BUYING
When the row says both, the caution is the truth.
Lights are the fastest read on the lane and the easiest to misread in data. The text field that carries them is repeated, glued and sometimes contradictory. Here is how to read it so the clean list stays clean.
What the lights mean
Green: the car is sold with arbitration protection on the major systems; no known mechanical issues disclosed. Yellow: sold with announced conditions, arbitration limited to what was not announced. Blue: title absent or delayed. Red: as-is, no arbitration. On the lane, the light is a color on a board. In the data feed, the light is text inside the announcement array, often repeated and often glued to a disclosure.
Why one row carries two lights
Manheim repeats each announcement with the light words attached. A single car can carry "GREEN LIGHT", "Green Light Yellow Light GREEN LIGHT/TIRES" and "YELLOW LIGHT" in the same array. The seller announced a condition, the system kept the green entry from the initial listing, and the yellow entry was added when the condition was disclosed. Read naively, the car is green. Read correctly, the car is yellow with a tire announcement.
The rule
Test yellow first. If any entry contains "yellow light" or "caution", the car is yellow. Only then test green. A car is green only when a green entry exists and nothing says yellow. A car with no light text at all is "unknown", not green; the feed sometimes arrives before the light is set, and a filter that defaults unknown to green promotes cars that have not been read yet.
Why it matters in dollars
Arbitration. A car bought as green and found with a transmission issue is arbitrated. The same car bought as yellow with "TRANS" in the announcement is yours. The light is not cosmetic information; it is the dividing line between a return and a four-figure loss. On a store list in August, testing green first labeled a yellow-light Acadia as green. It was caught before the bid. The next one might not be.
What the yellow bucket should show
Not just "yellow." The reason, from the car's own announcement text and the condition report's frame flag: tires, glass, paint, interior, frame, mechanical, a title note. A buyer can decide on a yellow car with a tire announcement in two seconds. A buyer cannot decide on a yellow car with no reason, so the board shows the bucket and the text that put it there.
Every car on the list carries one resolved light, and every yellow carries the reason in Manheim's own words. Green means green. Unknown is labeled unknown, never promoted.
Questions dealers ask
Does a yellow light mean the car is bad?
No. It means a condition was announced and arbitration is limited to what was not announced. Tires, glass and paint yellows are often the best buys on the run.
Why does the data feed show two lights on one car?
Manheim repeats each announcement with the light words attached and keeps the original green entry when a yellow condition is added later. The latest caution is the operative one.
What does the filter do with cars that have no light text?
They are labeled unknown and shown separately, never counted as green. Most resolve once Manheim sets the light before the sale.
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