Hey Cool Car Fans,

I have been following the Tesla car company since before it first became available for sale. I’ve never seen a vehicle with so much positive press from the media that has a love affair with this vehicle.   One reason why is because so many investors have paid the Piper with their stock trading from $177 to $292 with a $25.6B market cap over the last 52 weeks from a car company that is a pimple on the butt of the entire auto industry.

If that sounds harsh, let’s just be real for minute and look at how many vehicles Tesla sold last year out of the 17.15 million vehicles sold in the United States that we can verify at Trading Economics.com. After all, company sales is what is supposed to drive the success of a company right?  There is a reason why you cannot purchase a new Saab, Pontiac, Hummer or Suzuki anymore in the United States and that’s because of lack of sales, but that doesn’t seem to matter when it comes to Tesla.  This company has never shown a net profit according to their financial statement that you can view here at MarketWatch.com, drop down to the Net Income line where last year they lost $294M on $3.2B in sales.  Their balance sheet looks great because they are sitting on a boatload of cash, but how many vehicles did they actually sell last year out of the 17.15 million that were sold?

Trying to figure this out is much harder than it should be for a public company with so much positive press!  You have to dig a little deeper than you would think because the media’s darling doesn’t want people to really do what I’m doing now and ask this obvious question.  Instead they write articles about how Tesla doesn’t think they can do 500,000 sales by the end of the decade!  They think they can maybe do half that number or about 240,000 vehicles by the year 2020, so you can read articles like this that have such a positive spin.  In 2004, there were 28,898 Hummer H2’s sold in the United States, which was quite a few for such a specialty SUV and by 2008 when they pulled the plug they sold 12,431 deeming that it wasn’t worth continuing.  Last year, Tesla missed their mark of selling 35,000 vehicles and they sold 31,600 units according to SeekingAlpha.com.

Now I will go back to my statement again that they are a pimple on the butt of the entire auto industry because any kid in Elementary School can divide 31,600 into 17,150,000 and arrive at a percentage of the market that Tesla has command over.  When you do this you arrived at a figure of .00184257 or 0.18% of the automobile industry and yet there is more press about this revolutionary Wall Street company than any other car company. Forget that other car companies have electric cars or hybrid cars or all kinds of cool new technology, the focus is always on Tesla.

Recently, a client and friend of mine sent me an article to get my opinion on since he is thinking of getting a Tesla.  You can read it here at Investopedia.com and I had to chuckle when I read it.  The author makes a case about what a great value it is to drive a Tesla because you don’t have to stop at a gas station or worry about maintenance on your vehicle since Tesla is willing to buy back your Tesla after three years at 46% of the purchase price.  Oh my gosh, how nice of them since it is a lease!  Are you kidding me?  It is called a residual value and every car manufacturer and leasing company gives you a residual at the end of the lease.  In fact, I’m leasing a Toyota Tacoma TRD today to a client for $296.15 a month including sales tax with only $800 down at 15,000 miles a year and the buyout at the end of the lease is almost 75% of the MSRP after 39 months!

You can lease an AWD BMW 328i right now and get free maintenance for three years and the residual at the end of the lease on a 3 Series BMW is 50% from BMW and possibly better through some of the other leasing sources.  Last time I checked 50% is better than 46%?  However, billionaire Elon Musk, the guy who started PayPal is really good at math like most of the tech savvy people in Silicon Valley, and all I can figure is that they are assuming that most doctors, lawyers and CEO’s who would buy their vehicle, are not very good at math, so they come up with stupid articles like the one that I just read appealing to emotion.  The math doesn’t add up if you put a pencil to it compared to other vehicles in the same class.  This is not a vehicle you purchase to save money.  It’s not designed for that, but to have a “cool” factor.

The writer actually has a section in the article called “THE MATH” to break down how much money you would spend over five years if you sell it back to Tesla at a 46% residual value.  I kid you not, she used a five year plan and it’s a three year lease for the 46% buy back?  How many people reading that article will actually catch that flaw in the numbers?  Most will not and that’s why I got a chuckle out of the article because it’s not any different that people who call me to lease a high-end luxury vehicle for a really low price from an ad on television and they miss the fine print that the lease is only for 10,000 miles a year with $3,000 or $5,000 down.  The crazy thing to me is the same people who would never dream of leasing a vehicle because they think it is a rip-off are on a waiting list to lease a Tesla because of the marketing behind it.

I actually like the Tesla Model S and I really like the Tesla Roadster even better, but I just get tired of seeing the non-stop B.S. surrounding this car company by people who know very little about cars.  It’s a specialty vehicle for a niche’ market and it’s a very cool car.  I have clients who own them and I’ve driven them and there is a definite “Wow” factor like driving a Nissan GTR, but there are things to consider with this vehicle that seems to rarely get any bad press.  I think the Nissan GT-R is a super cool vehicle, but most people do not know that there was a class-action lawsuit against Nissan that was settled for transmission issues with that vehicle.  You can read about it at Autoblog, so my point is to not get lost in the ether with the media and know what you’re buying before you pull the trigger on a Tesla or any other vehicle for that matter.

Losing 54% of a vehicle’s value in three years is not a great deal compared to other vehicles on the market is my main point in writing this article since you can do that with most luxury cars that cost much less to drive and are easier to unload at the end of the lease term.  Before Ford sold Jaguar and Land Rover to India based Tata Motors in 2008 for $2 billion, they had put a lease program together back around 2004 where you could lease a Jaguar X-Type for around $300 a month with a ridiculous residual value.  Anyone who could afford to lease a Jaguar X-Type and didn’t jump on it because of concerns of reliability was crazy because Ford was basically subsidizing people to drive their vehicle.  I don’t see Tesla doing that sort of thing yet with a 46% residual and a high payment.  They may be forced to at some point to grab more marketshare and get more people driving their vehicles, so my advice is to wait and see what happens.

Hey Cool Car Fans,

Each year I focus on helping about 250 people buy, sell, trade, consign or lease a vehicle for their home or their business.  I offer my services for free, unless I deliver a vehicle and then I get paid out of the transaction like a realtor for cars.  Often times, I just give free advice to people, but it always comes back to pay dividends because people remember me down the road or tell their friends to call me.

My business model has never been designed to compete with the “big box” stores, the franchise dealerships or other independent car dealerships because my services are much more intimate like a “boutique” for vehicle purchases.  My clients use my services because of the relationship I have with them because I save them time, money and hassle.  All of my business is based on repeat and referrals because of this and it has served me well for a decade.

Recently, I had a client who purchased a vehicle from me almost seven years ago call me and ask me to help her and her husband track down a good deal on a Toyota Sienna.  There wasn’t much available at the Dealer Auctions in their budget, so they ended up finding it on their own from a private party.  Unlike most people who would just go and do the transaction on their own, they asked me to assist them, which I was more than happy to do because they are friends of mine.

We had the vehicle inspected and it was in great condition from a couple up in Northern Colorado.  The couple selling the vehicle drove it down and I had it inspected for my clients and arranged their financing for them as well.  The title turned out to be a bit more complicated than expected because it was owned by a woman in a nursing home and her son had the vehicle and the title, along with Power of Attorney and he trusted that because I put transactions like this together daily he was going to get paid.  We were able to work through the issues and my clients drove off in a nice vehicle with low miles and financed at a better rate than they would have found on their own.  Most “auto brokers” would not have gone forward with helping people who found their own vehicle, but I didn’t mind at all and it all worked out.

I’m going to talk about financing in a minute, but before I do the story gets better because they had an old Ford Escape with hail damage and some mechanical issues that was sitting in their driveway.  They were not sure what to do with the vehicle and many times people getting a new vehicle and having one broken down in their driveway will donate it just to get it off their hands.

I recommended they contact their insurance company and file a claim for the hail damage, which they did.  They received a check in the mail for over $4,000 from their insurance company and I also shopped the vehicle and I was able to get them another $1,500 for their vehicle from one of the dealerships that I have a relationship.  That was $5,500 in additional funds that they didn’t expect because of their relationship with me as The Cool Car Guy.  Which is why I have had so many people use my services over the years.

Now let me explain a few things about financing.  If someone finances just $10,900 at a rate of 3.09% they will pay about $893 in interest over 60 months, which is about $14.88 a month in interest.  However, if they end up going to a bank on their own, which happened with another client of mine, where they were quoted 5.99% from their lender they will pay $1,771 in interest over 60 months, which is $29.52 a month in interest for the same vehicle and the same loan amount of only $10,900.  Think about that for a minute.  That’s almost $1,000 more in interest on the same vehicle for what “seems” like a low interest rate.  And I will have people contact me throughout the year about refinancing their vehicles for this reason as well.

So before you purchase from some of the large dealerships, you should go to Yahoo Finance and type in the stock symbols on some of the large “big box” dealerships.  You will see that many of these companies have a Market Cap that is in the billions of dollars, like any other Wall Street company.  They are not popular with Wall Street investors because they are losing money on selling cars.  In many cases, the “deal” you think you’re getting is not a deal at all because they have you focused on the price of the vehicle instead of the overall cost of owning the vehicle.  It can make a big difference on the year, make, model and type of vehicle you are financing or leasing.  I’ll write another article about a lease deal I recently structured that in the words of my client who was referred to me by another client “You blew the other broker I was looking at using out of the water.”.

Hey Cool Car Fans,

Recently, I had a client ask me to look at a vehicle for them on Craigslist for their son.  It was a 2004 Honda Pilot EXL with about 175,000 miles and the seller was asking $6,500 for this vehicle.  It is amazing that these old SUV’s will still go for that much money on sites like AutoTrader.com, Cars.com, Craigslist.com, etc. and this was being offered by a private party.  I picked up the vehicle and as I always do I went and had it inspected at one of the shops that I use the to inspect vehicles for my clients.  Keep in mind, that most people believe they are going to get a much better deal from a private party purchase than buying from a dealership, but I rarely find that to be true.  This case was not any different.

Upon inspecting the vehicle I discovered that it had some issues, which did not surprise me with 175,000 miles on a 9 year old vehicle, but I certainly wasn’t about to pay retail and then get it repaired.  I already knew that it needed four new tires, but the brakes where shot, both tie rods were gone, the radiator needed to be flushed out, the timing belt and water pump had never been done so they were driving it on borrowed time and much more.  When it was all said and done to get this vehicle right, so that I could feel comfortable delivering it the price tag was $2,300 in repairs.  I went back to the seller and explained it to them and their response was that I should bring it back and they would sell it to someone else interested on Craigslist.

Welcome to the whacky world of high mileage used vehicles.  Some sucker is going to get a vehicle that they will think they just have to put new tires on and odds are pretty good they won’t have the timing belt and water pump done.  Which brings me to the next story because a recently had a client who had purchased a high mileage Subaru that they paid cash for online.

The person told them that they had the timing belt and water pump done and after spending $3,800 on this 1998 Subaru including repairs with 180,000 miles it broke down on the highway.  She was a single woman and stranded on the freeway until 2AM waiting for her insurance company to find a tow truck.  A police officer came by once to ask if she was okay, along with some strange old man with a cane offering to give her a ride somewhere.  Her beloved mechanic told her that it wasn’t the timing belt and water pump that blew, but everything around it fell apart and she still owed $1,750 on this piece of junk.  I was able to trade it for her and get a newer Nissan Altima that was under warranty with a low monthly payment, but that’s the challenge of buying used vehicle from people online.  Believe it or not, they do not always tell the truth about why they are looking to sell their vehicle.

If you’re going to buy a cheap ride online make sure that you get it checked out and do not just take people’s word for it that the vehicle is in great shape.  There is usually a reason why they are selling it to begin with and typically it’s because they are tired of making payments to a mechanic or their shop has told them the vehicle needs a costly repair.  I have purchased vehicles from private parties and dealerships that they have told me need nothing and I discover that the vehicle needs any number of things to make it road worthy and ready for delivery.

Hey Cool Car Fans,

I wanted to take a moment and wish all of my visitors to CoolCarGuy.com a very Happy New Year for 2015!  If you need assistance in buying, trading, leasing, refinancing, selling or figuring out a better solution for your vehicle situation give me a call or send me an email.  I can usually find a solution that other dealers and auto brokers or automotive consultants do not know how to do because of my years of expertise.  I’ve seen and handled just about every type of transaction imaginable and I thought I would take a minute and share a few things to watch out for online.

THE COOL CAR GUY NETWORK: By the way, I also just launched a new Internet property called The Cool Car Guy Network that you can read about why you should join at the following link: http://coolcarguynetwork.com/the-cool-car-guy-system/ You can join the Network for as little as $9.99 for 30 days to list your vehicle or $99 for the entire year and take full advantage of this unique website.  It’s a cool way to take advantage of what I’ve been doing for years as The Cool Car Guy and a great way to showcase your vehicle online, sell your vehicle, write articles as part of The Cool Car Guy Network and even promote your business.  Check it out and feel free to send me feedback since it’s a brand new property.

A Few Online Automobile Scams To Watch Out For

The first one is when you see a late model Mini-Cooper or other popular vehicles being offered for $5,000 or way below market value on Craigslist or Ebay because the people just got transferred overseas or they have some other whacky story.  The reality is that they could go to any local dealer and get the amount of money that they are offering it to you for, if it was a real offer.  It’s not and they will figure out a way to take you for a ride because that is what they do.

I have had people contact me after the fact for advice and you wouldn’t believe some of the stories I have heard.  One included a guy who contacted me and explained how he had showed up in a local parking lot to get his Ebay vehicle at night and when the truck turned out to be “trashed” he declined.   Two guys in another pickup truck pulled out tire irons and were ready to beat him up and take his money and told him that he was going to take the truck or it was going to end badly for him.  He was carrying a gun and that was the only thing that saved him from being left for dead.

There are plenty of con-artists online, who often times do not even own the vehicle they are offering for sale.  Many times they will pull photos off the Internet and use them in their ad or even be so bold as to take photos of a vehicle parked in someone’s driveway and claim it is theirs.  It’s buyer beware!  If it sounds too good to be true it probably is, so just remember that the next time you see the crazy online offers.

Another one to watch out for is the “Take Over My Lease Payments” or “We Will Take Over Your Lease Payments”.  Both of these are a very bad idea.  In order to really take over someone’s lease payments legally, you have to qualify with the manufacturer or leasing company and what you will usually find is the person may be in a really bad lease.  You could end up qualifying for a lease that isn’t all that you thought it was cracked up to be and assuming someone else’s nightmare.

Which leads me to the second option of having someone take over your lease payments.  This is a terrible idea and people do it all the time.  If the person doesn’t qualify with your leasing company and assume the lease with you being off it completely and you just “sub-lease” it to them, first of all you are in violation of your lease agreement and the vehicle can be repossessed.  Secondly, if they trash the vehicle, you are still responsible for the damage or the excess miles, regardless of what the sub-lease company outfit tells you.  And third, if they stop making payments and move out of the State with your vehicle, you could be completely screwed.  The bottom line is DON’T DO IT!

Contact me and I can give you a much better way to get out of your lease than having someone with bad credit that you don’t know try to solve your problem.  Even if you’re thinking of having a relative or friend take over your lease payments it isn’t a good idea. I have seen many people get burned on what seems like a great idea at the time to solve a cash flow problem.  It’s not the same as assuming the payments on a house, like the slick salespeople will tell you at the company charging you their fee because a house is not going to drive across State lines.

Finally, the “Straw Purchase”, is often done by shady dealers and salespeople.  A Straw purchase in the automotive industry is a purchase where a purchaser is knowingly acquiring a loan on a vehicle for someone else. The person purchasing on behalf of the other when the other person is unable to purchase the vehicle themselves.  If a loan is involved it can be considered fraudulent based on signing a credit application and applying for a loan by providing false information.  If you do not disclose to the lender that the vehicle is for someone else, it’s a straw purchase.  The vehicle can be repossessed and your credit can tank.

These are just a few things to be aware of when vehicle shopping in 2015.  Have a great year!

Hey Cool Car Fans,

Here at CoolCarGuy.com I try to put cool links for visitors to use when they are cruising through my site, which you can find on the right side of the page under cool links.  One such link is Repair Pal and once you are there you can search on some different content to find out if the vehicle you’re looking to purchase or maybe you are driving is a good value or not based on potential repairs.

For example, I currently drive a 2011 BMW 335xi with a manual transmission that has been a very good vehicle for me for a while now.  Previous to this vehicle I put 92,000 miles on a 2010 Mercedes Benz C300 that I leased new and then bought out the lease.  I never had one issue with that vehicle for 92,000 miles.  All I had to do was change the oil, the tires, the brakes and do the regular transmission service at about 30,000 to 40,000 miles, so that was a great vehicle for the money.

I sold it and went with this 2011 BMW that has also been pretty “bullet proof” so far with a twin-turbo 6 cylinder motor.  I plan on keeping this vehicle for a while as I really enjoy driving it and I have recommended it to quite a few people.  Repair Pal has a great article – BMW 335i Repair and Maintenance – A guide to problems, costs, maintenance and repair for your BMW 335i on this vehicle that discusses potential repairs that I could encounter as an owner and what they should cost.  This can work well for someone who is considering purchasing a vehicle like what I’m driving to see if they want to roll the dice on the cost of potential repairs.  You have to do a little more research though to see if they are talking about the year of vehicle that you’re driving for the potential repairs because they could be referring to an older year than what you’re driving.

The other thing that you need to consider is where you’re are getting the repair work done and in what part of the country you are living in for the work that is being quoted.  Most people never think about this as an issue, but this site comes in as a great tool for keeping your mechanic or repair shop honest.  For example, when I went to their Repair Cost Estimator tool and I put in the year, make and model of my vehicle and then put in valve cover gasket replacement based on a zip code in Littleton, CO of 80124 the estimate came back at $740 to $1066 and it was primarily labor.  I then changed the zip code to Fort Walton Beach, FL using 32548 and the price changed for this repair to $576 to $857 for the exact same repair.  That’s a substantial difference in price for one repair!

I then punched in a 2010 Subaru Legacy with the 2.5l motor that is notorious for having the head gaskets go at about 80,000 miles.  I’ve seen dealers charge $2,500 to $3,000 for this repair!  Again, I put in the different zip codes and the repair shops in Littleton, CO should be $1117 to $1544 for this repair.  On the Gulf Coast of Florida it was $935 to $1312, but if you didn’t know any better and went to the dealer you could be getting ripped off big time.  If you have this data though you should be able to negotiate with your mechanic and they can still earn a fair profit based on knowing ahead of time what you should be paying for the repair.  If you’re savvy at working with a repair shop, you can budget $1,066 and get two repairs done or replace a component that you know will be needed in the future for the same price as what someone else is paying for one repair.

This is a very useful tool to ballpark a repair that I use myself for getting work done on vehicles, along with some other resources that I have available.  I have certain repair shops and body shops that I use for specific things, but this information is useful to make sure that I am not overpaying for a particular repair.  Don’t be afraid to ask if your shop can match the price on a repair, after you have done your homework and go for the lower amount.

I don’ t list all of the benefits of working with The Cool Car Guy to get your vehicle because I don’t like to let other “auto brokers” know my secrets.  Needless to say, I have saved my clients thousands of dollars in the total ownership of their vehicles because they know me.