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Put in this little extra effort when buying a new car and you will end up with a lot better deal and peace of mind
Put in this little extra effort when buying a new car and you will end up with a lot better deal and peace of mind
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About this episode
Lenny Lawson shares valuable insights on buying a new car, emphasizing the importance of due diligence and avoiding pressure from dealerships. He recounts personal experiences with bank wires and the necessity of written agreements in business transactions. Lenny advises listeners to take time to reflect on car deals, ensuring they understand all terms before signing anything. He also discusses the pitfalls of high-pressure sales tactics and encourages buyers to be assertive in negotiations, ultimately promoting a thoughtful and informed approach to car purchasing.
Topics:
buying advice
bank wire safety
high-pressure sales tactics
written agreements
test drives
negotiation strategies
Email Lennie at [email protected]
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Chevrolet Bel Air
"...ite happy last night. So I bought that 1957 Chevy Bel Air two-door hardtop. I'm excited about it."
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Ford Bronco
"Go to another, let's say you're looking at a Ford Bronco here. I might be afraid you're gonna go to a Ford..."
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Hey, folks, Lenny Lawson here, the Car Guru.
Today I am on pickup duty at the elementary school.
Yes, it is my day to pick up three of the little rascals
at the same elementary school.
So I've always got to remember to get the little cards,
like my grandchildren's.
Well, two of them are Lawson's and the other one is a Nelson.
And I have to have their correct tags hanging
from my rear view mirror so that the lady that's
calling out the names can see it and then call out
my little Rugrats.
So, you know, it's fun.
You have to get there at a certain time,
and if you're not there early enough,
then you're way at the end of the line
and the grandkids get upset.
So you finally get up to the front and put it in park.
They open the doors, and they say, pop, pop,
because they're not expecting me.
They're thinking Nanny's going to be there.
So they're excited and said, where are we going?
And I know what that means, because they expect either a,
what is that place?
It's some type of a snow cone place
that I just don't get it, folks.
I'm sorry.
I mean, they just love them, though.
It's from some kind of New Orleans shaved ice
snow cone thing.
They just got to have it.
You know, I give them the choice.
How about Dairy Queen?
No, we want snow cones.
Are you kidding me?
You would rather have a snow cone
than a dip cone from Dairy Queen or a blizzard?
What's wrong with you?
Maybe it's a generational gap.
I don't know.
Who cares?
I just want them to be happy.
I want you to be happy, too.
I'm happy.
Well, I was not quite happy last night.
So I bought that 1957 Chevy Bel Air two-door hardtop.
I'm excited about it.
It's in, what was the name of that town?
Bloomington, Illinois.
And so I sent a guy after it
and he left real early this morning.
I think he said he left at 3.30 a.m.
That's early.
But I found out that there was a problem
with my bank wire.
Oh, we did everything right,
but the guy who gave us the numbers
from the other or from the dealership,
it's a Chevy dealership that has this 1957 Chevy
as part of their collection.
And they left off two digits of their bank account number.
So I'm glad it didn't go to somebody else's bank account.
See, whenever I buy a car or bring a trailer
or a sell a car on bringitrailer.com,
I always insist on a bank wire.
I don't want no checks.
Checks can be forged.
Even bank checks, like a certified bank check.
I don't trust them either.
So we wired the money, but it bounced back to us.
My wire didn't bounce.
It just, there was no such account.
So they rejected it.
So I get this email from my bank
stating that it was sent back.
And so they called me this morning and they said,
well, we'll do it again.
We got the right account number.
I said, well, good.
So they said, we have to send you another email
which you have to respond by saying approved.
And then one more step, we have to call you
and you have to acknowledge that it's okay to send the wire.
And I said, wow, extra step.
Didn't know that was going on.
Yeah, it's just, you know, bank fraud.
And we just want to make sure that we're sending,
if we send money out on your behalf
that it's going where it needs to go
and that you are authorizing it.
That happened one time to me several years ago.
I had a dishonest sales manager and I was on vacation
and he talked to my office manager
into sending a wire on his father's behalf
for this motor home that he was buying for his dad.
And so why she agreed to do that?
I have no idea.
I was at Hilton Head
and I guess she didn't want to bother me.
So he convinced her to send the wire.
And when I got back, they said,
they called me to the office and said,
Lane, we got a problem.
I know what that means.
This weath stuff.
Now, Lenny, you have a problem.
We sent $36,000 a year money to a bank account in Atlanta
and a motor home was supposed to show up on Saturday
and it never did.
So I said, well, can we reverse the wire?
And I did some checking.
Nope, it's gone.
So it was a fraud.
My sales manager apologized.
Thank you very much.
And he said his dad was gonna reimburse me.
So about three weeks later,
after I had to ask about 50 times,
when's the money coming?
His dad dies.
And that's bad enough.
So I gave him another month or so.
And then I said, what about the motor home money?
He said, well, I'll pay you back somehow.
And this was on a Friday, on Monday.
He didn't show up for work.
And I called him.
I said, where are you?
He said, well, I'm in Texas.
I said, Texas.
Yeah, I'm headed back home,
but I'll pay you back for that camper or that motor home.
No, never did.
So I sued him and I had to sue him in Arizona
because that's where he was going.
So I got judgment in Tennessee.
And then I had to hire a lawyer in Arizona
and domicile the case.
That's what they called it.
Domicile the case in Arizona,
which I did, that was several thousand dollars.
And then they found where he was working
and garnished his wages.
Two months later, he fouls bankruptcy.
I think I got two $900 payments on the 36,000.
I think it was 36,000.
That was it.
So even bank wires can be abused.
You just got to be careful with the money.
You also got to be careful
about buying something sight unseen.
This can be a big problem.
We'll talk about that here in just a minute.
Okay, I am back.
I've got this space in a 30,000 square foot building
that I own.
It's in a great retail location.
I operate a tractor and lawn mower business there.
We sell a lot of tractors, a lot of lawn mowers.
It's called Green Outdoor.
And so it's been a pretty good business.
I haven't lost too much money.
And I had a body shop tenant in there and he left.
He had to close up shop, couldn't make it.
So I just put it on Facebook and I got a call,
or not a call, but I got an instant message
through Facebook.
And this guy was interested in the space.
So I met him the other day and young guy,
he is operating a business in, well, let's say,
I would say 20 miles from here,
and he wants to really get serious
about the body shop business.
And he's been smart about it
and wants to lease the property on a short-term basis,
six months at first.
I said, fine, whatever.
And he wants to give it a try
and he's gonna pay rent, of course.
And so he wanted me to draw up
some type of an agreement.
I've drawn up a lot of agreements in my life.
I know how to draw them up.
So I drew up this lease agreement
and it was close to six pages long.
And quite frankly, I copied it off of the last lease
that I had with the previous tenant.
It's got all of the legal mumbo jumbo in there
that you need to protect yourself
that lawyers say you need to protect yourself.
But there's always some kind of a loophole.
So he said, when can I come sign the agreement?
I said, well, I want you to review it first.
Oh, okay.
So I sent it to him and sent it by,
let's see, I texted it to him
and that's what he wanted, so I texted it to him
and he called me back within like,
I don't know, three minutes.
Said, looks good to me.
Folks, you know, you just really need to take your time
when it comes to reading and signing documents.
Because I want him, I want to make sure
that we have a clear understanding.
My dad used to say, good fences make good neighbors.
And I always took that to mean that
if you want to have an agreement with another person,
a handshake is not good enough.
I know it should be, but it's not.
I've seen them fall apart too many times.
And if you're young and a trusting individual
and you just don't want to upset somebody, you know,
you don't want to hurt their feelings
by asking them to convert something to writing,
then you are being foolish.
And that is not the prudent thing to do.
You're not going to hurt somebody's feelings.
Well, you might just a little bit,
especially if they're close to you, you know,
like they're a cousin or your uncle.
But still, put things in writing
and they'll understand, say Lenny Lawson's dad
used to say, good fences make good neighbors.
So that's why we're going to do it.
What's that mean?
Well, it's just that, you know,
we know where the property line is
if you put up a fence.
And so I don't want any disputes in the future
between us.
I want to keep our relationship good.
So let's just putting in writing.
Fair enough.
If they're not willing to do that,
maybe you don't need to go into an agreement with them.
But this young man was willing to sign this lease
after reviewing it just for a few seconds.
Why do you think that is?
I think it's because he's slightly intimidated by me.
And of course, in person, you know,
I can understand why somebody might be intimidated by,
I don't know, a successful businessman
or somebody that they've seen on TV
or some of this stuff,
but that's just not a healthy mindset.
And I never want anybody to be intimidated by me,
especially going into a business transaction,
I want them to feel comfortable, be happy.
You know, if you're not feel comfortable,
ask questions, you know, get down to the brass tax.
And if you need time, then take it, think about it.
It's one of the most important things
that I think a car buyer can do is to,
well, if the dealership will let you take the car
on a test drive by yourself or keep it overnight
or something like that, that's great.
At least that way you get to see how it fits
in your garage, how it feels when you wake up
the next morning and you look out there,
do you feel good about it being there?
But the most important time for you to reflect
is once you know what the numbers are,
so that you can take that home and look at it
and think about it and ponder it.
Oh, if you don't buy it today,
that price will not be good tomorrow.
Bologna, it will be.
Now, you know, if it's the last day of the month
and a rebate is getting ready to drop off,
I'd verify that before I fell for that line.
But yeah, you need to think about it.
Get them to print out a copy of the contract,
do not sign it, make sure you have a copy
of the sales contract or buyer's order.
Take it home and review it and think about it.
If you still want that thing in the morning,
it'll be evident, you'll know it.
You know, sometimes here's the way it goes.
The excitement and exuberance of buying a new car
will overwhelm the logic when it comes to the numbers.
Emotion does that to people
that it makes them make bad decisions
or decisions that have not been thought out well enough.
So once you have both,
they may not let you take the vehicle home,
but once you have driven it enough
and you like the way it looks and feels
and you can see out of it, you can park it,
you know, it's quiet on the road,
all those different things that you look for.
Then you've got the paperwork in your hand
and you take that home and you think about it.
It's the best thing you can do.
You know, if you don't have that much time
and you're shopping for a car in the morning,
leave, take the paperwork with you, go out to eat,
you know, just look at it, read it, digest it,
along with your food.
Then go back a couple hours later and seal the deal.
If it works, if it doesn't work,
then just say, well, thank you for your time,
but we're gonna, we need more time
to think about this and process it.
You know, if the heat really comes,
if they really start pressuring you at that point,
then that might indicate that you're at the wrong dealership
because they're all different.
They're all independently,
well, not all of them are independently owned.
Some of them are owned by big corporations
and they own multiple dealerships.
Matter of fact, most car dealerships
are owned that way by large groups
and they might bring the heat.
If you, you know, start the back out of a deal
or you start to walk, you know, what's their fear?
Their fear is that you're gonna go somewhere else.
Go to another, let's say you're looking
at a Ford Bronco here.
I might be afraid you're gonna go to a Ford Bronco
at one of my competitors.
And, but that fear shouldn't impact you.
The free My Car Guru guidebook will insulate you
from that kind of pressure
because you know it's gonna come
and you know how to recognize it
when that manager that you haven't seen
all of a sudden shows up,
salesman, where'd the salesman go?
Where'd Bob go?
Well, Bob is over there taking a smoke break
while I come in here and try to close you.
Of course, he doesn't say that.
He says, how you doing folks?
I'm Harry and I just wanted to come in
and see what we needed to do to earn your business.
Well, we told Bob, we just wanted our car keys
so we could leave.
Well, I know you told Bob that,
but you know, I'm Bob's boss
and I just wanted to come in
and see if there's anything else we can do
to earn your business today.
Right now, do you feel the pressure?
You know, you don't wanna upset Bob or Harry,
but you really shouldn't care.
You should just get up.
If he keeps that up, say, excuse us.
And once you get your keys,
just get in your car and leave.
You know, this kind of heat is gonna come
at certain types of dealerships.
There's a few in the Tri-Cities, our market area,
that are that way.
They're the ones that have the most balloons up,
the most signs up, the slickest-looking salespeople.
You know, they're high pressure.
There's probably a money machine in the showroom
where you can jump in and grab for dollar bills.
They have tables all set up.
They have police tape.
You know, it's just like they're getting ready to close.
And there's a lot of energy
and they're announcing, Bob just bought a car,
you know, over the intercom system
and it's just a carnival atmosphere.
Get out of there.
Because if you don't, you're gonna end up buying a car
and you're gonna end up paying too much for it.
So that's why it's important.
You can slow it down at any time or stop it.
So let's say that you say, okay, we give up, we'll buy it.
The next step, I mean, you haven't bought anything yet.
The next step is you're gonna go into the finance office.
And there's that really slick talker
in the finance office at some places.
And he's gonna present you
with all kinds of beautiful options to buy certain things.
Extended warranties and gap insurance and mop and slop
is what they used to call it.
It's, you know, paint sealant and fabric shield.
You know, a lot of the products are, they're okay.
They're just overpriced
and they are negotiable by the way.
You know, somebody gives you a price on a warranty.
He may actually quote you a payment and say,
well, this includes an extended service contract
that will protect you up to six years or 150,000 miles.
Really?
And it's only $48 extra a month.
That sounds like a lot.
How many months are we financing?
Well, this is just 84 months.
Do the math on that.
So I'm not paying that for an extended service contract.
Lenny Lawson, the car guru said
that that was way too much.
Who's he?
Well, don't worry about that, but he says it's too much.
And we'd like to have it,
but we won't pay more than $2,000 for it.
That's it.
Well, I can't sell it to you for that.
Well, okay, then I won't buy it.
Now, at that point also, you can read the contract.
You can look at it and you can say, no, no,
not paying that much interest,
not doing that long of a term,
not buying all this extra stuff either.
And you're not giving me enough for my trade after all.
So we're just gonna leave.
See, that is not what they wanna hear at that point.
They think you've bought the car.
You're in the finance office.
Nobody comes out of the finance office
without having signed the paperwork,
at least that hasn't happened in the last couple of months.
You may be the first.
And if you thought the heat was hot before,
wait, do you see this heat?
Because then they're gonna start to act
a little angry in some case.
What do you mean you're backing out of the deal?
I mean, we had an agreement.
No, we really didn't.
I just don't feel good about it.
I wanna go home and think about it.
Let me ask you this.
Is it easier to go home and think about it
than to buy it like on a Friday or Saturday
and try to bring it back on Monday
after you've already signed all the paperwork?
That is DEF CON 4.
Is that the worst DEF CON?
Maybe DEF CON 1 is.
I don't know which is worse.
That's when the nuclear threat is really, really high.
They go to some DEF CON.
Well, that's DEF CON whatever in the car dealership.
Yeah, you try to bring a vehicle back on Monday
at some stores and it's like, oh no, no,
you can't back out of this deal.
We've already sent the paperwork to the bank.
We've already paid off your trade.
Matter of fact, some dealerships
will actually say, we even sold your trade in.
They didn't.
The contract is probably still in the office.
They could go right back in there and say, well, sure,
if you don't feel comfortable with this,
then we'll just grab that contract and tear it up
right here in front of you.
And we hope that you guys are happy,
but that's not what's gonna happen
because this isn't target.
This isn't Dick's Sporting Goods
where you just go back in and say,
you know, I really don't want this baseball glove.
Oh, it's not a problem.
Let me have your credit card number you receive.
No, it doesn't work that way.
You can have your contract and everything
and they're gonna say, no way
that we're giving you your money back
unless you come to me.
Because I've been through this more times than I could count
where a customer buys a car on Saturday
or Friday or Thursday even and comes back on Monday
and says, you know, I just,
we've really made a big mistake, what do we do?
And we talk it through, find out what exactly
they were trying to accomplish to begin with
and where did we go wrong?
And then I let them out of the deal
because what I have found in my life in general
and in the car business is that if you treat people
the way you want to be treated,
then there will be a reward.
And I would be willing to say that more than half
of the time that those people came back in a week
or a month or six months later
and said, you know, you were really nice to us
and we decided if we bought a car
we weren't gonna buy it from anybody else, but you.
And that's the way it works.
If you take care of people the way you want
to be taken care of, then you will be rewarded.
Not by all of them, but by enough.
Okay, I'll take my last break,
I'll be back here in just a minute.
Okay, if you want the MyCarGuru guidebook
which is absolutely free, it's 32 pages long,
I can print it out for you and mail it to you
or better yet, send me your email address, text it to me.
My cell phone number is 423-552-2020,
it's the only cell phone that I have.
Or you can email me, lennielawson2020 at gmail.com
and I'll send you a PDF, you know what that is?
It's a digital, some kind of a digital thing,
but you'll be able to open it up
and you'll be able to read MyCarGuru guidebook
and print it out on your own.
Roll it up, stick it in your glove box
and when you get ready to do something,
like buy a car, sell a car,
all the different things that you can do in your car life.
Just pull it out, read that section
and you will be insulated from a bad car deal.
Well thanks for listening to this edition of MyCarGuru
and I will see you next time.
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