US dealer profitability stagnates

Profitability for US dealers remains an uphill battle, with no improvement seen in the past few years. For the third consecutive year, net pretax profit at new-car dealerships as a percent of total sales was 2.2%, according to the latest report on dealership sales and financial trends from the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA). That figure represents sales across new and used vehicles as well as service and parts departments.