Rare earth minerals are special materials used to make many modern technologies, including electric cars. If there aren't enough of these materials, it can be harder to make new cars.
The Nissan Frontier is a type of pickup truck that is strong and can be used for many purposes, like carrying things or driving off-road. It's a good choice for people who need a tough vehicle.
Dealer only auctions are special car sales where only car dealers can buy and sell cars. Regular people can't go to these auctions to buy cars directly.
A trade-in is when you give your old car to a dealer to help pay for a new one. Sometimes dealers sell these old cars at auctions if they don't want to keep them.
When someone leases a car, they borrow it for a few years and then return it instead of buying it. The cars that come back are called off-lease vehicles and can be sold as used cars.
A CVT transmission is a type of automatic transmission that doesn't have fixed gears. Instead, it can change smoothly through a range of speeds, which can help with fuel efficiency.
The Ford Fiesta Active is a small car that looks a bit tougher than regular Fiestas, making it good for driving on different types of roads. It’s popular because it's fun to drive and easy to park, but some people have noticed problems with how it shifts gears. This is something to think about if you're looking to buy one.
Experian AutoCheck is a service that gives you information about a car's history, like how many owners it had and if it was in any accidents. This helps you know if the car is a good choice before buying it.
The Fiat Uno is a small car that many people have used for driving around town. It's known for being easy to park and not using too much gas, which makes it a good choice for people who want a budget-friendly vehicle. In the podcast, they talk about checking the car's history before buying it, which is important to make sure it hasn't had any big problems.
Carfax is a company that gives you a report about a car's past. It tells you things like how many people owned it and if it was in any accidents, which helps you decide if it's a good buy.
Rust is what happens when metal gets wet and starts to break down. It can make cars weaker and is often found in places that use salt on the roads in winter.
Consumer Reports is a group that tests and reviews products, including cars, to help people know which ones are good and which ones have problems. They provide information that can help you choose wisely.
JD Power is a company that collects information about how well cars work and how happy people are with them. They help you understand which cars are reliable and which ones might have problems.
A vehicle dependability study looks at how well cars work over time and how often they have problems. It helps you find out which cars are the most reliable.
Service records are papers that show what maintenance and repairs have been done on a car. They are important because they help prove that the car has been taken care of, which can help if you need warranty service or want to sell the car later.
A certified used car is a second-hand vehicle that has been checked by a dealer to ensure it's in good condition. It usually comes with a warranty, which is like a guarantee that the car won't have major problems for a certain period.
An extended warranty is like extra insurance for your car that helps pay for repairs after the regular warranty ends. It can save you money if something breaks down later on.
A TSB is a notice from a car manufacturer to dealers about common problems with a vehicle and how to fix them. It's not a safety issue like a recall, but it can help with repairs.
The Chevrolet Silverado is a big truck that many people use for work or everyday driving. It's known for being tough and having different options for engines and features.
The head gasket is a part of the engine that keeps oil and coolant separate. If it fails, it can cause big problems like overheating or engine damage.
LIVE
Hey, folks! Welcome back. It's Lenny Lawson, the CarGuru. I'm sure there are other CarGurus
out there, probably some, a whole lot smarter than me. But I'll bet you one thing, they don't
have as much experience as I do being a car dealer. A real live new car dealer. I've
been a used car dealer. I've been a finance company. I'm a tractor dealer, a lawn mower
dealer. I sell weed eaters and blowers. I sell vintage cars. Well, I buy and sell vintage
cars for myself and for others. I've sold, just in the last eight years or so, I have
sold over three and a half million dollars worth of vintage cars. And probably less
than, I'd say, 20% of those were mine. So I have a wide breadth of knowledge when it
comes to the automobile. Today, I'm drilling down, though, because I had a good friend of
mine. He called me. He said, Lenny, you need to talk about used cars. He said, I read
that more and more people are looking at used cars because they can't afford new
cars. You need to run mine folks. And this was his term or his phrase. He said, you need
to buy a used car from the inside out. I like that. I think that's an excellent way
to look at it. But I'm not just going to talk about the inside and the outside.
I'm going to talk about all the stuff. Really, I'm going to start off talking about types
of used cars. In other words, where they come from and why it's important. And we'll
get into that just here in just a minute. I was checking out the news this morning.
One thing that, well, a couple of things have me concerned. The shortage of rare
earth minerals. We are so dependent on technology that these shortages will
impact the availability of new cars. And right now, I don't have a problem with
that because my lot is loaded with new cars. So that's not an issue, but it
could be down the road. And I know what it was like when we were short because
when we're a shorter product, it's tough. It's tough on us and it's tough on
the consumer because consumers have to pay more. The law of supply and
demand has definitely kicked in because prices are way down. Rebates, incentives
are up. We have the availability of low rate financing. In many cases, 0%. Just
for example, on our Nissan Frontier pickup, you can get $3,500 cashback or
0% for 60 months. Which would you take? Well, that all depends on your
circumstance or your cash buyer. Obviously, you're not going to take
zero. If you take zero, how long would it take for you to save the difference at
normal interest rates for not taking the $3,500? What if you trade every two
years? Probably should have taken the 3,500. It's just a math problem. It's
something that you can figure out. Do you know what an amortization schedule
is? Well, if you don't, just go to your accountant or your accountant
friend or somebody who knows what an amortization schedule. I have
a hard time even saying it. But yeah, if you can do one at 0% for the purchase
price of the car and then do another one with $3,500 rebate at normal
interest rates, you can see where the lines intersect. Well, you'd have to
graph it first. You can see where it makes sense for you to either go one
way or the other. That is a pretty simple thing. The reason we have big
incentives like that right now is because car sales are slowing. Why are
they slowing? It's because the doggone things are expensive, and that's one
of the reasons why people are buying used cars right now. People that
wouldn't even consider buying used cars before are considering it now for a
lot of reasons. So what are the different types of used cars as far
as sources? Well, the obvious is to buy one from your neighbor, a
private party purchase. If they're your neighbor and you know them and you
love them, then that can be a safe purchase. If you don't know them, there
are a lot of potential pitfalls there. We're not going to get into that, but
we will. Well, we have. Somewhere in the past 500 episodes, I have covered
that. But yeah, private party is one source. Independent used car dealer is
another. This is the guy that just has a sign up front that says,
Billy Bob's used cars were something more creative than that. And so there are
a lot of people in the used car business. There's a lot of folks that they
said, well, I think I can sell cars. And so they get a dealer license, which
is easier said than done, especially in the state of Tennessee. You have to
jump through a lot of hoops to be an official used car dealer with the
sales license. There are people who are unofficial used car dealers
without a sales license and shame on them. But there's a lot of people do
that. They just flip cars. There are folks out there that rebuild totals and
then wash the titles. In other words, they get a clean title that doesn't
say salvage on it and they sell them to unsuspecting people or to people
who know that they're salvaged. Maybe they're friends or neighbors. They
don't mind driving a vehicle that has a salvage title. I guarantee if you
buy one and you finance it with the bank, they want to know whether it's a
salvage title or not. So you have those folks. Then you have new car dealers
like me that sell a lot of used cars. And then you have the public
companies like CarMax, Carvana. They have two totally different
philosophies, but they're basically the same thing. Where do they get their
cars, Lenny? Well, they buy them off the street from a lot of people.
They buy them from other dealers. Most of the cars that they sell come from
auctions. You know, they go to dealer only auctions or they don't go. They just
sit in front of a computer and they have buyers that sit there all day long
and just buy cars and outbid other people. If you buy a car from CarMax
or Carvana, you're probably, well, you're not probably, you're paying full
retail price. There are no discounts. It's the
worst place to buy a used car except for the fact that it's probably not
got a salvage title. Okay, so those are the places.
What are the vehicles? Well, they're either trade-ins
at new car dealers, which, you know, they'll have them for
60, 90 days and say, okay, this thing isn't selling, so they take it to the
auction and they sell it. So that's one reason.
Or trade-ins that the dealers just don't want to keep. They don't fit
their market, their model mix. Like for example, I don't like to trade for a
BMW. If I trade for a BMW, I'm taking
it to the auction or I'm getting what we call a buy-bed from a BMW dealer or
some type of dealer that specializes in German cars.
Of course, I don't like trading for Porsches either. Anything that's
outside of my wheelhouse, you know, I'm a Ford Nissan dealer and I do the
best with domestic and Japanese and Korean
imports as used cars. So that kind of fits my
model mix. Other places cars come from off-lease.
These are people that have had a car leased for
two, three, four years and they don't want to keep it. They don't want to
buy it out at the end of the lease, so they let it go back to the manufacturer.
The manufacturer takes them to the auction,
sells them to dealers. Dealers bring them back to their lots.
Well, I say dealers, but CarMax and Carvana and they buy a lot of off-lease
vehicles and it's a good way to stock your used car department.
Also, fleets and this would include rental car companies.
Rental car companies buy a lot of cars during the year and
they'll keep them in service for however long their
their process is and then they'll take them to the auctions and they're
selling. Or if it's an actual program car, the
manufacturer, like Chevrolet, may sell a bunch of cars to
National Car Rental, say you keep these in service for 90 days to six
months, we'll buy them back at a predetermined rate of depreciation.
They buy them back, they take them to a dealer auction and they only let
GM dealers buy their GM cars or Ford dealers buy the Ford cars.
So this is what they term program cars. Have you ever
heard that term? Well, that's what it means. It means that
it's a program that the manufacturers offer to rental car companies
to sell them cars and then agree to buy them back.
It's kind of a guaranteed business model for the rental car companies and
they like them and then you have fleets also where
you know let's say like a big company like I don't know DuPont
and they buy 500 vehicles for their sales staff or their engineers or
whatever when they get to a certain mileage they
they take them to the auction. They sell them to a dealer or to
a auto broker and that broker consolidates them, takes them to a
big auction maybe in Atlanta or Stateville, North Carolina or
Nashville and they roll them across the
the lane and they sell all the cars at whatever they bring.
It's an absolute auction. So that's where cars
come from and and where they end up or how they end up getting on dealer lots
and I'll take my first break I'll be back in just one minute.
Okay so now comes the hard part. You're ready to go shopping for a
used car. What do you do now? Well a lot of people just go
online and they find what they like and they show up at the dealership and they
negotiated a deal and then they drive off in it
and then they start having problems because they don't know
what they bought. They didn't do any research.
They didn't find out that certain model years of Hyundai's
have severe engine problems and they just happen to buy one
and then they're wondering why. Hmm we're having to add a quart of oil to this
like every other time we fill up with gas
or they bought a car from five, six, seven years ago that has a
CVT transmission or a dual clutch transmission like the old Ford Focuses
did and Ford Fiestas and you know they say this thing just
does not shift correctly. What's wrong with this
transmission? Well then they take it to a
independent repair shop and they say you're going to have to take this to the
dealer. We're sorry. So they go to the dealer and
it's going to cost between $3,500 and $6,000 to fix it.
Well they don't have that in their budget and they wouldn't have to worry
about it if they've done some of the things I'm getting ready to tell you
about. So you're ready to go? This is what you do before you buy a used car.
Numero uno or number one in English pull the history from car facts
or Experian auto check. One of those two places
will give you a history of that of the ownership of the vehicle
whether or not it's had any known accidents.
When I say known sometimes people will wreck cars and have them repaired and
not report it and so you know you buy a car
and the paint doesn't match and you're wondering what didn't show anything
on the car facts that's why. So it also shows you
basically how many owners the vehicle has had where it was registered.
You know if you're buying a four-wheel drive truck and you live in Alabama
do you want to buy a truck that's that spent the last six or seven years in
Michigan or New York? I wouldn't because I worry
about rust and that's a real big issue up there
and so that's why a lot of those people up there like to buy
used trucks from down here it just they don't rust
well they'll rust eventually but you know they don't rust as easily because we
don't use a lot of salt on the roads and we really
don't need it down here. So pull the history
and if you can't pull a full history just send me the VIN number of the
vehicle I'll pull it for you four two three five five two
twenty twenty just send me the VIN say would you pull the history on this
vehicle I'll do it and I'll tell you what it is I'll print it out and
I'll send you a copy of it okay what else oh numero dos
number two pull vehicle reliability reports
where do you get those Lenny well if you subscribe to consumer reports
the magazine you can get them from them but that does require a subscription
JDpower.com is another place they have a vehicle dependability study
that they have done that goes back a number of years to
tell folks or to basically enlighten people
as to the reliability of certain makes and models
you know you can have a company that has a great reputation
but they have one or two models that have some issues
and wouldn't you like to know which ones those are well this is one way to
find out. Another great website is called car
complaints.com that's a pretty good title
so you just go there you put in the make in the model
and it'll tell you gives you a really cool graph of
which years had the most problems and so if you see a
you know like 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe for example you're going to see
a lot of problems in that particular year but as the years
subsequent years to that they've done better they figured out what the problem
but you don't want to buy that year a vehicle
because that's when they were having all the the oil usage problems. I heard of
some real nightmares with people that had
Hyundai's and Kia's and could not get the manufacturer to
help them even if the vehicle was under warranty they would question
whether or not the customer had serviced the vehicle
properly that's just another great reason to keep service records
and it's really hard to get service records on a car that
that you buy from CarMax you know because it's come through an auction it's
probably passed through two or three hands or businesses
that's different from going to a new car dealer and buying
a trade-in you know that that they traded for
they can give you the the previous owner's name
you can call them up and what do you want to know
well what was their overall experience with the vehicle
did they ever have damage that you know they didn't turn into the
insurance company you know some people will
I don't know they might not like you calling but
what I always do is I call the dealership I said would you call this owner
and see if they would mind me calling them and asking them about this car
if the dealership doesn't want to do that for you
there might be a problem because that person may have traded that car
because it was a problem car you want to buy that car
no another thing you can do I've lost track of my numbers
is to ask the dealership that sells that particular brand
to pull the warranty history on that particular Venn number now there are
some dealers that don't want to do this for privacy reasons but just ask
them nicely say listen I don't need to know the owner's name
I just need to know if it was a problem car and I'm going to get it
serviced here surely you can do that for me
I've never been turned down but I'm a car dealer
and you know I always tell them that and I would call for a consumer you know if
you were trying to buy a used car for me and you wanted to know if it had
let's say it was a Honda I'm not a Honda dealer
and you wanted to know what the warranty history was on that car I'd make
that call for you I wouldn't rely on you to
do that you could sit there with me and make the call
I mean if they want to sell the car bad enough then they ought to be willing to
to do that sometimes they're afraid of what the answer is going to be
they don't want to give you a reason to not buy the car
that's sad but it happens I know some dealers that would just laugh at you
if you ask them to do something like that we can't do that you know it's
just they don't want to do that because it
complicates the deal and they don't want anything to
to make their deal go sideways so some of this you're just going to have to do
yourself okay so we're going to pull the history car
facts or experience auto check we're going to pull the vehicle
reliability reports we're going to call the previous owner
if we can now what if the previous owner was a rental car company
well you're out of luck is it bad to buy a previous rental car
no not if the vehicle's been checked out thoroughly sometimes rental car
companies take better care of cars than the average consumer does
I mean I'd almost be more concerned about buying it from an individual that I
don't know than I would from a rental car company on
like a program car because they actually maintain the vehicles they have
to or the manufacturer won't buy them back
under the program so okay so the next thing is a dealer inspection
sometimes dealers will will do something called a certified use car
and that does protect you a little bit more but you're going to pay more
money for that because you're paying for
additional work to be done to the vehicle and also for
an extended warranty to be applied to the vehicle
you can also well you can always you know buy an extended warranty contract or
service contract to protect you from unexpected repairs
but it would be so much better to find out if it's
a good car with a good history and you know you don't have to worry about
any specific problems that that particular vehicle is having
now if a car has a outstanding recall now that that could be an issue I mean
the last thing you want to do is have to take it to a dealership right after you
buy it to get a recall done that should have been done by the dealer
selling it to you or by the previous owner and what if it's a serious
recall that that will force you to park the vehicle
that's not good so you want to find out if it has any open recalls the
dealer that sells that particular brand can tell you that or you can look it up
on the National Traffic Highway Safety website
and find out if there is an open recall on the vehicle that you're thinking
about buying now there's another thing called a
TSB or technical service bulletin this is not a recall this is a
basically a recommended repair procedure for a known problem
that is provided only to new car dealers who sell that particular brand
so let's say i'm a Chevrolet dealer and certain Silverado trucks equipped with
a certain engine have this particular problem
here's how we recommend that you fix it that's a technical service bulletin
the problem with the TSB is that you have to pay for it if it's out of
warranty you have to pay for it it's not a
recall if it's a recall the manufacturer pays for it
so i would want to know when i go into the dealership
and i'm trying to find out the the warranty history
of this vehicle i'm also going to say and while you're checking
check for any TSBs on this and that service advisor
will look at you and say how'd you know that and you're going to say
well the car guru told me that you ought to listen
sometimes you might learn something okay i'll take my last break i'll be back in
just one minute
okay we're we're trying to avoid buying a problem used car
and uh i want to help you do that but you know you you need these notes this
most of this information is in the my car guru guidebook
and if you subscribe to that which what does it cost
free and how do you subscribe send me your email address
to my cell phone number 423-552-2020 and i will send you a pdf a digital copy of
the 32 long sorry 32 page long my car guru guidebook
that covers a lot of different cool things that will save you money
during your extensive car life oh yeah and i forgot to mention the walk around
and the test drive don't everybody use car without driving it first then don't
just drive around the block you know put 10 15 miles on it
make sure the tires are nice and smooth that there's no play in the steering
the brakes stop good no no lights are coming on
they shouldn't be coming on that's a pretty much
enough time for the vehicle to warm up really good and if a car is called
and you're driving down the road you know it's going to behave differently than if
if it's warmed up and that's just something that that you need to really do
and and if the salesperson wants to go with you fine
just tell him to be quiet because you want to listen for sounds
that don't sound normal you know if you start a cold car and you hear a
ticking noise underneath the hood that's not good
you know that means that oil is not getting to the top of the engine
why is that you know it could be because of age issues because the oil
is the wrong viscosity there could be a lot of different reasons
that it's doing that but that would be an indication that you don't want to buy
that car does it make noises when it's warm
because they can they can misbehave if you get back to the dealership after
driving at 15 miles open the hood make sure you don't smell
any antifreeze you shouldn't smell that sweet smell of
antifreeze after you've gotten the car hot if you do
there's antifreeze leaks and it could be anything minor it could be a blown
head gasket it could be a lot of different things
so these are just these things are on you and you do a walk around make sure
all the paint matches make sure there's no tape lines around the doors or
the edges of the the hood around the trunk lid
because that means that there's been paint work and these are things that
you need to to know this could indicate maybe a phone call needs to be made to
the previous owner if it's not in the vehicle history
so i know that's a lot of information but if you need more just
ask me you know you can send me the information on a vehicle you're thinking
about buying i'll be glad to coach you on it and tell you what to look for
and whether or not it's having a lot of serious problems or you can just do
the research yourself with the sources that i've provided to you well
thanks for listening and i'll see you next time
About this episode
Lenny Lawson shares essential tips for buying a used car, emphasizing the importance of understanding the vehicle's history and reliability. With his extensive experience as a car dealer, he discusses various sources for used cars, including private sales, independent dealers, and rental companies. Listeners learn about crucial steps like pulling vehicle history reports, checking for recalls, and conducting thorough inspections. Lenny also highlights the potential pitfalls of buying from certain sources and provides insights on how to avoid common mistakes, ensuring a more informed purchase.
