Which DMS Do the Top 50 Dealer Groups Use?

A dealer group's DMS decision is the most consequential software choice it will make. The dealer management system touches every department — sales, service, parts, accounting — and switching costs can run into six figures per rooftop. So when groups representing hundreds of rooftops and billions in revenue make this call, what do they choose?

The State of Automotive tracks technology stacks across 219 franchise dealer groups in its DealerGroupTechStack database. Of those, 87 groups have DMS data — the remaining 132 either haven't been surveyed yet or keep their vendor relationships private. The 87 groups with data range from 8 to 78 rooftops, representing the mid-market backbone of American auto retail.

CDK Global is the clear leader, appearing in 66 of the 87 groups with DMS data — 75.9%. That's nearly three out of every four groups with known DMS usage. Reynolds and Reynolds (Retail Solutions) is second at 40 groups, or 46.0%. Dealertrack, Cox Automotive's DMS product, appears in just one group — David Wilson Automotive Group, a 21-rooftop operation based in Orange, California.

The percentages add up to more than 100% because 20 groups run both CDK and Reynolds. This isn't two DMS systems in the same store — it's different rooftops within the same group on different platforms, almost always the result of acquisitions. When a group buys a dealership, it inherits the seller's DMS contract. Migrating a store from Reynolds to CDK (or vice versa) can take 6-18 months and cost $50,000-150,000 per rooftop. For many groups, it's cheaper to live with the dual-platform reality than to force consolidation.

The groups running both include some of the largest in the mid-market: Morgan Automotive Group (45 rooftops, Florida), Herb Chambers Companies (58 rooftops, Massachusetts), Serra Automotive (32 rooftops, Michigan), Greenway Automotive Group (30 rooftops, Florida), and Napleton Automotive Group (28 rooftops, Illinois). These aren't small operations — they're substantial private groups that have grown through acquisition and chosen to manage the DMS complexity rather than pay the migration cost.

Notably absent from the DMS data: the publicly traded giants. Lithia & Driveway (459 rooftops), Penske Automotive Group (369), Group 1 Automotive (259), AutoNation (243), JM Family Enterprises (180), Asbury Automotive Group (152), Sonic Automotive (141), and Hendrick Automotive Group (127) — none appear in the DealerGroupTechStack DMS data. These publicly traded groups negotiate enterprise-scale deals directly with DMS vendors, often involving co-development agreements, preferred pricing across hundreds of stores, and non-disclosure terms that keep their vendor relationships private.

What about the disruptors? Zero groups in the database use Tekion. Not one of the 87 groups with DMS data has adopted the cloud-native platform that has raised over $450 million and earned a GM endorsement. Tekion claims approximately 2,000 rooftops, but those appear to be single-point stores and small groups — not the multi-rooftop organizations tracked in this dataset. The group-level adoption cycle for a new DMS is 3-5 years minimum, and Tekion's group penetration remains at zero in this dataset.

So what does the data actually tell a dealer making this decision? First, CDK is the safe choice — it's where 75.9% of your peers have landed. Second, if you're growing through acquisition, budget for dual-DMS complexity — 23% of groups live with it. Third, if you're considering Reynolds as your sole DMS, know that zero groups in this dataset have done so — Reynolds always appears alongside CDK, never as the only platform.

Bottom line: The DMS market at the group level is a CDK-dominated landscape where Reynolds plays a strong supporting role and the disruptors haven't yet landed. The public groups are a black box, but the mid-market tells a clear story: CDK is the default, dual-DMS is a cost of growth, and the next-generation platforms have work to do before they win group-level deals.

Data sourced from The State of Automotive's DealerGroupTechStack database, which tracks technology vendor relationships across 219 franchise dealer groups. DMS data is available for 87 groups as of June 2026.