In today’s ultra-competitive landscape of used car acquisition, dealers have long relied on traditional channels: auctions, trade-ins, and third-party purchasing. However, the industry is undergoing a seismic shift, driven by lasting effects from the low leasing rates of the past three-to-four years, which are now leaving auction houses lower and forcing dealers to be more resourceful. The future of profitable used car inventory acquisition is no longer out there—it’s already in your bays.
The most potent, yet often overlooked, acquisition channel is your service drive. Forget waiting for customers to decide to trade in their vehicle; dealers are now realizing they can—and must—proactively buy cars from people who are simply coming in for an oil change or tire rotation. This isn’t just about adding volume; it’s about gaining a competitive edge by acquiring the cleanest inventory right in front of you.
Bridging the Service-Sales Disconnect
The concept of buying cars from service customers isn’t entirely new, but the execution has historically been hobbled by a fundamental operational flaw: the disconnect between sales and service.
The service department is an operationally different animal from sales. Service advisors are incentivized for throughput, repairs, and customer satisfaction—not necessarily for car acquisition. Asking a service team to consistently make a purchase offer to every customer is a massive challenge because it requires a completely different mindset. This is why even the most “top tier” dealerships, who recognize the value of the service drive, often fail to execute a consistent acquisition strategy.
To successfully tap into this channel, you cannot rely solely on manual processes or trying to change a decades-old culture overnight. The solution lies in providing service and used car managers with the right tools and processes to make the acquisition process simple, consistent, and efficient.
The Power of Proactive, Digital Bidding
The core challenge is turning a routine repair order (RO) into an acquisition opportunity. The most successful dealers are automating this process through dedicated and advanced software platforms.
A specialized Service Drive tool is designed to integrate with your existing Dealer Management System (DMS) to automatically pull important data on every vehicle currently in service. This eliminates duplicate entry and ensures that the used car manager has a constant, real-time feed of available inventory.
This digital approach offers two major advantages:
- Efficiency and Volume: You can move from manually hunting for deals to systematically reviewing hundreds of cars moving through your bays monthly. The platform allows managers to either automate bids on high-demand vehicles or manually select which cars they want to target.
- Strategic Decisioning: The platform goes beyond just presenting the car; it provides supply metrics for that year, make, and model in your local 50-mile market. This gives the used car manager the power to be highly selective, targeting cars where their competitors are low on inventory, thus providing a critical competitive advantage.
The Unsolicited Offer: A Seamless Customer Experience
For the customer, the experience of having their vehicle purchased in the service drive needs to be easy and pressure-free.
Imagine a customer, like the one bringing in their Jeep Grand Cherokee for an oil change. They check in, and later, they receive an unsolicited text or email—unrelated to their repair status—that says: “Hey, we noticed your car is in. We’d love to make an offer. This model is in high demand right now, and we’ll buy your car for this number”.
This offer is a simple yes or no proposition. If the customer expresses interest, they are seamlessly guided to a digital deal portal where they can complete the transaction. Similarly, the dealer should be equipped to provide instant payment, delivering a digital check right there on the spot when the customer comes back to pick up their loaner or repaired vehicle. This instant transaction capability all processed through the advanced software, using tools like digital E-checks, gives the customer confidence and removes friction from the process.
Why the Service Drive Lane is Here to Stay
The shift to acquiring cars from private sellers—whether via an online portal or your service drive—is more than a temporary fix to auction shortages. Dealers are discovering that these privately sourced vehicles are often more retail-ready, requiring less reconditioning than their auction counterparts. This means higher margins and lower carrying costs.
The year 2025 may well be remembered as the year when direct acquisition—buying directly from the street or service drive—began to truly rival, or even overtake, auction acquisition as the primary method for sourcing used inventory.
To thrive in 2026, dealers need to embrace transactional technology—tools that don’t just help with decisioning, but ones that actively facilitate the transaction and the payment itself. By coupling strong decisioning data with a seamless transactional platform, you turn a passive necessity (service) into an aggressive, predictable, and highly profitable acquisition channel. The cars are already there; it’s time to stop letting them drive away.
Related Stories: