For the first time, car shoppers can compare dealers by transparency — not just star ratings.

Car reviews have been around for decades. Dealer reviews have been around for years. But until now, no one has rated car dealerships based on what actually matters most to buyers: what they charge, and how transparent they are to deal with.

CarEdge is launching the Dealer Transparency Index — the first car dealership rating system built entirely on verified, real-world pricing data. No anonymous opinions. No self-reported surveys. Just actual out-the-door quotes, collected by CarEdge’s AI-powered car buying agents, and shared for every consumer to see.

How It Works

CarEdge  contacts dealerships on behalf of real car shoppers and collects itemized out-the-door quotes — the full price including doc fees, add-ons, and any dealer markup above the listed price. Every quote is then scored across four categories:

• Fee Transparency (30%) — Doc fees benchmarked against a $499 standard
• Add-on Behavior (30%) — Whether dealers bundle mandatory add-ons buyers didn’t ask for
• Dealer Markup (30%) — Any dealer-controlled fees above the listing price
• Data Quality (10%) — Whether the quote is complete and itemized

The result is a transparency score from 0 to 100, with letter grades from A to F. Dealers with five or more verified quotes are ranked publicly at caredge.com/dealer-ratings.

Why This Matters

Anyone who has bought a car knows the feeling: you walk in expecting one price and walk out paying another. Dealer fees, paint protection packages, nitrogen-filled tires, and documentation charges can add thousands of dollars to a purchase — often without clear explanation.

Until now, there’s been no reliable way for shoppers to know which dealers play it straight and which ones play games. Yelp and Google reviews tell you whether the coffee in the waiting room was good. CarEdge’s Dealer Transparency Index tells you whether the dealer charged you $1,200 for a paint sealant you didn’t want.

The data makes clear that pricing behavior varies enormously. The highest-rated dealers score a perfect 100/100. The lowest score under 30. That gap represents real money — often thousands of dollars — out of consumers’ pockets.

The Ratings Are Live

The index is live now, with dealers earning grades from A to F based on their verified pricing behavior. The spread between the best and worst dealers is striking — top-rated dealers score a perfect 100/100, while the lowest-rated fall below 30. That gap represents real money out of consumers’ pockets, often thousands of dollars per transaction.

The ratings are continuously updated as new quotes come in.

Built on the World’s Largest AI Car Buying Platform

The Dealer Transparency Index is powered by CarEdge’s AI negotiation platform, which exchanges messages with dealers 24/7 on behalf of consumers. The platform has contacted thousands of dealers and negotiated quotes across the country, with an average dealer response time of under two hours.

“Consumers deserve to know what dealers actually charge — not what they claim to charge,” said Zach Shefska, co-founder of CarEdge. “We built this because the information exists. It just needed to be organized, scored, and made public.”

Search Dealer Ratings Now

Car shoppers can search and compare dealer transparency scores at caredge.com/dealer-ratings. Dealers are searchable by name, location, and grade.

CarEdge was founded in 2019 by Ray and Zach Shefska to bring transparency and fairness to car buying. CarEdge always serves consumers — never dealers or automakers.