Which Dealer Groups Run Their Own DMS vs Outsourcing

When a single-point dealership picks a DMS, the decision is straightforward: compare features, negotiate price, sign the contract. When a dealer group with 20, 30, or 50 rooftops makes the same decision, it's an entirely different problem. Every acquisition brings a new store with a potentially different DMS already running. Every training program, integration, and consolidated report has to work across whatever platforms the group inherited. The question isn't just "which DMS is best" — it's "how do we manage the ones we already have and decide whether to standardize."

The State of Automotive's DealerGroupTechStack database tracks 219 dealer groups and 402 technology stack entries, giving us a window into how groups actually manage their DMS portfolios in the real world — not in vendor pitch decks, but in the messy reality of acquired stores, legacy contracts, and multi-year migration plans.

The Dual-DMS Reality: 23% of Groups Run Both CDK and Reynolds

The headline finding from the data is clear: 20 of the 87 groups with DMS data — 23.0% — run both CDK Global and Reynolds and Reynolds across their rooftops. This isn't usually a deliberate multi-vendor strategy. It's an acquisition artifact.

When a group buys a dealership, they inherit the seller's DMS contract. Those contracts often have 3-5 year terms with steep early termination penalties. So the group ends up running two platforms — CDK on their original stores, Reynolds on the acquired ones — and the dual-DMS reality persists for years.

Mid-market groups are the most likely to find themselves in this position. Morgan Automotive Group, with 45 rooftops in Florida, runs both CDK and Reynolds. So does Herb Chambers (58 rooftops in New England), Serra Automotive (32 rooftops), Napleton Automotive Group (28 rooftops), and Sheehy Auto Stores (19 rooftops). These groups grew through acquisition over decades, and each deal brought along whichever DMS the seller was using.

The practical implications are significant. Groups running dual DMS need either middleware to bridge the two systems or manual processes for consolidated financial reporting. Training costs double — service advisors at CDK stores and Reynolds stores need different training programs. Reporting roll-ups that a single-DMS group can produce with a button click become multi-step extraction and reconciliation exercises.

Single-DMS Dominance: 77% Have Standardized

Despite the acquisition challenge, most groups have achieved single-platform standardization. 67 of 87 groups (77.0%) run only one DMS platform. Of those, 66 use CDK and 1 — David Wilson Automotive Group, with 21 rooftops — uses Dealertrack DMS exclusively.

This 77% standardization rate tells an important story: the economics of consolidation win out over time. The training savings alone can justify the migration cost for a mid-market group. A group with 20 rooftops and 300 service advisors training on one platform instead of two saves real money every year. The integration benefits compound: one DMS means one feed to the CRM, one integration with the website provider, one data extract for the equity mining tool.

The groups that have standardized on CDK-only include some of the largest mid-market operators with detailed tech stack data: Ourisman Automotive Group (38 rooftops in the Mid-Atlantic), Greenway Automotive (30 rooftops in the Southeast), and Ciocca Automotive (20 rooftops in the Northeast). These groups made the call to rip out Reynolds and go all-in on CDK, and they're reaping the operational benefits.

The Reynolds Anomaly: Never the Sole Standard

Here's the finding that surprised us most: zero groups run Reynolds as their only DMS. Every single Reynolds-using group in the database also has CDK in their portfolio. Reynolds is always the secondary platform, the legacy system, the one they haven't gotten around to replacing yet — never the standard they chose to standardize on.

This isn't a statement about Reynolds' product quality. Reynolds Ignite is a modern, cloud-native platform with a loyal following. But at the group level, the data tells a clear story: when groups consolidate, they consolidate onto CDK. The 40 groups with Reynolds in their stack are all dual-DMS groups, and every one of them also runs CDK.

Why? Part of it is market share momentum — CDK has a larger installed base, so acquired stores are more likely to already be on CDK. Part of it is the ecosystem: CDK's Elead CRM, CDK's Service Edge, CDK's integration layer create a stickiness that Reynolds' more walled-garden approach has historically struggled to match. And part of it may be the sales dynamic — CDK has built a group-level sales organization that understands multi-rooftop consolidation, while Reynolds has traditionally been stronger at the individual store level.

The Missing 132 Groups

Equally revealing is what the database doesn't show. 132 of 219 groups (60.3%) have no DMS data at all. The top groups by rooftop count — Lithia (459), Penske (369), Group 1 (259), AutoNation (243), Asbury (152), Sonic (141), Hendrick (127) — are all public companies with no tech stack entries in the database.

These public groups don't disclose their DMS relationships in ways that are easily trackable. They may have proprietary systems, custom integrations, or simply don't publicize vendor relationships. Some, like AutoNation, are known to have built significant in-house technology. Others have relationships that are known anecdotally but not confirmed in the database.

The 132 missing groups also include smaller operators — family-owned groups with 3-5 rooftops that haven't been profiled yet. The State of Automotive's database is actively expanding coverage, and these groups represent the next frontier of data collection.

Integration Implications of Dual DMS

For the 23% of groups still running dual DMS, the technology stack gets complicated fast. CRM choice, in particular, becomes a strategic decision rather than a feature comparison.

A group running CDK on 12 stores and Reynolds on 8 needs a CRM that can integrate with both DMS platforms. VinSolutions (Cox Automotive), the market leader with 38 groups in the database, supports both CDK and Reynolds integrations. DealerSocket (30 groups) does as well. But Elead, CDK's own CRM with 18 groups, naturally integrates better with CDK stores — creating a tension for dual-DMS groups that want the CDK ecosystem integration but need Reynolds compatibility.

The website layer adds another dimension. DealerOn (57 groups) and Dealer.com (38 groups) both support inventory feeds from multiple DMS platforms, but the integration quality varies. Groups running dual DMS often end up with dual website providers as well — a complexity cascade that starts at the DMS layer and ripples through the entire technology stack.

The Trend Line

The direction is clear: single-DMS standardization is the end state that most groups are moving toward. The 23% figure represents groups in transition — groups that have grown through acquisition and haven't yet completed their consolidation. As those migration projects finish (and they typically take 18-36 months per acquired store), the dual-DMS percentage will decline.

But the dual-DMS reality never fully goes away. As long as dealer groups continue acquiring stores — and acquisition remains the primary growth strategy for most groups — new dual-DMS situations will be created faster than old ones are resolved. The 23% figure is best understood as a steady-state equilibrium: the rate of new dual-DMS creation (via acquisition) roughly balancing the rate of legacy system retirement (via migration).

For vendors, the implication is clear: multi-DMS integration capability isn't a nice-to-have for group-level deals, it's table stakes. For dealer groups, the data confirms what most GMs and CFOs already know: standardization pays off, but the path there is measured in years, not quarters.

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Data sourced from The State of Automotive's DealerGroupTechStack database, tracking 219 dealer groups and 402 technology stack entries as of June 2026.