How to access the Dealer of the Year awards

The Cars.com Dealer of the Year Award Program recognizes dealerships across the United States and Canada for outstanding customer satisfaction based on online reviews. Awards are granted to the dealerships with the highest PowerScore™ in each category — including National and State awards by brand, and Regional awards across eight geographic areas.

In this article, you’ll learn how to access your dealership’s award results and understand how rankings are calculated.

1 Visit reporting

1. Log in to your Dealer Panel.
   
2. Click the Reporting tab.
   
3. Select Dealer of the Year from the available report types.

2 Filter your search

Use the dropdown filters to customize your report:

• Year: View results from the current or previous calendar years.
  
• Category: Choose Regional, National, or State.
  
• Make: Appears only when National or State is selected. Awards in these categories are brand-specific.

Once your selections are made, click Submit to generate the report.

3 Read the results table

The report will display the top five ranked dealerships based on their PowerScore™. Here’s how to read each column:

• Ranking: Your position compared to others in the selected category and make.
  
• # of Reviews: Total number of reviews received in the calendar year (brand-specific for National/State; all-inclusive for Regional).
  
• Response Rate: Percentage of reviews that received at least one dealer response.
  
• Average Rating: Average star rating of all included reviews for the year.
  
• PowerScore™: Proprietary score factoring review count, average rating, and response rate — used to determine award winners.
  

Award criteria

To qualify for a Dealer of the Year Award, a dealership must:

• Have a minimum of 25 reviews on Cars.com or DealerRater from the previous calendar year
  
• Receive at least 1 review per calendar quarter in that year
  
• Maintain an average rating above 4.0 (out of 5.0)
  

For National and State awards: have at least 1 “Sales (New)” review for the brand in that year

How winners are determined

Cars.com calculates a PowerScore™ for each eligible dealership using:

• Average review rating
  
• Total number of reviews
  
• Response rate to reviews

A Bayesian algorithm is used to weight scores against site averages, meaning the winning dealership must perform well across all three areas.

Regional award categories

Launched in 2022, the Regional Award is given to the dealership (regardless of brand) with the highest PowerScore™ in each of eight U.S. regions:

• New England
  
• Mid-Atlantic
  
• Southeast
  
• Midwest
  
• Plains
  
• Rocky Mountain
  
• Southwest
  
• West
  

Regional boundaries follow the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis regional breakdown.