Car Buying with an Edge w/ Ray & Zach Shefska #845

One of the reasons we’re pumped to have our guests joining us today is because it might finally be time for you to buy a car! Supply chains were snarled during the pandemic leading to auto values actually increasing pretty much across the board. It was a terrible time to buy a car – prices weren’t depreciating, they were appreciating! But regardless of the macrotrends, cars are expensive, transportation is a massive line item on most American’s budgets, and here to talk to us about how you can spend less on that car is Ray and Zach Shefska, the founders of CarEdge. CarEdge is a customer-centric buyers agent that gets you the best deal possible, and the founders are going to share their secrets on how you can pay the least for your new ride. Combined they have over 40 years of experience in the car business and we’re going to discuss the questions to ask dealerships, the fees to push back on, and timing it just right to ensure you snag the biggest discount.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Out of Money. I'm Joel and I am
Matt and today we're talking car buying with an Edge
with Ray and Zach Schefska.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, and so one of the reasons we're pumped to
have our guests joining us today is because it might
finally be time for you to buy a car. Just
think back a few years ago. Supply chains they were
snarled during the pandemic, leading to auto values actually increasing
pretty much across the board. Cars they weren't depreciating, they
were appreciating. But that's no longer the case. That being said,

(00:46):
cars are still expensive transportation costs. It's a massive line
item on most budgets. And here to talk to us
about how you can spend less on that car is
Ray and Zach Schefska. They are the founders of Car Edge,
which is so courage They're a customer centric buyer's agent
company basically that gets you the best deal possible. And

(01:07):
Ray and Zach they're going to share their secrets. That's
the hope at least of how they do it. They've
got over forty years of experience within the car business
and now they're working to make the auto the car
industry more transparent. Ray and Zach, thank you so much
for talking with us today.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, thank you for having.

Speaker 4 (01:23):
You forty years pop to you. Hear that forty years experience?

Speaker 1 (01:26):
I got take that, well forty forty three.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yeah, Between the two of us, we have forty three
years of experience. And well Zach's my.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Son, yeah, father son too. I love it, And you
guys have been our clutch on YouTube. I love that
not only do you offer this this service that people
can pay for, but you also make available so much
of the knowledge that you guys have built up over
those many years for free on your YouTube channel, putting
out content all the time. First question that we ask
of anybody who comes on the episode, though, is what

(01:54):
do you like to suplurge on what we call it
our craft beer equivalent? Because Matt and I will spend
maybe too much money on beer, some people would say,
but we're also at the same time, we're saving, we're
investing for our future. So what's that for both of
you guys that you maybe splurge a little bit on
that other people My thing's crazy?

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Well, if you're asking me, I splurge on watches. I
am a watch addict. I have I think thirty five
watches at the moment and three on order. Oh and
the whole idea and concept behind this is I figure
the more watches I have, the more time I have left.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
How many do you wear it? One time?

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Ray?

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Is my question?

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Just one? And I never wear the same watch more
than once in any given week.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Okay, it's impressive. Okay.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
I recently came across a watch club randomly on a
date night with my wife, and I got to learn.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
A little bit about watch collectors.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Are you drawn to like the European German kind of
style watches or is it more the Japanese movements. I'm
curious if.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
I have some that are from Germany. So I have
some German watches. I have some watches that were built
and made in France, some that were built and made
in Australia, many with Japanese movements, many with Swiss movements,
some that are courts movements, and some that are automatic movements.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
How do you feel about the Cassio's right the castle?

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Well, when I want to wear a cheap watch, I
want to wear a Cashio, Yes exactly.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
He does not discriminate. What about yeah? What about you? Zach? I?

Speaker 4 (03:27):
Just I want to mention my dad loves a watch
that's on sale. The number of times I've been over
his shoulder and I see the Facebook ads and it's
like forty eight percent off, and it's like, oh, I
just bought another watch, Zach, So he loved me to sale.
I'm embarrassed to say this out loud. I probably have
fifteen to twenty pairs of Hokah Clifton running shoes. I whoa, Yeah,

(03:49):
I just love walking in them. And then I also
trained for triathlon and so I'm kind of running through
them all the time. And I just love expressing myself
with really cool sock and shoe compos so all the
time of my splurge.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Okay, so the Clifton specifically, I'm literally wearing a pair
of Hocus right now.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, but that's that's your shoe.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
I'm wearing mine right now, my weird yellow ones that
no one should really own, but I do.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
I love it. Okay, Well, let's talk about let's just
kind of dive in. I want y'all to share what
it is that car edge does. I kind of briefly
touched on it, but can y'all, yeah, explain what y'all do.
And I guess specifically, why Zach, you and your dad,
why did y'all feel compelled to launch this business the service?

Speaker 4 (04:32):
Yeah, I mean courage at its simplest form. The idea
is to be able to buy a car online and
have it delivered to your door. Like that's that's at
the end of the day, what we're trying to do.
And the way that I think about it, and the
way that my dad thought about it his whole career,
is that the simplest way to accomplish that is through transparency,
make the make the industry that's really opaque more transparent
or trustworthy. And so there's a there's a pretty long

(04:54):
kind of backstory to why I'm interested in this. It's,
you know, a not soe great relationship with my dad
grown up because he was always working what'd you call him,
dad half days bell to Bell's twelve.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Hour days, just a half a day.

Speaker 4 (05:06):
You know, I didn't see my dad a lot growing up,
and there was a lot of resentment there. My mom
got sick, I dropped out of college. We all kind
of rallied around what was going on with my mom,
and after after she had passed away, my Dad and
I started to connect more often, and I realized my
dad's an awesome person, like I love I love you
Dad very much. I you know, I feel so grateful

(05:28):
to do what we're doing. And I kind of took
that resentment towards my dad and I actually started to
channel it towards the auto industry. You know, you've always
said to me, Dad, I want to provide for my
family all the things they don't even know they want yet,
and and so you worked your butt off to make
that happen for us, and the whole time, unfortunately, your
career was an auto which meant the half days were

(05:50):
a requirement to hold more gross profit, to sell cars
with more margins so that you could win more like
it just it didn't make sense to me that control.
And so about four and a half years ago, I
convinced my dad to make a YouTube video. And fast
forward to today, We've got I don't know fifty sixty
people that work with us and nationwide where we're trying
to make this the simplest, easiest, best way to buy

(06:13):
a car. And every single day we get to do
a YouTube show and make videos and just try and
educate and empower and change this industry, you know, one
customer at a time.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, and you guys, you're part of kind of like
a wholesale shift from more and more people. I think
like years ago, nobody would have been caught dead buying
a car online, and now it feels like, well why not? Yeah,
And the rigorm role of the dealership is I think
a big part of the reason people want a different experience,
and so I think it's I don't know if Costco

(06:45):
started it, but Costco's one of those things to trying
to make it easier. And then with used cars, CarMax
and Carbana have pivoted towards online car buying. I guess
consumers seem incredibly ready for online car buying. What is
wrong with the way things currently exist though in the
car buying process? How have things changed, I guess ray?
And then what are the problems that still need to
be remedied?

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Well, the sad reality is that for most dealers out
there today still they think it's nineteen fifty, nineteen sixty,
nineteen seventy. They want to provide as little transparency and
information to you because they don't want you to make
an informed decision. They want you to make an emotional decision,

(07:29):
and to me, it seemed like that was counterintuitive because
we were oftentimes putting our customers in bad financial situations
and if we wanted them to come back as customers
in a timely fashion, well, you can't do that to
them if you'd like them to come back. So the

(07:51):
industry needs to change, has needed to change forever, and
we're seeing some semblance of change. More and more people
are doing things digitally, but it's still such a small
percentage of sales.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, I think a lot of companies were focused on
those short term profits and yeah, if you step back
and take a more holistic long term, like, what does
success look like over the long term? And I think
that's the void that y'all are able to fill. And
can you so I kind of alluded to the pandemic
there and the intro, but can you give us like
a peek behind the macro curtain when it comes to

(08:27):
the auto industry, because COVID dramatically changed the car market.
But then now it seems like things are slowly but
surely getting back to some of those pre pan norms.
Is that what y'all are seeing? All right?

Speaker 4 (08:38):
Matt and Joel, I do this on our live show,
which you guys are now officially invited to. We do
all sorts of live experiments, Pops, I'm going to put
them on the spot. What do you guys think new
car inventory was at the lowest level during the pandemic,
So the total number of new cars for sale nationwide?
How low do you think that number got nationwide?

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Oh, so are you allowed to give us the pre
PAN numbers?

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Pre PAN numbers, we're around three to three and a
half million vehicles in inventory.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Three to three to a half I would guess easily
under a million, That's what I.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Was going to guess. Yeah, under a mill.

Speaker 4 (09:09):
Then eight hundred and eighty six thousand new vehicles in
inventory in October twenty twenty one, and the latest data
we have is about two point eight to two point
nine million vehicles and inventory. So, like there's your macro
lens for new area. Like a two hundred and twenty
some odd plus percent increase in in inventory levels over
that short of a period of time has led to

(09:30):
a lot of volatility.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
And what is that done? What is that due to pricing? Obviously?
I mean we've seen of all the automakers the Tesla
price cuts are the most dramatic, and they also seem
to be the most in the news. Are we seeing
price cuts across the board? It seems like, yeah, it's
easier obviously with more supply to maybe get the car
you want, whereas two years ago trying to get a
can you tell your ride or something like that, and

(09:52):
you're going to get punched in the face just for asking, Yeah,
what do things look like for the consumers? Then out there,
given the fact there's more supply.

Speaker 4 (09:59):
Yeah, you know, things are getting better. Definitely getting better
as inventory increases, and there are certain brands and automakers
that are actually like kind of overflowing with inventory, and
so there are a lot of deals out there. That
being said, a really important storyline to this is that
the manufacturers now they're decreasing prices, but they spent those

(10:20):
two and a half years or two years increasing their
MSRPs significantly. So the average MSRP increase for different brands
ranged anywhere from about twenty percent. So that's what subru
increased their MSRP over the past five years, which is
about what inflation was all the way to brands like
Jeep that increase their MSRP by more than sixty percent
over that same period of time. So wow, and you

(10:42):
start to actually see some correlation between brands that increase
their MSRPs a lot and their current inventory situation. Akajeep
has a lot of inventory right now and they're marking
it down by fifteen twenty percent, and it kind of
makes you scratch your head and say, like, well, maybe
we overpriced it to begin with. Versus Subaru, for example,
that doesn't have a huge oversupply inventory and I think
inflation over that period was like twenty one or twenty

(11:03):
two percent, So they actually increase their prices their MSRPs
less than inflation, Like no wonder, they don't have a
huge oversupply.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
So interesting.

Speaker 4 (11:10):
It's a little bit of you know, you got to
pick your poison here.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah, yeah, well it makes sense. I guess the folks
who the different companies that increase the most were certainly
most likely to see the biggest cuts. Right now, Ray,
let's talk about like for the most part, we're going
to talk about newer cars for folks, but used cars certainly,
Rock were huge fans of them. I think a new
car is fine if you've got the money, if you
plan to hang on to that thing for a long time.
We're a personal flanance show, after all. But what if

(11:36):
folks need to know though before they start looking to
buy a used car specifically? It certainly seems like it's
harder these days as well to buy privately owned used
cars as well. But I'm curious to get your thoughts there.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
Well, there's a shortage of used cars. You know, during
the pandemic and the supply chain issues, there were globally
somewhere between twelve and fifteen million new cars that were
scheduled to have been produced that were not And because

(12:10):
those cars were never produced, that meant those cars could
never be sold, which meant there were no trade ins
at that period of time. So we find ourselves today
significantly shorthanded as far as used cars, good quality used
cars are concerned. And with that short supply, we've seen

(12:32):
used car prices dramatically increase. The amount of depreciation that
you would normally see has probably been cut in half
over the last three to four years, so that most
used car prices are higher than they've ever been. In
the slightly older cars, the quality is probably lower than

(12:54):
it's ever been, and the negotiability is probably less than
it's ever been, but other than that, the market's perfect.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
So ray does that mean, given what's happened in the
used car market the prices between gently used cars and
brand new cars, has that gap shrunk? Does it actually
make more sense for someone who was, like, I think
IM going to buy a two year old car, take
some of that depreciation I've heard people talk about over
the years, Man three four years, I might get like
thirty forty percent knocked off the price because I'm buying

(13:27):
used instead of new. Does that still hold or is
the gap? Has a gap shrunk in a big way?

Speaker 3 (13:32):
In many, many cases, the spread between a one or
two year old used car and a brand new car
has shrunken dramatically, and so that we've seen cases where
we have recommended the customers that they're better off spending
a couple thousand dollars more to get the brand new

(13:54):
car with the full warranty coverage. So the spread and
you'd need to have a significant spread between a pre
owned car and the brand new car. We see that
spread finally starting to come back a little bit because
we're seeing new car transaction prices dropping. So as those
transaction prices drop. We should see a correlation in the

(14:17):
transaction prices of used cars dropping, but they're not dropping
as rapidly as you would expect or as we would
have seen in the past.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
And hopefully that's something that continues. I mean for the
folks out there who are looking to save the absolute most,
because yeah, I mean that depreciation hit. I mean, like
when you're looking at twenty plus percent within the first
five years. I mean, that's just a massive hit to
take if you're trying to buy a vehicle on the cheaps,
if you're trying to get yourself around affordably.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
The truth of the matter is that prior to the pandemic,
as soon as you drove a brand new car off
the lot, you lost twenty to twenty five percent instantly,
And today that number is considerably less than that. Dealers
were actually paying what was MSRP for some of these

(15:09):
cars as used cars. They were paying MSRP or above
to buy them as a used car, so when they
sold them during the greatest shortage, they were selling them
for well above what MSRP on a brand new car was.
But you couldn't get a brand new car. It just
didn't exist.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, it's more of a unicorn. And then, Zach, I've
heard you say too that one of the downsides of
buying a used car is that interest.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
Rates are higher for those vehicles.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
And so for folks out there who are financing their
vehicle purchase, like, how big of a deal is that.

Speaker 4 (15:41):
Yeah, it's a huge deal, especially for most folks. There's
three components to a car deal. It's what's the out
the door price of the vehicle that I'm purchasing, what's
the selling price of the vehicle that I'm trading in?
Most people or a lot of people have a trade in.
And then the third piece, what's the interest rate. The
average interest rate on a used car right now, and
this data comes from Cox Automotive, which is the big

(16:01):
kind of industry conglomerate, is almost fourteen percent on a
used car, whereas new cars are a little bit closer
to nine percent. And so you've got a nice spread there,
and that's another reason why more people are choosing new
over used. You can't really get zero percent financing on
a used car. No one's that interested in buying down
the interest rate. But think about what we were saying

(16:22):
with regards to Jeep. You know, there are a lot
of Jeep dealers out there and the OEM themselves who
want to move the metal, and so they'll be more
aggressive on the interest rates. And I will throw one
kind of like bid of a positive positive note on
the used car prices, which are evs have actually, like
used DV prices have fallen off a cliff. The average

(16:44):
transaction price for a used EV back in August September
of twenty twenty two with sixty three thousand dollars. The
average transaction price for a used EV right now is
closer to thirty three thousand dollars. So we've seen and
on the internal combustion engine side, it's gone from thirty
four thousand dollars to thirty two thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
Okay, it's tremendous.

Speaker 4 (17:05):
Appreciation for used evs, which when you also factor in
that there's a federal tax credit under twenty five thousand dollars,
like you can start to build a case for support
for There's no way I'm buying a new EV, I'll
just go buy a used one. So, like one one
little bright spot there on used cars.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
I want to drill on that for just a second,
so yeah, there's the four thousand dollars tax credit when
you buy a used EV from a dealership, but you
get the seventy thirty five hundred dollars tax credit when
you buy a new EV, and prices on those have
come down too. If you're looking at some of those
cheaper models, like I don't know, Matt and I talk
about the Chevy Bolt, the Chevy Bolt EUV, the Tesla
Model three, like those are some of the bargain basement

(17:42):
price evs. There's like a wide gap I think between
the lower end of the market on EV's and the
high end the super fancy dancy ribbeans right that I
would love to own, but I'm sorry, I just can't,
just can't do it. So one day, Joel Surnesday Sunday.
Maybe maybe the R two or R three when it
comes out. But yeah, what are your thoughts on instead
of going for a used EV under twenty five, going

(18:02):
for a new electric vehicle that is kind of at
the cheaper price point.

Speaker 4 (18:07):
Lease lease, That is the way to do it. The
lease incentives are incredibly aggressive right now because EV production
increased significantly, and now inventory levels for a lot of
new evs are through the roof. It might shock you
to know this, but there are still a lot of
twenty twenty three Ford Mustang Mokeys and f one to
fifty Lightnings out there, and the lease deals on those

(18:29):
are through the roof. And so we are seeing, especially
when you factor in the seventy five hundred dollars from
the federal government.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Huge, huge, huge.

Speaker 4 (18:37):
If you're a monthly payment buyer, like a lease option
is a great option, and so we're seeing a lot
of people go that direction on new evs because they're
just being so aggressive on the residual values and the
money factors to make the payment really fit a lot
of people's budgets.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, and this is literally something we've talked about on
the show before as well. We're like leasing typically it's
been like when we've said this, it's typically a lifestyle choice, right,
the ability to have the latest and greatest tech, the
most green thing. If you actually care about the environment,
just keep driving what you have. But because of the
if you're looking at the dollars in a sense, man,
it really pays to run the numbers and see how
much you're going to say when it comes to the

(19:11):
cost to run essentially your EV versus your gasoline, your
fuel costs, because truly it does, it gets really close
to paying for it.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
So way, we all talk about the seventy five hundred
dollars federal tax credit on new ones and four thousand
dollars federal tax credit on twenty five thousand dollars and
less expensive used ones, but what everybody forgets is you
have to make sure you actually qualify for it. It's
not just an across the board thing where everybody would qualify.

(19:43):
You have to fit in to certain income levels, and
so it's almost disingenuous when we all talk about those incentives,
but we never attached the disclaimer that should go along
with those disclaimers those incentives, because not everybody's going to qualify,

(20:04):
And if you buy one thinking you qualify and it
turns out you don't, you're going to be somewhat disappointed
on this.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. And it's also true that
more people are going to qualify for the new federal
EV tax credit buying a new EV than for the
used one, right because the income threshold is much lower
for who qualifies for the used EV tax credit exactly.
So yeah, no, that's important and maybe we'll put the
specifix for that in the show notes for this episode,

(20:32):
because that's true. Yeah, you don't want to just hear
us spouting off, oh, tax credit, tax credit, no matter what,
seventy five dollars off right, exactly for everybody, not necessarily
fair ones. Okay, fellas, we got a lot more to
get to, including like negotiating out the door prices, fees.
That's another thing that is sticks and people's craw, Like
what fees am I supposed to be paying? What is
this thing? Even? We'll talk about that. We'll get to

(20:53):
a lot of questions with Zach and Ray right after this.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
All right, we are back from the break again talking
with Ray and Zach Schefska, and let's dive into negotiating,
right because this is where the most fun part, Carson,
Folks is the most fun part. I think for a
lot of folks, they probably hate it. But I think
a lot of folks feel under prepared perhaps or they
feel overwhelmed when it comes to negotiating because they don't
have the information on hand.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Part of us, because we do it what once every five, six, eight,
twelve years, and so like we don't know what we're
doing every time we go in.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, but uh, let's talk about and you mentioned this
before before the Breaksack. I think I think it was you,
maybe it was Ray. But when you are negotiating the
out the door price, like that is what you want
to get from a dealer, But like, how do you
actually get a dealer to disclose to reveal that number?
Because yeah, it's just like it seems like this sort
of holy grail sort of number. But it's not necessarily easy.

(21:51):
You can't just like walk and expect them to hand
that to you on a silver platter.

Speaker 4 (21:54):
All right, mister dealer, dad, explain to us how do
I actually get the OTD?

Speaker 3 (21:59):
You have to borrow and steal? Thank you it is.
Here's what you have to realize. Eighty four percent of
all customers finance a vehicle, So eighty four percent of
all customers are more concerned with what their monthly payment
is than what the price of the vehicle is. Dealerships

(22:20):
know this, and so they don't want to provide you
with the out the door number. They want to keep
talking to you about what's your comfortable monthly payment budget
that you've set for your car. So you have to
fight back as a consumer. Now, how do you do
that when when you say, gee, I'd like to get

(22:42):
the out the door price, and they go, but just
out of curiosity, how much were you thinking of putting down?
You know, let's not concern ourselves with how much I'm
trying to put down. I'm only concerned at this point
with what the out the door price is going to be.
But I'm sure you must have a monthly budget in mind.
I might, I might not. I haven't determined that yet.

(23:04):
What is going to be to the determinative factor as
to whether or not I move forward is what the
out the door price is. You have to keep insisting
upon getting that number because that's the only number that matters.
And you need to get the dealership to explain every fee,
every dollar, every cent that goes into what that out

(23:28):
the door price is so you can get a more
accurate breakdown as to what you're actually paying for the
damn thing.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
So when we're talking monthly payments, we're talking on their terms,
not our own terms.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
Oh absolutely, And they can.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Use all sorts of tricks. What kind of tricks are
they using? Ray when it comes to, you know, changing
that monthly payment to make it look a little more agreeable.
Is it lengthening the term loan, a term of the loan, Like,
what are they doing to make the monthly payment seem
more agreeable when ultimately we're getting host Okay.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
The first thing they start with when they give you
your initial monthly payment is they're just using a generic
interest rate. My guest today it's probably eight, nine or
ten percent. Well, you might actually qualify for a five
or six percent interest rate. So if I quote you
a payment based on ten percent and then suddenly I

(24:21):
drop the rate to six percent, well, the payment's going
to go down dramatically. The price of the car hasn't
changed a dime. They would extend terms. They might be
quoting you a payment at sixty months. They might extend
at the seventy two or eighty four months. We even
see ninety six month payment plans. So that's that's some

(24:42):
of the tricks that dealers use. They lower interest rates
because they start with a high rate, They start with
a short term, and they just keep extending the term
to get to a payment that suddenly sounds well amenable.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, it seems reasonable. The realistic concession that probably should
have gone into coming up with that payment in the
first place. So another part of how they essentially inflate
the cost of the vehicle, though, is what you talked about.
The different fees certainly a problem, but how do you
know and how are you able to then push back
on some of these fees, some of these line items

(25:17):
that get tacked onto the price because I think like
some of them are I'm sure are non negotiable, but
I think others you'll talk about that you can just
flat out refuse to pay for.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
Right. Well, and here's the rule of thumb. If a
fee is taxable, which means it's not a state mandated fee,
it's negotiable. The fees that aren't negotiable and aren't taxable
are your title and registration fees. They're set by the state.
So if the fee falls into the taxable category, that's

(25:48):
a fee that you can negotiate the price on. One
of the major areas that are a profit center for
dealerships is what's known as either the dock fee or
a processing fee. Well, there is absolutely zero cost to
the dealership associated with those fees. A dock fee in

(26:10):
many instances is referred to it at a dealership level
as the yacht fee. That's what pays for the dealer's yacht.
So dealers will tell you, well, everybody pays the dock fee. Okay,
I get that. Lower the price by the amount of
the dock fee. That way you can show I'm still

(26:31):
paying it. We've just taken it out of the selling
price to compensate for it. So those are some of
the if it's just remember if the damn thing's taxable,
it's negotiable. Ray.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
I'm sure all the people that worked with Ray back
in the day love him for.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
That.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
And Joel, can I can I do another quick experiment
with you? Of course, I'm going to read out some
words here. You tell me if it's a real thing
that showed up on a car buying worksheet, an out
the door worksheet, or a fake thing that showed up
on an out the door worksheet. You're ready?

Speaker 1 (27:04):
All right, let's do it, all.

Speaker 4 (27:05):
Right, SWAT GPS three.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
That sounds made up.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
I'm gonna say all of these are real, otherwise you
probably wouldn't be reading them, so I'll say real, all right,
that sounds legit?

Speaker 4 (27:16):
All right, you gotta guess on what the price was
for SWAT GPS three on a twenty twenty one Cadillac
XT four.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
If it's a Cadillac, I'm gonna guess that's like eighteen
hundred bucks.

Speaker 4 (27:26):
Yeah, if only twenty five hundred dollars. What do you
think converter shield costs?

Speaker 1 (27:32):
Converter shield that sounds like it's sound like something from
a spaceship. I'm gonna say that in.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Shield coding, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
That's a good fourteen fifty.

Speaker 4 (27:40):
So I'm my guess you're in luck that one's only
four ninety five.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
I've got one.

Speaker 4 (27:43):
More for you. What do you think about tropical advantage plan?
Does that sound real or fake? So?

Speaker 1 (27:49):
I mean I get orange juice with my ride. It
sounds like the Caribbean should be involved.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
If I want to.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
Pay for that, well, it's a cool twenty five hundred
bucks if you want that advantage plant.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
These I shared.

Speaker 4 (27:57):
These These are actually like recent exposts over on my
out These are real photos from our community members. This
is the crap that goes on out there. So like,
we have a guide on fees you should and shouldn't pay,
but we're not creative enough to think through all of
the various names.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
That can show up.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
That's why if it's taxable, it's negotiable. Is like the
best piece of merch we've ever created, such a good
rule to live by.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah, no, I appreciate that, Like, yeah, simplify. That's a
great question. Then to ask of the dealer you're trying
to do business with, and that will highlight at least
some of the areas that are open to negotiation. I'm curious,
and Zach, I'll ask you on this one. A lot
of folks will, especially you know, we talked about car
buying online. Well, who makes it a little easier to
do it from the privacy of your own home through

(28:39):
a few clicks? And if you're like going back and
forth with dealerships, what are your thoughts on sending emails
to a few dealers around town talking about, Hey, I'm
looking at this model, I see this on your website.
I feel like there's so much risk for people going
directly to a car dealership. But then I've also heard
heard you guys talk about how they think of you
as a more serious buyer if you're there in person.

(29:01):
So are people going to get a better deal by
keeping their distance or by heading directly to the lot itself?

Speaker 4 (29:06):
We wholeheartedly indoors trying to get everything done before you
go in. If at the at the eleventh hour you
want to try and like my dad was talking about,
reduce the price of the car by the dock fee.
You're gonna have the most leverage when you're sitting in
that office. You're also gonna be most susceptible to the
sales tactics. So I'll do a shameless plug. We have
free email templates. My dad writes them. He wrote them

(29:27):
and then he updates them every once in a while.
And you just got to Google search car edge email
templates and they pop up, and like like you said,
shoot out, shoot that out to a half dozen dealerships
that have a vehicle that you're interested in, and see
who bites he, who actually is transparent, who gives you
the information you know, to be clear, Like, the more
dealers that do that, the better. Then you have some

(29:48):
optionality you can negotiate against them. And really you can
get a car deal done entirely from home. There are
some states where you still need wet signatures on things,
so you know, the dealership might have to overnight pay
work to you. But yeah, you can get this all
done from home. It's just the unfortunate reality is it's
like a lot of work. But the tools are out there.
We're trying to make them more available. And at the

(30:10):
end of the day, if you value your time and
time's money, like you'll you'll dig in, you'll do it,
or or you'll you know, like, obviously that's our business.
But like you, hopefully you find a good dealer you
don't even need us.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Sure, yeah, okay, So shopping around to different dealerships, certainly
that's a way to find the best terms, find the
best deals. What about I guess being flexible when it
comes to the different models that you're considering, because I'm
assuming the more flexible you are gives you the ability
to find the best deal.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Is that right, Dad?

Speaker 4 (30:38):
Maybe you could even talk about like how old a
vehicle is, right, Like you used to incentivize your salespeople
to sell older versions of vehicles because you just wanted
to get rid of it. I think that it makes
a lot of sense, even if it's maybe not the
color you want, for example.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
And that's what I was going to say. There has
to be a certain level of flexibility on the customer's part.
If you are just stuck a particular model with a
particular trim, with a has to be white, with the
with the red leather interior. Well, you're limiting your ability
to be able to find a good deal if you

(31:14):
are interested in a particular vehicle, but you're open to
color and maybe open to trim. The first thing I
would do as a customer is when I got to
the dealership is I would say to the salesperson, I'm
interested in X in this color. What's the oldest one

(31:34):
of these that you have in inventory? And the reason
you want to ask for the oldest one is because
that's the vehicle that the new car manager is most
motivated to get off of his lot, because the carrying
costs of having that vehicle sit there keeps going up

(31:54):
and up and up, and so managers will do whatever
they can in order to get rid of an old,
aged vehicle. So if you want an accurate MDX and
you want a white one, well ask for the oldest
white one, not the freshest white one. And by doing

(32:16):
that you could you can oftentimes save quite a bit
of money.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah, being more flexible. By the way, it sounds like
that makes sense. It makes sense in everything, And we
talk about buying a flight. I've had people come up
to me they're like, I want to go to the
Netherlands August twenty thirty thirtieth, and oh, by the way,
I want to leave in the morning, and I want
to fly on Delta, and how can I save money?
And the answer is like, you just like kind of
made it really difficult to save yourself any money because
you've got really specific parameters that you don't want to

(32:42):
budge on. And I think that the same has has
to be true when we're talking about buying cars. It's
like and maybe guess what if you're looking for you
want a Toyota or something like that, and you're like, well,
I'd be okay with the RAF four prime, which I
know you guys say is like impossible to find, but
I you know what, I could be over to the
Sequoia or the Forerunner as well, and just having more
optionality is going to is gonna like, I don't give

(33:04):
the more wiggle room for the whole deal that happened
and for you to get a price that you're like
excited by and not just getting the last thing the
dealer has or something like that and taking what they
give you.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
A perfect example of that of me actually living by
what I described for people to do is at one
time I had a Mini Clubman that was in British
racing green with a white top. I hated that color,
but it was the only one that was available when

(33:39):
I wanted to get a car, and I thought to myself, well,
if I always asked the customers to settle for a
different color, how can I not? And I drove that
car for three years. Hated it every time I got
in it because I hated the color, but you know,
that offered me the best deal. So sometimes you have

(34:02):
to put color aside or trim aside, and you know,
just just live with it for whatever period of time
you're going to live with it for.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
It makes me think about when I asked my wife, Hey,
what's the oldest leftover we have in the fridge? As
I'm looking at it takes the work for lunch, because
that's gonna be the like it's true story. Oh yeah,
I do this like literally every morning, I'm I'm scout,
I'm looking at the very back of the shelves. And
so maybe that's how we should approach my vehicles. Which
one has been sitting here the longest since getting ready

(34:31):
to go back. You looks a little moldy, but it anyway, Zach.
So you were saying you kind of mentioned the three
factors that that play the biggest role into the price
of the vehicle, and you were talking about the trade in.
On one hand, you've got the ability to sell it privately,
right like you can maybe go individually yourself to like

(34:52):
carv on A to CarMax.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
But that's on Facebook. Yeah yeah, or yeah, selling it yourself.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
But what I mean talk to us about the trade
and value, how that gives you maybe a little bit
more leverage when you're when it comes to negotiating. I'd
like to hear your thoughts there.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
Yeah, we really really really strongly encourage people to think
about buying a car with a trade and as two
separate transactions. So like we were talking about before, do
the homework on OTD or out the door price, that's
what you're going to negotiate. That's the selling price of
the car that you're buying from the dealership.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Got it.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
The second negotiation is on the vehicle that you're selling
them or you're giving them the opportunity to buy. And
so similarly to how we were discussing that you should
email various dealerships to get out the door price quotes.
You should do the same exact thing with the vehicle
you intend to sell, get various instant cash offers and
offers from people through peer to peer platforms as well,

(35:44):
and make the decision of who you want to go with.
Now one thinks, excuse me, one piece of this that
gets more complex, which it's the car business, so it
has to get more complex, is the sales tax basis benefit.
That's the simplest way I've been able to sum up
what this, which is, in most states, when you trade
in a vehicle, you will actually get a sales tax

(36:06):
basis benefit. So an easy example of this would be,
if you have a ten thousand dollars car that you're
trading in, you're going to reduce the basis for your
upcoming sales tax buy that trade in value. So instead,
let's say you're buying a twenty thousand dollars car and
you're trading in a ten thousand dollar car, your sales
tax basis would have been twenty thousand dollars if you

(36:26):
didn't have the trade in. But now because you're trading
in a vehicle, your sales tax basis will be ten
thousand dollars because you're trading in a ten thousand dollar car.
In most states that happens, there is a select few
about seven states where you do not get a sales
tax basis benefit. So you'll end up with situations, guys,
where you'll have done all this work, you'll get cash offers,
you'll go peer to peer, you'll have all the different

(36:47):
offers on the table, and then you'll go to the
dealership and they'll low ball all of them. And it
still makes sense to take the dealer's offer because you're
getting the sales tax basis benefit and you're actually saving money. So,
like I said, it's the car business. It has to
be more complex for you know, whatever reason, but you
should totally think of them as two separate transactions and
just like you know, negotiating that with the door price

(37:08):
on the trade in or the sales side selling your car, Like,
there's some homework to do there too to maximize you know,
the savings in your wallet.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, I know there's something to be said for simplicity too,
like if you get the additional tax break, being able
to do it all at once, as opposed to trying to,
you know, have people come to your house to test
drive your twenty fourteen Nissan Ultima or something like that,
which could take a Saturday if you're lucky, it might
take longer. That makes sense. I yeah, you're right, though
I didn't realize that it was only in some states
until recently. I was talking to a friend in California

(37:38):
and I was like, well, ask if you trade in
your car, do you get the same tax break? And
in California that does not exist. So you have to, yeah,
check with your state and see what the laws, what
the rules are there. Ray, I've heard you say that
you can never get what you don't ask for, So
how shameless should you get when you're asking for things.
We talk about the price of the car. That's one
thing you can negotiate. That's one thing you can got

(37:59):
to push back on. You can push back on the fees.
But what kind of additional perks can you ask for
beyond just negotiating for the price of the vehicle.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
You can ask for anything. You know, people used to
ask for for key change hats, shirts, whatever, luggage. They
didn't everybody wants something, okay, The people want to win
and so you can ask for anything. You can ask
for oil changes, you could ask. I mean sometimes I

(38:28):
would offer customers, I said, well, how about in a
year when you come back in a year, we give
you a free detail on your car, Just like we
would clean a car used car for the for the
lot for sale, We'll do the same for your car
a year from now. You know, so you can It
never hurts to ask. And yes, absolutely you can't get

(38:51):
what you don't ask for. But don't ask for things
that are so ridiculous that that a dealer is going
to just at you and throw you out. That doesn't
do you any good.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
What about some of the different extended warranties they offer,
or like some of the protection plans? A can you
ask for those when you're negotiating? And B is it
worth negotiating for? Because are they actually worth what? I
feel like it's one of these things that they kind
of build up to be this big thing, but then
sometimes it's kind of like, oh, yeah, it's a.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Maybe your four thousand dollars would have been better off
in your sami.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Again, maybe that tropical or whatever at all, It was
just like us, you know, spraying the undercarriage with like
WT forty or something like that. So yeah, A, can
you negotiate with them? And B is it even worth it?

Speaker 3 (39:33):
You can negotiate on any of those products. Can you
ask for them to be thrown in? Certainly you can ask.
But the bigger things that you ask for, like an
extended warranty that has a greater cost than some other things,
there's only there's only so much extra cost that a

(39:53):
dealer is willing to absorb after they've agreed to discount
a vehicle to get to the original out the or price.
There's only so much room a dealer has. So that
if the dealer is asking four thousand dollars for the
extended warranty, if you see, well, okay, I'll take it
if you give it to me. You know, the salesperson

(40:16):
might look at you. There's a lot of things I
might give to you, but it ain't going to be
that warrant. Yeah, you just have to be reasonable. You
might say I would take it if it was fifteen
hundred dollars, and so you negotiate, But to make a
blanket statement for certain things where you say, well, I'll
only take it if you give it to me. Well,

(40:37):
you're not going to be taking in most cases.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
Ray, what's your take on extended warranties in general, because,
like we're alluding to, I mean, they can be incredibly expensive,
and there's a warranty, manufacturer's warranty that comes with the car.
I know a lot of people feel like there's peace
of mind, there's protection. I don't have to worry about
maybe the worst things going wrong with my vehicle if
I have this extended warranty. But most of the time

(41:01):
do they pay off for people? It's just like buying
a laptop, a seven hundred dollars laptop and paying one
hundred and eighty dollars for an extended warranty for that,
and guess what, most of the times those laptops s
end up doing pretty well, and you'd be better off
keeping that money in your pocket. Is it the same
with cars?

Speaker 3 (41:15):
You know you're asking a former car guide that question,
and I'll give you the former car guy answer, Okay,
And the answer is, as I used to put it
to customers, it's like having health insurance for your car,
just like you have your own personal health insurance. You
pray to God you never need it. Okay, But if

(41:36):
you do, you're covered. And that's the same thing with
an extended warranty for a vehicle. You're hoping you never
need it, and most people never use it. That's why
extended warranty companies are so profitable. But there are a
percentage of vehicles that there are failures and the extended

(42:00):
warranty covers it. We actually the shameless plug, but we
actually sell extended warrants as your vehicle service contracts. It's
just we're a lot more transparent as to the markup
on those products than say a dealership.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Would be very nice. All right, we've got a few
more questions to get to with you guys. We're gonna
just some additional factors to consider when you are looking
to buy a new car.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
We'll get to those right after this HI or we're
back from the break. We're still talking about car buying,
but with an edge. We're talking about that with Ray
and Zach Shefska, the father son duo who started car
edge dot com. And all right, bunch of last minute

(42:46):
questions we got to ask you guys before we get
out of here. Timing the timing of buying car. This
is something I think people probably have a lot of
misinformation in their heads about when the best time to
buy a car is. Sometimes we say, like the end
of the month, Yeah, that's the best time to buy.
How true is that advice? And if you can afford
to wait and time things perfectly, when is the ideal
time to score the absolute best deal. Let's say, Zach,

(43:08):
you're you're in the market for a car, but you're like,
it's summer. I don't care if I buy it in
the fall, if I buy it in the winter, Like,
timing is of little importance to me. When's the best
time for them to look to close that deal?

Speaker 4 (43:21):
All right, let's do it. Let's break up new and
used cars because seasonality impacts them differently used cars. By
the time you're listening to this, if it's over the
summer in twenty twenty four, now's a good time. There
is one bad time of year to be in the
market to buy a used car, and that's around the
spring selling season. So that's when tax refund money starts
to get back into consumer's hands. There is It happens

(43:43):
every year. There's seasonality in the wholesale and retail used
car business. You just see a small spike in used
car prices, which if you time it up nicely, it
means you can sell your car for a lot and
then wait a couple months and then buy a new
used car new to you used car in the summer months,
but interesting used cars.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
It's pretty good.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Walking buke everywhere for a little while. Hey, y'all, don't listen.
Y'all are like hardcore listeners to how to money. But
that's that's what Joel and I do. Like you're real like.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
That, you're preaching to the choir. I might be, you know,
running a car company, but I don't have a car.
So yeah, I'm right there with you.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
That's why you have twenty six pairs of focus.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
Exactly hit it.

Speaker 4 (44:17):
I get it exactly exactly. So that's the used car
side new car. It's there's intra month, intra quarter, and
intra calendar year seasonality. End of month makes a ton
of sense. If you can go and negotiate earlier in
the month and just know that you're totally fine waiting
till the end of the month, you'll have a little
more leverage because manufacturer incentive to the dealer is typically
tied to month performance, and then in house dealer incentives

(44:40):
are tied to month performance. So there's a human kind
of psychological aspect of this, which is like, we're really
close to hitting our number and our goal, which is
going to unlock some sort of economic incentive. Great, that
happens at the end of the month, same thing goes
just a little bit heightened, a little bit heightened, excuse me,
at the end of the quarter, and then without fail,
every single year, the fourth quarter December, between Christmas and

(45:02):
New Year's that is, if you're looking for the absolute
rock bottom lowest price that you can pay for a
new car, that's when you're going to make that happen.
It's it's kind of like chaos in the car business,
and it's super fascinating the more you peel the onion back.
Like there are regional advertising co ops for each brand
within the United States, and so like in those regions

(45:22):
they actually pool money from every invoice that the manufacturer sends.
They like take a little bit of money for advertising
co op. And then I've learned over the years, I
didn't know this from you, pops, but like I've learned
it from talking to more dealer groups and more dealerships.
They pulled that money all year and then they allocate
like eighty percent of their budget to just December just
to incentivize things. So it's like there's real economic incentive

(45:45):
to transact in December, and that's you know, also true
at the end of the month, also true at the
end of the quarter. Just heightened at the end of
December for new cars.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
If you if you leave that conversation with the dealer
having like let's say I go in December fifteenth and
I'm like, man, I'm super interested in this making model. Okay,
we got close. You know, I think I'm gonna hold
off for just a minute, though I don't know that
I'm ready to pull the trigger. Is there a chance
that they reach out to me on like December twenty
ninth and they're like, come back in now, it's the
perfect time I can do an even better deal, or

(46:15):
do I need to reach out reach back out proactively?
But I mean that would be like kind of the
best timing situation, right.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
Yeah, definitely start. Don't start trying to buy a car
at the end of the year on you know, the
day after Christmas or something like that. I do a
little bit earlier, and then you know, my dad has
this saying like, if they're not chasing you out of
the dealership trying to get you to come back in,
you probably have them at their lowest price. Obviously, again,
we endorse doing a lot of these things digitally, so
you don't even have to waste your time going into
the dealership. But yeah, I would, I would be it's

(46:43):
so interesting. I'd be surprised if a dealership doesn't reach
back out to on a car that you've shown interest
in and hasn't sold before the end of the year.
And at the same breath, I wouldn't be surprised because man,
there's so much turnover in this industry, Like the salespeople
turn over all the time, like the customer follow up,
it's pretty atrocious. So like double ledged sword there. But
I think the gist of what you're expressing is like

(47:03):
spot on.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
Okay, I like that strategy though, like I picture if
I've never personally, I've never purchased a new vehicle, so
this is all new to me. But I like learning
it of course, and there's a lot of folks out
there who are considering new cars.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
But I love the idea of going in there.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
Like December two, December third, maybe just like start having
some conversations and then, like you said, Jill, like walk
away and then see if they reach out in a
couple of weeks.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Play hard to get. Yeah, yeah, I love that, but.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
I can assure you from having done this for forty
three years. The absolute best volume week of the year
for a dealership is from December twenty sixth through the
end of the month. It is those days are just insane.
They are filled with nothing but people coming in trying

(47:52):
to buy a car. Salespeople trying to hit their objectives,
stores trying to hit their objectives. Manufacturers pushing like easy
extra incentives to get the dealers to hit their objectives.
It is the busiest, most prosperous week of the year
as far as total volume is concerned, but the best

(48:14):
absolute savings for customers.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, no, that makes sense, and it makes me realize
that like the car commercials with a bow on top, Yeah,
that people are actually doing that, which always baffles me.
It blows my mind.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
That's why you take your wife or girlfriend out for
Valentine's Day meal on February sixteenth. On February fourteenth, same thing,
buying the car like put the bow on it. After Christmas,
after the fact, it's like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
This is an iou ray, maybe we've got time for
a couple more here. But I want to hear your
thoughts on traveling outside of where you live, like outside
of your home market, in order to get a better deal,
because like it is it just a matter of running
the numbers and seeing, hey, it was worth it just
to buy a one way ticket to this you know,
some other market that might have a deal on a
particular vehicle that you're looking at.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Absolutely, you know, oftentimes it never hurts to broaden yours.
So if you can't find a deal within your market area,
don't be afraid to expand where you're willing to go.
If you can find the same vehicle somewhere else that's
I don't know, five six, seven hundred miles away, But

(49:17):
you're saving two thousand dollars or twenty five hundred dollars
and it's going to cost you three hundred dollars to
fly there. Well, you'd be a fool not to spend
the three hundred dollars to save twenty five hundred bucks.
So you know, there's different markets and different areas, and
certain vehicles sell better in one area than another. And

(49:40):
the vehicle that you might be looking at that's hot
in your area could be cold in a different area.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Is there an easy way to determine on the front end, right, like, oh,
it's worth looking at the Chevy Blazer in Arizona versus
Georgia or something like that. How do you know on
the front end maybe which markets you should be shopping
and and how much money you might be able to save.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
Well, Okay, let's say, for instance, you want an all
wheel drive vehicle or a four wheel drive vehicle, and
you're in the northeast, okay, and everybody in the northeast
reuse of the winters wants one of those. Do you
think the same applies to those vehicles in Florida? No,
Now you have to deal with Florida dealers in Florida

(50:24):
dock fees. But still you might be able to save
enough money that it makes sense or go down to Louisiana.
So there are you just have to look at the
geography based on what it is that you're looking for.
All wheel drive vehicles don't sell as well in the
South as they do in the Northeast and the northwest.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
Dad, if you don't mind I'll do another shameless plug.
We built a product called Carriage Insights that as you're
on our car search, it tells you how many of
that same year, make, model, and trim are available for
sale within one hundred miles of the vehicle you're looking at,
and how many have sold in the last forty five days,
which then allows us to calculate the market day's supply
for that particular vehicle. All you have to do is

(51:08):
change your zip code in the car search and you
can see what the day's supply of any vehicle is
in any region of the United States. The higher the
day's supply means that more oversupplied that vehicle is, Like
I don't know, hopefully it's come through in this conversation.
Like I'm incredibly data driven because I think it takes
opinion out of a lot of these things. And I
think in an industry that's opay can needs transparency. The

(51:28):
more we can be fact based, the better. And so
that's something I'm really proud of, is like you can
use the anecdotal you know what my dad's sharing, and
then there's also just like some hard numbers that you
can show up with and be like, look, you have
a three hundred days supply inventory of this four wheel
drive vehicle. I will help you relieve yourself of one
of those units.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Yeah, that more than I need. Yeah Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Referring back to your website, you've got a ton of
resources up there. You already mentioned the email templates that
y'all offer there for folks as they want to start
negotiating on the front end before they even step foot
into a dealership. What are what are some of the other,
let's say, free resources you offer, but then also some
of the more premium offerings that you'll have.

Speaker 4 (52:07):
As well, I mean the big free stuff, Dad, Like,
I'm thinking deal School. We spent man a week plus
just filming, creating quizzes, creating pdf like one pagers for it.
It's in like a learning management system called deal School,
which is super cool, and that's one hundred percent free.
That like, I think it's maybe like six hours worth
of content when it's all chopped up and in the lessons,
but that's free. We have cheat sheets that are like

(52:29):
when the dealer says this, here's how to respond. That's free.
The email templates are free. The car search you can
use for free, So like lots of good resources to
try and try and level the playing field. And then
the big thing for us is our car buying service,
Like for people who just don't want to deal with
deal with it quite frankly, and want to make sure
they don't get screwed, and they just want to be

(52:50):
able to buy a car and have a show up
in their driveway. Like that's where we're really trying to
make our mark. And fortunately it's it's you know, resonating
really well with with our community, and we feel super
grateful obviously to share that message with yours as well.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
Yeah, that's great. I mean, so much information I think
we've shared here today that people can use to be
an advocate for themselves. But it's also nice to know
that you can hire an advocate to do the jobbing
for you, which, let's be honest with in the era
of instacart and everything people picking out your apples. I mean,
this is something that has done more and more frequently
and more industries, and we really appreciate you guys taking

(53:26):
the time to join us today. We love what you
guys are doing to bring more transparency to the car
buying process. And don't forget one more free resource is
the YouTube channel that Zach and Ray are always putting
out content on really just to inform consumers, help them
understand the car buying process even more so that you
don't get taken advantage of Ray. Zach, thank you so
much for joining us today on How to Money.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
We really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
Thank you guys. This was great fun.

Speaker 4 (53:50):
Thank you Matt, Thank you Joel well Joel.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Obviously we touched on the fact that Ray and Zach
are related. It's a father son comba. That is.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
This is the first time we've ever had.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
Guests on the show a who work together in like
in such a way like this, but who are also
family members.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
That's pretty cool. Julian Kirsten from Rich and Regular. They're married,
married couples, typical.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
We've had multiple couples on, haven't we. Yeah, I think so,
the Van Life couple. Oh yeah, that was a long time.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Was a long time.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
That was a couple. No, this was but a father
sun combo. That's that's fun.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
I love it. Yeah, I love it. And honestly, their
relationship is part of the story of the company they're building,
and they've exacted a great job of kind of like, yeah,
giving us some insight into that too, and I love that,
like the building, this business has actually been restorative to
their relationship, which is super cool.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yeah, it's really cool.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
It's yeah, I love to see it, and I love
all the information they're putting out, including on this episode
about how to buy a car and not get screwed.
So Matt, enough.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Takeaway, Enough of the mushy emotional stuff. My big takeaway, dude,
was the fact that when you are looking at some
of the different line items, if you are buying a
new vehicle from a dealership and you're looking at all
the fees that they've tacked on the different things like, like
you said, the doc fee or the processing fee. Zach
went through a litany of other made up fees as well.

(55:04):
But bottom line, you can negotiate any fee that is taxable.
The things that are untaxable, title and registration, those aren't
things that you can negotiate, no matter what you're you're
paying that.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
The state fees are, yeah, they're to stay, no matter why.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
You're still going to pay the tax man. But everything
else that the dealership gets, Hey, it's worth bringing up.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
What is this?

Speaker 2 (55:21):
What is this? I don't want this?

Speaker 1 (55:22):
What's the destination fee. What's that about? Yeah, there's so
many fees like that tacked on, and I mean again,
if you're looking for a video to help you figure
figure out the specifics of that and how to push
back on those things, the father son combo of Zach
and Ray have created content to help you kind to
push back on those.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Well a great YouTube channel. But yeah, they mentioned how
that's the best piece of merch that they've created, and
for a good reason, because it just helps to provide
some clarity to a very confusing process.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
All Right, I'm gonna get what about you. I'm gonna
go take a take a little forest instead of the
trees thing. And when towards the beginning, Zach said, dealers
don't want you to make an informed decision. They want
you emotional.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Actually, I think it was that said that an emotional decision,
that's what they want.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
Yeah, and that's why. And then at the very end
Zach says, hey, the data is what's going to save you.
Essentially that basically, if you're going in there and you're emotional,
it's on all these levels. So many of these decisions
are emotional. It's to make the model, the car, color,
the trim all these things. It's emotional.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
It's going to make you feel.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
It's like buying a house, right, and some people get
tied up, they forget the finances because they're just in
love with that one particular house and no other house
will suffice. Well, if you're in that sort of headspace
when it comes to buying a car and you're less analytical,
you're less about the numbers and the data, you're going
to overpay. Not to mention the fact that you might
not just not get a great deal, but you might
buy something that you shouldn't be buying in the first place,

(56:37):
end up going over the top. That's right, So you
don't want to do that. Buying a new car is
not something that, like you said, Matt, you've never done it.
I did it one time with my Nissan Leaf because
of the special state and federal tax and sentence. Buying
a new car is not something that we've really had
much experience with. So it's good to get their intake.
But it's also important to note that you're probably going
to save the most money by keeping the car you got.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
That's right, man, All right, let's quickly something that doesn't
mix very well. Cars and beer, but we enjoyed a
beer from Steady Hand Beer Company. It's called Gimme the Loop,
l U P. I assumed that's a there's a hot
that's the Is it a bulin or something? I think
that's right. Yeah, but this is a hazy double I PA,
what your thoughts?

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Yeah, drinking and driving not advice illegal in most parts
of the country, although I think in like what Louisiana
you can go to drive through liquor stores and you
can get like it to go drink.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
Yeah, that's right. What is it?

Speaker 1 (57:27):
It's like, it's a terrible idea. But other than also
it's like, don't they like slushies or something like that?

Speaker 2 (57:32):
Probably it's something.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
It sounds so Louisiana, and I love Louisiana, so that's
not even I'm not even hating. But this is a
beer brewed here in Atlanta. Do you like it? I
did like it. Yeah. I thought I had like a
kind of slightly off putting aftertaste, but yeah, but overall
really like this. This was like a kind of a
classic hazy but made locally, which is kind of nice.
Was it the aftertaste kind of tropically?

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Did it make you think of canned pineapple, because I
think it was exactly well, so that's I can, which
I actually love canned pineapple, so the juiciness, but you
also you oftentimes associate it with like an old can
that's been sitting in your in your uh pain.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Because it was a little bit of metallic vibe too.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so yeah, in my opinion, it had
a lot of these tropical notes going on, but specifically
like canned pineapple kind of vibe. So keep that in mind.
But buddy, I think that's going to be it for
this one. We'll make sure to link to some of
the specific resources that we mentioned during our conversation with
Ray and Zach. You can find those up on the
website at howdomoney dot com, no doubt. So until next time,
best friends out, Best friends out.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
Like I sound like an old car guy.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
That's why we wanted you on, man, that's what you
got to talk about buying cars, you know,