A pre-purchase inspection is when a mechanic looks at a used car before you buy it. It helps you catch problems you might not notice during a quick look or test drive.
This is the name of the Ford dealership where the host says he records. Since the show is about dealer pricing, it helps listeners understand the context.
Employee pricing is a special discount for people connected to the company. The host’s point is that it’s a set price, not something you have to “win” through bargaining.
A factory invoice is paperwork from the car company to the dealer. The host says the special employee price shows up on that document, which helps confirm the deal is real.
A flat fee is a set amount paid for a service, regardless of the final sale price. Here, the host explains that Ford pays the dealer a flat fee for selling the car, which helps explain how the dealer can still make money even at a fixed employee price.
A “lifetime powertrain warranty” is a promise to cover major mechanical parts for as long as you own the car. The details can vary, so it’s important to read what’s actually covered.
Sales tax is the government tax you pay when you buy the car. The host is pointing out that taxes may still be based on the full car price, not just the smaller amount you pay upfront.
The Nissan Armada is a big Nissan SUV. The host is using it as an example to explain how dealer/manufacturer deals like rebates and financing can work.
“Buy down the rate” means someone pays extra so your loan interest rate is lower. That extra money usually comes from incentives, so you may give up rebate cash to get the lower rate.
“Captives” are the carmaker’s own financing companies. Because they’re connected to the brand, they can bundle incentives and loan terms together to make financing look better.
Ford MotorCredit is the financing company connected to Ford. It helps Ford offer special loan deals that can be tied to the car’s price and incentives.
“Incentive dollars” are promotional money from the carmaker to help you buy the car. They can be used as cash back, or they can be redirected to make financing cheaper.
“0% financing” means you’re not paying interest on the loan. But the podcast is warning that the deal may still be paid for by giving up rebates or other discounts.
“Total amount financed” is the amount of money you’re actually borrowing for the car. If the interest rate is 0%, your monthly payment is basically that total divided by how many months you’re financing.
This is about the common dealer/shop tactic of recommending extra services that you might not actually need. The host is arguing that you should only do certain flushes when there’s a real reason, not just because it’s offered.
A cooling system flush is when the shop drains the old coolant and replaces it, sometimes after cleaning out buildup. It can help if the coolant is old or dirty, but you shouldn’t do it just because a dealer suggests it.
Your brake system uses brake fluid to help your brakes work. Over time the fluid can pick up moisture, which can reduce braking performance, so some cars need periodic brake fluid service.
A transmission flush is when a shop tries to replace transmission fluid more aggressively than a simple drain-and-fill. The host is saying it’s usually not needed and can sometimes cause problems if the transmission isn’t due for service.
This is a maintenance job where the old power-steering fluid is cleaned out and replaced with fresh fluid. Some shops recommend it, but it’s not always required unless there’s a problem or the fluid is known to be dirty.
Air pressure is how much air is in your tires. If it’s too low (or different from tire to tire), the car can feel wrong and the tires can wear out faster.
A pre-delivery inspection is what a dealer does to make sure a new car is ready before you get it. It often includes checking things like tire pressure and fluid levels.
Fluids are the liquids that keep different parts of the car working. Some need to be checked and replaced on a schedule so the car doesn’t overheat or wear out.
Front-end alignment is when a shop adjusts the angles of your front wheels. If it’s off, your tires can wear out faster and the car may feel like it’s pulling or not tracking straight.
Term
whining noise
A whining noise is a sound your car makes that can point to a problem. Where and when it happens—like at idle or when you accelerate—helps a mechanic figure out what’s wrong.
The service department is the part of the dealership that does repairs and maintenance. The hosts are warning that it’s possible to get pushed into unnecessary work or add-ons.
The selling price is what the car costs before financing and add-ons. Even if that number looks good, the dealer might still make money elsewhere in the deal.
Loan terms are the details of your car financing. Things like the interest rate and how long you pay the loan can change the total amount you end up paying.
Aftermarket items are add-ons the dealer tries to sell that aren’t built into the car from the factory. They can include extras like warranties or protection packages, and it’s worth checking if you actually need them.
The “finance office” is where the dealership finalizes paperwork and sells finance-related products, such as warranties, protection plans, and other add-ons. It’s also where dealers may try to steer the deal toward higher-profit options even when the vehicle price is discounted.
A trade-in is your current car being used to help pay for the next one. If you don’t know what your car is really worth, the dealer can offer a number that makes the deal look better than it is.
Negotiation is the process of working out the final deal numbers. It matters because the dealer can adjust different parts of the deal to make it seem cheaper than it really is.
Monthly payments are what you pay every month to pay off the car. Some dealers try to talk only about the monthly number, even if the overall deal is more expensive.
Gap insurance helps if your car gets totaled and the insurance payout doesn’t cover what you still owe on the loan. It can protect you from having to pay the difference out of pocket.
An extended warranty is extra coverage you can buy to help pay for repairs after the original warranty ends. It costs extra, so you should check exactly what it covers before agreeing.
“Lumping it all together” means the dealer combines the car price and extra add-ons into one big deal. That can hide the real cost of each item, so it’s harder to negotiate.
An extended warranty is extra coverage you can buy after the car’s original warranty runs out. If something covered breaks, the warranty can help pay for the repairs.
Financing means you’re paying for the car with a loan. If you cancel after the loan is already in place, the money you get back may be used to reduce what you still owe on that loan.
The loan term is how long you have to pay off the car loan. If the refund reduces your loan balance, you may end up paying it off sooner than the original schedule.
Aftermarket products are add-ons made by other companies, not the car brand itself. In this context, the host is saying the dealer might try to tack these on to your purchase without you realizing it.
General Motors is a big car company. The host is talking about whether GM will join other automakers offering employee-style discounts.
LIVE
Hey folks, Lenny Lawson, D-Car Guru, and your host this morning for at least 23 minutes.
Well, it may not be morning where you are, but it is to the radio show listeners who
have been putting up with me for the last 28 years.
And so, matter of fact, one of them said, hey Lenny, well they sent me an email.
And I'm paraphrasing, hey Lenny.
Why?
Why?
And how do you turn your radio show into a podcast?
And that was a pretty easy one to answer.
I had no clue how to do it.
I researched it, found out, well you need a couple things.
You need a computer that has some type of sound mixing capability.
I had that, my Apple iMac.
And then you need a high quality microphone.
Of course, I needed that for the radio program as well.
And then you need a preamp.
My particular brand is called, what is this called, Focusrite, F-O-C-U-S-R-I-T-E, Focusrite.
So I plug my high quality sterling microphone into this preamp, and the preamp uses a USB
cord to plug into the back of my computer.
And then I can sit here in my office at Gateway Ford and do this, do a radio program.
You know another important thing is to have something, well an important point is to have
some type of subject that people will be interested in.
Now, I've got over 550 podcasts online.
So you can go to Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, a bunch of other places and find
them.
You can just Google my car guru podcast and it will come up.
The question is why would all these other people all over the country be interested
in something to do with cars?
Well, I think people just like to listen to other people talk sometimes.
I told you that there's this guy, I think it's Illinois.
He flew to Greenville to buy a car for me because he liked the program.
Why did he like the program?
Because it put him to sleep.
He has tinnitus or tinnitus, whatever you call it.
The ringing in the ears and he said, Lenny, your voice is relaxing, isn't that weird?
I mean, I guess I should be thankful that it's relaxing.
I hope I get my points across before people go to sleep.
I'm listening to an audio book right now and it's a really interesting book.
I love it, but I despise the guy's voice that's reading it.
You talk about a snoozer, so I hope I'm not that bad.
But anyway, let's talk about cars and the car business.
The car business got really good towards the end of last month.
People got over the Iran war.
Gas prices are still impacting a lot of people, especially folks that are on a tight budget.
And I hope it gets resolved.
I heard something today that said that the oil is flowing again.
And there's plenty of oil out there.
These price shocks are artificial.
You realize that, right?
It's just people taking profits is what it is.
It's not real.
There's just as much oil as there was when the war started.
It's just backed up a little bit.
And I guess there's some profit taking to be had, but that should let up.
I was tickled to death that Ford just announced employee pricing is back.
Now, some of you may say, well, that's just a gimmick.
No, it's not a gimmick.
If you worked for the Ford Motor Company for, well, I mean, you could be working for them now,
or you could be retired from them.
But if you were either working before or now, you get a special price if you go buy a new Ford.
It is a fixed price.
And it is several thousand dollars less than I even pay for cars from Ford.
When I buy them from Ford, order them, buy them, put them on the lot.
My cost is more significantly more than the employee prices.
And so they get a really good deal.
Well, for the time being, I think until July 4th, you can get that same deal.
It's actually printed on the factory invoice that we get from Ford.
And it tells us you have to sell this car for this price.
Well, how do you make money, Lenny?
Well, Ford pays us a fee, a flat fee for selling the car.
Isn't that great?
I just think that's wonderful.
Wouldn't it be great if you could walk into a car dealership,
and everybody pays the same price, and everybody gets a great deal?
It's not based on your negotiating ability.
I can hear you saying, yes, let's do that.
Well, you can right now until July 4th at a Ford dealer, preferably Gateway Ford.
In Greville, Green County, and I like to say this, where you save a lot of green,
I'm also throwing in a $250 gas card until gas prices come down.
And let's see, I've got two years of complimentary maintenance and a lifetime powertrain warranty.
See, as a Ford dealer, other than, well, I get the car from Ford, and I'm an Nissan dealer also,
and I get the car from them, I pay for it, and then I can sell it for whatever I want to.
I can lose money on every one of them, I can make money on them.
It's just the Wild Wild West out there.
Now, if Ford or Nissan says, well, there's a $2,500 rebate on a particular vehicle,
then the customer gets that.
We take it off the top, and then we report the vehicle sold,
and then Ford or Nissan sends us the extra $2,500.
It's real money.
And in the state of Tennessee, I don't know what it's like where you live,
you can actually use that as down payment on a car.
So you have to pay taxes on it, basically.
I mean, just like you would if you were to pay $10,000 down on a $50,000 car,
you're paying sales tax on $50,000.
It doesn't matter how much your down payment reduces it.
Does that make sense?
So the rebate is down payment.
Now, they also offer special financing, like 0% or 2.9 or 3.9 or whatever.
Now, for example, I priced a Nissan Armada to a guy.
He's a loyal Nissan customer, and he currently owns a Nissan,
so he gets an additional $1,500 plus another $1,500 that everybody would get,
plus he can get anywhere from 2.0 to 3.9 to 4.9% financing.
It's 3.9% financing, a good rate right now.
You're darn tooting.
That's a really good number.
I mean, if you go to any bank, it's way more than that.
Is zero a better deal?
Yeah, but what kind of rebate are you giving up to get that?
So how did the captives, like Ford MotorCredit and Nissan MotorCredit,
how do they offer zero, Lenny, while they buy down the rate?
They actually shift incentive dollars from the car making division
to the car financing division of that company.
It's just a transfer of funds, and it's basically taking money
that they would pay out and rebate, and they send it over to their buddies
over at the financing division so that they can basically buy down the interest rate.
Is it really 0%?
Yeah, it really is.
I mean, you just take the total amount financed and divide it by the term.
It's really easy to figure a monthly payment when the interest rate is zero.
It's not that hard when it's 2.9 because you just use one of those
one of those payment apps all over the computers.
OK, I'm going to take my first break.
I'll be back here in just one minute.
Well, for those of you listening to the podcast,
that was a whole lot less than one minute.
For those who are listening to the radio program, it was almost exactly one minute.
So we were talking about how do you do?
Why do you do a podcast?
Why it's a mission for me?
I could monetize it.
I could probably make a whopping six or seven dollars a month.
Enough to buy.
Whatever, six or seven dollars will buy a whopper at Burger King, maybe.
Or I can just do it as a as a mission.
What do you do it as a mission?
Because people need to know this stuff to improve their car lives.
I truly believe that there's too much money wasted.
There's too many people taking their cars in for service
and buying all these flushes, flush this and flush that.
And, you know, they just really don't need to do it.
And I try to educate them on that.
What ones do you need to do?
Cooling system flush.
Do you need to flush your brake system?
Yeah, if it's been sitting for 20 years, I would.
Do you need to flush your transmission?
Heck, no.
Don't do that.
You'll just cause transmission problems.
What else?
I don't know.
There's other flow.
Oh, I heard a power steering system flush.
Give me a break.
You don't need to do that.
See, this is the kind of stuff.
You know, people, well, it's just like I jumped into a Nissan Armada today,
sitting out there on the lot.
And I'm very sensitive to the way a car feels.
I'm sorry, I just am.
Not emotionally, but, you know, how it handles and so forth.
And I just I hit a couple of bumps and I said something ain't right.
So I flipped over to the screen to where it's where it gave me the air pressures.
Had 48 pounds of pressure in every tire.
How much is it supposed to have?
Thirty five.
So my my perceptions, my my central nervous system picked up on something.
And I was not happy about it.
I immediately took a picture of it as I'm going down the road,
sent it to my service manager and I said, who P.D.
had this vehicle?
That means pre-delivery inspection.
He looked it up.
He said such and such did.
I said, will you tell such and such to check the air pressure in the tires,
please, you know, I don't want to sell a new vehicle to a customer.
And they're bouncing down the road and wondering, you know,
this thing doesn't ride very good and all, you know,
the only problem is the fact that we didn't check the air pressure first.
You know, it's really complicated, folks.
It just is.
I mean, there's so many different systems on your vehicle,
things that need to be checked, you know, fluids that need to be changed,
filters that need to be changed, things that need to be adjusted.
Front end alignments, you know, people just don't think about that.
What do I need to do that?
It's $120. Yeah, but it will save your tires.
The last longer.
These are the kind of things that you can learn in the My Car Guru guidebook.
It's for it's how many pay I get confused between it
and the teen driver experience guidebook.
Let's see. My Car Guru guidebook is 32 pages of automotive brilliance.
That's right. That's my slogan.
And so you just send me your email address and I'll send it to you.
And that'll give you a kind of what would they call those things?
Cliff notes.
That'll give you the Cliff notes version of the My Car Guru podcast.
And then if you have any serious questions and you can do like the gentleman
did a little while ago, sent me an email, pretty long one about car trouble that he's having.
I think it was. Oh, yeah, he was hearing a whining noise.
See, that's normally my grandkids, but he was talking about
this was when his grandkids were not in the vehicle, I guess.
And it was making a whining noise and we ended up doing something to it.
I think at about 30,000 miles fixed it now it has 80,000 miles on it's doing it again.
What do I do, Lenny?
Well, that's that's that's for me to solve and him not to worry about.
So that's why I do this. You got to have a mission.
You know, I don't know what your mission is. You need to find one.
Maybe it's just be nicer to people around you.
Everybody that you encounter, you smile at them.
You intentionally brighten people's day.
That would be a great mission.
You know, I try to do that as well.
But the main thing I try to do well with this program is to enlighten and educate
and keep people from wasting money, not just in a service department, but behind a car.
We've talked about all the different traps that you can fall into and the importance of the four targets
and hitting them and doing the best you can.
Now, when there's employee pricing,
you don't have to worry about target number one, negotiating the selling price of the vehicle.
See, these are four things that you negotiate separately.
Price of the vehicle, the trade, the terms of the loan and the aftermarket items
that they they're going to try to sell you in the finance office with employee pricing.
You don't have to worry about getting a good deal because it's already a great deal.
No problem there better than you could ever negotiate.
I'm telling you.
And then you can still get burned on the trade in if you're not ready for that.
And you don't really understand the value of your vehicle before you walk in there
because they may hit you with a number and you look at your wife and she looks at you and
and you both say, I don't know.
That sounds fine to me and you and your $3,000 off.
That can easily happen.
And, you know, you're due that three thousand,
but you're not going to get it from some of these who's.
And so you just have to say, well, folks, that's I'm sorry.
That's not enough for our car.
You're going to have to do this.
And then you've got a negotiation on your hands.
And then it's time to start talking about the terms of the loan and what the monthly
payments are going to be without any aftermarket items such as extended
warranties and gap insurance and all that stuff.
So critical to keep those four things separate.
Because what the the crooks try to do is to lump it all together.
I've got a guy up the road.
That's they're the worst payment packers in the business that I've ever seen.
And what I mean by that is that they try to close everybody on monthly payment
and they don't and the people just don't know what they're paying for the car.
They give them a little flash card at the end.
And that's what their paperwork is stored on.
There's no paperwork.
They hand them this one lady was handed one of those.
And she said, I thought that was the spare keys.
And this just happened last week.
She said, no, I didn't buy an extended warranty.
She came into our dealership.
She didn't buy the vehicle from us, bought it from our competitor up the road
and came to us, though, to get it serviced.
And that's fine, you know, we'll service anybody.
And she wanted to buy an extended warranty.
And we wanted to know, well, do you have your paperwork?
We need to to get some information off your paperwork.
And she said, no, they didn't give me any paperwork.
They gave me this.
And well, we said your paperwork's on that.
That's a flash card.
And she said, or whatever you call it, storage things, you know,
a little miniature card that that looks like a credit card, basically.
And a little USB pops out of it.
You plug it in your computer and voila, there's your paperwork.
She bought an extended warranty from them, paid $5,000 for it.
Something that I could have sold for $1,800.
Yep. Did she ever buy an extended warranty?
She said, well, can I cancel it?
And we said, yeah, you can cancel it.
But it's not going to affect your monthly payment because it'll just
come off the end of the loan.
See, a lot of people don't don't understand that.
They they buy something they didn't intend to buy.
They go and cancel it, expecting a refund.
Well, they'll get refund, but the refund will go to the lender
who has the vehicle financed and it will come off the end of the loan.
So instead of paying the vehicle off in 84 months, you'll pay it off in 80 or 70.
You know, it's not a great way to conduct your business to get to fall into that trap.
And that's what that's my mission.
That's what I want to do is help people avoid that.
I just wish I could reach more people.
I mean, I reach a bunch.
I mean, there's thousands upon thousands of downloads all over the country
and in different parts of the world.
Amazing. It's just amazing what the Internet can do.
And you think that life would be a little different in Indonesia or
Australia, South Africa, France, you know, all these different places
where people have downloaded this show.
But apparently it's not.
And a lot of them can understand East Tennessee English.
Imagine that I'll be back in just one minute.
OK, I am back.
So if you have something interesting to talk about, you've got a microphone,
you've got a Focusrite preamp, a computer, you can have a podcast.
What else do you need?
Well, you need somebody that can push the podcast out there to the world.
I use a company called Buzz Sprout.
And I did some research on the Internet, found out that they're a good host
and they can push it to all the most popular sites that Google
and Apple podcast and Spotify and all of those.
And they make it really easy.
They archive everything.
They also use AI to do a transcript of the entire podcast.
Every single one of them has a transcript that you can read.
So that's pretty good.
And if it's really, really interesting and you have a massive, massive following,
then you can actually make money doing it.
A lot of people try that.
Most people are unsuccessful.
So I don't even try.
I just try to reach my local people through the local radio station in talk radio.
And then and then I do the podcast and I get all the feedback
and all the reward that I need is when somebody sends me a letter saying,
thank you, you helped me, you saved me money.
You told me something I didn't know.
You educated me on how the engine works.
I wish my husband had done that.
No, they didn't say that.
So anyway, my other point is the employee pricing thing.
Now, if you live close enough to do business with me, I would appreciate it.
That's that's great.
But if you don't and they offer employee pricing in your neck of the woods
at a Ford dealership, that's that's a real deal.
OK, however, the dealership can totally screw it up.
If they are, you know, the bad guys, how would they do it?
They'll give you less for your trade in than it's worth.
They won't show you the actual employee price on the invoice.
Maybe they make one up.
They can get in serious trouble doing that.
But a lot of a lot of these sales managers and salespeople,
they don't care the dealers in Boca Raton or Raton, Florida.
He's not even anywhere near the dealership.
He comes up maybe once every six months and his employees,
as long as they're sending checks to him, he's fine.
That's not who you want to deal with.
But I mean, you'll probably recognize it if you read the my car guru guidebook.
Send me your email address to 423-552-2020.
I'll send you a copy of the guidebook.
And if you have a teen driver or somebody is getting ready to become a teen driver,
you need to get the get a copy of the teen driver experience workbook.
You won't get to come to my seminar.
Well, I guess you could.
I haven't announced my next one, but you can at least go through the guidebook
and it will give you some great pointers to tell your teens.
I mean, you could have a little class of your own.
I'll even coach you on it if you want to call me.
423-552-2020.
And I'll send you a copy of that guidebook as well.
So the other things when you go into that dealership ways,
they would screw up the employee prices to sell you a bunch of aftermarket
products that you don't know about and put it on some kind of a flash card.
And you have no idea what you bought.
So you got to keep your eye on the four targets.
You just don't have to really pay attention to the first one
because the negotiation done with done for you.
Sorry, not done with you.
And then if General Motors might come out with one, I'm sure they will.
They have to respond.
But employee pricing is is a very competitive thing to do.
And it's a very good thing for the general public.
And I think Ford being the first one to do it is a great
patriotic thing to do that they're doing through July 4th.
That's wonderful.
Well, thanks for listening to this edition of My Car Guru.
Like I say, if you have any questions, send me an email to Lenny Lawson 2020
at gmail.com or send me a text to 423-552-2020 and I'll see you next time.
About this episode
Lenny breaks down Ford employee pricing and why it can be a genuine deal, while warning that the real games often show up in the trade-in, financing, and finance-office add-ons. He explains that the selling price may be fixed, but buyers still need to watch the other three negotiation points closely. Along the way, he shares examples of warranty markups, rebate handling, and a few service tips, including strong opinions on flushes.
