Recon cost calculator
Reconditioning costs a car twice: once for the work and again for every day it sits waiting. Add up one car’s recon, count its days in recon and on the lot, and see what is left of the front gross once the money in the car has been carried the whole time.
- Free
- No login
- Instant
The car
Reconditioning
Time and holding
Front gross
Left after recon and every day of holding
- Gross before recon (retail minus cost)
- $5,495.00
- Recon total
- $1,655.00
- Recon as a share of cost
- 11.4%
- Days from purchase to sale
- 44 days
- Holding cost, all days
- $693.53
- Holding cost of the recon days
- $141.86
- What one more day costs
- $15.76
- Front gross after recon and holding
- $3,146.47
- Money in the car at sale
- $16,848.53
Estimate only. Holding cost is simple floor-plan interest on the acquisition cost plus recon, over every day from purchase to sale, plus the other cost per day you enter. It leaves out pack, F&I income and taxes.
How it is figured
Recon is a cost and a clock
Recon total = mechanical + body + detail + parts + sublet
Holding = (cost + recon) × APR ÷ 365 × days + other cost per day × days
Front gross = retail − cost − recon − holding
The holding cost runs on cost plus recon, because every dollar of work is money in the car until it sells. That is why a slow recon line costs more on an expensive car than on a cheap one.
Recon budgeting
Set the recon budget before you buy the car
Work back from the retail price you expect: retail minus the front gross you need, minus the recon, minus the holding is what you can pay. When the recon estimate goes up after the car arrives, the same sum tells you how much of it the car can carry.
Time matters as much as dollars. Industry estimates of the daily cost of a used car vary widely, with figures from about $32 to $85 a day quoted by Cox Automotive and Reynolds and Reynolds, and the typical time from purchase to frontline ready is often put at a week or more. Those are estimates, not research, so use your own floor-plan rate and daily costs above.
Finish it or wholesale it?
Shorter recon
Four ways dealers take days out of recon
Inspect on arrival
Write the work order the day the car lands, so parts are ordered while it waits for a bay instead of after.
Approve once
Set a dollar limit a car can take without a second approval. Waiting for a yes is often the longest step.
Run work in parallel
Detail and photos do not have to wait for the last sublet job when the work does not overlap.
Track days in recon per car
A number on every car, seen every morning, is what makes a slow car visible before it costs a week.
FAQ
Recon cost FAQ
What counts as a reconditioning cost?
What you spend to make a car ready to retail: mechanical work, body and paint, detail, tires and parts, and sublet work. It becomes part of the car’s cost, so it comes off the gross when the car sells.
What is holding cost?
What it costs to keep a car until it sells: the floor-plan interest on the money in it, plus costs like lot space and insurance. This calculator charges interest on the cost plus the recon for every day from purchase to sale.
How long should recon take?
There is no rule. Dealers who track it often aim for a few days from arrival to frontline ready, while many take a week or more. Enter your own days to see what each one costs you.
What is front gross?
The profit on the car itself: the sale price minus what the car cost, including recon. This calculator also takes off the holding cost, so the figure is what the car really earned before F&I income.
How much should I budget for recon?
It depends on the car and your market. Set it per car from the inspection, and check that retail minus cost, recon and holding still leaves the front gross you need before you approve the work.
Sources
- Cox Automotive: Beat the clock, speed to market white paper (PDF)
- Cox Automotive: Five pointers to improve your used vehicle reconditioning process
- Reynolds and Reynolds: What you need to know about used car reconditioning
The daily holding cost figures in these sources are industry estimates, not measured research. Use your own floor-plan rate and costs in the calculator.
See recon in every car’s gross
In AutoDealer.io each car carries its recon work orders, and the vendor bills and parts posted to it land in its cost, so the gross on the car shows the recon it took.