Buying, Leasing, and Servicing your Car Is Governed by “Survival of the Fittest”

Buying, leasing, or servicing a car is in an “evolutionary time warp” compared with most other retail transactions. Buying an iPhone from an Apple store, a TV set from Target, or a dress from Macy’s is actually a pleasant experience. People shop in modern stores as a form of pleasurable recreation without any intention of buying anything. My wife, Nancy, and I go to Costco often on Saturdays, not because we have a lot to buy, but because it’s a pleasurable way to spend an hour or two. Contrast this with buying a car which many compare to having a root canal or a colonoscopy.

Flash back about 75 years in the retail evolutionary tree, and you have the “21^st century” car buying experience. Everybody you deal with is paid a commission on whatever you buy…a car, service for your car, parts for your car, or financing or insurance for your car. This commission is directly proportional to how high a price they can coerce you into paying for the car, part, service, finance or insurance. Furthermore, everybody pays a different price for everything they buy. You might buy a new 2013 Jeep Wrangler Sahara today for one price and find out that your next door neighbor paid $2,000 less the following day from the same Jeep dealer you bought yours from! In fact, it’s almost certain that she paid a different price than what you paid. The price each of you paid depended on the buying and negotiating skills of you and your neighbor. The difference in price is also affected by the skill, ethics, and integrity of the car salesman and manager you dealt with.

Car salesmen, on the average, earn about 25% of the profit they make when they sell or lease you a car. The average profit on a new car is about $2,000 but this average is made up of wild variations from “zero profit” to $20,000 and even higher. You ask, “Why would a car salesman sell a car for zero profit if he’s paid on commission?” There are two reasons. First, some cars are “real dogs”, very hard to sell and may have sat on the dealers lot for months or even years. Salesmen are paid what is called a “flat commission” to sell these “dogs”, anywhere from $100 to $1,000. The second reason is that manufacturers often pay big bonus money to dealers for hitting a monthly objective. Toward the end of the month, dealers will also pay flat commission to salesmen so that they can hit their volume objective.

You may also ask, “How could a dealer possibly make a $20,000 profit on a car?” The most common way it by leasing a car and tricking the customer into thinking he is buying the car. A large down payment or trade in added to the normal profit on a lease can be gigantic and the monthly payment is reduced so much by the down payment that the unsuspecting lessor is not suspicious.  Sometimes people are talked into leasing by the salesman promising them that they can return the car at any time, just as if it was a daily rental. Remember that a salesman will earn a $5,000 commission on a least with a $20,000 profit.  Another way people are tricked into paying exorbitant profits when buying, is by dealers marking up the manufacturer’s sticker price with an addendum label. The dealer advertises that price as the “list price” or “sticker” price but what he doesn’t tell you is that it’s his sticker/list price, thousands higher than the manufacturer’s MSRP.

The same wild variation in price for the same products or services applies also to what you pay for service, parts, and finance and insurance. Your neighbor who was smart enough to finance his car with his credit union, can easily save $3,000 over what you paid in the dealer’s F&I department if you weren’t careful. If you allowed the “assistant service manager” or “service advisor who is really a commissioned service salesman to sell you unneeded services, you also paid more than your more careful, prepared neighbor.

As most regular readers of my blog, newspaper column, and listeners to my radio show know, my mission is to educate you so that you will be the winner in the contest between the car salesman, service salesman, and finance and insurance salesman. My frustration is that you’re probably already “survivors”. The mere fact that you read my blog and column and listen to my radio show proves that you’re trying to improve your skills and you are not overly trusting of car dealers who may be out to deceive you.  In other words, I’m “preaching to the choir” in a sense.

Last week I received a call from an 82 year old man who thought he had bought a new 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe but found out when he drove it home he had signed a lease, not a purchase contract. The dealer made at least a $15,000 profit and the salesman made about a $3,750 commission. When he realized what they had done to him he brought the car back and offered the dealer $1,000 to take back the Hyundai Santa Fe and return his trade-in, a 2010 Santa Fe. They refused, saying “You signed the paper and you’ve leased a car”. I’m working with the elderly man now to try and help any way I can. I’ve spoken to the General Manager of the Hyundai store and am trying to get him to do the right thing. At this point, things don’t look too promising.

The problem is that there’s a group in our society that is, unfortunately, natural victims. They’re too trusting, not well enough educated, very young (first car purchase), mental faculties failing (maybe the last car purchase), and language impaired (immigrants). Unscrupulous car dealers and salesmen lay in wait for these victims just like a lion lays in wait on the Serengeti plains for a young or injured antelope. That’s why I used “survival of the fittest” in my title. 

You can easily recognize the advertisements that are aimed at the victims. You’ll see or hear phrases like “We’ll match your down payment”, “We’ll allow you $8,000 over book for your trade-in, “We guarantee the lowest price”, “Bad credit or no credit is no problem”, or “$7,000 discounts on all new cars”. The victims flock into dealerships that run these ads like sheep to the slaughter.

Because I don’t advertise this way, I rarely see “victims” in my Toyota dealership. My customers are mostly well informed consumers and lucky for me, there are a lot of them and they are growing in numbers. I’ve grown to become the largest volume car dealership in Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River Counties. However, I must say that as a businessman and a humanitarian, I’m very sorry that I cannot sell cars to those who suffer the most, the victims of our society. But, I’m the proverbial optimist and believe that through better education and smarter, more compassionate regulation we will see the victims of our society minimized over the next few years.

TOP TEN CAR AUTO AD SCAMS

I could write a “Top 50 Auto Ad Scams” because the ingenuity for deception in “getting car buyers in the door” is virtually limitless. However, I chose to concentrate on the ten most popular with South Florida dealers. Just beware that there are many more schemes than these I list. 

(1)   Discount from Dealer List. Anytime you read or see a car advertised with a large discount, determine whether that discount is from the MSRP [manufacturer’s suggested retail price] or the dealer’s retail price. An all too common practice is for a dealer to mark up his cars thousands of dollars over the MSRP and call it “dealer list” so that he can show huge discounts that aren’t real.

(2)   Prices exclude “impossible” rebates. Manufacturers often offer cash rebates to customers who qualify for special reasons. Some of these are being on active duty in the U.S. military. This rebate can be as much as $1,500. If you graduated from an accredited university within the past 6 months you can qualify for $500 to $1000 from some manufacturers. There is a customer “loyalty” rebate which affords you $1,000 or more if you are own the same make car that you are buying. There’s a similar for lease customers. There’s even a “Farm Bureau” rebate which qualifies you for $500 if you are a farmer. Dealers are actually combining all of these rebates and deducting them from advertised prices of their cars. Of course, what are the odds that any customer would simultaneously qualify for all of these rebates? The average reader of these ads qualifies for none of the rebates.

(3)   Lease payments based on large down payments. Virtually every lease payment advertisement requires a large down payment which is concealed in the fine print. Most people lease because they want to lay out as little cash as possible. If they had $4,000 cash to spend, they would probably opt for a purchase. Those that fall for this trick often end up leasing the car at the full retail. Leasing companies will allow dealers to lease cars for “only” up to 110% of capitalized cost. When you make a down payment, this reduces the net capitalized cost which allows the dealer to sell your contract to the leasing company.

(4)   Lowest Price Guarantee. This guarantee is absolutely worthless. If you read the fine print, you will note that it says that “the dealer reserves the right to buy the car from the other car dealer [his competitor] at the same price his competitor quoted you”. No car dealer is going to accommodate his competition so that they can steal away his customer. Of course the other fact that makes this guarantee worthless is that it requires that you prove the lower price by presenting a buyers’ order from the other dealer signed by a manager. I know of no car dealer [besides me] who will give a signed copy of the vehicle buyers’ order to a customer unless they drive the car home or make a substantial, non refundable deposit.

(5)   Only one car available at ad price. When you are reading a newspaper ad, you will often see a strange number next to the advertised car. If you are watching the ad on TV or listening on radio, the number will be unreadable or undecipherable as is the fine print. An example is STK #T91832. This is the stock number of the car and means it is the only car of that model and accessories you can buy at the advertised price. They don’t say “only one car available at this price” because you would realize that the chances of that car being there [or sold to you if it is there] are very slim. Don’t be misled if the ad also says “many more identical models available at this price”. Florida law requires that dealers include the dealer fee in their advertised price. But if that specific stock number car is unavailable, they can add their dealer fee to the price of an identical car. This scam is why I continue to lobby Tallahassee to require that all profits to the dealers be included in all prices whether advertised, verbal, or on the Internet.

(6)   Advertised price is “plus dealer installed accessories”. All this means is that the price you see is not the price you get. Dealers love to add their accessories to their cars because they can set any price they want and drastically increase their profit margins. A dealer charging you $299 for pin stripes and floor mats would have a real cost of about $100, allowing him a 300% margin.

(7)   Lease payment based on unrealistically low mileage allowance. All leasing companies limit the number of miles you can put on their car without paying a penalty. This is because the higher the mileage, the lower the resale value and the leasing company has to sell their car at the end of the lease. The average American drives her car 15,000 miles per year. It’s very common to see mileage limits of 10,000 and even 7,500 miles per year with penalties of 25 cents per mile. For an average driver in a four year lease that would be a penalty of $7500! The dealers don’t get this money, the leasing company does, but the dealers do this so that they can advertise an unrealistically low lease payment.

(8)   Lifetime Warranty. A lot of dealers are advertising these “lifetime warranties” on every car they sell. This is a very limited warranty which applies only to the cars powertrain. The term powertrain has different definitions as to which parts of the car it consists of. It typically means only those parts of the engine, transmission, drive shaft, and rear axle that are lubricated. These parts virtually never fail as long as you change your oil as prescribed by the manufacturer or by the issuer of the warranty policy. If you fail to change your oil as prescribed, the warranty is null and void. It’s a win-win for the car dealer. You have to come in to have your car serviced regularly so that he can make more profit and, if you do comply with this, there will never be a claim. Dealers do pay outside warranty companies for these warranties, but the cost to the dealer is minuscule, around $25. The low price the dealer pays the warranty issuer is further proof that the warranty is worthless.

(9)   Purchase payments include “balloon payment”. How would you like to buy a new BMW 2009 328i for just $339 per month only to discover that your last payment was $12,983! Oh, and you also had to make an upfront down payment of $2,500. ALWAYS READ THE FINE PRINT!

(10)                       Internet Quotes Exclude “Dealer Fee”. The average “dealer fee” in South Florida is about $850. About 25% of car buyers are using the Internet to buy cars today. Almost 90% used the Internet for information about buying their car before going to the dealership. Virtually every car dealer in Florida charges a dealer fee and they all exclude that from the price you are quoted on the Internet. I spoke to a woman just the other day who drove all the way from Lakeland to West Palm Beach to pick up the new Infinity that she had purchased on the Internet. When she got to the dealer, he added an additional $695 for his dealer fee.

The War between Insurance Companies and Body Shops That You Never Knew Was Being Waged

I’ve written other articles about how insurance companies try to fix your car as cheaply as they can without showing the necessary concern for the quality and safety of the repairs. You can find them on this blog, www.EarlStewartOnCars.com, “Collision Insurance and Your Rights” and “Coping with Body Shops and Insurance Companies”.

This new article was written by Alan Nappier (pronounced like rapier), my body shop manager at Earl Stewart Toyota. Alan is not only the best body shop manager I’ve employed in my 47 years as a car dealer, but one of the smartest, most articulate people I know. I’ll probably sound like I’m overdoing it but he also has an incredible sense of humor. I say all this so that when you read what he has to say below, please take it as the gospel. Alan is not a “smoke blower” or an exaggerator. He tells it like it is.

Your body shop is either at war with the insurance companies or they fight on their side. If your body shop is not fighting for you to protect your car from cheap, poor quality, and unsafe repairs you’re in a “heap of trouble”. The chances are that if your body shop is on your insurance company’s “approved repairer list” that its loyalty is not to you but to that insurance company. You should take your car to the body shop that you know and trust will fix your car with your interests paramount in their mind, not one who must “play ball” with your insurance company or lose their membership on the “approved repairer list”. One way to find out whose side your body shop is on is to ask them if they will be asking you to sign two forms. One is called a “Limited Power of Attorney” and the second is called an “Assignment of Proceeds”. Please read on and Alan will explain very clearly why this is so.

By Alan Nappier:

Getting an insurance company to “approve” proper repairs to a collision damaged automobile is the toughest part of the collision repair industry. First of all, in a legal sense, the insurance company really has no right to dictate or blueprint a repair process. Their responsibility to the customer is to pay for property damage, NOT determine HOW the vehicle is to be repaired. The insurance company makes money by taking in premiums and investing these premiums. Any damage claim payouts are EXPENSES and like any company, controlling expenses is a top priority. This creates a conflict of interest when the insurance company is allowed to participate in the repair process. Contrary to popular belief, insurance companies DO NOT look out for YOUR best interests; they look out for their OWN best interest. This scenario leads to an adversarial relationship between insurance companies and HONEST repair facilities. Dishonest or unethical repair facilities view the insurance company as their customer and you as a product. They will repair your vehicle however the insurance company instructs, regardless of quality or the resulting structural integrity of the automobile. They want to keep the insurance company happy so that they may keep getting business referred to them. It’s a great arrangement for everybody EXCEPT the vehicle owner. An ethical body shop will repair your vehicle properly REGARDLESS of the insurance companies’ suggestions otherwise. In the past, we would have to just “absorb” the difference between what the insurance company “allowed” and what it REALLY cost to repair your car.

  Enter now a powerful couple of legal documents called the “Limited Power of Attorney” (POA) and the “Assignment of Proceeds” (AOP). The POA is exactly what it says it is. It gives the repair facility the power to initiate legal action or collection efforts on your behalf. No, we can’t steal your house or take over your bank account, the LIMITED POA is specific to the insurance claim  Remember, in a legal sense, the shop has NO legal connection with, or obligation to, the insurance company. Our contract (signed repair order) and responsibility is with YOU, the vehicle owner. Therefore, YOU are still financially obligated for the monetary difference between what the company allowed and the true cost of the repair. A POA allows me to repair the car properly, deliver the finished product to you and then begin collection efforts on your behalf. Odds are, you’ll never hear about the claim again.

  The AOP is actually a document that “assigns” your contractual arrangement with the insurance company to the repair facility which then gives us legal standing to sue this insurance company directly. This “connection” must be established to allow the shop to sue for “breach of contract”. When an insurance company fails to adequately compensate for property damage, they have breached their contract with YOU. The AOP extends this contractual obligation to the repair facility.

  With all of THAT being said, here’s the REALITY of the situation. We are most likely never going to use these documents. The power of these documents is the knowledge that they exist. Reaching an agreed repair dollar figure is a negotiation and a negotiation is a battle of wills. You don’t want to enter any “battle” without the proper weapons and knowledge. The AOP and POA are the most powerful weapons the repair facility has available to it. When confronted by a mugger with a knife, just showing the dirty no-good your gun is enough to deter further aggression and typically end an ugly situation and you walk away the victor, not with any illicit gains, but, just with what was rightfully yours to begin with. This is the EXACT same thing we use the AOP and POA for. Simply by brandishing these powerful weapons, the muggers (insurance companies in this case), recognize a losing battle and retreat. No insurance company wants to have their dirty little secrets exposed in court. They know they can’t win because the facts and truth are on our side. The end result is, these couple of signatures you gave me makes me David to the insurance companies Goliath.

Grandma’s and Grandpa’s “Freedom Machine”

You may have read in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago about a 94 year old man who hit a woman riding a bicycle. It wasn't the man’s fault; the woman, in her fifties, ran a stop sign. They put the old man in jail overnight and he was given probation because he was driving with no license. It had been taken away because he failed his driver’s test. He said he had to drive because he had to take his wife to the doctor and pick up medicine for her.

There is another reason that a lot of younger people don’t seem to understand why this old man still owned a car. If you are one of these people, think back to the first time you ever drove a car. Think back to the time you owned your first car. Can you recall that wonderful feeling of FREEDOM? No longer did Mom or Dad have to take you to school, to work, to the store, or to a friend’s house. Or, you didn't have to take the bus, the street car, or impose on a friend who already owned a “freedom machine”. If you are a guy, do you remember how you felt when you first picked your girlfriend up at her home in your very own car? I don’t know about you, but I still feel a tingle when I think about it. I really can’t think of a more memorable experience in any young person’s life. Your first kiss is probably a close second [My first car was a 1951 Pontiac Chieftain & my first kiss was from Mary Ann Riggle during a “spin the bottle game”].

 If you are one of those younger people who curse at that gray haired driver in front of you because she is driving too slowly, just remember that she is probably a safer driver than you. Newspapers like to feature stories of senior citizens having accidents and questioning their mental and physical faculties for driving but insurance companies charge senior citizens lower premiums than you. That means they have fewer accidents and cause fewer injuries. Admittedly that is partly because we seniors drive fewer miles but it’s also because most of us drive slower and more carefully than you.

My Uncle Charlie died eight years ago. He was 94. My Aunt Marion died within a year of Uncle Charlie. They lived in the same very modest, small house on Valencia Drive in West Palm Beach for fifty years. But they always owned a Cadillac and it was always parked outside in their driveway. Up until the time they were in their late eighties, the highlight of their week was to take a Sunday drive in their shiny Cadillac. Uncle Charlie always drove. When his eyesight got too bad to drive, he still kept that Cadillac in their driveway, always clean and shiny. His eyesight was still good enough so that, from his rocking chair in his living room, he could see that big Cadillac sitting outside (and so could his neighbors).

My father died when he was 86 and he drove a Pontiac TransAm up until the very last. He had cataracts removed from both eyes and back then, you had to wear “coke bottle” style glasses to see after this operation. He had no peripheral vision and there were a lot of scrapes, dings, and dents that appeared on both sides of that TransAm. Thank God he never had a serious accident. I saw Dad every day and I would see that the dents and scratches were regularly repaired. He always said he didn't know where they came from and I never questioned him about that. Maybe I was wrong, but I didn't have the heart to ask him not to drive anymore. I knew how important that car was to Dad and I knew how devastating it would be to him if he couldn't drive anymore.

You may have heard of George Greenberg a. k. a. the “Mayor of Clematis”. He died a few months ago at the age of 91. He owned Pioneer Linens on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach, a store founded by his father, Max, in 1912. George and I were close friends and I delivered a eulogy at George’s funeral at the request of his grandson and daughter. George always drove an old Buick station wagon, although he was a wealthy man and could have bought any car he wanted. A couple of years ago, George finally treated himself to a new Mercedes Benz SLK-Class convertible! Boy did George look good in that car and he was always smiling when he drove it! When he was diagnosed with brain cancer and given only months to live, he finally had to stop driving his freedom machine. His grandson drove him to our monthly dinner at Carmine’s Ocean Grille and picked him up. It never was the same for George after that.

 

At my Toyota dealership in North Palm Beach, we have a lot of older customers. It’s just the demographics of northern Palm Beach County. My average customer is 55 and I have lots of customers in their seventies, eighties, and nineties. Maybe it’s because I’m a senior citizen too, but I especially like talking to my older customers and I’ve become personal friends with some. I can tell you from personal experience how important their cars are to them in their latter years. During your middle years when you have so much more going on in your life, your car becomes more utilitarian and you take it for granted. But when you retire and your life is not as hectic your car returns to the importance it had when you were sixteen…your “freedom machine”.

We recently leased a new Camry to one of our very good customers. This was the third car that she got from us over the last seven years and she had just turned 90. One of my managers, who has worked for me for 20 years and is a neighbor of hers, handled the lease. About a month after she took her new Camry home, her Grandson learned of the transaction and demanded that we rescind the lease. When we spoke to our customer, she let us know that her Grandson was very upset with her for leasing the car. He didn't think she should be driving a car anymore and that she wouldn't live long enough to make all the payments on a 4 year lease. We offered to refund all of the profit on the lease (about $850), but the Grandson insisted that we take the lease car back. This would cost my company thousands of dollars because of the depreciation a car takes on as soon as it is titled as a used car.

Yesterday afternoon my customer’s Grandson and Stepson visited me in my office. They continued to demand that I rescind the lease [Only the leasing company, Southeast Toyota Finance can rescind the lease] and absorb the thousands of dollars in depreciation on 1 month old used car. They suggested that I may have broken laws by exploiting the elderly and that if I did not succumb to their demands they would sue me. They had already called Toyota to complain about my actions. Not so politely, I asked them to leave my office.

This experience troubled me for the rest of the day and even last night and is what inspired this column. Now I understand why I was so angry at the actions of my customer’s Grandson and Stepson. They didn’t seem to understand how much that car meant to their Grandmother/Stepmother’s happiness and what an important thing her “freedom machine” was to her.  I have to wonder how much of their ire was due to genuine concern for her or the potential financial impact on her estate. Her Grandson told me that she had put only 1,500 miles on her last car and what does she need a new car for? He just doesn’t get it! A new car is a lot more than just a way to get to the drug store. To a senior citizen it’s a source of pleasure, pride, and comfort, knowing that it’s in their driveway for everyone to see and it’s there if they need it.

One of my sons just called me to double check on the correct time for him to come over for Thanksgiving dinner today. I told him that I was writing this column and we discussed the subject. I also told him that I hoped that neither he, nor his two brothers would ever take away my “freedom machine”.

Car Dealers Exploiting the Elderly

I wrote this column several years ago, but I’m still getting calls from elderly people and their sons and daughters about how the elderly are being victimized by car dealers. The most recent was from the son of woman in her nineties. She was ill when she leased the car and asked the salesman if she became ill or died, what would happen to her financial obligations on the leased car. He told her not to worry, as long as the car was returned there would be no cost to her or her estate. This is one of the most common lies told to older people by car salesmen. Many older people have never leased a car. They think of it as a rental car. This woman is now seriously ill and unable to drive. The son has had to pay thousands of dollars in lease payments to the leasing company.

I use the term “car dealer” often in my columns and I want to make it clear that I am not trying to get personal. I could use the terms “car salesman” or “car sales manager”, but the dealer is the boss and I firmly believe the placard Harry Truman had on his desk, “The buck stops here”. The guy that owns the place is responsible for the actions of his employees. Just because he doesn’t know that there are some salesmen or managers taking advantage of his customers, is no excuse.

When I became a senior citizen I truly began to see the world in a different light. I have been a car dealer for over 40 years, but I have seen my own business through the eyes of a senior citizen for only the last few. One thing that has helped this awareness has been my relative new public persona, brought on by my TV commercials. Seeing me on TV (and also reading this column) precipitates a lot of phone calls, emails, and letters from seniors in Palm Beach, Martin, and St. Lucie counties. Some of these are very complimentary. Many of them are also calls for help or advice from those who were taken advantage of when they bought their car.

I get more calls from widows than any other single category. In my dealership last Friday, I was introduced to a widow in her seventies who had come in to buy a car with her nephew. She had never bought a car before. Her husband had always handled this responsibility. He passed away 2 years ago. She was very wise to bring along her nephew to assist her in her first car purchase.

I turned 72 last month and I’ve learned that I’m not quite as sharp in some areas as I once was. My memory is not as good and I am not as fast as I used to be. This is not to say that I am not as smart as I was when I was younger. In fact, I’m a lot smarter and I’m a whole lot more knowledgeable.  There was a great article in Wall Street Journal entitled “The Upside of Aging”. It explained how recent scientific studies have proven that even though certain mental abilities like memory and reaction times regress as we age, other more important mental abilities like judgment, empathy, vocabulary, and semantic memory more than offset the negatives. Semantic memory is the recollection of facts and figures from your field of endeavor or hobby and is most robust in seniors. If you would like to read this article, send me your email address or fax number and I will send it to you.

Buying the right car at the right price is no easy task. There are a lot of variables like trade-in allowances, monthly payments, discounts, interest rates, lease or buy, finance or pay cash, and all that I just mentioned has to do only with the cost of the car. What about which is the best make and model for you? This process should take lots of time in the study and preparation but too often purchases are made in just a few hours with little or no preparation.

The reasons why the elderly are so often targeted and exploited by car dealers (and other businesses) are many and complex. For one thing, there are just a lot of elderly people living in Palm Beach, Martin, and St. Lucie Counties. When a reporter asked John Dillinger why he robbed banks, Dillinger replied, “Because that’s where the money is”. Even though most senior citizens are smarter than ever, I believe that we are perceived by many as not being so smart. We are looked upon as easy prey. Also, I think that we pre-baby boomers grew up in a more trusting, family oriented time and we sometimes trust others more than we should.

In summary, if you are a pre-baby boomer like me, take extra precautions before you enter a car dealership. Do your homework carefully. Never, never make a rush decision. Do not buy that car on the same day you come into the dealership. Go home, discuss it with friends and family, and sleep on it. And if you call me, please call me before you buy the car, not after it’s too late. 

Nobody Knows What Your Used Car Is Worth

A lot of people think that all used cars have a specific value and they can learn this by looking it up in the “Blue Book” or some other used car wholesale book. Nothing could be further from the truth. The wholesale books that dealers use and those that are available online to consumers have varying degrees of accuracy, but you can’t rely on a book tell you the best price at which you can sell or trade in your car. The most accurate book is the Manheim Auto Guide because it’s based on the latest wholesale auctions nationwide and it’s updated weekly and daily online. The least accurate book is the NADA guide which relies solely on surveys sent to dealers. The dealers exaggerate the wholesale value of their make to make it easier to take in trades.

All of the wholesale books, except NADA, are based on prices of cars sold at auction. However, you must understand that those prices don’t give you an accurate price that you should expect for your trade. A car sells at an auction for the price offered by the highest bidder if the seller chooses to accept that bid. I often don’t sell my used cars to the highest bidder that week because I might get a much higher price the next week. Lots of things affect the level of prices at a car auction…the weather, holidays, bribing the auctioneer and bribing the buyers. On a cold, rainy day when few dealers show up to buy or sell cars, prices are lower as well as shortly before and after holidays. Sometimes it happens that a buyer “greases the palm“ of the auctioneer so that he “doesn’t hear” (fast gavel) the higher bid from another dealer who bids higher than the dealer who has let the auctioneer know the price at which he wants to buy the car. Sometimes the sellers pay the buyers cash under the table to bid an unrealistically high price for their car. A car doesn’t even have to go through the auction block for the owner to believe it was “sold at the auction”. Buyers and sellers can make a deal before it goes “through the block”…very cozy, only one bidder. Why would they do that? Often the buyers and sellers are employed by the dealer who actually owns the car. The used car manager or wholesale buyer employed by the dealer might pay $2,000 too much for a car if he can earn $500 cash in his pocket from the seller. His boss, the dealer, is never the wiser. Let me hasten to add that the Manheim auctions are very careful to police these kinds of shenanigans and never encourage them. However, as in every large organization (Manheim is the auto auction in the world), there are a few rotten apples.

OK, then if the books are wrong and the auctions are wrong, then surely the car dealer must know the value of my trade-in….WRONG AGAIN. I have a little “test” on used car appraisal knowledge that I administer to my sales managers from time to time. By the way, my managers are among the most knowledgeable and competent anywhere. This isn’t just my opinion but that of all of their peers in this market. My test goes like this. Without prior notice I randomly select a car from among the 100 or so that come into my service department each day. I ask each of my 8 mangers individually to appraise this car for what they think the current wholesale market value is. They keep their appraisal secret from the others and write it down on a piece of paper and hand it to me. I’ve been doing this for 30 or more years and I’ve never had a variance in appraisals of less than $3,000. Some have been greater than $10,000! The reason I do this is to remind all of my mangers of exactly what I’m explaining in this article….Nobody knows the exact value of a used car. That’s important to my managers because under appraising a used car can cost us a sale. Over appraising a used car can cost us a wholesale loss at the auto auction. Therefore we always check and recheck our appraisals and go so far as to call other dealers and even put cars on Ebay. Another good reason not to accept only one dealer’s appraisal is that dealers will often knowingly undervalue your trade-ink, especially if you’ve negotiated a very low price for your new car. The dealer vernacular for his is “stealing the trade”.

Now that we’ve established that nobody has any idea what your trade-in is worth, what does that mean to you? It means you should stop worrying about getting an accurate appraisal because there’s no such thing. However, what you should positively insist on is getting the highest appraisal. In fact, you should hope that the guy who gave you the highest appraisal was very inaccurate and made a huge mistake that will cost his dealership a large wholesale loss at the auction. You accomplish this by never accepting only the appraisal by the car dealer from whom you’re buying your next car. Before you allow him to appraise your car, you should get at least two other bids from dealers of the make of car you are buying. For example, a Ford dealer will usually appraise a Ford for more than a Honda dealer because more people wanting to buy a used Ford will shop the larger selection at a Ford dealer. Deal directly with the used car department at these other dealerships. Tell the used car manager that you need to sell your car for cash and that you’re getting two more bids from two other dealers. If you have the time to get more than two more bids it’s even better. Another good place to get a bid on your used car is from CarMax, the largest retailer of used cars in the world. They buy lots of cars directly from owners even when they don’t buy a car from CarMax. Their prices are sometimes higher than dealers will offer you.

After you determine the highest bidder, if it’s not the dealer from whom you’re buying, give him the right of last refusal. If he can match the price from his competitor, you save the sales tax on the price of your trade.

I WRECKED MY CAR…NOW WHAT?

 The article below was written by Alan Napier, the manager of my body shop. It was written for my Toyota customers but the advice Alan gives applies to any make of car.

This Is Supposed To Be Easy  

Dealing with your insurance company has never been as difficult as it is right now. 2012 was a disaster for most insurance companies. Falling revenues, catastrophic disasters, poor investments and last years financial meltdown led to losses for most major carriers. Why should you care? Because now that the horse is out, they've slammed the barn door. This means that they are utilizing more aftermarket, re-manufactured and junk yard parts to repair your vehicle. It means that insurance companies are applying discounts to their estimates that were not there prior to the collapse of Wall Street. It means that they are not negotiating in good faith with your repair facility to bring your vehicle back to its pre-accident condition.

What Can I Do? 

                  

Most importantly, insist that your damaged parts be replaced with new genuine Toyota replacement parts. Toyota only provides warranties on new OEM parts. If necessary, involve your agent. Remember, your agent works for you and should be your advocate when dealing with claims staff. 

Second, insist that the insurance appraiser explain the estimate they are providing to you. Many times the estimate will not come close to paying for all of the vehicle damages. It’s not a mistake when this occurs, but a calculated tactic. Many people don’t repair their vehicles and have no idea that their insurance company did not provide enough funds to repair the car properly. Point out any damage that the appraiser doesn’t acknowledge on the estimate and insist that it be added to the appraisal right away. Often the appraiser will tell you he has already written the check, so he cannot change the estimate until the vehicle is at a repair facility. This is not true. The appraiser is obligated to pay for all of the visible damage regardless of how many estimates and checks he has to write. As with any negotiation, be polite, but firm.

I Don’t Have Time for This!! Somebody Help Me!!

If you just really don’t want to deal with all of that, that’s where we come in. Your insurance company will advise you to repair at a shop that “works with us”. Translation: “They do what we tell them.” Earl Stewart Toyota will insist that your insurance company pay to repair your vehicle properly, per the manufacturers’ recommendations, to its pre-accident condition. Bring in your car, show us the related damages, sign a repair authorization, hand us the keys and you are done. It’s that easy. We take care of everything from that point. All we ask is that you support our efforts to negotiate with your insurance company. They will do everything from using scare tactics to telling outright falsehoods to save a few bucks. You trusted us to sell you a Toyota and maintain it to manufacturers’ standards, now trust us to repair your collision damaged vehicle to its pre-accident condition.

Car Salesmen Don’t Look or talk Like Car Salesmen Anymore

Many of my readers know that I send mystery shoppers weekly to car dealerships around South Florida so that I can learn how they are selling, leasing and servicing cars. I do this for two reasons. The first is that this is a common practice for all businesses to learn how their competition operates and to have the competitive edge you really need to know how your competitors do business. The second reason is that I feature a mystery shopping report on my weekly radio show, Earl Stewart on Cars that airs between 9 and 10 every Saturday morning. I've done hundreds of these mystery shops and I've noticed an interesting trend over the years.

Back in the day, car salesmen looked and sounded like what many people consider the stereotype for a car salesman. You know what I mean, gold chains, diamond pinkie ring, sunglasses, loud shirt, and white shoes. As car buyers became more educated, sophisticated, and demanding, it didn't take car dealers long to realize that they had to dress their car salesmen in a nicer fashion, “lipstick on a pig”, But even though they looked nicer, they sounded and acted pretty much the same.

With the advent of the Internet, Google in particular, today’s consumer has made a quantum leap in knowledge, education and sophistication. Today’s buyer of virtually everything is far more demanding and far less tolerant of deceptive advertising and sales tactics.

The most recent shift I've seen in car dealers’ efforts to make their salesmen seem less threatening is in who they hire and how they train their salesmen to behave. More and more car dealers are hiring younger sales people, and fewer older, experienced salesmen. These dealers want their sales people to treat their customers with courtesy and respect and gain their confidence. We've all heard the terms con man and con-artist. We also know the verb, to con. To con somebody means to steal from them as in Bernie Madoff. Did you know that “con” is short for confidence? A successful con man is good at gaining the confidence of his victim. The con man’s appearance and how he sounds play a critical role in this. I often hear people who were taken advantage of and stolen from say, “He looked and sounded like such a nice person”. Think about that for a minute. How successful could a crook be who looked and sounded like one?

The important thing to remember is that it’s usually not the car salesman who is responsible for the deception. Certainly he cannot be held accountable for the deceptive and often illegal advertising. In fact, many car sales people hate the advertising that brings prospective customers into the car dealership by false and misleading promises.  Especially in today’s economy, many people work in car dealerships because they can’t find a job anywhere else. Imagine how embarrassing it must be to salesman, new to the car business, when he must try to explain away a bait and switch advertisement. How can you tell a prospective customer that the “sale car” on the showroom floor costs several thousands of dollars more than the one advertised on TV? In my mystery shops, it’s becoming more and more common for the salesman to “nicely” tell my shopper when she asks to see the advertised car that they can’t really buy the car for that price and to apologize for the deceptive ad! These sales people will say right up front that the ad is just to get you to come in so that they can try to sell you a car at higher price.

Also, the salesman is often an innocent victim when it comes to the deceptive sales practices. Many car dealers use attractive, friendly sounding sales people to lure the fly into the web. It’s been proven in studies that customers put more stock in the individual they deal with at a store than the store itself. If that salesman can capture your trust and especially if he can make you like him, the car dealership is 90% closer to closing the sale.

Today’s sales people are really more “greeters” than sales people.  Many car sales people today are not privy to the cost or even the selling price of the cars they “sell”. The true cost of the car is known only by the sales managers who are also known as closers and team leaders. These managers are also the only ones authorized to quote a price. They also appraise your trade-in. The interest rates you pay and the warranties, maintenance plans, GAP insurance, etc. that you buy are all handled by mangers.

The bottom line is that it’s not the rude, aggressive car salesman you need to be afraid of. There are very few of those around anymore. The car dealers have wised up and you will be dealing with young, attractive, non-threatening, and polite sales people today. In many cases, they know very little about the unfair and deceptive sales and advertising. What little they do know makes them feel bad but they need the job and want to put food on the table for their family. As much as you like this salesman or saleslady, don’t give him or her your trust when it comes getting a fair price, trade-in allowance, lease payment, or interest rate. That nice, smiling sales person is the dealer’s pawn and is “just following orders”. Verify all of the numbers your new friend gives you by competitively shopping and comparing at least two other car dealers.

The Dealer Fee Deception Grows but is Ignored by Florida Regulators

Last week I sent a mystery shopper into a Kia dealership in West Palm Beach. Her assignment was to respond to TV, radio, and Internet advertisements to buy a new Kia Soul for $179 per month or “less than $6 per day”. Every Saturday morning my wife, Nancy, and I host a radio talk show, Earl Stewart on Cars and we always feature a shopper who visits a south Florida car dealership. I report the results of that experience, positive and negative.

We give our mystery shoppers code names to protect their real identities because most car dealerships listen to my weekly radio show. This shopper’s code name is “Agent K”. Agent K told the sales person who greeted her that she was responding to the advertisement for a new Kia Soul for only $179 per month. The salesman led her over and showed her the advertised car and as they walked over to the car he said “the advertising for this car is not all true”. Interestingly, a comment like this from car salespeople is not unusual. The sales people don’t write the advertisements and are not responsible for the sales tactics of the dealership they work for. Many are apologetic and do not like to have to explain unfair and deceptive advertisements to their customers. They are the ones that have to face angry customers when they find out that the advertisements aren’t true. Jobs are hard to come by these days and I can almost understand why someone might compromise their ethics to put food on their family’s table.

The salesman explained that the advertised car was a stick shift. He also explained that she would have to make a cash down payment of $4,000 and make monthly payments for the next six years and three months. Furthermore, she would have to have a credit Beacon score of at least 750 to qualify for the 2.79% interest rate they used to calculate the low payment.

The salesman asked Agent K if she would like to take a demonstration ride in the new Kia Soul but she responded “no” because she had already test driven one at another dealer. She didn’t tell him the real reason she wouldn’t test drive it was because she didn’t know how to drive a stick shift. Of course, this is the exact reason that car dealers advertise cars that don’t have automatic transmissions because 99% of car buyers don’t want to buy a stick shift and most have never driven one.

Another thing that the car salesman did not tell Agent K was that there was only one car available at the advertised price. This was not clearly disclosed in the advertisements but indicated only in the very fine print by a “stock number”. The stock number for this bait and switch car was 130940 which is probably the last six digits of the VIN. The only way I was able to view this number was by looking on the Internet ad, printing it out, and then using a magnifying glass to read it. It is literally impossible to read the fine print on the TV advertisements and impossible to hear the disclosure on the radio advertisements. The fine print on TV appears only for a second or two as a blur on the bottom of the screen and the radio audio disclosure is deliberately obfuscated by speeding up the sound track and lowering the volume.

The reason that car dealers use a stock number in the fine print is so that they can abide by the Florida law that requires that the dealer fee be included in all “advertised” prices. This anemic law resulted from the powerful lobbying of the Florida Automobile Dealers Association, FADA. This means that a salesman can quote you a price on new car in person, on the phone or via email without disclosing that there is an extra charge (without limit!) that he can legally add after you have agreed to buy the car. A car dealer must only tell the truth about the full price of his cars when he advertises that specific car.

The Kia dealer in West Palm Beach has three dealer fees totaling $971.45. He doesn’t name any of them “dealer fee”. Florida law allows dealers to name this extra, hidden profit anything they choose. This just makes it easier for the car dealers to hide this hidden profit from their customers. The Kia dealer decided to name one of his dealer fees “delivery fee” and it is $699.95. He probably chose this to make the customer believe that this was for inspecting, washing, and adjusting the new car. What most customers don’t know is that these costs are actually paid for by the manufacturer. His second dealer fee he chose to name “document and handling fee” and in the fine print on his buyer’s order says it’s “preparation, processing and handling of the documents required in registration, filing and licensing of the vehicle” and this extra profit to him is $218.55. This West Palm Beach Kia dealer does have expenses for processing and handling documents. He also has expenses for his monthly utility bills, sales commissions, and lease payments for his building, not to mention his deceptive advertising. But businesses are supposed to include all of their expenses in the prices of the products they sell. They are not supposed to tell you the price and then make you pay their expenses on top of that price. The third dealer fee this Kia dealer chose to name Electronic Filing/Private Tag Agency Fee which amounts to $64.95. He does pay a company to process his tag work but he doesn’t pay them $64.95. It’s $10 or $15 and then he marks it up and adds this to his profits.

You’ll notice that all of the dealer fee names have something in common. They all end in “fee”. This is by design because the word fee has an official sounding sound about it. This is to lead you to believe that all of these fees are federal, state, or local taxes or fees. One way to detect real fees from additional profit to the dealer is by whether or not the dealer charges you sales tax on that amount. He is required by law to pay Florida sales tax on the full, true selling price of the vehicle which must include his all of his profit and expenses except for tax and tag.

Just as an aside, I’ll also mention that this dealer marks up the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, MSRP, sticker on all of his cars by $2,999. He places this addendum label next to the official Monroney sticker and calls the extra markup “Regional Market Value Adjustment”. This is actually reduction from a few months ago when his “Regional Market Value Adjustment” was $6,999! Dealers do this so that they can offer inflated discounts and trade-in allowances. This practice is clearly in violation of spirit and intent of the federal law mandating that a Monroney label be placed on every new car to afford buyers a common basis for comparing prices.

I hope Pam Bondi, Florida’s Attorney General, reads this article. I wonder how she would feel if a relative or friend of hers were victimized by this dealer or one of the other Florida car dealers, most of whom use the dealer fee and the “phony Monroney” to overcharge their customers. Maybe she would join me in mystery shopping some car dealers to learn how Florida car buyers are being victimized and then do something about it. I’d love to have Ms. Bondi call my radio show sometime to discuss this. She can stream the show live any Saturday morning between 9 and 10 AM by clicking www.SeaviewRadio.com. I’ll gladly accept her call and put it ahead of my other callers so that she doesn’t have to wait.

Open Letter to Car Dealers - 2012

Dear fellow Florida car dealer,

 I started in the retail car business in 1968, about 44 years ago, and I have seen a lot of changes in the way we dealers sell cars and the expectations of our customers. My remarks in this column are made sincerely and with a positive intent toward you and your customers. I am not trying to tell you how to run your business; I am suggesting a change that will reward both you and your customers.

Virtually every car dealer in Florida adds a charge to the price of the cars he sells, variously referred to as a “dealer fee”, “documentary fee”, “dealer prep fee”, etc. This extra charge is printed on your buyer’s orders and is programmed into your computers. This “fee” is capped in many states like California which limits it to $80, but in Florida, a dealer can charge any amount he wants…$5,000 or more if thought he could get away with it!  You charge this fee to every customer and it ranges from a few hundred dollars to over $2,000. Florida law requires that you disclose in writing on the buyer’s order that this charge represents profit to the dealer. Florida law also requires that you include this fee in all advertised prices. You don’t always do this and you get around the law by limiting the number of advertised vehicles (as few as one). Recently you’ve begun marking up the fee you pay outside companies to do you tag and registration paperwork, electronic filing fee, and passing this along to your customer. Some dealers mark this $12 cost up as high as $500. Some dealers are also double charging for freight which the manufacturers always include in the price of the car.

 The argument that I hear from most car dealers, when I raise this issue, is that the dealer fee is fully disclosed to the buyer on his buyer’s order. But, most car buyers are totally unaware that they are paying this. Who reads all of the voluminous paperwork associated with buying a car? The few who notice it assume it is an “official” fee like state sales tax or license and registration fee. Those few astute buyers who do question the fee are told that, by law, the dealership must charge this fee on every car, which is untrue. These astute buyers are also told that all other car dealers charge similar fees. This is almost true, but, as you know, my dealership does not.

The reason you charge this fee is simply to increase the cost of the car and your profit in such a manner that it is not noticed by your customer. This is just plain wrong. Dealers will admit this to me in private conversations and some will admit that they have considered eliminating the fee as I have, but are afraid of the drastic effect to their bottom line. By being able to count on an extra $999.95 in profit that the customer is not aware of or believes is an “official fee”, you can actually quote a price below cost and end up making a profit. Or, if the price you quote the customer does pay you a nice profit, you can increase that profit by several hundred dollars.

This “extra, unseen” profit is even better for you because you don’t pay your salesmen a commission on it. That’s being unfair to your employees as well as your customers.  Because theoretically there is some liability exposure for removing the dealer fee for only sophisticated customers, you could just reduce the price by the amount of the dealer fee. Your salesmen often won’t permit this because he will lose his commission (typically 25%) on the decrease in his commissionable gross profit.

If you don’t know me, I should tell you that I don’t profess to be some “holier than thou” car dealer who was always perfect. Although, I never did anything illegal, when I look at some of my advertising and sales tactics 20+ years ago and more, I am not always proud. But, I have evolved as my customers have evolved. My customers’ expectations, level of education, and sophistication are much higher today. Your customers are no different. As I began treating my customers, and employees, better I discovered that they began treating me better. Yes, I used to charge a dealer fee ($495), and when I stopped charging it many years ago, it was scary. But I did it because I could no longer, in good conscience, mislead my customers. Just because everybody else was doing the same thing did not make it right.

Now here is the good news. My profit per car did drop by about the amount of the dealer fee when I stopped charging it. But, when my customers realized that I was now giving them a fair shake and quoting the complete out-the-door price with no “surprises” the word spread. My volume began to rise rapidly. Sure, I was making a few hundred dollars less per car, but I was selling a lot more cars! I was, and am, selling a lot of your former customers. My bottom line is far better than it was when I was charging a dealer fee. You can do the same!

Why am I writing this letter? I’m not going to tell you that I think of myself as the new Marshall that has come to “clean up Dodge”. In fact, I am well aware that this letter is to some extent self-serving. Lots of people will read this letter and come to the conclusion that they should buy a car from me, not you. And, I’m also aware that most dealers who read this will either get angry and ignore it or not have the courage to follow my lead. But maybe you will be the exception. If you have any interest in following my lead, call me anytime. I don’t have a secretary and I don’t screen any of my phone calls. I would love to chat with you about this.

Sincerely, Earl Stewart

Some Car Buyers Can Be Fooled All of the Time

As most of you know, I’m a consumer advocate for those who own or lease automobiles. I write a  blog, www.EarlStewartOnCars.com, a weekly newspaper column in Hometown News, host a weekly live talk show on Seaview Radio, and I just wrote a book, Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer. I also speak regularly before groups at libraries, civic clubs, condo associations, and other organizations.

I’ve been doing this for many years and one of my greatest frustrations is that there is segment of society that I’m unable to reach. I was watching 60 Minutes on TV last night and there was segment on U.S. companies being unable to fill job openings for lack of qualified applicants. It wasn’t about not having enough scientists, engineers, or other college educated applicants with specialized skills; it was about not having applicants who could complete a grammatically correct sentence on a resume, show up for work on time, or comprehend basic instructions on how to perform an entry level job.

My frustration, as a person who advises others on how to buy or lease a car and service their cars without being taken advantage of, is that there is a segment of society that I’m unable to reach. I know this because people call me daily about how they were taken advantage of by car dealers. I just had a call from a man who wanted to know if I could match an offer from one of my competitors who said they would allow him the original MSRP on his four year old car as a trade-in on a new car. Fortunately I was able to explain that this “too good to be true” offer was, in fact, not true before the man was tricked into buying a car.  I also know this because I know of many car dealers who blatantly deceive and take advantage of their customers and are financially successful.

Further fueling my frustration is that car buyers today have immensely more information at their fingertips to make an intelligent decision in buying, leasing, or servicing their cars. I consider Google to be an “annex to my brain”. Writing this column, I’ll use Google and other Internet sources many times. My wife, Nancy, and I don’t buy anything without first clicking on www.ConsumerReports.org. When we do buy, more often than not we buy from www.Amazon.com because we can determine the lowest price and choose the vendor with the best reviews. If was buying a car, I would go to www.TrueCar.com and I would also check out www.Edmunds.com and www.KBB.com. These are only a few of the sources of information available to us that was not 20 years ago.

I’m not telling you something you don’t know when I say the USA is falling behind the rest of the world in education. Many countries in Asia and Europe are educating their children and young adults better than we. I’m not going to go into a lot of depth and detail on this because you hear about it every day. The rest of the world’s children attend school 12 months out of the year, vs. only 9 for ours. Many of our teachers are inferior to those in other countries. The subjects taught in our classrooms are not those that best prepare students for life or the workforce. We graduate a large number who don’t have the fundamental skills of reading, writing, or speaking correctly. One of the biggest problems I see with our educational system is that we turn out a high percentage of students without work or moral ethics. Of course, the parents play a big role in all of this but often the parents were also the product of our inferior educational system.

My Toyota dealership is extremely successful and is one of the largest volume car dealerships for car and service sales in the USA. We are growing rapidly and dominate our market. Earl Stewart Toyota is located in Lake Park, FL, which is a very small town with a population under 9,000. In fact, because very few people have heard of Lake Park, we advertise that we are in North Palm Beach when we are actually on the border between the two towns. We sell and service so many more cars than all the other dealers in our market by selling and servicing customers that drive for many miles, south from Ft. Lauderdale and north to Ft. Pierce and beyond.

We are able sell and service so many cars to those who live so far away because we have established the Earl Stewart brand as being the car dealership that will give you a fair price and treat you with courtesy, respect and integrity. We don’t guarantee the lowest prices as so many car dealers claim because we can’t. We tell our prospective customers that we give them what we believe it’s the best price, but we encourage them to shop and compare it with the competition.

Now, the fascinating result of our success is that we have captured virtually all of the educated, intelligent, sophisticated car buyers in our market. People who buy and service their cars from us cannot be fooled by the “too good to be true” offers from our competition. In fact, their intelligence is insulted when dealers bait them into their stores with a low price and then add a “$999.95 dealer fee”; or when they mark up the MSRP price by $7,000 so that they can pretend to be giving a large discount on the advertised car. Smart people run, don’t walk, away when they are told that the discounted price is good only if you’re on “active duty in the military and graduated from college within the past six months”. We hear these horror stories daily from our sophisticated and educated customers who found sanctuary with us.

But, as successful as my dealership is, I can’t forget about those poor souls who fall prey to the deceptive advertising and sales practices designed to take advantage of the uneducated, unsophisticated, very young, very old, and English language impaired. I wrestle with this every day, thinking of how I can reach this group of consumer-victims. My blog, newspaper columns, radio shows and even my book will not be read by most of these people. You, who are reading this article, now, are enlightened consumers and in that sense I’m preaching to the choir.

I welcome any suggestions on how I can reach those who are being taken advantage of daily. I want to believe that, in the long run, the size of this group of car buying victims will shrink to the point where those car dealers that now successfully exploit these defenseless buyers have to stop their unfair and deceptive sales practices and advertising to attract buyers like you.