This is a car dealership where the price on the window is the final price, and you cannot negotiate. It is designed to make buying a car as simple as buying groceries, but many shoppers still prefer to try and get a discount.
The Bronco Sport is a smaller, more city-friendly version of the rugged Ford Bronco. It looks like a tough off-roader but drives smoothly like a regular SUV.
This is an extra sticker a car dealer puts next to the official factory price tag. It usually lists extra things the dealer added—like paint protection or security systems—to charge you more money.
This is the department at a car dealership that answers internet inquiries and phone calls. Their main job is to answer your initial questions and get you to come into the dealership.
The Rogue is Nissan's popular small SUV. It is comfortable, spacious, and is getting a new hybrid version that drives like an electric car but runs on gas.
The Jeep Wrangler is a classic utility vehicle made by Jeep that is famous for having a roof and doors that you can take completely off. The Rubicon is a special, more expensive version of the Wrangler that comes with extra heavy-duty parts designed for climbing over large rocks and tough terrain. It is a very popular vehicle for outdoor enthusiasts and people who like its rugged style.
Most trucks and large SUVs are built with the back end slightly higher than the front. A leveling kit is a suspension part that raises the front so the vehicle looks completely flat and even.
In this type of hybrid, the gasoline engine never actually turns the wheels. Instead, the engine acts like a portable generator, making electricity to charge a battery that powers electric motors to drive the car.
LIVE
Hey folks, Lenny Lawson, the car guru, hey, something that I've been playing with that
I think that some of you may be interested in.
If you're old like me, you probably have a lot of old family pictures, most of which
are in black and white, and it's amazing what you can do with those pictures now.
You can actually turn them into a motion picture, actually get some movement out of those
long-sense past relatives of yours. It is kind of creepy, but kind of awesome too.
But one of the most interesting things I've done is to colorize some of these pictures.
And I've seen a lot of that done on TV, you know, where they colorize the World War II films and
stuff like that, and really they look a little weird. But I did it this morning with ChatGPT,
you know, AI. So I found this old picture of a car that my grandfather built.
Yes, he and his brother could not afford to buy a car. They lived in near Princeton, West Virginia,
the very southern tip of West Virginia, and they couldn't afford to buy a new car or a used car,
so they built a car from parts out of a junkyard. Well, I'm blessed with the picture of that car,
and so I colorized it, and it's just so overwhelmingly good. I cannot believe it.
So if you have old pictures that you want to bring to life, then download the app,
ChatGPT. You can do it on a laptop or a regular computer as well. I do it on my phone.
And then just drop the pictures in there and say, animate this,
or colorize this, and you will be shocked. I've had a lot of fun with it, and you will too.
Okay, let's talk cars. I mentioned yesterday about the new FTC guidelines, Federal Trade Commission,
and how that's in your best interest, protecting you from false advertising.
Well, let me rephrase that. It's supposed to protect you from false advertising.
There's still plenty of folks out there that say, heck with that. We talked about that yesterday as
well. So today I wanted to dig in a little bit as to how did we get here? Why is it this way?
Why is it that a consumer cannot walk into a new car dealer that sells Chevrolets or
Fords or Toyotas or whatever brand, and just be able to see the price, know that the only thing
that's added to it would be sales tax and maybe registration fees, and then be able to pay that
and leave? Why does it have to be an ordeal? Well, here's why. It's because after World War II,
there was a big shortage of cars, okay? They stopped building them from 1941 to 1945.
Well, they started building them again, and there was a huge demand for vehicles from 46 up through
the mid-50s, and the manufacturers could not make enough of them. And so during that period of time,
that's the way it was. You went in a buy a car, you paid a window sticker. Of course,
the window stickers were like $1,200. It wasn't like it was a lot of money. It was a lot of money
back then. But yeah, if you went in to buy a vehicle, you just paid a window sticker. Well,
then there was an economic downturn, and dealers had all these cars on the lots. So they started
discounting vehicles. You had the MSRP, but then you had what the dealer was willing to sell the
vehicle for. And then you had more and more dealers in different communities. At one time,
you could have, you know, in a larger city, let's say a 500,000 population city, you could have
like 68 Chevrolet dealers, and they were all competing for your business.
And so you would have a consumer that would be shopping for a car at one dealership, and he said,
well, I'm just going to get their price, and then I'll go shop someplace else. And they would walk
into the dealership and say, well, I got a better price down the road. And then you had this competitive
discounting that started happening. Well, that led to some unscrupulous behaviors starting to seep
in to the car business on the part of salespeople and managers. It didn't get rampant, though,
until the 70s. And when the 70s came along, that's when rebates started hitting the market.
And there was all kinds of games being played with with pricing. If you fast forward to today,
it is the Wild Wild West for consumers. You know, it's just it's sad that that people can't just
walk in and, you know, that's the price. There have been some car dealerships that have tried to go
one price, meaning that when you walk in, you know, you see a Ford Bronco Sport, for example,
let's say it's $43,000 MSRP, and they have it advertised online for $40,000. Then you go in and
say, well, will you take it less for that? Say, no, we are one price store. We've already discounted
the vehicle, and that's the least that we'll sell it for. And some customers like that, because they
don't have to worry about negotiating. The price has already dropped. But then the vast majority
of people thinking in their heads say, well, you know, maybe I can go someplace else and beat that
a little bit. And that's why one price dealerships don't last very long. Is that the dealership's
fault? I don't think it is. I think it's consumers because they've come to understand the car business
that it's a negotiated price. You know, you don't go into Walmart saying, you know,
I think they're making too much money on this bucket. I'm going to offer them a dollar less
for this bucket. And if you go to the store manager and ask him if he'll sell you that bucket
for a dollar less, he'll say, are you crazy? This isn't a car dealership. This is Walmart.
We already have low prices. And that's exactly what these one price dealers are trying to do.
They're trying to make the buying experience easier for the consumer. But the consumers won't have it.
And the competition, the other dealers that sell the same brand, they feast on it
because they'll beat that deal by one or 200 dollars and the customer will
buy from them. So, you know, you really can't do anything to prevent that. If somebody calls them
once a price, you got to give it to them, especially on the phone. But does it have to be accurate?
Well, apparently not. Because there are many dealers that will give a low ball price. And when
you show up at the dealership, the whole thing changes. Oh, we forgot to mention this or that,
or it has a supplemental window sticker in it, or it's had it, all these accessories added that
are meaningless like paint sealant and fabric shield and all this stuff. So what's a what's a
customer to do who really feels like they need to shop around? Well, I'll tell you how to shop
around effectively here in just one minute. Okay, I am back. So you want the best deal?
Is the best deal always the lowest price? I like to ask that question to some people.
I mean, what is a great deal? Is it the actual transaction price? Or is it the long term living
with this vehicle living with this decision that in the end after four or five years,
you really know then whether it was a good deal or not? What if you buy a car and let's say you
say $500 buying it from ABC Motors? You know, let's say that they're 50 miles away from your home.
So you got what you thought was a great deal. They beat your local dealer by $500.
And so you drive back home. And then, oh shoot, they were supposed to get the floor mats,
you know, we didn't get our floor mats. And so you call the dealership back. Well,
you can't reach them. You know, you call on you, you leave a message and they won't call you back.
And then finally, you give up, drive 50 miles back to the dealership. You go in and ask for
salesperson. Well, he's off today. And then you try to speak to a manager. I was supposed to get
floor mats. Well, they go pull the deal. They look at the paperwork and it doesn't say anything
about extra floor mats. I'm sorry, but you know, according to this, you didn't get extra floor mats.
You didn't pay for extra floor mats. Well, I did. The salesperson said it. I asked for extra floor
mats. I want the rubberized floor mats. I don't like the carpet mats. Well, it doesn't say that
here. So you leave mad. You don't get your floor mats. You drive back 50 miles. And then it's time
for an oil change. And they said if you come back, you get your first oil change for free. You drive
50 miles to get your free oil change. That takes three hours to get it done. Then you drive 50
miles back and you miss your kid's soccer game. Now you tell me, was it worth it saving $500 at
that other dealership? And did you really save it? Did you look at the bottom line numbers and
actually compare the bottom line number to what it was for the dealership in your own home town?
The best deal, in other words, is not always the lowest price. We had a customer that drove down
to Greenville from Bristol, Tennessee, just a week ago. And he had shopped all over the place.
And we had exactly what he wanted. We priced it to him over the phone. And this was through
my BDC, my business development center, which is Katie. She handles all the incoming phone
calls and incoming traffic from the internet. And he said that he had been to several other
dealerships. One in particular had jacked him around so bad that he said he'll never darken
their door again. Of course, we understand that. So he just wanted, we were like the last option
in this region. And he just wanted to make sure that we weren't going to try to screw him over
as well. Well, we don't. We don't do business that way. So where a lot of dealers will not
send you a final number, they will send you a preliminary number. Then you go to the dealership
and everything changes. Well, we send actual sales contracts to people that has the selling price,
the trade value. If we've seen their trade, if we haven't seen their trade, then we,
it's hard to put a value on it. You understand that. But let's say that we've seen it,
they've sent us pictures and we commit to a number. We'll put it on a contract.
Lenny Lawson will sign that when he drives all the way from Bristol to pick up his car,
which he did. The numbers don't change. It's the same number. So when you're doing business
with a dealer 50 miles away, or 100 1000 miles away, you don't have
squat if you don't have a sales contract signed by a manager, preferably the dealer.
But he's probably doesn't work there. He probably owns 50 dealerships and and he just has
a bunch of yeah, who's working for him? I shouldn't say that. You know, lots of them are good.
But you've got to get a sales contract. If you just get a number say, well, we'll sell this
vehicle to you for $10,000 trading difference. And then you get there and then, oh, wait a minute,
you've got to add all this stuff. I'll give you an example. There's a Toyota dealer. I watched this
video. Yeah, it was on TikTok. But there's this guy that calls different dealerships and negotiates
deals for customers that he's that want to buy a car through him. He's like a broker.
He calls and negotiates the deal, then they go in and finalize the deal and pick up the car.
But they have this Toyota dealer that advertises on the only thing they put on their website is MSRP.
Well, it looks like that's what they're selling the car for. No, that's not what they're selling
the car for. They're just putting MSRP on there. And when you call the dealership or go to the
dealership, they say, well, that's the MSRP. But then you have to pay the the premium for that
particular car premium or premium. Well, you're looking at a Toyota RAV four hybrid.
And the current premium on that vehicle is $10,000 over the MSRP plus 1595 for the processing fee.
Oh, and also, we have put a protective film on the front end of this vehicle. Where'd you put it?
On the hood. And that's 1195. Well, I'm not paying that. Well, sir, you will pay it or
you won't get the vehicle because we have people standing in line for these.
You know, folks, in that case, I'm going to go buy me a Nissan Rogue.
Or I'm going to buy a Hyundai or something. I'm not paying a premium for an everyday common
midsize or small SUV just because it says Toyota on it and happens to be a hybrid.
Oh, gotta have a hybrid. Gotta You know, I'm going to save so much. Really?
You're going to save on what? You're going to save on gas?
Yeah, you'll save. Maybe maybe you will get 10 miles per gallon more on a hybrid.
How long is it going to take to recover the extra $12,000 that you paid for that thing
if you hadn't got a hybrid? You know, people get these things that it gets locked in their brain.
Gotta have a hybrid. Gotta have an Escalade. Can't take a regular Jeep. Gotta have a Rubicon.
And then several years later, they take it in to trade it because it's not what they really wanted.
And the value has plummeted on that vehicle. And they owe $15,000, $20,000, $25,000 more on that vehicle
than it's worth. Oh, but they had to have it. And now they wish they didn't have it. And the only
way to not have it anymore is to lose their rear end on a bad trade. Trying to make up for the
mistake that they made. Now, I'm not saying that it's not important to buy what you want.
For example, when you buy a vehicle and it's out there in your driveway and you
greet it every morning and you fire it up and drive it to work, you want to like what you're driving.
Now, for some people, they could care less. Point A to point B. You may be that kind of person,
then you need to buy the cheapest car that is available. And that's fine with you. You don't
care. You don't care what it looks like. You don't care the color. You're going to buy it,
you're going to drive it to it, wears out, and then you can buy something else that is ugly.
Or, you know, has no real appeal because that doesn't matter to you. And that's fine.
But then there are those of us that, I don't know, we just like cars, we like trucks,
we like our vehicles to look good. Sometimes, you know, my daughter was wanting to buy a
new brand new expedition. We were out there looking at it yesterday. She said, I'm going to buy this
thing. And first thing I'm going to do is lift the front end. I'm going to level it. I said,
what? You are not. And she said, they look better when they're leveled. I said, honey,
you're going to hurt your gas mileage. I don't care. You know, they want them to look good.
And I get it. I'm tickled to death with my Ford Bronco. I'm miserable climbing in and out of it.
It has no running board, which I normally don't need. I'm 6'3", so I can get in just about anything.
But if I raise up enough to get into it, I bump my head on this handle that you use to climb in
that maybe shorter people would use. I mean, it doesn't ride that good, but boy, it looks good.
So, you know, I'm willing to overlook the deficiencies of that vehicle for the time being.
How long is that going to last? Well, the good news is, I'm a car dealer. I own a car dealership,
a Ford and a Nissan dealership here in Greenville, Tennessee. And if I don't like something bad enough,
I just go out there and grab something else. You can't do that, so you better make a much
better decision, a much more thoughtful decision, a much more long-term decision on what you buy.
And make sure that it fits not only what you want, but what you need, what your lifestyle needs,
your car life. And once you decide what that is, then you don't put up with false advertising
because you've learned to recognize it by listening to this program, this podcast. You know,
if you want to go back and listen to some of my earliest podcasts, you can search by title.
You just have to go to Google Podcast or Apple Podcast, and you can find them. There's almost
600 episodes that deal with every single possible topic that you can think of about automobiles,
from understanding, you know, from the basics of how to jumpstart a car and, you know, what to do
in certain emergency situations and mistakes that drivers make today or about buying a car,
buying the right car for a teenager. I mean, it's all in there. You just have to search.
But once you get that down and you understand the fundamentals, you can avoid making those
10 and $15,000 mistakes, and you can recognize the evil that is out there lurking at a lot
of car dealerships. Yeah, I think it's evil. I really do. I don't know how a lot of these people
sleep. They make so much money on ignorance of people, and I'm not saying stupidity. I'm just
saying ignorance is you don't know what you don't know. And they feed off of that, and that's what
makes me so very angry. I'll be back in just one minute. So Nissan has come out, well, is coming
out in the next three months with an all new hybrid. And that hybrid is a Nissan Rogue that
is very innovative in that the engine is not connected to the wheels. It doesn't make the
wheels turn. This vehicle is like an EV from the standpoint of what's making the wheels turn
around because the engine does one thing, charges the battery, and it comes on and goes off as it
needs to, to provide enough energy in the battery to turn the electric motors that turn the wheels.
Now, what's going to be great about this? Well, it's transformational from a driving
experience. If you've driven an EV, you know how smooth they are and how quiet and just the
instant power that you have. You take that and put a generator on it, which this engine is,
to keep that battery going all the time. What a beautiful combination. What is my dealership
going to charge for that hybrid? Well, I can promise you this.
It won't be one penny more than MSRP ever because that's not what I do.
Have I sold vehicles for over MSRP? Yes, I have, especially when the pandemic was rolling.
And when I would normally have 300 vehicles on my lot, well, as far as new cars, probably 200,
I had 15 and I had mouths to feed. 65 of them and people were buying cars and they were paying
over MSRP because there were no cars being built. The factories were shut down. Is that price gouging?
I don't know. All I know is that it was necessary. It was survival. And when the pandemic went away,
a lot of dealers kept doing that. It's like a drug. They got used to that
drug of big, big profits on cars and charging over MSRP. And there are still some dealers that,
in order to be able to charge those prices, they put addendum stickers on their vehicles that add
$5,000 to the price. But they don't advertise that. They don't put that online. You don't
realize that until you get to the dealerships. Oh, yeah. Well, that's the baseline MSRP. You've
got to add the hybrid premium or you've got to add the marketing margin, as one of our competitors
calls it. It's just a game, to them. Let's just see how much we can make on these people.
And you can avoid it. Like I say, you'll see it. You'll sense it. If you walk into a dealership and
you go to their car and they've got that addendum sticker on there, just get back in your car and
leave. You don't want to do business with those people. They're going to find every other trick.
If you aren't willing to pay that, they're going to find another trick in order to get you to pay
them more. So where else do you learn this stuff? I don't know. Where else? My car guru. Get the
My car guru guidebook. Send me your email address to 423-552-2020. I'll send you a copy of it. And
you can handle just about anything that a car dealer can throw at you, as far as
illegalities. And if you need something for a new teen driver, you got a teen driver or somebody
that's getting ready to be a driver in your household, they need a copy of the teen driver
experience guidebook as well. And I'll print it out or I will email it to you in a PDF form. And
you can print it out yourself and go over with your teen driver. It will be beneficial not only for
them, but for you as well. Well, thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.
About this episode
Host Lenny Lawson dives into the frustrating history of dealership pricing, explaining how post-WWII shortages and 1970s rebates created today's complex negotiation culture. He explores why "one-price" dealerships often fail due to consumer behavior and shares a cautionary tale about chasing the absolute lowest price. Listeners will get practical advice on securing signed sales contracts, avoiding hidden dealer markups, and recognizing when a local deal is actually the better value. Lawson also shares a fun personal story about using AI to colorize a photo of his grandfather's home-built junkyard car.
