Six years ago I managed to make a $2000 profit on a car without it ever leaving the auction.

A few winks to the auctioneer. A few clicks on a digital camera. A few paragraphs on Ebay. Done. I had managed to purchase and remarket a 2001 Toyota Prius in mint condition with 113k miles. It was near factory clean inside and out. A spanking new hybrid battery. Brand new Michelin low resistance tires, and a maintenance history that showed it had been dealer maintained since day one.

In the car business we refer to these opportunities as an automatic slam dunk.

I bought that Prius $6650 and sold it for $8950 to a nice family from Alabama who met me at the auction two weeks later to pick it up. Back then, I was one of the very few who did his homework when it came to researching older vehicles. These days not a lot has changed… at the public auctions.

Condition (6.5/10):

Whenever anyone sees a hybrid with a check engine light at the auto auctions, they discount the price accordingly. A lot of folks who end up having bad battery packs will dump these vehicles to a new car dealer who will then invariably attempt to recycle their trade-in at a variety of nearby auto auctions.

Rarely do you ever see one that doesn’t have this problem. Although this was only one of three 1st gen Priuses I have ever seen at the sales.

This one was a little ugly on the surface. Two doors had dents. The check engine light was illuminated at the time it was bought, and there was even a rust spot on one of the lower rocker panels.

However when I dug below the surface. I found the true beauty of it.

Dealer records. A recent battery pack replacement. Reasonably low miles at 109k, and the rust spot was little more than residue from a scuff that was never fully tended to. The rest of the vehicle was fine except for that check engine light which was  code P1436. That turned out to be nothing more than a bypass valve (non-advert clicky) near the catalytic converter that usually required some PB Blaster.

A few good sprays. A check for $2860… and a far tougher decision than in the past.

Should I…

Rent:

I can’t think of anything that would be more popular to rent than a Toyota hybrid. If I took this route, I would likely charge $25 a day and have it only offered with a seven day minimum rental period. Plenty of customers who have vehicles in need of major engine or transmission work wouldn’t mind driving a car that gets two to three times their usual fuel economy.

Out here in the ex-urbs of Atlanta, people drive a lot. If anything this would be a heck of an attraction for the rest of the business.

Finance:

$1000 down. $65 a week for 24 months. I have no doubt that this will make the note so long as I can find a good owner.

Except in this time of the year, that’s hard to do. The last three months of the year are pretty close to a no-man’s land in terms of finance customers. October and November offer no spending holidays. While December tends to be a good month for smaller ticket items, and dumber than a bag of hammers new car leasing options.

The folks who have bad credit and/or unproven income are usually stretching to make ends meet at this time. I do get customers. But they are either referrals from the current customer base, or folks whose cars just broke down for the last time and don’t have the means to meet the down payment or monthly payment.

More than I likely I would have to hold it until next year.

Sell:

On a retail sale I would be looking at around $5000. This is a popular car. But I would also have to spend a few hundred dollars to get it to look right.

There is a part of me that would consider putting the Prius on Ebay during the next couple of weeks. Large hurricanes like Sandy usually result in spikes for models that are popular. But usually it takes several weeks for the insurance companies to write checks for all the scrapped units.

I just got a 1983 Mercedes 300D that had been a Southern car for its entire life, which means no rust and minimal suspension wear. The Prius may be a better fit in the online world where folks in the northeast could bid it up.

Keep:

This is a weird car. The door panels and hood are as about as thin as a wore out brush on an old broom. Frugality is nice. But the side impact safety strikes me as troubling for a young family of four.

Would it be good for me alone? Nope. The Insight likely has far better structural rigidity and side impact safety standards. You may not assume this. But the 1st gen Insight is a surprisingly strong car for the time period. Plus it’s about 67 times more fun to drive than ye olde Y2K+1 Prius.

I’m not keeping it. But would you? Which one of these four choices would offer a monetary economy that would match the outstanding fuel economy?

The bidding kept going down and down at the inop auction. A sale where all cars are usually either dead or dying.

“$200! would-a-give-me $200! $100! $100! How about-a-hundred!”

Pretty soon the bidding went all the way down to $50. For a whole car! No takers. No sale. Until…

I was a member of the auction staff at this public sale. Unlike other junk public auctions which usually offer cleaned up basket cases from the impound lots, this one specifically sold dealer trade-in’s.

The vehicle in question was a 1993 Subaru Impreza.  Four speed automatic. 165k. Primer. The vehicle didn’t even have a lick of paint on the outside.

But it looked clean. Too clean to be used as crusher fodder at an auto recycler.

“Rick? Do you think the Chevy dealer would take $25 for that thing?”

It just so happened the owner of that dealership had a twin brother who also happened to hear me ask about the car.

“You want that junker Steve? It’s yours! Enjoy your new tinker toy!”

So for $25, plus a $50 fee, I had my own Subaru paperweight. That was until I replaced the battery and the shiftlock overdrive mechanism. It ran like a top. Two weeks later I bought a 1988 Toyota Mr2 at the same sale with about 110k for $225 that only needed a fuel pump.

Two cars for less than $500 altogether.

Eventually I sold both vehicles on Ebay for $1576 and $2712 respectively. A rally coordinator for Subaru flew in from California and kept the Impreza for another 50k miles before turning it into a race car. The MR2 went to a super nice guy in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where thin framed older cars have limited lives.

I’ve made more money with plenty of other cars over the years. But these two have always been close to my heart. What about you? What was your best deal? Feel free to throw in a parts story or two if you like.

In the olden days known as the late 20th century, an ancient artifact called a “newspaper” would be dropped by your front door.

Inside this mostly unrecycled piece of pulp was an automotive ”Classified” section. In better times, this magical list of thousands of vehicles would have offered car buyers an incurably acute case of acronymitis. “1994 Camry, ps, pw, a/c, auto, abs, 1 ownr! $5500 Ph#…”.  A short three line list of minimalist communicado would have cost the seller about $50.00 and given them a secondary presence in a newspaper section that made millions for major publishers.

There was only one saving grace if you wanted to find cars for sale that offered big print, big pictures and big discounts. The new car advertising section… and there were two reasons for that.

The first is that the dealer had to follow strict advertising laws that were enforced with an iron hand. You want to sell a car for a low price? Great! Now you get to tell the buyer everything that enables them to enjoy that unusually low price.

Does that price include a $250 discount for trading in a vehicle that is less than 10 years old? Well that’s one way of making it up on the used car side of the ledger if you are Bill Heard Chevrolet. But it’s perfectly legal, and thank you for disclosing it.

Does the cheap price also include seven long lines of legalspeak that are tucked into the nether regions of the ad? With sixteen asterisks and financial terms that would make even a finance major scratch their head? That’s fine. Just make sure you let everyone know the exact model you are selling with those terms, and how many of those specific vehicles are available at your lot.

New car buying was obviously still a bit difficult, even back then. Now it’s even more nuanced when it comes to mathematical misdirections.

Enter the new dealer/manufacturer pricing strategy which, as far as I’m concerned, has become way out of hand.

You start with one model with an insanely small MSRP. It could be $11,990 or $19,995. But you use that model for only about .2% of your sales and about 15% of your publicity.

That car is then given a destination fee that is now usually around the $800 range. So now you have anywhere between another 4% to 7% bump in the real selling price.

Dealer fees then pop up in the sales contract. In certain areas of this country, this is done in concert with low content add-ons. If you want to buy a car somewhere else in the state, good luck. Bogus fees of varying sorts and prices have now become a near universal reality. Especially for those markets that rely on distributors.

These fees often help bump the real selling price another $500 to $700. All of a sudden that cheap low level car of $12k is now at a genuine selling price of $13,500. While the midsized loss leader is edging ever closer to a real selling price of $21,500.

Finally you are levied with tag and title processing fees… and endless time wasted trying to get them reduced or removed.

In many dealerships you may possibly be looking at anywhere between a 7% to 14% jump in the final selling price of the car even before you pay sales taxes.

There is only one thing to blame for all this. The same truth in advertising laws that allowed the same loopholes and gotchas to take place way back in the old media days. It’s deceptive. But many consumers have come to expect these types of deceptions when it comes to buying new cars.

Should this change? Should dealers and manufacturers be compelled to advertise one simple price that reflects all their charges and fees? Or should we continue to play a decades old shell game that’s as useful as VINs etched on a car’s windows, and carpet care treatments, that consist of a low-paid kid from Savannah, Georgia spraying fifteen cents worth of aerosol into the inside of your vehicle.

People should vote with their feet. But sometimes those feet have nowhere to go, thanks to selling practices that go back as far as those old classified sections and the local Sunday comics.

So what should be the standard pricing model for today… when it comes to new cars?

When you have 120 dealers looking at the same exact car on a Monday morning, you have three options if you plan on buying a car.

1) Bid

2) Watch

3) Leave

After I saw a 2003 Infiniti FX35 with 220,558 miles sell for $9100 plus the auction fee, I left for good.

Right now we are in the midst of tax season. A time when millions of consumers get their tax refunds from Uncle Sam and, on average, spend it all within a 72 hour period. A few pay off their debts. A few more buy top of the line televisions, cell phones, and electronics. The rest put a thick down payment on an older used car that is now being financed for anywhere between three to six years.

A luxury SUV like the Infiniti can be sold for stupid money at the moment. We’re talking a $1500 down payment and about $85 a week for 36 months. On the miracle that the buyer makes a full payoff on the loan, you’re looking at about $15 grand in total once you calculate all the tax, tag, title, finance charges and assorted other bogus fees that are usually levied onto that number.

Is it a terrible buy for the consumer? Of course! But in the end, an affordable monthly payment in exchange for the impersonation of wealth is the only thing that will truly matter to them.

You may think this is a suckers bet par excellence, and you would be right.

But there are plenty of other suckers that were down the line last week. Consider these prices…

1999 Lincoln Town Car, Cartier Edition: $3200, 206,789 miles.

2002 Lexus ES300, scraped on one side: $3300, 274,166 miles.

2007 Chevy Tahoe LT, Rough interior: $11,000, 248,804 miles.

Who would finance any vehicle that is already well north of 200k?

A lot of companies will if the potential level of return is attractive enough. Dealerships will keep the riskier deals on their books for a few months, and then sell many of the potential dogs for a pre-determined price to a finance company. That company will, in turn, sell it to a Wall Street firm that will package it into a conglomeration of ‘asset backed securities’, where it will be given a credit rating. Then it will be marketed to a variety of buyers in the finance world far and wide.

Overheating? Why yes it does get hot here in Atlanta! How does $7995 sound?

Does this sound familiar to you? It should. Yes, these are the type of seeds that sprouted the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the near ruin of our economy. But the same mechanism of buying and selling these automotive assets also serves a vital purpose for every automaker that finances or leases their vehicles. 

Every automotive manufacturer has one thing in common. They want to sell their ‘paper’ so that they have the financial resources needed to keep building their business. Toyota, GM, Honda, VW, Nissan… even the smaller automakers such as BMW and Mazda require plenty of liquid cash to survive.

They can’t pay their people in IOU’s any more than the consumers who are currently financing their vehicles. So they will sell the paper to those buyers who are willing to accept the risks.

2013 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara – Built In The USA / Now Financed In China

There is no shortage of takers. This article offers plenty of the basics of the ‘prime’ world of automotive remarketing which historically involves selling far lower risk deals at reasonable returns.

But if you are to get one thing out of an obscure part of the automotive industry, read and dwell on this quote…

“For the most part we have seen a reversion back to the kinds of underwriting standards we saw five years ago, before the crisis, and for that we are not unduly concerned,” says Glenn Costello, senior managing director at Kroll.”

Mr. Costello may know a lot about the fundamentals of this business from a pure numbers perspective. But if I were a buyer of those securities, I would be real careful of buying anything that carries the same type of risk as the vehicles I saw go through the block.

The number of sub-prime deals for automotive asset backed securities has more than doubled in little over a year. The quality of those vehicles has not followed the same path. From what I see at the auctions, they are getting far worse in condition and mileage.

Are you underwater in your car? How about your trunk? $6995! Buy now!

I am not one to recommend shorting specific companies. But if I were to short anything in this business, it wouldn’t be an automaker. Not by a longshot.

I would be looking squarely at those companies that either retail to sub-prime customers, or finance companies that specialize in the higher risk areas of this market. When it comes to late 2014 and all the delinquencies begin to be removed from the credit reports of those who got hit during the last financial storm, you are likely going to see a swarm of new car buyers abandoning the crappy old sleds for new metal that may even cost less on a monthly basis.

Of course the loans will likely run in the six to eight year range by then. But hey! New wheels! And the cycle will begin anew.

Some things in life are just plain goofy when you start thinking about them a good bit.

Consider the lyrics to the Lynyrd Skynyrd anthem”Sweet Home Alabama”, coupled with Forrest Gump dancing with his childhood love.

Or Born In The USA as a song frequently used to further political candidates. When the lyrics point straight at the constant screwing of the common man by the powers that be.

Finally we have the Honda Accord. A car renowned for quality, and yet, enthusiasts bitch about it more and more with every succeeding generation.

This 1993 Accord is a testament to the ‘Best of the Best’ from days of yore. The last year for a generation of Accords that were arguably the most competitive ever built.

This paritcular one has 422, 421 miles. Other than leather seats, this EX wagon came with every possible option you could have for an Accord at that time.

Sliding moonroof, ABS, Power everything. The paint isn’t exactly showroom new but given 20 years and over 400k miles, we can overlook that non-fatal issue.

The only weakness these models had were a few of the sensors within the tranmsision. Every once in a blue moon they would go south. The enthusiast would visit a forum and find a cheap solution. The oblivious would go to the Honda dealer and get their financial brains blown out. Other than that, these vehicles helped make Honda dealerships as infrequently visited as the Maytag repair man before he got outsourced to the third world.

Some folks belive that this reality of wholesome all-encompassing goodness did not last. I agree to an extent Everything from broken odometers, mediocre ABS systems, to abysmal V6 automatic transmissions helped bring the Accord down a notch or two below the decontented Camrys of the common era.

But then again, those 3rd gneeration Camrys were not exactly as perfect as people make them out to be. I should know. I owned one for 12 years and between the groaning rear suspension, loose motor mounts, crappy oxygen sensors and Volvo 240-esque acceleration, I didn’t see a lot of love beyond the bulletproof powertrain .

Nevertheless, we do see this generation Accord and the 1992 – 1996 routinely put on the highest echelons of the quality pedestal. This raises another tough question.

What direct competitor out there has managed to match either of those two vehicles in terms of quality?

GM models with the 3.8 Liter engine from 2003 onwards have earned a rightful good reputation. But that’s perhaps a slither of good in a sea of average to worse.

Ford Tauruses with the Vulcan V6 can be durable. But quality? With that Wal-Mart interior? Not a chance!

The only Chrysler midsize sedan worth a shout towards quality would be the ones equipped with the 3.5 Liter engine. Then you would have to worry about the rest of the vehicle.

Mazda Automatics? Altima Engines and Automatics? Sonata? Optima? Galant? Legacy? Passat?

I do see glimmers of hope here and there. But other than the Taurus, I almost never see these cars frequent the top 25 mileage champions on a weekly basis. In my mind there is a reason for that.

An enduring repuation for quality is not an easy thing to achieve. From my viewpoint, you need to be two clicks above nearly every competitor when it comes to interior quality, ease of maintenance, and the longevity of the powertrain.

Has anyone else done it? You be the judge. The rest of us will be the jury.

There comes a time when the prices for used cars at the auto auctions go the way of an exuberant bubble.

A small army of consumers get their tax refunds. The car lots wake up from their winter slumber, and values for vehicles go the netheregions of the human imagination.

I sell cars during this time, not buy them. In the last three months of every year I will usually buy a lot to avoid the tax time market prices. Sometimes as many as 12 vehicles in a day. But when tax season comes, I buy a chosen few and sell them by the dozen.

Then, after the buying frenzy begins to ever slowly ebb, there will be a welcome break in those hedonistic valuations. Where instead of winding up $1000 to $1500 behind the selling price, I wind up second to another bidder. Almost always to a guy who has been buying cars for a long time. Today was that day.

My first second was this 1991 Acura Integra. Now a lot of you folks will quickly realize that this vehicle is old enough to buy itself a drink, and you would be right. But age in a rust free climate that offers smooth roads is not that big of a deal.

The exterior? $260 paint job. The interior was presentable. A/C was fine. However the clutch was not shifting right, the big fartcan back muffler was a bit of a negative ding, and the hatch area had barely no semblance of the ultra-thin Acura fabric. The odometer showed 164k miles… which was probably inaccurate. I only bid up to $700 and watched a wholesaler outbid me at $750.

These sell quite well once they’re cleaned up. But I’m sure this one would have needed to be shucked to a paint shop, a mechanic shop, and an upholstery shop between the auction and the retail lot. Such time issues have a big hidden cost in our business and if you find another nasty surprise in that process, you can wind up ‘polishing a turd’. So this one simply went down the pipe.

Then we have the most heavily depreciate midsized car of the modern day. A Mitsubishi Galant. This 2009 model had 123,791 miles, and although the trunklid mentioned an ES trim level, apparently an ES in the rental happy Galant world only means alloy wheels as an option.

These lower trim vehicles usually sit at my lot for a bit. Cloth interiors. More than 120k… but an 09 model. I stopped bidding at $4900 for the sole reason that I usually can’t get the same margins with a higher cost vehicle with lower feature content. The final bid was $5000, and given that I already have several Tauruses and 3.5 Liter Intrepids that fit this bill at a far lower acquisiton cost, I can’t say I regret this decision.

Now this one was a gritting of the teeth moment. A 2007 GMC Canyon Work Truck with 111k and nothing too special about it. Except for the automatic. Late model, compact, automatic pickups are insanely easy to finance and this one had the added benefit of some paint transfer on the fenders that a less experienced buyer would falsely see as a permanent issue.

I bid up to $4500, and a friend of mine who buys up trucks was standing near me and bid $4600. I had to invoke King’s Rule and give him the favor of bowing out. In exchange for him looking out for me during the next go around. Hopefully that happens and I don’t wind up in a dogfight.

Finally we had the transportation equivalent of dog food go through the block. A 1999 Saturn SL. Based out. 5-speed. Perfect 35+ highway miles per gallon transportation for those folks who subscribe to the common practices of penny pinching and personal parsimony. I always have several of these on the road. Although the 5-speed is often a more challenging sale here in the Atlanta ex-urbs.

I showed a fist and held the bid at $1000. Waited for a few seconds. Then. Damn! Someone jumped in and I bid it up two more times before letting it go to some other nearby shadow for $1500. Typically I try to keep my costs under $2000 for a stickshift equipped basic vehicle, and this one would have likely cut it close once you added the buyers fee and the need for new rubber all the way around.

There was a ton of other stuff today. Fewer buyers came to the sale. But those who did show up bid all the money in the world. So if you’re in the market for a 1999 Lexus LS400 in clean condition and only 117k miles, you are looking at nearly $8000. Wholesale. If that sounds insane to you, just think about the financing terms that will be applied towards that vehicle. I’m seeing $1500 down. $80 a week for at least 36 months. Maybe even 48 months.

“I wouldn’t buy a car at an auction. They’re all junk!”

Bad transmissions. Blown engines. Cars that smoke, drink and hang out with the bad boys thanks to all different types of leaks and spewage. This is the general stereotype that most uninformed consumers have of those cars at an auction.

Most folks look at auction cars as vehicles that are worth more dead than alive. Every malady and defect is assigned to these ‘red light’ vehicles that are sold as/is with no warranty.

But do you know what is the #1 issue of those auctioned off trade-ins here in the Atlanta area?

Emissions.

This is why I always look at the vehicle’s history. Every Carfax and Autocheck vehicle will list when a vehicle has gone through an emissions check.

The most common trade-in I see at the auctions will usually be driven anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 miles a year for the last several years. Then, I see a few “Failed Emission Inspection” blips, followed either by a recently passed emissions or a final failed emission.

The car will get very little driving after that. In a few months you will see a few hundred miles. Or if it is kept for a few years, you may see a few thousand.

These cars will wind up at the auctions where 99.9% of the vehicle will still be perfectly fine. Dealers who either operate outside of an emission county, or are out of state, will bid most of these vehicles up to levels that I simply can’t compete at for now. Throw in the fact that some of these guys are simply filling in orders for a larger auto finance company that is financed via Wall Street, and I have to be real shrewd with my bidding tactics in order to get any good deal these days.

Do you want this type of deal? Sorry. There are also a ton of unintended consequences from these emission issues.

Public auctions used to be prolific within the metro-Atlanta area, and throughout the country. All businesses want to sell where the general public is and a well run public auto auction is no different.

Except now they are all outside of emission counties due to the auctions getting fined for selling cars that didn’t pass emissions to the general public. Here in Georgia, a lot of folks believe that a ‘no current emissions’ announcement should be enough of a warning for the general public. 

But a lot of prospective buyers wander off from lane to lane and, even when slowly spoken to, they don’t quite understand the ramifications of no emissions.

“Oh we should be able to take care of it. Just replace the catalytic converter.” They go cheap on the catalytic converter and don’t realize that there is a lot more to these emission issues than just replacing the one part. The $200 quick fix turns into a $1000+ estimate that offers no guarantee of success.   

They get upset and try to return that car to the auction. Is it the auctions fault that these people bought a car with no emissions? With a stamp in big bold letters on the bill of sale that says “No emissions!”?

Yes. The law is the law, and that law of selling a non-emission vehicle is set and stone. So now those businesses focus exclusively on the dealer side of the business. The public is no longer invited.

Small potatoes you say? Well consider your own car for a second. It probably came from a manufacturer that tries to sell their green credentials to the public. Priuses. Volts. LEAFs. Diesels. Hybrids. That magical 40 mpg hump. All of it sounds wonderful to a public that genuinely wants the air clean and the land vibrant.

But 90+% of the vehicles these manufacturers sell usually don’t reach these summits of green efficiency. As for their emission systems, they are only required to last 8 years or 80,000 miles. After that it becomes a revenue opportunity for the manufacturer and the aftermarket.

In my experiences at the auctions, this translates into an entirely faked version of planned obsolescence. The uninformed public often thinks that if the expensive emission system is malfunctioning, God only knows how long the engine or transmission will last.

It gives me a market. It gives the public a perpetual need for auto loans. It gives the manufacturers more money and it gives the banks a fruitful source to finance a public that simply doesn’t know any better… and likely never will.

Not too long ago I bought three vehicles at a public auction that cost me all of $700 each. They were perfectly fine. Unpopular, with failed emissions, but fine. No cosmetic issues. A 1998 Suzuki Esteem wagon with only 105k. A 1992 Toyota Tercel with 180k, and a 1990 Mercury Topaz with only 79k.

How much money would have been saved by John Q Public if they could have kept those rides? I am willing to bet that these emissions issues easily add over a half million units to the new car market. I could be wrong. But whenever I inspect a car with a check engine light and see a long list of emission related codes, I feel like the public is being suckered into a Ponzi scheme of substantial magnitude.

Within 50 feet of getting out of my old 74 Chevy C10 I hear a familiar voice.

“Hey Steve. How are ya?”

A 6 foot 7 inch monstrosity of a man pats me hard on the back and dislodges the few cobwebs that remained from a 5 AM wake-up call.

Editor’s Note: This is the second part of the series. The first can be found here.

Mike Thies is a retired warden from upstate New York. He is also a member of the local auto media association and spends his ample pension on a web site that specializes in publicizing local car shows and regional get-togethers.

We make the usual car related small talk while viewing a long line of vehicles. At least 50 or so. The line of rolling iron in front of us ranges from the sublime to the “They brought that!”. With plenty of the later to overcome the former.

This would be the time where I would normally share pictures with the TTAC faithful of all the wondrous rides. From the pristine to the junkyard ready. But instead, you’ll just have to imagine it.

For every 1966 Rambler American wagon, there are three tired early-80’s Oldsmobiles that look like they are too ratted out for the rats.  One of these, almost on cue, starts smoking and leaking coolant as soon as it arrives on the lot. That one gets sandwiched between two trucks at the parking lot so that the leaks don’t spread.

In our first meeting of ‘extras’ we are quickly given the ground rules.

No wandering.

No pictures or video cameras.

No commiserating with actors or personnel.

When we say, “Quiet on the set.” We mean it… so shut up!

The group is treated to a nice breakfast and, after an hour or so of moving cars, the set is ready.

For the next 45 minutes I get to see a bearded guy dressed in an earth tone suit get out of an orange 1976 Toyota Corolla.

He opens the door, grabs his satchel, closes the rickety door, looks at his watch, walks fifty feet, and spits. He gets to do this six times in a forty-five minute period.

We sit in the grass and do nothing. After that we spend two hours in a holding area and do nothing. We then have lunch, go back to the holding area, and do nothing.

By this time my wife and I have exhausted the 273 topics related to our kids and friends, and begin to branch out to the other folks who have decided to take a Monday off and enjoy an all too rare 70 degree day here in Atlanta.

Retirees, hipsters, blue collar folks who are light on construction work.  The gathering of personalities is a fun one and we begin to shoot the breeze on a long list of personal stories while the workers on the set walkie-talkie each other in a language that is riddled with acronyms and cliché.

“We need the MG at the RL with the blue crew on the ready for 49, Stat!”

It sounds like a football huddle. But in actuality it’s a bunch of people who seem to enjoy what appears to be low stress work.  Maybe it’s just that Southerners are a bit more laid back. Or it could be that the coffee I had earlier in the day is no longer able to keep me on an even keel. I start to break one of the commandments of the early morning and begin talking with the stage folk.

Within a few minutes, one of them recognizes that I’m wearing a Carmax Auctions emblem on my jacket. When I tell him that I write for TTAC he immediately blurts out…

“Wait, are you Steve Lang from The Truth About Cars?”

What follows is over an hour of “Can you help me?” and “Let me tell you about…” followed by a few stories about my car buying work.  One of the bigger wigs asks me if I can help him find a white on white 1999 Porsche 911 Carrera 4 convertible. I flip through his Iphone and hook him up with a wholesale auction site that will automatically ping me if one comes up.

Another asks me if I can find him a “Really cheap, cheap, cheap car that is reliable. I only have $1000.” I tell him about the coolant hurling 1983 Oldsmobile that is right next to my Chevy… and a 20 year old Cadillac that I just got as a $500 trade-in with a landau roof and trombone case red interior.

“I don’t want a V8. They drink too much gas. Do you have any Toyotas or Hondas?”

I restrain myself from saying my favorite line from Caddyshack, “Shut up! You will get nothing and like it!”. In fact, I used to be ‘that guy’ who wanted a chosen brand. So I figure maybe this is the right time to encourage some delayed gratification.

I tell him to save his money and take his time, “$1000 cars are junk. Save your money for a while and buy something worth keeping.”

He internalizes this for seven seconds and then starts hammering away again about Toyotas and Hondas. I feel like I’m back at the car lot instead of a movie set.

The long day of shooting film and shooting the breeze finally finishes at 6 P.M. 12 hours of non-work for me. Not even a scene for us extras! But no matter, I had fun. Before I leave, the guy who wants the Porsche asks if I want to come by on Wednesday and do a fitting.

A free tan, beige or brown suit with loafers?  Sure! Why not! I have a wedding in a couple of months and my future sister-in-law is fond of dressing like an old hippie.

I walk back to my car, pass by the “$1000 Toyota” guy who is now eyeing the coolant spewing Oldsmobile, and my wife and I pick up the kids and take them to Dairy Queen. A perfect end to a day with great conversation and Soviet levels of productivity.

The car business can be a pain for three distinct reasons.

The first comes from the cars that you sell. Botched repairs. Unhappy customers. Surprises that just seem to spring up and bite you in the ass. I can deal with that.

The second comes from people in the industry. Employees and contractors with productivity issues. The unending myriad of regulations and paperwork. Continuing ed classes with little relevance to reality. I can deal with that too.

What I can’t deal with is…

people who belittle the work that I do.

Those who are hopelessly inexperienced with the retail car business think of this world as some literal gold mine where you can easily buy a nice car. Take a few pictures. Post it online, and sell it for a healthy four figure profit.

If it were that easy, this business would be better than sex. Everyone would want to do it — again and again and again. Except for maybe a few old folks, confused nuns, and hermits.

I recently wrote an article for Yahoo titled, “How To Become A New Car Dealer In Seven Difficult Steps.” Those steps seem to be pretty simple on the barest of surfaces. If you pay enough money, you can join the proverbial club of car dealers.

That’s the easy part of work in any profession, spending money. The hard part comes with paying for an even more expensive education after the basic entrance fee.

I was fortunate, in the sense that I first started off working in the auction staff at five different auto auctions in the southeast. I talked to the bigger players, learned a few things, and watched for a long time before ever buying my first car.

That first car was a 1986 Honda Civic base model which I bought way back in 1999. We’re talking vinyl seats, 4-speed manual, 1.0 Liter engine, and wafer thin a/c. It took me six months and well over a hundred auctions before I was confident enough to buy my first vehicle for all of $525 at a public auction.

I adjusted the idle. Took pics. Put it on Ebay, and sold it for about $1700 to a Polish PhD student from my old alma mater, Emory University. A month later I bought a 1988 Toyota Celica All-Trac for $1600 that had all of 100k. That one I spent $700 in repairs and eventually sold it for $3300.

Two for two right? Yes, but there was a lot learned between the time I first got into this business, to the time I sold that second car.

For starters, I knew the sellers of those vehicles and the quality of the inventory they typically brought to the sales. In fact I worked their lanes at the auctions as a member of the auction staff and they knew that if I got burnt, it may cost them as well.

With those experiences, I also took part in all the major tricks needed to stimulate and simulate demand on the auction block. Running the bid up, double bumps, squeezing the seller for more money after the bidding stops. I could bite them if they bit me.

I also knew the major players and, back then, you could easily play the kings rule of giving a favor and taking a favor. Back in the late 90’s very few people gave a flip about the $1500 trade-in that required substantial mechanical work. So I chose my battles in the fields where I would meet the least resistance.

Those daily experiences at the auctions, and my work with all those dealers and fellow auctioneers, gave me the confidence I needed to begin buying and selling cars. But it took six long months just to buy and sell two cars. Even after the first two successes, it took several more years for me to finally invest in the fixed expense and opportunity that came with a used car dealer license.

I made money, and lost my ass. Let me expand on that for you dear reader.

I… lost… my… ass…

I also learned a lot along the way. Sometimes I would seemingly lose my ass and then, I would learn something new which gave me a slight temporary reprieve from the abyss of a devastating loss. A recall from a manufacturer. A tool that would add value to what I sold, such as Carfax or a well-designed web site, that allowed me to pay more for a quality vehicle.

Or even something less technologically advanced and more relationship driven; such as a detailer who worked with a large dealer network and offered me the same recon rates because I helped him buy a good van at the actual cost.

Every problem required an added expense, a new quest for knowledge, and an opportunity to further my career.

So what about becoming a car dealer now? Get some experience first. The cost of this business has increased dramatically since 2008 along with the sophistication and ‘noise’ of advertising cars. That Toyota and Honda I mentioned earlier? They cost more now than they did back then, and they can be financed for more money as well.

The profit of a cash deal is now usually less because you have to usually pay more at the auction. Most dealerships now have to compete against Main Street and Wall Street thanks to the rise of sub-prime lending.

The ‘tote the note’ return may pay out more, because the financing terms are longer. Yesterday’s two year is now a five year note, and you will need a lot of ‘right’ to make that work.

The right mechanics. The right detailers. The right buyer. The right advertising strategies. The right financing partners. Even with all that, you still need to buy it at the right price which means you need to be at the right auction where you will likely spend a lot of time trying to find that right car. Make sure to handicap your risks accordingly.

This business was never easy. Now, for the small businessman and novice dealer, it is far, far worse.

In the good old days of 1999 thru 2008, many car dealers were able to, “Hit em’ where they ain’t.” The Chrysler minivan that was traded in and reconditioned by a VW dealer that had no business trying to sell that type of vehicle?  I could buy that for cheap. Or a Toyota dealer that tried to retail a Lincoln. You could buy those ‘right car / wrong dealer’ vehicles for even less money if you helped that seller in the past.

Other times the deal would come in the form of a repossessed inoperable vehicle that was not given the chip key needed to make it run. Or, an older used car that had an amazing dealer maintenance history that nobody knew about. Sometimes you could even find a repo that had only been on the road for a couple months and had been diligently maintained for several years until that brief period of time.

I still find these nuggets of opportunity. But where I could buy five or six of these in one large auction, now I am only getting two to three a week. If I’m lucky. Even then I sometimes get an unpleasant surprise and end up losing money.

I am reiterating this salient fact of losing money because if you try to get into the car business today without some unique skill that you can couple with that used car dealer license, you will not be buying those cars for long. The mistakes now cost far more than it did back then. Parts, labor and expertise all cost more. Even for the big guys.

As for those big guys, they usually specialized in some unique facet of the business before dedicating their full time energy to the retail car side. Mechanics, finance specialists, exporters, reconditioning experts, body men, every step to long term success came with having a true tangible advantage that made that first step an easier one.

So you still want to be a car dealer? Meh. Fine. Start small, educate yourself, and avoid the chronic diseases that come with having too much confidence. Nothing is easy in life.

If it was, we all would be doing it.

Editor’s Note: This write-up builds on a recent Yahoo! Autos article you can find here. Hope you enjoy both of them.

After the leadership change last week, we opened up some communication with Steve Lang about returning to TTAC. Most of our readers would like to see the man behind the gavel back in action here. Unfortunately, Mr. Lang is as tough a negotiator behind the scenes as he is on the gravel of a buy-here-pay-here lot. We’ll continue to work with him to return “Hammer Time” to these pages, but in the meantime Steve’s asked us to print his “final goodbye”. While we haggle with the man, you can find him at Curbside Classic. Cross your fingers! — JB

“Wow! How many people have you helped?”

My father was looking at an article I wrote about car buying during the last few months of his life. He was shocked to see how many folks here at TTAC left their insightful comments and ideas within a matter of a few hours.

It was odd, and yet gratifying, for me to see the handles of commenters such as EducatorDan, VanillaDude, mikey and Zackman have such an enduring impact on my father’s psyche. Regardless of the unusual informality of what he read, my father was a proud man that evening. His son had done good for this world.

The Truth About Cars was a truly wonderful place that day and hopefully, it will continue to be so for countless others. I want to thank you all for making my life a better one. 60 years from now, I hope my own grandchildren will look at the archives at this site, ponder that golden question, and realize that their crazy old Grandpa was a truly helpful guy. I thank you. Personally. There can be no greater honor in life than having a chance to help your fellow man.

I wish you all the very best.

Steve Lang

Steve Lang might not be “thrilled by the shill”, but here at TTAC, we’re delighted to see him return. As always, he drove a tough bargain, but he’s back. Look for more “Hammer Time” articles from our rogue buy-here-pay-here specialist in the future! — JB

“Did he just try to run me up on a $500 car?”

The auctioneer had seen my bid, taken it, and then moved his body to a 90 degree angle from where I stood. He quickly took a bid. A bit too quickly for me to believe it.

Magically, a $600 bid had been taken somewhere between the sea of bodies and the coke machine, as he quickly went back to me looking for more. I saw the low mileage 1994 Geo Prizm with the banged up body slowly move away as the auctioneer tried to make eye contact and get me to bid again. Except I wasn’t watching from the same spot anymore. I walked away. The shill bidding that would have cost me at least $150 was now worth nothing.

I knew his trick because, a bit over 10 years ago, it was my job to help the auctioneer make it work.

I was a ringman. The guy who hooted, pointed, hollered and helped the auctioneer use his powers of persuasion to create a competitive market out of nothing more than thin air.

The bumping tactic this guy used was as common as kudzu here in north Georgia. You find the nearest crowd that the bidder can’t easily make out, bump the bid up with a ringman who knows how to create the urgency to buy, and then go back to your bidder.

I usually don’t mind this. It’s done a lot in our business, and for one unescapable reason.

The seller has a reserve price. If he doesn’t get a bid that is at least close enough to comfortably sell that vehicle, he won’t sell it. The auction won’t get a buy fee and sale fee, and maybe, the auctioneer and ringman will be as much in demand as that 18 year old Geo Prizm that looked like it got into a fight with a Volvo, and lost.

That’s what pissed me off. Not that I was bumped, because that’s just part of the wholesale side of this business. What got me all wound up was that the auctioneer had obviously tried to bump me after the reserve price had already been met. An unforgivable sin because he blew a deal that could have resulted in a win/win for all parties. .

Blown opportunities aside, there are times when a buyer and a seller need a bit of shill bidding to get a deal done. If I bid $10,000 on a low-mileage 2012 Honda Accord EX, and the seller wants $15,000, you can bet that the auction staff is going to simulate competitive bidding, You can also count on the fact that I, as a long-time car buyer, am going to have to use my judgement as to what I’m willing to bid.

This ability to see things and restrain myself didn’t come cheap. Some experiences in life require what can kindly be called, a tuition payment. You literally have to keep paying for certain things until the wool is no longer in front of your eyes. Shill bidding is just one of many, many tricks that come with buying vehicles at a dealer auction.

Shill bidding is especially common during the period after Labor Day and before Thanksgiving. This is the time of year when you have no spending holidays. Few if any tax returns, and the weather gets cold, which means folks spend less time shopping for used cars in the great outdoors. When demand is slack, the auction staff is under more pressure to bump the price of a vehicle into a sellable range.

This is also the time of year when I find some of my best deals; especially when it comes to certain types of vehicles. Want to buy a convertible on the cheap? Buy it between October and mid-November. Better yet, buy a non-running convertible with a bad engine. You may have to wait until spring time to sell it, But if you’re using your money, and only your money, you can invest wisely and yield a long-term return that would even make a loanshark envious.

There are other factors during this time of year that make shill bidding more common. The model changeover is in full swing. So late model vehicles, especially those that are unpopular, will experience their strongest drops in value and a greater risk of investment. A lot of dealers will bid (and not bid) accordingly. Then there is the biggest financial issue of all in the car business. Floorplans.

A dealer will typically have a certain number of days, usually between 60 and 90 days after the initial purchase, when a floorplan company will allow him to try to sell that car without having to pay for it in full. After that time period has come and gone, he will need to pay the initial purchase price of the vehicle along with a substantial fee and other related costs.

Dealers who rely on floorplans, don’t have the luxury of buying cars in October and then paying for the purchase price before the public at large gets their end of year bonuses and tax returns. The floorplan company will want their money on the date due and not a single day later.

So they can’t bid on as many cars; especially those cars that will require plenty of time and money to fix. With fewer dealers bidding against you, there is a better opportunity to buy that steal of the deal.

Which brings us back to the handiwork of that auctioneer. Most of the time when you take a bid that is sideways to you as an auctioneer, your motion is rigid. You need to first look (or hear the ringman), find the person in a crowd that was initially part of your peripheral vision, and then take the bid. Then you go back to the other bidder. This process usually results in a series of short, jerky motions.

This auctioneer simply bounced back and forth with the same steady motion, which let me realize real quick that he had no money at all. As soon as I saw the bump, I walked away and stopped making eye contact with the auctioneer. He couldn’t find any buyers and the vehicle was no-saled.

Later on in the auction, it was brought back in the barn and I got it for $350. I needed the engine in that Prizm for an older Corolla I had with a clean body. The net cost for the engine was nearly free since I could sell the remnants of this vehicle to a friend of mine who has a nearby junkyard. That engine, with all of 88k, is what I needed for the non-running Corolla I bought a few weeks before.

Thanks to paying my “tuition” in times past, I got the car I needed for good money. Which brings me around to your experiences as a buyer. Was there a time when your tuition, or your intuition, lead you to a deal or trap that most other folks wouldn’t realize? Feel free to make it car related, or life related. After all, stories like these can be the cheapest educations around.

One thousand, nine hundred, and fifty two dollars.

That is how much the average Georgian is supposed to pay in tax, title, and registration fees every year according to Bankrate.com.

When I read that factoid, my eyebrows almost flew off my head. The amount had no cents, and the statement made no sense because I happen to be the guy who collects the taxes from my customers and sends them to the state. Only a $28,000+ car purchase every single year would make this possible, and Georgia is a notoriously poor state. Out of a population of nearly 10 million, our state registered fewer than 300,000 new vehicle sales in 2012.

I quickly concluded that Bankrate.com had done little homework except to launched a PR campaign, under the guise of a study, that was heavy on the numbers and light on the facts.

I also decided to read through the list since 49 other states were also given their daily dose of tax calculations. Immediately, I saw enough red flags to warrant a bit more detail.

New Jersey, my former high tax home with potholes aplenty and the infamous New Jersey Turnpike, supposedly had less than half the taxes of Georgia ($915 vs. $1952).

Really??? What else? Well, the 0% sales tax and emission-free owners in Wyoming apparently paid more in vehicle taxes and fees ($1643) than the People’s Republic of New York ($1146).

The only word that came to my mind when I want down the list of states was, “Fugheddaboudit!” As a car dealer and former auto auction owner who did business with customers in all of these states over the last 10 years, none of these findings made any sense to me. So after about 400 mainstream media outlets, from Fox to CNN, publicized the study without so much as a blink of forethought over the next 24 hours, I decided to go about the process of finding out the truth of the matter.

Little did I know that when it comes to calculating taxes, no government makes it easy.

The first step was contacting a government official who could provide me with a clear compass as to where to go.

Tim Echols, a Commissioner for the Georgia Public Service Commission, turned out to be that guy. Back when I started in the auto auction business as a ringman, two of Tim’s brothers worked with me as auctioneers. Tim grew up selling popcorn and peanuts at his family’s auto auction and when it came time to ask for help, I received guidance from him within minutes.

“A lot of it is public. Google “office of planning and budget” and “georgia.” If it has to do with vehicles, the other route is asking the Dept of Revenue Commissione…. to assist.”

The Google search yielded this site and this report. It just so happened that I began my career as a financial analyst and soon, I had a short list of line items that would make for a first draft of what would become a surprisingly intricate study.

Since New Jersey was my former home with a similar sized population to Georgia, I decided to use that state as a baseline comparison. Gas taxes and government insurance fees were already calculated in the “gas” and “insurance” columns at Bankrate.com. This freed me to focus on the taxes and fees related to buying and keeping the car. Within about 30 minutes, I created a very basic spreadsheet which summarized the sales taxes, tag fees, title transfers, and annual registration costs between the two states.

The chance of New Jersey having less than half the tax burden of Georgia when it came to vehicle ownership, was about the same chance of the New York Giants making it to the playoffs this year. Or in auto enthusiast terms, the same chance of Chevy retiring the Corvette nameplate and re-introducing the model as an Aveo.

At this point I had many of the right ingredients for a solid rebuttal, and it was time to gauge interest with a few media outlets.

Marty Padgett, a long-time automotive journalist and Editorial Director at High Gear Media, was interested. So was Justin Hyde, the editor-in-chief of Yahoo! Autos. After a pitch and a couple of brief Facebook conversations, I had the means to invest the time and the further analysis that this type of study would quickly require.

I decided to keep my findings open to all parties, at all times. It was the fair thing to do. I shared my work with heads of government agencies, deputy directors, and special assistants who are constantly immersed in managing the never-ending labyrinth of government data. When a certain statistic was unavailable, such as the average cost of vehicles purchased in the two states, I was either able to eventually find the right contact, or find the right data that would let me generate those numbers.

All of this research was familiar territory for me. When I helped take companies public back in my earlier days as a financial analyst, I had to do the same exact thing in the private sector. Collect data within a company and find the truth of how they were actually using those resources. This takes time and a thorough auditing of your numbers. Once the numbers were confirmed from a variety of sources, I constructed a ‘fail-safe’ simulation for the average vehicle owner. A spreadsheet that reflected the average vehicle age (11.5 years), purchase price ($8500 average in Georgia), and ownership period (6 years in Georgia).

When the numbers were in, the Bankrate.com estimate of $1,952 in annual taxes for the average Georgian turned out to be as far off as Mercury is from Pluto.

The real cost was about $115 a year in Georgia before taking into account gas taxes, state fees for insurance and other minor costs that weren’t part of Bankrate.com’s ”tax” calculation. To me all those state collected revenues are nothing more than hidden taxes.  A tax is a tax in my world. But to keep this comparison consistent, I used Bankrate.com’s methodology for allocating certain taxes to other categories.

To add value for my audience,  I also reported on other hidden costs of ownership that are rarely included in these studies: emission related repairs, toll roads from private companies, road construction and maintenance, and police speed traps that to varying degrees are also part of the hidden cost of car ownership.

My findings were published at Yahoo (click it!) and covered at High Gear Media as well. However, one of the lessons I learned early on in this business is that most media outlets rarely, if ever, correct their findings if the information came directly from a third-party source. The New York Times, CNN, and hundreds of other media outlets have to deal with countless studies that are often done more for shock value than for ethics and integrity. In fact, the later are notable exceptions to the rule.

All it often takes to get a “study” out there, is good PR. Honesty is optional.

So when you read about some sensationalized statistic that is blathered about in the mainstream media, remember the age old words of Mark Twain. “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” That is why part of our hard work at The Truth About Cars includes a special on focus on, what I would kindly call, the lies about cars. People lie to us because there is money in doing so. There is an amazing amount of PR fed bullshit to contend with in our business that is never called out as such, and even the most brilliant and gifted writers often find themselves with muck on their shoes and sweet talkers in their ears and email boxes. So, in light of that,  if you want to bring some unique facts and experiences to the table, please don’t shy about it. Feel free to contact us.

Oh, and share how much in taxes you paid for your rides during the course of this year. I’m willing to bet that unless you bought a new car, it was nowhere near one thousand, nine hundred and fifty-two dollars…. and zero sense.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A working-class song, “Lawyers, Guns And Money” pierces my mind like a mantra as I wander around a place known here in Georgia as “The Gold Dome.”

Everything around me is marble and exquisite, with the exception of the Romanesque D.C.-styled dome on top, which is gilded in gold leaf. Expensive suits are ubiquitous. Formalities are only surface-deep, and the money passes from corporation, to lobbying group, to lobbyist, and finally to the congressman’s election campaign quicker than an auctioneer like me can say all these words.

This swarm of money is designed to enshroud the legalities of big people screwing the little people. Forty-nine state legislatures have prostrated themselves to franchise dealer lobbies. The faces bow and the rears spew out the stink that is government-sanctioned, legalized theft.

You want a new Tesla? You pay the gatekeepers, shitheads that they are. The good ol’ boys that want to pass down the elixir of exclusive wealth to the silver spooned next-gens and are prepared to fight tooth-and-nail to keep the creators of product away from the final consumer.

Cell Phones. Guns. Computers. Real Estate. Even the clothes we wear and the medicines we take can be bought without the legal blessings of a franchise. Cars? Well, for that you obviously need a “skilled professional,” who advertises low, low prices with eight lines of gotchas and loop-holed legalese.

Not all dealers are bad. In fact, I try to be one of the good guys. 100% Positive Ebay feedback. A long, long list of happy customers. To me, the work of a “dealer” enables me to live out the life of a George Bailey in a small town where seemingly every other street corner has a title pawn or a finance company designed to keep people in Pottersville.

I know plenty of good guys in my business as well. But these folks aren’t the ones who lobby for the laws that are designed to remove you from your rightful decision. Independent dealers are to franchise dealers what David is to Goliath… without a slingshot or any form of big man backing.

We don’t have the luxury of exclusive market channels, overpriced plastic parts, or $1,300 service regimens that only truly require $200 worth of parts and labor.

Our world is simple. We buy cars. We fix cars. We sell cars. If we do a good job of it, we get to repeat this process thousands of times and build a successful business. If we don’t, the marketplace makes the decision for us.

The same should be true for a franchise dealer. The guys that work hard and put in the hours and sweat equity needed to make their businesses a success should enjoy every single ounce of it. But it shouldn’t come at the expense of the consumer and the greater marketplace. Choice is not only essential to the evolution of a market; it is the one equalizer that allows those who are building the better product the opportunity to re-invest in their employees, their customer’s needs, and the products that make it all possible.

So what’s my advice? Six words with two links. Petition and email your local congressman.

Yes, really. It’s boring compared with other forms of protest,  and direct access to congressional ears for Mr. John Q. Public is a rare thing in a country with over 300 million voices.  Let’s face facts, we’re the Samsons when it comes to lobbying influence and to have any effect in the year 2013, you need a slingshot in the form of keystrokes and a rock in the form of mass protest.

If you want to win a battle to change an unfair law, any unfair law, you have to show that you want to fight for it.

No one should be forced to pay more money for no reason. Contrary to my good friend Mr. Kreutzer, and that well-oiled lobbyist who visited us a few weeks back, I see no reason, zero reason, to kow-tow to a special interest group that is only interested in siphoning off your investment in an automobile.

It’s your money,and they already have enough of it.

The new car marketplace for now only has two big political players that want exclusive access to your savings whenever you shop for a new car. The well-connected franchise dealer on the state level, and the manufacturer on the federal level. Bogus fees, deceptive selling tactics, big legal loopholes, and big campaign contributions have yielded higher costs for you; not them. The franchise laws have created a conscripted mediocrity that is new car manufacturers cribbing each other’s notes, and passing plasticized overpriced products to a public that should have the right to alternatives.

You are getting screwed by those in power (surprise?) and the present manufacturers are as much a part of the problem as a few well-connected franchise dealers.

This game can be changed for good… but only if you help change the rules by clicking a few links and showing the special interests that the greater good is far more important than their golden rules. So go do it. Right now. Click here and here. Then save your money and buy used instead. I’m seeing lower prices at the wholesale auctions these days… and the big boys in this business don’t want to give you access to that buying channel either.

Due to my recently starting a new job, the wife has given the go-ahead to look for something new that’s modestly priced. I became smitten with a 2013 VW GTI 6MT and was mere seconds away from signing the lease agreement. I had completed the credit application, indicated the radio stations I like, and then started examining the P&S contract, but got that funny feeling you can get and pulled the plug. I don’t know what it was. Dealer shenanigans. Fee overload. Slight indecision perhaps, as I’m only driving a grand total of 8 miles per day for my new commute. (Do I really need to change cars??) Or perhaps it was the X factor.

Sure the Cayenne a nice car, but again it’s not really “me.” Although I’m 6′ 3″ I like small cars with stick shifts that I can throw around, not heavy pseudo-SUVs that get 12 MPG city/. However, am I crazy to turn down a free Cayenne?? I have concerns because (A) it’s not my kind of car, (B) the Carfax has 3 accidents on it, (C) maintenance costs are going to be crazy. Supposedly the frame is fine, but I know he had more than 3 fender-benders (he should have stopped driving years ago), and we have two small children so I would want to verify that. Also the car has been immaculately maintained. He did pretty much whatever the dealer’s service department told him to do.

Part of me thinks I should drive it for 1-2 years and then trade it towards something I want, while the other part of me would be worried about being stuck with a 10 year old SUV with a bad Carfax. And of course the third part of me (if that’s possible) is sick of driving an automatic.

I’m getting some serious pressure to act on this soon. Any advice from you, along with the best and brightest, would be greatly appreciated.

All best,

Any gift that comes with strings attached is not a gift. Ever. When family members give you something that you must absolutely positively keep under the penalty of (insert snubbing method here), then what you end up with is a family tie that will bind and gag you and your family. 

I’ll give you a personal example. My MIL is a truly generous person and, one day, she decided to give me and my wife a doghouse. The only problem was that we didn’t have a dog. So about a year later, we have a garage sale. The kid down the street just got a puppy and it just so happened that they were the same folks who Freecycled a trampoline to us the year before.

So what did I do? Well of course! I gave them the doghouse!

My wife goes outside about an hour later, and invariably asks where the doghouse is. I tell her what happened and she tells me in no uncertain terms that my MIL is going to be ticked off to the nth degree.

My response was, “And??? This is our house! Just tell her we exchanged it for the trampoline. If she complains then we know it wasn’t a gift ”

Is your wife an only child? Then take the car if, and only if, it is truly a gift with no strings attached. Thank your in-laws profusely for their generosity either way it turns out, and consider yourself a lucky man. Don’t complain. Not even if it isn’t ‘your’ type of car. Just be a mensch, and when this isn’t such a hot button issue, you can sell it and set up a fund to handle any health issues for your in-law’s. By that time you will also have a better perspective on the security of your new job.

If your wife has siblings, then you can’t keep this car. Don’t even try. Let them know that you hope your father-in-law will live for a long, long time. Then you can do the right thing for everyone.

Research the true market value of the vehicle. Post the vehicle for sale online.  Handle the transaction for your in-law’s. and then finally, thank them for thinking of you and your wife.

As for your desire to buy a stickshift, I’ll let the folks here sort that part of your life out.

Ah, the good old days. A time when smartphones were just PDA’s with hormone imbalances.

A time of basic cell phones, brick-thick cameras, and camcorders barely big enough to require a hand strap.

I remember all this old tech like it was yesterday, and for one simple reason: I still used all of them until recently.

Until about a month ago, I used the same basic cell phone I got for free back in 2008.

Absolutely nothing special, the bare bones MetroPCS phone enabled one-handed dialing and texting without even looking at the screen.

One thumb and dome. I mean, done.

That primitive device was brutally brilliant for yours truly because it was essentially “dope resistant”. It withstood a 45-MPH launch from  a Lincoln Town Car’s hood with nary a scratch.  I lost it dozens of times, once for two days. Yet I would invariably find it again and continue to beat it like a red-headed stepchild.

In time it was scratched, kicked, dropped, thrown, and beaten all to hell.

I treasured it. With each passing month, that miniature screen would get a little bit more faded and dim. Sometimes – not often…maybe once a month – the screen would freeze up or a button would stick.

No worries. At least not for a guy in a time warp. Even a few minutes of downtime each month was not nearly enough for me to invest in modern smartphones. Five-hundred dollars for a friggin’ phone? Ha! Not from this frugal zealot!

Then something happened…

I left it on top of a Subaru Outback and gave the keys to one of my customers. After a ten-minute test drive I heard the words that would change the course of my technological future.

“Steve, I really like this Outback. But I heard this strange clunking sound when I made my first turn. Are the CV joints okay?”

“Ummmm… I think it was my cell phone.”

A futile search on the nearby intersection yielded nothing more than a shocking amount of litter, and mild amusement from the passersby.

The time had come.

It was September 19th, 2013, and the cost of not having a phone for my business was far more dire than the relatively low cost of buying a good phone…a damn good phone…maybe even…the best phone?

So I powered up my fully-functional 2001 Pentium 4 with Windows XP and Googled “cell phones” and “best.”  A relentless assault of one-worded responses confronted me:

iPhone.

It was not because the iPhone was better than the Galaxy S4, which was better than the HTC One, which was…. what the hell are all these things?

No, it was because Apple was releasing the new iPhone 5C and 5S models the next day.

So I went to Wal-Mart.

And the AT&T store.

And T-Mobile.

And Best Buy.

But the iPhone 5S was nowhere to be found. It was worse than Chrysler’s release of the new Jeep Cherokee. I couldn’t find this thing in my neck of the woods to save my ass from first base.

I had to do something, anything, to get a decent cell phone.

I Facebooked. I called friends. I contacted people that I’m not even sure are my friends anymore.

One guy offered me a phone, but batteries were no longer available for that (2007) model.  However, the teenage girl working at the battery store was my savior.   She ducked in the back and emerged with something small, pink, and adorned with a Hello Kitty sticker.

I quietly sighed, but left with a new battery and the following phone for $40.

The damn thing’s called a lollipop.

Back in 2010 these phones were state-of-the-art…for the low end. But it could do pictures, voice, and even send your photos off to Kodak.

Kodak! Damn!  I was hitting the big time!

Within two days, I had it deciphered and was busy texting and calling away. The flip design would keep the sub-two-inch screen in stellar shape. All would be well again in my world.

Until, that is, I attended a nearby media event. Here, I realized brutal truth of my Luddite life.

I was the sole guy at the event without a smartphone. Not only that, I was the only journalist not typing away before the event began.

When the new car rolled out, they simply  snapped photos with their phones and sent them.

To online publications…to their social media pages…and probably a half-dozen other places thanks to various apps.

Me? I go and unsheath a 2005,  5-megapixel Sony digital camera, whose lens extends like a three-inch probe. I wait for the right exposure, take two pictures, and then the thing spontaneously seizes up in my hand like the relic it is.

Confession time: It wasn’t always like this for me; I used to be a hardcore technophile.

Party on Wayne!

Twenty years ago, I was the first student at my college with a laptop. Thanks to it helping me overcome a fine motor impairment, my grades skyrocketed.  That’s Wayne by the way…

Technology was a beautiful thing in my life, and I almost accepted an offer with an IT consulting firm before my love for cars took over.

The car business, and the interrelated world of auto auctions, became my career, and I eventually became a ”tool guy” technologically.

If the hammer works, just keep on using it. Because “new” means “money”. And “nearly-new” means “nearly free.” And “old” means durable and often perfect for my limited needs.

A lot of long-time auto enthusiasts look at cars in much the same way. Older vehicles, especially those past a decade or even two, can perform the same functions as new models for a fraction of the cost.

Then again, you do miss a few pieces of technology as you go back in time: navigation, stability control, airbags. Everything from the steel polymers used to make vehicles, to the maintenance requirements for a daily driver, have changed substantially within the last ten years.

So here’s my question: Where do you draw the automotive line between old and new? Does a car with ABS, traction control, and dent resistant panels, like a 1992 Saturn, earn the right to be seen as a contemporary? Or does it have to Sync, Link, CUE and Think with mobile and hands-free technologies?

Where do you draw that line?

Oh, and if you happen to have a spare gold iPhone 5S with 30 times more gigabytes than my “pre-Ipod” computer, feel free to let me know.

A reader writes:

Steve –

So glad to see you back at TTAC.  I’ve learned so much more about auctions to go along with what you and I discussed a year-and-a-half (!) ago.

I have a question of a personal nature. Well, it’s still car-related, but it has to do with MY car, so I guess that’s what makes it personal.

I am approaching the end of my CPO on my 2008 BMW 535i sedan.  I have kept it in excellent repair (in fact, I’ve had about $7k in warranty claims since July – oil cooler, oil filter housing, both turbos, water pump failure, and, just last week, a new valve cover gasket).  The tires are 10 months old.  It’s never been smoked in, and it’s optioned to the hilt (just missing rear air bags, the fancy window shades, and HUD).

I’m looking to get rid of it before CPO expires on Nov. 27, and jump into a 2014 Mazda 3.  Trouble is, I’m not having much luck in finding what seems to be a fair price for the BMW.

This week, I had it appraised at a Carmax in Houston, and a BMW dealer not far away (a second BMW dealer would not even look at it, on account of it having 82k on the clock).  The appraisals came in at $13.1 and $14k, respectively.  That’s way way way under what Edmunds ($16.2) and KBB ($17k) say is the trade-in value.

Perhaps Carmax and Momentum BMW gave me low numbers because I wasn’t looking to buy another vehicle from either place (and I’m assuming either one would just wholesale my car).  I dunno. I am quite baffled over the discrepancy between their offers and what Edmunds and KBB say.  Is there another online source I should check out?  Should I ask someone at my bank (Chase) to look at something I’ve heard called “Manheim” (which,  as I understand, is a super-secret set of numbers dealers often use to arrive a trade/sell prices).

As an aside – one thing that both Carmax and the BMW dealer mentioned when they gave me the disappointing bids was a re-spray job on the trunk and driver’s rear quarter panel.  I told them both that was done to repair some vandalism that occurred last year in NOLA.. and pointed out that they would have deducted even more had I left the scratches, etc. as is.  Also, I had the work performed at a body/paint shop that is owned by the same company as the BMW dealer, so there.

I would sincerely appreciate any advice you have to offer.  And, thanks in advance for taking time out of what I’m sure is a busy day to help.

Steve Says:

The trick to keeping the German machinery is to get the ones that have the most common powertrains with the fewest bells and whistles possible. Avoid 4matics and other all-wheel-drive systems. Cross out the active suspensions, dual turbos and navigation screens as well, and you are generally fine.

Unfortunately, your car represents the exact opposite of fine. Sell it.

How do you do that?

Forget about selling it to a re-seller. That’s like paying someone $1500 for a repair that costs maybe $200. Oh wait, you almost did that a few times this year. See, that CPO warranty saved your ass, and now it’s time to park this Barnacle Bitch of a car, and haul your ass to a less costly ride.

Sell it on Autotrader, Cars.com, Craigslist, and especially… local enthusiast forums. This vehicle received the very best of care for the time you owned it. An honest guy like you deserves to be saved from the, “lowballers r’ us”  brigade.

When you advertise it, emphasize the CPO history and all the repair work that was recently put into it. I know it sounds strange. But telling people you recently replaced the turbos in an under-engineered piece of shit car like this with a new factory unit is a big plus. It’s akin to the early 2000′s Chrysler minivan buyer finding out that your ride has a new factory transmission. Or an old Mark IV Jetta buyer finding out all four window regulators have been placed.

They won’t be surprised. They will be relieved. Your CPO warranty bit the bullets that the buyer wants to dodge. So let em’ know about it.

This is the time of year when people don’t have much money. There are no holiday bonuses. No tax returns, and no commercials that show oversized bows on overpriced cars. The used car market dies out a bit in October and November,  so don’t be surprised if it sits for a bit.

As for pricing, I would recommend you average out the three most common mainstream pricing sites for “good to very good condition”; KBB, Edmunds, and NADA. Deduct maybe 5% for the accident and the fact that you want to get this car out of your life, and let the laws of economics take their course. Manheim offers a wholesale pricing guide called the Manheim Market Report. It’s useless for retail. You want retail prices and those three do a fairly good job at pricing the market.

Stay positive and make em’ pay retail because, let’s face it, that’s how you bought this son-of-a-bitch.

Consider this to be a golden opportunity to shape up on your picture taking and writing skills. Tell some stories and post 12 to 27 high res pics. Offer some healthy links that highlight owner based reviews for your audience. If you revel in providing better advertising than those lazy retail establishments then maybe, just maybe, you’ll get a multi-thousand dollar return on your time.

It’s a risk I would take.   So sell it straight and when it goes down the road, count your blessings… and your Benjamins.

When you think of a cop car or a taxi, chances are this vehicle will pop in your mind.

Now think of the cars that old people drive. No not Camrys! Get that thought off your mind right now mister!

Well, come to think of it, that’s a big part of the problem. If any car out there is stuck in the netherworld of wholesale heaven at the auto auctions, it’s this one.

This morning I was looking through an endless array of old Crown Vics that had been used as donor cars for the local government fleet.

The prices seemed right. $200 for a parts car. $500 for a whole car with higher miles. $1500 for the cop car of your dreams.  The numbers all seemed wondrous to a car guy like me who buys cars wholesale nearly every day of the week.

Except there’s a problem on the demand size of this equation. These cars don’t sell well anymore. Even the best of them have trouble getting so much as a glance from the general public.

Why? Well it may have a bit to do with the price of gas. Or the fact that cop vehicles go through an ungodly amount of abuse, even here in the South. Or even that those who need a car still won’t take one with rear vinyl seats, and more holes and exposed wires than a redneck version of a smoking KISS guitar.

But it’s even more than that when you look at these cars from a retailing perspective. The truth is that every portion of the population has a great excuse not to buy an old school full-sized car.

Young people are too broke to own one. Whenever I get a sharp looking one at my lot, young black males are surprisingly the most common gawkers. The Oldsmobile 98′s and Caprices that were all the rage 15 or so years ago for this enthusiast demographic, were replaced large with Crown Vic Police Interceptors, from the mid-2000′s up until about a couple of years ago.

Crown Vics were cheap, plentiful, not an SUV (which is what mom and dad usually drove), and reflected a bit of toughness thanks to the cop car rep and the utilitarian nature of the beasts. The interiors may have been given the unfortunate overload of cheap, amortized plastic and vinyl materials. But everything from the thunkishness of the door closing, to the Mustang sharing V8 under the hood made these cars a hot commodity.

You could seat five, haul as much stuff in the trunk ans you wanted to, and,  if you were out just cruising around, fuel economy was bound to suck no matter what car you used. So throw in a dirt cheap price and a penchant for withstanding the worst of road, and Crown Vic Police Interceptors became quite popular. That is  until young people became too broke to own and insure one.

The older family car, whether it’s an extra one or shared, has taken over this market.

Copy this url: http://forums.radioreference.com/pictures-your-shack-mobile-setup/205356-2005-crown-victoria-lx-sport-setup.html This guy did a wonderful job on his road warrior.

Middle aged people? Some liked em’. But the good credit folks are usually looking at the newer stuff, and the bad credit folks don’t want a V8. They will buy a V6, or even an SUV. But a V8? Too much. Even the Grand Marquis, which had once represented the right mix of luxury and space for many of these folks, has now gone into the unmarketable firmament of, “Too big! Too old! No V8!”

BZR Edition

Old people have, by and large, been herded onto the four cylinder compact and mid-sized buffet thanks in part to the prior gen Toyota Camry which offered the unusual combination of an easy to drive car with the interior space of a full-sized car and a four cylinder under the hood. Luxury to this group means never breaking down, 30 miles per gallon, and as few buttons and knobs as possible.

Along with 20 to 30 Camry alternatives, the market now offers cars that usually have more interior space than the Panthers, better lumbar seat support, and unbeatable fuel economy for a monthly payment that feeds in well with the monthly retiree check. For a low sub-$300 payment in many cases, that fixed income buyer can now have a new car instead of a 10 to 15 year old relic that averages 15 miles per gallon around town. Even the formerly credit challenged among them can line right up and get their spoonful of modern transportation.

$700 down, $60 a week, 24 months.

The Panther cars may no longer work in the marketplace. But they still remain a personal favorite when it comes to operating a used car dealership.  I have financed a ton of these vehicles over the years to folks who didn’t have access to the new car buffet. Five years ago, a customer would be overjoyed with getting any Town Car, Grand Marquis or Crown Vic with leather for $1000 down. These cars had earned their bulletproof reputation, and a lot of folks who were trying to get out of their family SUV or minivan found these cars to be an outstanding compromise between the unibody sedans with minimal grunt, and the full-sized SUV’s that consumed gas like a modern day BMW eats fuel pumps.

They were great cars to finance because once you put them on the road, they stayed there. Yes, I had to repo a few. But true to their reputation, these cars could handle the worst of customers and still be given minimal reconditioning before they were put back on the road.

I fondly remember a 1995 Lincoln Town Car  (<— old Hammer Time) that I bought for all of $1600 that I took up to Jersey (<—  another old Hammer Time), and then put out on the note four times before selling it for $1500 cash (<—- boy did I write far too much about this car back in the day!).

The car got scraped on the sides. Nearly all suspension parts replaced. The antenna broke. The headliner fell down, twice. The window regulators were cheap pieces of plasticized under-engineered garbage, and the car had an alarm system that sometimes seemed to have a mind of it’s own.

Oh, and it only came with a cassette until I repoed it for the second time.

I named the car Lucky.

Lucky was the least popular car at the lot. But if someone had only $500 to their name and a credit history like Donald Trump, then the customer could either have Lucky with a leather interior, or their sneakers in rubber.

Lucky was popular. So were those other Panther vehicles for a while at the $500 down level. A Grand Marquis was 90% of a Town Car, and it sold for 60% of the price.  The Town Car was… well… often times harder to sell than the Grand. Even for the same price. The last Town Car I sold, a 2000 model Signature Series, spent all of five months at my lot which is longer than nearly anything I have sold over the past five years with the sole exception of the famed Barnacle Bitch (<— expensive car from hell!). A 2002 Mercedes S500 bought for $5000 under rough book right after the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

They both had the same problem. The customers had already gone elsewhere and the ones that were left, couldn’t afford to keep the vehicle on the road. So I spared them of that misery that comes off from biting off far more debt than you can chew, and shucked the Barnacle off to a cash customer during tax season.

That 2000 Town Car with the burgundy paint and tan interior was the same exact deal. The car was an absolute creme puff and had been dealer maintained since day one. A great ride. The used car sales manager at the nearby Ford dealership even put it in their fleet for a year before he retired and got replaced with a guy who was 40 years younger.

So I bought it, and got to driving it around for a bit. In all honesty, I never warmed up to the car. Eventually it got sold  to a lady whose late husband had owned… a Ford dealership. She wanted to relive the old days and within a week of buying it, she wound up painting the poor thing a ghastly silver. Her living at home son had also convinced her to throw Flowmasters onto the thing.

What a waste.

It was a sad ending for an unpopular car… but ever so reminiscent of what happens when a car’s core audience moves on to other rides.

No, the hood latch isn’t on the side. Keep looking!

You either get folks who are true hardcore enthusiasts. They may consider themselves clever ones since they almost always buy the so-called cheap price car that comes loaded with those things they value. On paper, many of these guys seem to find their edge in a marketplace where popular cars go for a premium.

But in truth, most of them are picky, cheap, mechanically inept, and they honestly think you give a shit about the car you’re selling when you really don’t.

They tell stories about these cars. Endless stories about trivial opinions about old junkers that have already been recycled into Chinese washing machines.They are stuck in nostalgia-land which is fine,until you get subjected to the seventh story about the rolling piece of mediocrity in front of you.

You listen, and then eventually in the back of your mind you say, “Look. either buy this fucking car or leave me alone. I really don’t care about the fact that your Aunt Ethel had one of these 20 years ago.”

Then there are the broke ones… who are completely oblivious to the realities of the marketplace. They will piss you off  by ogling the car and then saying, “I love these things, but they eat too much gas. Do you have a Toyota or Honda with leather?”

“I do… but they are a thousand down.  I have about four of them with cloth that are around $700 down.”

“I really want leather but I only have $200 to $300. I can catch up on the payments?”

“Okay. When do you think you’ll have $1000?”

They will first tell you a week. Then a couple of weeks. A few minutes later it will turn into a month. Then finally you’ll see their bank statements or utility bills which are riddled with negative balances, overdraft charges, and late fees.

These folks are not bad people. Most of them are nice. They are just used to living beyond their means and you don’t want them as customers.

As for Panthers? They’re nice in a way that any old dog car can be endearing and lovable. But in the end I’ll stick to what sells, and old dogs don’t sell.

Which reminds me… I still have two at my lot. Want one?

A herd of automotive journalists get led off into a dark room filled with oversized furniture and cheap snacks.

It is where the ritual slaughter of truth takes place. A screen bigger than Wilt Chamberlain’s …. flashes in front of them as discordant music pulses and the beautiful people beam out their irrational exuberance of owning the upcoming 2014 model.

The actors and actresses on the screen are all young, sexy, virile, obscenely joyful, and about as genuine as a thirty-three dollar bill. Which is A-OK for me. Because after the fifteen minutes of corporate infomercials filled with empty code words such as “Value”, “Best In Class”, and “Award Winning”, the head honcho of the press junket let’s me, and everyone else, off the hook with the biggest lie in the car business.

“We believe our core audience will be young people in their 20′s and 30′s.”

It doesn’t matter what car they are trying to jerk us off with, the words never change.

Cadillac XTS?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Young… 30′s…. a technology junkie…

Toyota Corolla?

Click here to view the embedded video.

20′s and 30′s… preferably someone who thinks that there were plenty of talented white dancers on Soul Train.

A Lincoln?

Click here to view the embedded video.

A rabid Jimmy Fallon fan… 20′s to 30′s…. who still thinks old Town Cars and floating sting rays are great ways to rebuild your brand image.

I have been through dozens of press car launches over the last two years, and every single one of them is lock, stock and loaded with a barrel full of the big lie.

“We… want… the… young. Old people? Not in our commercials! But you’re invited to visit the local dealership, and we’re hoping that the parental enablers within you will help improve our current demographics. But our NEW customers? Our army of customers for the future? Young.”

The young obviously include the young at heart, and of course, that includes all of us who have the money to blow on a new car. In otherwords, the average 60 year old.

Click here to view the embedded video.

These days the mature among us are supposed to be sold with plenty of dancing, spastic pop music, and enough good drugs to turn any rotten life into a Disney movie.

Am I being a curmudgeon? Not at all. This particular commercial struck me as one of those patronizing phony pitches that is designed for success in the boardroom. and failure in the marketplace.

The old man within the middle-aged me looked at this ad. and imagined a bunch of burnt out advertising executives trying to convey the following message.

“Our car is the cool car. Our cool is the hip car. Why? Shut up and look at the young people dancing. It’s like, all 70′s and shit.”

This is the same outstanding logic that brought us talking cartoon ducks selling Cadillacs.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Commercials featuring water, which were somehow supposed to introduce the Infiniti brand back in the day when all Datsuns were Nissans.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And the reanimated corpse that nobody knew outside our industry or cared about. Once again hocking cars… maybe…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now if Harley Earl had ripped the flesh off that young guy’s neck. Carjacked the brand new 2003 Pontiac GTO, and hit enough curbs, pedestrians and stop signs to make the commercial resemble the game Grand Theft Auto, then it would have been something worth our attention.

Instead you’re left thinking, “What the hell was that all about? Buicks? Old guys with hats?”

This is the exact level of bewilderment that goes through my mind whenever I am reintroduced to the young buyer paradox. Young people are broke these days, for the most part. So why fucking lie?

Reality usually gets no more than a passing glance in the rear view mirror at these new model launches because doing so would require these guys to admit that that their best customer is the stupid one who buys the car at MSRP, and finances it at an 18+% interest rate,.Plus bullshit fees and GAP insurance.

While the guys pine away about their target audience. This is what I usually lead between the lines and the moving lips.

“We love all our customers Steve. Really! But we especially love the stupid ones who are bad at math.” If the guys who presented these vehicles would at least pay homage to their true prime customer, instead of creating fictional facsimiles based on modern day fashions, they would likely wind up with better marketing campaigns.

The Cadillac XTS was probably the best example of the type of marketing campaign where there is simply no audience and a complete dismissal of reality. After a few commercials featuring music and random images of the XTS, we were introduced to the then brand new CUE technology. This new system would be the killer app for getting Cadillac’s new young customers in the door.

Did the CUE technology enable hands-free communting? Was it some type of tablet, phablet, or mobile device? I came there with absolutely no idea what CUE meant.

So, I was treated to a solid two minutes of a guy using what seemed to be aikido type movements to guide all the instrumentation on the center console.

What the hell was that? Why?

Well, because in the future dictated by Cadillac, apparently knobs no longer work. This was the defining reason to buy the XTS. No knobs.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After the final video, we were given the grand announcement of who the target audience would be for the XTS.

Young.

30′s, maybe 40′s.

Technology junkies.

Someone who thought that Cadillac is a world class brand that can outperform other leading luxury brands including Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Lexus and Infiniti.

Any questions?

You bet your ass I had questions. After a couple of minutes I was mentally crossing out the questions that I simply couldn’t ask…

“I see that CUE uses hand movements for the radio and temperature controls. What about finger gestures? If I gave CUE the finger, or the circle jerk, would it automatically scan to the nearest talk radio station?”

“In the future, are there any black people who buy your product?”

“What do you guys have against knobs? Couldn’t you have simply constructed four round knobs that don’t feel like rubber dog chew toys?”

This is the one I ended up asking…

“The Mercedes E-Class, Audi A6 and BMW 5-Series all offer multiple engine choices along with their own unique high performance models. You are offering one engine and that one is shared with the Impala and LaCrosse. How can you realistically expect to compete with the best cars in this class?”

The fellow in charge of answering the questions did a little sidestep.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And let me in on who Cadillac’s future customer would be.

It…

Was….

The sleazy used car dealer? Pretty close.

The young Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

Now don’t get me wrong. Marketing teams in every industry want to show how their product is the best in the business. But to get people into that Promise Land when it comes to cars, you need a target that your audience can relate to.

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who think that Cadillac is a world class brand is not a target. It’s a fictionalized slip of the tongue that let me know the XTS had no chance of making it.

“Young people” is also not a target. When it comes to cars, not even an age group (or sex) can represent a valid target. 25 to 35 can range anywhere from investment banker to jail bait.

However, the worst target is not one that is too big, too small, or even a fictional one.

The worst target in the car business is the one that aims squarely at pleasing the guys in the suits, and nearly nobody else who is outside their brainwashed world.

Self-adulation of a brand, or a model, is the surest way of making any audience cynical of your credibility and intent.

Everybody says they’re the best.

It takes more than that to get the point across. In the case of the spastic dancing Corolla commercial, they could have used a canine, a cane, and a Clapton… and maybe some cocaine from the 70′s.

That would do the trick.

I admit it. Every once in a while I buy a vehicle that simply doesn’t work out.

Everything checks out at the auction. But then, I get a birthday surprise.

It could be a transmission that randomly goes out of overdrive after about 20 or 30 miles. Or an engine that has far too many aged wires for me to easily track down a stubborn check engine light.

Sometimes I buy a 4000-pound ATM machine that only allows you to put money into it; a rolling lemon, par excellence. Then I have to figure out how to make it into lemonade, lemon meringue pie, lemon tart, and even repair fodder for the other rides on the road that are still lemon-free.

Lemons are never fun… but every once in a while fate has a wonderful way of smiling on a pitiful set of circumstances. 

Two months ago I bought three vehicles at a sale. One good. Two bad, in their own unique ways.

The good one was a ‘99 Toyota Camry Solara SE in red with leather, sunroof, V6, all the options and garage kept. I managed to steal it for $2400 plus a $200 auction fee. By the time I transported it, replaced tires and did some small recon work, I was still south of three grand on a unit that can be easily financed for around $7k.

It would take two years, and plenty of risk for me to realize the potential return (or loss). And when you finance a car to a stranger, there are always serious risks to consider.

Will that customer be honest? Will that car be cheap to keep? Or will I wind up with a ride that has been all ragged out three states away and worth more in parts than as a whole?

Even the grandest of Olds can wind up with a human hurricane of a customer. This glorified two-door Camry still looked promising enough to buy, though. A popular well-made car that attracts an older affluent demographic tends to work out risk wise, so long as you do your homework when it comes to your customer.

That Solara turned out to be the beauty that was bought between two horrific beasts.

I also bought an Explorer, right after the Solara, which seemed to possess the same qualities of good eye appeal and a responsible prior owner.

It had a rip-free leather interior which is unusual for a 16 year old SUV. The sunroof was fast and didn’t leak, excellent tires, and it had a lot of little things that all seemed to add up.

Over the years, I have found that an owner who spends good money on his rubber tends to be one who likely spent whatever was needed to keep the rest of the vehicle in good running order. This isn’t always true, but the tendency is there and those vehicles wind up on my list for further inspection at the auction.

A car with a service contract issued for it is a big plus. One that comes from a buy-here pay-here lot, especially one that is out of business, tends to be a no-no nadir. Michelin and Bridgestone are good, real good. Tiger Paw, generic Chinese knock-offs, and non-matching tires with unhealthy wear patterns are indicative of abuse and expensive suspension issues.

A lot of little things, dozens of them that become apparent once you inspect the vehicle, tend to add up to a complete overall picture of a car’s condition. With this Explorer, I particularly noticed the parts used under the hood such as several replacement parts from the dealership. The top of the line battery, and hoses and belts that were apparently replaced once those expensive parts needed attention.

I also looked at the personal items and repair histories that were stored in the glovebox. They all give you the little ingredients you need to figure out if the owner and the car were right for each other.

This Explorer had the right stuff: Thousands of dollars spent maintaining it at the dealership; common sense upgrades to the stock radio system; no paint fade after 16 years of Atlanta commuting; only 111k original miles. I bought it for $1650 – about a $300 to $400 premium over the usual wholesale price.

Then everything pretty much went all to hell. Not as bad as a Clinton Era Explorer mated to under-inflated Firestones,  but pretty damn close.

It wasn’t the Explorer’s fault. When I bought the vehicle, the lane clerk on the auction block apparently put it under the wrong buyer’s number. The auction was also short-staffed which meant that after a lengthy discussion with a new employee who didn’t know the auction business, and 20 minutes of loathsome waiting, I said to myself, “The hell with this!”, paid for the other two vehicles, and left.

A week later one of the office managers comes up to me and says, “Hey Steve! When are you going to pay for that Explorer?”

My response, “According to the lady that took care of my check-out, it wasn’t mine.”

With a mild smirk she said, “Let me guess. Late 40′s. Blonde hair. Nice smile. How about if we knock off the buy fee?”

The buy fee was about $200 on the Explorer. I figured that alone would be enough to take care of it all. Sure, why the hell not?

The only strange thing is… once I paid for the Explorer… I couldn’t find it… anywhere…

I looked at the sold lot, the lane where new car trades were lined up for that morning’s sale, and even the temporary junkyard where the true horror stories that don’t run wait to be bought by the local auto recyclers.

I checked every nook and cranny of an auction that I have known for 14 years as a member of the auctioneering staff, remarketing manager, and now, car dealer.

The Explorer was nowhere to be found. Well, I’ll just let the assistant manager know about it and have him/her get the lot manager to chase it down.  It’s got to be here somewhere.

The Explorer was gone. Like a well-oiled politician who has finally been given enough taxpayer largesse to retire in sunny Bermuda, all that was left behind of this SUV was old paperwork and the stale promise of finding my property someway, somehow.

And get this: that Explorer wasn’t the only vehicle that wound up missing.

A 1997 Honda CR-V was gone as well, and this one turned out to be a real stress case.

I had bought the vehicle a couple months back as ‘title attached’, which meant that I would have to wait for the auction to get the title. In the meantime, the auction would hold my check.

A seller has 30 days from the time of sale to submit a good title to the auction that is free of errors and issues. A ‘clean’ title.  During that time, the auction holds the buyer’s check and you, the buyer, pretty much have a car without having to pay for it until everything is right with that title.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that most dealers will wind up putting money into that vehicle in the form of repairs and detail work. Sometimes they will never get the title from the seller.

At such times you are left with only two options:

1) Apply for a bonded title. This cost anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars. And good luck if there’s  a lienholder or two that haven’t been paid off on the vehicle’s balance.

2)  Eat the labor cost of each repair. Eat the transport cost of picking it up and dropping it off, and return the vehicle back to the auction.

I have learned through the hard knocks of this business that the second scenario is hellish. A few years ago I had bought a new catalytic converter for an Audi A4 and did about $500 worth of repair work to it.

This Honda started off harmlessly enough. I got the title from the auction within the required 30 day period… except the back of the title where the dealer writes out who buys the vehicle was completely wrong.

The seller never signed off on the title and the mileage disclosures went from 157,000 miles to 187,000 miles. Even though the CR-V had only about 160k.

I called the auction and was told that they wouldn’t deposit my check for the CR-V until the title got cleaned up.

I sent them back the title and two days later, a check for $2090 went through my bank account. Then I never heard back about the title. So I ended up returning the CR-V to the auction along with the Explorer and a couple of other ‘mistake’ cars I bought a couple months back.

I had gone out to where my vehicles were lined up for the auction. Two parking spaces were empty and those two were meant for the Explorer and the CR-V.

I jogged about a quarter mile to the office. It turned out that the CR-V was never checked into the auction according to their records. It never showed up.  Two phantom vehicles with nearly $4000 invested. Gone.

I went behind the counter with the office manager… looked at the paperwork for the CR-V… something looked fishy…

“Hey. It says here that the last entry to the CR-V was on November 13th. My hauler dropped it off on the 8th according to my records, and how could Cobb County Hyundai pick up this vehicle if it had never been checked into the sale?”

It turned out that the vehicle had the same old bar code on the window from two months back. When the car was brought back to the sale, the car was never given a new one. Hence, no record of check-in. Cobb County Hyundai had picked up the vehicle because it went over the 30 days needed to provide me a clean title.

That solved one mystery. But what about the other…that pesky Explorer?

I found that one behind the repair shop. I drove it back to my other vehicles, and realized that the odometer wasn’t ticking over. So I drove it around more, and more, and more, until I was sure that the car indeed had a broken odometer.

My saving grace at this point is that everyone I deal with at this specific sale is nice and experienced. I can’t tell you how valuable these two qualities are when constantly buying and selling automobiles. So we ended up undoing the Explorer deal and I agreed to put the vehicle under my own name when it went through the block so that it can sell for a decent price.

The Explorer sells. But with the new announcement “True Miles Unknown”, it sells for only $800. I go inside and get my old check for $1650 on the Explorer, and a new check for $2090 on the CR-V. I then thank the Lord for helping me stay solvent in a time of high weirdness, and spend the remainder of my day organizing the 53 other vehicles that are either a repair or a customer away from being sold.

A lot of you have experienced the same scary scenarios of losing everything when it comes to your cars.

Maybe your car could have been lost, stolen, driven through a flood caused by substandard sewer work, or even struck with the white lightning of catastrophe. Feel free to share your story. Since I am most thankfully finished with mine.

At what point are you willing to accept a low-ball offer for your old beater?

Is it when the tranny blows out? Or does it eventually come through the scourge of rust, and the constant breaking of electric doo-dads that no longer work all through your doo-dah-day?

Some folks simply get bored of their ride. While others just try to drive their cars until their bodies become the rolling representation of swiss cheese.

Everyone has a reason to curb a car. Thanks to the efforts of Nick Lariviere (<— Click the link!), and the cooperation of an automotive conglomerate with more money than some state governments, I now have 257,020 purely anecdotal examples of this type of personal decision making.

I now need to figure out one simple thing.

What does all this data tell me?

Well, for one thing, I’ve figured out that a lot of this information reaffirms my past prejudices about what tends to be worth buying at the whoelsale auctions, and what vehicles should be avoided at all costs.

So what to buy used then? OK. Here are the top ten most reliable used vehicles according to the TI-QI Index.

1. Lexus LX Series

Lexus LX

Quality Index Rating:  8.09

Sample Size: 230

See how that little yellow hump peaks at right around 200,000 miles?

These vehicles are the automotive version of granite. They are heavy as hell, don’t age, and will most assuredly squash off whatever vehicular bugs and cockroaches are on the road should the Zombie Apocalypse ever take place.

2. Toyota Land Cruiser

Quality Index Rating:  7.42

Sample Size: 183

The Land Cruiser would be the Toyota of Lexuses if  Lexus had a Toyota that wasn’t already a Lexus. See what I mean? Not really? Neither do I.

Just look at that nice big yellow wave of space after the two intersection points and forget I ever wrote that.

3. Ford E250

Quality Index Rating:  6.37

Sample Size: 109

The van of choice for locksmiths, utility workers, parts haulers and a highway beacon for young ambulance chasers who can’t afford their daytime TV commercials just yet.

I have a theory that when Comcast and AT&T are forced into the bankruptcies they rightly deserve, these vehicles will follow them into extinction.

Every one of them drinks gas like an old Lincoln, and there is already a massive glut of these vans in the used car marketplace.

You can’t kill em’. But like minivans, the buyer base is shrinking.

4. Lexus LS

Quality Index Rating:  5.99

Sample Size: 561

Okay, the orange hump represents all the vehicles traded in before the Lexus on average.

The yellow bulge after the intersection point represents all the LS models that are kept for the longer haul. Note the substantial difference in the 250k to 300k zone.

Green means great. Yellow means good. Red means Suzuki.

5. Dodge Sprinter

Quality Index Rating:  5.94

Sample Size: 43

Okay, 43 vehicles don’t exactly offer a big slice full of data. What matters here is the name. Dodge.

Dodge, as in thankfully nowhere near a typical Dodge. It’s a Mercedes that was once sold as a Freightliner and is now just a turbodiesel Benz in drag.

6. Toyota 4Runner

Quality Index Rating:  5.8

Sample Size: 1626

Another Toyota SUV that consumes gas with aplomb. These things are less economical than a Town Car, and almost as good looking, but that doesn’t matter in the end.

If the LX and Land Cruiser are the king of SUV’s on an international scale, then the 4Runner is Gollum equipped with a jedi sword, an UZI and a chainsaw.

7. Toyota Avalon

Quality Index Rating:  5.15

Sample Size: 1125

You see a trend here? That’s right! The first five vehicles are all built on truck and SUV platforms, and the other two can cause numbness of the extremities.

What helps the Avalon is that the first two generations were insanely over-engineered, and most mature folks like to drive their ride with a tap instead of a stomp.

8. Lexus GX

Quality Index Rating:  4.93

Sample Size: 251

What the hell is a GX? Lexus needs to stop using acronyms and start using names such as, “Endurante” and “Hedgehog”.

On second thought, maybe GX is perfectly fine.

9. Ford Excursion

Quality Index Rating:  4.9

Sample Size: 279

The Ford Canyonero really isn’t an SUV. It’s the future of family housing after the US government decides that free enterprise is too expensive.

10. Saturn LS1

Quality Index Rating:  4.88

Sample Size: 57

Who? What? Huh?

Well, I have this theory… GM designed these Saturns to run on meth.

At least it seems to attract that type of customer base in my neck of the woods. I have one of these that’s now on it’s third run through with the local meth clientele.

The first customer had a wife and kid on meth. The second was a user of meth, and the third is a distributor of meth.

When I first got it, my wife liked the color and wanted to keep it. But it never ran quite right for her. It needed meth.

As soon as I fixed the fuel pump and retailed it, no problems. It has gone through three addicts so far and has taken more abuse than the local public defender. Still runs fine.

Why? It must be the meth. I can think of no other reason why it’s in the top ten.