10:19 am, September 14, 2026
When used car margins are under pressure, arguably a dealer’s default response is to search for ways to make more money on every car.
However, the opportunities available to used car dealers stretch much further than the difference between a vehicle’s buying and selling price.
Profit can be won or lost when stock is sourced, while it sits on the forecourt, during the sales process, after the customer drives away and even among enquiries which have apparently gone cold.
As part of Car Dealer’s Profit Clinic Week, we’ve spoken to Dealer Auction, Autoglym, Warranty Solutions Group and TekCor4 to find out where dealers should be looking for those extra pounds. These firms specialise in different areas of the motor trade, but are experts in driving extra profit into a car dealer’s business.
Here, they reveal their top tips of how to generate the best profits; you can also listen to our special Car Dealer Profit Clinic Podcast to hear more – you can find this on your favourite streaming platforms and by clicking here.
Buy the right car – and know when to move it on
There’s an old motor trade saying that suggests dealers make their money when they buy a car rather than when they sell it.
For Dealer Auction sales director Jason Symes, there is still plenty of truth in that – but buying cheaply should not be confused with buying well.
‘Sourcing is always a really tricky thing and it’s finding the right cars but, more importantly, at the right prices,’ he said.
‘Talking to buyers, and with one buyer in particular – and this always resonates for me – is that he’d rather have an expensive good car in stock.
‘Even if that’s a little bit more for the right car, through fees or prep, they’d rather have that because they know that that car is going to sell.’
But just as important as sourcing the right vehicles to sell is stock turn. Using the example of a £10,000 vehicle in a falling market, Symes said: ‘By the time you’ve got that vehicle prepped, you could be two weeks into that first month and all of a sudden you’re looking over the fence to a £300 drop.
‘But more than that is how much does that space cost? Because if you look into your stock, that space will have a value in it.
‘You could be, if you’re holding on to that for a bit too long, talking up to £500 maybe within six weeks that that car is realising a profitability loss.’
The ability to recognise the wrong car is therefore crucial. But rather than holding on indefinitely in the hope of achieving the original retail margin, Symes said dealers need to be comfortable moving stock into trade and freeing the forecourt space for something more profitable.
He added: ‘I think sometimes not using the data is a big part of that, or buying impulsively just to fill a space.
‘Spending a bit more on a vehicle, getting something that – yes, it might be a bit more expensive – but actually that’s a good car that might turn quickly, and guess what? Then you can get another one in.
‘So in that 60 days you could have sold a couple of vehicles rather than having one hanging around for too long. And then at that point, that’s when your profitability gets really affected.’
Make the sales process work harder
Once the right car has found a customer, attention turns to making more from the transaction.
Autoglym global head of paint protection Anna Houldsworth believes paint protection can be a major profit opportunity – but says the attitude towards selling it can make a significant difference.
She said: ‘I think it’s that “I’ve got to talk about this” rather than “I should be talking about this”. There’s a language difference with this.
‘I think, from my side, paint is probably one of the largest profit-driving added-value products you can offer a customer and consumers want it if it is sold in the right way and presented in the right way.
‘Consumers will take advantage of the product, it does what it’s meant to do, and it will also deliver that dealer a really, really solid income per retail unit driver for them.
‘I just feel where it’s offered is a bit of a problem. I always feel like it’s the “lastminute.com” offer.’
For Houldsworth, the strongest dealers build protection products naturally into a structured sales process rather than presenting them as an afterthought.
Process and training are equally important – and she was bullish when asked whether sales executives always present the product well.
She said: ‘Do I think they do it because of the margin? Yes. Do I think the sales execs do a good job at selling it? No.
‘I’ve been in dealerships and heard it. I’ve bought cars and had it tried to sell to me. It’s just horrendous. And I think that’s where we get let down.
‘The people that are operating [well are] very robust, very process-driven. The presentation needs to be bang on. There’s a lot of focus on training and coaching their teams, making sure they’re really up to speed with what they should be doing, and also they talk a lot about the features and the benefit to the customer.’
Protect the margin you’ve already made
Generating profit is only part of the challenge. Dealers also need to protect it.
That’s the view of Phil Miskelly-Wise, OEM and corporate sales director at Warranty Solutions Group, who believes warranties is an area dealers can rethink.
He said: ‘When it comes to warranty, often a dealer can look at warranty as a cost. “Okay, so I sell the car, I give away a three or a six-month warranty, I pay for that. Great, I’m protected, my customer’s protected, but it’s been a cost to me”.
‘Whereas actually, what really they should be doing is spinning that into: “Could I offer this customer a longer-term policy? A 12-month, a 24-month, a 36-month, and therefore more benefit to the customer, but actually I can sell that policy and turn it into a profit opportunity. So rather than the cost, I can turn that cost into a profit”.’
Miskelly-Wise said dealers supplying six months of cover could also offset that expense through sales of extended policies.
‘If you’re offering an extended warranty to every single customer, the profit you will make from selling that policy will more than cover the cost of what you’re spending on the other six-month policies,’ he said.
‘If you’re doing half of what you sell with an extended warranty, you’re more than covering your costs and actually you’re making some profit overall as a business.’
As with paint protection, timing is crucial. Asked whether waiting until the end of the sale to introduce warranty was too late, Miskelly-Wise replied: ‘Much too late.’
He added: ‘[Dealers should be asking] “What is it you’re driving now? Have you had any problems with that over the past three years you’ve had it, or four years you’ve had it?What’s gone wrong? Did you have a warranty to protect it? If not, how much did it cost you”?
‘Sowing those seeds early on within a sales process is really, really crucial to make sure it’s not something you’re just hitting the customer with at the end of the sale.
‘Because by that point, you’re too late. You need to build the value within this as you’re talking about the car and going through the sales process.’
Look again at the customers who didn’t buy
The final profit opportunity may be one dealers have already paid to acquire: The lost enquiry.
Jeremy Evans, director of marketing services at TekCor4, said: ‘I think it is those quote-unquote lost sales.
‘When we survey customers about why they didn’t buy a car from one of our client dealerships, the top three reasons are availability – so the car I came to look at has been sold to somebody else – affordability, so numbers didn’t match, and the third reason is nobody kept in touch with me.’
Evans believes the industry’s constant pursuit of fresh leads means valuable existing enquiries can be overlooked.
‘We’re always looking for new leads, aren’t we, in the industry?’ he said.
‘We’re always trying to pull more in the funnel, but if we looked at the conversion rate and looked at the number we’re converting into buying a car, there’s a whole lot left on the table that we didn’t convert.
‘We’ve got some tools now to keep those people in the funnel before they leak out somewhere else and to squeeze a bit more out of the existing enquiries we’ve already got.’
The scale of that opportunity is potentially significant.
Evans said: ‘Thirty-five to 40% of the people we survey on a lost-sale message say they’re still looking and they haven’t found the car they’re looking for.’
And when Car Dealer challenged him to find another £50,000 of profit for a hypothetical used car business, his answer was immediate.
‘Sell 50 more used cars,’ he said. ‘To do that, look at the existing enquiries and see how many of those they haven’t sold a car to.
‘I firmly believe that kind of revenue is achievable because you’ve already got the enquiry for it.
‘If there are 50 more cars that need to be sold in a year – one a week – you’ve got one open enquiry a week in your diary system that’s not actively being pursued.
‘Let the tech work the systems harder to bring one of those people back a week. And there’s your extra £50,000.’
Small gains can become big money
There is no single magic profit lever for every used car dealership. Instead, the opportunities are spread throughout the business.
During Car Dealer Profit Week, it’s been clear that dealers need to buy more intelligently, turn stock faster, present profitable products properly, protect the margin already earned, and not forget the customer who walked away without buying.
Individually, those changes may produce relatively modest gains. Repeated across hundreds of vehicles and thousands of enquiries, however, the numbers can begin to look very different.
During Profit Clinic week, each day you can hear from the companies featured here individually on our website. You can also hear more about how dealers can generate extra profit by listening to our special podcast. You can find the podcast on your favourite streaming platforms or listen below…