How to Order a New Car (When the Dealer Says You Can’t)

Part 2 of the “How to Order a New Car” crossover with A Girl’s Guide to Cars

SUMMARY

This episode picks up where Part 1 of our crossover with Scotty Reiss left off. On her show, What Drives Her from A Girl’s Guide to Cars, we busted the myth of the “factory order” and why so many buyers are told they can’t custom-order their dream car and how dealer allocations actually control what gets built.

Now, in Part 2 on The Straight Shift, LeeAnn Shattuck (The Car Chick®) takes the wheel with the tactical side of the story. We dive into how to make the system work for you — what to do when a dealer says “no,” how dealer trades really happen, how to lock in your price, and how to protect your deposit.

It’s the no-BS, real-world guide to actually getting the car you want — whether you’re ordering a Porsche, a Subaru hybrid, or just trying to avoid the dreaded “allocation shuffle.”

🎧 Listen to Part 1 on What Drives Her → https://agirlsguidetocars.com/podcast

🎧 Then tune in here for Part 2 — How to Order a New Car (When the Dealer Says You Can’t).

TAKEAWAYS

• “Factory order” does not always mean custom. Know how your brand handles builds.
• Understanding dealer allocations gives you leverage.
• How to negotiate the price, even for special orders.
• Get everything in writing: buyer’s order, deposit terms, and price lock.
• Deposits should always be refundable, especially on new or unseen models.
• Dealer trades can score rare cars if you know who to call.
• Do not settle. Shop multiple dealers and markets.
• Someone, somewhere, wants to sell you a car.

RESOURCES

https://agirlsguidetocars.com/podcast

https://agirlsguidetocars.com/how-to-order-a-new-car

You can view a full list of resources and episode transcripts here.

Connect with LeeAnn:

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• YouTube

Work with LeeAnn:

• Course: The No BS Guide to Buying a Car
• Car Buying Service

Copyright ©2024 Women’s Automotive Solutions Inc., dba The Car Chick. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the Crossover Podcast
• 2:27 Empowering Women in the Automotive Industry
• 5:02 Navigating Car Orders and Dealer Limitations
• 8:00 Understanding When No Really Means No
• 12:29 Dealer Trades and Inventory Management
• 14:58 Allocation and Its Impact on Buyers
• 17:46 Protecting Yourself When Ordering a Car
• 21:31 Shopping Around for the Right Car
• 26:32 How to Find That Perfect Car

Transcript

LeeAnn Shattuck (00:03)
Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Straight Shift, the podcast that cuts through all the bullshittery so that you can be a smarter car buyer, owner and driver. I'm really excited for today's episode because we're doing something a little bit different. I am joined today by my good friend, Scotty Reiss of A Girl's Guide to Cars. And we decided to do a two part crossover podcast episode between her podcast and mine.

Cause we just love getting together and yapping about cars and we're both share this passion for educating people. So this is part two of the podcast on how to order a car when they tell you you can't. And if you missed part one, I'm going to put the link in the description below so that you can go and listen to Scotty's podcast. Welcome Scotty.

Scotty Reiss (00:52)
Thank you, LeeAnn, it's nice to be here.

LeeAnn Shattuck (00:54)
Tell everybody a little bit more about your podcast and its focus and where they can find that and subscribe to it.

Scotty Reiss (01:00)
Sure. So our podcast is called What Drives Her. It is the podcast from A Girl's Guide to Cars.

We're on every podcast platform, Spotify, you name it, we're on all of them. We started this actually not as a podcast, but as a written interview series years ago, probably more than a decade ago, to talk to women who are changing the automotive industry from the inside.

And it's so incredible to see these women who are just crushing it in this world. And they are running companies and they are presidents of automotive companies and they are engineering and designing cars and they're thinking about cars the way

women think about things that are really important to them. We think about the space for us and our families and the places we go and the things we do. We think about the aesthetics, what looks good on our lives and what reflects our personal style. We think about what we need, where we're gonna put our things, where we're gonna put our people, where the dog is gonna sit in this car. right?

LeeAnn Shattuck (01:48)
Finally!

100%.

Scotty Reiss (02:10)
things that are so important that in the, you know, back in the day kind of got lost and we had to make all these compromises and you know, you don't make a compromise. Like what did they say? You spend like 2000 hours a year or something in your bed and you don't make compromises around that. You spend not quite as many hours, but probably, I don't know, 800 hours a year in your car. Why should you put all of this thought and

intelligence into choosing something like a mattress and linens for your bedroom or a handbag that's going to go with you everywhere you go or a kitchen that is going to be like the center point of your family time. We spend so much time thinking about that and we spend so little time thinking about our cars. And so by bringing those women into the conversation, we really can connect much more deeply

with our cars and make better choices for ourselves knowing that there is a woman behind that design and a woman behind that structure and that engineering and that marketing who understands you.

LeeAnn Shattuck (03:21)
And

that is so critically important. And we're starting to see more of those changes with the cars and the features that they have and how they're designed and laid out. And it's just so exciting that we're finally getting some traction in terms of making decisions within the automotive industry. So I absolutely love that. And I love that you collect women in the automotive industry and you bring us all together.

so that we can continue to empower each other. And then that in turns ends up empowering the consumers. So I absolutely love it.

Scotty Reiss (03:55)
It is,

it is. it's, know, you think about it, we love the women who design the things that we wear and the things that populate our lives. And we're drawn to like the Joanna Gaines's of the world and the Coco Chanel's of the world.

Why shouldn't we be drawn to the Mary Baras of the world and you know these women who are designing and and changing cars to be a better fit for our lives we just need to know who they are and so that's that's a big part of my mission and that's why I love having you on my podcast by the way

LeeAnn Shattuck (04:26)
And I love you. Well,

we've been friends for a long time in this kind of joint mission of empowering women from all angles within the automotive industry. So when you reached out to me asking about ordering cars, I'm like, yeah, we can do something with this.

Scotty Reiss (04:43)
Well,

and this is such a confounding topic because anybody who's ever sort of eyed a particular car and said, oh, I really want that blue color. I really want that interior finish. I really want that panoramic sunroof. I really want the bigger engine. And then you go to the dealer and they're like, oh yeah, I can't have that.

LeeAnn Shattuck (05:06)
Right. And we saw that so much during the pandemic. And while inventory levels are vastly improved from where we were just a few years ago, it's not back to normal. And I don't think we're going to ever get back to the way things used to be where you could just walk onto a dealer lot and they had 500 cars and you had a really good chance of finding the one that you wanted. I think those days are over as the supply chain and the trade relationships are just getting more and more complicated and

changing with every press conference. So you do have to do a lot more homework and legwork and digging and you have to be smarter in order to get what you want. Because if you're dropping 50 plus grand, which is the average price of a new car today, don't get me started. You should not have to compromise. You should be able to get the blue one.

Scotty Reiss (05:59)
Well,

and you know the way things are built and designed these days or designed and built, ⁓ you know, you order something and if it's a special build or it's a special finish, the manufacturer is very much in touch with you and they, you know, they tell you, I I hate to kind of go back to the kitchen, but I ordered

kitchen counters and I shopped for the counters and then they came out and they measured and then they scheduled and then they asked some follow-up questions. Do you want this? Do you want this? Do you want this? And then they sent me samples to look at and come to our showroom if you'd like to. So I was very involved in the process and it wasn't cheap. It was not cheap at all. But the process was, it wasn't like a shot in kind of a dart in the dark where I just, gee, I hope I get it.

which I feel like the car was like so much more expensive, any car so much more expensive than what I spent on kitchen counters. And yet that process was so personalized and involved for something that costs, you know, maybe four or five, $6,000 versus a car that's $50,000. And you're like, oh, you're gonna love it, here you go. Like, no, that's not.

LeeAnn Shattuck (07:12)
Right. If Ikea

can do this, why can't the auto manufacturers do this? And we talked in part one a lot about why this is and the whole ordering versus allocations. We talked about that in part one on Scotty's podcast. And so we're going to continue the conversation now. Cause I know you had a bunch more questions that we had to kind of cut off for your podcast that you wanted to ask now. So let's continue that conversation and what else.

Scotty Reiss (07:17)
Right? Exactly. So let me ask you...

I do.

LeeAnn Shattuck (07:40)
Would you like to know about how can you get the car that you want when you're told you can't order it?

Scotty Reiss (07:46)
Okay, so the dealer has just told me the one thing I never like to hear that makes me very unhappy and that is no. Don't ever tell me no. I hate that. So what do I do? So now once they've told me no, I don't know about you, once somebody has told me no, like I double down. Oh, you just told me now I'm, it is my mission. I'm going to get that. So what do I do when they've told me either I can't order it or

LeeAnn Shattuck (07:54)
Ha ha ha ha! ⁓

Scotty Reiss (08:14)
It's not going be made. It's not going to come in. What do I do? What are my alternatives?

LeeAnn Shattuck (08:20)
Yeah, and a lot of it depends on why they said no. So the first thing you need to do is get more information because, as we know, no means no in certain situations, but when you're car shopping, no doesn't actually always mean no. So you need to find out why. Is it that they are limited? Sometimes they literally can't. Sometimes no really does mean no, meaning that

they can't order one. So I'll give you an example. I have a client out in Utah and they wanted to get a Ford Transit van that they could then convert into a camper like everybody decided to do during the pandemic. And between the popularity of people doing that for themselves and the demand for those vehicles from Amazon and FedEx and everyone else who uses them,

there was only so much production time. And so what Ford did was it's called the order bank and there's a window of time in which that bank is open and the dealers can frantically get in there and place the orders that their customers want. But then when you run out of production slots, it's closed. And so it took us a long time because when we call like they just closed the order bank and it was literally only open for two weeks before

all the orders filled up for the whole year. And that was a situation where no meant no. They just couldn't build any more that year. It's like, you know, call me back next March and we'll hope that we can get in there. So that's a frustrating situation. Then you just have to decide what you're going to do. But sometimes it's the dealer doesn't want to order it

because they rather would sell you something that is on the lot. Or they specifically can't order it because their allocation of production slots is already used up, in which case you need to call around and see if another dealer might have slots available to order. So an example of that, I had a client out in Las Vegas who

had gotten permission from his wife to order himself his dream car for his 50th birthday. He wanted a Porsche Boxster. And so we were just at kind of the end of the production year and there were no slots left. All the dealers had sold out of the production slots for the year. And so we kept calling around trying desperately to find one. And finally, one of the managers at one of the Porsche stores

apparently like left the building and went to the far end of the parking lot and called me on his personal cell phone and said, hey, there's this little dealership in, you know, middle of nowhere in Colorado that I think may still have one, call them. And so that he really did me a solid on that. And sure enough, we call and they're like, yes, we have one left. It's the last one in the entire country, you know, to be able to order this car. And we won't be able to order anymore for a whole 'nother year. And like, we want it, we'll take it.

At that point, I didn't even care what we had to pay for it. Although we paid sticker. They didn't try to screw us on anything. We didn't have to pay more, but we literally got the last production slots and he got the car in time for his birthday. It took eight months to build it, but it came in in time for his birthday. So that worked out. So sometimes you just have to shop around and find a dealer who will. But at the core, you've got to understand what is the justification behind that No. Is it real or is it bullshittery?

Scotty Reiss (12:09)
So when a dealer, so ⁓ say they're being honest and they're not lying to you, they really can't order the car or they're not going to get the car that you want. Can they call another dealer and get it? Do they trade with other dealers? What does that look like?

LeeAnn Shattuck (12:29)
Yeah, and that's the more common scenario. And you'll see it all the time that the dealers will play musical inventory. And that can work in many different ways. And a lot of it really depends on supply and demand. During the pandemic, nobody was trading anything because nobody had anything to trade. So they'll have their kind of favorite trading partners that they just have relationships with and they trade inventory with each other all the time. And it makes it easy. And they'll go to those guys first.

They can go into the inventory system for the entire manufacturer and see what's out there. Now, sometimes dealers can set little flags in the system that hides the inventory so that it doesn't show because they don't want to get calls on it. They don't want to trade. But it's very common for them to say, hey, do you have this one? You know, I need this color. You know, I've got this one. But they have to have that same make model and trim level

to trade back. So a dealer is not gonna trade a top of the line platinum model for a base model. That is not an even trade. So it has to have an even trade.

And they will only do it within typically a certain radius.

A dealership in Florida is not going to trade with a dealership in California. It's just too far to go.

Scotty Reiss (13:46)
So say the dealer says, yeah, I don't have that Honda Odyssey, and I'm not going to get it. But let me see if I can get it for you. Great. But maybe I'm better off looking within, a 200-mile radius or so from where I live and see who else has that car on their lot or lists it for sale. And maybe I just do that instead of going to the local store.

LeeAnn Shattuck (14:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, and start

in your general area because the dealers will not trade with each other within the same competitive geography. So for example, we've got, I think, seven Honda dealerships in the greater Charlotte area. They won't trade with each other because they are direct competitors, but they'll go, three hours up to Raleigh or four hours to Atlanta or two hours down to Columbia and trade with those dealers because it's close enough, but it's still outside their competitive area.

Scotty Reiss (14:34)
Right.

LeeAnn Shattuck (14:38)
in your area first just because the dealer down the street doesn't have it doesn't necessarily mean that the one 30 miles up the freeway doesn't and you can just drive up and get it from them assuming you can get a good price.

Scotty Reiss (14:50)
So we've been talking about allocation and ⁓ which is a confound, I have to say a confounding practice, but it isn't it. Well, yeah, and I get that, I so we've been talking about how to kind of work around the allocation question, but are there times when allocation works in your favor as a buyer?

LeeAnn Shattuck (15:01)
The dealers find it confounding.

It can because the dealers, they get more allocations, meaning they'll get a bigger supply of cars. You know, they'll get 10 next month instead of six or seven. If they sell more of them now. Basically the manufacturers say you have to prove to me that you can actually sell this specific make and trim level. And then we'll send you more, but you got to prove it to me first. And sometimes they don't necessarily care if they sell that

particular trim level, you just have to sell, X number of Highlanders and then we'll give you more of the nicer ones that you really want. So, they may be willing to take a loss on a sale to you just to make those numbers to get more of them.

Part of it is learning how to speak their language and showing them that you kind of sort of understand how it works behind the scenes. You drop the word allocations -

they're immediately gonna know that you are not just the average off the street car buyer.

Scotty Reiss (16:12)
But no, you just told me now I have to learn to speak, dealer. ⁓ my God.

LeeAnn Shattuck (16:14)
Yeah,

you don't have to be fluent in dealer. It's kind of like when we traveled to other countries when I was growing up, we traveled a lot. And my mom had this rule that we had to at least be able to say hello, goodbye, please, thank you, and where's the bathroom in that language. And then we were fine.

Scotty Reiss (16:34)
So going back to I want to go back to it because I have a question about pricing. In our first part of the podcast, we talked about my friend who was frustrated because she ordered a Ford Bronco and felt like that believe that the dealer was getting it in and then selling it to a higher bidder before she could get it. When she did finally get it, there was a little bit of a silver

lining there and that was the price was locked in. So she actually got the, whatever it was, 2022 price on a 2023 model, which the price had gone up, but because she had ordered that car a year before, they honored the lower price. So talk about

how to protect yourself when you're buying or ordering a car.

LeeAnn Shattuck (17:26)
Yeah, absolutely. And it will depend on whether or not you know what the MSRP of the car that you're ordering is. If it's something that's in production and it's on the website, it's on the build configurator, then you should know what it's going to be. And you negotiate the price before you place the order. Because even if you're ordering a car, that does not mean you don't shop around to the different dealers.

Because one dealer might be like, hey, we can order it, but you'll pay sticker. Another dealer's like, yeah, sure, we'll take the order and we'll give you this discount. So you still shop around to see who can get you the car the fastest and at the best price and then balance that with your priorities. But if you know what the MSRP is, then negotiate that price just as you would if it were sitting right on their lot today. And you can do the same thing if it's a car that's

in allocation, it's been allocated in the production pipeline for that dealer. And generally they will have the VIN number for it or will have it shortly. Get it all in writing. Get that buyer's order exactly the same as if it were sitting on their lot. Now, if it's a car that you don't know the MSRP yet. So, for example, we talked in part one about that new Subaru Crosstrek hybrid, 2026 model that's going to brand new.

We ordered it, pre-ordered it in August. We had no idea what MSRP would be exactly, but I still negotiated a discount off of MSRP, like whatever MSRP is, you will get it for $1,500 less than that. And I got that in writing. And so getting anything in writing that has the dealer's signature on the bottom of it is what is legally binding and therefore protects you. So don't rely on a handshake, on anything verbal,

or even just something said casually in an email, you need to have it on an official buyer's order piece of paper that the dealer has signed.

Scotty Reiss (19:29)
So if I've done that, I have this buyer's order and I've signed it, the dealer signed it, we've negotiated a nice little discount and I have my VIN number and then I lose my job. Can I back out of this?

LeeAnn Shattuck (19:43)
People back out of orders all the time. If it is a high-end vehicle and it's a truly custom order, like with Porsche and BMW, sometimes you can even get a truly custom paint color that's not advertised. If you're spending that kind of money, that's different.

But if it's the situation where you've put a deposit down on a Toyota Grand Highlander that you're waiting to come in and you're like, hey, I've got to back out. Hopefully the dealer will be cool. But before you put a deposit down on any car, you need to ask them, is this refundable or non-refundable? And you should be signing a piece of paper that specifically says that and keeps a copy. Because very often when we say the word deposit in the automotive industry, it's really a partial payment, meaning it's non-

refundable. So it can depend on what you've ordered. It can just depend on that particular dealer. So just know before you give them that credit card number and you sign anything, if it is refundable or not.

Scotty Reiss (20:43)
Everything should always be in writing, right?

LeeAnn Shattuck (20:45)
Everything always has to be in writing. Always.

Scotty Reiss (20:47)
Yes,

and that's one of your rules. What other rules do you operate by, LeeAnn?

LeeAnn Shattuck (20:52)
Oh gosh, how much time do we have? Well, this is true. I always say, you know, to shop, always shop around. That's just what you've got to do. Because if you're not finding the car that you want, in your area, look around.

Scotty Reiss (20:55)
Well, it's your podcast, so.

LeeAnn Shattuck (21:11)
Sometimes in certain areas, California, everybody wants a hybrid. So those dealers get more of the hybrids. Here in Charlotte, we get some. We get a lot more than we used to. But it's not the same volume that you see in the Northeast. You see it in some of your bigger cities, in DC, in California. And so it may make sense to call around to another geography.

And you yeah, you might have to pay to have the car delivered to you or transported, but if it means getting the car you want and getting it in a reasonably timely manner, that may be worth it to you. Just be aware if there are a lot of production restrictions. Sometimes the dealers get penalized. I can't say they're not allowed, but they get severely penalized for selling outside their area. And sometimes it's just a choice.

They don't want to sell to anyone outside their area because they want to keep their customers happy and keep those customers coming back for service. This is very common in places like New York where they're like, hey, we don't sell out of state. Or if we do sell out of state, it's at a much higher price point because we really don't want to sell out of our geography. We have enough customers here, enough demand here that we don't want to deal with the rest of you. So you might run into that, but it's always worth a phone call

to find out because there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dealers across the country and somebody wants to sell a car.

Scotty Reiss (22:39)
18,000 dealers in this country. 18,000.

LeeAnn Shattuck (22:42)
Yeah, 18,000 dealers. Somebody wants to sell you a car.

Scotty Reiss (22:48)
You know, that was

the case with Brittany, who we did a story on, who bought a Kia Sorento plug-in hybrid, as it turned out. She really only wanted a hybrid, but ended up being a PHEV versus a Toyota Highlander hybrid because she couldn't get the Toyota story in the first podcast. And ⁓ she ended up finding a dealer in Rochester, New York - not only had it on the lot, did not have anybody lined up to buy it,

LeeAnn Shattuck (23:02)
Right. Right.

Scotty Reiss (23:14)
was willing to sell it to her and shipped it to her for like $1,100 or something. she had to, but the net net, even with the shipping, it was still less expensive than the Toyota, MSRP, you know, on the Toyota versus the full price of the Kia. They did the whole transaction online. She had been waiting for that Toyota for a year.

LeeAnn Shattuck (23:26)
Right?

Scotty Reiss (23:37)
and she had her Kia Sorento in a week. So, for me, the takeaway was, as she did the legwork, she went on cars.com and found this car, called the dealer and did the whole thing on the phone. So she was willing to do the legwork on that. And I think for me, the big lesson was decide the features you want.

and the environment you want in your car and then go find the car that fits it. In my opinion, the first mistake that she made was not saying, I want a hybrid three row SUV. Her mistake was saying, I want a Toyota Highlander hybrid. Now for a long time, that was the only thing that fit that bill. there were, right.

LeeAnn Shattuck (24:21)
It's so much more competitive now. There

are so many good options.

Scotty Reiss (24:24)
There is so much more to come.

Yeah. And in fact, we are going to start to see more more hybrids because Toyota is only building hybrids now in many of their models. And each time they update a new model, so they just did the RAV4, and we're going to see more and more cars updated. And they're all going to be hybrid or hybrid and plug-in.

Or hybrid and plug-in and electric. And we're gonna see more electrics coming from Toyota. They are starting to build out their manufacturing in the United States to accommodate building EVs.

in an infancy class.

LeeAnn Shattuck (24:57)
There are so many good choices

out there. And with Toyota, their relationship with both Mazda and Subaru. So, you this Crosstrek hybrid that I'm super excited about and the Forester hybrid that just came out, that's Toyota's hybrid technology just married to Subaru's drivetrain. And it's the same with Mazda because nobody does hybrids better than Toyota.

Scotty Reiss (25:13)
I

Right.

LeeAnn Shattuck (25:20)
And then,

you know, now we're fine. The Palisade just got redesigned and it's finally a hybrid. I have only been waiting for that since the Palisades came out in 2020. People tend to get blinders and they think this is the car that I want. This is the only one. And it's why when I do the perfect car analysis for my clients,

Scotty Reiss (25:35)
Yeah.

LeeAnn Shattuck (25:38)
I narrow it down to two or three. And I'm like, you hey, you know, there's some good options here. And if we can't get this and I'll tell them like, hey, this is ideally what I would love to get for you. But the chances of getting one, in the next six weeks are snowball's chance in hell. So, but here are some other really excellent options that maybe you haven't considered.

keep your mind open.

Scotty Reiss (25:58)
let me ask you this,

because my next question is, how do you shortcut this whole process of figuring out what you want and then actually finding it? Tell me what that looks like.

LeeAnn Shattuck (26:13)
Yeah, and that's just part of my normal perfect car package.

You and I, Scotty, we live and breathe this, you know, we not only know everything that's out there now, but we know what's coming down because we're inside the industry and we're nerds that way. This is what we love. And I also have very strong opinions as you well know, and anyone who's listened to me for more than five minutes will know,

about what's good and what is not good and what's reliable. And then there's just also a piece of it that for me is very intuitive. You know, I feel that the brands have their personalities, but sometimes I can just feel what's the right car for someone. And that's just a matchmaking thing that is very difficult for me to quantify because it's something I feel. 90 % of what I do is analytical, but then there's that little 10 % of what I just feel.

I see, I just see you in or I don't see you in. So that's hard to say, but that's part of my part of my package is doing that so that we're, narrowing down on what's the right car for you.

Scotty Reiss (27:12)
That's why you ask the next

part. That's why you go to like a, you know, a stylist who knows the inventory at a, you know, at a fashion level or does a lot of ⁓ personal styling, hair and makeup. And they, so you get out of that rut,

and you change that style, you change that, and you're like a new person, right? When you go to a really great hairstylist for the first time and they're like, we're gonna do your hair like do your makeup like this, and then you're like, wait, is that me?

LeeAnn Shattuck (27:45)
Exactly and it helps because when you go around to the different dealerships, obviously, those people are trying to sell their brand of car. And even if they, you know, looking at used cars, they may not brand well, even though they're selling it on their lot. And so, having experts who don't necessarily have a true loyalty to any brands. Obviously, I have my favorites and I have some I'm like, are you really sure you want that? But

I want to find out what's right for you because what's perfect for you is going to be very different than what's perfect for me because my lifestyle is different. My personality is different. My priorities are different. So that's why it's truly needs to be a matchmaking process and why it drives me crazy that people go on to a Facebook group and be like, oh, I need a new car. What do you guys like? Like, oh my gosh, please don't do that. I understand why you do that, but please don't because.

Scotty Reiss (28:33)
Right.

Yes,

please don't do that. There's one group that I'm in and every time someone asks about and they put in very specific criteria. You know, I've got three teenagers, they're five, 10, six feet and six, two. And then I've got a fourth child who's still in a booster seat and da da da.

And then the Subaru fan people, you need a Subaru Ascent. You need to say, like, you cannot put a six foot tall teenager in the third row of a Subaru Ascent. And it's just so funny. They, like, I get it. They love their car. That car's not right for everybody. These, if you've got tall teenagers, you need a Traverse. You need a thing with leg room in the third row and headroom.

LeeAnn Shattuck (29:04)
You

Hahaha!

Exactly.

Hahaha!

Scotty Reiss (29:26)
I mean, how many people have a middle schooler who's six feet tall? Like quite a few. and you're going to be driving around for a while. Yeah.

LeeAnn Shattuck (29:30)
Right. I have a few clients. One of them, says, I have a family of giraffes. We need to get all of them with giraffes in my car. So, which is why I maintain a spreadsheet of all

the legroom, headroom, shoulder room of every SUV on the market in every category so that I can very quickly know what that is. But yeah, it's just, don't rely on everybody else. But be aware if the car that you have your heart set on and the dealer says, no, you can't have this, that may not be true for one.

And it may also not be the end of the world if you truly can't get that one. There may be something else out there that will do what you need it to do and be the tool that you need it to be and that you may even end up liking better because it was something that you never even considered.

Scotty Reiss (30:10)
Yeah. Because

it's doing the thing for you that you really need most.

LeeAnn Shattuck (30:15)
Exactly.

and if it makes your socks roll up and down to drive it, you know, that's important too. That's important too.

Scotty Reiss (30:19)
All the better. All the better. And if you're wondering

what the answer is about getting that car when the dealer says no, and what that looks like and how you go through, ⁓ figure out that process, because you get a lot of stuff thrown at you, go to our first episode of this podcast. The first part. That is the biggest no.

LeeAnn Shattuck (30:40)
Link below the links below

Scotty Reiss (30:44)
And

a lot of those questions are answered there. And thank you, LeeAnn, for having me on your podcast. And ⁓ I loved the two part. I love sharing this podcast with you.

LeeAnn Shattuck (30:50)
Thank you, Scotty.

It's been a lot of fun and I you people, know, if you haven't checked out A Girl's Guide to Cars, it's a tremendous resource because it really goes into depth on car reviews and just so many different areas, but also the lens of what women and what families want. I personally find it a great resource for me and my research. There's a lot of good information out there by women for women. You just have to know where to find it. So.

Thanks again, Scotty and folks. If you haven't subscribed to The Straight Shift, please do so. If you have not subscribed to Scotty's podcast, please do so. Again, we'll put the links below, but until next time we're out of here.

Scotty Reiss (31:23)
Thank you.