Carlson vows to press NADA's fight against regulation

Incoming NADA Chairman Jeff Carlson vowed to keep up the group’s fight against government overreach and pledged to make the group more consumer-focused in 2016.

In a speech at the convention, the Colorado dealer who drove a beer truck to pay his way through college, said dealers nationwide need to be engaged in NADA’s policy and legislative advocacy mission.

“It’s no secret that the dealer franchise system has been under attack, unfairly and relentlessly,” Carlson said on Saturday. “But the best defense is a good offense.”

He urged support of a U.S. Senate bill, S. 2663, to unwind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s guidance on dealer-originated auto loans, which Carlson called an “overreach into our business model.”

Carlson said only dealers should be authorized to perform all recall repairs for all customers, though he cautioned against legislation to require dealers to fix all recalls on used cars prior to sale.

Such a move would ground millions of cars unnecessarily and diminish vehicle trade-in values, because only 6 percent of recalls are “hazardous,” he said, citing a 2014 analysis by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

Carlson said: “Washington must understand that all recalls are not the same.”