Sometimes people need a vehicle but they have champagne taste and a beer budget. And sometimes they have bad credit or no credit. Things happen in life, and we at Russell Smith Auto believe that everybody deserves a second chance as well as a reliable, safe vehicle to drive.
Our salespeople will talk to walk-up customers on the lot and pretty quickly understand what they're looking for and how much money they make in a month to get an idea of what they can afford. We have a broad range of vehicles from $500 down on up to $2,500-plus down. So there's usually a big range of selection usually on the lot. Our salesperson explains what is available to them based on what their payments would run through our in-house financing.
We do require insurance, so we always talk to them about that too because that's a factor for affordability. We require either full coverage from their insurance agent or we have a Collateral Protection Program, what we call CPI, which is an insurance. It's okayed through us and it basically covers the car, truck, van or SUV. It basically covers our collateral. But that does give them another option if they have trouble getting full coverage insurance for whatever reason.
Our CPI is something they can afford with their budget, but we give them a choice -- if they want to get full coverage, that's great. But if they can't do that, then they have this other option. But they have to have one or the other.
As far as the vehicle they buy goes, we want them to get what they desire because if they want it, then they like it and will take care of it. We don't want somebody to get something that maybe they could afford but they don't like it. If they can't afford the one they really want from our inventory, maybe they can start out on a starter car and make payments on time. When customers pay off 75% of their loan, we offer them a trade-in and use that for a down payment on another vehicle.
We can put them into something more when they can afford a little bit more and have built up their credit.
