SWFL dealerships see hundreds of requests for cars following Hurricane Ian. Can they meet the demand?

Daniel Krier, sales manager at Fort Myers Subaru Dealership, has been out helping customers since Hurricane Ian ended last week.

Whether it was assisting residents on the lot when purchasing a new car or picking customers up physically from their home to get to the dealership, he was quick to help customers in a crisis.

"I just picked up a customer in a retirement community about 15 minutes south of (Fort Myers). ... Their car was completely flooded out," Krier said. "I was standing in the parking lot that it happened and it looks like a beautiful nice parking lot. As you look around there, it's just every car has water lines up to almost the roof lines and debris and mud and stuff stuck to their cars."

Since Lee County dealerships opened their doors Thursday after Hurricane Ian's reign of terror ended, they dealt with a different type of post-storm surge: residents flooding their phones to find new cars to replace their hurricane-damaged ones.

Phones ringing off the hook, emails increasing by each minute, residents filing in one by one throughout the day. After losing their main mode of transportation, many are looking to quickly to get fixed up with a new ride.

And dealership managers say they are not only eager to help but have the means to do it.

'No extreme damages or anything'

Despite Ian's 155 mph winds, many car dealerships along Colonial Boulevard in Fort Myers sustained minimal damage to their buildings and vehicles.

For the Volvo Dealership, Finance Director Dorian Montaro said they got off lucky with light damage.

"Of course some tree branches fell, our Volvo sign … the Os did fly off," Montaro said. "Other than that, we took all of our vehicles just to secure locations. … We have no flooding, no extreme damages or anything."

Just a few yards away, the Mitsubishi dealership also fared well, according to General Manager Sean B. Mullen, who said they saw damage to their siding and a few vehicles.

Due to minimal damage and power gained back after a few days, many dealerships opened up soon after the storm ended, with hundreds of calls and messages to sort through from people demanding new cars.

"Literally the day after the hurricane, people were calling us," Montaro said. "Some of our loyal Volvo customers that have bought four or five, six (in the past). A customer just did paperwork right now, they bought a car in July, so now they're buying again."

Will the supply of cars meet the demand?

Mullen said he has no doubt they have the supply to meet the demand.

"We have cars being shipped from all over the country," Mullen said. "New Mitsubishi is being shipped to our ports. (The hurricane is) not causing any issues right now."

Most dealerships in the area expressed the same sentiment as Mullen: they feel their dealerships will have no problem meeting the increased demand in the area. With their supply coming in from across the county, and some from around the world, their shipments will not be affected by the hurricane.

For Krier, he said they've already been in touch with corporate following the storm and expect to see new models coming to their dealerships in the next week.

"Subaru itself has already responded. They're going to allocate roughly another 500 units to those particular areas. … There's a couple other smaller dealerships, we are the biggest in the area, but out of that 500, we'll get a good majority of them," Krier said.

Accommodating customers while facing challenges

While meeting demand might not be an issue for dealerships, Ian's destruction has brought on some other challenges.

Montaro, who also lost his own car in the flooding, said the hardest struggle is seeing the Volvo staff still not have power and suffer from the aftermath of the storm, but luckily, they have come to together as a team to support each other.

"I've been here for six years and it's hard seeing them hurt. … I see them more than I see my own personal family so it's difficult getting some random text messages of what's going on," Montaro admits. "Thank God some have got power before the other, so they come over, they eat with us, take a shower, we supply them with generators, whatever they need we make sure it's taken care of."

Traffic lights being out and road blocks still in place have also put a strain on dealers, exacerbating the time it takes to complete a purchase by lengthening test drives and making some customers uncomfortable to get on the road just yet.

What should consumers know before heading to the lots?

Among the dealerships the News-Press interviewed, they all said their prices will remain the same as prior to the hurricane.

Mullen said it's not easy to get a new car immediately and believes residents need to be aware of the insurance process, especially after their previous car was damaged and totaled.

For residents who want to purchase a car, he recommends that they come to the dealerships, since they'll most likely need more information to determine if they qualify for a second open auto loan before the one that was totaled gets paid off.

"Some people, depending on their income and credit, can qualify for multiple vehicles. And then at that point, they can get a new vehicle and deal with the insurance process after the fact," Mullen said. "Some banks will still want proof of that total loss before they'll give them another car payment, and some banks will want that vehicle traded in or that vehicle paid off in full from the insurance or the GAP insurance before they'll get another auto."

Krier said he expects this influx of purchases to last for at least another three months.

"We'll still see a continual drop of heavy purchases without a trade, cars totaled out, it just depends on the insurance company as to how quickly they can take care of their customers and reimburse them or whatever to do that," Krier explains.

Most of all, dealerships just want to acknowledge the hard work their staff has already put in, coming into work after a deadly storm to help get the community back on track.

"Employees are here when they don't have power or water at their house still," Mullen said. "We're just trying to get back to normal and help the community to do the same thing by providing our services, whether it be in service or getting them new transportation.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: SWFL dealerships see hundreds of calls to replace storm-damaged cars