How it is computed
Take finance reserve per deal. Divide by blended PVR, products and reserve together. A store with a thousand dollars of reserve inside a two-thousand-dollar PVR has a reserve share of fifty percent.
Why it matters
Reserve is the part of F&I gross the store does not control. Lenders change participation, rate caps arrive, cash buyers produce none of it, and a rising-rate market can compress it in a quarter. Product gross stays.
It is the difference between two offices posting the same PVR. The one with the lower reserve share will post something close to that PVR next year; the other may not.
How operators read it
- Read it as a direction. A reserve share that climbs while PVR holds flat means product penetration is falling and reserve is filling the hole.
- Read it against finance mix. A store financing most of its deals will naturally carry more reserve; the question is whether product gross is growing alongside it.
- Do not punish a healthy reserve. Reserve is legitimate income. The point is to know how much of the office's gross depends on it, and to build the product side so the office is never a lender decision away from a bad month.
Questions people ask
What reserve share is too high?
There is no single line. A store should know its own number, know which way it is moving, and know what the office would look like if reserve fell by a third. If that picture is frightening, the share is too high for that store.
How do you lower reserve share without lowering PVR?
By raising product penetration. The product index is the lever; reserve share is the gauge that shows whether the lever is working.
How A.D.A.M. reads it
A.D.A.M. reports reserve share as reserve per deal over blended PVR and names a high-PVR, high-reserve office as fragile gross rather than as a win. He reads it beside the numbers it trades against, names what the gap is worth, and leaves the decision where it belongs. What an AI advisor should do, and refuse to do.