[0:00]Hello everyone and welcome back to the channel. I'm Jody and this is Russell Love's Garage. Um, I want to put out a little short video. I was looking on the internet last night. Uh, going through some videos and obviously I mess with trucks. I love the old Ford trucks, like the old Chevys. I don't know that much about Dodge. I'm not against them by any means. They're they're neat vehicles. I just not been exposed to the crash or product very much. But anything to do with the truck industry and trucking, uh, many of you know who I work for. Uh, and so I is my ear, you know, when I hear reports, when I hear various things. I I read different things in business week and I and I'm involved in a lot on the internet about getting information. So I kind of go through and I use a bit of common sense and discernment to see where the fluff's at in the BS, but I saw a couple reports uh about pickup trucks. Now, one really caught my ear. then there was a third one about RVs and what's going on with your motor coaches and stuff. that's a whole different Uh but it really struck me struck a nerve with me. Uh let's back up to 2008. Uh many of you that are my age, you remember the house and collapse of 2008 through basically 2010. Uh during that time, uh I was raising my family. uh wife and I both were were doing okay. We were making money. Uh we were providing for the family. things were tight as it was with many people. Um but I kept noticing folks that were around me and I kind of knew about what they made uh money wise and they weren't that much better off than me in some cases weren't as good. Uh but these guys, these folks, these families were getting into these homes that were twice, two and a half, three times larger than the one I was in. Now, understand folks, there's not a jealous bone in my body. I do not care what anybody has got. I've got friends that's got a lot less than me and we run around and hang out and have a great time. I've got friends that are much better off than I am. I'm one of those type guys that I look at the person, the value in that person and uh that's what I see. I could carry less material possessions because we die folks, we ain't taking it with us. There is not one horse ever made with a trailer hitch. So you're not going to take it to the grave with you. Okay? That being said, I just kept looking and I could not figure out to save my life. Why in the world were these people able or how were they able to get these loans for these homes and and and like I said, they were making the same thing basically that I was. Uh had a friend of mine kind of sit down and explained to me at that time the banking industry and what was going on and I was like, oh, okay. The old ad that chicken's going to come home to roost because they were lending money to people on the short-term, but the long-term could never pay it back, okay? The banking industry lacks its standards, okay? And it got a tremendous amount of people in trouble. It hurt a lot of people. Uh, I've been going through that same mental process with two car dealerships in my area here. I have not talked to them, so I'm not going to tell you who or what town or anything, but I drive by these places a lot. Uh they are franchised Detroit car dealerships. Okay? Let's just leave it at that. And I keep looking and there is a lot of brand new looking one year, two-year, five-year- old vehicles out there and You can tell these things are just in immaculate shape. Now, I messed with cars my entire life and you never really saw this quality of vehicle on a used lot. Okay, on the used side of a dealership. Let's say let's let's put it that way. I kept I'm just like, I I don't understand. I don't understand how are these people moving these cars, flipping these cars, getting in and out of these cars like they are. Well, here's a dirty little secret in this report that I was made aware of yesterday last night. Last year in 2025, the automobile industry and the financial side of that is reporting over 3 million repositions of pickup trucks. Think about that guys. Do the math on the percentages there. There's 335 million people in this country. 3 million of those people lost to the take back man a pickup truck. and Those pickup trucks were pretty close in cost to what I paid for my first house, okay? You will not buy a reasonable pickup truck off a lot right now for 60 grand. Okay? You watch that that add on television, they show you this truck, oh it's 38,000, it's 41,000. They're talking about a base truck, but the one you're actually seeing in many cases, it's dressed up, okay? Uh you can't buy a dressed up truck for $40,000 and And I think that is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for a pickup truck. I use my trucks, okay? I don't buy a truck or a piece of equipment to ride around and be seen in. If that thing can't serve a purpose, try to make me a little bit of money or make my life easier, I don't want it, okay? Two each on, I get that. But think about that. Think about what this is doing to the market. Same thing in the housing market. You got 3 million people that lost pickup truck, okay? That's on their credit. They cannot go and get alone at any kind of decent rate at this point on a second vehicle, on a lesser vehicle. Okay, so they're trapped. In this country, still, if you don't have a vehicle to get around in, you have trouble getting to work. If you don't work, here, this is a whole another conversation, but assuming you work to make a paycheck, to provide for a family, to provide for your needs and their needs. If you can't get to work, you can't do that. So the problem is compounded. Okay? I have said for many, many years. My wife gets so mad at me, we I've looked about possibly getting a little bit better truck uh than what I've got now because everything I got is pushing 300,000 miles and we like to go and do things, but anyway. Um, I have told her and I've told anybody that would listen to me. You do not get a good deal at a dealership. I do not care. If you walk out of there with the keys to a car, you paid exactly what they wanted you to pay. And uh maybe in a later video, I'll go back and find this fellow's fellas YouTube video that he made in reference. So you guys can go look at it too. My channel's only got 1260 subscribers. If I can get to one of you guys to keep you guys for making this mistake of buying a new vehicle. Uh, I feel like I've done my part. Okay, if I can get 10 or 12 of you not to do it, that's fine, okay? Please understand a dealership look at it. Look at the dealership. When you go in there, man, they're nice. They're nice. Somebody's paying for that and it's not the big three. Okay? It's you. It's me. It's anyone that does business with these people. Okay? Now I'm not saying they're all bad. I'm saying their business model is to make money on the backs of us. Okay? So you got to know what you're getting into. All right? I don't personally understand any grown man paying $70, $80,000 for a truck. Now if you want to do that, that's fine. If you got the money, God bless you. Go on and do it. But the common folks out here, you got to understand you're getting a payment. Yeah, it's low. On the back end of that thing, they're financing vehicles now for eight and nine years. Some of them 10. Guys, I'm looking at 60 years old and I looked back over any 10-year period in my life. And some of the major events that took place that did and and affect my pay. And I'm thinking, you're going to do that for an entire decade on a vehicle that'll be completely worn out before you get to the end of the payments. Guys, think about it. Okay? You ask yourself, the margins on most vehicles sold at a dealership from the information that I get. Now like I said, I'm no expert, not not saying. I'm just saying what's out there right now that you guys could research the same as I did. The margin on those vehicles are 1 to 2%. But where they get you is all the all the items. You know, one of the questions you're going to get asked at a dealership is well, what where do you want your payment to be? Okay?
[9:41]They're going to run the numbers and they're going to get you a payment of probably a little bit lower than what you tell them you can afford. The reason that is is there's going to be atoms. There's going to be paint protection. There's going to be tire protection. There's going to be this, there's going to be that. Okay? There's two rates at a car dealership. Okay? One of them is the rate, one of them is the sale rate. The buy rate is the rate that the finance company will give you as an individual, should you deal with them. The sale rate is the rate that's publicized on the desk when you're doing the paperwork. They won't be the same. They won't be, okay? Understand what I'm telling you? They won't be the same. So, with all of this bad news that I'm talking about. Uh you got 3 million people last year lost a we'll know at the end the beginning of 207, what 26 was. Think about all of those people, how many times can that cycle happen, okay? Before the market is depleted of buyers, okay? The truck market is headed down. Now, is it this year? Is it next year? It can't be much longer at the rate and the prices and the financing structure. Uh that that that is there, okay? The gentleman that I was watching said it best. You are not buying a truck. You are not buying a motivated of of of uh transportation. You are buying a membership to their business model. Please understand that. Many people out there love to ride around in a new vehicle. And I do too. Don't get me wrong. But I also like to do other stuff than drive a vehicle. I can't afford to a job to make money to all I know is pay for that vehicle. There's a lot more to life than that, folks, okay? You can only look good in a vehicle so long. All right? Please understand that. So What do you do? Okay? What do you do? It's real simple, folks. This is this is something I've done and and two of these guys will probably see this video and you'll know exactly who I'm talking about. But what you do is you look around in your community, no matter where you are, you look at a car dealership. A small dealership, an independent guy. He and his wife, maybe, he and a couple friends, whatever are there. How long have they been in business? Oh, they've been there 28 years. They've been there 35 years. He took over from his grandpa. That dealership's been there 40 years. Well, guess what, guys? Those folks are not crooks. You're not going to make it in the local market by sticking it to people, okay? So that's a legitimate business and the guy's legitimately trying to make a living. So here's what you do. You walk in there and you talk to the guys or guy, girl, whoever, and you build a relationship with them, okay? And let them help you find a vehicle. There is interested to selling you a vehicle as you are buying one, but more so that that sale to that guy means a lot more than it does to that dealership. Okay? Because that dealership's got all kind of options out there and they got all they got a network of folks working. That independent guy on the corner over there. He's providing for his family and probably two or three more. Okay? means a lot more. So go in there and work with those folks, more so than the pitfalls, guys. Uh I'm not anti-biases. Please, please understand me when I say that. But I see guys right now, friends of mine and that are in my life on a daily basis have went out and made this mistake and I know for a fact that if something were to change in their employment, if some any kind of downturn. It would be a massive hardship on these guys and I just don't want to see people make that mistake. And both the fellas that I I have in mind, I tried to talk to them like folks. 85 $1,000 for a truck is crazy. Okay? It's just nuts. If you've got anything else you want to do in your life, please don't do that. and you know, they went ahead and did it anyway. But be that as it may. I'm going to look at my notes right here and see if I've covered everything. upside, downside. Yeah, I think we pretty much got everything that I wanted to to mention about this, but I will ask you guys to go on to YouTube. Uh and look at some of these videos that are coming out about what's going on in the truck industry. Uh there's a lot of research out there and there's a lot of things going on that I see the same thing in the vehicle specifically the trucks because that's what I like to play with. Very, very similar uh to what's going on or what did go on in the housing industry. And it it it's, you know, it's going to drive the prices down at some point. Uh, but I'm really, really concerned big picture. Uh what it's going to do to the overall market, uh both from a manufacturing side, the supplier side that the supplies all these auto plants and things like that. It's it's not going to turn out good. uh not when you got 3 million people losing vehicles and let's see what happens here in uh in 2026. Uh guys, thank you for spending a little time with my channel. I know this video is a little bit different, but what I saw last night was such a striking wake up call. I just had to say something about it and I had to I had to get it out there, guys. If I can only talk one of you guys out of buying a new truck right now, probably need to do that. Uh but who am I? I'm just a Hillbilly here in the middle of North Carolina that kind of sitting back and like to read and notice things. Thanks again for being with my channel. Folks, God bless.
