The FTC dropped price-transparency FAQs on Sept. 15, and the headline takeaway is blunt: dealer-required fees belong in the advertised price, with only government-required charges generally carved out. NADA welcomed the clarity, NIADA framed it as a roadmap for independents, and the trades are already parsing doc fees, rebates and discounts line by line. Worth a read with your ad copy, your VDPs and your window labels side by side — because the consumer-watchdog YouTube crowd is out filming Kia stores over pricing right now and isn't waiting for anyone's compliance calendar.

The Fed went up a quarter point to 3.75%–4%, its first hike since 2023, which means the payment ceiling your customer walks in with just got lower again. Truist is selling Regional Acceptance and its $5.5 billion near-prime book, thinning the lender bench right where independent stores live. Meanwhile Cox's Jeremy Robb notes $6.31-a-gallon diesel is pushing repo agents to the brink — so the paper gets harder to place, harder to collect on, and more expensive to recover. Price the deal for the back end you can actually fund today, not the one you funded in the spring.

AutoVision's latest read has used sales down month-over-month but holding up "far better than supply" — dealers are turning thinner inventory harder. CarGurus' Kevin Roberts says affordability is still shoving shoppers out of new and into used, which tracks with an average new-vehicle price of $50,090 in August even as the affordability index improved 1.2% year over year. Translation: demand is not your problem, acquisition is. Every unit you source badly this month costs you twice, because you won't have a fat pipeline to average it out.

Copart is buying ACV, which folds two of the bigger digital remarketing channels into one house and gives dealers one fewer independent place to shop and dump. Against that, Trusted Sale relaunched as a "Used Vehicle Proof Platform" to document recon spend, and the trade press is arguing acquisition desks should be run by analysts rather than veteran hands on feel alone. If the auction side keeps consolidating, your edge moves upstream — private-party and trade sourcing, plus recon you can prove to a retail buyer who's been trained to assume the worst.