NORCROSS, Ga. – Balise Motor Sales is the latest dealership group to integrate a wholesale Mighty Auto Parts franchise.
With facilities throughout Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, Balise is one of the largest retailers of new and used automobiles in New England. New car dealerships include Buick GMC, Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Lexus, Mazda, Nissan, Scion, Subaru, Toyota and Volkswagen. Balise also operates used car outlets and three state-of-the-art collision repair centers. The company’s new Mighty wholesale distribution division is based in Warwick, R.I., and operates as Mighty of Rhode Island.
Balise joins other prominent dealer groups such as Hannah Motor Co. (Vancouver, Wash.) as Mighty’s newest strategic licensed distributor. Mighty says that its preventive maintenance expertise and family of OE-quality undercar and underhood parts are attractive to car dealerships looking to improve customer retention, service all makes and models and lower used car reconditioning costs. Mighty-branded products include filtration, brake friction and rotors, wipers, lighting products, batteries, belts, shop supplies and chemicals.
Jeb Balise, president and dealer stated, “We think Mighty is going to help us capture a bigger share of the ‘customer pay’ service business that is dominated by independent repair shops. We will always emphasize our OE affiliations and service commitment. However, the reality is that the average vehicle age is now nearly 11 years, and we’re missing much of the service business on older cars. By providing more service menu options to our customers with older vehicles, we think we’ll be able to grow our service business across all makes and models, boost our customer retention numbers and enhance our fixed cost absorption.”
Dan Elmer, director of fixed operations, added, “Securing the exclusive distribution rights for Mighty products throughout one of our key market areas provides an exciting opportunity to leverage the relationships with our many wholesale accounts. We’re sold on Mighty’s product quality and anticipate strong demand for Mighty’s inventory control services from our outside accounts, many of whom need help managing their stocking products like filters, brakes, wipers, batteries and chemicals. We also think those same high-quality products and stocking services are going to help us lower our own used car reconditioning costs and substantially reduce the cycle time of our entire reconditioning process.”
Mighty Distributing System of America is headquartered in Norcross, Ga., and oversees 112 franchises in 42 states.
