her sales were not on target for the year, but are “just a little off” from last year’s sales.
In some smaller used car lots the services and offerings have been modified.
“We now carry used utility vans,” said E.J. Johnson of EJ’s Quality Auto Sales, Inc. on Beach Boulevard, which has also engaged in a policy of putting cars on the lot to sell around $5,000 and opened a servicing center for the business’s sold cars.
Even the Automotive News World Congress in January will be contemplating a different future and how to cope as this year’s edition at the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center will be operating under the theme of “A World of Opportunity: Global Strategies for Challenging Times.”
“We’re kind of slow but steady,” said Donald Tomlin, who is in the sales department for CoastalCars.com Inc. which keeps close to 75 cars on the sales lot. The dealer specializes in wholesales, with models ranging from 1999 and younger with prices going from $5,000 to $20,000.
Hope could be on the horizon for the auto industry as the Big Three — Ford, GM and Chrysler — continue to seek a bailout from the federal government totaling $34 billion.
A Detroit Free Press article by Barry Lynn points the finger to the federal government, stating “so many factors work against America’s manufacturers today — tax policies, monetary policy, the structure of metals markets — that it’s hard to figure out what to fix first.”
Lynn, a senior fellow at the New American Foundation, which is a nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in creative thinkers with unique ideas to address the new challenges facing the nation, is the author of “End of the Line: The Rise and Coming Fall of the Global Corporation.”
But the overall hope in Jacksonville is that help is on the way.
“We hope the stimulus package will help,” said Harris.
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