This is what happens when people STOP BUYING CARS | Episode 971

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Available now in your refrigerated section. It's noon here in Ventnor City in New Jersey

and our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., and this is Car Edge Live for Friday, November 28th,

with your hosts, me, Ray in Ventnor, and well, Zach in Washington. How are you today, handsome?

Doing fantastic. Grateful to be with you here today, Pops, and thank you everyone for tuning in.

We're grateful for you joining us as well. Today's show is brought to you by CarEdge.com.

Dad, our Black Friday promotion, it is live. And I don't know about you, man.

Yes.

But it seems like the marketing of Black Friday promotions this year is a level I've never seen

before. I'm getting texted like every 30 minutes by a different brand. So sorry, y'all. I know

everyone's getting hit with the promos, but the offers are significant. We're offering $300 off

our car buying service and 30% off Car Edge Pro. Please take a peek back at CarEdge.com.

Remember, for the car buying service, you can schedule a consultation call with our team to

see if it's a good fit. And of course, meet the folks on our team who are helping our customers

save thousands of dollars every single day. You can learn some of their stats, like how long they've

worked in the auto industry, what types of deals they like to work on, how much they've saved

cumulatively, how many deals they've done, and see those recent transactions they've helped our

community members with. All back at CarEdge.com. Now, Dad, the big story I wanted to talk about

this morning...

Can I ask you a question first?

Yeah, of course, Dad.

Do you know why today is called Black Friday?

No. Why is it called Black Friday? I have no clue.

The reason it's called Black Friday is because historically, traditionally, because of sales

today, this is the day that businesses went into the black when they became profitable. And that

is why it's called Black Friday. So in honor of Black Friday, because of all the green that's

going to be spent, I am wearing a green outer shell and a black t-shirt to signify all that

green is going to turn these retailers profitable for the remainder of the year.

For those that are interested, we compress here at CarEdge our profit margin

significantly, like significantly, significantly. We pay people a lot of money to do the concierge

service. And yeah, when we take $300 off, we make a hell of a lot less profit, but that's okay.

Still feels good.

So are you telling me for us, Black Friday is Red Friday?

Well, not the red, but a lot less black. Here we go, folks. The big story this morning. This

is what happens when people stop buying cars. There's a really awesome X account. Also speaking

of which, sorry, I got to do this right now. My Twitter account got hacked last night. I can no

longer log into it. I've reached out to X now three times. Each time they say they can't verify

me. If anyone in our community knows anyone at formerly Twitter X, my email address is

Zach at CarEdge.com. Please, I'm trying to get my account back. I hope they don't start

spamming crap. Anyway, all right. But there is a great, great follow over here. The car dealer.

Yes.

In this tweet that this guy runs multiple dealerships,

November has been a blank for the car business. A used car market with prices propped up by

scarcity from the chip shortage. Then we have at the same time, the consumer stretched in retail

used car demand is soft. That's good for a heavy dose of margin compression. So you can see here,

he's talking about what's going on in the used car market, which you and I, every single month,

we look at the latest and greatest data when it comes to the used car market. And we know used

vehicle inventory climbs in November as sales and prices edge higher. But the same exact thing

is going on on the new car side as well. New vehicle inventory rising ahead of holiday sales

season. And we got the latest and greatest data over on new vehicle sales, expected to be down

8% year over year. So let's talk about it, dad. What happens when people stop buying cars?

The car dealer over here on X is saying, quote, that's a, that's good for a heavy dose of margin

compression. Price has got to go down, right? Profit. We were just talking about being in the

black profits got a decrease, correct?

One would think, I don't know any other way to get people to continue to buy cars

other than make them less expensive. And so there's a couple of ways you can make them less

expensive. You can build cars that aren't equipped as heavily as what has been built in the past

and lower the prices that way. You can continue to build the cars that you've been building,

and you can offer larger incentives as the manufacturer and the dealer recognizing the

fact that they're not moving as quickly as they had been can then decide to offer larger discounts

alongside of those increased incentives from the manufacturers to make the prices cheaper.

So yes, margin compression is a thing and it happens. And we're going to continue to see it

happen with new car sales being off 8% year over year. It's just that simple inventory.

This message from this particular dealer is all about used cars. And when you go to use cars,

there is no manufacturer incentive you can lean on maybe with certified pre-owned,

but that's the exception, not the rule. There is no other party you can look to,

to help you get the price down. This is just at the dealership level. Margin compression,

new cars, obviously there's a couple more dynamics with incentives and things like that, but

this is the broad based story for this industry. And this is what happens when people stop buying

cars. The prices have nowhere to go except for down. And we'll do a bunch of live experiments

on the Car Edge Car Search today and just look at some price histories of used vehicles,

new vehicles, things like that. But this is going to be the trend for the foreseeable future

is that prices will have to go down. And it's not just us saying it. That's what I love about

this message. November has been a blank in the car business. That's not us. That's a guy who

runs multiple dealerships and you don't have to look that far to find other people saying the

exact same thing. And dad, you've run dealerships during periods of time where it was a blank. And

what do you do? You got to get creative to sell cars. During the beginning of the financial crisis,

the great recession, I started noticing trends and I noticed inventories building up.

In particular, at that time, it was the TL at the Acura store that my turn and earn system,

what I was turning was suddenly no longer equaling what I was earning. I was earning

way more than I was turning, which was an indication to me that A, my sales were down,

but Acura was still producing at the levels at which sales had been. And so even though I wasn't

earning as many cars as they were allocating, they were allocating those cars because they

had too many. And so I noticed that happening. I noticed TLs building up. Obviously, I noticed

sales declining dramatically. So what do you do? I put up a whiteboard in the showroom by

the reception desk. I made it real simple. I listed each model, TL, MDX, RL, whatever the

hell it was at that time. And I said, here's the pricing. It's invoice plus $200 less any factory

incentives. You pick the car, give us the stock number. We'll give you the invoice. So you can

see what invoice is. You add $200 to that and then subtract whatever rebates or incentives we have

from the manufacturer. Now, did my salespeople like that? They hated it because they couldn't

hold any gross profit. And well, the way salespeople get paid is off a gross profit.

So the complaint was Ray's taking away our ability to make any commission, any money. And

I guess to a degree I was, but I wanted to make it as easy as possible for people to pick out a car

and then show them the invoice and allow them to make the buying decision based on the fact that

they knew exactly what they were paying. They saw what we paid for the vehicle.

Yep.

Now, was that the ultimate cost in the vehicle for us? No, there was holding back in this and that,

but working on a $200 gross profit per vehicle sold.

Totally.

Yeah. Not a lot, but that's what I figured I would do in order to make it easier for the

customers and to spur interest.

Yep.

Those vehicles.

So for a lot of people that are out there right now, dad, please, if you're in the market to buy

a car, let us know in the chat what vehicle you're interested in, new or used, and a zip code. And

we'll go to the CarEdge car search today and we'll spend some time talking about how negotiable your

market area is, expectations that you should have for that particular vehicle. We also have

some questions from the community forum that we're going to be addressing on today's show

as well. But let us know if you're in the market and you're out there, let us know where you are,

what you're up to, new or used, and a zip code, and we will do our best to provide some insights

here. But no matter how you slice it, dad, all the data suggests that it is very much that buyer's

market. We'll start here. All right. We've got a first one from Astrowise. You ready, dad?

Yes. And may I say one thing first? Even though it is a buyer's market,

okay, the vehicles, most vehicles are still out of reach for the vast majority of people

who might like to be able to take advantage of that buyer's market.

There's still an affordability crisis, but I don't want to talk about the affordability crisis

today. Today's show, we're focused on the people who are in market and we're going to help them

out as much as we can. That does not take away from our stance on vehicle affordability. Sound

good, dad? Yes. All right. That sounds perfect. All right. Here we go. So we're looking for,

this is for Astrowise. We're in Memphis, Tennessee. The Electris 350RX. Let me get

that off the screen so we can look. 350RX3. Does Astrowise remember many, many, many, many,

many, many years ago, a fine men's and ladies' and children's department store called Julius

Lewis in Memphis, Tennessee, where at one time they had three locations. Just curious if you

remember the Julius Lewis stores. That was my uncle Julius, by the way. Very cool. We got a

Memphis connection. All right, dad. So here we are. I'm within a hundred miles of Memphis. We've only

got 20 Lexus RX. So this is a great first vehicle to start with. And I see some other people asking

about the Lexus RX hybrid in some other locations. So here's the deal. Lexus is one of those

manufacturers that does not have a particularly large amount of inventory on the ground. I don't

even think any of these, we have a single real image of one. No, we only have the stock images.

And look at the days on market, 21 days, 21 days, 30 days, six days, one day, 55 days, 20 days,

14 days, one day, 21 days, 47 days, 21 days. Dad, if you're in the market, so you're Astroworld.

Yes.

And you're looking for this particular vehicle.

What are you thinking when you walk into a dealership? Because this is one of those vehicles

that people have not stopped buying. This is one of those vehicles that is in

high demand and low supply.

I am thinking, if I'm looking at one of those vehicles, that I hope that the dealer hasn't

added mandatory dealer installed accessories already, and that they haven't added a market

adjustment. Because A, I'm going to fight them on the market adjustment. And B, I'm not going to

want to pay for things that I didn't ask to have installed on the car. Now, knowing that there are

only 20 of these in a hundred mile radius of Memphis does not give me, as the customer,

a tremendous amount of leverage. We could almost say zero leverage.

So you're pretty much begging and hoping that they won't try to take advantage of you like many

dealers do.

Yeah. And I agree with this. Discounts are going to be very regional. That's one of the nice

things about having the target discount back on the CarEdge website. You can shoot for that

in your particular area. All right. Let's do another one here, Dad. Let me come back up.

Let's see here. This is from G Money. Love that. 2025 Tucson, Hyundai Tucson Hybrid Limited.

We're in 32817. All right. Give me a second. It's 32. Whoops. Yeah.

32817.

817. Okay. And what are we looking for again, Dad?

2025 Tucson Hybrid.

Hyundai Tucson. Okay. So this is so fascinating already. And I haven't done just 2025s yet.

I'll do that in a second. But there's 2,261. So just think about this for a second. Are we

just looked in Memphis?

Yes.

Car shopping is so regionalized, brand-specific, model-specific. In Memphis, there were 20 Lexus

RXs through 50s.

Yes.

There were within 100 miles. Here we're in Orlando, Florida. There's 2,200 of them.

What are you saying?

All right. So now let's go limited. Let's go trim over here. Give me a second. Trim. There's 451

Limiteds. And now we'll go year. 2025. 2025. Okay. We're down to 99. We're down to 99. Now,

Dad, this first row that we're looking at right here, 57 days, 111 days, 61 days.

If you want the best deal, you're looking at the one that's 111 days, right? Or maybe,

how about I do this? Let me sort by oldest.

Here we go. Here's one that's been on the lot for 306 days, 286 days, 281 days. What are you

thinking about some of these, Pops?

Those that have been sitting the longest should be able to garner you the biggest discount.

And it indicates to me, if there were 451 or whatever that number was,

Yep.

And then when you took out 2026s, it came down to 99.

Yeah.

So that would indicate to me that there's plenty of 2026 inventory on hand,

and the dealers would be even more motivated to rid themselves of the remaining 2025s.

They don't want to get stuck with 2025s on the lot as the 2026s continue to come in.

So I would think the fact that you're looking at a 2025, when there's way more 2026s available,

that the dealers would be more motivated to move one of those 2025s

than they would to move one of the 2026s.

And this is one of the nice things that there's 0% financing right now. Yes, for 36 months,

but still 0% financing offer on top of the fact that you're probably going to get this

at or below invoice price.

I think this is a perfect example of this is a great vehicle to be targeting for a deal.

This is kind of unlike the first one we looked at, the Lexus RX,

a prior model year, Hyundai Tucson.

That's a great one.

That's one where you're going to have a lot of leverage.

Yeah, I would think between dealer discount and manufacturer incentives,

you're probably looking at probably close to 10% off of MSRP.

I think somewhere between 8% and 10% for sure.

Now, dad, this isn't another part of the world, but we've got a community member,

Anissa, excuse me, Hyundai Tucson Hybrid Limited 2025,

new or slightly used if I can get a deal, San Jose, California.

So let's now put ourselves in Anissa's shoes.

Are you going new or are you going used, dad?

We've had this conversation a bunch recently.

I've got my opinion. What do you think?

Well, it depends on if there is a significant

price difference between the slightly used and the brand new.

Which we know is...

Which we know there typically hasn't been.

And we know that Hyundai is doing a great job of maintaining their momentum

by increasing many of their incentives.

So we know that they're playing the long game.

They want to keep building that momentum,

and they have stepped up their incentive game in order to do that.

So if you know that you can get somewhere between 8% and 10% off

on a brand new one off of MSRP,

and you can take advantage of some specialized financing,

then it would seem to me new would be the way to go.

That's the dynamic in today's market, especially with a brand like Hyundai,

which is offering the 0% financing on not only

internal combustion engine powertrains, but also hybrid,

and not just 2025s, also 26s.

Hyundai is probably the most aggressive right now with Black Friday deals,

as well as end of year deals.

And I don't even think it's a question,

because you're not getting 0% financing on a used car.

You're not getting anywhere close to that.

And then obviously the warranty piece you touched on.

So I definitely think it's a total 180 from the traditional approach,

which is you want a better value, you go used.

Not in 2025.

If you want a better value, you go new.

Dad, let's do a couple more here.

Actually, we've got an interesting question here from Chrome user Pops.

Why did my leased car that I turned in three months ago

still have me listed as the registered owner?

Oh, no.

Well, did you turn in the license plates and the registration to the vehicle,

to your motor vehicle agency?

Because typically that's your responsibility,

is to return the plates and the registration to motor vehicle.

And if you don't do that, then well,

motor vehicle doesn't necessarily know that, well, you're not the owner anymore.

And then I would also check and make sure with the dealership where you turned it into,

that you want to ask them for a receipt showing that it was turned in.

And you want to make sure that the leasing company has indicated that the lease is done.

And once you've done all that, then you can take all that information to motor vehicle,

along with your license plate for that vehicle.

And that way that should clear up the situation.

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We are imported by Garland Ports, Chicago, Illinois.

Love putting pops on the spot to help people out.

Now let's do one more here.

We've got from AAXVMY.

I need a 2019 to 2022 Honda CRV, less than 60,000 miles,

Charlotte and Charleston area.

So I've pulled up here, Charleston, South Carolina,

or I guess Charlotte, North Carolina, whatever.

We're going to stick with Charleston

because I've already got it pulled up.

And we want a 2019 to 2022.

And what was it?

A Honda what?

Honda CRV, less than 60,000 miles.

Less than 60,000 miles.

Yeah.

Give me a second here.

And year was 2019 to 2022?

Correct.

Decent memory.

Not good memory, but decent memory.

Yes.

And mileage was under 60.

Yes.

Okay.

We are down to 73 matches.

So let's look at this, dad.

And then I want you to put your used car manager hat on here.

And why don't we sort this?

Do you want to do?

Is there a particular sort you want to look at?

I don't care.

All right, we'll do oldest.

We'll see the ones that have been sitting around the longest.

355 days at a Mazda dealership.

Get rid of the doggone thing.

All right, that seems absurd, but we'll do this row right here.

So 2020, dad.

Yeah.

224 days on the market.

Let's go over here.

Actually, I like this one.

I got a good feeling about this one.

What I'm interested in seeing 2020 Honda CRV touring.

I'm interested in seeing the price history.

Yeah, that was kind of what I was expecting to see a little bit of a down

into the right trend going on here.

I'd be interested in seeing the original MSRP.

All right.

I can help you out with that.

I can click to view the window sticker.

Drum roll, please.

37,225 bucks.

Okay.

And so this was a 2020.

This was a 2020 and it's got, wait for it, 55,000 miles on it.

Okay.

And what are they asking for it?

Dealers asking 24,420.

So it's $13,000 less today than when it was brand new.

Doesn't seem to me as if it's depreciated enough, but having said that,

based on all the information we understand,

these things aren't depreciating as much as they had in the past,

especially a relatively low mileage five-year-old car.

And that is a low mileage five-year-old car because it only has 55,000 miles.

And an average mileage would be about 75,000 miles.

So the mileage is below normal.

The price seems a tad bit high to me,

but that doesn't mean you can't take a shot and try and get it for less.

Can we talk for a second about that price history, Dad?

Sorry to cut you off, but I mean, I'm coming down here to the price history.

They've already come down, but they haven't come down much.

I mean, 1,500 bucks since July.

Like there's margin built into the selling price, correct?

Well, there was, there's 1,500 hours less margin in that selling price today

than there was in July.

How much lower can they go?

A car dealer guy said, hey, margins are being compressed

just because they bought this car in July

and they own it for too much based on today's market

doesn't mean that they can still get what they're asking for.

It's simply because, well, we own it for X.

Well, you bought it for too much.

Well, let me put you on the spot.

What are you offering for this vehicle?

Again, they're asking $24,420.

What are you going to offer on this, Dad?

I would say somewhere between 22 and 22.7, somewhere around there.

Okay.

See what they say.

What's the worst they can say?

No.

You can see the algorithm we have.

The target price range is at 22,383.

My dad, a little more aggressive than that.

I like that.

I like being a little bit more aggressive than that.

And a friendly reminder with Car Edge Pro,

you can use our AI agent to actually reach out to the dealership

and begin negotiations on your behalf.

So give that a try.

We've got the promo running there as well.

All right, Dad.

Shall we turn our attention over to the questions

that have been asked over in the community forum?

Well, we should, and we shall, and we will, and we are.

One more question, though.

How many 2023 or 2024 models are still in the lots?

Justin on our team was looking at this the other day.

There's like, I think he said 10% more 2024s on dealer lots today

than there were 2023s on dealer lots this time last year.

So there is more aged inventory out there,

prior model year inventory out there right now

than there was this time last year.

For those of you that are unfamiliar, we have a community forum.

I think it's over 40 or 50,000 people are on the community forum,

caredge.com slash community.

And every single week, Space, Mario on our team,

shares a question and answer thread

where we're going to go through each week and answer these questions.

So let's come here, Dad.

We'll go, excuse me, one by one from Anne first.

Thoughts on buying a used Toyota 2024 Venza Limited

that has a safety recall, the 12.3 inch display,

freezing issue with no software fix in time of purchase.

The other recall, the rear camera recall has a software fix.

Should a person buying a used car with a pending safety recall,

one that does not have a software fix yet, but supposedly is pending.

I know it's illegal to sell a car with an unresolved recall

and that used cars are a loophole.

We love the car, but don't want the hassle of the safety risk.

Thank you, Annie.

Talk about this, Pops.

I have no clue.

Well, it's not necessarily illegal to sell a car with a unresolved recall.

There are stop sales for some recalls because the issue is so egregious.

A display freezing, to me, would be pretty egregious

because there's so many things that are controlled in those displays.

I would at least try and speak to a factory service representative from Toyota

to ask when they might anticipate that there is a fix for this problem.

And if you can get the vehicle with significant enough savings

and you can utilize the vehicle even though it has this issue,

if the savings are big enough and the anticipated fix is sooner rather than later,

then it might make sense to do.

Haven't we do things in the old days before we had these giant ass displays?

Let's go here, Dad, from Mario.

I'd like your guys' opinion on this.

A 2026 Mercedes GLC 300 factory order, AMG line night package,

exclusive package, interior wheels, paint, a few other bits of the factory order,

all in all, MSRP of $64,000.

With it being a, quote, luxury brand and factory ordered,

how does a discount of $1,200 sound to you?

So let's talk a little bit about when do I negotiate a factory order

and then, Dad, on a vehicle like this.

Mercedes-Benz brand that we know has a bit of an oversupply of inventory.

We've got $64,000 MSRP.

Are you feeling good about $1,200 off?

No.

You negotiate a factory order the same way you negotiate a vehicle that's on the ground.

You know, we used to do factory orders at our BMW and MINI stores,

and discounts could be very sizable, 8%, 10%.

And the reason for that is because we knew the moment the car came in,

we were making all the back-end money, all the holdback money,

all the floor plan assistance money, all of the marketing assistance money.

So I would think you should be able to get 8% to 10% off on a factory order,

and they know they're still going to be making quite a bit of money

because they're turning it so quickly

that there will be no interest charges on their floor plan for that vehicle.

So yeah, you negotiate it as if it were actually on the ground now,

and $1,200 is nowhere near enough.

Yeah, I completely agree.

We have, for those of you that are interested, Google search factory order car edge,

and we've got a guide back on our website, how to factory order a car in 2025.

And then I will also mention our concierge service works for factory orders as well.

So for those of you that are interested,

we can handle the factory order process for you too.

Dad, let's keep it going here.

We've got from Chris,

what on earth is a running fee?

Really?

All right, here we go.

We've got $8,900 car price.

I love this because people still sometimes give us a hard time too.

Dealers write things down on a napkin.

Here is it.

This is some ripped paper.

$8,900 is the car price, $300 dealer doc fee, sales tax, plate, title, registration,

$150 running fee, $35 state inspection fee.

This is on a 2019 Subaru Ascent, $10,101.25 Thanksgiving discount, $9,900 total with the

smiley face.

This is the second time this week we've seen a handwritten smiley face and people still

give us a hard time about four squares and crap like this.

Dad, what is a running fee?

What are we looking at here?

I have no idea.

What the hell is a running fee?

Is that the fee they're charging to run to motor vehicle on your behalf?

Is that the fee?

I'm thinking it's on running means you pay extra if it runs.

Maybe.

Is that the fee you pay to join the neighborhood running club and you're now going to start

jogging weekly?

I have no idea.

Maybe it's $150 because the dealer was surprised that the damn car runs.

I don't know.

I think this is a good moment to remind everyone that if a fee is taxable, that means it's

negotiable.

What I mean here, it's hard to see in this breakdown, that being said, realistically,

the title and registration fees are not taxable.

That's coming from the state.

They're the ones charging.

The dock fee is.

The dock fee is taxable.

That would be the question I'd be asking here is, hey, that $150 running fee, is that a

taxable fee or is that something the state's charging?

If it's taxable, then you can negotiate it.

It's part of the out-the-door price.

If it's not taxable, it's not negotiable.

The state's charging you for that and that's what it is.

Definitely ask for some clarification there, though.

This is kind of chaotic to see.

Actually, whoever printed this, that has really good handwriting.

Very nice printing.

I would also ask for gravy on my mashed potatoes.

Yes.

From Reina here.

Let's see this.

I'm currently looking for a used car in North Carolina.

Price for this Honda is $17,000.

It's not a clean title and reported as a theft, but no accident or damage.

What's the best price for this car?

Here we go, folks.

Going to grab this VIN here.

Let me come back over.

We had this tab open for the Car Edge.

Car search.

Let me shop used.

VIN search.

Paste.

Enter.

Drum roll, please.

VIN not found.

I wonder if the car sold.

I'm starting to think the car sold.

Maybe.

You know, and it's got a branded title which negatively impacts the value of the vehicle.

Even though it was only a theft and no damage was reported, the fact that it is not a clean

title does impact the future value of that vehicle as far as, well, if you were to ever

go trade it in somewhere for another vehicle.

So I just Googled the VIN and like this is the page that comes up, which looks super

sketchy.

Also, this looks like it's at some sort of like copart, almost like auction.

Could be, you know, where where recovered stolen vehicles get stored until they get

sold.

Yeah, I don't know.

Just something about this feels like off to me.

So I think when you don't have a clean title, that's like a big, yeah, big.

Oh, Mario says he put the details below.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

So here you go.

Salvage title.

MMR clean is $21,900, retails at $25,000.

Want to know what a fair retail value would be with a branded title?

Yeah, because it's sold at auction for $10,800.

I mean, what do you think, Pops?

Igor saying 50% or less in value.

Yes.

Yeah, I'm afraid so.

That's that's the way car people look at it.

So.

So if it retails at $25,000, it's worth no more than $12,500.

Yeah, 12 and a half.

Yeah.

Something like that.

Yeah.

Don't be buying salvage title vehicles, folks.

That's our humble advice here from Robert.

Thank you for that, Mario.

Thanks for the screenshots.

I'm looking at getting a new 2026 Subaru Outback Touring XT.

It looks like all the cars in my area are still in transit.

I'm wondering how much of a deal you can really expect as it's a redesigned year.

Inventory is low and basically non-existent at the moment, I guess, where they live.

But we are at the end of November heading into the holiday season and end of the year.

They get the real prices showing $100 showing less than $100 over invoice.

If they are flying off the showroom floor, is that even reasonable?

Lots of great info in the videos and online.

Thanks.

So, Deb, highly in demand vehicle where this person is, is it realistic to be shooting for

invoice price or a couple hundred dollars over invoice price on a brand new vehicle like this?

You know, typically dealers try to

try not to be quite as motivated when a brand new redesign comes out.

Doesn't mean that if a dealer is trying to hit a year-end sales goal and what you're looking for

will be coming in between now and the end of the year and it would be able to count as a

sale for this year that they might need.

It doesn't mean that you can't work a deal.

It's just going to be a little more difficult.

But I know that they went up in price quite a bit because it's a completely redesigned model.

Yep.

So, I don't know how strong the demand is for those just yet.

Here's some space in our community, Dad.

Everyone is getting hot deals on Subaru's even on the ugly 2026 Outback redesign.

And I want to pull this up from James, who's been with us all day today.

Dude, I got below invoice on a 2026 and they haven't even started making them yet.

He's talking about F-150 plus rebates and dealer discounts.

So, yeah, I do think even though it might feel aggressive because of market conditions,

there's an opportunity there with the Subaru Outback to be able to still get something

at or near invoice price.

Let's keep it moving.

Pops from Brian here.

I'm looking to buy an SUV or car.

Is there a list of vehicles with adaptive suspension?

I tried googling adaptive suspension, but the list is incomplete.

Oh, I don't think I have a good answer for this.

But, well, I know I don't have a good answer for this.

I have no idea.

I don't even know who's offering adaptive suspensions anymore.

The last ones, every time I saw a vehicle with an adaptive suspension, the only reason I noticed

is because the suspension had given way and the damn thing was like the ass end of it was real

low because, well, the suspension wasn't working properly anymore.

So, yeah, I have no idea.

Sorry, Brian.

Wish we could be more helpful.

That's something maybe like AI can help with.

I really don't know.

From Salish here.

I'm currently negotiating with a dealer on a 2021 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid Limited.

I saw that the car was already being offered at the low end of KDB's fair market value

on the base price, so I didn't negotiate that.

And instead, I just pushed for them to remove the add-ons, $2,000 in add-ons.

Did I do the right thing or could I have asked them to go from $31,888 to $31,000?

I'm most likely going to buy the car if it clears the PPI.

But I wanted to learn for next time.

This is actually, and I see Space here asking for the VIN.

Unfortunately, we didn't get that.

But I do think that this is a fantastic question because this is why we preach out the door price.

Yes, and what I would recommend just for poops and giggles is if that gentleman has the VIN,

if they have the VIN, put it into the CarMax car offer on our website and find out what CarMax

would pay you for that vehicle.

So that'll give you some idea as to what they think the wholesale value of that vehicle is.

And that would either confirm or reject your theory as to how you're trying to

approach the pricing of it.

The fact that there's $2,000 worth of add-ons on a used vehicle is absurd.

So that's just a tactic for them to raise the asking price.

That's what allows them to advertise it at what they think is a cheap price

because they know they're going to add $2,000 worth of stuff.

So, Dad, I don't see this one the same way as you.

I don't think going to CarMax has anything to do with this.

I don't think getting an offer has anything to do with this.

The question is, if I were to do this all over again, did I negotiate the right thing?

Selling price versus add-ons.

You negotiate the out-the-door price.

That's honestly what Salish did perfectly here.

They did this perfectly.

Hey, you get the out-the-door price, out-the-door price, to your point.

Now, it's $2,000 more than what they had advertised online.

Great.

It doesn't matter where you get the $2,000 off from.

They can actually keep the $2,000 in add-ons on the vehicle but then reduce the selling price by $2,000.

This is the follow the...

It's the magic trick.

It's the illusion.

And so for Salish, I just want to be really clear here.

I think they did great.

They negotiated probably the easiest thing to negotiate because getting a dealer to go

down $2,000 on their selling price and then keep the $2,000 add-ons, that's just a little wonky.

So I don't know.

Is it a fairer price?

That's a different question.

But did you negotiate the right way?

I think you negotiated the right way.

You did a great job.

Yeah, it felt right.

I agree with that.

Yeah.

Hey, glad you agreed.

Okay.

I'm glad I do too.

All right, folks.

Let's see here from Lori.

Good morning, guys.

Do you help with car buying over in California?

We do.

All 50 states.

We can help you out wherever you are.

Dad, let's do a friendly reminder to everyone that we have our Black Friday promo running now

and soon.

We're running it all the way through, let's see here, for another three days, 20 hours,

21 minutes.

So take advantage of that back at caredge.com.

If we can assist you with anything, we'd be thrilled to.

We'll be back on Monday with more Car Edge Live.

We've got a video dropping over on the main Car Edge channel tomorrow, a really kind of

boring but educational video on how to negotiate your year-end car deal.

Please check that out.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving yesterday.

We're going to enjoy a nice weekend.

We're going to try, that's for damn sure.

I know I had a lovely Thanksgiving.

I know.

I ate too much turkey, too much stuffing, and too much mashed potatoes, but that's how

I roll, buddy.

We'll see you on Monday.

Love you, Dad.

Love you too, handsome.

Thank you, everybody, for being here.

Have a great weekend.

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This is what happens when people STOP BUYING CARS | Episode 971

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