What AI Still Can’t Sell: Fenix Parts’ Mike Glunk, aka ‘Mike Hammer’ On The Limits Of The Algorithm

AI may improve parts lookup, pricing and back-office efficiency, but Fenix Parts’ Mike Glunk, aka ‘Mike Hammer’, argues it still cannot replace the human skills that close a sale. Experience, product knowledge, negotiation and understanding a customer’s real needs remain essential, particularly when identifying complex parts and building long-term relationships.

Mike Glunk of Fenix Parts at his sales desk discussing AI and the importance of human relationships in recycled parts sales. — Mike Glunk aka ‘Mike Hammer’

Every corner of the vehicle recycling industry is being told the same thing right now: AI is coming for parts lookup, pricing and even negotiation. Mike Glunk, aka ‘Mike Hammer’, has heard the pitch more times than he can count, and he is not convinced it changes what actually wins a sale.

Glunk has been in the business since 1990, when he started out with Cosmos, following his father, who ran a yard of his own in the 1970s and 80s. Today he is one of the top individual salespeople at Fenix Parts, recording $15.3 million in net sales last year and $1.8 million in a single month more recently. Numbers like that, he says, come from something no algorithm has yet replicated.

“AI doesn’t have the ability to make a personal connection with the customer,” Glunk says. “It can’t hear the tone in a customer’s voice when negotiating or understand what the customer’s real needs are.”

That gap shows up in the detail of the job as much as the relationship. A vehicle identification number will confirm a part fits, Glunk points out, but it will not tell a buyer everything. A headlight for the same Mazda model might come in three variants, and a VIN alone will not say whether it needs to be adaptive. Working that out, and sensing when a customer is guessing rather than certain, is a skill built on experience, not data.

A Shrinking Role For The Live Conversation

The industry’s buying culture has moved far from the live auction floor and the phone call with someone you knew by name. Glunk sees the efficiency in that shift, but not without a cost.

“I think AI will be efficient when it comes to some aspects of the industry, just not when it comes to selling,” he says. “Selling parts is more about the camaraderie with customers, building that personal relationship for long-term business.”

He is candid that younger buyers are less interested in the conversation altogether, happy to order online rather than pick up the phone. He has watched this pattern play out with his own children. Older customers, and the generation now moving through middle age, are more likely to still value a familiar voice on the other end of the line, particularly once cost pressure sends them looking for a better deal than a new part would offer.

Insurance, Cost And Caution Are All Driving Demand

Asked what is fuelling demand for used parts right now, Glunk does not point to a single cause. The insurance industry remains a consistent driver of the used-parts business, he says, but rising costs and backordered new parts are doing just as much work, alongside wider consumer caution about the economy.

“A lot of people are still unsure of the economy and choose to fix rather than buy new,” he says. On the mechanical side in particular, he has noticed the swings tracking the wider mood: when times feel good, people buy new cars, and when they feel uncertain, they hold on to what they have and repair it instead.

Betting On Back-Office, Not The Sales Floor

Despite his scepticism about AI replacing the conversation, Glunk isn’t dismissive of the technology. Asked where he would place his bet on AI’s biggest impact over the next five years, he points away from the customer-facing side of the business entirely.

“I think using AI to buy cars will be next, if they aren’t already using it,” he says. “I’m sure it could be programmed to look at more cars at once, giving the advantage over the competition.”

This view is consistent with how he already uses the technology in his own day. Glunk has leaned on AI for call transcription and note-taking to keep up with a punishing schedule that still regularly runs past twelve hours a day. What he is not looking for, he says, is a replacement for the relationships that built his numbers in the first place. Those, in his view, are staying firmly human.