Newsroom

Some of the cars sure to attract strong interest are a 2008 Maserati Quattroporte Sport GT Sedan, a 2004 Aston Martin DB9, a 2005 Porsche Boxster, a 2009 Lexus IS250, two 2008 Range Rover Sports and a 2005 BMW M5.

The auction will commence at 7pm at ManheimFowles, located on Gordon Luck Avenue in Altona North. Members of the public are welcome to inspect the vehicles on the Saturday and Sunday prior to the auction between 9am and 1pm, as well as on auction day from 12pm. Friendly and professional ManheimFowles staff will be on hand to assist with any enquiries and to answer any questions about how to bid at the auction or indeed, how to sell at auction if they are interested in this service.

All items are listed on the website (manheimfowles.com.au) in the lead up to the auction, with detailed information, photographs and online-catalogues available for viewing. Potential buyers can easily use the ManheimFowles website to carry out important research prior to attending the auction. Vehicles will also be available to purchase online with the auction ‘Simulcast’ live over the internet, allowing buyers to participate in the physical auction online.

As consignment-only auctioneers, ManheimFowles do not own any of the items they sell, meaning buyers can participate with the assurance that they are bidding in a transparent environment, with all auctions conducted according to a strict code of conduct.

For further information on the auction please call the ManheimFowles office on 9922 6555.

With similar programs in place or planned for all sites around Australia, ManheimFowles is dedicated to saving water across all areas of their operations.

ManheimFowles CEO, Scott Levy said, “We are particularly proud of our achievements with regard to water savings across the company, and I would like to thank the savewater!awards Alliance for recognising ManheimFowles with these outstanding awards. We very much appreciate the importance of companies doing all that they can do in the area of water reduction in Australia with all the environmental issues that we face such as El Nino and climate change. ManheimFowles is absolutely committed to minimising the impact of our operations on the environment.”

As Australasia’s leading automotive auctioneer, ManheimFowles receives approximately 300,000 vehicles for auction around the country and 100,000 at its Melbourne site. With sellers wanting to present their cars in the best possible condition, most of these vehicles are detailed prior to their sale.

With the introduction of the water recycling plant and only using harvested rain water, the firm has reduced its water usage by 7.63 mega litres per year compared to 2007; or enough water to fill a full size Olympic swimming pool three times over.

About the savewater!awards

The savewater!awards, now in its seventh year, are a way in which water saving stars can be recognised and rewarded for their outstanding efforts. The prestigious savewater!awards has emerged as the leading water sustainability awards in Australia.

While the awards focus on water conservation achievements, they also demonstrate a commitment to achieving a range of sustainable outcomes.

Winning at the savewater!awards has helped many companies and individuals to spread the water conservation message and assist other members of the community to use water more efficiently. Some companies have even had business and funding opportunities open up as a result of winning an award.

www.savewater.com.au

“If you are looking to changeover your car now, the times favour consumers,” he said. “You can buy a new car at a good price right now and our sales of used cars indicate that we’ll have no problem selling your old car.”

Clearance rates at ManheimFowles auctions nationally went from 68% in December 2008 to almost 85% in January while the volume of cars being offered for sale jumped some 18%. Average prices for used cars have been rising slightly since October 2008.

“The reality is that right now, with stock levels lower than usual, we’d be happy to have more cars to sell because the demand is so strong,” says Mr Levy.

The only sector of the market where prices have taken a dip is prestige cars. “Average sale prices of prestige cars had been climbing each month until Christmas, but in January the national figures show they dropped back to November 2008 levels,” explains Scott Levy.

It seems that just as people are deciding against a new car because of concerns about the global economic meltdown and the threatened increases in unemployment, there is no such reluctance about buying a used car. “And it is not just in one state,” says Scott Levy. “Demand is strong at all our auctions across Australia.”

With a history in Melbourne going back to 1959, ManheimFowles today is Australia’s leading automotive auctioneer, with weekly auctions in every state. The company employs around 1000 people and handles more than 300,000 vehicles annually. Close

Water-based paint is a new experience for most of our Smart Repair Centre technicians, but with team members Andrew Cotter and Aaron Olson just back from a four-day training session with paint manufacturer Sikkens, and five Sikkens ‘gurus’ on-site for at least the first fortnight, Andy and the team are confident of a smooth changeover.

Just back from their intensive training, Andrew and Aaron told One Voice the new system requires a totally different approach to spray painting.

‘There are huge benefits to using water-based paints, but using it means turning everything you know on its head,’ explains Andrew. ‘The techniques are the same, but the new paint has a completely different set of procedures, so there’s a lot to take in.’

For example, humidity has a big impact on water-based paint thinning ratios and can affect colour intensity for one.

Of course no expense has been spared in fitting out the Centre with the tools and equipment to optimise results, and Andy says Sikkens has also invested a lot of time, training and capital equipment to ensure our success.

‘This really is an exciting time for the business. If you think about this move in terms of the black balloon ads you see on TV, we’re over halving our emissions with this one single step.’

Andy says water-based paint is a little more costly than traditional paint, but it’s more efficient , user friendly and when used correctly we use less of it, it also dries faster in the specially modified drying tunnels, it also does not require stirring , saving time and electricity.

This project has also required a big step forward in the Centre’s IT capacity and a special thanks goes to our IT team for playing a big part implementing computer-based systems for colour retrieval, colour matching and technical information updates. Close

Understandably there are some very happy campers down in the wash bays. ‘We like it a lot,’ says Detailing Supervisor Norm O’Donovan. ‘Increasing the pressure on the guns means we can clean better and the grime comes off much more easily.’

That’s got to be a relief, when you consider that, between them, our Detailing and Rectification teams at Altona clean more than 50,000 vehicles each year.

‘Turning off the mains supply makes us one of the cleanest and greenest sites in the industry,’ says Victorian GM Miki Bilos. ‘We’ll be saving over three million litres of water each year.’

Harvesting water from just one-quarter of our enormous Salvage and Detailing shed roof fills the five, 50,000-litre mega tanks in a flash. Not to mention another two tanks collecting water running off half of the Rectification roof.

‘The first day we were connected it rained lightly and I wondered how much water we would collect,’ says Miki. ‘In half an hour we’d captured 10,000 litres! Clearly they are going to be beneficial, even over summer.’

‘It goes a long way to making us self sustaining as far as our water needs, and we’ve only drawn on a quarter of our Salvage and Detailing roof span.’ Miki says extending the system to flush toilets is an obvious next step.

Watch this space for news of similar systems being implemented at our other sites. Close

In May this year, One Voice reported on the strange activities of certain individuals loitering in secluded corners of our Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland sites.

Under the expert guidance of these master tradesmen who were shipped out to Australia and New Zealand from Manheim US, four of our guys were instructed in the ways of Paintless Dent Removal.

These days our newly minted Paintless Dent Removal masters Alan McLeish (NSW), Jason Noach (VIC), Gerald Coles (NZ) and Sean Kinsey (QLD) have gone mobile in customised ManheimFowles utes and are working hard to keep up with our customers’ demand for their services.

‘One of the main challenges we faced when setting them up to go mobile was how to streamline the offsite eftpos-based billing process,’ says Cath Harmer our GM Business Processes. ‘We needed to ensure that our system captures all the invoicing and therefore that we can pay our technicians on time.’

To this end, Cath and Executive General Manager Rich Curtis, ran a workshop for the Australian contingent on September 7, bringing together everyone involved—the PDR technicians, the relevant state GMs and Assistant GMs, the Altona-based Finance team of Dennis Kats and Lisa Phung, GM Logistics Wayne Thompson, Andy Bell, Gerard Geoghegan, Peter Goedheer and Linda Maat who, in a pivotal role, will coordinate the administration of the business from the Melbourne SMART Repair Centre using SAP.

‘We wanted everyone to get a better idea of the whole system—and how what they do fits in with that,’ says Cath. ‘We went through the billing procedures and made sure that everyone knows each other so that, for example, if Sean rings Linda with a question about invoices he knows who she is, what she looks like and what she’s doing.’

‘Processing PDR through SAP means we can keep tabs on Paintless Dent Removal volumes, check and pay commissions, identify target customers and business opportunities, generate profit and loss statements and keep tax issues simple—for us and our customers,’ Cath says.

To recap—Paintless Dent Removal is a SMART Repair technique carried out by professional, specialist technicians. The art of ‘massaging’ dents out of body panels can restore the vehicle to it’s original condition without time consuming and costly traditional methods of repair. Paintless Dent removal is environmentally friendly and can be carried out at any location. Close