🚗 Not All Heroes Wear Capes. Some Wear Name Tags.

Welcome to Saturday, Friend!

Thanks for showing up for your people this week. And thanks for showing up for us. We make a lot of things, and it means a lot that it isn’t in vain.

Making stuff is a joy all folks should at least dip their toe into from time to time. So, if you’ve got something cooking, send it our way.

We’ll check it out!

Keep Pushing Back,
—Paul, Kyle, Chris & Kristi

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Monday: Stellantis dealers are watching Carvana's new-car playbook closely, and service is the missing piece nobody's solved yet. Carvana's stores sell far outside their local markets, but when customers call in with a check-engine light, they're often told to find an independent mechanic. That's a real opportunity sitting untouched: whoever builds the service relationship first wins the customer for life.

Tuesday: Trump's proposed 50% tariff on Canadian vehicles is aimed at Ottawa, but Toyota and Honda may end up footing the bill. The two Japanese automakers account for more than three-quarters of all vehicles built in Canada, and Canadian-built cars make up nearly a quarter of Honda's U.S. sales. Both companies could be forced to shutter Canadian production lines if the tariff takes effect.

Wednesday: A $32-to-$36 monthly gap between what dealers quote and what lenders actually approve could be the FTC's next target. With warning letters already sent to 97 dealerships this year, the disconnect between advertised payments and final loan terms is quietly becoming a real compliance risk, and the fix starts with bringing finance to the front of the sales process instead of the back.

Thursday: Bozard Ford Lincoln runs 47 mobile service vans, servicing more vehicles outside the dealership every month than plenty of stores manage inside theirs. The bigger story wasn't the fleet size, it was cutting their BDC's tech stack from 32 screens down to nine. Sometimes the flashiest number isn't where the real efficiency gains are hiding.

Friday: A new CDK workplace study found 80% of dealership employees are satisfied at work, but that number collapses to 64% for anyone with one to three years on the job. That's exactly the stretch where a dealership can least afford to lose someone, right after the training investment and right before the loyalty sets in.

If you've got 25 minutes and any interest in where dealership AI is actually headed, this Auto Collabs conversation with AJ McGowan, VP of Research and Development at Reynolds and Reynolds, is worth the watch.

The premise is simple, but it cuts against a lot of what you're hearing right now: yes, AI can figure out messy, disconnected data on its own. That doesn't mean you should let it, especially once that AI starts taking real action inside your dealership instead of just answering questions. McGowan makes the case that a 90% right answer feels like progress until it's the thing actually running a workflow, and then it's just a problem waiting to happen.

You'll get a real look at Ray, Reynolds' own AI agent, what it can already do across a dealership's systems, and where it's headed next. You'll also get a genuinely fun detour into McGowan's origin story, coding games in first grade, building PCs for his parents' friends in sixth grade, that turns into a real point about why understanding the fundamentals still matters more than ever.

Whether you run a store or just want AI to actually make your business better instead of just faster, this one's worth your Saturday coffee.

Travis Baldwin, VP at Best Deal Auto Sales and co-founder of Dealer Defender, sat down with Michael on The Dealer Playbook for a conversation that's less about tactics and more about a question worth sitting with: what actually earns someone's trust?

Baldwin started as a detailer at his family's dealership in 1999 and worked through nearly every role on the way to VP, buyer, sales, management, and now independent dealer advocacy across Indiana. That path shows up in how he talks about the business: less spreadsheet, more people. His answer to what builds long-term trust isn't better marketing or a sharper ad spend. It's showing up for the community around the store consistently enough that the relationship runs both directions.

You'll hear how he thinks independents carve out an edge against franchise groups moving deeper into used cars, why physically inspecting a vehicle still beats buying blind off a screen, and the real story behind Dealer Defender, born out of a Volvo XC90 he bought for his son that came with metal in the oil and got quietly relisted with no disclosure after arbitration.

If you care about buying smarter, protecting your name, and building a store people trust because you earned it, not because you bought the ad, this one's worth the watch.

Every so often the auto industry reminds you it's full of people who'll drop everything to do the right thing, even when "the right thing" has nothing to do with selling a car.

This week that person is Carl, a Sales Manager at Walser Nissan Coon Rapids, who spotted an injured gull on the lot and didn't hesitate. He scooped up the bird and got it straight to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota, who report the gull is expected to make a full recovery.

Great customer service, apparently, extends to wildlife too. Shoutout to Carl, the whole team at Walser Nissan Coon Rapids, and the folks at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota for giving a scrappy young gull a second shot.