General Motors is turning up the heat on its U.S. dealers, nudging many of them to corral their pre-owned operations into one digital home, CarBravo. For a company rooted in Detroit, it is a big cultural pivot in how it wants used cars sold, rearranging warranties, inventory and online tools so franchise stores can slug it out with national digital players while hanging on to trade-ins, service and parts business at local lots.
GM's dealer push and what's changing
This week, GM told dealers that Chevrolet, Buick and GMC franchises are expected to sign on to CarBravo if they want to keep selling used GM vehicles with factory-backed warranties. Cadillac, notably, will stick with GM's long-running traditional certified-pre-owned program. At the same time, the company is winding down a long-standing program that had helped dealers move pre-owned vehicles with GM-backed warranties, steering those transactions into the newer omnichannel CarBravo system instead, according to Reuters.
What CarBravo offers
CarBravo is GM's omnichannel marketplace that lets shoppers browse and buy either online or in-store from participating dealers, with the crucial hook that warranty coverage and dealer service access follow vehicles sold through the platform. In a company release, GM said CarBravo's certification and warranty protections were expanded earlier this year to include a 12-month/12,000-mile limited warranty, and that in some cases the program can back non-GM models as well as older vehicles. GM also says CarBravo is already moving cars faster than its broader certified-pre-owned program and is designed to pool dealer inventory into a single national storefront, according to GM.
Dealers, early results and competition
A relatively small but growing slice of GM dealers has been testing the platform and reporting quick wins. Fewer than one-quarter of GM's roughly 3,500 U.S. dealerships currently list vehicles on CarBravo, yet those that are in say the online tools are helping sales momentum. Andy Guelcher, president of Mohawk Chevrolet in upstate New York, told reporters that adopting the online selling tool helped lift his used-car sales by about 52 percent over two years. Industry watchers see the broader push as an effort to win back shoppers tempted by online-only used-car giants. Carvana, for example, sold roughly 596,641 vehicles in 2025, a reminder of the scale GM is up against as it bets that marrying dealer footprints with digital reach can keep customers in the fold, per Reuters.
How this could reshape the market
The used-car world already dwarfs the new-car side in raw volume, with roughly 40 million pre-owned vehicles changing hands in the United States each year. That makes the secondary market a vital pipeline for showroom traffic, trade-ins and service revenue at franchised dealerships. By pulling more inventory and warranty support into a single branded platform, GM is trying to keep those profit engines anchored to its dealer network instead of drifting entirely to online-only retailers. Industry analysts say the approach could boost parts and service revenue at showrooms while giving shoppers clearer pricing and warranty options, according to Euronews.
What to watch next
GM has already started onboarding dealers ahead of a broader rollout planned for this summer, sweetening the deal with warranty protections and the promise of pooled national inventory. Stores that opt in could see more digital leads and better tracking of trade-ins, although the whole scheme will live or die on execution around recalls, pricing discipline and logistics across thousands of rooftops. Shoppers may start noticing changes on local Chevrolet, Buick and GMC listings this spring as CarBravo scales up, according to Auto Remarketing.
