DETROIT -

General Motors is re-launching its certified pre-owned program today with a new official name, a new branding strategy, a more thorough inspection explanation and what GM officials are calling an "industry first:" a two-year/30,000-mile free maintenance program called Owner Care.

Jennifer Costabile, general director of used-vehicle activities for GM, and Larry Pryg, the program’s national manager, talked with Auto Remarketing recently to outline and discuss the new program.

The automaker collaborated with its 10-member dealer council in building the program, but its cooperative efforts with dealers went far beyond that.

GM phoned close to 100 dealers to get input, Costabile said, and put quite a bit of effort into working with dealers “because they’re going to be the ones executing it, so we wanted to make sure they were comfortable with it."

In fact, the main point of the revamping was to add more value to the program for dealers and customers.

For instance, Costabile pointed to the new Owner Care program — which includes free oil changes, tire rotations and multi-point inspections for two years or 30,000 miles — saying: "We really feel this is a strong value-add to customers."

Additionally, GM vice president of U.S. sales operations Don Johnson stressed that enhancing the program’s value can lead to increased new-vehicle sales, as well.

"One of the most important things we can do is manage the business to help increase the value of Chevrolet, Buick and GMC used vehicles," Johnson said. "This increased value gives potential new-vehicle customers more for their trade-ins, thereby lowering their ownership costs."

Sharing more on how the program will be different, Costabile said it will no longer be called GM Certifed Used Vehicles. Instead, the program will now be referred to as the Chevrolet/Buick/GMC Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles program.

Regarding the switch away from the term "used," it is believed that consumers are more comfortable with the term “pre-owned.” Or perhaps this better spotlights the fact that certified vehicles tend to encompass newer model years.

Cadillac, of course, has its own certification process. As far as discontinued brands like Saturn, Pontiac and Hummer, they will be a part of the new program and “we want to continue to support these brands,” said Costabile.

Explaining the branding change, Costabile said the automaker wanted to put the GM moniker “behind the curtain” and make it more brand-centric. The reasoning is people don’t buy a “GM” car, they buy a Chevrolet or Buick or GMC, she stressed.

The program will also include “consistent and competitive” support for dealers when it comes to incentivizing CPO rides, Costabile shared.

The warranty benefits will remain the same, GM said, referring to the five-year/100,000-mile powetertain warranty and the 12-month/12,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty.

However, the inspection process is now a 172-point process, versus a 117-point process previously. GM explained that there are not 55 more items to be inspected, instead, the point-expansion is designed to help dealers become more thorough in how they describe the checks in the inspection to the consumer.

For instance, the wheels and tires were previously just one point on the inspection form. Pryg said the process of checking them now is with four points, so that the dealers can show how specific elements of the wheels and tires were inspected.

“The work for the dealer hasn’t changed much, but we really wanted to build value in the program, and one way you do that is to show the customer what you did,” Pryg explained.