Bell and Moir Toyota dealer principal Lee Pulman said while new car sales were still ticking over, the number of sales over the last few months were down on previous years.

"We are down a fair bit in sales. Even though there have been no cases of COVID-19 here in Mount Isa it does have an affect," Mr Pullman said.

"You've got cautious locals, contractors and mining companies that have capped capital spending due to the uncertain times. You can imagine making a big investment and a contractor has a downturn in business, he is going to have to shut town and that effects their confidence and decision making in purchasing anything."

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Mr Pulman said with the drop of COVID-19 cases in Queensland sales had begun to pick up again, but importing new vehicles from manufacturing companies overseas was more difficult.

"Due to cutting production over in Japan, social distancing and the amount of factories in operation; they can't produce as many cars as they were before," he said

"Production is down about 50pc because they can't have as many staff in factories, so that is reflecting on the number of vehicles coming to Australia.

"We have a strong order bank of cars coming in that are already sold, but we don't have many cars here on the lot."

Mr Pulman said the Parts and Service business had not been affected.

"Parts and Service is still going strong. We are still getting regulars coming in buying parts and accessories, as well as servicing and repairing vehicles. That hasn't affected us at all," he said.

"However the way we work across the business has changed slightly. We have social distancing everywhere, sanitiser upon any entry, disinfecting keys, disinfect before getting in a vehicle and after, the mechanics are wearing disposable gloves when working on customer cars, no one else is allowed in vehicles except for the mechanic and service advisor and we are temperature testing staff every day. The procedures are strict but it's keeping the community safe.

"This is on top of the normal steps as well including plastic seat covers and paper floor mats, because you don't want any tracing or marks in customers vehicles."

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Mr Pulman said the precautions were an additional cost on the business but a necessary one to keep the community safe.

"Hand sanitiser for example, as soon as all this started there was a great shortage and then the price seemed to be elevated by 100 per cent and more. So we have ordered plenty of hand sanitiser, gloves, disinfectant wipes to keep our business safely operational," he said.

"Our cleaner cleans the business twice a day, anything that someone could touch gets cleaned, from door handles to the rails out the front.

"We wash the vehicles up to four times a week. We used to do it once or twice a week anyway and a lot of the time we use a bucket with a wet and dry rag, not just because of COVID-19 but because of water restrictions, we don't want to use excess water.

"I think Mount Isa and the surrounding areas have handled the pandemic very well as far as precautions and we have taken every Toyota and government precaution possible."

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