Auto Dealership Site Selection
Dealer territories, service radius, and conquest analysis using real road-network isochrones — not the radius circles still used in most OEM agreements. A 15-minute drive polygon behaves nothing like a 5-mile circle near an interstate exchange or a river crossing. Franchise exclusivity is defined by drive-time polygons in modern dealer agreements. Map the real territory before the next point proposal lands on your desk.
Time zones
The auto industry runs on territory agreements, and territory agreements run on geography. For decades that geography was defined by radius miles — a clean number easy to draw on a map and hard to argue with at an OEM review board. The problem is that customers don't drive radius circles. They drive roads. A dealer near an interstate exchange can pull customers from 20 miles away in 15 minutes; the same dealer's trade area extends barely 3 miles in the direction of a major river crossing.
Modern OEM agreements and dealer point proceedings increasingly use drive-time polygons because they reflect how customers actually behave. The 15-minute isochrone defines the service trade area — where customers will return for oil changes, warranty work, and recall service. The 30-minute isochrone defines the sales conquest zone — where customers researching a purchase are willing to drive for the right deal or the right inventory. These polygons are the foundation of every defensible territory argument.
Service trade area
Oil changes, warranty work, recall service — the radius where loyalty is built and retained
Primary sales zone
Repeat purchases, service-to-sales conversion — customers who know the rooftop
Conquest zone
Destination drive for right inventory or price — the zone that overlaps with competitors
Three failure modes
Dealers near interstate exits serve customers 20 miles away in 15 minutes. Radius circles systematically undercount highway-adjacent conquest opportunity — and overcount reach in directions where the road network is slower. A dealer 2 miles from an on-ramp has a fundamentally asymmetric trade area that no radius can capture.
Markets split by a major river — Detroit, St. Louis, Portland — have dramatically different real trade areas than radius circles suggest. Customers do not cross bridges casually. A radius circle that spans a river double-counts population that will never make the crossing for a car purchase or an oil change.
Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta dealers in different corridors appear to compete by radius but rarely share customers. Polycentric metros have natural trade area divisions along commute corridors that radius circles cannot distinguish. Two dealers 3 miles apart on opposite sides of a mixed-use belt can have near-zero customer overlap.
Feature breakdown
Define and defend exclusive territories using drive-time polygons. When a new point is proposed, measure trade area overlap with existing dealers using the real road network, not a radius that crosses rivers and highways. Export the polygon for use in OEM proceedings, point objections, and market representation filings.
Map the 10- and 20-minute service area around each rooftop. Understand where customers will actually drive for oil changes, warranty work, and recall service — then site your express service lanes accordingly. The service trade area is smaller than the sales zone and requires its own dedicated analysis.
Identify households inside your 15-minute drive zone that currently drive past your rooftop to a competitor. The intersection between your polygon and a competitor's reveals the true conquest opportunity — the households your sales team should be targeting with conquest campaigns and conquest inventory.
For dealer groups operating multiple brands across a market, map trade area overlap to optimize the portfolio. A Chevrolet and a Cadillac under the same group can tolerate more overlap than two competing midsize truck franchises. The polygon overlay shows exactly where the portfolio is cannibalizing itself.
FAQ · Auto dealership site selection
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