Davie, Fla.-based Rick Case Volkswagen recently won an award for being the No. 1 volume certified pre-owned VW dealer in the country during 2022, and the dealer group’s chief operating officer was impressed by the response he saw from the automaker.

“Everybody from national came in, everybody from the regional office and local support — everybody was here to celebrate that,” said Marc Riley, COO of the Rick Case Automotive Group.

“You normally see that on the new-car side. You don’t normally see that on the CPO side,” Riley said. “So, that just shows the dedication from the manufacturer that they’re really supportive of their program.”

That dedication, as it turns out, is infectious.

Tim Hlavenka is the national sales director at Rick Case Automotive Group and just started with the group in July.

What caught his eye was that VW’s CPO program had a representative that would come into the group’s sole VW store and work directly with the team on training. That CPO commitment certainly inspired the team at Rick Case VW.

“I haven’t seen that with any other OEMs. I’m not saying they aren’t out there … (but) I’m impressed that Volkswagen has trainers that come in, specific to a department: F&I, sales and then specifically CPO,” Hlavenka said. “I think the dedication that Volkswagen has towards the program really helps our mindset as a dealer. Hey, if they’re so dedicated to this program, there’s got to be a reason why. We need to be dedicated to the program, as well.”

That dedication to CPO, in turn, has led to another award for the mantle at Rick Case VW, which is Auto Remarketing’s 2023 CPO Dealer of the Year.

According to data provided by VW for Auto Remarketing’s Best CPO Dealers in the US issue earlier this year, Rick Case VW sold 969 CPO units last year, making it by far the leading VW dealer for certified sales in 2022.

The store has managed this CPO success, despite a hit to off-lease volumes, normally a plentiful resource in South Florida.

“Well, (what’s) interesting is that COVID has turned things upside down a little bit, especially in terms of volume. Down in South Florida, which is where our Volkswagen store is located, the primary source of used-car inventory and CPO inventory is lease returns,” Riley said.

Off-lease volume “has significantly dried up” since COVID in part because customers had such substantial equity in their leases that they were buying them out instead of turning them in, which ended up having a “significant impact on the volume of our used-car inventories,” Riley said.

“So, we had to readjust, we had to get a little get a little bit more creative and be more aggressive on taking in trade-ins,” he said.

Doing so allowed the group to increase its volume of CPO-worthy cars.

Hlavenka said that in his short time with the Rick Case group thus far, “one thing I’ve noticed with this organization and I think is a huge contributor to them being able to acquire those cars during COVID, is this organization — not just in the Volkswagen store, in every store — has a fantastic service lane process with the sales team.

“And all of the stores do a great job pulling people unexpectedly out of their lease that they’re only … a year-and-a-half, two years in. So they were able to procure those cars through those channels,” Hlavenka said.

Industry-wide, a few automakers themselves have adapted to the used inventory shortage often by expanding the eligibility requirements on their CPO programs, allowing older vehicles with higher mileages into their respective certified programs.

“I think they’re realizing that the inventory is really drying up and i think that the used car space that we were operating in for years and years is a different arena right now … They truly had to open up that eligibility in order to get the proper amount of inventory,” Riley said.

Hlavenka estimated that, based on his experience working with OEMs, a significant portion of CPO owners buy a new car from the same franchise on their next purchase. It’s a way for automakers to introduce a buyer to the brand.

But with off-lease inventory drying up, that reduces the number of CPO buyers, so Hlavenka contends that opening up CPO eligibility gives OEMs a wider swath of customers to introduce to the respective brand, eventually transitioning them to new-car buyers.

As for inventory strategy within the Rick Case organization, having 12 stores and 17 franchises across two states (Georgia and Florida) can be beneficial.

Traditionally, their stores in South Florida might get more off-lease volumes than their Atlanta stores, given the higher lease penetration rates. The group has software tools that allow them to share inventory within the group and between those markets, for instance.

“It works out well for us, and we’re able to look at the inventory levels, especially Tim and I from an enterprise level, to see where we may see fit to fill in some holes and fill in the gaps for the individual stores,” Riley said.

Hlavenka added that if a car ages out based on the group’s aging policies, it is offered within the group before going to the external wholesale market.

“We make sure we keep retailable inventory within our organization,” Hlavenka said.

And within the walls of its Volkswagen store specifically, they’ve managed to keep the customers themselves within the brand, thanks in part to CPO.

“It’s been a great relationship,” Riley said. “We’ve always had a high volume new-car selling mentality at our Volkswagen store, and combining that now with CPO and being a volume leader there, we feel like we’re going a really good job at capturing the highest retention and keeping the customers with the brand.”

Rick Case VW will be recognized as the 2023 CPO Dealer of the Year during the Used Car Awards luncheon, sponsored by OPENLANE, on Nov. 7 at Used Car Week.