Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F41

FIXED OPS JOURNAL

Join us for FOJ Forum

ixed Ops Journal, in its third year as an Automotive
News magazine, has scheduled its inaugural live conference.
The Fixed Ops Journal Forum will be Thursday, Aug. 9,
in Atlanta. It will be presented in partnership with two of the
world's biggest automotive service events, NACE and Automechanika.
NACE is the largest U.S. trade show dedicated to high-end
technical and management-related training for collision repair
shops. Automechanika, hosted by Messe Frankfurt, is the
world's leading trade fair for the auto service industry.
The Fixed Ops Journal Forum will focus on pressing challenges that affect franchised dealerships' parts and service departments, such as employee compensation, recruitment, shop ca-

pacity, parts sales and the future of service in a world that is
moving to electrification and autonomy.
The event will include a special focus on best practices and
promising innovations, with presentations by dealership executives.
The Aug. 9 forum will be held in the Thomas Murphy Ballroom of the Georgia World Congress Center from 9 a.m. to 3
p.m. NACE and Automechanika run from Wednesday, Aug. 8,
through Friday, Aug. 10.
Registration details and the agenda for the Fixed Ops Journal
Forum will be available in the coming weeks. To receive updates, go to autonews.com/fojforum.
For questions, contact Dave Versical at dversical@crain.com
or 313-446-4789.

ROUNDUP
News items from the world of fixed operations
GM wants service menu pricing,
hires OEC to develop system
General Motors wants its dealers worldwide
to price service and repairs using a standardized menu that includes required parts and
supporting labor time for specific jobs. GM
plans to launch its global service menu pricing in the third quarter, rolling out initially in
North America.
The automaker has hired OEConnection to
develop the pricing system. OEC, of Richfield,
Ohio, says more than 5,000 dealerships globally use one of its menu pricing products.
James Farthing, OEC's director of service,
says the standard approach will enable GM
dealerships' service departments "to deliver
an accurate and consistent full price quote in
under 30 seconds."

Buick, Infiniti at top of
J.D. Power service rankings
Infiniti unseated Lexus as the top luxury
brand and Buick repeated as the top mass-market make in J.D. Power's annual scorecard of

satisfaction with dealership service departments. Overall, the industry posted its biggest
one-year gain in the study since 2012.
Infiniti raised its score 15 points to 876 out of
a possible 1,000 in Power's 2018 U.S. Customer Service Index Study. Porsche came in second among luxury brands, while Audi, Cadillac and Lexus tied for third. Land Rover finished last, just behind Jaguar, which was
above average the past two years and No. 1 in
2015.
Buick's score fell to 850 from 860 a year ago,
but it remained No. 1 in the mass-market category, helping General Motors take three of the
top four spots. Chevrolet and Mini tied for
second, trailing Buick by one point, while
GMC finished fourth.
Fiat scored lowest among mass-market
brands for the second year in a row, as all five
Fiat Chrysler brands ranked in the bottom six,
along with Mazda.
The industry's overall average rose 12 points,
marking the third straight gain and the eighth
in nine years.

U.S. vehicle recalls fall
to lowest level since 2013
U.S. light-vehicle recalls fell to 30.7 million
in 2017, the lowest level since 2013, NHTSA
reported. A record 53 million cars and trucks
were recalled in 2016 when a callback linked
to deadly airbags was expanded.
U.S. regulators say that recalls to replace
Takata Corp. airbag inflators will eventually
affect at least 65 million inflators in 42 million U.S. vehicles built by 19 automakers.
That will be the largest U.S. auto safety campaign ever.
NHTSA has pressured automakers to recall
more vehicles since 2014, after an ignition
switch defect in General Motors cars was
linked to 124 deaths.
From 2014 through 2016, U.S. auto safety recalls set records of almost 50 million or more
each year. In the previous 20 years, annual
U.S. auto recalls ranged from 10.2 million to
30.8 million.
- From Automotive News staff
and wire reports

APRIL 2018

PAGE 41

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