Ep. 311: Top 5 Car Buying Fails In TFL History!
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Car
Fiat 500
Car
Tesla Model S
The Tesla Model S is a high-end electric car that can drive long distances on a single charge. It's known for being fast and having lots of cool tech features like autopilot, which helps with driving.
Car
Tesla Model
Term
battery
The battery in an electric car stores the energy needed to make it run. Its condition affects how far the car can go on a single charge.
Term
high voltage system
In electric cars, the high voltage system is the part that helps power the car's motor and charge the battery. It's different from regular car parts that use lower voltage.
Term
accidents
Accidents mean any crashes or damage a car has been in. A car with no accidents is usually better and worth more.
Term
supercharger
A supercharger helps cars get more power by pushing extra air into the engine. For electric cars, it means a fast way to charge the battery.
Term
KBB
KBB is a website that helps you find out how much a car is worth. It tells you the average prices for different cars based on their condition and other factors.
Car
Land Rover Discovery 5
The Land Rover Discovery 5 is a fancy SUV that can handle rough roads and has a lot of space inside for passengers and cargo. It's great for families and adventures.
Car
Land Rover Range Rover
The Range Rover is a fancy SUV that can drive on tough terrains but also feels very nice inside. People talk about it because it looks great and is good for both city driving and outdoor adventures.
Car
Land Rover Discovery
The Land Rover Discovery is a type of SUV that can handle rough terrain and is also comfortable for everyday driving. It's a good choice for families or anyone who likes to go off-road.
Car
Tesla Model 3
The Tesla Model 3 is an electric car that is popular for being affordable and having a long range. It's known for its high-tech features and good performance.
Company
Johnson's Auto Plaza
Johnson's Auto Plaza is a place where you can buy cars. The speaker trusts this dealership because they have had good experiences there.
Company
Brighton Ford
Brighton Ford is a dealership where you can buy Ford cars. The speaker likes working with them because they have had good experiences.
Company
Volkswagen
Volkswagen is a car brand that makes many different types of vehicles. The speaker mentions a dealership where they can buy Volkswagen cars.
Term
leased my Fiat
Leasing a car means you pay to use it for a certain time instead of buying it. The speaker talks about leasing a Fiat, which means they didn't own it outright.
Concept
dealership markup
Dealership markup is when a car dealer charges more than the price suggested by the manufacturer. This can happen if the car is very popular or hard to find, making it more expensive than expected.
Term
MSRP
MSRP is the price that car makers suggest dealers sell their cars for. It's like a starting point, but dealers can charge more or less depending on different factors.
Term
differential
A differential is a part of a car that helps the wheels turn at different speeds when going around corners. This is important for better control and grip on the road.
Term
Carfax
Carfax is a company that gives you a report about a used car's history. It tells you if the car has been in accidents or how many owners it has had, helping you decide if it's a good buy.
Term
AutoCheck
AutoCheck is another service like Carfax that gives you a report on a used car's history. It helps you find out if the car has had any major problems or changes in ownership.
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
The Corvette is a fast and stylish sports car made by Chevrolet. It's popular because it offers a lot of power and fun for the price compared to other sports cars.
Brand
GM
GM stands for General Motors, a big car company that makes many different brands of cars, like Chevrolet and Cadillac. They are known for making a lot of different types of vehicles.
Concept
buying a used car out of state
When you buy a used car from another state, there are special rules you need to follow. These rules can include inspections and taxes that are different from your home state.
Term
refundable deposit
A refundable deposit is money you pay to hold a car, which you can get back if you change your mind about buying it. It helps the seller know you're serious about the purchase.
Car
Dodge Vipers
The Viper is a super-fast sports car made by Dodge that has a really powerful engine. It's talked about because it's exciting to drive but can be tricky to handle.
Term
certificate of title
A certificate of title is a paper that shows who owns a car. When you buy a used car, you need this paper to make sure the seller really owns it and can sell it to you.
Car
Honda Crv
The Honda CR-V is a small SUV that's great for families because it has a lot of space and is known to last a long time. Many people like it because it's easy to drive and saves on gas.
Car
Honda Accord
The Honda Accord is a popular car that many people choose because it's comfortable and lasts a long time. It's a good option for anyone looking for a reliable vehicle.
Car
Jeep Wranglers
The Jeep Wrangler is a tough SUV that can go off-road and handle rough trails. People love it for its unique look and the fun of driving it in nature.
Car
Ford Bronco Sports
The Bronco Sport is a small SUV that can handle rough roads and is designed for outdoor adventures. It's popular because it looks cool and is fun to drive.
Car
Toyota Rav4
The RAV4 is a small SUV from Toyota that's popular because it's reliable and has a lot of room inside. It's a great choice for families or anyone needing extra space.
Company
Granger
Granger is a company that sells extra insurance for cars, helping people pay for repairs after their original car warranty is over.
Part
butterfly valve
A butterfly valve helps control the sound of the car's exhaust. If it breaks, it can be expensive to fix, like the $1,500 repair mentioned here.
Term
stability control
Stability control helps keep your car from sliding around when you turn quickly or hit a slippery spot. It helps you stay in control of the vehicle.
Term
ABS
ABS is a system that helps your car stop without skidding. It makes sure the wheels keep turning so you can still steer while braking hard.
Term
traction control
Traction control helps your car keep grip on the road when it's slippery. It stops the wheels from spinning too much when you try to accelerate.
Car
Toyota Camry
The Camry is a popular car that many people trust because it's comfortable and lasts a long time. It's a good option for anyone looking for a dependable vehicle.
Car
Toyota Land Cruiser
The Land Cruiser is a big, tough SUV that can handle rough roads and is built to last. People talk about it because it's great for adventures and can go almost anywhere.
Car
Ford Mustang GT
The Mustang GT is a fast sports car from Ford that's famous for its power and cool looks. It's popular among car enthusiasts who love speed and style.
Car
Lucid Air
The Lucid Air is a fancy electric car that can go really far on a single charge. People talk about it because it has a lot of high-tech features and a stylish design.
Car
Nissan Leaf
The Leaf is a small electric car that runs on batteries instead of gas. It's popular because it's good for the environment and can save you money on fuel.
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Tommy, does buying a new car have to always suck?
Yeah, I think it does.
I do.
Does it have to be like a six-hour process?
Yes, it does.
Yep, I'm pretty sure it does.
Does it have to be like, you know, you're going to your grade school gym class and you're
all nervous and stressed about the fact that you got to get changed into different underwear
and all the kids are making fun of you?
Does it have to be such a horrible, stressful situation, something that you do only, you know,
once or twice every few years and it just becomes untenable?
Yes, genuinely I think that buying a new car pretty much almost without fail is always
a terrible experience.
All right, so in this video slash podcast we're going to be talking about the 30 or so cars that
we have bought and sold in the last year.
And we're going to be telling you stories about, you know, what was a good process,
what was a bad process, what was a sketchy process because there was that,
and some tips basically on how you can buy both new and used cars that make it suck less.
Yeah, and this is going to be an interesting one for me too, Dad,
because, you know, with used cars we have, you know, found kind of a groove and a rhythm and it's
easy, but with new cars, including ones that, you know, I have purchased recently last year
with the Fiat 500, it was such a unbelievably negative experience where I'm kind of like,
I'm almost over the new car thing because the dealership experience is typically so bad.
All right, so hold on to that thought because we'll get to it.
Let's start with, let's go back, let's go kind of chronologically
in time with the cars that we bought and sold. So yesterday I just sold our 2014 Tesla Model S
and that process was buying it was great, selling it was horrendous until I actually
found the right buyer. So let's start with buying it. So I found that car on Craigslist
and a lot of people now don't use Craigslist, they use Facebook Marketplace,
but Craigslist is actually, I find a much more, much, much less scary, much less sketchy place
to actually sell vehicles because with Facebook Marketplace, it's become such a jungle
and such a, such a, because you have to use Messenger and people ghost you, there's just,
you know, there's all those like videos of people making fun of Facebook Marketplace
and unfortunately a lot of it is based on truth. So let me tell you what happened
when I tried to sell the car. Actually, let me tell you when I first bought it. So we bought this
2014 Tesla Model S because what do we want to do? Why are we buying one with 100,000 miles?
I mean, I think the point of the series is we wanted to see what it would be like to live with
an old electric car that has a reputation for being terrible to own, right? With high ownership
costs and reliability problems. We want to see what the battery was like after 100,000 miles.
Yeah, and it turned out actually really good. The car, well it didn't turn out to be
really good. The battery turned out to be perfect, but in the short time we owned it,
I think it was probably seven months, right? We had a lot of issues with things related to the
battery. So the air conditioning and heat system went out, right? We had just silly little
niggly problems like with the power seat failing and moving on its own. So there was
like a bunch of little weird, stupid stuff that broke on the car, but the high voltage
system, the battery, the power train was fine. Yeah, we also had the replaced battery
unit. So no, sorry. We had the replaced driving unit. So somebody had replaced under warranty
of the motor. And the great news about it was the battery still had 91% of its original capacity,
even after 100,000 miles in 10 years. So the buying part was actually nice. I fought it on
Craigslist and it was a surprise that it made me feel good, believe it or not, because
the car had belonged to one owner up in Fort Collins. And what had happened was the
gentleman unfortunately passed away from cancer. And his friend was selling the car for him to give
the money to his widow. And so he knew nothing about the car. There was no history. He just knew
that his friend had died that he needed to sell this thing to give it to to give the money
to his widow. And so I test drove it. I actually like, usually I like to talk to people.
That's one of my tricks. If I'm buying something, I won't actually meet somebody
or even consider buying it if I can't talk to the person beforehand. A lot of people just do
all this by text, but I want to make sure that this person's not an axe murderer. I want to make
sure that they're serious. And I don't want to like I have a series of questions that I ask
when I'm buying a car on Craigslist, even or Facebook Marketplace. And most of those have to
do with kind of trying to whittle it down. The fact that this car is, you know, something
that I want to buy. So let's start with those questions that I asked first and foremost,
I want to know the history of the car. And in this case, the guy had no idea. So that was
kind of a crapshoot. Then I want to know if it's attending to accidents, because that affects how
easily you can sell it. In other words, either give me the car facts, or if you've had an accident,
the next question I ask is, is there any rust? Usually in Colorado, this isn't an issue, but
rust is very expensive to fix. Body work is much more expensive than anything else.
So if there's any rust, I walk away from it. Does everything work, especially in a used car?
That's an important question. And then perhaps the most important question I always like to
ask is why are you selling it? And that kind of gives goes to the character of the car
and to the seller. And the trick that I have learned, I think you have learned,
is when you're buying a car from somebody, you're buying the seller
as much as you're buying the car. Would you agree? Yeah. If the guy or gal seems,
you know, seems straightforward, seems nice, seems, you know, the kind of person that you'd like
to hang out with, then it's the kind of person I want to buy a car from. If that person feels
like I've got something and this is very valuable and you're going to have to pay
through the nose, I have no interest whatsoever in buying it. And so this guy was very nice.
Like I said, he was very honest. He didn't think about the car. We actually met at a coffee shop.
I was like, Hey, can I take it for a test drive? He's like, Yeah, take it for a test drive.
Take it for a test drive. The car had had no accidents. Everything worked. It had
over 100,000 miles. And the surprise, and this is why it was so nice, was when I bought
the car, by the way, I bought it for 13,800. I'll tell you how much I sold it for
in a typical TFL fashion. So when I bought the car, I took it to the supercharger and surprise,
surprise, it had free supercharging. It was one of those cars that had free supercharging for life,
which increased the value, right? Because somebody's going to want that car,
just because they'll never have to pay for fuel. But there's a caveat. What's the
caveat with a free supercharging for life on a 10 year old Tesla? It just charges slower.
Yeah, so Tesla and their wisdom has turned down the charging ability to preserve,
I'm doing air quotes here, the battery. But that means that you spend a lot more time with a
supercharger. All right, so let's keep going. So how does this have to relate with buying a new car?
Well, no, we're going to get to that. We're talking about used cars, okay? So
get on board with this. We're just having a conversation. I have no like agenda here.
Okay. All right. So we bought it. We did the videos. Oh, it also had a premium
connectivity, which is cool. Yeah. So then I go to sell it. So I put it back on craigslist
and that's when the trouble began. I put it on Facebook and I had this guy who contacted me
and I was asking, I think initially $13.9 for it because I bought it for $13.8 and he came back
and he's like, Hey, I'll give you $8 for it, which is insulting. Well, but I think that you
kind of just expect that. You know, when I sold cars on Facebook, that's just how it goes,
right? You list a car for three, you get offers for $800, right? But he wasn't the
only one. I think I probably had a half a dozen people. That's just how it goes on Facebook.
I've got cash. I'll come in, you know, 50% under the market. Yeah. And I'm telling you,
just stop wasting your time. Stop wasting my time. You know, if you're a serious seller,
you kind of know what the car is worth. You can check it out on KBB. There's a lot of places
you can look on Facebook and see what other people are selling it for. It's pretty much
a set standard. It's not hard to figure out. And if you're trying to low ball people,
it's just insulting. Yeah. But that's Facebook. I mean, like you can claim to want to change it,
but just the low ball culture, it's almost kind of funny to me. Okay. So, you know,
you just say, no, thanks. And then you move on, right? That's just kind of how it goes. When
I've sold cars on Facebook has always been that same thing. Well, first of all, I hate using
Messenger. So I started texting to this guy and I'm like, no, and I'm trying to explain
to him why I think it's worth what it is. So that's where you went wrong. And what happened
was like a 14 hour text conversation. No, never try to explain. If the offer is so low,
just move on. It's not worth trying to explain because you're never going to convince him. But
he kept coming up. Yeah, well, sure, he's going to try to convince you. I kept saying no, and he
kept coming up and up and up. And then the kicker of this thing was, which made me understand
that he didn't understand anything about electric cars. He's like, well, I'll give you like
12 for it. And I'm like, no, it's worth more than that. It's got full self charging for
life. Yada, yada, yada. And then he came back and showed me a comparable. So he said, well,
why do you want 14 when I can buy the same car for 12? And the car that he sent me was a 60.
So he had no clue between the difference between and an electric car. This is the size of the
battery, right? So 60 kilowatt hour battery versus an 85 kilowatt hour battery and electric cars,
the value there is all about battery, battery, battery, or it's like real estate is location,
location, location, electric cars are battery, battery, battery, and a car that has a range
effective range with warm weather of 150 miles versus 250 miles, which is the car I was selling,
of course, is it going to sell for a lot less? Because basically what you're buying with a 60,
a Tesla model at 60 is a grocery getter. Yeah. And in the winter, it's going to be like 120 miles.
Yeah, I mean, I think like this is, look, I appreciate you trying to go back and forth
of the sky. But if they come in so low, and even if they start going up a little bit,
I just don't waste my time. Yeah, fair. Just just move on to the next person. Anyway,
finally, after like, you know, lowering the price, and I learned something else,
which is kind of, I think, might be interesting. So when we were buying our Discovery 5,
there's a dealership in Denver, and they don't haggle, I didn't know this, on used car prices.
So if they have a used vehicle, this was a Range Rover Land Rover dealership,
and they have a price for the used vehicle, let's say it's $50,000, ours wasn't 50,
ours was 20, but let's say it's 50. So you call them up and you'll say, I'll give you
48, and they'll be like, no, it's 50, and you'll be like, I'll give you 48, no, it's 50.
But what they do, and I'm seeing this both in terms of used car dealers and Tesla does this as well,
and they basically keep lowering the price, and Tesla does it day by day on a lot of their
used vehicles. So what they'll do is, they'll have vehicles that they have in stock, not new
vehicles, used vehicles that are in stock, that are at the Tesla store, and every day
they'll lower it by like 400 bucks. And this is, I think, a common thing that's
happening in the industry now, and this was what was happening with this Land Rover Discovery.
It started like a 22,000 or 24, my price for it was like 21, and I just waited, I guess I
awaited anybody else because nobody else wanted it, I waited for it to go down to 21, and then when
it went down, because I noticed that it was coming down, I think with them it was every week,
with Tesla's every day they bring it down like 400 bucks on their used vehicles,
especially like the expensive ones. I'm sure that number changes based on what you're buying.
I'm sure it's like, if you're buying a, you know, a three-year-old Model 3,
they're probably going to go down 200 bucks, I don't know. But anyway, I waited,
awaited, and when it got to 21, I said, I'll buy it, and I bought it for 21. That was kind of cool.
Okay. Don't you think? It's kind of an insider tip there that you could, you could,
you could play the game. I mean, of course somebody else can come and buy it before you,
but if you know that like every week or every day they're going to lower it a
certain amount, you could just sit there and wait for it to come to you.
Okay. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, did you know this? I did know this.
I did know this. Yeah. I mean, my rule of thumb, never buy a car from a dealership if you can avoid it.
I look for everywhere. I wanted a specific car with the disco. I wanted that copper color,
right, which was the hero color, which is the color that the car was introduced in,
and there aren't a lot of them around. And I wanted the diesel, which is also hard to get.
So sometimes if you want something very specific, you got to go like, I'll,
when I go on Craigslist, first thing I'll do is get rid of all the dealers. Yeah.
But if you want something specific, sometimes you have to go to a dealer.
I mean, I don't mean to sound like a grumpy old man, which I do, I know,
very much sound like a grumpy old man. There are, this is a good transition.
It's to the point now where I'm, you know, we've been doing this long enough and we've
bought and sold enough cars where I'm so tired and frustrated at the dealer experience
that I will only work with dealers that I know have been good with.
So for example, Johnson's Auto Plaza, right, that we bought a bunch of Rams and Chevy's
for. And I know you're the same way. Mr. Get a good dealer, right. You really
like working with Johnson's with Brighton Ford with our friends at Volkswagen out in Pennsylvania,
right? Right. Yeah. Volkswagen of writing. Yeah. But it's to the point where like,
I feel like every time I go into a dealership, I'm just like, I'm bait trying to get screwed over.
Right. Yeah. So I'll give you an example. Like when I leased my free fiat,
I knew they weren't going to screw me over because it was free, but it was such a painful
experience. Like I just couldn't take eight hours of sitting there while they're messing
around with stuff, you know, and then three trips back to try to sort out the paperwork and stuff.
Like it's just, it's so draining to my soul, knowing how easy it could be to purchase or
lease a car and the way that they don't make it that way that I just, I can't, I can't handle it.
So I'm going to say something. And it's something that I've become used to. And when I
don't do it this way, it makes me really upset. And it goes to exactly what you said
with Brighton or with Johnson's or with, you know, writing people that you know,
good dealerships, I can literally walk into the dealership and I can buy a car in two minutes.
And when I say two minutes, I'm not exaggerating. I mean, two minutes. I don't have to go through any
of the bullshit. I've picked out the car. We've agreed upon the price. I go right into the,
the finance manager's office. They have the paperwork waiting for me. I sign it and there's
probably like 20 or 30 signatures. That takes the longest. I signed the check. I handed
over to them. They gave me the keys and I'm out of there two minutes. And, you know,
it doesn't have to be the six hour process. The problem is, if you don't know the new car dealership,
it can be a six hour process because they make it that way. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Now there's a couple caveats here. First, we're paying cash. Sure. So we're not doing a lease.
We're not financing. Well, I did lease with the fee, which is probably the reason it took so long.
They're not running a credit check on you, which helps when we leased that
lease for $9 a month. That was also a painful process. In fact, I walked out of
the dealership and I gave up and I came back that afternoon. Luckily, they were five minutes from
our office because it was taking so long just to do this lease. You know, I hate the thing where
you walk in and they're like, well, the finance manager is somebody else. So it's going to take
you another hour while they're doing the paperwork for somebody else. Yeah. And the
dealers I work with know that I won't, or we won't tolerate that. And they know that
we bring in big audience. And the problem there is the reason they're doing that is
because they know that we're providing a lot of publicity. And most people don't have that.
I mean, I think the reason that I'm not that involved in this podcast, I'm sorry if I look
like I'm true to that. Yeah, you seem like you seem like you're bored. Because yes, I'm just,
I'm so dejected by the whole car buying process. But that's what we're trying to help. But I
just don't think that there is a way to help. For example, like the number of times we go into
a dealership trying to buy a vehicle and then things go badly and we all, we have to flash the
fact that we have a million subscribers is insane. And like normal people can't do that.
And I'm so dejected by the process. Like I just want nothing to do with it. I really
am so bummed out about it. Alright, so I'll give you an example. Like, you know, I've bought a lot
of cars for the channel in a lot of different states in a lot of different ways. So I'll give you
some tips right now that you can use to figure out which dealerships are good and which dealerships
aren't good. Okay, these are these are harder lessons that that I've learned. Sometimes
I've broken my own rules. I'll tell you a story about that as well. But let's talk about
like lessons that you learn. First of all, when you go to the dealer's website,
and you look at the website, they all have obviously an inventory of vehicles.
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Now, if it's Toyota, because Toyota works with regional offices, chances are that what's on the
inventory of vehicles on the dealer, on the two dealerships isn't what they have at the
dealership, which is also very frustrating because they're getting their vehicles not from
corporate, they're getting them from a regional kind of middleman. And the regional middleman
controls what's on the website. So with the Toyota world, it's very difficult to figure out
actually what's in stock and what's coming and what's been sold very hard. And so with Toyota,
you got to make a phone call and you got to call the dealership and you got to find out
if that vehicle is actually there. But all the other manufacturers, usually they do a pretty good
job of kind of putting their current inventory. I haven't found that at all. Let me finish,
let me finish. Okay, usually of what they have a current inventory. And if they're a good dealer,
they'll show you what's on the dealership, ground on the lot, and they'll show you what's
coming. And if you don't have that differential, and if they put vehicles that are coming as
if they have them, walk away. That's my first, that's my first. I'm going to be honest
that that's pretty much every dealer I've seen every dealer, every dealer will have what's coming.
Like at Johnson's, you can tell what they have because they have a place where they take pictures
and you can see that they've actually taken pictures of that actual vehicle. And it's
in their little like showroom location. So you know they have it. And I know like a lot
of dealers use the same system. But why even show the Intransit cars? Well, I'm saying,
okay, so that's that's number one. If if they market Intransit car as being there,
don't don't even go the second the second clue. If I ever see on the inventory,
call for pricing, walk away. If you if you can't tell me the price on your publicly facing website,
I'm not interested in buying it because that immediately tells me that this dealer is going
to play dealer games. Next one, if you click on the vehicle, and sometimes you have to call,
but if they don't show the Monroney, because oftentimes they won't show the Monroney,
they'll just give you a price, but the good dealers will show you the Monroney. And they will also,
if this use car, give you a link to either a car fax or the other one, which is what's the other one?
There's two of these things. The one that that I walk away from is where they have the link
to the it's the other one. It's not the car fax, it's the auto check I think it's called
and you click on the auto check and it takes you to a page where you have to buy the auto
check. Then I also walk away immediately because if this dealership, you know, can't do and this is
oftentimes with you dealership, if they can spend the 14 bucks that they're charged to actually provide
you with a history of the report and they make you do it while you're buying that car, forget it,
that just means that those guys are so there's there's such tight ass wads that they won't
even provide you with the history of the report that they're making you do it. I'm not
interested in actually working with these people. So if there's a link to a car fax grade,
if there's a link to an auto e-check, which is what usually the one that it is, and then you
got to pay for it, forget it guys, come on. If you're selling a car and you can't provide the
history of the thing, don't even look at me because I'm not interested in working with you.
These are all red flags that you can easily find now. But the problem is, hang on,
every dealer, apart from the ones we listed that I've worked with, will have at least one
of these red flags. I've never seen a dealer that has none of these red flags. But you're
not the one buying the cars for the company. I'm the one buying the car because I hate buying cars.
Yes, I know. So you're not exactly objective. You're already walking into this.
I am because dad, I like I've seen and I've heard this whole topic just
frustrates me so much because like I know that there are hacks to it. But my heart goes out
to the viewers that reached out that are just like getting so frustrated. So let's help them.
I just don't know if there is a lot of help. I'm just giving you three great tips.
I know, but I'm going to give you more. Here's another one by a used car from a private party.
There's also problems with it. Yeah, that's my solution. Yeah, there's whole all kinds of problems
with that as well. Here's another one. What I would suggest you do is expand your search
outside of your geographic area. Sure. So one out of four trucks are sold in Texas.
We have found that if you want to buy a truck, because there's a lot more trucks for sale
in Texas, competition tends to be greater. So be ready to get on an airplane and fly to buy a car
out of state. And then you've got the pleasure of the fun of actually road tripping it back home.
We do this a lot. The last time, of course, we did it blew up in our faces when we bought that
zero one C four Corvette. We can talk about that in a second. But in general, be prepared to
travel. Don't don't just think, Well, I want to go to my local Honda dealer or my local GM
dealer, you know, be prepared to go to someplace out of state and make it into a fun weekend or a
fun weekday for you and your buddies or your family ones. Make it fun. And for me, the experience
oftentimes is more important than the vehicle. But I would say 75% of the times that we have
registered a vehicle or bought a vehicle out of state, they mess up our taxes. This is a problem.
This has happened probably three of the four times, especially in California, the last two
years, especially in California. And I'll note you're not the one dealing with when
they mess up the taxes. No, exactly. And that that takes a lot of work on his part. It's a lot
of work going back and forth to the DMV. Well, it's like I said, especially in California. So when
it's ever it's happened, it's been in California. Though it's happened with the Ram too in Idaho.
That was a mess up too. I don't remember the Ram. I remember it happening pretty much every
time in California, because California has this law where you have to pay the taxes in the
state of California. And then you have to go recover them from your local and that's hard.
Yeah. So they do just screwed out. Basically, you're paying taxes at the California rate,
and then you got to get the money back. And once you once you give them there,
there's a foreign rule of acquisition, which is a start track thing. And the rule is once you
get their money, never give it back. And that's how I kind of feel about California tax. For
sure. Yeah. So yeah, be careful of that. If you're buying a used car out of state,
then in Colorado, these are these rules vary, but you have to do a vid inspection.
Yeah. And an emissions test. That's a big problem too.
So then the other thing that I look for is if I'm interested in a car, especially a new car,
and it's at a new car dealership, I like to talk once again to the salesman. And if he feels or
comes across a salesman, if I ask a question about the vehicle and they immediately don't
know the answer, or if they don't know if the vehicle is even in stock, I just walk away
from it. Because if you don't know what you have in stock, if you don't have a system in place
at the dealership, then you can't easily look up on a computer to know what's in stock. I mean,
oftentimes I get something like, I don't know if the car's still here. Another one is bait and
switch that's very common. So if you ever actually find a vehicle, and this happened to
us when I was looking for a stubby, the truck where the vehicle was on the website,
and I would call them up and then I would get the salesman. The first thing he would say is,
oh, I just sold that yesterday, or we just sold that five hours ago. That's a bunch of BS,
what they're doing is bait and switch. They're putting vehicles that they have no intention
of selling because they know they're popular. And so they'll be like, oh, we don't have that one.
But this one for $10,000 more is sitting right next to me. So any time you have one of those
kind of used car salesman trip, just walk away from it. And this is work, Tommy. This is
not easy. This is work. But if you want the experience to be easy, you have to put in the
work. And I know that's stupid. That's why I only buy cars from the certain dealers that
we deal with, because I don't have to work. I can just go and buy it. Exactly. But
don't you think that's like a fundamental problem with the system?
I wish there were a different system. Okay, you want a different system?
You can go buy a Tesla in your underwear two in the morning. Yes. And that actually,
that's a really good system. Like genuinely, I do have one positive thing to say today.
Pay attention, everybody. The only interesting thing I have to say today.
Yeah, buying the Tesla where it's direct from the manufacturer and you can do it all online,
that should be the way every car transaction happens. I genuinely mean it, right?
But I had a pretty ugly, I was trying to buy a plaid recently, which I didn't buy because I was,
I got on a plaid. I love a bargain. I'm a sucker for a bargain and plaids were like 153 years ago.
And a lot of people leased them. And now you can buy a Tesla Model S plaid that's three years
old for $50,000. It's depreciated basically two thirds of the value. So I found a blue one
that I like that they had like 36,000 miles, it was three years old. And it was,
and I'm using air quotes here at the Tesla store. And I'm not saying dealership because it's not
dealership at the Tesla store in the springs. So the way that you get it is you go online and
then you say, I'm interested in this. And if you want to buy it, then you have to put down
a $500 deposit. And I wanted to know if that deposit was refundable or not. Because once
you put that deposit down, they will bring the car up from the springs for free to,
in this case, Denver, it's not fire. You can also do the same thing like buy one in Chicago,
and they'll bring it to Chicago, but then they add like a $2,000 destination fee on top of it. So you
can buy one from the store in Chicago that they have sitting there. This is what I thought,
I'll bring it to Colorado, but then you got it takes a week and you got to pay for it. But
the one because springs in Denver are so close to just bring it up. So but I want to know if
when that Tesla shows up here in Denver, I go look at it and the thing smells like somebody's
been smoking in it for the last three years. I don't want it. Do they refund the money? So I
filled out the form. Let me know before I and the guy calls me back on the phone. So they have people
who actually call you. And I'm like, I'm like, Well, what happens if this car is something that
I don't want? He said, Well, you lose out on that $500. And I'm like, Well, I'm not going to
buy a car $50,000 car without ever even seeing it. I think, you know, I can do that for
a new car. That's fine, right? If I'm buying a brand new and there's a warranty, it's fine.
But I don't know. No, that system's broken too. Yeah, I don't know. So so I'm like, Okay, I'm not
interested in this because like I say, if this thing comes up and it's it's it's a, you know,
it's a bummer of a car, then I'm stuck losing $500. It's not worth it. So then somebody calls
me back. And like, like, his boss is very nice lady calls me back and she said, Hey,
is he interested in this blue Tesla? What can I help you with? And I'm like,
You know, I don't want to pay $500 and not see it. And she said, Well,
what you can do and I've had this happen before is you can go down to the springs and you can go
to the auction and you could probably get in there and see it. And I'm like auction. What do you
mean auction? And I think what they were doing is they were, I think Tesla originally sold the
car. I think that what had happened was that it came back on a lease and that they were putting
they put it in the auction and they were using the auction to hold it until it was actually
auctioned or until they sold it. And the only way I could go and actually see it was to go
to the auction and hopefully the auction would let me in to go look at the car. And that's also
kind of bullshit, Tommy. Sorry. That's also BS. You know, I mean, if I want to buy a used car,
I don't think it's asking a lot to actually be able to smell the interior before I plopped
down $50,000. I mean, I think I mean, more buying a new Tesla. I don't think the system
works. The system that should be in place. And this is the reason they were so popular.
And I also think it's generational, right? My generation, I think your, your generation's
ability to deal and manage with conflict and deal with this process is so much
higher than anybody I know. Great. Thank you. I appreciate that compliment.
No, I mean it. I mean, I think that people, myself included, they just don't want to deal
with this face-to-face like BS that you said. And just inaccuracies and lying, right? It's just
it's something that sounds terrible. So I mean, the best solution, which should have worked,
but didn't because I think the company is pretty mismanaged, is, is the, the car
van of room solution, right? Where you go, you see the virtual car, you see the price,
the car comes delivered with the title. If you don't like it, you return it, you get your money
back, right? That should be the system for everything. It doesn't work in my opinion,
because they didn't deliver titles in time. There was a whole problem with registrations,
then the cars they were delivering were just of poor quality and too expensive. So that kind
of fell apart, but that should be the way that buying a used car through a quote dealer
works. What happened with us? Well, Vroom, I don't think they're in business anymore, are they?
I don't know. I don't know either. Yeah, they took our $60,000 and then they wouldn't refund it.
Yeah, exactly. Or they could, no, they lost it. They lost it. They, so I was going to buy an IA
from Vroom, like this is like five years ago. I remember. Yeah. And I sent them a certified
check. They wanted a wire transfer. You sent them a cashier's check. Yeah, you sent them a
cashier's check. So I, my, my accountant doesn't like wire transfers because once the money's
gone, it's gone. You can't ever get it back. You can actually, you can actually stop payment
on a certified check, which I did, because why didn't we want the car? What happened?
I forget why we walked away from the car, but then they lost the check and they couldn't,
so it took them like two weeks to find the check before they could send it back to me.
So over a Patreon, if you want to support the chat and my grumpiness, Patreon.com
slash TFL car. Chris has a good comment on today's podcast. He says, I've not had bad
dealership experiences. I'm in my fifties with many new car purchases, be willing to
walk away and go and educated. I love to negotiate and put the dealer on their toes.
See, that's something I hate doing. Yeah, there's a lot of people who I absolutely
hate. There's a lot of people who love that. Do you like doing that, Cole?
No, but I know Alex really loved it. Exactly. Yeah. Alex also, who used to be in our team,
he used to, it was like, he was like going into the Coliseum. I know. Fighting the
like he was a lion. And some people, I get that. Some people love that, you know,
back and forth, you know, trying to play one dealer off the other. But dude, that is,
that's a lot of work. That's a lot of conflict. I mean, part of the problem,
so Robert sounds like he greets more with me. Worst thing in the world, buying pants and
trying them on car dealerships and buying the car and their upcharge BS. My local Honda dealer
wanted 1449 for a package of nitro in the tires and all weather floor mats, right?
By the way, if anybody wants to charge you extra for nitrogen in your tires, walk away,
that is just such a money grab. It does absolutely nothing and God even knows if it's in there.
You know, I mean, how do you figure out what percentage, because it's never 100% nitrogen.
It's like a certain percentage of the atmosphere gas. That's way too much information,
but never, never buy a car from them. And the other thing that I would never do
is when you go in there and they're like, Oh, we put a tracker in the car. I'm like,
what, a $25 air tag except ours is a professional tracker and it's $600. I'm like, I don't want a
tracker. Sorry, you got to buy it with a tracker or I don't want paint protection. Sorry, you got
to buy the paint protection. Anytime they force you to buy something, walk away. And you can see
all that right on their website because it's usually listed that it's there. And if they
surprise you with it, then walk away. Don't do it. I mean, look, here's the fundamental
problem, right? So these are great tips. But let's look at like the use car world.
All right, let's use use car. You said you're buying the buy the seller when you're
buying a used car. How do you buy the seller if it's a dealership?
Well, I don't, first of all, like the biggest
pit of vipers I could ever think of buying a car from would be a used car dealer. Not a new
car dealer that sells used cars. At least they have some like accountability to the manufacturer.
I'm talking about those like use car dealers on Colfax in Denver. Those guys terrify me.
We bought one car from a used car dealer that actually turned out to be good. That was
that old Landcruiser. Remember he was cool. Wasn't that good? Well, it wasn't that bad.
It was just fine. I mean, we paid market value for it and he actually provided us with the title
and he provided us in Colorado. You have to, if you're a seller, whether private or commercial,
you have to provide on a used car the small certificate. Most private buyers have no
clue about that. But do you remember how long we were in the dealership for? Like four or
five hours? I don't think we were there like two hours. Yeah. Yeah. Because there was somebody
else buying a car and then, you know what I mean? Once again, you're sitting there
but the problem with buying a used car from a dealership is you're buying that story, right?
You're buying that person essentially. You're buying their maintenance records. You're buying
how much they care for that car because that'll make a break car more than anything, anything,
right? Like we did. We had that experience with my mini GP that we bought out of Texas.
The car was pretty terrible, right? Because it was COVID. We couldn't go hands on and we
didn't know the story of the car and it showed up with all these problems.
So I would avoid at all costs buying a used car from a dealership and I understand like people
have to because of financing reasons. But my tip there, it's like just do your best to save
as best you can and then get a cheaper car privately. This isn't just a game. It's a once
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All right, so let's talk about that. The average new car price is now
sneaked above $50,000 which is mind-blowingly expensive. And so one of the ways that
people are circumventing that or are affording new cars because let's face it, Tommy,
people want the reliability, the warranty of a new car. So here's a couple tips that actually I
think are very useful. First of all, never do like a 72-month lease. I haven't done the math on
loan. I'm sorry, I haven't done the math on this but if you're buying a car that's $50,000
and you're doing a 72-month loan on it, you're paying probably $90,000 for that car when
it's also in there. It depends on your interest rate. It depends on the interest rate. Yeah, it's a
lot. Yeah, it's a lot. It's just crazy. So in that case, just lease a car. Now I know the problem
with leasing a car is that you don't have the ownership, you don't own it, and you feel like
you're just renting a car. Well, there's more problems than that actually. Okay. There's a
lot more problems than that. So I'll give you an example. Like I got the deal this century,
I'm not complaining about my deal. I love how cheap my Fiat 500 was because it was free.
Zero down zero dollars a month when that deal was happening, right? Which is incredible,
but there are certain costs you can't account for. Like you have to have the highest best quality
insurance on you can, right? So like my Land Rover, it's a $5,000 car. Yeah, you can't just do like
you can't do liability, right? You can't even do basic. Like Fiat made me say like,
you're going to do basic kind of new car. That doesn't make sense because if you're
buying a $50,000 car, you're still going to want to get insured. It's an unexpected
expense that people would consider like, Oh, I'm only paying a hundred bucks a month for the car.
Not true. You may be paying a hundred bucks for the car, but you're probably going to spend
$250 a month. If you're my age, $300 a month on insurance. Yeah, but that probably has to do
more with like your age and driving record than it does to do potentially for sure. But I have
a perfect driving record. I'm just saying apples to apples. If you buy a $50,000 car,
let's say you buy Honda CRV $40,000 to lease that and to buy it, the insurance will be
identical and you're going to want to get the identical shirt. You're not going to just have
liability on that car because it's too valuable and the lease company won't let you just have
liability. But if I was buying a UCRV, I would get cheaper insurance. Right. But the problem,
and here's the solution, is that people want the peace of mind of having a new car. So
because a lot of people don't want to buy used cars because they feel like they're buying
somebody else's problems. That was what your grandfather used to say. But that was 1978.
Okay, but that mentality is still out there. And I think it's incorrect. I think it's largely
incorrect, especially like I'm not saying go buy a 1990 Cadillac Vellante. I'm saying
instead of buying a 2025 Accord like we did for 1500 bucks. Yeah, that's a fun option.
Instead of buying a 2025 Accord or leasing a 2025 Accord, go buy a 2015 Accord. It's only 10
years old, right? It's probably going to have under 100,000 miles for 10 years old.
And it's a Honda. It's going to have pretty good longevity. And you're going to save a lot of money
over the purchase price. And you'd have a lot of money left over if you do have problems. Well,
I would say if you want to get a used car, there's two kind of caveats to that. Once upon a time,
this is still out there in the zeitgeist. People still think this. They think that they can
save some money by buying a car that's come off lease. Let's say it's three years old. So let's
say you're looking for a brand new pick the car truck of your choice. Instead of buying a brand
new, you're going to go and get the three year old one because you're basically letting somebody
else take the hit on depreciation. Now that may have been true like 10 years ago, but after COVID
and after the part shortage, oftentimes the three year old car either cost as much or just a little
bit less than the new car. And at that point, you're better off just to get the new car
because you're going to get whatever incentive the manufacturer has. And that's also an important
thing we need to talk about. Hold on there though. What car? I mean Jeep Wranglers,
I agree, right? If you go on Defender, it's going to be way cheaper three years later.
Yeah. Okay. There's some cars like obviously some even like a Bronco sports way cheaper.
The courage guys know more about this, but I think the average time on a market time on the lot for
any new cars like 75 days. I think I'm I think I'm right with that. And so so the longer a car
is on the lot. In other words, here's the tricky part about buying a new car. You're not buying
the car from the manufacturer. You're buying the dealer. And when you think about that, that means
that the dealer is really the customer for the manufacturer. And that's why car are such in such
boring colors because dealers won't go out on limb and pick cool colors. You know, they only order
cars are silver, black, white, gray. And it's hard to get really cool colors. And so if the
dealer is a customer of the manufacturer, you're buying the car from a small businessman who
is sitting or medium sized business, I guess, depending on how big the dealership network
is, or large, he's sitting on a lot of inventory, which most likely than not, or she is, they've
actually taken a loan on. So they need to sell those cars, they move them through the system
so that they're not paying a lot of interest. And if the car sits on the lot for a long time,
that means you're spending a lot of money to keep it sitting there. So yeah, so those cars
obviously that aren't wanted that people are afraid of. Like I just read that the
the new mini isn't selling very well. Those cars, of course, you could probably get
a deal on. And that's one way to get a deal on a car, buy one of the cars that is, you know,
less sought after. But the problem is people don't want cars that are less sought after. Everybody
kind of wants the same car, which is going to be like a RAV4, a CRV, right? These are the most
popular cars in the country. And those cars, turn, they don't sit on the dealership. Or
for instance, like we bought a forerunner, you know, when we bought it, good luck getting
the forerunner when it first came out. Sure, you're gonna perhaps pay even an
added dealer markup on top of the price of it because it's new and it's hot. So it depends
how hot a new of a car do you want. I mean, I would argue that, so let's go back to the leasing
discussion. Yeah. Leasing in general, I know you said you're a fan of it. Unless it's a crazy deal,
I would never lease a new car. That's fair. I'm not, you know, because like, let's just do a
quick bit of math, right? Right. Let's say you're leasing a new Wrangler. Okay. Okay.
Some of the ones I saw recently are $3,000 or $4,000 down. Okay. And let's say they're
300 bucks a month. Yeah, which is probably gonna be more than that. 300.
They're probably more like $5,600 a month. Yeah, well, especially a Rubicon. Yeah,
but let's do 300 times 24. That's $7,200. Yeah. Plus $3,000 down. You're at $10,000
for that two years. Plus, let's say that thing's gonna be $2,50 a month to insure.
Times $24. But that's gonna be insured. That cost is set. That's fixed. You're not gonna
change that whether you buy or lease. But my point is that, so you've just invested about
$16,000 in that car. Over the two years. Over two years. And what do you have to show
for it at the end of the two years? You likely have another fee, which I'm learning about leasing,
where you have to pay to return the car and also buy new tires for it.
Yeah, you have to return for the tires. Whereas if you had that $12,000 and you had just bought
a 2004 Wrangler, right? That car will still be worth $10,000. But if you finance it,
especially on a long-term loan. Oh, it's way worse. You're gonna pay a lot more.
For sure. Right. And you're still gonna have a lot of those fixed costs and you won't
have the peace of mind of having a warranty on it, which you will have for every three years.
It's a typical three-year, 36,000 mile lease. You will always have a warranty on it.
So you never have to worry about actually the car not having put any additional money into it
because it breaks. They have to fix it. And you'll also have the fun of having a different
car every three years, which for a lot of people is cool. It's cool, but it's expensive.
Yeah, it's always expensive. Cars are expensive. Yeah, but you can make it like,
this is the, I was just having this conversation. I think our perspective is skewed as car people.
Oh, I agree. Like, so when Morgan needed a car, my wife, right, in college,
she could have gone out and leased a car. She had about a, she had a budget she wanted to
spend under $10,000, right? What she did instead is she's put $4,000 down and then got a $5,000
loan and then bought a $9,000 used CRV, right? It was a pretty old CRV. It was like a 2007.
This was probably four years ago, five years ago. And then she drove that car for 50 or 80,000 miles
and she paid off that loan quickly. She had a $4,000 loan. She paid it off. And then she had a car
that she was paying $95 a month to insure. And she had no reliability issues with it. I mean,
we're talking 100,000 miles on a CRV. She drove it 50 or 80,000 miles. Nothing broke.
Well, there's two points here. First, you know, we use Granger as this is,
this advent of extended warranties has really been helpful. So one of our sponsors, Full Disclosure
is Granger and they provide extended warranty. So once the manufacturer warranties up after three
or five years, depending on the vehicle, then they step in and we actually use it on our Corvette.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It worked great. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, we had one of those little
butterfly valves that changes the exhaust note go out. There was a $1,500 repair. It was
under warranty. Wonderful. The problem is you can't get an extended warranty for that
Cadillac that's sitting in our garage, right? If it's 20... It's probably too old. Yeah,
so I don't know how far back they go, but they don't go back more than maybe 10 years. I don't
know if they even go back 10 years. And the argument... Or like 50,000 miles. I mean,
the argument about buying a new car, I think you're right that you've definitely,
I'm not saying you're wrong. People do want that piece of mind of having that warranty,
right? Granger is an option for an extended warranties. Let's talk about something that
you've always talked about, which is the safety aspect, right? You're better off buying a new car
because it's going to be much safer vehicle than an older car. Well, no, there's more to it than that.
Like a night in the ECU because... I see you. I see you, sorry, because your car doesn't have
passenger side airbags is going to be $20,000, which is cheaper than a car.
Now, I think that's a very valid argument if this was 2008. And you were looking at a
1992 Honda Accord, right? Instead of 2008 Honda Accord. The problem is a 15-year-old car from today
is a 2010 car, right? Or even a 10-year-old. A 2010 or 2015 car is going to have driver,
passenger airbags. It's going to have side curtain airbag. It's going to have real crumple
zones. It's going to have ABS, traction control, stability control. It will likely have a
backup camera if it's 15 and newer. It'll likely have automatic emergency braking if it's
15 or newer, right? Like these are things... No, it won't have emergency braking. That
came out in the last five years, became standard. But we had enough of 15, 15 that had
emergency braking, right? Yes, we did. I don't know if it was 2015. I remember the first car that had it.
It was really poor because I was going down past our house and the car was making a left turn
and he slowed down enough that the thing actually slammed down the emergency brake,
thinking that I was going to hit him. Even though I was clearly not going to hit him.
And so my point there is that technology keeps getting better year after year.
So you're getting you're getting safer cars if you're going back 10, 15 years.
But if you want the latest and greatest in safety, you're going to have to go new.
But my argument is like the safety progression from the 70s, the 80s and the 90s.
Yes, it has changed. It was that hockey puck curve, right? It was immensely great. You had
seat belts went from shoulder belts to three-point. You had crumple zones. You had
airbags come in. You had pretensioners come in, all this stuff, right? But if you go back
to 2010, I'm not sure the cars have gotten that dramatically. They've gotten more annoying.
Well, I know I like lane keep that you could argue that safety. I'd argue it's annoying.
I know that every time I go to a launch of a new car, the manufacturer until recently used to
tell how much stronger the steel is. And these are safety things, right? These are things that
new cars have. So in other words, a cage that's around you is much stronger than the previous
generation. Sure. So I think, yeah, you're right. You can get, you know, let's say 70%
of the safety in a 10-year-old car of a new car, but that 30% differential in the ER could easily
be $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 if you survive. Yeah, it might be. I don't know. I don't know that data
that well. I mean, I know like recently, like small overlap crash testing has improved a lot,
right? That's within the last 15 years. That's really become a conversation.
And I've no doubt that cars are getting safer. My argument is like,
I'm not sure that a 2010 or 2015 car is going to warrant that being that much safer
to spend $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 more than to buy a version that's 10-year-old.
A lot of people just want that new car smell, and you're forgetting that. A lot of people
not only want the peace of mind of having a new car from a safety point of view, from a
reliability point of view, but also from the fact that they're the first ones to get to fart in
it, right? A lot of people don't want somebody else's used car. And I have no problems with
these cars. I think they're great. I think they're bargains, but a lot of people like
the new thing. Sure, which is fine. And so, and if you want the new thing, you have to go through
a dealership. Yeah. Or get a Tesla, or a Rivian. Or a Rivian. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, I just,
I think I'm jaded to the whole thing. And partly it's because I've had so many friends that try
to go out and buy new cars in the last few years, and they've always had such terrible
experiences. I'm just very frustrated at the whole process, right? I'm not frustrated at one
dealer in particular. I'm just frustrated that like it's still, there are good dealers,
and there are dealers that are ruining it for everybody else. Let's talk about the other side
of that coin. You know, every time we do a truck review, and the truck is like whatever it is,
which is $70,000 now, the first comment on there will be like, like, this is crazy. I just want
that's me. That's me thinking that I just want a basic truck for $35,000. And then I think
to myself, well, how are these manufacturers selling like 14 versions of their top end truck,
which is what you have now. Yeah. If everybody just wants an honest truck, you know, a work truck.
And the fact is that, and you had this experience with your Wrangler, that while people say they
just want the base work truck, or in case the basic car. For some reason, when they get the
dealership, it always ends up being the top end or often the middle spec. Tell them what happened
with your Jeep and how hard it was to sell that base Jeep. I actually sold it really quickly.
No, the dealer is the second one. Oh yeah. Yeah. When we ordered it, they had the mess up in the
logistics and they sent two base model Wranglers instead of just mine when I ordered it. We're
talking base, we're talking roll up windows. Yeah, this is 2010. We're talking manual locks.
We're talking very base. 2021. It was air conditioning. 2021 or 22. Yeah, it was when
I had the red Wrangler Willys. And the dealer had a really hard time selling the second one.
And I was talking to the dealer, like, well, yeah, because people come in and they just
want Rubikos. And we're like, well, do you need that level of capability? Like,
do you really need lockers? And I don't care. I just want Rubicon. So a lot of it,
you're right, is people do, they just want the flashy one, right? They just want the
High Country badge or the Lariat badge or whatever. But I mean,
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there for just $92 a year. So so so people like to complain about the cost of new cars,
but yet somehow the manufacturers wouldn't be building the upper level trim if they weren't
selling them. I mean, don't you kind of figure dad with, especially with 72 month loans, we're
going to be sitting in this room in a year or two years from now, when it all comes crumbling down.
I'm going to be like, I remember this moment. It was podcast 311. When people were doing 72
month loans to spend $85,000 for a Lariat F 150. I don't think that's going to happen.
I really genuinely just don't think it's sustainable. I don't I don't know where this is
going to end up. I think there's we're living in a dangerous time right now for automakers.
We talked to the on the outside. It seems like the automakers are, you know, just trudging
along. But when you talk to them, it's just it's a big look. The problem with today is
that there's so much change that's happening so rapidly. And on top of that, the government
has made the situation worse by seemingly throwing on arbitrary tariffs based on the shape of the moon.
As far as I can tell, and it takes about 10 years to develop a car. And when all of a sudden you go
from having this international supply chain of parts, because people, this is also a problem,
people think that back in the good old days, I wanted a 50 whatever three packer that was
built Detroit, there's no car that's American made today. Actually, the highest percentage
of American made car is a Tesla. So if you really want to if you really want an American
made car, get yourself a Tesla. After that, it's the Honda cord and the Camry, which is kind of
ironic when you think about it. Sure, because they're Japanese companies. And that's because
there's this incredibly long supply chain of parts that comes from all around the world. And
so even if the car or truck is made in America, those parts, and oftentimes they're big parts
or transmissions, their motors, their engines, right, are not made in America. So that stuff
gets tariff. And it's really hard for car companies to plan 10 years out when you don't know how much
they can sell their car here next week, let alone five weeks from now. Yeah. And we've got this very
capricious government right now that is just, you know, throwing tariffs left and right. And
it's creating all kinds of havoc on an industry that's already in trouble because of electrification
and autonomy. Yeah. And so, you know, I think we're on a knife's edge right now,
when it comes to a lot of car makers and whether those car makers can survive or not.
And it's not just American ones. It's also Japanese ones. That's a whole other podcast,
you know, we can talk about companies like Stellantis and Nissan Survive. And the question
is, I'm not sure. And the problem is, it's a great conversation to have, except those
car companies employ a boat ton of people. Yeah. And if you know, if if Stellantis goes out of
business, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people are going to lose their
job. And that means that tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people are going
to lose their job because all the suppliers that supply the parts to them are also going
to go bankrupt. And this is a very precarious time that we're sitting at because, you know,
when you talk to the manufacturers, they're not sure where the industry is heading.
So the other thing I want to talk about, which I think is another interesting dilemma
is I think that there's a big shift toward consumers when you look at like the use
space versus a new space that have been getting really fed up with the software-defined
vehicles. I agree. I'm so over software-defined vehicles. I think the sweet spot for
cars was like 2015. When there, we know that I ate that we have where there is a small screen,
Cole, you were there, right? And then there are buttons for everything else, like the radio and
HVAC knobs. That is a perfect era. We crossed a bridge that I wish we could cross over because
I hate having everything in the screen. I think most people have it. And we're also at
a really bad time for autonomy. And what I mean by that, there are five levels of autonomy.
And right now we're in that number two, that middle one where you can use super
cruise. You can use full self-driving in quotes. You can use blue cruise. But the fact is you got
to sit there and nanny the car or truck and it's going to yell at you when you take your eyes
off the road and your hands off the wheel. And what humans are good at is either driving
or not driving. So we're really good drivers and we're really good at not paying attention,
texting, watching videos. What we're really bad at is having the car drive but having us
have to supervise it while it's driving itself. Until we get to level three or
level four autonomy, it's just going to suck. Yeah. But yeah. What I wanted to show though is if you
go to, if you head over to bring a trailer, this is an interesting thing I've been noticing.
It's been going for a while now, but I think this is a good demonstration of just how insane
the interest in like these slightly used cars look up 200 series Land Cruiser.
That's going to be tricky. There you go. Nice. Okay. Now scroll down a little bit
further. You got to see some of the prices. 8,000 mile Land Cruiser. This just finished last week.
$87,000 2020. That's a five year old Land Cruiser now. $84,000 about that heritage edition. Well,
that's what I'm saying. $87,000 for that heritage, $82,000 for the heritage, $92,000.
Now fundamentally, if you compare a 2020 Land Cruiser to the new Land Cruiser,
the size is about the same. The offer capability I'd argue is better in the new one.
Fuel efficiency is better in the new one. Tech is better in the new one.
Reliability, that's definitely another conversation. I think there's a lot of people that argue the
57 is better, but you know the new one still got that warranty you're talking about,
that thing's out of warranty now. But there's so much interest in kind of the old school
mechanical feel, especially within the Toyota world, that these Land Cruisers are in some
cases going for more than when they were new. Like that 8,000 mile one, scroll down, call that
white one. That guy's a 2021. He probably bought that thing for 85. He drove at 8,000 miles,
had it for four years, and then sold it for 87.1. That doesn't happen, right, with the 2020 used car.
So you're right. It doesn't happen, but there's also another factor at play,
and it started with the exotic cars, hyper super cars, and now it's come down to like these cars,
where there are people who are, once upon a time, obviously, if you wanted to make money in the
car world, you become a dealer or you become a used car dealer. But now everybody is kind of
a collector or worse yet, a flipper of cars, right? So there are people that in the past
had a job and they would buy used car and then the car, a new car and the car become used and
somebody else would buy it. It was just a natural progression. But now there's a whole,
especially with bring a trailer, where there's all these people who are making the living
basically trying to figure out what the cost of a new car is, what car is going to become
hot and who will want it. And they're buying it not because they want to buy for transportation,
they're buying it as an investment as a business investment. Like I said, that started with,
obviously, the super cars, and now it's come down to like even Land Cruisers. And I think,
I think when you have all these middlemen, you're just going to see higher prices,
which is what's happening. There's a lot of middlemen now, trying to make money on cars.
And it's if you love cars like me and you, it just becomes a really sad moment in time,
because people are no longer buying cars because they want to drive because this is their dream car,
because it's their passion, they're buying them because this is just a business for them. And
it's just another commodity that they can either, you know, sit on and use it as a hedge against
inflation or flip it eventually and make money on it. And that's been happening now, especially
since we've been doing this for the last 10 years. And the most obvious ones that come
to mind immediately are cars like the four GT remember the last four GT, where now these
manufacturers are building these these kind of low volume cars you're seeing. And I think
with the GT, with the new Mustang GT GT, I think you are seeing it with all the GT three
products from Porsche where they're no longer like cars. They're now commodities that you
can make money on. And that is just really skewing the market and is driving all kinds of
new car prices and used cars prices up through the wall. Yeah, I mean, I think there's
some of that. But I also I think like with Land Cruisers, there's just an interest in
hype around the older ones, right? Yeah, I didn't love our 200. I don't get it. No,
if you're spending $87,000 for a 200 series, there's faster ways to put yourself to sleep. I mean,
sleeping pills are a lot cheaper than $87,000. It was a very good car, but oh my gosh,
it's boring. Yeah, it's very, very dull to actually live with and drive. Yeah, I mean,
the more you this is the problem with Lexus, if you're a car enthusiast,
the more perfect something is, the more boring it becomes. Yeah. Sometimes the least
perfect ones are the more. But it'll get you home. That's that is that's a pretty big
selling point. Yeah, it will get you home. But most cars will get you home nowadays, Tommy. Yeah,
that's true. I mean, car car. Is there such a thing as that's a good question to ask. Is there
such a thing as a bad car in 2025? Uh, not really. Yeah, I don't think so. Maybe there's cars that
are boring. There's cars that probably have known issues. You can talk about transmissions. You
can talk about, you know, cylinder deactivation, especially in trucks. But there's no car
that I would say don't buy it. Because like in the 70s, there were definitely cars that
were lemons right from the factory. I don't think those exist anymore. Well, like you can't buy
a Chevette anymore. So I don't think things are that bad. But no, I mean, for the most part,
like especially the mainstream stuff, we got a lot of emails like should buy a CRV or a RAV4
Rogue and it really doesn't matter. I mean, buy whichever one you can afford, which everyone
is at the better dealership and whichever one is the best color because like for the most part,
they benchmark each other so closely that the difference between a RAV4 hybrid and a CRV
hybrid is so miniscule in the real world. All right, so let's spend the last 15 minutes giving
them some real consumer advice because we've just been whinging and moaning about a lot of stuff.
But let me give you some real consumer advice. So if you want a good use car, I would say go
electric and go electric fast because electric cars are depreciating. And yet in terms of
reliability and in terms of maintenance, they are the most reliable, the most maintenance
free cars you can get. Now, to me, I don't care what powers the car, whether it's electric or
an internal combustion engine, if you're one of those guys or gals out there who's like,
you're going to take the hemmy out of my cold dead hands, well, I'm sorry. But if you want
a bargain, if you want a great car, get yourself an electric car right now because this is a
time to buy used electric. And don't look at the reports from 10 years ago or from five
years ago and from two years ago, things are changing very rapidly. You can easily cross
country and electric car. Now we've done it a whole bunch and it's getting easier. There's
tens of thousands of chargers coming online every year. I still wouldn't want the cross
country electric car. Okay, that's fine. But I'm saying it's very doable. And, you know,
let's let's give them some examples of incredibly great electric cars that are
dirt cheap. I think the two most obvious ones are the Lucid. I remember we had the Lucid
Grand Touring the GT air. And I fell in love with that car. It was $138,000 car. I found
one for sale in Denver that was less than six months old with 4,000 miles for $63,000. It had
lost over half of its value in less than half a year. Another one are the Mercedes EQ cars.
EQ C EQ S those things are those things are really great cars. They're dirt cheap as you use
cars. They're super reliable. The Lucid is like the one use electric car would never
recommend. They have issues with I know. Yeah, I mean the EQ products are very well
baked, right? Yeah. EQ S EQ E EQ S SUV. Yeah, you can get a $100,000 car for like 35 and they're
going to be so well made. I don't think I'd buy the use Lucid. I just I don't trust that software
package. The use cry wouldn't buy and we have bought it is a leaf because the batteries were
in climate control. Yeah, I mean, I actually think second gen leads are a little better.
So I wouldn't get an early leaf, especially one from a hot, hot climate area that's been
charged fast a lot. But like the second gen leads are seen a little bit better.
I would get any pretty much any of the BMW products. I force used I force incredible cars.
You know, it's a I threes really, really good. Get to use Bolt. It's coming back.
Bolts are really, really, really good. You can pick up a bolt for $10,000 all day long.
That's really good. The downside, of course, with electric cars is you're buying old
technology. It's like buying an old phone. But a lot of people have figured out that
old phones work just as well as new phones. And the truth is, if you're going back,
let's say five, 10 years with electric, I wouldn't go back any further than that.
If it's a Tesla, you're okay. Then just make sure that, you know, use cars, like I said,
all about batteries and the leaf battery had huge issues because they didn't climb
the control. But they're not like phones. If you have a used electric car and it's
five, 10 years old, just like we proved the Tesla, you still have like 90% of the
battery. And it's taken a long time for that to like seep through into the light
guys because people keep thinking that an electric car for three years is throwaway.
It's not. I mean, you want a really good car? You go up and buy a 2008 RAV4 V6.
2007. 2007. Sorry. 2007 RAV4 V6. That's producer Cole's car and Mary's car.
I mean, I think anything 2000s through 2010s, Honda Toyota, it's going to be a really
good car. But you're going to pay, you could buy a three-year-old leaf for what it's going
to cost you to buy that RAV4 that Cole's talking about. Yeah, but his can go anywhere in the country.
You can go anywhere in the country. You are not going anywhere in the country in a leaf, dad.
I'm sorry, not a leaf. I'm bold. You can buy a used bolt for the same amount that he paid for
his, you know, much older and you can go anywhere in the country. But very uncomfortably.
No, it'll be comfortable. You just have to charge it to 50 kilowatts.
Yeah, that'd be terrible. So you can sit there a while to charge it.
I mean, here's the thing with EVs. They have like four moving parts.
Yeah, I agree. There's nothing to fix. But I would never, I wouldn't own one as my only car.
I still to this day. You're such an old man. No, I wouldn't.
Oh, you are such a grumpy old man. It's like, I love bolt. I'd love to have a bolt as a second car
just like our Fiat. But like, if you want it, if you realistically want to take a road trip,
it's so nice having a gas car. It really, really is, especially if you live in an
apartment complex and EV is just not really an option. I think an EV is an excellent
second car and I would recommend it to anybody. I listen to this car, this show called the
CarPro on the weekends. This is an old dude who gives advice to old people. And this is
exactly the advice that you're giving. It's a great second car. I think it's a great first car.
If you want to get like a really great first car, get like a three year old Attic 5,
you're going to love life. You're never going to have to pay for gas.
But what if you don't have charging? Then you want to really rely on the EV?
Every house has electricity. Does your house have electricity? Could you charge in a garage?
Well, he's in an apartment. I said house. I didn't say apartment. I said house.
What if you're renting? Okay, if you're in a house, then you got to go out and
spend like between $500 and $1,000 additionally to get a level two charge.
Now, if you're in an apartment complex, yes, it's a little bit more difficult. You're probably
going to have to go to the EA. Which is the pain in the butt. The pain in the butt.
It's also a pain in the butt. They have to take your car in for service, which you won't
have to do. It's also a pain in the butt. They have to pay for new brakes. It's also a pain
in the butt. They have to pay for not that much of a pain. Think of the myriad of things
that goes wrong for a new starter, for a new clutch, for a new transmission. None of that's
going to happen with the electric car. Cole, have you had to do a new starter, new engine,
or transmission in your car? I think alternator is the only thing.
Alternator, one thing. But it's that. It's coming, Cole. It's coming.
If you don't have regular places to charge, it's not worth that. And especially if you
don't own your house, like I want you to go tell Mary to go spend $1,000 to upgrade her
rental house. Then you got to go tell the landlord to spend that.
He's going to say no, because I know her landlord. Look, she has that leaf and she plugs it in overnight
and it's fine. She uses regular current. Or if you really want a level two and don't want to get a
charger, just get a long cable like Andre has and stick it in the dryer. But she still says
it wouldn't be your only car. She loves that leaf, but it wouldn't be your only car.
Well, that's fine. A lot of people have that as a basis. I get it. I just think
nowadays you can live with an electric car just as you can live with an internal.
And you're going to pay a quarter of the price because nobody, everybody in America thinks that
they're thinking like from 10 or 15 years ago that electric cars are not tenable as everyday cars,
which is the argument you're making. I disagree. And I think you can save a
boat ton of money by getting a used electric car. Well, folks, let us know what you think about
this. How long we've been going? Cole's got to go. Oh, yeah. Oh, gosh. Yeah. Cole's
got to go do another shoot. So let us know what you think about this podcast.
Yeah. There's been too much of us just whining and whinging. And that's what we do.
That's what we do. And write us a comment below. Thank you to all the Patreon members
for watching live. And we'll see you next time. Ciao.
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About this episode
Exploring the top five car buying fails in TFL history, this episode dives into personal anecdotes and lessons learned from purchasing and selling various vehicles. The hosts share their frustrations with the car buying process, particularly at dealerships, and offer tips for navigating both new and used car purchases. They discuss the importance of understanding the seller's background, the pitfalls of online marketplaces, and the evolving landscape of electric vehicles as a cost-effective option. With humor and candid insights, they aim to help listeners avoid common mistakes in their car buying journeys.
Original notes
( https://www.alltfl.com/ ) Check out our new spot to find ALL our content, from news to videos and our podcasts! Buying a car shouldn’t feel like entering a battlefield, but Roman and Tommy have been burned enough times to know exactly how the process can go wrong. In this episode of TFL Car Chat, they break down the sneakiest dealer tactics, the hidden fees, the pressure tricks, and the rookie mistakes that have cost them time, money, and sanity over the years.
They also share real stories from their own painful purchases, explain how to spot red flags before signing anything, and offer the strategies that actually work for getting a fair deal in 2025’s chaotic car market.
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