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DECEMBER 16, 2021 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Porsches, Pacificas, and Car Parts
TJH Speaks with Evan Weinstein, President of Car Sharks Auto Group BY SUSAN SCHWAMM
Evan, you’ve been in the car leasing business for a while. Tell us about how you started Car Sharks. I’ve been in the business for 15 years. I started out in Brooklyn but when I moved out here to Woodmere, around five years ago, I decided to go out on my own. And that’s how Car Sharks was born.
How has the business changed in the past few years? Well, it’s gotten a lot more competitive. Everyone with a computer, basically, likes to say that they’re in the business. But we’re in a pandemic right now. It’s never been this. We’ve never had a situation where there are so few cars to be had. You can call up 9 out of 10 leasing companies, and they’ll all tell you the same thing for any car you ask them, “There are no cars.” And if there are available, there are only one or two available and they’re $200 more than what you were spending three years ago. Why is there such a shortage of cars? There’s a magnesium shortage, which many car parts are made out of. And there’s a labor shortage, so that also contributes. Most car dealerships are accustomed to having 150 to 300 cars on the lot. We deal with 10 or 20 car dealerships, so we’re used to having 500 cars to choose from. Now, the numbers to choose from are much less.
How do you make sure your customers are happy in this type of environment? That’s what we do – we’re here for our customers. We will do anything to make them happy and we’re going above and beyond to get that done. Right now, there is a huge backup with servicing cars. If you call a dealership for an appointment for service, they will tell you they won’t have an appointment for three to four weeks. But we have relationships with them, and we can call them up and get our customers earlier appointments, if need be. Right now, we are so valuable to our customers. The average person walks into a dealership today, and the dealer is going to want to make between $5,000 and $10,000 over sticker on them. Why? Because they only have one or two cars available this month to sell. But when my customers come to me and they say, “Listen, I can’t afford an extra $300 more a month. Please help me out,” I’ll do whatever it takes. We’ll turn over every rock, we’ll call every single dealer, and we’ll work like crazy to get someone a car at a normal price or an affordable price. We have really strong relationships in this business, and that really helps in getting our customers what they need and making them happy. Just last week, we had a car ready for the customer. The dealer told us to come pick it up. When the driver came to pick it up, the dealer called him,
