Sonic Automotive, Inc. Class A Aktie

Good morning, and welcome to the Sonic Automotive Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. This conference call is being recorded today, Thursday, October 29, 2026.

Presentation materials, which accompany management's discussion on the conference call can be accessed at the company's website at ir.sonicautomotive.com.

At this time, I'd like to refer to the safe harbor statement under the Private Securities and Litigation Reform Act of 1995. During this conference call, management may discuss financial projections, information or expectations about the company's products or market or otherwise make statements about the future. Such statements are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In addition, management may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please refer to the non-GAAP reconciliation tables in the company's current report on Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier today.

I would now like to introduce Mr. David Smith, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sonic Automotive. Mr. Smith, you may begin your conference.

Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Sonic Automotive Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. And as you said, this is David Smith, the company's Chairman and CEO. Joining me on today's call are our President, Jeff Dyke; our CFO, Heath Byrd; our EchoPark Chief Operating Officer, Tim Keen; and our VP of Investor Relations, Danny Wieland.

I would like to begin by thanking our exceptional teammates for their unwavering dedication to providing a world-class guest experience. Our relationships with our teammates, our guests, our manufacturer partners and lending partners are fundamental to our long-term success, and we are grateful for their ongoing trust and support for Sonic Automotive.

Earlier this morning, Sonic Automotive reported third quarter financial results, including all-time record quarterly revenues -- quarterly total revenues of $4 billion and all-time record quarterly gross profit of $617.5 million. Reported GAAP EPS for the third quarter was $1.28 per diluted share. Excluding the effect of certain adjustments detailed in our press release this morning, non-GAAP adjusted EPS for the third quarter was $1.30 per diluted share.

Beginning now with our Franchised Dealerships segment. Our stores performed well despite difficult year-over-year comparisons as a result of the pull forward in EV consumer demand during the third quarter of 2025. Reported Franchise revenues decreased 3% to $3.3 billion, while same store revenues decreased 2% year-over-year. Reported Franchised Dealerships Segment gross profit decreased 2%, while same store gross profit decreased 1%.

During the quarter, our team focused on optimizing new vehicle GPU, while maintaining market share. Third quarter reported new vehicle GPU was $3,048, up 2% year-over-year and same store new vehicle GPU was $3,000, flat year-over-year. Same store new vehicle unit volume was down 7%, largely due to higher EV exposure within our luxury brands and California stores.

We estimate the impact of last year's EV pull forward to have been approximately 2,200 additional new retail units sold in the prior year quarter, which combined with F&I on these vehicles drove a $5 million year-over-year decline in gross profit. Excluding the impact of these EV units, our new retail sales volume would have been flat year-over-year.

Third quarter reported used vehicle GPU was $1,500, down 2% and same store used vehicle GPU was $1,506, down 3%. Same store retail used vehicle volume increased 3%, driven by improving used vehicle supply and strategic focus on increasing used vehicle volume throughput as we progress toward our long-term objective of retailing an average of 100 used retail units per dealership per month, representing approximately a 20% organic volume growth potential from current levels.

In the face of industry-wide headwinds, we are proud of our fixed operations performance with reported gross profit increasing 2% to an all-time quarterly record of $265.4 million. On a same-store basis, fixed operations gross profit increased 1%, driven by a 1% increase in warranty gross profit and flat customer pay gross profit year-over-year.

To combat ongoing consumer affordability challenges, last quarter, we launched a value-priced service offering and expanded our service-based marketing strategy. As a result of these efforts, same store customer pay repair order volume was up 1% year-over-year and up 3% sequentially, and same store warranty repair order volume was up 4% year-over-year and 4% sequentially.

The increased customer traffic provides our stores with key customer touch points and opportunities to sell additional products and services at current or future visits, while indicating that our guests are not trading down out of the franchise dealer service lane to visit independent repair shops.

In the third quarter, F&I gross profit decreased 3% to $142.6 million on a reported basis, while same store F&I gross profit was flat year-over-year. Our team remains focused on maintaining high levels of F&I GPU and ended the quarter at $2,630 on a same store basis, an increase of 2% year-over-year.

Turning now to our EchoPark segment. Third quarter revenues increased 14% to $596 million and segment gross profit increased 8% to a third quarter record of $58.9 million. EchoPark retail used vehicle volume growth well outpaced the broader industry, increasing 22% to 19,923 units, reflecting continued consumer demand for our strategic value proposition, improvement in our non-auction sourcing mix and our teammates' strong execution in delivering an outstanding guest experience.

EchoPark total gross profit per unit was $2,972, down 12% year-over-year, driven by a 15% decrease in F&I gross profit per unit to $2,754, offset partially by a $96 per unit increase in used vehicle front GPU to $218. As discussed on our second quarter earnings call, the reduction in EchoPark F&I gross profit per unit is due in part to a greater mix of battery electric and higher mileage vehicles, resulting in lower warranty penetration rates and F&I profit per contract.

We are currently working with our F&I partners and store leaders to enhance our warranty and insurance product offerings for EVs and higher mileage vehicles. While our changes to inventory mix have impacted F&I GPU in the near term, we believe our inventory shift to meet consumer demand is a benefit to sales volume, consumer reach and future EchoPark growth potential.

EchoPark adjusted segment income was $2.6 million and adjusted EBITDA was $7.9 million, bringing year-to-date adjusted EBITDA to $40.4 million. For the fourth quarter, we expect adjusted EBITDA to be between $2 million and $4 million, including $5 million to $7 million in incremental brand marketing expense as we kick off our largest investment ever in building the EchoPark brand. Our team is excited to share this brand campaign publicly in the coming weeks.

We're also excited to announce that our new EchoPark location in the Orlando, Florida market, will open in December. In addition to this new store, we currently plan to open 2 to 4 new EchoPark locations in 2027.

Turning now to our Powersports segment. Revenues increased 35% to an all-time quarterly record of $113.7 million, and gross profit increased 26% to an all-time quarterly record of $29.3 million. On a same-store basis, Powersports revenues grew 8%, while gross profit decreased 1% year-over-year. Reported new retail unit volume increased 32%, while reported used retail unit volume increased 35%. On a same store basis, Powersports new retail unit volume increased 6% and used retail unit volume increased 1%.

Powersports reported F&I revenue increased 42% year-over-year to $4.7 million, with total F&I per unit up 8% to $1,148. Same store F&I revenue increased 6%, while same store F&I per unit increased 2%. Powersports adjusted segment income was $7.9 million, down 1% from the prior year period, and adjusted EBITDA increased 4% to $10.5 million.

I want to thank our teammates for their hard work in making this year's Sturgis Motorcycle Rally another record success. During the 86th Annual Rally, our team set a new sales record selling 1,135 motorcycles, including over 500 new Harley-Davidson motorcycles during the 10-day event. This achievement is a testament to Sonic's strategy of further diversifying our business by a nationwide network of Powersports dealerships.

As we turn to our consolidated results, our strong operating performance this quarter was partially offset by higher SG&A as a percentage of gross profit, which pressured our bottom line results. Our team is consciously making strategic long-term investments that we expect to drive future profitability and operational efficiency, but are not yet leveraging the investment. This includes applying AI across back-office functions, inventory management and fixed operations optimization, where we are already seeing benefits. By acting now, we are positioning the company to sustain its momentum, expand long-term profitability and remain agile in the face of changes in the industry.

With that said, we remain within our full year guidance range for SG&A as a percentage of gross profit, despite lower-than-projected fixed operations growth in the second and third quarters. To support this outlook, we remain focused on implementing certain targeted SG&A initiatives in the near term, while continuing to invest in our long-term strategic priorities.

Finally, turning to our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with approximately $585 million of total available liquidity resources, including approximately $201 million of cash and floor plan deposits. Our liquidity position and balance sheet capacity provide us with the flexibility to support our existing businesses, make targeted organic investments, pursue strategic acquisition opportunities and return capital to stockholders.

Given our current trading levels and the $528 million remaining under our share repurchase authorization, we believe share repurchases represent an attractive use of capital, and we are weighing share buybacks against several acquisition opportunities.

As we continue to execute our balanced capital allocation strategy, I'm pleased to announce that our Board of Directors approved a cash dividend of $0.41 per share payable on January 15, 2027, to shareholders of record as of December 15, 2026.

This concludes our opening remarks, and we look forward to answering any questions you have. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question comes from Alex Perry with Bank of America.

I just wanted to dig in a little bit on the fixed ops business. So I think that the guide implies that maybe the fourth quarter you see a slight acceleration on same store gross profit comps. What is driving that? And what gets the fixed ops business back to that sort of mid-single-digit percent run rate? And when would you expect that to happen?

Alex, it's Jeff Dyke. I wish I had a crystal ball that could answer the when we expect it to happen. I think the fixed operations business over the last couple of quarters caught all of us a little bit off guard as we projected sort of mid to upper single-digit growth. Now that number is in the 3% range.

And I'd probably expect it to be around there, maybe a little better in the fourth quarter as we're focused on our value pricing and the things that we're doing in our service line to drive up our ASR penetration numbers, which range somewhere between 20% and 25%, but our best brands are running in the 30% to 35% range. So we've got some upside there in terms of execution. And I think we'll do a better job of that in the fourth quarter and in the coming year.

But to project that we're going to be back into that upper single-digit range in the first quarter, I think, would be a little bit off. But maybe as we get into the mid-summer months and into the back half of next year. And we're all scrambling to do a better job with our ASRs and in our closing ratios there.

Traditionally, we've been in that 20% to 25% range, which is a lot of opportunities, almost 1 million in the quarter for us. And we'll see how things go. But definitely, it's a big focus for the company. It's a big focus for the industry. And would expect a little improvement as we move into the fourth quarter and then certainly continuing that improvement as we move into next year.

Really helpful. And then maybe just to dig in on one part of that. The affordability concerns in the parts and service business, are you taking down price in some of the maintenance level work or even some of the complex work? I guess what initiatives are in place to drive the RO count? And then do you think there is share loss going on to some of the independents? Or what are you doing to maybe prevent share loss there?

Yes, there's no question we got too expensive in our service drive, and that's our value pricing program, and that's what we're doing across all of our stores. We're up 1% in RO count year-over-year, 3% sequentially. And I expect that to continue to grow as we drive more and more customers back into our stores.

I think about 50% of the car park is coming back to a dealer. That's traditional over the last few years. We've got the other 50% going to independents, and we need to bring those back to our dealerships. We've got the best facilities. We've got the best technicians. We've got the training, the tools, the equipment, OEM certified parts certified technicians. There's no reason for them not to come back to us. But we're fighting that image of high-priced service drives, and it's something we're all working on.

You'll see our advertising geared towards that. If you look at Sonic Automotive websites right now, you can see our value pricing on certain items that are driving customers back into our stores, driving RO count up. And that's a big opportunity for us. And we know it. The industry knows it, and we need to work on it.

It's also driving the warranty rates up, and that's something we all need to keep a close eye on, as that makes life more expensive for our OEM partners. Parts rates are high and costs are high and our OEM partners need to do a good job of bringing down cost and expense from a parts perspective.

But we all need to get that back in line. And as we do, we'll drive more customers back into our service drive, take share from the independents. And it's just not something that we're going to allow to happen. We'll battle that, and we've got all the assets to battle it.

Our next question comes from Jeff Lick with Stephens.

First question, I'm just curious, your new GPU definitely bucked the trend, your sequential improvement. Just curious if you could kind of elaborate on why you think your -- you guys are producing such a better result than your peers in Q3?

Because we had a call in -- coming out of Q2 with some of the FTC stuff that's going on and had a mindset change for our sales managers. And sometimes gross is a state of mind and we...

It was a motivational call.

It was a motivational call, and we got our margins where I think they need to be. And we sell a great product with great services and amazing CSI for our customers. And we're just not going to -- we're not going to give cars away. And the great news is we held our market share. So we were able to contain market share and hold on to our margin, grow our margin a little bit. And I expect that to continue, which is why we're narrowing our range there in terms of our front-end margin number for the year.

You mentioned the FTC. How did that manifest itself into maybe helping, or driving the strategy with the new grosses?

Yes. I mean I think that it's making everybody play from the same cheap music. And I don't think everybody is doing it yet. And I think third-party lead providers need to get involved and do the right thing and not allow people who are playing games to be on their websites.

But it's making everybody play by the same rules. And so you don't have all these games. And it's going to take some hand slapping going on. I don't think the punishments have been strong enough yet, but it's going to take some hand slapping going on to get everybody's attention that the FTC means business.

And as that happens, I think margins will level out and things will get there. We just weren't going to let that play a role in our world. It didn't -- And we're going to let some of the games going on -- that were going on out there, change the mindset of our team and the margins that we know we deserve to make. And so we made that a conscious effort, and it certainly helped in the quarter.

And a quick follow-up on SG&A, franchise SG&A, 75.6% of gross. Just obviously, you guys are smaller. So if there's an extraordinary item that hits you, sometimes it hits you guys a little more given that you just -- you're amortizing that over a smaller gross base. But could you elaborate a little bit on what's going on there and what would be the fixed?

Yes. This is Heath. I'll answer that. You're right, it actually is sort of the law of smaller numbers. So basically, $5.5 million, $6 million equals 100 basis points. And if you look at the year-over-year for Q3, the real drivers were service loaners, gas inflation. So a lot of the things that are related to the customer. And, so that is something that we are focusing on. But again, we don't want to sacrifice the customer experience. But that alone was driving almost 100 basis point -- yes, 100 basis points.

And then we've got some incremental spend in the IT world of about $2 million that happened in the quarter that is related to our AI initiative, and we're already seeing dividends from that. We're about 8 months into our journey and really amazed at what we can do with that from a standpoint of efficiency. And so we think that's good investment. It's going to end up in what we think can be a material reduction in SG&A going forward.

Maybe in the spare time you get Danny out there washing cars and picture, take some SG&A down.

We already did that.

Another interesting thing about this quarter that was a little bit higher than expected is travel. And it's back -- to Jeff and David's point earlier, we're getting our leaders out there in the stores that are not performing at the level we want. So travel was up a little bit that drove some of that SG&A for this quarter as well.

Our next question comes from Rajat Gupta with JPMorgan.

I wanted to ask on F&I. Are you seeing any kind of pullback, or I would say, a little more caution from consumers when it comes to just product attach rate? I'm just curious with just more proliferation and use of AI tools, are consumers just looking to optimize their spend a bit more, like what kind of warranty they want to attach, et cetera?

And the same thing on the service side, are they optimizing the kind of service work they want to do a little more than they used to? Just curious if there's any feedback around that? And I have a quick follow-up.

Rajat, it's Jeff. We had a little bit of drop-off in our penetration rates coming out of the second quarter and the first part of the third quarter, but it's back up now, 1.8 to 2.0 products per car sold. So now -- I mean, we had a very good F&I month on the franchise side, I think, up just a little bit and a record third quarter in F&I. So I'm not seeing that.

We'd be crazy not to think that, that's not going on in our fixed operation service drives. That's definitely part of all of this. There's a lot more information available right at your fingertips and very specific information. And we've got to do a better job of communicating, the -- like I was talking about earlier, the great values that we provide in our service drive.

We're beginning to see that. We're driving some more customer pay RO count, which is incredibly important. And I expect that to continue as we move forward. We're going to be just as good or better in using our AI tools that Heath was talking about, and some of the investments that we're making.

As a matter of fact, we're launching some pricing stuff for fixed operations this next week or the week after, that we think are going to help drive more RO count for the stores. So all that's AI-driven. And so more to come. I think we'll have a lot more story to tell from a pricing perspective, value service and those things as we move sort of out of this year and into the first and second quarters of next year.

And then, is this -- sorry, I was just going to say that -- this is David. So we understand the perception versus reality problem that we have in our -- that's an industry-wide thing. We just kind of -- we've got to communicate that, as J.D. was saying, to our customers so that they feel confident and feel good about coming back to our stores for service, versus how many of them feel like that they are making a smart decision to go maybe elsewhere into an independent dealer. And when a lot of times, the reality is no, they would actually be making a smarter decision to come to our stores.

And Rajat, this is Heath. Just to add, overall in the franchise, we were actually up in warranty penetration. So that still shows the demand there. If you look at EchoPark, we have a mix issue there. We -- There's more EV mix and there's more older age vehicle mix there. And so getting the right products to market for them is really the key, and we just implemented some new products so that we can actually help that penetration degradation that we have seen at EchoPark because of the mix we're selling now.

Yes. We have an EV warranty that we've launched and a high mileage warranty that we've launched for EchoPark. Those products are launched this month, and we're already seeing nice penetration on the vehicles. So we expect that to be able to curb some of that and grow our front-end margin. We're buying cars better. And so I think all that plays well for EchoPark.

And as new car pricing keeps going up and up and up and the gap widens, which is historically high now between pre-owned and new, that's a grand slam home run for EchoPark. It's just really going to be a lot of fun to watch the growth. And I think you're seeing that 22% growth in the third quarter. That growth mix is a lot of fun to watch.

And you saw it in the industry. We're seeing it in many brands and in different pockets across the country. And I think that's going to continue to happen as we move into next year.

Understood. That's all very helpful color. And just wanted to follow up on capital allocation. Clearly, the backdrop looks a little choppy. There is some uncertainty in parts and service, the recovery trajectory there. some choppiness in F&I and just like a pretty flattish, I would say, backdrop.

I'm curious like how you're weighing any capital allocation, be it even buyback or M&A against that backdrop. Would you prefer to wait for a few more quarters of visibility before deploying capital? Or are you just finding attractive opportunities, at least on the M&A side that might warrant you to just deploy that sooner?

Yes. Thank you. This is David. Well, as you know, the acquisition opportunities as we evaluate those and you look at the growth of Sonic over the last, nearly 30 years, there's opportunities to acquire some fantastic stores, are not -- they just don't come around if you -- every quarter or you got to make -- we've got to make long-term investment decisions, not quarter-to-quarter.

So I think that's the biggest thing. So as we look at potential acquisition opportunities, that's the mindset that we're going to have. And so -- and then as we said, opportunistically, we bought back, I think, around 11 million or so shares over the last several years. So we'll look at all of it. And -- but I think that as an investor in our company, you got to think long term. And so I think that's the main focus that we have.

Our next question comes from Brett Jordan with Jefferies.

This is Patrick Buckley on for Bret. On parts and service, you called out increased technician headcount in the slides. Are there any metrics you can share on that front? Or I guess, how much do you think is left to close the gap to full capacity levels?

Gosh, we could hire a couple of hundred technicians. We've got the capacity in the stores. That's something that we're focused on. You don't want to hire them too fast, right, because bringing in, getting into our culture, our process, the way we do things. We've got a lot of our stores now exploring Sunday service, which many of our shops over the years have been closed on Sunday.

Our Toyota brand has really been exploring that. So we've got capacity, and we could bring another 100, 150 techs on tomorrow. No question. So there's plenty of room there. And we're going to need them as we drive our value service proposition and bring more and more customers in the car park back into our service drives.

And again, there's 50% of the customer -- It depends on the brand. Some brands higher than others. But on average, about 50% of the car park does not come back to a dealership post 2 or 3 years to service their vehicle. And we're working on bringing those customers back in and providing them the experience that they're only going to get at a Franchised Dealership.

Great. Got it. And then on the Powersports side, how has demand there held up compared to light vehicles? Any pullback or signs of trade downs due to affordability issues? Or has that more lifestyle type of purchase held up a little better?

It's held up great. That group is on fire. We've had so much fun watching them grow that business and put our technology, our processes and disciplines into the business. It's just great. Now we gobbled up a lot of stores, and we're running and operating and getting them up to speed. And then once we get that breadth and that handle, we'll go and gobble up some more. But it's fun to watch them. We brag on them every day around here how well that leadership team is doing and those stores are performing. And there's no -- there's been no sign of slowdown there.

And there's so much opportunity in that -- in the powersports industry. We're learning more and more about it. And if you look at our Powersports gross profit and our front gross, if you apply that across the board to our entire company, it would -- the numbers would be [indiscernible] to the industry. Would be really outstanding. So there's a lot of opportunity.

Our next question comes from Daniela Haigian with Morgan Stanley.

My first one is on EchoPark. You mentioned you're planning to enter Orlando, launching a new brand campaign. How should we be thinking about the economics of this next phase of expansion? Are these new markets achieving the same volume and profitability as your established locations? And what milestones should we be tracking to assess returns on incremental investment?

One of the things -- this is David -- I would say is that I think our team is getting a lot better about the investment that we're making in our -- in additional stores, and we're being creative on getting the cost down. I think that's a big part of it. I think there's a lot of capacity in our existing EchoPark stores for growth.

And we're -- we've found that in markets where people -- where the consumers are aware of EchoPark, we have tremendous volume. So with our new -- we wish we could tell you about it today, but we will be announcing some things coming soon, but I think we will dramatically increase the awareness in the -- in our -- even in our existing markets and our -- in the new markets we're coming to of the EchoPark brand, that should have a huge impact on the business.

And that -- this is Jeff. That capacity is not another 50 cars a store a month. It's more like 200, 300 cars a store a month that we have the capacity to do in our existing footprint. And yes, we expect Orlando to get started. We used an old Cadillac property that we had there. So we got into that facility nice. And absolutely, we expect it to get up to speed really quick. Orlando is a fantastic pre-owned market, and we've got a lot of experience in that market.

So we'll get in there and do a great job and sell a bunch of cars. And then we're going to have some really exciting stuff, not only from a spokesperson perspective, but we've got some new things coming for EchoPark that we're very excited about, that hopefully we'll be able to talk about in the first quarter, that will hopefully enhance and expand the speed and efficiency in which we grow EchoPark.

So we've got a lot of neat things coming. We feel like we've got our arms around the brand. We've got it headed in the right direction. And so we've called out, we're going to have some more spend this quarter. You expect that, and you can put that into your models. And that's not going to go away in the first quarter.

We're going to continue to really invest in this brand. We've made it through the difficult times, and we've got our arms around it, and we're getting ready to push on the accelerator. And let's see what EchoPark can do in this fun used car economy.

And this is Heath. I'll add on that brand spend. As Jeff mentioned, you're going to see that spend continuing and the benefit of that in getting that to show through our financials is looking at the end of the next year. You got to give the brand time to -- where everyone is aware of it.

And we've said over and over, we're objectively the lowest price of anyone in the market. We're objectively the best customer experience for as good or better product of car. The one missing part is awareness. And so we're excited about what this brand can do for us.

We guarantee you'll know the spokesperson.

Yes. And just taking the opportunity to thank and congratulate our team again on achieving the #1 guest experience in our industry where they just recently -- it was announced by reputation.com for our EchoPark Automotive team. It's just outstanding. They just -- they're repeatedly ranking #1 in the industry.

That's great. I appreciate the answer and looking forward to that update in the first quarter. My second question was on SG&A. You talked about how you're implementing some initiatives even with some of this lower fixed cost outlook for the fourth quarter. Can you speak a little bit more what are some examples of things you've implemented here, whether it's AI or otherwise to improve the operating leverage in the business?

Yes. One is we're going to reduce the level of loaner cars that we have in this organization, and that's -- that started last month, but it takes a little bit of time for that to all flow through. And it's a big expense in the company. If you look in detail, it's $3.5 million, $4 million a month in the company.

So we're going to take a big chunk there while still keeping up our great guest experience, just being more efficient and effective with our loaner car process. It's going to take time, like I said, for that to flow through, maybe through the fourth quarter. And then you'll see those reductions showing up in Q1 as we get some of that inventory sold.

And then we're making other adjustments, whether it's personnel, from an AI perspective, compensation plans, to be a little more variable than maybe some are. They're just -- all the things that you would typically focus on as you move through an environment like this where a few million dollars make a huge difference, especially from the size of our company. We'll continue to focus on that, and we'll bring our SG&A down and in line.

But it's not going to be material in the fourth quarter, more along the lines of the changes that we're making and the adjustments that we're making today are going to show up in Q1. And we'll let that happen and hopefully continue the great record-setting gross and volume that we're having along with maintaining our margin. You're working on both sides of the table, and we'll bring those two things together and bring our SG&A as a percentage of gross down.

Yes. And from an AI perspective, as Jeff mentioned earlier, we're rolling out those initiatives starting in the fourth quarter. A lot of them are related to increased growth. So we're looking at the fixed pricing.

We're looking at inventory pricing as some of the big things we're rolling out in the field. Currently, we have multiple automations in the back office and the savings to date on the bots and the AI that we're implementing in the back office is about $2.6 million year-to-date, and we've just begun that rollout. So we expect incremental savings from that as well.

Our next question comes from Rob Saltzman with UBS.

Just firstly, I know it's a little early, and you gave some helpful thoughts on the fixed ops side for '27. But I was hoping you can maybe provide some additional high-level thoughts on the puts and takes for the Franchise segment as we head into next year and just how you're thinking about the business overall there?

Well, we're not going to come out and say 1% to 3% growth. I just can't -- that's not going to happen. Unfortunately, that 3% number is probably going to -- that's where we're going to probably be around, and maybe hopefully a little better as we move through the quarter. But sort of somewhere in that mid-single-digit range probably is where we'll be. Maybe we push our stores from a budgeting perspective into the 5% to 7% range, maybe 8%, depending on what I can -- how far I can push them. But it's certainly -- our expectation is not to be growing in the 1% to 3% range.

And I'll add, again, back on the AI thing. From my perspective, the fixed ops is the biggest opportunity for AI to help with throughput efficiency, which obviously is going to have an impact on gross and SG&A.

Our ASR process, if we can increase our closing percentage and drive more customers in, we have got ample opportunity with the customers that we have already in our service drive. But we're going to drive through value pricing. We're going to -- we know we can do that, and we're going to drive more customers through.

We're going to focus our ad dollars in and around the value of -- for the customer in our service drives. That's something that we here at Sonic Automotive and the industry needs to work on. And you'll hear -- I'm suspecting you'll hear it from the industry, you're certainly going to hear it from us in our marketing efforts as we move through '27.

And then just one follow-up. You have that goal in the Franchised Dealerships to get 100 retail used vehicles per store per month. Can you just walk us through the path to getting to that 20% improvement in retail used vehicle volume throughput per store, particularly in what remains a difficult used vehicle sourcing environment?

Yes. We walk through it every week. It wasn't that long ago, we were at 110 -- 107 used vehicles per store per month. And the gap between new car pricing and pre-owned pricing and as leasing comes back and more availability of product comes back, the walk -- to walk to 100 for us is easy. We've just got to fill a couple of holes, and we're going to get that number.

We should be beyond that. And I feel like I'm talking on our weekly huddle call to all of our general managers. And we've got plenty of brands that are well beyond that, Honda, Toyota, Mercedes, BMW, all of them well above the century mark. And we'll get the other ones there, too, and accomplish that goal as we come up into this calendar year.

Our next question comes from John Babcock with Barclays Bank.

This is Aaron on for John. Just a quick question on the EchoPark performance. So I know that competition has intensified a bit on the used side. So just kind of curious, especially with the tightness in the market, how you're positioning there and then how you're enhancing the digital experience?

I mean we've got such huge upside, obviously. There's 2 or 3 of us sitting out there that are single-only used car dealers. And we're growing -- we grew 22% last quarter, plenty of opportunity in front of us. It doesn't mean we're not going to have some quarters lower, some quarters higher, but the overall trend. And you see what we're doing, we're getting ready to make a huge all-time investment in EchoPark for -- to bring awareness about us.

Our awareness is really low as a percentage, maybe 13% in the markets that we do business in. And so that's been one of the big boat anchors for us. We're fixing that. We're getting ready to tell the world who we are. And we want people to come experience the -- come into our stores and experience what EchoPark is all about. And we are working on a digital retail solution for EchoPark, among other things within our business segment on the franchise side.

And that digital retail solution is something that we hope to begin to launch pieces of it as we move into next year, probably in the summertime. And that's a sneak peek. We'll give you a lot more data on that and launch dates for our digital retail solution as we move into the second quarter. And we'll get you guys a lot more up to speed on where -- but we've been making an investment in digital retail for the last year. And hopefully, we'll have something to launch as we move into the back half of next year.

And this is Heath. Just to add, from an operational perspective, the keys to our profitability are that mix where we're acquiring vehicles, and we continue to increase the non-auction vehicles, and that's a huge impact on our profitability. So we're going to continue to find ways to increase that. And then secondly, finding the F&I products that fit the mix. And those are the 2 operational things that are really going to be a focus going into the fourth quarter into 2027.

And as we launch in November, our brand spend -- you listen to the messaging, and that will kind of give you a path on where everything is headed.

Got it. Super helpful. And then just curious what you're seeing on the brand side. I know there's some concern on the -- for some of the domestics heading into the quarter. So just anything you're seeing there, especially as we head into luxury sales season?

No. I mean, quite to the contrary, I'm very excited about it. The -- I probably spent as much as anybody with our manufacturers and going around and looking at the new products that are being developed, how excited they are about the future and what's going to happen over the next few years.

The products that are coming are amazing. I don't care which BMW, Ford, Lexus. We've seen it all. Land Rover is just going to be amazing and...

Audi's announcement...

Yes, Audi's announcement was just huge. Congratulations to them on manufacturing cars in the U.S. and just drove the all-new Q9. It's amazing vehicle. And so I couldn't be more excited about what the manufacturers are doing, the products that they're developing, the technology that's in the products.

So it's like now we're starting to drive our iPhones, right? And so a lot of fun, lots of horsepower. And then the power plants are great, too, whether it's ICE vehicle or battery electric or hybrid. They're coming with just amazing product, amazing technology. And it's pushing the prices up, which is fine. Let it do that because it drives the used car business, which is also great for us. It's kind of playing into our hand.

And I think we're going to have a great holiday selling season. December is always just amazing around this company. And there's no reason for me to believe -- over 20-some-odd years here, there's no reason to believe that this December would be any different. And so looking forward to getting there next week and rocking and rolling and getting October done, and it's going to be a great fourth quarter.

Our next question comes from Chris Pierce with Needham & Company.

Can you just kind of walk me through -- I think the midpoint of the original EchoPark guide was $30 million in February. And I just want to kind of understand what's kind of surprised you? What's kind of -- how we sort of landed where we're landing now? I think units maybe are ahead, but F&I is worse on the EV mix. So just kind of -- and then how do we think about it into next year as there's more EVs coming off lease? And I know you've got new products, but like what if you have more EVs but lower attach? Like how do you kind of put those pieces together?

Well, I think like we said earlier, that finding the right products for the EV and the higher aged vehicles is a key, and we're working with our partners to do that. So that's going to be a key going into the next year.

Yes. And I also think while there's still upside on the F&I, especially with the EVs, there's even more upside on the front-end side as we continue to procure cars non-auction. So we're looking at it more round package than just one or the other.

And we also think that the branding is going to help us on the front-end side. There's going to be brand equity that we can get with that brand.

And the other thing that you need to think about is all those third-party service departments out there don't think that EchoPark might not jump into the water and have some fixed operations opportunities as well with the great experience that we have and that we can provide. I'm telling you, there are a lot of things coming with this brand because of the experience that we provide and as we launch this brand, a lot of fun things that we're going to do with it and more news on that as we move into next year.

A good example is in the Atlanta market since we did the naming rights deal at EchoPark Speedway and have seen the impact that's made on -- even if you just look at our Atlanta store, right? I mean the impact has been incredible.

The volumes more than doubled in Atlanta from that signal. And it just shows the lack of awareness that we had prior.

So as customers find out about us, that will absolutely help our grosses, so -- and volume. So it's going to be exciting to see. We're all sitting here smiling because we want to tell you some more of the things we're working on, but we'll have some announcements coming soon.

That just put a muzzle on me.

And like you said, the increase of inventory coming back just plays into our hands for EchoPark. It's each year that, that inventory availability increases is just going to help us grow.

Okay. Perfect. And then one on the new side. Is it correct that Porsche has been sort of an underpenetrated OEM for you guys and the Walnut Creek acquisition sort of -- is there -- and as the brand sort of maybe goes through some challenges, is that something we should think about as an opportunity where some other luxury OEMs you maybe don't have as much of like acquisition opportunities on the table?

I'm not sure if I -- what did you -- could you say the question again, please?

Sure. Is Porsche sort of an underrepresented brand within the Sonic umbrella versus like BMW and Mercedes, where it's harder to sort of find stores to acquire given you're already like larger geographic footprint? Or is that sort of not the right way to think about it?

The right way to think about it is Porsche is an underserved brand in every retailer out there. We take as many Porsche points as we can get. The acquisition that we were fortunate enough to make in Northern California is the first one we've made in, gosh, 15 years, something...

Starting this year, been there 20 years.

And we buy more -- you got to be green to buy. We are, and we buy more tomorrow as they come up. It's an amazing, amazing brand. And as we build out our luxury footprint across this country, it's a desire to grow with all of our luxury brands. And so we're -- the way I look at it is we're underserved in all of them, and there's plenty of opportunities.

I mean, as I mentioned earlier, the long-term investments, we know that our Porsche manufacturer partners, the Porsche brand is a fantastic long-term investment. So we are very excited about it. And as J.D. said, we get some more opportunities to add more Porsche stores. And there's many other manufacturers that we very eager to receive those calls. So we were excited when we were able to do that deal in the Walnut Creek. And it was -- so far, it's been a fantastic -- The performance has been amazing so far.

When you think about Audi, they've had a rough run here, but we haven't blinked on that brand. We know they're going to be strong. And now look, they're coming with a huge investment in Georgia, and that's going to help with the tariff situation. And so you can't take a short-term look on these great luxury brands. They've been around forever, and they're going to be around forever, and we're just excited to be a part of their growth plan.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Michael Ward with Citigroup.

These motivational discussions you had with your managers, did that result in lost sales? Or was it brand specific? Were there people discounting too much? What was the reasoning behind that? And was that a conscious effort?

I think we mentioned earlier, the market share is something that our team, we really focus on as much as our guest experience. And I think it's a fantastic metric that we still hit our market share numbers, while also increasing our gross profit.

Yes. And if you noticed coming out of the second quarter, Michael, everybody's margins were dropping off $150, $200, $300 a car. And we just are going to -- weren't going to allow. And it was happening across the board. And we -- if you keep letting that happen, you're going to keep giving -- margin is not going to -- it's going to keep going down further and further.

So we drew a line in the sand and made some adjustments to compensation plans across multiple positions. And we've all been together for a long time. We have very little turnover in this company. And we called upon our team to step up and to hold their margin and they did, and they're doing it in October. It's not -- that's not changed.

It's not -- it wasn't a 2-month whim. We just saw a trend and one that really bothered me, Jeff Dyke personally. I just couldn't understand why we would allow that to happen because that's what's going on in the rest of the world. We have such a great experience in our stores. And we just made it up in our mind that that's not -- that wasn't going to happen, and it's not going to happen. And our team...

It was not brand specific.

Absolutely not. It was across the board. I will tell you there were some brands that did a better job than -- Our Honda brand just really did an amazing job. And I think our brand structure and the way we're structured as an organization versus a regional structure really helps because we can call on those brand leaders to get in there and get that job done. But it was -- motivation is a good way to say it. It was a good motivational moment in our company, and we got the message across, and it's paying off for us.

And Mike, this is Danny. On the trade-off of volume versus GPU, we were essentially flat in new volume from 2Q to 3Q. And if you take out the 2,200 incremental EVs we sold last year, we were actually up year-over-year on a same-store basis ex EV. So we've done a really good job of maintaining the market share and the volume piece of it, but just really looking at optimizing how do we price relative to market, how quickly do we turn inventory and what can that do to drive both the volume and the GPU support.

Yes. And it sounds like it could be the new world order just because if we're dealing with tighter inventories and particularly when you're getting to the end of the model year, and you don't have that excess fluff to get rid of. And -- So it sounds like it's a new world order. And so...

It is a new world order. I mean, we had -- we have the right day supply. The FTC deal really kind of was a disruption in the world and made everybody -- a lot of the competitive set start doing the right thing. Now not everybody is doing the right thing. I want to be clear on that. But we're not going to let our stores compete against that and drop margins just because we're going to do a great job and hold ourselves accountable and make the margin that we deserve to make.

And we're going to count on the FTC to do their job and hold people who aren't doing the right thing accountable. And that's an important piece of this puzzle so that we put that behind us, and we once and for all get rid of the transparent pricing discussion with our industry and just move on. It's time for that to happen, couldn't be more supportive of it. And all -- the whole world needs to play ball the same way. But we're not giving our margin up because of that. That's just not happening.

We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to David Smith for closing comments.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, everyone. We will speak to you next quarter.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.

Good morning, and welcome to the Sonic Automotive Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. This conference call is being recorded today, Thursday, July 30, 2026. Presentation materials, which accompany management's discussion on the conference call can be accessed at the company's website at ir.sonicautomotive.com.

At this time, I would like to refer to the safe harbor statement under the Private Securities and Litigation Reform Act of 1995. During this conference call, management may discuss financial projections, information or expectations about the company's products or market or otherwise make statements about the future.

Such statements are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In addition, management may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please refer to the non-GAAP reconciliation tables in the company's current report on Form 8-K filed with Securities and Exchange Commission earlier today.

I would now like to introduce Mr. David Smith, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sonic Automotive. Mr. Smith, you may begin.

Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sonic Automotive's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. As she said, I'm David Smith, the company's Chairman and CEO.

Joining me on today's call is our President, Jeff Dyke; our CFO, Heath Byrd; our EchoPark Chief Operating Officer, Tim Keen; our VP of Investor Relations, Danny Wieland.

I would like to begin by thanking our outstanding teammates for their continued commitment to delivering a world-class guest experience. The strength of our relationships with our teammates, our guests, our manufacturer partners and lending partners remains central to our long-term success, and we appreciate their continued support of the Sonic Automotive team.

Earlier this morning, Sonic Automotive reported second quarter financial results, including record second quarter total revenues of $3.9 billion, an increase of 8% from the prior year period and all-time record quarterly gross profit of $616.2 million, up 2% year-over-year.

Second quarter reported GAAP EPS was $1.79 per diluted share. Excluding the effect of certain adjustments detailed in our press release this morning, non-GAAP adjusted EPS for the second quarter was $1.82 per diluted share.

Beginning with our franchised dealership segment, our stores performed well despite difficult year-over-year comparisons as a result of pre-tariff consumer demand pull forward during the second quarter of 2025.

Reported revenues increased 6% to $3.3 billion, while same-store revenues increased 2% year-over-year. Reported franchise dealership segment gross profit increased 1%, while same-store gross profit decreased 3%.

Halfway through the year, new vehicle gross profit per unit is tracking above the high end of our full year guidance range of $2,700 to $3,000 per unit.

As a result, we have increased our full year new GPU guidance to $2,850 to $3,000 per unit, implying lower downside risk despite potential GPU compression in the third and fourth quarters as a result of ongoing tariff-driven affordability challenges.

Second quarter reported new vehicle GPU was $3,024, down 11% year-over-year, and same-store new vehicle GPU was $2,872, down 16% year-over-year, driven primarily by higher GPUs in the prior year period as a result of pre-tariff consumer demand. Same-store new vehicle unit volume was flat year-over-year, in line with industry trends.

Year-to-date, used vehicle gross profit per unit is also tracking at the high end of our previously communicated full year guidance range of $1,350 to $1,450. Second quarter reported used vehicle GPU was $1,399, down 12% and same-store used vehicle GPU was $1,401, down 13%.

Same-store retail used vehicle volume increased 7%, driven by improving used vehicle supply and our strategic focus on increasing used vehicle volume throughput as we progress toward our long-term objective of retailing an average of 100 used retail units per dealership per month, representing approximately 25% organic volume growth potential from current levels.

We believe second half used GPU may be lower than the first half of 2026 as we focus on volume throughput and total gross profit generation.

Fixed operations remains a source of stable and recurring earnings with reported gross profit increasing 6% to an all-time quarterly record of $263.8 million.

On a same-store basis, fixed operations gross profit increased 2%, driven by a 1% increase in customer pay gross profit and a 3% increase in warranty gross profit. We believe that continued affordability challenges may lead consumers to repair their current vehicles rather than replace them with newer ones.

To capitalize on this potential tailwind, we are continuing to implement value pricing service offerings and service-based marketing strategies to drive share gains and support our guidance for mid-single-digit percentage growth in same-store fixed operations gross profit for the full year.

F&I continued to make a very meaningful contribution to our results with reported franchise dealerships F&I gross profit increasing 2% to a second quarter record of $147.9 million, while same-store F&I gross profit decreased 1%, driven by a 4% decrease in same-store F&I per unit.

Fixed operations and F&I continue to provide a stable foundation for our business, representing more than 75% of total gross profit during the second quarter. The strength of these higher-margin businesses helped offset declines in new vehicle GPU and supported the overall profitability of our franchise dealership segment.

Turning now to EchoPark. Second quarter revenues increased 15% to $582.9 million and segment gross profit increased 4% to a second quarter record of $64.3 million.

EchoPark retail used volume well outpaced the broader industry, increasing 17% to 19,601 units reflecting continued consumer demand for our strategic value proposition, improvement in non-auction sourcing mix and strong execution by our teammates to continue to deliver an outstanding guest experience.

EchoPark total gross profit per unit was $3,292, down 12% year-over-year, driven by a 21% decrease in used vehicle front GPU to $328 and an 11% decrease in F&I gross profit per unit to $2,965. Used vehicle GPU was stable sequentially, benefiting from our increased mix of non-auction inventory.

The sequential reduction in F&I gross profit per unit reflected lower service contract penetration and lower gross profit per service contract, due in part to a greater mix of battery electric and higher mileage vehicles, which carried lower warranty penetration rates and profit per contract.

As we have improved our mix of non-auction sourced inventory and shifted our inventory mix to provide more affordable, higher mileage vehicles to consumers, it has put some pressure on our F&I GPU, while benefiting volume, consumer reach and overall gross profit levels.

Going forward, we remain focused on optimizing vehicle sourcing and inventory mix, vehicle pricing and F&I product offerings to drive targeted levels of total GPU in the $3,100 to $3,300 per unit range for full year 2026 along with 12% to 15% used retail unit volume growth.

EchoPark segment income was $7.2 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $13.9 million, tracking within our full year guidance of $35 million to $40 million in adjusted EBITDA.

Included in this guidance is $8 million to $12 million in incremental brand marketing expense in the fourth quarter, which we believe will support new market expansion and organic volume growth in our existing EchoPark markets. We expect to open 1 new EchoPark location in the Orlando market in the fourth quarter and 2 to 4 new EchoPark locations in 2027.

Turning now to our Powersports segment. Revenues increased 53% to a second quarter record $73.5 million and gross profit increased 57% to a second quarter record $19.7 million.

On a same-store basis, Powersports revenues and gross profit each increased 13% year-over-year. Reported new retail unit volume increased 27%, while reported used retail unit volume increased 61%.

On a same-store basis, Powersports new retail unit volume increased 3% and used retail unit volume increased 19%.

Powersports reported F&I revenue increased 75% year-over-year to $3.5 million with total F&I per unit up 27% to $1,125. Same-store F&I revenue increased 20%, while same-store F&I per unit increased 12%.

Powersports segment income increased to $2.3 million from breakeven in the prior year period, and adjusted EBITDA increased 145% to $4.9 million.

Our recently acquired Harley-Davidson dealerships in California, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina contributed to the segment's growth and expanded our presence in several important riding markets. These locations also improve the geographic and seasonal diversification of our Powersports portfolio as evidenced by the increase in second quarter adjusted EBITDA year-over-year.

Despite limited Sonic playbook integration to date, these stores are already seeing returns above our expectations. This gives credence to our commitment to growing and sustaining our Powersports growth strategy.

We are also gearing up for the 86th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle rally starting August 7, where we expect another strong opportunity to showcase the benefits of our expanded footprint and capitalize on one of the industry's largest retail events.

Finally, turning to our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with approximately $676 million of total available liquidity resources, including approximately $294 million of cash and floor plan deposits.

Our liquidity position and balance sheet capacity provide us with the flexibility to support our existing businesses, make targeted organic investments, pursue strategic acquisition opportunities and return capital to stockholders.

As we continue to execute our balanced capital allocation strategy, I'm pleased to announce that our Board of Directors approved a cash dividend of $0.41 per share payable on October 15, 2026, for current shareholders as of September 15, 2026.

We will continue to evaluate potential uses of capital based on available acquisition opportunities, relative financial returns, strategic fit and prevailing market conditions.

Our team remains focused on delivering an exceptional guest experience, while executing our long-term strategy across all 3 operating segments and making disciplined decisions designed to enhance long-term shareholder value.

This concludes our opening remarks, and we look forward to answering any questions you have. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Jeff Lick with Stephens.

I wanted to ask about your new business. I mean, you did outperform now that we've seen everyone report, you're really the only one that kind of match the market. I'm curious just to get your thoughts on why you think that is? And then maybe if you could build on it, not only did you match the market and outperform your peers in new, but you did so in used and that your used comp is actually better than your new comp and used units was better than new units. So if you could maybe speak to what -- why you're able to do that and what you're seeing and what might be different for you?

Yes. I mean, I don't know based on brand mix, what the differences might be. I think we're a little more aggressive on our margins. We've been saying that, there's going to be a margin stretch coming into the second half of the year. We pay real close attention to our day supply and making sure that we're turning inventory.

So I think we were pretty darn aggressive from a margin perspective, and that helped grow the volume and really support our big F&I numbers. We strategically have higher F&I PURs, I think, than most of the rest of the group. And so when you combine that with the front end, it's a little lower in our higher F&I margins.

The total gross dollars were in line with our expectations, and we really drove a great quarter, both from a new and a pre-owned perspective with that strategy.

And then just follow-up or a shift gears to EchoPark. You made some tweaks, took the units up, GPU -- total GPU down. It's a combination of the vehicle and the finance F&I. Just any details there? And then on advertising, you took that down by $8 million, which I guess effectively means you took your EchoPark guidance down by $8 million. My question there is, if you were a private company, would you still take the advertising down?

That's interesting. Yes, we're not -- this is David. We don't make decisions like that. We're doing what's best for our business long term. I guess, that's the easy answer, but...

Yes. And it would have to do private or public. It has to do more with scheduling, getting it right before we take it out. It's a scheduling issue as well from a timing perspective.

And then the margin mix was driven basically by inventory mix. Tim can comment more, but we sold more EVs and CCARs. We're working on back-end products for that, but drove great volume, up 17% for the quarter. And if you take a look at July, we're running north of 20% growth, north of 25% growth for July, which is fantastic. So all of this is kind of what we said, we'd do as we began the year and work towards opening -- beginning to open stores again.

The volume is coming back. We've got really strong back-end numbers even at the numbers that we're doing now with the mix change. And we'll have some new F&I products for BEV and for CCARs that will help that. But we'll stabilize in that $3,100 to $3,300 range, but that we're going to sell more cars, and we're proving that now. So all speed ahead from an EchoPark perspective. We're super excited about the business.

And with affordability issues that we see on new, I mean, we've crested $60,000, $61,000 close to from a new car price perspective. The industry is at $50,000. Our used car pricing is less than half of what a new car price is from an EchoPark perspective. That really bodes well for EchoPark over the next 12 to 18 months. It's going to be a lot of fun to watch this brand grow.

So I guess to sum it up then, if you look at the advertising guidance or the budget coming down, it maybe looks like what you're saying is, look, volume really isn't our issue given what you're observing. So maybe we don't need to spend $20 million in advertising and maybe we just need to spend a little more time kind of fine-tuning the GPU.

Two separate things. We would expect the advertising that we're going to -- it's a timing issue. That's it. And we expect that advertising when we get to the fourth quarter to even add more to what we're doing now.

So that opportunity was there all along. We were being very conservative, making sure that our EBITDA was where it needed to be and just being conservative with EchoPark. The volume, if you remember, pre-COVID, we were selling 500-plus cars of rooftop a month. So -- and now we're doing in the 350 range.

We've got a lot of upside opportunity in the current stores that we have. And it's just turn a little lever here and there or pull a lever here and there, and we can push our volume up drastically. So -- that's going to happen. You see some of our competitors doing that. And we look forward to a great second half of the year with EchoPark.

We're going to see nice growth. And we're seeing it in July. And as we launch our new advertising campaign, which is really going to be special, the world is going to have a lot of fun with that. We expect to see even higher growth and build on margin from that point forward.

And Jeff, this is Heath. Just to be clear, we still have our initial branding budget is $20 million. To Jeff's point, it's just timing.

Did you put Danny in some of those EchoPark ads?

You just never know. You never know what we are going to do.

It would be fantastic. Yes, this is David. I would just add that it is part of our plan. We'll have more to announce hopefully in the near future about our marketing branding plan for EchoPark. But we can tell you, anecdotally, like our naming rights deal at EchoPark Speedway, when the customers -- the awareness that, that has generated, once customers hear about EchoPark and they see our view again, we've got the #1 guest experience in the industry. And when they see that, see the volume in our land store, for example, double a huge impact. So we know that, again, we'll have further things to announce soon, but we're excited about it.

And maybe one more final point. This is Danny. One final point on that is with the timing, we had our marketing team very much taking a data-driven approach to how we deploy this incremental brand spend.

And with the shift in the way consumers are shopping, we had some back-end work to do related to our websites in terms of being answer engine optimized for the portion of buyers that are searching via AI tools.

We don't want to go out with that significant amount of brand spend, at least to our segment results without being prepared to capitalize on it in the way that the consumers are currently shopping.

So there was some front-end work, and that's what shifted the timing further back in the year from what we told you $10 million to $20 million back in February.

Our next question is from Alex Perry with Bank of America.

I guess just a follow-up on EchoPark. You spoke a bit about the share gains, and it's been great to see. I guess, how are you gaining market share there versus some of your used-only peers? Is something changed around the pricing strategy? You mentioned some shifts in the advertising strategy. And should we expect those share gains to continue?

Yes. This is Tim Keen. Really, the only shift was carrying more inventory and being conscious of us being in a value position with cheaper inventory, which is what drove our mix change. And allowed us to drive the volume.

And this is Jeff. As we set up against the new car pricing that's out there right now and this affordability issue continues, you're going to see used car growth really, really go. And we're getting back now to used car pricing being 1/2 that of the new car price that's out there. That's when the used car business really fires. And that's what's happening.

It's happening naturally, and we're forcing it even more from an EchoPark perspective. When you combine all that, it's just amazing the energy you get from a volume perspective. And -- we're seeing that. I think you saw it at a couple of other competitors and then some others had made some comments about going for gross. I don't understand that a little bit right now from a PR perspective because inventory is coming back off-lease cars are coming.

You got a lot of off-lease BEV cars in the market where the manufacturers kind of absorb some of the depreciation. We're taking advantage of that. Just missed out a little bit on back-end products with that. I think, BEV was 15% or almost 15% of our overall volume in the second quarter at EchoPark. That's way up from what it normally was running.

And so we took advantage of that, had a bigger reach for our customer base, expanded our customer base. And now we said, we need to add some products for BEV. We'll do that. But very, very focused on our pricing and the level of inventory we're carrying. And when you combine all that, it just -- it's amazing what's happening. And it's going to continue to happen through the rest of the year. Like I said, if you look at July, we're having a blast and we're plus 25% to last year or something like that right now.

And one more point on that auction sourcing mix. In the first quarter, we were 32% non-auction sourced. We were up 10 full points to 42% of our sales were non-auction sourced during the second quarter. So significant gains there.

And to Jeff's point, the way that we're attacking that with the non-auction mix is going to what consumers are looking for from higher mileage, more affordable vehicles, EVs, off-lease and used EVs are very hot right now. Both of those were growing 40% to 60% quarter-over-quarter in terms of their share of EchoPark's mix.

So it's -- we've got to fine-tune a little bit the F&I component and the relative GPUs, but it's supporting the volume and it's supporting growth of the awareness of EchoPark brand and the reach that we have.

That's all really, really helpful. I guess, just a follow-up on parts and service. So the same-store comps, I guess, moderated a bit against fairly difficult compares, pretty consistent with what we've seen across the peer group. Is there anything structural driving that moderation? What supports a return to sort of mid-single-digit growth?

And then do you think there's an affordability challenge out there in parts and service where pricing sort of needs to come down at all? Or do you think it was more of a one-off thing?

No, I think that there 100% is a pricing issue. I mean when you think about it, customers who buy new cars as an industry average, only half of them are coming back to new car dealers to service their cars.

The opportunity in fixed operations is huge. And that's why we're focused on value pricing. We've got 5 op codes right now per store that we're really focused on from a value pricing perspective. That's going to grow.

We need to get our pricing in line as an industry from a fixed operations perspective, and we're working really hard on that. But we -- there is an affordability issue there. And there's an affordability issue on the price of a new car. And when you add all that together, that's why I think you see some wobblness in fixed operations growth and growing only 2%.

There's way more there, way more meat on the bone, and that's a huge focus for us as we move forward. And if customers are going to stay in cars longer, I mean, the average customer is financing their car, 70% of our customers are financing their car for 72 months or longer. So if that's going to be the case and customers are going to drive new cars longer, there's going to be a huge upside to -- from a fixed operations perspective.

We've got to get our costs and our pricing in line for our customers to bring more customers into the service driver. We are absolutely focused on doing that. We've increased the number of days that we have. We've increased the number of technicians we have.

And quite honestly, the numbers that we're seeing out there is not good enough. There's a wobble in the second quarter. I'm not sure, if it's the war, what's causing it. But just across the board, low single-digit numbers in fixed operations is not acceptable. We need to be mid- to upper single digit and maybe even double-digit growth as we go forward, and it's something we're very, very focused on. It's a great question.

Our next question is from Chris Pierce with Needham & Company.

At EchoPark, can you carry this much inventory? I guess days of sale was up, I think, 15% year-over-year. Is the pricing environment, does that help you carry this inventory? Or is it more your updated sourcing? Like is this sort of a new normal? Or does the environment play a role in kind of what we saw in 2Q from inventory and unit growth?

Yes. It's really both, and it's sustainable going forward for sure.

Yes. Your day supply is high, a little higher than normal right now, but we saw an opportunity to buy more cars off the street. We're selling more cars. As you can see, we're having a big old July. We expect that to carry on for the rest of the year.

Day supply is going to drop as we move into September and October. That's just normal seasonality. But we told you earlier, we pushed inventory up because we know there's some opportunities from a volume perspective, and we've done that and just great opportunity for us to grow.

Yes. This is David. I think it's important to note that, our existing footprint of EchoPark stores, we have a lot more capacity that we can sell out of those existing stores. I mean, there's -- it's close to double what we're selling now. So the room that we have and how we're built, and we have some salespeople that are selling 50 cars a month individually.

Okay. And then there's more BEVs coming off lease for the next multiple years. Should we think about -- and I think Danny said this stat that only 16% of EchoPark is EV. I mean, should this sort of be a new sort of normal for F&I? I know you kind of guided where you guided, but the figure we saw in 2Q, could it -- is it possible it could move lower as more EV comes online? Like what's the right way to think about that?

From a margin perspective?

Yes, from F&I retail dollars per vehicle.

Yes. No. I mean, we're kind of in the ballpark where we'll be. I don't think it goes any lower. It could go higher because we're working on products to add that we can sell on that particular type of vehicle. So I don't expect it to go any lower. No, no, no. Go ahead.

I think, you're not as familiar with selling so many EVs, so attach might be artificially low in like this beginning period. Is that sort of a realistic expectation?

Yes. I think the industry is that way. We've got a lot of off-lease bets coming back now. Manufacturers have done a great job absorbing some of that depreciation. We're going to see that, until I think the end of next year when it kind of maybe levels off or the middle of the following, when you won't have -- we don't have as many bets being sold now, obviously. So there's going to be an up and then a down.

But then we have more off-lease cars coming back from a combustion perspective. So that -- and a hybrid perspective. So that will be a big help and a big boost. It's going to be good for the used car business over the next couple of years, I think from a lease return perspective. And we'll work out the margin with products on the back end. It just -- we sold more this quarter, and we'll sell more in the coming quarters, and we'll add some F&I products to support that.

And some of it on the F&I on the warrants attached with BEVs is a little bit of a disconnect in our sales approach historically with more hybrid and ICE-based unit volume at EchoPark as well as consumer perception that EVs have less repair risk or less repair cost. And in fact, we're actually seeing that EVs are the highest dollars per repair on average in the industry.

Some of that's because it's new technology, some of it because you've got more wholesale replacement of parts as opposed to individual components. But there's a bit of an opportunity to just educate the consumer too when you look at some of the data on EV maintenance and repair costs relative to hybrid and ICE that it's not quite as low cost as it seems at least for the interim.

Okay. And then just lastly, does get a reaction to Jeff's question, you kind of kind of stop at this one, too. But I'm just kind of curious, you're growing 17%, 25% in July with no advertising. You've got easy comps in the second half. Like why push that button now? Why not push the store opening button or why not just kind of let it run through until you need to hit the gas on that?

We're going to do both because we can grow even more and we can grow margin. The more our guests know who we are, EchoPark are unknown. in the markets that we do business in. And so we think there's a margin play there for us, a front-end margin play. And we've got a lot more volume to get. It's there for us to go get.

And we can back off if we need to, if we see -- we've made the investment and it's not coming. But we're -- we've worked really hard to get this brand ready to roll. As David said earlier, our guest experience is unmatched. And we're very excited about that opportunity. We're going to start growing and grow the brand. We've made that commitment.

We've been telling you all that this is coming for a better part of a year now. And we're ready. We're healthy. We're ready to go. We're in shape, and we'll see -- I'm not stopping at it, but I'm very excited about it.

And to David's earlier point, I just want to reiterate because I think it's really important. We objectively have the best experience. We objectively have the lowest cost and for the same or better quality of vehicle. The only thing we're missing is you don't know about us. If you know about us, those are the 3 things that customers are looking for and the brand is going to create that awareness.

It's not a quarterly play for us. That's just not how we look at this business. We're not trying to bump numbers one quarter after another. It's a long-term educated, seasoned executive team, and we're going to take that and put that to work for us over time. And we've been building and investing in EchoPark for a long time, and it's now time to grow.

Our next question is from Bret Jordan with Jefferies.

This is Patrick Buckley on for Bret. As you look across your segments today, where are you seeing the best valuations and opportunity for investments? Powersports seem to be the primary M&A focus this quarter, but how does that pipeline compare to franchise vehicles?

This is David. It's really fantastic because of our team and what a great job we've been doing with the market share and guest experience, and we're agreeing with our manufacturers. So we're seeing more opportunities than ever to grow and both in franchise and in the Powersports.

Certainly, the valuations in Powersports are very interesting, very compelling. and we're super excited about the performance of our Powersports team. And so we're -- I think we'll be hopefully announcing some things here in the coming quarters. And -- but there's no shortage of really fantastic high-quality opportunities, both in Powersports and franchise.

Yes. This is Jeff. The most I've seen in my career, it's amazing from a franchise and Powersports perspective, the opportunities that are out there and great quality deals, great brands and brands that we excel in. And so we're working on a lot of them right now. And as David said, stay tuned because there are more opportunities coming.

This is Heath. A couple of interesting things. If you look at Powersports, they traded at a different multiple, a smaller multiple than the franchise and there's so much opportunity. We said at the beginning how we could change the used business in Powersports and fixed ops, and it's great seeing that it's working just like we thought. And the F&I piece, we have a ton of opportunity. There are competitors that are double our F&I GPU.

So that is becoming a really -- you get it for lower multiples, and there's a lot more opportunity for improvement. So that's fantastic. But the beautiful thing about Sonic is the diversification.

To your point, we've got opportunities in the franchise. We've got unlimited growth opportunities with EchoPark. And now that we've sort of formalized our playbooks in Powersports, that is a very attractive segment to grow in as well. And I think our diversification is something that's very attractive.

Got it. Very helpful. And then on the franchise vehicle side, were there any notable regional call-outs this quarter?

No. There's nothing. I mean it's smooth operation. Everything was fine. I mean, the big thing is affordability, like I said earlier, 1 in 5 customer payments now are above $1,000 a monthly payment, approaching $800 a month of monthly payment on a new car as an industry. This is just too high. And so something has got to give here.

In the meantime, we'll take it. We'll sell a lot of used cars and enjoy the 16 SAAR that's out there. But the big surprise continues to be what the tariffs have done to affordability kind of across the board. And I think at some point, we're going to have to address -- the industry is going to have to address it. The manufacturers are going to have to address it. The cars are getting too expensive.

Our next question is from Rajat Gupta from JPMorgan.

I wanted to follow up on parts and service. We've seen some slowing in the growth rates, even some negative gross profit growth from some of your peers. I understand, like warranty comps got tougher this quarter.

But I'm curious, like if anything has shifted more recently in the market backdrop in general, either be it affordability or just the car park shifting. It just seems a little sudden in terms of the shift in growth there. And to your point, like you're still guiding to mid-single-digit growth for the year. So just curious like what's going to drive the acceleration in the second half for your fixed cost as well?

Thanks, Rajat. We're staying aggressive on our pricing. And hopefully, that's going to drive more and more RO count and customers through our service drive. I agree with you. If you look just across the board at the industry and everybody has reported, there's a wobble in fixed in Q2, and it really makes no sense. It shouldn't be that way. And so I think there's tons of opportunity in the car park that's out there.

We are focused on mid-single-digit to upper single-digit growth. And anything less than that, like I said earlier, is just not acceptable. There's just too much opportunity. This something happened. And I don't -- I can't tell you that it was the news and the war or gas prices really fluctuating all over the place that could be a player. But the overall opportunity has not changed. It's big.

Warranty comes and goes. It's actually can be detrimental to a service department, if you have too much warranty because the service providers pay attention to that, it's easy money and they don't sell and do the job they need to do from a customer pay perspective.

So it's something we're very focused on in our service drives, very focused on putting the right offers out there and keeping our cost down so that there's plenty of margin there, so we can bring our customers in, and they're not going to the mom-and-pop service centers all over towns.

And so it's a big focus for us. But to put my finger on one individual thing, I think you've heard it from everybody, there's just not -- it's just not there.

Yes, I think it's important to note, Rajat, this is David, that our marketing team, we're also taking steps to reach out to both our existing customers and potential new customers to change the perception that the franchise dealer has higher pricing. And as we're adjusting our pricing, I think it's key to make sure that the people know it. And so we're taking those steps to drive our business.

One more point, this is Danny. I mean, we're getting to the point where our average vehicle coming through our service lanes is about 5 years old. mid-26 is with the 5-year lapping of the sudden decline in new vehicle SAAR that we saw starting in May, June of 2021. You ran a 13.7 million SAAR kind of for that period, then it jumped up in the mid-14s, and jump back up into the 15s.

So not attributing that necessarily to what we've seen in the slowdown. But as we look ahead, that car park that's in its return to dealer service life is going to continue to grow over the next 2 to 3 years. And so some of the things strategically with pricing and marketing that we're doing should help us get back to that mid-single-digit growth rate as we go forward, notwithstanding whatever happens with the warranty tailwinds.

Understood. That's great color. And then just following up on EchoPark. Yes, the mix headwinds is understood very well with respect to the impact. But there was no like price actions that you had to take, right, to drive the growth. It was just pure mix. And I just want to clarify that.

We're already cheap enough, Rajat. We didn't need to take any price action. None whatsoever. A little mix change there, but no.

And the FTC guidelines, which has led to a lot of like independent dealers who just raise their prices, add the full fee. Has that had any kind of impact to your traffic, to your conversion? I'm just curious, if there was any benefit or not to the business from that.

This is Heath. From my perspective, I do believe that the only thing that changed because we're compliant and we'll maintain that. The only thing that's unique. certain markets, some dealers may not be compliant. So it impacts our ability to compete on a price perspective.

And so we're hoping that the FTC will stand behind this and ensure that everyone is compliant, and we'll follow up on the whistleblowers that are identifying these that are not. But that's the biggest change. If everyone was on and compliant, it's business as usual in certain markets where you've got competitors that are not fully compliant. And at least for now, it doesn't appear that the FTC has followed up on those individuals.

Understood. But you didn't have any like pricing benefit because some of the independents, they raised prices, like did it give you an ability to maybe capture some price competitive either way.

No, the opposite happened. We're in compliance, but like Heath was saying, there's a lot of dealers out there that are not. And they're still advertising one thing. And then when you get to the store, it's a different price. And that's not in line with the FTC rules, and that's causing some wobbling.

But now the third-party lead providers are making adjustments, and that's a big deal because if they're not going to lay advertising, they're going to hold you accountable, then everybody's got to play by the same rules. And that's going to all work itself out over what I would think would be the remainder of this year. So you might have a little bit of noise. But overall, it didn't affect our business at Sonic.

Our next question is from John Babcock with Barclays.

I guess just quickly following up on the parts and service side of things. As you're trying to chase some of that next opportunity, do you think there's going to have any impact on margins? Or -- and if not, or if it does, I guess, actually, are there opportunities, I guess, for you to kind of take out costs to kind of keep these parts and service margins as strong as they are?

This is Jeff. No, I don't think it's going to have any impact on margin. I think we're going to continue -- there's just so much opportunity out there because so much of the car park doesn't come back to a new car dealer because -- as David was saying earlier, they really don't understand our pricing, the great technology, the great technicians, we're getting that word out. That's going to drive more customers to our service drives. And I'm not expecting any margin erosion. I'm expecting a lot of gross growth.

And I think, as long as customers are going to stay in cars longer, which is all the indications are that that's beginning to happen, then our fixed operations business should skyrocket. There should be a lot of opportunity there for us to continue to grow and not have what we saw happening across the industry in the second quarter. I think, we'll all adjust to that and continue our normalized growth.

And this is Heath. Just one add there is I do believe there's an opportunity to take out expense in fixed costs. With some of the AI development that we're doing, that's one of our main areas that we think can create efficiency and faster throughput, which will give us the ability to service more, make more gross and take cost out of it.

I guess, next question I had, one of your peers is trialing out virtual F&I. I was just curious, is that something you guys have looked at? Is it something that is interesting? Is it difficult to execute? Any color on that would be helpful.

We're not looking at it or haven't. I get the idea, we're watching them. We're -- when you look at our GPU for F&I, it's amongst 1 or 2 in terms of our performance. We're very happy with that performance. If there's some major cost savings there. Group 1 is working on that, and we'll let them lead the charge there.

There was a group out of Brazil once that does this that we visited with that does all their F&I really out of one office. So maybe there's some opportunity there. It's an idea. It's been around for a little bit. A lot of other things we're focused on and areas where we can take expense out of this business. And we do such a good job in F&I.

We don't need a wobble there right now. That's one of our Star Wars that in our fixed operations business. And what we've been able to show now in terms of our growth -- our ability to grow the volume, I'll let somebody else be first there. And if there's an opportunity, we can certainly jump on the bandwagon.

Okay. And then just one more for you on the EchoPark side of things, just to fill up the whole cup here. Just it does sound like you adjusted the cadence of store openings a little bit. How much of that is related to just generally getting the construction work done and getting the site ready versus maybe demand or also your view on inventory build? Any thoughts there to share?

Sure. This is Tim Keen. It's 100% driven by timing of construction. 12 months back.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Rob Saltzman with UBS.

Your peers have been highlighting difficulties in sourcing used vehicles over the course of Q2. Have you been experiencing similar difficulties like competitiveness within the auction channel? And if so, like how are you working around it? Nice to see the increase in customer sourced vehicles, but any details around that competitive environment on the sourcing side would be super helpful.

This is Jeff. I don't think it's any more competitive than it has been in the last 4 or 5 quarters. I mean it's super competitive in the auction land, you're paying up when you buy cars there. So I need to trade for more, buy more cars out of your service drives. We're doing that, do a better job of sharing inventory between the companies, buying cars out of our buy centers that we're working on across the country. And you're seeing that effort as our percentage of cars off the street are growing and buy cars are growing versus auction cars.

But I don't see it being any more competitive. What I do see is a lot more off-lease cars from a BEV perspective are coming back, which is great. And more off-lease cars are going to start coming back as we move out of this year and into next year. So inventory abundance, that's probably too strong of a word. More inventory is going to be available for us as we move forward.

And I think that's why you're seeing some that really understand the pre-owned business start to really grow, and you're seeing those double-digit growth or high single-digit growth because there is more inventory available out there, and we can go get it. And that's making a big difference there.

And just one follow-up for me. How can you address the parts and service price competitiveness perception -- is there an opportunity in your view for the OEMs to offer lower-priced replacement parts, make your guys' job easier? I know Ford has been out there saying that, that's an opportunity for them. So is that something you're working on? How do you change that price competitiveness perception in the service space?

This is Jeff. 100% we are. And it's not just the manufacturer, I want to make that straight. They need to do a better job in keeping their costs in line from a cost -- from a parts perspective. But also we as retailers and in particular, our stores need to do a great job of understanding the pricing that's going on within the marketplace.

AI is allowing us to do that, and we're spending a lot of time and energy driving more information into our dealerships hands so that we make great pricing decisions on a daily basis with fixed operations items that we're selling in our stores. So that's an important function and something that we're paying a lot of attention to.

Then as David said earlier, we've got to market that. We have to educate the consumer that, wow, we do have these amazing facilities. They're not rat traps. We've got great technicians. We've got great pricing. We've got manufacturer certified trained technicians. And why would you not service your car in a dealership?

Why do 50% of the customers as an industry, why do they not come back and service their car at a dealership? It's pricing. That's the answer. And we're fixing that and then now perception. And so you've got to combine those 2 things. We're doing a much better job of that, but we'll do an even better job as we go forward.

We educate our stores. We educate ourselves on how we market that information and do exactly, as you just said, that's changing the perception that we're overpriced. And it isn't a perception. It's a fact, we are overpriced. And we're working on fixing that and driving a lot more market share into our service drive. We do a great job.

Our general managers across the industry do a great job giving cars away. But for some reason, the hours that we sell to the service department are like gold bars. And we need to do a much better job of understanding that pricing and then driving more customers into our service drive, maintaining great margin and great growth and growing the heck out of the customers.

Half of the car park out there doesn't use an auto dealership, and we need to bring them back into our stores should be 70%, 80%. If you start calculating that math and you look at the upside, it's just infinite. And so as you can tell, I'm very passionate about this topic. It's something that I'm talking to our team about ad nauseam and something that we're going to take advantage of as we move forward.

This now concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to David Smith for closing comments.

Well, thank you all for your time and your questions, and we will talk to you next quarter. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.

Good morning, and welcome to the Sonic Automotive First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. This conference call is being recorded today, Thursday, April 30, 2026. Presentation materials, which accompany management's discussion on the conference call can be accessed at the company's website at ir.sonicautomotive.com.

At this time, I would like to refer to the safe harbor statement under the Private Securities and Litigation Reform Act of 1995. During this conference call, management may discuss financial projections, information or expectations about the company's products or market or otherwise make statements about the future.

Such statements are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements made. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In addition, management may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please refer to the non-GAAP reconciliation tables in the company's current report on Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier today.

I would now like to introduce Mr. David Smith, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sonic Automotive. Mr. Smith, you may begin your conference.

Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Sonic Automotive first quarter 2026 earnings call. I'm David Smith, the company's Chairman and CEO. Joining me on today's call is our President, Mr. Jeff Dyke; our CFO, Mr. Heath Byrd; our EchoPark Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Tim Keen; and our Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Danny Wieland.

I would like to open the call by thanking our amazing teammates for continuing to deliver a world-class guest experience for our customers. It's because of our outstanding teammates that Sonic Automotive was just recognized as one of America's most trustworthy companies by Newsweek.

We believe our strong relationships with our teammates, guests and manufacturer lending partners are key to our future success. And as always, I would like to thank them all for their continued support and loyalty to the Sonic Automotive team.

Earlier this morning, Sonic Automotive reported first quarter financial results, including record first quarter total revenues of $3.7 billion, up 1% from the previous year and record first quarter total gross profit of $598.8 million, up 6% year-over-year.

First quarter reported GAAP EPS was $1.79 per share. Excluding the effect of certain items as detailed in our press release this morning, adjusted EPS for the first quarter was $1.62 per share, a 9% increase year-over-year.

Moving now to our first quarter franchised dealership segment results. We generated reported revenues of $3.1 billion, flat year-over-year and same-store revenues of $2.9 billion, down 4% year-over-year.

This same-store decrease was largely driven by a 10% decrease in new vehicle retail volume, offset partially by a 3% increase in used vehicle retail volume year-over-year.

It should be noted that first quarter new and used vehicle volume faced tough year-over-year comparisons due to the pull-forward consumer demand for vehicles in the prior year ahead of the U.S. auto import tariffs announced in March 2025.

Reported franchise total gross profit for the first quarter was up 5% and was flat year-over-year on a same-store basis. Our fixed operations gross profit and F&I gross profit set quarterly records, up 10% and 7% year-over-year, respectively, on a reported basis.

These 2 high-margin business lines continue to increase their share of our total gross profit pool, once again contributing over 75% of total gross profit for the first quarter, mitigating the potential headwinds to new vehicle volume and margin to our overall profitability while also leveraging our SG&A expenses more efficiently than incremental vehicle-related gross profit.

Same-store new vehicle GPU was $3,002 per unit, down 4% year-over-year. On a reported basis, new vehicle GPU was $3,144 per unit, up 2% year-over-year. On the used vehicle side of the franchise business, same-store used GPU decreased 4% year-over-year to $1,533 per unit, but increased 11% sequentially due to typical seasonality in the used car business.

Our F&I performance continues to be a strength with first quarter record reported franchise F&I GPU of $2,670 per unit, up 9% year-over-year and up 2% sequentially.

Turning now to EchoPark. Adjusted segment income was an all-time record $12.6 million, up 25% year-over-year. And adjusted EBITDA was an all-time record $18.6 million, up 18% year-over-year. For the first quarter, we reported EchoPark revenues of $581 million, up 4% year-over-year and all-time record gross profit of $68 million, up 6% year-over-year.

EchoPark segment retail unit sales volume for the quarter increased 3% year-over-year. And EchoPark segment total GPU was a first quarter record $3,502 per unit, up 3% per unit year-over-year and up 2% sequentially from the fourth quarter.

With momentum on our side, we believe we are well positioned to resume a disciplined cadence of EchoPark store openings beginning in late 2026, while also initiating targeted investment in brand marketing as a key component of our long-term growth strategy.

We expect to begin funding these brand marketing efforts this year, potentially increasing advertising expenses by $10 million to $20 million, with the majority of that investment occurring in the second half.

Turning now to our Powersports segment. We generated first quarter record revenues of $41 million, up 19% year-over-year. First quarter record gross profit of $10 million, up 19% year-over-year.

First quarter combined new and used retail volume was up 25% year-over-year. And we are beginning to see the benefits of our investment in modernizing the Powersports business and the future growth opportunities it may provide.

We also welcome our new team members from Space Coast Harley-Davidson, Treasure Coast Harley-Davidson, Falcons Fury, Harley-Davidson, Raging Bull Harley-Davidson, and San Diego Harley-Davidson. The acquisition of these 5 dealerships provides us coverage in key riding states of California, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.

This acquisition further reaffirms our commitment to strategic growth within the Powersports segment and diversifies our geographic footprint and seasonality.

Finally, turning to our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $770 million in available liquidity, including $381 million in combined cash and floor plan deposits on hand. Our focus on maintaining a strong balance sheet and liquidity position allows us to strategically deploy capital in a variety of ways to deliver value to our shareholders.

During the first quarter, we repurchased approximately 2.1 million shares of our common stock for approximately $136 million, representing a 6% decrease in outstanding share count from December 31, 2025.

In addition, I'm pleased to report today that our Board of Directors approved an additional $500 million share repurchase authorization and an 8% increase to the quarterly cash dividend to $0.41 per share payable on July 15, 2026, to all stockholders of record on June 15, 2026.

We continue to work closely with our manufacturer partners to understand the potential impact of tariffs on vehicle production, pricing and volume forecasts, vehicle affordability and consumer demand going forward.

The full year 2026 outlook and guidance on Page 13 of our investor presentation considers these uncertainties and represents our current expectations for 2026 financial results.

As always, our team remains focused on executing our strategy and adapting to ongoing changes in the automotive retail environment while making strategic decisions to maximize long-term returns.

This concludes our opening remarks. And we look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Jeff Lick with Stephens Inc.

I was curious if you can just talk a little bit about EchoPark. It appears that you're having some success there. Now you're talking about being optimistic about opening some new stores. I'm curious is there anything about this particular environment where, obviously, supply is pretty tight, it seems like used demand might be a little higher than new demand. Anything about this environment that plays into EchoPark's business model? And then what is it that gives you confidence to open new stores?

This is Jeff Dyke. On a same-store basis, new car prices were over $60,000 in the first quarter. That's an all-time high for the first quarter. Our total store is over $61,000. So with the appreciation or the increase in new car pricing, it's making affordability a big, big issue. And that is going to give -- put wind in the sale for pre-owned. So it gives us a lot of confidence.

We also are buying a lot more cars as a percentage of our overall business off the street, both on the franchise side and EchoPark. I believe we approached in the 40% range in the first quarter. And so that makes a big difference. The margins are better. We're selling more cars. We have access to inventory. We're growing. We're executing at a high level.

And so it gives us a lot of confidence as we move into Q2 to see the same kind of growth or even better for EchoPark on a year-over-year basis. And we're seeing it on the franchise side, too, maybe as a percentage growth, not quite to the extent, but in Q2, but the business is real strong. And it's being driven by just amazingly high new car pricing in the marketplace.

And this is Heath. Let me add one point. I think it's really important to understand the value of us getting the non-auction sourcing and the team has done a great job. Keep in mind, when we started, we were 90% auction and 10% other sources.

And now as Jeff mentioned, we're 40%. And those vehicles make $1,200, give or take, more in GPU than the auction vehicles. So that's been a big driver. The team has found ways to source vehicles in multiple ways rather than the auction. That's a big, big part of it.

And can you talk a little bit about -- I know you've somewhat integrated or tried to use your franchise dealerships as a strategic asset for EchoPark. And it's notable that you did a positive same-store sales and franchise for used as well. Can you maybe just talk about kind of the symbiotic relationship between those 2 and how you're using that to source for the entire enterprise?

Yes, it's Jeff. We've never done that before. We started here in the first quarter, really the later end of the first quarter. And so it's not that many cars yet, a few hundred overall, but it's going to grow. And we're buying nearly new cars out of the franchise side of the business, which obviously is helping the franchise -- helps the franchise side of the business, bringing those cars into EchoPark.

The margins are decent. Back-end margins are great. And we're selling the heck out of them, in particular, on the East Coast. They've been really, really strong. The Atlanta market has been really strong in this arena. And we'll continue to explore and do that with more brands.

We've been really focused on Toyota and Honda. But we'll do that with more brands as we get better at this. It's very new for us. And again, just a few hundred units would be included in those numbers that you're looking at for the quarter.

Our next question is from John Babcock with Barclays.

First question, I was wondering if you're able to quantify the impact of weather. And apologies if I missed, but whether it's an impact on overall dollars or if there's some way to estimate the impact on volumes? Any color there would be useful.

Yes. This is David Smith. And honestly, not being a smartass, but we really do not allow weather reports in our business and in our meetings and we just push through. And so we really don't focus on that at all.

Okay. Totally understand. Next question, I was wondering, are you guys seeing OEMs pull forward lease maturities? And if so is that benefiting EchoPark at this point?

100%, they're doing that, in particular around BEV. And we're seeing that on the East Coast or the West Coast and we're selling those vehicles. It's helping both the franchise side and somewhat at EchoPark. We're keeping most of those on the franchise side of the business.

And -- but definitely, the pull-aheads are helping in BMW, Mercedes. BMW has done a particular really good job with it. And we expect that to continue as we move forward, in particular around BEV because there's so many more BEV lease returns coming back here over the next -- between now and the end of the year as those leases mature.

So is it primarily happening with the luxury brands?

Yes.

Okay. Interesting. And then just last question. I was wondering if you might be able to provide some color on where you plan to open the EchoPark stores, whether it's in the same region as your existing stores or if you're planning to expand into other areas?

Our early expansion is primarily in Florida and Texas.

Our next question is from Chris Pierce with Needham & Company.

Just one on EchoPark. I know you're guiding to high single digit unit gains. I just was curious, I mean, you guys have performed better on front-end GPU, kind of talked that you performed better last year on vendor leverage, seeing healthy OpEx leverage.

But I guess I just want to understand what would be the real driver of unit growth? And again, I'm not trying to pooh-pooh high single digit unit growth in a flat market. I just want to -- and I'm also not trying to compare you to putting out 40% unit growth. But I'm just kind of curious what would be a real driver of the double digit unit gains.

It sounds like what you're doing. Yes, 40% is -- it certainly was an impressive number. Now look, at the end of the day, we're executing our playbook and our process. We sold well over 30 units per sales associate in the month of March, for example.

And we're executing, we think, at a high level. Those gains will continue through this year. That's what's given us the confidence to open more stores as we move to the end of the year and then on into '27.

And we're very comfortable with where we are, proud of our team for the growth that they have. And we look forward to that growth continuing.

And this is Heath. I'll add one of the things that would drive the unit growth is awareness. That is precisely why we're investing in the brand starting this year.

Yes. And Jeff noted before we mentioned Atlanta. We've had all-time record sales in Atlanta. And we think that a big part of that is because the market is much more aware of the EchoPark brand.

And one final point on that, this is Danny, is on the earlier point on non-auction sourcing improvements, we were up about 15% in terms of our sales in the first quarter year-over-year that were non-auction sourced. As Heath added, it's about a $1,200 better GPU on those vehicles. But it also gives us upside to grow that volume without being dependent or at risk of pricing on the wholesale auction front.

Our wholesale auction volume was actually down year-over-year in the first quarter. And some of that was strategic given the 7% wholesale auction price increases we saw in Q1, take advantage of it in the late fourth quarter.

But when pricing gets too high, we really push on this non-auction sourcing path. And that will only benefit from further investment in brand awareness and sourcing from customers as we go forward.

Can you actually -- could you please drill down on Atlanta a little bit? Like how should we think of Atlanta in terms of cohort, age of store versus Denver, marketing spend in Atlanta versus other regions and sort of just kind of give us some sort of like support themes as to what you're doing there that's driving the growth you talked about?

Yes. This is David. One of the things we did, you may have seen is that we got the naming rights for Atlanta Motor Speedway, which is now EchoPark Speedway. That's had a -- we've seen in the numbers that's been a major impact on customer awareness of the brand.

And we found since 2014 when we opened our first stores in Denver that people know about the EchoPark brand. And they searched for us. And once they experienced it and their friends experienced it, it's why we have the #1 guest experience in the industry as rated by reputation.com. That really pays off.

So we've been really focused on that. And as we said, we're going to start growing now. But we wanted to make sure we can maintain that world-class guest experience and the kind of volume that, like Jeff mentioned in March. Our teammates were able to deliver those -- we had some teammates that sold 50 or 60 cars in just the month of March and maintained that high-level guest experience. That's something that we're thinking of the future and how that's going to benefit the brand in the future.

Yes. The awareness in the Atlanta market has more than doubled since the sponsorship. And that really gave us the leg to say, okay, we need to really make some investments here from a marketing perspective, from a brand awareness. We just weren't ready till this year.

And we really spent a lot of time getting our house in order, buying more cars off the street, executing at a high level. You've seen we put quarters back to back to back to back together if you're following EchoPark closely and the growth. And that growth is going to accelerate.

And in particular, as we start opening stores, it will have the hockey stick acceleration. And we're very excited about that opportunity. But we're going to be very prudent and focused. We've done this before.

And this time, we're going to make sure that we get this absolutely right. And so we're really excited about getting some stores open towards the end of the year.

And I just wanted to highlight one more thing on this is that both Jeff and David mentioned, the fact that we have sales associates that are selling 30-plus vehicles when I would say probably 30-plus on the average per month per associate, that efficiency, the process that we have, that's one of the reasons that you see for this quarter, EchoPark's SG&A as a percent of gross was lower than 70%.

And our semi-fixed expense structure there, coupled with the processes that allow that kind of efficiency is just going to get better. And you'll see, as we've said from the beginning, that EchoPark has the ability to leverage that SG&A because of the way it's set up. It's very unique to have associates averaging that number of vehicles per month.

And Chris, one more point on the Atlanta market specifically. I guess, as maybe operational points supporting the brand awareness and the gains we've made there, our unit volume in the first quarter in Atlanta was up about 25% year-over-year and our total GPU was up $225 a car. So we're seeing more traffic. We're monetizing those incremental vehicles at a better rate.

Some of that non-auction sourcing mix we talked about obviously benefits us there. But we really think that's kind of an incremental proof point in the early stages on brand awareness and reaching consumers and letting them know who EchoPark is, what our guest experience is will only help continue to benefit those growing markets, but also our more mature markets in Houston and Dallas and Denver as we go forward.

Yes. And this is David. One last thing is that you'll see as we move forward and as we open new stores, new EchoPark stores that our cost basis in those stores is going to be less than we have spent historically, which is going to make it far easier to become profitable a lot faster in those locations.

Our next question is from Rajat Gupta with JPMorgan.

Pretty good execution. Congrats on that. I had a question on parts and service. I acknowledge that you don't like to talk about weather.

So irrespective, the growth is pretty strong despite some of tough warranty comps. I'm curious how we should think about growth there. I know you're sticking to like your framework. But maybe if you could unpack that for us a little bit, what's really helping that business? Any change in processes, hiring cadence? How should we just think about growth there for the rest of the year?

This is Jeff. I mean, look, we told you this 2 years ago, we were on a mission to hire technicians. We've lost 400 technicians, I think, since we started that mission. We continue to hire techs.

We're executing at a really high level on our playbooks. We have a value service program that we're very focused on to drive more customers into our service drive, which then allows us to upsell off of those value services that we brought into the service drive.

The used business is growing, so that helps internals. Just overall, we're executing at a very high level. And mid-single digits is a good number, maybe up a little bit above that. And it's across the board. It's not one market or another. It's not one brand or another. We've got some warranty challenges in comparison to last year.

I think we had -- with our Honda brand, we're up about $1 million in gross there. But we'll drive more CP. Obviously, we're not in control of warranty, but we'll drive more customer growth into those brands -- into that brand. And it's a bright future for fixed operations at Sonic Automotive. It's going to get better as we go on this year. It's going to get better and stronger into '27, '28 and towards the end of the decade.

There's a lot of business out there for us to get. Remember, customers buy new cars. But half of them don't go to a dealership, not just on anybody because we're -- the industry is priced high and processes were crazy and just reputation. I think we've cleaned all that up. Our service CSI scores are fantastic. And that's all playing into the results that we're seeing. And they're just going to get stronger as we move forward.

And one additional opportunity there is it's very ripe for AI. Our AI team is just going in now and starting to look at the processes at fixed. Obviously, a very high-margin part of our business. But we think we can be more efficient with the technology. So I think there's opportunity in that area as well.

We just broke $90 million in gross in a single month in the first quarter. That was an all-time record for us for a single month. And that's going to continue to get bigger. We've got short-term goals of being over $100 million a month in fixed operations gross. And we're hopeful to see a month this year do that. And then ongoing, we'll be above that.

So there's just huge growth there and great opportunity for us as we started to look at the business differently, more of a high-volume, high-traffic count business than we have in the past. And there's just too much opportunity and too many guests out there in our AOIs to take advantage of that. So that's what we're focused on. Danny?

And just a couple of other points there. As you might have seen in the release, we grew customer pay at a 5% rate on a same-store basis. But -- and warranty was at a 7% rate. So that was even an uptick in growth rate versus the fourth quarter. Warranty was only 2% up year-over-year in the fourth quarter.

So continuing to see benefits there as long as that warranty tailwind persists, but really focused on customer pay. And we got 40 basis points of margin expansion out of it. But on an all-in basis, customers pay is growing at 9%, warranty is up 15%, including the acquisitions.

So we've got some year-over-year upside in terms of the comparisons as we get into the back half and lap those JLR acquisitions from last year.

Right, right. That's very clear and helpful. I wanted to just ask a broader question around just pricing dynamics. I mean, maybe like a twofold question. One is you have this one big nationwide competitor of yours that is undergoing a pretty well telegraphed price cut. I'm curious if you're feeling it, are you seeing it? Have you reacted to it? Any thoughts on that would be helpful.

And then second question, Carvana yesterday talked about some risk in the second quarter from just narrowing wholesale retail spreads. I know that you have like much lower day supply and you're increasing consumer sourcing, too. But curious if that is something to keep in mind as far as your business goes?

As far as the pricing goes, we haven't felt that. And it's isolated to VINs and marketplaces and that hasn't tripped any wires over here at all. So we're not feeling that. Do you want to attack the Carvana?

On the spread?

Yes.

Yes. I mean, it's pretty normal seasonality. Obviously, prices went up in the first quarter. We were buying cars early in the first quarter when wholesale prices were down. As we go into the second quarter, we're seeing that shrink the gap between the 2. It's not going as rapid as last year, but it is closing. So that is real.

But we still expect nice growth with EchoPark in the second quarter. And we're going to continue to expand better growth than we had in the first quarter. So maybe the margin -- the margins are hanging in there better, both on the franchise side and EchoPark side in April better than they normally do from a pre-owned perspective, which is very good. That's great to see.

We'll see how supplies hold up as we move in. They always tighten. And we're always trying to shrink our day supply. So at this time of the year after the big first quarter and tax season. So we'll see how things go. But the pre-owned business should be nice and solid as we move throughout the rest of the year.

And again, to that our actual performance in the first quarter, our average selling price at EchoPark was down about 2% sequentially from the fourth quarter. But wholesale pricing was up 7% as we went through the first quarter, but our GPU expanded.

Our vehicle-related GPU only expanded about $200 sequentially. So we were seeing narrowing retail pricing on a mix basis anyway, increases in wholesale pricing, but still saw an expansion in GPU, again, because of the way we buy because of that non-auction sourcing mix.

And that should only give us more insulation against those movements as well as, as Tim said, recognizing the normal seasonality of used car pricing movements in January, February, March and then on the downswing in April, May, June, post tax refund season.

Got it. That's helpful. Maybe just last one on balance sheet. Very surprised by like the big buyback here in the first quarter. Curious like how should we think about leverage here?

You obviously increased the authorization. So maybe like another way to ask is like, is the ramp-up in buyback just a signal that you're not really worried about like the macro or the cycle here? And you just feel like with the growth in parts and services, the trend in EchoPark, there's just like more good things to come from an EBITDA perspective and you feel comfortable buying back this heavily right now. I was just a little surprised given some of the choppiness we hear about in the macro.

Yes. This is David. Yes, I mean, we obviously -- we would not have bought back the shares that we didn't feel confident in our business. And as always, we want our investors to know that we're going to be looking at all our different options of where we place our capital and look for the best return.

So -- but I think the key to what you were saying there and what you're asking is what are we going to do going forward? And we're going to look at various opportunities like the Powersports acquisition that we just made. That was a great opportunity and offered great ROI opportunity. And we're going to continue with that, whether it's with whatever we choose, whether it's share repurchases or debt reduction or acquisitions.

It just depends on what we see in the market. Heath?

Yes. Yes, I'll just say, we feel like we have a very strong balance sheet at a little over 2 turns for our leverage ratio. And that gives us a lot of liquidity. That gives us the ability to actually invest in multiple areas.

As you've just seen, we were able to purchase 5 JLR stores last year, 5 Powersports dealerships this year, at the same time, buy back 2 million shares, increase the dividend by 8%, investing in our business as it relates to AI, buying real estate, enhancing the facilities.

And finally, we're still in great shape to expand EchoPark. And so I think the balance sheet is allowing us to do that. We're completely comfortable where we are in the leverage ratio. And we've got it all cooked in and understand the impact. And we're very comfortable that we've got a lot of dry powder to invest in all of these areas.

And Rajat, I think if you look at the quarters, the last 6 or 7 quarters that we've strung together, we're showing the execution, the discipline in this company like we've never shown before. And so that gives us a real high level of confidence.

It doesn't matter if there's COVID or tariffs or weather or whatever else is going to come. Godzilla is going to come out of whatever and blow up our cars, we're overcoming all of that. And I think that's just a big testament to our team.

The tenure that we have on this team is amazing. We had a Board meeting yesterday. And we were going through our tenure in this company. It's just incredible. And yes, very, very confident. So we look forward to the great remainder of the year and a very bright future for Sonic.

Our next question is from Bret Jordan with Jefferies.

This is Patrick Buckley on for Bret. As you think about the longer-term outlook on franchise new GPUs, how are you thinking about the new floor there? Some peers have recently suggested landing spot towards the upper end of their previous targets. Have your thoughts changed at all?

I mean, we didn't change guidance there. We're seeing a little bit of shrinkage on front-end margin in April for new. It's going the other way for pre-owned.

I think we're fine in the range that we gave you guys for the year. Mix moves around a little bit. If you're selling more domestic than normal or more Honda than normal, we get a little drop in our front-end margin.

But our F&I numbers are so good at our franchise stores, our F&I numbers in the first quarter were up $230 a vehicle, which is just fantastic. And we expect that to continue to grow as we move throughout the year.

So the total all-in margin, I think we're going to be just fine. And it may move around a little bit due to mix. Mercedes sells more or less or BMW more or less, then Honda comes in or Ford comes in, the margins are a little different. But our F&I numbers are so strong that it balances it all out. And I think we'll be fine with our guidance that we gave you for 2026.

Got it. And then on BMW, we've heard some talks of delayed new product timing there. Has there been any notable disruptions or impact to that delayed product change this year?

No. No. They've been doing a fantastic job. They communicate well. And they've done an amazing job managing through this as all of our manufacturer partners have. And there've been no issues. I mean, we need to watch affordability and entry-level models into some of the luxury brands. That's an important topic to study and watch.

But you start getting past -- there's 2 quarters in a row now we're past $60,000 mark. We'll see. I don't see that changing in the second quarter. Third quarter, they're going to pass on the tariff expenses to the consumer. Prices are going up. It helps the used car business. We'll see how much elasticity is in the new car pricing.

I mean, something is going to have to happen if volume really slows off because the supply start growing. And then you will have a margin compression issue. I don't see that happening this quarter or next, maybe a little bit due to change in mix for us. But overall, I think it will be nice and steady as she goes.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Alex Perry with Bank of America.

Congrats on the execution. I just wanted to ask about if you've seen sort of any impact from the war, any sort of change in new/used vehicle sales trends as we moved into April? And could you maybe help us on like the cadence of the monthly comps in the quarter on the new side?

I would say, Alex, this is David, that it's been really pleasantly surprising that the resilience of the consumer and that they've just continued our demand and you've seen in our numbers they're continuing to do business with us. And despite the uncertainty, I think that it's really been fantastic to see.

And I think that hopefully soon, this major conflict will be over. And I think we'll go into the summer months with some great results. But J.D.?

Yes. I mean, if anything, BEV units on a -- from a pre-owned perspective, we're selling a lot more of those. The pull-aheads are helping. And we're getting -- that's a big win in our sales right now because otherwise, we'd have some overhang, I think, with BEV.

And in particular, I think the luxury stores are doing a great job with that, BMW, Mercedes. So they're doing a really good job. But other than that, no. I mean, the business has been good cadence-wise. January was amazing. I mean it was just an unreal January.

If you want to talk about weather, maybe that slowed us down a little bit at the end of January, but just a fantastic January and a really good February. We started comping against the tariff pull-aheads in March. So -- and you did that all of March really in the first 2 weeks or so of April, 10 days of April. And then the comps will get a lot easier as we move into May and June.

So we'll see some flip around in our year-over-year numbers. We'll start sort of heading into the positive direction. And I'm just -- just throw out the comparison of March and the first 2 weeks of April, it's not a fair comparison. Compared against '24 and '23 and we look fantastic on a year-over-year basis. And so that's how that looks and that's kind of behind us now.

You're going to get a little bump when we get to the September time frame and we bounced against the BEV kind of pull-ahead from that time frame. But it ought to be smooth sailing other than that for the rest of the year.

That's really helpful context. And then I guess my next question, you mentioned in the deck consolidation opportunity in Powersports. Is that a place where you'll continue to add doors there?

What are you seeing there that gets you excited? Do you expect it to be sort of on the Harley side in the motorcycle space or more sort of traditional Powersports? We'd love to hear just sort of how you're thinking about that segment.

Yes. This is David. We've been really, really pleased. A big shout out to our Powersports team. They've just done an outstanding job. And as I mentioned, modernizing the Powersports industry, at least the ones that we have, we see some great opportunities and the prices, the acquisition opportunities are coming at us. It's very interesting.

We like our diversified portfolio. So we're not going to be concentrated solely on Harley-Davidson. But this recent acquisition was just really just outstanding and the fantastic locations or as I mentioned, you have a lot of sunny days in those markets to offset some of our -- the snowy weather in our big South Dakota Sturgis stores.

But we do see fantastic opportunities. You look at the growth that's generated in motorcycle sales, new and used is really -- it's crazy. It's like we're making the same amount of profit on selling an item that's maybe 1/3 of the price of a vehicle. And so there's some great opportunities there. J.D.?

Yes. I would tell you, just to give you a little more detail on what David was talking about. I mean, our new GPU for the first quarter on the franchise was $3,144 and our GPU for Powersports was $2,891, damn near the same number. Our used GPU, which we've really grown the heck out of our used business on Powersports, that's something that industry lacks was $1,938 a copy versus $1,539 a copy.

We're making more gross selling used than we are selling used on the franchise side. So very exciting opportunity for us to grow that part of the business.

And we're opportunistically buying, just being very careful and cautious. And as we told you from day 1, growing the business and putting in our playbooks, our technology, taking care of our guests, taking care of our teammates. And we just get better and stronger, all-time record quarter.

We see that backing up to the next all-time record quarter and the next one. It's a fun business with great margin percentage. And our team loves going in and buying them and who we are acquiring love it.

So we're having a great time. And as David said, we've got a fantastic leadership team running that business, totally separate from EchoPark and our franchise business. And we'll see what happens in the coming quarters. There's a lot of opportunity in this segment.

That's really helpful. Could I ask one follow-up on that? The used grosses and the differential versus the vehicle side is pretty interesting. Why do you think the grosses are so high in the Powersports side on a relatively lower ASP? Is it just the fact of the market? Yes.

Think about -- it is. That's part of it. But think about customers don't know that they -- what to do with that product. When they buy a new Powersports, they buy something, a Polaris or whatever. They've always taken their old one and put a sign on in the front yard that said for sale.

They don't know that we want to buy that from them. And so we're giving them a great deal of buying that and they're expensive. If you buy a brand-new Ford or Polaris now is $55,000. We can trade for them and sell them for in the upper teens or lower 20s, make great margin like you see and provide the consumer with something they've never gotten in this industry.

So there's a huge -- I mean, it's just industry just did not sell pre-owned. And we're growing pre-owned at 40% and 50% clips a quarter and that's going to continue into the future. They just didn't focus on it. And that's something that is core to our success at Sonic Automotive. And we're bringing that to this industry and it's making a big difference.

And that's one of the things that validated our entry into this is over the last 3 quarters, we've grown 35%, 40% in this quarter, 56% used vehicle volume year-over-year. Even in an off quarter like the first quarter seasonally, new volume was up 16%, both new and used gross per unit grew 7% or 8%.

So we're growing not just the base, but the efficiency of those products just as we did into prime selling season here starting in April, May.

They also had very, very little discipline around inventory management. And as you guys know, that's something that we're known for in our day supply and how we manage inventory. We don't get surprises there. If we do, they're fixed in 2 weeks. And there was none. There's just absolutely none of that in the Powersports business.

So we've cleaned all that up from a parts, from a used, from a new perspective. And we're turning inventory like we should. And that's going to expand margin when you do that.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the floor back over to David Smith for any closing comments.

Great. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. We'll talk to you next quarter.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you again for your participation.

Good morning, and welcome to the Sonic Automotive Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. This conference call is being recorded today, Wednesday, February 18, 2026. Presentation materials, which accompany management's discussion on the conference call can be accessed at the company's website at ir.sonicautomotive.com. At this time, I would like to refer to the safe harbor statement under the Private Securities and Litigation Reform Act of 1995. During this conference call, management may discuss financial projections, information or expectations about the company's products or market or otherwise make statements about the future. Such statements are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, management may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please refer to the non-GAAP reconciliation tables in the company's current report on Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier today. I would now like to introduce Mr. David Smith, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sonic Automotive. Mr. Smith, you may begin your conference.

Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Sonic Automotive Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Again, I'm David Smith, the company's Chairman and CEO. Joining me on today's call is our President, Jeff Dyke; our CFO, Heath Byrd; our EchoPark Chief Operating Officer, Tim Keen; and our VP of Investor Relations, Danny Wieland. I would like to open the call by thanking our amazing teammates for continuing to deliver a world-class guest experience for our customers. 2025 marked the third consecutive year of delivering all-time record customer satisfaction scores for our franchise dealership guests. And EchoPark once again retained the highest guest satisfaction rating among pre-owned vehicle retailers. We believe our strong relationships with our teammates, guests and manufacturer and lending partners are key to our future success. And as always, I would like to thank them all for their continued support and loyalty to the Sonic Automotive team.

Turning now to our fourth quarter results. Reported GAAP EPS was $1.36 per share. Excluding the effect of certain items as detailed in our press release this morning, adjusted EPS for the fourth quarter was $1.52 per share, a 1% increase year-over-year. Consolidated total revenues were $3.9 billion, down 1% year-over-year. Fourth quarter record consolidated gross profit grew 4% and consolidated adjusted EBITDA was flat compared to the prior year fourth quarter. For the full year, reported GAAP EPS was $3.42 per share, and adjusted EPS was $6.60 per share, an 18% increase from 2024. Consolidated total revenues were an all-time annual record of $15.2 billion, up 7% year-over-year, and consolidated total gross profit was an all-time annual record of $2.4 billion, up 9% year-over-year. For 2025, consolidated adjusted EBITDA grew 10% to $615 million.

Moving now to our fourth quarter franchise dealership segment results. We generated reported revenues of $3.4 billion, flat year-over-year and down 5% on a same-store basis, driven by an 11% decrease in same-store new vehicle retail volume, offset partially by a 5% increase in the same-store used vehicle retail volume year-over-year. Fourth quarter new vehicle volume faced headwinds from pull-forward consumer demand for electric vehicles ahead of the expiration of the federal tax credit in the third quarter, combined with strong luxury demand in the prior year fourth quarter. Reported franchise total gross profit was a fourth quarter record, up 4% and declined 2% on a same-store basis. Our fixed operations gross profit was a fourth quarter record, and F&I gross profit set an all-time quarterly record, up 8% and 6% year-over-year, respectively, on a reported basis. These 2 high-margin business lines continue to increase their share of our total gross profit pool, once again contributing over 75% of total gross profit for the fourth quarter, mitigating the tariff headwinds on new vehicle volume and margin to our overall profitability, while also leveraging our SG&A expenses more efficiently than incremental vehicle-related gross profit.

Same-store new vehicle GPU was $3,033 per unit, down 7% year-over-year, but up 6% sequentially due to a higher luxury mix in the fourth quarter. On a reported basis, new vehicle GPU was $3,209 per unit, down 1% year-over-year and up $208 or 7% sequentially from the third quarter. On the used vehicle side of the franchise business, same-store used GPU decreased 2% year-over-year and decreased 10% sequentially from the third quarter to $1,379 per unit. Our F&I performance continues to be a strength with fourth quarter record franchised F&I GPU of $2,624 per unit, up 8% year-over-year and up 1% sequentially.

Turning now to EchoPark. Adjusted segment income was a fourth quarter record $3.6 million, up 300% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA was a fourth quarter record $8.8 million, up 110% year-over-year. For the fourth quarter, we reported EchoPark revenues of $481 million, down 5% year-over-year and fourth quarter record gross profit of $54 million, up 9% year-over-year. EchoPark segment retail unit sales volume for the quarter decreased 6% year-over-year, and EchoPark segment total GPU was a fourth quarter record $3,420 per unit, up 15% per unit year-over-year and up 2% sequentially from the third quarter. For the full year, EchoPark segment adjusted EBITDA was an all-time record $49.2 million, up 78% year-over-year. Going forward, we remain focused on increasing our mix of non-auction sourced inventory to benefit consumer affordability and retail sales volume and GPU. When combined with the strategic adjustments we have made to our EchoPark business model, we believe we are well positioned to resume a disciplined store opening cadence for EchoPark beginning in late 2026, assuming used vehicle market conditions continue to improve. In the long term, we intend to expand our EchoPark platform to reach 90% of U.S. car buyers, selling over 1 million vehicles annually while continuing to provide a superior guest experience. We believe investment in brand marketing will be key to our long-term EchoPark growth plan, and we expect to begin to invest in this effort during 2026, potentially increasing advertising expense by $10 million to $20 million this year.

Turning now to our Powersports segment. We generated fourth quarter record revenues of $36 million, up 19% year-over-year and fourth quarter record gross profit of $9 million, up 25% year-over-year. Fourth quarter combined new and used retail volume was up 18% year-over-year, and we are beginning to see the benefits of our investment in modernizing the powersports business and the future growth opportunities it may provide.

Finally, turning to our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $702 million in available liquidity, including $306 million in combined cash and floor plan deposits on hand. Our focus on maintaining a strong balance sheet and liquidity position allows us to strategically deploy capital in a variety of ways to deliver value to our shareholders. During the fourth quarter, we repurchased approximately 600,000 shares of our common stock for approximately $38 million, bringing the full year share repurchase to 1.3 million shares for approximately $82 million. In addition, I'm pleased to report today that our Board of Directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.38 per share payable on April 15, 2026, to all stockholders of record on March 13, 2026. We continue to work closely with our manufacturer partners to understand the potential impact of tariffs on vehicle production, pricing and volume forecast, vehicle affordability and consumer demand going forward. The full year 2026 outlook and guidance on Page 13 of our investor presentation considers these uncertainties and represents our current expectations for 2026 financial results. As always, our team remains focused on executing our strategy and adapting to ongoing changes in the automotive retail environment while making strategic decisions to maximize long-term returns. This concludes our opening remarks, and we look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Jeff Lick with Stephens Inc.

Congrats on a standout quarter. It's pretty impressive results relative to the others in Q4. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about EchoPark. I was just curious, if you think about the -- the used car options that are out there right now, and there's obviously big players like Carvana, Karma, Era. I'm just wondering, as you're starting to understand the EchoPark business better, where do you guys see how you fit into the used car ecosystem in terms of when someone is looking to buy a new car, a used car, where do you guys view as like where you really kind of over-index and solve a problem for a customer. Where do you fit in the used car ecosystem?

This is Jeff. We've always kind of looked at EchoPark as the Costco sort of of the preowned world. There are 35 million to 40 million pre-owned cars sold every year in this country. And if you look at what Carvana is doing 500,000, 600,000, you look at CarMax in the 800,000, 900,000 range, there's a lot of room for us. And prior to COVID, we said we'd be at 90% coverage of the country and sell over 1 million vehicles. We feel very comfortable over the last 3 or 4 years. We worked very hard on the model. We can slowly and accurately build stores. Like we said, we're going to open 1 or 2 in the fourth quarter of this year. We'll open more in '27, and we will methodically grow the EchoPark business. But we're the low-cost provider in this arena. And when you look at how we price our vehicles and you compare to those 2 competitors, we're anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000 cheaper than those guys. And it gives us the ability to sell a lot of vehicles on a per rooftop basis versus our competitive set. And we're seeing that. We see it in the 17 stores that we have opened now. And we believe that being that low-cost provider and really taking care of our guests like we do with our great guest satisfaction scores, which are industry-leading, that combination is just going to be really hard to beat as we slowly begin to grow this brand.

And Jeff, this is Heath. I'll add one point is exactly what Jeff was alluding to is that that objectively, we are the lowest cost provider. You can look at the data and the facts are there. objectively, we have the best customer experience. We've won for the last 16 quarters with reputation.com comparing to Carvana, CarMax and others. And now that we are starting the expansion again in a disciplined way where we still have profitability going forward. You combine that with our brand initiative, which we mentioned earlier in the press release and in the statements. Now people know. I mean, I think the biggest thing is that we get our name out there, and you've got the 2 main things that people are looking for, and that's just going to give additional tailwinds to EchoPark, especially as the inventory is returning, it's going to be a really nice situation for growth for EchoPark.

Yes. Just a quick follow-up. You talked about non-auction sourcing. I'm just curious, you had a little bit of a hiccup with the commercial rental car fleet returns and that gumming up sourcing a little bit. Just any updates on where you're sourcing non-auction related and then how you see the sourcing unit availability for your business model in 2026?

Yes. We are. We're incentivizing our team to buy vehicles all over the country. And we're finally beginning to leverage our new car franchise dealerships for inventory. We've always kind of kept that separate. And we have found a way, we believe, to leverage the heck out of that as lease returns begin to come back as we can trade for more cars out of those 111 franchise stores. And we'll begin to see the beginnings of all this and the inventory sort of feeding into EchoPark will start in March and April time frame of this year. And so we're very excited about that and reducing our dependence on the auction lanes. And that's happening, but it's methodically happening with a very strategic plan around that. And buying more cars off the street certainly is happening and engaging our experience guides in that kind of model is going to make a big difference for EchoPark as we go forward. It's a very important part of our growth plan.

Our next question is from Rajat Gupta with JPMorgan.

I just wanted to quickly follow up on the EchoPark commentary. Just given the store openings later this year, the increase in advertising, it looks like the year-over-year growth should accelerate in the back half. And are you setting up for 2027 to be an even stronger year from a growth rate perspective than the high single digits this year? Is that the right takeaway from these investments? Okay.

100%.

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And maybe I want to pivot to like parts and services. Understandably, warranty comps were tough here in the fourth quarter. Could you give us an update on where you ended up with respect to same-store technician growth? And any targets for 2026 that you're going after there? I would be curious.

I think since March of '24, where we started our technician focus, we're now plus 400 technicians from that original date that we started talking about this. And that's been a big part of our success since then from a fixed operations perspective. We're all in Houston right now at our annual meeting, and our whole annual meeting today is focused on fixed operations and our ability to grow this business significantly. We think we've got $100 million a month in fixed operations gross that we can do. That's $1.2 billion. We did a little over $1 billion in '25. So we're really excited about the opportunity here. There's just too many customers that -- and for the industry that don't come back to a new car store to have their vehicle serviced. And it's like 50-50. And we think we can attract a lot of customers. We've got the time to sell. We've got the base. We've got the technicians, and we're going to take advantage of that as we move here forward here over the next year or 2.

Understood. And then just on your balance sheet leverage, just a question on capital allocation. It looks like the way you define it, it's 2.1 in terms of net debt to EBITDA based on the add-backs are allowed from rating agencies. I'm curious how much could you stretch? And would you plan to stretch that in '26 or in the medium term to maybe deploy more capital into either more M&A or buybacks?

Yes. If you look at that rate, I think we are the first or #1 or #2 in leverage ratio, and we're comfortable with that. We want to have a very strong balance sheet. We would be comfortable going to a 3.5, but there's we can actually execute our plans for next year and still maintain that low leverage ratio. If a nice acquisition shows up that requires some debt funding, then we could do that as well. We have plenty of room. But we've got enough dry powder to implement our plan for '26. You can see we had a big acquisition in 2025. That was the majority of our capital spend. You can see that from a returning capital to shareholders, dividend, that's been increased by $200 plus over the last several years. And so that's always something we want to stay within 20% to 25% payout on the dividend. That's our target. And share repurchase, that's one of the things that when we see opportunity, when we have a price that pencils out and it's the best return, we're going to continue that as well. And then the last piece is returning -- basically investing back in the business. And as we start growing EchoPark, you'll see that bucket fill up a little bit more as we build new EchoPark stores. So very comfortable with our balance sheet, all of our covenants and got the dry powder we need to execute for '26 and forward into '27.

And Rajat, this is David. I think just on M&A, just to note that these opportunities in our industry come along and they can come along quickly and just -- and we're excited so far about our big acquisition of the JLR stores last year. It's been a great acquisition. And that one came along pretty darn quickly, and it was a great one. So hopefully, we'll see some more like that and some great opportunities to grow the business and grow earnings.

Our next question is from Bret Jordan with Jefferies.

Slide 13, I guess, down in '26 roughly by the amount of your marketing advertising expense. Do you see that inflecting positively in '27? Or is there sort of ongoing rollout expense as you start rebuilding the business?

You broke up right there at the beginning. Is that on EchoPark?

Yes, Slide 13.

Yes. I was wondering, do you see that in '27 accelerating as you're sort of passing this initial marketing expense?

Yes. That's exactly how you should look at it. We're going to have some initial spend here while we get prepared for launch. That's really not going to happen until the fourth quarter as we begin to open a few stores. And then we'll have a cadence of stores that we can open next year and a different level of spend that we'll talk about as we begin to grow the brand across the country and focus on driving our $1 million-plus sales and our 90% coverage. And as we go through the quarters, we'll continue to update you guys on where we are in the progress that we're making. We gave you a $10 million to $20 million range, kind of we can narrow that gap a little bit as we get towards the fourth quarter for you, but that's exactly how you should look at it.

And just to add to that, Bret, this is Danny. We guided to high single-digit volume growth for EchoPark in '26. But as Jeff said earlier, that really doesn't reflect any benefits from this brand investment. So you can look at that as accelerating in '27 and beyond as we get the benefits of the brand investment and increase our store base. So that will help drive both the volume-based growth that we're projecting as well as some EBITDA leverage in '27 and beyond.

Okay. Great. And then a question on Q4, some of your peers talked about luxury consumers acting a little softer than normal for that seasonal period. And you guys didn't mention that. Do you see any behavioral change, whether it's people pushing back on these high ASPs in luxury or in the parts and service? Or is there any move to decline recommended services? Anything at the consumer we should read through?

Yes. That's what I was saying earlier. I'm concerned about the tariffs and from a pricing perspective, what's going to happen as we get into the early summer. If you'd have sat been with us and you were looking at October and November and the cadence, you'd gone, oh, cow, you guys better have a big December. This is going to be a rough fourth quarter. And then December came along, and it was just -- it was one of those great Sonic Decembers that we always count on, and it was just amazing. We sold a lot of everything, in particular in our luxury segment. And surprisingly, 62-plus thousand average selling price as that mix change to luxury, and we were prepared. We've been doing this for so long together as a team. We had the right inventory mix our manufacturer partners stepped up. And so we had a great quarter, we think was a great quarter and an amazing December. And then we came in and had a really good January. When we report, we can talk about it on the first quarter, but the snowstorm slowed things down a little bit, but it was still a great January even with the damn snowstorm.

We've not had that, right?

No, had we not had that, wow. And so we'll see. I am cautioning and concerned about what is going to happen, how far, how much elasticity can we deal with or can the consumer deal with from a new car perspective. And something is going to have to give here. The prices are getting -- are just getting too high. And now didn't show up in January. It's really not showing up in February. We'll see. I think a lot of people are counting on big tax returns. We'll learn a lot this summer. Great news is the service business is great and has lots of upside. The F&I business is great. And then the used car business should just be fantastic as that gap widens. You really want your average retail selling price for a used car to be 1/2 that of a new car, and we're beginning to see that gap come back. And during COVID, it got all the way to 80%, 90%, sometimes 100% depending on the brand. So a lot of great opportunities as we move into the year, but a big caution on exactly what's going to happen from a pricing perspective on new.

Do you have visibility as to what the OEs are going to pass through in higher price -- sort of on a same SKU basis? If the BMW X Series was 50, is it now 55 with the pass-through?

I don't -- I mean I'm from based on what I've been seeing, we're seeing 3% to 5% increases and that can be a 1% to 2% increase on a normalized basis, right? So they're definitely passing on. But they're also doing a great job of cutting spending where they don't need to spend and cutting programs that were nice to have. And so -- and I've spent a lot of time on a bunch of different dealer boards, and that's a great topic of conversation with the manufacturer partners. So they are making some really good decisions on spend so that they don't have to impact pricing and they don't have to impact margin. But the tariffs are too high on some of these brands, and you're going to -- they're going to pass pricing on. It's already happening. They're going to cut margin. It's already happening. And they paid for it all in '25, and that's a big point here. They really paid for it, and you can see it in their reported numbers and the amount of money that some of these manufacturers were losing in the billions of dollars. that's just not going to -- that's unaffordable. That's not going to continue to happen and something is going to change as we move into this year, and we'll see. It's -- we've got to really pay close attention. I was calling this out, if you all remember, in the third and fourth quarter, watch these numbers. And I'm telling you, watch these numbers, watch new car pricing as we move forward, in particular, on luxury. -- luxury buyer will push back at some point.

Our next question is from Chris Pierce with Needham & Company.

Just kind of looking at fixed ops. I was just wondering if maybe you could speak to possibly like the subscription nature of this business? Or -- I mean, I know I guess you're trying to bring people back into the funnel. But when people buy cars, I know there's a prebuy option for 3 years of service, that type of thing. Is that something you're seeing and that gives you confidence in growing this business? Or is that so small right now that it's not really a factor?

No. I mean I think that we have an opportunity to sell more products like that for sure to bring the customer back. But the industry as a whole is doing something wrong if 10 customers come in and buy cars and 5 of them don't come back to a dealership to have their vehicle service. And some manufacturers high as 70%. This is something as an industry we must address. Why would you not come back to a dealership where you have ASE-certified technicians, you've got the best equipment, the best parts, the best service you can get and they're going to mom-and-pop store, half of them are going to a mom-and-pop store down the street. that would indicate that there's a pricing opportunity from my perspective. And there's an opportunity. We fill the bucket up with technicians and the amount of hours that are available. Now we need to put that to work for us. And that's where we are at this point in time of our journey is really sharpening our pencils, making sure that we've got the right pricing out there and that we're bringing customers and the marketing, and we're bringing customers into our service drives. There's more out there to get -- a lot more out there to get a lot of upside, and we're just scratching the surface from my perspective.

We've got to get the perception versus reality where the customer knows that our prices are actually competitive or better than the independent down the street.

And I was going to say literally, the marketing is a new concept from the Sonic perspective. We have a focus to sales force. We have a focused campaign now, which we used to never have that on the service side. So that, coupled with having products, warranty products that drive the consumer back to the franchise dealer, those 2 things are going to help our market share.

And one other point there. We guided to mid-single-digit percent growth in fixed ops on a same-store basis. Fourth quarter, our warranty was only up 2% year-over-year. That had been growing 20%, 30%, 40% year-over-year for the last several quarters. So we're finally seeing kind of a normalized level there. But we think that these opportunities on the customer pay side are what's going to drive sustained mid-single-digit growth above that long-term 2%, 3% average, but continued opportunity with the additional technicians, the marketing efforts, the efficiency of selling the hours and loading the base. There's some real upside there in that piece of the business. That just crested $1 billion in gross for the first time this year. So it's the larger numbers with a mid-single-digit percentage is significant opportunity from a gross profit growth perspective.

And just on that, is it something -- I know you guys have to take the ball and run with it, but it's something the OEMs can help with as well? I know the cars are getting smarter. You don't just see a check engine light, you can actually push a message what needs to happen, maybe the price. Like do the OEMs help on this front as well with the cars getting smarter? Or is it 100% you guys have to kind of take this and execute here?

Yes, 100%. You sit down and talk with many of our OEM partners. They see the exact same issue, and it's at the top of discussion with all of them is how do we drive more customers that we're selling cars to now back into our service drive and what products do we need to use in order to make that happen. I had this exact conversation with the leadership of Toyota and Lexus not too long ago. It is a big, big focus point. And we need to drive more customers that we're selling cars to back into our service drive. And we can do it. The industry needs to do it, but we're certainly going to make that happen. at Sonic Automotive. And it's awareness, as David was saying earlier, it's making sure that our door rates and our pricing are in the right areas in terms of being competitive with the mom-and-pops up and down the street. That data is readily available for us all now, and I think you'll see us make a big impact as we move forward.

And I think it sounds like you're also thinking of the technology side of it where the customers will have apps for their BMW and Mercedes, Porsche, et cetera. And the app will tell them, okay, come on in, and that's going to drive a lot of business for us.

Okay. So that's something that's not quite happening now, but can get better. Okay. Got it. 100%. Okay. And then just one on EchoPark. Do you feel like you need like a buy button on EchoPark given what digitally only like what Carvana is seeing as far as growth in units? Or is it just about convey the value to customers, convey the price and then versus peers. And from there, that should get the customers in the store, and that has consistently got the customers in the store in your older locations?

Part of that $10 million to $20 million spend is you will see a launch of the EchoPark app, which we're incredibly excited about. And we're building and investing in a digital retail solution that we think will be industry-leading once complete. We've got a great team that's dedicated to that. And we're very, very excited about that exact opportunity for EchoPark. Yes, we need it. We need in an omnichannel environment, whether the customer wants to come in and test drive the car or sit at home and their underwear and buy a car, we need to be in a position where we can take care of that guest all the way through that buying journey. And it's great because at EchoPark, they can come, they can test drive a car, many of our competitors. You can't even test drive a car, you just got to buy it. And we want to put ourselves in a position where they can do all of that, and that is part of that spend. So great, great question, much appreciated.

Our next question is from Michael Ward with Citi.

What are -- you mentioned some variables that are giving you confidence. I don't know if they're internal or external to step up the growth again at EchoPark. Can you talk about some of those?

Go ahead.

This is Heath. One of them is obvious, the external triggering is the inventory returning. That's going to be a big part of it. And we've said that from the beginning that once that inventory starts returning, and I think we all believe it's going to take the 28% to 29% to get back to the 2019 number, but that's the external. And the other -- the internal is the fact that we've seen we can actually make really good EBITDA even at these lower units that are being sold. And so a lot of the efficiencies that we have seen and done internally gives us confidence that now we can grow and the branding that David was mentioning at our older locations, we can command a higher price and get a higher GPU because it's been there long enough that the word-of-mouth branding is working. So that, coupled with the inventory coming back, coupled with the things we've learned with this lower unit environment are the things that give us confidence that it's time to grow again.

Number -- go ahead, I'm sorry.

Well, we've said for the last few years, as soon as inventory begins to return, you're going to see us methodically start and strategically growing. Inventory is returning, and we're going to start methodically and strategically growing.

And one of the things that's most impressive because of the environment we were in, we got a lot better of finding alternate sources to buy, better buying off the street. And so all of that is going to help us as we grow as well.

Also, this is David. Also, the economics of what a new EchoPark location and the money we're going to spend on those is going to be far less than some of the locations we've had, some of our current locations. So it's going to be a lot easier. We have to sell a lot fewer cars at those locations to actually break even. So you're going to see those locations are going to be highly profitable.

Did I hear the number right, your goal is to get to 1 million units?

That is correct.

Over 1 million.

Yes. It's 1 million-plus units. And so that's not a new number. If you go back and you look at our growth trajectory from '18, '19 before COVID hit, we were saying this exact same thing. We're on our way to making that happen. And we were well on our way and the whole world changed. Now methodically and strategically, we're on our way again, and we darn well believe that, that is something that we can do. And we know we've got the pricing methodology. We've got the inventory management, and we've got the guest experience. We're adding technology, our branding. We've been doing this for a long time, and we're very excited about this day. It's a long time in coming.

Yes. It's a big deal. Secondly, 2 of the headwinds that kind of hit in 3Q were BEVs and JLR. You didn't mention you had a JLR acquisition. What's the inventory situation like with JLR? And how did the -- what's the latest trend on the BEV side?

Yes. So we saw a lot of BEVs because of the tax credit going away in the third quarter, that significantly dropped. And we'll see what happens in this upcoming calendar year, but maybe settle in, in the 5% to 7% range, who knows. JLR's inventory was impacted by a multitude of things, but coming back now. And we're right on plan with our acquisition there, which is great. we were real green with those guys, really understand that brand. And the acquisitions that we made in California, I mean, JLR, Beverly Hills, it all goes together. That's a great Newport. That's a great fit for us. And so yes, we're very excited about that acquisition. Their inventory is returning. But there are another one that are going to be faced with the tariff issue, right? There's not a plant here and they're faced with this, as is Porsche, as is Audi. These are all things that they're going to pass on expense to the consumer, but fantastic product and our inventory is improving as every month goes on with them.

Yes. Unfortunately, the JLR customers, people love those cars. We've got multiple customers that have more than one in the garage. So it's a great great brand. We're excited about that acquisition.

And Mike, on the BEV mix, we saw north of 12% of our sales mix in the third quarter was EV with the pull forward demand from the federal tax credit expiration, but it was only about 4% of our mix in the fourth quarter. And you've seen our inventory mix of EV become more in line with that kind of 4%, 5%. So it's benefiting GPUs relatively speaking. BEVs are still $100 headwind in the fourth quarter to blended GPU, but that was down from $300 in the third quarter. And so as we go forward, if the OEMs can continue to produce the right BEVs for the right markets as importantly, I think that becomes less of a headwind for us going forward.

Our next question is from Glenn Chin with Seaport Research Partners.

Just revisiting the pricing discussion. Jeff, you mentioned a few times OEMs cutting margins. Can you just clarify, is that a reference to dealer margin?

Both. I mean you've got dealer margin in some manufacturers being cut. You've got price increases, 1%, 2%, 3%. You've got all kinds of different things going. And then you've got manufacturer partners doing a great job from my perspective on their part, cutting spend where the dealer and the manufacturer got together and said, we really didn't need this program. And so they're doing everything they can to fight this tariff battle. But again, if you go back to '25 and you look at some of the losses that some of our manufacturers took, it was a lot and they did an amazing job fighting this battle. They're not going to fight that battle by themselves forever. It's just not going to happen. They're going to have to pass on -- and I just -- we'll see what happens from a pricing perspective, from a margin perspective. We're working incredibly close with all of them. And everybody's got the right mindset. Everybody wants to do the right thing, but there's only so much room before you have to start passing on price increases to the consumer.

Yes. And on a related note, are you seeing any signs of them decontenting, taking out equipment?

Absolutely. I mean everybody is looking at it is what can we do to pare down the price of a vehicle, whether it's wheels, you name it. That's something that is a topic of conversation across the board.

Any items in particular, Jeff, that stand out to you?

No. I mean I could probably go get you some detail, but not off the top of my head. I mean wheels definitely are part of that. The infotainment systems are certainly changing. And really, we're heading in one direction when BEV first launched because of the amazing technology in those vehicles. I think that's being tightened up and more to come. We're really sort of at a crossroads, an inflection point as manufacturers put their arms up and say, enough is enough. dealers certainly can absorb those kinds of hits and pricing is going to have to change or something is going to have to change.

Interesting times. Okay. And then just a question on the outlook. you're expecting a 10% increase in floor plan interest expense. Is this a function of higher store count? I know you guys acquired those JLR stores last year. Or is that a function of you expecting to carry higher inventory levels or both?

It's really on store count and brand mix as well as the inflationary cost of vehicles. Our floor plan is based on the dollar value of the invoice cost. And if the OEMs are going to pass along with the model year '26 increases we've seen as well as what we expect in '27. And then compound that with -- we carried a higher floor plan offset balance for most of the last year, depending on what we do from a capital deployment perspective going forward, you could reduce the benefit that we see against floor plan somewhat. So it's a combination of factors.

Okay. Yes, that makes sense. But just to confirm, your floor plan rates are variable, no. So any reduction in rate -- right, the rate environment should be a favorable offset to that. Is that accounted for in your outlook? Yes, and that's accurate.

There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to hand the floor back over to David Smith for any closing comments.

Thank you very much, everyone. We'll speak to you next quarter.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Good morning. Welcome to Sonic Automotive Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. This conference call is being recorded today, Thursday, October 23, 2025. Presentation materials, which accompany management's discussion on the conference call can be accessed on the company's website at ir.sonicautomotive.com.

At this time, I would like to refer to the safe harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. During this conference call, management may discuss financial projections, information or expectations about the company's products or market or otherwise make statements about the future. Such statements are forward-looking and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In addition, management may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please refer to the non-GAAP reconciliation tables in the company's current report on Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier today.

I would now like to introduce Mr. David Smith, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sonic Automotive. Mr. Smith, you may begin your conference.

Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. As she said, welcome to the Sonic Automotive Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Again, I'm David Smith, the company's Chairman and CEO. Joining me on today's call is our President, Jeff Dyke; our CFO, Heath Byrd; our EchoPark Chief Operating Officer, Tim Keen; and our Vice President of Investor Relations, Danny Wieland.

I would like to open the call by sincerely thanking our amazing teammates for continuing to deliver a world-class guest experience for our customers. We believe our strong relationships with our teammates, guests and manufacturer and lending partners are key to future success. And as always, I would like to thank them all for their continued support and loyalty to the Sonic Automotive team.

Turning now to our third quarter results. Reported GAAP EPS was $1.33 per share. Excluding the effect of certain items as detailed in our press release this morning, adjusted EPS for the third quarter was $1.41 per share, a 12% increase year-over-year. Consolidated total revenues were an all-time quarterly record of $4 billion, up 14% year-over-year. All-time record quarterly consolidated gross profit grew 13% and consolidated adjusted EBITDA increased 11%.

Our third quarter earnings were negatively affected by a significant increase in medical expenses and a higher-than-expected effective income tax rate, which partially offset the strength of our operating performance.

Moving now to our franchise dealership segment results. We generated all-time record quarterly franchise revenues of $3.4 billion, up 17% year-over-year and up 11% on a same-store basis. This revenue growth was driven by a 7% increase in same-store new retail volume, a 3% increase in same-store used retail volume and a 6% increase in same-store fixed operations revenues.

Third quarter new vehicle volume benefited from an increase in consumer demand for electric vehicles ahead of the expiration of the federal tax credit, which increased our retail sales volume and average selling price, but pressured new vehicle and F&I gross profit per unit.

Our fixed operations gross profit and F&I gross profit set all-time quarterly records, up 8% and 13% year-over-year, respectively, on a same-store basis. These 2 high-margin business lines continue to increase their share of our total gross profit pool, eclipsing 75% of total gross profit for the third quarter, mitigating the potential tariff impact on vehicle pricing and margin to our overall profitability, while also leveraging our SG&A expenses more efficiently than incremental vehicle-related gross profit.

Same-store new vehicle GPU was $2,852, down 7% year-over-year and 16% sequentially due to a surge in pre-tariff consumer demand that drove an increase in GPU in the second quarter of 2025. Additionally, a higher mix of electric vehicle sales in the third quarter reduced our franchise average new vehicle GPUs by approximately $300 per unit.

On the used vehicle side of the franchise business, same-store used volume increased 3% year-over-year and same-store used GPU increased 10% year-over-year and decreased 4% sequentially from the second quarter to $1,530 per unit. Our F&I performance continues to be a strength with third quarter record franchise F&I GPU of $2,597 per unit, up 11% year-over-year and down 5% sequentially due in part to the elevated electric vehicle sales mix in the third quarter, which reduced average F&I GPU by approximately $100 per unit.

Absent the transitory third quarter EV headwinds, continued strength in F&I per unit supports our view that F&I will remain structurally higher than pre-pandemic levels even in a challenging consumer affordability environment as we continue to fine-tune our F&I product offerings and cost structure. Our parts and service or fixed operations business remains very strong with an 8% increase in same-store fixed operations gross profit in the third quarter.

Same-store warranty gross profit continued to be a tailwind in the third quarter, up 13% year-over-year despite strong warranty performance in the prior year period, and same-store customer pay gross profit grew 6% year-over-year -- we believe this continued strength in customer pay revenue is attributable to the increase in technician headcount we achieved in 2024 and our efforts to not only retain these technicians, but to continue to grow our technician capacity in 2025.

Turning now to the EchoPark segment. Third quarter adjusted segment income was $2.7 million and adjusted EBITDA was $8.2 million, down 8% year-over-year. For the third quarter, we reported EchoPark revenues of $523 million, down 4% year-over-year and gross profit of $54 million, down 1% year-over-year. EchoPark segment retail unit sales volume for the quarter decreased 8% year-over-year, and EchoPark segment total GPU was a third quarter record of $3,359 per unit, up 8% per unit year-over-year, but down 10% sequentially from the second quarter.

While we expected EchoPark used GPU pressure in the third quarter, our ability to acquire quality used vehicle inventory at attractive prices was challenged by unexpected off-rental supply headwinds, contributing to approximately 2,000 fewer retail unit sales than we forecast in our July guidance. While these headwinds persisted through September, we remain focused on increasing our mix of non-auction sourced inventory going forward to benefit consumer affordability and retail sales volume.

When combined with the strategic adjustments we have made to our EchoPark business model, we believe we are well positioned to resume a disciplined store opening cadence for EchoPark in 2026, assuming we used vehicle market conditions sufficiently improve.

Turning now to our Powersports segment. We generated all-time record quarterly revenues of $84 million, up 42% year-over-year and all-time record quarterly gross profit of $23 million, up 32% year-over-year. Powersports segment adjusted EBITDA was an all-time record -- quarterly record of $10.1 million, up 74% year-over-year, driven by record sales volume at this year's 85th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. We are beginning to see the benefits of our investment in modernizing the powersports business, and we remain focused on identifying operational synergies within our current network before deploying capital to further expand our powersports footprint.

Finally, turning to our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $815 million in available liquidity, including $264 million in combined cash and floor plan deposits on hand. Our focus on maintaining a strong balance sheet and liquidity position allowed us to complete the acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover, Santa Monica in the third quarter, following our previously announced acquisition of 4 Jaguar Land Rover dealerships in California at the end of the second quarter, cementing Sonic Automotive as the largest Jaguar Land Rover retailer in the U.S. and further enhancing our luxury brand portfolio.

Going forward, we remain focused on deploying capital via a diversified growth strategy across our franchise dealerships, EchoPark and power sports segments to grow our revenue base and enhance shareholder returns. In addition, I'm pleased to report today that our Board of Directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.38 per share payable on January 15, 2026, to all stockholders of record on December 15, 2025.

We continue to work closely with our manufacturer partners to understand the potential impact of tariffs on manufacturer production and pricing decisions and the resulting impact tariffs may have on vehicle affordability and consumer demand going forward. To date, we have not seen a material impact on vehicle pricing as a result of tariffs, but our team remains focused on executing our strategy and adapting to ongoing changes in the automotive retail environment and macroeconomic backdrop, while making strategic decisions to maximize long-term returns.

Furthermore, we remain confident that we have the right strategy and the right people and the right culture to continue to grow our business and create long-term value for our shareholders.

This concludes our opening remarks, and we look forward to answering any questions you have.

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question is from Jeff Lick with Stephens.

You guys have an interesting little used car market test to in your business model with given the franchise business in EchoPark it looks like you kind of outperformed your peers and did pretty well in the franchise and then EchoPark had some issues. Obviously, you mentioned the rental supply headwinds. I was just wondering if you could elaborate even more, I guess, kind of what what's the saying about where the used car market is in general? And any specifics you could give?

This is Jeff. From a franchise perspective, obviously, we trade for a lot more cars on the franchise side because of the new car business. And so we have really focused on dropping our average cost of sales. So we're trading, we're being more aggressive on our trades. I think our average cost of sales moved from $37,000 over the last 4 or 5 months down into the $33,000 range, $34,000. That makes a big difference.

We're focused on bringing even down further. We'd like to get below $30,000. A little harder to do on the EchoPark side. because we're acquiring most of those vehicles out of the auctions, although we've been focused on buying more cars off the street. And as you said, the rental car company issue, as David talked about in his opening comments, it dried up for us, that cost us about 2,000 units during the quarter. A little bit of a surprise to us. We're offsetting that, working with our new car franchises and our buying team by getting more aggressive on buying vehicles really for EchoPark under the $24,000 price target. And you'll see us improve that as we move through the fourth quarter.

And this is Heath. When we think we started an initiative with the franchise of really focusing on a good process and putting in technology for buying off the service lane. So that's really helped that side of the business as well.

And then just a quick follow-up. On the $31 million in incremental comp, which I think a good chunk of that was medical expansions, could you just elaborate? And where does that stand going forward?

Yes, sure. This is Heath. First of all, we're guiding, as you know, for the full year in the low 70s. If you look at Medical, which was driving that, it was $0.05 worse sequentially from Q2 to Q3, $0.10 worse year-over-year. We expect medical to be flat from Q3 to Q4. So total SG&A for Q4 is expected to be the 72.8%. But it is driven by the medical and that is utilization as well as increased cost we are self-insured. And so obviously, everyone is getting an increase in medical premiums going forward. And so we're addressing it as every other company will be increasing the premiums collected which should handle that issue that we saw in Q3 and expect it to be similar in Q4.

Our next question is from Michael Ward with Citi Research.

I wonder if you can I wonder if you can provide any color on a walk in the franchise growth from Q3 to Q4 and the mid to 2026 because it sounds like the $100 impact from BEVs, and it sounds like there are some other unusual events. So how do we look out? It sounds like 4Q is higher and then maybe even relatively flat on a variable gross basis for over a year? Is that what we're looking at like kind of more consistency, ups and downs, but kind of moving to the same range?

This is Jeff. I think with the increase in the bed volume at the end of the quarter, that really drove -- I think it was $100 down in front [indiscernible] $50 back-end PUR sequentially. But I expect a return to normal margins and maybe even improving margins as we move into the fourth quarter, we're seeing that already because of the lack of bets. We really pressed hard to move all our bets out. We're about 4% of our total inventory today. Our bed units. I think that's about 800 units on the ground. We have significantly reduced our exposure to that product which has been obviously a drag for everybody from a PUR perspective.

So I would expect fourth quarter margins to improve sequentially. And I would expect them to continue to improve as we move into 2026 or at least be flat with where we are in Q4. So a little hit at the end of the third quarter, but smart because we reduced our exposure to all those BEV units that we had on the ground. And that was just the right thing to do from our perspective.

And this is Heath. Just one color. If you look at in total, the EV, we make less gross by $3,275. And the mix in Q3 went from 8.3% in Q2 to 11.9% in Q3. So that's what created the $100 headwind in front and a $50 headwind in F&I.

And just rounding that out, this is Danny. I mean that's a 54% volume increase from Q2 to Q3, which is in line with what the industry saw from an EV penetration. But as you think about that, we sold 3,600 EVs in the third quarter, and we would expect that volume to be much lower in the fourth quarter now that the federal tax credit is not available. So the normal seasonality we would expect from a volume perspective, may not hold, where we typically see a 10% uptick from 3Q to 4Q in new vehicle volume.

Last year was even more of an anomaly closer to 20% because of the BMW stop sale issue we saw in the third quarter of last year, where we pushed sales into 4Q. But as we think about it, it could be more of a mid-single-digit volume growth sequentially from 3Q to 4Q because of the lack of EV. That should obviously benefit GPU given what Heath said about the relatively lower margins. But from a total volume perspective, it's something to be mindful of.

And as you look at the JLR business, is it fair to say that, that had a bigger impact on parts and service than it did on the new vehicle side?

Yes. This is Jeff. We have plenty of new vehicle inventory supply. That wasn't an issue at all. And it is a drag on the parts and service business. But that's slowly going to get corrected and come back and but definitely, the drags in parts and service, not on the volume side.

But I will say -- this is David. I will say that we've benefited from scale in our -- being the largest dealer now for JLR has been really fantastic. We've had inventory when others haven't. And I think going forward, I think that those acquisitions are going to prove to be some of our best because those are -- you mentioned your previous question with GPU. Those are some of our greatest highest GPU stores in the company.

Make sense. If I can sneak in 1 more. Just on the powersports side. You've got great performance there. And do you have any data that -- how big this industry is? And is there a better consolidation opportunity in power sports than you would see in the new vehicle used vehicle side?

I don't know if there's a better, but there is certainly a big opportunity. And we're learning how to operate the powersports business. You can see we sold $110 million new and used motorcycles or Harleys during the rally, that beat the all-time record of 718 that was set years ago. And that's just training, technology, pricing, inventory management and bringing things in our skill sets that we have on the franchise side of the business and [indiscernible] the business into powersports.

And as David said in his opening comments, we have great opportunity to continue to grow the footprint that we have, but there are certainly -- we're getting deals every day coming across our desk with great opportunities to buy. And as we get better and better at operating, I think you'll see us expand that footprint, great money and a great opportunity, great customer base. So bringing our technology and our processes is making a big difference.

And this is David. I'll just add that it's a real complement to our team that we're now the manufacturers are coming to us wanting us to buy more and come to us with some opportunities. So that's -- and that's how we bought surges, actually, those deals. And so it's great to see we're really proud of the progress our teams made.

And just to see a little bit color, we view it, it looks like 1990 retail automotive, very fragmented, not a lot of technology, not a lot of sophistication and marketing understanding how do you make money and use the service. So we think there's a huge opportunity to create the same kind of formality in that industry as many have done in the automotive retail.

And as you pointed out, a lower multiple, right?

So way lower. Yes.

We hear where you're going with that. You're right.

There's great opportunity, which is why we got into it. And you got to remember the people who -- a lot of our customers are super passionate about the products that we sell. They'd rather have that than a car in many cases. So it's a great business to be in.

There were over 800,000 guests at the rally this year. So if you think about it, we sold 1105, just think about the upside opportunity just at the rally alone that closing ratio is not where we want it to be. We can do a lot more. We need more motorcycles and more process and more technology, but we're slowly bringing that on and it's starting to make a difference. And we've really increased the used vehicle the used side of the business, too. That business is up 70% or so for the year, and that's going to continue to grow as that's not something that, that industry has been focused on.

It sounds like a similar playbook. I really appreciate it.

Our next question is from Rajat Gupta with JP Morgan Chase.

Great. Just had a couple of follow-ups on the GPU comments. I'm curious that in the third quarter outside of the electric vehicle headwind to GPs. Was there anything that surprised you in the performance there, perhaps with respect to like how the OEMs are managing the dealer margin or the invoice margin automation talked about some different ways in which the OEM might tackle this in the form of lower back-end incentives or volume in centers, et cetera?

Just curious if there was any change there that you observed? And if anything, was it onetime? Or would you expect that to continue? Relatedly, I was a little surprised by your comment that you would expect 2026 new vehicle GPUs to be similar to the fourth quarter. I mean our understanding is always that fourth quarter is seasonally higher due to the larger mix. So are you taking into account like even a lower electric vehicle mix in 2026 versus the fourth quarter that's maybe driving that assumption? Just curious if you could tie those comments.

Yes, that's exactly right. BEV is going to be way, way lower as a percentage of our overall volume than it has been over the last couple of years, which has driven the margin down. And then no real surprises, I don't think, from ex bet for the first 9 months of the year for the quarter. In terms of margin, I think that there are going to be some surprises as we move into the fourth quarter because there's been -- there's an inherent, you look at October, October slowing, in particular from a luxury perspective.

And I think that the manufacturers are going to have to get super aggressive with incentives in order to move inventory. Our inventory is at the highest level from a new car perspective, that it's been all year. And our competitors are the same as we watch it. And I think you're going to find that BMW, Mercedes, they're going to have to be super aggressive. Right now, we're seeing some double-digit decreases in those brands volumes year-over-year. And we're not alone in that category. And so I do think you're going to start seeing some super aggressive pricing. It needs to come. Those brands need to step up and bring more incentives in order to engage in the fourth quarter. or it's going to be a more difficult fourth quarter from a luxury perspective than many are projecting.

Got it. Got it. Okay. That's helpful.

That's something that I would encourage you to watch real closely is what's going on, on the luxury new vehicle side of the business, exchanging a BMW for a Ford exchanges a lot of margin one way versus the other. And I think that's something that we all need to watch as the industry from a luxury perspective, slows down in the fourth quarter. Usually, it speeds up. And so we're hopeful that the manufacturers will see that and bring -- start to get really aggressive on incentives.

Understood. Understood. We'll keep an eye on that. And a follow-up was on just the warranty penetration. It looks like in drop from the second quarter by a couple of hundred basis points. I'm curious, was that just again like mix driven because of electric vehicles and those are leased and your guide was like a further step down in fourth quarter. I'm just curious what's driving that. And what's like a normalized number we should assume when we head into '26.

Yes, it's Jeff. And x that out, it would have been normal numbers.

And to that point, that's with the sequential headwinds we saw in F&I is primarily the warranty penetration. You've got a higher lease mix on BEV. And then again, as we go into the fourth quarter, typically, our fourth quarter F&I is actually a bit lower because of that higher luxury lease mix that we see in 4Q in normal years. But as we go forward, we talked about, I think it was the last call that 2,700 or so is an achievable, consistent run rate in a normalized powertrain mix and brand mix for us, particularly when you think about the benefits of the new JLR stores that we've added in their F&I performance.

Our next question is from Bret Jordan with Jefferies.

This is Patrick Buckley on for Bret. Circling back on EchoPark, it sounds like there were some unique headwinds this quarter with the off-rental slowdown. Should we expect any of that to persist into next year? And I guess, should we still be thinking about an acceleration in EchoPark next year as well?

I think it will -- no, I don't think it will persist in the next year. And I think we'll find ways to overcome that by buying more cars off the street. And we're excited, as David talked about in his opening comments, we're going to start to grow EchoPark again next year. So how many stores we open, probably more tailored towards the end of the third and the fourth quarter next year. But with more off-lease vehicles coming back, inventory getting right, prices are going to continue to drop. That's going to be a big help. And so '26 should be a good year for EchoPark and then beyond. We'll open a few stores next year to, like I said, in the last 6 months and then really start growing in '27.

And this is David. I think it's really important to mention that we're building the EchoPark business just as we've built our core business, not quarter-to-quarter, but we are building it for the long haul. And so we're keeping that in mind. We're going to grow the EchoPark business just as soon as we can and grow it efficiently and smartly. Our team has gotten a lot better about about where we build and how much we spend on building and our training processes and all of that, we -- I'm just very excited about the future of EchoPark and what we can do once we really step on the gas of growth. So it's more to come in the future.

Got it. That's helpful. And then looking at the Q4 outlook for 10% to 11% growth in fixed operations gross profit. I guess could you talk about the driver moving forward there, price versus volume? Is there any tariff inflation going on there? And maybe the warranty pipeline, how does that look from today?

Warranty pipeline looks good. Lots going on. Look, what's driving this for us is our additional headcount in tech count. From March of '24, we really started focusing on growing our text, training our techs, maturing our tech. That's making a big difference. We've got the stall count. We've got the headcount, and that's making a huge difference for us and delivering. And the thing is, is that the pipeline is long. There's just -- we see growth year after year after year. And I don't see it slowing down. I see it speeding up. And so we're very, very excited about the efforts we're putting in there to grow our share from a fixed operations perspective across all of our markets.

I tell you -- this is David. I'll tell you that our team has just done an outstanding job retaining, as I mentioned in my comments, retaining and growing those techs that we really changed the game and changed the attitude of how we hire techs and retain them.

Our next question is from Chris Pierce with Needham & Company.

On the franchise side of the business, I just want to make sure I'm following was there a demand pull forward in power -- like maybe people switching powertrain choices in the third quarter and that's leading to inventories being elevated in luxury in the fourth quarter? Or are those not related? Or are we still expecting typical seasonality and we're expecting the OEMs to step up? Like how does that all sort of fit together if it fits together at all?

Well, definitely a pull forward from a BEV perspective because the incentives ended at least for most brands, and that definitely happened. And inventory is growing from a luxury perspective, we're at our highest inventory levels over the year. incentives are going to have to grow in order to speed up the volume. And we are not seeing that in October. Like I said, BMW, Mercedes, those brands for us and was doing industry checks yesterday, we're talking 15%, 20% reduction so far in this calendar month.

And I've seen that in some of our competitors as well. That's tough. The manufacturers need to step up or inventory is going to grow. I think you're going to see the same seasonality, but our growth is usually 10% third quarter to fourth quarter. This year, we're expecting that to be in the 5% range. And like Danny said earlier, last year, it was 20%. So you can do the math. The manufacturers are going to have to step up or inventories are going to grow and margins are going to start coming down. Not having BEVs going to help margin, but inventory growth can pull margin back if they don't step up and put some incentives out there. And that's a real serious situation. I said it earlier, you got to watch that, watch what happens in luxury during October, and then we'll see if that spills over in November and December.

And have we seen a situation like this where the OEMs wait and wait to pull the trigger on this? Or is it just the market is so kind of weird because of all the incentives that this is uncharted territory?

Yes. I think the market is weird with the shutdown of the government shutdown. There's some strange things going on here. The tariffs certainly are planning to roll, but we -- it's a big -- pretty big drop-off in luxury volume in October year-over-year, in particular around BMW and Mercedes. Land Rover is a little bit the same, too. Now our business is growing because we've got stores that we didn't have last year, but in our numbers. But the luxury business has slowed down in October. And the first 9 months of the year where we are, pull aheads, tariffs, all kinds of crazy news, this is just sort of a normal month October and November. And we'll see what happens. Like I encouraged Rajat earlier, you need to watch that and watch what happens from a new car luxury perspective. That's an important mix changes in bottom line, right? And that's important to watch as we move through this quarter.

Okay. And then just one on EchoPark. Can you just sort of help me understand, is it typical industry seasonality that rental car companies bring cars to auction at a higher rate in the third quarter after summer travel and that sort of didn't happen this year? Or like is there something going back to industry awareness? Is it something that unexpected that happened? Or I just kind of want to flesh that out a little bit.

Yes. Typically, they defleet. And so we pick up inventory. They did not do that this year. And I think it's just the unknown of the tariff and whether they were going to be able to buy new cars or not. And so we're seeing a little more inventory come in, but not at the levels that they normally do. We typically have 1,000 vehicles in our mix from them. And I think I looked at the other day, we were down to 133 units on the ground. And so that's just not normal.

And so we're having to replenish that. It did catch us a little off-guard in the third quarter, but still nicely EBITDA positive, and we're very excited about the year for EchoPark. I mean it would be a great year in comparison to the last few, as you know, and then really excited about '26 and '27 and moving forward with our growth plans.

Yes. I think to add to that, I think it is interesting that we can handle those kind of bumps now. We're built to be more efficient. So we don't have something that comes like this. We've got the scale and we can handle it when in the past, it was more difficult.

It didn't blow up the P&L.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Mike Albanese with the Benchmark Company.

I'm just going to squeeze in a quick one here as you think about, I guess, EchoPark, right? And this was built to kind of compete with the CarMax model. And coming out of the quarter, CarMax has hit a situation where depreciation essentially had picked up pretty significantly. I think kind of a follow pull forward in demand being kind of in the first half of the year. And I'm just wondering if that heightened depreciation that I think hit over the course of like 6 to 8 weeks, it's like 2/3 of the typical annual depreciation curve, that had an impact on your business, how you think about that and kind of what that impact was?

Yes. I think we felt the same thing. MMR increases in the second quarter 106% to 107% drove our average cost of sale up. We tried to pivot to the rental sector. It wasn't available. And so we made the decision to cost us to 2,000 units in volume. So yes, we saw the same thing.

Yes, right. I guess the takeaway there being that generally, you're sourcing mix being a little bit different kind of protects you against that situation a little bit. Does that make sense?

Yes.

If you recall, we guided to back in July, we expected a little bit of front-end GPU compression, a couple of hundred dollars from 2Q to 3Q as a result of kind of what we were seeing in the wholesale market and wholesale and retail pricing spreads, what really was the headwind for us that was unanticipated was the volume impact. We didn't have alternate sources, and that's what put pressure on the the performance, if you think about those 2,000 units that are normal GPU, really that's the shortfall in 3Q that caused us to pull down our full year EchoPark EBITDA guide.

But smart not to go out and try to replenish that volume buying a bunch of cars at auction, they're going to bring the margin even down further. So good decisions made, we need to be more aggressive in buying cheaper cars off the street. And that's something we're focused on for the fourth quarter and moving forward.

With no further questions, I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. David Smith for some closing remarks.

Well, thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. We will speak to you next quarter. Have a great day.

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect at this time, and thank you again for your participation.