Car Dealerships Hit With Massive Computer System Outage (theverge.com) 23
An anonymous reader shares a report: CDK Global, the company that provides management software for nearly 15,000 car dealerships in North America, is down for a second day following a cyberattack, according to a report from Automotive News. The outage has left car dealerships across North America unable to access the internal systems used to track car sales, view customer information, schedule maintenance, and more.
On Wednesday, CDK Global told dealerships that it's "investigating a cyber incident" and "proactively shut all systems down" while addressing the issue. However, as reported by Automotive News, CDK Global restored its systems shortly after, only to shut them down hours later due to "an additional cyber incident."
On Wednesday, CDK Global told dealerships that it's "investigating a cyber incident" and "proactively shut all systems down" while addressing the issue. However, as reported by Automotive News, CDK Global restored its systems shortly after, only to shut them down hours later due to "an additional cyber incident."
on ars earlier (Score:3)
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Sooner or later someone will blame the Jews...
smallest violin (Score:4, Informative)
This happened to a deserving group. Car buying should not be adversarial. I can play sales theatre too, but it is not productive. Let me talk to my manager...
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Literally every expensive purchase is "adversarial." If you don't assert yourself in the process, you get screwed. This is true whether you are buying a car, or a house, or a company, or a renovation, or anything that costs more than a few hundred dollars.
There are some car dealerships, like AutoNation and CarMax, where there is no haggling. But you're going to pay more than you have to, at such dealerships.
I have no idea how to get around this, other than to educate yourself and to haggle.
Re:smallest violin (Score:4, Insightful)
Why?
You realize that in the past, we used to haggle over everything. Prices on goods was so unusual when it was first introduced. But before, if you wanted to buy something, you had to haggle over it. Even daily goods. Imagine the world today if you wanted to buy lunch and instead of giving you a price, you had to haggle. Just how much time would be wasted saving cents?
Then a shopkeeper had the brilliant idea to stop haggling and just list the prices of goods. If people wanted the old way, they could go to those shops. If they just wanted to pick it up, pay, and go on their way, they could buy from his place.
Obviously the idea caught on.
So why is buying a new car such a pain? Why is it you cannot just walk in, say "I'll buy that one", plop down the money and leave? Why is it that's the start of the ordeal? Why can't I just buy a car as advertised?
Try it - take a car and try to buy it as advertised, and you'll find it impossible. Sure there are fees, taxes and other things, but surely you can simply look around the dealership and pay what the sticker says, right? At that point the sticker should have all the fees and taxes and everything listed down to a "You pay" number.
That's the real question. I just want that car, for the price on the sticker. Sure a little paperwork with titles and license plates and such might complicate matters, but it shouldn't be more than a straightforward amount of work. Why should it be I suddenly have to be inundated with a million other fees and charges not listed?
I mean, Tesla makes it basically easy. You select a model, then you select the options you want, and the price is updated in real time. You then click "Buy now" and pay a deposit and done. Sure there are special laws protecting dealerships, but why aren't dealerships more like Walmart or Target or other stores? You go in, you pick your goods, you check out, done. If they don't have something you want, you can special order it in, done.
The common wisdom now is to not bother haggling. Just say what you want, how you want it (the options), and the price, and ask for it. If it's advertised, even easier. If they refuse, you walk out the door. Don't even bother with the 4 hour haggling sessions - you go in, make your demand, yes or no. If they try to sneak something in, you walk. Haggling is just for chumps to see if the dealership can waste your time. The salesperson is probably juggling a dozen sales - every time they say "they're going to check" they're just dealing with other customers to waste your time on purpose.
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At CarMax and AutoNation, you actually *do* pay the price that is listed. The only add-ons at CarMax are tax, title, and a $150 "documentary fee." But this no-haggle convenience comes at a cost, of about 10-20% above Blue Book value.
"Lost deals" (Score:2)
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If you can't access area inventory, then you can't sell those cars. A couple of my cars were traded from another dealer in the state, while my father's car was shipment-in-progress from the factory.
Re:"Lost deals" (Score:4, Informative)
Cars literally sold for a century before this cloud nonsense brought an entire industry to its knees.
Wanna know what cars are available to sell? Look out the fucking window at the dealership you're employed at. See a car out there? Yup, its available. That simple. Wanna know if a car is available at another dealership? Pick up the damn phone and call, done.
Re:"Lost deals" (Score:4, Interesting)
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The process of buying a new car versus a used car has some pretty distinct differences too. In terms of used cars, for a customer right there or on the phone? Yeah your inventory is what's on lot, you should close that sale. If it's not new or certified I can't imagine many folks buying a used car sight unseen but maybe that happens more often than I think? Maybe private sales more than dealer lots?
A new car though as you mentioned there are a lot more options for customization and considering the price
Re: "Lost deals" (Score:2)
"Web sites down and I can't do research means no sale anywhere."
It means sales are delayed for a day or two. Oh no!
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Cars literally sold for a century before this cloud nonsense brought an entire industry to its knees.
You could make the same luddite argument about 99.9% of people's daily activities. We also used to communicate by telegraph. There's a reason we don't do that anymore.
I'm totally sure a salesperson is willing to spend an entire afternoon calling to every dealership within a 100 mile radius to help me find the specific car I'm looking for.
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a salesperson is willing to spend an entire afternoon calling to every dealership within a 100 mile radius
If he wants to EARN his commission he would. Sales used to be all about service. Now it's all about sales.
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Sales can't wait a day or two. They hate that because some other guy will get the commission instead of the original guy. Dealerships are a relic of the old days where they rely on haggling and it's a significant portion of the sales pay check. I don't see the hard sell anywhere else that is as bad as it is with auto sales. You're never allowed to say "Let me go home and think about it." If they don't have the color or style that you want on the lot, they still don't want you to leave. Sometimes you ha
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You've obviously never dealt with Oracle...
down side of forced cloud based SAAS solutions and (Score:4, Informative)
down side of forced cloud based SAAS solutions and no on-prem solutions.
All it takes is one vendor having an issue to take down lot's of companys. And Say an zone outage on AWS can take down an lot more.
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Incompetence strikes again (Score:3)
Another instance where IT was obviously done cheaper than possible.
eggs and baskets (Score:2)
Everyone put their eggs in the same basket. Basket? Not my problem.