Back in my college days and somewhere up to about age 30 I enjoyed tying one on once in a while. Nowadays if I have just one drink, I feel like crap the next day so it’s not really worth it to me. But, back in the day it was so much fun to get a little drunk, a little buzzed. You know that loosey goosey, relaxed, uninhibited, just plain old giddy feeling. Ahh, but the next the day, what a price to pay! You know those moments when you say “God, just let me get over this and I will never do it again.”

I would imagine that you might be having such a hangover right now from the Cash for Clunkers program. It was fun while it lasted. What a nice high it’s been. All those customers coming in and partying with us; the excitement, the thrill, oh how sweet it’s been.

You are now faced with the morning after. It’s very quiet isn’t it? Just you and the pain.  The pain of dealing with the aftermath and wondering “what’s next?” Your new car inventory is down and you’re wondering what the next 4 months will bring before we get into 2010?

Part of the prescription you need to take to cure your hangover is used cars, but your head hurts even more because used car prices are driving you nuts. Prior to Cash for Clunkers you were starting to “get it,” but the party started and you couldn’t stop drinking the hard stuff. It was one of those free cocktail parties where you got to drink all you wanted of the best brands so you couldn’t stop at just one.

Months ago you gained some real used car momentum when you made the decision that you were not going to continue to rely on new car sales. But lately you’ve focused on drinking the new car cocktail and lost your focus on used and now you need to go into a recovery program.

You can recover, but you have to get back on track really fast or you will lose what you gained during the big new car cocktail party and your previous focus on used. The first thing you need to do is to quit listening to the propaganda that says you can’t find used cars. The used cars are out there but you need an all out assault on the marketplace in order to find them. More important is finding the ones that are going to turn the fastest. There are cars in your market that sell well which the other dealers are not aware of because they are not as smart as you. They are still shooting from the hip and you are a student of the game. You study the data and buy based on data.

A “solid diet” of used cars will make your new car cocktails taste a lot better and your hangovers a lot less severe.

That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs