Owners promise more inventory than before, faster service
By Gary Gould
Genesee County View Editor
GRAND BLANC — Car buyers in Genesee County now have more options and quicker service as Randy Wise Toyota opened its brand-new dealership on April 1.
Chris Wise, vice president of Randy Wise Auto Group, said the expanded location aims to offer a larger inventory of new and pre-owned vehicles while enhancing service operations to reduce wait times for customers.
Randy Wise Toyota, 8420 Holly Rd., is the new 25,000 square feet dealership located on five acres near the NCG Cinema on Holly Road.
Wise said this will be the ninth dealership in the Randy Wise family. Located in and around Genesee County, the Wise family includes stores in Flint, Clio, Grand Blanc, Fenton, Flushing, Durand and Ortonville.
The current Toyota dealership is part of Randy Wise Motorcars at 9099 Holly Rd., which also sells the BMW and Mercede brands. Wise has owned the site for three years and has planned on moving one of the brands to its own campus at some point.
“So, when my dad and I were buying the other dealership down the street we had Toyota, BMW and Mercedes all right there on the one campus. We knew going into that dealership they all needed more space,” Chris Wise said. “One of the brands was going to get moved out and it just made sense keeping the highline brands – BMW and Mercedes – together and getting Toyota its own dealership.”
Wise said he and his father, Randy, looked around for a while trying to find the right piece of property and it turned out to be just down the road from the current Toyota dealership.
“We decided this is a great spot for it,” Wise said. “The Holly Road corridor is just getting busier and busier. We both grew up here so we both know Grand Blanc well so it worked out.”
He said he and his father grew up in the Grand Blanc area and are happy to have returned to the community with the Randy Wise Motorcars purchase in 2021.
Now, with the new dealership, Wise said they are even more excited to be a part of the community.
“We love Grand Blanc. We love seeing the growth of Grand Blanc, in Fenton, in Flint, he said. “We’re excited to be back and a part of Grand Blanc. It’s a great community to be a part of.”
Chris Wise said he will initially manage the new dealership until other managers are ready to take over. The management staff, he added, has been hired and are training at the existing store.
Service technicians and other positions are still hiring for new location, Wise added.
For the construction of the new location, Wise said the Randy Wise Auto Group worked with contractor Dave Lurvey.
“This was our first time working with him,” Wise said. “We couldn’t be happier. His team has been an absolute blast to work with. I really look forward to working with these guys on other projects.”
He said when the new store opens, Randy Wise will begin a complete renovation of the BMW dealership to repurpose some of the space leftover from the Toyota move, adding more service capacity for BMW customers. The work is expected to take about six months.
When it is complete, the renovation will have all BMW sales on the north side and Mercedes on the south. Wise added there are a couple of other projects still in the works that will be announced at a later date.
The investment Wise said he and his father are making in the community with the new location is about 60 new jobs.
He also said that between the increased employment, inventory and service capacity he hopes the new dealership will help grow Toyota’s business in Genesee County.
Wise added Toyota has always had a good base here, but the area has never had this kind of investment in the brand.
“Everything is getting a lot bigger,” Wise said. “We anticipate two to three times what we’re selling now, so that’s a big investment with the amount of inventory we’re going to see here. Toyota will start providing more inventory to us here because of this investment.”
The Wise family name is known in the community, he said, and no matter what brand of automobile they’re buying, customers just want to be taken care of and have a good variety of brands to choose from.
The new dealership will feature an indoor delivery area, so no matter what time of year customers will take delivery of their new vehicle inside where its warm and dry, Wise said.
Wise added the new showroom is 2-3 times the size of what is at the existing location giving them a lot more capacity to assist customers when they come in.
He added he expects to have three times the new inventory the current Toyota dealership has and 2-3 times the amount of used cars.
The service area at Randy Wise Toyota will feature 13 hoists including a dedicated alignment rack and lube racks for quick service so customers can get in and out faster, Wise said.
“A lot more efficiency and speed is coming with this store,” he said. “I think it is just built to handle the significantly growing Toyota business that you see really around the world, but certainly around the country and in this region. Now we’re catching up to be able to service and sell that with a much bigger dealership.”