How I Saved My Dad $20,000 on a Truck in One Weekend

In 2022, my dad's car got sideswiped in a parking lot. Totaled while he was at the grocery store.

I was 17, about two years after my mom's dealership fiasco (the one where a salesman talked down to her and lowballed her trade-in, a story I've told in full elsewhere on this site), and my grasp of the industry had come a long way since. So when my dad began his search, I kicked right into gear.

Pick the right car before you shop for it

For the first time in his life, my dad wanted a truck. But, I knew he wasn't a classic "truck guy"; he wanted a car he could comfortably take his clients out in, that also had a bed. He didn't need a classic American F150. That left him with two realistic choices: a Chevy Denali, or a new gen of Toyota Tundra (the 'Capstone') that had just come out. I explained my thought process, presented the two options, and he opted for the Tundra.

There's a lesson already, before a single dollar changed hands. Most people start with the lot and work backward. Start with the life instead: who rides in it, what it hauls, what it needs to do. Pick the right car the wrong way and it still costs you. Pick the wrong car, no matter how carefully, and it costs you more.

The problem: 2022, and every dealer knew it

This was at the height of the chip shortage, which complicated things. The originally $60k Toyota had now, due to supply chain issues, been marked up by most California (I live in Sacramento) dealerships up to $85k. This made buying one of these trucks an exceptionally poor financial decision: a guaranteed $30k+ depreciation hit in less than 2 years.

Understand what that markup was. It wasn't the value of the truck; it was the value of your impatience. The dealers weren't wrong that somebody would pay it. I just wasn't going to let that somebody be my dad. The difference between good decisions and bad ones is timing. Move too soon, and you crash. Wait too long, and you miss the turn.

The two things the sticker didn't say

Two components of my knowledge were crucial. 1) There are two different types of dealership: high margin and high volume. A high-volume dealership sells many cars at close to cost, a good deal for the buyer. Your local high-margin store makes its money on markup; a high-volume store makes it on turnover, and those two stores will quote you wildly different numbers for the identical truck. 2) Toyota had, at the time, overallocated units of the Tundra in the Midwest and Deep South. Those buyers, especially when money was tight and futures were uncertain, were exceptionally not inclined to buy foreign, to a degree Toyota hadn't anticipated. The result: cheap Tundras in Texas.

Neither of those facts appears on any window sticker or listing site. But they were worth twenty grand!

The play: phone, FaceTime, fly, drive

I called a high-volume dealership in Arlington about a barely used, $67k, 3,000-mile unit (likely personally used by the dealer), negotiated over the phone, verified it over FaceTime, and my dad and I flew out, grabbed it, and road tripped back. The result: $20k saved in a weekend; minus flights, gas, and a Denny's stop! No headache, no BS, no 'Danny the Dealmaker' working my dad over across a desk!

Notice the shape of it. Negotiating by phone means you're never sitting in their chair, on their clock, wearing down while a manager checks on something. Verifying by FaceTime means distance doesn't mean blind trust. And a one-way flight plus a road trip is a rounding error next to an $18,000 regional price gap. The deal was fully done before we ever set foot in Texas; all that was left was showing up, signing, and driving home!

Blewett: 2, Dealer: 0

That trip wasn't just about saving money, it was about coming full circle. Years earlier, my mom had entered a Tesla showroom and walked out empowered, no pressure, no games. This time, it was my turn to do the same for my dad. A different car, the same clarity. No salesman. No upsell. No trap. Blewett: 2, Dealer: 0! Thus began my career as a Car Consultant!

I've since done versions of this for clients over and over, and the pattern holds: the best deals are almost never on the lot down the street, and they're almost never won face to face. They're won with information, patience, and a willingness to make a phone call to a state you've never been to!

It's out there somewhere, whatever it is

The truck happened to be a Tundra. The pattern holds just as well for a daily driver or a car with a lot more zeroes on the sticker: regional gaps, high-volume stores willing to sell at a fair margin, and the ability to verify everything remotely before you ever get on a plane, all of it exists at every price tier I've worked since. I run this same play now for clients well above where my dad and I started. The game doesn't change; only the number attached to it does.

Finding it, wherever it's parked, is what I do all day. I did this once for my dad. I can do the same for you, or for whoever you're buying it for!

blewettcarconsultant.com.

Collin Blewett