July 9, 2025 • 38 mins
Join longtime auto professional Larry Dawson as he shares decades of insight on buying, selling, and understanding the car market. Whether you’re navigating today’s used car values or thinking about your next vehicle, Larry brings a trusted, local perspective to help you make smart decisions. Now serving more as a consultant than a dealer, Larry is still your go-to expert—and remember, his trademark says it all: “We Buy Cars.” Reach Larry directly at (304) 545-0211.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight WHS
it's employees or WVRC Media.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Wednesday morning, whatever morning it is, I thought maybe I
could get to the right microphone there for just a moment.
It is Wednesday morning, and I was one vacation last week, Larry,
and so I'm a little bit I'm a little bit
off on things. Yeah, I get a pass on that
when larr Dawson is in studio with me this morning,
as I re equaate myself with the studio over here
and get us ready to go, I'm Dell Coprier listening
to ask the ex where Larry Dawson is here this
(01:09):
morning taking your phone calls. I have a lot of
stuff to talk about with Larry. But Larry Dawson buys cars.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
We buy cars, and we buy cars every.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Day, that's right, still does it after all these years.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Yes, I was Tellingdal when I walked in that I'm
actually having the time of my life because I'm not
chasing the dollar. I'm having something to do. I'm happy.
I'm allowing myself to work with the freedom of my choice,
not under the gun of a lot of overhead. But
(01:39):
I'm still pretty much doing what I did before. I'm
just not in that retail game. But since you and
I had our last show, I was telling Dale that
as of this well, as you said Monday, right, the
friend of mine bought a vehicle. I helped put the
deal together. I took the trade he bought a new car.
(02:01):
New car dealers real happy they didn't have to deal
with the trade in, you know, invest their money in it.
And it just worked out really, really good. And there's
been three of them that I know of since last month,
and just people called me and said, hey, can you
help me? I said, what do you want to do?
And two of them involved trade in. So I was
(02:23):
able to put the deal together and allow the dealer
to sell the car, and the other one was at
a conflict with hours. I mean, I'm sitting on the
front porch in Hurricane. I get a text from a
friend that their friend wants to buy this certain Bronco sport.
They knew exactly what they wanted to do, but they
work really long hours and was not able to communicate,
(02:47):
was not able to call during their operating hours to
make arrangements to buy this vehicle. And I said, yeah,
give me a second. So I text my friend runs
the store, told him what was going on, gave him
the contact name a number. Ten minutes later he called
me back and he says, I've just talked to her.
We're going to do the deal Thursday.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
I'm at snowshoe Thursday. He called once again to thank me. Now,
I don't know if that deal would have taken place,
but took place with these and the thing about it
was someone was able to answer the question and answer
the phone. It went through me, and that's okay. I mean,
there was nothing for me to gain out there other
than an Ada boy, but that's what I do, and
(03:31):
I enjoy doing that as a satisfaction to me. I'm
looking right now. One of my high school classmates sold
a hunt a CRV two. I didn't realize it's been
twelve years ago. She once another one. She came to
me and text me. She said, I know you retire,
but can you help And I said, yeah, I can.
I can do what to see what I can do. Well,
(03:51):
as we furthered this conversation yesterday, I just asked her.
I said, well, what's going on? And you know, I
put feelers out for what you want. And she told
me about mechanical issues she was having with her car.
And I said, well, Chris, once you try this first,
it might be cheaper than trading. And she did not.
(04:14):
She's a single mother. You know, she is not married.
I've known her father or mother and both her brothers,
and I said, once you try this, and I think
she's going to and probably is going to fix her problem. Now,
whether she likes to trade after that or not, I'm
still going to help her. But she shared with me
what was going on. She was, let's just say naive
(04:35):
in that area. And I have I have done this before.
I kind of know the symptoms and the corrections, and
I suggested and I'm sure she's going to do it
and will help her both ways. First of all, maybe
she might decide not to trade because she really likes
this particular brand car, and if it fixes it, it
(04:57):
won't give her more longevity and patience to trade. You know,
take your time in yeah, instead of getting that desperation mode,
because there's when you don't want to trade. You want
to take your time. I mean, a wounded bird, a
cat's going to get Yeah, you know it's on the ground.
But not always is that symptom that bad. Sometimes it is.
(05:18):
It might be an indication of something worse to come.
But just spending a little bit of time and a
little bit of money, and especially if you can get
it in front of a person that is familiar with
that problem or problematic in that particular you know, make model,
you know, not always. Ford had a really they have
(05:41):
this motor called a three point five Eco boost, and
the campfhasers start to rattles. A cold start rattle only
last like five seconds three seconds when you first start
cold start, until it pumps up the oil pressure and
it expands these cogs and expands the chain or rattle.
I mean, it doesn't sound good, but I mean it's
(06:02):
very very quick in solvingself. And the only way to
correct it is putting new camp phasers in it. And
most Ford garages. Is it's going to be about two
thousand dollars. It might be a little bit more, a
little bit less, but you might as well figure it's
a two thousand dollars fix. But once you fix it, it's
(06:22):
done by farm truck that I drive one hundred and
eighty thousand miles. I fixed it forty thousand miles ago
because I was familiar with it. Now the person that
is not familiar with it and they hear it start up,
they think the engine's coming apart, right, I mean, it's
a death rattle. It's a term we used in the
automobile business. But it's a correctable death rattle. And yes
(06:43):
it comes with a little bit of cost of money,
but it's a whole lot cheaper than trading, much cheaper.
So you see things in the business that I saw
in you experience. I was talking to Donnie dun For
yesterday and we were talking about he said, you know,
he said that Larry's been around this long enough. I'm
not sure he can fix it with his hands, and
he can fix it with his mind, right, And that's
sort of me. You don't want to hand me a wrench,
(07:06):
but you might ask me what I think and which
way to go with it. And most of the time
in my Rollodex or my contacts, I've got that person
this familiar with that problem, that has fixed it before,
is very familiar with fixing it.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I feel a little bit a kindred to you on
this Where I rolled the whips for so long doing
rental cars. I'm not a mechanic, but man, I saw
every brand there was, by the hundreds over the course
of years, and so I have a decent My knowledge
is a little outdated now because that was years ago,
but I had a pretty decent baseline of reliability of vehicles,
what cars had, like little little issues that you knew
(07:42):
how to get by. You know, just disconnect the battery
cable for twenty minutes on this one and I'll reset
that light that goes off every five minutes for no reason,
or you know, whatever it is. You get kind of
a guide on how those things work. And I have
to say, Dave Weekly and I had a little discussion
about before I went on vacation a couple of weeks ago,
about some of the consumer reports vehicles and things like
that and what people were saying about those. And it
(08:05):
doesn't surprise me when even today, when I see the
makers and the ones that have the really good ratings
and the ones that have the cars with issues with
service lights and different thing along those lines, it's the
same thing. Yes, man, these companies haven't changed. I've been
out of that business for ten oh my god, for
about twenty years now, and man, it hasn't changed. The
same people that have the unexplainable dashlights that come on
(08:27):
for no reason at all. It's the same company that
it happened to twenty years ago. It's like, how can
you not fix these problems by now?
Speaker 4 (08:32):
You're right, there's a lot of censor At least with me.
I will answer the phone, I'll answer your text, and
I'll guide you in the right direction. My service is free.
You've heard of Exfinity and Comcasts. Of course it's a
large company. Well, I've had Comcast Internet for ten years
(08:53):
plus at Winfield. About two months ago, Frontier punched the
fiber optic underground and so now we have two choices. Well,
when there was only one choice, that bill was rather high.
You know, most people set around on talk and one
of the things come up, well you pay for internet.
(09:13):
That's a pretty common question, and not an offensive question.
Everybody shares and Exfinity was rather high, but they we
had no choice. So yesterday, after I got the frontier
sales pitch that was significantly less, I thought, well, I'm
gonna call Comcasts and seeea see if they're negotiable. Well,
(09:38):
after my third time trying to call and talk to
AI and pushed a bunch of buttons and I could
not get through. Now get this, I called. One of
the prompts is billing, So I thought, well, I'll talk
to somebody about billing. When I finally got to it
was not a person you could tell was AI or
a robotic person or whatever you want to call it.
(10:01):
A computer I was talking to. When I got to billing,
they said be due to the privacy, they could not
speak to me about billing, and said goodbye and hung up.
So I called back. I thought, well, I'm gonna use
this word disconnect. They got everybody's attention. Well, when I
finally got someone on the line that was probably in
(10:24):
Bangladesh by this, I'm guessing were any somewhere. I told
them that Comcast you know i'd had him. I said,
we see, you've you've been a good customer. And I said,
Frontier is now in the availability is at my front door.
And I told them the price I'm paying one oh
(10:45):
five a month Frontier sixty. They put me on hold
and come back, and they said, since you've been such
a good customer, we're going to match that price. That's
forty five dollars less. Now you take that over ten years.
I'm sure without a doubt they have some type of
(11:05):
Google eror saying yep, Frontiers in there, and he's at
one twenty four and one twenty four has Frontier availability now.
But it took me three calls in probably fifteen minutes.
And I had to ask her to repeat herself a
time or three because the language that I speak that
(11:26):
I kind of know, the language she speaks that she
kind of knows, it doesn't match real well. So I
hope that it is going to go down, but they
made it very, very difficult. They did not share that
information with me that they was willing to reduce my rate.
I took it up on myself to do that. And
(11:48):
there's so much information out there that Dell you have
to dig, digging, dig and get so frustrated with because
you know you're not talking to a person on the
other end.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
No, it's it's become absolutely insane how impossible it is
to get anyone to discuss anything with you or take responsibility.
Like nobody will take responsibility. They'll apologize for your feelings,
I'm so sorry that you feel that way, right, but
they will not take responsibility and say, oh, I'm sorry
that I don't know your groceries weren't delivered on the
(12:21):
time and they ended up going four hours away and
now we're gonna have to read it. I mean it's
it's first more problems, but still you don't get that
type of customer. You know before if somebody was responsible
for something, you contacted somebody for it, there would be
a process, a customer service process. You would be issued
kind of apology and then maybe some make good on
the other end of things, even if it wasn't like substantial,
it was showing you know, we're sorry. There's none of
(12:44):
that anymore. It's like, sorry about your loss. Would you
like to order something else?
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I'm on a blog of Carbona and if you want
to read it is amazing. I don't know how they're
still in business.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yeah, there's Reddit threats that are just incredible.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
When it comes to them, they've had their license revoked
in several states, there is months and months of lag
time between the acquisition and the finality of it. It
I just I read it, and I go, how does
this company still exist? And why why does people go
(13:22):
to it? When you have local you don't have to
come to me. We have local dealers here that will
buy your car. I will buy your car, and it
especially if you come to me. If you call me,
I'm going to answer the phone. If not, you leave
a message, I'm gonna call you right back. And if
you can't get away, I'm gonna come to your house.
I probably go to more houses than they come to me.
(13:44):
And this is what I do. It's a service. It's
a free service. I mean, you're ultimately going to sell
your car, So why don't we lessen the frustration and
the chances if there is a problem that we're gonna
be able to correct it by talking, by me being there,
you being there, I mean bus getting together and solving
the problem. I had a situation a check got double deposit.
(14:11):
It's a long story. I won't bore you with it,
but it happened, and the dealer on the other end
that had purchased a couple of cars. Realized that. He
texted me twice. July fourth, I was side to side
riding up in the mountains. I had hardly any signal,
and I texted him and I got back and I said, wait,
what's up? And he told me, and I said, don't
worry about We're going to take care of it. We'll
(14:33):
talk to Monday. Well, Monday, John Wilson, president of Puttnham
County Bank, calls me. Now, how many presidents of the
bank calls you winterers?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Win?
Speaker 4 (14:41):
There's an issue in the in the accounting world.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
I've never got one.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
You know what, You get a bill, you get kicked back,
you get charged in back and all that. And John called,
That's why I bank at putt m County Bank, because
I know the people down there. And they answered the
phone called five six, two, three, three nine one, and
they'll say putting them counting back. They won't tell you
start pushing buttons. Anyway, I said, John, I knew he
was going to call, and here's the deal. Blah blah bah.
(15:07):
And we talked and then we talked about other things,
and I said, I thank you. You can't buy that service.
Why emmy to me another lender or another lending institution
or financial institution could not come to me with any
offers to take me away from one that will answer
the phone. I mean, I'm just not for sale. I'm
(15:28):
just not going to give up the convenience and the
satisfaction that I can call resolve an issue and have
it done. And what's kind of ironic about this is
that before John, before John called me, I called Ronda
down putting them counting bank because I had my granddaughter
a debit card. I kind of teaching her bank, and
(15:50):
I came up with this idea, Well, now they're issuing
new tag or new cards. Excuse me that are You
don't slide them in there? You just tap up? Yeah, okay,
tapping go was called tap Well. I fall on the sword.
I had it. I thought I gave it to Ken.
Long story short, I don't know what happened to it.
I realized that neither one of us had it. So
(16:12):
I called Ronda down to the bank Monday, and I
explained to her. I said, I'm gonna phone the sword.
My mistake. I'm sorry, but could she send me another one?
She said, sure, Larry, there's no problem. Well, about fifteen
minutes later is when John called Ian a different issue.
When I picked up the phone, I thought it was Ronda.
I go yes, ma'am, and I heard this pause. I
(16:33):
go yes, sir, he said Larry, And I said, well, John,
I had this other issue, I said, I was dealing
with Rohnda. How can you put a price from that?
Could you imagine losing a card of the big bank
of the world and it's in Wall Street or New
York or San Francisco, different time and calling and tried
(16:55):
to get that resolved. I mean, you would probably have
three down in two hours of your time that you'll
never get back. And it's just so convenient. And does
it come at a cost, Well, you might pay a
little bit more or you might get a little bit less.
But I don't know how you put a price from
somebody local that you can talk to. I've been around
(17:16):
for thirty nine years, so I'm pretty easy to find
if there is, If there is a problem. Over the
years of me buying cars, this was uncommon, but it happened.
I swear I think it happened about once a year.
Someone would lose the paperwork where they sold me their car.
It didn't come off their insurance where they paid yearly.
(17:39):
They forgot to call their insurance agents. So they get
built again. They call the agents, well I sold that car,
Well you didn't take it off. We need proof that
you did this or it comes up in our tax ticket.
They need proof that they did not own that car,
and they do not have the receipt that they were given.
And so they'll call me. They said, do you have
(17:59):
a copy yet? And you know, and I would find
it because it's not on a computer. It's in a box,
in a piece of paper in a locker room. So
I would take my time and go find it. And
I mean, I've just had this happen over the many years.
Call that one eight hundred big guy and see if
he'll do that for you. I mean, it's there is
(18:20):
a cost to the small entrepreneur that is still out
there working. I feel like I'm kind of like the
house builder that decided to quit building the big houses
and I'm just going to do back decks. Who better
to build your back deck? That guy built him houses
(18:41):
and he's doing it his time. I mean, is there
profit in it? Where there has to be profit? Because
I believe or not. I still have to pay my
insurance with my electric bill and gas bill, but I'm
not chasing that dollar. I mean, I'll be okay if
I don't buy your car.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And I really get There was a sweet spot when
I was in the book business and when I traveled
the country once. There was a sweet spot before everybody
in the world was out there going to every estate
sale and every second hand store in the world and
getting books and then put in one line and trying
to make money doing it. Well, there there was a
time when I did that and there wasn't a whole
lot of other people doing it. I did it from
a retail outlet for a long time, was very successful
(19:19):
doing it when I decided to travel. When I traveled
the US the first time I did it, I actually
went to places and would buy things and list them
as I was moving. I would good internet cafes, list things,
get orders, and ship them while I was on the road.
That's how I funded like traveling around the country for
three months. That's how I funded it. I didn't make
a ton of money doing it, but I funded my
light livelihood at that point in time. No overhead, no
(19:40):
bills to pay, no employees like I had at the
retail shop. I was just able to travel and move
and do these things. It was nice having that I
was doing the thing that I loved, but at a
smaller scale where I didn't have massive amounts of overhead.
It was nice. It was very nice.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
It's satisfying when you end your career like I did.
You start sunsetting your career. You don't want to go home,
you don't want to out, you don't want to expire.
You want to still be active. So why don't you
make your job your hobby? And I don't hit this
thing hard. I still do the radio show to put
the contacts out here. I get a lot of calls
(20:14):
from the show and people say, I heard you and
I got a question. Mister Peyton, I think does a
good job. John Vernett does a good job. Rich client.
Rich is my neighbor. He's on Dave Island. You know,
sometimes they want to ask a question, but they feel
obligated to pay or do service with you. And I've
said this before, now that I'm not the retail dealer
(20:37):
out there pushing my goods, is that people will come
to me because they don't feel any obligation. You know
that I don't have the fifty sixty eighty cars in inventory,
and the salespeople and the mechanics and all floating around
and there, you know, there's waiting for the next deal.
It's just me. And there is a lot of questions
(20:58):
out here. Probably the most question I get is someone
either a they're selling in a state and they need
to put evaluation. I get a lot of that because
at my age now, a lot of my friends is
losing parents. You know, I've just I've hit that. And
I'm from a small area in Putnam County. This is
(21:18):
Scott Depot. I live in Winfield now and most people
know who I am or heard of me. So that's
a very very common question. And the other one is
what's my car worth? And that's a difficult That's a
difficult question because tell me what you're going to do,
tell me where you're going. I mean, are you putting
a for sale sign in it? Are you going to
(21:40):
go through all the things we have to go through
to retail it, or you just wanting to turn it
into cash. There's two answers to that question. If you
want to go through the work that's necessary and the
risk that goes along with it, and there is people
out there, and I happen to be engaged to one
of them. She just took I had a beautiful piece
(22:00):
of furniture, and you know I'm a man. I said, well, Kim,
just put it on Facebook and have somebody come to
the house a bite. She said, Larry, I'm a lady
and I live alone. I'm not going to do that.
I got it instantly. I wasn't thinking. I was thinking
to me, I would have no problem doing that. Well,
she's right, you do not know. I mean that we've
(22:22):
didn't demonstration here many times. Just off my cell phone number.
It will give you an arrow view of my home
and everything around me and my neighbors. You can go
to zoom street of you. You can look around and
see where this guy lives, this lady lives. Does she
live close to someone? Is her neighbor far off? I mean,
he just tells you so much and all you have
(22:44):
to do is give them a number. And so I
got it. I mean when she said that, I instantly thought,
you're right. Now I would have and I don't think
you would have. But you have a wife and child
at home. You're here, so you might be hesitant as
a matter of fact, that they are not open the
or when I'm not here, you go, they just don't
open the door. Yes, So that's unfortunately, that's the world
(23:04):
we live, and we lock the doors now. And when
you give that information out, how many daily reports do
you hear of national companies being hacked? And the information
just got released.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Yeah, as a matter of fact, I was just reading
a story before I came down here to start doing
our show, and I'm planning on and read it tonight
when I get home. But this investigative reporter that I
follow just got a treasure trove of some computer hacks
from nineteen ninety eight that significantly changed, especially the courses
of financial institutions the United States, completely unheard of until
(23:40):
this point in time, A huge foya treasure trove that
this guy unearthed, this story that has been completely unreported
on it this time. That's all I know about it.
I'm getting ready to go read more about it later
on tonight when I get home from work. But I'm
kind of fascinated on what this was that happened in
the late nineties in our online space, what became our
online space that caused all these all these issues. I'm
(24:01):
kind of interested to learn about this.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Well, the information highway is out there, and you know
we try to secure it in these main frames. We
have one thing about it. If I do get your information,
there's no computer. Yeah, yeah, right, he's behind a locked
door key.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Yeah right, yeah, no, no hike there, that's for sure. Hey,
if you want to give Larry a call, you'll off
give us a call this morning. If you have some
questions about maybe a vehicle you're looking to move, or
you have some questions around that industry, you can give
Larry a call. With with decades of experience in the field,
he can help you out. You and give us a
call this morning at three zero four three four five
fifty eight fifty eight three four five fifty eight fifty
eight to talk to Larry Dawson. You can also call
Larry his phone number three zero four five four five
(24:40):
zero two one one after the show, though he can't answer.
He can't answer during the show. So three zero four
five four five zero two one one. Let's go ahead
and take a break. We'll be back right after this.
You are listening to ask the expert. Larry Dawson is
here from we we buy cars Larry Dawson. We'll be
back right after this on five ad W c HS.
The voice of Charleston.
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Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah.
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(26:21):
Blue Window, Marine, Stike Welt Enhancement, Panhandled Cleaning and Restoration,
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Speaker 3 (26:34):
Man. Apparently I was gone and a bunch of stuff
got broken. I'm not really sure what happened there. John
Burdette is not here this morning. I need to go
back and figure out what is going on with that
little piece of media there. Larry Dawson, just like the
first half of the program, is still here for the
second half of the program as well. And you can
give us a call this morning if you fight two
three zero four three four five fifty eight three or
four three four five fifty eight fifty eighth to talk
(26:55):
to Larry Dawson. He still buys cars and he can
help you with decades of experience if you're looking to
navigate some of that landscape. One question I wanted to
run by you, Larry, just to tap into your experience,
and this is one of the things that Larry probably
can help with her at least have an idea. I
have a vehicle that I have to call every single
year to get the tax bill made. They don't automatically
generate it. Every year. I call them and they say
(27:16):
next year there won't be a problem, and then next
year there's no tax bill generated. I have to call
them get a tax bill generator. It really messes me
up and mixes me up from my taxes because your
vehicle taxes rebate. I never get my rebate because I
can never get my stuff in time to get my
rebate in Is there any magic word that I can say?
Is there like a special phrase if you have any
recommendation on how the heck to get that thing automatically done?
(27:39):
Cannall County.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Yeah, I know you walk. I would walk that way
right with a registration card.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Try again.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
I would walk in person and walk in and look
out I and whatever you all write down or the
form you fill out is make a coffee. Is That's
what I would do. I have just found frustration is
take time to go one on one, you know, with
with an effort, and normally that resolves a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Of This is the most ridiculous thing in the world
because I have to do all this work to pay taxes. Yeah,
it's like I don't want to do this work. It's like,
can I send a bill to the work? Are you
kidding me? Let's just call it even you don't send
me a bill. I don't do the work and I
don't pay the tax. How does that work? You know?
I don't see in the world.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
I want to compliment that you and the radio station
and the higher ups this station beautiful. I sit out
in the car today and just look. I think you
removed the treated we did.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
We did a lot of landscaping aside.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
Look, it just really looks good. It. I mean, I've
been coming here I think since O two and you've
made quite a transformation in this building and in the
in the business aspect of it. But it is it
really shows. I mean, it does look good. And I
know what it costs to go in and do one.
I did a major renovation, and two I was and
(29:00):
fifteen and I was still working. I was still starting
to buy and sell cars and operate. And you know,
there was days we didn't have air conditioning because we
was pulling one unit out and putting a new unit in.
I had a gentleman that worked at night putting a floor.
I mean it's hard to put flooring in, you know.
And you got moving parts, which is people, right, exactly right.
We got desk and chairs. We moved a section of
(29:23):
a wall, a huge wall to open up the showroom,
and all that with a lot of that was done
on Saturdays and Sundays, the paint work and then picking out,
and you know, on top of all that, I was busy.
But when I got done, it showed, you know, people
walking go, wow, you wasn't there a wall there? Well, yeah,
there was a wall.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
So you have done a wonderful job. This company is
this flourished and that you can tell it from. And
I was sitting on a parking lot and I said
that landscaping that tree and it's amazing what one tree, one.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Bush definitely is that it happened wise on vacation. I
came back a tuesday to the same thing. I was like, man,
that looked so much better.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
It does well, I haven't you know, I'm just doing
this once a month. So it's been a month since
I've been here, and I normally get it here early.
I was sitting out there drinking or eating my yogurt,
and I thought, what's different? Then I realized what's different?
But it's it's a very nice added touch and probably,
like my store, at one time, it was needed. You know,
(30:21):
I think that this is a much bigger company than
I operated, but it is a small company on a
scale of you know, we'll say, from the largest to
the smallest. Making that decision and getting everything lined up
to do it without interrupting business the best you can,
and that is very difficult. You know, if you have
(30:42):
the luxury of owning that lot next door, so to speak,
and build and do a tear down, that's one thing.
Nothing gets interrupted. Really, here's a moving.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Day that you flip the switch.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Basically you make a plug and plug you know you're
up and running. Well. To do that on to fly,
it's difficult.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
And people don't keep it or they might have in
mind but not understand just how hard the logistics of
modifying studios seven of them. So we have seven stations
here radio station. We don't have off off hours. You know,
it's not like at midnight we play the national anthem
and we go off air for six hours. You know,
we're every one of our stations is a twenty four
(31:24):
hour station. Now, in technology, there are ways to offload,
you know, playlists and things like that to give the
illusion that you're still fully functioning on air when maybe
you're not necessarily at that point in time where you're
moving things over. That's all the theater of the mind.
But it is very difficult when you're doing business in
these in these studios to also be working on these
studios at the same time. That's why we had to
move people around for so long. But you're right, it was.
(31:45):
It was quite an effort. But it does look nice,
you know. It's always nice to see when things get
the upgrades that and everything. There's no doubt.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Well in the person now, you know, I've fortunate to
get to see the same people I've seen Jeff and
Chris for many many years. Fred. There is some that
has passed on, There is some is left or some retired.
But as you come through the door and you you
you see things, you start noticing changes, and I see
(32:14):
a great direction a radio stations heading, And I just
wanted to put that as a compliment because I that
once owned a store and operated it went through a simmer,
not as large change as you did.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
It is very difficult, it can be, that's that's for sure.
And we appreciate people that that stuck with us as well,
because I know that times there was some some difficulties
even as clients. I mean we had years in studios
that weren't necessarily maybe up to up to stuff. I
mean there's some of that that is just the status
of the industry to some degree. But then it got
a little a little long in the tooth. So it
was nice that this stuff finally came around and we
(32:48):
got everything put into place the way it was supposed to.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Well, we're not in a closet no more.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
No we're not. No, we've we've we've taken this this
show on the road to a lot of different places
over the time, and we've come out on the side.
I don't think we're on our our final studio yet.
I think we still have one more studio that's a
little larger than this one that's going to get dropped,
and I think we'll be able to add maybe a
video element to it if we want to, where folks
can maybe go on YouTube and stream live here in
the show or something like that. I'm working with that.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Let me tell you what I experienced yesterday, and you
probably are familiar with this. I was in a board
meeting yesterday and the board I said on and afterwards,
mayor me say walk over here and look at this,
And I said, what you got, Dave, instead of sending
me sitting there taking notes to provide us the minutes
(33:33):
for our next meeting. Oh yeah, yeah, he was doing
it a In other words, it was being recorded, put
together in the format for our minutes, and it was
reviewing and getting ready to you know, I guess put
it back out there. I had no idea, and I think,
and I thought about this going home. The lady that
(33:56):
I talked to in Bangladesh might expend it. She made
and she said this twice, that this is being recorded
and it's going to be presented to the team to
put me a package together to match Frontiers rates. So
I'm sure without a doubt that was AI. It might
(34:17):
have been because I was not knowledgeable until I went
through the meeting at the city that that was even
out there. It doesn't surprise me. I mean, I just
never thought about it.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, it's it's such a strange space right now with
because what we're seeing is I was reading people in
the technology space that can express this way better than
I can. But you see something that's somewhat useful because
there's use for this AI thing, even like the minutes
that you were just on balcony. I see that as
being not overly offensive. You're recording it anyway, like I
can have just a regular recorder on my phone that
(34:47):
will transcribe. So then if you're just getting an LLM
and AI that is summarizing those results and not adding
anything to it, just a straight summary, that seems fairly useful.
I don't see where that's terrible. But what happens is like, Okay,
well that's useful. Let's just replace twelve employees with AI
because that works. That one thing does not mean the other.
Just because you have a narrow tool that works in
(35:07):
this area does not mean you can suddenly start replacing
everything and just what we were talking about, you on
your phone. That's what's happened with the phones. I don't
necessarily see anything wrong with if you're a business that's
growing and you have that first level of triage to
you to your phone system. So maybe you know, in
the old days, you had a telephany system saying if
you needed customer service here, if it's an emergency here
or whatever it might be short whole time you get
(35:29):
to the right department, talk to a human and you're
on your way. Not a terrible way to use quote
unquote AI you know, I mean, maybe you can't have
somebody answer the point of contact every single time. As
you're a business growing, as long as the person behind
that is a real person that takes care of the
business and stuff like that, we may have had that
sweet spot at some point in the past. The problem
is that person behind them has now been replaced. That
(35:49):
person behind them has now been replaced, the person behind
them now been replaced, and now it's just robots all
the way down, and we've lost all of the human
element out of it.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
And where does that information go that if you're going
to sell your car, you call that big store. If
that's being recorded, and you're being transcribed. There's a lot
of information that is you and I are sitting here
talking today that we could share information, and I don't
see you taking notes or recording. I'm not taking notes
(36:16):
from recording. So we walk away. It becomes dust.
Speaker 7 (36:20):
You know.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
It's just we've had a conversations based upon your memory,
my memory of how you can conceive what I said.
But you're starting there to have it transcribed, kind of
like you're giving a testimony, and then all of a
sudden it's brought up two weeks later in print. I said, well,
you didn't say this because we have you know, and
(36:42):
when you go down that fine line and you're trying
to sell that car, and I said, well, you never
said anything about that right front fender being repainted, right right?
Well yeah, well no, we have it. How do you
protect yourself? And then they come back on you because
let's say airs in emissions, Well, an individual doesn't have
(37:03):
it in that policy I came up on. And I
don't know how this is going to end. You know,
we had a hell storm on April the fifteenth, fourteenth
or something down today's valley. Probably Dave had had some
damage because he lives in scut Depot. Don't know if
he did, but he was in that area. Those cars
(37:23):
that's being repaired is now hitting car fights. Yeah, with
the word moderate to severe, that's a downgrade in your valuation.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Oh yes, yeah, that's for sure.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
So after the fact it's happening.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
It's great information as always with Larry Dawson from larr Dawson,
we buy cars. If you need to know hold of
Larry you could do that. He can help you out
with his decades of experience in the industry. Threes are
four five four five zero two one one three zerre
a four five four five zero two one one The
second Wednesday of every month right here on five adwc
hs on ask the expert, as Larry's been for a
long time. Larry, have a great day.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
We'll see you next time. A great day, Ry one
on five ADW CHS The Boys of.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Charleston five e w c HS Anty six point fives
on Charleston one oh four point five cross Lay on
w u v RC Media Station. We're proud to live
here too.
Unlock your dream property with MEEX Realty Group, where Rich
the realtor makes real estate dreams a reality, whether it's
residential or commercial. We've got Charleston to Huntington covered. Your
key to exceptional real estate experience is start here. Meeks
Realty Group Contact us at Meeks dot us.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight WHS
it's employees or WVRC Media.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Wednesday morning, whatever morning it is, I thought maybe I
could get to the right microphone there for just a moment.
It is Wednesday morning, and I was one vacation last week, Larry,
and so I'm a little bit I'm a little bit
off on things. Yeah, I get a pass on that
when larr Dawson is in studio with me this morning,
as I re equaate myself with the studio over here
and get us ready to go, I'm Dell Coprier listening
to ask the ex where Larry Dawson is here this
(01:09):
morning taking your phone calls. I have a lot of
stuff to talk about with Larry. But Larry Dawson buys cars.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
We buy cars, and we buy cars every.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Day, that's right, still does it after all these years.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Yes, I was Tellingdal when I walked in that I'm
actually having the time of my life because I'm not
chasing the dollar. I'm having something to do. I'm happy.
I'm allowing myself to work with the freedom of my choice,
not under the gun of a lot of overhead. But
(01:39):
I'm still pretty much doing what I did before. I'm
just not in that retail game. But since you and
I had our last show, I was telling Dale that
as of this well, as you said Monday, right, the
friend of mine bought a vehicle. I helped put the
deal together. I took the trade he bought a new car.
(02:01):
New car dealers real happy they didn't have to deal
with the trade in, you know, invest their money in it.
And it just worked out really, really good. And there's
been three of them that I know of since last month,
and just people called me and said, hey, can you
help me? I said, what do you want to do?
And two of them involved trade in. So I was
(02:23):
able to put the deal together and allow the dealer
to sell the car, and the other one was at
a conflict with hours. I mean, I'm sitting on the
front porch in Hurricane. I get a text from a
friend that their friend wants to buy this certain Bronco sport.
They knew exactly what they wanted to do, but they
work really long hours and was not able to communicate,
(02:47):
was not able to call during their operating hours to
make arrangements to buy this vehicle. And I said, yeah,
give me a second. So I text my friend runs
the store, told him what was going on, gave him
the contact name a number. Ten minutes later he called
me back and he says, I've just talked to her.
We're going to do the deal Thursday.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
I'm at snowshoe Thursday. He called once again to thank me. Now,
I don't know if that deal would have taken place,
but took place with these and the thing about it
was someone was able to answer the question and answer
the phone. It went through me, and that's okay. I mean,
there was nothing for me to gain out there other
than an Ada boy, but that's what I do, and
(03:31):
I enjoy doing that as a satisfaction to me. I'm
looking right now. One of my high school classmates sold
a hunt a CRV two. I didn't realize it's been
twelve years ago. She once another one. She came to
me and text me. She said, I know you retire,
but can you help And I said, yeah, I can.
I can do what to see what I can do. Well,
(03:51):
as we furthered this conversation yesterday, I just asked her.
I said, well, what's going on? And you know, I
put feelers out for what you want. And she told
me about mechanical issues she was having with her car.
And I said, well, Chris, once you try this first,
it might be cheaper than trading. And she did not.
(04:14):
She's a single mother. You know, she is not married.
I've known her father or mother and both her brothers,
and I said, once you try this, and I think
she's going to and probably is going to fix her problem. Now,
whether she likes to trade after that or not, I'm
still going to help her. But she shared with me
what was going on. She was, let's just say naive
(04:35):
in that area. And I have I have done this before.
I kind of know the symptoms and the corrections, and
I suggested and I'm sure she's going to do it
and will help her both ways. First of all, maybe
she might decide not to trade because she really likes
this particular brand car, and if it fixes it, it
(04:57):
won't give her more longevity and patience to trade. You know,
take your time in yeah, instead of getting that desperation mode,
because there's when you don't want to trade. You want
to take your time. I mean, a wounded bird, a
cat's going to get Yeah, you know it's on the ground.
But not always is that symptom that bad. Sometimes it is.
(05:18):
It might be an indication of something worse to come.
But just spending a little bit of time and a
little bit of money, and especially if you can get
it in front of a person that is familiar with
that problem or problematic in that particular you know, make model,
you know, not always. Ford had a really they have
(05:41):
this motor called a three point five Eco boost, and
the campfhasers start to rattles. A cold start rattle only
last like five seconds three seconds when you first start
cold start, until it pumps up the oil pressure and
it expands these cogs and expands the chain or rattle.
I mean, it doesn't sound good, but I mean it's
(06:02):
very very quick in solvingself. And the only way to
correct it is putting new camp phasers in it. And
most Ford garages. Is it's going to be about two
thousand dollars. It might be a little bit more, a
little bit less, but you might as well figure it's
a two thousand dollars fix. But once you fix it, it's
(06:22):
done by farm truck that I drive one hundred and
eighty thousand miles. I fixed it forty thousand miles ago
because I was familiar with it. Now the person that
is not familiar with it and they hear it start up,
they think the engine's coming apart, right, I mean, it's
a death rattle. It's a term we used in the
automobile business. But it's a correctable death rattle. And yes
(06:43):
it comes with a little bit of cost of money,
but it's a whole lot cheaper than trading, much cheaper.
So you see things in the business that I saw
in you experience. I was talking to Donnie dun For
yesterday and we were talking about he said, you know,
he said that Larry's been around this long enough. I'm
not sure he can fix it with his hands, and
he can fix it with his mind, right, And that's
sort of me. You don't want to hand me a wrench,
(07:06):
but you might ask me what I think and which
way to go with it. And most of the time
in my Rollodex or my contacts, I've got that person
this familiar with that problem, that has fixed it before,
is very familiar with fixing it.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I feel a little bit a kindred to you on
this Where I rolled the whips for so long doing
rental cars. I'm not a mechanic, but man, I saw
every brand there was, by the hundreds over the course
of years, and so I have a decent My knowledge
is a little outdated now because that was years ago,
but I had a pretty decent baseline of reliability of vehicles,
what cars had, like little little issues that you knew
(07:42):
how to get by. You know, just disconnect the battery
cable for twenty minutes on this one and I'll reset
that light that goes off every five minutes for no reason,
or you know, whatever it is. You get kind of
a guide on how those things work. And I have
to say, Dave Weekly and I had a little discussion
about before I went on vacation a couple of weeks ago,
about some of the consumer reports vehicles and things like
that and what people were saying about those. And it
(08:05):
doesn't surprise me when even today, when I see the
makers and the ones that have the really good ratings
and the ones that have the cars with issues with
service lights and different thing along those lines, it's the
same thing. Yes, man, these companies haven't changed. I've been
out of that business for ten oh my god, for
about twenty years now, and man, it hasn't changed. The
same people that have the unexplainable dashlights that come on
(08:27):
for no reason at all. It's the same company that
it happened to twenty years ago. It's like, how can
you not fix these problems by now?
Speaker 4 (08:32):
You're right, there's a lot of censor At least with me.
I will answer the phone, I'll answer your text, and
I'll guide you in the right direction. My service is free.
You've heard of Exfinity and Comcasts. Of course it's a
large company. Well, I've had Comcast Internet for ten years
(08:53):
plus at Winfield. About two months ago, Frontier punched the
fiber optic underground and so now we have two choices. Well,
when there was only one choice, that bill was rather high.
You know, most people set around on talk and one
of the things come up, well you pay for internet.
(09:13):
That's a pretty common question, and not an offensive question.
Everybody shares and Exfinity was rather high, but they we
had no choice. So yesterday, after I got the frontier
sales pitch that was significantly less, I thought, well, I'm
gonna call Comcasts and seeea see if they're negotiable. Well,
(09:38):
after my third time trying to call and talk to
AI and pushed a bunch of buttons and I could
not get through. Now get this, I called. One of
the prompts is billing, So I thought, well, I'll talk
to somebody about billing. When I finally got to it
was not a person you could tell was AI or
a robotic person or whatever you want to call it.
(10:01):
A computer I was talking to. When I got to billing,
they said be due to the privacy, they could not
speak to me about billing, and said goodbye and hung up.
So I called back. I thought, well, I'm gonna use
this word disconnect. They got everybody's attention. Well, when I
finally got someone on the line that was probably in
(10:24):
Bangladesh by this, I'm guessing were any somewhere. I told
them that Comcast you know i'd had him. I said,
we see, you've you've been a good customer. And I said,
Frontier is now in the availability is at my front door.
And I told them the price I'm paying one oh
(10:45):
five a month Frontier sixty. They put me on hold
and come back, and they said, since you've been such
a good customer, we're going to match that price. That's
forty five dollars less. Now you take that over ten years.
I'm sure without a doubt they have some type of
(11:05):
Google eror saying yep, Frontiers in there, and he's at
one twenty four and one twenty four has Frontier availability now.
But it took me three calls in probably fifteen minutes.
And I had to ask her to repeat herself a
time or three because the language that I speak that
(11:26):
I kind of know, the language she speaks that she
kind of knows, it doesn't match real well. So I
hope that it is going to go down, but they
made it very, very difficult. They did not share that
information with me that they was willing to reduce my rate.
I took it up on myself to do that. And
(11:48):
there's so much information out there that Dell you have
to dig, digging, dig and get so frustrated with because
you know you're not talking to a person on the
other end.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
No, it's it's become absolutely insane how impossible it is
to get anyone to discuss anything with you or take responsibility.
Like nobody will take responsibility. They'll apologize for your feelings,
I'm so sorry that you feel that way, right, but
they will not take responsibility and say, oh, I'm sorry
that I don't know your groceries weren't delivered on the
(12:21):
time and they ended up going four hours away and
now we're gonna have to read it. I mean it's
it's first more problems, but still you don't get that
type of customer. You know before if somebody was responsible
for something, you contacted somebody for it, there would be
a process, a customer service process. You would be issued
kind of apology and then maybe some make good on
the other end of things, even if it wasn't like substantial,
it was showing you know, we're sorry. There's none of
(12:44):
that anymore. It's like, sorry about your loss. Would you
like to order something else?
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I'm on a blog of Carbona and if you want
to read it is amazing. I don't know how they're
still in business.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yeah, there's Reddit threats that are just incredible.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
When it comes to them, they've had their license revoked
in several states, there is months and months of lag
time between the acquisition and the finality of it. It
I just I read it, and I go, how does
this company still exist? And why why does people go
(13:22):
to it? When you have local you don't have to
come to me. We have local dealers here that will
buy your car. I will buy your car, and it
especially if you come to me. If you call me,
I'm going to answer the phone. If not, you leave
a message, I'm gonna call you right back. And if
you can't get away, I'm gonna come to your house.
I probably go to more houses than they come to me.
(13:44):
And this is what I do. It's a service. It's
a free service. I mean, you're ultimately going to sell
your car, So why don't we lessen the frustration and
the chances if there is a problem that we're gonna
be able to correct it by talking, by me being there,
you being there, I mean bus getting together and solving
the problem. I had a situation a check got double deposit.
(14:11):
It's a long story. I won't bore you with it,
but it happened, and the dealer on the other end
that had purchased a couple of cars. Realized that. He
texted me twice. July fourth, I was side to side
riding up in the mountains. I had hardly any signal,
and I texted him and I got back and I said, wait,
what's up? And he told me, and I said, don't
worry about We're going to take care of it. We'll
(14:33):
talk to Monday. Well, Monday, John Wilson, president of Puttnham
County Bank, calls me. Now, how many presidents of the
bank calls you winterers?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Win?
Speaker 4 (14:41):
There's an issue in the in the accounting world.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
I've never got one.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
You know what, You get a bill, you get kicked back,
you get charged in back and all that. And John called,
That's why I bank at putt m County Bank, because
I know the people down there. And they answered the
phone called five six, two, three, three nine one, and
they'll say putting them counting back. They won't tell you
start pushing buttons. Anyway, I said, John, I knew he
was going to call, and here's the deal. Blah blah bah.
(15:07):
And we talked and then we talked about other things,
and I said, I thank you. You can't buy that service.
Why emmy to me another lender or another lending institution
or financial institution could not come to me with any
offers to take me away from one that will answer
the phone. I mean, I'm just not for sale. I'm
(15:28):
just not going to give up the convenience and the
satisfaction that I can call resolve an issue and have
it done. And what's kind of ironic about this is
that before John, before John called me, I called Ronda
down putting them counting bank because I had my granddaughter
a debit card. I kind of teaching her bank, and
(15:50):
I came up with this idea, Well, now they're issuing
new tag or new cards. Excuse me that are You
don't slide them in there? You just tap up? Yeah, okay,
tapping go was called tap Well. I fall on the sword.
I had it. I thought I gave it to Ken.
Long story short, I don't know what happened to it.
I realized that neither one of us had it. So
(16:12):
I called Ronda down to the bank Monday, and I
explained to her. I said, I'm gonna phone the sword.
My mistake. I'm sorry, but could she send me another one?
She said, sure, Larry, there's no problem. Well, about fifteen
minutes later is when John called Ian a different issue.
When I picked up the phone, I thought it was Ronda.
I go yes, ma'am, and I heard this pause. I
(16:33):
go yes, sir, he said Larry, And I said, well, John,
I had this other issue, I said, I was dealing
with Rohnda. How can you put a price from that?
Could you imagine losing a card of the big bank
of the world and it's in Wall Street or New
York or San Francisco, different time and calling and tried
(16:55):
to get that resolved. I mean, you would probably have
three down in two hours of your time that you'll
never get back. And it's just so convenient. And does
it come at a cost, Well, you might pay a
little bit more or you might get a little bit less.
But I don't know how you put a price from
somebody local that you can talk to. I've been around
(17:16):
for thirty nine years, so I'm pretty easy to find
if there is, If there is a problem. Over the
years of me buying cars, this was uncommon, but it happened.
I swear I think it happened about once a year.
Someone would lose the paperwork where they sold me their car.
It didn't come off their insurance where they paid yearly.
(17:39):
They forgot to call their insurance agents. So they get
built again. They call the agents, well I sold that car,
Well you didn't take it off. We need proof that
you did this or it comes up in our tax ticket.
They need proof that they did not own that car,
and they do not have the receipt that they were given.
And so they'll call me. They said, do you have
(17:59):
a copy yet? And you know, and I would find
it because it's not on a computer. It's in a box,
in a piece of paper in a locker room. So
I would take my time and go find it. And
I mean, I've just had this happen over the many years.
Call that one eight hundred big guy and see if
he'll do that for you. I mean, it's there is
(18:20):
a cost to the small entrepreneur that is still out
there working. I feel like I'm kind of like the
house builder that decided to quit building the big houses
and I'm just going to do back decks. Who better
to build your back deck? That guy built him houses
(18:41):
and he's doing it his time. I mean, is there
profit in it? Where there has to be profit? Because
I believe or not. I still have to pay my
insurance with my electric bill and gas bill, but I'm
not chasing that dollar. I mean, I'll be okay if
I don't buy your car.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And I really get There was a sweet spot when
I was in the book business and when I traveled
the country once. There was a sweet spot before everybody
in the world was out there going to every estate
sale and every second hand store in the world and
getting books and then put in one line and trying
to make money doing it. Well, there there was a
time when I did that and there wasn't a whole
lot of other people doing it. I did it from
a retail outlet for a long time, was very successful
(19:19):
doing it when I decided to travel. When I traveled
the US the first time I did it, I actually
went to places and would buy things and list them
as I was moving. I would good internet cafes, list things,
get orders, and ship them while I was on the road.
That's how I funded like traveling around the country for
three months. That's how I funded it. I didn't make
a ton of money doing it, but I funded my
light livelihood at that point in time. No overhead, no
(19:40):
bills to pay, no employees like I had at the
retail shop. I was just able to travel and move
and do these things. It was nice having that I
was doing the thing that I loved, but at a
smaller scale where I didn't have massive amounts of overhead.
It was nice. It was very nice.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
It's satisfying when you end your career like I did.
You start sunsetting your career. You don't want to go home,
you don't want to out, you don't want to expire.
You want to still be active. So why don't you
make your job your hobby? And I don't hit this
thing hard. I still do the radio show to put
the contacts out here. I get a lot of calls
(20:14):
from the show and people say, I heard you and
I got a question. Mister Peyton, I think does a
good job. John Vernett does a good job. Rich client.
Rich is my neighbor. He's on Dave Island. You know,
sometimes they want to ask a question, but they feel
obligated to pay or do service with you. And I've
said this before, now that I'm not the retail dealer
(20:37):
out there pushing my goods, is that people will come
to me because they don't feel any obligation. You know
that I don't have the fifty sixty eighty cars in inventory,
and the salespeople and the mechanics and all floating around
and there, you know, there's waiting for the next deal.
It's just me. And there is a lot of questions
(20:58):
out here. Probably the most question I get is someone
either a they're selling in a state and they need
to put evaluation. I get a lot of that because
at my age now, a lot of my friends is
losing parents. You know, I've just I've hit that. And
I'm from a small area in Putnam County. This is
(21:18):
Scott Depot. I live in Winfield now and most people
know who I am or heard of me. So that's
a very very common question. And the other one is
what's my car worth? And that's a difficult That's a
difficult question because tell me what you're going to do,
tell me where you're going. I mean, are you putting
a for sale sign in it? Are you going to
(21:40):
go through all the things we have to go through
to retail it, or you just wanting to turn it
into cash. There's two answers to that question. If you
want to go through the work that's necessary and the
risk that goes along with it, and there is people
out there, and I happen to be engaged to one
of them. She just took I had a beautiful piece
(22:00):
of furniture, and you know I'm a man. I said, well, Kim,
just put it on Facebook and have somebody come to
the house a bite. She said, Larry, I'm a lady
and I live alone. I'm not going to do that.
I got it instantly. I wasn't thinking. I was thinking
to me, I would have no problem doing that. Well,
she's right, you do not know. I mean that we've
(22:22):
didn't demonstration here many times. Just off my cell phone number.
It will give you an arrow view of my home
and everything around me and my neighbors. You can go
to zoom street of you. You can look around and
see where this guy lives, this lady lives. Does she
live close to someone? Is her neighbor far off? I mean,
he just tells you so much and all you have
(22:44):
to do is give them a number. And so I
got it. I mean when she said that, I instantly thought,
you're right. Now I would have and I don't think
you would have. But you have a wife and child
at home. You're here, so you might be hesitant as
a matter of fact, that they are not open the
or when I'm not here, you go, they just don't
open the door. Yes, So that's unfortunately, that's the world
(23:04):
we live, and we lock the doors now. And when
you give that information out, how many daily reports do
you hear of national companies being hacked? And the information
just got released.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Yeah, as a matter of fact, I was just reading
a story before I came down here to start doing
our show, and I'm planning on and read it tonight
when I get home. But this investigative reporter that I
follow just got a treasure trove of some computer hacks
from nineteen ninety eight that significantly changed, especially the courses
of financial institutions the United States, completely unheard of until
(23:40):
this point in time, A huge foya treasure trove that
this guy unearthed, this story that has been completely unreported
on it this time. That's all I know about it.
I'm getting ready to go read more about it later
on tonight when I get home from work. But I'm
kind of fascinated on what this was that happened in
the late nineties in our online space, what became our
online space that caused all these all these issues. I'm
(24:01):
kind of interested to learn about this.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Well, the information highway is out there, and you know
we try to secure it in these main frames. We
have one thing about it. If I do get your information,
there's no computer. Yeah, yeah, right, he's behind a locked
door key.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Yeah right, yeah, no, no hike there, that's for sure. Hey,
if you want to give Larry a call, you'll off
give us a call this morning. If you have some
questions about maybe a vehicle you're looking to move, or
you have some questions around that industry, you can give
Larry a call. With with decades of experience in the field,
he can help you out. You and give us a
call this morning at three zero four three four five
fifty eight fifty eight three four five fifty eight fifty
eight to talk to Larry Dawson. You can also call
Larry his phone number three zero four five four five
(24:40):
zero two one one after the show, though he can't answer.
He can't answer during the show. So three zero four
five four five zero two one one. Let's go ahead
and take a break. We'll be back right after this.
You are listening to ask the expert. Larry Dawson is
here from we we buy cars Larry Dawson. We'll be
back right after this on five ad W c HS.
The voice of Charleston.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
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Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (25:57):
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(26:21):
Blue Window, Marine, Stike Welt Enhancement, Panhandled Cleaning and Restoration,
and Polka Valley Bank.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Man. Apparently I was gone and a bunch of stuff
got broken. I'm not really sure what happened there. John
Burdette is not here this morning. I need to go
back and figure out what is going on with that
little piece of media there. Larry Dawson, just like the
first half of the program, is still here for the
second half of the program as well. And you can
give us a call this morning if you fight two
three zero four three four five fifty eight three or
four three four five fifty eight fifty eighth to talk
(26:55):
to Larry Dawson. He still buys cars and he can
help you with decades of experience if you're looking to
navigate some of that landscape. One question I wanted to
run by you, Larry, just to tap into your experience,
and this is one of the things that Larry probably
can help with her at least have an idea. I
have a vehicle that I have to call every single
year to get the tax bill made. They don't automatically
generate it. Every year. I call them and they say
(27:16):
next year there won't be a problem, and then next
year there's no tax bill generated. I have to call
them get a tax bill generator. It really messes me
up and mixes me up from my taxes because your
vehicle taxes rebate. I never get my rebate because I
can never get my stuff in time to get my
rebate in Is there any magic word that I can say?
Is there like a special phrase if you have any
recommendation on how the heck to get that thing automatically done?
(27:39):
Cannall County.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Yeah, I know you walk. I would walk that way
right with a registration card.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Try again.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
I would walk in person and walk in and look
out I and whatever you all write down or the
form you fill out is make a coffee. Is That's
what I would do. I have just found frustration is
take time to go one on one, you know, with
with an effort, and normally that resolves a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Of This is the most ridiculous thing in the world
because I have to do all this work to pay taxes. Yeah,
it's like I don't want to do this work. It's like,
can I send a bill to the work? Are you
kidding me? Let's just call it even you don't send
me a bill. I don't do the work and I
don't pay the tax. How does that work? You know?
I don't see in the world.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
I want to compliment that you and the radio station
and the higher ups this station beautiful. I sit out
in the car today and just look. I think you
removed the treated we did.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
We did a lot of landscaping aside.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
Look, it just really looks good. It. I mean, I've
been coming here I think since O two and you've
made quite a transformation in this building and in the
in the business aspect of it. But it is it
really shows. I mean, it does look good. And I
know what it costs to go in and do one.
I did a major renovation, and two I was and
(29:00):
fifteen and I was still working. I was still starting
to buy and sell cars and operate. And you know,
there was days we didn't have air conditioning because we
was pulling one unit out and putting a new unit in.
I had a gentleman that worked at night putting a floor.
I mean it's hard to put flooring in, you know.
And you got moving parts, which is people, right, exactly right.
We got desk and chairs. We moved a section of
(29:23):
a wall, a huge wall to open up the showroom,
and all that with a lot of that was done
on Saturdays and Sundays, the paint work and then picking out,
and you know, on top of all that, I was busy.
But when I got done, it showed, you know, people
walking go, wow, you wasn't there a wall there? Well, yeah,
there was a wall.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
So you have done a wonderful job. This company is
this flourished and that you can tell it from. And
I was sitting on a parking lot and I said
that landscaping that tree and it's amazing what one tree, one.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Bush definitely is that it happened wise on vacation. I
came back a tuesday to the same thing. I was like, man,
that looked so much better.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
It does well, I haven't you know, I'm just doing
this once a month. So it's been a month since
I've been here, and I normally get it here early.
I was sitting out there drinking or eating my yogurt,
and I thought, what's different? Then I realized what's different?
But it's it's a very nice added touch and probably,
like my store, at one time, it was needed. You know,
(30:21):
I think that this is a much bigger company than
I operated, but it is a small company on a
scale of you know, we'll say, from the largest to
the smallest. Making that decision and getting everything lined up
to do it without interrupting business the best you can,
and that is very difficult. You know, if you have
(30:42):
the luxury of owning that lot next door, so to speak,
and build and do a tear down, that's one thing.
Nothing gets interrupted. Really, here's a moving.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Day that you flip the switch.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Basically you make a plug and plug you know you're
up and running. Well. To do that on to fly,
it's difficult.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
And people don't keep it or they might have in
mind but not understand just how hard the logistics of
modifying studios seven of them. So we have seven stations
here radio station. We don't have off off hours. You know,
it's not like at midnight we play the national anthem
and we go off air for six hours. You know,
we're every one of our stations is a twenty four
(31:24):
hour station. Now, in technology, there are ways to offload,
you know, playlists and things like that to give the
illusion that you're still fully functioning on air when maybe
you're not necessarily at that point in time where you're
moving things over. That's all the theater of the mind.
But it is very difficult when you're doing business in
these in these studios to also be working on these
studios at the same time. That's why we had to
move people around for so long. But you're right, it was.
(31:45):
It was quite an effort. But it does look nice,
you know. It's always nice to see when things get
the upgrades that and everything. There's no doubt.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Well in the person now, you know, I've fortunate to
get to see the same people I've seen Jeff and
Chris for many many years. Fred. There is some that
has passed on, There is some is left or some retired.
But as you come through the door and you you
you see things, you start noticing changes, and I see
(32:14):
a great direction a radio stations heading, And I just
wanted to put that as a compliment because I that
once owned a store and operated it went through a simmer,
not as large change as you did.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
It is very difficult, it can be, that's that's for sure.
And we appreciate people that that stuck with us as well,
because I know that times there was some some difficulties
even as clients. I mean we had years in studios
that weren't necessarily maybe up to up to stuff. I
mean there's some of that that is just the status
of the industry to some degree. But then it got
a little a little long in the tooth. So it
was nice that this stuff finally came around and we
(32:48):
got everything put into place the way it was supposed to.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Well, we're not in a closet no more.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
No we're not. No, we've we've we've taken this this
show on the road to a lot of different places
over the time, and we've come out on the side.
I don't think we're on our our final studio yet.
I think we still have one more studio that's a
little larger than this one that's going to get dropped,
and I think we'll be able to add maybe a
video element to it if we want to, where folks
can maybe go on YouTube and stream live here in
the show or something like that. I'm working with that.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Let me tell you what I experienced yesterday, and you
probably are familiar with this. I was in a board
meeting yesterday and the board I said on and afterwards,
mayor me say walk over here and look at this,
And I said, what you got, Dave, instead of sending
me sitting there taking notes to provide us the minutes
(33:33):
for our next meeting. Oh yeah, yeah, he was doing
it a In other words, it was being recorded, put
together in the format for our minutes, and it was
reviewing and getting ready to you know, I guess put
it back out there. I had no idea, and I think,
and I thought about this going home. The lady that
(33:56):
I talked to in Bangladesh might expend it. She made
and she said this twice, that this is being recorded
and it's going to be presented to the team to
put me a package together to match Frontiers rates. So
I'm sure without a doubt that was AI. It might
(34:17):
have been because I was not knowledgeable until I went
through the meeting at the city that that was even
out there. It doesn't surprise me. I mean, I just
never thought about it.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, it's it's such a strange space right now with
because what we're seeing is I was reading people in
the technology space that can express this way better than
I can. But you see something that's somewhat useful because
there's use for this AI thing, even like the minutes
that you were just on balcony. I see that as
being not overly offensive. You're recording it anyway, like I
can have just a regular recorder on my phone that
(34:47):
will transcribe. So then if you're just getting an LLM
and AI that is summarizing those results and not adding
anything to it, just a straight summary, that seems fairly useful.
I don't see where that's terrible. But what happens is like, Okay,
well that's useful. Let's just replace twelve employees with AI
because that works. That one thing does not mean the other.
Just because you have a narrow tool that works in
(35:07):
this area does not mean you can suddenly start replacing
everything and just what we were talking about, you on
your phone. That's what's happened with the phones. I don't
necessarily see anything wrong with if you're a business that's
growing and you have that first level of triage to
you to your phone system. So maybe you know, in
the old days, you had a telephany system saying if
you needed customer service here, if it's an emergency here
or whatever it might be short whole time you get
(35:29):
to the right department, talk to a human and you're
on your way. Not a terrible way to use quote
unquote AI you know, I mean, maybe you can't have
somebody answer the point of contact every single time. As
you're a business growing, as long as the person behind
that is a real person that takes care of the
business and stuff like that, we may have had that
sweet spot at some point in the past. The problem
is that person behind them has now been replaced. That
(35:49):
person behind them has now been replaced, the person behind
them now been replaced, and now it's just robots all
the way down, and we've lost all of the human
element out of it.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
And where does that information go that if you're going
to sell your car, you call that big store. If
that's being recorded, and you're being transcribed. There's a lot
of information that is you and I are sitting here
talking today that we could share information, and I don't
see you taking notes or recording. I'm not taking notes
(36:16):
from recording. So we walk away. It becomes dust.
Speaker 7 (36:20):
You know.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
It's just we've had a conversations based upon your memory,
my memory of how you can conceive what I said.
But you're starting there to have it transcribed, kind of
like you're giving a testimony, and then all of a
sudden it's brought up two weeks later in print. I said, well,
you didn't say this because we have you know, and
(36:42):
when you go down that fine line and you're trying
to sell that car, and I said, well, you never
said anything about that right front fender being repainted, right right?
Well yeah, well no, we have it. How do you
protect yourself? And then they come back on you because
let's say airs in emissions, Well, an individual doesn't have
(37:03):
it in that policy I came up on. And I
don't know how this is going to end. You know,
we had a hell storm on April the fifteenth, fourteenth
or something down today's valley. Probably Dave had had some
damage because he lives in scut Depot. Don't know if
he did, but he was in that area. Those cars
(37:23):
that's being repaired is now hitting car fights. Yeah, with
the word moderate to severe, that's a downgrade in your valuation.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Oh yes, yeah, that's for sure.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
So after the fact it's happening.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
It's great information as always with Larry Dawson from larr Dawson,
we buy cars. If you need to know hold of
Larry you could do that. He can help you out
with his decades of experience in the industry. Threes are
four five four five zero two one one three zerre
a four five four five zero two one one The
second Wednesday of every month right here on five adwc
hs on ask the expert, as Larry's been for a
long time. Larry, have a great day.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
We'll see you next time. A great day, Ry one
on five ADW CHS The Boys of.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Charleston five e w c HS Anty six point fives
on Charleston one oh four point five cross Lay on
w u v RC Media Station. We're proud to live
here too.
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