Speaker 1: Episode to thirty three. Save money on your next car
Speaker 1: purchase with the Car Check. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast,
Speaker 1: where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, rights, and
Speaker 1: liver with your life. Here your host Jen and Jill
Speaker 1: from Room Room from from from from from from room.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill, and today we are talking about
Speaker 1: saving money on cars, because gosh, is that a bit
Speaker 1: that's definitely when you think of the principle for saving
Speaker 1: which principle is that of your effort will yield about
Speaker 1: eight of your results. It's not a hard and fast role,
Speaker 1: but it is something that kind of it's generally true
Speaker 1: the car purchase that you make that is one of
Speaker 1: those choices that has impact, so to speak. So this
Speaker 1: is a big and I have a feeling I'm going
Speaker 1: to wish that I had heard this episode about a
Speaker 1: year ago when I was in the thick of needing
Speaker 1: a new car because our breaks went out two times
Speaker 1: while driving and it was desperation, desperate times, desperate measures.
Speaker 1: And this is a particularly good time, I think too,
Speaker 1: because we are seeing some unchartered territory related to car purchasing.
Speaker 1: It's not what it used to be pre pandemic. So
Speaker 1: I think we do need some of those extra tips
Speaker 1: expert insight. Yeah, I think any of the tips that
Speaker 1: we would have given pre pandemic aren't as relevant. Still
Speaker 1: still good to keep in mind. Um but the last
Speaker 1: episode we did on saving money on car expenses was
Speaker 1: episode ten. So if you want to queue up our
Speaker 1: other car related episode, justies be we were Podcast Babies
Speaker 1: episode ten. So, and I don't think it's the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Isn't even about buying a car, it's about just car
Speaker 1: expenses in general. Um. So this is specifically on buying
Speaker 1: a car, and we're talking to an expertly and Shattuck
Speaker 1: who knows more than us, and and that's what I'm
Speaker 1: very excited about. So, but before we get into it,
Speaker 1: this episode is brought to you by automatic enrollment. Like
Speaker 1: when you were a kid and your parents automatically enrolled
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Speaker 1: like it has happened to thousands of other people, you
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Speaker 1: into our interview with Leanne Shattuck. She's an automotive expert, entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: and award winning author, speaker, radio television host. She is
Speaker 1: the total package and a race car driver, so she's
Speaker 1: known around the world as the car Chick. She owns
Speaker 1: a unique car buying service that helps women and smart
Speaker 1: men get a great deal on a new or used
Speaker 1: car without the hassle and frustrations that come with traditional
Speaker 1: car shopping. Lean is passionate about educating women about cars
Speaker 1: and about empowering them to make informed decisions when purchasing, selling,
Speaker 1: and servicing automobiles. She is the full package and we
Speaker 1: are so excited to share this interview with you. Cannot wait,
Speaker 1: so let's go. Leanne. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast.
Speaker 1: We are very, very very excited to have you on
Speaker 1: the show. Well, thank you. I'm honored. That's an understatement.
Speaker 1: I know we say excitement every time we have a guest,
Speaker 1: but I think we just keep getting better and better
Speaker 1: guests on so we just keep moving up the ranks,
Speaker 1: and having you here feels like the pinnacle. I don't
Speaker 1: know if we'll ever top it. So thank you for coming.
Speaker 1: And I feel like as much for me as it
Speaker 1: is for the listeners. I want to cannot say that
Speaker 1: to the last guest, So that's true, no pressure. I
Speaker 1: think it is who you are and your presence on
Speaker 1: the show. I know we're going to learn something, if
Speaker 1: not all the things from you. So yeah, this is
Speaker 1: something that we have needed over the years, because I
Speaker 1: think everything we've learned about car buying changed in the
Speaker 1: last few years, and so I think we need like
Speaker 1: some new information and I don't even know what that
Speaker 1: information is, but we're excited to get it from you today.
Speaker 1: We'll take everything you learned about car buying in the
Speaker 1: past and just right out the window. Perfect. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm here, that's what it feels like. And maybe part
Speaker 1: of this is going to be a venting session, but like,
Speaker 1: can can we can we talk about that? Like what
Speaker 1: is happening in the automotive industry right now? Like what's
Speaker 1: going on? Why is it so expensive? What, what's what's happening? Why?
Speaker 1: And what the heck? There are no cars? That sums
Speaker 1: up everything that's happening in the automotive industry right now,
Speaker 1: and why everything is so crazy? There are no cars.
Speaker 1: New car production is a fraction of what it normally
Speaker 1: is because of all the supply chain issues, and leading
Speaker 1: that supply chain problem is of course, the computer chips.
Speaker 1: Who thought we would ever say the phrase we can't
Speaker 1: build cars because there aren't enough computer chips in the world.
Speaker 1: But it's crazy. The average car today has more computers
Speaker 1: in it than the Space Shuttle did, so, I mean
Speaker 1: it's really scary. Your car is basically a roving computer,
Speaker 1: and with all the technology that we have come to
Speaker 1: expect in our vehicles between all of the driver's safety
Speaker 1: aids with all their sensors and their radars, the Apple
Speaker 1: Car Play, Android Auto just what they're even calling now
Speaker 1: the infotainment system. You know, we used to call that
Speaker 1: the dashboard with the radio and we turn the knobs,
Speaker 1: you know. Now it's this whole computer screen, and you
Speaker 1: know it can interact. You know, it's becomes an extension
Speaker 1: of your phone. It's crazy how many computer chips are
Speaker 1: in the car, and the computer is making all these
Speaker 1: incredible decisions about how the car is running, the mixture
Speaker 1: of gas to air, how the brakes work. It's a
Speaker 1: lot smarter than most drivers actually, but as a result,
Speaker 1: it needs so many computer chips and we just don't
Speaker 1: have them. So literally, to get a new car in
Speaker 1: most cases right now, you're talking at least three to
Speaker 1: four months, in some cases six to eight. And for
Speaker 1: some vehicles that are really hot electric vehicles, a lot
Speaker 1: of your plug in hybrids, you're talking probably two years.
Speaker 1: The new Ford Lightning electric pickup truck. If you take
Speaker 1: the number of orders that Ford has for them and
Speaker 1: the number of cars are actually producing every month, and
Speaker 1: do the math, five year wait list five years now,
Speaker 1: hopefully that will change. Ford is one of the manufacturers
Speaker 1: that broke ground on one of their own computer chip plants. There,
Speaker 1: GM and Ford and christ are all going to start
Speaker 1: to build their own computer chip plants, so we're not
Speaker 1: at the mercy of the manufacturers that are primarily in China.
Speaker 1: But it takes years to build those plants. It is
Speaker 1: not an easy thing to expand the production capabilities of.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna be in this for probably another good
Speaker 1: two years at least. Is that pandemic related slow down
Speaker 1: because when everybody went into lockdown, the car manufacturers shut
Speaker 1: down production to try and be safe, and the consumer
Speaker 1: electronics industry blew up because all of a sudden, now
Speaker 1: we all need these electronic devices so we can get
Speaker 1: on Zoom and work and go to school and you know,
Speaker 1: keep ourselves from going insane. And the electronics industry has
Speaker 1: a lot more flexibility and a lot more purchasing power,
Speaker 1: so they took over a lot of the computer chips
Speaker 1: that the car manufacturer said, oh, can you please pause
Speaker 1: our order. We're we're shut down for now, and so
Speaker 1: there's no loyalty. So yeah, all those went to the
Speaker 1: cell phones computers, tablets, game consoles, and the car manufacturers
Speaker 1: couldn't get that back. But just the increase in demand
Speaker 1: over all for things that have computer chips in them
Speaker 1: has gone through the roof because of the pandemic and
Speaker 1: the lockdowns, and that's not going to change because their
Speaker 1: computer chips and everything. I just had to buy new
Speaker 1: appliances for my kitchen because our fridge went out fourth
Speaker 1: of July weekend, you know, of course, and convenient, right,
Speaker 1: and like they're like, oh, you know, the fridge has
Speaker 1: WiFi capabilities and stuff like why does my refrigerator need
Speaker 1: WiFi capabilities? Was what is that doing? Is it watching
Speaker 1: you too? You know? While because it gets bored. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: You know, sofa sofa's have computer chips in the arms
Speaker 1: because they have wireless charging pads, because haven't forbid, should
Speaker 1: you get up and walk across the ring to charge
Speaker 1: your cell phone? No, no, you can lay it on
Speaker 1: the arm of the sofa and it charges so as
Speaker 1: which is cool, Which is cool? This to ourselves. We
Speaker 1: have self inflicted you know, total first world problems. But
Speaker 1: the demand for computer chips is never going down. It's
Speaker 1: going up exponentially, and the supply just cannot keep up,
Speaker 1: and the automotive industry is just scrapping for every little
Speaker 1: chip that they can get. Hence there are no new cars.
Speaker 1: If you drive by a car lot, there's almost nothing
Speaker 1: new on their lot. Nothing. Yeah. So so this is
Speaker 1: obviously put us in a unique situation where new cars
Speaker 1: and use cars are at a similar price now where
Speaker 1: you used to be able to save a lot on
Speaker 1: a used car, So like doesn't make when does it
Speaker 1: make sense to buy a new car or when does
Speaker 1: it still make sense to buy used. It's really become
Speaker 1: a matter of how quickly do you need a vehicle?
Speaker 1: And that's why you know the price of used cars
Speaker 1: has gone through the roof, And you're right. In many
Speaker 1: cases the price of the used one is higher than
Speaker 1: the m s r P or the window sticker price
Speaker 1: of the new one, depending on demand. A great example
Speaker 1: of that is the new Ford Broncos. They just came
Speaker 1: out a couple of years ago. They're super popular, very
Speaker 1: retro cool, and Ford is a good two years behind
Speaker 1: on fulfilling those orders, so you can actually pay ten
Speaker 1: I've seen people pay twenty thousand dollars over ms RP
Speaker 1: for a used one now that's a really dumb financial decision.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, that's just dumb. But for some people
Speaker 1: that have the money, and money is not an issue.
Speaker 1: If they want what they want, okay, that's fine, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of crazy. So with my clients, you know,
Speaker 1: the first question I'm asking is do you only need
Speaker 1: a car right now? You really? Can you wait a
Speaker 1: couple of years? And if not, you know, then we
Speaker 1: look at well, depending on what we're model we're looking at,
Speaker 1: you know, can you afford to wait several months to
Speaker 1: get a new one and we can get that one,
Speaker 1: hopefully to decent price. Some manufacturers, you know, some dealers
Speaker 1: are charging thousands over sticker for the new ones. Some
Speaker 1: are not being jerks. I'm just gonna say it like
Speaker 1: it is, and you have to find the ones that
Speaker 1: aren't being jerked. But a lot of people don't have
Speaker 1: that luxury their car. You know, they were in an accident,
Speaker 1: the car was totaled, or something has changed in their
Speaker 1: life and they just they can't wait that long, and
Speaker 1: so we're forced to buy used and you know, just
Speaker 1: know that we're over paying for it, but it is
Speaker 1: what it is, and you know, I've just kind of
Speaker 1: thrown the whole M S R P concept out the window,
Speaker 1: and I'm just looking at, Okay, what is going to
Speaker 1: give us the best bang for our buck, knowing that
Speaker 1: we're spending a lot more bucks than we ideally should.
Speaker 1: But it is what it is. This is where we are,
Speaker 1: and we just have to adapt and live with it.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's helpful to recognize we're not in
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen anymore, and while we might remember what
Speaker 1: life was like there, we most likely will never find
Speaker 1: ourselves back there. I mean, and that goes that's across
Speaker 1: the board. That's with housing, that's with materials. My husband
Speaker 1: and I are in the midst of a renovation on
Speaker 1: our house, and every single time we go to the store,
Speaker 1: he's like, this used to be thirty cents, Now it's
Speaker 1: thirteen dollars. This used to be, this used to be,
Speaker 1: this used to be. I'm like, I can't, I can't
Speaker 1: anymore because this is where we're wed. I know, like,
Speaker 1: like we know too much about what it used to be,
Speaker 1: and so I think that that's a huge hurdle, is
Speaker 1: just like catching our emotions up with this thing that gone.
Speaker 1: Are the days of getting a Toyota Corolla for two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and driving it until you're thirty five, like say,
Speaker 1: it's not going to happen anymore. And too, I appreciate
Speaker 1: how you're saying that we're all in different circumstances, Like
Speaker 1: it would be great to do best case scenario of
Speaker 1: just wait it out, be patient, find the best deal.
Speaker 1: But I mentioned in our intro, my husband and I
Speaker 1: we only have one vehicle that was actually like a
Speaker 1: goal of mine, so I'm so pleased for that. But
Speaker 1: the one vehicle that we had, the brakes rusted out
Speaker 1: on it, and we were and and then they stopped
Speaker 1: working two times, like it happened one time, and he
Speaker 1: got us to safety and like the parking lot of
Speaker 1: the Publix, made some like minor fixes, and then they
Speaker 1: went out on us again. And that's one of those
Speaker 1: situations that you're talking about, like how badly do you
Speaker 1: need a new car? Like very badly, because we're putting
Speaker 1: ourselves in other people in danger and we only have
Speaker 1: one vehicle, and like that pressure cooker situation of how
Speaker 1: do we make the best decision here? And what we
Speaker 1: used to know is out the window, like gone are
Speaker 1: the days of buying used. So, but I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear your perspective on what you would recommend for people
Speaker 1: who do need to buy a car right now, whether
Speaker 1: it's as intensive as a situation as we were in
Speaker 1: or not. But what would you say is the best
Speaker 1: way then to shop for whether it's a new or
Speaker 1: used or certified pre owned, if you're going to a dealer, Like, what,
Speaker 1: what should we know given our current circumstances? How do
Speaker 1: we do this best? Sure? The most important thing to
Speaker 1: know right now is that inventory moves fast. When I
Speaker 1: mean fast. A car can get traded in at ten
Speaker 1: am and it hasn't even gone into the shop for
Speaker 1: services and reconditioning. The dealer has barely even evaluated whether
Speaker 1: they're going to keep that car for their lot, and
Speaker 1: someone walks and goes is that for sale? And it
Speaker 1: can sell by noon just sight unseen. So inventory is
Speaker 1: moving quickly. So be aware that if you're shopping around online,
Speaker 1: which I recommend you do, and you may have to
Speaker 1: shop far and wide, you may have to shop outside
Speaker 1: of your immediate area because gone or the days where
Speaker 1: there are you know, six seven dealers in your area
Speaker 1: that all have you know, the similar cars and you
Speaker 1: can just pick whichever one you want. It is the
Speaker 1: hunger Games out there, so literally, you know when when they,
Speaker 1: you know, go up onto the platforms and there's a
Speaker 1: cornucopia with the limited resources and the whistle goes off
Speaker 1: and everybody rushes to that cornucopia to try and get
Speaker 1: the food and the weapons. That's exactly what it's like
Speaker 1: the automotive industry right now. So if you see a
Speaker 1: vehicle online, whether it's on you know, a site like
Speaker 1: auto Trader or cars dot com, or if you go
Speaker 1: to the dealer's website and even see the car listed
Speaker 1: on the dealer's website, that does not mean that car
Speaker 1: is actually there. You have to pick up the phone
Speaker 1: find out if it's still available, and if you want
Speaker 1: to go look at that car, you need to go
Speaker 1: now because it might not be there at five o'clock,
Speaker 1: it might not be there tomorrow. It definitely will not
Speaker 1: be there on Monday if you're looking on Friday, so
Speaker 1: you have to move quickly. And unfortunately that goes against
Speaker 1: everything that I believe in terms of making a good
Speaker 1: car buying decision, because I preach that it's a process,
Speaker 1: not an event, and you should take your time, and
Speaker 1: you should get a pre purchase inspection on any used car,
Speaker 1: but they're just the dealers will not hold the cart
Speaker 1: and so it's just moving too fast and you just
Speaker 1: have to make the best decision that you can with
Speaker 1: the information that's available and know that it's a bigger
Speaker 1: risk than it probably should be if we were able
Speaker 1: to actually go through the nice step by step process
Speaker 1: that I like to go through. So I tell my
Speaker 1: clients when I find something, I'm gonna text you, and
Speaker 1: I had to hear back from you in ten minutes
Speaker 1: because we we may have to move that quickly to
Speaker 1: make a decision. So it's it's just crazy. So if
Speaker 1: if I am a purchaser going to a dealer, do
Speaker 1: I have anything within my power or things that I
Speaker 1: should be aware of, even if it is becoming that
Speaker 1: high sense of urgency, like, are there any recommendations for
Speaker 1: dealing with dealers at this point in time? You should
Speaker 1: still shop around. You want to make sure that you
Speaker 1: are getting the best quality car for your money, So
Speaker 1: looking at that car fact report ahead of time is
Speaker 1: absolutely critical. See what's on there, and it's not just
Speaker 1: about whether the car is accident free. You need to
Speaker 1: look and see, well, where did that car live? Was
Speaker 1: in a Northern car that's gonna rust out on you
Speaker 1: like yours did? Or was it a Southern car? Are
Speaker 1: their maintenance records? And to do as much of your
Speaker 1: homework on paper. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's going
Speaker 1: to be a good car. But acid dealer, can I
Speaker 1: take this to a mechanic to have a pre purchase inspection?
Speaker 1: They the worst thing they can say is no, but
Speaker 1: a lot of them will still say yeah, sure, you know,
Speaker 1: just you have to bring it back, you know, within
Speaker 1: two hours. So then you've got to find a shop
Speaker 1: that can do it quickly. But you're biggesting ociating power
Speaker 1: now is if you have a good vehicle to trade,
Speaker 1: because the values for those cars are much much higher.
Speaker 1: In many cases, if you bought a vehicle in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: you might be able to sell it today for more
Speaker 1: than you paid for it when you bought it. So
Speaker 1: that's where you're negotiating power is because if you have
Speaker 1: a decent quality trade and by decent quality mean does
Speaker 1: it run and is it relatively free of dense and dings,
Speaker 1: it won't value Yeah that's great, and maybe more than
Speaker 1: you think in this market, are there any other things
Speaker 1: that someone could negotiate on with a dealer, like with
Speaker 1: with the new vehicle. Are there is there any wiggle
Speaker 1: room that you've seen there? You definitely shop around because
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, some dealers are charging thousands
Speaker 1: over sticker, some are not. The ones that are not
Speaker 1: are usually putting what the dealers should call in a dendem.
Speaker 1: It's usually some sort of accessory package on the car.
Speaker 1: And I see the prices of those cree being up,
Speaker 1: but there may be some things in that package that
Speaker 1: you can negotiate or get the price of that package
Speaker 1: reduced significantly. So be sure to ask, you know, not
Speaker 1: just what the price of the cars, but get them
Speaker 1: to show you a breakdown and if there is a package,
Speaker 1: which they're most likely will be, what is included in
Speaker 1: that package, and you know, understand what those items are
Speaker 1: and see if there's some that you really don't want, Like,
Speaker 1: don't ever let them put a pen stripe on the car.
Speaker 1: Car today do not need pen stripes. You know, serious,
Speaker 1: that's a thing. It's still a thing. It should not
Speaker 1: be a thing, but it's a thing. You know. They
Speaker 1: want to put quel locks on the car, you don't
Speaker 1: need real locks. See if you can swap that out
Speaker 1: for something like rubber floor mats or something that's at
Speaker 1: least window tan, things that are going to be useful
Speaker 1: to you instead of those items, Or see if you
Speaker 1: can get them to pay. Can you take this off?
Speaker 1: The worst thing that they can say is no. And
Speaker 1: unfortunately it is one of seller's market right now, and
Speaker 1: the dealers really do hold almost all of the power,
Speaker 1: which is very frustraate it. But you know, do call
Speaker 1: around and call around outside your geography, because it's really
Speaker 1: amazing how it can vary. And there are certain manufacturers
Speaker 1: that have told their dealers, you will not sell cars
Speaker 1: for over ms RP, or you will lose marketing dollars.
Speaker 1: You will lose allocations, which means quotas of new cars
Speaker 1: coming off the production line. Multiple infractions, they can even
Speaker 1: lose their franchise. Is that stopping all the dealers? No?
Speaker 1: And I have potentially made a few choice phone calls
Speaker 1: to the vice president operations of certain manufacturers of North
Speaker 1: American operations and reported said dealers because I'm not putting
Speaker 1: up with that. I'm not put up with that. But
Speaker 1: you know, but then there's some also owners of dealership
Speaker 1: groups that have said, we're not doing this. You can
Speaker 1: put accessories on the car, but we are not taking
Speaker 1: money from a customer and not giving them at least
Speaker 1: something in return. But someday this will be over and
Speaker 1: people are gonna remember and this is not consistent with
Speaker 1: our brand. So you have to find the manufacturers and
Speaker 1: then the dealers that are at least trying to be
Speaker 1: honest and ethical in this market, but they're getting few
Speaker 1: and far between. And I've had some flat out lie
Speaker 1: to me. I had a Masda salesperson out West literally
Speaker 1: flat outlide to me and say, oh, well, Mazda has
Speaker 1: completely shut down production for the next two to three months.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna have any new cars and that's why
Speaker 1: we're charging ten tho dollars over sticker. And I went, really,
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard that. Being a journalist myself like I
Speaker 1: need to call and confirm that because nobody's broken that
Speaker 1: news yet. So I'm gonna break that news. So I
Speaker 1: pick up the phone and called the Vice President's office
Speaker 1: of MASDA North America out in California. Who I know,
Speaker 1: I said, So, I heard this from one of your
Speaker 1: salespeople out in Arizona, and they're like, I'm or you
Speaker 1: heard what, Like, No, that is not true. We will
Speaker 1: we will take care of this. So blind to me
Speaker 1: is probably not their best strategy because they don't realize
Speaker 1: who I know and who I have on speed dial
Speaker 1: as a journalist an influencer. But you know, just be
Speaker 1: aware that there are some very dishonest tactics going on.
Speaker 1: And that happened to be that one independent salesperson at
Speaker 1: that dealership. It was not when I called the general
Speaker 1: manager to give a courteous heads up that they would
Speaker 1: be getting a phone call from corporate office. That salesperson
Speaker 1: no longer appears on their website. Let's just put it
Speaker 1: that way. But you know, sometimes it is at the
Speaker 1: dealership level that they've decided that they're going to take
Speaker 1: that risk of suffering the wrath of the corporate office.
Speaker 1: And some of the corporations are not even saying a
Speaker 1: word about it. They're letting their dealers do whatever they want.
Speaker 1: So there can be a big variance in the prey
Speaker 1: that you can pay for the exact same new car,
Speaker 1: And similarly with the used cars, some dealers are really
Speaker 1: jacking up the prices. Some are being a little bit
Speaker 1: more fair, and you really just have to do a
Speaker 1: lot of calling around and be prepared that this is
Speaker 1: going to take up a lot of time during your day.
Speaker 1: This isn't gonna be something you can just do in
Speaker 1: your spare time. If you need a car, that is
Speaker 1: gonna become your full time job for the next week
Speaker 1: is finding that car. One final question on the dealer thing,
Speaker 1: do you have any tips for finding a more trustworthy,
Speaker 1: honest dealer, Like for the person who has no idea,
Speaker 1: what what could we do? Sometimes the dealers are saying
Speaker 1: on their website, we will never charge over M s
Speaker 1: r P for a car, so look for that. But
Speaker 1: another thing to do is just go onto their websites
Speaker 1: and see, you know, if they do have any new
Speaker 1: cars listed, what prices are they listing? You know, are
Speaker 1: they listing? In addendum, some were being flat out honest
Speaker 1: about their dishonesty. They're emitting, yeah, we're charging ever sticker
Speaker 1: you know, and I get Okay, you know the land
Speaker 1: Rover dealership in Manhattan, Okay, there's a lot of money
Speaker 1: to be had there. And if people who are already
Speaker 1: buying a hundred thousand dollar car. Want to pay a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty dollars for that car, you know, so
Speaker 1: that they can have one in their home in the Hampton's.
Speaker 1: You know, what's fine, they've got that kind of money whatever.
Speaker 1: But you know, when you're talking about a houn Day
Speaker 1: or a Toyota or a Honda for somebody, you know,
Speaker 1: more like you and me who doesn't have an infinite
Speaker 1: budget for a necessary piece of transportation, that's when I
Speaker 1: get really ticked off. So really read the verbage on
Speaker 1: the dealer's website and then go look at what they
Speaker 1: list their prices for. And if they say call for price,
Speaker 1: that's a red flag. They won't even put the M
Speaker 1: S r P on the website. Sometimes you just have
Speaker 1: to call, and I have to call. If it's a
Speaker 1: dealer that I don't know, I call and be like,
Speaker 1: all right, what are you guys doing on pricing? I
Speaker 1: call the managers? What are all doing unpricing? You know,
Speaker 1: just let's just be honest with each other. What are
Speaker 1: you'all doing unpricing? And then some of them tell me
Speaker 1: and I laugh and I say thank you for your time,
Speaker 1: click and I move on to the next dealer. But
Speaker 1: even I'm having to call twenty to thirty dealers instead
Speaker 1: of four or five to find cars. And so just
Speaker 1: going over the state line helps. Okay, And can you
Speaker 1: look at like Kelly Blue Book at like M S
Speaker 1: r P and compare it to what the dealer is
Speaker 1: offering to see to make sure they're charging M S
Speaker 1: r P. Or is that still you're just gonna have
Speaker 1: to call. Yeah, well you're gonna have to call. But
Speaker 1: also if they have a new car listed on their website,
Speaker 1: you know they'll they should if the car is hit
Speaker 1: the United States, if it's on US soil, they will
Speaker 1: have a window sticker and you can just look at
Speaker 1: the windowsticker or asked to see the window sticker if
Speaker 1: it's not posted that way. You can also verify what
Speaker 1: features it has, because a lot of the new cars
Speaker 1: are being built without certain features that should be in
Speaker 1: that trim level or in that option package, but they
Speaker 1: have eliminated that to save a computer chip or two.
Speaker 1: But they'll say that on the window sticker, so you
Speaker 1: know you may or may not get certain features. And
Speaker 1: the German manufacturers are doing this a lot um, but
Speaker 1: they're trying to eliminate features that are not really mission
Speaker 1: critical but you know, you might not get the fancy stereo,
Speaker 1: but you'll still get the you know, the blind spot
Speaker 1: monitoring because that's more important. So they're having to make
Speaker 1: those decisions. So you should look at that window sticker
Speaker 1: anyway to verify what's actually on the car versus what
Speaker 1: you think is supposed to be on the car, and
Speaker 1: that'll tell you what the M s r P is
Speaker 1: and then you can compare it. But a lot of
Speaker 1: the dealers are really are being honest. When you ask
Speaker 1: them what they're pricing is, they'll tell you it's M
Speaker 1: s r P plus whatever. Okay, yeah, let's go back
Speaker 1: to the addendum stuff. Because the last time I bought
Speaker 1: a car, it was sixteen grand and I walked out
Speaker 1: of their spending eighteen grand. So like there's a couple
Speaker 1: grand in there. What are like the top things in
Speaker 1: there that you see the most success with negotiating or
Speaker 1: could right now the most success with negotiating down What
Speaker 1: are the things that people maybe should be looking for,
Speaker 1: Like I said, look at what makes up that addendum package,
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of the times if it's
Speaker 1: something useful. Sometimes they're putting ceramic window tint on the windows.
Speaker 1: That's actually a really good thing because it keeps the
Speaker 1: inside of your car from getting super duper hot, and
Speaker 1: it's really high quality. That might be worth it for
Speaker 1: keeping you know, rubber floor mats, those might be useful
Speaker 1: to you. But if it's something like the Elo GPS
Speaker 1: or sometimes they'll put you know, the parts of the
Speaker 1: car with these little tiny dots that if your car
Speaker 1: gets stolen and sent to a chop shop, the police
Speaker 1: can use to rematch up the body parts or find
Speaker 1: your car. I mean honestly, and unless you live in
Speaker 1: a really high car theft area like l A or
Speaker 1: Chicago or New York, you know, those things really aren't
Speaker 1: worth it, and they're certainly not worth the money that
Speaker 1: they charge. You know, if the car has not yet
Speaker 1: arrived and they haven't put those things on the car yet,
Speaker 1: that's when you may have the power to say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, can we not do this, This is not
Speaker 1: valuable to me. Perhaps there's something else maybe instead of
Speaker 1: paying for that, you know, I can get an extended
Speaker 1: warranty or something that's going to be useful, a prepaid
Speaker 1: maintenance package if they won't take that off because they
Speaker 1: want to make the money. See if they are willing
Speaker 1: to swap it out for something that is more useful
Speaker 1: to you, but they may be willing to even come
Speaker 1: down the price. For example, I I did buy that
Speaker 1: Monster from a different Master dealership in another part of
Speaker 1: Arizona for a client in Utah, and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I we really don't want these things in
Speaker 1: the package. He's like, tell you what, you know, We're
Speaker 1: not going to charge you for the package. We won't
Speaker 1: put these things on the car. We'll just put you know,
Speaker 1: the window tints and the rubber mats that you want,
Speaker 1: and then we won't put the addendum on the car
Speaker 1: for you. So right there we saved three thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: So that was worth it. Now part of it. They
Speaker 1: did that because it was me, and but I also
Speaker 1: just asked a lot of people don't know to ask,
Speaker 1: never hurts to ask. The they can say is no, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I still want to make the sale. So there
Speaker 1: there may be somewhere in there, depending on you know,
Speaker 1: how willing you are to ask and be firm about that.
Speaker 1: One last question on the when buying a car from
Speaker 1: a dealer, I know this is a traditional dealer tactic.
Speaker 1: They will keep you in there for hours after you've
Speaker 1: agreed to buy the car, asking you so many questions,
Speaker 1: and the questions by the end of it, you have
Speaker 1: so much decision fatigue that you're just like, yes, okay, whatever,
Speaker 1: get me out of here. And at the end it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: would you like this thousand dollar extended warranty? Talk to
Speaker 1: us about that process, how to overcome it, or just
Speaker 1: the extended warranty, because I feel like that's what the
Speaker 1: purpose of the whole weight is just to like make
Speaker 1: you sweat so that you just say yes to adding
Speaker 1: on more things to the grand finale? Is this extended warranty?
Speaker 1: Tell me if I'm right or wrong or how to
Speaker 1: handle this situation. You are one right, absolutely, you are right.
Speaker 1: And I always talk about how a car dealership is
Speaker 1: a lot like a casino. You know, they kind of
Speaker 1: they suck you in and then everything once you're inside
Speaker 1: the doors is designed to keep you there and keep
Speaker 1: you spending money. So without the free drinks, so you
Speaker 1: know that honestly, they might do better if they would,
Speaker 1: you know, get a liquor license and serve beverages. But
Speaker 1: you know it's probably not something yeah about it, right?
Speaker 1: But the best thing that you can do is to
Speaker 1: get ahead of that. I know what the types of
Speaker 1: things are that they are going to offer you in
Speaker 1: the finance office before you ever walk in the door
Speaker 1: to the dealership, and no, if that's something that you want,
Speaker 1: you know. My belief is that the majority of the
Speaker 1: things that they want to sell you in the finance office, well,
Speaker 1: some of them may be good products, they're not worth
Speaker 1: the prices that the dealers charged for them. The majority
Speaker 1: of their profit is made in that room. In some cases,
Speaker 1: don't extended warranty might be a good option for you.
Speaker 1: Discuss that with the salesperson ahead of time, which you
Speaker 1: should be doing through the phone in your pajamas from
Speaker 1: the comfort of your own home, before you ever go
Speaker 1: into the dealership. You know, if you decide you want
Speaker 1: the car, lock in that car with a deposit, if
Speaker 1: they will take one as you work out the details,
Speaker 1: but you should know ahead of time do you want
Speaker 1: an extended warranty? Is it worth it to you? And
Speaker 1: you know how much are you willing to pay for that?
Speaker 1: A lot of the times the dealers can take a
Speaker 1: significant amount of money off of the price of that.
Speaker 1: Let them know, Hey, if I can get this extended
Speaker 1: warranty at dealer cost or employee pricing, then I would
Speaker 1: be willing to do it. You know or know that
Speaker 1: in the extended warranty is not something that you necessarily need.
Speaker 1: And I normally don't care for extended warranties because I
Speaker 1: know how they work and how they're kind of insurance
Speaker 1: against something happening. So you're definitely paying a few thousand
Speaker 1: dollars now in the hopes that if something breaks down
Speaker 1: the line that it would cover, you know that that
Speaker 1: repair would be more than what you paid for the warranty,
Speaker 1: making the warranty worth it. That rarely is the case.
Speaker 1: Occasionally it will be, but you're better off self ensuring
Speaker 1: and buying a car that's known for its reliability ahead
Speaker 1: of time. The problem is, as I said, cars are
Speaker 1: more computers now than they are mechanics practically, so a
Speaker 1: lot of times it's those features that are unreliable. The
Speaker 1: engine works fine, it's all the sensors and the computers
Speaker 1: and all the electronics that cause problems. And you can't
Speaker 1: mitigate that. You can't change the oil in the infotainment
Speaker 1: system and that it keeps working like agam with the engine.
Speaker 1: So for some people, they may feel that peace of
Speaker 1: mind is worth it to them. But as the cars
Speaker 1: have gotten more complicated, obviously the price of those extended
Speaker 1: warranties has also gone up because the extented warranty companies
Speaker 1: are not gonna lose money either. So what I find
Speaker 1: is that for some brands they're worth it. Like hund
Speaker 1: and Akia, they give you five years sixty thousand miles
Speaker 1: full warranty and a ten year hundred thousand mile on
Speaker 1: the power train, which means your engine in your transmission,
Speaker 1: and they sell what's called a wrap warranty that wraps
Speaker 1: that full coverage out to the full ten one. If
Speaker 1: you can get that for less than two thousand dollars
Speaker 1: and you plan to keep the car for ten years,
Speaker 1: that may be worth it to you. I tend to
Speaker 1: recommend those to my clients that I know keep cars forever.
Speaker 1: That can be worth it because it gives you full
Speaker 1: factory coverage out for ten years or a hundred thousand miles,
Speaker 1: whichever comes first. If you can get it an employee pricing,
Speaker 1: it's worth it to a lot of people. Do I
Speaker 1: want to pay three thousand dollars for an extent warranty?
Speaker 1: On a Toyota. No, they still work for the most part.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're looking at something made by Christler
Speaker 1: that might be worth do wing, that's pretty much guaranteed
Speaker 1: you have problems. So a lot of it just really
Speaker 1: depends on the circumstances. But I tend to go in
Speaker 1: with it looking at how long do I plan to
Speaker 1: keep this car compared to how long do I get
Speaker 1: on the full original factory warranty, because they'll tell you, oh,
Speaker 1: well it's you know, six years or seventy thousand miles, like, well, no,
Speaker 1: it's really not, because I have three years thirty six
Speaker 1: thousand miles full coverage. So the extent of warranty is
Speaker 1: really only covering me for this piece because the factory
Speaker 1: has got me for this piece. So you have to look, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm really paying three thousand dollars for three additional
Speaker 1: years of coverage and you know, forty two thousand miles
Speaker 1: or whatever the math comes out to, is it worth
Speaker 1: it to pay a thousand dollars a year for that
Speaker 1: piece of mind? When you really start looking at the math,
Speaker 1: it changes for most people. So I know those things
Speaker 1: ahead of time, and as much of that as you
Speaker 1: can pre negotiate into the deal, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times the sales people will say, oh, well, the financed
Speaker 1: man of drill talk to you about that. When you
Speaker 1: get into the office, you say no, I know, you
Speaker 1: get commissioned on that stuff too. If you want to
Speaker 1: have any chance at all of selling one of these products,
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about it now. Otherwise I'm gonna
Speaker 1: walk into the finance office and just say no to
Speaker 1: everything and not even listen to what the finance manager
Speaker 1: has to say it because I'm not going through that.
Speaker 1: So you've got to take control of the process. They
Speaker 1: have a sales process that they spend millions of dollars
Speaker 1: in industry training their sales people on to maximize their profits.
Speaker 1: And in defense of the dealers there are for profit business.
Speaker 1: It is not their job to give you a bottom
Speaker 1: line killer deal. That's your job. Their job is to
Speaker 1: maximize their profit. You can't fault them for that. They're
Speaker 1: a business, not a charity. But no going in that.
Speaker 1: You have to take control of your buying process, you know,
Speaker 1: take that control away from them. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: gamble online instead of in the casino where you at
Speaker 1: least have a little more home court advantage, manly, and
Speaker 1: I feel pumped up and it's happening the thing that
Speaker 1: I thought that I wish that I would have talked
Speaker 1: with you a year ago, and yep, I'm there now.
Speaker 1: That's that's what I'm feeling experiencing. So everybody repeat after me.
Speaker 1: No is a complete sentence, is a complete, complete sentence.
Speaker 1: We're getting so good at this so many things in life, ladies. Yes,
Speaker 1: I love that. Um okay, So last question for you.
Speaker 1: You can save a lot of money by buying outside
Speaker 1: of a dealership private party sale, but it is a
Speaker 1: little dice ere. So if somebody is wanting to buy
Speaker 1: outside of the dealership, how can you avoid a scam?
Speaker 1: How can you avoid getting scammed? Well, first of all
Speaker 1: is know how to identify the scams that are out there.
Speaker 1: Facebook Marketplace has really become the number one goa to
Speaker 1: you site for most cars. And I was even surprised
Speaker 1: because I don't normally help people sell cars privately. But
Speaker 1: I have this one client here in Charlotte who's an
Speaker 1: old friend, and you know, like he pays me a
Speaker 1: lot of money to handle anything really to do his cars.
Speaker 1: So I'll do it and we're actually selling dollar high
Speaker 1: performance Tesla. And you know, I haven't listed on auto trader,
Speaker 1: and I haven't even tested on this, you know, only
Speaker 1: use Tesla website. And yet I'm getting most of the
Speaker 1: leads from Facebook. Marketplace, you know, granted to have the
Speaker 1: member scammers, but you know, so even the high end cars,
Speaker 1: which really surprised me. People are looking on marketplace. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you get a lot of people low sending you
Speaker 1: low ball offers, or it's like, you know, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll trade you this Tesla for you know, trading bitcoins
Speaker 1: for you, and there's just like a whole bunch of bs.
Speaker 1: It's it's almost hilarious. You just have to laugh. But
Speaker 1: when you're shopping for the car and you're looking at
Speaker 1: the listings, one of the number one things that scammers
Speaker 1: do is they price the car well below market value,
Speaker 1: and so you need to look at, Okay, that price
Speaker 1: looks too good to be true. Go on someone like
Speaker 1: auto trader and look for similar cars and see what
Speaker 1: the market value really is, because if it's too good
Speaker 1: to be true, it is. And the scammers will also
Speaker 1: tell you to communicate. They'll say, oh, I'm selling it
Speaker 1: for my sister or you know, they'll give you some
Speaker 1: SOB story and like email to this Gmail address. So
Speaker 1: if anyone asks you to communicate with them outside of Facebook,
Speaker 1: they are at the time that's a scammer. So always
Speaker 1: communicate within the platform until you establish relationship to where
Speaker 1: you can say, you know, hey, you know, can we
Speaker 1: set up a time to talk on the phone. I
Speaker 1: have a bunch of questions about the car, because that
Speaker 1: gives you a chance to actually speak to a human.
Speaker 1: Make sure you are speaking to a legitimate seller and
Speaker 1: feel each other out because as a genuine, legitimate seller,
Speaker 1: they're nervous too, because they're getting calls from scammers, they're
Speaker 1: getting calls from d Alert. They want to know that
Speaker 1: you're a legitimate buyer. So this is a chance to have,
Speaker 1: you know, actual human interaction and ask a lot of
Speaker 1: questions about the car. You know that people do not
Speaker 1: typically do things to recondition their own cars for resale
Speaker 1: the way dealers do. They don't have to have it
Speaker 1: past state inspection in order to sell it the way
Speaker 1: a dealer does in a state that requires annual inspections.
Speaker 1: But they are also much more likely to negotiate, and
Speaker 1: they're more likely to let you, Hey, can I meet
Speaker 1: up with you at a mechanic shop for prepurchase inspection
Speaker 1: or can I send the Lemon Squat out to take
Speaker 1: a look at it. I really want to get a
Speaker 1: prepurchase inspection, and they're gonna be much more likely to
Speaker 1: be amenable to that, even in this current market. So
Speaker 1: it is that trade off. And especially if you're looking
Speaker 1: at a car that is not in a geographic location
Speaker 1: that's convenient for you to go look at it yourself,
Speaker 1: you are going to rely on a company like the
Speaker 1: Lemon Squad, who I highly recommend. Aside from the best
Speaker 1: branding ever, all they do a pre person's inspections on
Speaker 1: use cars. They're fantastic. So you can look at a
Speaker 1: used car that is outside your geography if you use
Speaker 1: a service like that to inspect it for you. But
Speaker 1: you're taking a little bit more of a risk. And
Speaker 1: how do you trust with the musical money and moving
Speaker 1: the title and you find out do you have the
Speaker 1: title in hand or is there a loan? You have
Speaker 1: a lean on the car and the bank holds the title.
Speaker 1: If the bank holds the title, then the seller needs
Speaker 1: to find out from their bank how do we handle
Speaker 1: this Because Obviously, the loan has to get paid off
Speaker 1: before the bank's going to release the title. What does
Speaker 1: that process look like if you, as a buyer, are
Speaker 1: getting a loan for the car, talk to your bank,
Speaker 1: because very often the two banks will just talk to
Speaker 1: each other and handle it for you. That's an ideal situation.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you have to have a little bit of
Speaker 1: trust and you can pay off the loan directly with
Speaker 1: the seller's bank and then ason the seller the title,
Speaker 1: and then the seller has to sign a titler for you,
Speaker 1: and there is a certain amount of trust that has
Speaker 1: to happen, and and that's just about then developing a
Speaker 1: relationship with that seller to where you trust each other.
Speaker 1: M h. But it's definitely a little bit riskier, but
Speaker 1: there can be a lot of benefits. And you know,
Speaker 1: I have never come across the situation where the seller
Speaker 1: was dishonest. They're either a scammer or they're a person
Speaker 1: just like you and me trying to get a little
Speaker 1: bit more money for their car and are just as
Speaker 1: scared about the process as you are. And what I'm
Speaker 1: hearing is both take a ton of time, whether you're
Speaker 1: dealing with the dealer or outside of a dealer, whether
Speaker 1: you're selling a vehicle. It's just it's going to take
Speaker 1: a lot of weeding through and being cautious and on
Speaker 1: guard with everybody, uh to make sure that you're not
Speaker 1: getting hurt in the process either absolutely on what's reasonable.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely. And you know with with buying private party,
Speaker 1: you know, if anybody ever asked you to, you know,
Speaker 1: give money up front when you're doing a private party transaction,
Speaker 1: that's a hard no. And with dealers, you can put
Speaker 1: a deposit down on the car that ca it's a
Speaker 1: partial payment to secure the vehicle in most cases while
Speaker 1: you work through you know, getting the loan approved or
Speaker 1: the delivery logistics. But with the private party, you know,
Speaker 1: you do not turn that money over until you have
Speaker 1: agreed there is a sale. You know, preferably do it
Speaker 1: in person, you know, at one of your banks, so
Speaker 1: that you know they know that the money you're giving
Speaker 1: them as legit. You know, you know that they're legit.
Speaker 1: They're handing you a title. The little person at the
Speaker 1: bank can notorize it for you. Doing those transactions in person,
Speaker 1: even if you have to drive four hours, that's the
Speaker 1: better way to do it. In a private party transaction, dealers.
Speaker 1: It's easier to know if the dealer is legit. You
Speaker 1: have some recourse if you know the dealer tries to
Speaker 1: pull anything hanky on you. But with private party, if
Speaker 1: you can meet them in person, that is ideal. But
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of private party transactions that we
Speaker 1: couldn't and you know, we all kind of had to
Speaker 1: trust each other in the process, and you know, it
Speaker 1: worked out just fine. But everything is a little bit
Speaker 1: higher risk right now. That's just the new world that
Speaker 1: we live in. Mm hmm, speaking of transactions that don't
Speaker 1: always happen in person, but are amazing every single time
Speaker 1: they happen, and zero risk involved. The bill though. We
Speaker 1: that's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 1: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 1: is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your
Speaker 1: car died and you're happy to not have to pay
Speaker 1: that bill anymore. To build buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this
Speaker 1: is the bill of the week, LeAnn. Every week we
Speaker 1: invite our listeners or our guests to share with us
Speaker 1: their bill for the week, and we know you have
Speaker 1: one for us. We'd love to hear about it. I
Speaker 1: do and it's probably something you guys aren't going to expect.
Speaker 1: So I grew up a figure skater. That was my thing.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Oh my gosh. I started skating when
Speaker 1: I was like three years old, and you know, skated
Speaker 1: up until basically I went to college. But then I
Speaker 1: got back into it as an adult here in Charlotte,
Speaker 1: of ball places, and as an adult skater, there was
Speaker 1: this older gentleman at the rank named Bill Sewing. Bill
Speaker 1: started skating at the age of seventy two and he
Speaker 1: skated into his mid to late eighties when he finally
Speaker 1: passed away, and he was so amazing, and he had
Speaker 1: he did it because he'd had a stroke and the
Speaker 1: coordination of the skating, even just the stroking around, helped
Speaker 1: him rehabilitate, and he found he loved it, and he
Speaker 1: was just the most loving. He was like the rink grandpa.
Speaker 1: And he was our biggest cheerleader and always a source
Speaker 1: of positive energy. You know, you could always get a
Speaker 1: hug from him, and he would be your biggest cheerleader,
Speaker 1: whether you were having a great day because you just
Speaker 1: landed this new jump you've been working so hard on,
Speaker 1: or if you were having a horrible day and you
Speaker 1: just wanted to throw your skates in the garbage. Bill
Speaker 1: was there for you. And we loved him so much,
Speaker 1: and he participated in all the shows he competed. He
Speaker 1: was just an amazing, amazing man and we all loved
Speaker 1: him with all of our hearts. And so you know,
Speaker 1: when he finally passed, you know, we were all very
Speaker 1: very sad, and his picture was up in the rank
Speaker 1: and everything. But you know, he he will always be,
Speaker 1: you know, the Bill that will always have a place
Speaker 1: in my heart because he was just such an inspirational
Speaker 1: and loving person and in my heart too. Oh. I
Speaker 1: remember we had like a few like older gentlemen at
Speaker 1: the rinks that I would skate at, Like, um, I
Speaker 1: never knew why they skated as adult. I never like
Speaker 1: asked them, but like, yeah, they were like the rink
Speaker 1: Grandpa's like so sweet like and miraculously not creepy with
Speaker 1: like all these older men, like there was like one
Speaker 1: at each rink, like and all these like little girls.
Speaker 1: So like I'm just envisioning that as you're speaking, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, my childhood. I I literally
Speaker 1: have juice bumps hearing this because it it hits all
Speaker 1: the boxes. This my new favorite bill, Bill being a person.
Speaker 1: We love it when the bill of the week is
Speaker 1: a person Bill Ice skating Bill elderly ice skating Bill
Speaker 1: being the rink, Grandpa, just you ice skating too lean
Speaker 1: meeting and skating with my hips. They don't lie about
Speaker 1: not wanting me to do any jumps anymore. Like I'll
Speaker 1: skate every like winter, Like we'll do like a just
Speaker 1: skating you know, like a Christmas thing, because that's the
Speaker 1: closest you can get to winter in Florida. But like,
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, just to like just a simple jump, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yep, that's it for me. I'm not doing
Speaker 1: any axles anymore. Yeah. I don't let myself go to
Speaker 1: the rink anymore because I have more physical problems now,
Speaker 1: some of them you know, skating related, some of them
Speaker 1: COVID related. Oh yeah, My injuries in adulthood are all
Speaker 1: skating related from childhood, absolutely, And so I I know
Speaker 1: that my body is not physically able to skate anymore.
Speaker 1: The problem is my brain still thinks that it is
Speaker 1: because I still have skating dreams. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you still have skating dreams, but I still have skating dreams,
Speaker 1: and in my dreams, I can still do triple jumps,
Speaker 1: and so I know I would get out there and
Speaker 1: I would want to jump, and the reality of my
Speaker 1: fifty year old abused body, I would end up in
Speaker 1: the e r and I have no insurance, so that
Speaker 1: would just be a bad idea. So I can't trust
Speaker 1: myself to even go to the rink anymore. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, we will expound on this off fair but well,
Speaker 1: I mean, if if you are listening, want to submit
Speaker 1: your bill of the week, if it has to do
Speaker 1: with a bill, rink, grandpa, or or anything else. Again,
Speaker 1: sky's the limit. Visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash bill,
Speaker 1: leave us your bill, and now it's time for I'm
Speaker 1: just getting ahead of myself. I'm so excited. Okay, So
Speaker 1: for this week's lightning Around, we are each going to
Speaker 1: share our uh. You can share your best or worst
Speaker 1: car buying story, just like your best most entertaining car
Speaker 1: buying story, and Leanne you can share yours or clients. Um,
Speaker 1: and we want you to go first so that we
Speaker 1: can feel inferior following you. Now, Actually, what I'm going
Speaker 1: to share because I think this is something a lot
Speaker 1: of people can relate to will be my very first
Speaker 1: car buying story. So I was able to get my
Speaker 1: first car when I was sixteen, and we had a
Speaker 1: very conservative budget for this car, and you know, it
Speaker 1: had to be a manual transmission because that's what I
Speaker 1: learned how to drive on. My father's philosophy was anything
Speaker 1: else is just aiming. You have to actually learn how
Speaker 1: to drive. And so you know, I of course wanted
Speaker 1: you know, something awesome, right, like any sixteen year old once.
Speaker 1: And then there was what you know, my mother wanted
Speaker 1: me to have, which was like a Ford Escort wagon.
Speaker 1: My dad was always a little more on my side.
Speaker 1: So we found in the newspaper, you know back when
Speaker 1: there were paper newspapers and they actually had classified ads
Speaker 1: in them. A It was a ten year old at
Speaker 1: the time, so it was like a this was so
Speaker 1: it was like autie Fox. Because of course I also
Speaker 1: wanted a luxury car and it was really a Vookswagen.
Speaker 1: Let's just not even kut ourselves to what this thing was.
Speaker 1: And so you know, we bought it from a private
Speaker 1: party and this thing was you know, this is your
Speaker 1: classic story of buying a limit, right. So the first
Speaker 1: thing about it was is that it didn't have any
Speaker 1: power steering, so I built this great upper body strength
Speaker 1: just getting it in and out of the parking spaces,
Speaker 1: like drive my car, parallel parking my car. But it
Speaker 1: had a feature that I've never seen in any other car.
Speaker 1: If you had less than a third of a tank
Speaker 1: of gas and you made a left hand turn, all
Speaker 1: of the gas would flew away from the fuel pump
Speaker 1: and the car would stall out. So when I started
Speaker 1: getting low on gas, I had to make a lot
Speaker 1: of right hand turns to the gas station. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is that I've never seen that feature on a
Speaker 1: car before. Unfortunately, it also had a massive radiator leak.
Speaker 1: And so I was driving home from the mall with
Speaker 1: one of my girlfriends senior year in high school, like
Speaker 1: two days before Christmas, and we were on this more
Speaker 1: rural road because this was Wisconsin and a rural road
Speaker 1: was not far from our house, and it overheated despite
Speaker 1: the fact that it was like minus twenty degrees. Car
Speaker 1: overheated on the side of the the road and die. So
Speaker 1: this was before cell phones, of course. You know, just
Speaker 1: remember this is the end of nineteen and we saw
Speaker 1: this farmhouse, you know, not too far away. And so
Speaker 1: Lisa and I bundled up and went up to the
Speaker 1: door or this farmhouse, just praying that a serial killer
Speaker 1: did not answer the door, right yeah, opens door opened.
Speaker 1: It's Santa Claus because he had just gotten off work
Speaker 1: at the ball where we just came from. No, and
Speaker 1: we're like, Santa, Santa, Santa, our car died. Can we
Speaker 1: use your phone to call my dad? He's like, sure,
Speaker 1: come on in, ho ho ho, I can guess what
Speaker 1: you want for Christmas. So we get rescued by Santa.
Speaker 1: My dad comes and saves us. And you know, I
Speaker 1: actually did get a car for Christmas because my dad
Speaker 1: decided he was going to get a new car for Christmas,
Speaker 1: and I got his old one and we ditched the
Speaker 1: junkie old out five. So that was like my teenage
Speaker 1: car buying experience, which I realized today we live in
Speaker 1: a much more dangerous world and parents should probably spend
Speaker 1: a little bit more money if they can to get
Speaker 1: their teenage daughter, especially a safer car. But man, you know,
Speaker 1: if we didn't have these teenage car stories, we wouldn't
Speaker 1: be who we are today. It's so true, and I
Speaker 1: can't get over how your car wasn't an ambi turner,
Speaker 1: Like I can't make left turn in my car, that's
Speaker 1: just I mean to go right. I'm not an ambi turner.
Speaker 1: How amazingly and thanks for sharing that guy, Oh Jill,
Speaker 1: I want to hear yours. Good you, guys. I am
Speaker 1: realizing as I'm just going through the rolodects of experiences.
Speaker 1: I have just a lot of car experiences, phenomenal car experiences.
Speaker 1: But I get we're talking about buying, so I'll zero
Speaker 1: it into that this and here we go. I'm about
Speaker 1: to vent. I recognize that there is a cult following
Speaker 1: for Subaru. People love it. I do not understand. I
Speaker 1: fell you what I don't. I don't even care about
Speaker 1: that because here's where it is, and you can't take
Speaker 1: my experience away from me or change my opinion. The
Speaker 1: thing about Subaru cult followers is that they will follow
Speaker 1: Subaru to the end of the world and back, but
Speaker 1: they're not actually good vehicles. I don't know the end.
Speaker 1: You can tell me if I'm wrong, but my experience
Speaker 1: proves this out, like over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: And then you talk to a Subaru person and they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just normal. Yeah. The head gaskets always go yeah,
Speaker 1: this and that. It's it's like, okay, so you you
Speaker 1: just still really love them. I'm I'm getting all fired
Speaker 1: up because here's what happened. We got a frigging Subaru
Speaker 1: forest or used private private seller with Facebook marketplace honestly,
Speaker 1: probably Craigslist at the time, because we're going way back
Speaker 1: into the archives. I don't even know if Facebook existed yet,
Speaker 1: but craigslisted and we bought it off of somebody for
Speaker 1: a decent price. Wasn't super stoked about it because super
Speaker 1: re foresters the year that we got it, Like the
Speaker 1: whole window thing, it was super loud, like they thought
Speaker 1: it was cool to have a frameless window. But all
Speaker 1: it ended up doing is like sounding like a tin
Speaker 1: can on the road. Two weeks later, the head gas
Speaker 1: gets go and other things with the engine, like the
Speaker 1: whole thing. The whole engine needed to be replaced two
Speaker 1: weeks later. Now, I gotta give it to the person
Speaker 1: who sold it to us. I don't actually think that
Speaker 1: they were trying to like pull one over on us.
Speaker 1: I think Subaru just did what Suber does and so
Speaker 1: but we told the person because we were broke, like
Speaker 1: what the heck are we gonna do? We just we
Speaker 1: just bought this car to two weeks ago, no warranty. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we got off a Craigslist and the guy was nice
Speaker 1: and helpful. He's like, you know what, I do, buy
Speaker 1: and sell a lot of cars. I can probably get
Speaker 1: you a new engine. I think we still have to
Speaker 1: drop a thousand dollars. Now here's where it moves over
Speaker 1: into me being like losing my brain. Um, this is
Speaker 1: not going to look good on me pay a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to get a new engine. A few months later,
Speaker 1: the car dies again because I had forgotten to get
Speaker 1: an oil change, just you know, straight up didn't didn't
Speaker 1: do it, never cross my mind, didn't schedule it, didn't
Speaker 1: put it into my calendar. Um, and the car was
Speaker 1: just shot at that point. So we had that Subaru
Speaker 1: Forester for I don't know half a year and spent
Speaker 1: a crazy insane amount of money for what a peace
Speaker 1: it was. And never ever, ever, ever again and ever
Speaker 1: since then, I keep hearing these stories from people who
Speaker 1: have Subaru is, particularly the forest or all the issues
Speaker 1: with it. Hopefully they've improved. I don't know. I'm never
Speaker 1: going back, never ever again once you have a bad
Speaker 1: experience with a brand, it's it's very hard to overcome
Speaker 1: that feeling. I will tell you that, yes, Subaru had
Speaker 1: a head gas to get problem for a number of
Speaker 1: years because some genius thought that a single layer head
Speaker 1: gasket would be sufficient on a boxer engine. It's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And finally someone figured out that that was a dumb
Speaker 1: idea and they went to a triple layer head gasket
Speaker 1: and they've never had a problem again. So if you
Speaker 1: have an older Subaru that was in those years that
Speaker 1: was famous, infamous for the head gasket problem, here's the solution.
Speaker 1: Go to your Super mechanic and have them swap out
Speaker 1: that stupid old single layer head gasket for the triple
Speaker 1: layer head gasket that they used today. Problem solved. Supers
Speaker 1: are great cars now. You know, all cars have more
Speaker 1: reliability issues today because of all the electronics. But once
Speaker 1: Super figured that out, no more head gasket problems. It
Speaker 1: just it's ridiculous that it took that long for them
Speaker 1: to figure out that a single layer head gasket just
Speaker 1: would not cut it. When did they figure it out?
Speaker 1: Like what year I'm trying to remember exactly. Um, but
Speaker 1: the Supers you know, within the last ten years have
Speaker 1: really been you know, very solid with you know, certain
Speaker 1: exceptions here and there, but pretty much every manufacturer has
Speaker 1: certain years for there are problems. You know, they put
Speaker 1: bad engines in a lot of their sonatas around. They've
Speaker 1: got a class action lawsuit that just got resolved over that.
Speaker 1: You know, Honda since sixteen has just gone off the
Speaker 1: cliff in terms of reliability. You know, Christ has always
Speaker 1: been there. There's certain years, there's there's certainly certain goal
Speaker 1: those that just like spontaneously combust when you're driving down
Speaker 1: the road. Every manufacturer has their issues and from year
Speaker 1: to year. But at least we figured that one out.
Speaker 1: But once you've had a bad experience with the brand,
Speaker 1: that's usually it for people. Thanks for matching my energy
Speaker 1: and then tempering me. It's what was that? That lack
Speaker 1: of oil changes was on your girl? That was on me.
Speaker 1: I will own oil all day long. Yeah, that's had
Speaker 1: I had an engine catch on fire because I forgot
Speaker 1: to get an oil change. It was a Saturn s
Speaker 1: L too, and it had a leak. Yeah, and um
Speaker 1: so it wasn't completely on me, but it was definitely
Speaker 1: overdue for an oil change, not to the point where
Speaker 1: it should have caught on fire, but I was driving
Speaker 1: down the highway and I was like forty five minutes
Speaker 1: from my house too, and it just like fire out
Speaker 1: of yeah fire. So that was fun. But that's not
Speaker 1: my story. My story is with my current car. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if this was this maybe is the
Speaker 1: most Like So I was in a season of my
Speaker 1: life where I really wanted to pay cash for a car,
Speaker 1: and I decided to and it was an eighteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollar purchase. Is the car I have now, which is
Speaker 1: two thousand six Hyundai Tucson. It's like that turbo It's
Speaker 1: not a great car. Um I would love. I would
Speaker 1: love to get one that doesn't like sputter when in
Speaker 1: the morning when I try and like leave my driveway.
Speaker 1: But I'll need a few years, I guess. So I
Speaker 1: wanted to pay cash for this. I had the cash,
Speaker 1: but like I could not I couldn't get the cash out,
Speaker 1: and like I didn't call to prepare my bank to
Speaker 1: like get that much cash out or to put that
Speaker 1: much on a debit card, and it was just its
Speaker 1: like the process of actually paying for the car took
Speaker 1: longer than like what it would be for me to
Speaker 1: go through financing, and by the end of it, I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm never paying cash for a car again.
Speaker 1: I'll just finance because I was like, how much extra
Speaker 1: would it have been for me to just finance this
Speaker 1: and like pay it off in a month And They're
Speaker 1: like maybe like a hundred bucks and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that was worth my entire day. I would do that.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, that was my um several years ago,
Speaker 1: my last car buying story. And uh, I know that
Speaker 1: will sound sacrilegious to some people, but um, yeah, next
Speaker 1: time I'm going to finance. Um, but I'll also have
Speaker 1: a trade in. Last time, I did not have a
Speaker 1: trade in because I gave my car to my mom,
Speaker 1: So that was another reason, like it was so so
Speaker 1: much at one time time. But yeah, that that actually
Speaker 1: is a really good point to mention to car shoppers
Speaker 1: today because with interest rates going up, it may make
Speaker 1: more sense to pay cash for a car if you have,
Speaker 1: you know, that money somewhere. But a lot of people
Speaker 1: keep that money and investment accounts and they need to
Speaker 1: talk to their financial person to play musical money and
Speaker 1: get that out of wherever it's invested in into a
Speaker 1: checking account where they can actually convert it into a
Speaker 1: certified check or why are the funds to the dealer
Speaker 1: with the market moving so quickly. If you are actively
Speaker 1: car shopping and you plan to pay cash, make sure
Speaker 1: you have that cash sitting in your checking account before
Speaker 1: you find the car, because once you find that car,
Speaker 1: things are going to have to move super fast, and
Speaker 1: the dealers don't like to wait. And if you've got
Speaker 1: to then call your financial person, get ahold of them.
Speaker 1: They have to sell some stocks, move some money. It
Speaker 1: could take a week. Even with the deposit, the dealers
Speaker 1: may not hold the car that long. So if you
Speaker 1: want to pay cash, make sure that money is sitting
Speaker 1: in your checking account before you start car shopping, and
Speaker 1: you know, be prepared. Another thing I've noticed is that
Speaker 1: even though some of the best interest rates are with
Speaker 1: credit unions, there are some credit unions like usa A
Speaker 1: who are amazing. You get approved in like two hours.
Speaker 1: They send you a letters for the dealer to draft
Speaker 1: the money directly from them, boom you're done. But a
Speaker 1: lot of credit unions are still operating on kind of
Speaker 1: the old fashioned community paper humans and it can take
Speaker 1: them two to three weeks to approve a car loan.
Speaker 1: No dealer will wait that long. So if you think
Speaker 1: you want to go through your credit union, get that
Speaker 1: preapproval before you start shopping. Find out from your credit
Speaker 1: union how long the process is. How they get the
Speaker 1: money to the dealer. Do they get the money directly
Speaker 1: to the dealer? Do you have to come in physically
Speaker 1: signed papers they hand you a check? How long do
Speaker 1: that take? Because in many cases we have not been
Speaker 1: able to use the client's credit union because they were
Speaker 1: moving slower than molasses, and the dealer just wouldn't move
Speaker 1: that slow, so they're like, no, sorry, we come in mortgages,
Speaker 1: you can't get a you can get a mortgage with
Speaker 1: a credit unionet now because they just moved too slow.
Speaker 1: Good to know the same thing over there. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: come on credit I know they're so great though, Definitely
Speaker 1: refinance with your credit union even if you can't make
Speaker 1: a purchase of them. Man Leanne, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on the show. This has been so so good.
Speaker 1: Definitely gonna re listen when it comes time for me
Speaker 1: to buy a car. Where can people get more from
Speaker 1: you if they need more information? Absolutely they can go
Speaker 1: to my website, The Car Chick that's c h I
Speaker 1: c K dot com. I have my own podcast called
Speaker 1: The Straight Shift. I've got about eighty five episodes out
Speaker 1: there with all sorts of car buying advice from buying
Speaker 1: a car, selling a car, may obtaining your car, driving
Speaker 1: your car, just some fun stuff. I'm getting into telling
Speaker 1: people about electrified cars right now, so I'm passionate about
Speaker 1: educating people. We've got a blog out there, and I'm
Speaker 1: actually the process of developing an online car buying course
Speaker 1: to teach all of my secrets, and we're hoping to
Speaker 1: have that launched um fourth quarter this year, so I'm
Speaker 1: hoping October, so definitely, you know, check back on the
Speaker 1: website on that because I just unfortunately I cannot personally
Speaker 1: work with everyone. I typically have a wait list, and
Speaker 1: I want to be able to help everybody, so at
Speaker 1: least by having this car buying course, I can at
Speaker 1: least get my knowledge out there for people that are
Speaker 1: tackling the car buying process on your own, especially in
Speaker 1: the current market. Fantastic, Thanks so much, Leanne. We appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. I'm really honored. Your energy
Speaker 1: has been really fun and I enjoyed hearing your stories.
Speaker 1: As well change your oil. If you don't take anything
Speaker 1: else away from this, there's your reminder get your tige.
Speaker 1: That was everything I thought it would be and more. Yes,
Speaker 1: we hope that you got an even if you're not
Speaker 1: in the market right now to purchase a car, that
Speaker 1: you will hold onto these little nuggets of wisdom. Revisit this,
Speaker 1: definitely share it with a friend that you know is
Speaker 1: in the market to buy a car um and that
Speaker 1: you will just kind of return to this as a
Speaker 1: one off whenever you need it. We hope you feel
Speaker 1: more empowered, more educated, and more knowledgeable, more equipped, and
Speaker 1: thank you all so much for listening. Many of you
Speaker 1: know we have a private community where we do monthly
Speaker 1: money challenges and offer accountability groups, and we want to
Speaker 1: take this time to congratulate one of our members for
Speaker 1: a massive win. This comes from Victoria and she shared
Speaker 1: on July one, I started writing down every time I
Speaker 1: spent money. By the third day, I realized why this
Speaker 1: never for me in the past. I found myself justifying
Speaker 1: reasons why I didn't need to write down a charge.
Speaker 1: For example, we had to buy a new battery for
Speaker 1: our motorcycle and I didn't write it down because it's
Speaker 1: not a normal charge and won't happen for a long time.
Speaker 1: After catching myself and writing the charge down, I realized,
Speaker 1: these are the times I'm swiping my card and not
Speaker 1: really paying attention to it and therefore throwing my budget
Speaker 1: and balances off. What an amazing realization. I still do
Speaker 1: this sometimes too. You're not alone, Victoria. Yeah. So congrats
Speaker 1: Victoria for making uh that realization, and we're super proud
Speaker 1: of you and excited to see what being fully intentional
Speaker 1: will look like for you down the road. Thanks everyone
Speaker 1: for listening. If you want to check out our monthly
Speaker 1: challenge community, head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash
Speaker 1: club to see what challenge we have coming up next.
Speaker 1: See you next time. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Syrian.