Car Dealer Vehicle Inspection Systems

What to check before you buy

Ask for detection and false-positive rates measured on vehicles like yours. Ask to see a scan of a car with known damage next to a human inspector's report.

Then follow a finding. Does it go to the appraiser, the recon manager or the service advisor?

In which system, and with images attached? Get an answer on how long a scan takes from entry to report, and how a disputed finding is reviewed by a person.

Find out what site work the arch needs (space, power, network, drive-through path) and what it costs per scan or per month. For an insurer-facing or customer-facing report, confirm who owns the images and how long they are kept.

Define who owns the exceptions. When the scan flags damage that a human does not confirm, someone must decide, and the store should record the decision so that the false-positive rate can be measured over time. Ask how often the system is recalibrated, what happens in rain, snow or low light, and what it does with unusual vehicles such as lifted trucks, since conditions on a real lot differ from a demonstration.

Run a blind comparison during the trial. Have the system scan twenty vehicles and have an experienced inspector examine the same twenty without seeing the output, then compare the findings item by item and record misses and false alarms by type, such as tires, glass, paint and underbody. The comparison on your own cars is worth more than any published detection rate, and it gives you a baseline for later checks.

Questions to put to every car dealer vehicle inspection systems vendor

• Is the connection read-only or bi-directional?
• Who pays each integration fee?
• What breaks when either product changes?

Other categories dealers compare alongside Automated vehicle inspection: Service scheduling, Service lane platforms, Digital MPI & video inspection, Service marketing & retention, Service BDC & call handling, and Shop management & dispatch.