November 18th, 2015: The Future of Car Buying

[lumberjim]

A lady at work got that same call yesterday, Bruce.

I don't know how well that gimmick would work for car sales... Many people enjoy negotiating a deal, and still want to even after they are given rock bottom pricing from true car or zag. We make our money in the Finance office and the service department.

Our average new car profit is (200)... That's negative 200. Average back end is 500 ish.

Used cars average front is 1100, 1500 in the back. Overall, we average 300-400 front and 800 back.

Front end means profit on the price of the car... Back is finance reserve, warranty, gap, tire, key, dent, lojack, etc. It is crucial that you have good finance people that can both ensure compliance, and generate profit. It's a lot of pressure, and the boss pays close attention to us, but we are the highest compensated managers in the place. The Finance managers touch every deal, interact with every customer, and are the last line of defense in protecting the dealer from exposure to litigation for unfair business practices, liability, and contract funding issues. The CFPB is getting more and more powerful, and they generate lots of money for the government. Honda recently got soaked for charging minorities more interest.

You have to be very careful to begin negotiations in the same place for every customer. You have to self audit and have policy in place to ensure that it is being adhered to. At present, the CFPB has pervue over lenders. The FCC has hand over dealers. The grip is tightening.

I'm not allowed to pad payment quotes, or discount interest rates in exchange for product sales.