What's new on Honda's website? Older cars

LOS ANGELES — Honda has launched an enhanced U.S. website that lists older used vehicles alongside its national inventory of certified pre-owned vehicles.

The "new" offerings are not CPO but can be up to a decade old — and some are pushing 200,000 miles.

And Honda is just getting started.

Following the Dec. 7 relaunch of the CPO website, American Honda said it plans to add older vehicles to its Acura certified pre-owned website in the coming weeks.

Honda said it will add features to the used-vehicle program that align with the brand's Shop Simple by Honda online buying tool, enabling customers to complete most of a pre-owned vehicle purchase in a digital fashion.

Dan Rodriguez, manager of auto remarketing at American Honda, declined to spell out Honda's specific plans but hinted at warranties and other products that could become add-ons as part of the digital buying process.

American Honda is working with dealers on what that would look like, he said. The enhancements could include a checklist of the reconditioning process for the older cars and light trucks, as is done with CPO vehicles.

"I don't want to give all the secret sauce right now," Rodriguez told Automotive News. "The ultimate goal is we want to promote something that our dealers can feel proud of, that the customers can feel secure and know that they have that little extra element of peace of mind. And we're going to be working on putting together the details of what that ultimately will be."

Why is a major automaker with 1.6 million new-vehicles sales in the U.S. last year and a rapidly growing CPO operation diving deeper into the used-car market?

According to the company, it is simply changing with the times and drumming up more traffic for its dealers as competition heats up from within the industry and from the tech world.

As the average price of a new vehicle rises and startups move into the pre-owned space, American Honda wants to open more doors to first-time ownership and a lifetime of loyalty. That means looking beyond CPO to a potential sweet spot of vehicles that are 6 to 8 years old — still attractive, but outside the industry definition of certified pre-owned, Rodriguez said.

"It's certainly been a topsy-turvy world with the pandemic, and a lot of disrupters trying to capitalize on this used-car market," Rodriguez said.

"And there's tons of opportunity," he added of the U.S. market for used vehicles. "It's almost 40 million cars a year. We look at this as a great way for us to make it simple and easy for customers to find a Honda, whether it's a CPO or a used Honda, through our network."

Although Honda and Acura dealers account for about a third of all used Hondas and Acuras sold every year in the U.S., Rodriguez thinks they can do better.

"We sell through our dealer network, Honda and Acura, a little more than a million used cars a year. And there were over 3 million used Hondas and Acuras sold in the market. We think there's an opportunity to capture more than a third of that," Rodriguez said.

Getting more buyers into the brand through dealers can also drive brand loyalty if the experience is positive.

"We're confident we're going to keep more than our fair share of them coming back to stay in the brand," Rodriguez said. "We're looking at it as a channel to bring them in through used, graduate them to CPO and then eventually graduate them to new."

About half of all Honda CPO buyers are new to the brand, and about half of them return to buy a new vehicle, he said.

With last week's relaunch, the Honda CPO website now has three program choices:

1 HondaTrue Certified+, a program introduced last year that offers the longest warranty for near-new vehicles

2 HondaTrue Certified, which added free oil changes and roadside assistance as part of a rebranding last year

3 Used, the new program for non- certified vehicles.

Some examples of the non-CPO listings on the updated website included a 2010 Fit hatchback with 186,125 miles for $7,299 and a top-trim 2019 Odyssey minivan with 21,820 miles for $39,533.

For now, the website simply lists the used vehicles and points buyers toward the dealer lot. Honda has committed to addressing outstanding safety recalls before a sale is made.