autohitch

The New F150 Has Been Announced, Lines Are Forming! Exciting isn’t it? What if a new vehicle was announced and Iphone like lines started to form outside of car dealerships? Well, this may not be reality today, but it sure seems that some startups are convinced it could be the future! In a recent article published by Auto Finance News that covered a Fireside Chat in Las Vegas, Founder and Chief Executive Nathan Hecht expressed his beliefs that leasing (Not Owning) are how Americans will increasingly choose to obtain vehicles in the future. He was quoted as saying, “I think the evolution of cars is in leasing. For [millennials] private ownership is gone. You buy an iPhone for two years, and I look at a car the same way.” Listen, I get it: Society is moving on from ownership and this sentiment is increasing but, we can’t lose sight of why this happens with particular products or else we could get carried away with what should be a simple premise. Yes, a large part of choo...

https://electrek.co/2017/04/15/electric-pickup-trucks-not-only-tesla/#jp-carousel-31018 Electric cars have quickly moved from the size of the Smart car to full size sedans capable of impressive speeds and even quickness. But with all of this development, relatively quiet has been any effort to build an electric pick up truck. The reasons should be obvious right? First of all your average pick up truck driver isn’t really the type to gloat or care about their fuel economy. They also tend to love the roar of a big block and few of us haven’t been witness to that classic image of the diesel truck speeding away at a green light with a cloud of smoke pouring out from the exhaust. That being said, aside from personal preferences or style there is still feasibility, and companies like Tesla and BMW have proven that if you can make a car whose specs work for the owner there are many that will forgo the concern of any “Electric” stigmas. The problem with trucks is likely as simple a...

As a former dealer I can’t tell you how many times people would ask me about the possibility of shipping a vehicle out of town. Many times it was a potential customer and other times it was just someone moving that couldn’t drive 2 or 3 cars cross country and they knew as a dealer we had the resources to assist. We would, of course, eagerly offer our services to obtain a shipper because if we are providing a service we get to tack on a small fee for our time, right? But, did they really need to use a dealership to help them ship a car? Do you? Is the time and effort that you’ll save worth what you will spend to let someone else do it for you? You may be surprised to find out that not only is shipping not that much of a headache, it’s honestly just as easy as printing out a Fedex or UPS label online. As a former dealer I ordered and sent shipments all the time using a service called Central Dispatch, a Dealer Only system for vehicle shipping. If I sent you there you could say t...

No Haggle or Discount? What is the future of Car buying? In our opinion it isn’t a question of either or, it’s a how much of each is just the right mix. There is a segment of those who will forgo a serious bargain in return for a faster process and those who want to drive away knowing they got the best deal they could. The best ratio is probably determined by taking a look at the soon to be largest market of buyers, Millennials. It is often assumed that millennials are the “Shopping Cart” consumer because their preferences are usually centered around simplicity and ease of use, tendencies that one would assume favor a “No Haggle” approach. But, what the Automotive Industry may be overlooking is that millennials are also the generation that grew up in the Great Recession, a difficult time brought on in great part by atypical spending with money that was too easy to get. They saw their parents become financially overexposed and many had to witness as their families lost much ...

A quick search will find that some car dealers in the United States do accept bitcoin for vehicle purchases, and one could assume as you dig deeper into some smaller independent dealerships that number could increase. However, don’t expect this to become the norm or even widely adopted anytime soon. A recent shakeup in China saw the value of Bitcoin drop 30% in a week which meant that $1000 became $700 in essentially the blink of an eye. Although that loss was quickly recouped by what people saw as a buying opportunity, a car dealer would have seen it as a sign, a sign that they don’t need another uncertainty in an already uncertain market. Let’s not also forget the tax uncertainty that any dealership would have to figure out when you sell a vehicle for X but only end up getting Y for the bitcoin you were provided. Here is just one excerpt from IRS bitcoin rules:  “A taxpayer who receives virtual currency as payment for goods or services must, in computing gross income, inc...

Car Dealers have been telling consumers for years that a deep focus on the cheapest price is not actually in their best interests, and now it appears they may have been right in more ways than even they thought. The past decade has seen the rapid growth of websites with widgets and algorithms designed to show car shoppers just how little they may be able to spend on a vehicle. Using this information, the consumer typically then begins searching online listings where they often apply a “Lowest Price First” or “Best Deal First” filter hoping to find that special bargain. Well, no good business just sits around hoping that they can acquire more customers, they are actively thinking of the next way to do it and as we know, some are more creative than others. Somewhere, someone got the idea that if everyone is looking for the cheapest price, and every listing site out there is designed to show it to them, then be the cheapest! Of course, I don’t mean the cheapest car, I mean the che...

Buyer + Date = Price The value of a car or truck is what any given person on any given day is willing to pay for it. This person may pay more than that person or the same person may have two different amounts on two different days. The real problem with this equation, and determining vehicle prices in general, is that they change constantly. Take for example recent flooding in Texas (2017). Before that there was a surplus of used vehicles with prices on a downward swing, after, a new demand for anywhere from 500k- 1M cars. Shortly after that another hurricane hit Florida = More demand. Pricing tools and book values? Yeah, they are neat widgets on a website but how long until they factor in 500k flooded cars? None of these “Tools” will pick up on how these events have affected prices until long after they already have, and where will this leave you? Probably walking into a dealership ready to play hardball on a pickup truck only to find out they won’t budge on the price becau...