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CarGurus Deal Rating Comparison: Does This Look Fair to Independent Dealers?

With CarGurus, it sometimes boils down to a dealer adding features and equipment that may be non-existent on the vehicle. That is the way some dealers navigate the Good Deal, Fair Deal rating. That is usually what improves the rating when most other features are similar, New Car Dealers have mastered it, most independents have not. It is a flaw in their VIN decoder system. Usually that simple.
 
It seems as though CG is trying their best to clean it up. Some dealers still like to trudge around in the cesspool of deceptive tactics.

I am not going to spend the time looking because I have looked at this in the past. Search the franchise dealers entire inventory and you will likely see a whole bunch of accidental oversights on the equipment. Ya, I shouldn't make that blind accusation...but I just did. Hope I am wrong.

I was just at a meeting a few weeks ago and 3 of the 6 dealers there completely shut off all 3rd party providers. The subject of this thread was a primary reason for 2 of them.
 

✨ AI Highlights

An independent dealer posted a CarGurus comparison showing their cheaper, lower-mileage, accident-free Honda Civic rated 'Fair Deal' while a franchise competitor's pricier, six-owner, accident-reported identical car earned 'Good Deal.' Investigation in the thread revealed the likely culprit: the franchise dealer had selected a sunroof option in their CarGurus listing that the vehicle doesn't appear to actually have, inflating the car's assessed value and boosting its badge. The thread surfaces a known, ongoing problem where dealers — particularly franchise stores — manipulate equipment selections in third-party listing backends to game deal ratings, a tactic that disadvantages honest independent dealers and is driving some dealers to abandon third-party platforms entirely.

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