Dealership operators Adam Stein and Brian Benstock join the Daily Dealer Live conversation on scaling without breaking what works—covering used-car expansion, service and customer data, and AI pilots for appointment booking and lead handling. The hosts connect affordability pressures to tighter auto lending, rising repair costs, and right-to-repair style data access legislation. They also debate trade/EV policy and Chinese competition, then zoom into financing and trade-cycle strategy, including shrinking cycles with loaner fleets and leaning on leasing economics.
Today's show features:
- Adam Stein, Executive Director at Plaza Auto Group
- Brian Benstock, Vice President & General Manager at Paragon Honda and Paragon Acura
This episode is brought to you by:
Experian – Experian Automotive helps marketers identify and engage high-value auto shoppers, strengthen customer loyalty, grow service revenue, and activate 1,100+ automotive audiences across 30+ advertising platforms. Learn more here: https://carguymedia.com/3RTNi9H
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"[175.1s] and they've increased minimum income requirements
[177.5s] because the economics simply don't work"
“Minimum income requirements” are the income levels lenders require to approve a loan. If the bar goes up, fewer people can get approved for financing.
“Minimum income requirements” are lender eligibility thresholds that borrowers must meet to qualify for financing. When these requirements rise, fewer buyers qualify—especially those at the lower end of the income spectrum.
"[185.8s] made the more important point,
[185.8s] extending terms to manufacture a lower payment.
[188.6s] It's not a solution in 2026."
“Extending terms” means stretching the loan out over more months. That can lower the monthly payment, but you may pay more overall and it can be harder to stay current long-term.
“Extending terms” means lengthening the loan repayment period so the monthly payment is lower. It can help affordability short-term, but it may increase total interest paid and can become risky if the borrower’s situation changes.
"[205.6s] The lending environment on subprime and near prime side
[208.5s] is tightening in real time,"
“Subprime” means people who have had credit problems in the past. Lenders treat them as higher risk, so car loans usually come with tougher terms and higher costs.
“Subprime” refers to borrowers with weaker credit histories, which makes lenders charge higher rates and apply stricter terms. In auto lending, it often determines what kinds of monthly payments and approval odds customers can get.
"[205.6s] The lending environment on subprime and near prime side
[208.5s] is tightening in real time,"
“Near prime” is credit that’s okay but not excellent. It usually means you might still qualify for a car loan, but the lender may not offer the best rates or easiest terms.
“Near prime” describes borrowers whose credit is not great but not as risky as subprime. Auto lenders use it to price loans and decide how much flexibility they’ll offer on payment terms.
"[217.5s] Also in the news today,
[218.6s] Trump signaled support for independent repair shops last week"
Independent repair shops are regular businesses (not the car brand’s dealership) that fix cars. The discussion is about whether they’re allowed to get the information they need to do the job.
“Independent repair shops” are non-dealership service businesses that repair vehicles for customers. The policy angle here is whether they can compete fairly by getting the same diagnostic access and information as dealer-affiliated service networks.
"[227.6s] The Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026,
[230.9s] which passed the house last week,"
The “Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026” is a proposed law discussed in the episode. It’s meant to ensure independent mechanics can access the information they need to diagnose and repair today’s cars.
The “Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026” is a legislative proposal described here as codifying an agreement about automakers providing independent repair organizations access to vehicle diagnostic and repair data. The significance is that it targets how information is shared in the repair ecosystem.
"[232.7s] codifies a 2014 memorandum of understanding
[236.4s] between automakers and independent repair organizations
[239.6s] on access to vehicle diagnostic and repair data."
Modern cars rely on computers, so repair shops need access to the right diagnostic information. This phrase is about whether independent shops can get the data they need to fix cars.
This refers to the information independent repair shops need to diagnose faults and perform repairs on modern vehicles. The key issue is access—whether automakers provide the data required for diagnostics and service procedures.
"would go further requiring access to data for diagnostics, calibration and recalibration"
In automotive terms, diagnostics means using onboard systems and diagnostic data to identify what’s wrong with a vehicle. The segment frames it as something independent repair groups want access to so they can troubleshoot without being blocked by the manufacturer.
"would go further requiring access to data for diagnostics, calibration and recalibration"
Calibration is “tuning” the car’s computer settings to match the hardware. Recalibration is doing that again after work is done, so everything reads and responds correctly.
Calibration is setting a vehicle’s electronic control systems (like sensors and actuators) to the correct parameters. Recalibration is repeating that process after repairs or component replacements so the car’s systems behave correctly and safely.
"The right to repair fight is moving closer to a customer retention issue than a pure legislative one"
“Right to repair” is the idea that car owners should be able to use independent shops, not just the dealership. It also means those shops should get the same kind of technical information needed to diagnose and fix the car.
“Right to repair” is a policy push that requires automakers to provide independent repair shops access to the information and tools needed to diagnose and fix modern vehicles. In this segment, it’s tied to access to diagnostic data and the ability to perform calibration/recalibration work.
"What's the core issue? Well, it's that DRAM, DRAM manufacturers like Samsung, SK Hyonix and Micron"
DRAM is a kind of fast computer memory that electronic devices use to work. If DRAM becomes scarce or expensive, it can make cars cost more to build because modern cars rely on lots of electronics.
DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory) is a type of computer memory used in electronics. The segment argues that DRAM demand—especially from AI/data centers—is tightening supply, which can raise costs for vehicle electronics and disrupt production.
"Well, it's that DRAM, DRAM manufacturers like Samsung, SK Hyonix and Micron"
Micron is a company that makes DRAM memory chips. When those chips get scarce or expensive, it can raise costs for cars that use lots of electronics.
Micron is mentioned as another major DRAM manufacturer. The segment’s supply-chain argument is that DRAM shortages or price spikes can flow through to vehicle electronics and overall production.
"Well, it's that DRAM, DRAM manufacturers like Samsung, SK Hyonix and Micron"
Samsung is a major company that makes computer memory chips (DRAM). When those chips get more expensive or harder to get, it can affect car production costs.
Samsung is named here as a DRAM manufacturer. The point is that DRAM supply and pricing decisions by major memory makers can ripple into vehicle component costs.
"Well, it's that DRAM, DRAM manufacturers like Samsung, SK Hyonix and Micron"
SK Hynix makes memory chips used in electronics. If memory chips are in short supply, carmakers may face higher costs and production delays.
SK Hynix (spoken as “SK Hyonix”) is cited as a DRAM manufacturer. The segment uses it to illustrate how memory-chip supply constraints can affect vehicle costs and manufacturing.
"So we've got a lot of, you know,
[694.1s] ultra competitive pockets that we deal with on a day-to-day basis.
[698.5s] Which brands have created that ultra competitive pocket?"
This phrase means there are a lot of car dealers very close to each other. Because they’re so near, they end up competing hard for the same buyers.
“Ultra competitive pockets” describes areas where multiple dealerships of the same brand are located close enough to aggressively compete for the same customers. The speaker ties it to dealership spacing (five to eight kilometers) and how that affects day-to-day competition.
"Do you see that within your Nissan franchise?
[705.6s] Is there a brand where you see more competition
[708.1s] and ones where you see less currently?
[711.5s] Yeah, I would say Nissan for sure, Kia."
Nissan is a car company. Here it’s mentioned because the speaker thinks Nissan dealers compete pretty hard with each other nearby.
Nissan is a major Japanese automaker with a large dealer network in many countries. In this segment, the host is using Nissan as an example of a brand that creates intense local dealer competition.
"Yeah, I would say Nissan for sure, Kia.
[715.4s] Yeah.
[717.4s] Those are the two that come to mind."
Kia is another big car brand. In this discussion, it’s brought up as one of the brands where dealers compete more intensely in the same area.
Kia is a South Korean automaker known for high-volume sales and strong dealer presence. The speaker groups Kia with Nissan as brands that create “ultra competitive pockets” for dealerships.
"I think the brands that have done a good job,
[722.1s] definitely Subaru has done a great job trying to, you know,
[725.3s] give the dealers the opportunity to make as much money,
[730.4s] help the customers create our database."
Subaru is a car brand. The speaker is saying Subaru does a good job supporting its dealers so they can make money and build relationships with customers.
Subaru is a Japanese automaker with a reputation for dealer networks that often emphasize customer retention and local sales support. Here, the speaker credits Subaru with giving dealers more opportunity to earn money and help build a customer database.
"And Volkswagen and Maz have also done a pretty good job
[737.5s] being able to spread things that can give us that opportunity"
Volkswagen is a major car brand. The speaker is saying Volkswagen provides dealer support that helps local dealers compete and sell without constantly fighting other nearby stores.
Volkswagen is a German automaker with a large global dealer network. In this segment, it’s mentioned as a brand that helps spread programs or resources that give dealers local opportunities to work with customers.
"And Volkswagen and Maz have also done a pretty good job
[737.5s] being able to spread things that can give us that opportunity"
“Maz” is how people often shorten Mazda. The speaker is saying Mazda, like Volkswagen, helps dealers with tools or programs so they can work with customers locally.
“Maz” is a shorthand reference to Mazda, the Japanese automaker. The speaker groups Mazda with Volkswagen as brands that help dealers with initiatives that create local sales opportunities.
"So you do have certain powers, but the OEMs have more.
...
And again, when it comes to used cars, the new frontier, the frontier is the same frontier that saved new car sales and that's leasing."
OEMs are the car makers themselves—the companies that produce the vehicles. They can set programs and incentives (like leasing offers) that affect what customers pay. Dealers can influence deals too, but OEMs usually have more control over the big levers.
OEMs means Original Equipment Manufacturers—the companies that build the vehicles sold under their brand names. In dealer discussions, OEMs control incentives, leasing programs, and how aggressively they try to influence affordability. The speaker contrasts dealer “powers” with what OEMs can do.
"So that works for you at Honda and Acura, but it may not work for some of the other OEMs.
Do the OEMs need to think about how Honda and Acura are approaching the market with regard to leasing..."
Acura is Honda’s luxury car brand. Here it’s mentioned because the speaker thinks Acura’s approach to leasing helps make cars more affordable. The focus is on payment structure, not a specific model.
Acura is Honda’s luxury brand, and the speaker includes it alongside Honda when talking about leasing strategies to support affordability. In the segment, Acura is part of the “works for you” example of how OEMs can influence customer payments.
"So that works for you at Honda and Acura, but it may not work for some of the other OEMs.
Do the OEMs need to think about how Honda and Acura are approaching the market with regard to leasing..."
Honda is a car brand. In this discussion, it’s mentioned as an example of a manufacturer that uses leasing to help customers afford cars. The point is about how the brand’s leasing terms can keep payments lower.
Honda is a major Japanese automaker and, in this segment, it’s used as an example of an OEM that approaches the market with leasing to improve affordability. The speaker later groups Honda with Toyota as having strong leasing economics via residual values.
"Do the OEMs need to think about how Honda and Acura are approaching the market with regard to leasing and lean in a little bit to help with affordability?
...
And again, when it comes to used cars, the new frontier, the frontier is the same frontier that saved new car sales and that's leasing."
Leasing means you pay to drive a car for a period of time instead of buying it outright. Your monthly payment is often lower, and at the end you usually return the car or decide to buy it. Dealers and manufacturers use leasing to help customers afford cars they might not be able to buy.
Leasing is a financing structure where you pay to use a car for a set term, usually with lower monthly payments than buying. At the end, you typically return the car, buy it for a pre-set price, or roll into another lease. In dealer talk, leasing is often used to make payments feel more affordable even when the car’s purchase price is high.
"Most of the cars, the Toyotas, the Hondas, have great residuals and so slap elites on that and make it affordable for your customer."
Toyota is a car brand. In this segment, it’s mentioned because the speaker says Toyotas tend to keep their value better, which can lower lease payments. That’s why leasing used Toyotas can feel “uber affordable.”
Toyota is referenced as a brand whose vehicles tend to have strong residual values, which helps make leasing—especially leasing used cars—more affordable. The speaker pairs Toyota with Honda to argue that leasing economics work well when the car holds value.
"Again, and now you're shrinking that trade cycle for the new car.
You're shrinking that trade cycle for the used car and we're getting these customers to come back."
Trade cycle just means how long people keep a car before they trade it in for a different one. If that cycle gets shorter, dealers sell more cars because customers come back sooner. The speaker is saying leasing can encourage that faster replacement rhythm.
Trade cycle is the typical time it takes a customer to replace one vehicle with another. Shortening the trade cycle means customers switch cars more frequently, which increases dealer volume and repeat business. The speaker connects leasing to shortening both the new-car and used-car trade cycle.
Term
UIO
"Well, and the problem many OEMs have outside your lane is UIO, right?
There's just not as many units in operation given COVID and some of the other supply chain challenges, but you're making lemonade out of that with increasing that cycle through leasing."
UIO here means how many cars are currently out there being used on the road. If fewer cars are in operation, there are fewer opportunities for customers to trade in or replace vehicles. The speaker says leasing helps compensate when that pool is smaller.
UIO is an industry shorthand the speaker uses in a dealer/OEM context, referring to units in operation—how many vehicles are actively on the road in the field. If UIO is lower, there are fewer vehicles circulating through the market for service, trade-ins, and replacement demand. The speaker ties reduced UIO to COVID and supply-chain challenges.
"Last time you were on, we talked about your trip to Kazakhstan. You saw the Buid vehicles."
BYD is a car company from China. They’re especially known for electric cars and batteries, and the episode is talking about seeing their vehicles in Kazakhstan.
BYD is a Chinese automaker best known for large-scale battery and electric-vehicle production. In the context of the episode, the host is referencing BYD vehicles seen during a trip to Kazakhstan, highlighting how Chinese brands are expanding globally.
"We should support hybrid and we should support ICE vehicles because we have the natural resources here."
ICE vehicles are regular gas or diesel cars. They make power by burning fuel in an engine.
ICE vehicles are cars powered by an internal combustion engine (gasoline or diesel). They rely on burning fuel to create mechanical power, unlike battery-electric vehicles that use stored electricity.
"We should support hybrid and we should support ICE vehicles because we have the natural resources here."
A hybrid car uses two kinds of power, usually a gas engine and an electric motor. The electric part can help the car move and can improve fuel economy.
A hybrid vehicle uses more than one power source—typically an internal combustion engine plus an electric motor/battery. The electric system can assist acceleration and help improve fuel economy, especially in stop-and-go driving.
"They have a lion's share of raw material to create battery electric vehicles."
Battery electric vehicles are fully electric cars. They run on electricity from a battery you charge, not on gas.
Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) run on electricity stored in a battery pack rather than using an internal combustion engine. They typically charge from the electrical grid and produce zero tailpipe emissions while driving.
"I mean, I think the increase was 300 or 400 coal-firing plants to manufacture their EVs."
Coal-firing plants are power plants that make electricity by burning coal. If the electricity comes from coal, it can create more pollution than cleaner energy sources.
Coal-firing plants are power stations that generate electricity by burning coal. The mention matters because electricity used to manufacture EVs (and to charge BEVs) can be cleaner or dirtier depending on how that power is produced.
"But if they want to produce into the US marketplace, could we not require use of UAW or union shops,"
UAW is a U.S. auto workers union. Mentioning it usually means the speaker wants the jobs to be union jobs with union labor rules.
UAW refers to the United Auto Workers, a major labor union in the U.S. that represents workers in auto manufacturing. Requiring UAW or union shops is about labor terms and who employs and negotiates with workers.
"But if they want to produce into the US marketplace, could we not require use of UAW or union shops,"
A union shop is a factory where workers are represented by a union. It usually means there are union rules about pay and working conditions.
A union shop is a workplace where employees are represented by a labor union and typically must meet union-related membership or fee requirements. In auto policy discussions, it’s often used to argue for standardized labor protections for manufacturing jobs.
"...oods, Brian. Sam, when's the last time you saw an escalade in Beijing? Never."
The Cadillac Escalade is a large luxury SUV made by Cadillac. It’s designed to be comfortable and feature-rich, with a big, noticeable look. People bring it up because it’s a well-known “top” model in the Cadillac lineup.
The Cadillac Escalade is a full-size luxury SUV known for its large size, upscale interior, and strong presence on the road. It’s often discussed because it represents the “flagship” style of Cadillac—big comfort, lots of features, and a status-focused design that makes it a frequent topic in car and market conversations. In a podcast context, it can come up when talking about how popular certain luxury models are in different places or markets.
"How do you ensure the rental fleet? [2491.3s] I know that's a question for a lot who think about doing that."
A rental fleet is a group of cars that are rented out and then returned on a schedule. Dealers may buy them because they’re usually maintained and then resell them after they’ve been used for a while.
A rental fleet is a pool of vehicles used by rental companies and rotated through service. Dealers often buy and resell these cars because the vehicles are typically maintained on a schedule, then sold after mileage/time in the fleet.
"Your Melinda Honda has a wonderful program that's open to dealers [2497.4s] that many dealers are not taking advantage of, [2500.1s] but they're able to provide that service for us. [2504.0s] And I think that's a real good use of fleet sales within our doors."
Fleet sales are when a dealer sells cars in volume to groups that use them for business. It can help a dealership keep inventory moving and make money more consistently.
Fleet sales are wholesale or volume sales of vehicles to organizations that use them as work vehicles (like rentals, delivery fleets, or company cars). In dealership operations, fleet sales can be a steady pipeline that helps manage inventory turns and profitability.
"And then put it through a recon, get a bite of the apple there, [2532.5s] and then put it into CPO, get another bite of the apple."
CPO means Certified Pre-Owned. It’s a used car that the dealer checks and “certifies,” so it usually comes with extra protections compared with a regular used car.
CPO stands for Certified Pre-Owned. It’s a program where a used car is inspected and then sold with certification-backed terms, often including extended coverage and a higher price than a regular used car.
"lower the cost of that bin, [2528.6s] put it through a recon, get a bite of the apple there, [2532.5s] and then put it into CPO, get another bite of the apple."
“Recon” is dealer shorthand for reconditioning. It means the car gets fixed up and cleaned so it’s ready to be sold as a used vehicle.
In dealer-speak, “recon” is short for reconditioning. It refers to the work done to bring a used vehicle up to resale condition—typically repairs, detailing, and any needed mechanical fixes—before it’s sold (or certified).
"Well, we have a couple of AI agents that are working for us full-time [2558.3s] and they work at the right wage. [2560.6s] And the agents are currently making recall calls and making up-bound calls."
“Recall calls” are when a dealer reaches out to car owners about a safety recall. The goal is to get the owner scheduled for the free repair the recall requires.
“Recall calls” refers to contacting customers to notify them about a vehicle recall and help schedule the required repair. It’s a common dealer workflow because recalls are tracked by VIN and handled through the manufacturer/dealer service network.
Term
up-bound calls
"And the agents are currently making recall calls and making up-bound calls. [2566.9s] And they do a fantastic job at it."
“Up-bound calls” sounds like outbound calls to follow up with customers for extra offers or next steps. In this context, it’s part of what the AI agents are doing for the dealership.
“Up-bound calls” appears to be dealer shorthand for outbound calls aimed at upselling or follow-up—often contacting customers to drive service appointments, upgrades, or additional sales. The exact meaning isn’t fully clear from the transcript, but it’s framed as part of the AI agents’ call work.
"[3385.2s] Why would we drive up the cost, the ownership cost of a car for a
[3389.3s] consumer by going 72 or 84 months?
[3392.9s] It doesn't make any sense."
“72 or 84 months” is how long the car loan is. Longer loans usually mean more total cost, and they can also affect how the dealership’s finance team gets paid.
“72 or 84 months” refers to the length of the auto loan term—how many months the buyer has to pay it off. Longer terms can increase the total amount paid over time and can also change how dealership finance staff are compensated (e.g., via points), which is why the host says it can “make sense” from a pay-plan perspective.
"[3394.2s] It makes sense if you think about the pay plan, though.
[3396.8s] And Don Hall's talked about it here."
A pay plan is how dealership employees get paid—usually with bonuses based on certain targets. Here, the point is that the bonus structure can encourage longer car loans.
A pay plan is the compensation structure that ties dealership staff bonuses to specific sales metrics. In this segment, the host argues that the pay plan can push finance managers toward longer loan terms because it’s easier to earn points on those deals.
"[3396.8s] Defend that finance managers are running the store.
[3398.3s] We live in a 30 day cycle where GM's are incentivized on net at the end of the month.
[3402.8s] More important, who's running the store these days?"
This means the dealership is judged (and rewarded) based on its net results by the end of the month. That timing can affect how sales and financing targets are pursued.
“Net at the end of the month” describes a dealership incentive metric based on net profit or net performance during the monthly accounting cycle. The host claims GM (General Motors) incentives are tied to net results at month-end, which can influence how deals are structured.
"[3421.8s] They're making the...
[3422.3s] And there's not a collusion going on, but the sales manager and the FNI guy
[3427.6s] are getting paid on generating big gross, right?"
“FNI” means the dealership finance-and-insurance role. That person helps set up the loan and may sell add-ons, and in this discussion they’re described as having a big influence on how deals are packaged.
“FNI” is a dealership shorthand for Finance and Insurance, referring to the person who structures the financing and sells related products (like warranties and insurance). The host argues this role can influence deal terms because they’re paid on gross and points.
"[3427.6s] are getting paid on generating big gross, right?
[3430.5s] And it's easier for the FNI person to make big gross on an 84 month contract.
[3435.8s] Correct."
This is a car loan that lasts 84 months. The host is saying longer loans can make it easier for the dealership’s finance team to earn more money on the deal.
An “84 month contract” is an auto loan agreement with an 84-month term. The host connects longer terms to higher finance gross opportunities, making it easier for the finance manager to earn compensation tied to points and gross.
"[3430.5s] And it's easier for the FNI person to make big gross on an 84 month contract.
[3435.8s] Correct.
[3435.9s] One point, two points.
[3437.4s] That's what you mean."
A “point” here is a small percentage tied to how the financing deal is structured. The host is saying finance managers can earn more of that compensation when the loan term is longer.
In dealership finance, a “point” typically means a percentage of the loan amount used to calculate compensation (often tied to interest rate markup or lender participation). The host implies it’s easier for the finance person to earn more points on longer contracts like 84 months.
"[3672.0s] And the problem wasn't the methodology.
[3674.8s] The problem was the Ford residual wouldn't support the methodology.
[3680.0s] And that was on Ford, not on the trade cycle."
A residual is the expected value of the car at the end of a lease. If the car ends up being worth less than expected, the deal can fall apart because the numbers were based on a higher future value.
In leasing, the residual value (often shortened to “residual”) is the predicted value of the car at the end of the lease term. If the actual market value ends up lower than the residual assumption, lease economics break down—because the lender/lessor expected the car to be worth more later.
Term
quality
"[3690.3s] Well, I mean, it's also quality.
[3692.8s] I mean, quality is in there.
[3693.8s] What determines the future value of a car is the quality of the car."
They’re talking about how good the car is in real life—how well it holds up and how buyers feel about it. Cars that are seen as better usually keep their value better later on.
Here, “quality” is being used in the sense of how well the vehicle holds up and how it’s perceived by buyers—factors that influence resale/used-car demand. Better perceived quality can help future value, which is why it’s discussed as a component of what determines future value.
"[3703.1s] Fair.
[3703.3s] But GM has done a nice job this year, I think, constraining supply a little bit.
[3707.6s] You don't see the same challenge with some of the OEMs that have oversupplied the market."
Constraining supply means selling fewer cars than usual. If there aren’t as many cars available, prices tend to hold up better, which can help lease and trade-in numbers.
Constraining supply means limiting how many vehicles an automaker makes or ships to the market. In the context of residuals and used values, fewer cars available can help prevent prices from dropping too far, supporting lease and trade economics.
Term
lease retention
"I don't think there's any manufacturer that can touch Honda in the Northeast with the
[3740.0s] leasing retention that they have."
Lease retention means how many people who leased a car decide to lease again (often with the same dealer). If retention is high, the dealer expects more repeat business.
Lease retention refers to how many customers who already have a lease choose to renew or re-lease with the same dealer/brand rather than switching. Higher lease retention typically means better customer loyalty and more predictable repeat volume.
How do you grow without breaking what got you here?
First up, Adam Stein out of Plaza Auto Group,
Canada-based, four stores to 12 and five years.
He's a fourth-generation family business
that had to throw out the old playbook to scale,
and he bet everything on building leaders
from the inside out.
Then, up today,
super pumped to have Brian Benstock back with us,
Paragon Honda and Acura.
He's doubling used car ops.
He's expanding the network.
He's leaning into AI
and still preaching the oldest gospel in the business,
right a deal, right old deals,
right another deal.
One's building the bench,
one's running the floor at full tilt,
and we're going to put them in the same room
as part of our roundtable at the end of the show
to find out where they agree
and maybe where they disagree.
And what that means for the rest of you,
trying to scale right now in June of 2026.
And as a reminder,
we're streaming live across all CDG social media platforms.
Post those comments into the chat.
Is eager back from Monte Carlo F1
props to the Mercedes-Benz team
for taking home the trophy there.
And here at home at MIS,
Carson Hosevar made his bid to win
the Michigan is home track Sunday
and came in just a little bit short,
a collision into the wall to come back from first
or at least second anyway to fifth, I think,
but he let a lot of laps.
And it was fun to see him.
But before we hit all the social media comments,
we've got a lot coming into the chat.
Let's cover today's automotive industry headlines.
All right, out of the non-prime auto finance conference
in Irving this week,
lenders were candid about how affordability pressures
are forcing real changes to underwriting.
This is important for all of us in automotive.
One smaller subprime lender on the panel said
they've raised their minimum FICO score floor by 40 points
and they've increased minimum income requirements
because the economics simply don't work
at the lower end anymore.
Santander's auto lending president
made the more important point,
extending terms to manufacture a lower payment.
It's not a solution in 2026.
It's a loan that may not withstand the test of time.
49% of middle income Americans surveyed by Santander
said they're delaying a vehicle purchase
and 88% said they're considering used for dealers.
The lending environment on subprime and near prime side
is tightening in real time,
which means deals that worked six months ago,
well, they may not pencil today without creative
but sustainable structuring.
Also in the news today,
Trump signaled support for independent repair shops last week
during remarks on coal production saying the auto industry
quote, doesn't want people to fix their car.
The Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026,
which passed the house last week,
codifies a 2014 memorandum of understanding
between automakers and independent repair organizations
on access to vehicle diagnostic and repair data.
Separate legislation being pushed by independent repair groups
would go further requiring access to data for diagnostics,
calibration and recalibration,
something the industry simply opposes.
Vehicle repair costs have risen 43% since 2019
to as much as $1,700 per visit
and 45% of customers report dissatisfaction
with dealership service over surprise costs
and poor communication.
The right to repair fight is moving closer
to a customer retention issue than a pure legislative one
and dealers who haven't tightened up on service transparency,
well, they're increasingly exposed on both fronts
and closing out today with a supply chain story
that's starting to show up on industry radar,
a coalition of business groups,
including the Alliance for Automotive Innovation,
they sent a letter to the US Treasury and Commerce Department
warning that surging data center,
AI data center demand for memory chips
is creating an urgent imbalance
that could drive up vehicle costs and disrupt production.
What's the core issue?
Well, it's that DRAM, DRAM manufacturers
like Samsung, SK Hyonix and Micron
are shifting capacity toward high bandwidth memory
for AI applications.
Those applications are far more profitable
than the older chip types still used
in vehicle cockpits and ADAS systems.
There's no immediate production crisis,
but the letter says the real world impacts
have already begun showing up in consumer electronics
and pricing and warn it could deteriorate quickly.
This is just one more downstream supply chain risk
to track alongside tariffs, the Iran conflict
and the motor oil situation,
all of which have the same basic implication.
Vehicle availability and pricing,
they are harder to predict than they've been in years.
And that folks is a wrap on today's automotive industry headlines.
All right, going into the chat before we head
into our first guest, Patrick Blox
says happy anniversary to the launch of America Honda,
June 4th, 1959.
Just so happens to be my new employer.
By the way, props Patrick for bringing that to our attention.
Also, I'm sure Brian Benstock has a thing or two
to say about that anniversary.
That's awesome.
You're Kate coming in.
He's back from the race.
Hello, Sam.
Community rewatched your show from last Friday.
Thanks for mentioning me.
We had a blast at F1 and it looks,
it sounds like he hung out with Connor McGregor.
Hannah, we need to get you on the show on his Lambo yet.
Lauren Klein comes in happy Monday all and Scott Simons.
Good afternoon, Sam.
Daily deal alive and car dealership guy.
I'm on way to Boca to meet up with some of the CDG team.
Excited to have you participating in all things CDG this week.
So Scott Simons, thanks for coming into the chat.
All right.
First up today, let's go to Adam Stein,
north of the US border executive director at Plaza Auto Group.
Adam Stein, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Pumped to have you here.
So you're a fourth generation.
Tell us who you are, where you are and what you do out there.
Hannah, how's business month, June of 26th?
So we're located in just outside of Toronto
in the greater Toronto area in Ontario.
And we have 12 dealerships to use car locations in the body shop
just scattered around a perimeter of the greater Toronto area
and some smaller locations and communities.
And yeah, we're fourth generation, great grandfather
and my grandfather started the business.
I am lucky enough to be able to work with my two brothers
and my father on a day to day basis.
And we are experiencing some growth currently
and growing our business, growing our group
and working on continuing to perfect our operations.
Yeah.
So you speak of growth, significant growth.
You've gone from four stores to 12.
That's 300% growth, right?
I guess.
When you talk about that kind of growth in that short of a time,
walk us through what that looked like.
What are the franchises you added?
And what was the biggest challenge in scaling that quickly?
So over the last few years,
we've added a couple of Nissan stores,
two Stellantis stores, a Mazda location
and another Kia store to add to our already
fairly large infrastructure of Kia stores.
And the biggest thing was being able to imprint our process
in each store, be able to take this down.
All right.
To our production staff, we're running.
We were able to acquire through those stores.
Adam, we're running into a little bit of a,
we'll pull Adam off, running into a little bit of a challenge.
You know, Adam is north of the Canadian border,
which it's not too terribly far,
but going back to the old Al Gore joke
where everybody joked that Al Gore laid the internet.
He may not have taken it that far up as well.
But Paul Salisman, interesting, says,
the big Apple worldwide developer conference is on right now.
Are there new car play announcements coming out
regarding vehicle integrations to car play?
I'm excited to actually talk about that with Brian Benstock
because he had an opinion two times ago when he was on the show.
He said, look, let the tech providers create those integrations
into automotive, let them specialize in that.
So whether it's Apple play, whether it's Android, same version,
whatever, let's allow those developers to develop the very best.
I think we've got Adam back.
Adam, are you with us?
Yeah.
Sorry, it looks like we had some technical difficulties there.
No, you know what?
The internet is a funny thing and you're a little bit farther.
You know, before we go into the scaling side, you're in Canada.
Tell our US audience and our global audience,
what are one or two you deal with the same OEMs
that a lot of us here in the US have?
What are one or two of the biggest differences
selling in a Canadian marketplace versus a US marketplace
that maybe US doesn't fully appreciate or know about, Adam?
Well, I would say right now the regulations that we deal with
in Canada, specifically in Ontario,
are very similar to what you guys have been talking about on the show
more recently with the FTC cracking down on online pricing
and all in advertising.
We've been dealing with that for as long as I've been around
and probably for 20 plus years.
So I would say that would be the biggest thing.
That's not new to us.
The compliance, making sure that the transparency is there
from online to in-store.
So that would be number one.
And secondary to that, I would say, you know,
we've got little pockets of extreme competitiveness,
not only from other brands, but from, you know,
the same brands, you know, that we work with,
you know, dealerships five to eight kilometers away
of the same brand.
So we've got a lot of, you know,
ultra competitive pockets that we deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Which brands have created that ultra competitive pocket?
Do you see that within your Nissan franchise?
Is there a brand where you see more competition
and ones where you see less currently?
Yeah, I would say Nissan for sure, Kia.
Yeah.
Those are the two that come to mind.
I think the brands that have done a good job,
definitely Subaru has done a great job trying to, you know,
give the dealers the opportunity to make as much money,
help the customers create our database.
And Volkswagen and Maz have also done a pretty good job
being able to spread things that can give us that opportunity
to work with the customers locally
and not have to worry about, you know,
constantly trying to save our customers
from other dealerships in other areas.
So when we go and look at your portfolio of brands,
you've got Kia multiple stores,
you've got Subaru, Volkswagen, Nissan, Mazda,
what you don't have.
You don't have any Chinese OEMs.
I know that's a newer entrant
or a possible entrant into the Canadian marketplace.
That's been a hotly debated topic here in the United States.
What's your take on Nissan
and the technological advances they've made in vehicles
and, you know, is Canada ready to compete in that area
or is that a concern?
I would say we are.
I think a lot of our OEMs have done a great job
specifically on the electric vehicle side
to make sure they're ready to,
for the market shifting in that direction.
Kia has done a fantastic job
preparing for the electric vehicle wave that's coming.
And, you know, I know that there's some discussions
as, you know, how it's fluctuated on the electric vehicle side
in regards to, you know, being very susceptible
to the government rebates and manufacturer rebates.
But, yeah, Kia, Subaru is doing a great job.
Stalantis, Nissan, I feel very comfortable
with who our OEMs are that they can compete
with the best of the best on the electric vehicle side.
Adam, the other hot topic currently in the U.S.
and I know global is affordability of vehicles
and we led the story out today.
We led the show out today.
Top story was affordability
and the performance of these prime and subprime,
or subprime, subprime and near-subprime books of business.
And some of these lenders, Santander, among them saying,
look, extending terms to get payment affordability
isn't a great idea.
The performance deteriorates as you do that.
What are some things you're doing in your store?
A, are you seeing affordability being a strain
on the consumer?
And how are you thinking about getting vehicles
to become more affordable for the consumer?
What are some strategies you might be implementing
if affordability, in fact, in Canada is an issue today?
Well, I definitely agree with you.
Extending the terms and putting people in the long-term
commitments definitely isn't the answer.
I do see affordability becoming more of an issue,
especially recently.
And yeah, one of the things that we'll try and do
to ensure that customers are able to get into new vehicles
is we try and treat things in the segments.
We put a really big focus on our internal database of customers
and our number one priority is to be able to retain our customers,
be able to support them in getting new vehicles
and being able to afford new vehicles.
With some of the manufacturers right now,
I think programs and incentives are extremely important.
Some of our manufacturers are doing a great job
at it, others aren't, and having good incentives
that can enable the affordability for a customer
I think is extremely important.
Yeah, yeah, very good.
So you've grown so fast.
You mentioned maximizing your database,
your employee database.
There's been a lot of discussion about cleansing data,
creating a CDP as quickly as your group has grown.
You've acquired a lot of new stores with a lot of new data.
Have you done anything on the CDP cleansing side?
And if so, who have you done that with?
How are you thinking about that?
And how are you trying to maximize your customer retention
through that database?
We haven't done anything on the data cleansing side.
One of the things for us is, you know, we,
whatever database we have or we take over,
I think it's extremely important to be able to maximize
that database.
So most of them have been fairly clean.
You know, what we do is, you know,
we ensure that we put a huge focus on their service database.
Customers are coming in regularly who are active customers
and making sure that we have good contact with those clients,
make sure that, you know,
where their preferred place of service that we're able
to turn those customers into lifelong customers.
And one of the things that we've done at the stores
that we've taken over, we try and really make sure
that we make an impact from day one.
You know, we like to have community events,
bring customers back, meet the new owners, team,
and just really keep that engagement for the database
and the communities that we're operating in.
So is there any, as you're engaging with customers,
AI is something a lot of dealers are thinking about in 2026.
Are there any AI tools or AI-related tools
that you've implemented in your database
to help better connect with consumers?
So we're piloting AI tools currently,
both on the sales and service side.
We've used a few different tools on the service side,
specifically for appointment booking.
I find it to be extremely helpful for inbound appointments,
being able to, you know, serve customers 24 hours a day,
seven days a week, on Sundays when we're not there.
That's been extremely helpful.
We've used Brook AI, who's based out of,
forget the parent company name, but it's called Brook AI,
and it's been done a really great job on the service side.
We're piloting MPEL right now on the sales side,
and we've also utilized Optomy AI on the sales side as well
to be able to help serve customers.
Very cool.
Any on the last two?
I'm unfamiliar with the first one you mentioned,
but any early returns on the effectiveness
of the last two tools in your stores?
Well, I find that there's a lot of key points
where, you know, the AI is able to help on the sales side.
We'd like to look at it as an assistant for the sales team
as opposed to that main point of contact for the client.
And, you know, we found that being able to serve the customer
quickly, being able to get back to the customer,
you know, on that first contact has been really helpful,
and then being able to manage the flow of volume
that comes through, you know,
as opposed to just being reliant on the sales team
has been extremely helpful.
Lauren Klein comes into the text, says,
PDS better car people make Brook.
So that's a notion that we must be familiar with.
So, yeah.
And I'm just, I just haven't, haven't heard,
heard about that as much.
So, okay.
So you've talked in your intake,
as we're having discussions in the back room,
you're talking about training and the importance
of training and development in 2026 to create elite teams.
It trainings easy to say, it's easy to say
it's hard to fund and staff consistently.
What is your actual training infrastructure
to look like June 26?
And what's still a work in progress?
What are you still trying to solve, Adam?
So we've put a huge focus on, you know,
as I mentioned, building our team from internally.
We've got a lot of stores that are centrally located together.
And, you know, we've realized that in order,
in order to enable our growth,
it's been important that we are able to grow from within.
And that comes from training and developing our staff.
So what we're doing on the training side, you know,
and the first thing we put a focus on about a year ago
is train our managers how to train.
And I think that that's a part that gets forgotten about a lot is,
you know, we're requiring managers, sales managers,
service managers to train their teams,
but do they really know how to train?
Do they know about the different types of learners
and how to make sure they can get across
and be received by their staff?
So we brought in a director of training for our group.
Okay. Yeah.
We brought it. We brought in the director of training for our group.
And what he's doing is he's focusing on, you know,
not only some high level training by position,
but also training our and coaching our managers, you know,
how to train.
So we've run workshops for the group to be able to, you know,
coach and train our leaders.
We're also running a leadership development group in our,
in our group right now where we're training our current
and future leaders on how to be a leader.
You know, we're, we're reading books.
We're talking about strategies.
And we're really focusing on those midline and upper level managers
to be able to coach them on how to train.
What's the best book so far?
I would say the best book that we've read so far is the one we're on now,
which is called the, the four levels of execution.
Okay.
And, you know, what, what, what we've really worked on over the past
couple of books is, is how to implement change,
not just appealing, you know, to the, to the logic and going in and
implementing a process,
but how to really get the buy in and the execution of that change
from our managers, especially with new stores that we take over.
How can we, you know, not run in there and, and,
and just throw a bunch of data and processes at the people.
But, you know, how can we really get them to buy in and,
and, and own that change in that process?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fascinating.
Well, you know, as you develop that and continue down that trajectory,
it'll be exciting to see the growth of the team and the leadership in the store.
Do you have quantifiable results?
Are you able to point back to results from that training strategy being able to,
having this focus on training, are you able to quantify a close rate or sell
rate or profitability or retention?
How do you think about that?
So customer experience scores have been big for us.
You know, that's one thing where we're really focusing our training efforts on
is building a customer experience that differentiates us from the competition.
So, you know, that's one of the areas where we can definitely see,
you know, the training coming into effect is,
is our customer experience scores are Google reviews,
which is really what's going to keep the engine going in terms of,
you know, being able to continue to sell and service more cars.
Yeah.
On the profitability side, you know, the internet sales has been a big focus of
our as internet sales training, phone training,
being able and willing to do business in the way that the customer wants to,
you know, build rapport over the phone, not rush them into the showroom
and really conduct the process at the speed and in the way the customer is looking for.
And we've definitely seen some good results.
Well, we appreciate you being on the show today, Adam Stein.
Last question, brief answer as we wrap up.
Now, we're going to have you back for the round table with Brian Benstock.
I spoke to a group of Canadian dealers, Alexis dealers in Toronto,
and I was talking about our approach and kind of training development
and really, you know, kind of the selling ethos and every single one of them.
And maybe it was a Alexis thing came back to me in the like,
hey, look, there's one thing that's different about Canada.
We're a little more laid back than you are in the US.
Like customers be back a day.
They'll come back a month or a week or six months later,
thinking about that car long term.
Is there truth to that?
That there is a be back bus in Canada or is that brand specific, Adam?
I would say that that might be area specific.
We have stores that are all over the greater Toronto area in Ontario
and the smaller markets, the rural communities that are a little bit more community focused.
You know, that might be the case where it's, you know, wow, the customer,
you know, really makes sure he's still competitive.
The big city is still competitive.
Yeah.
All right.
Very good.
Well, Adam Stein, Executive Director Plaza, a group.
Thanks so much for being on the show.
I have you back at the end of the show for our round table.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
All right.
All right.
Let's talk today's episode.
Let's talk Experian.
This episode is brought to you by Experian.
Smarter marketing data drives smarter growth with Experian Automotive,
reach in market shoppers, boost loyalty and service revenue,
and activate powerful automotive audiences all across 30 plus platforms.
Props to Experian for supporting today's content, including that great conversation
we just had with Adam Stein where he talked a little bit about his multi-generation approach,
fast rapid growth there in Canada, some of the differences between US
and the Canadian marketplaces, also some of the myths a little bit uncovered there
as we go today.
So we see a lot of similarities, more similarities than differences.
So props to Experian for supporting today's content.
And a dive into the chat, there is a vigorous conversation going on online
over Eager's trip to F1.
I can't even go through them all.
He's got a ton of pictures rented a Pagani for three days while he was there.
By the way, big props to Mercedes-Benz F1 team.
Again, they won.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari team guy was also attending my party, has a blast,
met with a lot of US dealer principals, had very interesting conversations about the biz
and what's expected in the future.
Eager K says, in his opinion, lots of dealers are selling rooftops to bigger dealer groups.
You'll see a lot of acquisitions of smaller dealers in 2026 and beyond.
Dealers are consolidating massively.
Yoga Cars pops in on the data cleanse convo says you really see how clean your data is
when you try texting clients, 20 to 40% of numbers when we clean up data turn out to be landlines
or mislabeled or made up, which I think is sometimes the case.
I'm just scanning or I mean, I love our audience because you all are having as big a conversation
and almost a separate show on the side, but let's keep this show going.
Next up today, Brian Benstock, Vice President, General Manager, Paragon Honda and Paragon Acura.
Brian, welcome to the show.
Sam, how are you buddy?
Brian, I got to tell you, thinking back to a Sodu Kanyu and I, we had an incredible dinner.
I rarely sit still long and we, I think, sat all at that table for 34 hours just talking about all things automotive.
Absolutely.
It was an absolute blast being there with you and your team and meeting everybody and just really talking.
You know, it was an extension of this conversation, Brian.
It is.
And you know, people think that when you're at a dinner table, maybe it's more realistic.
I think you and I have realistic conversations wherever we are and no holding back and so today will be no exception.
Yes.
I love it.
All right.
Let's start out here.
How's biz June of 2026 at your stores?
Business is fantastic.
You know, it's, it's growing.
I think the economy is strong.
If we can get the Middle East turmoil and the Ukrainian matter resolved, I think we're going to see a real boom in business.
But right now, business is, is really excellent at the Paragon stores and the White Plains store.
Yeah.
Are you starting to see a fuel affordability creeping into the business at all?
Can you stop it?
Can you?
Come on.
I want to hear bad news.
I mean, oh, gloom and gloom.
You can't pretend it's not there, Brian.
You can't pretend it's $70,000.
How high does it need to go, Sam?
There's nonsense of the average of $50,000.
The average of anything is meaningless.
Right.
We're selling Hondas.
The base Honda starts out about $25,000.
The highest one goes to $56,000.
There's incredible lease values out there.
So, you know, yes, it's absolutely a concern.
We have to be concerned about that.
The prior administration had some inflation that caused all sorts of prices to go up, which includes the thing that nobody wants to talk about.
The insurance premiums, they've gone up almost 50%.
Talk about that.
That impacts affordability more than anything that's happening in manufacturing.
Customers still have the option to buy reasonably priced automobiles.
So when that's no longer the case, then I think we can talk about affordability as it relates to cars.
As it relates to the overall purchase, we had interest rates go up pretty substantially.
We've had insurance go up and we need to address those, but it's not just the price of the car.
So what I appreciated from you on our last talk, pre-NADA, and I actually carried it into my AFSA speech, was
we've got to think in automotive about how to reduce the life cycle time.
We need that customer back in earlier.
You're a big advocate for that.
What are things that you're doing to help reduce that life cycle for the consumer?
So they can come buy a car every three years, not every five, not every six.
And Santander, by the way, I think is onto something saying longer term loans is not the solution.
Oh, they're getting killed in those loans, right?
One of the things that we're doing here at the dealership, we cannot get an 84 month contract at the dealership period.
We have our lenders all offered.
We think it's poison.
I said a long time ago, it's like taking the customer out in the back after you sell them a car and shooting them in the back of the head.
And they thought, well, maybe that was a little bit too dramatic.
But the reality is you'll never see the customer again in an 84 month contract.
So if you're in the Dixie Cup business, one in done, that may work for you.
We believe in a strong trade cycle management.
Over 75% of the cars at the Paragon Honda store and the Acura store are released and will continue to be released.
And now we're pushing to see how we can reduce that trade cycle down to about 30 months.
And I think there are a couple of interesting ways that we can do that.
And one of the ways that we're really leaning into is to take our new car inventory, put it into a loaner car slash rental cars.
And when you do that, you put it in loaner car rental car service for about 90 days.
At the end of that time, you transfer that, you take the money that you got from income from the rental cars,
use that to depreciate that loaner car and put it into your CPO at a number that cuts everybody else's, the competition's legs out from under them.
And then you've got completely the complete trade cycle in 90 days, right?
You had a new car, you sold it to your rented car loaner car.
At the end of 90 days, you take that money, you depreciate that car, turn it into a CPO and you've completed a complete trade cycle
and you're actually manufacturing used cars at a value to customers.
So when we talk about price and affordability, we're forgetting that we as dealers have certain powers that we can execute to do right here in our showroom.
So you do have certain powers, but the OEMs have more.
So that works for you at Honda and Acura, but it may not work for some of the other OEMs.
Do the OEMs need to think about how Honda and Acura are approaching the market with regard to leasing and lean in a little bit to help with affordability?
No, I hope they stay where they are.
They don't need to do that.
And again, when it comes to used cars, the new frontier, the frontier is the same frontier that saved new car sales and that's leasing.
How about leasing these used cars?
Most of the cars, the Toyotas, the Hondas, have great residuals and so slap elites on that and make it affordable for your customer.
It's uber affordable when you're leasing a used car.
And I think there's a real frontier there for us to explore and I think the manufacturers be wise to have an enhancement on putting people into leases.
Again, and now you're shrinking that trade cycle for the new car.
You're shrinking that trade cycle for the used car and we're getting these customers to come back.
Only three ways, Sam, you can grow your business, right?
So sell more product, sell a higher dollar amount per product or increase the frequency.
And so by having a reduced trade cycle, you participate in my favorite one, which is increasing the frequency.
I like to see my customers often.
I like to see them as often as possible.
Yeah.
Well, and the problem many OEMs have outside your lane is UIO, right?
There's just not as many units in operation given COVID and some of the other supply chain challenges, but you're making lemonade out of that with increasing that cycle through leasing.
SWAT team comes into the comments says, hey, I'm currently throwing around the 50 pound kettle ball because kettle bell, because I want to grow up to be like Brian Benstock.
There you go.
Up your weight, man.
50 in and out.
Scott Simon says, oh, I just lost it.
So he queues it.
That's no one.
That does surprise nobody.
You got to walk the walk.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you've got a lot, a lot of things going on.
Talk to us about what you're working on right now at in White Plains and what's the headline for Paragon in 2026 going into this next chapter.
Three to 10.
That's the that's the headline going from three stores to 10 stores by 2030.
And I'm going to get out of the operational business now and get into the enterprise business.
I have a great crew.
Marat Del Janin is doing a fantastic job running the Honda stores and Anthony Petito as a service director is doing a fantastic job.
My team up at White Plains, Jason Grasiano is doing exactly exactly what we knew he was going to do up there and it's just crushing him.
The store, there's a lot of very talented Honda dealers up there and Jason inch by inches has moved ahead of all of them in the Westchester market.
There's five Honda dealerships in Westchester.
I heard the Canadian gentlemen talking about competition.
They don't know what competition is up there.
Well, you're going to get a chance to go head to head with him.
It's Canadians, you know, and so anyhow, I do think he underestimated also the power of the Chinese and I would caution him to.
Not be careful what he wishes for because they're coming and when they get into a market, they really dominate that market.
Well, well, let's talk about that for a brief moment before we go into the end of the round table.
Last time you were on, we talked about your trip to Kazakhstan.
You saw the Buid vehicles.
A lot of people here in the U.S. Senator Moreno, Don Halsman on this show and others say never a single Chinese vehicle should enter in the U.S. marketplace.
As a freak, as a capitalist, that makes me nervous because I want to compete because competition makes us all better.
What guardrails need to exist in order for Chinese vehicles to safely come into the U.S.
And then we compete on a level playing field and would you take on a Chinese OEM at some point?
First of all, I love Bernie Moreno.
I think he's doing a fantastic job representing our industry at the highest level of government.
But I think his plan is destined to fail.
It's fundamentally not American.
But I'll say this with this caveat.
I'm for free and fair trade and I don't think the Chinese are capable of fair trade.
I mean, I don't want to paint them with one brush, but when you have labor costs that are non-existent,
unless you're willing here in the United States of America to undo all the years of good efforts by the UAW and others
to have fair wages for our factory workers, then there's no way that they can compete fairly.
And so we would have to insist that there are tariffs there to offset what they have,
which is just above one step above slave labor.
And until we do that, well, then I do think we have to keep the guardrails and keep them at bay.
And I think tariffs can be an effective way of doing that.
What I saw in Kazakhstan initially when Russia fell in 92,
the Japanese oil manufacturers went into Toyota and they did quite well.
And then the Koreans came in and they took some of that.
And the Chinese came in and overnight took 30% of the market overnight.
If that were to happen here in the US, there are many manufacturers I think would be gone, would be non-existent.
So I think we have to be very careful.
And when we say many manufacturers, I'm also talking about many jobs, US jobs.
And so that I caution us.
The other thing, why would we put our dependence on a country that has all of the raw materials?
We have the oil.
We should support hybrid and we should support ICE vehicles because we have the natural resources here.
They have a lion's share of raw material to create battery electric vehicles.
And they have no consideration for the environment.
I mean, I think the increase was 300 or 400 coal-firing plants to manufacture their EVs.
So let's take that hogwash out of the equation.
But if they want to produce into the US marketplace, could we not require use of UAW or union shops,
require manufacturing here in the US?
Yes, sir.
Have them come in with guardrails where they participate in our economy?
And I think the US marketplace is big enough they could do that.
And then the thing that we've seen happening in Australia and elsewhere, at least as I understand it,
where the rules get changed midstream, we have laws that could prevent against that.
My only concern is we as Americans love inexpensive products.
And at what point does, you know, do those guardrails get removed out of a love for something inexpensive, right?
Because I think we vote often with the price of oil and the price of the cost of a car.
We like cheap goods, Brian.
Sam, when's the last time you saw an escalade in Beijing?
Never.
Well, that's right.
It's got to go away two ways, okay?
They've got to take some of our imports and offset that.
If they're not, then forget it.
No deal.
And I think Bernie's on the right track there.
But again, we have to do it in a way that doesn't violate our free spirit.
I mean, I do think we're fair traders and free traders, and I welcome them coming in,
but they've got to be playing on a level playing quiz.
I don't ever want to live in a world where the best cars are I see when I'm on a trip to Europe
or on a trip to Mexico or on a trip to Canada, right?
That to me, that's un-American, Brian Benstock.
And in my bid to make Brian Benstock president of the United States after Trump,
that'll be part of your platform.
Man, no thanks, but no thanks.
So politics is the art of collaborating with your enemy.
And I really don't know that I want to be doing that anytime soon.
Well, but I would argue with it.
It used to be under...
I mean, this is a political...
Now we're having a political...
But it used to be under Reagan and some of the others.
Now it's not collaborating with anybody, but...
Not at all.
Then it's a powerful...
Crash and burn, slice and dice, winner takes all.
All right.
Let's talk used cars.
You're doubling down, Brian, on used cars.
That's a big operational bet.
What broke or what opportunity opened up, Brian,
that you saw that said this is the moment to scale used?
Well, we're playing monopoly up there on white planes.
We keep buying properties and adding different businesses to it and spoke and hub spoke.
And we think that by manufacturing used cars, if we can control that,
and I think we can, then why not lean into it?
And I think so.
We've got this ability with our...
What we're doing is sales and service and selling a certain number of cars.
The number of cars we're putting into loaner car,
number of cars we're putting into rent a car to really control our own destiny.
These are businesses that were taken away from a sample,
but we forfeited those businesses to these other groups.
The rented car businesses, they don't have to buy cars from dealers.
And then they go out and they create another business within a business.
That's our business.
I want it back, man.
I want that business back.
It's a good business if you know it and if you have the software.
And we're seeing that there are...
Dealerware has some pretty cool software that enables us to be in that business
and to understand our portfolio and where each car is at every moment.
And right now we're still in beta, but I have about 60 rented cars out there.
And more importantly, the customers driving those cars are depreciating them for us
and paying for them so that when we take that car in in a very short window,
we're able to put that car on a used car lot at a very reasonable price,
make a nice profit for all the departments in the store.
How do you ensure the rental fleet?
I know that's a question for a lot who think about doing that.
Your Melinda Honda has a wonderful program that's open to dealers
that many dealers are not taking advantage of,
but they're able to provide that service for us.
And I think that's a real good use of fleet sales within our doors.
And a dealer, where is helping you track it and letting you know cost and where the profit portfolio is?
Absolutely. And the sweet spot to get out.
But I don't want the cars on the road more than 90 days.
90 days, put a couple thousand miles on, get some credit for the rented cars
or the loaned cars that the cars have been in, lower the cost of that bin,
put it through a recon, get a bite of the apple there,
and then put it into CPO, get another bite of the apple.
We can get four bites of the apple in 90 days.
And we think that's really a good plan.
All right, talk to us for a moment on AI.
Dealers are getting pitched a lot of AI tools continually right now.
How do you, Brian Benstock, in June 2026, cut through the noise about what works, what doesn't?
And what are you deploying successfully across your dealerships?
Well, we have a couple of AI agents that are working for us full-time
and they work at the right wage.
And the agents are currently making recall calls and making up-bound calls.
And they do a fantastic job at it.
It's dialing for dollars, but it's AI dialing for dollars.
They set up the appointments.
They put the appointments right into the system.
They send an email to the customer. They send the text to the customer.
The customer shows up. Boom, done.
What product? Who is it?
No, I'm not, no, no, no.
Come on, Brian Benstock.
I'm doing it, man.
Most of these characters that are out there are white labeling
and getting all the AI from an AI house.
We're doing some work. It's so secret with Spine.
And Spine AI has done a very good job with us.
We started using them across the group.
We started working with Sanjay directly and custom-making custom scripts.
You know who I worked with for a brief period of time?
I got custom scripts.
Jordan Belford, the Wolf of Wall Street.
Oh, you're kidding.
Imagine that.
You've got his sales ability.
You put that into an AI bot.
And so you got Jordan there making calls for you.
You said for a period of time, why'd you fire him?
Well, I didn't say I fired him.
Jordan, we had disparate objectives.
He wants to conquer the world.
I just want to conquer my little portion of the world.
But there are tools now.
And one of the things you're going to run into is AI agents are sending
your customers to your website.
And you've got a website that's really a digital setup.
And the customer that's going there is looking for an AI experience
when they get to your site.
Is your site an AI site or is it a digital site?
And so we're working with a company out in Dubai.
I have to tell you.
The AI leads you down the sales funnel.
Remember, the one asking the questions is the one that's in charge.
Imagine a site is leading a customer through a sales funnel.
Talk to him by the Wolf of Wall Street.
Trained by the Wolf of Wall Street.
Or better yet, by Brian Benstock.
No, no, no.
This is some pretty interesting tech.
In the AEO world is where everything's at right now.
And we're working with the Gentik AI directly.
We've developed 10,000 different queries to get those AI answer
to the answer optimization out there and to be able to drive
the customers to the website to an AI experience through the sales funnel.
So you're creating your own product.
You're white labeling something.
We're the tip of the spear.
We're crashing and burning and making all the mistakes in the world
but getting a hell of a lesson.
Interesting.
All right.
Pushback noted, but at some future point,
we've got to have you back on and give full disclosure.
Especially, I want to learn more about the Wolf of Wall Street piece.
That may have to be a dinner combo.
Can you imagine working with Jordan Belvin?
He's pleasing.
He's incredible.
He's absolutely incredible.
He's so super bright.
Some people, they can't forget the past.
And listen, you have to turn your other cheek and you've got to forgive.
Jordan served his time.
He did his time.
The guy is brilliant.
He's got a great mind and that mind on AI is scary.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's cool.
All right.
So transitioning just momentarily before we go to our round table to coaching and mentoring.
Brian, you have talked a lot about coaching and mentoring and how it shaped how you lead.
And I know several people you've had an influence on and credit you for a lot.
Who's been the biggest influence on you?
And what's the lesson you've learned from them that you find yourself going back to over and over again?
Well, I mean, that's simple.
It's Paul Sinner.
You know, Paul Sinner, he passed in 2006, but he started me in the business.
He put me on the map.
There's not a day I'm not using something that I learned from PS.
And, you know, I have an incredible soft spot for him and for his family.
There's none better.
He was elegant, eloquent, absolutely, you know, he was like a frozen spike in the ground.
He was so reliable.
And that guy's handshake was worth more than any contract.
Because he was true to his word.
So he was my ultimate mentor.
So you can pour into people, but you can't pour into everybody.
Who do you decide who to mentor?
You know, as you tie, it just struck me as you were talking about your growth plans.
You're going to have to find additional leaders.
You're going to have to bring people up and put them in leadership positions.
How does Brian Benstock find that person that you want to pour into grow, develop and see running one of your future businesses?
Well, Sam, what's the baseline?
My followers need leaders and leaders need followers.
And so it's a symbiotic relationship.
And, you know, it's what's it saying that the teacher will appear when the student's ready.
And so, you know, my message is going to be similar to an audience.
And it's going to be similar to the audience or to the team.
And you can see the people that are lighting up and starting to get it,
the people that are starting to read the books that you're recommending.
And somebody that's not going to take the time to subscribe to Automotive News.
Somebody that's not going to be up on current events.
Somebody that's not going to pour into their business.
Watching Daily Deal Alive.
Well, yeah.
You guys have made it so damn easy to be smart on the car business,
to be up on the car business.
And you can go back and watch the best leaders in the world.
You can have access to the Penske's of the world and the other leaders of the world watching your show.
That's something we didn't have when I was young.
I had Jackie Cooper and then I had, what's his name?
Joe Verde and Joe Gerard.
Those are great mentors.
Don't get me wrong.
But there's so many different people from so many different industries that can pour into you.
That plan, that expansion plan is going to consume the resource of people.
I'm going to need more people.
So that's one of the reasons I hired good old, do you know Mike Stahl from CDK?
Yeah, CDK.
He taught at Northwood.
We used to do one of the companies we partner with.
Mike is fantastic.
I said to Mike, I got this far.
I want to get this far.
Can you help me?
Because he has experienced training people at the level that I think I need education.
So he's really doing a great job helping to organize us around, you know, one team,
one mission, mission statements, values, core, all this stuff that needs to be documented.
When I'm the guy running the store, it's here.
But you can't scale this.
You need a Bible.
You need a playbook and we're building one that's really great.
We've got all hands in, all hands on.
So it's been really quite a great experience.
And again, I know there are a lot of auto groups that have gone through this transition.
You know, this auto group is going through that transition now of really getting intentional
about what we're doing.
All right.
As we wrap up my last question, then we'll bring you back for the round table.
Where does your energy flow from Brian?
So I saw you on the stage of SoduCon.
You and I spent time at NADA.
You've got energy to connect with others to relay the vision of how you see automotive
and to advocate for this industry.
That's something you've got to protect to create.
Where does that energy come from to continue to engage at the level you engage?
I love what I do.
I love what we do.
You know, why was Kobe Bryant more into basketball than a desk man is into his job?
Why is Kobe was he more important than any of our guys?
He just loved what he did.
He believed in what he did, right?
And unfortunately too many people, it's a job.
And I get that.
I absolutely get that.
It's not a job for me.
It's a career.
And what is a business?
We're in the business of developing people.
Can there be a greater calling to develop people at a high level?
And those, you mentioned Jason and Joe Schuster.
And there are people that have worked for me that have had very successful careers.
Marat Daljana has worked for me since he was 17 years old.
The guys now on stage is now being asked to facilitate 20 groups.
What a blessing to be able to give.
And if that doesn't get you fired up and turned on.
Nothing will.
You know, crisis, leaders are created during crisis.
No crisis, no leaders.
And it's, I'm not looking for one.
Believe me, you know, but there's one coming.
There's always one coming.
So I think getting your team used to that and ready for that,
prepare for that.
That's our job.
Or there could be, going back to the beginning, one already here,
but others are doing a better job leading through it than those.
There's always one here, right?
There's always one.
Yeah.
Well, Brian Bedstock, Vice President, General Manager, Paragon Honda,
Paragon Acura.
Thanks for being on the show.
I have you back momentarily for the round table.
Thank you.
All right, everybody.
What a show it's been.
I cannot.
I wish maybe the producers can pop up a few of the comments from today.
I've just been watching out of the corner of my eyes.
We've been engaging with Brian.
Like the thing I love about this group is you all engage in a
conversation that is deep, that goes around.
You all have talked about all things.
Brian Benstock, eager cases.
Brian, I do a lot of business with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
They do sell a lot of Chinese cars.
And then eager gives a warning.
Don't sleep on China.
That is a big mistake.
Kenneth Christon comes in.
We can't blame everything on inflation, tariffs, and interest rates.
The fact is vehicles are getting more technical.
They're being packed with more and more tech.
Eager, OK?
Fair trade equals fair competition, not tariffs to keep better product
out of the country or slap tariffs to slow down the growth of competitors
from foreign countries.
I still get nervous at too much constraint.
I want free trade to be able to incentivize innovation in the best
way possible going forward.
And I don't know completely what the answer is yet.
I don't think I've heard it, but I would love to see it.
Yoga Cars has some great conversations about AI tech and other things.
But let's turn to our roundtable.
Adam Stein, executive director.
Plaza on a group and welcome back Brian Benstock again to the show.
Welcome you both.
All right, Adam, let's start with you.
Brian said in his segment, Canada, they don't know that much about
competition.
Actually, Brian, let's have you defend that.
Why doesn't Canada know that much about competition?
Because it's Canada and it's not America.
They have that different level of government up there.
What do they call that?
Socialism.
Oh, no.
We have capitalism here.
It's cutthroat.
Caviar tour.
Let the pie everywhere.
No, I love Canada.
I've got a lot of dear friends as dealers up there.
And it's different for sure.
But, you know, I've got five Honda dealerships within.
I could throw a baseball and hit one of the five Honda dealers in this market.
There's five in the city of New York and up in Westchester County,
five Honda dealers up there.
And, you know, so the competition, I think it's a little different here
than it is up there in Canada.
Yeah.
Adam, you can respond, but you don't have to if you don't want to.
Well, you know, I would say that, you know, not knowing at first hand,
obviously, and not working in the U.S. market.
You know, my initial thought would be, you know, a saturation of dealerships
versus population.
And, you know, I think that, you know, having a large population,
obviously, although the competition's there gives you more of a pie
to be able to take from.
But yeah, you know, I mean, I think every market comes with its own
and its own challenges.
I can imagine just where you are, you know, how competitive it is.
Yeah.
So, and we're having a little challenge with your audio, Adam.
So, let's ask another question and then we may come back.
So, Brian, we talked about the 84 months, 96 month financing.
You've killed it at your store.
That's not even an option, which by the way, props to you for doing that
because I think those longer term loans just put away on a customer
that they're going to have a tough time getting out of.
Adam, you're heavy on phone and internet and letting customers buy at their
own pace.
How do you protect the trade cycle, Adam, on your side of the border
when the customer is controlling that timeline?
What are your thoughts on the 84, 96 month financing?
Well, I think that, you know, our best opportunity to get customers to
continue to fill that cycle is by, you know, keeping them on a little bit
of a shorter term cycle.
So, I think with that, that longer term cycle, it would make it more
challenging.
So, for us, it's about getting to them before they get to us and finding
that right time and that right opportunity for them to put them into
a new vehicle.
It shouldn't be up to them to necessarily know when that right time
is at a sweet spot.
It's up to us to be able to, you know, tell them when the right time is
and how it's going to benefit them.
Brian, any thoughts?
Yeah, Sam, there was an executive at Oldsmobile.
That's how old I am.
Oldsmobile.
John Moore, remember?
He said, you're Laro?
Yeah.
And he said, show me how you'll pay me and I'll show you what I'll do.
And so, we can control some of those things on our side.
If you put somebody into a 72 month loan at Paragon and you're an FNI
manager, you get paid half your normal commission.
So, you can't do 84 and you get paid half, but put them in 60 months.
And you know what they're going to tell you?
They're going to say, boss, if I don't do 72 months, they won't take the car.
I said, no.
So, then half a lobe's better than nothing.
And watch how quickly they can put the person in 60.
Why would we drive up the cost, the ownership cost of a car for a
consumer by going 72 or 84 months?
It doesn't make any sense.
It makes sense if you think about the pay plan, though.
And Don Hall's talked about it here.
We live in a 30 day cycle where GM's are incentivized on net at the end of the month.
More important, who's running the store these days?
There you go.
The finance managers.
And they say, you know, because how it's easy for them to pick up a point.
Wait, why do you...
No, no, wait.
I got to pressure test that a little bit.
So, finance was my background.
Defend that finance managers are running the store.
How do you define that?
They're making the...
And there's not a collusion going on, but the sales manager and the FNI guy
are getting paid on generating big gross, right?
And it's easier for the FNI person to make big gross on an 84 month contract.
Correct.
One point, two points.
That's what you mean.
On a $60,000 car.
And you basically done nothing and generated X amount of profit.
Who came up with the idea of half pay on longer term?
Not happening.
How long have you done that for?
Oh, I don't know, 15 years, 20 years?
Did it impact PVR when you initially put it in?
I think that's a great...
It's an interesting idea.
You know what?
Who runs your store, Sam?
And Adam, who runs your store?
The GMs do.
I know who runs my store.
Yeah.
And it's me.
The other saying is I reserve the right to manage my business, right?
And when something happens to your dealership, God forbid, they're not coming to take it
away from the GM or the sales manager.
They're coming to take it away from you and I.
So how many cars can you sell somebody on a 30-month lease in a 5-year trade cycle versus
or 6-year or 10-year versus putting them into a 72-month or an 84-month contract?
You can't compare.
In a 10-year period of time, I can conduct 9 transactions between the 5 trade-ins and
the 4 used cars as opposed to your 2 transactions.
So what do you do if you're...
We already talked about what do you do if you're at an OEM that just doesn't support
leasing that way?
Get a different OEM.
I think that's the call to the auto industry right now to address affordability, trade
cycle, retention.
Let's not keep pushing metal on rebates at 84 months.
Let's get to leasing.
I do think leasing is a smart idea.
Sam, how about we follow this multi-trillion-dollar corporation, Apple Corporation, who here
has a 7-year-old iPhone?
I mean, and I don't want to know somebody with a 7-year-old iPhone.
I mean, these guys...
Adam, how old's your iPhone, Adam?
iPhone, Adam.
I'm only a couple of years old here.
Okay, listen.
It's Canada.
You gotta give them a break.
It's Canada.
But these guys have trade cycle management down to a science, right?
The OEMs have to create products that people want.
Brian, it's a $1,500 phone.
It's not a $60,000 car.
How do you create the experience with that $60,000 car at Parity with the $1,500 phone?
Well, brother, it's $1,500 a month with the bill on this thing.
I have no idea how much the phone costs because I can't do without it.
So whatever it is, I've got to have the phone.
And what a business.
This is an opportunity for us.
And if you watch and you go through Apple's trade cycle online and make it so darn easy
to trade up, trade out, and to do it often, we can forget about all these other automotive
companies.
Just take their process and follow that to the letter online.
I love it.
Vince Searge comes in.
Who I know says, Brian blew my mind when he said he cuts off an eye commission.
And actually to JJ, let's cut, they Adam, Brian blew my mind when he said he cuts off
an eye commission if the customer leaves on a long-term contract.
Brian, you've blown a couple of people's minds.
The automotive retired guy comes in and says, I get a Samsung note every year.
So the trade cycle, that is a shortened trade cycle.
If you can make the economics of it work.
All right, last one.
Go ahead.
Who would refuse a better product at a similar monthly payment?
Who would?
Who amongst us?
I would.
Yeah, but you've got to make the economics make sense.
I get it.
Like, leasing would be fascinating, Brian.
We need to put together a round table with the heads of each of the OEMs and talk how
trade cycle management.
That would be a fun thing to do either at NADA at one of the upcoming conventions or
even here on this show because GM should do that.
Ford should be doing that.
Well, Ford did it.
They bought half a car from Eustace-Wilfington for, what was it, a half a billion dollars
back when that was real money.
And the problem wasn't the methodology.
The problem was the Ford residual wouldn't support the methodology.
And that was on Ford, not on the trade cycle.
But the residual is a function of supply, right?
If they constrained supply in theory, they could get that residual back.
Well, I mean, it's also quality.
I mean, quality is in there.
What determines the future value of a car is the quality of the car.
That's one of the components, certainly.
You can constrain a tourist all you want.
Nobody wants them.
You're not going to have a residual.
Fair.
But GM has done a nice job this year, I think, constraining supply a little bit.
You don't see the same challenge with some of the OEMs that have oversupplied the market.
And then they're in a place where the leasing makes more sense.
Honda does that as well.
Toyota absolutely does it.
Although, I would say I don't see as much emphasis out of Toyota on leasing, again, to
the trade cycle management as we see at Honda.
Our Honda store, Matt Tevicus, props to you for seeing Honda.
They're crushing it on the leasing side and the volume.
And as a result, their UIO is high, Brian.
But we've got incredibly strong residuals, and Honda's done a great job with that, especially
in the Northeast.
I don't think there's any manufacturer that can touch Honda in the Northeast with the
leasing retention that they have.
The dealers here are all really sharp.
They know the lease game and do a great job of bringing our customers back more often.
All right.
Well, on that note, Adam Stein, apologies for some of the tech issues on your side, but
executive director north of the border at Plaza Auto.
And then Brian Benstock, vice president, general manager, Paragon Honda, Paragon Akira.
Thank you both for being on Daily Deal Alive today.
Thank you.
Sam, always good to see you.
Thanks for having me.
Good to see you all.
Thanks for having me.
I look forward to next time, Brian.
Thank you both.
OK.
Again, great comments on, we've got the automotive retired guy says, Sam, let's get on with Eager.
Fixed operations and Eager on sales.
We may need to do that.
And then I've got to catch up on all the notes today.
There are so many messages coming in the slack.
They've had a whole conversation on the backside, but the one that stands out is this Vince
here.
Brian blew my mind when he said he cuts off an eye commission of the customer leaves
on a long term contract.
That would be a major shift.
But I like the thinking as it relates to affordability.
I like the thinking as it relates to trade cycle management.
Let's create a situation where we bring those customers back more and more often.
Well, speaking of customers and audience to you, our Daily Dealer Alive listening audience,
thank you so much for being here.
Again, happy birthday, Zach, wherever you are, whatever dealership you're in today.
Happy big 26th birthday.
And to you, thanks for watching Daily Dealer Alive, where we break down the biggest moves
in the car business as they happen.
Don't forget, we're here live every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 1 PM Eastern, which means
we're back this Wednesday.
So if this is your world, hit like, hit subscribe, turn on those notifications so you never ever
miss a beat.
Good luck to Carson Osovar at Berlin Race Track this week, and we'll see you next episode.
Thanks for being here, everybody.
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