DO NOT WAIT TO BUY A NEW CAR (Prices Going UP in 2026) | Episode 970
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Car
Audi Q3
The Audi Q3 is a small luxury SUV that offers a comfortable ride and high-quality interior. The mention of a price increase means it will cost more to buy in the future, which can be a concern for buyers.
Car
Audi Q5
The Audi Q5 is a larger luxury SUV that offers more space and features compared to the Q3. The discussion about its price increase highlights how car prices are going up, which can affect buyers.
Term
MSRP
MSRP means the price that the car maker suggests you should pay for a vehicle. Knowing this helps buyers understand if they're getting a fair deal when shopping for a car.
Car
Audi 100
The Audi 100 is a fancy car that was made a long time ago, known for being comfortable and having cool features. It helped Audi become a well-respected brand because it was built really well and looked nice.
Car
Honda Prelude
The Honda Prelude is a sporty car that Honda used to make. They're bringing it back in 2026, and it's known for being fun to drive.
Concept
new vehicle inventory
New vehicle inventory is just the number of brand new cars that are available to buy at car dealerships. More cars usually mean more choices for buyers.
Term
dealer inventory
Dealer inventory is the number of cars that a car dealership has on its lot and is ready to sell. If there are a lot of cars, it might mean better deals for buyers.
Concept
value equation
The value equation is about how the price of a car, what people think it's worth, and what dealers want to sell it for all work together. It helps explain why prices change.
Term
buyer's market
A buyer's market means there are more cars for sale than people wanting to buy them. This usually leads to lower prices, so buyers can find better deals.
Car
Honda That Honda
The Honda That's is a small car that was mostly sold in Japan and is designed to be easy to drive and park in busy cities. It has a quirky look and is made to be practical for everyday use.
Term
dealer markup
Dealer markup is the extra money that a car dealer adds to the price of a car, making it more expensive than what the manufacturer suggests. This often happens when a car is in high demand.
Brand
Mazda
Mazda is a car company from Japan that makes various vehicles, including sedans and SUVs, often known for their sporty designs.
Brand
BMW
BMW is a popular car brand from Germany that makes luxury cars, often recognized for their sporty performance.
Brand
Mercedes
Mercedes is a well-known luxury car brand from Germany that makes high-end cars and SUVs.
Brand
Kia
Kia is a car company from South Korea that makes affordable cars and SUVs, often with good warranties.
Car
Hyundai Palisade
The Hyundai Palisade is a larger SUV from Hyundai, designed to be comfortable and feature-rich. It's a popular choice for families because of its spaciousness and modern amenities.
Concept
oversupply of inventory
An oversupply of inventory means there are too many cars available for sale compared to how many people want to buy them. This can result in lower prices and better deals for buyers.
Concept
new car inventory
New car inventory is just the number of new cars that dealerships have available to sell. If there are too many cars sitting unsold, they might lower prices to sell them faster.
Concept
discounts
Discounts are price reductions that dealerships offer to make cars cheaper. They do this to sell more cars, especially when they have a lot of them that aren't selling.
Term
overpriced
Overpriced means that a car costs more than what most people think it should be worth. This can happen if there aren't many cars available or if the dealership adds extra costs.
Car
Jeep Cherokee
The Jeep Cherokee is a type of vehicle called an SUV, which is great for driving on rough roads and taking trips with family or friends. The 2024 version has new features that make it easier and more fun to drive, especially if you like adventures.
Car
Jeep Grand
Term
Ekbon coding
Ekbon coding is a charge that some dealerships apply for a special tracking system they use for cars. It helps them keep track of their inventory.
Term
rebate
A rebate is money you get back after buying something, like a car. It helps reduce the total amount you pay.
Term
cash down
Cash down is the money you pay upfront when buying a car. The more you pay now, the less you have to borrow and pay back later.
Term
payment terms
Payment terms are the rules about how you will pay for the car, like how long you have to pay it off and how much each payment will be.
Term
gross profit
Gross profit is the money a dealership makes from selling a car after subtracting what they paid for it. It's important for understanding how well the dealership is doing financially.
Concept
depreciating asset
A depreciating asset is something that gets worth less as time goes on. For example, when you buy a new car, it usually loses a lot of its value quickly, which is why some people think of cars as a bad investment.
Company
CarEdge
CarEdge is a website where you can find honest and clear information about buying cars. It helps people understand how much cars really cost and what to expect when owning one.
Concept
tariffs
Tariffs are extra costs added to products brought into a country. For cars, this means that if parts come from abroad, they might cost more because of these taxes, which can make cars more expensive.
Concept
incentives
Incentives are special deals or offers that car companies give to help sell cars. They can be things like cash back or lower interest rates on loans.
Term
wholesale used car depreciation
Wholesale used car depreciation is how much the value of used cars drops when they are sold at auctions or to dealers. It can change based on how many people want to buy cars and other market factors.
Term
trade-in offer
A trade-in offer is how much money a dealership says they will give you for your old car when you buy a new one. This amount can change depending on how much your old car is worth and market trends.
Term
battery technology
Battery technology is about how batteries are made and how they work, especially in electric cars. Better batteries can help cars go further and charge faster.
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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 Wednesday, November 26th.
Yes!
Just one day before, well, Gobble, Gobble Day with your hosts, me, Ray, in Ventner,
the Goblin Fool, and my handsome young man's son, Zach, in Washington, D.C.
How are you today, this morning?
Concerned.
But you know what?
You're my dad and I love you.
Thank you everyone for joining us.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.
We do have a sponsor for today's program.
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Dad, the big story this morning I want to kick things off with.
We have yet another price increase coming in 2026.
Audi raising the Q3 SUV price by $3,900 going into next year.
This is after they already raised the Q5 price significantly.
This is the beginning of a trend that we anticipate seeing in 2026.
Car prices, MSRPs, they don't really have anywhere to go except for up,
unfortunately, and that is bad news for shoppers, but good news for right now.
You take advantage of the fact that we're at the end of the year,
the best time to buy a car.
There are incentives.
There's an incredible oversupply of inventory.
But dad, we've got yet another vehicle getting a price increase here over a year.
Well, the good news is you won't have to worry about that Q3 until the
first quarter of next year when it actually comes out.
But it is a sad commentary on the industry when we know for a fact
that inventories are building up because the people who actually can afford cars
are staying on the sidelines longer than they have in the past.
And I don't think raising the prices on certain vehicles is a way to,
I don't know, draw those people back into the market.
Now, when you look at the Q3, yes, it's redesigned much like the Q5 was redesigned,
but they've dropped to trim levels.
You know, they used to be able to get it in the premium and the premium plus.
Well, now you can only get it in the S line,
which is naturally more expensive than the premium or the premium plus to begin with.
But when you cut out base models or lower equipped models
and your base MSRP goes up nearly $4,000,
that just signals to people, well, it might have been something I was interested in
when it was $4,000 less, but at this price point, it's totally outside of my budget.
So I'm not 100% sure as to what it is that Audi is trying to do
when it comes to selling vehicles in this country.
But it seems like they're going to be on the wrong side of history for this.
And it's not just Audi, Dad.
For example, Honda, there's an image going viral online right now.
And it's a 2026 Prelude, Dad, that a dealership has added a bunch of products
to taking the asking price up to nearly $62,000 on a Honda Prelude.
Who's going out there buying a $62,000 or $10,000 to mark up Honda Prelude?
No one.
I mean, that's the confounding aspect of this is as we go into 2026,
we know that MSRP and asking prices will likely go up as a result of
increase to cost for these manufacturers to produce their vehicles.
That being said, when we look at the data for new vehicle inventory right now,
we have the highest level of new vehicle inventory we've seen all year long.
Dad, I'll pull that up here just so we can look at it.
We're at nearly 3 million vehicles in dealer inventory,
almost a 90 days supply of dealer inventory.
And so it's confounding because, yes, right now we are in the period where the
dealerships, the manufacturers, everyone in this value equation is incentivized
to sell these vehicles.
And so right now certainly as a buyer's market and it gets added on to
because you look at some of these things that are happening already and it
just signals that it's going to get worse next year, which could mean
that December of next year is an even better time to be buying a new car.
But obviously, if you don't have a year to wait, you might as well make
a move now, but it is just confounding that Honda is nuts to me.
62 grand for a prelude.
What? Well, I think the Honda dealership's hope is that somebody
remembers the original prelude and desperately wants to relive
their youth and is willing to overpay to do it.
The concept of adding $10,000 market adjustments on and I'm going to
guess that that car is the MSRP on that car is probably somewhere in the 40s.
OK, and then the dealer added dealer installed accessories and a $10,000
additional dealer markup.
Because there are people out there who will remember the last version
of the prelude and and honestly, the prelude was a hell of an exciting
coop that was available through Honda and it was quite popular.
So I'm sure there's a certain affinity to be able to get back into another one.
But the fact that the dealer wants to be that greedy wants to I'm guessing.
What did they add about $13,000, $14,000 off of the
general MSRP? Yeah, you know, that's just that's just a signal
to anybody who would be interested in that vehicle that this is a dealership
that isn't going to care about me ever coming back because, well,
when the ether wears off and I realize I paid an extra $14,000
for the vehicle just to be one of the first ones to get it,
I'm kind of going to resent that.
And that's not how you build your business or build customer relations
or keep keep a customer in the fold so that they'll want to come back.
Yeah, absolutely, dad, absolutely.
And we're also seeing another phenomena in the market, which is these
manufacturers are choosing to go more and more upmarket.
For example, here's an article earlier this year.
I'm going to share it on the screen right here.
You've got there it is.
Why Mazda wants to take on Mercedes and BMW?
We also know, dad, that Kia keeps making their vehicles more expensive,
trying to go upmarket, trying to push their brand to be more appealing
to attract, you know, they say younger shoppers, but who knows?
They're purchasing upmarket.
Same thing with Hyundai.
We'll do a little bit of a live experiment here.
I'll go over to the car edge car search and let's just plug in
really quickly, Hyundai.
We know Hyundai continues to go more upmarket and let's look at the Palisade.
That selling vehicle they've gotten their lineup.
And yeah, there it is.
This is what I wanted to look at.
What's the first row of MSRPs we're looking at?
Sixty thousand big works.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
For holidays, man, for Hyundai's.
And so we know these automakers continue to want to push upmarket,
increase their MSRPs, increase their margins, especially as their costs go up.
It's why, especially when you start to factor in and we keep track
of this, obviously, very closely back on caredge.com.
When is the best time to buy down to the freaking hour, folks?
I mean, we are in that best time of the year to make these moves to take
advantage of the fact that there's an oversupply of inventory and know
that a year from now, there were also probably an oversupply of inventory
because all signs point to fewer people being able to afford vehicles.
And eventually these manufacturers will have to reverse course on pricing.
Well, we do know that the anticipation is that sales in November
will be down eight percent year over year.
OK, so that's a significant decline from what we saw last November.
Now, knowing that there's an excess amount of new car inventory
and that sales really dropped off in November,
that's going to make every dealership even more motivated to move the
the metal, so to speak, to move the inventory that they have one hand.
So that that should that should make it a little bit easier to work discounts.
That's not to say that the vehicle still won't be overpriced.
But whatever the savings are will be significantly higher now
than what they would have been eight weeks ago
or what they'll probably be 10, 12 weeks from now.
Yeah, man, what a situation we are currently in.
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Dad, do you want to switch gears?
OK, I've I've always been known as a gear switcher.
All right, we're going to thank the folks in our chat quickly.
And then we're going to go look at something on X from Squeegee Kids.
Thank you, Squeegee Kids.
Happy Thanksgiving to Ray and Zach.
And of course, all the gotcha motor dealerships out there.
Thank you, Squeegee Kid. Good to see you.
And thank you. Happy Thanksgiving to you as well.
Very Joe. Thank you, Joe.
Happy Thanksgiving, guys.
Thanks for the quick reply pops.
Thank you, dad for getting back.
Yeah, you have no idea,
but Joe and I have been emailing back and forth this morning.
So my pleasure, Joe.
All right, dad, here's what I wanted to put on your radar.
This was tagged on over on X over on Twitter.
Here's an example, y'all, of a four square.
And I'm going to have you break it down, dad.
This is on a 2024 brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Oh, this is a car deal done last year,
but I want to spend some time here.
So we've got a trade in, which is a 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
You can see they got the deal done
because it says congrats with a big smiley face.
Have you ever been known to write congrats and a Sharpie
on a on an outfit on a four square paper?
Yes. All right, so let's break this down, dad.
Let's have this be educational.
So if we're saying that now is the time to go by in today's market,
let's break down what we're looking at here.
Let me get the chat off the screen.
We got us down there.
What are we looking at here, dad?
Vehicle price up at the top 51, two, seven, five.
Break this down for us and explain what's going on here, please.
OK, so the first square is the is the vehicle,
this the MSRP of the vehicle and then the selling price.
First we're meeting the top left.
The top left.
OK, and as you can see, that vehicle has an MSRP of 51, two, 75
and the dealer is selling it for $48,020 after the rebate,
but it's plus tax, title and fees.
Oh, my goodness.
And one of those fees is Ekbon coding for $1,495.
So what I can extrapolate from that at the moment
is that there isn't any discount other than the rebates
more than likely.
The top right hand corner is the current market value
for your trade in, OK, of $10,000.
So that's the trade allowance.
The bottom left hand box is the anticipated cash down
from the customer and then the bottom right is what your payments are.
And as you can see the things that are circled here, OK,
what circled the cash down because that's one of the things
that the dealership wants to concentrate on.
You might not want to concentrate on that,
but that's what they want to concentrate on.
And then this circle of the payment at 84 months,
somewhere between 619 and 627.
OK, now we don't know what the payoff was for the trade.
We don't know if there's positive equity, negative equity.
We don't we don't know the actual breakdown of what the total selling
price is or the outdoor price because the dealership personnel
are getting you to concentrate on the two most important things to them.
Cash down because cash down typically impacts profit
and payments and terms.
And what's surprising is that they actually put the term in many cases.
They just put a payment and a payment range.
And then if the customer says, well, how long how long is that for?
They might go, well, that's for the standard 84 months,
but we could probably get you extended terms if you wanted it.
Yeah, there's a lot in here.
So God, yes.
Yeah, but I want to I want to take our time
and I want you to be as clear as you possibly can.
You said something you don't often say on this channel.
You said that cash down is profit for the dealership.
We're going to have to explain that.
And then also, will you take some time to explain the difference between this
and how we coach people how to negotiate, which is obviously out the door price.
You separate the trade in as a separate transaction, etc.
So first things first, though, you rarely say that line that you just said,
so I'm going to need you to take a moment here to explain why is cash
down profit for the dealership?
Because if there's no cash down and it's a payment that you have to get to,
then the things that you're going to have to adjust are the price of the
vehicle and the trade it allows.
Now, if you're adjusting the price of the vehicle, you're lowering your gross
profit in the vehicle to do that.
And cash down allows you not to have to play with the yet with the
profit in the vehicle.
You're concentrating on they might have started initially at $5,000 down
and the customer said, well, I only have 500 to put down.
And they kept working the customer.
Well, if you had to, could you come up with $2,500?
And by the customer agreeing to that, they are they are not
concentrating on the out the door price.
They have no idea at this point in time what they're actually paying
for the vehicle and how much they're really, really getting against
the selling price of that vehicle for their trade in.
So it is it is a way to get a customer to take their eye off the ball.
And the ball is the out the door price.
That is the only thing you need to be concerned with initially.
You have to you have to work a discount on the vehicle, find out
what the total out the door price is.
The trade becomes a second transaction.
Then ultimately, after you've agreed to a number on the trade
will impact that out the door price that you had agreed to.
It will either raise it or lower it, depending upon whether or not
you have positive equity or negative equity.
But concentrate on the out the door price first and then work
the trade in, then work cash down, then work payments, not
cash down payments, trade in price, of course.
Well, the thing is that out the door is nowhere even that he found
out that she no, no, they've never disclosed it.
And the first time this customer might find out what the out the door
number is, is when he's signing the bank contract.
And he might not even he or she might not even pay
that close attention to what the total price of the vehicle is
because the finance manager is going to be concentrating.
As you can see, your payments going to be 625.87
for that 84 months.
And they'll just keep concentrating on that and nothing else.
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This is the type of stuff that goes on day in and day out at car
dealerships and why it's so important to know how to negotiate.
I also like that cash down is referred to as initial investment.
Yeah, you see that?
Yes, yes.
Yeah, because who doesn't want to put an initial investment
on a depreciating asset.
I like Igor's comment here.
I always advise my friends to get up and leave if they see
a four square at the dealership because if you stay, you will
battle this dealership forever to get a deal.
How do you feel about this, dad?
Do you think the four square is a okay?
You keep doing it, you know, you keep negotiating or is this
something that's almost a red flag to you?
Well, you know, I see a lot of comments where, where the
comments are, oh, dealers don't use the four square anymore.
Oh, really?
Maybe not on your dealership.
But this is a year old, but still this is a good example.
And this, this is an absolute four square.
But dealerships do use a printouts that aren't broken down
into these four squares.
But the kind, it is, it is what, what I would call a disguised
or hidden four square because it's going to show you a selling
price.
It's going to show you a trade allowance.
It's going to show you what your options are with $5,000
down, $4,000 down.
It's going to show you what your payment range could be
at, at 48 months, 60 months, 72 months, 84 months.
Even though it's not broken down into four squares, it
contains all the, all the same concepts of a four square.
It is, it is old school.
It is a way to, to get you to concentrate on the wrong
aspect of the deal.
And let's face it, dealerships are good at doing that.
I mean, dad, at the end of the day, it is a
tried and trued approach to sell cars.
At the, it doesn't even matter if you call it a four square.
If you put four square, they are actively trying to get you to
think about these four things.
There's a selling price card.
Don't worry about how he got there.
There's a value for your trade.
Don't worry about how he got there.
We need you to put more money down.
Don't worry about why we need it, but we need it.
Oh, and here's the payment that you wanted to be at.
This is unequivocally how most card deals go down.
And, and typically the four square, the first time it
comes out is the salesperson is going to say, well, what hurts
the most? What's the biggest problem on this for you?
Is it that cash down?
I know we were looking for $5,000 down.
What could you comfortably afford?
Well, I only wanted to put 500.
Well, you know, if the difference between 500 and
5,000, that's $4,500.
That's going to negatively impact those payments.
So how much more could you come up with?
Let's work on that pain point first.
And so they're going to concentrate on the pain
point of cash down and payment.
They want you to do it in reverse order, because if you
do it in reverse order, you have no idea ultimately
what you paid for the vehicle.
Dad, we have a request to our community.
This is anonymous and we need your help.
Go to caredge.com slash ccbi.
That link has been on the ticker and I'll pop it
in the chat right now.
This is an anonymous survey that helps us produce
our monthly car edge, car buying index.
Compared to a year ago, is your household financial
situation better about the same?
Worse, you have questions here about vehicles,
about dealerships, about trust in the industry.
It is 100% anonymous.
No information, no personal information gathered.
Please share your input.
Doesn't matter if you're in the market to
buy a car or not.
And we're doing this monthly now, folks.
And for example, here, this was last month.
We didn't spend a lot of time on the show
talking about it.
But the headline number, 82% of Americans don't
trust car dealers as affordability hits crisis levels.
We've got so much good data that comes out of
this car edge, car buying index.
You can see here only 20% of respondents believe
the next 12 months will be a good time to buy a vehicle.
74% of car shoppers say vehicles are less
affordable than a year ago and 49% are not
satisfied with vehicle inventory in their price range.
The most alarming thing we found was that
that most people cannot trust dealers or Ford vehicles.
Shocker.
Shocker, only 82%.
That means there's 18% of the population out there
that thinks they can trust car dealers.
And well, those 18% of the respondents need to
get their heads examined.
And it's also low trust in the automakers,
that's 82% don't trust dealers.
59% report low trust in automakers.
2% express high trust.
And the reason, the reason in my opinion that
customers don't trust the automakers is because
the automakers know about the bait and switch
that happens at so many of their dealerships as
far as advertised price and then real price
when you go to buy it.
So they know about that.
And then, and then they get confronted with
the fact that there's lease programs from
the manufacturer and when you go in to do it,
you can't, excuse me.
So there's real good reasons why the buying
public doesn't feel good about either the
dealer or the manufacturer.
They think they're both crooks.
They just think the dealers are bigger crooks
than the smaller crook manufacturers.
Yeah, exactly.
Now there is a bright spot in all this,
which is folks like to research and they
trust the research that they do.
86% of respondents feel confident
that information they find when researching
is accurate and unbiased.
78% trust independent websites like CarEdge,
the most transparent information,
only 2% trust dealer websites the most.
Yeah, well, they're, you know, man,
all the years that I was in the business
and I tried to find it.
I tried, I tried to inspire the owners
that I worked for to find a better way
to be willing to look at better ways.
You know, I, what's the old saying?
How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time?
And so how do you change an archaic industry
one little bit at a time?
You know, the little things, the little
changes that I was able to establish
and make at the dealerships that I work at.
Were, were small, but they were,
it was like one small step for man,
one giant step for mankind.
For sure.
It, you know, it was pretty alarming
to some of the owners that I worked for.
But there is a better way and there
and there can be a better way
and there should be a better way.
And we just need more dealer principles
to accept the fact that this whole process
could not only be fun and enjoyable,
but it could, it could be improved so dramatically
that it'll be better for their staff.
It'll be more profitable for the stores
and it'll, it'll make it easier to retain your customers.
But most want to fight that instead of like accept it.
Again, folks, we need your help car edge dot com slash C C B I.
We need about another hundred and fifty responses to this survey
before we've got the number we need to run our new report.
We got to get that done before the end of the month.
So please take three minutes, fill this out again, one hundred percent anonymous.
And while I am on the website, I will do the promo.
We've got our Black Friday special running three hundred dollars off
our car buying service, 30 percent off car edge pro.
Please take advantage of both back on the website.
Car edge dot com dad from no name.
We've got do y'all agree not to talk about four squares
at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
No, no four square talk allowed.
I don't want to talk about the car business around the Thanksgiving dinner table
or any other table to be to be quite honest with you.
Yeah, exactly.
Spending enough time talking about it here from OGG 619.
How do you handle a used vehicle inspection from out of state?
This is a great question.
Yes, there are there are independent contractors out there
that actually do things like that.
And one of the things I would suggest, depending on what type of car
you're looking at, that's out of state, whatever dealer it's at.
Say you're looking at a Toyota and a Honda dealership.
I will call the local Toyota dealership and ask them what they would charge
to do a pre-purchase inspection.
And would it be possible for them to pick up the car
so that they could do that for you?
Yeah, and I know my dad said independent contractors.
I would say there are services out there.
So Lemon Squad is a service.
There might be some like Jane Doe, John Doe, independent type people.
Probably that as well.
But if you're looking for just like a plug and play option,
Lemon Squad is one.
But I like what my dad said a lot called the local dealer that has the same
that represents the same manufacturer and that represents a good
opportunity to get them to take a peek from earlier in the show.
Dad, this is from Robert.
Don't buy prices are already unaffordable.
Going up from here is just more unaffordable.
OEMs must inevitably address high prices.
Wait, this is kind of what you and I have been preaching for years on that.
I'm kind of at its end with it, though, like the manufacturers
have never been able to demonstrate a willingness to lower prices.
And this is the first new model year where we're going to have
the impact of tariffs.
We might not want to talk about it, but they are going to impact MSRPs.
They already are.
And so the fact that the new car industry right now
has such a significant oversupply of inventory.
Again, I'll pull it up on the screen.
We're back to three million vehicles in inventory.
I actually think it's bad advice to tell people who are in the
market to buy a car to wait.
I don't see that getting sweeter in January.
I don't see it getting sweeter in February.
Like, this is your moment.
Listen, the dealers and the manufacturers both know that the two
slowest months of the year are January and February.
They are not going to spend a lot of time, effort and energy,
especially marketing dollars in incentives to keep the product
flowing in January and February.
What they will do and what they are doing is trying to create a
sense of urgency now, especially with so many of the 0% interest
rates that are being offered out there.
So I think with the slowdown in sales in November that perhaps
we will see some enhancements from some of the manufacturers in
some of the incentives for December.
But I don't see the manufacturers being particularly strong
incentive wise coming in January and February.
And it's twofold.
They've already, December is pull ahead month.
Okay.
They know they're pulling ahead of their customers that
we're going to buy a car in January, which is why they
know January is going to be a slow month.
So here's the deal.
If you find something you like now and you can negotiate it
down to the price point that you find acceptable and you can,
if you're financing it, you can finance it at a rate that you
find acceptable and affordable.
Then just buy it.
Okay.
The thought that you want to catch the bottom of the
market typically means you're going to miss it.
I mean, that's typically what happens.
You know, we're waiting for the bottom of the market and before
you know it, you realize, oh, that's already passed.
I kind of sort of missed it.
Now I have to buy it on the upswing.
So I would suggest to you, if you find anything that's
acceptable now, you know you're catching it on the
downswing.
Whether or not you're catching it at absolute bottom
shouldn't matter that difference could be really
insignificant over time.
Insignificant or, especially if you have a trade-in, we know
that wholesale use car value.
But actually, let's see.
Let me pull it up really quickly.
I didn't even look at the most recent black book market
insights.
Let's do it together.
I haven't even looked.
This is live, live, live, live.
It can either tell the right story or the wrong story.
It's going to tell you the story that they continued to decline.
Yeah.
So there you go.
So this is wholesale use car depreciation at the dealer
auctions and we saw another week of .86% depreciation, which
is significantly higher than what we've seen historically,
which is .53.
So what that tells me that is that if you have a trade-in,
definitely making a car deal today makes more sense than
continuing to wait because your trade-in offer is going to go
down significantly.
We have a great guide back in caredge.com, trade-in
tactics for success.
Google search that, chat GPT it.
It'll pop right up.
So yeah, I actually think the calculus is pretty
straightforward.
You do the move today.
You don't anticipate.
And again, we start today's show with another automaker Audi
jacking up the prices of their next model year new vehicle.
We're going to see more and more of that from Tyson.
Thank you, Tyson.
Thank you.
What do you think of the Ford Lightning?
What's thinking about buying one?
But I know the battery tech will bet better in the future.
Yeah.
What are your thoughts on the Lightning?
Here's what I think about the Lightning and here's the
thing that you really need to consider.
Ford is in serious discussions about discontinuing the
Lightning altogether.
So that should tell you everything you need to know.
If Ford isn't convinced of the success of that vehicle, I don't
know why you might want to buy one.
Yeah.
Or at least one.
Well, the only way to do it would be to lease it.
Or buy a used one.
And obviously on the use side, it's going to be significantly
depreciated.
Yes.
But Ford is in serious discussions about just
discontinuing that vehicle altogether.
All right, dad, a friendly reminder to everyone.
We've got our promo running.
And more importantly, you should get a free consultation
call with our team.
Go to caredge.com slash concierge.
Scroll down.
Schedule the time to talk to us or have us call you or
just live chat and meet the folks who are working their
butts day in and day out to get deals for our community
members.
I think we were just looking at Nick the other day and it
was like 805,000.
It was 803.
It was 803.
And he closed four more deals.
And now we're at $820,000 in cumulative savings for car
edge customers.
I think Nick, I mean, I don't want to start a little race
here, but I think Nick's going to be the first one to a
million dollars in cumulative savings.
Isn't that incredible?
That really, really is.
And, you know, when you think about the six years
that we've been doing this, I can't even begin to put a
number as to how many, probably hundreds of
millions of dollars we have saved people over the
course of six years by just educating them and
empowering them for when they did go into a
dealership to buy a car.
It's good stuff, man.
It's good stuff.
All right, folks, we are not here tomorrow, but we're
back on Friday.
Black Friday will be here hanging out with you for
more car edge live.
Dad, enjoy the afternoon and look forward to getting
back online with you on Friday.
Yep.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
Enjoy your...
Do you want to see the dog on pet sitting?
Oh, we'd love to see the dog your pet sitting.
Okay.
We're going to do a quick little apartment tour.
Is the dog here?
Yeah, yeah, the dog's in the apartment.
Okay.
All right.
So this is my apartment.
This is Jack's apartment.
And by the way, folks, it is a lovely apartment.
It's not an apartment.
He, oh, look at, look at, look at her.
Hi, Lola.
Yeah.
Well, was she on tranquilizers?
She's just chilling, Bev.
Wow.
What a beautiful little girl.
There she is.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you're such a pretty girl.
All right.
Well, there you go.
That's an episode of Car Edge Live.
We're back on Friday, folks.
Love you, Dad.
Yep.
Love you too, handsome.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
See you Friday.
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About this episode
CarEdge Live discusses the impending rise in car prices expected in 2026, highlighted by Audi's significant price hikes. With an oversupply of inventory and current incentives, hosts Ray and Zach emphasize that now is the best time to buy a car. They explore the puzzling trend of manufacturers pushing prices up while inventories grow, and share insights on negotiating tactics and the importance of understanding dealership pricing strategies. The episode also touches on consumer trust in dealerships and the automotive industry as a whole.
Original notes
Today on CarEdge Live, Ray and Zach discuss why car prices will go up in 2026 and why now is the time to buy if you've been waiting. Tune in to learn more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com
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advertising.
CarEdge Live
Ray and Zach Shefska, Bleav
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