The Accessibility Audit • Specialty 12 of 13
ADA-related lawsuits against dealers are real and ongoing. Whether you are exposed depends on a checklist most stores have never run.
We audit your site against WCAG 2.2 AA standards: color contrast, screen-reader pathing, keyboard navigation, form labeling, and alt text. The technical floor that protects you legally and improves usability for everyone.
Why accessibility is both legal exposure and lost traffic
Lawsuit risk is real and not theoretical. Beyond that, inaccessible sites quietly lose 10–20 percent of their possible audience.
ADA-related digital accessibility lawsuits against dealers continue to be filed. Most settlements include monetary damages plus required remediation. The cost of pre-emptive remediation is typically a fraction of the cost of a settlement.
Accessibility is also a usability issue. Screen-reader users, keyboard-only users, and users with low vision are part of your shopper base. Sites that fail them lose them silently.
What nobody has told you
"Your platform vendor has likely not certified your site against WCAG 2.2. The default theme may be partially compliant; customizations rarely are."
"Accessibility overlay widgets ('one-click accessibility') are widely sold and widely shown to be insufficient as a legal defense. Many have themselves been the basis for lawsuits."
"Most violations are simple to fix once identified. Most go unidentified because nobody runs the scans."
"You may already be compliant. You may have meaningful exposure. The scan is non-negotiable risk hygiene."
The five failures we find on almost every dealer site
On most dealer sites in this area, you almost certainly have at least three of these.
Color contrast below WCAG 2.2 AA
Text and interactive elements with contrast ratios below 4.5:1 (text) or 3:1 (large text and UI components). Most dealer themes have at least a few violations on accent colors.
How we fix it: Token-level contrast audit, CSS variable fixes, design-system compliance enforcement.
Form fields without programmatic labels
Inputs without associated <label> elements, or labels not properly linked. Screen readers cannot announce field purpose. Highest single source of legal risk.
How we fix it: Audit every form, attach proper <label for="">, ARIA fallbacks where required, validate with screen reader.
Images without meaningful alt text
Vehicle photos and infographics without alt text or with generic placeholder alt. Screen readers skip the visual content; SEO and AI lose context as well.
How we fix it: Alt text rules per image type (vehicle: year/make/model/trim/angle; decorative: empty alt), CMS enforcement.
Keyboard navigation broken
Interactive elements not reachable by keyboard alone. Focus indicators removed by CSS resets. Custom dropdowns that trap focus or skip steps.
How we fix it: Tab order audit, restore visible focus indicators, ensure all interactive elements are keyboard-operable.
Inaccessible chat or popup widgets
Third-party chat widgets, lead-form popups, and trade-in tools that fail WCAG even when the rest of the site passes. The vendor is responsible; you are still legally exposed.
How we fix it: Vendor accessibility audit, replace non-compliant widgets, test with screen reader enabled.
Inside the full Accessibility Audit
WCAG 2.2 AA across templates, plus manual testing on key flows.
Perceivable
- • Color contrast (text and non-text)
- • Image alt text coverage and quality
- • Captions and transcripts on video
- • Resize and zoom support
Operable
- • Keyboard navigation completeness
- • Focus visible and logical
- • Skip-to-content links
- • Touch target size on mobile
Understandable
- • Form labeling and error messaging
- • Language declared
- • Predictable navigation
- • Input assistance
Robust
- • Valid HTML
- • ARIA roles and properties
- • Compatibility with screen readers (VoiceOver, NVDA, JAWS)
- • Third-party widget compliance
SAMPLE AUDIT OUTPUT
Fair. Significant gaps
- WCAG violations (automated) 47
- Color contrast errors 11
- Unlabeled form fields 8
- Missing alt text 23%
Estimated legal risk
Moderate-High
Top fix: Fix form field labels. Estimated lift: Removes highest-risk class.
Illustrative sample. Not your site.
What happens when you fix it
Fixing this is not a website redesign. It is a series of specific, surgical changes.
01
DIAGNOSIS
We give you the report
48 hours. Every finding, ranked by impact and effort, with platform-specific instructions for your CMS. You can hand it to your web vendor and they can implement most of it.
02
IMPLEMENTATION (OPTIONAL)
We do the work
If your vendor cannot or will not, we install the fixes ourselves. Most live in Google Tag Manager, the head of the page, or as a CDN-level configuration. Live in 7 to 14 days.
03
VERIFICATION
We re-run the scan
30 days after the fixes go live, we re-run the audit and confirm the lift. Site Health Score increase, category-level pass, downstream impact verified.
What the data says.
Lawsuits
against dealers for digital accessibility continue to be filed. Settlements include damages plus required remediation.
Overlays
do not provide a legal defense and have themselves been the basis for lawsuits in some jurisdictions.
10–20%
of your audience uses some form of assistive technology. Inaccessible sites lose them silently.
The Proof
How a multi-rooftop group passed WCAG 2.2 AA in 30 days.
A 4-rooftop dealer group received a demand letter alleging ADA violations. Their automated scan flagged 60+ violations per rooftop.
We ran a full WCAG 2.2 AA remediation: contrast tokens, form label audit, alt-text rules, keyboard navigation fixes, and chat-widget replacement.
30 days later: zero automated violations, manual screen-reader pass on key flows, accessibility statement published. The demand letter was resolved without litigation.
60+ → 0
Automated violations
WCAG 2.2 AA
Achieved across all rooftops
4 rooftops
Remediated simultaneously
30 days
Time to compliance
Pricing
Three options. No retainer. No negotiation.
Pay once for the diagnosis. Pay once for the fixes. Or pay once and get both.
$997
Full Diagnostic
- •Comprehensive site audit across all 14 specialty areas
- •Search Console authenticated review
- •Platform-specific fix instructions
- •Priority-ranked master fix list
- •Estimated impact and effort per fix
- •Refundable if we do not find 3 surprises
- •48-hour delivery
$6,497
Fix Sprint
- •Bring your own audit report
- •We implement your top 5 priority fixes
- •Schema, speed, and structural fixes
- •Live within 30 days
- •No code changes required from your vendor
$6,997
Full Treatment
- •Full Diagnostic included ($997 value)
- •We implement every fix on the priority list, not just 5
- •Schema, speed, and structural fixes
- •Live within 7 to 14 days
- •90 days of regression monitoring after launch
- •We handle your web vendor directly
$500 more than the Fix Sprint. Includes the $997 diagnostic and the complete fix list.
Accessibility Audit-specific questions dealers ask.
Answered straight.
Does an overlay widget protect me legally?
Generally no. Multiple court rulings have held that overlays are insufficient. They can also themselves be the basis for complaints.
What standard should I aim for?
WCAG 2.2 AA is the practical standard. Some demand letters cite 2.1 AA, which is a subset; meeting 2.2 AA covers both.
Do I need ongoing monitoring?
Yes. New content and platform updates can introduce new violations. Quarterly automated scans are typical.
What about my chat widget?
The vendor is responsible for the widget's compliance. You are still legally exposed if it is on your site. Choose vendors with documented compliance.
Will this slow my site?
No. Most accessibility fixes are markup and CSS changes that have no performance impact.
Is this required by law?
ADA Title III applies to public accommodations and has been interpreted by courts to include commercial websites in many jurisdictions. Specifics vary by jurisdiction.
What platforms do you support?
All major dealer platforms. Findings are platform-specific.
While we are at it
Accessibility Audit is rarely the only thing wrong. Three areas dealers usually pair with this one.
The Security Audit
Mixed content, outdated CMS, exposed admin paths, headers, CSP. The kind of thing that ends careers when it goes wrong.
Read the detailsThe Domain Audit
HTTPS, redirects, DNS hygiene, SSL chain, domain age signals. The boring stuff that silently throttles everything else.
Read the detailsThe Speed Audit
Core Web Vitals, third-party tag bloat, render-blocking CSS. Slow sites burn ad budget and convert worse. We measure and fix.
Read the detailsFind out where your accessibility risk actually sits.
30-second scan. We run WCAG 2.2 AA checks across key templates and report violations and severity.