The Reality of Exotic Car Maintenance

If you own a vehicle, you understand that there are hidden costs of ownership -- including maintenance. But have you ever considered what your maintenance bill would look like if you owned a rare exotic sports car?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuff Works dot Com. I'd welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott, I'm Ben. As always, we
were joined by our super producer, Alex the Madman Williams
Now Scott. I'm just gonna arbitrarily assigned nicknames and we'll

(00:24):
we'll see if they even know madman. Madman is a
great nickname if it's in between someone's real first and
last time fair enough, Yeah, I mean if it, if
it sticks for the whole episode, I guess it'll be fine,
but we'll we'll see, um if there's something a little
better by the end of the episode, right, because sometimes
when you're at the beginning of an endeavor, you're not
quite sure about just what you're getting into. Yeah, and uh, well,

(00:48):
we know what we're getting into, the two of us do,
but everybody out there might only know about one of
the top Because we're gonna talk about today, because that's
what the title will be, right right, We're gonna talk about, um,
how expensive is it really to maintain an exotic car
McLaren and specific specifically specifically a McLaren F one. But
the second thing we're gonna talk about towards the end

(01:08):
of this episode. Is is a lengthy listener email that
was written to us, and we are going to respond
to the response. I guess yeah, because we think that
it will be valuable to UH, will be valuable to
you all, ladies and gentlemen too. You know, we strive
for fairness in our opinions, even me with Honda Odyssees.

(01:32):
You know, we always get a percent of the time.
But we thought it was a very informative look behind
the curtain. Should we spoil it yet or wait? Let's wait,
So everybody scoot to the edge of your seat unless
you're driving, keep keep your maintain your position, maintain your
position to everybody. So, Scott, you brought this idea to

(01:53):
us originally, and I was I was gassed about it.
No pun intended, because we earlier did an episode on
the hidden cost of ownership, because we've we've all been there.
You know, when you're fantasy windows shopping, right, I guess

(02:14):
now increasingly shopping online, you're looking at ads for cars
and you think, wow, this viper is only blah blah
blah amount. You know, are like, oh my gosh, a
Rolls Royce. I could own a Rolls Royce. But unfortunately,
just like when you buy a plane ticket, just like
when you buy a concert ticket, uh to an even

(02:37):
more egregious degree, the cost of keeping a car drivable
is incredibly significant. It's often more than people bargained for,
and in some cases, unfortunately, the cost of keeping a
car running for one to five years can be more
than the initial cost of purchasing the actual v absolutely,

(03:00):
and we've touched on that so many times with a
couple of the examples that you mentioned, the Rolls Royce,
you know, the mid eighties Rolls Royce, that that looks
so affordable on the lot, but then you realize, you know,
the Rolls Royce maintenance is going to really get you.
And then you know, and then we did the same
thing with the Viper recently. That's our most recent one.
Is that you know, first gen vipers relatively affordable considering

(03:21):
what you're getting, considering what they were, what they cost
um And now that the whole you know, brand, the
whole mark is gone, that's gonna be something else that
might even drive value up in the future. But anyways,
the first gens, you find out that that one piece
carbon fiber hood is you know what eighteen thousand, twenty
two thousand dollar or something like that, just a ridiculous
amount of money if you get into a small you know,

(03:41):
a minor fender bender right front end. Uh, and one
of the other one we use it used to use
the Ferrari I think it was, and then someone wrote
in finally and said, hey, check the values of these
things because they've gone up by three times. So instead
of being a twenty five dollar you know, exotic you know,
Ferrari three, I think it's a three o eight. It
turns out that there's have any five thousand dollars. Plus
the maintenance is still expensive. So that's one we couldn't

(04:04):
use anymore. But so I like our new version, the Viper.
I think that's that's a good one. But this is,
this is really this is shocking. So we we talked
about maintenance, and we we often say, you know, you
can spend all of your money on a car. If
you had a million dollars, what car would you buy?
And it probably would be a regular run of the
mill car. It wouldn't be something exotic because exotic car

(04:25):
maintenance gets ridiculously expensive unless you have an unlimited amount
of money, really, I mean, and maybe that's overstating it.
I don't know. More problems, Yeah, that's probably right, but
just how much we We had no idea until I
listened to this interview that was conducted by UM, a
website or relatively new I don't know if it's a website,
I guess, a website and YouTube channel called vin wiki

(04:48):
and vin wicki. UM is a like a social vehicle
history reporting platform, as they describe it, where people come on,
you know, on set, I guess, and they describe kind
of interesting stories about the cars that they drive, the
cars that they love, maybe cars they sold, things like that.
You know, it's interesting stories, and they always provide you
with the VIN number of the car they're talking about,
which I think is a neat and little touch. And

(05:10):
it's just there was some fascinating tales they're already and
one of them that really caught my attention was this
this one about maintenance, about McLaren f one maintenance and
the the person that was interviewed, and this is I
find this even more interesting, is the guy. The guy's
name is Bruce Weener, and if you remember Bruce, he's
the guy that owned and operated that Microcar Museum or

(05:34):
the I think it's called the Microcar Museum of Madison,
Georgia or something. Yeah, the guy that sold all of them.
I went there that final weekend, took a bunch of
photos and they had an auction and he made a
pile of money on that. But the guy apparently has
had far more than just many micro cars over the years,
because he was talking in this interview on vin WICKI
about what the what it's really like or the crazy

(05:58):
expensive cost to maintain a McLaren f one, and I thought, well,
this won't be, you know, too shocking. Really, it can't be.
I mean, we we know what to expect. I mean,
we've we've heard of the you know, the oil shechics
that send their car over to London for a twenty
dollar oil change. That's not surprising, and to be fair,
that is counting transportation costs. Well sure, okay, so you

(06:19):
know we've heard stories like that, and you hear stories
of well, I'm gonna put you know, new wheels on
this thing and it's gonna cost me five thousand dollars
or ten thousand dollars or something like that. I thought
those were, you know, kind of par for the course,
I guess for for you know, exotic car maintenance. But
when I listened to this interview from Bruce or by
Bruce about the McLaren F one, I was just floored.

(06:42):
I couldn't believe the prices that I was hearing and
the complexity of the maintenance and repairs to this vehicle.
Even just buying it was it was a year long negotiation.
We should say that Bruce Winger is a car ficionado,
is not by any means new to the game. Uh.
He has owned over a thousand cars in his lifetime. Right,

(07:06):
thousand cars? Wow yeah, I don't have much more to
say about that than wow, yeah. I mean I didn't
know a lot of them are the mini micro cars.
But in this interview he'll talk about owning you know,
Ferrari's Lamborghini, said that thing. So he owns other exotics
as well. So he already has a good idea of
what to expect, or so he thought. Yeah, So in

(07:29):
this interview that we're we're going to we have a
transcription of the interview. You can watch it online if
you like. I'll tell you you know where you can
go to find this and you can kind of follow
along if you want to just watch it after this
podcast maybe, but we're going to you know, read along
through this this transcript that we have in front of us,
and some of these, some of these numbers just absolutely unbelievable.
And if you want to hear it in his own words,
feel free go to uh, you know, vin wiki dot

(07:51):
com and you can watch that either, you know, you
can search that on YouTube and find it as well.
But the the interview itself is called how crazy expensive
is it to maintain? I'm a claar and F one
And that's the exact one that you'll you'll find Bruce
talking about this madness. And you guys already no longtime
listeners that I'm a fairly thrifty person. So I'm gonna

(08:11):
be honest. There were times where I had to stop
the video and go take a take a walk, get
a glass of o J or something to cool off. Right, Yeah,
I gotta I gotta cool off a little bit. So
so let's let's dive in specifically. This was a nineteen
nine four McLaren F one. Yeah, that's a car we've
talked about. Is it's a special car, of course? I
mean it was you got to remember the time that

(08:33):
we're talking time frame we're talking about for this vehicle too,
So it's a it was produced between and now. I
think Bruce says in the interview here that there were
sixty three road worthy cars that are that are known
to exist, and maybe that's the key here, known to exist. Um,
the production numbers I think are quoted somewhere north of
a hundred vehicles. They made about hundred, five hundred and six.

(08:55):
They were made in England, of course, at the McLaren factory.
But um, you gotta remember that this is before McLaren
started making you know, the MP four series of cars
and the you know, the p ones and all those.
This is like their first real foray into making a
road car. Prior to this, they were strictly a racing outfit, right,
just making racing cars and that's about it. So for

(09:17):
them to make a road car with something really interesting, unique,
and they used uh, you know, a special built body,
you know, they had it's like a um, you know,
the chassis and the body was their own. But they
did buy an off the shelf engine from BMW. They
had the six point one leader BMW V twelve engine
in them. And a lot of people believe that to be,
you know, a strong choice for that vehicle, and it
was a you know, a powerful card. In fact, it's

(09:39):
the most I think this still holds true. But I
think it's still the most, uh the fastest normally aspirated
automobile still in the world. I believe that's the way
that they say it because the Bugatti kind of well
Bugatti blitz doors off later, but that was with four
turbo chargers. So that's the reason I think McLaren held
the record back in late nineteen nineties aspirated, Yeah, yeah,

(10:03):
and it was like two d per hour or something
like that. Now when the Bugatti came along, it upped
it to like two and fifty three miles per hour,
but again that's four turbo chargers, you know, their own
test track, that type of thing. So McLaren is pretty
darn close with this normally aspirated car. And I mean
we've we've talked about it at length and other shows.
You know, Um, I know, we have a long long

(10:23):
time ago. Probably you'd have to dig through the archives
to find it. But it's a it's a really fantastic
vehicle all around. Oh yeah, the problems are not related
in any way to the actual function of the vehicle.
You know, it's just it's keeping the old girl running.
It's a hassle. It really is a hassle. I mean
you wouldn't think so. I mean, well, I guess maybe
you would. Maybe you think could be temperamental, but maybe not. Boy,

(10:47):
I don't even know how to describe this. Man, it's
not that the car's temperamental. It's almost like, oh, boy,
I kind of back up myself in new corner. Maybe
should just get into this and talk about it, because
you'll you'll find out quickly what the real problem is here.
And I'll I'll send us up with a brief thesis statement,
a little bit of a fortune cookie for us. Uh.

(11:08):
The problems often seemed to trace to the fact that
this is maintenance that is of a hybrid nature. This
is the street legal maintenance that we're all used to,
and then some heavy racetrack maintenance influences. Yeah, and we'll
describe that too. I mean, he does a great job.

(11:31):
But Bruce does a great job of describing you know,
what this car is all about, I mean, the the
the nature of it. Yeah, because he's thought about this
at length. Alright, So our our story begins when um,
he he decided that he was going to buy one
of these, as Scott said, sixty three road worthy McLaren

(11:52):
f ones specifically. And now you don't just go to
a dealership and buy one of these either. This started
with the negotiation with a lawyer of the owner of
the vehicle, and his offering was one point two million
dollars for the car. He wanted to pay one point
two million, and they wanted one point three millions. So
they go back and forth for a little less than

(12:12):
two days and they just can't come to terms. One
point three Uh is non negotiable. So they say a
year passes an entire year, and uh, he's almost exactly
a year later. Uh, Bruce receives a call from the
lawyer who says, hey, uh, you remember me. Do you

(12:35):
you still want that car? You still at that one
point two laying around? Yeah? And uh he says yes
he does, and he says, you know, I'll take it.
And he says, okay, well it's yours for one point
two million, just as we discussed, and as he wanted
to pay anything. I said, all right, that's fine. So
they wear the money, and of course he sent over
a transport you know, flat bed to get it. And
the thing is, he said, Bruce says he didn't know
much much about the car really, other than he did

(12:57):
know kind of, um, you know what the guy had
had told him about it, you know, just just what
he had told him up front about the vehicle, right,
And he spoke to another person about a month before
the purchase about it, so you can tell he was
still interested in it. He was still keeping tabs over
that intervening year because he spoke to someone who had
inspected the car just about a month before he sealed

(13:20):
the deal, and he knew that just in the factory
it had some quality work already already done. Yeah, well
at the factory. Well that'll come into play in just
a little bit. You know, why Why was it the factory?
But he knew the car was in a really good
mechanical condition, right, And he said the car was actually
born a silver car and the previous owner had repainted
it orange, which Bruce thought was all right. You know,

(13:42):
he liked like orange, no problem, and it's a it's
a pretty interesting color orange. If you watched the video,
you'll see the exact car photo of it will appear, um.
But it was sent back to the factory and was
painted with this gel coat, I guess. And and in
order to paint it in his gel coat, Uh, they
had to do this unbelief evable stripping down to the fiberglass.
You know, this this procedure. And he says he's got

(14:05):
pictures of the process. But it took it took six
months I think to paint the car, and it cost
him I think it was two hundred and fifty pounds
to repaint the car. Right, So what is two hundred
fifty thousand British pounds in US dollars you may be asking.
We also asked, and it's three hundred and twenty four
thousand dollars three four for a paint jobs a little

(14:28):
bit more, a little more than three dollars for a
paint job. Now, just imagine that to begin with. I mean,
that's just want in your car a different color. That's
just the paint. Yeah, just the paint. Nothing six months
and you had to have you send it to the
factory and that's where they do this process. Now, I mean,
that's a great place to do it, but come on,
thousand or north of three. That's a lot of money, alright.

(14:50):
So here's where we start to get into the McLaren
program that the Bruce is talking about. So he says,
they have a program with McLaren where if you own
a McLaren um you know back down is factory directed
the customer. You couldn't go to a dealership. There's no middleman.
You couldn't go to like Alex the Madman, Williams local.
It's still it still works out. Yeah, I'm testing it's working.

(15:12):
It's working. So yeah, he couldn't. Yeah, you couldn't go
to the dealership and drive it, like you said, you
couldn't go walk around and look at it. I mean
there were no middlemen. It came factory direct, right, So
there really wasn't anywhere that you can also take the
car to get serviced. And that's a problem. It turns
out there is an East Coast and the West Coast
service area in the United States and the other option
is to send it back to London or send it

(15:32):
over the UK, and that's where they do this. But
it's a little crazy, a little crazy to think about
doing something like that, but I guess apparently it happens
a lot. But here's the thing. Um, you know, there
weren't dealers to take for service, et cetera. But they
did have something that a way that they could direct
directly deal with you via satellite. So they have a
hook up in the cars where you hook up your
laptop with a modem that comes with the car, and

(15:53):
then they have a direct link to your car and
they can troubleshoot it right there from the factory wherever
you are. So as Bruce said, he was in his
garage in Atlanta, Georgia, and you know they're mechanically going
through his car from over in London, you know, at
the factory. Kind of a cool thing. It's a neat feature,
I think, and I've heard of other you know, other
companies that are able to do similar things. But think

(16:14):
about the time frame of this. This was back in
nineteen two, I think it was right. Yeah, and they've
implemented something like that in their cars. It's incredible. And
so there's another really cool thing that impressed me that
I did not know until we learned about it in
this interview, and that's if you buy a McLaren used

(16:36):
previously owned McLaren McLaren will give you the first service
and inspection free. But wait, guys, you might be saying,
in a very reasonable tone, Uh, how is it free?
If they're based in London or the UK, they fly
the mechanic in to you. That's so cool and what

(16:58):
a dream job, you know kidding. So what happens is
they fly this tech out and the person comes and
expects the car for a couple of days, and then
at the end of that, you know, the end of
that stay. I guess the visit, they give you a
checklist of things that, uh, they think need to be
done with the car, and things that you may want
to have done with the car. So like it's kind
of like, here's here's what needs to be done. Here's

(17:19):
a wish list. Maybe right, So, just for the sake
of argument, this could be something like, um, you have
to have the oil changed, but it would also we
would recommend that you get the tires changed as well,
but the oil is number one priority. Yeah, I get it,
all right, So you have these options. So you have

(17:40):
the options, right, You have the option to do any
of this stuff if you want, or none of it.
I guess if you if you choose to go that way.
But here's the thing. You can either fly back the
factor you haven't done. Um, you know, in the United
States at one of the two service centers as we mentioned,
the East coast of the West coast. Bruce at this
point he's realizing when you know, the tech is out
there and inspecting the car and you know, going making
a check us and everything, he finds out that, um,

(18:03):
this car has race car problems. It's not just it's
not just road car problems. And and here's the reason why,
he says, when when he bought the car, you know
a lot of people say things like, you know, a
like his his friends, I guess that if Ferrari's languagees
or whatever, and they say, oh, it's really you know,
it's a it's a car that's made for the track,
but it's a road going race car. You know that
a lot of people say that kind of thing, like
it's a road car you can take to the racetrack

(18:26):
without any significant alteration. Yeah, but a lot of people
kind of twist that around. They say, that's really a
race car, but I drive it on the street. But
but it's not really true. But in the case of
this McLaren it's true. The the opposite is true of
the other cars, you know, the the supercar exotics, you
know that that we hear about from Ferrari, Lamborghini, where
you know, most of them, not all of them, but
most of them are the case where it's a great

(18:49):
road going car. You know that they made as a
road going car. It's made to be street legal, but
you can also take it to the track. As you said, yeah, exactly.
His problem is the opposite. It's like they've tried to
make this race car into a street car. And that's
the problem, which might sound like a little difference, but
it's huge. And one of the reasons it's so huge
is because of the maintenance. So like on your on

(19:11):
your daily driver, whether that's a Lamborghini or you know,
a Corolla, um you or Monte Carlo of those. Yeah,
you know that things will wear out. Consumables wear out. Yeah,
that's the number one right. Okay, alright, well, like you know,

(19:35):
please send any uh any complaints you have about me
to my complaint department Jonathan dot Strickland how stuff works
dot com. But but the very important difference here, and
a lot of race fans will know this, is that
in a race car, components don't just wear out, they
can also time out. Yeah, time out. So this is

(19:55):
a big issue, right, This becomes a big issue for
Bruce because he really I don't think he really knew
that ahead of time, these timed out items, which mean
that you know, like, for instance, okay, he gives you
the example of the fuel cell. He says, the fuel
cell has a lifespan of five years, whether you you
use it for one day, an hour, or don't even
use it at all. In five years time, McLaren, the

(20:17):
McLaren factory makes you replace the fuel cell in these vehicles.
And the cost well, you know, let's not talk about
the cost yet. Okay, so but yeah, so So the
same goes with the fire extinguisher. The fire extinguisher times out,
tires time out. The same goes with the clutch. The
clutch is good for two to three thousand miles, is
what he says, but they claim that after three years
you need a new clutch. Now, listen, here's here's one

(20:39):
thing to begin with. Two to three thousand miles and
clutch it's pretty awful. That's not good at all. But
he's saying that you know that it's either it's either
according to the factory, it's either good for two to
three thousand miles or three years. And again the same
thing holds true whether you use it a day, an hour,
or don't use it at all. You've got to replace it.
As soon as that stuff was installed, the clock starts

(21:01):
to So it's a it's a he says, what it
what it is really is. It's it's a timed out
type of car. I guess that's what he's saying. And
this race car timing or timing out is what really
starts to drive up the price. And he says, and
when when he sat down and he figured out what
this car would cost him if he didn't drive it
a single day, if he just parked in his garage,
it was an astounding number, wasn't it. Yes, And we'll
tell you after a word from our sponsor, and we're

(21:33):
back and Ben, we kind of left on the cliffhanger.
How much would this car have cost? Bruce said, he
just parked in the garage, never driven a day, you know,
just just left it there per year. How much would
that have cost him? Fifty thousand dollars not driving at all? No,
that's just adding on all the stuff, and that's just
kind of an average every year that he would pay

(21:55):
based on all these timed out items that we've talked about.
Fifty grand to never drive your car? How about that?
Plus you got that one point two million dollars up
front that you're paying for the thing. So now he
gets now he gets in this. Uh, I don't know.
It seems to me almost like a sometimes the phrase
we throw around as a Larry David's situation. So he's

(22:15):
paid one point two million dollars for this McLaren, as
you said, Scott, and he thinks to himself, I've maybe
got a good what a couple of years before this
becomes a serious loss. Yes, So he started he's gonna
start losing money on this on this proposition right now?
What a terrible thing would I mean, you've got a
beautiful exotic car that you want to drive all around

(22:38):
town to show off, right, arguably a work of art,
and just enjoy I mean, just to drive it. I
mean you must really enjoy driving that vehicle. I mean,
it's something unique. Not a lot of people get to
do that ever in their lifetime. And he did mainly
and almost solely to pick his son up from school.
He used it as a car pool car. So he's

(23:00):
picking up his kid and you know, in the car
pool with the thing, and he says, you know, he's
not one to really like take his car out to
the race tracks or anything. He's trying to think of
like what he can do with this thing. So he
wants to drive it, but he doesn't have much more
to do with it, and to pick up the kid
at school, so he's using crazy expensive car. Had to
be the most popular kid in the car pool. Of course,

(23:20):
there is one thing we should point out, Scott. We can't.
We can't gloss over this because I know a lot
of us are sitting out here and just heard you
say he doesn't want to take it to a race track,
and a lot of people probably just threw up our
hands and said, what you have this car and you're
not taking to a race track. But he, um, he
has a solid reason, He has a he has a

(23:41):
logic behind him. Yeah, there is logic. And he says
that he's not the kind of person that um, you know,
really wants to see them damaged or or wrecked in
any way. He wants to enjoy them. He likes to
drive his cars, and I guess in asane manner and uh.
And he says he doesn't really even trust himself. He
doesn't have enough faith in himself to tear around a
track in a car that he's not that familiar with.
In a racetrack situation, he's he's familiar with, you know,

(24:03):
driving an exotic on the roads. There's you know, there's
different things you have to do with exotics on the
highway as well. Um, you know, in around town. You know,
you've got all the concerns of uh, you know, you know,
high curbs and uh and speed bumps things like that
you have to deal with, especially here in Atlanta, lots
of speed bumps. Yeah, and those metal plates that just
appear overnight. Yeah, there's all kinds of things, I mean,

(24:23):
just road debris and all kinds of things. So he's
comfortable driving on the street, but he's not comfortable driving
his own cars on the racetrack. And I respect that.
I mean, if he doesn't want to damage or destroy
his own vehicle, you know, that's fine. So for him,
it's a it's a question of safety and caution. Now
there's something I was curious about, folks, and I looked

(24:43):
into it, but I couldn't find anything solid. Yet. It's possible,
right for him to get if you really wanted to,
It's possible for him to get some training, right McClaren specific.
But at this point we don't, oh if I don't
know at least if he decided to do that, but

(25:05):
I do want to acknowledge that is a possibility. It
seem it seems like he didn't look into it because
we don't really hear about it in this in this story.
This is a great story, by the way this is.
It's interesting really, and to hear it from him is
also interesting. Both. Listen to the interview too, because he's
he's a funny guy too. The way he tells this
story is great. So he's got his, he's got his like,
curb your enthusiasm moment, this amazing, astonishing vehicle that has

(25:30):
essentially become the world's coolest car pool that's like a
grocery getter, right right, yeah, McLaren, grocery getter and uh,
And so he owns it for about four months. He's
four months into owning it and he's already done the math,
which I thought was impressive, where you know, you've got
to feel that clock ticking. Do you think he got
two years? So he has that, He takes McClaren up

(25:52):
on that free inspection right and servicing, and he gets
the list that Scott and I mentioned earlier. Okay, yeah,
the list this is this is pretty shocking. So he
gets the list back, you know, with all the values
of what needs to be done in the car, and
it's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of work
that they say it needs. Now this is after the car.
Remember he bought the car and uh, you know, the

(26:14):
car was service four months prior to him buying it
in the factory, was sent back to the factory and
it was so again four months after the service. It
needs another quarter of a million dollars in work at
this point. And there's really nothing wrong with the car.
I mean, he hasn't he hasn't damaged it, he hasn't
crashed it. He hasn't you know, excessively driven it. He
hasn't driven it hard on a race track. He hasn't

(26:36):
done anything. He's baby this car. I mean, we we've
heard the tale a car pool car. And he says
he doesn't want to write it and driving on racetracks.
So he's not like just tearing it up. This is
this is a quarter of a million dollar bill four
months later, let's get into it, all right, So this
is how could it be a quarter of million dollars?

(26:57):
Let's start with the tires. Mclaire arn tells Bruce they
need to be replaced. Can can I stop you before
because of this this will be one of the most
frustrating things you've ever heard, I think about automaintenance. But
but McLaren has contacted him, So go ahead, and we're gonna,
you know what, We're gonna take a little bit of
inspiration from Billy Mays because this is definitely a butt weight.
There's more, all right. So they say the tires need

(27:21):
to be replaced, and he says, what because the tires
are three years old, but they don't have any missing tread,
they're not worn down, you know it timed out issue? Yeah,
because they still pass the penny test. He says there
were only about a hundred kilometers driven on it in
those three years, so they're essentially brand new tires. Yeah,

(27:42):
I mean brand new tires, but they've timed out because
they're three years old, right, McLaren saying you gotta do
it racetrack maintenance. And so he is, as we said,
he's already familiar with the hidden cost of owning exotic
or high performance cars. And so he drops this line
that has baffled me, Scott where he said, I've used

(28:03):
to paying a thousand dollars a tire, maybe on my
Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Excuse me, I just choked on my water.
I know I want to have that problem thousand dollars
a tire, And he's talking about, you know, his Lambos
and his Ferrari things like that, right, So he gets
the he gets the thing, and he looks at he
looks at the line item for tires. It's fifty thou dollars.

(28:25):
But wait, there's more. Yeah, it wasn't fifty thousan dollars
for the tires. It's fifty thousand dollars from the time
you're going to remove the old tires and then set
up the new tires. Yeah, because it's a race car,
not a street car. So you know, on a street
car you can just balance the tires, you know, on
the on the tire balancing machine, put them on the

(28:47):
car and everything's fine, right, that's not that's not an issue.
That's how they've done it for a long long time.
It's different on a race car. When you're putting tires
on a race car. The only way you can balance
tires in that situation are you have to balance them
when they're on the car on a race track. Yeah,
you have to take it around the track because you're
not just balancing the tires, you're also adjusting the suspension

(29:09):
system to the tires. And every tire is different, so
the suspension of the car has to accommodate the new
tire that you're applying to that vehicle. So it's just
it becomes crazy from this point on. So again, fifty
thou dollars is not the price of tires for the car.
They're not. They're not twelve thousand, five hundred each. The
tires are are more reasonably priced than that for the

(29:31):
rubber that itself. But where it gets crazy is what
has to happen after that. Now we said that it
has to be, you know, just set up and adjusted
on a track. So here's the thing. They start talking
to him, and this is what he calls a lengthy
situation on the phone. And he said, because I'm sure
he was maybe arguing back a bit about this, and
I would think you would. I would, yes, But they say,

(29:55):
you can't really you can figure all this out because
fifty dollars here the deal. It was about seven thousand
dollars for the tires themselves, so that they are expensive.
They're very expensive. But there's more. Yeah, there were a
couple of thousand dollars to rent a racetrack in North
Carolina that was near the BMW factory. But wait, there's more.
It's a couple of thousand dollars to send the car

(30:16):
up there and then bring it back on a closed trailer,
so transportation. We're gonna keep doing this, all right, But wait,
there's more. That's a thousand dollars for the driver, so
that he can't even drive it himself. It's somebody else
that's got to drive it. And then, yeah, there's more.
It was a thousand dollars for the ambulance that had
to be at the racetrack as well as everybody. You know,
if anybody's rented a facility like that, you know you

(30:37):
have to have an ambulance on seen. And that's and
of course if there's an ambulance. That has to be insurance. Yeah,
five thousand dollars of liability insurance with his insurance company
to even send it up there. And it was a
couple of thousand dollars of liability insurance to pay BMW
for just using the racetrack. So that's seven grand in
insurance alone. But that's not it. Then there's still more.

(30:58):
There were a couple of mechanics that they had to
pay to actually set up the car, you know, like
at the track side. It's not just the driver, the mechanics,
the tires, the jambulance, the track, the rental, the insurance,
all that. It's it's it's text on site as well. Um,
it's just it became this enormous proposition, as he said,
just to change a set of tires. And he said,
at this time, he said, to be honest with you,

(31:18):
at this time, this is when it started to turn
me off about on in this car, right, because he
also starts adding up the other costs that he's already
aware of that are looming in the future, right, Yeah,
because that list right when the fuel cell needs to
be replaced. He says. They gave him a quote of
a hundred and ten grand for the fuel cell. Okay, okay,

(31:40):
So that's the equivalent of a fuel tank in our car, right,
you know. And I don't know what a fuel tank
I guess in an average Sedan would cost a replace,
but I can guarantee that it's not a hundred ten
tho dollars. And it, uh, it wasn't just the fuel cell.
It was also either shipping this car to BMW's factory
in the Carolinas or send it back over the pond

(32:01):
to England. Yep, yep. And he says, Now here's the thing.
He says, you know, while I'm thinking about this, they're
telling me a hundred and ten thousand dollars for the
actual fuel cell. But what does it really cost, because
like the situation with the tires, the transit is sure
who knows it adds up? So it's a hundred and
ten thousand dollars just for the fuel cell. That's the part,

(32:21):
that's the part, that's not the labor, that's not the
trans Yeah, he's wondering, like, what what kind of number
would they give me for this? And he said they
wouldn't give him a number until he actually was going
to do it. He said, because you know, as you know,
things change, right, like shipping rates could change. For instance,
you know, shipping a car is not a it's it's
not a very inexpensive indebtor. No, I don't think it

(32:44):
would be no now so and well then he goes
on to say it up. Yeah, it keeps that up
because he says, you know, at the same time the
fire extinguisher expired, so you know it timed out, I guess.
And he said the cost for the fire exs englisher,
which goes inside the car, it's just a regular old
fire fire extinguisher eight hundred bucks. And he also says,

(33:06):
and this is not a this is not a plug
for Walmart. But Bruce points out that he could just
literally go by a fire extinguisher at Walmart for like
ten bucks. Yeah, exactly. He says, they want to charge
him eight hundred bucks because the fire extinguisher was purpose
built to fit in this tiny little hole that they
had with this tiny little strap, and he said it

(33:27):
would basically basically be attached to the body. And he's thinking,
you know, if if they're going to charge me eight
hundred for a fire extinguisher that you can get for
ten dollars. You know, what else are they going to
charge me for? Along a way? Like this is a
two or bill that I'm looking at and I've talked
to them about it, and he's wondering, you know, four
months down the road, what's the next bill going to
look like? Because the car is just getting older at

(33:49):
that it's always something apparently, well it is because of
that timed out feature. I want to make a note
here that I think is is pretty interesting. So initially,
after hearing all this stuff about the fuel cell and
hearing the blow by blow with the tire expenses, which
he does break down by line item, uh, I I

(34:09):
fell victim to uh something that a lot of sales
folks use. Uh. It's a psychological thing called anchoring, and
it happens on everything from menus to buying a car
to buying a house. Because if we had just been
hanging out and out of the blue right, if you

(34:30):
were Bruce, now the blue I told you, oh you
you fire extinguisher, it's eight hundred bucks, you probably would
have been like, what that? What is wrong with you?
Where's the camera? What's up with this guy? But after
hearing fifty thousand dollars after hearing a hundred and ten
thousand dollars, hearing eight hundred is sort of like, oh, well, yeah,
I guess while I'm already here right because it seems

(34:52):
smaller just because of the prices that came before. So
now hopefully I have helped everybody be aware of how
menus are set up the next time you go to
a restaurant. It's a good tip. Ben anchoring, that's what
they call it. I think so, I think so. Um,
and you can get the cowboy rebi for, you can
get the regular rebi for or what like thirty just

(35:15):
thirty five dollars right right right, And now you're like, well,
I am a clever person. I believe it's called anchoring.
Somebody right in and let me know, Uh, that phenomenon
or that technique and strategy is is real. Um, and
I believe it's called anchoring. But sounds right. That's that's good.
It's clever. So there is a saving grace here though,
hopefully because this is as as you said, um, there's

(35:40):
a very important detail about the McLaren that really differentiated
it to Bruce and sort of sold him on it,
and that is the engine. Yeah, the engine, as we
said before you know, this is a BMW engine, and
he was thinking to himself, you know, how expensive could
it be to maintain a BMW engine. Really it's kind
of a tested, you know, bullet roof engine. As he said,
you know it's it's purpose built. Uh well, he said,

(36:03):
it's not a purpose built for racing engine. It was
more of an off the shelf engine for BMW, but
put into a purpose built race car that was created
by mclarence. So he's thinking, you know, I'll get a
kind of a break on the engine. Uh, you know
that it should be pretty solid, right, And he said,
you know the thing is that Um after he said,
well that was not really the saving grace. And as

(36:24):
as a matter of fact, you know, the engine required
just about as much maintenance and care and timed out
issues as are timed out pieces I guess or replacements
as the rest of the car did. So he realized that,
you know, um, maybe after about a year, this wasn't
the car for him, after all this expense and all
this this trial and air and and you know, going

(36:44):
through the getting a bill in the mail for two
d and fifty thousand dollars and talking with texts and whoa,
it's a recommendation. Okay, recommendation. But but but finally he says,
you know, he doesn't want to get the point where
he's upside down in the car. You know, he doesn't
want to owe more than you know, oh more than
it's worth. So at the time you got it. And
I don't know what year he sold this or what
year he had this. I don't think it was ever mentioned,

(37:05):
but he said that at the point, he said, it
made sense to sell the vehicle, and that's exactly what
he did because it wasn't appreciating. You know, at this
level of ownership, it's almost it's an investment. Yeah, And
like he said, you know, he's getting these bills and
he's figuring out the timed out costs and you know,
the monthly costs even if he doesn't drive it, and

(37:26):
it just wasn't adding up. He was going to be
losing money. But then after he had sold it, of course,
you know, he had buyer's remorse when he bought it,
I guess at that point, and you can't blame him
when he sold it, he had seller's remorse because regrettably,
as he said, the value of that car continued to
climb and climb and climb and climb and climb, because

(37:48):
now those are fifteen plus million dollar cars. And had
he held onto it, had he just put up with
the maintenance that we just described, you know, in detail,
with you know, the hundred ten thousand that you know,
fifty tires, etcetera. Had he just put up with that,
it would have been a tremendous investment in the end,
it turns out. But he had no you know, he
had no idea that the market was going to do that, right,

(38:10):
I mean, who would know that that's a fifteen million
dollar plus car now? You know what was it five
ten years ago? Yeah, you can't. You can't blame him now.
And also also one of the questions I had on
this was if you own the car, you own it
out right, so legally, if you wanted to, he could

(38:32):
have just got the ten dollar fire extinguisher. Yes, you know,
I was wondering if that somehow voids some or maybe
it becomes like a non certified McLaren at some point
or something like that, right, which would affect the resale value. Yeah,
I mean it has to be something like that. I mean,
why else would you put up with fire extinguisher. When

(38:52):
you can't, you can just get the ten dollar version.
And on the other side, before you go too much
further on the other side, it is fair to say
that there's a reason, um, these high end manufacturers have
these sorts of rigid schedules and rules, and it's it's
not it's not just like builk money out of people.

(39:15):
It's uh to maintain the cars of peak performance so
that not just the owner of the vehicle, but everyone
who encounters that vehicle will still be able to say, Wow,
what a great car. It's brand image, so you're not
gonna see one that has you know, flat black paint
on it and you know Para Ramsey bought it pet
Boys in some bondo. Can you imagine if you're not

(39:36):
going to find that, and you know, that's the thing
like you never know, you never say never, but that
may have happened. That may have happened had they not
had a program like this for these cars. And I
know that was an extreme example, but but you may
find some that have you know, questionable add ons or
you know something that you know, an unusual paint scheme
that McLaren doesn't approve of. Necessarily or didn't improve of
it from the factory. Um, but you're right, it's all

(39:57):
about brand image, I think, and that anybody that encounters
a car will always encounter the best possible version of
that car at all times, based on this plan that
they've put together. And I think that's what this all
comes down to, and I feel like I need to
point it out. Um. I haven't called them yet, but
I'm pretty sure that I can call. I could call

(40:19):
Chevy and tell them what any crazy thing I wanted
to do to my Monte Carlo, and they'd be fine
with it. I think they'd be already. I don't think
they would say no, no, no, we gotta gotta ship
that back the factory for us to God, please take it.
What if that factory is even around. I don't know
where the McLaren are they Monty Carlos made. But anyways,

(40:40):
that I found that to be just an extremely eye
opening interview, even for some you know, a couple of us,
you know, yeah, the two of us that we're kind
of jaded. I guess we hear high numbers for exotics
all the time, you know, prices, and and we hear
about needs unique or unusual hoops. I guess that exotic
car owners have to jump through in order to get
things done sometimes, but even so, this one was surprising

(41:03):
to me. And I do encourage you to go to
YouTube and watch this video again. It's from wiki vin
wiki dot com, or you can go to you know,
YouTube and search vin wicki and and find this McLaren
maintenance story. Oh and did you uh did you happen
to clock this? They're based in Atlanta, Yes they are. Yeah.
In fact, you know there's a m Well, the co

(41:23):
founder is one of the guys that we've talked about
doing the cannonball run right ed bullying I think, yeah, yeah,
And he makes an appearance in a couple of videos
as well. He's one of the co founders of vin Wicky.
So you might want to check out a few of
their videos there and see if there's something that you like.
A lot of them drew me and I ended up
watching half a dozen of these, you know, in a day,
and they're they're pretty sure. I think the one we

(41:45):
just talked about was about eight minutes long, but they'll
keep you, um, you know, excited about it and and
focused on it for the full eight minutes, I promise.
Plus again, that guy is a good story teller. Yeah,
and he is funny. I think you mentioned that. So
this Scott, this examination inspired me to ask a question

(42:05):
for for all your folks listening out there, what was
your biggest hassle car? I think everybody's everybody's had had
a limit or two at some point, you know, like
maybe a car that you've owned for a couple of
years and then suddenly just everything started falling apart and
it required you know, a special uh you know, a
German mechanic to take care of it in some cases

(42:27):
or something like that. Yeah, and some cars are legendary
just for like Hugo's or Pintos or something. And and
that's fine too, But also we gotta point out, man,
sometimes you just can't predict it, you know what I mean.
You might just have like a a Volkswagen that gets
the spirit of some Grimlin in it. You know what,

(42:48):
Now you said Volkswagen, not just my car, which is
having a few issues right now. Talk about those soon. Um.
But there was an interesting article about the v W Phaeton.
Uh the kind of luxury Yeah, yeah, I'm not really
a supercar, but a luxury um, Halo Car, I guess
for VW for a while and the difficulties that an

(43:10):
owner had with the faith and anyways, we'll talk about
that maybe in a future podcast, because fascinating stuff goes
on with that one too. And you can write to
us with stories of your hassle car directly at the
email address will give you at the end of the show.
It reminds me Scott. Speaking of listener mail, we have
a very special one for everyone that we teased at

(43:31):
the beginning of today's episode, and we'll get to it
after a word from our sponsor and we are back.
This is a This is a as we said, a
very special uh listener mail segment, because we have a

(43:55):
very well thought out response UH to our episode on
car title loans, which, according to you know, a lot
of the feedback we've received from you ladies and gentlemen,
was eye opening, in some cases disturbing, but definitely controversial. Yeah,
that's right now. The person that contacted us. His name

(44:16):
is Fred Winchar and Fred I'm gonna read read his
whole name, because we read his name in the first episode. Yeah,
Fred was the guy that was in the bank rate article.
And I think we described him as the person was
I think we said, trying to defend the practice or
something like that, right yeah, because whenever we look at
a topic like this, we do our best to present

(44:37):
all sides of the argument, right yeah, yeah, I mean
and and Fred, you know, he presented an opposing viewpoint
in this article, and we did read it, and we
read through, you know, his comments here. However, after the
episode aired, we got a note from Fred directly Fred
Rhodis and said he actually it's a long email, but
he again kind of well, you know what, let's just

(44:58):
read through some of this and maybe that's the best
way to do it. But it's a well thought out email,
and I wanted to make sure we spent some time
with it. And he he makes some great points really
and some things he mentioned some things that we didn't
bring up in the podcast, and I think it's always, uh,
you know, it's always relevant to bring the other side
of the story and as well, so uh, this is
Fred doing that. So he writes and says, Hi, guys, first,

(45:18):
I want to thank you for coverage of the car
title loans and attempting to give a balanced look at
the financial product. I also wanted to thank you for
the shout out the podcast, which is when we write
him in the oh, he says, I wish I was
more of a better spokesperson for what I do, so
I apologize if I don't know the savvy that you
guys have when you present your topics. Well, there's no
need to say that, Fred, I mean, yeah, really, I
mean this This email is well written out, and we'll

(45:40):
read through something. I think he does have the savvy
to describe his business and makes some great points. Yeah,
he really does. And you know what, let's let's tell
them first. Fred is the president of a place called
Tradition Media Group who does business as Max Cash Title Loans.
I want to make sure we got that out there.
So we talked about Max Cash Title Loans last time,
and he's the president of at UM. So he says, Um,

(46:03):
there's a few points that I heard that I think
we're not intentionally misleading, but misleading nonetheless. And one of
the things you guys did was basically say that car
title loan advocates put a spin on the product to
make it look not so bad. But what you failed
to understand is why, Because after listening to you, both
us very clearly, we're not trying to say that a
person should never get a car title loan, which you
will address shortly, but you tried in a way to

(46:23):
make people who provide this service is ruthless and as
heartless by chances make them sound ruthless and heartless by
charging so much in the interest rate. Well, I mean,
I don't think we meant to make them all sound
ruthless and heart I think some are. Don't you agree,
I think Fred would agree. I think yeah, Fred does
agree in this in this article. And here's here's one
thing that I want to just point out really early.

(46:44):
And we're gonna we're gonna read more of this is
and talk through some points. But this is the same
thing that we deal with when we talk about you know,
good mechanics versus bad mechanics, and and good sales car
sales people versus bad car sales people, you know, the
shifty ones. This is the exact same thing. There's there's
a few bad apples out there, and those are the
ones that always get the press. Those are the ones
that make you know, the headlines squeaky wheels and grease.

(47:06):
But as Fred is going to point out later, that's
not the majority of the people that are out there now.
So yeah, let's let's see a look at this part
where he mentions a few questions. Says, if you rent
an apartment and you don't pay the rent and you
avoid the landlord, what will happen? Do you just get
to stay in the apartment and it just the owners
just live with the fact that would be ruthless to
kick you out? Great question. How about a house mortgage?

(47:29):
Would you stop paying, you get evicted, you get foreclosed?
Was it the bank's fault? Should they be considered dirty
lenders or landlords considered horrible people? Uh? So they built
the home or put their money on it with the
trust you would pay. Why are they not considered bad?
What about renting a car? What if you rented it
and never returned it, are you entitled to keep it?
Do you think the company will attempt to get it repode?

(47:51):
And he says, you know, if you're if we're assuming
that those comparisons are unfair because those people don't target
low income customers, we'd be incorrect. I'm paraphrasing here. Car
rental companies let you rent a car with a cash deposit.
Landlords will of course, rent you a low income place, um.
And then he has something here that I think is
really interesting about the math, and I'm gonna read that verbatim, okay,

(48:14):
but before you do that, I want to point out
that in our original car title loans story, you're talking
about places that we're charging people interest, right, And that's
not the case in his example here, because he's talking
about the interest rate that his firm charges, right, or
that most of them. I guess we should say most
of them are moving toward as we we said that,

(48:36):
we said a lot of states are trying to push
for legislation to limit the amount of percentage rate annual
percentage rate that they're allowed to charge. The they can't.
They can't charge these rates anymore, they're not legally allowed to.
They're they're going more towards what Fred does now. So
so here's the example. All right, So Fred says, maybe
you're thinking they do not galuage on the interest rate.

(48:58):
Let's do the math. You rent a only five thousand
dollar car for forty dollars a day, just an example,
but I think you can see him being reasonable on
the amounts. I agree, forty a day is fourteen thousand
six hundred a year. That would equal an interest rate
of thirty six point eight percent. How strange, that's the
same percent you can get on a title loan for
right now in many states and many companies, because both

(49:20):
have no prepayment penalties and you're only charged the rate
while you were borrowing the car cash. Then why aren't
all car rental companies considered predatory? But he does say
many states and many companies, not not all at every
state and everything. That's the point, I guess is that
it's not all. There's still some crooks out there, and
that's the people that we were trying to warn you
against before. The ones that open up overnight and you know,

(49:42):
the little the little tiny, you know, closet size uh
storefronts and end up taking your title away. That's that's
the ones we were warning you about. I was trying
to be a little more fair and balanced about it.
I think there's still a lot of UM. I think
there's still a lot of those companies out there, like
the ones that I was describing in the first episode
where they are price gauging UM. I think that the

(50:02):
move towards uh, you know, more of the business type
or business business model that Fred has offered his title company.
I think that's probably that's probably the push now, that's
where that's where everybody's going now, which is good news.
And so he has an example from earlier in his life.
He says, So why the spin decent and larger car

(50:25):
title loan companies have to take Because car title loan
lenders of over a decade ago started this with crazy
high interest rates because they could, because they could, so
they did. They got away with it because they could. Um.
He says, when he got in the industry years ago,
he worked as a counter agent and you know, the
little mom and pop operation, right, And he said he
saw the beautiful car that the owners drove and their

(50:46):
cars I should say that the owners drove, and it
took him a while to realize that those cars weren't
just the cars that they had purchased with, you know,
the money from the business. These are cars that they
had repoted from customers. And they did it in kind
of a backhanded way. Um. You know, when when he
saw someone lose their car, he would notice that the
owners would tack on a bunch of fees that were
basically any number they wanted, and then they gave the
customer back what was left over as we described, you know,

(51:08):
from the sale. But there was almost nothing. It was
always almost nothing. So the owners were really coming out,
you know, on the other end, in a good h
in a good way. And he says he's extremely proud
to say that that was you know, this this little
time operation that that did go out of business. So
he's happy that they were out of business because they
were an example of you know, the bad seeds. And

(51:29):
then he also says that most of those businesses are
the bad ones, the greedy ones. They the ones that
you know, were the initial starters of the whole title
loan thing. And he said not all the companies were
like this. Some evolved into decent firms, but it took
some government slaps and some fees to get them to

(51:49):
behave right. And he said the bigger companies, of course,
had something to lose, and the smaller ones just decided
to close up their doors. You know that um that
the industry had begun to change. And I did know
there was like a title change or a title I
mean t I d a l title change in the history,
you know, like like a like a washing over of
the old to the new yeah ce change, that's a

(52:11):
better way to say it. Confused title and title. Alright, Well, anyways,
it worked, I guess so. Um, But he says, you know,
these these car title loan brokers popped up and and
a lot, you know, he was one of them, and
he's saying that it's kind of a game changer because
now there's competition. You know, when everybody competes, the people
that use the service win because you know, they're in
kind of a price war. And that's exactly what happened,

(52:33):
people competing for lower percentage rates even though they still
seem high. I mean, I'll tell you a thirty six
point eight or thirty eight point six or whatever that
percentage rate that was. We just read thirty six point
eight that he he mentioned. That's still pretty high. That's
a high percentage rate if you're buying a car or
anything really, I mean, or or have a credit card
or whatever. It's really high. But it's not. So it's

(52:55):
a move in the right direction, I guess, um. But again,
the customers had an option of who they want to choose,
and you know, they had you know, a broad spectrum
of rates and different programs and you know it was
for for people that own the business, he said. I
think he said, this is like an emotionally stressful time
for them, and he wants to point out that you
know there's a big need for this financial product. But
he says, you know to be clear that at one
point all you needed was a clear car title and

(53:17):
he says, oh, I'm sorry, not a clear car titel,
just a car title. They didn't have to be clear,
and the lender would pay off the old debt and
incorporate that into the loan, which is still a practice
for most companies. He said, you had to prove the
ability to repay this, and what that meant is that
you needed to show that your current income would handle
the loan amount. And he said it's something relatively new,
but it's highly enforced in the industry now. And there's

(53:41):
there's another part that you brought up, which UH which
pertains to UH statistic that we pulled in our episode
where he says, um that people who get those loans
are are paid off and actually returned later to get another.
Because we towards the ends of our episode, I looked

(54:03):
at a couple of polls about people who had participated in,
or we're currently participating in a car title loan. That's right.
And you remember when you read those numbers, and I said,
I thought it would have been the exact opposite, a reverse,
reverse percentage of what you just read me, because it
seemed like everything that we had read up to that
point about them, you know, it had been all about

(54:25):
price gadging, all about you know, the the underhanded tactics
that some of the bad ones had pulled, you know,
the greedy ones. But he is saying that you come
back for another one. They pay them off successfully. They
have repeat customers for paid off loans, you know, for
loans that do pay them off. UM. And he was
saying that, you know what happens a lot of times
is that you hear all the grumbling and griping from

(54:46):
people that are upset with car title loan companies. Because
he said, then this should be no surprise anybody. The
Internet has helped spread the word faster than it ever
would have, you know, just a lot around town. I
guess he's saying that, you know, it's probably goes back
to um. This is my own words here. This probably
goes back to you know, a dissatisfied customer is more

(55:07):
likely to complain about that in print or to somebody
than a satisfied customer. Right, isn't that kind of the
saying I guess you know you want to happy customer
never comes back and says how what great service and
and promotes the company. It's always the one that's grumbling
about bad service that you read about or hear about.
They're they're anxious to get online and spread the word.
That's what's happened with car title loans is that people

(55:28):
that you know have you know, it's been their fault,
they haven't paid back the loan, or you know they've
they've bad situation whatever I mean. I don't know what
happened to every individual case, of course, but someone can't
pay off the car title loan, they get their car repode.
They're going to spread word that you know, this, this
car title loan company is the real problem. It's not
them for for not U, you know, UM upholding their

(55:50):
end of the deal. There's a part here that I
want to quickly read verbatim. Well, you know, I want
to hear what you think about this, folks. Is this
about the five types of people that he says, So
who does take out car title loans? Someone who just
had a loved one die and they need money right
now for the funeral. Parents who have just gotten noticed
that their kids tuition is due and if they don't pay,

(56:11):
their son or daughter will have to Mrs Semester, a
spouse who just found out they need either bail money
or a lawyer because their partner got arrested. A real
estate agent who just sold a house, but the escrow
is not closed for months, so they need cash till
that happens. It's the person who just got over a
major illness and it's just returning to work and needs
help till they're back to normal. So it's not the
low income person as you would think, because rarely does

(56:33):
the low income person already have a paid off car
worth enough for a car title loan. It's the average
American worker. And then this this made me laugh. Fred,
if you're listening, he says, Uh, you mentioned that people
with tesla's do not get title loans, yet we just
did one today. You mentioned that high income people do
not get these, yet they most certainly do because they
know they can pay it off quickly. While you are

(56:54):
correct that there are companies out there which compound the problem.
To this day, there are many that do not. It
takes a little work to find the good ones, but
they exist. I just do not feel that bashroom car
title loan companies will go away until publishers stopped lumping
them in the group of payday loan companies who charged
three hundred to five percent interests and pawn shops who
charge a hundred interest and up. Oh man, all right, well,

(57:17):
that those are all good points, very good points. And
and the type of people he's talking about, the five
types of people that he just outlined right here, I
can see them needing, you know, a couple of thousand
dollars on the spot, you know, needing it right then.
But what I can't see, I I don't understand that still.
You know, you mentioned I think the test loan or
not getting not needing one of these, and then he says, well,
we had one today and so he'd be disproved us.

(57:38):
But I can't see someone that's considered a high income
person wanting to get quick, fast cash like that from
a source like this at you know, thirty eight percent
or thirty six percent or whatever. Why wouldn't they go
to their bank, which they likely have you know, investments
in or you know, at least savings checking account, like
the secure money. Why wouldn't they go there? Why wouldn't

(57:59):
they go to a credit union or something like that
where it's a little cheaper. But I mean, I just
don't understand it. But maybe it's just availability, Maybe it's
something it's convenience. Maybe it's super fast and they know
that they can just pay it off right away without
any kind of without having to really pay the full um,
you know, the full term because you're allowed to pay
it off early right and with no penalties. So in

(58:21):
most cases, I don't know if that's the case with
this one. I think he said that early on in
this note, But um, I don't know. I just don't see.
I still don't see the high income person going to
a title long place for a quick loan. Yeah, you know,
and we we had heard a lot of email from
from folks out there who were responding to the episode,
but we hadn't heard anybody right in and tell us

(58:42):
about their personal experience getting a car title loan or
we haven't heard yet, No, not yet, not yet. Um,
But you know, the end of this note. This was
actually really nice. Now after this long note, it's probably
five pages printed, right, it's a long, long email and
again well thought out, very very very good point. Um
at the very end of the thank you for allowing
me to air some counterpoints. I also thank you for

(59:02):
not being unfair in your podcast. You have me as
a fan all the best Fred. That ends on a
very nice note, And I didn't I didn't read any
of this in a hostile way, UM, you know, as
from him, in hostile way. I hope it wasn't intended
that way. But I do want to point out that
we weren't trying to, you know, harm any of the
guys like Fred out there. You know, they're there, their industry,
their reputation or anything like that. It's more like the

(59:25):
bad seed thing, you know that the one bad apple
spoils the bunch, or is it one bad potato spoils
the bushel or whatever it is, with the same thing
with mechanics. We've done this many times with um Car
Salesman and probably I mean other groups as well. One
bad sequel ruins the franchise. I'm looking at you, Revenge
of the Nerds for But anyways, I thought that was

(59:45):
a really that there's a really good, really well written email,
and uh, and we appreciate it. And I think that,
you know, maybe we'll give our listeners something else to
think about, an alternate side to car title loans, and
you know, then they can make up their own mind.
I guess we never told you, but not to get one.
We never told anybody to get one. Well, it's something,
it's something to chew on because the one thing that

(01:00:07):
the one thing that I always think is incredibly important
in any large financial decision is to do your own research.
I've got a friend who, oh god, he was so
much smarter than me when we were in high school.
The way he would do it when we both have

(01:00:29):
these terrible jobs is he would like it would look
at how much he made an hour, and he would say, okay,
well i'm gonna if I make this much an hour,
then I'm going to treat this research like a job.
And so let's say, for example, he was making ten
bucks an hour or whatever. So he's like, all right,
it's twenty dollars worth of my time two hours, and

(01:00:50):
I want to do a minimum of a hundred dollars
worth of research. And so because I think he was
translating it to a finance entral cost. It kept him
focused and kept him responsible. And the sad truth is
that you know a lot of us and many people
have been in this situation one time or another. A
lot of us can jump into things impulsively or make

(01:01:13):
emotionally driven decisions without sitting down and doing the math.
Like watch Scott, I'm gonna bring it back around like
Bruce Weener did when he sat down and said, how
many years do I have before this is a serious loss?
You know, because there are there's the price tag of something,
and then there's the real cost over time, and alone

(01:01:38):
is no different. Alone is a great example of cost
over time. So what we think, and and stop me
if I'm speaking out of turn here, uh, what we
think is that the most important thing you can do
is have a clear head before you even set foot
into a loan UH, a loan facility or a dealership

(01:02:03):
or anything. Heck, before you leave your house if you can,
because you probably have the internet, do extensive research. Talk
to people. There's nothing wrong with h nothing wrong with
inquiring uh from from somebody, and usually people will want
to tell you about their experiences good or bad. Sure, Yeah,
you gotta do your homework. We've always said do your

(01:02:24):
homework on this stuff. I mean, and it's a great
resource that we have available to us now. Um, it
seems like maybe maybe that's why these places were able
to get away with what they did early on, was
because you know, the word wasn't spreading quite as fast
and people were being fooled by that monthly percentage rate
versus giving the p R early on. But but now

(01:02:47):
people are a little bit more savvy about things like that,
and they do investigate things ahead of time, and they
do talk to other people about their experiences, and it's
a lot easier. You can talk to people around the
world about their experiences now. And before you were limited
to what maybe your block, your neighborhood, your community. Um,
it was a very small pool of people that you
could draw from for uh, for life advice. And now,

(01:03:08):
you know, unless you had some very wise relatives or
something that you know, passed on a lot of stuff.
But everybody's relative well thinks there are a wise person. Well,
now you can find a lot of wise people online too. Acres. Yeah,
so you can find two right on this podcast, maybe three.
I don't know counting the mad man. He's a little

(01:03:29):
wise man. I like it this mad man thing. Um.
So thank you very much, Fred for taking the time
to write back to us and the audience and speaking audience.
We want to hear what you think. We hope that
you have enjoyed this episode. I personally hope that you
have never had to pay fifty thou dollars for a
set of tires. But you know, inflation being what it is, Scott,

(01:03:53):
what if someone's listening like ten fifteen years from now,
what if fifty grand is the new normal? Yeah, they're like,
what I mean, wait if I use tires right? So
that that brings us back, don't don't let us forget.
You can check out every episode we've done about car
ownership on our website car Stuff show dot com. You

(01:04:14):
can find all sorts of neat stuff that may or
may not make it to the air, on our Twitter
and on our Facebook where car stuff hs w at
both of those and by far the most important thing
we want to hear about your hassle cars right to us.
Let us know about the lemon you got stuck with,

(01:04:35):
or a close friend or you know what happens to
a lot of people is uh, they get when their
kids first start driving, They get them a car that
might need a little TLC, but it'll be okay, and
the kid just totally does not take care of it.
Oh yeah, yeah, run it completely dry. Uh you know
it forgets to change the brake pads so that you know,
the rotors are scarred. Oh maybe that noise will go away.

(01:04:58):
And I just keeping squealing noise. If it has to
break harder, it makes it stop. The noise stops right
when the car stops them. It's amazing, It's it's amazing.
It's funny. Who can who can ever speeds a muffler? Really?
I mean, come on, you don't need a muffler on
a car. Maybe you don't want to be muffled. Yeah. Well, anyways,
there's there's a there's a lot of great stories out there,

(01:05:19):
so we'd like to hear them. And uh, hey ben,
what if what if in the future? What if there's
no cash in the future? So what if, like we
we are, our dollar amounts don't translate, like you know,
fifty years from now, someone's listening to this, Yeah, they're like, well,
how many bend bucks is that? That would be the
new currency right there, dream yeah yeah, maybe yeah, yeah,
well it's probably got a slot. I mean bitcoins kind

(01:05:40):
of is bitcoin taking a hit right now? Bitcoins take
a little bit of a hit. Yeah, So it's it's
a chance for bend bucks slide in. Yeah or Scott Shekels.
That's the closest I can come up. I don't know. Well, yes, Also,
if you have your own currency going on, let us know.
We're we're forward thinking individuals. We might be early adopters. Uh,

(01:06:01):
and let me know if you want some bend bucks.
The bank is open. You can write to us directly.
We are car stuff at how stuff works dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics. This
is that how stuff works dot com. Let us know
what you think. Send an email to podcast that how

(01:06:21):
stuff Works dot com. M hmm