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Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

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Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#161

Post by metalliqaz »

sureIy wrote: post #60
metalliqaz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you go too far. I too have a deep dislike for dealerships, but they are not useless. Specifically, it's a place you can go to test drive cars and they have OEM-certified garages for warranty repairs. Can't test drive when you buy online. I think the main problem with dealerships is the government granted monopoly. If a dealership is in a region, most states prevent any other dealership from setting up shop in…

To be fair, how many copies of one car do you need? Once you got 15 models on display you should be good to go for testing purposes. You don’t need a parking lot with a hundred cars.

Sure, most people don't need to drive away same-day with a car, but some want to. That's the value of inventory.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#162

Post by [deleted] »

bombcar wrote: post #27
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #7

I'm trying to buy two cars right now, and this has put a big wrench in the process. The dealership can't tell me what's on their lot compared to what's on their Website, except by going out and searching.

Even when the system is working they have to go search the lot, because half the cars listed in the system are phantoms.

[deleted]

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#163

Post by metadat »

vel0city wrote: post #150
metadat wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the backup aspect work for paper? Scanning? Otherwise paper is quite fragile and susceptible to combustion. What if voting was all done via paper and you could later view the scan of your ballot as it existed at the time of count? Unfortunately there could still be funny business on the backend.

I'm not a fan of being able to see the values of your ballot after it is cast. It greatly opens up the possibility of coercion or bribery. If I can show how I voted, it leaves it open for someone to demand/request I prove to them how I voted. And just seeing a picture of it tells you pretty much nothing about if the system actually counted it properly or not, you still need to trust the counting system at some level.…

Agreed, you raise some really good points. Thanks!

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#164

Post by xyst »

I worked at one of these companies catering to a large network of dealerships. Quit after 1 month. The one company I worked at was outsourcing all or most of the development work with an onshore mostly as management and a couple of devs in the US.

It was a massive shit show.

- Tests? Useless and garbage. Only used to pump their code coverage reports to show to management

- Design? Non existent and a hacked together code base across a half dozen low bid contractors, probably junior engineers at best

- CI? Dedicated test environments? Nah, costs too much money. Just “use docker to test on local and deploy directly to prod”

- Documentation? Besides very basic instructions on how to deploy locally … good luck

- backup and recovery? Nah who has time for that. Just work on the features that {big client} wants

- code quality? I wish there was a “god” class, but in this code base they managed to create a universal class or “macro service”

Management was a mess. Just a mouthpiece for sales or executives. No backbone. No vision. Just “alright we just need to get through the quarter” mentality.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#165

Post by hot_gril »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #115
bombcar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even when the system is working they have to go search the lot, because half the cars listed in the system are phantoms.

> half the cars listed in the system are phantoms How? Like, they order a certain number of cars from the dealership--do they just trickle in randomly? Do they forget to log sales? I get misplacing where the car is, but whether it is? Granted, I have friends who work at rental-car companies, and the level of shitshow they aspire to is truly inspiring.

Was going to say, ghost-car sounds familiar at rental places.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#166

Post by josefresco »

paxys wrote: post #112
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #7

I'm trying to buy two cars right now, and this has put a big wrench in the process. The dealership can't tell me what's on their lot compared to what's on their Website, except by going out and searching.

Sounds like the average dealership experience.

It does. My last car buying purchase (2023) involved Internet research and then on multiple occasions on the call to the dealership I heard: "Oh we don't have THAT specific model on the lot but we have something similar".

Even in person, the people in the office would look at inventory on the computer but then have to send someone physically out into the lot to verify they did in fact have what "the system" said they have.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#167

Post by toast0 »

SSJPython wrote: post #15

Related note: car stealerships are a relic of the past. There is no reason why a middleman should exist when buying a car. Consumers should have the option to purchase directly from the manufacturer. I am personally not a fan of Tesla as a vehicle, but I admire the business model of buying directly from Tesla. Stealerships are a drain on the consumer. All that land they own can be used for productive economic activit…

I'm not in love with dealerships, but one thing that a dealership does is provide final QA on inbound cars. They don't catch everything, but they do catch some of the things that slipped through QA at time of manufacture.

It's somewhat telling that Tesla has a bad reputation for delivered quality, and they don't have a dealership network that does final QA.

Of course, dealerships also like to install unnecessary options while they're doing the other parts of dealer prep, so it's a mixed bag.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#168

Post by josefresco »

michaelt wrote: post #119
bee_rider wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly a site for programmers. I can’t imagine working in computers and not believing at least that the intent is to make people’s lives more convenient and make work efficient. If the dealers have the capacity to go around and run everything by pencil and paper, it seems like either the are really poorly run for the average case where the computers work and make life easier, or the programmers have done a re…

Let's assume you're only selling what's on the lot, and you're not running some complex network operation where you care about other dealerships' stock. Googling tells me the average car salesman sells 8-10 cars per month. Maybe more for a 'high volume' dealership but certainly less than 1 car per day. I would think the paperwork to sell a single car would take substantially less than 8 hours for an experienced worke…

My last car purchase took 14 hours total. 2 separate days, was buying new, no trade-in. I tracked my time because it was a work week! Despite telling them after the first day to "have everything ready" for my second visit, I still spent the majority of the day inside the dealership, twiddling my thumbs.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#169

Post by blorenz »

juliangoldsmith wrote: post #67
n4r9 wrote: post #13

This is what happens when a single player (CDK Global) has massive market share (90% when measured by number of vehicles sold [0] --- EDIT: this is actually the combined market share of CDK + Reynolds, who have a non-compete agreement ---). The entire industry becomes fragile to product issues and/or malicious attacks. Anti-trust is important. [0] https://casetext.com/case/loop-llc-v-cdk-global-llc-in-re-de...

That 90% is for both of the two biggest DMSes, CDK and Reynolds & Reynolds. Both DMSes have been around since the '70s or so, so they're probably considered a safe option by a lot of dealers.

Is R&R still that large? A few NADAs ago I approached them to see about getting a direct integration. Only one of my customers was R&R at that time. ReyRey acted very elitist and told me that they had no interest. Fast forward to this last NADA where I approached ReyRey again with only three customers. I asked them if we could integrated with three and they stated that they would even do a single customer. Quite the change of tune. I asked ballpark what it would be and they said "low 5 digits". Not even CDK is that expensive with their certification process.

This will also be interesting to see how it affects their their long in-development and repeatedly stalled Fortellis product. They are attempting to release it as a DMS agnostic solution which I did not think that other DMSes will gravitate to just because it comes out of CDK. This attack is just another reason for a competitor DMS to not use it.

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