Research · Car dealerships
Franchise or independent: which car dealer websites let AI in? 19 brands compared
By Cloute · Published October 2, 2026
The short answer
In Cloute's October 2026 test of 2,915 car dealership websites, dealers named for a manufacturer brand answered a plain automated request with a block or a bot challenge 14.6% of the time. All other dealers, mostly independent and used car stores, did so 39.7% of the time. Among brands, Genesis dealer sites refused most often (24.1%) and Hyundai least (3.8%).
of 1,181 brand-named dealer sites refused or challenged an automated request
of the 1,734 other dealer sites
overall
By brand
| Brand | Dealer sites tested | Refused or challenged | Most common platforms among readable sites |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genesis | 29 | 24.1% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire |
| Subaru | 35 | 22.9% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire, Team Velocity |
| Lexus | 40 | 22.5% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire |
| Mercedes-Benz | 33 | 21.2% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire |
| Ford | 148 | 18.9% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire, DealerOn |
| Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram | 117 | 17.1% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire, DealerOn |
| Buick GMC | 82 | 15.9% | Dealer.com, DealerOn, Dealer Inspire |
| Nissan | 64 | 15.6% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire, DealerOn |
| Kia | 52 | 15.4% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire, Team Velocity |
| Acura | 21 | 14.3% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire |
| BMW | 37 | 13.5% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire, DealerOn |
| Cadillac | 23 | 13% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire, DealerOn |
| Chevrolet | 140 | 12.1% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire, DealerOn |
| Toyota | 136 | 11% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire, DealerOn |
| Volkswagen | 29 | 10.3% | Dealer.com, Team Velocity |
| Honda | 100 | 10% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire, Team Velocity |
| Mazda | 31 | 9.7% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire, Team Velocity |
| Audi | 24 | 4.2% | Dealer.com |
| Hyundai | 53 | 3.8% | Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire, DealerOn |
What it means
- Among the franchise dealer sites we could read, three website platforms account for most: Dealer.com, Dealer Inspire and DealerOn.
- Independent and used car dealers were turned away far more often. Sites that refuse a request cannot be attributed to a platform, so the study cannot say which providers are behind that.
- Being reachable is only the first step. Franchise stores of the same brand sell the same vehicles, so the engine still has to find a reason on the page to name one over another.
Across 64,441 AI answers about local businesses, engines named a business 84% of the time when they had opened one of its own pages while answering, and 16% when they had not.
How this was measured
Each site's homepage was requested once in October 2026, identifying as an ordinary web browser, without running JavaScript. We never sent a request pretending to be an AI crawler, so these figures describe how a site treats automated clients in general. Sites were collected from Google Maps listings for car dealerships, one site per domain.
Read next
Every brand's own page The same study by city The full study: 2,915 dealership websites AI visibility for car dealershipsQuestions people ask
Do franchise dealer websites block AI more than independent dealers?
No, less. Dealers named for a manufacturer brand turned away an automated request 14.6% of the time, against 39.7% for all other dealers in the sample.
Which brand's dealer websites refused most often?
Genesis: 24.1% of 29 sites. Brand samples are small, so treat single-brand figures as indicative.
Does this mean AI engines cannot read those sites?
Not necessarily. We did not pretend to be an AI crawler. Some firewalls let verified AI crawlers through while challenging other automated clients, which is why each dealer should check its own setting.
How to cite this research
Cloute (October 2026). Dealer websites and AI by brand: 19 brands compared. https://cloute.ai/research/dealer-websites-by-brand
The underlying data is open under CC BY 4.0: github.com/luked9/cloute-ai-visibility-research.
About Cloute. Cloute is an AI visibility company for local businesses. It measures how often ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews recommend a business against its local competitors, and works every month to move it to the top.