When buying a new vehicle, negotiate with your wife or husband first....here's how that works

Hey folks, Lenny Lawson here, the car guru, kind of excited today.

I'm buying a new vehicle for my wife.

Why, Lenny, do you buy new vehicles when you own a new car dealership?

Well, it's simple.

Over the years, I did give her a car to drive.

We called them demos.

Matter of fact, back in the old days, back in the 70s and 80s, and up into the mid-90s,

we gave all of our salespeople a new car demo, all of our sales managers, the office manager,

the service manager.

No, we didn't give one to the parts manager.

All those people had demos, and it was a real problem because we didn't want to put any

more than 6,000 miles on any car, and everybody put miles on them at a different rate, regardless

of our pleading to them to keep the miles really low.

If you go out of town, go on vacation, take your own car, please, don't take the demo.

We tried to keep the mileage down, so we didn't have this constant merry-go-round of people

parking a demo, getting a new one, parking a demo, getting a new one.

I mean, I remember the worst it ever got, we had 25 parked demos out on the lot, out

of an inventory of a little over 100 cars, and those were just new cars.

And it was a real problem, and it was a real problem when we took them away, because they

expected something in exchange, and I get it, so we ended up having to pay them a little

bit of money extra each month to cover the cost of a car that they had to go out and buy.

But it worked out a lot better for us, and it has worked out a lot better for my wife.

And really, for me, I buy my F-150, and that's typically what I drive.

I thought about changing to it, and we got this new Bronco in, and it's desert sand,

four-door, loaded up, and it's really pretty, and then I drove it, and I said,

nope, does not drive near as good as an F-150, so I'm keeping an F-150.

But anyway, so she had this expedition, which we have loved.

It's a short-wheelbase expedition, limited, kind of a funky green color, but it grew on us.

We really like it. With a light beige interior, it's got 15,000 miles on it,

and I normally like to pull her out after two years or 15,000 miles. We're at two years,

and we're at 15,000 miles, so the timing was perfect. And so what am I putting her in?

Well, I'm buying a all-new 2026 Nissan Armada, and one might say, well,

why aren't you getting a new expedition? Because she doesn't like, and I don't like,

the new instrument panel on those things. It's out there, but we're in the minority,

because they're selling like hotcakes. The American public loves the expedition

and the new instrumentation. I don't. This new Armada is just incredible. I mean,

Nissan needed to change that thing, and they did. Now, gas mileage isn't quite as good as the

expedition. It gets about three miles per gallon less. I can live with that, because it is gorgeous.

It literally is gorgeous. The leather seating is quilted. The dash has this,

almost the electronic dash that the screens go three quarters of the way across the dash.

There's all kinds of information there. Very easy to see. I would want to, if I was going to keep it

beyond a couple of years, I would buy a service contract. I really would, an extended warranty,

because if that stuff goes bad, it's going to be costly. So I know that if I was

buying it to keep for four or five years, I'd probably, well, I wouldn't probably,

I definitely would buy an extended warranty. But I'm not going to do it, because I typically,

like I said, two years or 15,000 miles. Now, she could go 20,000, 24,000. She just doesn't drive

that much. We don't take her vehicle out of town that much. Yeah, we actually take my truck,

because we like the way it drives better, or I like the way it drives better, because I do all

the driving, but our mod is going to be perfect for us for this period. Now, what am I doing?

Well, since I finance them, and I know that I trade pretty often, like every 18 months to two years,

then I don't finance them longer than 48 months. Yep, it's a whopper of a monthly payment.

But I've seen a lot worse. I've seen people with higher payments

that finance them for 72 months. And typically it's because they're so far upside down on their

trade in, because they financed it for 72 or 84 months and didn't pay anything down.

So here's my situation. I paid, I think it was $5,000 down on the expedition financed it for 48

months. The payoff is $48,000. The actual cash value is $58,000. Now, that's a diggler wholesale

price. What can we sell it for? Probably 62 to 65 maybe. I mean, we really don't know, but

that's a competitive retail price. I'm giving you some insider information here. Yes, we do try to

stock vehicles, especially used vehicles, for less than what we can sell them for,

so that we can make something called a profit. Nothing wrong with the profit,

long as it's not too excessive. And that's why this business is a negotiating business,

so that people can actually come in and say, would you take less? Or is that the least you'd

take? You know, like I always tell people to ask, yes, you know, it never hurts to ask.

So yes, this is going to be a good opportunity for somebody to get a great forward expedition

with low miles. It's a 2024 model. Now, if I had financed it for 60 months, then I would

have wanted to pay more money down. 72 months, you know, to get the monthly payment down,

even more money down. If you're financing a vehicle, I figure about $10,000 to $15,000 extra

for every 12 months that you extend the monthly payment.

And that will keep you in line with the rate of depreciation. What do you think cars depreciated?

Yes, they do. This Armada will depreciate just about like the expedition. All big SUVs,

they go down pretty quickly. And trucks, not as quickly, really not near as quickly.

Small SUVs, they drop, everything drops. Sports cars are awful the way they drop,

unless it's a Porsche or a real fancy Corvette or something like that.

So, you know, this is, it's fun. I get excited getting a new vehicle. We're going to be going

to Cincinnati this weekend and we'll get to drive it. I bet she wants to drive this time.

But I'm not going to let her, because I really like this Armada and the way it drives. Yeah,

I'll let her, you know, since it's hers. It's titled in both names. Do you do that

when you buy a new car? Do you title, like if you're married to somebody,

you title it in both names? You know, it's about 50-50, what we see. We see some people,

depends on how secure their marriage is, I guess. But I always felt like it was important to help

my wife get credit and finance the thing in both names and put the title in both names.

Because that way, if something happens to me and she goes out and has to buy a car or has to,

you know, borrow money for some reason, she's got a credit history. As a matter of fact,

her beacon score is higher than mine. She puts me to shame. Now, I can understand why you wouldn't

want to put it in both names, especially if one has bad credit. I've seen that a lot too. I've

seen a situation where the husband has terrible credit and the wife has great credit. And then

you start asking about, you know, some financial questions and they are one of those households

that keeps everything separate. And there's nothing wrong with that. However you decide to do it,

as long as it works for your family, that's fine. You know, let her pay the rent, you pay the electric

bills and the car payments, whatever. I've seen it done both ways. Now that's, I've never done that.

My mom and dad didn't do it. And so I guess that was just the pattern I went through. As soon as we

got married, we opened a joint bank account. And that's where all the money went. And, you know,

sometimes one person pays the bills, the other creates all the bills. So it's just really important

that you operate as a team, don't you think? That you work together. And, you know, I guess

probably our biggest arguments as a married couple were over money. Was it that way with you?

I mean, I would fuss. It was typically me bringing up the subject. She didn't want to talk about

money. And of course, I did it on the worst possible day, which is Sunday, when I was paying

bills and stuff like that. And I said, what was this charge on the credit card? Honey,

we can't do this. I have to pay this whole balance. You know, it was that type of thing.

So, but when it comes to cars, I've seen how people choose to finance cars. And there's

typically reasons for that. You know, you may be talking to some salesperson or finance manager,

and he may say, well, folks, if you take him off of the loan, the payment will go down.

And hopefully they explain that to you. It's because, you know, his credit score or that

income or something is not near as good as yours is, and they want to take him off. It could be

a situation where you're going in like a grandfather is going in to buy a car for a grandson,

and they want to put both of them on the note, or he just wants to put the grandson on the note.

And the grandpa is going to be making the payments. That is a no, no.

That is called a straw purchase. And banks do not allow that. The person who's going to be driving

the car, ensuring the car and paying for the car needs to be on the note, not just a friendly,

loving grandparent trying to do the right thing. Okay, I'll be back in just a minute.

Okay, I am back. It is interesting to see the different relationships that people have

when they, you know, as far as their marriage is concerned, when they come in to buy a car.

So much is revealed if you're really paying attention, not only like the personalities

involved in just the actual picking out the car. That's interesting in and of itself,

because you get to see the differing priorities that a husband and a wife will have.

And it's just usually the female is the more is the more practical one. The man

is more driven by emotion. I know that seems backwards, but when it comes to buying cars,

that's what I've noticed. Occasionally, you'll see the guy that I mean, he's totally in charge,

or he acts like he is. And the wife just sitting there just really quiet.

And then, you know, when it gets down to it, she's the one making the final decision.

She just lets him do all the legwork, so to speak. But I like to see them interact with one

another. It's so important to do that. Like if you're really changing the type of vehicle that

you've been used to driving and you want to make sure that it fits. It's just like this

expedition deal with my wife. I brought home a black armada. And when I say black, everything's

black, the wheels, the bumpers, the entire body and the interior. We call that black on black,

on black. And it really does look good. It looks like Darth Vader's vehicle,

something he would drive. And she fell in love with it. We drove at the church yesterday,

or day before yesterday. And I mean, she just really liked, well, love the way it drove. No

doubt about that. But she said today, she said, or last night, she said, I think I'd like the

black one. What do you think? And I said, honey, it looks good, clean, but you'll take it to the

car wash. By the time you get it home, it'll be covered in dust. That's just the way it is.

And it will be very hard to keep clean. It'll also be hot in the summer.

And, you know, it's going to show every little ding that you get in the parking lot. I mean,

black, there's a lot of drawbacks there. She said, well, you know, the white will be fine.

And it's got a light color interior, too. She has always said, you know, really,

I don't like a dark interior. So here she is getting ready to go into a black on black on black

vehicle. And I just said, yeah, I just don't think I think the white with the light camel interior

would just work better for us. And she said, okay, well, that's fine. So we're,

we're interacting with each other. We're making a joint decision. I wasn't dictating to her.

She wanted the black one. She could have the black one. I just know, based on my experience,

and our experience together, she's going to regret it. And when you finance a vehicle like that,

when you buy one like I'm doing, it's just like if you were to buy one and change your mind six

months later, it doesn't work very good. Because that depreciation curve is, is straight downhill

at first. And so that's on any vehicle. So you want to have it have time for that,

that curve to level out a little bit, flatten out so that 24 months, 48 months, whatever you

want to trade, you can trade. But go into the decision with your with your eyes wide open.

And as my grandmother used to say, singing out of the same hymn book,

because if you don't, then somebody's going to be upset. You know, another thing about the

armada, it doesn't, I might have already said this, that it doesn't get quite the gas mileage that

the other does. And that's not an issue for us. It's, well, the dealership doesn't buy my gas,

I buy my own gas, but we just don't drive that much. And, you know, we're not on a real tight

budget. If you're on a tight budget, and you're thinking about three or four miles per gallon

difference, that could make a difference for a family, especially if you've got a lot of kids

to feed. Gosh, those grocery store prices, unbelievable. Of course, cars have gone up, too.

I mean, two years ago, the average selling price of a new car was around $38,000. It's just a hair

under $50,000 now. And I think a lot of that is all this new technology that they're cramming into

vehicles. And it's not cheap. Remember how computers went down in price year after year after year?

Cars aren't doing that. The more technology that they add, they keep going up. Of course,

there's a lot of materials involved in building a car. It's not just about software or computer

technology, even though most vehicles are a rolling computer now. There's a lot of steel in there,

a lot of aluminum, a lot of copper wire, a lot of glass, a lot of plastic. I don't know if plastic

has gone up a lot, but, you know, all of those things go into pricing a car. I just can't imagine

being smart enough to be able to let alone build a car, but figure out what's charged for it in

order to make a profit. When you take into account all of the different things, it's just not the

cost of the materials that go into a car. It's the plant, it's the workers, it's the electric bill

at the plant. It's all of those things that go into it. And that's why there are a whole lot

of smarter people in the world than me to figure that kind of thing out. Now, I know Ford did some

interesting things several years ago. They built a new plant on the same, well, it's the same grounds

that's called the Rouge River Plant, where they used to build Model T's and Model A's, and they

built a new F-150 plant there in order to conserve some of the extra cost involved, one of which was

fresh water, and the other was heating and cooling. They decided to plant grass on the roof of that

entire building. And by doing that, they were able to save about 15% on both heating and cooling,

that building. And then they made the parking lot. It was paved, but it was a really rough surface.

It's because it was porous. And what they would do, collect rainwater. And that's where they got all

of the water for the plant. They didn't have to pull any of it out of the Rouge River. All of it came

from rain falling on the parking lot and their ability to collect that and use that to handle

all the water needs inside the plant. So this spring, what you need to do is just take off

all the roof shingles on your house, plant grass on your roof instead, and then as far as the

driveway is concerned, dig all that up and put down porous concrete and collect all the rainwater.

Just think how much money you'll save. And you got that idea from the Cargoo Roof. I'll be right back.

Okay, I'm back. So Ford is offering a pretty good deal right now on tires. Yes, four dealers sell

tires. And we sell a lot of tires. And the reason is because we have a bunch of different suppliers

and all of those suppliers give us the same price that they give the Ford Motor Company.

And they have some buying power. So what happens is they let the dealers buy the tires through Ford

and then they offer these special deals to incentivize people to come into

the dealership. Now manufacturers may do the same thing. But like right now, if you buy a set of

four tires, they'll give you a certain, well, basically a Visa card for $100. So you get that

right off the top. And they'll pay for a four wheel alignment. Now, when was the last time

you had one of those? If it's been several years, you better get one.

If you have recently come into contact with a curb, you better get one. If you look at your tires

and the outside edge of your tire, let's assume that you have enough air in them,

which that's a pretty big assumption for most people. With these tire pressure warning systems,

most of you have been notified already when the weather got cold that you didn't have enough

air pressure in your tires. So let's assume that you get that where it needs to be. But you notice

when you're looking at your front tires that they're wearing on the outside edge. Or when you turn

your steering wheel real sharp, you can see the inside edge and they're really wearing much more

than the center tread. You need a four wheel alignment. Now I don't care where you get it.

I've got a shop that is still in operation here in Greenville. I think they've been in

operation for like 60 consecutive years and they don't have one bit of technology,

but they can slap a line of front end. I mean, they can do it as good as any computer. Those

people are rare, but most diggler ships and most tire stores have the latest equipment as far as

alignment. Why do you need to align all four wheels? Because most cars have an independent rear

suspension. And even if they don't, you want to make sure that the front tires are in line with

the rear. Sometimes the rears can get a little wonky, little off kilter, even if it has a solid

rear axle. And there are some adjustments on even those. But primarily, you need to make sure that

your fronts and your rears are in line with one another. You ever seen a car going down the road

it's kind of looks like it's crabbing, you know, it's got the front end is cocked over, it's going

straight, but you can see the side of it. That car either has a bent frame, which is probably what

the problem is, or a severely out of alignment condition with the front tires. And so get that

done. What does that cost? Well, it should cost somewhere between $100 and $150. But ask first,

make an appointment, come down the gateway. We can tell you if your vehicle is out of alignment

just by driving into our service department, we have these devices that were sold to us by Hunter,

which is the number one company when it comes to alignment equipment. And when you drive through

the doors into our service drive, there's about 48 laser beams that are hitting your front wheels.

And it tells us instantly, two of the primary measurements of alignment, that's toe

and camber, or is it caster, one of those two C words. And so if those are out of whack, then

you need an alignment. But if they're not, if you drive in and it's fine, then you don't see a lot

of businesses or dealerships charge you to put it on the alignment rack. And I understand that

because that takes a lot of work. But if they have one of these measuring systems, they don't have to

do that. So get that done, preserve your tires. And if they're already worn out, come down and get

you a new set. The deal's pretty good right now. Well, thank you for listening to this edition of

My Car Guru. As always, if you have any questions, you can text me at 423-552-2020 or send me an

email to Lenny Lawson, 2020 at gmail.com. And I'll see you next time.

When buying a new vehicle, negotiate with your wife or husband first....here's how that works

About this episode

new car dealership

demo

Ford F150

Ford Bronco

short-wheelbase

Nissan Armada

instrument panel

gas mileage

service contract

extended warranty

financing

upside down on their trade in

actual cash value

Ford Forward Expedition

depreciation

Chevrolet Corvette

straw purchase

black on black

average selling price

new technology

rolling computer

materials involved in building a car

cost of materials

Ford Model Ts

four-wheel alignment

tire pressure warning systems

independent rear suspension

solid rear axle

crabbing

Hunter

toe

camber

caster

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