The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

Average Age of Cars = 13.6 Yrs, CO Dethrones CA, Billions Lost Due To Poor Experiences

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As we enter a new week, we’re considering how the average age of cars is affecting parts and service. Plus Colorado is now the most EV state in the US, topping California, and a new study is showing that bad customer service is costing retail stores billions.


Show Notes with links:

  • Despite a record number of aging vehicles on the road, the auto repair and parts industry is facing challenges as economic pressures affect consumer spending habits.
    • The average passenger car is now 13.6 years old, up from 8.4 years three decades ago, creating a high demand for maintenance.
    • Inflation, higher interest rates, and supply chain issues have led consumers to defer maintenance or opt for cheaper, off-brand parts.
    • Companies like Monro, Genuine Parts, and Valvoline have reported significant drops in sales, citing cautious consumer spending.
    • Carfax data shows 30% of vehicles are overdue for tire rotations, while 19% are late for oil changes, despite the high return on maintenance investment.
    • Executives from AutoZone and O’Reilly Automotive predict a bounce-back as deferred repairs eventually become unavoidable.


  • Colorado has dethroned California, emerging as the nation’s leader in EV sales, with a stunning 25.3% of new vehicle sales being electric in Q3 of 2024. Here's what’s driving the surge:
    • Residents enjoy up to $12,500 in combined state and federal EV tax credits.
    • Over 5,500 public charging ports are operational, with $5M allocated for 576 additional ports in 2024.
    • 82% of EVs sold in the state are fully electric, signaling robust consumer demand.
    • Governor Jared Polis champions EVs as key to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, urging residents to act before state tax credits decrease in 2025 from $5000 to $3500.
    • Will Toor, Colorado Energy Office Director, states, “Our commitment to making electric vehicles affordable and reliable is paying off.”


  • Retailers are losing an estimated $262 billion annually due to inadequate in-store experiences, according to a study by Forsta.
    • Nearly half of negative customer reviews are tied to issues like mismanaged checkouts and unhelpful staff, leading to frustration and lost sales.
    • The study revealed that 74% of US adults will abandon a store without making a purchase after a bad experience.
    • While online sales on Black Friday saw a 14.6% increase, in-store sales grew just 0.7%, with foot traffic dropping by 3.2%.
    • Forsta CEO Kyle Ferguson emphasized the importance of in-store experiences, stating that poor service erodes trust and loyalty. He pointed to Walmart’s use of AI-powered tools to improve customer interactions as a model for others to follow, urging retailers to prioritize in-store environments during peak retail periods.

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

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Paul J Daly:

Alright, it is Monday, December 9. Now I are both back in the studio. I feel like forever since I've been at this desk, and today we're going to talk about the average age of cars growing billions lost due to poor experience, even the little billions,

Unknown:

even the little aliens, even

Paul J Daly:

the little things. Man, getting into a new week, it feels like it's practically Christmas.

Kyle Mountsier:

I know. What are we two weeks my my wife said she was like, we got two weeks of school left. That's all we got. That man, that feels like, how did that happen? That

Paul J Daly:

is a beautiful thing. The old two weeks of school before the break. Oh my goodness, so much. So many things going on. We have another ASOTU Edge webinar with automotive mastermind talking about data driven strategies for scalable services. This is that this one? No, it's next Wednesday. Next Wednesday, December 18, we're going to hear how Shane ohana, gm of Chapman BMW Chandler, transformed his dealership service drive into a thriving sales hub, averaging 30 to 45 cars a month out of the service. Driver, yep, we said it. So go to asotu.com sign up for that webinar. The webinars lately have been coming faster and, I think, more furiously. These are actually very, very, very helpful little tidbits, 2030, minutes. Jump in or sign up and get the recording. They'll get your brain going. They'll help hear how other people are doing things. And you know how it is, it's always that one little thing you take away that you can implement right away that is the real game changer.

Kyle Mountsier:

Look, if you weren't at the at the webinar that we did Friday, you've got to go to our website and go find that webinar. If you are thinking anything about 2025 I actually, I'm prepping this this week. I haven't even told you, I'm building, like, an entire question set for providers based on everything that like I'm I got three general managers texting me this morning, like, what do you think about this? What do you think about how would you do this? We had that webinar on Friday. We've had three other webinars about this next year. Everybody's retooling right now. Everybody's retooling. And so you you have to ask the right questions and asking the right questions about service to sales right now, because it is a place where you have the one and only opportunity. You're not shooting fish in a barrel or trying to go after all the customers that everybody else is. You got them right in front of you. So

Paul J Daly:

that gets me so excited. See, I had a couple days off the end of last week. You miss a couple days around here. You miss a lot. That is super exciting. I I smell white paper.

Unknown:

Yes, the question like that.

Paul J Daly:

Oh, so, you know, I

Kyle Mountsier:

don't, I don't know the new white paper is GPT, by the way. So that's where it's probably headed. We'll see.

Paul J Daly:

Oh, yeah, right. Well, I mean, whatever it is, you're going to need to sign up to get access to it. You're going to have to sign up. Gotta, gotta keep the lights on around here. Yeah, that's making you pay though. No, definitely. Maybe if it's really good, maybe if it's really good, let's talk about some Do we have anything else to announce? Oh, nada, parties.com. Like, how can we not talk about this? I know Nathan in the background. I was like, What's he gonna say next here? Throw the graphic up. The graphic up. Listen. Nada parties.com. Is the place to go right now, because you know you're going to get to the show and you'll be like, what are we doing tonight? This is going to be the authoritative end all be all of all the things going on after the show is over, we're throwing our own little party called we're calling it asotuz. First stop. We rented out this beautiful, multi story venue called the Sazerac house. You go to nada parties.com you can sign up right now. This thing is going to be gone. We have very limited availability, and we are allowing some industry partners. We have sponsors, some industry partners

Kyle Mountsier:

who get to come. The industry partner. Tickets are already sold out. And if you're one of those, you know, friends, that think that you just are going to sneak in under a dealer ticket. You're not your boy here, he gets excitement about calling you and letting you know that you did the wrong thing. So I apologize to all of those that maybe couldn't make it. We just have limited space. We did

Paul J Daly:

not limited space many times in advance. That's one of the best reasons to be on the email. If you're not on it already@asotu.com get on the email because the email people are the first to know about all this stuff, anything they get, all the good stuff. And yeah. So there you go. Nada, parties com, we're going to move on. We got to talk about some news. Time's taken away. We took a little bit of time warming up here, but despite a record number of aging vehicles on the road. Get this, the auto repair and parts industry is facing challenges as economic pressures affect consumer spending habits. Listen to this. The average passenger car is now 13.6 years old. You do the math, that's like 2010

Kyle Mountsier:

that's amazing. Uh, everyone the opposite way of microwave ovens. You know, opposite.

Paul J Daly:

If you got from eight 8.4 years, that's so true. Three decades ago is 8.4 years now it's 13.6 years. This would think you create, creates a higher demand for maintenance, but inflation, high interest rates, supply chain issues have led consumers to start deferring maintenance or opt for cheaper. Off brand parts, companies like Monroe genuine parts and Valvoline have reported significant drops in sales citing cautious consumer spending. Interesting data shows 30% of vehicles are overdue for tire rotations, while 19% are late for oil changes, despite the high ROI on those investments, both executives from Auto Zone and O'Reilly automotive parts predict a bounce back as deferred repairs eventually become unavoidable and more expensive. That's right.

Kyle Mountsier:

Here's the thing. Couple things here. One is crazy that the age of the vehicles, I think it's all due to Subaru. Subaru owners just keep their cars. That's That's my anecdotal evidence here. But the bigger thing here, and the thing that we keep pointing to, and we are with Ed Roberts and Jeremy Stevens last week at Bozar Ford Lincoln in St Augustine, and they are building this fleet of mobile repair options. And when you look at people that are now like the driving habits have completely shifted. The remote work has completely shifted. The desire to be sitting like our attention spans are so low that even just sitting in a place for 45 minutes, an hour, anything like that, it is not where people want to be. And so, you know, getting to a place where we can provide service to people where they're at, I don't think this is all just like a consumer spending issue. I think it's just an access to ready made services quickly. And I think that you would see people like doing their tire rotations, doing their if it was way easier. Yeah,

Paul J Daly:

it's probably, probably a mix of both. You know, they were looking at some place, or AI data. Go back to the article and click through. They talked about some of the reasons they're they're saying it's deferred maintenance. But you're totally right. If it was easier to do these things, it would just be easier to do it. Like bottom line is tire especially tire rotations and oil changes. I mean, talk about the loss leaders for the other stuff. I know, even if you you don't make an appointment to go in, if you think you're going to go to money, going to go to Monroe or Valvoline or something like that, it's not always so easy, especially if it's a time like an evening or a weekend, you go to that then it's like a two or three bay, and you start counting cars in line and multiplying that by 20 to 30 minutes each, like you're sitting in that line for a while.

Kyle Mountsier:

I'm just telling you if in Nashville, someone came and started doing mobile repair, your boy would sign up. You'd have two cars. You'd own in my garage. It'd be done

Paul J Daly:

absolutely, absolutely without a doubt. Speaking of being we do this, speaking of being

Kyle Mountsier:

done getting some business,

Paul J Daly:

I broke. It's like that little coordination thing. Colorado dethroned Colorado, Colorado. Colorado has dethroned California, emerging as the nation's top leader in EV sales, with a stunning 25.3% of new vehicle sales being electric last quarter. Here's what's driving that bunch. Residents enjoy $12,500 of combined state and federal credit. That'll definitely help. That'll help. Over 5500 public charging ports are operational with $5 million allocated for $576 576 additional ports in 2024 wait. So they're getting 576 additional ports for $5 million we need to talk about that. So I'm I need to get in on the charging business. This is just wrong. Not only that, we need to put them in charge of the federal program. I mean, it's still cheaper than the other thing,

Kyle Mountsier:

way cheaper than the other thing, for sure. But I'm like, I'm like, 5 million divided by one and add to get a lot of

Paul J Daly:

money, a lot of infrastructure. 82% of EV sold in the state are fully electric, signaling consumer demand. Governor Jared Polis champions EVs as a key strategy to intriguing achieving net zero emissions by now, 2030, 2050,

Kyle Mountsier:

we're dead

Paul J Daly:

perfect, urging residents to act before state tax credits decrease in 2025 from 5000 to $3,500 so I guess the the Colorado credit is 5000 still gonna be 3500 will Tor color grotto Energy Office Director says, quote, our commitment to making electric vehicles affordable and reliable is really paying off. Look,

Kyle Mountsier:

here's what I know. Is that if you have EVs on the lot, you should be asking yourself, How do we get these things gone by February? Because whether it's a state incentive or a federal incentive, like the chances of stuff starting to dry up are so high that communication. You see Alex Lawrence talking about it literally every day on his tick tock and LinkedIn. And this guy only sells EVs if you have him on your lot. This is a prime opportunity, especially if you had anything sitting or you struggle with them, like talk about the incentives. It's an easy place. Consumers are already getting this

Paul J Daly:

one. And four people chose an EV That's crazy. That's

Kyle Mountsier:

unbelievable. I wonder the person here in Colorado, you got no excuses?

Paul J Daly:

Oh my gosh. Speaking of making excuses, segway,

Kyle Mountsier:

this is like, can we just have a moment for this article? Right here, retailers are losing an estimated $262 billion annually due to inadequate in store experiences. According to billion, billion, I said, a billion Paul

Paul J Daly:

order of a trillion. Unbelievable

Kyle Mountsier:

forsta, the nearly half of negative consumer reviews are tied to issues like mismanaged checkouts and unhelpful staff, leading to frustration and lost sales. A study revealed that 74% of US adults will abandon a store, physical location, with without making a purchase after like, if you think, if you think people are abandoning because your website is slower, it's hard to like, people will literally just walk out because they had a bad experience. I've done it while black online sales on Black Friday saw 14 point 14.6% increase in store sales grew just point 7% with foot traffic already starting to drop by 3.2% unbelievable.

Paul J Daly:

I mean, listen, I have absolutely walked out of a store for sure, and I went in to buy something because something was wrong. Check out was wrong, the vibe was wrong. The shelves were a mess. The bathrooms were like, I've absolutely do this. I just had no idea that this many people also did that. Yeah, I thought it was just me. I honestly did, or, like, a very and here's the people.

Kyle Mountsier:

It's honestly some of the simplest stuff, right? You just said shelves are a mess, right? What are the shelves? It's our lot. You like, we, we sometimes, in our industry, kind of make fun of, like, oh, a perfectly lined up row. It makes a difference. It makes a massive difference, right? You were in

Paul J Daly:

we were at several I was with my son, miles, and he was, you know, an episode of two or three. We were at Beaver, Toyota, two, two, yeah, two. Episode, episode two of our Docu series. More than cars. You and I have a little competition where we try to line up cars on the front line, yeah, and their cars are always so perfect on that line. And my son actually noticed we were on a lot of car lots over the last week or two from a bunch of different dealership groups. So we're not talking about anyone specific, but he was like, Wow. He's like, look, these cars look like a mess, yeah. And it makes I like, that is why it feels that way.

Kyle Mountsier:

It makes the cars actually look less premium. So you go from that, and then you go inspect the corners, and then you look at what your checkout process looks like, and you look at the movement on the floor, and the way that people are are are even just like moving around, and yeah, how you're created. So many OEMs are asking people to build stores right now, like the bathrooms are. Oh, how clean the bathrooms are. Yeah, that one. Oh, come on. I you know, actually, I'll tell you, if you want to know how an operation is being run at any any retail operation. Doesn't matter if it's a target, if it's a gas stations, if it's a dealership, head straight to the bathroom and check out how, how the vibe is.

Paul J Daly:

I'll tell you what I was I made a post about this on LinkedIn. I went to my first buckies ever last week, see and I didn't even know the world famous bathroom thing. There's a sign when you go on, welcome to our world famous bathrooms, right? Whatever? I walked in and that sucker was packed full of people, was meticulously clean and smelled amazing. And then you look at the rest of the store and you're like, that

Kyle Mountsier:

doesn't it's like, flow. It's just,

Paul J Daly:

I don't know, whatever it is, like, there are changes. Doesn't have to be big change. We

Kyle Mountsier:

small change. Clean restrooms today, fam. Make

Paul J Daly:

it mirror down. Wipe the mirror down. All right. Trigger the music. I think we've done all the damage we can do. That's all we did for morning. Listen whatever is happening. Go out there, make one little change, read some one different. Clean the bathroom, whatever it is, go to astro.com, and sign up for that webinar. We'll see you tomorrow.

Unknown:

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