The Federal Trade Commission is a U.S. agency that helps enforce rules about fair advertising. The speaker is saying the FTC was involved in requiring clearer deal information.
A Motor Vehicle Commission is a government office that regulates vehicle-related rules in a state. The speaker is saying Tennessee’s regulator said the ads weren’t following the rules.
“Required disclosures” are the specific details a dealer has to clearly tell you by law. The point here is that some ads didn’t include the necessary fine print or conditions.
A “trade-in” is your current car being used as credit toward buying the next one. Instead of selling it yourself, you hand it to the dealer and they subtract its value from the new-car price.
Book value is a “typical” used-car price from pricing guides. When a dealer says they’ll pay over book value, they mean they’re paying more than that guide price for your trade-in.
Term
winter sticker
They’re talking about the sticker price the dealer starts from when they negotiate. It’s the number they use to decide how much they’re “discounting” or “adding” to your trade.
MSRP is the “list price” the manufacturer sets for the car. If a dealer says they won’t discount off MSRP, they’re basically saying they’re not reducing the car’s list price.
Monthly payment is what you pay each month on a loan or lease. It can be misleading because two deals can have the same monthly payment but very different total costs.
Term
approved at $5.50 a month
They’re pitching the deal as “you’re approved for $5.50 per month.” But the real question is what the car costs overall—monthly payment alone doesn’t tell you that.
A lease is like renting a car for a few years with an option to return it. You pay a monthly amount, and the deal is based on what the car is expected to be worth later.
A disclaimer is a note that explains the offer has conditions. It’s the part that says “this price only applies if you meet certain requirements.”
Term
Find Print
“Find Print” means the small, detailed terms in the paperwork. It’s where you learn the real rules of the deal—things you might miss if you only look at the advertised price.
This is a Ford Mustang with the EcoBoost engine, meaning it uses a turbocharged four-cylinder instead of the bigger V8. The host uses this specific Mustang example to show how lease pricing and end-of-lease purchase price are calculated.
Residual value is what the leasing company expects the car will be worth at the end of the lease. If you want to buy the car later, that estimate is the starting point for the purchase price.
The Ford Escape is a compact SUV. The host brings it up to show that the same lease concepts—like residual value and the buyout price—apply to other vehicles too.
“96 months” means the loan is stretched out to about 8 years. That can lower the monthly cost, but you often pay more interest overall and it can be harder to get out of the deal early.
Term
getting buried
“Getting buried” means you owe more on the loan than the car is worth. If you try to switch cars again later, that problem can get worse.
Bankruptcy is a legal way to get rid of certain debts. After it’s done, some people can buy a car again, but lenders may charge higher interest because your credit is affected.
“Discharged” means the bankruptcy court has cleared certain debts. After that, you may be able to get a car loan again, but the interest rate can be higher.
The Ford Bronco is a type of SUV made for both regular driving and off-road adventures. It has a roomy, enclosed cabin so you can stay comfortable even when the weather is cold. The podcast mention suggests they used it to get out of the freezing conditions.
The infotainment system is the car’s screen and controls for things like music, navigation, and phone connections. New cars can be confusing at first, so dealers often spend time teaching it.
Gateway Nissan is another dealership involved in the event atmosphere the host describes.
Concept
properly store it, drain the fuel out of it
If you’re not driving an old car for a long time, you should store it in a way that prevents fuel-related problems. One common step is draining the fuel so it doesn’t go bad while the car sits.
Concept
history of the car
“History of the car” is basically what you can prove about where the car has been and who owned it. For classic cars, that kind of proof can make people trust the car more and pay more.
“57 Chevy” means a 1957 Chevrolet, a very famous classic car. The point here is that if you can prove who restored it and what the car’s background is, it can make the car worth more to collectors.
“Restoration” means someone rebuilt and refreshed the car to make it look and work like it should. The host is saying this one was done so well you can tell even underneath.
Concept
value of it
They’re saying that if you can prove the car’s background and restoration quality, buyers may pay more. In other words, good documentation can raise the price.
An accident estimate is a document from a repair shop that lists what it would cost to fix the damage. Keeping it helps prove what happened and what repairs were needed.
Carfax is a report that shows a car’s history. It can include things like accidents, so dealers and buyers use it to judge what the car is really worth.
Extended cab is a pickup configuration with extra space behind the front seats. It’s usually smaller than a crew cab, but gives you more room than a basic regular cab.
A Chevrolet Silverado is a full-size pickup truck. This example is a 2020 Silverado with an extended cab (more space behind the front seats) and four-wheel drive (better traction in snow, dirt, or rough roads).
The Z71 package is an off-road-focused option on some Silverado trucks. It usually adds upgrades that make the truck better for dirt roads and rough conditions.
AutoTrader is a website where you can look up car listings. The host is saying you can use it to find cars similar to yours and see what they’re selling for.
A markup is the extra amount a dealer charges to make money. So even if your car looks worth a certain amount online, the dealer may offer less because they’ll add their own profit on top.
The VIN number is like your car’s unique ID code. If you give it to a dealer, they can look up the exact car and figure out what it’s worth more accurately.
Trim packages are the specific equipment levels and option bundles a car came with (for example, different infotainment, wheels, or driver-assist features). They matter for valuation because two cars with the same model can be priced very differently depending on what’s included.
LIVE
Hey folks, Lenny Lawson, the car guru, and I do tell it like it is, you know, one of
the biggest differences between this particular program and most of the car dealer stuff that
you will see online, maybe on tech talk, maybe on YouTube, any, anyplace else really, it
could be a podcast, whatever.
99.9% of those people on there are either salespeople, they were managers,
they worked in a car dealership, they are consumer advocates.
I'm the only one that I know of that is actually a new car dealer.
Not was a new car dealer is a new car dealer currently.
And as such, my goal is to, well, help other people make better decisions when it comes
to their car life because in my 48 year career of doing this, I've seen pretty much everything.
And all gone and people need help.
They really do.
I mean, when I see somebody come into the showroom and they sit down with a salesperson
and the salesperson comes out and said, they're really struggling with the decision and so
forth.
I want to go in and find out why.
And I have sent many people packing in a nice way.
Why would I want to run off business?
Because it doesn't make sense for them to trade at that particular time.
It really doesn't.
They're just going to put themselves in a worse situation.
How many car dealers will do that?
I'm not trying to be a martyr here.
Well, maybe it sounds like I am, but the truth of the matter is, I have found that if we
are totally honest with our customers, it pays off in the end.
And unfortunately, you just don't see that.
Now, I'll give you a prime example.
I've got a key competitor that is advertising in my local paper.
And they've had to change their advertising significantly because they were breaking the
law on a regular basis, according to the Motor Vehicle Commission in the state of Tennessee
and the Federal Trade Commission.
They just came out with new guidelines as far as required disclosures that have to take
place.
And they just weren't doing it.
We did it.
And we lost a lot of business because we were doing things right.
You know, when you tell somebody that you're going to pay them $8,000 or $10,000 over book
value for their trade, and you don't have any kind of disclaimer there, and you have
addendum stickers, the sticker beside the sticker that jacks up the price on a new car,
you have that to the tune of about $4,000 or $5,000.
I mean, that's going to draw some traffic.
I might even go to that dealership, try to buy a car, you know, because they're offering
$8,000 or $10,000 more than book value for their trade.
I know what book value is, so I go into the dealership and, well, I didn't, but this is
what I would do.
And they would make me an offer and I say, wait a minute, that's $2,000 less than book
value.
And, oh yeah, but you know, your trade-in has, it needs tires, and it needs, it doesn't
need tires.
It doesn't need anything.
Yeah, well, we only offer $8,000 over book value for the very best cars that absolutely
need nothing that are tops in our market.
Well, why are you saying on your advertisement that you do that on everything?
Oh, we don't say we do it on everything.
But let me go talk to my manager.
So he goes and talks to the manager, comes back, says, tell you what, we're going to
give you $4,000 over book value for your trade.
How's that?
Can we do business?
Well, off of what price?
Well, off of the winter sticker.
You know, the one, the sticker, the sticker, oh no, no, no.
You've got that thing marked up $5,000, I'm not doing that.
You're still not giving me anything off of MSRP.
You're starting at that higher number.
Now, let me ask you this.
What if we had not talked the sale price or the trade value?
And we had just talked about monthly payment.
Would I know what I'm paying for the car?
Salesperson comes back to me and says, good news, I got you approved at $5.50 a month.
Oh, good, good.
Sign us up.
That's what a lot of people do.
You know, the first time that the salesperson came to them, they were asking $6.75 a month.
When they, I guess, if they were paying attention, they could have bought it for $4.50 a month.
But they settle on $5.50 because it sounds good.
They think they can cover that on a monthly basis.
No clue what they're paying for the car.
This is how conservatively 50% of people buy cars out there based on the monthly payment.
Now, we're going to be talking about monthly payments here in just a minute.
I just got some information from Ford on some leases.
We talked about leases the other day, and I just thought it was worth showing you how this works
and what the dealers have access to.
Ford has been generous enough to go ahead and calculate a bunch of leases on different models,
everything from a Ford Ranger to a Maverick to a F-150.
You know, if you're looking at Honda's or Kia's or Mercedes-Benz, all dealers have this same kind of information
broken down by vehicle type, and they have pre-calculated lease payments on a bunch of different vehicles.
So, dealers have something that they can advertise, and then they can put this disclaimer.
You know what a disclaimer is.
So, that's when you see a price and it has a little asterisk beside it.
That means you need to look for the details.
It's called the Find Print.
And I'm going to give you a little tutorial on looking for finding and analyzing the Find Print.
I'll be back in a minute.
With the large print giveth, the Find Print taketh away.
Yep, I don't think that's in proverbs. It sounds like it should be.
I'll have to look that up in my Bible when I get home, see if that's in there.
I could Google it though, but let's talk about Find Print.
What is it?
Well, it's where you find out the real deal.
You know, for example, here's a Mustang EcoBoost 2026 model with the 2.3 liter automatic transmission.
MSRP is $44,523, and the selling price is $42,263.
This is just an example that Ford has provided.
I've got probably 20 different examples of different things that we sell.
And this happens to be a relatively inexpensive Mustang.
Doesn't sound inexpensive, does it?
So what does this mean?
This means that this particular deal with total money down out of the customer's pocket of $4,390,
that they can have a monthly payment of $399 on a Mustang.
Now, in the world of monthly payments, $399 ain't that bad, and this is for 36 months.
Now, what are the other details that are important on a lease?
Well, what can you buy it for at the end of the lease if you want to?
What is the residual value?
That's what you can actually purchase the vehicle for once the lease is over and done.
In this case, the residual factor is 59% of the MSRP or $26,270.
So that's what you can, you know, if you want to keep this Mustang, that's what you can buy it for.
Now, you have to pay sales tax on that $26,270, and there could be another fee or two in there that they charge.
That's why it's important to read the lease contract, and man, those are long documents.
It's probably 18 inches long, multiple copies, but $399 a month, not bad.
Let me look at another one here, an escape, Ford Escape MSRP, $34,585.
You can actually buy this thing for $32,852.
That is the starting point or what we call the capitalized cost of the lease.
Customer down payment, $3,410.
The residual is 48% or $16,601.
So that's what you can buy it for if you like it at the end of the lease.
Most people won't, though.
You know, unless it's just, there are circumstances of change,
most people will just turn around and lease something else.
What's the monthly payment on this one?
$359 a month plus tax.
You know what the average car payment is in this country right now on a new vehicle?
It just hits $700 a month.
On used vehicles, it's $550, and that's why terms are being extended to up to 96 months.
That's a lot of months.
And if you don't pay anything down and you decide three years from now, you want out.
Your needs have changed.
You won't be able to trade unless you come up with $15,000, $20,000 in cash.
Unless you go to a dealership that can cram you into a vehicle with the help of a very lenient lender.
Some of them will loan in excess of 130% of MSRP.
And what that's called is not just getting buried once, but getting buried twice.
Because if you run into the same change of circumstances situation,
you'll be trying to get out again, and you won't be able to.
And then maybe you've built up a whole lot of credit card debt along with it.
And then the only option is to file bankruptcy.
It's just a way to wipe the slate clean again.
You know, I've seen people file bankruptcy and turn around a month later.
I mean, once it's discharged, turn around a month later, and they're able to buy a car, there's no problem.
They have to pay a higher interest rate, much higher interest rate.
And a lot of it depends on what they've done since.
Have they cleaned up some other credit issues that weren't discharged on the bankruptcy?
These are all things that make a huge difference.
What is your behavior when it comes to your finances and your installment credit or revolving credit?
You know what the difference is? Revolving credit is a credit card.
That's where your balance just stays out there, and it's incurring interest,
and sometimes you just pay the interest and just keep it going.
Sometimes you pay a little bit on the balance, and interest rate goes down, interest rate stays the same.
Now, what's installment credit?
That's where you have a defined monthly payment, like on a car, or you buy a mattress.
My wife and I, like McCallisters, it's a deli, and we go there.
We went there yesterday, as a matter of fact, had a nice lunch.
It was freezing in that place. We were so uncomfortable.
I asked the lady, is it always this cold in here?
She looked at me and said, you're just old.
No, she didn't say that. She said, yeah, they keep it really cold.
I said, you could slaughter hogs in here.
I don't think she got it.
But yeah, it was cold.
But we really liked that place, and decided to go out and eat in the car, though,
because we were freezing.
So we got into my Bronco, and I looked straight ahead, and there's a mattress store selling mattresses.
0% for 72 months on a mattress.
Now, folks, if you have to finance a mattress for 72 months,
you should probably just sleep in a sleeping bag.
That can't be a good move.
Of course, 0%. I mean, that's free money.
There's one of my alarms going off.
I swear, these Apple computers, my watch has been going off, my phone, my...
There's another one. I just can't get ahead of this.
How do you deactivate that?
I feel like somebody just bought a new car trying to figure out the infotainment system.
I mean, we have to spend probably 30 minutes just on the dashboard area
when we sell a new vehicle to people,
and sometimes that's not enough to have to come back another day, which we're happy to do.
I mean, when I first started selling cars, you just had to show them how to work the power windows
and adjust the mirrors and maybe how to slide an 8-track into the stereo system.
That's about it. It was easy. It was a simpler time.
I missed that.
Okay, we got cars and coffee tomorrow at Gateway Ford in Greenville, Tennessee.
We do it every second Saturday.
And really, it's just such a great time for me.
I hope it's a great time for the people that show up.
We have a lot of regulars that come in and bring their cars and park them
and get out some lawn chairs and sit around and drink coffee and eat some unhealthy donuts,
compliments of Gateway Ford and Gateway Nissan.
So I learn a lot from these people.
I love their passion for their old cars.
Have you got an old car in your garage?
Maybe it's covered up with boxes.
It's become a piece of furniture with oil in it, gas.
If you've got an old car, make sure that you properly store it, drain the fuel out of it.
Hopefully it's inside and not outside on a set of blocks.
But if it's inside, it shouldn't have gasoline in it in the tank.
You should drain the fuel system completely.
And you should lift it up, put it on jack stands,
and not have the wheels and the tires touching the ground.
But ideally, it should not be in there.
You should respect that car enough to let it live again.
Turn it loose.
Let it be seen and enjoyed by you.
A lot of people keep them for different reasons.
They say, well, it's my daddy's car and I just like having it around.
That's fine.
It's going to deteriorate.
He wouldn't like it seeing it there all covered up with boxes.
He'd prefer that it would be out and being enjoyed by somebody.
And if you don't want it anymore,
if it's long as it's not some four-door,
ragged out, high mileage thing,
then it might have some value.
I mean, even if it is one of those things,
it probably is worth a grand at the crusher.
I know that sounds cruel, but that's the reality.
But if you want to sell it, you can.
Put it on Facebook Marketplace.
Just set up the scene.
I see people take pictures of cars still in their garage.
Thinking that's how you sell it.
That's not how you sell something.
You get it out, you wash it, you clean it up.
You take about 50 pictures in a nice setting with some trees in the background
or a nice body of water.
And you present the vehicle.
You tell them everything that it has on it.
Just like the engine size and the history of the car.
It was my dad's car.
He drove it every day to and from work.
And then we put it up and whatever the story is.
Because stories sell.
I mean, you can put a bunch of facts and figures,
but if you have no story,
then it's just like I have some cars and I have no story.
My 57 Chevy that I bought.
It's unbelievable.
It is an absolutely remarkable restoration.
And it looks as good on the underside as it does on the top.
But I can't for the life of me find the person who restored it
or any history on that car.
If I knew the history and if it was good history,
it could add 10, 20% to the value of it.
But I don't have it.
So if you have history and you have a car that you want to sell,
then there are ways to do it.
And you could, who knows?
You may have no clue how much that vehicle is worth to somebody.
And all you have to do is put it out there on the worldwide web.
Okay, I'll be back here in just one minute.
I was talking about history.
You know, the current car that you own.
The one that maybe you're wanting to trade.
The history of it matters too.
How well have you maintained it?
Have you kept records of the maintenance?
You know, somebody jumps out of a car and they're wanting to trade it.
And they can hand you a book out of their glove boxes.
That list, every oil change when they did tire rotations,
put brakes on it at this time.
They don't necessarily have to have the receipts.
I mean, it's nice, but just that detailed record,
what that does is it gives you more confidence to put more money in that trade-in.
And really, that's not that hard to do.
And if the vehicle is clean, it's been detailed.
The tires are relatively new.
You know, they don't have to be new because we know what tires cost.
We can replace the tires.
It'll affect your appraisal a little bit.
That's not really that big of a deal.
But when you can prove that you've properly maintained the car,
it's going to make a difference.
And if you have an accident, please take a picture of it
or several pictures of it, get a copy of the estimate,
put it in an envelope and stick it in your glove box.
And when you get ready to trade, what the dealership's going to do
is they're going to pull a car fax and they're going to see that it's had an accident.
And that's going to get them all frustrated and concerned.
And all you have to do is go get that envelope, open it up, take the picture out
and show them, well, I just hit a deer, it wasn't that bad.
Oh, that's all the damage there was? Yeah, that's it.
Here's the estimate, what it cost.
They'll put the money in the car because now they know
and they can share that information with a prospect who's interested,
who's also going to want to pull a car fax.
So it just helps everybody be happy and get a better number for the vehicle.
So do that. What else can you do?
Well, most importantly is you can do the research
and figure out what cars like yours are bringing on the open market.
It doesn't matter what a book says.
What matters is what cars like yours are advertised for online.
Let's say that you have a 2020 Chevrolet Silverado extended cab
four-wheel drive with 100,000 miles on it, has a Z71 package,
it's got leather seats and, you know, it's in decent condition.
Just search for that same vehicle online.
Go to AutoTrader, it'll pull up hundreds of them
and search for vehicles that have similar mileage to yours.
And if they're being advertised by a dealer,
the dealers do a lot of research before they post vehicles online
because they want to be in the market.
If they're priced too high, then the vehicle won't sell.
You know, people search by price lots of times when they're online.
They sort by price and they want to see the lowest priced vehicles first
and they see you have too many miles on them and they'll keep scrolling up.
You can do that same thing, find your vehicle, cars like your vehicle
or trucks like your vehicle.
And that'll give you an idea what your vehicle's worth.
Now, is a car dealer going to give you that much for your car?
No, because he's going to have markups.
So you need to discount that number by about 10%.
And that's close to what you can expect.
If you really want to know what your vehicle's worth really accurately,
then you just send the information to me, the VIN number,
the trim packages that it has on it, the miles that it has,
a couple of pictures would be great so that I can give you a number
what I would be willing to pay.
And I'm a new car dealer with a twist.
I do tell it like it is.
Send that to me.
My cell phone is 423-552-2020.
Or send it to my email at LennyLawson2020atgmail.com.
That's Lenny, L-E-N-N-I-E, Lawson, L-A-W-S-O-N,
2020atgmail.com.
Okay, I'll see you next time.
About this episode
Lenny Lawson, a current new-car dealer, pushes back on typical dealer podcasts by emphasizing honesty and walking customers away when timing or terms would hurt them. He explains how misleading trade-in and “over book value” ads can collapse once the fine print and MSRP markups are considered, and how many buyers focus on monthly payments instead of total price. He then breaks down lease math using Ford examples (MSRP, selling price, residual value, buyout cost, and taxes/fees) and warns about long-term financing traps. The show also touches on credit revolving vs installment, dealership tech overwhelm, and community events like Cars and Coffee.
