A factory warranty is like a promise from the car maker that they'll fix certain problems with the car for a certain amount of time or distance driven. It helps protect you from unexpected repair costs right after buying the car.
A service contract is like an extra insurance plan for your car that helps pay for repairs after the original warranty runs out. It can cover things like engine problems or other issues that might come up.
The Toyota Highlander is a family SUV that can carry many passengers and has a lot of space for cargo. The 2022 version has some modern safety features and options for different types of engines.
The check engine light is a warning light on your car's dashboard. It means there's something wrong with the engine or emissions system that needs to be checked out.
A used engine is an engine that has been taken out of another car and is being put into a different one. It's usually cheaper than buying a brand new engine, but you have to be careful about its condition.
When you buy a car 'as is', it means you are buying it just like it is, without any promises from the seller that it will work perfectly. If something goes wrong, you have to pay for the repairs yourself.
The Nissan Armada is a large SUV that can carry many passengers and has a lot of room for cargo. It's great for families and has a strong engine for towing and driving on different terrains.
The infotainment system is like the car's big screen that shows maps, music, and other information. It helps you stay connected and entertained while driving.
A lifetime powertrain warranty means that if something goes wrong with important parts of the car that make it move, like the engine or transmission, the company will fix it for free for as long as you own the car.
An oil change is when the old oil in a car's engine is replaced with new oil. This helps keep the engine running well and can prevent problems later on.
A PDI inspection is a checklist done on a car before it's sold to make sure everything works correctly. It's like a final check-up for the car before it goes to its new owner.
Chevrolet, or Chevy, is a car company from the United States that makes popular vehicles like trucks and sports cars.
LIVE
Hey folks, Lenny Lawson here, the current guru.
I have made a decision, monumental decision.
So I guess two, two years, three months ago, I had my hip replaced and had to have it replaced
again because it was defective.
I know it doesn't happen to many people, but it happened to me.
My second hip surgery has been fine.
The problem is that since my first hip surgery, I've gained over 20 pounds.
And I've tried several different ways to lose it, including exercise.
Apparently, as you get older, it's harder to lose weight.
Another advantage of being a geezer.
So I talked to my GP, I talked to my cardiologist, I even talked to my hip doctor.
And I said, what about this ozympic?
And my heart doctor liked the idea.
He said, quite frankly, Lenny, when you were in here the last time, I was a little concerned about your weight.
I had hit 234 and my ideal weight, according to my height of 63 and my body frame, I should weigh about 205.
My wife says that I look like a POW if I weigh 205.
So I think 210 is a good number.
So I went to my GP and they had my kit already.
And I said, would you please give me the first shot?
Because they put it in the fat of your belly.
And she said, well, sure, and showed me how to do a pretty neat little device.
I think most of the time the people who use these are diabetics.
I wouldn't want to have to do that for that reason.
But it is a very effective weight loss drug.
It actually changes the way your digestion process works and also affects your hunger index, whatever that is.
So maybe I won't be reaching for the cheez-its before I go to bed.
And maybe eat maybe a smaller bowl of cinnamon toast crunch.
I don't know, but I'll let you know.
But yeah, I'm at, let's see, 0.25 milligrams right now and then I go up to five.
But I tell you what, I got that shot this morning.
And when I got to the dealership, I got a little swimmy-headed.
Now, was that psychosomatic?
I don't think it was.
It really felt pretty strong.
So we'll see, but it's dissipated now, so I feel better.
So we shall see, you take one shot a week and I've got six weeks worth of drugs.
And I didn't even feel the shot when she gave it to me.
It was very small needle and didn't hurt.
I do have a little bruise there though.
You want to see it?
I'm just kidding.
Don't you just hate that when people want to show you their scar?
Hey, you want to see my scar?
You know, before you have a chance to say no, you know, they've whooped it out there.
So the moral of that story is don't whoop it out there.
People do not want to see it.
You know, they don't want to see, you know, most of the time when people are talking about something
and start grabbing for their phone, they say, okay, here come the pictures.
You know, it's their grandkids or it's the, you know, some car that somebody had with me.
Maybe it's usually about cars and then you're standing there for 15 minutes looking at pictures
that you really don't have time to look at.
But I guess since the phones came out, boy, that's another thing that phones have changed.
I mean, everybody's got their camera with them and really the quality of the pictures is unbelievable.
And so people want to show off their pictures of their grandkids and stuff like that.
That's just, that's how it has changed our culture, right?
People are video and everything.
You know, there's some crazy event that happens and the first thing people do,
rather than running to the rescue and saving those poor folks, oh, let me get a recording of this.
Now they're putting dash cams. What do you think about that?
People have buying dash cams so they can record other people's misfortunes.
And then they can post it on YouTube or TikTok or something and get a bunch of likes.
It's just a, it's a sickness. I truly believe that.
Now maybe I'm not one to talk because I do take a lot of pictures.
Usually they're vehicles that I'm trying to sell or trade for or my grandkids.
But I don't take the time to show my pictures of my grandkids to other people.
Oh, they're just so nice to look at them, but they'd rather be doing something else.
So just keep that in mind.
So we did have a resolution to, I don't know if I told you this or not, but there was a 2022 Toyota Highlander that we sold used.
It had been purchased new in Johnson City, Tennessee, which as I'm sitting right now, it's about 25 miles away.
And it was traded into our dealership by the people who bought it new. It had 70,000 miles on it.
And we turned around, we cleaned it up, we serviced it, made sure the tires were good.
All the things that we do to make sure that a used vehicle is ready to sell.
And of course we test drive it, make sure everything is as it should be.
Put it out there on the lot, sold it in a matter of days.
People take delivery of it, they go back down to near Knoxville where they live and the motor starts knocking.
By the time they get it to, well, check engine light came on.
And by the time they get it to the Toyota dealership in Knoxville, the engine is locked up.
And so they've had the vehicle for less than two weeks, bought it as is with no warranty.
So as I said, in a lot of dealerships, they would be up the creek with no paddle.
But because they bought it at Gateway Ford and Gateway Nissan, my dealership, my dealerships, they are okay.
And Lenny Lawson is eating that repair and it's not cheap.
So what kind of engine do you put into a 2022 Toyota Highlander with 70,000 miles on it?
Well, we got really lucky because somebody not too far from here happened to wreck a 2022 Nissan Highlander with exactly the same engine.
And guess how many miles it had on it? You're right. Just under 70,000 miles.
So we bought that engine and that engine cost me $5,700.
What would it have cost if I ordered it from Toyota? Close to $12,000.
But you know, these people are happy that we're getting a comparable engine. Would you be happy with that?
We're not rebuilding their engine. We're not even taking the heads off of it.
It's just too much trouble because we know that it's pretty much shot.
And the only thing that we can buy new from Toyota would be all the different components and it just gets so expensive.
And they just weren't willing to pay any difference to get a new one. They just wanted what they paid for.
So I'm putting in a used engine. One of my mechanics, I mean, this is a burden.
Truly is. One of my mechanics in order for us to get the labor down is coming in this Saturday to put that engine in on his own time.
We're going to pay him on the side just to reduce our overall cost and he gets extra cash for Christmas.
Of course, it won't go through Gateway, but my dealership is having to eat that expense.
So what would you do if this happened to you? And how do you handle it?
When you have a major repair on a vehicle that you bought used, you bought it as is no warranty.
And it just happened right after you bought it. We'll talk about that here in just a minute.
I mentioned the other day that I bought a new vehicle. I bought it for my wife. It's a new 2026 Nissan Armada.
And it's pretty amazing. And she just got ahold of it. Well, the middle of last week and she really likes it.
But there was a problem. There's a glitch. The infotainment system, which is the big screen.
It's got screens upon screens. One of the screens is flickering.
Now it shows Apple CarPlay. It shows, you know, if I'm playing satellite radio, whatever, it's on the screen navigation.
It's all there. It just gets a hiccup every now and then. The screen flashes. It doesn't go completely off.
It just flickers. Well, you don't want that. This brand new vehicle. Is it a problem? No.
Not for the dealership. It's not a problem. Because what we're doing is just updating the software.
But it's a problem for the customer, right? See, my wife is having to drive my F-150 today.
And she would rather drive the big SUV because it's perfect for picking up the grandkids at school.
But she doesn't get to use it today. What if it was you? I mean, her husband's a new car dealer.
Your husband probably isn't. And so you've got to make arrangements, right, to get that vehicle back to the dealership.
And you've got to drop it off. And hopefully, if you had just bought it last week, they would provide you with the loaner car.
I would certainly ask for that if that happened to you. Would you be concerned about the long-term viability of that system?
I could totally understand if you were. You don't know cars. You know, if you see something like that, the day that you bought it,
which is what happened to us, I was driving at home and it was doing that. Did I panic? No, I didn't.
But I could understand why you would. And so because of all the extra steps that you have to go through to solve that problem.
Now, for a consumer of my store, I would want to make some kind of accommodation.
Like, I don't know what exactly I would do because we already give a lifetime powertrain warranty.
We already pay for the first three years of the maintenance.
Now, Nissan pays for one year, but we pay for an extra two years. So if I give somebody, well, I'll give you a free oil change.
I'm already giving them a free oil change. We just have to make it really easy. And sometimes they don't.
My wife and I went to Cincinnati this past weekend. We stayed at a brand new property called the Moxie.
It is a, isn't that a weird name? It's a Marriott property.
And I asked the people at the front desk and the front desk folks of this hotel is the bar. There is no front desk.
You literally walk up to the bar and over the bar is a neon sign that says, check in.
I said, this is weird. But that's what I did. I checked in. They gave me my key.
It took a little while though for them to get to me. She was too busy serving drinks to somebody on the other side.
And just yucking it up, you know, while I'm standing there with my luggage and my heavy coat on.
And yeah, I really want to get up to my room. I've driven five and a half hours. I want to go to my room.
So when you combine operations like that, it can lead to some customer dissatisfaction.
I was not getting off to a great start. Then finally we get up to the, to the room.
And the room is small, is smaller than I thought. It's weird too.
It was built, our room was built on the side where the, it was an old structure.
So they had to put steps in the room. So there's two steps down to get to the bathroom.
Then you take a few more steps and two steps down to get into the, to the sleeping area.
And there's a big king size bed there, but no chair, not a chair in the place.
I guess they expect you to sit on the steps to put your socks on. I don't know.
But I was just thinking, I said, honey, you know, if I get up in the middle of the night for, you know what,
or I should say to go to the bathroom, then this could be a hazard.
I hope I remember that those steps are there. She said, I hope you do too.
And so I wasn't pleased with that. We turn on the TV. TV didn't work.
No, no connection whatsoever. We call the front desk. I'll have somebody up.
They finally showed up about an hour later. Couldn't speak a lick of English.
Had to use a Google translator so that they could talk to me.
Now I've had to do that before with people who are picking up cars to ship them across country.
There's a lot of Russian and Ukrainians and Hispanic folks that do that that don't speak any English.
So they use the translator. So when he was talking into his phone and then turned it to me,
I knew exactly what he needed. And I was okay with that. But he couldn't fix the TV.
And so the rest of the evening we had nothing. So we just read. Got up the next morning.
I went to the front desk. Nobody there. It was, there was no, if you wanted to get coffee,
if you wanted to get a drink, there was nobody there to take care of you.
I waited there for five minutes. Finally this lady showed up.
Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't know you were here. Fine.
I just hope my TV works tonight because you got all these ball games tonight.
This is Saturday night. Got all these ball games that I would like to wear.
Oh, it'll be fixed. Well, it was fixed. It was just a cable. No big deal.
And then when it was time to leave on Sunday, I called down.
I said, could you have somebody bring my car around? I used valet.
I had no choice. You know, much valet was $45 a night.
And I said, for that, you know, it should be really good valet service.
They should roll out the red carpet. Have my car warmed up. No, nothing like that.
Matter of fact, I go down to pick up my car. It's not there.
And at the valet stand, nobody there either.
I had called down to that, that front desk that has seemed to be a problem.
And I asked for the, for them to bring my car. And she's, oh yeah, I'll tell him.
She didn't. I talked to the valet guy when he did show up.
And I said, oh yeah, this is my numbers, number 069.
I was waiting on my, my F 150. He said, oh, I didn't know anything about it.
You know, that place has not connected the customer service dots very well.
And I can tell you one thing. I won't be back.
I don't care how cool the architecture was because it was really cool.
That downstairs lobby. I mean, even though the front desk is integrated into the bar, that wasn't real good.
But as far as the decor and everything, it was gorgeous. Loved it.
And the room was really pretty too, but it just didn't, I don't need stairs in my room.
And I like to have a chair to sit in. So, you know, just a couple of things.
But I would have gone back had the service been good because it was really kind of a neat place.
So let's get back to my defective armada. The dealership, the employees at the dealership.
Oh, that's just a software issue. That's no big deal.
You know, they tend to minimize the difficulty that people have with their car life as it is,
but they just bought a new car and it's not working right already.
Now, should that have been caught? Well, yes.
If anybody, if my tax had really test driven that thing for any period of time,
that screen would have flashed on them.
And we've got to talk about that.
I've got to make sure that my tax that are doing the PDI inspection on my Nissan's
that they understand that something like that needs to be caught.
And I don't know whether it takes a five mile, probably would have taken a two mile test drive in that case.
But maybe they didn't have it turned on. I don't know.
But that's that's kind of frustrating even for me and I own the car dealership.
But but I've got to fix it to make sure that doesn't happen to people that come here to buy a car.
Now, let's say you buy a used car and you have a tragic thing happen right after the sale.
The important thing is to let the dealership know as quickly as possible.
And if you have the courage to buy a vehicle as is, then you need to make sure that that it's a it's a late model vehicle
that still has some remaining factory warranty on it.
I just think that if you're buying a used car from a new car dealership that you should buy some type of warranty,
even if it's a 90 days something or other, you know, 90 day, 3000 miles.
I mean, if you can't afford a service contract of, you know, 48 months, 100,000 miles or whatever, that's fine.
Buy something inexpensive as as inexpensive as you can to at least cover the powertrain
and really taste that take that thing for a test drive first and just make sure that everything's working properly.
I don't know what we missed on that Highlander, but it's very costly.
Of course, if we had caught it before we sold it, then the end result would be the same except we wouldn't have a disgruntled customer.
I would have been disgruntled just the same.
I'm having to eat that repair bill.
But most car dealerships and I'm being a little judgy here would not do anything or would maybe pay the labor or part.
They wouldn't pay for it all because they sold it as is.
Now, I do have to get them to sign an agreement.
They'll have to sign that that I am not putting a warranty on that vehicle just because I'm paying for this repair.
Because that's what you call an implied warranty.
And because I'm fixing this for them, if something else were to happen, even two years from now, I could be held liable to fix that.
And I really don't want that to happen.
So they're going to sign a waiver that nothing else is covered.
And I'm going to do my best to get them to buy some extended coverage because I think it's in their best interest and I'll sell it to them at my cost.
So that we don't have any more issues.
But boy, they were mad.
Wouldn't you be?
And wouldn't you be concerned?
I mean, they got on the phone and they ripped my nephew up and down.
And he didn't do anything wrong.
We didn't do anything wrong.
We didn't know it.
I mean, you should see the service history on this vehicle.
It is perfect.
Everything's been done when it was supposed to be done.
But it's still failed.
And that's going to happen sometimes.
Okay, I'll be back in just one minute.
Well, if you don't have any Christmas presents yet for your loved ones, if they own a car, there's a lot of stuff that you can get for their car.
I don't know if you've thought about that or not.
And it's not really expensive.
I mean, let's say they don't have tenet windows and you could pay for tenet windows.
You could get them all weather floor mats, which is a great gift.
Or event visors.
A lot of people like those.
I don't.
I think they look silly.
But a lot of people do like them because they can keep their window cracked and the rain won't come in.
Cup holders, things to hold their cell phone.
A lot of people do that.
You could get them one of those cameras, you know, where they can record everything that happens in front of them.
And to encourage them to wash their own vehicle, get them a five gallon bucket and get some wash mitts and a chamois.
You know, those things that are used to dry off the car and some window cleaner and some car soap.
Good car soap and maybe some really easy to use quick wax.
That might be something good to encourage somebody to take care of their car and get a little exercise in the process.
And if they have pets, well then you can get them stuff to protect their pet when they're riding in a vehicle.
And also to protect their interiors from the pet.
So if you need any accessories and really regardless of brand, because I can get just about everything, just let me know.
I'll be glad to send it to you.
Have it shipped directly to you, but you just need to text me and we'll see what we can do.
I'm a Ford and a Nissan dealer, but like I say, I can get just about anything aftermarket.
If you want the OEM things, just go to your local Honda or Toyota or Chevrolet dealer and you can buy accessories right there from them through their parts department.
Well, thanks for listening to this edition of My Car Guru.
If you have any questions, call me 423-552-2020 or send me an email to Lenny Lawson 2020 at gmail.com and I'll see you next time.
About this episode
Lenny Lawson shares his personal journey of weight loss after hip surgery, discussing his experience with the weight loss drug Ozempic. He also recounts a challenging situation at his dealership involving a defective 2022 Toyota Highlander that required an expensive engine replacement shortly after sale. Lenny emphasizes the importance of customer service and the need for warranties on used vehicles. Additionally, he offers practical Christmas gift ideas for car enthusiasts, ranging from accessories to maintenance supplies.
