Kari Dodge expansion nears completion
Kari Dodge?s ongoing tall-and-wide expansion has been drawing attention for some time now.
By March 1 it will be drawing customers through its 16 service bays at a faster clip than ever before.
Jim Peterson, owner of Kari Dodge Chrysler Jeep since buying the dealership in November 1998, said the much-needed expansion will more than double the number of service bays and triple the number of technicians.
?We want to be the dealer who takes care of customers,? he said.
He is growing the store?s former 12,000-square-feet facility, with six service bays and five technicians, into a 35,000-square-foot business with 16 bays and 15 technicians. The building?s towering front walls stretch the length of nearly a football field and a half along U.S. 2 as it passes through Evergreen.
The showroom and the second-story offices, storage and employee lunch quarters got some extra elbow room, too, but Peterson said his own heartburn over the three-week waits customers were seeing before getting a service appointment at Kari was the final catalyst for the expansion.
?It almost matters more to people (in deciding) where they buy their vehicle,? he said, to know ?the dealer?s ability to take care of them.?
GLACIER Valley Construction broke ground on the $4.2 million project on Aug. 15 last year. Peterson said he and his wife, Debbie, financed a little over half the cost themselves but ?if you do a good project, you can put into it and it takes care of itself.?
Tom Tillo and Earl Holbeck, Glacier Valley owners, have been pivotal to the project?s success. Peterson said they accommodated Kari?s need to stay open for business while keeping construction on time and taking care of the details themselves. And they hired all local talent for subcontracted work.
Eight service bays are in operation, with state-of-the-art equipment and heavy-duty hoists that will accommodate anything bigger than what?s on the market or on the drawing boards today, Peterson said. When the other eight bays open on March 1, two more technicians will be hired and each of the 15 will be in his own bay.
A key to the expansion was Kari?s certification as the only Business Link service provider in Montana. It?s a nationwide Dodge program that guarantees business customers two things ? the first available service bay and the use of a comparable vehicle while theirs is in the shop. It means firms that are dependent on their vehicles to conduct business won?t have to lose revenue while their rigs are being serviced.
It was the Business Link connection that helped Kari land an exclusive contract with Glacier National Park to service a fleet of shuttle buses for its park-and-ride program. The park bought 22 Dodge Sprinter diesel vans, about 10 percent over its projected need, Peterson said.
But as tourism grows and shuttle demand increases, the park cannot afford to take them out of operation for long.
?So we?ve got to take care of them efficiently and expediently,? Peterson said. ?All our technicians got special training for them.?
The other piece of the puzzle in winning the Glacier Park contract was size, capacity and technology of the new facility?s service bays. Peterson said they exceeded the minimum requirements by 30 percent.
The building also will have a drive-through service department. Customers will be met with a remotely opened garage door, a service writer who meets them at their car window as they drive in, and a hot cup of coffee in the adjacent waiting room.
Along with the building expansion, the business bought an acre of land behind the shop to park vehicles in progress and use for other storage.
THE DEALERSHIP is expanding in another way, too.
On a plot of land along U.S. 2, just north of Kmart in Evergreen, preliminary work has begun on the new Kari Hyundai dealership.
Peterson said he is splitting the Hyundai line out of the Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep dealership because of the Korean car maker?s growing reputation for quality. He said Consumer Reports and J.D. Power just ranked it third in quality, behind Porsche and Lexus.
It?s helping Hyundai gobble up more of the market share, and Kari expects to make the most of the trend by branding sales as well as service at a separate Hyundai location.
?When we took on the Jeep franchise (in November 2005) it was apparent we needed space,? he said. ?And Hyundai had become a franchise in its own right ? We wanted to take Hyundai to a separate facility with its own level of service.?
Because the manufacturer produces primarily metro cars instead of rigs designed for this mountainous, wintry region, he said he doesn?t expect Hyundai to become the biggest part of Kari?s business. But he said he does expect to eclipse Toyota and Honda?s local market shares.
He said inventory at Kari Hyundai will run about $2 million to $3 million, compared with the $8 million typically on hand at Kari Dodge Chrysler Jeep.
Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com