I really don't understand what the confusion is and why this is being dissected so many different directions.

@tomkline , you and I sat together at the Independent Auto Dealers Convention in Vegas a couple years ago when the FTC had a representative there that did a talk and open Q & A. You addressed your concern directly to the FTC in that you agreed with the CARS Rule with the exception of Doc Fee. You plead the case that dealers needed to be able to slip the doc fee to the customer after that fact. She appreciated your comments and DIRECTLY replied..."the doc fee gets added to the price, period".

The FTC stance is crystal clear but dealers are ignoring the FTC on this. Well we are posting a banner. We are disclosing it on the VDP. We tell the customer up front. People don't complain about it. This list goes on and on. I have seen this issue argued in various Social Media groups. Lots of dealers are respecting the warning shot. Others are convincing themselves that their particular method of ignoring the warning shot will be just fine.

My interpretation of this rule goes like this: Each car gets 1 price. That price is a number that ANYONE can drive that car away for. The End. There are no "adds" after the price. Simple. If there are any potential reductions from that number, fine! Disclose THAT. Put THAT on a banner. If you want to give a discount if the customer finances with you then fine. Disclose it. If you want to discount if the customer buys a $4500 VSC then fine, Disclose that.

Here is the reality. We as dealers have created this problem. We made the choice to ignore laws that have been on the books for over 100 years. This stuff isn't new. We all knew we were doing things that were not compliant. We did it because our competitor did it. We did it because we were greedy. We did it because we wanted to raise our Commission Pack without raising our Commission Pack. Now it is time to face the consequences of our actions.

Lurking in the shadows are a very large group of car dealers that are welcoming this enforcement. They have been lobbying for years. They are the ones that respected and followed those 100 year old laws and they have figured out how to be profitable without after the fact price additions. This group is at a tremendous advantage right now. They have never had these fees and have built a successful business without them. This group is dangerous. They have a chip on their shoulder and they will be the ones that report everyone that is not doing it the right way. This will be the most efficient rule enforcement in the history of the FTC. The FTC is getting ready to bat 1.000.

So my question @tomkline , what do you tell your dealers when they argue with you about why they want to ignore the rules? Do you believe the enforcement of the rules is a net positive for the consumer? Do you feel this is needed or warranted enforcement? Do you think us dealers went too far? I value your opinion more than you likely understand. I want to know what your feelings are about this, not your interpretation of the enforcement.

Thank you.

Ryan Everson said:

I'm thankful this is all that's being required by this administration.

Ultimately, I think this is what the majority of dealers wished would be the case all along. Everyone was just gun shy about being the first in their market to make their cars look like $500 worse deals than every other dealer. This helps level the playing field and eliminates the minority of unscrupulous dealers tarnishing everyone else's reputation.

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When we brought our illumiQUOTE product to market (automated payments on dealers' websites and quotes in the CRM), we earned business from a few stores in the DC market. Even though I grew up in the Southern Virginia market, it was an eye-opener to see how some stores in Northern Virginia and Maryland handled price quoting.

At that time, we were asked (demanded) to build a way to remove freight and discount a vehicle using most available incentives, regardless of whether the customer qualified. There was also a "trade rebate" that was applied to lower the price with a heavy stipulation on how the market value was set at the time of appraisal - this trade rebate was at one dealership, and the only dealership we ever fired... for other reasons. $60,000 domestic trucks were showing $250/mo loan payments that nobody could get, for example.

My theory:

The FTC and political staffs primarily live in the NOVA/MD market. It is one of the most aggressive and competitive markets in the country. Dealers are fighting hard! When these staff members go car shopping, they encounter a wide range of advertising tactics and in-store processes. It is possible that a few of these people have developed a dislike for that car-shopping experience. Of course, this could have happened anywhere in the US, but this particular market is rougher than most I have seen.

It makes me wonder whether the combination of an administration that wants to change this and a bureaucratic staff that has developed a grudge is making the FTC more heavy-handed

I'd be inclined to stay away from this company. They keep contacting us and requesting proprietary data and information, and to form a "partnership." They have contacted our help desk numerous times over the past ~6 years, and many of the requests originate from Belarus. Reddit has done a pretty good job of deleting posts from obvious plants in threads about EpicVin, or vehicle history reports in general, but on other platforms (e.g., Quora), there are abundant comments like the endorsements in this thread - they all sound the same.

Their BBB review aggregate score is 1.1 stars, with numerous complaints. I'd love to know if the "Authorized EpicVIN dealers" on their site know they have this status. If they're paying for this service, I hope they're either getting some value out of it, or figure it out quickly before lighting too much money on fire.

Definitely a different beast today. I was proposing this in 2011.

Reviews can be a problem unless you're showing all reviews. I'm having discussions with clients who are concerned about running into the FTC for misleading online reviews/testimonials. However, why not show the dealer's why-buys on the VDP? And one of those could be something like "4.5 stars on Yelp!" or something like that.

I have always thought this was a big feature that website companies were missing. And customer reviews.

I tried hard to get a customer review concept approved that would automate the process of getting them back in my Dealer.com days. It would have used the CRM to solicit reviews, gate them for the dealer to decide whether they wanted them, publish them to the inventory pages by model, and create a review library for even more SEO cred.

This was when I started seeing my friends posting about their new car on Twitter... along with what they ate that day... yes, dating that one

I agree. On the commercial or fleet side, having information such as a downloadable brochure or video about an installed upfit, along with content and specs could make a big difference too.

I'm not 100% sure they do. I haven't spoken to them in years but they look like they have an office in Canada:
So I'm sure they do have Canadian data.

CarlAutofusion said:

You could enter the data yourselves or you could try other providers, such as JATO Dynamics, that may have the vehicle and incentives data.
We are a website provider and enter our own data in the US.

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Does JATO have Canadian data as well, do we know for sure?

You're getting so much better! I like the camera movement. Makes a big difference on the believability factor.

Maybe one day someone will explain to me what value people get out of responding to forum posts with ChatGPT / ai generated responses.

Today? I don't get it.

That is going to help your quality score!

Interesting read. Facebook Marketplace is still one of the strongest sources of local car buyer traffic when it's used correctly. One thing I'd add is that inventory quality and transparency seem to matter more now than they did a few years ago. We've had good results with vehicles sourced through AutoBidMaster and other auction channels, but listings that include VIN details, plenty of photos, and an honest description consistently generate better conversations than listings that try to game the algorithm. Curious if you've noticed any difference in lead quality between Marketplace buyers coming from a single dealership account versus multiple accounts. The volume might be higher with the latter, but I'd imagine trust could become a factor too.

The Best of the Best has been updated to show it by year and to add a new dimension: Post Quality.

MattCopley said:

View attachment 9997
View attachment 9998

New & Used Audi Dealer Near St. Augustine | Audi Jacksonville FL

Discover Audi Jacksonville your destination for luxury and performance. Serving Jacksonville, Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Ponte Verda Beach, & St. Augustine

www.audijacksonville.com

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Nice pic but I’m not sure about a lot of things or what you’re trying to say.

450 referring domains, sourced because the dealership has good content? Could be organic, could be a directory dump, could be bought. The count doesn’t lead. And it doesn’t speak to relevance, if they pass any authority, or if a single one drives quality organic traffic. It’s a tally of links, not a measure of link quality, and quality is the only part that moves rankings or sells cars.

Local, meaningful, intent driving, authoritative links matter and if this is that… sign me up. My small mind can’t imagine that world is real.

We switched from Vinsolutions to DriveCentric at the end of May, so 9 days into June solely on Drive Centric. Drive seems awesome but the solds are not matching. All the different places you look the sold counts are different. Coming from Vinsolutions i do i transition my brain or thinking to see how many vehicles we have sold?

Seems to me in Drive the solds are actually pending, and delivered is from DMS/Tekion, so you add those two numbers together to get your total sold.

You could enter the data yourselves or you could try other providers, such as JATO Dynamics, that may have the vehicle and incentives data.
We are a website provider and enter our own data in the US.

Shawn Ryder said:

from Ford to vendors that are on the approved list so for somebody outside to get it on the 1st is going to be tough.

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Even JD Power sometimes doesn't get them until they day after they go live, but they are usually quite accurate and complete through their system, even in Canada.

Interesting... great to hear! As a fellow Canadian - glad to hear this... obviously Ford has an approved list right? is that going to be a challenge? Just curious is all. When it comes to new inventory and monthly programs that is going to be the toughest part... i would think that feed goes from Ford to vendors that are on the approved list so for somebody outside to get it on the 1st is going to be tough. Now there could be work arounds - but it may be a manual process that takes some time (though maybe quick each month) and if changes mid-month could require updates. But I don't know of a platform that pulls new car programs..

I might be able to help here - we have a website product (in Canada) but it's completely disconnected from our inventory syndication platform, so technically I have a headless inventory management system that you would hit with API calls to manage your inventory. It also has ChromeData/JDP data access, from VIN decoding to stock photos and LenderDesk incentives.

If you want to build the website part and layer it on top of an existing inventory syndication solution I can find out what the hard cost would be on that.

joe.pistell said:

@alex.snyder

I bet github has a AI slop, bot content sniffer.

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I've been researching ways to stop the bots better. It ain't easy.