Vochi said:

if a dealer adds 5,000 new VDPs

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I hadn't thought of this new form of AI slop.

Sorel said:

The ultimate goal is detecting mechanical failures that OBD scanners, visual inspections, and appraisal software miss. Ultimate goal: a more robust way of finding hidden mechanical problems before they hit the bottom line.

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Genius concept, dealers will be skeptical (it's in their DNA). They won't use it as a standalone product; it must be nested within an existing appraisal tool and serve as one part of the appraisal process. If this process is statistically valid, it would be a great tool for auction condition reports.

DanMorgan said:

Great write up Alex...I'm only 1/3 of the way through reading it all. I still can't believe the difference in gross is only $1000.....Quick thought would it would be more gross on the cars bought in the lane versus auction but then as I type this I'm thinking I'd have zero issues stepping up on a car in my lane, especially if I have a multi-point inspection knowing exactly what I have to deal with as far as recon goes, and if it helps me be aggressive to get a deal now.

I just wish it wasn't so hard to find salespeople willing to put in the busy work to work the lane. It's easy to get people to start but keeping them going is the tough part (and that's with a good comp plan and incentivizing the writers for the referrals).

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I didn't even ask for this softball

First off, thanks Dan. I did use some Claude, so it is probably a bit too wordy.

Think of it less as a $1,000 difference on the top line. You've got auction fees to avoid and a faster turn rate that slashes the floorplan interest too. That is where most of the "$2,500 ahead" comes from. What isn't accounted for is the increase in sales because most people trade instead of sell.

Just having a system that asks service customers if they're interested is alone a nice pop!

The softball to me: VehicleLyfe is built for autonomy with the option for your people to get more aggressive. It does the farming and serves customers to your regular sales team as leads. The only thing to do is treat these customers a little differently than your usual lead because they're already your customers.

joe.pistell said:

Love the visuals!

I see lease returns breakout, any chance to look at other sourcing? Service acquisition as a stand alone would be very interesting.

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Thanks Joe! Yeah, I can break anything down further. When it comes to service, we see two types: no service lane working at all (some new clients for us) and those who have been using something else (switched to us) or are using our software.

It looks like the dealer who does nothing at all can convert 0.23% of their service repair orders monthly into acquisitions. Those who put an effort into the lane via automation (what we do) or placing a body out there can bring that number over 1%. Those percentages don't sound like much, but when you consider the average store does 1,100 ROs per month, that is a big swing. The math pencils out quickly when you also show that you're $2,500 ahead on every car you source from a customer instead of the auction.

If you don't know how many ROs your service drive does in a month, you should know how many used cars you sell. ~23% of used car sales are on vehicles traded or acquired from service for those dealerships who don't do much to work the lane. The better stores that do work the lane are in the 40% territory.

Acquisitions from service vary by RO count too - right, it is just volume/math. It is that 0.23% vs. 1%+ that adds up quick. For stores that do more than 1,800 ROs a month, it can start to make sense to put a full-time body in the lane too.

DanMorgan said:

I just wish it wasn't so hard to find salespeople willing to put in the busy work to work the lane. It's easy to get people to start but keeping them going is the tough part (and that's with a good comp plan and incentivizing the writers for the referrals)

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hmmmm

Great write up Alex...I'm only 1/3 of the way through reading it all. I still can't believe the difference in gross is only $1000.....Quick thought would it would be more gross on the cars bought in the lane versus auction but then as I type this I'm thinking I'd have zero issues stepping up on a car in my lane, especially if I have a multi-point inspection knowing exactly what I have to deal with as far as recon goes, and if it helps me be aggressive to get a deal now.

I just wish it wasn't so hard to find salespeople willing to put in the busy work to work the lane. It's easy to get people to start but keeping them going is the tough part (and that's with a good comp plan and incentivizing the writers for the referrals).

Love the visuals!



620k deals! wow.
I see lease returns breakout, any chance to look at other sourcing? Service acquisition as a stand alone would be very interesting.

KennySmithAutoUnite said:

The part I would want to see next is total net after acquisition cost, recon, holding cost and wholesale loss. That would tell the whole story.

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Check out the interactive tour Acquiring from your Customers vs. Buying from the Auction - VehicleLyfe

Alex Snyder said:

Did a little digging in a few years of DMS data. I wanted to see the dollar difference between auction-sourced cars and trades/street buys/lease captures.

Customer-sourced cars grossed $3,102 and sat 23 days. The auction cars grossed $2,100 and sat 36 days.

Take an interactive tour of how it all adds up. Build yourself an argument for why your store should invest in better ways to pull great used cars from your own database (+ service drive). Acquiring from your Customers vs. Buying from the Auction - VehicleLyfe

View attachment 11596

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Alex, this is where the real advantage of buying from your own customers shows up.


It is not just the $1,002 more gross. You are also looking at 13 fewer days in inventory, no auction fee, no transport, and usually a much better idea of what you are buying before it hits recon.


The part I would want to see next is total net after acquisition cost, recon, holding cost and wholesale loss. That would tell the whole story.


Auction is always going to have a place because you cannot build the entire inventory mix from trades and service customers. But if a store has a big CRM and service drive and is still treating the auction as its first acquisition source, there is probably a lot of gross sitting right in its own database.


The best used car to buy is often the one you already know.

Another dealer site is Cox Auto insights Insights - Cox Automotive Inc.

I watch this site alot myself since they have so much car industry data all together, because of all the companies they have under their umbrella that dealers use.

So many auto dealer websites have paywalls behind alot of their articles but this site doesn't.

Chris Cachor​

Dealer Commerce launched in 2026 with Chris Cachor as CTO​

Dealer Commerce was founded in 2026, and Chris Cachor is listed externally as its CTO. The company is publicly marketing a dealership platform built around one customer record from the shopper’s first click through the showroom visit. F6S

The platform combines inventory merchandising, trade and finance flows, buyer-activity analytics, an inventory-grounded AI concierge, persistent messaging, and prepared showroom visits. Published pricing starts at $1,499 per month. Dealer Commerce


Links: Dealer Commerce · Dealer Commerce on LinkedIn · Chris Cachor’s Dealer Commerce profile

@Chris Cachor
Fifteen years deep and still dropping knowledge across every corner of DealerRefresh, Chris Cachor of Dealer Commerce has built 527 posts and 285 reactions worth of credibility where it counts most — digital marketing, SEO, and the conversations everyone else is afraid to have. A true forum Swiss Army knife.

This time the robot was right. Fullpath is the best choice. Dead simple. Tons of automation. Measurable results.

The exact opposite of AMP.

I think you're pulling some interesting articles from alot of sources. I think in this social media, image heavy world we live in and me being more visual maybe consider putting some small pictures to go with the stories. Maybe the new stories at the top of the sections with a quick AI made headline to grab what the story or article is about for those that are quick scrolling each day down the page.

I've looked at the page the last 2 days and my ADHD/no patience/quick scrolling eyes lose track fast going down the sections trying to read each headline, line by line.

autoblog.com could be another site to pull articles from if it's easy too. Just another site thought.

Keep it up.

I would love to see what "they" are thinking about that already hasn't been thought about already in this space.

When we signed up with Tekion at my previous spot the trainers were boasting about the Tekion founders buying a Reynolds store and a CDK/Elead store out West and making Tekion with the best of both.

So I'm wondering what else is there to think up. I'm sure that's on "theys" end but makes me

....maybe a better way to email?

Rick Buffkin​

Rick Buffkin is now General Sales Manager at Newton Ford South​

Rick Buffkin is now serving as General Sales Manager at Newton Ford South, part of Newton Motor Group. An August 6 dealership article identifies him in the role, and the group’s staff page lists him.

https://www.newtonfordsouth.com/blog/finding-the-right-ford-dealership-experience-in-middle-tennessee/

LOL @Rick Buffkin , this is an AI f'up!

THIS IS WHAT AI SAW ON YOUR SITE:

hahaha...
p.s. Rick, nice detail on your AI art on the back wall. Well done sir.

joe.pistell said:

Alex, IDEA.
If the AI reply is sophisticated and delivers insights, it usually points to a well constructed prompt. Share that too -if- u think it'll help readers be more AI powerful.

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The prompts:
Any suggestions for my friend Eley's request here: VinSolutions AMP Alternatives

Can you give this to me as a response for the forum in simple terms with Perplexity as the source.

Alex Snyder said:

This post was written by Perplexity.

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Alex, IDEA.
If the AI reply is sophisticated and delivers insights, it usually points to a well constructed prompt. Share that too -if- u think it'll help readers be more AI powerful.

This post was written by Perplexity.

Eley — before replacing AMP, I’d look at Fullpath first. It has a two-way integration with VinSolutions, so it should be able to use the CRM/DMS data for better sales and service targeting while pushing activity back into VinSolutions for the team to see.

If your biggest issue is lead response, texting, appointment-setting, and follow-up, TECOBI may be worth a look as well. It is more focused on the communication and engagement side than full-scale marketing activation.

The biggest question for any replacement is not just “Can it integrate with Vin?” It is:

• Does sales activity and campaign engagement write back into VinSolutions?
• Can it combine sales, service, equity, and ownership data without duplicating customers?
• Can it handle email, text, paid-media audiences, and service reminders in one coordinated way?
• Can it show actual incremental appointments, sold units, and repair orders—not just opens and clicks?

I would ask each vendor to demonstrate the same real-world use cases: service customers who have not returned, high-equity owners, lease maturities, unsold service customers, and previous buyers approaching a likely trade cycle.

VinSolutions AMP does have the benefit of being native to the CRM, so I would not switch just for a prettier interface or different templates. I’d switch only if the alternative delivers better segmentation, stronger activation across channels, clean Vin write-back, and clearer reporting on sales and fixed-ops results.

Lindsey BOOM Shaker said:

My overall point was the landscape for crm in automotive is extremely grim, otherwise

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In the B2B side of the world, many of us are on the verge of building custom CRMs for our own teams. If I had stock in Salesforce or HubSpot, I'd be dumping it tomorrow.

We do not have the walled gardens to get past, so this is an easier endeavor for us. We also have developers and full AI coding accounts... and some of us have built CRMs before.

Automotive retail CRMs are still hand-holders. The benefit is in printing paperwork and desking deals. Management drives follow-up and customer entry.

The future automotive CRM sticks to those benefits while removing the rest

....someone may or may not be thinking about this

ayushcl said:

This is what the dealer gets on the other end:
View attachment 11586

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ayushcl said:

give it the VIN and the finished photo set, order the photos how you want them, and it packages them into consistently named files alongside the window sticker and a draft Buyers Guide. Once you’re done, it creates one link you can hand back to the dealership with the vehicle files in one place.

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What value does this deliver to the end user(s)?

Alex Snyder said:

Dan - the only man who knows where our smilies came from

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and I won't tell....they look pixelated just like they are still from that era too

Dan - the only man who knows where our smilies came from

joe.pistell said:

@Jeff Kershner , wow, the OG's are poppin'!
View attachment 11574

After all of these years, It's frickin' amazing how sticky DR is.

DealerRefresh, tt's the Reddit of Car ppl.

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I found this place from that PrezSkroob guy that's on here from our S2000 days and we both worked for Toyota too then he said there's "Some Other Guy On Here In Hagerstown" jump on and check it out since we're all internet sales gluttons for punishment