Your catalog is out there.
But is it complete?

Undiscovered Applications

Most catalog tools confirm what you already know. You map the fitment you're aware of, validate it, and move on. The applications you didn't think to look for never enter the picture — and never enter the supply chain.

Auto Plus is built for discovery, not just confirmation. The way we approach vehicle fitment means a brand can find valid applications their previous tools never surfaced — not because the data was wrong, but because the tool was asking the wrong question from the wrong direction.

Brands have discovered hundreds of unmapped, undiscovered valid applications per part number. Not across a catalog — per part number. Multiply that across a full product line and across every trading partner in the automotive aftermarket distribution chain. That is not a data quality problem. That is a tool problem — and it is entirely solvable.

Repository Data Loss — and Repository Data Corruption

When a brand submits ACES and PIES catalog data to a third-party repository, it arrives as authored — correct or not, it is at least as the brand intended it. What happens next is the problem.

Repositories import submitted data into their own internal database. In that process, data is normalized, mapped, and in many cases altered — before it ever becomes available for a receiver to download. The flat file a receiver pulls has already been through that process. So has the industry-standard XML. Both delivery formats reflect what the repository's internal database contains, not what the brand originally submitted. A brand can send their full catalog and have every trading partner download a version that is smaller, different, or both — without either party knowing anything changed.

That is the loss side. The corruption side is worse. Many repositories over-map ACES attributes during their internal import process in order to satisfy their largest receiver clients — adding fitment combinations the brand never authored or approved. Vehicle fitment configuration is precise: a specific engine or fuel type narrows the pool of valid vehicle combinations. A repository that adds attributes without accounting for the full original application configuration creates fitment records that are technically invalid — records the brand never wrote and never approved.

For a receiver validating against the VCdb, those additions come back as invalids the brand never submitted. For a receiver importing without validation, those records go live on their public-facing retail site. A consumer finds a part that appears to fit their vehicle. It does not. They buy it, it is wrong, they return it. The trust between consumer and retailer suffers. The brand absorbs the blame for fitment data they never authored.

Both brands and receivers are Auto Care Association subscribers in their own right. A receiver is free to over-map or under-map their own copy of the data — that is their prerogative. But that decision belongs to the receiver, working from the brand's actual catalog as the authoritative starting point. Not to a repository altering it invisibly, upstream, before anyone else ever sees it. ACES and PIES data should reach the receiver the way the brand authored and intended it. Everything after that is the receiver's call.

Invalid Applications Without a Reason

ACES has only four required fields: part number, quantity required per application, part type, and BaseVehicleID. When applications come back invalid, the cause is almost always an optional qualifying attribute — a deprecated vehicle configuration, an engine that no longer maps correctly to that base vehicle, a required qualifier that shifted between VCdb release cycles. Each scenario requires a completely different resolution. When repositories report invalids without any explanation of why, brands cannot diagnose what failed. The invalids sit. The coverage gap remains.

Optional ACES attributes exist for one purpose only: to unambiguously qualify vehicle fitment where the base vehicle alone is insufficient. Over-mapping — adding qualifiers beyond what the fitment actually requires — does not make an application more accurate. It creates new exposure to future VCdb changes. Every unnecessary attribute mapped is a potential invalid waiting for the next release cycle.

Auto Plus applies proprietary logic to identify exactly why each application failed and presents a plain-language explanation the user can act on immediately — for example, flagging that a specific drive type is not valid in configuration with the mapped base vehicle. It also identifies where applications carry more qualification than the fitment requires, so you can resolve today's invalids and prevent tomorrow's.

Overlap Applications — Silently Dropped

When two or more part numbers share identical fitment mapping with no differentiating qualifier, retailers cannot onboard them. There is no logic to determine which product to surface, so both are dropped. Real products with real distinctions never reach the consumer. The brand built two legitimate SKUs. The market never sees either one clearly.

The resolution already exists within the ACES standard. Most brands never apply it correctly — not because they lack the intention, but because they lack the guidance. Auto Plus identifies overlap conditions and shows you exactly where qualification is missing. What to do about it is a conversation worth having in a demo.