Dennis Dillion Auto group

Most car dealers think the best used vehicles are found at auctions. They're wrong. The real gems are sitting in your customers' driveways. Dennis Dillon Auto Group figured this out, and it transformed their business.

We recently visited Dennis Dillon Mazda/Kia/Nissan to learn how they did it. We talked with their used car manager, Bryan Bough, about their private party buying program. To say we were shocked by how simple their process was while still outperforming competitors is an understatement. They had so much success that, believe it or not, local wholesale buy centers began closing their doors.

They didn't just tweak their existing process; they completely reinvented how they acquire used cars.

The old way had many problems, including high auction fees, unpredictable quality, and missed local opportunities. Dennis Dillon's solution: go directly to private sellers.

It sounds obvious in retrospect, but executing it well is hard. Dennis Dillon succeeded by doing two key things:

1. They centralized and streamlined their acquisition process via the VETTX platform.
2. They found ways to build trust with private sellers.

The results were dramatic. But to understand why, we need to examine how car dealerships typically work and why Dennis Dillon's approach was so different.

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The Pivot: Tapping into Private Party 

The Main store Bryan Bough and team work out of is there Kia store. But they’re in Boise, one of the strongest truck markets in the West. For years, they struggled to compete—barely moving any trucks at all. Now? They’re the top truck retailer in their area. You’ll see Dennis Dillon trucks all the way down in Chico, California. We know. We’ve seen them.

Streamlined Lead Management

Managing leads from private sellers initially felt overwhelming. Emails from Craigslist, messages on Facebook, and phone calls were scattered across multiple platforms. To address this, they adopted VETTX a private party vehicle management platform. This new system allowed them to:

• Store all listings in one place, eliminating confusion. 
• Communicate with sellers efficiently and track interactions.
• Ensure no leads fall through the cracks.

“Going through your emails from Craigslist or pinning down who you talked to on Facebook is just disorganized,” one team member said. The centralized system brought much-needed clarity. Additionally, VETTX allowed auto-text outreach to potential sellers, simplifying initial contact and ensuring seller intender opportunities were claimed promptly.

Daily Discipline

To stay consistent, the team developed a daily VETTX workflow:

1. Cleaning out all the fresh listings 
2. Filtering out spam and low-quality entries.
3. Prioritizing high-potential listings and setting competitive target prices.
4. Leverage automation to schedule follow-ups and maintain seller engagement.

The Results: What Worked and Why

By cutting out the middleman and going straight to the source, they improved many aspects of the business—not just the bottom line.

Better Vehicles, Bigger Profits

Leveraging VETTX, Dennis Dillion was able to achieve the following:

• Lower Repair Costs: 25% lower recon costs per car than the national average.
• Faster Turnover Rates: These vehicles acquired off the street required less time in the shop. Less shop time = shorter time to line (T2L) = faster turn.
• No Per Car Fees: The national average auction fee is in the ballpark of $985 per vehicle. If you multiply that by the 20–30 cars they buy through VETTX, plus the lead-generation fees they save, you can quickly see why they can easily afford two full-time buyers and a complete end-to-end software solution. 
• Higher Margins: The dealership earned an average of $7,000 per car by combining front-end sales, financing, and service revenue. That’s a total of 67% higher than the national average for used cars.

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