AutoNation Reviews

Pros

I love the sales process they have for customers to buy a new or pre-owned vehicles,is very different than a traditional dealership or internet department. I was impress by the relax environment and willingness to help you succeed at your job.The pay structure is decent and always have incentives going to motivate you.They make you feel welcome to your new job and sincerely make feel at home. And they always have some potluck at work or get together outside the job site.

Cons

The training is very long., 3 weeks and can not go on the floor live until you complete the training.
You also have to work every other weekend.

Advice to Senior Management

Make the training shorter.

Pros

the benefits are above average

Cons

when all else fails, chop the sales force pay to compensate the upper management.

Advice to Senior Management

get to the bottom of why the top sales specialists are a breed of professional people now gone from the front line!

Pros

Skilled techs seem to be paid at the highest hourly rate in the area, at least for now. If you do a good job with few comebacks you are generally left alone.

Cons

Employees who lie, cheat and steal are the first to be promoted. Upper management cares only about profit and slashing wages....Autonation preaches about ethics but has none whatsoever. Work until you die, 8 days a week if they could do it to you!! They'd rather spend money on lawyers than doing whats right to their employees or customers!! Greed, and profit are the only thing that drives this business. Autonation-Destroying the industry one day at a time. Can't work anywhere else becuase they make back-door deals with other local dealerships not to hire their employees.Well, you have a job don't you? That's what you'll hear when you mention dirty words to your management team when you ask about taboo topics such as a cost of living raise.

Advice to Senior Management

Take care of your employees- They are #1 !! In turn, they will take care of your customers, and the business will thrive. Cut out the fat and pay the money to the people in your company who really work. Multiple layers of regional, market, etc presidents, VP,s...You'd get more for your money paying out on the dealership worker level...Yearly new "pay plans" aka, pay CUTS, 7 day a week, 12 hour days, your employees are burnt out.The customers can see this, and feel it. There is more to life than work and profit. Stop destroying families with excessive work hours!!

Pros

The team truly cares about the product. Teamwork is excellent, the work isn't difficult, as long as the work gets done, people leave you alone.

Cons

Managers have very little respect for the people on the front lines and the job they do. It is very difficult to keep associates motivated when you are being treated poorly on a day to day basis. Most people are looking for work outside the organization despite the fact that they genuinely like most aspects of their job.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management should seriously consider the effectiveness of management. Most people don't do their best in response to fear. Also, the benefits and pay are well below par...especially for a company this large.

Pros

Working at AutoNation allows you to interact with customers and coworkers of various backgrounds. You also get to wash and clean your own cars for free.

Cons

Everyone is constantly mistreated. Management tends to be very greedy, especially with the people who are out to earn a commission. You can be rest assured that if you work in an hourly position, the people who are earning commission will make you work very hard so that they can earn a bigger paycheck, at your expense. Also, although sales guys may get mistreated once in a while, they are treated like Gods. Management will walk stomp all over you in order to make them happy. They earn the company a lot of first time buyers, and A LOT of money.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees. We voice our concerns for a reason. Do not try to overwork us for low pay and put us all under very stressful conditions, just so you can look good to the higher-ups in corporate. Also, don't leave us understaffed for several months and complain about why performance level has dropped from previously. We get tired! We are not machines! We are human!

Pros

Compensated fairly. The more you work the more you get paid. Great people to work with.

Cons

Customers aren't always the best. Company is great

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good worok

Pros

- Fast paced
- Tons of employee relations exposure
- Decent bonus structure

Cons

- HR Director & HR Manager show favoritism to personal friendships
- HR Director & HR Manager will tell you how "available" they are, but they rarely return a phone call and typically respond to an email in one or two word answers
-Poor overall management

Advice to Senior Management

Maybe a management team needs to be in place that are not best friends out side of work.

Pros

- Plenty of hours if you need them
- Friendly employees for the most part
- Generally understanding management (though not all, as with many places)

Cons

- Tedious work. Lots of doing the same thing every month.
- Poor training, many people don't know how to do their jobs correctly. Most of those who do things correctly still have no understanding of their job, they've just memorized the procedure (so they respond poorly to new situations).
- Poor department interaction. You have to know who to go to (may be leads in one department, a supervisor in another, or a grunt in yet another), or you get silence in return.
- Technology from the stone age (this could be seen as a positive if you're just looking to get a job, low tech keeps way more on staff than needed)
- Auto Industry, a super-heavy dinosaur waiting to collapse from its weight and old age

Advice to Senior Management

- Get more qualified personnel. You'd be surprised how few people you need to replace your seemingly overburdened large staff. (Or maybe you wouldn't)
- Improve your tech. So much of what is done at the SSC could be done quicker and more effectively with cheap and readily available software.

Pros

Easy work and decent starting pay.

Cons

No raises or promotions after several years of promises and the benefits are overpriced and basicaly useless.

Advice to Senior Management

Quality and not quantity. Cut some of the fat and support your best employees.

Pros

Non-rigid work schedule (ex: arrive around 8:30 and leave around 5:30). 12 days off from the beginning. Nice break-room. Multicultural corporate environment.

Cons

Completely disorganized and no accountibility. Decisions seem to be made only at the very top level of management, otherwise subordinates do not respond to new implementations. The company is run like individual franchises instead of as a corporation. The DMS software used is lousy.
Employees have to wait 6 months to be eligible for health ins. benefits. The company is not focused on training and developing its employees.

Advice to Senior Management

In addition to hiring people with education, like myself, ensure that employees either have experience at the store level or incorporate training to reduce detachment. Hire the right people, pay them well, and foster their development (train). Make the appropriate changes top to bottom.