Page 54 - Club Braman Magazine Fall / Winter 2018

THE PERFECT VEHICLE IS NOT ALWAYS THE NEWEST
54
There’s more than one way to purchase “the perfect vehicle” from Braman Mo- torcars. Buy a new BMW, Porsche, Rolls‐ Royce, Bentley or Mini. Or buy a Braman certi ed pre‐owned vehicle.
“We’ve put together here a total program that you’re not going to get anywhere else,” explains Fred Castellano, Pre‐ Owned General Sales Manager. “You know our cars are more special be-
cause they’re cleaner, you know they haven’t been repainted, they have low- er miles on them and our certi ed cars have ve‐year unlimited warranties
on them. And they’re really nicer than other cars because they’re Palm Beach cars,” he adds. “They get driven less and used less. When you come here, you’re going to get a perfect vehicle.”
But it’s no simple task for Braman to
call a car certi ed pre‐owned. It has to pass a rigid inspection, starting with a check of its history report to examina- tion of its cosmetic condition; mechani- cal, electronic and computer systems; to tires and brakes meeting manufacturer tolerances.
For these luxury brands, the vehicles must pass a 250‐point inspection before being o ered as certi ed pre‐owned. Only a dealership that sells a given brand can o er that car as certi ed pre‐owned, giving Braman buyers a wide range of
choices, according to Jami Bristow, Pre‐ owned Inventory/Wholesale Manager. “That is what sets us apart from other dealerships, being able to certify BMW’s, Rolls‐Royce, Bentleys and Minis,” says Bristow. “That’s our advantage, because not every dealership can certify a vehicle if they don’t have that brand under their umbrella.”
in bringing these cars up to like‐new condition,” according to Service Director Chris Hu man. After a two‐hour initial inspection, it can take six hours or more to put a car into certi ed pre‐owned con- dition, Hu man explains. Braman passes nearly 1,000 cars a year through the certi ed pre‐owned process, spending anywhere from a few hundred to several
thousand dollars on a car before it’s certi ed, he said.
But the e ort is well worth it, says Raj Alexander, Porsche West Palm Beach General Manager. In October, Alexan- der points out, 50 percent of Braman’s sales, across all brands, were certi ed preowned.
“There’s almost a second market for people that’s much larger than it used to be,” he says. “It lls a void for people, which is getting into a nice, luxury car at a price point where the initial depre- ciation is gone.
You have a much longer warranty, and manufacturers like Porsche now have
an unlimited‐mileage, six-year certi ed pre‐owned warranty. “We do a lot of things that people don’t see in order to overcome the stigma of a used car when we do our inspection,” Alexander says. “You know people can trust that when we sell that car (as certi ed preowned), that we’ve gone through it the best we possibly can.”
Certi ed Pre-Owned path makes sense to many and brings the most expensive to within reach
Cars that ultimately become certi ed pre‐owned come from various sources. Not surprisingly, the biggest is trade‐ins. But Braman pulls cars out of its loaner eet — with only 3,000 to 4,000 miles
— to become certi ed pre‐owned; cars coming o lease are candidates; and the dealership can purchase cars from closed factory auctions, says Bristow.
Regardless, Braman “invests substantially