At Swansway Motor Group, improving vehicle preparation meant tackling challenges felt across the business: disconnected processes, limited visibility and delays between departments. With Carcare, the group has seen a 2.5-day reduction in average preparation time, while one dealership has more than halved preparation times and is now processing more vehicles in less time.
From Disconnected Processes to One Clear View Before Carcare, teams across Swansway’s dealerships faced recurring blockers throughout the vehicle journey. Multiple systems, spreadsheets and communication channels made it difficult to get departments working from the same information, while teams didn’t always have visibility of a vehicle’s accurate status. For the central team, this created recurring challenges across dealerships, with delays affecting how quickly vehicles could be prepared, advertised and ultimately sold. Carcare brought these processes together into one application, giving teams a shared, real-time view of every vehicle and creating greater clarity across departments.
We had the same constant barriers in our dealerships, whether that be blockers to getting cars fully prepped and advertised online, or blockers from fully prepped to actually being sold and handed over to customers.
Faster Preparation. More Cars Through the Process. The impact is measurable across the group. Swansway has seen an average 2.5-day reduction in preparation time, driven by better communication and real-time visibility of vehicle status. At Stafford Audi, general preparation times have halved, while purchased preparation time has reduced by 25%. At Stoke Audi, the team is processing a third more cars in half the time, helping the dealership manage a high-volume used car operation more efficiently.
At Stoke Audi, greater visibility also means teams can identify and prepare vehicles sooner, helping move stock through the sales process faster.
It allows us to prep the cars quicker cosmetically. And it also allows the staff to see complete visibility of what's coming in. So we can actually sell these cars quicker
Turning Visibility Into Action Carcare doesn’t just provide visibility; that visibility enables faster commercial decisions. At Stafford Audi, decisions that could previously take two or three weeks can now be made within two or three days. For vehicles approaching the end of a month, that speed can make a significant difference to trade value and commercial performance. At Stoke Audi, real-time visibility of incoming vehicles also allows the sales team to identify opportunities earlier. In some cases, vehicles are being sold before they’ve even been advertised. The result is a faster journey from vehicle acquisition through preparation and into the sales process.
Carcare streamlines all of that. So, we're making that decision in 2 or 3 days, as opposed to 2 or 3 weeks.
Making Time Back for the Team The time savings extend beyond vehicle preparation. Before Carcare, obtaining vehicle updates could mean chasing managers, visiting the workshop and manually checking where vehicles were in the process. At Stoke Audi, this was taking up to two hours of the digital merchandising team’s morning. With vehicle status available in real time, teams can access the information they need immediately, without relying on internal follow-ups.
I can literally log on my computer, find out the status straight away. I don't have to go to anybody, I don't have to chase anyone. So it's literally saved me so much time.
Real-time status also means teams can focus their time where it matters. For example, the merchandising team can see whether a vehicle is ready to be photographed rather than spending time chasing its progress. Connecting Sales, Workshop and Aftersales Greater visibility has changed how teams communicate across the dealerships. At Stafford Audi, workshop teams previously received emails and questions about individual vehicle preparation. With Carcare, the information is available directly against the vehicle, giving sales teams and workshop staff a shared source of information. Workshop teams can also see what vehicles are due into the dealership, helping them plan preparation more effectively and maintain visibility of incoming stock.
The biggest improvement I've noticed since the introduction of Carcare is the reduction of emails that had landed in my inbox asking what we've done on each prep, which saves me a lot of time.
Built Around Every Dealership For a group operating across multiple dealerships,consistency doesn’t mean every site has to work in exactly the same way. Carcare can be configured around the processes of individual dealerships while still providing the central team with a clear group-level view. This gives each site the flexibility to work in a way that suits its operation, while maintaining visibility and control across the wider group.
Their ability to bespoke our systems to each dealership is fantastic. From a group level, it's really easy to then switch between dealerships and understand those bespoke processes for each site and just have them all in one clear, concise dashboard.
Built Around Every Dealership For Swansway, Carcare has helped create a more connected approach to vehicle preparation across its dealerships. With greater visibility, fewer manual processes and faster decision-making, teams can spend less time chasing information and more time moving vehicles through preparation and into the sales process. The results are clear: greater efficiency, faster decisions and more vehicles moving through the business.
Related Articles 20 May 2025 Driving Excellence: How Care Transformed Mercedes-Benz of Swansea’s Performance 20 May 2025 Sinclair Mercedes Swansea: The winning formula behind the best automotive retailer
