Around big holidays like Memorial Day, car dealers often run special sales and ads to get more shoppers in the door. It’s a common seasonal marketing strategy in the U.S.
Sometimes the car company helps pay part of the cost to make the deal cheaper. Those are “incentives,” and they can show up as rebates or special financing offers.
They talk about a sales strategy where the dealer tries to keep the profit small (near what they paid) during a holiday weekend, and then see if it still brings enough sales. They also mention how the competitor did fewer cars that weekend.
Dealers don’t always sell cars at the manufacturer’s “sticker” price. “Invoice” is basically what the dealer pays to get the car, and “invoice plus $500” means the dealer only adds a small extra amount on top.
Floor plan assistance is help from the car maker to cover the cost of having cars sitting at the dealership. If that cost is lower, the dealer may be more flexible on pricing.
Advertising assistance is money from the car maker to help the dealer advertise. It can influence how deals are marketed and priced.
Concept
fuel assistance
Fuel assistance is extra money from the car maker to help cover some operating costs. It can indirectly affect what kind of deal a dealer is able to make.
A dealer transparency index is like a report card for how clearly a dealership explains pricing and the deal. Higher transparency usually means fewer surprises at the dealership.
AutoNation Ford of Bellevue is a specific car dealership. The hosts are using it to show how you can spot potential deal issues like extra charges and slow-selling cars.
“Add-ons” are extra items a dealer tries to sell you on top of the car’s advertised price. They can raise the total cost, so it’s worth checking what’s included before you agree.
“Days on market” means how many days a car has been listed for sale. If it’s been sitting for a long time, it can be a sign the price or deal isn’t very attractive.
In dealership terms, “inventory” refers to the vehicles a dealer currently has listed for sale (new, used, and certified pre-owned). The hosts use inventory mix and volume to compare how aggressively a dealer is moving certain models.
They’re talking about researching dealerships before you ever go in. The goal is to find which ones are more motivated to sell, so you waste less time and can negotiate from a stronger position.
The Ford Explorer is a popular family SUV. Here, the hosts are using a 2025 Explorer example to show how dealers can tack on extra add-ons that may not be optional in practice.
A service contract is like an extra repair plan you buy with the car. It may cover some repairs later, but the details matter—what’s covered, what’s not, and how much it costs.
Term
MAC shield
“MAC shield” sounds like an extra protection add-on the dealer is bundling in. You should check what it covers and whether it’s already covered by the car’s included warranties or other plans.
Employee pricing is a lower price you can sometimes get through special programs that are meant for employees. The hosts are asking whether that kind of discount is the best deal during Memorial Day or if other times of year are better.
The Ford F-150 XLT is a specific version of the Ford F-150 pickup truck. They’re using it as an example to show that the “deal” you see advertised might not be the best price you can actually get.
Company
E-Boards
E-Boards is mentioned as a place that tracks or reports car deals. They’re using it to support the idea that discounts can beat employee pricing.
The 2026 Chevy Traverse RS is a particular trim of the Chevy Traverse family SUV. They’re asking what discount you should aim for, so it’s about getting a good deal rather than just trusting advertising.
This is a way to measure how many cars are sitting around compared to how fast they’re selling. If there are lots of cars and sales are slow, dealers may be more willing to discount.
This is basically what the dealer pays the car company for the car. If a dealer is selling close to invoice, the discount is smaller; if it’s far below invoice, you’re getting a better deal.
A negotiation power score is a data-driven metric used to estimate how much leverage a buyer has based on factors like inventory, pricing vs. invoice, and how quickly cars are moving. A higher score generally suggests the deal may be easier to improve.
Rebates are cash incentives from the car company that lower what you pay. Sometimes you have to qualify, and they can be added on top of other discounts.
The Honda Pilot is a family SUV with three rows of seats. “Elite” is the nicer, higher trim level, and they’re talking about what kind of discount you can realistically get on a 2026 one in the Washington, DC area.
Invoice price is basically what the dealer pays for the car to the manufacturer. If the selling price is close to invoice, the dealer isn’t making as much profit.
Days supply is a measure of how long dealers’ inventory will last. If it’s low, cars are moving and discounts are harder to get; if it’s high, dealers may be more willing to deal.
A negotiation score is a way to guess how easy it will be to get a good price. If the car is selling quickly and there aren’t many deals, the score will be low.
A processing fee is an extra charge the dealer adds for handling the paperwork and preparing the sale. The hosts are checking whether that fee is unusually high compared to what’s typical.
A dock fee is an extra charge for getting the car from where it was delivered to the dealership. In this segment, they’re saying it’s higher than average.
A lease is like renting a car for a few years with monthly payments. They’re discussing trying to negotiate a discount on the lease terms, not just the purchase price.
A “target discount” just means the amount of money you want to save on the car. They’re asking what percentage off people should realistically try to get.
The Acura MDX is a family SUV with three rows of seats. “Type S” is the sportier version, and the “advanced package” adds extra features—so they’re talking about a specific, fully-optioned MDX when discussing what discount to target.
The Acura NSX is a high-performance sports car. The host is making a “back then vs now” comparison about pricing—basically saying the money mentioned for the SUV reminds him of what an NSX might have cost.
An “AI agent” is like a smart helper program. In this context, they’re talking about using it to gather info about which cars people are interested in so they can do better deal analysis.
Term
dealer's life
“Dealer’s life” is a casual way of talking about what a dealership is dealing with—like what cars customers are asking about. They’re suggesting using AI to learn those signals.
Car
2008 GMC Denali XT
The GMC Denali XT is a GMC concept vehicle from 2008 tied to the Denali luxury name. The hosts are basically talking about whether it ever turned into a real production car.
The Mazda CX-5 is a small SUV made for daily driving. It’s designed to be practical for errands and family trips. The podcast mentions it because someone in the family has one and thinks it’s a standout choice.
Abarth is the performance brand within Fiat. The hosts are excited because this Abarth is a manual, which makes it more engaging to drive.
LIVE
It's noon here in Ventner City, New Jersey, in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.,
and this is Courage Live for Friday, May 22nd, the beginning of Memorial Day weekend
with your hosts, me, Ray, exhausted from my travels to Baltimore and back.
And, well, my son, Zach, hang it out. How are you today, handsome?
Doing so well, Dad. Happy Friday, everyone. Long weekend ahead with Memorial Day
on the other side of it, Pops. We're going to start today's show off by reminding everyone
that it is brought to you by CarEdge.com. For six years, me, my dad, and our incredible team
have been providing car buying services, car research advice, and so much more back at CarEdge.com.
Forgive me, but I have to remind you, dealer reviews. This is probably the biggest
initiative we have in CarEdge Land right now. If you want to learn more about dealers who are
honest and transparent and dealers that you should avoid, go to CarEdge.com, click on dealer reviews,
and I encourage you to compare dealers. You can go side by side, see dealers that are
more or less transparent. Dad, let's do one. How about Acura North? Do we have Acura North
Scottsdale? We do. My dad used to work at Acura North Scottsdale, and they get a B grade.
You can compare them side by side with other dealers right here.
Probably would have been an F when I ran all the way.
And we have our car buying service, this Memorial Day, if you're looking to take advantage of that.
Learn more, start with a free consultation chat with our team. Dad, here's where we're going
to kick things off today. Yes. Memorial Day. Yes. I see ads everywhere right now from Memorial Day.
Go buy a car, go do the thing. You got to sit up, man. You're looking extra short today.
He just grew, folks. What do we need to know about Memorial Day, Dad? Is Memorial Day actually
going to be the day where you get the best deal, the biggest savings, things like that,
or is a little bit of advertising marketing from the automakers and the dealers and an excuse
to get you into the dealership? Is Memorial Day a myth or is Memorial Day a reality?
It's a little bit of both. Okay. Typically, as I can remember from when I was actually in the
dealerships, typically Memorial Day weekends were pretty big weekends for dealerships.
There were some legitimate sales and savings that you could get. There were many incentives from
the manufacturers. You could save some money and on top of that, there were hot dogs, hamburgers,
potato chips, pretzels, and cold sodas. Okay. Typically, May was a good month because of
Memorial Day. We shouldn't forget what Memorial Day is really all about,
but let's face it, in the car business, they'll use any holiday as an excuse to have a sale.
It's retail in general, but yes, the car business, of course. We'll save our thanks for
Monday. It's also your 75th birthday on Monday, so we'll be talking about both of those things
when we go live then. But, Dad, really dig in here. Think back to when you were running these
dealerships. Are you providing better deals? Yes.
Let me give you a perfect example. Go for it.
When it was Scottsdale Acura before we moved to North Scottsdale,
and it was my first year there, and I said for Memorial Day weekend, why don't we do a special
sale? I put together a proposal. I said, why don't we do invoice plus $500 on all the cars or
invoice plus a couple percent, whatever the hell it was. Legitimately, I mean, made the
invoice to every vehicle available, and the used car manager and the general manager at that time
said, that's not going to work. I said, well, I know one way it won't work. They said, how's that?
I said, we don't try. So we tried it, and we had the biggest Memorial Day weekend in the history
of the store, where we were open Sundays as well. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
we did over 30 cars. On Memorial Day itself, we did like 15 or 20 cars just on Memorial Day.
Our competitor, the other Acura store that was in Phoenix at that time,
they had like a 10 car weekend. We had like almost a 40 car weekend. So does it work? Can there be
sales? Yes, I mean, if they're legitimate sales, and we legitimately did it, where even the newspaper
ad was a copy of an invoice, a legitimate invoice, so people could actually see what the dealership
was charged. Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that that's all the money the dealership
makes, because we've discussed it a thousand times, if not more, that there's holdback,
there's floor plan assistance, there's advertising assistance, there's fuel assistance,
there's a multitude of different ways that the manufacturer gives the dealer additional sums
of money. But the fact that it was invoice plus 500 hours, it was really a no negotiating kind of
thing, where we just made it easy for people, go pick out the car and we're done.
So you did that around Memorial Day back in your career. Do you think there are other
dealers out there doing similar things today? Is that specifically a Memorial Day thing,
or do you think the real life? I think there are dealers who are aggressive and dealers who are
passive. And the passive dealers are going to sit back and not really offer any type of
significant savings. And just customers figure that out before we go into the dealership.
Because if someone's watching this video and we said, don't buy a car this Memorial Day until
you watch this, what do they need to be doing? What do they need to be doing today, this weekend,
to find the aggressive dealers versus the passive dealers? Well, they need to look at it. I mean,
you know, when we did this, I mean, we actually use newspaper ads and stuff. That gives you some
ideas to how many years ago this was. There were actually newspapers. But how do you do it today?
There's digital advertising, and compare. You have to compare.
I think you can call the dealers with that. At the end of the day, as a customer,
I can look at the ads. But a lot of these ads, we know the FTC is going after it right now.
They're BS anyway. I think you have to actually call the dealer. That's where my-
I think, perhaps, our dealer transparency index might help to some extent.
It could. It could, but yeah.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's not work for the customer. It's work. Okay. If you're
looking at a Honda and there's four Honda dealers in your market area, you're going to have to compare
what all four are advertising. Maybe there's one that's being overly aggressive. We were the
Acura store that was being overly aggressive. There are savings to be had. Then there's times
a dealer just hopes that because everybody else is advertising a sale, that you're going to come
into their store and think, well, there must be a sale here as well.
Yeah. I hear you. It actually makes me want to do a little bit of a live experiment here.
Dad, do you mind if we try something out? I live for this, I think.
All right. I am going to go under dealer reviews. I'm going to go to the map.
Where do you want to pretend that we're car shopping right now? Where do you want to go?
My goodness. We haven't been to Washington state in quite some time.
Okay. We're going to go like Seattle area.
I think that would be a good place. They should have a few dealerships in Seattle.
We need a density of dealers to make this analysis work. We're in the Seattle area,
and it looks like, all right, we've got a C-rated dealer up here, an A-rated dealer,
A-rated, A-rated. We've got four dealers all pretty close to each other.
The thing that I'm interested in that, and I'm going to share with you this one,
AutoNation Ford of Bellevue. A-rated dealers, that's fantastic. They're transparent.
What they advertise online is legitimate. The thing that I want to look at here,
I'm actually going to show past. It looks like they put add-ons. This is interesting.
They put add-ons on the Ford Maverick. That's actually a little bit sketchy.
You got to watch out for that. There was a different vehicle they didn't put add-ons on,
so it's not all the time. This is good to see. What I'm interested in here is you have the
inventory situation. Boom, this. This chart right here, I'll show you the days on market of the
vehicles at this dealership. You can see at this particular dealership, most of their inventory
is over 180 days on the lot. If I click through on that, it's actually going to take me to those
cars that are over 180 days on that dealer slot. New used and certified, seriously. You are here
for 211 days. A Maverick for 444 days. Lots of Mavericks here, actually, which is fascinating.
I then want to compare this. What was it? 36% of their inventory plus 30?
66% of their inventory, dad, is aging over 90 days.
Not good. Not good at all. They should be offering some deals this weekend.
Yeah. I want to now compare that. Let's come back to Seattle. We were looking at Ford.
That was the AutoNation store. Now, let's look at this one.
Evergreen, Ford, and Lincoln. Well, we can't see it.
Let's come back over here to Evergreen, Ford, and Lincoln. Yeah, look at that.
The other one was 66% of their inventory was aged. This dealership, it's 52%. Still way too much.
Yes. This is the type of stuff as a car shopper I'm doing to start to qualify.
It seems like that AutoNation dealership should be more motivated to be selling and to be clear,
both for print transparent dealerships. That AutoNation dealership is going to be the one
that's more motivated to sell cars right now. Well, they certainly have more aged cars than
the second dealership. As a customer, you've got aged 20, 25s.
What I was going to say is pretty much every interview that I end up doing,
the interviewer always asks me, well, what are some tricks? Well, I can't give you a trick,
but I'll give you a piece of advice. As a customer, whatever it is that you're looking at,
when you get to the dealership, say to the salesperson, I need you to do me a favor.
I'm interested in whatever model it is. I want you to go to your sales manager,
your new car manager, and I want you to ask him what's the oldest one you have in the inventory
and tell him that you have a customer who would be willing to take that car off your hands
if we can work out an acceptable deal. The new car manager who is trying to
manage his inventory should be more motivated to get rid of the oldest of a particular model
than the youngest vehicle of a particular model. That's a tip, ain't a trick, but it's a tip.
99.9% of customers will never do that, will never walk in and say what's the oldest of X.
They just won't do it. Somebody would end up showing you that vehicle,
and trust me, the motivation factor has increased dramatically for that new car manager
who will say at some point to that salesperson, do not let that customer leave. We're going to make
a deal. What's interesting, Dad, I want to pull back up here because when you start to do this
analysis before you even go to the dealership, you can pretty much hone in on who has the highest
likelihood to engage with you and make a deal this Memorial Day. This was the C-rated dealer
in the Seattle area for Ford. What's interesting here is when you scroll down, you can see here,
they add add-ons to their vehicles. That's evidently their business model. In some cases,
a lot of add-ons. Let's take a peek at this right here. This is on 2025 Explorer. Yeah,
you can see here. They're adding SWAT service contract and MAC shield that you may or may not
have asked for onto this vehicle. That's something to watch out for, but then interestingly, Dad,
if I scroll down to their inventory situation, it's actually a lot of fresher inventory. Only 40%
of their inventory is aged. Just as a customer, the level of research you can do this Memorial
Day versus prior Memorial Days has changed. You should still call all these dealerships,
see who's the most desperate to sell a car, and then ultimately use some of this to inform where
you lean in more. The dealership that's transparent and also has an oversupply of aged inventory,
they're probably the ones to look at. I'm pretty sure somebody didn't ask for SWAT and then the
doodah, doodah day. There's also this question around Memorial Day, Dad,
which is the manufacturer incentives. Is Ford employee pricing worth a big deal looking to get
an XLT Ford F-150? We saw Ford come out with it. See other automakers really push ads and
things like that. Are the incentives from the manufacturers good around Memorial Day,
or will they be better at other times during the year? Well, we know that the Ford program,
I believe, is going to run through at least the fourth of July because the whole concept behind it
was to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country. Now, is that a big deal? Well, there are
some Ford dealers that are sitting on some Ford product that they would gladly sell even below
employee pricing because it's just been sitting there for like ever. Some Broncos, some light
things. So there are, excuse me, there are deals to be had that are even better deals than employee
pricing. The major reason for the employee pricing is to just make it as an ease of doing business
where you pick the vehicle, the price is already set, it's printed on the invoice.
I think differently than you. I think the reason they do it is for marketing. I don't think it's
for ease of doing business. I think it's because it's a great thing to be able to market and shop
from the rooftop. Then a lot of uninformed car shoppers will never hear the message you just
communicated, which is you can probably do better. In some cases, yes. Most people I don't think watch
our show have ever even heard of us. They just see the advertisement this weekend and they're like,
oh, employee pricing, I should take advantage of that. Well, let me say this, as much as I enjoy
doing our show, which I do, it gives me a reason to get up every day, which today was at 6.30 in
the morning, dammit, because I was in Baltimore, I had to catch a train. But my point is, or was
going to be that we reach so few people. We reach on this channel a million views a month
I don't know what that translates into and how many different people that might be.
But let's assume that there's 50 million people out there that might be thinking about buying a
car. Unfortunately, they don't know about us and they don't hear the message. That's the unfortunate
reality. I wish our platform were bigger so that more people could utilize some of the information
that we offer and some of the tips, but it is what it is. And hopefully, we can inform enough people
that eventually they'll tell friends and others and maybe they'll-
To your point, Dad, from my point that you're back enough, the key message here is just because
the automakers are advertising one thing out there, screaming it from the rooftops, it doesn't
necessarily mean it's the best deal or quite frankly, even a deal in today's market. And so
back to the question about the Ford F-150 XLT, I think in a lot of cases, you can do better than
employee pricing, especially if you find that aged one on a dealer's lot. And you see here,
E-Boards saying four deals go $1,000 below employee pricing and incentives and you get a
great deal. So it is possible out there to make that happen. Dad, let's help Jared out quickly.
What should my target discount be for a 2026 Chevy Traverse RS in the St. Louis metro? Okay.
So here's what we're going to do. I need to find St. Louis zip code.
The next person that asks a question like that, put it in the zip code.
Yeah, zip code really helps us because as I'm about to show you, the car search works off of
zip codes. So I think we want, what was it, 63101? I guess that's going to get us into the St. Louis
metro. And the dead, what was the trim option? It was the RS. Okay. So we're looking for
RS. So here's the first thing I'm noticing just immediately. Within 100 miles, within 100 miles
of that zip code, there are 75 of these. Not a lot. Not particularly. So let's take a quick peek.
We'll look at this first one here. 123 days on the market. The market day supply is 90. So what
that says, Dad, is it's like kind of healthy, kind of not. It's a little more day supply than they
would like. Yeah, it's not that agreed. The Alarm Bells aren't going off yet. The dealer invoice
cost was $56,110. The MSRP is $58,815. We give it a negotiation power score of 62 out of 100.
And they've already discounted. The dealer discount is already $4,500. So
that's the dealer discount. Let's take a quick peek. Well, I was going to say that at least
the alleged asking price is already $2,000 below invoice. Can we just take a second,
look at this website. We've got this. We You got a lot going on here.
I don't want to text right now. I don't want to. Okay. So it looks like
the Weber GC discount, everyone qualifies. This offer is unconditional. Yeah. So they're
offering a $4,500 discount. And then there are other rebates that you may qualify for.
So what are you shooting for? An incremental $1,000 off from the dealer when you negotiate with
them, something like that? Well, you know, I'm sure they left their self-summary.
Totally. Yeah. You know, what do I always say? You can't get what you don't ask for. So if you
don't ask for it, you're not going to get it. So hey, I see you've already taken $4,700 off.
But I was thinking that the market was closer to $5,500 off. Can we make that happen?
Ask the question. So, you know, and then $5,500 off would be closer to about 10%.
Yeah. You know what I do like about this dealership immediately?
Everything's like delineated here. And even with like hovering, I like that.
They've got the dock fee. Everyone qualifies. I'm now actually really curious that,
forgive me if I'm going to come over here.
You know, and here's the really interesting question. I wonder if they've advertised
their prices like this for a long time? I doubt it.
Or if it's a relatively new thing because of the FTC initiative?
I bet you it's because of the FTC stuff that's going on, which is a really good thing to see.
Oh, it's Weber Granite City. Okay. Because we don't have this one. Let me...
Dealers. You type like I do.
No, we don't have a score for them yet. We haven't shopped them. So, interesting.
But I bet you when we do, we're going to get a good score because it looks so different.
Just looking at that, yeah.
Yeah. Very chance.
I mean, that is kind of exactly the way the FTC would like to see dealers advertise the price.
You know, it's a discount that anyone would qualify for.
And those dock fee clearly communicate that.
Yes. And legitimately, that's the way all dealers should do it.
Totally. That we've got here from Space Best Deal I've seen on a Traverse is 14% off of MSRP.
So, again, to put this into context, we'll come back to this vehicle. It's almost a $60,000 vehicle.
So, we're talking about, yeah, you can get more than that $4,500 off.
I'm feeling good about what I was saying to shoot for the additional $1,000 on top.
Yeah. You know, the 14% off could have been an anomaly. I don't know.
And there might have been a regional incentive. I don't know. But yeah, I would think there's
more there. There should be. There could be. But there's one way for sure you're not going to
find out. And that's if you don't ask.
Let's come here. We've got another thoughtful contribution from Big Fam.
Target discount on a 2026 Honda Pilot in the DC area. So, let's come here.
Honda Pilot Elite.
Honda Pilot Elite. So, let's come here. Give me a second.
So, now we're over on the car search. Honda Pilot Elite. I've got Washington. Let's do
a pilot. And then the trim was Elite?
Yes. 152. Okay. So, we've got a little bit more density of this vehicle. 152 of them.
God, when did Honda Pilots become $56,000 vehicles? My goodness.
Yeah. That's looking like it's the, I mean, some of them at the 5200.
We've got some A and D rated dealers here. Let's look at Rosenthal. this one.
It's a brand new one. 28 days on the market. 39 days supply. Look at the invoice price, Dad.
There's $4,000 in profit.
Indeed. Wow. Yeah.
All right. We're giving it a very low negotiation score because of the market dynamics. Yeah,
limited leverage. The reason we're saying this, it's only been on the market for 28 days.
39 days supply. A lot of them are selling. And it's, you know, there are a lot for sale,
but not a ton. I want to go look at the dealer website on this one, Dad. And so,
let's go to the dealer site. Okay. I think, again, we're seeing some of this cleanup because the
now they're listing their $995 process. Where are they located? Virginia.
Okay. Because I was going to say they also have dealerships in
Maryland and you wouldn't be allowed to ask for a $995 processing fee in Maryland.
No, you would not. The average in Virginia, by the way, I just pulled up their transparency
page is $875. So it is an expensive dock fee. Yes.
But they don't add add-ons. So that's good. We have graded this dealer. But Dad,
I mean, we're looking at $4,386 off of already a $54, call it $55. I mean,
you're probably shooting for 10% off of MSRP on this.
And I would think because they're tacking $1,000 in profit back on with the $995 processing fee.
You're shooting for a 10% off of MSRP. I like what Igor said here.
9% or 10% off of MSRP. I like that. I think that's definitely a good idea here.
Let's come here, Deb, from Lego Joe. Thanks, Lego Joe. You asked for ideas about your office
decorating. I posted a pic of an idea on Car Registrate at Facebook post. Okay. I will go
check that out. We moved into the office today. I'm not there right now. I'm going to set it up
this weekend. It's going to be great. It's going to be really, really great. It'll be much better
than what's currently going on today. I love the cloudy look. No, it's lovely.
We've got here from space as well. Yeah, 10% on the lease and reasonable.
Lower trim will not get there. But I think actually that's the point here,
is because it's like $56,000 on the pilot. That's why they're having to discount it so much.
I'm sorry. I have a hard time grasping that, but maybe I have a hard time grasping a $56,000
Honda pilot, because I really haven't been on the forefront of retail in seven years or so.
And Honda's were supposed to be relatively inexpensive, but then again, nothing is relatively
inexpensive. I guess if that Honda pilot elite is $56,000, then the Acura MDX of
similar trim level must be $70,000 or more today, which is even more frightening to me.
Oh, I like that. Oh, my. I'll almost make you a deal. You set up a studio like that in your
office. I might actually show up to work in it. Whoa. Might. Might. The operative word there is
might. Of course, I would definitely show up to work in it. If you did it in the
Venture City, New Jersey area, then I would definitely show up to work in it.
Let's put your hypothesis to the test here. So you're saying, yeah, Honda pilots for $55,000,
which again, is a good analysis we just did here. We're thinking you should be shooting for 10%
off of MSRP there. Let's come here, dad. Let's go Acura. Let's go MDX. Also, as I'm doing this,
I have a question for our community, which is, should we, in a long time, I gotta be careful
here because I got a girlfriend now, so I gotta be really careful, but should we,
and I should ask my dad probably off air too, should we go live around holidays like this on
Saturdays and do deal analysis and just let people hit us with, here are the cars I'm thinking of,
what should my target discount be? Let us know in the chat. I mean, we used to do weekend shows.
I think there's an opportunity here to do more of this.
We used to do a Saturday night show. You're 30 years old. You're in the prime of your life,
and just between you and me and our audience, your Saturday evenings should be spent doing
other things. If you say, well, we'll only do it around holidays, well, check your calendar.
There's one of those pops up at least once a month.
Why do you think doing this type of, what's the target discount I should be shooting for?
I love doing it. I think it's really valuable. Anyway, just an idea, but I'll read the comments
after today's show. Don't just read the comments. Listen to comments from others
that might have some influence as well. Dad, let's take a peek here. Honestly?
What's the highest trim level MDX? It can't be the type S with the advanced package?
Let's see. There we go. Yeah, jeez, Louise.
Okay, do you hear Puerto Rico? Oh, okay. I was going to say. Yeah, that's Puerto Rico.
That's, you know, but okay, here's something. You're looking at here's the 2026 Acura MDX
type S with the advanced package, 77.9. And I think when I first started with Acura back in 98,
hell, I think he could have bought an NSX for that. Okay. Granted, it only had two seats. There was no,
there was no middle row or third row. Okay. But my goodness gracious, that's,
so I was only off a little bit. I said 70.
You know, another thing we could do, sorry, I'm just having an idea right now. Yeah, when we do
those shows, we could also shop the dealer's life like with our AI agent. Like what I did at the,
what I did at the keynote I did last week. Yeah, like if you can tell us what cars they were interested
in. Thank you, space. Appreciate you. 8% on the 2026. We could stay on for like
an hour. And at the beginning of the show, we could have the 10 car deals that we wanted to
help people with on that show. And we could have the agent. I think if I hear you correct,
I think what you would do is you would suggest to people the day before, please email us vehicles
that you might be interested in so that we can set things up prior to that. Yeah, yeah. So then
what we would do is we would just, to be clear, we did this, I did this live at the event I did
a week and a half ago. And we contacted 100 dealers when I stepped on stage and I was on stage for
45 minutes. And you know, I ended it after 24 hours. After 24 hours, 92 of the dealers responded,
62 gave us prices. And we were able to negotiate on one of the deals, $2,867 off
from the first quote they gave to the last quote. It just could be interesting,
you know, to do that live. It could be interesting. I could be in on that. Yeah.
Yeah. Wonderful. Thanks for this, Rich. Zach, you wanted to GM pick in honor of your visit. Yeah,
it was so cool being at General Motors the other day. Like we should talk about that.
Check out the 2008 GMC Denali XT. And just to let you know, I have an incoming phone call at
the 1245, just to let you know. Sure, we'll end. We'll end XT concept. All right, let's take a peek
at this, Dad. Oh, it was pretty neat. Or not. Rich keeping us on our toes as always. I mean,
that is terrible. Oh, my. That's terrifying. Oh, my. Well, I'm not assuming. I don't recall
ever saying anything like that. So I'm assuming it never got out on the concept stage thing.
Yeah. Dad, I also want to pull up this because I'm super proud of it. Does the girlfriend own
a car? She does. There's two. There are three cars in the family, so to speak. I have my 2025
Mazda CX30. Yeah. But your sister and brother-in-law have their CX5. My girlfriend drives the coolest
car of all of them. She drives a manual. Yes. Fiat Abarth. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Yeah.
Yeah. And she drives a manual. Yes. Yeah. And so one of her joys in life could be
sitting next to you trying to teach you how to drive a stick. Yeah. Yeah. No, our community should
think she's really freaking cool. A manual and an Abarth. It's pretty cool. Pretty, pretty cool.
I concur. Yeah, pretty awesome. All right, folks. Well, let's call it a show for today.
We're back on Monday. Monday is my dad's 75th birthday. So let's make it a birthday celebration.
I think that'll be really fun and really special. I'll be at the office, so hopefully I'll have some
work done to make it look nice behind me. And I'll have to bring my own cake.
Bring your own cake. I won't be with you. I will be with my dad on Friday of next week,
so a week from today we'll be spending time with him. So that'll be really fun.
And yeah, enjoy the weekend. Be safe. If you're on the East Coast, it's going to be rainy,
so stay inside and we'll see you back here on Monday. Oh, and if we can help you,
go to caredge.com. We'd love to help you. And let me say this. I can tell you that even though
it's rainy and miserable and chilly here at the Jersey Shore, apparently everybody from
Philadelphia is already down. And they're very, very hopeful that the sun will come out at least
for 30 seconds sometime during the weekend. We'll see what happens. We'll see. All right,
too, handsome. Thank you, everybody. Have a great weekend. We'll see you Monday.
About this episode
Memorial Day weekend car deals get put under the microscope: the hosts question whether savings are real, then walk through how to use CarEdge.com dealer reviews to find honest pricing. They explain how invoice-near offers, manufacturer money, and dealer add-ons shape what you pay—and why calling dealers matters. A live Seattle-area “dealer reviews” experiment flags add-ons and long days-on-lot, and they share a tactic: ask for the oldest inventory. They also analyze specific listings with invoice/MSRP, fees, and negotiation leverage.
Today on CarEdge Live, Ray and Zach discuss the latest on Memorial Day car sales. Tune in to learn more! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com
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