Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 07-17-2024 Ask the Expert with Chase Barton of Stephens Auto of Nitro

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07-17-2024 Ask the Expert with Chase Barton of Stephens Auto of Nitro · WCHS Network Podcasts

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this program do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight WCCHS it's
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employees or WVRC Media and very plus it. Good morning to you. You
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are listening to ask the expert WCHS the Voice of Charleston. I'm Del Cooper.
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Thanks so much for tuning in on this Wednesday morning here in the state
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of West Virginia, the city of Charleston. Joining in studio this morning,
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it's Chase Martin from Stephen's Auto Group Stephens of MIITRO. Good morning, Chase.
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How you doing this morning. I'm Wildale, Good morning and thanks for
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having me well, thank you for coming in. I appreciate you taking some
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time to come in this morning talking a little bit about the auto industry.
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I always enjoy having the conversation and this day and age, because at one
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point in time. As we've talked about on this program. Before I was
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in the I was in the rental car business, and I got to see
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new models all the time. You know. It was one of the benefits
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with being in the businesses new models would roll in, we would add them
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to our inventory and and to our fleet. You got to drive him around
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a little bit, poke around in the new cars, learn some of the
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ascendant technology and stuff as it was being put in. I remember when Prius's
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first came out. That was actually when I was in the industry. Is
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when priuses first became kind of a thing, and for the high rids and
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stuff like that. And it's an interesting times. And we've really gotten into
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interesting times with vehicles and things now. These things are so well made and
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the different makes and models that are out there. But I find it interesting.
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I think that talking about those things are very interesting. So I am
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looking forward to doing that a little bit more today. Absolutely, And if
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you have any questions out there, you could have questions about anything. Maybe
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you have questions about it previously owned vehicle, you're looking to get into a
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business, a little bit about maybe trading something in, or you're looking for
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a new car, you have questions about service on ale, you've bought anything
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along those lines, we can try to help you out this morning. Chase
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compoint in the right direction. If nothing else, you give us a call
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three zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. Three zero four,
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three four five fifty eight fifty eight. Stevens Auto of Nitro is located at
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four eighteen First Avenue South in Nitro, West Virginia. We'll get more information
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out about them as we go on today. I don't want to confuse all
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the phone numbers for you, so you can call us this morning at three
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zero four, three four five fifty eight fifty eight, and you can also
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text over any questions you have to three zero four nine three five five zero
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zero eight. If you call, you can give a shout out to Antoine.
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He's answering the phones over there, and we'll get you hooked up with
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us right away. When the last time that Chase was in here a couple
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weeks ago, we were starting to go around the location in Nitro and talk
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about some of the folks that you have over there and some of the things
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the people. Capital is such an important thing in any industry, and the
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radio industry and the car industry. It doesn't matter. The capital that we
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invest in our people is the most important thing that we have in our businesses.
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And you feel that the same way about your staff that you have at
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your various locations. Oh definitely. It's quite incredible when I get to thinking
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about it, because we have one employee at our Chevy store in o'kill.
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Next week, on the twenty second of July, he'll have been there for
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fifty years. It's incredible, that's right. Yeah, I mean I just
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don't it's kind of it's not totally unheard of, but it's very rare that
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that happens anymore. And I don't know that that's something that we'll see again
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because people, just the younger generation seems to want to bounce around a little
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bit and they don't have that longevity. But he's been there fifty years.
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And then our other managers, I think about all the experience they have.
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You know, Mitchell Workman that works in that store, on our sales managers
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over forty years of experience. We've got a couple of other sales managers with
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over thirty years of experience, Phil quatron In Beckley and Richard Bradley at our
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buying center in Beckley. So you know when you come into our stores,
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that's what makes the biggest differences. These people are heavily invested in our business
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and they've been around for a long time and they you know, they didn't
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end up staying around because they weren't any good or take advantag of people.
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That's because they want to do the right thing. They want to be part
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of the community. They want to take care of people and make things happen
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for them. So that's that's that's I think what sets us apart from a
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lot of other dealerships is are people and any anybody that's been in business and
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I know that you know this Chase and folks out there engaging in any area
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where you where customer service or contact or something is required. When you have
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somebody that's loyal to your company, and I mean just from a professional standpoint,
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but when you work somewhere long enough, you create relationships within the company.
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People become friends there, You do after work gatherings whatever it might be,
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Christmas parties, things like that. But when you get baked into that
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culture enough, what happens is is not only are you doing your job very
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well, and you want to do your job very well, but because you
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have your family that's with you there, your your work family that's with you
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there, you're doing your job well for everyone. And that kind of loyalty
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and that kind of of dedication that you have with a work staff really can
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propel a job forward when you have people that are really dedicated in there and
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they're you know, rising tide lifts all boats. You know, when somebody's
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really working hard because it's not only just for them, it's for their work
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family that they're working for. That makes a huge difference a lot of the
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time. It does because you know, it's not it's not bankers hours.
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In the car business, we do work a lot of hours, so it
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very much is. I think it's always a work family no matter where you're
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at. But the added amount of hours these guys and gals are spending together,
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you know, fifty to sixty maybe, you know, if it's really
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busy and they're working some late nights, could be sixty five or seventy hours
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a week. So yeah, they get in and they want to take care
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of each other. And on the flip side of that, we've got some
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great young talent that's with us now that you know, you got to kind
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of look to the future. So we've got a set of twins at our
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store in Danvill that's running that store now, Justin and Dustin Tilly, and
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they're really doing an outstanding job. And Matt Workman and Princeton. He's got
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some experience, but he's about my age, so he's he's young too,
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So it's great to see some of the young guys that do want to step
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up and try to help us take the business to the next level. Tannis
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Walker and finance and Brent West in finance. We've we've just got a lot
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of great people and that's when you come to our stores. That's what you'll
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find makes the biggest difference. Since these people are invested, they do want
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to take care of the dealership and take care of the customers. So it's
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a I think it's a more relaxed experience when you come to our stores.
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We want to sell you a vehicle, but it's never high pressure or smoking
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mirrors or any of this crazy stuff that some people think they have to do.
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It's all all above board, and you know, we want to be
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very transparent in what we do you know, the car industry's changed a lot
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in the last couple of decades. And not that there was anything ever,
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anything that was wrong or different, but there used to be this sense that
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you created a spectacle a little bit to bring people, to get people into
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your lot, and different things like that, and and and then there was
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there was this idea anyway from the consumer out there, from from the perspective
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buyer of the process you had to go through to buy a car, you
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know, and it was baked into pop culture Al Bundy, you know,
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taking you know, Kelly to go buy a car, and you know,
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well, just watch how I negotiate, and you know, there's all these
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tricks to negotiating and never say this or never give into this, or never
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accept the first. A lot of this stuff is really kind of pass a
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at this point, you know. I mean, pricing options are a lot
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easier to come up with. Financing is kind of I mean, there's so
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many financing options that nobody's going to try to pull one over wing you.
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You would get exposed too easily because there's too many different options out there.
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We can be like, what do you mean that this is what you're doing?
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I've already got thirty seven other offers. It tells me they can do
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this. Nobody's really trying to do those things anymore so in my impress And
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it's probably always been like this, or I know that it's always been like
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this. But once you buy from someone, if you come to if you
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come to a Steven's Auto anywhere at any of your locations, and you find
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a representative that you're comfortable with that you buy from. And sure, we
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don't buy cars, you know, necessarily depending on how big your family is,
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we not made up buy cars yearly, but it's certainly something that we
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do several times during the course of our adult life. It can really behoos
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someone to hook up with a salesperson in the industry that they trust and they
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like, and they go back to each time that they're looking to get a
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car. And when I was growing up, that was sort of the thing.
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You knew the guy at the Ford place or at the Chevy place or
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wherever, and when you were interested to get your car, hey, you
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would give old Roger a calling. You would go down there and talk to
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him a little bit, and Roger usually would have a good deal for you.
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Somewhere along the line, somewhere along the ways where we started getting everything
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on line and shopping everything around and making it so impersonal. Suddenly having that
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I don't want to call him a friend, but having that contact that you
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went to when you were ready to get your car. We've kind of lost
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that a little bit, and I think that that's something that we really could
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get some value in again, is finding that person that we have that relationship
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with and just keep on going back to him. Yes, it makes a
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big difference. And we've got a lot of long term salespeople too. Actually
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at the Nitro store that we got from Larry Dawson, Larry Summy that works
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there. He's been in that Nitro area in the car business probably for forty
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years. He's been with Larry Dawson for almost twenty years. We have a
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salesperson at the Chevy store, Rick Hogan, been there twenty five years.
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What an excellent job he does. He calls himself part time. I call
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him almost like music three quarter time. Maybe he's there more than half half
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part time, but you know, he he does get those calls like hope,
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it's time to buy a new saw, Rick, and he wants to
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be there to take care of him. He's invested in them and their kids
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are grandkids now depending on their age. But it does make a big difference.
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And something I think about when you say all that. You know people,
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you know, they get online and maybe they find a car wherever,
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you know in Ohio and it's three hundred dollars cheaper. Well is it is
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it really worth your time to save three hundred dollars? And then you know
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the investments we make in the community. I mean, you buy a car
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there, they're not investing in your local little league team, your high school
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football teams, other things that we that we do and donate to. You're
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hiring local people. I mean yeah, so you know people should you know?
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I mean, you've got to do what's best for you and your family
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always, but you should make a more point to try to keep your business
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focal, even if it's not with us. Try to shop local, be
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local. We do that we even on a business and personal level level.
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Myself, if we need something at the dealership, I need something done at
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my home. The first thing I always look to is is there someone in
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this line of work that does business with us? Because that's who I want
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to do business with. Yeah, just try to you know, make it
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a two way street. It's it's funny the way that we try to save
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time in our lives. And there's plenty of different things of technology and different
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things out there that certainly you can use to save time in your life.
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But one of the things, an analogy that I'll kind of draw is,
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you know, a lot of the fast food and restaurants and stuff have tried
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to move everything onto their app. You know, you go to the app
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and you order and you can get you know, a discount off of this,
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and you know, they're trying to expediate what they're doing, enable tracking
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and different things like that that helps their business. And I don't have a
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problem with that stuff. I mean, if it works, it works,
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it's not a big deal. But sometimes what would happen. I don't do
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a lot of fast food, but a couple of times a week, maybe
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my wife will be like, hey, why don't you grab this or whatever
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it might be, and ever since the app things rolled out, I would
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be like, oh, Like I would be leaving and I would get this
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text like why don't you get this? And I would stop in my car
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and bring up the app, and I would place the order on my phone
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on my app before driving to the place and picking it up. And it
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was like every time that this would happen to be like, man, it's
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already twelve thirty and I'm home for lunch. I got to turn around and
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leave as soon as I as soon as we get on eating. And it
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was simply because and I've changed this habit now, like you can still go
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to the place and just order you know, you know, you don't you
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don't have to use the app, And it's actually a lot quicker if I'm
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getting that on my way to the place, to just go there and order.
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I mean, maybe I'll miss out on a deal. If you're canny
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enough you can figure out how to use those things drive up to. But
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it really is worth my time to save the twenty minutes from sitting in my
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car and you know, placing the order exactly as it would just to drive
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over there and order the thing off of the you know, off the screen
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on my phone. So sometimes I think that we're so enamored with doing the
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new thing and the thing that's supposed to that's supposed to be quicker, that
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we forget that the old way of doing things sometimes works as good, if
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not better. Yeah, and that's big with buying a car, because you
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can I mean, even with our stores, you can do a lot of
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the process online, but there's certain things like you just can't. We can't
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program everything online to be every every offer, every scenario that of a seasoned
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veteran salesperson knows. You know, you come in and they may have different
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options. If you just look online, it may not be good. But
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if you go into the into the dealership and one of the salespeople says,
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oh, well, you know Ford has this rebate, but we can drop
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this thousand dollars rebate and you can get a zero percent financing's it's hard to
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program all that online. It's hard and even if you can, sometimes it's
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hard for the customer to be able to read through all that online. There's
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just it gets so busy, and I think the customer feels overwhelmed at some
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point. So there is still and we do both because we want to meet
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customers wherever they're at. We want to take care of them the way they
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want to buy. But I think there is a lot of value it's still
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coming into dealership and you know, getting advice from a seasoned professional that's on
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our team, the human equity that's involved there, and also just knowing what
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you can do. I'll take the food analogy one more step, just because
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I think it pretty much works. You know, during COVID, especially,
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all these places with deliveries and stuff like that were becoming very popular, and
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maybe there was a restaurant you went to all the time. Every time you
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went to that restaurant, you had a certain modification made on a dish that
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they didn't mind doing. They did it for you every time you came there,
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and that's the way you like your dish. Well, when you go
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to the you know the order app and you want to order that dish,
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it doesn't have that option to make to make the customization. All. That's
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frustrating, And it's frustrating because you know that they'll do it, you know
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that it's their thing, but there's no way to actually put it on there.
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There's no com and you could put the comment at the bottom and hope
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that they see it maybe, but they probably won't. So that's to me,
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that's almost a direct analogy. If you picked up the phone and made
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the phone call, you could have your problem resolved in no time. You
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know, it's because you're relying on that technology that it kind of limits your
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options. And it could work that way in the car industry as well.
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Just looking online, you don't know what options you're missing from not talking to
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a human, right, Yeah, they're you know, aside from the deals.
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You know, if you're looking at a used car, you know,
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maybe there's as good a deal or a very comparable deal on a brand new
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car. Or maybe if you're looking at a new car, maybe we just
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took a pre owned one end that has five thousand miles that can save you
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another you know, three or four thousand dollars. They're just there's so many
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variables that that can't be seen and can't program. Customer would be hard to
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understand, so that it's always a better value to come in and or you
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know, even like you said, pick the phone up. I mean,
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all these stores still have telephones and you can still call the door, you
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know, you can, you know, you can start online, you can
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start on the phone, and then you can come into the store and finish
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everything up. And that's the other thing too, was we're doing a lot
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of a lot of home deliveries or business deliveries. You know, if you
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if you do everything over the phone or online and you don't want to come
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to the store, you just want to have your car deliver to you.
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We're doing a lot of that, and we've touched on before. We're doing
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a lot of pick up and delivery for service. You know, if you
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need service work done on your vehicle, we're doing a lot of this at
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our store in Danvill. Gary Blackburn is spearhead in that. So if you've
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got a Ford or christ or Digity Braman needs warranty work or just maintenance work
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on any vehicle, you can call the guys in Danvil. They'll get you
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on the schedule. They'll come pick your vehicle up and bring it back to
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you and it's no extra charge to any customer. I got to tell you
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that convenience. Yeah, I don't know at what level that that's in the
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industry, how unique that is. That is a fantastic service because when you're
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somebody that's a working parent, a single parent, you're just in a situation
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where getting a ride. I had to get a ride to work this morning,
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as a matter of fact, getting a ride somewhere and then sometimes getting
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a ride like two work isn't that big of a deal. But if you
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have your car like a dealership or something, maybe getting then to the dealership
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is a bigger deal, you know, getting over there. So having that
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level of service where you'll actually get the car and then bring it back,
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Holy cow, man, I mean for real, that is pretty amazing.
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Talked to a customer yesterday and he was he bought a new Ranger from US.
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He lives in Beckley and he says he called. I won't mention who
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he called, but he's called to see how much an oil change was for
16:07
my Ranger because I'm getting close. And he said, I told him they
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were crazy. He said, I called your store and it was you know,
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almost half priced. And I said, well that's good. I said,
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did they mention to you that they'll pick your Ranger up and service and
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bring it back to He said, no way, they'll do that, and
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I was like absolutely. I was like, when you're ready, call Gary,
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I'll take care of you. And he was, you know, super
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thrilled because it's you know, coming from Beckley to Danvill. You got a
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you know, a two and a half hour roughly round trip to add to
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the hour to hour and a half you're going to sit and wait on the
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oil change and tire rotation. So to save somebody four hours out of their
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day, that's that's incredible. Yeah, that's incredible. And in fact,
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when I was in the rental car industry, one of the places that I
16:45
worked at had a satellite office that was in a Cadillac dealership, and the
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Cadillac dealership would would provide that service for their for their clients, but it
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was considered high level concierge service. I mean, they were well known for
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this service where they would drive you. I mean that was kind of what
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we did too, of course, but they were well known for dropping their
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customers off delivering cars after the service was done. It was not every dealership
17:07
that did that, and it was like one of it was in their commercials.
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It was like that was their like high level catilloc level of concierge service
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that they would provide for their clientele. You're talking about you just that's just
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what you do at all your locations. And that's pretty amazing to me because
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that was seriously one of their things that they hung their hat on was this
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our service is so good. We'll bring you your car. We don't care
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if you're in Deerfield or in Grand Rapids, We'll get it taken care of.
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And those are you know, a couple hours away if you're in Lansing.
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So that's that's an incredible level of service. And the amount of time
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that you can save somebody on that is really something else. It is and
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I think that you know, people always say, you know, we'll go
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the extra mile for that. Literally is going the extra mile to quite literally
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yeah, yeah, to help your customer. So that that's you know,
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as we've talked before, that's what we always want to do is kind of
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almost customers for life. We want to have people purchase vehicles from our dealership,
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get service with our dealership, and we want to be here today,
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tomorrow, next year, ten years from now. We want to continue to
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take care of these folks and our families and all their automotive needs. That's
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great information from Chase Barton. We're going to be here this morning until nine
18:12
o'clock. You're welcome to give us a call if you have any questions about
18:15
the auto industry. Maybe a previously owned vehicle that you're looking into a trade
18:18
in you're looking for. You want to ask questions about a new car,
18:22
anything that has to do with the industry, you won't give us a call
18:25
this morning, and Chase will do his best to answer the question for you.
18:26
Three zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. Three zero four
18:30
three four five fifty eight fifty eight. The phone number four Stephens of Nitro
18:34
is three zero four seven two seven zero four six four three zero four seven
18:37
two seven zero four six four. You can find out more information online at
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Stevens of Nitro dot com Stephens on Nitro dot com located at four eighteen First
18:45
Avenue South in Nitro, West Virginia. We'll take a break and we'll come
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back after this. We've talked about service a little bit leading up to this
18:51
break, and I want to revisit a subject that we touched on just a
18:53
little bit last time. I just want to talk about how reliable these vehicles
18:56
are. I was lamenting a little bit this morning to Jenkins about how I
19:00
kind of miss, you know, sort of the the greasy days of climbing
19:03
underneath the hood and doing some work on the car and stuff like that.
19:07
That's romanticized just a little bit because there was a really good reason why maybe
19:10
we don't have to do that quite as much anymore. And I want to
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get into that a little bit when we come back. You can control the
19:15
conversation as well. Give us a call three zero four three four five fifty
19:17
to fifty eight, three four five fifty eight fifty. We're going to take
19:19
a break and be back right after this. Chase Bartner is here from Steven's
19:22
Auto Group, Stephens Auto of Nitro. Give us a call this morning three
19:25
zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight and then we'll be back after
19:27
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Log on to bank Atcity dot com. It's been a quiet morning,
20:44
no accidents, major issues to tell you about. We did have a report
20:48
of some debris in the roadway I sixty four east my marker fifty eight.
20:51
That's going to be somewhere in the vicinity of the Ugena Carter Fort Hill Bridge
20:55
and starting at nine o'clock this morning, the slow lane both east and westbound
20:59
will be closed on Route sixty one underneath the Oakwood Bridge. The closure is
21:03
nine and three pm for bridge maintenance. In for Chapel, I'm Jenny Murray
21:08
in the WCHS Network traffic studio you're listening to. That's the expert this morning,
21:26
Bob at w c HS. The Voice of Charleston in studio with me
21:29
this morning is Chase Martin from Stevens of Nitro. You can give us a
21:32
call this morning three zero four three four five fifty eight fifty. You can
21:33
find out more about Stephen's online at Stephens of Nitro dot com, Stevens of
21:37
Nitro dot com or Stephens Autogroup dot com. Right is the main address stephens
21:41
Autogroup dot com. You can find all the different locations where all do you
21:44
have locations at Chase. So we're spread all throughout southern West Virginia and the
21:48
coal fields. The world headquarters where I'll started as Danville, West Virginia.
21:53
That's christ for Dodge, G bram Ford and pre owned. We have a
21:57
new Chevy store and they also sell used cars on Main Street and o'keell,
22:02
and we have a Mitsubishi store that also sells pre owned vehicles in Princeton,
22:07
West Virginia and Mercer County. Then we have pre owned only stores in Beckley,
22:11
Nitro and Somersville. And then our other business that's complementary to this,
22:17
as Auto Buyers of West Virginia. We have a location in Beckley in Somersville,
22:21
and that's a location that's very customer friendly. They just buy cars,
22:25
so if you have a need to sell car, there's no pressure to buy
22:27
anything or trade it for anything. We'll just look at your car, make
22:30
you a cash offer on it. That's great and that's great information. Once
22:33
again, Chase Bart is here from Stevens. I see Stevens Auto Group and
22:37
give us a call this morning. Three zero four three four five fifteen fifteen
22:40
text over questions three zero four nine three five five zero zero eight three z
22:42
are four nine three five five zeroser eight. I'm going to talk a little
22:45
bit about service here in this segment, and also I'm going to revisit just
22:49
talking about the value of having a car dealership nearby to you, because I
22:55
don't know about you, but I get a little squeamish at the idea of
22:57
buying something sight unseen. There could be a video of it and a million
23:00
pictures of it online. If I don't sit in that seat and feel what
23:03
that car feels around me, I don't know. I don't know how people
23:07
do. And I want to talk about that a little bit here in a
23:08
few minutes as well. But I didn't want to talk a little bit about
23:11
service on these vehicles, because obviously you guys provide service. These cars require
23:15
service these days. And one of the great benefits you know, we talk
23:18
about, you know, purchasing your vehicles and having the great relationships and stuff,
23:22
But one of the benefits to going through a great dealerships like Steven's Auto
23:25
is like service departments. You know that that is a benefit that comes along
23:27
with the dealership that you choose to go with. You know, that's part
23:30
and parcel of what you get when when you're doing business with an auto dealership.
23:36
And you know, it used to be you know, when I was
23:37
growing up, you know, I learned how to change the oil in my
23:41
car at a relatively early age. I had the tracking ledger in my glove
23:45
box, you know, where I tracked my mileage and when I changed my
23:48
oil, and every three thousand miles, I would, you know, get
23:51
I would get the lifts up and drive my car up on the lifts,
23:53
change the oil and do all those things. Not that there's anything wrong with
23:57
you know, people that like to change their own oil or things like that.
24:00
But the three month, three thousand mile thing isn't really a thing anymore.
24:03
I mean, as far as manufacturers are concerned, it could be anywhere
24:07
from four six. I don't know if it goes farther than six or some
24:10
of them eight now, I don't know. I mean with the synthetic oils,
24:12
the quality of the engines, in the way these things are built anymore,
24:15
and tune ups, remember I don't know. I carried a little gager
24:18
on my keychain, you know. And if the car was misfiring a little
24:22
bit and you needed to change the gap of your spark plugs a little bit,
24:23
you know, you got in there and you wedge that thing in your
24:26
spark club spark plug to change your gap some and screwed the thing back in
24:30
there to make your engines. Who does that anymore? You know? I
24:33
mean, that doesn't exist in modern cars, you know, And you can
24:36
look back to those things that Heck, my first car that I had was
24:38
a nineteen seventy four Dodge Dart Sillinoid went bad on it at some point after
24:41
I bought. It. Wasn't a terminal problem, but the thing was,
24:45
every once in a while when you would try to turn it on, it
24:47
would dry fire. You couldn't get it to You couldn't get it to fire.
24:49
So I had a big long screw driver that I that I had mounted
24:52
in under my hood, and you could pop the hood without getting in the
24:56
car. So I would just pop my hood, grab the screw driver I
24:59
had mount underneath, and touch the posts of the Cylinoid together to start the
25:02
car. You know, I mean neat, You know, I mean kind
25:04
of a guy. Riich made you feel kind of like you know what you
25:07
were doing when you did something like that. But boy, am I glad
25:10
I don't have to do that to my vehicles anymore. So, you know,
25:14
I sold a good customer, a Challenger. It's been about eight years
25:17
ago, and he's buying this car. It has the big Hemmie in it,
25:22
and he's excited to drive it. He comes back from driving it and
25:25
he says, you know what he says. They say they don't make him
25:26
luck. They used to. And he said, I'm really glad they don't,
25:30
right, right, I get it, but yeah, right, I
25:33
mean that heritage is cool. But these, you know, these newer muscle
25:37
cars, I mean it's just you know, the ride, the handling,
25:41
and like you said, all the things that you used to have to do,
25:44
you don't have to do anymore. I mean they're kind of you do
25:47
still have to maintenance these new vehicles, but they're a lot less maintenance than
25:51
the older cars. And the thing, you know, there used to be
25:55
you know, you try to figure out what's wrong with your car. So
25:56
you know, you're listening to the engine and you're doing all these things trying
25:59
to figure it out as a as a layperson. The thing is now,
26:03
mechanics are the tax are great at what they're doing, there's no question.
26:07
But a lot of these cars you just plug them in and they tell you
26:11
what's wrong with them. You don't have to do all the trouble. So
26:12
you're there, you know, in your a home garage trying to figure out
26:15
what's wrong because you don't have the proprietary software to hook it up to to
26:18
tell you what's going on with the vehicle. You just take it into your
26:21
dealership. They hook it up. They tell you exactly what's wrong with your
26:22
vehicle. A lot of the time. Yeah, the you know, you
26:25
get an indicator like that comes on, a check engine light on, you
26:29
know it's probably heading off what could be a catastrophic failure, you know,
26:33
so you do bring it into any dealership, any manufacturer, and like Dale
26:38
said, we hook up the OBD two. We've got technicians that know,
26:41
you know, what all these codes are. They have forums through the manufacturer.
26:45
They can plug this in to see if there's a service bullet and out
26:48
for more of the manufacturers that this is a known issue, a common issue,
26:52
and they can get it addressed pretty quick. And that's one reason we
26:56
don't really see we don't see catastrophic failures like we used to. I mean,
27:00
it's it still happens, but it's very it's not common. It's rare.
27:04
It's rare that you know, the motor just blows up in a car,
27:07
the transmission just totally goes out in a car, and generally, if
27:11
it does, I mean some of it is is laid back on the customer.
27:14
It's a it's a maintenance issue. You know. We have a lot
27:17
of turbos in the market now, and that's that's something you definitely have to
27:22
You got to keep the oil change in those turbos. And when we have
27:26
an issue with a turbo engine, a turbo going out, or a or
27:29
a total motor failure, it's generally lack of lack of maintenance on the customer's
27:33
part. So but you know, like you say, you can read the
27:36
book and the glovelox, it'll tell you when to change the oil. But
27:38
all these cars now have an oil life monitor the car well does the car
27:41
will tell you get in one morning and it's like change a little soon,
27:45
like huh okay, I need to I need to call and get an oil
27:48
change. And those things are smart and adaptive. They do tell you when
27:51
you actually need to change. You are. There's some things that will remind
27:52
you and they're just on a time Like I have a filter on my dehumidifier
27:56
in my in my living room. I know that thing is just like you
27:59
plug it in and it's on a time er and after every so many hours,
28:00
I just want to tell you to change the filter, no matter how
28:03
long you've used it. Cars are actually smart, you know, they know
28:06
when they actually need that oil change, and when that light comes on,
28:07
you better get your oil change. Pretty souch it, you know, take
28:11
through Take me and Dale. We could be driving the same vehicle, and
28:15
it may be for me. You know, I may be eight thousand miles
28:18
on oil change. You may be five thousand. You do you know you
28:21
mostly drive in the city, so it does manage that for you and makes
28:26
it easy for you. And I don't know what. I don't know how
28:27
it could be any easier than you just get in your car and turn it
28:30
on one morning and it says you need oil change. And then if you
28:33
need the oil change and you don't have time to get it to the dealership,
28:36
they'll come and pick it up for you and drove it back off to
28:37
you. Yeah, I mean, it just doesn't get It doesn't get any
28:40
easier than that. And and some you know, Chevrolet, they've got the
28:45
on Star telematics in the vehicles, and Ford and christ are picking up on
28:48
that now too. But we get notifications at the dealership now through on Star.
28:53
So if you own a General motor vehicle that you've bought from our dealership,
28:56
we'll also get a notification. Hey, Dale needs a change, so
29:00
Joyce will call and say, hey, Dale's time you know, see your
29:03
oil life monitor came on? Are you ready for an old change? You
29:06
want to go in schedule one. So we try to be a little proactive
29:08
in that to helping people, you know, take care of their car.
29:12
I'm telling you that there is a real benefit to treat your transactions with your
29:17
vehicles like you do your doctor, your dentist or anybody else. Because just
29:19
we've talked about a lot of things this morning, and I just want to
29:22
illustrate to you. Imagine what it's like. You go and you find someone
29:25
that works somewhere, works at Steven's Auto, that you uh, a sales
29:27
rep that you enjoy, that you talked to, you have a good relationship,
29:30
You purchase a car from them. That's your that's your person you have,
29:33
and that's the person that can be your contact at other places when you
29:37
you know, you go to Chase or Chase, you go to stevens Audo
29:41
to get your car service. They know your car, you know the ins
29:44
and outs of what you like about your car. You have that car for
29:45
the for the duration it's been service at Steven's Auto the entire time, so
29:49
you have all the information on it and things like that, three or four
29:52
years down the road, you're ready to trade it in, you're ready to
29:55
do something else, your maybe your sales rep still works there. Suddenly the
29:57
heuristics of short cuts that you can take to get to a place where you
30:02
want to be is a lot easier because you know the car you sold in
30:04
the car, you have all the service records in the car. The salesperson
30:07
that sold it to him is still there. They kind of know the family
30:10
at this point and everything else. So suddenly the shortcut that you have to
30:14
the handshake is a lot easier because you know a lot about that family and
30:18
everything else, and you can kind of slide right back into that comfortable conversation
30:22
like a friend that you've had forever, that you can pick up a conversation
30:25
at any time when you have that relationship, you can do that, Oh,
30:27
you know, the family's gotten bigger. Now you know John's you know,
30:30
six foot three and junior high and we need something. All of that
30:33
stuff makes sense when you kind of know the person that you're dealing with and
30:37
not just starting over every single time that you have a transaction. Right,
30:41
Yeah, it makes a big difference in something I forget about too. You
30:44
know, we have all these locations, so you know, if you like
30:45
dealing with somebody in Danville and you bought a new jeep from them, but
30:49
this time you say, you know, I need my kids going to college
30:52
and I want to buy I'm a Mitsubishi because they're affordable. But he doesn't
30:56
work at the Mitsubishi store. That doesn't matter. I mean, if you
31:00
want to buy a new Mitsubishi from Steven's Mitsubishi, he can still facilitate that
31:03
transaction for you. Any of our salespeople anywhere, we don't have fences around
31:08
their location. So if there's any car at any Stevens location and you already
31:12
have your person at another Stevens location, they can they can facilitate that transaction
31:17
for you on any new prem vehicle. And that that level of that level
31:22
of relationship and that level of professionalism. I mean, it's just something that
31:25
that really makes the transaction a lot easier. I think will make it a
31:29
lot less stressful to be able to have that level of familiarity, and it
31:34
all goes into to just being aware of what you're doing in your surroundings.
31:38
And this goes back to the final thing I kind of wanted to talk about
31:41
this morning, because in that service that you get with the great folks that
31:44
you have that work for you, you know, you're not only test driving
31:48
cars, you're sometimes test driving that the employee, you know, making sure
31:51
that you have a good relationship and everything else. And so when you're taking
31:55
everything online and not going to a physical location, you're taking out the test
32:00
drive of the employee, so you know, the transaction of the person that's
32:04
actually going to be steering you through all this. It becomes an algorithm or
32:07
worksheets online with maybe a terminal point at the end with somebody that talks to
32:10
you, and you don't really have that engagement throughout the thing. But also
32:15
you're not driving the car, you're not seeing the thing, and to me,
32:20
you're not talking to the person. So you don't have a person attached
32:22
to the vehicle that you're that you're that you're that you're gonna buy, not
32:25
from an ode to a standpoint anyway, and probably not even from any real
32:30
communication standpoint. And then you're only purchasing a car based on pictures that you're
32:34
seeing a lot of time, and not that I'm sure there's transactions that even
32:37
you guys could do that. That can fulfill that. But most of the
32:39
time, don't you want to smell that car? You know? I mean,
32:43
don't you want to get in it? And what it feels like?
32:45
What's that fabric really like? Does this caller look the same in real life
32:49
as it does in the picture? Was it looked like under the sunlight?
32:51
Because sometimes you know something, when it's really bright, you can see that
32:53
the caller's faded. I mean, it's way different to see a car in
32:57
person than it is to to try to buy it off line. I agree,
33:00
you know, Like I told you, I'm on Brooks tennis shoes now,
33:05
so I will buy the Brooks Adrenaline gts. That's the series I like,
33:08
and I will buy those online. I actually have a friend that his
33:13
wife owns a shoe store in Lewisbourg's. I will buy those from her.
33:15
The fact my size. But if I think about veering off the road,
33:19
like I wanted to try the on Cloud shoes. And we were in North
33:22
Carolina a couple a couple of months ago, and the resort we were staying
33:25
at, they had a little hiking store there that have the on clouds and
33:29
I hadn't got to try them on, so I did, but I wasn't.
33:31
I wasn't going to buy a pair of those shoes without trying them on,
33:35
right, And that's you know, that's one hundred bucks. So I
33:37
you know, I'm definitely not going to buy a car without being able to
33:40
get in it, drive it, feel it. You know. Sometimes and
33:45
like you just alluded to, you know, people will be like, oh,
33:47
I want you know, I want that because I love that color.
33:51
Well, color is one thing, but you know, if if you get
33:53
in it and hate it, you know, like oh man, it feels
33:57
too big, it doesn't handle good, it doesn't drive us good, it
33:59
doesn't have we's ergonomically laid out. I mean, you don't know until you
34:01
sit down. Do I like the way that's set up one of the pillars,
34:05
it has a bad blind spot. That's the one thing you get to
34:07
watch and I can't see out of it. So you definitely need to need
34:09
to experience the vehicle when That's one thing I always wonder about some of these
34:14
larger companies like a Carvana or a car Max. You know, you go
34:17
Carvana, you go pick your car up out of a vending machine and then
34:22
you have an issue with it or don't like it. What what do you
34:24
do? Then after you drove home three hours from Pittsburgh or Charlotte or Columbus
34:29
wherever you pick your car up, what who do you talk to? There's
34:31
little things like a shake in the front end, for example, that may
34:36
not You probably couldn't take it to any court or anything else, even if
34:38
it would be worth it to you to get any sort of of of make
34:42
a good If you bought a car and you were driving around, like,
34:45
man, this actually has a schemy in the front end. I don't really
34:46
like. If it's not a functional issue with the car, you're kind of
34:49
stuck with it. However, if you test drove that car first and you
34:52
were talking to your cls, you're like, man, there's a chemy in
34:54
this front end. Do you think there's anything wrong? I don't know.
34:55
Let me have my service guy take a look at it. Exactly. It's
34:59
a big, different, huge and we try to avoid that. Like we've
35:00
talked about before, you know, or used cars. We're very picky about
35:05
what we keep and everything's held to a high standard, but we still do
35:08
you know, we do miss things. So if they do have an issue.
35:12
Like you said, it happens just that way. If they come back
35:15
on a used car and say, man, the brakes feel a little funny
35:17
or this feels like it's not right, then we just pull it in the
35:21
shop and take a look at it right there, just as Barney would say,
35:23
to nip it in the bud. Yeah, good good luck driving back
35:25
to your vending machine to try to get that service done on me. You
35:29
know, it's not going to happen. It's like you know, you scratch
35:31
your DVD before getting it out of Red Box before they went out of business.
35:34
The vending machine is not going to replace it for you. That's just
35:37
the way those things work out. There's just a lot of different angles to
35:40
look at the industry from this day, and I find the industry to be
35:43
very captivating because things have changed so much and we're sort of on this.
35:46
There's not just the the the cars themselves in the business of the cars,
35:53
but there's also the things that we're putting in the cars today. It's just
35:55
so amazing the stuff that we're doing. I remember when navigation is the big
36:00
thing, and that was like, wow, you can't have a car without
36:01
navigation. Now navigation is just like, well it's on my phone. I
36:06
mean, I mean, we need our cars to do even more, you
36:07
know, And I don't even know when we're going to get like some of
36:10
this. There's probably something you know of like more of the general AI and
36:15
vehicles, but I'm sure that's coming at some point where you'll be able to
36:19
like talk to your car like kit a night Rider and tell it what you
36:22
want to do. Maybe not turbo boost, but you know, you'll be
36:24
able to tell it just the temperature to sixty eight degrees or whatever. And
36:28
you're gonna be able to do that by voice it sometime soon. That's that's
36:30
already in there. Is it really? Oh my goodness. You can change
36:34
a lot of your settings, radio station, make phone calls just with voice
36:37
activation. And we've talked about too, the Supercrews and Blue Crews and things
36:42
like that where they're driving themselves now. So I mean, it's it's not
36:45
gonna be longer before all that, you know, intertwines together and it's even
36:49
cooler than it is now. It's always it's always kind of neat watching technology
36:53
as it develops, and we're in our car is so much cars is one
36:55
of the top things. As you see technology get implemented and get deployed something
37:00
that you really want to do. Let me get the contact information out one
37:01
more time. We think it got about a minute left, so I want
37:04
to make sure you know how to get a hold of Steven's auto. I
37:07
did really fast. Forty minute minutes went really quick. Stevens of Nitro you
37:09
can find out online Stephens and Nitro dot com. Stevens Nitro dot com.
37:13
Their phone number three zero four seven two seven zero four six four. That's
37:15
three zero four seven two seven zero four six four is a number locally located
37:20
at four eighteen First Avenue South in Nitro, West Virginia. Four eighteen First
37:24
Avenue South in Nitro, West Virginia is where you can find him at.
37:28
The toll free number is eight eight eight seven one two eleven sixty two.
37:30
That's eight eight eight seven one two eleven sixty two. And then Chase,
37:36
Chase will be back here. Will you be back here in a couple of
37:37
weeks? Yeah, may or Larry one, Larry one, we'll figure it
37:40
out. Larry's probably itching to come back. I know that's a long break
37:44
off the radio for him. Well, Chase, we appreciate your time and
37:46
tell us about Steven's Auto and we hope the folks come out and see you
37:50
and we'll talk to you on here the next time you come out. Hell,
37:52
thanks so much, we'll see you same. We really appreciate it.
37:54
That is Chase Barton. He is from Stephens Auto of Nitro and Stephen's Auto
37:59
Group, Stevens Auto Center. I should say, and uh, you can
38:02
check it out Stephens Auto, Stevens up Nitro dot com. We need to
38:06
get out. If you're coming up next, it's gonna be Dave Allen on
38:07
five ety Live, Hopy Kirchible with talk line after that, and then I'll
38:10
be back this afternoon at three oh six with Dave Weekly on hotline. Don't
38:14
forget the r n C Tonight provided by Eric J. Kart. Eric J.
38:17
Tar Companies is coming up at ten o'clock. Have a great day everyone,
38:22
five Baby w c hs A nifty six point five on Charleston one oh
38:27
four point five cross lay I's l u v RC Media station. We're proud
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to live here too,