Your F&I Menu Was Built for a Camry, But You Sell Side-by-Sides

Key takeaways

• A powersports store captures roughly $700 in F&I per unit versus about $1,995 at a comparably-tooled auto store — about one-third the per-unit F&I and roughly half the products per deal (StoneEagle, VisionAST/Lightspeed, 2025).
• Recover even a conservative $300 per financed unit of that gap — applied only to the roughly half of units that actually finance, not every sale — and that’s about $15,000 a year for a 100-unit store and $225,000 for a 1,500-unit store; at a fuller $600 it doubles.
• Most F&I menu, desking, rating, and e-contracting tools were architected for franchised auto retail — one VIN-decoded unit, mirrored F&I Products on every deal, an ~84-month max loan, a deep auto product shelf. Even the menus that do reach into powersports mostly stop at the menu — they present products but don’t connect desking, credit application, and lender submission into one workflow across powersports, marine, RV, and the combos in between.
• Powersports deals break that mold: they are multi-unit (ATV + trailer, or 2 PWCs), non-VIN (serial-only units, or a 12-character HIN), and — once marine and RV enter the mix — run to 240-month / 20-year terms.
• The fix isn’t another bolt-on. It’s one workflow and one deal record that handles any powersports unit — and marine and RV — so a 240-month RV deal rates and presents like any other deal.

Most dealers don’t realize how much F&I revenue they’re losing — until they see it in dollars. The gap isn’t small, and it isn’t your F&I team. It’s buried across inconsistent processes, disconnected tools, seasonal help, and the complexity of selling many brands and products — and it surfaces on every financed deal.

On every unit you deliver, you are likely capturing about $700 in F&I while a comparably-tooled franchised auto store down the road captures around $1,995 — roughly one-third the per-unit F&I, on about half the products per deal (StoneEagle and VisionAST/Lightspeed, 2025). Recover even a conservative $300 per financed unit of that gap — counting only the roughly half of units that actually finance, since that’s where F&I products live — and a 100-unit store puts roughly $15,000 back on the board every year; a 1,500-unit store, about $225,000. A big reason that gap exists isn’t your F&I Manager — it’s the tooling. Many rec dealers run a menu, desking, rating, and e-contracting stack built for a single VIN-decoded car; plenty run no menu at all, or a menu hand-built in Excel that the F&I Manager prints and walks through with the customer — manually looking up product rates, plugging them into a spreadsheet, and burning time on every deal. Either way, there’s few that carry the whole deal — desking, credit application, lender submission, rating, and contracting — across powersports, marine, RV, and the combinations in between. Most stop at presenting a menu and hand the rest back to manual steps — on the units you actually sell.

The numbers that should get your attention

Automotive F&I is a mature, heavily-tooled profit machine. In Q4 2025 the average franchised store produced about $1,995 in F&I per vehicle on 1.58 products per deal, with nearly nine of every ten gross dollars now coming from the F&I office (StoneEagle). Powersports, by the best available aggregate, sits near $700 per unit on 0.57 to 0.74 products per deal (VisionAST/Lightspeed). Finance penetration across VisionAST’s powersports dealer base just hit a record 53% — a powersports-specific figure, since powersports finances differently than auto, marine, or RV and deserves its own benchmark — and momentum is real, but the per-unit capture still trails auto by a wide margin.

One honest caveat, because a sharp dealer principal will raise it: the auto figure is reported on a gross basis and the powersports figure on a revenue basis, so don’t take a single subtracted dollar figure to the bank. That’s exactly why the cleanest comparison is products per deal — same basis, hard to argue with — and powersports presents about half as many. Both the dollar ratio and the products ratio point the same direction, which is what makes the conclusion robust.

Powersports stores capture roughly one-third of the per-unit F&I that auto stores do, on about half the products per deal. — StoneEagle (Q4 2025) and VisionAST/Lightspeed (2025)

What that gap is worth to your store

Translate the per-unit gap into a year and the picture sharpens — but do it honestly. It is tough to add F&I to a cash buyer, so the realistic base isn’t every unit you sell; it’s the roughly half of units that finance, where the products actually live. Below is the recovered F&I if you close just part of the gap on those financed deals — a conservative $300 per financed unit and a fuller $600. This is not theoretical revenue; it’s F&I you are already turning away on deals you already finance.

These ranges are directional — plug in your own finance penetration and per-deal actuals and they move — but the order of magnitude is the point. For most stores the gap between “what we capture” and “what a comparably-tooled store captures” is a six-figure line that never shows up on the P&L, because it’s revenue that simply never gets written. And these aren’t just estimates: they’re real dollars dealers leave on the table every single month.

Why a tool built for a Camry strains on a Side-by-Side

This isn’t a knock on any one vendor. Most F&I tooling was simply architected around the franchised auto deal: one VIN-decoded unit, an ~84-month max loan, and a deep auto product shelf. Three things about rec-vehicle retail break that architecture — and these are neutral facts, not a pitch.

1. The identifier problem

Cars carry a 17-character VIN that decodes cleanly into trim, body, and engine — so an auto tool can auto-populate the deal from one scan. Much of powersports doesn’t work that way. Many ATVs, side-by-sides, PWCs, and virtually all trailers don’t VIN-decode at all; they’re identified by a manufacturer serial or product number that an auto-built menu has no field for. A tool that assumes a decodable VN forces your F&I Manager to hand-key the unit on deal after deal — and once a dealer adds marine, the boat brings a separate 12-character USCG Hull Identification Number that doesn’t encode length or engine either (Lightspeed had to launch a dedicated HIN-decoding integration in June 2025 just to eliminate the manual entry). The point is the same across the lot: powersports, marine, and RV units don’t fit the VIN-shaped slot the tool was built around.

2. The term wall

Auto loans are typically capped around 84 months. Marine and RV loans run to 240 months — 20 years — with eligibility gated by balance (only loans around $100,000-plus unlock the full 240-month window). A $76,000 boat loan at 20 years is 240 payments of about $522. An auto rate engine has no row for that note. When the longest term the tool can model is 84 months, a 240-month deal either gets mis-rated or kicked to a spreadsheet.

3. One deal, many units

Auto desking assumes one unit per deal — Reynolds even markets the principle “there should only be one deal.” But a powersports deal is routinely an ATV or side-by-side plus a trailer, or a UTV plus a trailer plus a PWC on a single contract — and once marine enters the picture, Lightspeed notes those purchases “rarely consist of just one unit” (boat, trailer, motor, accessories). And it’s not just more units — it’s different products, coverages, and rates per unit: the VSC and rate structure on the side-by-side aren’t the VSC and rate structure on the trailer. Determining and calculating each one separately and then hand-assembling them into a single menu presentation is complex and time-consuming. A digital tool that handles this seamlessly doesn’t just speed up the transaction — it lets you put one unified menu in front of the customer, which lifts closing and product-penetration rates. A single-unit menu has no clean way to do any of that.

Beyond the gross: penetration, presentation, and compliance

The lost dollars are the headline, but the mechanism matters. When a product can’t flow through the integrated rate-and-contract path, it gets mis-rated, presented inconsistently, or skipped — which slows the close and raises compliance risk. Look at where powersports product penetration actually sits today: VSC at 34.2% of deals, GAP at 12.1% (of financed deals), prepaid maintenance at 12%, theft at 6%, and tire-and-wheel at 6% (powersports 20-group benchmark data) — a meaningfully thinner shelf than the auto F&I office runs. The trend line is up — products per deal rose from 0.57 to 0.74 and PVR gained $32.77 quarter-over-quarter with about 0.5 more products per deal (VisionAST, 2025) — but every product that can’t flow cleanly through a digital-rating menu is a presentation that doesn’t happen and a dollar that doesn’t get written.

In the trenches: a 240-month RV deal that wouldn’t rate

Here’s a real one. We recently took a multi-line dealer live — powersports-first, with some RVs — running Lightspeed DMS. Two things surfaced fast that an auto-shaped setup didn’t handle cleanly:

1. The RV VSC wasn’t available through the integrated API path. It had to be configured as a static non-rated product and contracted through a separate provider portal if sold — a manual workaround outside the menu-and-rate flow, on every RV deal.
2. The RV deals needed 240-month terms that the standard powersports rating setup didn’t natively present — the same term wall, showing up live on a real customer’s deal.

ODL’s fix was to handle the unit type, the long term, and the off-API product inside one workflow, so the RV deal rates and presents like any other deal — no separate portal in the F&I Manager’s muscle memory, no re-keying, no “we’ll figure out the VSC after.” That’s the in-the-trenches problem-solving the gap above is really made of: not a slide, a deal that closes clean.

When the deal is multiple non-VIN units on a 20-year note, a single-unit, VIN-decoded, 84-month-shaped tool forces manual workarounds — and that’s where the F&I dollars leak out. — One Dealer Lane

This isn’t a niche — multi-line is the norm

If this sounds like an edge case, the market says otherwise. Powersports alone is a ~$48 billion industry with 10,000-plus retail outlets and 100,000-plus employees — the third-largest contributor to the outdoor recreation economy (MIC). Layer on RV (333,733 units shipped in 2024, RVIA) and marine ($55.6 billion in consumer spend, 238,117 new powerboats, NMMA), and the multi-line “outdoor recreation superstore” is mainstream. Every major recreation DMS — Lightspeed, BiT, Blackpurl — spans powersports, marine, RV, trailer, OPE, and golf, because vendors build one-platform-many-verticals for dealers who carry many verticals under one roof.

What to look for

The answer isn’t another bolt-on integration stacked on a tool that was never shaped for your units. It’s a system that seamlessly handles any powersports unit — and marine and RV — because many dealers sell some combination of all three. Concretely, look for:

1. Multi-unit deals on one record. Boat + trailer + motor, or UTV + trailer + PWC, rated and contracted as one deal — not three workarounds.
2. Non-VIN units handled natively. HIN, serial, and trailer units that don’t VIN-decode should still flow without manual re-keying.
3. Long terms that just work. 180- and 240-month terms, with balance-conditional eligibility, present and rate without leaving the menu.
4. Off-API products inside the flow. Products that don’t have a native integration should still present and contract from one workflow — not a separate portal for every individual product the F&I Manager has to remember.
5. The whole deal in one place. This is the one most menu tools miss: the same system should carry desking, the credit application, and the lender submission — not just the menu presentation. A tool that prints a menu but kicks credit and funding to other screens hasn’t closed the workflow; it’s just moved the manual work.

Don’t run rec-vehicle retail on a tool shaped like a single VIN Camry. Your customer is buying a side-by-side, a boat-and-trailer, or a 20-year RV — and your F&I office should be able to rate, present, and close every one of them like it was built for exactly that. Because the dollars in that gap are real, they’re measurable, and they’re yours to capture.

Frequently asked questions

Why does an auto-built F&I tool struggle with powersports, marine, and RV deals?

Three structural reasons. The identifier logic expects a decodable 17-character VIN, but many ATVs, side-by-sides, PWCs, and virtually all trailers carry only a manufacturer serial and don’t VIN-decode at all — and once marine enters the mix, a boat adds a 12-character USCG Hull Identification Number that doesn’t encode length or engine. The deal model assumes one unit, while a powersports deal is often a side-by-side plus a trailer, or a UTV plus a trailer plus a PWC, on a single contract. And the rating engine is built for terms up to about 84 months, but marine and RV deals routinely run to 240 months (20 years).

How big is the F&I gap, really?

Auto F&I runs roughly $1,995 per unit at about 1.58 products per deal (StoneEagle, Q4 2025). Powersports F&I sits near $700 per unit at 0.57–0.74 products per deal (VisionAST/Lightspeed, 2025). The dollar figures are measured on slightly different bases — auto on gross, powersports on revenue — so the cleanest same-basis comparison is products per deal: powersports presents about half as many. Either way, the per-unit dollar gap is in the hundreds, on every single unit.

What is a 240-month term and why does it matter?

Larger marine and RV loans stretch to 20 years, with term eligibility gated by balance — only loans around $100,000-plus unlock the full 240-month window. A $76,000 boat loan at 20 years is 240 payments of about $522. An auto rate engine simply has no row for that note, so the deal either gets mis-rated or kicked to a manual workaround.

Do enough dealers really sell more than one vertical to make this worth solving?

The market says yes. Powersports alone is a roughly $48 billion industry with 10,000-plus retail outlets (MIC). Add RV (333,733 units shipped in 2024, RVIA) and marine ($55.6 billion in consumer spend, NMMA), and the multi-line “outdoor recreation superstore” is mainstream. Every major recreation DMS — Lightspeed, BiT, Blackpurl — spans powersports, marine, RV, trailer, OPE, and golf, because vendors build one-platform-many-verticals for dealers who carry many verticals under one roof.

The bottom line

Every rec dealer running auto-built F&I tooling is leaving F&I on the table — a third of the per-unit dollars and half the products per deal, on units they’re already selling. The stores closing that gap aren’t bolting on one more integration. They’re running any unit, any term, on one deal record. That’s the gap One Dealer Lane was built to close — not just showing a menu, but digitizing the entire sales process, from desking to lender submission, in one unified platform. And when the workflow connects end to end, performance doesn’t just improve — it compounds.

"One Dealer Lane,  created by power sports dealers for power sports dealers. That's not our tagline...that's why it works."See what your F&I gap is actually worth.

Request a 20-minute F&I workflow review with One Dealer Lane. We’ll map how your powersports, marine, and RV deals rate and present today, show you the per-unit and per-store dollar gap for your store, and walk through what one deal record looks like — free, no commitment.

→ Visit onedealerlane.com  •  Call (877) 421-0135

About the author

Param Ramakrishnan is the CEO of One Dealer Lane. He works with powersports, marine, and RV dealers of every size on how to consolidate a fragmented BDC, sales, and F&I workflow into a single deal record — so any unit type, any term, rates and presents cleanly. He writes about dealer operations, F&I product penetration, and the in-the-trenches problem-solving it takes to make rec-vehicle retail run like it was built for the units dealers actually sell.

Sources and further reading

1. StoneEagleDATA Q4 2025 F&I performance, reported in AutoSuccess, “Sales-Side Pressure Deepens as F&I Posts Q4 Record,” Feb 23, 2026. https://autosuccessonline.com/sales-side-pressure-deepens-as-fi-posts-q4-record/
2. Auto Remarketing — StoneEagle F&I PVR record (Nov 2025), Feb 25, 2026. https://www.autoremarketing.com/subprime/
3. Haig Partners — “F&I Gross Profit Growth Resumes in Q4 2024” (and Q3 2025 update). https://haigpartners.com/resources/fi-gross-profit-growth-resumes-in-q4-2024-haig-partners-insight/
4. The Presidio Group / NCM — Average Dealership Performance, Q2 2025. https://www.thepresidiogroup.com/
5. VisionAST — Q3 2025 Benchmark Insights (powersports F&I PVR). https://www.visionast.com/
6. Motorcycle & Powersports News — “How Powersports Dealers Are Thriving” (VisionAST Q1 2025). https://www.motorcyclepowersportsnews.com/
7. VisionAST — Q2 2025 benchmark reports (F&I PVR +$32.77 QoQ, +0.5 products/deal). https://www.visionast.com/
8. BRP US Product Protection / Amynta — F&I proposal program defaults. https://brpfiproposal.com/
9. ConsumerAffairs — “How Long Are RV Loans?” Sep 3, 2025. https://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/how-long-are-rv-loans.html
10. Boat Trader — “How Long Can You Finance a Boat?” Mar 8, 2026. https://www.boattrader.com/research/how-long-can-you-finance-a-boat/
11. LegalClarity — “Typical Terms for Boat Financing,” Mar 12, 2026. https://legalclarity.org/what-are-typical-terms-for-boat-financing-rates-down-payments/
12. boats.com — Boat Loans (Trident Funding); 24–48-month trailerable to 240-month; $76k / 240-payment example. https://www.boats.com/boat-loans/
13. Trident Funding — Boat Loans. https://www.tridentfunding.com/boat-loans/
14. Sheffield Financial (Truist) — powersports, marine, trailers, OPE financing. https://www.sheffieldfinancial.com/
15. Synchrony — Powersports financing. https://www.synchrony.com/marketplace/powersports
16. Octane / Roadrunner Financial. https://www.octane.co/
17. Polaris Financial Services — financing partners. https://www.polaris.com/en-us/financial-services/
18. RVIA — Reports & Trends (2024 shipments 333,733). https://www.rvia.org/reports-trends
19. NMMA — 2024 Recreational Boating Statistics ($55.6B; 238,117 new powerboats; 78.3% pre-owned). https://www.nmma.org/press/article/25236
20. Lightspeed DMS — “Lightspeed and Avalon & Tahoe Launch HIN Decoding Integration,” Jun 2025. https://www.lightspeeddms.com/
21. California DMV / U.S. Coast Guard — Hull Identification Number (HIN) format. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/
22. PowerLine DMS (WillPower PCS) — “purpose-built for powersports, NOT adapted from automotive software.” https://www.willpowerpcs.com/powerline-dms/
23. Reynolds & Reynolds — Desking (“There should only be one deal”). https://www.reyrey.com/solutions/desking/desking
24. Powersports Business — “MIC Releases Stat Annual” (MIC: ~$48B, 10,000+ retail outlets), Apr 17, 2024. https://powersportsbusiness.com/latest-news/2024/04/17/mic-releases-stat-annual-ahead-of-selling-season/
25. Lightspeed DMS — homepage (“marine purchases… rarely consist of just one unit… boat, trailer, motor, accessories”). https://www.lightspeeddms.com/
26. NADA — NADA Data 2025. https://www.nada.org/nada/research-data/nada-data