vAuto is the standard operating tool for used car managers at franchise dealerships across North America. If you run a pre-owned department and you are not fluent in Provision, Stockwave, and the core metrics that drive both, your competitors who are fluent will consistently outperform you on acquisition cost, turn rate, and gross retention.

This guide covers what vAuto actually does, the concepts every used car manager must internalize during training, and the gaps that vAuto training alone will not close.

What vAuto Is and Where It Fits in the Cox Automotive Stack

vAuto is a Cox Automotive product. It sits within a broader ecosystem that includes Dealertrack (DMS and F&I), VinSolutions (CRM), and Autotrader/Cars.com on the consumer-facing side. Understanding where vAuto fits helps you understand what it is built to do.

The platform has three primary modules:

• Provision — used vehicle pricing, stocking, and inventory management. This is the core module for most pre-owned managers.
• Stockwave — digital auction sourcing. Connects managers to wholesale inventory across Manheim, ADESA, OVE, and other auction lanes.
• Conquest — focused on new vehicle inventory management. Relevant for new car managers, not the primary focus for used car operations.

Most vAuto training for used car managers centers on Provision and Stockwave. If your dealership has purchased the full suite, understanding how Conquest feeds into used-car trade strategy is worth a module on its own.

The Three Core Metrics in vAuto Provision Training

vAuto Provision is built around three numbers that drive every pricing and stocking decision. Your training is not complete until these are instinctive.

Market Days Supply (MDS) measures how many days of supply exist for a specific vehicle in your market based on current listings. A low MDS means the vehicle is scarce relative to demand — you can hold more gross. A high MDS means supply is saturated — price aggressively or avoid the unit altogether. The benchmark most managers use: MDS under 30 is a desirable vehicle; MDS over 60 warrants serious scrutiny before you acquire.

Price to Market expresses your asking price as a percentage of the market average for comparable vehicles in your radius. A vehicle priced at 98% of market is priced at the market. A vehicle at 105% is above market, which typically results in longer days-on-lot. Most stores that turn inventory consistently price between 95% and 100% of market on units over 30 days old.

Likelihood to Sell is a vAuto-calculated probability score estimating how likely a specific vehicle is to sell within a defined time window based on its MDS, pricing position, and demand signals. It is not a guarantee — it is a prioritization tool. Use it when making recon decisions and pricing adjustments on aged inventory.

These three metrics interact. A unit with low MDS and a Likelihood to Sell above 80% should be priced confidently. A unit with high MDS and a score below 40% is a problem you need to address immediately, either by repricing or moving it wholesale.

For a broader look at how pricing discipline connects to overall department performance, see our guide on used car manager training for acquisition and pricing.

vAuto Provision Training: The Daily Pricing Workflow

vAuto training frequently covers the interface without drilling the workflow. Here is the discipline that separates high-performing used car managers from those who use Provision as a reporting tool rather than a decision engine.

Morning review. Every vehicle that has crossed a day threshold — 15 days, 30 days, 45 days — gets a pricing review. Pull the vehicle in Provision, check current MDS, Price to Market, and any market shifts since last review. If a competitor has listed six similar units at lower prices, your price position has changed even if you did nothing.

Threshold triggers. Set hard rules before you start, not in the moment. A common structure: at 21 days, move to 98% of market. At 30 days, move to 95%. At 45 days, send to wholesale if the vehicle cannot be priced profitably at 93% or below. Emotion and attachment to gross destroy turn rate. Thresholds remove emotion.

New inventory pricing. Every vehicle entering your lot gets priced within 24 hours of clearing recon. The market moves while vehicles sit unpriced. Use Provision's comparables view — filter by mileage band, trim level, and radius — before you set the price. Do not price from memory or gut feel.

See our used car pricing strategy training guide for a deeper framework on building sustainable pricing discipline at the department level.

Stockwave Training: Sourcing Vehicles at the Right Number

Stockwave is where acquisition discipline becomes competitive advantage. The platform aggregates auction listings from Manheim, ADESA, OVE, and other sources into a single interface, with vAuto Provision data overlaid on each unit so you can evaluate the deal before you bid.

Core Stockwave training should cover four things:

Search filters. vAuto Provision's stocking guide (what your market needs) should drive your Stockwave search, not general preference. Set filters for MDS under 30, mileage bands that match your market's demand, and vehicle age that fits your lot policy. Buyers who ignore these filters bring in inventory that looks good but sits.

The cost-to-market calculation. Stockwave shows you a vehicle's estimated cost to market — what you will pay versus what comparable retail listings show. Use this as a floor, not a ceiling. Factor in transport, recon estimate, and your floor plan cost before you bid. A vehicle that looks profitable in Stockwave can lose money after recon.

Condition reports and arbitration. Stockwave integrates condition reports for most auction vehicles. Buying without reviewing the condition report is a controllable risk most experienced buyers refuse to take. Know the arbitration policy for each auction before you transact remotely — what is covered, what is not, and the time window.

Bid discipline. The most common mistake in Stockwave training is underemphasizing bid limits. Set your max bid before you open the auction window, not during. Live and simulcast auctions create urgency that leads to overbidding. Your target acquisition cost should already be in the system before the auction starts.

For more on auction buying fundamentals, our used car auction training guide and wholesale car buying training guide cover the sourcing discipline that runs alongside Stockwave execution.

Trade Appraisals Inside vAuto

vAuto Provision includes an appraisal workflow that most stores underuse. When a trade comes in, pulling the VIN into Provision gives you an immediate read on MDS, local retail listings for that vehicle, and what similar units are bringing at auction through Manheim Market Report (MMR) data.

The appraisal workflow in Provision is designed to produce a number you can defend — both to your customer and to your GSM. A manager who appraises from memory and backs into a number is exposed. A manager who can open Provision on the tablet and walk a customer through the market data controls the conversation.

Appraisal training should include how to present the data, not just how to read it. That is a skill vAuto's software training does not develop.

Integration with the Sales Floor

vAuto lives in the used car manager's office. The CRM lives on the sales floor and in the BDC. For most dealerships, these two systems do not communicate automatically in a way that gives salespeople real-time pricing context.

This creates a gap. A salesperson negotiating on a used vehicle does not always know the vehicle's days on lot, its current Price to Market position, or whether the manager has flagged it for imminent wholesale. When the salesperson overpromises on price or undersells on value, it is partly a training gap — but it is also an information gap.

Closing that gap requires a process, not just software. A daily used car lot walk where the manager communicates priority units, pricing position, and stocking rationale gives your sales team the context they need to sell the inventory you have priced to move.

For context on how used car managers and sales teams train together, see our used car manager training complete guide.

Common Gaps in vAuto Provision Training

Most vAuto training — whether from Cox Automotive's onboarding resources, a 20 Group presentation, or an in-store trainer — covers the interface adequately. The gaps tend to be in three areas:

Advanced filter configuration. Provision's default view is not optimized for every market. Managers who learn only the default setup miss the ability to customize radius, comp set, and price band filters for their specific market dynamics. The platform is more powerful than most users realize.

Custom dashboards and alerts. Provision allows you to build dashboards that surface your highest-priority aging units, flagged vehicles, and market shifts automatically. Most managers never configure these. As a result, they spend time hunting for the information the dashboard should surface for them.

Interpreting trend data over time. Provision captures historical pricing and MDS data that most managers never use. Looking at how MDS for your core vehicle types has shifted over six months gives you sourcing intelligence that reactive daily reviews do not.

What vAuto Does Not Train

vAuto trains managers on the tool. It does not train the conversations that happen after the tool produces a number.

A vehicle priced correctly at 97% of market still has to be sold. The salesperson still has to explain to a customer why a three-year-old vehicle with 42,000 miles is priced where it is. The F&I manager still has to protect gross on the back end while the front end is priced to market. The trade customer still has to understand why their vehicle is worth what the manager's vAuto appraisal says it is worth.

These are sales conversations. They require repetition, feedback, and practice — none of which vAuto provides.

DealSpeak is designed to fill that gap. Your managers and salespeople practice the pricing conversation, the trade appraisal conversation, and the objection-handling sequences that live downstream of the vAuto workflow. At $30 per user per month, it is a complement to the tool investment you have already made in Provision and Stockwave.

If vAuto prices the cars and your team still struggles to sell them at those prices, the gap is in the conversation, not the software. See how DealSpeak supports used car teams at the dealership level.

FAQ

How long does vAuto Provision training take? Basic Provision competency — understanding MDS, Price to Market, and the daily pricing workflow — takes most managers two to three weeks of active use. Advanced configuration and dashboard setup takes an additional two to four weeks. Full fluency, where the data is instinctive rather than consulted, typically develops over three to six months of consistent use.

Does vAuto offer formal certification for used car managers? Cox Automotive offers vAuto training resources through its dealer support portal and through Cox Automotive University. There is no widely-recognized standalone certification in the way that some CRM platforms offer. Most vAuto training is delivered through onboarding sessions, dealer group training programs, and 20 Group workshops.

What is the difference between vAuto Provision and Stockwave? Provision is your retail inventory management tool — it helps you price and manage vehicles already on your lot. Stockwave is your acquisition tool — it helps you source vehicles at auction before they reach your lot. They share data, but they serve different stages of the used vehicle lifecycle.

How does vAuto integrate with VinSolutions or Dealertrack? vAuto shares data with VinSolutions CRM and Dealertrack DMS through the Cox Automotive integrated platform. Vehicles in Provision can surface in the CRM, and appraisal data can flow into deal records. The depth of integration depends on your dealership's configuration and whether all three platforms are active.

Can a used car buyer use Stockwave without a Provision subscription? Stockwave can be purchased as a standalone product, but the core value of Stockwave is the Provision data overlay — the ability to see MDS and cost-to-market for every auction unit. Without Provision, you lose the market intelligence that makes Stockwave a disciplined sourcing tool rather than a basic auction search interface.