Welcome to Saturday, Friend!
This week, mobile service won back lost customers, AI lifted one store while stalling another, and shoppers stretched to afford their next car. It’s a lot of ground to cover, fam, but we’ll give you the main gist below.
And of course, these are the exact conversations we’ll have at ASOTU CON West on Nov. 18 in Los Angeles.
One day, one room, 200 seats. Come spend it with us.
Keep Pushing Back,
—Paul, Kyle, Chris & Kristi
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ICYMI: Play It Back
On Monday, a prom suit and a mobile service van stole our hearts.
Amir Alahwal talked his way into a dealership that wasn’t hiring, and 10 years later, his mobile service van is bringing back customers Mercedes-Benz of Temecula hadn’t seen in years: 70% of its mobile customers hadn’t visited in at least a year. We also covered record new-car prices and the FTC’s Greenway settlement.
The best ideas usually come from people who refuse to take no for an answer.
On Tuesday, we learned shoppers haven’t disappeared. They’ve moved.
Cox’s Jeremy Robb showed how tight budgets are pushing buyers toward hybrids and older used cars, with prices for 8- to 10-year-old vehicles up nearly 10%. We also broke down Carvana’s delivery edge and Del Grande’s service-drive playbook, fresh off a sunny day at the Beaver Toyota & Mazda golf tournament.
Knowing where demand is headed beats wishing it would come back.
On Wednesday, credit got easier and loans got longer.
Credit access hit its best level since 2015, but a record 31.8% of loans now run longer than 72 months. Our own creative team shared how dealer ads have changed under the FTC’s pricing push, and Beaver’s 330 employees got paid time off to volunteer.
Today’s approval is tomorrow’s trade-in, and we want your customers coming back.
On Thursday, we celebrated a teacher and faced a product drought.
Butler Ford handed Teacher of the Year Madison Sapp the keys to a Bronco, while Volvo told US dealers its new EX60 may not arrive in volume until the second half of 2027. Glenn Pasch also shared new research on getting AI and your team working together.
You can’t control when product arrives, but you can control how you care for people while you wait.
On Friday, the phrase on our shirts got a national stage.
Liza Borches, who first told us to “love people more than you love cars,” was named a TIME Dealer of the Year nominee. Penske agreed to go private in a $16.3 billion deal, and an investigation found 109 Carvana Google listings pointing to places Carvana doesn’t operate.
The dealers who win are the ones who stay real, from the showroom to Google Maps.
Auto Collabs: The Cruise Ship Habit for Your Dealership
In case it slipped past you this week, our Auto Collabs conversation with Andy Steinhauser is worth a second look.
Before he worked in the car business, Andy was a cruise director who learned four “gold standards” so well, he can still recite them today: greet and smile, own the problem, look the part, and deliver the wow.
None of them cost a dime. They just take practice. Catch up on the episode and see how they translate to your showroom.
The Dealer Playbook: Can AI Find Your Dealership?
When a shopper asks ChatGPT to find a vehicle, it may never see the website you’ve spent years perfecting. Wade from Kerzie.ai told Michael Cirillo that AI tools look for a plain-text page called llms.txt instead, and most dealer sites don’t have one.
Try it in 30 seconds: type your website address, add “/llms.txt” to the end, and see what loads. Watch the full episode before your next website meeting.
Fam, the time is now! Grab your ticket to ASOTU CON West!
A one-day dealer innovation summit on the West Coast, with a happy hour reception at the iconic West LA Motoring Club.
Space is limited, and tickets are going fast.
Get your ticket here.
🛠️ Try This at Home
A few fun things we’d love to see dealers try this week:
Dig up your best four-star review. Find the one small fix that would have made it a five. Then fix it.
Pick a gold standard for the week. Challenge your team to catch each other living it, and shout out the best example on Friday.
Celebrate a local teacher. A free detail and a handwritten thank-you cost almost nothing, and someone will remember it.
Try one, snap a photo, and tag us. We’d love to share what you come up with.
1814: A brewery vat bursts in London, flooding nearby streets with more than a million liters of beer. Sadly, eight people died.
1931: Notorious gangster Al Capone is finally brought down, not for bootlegging, but for tax evasion.
1973: OPEC announces an oil embargo against the US, kicking off gas shortages, long lines at the pump, and America’s sudden interest in small, fuel-efficient cars.
