#41 - O'Hara Howard - Wholesaler Relationships

Alright Jeff, so this week we have a good friend of mine, o' Hara Howard, here, he's a wholesaler. And how long you been in business o'?

Hara? Full time since 01, so 18 years.

Wow man, that's a long time. O', Hara, you look about 80. So you started late in life.

Welcome to the Independent Dealer podcast. The podcast for auto dealers to learn and grow together. Here are your hosts, Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson.

Oh man. So Jeff, this week I think what we want to talk about is the where does a wholesaler fit in today's used car business? You know, 20 years ago wholesalers were our main source of inventory and it's really, it's changed, you know, it's changed a lot in those last 20 years where we O' Hara probably about 10 to 15amonth, you know, in a good month from O' Hare and then I probably buy another 20 or so from auctions. But he's still a main source of my cars and you know, helps me out a lot. So do you use wholesalers?

You know I, once a month, twice a month. Maybe we'll have a guy bring us something. But you know, my acquisition model is. Here is my business partner, brother in law, he is the wholesaler. He, he spends full time at the new car stores hanging out, putting numbers on trades. So I think most the wholesalers since we've started doing that have kind of shied away from us because they know that they're competing directly with us. You know, my brother in law is the buyer. So tell me this o', Hare, where does that fit in? I guess what is the value add? Or tell me why I should be using a wholesaler and not, I mean, I guess you don't need to sell yourself to us, but maybe tell me where that wholesaler fits in nowadays, you know, where do you see yourself building value in that supply chain or you know, why Does Luke buy 10 or 15 from you?

Well, I mean, you know, with all the different mediums that you can use now to buy cars, where a wholesaler fits in is, you know, we can get the product to you, you know, straight from a dealer before anything's been done to it. Just like your brother in law gets you the trade straight there, you know, what's wrong, it comes to you, you know, we can the, the value that we add. Let's see, what am I?

Well, I can say this. The value, the value o' Hare adds to me is I don't have to sit around a new car store, right?

Yep.

So he's like an extra employee for me. And we're more of a partnership. I mean, I think. I think the value is the partnership that he asked my business that I don't have to do a 1099, I don't have to pay employee withholding taxes and all these things.

That seems like a crucial piece right there when you say partnership. And maybe we can talk about that more later. But it seems like it definitely has to be a partnership, right? Because we've had wholesalers come by here in the past and I know that they're just trying to dump their problem children on us because we don't have a relationship with them where if they can sneak one past us that's got issues, they're not going to see us again for six months and hope that we forgot about it or they're fine burning bridges and relationships with us. But that relationship is crucial, right?

Well, it is. And it's crucial to me too. And I have a group of dealers that I sell to, probably, you know, really a dozen that buy from me on a consistent basis. And when I'm buying something for Luke or for any of my other customers, I really know what they want. So I can buy it beforehand or a lot of times I will call Luke and describe the car and get it to him. And we really don't have any problems. We don't have arbitration coming back or whatever it is. The car is what it is and if there's a problem with that, I either take it back or we fix it and we adjust the price and it's done just like you would do anywhere else. And I think that it is a lot easier way to buy cars than through the auction. The main problem with wholesaling, in my view, is getting the cars, the franchise dealers being willing to wholesale is the problem that we're facing. And all the new ways and in technology that we have and avenues that they have to get rid of their cars, be it acv, auction or trade rev. Yeah. And Manheim has just surrounded the dealer completely with everything. And so it makes it a little harder for me to compete with the auctions because of the floor plans and so on and so forth like that.

Let's go down that evolution, o'. Hare. So when you start in the business, let's say in 01 and even when your dad was in the business, you know, o', Hare, by the way, is a three generation type of dealer like I am. But let's talk about the evolution from, from the early 2000s to now where I would assume in the early 2000s, you probably could have got as many cars as you needed all the time.

Right, right. And so when I first started with my dad, he had been in the wholesale business at that point for probably 15 or 16 years. And it worked. On Monday mornings, you went to the dealership, and they'd hand you a box of keys to their preferred wholesaler. And my dad had a couple of stores that he worked. And so on Monday morning, they'd hand him a box of keys, he'd go out, make a list, he'd bring them back in, they'd negotiate, and there you went with your cars. And back then, even in the early 2000s, anything over 60, 70,000 miles, they wholesale. You know, dealers weren't keeping cars with 100,000 miles, 150,000 miles, they didn't. Wholesale wasn't really a source of profit, I don't think, for a dealership. And so it was something they didn't care about. So it was pushed to the side. And then, you know, as we progressed on, it's become a whole different animal, Especially as Mannheim kind of started taking over the auction industry with the. With the online bidding and all that kind of stuff. It changed everything. So whereas now a wholesaler could almost make a living off of two dealerships, you know, back then, now you have to work 10 or 12 to get the same amount of cars.

And that's. That is. That's very interesting. You know, another thing that. That you could talk about as well. And I've seen the revolution of how to appraise a car.

Right.

You know, back in 2000, you know, majority of wholesalers walked around with a black book in their pocket.

Right, Right.

And sometimes you would know where to go with a certain car. And a dealer didn't know what a car was worth. How has that affected what you do?

Well, I mean, so whereas, like Luke said, we used a black book, now we use Mannheim or other auction apps to scan in a vehicle. I still use black book, and I have. And Carfax. Carfax has changed everything. So whereas used to look at a car, you know, if I'm buying a car, a car for Luke, and it's got. I know that he is okay with a small Carfax or certain kind of Carfax. Some dealers won't touch a car with a CarFax. So being able to appraise the car, you have a lot of different avenues to kind of get your average and make sure you're putting it on the money.

That's interesting. You know, I forgot. I didn't forget about the Carfax. But, you know, back then, you didn't know. You didn't know what you didn't know. And, you know, somebody could say, hey, this car's had an accident, but you didn't, you know. Well, yeah.

You actually had to look for the paintwork.

That's right. We walked around with paint meters. Right, Jeff, you know what a paint meter is?

Yeah, I do. Yeah.

Really?

Okay.

Okay.

I know you're young.

I don't really care what the Carfax says at my place. I hate Carfax and auto Check.

Oh, my gosh.

I've Never pulled one 10 years, 15 years. Never pulled a Carfax.

Really?

Wow.

Never, man. Has it been in an accident? Yep, probably. Has they got a clean Carfax? I don't know. All I know is there's a lot of accidents that are not on Carfax.

Oh, for sure.

That's the problem. Anyways, so tell me this. I mean, I'm gonna play a little bit of devil's advocate because I'm gonna say, well, you know, in those situations, you guys have a relationship, right? And it's not a formal relationship. You guys have a situation where o' Hare can bring you the cars he thinks you need, but he can also take cars to other people. And I guess that's the main rub that I have with wholesalers in general and the issue as an outsider. For a very, very long time, we would try to get cars from the new car store, but the used car manager wouldn't talk to you unless you were his high school buddy and he liked you. And so we had situations here with the new car store where the used car manager was dishing everything to his buddy, and he would send him everything, and that wholesaler would take him to the auction or he'd wholesale them off. And I don't know if he was getting money on the back end from this guy. It just. It seems rot for.

Yeah, that was. That was a main way of doing business 15, 20 years ago. I mean, and why. Why wholesaling has gotten so difficult and why a lot of people have left.

The business of the dishonest ones. Right?

Because. Yeah, because that doesn't happen anymore. And so that once the owners caught wind that that was going on, they kind of let it go to the side for years and years. But once they kind of got wind of that happening, that ended. I mean, and I go into stores, and I know a lot of the owners that I do business at the stores, the stores I do business with and they will, they know that I won't do that, number one, which is why I can stay in there. And you know, that is true. That was how it used to be. And I'm sure some stores still do that and some used car managers still do that. But there's so much turnover here in Colombia that we don't have that opportunity. And the, the, if you did that nowadays, you wouldn't be able to buy a car. This, this city, even though it's a, you know, medium sized city, is just, you would be out of business if the word got out you did that.

Dishing them off or taking back end, it's basically the best number wins, right?

There's been so much consolidation within our city with bigger groups buying stores. You know, you might would do that at one store. Next thing you know, it gets bought. Well, guess what, you're out.

Yeah. Oh yeah. And that's what I've, I say that all the time. We might have an inn at one store right now, but that can change on Monday morning when that dealer principal decides that he's, he's gonna send everything to auction or.

How many times does that happen to you in the last year?

It's happened to me so many times. And you know, when I First started in 06 is the first time I started it really myself. And then my dad retired in 09 and I was completely on my own and I used to get bent out of shape about a manager getting fired and then you had to start all over or this and that and the other. But at that point I kind of decided to make myself more indispensable, I guess is the right word. And you know, I buy every kind of car. I buy an in op that's going to go to a junkyard. I'll buy an in op that needs a motor, transmission, lots of recon, or I'll buy frontline units too. So I kind of made myself that even when a dealership slow, they definitely don't want their in ops. And then when you're in and they're buying an in op, they might say, well, I've got this one to look at or I've got this frontline unit you look at. And I, you know, I didn't pigeonhole myself into one dealership. So once I got out of that, I realized that there's still a lot of need for a wholesaler and a lot of dealers still like to use them, even the young guys, because they don't know what the hell a car's worth at all. They use strictly a computer model. And so when they plug that VINT in, it tells them, this is what Mannheim is, this is what nada is. But it doesn't take into account all the other little nuances that we talk about can happen, whether it's got a bad transmission motor, hail damage, blah, blah, blah.

And so I really see the value there in a wholesaler, and maybe that blurs the line between a wholesaler and having your own buyer. But you're on the ground there, and you're looking at that car, and you might. I mean, that same car might be on ACV or Trade Rev at 10 grand, but when you're sitting inside of it and you realize that there's a dead skunk in the back, you know, there's some factor that you don't know.

Right?

Yeah. The transmissions, it's hitting a little hard in third gear. And I know that in these cars, that means you've only got another month or two before it's done for.

Right.

Something that only a wholesaler or a buyer who's in the car can tell you. Right?

Right. And back to what you said before about, you know, wholesaler not giving you an opportunity at every car that they get, I think you were kind of getting at that point that, you know, you might have a wholesaler bring you one or two cars. That's true. You know, you don't want to be like somebody who sells somebody one car and you're just dumping your cars on them. With Luke, you know, I do have to. I do have to spread the love. But Luke, I don't. I don't over. I don't have that many guys, you know, I have 10 or 12, like I said, that are my main source, and I know what they want and everybody. What Luke wants, you know, customer X doesn't want, you know, so the stuff that I get that's coming to Luke, that's who it's gonna go to. You see what I'm saying?

How does that work in a situation where Luke's buying something from you? I mean, if you rip a trade, does that get passed on to Luke? Or do you just say, hey, Luke, I'm. I'm X amount above what I'm into it. So it's going to be $10,000 plus my $200 buy fee, or plus my $500, or is it just you guys negotiate on a number and Luke has no idea what you paid the dealer for it?

I don't care what I Don't care what you paid for it. Honestly, if I'm buying it for my number, I don't care.

Now, if I go into a dealership and I'm looking at 12 or 14 cars and I'm putting numbers on them, and I call Luke and he gives me a number on it, I back up a couple hundred bucks and it goes to Luke. If I buy a car over the phone and I get there and such and such is wrong with it, or it's got this, and I'll call. If it's something that Luke put the number on, I'll call him and say, this is what it's going to be. We need to adjust. And yeah, if I bought a car and I stole it, the car's worth what it's worth, so it shouldn't matter. And it doesn't matter to me if somebody buys a car. If Luke bought a car and said, o', hara, I don't want this car, I'll sell it to you for six grand, and he had three grand in it. That's not my concern. My concern is whether I can make a couple hundred on my end. And I feel so. I've always been of the school that it doesn't matter how much money the other person is making, as long as they're. Everybody's making fun of.

It doesn't matter if he's two grand back, a book or two grand overbook, you know what book is, and you're gonna buy it for your number.

There's. There's so many people get caught up in what the other person makes.

I agree with that.

And you can't ever do that. It doesn't matter.

Oh, especially in wholesaling.

Oh, yeah.

If.

If I made 500, I made 500. Okay. And if I sold to the next person, they made two grand, I don't care. I offered the guy at that price, right?

Yeah.

If he had a secret sauce to getting rid of that car and made two grand, that's great because that's good for him. He'll probably want to come back and buy more cars. Me, right.

I think dealers, we get stuck in that mentality, especially when we have cars that we want to unload. We start looking at it and like, oh, I can't. I can't dump that thing for 500 bucks. Because you see it a week later on Craigslist for three grand, and you're going to be pissed that this guy just made $2000 on you or something. You're like, why are you pissed? You wanted 500 bucks out of it. You got your number, right.

That happens a lot, you know, and the people that I do business with, you know, they're not. Everybody is in the same boat. They want to everybody else. We're all in this business to make money. Whether we're wholesaling or retailing or whatever, we're towing cars or whatever we're doing, Everybody's in it to make money. In my mind, there's. There's no reason to do business with somebody that doesn't want you to make a dollar.

Yeah, I tell you that one thing that o' Hara also developed an app that he. That he's given several dealers, new car dealers and used car dealers. That. That's pretty interesting. You want to talk about that a little bit?

Yeah. So, as you know, a couple years ago, everything started going. Everything and everything in the future is moving towards app base or online auctions or mobile auctions or whatever. So I had an idea to do an app. It's called Motorquote. And we developed it. And you can use it just like your Mannheim app. You can scan in a car, take a few pictures, a brief description, and then send it to me. And I can send it to my customers within, you know, 30 seconds of it coming to me. And it was a way that, number one, the first thing was for me to save time and another one of those things to keep me from being expendable at a dealership. I've got this other avenue where I can reach X amount of dealers in a short amount of time. And, you know, it's been a benefit, especially when looking at a bunch of. A bunch of cars. I can send them really quick and get them to the people that need to see them.

What's interesting is it works great. He sends a lot of cars to me on that app, allows me to have pictures. I can grab the bin real quick.

And.

Go to my appraisal tool. It's very innovative from his standpoint of. Of using it to attract customers and also to help new car stores appraise cars. I think people kind of pigeonhole wholesalers to being that old guy that you talk about hanging around a dealership and aggravating the staff there. This, that and other. But wholesaling is a different animal. It's not what you think it was. Yeah, I'm in the car.

I'm in the car business. You are in the car business. I move cars and I get them to dealers and get them to where they need to go. And, you know, it isn't A mom and pop thing anymore. It's a business. And you know, when these guys at the dealership, they don't like I was going back to back, did not know what a car's work because it's just everything's plug and play. When they send that car to me on the app, it just makes it easier. And I made it so everybody in the dealership could use it for free. Oh yeah, A lot of these apps that like Appraisal Lane or you know, ACVs and auctions that really count. But Appraisal Lane, there might be a couple others. I mean you gotta pay $500 a month plus, you know, a fee for every car and so on and so forth. Mine's free. I mean any manager can use it. If somebody is confused on a car, they can send it to me and get a solid number so they don't make a big mistake.

So this is a regional thing though. I mean for your neighborhood, these are gonna be used. Car managers trade in guys, sales that can upload a trade directly to you.

Correct.

They can get a number on that before they even do the deal. This doesn't have anything. This is not a national platform they can do.

Yeah, I mean it could be at some point in the future, but. And I think everything's going that way. I think. Yeah, I don't know what the time frame is, but I mean I would think within 10 years that most auctions are going to be online or mobile and I think that most trade ins will be done. This morning I bought one car off the app. I bought two over the phone and I bought two in person before 9:30 this morning.

My question for you is can the individual, can an individual seller put their car on there and send it to you?

That was another. I'm glad you brought that up because that was another reason that I developed it because you know, CarMax and a lot of dealers and Luke does it too. You know, there's a. There's a lot of profit to be made in buying trades from individuals.

Oh yeah, Yeah.

I would like to market it more to that course. It's mainly used for my wholesale business and that's my main concern. And I'm not in the retail business. But if individuals I have bought. I've only been, I've only had the app for a year or so since last May and I maybe bought 12 cars from individuals. But if you could get that number up.

Yeah, well you got to put money behind it and market it.

Yeah, right. Yeah. So that was part of the Thinking process, as well as the more and more cars get wholesaled in different ways at dealerships. And if I could pick up a few on the individual side, that would be a great thing.

Yeah.

Tell me this.

Sorry.

Go ahead, Luke.

I was thinking it has a lot of potential there that, you know, all of us got to think about ways to. To grab some of Those cars that CarMax is getting or that now Carvana is getting. Doing the same thing. Vroom's doing the same thing. So if we can steal some of that, it would help. It helps us.

Yeah. And like CarMax, when they buy a car, most of them go straight to their auction. Or Vroom and Carvana, they go straight to Mannheim auctions. I mean, they don't even mess with these cars, but they know that there's that. That margin of profit to add to whatever they're making on the other end. And, you know, it's. There's still a lot of money there to be.

To be captured, you know, another benefit of a wholesaler. And I was just thinking about this while we were talking, but, you know, if we have a. Mobile auctions. Y' all have mobile auctions out there, Jeff?

Not in my region, but Vegas has a ton.

Yeah, but o' Hara buys from this one dealer group that also has a Manheim mobile auction. And I can't always make it there. Or he's at another auction I can't make it to. You know, I trust that o' Hara knows how to appraise a car. He knows what I'm looking for. He knows the issues I like to look for. So I can give o' Hara a number on a car. Well, I don't have to be at that auction to buy it. Yeah, I can look at the list says, here's my list. Buy these cars for me. Well, two weeks ago, when I couldn't go to this auction, he bought two, three cars for me. Well, I pay him a buy fee, and, you know, everybody's happy. I cut mannheim out of $50. Cause I don't have to bid online. Right? So, you know, there's different ways you can use wholesalers that some people aren't thinking about. I don't need a buyer on staff. Right. But if I've got a good relationship with a wholesaler, he can be my buyer, right?

Yeah, that's my question, Luke. That's what I wanted to ask you. And I know he's sitting next to you, so don't offend him, because he's gonna punch you. But why? Why not just make an offer to o' Hare and say, hey man, I want you full time for me only.

I can't pay him what he makes.

Well, that's because he's ripping trades and keeping the difference. Now if he was ripping trades for you and he was getting paid a salary to do that, now Godwin Motors is making that, that money. They're bringing trades in better. He's hunting for the exact cars you want in the exact places. So when does a buyer, when does it become advantageous to no longer go to wholesalers but to actually bring in an in house full time buyer?

I think you could do that, you know, and there's people that have full time buyers, wholesalers that work for their company, and I think that's fine.

But when you get to that 50 car volume, you do the numbers and say, okay, I'm paying X amount, you know, 200, $300 a pop on a car. You know, I guess the point where that's a full time guy, well, how.

Long is it going to take me to train that person, you know, and how long is it going to take that person to develop the relationships that someone like this already has?

Sure.

Could it be there for some dealers? Of course, if I was in a small town, I would probably do that because I would have that person working the dealers already have relationships with. But I, you know, I can add to that too.

I've actually thought about and a time might come to where that might be what I do. So you can't replace one thing that I learned from my dad and I worked for my dad for a long time and I looked at a lot of cars before I ever bought one.

Oh yeah.

And I know within a couple of hundred dollars what a car's worth as soon as I, I don't even have to drive it down the street, you know, I could, I could drive it a couple hundred feet and I know what it's worth. And so I've thought about saying, you know, in the future, if it has to be that way, you know, to align myself with a dealer like Luke and my other customers and say, I will buy your cars for you and there will be a buy fee and whatever it is and whatever we get them for, that's what we get them for. And if it comes to that, I think that that would be something that I'd be open to. And I don't blame any dealership for any idea they have or any. I mean, I think to keep moving forward is the natural progression of things. You know, the old way as a wholesaling are over in my mind. And, you know, whatever you can do to make your company more profitable, you need to do it. You know, trying new things is part of that.

And that's interesting. You know, we have a synergy relationship where, you know, I detail some of his cars. We work on some of his cars. He's just got into the transportation business, so, you know, he's transporting some of my cars that need to be transported around, you know, around certain areas.

Luke bought a car for me last week in Orlando or two weeks ago.

Yeah. So, I mean, if I'm somewhere that he needs some help, help him. If he's somewhere, you know, it's. It's a synergy relationship. And, you know, who knows? At some point, I think, you know, all relationships can come together or go apart, you know, or I can find something that helps his business, he can find something else. My business. You know, I think you. Once you find the people you want to do business with, then you. You figure out how best to use those people, and that's. That's what it's about. We've. We've had wholesalers that really worked for Goblin Motors over the years or used our dealer license, and we charge them. We charge them a fee per year to use our dealer's license and to use our insurance. So a per dealer tag type of situation. So I think there's always, you know, if insurance gets out of hand for some. For some people, then you might see somebody move to that. I think just in general, as car dealers over the years, we've tried. We don't look at someone in our business as a symbiotic relationship. We don't look at that when it could be. Unfortunately, we always look at the dealer down the road as an adversary. And I don't think that's the right way to look at it in today's atmosphere.

No, I completely agree with that. We're all in it together, and everybody buys different cars. And sure, you're gonna fight over a few cars with a couple dealers, but it very rarely would come to where one of my customers, Luke, might say to me one day, he'd say, oh, I want that car. Don't lose it. That means I want the car. And that means if I buy it, it's coming to Luke. You know what I mean? He lets me know when that's the case. So, you know, we're all. We're all doing this together. And.

But if you had one of your buyers, say, or one of your dealers Say to you, you know what? I just don't like Luke. If you sell him any more cars, I'm not buying from you anymore.

I'd tell him to. And I'd tell Luke the same thing. I'd say, sorry, stop crying. We're not gonna do that. And I developed over the years, and I learned it from my dad, and I'm thankful for it, that in this business, it's a difficult business because you get told no a lot. And y' all do, too, don't get me wrong. But we get told no a lot more than we get told yes. And so you have to just smile, grin, and bear it. Go in there and do your job, which is to get rid of their iron and their stuff they don't want. You know, they don't care whether you're there tomorrow or the next day. You do the best thing you can do to be a good customer to them and to those franchise dealers and to Luke. And if I bring Luke a car and something's wrong with it, and he calls me and tells me we fix it or we move on and I come pick it up.

Yeah. You know what's funny is used car dealers, independent used car dealers are a bunch of whiners, in case you didn't know that, Jeff. And, you know, you got to put on your big boy pants a lot of times, because Harry's going to sell me a car every once in a while. That it sucks.

Right.

It's just a bad car. He didn't know that he drove it. He drove it 200 yards, and he made 300 bucks. Or he drove it two miles and it didn't act up, and he made 300 bucks. Should I go back to him and say, hey, I need a $2,000 adjustment? Cause the transmission went out on it last week. No, that. That's not the way it works. You know, so there's both sides of that. If you trust him, if you trusted he didn't know anything was wrong with it, and you got to go with it. You got to put it on your big boy pants.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. That's the key to that relationship is, you know, that, you know, the aggregate sum is that he's bringing me good stuff. I mean, if. Yeah, if one out of every two is a bomb, that's not good. One out of every ten, you know, that's. That's just being human. And unfortunately, used cars. So tell me this.

It's more like one out of 50, you know, that.

Something hopefully less than that. That you better Blindsided, that is. You might buy some projects, but at least you knew about them, right?

You're gonna miss some stuff every now and then. I mean, I missed it. I missed a broken, a completely busted tail light and a busted bumper the other day. I mean, I don't even know how it happened, but you just, sometimes you walk around them and you just don't see it.

Go car blind. Yeah, o'. Hare. Give us some tips for those that are listening. Dealers that are. Maybe they're buying themselves, maybe they're. We got wholesalers that are listening. Maybe we've got dealer buyers. They're listening. What are some tips that you could share with them from your lifetime experience that would make their wholesaling better? How can they get better inventory? How can they source better, faster? What are some of the avenues they should be looking at? New car stores, small auctions, fleet lease. Other dealers that maybe they're higher in the food chain or lower in the food chain. Maybe some tips that you found that would be practical for everybody.

Well, I mean, I would recommend that every small car lot, whether they sell thousand dollar, buy here, pay here cars or they sell $20,000 buy here, pay here, or they're a franchise dealer to use a wholesaler in some fashion. And I think in today's environment, you use a wholesaler. You use your online tools, your ACV auctions, use your Mannheim auctions and your local auctions. You combine all of those things. And I use all of those things. I buy cars from small auctions, Mannheim auctions. I buy cars off of acv, which is a huge competitor. I wouldn't call me a competitor of theirs, but we compete for the same cars right now. But I use them as a tool because it's a great idea. So I think you have to leave yourself open to, to every option and have a good wholesaler, have a good auction that you like to use and use the same ones over and over again. Because it is. You get to know the people there, you get to know what to expect.

And it's all about relationships. Just what you just said. I mean, if you, you know, if you get, if you don't use all, if you don't use all these pieces of this puzzle, you're missing a lot of cars, you're missing great relationships and you're pigeonholing yourself. You're not learning. And if you do have an issue with a car that you bought from a. You see this all the time. Well, I bought this car from Mannheim and it didn't go through arbitration. This, that, and other. Well, how many cars you buy from Anaheim, Right? That stuff does matter. As much as we want to not think it matters, it does matter. So if I only bought one car from o' Hare last year, and I bought another one and it was bad, he, you know, he's not gonna. He's gonna be like, well, you only bought one car a year for me. You know, I'm sorry it broke, you know, two weeks later. But if I bought a car from Anaheim and I'm buying 40 cars a month, well, they're gonna probably help me out if I need something, right? So it's all about relationships.

I had a dealer call me this morning. I had two different things happen. One was an in op car that I had to get back that went to parts dealer, and they had already sold the bumper and the hood and the fender. So I said, well, find a bumper and a hood and a fender, put it on there, and I'm gonna take it back, you know, so that I'm out a thousand dollars right there. But it keeps everybody happy. And then another dealer called me this morning and said that. That one of the cars that I sold him about a month ago, that he had to do $1,200 worth of work and, you know, so on and so forth. I said, well, you let me know what I need to do to make it right, and I'll make it right. And that's. That's the way that. That we handle it. But every. Everybody, you know, has a different way of doing it.

But I just like to rib him every once in a while when I get one. I was like, you know that dang car that I bought from you? And then he'll be like, well, how about that one you made five grand on? I'll be like, oh, you're right.

And I do that with a lot of my clients. I have a guy that's not far from here, and he's a buy here, pay here guy.

And he.

He'll complain every now and then. And I said, well, that. That makes up for the. The half a million dollars you've made on me over the last couple of years. Yeah, Yeah.

I didn't ask for anything on the back end of that, right?

No, he doesn't get any f. And I on the back end of his.

Well, that's awesome. Oh, here. I really appreciate your time, Luke. I don't know if you've got any other questions for him or follow up info we need from this, but, man, I mean, it really has been great. And I think the theme of it, like you guys said, it's just relationships. You know, have a relationship with your source, whether that's digital or, you know, ideally, you've got a wholesaler that's actually checking these things out. And for me, as a buy here, pay here dealer, man, I cringe every time I buy something online, and I haven't seen it or had someone I trust see it. So wholesalers are crucial, man. Crucial to have somebody who in the car, looking at it, making sure it is what it looks like or what they say it is, you know?

For sure, man. Thanks, o'.

Hara.

We appreciate you having me.

All right. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it, guys.

Sam.