The FTC’s CARS Rule may be gone, but dealership compliance risk remains firmly in view. During today’s CBT Live segment, we were joined by Auto AI Radar Founder Vince Melkumyan, who explained why dealers need to monitor their digital advertising continuously, rather than assuming the regulatory pressure has eased.
During the conversation, Melkumyan emphasized that dealership compliance is increasingly complex because a single message can be judged differently depending on where a store operates. Although federal requirements establish a baseline, Melkumyan said states set their own rules around items such as processing fees, pricing and disclosures. For multi-store groups in particular, the challenge is ensuring that every offer is evaluated against the regulations that apply in the specific market where it appears.
That task extends well beyond a dealership website, as Melkumyan explains that Meta ads, agency-created campaigns, vehicle detail pages and payment promotions all shape the customer’s perception of an offer, and all can create compliance risk for the dealership. Conditional incentives, mandatory fees and incomplete lease or finance disclosures are among the areas dealers need to monitor closely, especially when multiple vendors and internal teams contribute to the marketing mix.
According to Melkumyan, Auto AI Radar was built to automate that visibility. The platform monitors new VDPs daily, reviews broader dealership and competitor activity regularly, and directs alerts to the employees or agencies responsible for acting on them. The larger objective is not merely to flag potential violations, but to help dealers maintain consumer trust and address issues before they turn into expensive enforcement actions or damaging headlines
