The Best Video Inspection Software for Dealership Service Departments

Quick answer

The main video inspection options for franchised dealership service departments are Xtime Inspect, Dealer-FX, AutoVitals, TruVideo, myKaarma, and Kimoby. They split into two groups. Some are inspection-focused tools you add to your existing stack. Others are one module inside a broader scheduling or service lane platform. Which group you want depends on whether inspection is your only bottleneck or a symptom of disconnected systems.

Full disclosure: we make Kimoby, and video inspection is part of our Service Lane OS. We have tried to give a fair read on the alternatives anyway, sourced to public reviews rather than our own opinion. Judge it on whether the criticisms of our competitors are specific and cited, and whether we let the criticism of ourselves stand.

How the options compare on scope

Before the detail, here is what each product primarily is. Scope matters more than feature count, because it determines whether you are adding a tool or replacing several.

Why are more dealers looking at this now?

Two things are pushing it. The first is customer expectation, and there is hard third-party data on it. J.D. Power's 2026 U.S. Customer Service Index Study found 64% of service customers want photo or video documentation with their multi-point inspection, while only 26% at mass-market brands and 44% at premium brands receive it. Two out of three customers are asking for something three out of four are not getting.

The second is OEM programs. Some manufacturers have moved from encouraging video and photo inspections to tying them to co-op funds, technology credits, or certification requirements, which turns a revenue decision into a compliance one. These programs vary by OEM and change year to year, so check your own manufacturer's current fixed-ops technology requirements directly rather than taking anyone's summary of them.

How do you evaluate video inspection software?

Feature checklists do not tell you much. Four questions do, and they are worth asking in the demo rather than reading off a spec sheet. For the wider evaluation beyond inspection, we have a longer piece on how to evaluate service lane software.

Does it attach a video, or build the estimate from it? Recording and sending a video is step one. The harder question is whether the tool turns what the technician says on camera into a line-item estimate the advisor reviews and sends, or whether the advisor watches the clip and retypes everything.

Does it tie to the repair order automatically? If the video and findings do not attach to the RO on their own, someone is re-entering that data by hand, which is the manual step this software exists to remove.

Can the customer approve from the video itself? A persuasive video that still requires a phone call to authorize has not solved the approval-speed problem. It has made the phone call better informed.

Does it run on the devices your techs already carry? If it is iOS-only, or needs a specific tablet nobody wants to haul around the shop, adoption suffers no matter how the feature demos.

The options in detail

Review-based observations below are drawn from public G2 and Capterra reviews as of August 2026. Review volume varies a lot between these products, and we flag it where the base is too thin to generalize from.

Xtime Inspect (Cox Automotive)

Mobile access from iOS or Android, photo and video documentation sent to the customer, and a performance dashboard tracking approval rates and RO revenue by department. Reviewers on G2 and Capterra point to strong integration with Cox properties (VinSolutions, Dealertrack) and say pairing Inspect with Invite makes recapturing declined work easier, with color-coded RO status showing at a glance what a car is waiting on.

The recurring criticism in those reviews is a steep learning curve. One Capterra reviewer who went through a company-wide consolidation said the tools Xtime replaced had, in their experience, worked better. Worth knowing: Xtime's core strength is scheduling and lane flow. Inspection is a module inside that, not the product itself.

Dealer-FX

Acquired by Snap-on in 2021. Its ONE Platform holds endorsements from GM, Toyota, and Stellantis, which matters if your OEM steers you toward an approved vendor.

We cannot give this one a balanced read. Public review coverage on G2 and Capterra is thin, and most of what is available publicly is vendor or OEM material rather than independent user reviews. Rather than fill that gap with our own characterization of a competitor, we will say plainly that if Dealer-FX is on your shortlist, ask them directly for reference customers at stores your size and brand, and weigh that above anything written about them online, including this.

AutoVitals

Built around the inspection-to-approval workflow, so inspection is the product rather than a module. Reviewers on G2 and Capterra like the integration with shop systems such as Protractor and RO Writer, how easily inspection sheets can be edited, and the image editor's markup tools for explaining an issue clearly. One reviewer reported average RO up more than 10% after adopting it.

The criticisms in those same reviews are specific. Several users say new feature development has not been a visible priority in recent years. Pricing is described as above average for the category. The customer-facing inspection report is called long-winded or robotic, particularly when one customer has multiple vehicles in the same day. A few reviewers reported occasional slowness or lockups.

TruVideo

Built around video-to-customer communication across service, sales, and condition reporting.

Treat this read as limited. TruVideo's G2 review base held a single review as of August 2026, which is not enough to characterize a product from. That one detailed review describes the full flow from recording to sending an estimate to following up as working seamlessly, and names occasional trouble uploading video from the technician's side as its one dislike. We have a direct comparison against TruVideo if you are weighing the two.

myKaarma

Video inspection sits inside a broader communication and repair-authorization platform. Reviewers on G2 consistently highlight responsive support and reliable uptime.

One use case shows up more than once and is worth stealing regardless of which vendor you pick: the video record settles disputes over whether vehicle damage existed before the car came in. That is a concrete benefit that has nothing to do with approval speed. The matching criticism, also reported more than once, is occasional video upload failures from the phone, which is exactly the moment that damage-dispute protection stops working. We have a direct comparison against myKaarma as well.

Kimoby

Video inspection, Video-to-Customer (V2C) in our naming, sits inside the Service Lane OS digital inspection workflow, on the same repair order as texting, estimates, and payments. No separate login.

Four pieces work together, and they are easy to undersell separately:

• Estimates drafted from the video. Work lines are built from what the technician says on camera, then reviewed and adjusted by the advisor before sending, rather than retyped after watching.
• AI video scoring. Each technician's video is analyzed and scored out of 100 with specific feedback, which turns inspections into a coaching tool rather than only a customer-facing clip.
• Hands-free capture through Meta's AI glasses, so a tech records a walkaround without holding a phone mid-inspection.
• Manager reporting on inspection volume, approval rates, and technician performance, instead of someone assembling that by hand afterward.

The criticism, and we are leaving it where it stands: a Capterra reviewer working as a service advisor praised video and photo attachments for cases where a customer is describing a problem, and said the back-and-forth beats email for speed, but wanted more in-depth training to use the system to its full potential. In-store onboarding and a dedicated account manager are included, which means the resources existed and did not reach that advisor. That is a real gap in how the rollout landed, not a misunderstanding on their part.

Our actual argument is not that inspection is the whole product. It is that with Kimoby, inspection, texting, payments, and loaners run on one record instead of four logins. If that consolidation is not a problem you have, that argument does not apply to you.

What does the data show about video inspection generally?

Independent evidence first, since it carries more weight than any vendor's numbers.

J.D. Power's 2024 U.S. Customer Service Index Study found that when advisors provide photos or video alongside a multi-point inspection, customer satisfaction with the advisor rises 31 points on a 1,000-point scale, 911 against 880. That is a franchised dealership study measuring satisfaction, not approvals.

A separate study, the 2024 U.S. Aftermarket Service Index Study, found customers who received an MPI with photo or video documentation approved the recommended work 51% of the time against 24% without. That is the approval-rate figure, and it comes from independent repair shops rather than franchised dealerships. The two studies get conflated constantly. They measure different things at different kinds of business.

On the vendor side, The Cost of Silence analyzed 16.5 million repair orders and found digital inspection volume grew roughly 13-fold over eight months across the platform, though only the two endpoints were measured. That is an adoption curve, not a performance result, and it should be read as one.

A named store: Porsche Centre Langley saw repair orders averaging $1,993.58 higher with video than without, alongside interactive estimates adding $1,681.90 on average and advisor adoption above 90%. More detail in our piece on video MPIs. One store is one store, and stores that adopt video enthusiastically are not a random sample.

Which one is right for your store?

If your inspection, texting, estimate, and payment tools do not talk to each other, that disconnection is the problem to solve, not the inspection step. Consolidating onto one record is a different proposition from adding a sixth point solution to five that already do not integrate.

If you are already deep in Xtime or Dealer-FX for scheduling, their inspection modules are the path of least resistance. The DMS integration and the billing relationship already exist, and that is worth real money in avoided implementation pain.

If your OEM steers you to an approved vendor, start there and find out how much latitude you actually have before you shortlist anything else.

If inspection is genuinely your only bottleneck, a focused tool like AutoVitals or TruVideo covers that need without the rest of a platform. It is still a real implementation with real training, not a shortcut.

Frequently asked questions

What software do dealerships use to send customers video of vehicle inspections?

The main options are Xtime Inspect, Dealer-FX, AutoVitals, TruVideo, myKaarma, and Kimoby. They differ mainly in scope. AutoVitals and TruVideo are inspection-focused products. Xtime Inspect, Dealer-FX, myKaarma, and Kimoby each include inspection as one module inside a broader scheduling, communication, or service lane platform.

Does video inspection software generate an estimate automatically?

It varies by platform, and it is the question that separates them most. Kimoby drafts an estimate directly from the walkaround video, with work lines built from what the technician says on camera and reviewed by the advisor before sending. Some other inspection tools only attach the video to the repair order and leave the estimate to be built by hand.

Does video inspection actually improve approval rates?

The strongest evidence comes from J.D. Power's 2024 U.S. Aftermarket Service Index Study, which found customers who received a multi-point inspection with photo or video documentation approved the recommended work 51% of the time against 24% without it. That study covers independent repair shops rather than franchised dealerships. The separate 2024 U.S. Customer Service Index Study, which does cover franchised dealerships, found a 31-point lift in satisfaction with the advisor (911 against 880 on a 1,000-point scale) but measured satisfaction rather than approval rates.

How many customers want photo or video with their inspection?

64% of service customers want photo or video documentation alongside their multi-point inspection, according to J.D. Power's 2026 U.S. Customer Service Index Study. Only 26% at mass-market brands and 44% at premium brands receive it.

Does Kimoby's video inspection include coaching for technicians?

Yes. Kimoby's AI video scoring analyzes each technician's inspection video and scores it out of 100 with specific feedback, so inspections work as a coaching tool for the shop rather than only a clip sent to the customer.

What is the best video inspection software for a dealership service department?

It depends on whether inspection is your only bottleneck or a symptom of disconnected systems. A focused tool such as AutoVitals or TruVideo works when inspection is the whole issue. A platform like Kimoby, where inspection ties to texting, estimates, and payments on the same repair order, fits better when the underlying problem is that those systems do not talk to each other. If your OEM steers you toward an approved vendor, start there. See pricing for what Kimoby costs.