Category: Automotive News

Kia and Hyundai Break-Ins On the Rise in Kent

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Social media challenges, which have steadily increased since 2020, range from silly and benign to downright dangerous and harmful. One of the latest harmful challenges to hit social media this summer is the “Kia Challenge”—and it continues to gain momentum across the country. The Kia Challenge is a TikTok trend that encourages social media users to steal Kias manufactured between 2011-2021 and Hyundais made between 2015 and 2021. These models are being targeted because they don’t come with an engine immobilizer, which is a piece of hardware that prevents the engine from starting if the matching chip in the key…
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April sales up 2.3% but still below pre-pandemic levels

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New light-vehicle sales in April were up 2.3 per cent compared with the same period last year, but still below pre-pandemic levels, at an estimated 144,069 units compared with 180,616 in April 2019, according to DesRosiers Automotive Consultants. Sales in April were also slightly below March. All figures are estimates now that the vast majority of automakers report sales on only a quarterly basis. DesRosiers managing partner Andrew King said in a statement that the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales for April was 1.48 million units. King says that’s easily the weakest reading so far in 2023, and a…
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Study reveals drop in customer satisfaction for independents

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Recent numbers from research firm Ducker Carlisle showed growing dissatisfaction with franchised dealership service departments. This week, JD Power released its 2023 US Aftermarket Service Index Study that showed an overall decline in satisfaction with independent repair facilities as well. The data firm revealed independent shops dropped in all three categories that make up the study — quick oil change, full-service maintenance and repair and tire replacement. Shops were scored on seven measures within each of the three segments. These include ease of scheduling, fairness of charges, service adviser courtesy and quality of work. This is the fourth year of…
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F&I talks over video a good option for car buyers

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Jonathan Jordan, director of retail strategy for F&I product provider JM&A Group, said his company launched its so-called virtual F&I offering in 2018. He told Automotive News in late January the company had logged more than 23,000 transactions where the F&I manager and customer had never actually met — with about 20,000 occurring in the past two years. The video chat feature at first focused on the notion “customers don’t want to come to the dealership,” Jordan said. But this hypothesis was found to be incorrect, he said. “What I like to say is ‘it’s not that they don’t want…
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Quebec toughens ZEV sales mandate, frustrating automakers

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Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette announced April 21 that the province was “accelerating” the yearly percentage of ZEVs that must be sold until the goal of 100 per cent is reached in 2035. The current Quebec sales mandates are already more aggressive than the proposed federal mandates and the new provincial targets widen that spread significantly. For example, the federal ZEV target for 2027 is 23 per cent, the current mandate in Quebec is 34 per cent and the newly proposed mandate is 43 per cent. For the 2030, the federal target is 60 per cent, the current Quebec target…
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Aston Martin to renew DB11, Vantage, DBS sports cars in 2023

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LONDON — Aston Martin will reveal the first of its overhauled sports-car range at the end of this month, Chief Financial Officer Doug Lafferty said. The automaker has promised to reveal new versions of its three core sports-car models – the DB11, Vantage and DBS – over the next 12 months. The company has not said which will be first, but the DB11 is the oldest model in its lineup. Aston Martin will increase prices on all three cars as it looks to return to profitability with a target margin of 40 percent. “All the next-generation sports cars carry that…
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Searching “Windshield Replacement Near Me”

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Car windows and windshields are things that many drivers just don’t think much about– until one day they suddenly need to be replaced. Maybe it’s a large chip, or a small crack that has since flourished over time into a web of other cracks. Perhaps it was a single incident of blunt force that smashed the windshield in seconds. Regardless of what it looks like or how it happened, the truth is that any damage to car windows and particularly windshields should be repaired as soon as possible. But since this is not something drivers actively think about, it can…
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