Automakers Dropping the Ball Selling Teen Features to Consumers

 

Seth Smiley of the Smiley Law Firm here with today’s edition of the Parents of Teen Drivers Facebook Group. It seems that automakers are not as keen on sharing information about the safety products they’ve developed and released for teen drivers as we thought.

A few weeks back, we started to look at the safety features that benefit teen drivers that GMC and Chevy had added to some of their vehicles. Well, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (I.I.H.S.) which is an excellent resource for information about teen driving and other general auto issues, has undertaken a survey. It looked at ten brands of car, and sent people to look at ten models of each for 4 name brands, and visited ten dealerships of each. They looked at Ford, Hyundai, Chevy, and Kia.

They found that Chevy had easily accessible safety feature information online, and their salespeople mentioned it a fair amount. They also found that the Hyundai dealerships did an excellent job of mentioning safety features for teens. Ford was the worst at highlighting these both online and at their dealerships.

Ford has a program called MyKey, which seems good, but I can’t find out online if it has been discontinued or is still active. There appear to be conflicting reports. It is interesting that they would go to the high expense of developing these safety features and not correctly promote them. It would seem that they should train their salespeople to promote these features.

It seems strange to me that they are not promoting these positive things which save lives to teenage drivers and their parents who may be looking for a good first car for their kids.

If anyone has any experience with this in dealerships, please share your story. I would like to open this conversation up to gain more info, so please share this group with your friends, and let’s find a solution for safe driving for our teens.

Please feel free to ask questions by commenting below or by sending me a Direct Message.

Thank you!