Off-Lease Volume to Surge, but Remain Manageable, OEMs Say
Subaru; Doug Turner of J.D. Byrider; and Jason Alba of Ally Financial, discussing vehicle volumes at Used Car Week. (Photo by: William Hoffman)
LAS VEGAS — Off-lease volume is expected to surge and Ally Financial intends to pay close attention to those values, said Jason Alba, the company’s director of remarketing operations, during a panel at Used Car Week on Wednesday.
It’s not an unprecedented level of volume, he said, and “we’re well positioned as an industry to absorb this volume.”
Ford Motor Co. is also experiencing increases but not at alarming levels, added Linda Silverstein, Ford’s general manager of remarketing and rental operations.
“We’re fortunate that our volume increases are not dramatic,” she told attendees. “Our volume is normalizing and we expected that. If you run your business appropriately and prepare for normalization, it shouldn’t be a shock to the system.”
Subaru was the only OEM on the panel that reported no surge in vehicle supply, but doesn’t plan to completely ignore the trend either. “We’re usually innovators at Subaru, but we’re probably going to be late adopters to this [supply surge],” said John Manchin, Subaru’s national fleet remarketing manager. “Our lease penetration is still under 20%, and — as far as our off-lease returns — only 10% are making it to auction, 90% of the lease maturities are being absorbed.”
With no surge in volume on the horizon for Subaru, the OEM plans to wait for a solution, Manchin said. “My personal plan is to watch what everyone else does, see what works, see what doesn’t work, and by the time our supply surge hits, you guys will have it figured out,” he added.
