Two numbers should move together. How many dealers a brand has, and how much of the used market it occupies. Both follow from how many cars the brand sold.
We mapped 26,248 dealer locations from OpenStreetMap, identified the brand for 13,675 of them, and compared that against 200,000 deduplicated used listings.
| Brand | Dealer locations | Dealer share | Used listings | Market share | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla | 272 | 2.0% | 1,303 | 0.6% | 3.14 |
| Mitsubishi | 194 | 1.4% | 990 | 0.5% | 2.95 |
| Mazda | 435 | 3.2% | 2,988 | 1.5% | 2.19 |
| Kia | 588 | 4.3% | 4,668 | 2.3% | 1.90 |
| Ford | 2,032 | 14.9% | 31,603 | 15.4% | 0.97 |
| Toyota | 1,102 | 8.1% | 21,050 | 10.2% | 0.79 |
| BMW | 315 | 2.3% | 6,821 | 3.3% | 0.70 |
| Dodge | 137 | 1.0% | 5,520 | 2.7% | 0.37 |
| RAM | 100 | 0.7% | 7,955 | 3.9% | 0.19 |
Ford sits at 0.97 — its dealer network and its share of the used market are the same size to within three per cent. That is what the relationship looks like when nothing unusual is happening.
The high end is a timing effect
Tesla has three times more of the dealer network than of the used market, and the explanation is arithmetic rather than strategy.
A used car is a car somebody bought several years ago. Tesla's volume arrived recently, so the sales side is sized for today while the resale side reflects sales from five and ten years back. The ratio will fall as the fleet ages, and it is falling.
Mitsubishi at 2.95 is the same shape for a different reason: a shrinking brand keeps its network longer than it keeps its market position. Mazda and Kia at 2.19 and 1.90 sit between the two cases — growing brands whose used supply has not caught up.
The low end is about who shares a showroom
RAM at 0.19 is the extreme, and it is not a story about a weak network. It is a data artefact with a real cause.
RAM, Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep operate from combined Stellantis showrooms. A location tagged as a Jeep dealer sells RAM trucks off the same lot, and mapping data records it once, under one name. Jeep shows 787 locations; RAM shows 100. The trucks are sold at both.
Dodge at 0.37 has the same problem. Anyone reading these two rows as "RAM has almost no dealers" would be reading the tagging convention rather than the market.
The honest version is to treat the four Stellantis brands as one network — and combined, they land close to 1.0 like everybody else.
Toyota and BMW are the interesting cases
Neither has a shared-showroom explanation. Toyota sits at 0.79 and BMW at 0.70, meaning both have meaningfully more cars on the used market than their dealer count would suggest.
For Toyota that is longevity. Cars that survive twenty years accumulate — every model year that refuses to die adds to the used pool while the dealer count stays flat. A brand whose cars last is over-represented second-hand by construction.
For BMW it is turnover. Shorter ownership cycles and a fleet that reaches the used market quickly produce the same ratio through the opposite mechanism.
What to do with the number
Read it as a support-to-supply ratio rather than as a quality signal.
A high ratio means franchised servicing is easy to reach relative to how many of those cars exist — useful if the model needs dealer-only diagnostics or proprietary parts.
A low ratio means the cars outnumber the official network, so independent specialists carry more of the work. That is usually cheaper and occasionally a problem, depending on whether the platform has anything the aftermarket cannot service.
Neither tells you anything about the specific car you are looking at. That part is in the paperwork, and a free VIN check is where it lives.
Frequently asked questions
Which brand has the most dealer locations?
Ford, with 2,032 identifiable locations in our data — 14.9% of all franchised dealers we could attribute to a brand. Chevrolet follows at 1,660 and Toyota at 1,102. Ford's dealer share almost exactly matches its 15.4% share of used listings.
Why does Tesla have more dealers than used cars?
Because the fleet is young. Tesla's locations are 2.0% of the total while its used listings are 0.6% — a ratio of 3.1. Cars sold in the last few years have not reached the second-hand market yet, so the sales network runs ahead of the resale supply.
Why does RAM have so few dealers?
Because it does not have its own. RAM shows 0.7% of locations against 3.9% of used listings — a ratio of 0.19, the lowest of any brand. RAM, Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep share combined Stellantis showrooms, and a site tagged as a Jeep dealer sells RAM trucks from the same lot.
What does this ratio tell a buyer?
Where servicing and parts will be easy relative to how common the car is. A high ratio means plenty of franchised support for a car you rarely see used. A low ratio — Toyota at 0.79, BMW at 0.70 — means the cars outnumber the official network, so independent specialists carry more of the load.
Denis Kataev is a serial solopreneur and the founder of ForCar. With 15+ years in software engineering and 10 years in SEO, he builds data-driven products end to end — backed by a sharp eye for design. At ForCar he mines proprietary vehicle datasets, turning raw numbers into buying advice you can actually trust.
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