The Real Car Business

For the past 2-3 weeks I have been making a point of seeking out the most experienced auction dealers and asking them of the market we're swimming in. As strange as it seems there really is no panic or worry ... rather that this too will pass and the march will go on. The big concern I hear voiced in the vast middle of the auction populous is where the cars will come from over the next 10-14 months; the short term. What there doesn't seem to be is an understanding that after that period, there will have been a complete correction or adjustment to the "new" levels in availability of vehicles. New car sales made the adjustment away from the heady days of huge fleets and rental car gluts and adopted creative leasing, sharp incentivizes, and deep discounts. Today's level of 12.6 million new vehicle sales annually* will continue to feed the used vehicle supply and despite the "short term fear", there will in fact be cars available to buy at auction in the fu

Are they kidding? For years and years, Galves got to be known that it was just plain old $1,500 light... made it easy for buyers they had on the road bringing cars back to NJ! But that was then. Today, with technology in terms of real time data communications, how in the devil can a book be wrong by $3500 (ie., March NADA 2008 Volvo XC90). What's craziest is that this is not new news... NADA has been dreadfully wrong for years. With nearly 90% of active auction buyers carrying hand held devices and in my professional estimate, less than 35% of buyers "using" a book, you need to ask yourself what you are paying for! You need the book because you need to know models by VIN sequence. The book is useful here. You need to know variations for mileage categories. The book is useful here we presume but if the ACV's are that wrong how close are the adds and deducts for miles? You also need to know the loan value and here are the cross roads. The book is really for the bank (no