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Dan Sayer · Jul 9, 2026

carmart.mustafa said:
Hi everyone,

We have been using cars.com for a year. $1500 per month. Now, they say that because we have over 75+ cars, they want to increase to $2044. If I want to stay at the same package, it will cost $1799 now. %20 increasement for no reason. Reps says it is because our cost per lead is $5, and other dealerships are $40.

What I understand is because my cars are great, I am getting punished.

Is there anyone else have the same thing?

We have since cancelled Cars, which kinda killed me a bit because I had the best relationship and most consistent performance with them over all others up till a couple years ago.

I have an exercise I used to do with them every price increase they proposed and I was typically successful in the logic. @carmart.mustafa what was your total Cars VDP count in April, May, and June at the $1,500 rate?

joe.pistell · Jul 9, 2026

carmart.mustafa said:
they say that because we have over 75+ cars, they want to increase to $2044. If I want to stay at the same package, it will cost $1799 now. %20 increasement for no reason

Did your inventory count go up?

p.s. reshoot this bad boy

https://www.carmartpreowned.com/inventory/ford/escape/cm-a37369/

joe.pistell · Jul 9, 2026

carmart.mustafa said:
this is ridiculous isn't it? I mean they don't success, just because my car and photos better, maybe people click my cars?

Their day in the inferno of disruption is coming.

joe.pistell · Jul 9, 2026

carmart.mustafa said:
What I understand is because my cars are great, I am getting punished.

Cars has adopted the CarGurus plan. Flex pricing based on your performance.

ryan.leslie · Jul 9, 2026

Jeff Kershner said:
It's going to be interesting to watch all this play out.

"Everything is cyclical"

Not trying to be a discouragement to anyone, especially you Corbin (don't feel attacked, just trying to give a different perspective), but it feels like we've seen this before... or at least a version of it.

I suspect that you are going to see dealers take a greater interest in protecting their inventory as a unique asset.

The technical barrier to propping up a marketplace has never been lower with the advent of vibe-coding. @joe.pistell already called out the problem. A marketplace without traffic is a fancy billboard in the desert. How do they get traffic? They aren't going to be able to outspend entrenched legacy marketplaces, so they are going to have to lean on the inventory... the inventory the dealer is ALSO leaning on to drive traffic to their own site.

Marketplaces have always represented a competive force. Sometimes they have their own audience and market presence and they return more than they risk. That usually takes a lot of time, money, or both to develop. If they don't have their own audience and are using your inventory to build one that may not be an equitable exchange of value.

Dealers that lurk here, this is for you. Do some make model and geo searches. Look for VLAs run by the 3rd parties that are advertising cars that look an awful lot like yours, because they ARE yours. Click through on that VLA and for some of the marketplaces you'll end up on an SRP with a whole lot more cars that look like your car that aren't your car.

If that 3rd party you are writing a check to each month is using some of that check, AND YOUR inventory, to drive traffic to their site to show cars that are NOT yours, you need to have a convesation with them. I'd be a little less upset about it if it went to a VDP, but using a dealer's inventory as a lure to an SRP seems like a "vendor" thing to do, NOT a "partner" thing to do.

If you aren't maximizing VLA presence and sending strongly written letters when your "partners" are using your inventory against you, you really should be. PM me if you want a template for that strongly worded letter.

Alex Snyder · Jul 8, 2026

Login to view embedded media Go to GoTo for your own demo.

Every dealer I know pays attention to phone calls. We record them, we grade them; plenty of us cut a check to a phone-training company to sit there and score how our people handle inbound sales and service calls. It's a real expense, and most stores just accept it as the cost of doing business.

While all that money and attention goes to the phones, your team is also texting and emailing customers all day long — and almost nobody is watching any of it. The calls get graded. The texts and emails go out into the void. That blind spot is exactly what caught our attention when Jeff and I sat down with the GoTo team for a demo of GoTo Connect for Automotive.

The overview
They walked us through the platform at a high level first. The short version: it ties phone, text, and email together per employee, so everything a given salesperson or advisor sends and receives lives in one place. Nothing revolutionary on the surface — plenty of tools promise "one inbox."

Where it got interesting was the layer on top of it.

The thing that actually got our attention
GoTo Connect has an AI that watches and scores how well your people communicate. Not just "did they pick up the phone," but how the whole conversation with the customer is being handled, whichever way it happens.

Think about what that replaces. Right now a lot of stores are paying a consultant to monitor calls and calls only. Or they want sales managers to spot-check a few calls. This captures both texts and emails, along with calls. It watches the communications and automatically flags where your team is dropping the ball. For most dealers, that's a set of communications they've never had consistent eyes on before. Jeff and I both kept coming back to that — it's the first tool we've looked at that closes the text-and-email gap instead of pretending it doesn't exist.

Two things that made it easy to like
First, it doesn't care what phone system you're running. You don't have to rip out your current setup to get the monitoring and the visibility. That lowers the barrier a lot. And the barrier is further lowered because it integrates with major CRMs.

Second, it works with your employees' personal phones. Anyone who's tried to get a sales team to stop texting customers from their own cell knows what a problem that is — the conversations happen off the books, and you never see them. This pulls those into view too.

Our honest take
We came away thinking about this as an affordable way to get a full picture — and real control — over all of your dealership's communications, not just the slice you happen to record today. If you're already spending on call monitoring, it's worth pricing this against what that's costing you and asking what you're getting for the texts and emails you're currently not watching at all.

Learn more and Get a Demo for yourself

Alex Snyder · Jul 8, 2026

Dealer Authority deep dive is up!

Tallcool1 · Jul 8, 2026

AutoDealerTomUT said:
Has anyone had success getting into CUDL recently? We’re an independent dealership that’s been operating for about 1 year and 8 months, and the CUDL reps in our region keep changing the signup requirements.

When we first contacted CUDL, we were told we needed $2M in annual revenue. When we hit that, it became $3M and 2 years in business. Now, as we approach the two-year mark, they’re saying $4M and 4 years. Each time we reach out, the requirements seem to move higher.

For context, our growth has been steady:

2024 (first year with 10 months in business): $2M in sales, 154 deals

2025 YTD (another 10 months): $2.9M in sales, 220 deals, on track for $3.4 to $3.7M by EOY

Loan mix: 166 direct loans, 60 indirect, remainder cash deals

We’ve also completed around 70 deals with a major local credit union, but they recently said that independent dealers here must have in-state titles and non-floored inventory unless they’re on CUDL. That’s going to start to impacting us significantly as we floor most of our inventory and buy out of state vehicles. This credit union has been were a large portion of our prime customers go to get $0 down deals or roll over negative equity. None of our indirect lenders we partner with seem to like $0 down or negative equity and we can't seem to find a lender that deals with these situations. I've also reached out to the top 5 credit unions in my area to see if they'll work with us as an indirect partner, but no one has wanted to work with us without CUDL.

Any help/tips on getting into CUDL would be appreciated.

If you have any type of relationship with a CUDL Participating Credit Union, ask them to write you a request letter. If a Credit Union specifically requests you are allowed access to the CUDL Portal, you will get it.

That is how I got it literally one week after I opened my dealership.

Lending Mojo · Jul 8, 2026

Auntess said:
Congrats on growing the business. Getting customers through the financing process is often one of the biggest hurdles for independent dealers.

If CUDL isn't an option yet, I'd focus on building relationships directly with local and regional banks or credit unions that are open to working with independent dealers. Sometimes smaller institutions are more flexible than the larger networks, especially if you have a solid track record with low default rates and clean documentation.

Happy to assist ANY independent dealer that needs financing for better credit customers (650+ fico). We have have national lenders we work with directly and do not charge a monthly fee to join. For more information: [email protected] or 855-GET-MOJO

Alex Snyder · Jul 7, 2026

joe.pistell said:
plz pin this thread to the top, or, create a easy find link to it.

Done

joe.pistell · Jul 6, 2026

joe.pistell said:
Casa Grande CDJR 998 sold in June...
and, ZERO UI support for NEW CDJR.

oops...

too much multi-tasking.

joe.pistell · Jul 6, 2026

plz pin this thread to the top, or, create a easy find link to it.

joe.pistell · Jul 6, 2026

darrenstromain said:
"What question should this page answer?"

ahhhh... this is the center of my lab's universe. I see everything thru this lens, everything I build seeks to fulfill these questions. Google JTBD sometime. It'll be a powerful content theme generator for you.

Alex Snyder · Jul 6, 2026

Jeff Kershner said:
Curious. Knowing how fast the government works... has the environmental remediation team completed its work and have state officials deem the site clean YET?

I think so. However, we still have not heard the cause of the fire(s). No EV buses are shuttling school children around anymore.

joe.pistell · Jul 6, 2026

Rob said:
You need shoppers above all, and you don’t have more money than cox, cars commerce, Carfax, or CarGurus to be able drive that traffic.

Dbl down on Rob's comment:
•• Carvana: 1,440 shoppers per VIN
•• CarMax: 555 shoppers per VIN
•• AVG SMALL CHEVY DEALER Website: 103 shoppers per VIN
•• Cars.com: 13 shoppers per VIN
•• CarGurus: 7 shoppers per VIN

Rob · Jul 6, 2026

I hate to start this thread off with negativity, but I’m just gonna be honest.

The biggest frustration with existing third party marketplaces isn’t lack of AI features or lack of advertising of those features. It’s not even top 20.

Any of us who have been around a minute have seen hundreds of would-be competitors to the big dogs. Odds of one breaking through and making it are so close to zero it’s not measurable. You need shoppers above all, and you don’t have more money than cox, cars commerce, Carfax, or CarGurus to be able drive that traffic.

Rob · Jul 3, 2026

Hsmith13 said:
1. costauto.app
2. Dealerconnect
3. Dealer socket

Hear me out:

What if you *didn’t* spam the first one?

It’s something to consider.

Mitch Gallant · Jul 2, 2026

BennettE said:
We are currently working on a Canada go live. Just waiting for our first Canadian user!

Mitch Gallant · Jul 2, 2026

BennettE said:
Should be enough to get your hands dirty and see how you like it. I am open to other ideas though.

I feel like we'd need 3-6 months for free, minimum to make an educated decision.

Jokes aside... 10 days genuinely wouldn't be enough to get a true pulse, i cant imagine.

joe.pistell · Jul 2, 2026

Blew past my allocation of tokens:
"Now using credits • Your plan limit resets Thursday at 2:50 PM."

mad scientist closing in on his mission. :unclejoe:

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REVIEW GoTo Connect for Automotive - worth a look!

Casa Grande CDJR 998 sold in June...​

and, ZERO UI support for NEW CDJR.​

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Casa Grande CDJR 998 sold in June...

and, ZERO UI support for NEW CDJR.