How Vinart Grew Used Car Gross After Switching to VINCUE

Here’s a used-car model that would make most managers a little nervous: no auction. None.

Vinart, a second-generation, five-franchise group in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, doesn’t replenish its lot at the auction lane. Ever. Every used car comes from a trade or a service-lane acquisition. Which means every used car on the lot starts as an appraisal Managing Partner Andy Wright and Used Car Director Mike Giambattista had to win. Miss the appraisal, miss the car. And there’s no auction run to backfill the lot.

So when their old tool started quietly capping what they could offer on a trade, it wasn’t an inconvenience. It was money left on every deal they couldn’t fully appraise.

The team at Vinart were longtime legacy tool users, Andy was one of the platform’s earliest clients and, by his own account, loved the product for years. But after getting bought out, the tool stagnated. “It worked, it was efficient, but I just felt like something was lacking,” Andy said. As the market moved faster, the platform stopped keeping up.

Two problems compounded. Pricing had become a race to the bottom: every dealer on the legacy tool managed to the same market numbers, dragging values down in lockstep. And the appraisal tool locked appraisers at 80% of a vehicle’s value, anything above that needed a manager’s sign-off.

Vinart has new car sales managers do the appraisals, and busy managers would simply pass on a trade rather than chase down approval to go higher. For a group that replenishes inventory entirely through trades, every capped appraisal was a car walking off the lot.

Switching to VINCUE gave the team richer, more actionable data and a single system to run the whole group from. Andy calls the difference “night and day.” They gained a true enterprise view. Mike opens one dashboard every morning and sees the health of his entire inventory across both stores at once, age, activity, and live buyer interest, instead of guessing across disconnected screens.

Pricing became disciplined and live. Repricing tasks surface daily against live cost-to-market and price-to-market data, adjustable by vehicle, and Mike re-engages every past lead on a car in two clicks before he moves on. No more pricing by gut against whatever everyone else was doing.

Appraisals lost the ceiling. The 80% cap is gone, replaced with PTM+, mileage adjustments, sold-car comps, and an integrated OBD2 scan tool that surfaces hidden mechanical issues before a number is set. A “poached” screen even shows which competitor took a trade they missed, so the team learns from every one. ACE value-building reports back up every number for customers and internet leads alike.

And Buy Center PRO extended all of it into the service drive, connecting service customers with salespeople in a way Andy describes as “passive” and “palatable for the consumer,” pulling cars out of the lane and predominantly selling those customers a new one.

For Andy Wright, the switch to VINCUE wasn’t a disruptive process change, he insists the process never changed, the tools just got sharper. What changed is the confidence behind every decision: faster, more accurate pricing, appraisals no one second-guesses, and a service lane that keeps Vinart’s no-auction inventory model fed. In a market compressing margins, the group is growing top-line and net profit at once. And Andy, once one of the legacy tools earliest clients, now takes reference calls from dealers across the country to tell them exactly why he made the move.

Discover how VINCUE can help you capture more trades, sharpen every appraisal, and manage inventory across your whole group. Schedule a demo to see the platform in action.