What is days to turn: the average number of days a vehicle spends in dealer stock between the day it arrives and the day it is sold.
Days to turn is the average number of days a vehicle spends in a dealer's stock between arrival and sale. It is measured on sold units, looking backwards, and it tells a sales manager how long the forecourt is actually holding cars rather than how long they hope to hold them.
The phrase is North American and is used by the large marketplaces and data providers for both new and used vehicles. UK and Irish dealers say days in stock, stock age or stock turn for the same thing, and a car that has passed the group's age limit is aged stock on both sides of the Atlantic. It is one of three related figures, alongside days supply and inventory turn, and they are not interchangeable.
Days to turn formula
Days to turn = sum of days in stock for all vehicles sold in the period ÷ number of vehicles sold in the period
Days in stock for each unit runs from the date it entered stock, usually the day it was booked in from a trade-in, auction or transfer, to the date the sale was invoiced. Most groups also report the figure as a distribution rather than a single average: what share of sales happened within 30 days, within 60, and beyond 90.
Days to turn vs days supply vs inventory turn
- Days to turn is historical: how long the cars that sold had been sitting.
- Days supply is forward looking: how many days the current stock would last at the current rate of sale. Market days supply is the same idea applied to a specific model across the local market.
- Inventory turn is a ratio: how many times a year the stock is replaced. Roughly 365 divided by days to turn.
A dealer can have a healthy days to turn on the cars that sold and a terrible days supply on the cars that did not, because the average only counts the winners. That is the reason the distribution matters more than the average.
Days to turn example: a 120 car used forecourt in one month
A used car operation with 120 units on the ground sells 58 cars in a month. The days in stock on those 58 sales add up to 2,204, so days to turn is 2,204 ÷ 58 = 38 days. On its own that looks fine against a 45 day group target.
The split says something different. 31 of the sales went inside 30 days, most of them popular small hatchbacks that were priced to market on day one. 19 went between 31 and 60 days. Eight went past 90 days, and every one of those was a larger diesel SUV that was priced at the top of the market for six weeks, reduced twice, and eventually sold below the original cost to change. The average is fine; the eight cars lost money and paid stocking interest for three months while doing it.
The action from that report is on the buying and pricing of large SUVs, not on the average. That is what the number is for.
What drives days to turn
- Time to front line. A car that takes twelve days to get through reconditioning and photography has spent twelve days in stock before anyone could buy it. Many groups measure this separately as time to line.
- Buying. Cars appraised too high at trade-in arrive with no pricing room and age from day one.
- Pricing to market. A vehicle listed above the local market price for its age and mileage is invisible online, and most used buyers now filter by price before they see the car.
- Enquiry handling. A car with plenty of online interest and slow, thin responses still sits.
What days to turn does not tell you
- It is not profit. Selling fast by pricing low produces a beautiful days to turn and no gross. Read it next to gross per unit.
- It ignores current stock. It says nothing about the cars still on the forecourt. For that, use the stock age profile and days supply.
- It does not compare across franchises. A prestige used operation and a budget one have different natural turn rates, and one figure across a mixed group hides both.
Mistakes teams make with days to turn
The first is starting the clock at the day the car goes online instead of the day it arrived, which hides the reconditioning delay. The second is managing to the average and ignoring the tail. The third is the aged stock reflex: leaving a car alone for 60 days and then cutting the price hard, when a smaller adjustment at day 20 would have sold it with gross intact. The used car or sales manager owns the number, it is pulled from the stock system or DMS, and it is normally reviewed weekly with the stock age report and monthly against floor plan or stocking loan cost.
Enquiry handling is the one driver that costs nothing to fix. A personalised walkaround video of the specific car, recorded on a phone and sent to the enquiring customer as a branded page over SMS, WhatsApp or email with a book button, is how sales teams using Venta Video get an online lead onto the forecourt while the car is still fresh.
