Car Dealers Admit They are IN TROUBLE: Huge Market Reset 2025 | Episode 975

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It's noon here in Ventner City, New Jersey

and our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

and this is Car Edge Live for Thursday, December 4th

with your hosts, me, Ray here in Ventner City,

sporting the I am not for everyone hoodie

and well, Zach in Washington just sporting a hoodie.

How are you, they handsome.

I'm doing okay pops.

Happy Thursday, December 4th to everyone.

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Dad, car dealers admit they are in trouble

and there's a huge market reset coming.

We're gonna kick today's show off first however,

with talking about things going on

at the federal government level debt.

We had an interesting announcement yesterday

over at the White House,

including executives from many of the major automakers,

domestic automakers,

including Stalantis General Motors and Ford.

And we've got a president,

the sitting president of the United States, Donald Trump,

wants a cute, tiny car built and sold here

in the United States of America.

And I think this has something to do, Dad,

with the fact that we've got dealers

who we covered this yesterday,

the sentiment over at car dealers

continues to get worse and worse and worse.

That's the latest data from Cox Automotive.

Do you think there's a connection here, Dad,

between this current administration's desire

to have smaller, more affordable vehicles?

There's a great clip from the White House yesterday.

Great speech talking about how we're gonna have

tiny, beautiful cars here in the United States.

That's what we've been talking about for a long, long time.

Maybe that would actually help these dealers

who are finally admitting,

okay, maybe we don't have cars that people want to buy.

What did you make of all this yesterday?

As everything that comes out of Washington,

the devil is in the details.

And we really don't have all the details yet.

And who knows when we will be able to get all the details.

I think it's wonderful that the federal government

is trying to address what we've been screaming about here

at Car Edge for the last four or five years,

that there is an affordability crisis in this country

when it comes to automobiles.

So wanting to try and address that,

they're going to ease gas mileage requirements

and emission requirements.

And they want to encourage foreign manufacturers

to produce those cute little cars in South Korea

and in Japan.

Well, to build them and sell them here in America,

which sounds great except for the fact that we know

that even when those cars have been available,

when manufacturers have offered them in this,

because they don't sell.

Well, dad, that's-

Why they don't sell, but they don't sell.

That's part of it.

So, dad, we've actually got a special guest for today's show.

We're going to bring Dan LaGrange from Key Automatically

pulled Dan up on the screen here.

Dan, I'm going to pop you right in the middle right there.

Dan, how are you doing?

It's good to see you this morning.

I'm doing well. How are you guys?

We're doing fantastic.

I guess this afternoon, I should say.

So, Dan, we're talking about here.

And for those that are unfamiliar, actually,

let's give a second for you to introduce yourself.

Who are you with?

Where are you from?

I think maybe the fourth time you've shown up

on the channel here,

but we'll give you a chance to introduce yourself

before we bring you into this conversation.

Yeah, definitely. My name is Dan LaGrange.

I was recently promoted to oversee our entire auto group.

The name is Key Auto Group.

So, we are across the United States, headed out of New England,

but we do have stores in Reno, Florida, PA.

So, we have quite the footprint.

Take a second here just to pull up the Key Auto Group website.

Dan, you've been providing us with insights

from your exposure, what you do for a long time here.

Folks, if you're interested, keyauto.com is Dan's group.

Very transparent, which we appreciate,

and all sorts of stores nationwide, like he said.

So, Dan, what we're talking about here

is there was a Cox Automotive report

that came out just yesterday,

and this report talks about

how dealer sentiment has gone down significantly.

I'll scroll down to just this chart.

How would you describe the current market

for vehicles in the areas where you operate?

We have the lowest level of dealer sentiment

that we've seen since the beginning of the pandemic.

The same exact day, we have the White House.

We have this really interesting press conference

at the White House talking about

how we're gonna reduce cafe standards,

the fuel economy standards,

and make it more accessible for automakers

to produce more affordable vehicles.

What's your take on all this?

What are you seeing in the market?

What's going on over at Key?

Give us the lay of the land here.

You're operating, how many dealerships right now?

Your insights are invaluable to our community.

Yeah, operating 20 dealerships,

and I think we have a real fractured market

in a couple of senses.

First off, there's a big divide

between the upper income people

and the average Americans.

So, that upper class individual is doing fine.

They have money, they're buying vehicles,

you're seeing $100,000 MSRP cars selling,

that's Escalades, Taho's.

Those really aren't having a problem.

They have low day supplies.

And then you're seeing the other part of the market,

which is the used car buyers,

more affordability driven buyers.

And you're seeing it in the data.

I mean, there's not enough used cars to go around.

The prices are incredibly sticky.

Interest rates are extremely high,

and it's causing a real affordability challenge.

So how do we handle that challenge, Dan?

Just out of curiosity,

I know I've been screaming about it forever,

well, hell, nobody listens to me.

How do we handle it?

And then also, how is it impacting your business?

Because a lot of people right now, Dan,

in our community are buying cars.

It's the end of the year.

We tell everyone this is the best time to do it.

So how do you change it?

And then what is this doing

to impact your business today?

Well, there is a little bit of bright side.

The manufacturers are waking up.

I just, so I'll start with last month.

Last month, General Motors changed their incentive

to the dealer, the stair step money,

as we call it, three different times.

So it started at $400 per vehicle,

went up to $1,000 per vehicle,

then up to $1,500 a vehicle.

So they're really incentivizing the dealers

to make sure that we are aggressively pricing vehicles.

Then this morning on the Stalantis meeting CDJR,

they're coming up and if you hit your goals,

it's $3,000 per new car that sold.

So that's one small portion of it.

The manufacturers have to play a role.

They have to support

and they have to understand what we're going through.

I think the major part of this though,

it comes down to interest rates.

Without the interest rates falling,

it is just a challenge.

Yeah, I completely agree.

Also, dad, I want you to jump in however.

I want to just take a moment.

This is a man who operates 20 car dealerships,

giving you the inside baseball

you cannot get anywhere else, keyauto.com.

Dan, did we charge you anything

to come on the show today?

No, I was hoping to charge you.

Hopefully the invoice gets paid.

There's nobody that gets exchanged

between our companies.

We bring on dealers who don't mind

pulling back the curtain.

That's how car edge started

with my dad pulling back the curtain.

Do yourselves a favor.

If you appreciate the insights

that Dan's willing to share,

go check out keyauto.

Obviously, back at caredge.com.

We can help you as well.

But Dan, the stairs to that money,

that's so fascinating.

Dad, sorry for cutting you off.

I just really wanted to highlight.

Okay, Dan, I'm going to push back a little bit.

And here's the reason I'm going to push back.

I don't think interest rates are unreasonably high.

I think interest rates for 10 years or so

were unreasonably low after the pandemic.

Well, after the great recession

and they remained artificially low

for an extended period of time.

And the American public

and automobile manufacturers in particular

got drunk on those low interest rates.

Interest rates today are not particularly high

in comparison to other times.

And we just did the other day, Zach

and I did a little experiment.

And if the Fed lowered the rate by one point,

it would have about a $15 a month impact.

30, 30, 30.

Yeah, and most car payments.

That's not really significant.

So I don't think it's an interest rate problem

as much as I think it's manufacturers

concentrated on building overpriced product.

And that's what's forced most of the people

out of the market.

You're allowed to refute that any way you'd like.

I think it's multifactorial.

I think that does play a role.

I mean, interest rates have been artificially low

in my entire generation.

I've been in the industry 15 years now.

I remember we could get 75 months for 1.3% interest.

So those were the really nice days.

But I agree with you in a sense.

I mean, I do think we could use

some easing of interest rates.

That would be helpful.

I also think that we are loading these cars up

with a lot of extra features

and everybody wants safety, but safety comes with a cost.

We hear in other countries

how they can build cards more affordable

and there's $20,000, $30,000 trucks that exist

in different markets that we just cannot get to.

And I'm not saying we need to cut out

all of the accessories there,

but I think we should be mindful

of what's mandatory in vehicles,

be mindful of the fuel efficiency that we need

because ultimately people need to be able

to afford these vehicles.

If you guys don't mind,

I want to bring it back just a little bit

to today's market.

So a little bit less around the macro

and more the micro, Dan.

We don't get dealers on the show all that often.

You come on maybe once every couple of months.

Joe Lewis from JC Lewis is joining us tomorrow.

And I want to read to you a Cox Automotive

shared out publicly in their dealer sentiment analysis.

And then, Dan, if you're willing to,

continue to tie it back

to how your day-to-day business is evolving.

So we had the market sentiment drop.

That was the first piece.

Customer traffic hits record lows.

Overall traffic dropped to 31

with in-person traffic at 29 digital at 40.

This is out of a 100 point index

that Cox looks at.

And then profitability under pressure,

profit sentiment declined to 36 overall.

Meaning that we've seen drops not only

in dealer sentiment for the market broadly,

customer traffic and profitability.

Does that pencil with your experience?

And again, how has this impacted or evolved your business

and how you approach operating your 20 stores here,

especially at the end of the year?

We're actually up year over year every month,

but I think it all comes down to strategy.

So I think you have to implement some level of AI

to take low end tasks away from your salespeople

and your managers and really focus on relationships.

You're not going to win with just inventory.

And I kind of got caught in that mindset.

Well, I have the best inventory and the best price,

so I'm automatically going to win.

And I had to take a hard look in the mirror and say,

it's not just all about price.

You need to really be focused on customer experience.

So I just took over this group, December 1st,

and I haven't sent one email or conversation with my team

about price or about volume.

It has been strictly about technology

and the number one customer experience.

So if you're not focused on that,

you're going to fall behind.

Customer experience for sure.

But do those stair step programs end up influencing

your pricing strategy at all?

I mean, maybe you haven't dictated anything to your staff yet,

but I'd imagine when you've got thousands of dollars

on the line per vehicle,

it can influence the way you think about things.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

We play a role in that too.

We come up with our pricing strategy at the beginning of the month,

not understanding what the program is going to be.

And as they change the programs,

we evaluate the market constantly.

If I may take a moment, Dan,

one of the things that I used to preach

when I was running dealerships

and we would get internet inquiries

and people would ask actual questions.

And as I'm sure you're well aware,

at most dealerships they do everything in their power

to avoid answering whatever that specific question

might have been.

And especially when it comes to selling price

or out the door pricing.

And I used to encourage my salespeople

to actually provide the customer

with the information they asked for

and give them reasons

as to why they should want to do business with us

as opposed to just the price of the vehicle.

And it sounds like to me

that trying to build relationships

is exactly what it is that I was trying to do

and what it is that you're trying to do now.

Absolutely, a good example is

we have our vehicles priced online,

very clear to see.

And you can just go on a car fax

and it shows your suggested retail price

of what this car should sell for right on car fax.

So I told my team, just print it out.

It doesn't matter if there's an accident there,

not an accident there.

We can be fully transparent.

And then you can say, look it, we are $5,000 below.

We didn't make up this car fax price.

And it just arms the customer with information.

If they decide not to buy with us,

so be it, but they can't say we weren't transparent

and we didn't try to help them.

Cause in all reality,

the customers come to a dealership,

they have a problem.

They either need a new vehicle,

they need to service their vehicle

and our job is to provide them a solution

in the best way possible.

I appreciate and agree that there are these ways

to operate that ultimately yield a better customer experience

and should make the dealership side more efficient as well.

And I'm going to double down on this.

The macro sentiment here

is that dealers are starting to feel the pain

and the pressure of years of obviously practicing

in a way that has not helped consumers transact.

And we know car prices have gone through the route.

So it's a one-two punch.

It's like, unfortunately,

a handful of bad apples in the auto industry

have ruined it for the bunch.

Obviously, there are good dealers out there

that are transparent that provide information.

That's why we love bringing Dan on.

Who the heck else?

In the first 60 seconds,

he's sharing with you the stair step for us.

Like where else do you get that info folks?

How much more transparent can you be?

But there is also been the pricing challenge

that these dealerships face.

And Dan, I think if you could speak to that

a little bit because yesterday

that's what the federal government was talking about

is we need to get vehicles more affordable.

Do you see, you mentioned it at the beginning,

you see a little bit of like those

that are affluent can continue to afford vehicles.

But what about that other subset?

Are you able to find the right inventory for those people

or are they going to the used car market instead?

Yeah, they're going to the used car market.

And I think that's why you see the day supply so low on use.

So everyone keeps saying,

a used pricing is gonna go down,

there's gonna be a crash.

It's almost mathematically impossible

unless it's a black swan event

because there's just not enough inventory around.

I can't go buy 500 used cars easily right now.

So you have dealers competing for the used cars.

We're paying pretty much what we're selling

to the consumers for.

So there's really no room for pricing to go down.

Now, when we see some seasonality come over the next month,

I do, but then you're contending with the refund checks

that are coming this year

and they're expected to be some of the best in history.

So I think you got a 60 to 70 day span here

where you have a shot to get a good deal on a car.

And then for the used car market,

it's gonna get really challenging next year.

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Can I ask a silly question?

As somebody that runs 20 dealerships

and so you deal with a lot of the various manufacturers,

how much of the blame falls on them

in the sense that they decided

that they were going to build high profit margin,

high priced vehicles and pretty much abandoned

the rest of the market.

And I understand there's some regulatory issues

that add costs to vehicles,

but I think in my mind,

part of it has to do with the marketing

that these manufacturers have done

over the last 20 or 30 years,

convincing people in this country

that small ain't good.

Big is better, more expensive is better,

small's no good.

So how much blame falls on them

for just saying we really don't give a damn

about the less than wealthy folks out there?

I think it depends on the manufacturer.

I can pick on the easy one with you guys.

We all know who it is.

Stellantis really went against the grain,

their own customer base.

They jacked up the MSRP's.

They started creating a lot of $100,000 vehicles,

but they're also paying the ultimate price for it right now.

So I think that they're learning

for a lot of from their mistakes

and there's other brands that are doing really well.

But I do think this is all going to come out in the wash

and as you're seeing Stellantis really step up

with those crazy stair step money,

they're going to learn,

but they play a large role in all of it.

And some of its greed from when the pandemic hit,

they jacked up MSRP's as high as they could get away

with and it's all definitely a return to normal now.

I was going to say, I mean,

I actually to a degree,

this is going to sound crazy coming for me,

have some empathy for the manufacturers

because you know what during the pandemic period there,

these cars kept selling.

The day's supply was insanely low.

Now, does that justify jacking up the prices

of these vehicles?

Absolutely not.

Just like it doesn't justify the dealers

who are adding crazy markups and addendums

and things like that.

And when you look at just supply and demand,

there was such short supply that we saw

enough demand to satisfy it.

The market has completely flipped.

I mean, especially for brands like Jeep, for example,

but it's not just Jeep.

I mean, we were looking at Mazda day's supply of inventory

and Dan, we've got a Mazda dealer joining us tomorrow.

I can't wait to ask him because Mazda

has over a hundred days supply nationwide right now.

That's the latest data we have.

That's no good.

No one wants to have a hundred plus day's supply.

And I think that'd be an interesting thing

for you to speak about.

Like you still manage inventory.

Even though a lot of this comes back

to customer experience,

that's how you differentiate your dealership.

It's not like you want to have

over a hundred days supply of vehicles

sitting anywhere at any of your dealerships,

I imagine.

Yeah, absolutely not.

And then that's where pricing comes into play.

The manufacturers can't be the only one

participating in this.

I have a dealer who wants to do well

and they want to move volume

and they want to shake hands

and build these relationships.

So you're going to have to be positioned

on the market correctly.

And yeah, there's a lot of new cars,

day one land on my lot

that I'm asking 2000 blow my actual cost for.

But I don't want to be in that position

where I have three, four,

500 day old new cars.

And that's the reality for a lot of these dealers.

And just one more comment

and I'll shut up that the fact

that they're stepping up that much

on the stair step program.

I mean, that's like,

that's them waving the flag, right?

Like that is the concession

of we have to do something here.

I think so because there's always some level

of stair step program,

but I haven't seen this aggressive

from these manufacturers.

I don't think ever.

I think this is some of the strongest programs

I've ever seen.

And it's just starting now.

You know, and it has everything to do

with the fact that they,

that they sat on their hands for way too long

before they finally decided,

okay, we got to help the dealer body out.

Because if we don't,

they're all going out of business

and we got nobody to sell cars to.

But how much do you think it has to do with end of year too?

Because we know this is an incredibly busy time

where they want to hit, you know,

their manufacturer sales objectives.

Like I do think the timing is somewhat strategic.

Don't you think that?

Well, to a degree, yes.

But I just think, especially with Stalantis,

they took too long to realize

the error of their ways

and they're paying for it now.

I do have an inventory question for you, Dan.

And this goes back to pandemic days

when there were hardly any cars to be had.

And so I am sure during those days

you had limited to no floor plan interest expense.

And your floor plan assistance from your manufacturers

was actually a profit center.

Today, how much more is it costing you

to carry that inventory

than during the heyday

when there was limited inventory?

I'll tell you, that was a massive process

at a during COVID.

We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So how that works for the consumers that don't know,

you get paid upfront for your interest that is accrued

first let's just use around number 60 days.

So that you pay you upfront

to hold that vehicle for 60 days.

So if you sell it in two days, you make money.

So let's assume it's somewhere around $500 a vehicle.

So if you're selling hundreds of vehicles

making $500 per because none ever hit 60 days

you're not even paying the floor plan company.

You're selling these cars before they come.

That obviously wasn't realistic.

That typically doesn't happen.

It's something to be concerned of now

and if you're not pricing aggressively

and you're letting those vehicles hit past 60 days

it's a vast difference.

I still have brands that are mostly even

does not export a expense

but it's not a credit either.

And you know, Stellantis, there is an expense there

and it has to be monitored carefully.

I've got one more question for you, Dan.

And then dad, if you wanna come in with the final one here

we know you've got 20 dealerships to run.

So thank you for taking the time out.

And again, the company that Dan is with

is keyauto, keyautogroupkeyauto.com.

You can check it out.

Again, we have no commercial relationship with key.

Dan comes on every once in a while

to share with us what he's seeing in the market.

Love that we're able to do this

and it really something I'm very proud of.

Yeah, and I wanna just ask a little bit

what do you see happening in 2026?

Do you see a continuation of where we are today?

Do you see it becoming more of a dealer's market again?

We've been proclaiming that it's a buyer's market right now.

Do you think it'll continue to be a buyer's market?

What is your magic eight ball say

is gonna happen in 2026?

I think the buyers were in the driver's seat for sure.

But I think it all depends on what you're

in the market for.

I think that consumers are gonna be able

to bully the manufacturers around a little bit

to get those rebates.

I think the dealers are gonna be more than happy

to get those vehicles off their lot.

But I think that affordable use car

is gonna be a major challenge.

If you're in the market for something under 100,000 miles

under $20,000, it is going to be a real challenge

and I don't see that softening anytime soon.

Okay, one last question for me.

Here we go.

Where do you see the future for EVs here in our country?

I think it's fractured completely.

So I run stores that do great with EVs

and I have other stores that do really bad with EVs.

So there is a demand for EVs.

And even when they said, oh, 2035 are gonna be 100% EV,

I thought it was funny because in reality,

not everyone can own an EV.

You need charging stations, you need infrastructure,

you need a garage or there's multiple things

that kind of the stars need to align to own an EV

for a lot of Americans.

What I think is a realistic number

that they should have been saying all along

is somewhere around 15% of the market.

Especially in states like Vermont,

they do extremely well.

We've sold upwards to 50 EVs in a month before.

So there is a market, there is a demand,

but it's not what they were trying to proclaim.

Are you still heavily involved in the EV market?

I wouldn't say I'm heavily involved,

but it is something I'm gonna continue to sell

because I think there is a market for it.

I think it needs to be managed carefully.

And the EVs that don't make a whole bunch of sense

are the ones that start with six figures.

I think there's a really good,

like the Bolt for example,

they just redesigned the Bolt.

That's a good EV, the Equinox EV.

There are some spaces where it is a very affordable vehicle.

And if you look at total cost of ownership

through the life of the vehicle, you can't beat it,

but that's not for everybody.

We've had a few moments on this show

where we use the car edge car search and we go

and we look at KIAs and the first page results

are $75,000 plus MSRP EV9s.

And we're just like, whoa.

Or the new, sorry, the new SUV,

whatever the heck the naming convention is for the SUV.

It's like, I don't know, I'm gonna get it wrong.

But it's just like, holy cow,

that's a, or maybe it's a Hyundai, forgive me.

But anyway, it's like very expensive from a brand

that you would not anticipate.

And it's obviously that EV powertrain.

Yeah. And then the affordability goes out the window.

So that buyer that wanted the affordability,

that's why they're going towards EV.

I mean, there's different buyers with EVs.

These are affordability buyer

and the environmentally conscious buyer.

And I would say more lean towards the affordability.

Let me just actually pull up one data point

and we'll let you out of our hair, Dan.

This is incredibly valuable for us.

Here's the data from Edmunds

on average transaction price for the month of October

broken down by powertrain.

And there you go.

Plugged hybrid electric vehicles

transacted over $70,000 EVs, $64,000

internal combustion engine vehicles at $48,972.

Hybrid electric vehicles with battery $43,000

and overall we're at 49.

So you can obviously see plugins and EVs

significantly more expensive

than all other powertrain types.

Yep. And that's why you see their sales go down

and their days on lot go up.

Before they took away that credit,

we did have a mad rush and a ton of demand to sell them.

And then it cooled right off.

And I expected that to happen.

I do think EVs will pick up again,

but I also think it's an opportunity

because a lot of dealers are going to be terrified of them

because they did get burned on them.

They didn't manage them correctly.

So I do see a slice of the market

that I think that we can do well in.

Dan, what a privilege.

Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us.

Again, Dan Lagrange, he runs 20 dealerships

for Key Auto Group.

If you're in the market to buy a vehicle,

obviously we're trying to help you out back at CarEdge.com.

But check out Dan's website, KeyAuto.com.

And if you end up working with any of his dealerships,

let him know CarEdge sent you that way.

Good people over there.

Dan, thank you so much.

We really appreciate your transparency and your insights.

Absolutely. It was great talking to you guys.

Yep. Thanks, Dan.

That's awesome.

Yeah, really is.

Dan's one of the good guys in the industry

and has no problem sharing information with us

and our listening and viewing audience.

It's wonderful.

Yeah, and again, just to come full circle here

for those of you that joined maybe towards the end,

we were really starting today's show

with we've got the latest data from Cox Automotive

that has a dealer sentiment survey

that's showing how dealers are really not feeling comfortable

with where the car market is right now.

We also, obviously yesterday,

for those of you that are unaware,

there was a federal government announcement

talking about a relaxation of fuel economy standards

and the push for more affordable vehicles.

All that then compounded with Dan's insights

from his reality, running 20 dealerships,

getting thousands of dollars in incentive money

from the manufacturers to sell aging inventory.

You even heard him say it,

consumers are in the driver's seat right now.

It is a buyer's market and it is so valuable

to hear the insights from,

he runs 20 dealerships,

there's what 40,000 dealerships in the United States

new and used, like there's a lot of dealers out there,

but that's his slice of pie,

his little micro economy, which is not so small.

He's selling thousands of cars,

but it's really insightful to hear from him

what's going on there.

And you have leverage in today's market.

There's a lot of pain going on right now

on the industry side.

You think Stalantas wants to spend $3,000

in stair step incentive to sell their cars?

Probably not, dad.

Well, you know, they don't want to,

but they finally realized they have to.

And, you know, the hope is-

What is that to you, dad?

If you're running a dealership

and you know you've got three grand on the hook

for every new vehicle you sell,

how does that change how you manage your dealership?

Because you never oversaw 20, dad, you oversaw the one.

So in your day-to-day,

how would you manage that dealership?

Well, you would approach every deal

as if you're going to earn that extra $3,000.

So the question becomes from the dealership perspective,

how much of that $3,000 do you want to give

to the customer in order to get them to say yes?

And in many cases, it could be the entire $3,000.

So it is indeed the manufacturer waving the white flag

saying we made a huge error.

We apologize to our dealers

for having taken so long to open our eyes

and see the errors of our ways,

but we're trying to correct it now.

So yes, you heard it from someone running 20 dealerships

that the buyers are in the driver's seat at the moment.

Now, that doesn't mean that vehicles still aren't overpriced.

In many cases, they are.

But what it does mean is that you can obtain a better deal

or a larger discount on those vehicles today

than you could have even 60 days ago.

So yes, dealers ask for it all.

No, they tend not to give you their best absolute price

till you're actually there threatening to buy a car.

But if you're working with the right dealership,

you're going to be able to get a much better deal today

than you could have in the past.

It's simple.

Today's show is brought to you by caredge.com.

It's almost six years that my dad

and I have been working on this business

where we help you get into a new vehicle.

Car buying service, $150 off,

car edge pro 15% off for a few more days here.

Again, a friendly reminder for all of you out there,

click on insurance back at caredge.com

and please, please, please save yourself some money.

The reason I'm harping on this every day this week

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It's very simple.

The insurers compete, you win.

So please take advantage of that back at caredge.com,

click on insurance tab.

We've had a couple of thoughtful contributions

come through earlier in the show.

Let's spend a few minutes here from Matthew.

Good to see you, Matthew.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Matthew.

They cured the daily driver, a 2025 BMW Loner 230i M Sport

with non-run flats, $45,200 MSRP, 4,000 miles on it,

paid $38,000 before $1,000 loyalty

and 3.49% interest rate for 72 months.

That's a cult meter test too.

Sounds like Matthew got himself a heck of a deal

on a new daily driver.

There are good deals to be had

on retired service loners in many cases.

And this is just an example of that.

Many concierge customers that come to us

end up going this route as well

because you can just get such a good deal.

We've got here from Andrew.

Good to see Andrew.

Thank you for this.

Good morning.

I'm actively looking to purchase a 2025 or 2026 Ram RHO.

Notice the base price started in August 25th

at $69,995, then $72,495.

Now $73,045 delivery went from $21.95 to $25.95, thought.

So these are price changes on the MSRP

at the manufacturer level, Dad.

This is kind of abnormal.

It's becoming more normal

for these really rapid price changes during a model year.

Well, and what they're doing

is they're hiding the price increase

in the destination chart.

You know, I'm pretty sure

that the destination costs haven't gone up

as high as what they've increased recently.

It is, this is just a perfect example

of the type of vehicle for the type of buyer

that Dan was talking about earlier.

And that's the wealthier customers

that don't have an issue at this type of price point.

So the vast majority of us would look at this and go,

okay, that's crazy.

I can't do that.

Even if they discounted the vehicle, $10,000 or $12,000.

I still can't do that

because it's not gonna come down

to an affordable monthly payment for me.

But yeah, we're seeing significant increases

in the MSRP partially due to an increase

in the base MSRP and further increases

in the destination charges.

Yeah, the sneaky way to raise the MSRP

without raising the MSRP.

Saying that tongue in cheek, obviously,

the destination charge does increase the MSRP.

All right, folks, we've got another dealer joining us tomorrow,

Joe Lewis from JC Lewis.

So please tune in to tomorrow's show.

We'll get more of a Mazda and Ford update from Joe.

Those are in Lincoln as well.

I know they've got some aged Lincoln's over there

that he's gonna want to move on.

So very excited to talk to Joe.

So tune in tomorrow at 12 p.m. Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific.

If you're not subscribed to the channel, please do.

And please check out caredge.com.

Continue to share our videos

and this time of year, it's more important than ever before.

And as the market has shifted, Dad,

I think it's extra important that people are aware of that.

So please share the content.

It goes a long way and we really appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Looking forward to seeing everybody back here tomorrow.

And as I like to say, tell a friend to join.

All right, guys, we'll see you back here.

Love you, Dad.

Love you too, handsome.

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Car Dealers Admit They are IN TROUBLE: Huge Market Reset 2025 | Episode 975

About this episode

Stellantis

General Motors

Ford

CAFE standards

fuel economy standards

MSRP

Cadillac Escalades

Chevrolet Tahoe

stair step money

Chevron with Tecron

return to normal

dealer markup

supply and demand

Jeep

Mazda

EV

charging stations

infrastructure

Chevrolet Bolt

Chevrolet Equinox EV

total cost of ownership

Kia Ev9S

internal combustion engine

hybrid electric vehicles

incentive money

aging inventory

BMW 230I

loyalty

interest rate

destination charge

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