It is time again for spooky ghosts, for trick-or-treating, and fall celebrations. For Oregon dealers, it is time to push hard as we move towards the historically slower fall and winter season.
In this month’s newsletter, we are going to touch on a few things that really impact dealers. The first two will be from the legislature and DMV, and the third will be technology.
Financing Timeline Change – 14 Days ‚ 10 Days
Oregon House passed a bill that lowers your total timeline to lock in financing from 14 days to 10 days. This is a consumer protection measure to protect people, their trades, and other assets from dealerships participating in yo-yo financing.
This is HB3178: https://legiscan.com/OR/text/HB3178/2025
The long and the short here is that you must secure full approval within 10 days. If financing fails, the contract must be canceled, and the vehicle, any collateral, and any cash must be returned to the customer. You have 2 days to return all goods, monies, and any trade-ins.
Failure to comply may expose dealers to sanctions, suspension or revocation of their certificate, and potential civil liability.
This change becomes active: January 1st, 2026
Critical DMV Policy Change: No More Renewal Letters
Beginning October 1st, 2025 the DMV stopped sending renewal letters. This means you will need to keep track of your renewal cycle and ensure that your documents stay up to date. Now, this is fairly simple; however, these renewal letters have been an important reminder for a ton of dealers.
Source: https://www.oregon.gov/odot/Forms/DMV/7022.pdf
According to the DMV this is a cost-savings measure and they will be researching and searching for another alternative such as emails, online renewals, or providing additional materials on the DMV website.
Our advice? Take a peek at your dealer license and set a calendar reminder in your phone for 2 months early to ensure you have enough time to get everything completed and in.
Advertising Changes – The Power of AI
During a recent call with a developer from a data analytics company we had a very long, very good conversation about AI and how it is influencing advertising across the web.
The short version is this: SEO as we know it does not work as it has in the past. AI has changed the game drastically – some for better, some for worse.
Historically we focused on meta tags, keywords, and making sure that the site scores high on a Lighthouse score (Google’s Page Scoring). https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/performance/performance-scoring
All of these would feed in with social media posts that contained links to your site and other cross-linking. As always when it comes to the internet and technology this has changed. Here are a few tips and links to get you started on making changes to ensure you keep your edge and keep your inventory getting viewed.
AI Summaries
AI integration with search engines like Google & Bing is changing the landscape. Instead of searching for something like you would a few years ago, now you get a whole summary of information right in the search results. https://search.google/ways-to-search/ai-overviews/
Because of these summaries your page views will likely take a pretty substantial hit. However, there are a few ways to combat these changes.
Create content that answers questions, using headers, bullets, and FAQs so that Google & Bing can snag clear, concise pieces of content for summaries.
Be clear and detailed in your descriptions and any content you post.
Use photos, videos, and keep your inventory active (adding, editing, and removing vehicles).
Local Trust Signals
Google Business Profile & Yelp are now king. Having your profiles active with a ton of positive reviews will gain you views, and by extension leads/sales. GBP will be critical going forward because when someone searches for “car dealers near me” or something similar, Google’s AI will be looking at reviews to give the best dealers in the area around the customer.
For dealers with shops, set up separate profiles for your service & parts departments to get better visibility.
Unique & Human Content & Descriptions – Human > Boilerplate
AI can tell when you copy-paste your descriptions. If you use the same text over and over it will cost you. AI is looking for unique content, and more specifically unique human-generated content. By expending the extra energy to make these unique descriptions, and content you will see more inclusion in AI summaries, and will get better page views.
Most Common Roadblock
Most website companies are not quite onboard with all of this. They are trying to evolve, but this requires work to build various aspects to their sites and services to fit needs. A good example of this: Most dealership sites don’t have a blog or FAQ.
So how do you folks that have this issue compete? The answer is fairly simple: social media posts that cross-link and are unique. YouTube videos that talk about the industry, your services, and explain things like financing and warranties.
You can join your local Chamber of Commerce or the BBB to add more validity to your company. You can max out your Google and Yelp profile. And for all of your advertising services like Cars.com, CarGurus, TrueCar, etc. you can ensure your contact information, hours, phone, fax, and email are all correct and consistent.
Finally, we will point back at your descriptions. Keep them detailed, complete, and human with little to no repeating or boilerplate content.
The world of digital advertising, search engine optimization and selling is constantly evolving. We will keep you informed of various changes to the legislative landscape, policies, and best practices.
Make sure to renew your membership and support the independent auto association that fights for you!
Kyle S. Willard
541-588-0515