"Car dealers face snowed-in merchandise, lost customers"

Tim O'Keefe woke up Monday to find the 600 cars at the Rockland Nissan car lot on Route 303 in Blauvelt crusted in a heavy blanket of snow.
"It was a disaster," said O'Keefe, the lot's general manager. "We had snow everywhere and cars everywhere."
Not just a disaster because of the amount of digging that he and his staff faced: The Dec. 26 to Jan. 3 period is crucial for car dealers who typically throw zero percent financing and cash-back offers at customers to clear out their older models and boost sales numbers.
Instead, lost sales during the snowstorm and the costly cleanup afterward have caused hardship for car dealers across the Lower Hudson Valley.
J.R. Buchbinder, general manager at Honda of New Rochelle, said he expects sales will be down 20 percent from what he originally projected for this week.
The dealership on East Main Street had hoped to sell 150 new and used cars. But after the storm, it's now on track to sell about 120 vehicles — roughly the number it sold this week last year, when the economy was slower.
"The last two days really hit us hard," he said Tuesday. "We lost three-quarters of our business" due to the storm Sunday and Monday.
Jason Khoury, owner of Westchester Auto Exchange in Cortlandt, said the snow has been bad for his business as well.
"I had to hire four guys (to shovel) just the other day," Khoury said. "It took two days to clear the lot. Just moving the cars around and cleaning them, it can be difficult. And it holds up the customers. People have been calling me telling me they can't come in. I'll be glad when the snow is gone."
Frank Bianco, owner of Bianco Auto Sales in New Rochelle, said the cleanup has been "absolutely horrendous."
"All this snow — it's not a happy sight," Bianco said. "We have 97 cars we have to clean off — and the snow is up to your waist, so it takes four or five guys to do it. We've had to call in an extra crews. It cost another $1,500."
Hassles with the city over where to dump the snow removed from the lot is another headache, Bianco said.
On the plus side, he added, the weather has been helping the sales of trucks and 4x4 vehicles on his lot, so the great blizzard of 2010 was not a total loss.
Buchbinder called in extra staff to move more than 100 cars indoors before the storm, then to return them to the lot and clear snow afterward.
Sales of antifreeze and wiper blades have spiked at the dealership's service shop, making up some of that loss, he said. Now, Buchbinder is hoping to get another boost from pent-up demand later in the week.
The storm "definitely hurts, no matter how you swing it," he said. "But I do believe the people we missed over the last two days will still be coming in."