TOGETHER WITH:
"I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance."
—Steven Jobs, Former CEO of Apple
Prompt of the Week
Transparency has quietly moved from good practice to legal exposure, and the bill for getting it wrong keeps going up.
The prompt below walks you through your own fee schedule and tells you what your advertised price should actually be before someone else does the math for you.
Act as a dealership pricing and advertising advisor.
Help me decide what my advertised price should be under the FTC's September 2026 pricing transparency guidance, which requires the advertised price to be what any customer can walk in and pay, excluding only government-required charges.
My store:
[NEW / USED / BOTH]
[STATE]
[APPROXIMATE MONTHLY UNIT VOLUME]
Every dealer-required charge we currently add to a deal, with the typical amount and the highest amount any customer has been charged:
[PASTE FEE LIST - doc fee, prep, dealer add-ons, reconditioning, etching, nitrogen, market adjustment, anything else]
Discounts or rebates we advertise today, and who qualifies:
[PASTE]
Where our prices appear:
[WEBSITE PROVIDER / THIRD-PARTY LISTING SITES / SOCIAL INVENTORY ADS / TEXTING OR CHAT TOOL / PRINT / OTHER]
Work through this in order:
1. Sort my charges into three buckets: government-required (excludable), dealer-required (must be in the advertised price), and genuinely optional (can be sold separately if the customer agrees). Flag anything where the classification is arguable and explain both readings.
2. For each dealer-required fee that varies by customer, show me what my advertised price becomes if I use the ceiling. Compare that to what I advertise today and tell me the gross dollar difference per unit.
3. Tell me which fees I should consider eliminating, folding into vehicle price, or converting to a true optional product, and what each choice costs or protects. Be specific about the tradeoff rather than recommending the safest option by default.
4. Check my advertised discounts. Identify any that only a subset of buyers can get, and rewrite how we'd present them so the walk-in price leads.
5. Tell me what changes in how my desk and F&I team present the deal once the advertised number is higher, including how to answer a customer who asks why our online price looks higher than the store down the street.
6. List the specific questions I should ask each vendor in my channel list about who controls the displayed price and whether the all-in figure can be set in one place.
Be direct about where reasonable dealers disagree. Do not give me legal advice, and tell me which decisions need my attorney or state association rather than guessing.
How AutoHub's AI Copilot Automates Customer Outreach for Offer Negotiation and Vehicle Acquisition
As AI becomes standard in the service lane, dealers are asking a fair question: how do you automate offer negotiation without losing customer trust?
AutoHub's approach rests on a few principles: every AI-drafted SMS is reviewed by dealership staff before it reaches a customer, ensuring accountability for every offer that goes out. Customers are never left guessing whether they're talking to a bot — the AI-assisted channel is always disclosed.
AutoHub's AI Copilot applies consistent appraisal logic across conversations (reducing the ad-hoc pricing that creeps into manual negotiation) while only touching the data needed to generate an accurate offer. AI doesn't replace your team; it simply clears the repetitive work so staff can focus on objections, unique circumstances, and closing the deal.
The AI Breakdown
The FTC published its pricing transparency FAQs on September 15th, following the warning letters it sent to 97 dealer groups back in March.
Everything in the document rests on one sentence: your advertised price has to be what any customer can walk in and pay, minus only what the government requires them to pay directly.
Mandatory Fees Included
Doc fee, prep, any mandatory add-on, all of it goes in. The wrinkle most stores haven't worked through is what happens when the fee moves. If your desk quotes $299 most days but someone occasionally gets $499, the ad has to carry $499, because the advertised price has to be what any customer would pay and some customer is paying the higher one. You can still discount at the desk. You just can't advertise around it. Fees a government authorizes but doesn't actually mandate count as yours too, which catches a few line items dealers have long treated as pass-throughs.
Prominence in Placement
MSRP, discounts, and rebates can all appear in an ad, as long as the real price is the most prominent amount. Picture the VDP your website provider shipped you: struck-through MSRP at the top, savings number glowing in a colored box, actual price sitting underneath in smaller type doing none of the work.
That layout fails even when the font math technically checks out, because the FTC looks at what draws attention. Pull one up on a phone and notice where your eye actually goes first.
The same logic takes out any price built on a discount only some buyers qualify for. First responder pricing, finance-with-us rebates, conquest cash. Advertise them all you want, but the number a random shopper could walk in and pay has to lead.
Your Vendors are Your Exposure
Everyone with control over the advertising is responsible, which puts your syndication partners, your website provider, and anyone taking instructions from your marketing team inside the same circle as you.
The FTC also expects dealers to make sure nobody at the store gives those partners contradictory direction, and that's where most of the risk hides.
Where to Start
Set your ceiling. Settle on the highest dealer-required fee total any customer would pay and write it down. That number now sits underneath every price you publish.
Fix it at the source. Call your pricing vendor and ask where the all-in figure can be set once so everything downstream inherits it, instead of correcting six channels by hand every time a price moves.
Shop your own store. Pull up five of your own VDPs on a phone and screenshot the ones where a savings box wins your attention before the price does. Send those to your website provider.
Find the side deals. Ask your GSM whether anyone has ever asked a partner to display something other than the advertised price. Those requests get made out loud by someone trying to make the phone ring and almost never exist in writing.
Fresh Finds for Auto Pros
Management & Operations: Meta Muse
Meta's personal agent that runs multi-step errands from its own cloud machine, negotiating bills, booking travel, and handling transactions end to end.
Service and Parts: AutoService AI
Picks up service calls and books appointments on its own, now wired into myKaarma. Covers the 7am stretch when every advisor is elbow-deep in a write-up.
Data Management: Privacy4Cars
Strips the last owner's app access during recon. Right now a stranger may still be able to track and unlock the car you just delivered.
Hear from the Experts
Chatbots were the warm-up. Our very own Paul Daly and Kyle Mountsier joined CBT Live to talk about where dealership AI is heading next, as operators start applying it deeper into day-to-day operations.
Kyle points to a growing knowledge gap between what AI can already do and what many dealerships are actually using it for. Paul connects that same challenge to legacy technology, where established businesses have to rebuild while they run.
Worth a listen for anyone deciding what AI should touch next inside the store.
Bits and Bytes
President Trump says he will name a new AI czar to head-up the “AI Force” as calls for stronger AI oversight keep growing in Washington and Silicon Valley. 🤖
Gemini is now part of the AI hacking conversation after reportedly breaching three companies during cybersecurity testing. ⚠️
Google announced a $4M partnership with Digital Promise to help teachers and faculty get practical AI training. 🧑🏫
Parting Pixels
Thanks for reading, Friend! Some things may appear transparent until they are dropped into a live environment. Always take a second look.
