Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 09/18/2024 Ask the Expert with Stephens Auto of Nitro

Transcript

09/18/2024 Ask the Expert with Stephens Auto of Nitro · WCHS Network Podcasts

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  Speaker 1: Unlock your dream property with Meek's Realty Group, where Rich
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  Speaker 1: the realtor makes real estate dreams a reality, whether it's
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  Speaker 1: residential or commercial. We've got Charleston to Huntington covered. Your
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  Speaker 1: key to exceptional real estate experience is start here Meeks
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  Speaker 1: Realty Group. Contact us at Meeks dot us.
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  Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
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  Speaker 2: necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five AD WCCHS
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  Speaker 2: it's employees or WVRC Media.
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  Speaker 3: Hender for us to good morning to you. You're listening
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  Speaker 3: to ask the expert w you see HS. The Voice
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  Speaker 3: of Charleston is the third Wednesday of the month. Joining
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  Speaker 3: me in studio this morning is Chase Martin from Stephen's
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  Speaker 3: Auto and Nitro.
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  Speaker 4: Chase, Good morning, how you doing this morning?
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  Speaker 5: Good morning Dale, I'm Weale. Good to see it's been
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  Speaker 5: a minute since we've been together.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been a several weeks or something like that
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  Speaker 3: since we had an opportunity to talk. So we're gonna
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  Speaker 3: be talking to Chase this morning from Stephen's Auto Group
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  Speaker 3: and you can find them all over the state. We'll
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  Speaker 3: talk about different locations Evans Autogroup, especially the one in
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  Speaker 3: Nitro that we talk about primarily on this program, located
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  Speaker 3: at four eighteen First Avenue South in Nitro. We'll get
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  Speaker 3: you all the contact information and so forth out there.
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  Speaker 3: Stevens of Nitro dot com. Stevens Nitro dot com. Stevens
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  Speaker 3: with the pH Stevens of Nitro dot com is where
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  Speaker 3: you can find information about the program that we're going
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  Speaker 3: to be talking about today and various topics that were
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  Speaker 3: want to go down through. If you have any questions
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  Speaker 3: about the car industry, you're in the market for previously
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  Speaker 3: owned or a new vehicle, or if you have questions
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  Speaker 3: about things that are going on with that sort of thing,
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  Speaker 3: give us a call this morning. Chase can help pointing
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  Speaker 3: in the right direction. Three zerre four three four five
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  Speaker 3: fifty eight fifty eight. Threes are a four three four
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  Speaker 3: five fifty eight fifty eight. You can text over questions
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  Speaker 3: to three zero four nine three five five Zero's your eight.
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  Speaker 3: So I guess we haven't checked in since the later
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  Speaker 3: part of the summer and into early autumn. Here house
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  Speaker 3: things going and at Stevens Auto.
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  Speaker 5: Things are well. Business is good, just doing what we do,
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  Speaker 5: selling cars and taking care of our employees and our
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  Speaker 5: customers and just trying to navigate the headwinds of inflation
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  Speaker 5: and an election of coming up and all that stuff
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  Speaker 5: that gets people a little stirred up.
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  Speaker 3: Did you do anything from A from A from A
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  Speaker 3: from your standpoint, is there any preparation that you make.
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  Speaker 3: There's the expected interest rate cut supposed to come today,
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  Speaker 3: So I mean for folks that are into financing and
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  Speaker 3: things like that, we may see the trickle down effect
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  Speaker 3: of that effect, you know, car rates and things like
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  Speaker 3: that as far as financing goes. Is that just in
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  Speaker 3: turn the way things happening, you just roll with the punches,
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  Speaker 3: or do you actually come up with any different strategies
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  Speaker 3: because you know that it might be cheaper for people
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  Speaker 3: to borrow money at some point soon.
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  Speaker 5: We just look for an influx of business. We're hoping
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  Speaker 5: for that rate cut. I was actually reading before I
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  Speaker 5: came back here with you. While I was waiting. I
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  Speaker 5: think NBC News just reporting that, you know, likely a
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  Speaker 5: quarter of a point cut today, maybe a half. A
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  Speaker 5: lot of economists are saying a half is needed, but
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  Speaker 5: I think for what we're doing in our business, a
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  Speaker 5: quarter any any lowering of the rate would just be
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  Speaker 5: such a game changer in the mind of consumers. You know,
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  Speaker 5: for just a it's a trigger. Oh hey, you know
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  Speaker 5: rates are lower Now I can refinance my house, buy
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  Speaker 5: a house, buy a car. So that's that's all that's positive,
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  Speaker 5: and it is needed. It's you know, we're we we've
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  Speaker 5: been fighting these high rates and and they're still really
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  Speaker 5: like we've talked about before, they're really not all that high.
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  Speaker 5: But as compared to the last decade, right you people,
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  Speaker 5: it really I mean, I go.
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  Speaker 3: Back to what they were for you COVID, I mean yeah,
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  Speaker 3: And the fact is the interest rates were probably artificially
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  Speaker 3: low anyway, So we have to see how that plays
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  Speaker 3: out because people were borrowing money at virtually zero percent interests,
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  Speaker 3: including the federal government.
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  Speaker 4: And that sometimes isn't a great idea.
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  Speaker 5: No, it's it's not. I think if it if it
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  Speaker 5: softens up and comes down, you know, a point to
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  Speaker 5: point and a half from where we're at right now,
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  Speaker 5: and people can with good credit can go and buy
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  Speaker 5: a new car and get a bank loan for you know,
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  Speaker 5: the first numbers of four or five on the front
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  Speaker 5: of that interest rate there, everybody's probably happy.
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  Speaker 3: And not that I want to put a caution into folks.
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  Speaker 3: You know, cars, Sometimes people are in the in the
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  Speaker 3: cycle where they bought buy cars every you know, five
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  Speaker 3: or six years or even more more often than that,
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  Speaker 3: people drive their car until the wheels fall off and
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  Speaker 3: then they could buy themselves a new car. And one
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  Speaker 3: of the things that I've noticed years and years ago,
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  Speaker 3: I used to do mortgages. I did a lot of
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  Speaker 3: evaluating credit reports. And you know, back then when you
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  Speaker 3: were talking about, you know, securing a loan to a
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  Speaker 3: house or whatever, there was really aggressive programs that people
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  Speaker 3: could get on what we would consider today to be
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  Speaker 3: fairly poor credit. So that's something that you really have
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  Speaker 3: to be a good steward of today. You have to
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  Speaker 3: make sure that you keep those things above board, because honestly,
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  Speaker 3: you used to be able to buy a house at
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  Speaker 3: one hundred percent financing with a six twenty credit score.
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  Speaker 3: This was back in early two thousands or something like that.
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  Speaker 3: Think about that, as long as your income worked out,
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  Speaker 3: you could buy two hundred thousand dollars. You could you
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  Speaker 3: could borrow at one hundred percent financing and even get
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  Speaker 3: like some considerations for closing costs in some and stuff
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  Speaker 3: to offset those. And all you needed was a six
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  Speaker 3: to twenty credit score. You can't do anything with a
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  Speaker 3: six to twenty credit score today you can.
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  Speaker 5: And even with good credit. It's We've had a couple
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  Speaker 5: couple employees that one that just bought a home and
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  Speaker 5: another one that is getting ready to buy a home,
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  Speaker 5: two of our finance guys, and I think they both
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  Speaker 5: ended up finding, you know, somewhere they could do with
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  Speaker 5: five percent down first time home buyers, and they have
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  Speaker 5: good credits. So I mean, it is you know, I'm
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  Speaker 5: definitely not a credit counselor, but yeah, since we're into
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  Speaker 5: that though, I mean, people do, I mean, you need
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  Speaker 5: to pay attention to your credit because that you know,
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  Speaker 5: six twenty to six seventy, that fifty point difference that
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  Speaker 5: could make the difference in you buying a home, or
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  Speaker 5: make a four or five percent difference in the rate
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  Speaker 5: on a car loan. So's it's important that you pay
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  Speaker 5: attention to that and pay your bills on time best
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  Speaker 5: you can and all that good stuff.
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  Speaker 3: This obviously is in our topic this morning, is just
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  Speaker 3: something I was thinking to think about.
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  Speaker 5: What they kind of go handed down.
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  Speaker 4: It really does, and.
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  Speaker 3: It's kind of interesting and it made me as I
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  Speaker 3: was driving in this one. I was thinking, well, we're
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  Speaker 3: going to get an interest rate cut today, which means
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  Speaker 3: people are going to be interested in doing this. And
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  Speaker 3: if you've bought a car within the last decade or so,
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  Speaker 3: you're used to what the current credit situation is. I
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  Speaker 3: just because I don't I don't buy new a whole lot,
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  Speaker 3: and because I was in an industry before where I
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  Speaker 3: did a lot of credit scoring and things like that,
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  Speaker 3: I have some baseline knowledge of that. And it amazes
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  Speaker 3: me today that you know you have like a even
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  Speaker 3: like a seven to ten score or something like that.
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  Speaker 3: It's like, ah, that's pretty good credit, not bad man.
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  Speaker 3: They would back when I was writing mortgage paper, they
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  Speaker 3: would trip over themselves to give somebody money that had
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  Speaker 3: a seven to ten credit scores, like here, take all
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  Speaker 3: the money, take all the money. Of course, the securitize
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  Speaker 3: crashed and it screwed up. The market was still there
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  Speaker 3: was a time where you could get virtually anything for that,
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  Speaker 3: So you just have to be a good steward.
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  Speaker 4: You can get free credit.
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  Speaker 3: You can get free credit reports through the government that
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  Speaker 3: they'll give it to you, or you can find to
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  Speaker 3: see if there's anything on there that maybe you could
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  Speaker 3: clear up, that's a mistake or a medical bill something
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  Speaker 3: like that you can get rid of to try to
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  Speaker 3: help your Credit's just some advice you might want to
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  Speaker 3: look into.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, sometimes it's pesky things. I mean, we'll see people
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  Speaker 5: with you know, otherwise perfect credit, but they've got one
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  Speaker 5: hundred and ten dollars medical collection there. You see it
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  Speaker 5: happened and you ask them, You're like, Dale, you know
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  Speaker 5: what happened with this medical collection? You're like, well, I
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  Speaker 5: didn't even you know, the hospital or the provider didn't
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  Speaker 5: get the bill or they've already sold that bill to another,
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  Speaker 5: you know, deck collector. So most people want to write
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  Speaker 5: that wrong. They don't want to be in the room.
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely true.
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  Speaker 5: You know, they're like, you know, one hundred and ten dollars,
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  Speaker 5: I don't known that I had to pay it. Well,
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  Speaker 5: if that'd be great, because in your credit score, wud
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  Speaker 5: be higher. You're exactly true, would be lower.
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  Speaker 4: It's exactly true.
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  Speaker 3: And again this isn't our main talic, but it just
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  Speaker 3: gets frustrating when you go to the hospital and you
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  Speaker 3: have one thing done. So you know, you have a
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  Speaker 3: broken arm. I get my broken arm fixed, right, but
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  Speaker 3: you get forty seven bills for it, and one falls
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  Speaker 3: through the crocks every once in a while, right, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: it's not for somebody that wanted to pay their bills.
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  Speaker 3: It's like I got my arm broke, and I thought
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  Speaker 3: we were taking care of all this stuff and this
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  Speaker 3: one bill because somebody was out of network that offered
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  Speaker 3: one service that happened on one particular visit, I didn't
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  Speaker 3: get it, and I'm you know where I missed it
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  Speaker 3: Somewhere I thought I paid it all. Yeah, you got
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  Speaker 3: to be careful of.
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  Speaker 4: That kind of thing. But we want to talk this morning.
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  Speaker 3: We want to put that good common sense to use
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  Speaker 3: for you so you can you can use that to
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  Speaker 3: pivot into taking advantage of maybe what's going to be
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  Speaker 3: coming up with some lower interest rates, and you can
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  Speaker 3: look into getting into the vehicles and it makes a
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  Speaker 3: big difference. I know when I was in the middle
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  Speaker 3: of COVID there somewhere, my wife and I we did
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  Speaker 3: everything backwards. Unfortunately, we were looking at and expanding our
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  Speaker 3: house and doing a build on when the lumber prices
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  Speaker 3: went through the roof. So it's like, oh, we're not
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  Speaker 3: going to do that because the lumber prices are too much.
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  Speaker 3: And then when things settled down, we're like, you know,
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  Speaker 3: maybe we should just look into buying a new home. Well,
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  Speaker 3: by the time we looked at that is when prices
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  Speaker 3: were accelerating an interest rates went up. So suddenly we're like,
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  Speaker 3: we have a really low interest rate with a house
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  Speaker 3: that we have a ton of equity in. Now, it
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  Speaker 3: just didn't work for us to buy a new home.
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  Speaker 3: It would have crushed our our payments at the rates
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  Speaker 3: at where they currently were. So now we're starting to
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  Speaker 3: talk maybe things will be. It opens up an extra five, ten,
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  Speaker 3: fifteen thousand dollars for somebody on their purchase price or something,
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  Speaker 3: and that could make a huge difference with the type
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  Speaker 3: of vehicle that they want to get into.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know, going just thinking of of other
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  Speaker 5: things that tie into that. You know, I'll see I'll
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  Speaker 5: hear people in our store one of our stores, or
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  Speaker 5: I'll see somebody a friend that's on social media say,
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  Speaker 5: and you know, I went to dealership X and I
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  Speaker 5: spent five hours there and it took forever. Well, a
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  Speaker 5: lot of that generally is dictated by your cre it.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, if you're if you're in a better credit position,
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  Speaker 5: it normally takes a less amount of time. But if
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  Speaker 5: if your credit's marginal or you're rebuilding your credit, then
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  Speaker 5: you know there's lenders that are willing to do those loans,
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  Speaker 5: but they're more investigating what's going on, investigating your your income,
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  Speaker 5: your residence history, and that's the things that take time
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  Speaker 5: that you know, people perceive it that the car dealer
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  Speaker 5: is the one that's slowing the deal down, and that's
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  Speaker 5: not because it's bank trying to. They want to make
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  Speaker 5: sure they've they're making the best judgment they can with
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  Speaker 5: the information they can collect, and ultimately we've got to
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  Speaker 5: make them happy because they got to provide the fund, I.
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  Speaker 3: Believe again calling my days doing more igage, just the
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  Speaker 3: stipulations that you would get sometimes from you know, credit grantors.
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  Speaker 4: Then you have to change.
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  Speaker 5: To get somebody from the bloodmobile out here and just
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  Speaker 5: get a sample and here.
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  Speaker 4: What do you need? What do you mean you need
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  Speaker 4: a receipt from three years ago? Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: Exactly, And you just hate making that pun call, but yeah,
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  Speaker 3: that that uh, I definitely see where that comes from.
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  Speaker 3: But we could we could be seeing ourselves in a
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  Speaker 3: little bit better situation going forward. When it comes to
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  Speaker 3: that another thing I wanted to talk about this morning
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  Speaker 3: where you brought it up, and I think it's important
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  Speaker 3: that we do talk about this. You open up a
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  Speaker 3: new purchasing center, right, that's something you guys still do.
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  Speaker 5: Yes, Yeah, we started our first buying center, Auto Buyers
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  Speaker 5: of West Virginia. It's been opened for four years now
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  Speaker 5: in Beckley. We opened one earlier this year in Somersville
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  Speaker 5: and Nicholas County, and last week we just signed a
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  Speaker 5: lease in Tays Valley on Great Tays Boulevard there across
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  Speaker 5: from Kroger. It's in a little strip mall between Penn
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  Speaker 5: Station and CJ's Tobacco. So it's a very good, high
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  Speaker 5: traffic location. And that these these Auto Buyers of West
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  Speaker 5: Virginia stores locations have been received well by the public
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  Speaker 5: because we're not selling anything at these locations. It's just
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  Speaker 5: for people that have a car they would like to sell,
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  Speaker 5: whether it's an extra car. If someone a loved one
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  Speaker 5: has passed away and you need to, you know, get
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  Speaker 5: rid of their assets for their estate, then we do
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  Speaker 5: a lot of that or whatever the case may be.
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  Speaker 5: We buy from businesses that you know, sometimes they buy
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  Speaker 5: and increase their fleets. Sometimes they're in a mode of
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  Speaker 5: you know, hey, we don't need as many vehicles, so
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  Speaker 5: we need to need to fend the fleet down a
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  Speaker 5: little bit. But whatever your situation is, if you have
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  Speaker 5: a vehicle and it doesn't matter whether you still owe
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  Speaker 5: money on the vehicle or if you have a clear title,
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  Speaker 5: we can work all that out and it's a very
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  Speaker 5: easy process. Most transactions are fifteen to twenty minutes, and
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  Speaker 5: if you have a title, you'll leave with a check
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  Speaker 5: within that fifteen to twenty minutes. Or if you have
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  Speaker 5: a payoff and you have equity in your vehicle, you
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  Speaker 5: will leave with a check of that equity within fifteen
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  Speaker 5: to twenty minutes.
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  Speaker 3: If somebody is in a situation where maybe a spouse
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  Speaker 3: died or something like that, and maybe they have a
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  Speaker 3: car that they don't own a ton one, but they
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  Speaker 3: owe a little bit and maybe they don't have equity,
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  Speaker 3: but it would behoove them to get rid of the
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  Speaker 3: monthly payment. Is that something of they agreed to make
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  Speaker 3: the difference up that you guys could also take that
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  Speaker 3: off there.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, we've we've done that a lot lately as we've
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  Speaker 5: talked and you've probably talked with Larry as well. You know,
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  Speaker 5: the ups and downs of the car values. We have
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  Speaker 5: done a lot lately where we're buying a car for
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  Speaker 5: the value that I mean, that's that's what we do too.
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  Speaker 5: I know people think, you know, I don't want to
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  Speaker 5: tell them my payoff. Well, the payoff is irrelevant to us.
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  Speaker 5: We're going to offer you for the car what it's worth,
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  Speaker 5: regardless of what money's owed on it. But lately we
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  Speaker 5: have done a lot of you know, we say it's
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  Speaker 5: a twenty thousand dollars car and they owe twenty five,
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: they'll they'll write us a check for five thousand, so
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  Speaker 5: that way we can finish paying their car off. But
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  Speaker 5: they you know, they, like you said, they eliminate that
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  Speaker 5: debt and that payment and they're happy to have that relief.
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  Speaker 4: So yeah, that's a good option for a lot of people.
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  Speaker 3: I know that you hate to think, oh, you know,
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to be paying money to get rid of
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  Speaker 3: my vehicle, But think about what you're doing with your
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: monthly payments and things like that. I mean, that's sometimes
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  Speaker 3: the sunken cost into something.
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  Speaker 4: If you could just cut the ties with it, you
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  Speaker 4: really want to be better off.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, you see a lot of relief with people
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  Speaker 5: because you know, the payment itself, if the insurance, the taxes,
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  Speaker 5: the maintenance, everything, you know. There you'll see people there,
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  Speaker 5: maybe a little emotionally upset because they've got to pay
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  Speaker 5: that difference. But I think at the end of it,
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  Speaker 5: they're like, man, I can I can breathe now next month,
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  Speaker 5: I don't have to worry about making that eight hundred
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  Speaker 5: dollars payment because this last few years people people bought
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  Speaker 5: and maybe over bought, and then you know, their their
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  Speaker 5: mortgage was on an adjustable rate and that's crept up
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  Speaker 5: and everything else they buy is crept up. So it's
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  Speaker 5: just it's it's a little tricky for some people right now.
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  Speaker 5: We want to be there to help. It's it's very
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  Speaker 5: laid back. We've got three guys. We have a appraisal
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  Speaker 5: specialist at every store, and these are guys that have
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  Speaker 5: been in the auto industry for a long long time.
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  Speaker 5: So it's uh, it's a very easy process and friendly process.
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  Speaker 5: And the offer is good for seven days, so there's
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  Speaker 5: no high pressure of like you've got to you know,
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  Speaker 5: if you leave here now, we're not buying your car tomorrow. Now.
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  Speaker 5: That's nothing could be further from the truth.
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  Speaker 3: Just to share a personal experience when it comes to
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  Speaker 3: something like this, It really do us give you an
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  Speaker 3: extra when you're dealing with professionals. To do something like this,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: it really makes it a lot easier for you. To
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: give an example of something I did recently, we had
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: a vehicle that we were wanting to sell. Didn't have
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: a ton of value, We're just wanting to see what
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: we could get out of us. We put a for
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: sale sign on it and in the space below we
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: just simply put please text, and we had a text
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: number for them to call for inquiries. My wife's at
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: home alone during the day a lot. I didn't want
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: a bunch of people, you know, bothering her while.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: She's at home.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Despite the fact that we put that on there, as
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: soon as we put the for sale sign up, there
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: would be a constant stream of people hammering on our
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: door all the time to inquire about the car. Despite
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: the fact that we're posting a transpans. We had a
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: sign that said please text, with no other information, but
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: they would still come up and bang on the door.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: It was harrowing, and some of the people that would
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: come by weren't folks that I would want my wife
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: talking to without me there necessarily, and it just wasn't
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: a great situation. We eventually took it down. I was like,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: we this isn't a good way to sell our vehicle.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: We ended up going a different route to do it.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: I think it was a pray a little bit on
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: the dilapidated in for me to take it to UH
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: to UH to Steven's Auto. But at the same time,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: that whole situation was something that was not a good
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: experience to go through. If you have the ability to
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: take to somebody like Steven's Auto to to sell your
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: vehicle there instead of people coming to your house and
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: bothering your family and stuff like that, it's really an
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: advantageous thing to do.
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: And as you said, you know the car you had
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: maybe a little little older or whatever.
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: We do everything we.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: Do every d and that's that's you know, we we
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: see that as a service because we you know, we
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: have avenues. That's a car that we're probably not going
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: to keep and put for sale on any of our
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: retail locations, but we still have a whole sale out
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: of where we can you know, we can move that vehicle,
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: still help our customer out by moving that vehicle for
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: them and then we can easily move it out of
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: our inventory to another dealer that that can do something
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: with the vehicle. And the offers are good for seven days.
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: And the people we have at these at these locations,
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: they're all veteran, veteran car car guy, most of them
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: I've worked with my whole life. Just in here thinking
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: about it. Richard Bradley worked with my dad. He's at
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: the buying center in Beckley. He started in the car
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: business in the very early nineties. And Dennis Williams it's
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: in Somersville, started in the business in Beckley in the
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: late eighties. And Scott Barr that'll be running our location
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: in Tay's valley's been in the car business for about
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: twenty five years. So and these three guys lean on
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: each other, they lean on me so just to even
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: taking me out of it. Those three guys they've got
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: one hundred years of experience to you know, they're going
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: to try to find the right money to offer you
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: for your car, and we're you know, we're not. It's
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: no high pressure. Like I said, it's good for seven
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: days and we're not going to try to, like you know,
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: offer you ten and then come up to fifteen, we're
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: going to try to put it all on the table.
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: That's normally what they do. They try to put their
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: best foot forward, and then they might text me and say, hey,
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: will you look at this? Whatever? Is there any more?
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: And I may say, well, you know, you can go
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: another five hundred or but normally it's going to be
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: pretty close to all in. We just try to be
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: as transparent as we can be. Just want to offer
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: a good, good service to people, and it helps us too.
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: I mean a lot of the stuff we buy at
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: the buying centers is they're obviously locally owned because we're
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: buying them right in the community, but they're they're very nice,
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: nice cars that we'd like to have for selling our
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: retail lots.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: So now that's good information and a great service for sure.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: If somebody is interested in this, what's the first steps
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: they need to take? Who do they contact? How they
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: go forward?
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: You can go to our website, auto Buyers of WV
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: dot com and you can get started right there. You
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: can get a get an appraisal on your vehicle, and
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: we're we're gonna make some updates to this website too
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: as we're growing and try to make it easier for
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: people to get a value, maybe auto buyers of West Virginia.
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: I didn't think it was all spelled out there, but
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: it might be.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: I'll find it. That's all right.
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we're at Dale's in the background pulling it up.
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: But it's uh. It's been been a very good, very
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: good venture for us, and we're we're excited to be
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: growing that and continue our growth. You know, we opened
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: I guess I should say reopened Larry Dolson's location there
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: in January as part of the Stevens Group in the
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: Canal Valley and now adding the buying center in Tay's
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: Valley where we're happy to continue our growth in the
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: Canal Valley and service and the folks in the Canal Valley.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: It's a great service and obviously it's a great location
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: as it always has been. Stevens Auto en Nitro located
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: at four eighteen First Avenue South, therefore number three zero
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: four seven two seven zero four six fourth three zero
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: four seven to seven zero four six four our number
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: this morning if you want to talk to Chase this morning,
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: three zero four three four five fifteen fifty eight three
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: zero four three four five fifty eight fifteen. Maybe you're
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: in the market in wanting to sell a vehicle and
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: you have some questions about that, or if you're just
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: looking for a make or a model or something that
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Steven's Auto Group can help you with. You can give
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: us a call this morning and chase compointing the right direction.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Three zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: text three zero four nine three five five zero zero eight.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: We'll take a break. We'll be back right after this.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: You're listening to ask the expert with Steven's Auto of
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Nitro in five edwchs The Boys for Charleston.
• 18:58
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  Speaker 6: zero five.
• 19:28
  Speaker 7: Everyone deserves a break.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: Get your midweek break with us at Working Women's Wednesday.
• 19:32
  Speaker 7: Here's how it works. You decide you need a break
• 19:34
  Speaker 7: and then make it happen. Starting at five pm. Show
• 19:37
  Speaker 7: up for the party at the Red Carpet Lounge.
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: I'll take care of the music and I'll even play
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: your request.
• 19:42
  Speaker 7: I have the games and prizes, the good stuff, fifty
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: dollar gift cards, cupcakes, haircuts and more.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: And the Red Carpet Lounge has your weekly appetizer and
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: drink specials.
• 19:50
  Speaker 7: Bring some of your friends for your midweek break with
• 19:53
  Speaker 7: us five to seven every Wednesday with Working Women's Wednesday
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: at the Red Carpet Lounge.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: You're listening to ask the expert. If you see HS.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: The voice of Charles and Chase Martin is here from
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: Steven's Auto Group. Give us a call if you'd like
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: to find out anything about the audio industry that you
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: have questions about this morning three zero four three four five.
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: Fifty eight fifty eight. You can read along one line.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: If you want to find out about Steven's Auto in Nitro,
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: you can find him online. It's Stevens of Nitro dot com.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: That's really easy to find. Steven's is spelled with a
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Phtevens of Nitro dot com and you can take a
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: look there find all kinds of different informations. You can
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: produce some inventory and find out information about Stevens, which
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: is a large group We've talked about many different Stephen's
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Audios locations, including the new purchasing center that we just
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: talked about a moment ago. If you have a new
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: questions about that, you're welcome to gives a call as well.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Three zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight,
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: three four five fifteen fifty eight. I thought we would
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: talk a little bit. You know, for years years Larry
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Dawson in this spot, we always talked about his bread
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: and butter, as far as the previously owned vehicles in
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: the great selection that he would have and in the
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: city of Nitro. But when people are going out to
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: buy new cars, and as I alluded to earlier, some
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: people do it fairly often every three or four years,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: or they lease cars, and so they're very up to
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: date on everything that's going on. They have somebody they
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: go to a lot, you know, maybe somebody at Stevens
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: that they go to that they have a regular representative
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: that they talk to and very happy with.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: But other folks there might be huge.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Chunks of time in between from the last time they
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: bought a car and the next time that they bought
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: a car. And if you're somebody that's like looking for
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: particular things, and you know you don't want to have
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: like the special sun roof package or the tended windows
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: or the WiFi charging on the dash. You know, these
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: things that are convenient for some but are extra costs
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: to others maybe that they don't necessarily want to pay
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: to Stevens help with that. Like if you came in
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: and said, this is sort of what I'm looking for.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: I like this car, I don't like this level of technology,
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: but I'm comfortable with this level of technology. Can you
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: help them match like a package that works for them
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: on the type that on the models that they're looking at.
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, I think all of our team members do a
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: good job at that. And as we've grown, like you said,
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: with multiple locations, you know, it may not you may
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: be at Nitro and the car you want may be
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: in Princeton, or it may be in Dan o'kill or
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: could be in Somersville, could be at any Stephens location.
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: So that the guys really do work hard to go
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: through and see if we have anything or you know,
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: and then even now that things are changing and we've
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: got more new inventory and rebates and lower financing, that's
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: also something they may look through as to say, hey,
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: we you know know you want used, but we have
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: a new one that you know it does have this
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: rebate and it's what you're looking for. So yeah, we
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: do try to help that. And we've talked before that
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: if you have a CAI or gal at one of
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: the Stevens' locations you like dealing with, you can deal
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: with that person. If you're on the web and you
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: find something at the Chevy store in o'kill, but you
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: buy from Joe and Danville, well you can call Joe
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: and we can make all that work. So you don't
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: Just because you change Steven's locations doesn't mean you have
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: to change your person at Steven's Automotive Group. Whoever, whoever
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: your guy or gal is, they can take care of
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: you no matter what you find at any Stephen store.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: That's a great service too, and that's one of the
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: benefits with dealing with still a local company, but one
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: that has a relatively large enprint footprint, because that means
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: you have more options that you can go to. If
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: you're looking for a car that maybe a slightly different caller,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: different different different package, whatever it might be, you can
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: you can you can test your other locations you can
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: see if they have those, and that's a huge benefit
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: to have rather than dealing one on one.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: Not that the one.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: Dealership, the solo dealership that you go to isn't great
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: and doesn't hasn't helped you in the past, but he
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: just may not be able to get the inventory that
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: you're looking for.
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and it is. It is tough, especially on the
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: used car side. Because I've mentioned before, or one of
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: our NADA consultants she said about a year ago, she said,
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: she said, don't forget that. You know, yesterday's new car
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: shore tomorrow's used car shortage. And we are seeing that
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: there's a lot of a lot of what would be
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: least turn ins that normally come in. Say you leased
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: a car for three years, well that would have been
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: you know, late summer of twenty one. Well that's when
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: the world ran out of cars. So those lease turn
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: ins aren't there. I mean there is a few out
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: there because there was still some cars available, but they're
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: not trickling in like like we're custom to see in
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: them come. So sometimes it is a little tricky to
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: find that nice especially two, three, four, five year old
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: car that you may be looking for. So just gotta
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: be open to maybe something different or a little patient, But.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, patients definitely will tend to pay off or to
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: be you know, not dead set.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: And what it is that you're looking for.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Another thing that we see that happens every once in
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: a while, and I think that that Steven's Auto and
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: does a good job of things like this. But there's
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: a lot of companies that are sort of fly by
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: night type companies that will sell previously use vehicles and
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: you'll see these great deals and they look like fantastic cars.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: Well, a lot of people don't know.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: And of course some people offer the car vons and
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: stuff or the carfaxes and stuff like that to one purchases.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: But you know, if you're just looking to get a
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: good deal, sometimes you can make a mistake by getting
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: something that was in like a flood or a fire,
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: or that that's some sort of a reclean damage vehicle
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: that looks good on the outside and it's being sold
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: at a really good deal. Sometimes it's if you've been
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: shopping around and suddenly you come across a deal that's
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: too good to be true. There's likely a reason that
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: that's too good to be true.
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: There is and we see that. It's a little harder
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: in West Virginia with titling lawls, but Kentucky gets somewhat
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: easy to kind of wash the history and the titling
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: of a bad vehicle. And we see some customers from
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: Kentucky that'll come and they'll have a nice vehicle. But
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: like you said, we'll pull a history report and it's
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: been you know, a deemed a total loss by an
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: insurance company, or it's been in a severe accident with
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: all airbags deployed and frame damage or unibody damage. And
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: they're like, well, the you know, the the guy we
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: bought it from said they just ran over a dog.
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: Or I'm like, well that, you know, that sounds good,
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: that's probably not what happened. So it's you can find
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: yourself on the on the losing end of that. And
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: and cars like that we don't we don't full with,
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: we don't even keep if they've got a history that's
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: that's that bad. They're automatically going to the auction. We
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: ran Friday. Uh, we ran all the stores the cars
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: that we that we didn't want to keep. That's what
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: we do. Every two weeks. There's cars that we look
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: at and we know immediately we're not keeping. There's cars
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: that we would like to keep that we do try
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: to put through the service departments in one of the locations,
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: and and we go through these things pretty pretty rigorously
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: because we we want to offer a good product and
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: when you buy that product, we don't want you to
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: have trouble with it. So if there's trouble or it
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: looks like there's going to be trouble and there's not
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: enough money that we have in the vehicle for us
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: to fix it, it's gone. It's we're not keeping that vehicle.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: And that's another great benefit for working and it's such
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: a great sweet spot that when you're talking about stevens Audogroup,
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: you're talking about.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: A local company.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: It's here in West Virginia, but it has a big
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: enough footprint for the business of economics to make sense.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: And with these smaller companies, they have to turn around
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: a profit on one of these cars that they buy
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: that may end up being a salvage vi or not salvage,
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: but a vehicle that was in a complete loss or
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: in a flood or something like that, because that's just
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: all that they're doing, and so they have to find
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: a way to turn that around. With the with the
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: economy of scale that you have at a place like
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: at a place like Steven's Auto Group, you have the
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: ability to know that that's not a car that you
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: want to put your name to. So although that's gotten
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: into your your ecosystem in some way, shape or form,
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: you have a way to get rid of that. So
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: you don't attach it to a customer. You know, you
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: can get it out in another way. Other companies can't
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: do that because they can't afford to take that loss.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And so that's another reason. It's it's a level of
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: professionalism from your local representatives here that's going to help
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: you from getting into one of those types of vehicles.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: And that's a very important level of safety.
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and you get the nail on the head. I mean,
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: our reputation is I won't say it's the best, but
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: I'd say it's pretty sterling. You know, my business art
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: to Richard Stevens, they've the Mothership World Headquarters as he
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: calls it in Dan Well that that company is almost
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: one hundred years old, wow, ninety years old this year.
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: So you know, we take our reputation very seriously. So
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: if it's something that's questionable, something that we don't feel
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: comfortable with selling to the public. We're just not going
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: to do it. We're not going to not going to
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: risk our reputation. We're not going to risk to make
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: a customer unhappy. I mean, and you know, that's just
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: the nature of the business. We'll still have a vehicle
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: that we go through from front to back, recondition, clean,
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: put on a lot and you know, two or three
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: weeks it may have some little issue, but then we
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: still try to I mean, we're not just going to
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: say sorry, Dale, it's it's all on you. We're going
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: to try to try to make that right. You know,
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: any any little issue we have to keep, keep the
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: customer happy, keep our reputation good. As we've talked about before,
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: we're in this for the long term. It's not just
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: short term. You bought your car today, have a have
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: a good life, right, We're we're in it for the
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: long haul. That's something too that we we've talked about
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: and it's come to fruition. Finally, our mobile service van
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: at our store in Danvill it did come in about
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: two weeks ago and that that baby's on the road.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: That's a great service so it'splain what that is again
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: on just a little bit, because I think that's really neat.
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: I'm excited. I wish I need to bring Gary Blackburn
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: or service director with me one morning, because there's nobody
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: that's more passionate about it than him. But we've got
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: a van from Ford Motor Company, a transit van, and
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: it's fully came in, fully equipped to do mobile service
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: on your vehicle. So if if you have a recall,
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: if you need an oil change. I mean we can't
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: put a transmission in mobile or a motor right kind
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: of going to do heavy duty mechanical work. But but
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: a lot of things can be done with this van,
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: and it can be done where you're at it at
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: your at your work, at your home. It's it's very exciting.
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: We've we've already done I think they told me about
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: two or three dozen mobile appointments.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: That's really cool.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: If you think about most most people that have in
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: ssurants have like a glass replacement where the glass people
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: will come out to your work, your home or office whatever,
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: switch out your your broken class.
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: It's a great service. They've been offering that for a
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: long time.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: Take that, but imagining it for something that's that's more
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: maintenance oriented, something that you can have done in that regard.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: That is a wow man. I mean, that's really a service.
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: It's a game changer and we're we're excited to offer
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: this and if any of the listeners are interested, this
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: is at our store day and we'll phone number three
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: O four three six nine twenty four eleven. You can
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: get to the service department, talk to Gary Chris Adam
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: or one of the other advisors and they'll get you
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: taken care of. I know they're you know, it is rural,
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: so I know they're trying to look into maybe scheduling,
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: like you know, one day we'll be here. One day
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: we'll be there, so kind of make a make a
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: centralized place for people to come that need some some
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: mobile work on their vehicle. But and the recalls are
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: big too. You know you get yea postcards in the mail.
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: You know, hey, your your radio needs updated. Well, you
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: know we can do that mobilely. Think of all the
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: recalls Ford has now we can do about seventy percent
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: of those mobiles. So that makes it nice. It's just
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: the way the world is. My wife is Walmart Plus
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: and Amazon prim I mean we get stuff our door
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: all absolutely me too. I can get my car service.
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: I don't have to leave my house or I don't
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: have to leave my place of employment. I can you'll
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: just come to me. Wow, that's awesome, Sign me up.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think that's a great point. That's
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: absolutely true and gives you. It gives you a for
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: somebody that is on the customer end of that. It
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: really helps you plan out your day or whatever you
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: need to do. As somebody, I'm right now just overwhelmed
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: with things that I have to get done that are
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: time sensitive places I have to be or phone calls
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: I have to make where I don't have that option
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: where I can, you know, have somebody come to me
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: for it. So I got a busy day ahead of
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: me because of this. But if you have a busy
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: day like that and you have some kind of service
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: that's being done where it's coming to you, it suddenly
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: just makes things a lot easier and you feel a
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: lot better about that kind of thing when it comes
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: down to it.
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: And it could be warranty work, customer pay, you know,
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: changes like I said, And I think they're working too
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: where they can maybe be able to do some because
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: we have christ or Dodge jeep Ram in that store too,
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: so I think they may be able to do some
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: some of those recalls. Some of that warranty work as
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: well mobilely, So it's the possibilities are end lists, and
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: I can tell you with Gary Blackburn, our service director,
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: if there's a if you want it done, and there's
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: a way he can get it done, He's going to
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: make it happen. So just give those guys a call
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: if you have a need. I think it'd be a
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: great experience. I know for me, I mean I don't.
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: I think about it differently because I go to a
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: car dealership every day, so you know, I have to
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: put my customer hat on and think, well, I don't
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: go to a if I didn't go to a car
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: lot every day, and you would come to me and
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: service my car man's that's an no brainer. Sign.
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah right, there's no doubt about that.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: We're wrapping up the conversation this morning, about four minutes
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: left with Chase Bartin from Steven's Auto Group. You can
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: give us a call this morning three zero four three
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: four five fifteen fifty if you want to direct the conversation.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: Three zero four three four five fifty to fifty.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: We talked a little bit about how we're there's an
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: expected interest rate cut today. If folks are in the
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: market for maybe looking at newer vehicles, it might be
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: a better time than what it's been in the recent
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: past for you to take a look at those. And
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: I was I'd recently helped my mom with with some
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: shopping for a car, and uh, man, I gotta tell
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: you what. There is a lot of you know, people
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: hear about the the really uh newsworthy additions to be
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: you know, we talk about like the AI and the
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: self driving and electric vehicles and different things like that
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: that you hear about all the time. But man, all
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: cars now have so many nice modern conveniences that have
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: been tucked into them that make that make the purchase
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: after you get the car, that make it's it's like
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: having a suite of your own a lot of the times.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's incredible the little things that we look
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: at now. And I have to admit that in a
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: previous life where I rented a lot of vehicles, the
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: one thing that I noticed before there was a little
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: bit more equity, was that cars like Toyota and things
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: like that paid a little bit more attention to details.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: You know, they were like little things that you would see,
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: like a built in seatbelt expander.
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: I mean, like little things.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: That you would see that took their brand a little
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: bit above and beyond. But that was like twenty years ago.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Everybody is sort of at that periody level now, and man,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: cars just have so many neat features when you're buying
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: a new car now that you get that really make
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: the driving experience a lot different and a lot better
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: in a lot of ways.
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there's the It seems like we get more and
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: more as the years go on, the things that used
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: to be maybe optional or not available or almost standard now.
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: I got a email from Chrysler yesterday from Jeep and actually,
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: starting with the twenty five model year, all the Jeep
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: Wranglers will have power windows and power door locks, which
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: is something just the way the Wranglers are in their
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: outdoor nature. I figured there would always be a window wrangler,
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: but no more so. Even all your Jeep Wranglers will
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: have power windows and locks now. But yeah, and you know,
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: if you haven't bought a new vehicle in five, eight, ten,
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: if it's further than ten, yeah, you get in a
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: new car, and it's really going to be a mind
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: blowing experience. All the all the technology, all the safety features,
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: all the added extras that you get. And still, you know,
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: some things are more expensive than other's, but a lot
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: of manufacturers have done a nice job of tucking all
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: that in. It's still a pretty good price in today's economy.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what I noticed as well.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: And there's just you know, I used to I used
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: to take care of a lot of business class customers
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: that did a lot of driving, you know, where they'd
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: be on the road for eight or ten hours a day,
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: basically living out of their car and stuff like that.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: And this was, however long ago, it was now almost
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: twenty years ago where I was dealing with that, and
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: people were folks that were career travelers, had very specific
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: things that they wanted to see laid out in the
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: car that they that they would get. They wouldn't want
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: to see particular layout for where their power supplies could
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: plug in and things like that. All of that stuff.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: There's so many options now. I mean, there's power supplies everywhere,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: there's direct USB connections, there's this like wireless charging that
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: where you just have to have your vehicle laying on
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: where your phone or whatever it is laying on.
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: The dash, and it will charge.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of convenient issues, not just for your
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: daily commute traveler that you know drives thirty minutes to
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: go to work or something like that, but for your
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: salespeople and your reps that are on the road all
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: the time and stuff like that. You can get yourself
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: basically a cossa out there to drive around in. That's
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: going to make your job a little bit more pleasant.
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the wireless charging, the Apple car Play, Android Auto,
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: the powerlift gate, a lot of the safety features like
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: the blind spot monitors. That's what we see people mostly
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: interested in. Remote starts another big one. We're coming up
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: on on winter time again, so that's a that's a
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: big one for people. Heated seats is a big one
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: for people.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: I like them.
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I definitely like them. I like a cold
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: seat too.
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: Too, person. Yeah, yeah, I like the cold seats, that's
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: for sure.
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: They got to pick one of the other. So that's
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: where me and my wife would split. She'd still want
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: the heated seat.
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: I'd probably take the I think I would agree with you.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: I would like those really hot days on a leather seat,
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: and I'll turn on that.
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: For an hour or two and you can fire that up.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, another like if you're a salesperson driving around
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: one hundred degree heat all the time, no.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: Doubt about it. Got to wrap up the show, all
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: kinds of great information. Did they go ahead?
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: Get one thing in for Larry. Larry Dawson told me
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: to make mention the five k running walk in Buffalo,
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: West Virginia on September twenty eighth. You can contact Mary
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: Rains for more information. Three oh four five four six
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: zero seven six three good stuff.
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: So can't can't forget lay, can't forget that, Chase. We
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: appreciate that.
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Stevens Auto, Stephens Auto in Nitro you can find out
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: more information. One line is Stevens of Nitro dot com
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: three zero four seven two seven zero four six four
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: seven two seven zero four six four and also Stephens
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Auto dot com for the entire sabang Stephens Auto dot com.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: And we got to get out of here. Have a
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: great day everyone. That was Chase Martin for Stevens Auto.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: I'm del Cooper. Coming up next is Dave Allen on
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: five eighty live. This is five adw c HS.
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: The voice of Charleston.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Fighting E w C and J s A L thirty
• 37:46
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• 37:48
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• 37:53
  Speaker 2: live here too,