The Dealer Stack
New York City is suing CarGurus over Great Deal labels it says hid fees, and Carvana is selling new Stellantis vehicles into 3,269 ZIP codes in 42 states.
The price on the screen is your problem, even when someone else put it there.
New York City sued CarGurus on October 15. The city says the site tagged used cars "Good Deal" or "Great Deal" while hiding mandatory fees. It also says the site's AI chatbot gave shoppers misleading assurances. CarGurus says it will fight the claims.
Separately, Car Dealership Guy reported on October 18 that Carvana's seven Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram stores registered new vehicles in 3,269 ZIP codes. That spans 42 states, from May through August. Most of those ZIP codes had a single registered vehicle.
The big picture: shoppers now meet your price, and your competition, on screens you do not run. Today pushed dealers toward being a pickup point for someone else's sale. The stores that keep the customer control their own price data and their own reach.
The internet director checks ten used-car prices on three outside sites against the deal sheet by Friday.
Whether the court takes up the chatbot claim, and whether any automaker changes its rules on selling across state lines.
- New York City sued CarGurus over "Great Deal" labels it says hid fees; check your own price on every outside site this week.
- Carvana sold new Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram vehicles into 3,269 ZIP codes; find out who sells into yours.
- Copart now owns ACV Auctions and Penske Automotive is going private; the used car manager should read the auction fee terms before the next renewal.
New York City says CarGurus hid fees behind a Great Deal label
The city's consumer protection department announced the suit on October 15. It was filed in New York State Supreme Court. The city says CarGurus broke city consumer law more than 2,000 times. It wants the practices stopped and civil penalties, and names no dollar amount.
Its example is a 2018 Honda tagged "Great Deal" and shown $2,212 below market. The city says the mandatory fees, listed at the bottom of the page, put the real price $1,473 above market. It also cites an analysis of more than 40,000 online listings. That analysis found mandatory fees added about $1,100 on average.
On the chatbot, the city says the AI tool built lists of "deals" and gave shoppers misleading assurances. It points to a September policy statement saying city law covers what chatbots tell customers.
CarGurus says it is disappointed and rejects the claims. It also says it began labeling listings "Fees not disclosed" around April 30. Since July 14, it says, used listings without disclosed fees get a "No Rating" price label. These are allegations, not findings.
The limit is not the label. It is how many places your price lives, and most stores cannot list them. The badge belongs to the marketplace, but the price behind it came from your feed. A missing fee makes the car look cheaper than it is, and your store holds the deal sheet. My bet: by next October, at least one more city or state cites a chatbot in a pricing case. I am wrong if this suit ends without a ruling on the chatbot claim.
For ten used cars, compare the price on your site, CarGurus and one more outside site with the full deal sheet. Fix every gap where a fee is missing.
Ask your lawyer what your marketplace contracts say about who answers when a label is wrong.
Carvana is selling new Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram vehicles one ZIP code at a time
Car Dealership Guy reported on October 18 an analysis by Chris Wood of LocaliQ Automotive, using Mobility Global registration data. Carvana's seven stores for those brands registered 4,687 new vehicles in 3,269 ZIP codes from May through August. About 73% of those ZIP codes had one vehicle. AutoNation registered 4,181 in 1,330 ZIP codes over the same months.
In New Jersey, where Carvana has no store, it registered 340 new vehicles from those brands. That was 4.1% of the state's 8,315 registrations. The top New Jersey dealer had 4.9%. Among New Jersey buyers who bought out of state, Carvana won 21.7%.
One caution: the registration location may not match where the sale happened. The seven store sites send buyers to Carvana.com. Carvana says its new-vehicle prices are the same wherever the buyer lives. Stellantis says all dealers, Carvana's included, follow the same allocation and incentive rules, and that it does not restrict where dealers sell in the United States.
The edge is not inventory. It is the ability to add up thousands of one-car buyers that no single rooftop can reach. A Louisiana dealer in the same report says its approach costs 42% of what a traditional store costs. That is his claim, and the report does not check it. The work behind it is shipping, titling, remote signing and advertising, not a bigger lot. A store that waits for local traffic is where the registrations leave from.
Ask your data vendor for new-vehicle registrations in your own ZIP codes by selling dealer for the last two quarters. See who sells into your market.
Decide whether you want to sell outside your market. It takes a central team for shipping, titling and remote signing.
Copart finishes buying ACV Auctions
Copart completed the purchase on October 16. The deal was signed on September 10 at about $1.9 billion, or $10.50 a share in cash. ACV stock no longer trades. ACV now runs as an independent Copart subsidiary, with George Chamoun still its chief executive. Copart calls the result a full remarketing platform covering dealer trade-ins and wholesale.
The report announces no change to ACV's fees, programs or platform. ACV says its priorities have not changed.
Nothing changes today, and that is the time to read your contract. Copart brings yards, buyers and trucking. ACV brings the digital auction, the vehicle inspections and the sale records. When one company owns more of the place your trade-ins go, it also sets more of the cost of getting there. My bet: dealers feel a change in fees or inspection rules before they feel one in the app, within 12 months. I am wrong if fees stay flat through next October.
Pull the last 12 months of fees and sale records from ACV Auctions now. Ask whether you can take those records with you if you leave.
Penske Automotive agrees to go private
Penske Automotive said on October 15 that Penske Corporation and Mitsui will buy the shares they do not already own. The price is $212 a share in cash, about 8.8% above the October 14 close. The deal values the company at about $16.3 billion including debt. After closing, Penske Corporation would hold about 64% and Mitsui about 36%.
Closing is expected in the first quarter of 2027. It needs regulatory and shareholder approval. The release says nothing about stores or staff. Third-quarter results come on October 28, with no earnings call.
That suggests long-term buyers still want dealer groups at today's prices. Bloomberg, as CBT reports it, says dealers could gain parts and service business as customers keep vehicles longer. The cost to you is quieter. A public group that answered analysts is now a private one that will not. Fewer on-the-record answers about AI spending mean you get less to compare against.
Treat $212 a share and $16.3 billion as one dated reference point if an advisor values your group. Ask what the buyer is paying for, not only the multiple.
Google is testing a search ad that shows vehicle images, prices and features. Search Engine Roundtable reported on October 15 that only automaker brands with an active search campaign and a qualifying vehicle feed can use it. It runs in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K. Dealers are not listed as eligible. It is a beta, with no results published. My read: the automaker may own the first look at price and trim when a shopper types a vehicle name. Your ad would share that page. Marketing director: find out how much of your paid search goes to searches by vehicle name.
At Napleton Palatine Subaru, service manager Luke Goerlitz told Daily Dealer Live the shop uses Tekion's video inspection tool to reach customers by text. A technician records the video, and an advisor reviews it before it goes out. The limit is the advisor's time. One technician sent a video 25 minutes after the car arrived, and the backed-up advisor could not meet the customer. Goerlitz says customers approve or defer work faster. He gives no percentages or dollar figures. The software texts the customer; a person decides what is sent. Keep a record of each video, the time sent, the customer's answer and the advisor. Early sign: more cars with a video. What really counts: repair orders written and hours billed per car, against the weeks before.
Owner: the internet director, with the used car manager.
By Friday, October 23, pick ten used cars. Compare the price on your site, CarGurus and one more outside site with the full deal sheet, fees included. Count the mismatches and fix the feed for each one. Write down who fixed it and when. Stop when two weeks in a row show no mismatches. If all ten match on day one, skip ahead to the ZIP code check from story 2. That is the sign I was wrong about the priority.
If a marketplace tags your car a great deal and the price is wrong, whose name is on the customer's complaint? Read the contract before someone else does.