Automobile Advisors: Your Constant Guide in an Ever-Changing Car Market
For busy professionals and families, purchasing a vehicle can be a stressful and time-consuming experience. As financial advisors, we encourage clients to work with a different type of advisor: an automobile advisor. This type of professional can serve as your personal car-buying (and car-selling) expert.
Read on for an overview of what an automobile advisor does and when to use them.
We’ll also share a recent market update from Ganley Auto Advisors – a family-owned company based in Ipswich, Massachusetts that we refer clients to. We’ve also used them personally for over 10 years to buy and sell our own cars.
We think the market update below (written in August, 2025) shows that many automobile advisors keep close tabs on economic conditions. Getting this kind of perspective before you buy or sell a car can be valuable anytime, but especially when markets are fluctuating.
What’s an Automobile Advisor?
If you’ve never heard of an automobile advisor, you’re not alone. Many of our clients aren’t familiar with this type of service. So how does it work? Most automobile advisors offer a fee-based service where they work with you as your personal automobile advocate. They can:
· Help you make a plan for your vehicle purchase or sale, including outlining your requirements, budget, or target price
· Search the market extensively to find a specific vehicle
· Handle inspection and purchasing negotiations
· Conduct negotiations with buyers and sellers, as well as managing the necessary paperwork
· Manage delivery of the vehicle, including cleaning and detailing the car
Automobile advisors provide clients with a one-stop buying experience. Instead of visiting multiple car dealerships and working with a variety of salespeople, you can have one point of contact who will work on your behalf to find your next car or sell your current car.
You can potentially save more when you work with an automobile advisor, too. Ganley Auto Advisors estimates that they can save clients 10-15% on a car purchase compared to dealership prices. That’s not insignificant, as the average cost of a new car in the United States was over $49,000 in the first half of 2025 (according to Kelley Blue Book ).
When Might You Use an Automobile Advisor?
There are many reasons to use an automobile advisor, but here are a few real-life examples:
· Your child, grandchild, parent, or other family member needs a quality used car at a reasonable price
· You’re looking to buy a rare luxury vehicle that’s hard to find
· You have very specific requirements for a car (milage, make, model year, car color, type of engine/horsepower) but you’re having a hard time finding one that checks all of the boxes
· You need to sell a car yourself or on behalf of a friend or family member, but you don’t have time to manage the logistics
· Your current car has a lot of miles or significant “wear and tear” and you’d like a professional to help you sell it at auction
Why Use an Automobile Advisor Now?
As we write this post in the late summer of 2025, the United States government recently implemented new tariff strategies that are anticipated to impact the automotive industry.
As we think you’ll see from the following market update, Ganley Auto Advisors is watching the automotive market closely. Their unique perspective can be valuable as you navigate a car purchase now or anytime in the future – especially when there are frequent economic shifts that impact the cost of cars.
Market Update from David and Will Ganley of Ganley Auto Advisors (August 2025)
From David Ganley:
The first half of 2025 has been a rollercoaster for the automotive market, but it appears to be somewhat stable for the moment. The uncertainty caused by tariffs initially spurred spring sales as consumers feared higher prices. As a result, prices this year have remained higher than last year but have normalized over the past 6 weeks.
With the three-month tariff pause set to expire, we anticipate another rise in prices on the horizon. New car sales are expected to decline now that the wave of tariff-motivated buyers has subsided. This has led to revised 2025 sales forecasts, predicting over half a million fewer sales than initially projected at the beginning of the year.
Entering a Window of Opportunity
We believe we are now entering a window of opportunity as the new model year approaches and much of the tariff-driven demand has been met. Many dealers are holding inventory they overpaid for, which is now a model year older. This is leading to reduced competition and a cooling effect on prices at wholesale auctions. We do not expect this to last long. This fall when the costs of these new 2026 "tariffed" vehicles become transparent there will be an inevitable rise in prices.
We've observed that hybrids are currently overvalued in the market. Interestingly, some models with a basic 'mild' hybrid system (like the Audi Q5), are not always recognized as hybrids in the market.
The electric vehicle market is starting to shift as demand has leveled off. For example, Stellantis recently canceled plans for an EV battery plant in Illinois and has reintroduced its V8 engine lineup. The depreciation of the luxury electric vehicle market has blown us away. There are some amazing values in the Mercedes EQS lineup as well as the BMW iX.
Trucks continue to have relatively strong demand and command strong prices. We do not see this abating.
If you are considering purchasing a new or used car, we believe the next couple of months will be a good opportunity to buy as opposed to trying to wait it out.
Navigating Service Costs
From David Ganley:
Since dealerships are selling less vehicles they are finding other ways to increase their revenues which include selling more service and parts at higher inflated prices and by selling extras like extended service contracts (be very careful of these), so called protective coatings, nitrogen in tires and other items and programs in the finance office where they will upsell you so the money flows. They will also try to secure your trade-in with promises that they really want your vehicle and will give you the moon for it.
From Will Ganley:
We’ve also heard that marketing departments for manufacturers may have been influencing the engineers to extend maintenance intervals and do away with major services to keep the 'cost of ownership' stats down. This could set these vehicles up to be under maintained and have expensive issues outside of the warranty period, which could leave less for the dealers to sell their customers with late model vehicles. This may force them to charge outrageous prices for parts and ups the pressure to upsell products and services most don't need.
From David Ganley:
When you need warranty work go to the dealership, otherwise find a trusted capable independent service shop that uses factory parts. When this independent mechanic tells you that you have a potential warranty repair bring it to the dealership and make the complaint - if they do not fix it then, at least you have it documented with the factory so if the issue develops into a failure in the future, you will have evidence that they should have made the repair earlier. The mechanics do not like to do warranty work because they get paid less to do it therefore, they are not pointing out potential issues while the vehicle is under warranty. When it is out of warranty then it becomes a big deal for them.
From Will Ganley:
We were also told not to 'upsell' warranty work unless it was going to be a safety concern or lead to catastrophic failures. We’ve heard that techs get paid about twice as much for customer pay work and the dealership gets paid about 75% more for customer pay work as the manufacturer not only pays less hours per job but also gets a discount on the labor rate.
Interesting Facts from Ganley Auto Advisors:
• Ford recalls pile up with 90 separate recalls in 2025 so far¹
• Nissan is reducing its global plants from 17 to 10²
• Stellantis on track to lose $2.7 billion in 2025³
• In June, of those manufacturers reporting Hyundai and Honda make solid revenue gains while Kia, Volvo, Subaru and Mazda revenue fell⁴
• Although Hyundai had record high revenue in Quarter 2 its net income was minus 22% due to the heavy incentives it used to move inventory⁵
• VW loses $1.5 billion so far to tariffs⁶
• Tesla sales are off by 42% year over year in Europe (not globally) so far⁷
(see links and sources below)
How to Reach Ganley Auto Advisors
If you’d like to learn more about Ganley Auto Advisors, feel free to visit their website, email David directly at david@ganleyautoadvisors.com, or call him at 978-265-4461.
We’re also happy to make an introduction.
Need Help Crunching the Numbers?
If you’re contemplating a major purchase like buying or selling a car, it might be beneficial to speak with a Certified Financial Planner® Professional. Think of them as the financial quarterback for your personal wealth. They go beyond the typical role of a financial advisor and handle both the big-picture strategy and day-to-day details of your financial life (like selling or buying a car). To learn more about what we do, visit our website or click below to schedule a call our Advisor Brian Sullivan.
Sources for Statistics from Ganley Auto Advisors:
Any opinions are those of Primary Financial Advisors and not necessarily those of Raymond James. The information has been obtained from sources considered to be reliable, but we do not guarantee that the foregoing material is accurate or complete. Raymond James is not affiliated with and does not endorse the opinions or services of any of the outside organizations mentioned. Raymond James and Primary Financial Advisors are not affiliated with and do not endorse the opinions or services of Ganley Auto Advisors. Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Center for Financial Planning, Inc. owns and licenses the certification marks CFP® and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® in the United States to Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc., which authorizes individuals who successfully complete the organization's initial and ongoing certification requirements to use the certification marks.
