A strange story I can’t get out of my mind.
Joe Stout and his wife, Connie, of Colleyville were shopping for a new car. At a dealership they found one they liked. The couple and the salesman agreed on a price.
But as you may know, dealers don’t make much of a profit on a new car sale. The real juice has to be squeezed in the finance office’s cubicle.
That’s where the finance person tries to sell you undercoating, floor mats and, most important, an extended warranty. The price for that is fluid. A consumer should negotiate the initial price as low as possible. Never pay the first price offered.
Joe called the sales pitch he heard behind the closed door “strange.”
Joe recalls, “He told us the car had a lot of bells and whistles that were likely to break, that the standard warranty that comes with the car is a ‘limited’ warranty and is really not very good, and that we needed to buy an insurance policy that would be an eight-year, bumper-to-bumper extended warranty.
“He kept repeating the words ‘limited warranty’ and drew a circle around the words on a handout. He told us that cars are not what they used to be and declined in quality since the time of COVID-19.
“He said the company had laid off employees. Their manufacturing process is in disarray, and that they assemble multiple models of cars on the same assembly line, which he called ‘scary.’
“Only when we asked did he mention the price of the extended warranty — $4,100.
“At this point, I told him I want to take my trade-in car for the night and think the deal over. My wife was more direct and told him he was making the car sound like ‘a piece of junk,’ and maybe we should reconsider before buying from the same company where we’ve been loyal customers for more than 20 years.”
Stout said, “We got out of there fast.”
My takeaway is that one of the most dangerous places in the consumer world is the finance person’s cubicle.
You’ve got to bring some of my Watchdog Nation skepticism to the event as the door to that cubicle shuts behind you.
I wonder if the finance guy was going rogue to make the sale. Or if his anti-car screed was approved by higher-ups?
Have you ever heard of someone so strongly bouthing their own product?
I haven’t. Not like this.
Update: Roofers’ license
I must report with heartfelt defiance that for the umpteenth time, the Texas Legislature failed to protect Texans from out-of-state roofers who swarm into neighborhoods after major storms.
Waco Republican Pat Curry, a first-time House member, introduced a bill to require roofers to on a public website and receive a state roofers license. That’s not asking much.
In an interview with The Watchdog, he noted the irony of a Republican seeking more government regulations, but his goal was to stop Texans from losing money to unethical roofers.
The rookie did get some bills ed. One, House Bill 2715 would make it easier for Texans to remove bad elected county officials from office. He calls it the “People’s Veto” bill.
The second, HB 3611, would increase the penalties for putting up bandit signs in roadway right-of-ways from $500 to $5,000. Bandit signs are those small signs that get placed close to curbs, which are not permitted.
But Curry said he learned the most as a freshman from the failed roofing bill. HB 3344.
“The opposition really kind of blew me away, frankly,” he said.
In a public hearing, he scorched former state Rep. Carl Isett, Lubbock, a bill opponent who is now a lobbyist for the Texas Independent Roofing Contractors Association. Curry said he was upset because the lobbyist didn’t show him the courtesy of visiting his legislative office to discuss the bill.
Isett, who has fought a roofers’ licensing bill since 1997, told me he eventually talked to Curry, although not in Curry’s office. He called Curry “a reasonable guy” and said he hoped ”we can put it behind us and work together."
I have a theory as to why the bill died. It died in the powerful House Calendars Committee, which schedules bills to go to the House floor for debate and a vote. It was ready, and then, probably, someone stopped it.
Curry placed his ire on lobbyist Isett. The freshman lawmaker sounded like a veteran when he told me how he felt disrespected by the lobbyist.
“I will not forget that. I can assure you,” Curry said. “Whatever issue he’ll be working on in the future, I’ll be watching.”
Curry said he’ll try again in two years. It’s like the movie Groundhog Day. Every two years, we go through the same fight. And every two years, we lose.