Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP.38 Feat. Dan Garcia

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

Auto Insights & Myths Debunked: A Chat with Dan Garcia In this episode of Good News York, hosts Mike and Matt welcome special guest Dan Garcia, a trusted mechanic and car dealership owner in Central New York. Dan shares insights into his various automotive businesses, emphasizing the importance of trust and honesty in car sales and repairs. They debunk common car maintenance myths such as oil change intervals and the reliability of high-mileage vehicles. Dan also discusses the impact of tariffs on the car market and provides valuable advice for those looking to buy new or used cars. Additionally, the episode covers the pros and cons of winter tires and other vehicle maintenance tips, making it an insightful listen for anyone interested in automotive care. 00:00 Introduction and Morning Banter 00:53 Introducing Dan Garcia: The Car Guy 02:05 Dan's Automotive Businesses 02:48 The Importance of Trustworthy Mechanics 09:01 Winter Car Maintenance Tips 12:45 Car Market Trends and Tariffs 17:52 Carvana and the Future of Car Sales 22:03 Dan's Business Names and Contact Information 22:51 Carvana Investment Regrets 24:00 Choosing a New SUV 25:03 Land Rover Concerns 25:51 Toyota and Lexus Options 27:06 Buying Experience Stories 28:42 Myth Busting Car Maintenance 36:00 Common Car Scams 40:14 Final Thoughts and Plugs

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Hey guys, welcome to Good News York. It's what day of the week is it? It's a Wednesday. It is. Mike knows. At least Mike knows. What I do know, though, Good morning, Mike.

Good morning, buddy. You even introduce you. That's okay. Horrible this morning. Shot out of a cannon. It's fine. We got some great new coffee in the other room. After I finish this, I'm going to be hitting that up.

I'm excited about it. And there's off air. Remind me there's something interesting brewing. About the coffee? Yeah, yeah. Should I not drink it? No, no, no. Oh, okay.

This is a good thing. By the way, there's poison in it. Oops, I didn't tell him. I wouldn't tell you that first. Right. If we haven't scared him away yet. Right. Joining us is my good buddy, Dan Garcia.

Let's go. What's going on? Hello, Dan. Hello. Dan is the car guy that you. you want to know. And he's got a couple of businesses here in central New York. He sells cars.

And he fixes him. And it's the most important thing to have. And we can clean them. And you can clean them? A little further on our other location. I tell, you know, I tell people all the time when they, you know, friends, I say, when you move to a new town, I said there's like, there's three things you got to figure out, right?

As people who's good dentist, good doctor. reliable mechanic. And if you can throw sales car car dealership in there, and you got a two for one with Dan, I mean, that's it. It's really important because there's a, you know, I'm assuming,

there's a lot of people out there who are not the most honest when it comes to... It's the stigma of Dan Garcia. Of a bad car guy has got to be horrible. Before we even get into that, though, Dan, let's talk about, give them the details. What are the businesses,

where are they located, Give us the spiel. Yeah, so I have the garage at 3100. That's our newest expansion to, you know, as such I call it, my little portfolio of automotive enterprises. That's down in the Valley in Syracuse, and that's a newer business. Help facilitate the car dealership, which is in Chittendenango. So it's a little bit, they're all separate businesses, but they all come together as one.

The car washes all the way out in Phelps. That's a self-serve, self-sustained kind of thing. I always forgets you had the car wash. Yeah, it's more of like its little own little dormant business. Yeah. It runs itself. You go out there twice a week, check on things, make sure things are clean and, you know, refill the soap, stuff like that.

But the garage is where we're looking to really grow that more. It's hard to find a reliable, trustworthy shop. Right. Growing up, we always had, you know, issues trying to find good mechanics for our family. Sure. And once you found one, it was usually, you know, a smaller facility. they were ripping you off. You didn't go in for an oil change,

and they were selling you four tires and breaks when you just had breaks done six months ago. Yep. You know, so when you find that, you kind of cherish it. So that's what we're trying to build. Is that reputation that we're going to sell you what you need, not what we want to sell you today. Yeah.

You know, and we always give our customers the options, you know, what they're looking at in the future, especially, you know, as repair-wise. Like, if the brakes are getting low, if they're half-worn, tell them, hey, you probably got, you know, eight months on these breaks. If we know they're putting 4,000 miles a month on the car, we're like, you're going to need breaks in two months.

Be prepared. Here's what might be. You know, and then we hope that they come back because, you know, we didn't sell them that break job today when they're only half worn. Right, right. That's what I'm talking about in terms of, you know, the honest car guy. That's exactly what I mean. And I can personally attest to it.

I think at this point, we brought Dan all of my family's vehicles. plus some every time I turn up with some new thing. And where the fuck do you get this? But, you know, he's done a great, especially with my daughter, my 20-year-old, he's taking care of her vehicle. That's not something that I would, you know, want any schmuck to work on. Right. You know, and what I love about it is I bring it to him.

And afterwards, he goes, you know, we went over this and, you know, this was a little iffy, but it's your daughter. We wanted to be extra safe. So we made sure that we put in the right one and we took care of it. right now and you know it's that type of kind of just real human service yeah so I'm just a fan of in all businesses and that is you know that is the one uh industry I feel where that the generational thing happens it goes back to what I talked about it's important to find that person right that that you can trust and once you do though in the car business I feel like it's a family like

my wife's family we go to the same salesman every year sure every year every couple years whatever it is, and we go to the same repair shop because it's been in the family. And that's something that, do you see that a lot, a lot of loyalty that kind of passes on through generation? Yeah. So we do have a lot of repeat customers that send like family and friends on the sales side. We're more of a niche dealership. We sell stuff that's affordable.

Right. You know, where nowadays everything is, you know, 50, $60,000 for a new car. That's niche. You know, we're selling, you know, primarily under $25,000. Awesome. And then our main market is anywhere between 8 and 15,000 to keep those payments a little bit more affordable for people. Sure. That kind of stuff.

So we do, once that word gets out, especially in that customer base, they spread the word to the people in their neighborhood and they tell somebody a cousin and a sister. I mean, a couple months ago, I think in like two weeks I sold like a whole neighborhood, you know, cars. That's great. And it helps, you know what I mean? Word of mouth is the biggest thing for any business. Sure. You know, you can spend as much money he's going to want on advertising, but word of mouth is going to get you a better ROI than anything.

You take care of that customer, and, you know, we always go above and beyond to do our best to take care of our customers. And, you know, what's wild is when you take a look at the inventory that he's got in that car lot, you talk about the affordable car, you think, oh, this is going to be some old, you know, junk. Rust bucket. They're beautiful. Great vehicles in great shape that, you're like, damn, why am I spent? all this money on these overpriced, you know, other things. Are these all pre-owned vehicles?

Yeah, they're all pre-owned. But we source a lot of them from out of state. New York Rust will eat anything. Yeah. I mean, I have some newer vehicles personally, and, you know, we maintain them very well. We oil-coat them and stuff like that. And still, you know, my girlfriend's got a 19. I've had it for since 19, and we oil-coat it.

We, you know, wash it on a regular basis, and still the rust is getting to it. So we try to source a lot of the youth stuff out of state. If I may, I apologize. I just thought of this. I've always wondered this. This is the perfect time to ask. I noticed, like, in Pennsylvania, I think they use sand instead of salt. And that's what you, you hear the old thing, like, oh, I go down south to the, and get my cars down south because there's no snow.

Why is it because it's such a huge, especially in Syracuse, such a huge salt, such a huge resource here? Is that why the state won't switch to sand? I feel like at this point, well, it works better. Well, it does work a little bit better, but I think sand does. The man does the job, doesn't it? Yeah. So it's the biggest problem that we are seeing in Central New York from the state is they're using more brine. It's not just the salt.

It's the brine that actually is the corrosive. If you don't wash that brine off, and that's what you see they'll pre-treat the roads, and that's brine. So that they don't ice over. There it is. And that brine, just like if it's raining, it gets up underneath the car, and it's, you know, it's liquid. So it's literally just coating the undercarriage. and that's what's causing the rust. Granted, if you don't wash the salt out of the wheel wells after, you know,

it warms up a little bit. You know, people think that winter is when the rust happens, but it's the polar opposite. As soon as the weather starts to get warm, the rust starts. No shit. Yep. Wow. Wow.

It doesn't start in the winter. When the snow is frozen up underneath your car, it's not hurting it. Right. But it's when it starts to thaw out, you don't go get an undercarriage wash, or you don't spray out your wheel wells, don't wipe your door jams. It starts eating through. That's incredible. Yeah.

And they don't use that brine with the sand? It only pertains to salt? So the brine is like the pre-treatment. The salt, it doesn't help. But a lot of the states use sand. I think it's cheaper, to be honest, where the other than the salt is. But why would we want to do anything cheaper? Why would we do that?

That's silly, Dan. Right. I know a lot of, like, the northern areas, they do use a sand base, but they don't scrape the roads clean. I mean, you go up towards, like, Camden or anything like that. And the roads are driving on snow. You're driving on snow coated with sand. Yeah. And you got to have snow tires.

And then that's my biggest thing, too. I mean, this year, we did a lot of snow tires for people who normally wouldn't do snows. And I had a personal friend wanting brand new tires for winter all seasons. And I'm like, we did your tires not that long ago. And she's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. They're bad already. I want good traction for winter. She came in, her tires still brand new.

I go, they were 80,000 mile of tires. You put 20,000 miles on your car. You don't need tires. We need good snows. That'll last you, you know, multiple seasons. You're going to get the most bang for your buck with a brand new set of all season, which you already have, and then the set of snows. So we did the snows.

She texted me for a snowstorm we had. These tires are amazing, and she drives, you know. Yeah. And everybody, I even run snows. I mean, everybody I know should run snows. I do. And it's beneficial, right? You're going to get the most life out of the tires that you're all seasons now,

and you're going to grip. All seasons can be great if you don't. go out when it's snowing. If you get caught in the snow, maybe. But if you want to be able to go through the snow and have that piece of mind all winter long, you're going to want snow tires. Absolutely. Absolutely.

What about studs? We still doing the studded snows? I'm right here. I'm biased about that. I normally don't recommend studs. We'll do a lot of highway driving. This year, I ran studded snows on my car, and it was a monster. And with the icy conditions, I could tell you love it.

I did love it. You love it. I did love it. But they're obnoxious because they're noisy. Yeah. So like the average person who just, you know, gets caught on the way home in a snowstorm, they don't need studs. But if, you know, you're doing a lot of driving and you like skiing and stuff like that, absolutely get the studs. You know, but the downfall to the studs is they can rip out. Yeah.

Stuff like that. And then you're kind of losing that extra traction. So interesting. It's a personal preference. I would usually not recommend it. And then I'm like, well, let me be the judge because I've never had studded snows. You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this, even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, This is your sign. Start free at RSS.com.

So he did it this year. And, yeah, I mean, my plow truck, I could climb the snowbag after I plow it. So maybe, maybe for the everyday person, if they have like a long driveway, you know, they live in like rural area. In the snow, they got to climb a long drive. Maybe that's where you would use it. Yeah, absolutely. You've got to, you really got to make sure to get those off when the season's over, though, quick. The other ones you could, you can get away with running first.

a few extra weeks, but when it's time, it's over, it's over. You got to get those off. Yeah. For sure. Do you, uh, you typically have a whole set of wheels and tires that you can bolt on or do you do the, the mountain balance every time? Uh, it depends. If you can get a decent set of rims cheap enough, a lot of the times, like, you know,

for my girlfriend's car, we have, it's a whole set of rims. Yeah. And we just happen to get lucky and find a set of wheels for like, you know, 400 bucks. And with, with the sensors. So we just, you know, put the. snow is on, boom. Yeah. And like I said, she's been running, we've been switching back and forth since 2019,

and we just put a fresh set of all seasons on last year. Yeah. You know, she doesn't drive as much, but that's what I would recommend. It's cheaper to do it that way. If I'm installing, if I'm remounting and balancing, it's a little more if I'm just essentially taking rims on and putting them off, you know. But it's not that much of a savings. But a lot of people do continue to keep, like, the same vehicle.

for five to ten years, then yeah, I would recommend getting, you know, both sets of rims and tires. But if you're only going to lease it, don't waste the money. Yeah, that's fair. Especially the tire size has changed constantly now. Yeah. You have been leased in, let's say, Ravours since 2019, and every year they change the size. It could be 18 this year. It could be a 20-inch rim and tire.

So. I got you. Let me ask you a little bit about the car market. if I could. So, you know, we're hearing a lot about tariffs and all this. And recently there was a story that the tariffs are driving up the price of the new cars. So the, the used car market is getting hot and driving up the price of that. Is that a true assessment? You seen that? Yeah, there is always a trickle down effect. Yeah. It takes a little bit longer. I mean, we saw the same thing during the pandemic. Yeah. Use car prices shot up. It's hard to know right now because they keep changing. and the tariff whatever they're doing with it at that moment. You know, some manufacturers aren't going to be charged. Some are, you know, so... And then some of the manufacturers, like Mercedes-Benz announced,

like, they were going to eat the tariffs this year. Anything that was already manufactured, they weren't going to charge tariffs on it. So it all depends on the manufacturer of the brands. That's a great pitch, honestly. Good on them. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think there's a lot of, like, fear in it. Yeah. I mean, the first week we heard about, like, these tariffs, especially on the cars, we were getting, we saw an influx of traffic, especially, yep, normally where we wouldn't at that time of year. Yeah. And then like the big car dealerships are advertising, like, pre-tariff pricing. And it's like, all right, calm down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are on the ground vehicle. Yeah, yeah. Some of them are shifting their prices already to anticipate because their next load of cars is going to cost them more money. Right. Some of them were increasing the prices. But not all of them.

So you will see a little. little bit just like when there's a chicken scare. Yeah. Go up or if there's, you know, bad batch of chickens, the chicken goes up. And so, forgive me if this sounds a little selfish. Oh, I love this. But I have a lease that's coming up ending soon. And I remember during the pandemic when this happened, the prices of everything and people

were buying out leases for way more than they owed. Right. Am I going to be able to do that? Is there any chance of me being in that situation? again before I got to turn this thing in. It depends. I mean, it really depends on the lease contract. I mean, I had friends that they had equity during the pandemic in their vehicles.

So I think I helped probably four different people buy out their lease and then sell it back to the dealership and get a new car. And they had, you know, anywhere between $5,000 and $15,000 in equity to be in the situation. In your circumstances, you might have equity. You might have negative equity. Yeah. It all varies depending on the contract, how much you put down, how much your monthly was. Gotcha. And it's depreciation.

Sure. I know you drive a nice car, so they tend to depreciate a little less at that lease phase. So you might get lucky. Not sure, but. Fair enough. They're always going to give you the loyalty. You know, they want you to keep coming back. So you might get lucky there with the loyalty program.

This is good news, York, and we focus on positivity and not bashing anything. So I won't go into details other than. I would never buy another vehicle from that particular dealership. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, I think gloves are off when it comes to that. I mean, that's not negative. That's positive.

You're looking out for the general public. It's true. You know, the good news is there's other dealerships of that manufacturer that I can turn it into and do that. Which I don't know. And Dan, tell me if you know anything about this. Obviously, you're in the used car market. But if I was to look at a new car at one of these other dealerships, would they traditionally be able to take my lease in or what?

Absolutely. So it's not based upon which dealers should you buy it from. Okay. They won't tell you that, absolutely because they want your reviews. Wish I had known that a few years ago. Nope, but it's actually based on the manufacturer.

Okay. You know, the manufacturer wants you to keep coming back. Yeah. That dealership wants you to come back. So that's why they give you incentives to bring it back to that dealer. But no, you could bring it to any manufacturer affiliated, you know,

got you. Gotcha. dealership. So a lot of the times, um, in that case during, you know, the pandemic times when I was helping people get their leases bought out or get the equity out of them, you wouldn't get the best deal from the dealer they bought it from. You know, they say, oh, I've always gone to the, you know, this guy. Gotcha. And that guy, they weren't helping people. They wanted to maximize on, you know, profit at the time where some of the dealers at a state were willing to play ball. Right.

if they wanted that used inventory and because they know what it's worth. I see. So, you know, we are in a free market. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the nice thing about it. But they won't tell you that when you get your lease. Sure.

You don't have to bring it back here in six years. I know people who didn't even bring their cars back to trade, to turn them in for leases because they didn't want to go through the whole spiel of pressure and all this. And they'll just come and they'll actually come to your home and do an inspection on the lease. Oh, wow. And then pick it up. Wow. Yep. So they're making things easier.

And especially with the digital error now. Yeah. You know, you could release a car online. They're trying to find ways to cut out the, you know, storefronts for the dealerships. Sure. And mainly use them as, you know, hubs of repair. Yeah. What do you think of the companies like it was at Carvana and stuff like that?

Is that a threat to your business or is it just more of a, hey, sign of the times? It's, so I love their idea for Carvana. It's a great idea and they have a market because people like online shopping. I mean, you buy everything online. Their retail prices are insane, though. They are, of course. Right. They're making their money on the finance.

They don't really care what they're selling the car for. They take humongous losses on the car up front because they're holding part of the payment. So they do the financing as well? They're partnered with benefits. That's the money. And that's where they make the money. For them, it's not the sale of the car. Their price may be high, it may be low.

They might have paid too much. They're willing to take a loss because they're looking at the long term, not the short term. The interest, yeah. Yeah. So at a 14 or 18% interest rate, when they're only paying, you know, seven, they're holding that percentage. That's crazy. Long term. And now these loans, I mean, they're going 50, 60, 80 months on some of these terms.

Yeah. It's nuts. On a used vehicle. On a used vehicle. So they're holding, you know, XYZ percentage for the term. See, that's why I asked. I knew you would know. I love the idea, though.

I mean, we... It is a great idea. We buy a lot of cars from Carvana. Uh-huh. They do buy. I mean, they're advertising constantly. You know, we buy cars, best price, best of this. But literally, I've seen what they've offered people.

I tell the people sell to a carvonne. I can't compete. I didn't know they were doing commercially. I've sold. I've sold a used car to them, and I'll be honest with you. They paid me way more than I would have gotten from anybody. And it was the most painless thing ever. Yeah.

Yeah, well, sure. Guy showed up on a flatbed. And I thought he was going to, like, nickel and dine. me. I thought he was going to walk around and go, oh, it's not actually this condition. You got a ding here. No, the check was already printed. Yeah. Bro was just there to pick it up. Yep. And hand me the money and is gone. It was incredible. These guys are idiot. No, I wonder what I'm like, what's going on? I wonder if you would pay you more because in the era of where you can just go on Kelly's Blue Book, right? Like, you can see its value. Why would they pay you more? It's amazing. They paid me, I want to say necessarily more, but sort of top dollar on that. That's great.

that any dealership, any even private deal would have busted my chops to pay anything near that, you know. And what's wild is they'd take that crazy price and, like, double it as they flip it for sale. Not always. Well, at one point, and maybe they've come around on that. If they're decent and they can recondition them, well, they'll keep them. But what they're also doing is they're trying to control the wholesale market. So Carvana purchased a big auction franchise, Addessa. And they've, they're trying to now, so not only did they figure out a way to get the consumer end,

they're trying to control the wholesale market as well, which is a billion dollar industry. So they may have paid you top dollar, and they'll list it and hope that they make money on it, but they're willing to take a loss on that car just to get the, you know, the buyer there in that loyalty. I mean, at one point, we were probably buying 200 cars. 300 cars a year just from Carvana. Wow. Just from them. Oh kidding.

And now it's less because they've got the buyer base now. Yeah. So they stop doing fire sales. Yeah, yeah. Gotcha. That's what I would call them. They would start the bidding at $0 on all the cars on the platform. Wow.

Now they start them at what they paid you for it. Gotcha. And then if it doesn't get a bid, they bring it down a little bit the next day. I see. And bring it down a little bit the next day until somebody, you know, bites on it. Wow. So it's a great business idea, but it's a venture capitalist backed, you know, thing. That's those things, is those guys can just pour so much cash into it without them.

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Immediate return. Endless. And you see crazy stuff. What's wild is for, I don't know how many years I've been hearing any day now, They're going to go under. Any day now they're going to go under. And yet they are still here. They're above.

So it's interesting. And what's the name of your, we haven't even said the name of your business. Yeah. We did. He mentioned the garage of 3100. I thought we missed on that. Oh, it's called the garage. So that's my, that's the repair facility.

Yep. I thought you were just like, yeah, the garage. I'm like, say the name. It's catchy. It's catchy. It is catchy. Yeah. So that's the repair end, the garage at 3100 LLC.

Gotcha. And then the dealership, the website. sites cashcarsc ny.com. Oh, I thought it was called the dealership. I was like, this guy loves the garage. The dealership. I live at The House. That's great idea.

No, it's awesome. I might change it now. Yes, that's actually a great name. Yeah. The dealership. I'll have to say you loyalties on it. We'll figure it. But you make the, like, all caps, like, because you're, you know, the one, the dealership,

the garage. Anyway, keep going. Sorry. And then, so just to wrap up the Carvana situation. Yeah. Yeah. Like Matt was saying, they have just abundance amount of money to dump in it. And honestly, my biggest thing with Carvana, what I'm more mad at myself about is, like Matt said, they weren't going to go.

People who say they're going to go under, they're going to go under. The stock went down to like under $10 a share. And I literally said, I text my guy and I'm like, can we buy like 200 shares of this? And he's like, you're out of your mind. It keeps coming down. It was that like 200 and something, 300 at one point. And I'm like You're my advisor

Do what you will But I think we should buy it And we didn't And now it's back up to like It's it We could have doubled it at 10th The same thing happened Mine's less cool

The same thing happened to me With WWE Like 10 years ago We met with my friend I told my wife I go They just opened the women's division I go it's really building

I want to buy She's like we're not going to buy WWE Then you know The McMahon family just sold it So I know I know what you were feeling man I know what you were feeling

I uh so to make this all about me again yes i love you talking about my car my leases up i don't think i want another of the same vehicle i need a bigger one i think i want like a full-size SUV i am genuinely unsure i don't have a particular one that i'm sold on any advice any input on what i might like along those lines yeah i mean going from what you're currently driving. It's just too small. Yeah. Probably it's,

I would recommend like a BMW, maybe X7. Okay. A little bit bigger, roomy, but similar creature comforts. Am I BMW guy though? Like, I don't, well, I mean, I don't think anyone's ever a BMW guy.

I gotta get different shirts. I think, I think you, you work into it. You become the, the, and then I got to, like, cut people off in traffic and shit. Not use your blinkers,

especially. I definitely sip lattes in traffic. I have to, yeah. I don't know if I'm ready for all that. It's going to be a lifestyle change, but, you know, what else you got? Maybe a Land Rover. Even worse. All right, so here's the thing.

I genuinely, I genuinely love a lot of those Land Rover, the look of them. They, a lot, they look super, super slick. But all I have heard excessively is that they are junk in, in. Safety? Mechanical problems. Mechanical, yeah. That's what I heard, too. You watch those TikTok videos where they interview Mechanical.

And they're like, which vehicle would you never want? Yeah. So many of them say Landry. I've also heard the opposite with Kia, where they went from like, stay away to now they're like, no, they're respectable. Yeah, I still wouldn't drive one. Me either. The friend of mine had his Land Rover, Lemon Lodd.

Really? They could not fix the issue. He had issue after issue. Aren't they a brand of Toyota? I don't know. They were BMW affiliate. Oh, I thought Toyota owned them. No.

If they'd be more reliable. That's what I was thinking. Speaking of Toyota is, I mean, you could always go Lexus if you want luxury or even like the new, the new Toyota, like the big one, the Sequoia. Okay. Super baller. I mean, they're wicked nice. And I mean, but that's something, in my opinion, if you were to buy it, you keep it for 10 years. Yeah.

Tahoe would be good on you, I think, too. I kind of like the idea of Tahoe. The problem is the brand new ones are still more than I want to pay. Yeah. They're over 100 grand. Yeah. I just, I can't bring myself to do that. I mean, I love the, I love the GM platform personally.

Yeah. I mean, I run the escalate. I love it on a new one, but like you said, peaking over a hundred on the escalate now, Tahoe's follow right behind it, not far behind. Yeah. You know, so. And in my opinion, like, I know a Toyota or a Lexus value, you keep it for 10 years, put 100,000 miles on it.

Yeah. Versus a Tahoe. the value that it holds, two different animals. I hear you. I hear you. I don't know. I might even have to test drive things.

I normally don't even do that. Yeah. The last car, I had it all picked out. I had the whole thing, and I was just ready to go. And then, you know, it was funny. The first brand new car that I ever bought, I bought a Honda CRV,

and I had done all the research, and it was, I had owned 100 Hondas before that. I was hardcore Honda guy at the time. Knew what I wanted. It was time for a brand new vehicle, did the research, knew exactly what I wanted. I knew I wanted to lease. The whole deal. Go to this car lot.

The guy comes out. I tell him, hey, yeah, I want that. I want a lease. Let's say, all right, let's go for a test drive. I'm like, I don't really need a test drive. Just write it up. Make sure you can get me approved for the right amount. And it's done.

I needed a fucking cashier, not a salesman. Right. Oh, no, no, no, we got to try. All right. So we fucking drive the thing. Okay, still want to buy it. Yep. Now, have you thought about finance? Yes, I want to lease it.

Write it up. Oh, well, what do you got for a trade? The motherfucker wouldn't do it. This guy, he literally like, oh, why don't you come back on Monday and we'll go over whatever? You've got to be fucking kidding me. You were the dream customer. You're like, I want it, give me the keys. I left, I went home, I got online to another local Honda dealership.

I went online and said, this is what I want. These are the terms. He email me back the next morning, come in and pick up your car. Like, what is wrong with people, you know? My wife gets mad at me because that's how I am with clothing. Like, I don't try pants on. I just hold them up to myself. Look, they fit.

And then they never do. You shop in the doll section. There aren't too many sizes anyway. I'm too big for kids, too small for adults. I'm in this weird window. But enough about me. I actually, well, if we have time, I have like three questions. I'd love to.

Go for it. I want to do a little, it's a small game of myth, myth busters. I like this. I like this. I like this. I thought of there's probably more, but I think it's important for the people listening and watching to know, okay? Is it a myth that you need to have an oil change at every?

Yeah, you can hit this one. You can buzz it if it's a myth. There you go. If it's a myth. Do you need to have an oil change every 3,000 miles? Because I've heard it's actually five. Am I going to ruin your, I'm going to ruin his business? Because now he's like, I just put so many stickers on those windows.

It's controversial, right? So like a full synthetic, they tell you it's good for 10,000 miles. Bullshit. I would not recommend anyone going 10,000 miles on oil change. Now, a car that says 10, absolutely 5. Gotcha. A car that says 5, I recommend 3, especially as they get up there in the miles. So like the more miles it gets.

Yeah. So like on a brand new car, honestly, if it calls for 10, yeah, you could probably go 10 the first run. Sure. The first one. Yeah. Then you've got 10,000 miles. miles. Now you might want to drop it to eight and then I really recommend three to keep it in top condition. Okay. So like my mom had Alexis with 280 on it. You pull the dipstick out,

the oil is still crystal clean. 3,000 mile oil changes its whole life. We bought it at like 180,000. She put the other hundred on it. But we 3,000 mile oil to change it. Every time you pull the stick out, oil's brand new still. Yeah. Keeps the engine clean. I mean, you don't drink enough throughout the day, right? You're tired and you're dehydrated. Sure. Yeah. You don't. Pete. Cars got to pee out something clean. It's sort of in the manufacturer's best interest to not extend the life, right? Is that kind of

why you're like... Absolutely. Go better than they tell you? Absolutely. And that's, you know... That's... What I'm seeing is like my sister has a 2023 Honda and she runs this thing hard. Miles, and they call for like, I think, a 5,000 mile oil change.

Yeah. We do it every three. They consume oil. The new cars, they have it with inspect... how much oil they're allowed to consume. Oh, wow. Where the older cars, if you were consuming oil, there was a big issue. There was a problem, yeah. Right.

Now there's like manufacturer guidelines that say it can consume a court every, you know, 4,000 miles. But the oil change is good for 10, right? That's incredible. Okay. So not a myth. Not a myth. All right. Okay.

This is a deep one. If you see a car dealership that has a gravel or loose stone lot, stay away. They have that so in case there's any leaks or anything wrong with the vehicle, you don't see it. You've never heard this? You never heard that one? This is, I love it. We're going to go myth on that one. All right, it's a myth.

Are there many lots that even have such a thing? It was actually, I thought it was brilliant advice, but I'm like, but is that a thing? It sounds more of a conspiracy. Like, in other words, you can still see an oil leak on stones. Yeah, you would definitely, honestly, I think you wouldn't pull on the stone. You could actually pick the stone up and be like transfer. Right, right, right. Or if you're crazy, you could taste it.

Yeah. I mean. Wow. I guess my last one would be once a car, like 100,000 miles seems to be like the death mark. Cars are not reliable at 100,000 in pass and just a little bit past that. I was hoping you'd say that. Big meth. Big meth on that one.

But it also comes down to maintenance. Of course. Right. Like a lot of the, a lot of the. a lot of the cars we work on, we do see that car that the consumer just bought and they're coming in and going, well, it's only got 40,000 miles on it. And I'm telling them, well, it needs $10,000 with the work because it's sat. Sure. Gotcha.

You know, it's a 15, 16 year old car with low miles, but it wasn't maintained. You know, Nana let it sit in the yard. Yeah. She was getting 10,000 mile oil exchanges. Didn't get the brakes done. Didn't get the calipers, you know, checked. It's, you know, it's just like cars are like humans. If you're not exercising them or working them and maintaining them, they're going to deteriorate faster.

A lot more work to. You know, I mean, I know 80-year-old people who are in great health and I know 65-year-old people who are on their deathbeds. So it's kind of like the same concept. You know, if you take care of it, it takes care of you. And that's my firm belief on a lot of things. You know what I mean? Not just cars, not just humans, but just everything. Is there a mileage mark that scares you or is it really more of, forget about that and look at the overall of the other?

Yeah, it's condition. I buy on condition. I don't buy on miles. I don't buy on year. I buy purely on condition. And you mean under the hood? I buy honestly a lot of stuff online, so I don't even look under the hood. It's all blind, but just genuine condition. If the car has 120,000 miles on it, but it's got brand new tires on it, you know somebody maintained it. If it's got 80,000 miles on and all four tires are bald, they didn't maintain it. I mean, tires. are a big expense. Brakes are a big expense. So if they weren't doing the tires, you know they weren't doing the brakes. And that means then they weren't getting the suspension serviced or fixed when it had issues. You know, it also greatly depends on area. You know, some of our roads are decent.

So if you don't drive in the city, then you might have better luck with your car for a longer term. But if you drive in the city like I do every day to get to, you know, to work, I mean, you probably need the recommended shocks at $60,000 or, you know, it all really depends. Hughes Roads will destroy shocks like nobody's business. Jesus Christ, yeah. Sometimes I think it'd be better if they just ripped them up and let us drive around on dirt. Yeah.

Might be better off. Do you, I mean, I feel like the only time you know when to do breaks is when you start hearing them grind. Is there some, is there a marker before that that say, like when should you change your brakes? So, glad you mentioned. A good shop checks the brakes when it comes in for an oil change. Right.

Not only for an upsell, a lot of people, you know, would say in debate, oh, that's just upsell you. Yeah. Yeah. A bad shop will absolutely upsell you. brakes when you don't need them. Sure. So like if you, but if you get your, you know, oil change that valvling only, they're not checking the brakes. So you wouldn't know until they're grinding, right? You know, so like you said, you know, you find a good doctor,

you find a good dentist, you find a good repair shop and you trust them and, you know, when they're giving you a recommendation, you know, you hope it's true. Honestly, I, a lot of the times when we pull pads out, we leave them, I leave a pad on the counter to show the customer, you know, just to give them that piece of mind. Yeah. You know, I'll show them the rotor. You know, a lot of the times we haven't got, there's systems now where you can do visual inspections and take pictures and stuff. We haven't gotten to that point yet. It's another expense and we try to keep the expenses low so we can keep, you know, our- So the system would tell you how far that pad is sort of thing. Yeah.

And like you can do a whole visual inspection, 360 on the car, do a video and you can send it to the customer. A lot of the big places do it. Yeah. You know, their labor rate is $200 an hour. Sure. You know, where ours is $1.35. Yeah. When the, when the repairman comes out and says, oh,

Look at your filter. We've got to get rid. Is there a filter they keep back there that's dirty and they say it? That's another one I've always wondered. Honestly, in the repair industry, especially at a lot of the fast-loop places, 100% there's absolutely that dirty, nasty filter that they keep in the basement that they whip out and go, this is your filter. Because you're thinking yourself, wait, how did you get the filter out so fast? Yeah. I've seen them pull the filters sometimes,

but then you've got to wonder, like, just like when they pull the dipstick out to show you the oil, they come right to the window. Why would you pull the filter out, and now you haven't come back yet? You know what I mean? But here's the other filter. But there's also good places that don't do that stuff.

Sure. So it's definitely something that's done in industries, but once again, that's bait and switch. Sort of along those lines, Dan, was my kind of final question for, you, which is there a common scam, I guess I would say, a common thing that some of these not-so-great shops are easily pulling on a lot of people that they can look out for. Telling women they need their blinker fluid filled.

Now that you mentioned fluid, yes. So, like, they sell break fluid exchanges, cool exchanges, transmission exchanges. It's not a huge necessity. you know, and a lot of people will, you know, oh, okay, you know, a lot of the places will advertise like, you know, brake special, you know, pads, you know, 59-95 installed. Then you get there and you need calipers and you need rotors, but they got you in the door thinking that you were going to spend $59 on brake pads. Yeah. And now they got it apart and they're telling you, well, I can't put it back together. It's not safe. Right.

You came in with the mindset that you were spending $59, but in the fine print it said, does not include calipers, does not include this, does not include that. and they do a lot of places upsell the brake fluid flush, which unless the brake fluid, you can see when it breaks down and it will change color. Yeah, it loses its value. It doesn't have the right properties anymore. That's on 100 plus thousand mile car. Yeah.

They're selling. I don't know that I've ever heard that actually happened. 30,000 miles. Right. Yeah. It's very uncommon. It's very uncommon. I see if you'll top off.

Right. Right. Right. Absolutely. So when they do say, oh, but your rotors are, because I've gotten that one a lot. Your rotors, your cow. Are they, I mean, I can't say everyone.

But for the most part, are they telling the truth on that? Or is that also an upsaw? Unless you get your pads done way ahead of time. Like, I have a customer, she's got a 20, 23, or no, I'm sorry, it's a 24 Mazza SUV. Okay. And she came in early for her pads. And literally, we call the dealership to find out how much for pads. They were $418.

my cost for pads. Just for the front. Oh, yeah. And apparently these pads are wearing out. She only has like 26,000 miles on the car. And she said she could feel a difference in the pedal. And I'm like, so my guy measures them out. And they were getting low already at 20-something thousand miles.

Wow. And I'm like, wow. But because the car is under warranty still for power train, but brakes aren't covered. Yeah. The master cylinder would be covered. Not the rotors in the pads. and that's where.

Yeah. And so that's where the manufacturer makes up their money. $400-something dollars for pads. That's nice. We got them aftermarket, substantially cheaper, and she was happy as can be. It took two days to get them because it's such a new vehicle. Sure. You know, we had to get them out of another hub in like New Jersey or something, but they came

and we put them on the next week and she was happy as can be. Wow. But she would have went to the dealer for service and they would have said, oh, yeah, those pads are pretty low. Yeah. And they probably would have charged her 500 or something. for the part and then another 200 something, 300 for the labor, and probably sold their rotors. And she didn't need the rotors. Right.

But she got ahead of it. So you don't always need rotors if you get ahead of it. I have people that run them until they're metal on metal. Then it scuffs the surface or the rotor might be delaminated. Not picking on you. Oh, no. No, this all goes. No, I'm just shaking my head because this all goes back to what I said in the beginning,

which is this is why. That's why you have a good car guy. You got to find a good car guy. The garage is the name of it, Dan. Garcia. Dan, before we dip, let's give people the plugs again if you want to start with the car lot. Where is it? And then the website again.

Yeah. So the car lot's in Chittango. It's cash cars, C&Y.com. Awesome. R-C-Services L-L-C-R-C-I-A. And like I said, we got- Right on the main track. Can't miss it, right?

If you head to the casino, stop here first before you spend your money there. That sounds great. Love that. And if you win big, stop back at the car lot. Yeah, right. Absolutely. We've had that happen, too. That's awesome.

Yeah, a woman bought two cars for her grandkids. That's awesome. She hit at the casino. Two days later, she came back. She said, I told you I was coming back. I won that. You never know. Right, right.

You know what I mean? And she bought two cars for her grandkids. That's incredible. I have one last myth for you both to bust or maybe not bust. This is an argument with, again, I'll bring my wife up. We had this argument the other day. Is it Audi or Audi? I drive one.

And I've said it both ways. Yes, what I feel like it's very accent-based. I would say Audi. Yeah. Kew! That's what I told her. But in northern, I feel like, you know, I have somewhat of a downstate accent, people tell me. And some people would say Odie.

I probably say, Odie's not even running for me. I probably say Odie more than anything, but if you watch any of their commercials, they pronounce it Audi. Oh, see, I haven't, I didn't even think of that. Why don't I just look up? commercial. That's more fun to do it with this. Yeah, absolutely. So the other plug, the garage at 3100. Dan, quick, where is it? And then can you also just the rundown of the typical services that you have there? Yeah, so that's on Midland and Ballantyne and Syracuse. We're at the beginning of the valley. If you pass Gannon's ice cream, you went too far. Gotcha. We do all pretty much all your

general services. The only thing we don't get involved in is transmissions. Okay. And that, you know, engine repairs, brakes, tires, wheel bearings, alignments. I've got all the newest equipment. We just purchased a new AC machine, so we're ready for the heat wave to hit. Yeah. So we do all the AC servicing. It's going to be a solid week. Yeah.

Yeah. Hopefully a little chilly. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, we do it all. All right. Awesome. The garage at 3100. Our friend Dan.

C-N-Y-R-C-I-A. How do we pronounce that one? R-C-C-E. Garcia. Like Garcia without the G. Holy cow. That just blew my mind. That's what we do here.

We blow Mike's mind. Guys, this has been good news, York. We appreciate you joining us. We will definitely have Dan back because we got a lot to learn about cars here. This was honestly one of my most, one of my favorite interviews because it's one of those things that you wonder all this stuff, but you never really get answered. Yeah. And this is that first time I got to really sit down with a guy in your industry. And I just really appreciate.

I think you did a service for everybody listening and watching. I think it's important. Yeah, we got some great information out. And that's what we're here for, right? Thanks, man. Hey, guys. We'll see you tomorrow. Thanks, guys.