Out-the-door price is the final total you pay at purchase time. It includes the car price plus things like taxes and fees, so it’s the number you should compare between sellers.
An outlier is a number that doesn’t match the others. If one pricing source is way off compared to the rest, it might not reflect the real market for that car.
Gasoline (gas) and diesel engines are different combustion systems with different fuel properties and typical operating characteristics. Knowing which one a used car has matters for things like fuel cost, maintenance expectations, and how the vehicle behaves.
A factory window sticker is the original document from when the car was built. It lists key details about that exact car, like what engine it has and what options it came with.
Car Facts is a website/service that shows a vehicle’s history. The point here is that a “clean” report doesn’t always mean the car was never in an accident.
An inspection is when a professional checks the car before you buy it. The goal is to find hidden problems—especially underneath the car—so you don’t get stuck with expensive repairs.
A lift raises the car so someone can inspect the bottom. It helps reveal rust, leaks, or accident damage that you’d miss just looking from the outside.
Rust is when metal starts corroding and weakening. It’s especially important on used cars because it can mean the car has been exposed to salt and moisture.
Aftermarket items are extras the dealer sells that weren’t originally part of the car. They can add a lot to the total cost, so it’s smart to question them and price them separately.
Loan terms are the details of your car loan, like how long you’ll pay and what interest rate you get. Those details can make the total cost much higher or lower.
A service contract is a deal that helps pay for repairs for a period of time. It’s similar to a warranty, but it’s often sold as an add-on during the financing step.
An extended warranty is extra coverage you can buy after the factory warranty ends. Dealers sometimes try to sell it when you’re signing paperwork, and the price can be negotiable.
Monthly payment is the fixed amount you pay each month under the loan. It can be misleading because dealers can adjust the payment by changing loan length, interest rate, or adding add-ons—without necessarily improving the deal’s total cost.
A trade is when you turn in your current car as part of the deal. The price they give you for it changes what you end up paying, so you should negotiate it, not just accept it.
The interest rate is the extra cost you pay for borrowing the money. Even if the monthly payment seems manageable, a higher interest rate usually makes the car cost more overall.
The Ford Bronco Sport is a small SUV made for regular driving, with features that help on rough roads. It’s part of the Bronco lineup, but it’s smaller and typically costs less than the bigger Bronco models. That’s why someone might mention it when talking about what you can afford.
LIVE
Okay, I'm going to get tough with you today and especially to those of you who tend to
blow through a lot of money.
How hard are you willing to work to save money?
And I guess it depends on how tight money is, right?
Because well, I'll just give you an example.
The other day I'm on Facebook and the night before I had watched a show, it's something
that I watch pretty frequently.
It's called Long Way Down or Long Way Up Around.
It's a series of shows that were done over the last 20 years.
The guy who is in it, his name is Ewan McGregor.
He was Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars series, but he and a friend of his named Charlie went
around the world on motorcycles and then they went from Scotland to tip of South Africa
on another one.
That was called Long Way Down and then they did one called Long Way Up where they went
from Tierra del Fuego, which is the tip of South America all the way up to Los Angeles
on electric motorcycles.
Well, to make a long story short, it's getting long, isn't it?
They stopped in Ecuador and they found these straw hats that were really cool looking and
they look comfortable.
They're great for summer.
So I'm on Facebook and this hat ad just happens to pop up.
Why?
What do they know about?
Do they know I've been watching this show?
Do they know that I was, I took a fancy to some Ecuadorian straw hats, beats me, but there
they are, a bunch of straw hats made by Stetson.
You know, I always thought they just made cowboy hats.
I think that's primarily what they do, but this was not a cowboy hat.
It had more of a flat kind of a rim around it.
I said, you know, that looks great.
I'm going to order that.
I ordered it.
It was $90 for a straw hat.
And I didn't tell my wife because I knew she would poo poo it, but it came in.
I was kind of tracking it, saw the UPS, they gave me a tracking number.
See, I was kind of excited about it.
You only track things that you were excited about.
So here it comes.
I knew it was coming to the house that day.
I was kind of looking out the window waiting for the UPS driver.
Here it comes.
There it is.
Open the box fits perfectly.
I looked good in it or with it on my head.
At least I think I do.
And then I started thinking, okay, where am I going to wear this?
It's not appropriate for a soccer game really.
It's not appropriate for one of my kids or grandkids baseball games.
Probably not going to wear it to a restaurant because if I take it off, I'll have hat hair.
And so I just thinking, why did I order this thing?
I don't need it.
Plus, if one of my grandkids actually sits on it or accidentally sits on it, it's going
to ruin it.
$90 wasted, all because it was thrown in front of my face.
But you know, there's a big difference between blowing $90 on the hat and making a terrible
automotive purchase, especially on a used car.
So today I'm going to give you some basic fundamental steps to make sure that you don't
get screwed on a used car deal.
What prompted this is I got a text message from a gentleman and I didn't know where he
was.
He said, would you pull the history on this particular vehicle, please?
And he sent me a VIN number.
I said, sure.
So this is what happens when you put your personal cell phone number out there.
You get text like this, 208 area code happens to be in Idaho.
And so I pulled history.
I told him, well, this vehicle was purchased new in Castledale, Utah.
It was sold to another Utah owner who had two recalls performed, no accidents, mileage
is accurate, warranty is expired.
Looks to have the kind of history you would want.
Retail value is $47,925 based on the internet competition.
Trade value is $42,945, which trade value is basically what you should be able to expect
to get from a car dealer if you were trading it into a car dealer.
It leaves the dealer room to be able to market up, you know, recondition and so forth.
So $42,945 versus a retail value of $47,925.
And then I said, KBB, which is Kelly Blue Book, shows a lower retail and trade value,
but it's the outlier.
Because when I say outlier, I get like five different values from five different sources
and Kelly was way off.
She doesn't know what she's doing.
And so the others, I look at the averages, I kind of use my general market knowledge
and come up with a number.
And I would say that a good price for that car would be somewhere around $45 or that
suburban.
So also as I said, curious, are you in Logan, Utah?
And he said, yes.
And he said, is that a gas or a diesel engine?
I cannot find it.
So I was actually able to access the factory winder sticker for that and I sent it to him.
So how did I know that he was in Logan, Utah?
It's because Buzzsprout, which hosts my podcast, shows me basically where people come from.
Right now I'm in 130 or the show has been downloaded in 135 countries and territories
and in 2,451 different cities around the world.
The most recent one was in Logan, Utah.
And the title of that show was, don't you dare buy any used car until you do and or
know these few critical things buying a used car from the inside out.
So he had listened to that show and then sent me this message and I put two and two together.
And that's just one of the fun things about being a car guru and having a podcast that,
you know, I'm not going to say it's, you know, it's gone viral because it hasn't.
I mean, I've had 50,000 downloads plus in all of those countries and in those cities.
So, you know, you have some podcasts and have a million downloads.
So mine is peanuts.
But you know what?
I don't really care because this is a mission of mine that God has put on my heart to do.
And I feel good about it.
And I feel good that if I help one person keep from making a car life mistake, then it's worth it.
I'll be back in just one minute.
Okay, I am back.
Are you on a tight budget?
I mean, do you just barely eke out enough to get your bills paid?
Maybe you're in the hole and you have to add some to the credit card occasionally.
And of course, that's at a very high interest rate if you carry a balance forward.
Or are you able to pay off your credit card every month?
Are you able to actually stash some money away for a rainy day, maybe into a regular savings account,
which everybody should have a certain degree of liquidity like that?
I mean, you should be able to have an emergency fund.
Not that you invest in the stock market and things like that.
It's just money that sits in a bank earning a very little rate of interest or none.
But it's just there.
Do you have that flexibility?
Most people don't.
The vast majority of people are, you know, just paycheck to paycheck.
But unfortunately, those people are the ones that end up getting stuck on a car deal, the worst.
Because of their lifestyle, they end up basing everything on the monthly, the monthly payment.
Can I afford this?
Can I squeeze this into my budget?
Can I stop doing something and be able to justify buying this car?
I've heard that so many times.
People say, well, we can just eat out less often or we can not go to any movies like we do on a regular basis.
It used to be stop renting videos.
You know, if we can just avoid blockbuster, then we can justify or try to justify buying this car.
But you know what happens?
They don't change their lifestyle.
It's too ingrained for it to change.
And I don't think you should have to change your lifestyle to buy a house or a car.
I mean, you think about it.
Those are the two biggest purchases in just about anybody's life will be automobiles and housing.
And I think that's one thing that's a real struggle for a lot of young people right now is because they can't buy a house.
You know, houses have gotten so expensive and interest rates are still relatively high for a mortgage.
And so what are they doing?
They're renting.
And so, you know, should you rent more than you can afford to pay?
No, I mean, any type of housing expense should be in line with your budget so that you can live folks,
so that you can go out and do some fun things and go out to eat.
And, you know, occasionally go out and buy some clothes or something.
You know, just do what you want to do, but not outside of your means.
But what folks do as far as their cars are concerned is they tend to try to justify it by thinking about the things that they can cut out of their life.
And they just won't do it.
Most people won't do it.
I mean, we sold a bunch of cars last week.
80% of the people that bought cars from my dealerships last week were payment buyers, approximately.
20% paid cash or they just brought in their own money.
They brought a bank check or whatever.
Don't know whether they were getting a home equity loan or how they were doing it.
But there were several people I know of for a fact they just wrote a check, you know, for $80,000, $90,000.
They had it, you know, sitting in an account somewhere.
I remember one guy had to transfer money from some type of retirement account or something, and it took a few days.
But, you know, we were willing to wait.
To be in that position doesn't happen like overnight.
It's a lifestyle that leads to that point.
I mean, you may hit a big home run or win the lottery or something like that.
Or like as they hit a home run on a piece of property or do something, and all of a sudden you got this huge amount of money that's coming in.
You got to pay taxes on it, of course, at some point, April 15th.
But so many people that do that, they blow all of it.
They go by boat or they buy some jet skis or, you know, they're doing all this stuff.
And I get it, I mean, you want to enjoy your life.
You want to have this lifestyle.
You want to have fun.
But there has to be some point where you say, okay, this much is going to be put away first.
I'm going to pay my savings account first.
I'm going to pay my 401k or my IRA.
I'm going to pay that first.
That's going to be one of my bills.
And I'm also going to make sure that my fund for emergencies is fully funded.
And then I'm going to go have fun.
But most people don't look at it that way.
Young people especially, they want to keep up.
They want to keep up with what they're seeing their friends do on Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat and all those other different things.
But they have no plan to get there.
And that's what's lacking is the plan.
And I see it when somebody comes in to buy a car.
It's just so evident.
Not with everybody, but with most of them.
So how hard are you willing to work to get a great deal and not just waste money?
So let's talk about used cars for just a second.
So this guy from Utah sends me this message and that's the right step because he listened to this podcast and he got the VIN number and he sent it to me.
Now he has something to work with.
Number one, he's not going to buy a vehicle that has any bad history because this particular vehicle does not have bad history.
It's the kind of used vehicle you want to buy.
But I can't see the vehicle.
Just because damage doesn't show up on car facts or auto check report doesn't mean that that vehicle hasn't had damage.
You know, it could have been hit, could have hit a deer or something like that that people paid for it out of their pocket.
They asked the body shop not to report anything and then boom, there you go.
You've got a damaged vehicle that has a clean vehicle history.
So how far are you willing to go?
You know, what else should he do?
He should have the vehicle inspected.
If he doesn't know anything about vehicles, he should take it someplace, pay somebody a hundred bucks to just do a good walk around, put it up on a lift, get a troubled light, look at everything underneath that vehicle.
Does it have the beginnings of a lot of rust?
Does it snow a lot in Utah?
I guess it does.
You know, I would want to look for any issues like that.
And then I would want to do a walk around.
Somebody knows what they're talking about.
That can tell whether it's all original paint.
And then I would call the Chevrolet.
This is a Chevrolet, so I would call the dealership and say, could you pull the warranty history on this vehicle?
See if it's had any other issues.
It should have showed up on the car fax, but you know, maybe it doesn't again.
Something got missed.
So if it shows a good clean history as far as warranty, you've got a clean car fax.
Somebody's inspected the car that knows what they're talking about.
Okay, it's a safe car to buy.
Now, what do you pay for it?
Well, you've got to look at the numbers, and that's another thing that I did for him.
I gave him some ranges.
And, you know, does the car need tires?
It doesn't say here.
It's a couple of years old.
Will it need a battery, possibly?
I'd want to get that tested.
So, you know, we have the condition down.
We know basically what we should pay for that car.
Now when we go into the dealership, what's going to happen?
This is where customers lose it, or lose control, is when they go into the store
and they are manipulated by experts.
And they say, well, you know, you need to finance this vehicle at this particular bank,
at this particular rate.
You haven't gone to find out about your credit.
You know, what will your credit allow you to do as far as rate is concerned?
Do you need to pay 12 percent?
You know, they say that you have marginal credit.
Do you really?
I mean, if you went to your credit union, what could you get it for?
If you went to some other bank, somebody that you know, what could you borrow money at?
You know, what interest rate could you get?
So, you're walking into the dealership, and you've got that information.
You know about the vehicle.
You know about your credit.
And there are fewer harms that they can do to you at that point.
But they can still harm you because you have to negotiate the deal based on the selling price.
And if you have a trade in based on what it's worth as well.
I mean, if you have a trade in, you got to do this same process to find out what the history is on it.
Because you may not be the first owner, and you never pulled the history on.
And all of a sudden, they pulled the history.
They find out that it's been in an accident.
You didn't know anything about it.
But you would have if you pulled the history on your own vehicle.
So a lot of people don't think about doing that.
They end up getting surprised.
And then they've got this curveball that they have to deal with.
And then they forget about the four targets that we talk about in the My Car Guru guidebook.
Negotiating the selling price, the trade value, the terms of the loan, and then the aftermarket items that they're trying to cram down your throat in the finance office.
And then, you know, they hit you with, for example, you get into the finance office.
They hit you with a $4,000 cost of an extended warranty or service contract, and you don't know any better.
So they scare you into buying it.
When if you had given me the information, I could tell you that the warranty for that particular vehicle should cost no more than $2,500.
That's $1,500.
Did I say $4,000?
Yeah, that's $1,500 that could have stayed in your budget that you're given to them and you're paying interest on it.
You're paying sales tax on it.
I know this sounds a little complicated, but, you know, if you get a copy of the guidebook, it'll walk you through all of these steps.
If you read it before you go in and even take it with you and just lay the law down with the people that are trying to sell you the car.
Say, listen, I'm not playing the game of going back and forth on the monthly payment and all that stuff.
The monthly payment is important to me, but the most important thing to me is, is what are you going to sell me the car for?
And then what are you going to pay me for my trade?
And we're going to talk about those two things separately.
And then we'll talk about the loan terms, the actual length of the loan, 60 months to 84 months, whatever.
I really don't want to go 84 months.
And we're going to talk about the interest rate and what I qualify for.
And then we'll talk about maybe some other things.
I want to know about the warranty, what kind of options I have as far as extended service plans.
You know, the only way that I'll buy a maintenance plan is if the cost of the maintenance plan justifies it.
So the four targets are critical.
And who are they critical the most to?
Not the guy that can stroke a check for $90,000 for a new vehicle.
It's the person who's living paycheck to paycheck, who can't afford to pay their savings account, who can't afford to pay their IRA before they go out and, you know, and live.
You know, when they pay it by their groceries, they pay their gas bill, you know, they pay their rent, all the other expenses that they have, there's nothing left.
Those are the people that cannot afford to go to a dealership and make a huge mistake because of some slick talking salesman and sales manager and finance manager.
And they walk out of there with a $750 payment when the most that they could have afforded was $500.
But they say, oh, we'll cut back.
You know, we'll eat white bread instead of wheat.
I'll be back in just one minute.
You know, one of the things I tell people, young people, is I said, live the lifestyle you can afford.
Not the one that you want to be able to afford.
Because if you are projecting yourself into that lifestyle, it's going to get real expensive and your credit card balances are going to grow.
You want that Ford Bronco Badlands package.
But you can't afford it.
I know you want it.
So you can afford a Bronco Sport.
I don't want a Bronco Sport.
Well, then don't buy anything.
Find something that you can afford.
Live with it.
It's OK.
You don't have to have the best.
And you don't have to have it now.
If you're patient and you feed that savings account and you feed that IRA and you feed that 401k, you won't get to age 60 and say, what the heck am I going to live on?
People get to this point.
I'm 69.
People get to this point and they say, gosh, I thought I was going to be able to retire.
You know, enjoy the fruits of my labor.
But I spent it all.
I didn't save anything because they can't live on social security.
I mean, they might be able to survive.
But just barely.
But I understand young people don't think about that.
They don't look that far ahead.
They don't think it matters.
And then all of a sudden, all this time passes, you'll be there and you'll look back and say, why didn't somebody tell me what the car guru is now telling my kids?
So I told you, it's going to be some tough talk here.
And the problem is that the people who need to listen to this probably won't.
When we did our teen driver experience here at Gateway Ford, we had 120 kids here.
Most of them initially, when I was talking to them, they looked like they were hostages.
They were there against their will.
But their parents, grandparents, guardians forced it.
They had to come.
And, you know, quite frankly, sometimes you send somebody to see something or experience something and they get nothing out of it.
That's just life.
But a lot of it depends on the quality of the program.
And I think we had very high quality.
And I understand young people, even though I'm old, I was a youth counselor in church for many years, coached 13 years in youth basketball.
I'm in the Hall of Fame for the Parks and Recreation Department.
And I won a national championship in junior pro basketball for nine and 10 year olds.
So I do know how to relate to teens, but it's really a challenge and you have to make it fun.
And you have to get to their heart and not just their head.
You got to get them to listen.
Hopefully you can find that.
I'll be happy to send you a copy of the guidebook that I used for teen driver experience.
And I think you can get a copy of that and you can sit down and go through it page by page with your teen driver.
Or, you know, getting ready to be a teen driver and you can have a positive impact on them.
But you got to get them to listen.
But the phone away.
You know, feed them.
Get them all nice and full and then sit them down and just say, we're going to go through this.
And if you need help, call me.
423-552-2020.
Thanks for listening to this edition of My Car Guru.
And I'll see you next time.
About this episode
A tough-love rant turns into a practical used-car checklist and a money mindset lesson. The host recounts ordering an unnecessary $90 straw hat as a cautionary tale, then pivots to how to avoid getting “screwed” on used vehicles. He analyzes a real VIN history request, compares retail vs trade values, and criticizes one pricing source as an outlier. The episode emphasizes building an emergency fund, paying off credit cards, and not just shopping by monthly payments. Finally, he stresses that clean reports aren’t proof—get an inspection, check for hidden damage, and verify details with the dealer.
