When it comes to cars, there are three, distinct classes of car owners....find out which class you exist in

Hey, welcome back to another edition of my car guru.

This is Lenny Lawson, the car guru.

I'm a new car dealer in Greenville, Tennessee, and I have been in the car business for going

on 48 years now, and that's a long time.

Why aren't you retired, Lenny?

Well, because I still own a car dealership.

Well, too, basically.

They're on the same premises, but a Nissan store, Gateway Nissan and Gateway Ford.

When you own one, you have to pay attention to it, unless you have a really, really well-educated

and competent people working for you, which I do, but then you have to be 100% confident

that they're ready to run it by themselves, which I don't think they are yet.

Now, maybe they think they are.

Maybe I should ask them, but I'm not ready to go to the house yet.

I'm enjoying myself.

I love educating people.

I guess I inherited that gene from my mother.

She was a school teacher.

Her first job, I believe, was a school teacher in Princeton, West Virginia,

and then they moved from there, and she decided to be a full-time mom until I got into the

third grade, and then she started teaching again at the same school, and she taught the sixth grade

until she decided or really was invited to become a television teacher.

So this was the cutting edge of education, and believe it or not, it was in Canola County,

which is the county where the capital of West Virginia is.

Do you know what capital West Virginia is?

That's right, Charleston.

You know, I always kid people.

They say, well, we're going to Charleston on vacation.

I said, really?

West Virginia?

They say, no, not West Virginia.

South Carolina.

Oh, okay.

But my mom became a television teacher, had her own show,

and I think I don't remember what grade it was for, but that's when they started installing

TVs in classrooms, and she did that, and then we moved to Tennessee.

My dad decided to become a Chevrolet dealer, and so bought a Chevrolet dealership in Greenville,

Tennessee, and then mom went to ETSU and worked with those people to develop their educational TV,

and so she became a TV teacher here.

Her name of her show was called, now get this, Banana Boats to Bangkok.

Now, what kind of name was that?

Well, apparently it was a hit.

The kids loved it, and it was all about the world.

She just did all kinds of worldly, maybe that's the wrong term,

geographic and cultural education.

And maybe that's where I got my gene for doing a podcast slash radio show.

So today, I do want to talk a little bit about three classes of people.

I know you're not supposed to do that.

You're not supposed to put people in boxes, but when it comes to their car lives,

and really understanding the ins and outs of how to buy a car,

how to determine the value of a car, you know, when it starts making a noise,

what's wrong with it?

But I'm zeroing in on one thing, and one thing only, and that's oil changes.

Doesn't that sound fascinating?

No, that's how I developed.

I was going down the road and I saw this quick loop place.

It triggered me, didn't make me angry.

It just triggered me to look at my odometer, which I did.

And then I looked up at that little sticker in the upper left hand corner of my windshield.

You know what that is, right?

That's what the oil change people are supposed to do.

They're supposed to put a sticker up there and write the date that you had it changed,

and when in time and mileage you are due for your next oil change.

So I looked up there and I've got 700 miles left.

Now, thank you quick loop place for prompting me to take a look, but I really didn't need that

prompt because I do that instinctively.

I change my oil every 5,000 miles and rotate my tires at the same time.

And I let them do a multi-point inspection on my vehicle so I know if I need a cabin air filter

or just an air filter or I need to maybe flush my cooling system.

You know, make sure my air pressure is good.

My tires have good tread depth.

At our dealership, you can drive into the service drive and we have a scanner

that shoots about 50 lasers at your front wheels.

And it tells us immediately if your vehicle is out of alignment.

So we don't have to actually put it on an alignment rack,

but you do unless you come to Gateway.

So I'm going to describe to you three groups of people, three classes of people.

The first class is the competent and aware.

And I'm not bragging, but that would be me.

I am aware of my vehicle.

I know what it sounds like when it's running great.

And I know what it sounds like when it's not running great.

I know what it feels like.

Do you know if it starts making noise, what that might be?

Of course you don't.

Most people don't, but that doesn't make you incompetent.

You know, if you're competent, then you know that maintenance is something that you're required to do.

You want to protect that expensive investment.

Too many people treat their car like, you know, some appliance and it's not.

It's important.

It's an investment.

You need to treat it like an investment.

Just like you do your stock portfolio if you have one.

You know, occasionally you look at it, see how it's doing.

If it's not doing good, you call your broker or whatever.

Or if you don't have an investment, then maybe you just got some money in the bank

and you want to see what kind of interest you're earning on it.

And you might need to move it to a money market account or something like that.

That's being competent, but it's also being aware.

And I think that this is the group that I want everybody that listens to this program to be in,

competent and aware.

Well, what's the other class?

Well, that would be people who are careless and confused.

So they drive by the quick oil place.

And if they do notice it, it's a miracle.

But if they do, they say, I wonder when I had my last oil change.

And they look up in the corner of their windshield if they have ever experienced that.

And there's nothing up there.

And then they forget about it.

And then maybe later on, they think about it again.

Or their husband or the wife says, honey, have you had the oil changed in the vehicle lately?

Yeah, I think I did.

I'm not sure.

Did you write a check for it or something?

Or do you have any kind of a record now?

Well, don't have any kind of a record.

We don't like get a copy of the receipt and stick it in the glove box.

That would be too difficult, wouldn't it?

So that's this class, careless and confused.

Is that you?

I hope not.

What's the third class, Lenny?

Well, these are the people that are clueless and lost.

They run into a friend say, hey, I like your car.

Where do you get it serviced?

Serviced?

What do you mean?

Well, where do you get your oil change?

What?

You mean you have to change the oil?

I thought it was permanent.

I'll be back in just one minute.

All righty then, I am back.

My nephew, Max, he's my general sales manager and my finance manager

that works here at Gateway Ford and Gateway Nissan.

They're in Las Vegas.

No, they're not gambling.

Well, they might be.

I'm not sure about that.

They might go to the roulette wheel.

I was in Vegas with Max.

I don't know.

Was it last year?

We went to a Ford meeting and he had $100 in his pocket.

And we were walking past the roulette wheel.

He said, I'm going to put $100 on black.

Really?

Yep.

I might as well get it all done at once.

So he put $100 on black.

It hit black and he had $200.

I said, okay, let's go.

Let's go up to room.

Nope, putting $200 on black.

What?

Don't do that.

Yep, I'm doing it.

So he puts $200 on black.

Wins again.

I said, okay, we're done.

You got $400.

Let's go to the room.

Nope.

One more time.

Put $400 on black.

One again.

$800.

I said, Max, from now on, I'm letting you gamble my money.

But I did talk him into stopping at that point.

So maybe he's doing that.

I hope not.

I sent him out there to learn something.

So the NADA convention is, well, that stands for the National Auto Dealers Association.

They are located in McLean, Virginia.

They are a huge organization.

They represent all new car dealers in the United States.

And most new car dealers join NADA because of all the resources that they provide to

help us run our businesses better.

One of the coolest things that they do is they have this thing called NADA 20 groups.

And what that is, is they put together 20 dealers or many groups of 20 different dealers

that are the same size.

They meet like four times a year.

They come to a vacation location or whatever.

Most of the guys bring their wives.

Many of them don't.

And they have regional 20 groups where you can meet with 20 dealers that are from your basic,

you know, maybe the Southeast region.

Sometimes it really, I've been in 20 groups that had dealers from all over the country.

And really, it's hard for me to relate to a dealer in Washington state or in California.

So my favorite 20 group to be in was one that had dealers from the South.

And dealers that were kind of rural like we are, you know, we're not in a big town.

A population of our town is 16,000.

So if I'm sitting in a room with 20 other four dealers, I want them all to be pretty

much the same size as me so that I can do some apples to apples comparisons.

What do we compare?

We compare our financial statements.

We send our financial statement every month to NADA.

They put it into something called a composite.

And it is a, I'd say it's probably half an inch thick.

And what it does, it takes every single one of the 20 dealers

and it lists every single line of their financial statement.

And you get to compare yourself to every single other dealer.

I mean, that includes how much money you have in the bank,

how many cars you sold last month, how many new cars, used cars,

how much you made on them, how much you lost on them.

You know, what your customer satisfaction scores are.

I mean it, it compares everything.

And you go to these meetings and it is just wall to wall conversation all day long.

And you try to come up with ideas to improve your business.

That's one of the things NADA does.

But this convention that my nephew is at is, is huge.

I mean, there will be, I would say 35,000 people come to this convention

because the dealers send their employees.

Sometimes they take their wives and there's a bunch of new car dealers in this country.

They have this big convention floor.

And so Max called me.

He said, Lane, you won't believe this.

I said, what?

He said, I'm walking down the aisle on the convention floor and there is a robot walking towards me.

And it has a basket with oil filter, five quarts of oil, an air filter.

And it's demonstrating the fact that it can take parts from the parts department

to the mechanics so that they don't have to leave their stall.

I said, Max, I didn't anticipate that one.

You know, we've got all this AI stuff going on, artificial intelligence.

And it is, it's not seeping into the car business.

It is a literal Niagara Falls of information coming into the car business to help us

run our businesses more efficiently.

And I'm not surprised I use chat GPT.

And I took a picture several months ago of the front page of my financial statement

and I just said, analyze this.

And I mean, faster than you could snap your fingers.

Here's this complete, like three page long analysis of every line on my financial statement.

Stuff that I, most of it, I was aware of.

There were a couple of surprises in there.

You know, not bad surprises, but it just said you might want to look at this

because this is below industry averages.

I mean, I was just shocked.

A comparable thing for you as a homeowner or a consumer running your family business,

you could take pictures of your bank statements.

And if it listed the actual people that you were paying and the amounts,

it could analyze that for you.

So you're spending too much on going out to eat.

And it's just amazing what it can do.

And we're just scratching the surface now.

Are you afraid of that?

Boy, my wife is.

She is anti-chat GPT, anti-AI.

She said it's just something that she's resisting.

And I've talked to a lot of people that are.

But I'm not.

I'm sorry.

If that offends you, I am embracing it.

Because I just feel like it's, it's coming, whether we like it or not.

And those of us who learn how to use it the best to help us make our businesses better,

make our lives better, possibly, then those are the ones that are going to be

benefit and the others are going to be left behind.

Now you may say, well, that's, I'm fine being left behind.

Well, you probably still have a flip phone and that's okay too.

And you have a very simple life and that's beautiful.

But I'm running a business and I have to make it as efficient as possible

and profitable as possible.

That's what business is supposed to do.

And so if I can use chat GPT to help with that, then I will.

But it's not just chat GPT.

There's so many companies that are getting involved in this.

I was listening to CNBC as I was driving from a cardiologist appointment this morning and it was

talking about how the AI company stocks are going up like a rocket ship.

And the traditional software company stocks are going down.

So for example, if you're a programmer, you write computer programs,

you won't need to buy software.

Now this is a little bit way, it's not too far off, but it's, it's out there

and it's probably sooner than we think.

But you won't have to write a software program to do something.

All you have to do is tell the AI, the artificial intelligence app that you're using

to write a program to do this function.

And within seconds there it will be.

Now is that going to put people out of work?

Yes.

But hopefully there will be other jobs

that people will be able to do.

But one of the most important things is to figure out how to use artificial intelligence, AI.

Figure it out, especially if you're young or if you're still in the business world, which I am.

And so I'm going to figure out ways to use it.

Don't look at chat GPT or any of these AI programs as something that's going to make all of our decisions for us.

It's just going to help us make our decisions faster.

We still have to interpret the information.

Well, how do you know if it's right?

Well, you don't.

How do you know what you read on Google is right?

I mean, you have to do your due diligence.

I just, I'm looking at a piece of property right now.

It's 1.48 acres.

It's commercial property.

And I have a plan for a building that I'm going to put on it.

And I'm, well, I've got some other plans for it too.

I don't really want to get into it.

But still, it is property that I'm going to turn into a profitable venture.

Okay. Well, I had chat GPT analyze the property and I told what size of building I wanted on it.

And the other uses that I was going to have and had it analyze the space that was there

to make sure that it was adequate.

Now, it took a little bit longer time.

I had to download a picture of the property and give it the acreage and the dimensions.

It was already on that, on the diagram.

And it took it about, I guess, 30 to 45 seconds to come up with this diagram,

showing me exactly what I wanted to do.

And then all the different pluses and minuses of arranging it this way.

And so, you know, could I have done that myself?

Yeah, probably would have taken an hour to do it.

But it did it in 45 seconds.

And it's a good plan.

And it's probably basically what I'm going to do.

So basically, I'm trying to be competent and aware.

Because I don't want to be clueless and lost.

That doesn't sound like a recipe for a successful venture.

Okay. I'll be back in just one minute.

Okay. I am back. Something that's just hit my news feed just now.

Catalytic converter theft drives bipartisan push for federal action.

What's that all about?

Do you know what a catalytic converter is?

Well, that's a little, well, that's a box, let's say, a metal box.

It's kind of flat.

So it's not really a box, but it's attached and part of your exhaust system.

And what it does is it has a chemical reaction that goes on

inside that catalytic converter, whereas some people around here call them

Cadillac converters.

And it basically changes the exhaust into something that's less damaging to the environment.

They've been around for a long time.

They've been cleaning exhaust fumes for probably 40 to 50 years now.

Well, people are stealing them.

You may have heard this, but it's a big problem.

Catalytic converter theft remains a costly and disruptive problem for dealerships

and consumers nationwide.

So they're, they're coming to car lots like mine and stealing catalytic converters.

You know, how do we know when that happens?

Well, we go out fire up the car and it sounds like a NASCAR race car.

We haven't had that happen yet.

Knock on wood, but it's a big problem.

And so why do they want to steal something that's a part of the exhaust system?

Because of what's in the catalytic converter, platinum, palladium, and rhodium.

Rhodium is the big one, though.

I've never heard of rhodium.

It takes two to three minutes to steal one with basically a cordless saw.

There is no VIN number, no serial number.

It's very hard to trace.

It sits outside underneath the vehicle.

So, you know, a thief, all they have to do is lay down on their back and start sawing away.

And it comes out in just seconds.

And a thief might get anywhere from $80 to $300 each from a shady buyer.

What does it cost to replace it?

Between $1,500 and $3,000 per repair.

So, you don't want it stolen.

It's not covered by your warranty.

Hopefully, it's covered by your insurance if you have comprehensive insurance.

So, if you just have liability, you're not covered.

So, what can you do about it?

Well, parking a garage or near a wall or buy a dog, you know, just attach him to the

mirror and maybe he'll scare him off.

But it is a serious problem and I hope it never happens to you.

But that's why they're stealing catalytic converters.

And now you know the rest of the story.

Who said that?

That's right.

The wonderful broadcaster Paul Harvey.

And if you never heard of him, just go listen.

You're probably, well, if you're under 40 or maybe 50,

you probably never have heard of Paul Harvey.

But that's how he always ended his broadcast.

And I'll end this one with my cell phone number 423-552-2020.

Send me a text message of anything you want to know about cars.

Send me your VIN number and I'll do a complete history.

You know, like if you're thinking about buying one and you want to know

if it's ever been wrecked or anything, you can pull a car fax,

but you're going to have to pay for it.

If you send it to me, it's free and you can't beat that price anywhere.

Well, thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.

When it comes to cars, there are three, distinct classes of car owners....find out which class you exist in

About this episode

Nissan

Ford

Chevrolet

oil change

multi-point inspection

cabin air filter

cooling system

tread depth

alignment

NADA

oil filter

parts department

catalytic converter

rhodium

platinum

palladium

cordless saw

VIN number

repair costs

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