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You heard about it here. Again, that's longangle.com. Hello and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money and travel all while spending less and saving more. I'm your host, Chris Hutchins, and I'm excited to have you on my journey to find All The Hacks.

And today I want to talk about getting a deal when you're buying a car. My wife, Amy, and I had our first child last year, and with parents in town, we quickly realized that bigger cars in our future. So before I go down that path, I want to learn everything there is to get a good deal.

And this means deciding whether I go new or used, lease or buy, and getting the absolute best when negotiating. So today I'm joined by Leanne Shattuck, aka The Car Chick. She races cars, hosts the Straight Shift podcast, and most relevant to today, runs her own car buying service where she helps people get the best deals on a new or used car.

So let's jump in. Chris Hutchins works at Wealthfront. All opinions expressed by Chris and his guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Wealthfront. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions. Leanne, thank you for being here.

Well, thanks for having me, Chris. Definitely sounds like you have a lot of changes coming up in your life with the baby and everything else. That's great. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, it turns out when you want to fit two adults, a dog, a baby and in-laws into a five-seater sedan, it just doesn't work.

Yeah, that's tougher than packing up a 1945 fire truck into crates to ship from South Carolina down to Florida, which is what I was doing this morning. Oh, I have never had that problem and I'm excited to hear more. Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got here?

It is kind of a long, circuitous journey, but my love of cars began, I think, about age two. That's when Disney had come out with the Herbie the Love Bug movies and I fell in love with classic Volkswagens. This is before I knew that they were not necessarily the most safe or reliable vehicle on the road.

But as a two-year-old, they're cute and they were very recognizable and our neighbors had one. So it was kind of downhill after that. And I just always loved cars. And my dad started teaching me high performance driving skills when I was seven. And I got into racing and varying degrees of legality, which we won't talk about because I'm not sure the statute of limitations has yet expired, but got into it all legally eventually.

And just cars are just my passion. But I saw how many people, women in particular, just would rather have a root canal than shop for a car. They sometimes don't feel like the dealers treat them with the respect that they deserve, or they get overwhelmed by all the different makes and models on the market, or they just don't like the the haggling back and forth because cars are one of the few products that we haggle over in American society at any rate.

We're not used to doing that in the markets every day like they do in Europe and many other countries. So it's just for many people, it's a frustrating and stressful process. And I think it should be fun and exciting because getting a new car, oh, my gosh, is there there are a few things more exciting than that, in my opinion.

So I came up with a way to take the stress out of it and pay people money in the meantime. Yeah, I mean, buying a car is probably one of the few outside of a home, one of the biggest purchases people make, and we make it multiple times. So I think having having the skills to do that right is really important.

So before we start, I'm curious, is there a thing that you think is one of the biggest misconceptions that people have when it comes to buying a car? Oh, gosh, there are so many of those. But one of the ones that I see frequently is that people think that, oh, I can pay cash, I'll get a better deal.

And maybe back in the 60s and 70s, that was true. But because the dealers make a little bit of a commission from the banks on the back end, even if it's through their captive finance company, you can sometimes actually get a better deal if you finance. That's one of the things that I still hear today.

Oh, I should be able to get a better deal because I'm paying cash. I'm like, well, actually, no, you won't. Yeah, I mean, maybe if you're buying it from someone on Craigslist, that's a bonus. But dealership, it sounds like it's not. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I've heard you say buying a car is more of a process than an event.

And so I thought what could be helpful is to just kind of walk through that process. But it's a long process, is a lot of things. And you've done so many great episodes of your podcast to dive in. So I figured maybe today we'll start with someone who's already decided what car they want, but are just now starting to think about whether they should buy it used or new.

How do you help someone who comes to you and can't make that decision think about it? I look at a lot of different things about their lifestyle because it's more than just saving money. In most cases, yes, you can save money by buying a used car, but you're not going to get the full warranty on it.

How many miles does the car already have on it versus how many are you planning to put on it every year? If you are looking at putting 25,000, 30,000 miles on the car because you're in a sales position or you're a realtor, then you need to start with a car that is as new as possible.

Otherwise, you're not going to be able to keep it for five or six years. You're going to blow through the miles and then it's going to start costing you a ton of money in repairs while you're still paying the monthly payments on the loan. So you have to look very strategically at it.

It's not just how much money can I save up front, but then what is it going to look like keeping this car year after year after year? So if you're in sales, you just know that it's going to cost you more per year to drive because you're going to put more miles on that car.

And you don't want to be paying larger repair bills and making a $500 a month car payment at the same time. That'll kill your budget right away. So you just have to look strategically at what your lifestyle is like. What do you need this four-wheeled tool to do for you to support that lifestyle and over what period of time?

And it also depends on the car. Some cars hold their value extremely well. Others, that initial depreciation is a lot higher. So, yeah, let's save $10,000 and get one that's only a couple of years old. But that's just not true for every make and model. And it also depends on what's going on in the market.

Right now, whole different ballgame right now with the inventory shortage. But on average, not every car depreciates in the same way. Let's just put it that way. Is that more driven by the manufacturer or the car type? Is it like trucks depreciate differently than sedans or is it just varies manufacturer to manufacturer?

It's actually a little bit of both. So trucks will have a different depreciation because they're used in the work environment. But it can also vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Cars that are more reliable or at least the perception of the general public is that they're more reliable will hold their value better.

Cars that were a lot more expensive to begin with. So a lot of your highline cars, your BMWs, your Mercedes, especially the super expensive ones that are maybe, you know, $80,000 to $100,000 new. Those are going to have a higher initial depreciation because you can either afford $100,000 car or you can't.

So there's not a lot. And the people that can't afford them do buy them new because they want a new one and they can afford it and all the power to them. Great. But then it goes on to the secondary market and now you're into a completely different demographic looking at that vehicle used.

So they tend to have a higher depreciation. But, you know, Cadillac Escalades have one of the highest depreciations of any car. You know, anything made by Toyota is going to hold its value a lot better. Is there a site, is it Consumer Reports or somewhere that you can kind of easily look up the reliability of cars in kind of an easy way?

Easy is a relative term, but I do love Consumer Reports as a research tool because it is self-funded. It's not funded by advertising. So you can trust their information. And they also gather the information from actual owners. I don't know if you've ever had one of those surveys sent to you about your car.

I filled out a million of them, I think, over the years. And so they're getting that feedback from actual owners. You still have to take it a little bit with a grain of salt because there are some cars, especially your more economical vehicles, that are cheap or new. Sometimes they get a bad rap for bad reliability when really it's the people that are buying the cheaper cars are not maintaining them properly.

So, yes, they break down, but that's because they skimped on the maintenance. So you kind of have to look at it with a grain of salt. But I have found also just Googling "problems with your make and model" will bring up a lot. And there's a great site called carcomplaints.com that correlates a lot of that data.

And some of the information that they have is not necessarily reflected in other places in the industry. So sometimes you can find some little interesting quirks about cars on that. It's not as easy to weed through all their data, but the data is there. And that's one of the sites that I use for research.

That's great. One of the other things I think that happened when we had a child or at least we're planning for it was, you know, I was always someone who wanted the best deal. So we drove a three series BMW for almost 13 years and I didn't want to get rid of it.

It hadn't even hit 100,000 miles. We barely drove it. And then my wife said, you know, we're having a child. Do we really want to own a 15, 16 year old car? And so ultimately the decision was, yes, there are a lot of used cars that are really old.

I found that the safety features of cars in the last five years is far and above better than the safety features of a 15, 20 year old car. Is that is my finding kind of accurate? Is there a point in time at which cars got a lot better in the last few decades?

Yeah, absolutely. You're spot on. And it's not even in the last 15 years. It's really been in the last six or seven years. The new safety aids, which are some of the most desirable features on cars today, everybody wants them except me. Those driver safety aids and my driving style just don't get along.

But that's a different story. But the lane keeping, the emergency braking, I call them electronic babysitters. But they they are the building blocks for the self-driving cars that are coming down the line. And they are good because the reality is most people suck at driving. Sorry to say it, folks, but we're so much more distracted and our roads are getting more congested.

So having the car kind of given you that safety net, if you're just not quite paying attention or the kid is in the backseat screaming at you, you can't not be distracted by that. The car can hopefully save you from rear ending the guy in front of you. And those technologies started to come out in what I would call your your average consumer models, your Honda's, your Toyota's, your Hyundai's, the affordable cars in about 2016.

And they also started rolling out your Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, some of that smartphone integration, which is also popular. And so if you want those technologies, that factors into your new versus used, because for many of those, depending on the manufacturer, it might be 2018 when a lot of that was rolled out in the model you're looking at.

So, yeah, you can save a lot more money by going with a 2016 or 2017, but you're giving up these driver safety aids that might be important to you. So really looking at when did a certain feature that you want to get implemented in that car absolutely factors into your new and used equation.

Wow. OK, so newer car for safety and technology, older car could be a deal, but know what you're missing. Exactly. So you briefly touched on what's going on right now in the world in 2021. And my understanding is the residual effects of COVID on manufacturing and there's a global shortage of semiconductor chips, which cars need.

There's a big shortage. How is this affecting things? Does this change new versus used? Or I feel like you know this better than almost anyone. Yeah. And I'll tell you what, it's been driving me crazy even for the last couple of months because there is a shortage of new cars.

The manufacturers are not able to spit out as many because, like you said, they don't have enough computer chips to actually build them. Some of the manufacturers like Ford, they've been building these cars, especially the trucks and the SUVs that have a lot of fancier features. So they need even more computer chips.

They're assembling the cars without those components and then parking them on a supply lot, you know, somewhere out by a factory. And they're just sitting there waiting until they get the shipments of chips that they can then add in all those electronics components and actually finish building the car, which is a scary thought.

So a lot of people haven't been able to find the new car that they want. So now they're looking at the slightly used ones. Well, what does that do? That drives up the demand for the used cars. But there's also a supply shortage there because people have been extending their leases.

They haven't been turning over the people that would normally lease a new car every few years. Well, they can't get the new cars, so they extended their lease. They're not turning in that leased car. So now the supply of three-year-old cars is low. So it's really a big mess right now.

So the car buying strategies that I teach people, they all still apply. But you kind of have to take it to the Olympic level now. And it's just like jockeying. It's like when we were trying to get the last packet of toilet paper last year. It's now cars are the toilet paper.

And so you're just jockeying, trying to get your hands on the one car. I've literally been buying cars that as soon as the truck shows up at the dealership and the dealer calls me, I'm like, yes, we'll take that one. So they're selling stuff before it even arrives on their lot.

I can't even find cars to test drive for some people, depending on what it is they're looking at. It's crazy. Does that mean if you want to test drive and you probably don't have a chance with new cars, so you might have you thought of should people like rent a car on Turo or something just so they can see how the car drives so that they're ready to pull the trigger?

Or that's actually not a bad idea in cities that have those options where you can rent a car from a private party that owns that car that's kind of renting it out. It's sort of like, I guess, the Airbnb of cars that can be an option. In some cases, I've actually had to have clients that I've bought one car.

And this is happening a lot on, for example, like the Kia Telluride, most popular SUV out there and has been since they came out a couple of years ago. But now trying to get one, I have one client that wants one, and I actually asked another client that I got one for last month if he could come see her car.

Wow. Yeah. I was like, well, my neighbor has one. Maybe they'll let me drive theirs. Let's call and ask. Wow. You have to get really creative right now if you want one of the cars that's just hot, hot on the market and they're pre-sold a couple of months in advance.

And I assume creative includes things like you might not get the color you want, the options you want. You might have to drive to pick it up or fly to pick it up. Yeah, I have been transporting more cars across state lines. You know, I have a client in Nebraska and we bought a car for her in Illinois and we shipped it across.

I've been doing so much of that. And fortunately, I have a good relationship with a good auto transport company that does a great job with that. But I have ordered and transported across state lines more cars in the last year than I have in the last 15. Wow, that's crazy.

It's just nuts. Someone told me that you've got to find the things that you can deal with like color right now. And the one question that I just didn't know the answer to is, is it easy to change the color of a car? Like if I find the perfect car and it's red and I just want a black car, do I just buy the red car and paint it?

Is that a better deal than waiting for the black car to come up? Or is that like a terrible idea because of all the coating they put on cars these days that it's going to end up being really expensive? Anything can be done if you throw enough money at it.

But here's the thing about painting a new car. Once you paint a car, you have destroyed the resale value because now it looks like the car's been wrecked. Like, why did you repaint this car? It destroys the resale value. So you might consider something like a wrap. You can get really cool vehicle wraps.

Again, not inexpensive in any way, shape or form. You're going to drop, you could drop as much as, you know, three to ten grand, depending on how crazy a wrap you want. But that's a way to get a different color. It's not going to look the same as paint.

But if you want something that's just kind of interesting or funky or just different, yeah, you can wrap the car and then that doesn't hurt its resale value because the wrap just comes right off. But you can paint it if you want. Just be aware that you've killed the resale value.

And if you've leased the car, they will definitely frown upon that. OK, so I'll separate the new versus used, and I have a couple of questions on each. New seems to be a place where dealers are where you get new cars. So it at least seems a little easier and approachable as to where.

If you wanted to buy a new car right now, do you have to reach out to four dealers, ten dealers, all the dealers? Is there a way to reach out to every dealer or see inventory everywhere? Or how do people start to think about finding a new car? You know, right now, I know it's hard, but even in the future.

Sure. Even in normal times, if we ever go back to something that's normal, you should always shop around to at least three or four different new car dealers just to find the best deal. That's how you're going to make sure that you get the best end to end deal because they all have different pricing strategies.

Some may put accessories on the car, some might not. There's really eight areas in any car deal where the dealer tries to make money off of you. So you've got to look out for yourself in all of those areas, not just negotiating the price of the actual vehicle that you're buying.

It's a there's more variables in that equation than most people think. Right now, you may have to look at every dealer in your city. Here, for example, in Charlotte, we've probably got nine Toyota stores within a 45 minute radius of the city of Charlotte. You may have to go further out.

I have been literally looking at cars within probably a two to three hundred mile radius trying to find exactly what the client wants. In normal times, let's say you want the black car, but the dealer doesn't have a black car and you're not going to take the red car.

Dealers do what is called dealer trading. They will play musical inventory with each other. Each dealership has a network of other dealers that are trading partners, and they'll call each other up and be like, hey, dude, you got this black one. Can we have it? We'll give you this blue one.

And they do that all the time. It's a standard in the industry. And so if your dealer doesn't have the car you want, you can see if they can trade for it with another dealer. That way, you're still buying from your local guy, which is more convenient for you.

And of course, obviously, that dealer wants to make the sale to you, but it just gives them access to more inventory. Nowadays, what's happening in the industry with the lack of inventory, dealers are not trading with each other very much. It's very difficult to make that happen. So you as the car shopper must look at all the inventory out there.

And while your sites like Autotrader, Cars.com, you can shop for new cars there. Just keep in mind that the cars that are listed on there may not actually be available. That car may have already sold and it just takes a while for it to fall off of that conglomerate site, or it might not be here yet, or it may be in transit to the dealership, but somebody else already has a deposit on it.

So you just you have to call around. So, for example, I have a client here in Charlotte that just on Saturday took delivery of his brand new red, he wanted the red one, Mazda CX-9, and it was a Grand Touring trim. Nobody had a red one. The red with the tan interior is the most popular color for that car.

And there were just there were none. I didn't see any in the production pipeline, didn't see any on the water, nothing. We couldn't do a dealer trade for it. Just on a whim, as a last ditch effort, so we didn't have to take a blue one that was coming into the port in Wilmington.

I'm like, I'm just going to look one more time. And I found one on the website of a dealership in Winston-Salem, which is only two hours away. I'm like, oh, that has to be pre-sold. And they were hiding it in the production system. But I called. They're like, yeah, it should be here any day now.

It's not pre-sold. I said, it is now. Here's the credit card number for the deposit. So, you know, it just took calling around. Literally, I probably called 30 Mazda stores to find a car for this client, whereas before I would have had to have called three. And is calling the move or is email ever more effective?

No, email is usually not as effective. You end up on the mailing list of every dealership in the country, which is and hitting the unsubscribe button doesn't seem to help. But for me, I am also calling the general manager. I'm calling the top boss in the dealership. I'm not talking to a salesperson.

I go straight to the top of the food chain and have that conversation. And that that gets me more places. Yeah. And but I have a different relationship because I'm inside the industry. So I'm inside the boys club. I speak their language. They know who I am. So I can make those phone calls.

Yeah, I have cell phone numbers. What about those sites like Trucar, Costco's auto buying program? Are those useful in general? Useful now? I personally don't find them to be particularly useful. You have to any of those. Sites, really, they are advertising sites for the dealerships. So, yes, they may have a prearranged pricing deal with one or two dealers in your area.

That prearranged relationship may or may not be the best available deal in the market currently. And there's a lot of fine print that you have to understand if they don't have the exact make model, the exact options, the exact colors that you want. They don't have to honor that price.

There's a lot of loopholes in those contracts for the dealers to not be required to honor that price that was displayed on the website to you. And you're still on your own with your trade, your financing, all those other areas in the deal where the dealer makes money off of you.

And it doesn't include dealer installed accessories. There's just a lot of areas where if the dealer is giving you a good price through that website, they are making it up somewhere else. So that's why I personally don't find them helpful, because it's just maybe it maybe gives you five to ten percent of the whole puzzle.

OK, and so we talked about a couple of sites. You mentioned Cars.com changing gears to used cars. I feel like there's a lot more places to buy a used car than a new car. And that could be Craigslist. It could be all these new kind of car sites like Carvana.

It could be dealer inventory. Is there a place that searches all of them? Do you have to do it all yourself? There's not one site that searches absolutely everything. Your bigger sites like Autotrader and Cars.com, that's going to give you used cars at your franchise dealers, used cars at independent dealers.

And not every dealership has a relationship with both of those companies. So sometimes I'll see things on Cars.com that I didn't see on Autotrader. So I look at both. You can see cars that are for sale by owner, and you'll usually get the better cars that are for sale by owner will be on those sites because you actually have to pay to advertise them.

You know, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, those are free to advertise. And so there's a lot of junk out there and there's a lot of scammers out there. Facebook Marketplace is I swear there are probably 20 percent of the cars listed there are scammers. So you really have to be careful.

And if you see in the description, don't chat me. I don't respond to chats. Email this person and said, I'm selling the car for my aunt, my sister, my mother. One hundred percent scam. Never, ever communicate with a seller outside of that platform because that means that they're not legit.

If you have some conversations via that platform and then you start texting each other, you know, after you verified that you're both real, that's perfectly fine. But if it says in the description, don't chat me. I'm selling it for my aunt, send her this email. That is a 100 percent scam.

So you just have to be careful. But depending on the price of the car that you're looking at, the more expensive cars are going to be advertised on AutoTraderCars.com. If you're selling a car for 20 grand, it's OK to pay, you know, 30, 40 bucks to advertise it. If you're selling a $5,000 car, yeah, stick to Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.

For cities that still actually have classified ads in the paper newspaper, you can find some gems in there if you're looking for an inexpensive car, because the older crowd, you're retired folks. Not all of them are on Marketplace or Craigslist yet. They're still very old school and still there's still advertising that car that they drove on Sundays only.

That's in fantastic condition. They might advertise it still in the paper. Here in Charlotte, we don't have classifieds anymore. I found that I was like, there's no classifieds. So that's a dying thing. But if you still live in a town that has newspaper classifieds and you need something cheap, take a look there first.

You might find that diamond in the rough. Wow. What about CarMax and Carvana and some of these like used car non-dealer kind of marketplaces or not marketplaces, but sales companies? Well, they are dealerships. They're independent dealerships. So they just have a little bit of a different model. CarMax has the physical locations.

They were the first ones that really came into the industry and said, you know what? People hate haggling. We're going to have a no haggle model. That doesn't mean the car is a good deal. Their profit margin per vehicle is actually way higher than most dealerships. But now we're seeing a new model of the online only dealerships.

They don't have a physical lot. You can't go look at the car. And while I'm perfectly comfortable buying a lot of products off of Amazon, off the Internet and having it delivered to my house, and if it takes more than two days, I get pissed. A car you have to understand when you're buying from one of these dealerships, you don't even get to test drive it.

You don't even get to see it until after you've already bought it. Now, they have a caveat in there that says you have five days or seven days to return it. Be sure that you already have a pre-purchase inspection appointment scheduled with your mechanic within that window so that if you take that car, they bring it to your house, they drop it off the truck, you sign the paperwork, it's yours.

You've only got a few days to get that car inspected. And if the mechanic finds a big problem with it that you can't live with, you've got to hurry up and get through that return process before that very short time window expires. And they're counting on 95 percent of the people not doing that.

But it violates, you know, one of my absolute just hard, fast rules in my world is you do not buy a used car without a pre-purchase inspection, you know, unless it's, you know, six months old and has three thousand miles and it's certified pre-owned from the dealership down the road and you can go look at it.

You need a pre-purchase inspection. So I really applaud their business model. It's a fantastic business model. But you can you're taking on increased risk and you need to take the steps to mitigate those risks by booking that pre-purchase inspection within that window and getting it done. It seems like with every business, you get to a certain size and the cracks start to emerge.

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Can you do these kind of pre-purchase inspections remotely? Is there any easy way to make that happen? Oh, yes, there is. There is a wonderful third-party company that I have been working with since they started. The original founder of that company started the company. I found him, and he built a lot of his processes around what I needed, so I was really grateful.

He's since sold the company. It's called the Lemon Squad. Okay, best branding ever, right? And you can just go online, and they have a network of ASC-certified mechanics that they send out to do the inspections. I have used them successfully from New York to California. I think it's a great company.

There are other companies that do the same thing. I just knew the owner, Andy, and their branding's great. So I have sent them to look at cars in New York. I've sent them to look at cars in California and everywhere in between. There has not been a small town in the middle of nowhere USA that they have not been able to get a technician to.

They've had to charge extra in some cases because the technician had to drive an hour and a half out into a cornfield to see the car, but they got it done. So it can be done remotely. There's a lot out there if you just know where to go. And for someone who's never done a pre-purchase inspection, is this like $100, $500?

What's a ballpark cost for getting a car inspected? If you take it to your local mechanic at home, they may charge anywhere from, you know, $90 to $120. It's usually around an hour of labor. The companies like the Lemon Squad, they charge more, but you don't have to go anywhere.

They charge, I think they charge maybe $170 or $180 for it. I get a discount, so I only pay, I think, $130, but it's money well spent. And they give you this great report. They send you 4 million pictures, half of which you as an average person might not even know what it is.

Sometimes I'm looking, I'm like, what is that? Oh, that's the backside of the exhaust manifold. OK, no rust on it. Yay. So they're very, very detailed. Nice. And a few others, is the certified pre-owned, is that a thing worth paying for? I remember when I bought my car maybe 15 years ago, there were some CPO cars on the lot and some non, how important is looking at the certified pre-owned kind of label on a used car?

The certified pre-owned does a few things for you. It means that it met a set of standards for that manufacturer. What you have to understand is that doesn't mean the car is perfect. It doesn't necessarily mean that the car has not been in an accident. Each manufacturer has different parameters for what they will allow on a certified pre-owned.

So, for example, with Subaru, they have a list of, most of them have 150 odd things that they look at. But for example, it can bend in an accident, but you can't have the accident effect more than two body panels. So maybe if a bumper and a quarter panel were fixed from the accident, that's still okay, but if it was a hood and a bumper and a quarter panel, then they can't certify it.

But each manufacturer is a little bit different and it doesn't mean the car is going to be cosmetically perfect. So it's good to try and get your hands on what those inspection criteria are to know. And it gives you a certain amount of extended factory backed warranty beyond the original factory warranty.

But again, that varies by manufacturer. So a couple of certified pre-owned programs that I think are absolutely worth it, Hyundai and Kia. If you buy one brand new, you get the full five year, 60,000, what we call bumper to bumper. The lawyers don't let the dealers call it that anymore, but for you and me, bumper to bumper.

But you get the 10 years or 100,000 miles on the powertrain. That's your engine, your transmission, the expensive stuff that makes the car go back and forth. If you are the second owner, if you buy one used, you don't get that 10, 100 powertrain. You only get the five year, 60, unless it's certified pre-owned, then you get that 10, 100 back.

That's absolutely worth it. Audi, for example, if you only get one year extra, but you get unlimited miles. So if you drive a lot of miles every year, that's maybe worth it to you. There are dealers up in New York that they don't certify any of their Audis, even though they could, the car's perfectly good shape would meet the certification criteria.

But the dealers in New York are like, we don't need the mileage. We need the time. Everybody goes to work on the subway. You know, they only put 3,000 miles a year on the car. So it's not worth the nearly $2,000 that that certification costs. Audi certification is more expensive than say Honda certification or Hyundai certification.

So you have to look at what you get with that certified pre-owned warranty, because it varies dramatically across manufacturer. And then see, okay, how much extra am I paying for that? And is that worth it to you based on how you're going to use that car? But it's absolutely worth it with a Hyundai and Kia, Lexus, Audi and Porsche give you unlimited miles.

So if you drive a lot, it can totally be worth it on those. Toyota, it's like, eh, that's nice, but you know, it's a Toyota. It's not going to break anyway. So are there any hacks for finding cars? Is it auctions? Is it like getting on a list for dealer demos that are coming up?

Are there are there things that you won't find on the internet that are worth pursuing to try to get a car before everyone else, especially right now? Auctions, most auctions are not open to the public. The auctions that are open to the public are pretty scary. Those are the cars that the dealers, nobody wanted those.

So you're basically getting, you know, the bottom of the barrel, you know, police auctions, all that stuff is as is. And so unless you're very mechanically inclined, that's just the risk of getting something there is you're not going to get anything good. It's going to take a lot of work.

So the right now, really, it's about making phone calls and just pounding the pavement until you can find something and build a good relationship with a dealer so that you're saying, OK, you know, you don't have it on your lot right now, but you've placed an order for one of these.

It's supposed to be coming in sometime next month. Get get your name on that car, pay that deposit so that they presell it to you. It really is pounding the pavement. I've got some different relationships because for me, it's an ongoing relationship. I've been working with some of these dealers for nearly 20 years.

So a couple of weeks ago when one of my Telluride clients, we had very specific. Yes, she wanted the EX Premium with the captain's chairs in the wolf gray with the new nightfall package and all wheel drive, very specific. And I just knew we were going to have to order one.

But one of my dealers called me and said, I have exactly the car that you want. It was it arrived this morning. The person who placed the order backed out of the deal at the last minute. Do you want it? You can have it without any markups or any dealer add-ons.

And I said, yes, send me the paperwork. But you know, but I've known that dealer for 15 years. So for the rest of the world, you just have to pound the pavement right now. And you may need to look at private party sales. A lot of people are like, hey, you know, I can get some good money for my car right now.

But I tell you what, Carvana and Vroom and those online dealers, because they're not getting the cars from the rental fleets, which usually make up the bulk of their inventory. They are putting some crazy money. So if you've got a car that you don't really drive a whole lot and you're like, maybe I'll sell that.

Now is the time to do it. You can make some great money by selling that car that you don't necessarily need. Yeah, sell your second cars if you don't need it. Right. Right now, we're like, we're going the opposite direction. We're like, oh, we have a kid, a dog and people coming into town to visit the kid.

Maybe we need two cars. I'm like scared. But maybe we just sell the car and get a bigger car. There you go. That might be the more economical thing to do. While you can get great money for your trade-in, you know, you may have to apply that extra money to the new car that you're buying because the pricing has just kind of shifted.

So yeah. So once you find the car, you're like, okay, I found the car. I feel like there's kind of two big questions for me. Is one, are you leasing or buying it? And then two is what's the price and negotiating? Do you want to make one of those decisions before the other?

Do you want to negotiate it and then decide lease or buy? Or do you have to make the lease or buy first? I approach... I don't like to tell the dealers that it's a lease because when they hear that you want to lease, all they're going to give you is that monthly payment.

They think that that's all that matters to you. And they're not going to give you any of the other numbers. So I always negotiate the price of the car first. But keep in mind, some of the incentives from the manufacturer only apply to leasing or only apply to purchasing.

So that final negotiated price may be different. But you bring that into the game later. I always negotiate the price, but I've done my research ahead of time. So I know which rebates apply to leasing and which ones only apply to purchasing. So I'll go through that process, do some additional math on my own, and then go there and say, "Hey, let's look and see what that looks like on a lease." But if you don't negotiate that upfront, that lease that they give you is going to be based on full price.

Wow. And how does the average person negotiate the price? Does it go online and look at the value on Edmunds or another site? Is it working with the dealer? Are there tricks to get it done? I've helped friends negotiate cars, and I felt like I was a little clueless going in there with information.

There's a couple different steps. You start with doing your homework. And that is researching what more or less price you should pay. Edmunds is great. You want to look at, okay, what's the MSRP? Then what's invoice price? And the advertised invoice price varies a little bit. It may not be 100% accurate because there are things like advertising money and some things like that that may come into play and may vary by region.

But you can get a good idea of what the bottom line price is. You need to see what types of incentives are there. Are there rebates? So, I research it on sites like Edmunds. I also go to the manufacturer's website directly to see what they advertise. And you can get about 75% of the information you need to effectively negotiate the price of a new car on those sites.

I have access to additional information. So, I know some of the incentives that are secret, that go back and forth between the manufacturer and the dealer that the dealer may not tell you about. That's when step two comes in, and that is shopping around. As I said before, you need to shop to at least three or four different dealers to see just how low can you get them.

You just kind of make the rounds, make the rounds, and let them know you're shopping around and whoever gives you the best bottom line price. But in the process of doing that, be sure you're asking them for a full numbers breakdown. They will just send you the price of the car.

And then when you get into the dealership, you realize they've added on, you know, $2,000 worth of BS accessories, you know, window tints and paint protection and all that stuff that you didn't want. And their dock fee, and then you get into the taxes and tags. So, there's a lot of areas that the dealer can add on money.

So, they may have shown you a really low price for that car that you want, but that's because they are adding on a bunch of junk to the sale when you actually get in the door. So, always ask for that numbers breakdown and get what the industry calls the out-the-door price.

Then you know, then you can compare apples to apples, because until then, one dealership may be offering you a price that's $2,000 less. And you're like, "Wow, that's a great deal." And you run into that dealership to close the deal, but they added $4,000 worth of junk to the car that you didn't need to pay for.

Yeah, never good. Are there things that are more negotiable, right? You know, if you do want some add-on accessories, are those much more negotiable than, you know, getting far below invoice? They can be. It just really depends on how you're structuring the overall deal. A lot of people ask a dealer to, "Hey, will you throw in a maintenance plan?

Will you throw in rubber floor mats? Will you throw in..." Anytime you're asking the dealer to throw in something to the deal, that means that they had room in the deal to do that and still make money. So, I work with my dealers very transparently. We just work in true bottom line numbers.

So, when I negotiate a deal on the car, that's our absolute bottom line number. They're not just going to be able to throw in anything else because I've eliminated their entire profit margin on the price of the car. But they'll add on things like, "Hey, we want crossbars on the roof rails." Well, they'll do that at cost versus what the retail markup would be to add those accessories, things like that.

You've really got to keep it all separate because they're going to listen to what's important to you. It's like, "Yeah, if they can throw in a $600 maintenance plan, that means there was still a whole lot of profit in your deal that you were leaving on the table to start with." Are there any things that when you just want to get that last little bit out of the deal that some people might not think to throw in that are worth throwing in?

For me, I remember with my car, when you bought a BMW at least 15 years ago, you only got one key that could remotely unlock the car. And so I remember whenever I told anyone, I was like, "Look, if you're going to negotiate one thing at the end, try to get them to throw in a second key." Are there other things like that that people should...

If they're at the end and they feel like they think they've got as much as they could, there's one more good thing to ask for? Fortunately, the cars come with two keys now. So you don't have to worry about getting that second key. Used cars don't always come with two keys, but new ones do.

If there's something that I can usually get thrown in at the last minute, it'll be rubber floor mats because they can usually get those. They're usually about $100 cost, but they might be able to take them out of another car that's already on their lot and then replace them and then add the price onto theirs.

So that's something that occasionally will get thrown in at the very last minute. It's like, "Can we get some rubber mats?" And is there a better time to do this? Is this like, do it in the fall, do it at the end of the month, do it at the end of the year?

Depends on the market for the vehicle that you're looking for. And again, all this goes out the window this year. So, you know, in a normal year, there are different times of year, like July is usually the best month to buy new pickup trucks. That is not going to be true likely this July.

You're gonna be lucky to find any pickup trucks that are still on the lots in this July. Waiting till the end of the month, and I tell people don't wait until the last day to start this process, because remember, this is a process, not an event. Give yourself a couple of weeks to go through this whole process.

But if you want to kind of get close to that last week of the month, so like right now, we're recording this on, what, the 24th. You know, we got basically one week left. That's when you can start pulling a little more of that pressure because they're looking at their numbers going, "Okay, we're running out of time to make these quotas that we want to make." So, as a periodic car shopper, as a retail car shopper, that can be of an advantage to you.

I don't have to play those games with them because I buy so many cars that I can get the same deal usually. Now, you can wait till the second half of the month because the manufacturer is looking at their numbers. And if they see, "Okay, we didn't do as much the first half of the month as we would like, so we're gonna add another $500 rebate for the second half of the month." So, you may be able to get a little bit of a better price if the manufacturer sweetens the pot in the second half of the month.

And then this question that I've always wanted to know, and I've actually never been able to ask. When you're at the dealership, you know, back in times when we went in places in person more, and you've negotiated the price and the guy says, "Let me get back to you," and goes into the office in the back.

What? Do you know what's happening in there? Are they just talking and then coming back out? Did they already know what they were doing? They are going to their sales manager. The salesperson that you interact with is only allowed to give you so much of a discount off the price of the car.

So, when he says he has to go back and talk to his manager, that's actually true. And the conversation that they're having is, you know, he's telling his manager, he or she is telling the manager about the customer. Here's what's going on in the deal. Here's what's important to them.

And they're coming up with a strategy of how little of an additional discount can they offer and think you're still going to say yes. So, they're coming up with an additional sales strategy. And sometimes the sales manager, you know, might come out and talk with you if they're busy that they won't.

But that salesperson only has so much pricing, decision-making authority, beyond that it's above his pay grade. And he has to literally go talk to his boss to see if he can get that. And sometimes the salesperson is actually negotiating with the manager saying, "Dude, I really need this sale because I haven't met my quotas this month.

And will you please do this for me so that I can sell it to this guy so I can make my numbers for the month?" So, sometimes they're actually advocating on your behalf, but they're trying to figure out, you know, what can they come back with that you will likely say yes to that still makes them money.

Remember, a dealership is a for-profit business. It's not a charity. It's, they're under no obligation to give you a zero-profit deal on a silver platter. That is why we go through this negotiating process. But if they didn't make any money, then their doors wouldn't be open and we wouldn't have anybody to buy cars from.

So, that's why what's going on now is especially challenging for them because they're not making the money by volume. So, they have to make a higher profit on every car they sell because they're only selling a fraction of the number of cars that they normally do. And that salesperson still has bills to pay, as does the dealership.

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- Yeah, I think, don't forget that, you know, anyone you're negotiating with, whether it's the customer service agent with the airline or someone at the car dealer, like they're all humans and they generally want to do better for people who are nice to them. And I've found, you know, I've observed people yelling at the salespeople at dealerships trying to get better deals.

And I just tend to think that's probably not the right strategy. - Exactly. And, you know, one of the things that I just, you know, have an advantage is that I buy more cars in a week than most people do in their lifetime. So it's a different relationship, but it is the dealers that, you know, we're trying to create a win-win.

So I'm not out to screw the dealers. Yes, I'm out to get the absolute best possible and then deal that I possibly can for my clients, but they can afford to give those discounts because, you know, I may buy six cars from one dealership this month. This time last year, I was actually the top salesperson, so to speak, for one of my local dealerships here in Charlotte because of the lockdown.

I sold more cars than any of their internal salespeople did. - Wow, that's wild. - It was hilarious. - Bummer for those salespeople. - Bummer for them, yeah. But I tell you what, that dealer loves me now because I helped them stay afloat. - You're gonna be at the top of their list.

- Yeah, it was really nice. They do a good job for me, so they earn that business. It's not just given to them, they earn it. - Yeah, in a time like this, where prices are higher than they are normally, if I go to Edmunds and find out the invoice price, that maybe doesn't help me negotiate like I used to.

If you know that you're gonna pay over, is there any way to kind of figure out what the best price is if you're not targeting a specific invoice price or something like that? - It's a matter of making those phone calls. Just call around. First of all, see who has the car that you want.

It's honestly a can I find what I want game right now, not a can I get the best possible deal on it. And then just, if you're flexible, you're like, yeah, I don't care, I'll take any color. Then it's about calling around and letting the dealer know, hey, I don't care what color it is, I just wanna get a decent deal.

And make those phone calls. Call 10, 20 dealerships, literally, and see who will give you the best overall deal. - And let's say I have decided, no, I actually want this one particular car. I call 30 dealers, only one of them has anything like it. And they give me a price.

Do I just have to take that? I don't have an alternative. Is there a rule of thumb on what to come back with? Is it 10% lower? Is it 5% lower to try to get the best deal you can when you have no leverage? - You can try, it never hurts to ask.

But if they laugh and hang up on you, then 30 seconds later, someone else may have bought that car. So it's just, it's a decision that you've got to make. And that's what I'm being honest with people that, you know, I'm talking to now that say they want a car.

I'm like, here's what's going on in the industry. It's about finding the car. We do not have the leverage that we normally would in negotiating. I cannot guarantee what kind of deal we can get, but I can guarantee that I will scour the earth to find what you're looking for and figure out what's gonna be the best way to get that to you.

And I know a lot more avenues for obtaining the vehicles than you might know. But yeah, there's just sometimes where you just, if you want it, you gotta pay for it. You're always welcome to walk away and not get a car. - Yeah, so briefly coming back to leases, my understanding of how leases work at the highest level is you have a price, the dealer comes up with what they think it will be worth as a residual value after your, let's say three-year lease.

And I've always assumed dealers are conservative, right? They don't wanna lose money. So if you're not gonna drive the car very hard and not gonna put a lot of miles on it, you're probably gonna overpay taking a lease. But if you're gonna drive right up to and not over the limit and your kids are gonna throw food all over the car and you really value just not having to haggle for a new car in three years, it could make sense.

Or I guess if you can expense or write off your lease payments, is that kind of a general, the way it works? Or am I totally off? - Sort of, you have it partially right. The dealerships do not set the residual value. - Okay. - The only thing the dealers get to do is decide the selling price.

That's what you negotiate. The lease is based on the residual value, which is based on what they anticipate the car will be worth at the end of that lease, depending on, so whether you say you're gonna drive 10,000 miles a year or 12,000 miles a year or 15,000 miles a year, that affects that residual.

That and what's called a money factor, which just think of that as leasing's equivalent of an APR, an interest rate. That's what determines what that lease payment is gonna be. The dealers do not set those. The captive finance companies do. So BMW Financial, Honda Financial, Southeastern Toyota Financial, the banks who hold the lease make those determinations.

And those are not negotiable. If you don't drive a lot of miles, maybe you only drive 5,000 miles a year, even in non-pandemic years, then you don't necessarily need a 12,000 mile a year lease. You can say, "Hey, well, do you offer a low mileage lease?" Honda, Toyota, they normally don't.

They might go down to 10,000. Most of them are 12,000 is the lowest. Some companies will do a 10,000 mile a year lease. Your more expensive cars like Mercedes and BMW and Audi, Porsche, definitely, they have very low mileage leases 'cause a lot of times people will lease those, but it's not their daily driver.

So only by the number of miles that you think you're gonna need, maybe a little bit more, but that's a decision that you have to make. Leasing is a lifestyle choice. If you like to have a new car every three years, you don't like to deal with expensive maintenance items, and you don't drive a lot of miles per year, you may be a great lease candidate, and that's the right solution for you.

If you do not use all the miles on your lease, one of the things that the leasing companies don't want you to know is that at the end of your lease, you don't just have to turn it in. They'll tell you you can either turn it in or you can buy it out.

There is a third option in most cases, and that is you can trade in that leased car just like you would any other car that you have sitting in your driveway, because leasing is just another way to finance the car. They pay it off, you negotiate a trade price, and they pay off the lease just like they would pay off the loan with the bank.

It's really no different. So that means if you didn't drive as many miles, you might have positive equity in that car when you go to trade it in. That positive equity should be in your pocket. You should be able to apply that to your next lease or your next purchase.

But the leasing company doesn't want you to know that because they want that equity in their pocket. They wanna be able to turn around and sell it for more money than they were expecting. So that's one of the biggest secrets of leasing is you can trade in your leased car and keep that equity for yourself.

You just don't mention to the dealer that it's leased until after you've already come up with that nice trade price. So do it all the time, been doing it for 20 years. It does work that way. - And I assume you could also go to these online sites you said that are paying top dollar right now and sell your lease to them.

And you're not really selling the lease. You're selling them the car and you're paying off the lease. But if they're gonna offer you more than the dealer will on the trade in, is that you could do that as well? - Absolutely. I did two of them last week that way.

- Okay, wow. And if you have a car that's up for lease right now, given how high prices are, even if you didn't put half them, I mean, even if you hit all the miles, you might be better off doing this because used cars are just so much more valuable this year than they have been before.

- Absolutely. I always tell people about a month or about two months before your lease comes due, start looking at the market value of your car to see if you have any positive equity. Because yes, that's absolutely true. But especially right now with the crazy money that the cars are bringing, even if you're slightly over your miles, you may still be able to get out of it cleanly, trading it or selling it to a place like Vroom or Carvana that's paying crazy money versus actually having to pay money to the leasing company because you're over your miles.

There's a lot of options right now. A few of the manufacturers have been, I've heard whispers, I have not confirmed this. So please take it with a grain of salt. But I've heard of a couple of manufacturers saying that they're not gonna allow you to sell your car to someone else, trade it into a different dealer other than one of their own franchise dealers because they know that Vroom and Carvana, those companies are "stealing their cars." I have not confirmed that.

I'm not even sure it's legal under the contracts. But that may be something. That is something that they told me. They're like, "Oh no, you're not gonna be able to sell that." I'm like, "Yeah, I'm gonna still try anyway because I don't think you're telling me the truth." And if you had enough money, you could always just buy it and sell it.

Even if they offered that or change those rules, they're still not gonna stop you from buying it. Correct. You could always buy it out from them. You just have to pay it off or get another loan for it. Yeah, you can do that. But that's why you don't wanna wait until two days before the leases do.

Give yourself a couple of months because there is a process and it does take typically seven to 10 days for it to get fully paid off, et cetera. And so forth. But yeah, absolutely. And those companies will tell you if you go on to one of those online dealerships and fill out a form to get the quote on your car, they ask if it's a clear title, meaning you own it outright or if there's a loan or if it's a lease.

And if for some reason it's a lease and they are not allowed to buy it, they will tell you. Okay. And here's one. If two people bought the same car, one leased it for three years, one just bought it outright or financed it, and then three years later, the leased person goes, trades it in, buys another car, and the other person goes in and just trades it in and buys another car.

If you value that ability to trade cars every three years, are you getting a better deal with leasing or is it just kind of easier? You're getting a better deal usually depending on the car because with leasing, you're only paying for the portion of the car that you're using.

So you're financing three years and 36,000 miles of the car versus financing the entire value of the car. That's why those lease payments are lower. But I urge people to reconsider if they're only looking at leasing to get a lower payment, they're using it as a financial strategy, they're asking for trouble because if they don't know how many miles a year that they drive, I just see so many people get in trouble leasing, particularly realtors, people in sales that want to drive that luxury car to project a certain image.

And I respect that as a business owner, but they also drive 30,000 miles a year and they don't realize that their $12,000 a year lease, you know, they get to the end of their lease and didn't realize that they are now, you know, 60,000 miles over the lease and now they actually owe, you know, $15,000 in overage charges.

So you can get yourself in trouble leasing, there are more risks. But if you're a good lease candidate and you do just want a new car every three years, yeah, it can be an excellent option and you'll pay less money. If you're in that circumstance where you just totally blew over the miles and the dealership wants to charge you a huge penalty, are you ever better off just buying the car and selling it than paying the penalty for going over?

Very often, yes. And I tell people that in most situations, you can actually refinance the car directly with your bank. You don't necessarily have to go to the dealership and buy it out because that saves you typically $1,000 to $2,000 in bogus fees that you don't actually have to pay.

Call your bank directly, especially if you have a credit union, say, "Hey, I want to refinance my lease." Interest rate is going to be a little bit higher. It'll probably be about the same as buying a used car. But they'll be able to do that whole process with you without the dealer charging you all their fees on top of just the price of the car.

So when I bought my most recent car, I found that the financing rates from the dealership weren't great. And so I ended up going to a credit union. Is that normal? I see all these ads about 0% APR. Should people be shopping those interest rates around? Or is it really like, if it's not 0%, go elsewhere?

If you have excellent credit, anytime you see those 0% or 0.9, 1.9, those are being offered by the manufacturer's captive finance company to help sell cars. But you have to have excellent credit to get those, typically 720 credit score or above. So if you don't qualify for them, then absolutely go to your credit union.

If they don't have one of those special APRs and they just have normal rates, the dealers have relationships with multiple banks, sometimes even with credit unions in your area. It doesn't necessarily hurt to let them shop your rates 'cause they're only pulling your credit once. And then they'll look and see based on your credit, they know which of their banks to talk to.

But getting pre-approved through your own credit union or your own bank is always a good step 'cause then you know you've got something in your pocket and you can go to the dealer and say, "Hey, can you beat this rate?" - It was kind of a pain to get my pre-approval and then they had to like mail the check to the dealership.

I did feel like it would have been easier if I went with a dealer, but in this case, it was like 3% or 4% versus 1.5%. And so I just- - And different banks have different processes. More and more of them are getting with the times and can get things done faster.

Very few have to mail a paper check anymore, but there are still those few little credit unions that are still operating in 1976. So then you just have to decide, the money that I'm saving worth the extra hassle or not. - Yep, and last big one is when you're done, let's say I've decided I found the car I want.

I didn't lease my car, so I just have a car to get rid of. I've always logged into Kelley Blue Book and searched. And I'm like, "Man, the trade-in price is always so much worse than that private party price." What do you tell people to do when they have a car they don't need and they want to get rid of it?

Do you just trade it in? Do you try to clean it up and detail it and sell it yourself? What's the best way to get rid of a car, maximize your money and reduce your hassle? - Right now, you can get any of these online companies because they're buying them for crazy money.

In normal times, it's always a trade-off. Yes, you can typically get more money for your car, selling it privately, listing it yourself on AutoTrader or Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. A lot of times, it depends on how much that car is to begin with. If it's a $30,000 car and you might make a couple extra thousand dollars, you don't necessarily need to because you're not trying to pay off a loan that you still owe $32,000 on.

Then you have to decide, "Is it worth the amount of work that I have to do to sell it and list it and deal with all the yahoos that call you, half of whom are not serious, the other half are scammers?" Going through that process, is that worth it to you for the extra money that you're gonna make or is it not?

For a lot of people, it is. And then, yeah, they clean it up and they go through that process and they sell it and they pocket that extra money. Other people are like, "I just don't even wanna deal with it. I wanna unload it." Maybe the car has some problems and it's gonna be harder for them to sell, in which case you just sell it to a dealer.

If it's an older, higher mileage car that maybe has the occasional issue. Sometimes we pawn it off on CarMax. They actually own their own auction house. So sometimes on the older, higher mile cars, they can put more money on it because they don't have to pay to haul it to auction.

They have their own auctions. So that can be a good option as well. It really depends on what that car looks like to know exactly where to sell it. Sometimes you could even, if it's a good car, shop it around to different dealers. Some might pay $2,000 more just because you're selling your Toyota to a Toyota store versus you're selling your Toyota to a Honda store next door that can't sell three-year-old Toyotas with all those certified pre-owned ones next door.

So again, it takes shopping around. - Okay. And those online dealerships, that's Carvana, Vroom, are there any other ones people should be looking at? - You know, you'll have to Google. Those are the two that I've been looking at. I've been selling to Vroom lately because they have been getting through the process a lot faster.

I think Carvana might come up with a good offer, but then you don't hear from them for three weeks. Vroom has been getting it through the process and people have had checks in their pockets really fast. And I was very impressed with how they were handling it. So that's the direction that I have been going.

This is all very new. And quite frankly, I'm learning as I go as well. - Okay. Any other car auto tips, tricks, hacks, nothing that doesn't have to be about buying, could be about maintenance, avoiding speeding tickets, anything that you just love to share. I know you race cars, so I'm sure you have tips there.

Anything outside of the buying and selling process that you love to share? - I clearly do not have any tips for getting out of speeding tickets. If you look at my record, I just have a really good attorney. So we won't go there. But one thing about used cars is always get a Carfax report.

Always, always, always. It's if you have to buy it yourself for 30 bucks, it is well worth it to know what that history is. And you're not just looking at, was it in an accident? There's actually 30 different pieces of the data that I look at on a Carfax.

So you might find that it's a car from Canada. It's gonna have a lot of rust and it's gonna be all be in kilometers instead of miles. And you may find that it's got kind of a hanky history. It was in a state that has hurricanes and then they moved it to a state that doesn't have requirements on the titles to report those things.

And then it went back to another state. So it basically laundered the title of flood history. There's so much data that you can glean. And Carfax is the best. They're the oldest company. They have the most reporting relationships. So you're gonna get the most data from them versus AutoCheck or one of the newer companies that just doesn't have as much information.

So in my world, getting a Carfax report on a used car is non-negotiable. I have to have that or I won't buy it. - Okay. So I remember you saying earlier that there's these eight areas of negotiating. We don't need to go through all of them, but this is all something you do.

Can you talk for a couple minutes about how you help people do this? What's that model? - Absolutely. Our process is called My Perfect Car. And we look at your unique lifestyle, budget, and personality to help figure out what car are we even buying? Are we buying new versus used?

Are we buying or releasing a loan cash? We look at that whole picture to figure out what's the right way to solve this puzzle for your lifestyle and to get you what you want. And I typically narrow it down to two or three cars that I think would be perfect for you.

And then I can set you up on test drives so that you can get your butt in the seat. So we have a saying here, "Comfort is in the butt to the beholder." So you gotta get in the car and see how it feels. And then once you decide what you like best, then we'll scour the earth to find it, go through all the negotiating, handle your trade, your financing, looking at all eight of those areas in the deal to find the best overall deal for you, as well as the best customer experience.

And we'll work with the dealer then to get all the paperwork together. Sometimes we can have the car delivered to your house. If you have to go to the dealership, we make sure they have everything done ahead of time. We've had a conversation about all those extras that they might want to try and ambush you with in the finance office.

So if they are anything like an extended warranty or something that you want, I've pre-negotiated those. That way there's no surprises and you can get in and out as quickly as possible, sign papers, take the keys and get back on the road. So it's a true end-to-end service, a lot like a buyer's agent in real estate.

- And how are you compensated in this process? - We charge our clients a flat fee up front when we sign the contract. So I'm not tied to the price of the car in any way, shape or form. It's just a flat fee for the perfect car package. And if you're interested, people can contact us at our website at thecarcheck.com and sign up for a 15-minute complimentary car chat to talk about your situation and just see if we're a good fit to work together.

Not everybody's a good fit for us. We're not a good fit for everybody. But the worst thing that happens is you walk away from that conversation with a lot of good advice and we point you in the right direction. - Yeah, and hopefully everyone listening walks away from this with a lot of good advice.

I know I have. Is there anywhere else people should find you online? - They can go directly to thestraightshift.com. Don't forget the F in the last word. And they can also get to that. We have the podcast link on the website, thecarcheck.com. So we've got about 76 episodes out there on a variety of car-related topics.

So I'm passionate about educating people and helping them to get the information that they need to empower them to make smart financial decisions for themselves when it comes to buying, selling and maintaining their cars. 'Cause there's just so much confusing information out there. And so that's why we named the podcast The Straight Shift.

'Cause I am always gonna tell it to you straight, whether it's what you wanna hear or not. But I want you to have the right information to make good decisions for yourself and your family. - Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on here. This has been fantastic.

- Well, thanks for having me, Chris. I really appreciate it. - That was awesome. And thank you so much for listening. I know my mom has a lease coming up in the next few months. So I'm pretty sure I might be able to save her some money. And as always, links to everything we discussed are in the show notes at allthehacks.com.

I also wanna say thank you to all the listeners who've been reaching out with questions, their favorite hacks and ideas for guests to have on the show. I really love hearing from all of you. You can always find me on Twitter or you can email Chris at AllTheHacks and reach out about anything.

I'm already starting to think about how to build out this community, whether that's a Facebook group or part of Substack, where the newsletter is or something else. So stay tuned there. And speaking of the newsletter, I just sent the first episode out yesterday. So if you're not subscribed, you can do that on the right side of our website or at allthehacks.com/newsletter.

Finally, to everyone who's left a reviewer rating, thank you so much. If you haven't yet, it's never too late and it'd really help out the show. Have a great week. (upbeat music) I wanna tell you about another podcast I love that goes deep on all things money. That means everything from money hacks to wealth building to early retirement.

It's called the Personal Finance Podcast and it's much more about building generational wealth and spending your money on the things you value than it is about clipping coupons to save a dollar. It's hosted by my good friend, Andrew, who truly believes that everyone in this world can build wealth and his passion and excitement are what make this show so entertaining.

I know because I was a guest on the show in December, 2022, but recently I listened to an episode where Andrew shared 16 money stats that will blow your mind. And it was so crazy to learn things like 35% of millennials are not participating in their employer's retirement plan.

And that's just one of the many fascinating stats he shared. The Personal Finance Podcast has something for everyone. It's filled with so many tips and tactics and hacks to help you get better with your money and grow your wealth. So I highly recommend you check it out. Just search for the Personal Finance Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts and enjoy.