Consumer Reports Just SHOCKED The Auto Industry | Episode 977

Two hours ago, Kyle arrived at the bar.

Hey, what's everyone drinking?

30 minutes ago, Kyle got his friends another round of drinks.

Cheers!

Five minutes ago, Kyle decided to drive home drunk.

A minute ago, a law enforcement officer pulled up behind Kyle.

Sir, have you been drinking tonight?

A chain of events that began two hours ago

is about to change Kyle's whole world.

Drive sober or get pulled over, paid for by NHTSA.

Toyota Thon, Toyota Thon, Toyota Thon is on.

Oh, what fun it is to drive a new Toyota today.

Hey, Jan from Toyota here, reminding you Toyota Thon is on.

Make your holiday wishes come true with a new Camry,

RAV4, Tacoma, and more.

All right, let's sing it together this time.

Toyota Thon, Toyota Thon, Toyota Thon is on.

Dealer inventory may vary.

Toyota Thon ends January 5th.

See your participating dealer for details.

Toyota, let's go places.

10 years from today, Lisa Schneider

will trade in her office job to become

the leader of a pack of dogs.

As the owner of her own dog rescue, that is.

A second act made possible by the reskilling courses Lisa's

taking now with AARP to help make sure her income lives

as long as she does.

And she can finally run with the big dogs

and the small dogs, who just think they're big dogs.

That's why the younger you are, the more you need AARP.

Learn more at aarp.org slash skills.

It's noon here in Ventnor City, New Jersey

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

And this is Car Edge Live for Monday, December 8th

with your hosts, me, Ray here in Ventnor City

and Zach hanging out with his apartment in Washington, D.C.

And before we get started handsome,

I just wanted to mention that yesterday

was not only Pearl Harbor Day,

but it was my mother's birthday.

And if she were still alive, she would have turned 113 yesterday.

I am so thankful that I didn't have to see my mother

at 113, because I'm pretty sure

you kind of look shriveled up at all at 113.

I'm just guessing.

Probably Bob's, I don't know.

Yeah, you unfortunately lost your mom.

How old were you when you lost your mom?

20.

Yeah, I was 20 when mom died, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, we have a lot of things in common.

We do indeed, dad.

All right, anyway, folks, dad, thank you for that kind tribute

to my grandmother, your mom.

All right, let's jump into things here.

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

Folks, for those of you that are unfamiliar,

my dad and I almost six years ago to the date

made our first YouTube video.

And after that, we decided we wanted to build products

and services to help change the way cars are bought

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on the dealer side.

Obviously these videos are meant to help

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Now, promotion out of the way.

The big story this morning that is consumer reports

has gone ahead and released their annual rankings

of various vehicles and auto manufacturers.

They do this every single December

and we are gonna run through the data.

And I'm saying it right now, all caps,

it is shocking some of the information

that consumer reports has found.

So every single year, they ask their audience,

they do all these surveys

and they end up creating a ranking

based on reliability, owner satisfaction,

safety and road test scores.

We've got 31 brands that they've ranked dad

for best overall.

Before we jump into it, do you have

or is anyone in our community have any guesses

which brand is at the top

and which brand is at the bottom?

We're obviously gonna run through the data.

We're also gonna look at reliability.

We're also going to look at brand satisfaction.

So which one's owners like the most

as well as used vehicles,

which vehicles use car shoppers like the most.

But what do you think?

Overall, that's the point.

I'm gonna do the bottom first.

Okay.

The bottom are gonna be a couple

of Stalantis products.

Okay.

Fiat and Dodge, I believe will be at the bottom.

Maybe even Jeep.

I will let you know, Dad,

they didn't get enough data for Fiat.

So Fiat's not on the list this year.

Well, they gotten enough data.

And at the top, at the tippy tippy top, Subaru.

Wow.

All right, folks, you're ready to jump in.

Let's look at the data.

Let me pull it up on the screen.

My dad is, maybe he does this for a living or something.

You wanna start at the top of the bottom?

Let me actually start there, top or bottom?

Let's go worst to best, right?

Okay, yeah, we can start at the worst of the worst.

And first, we will actually start

with how they come up with these rankings.

We'll just spend a brief moment here.

You've got ultimately a hundred point score

that we're working our way into.

It's four key factors.

Road test performance, reliability,

owner satisfaction, and safety, okay?

Yes.

Worst of the worst, Jeep.

They came in with a score of 48.

Now, if you see, dad, they are obviously

the worst of the worst, but that number next to them,

that number is telling you actually

their predicted reliability and then owner satisfaction.

So the predicted reliability for Jeeps are low

and the owner satisfaction is obviously not good either.

That eye or that yellow is kind of a mediocre score.

So we've got the worst of the worst here over at Jeep.

Okay.

Well, you know, had there been enough Fiat responses,

it probably would have been Fiat.

But I can see that, well, I was on, I was pretty close.

I had Fiat Dodge and I threw in Jeep at the end

having no idea where it was,

but I think I did pretty damn good.

So your least coveted brand in the auto industry right now

is Jeep followed by Land Rover,

which is actually quite interesting.

Again, that number that you see to the right of it

is your road test score.

So the road test scores for Jeep and Land Rover

significantly higher than the predicted reliability

and owner satisfaction.

That's what's bringing both of those brands down

and obviously safety as well.

So Land Rover, dad, is your second worst brand

that Consumer Reports has in this list of 31.

And then GMC, Chevrolet, excuse me,

so General Motors getting in on the fun here

with the score of 55 and Hyde with General Motors

would be Dodge.

So you dad, we're spot on here with the Stalantis brands

coming in with the score of 55 as well.

But GMC, that's professional grade.

So very good, Lee.

If I can quote their ads, that's professional grade.

That was unprofessional.

Let's get one more here,

just because it adds to the trend, Alfa Romeo.

So your bottom five brands,

again, what we're looking at right now

is which brands make the best cars?

This is based on reliability, owner satisfaction,

safety and road test scores from Consumer Reports.

Your bottom five, you've got 60% of your bottom five,

three out of the five are Stalantis brand,

products Alfa Romeo, Dodge, and your creme de la creme,

Jeep, and then obviously two luxury brands.

I mean, GMC makes luxury vehicles

and Land Rover makes luxury vehicles.

So this is that maybe the least shocking part of this list

because you've got Stalantis products here

at the worst of the worst.

Yeah, but you know what the amazing thing is,

if I may say, looking at Land Rover.

And we know that Land Rover products sell very well.

We don't know why.

You know, I have worked on campuses

where we had Land Rover stores

and the joke always was,

if you're a Land Rover owner

and you wanna be able to drive your Land Rover every day,

you're gonna need to own more than one, okay?

Because one of them will always be in the shop.

So I don't get why people spend as much money as they do

to buy a Land Rover when they know historically

they have been extremely overpriced pieces of poo.

I mean, I don't know any other way to say it

because, you know, they are extremely expensive.

The Range Rover are $100,000 plus vehicles

and they sell like hotcakes

and it's like, okay, you know,

people with money tend to, not always,

but tend to be a better educated and better informed

than those people who don't have nearly as much.

So how do these people fall for buying Range Rovers

and Land Rovers?

I mean, how and why?

Dad, they lease them and today's show

is not gonna be about Range Rover and Land Rover.

We're gonna keep moving

through the consumer reports data, sound good?

Yes, of course.

The next five on the list, Dad,

Rivian coming in at 58, score 58,

which is actually five spots better

than they were at last year.

Now, owner's satisfaction on the Rivian is through the roof.

It's that middle tier that we're looking at,

that orange line that you're looking at

about predicted reliability,

where Rivian really falls short.

Then you have Chrysler falling nine spots

year over year, the score of 61.

So another Solantis brand here

having all sorts of challenges

in the consumer reports data.

Chevrolet coming in with a score of 62 up one spot.

Mercedes spends a neutral year over year

with a score of 64,

and then VW Volkswagen up four spots 65.

We're still in the brands that are struggling

to retain or to have a high scores here

in terms of overall satisfaction,

road test reliability, ownership experience, et cetera.

Wow.

Well, you know, you would think so far

we have some pretty expensive brands in there.

Mercedes Benz Rivian,

because Rivian ain't cheap, GMC Land Rover,

those are pretty expensive brands,

and yet they don't score well

when Consumer Reports surveys

their customer base who owns these vehicles.

It's, when you think about it,

it's rather frightening that these expensive brands

can rank so poorly with their customers.

Yeah, exactly.

Let's keep moving here, Pops.

Let's do another five and we'll go six.

There we go, Dad.

We've gotten Volvo with a score of 65 up one spot

year over year, Buick dropping three,

Scott spots the 65 year over year,

Mitsubishi up a spot and Ford up a spot

at 19 and 18th place,

respectively Cadillac jumping up four spots

and look at Audi, Dad.

The struggles over at Audi continue,

falling 10 spots year over year

in their Consumer Reports again.

What we're looking at is,

which brands make the best cars?

This is that data from Consumer Reports in Audi

falling precipitously 10 spots.

Still don't understand how four can rank in the middle.

It is fascinating, right?

Because from a reliability standpoint,

which again, just to hone in on it here,

reliability, which we will look at the ratings

of those in just a moment,

is that middle piece that you're looking at, that eye?

So they're actually supposedly moderate

when it comes to reliability,

which is shocking when you look at obviously

all of the recall information that we get.

Well, yeah, I was going to say,

perhaps they tend to be more reliable

because they're in the shop more often

getting those recalls taken care of.

So they're in the shop often enough

that anything that's about to go bad

can be fixed during one of those recalls

because it's like the people never know.

We are just, for what it's worth,

up to 142 recalls over at Ford,

four more since we last covered this on Friday.

Let's keep moving here.

We're going to get into the top 10 in just a moment.

Oops, there we go.

We've got many at the number 11 of spot.

Kia at the number 12 spot falling five spots

year over year.

Nissan up two spots to the 13 spot.

Mazda staying the same year over year

at 14 Consumer Reports ranking

and then Genesis dead falling two spots.

Let's now do the top 10.

Unless you have any comments here about 11 through 15.

People are going to find it hard to imagine

that many scores as well as it does

in these type of surveys

and many scores well in the initial quality control.

I don't know why.

I mean, I've owned many's, I've leased many's

but it is such a cult like group

that I just think regardless of how bad they might be

they don't want to say bad things about the brand.

It's fascinating to me

that a brand that is just expensive to maintain

as many's are once the free maintenance is done

that people still rate them rather highly.

Let's run into the top 10 dad will do

number 10 through number five.

We've got Tesla dad coming in at the number 10 spot

up eight spots year over year.

So a huge jump for Tesla surprise

for them to crack the top 10.

And quite frankly,

magnitudes ahead of where their Peruvian is.

On yes, we have Tesla cracking the top 10 at number nine.

We have accurate dad of three spots year over year.

A score is 73 here.

So Acura doing a good job

as far as Consumer Reports is concerned.

Number eight is Hyundai staying in the same spot

year over year or score of 74.

Let me have Lincoln dad shooting up 17 spots

to the number seven slot.

We're gonna come back to Lincoln here in just a second.

Obviously Lincoln is the luxury arm of Ford.

Then we've got at the number six spot Lexus

moving down three spots.

And then we'll do our top five in just a second.

Lincoln is surprising to me dad

because we had Joe Lewis on runs JC Lewis.

One of the JC Lewis dealerships

and he was talking about how so many

of his Lincoln vehicles were actually on stop sale.

So again, it makes me question a little bit here.

How can we have such a high rating for reliability

when this brand is obviously out recalls galore?

So I'm surprised.

I'm shocked to see Lincoln is high up on this list

as they are.

Yeah, which, and when you start really looking

at these lists and these numbers,

you start to realize that perhaps

they're lacking in accuracy.

There is no way that a brand that is part

of Ford Motor Company that has had as many issues

as Ford Motor Company has had.

And this is a record setting year for recalls for them.

They're up to 142.

The previous record for any manufacturer

in any given year prior to this

was 69.

So how do you go?

How do you move up 17 spots in reliability

when your manufacturer has more than doubled

the amount of recalls in the history

of any annual collection of recalls?

It is beyond me

so that when you see things like that,

there has to be flaws in how they collect this data.

All right, people, serious question time.

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Toyotathon, Toyotathon, Toyotathon is on.

Oh, what fun it is to drive a new Toyota today.

Hey, Jan from Toyota here reminding you Toyotathon is on.

Make your holiday wishes come true

with a new Camry, RAV4, Tacoma, and more.

All right, let's sing it together this time.

Toyotathon, Toyotathon, Toyotathon is on.

Dealer inventory may vary.

Toyotathon ends January 5th.

See your participating dealer for details.

Toyota, let's go places.

10 years from today,

Lisa Schneider will trade in her office job

to become the leader of a pack of dogs.

As the owner of her own dog rescue that is,

a second act made possible by the reskilling courses

Lisa's taking now with AARP

to help make sure her income lives as long as she does.

And she can finally run with the big dogs

and the small dogs who just think they're big dogs.

That's why the younger you are,

the more you need AARP.

Learn more at aarp.org slash skills.

Now for what it's worth, Consumer Reports

does do an independent of all the other factor,

reliability ranking.

So we will look at that on today's show.

And as we look at this,

it's a five and 10 year reliability.

Ford does come in 19th and Lincoln does come in 14th.

So it's these other aspects of Ford and Lincoln's vehicles

that, aside from reliability,

that gets them to such high placement

back over on our overall brands.

We have been shocking to see Lincoln

at the number seven spot here, considering,

again, so many of their vehicles

were on stop sale this year.

Ford has now more than doubled

the prior annual recall record.

So yeah, it is shocking,

but there are Consumer Reports scoos

and then they do a good job breaking out

the individual list for these components,

which we will spend some time looking at as well.

Now, Dad, you said your number one brand,

the overall car brand, was going to be Subaru,

which I think is a really interesting pick.

We have not said Subaru's name yet.

So how are you feeling?

Do you want to change your answer?

Or do you want to keep it the same?

Well, I know it's at least in the top five.

So I have a 20% chance of being correct.

And I will stick.

I will stick with my Subaru pick

because it just came top of mind.

And that brand has such brand loyalty

from Subaru owners so that I would not

be surprised if it were, in fact, number one.

He's sticking with Subaru before we jump over there.

Again, a friendly reminder.

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

I just wanted to take a second.

Every single day we get new reviews from our community members.

I'm going to share one right now.

The CarEdge team did an outstanding job

of keeping me informed throughout the process.

Anthony did a good job, great job.

He sees me negotiating with the dealer

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All right, here we are, folks.

Number five on the list, Toyota.

Which, if you remember from last year,

Toyota was actually in the ninth spot,

which is rocking that Toyota was almost outside the top 10,

but dead Toyota coming here at the number five spot

in terms of overall which car brand is the best

thanks to our friends over at Consumer Reports.

So Toyota at number five.

Number four, Honda moving up one spot as well.

So we've got a score of 75,

which is shared between Toyota and Lexus and Lincoln.

Yes.

Name the outlier there and then a score of 76 here

for Honda, number three on our list, Porsche.

A score of 79 moving up to the number three spot

on this list.

Porsche, not too much of a surprise,

has a Colt-like following as well

and unlike Land Rover, Range Rover,

a little bit more of a reliability over there.

At the number two spot, BMW dad,

a score of 82 for BMW, which leaves one brand

so far off our list, Subaru.

Coming in with the score of 82 as well,

Subaru, your number one brand as rated by Consumer Reports

when posing the question,

which automaker makes the best cars

when you consider reliability, owner satisfaction,

safety and road test scores.

There you go dad, your top five.

Any surprises here?

Well, yeah, that Toyota is not higher

and Lexus is not higher.

And the only reason I say that,

and I've told this story before,

but we'll tell it one more time.

Yeah.

When from 1989 to 1994,

we had a Golf USA franchise in Mesa, Arizona.

And our store was a mile and a half,

two miles from the GM proving grounds

when GM had their proving grounds in Arizona.

And I used to get a lot of their engineers

that were avid golfers

and they would come to the store

and they would always drive different vehicles.

Yeah.

And so I asked one of the engineers,

I said, why do you guys drive so many different vehicles?

She said, well, we buy all these vehicles

so we can tear them down

so we can see the quality of the parts

that are used and how they're built.

I said, okay, so based on that,

what are the best vehicles out there

and without hesitation?

The answer was Lexus.

He said, just the quality of the parts,

the quality of the build, how they're put together.

He said, those are by far the best vehicles we tear down.

So it's shocking to me that Lexus isn't higher on that list.

BMWs are great while they're under warranty.

Once they're out of warranty,

they get a tad bit expensive.

Let's look actually at some of the long-term reliability stuff.

Before we do, I'm gonna pull up here from Jeff.

Mazda on the list, flawed big time.

Mazda was 14th.

Sorry, they've missed that, so I'll pull that back up

so we can take a quick peek altogether.

Scroll on down here, Mazda, there you go, came at 14th.

So Mazda is on the list,

below Nissan and sandwiched between Genesis.

And we also, dad, earlier in the show

from Art Photographer had a comment

and a contribution come in, thank you.

I wonder if this list includes used,

Chrysler only has the Pacifica for the 2526 models.

Does that mean it's a horrible mini van?

The analysis here is against new vehicles.

Yeah, that's what they're looking at.

So take that for what it's worth with Chrysler,

falling nine spots year over year.

But what I wanted to do, dad,

I wanna jump over because again,

we flashed this on the screen a second ago

with regards to Ford and Lincoln.

Yeah.

We've got 26 car brands ranked

based on the reliability of five to 10-year-old models.

This is not new cars.

This is five to 10-year-old model used cars.

And yeah, I mean, look at that.

Okie dokie.

Lexus, number one, without a doubt,

77-score Toyota, without a doubt, number 273.

Next on the list are Mazda and Honda

and Acura 58, 57, 53 respectively.

So when we start to look at five to 10-year-old

used cars, it's not even close.

And brands are the way to go

when it comes to five to 10-year-old

pre-owned cars.

Now, you could say the surprise here would be BMW

coming in at number six,

because you'll comment the moment

to go outside of warranty, you know,

do you really, really, really wanna

end up with one of those, but, you know.

Let me say this when it comes to BMW,

and once it falls out of warranty,

you need to be like a dealership

in the sense that you need to have established

a line of credit with your bank,

much like the floorplan line of credit

to pay for their inventory.

You need a line of credit to cover

the cost of maintenance for your BMW

once you are out of the maintenance included

portion of your warranty,

because it gets expensive in a heartbeat.

I mean, really expensive.

Yeah, I hear you there, Dad.

Sorry, I'm fairly certain many people

have experience to BMW out of warranty,

and that can be painful.

We've got here Mark, thank you for this.

Mark Consumer Distorts, paid 1.85 million

by the Ford Foundation.

We're here to simply report and share out what they have.

I know many people have, you know,

questioned the efficacy of all sorts of information

that we are able to provide here,

whether it be consumer reports,

JD Power, I've seen in the comments,

take it with a grain of salt,

take all of this with a grain of salt,

but they do this annually,

and even just looking at the trends in it

is pretty interesting to say the least.

Now, Consumer Reports also, Dad, looks at

and surveys their audience about new vehicle reliability,

and so that's what we're looking at here,

and you can see your top five Toyota's,

Beaver, Lexus, Honda, BMW.

So again, now we're thinking just about newer vehicles,

like still similar trends here in the brands

you see at the top of this list.

And let's see, where's Ford on this one?

Let's look.

Number 11, which is crazy to me, where's Lincoln?

Number 20, okay, that's more what I would expect.

And then Jeep, Ram, Rivian down at the bottom here.

That's some scary stuff.

You know, if you're looking at anything,

if you're not staying within the top 10,

you're just a glutton for punishment.

Each their own.

Dad, let's come here from Matthew.

Thank you for this, Matthew.

Thank you, Matthew.

This baby BMW 230i is the best BMW

I've driven in over a decade,

like stepping back in time,

front end is light and precise,

proof you don't need 275s up front if you're not obese.

What a refreshing little gem.

May or may not be able to confirm

top speed and at the base of the kind contributions.

It's awesome seeing our community members

get into new cars and enjoy them.

I remember years ago when I was still

with Priority One Automotive Group,

when I was still Priority One Automotive Group.

Yeah, did you know that Audi dealership you worked at

is now part of Sonic Automotive?

Yeah, I'm well aware.

I had no idea.

Yeah, no, I knew that.

And I remember when I was thinking,

okay, maybe I'll get out of the Mini,

out of the Clubman.

And I don't know if you remember.

I was looking at a two series BMW convertible

with the M package.

I don't know if you remember,

but I was thinking that might be the way to go.

I'm kind of glad I didn't,

but that could have been fun.

Yeah, that could have been fun,

Boya Pops definitely could have been.

Bless you.

It didn't count.

Yeah, keep going.

We've got here from Everyday Veteran.

Thanks, Everyday Veteran.

We appreciate this.

Thanks to your videos.

I was able to buy a 2026 Hyundai Sonata

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That's an incredible deal.

It's still awesome to hear.

The tactics that we teach over on the CarEdge channel,

love seeing them put into practice.

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Is it a lot of work to get that type of deal?

Absolutely, but we are so grateful

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That's awesome, Dad.

Yes, it really is.

And I was actually on the community forum this morning

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And there was a gentleman in there who used the AI agent

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It's pretty awesome, guys.

Yeah, well, I'll do some more demos of that

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The AI agent keeps getting stronger and better,

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Okay, going to take another second to share with you

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Come learn a little bit more about Z,

see the deals he's been doing for our community.

Check it out back at caredge.com slash concierge.

So cool what we've been able to build

back at the website.

All right, one more thing that I wanted to cover today.

Yeah.

Rebecca on our team actually just published

the seven best hybrid SUV and sedan deals

here in December of 2025.

And I thought we could show some of the 0% financing offers

and cheap leases that are out there on the market.

Sound good?

Sounds good to me.

All righty, here we go, folks.

Let's run through it.

2026 Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid.

We still have 0% financing here in the month of December

on the 2026 Hybrid for the Santa Fe,

first 60 months and deferred payments for 90 days.

That's a small of an offer from Hyundai, Dad.

Yeah, it is.

That way they want you to get your new vehicle

and still be able to do your holiday shopping

and not worry about having to pay for your vehicle

until February or March.

God bless them.

That's a big offer.

That's a big offer from Hyundai.

No, that is a big offer and it just encourages people

to get deeper into debt than they should,

but that's okay because that's the way we roll.

You know what?

It's an offer.

I'm one that many are gonna take advantage of.

Our responsibility is to share it 2025.

See, this is what's interesting now.

That was a 26 in hybrid.

Now we're just talking the 25 key of Sportage Hybrid,

Dad, 0.9% financing for up to 60 months

and you've got a $1,000 cash offer

or you could get a lease deal here.

You know, these lease deals always end up

being a little bit more,

but under $300 a month, the four grand down for 36 months.

You've got the Honda CRV Hybrid Pops.

You've got a lease deal.

You've got to put $4,099 down for 319 a month

for 36 months.

So Honda getting a little bit more aggressive

with their lease deals.

Ford Escape Pops 2025, they're offering $4,500 as a cash bonus.

Something tells me they need to offer

a little bit more on the escape,

but that's just my two cents.

Yes, perhaps, yeah.

And then we've got here, Dad, the Corolla Hybrid,

the 2026 Toyota Corolla Hybrid.

Toyota is advertising a $219 a month lease

for 39 months with $4,000 down.

And finally here we've got the Lexus UX 300 Hybrid,

2.49% financing for up to 48 months.

So not the most aggressive offers

over in the Toyota Lexus lineup,

but offers nonetheless on a hybrid powertrain,

which we know is the most popular.

And if I may, when it comes to those leases

and you see big money down,

that doesn't include any state taxes,

title, registration fees, dock fees, any of those fees.

So when you see like $4,000 down,

it's probably closer to five or $5,500 down.

Oh, and for every $1,000 you put down

or don't put down,

that would impact your payment say about $30 a month.

So if the offer was $239 with $4,000 down,

if you don't put the $4,000 down,

that's gonna add $120 to the payment.

So instead of it being $239, it'll be what, $459?

And you could still have that $4,000 plus in your pocket.

This is what we do here folks, we demystify.

All right, Pops, let's call it a show for today.

We're back tomorrow with more Car Edge Live.

If we can help you out with anything,

obviously caredge.com, check out the community forum

as well, caredge.com slash community.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

If you know anyone who's in the market to buy a car

between now and the end of the year,

or heck, just in general, send them our way.

We are very busy and grateful for that.

Dad, do it all again tomorrow.

Sound good?

Absolutely.

We look forward to having you all back here.

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

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Consumer Reports Just SHOCKED The Auto Industry | Episode 977

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