The Top 5 Stories Of 2015

On the eve of the New Year we wanted to look back at the top five most popular stories that we brought you in 2015.

Starting off with our fifth most popular story of 2015, we have the always controversial Donald Trump. A dealership out of California put together a commercial fearing presidential candidate Donald Trump on a Piñata being wailed on by dealership staff. The ad reportedly never actually aired, but nonetheless raised a lot of interest for and against the promotion, as is often the case when Trump is involved.

Next up on our list of our top stories of 2015 and the forth most popular story is a dealer out of Florida who was facing a $1,000 fine for not taking down his American Flag banner before the 4th of July. GM Mike Wrangle gave his thoughts on the situation to the local news station saying, “We’re just trying to show our patriotism. You would think they would let us leave it up during the fourth and then say take them down after the holiday.” Occurring right before Independence Day, this story generated a lot of interest and questions, such as why this city government picked the 4th of July as the day when they’d have to take the banner down. In the end West Palm Beach Kia didn’t back down, and it was the city government who moved the dealership due date for the banner removal to July 6.

Next up and third on our list of our top stories of 2015 is a lawsuit involving TrueCar. In this story we discussed a lawsuit in which 117 dealers sued TrueCar for a combined $250 million. The suit alleged TrueCar competed directly and indirectly with dealerships and created unfair competition in the marketplace. In an email to DrivingSales News, TrueCar issued a statement saying, “We are aware that a complaint has been filed on behalf of a group of dealers who are not on the TrueCar program. We believe the complaint is without merit. We will vigorously defend the lawsuit and our business practices and we expect to be fully vindicated.”

The second most popular story we published in 2015 was the scary situation involving a test drive beating. This story took place in Stockton, California back on April 22. The story, as told by RecordNet, indicates the test drive began as normal with an 18-year-old woman wanting to drive a vehicle. However, the experience quickly turned odd then scary as the woman demanded the test drive stop near a city park where an alleged accomplice ran up to the vehicle and demanded the salesman’s wallet. The salesman said no and was beaten until he was unconscious. His wallet was taken and he was left with the dealership vehicle until emergency help arrived.

Finally our top story of 2015 was that of a dealership who recently reached out to help a teen in need after he vandalized his dealership. On Thursday, Oct. 16, around 8 p.m., two young boys, 10 and 14 years-old, trespassed onto the lot of Schulte Subaru and began jumping on cars. The two young men jumped on enough vehicles and caused enough dents to do $25,000 worth of damage. When the identities of the two boys were found out, the owner of Schulte Subaru Mike Schulte chose to offer help to the 14-year-old boy in the form of a volunteer position at the store. Instead of pursing charges and possible time in a detention center, the boy had a new purpose helping out with chores at Schulte Subaru. This story was our most popular story of 2015 an optimized the theme of dealers doing good.

There you have it – our top five stories of 2015. On behalf of DrivingSales News, I want to wish you all a very safe and happy new year and thank you for watching. Will you continue to share stories that matter most to dealers and dealership professionals that impact the automotive retail business in 2016.