It is summertime in the car business.  So far, we have had a beautiful summer.  A little too much rain, but I like my lawn green.  Business though has been booming.  Sales naturally pick up.  Which makes us all here, smile.  It is strange though that certain types of vehicles seem to peak in sales around different times of the summer.  For instance, the rule of thumb I was always taught was that you wanted to be out of convertibles by the 4th of July.  Here I am today, with one in stock.  Does somebody want a good deal?
Another rule was to start building you 4 X 4 inventory during the month of July because they are cheaper then than when you need them in October and November.  Same thing though, if you have a plow truck, you want it gone before the end of the year.

Its funny.  Both rules seem to fly in the face of conventional thought.  When would a buyer use a convertible most?  In my young days of driving with the top down, I found that hot August nights were the most comfortable.  And my driving the snow plow to clear my lot never seemed to end until the end of February and into the first part of March.

So why don't convertibles sell well all summer long or plow trucks sell well all winter long?  Well it seems we as people anticipate our usage.  If we buy a convertible at Labor Day we only see a week or two of summer left.  But I can assure you as a big fan of top down driving, it can be done comfortably well into October.  And I have plowed snow in April, too.


What does this all mean to you?  If you watch advertisements on TV or in the newspaper, you can get a sense for what types of cars dealers' want to sell and when.  If you follow the pricing, you can get a sense of the urgency too.  Compare this knowledge to the two examples above and you can know when the time is right to purchase for the lowest price.  The problem you can face is a picked over inventory.  If you wish to buy a new vehicle, the best selection is at the beginning of the season or when fresh model year inventory is just arriving.  Watch this time for nice trade-ins if you are buying new.  The thing is to watch your favorite dealer's lot for the fresh trades all the time.  Because they can happen anytime.  I have had it happen more times than I can count too, that the perfect trade that a customer would want, showed up after they left.  The sorry thing is sometimes the customer would not leave me a contact number or address.  I am not too pushy.  I would remind them that this often happens in this business, but sometimes people are animate about not being bothered, even if it gets what they want.  I guess I did not sell myself very well.

Usually in the car business, summertime brings out the goofier people too.  The folks that think they can outfox you or out run you too.  One day, I met a fellow on the lot.  He asked about an old Valiant we had.  I told him the price and the NADA retail price.  Which we have always used.  He didn't tell me he thought the price was too high, he did not try to argue the price down.  No, he didn't say anything too me at all.  He just turned and RAN back to his own car.  Evidently, the price was out of his budget.

Now let's look at model types in a big or small gas consumption basis.  In a pevious blog, I spoke of a better strategy to use if gas prices soared.  And did they soar.  my thoughts were to buy an older gas sipper to use when you did not need the hauling capabilities of you bigger car, and to have that for when you needed it when you had a large item or group to carry.  I still think it is a better idea than losing money on a trade and paying a premium for a super fuel efficient, but uncomfortable car.  What would be better than getting your money or most of your money back on your used fuel economy car?

We stocked up this spring on fuel efficient cars.  We still have some as fuel prices are beginning to moderate.  That means that we are beginning to get anxious about them and feel the need to give them a change of address.  Some of the customers we sold the small cars were price shoppers, some did want a cheap car to gas up for the economy, some were first time buyers.  We had the mix, but future buyers will want to know they can make good deals on these cars now.  We also have a nice selection of full size comfortable cars too.  In the future, I hope to get a financing package that will allow me to add some newer vehicles and take trades against them too.  With all that we will be expanding our finance options to serve our customers.

Thank you for reading my top of the mind blog.  I hope you find the car listings and pictures useful.  I had to get a camera issue sorted out and then there was a computer issue, and a time issue, as well as a get out there a take the pictures issue and then load them issue.  Everything seemed to get complicated.  Have a good day.

Well, it has been a while since I have made a post on this blog, but here is my second.  Since the first post I had a sort of medical emergency.  In October of  2010, I had a stroke.  This was the last thing I thought would happen to me because although I carry a few extra pounds, I am pretty healthy.  In fact the doctors put me through all kinds of tests to determine the cause.  All of my blood vessels, including the carotid arteries in my neck were completely clean.  Around my brain stem was a different story though, as I had smaller than normal, crookeder than normal blood vessels.  Here I had a build up of plaque and here was the source of the stroke.  It was a bilateral brain stem stroke,  although I did not lose any brain, I did lose function on my left side and some on the right.  I had to learn to walk and talk again.  It was like going through a second childhood again.  I had to re-train myself on the potty as well as relearning to walk and talk again.  It may take up to 2 years, but the doctors said I will make a full recovery.

I am back to work on a very limited basis, but as always, if you stop by to visit or have a cup of coffee, I'll stop what I am doing and chat with you.  That is the best part of this job.

Now to the point and title of this blog.  When I was in the hospital, in rehab I had a lot of free time to think about my business.  I wanted to improve the communication to my customers and get them service coupons on the cheap.  You know, we are still growing and trying to make a go of the reformed business Chrysler forced us into when the Whitehouse allowed them to remove some of us smaller, more personable dealers in their bankruptcy.  The answer of course was an email newsletter.  With my limited mobilty, that is some thing I can do.  It gives me a chance to pass along car care tips, buying tips, and service reminders and valuable service coupons.  Right to your email inbox. 

So the next big challenge was to gather emial addresses.  The answer to that problem seems to be to offer new or returning customers a free oil change when they opt in for the newsletter.  In a while, I will figure out how to build a regular sign up page on this website, but for now all you have to do is hit the link: info@fairviewgarage.com and when I get back to my desk, I'll send you a coupon for you to print off and present when you come in for your appointment.  It is that easy.  I will be at my desk probably every Tuesday and Friday.

I thank you very much for finding your way here.  It is a brand new website with a brand new blog where I get to write about what ever tickles my fancy or irritates me.  Being a mostly positive guy, I will keep the irritations to the minimum. 

By the way, if you are part of the facebook crowd, we really could use some folks to 'like' us.  We are on facebook as Fairview Garage Auto Sales.  Some day I will figure out how to get a link onto our facebook page.  We do intend to offer coupons for our facebook followers.

Again, thank you so much for making the effort to get this far.