I got an email this morning from a JLR dealer announcing that they would remain open and be cleaning surfaces and such multiple times a day. I fully appreciate that sales and service folks need to keep working, as do people in many affected industries, but I am sort of at a loss as to what the justification could be for keeping dealerships open? It also seems like manufacturers are starting to roll out floor plan relief and financial aid from what I skimmed over at Automotive News. I’d be curious to hear what our @brokers @industry_folks are seeing and hearing if anyone wants to share.
I give them until the end of the week.
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Second that - I think most metro NYC dealers will be shutdown for a couple weeks after close on Friday or Saturday
My understanding is all of the owners are speaking with their legal counsel to figure out what to do before it is mandated at the state level.
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Parts and service are staying open in California as of now.
I’d expect most sales departments, coast to coast closing within the next 10 days or so.
The big challenge is keeping the underwriters going - without them, it’s all done until they’re back.
Our dealer now closes at 6pm instead of 8pm M-F. It hurts more than helps since the people who need a car will still come in and people who work a normal job can’t come in after work (I would rather be open 11am-8pm). For the majority of dealers, sales people are free labor. You only get paid if you sell a car, so it does not matter if you worked 1 hour or 100 hours, if you didn’t sell a car your pay is $0.
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Big auto group in upstate just laid off 100 sales reps in anticipation of closing or carrying a skeleton crew.
It interesting now but when I was first hired they had a new employee orientation and the owners said they run a thin staff in case another recession hits they do not have to fire people. Hopefully it does not come to it, but I wonder how true that statement will be in the coming months. Luckily for me, there are 3 newer sales people (4 older) if they start firing based on seniority.
Our East Coast dealers are mostly up and running. Some shutdowns in the San Fran area (but not all).
A few dealers are backing up the pricing as they are realizing they are not going to hit the numbers for the month.
We are working remotely but are still delivering cars in the tristate area as well as in California.
I can see it both ways. As long as a service department wipes down the interior of a car and whatever part they’re working on, it can be seen as a “necessary service” to stay open. Many states require inspections, for instance. People will still need to get groceries, etc. My car is due for inspection in May, so hopefully that won’t be an issue. If I wasn’t stuck in Florida (my dad refuses to let me go back, and I just can’t fight with him), then I would consider getting it inspected early. Meanwhile, I’m paying a lot (though it could be worse!) for my payment and insurance for the car to just sit there.
Agreed, there are critical things like service that should stay open and take reasonable precuations. I could even see dealerships pivoting to an appointment based system and test drives where the customers drives themselves, but that probably is not appealing for the vast majority. My local Audi dealer is offering to do test drives directly from your home, but having multiple people in the car still seems to defeat the purpose.
The most ironic thing to me is that no one wants to shake hands but if they have a trade-in, the keys go from the customer to me to my sales manager then back to the customer.
More important will Carvana stay open and keep buying cars!
Penndot is closed. We have 60 tags left. Sales are still coming. After that 60 it’s anyone’s guess unless the feds shut it down sooner.
We’re also delivering within 250 miles
Another silver lining. The people that have been texting me are buyers not tire kickers. 
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Hard working man! Way to go!
Dallas is too slow. Service basically shut down, and we sold 6 new cars yesterday.
Definitely not a great day for us.
A friend of mine in sales at a FL dealership (BMW) stated that his ownership (a very large corp owner) is telling a certain number of salespeople to “take 2-3 weeks off”.
My dealership has been closing a few hours early each night. No layoffs fortunately however some schedules have been adjusted with reduced hours. I think it will take a forced govt shutdown to close most dealerships completely.
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Technically we’re not supposed to be open (per the local health department) yet we’re still running normal hours and a full staff 
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The only things I expect open during a national crisis will be hospitals, grocery stores, gas stations, and car dealers.
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The order is confusing. We were gonna close but then they changed that.
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