USAA ends partnership with TrueCar

[Jeff Kershner]

Anyone see the latest news around TrueCar and USAA?

After a 13 year partnership, USAA unexpectedly dropped its partnership with TrueCar. USAA represents close to 29% of the vehicles sold by dealers to buyers who connect through the TrueCar marketplace.

USAA has decided to stop providing the car-buying service on Oct. 1 in an effort to simplify its business model.

This has to be a hard blow to TrueCar. My years of experience using the service, most of the solid leads to sale were from USAA customers.

More on the story over at Automotive News

 

[Rob]

Anyone see the latest news around TrueCar and USAA?

After a 13 year partnership, USAA unexpectedly dropped its partnership with TrueCar. USAA represents close to 29% of the vehicles sold by dealers to buyers who connect through the TrueCar marketplace.

USAA has decided to stop providing the car-buying service on Oct. 1 in an effort to simplify its business model.

This has to be a hard blow to TrueCar. My years of experience using the service, most of the solid leads to sale were from USAA customers.

More on the story over at Automotive News

Looks like I have some math to do. I’m thinking that we’re *way* higher than 29%, but will have to run the numbers. Not good news for Truecar at all.

 

[Dave Erickson]

Wow! Truecar should have held that deal together. That’s a major breakdown.

 

[Alex Snyder]

Truecar

 

[Baron Ringler]

I've heard from a couple people that the reason behind the cancellation was that USAA customers had been reporting very poor experiences at the dealership for quite some time and that it wasn't changing.

Anyone have an idea for the next step for USAA? We had already cancelled Truecar months ago but this puts that nail in the coffin that we will ever go back. However, I would consider any program that picks USAA up.

 

[Mike Doane]

A long long time ago. Maybe 5 years ago. TrueCar was relevant. Today there model is not that relevant. TrueCar has struggled with this and this is in my humble opinion is one of the reasons USAA has moved on. In a world when every deal is like a TrueCar deal who needs TrueCar. The platform is hard to use, especially when they could just use my feed. I knew the end was near three years ago. The day my everyday price dipped below my TrueCar price. Customers do not drive past five other dealerships to buy from you anymore over price. We have all learned ( some faster then others) that without a relevant price next to the many photos and good description customers will find someone who does. I sold a lot of cars with TrueCar back in the day. It had little to do with how good TrueCar was or is. It was more about how poorly other dealerships saw the importance of the digital platform and behavior of what the customer wants with an online experience. I do know that TrueCar is going through a rebranding. The logo has changed along with the message.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

 

[Brian Tucker]

According to several articles I have read, TrueCar stock has not been favored by investors after recent announcements - TrueCar Loses Critical Contract
Has this impacted your relationship with TrueCar? Are you still using TrueCar or planning to cancel and avoid their lead ownership cycle? In the past they owned the leads for a period of time and charged the store if they purchased within a 90 day period. In the spirit of full disclosure, it has been years since we were on the TrueCar juice and not sure if that's still how the program works? I know some states were moved to a subscription model vs a pay per sale contract to avoid the broker status.

I would be curious to hear some feedback on recent developments after the USAA announcement and how TrueCar Dealerships will adjust their partnerships and marketing to accommodate the loss of the USAA leads and still reach military clients in your PMA.

 

[DrewAment]

I think they are reaching here.... yes it was a paid ad.

 

[Jason@nabthat]

Looks like desperation