Average new-car transaction prices hit $45,563 and the average monthly payment set a record $812 — even with loan rates easing to 6.55%, because negative equity keeps getting rolled forward. Meanwhile 56% of drivers now say gas prices have them curious about EVs, which is less a green awakening than a monthly-budget one. That's your customer in one sentence: payment-first, fuel-cost-aware, and dragging a prior loan behind them. Price to the payment, work the trade appraisal hard, and expect more hybrid and high-MPG questions on the lot than you got a year ago.

Copart is putting $1.9 billion into ACV Auctions, stapling dealer trade-ins and wholesale inventory onto the biggest salvage operation in the country. One company would then sit across condition reports, digital wholesale, and the salvage end of the same car's life. Fewer independent venues bidding for your trades rarely ends with better fees or better money for you. Keep a second and third sourcing channel warm before the integration starts changing terms.

Costco is rationing motor oil and roughly doubling the price, and it's not a one-retailer problem — refineries make more money turning crude into fuel than into lubricant, so supply is thin across the board. Every safety inspection, every pre-delivery service, every $39 oil change you eat as a goodwill gesture just got more expensive. Check what your jobber is quoting this week versus last, and buy bulk before the shelf clears.

The enthusiast press spent the weekend doing your inventory research for free: five-year depreciation math on 2021 AMG C-Classes, supercharged Durango Hellcats now landing in reachable money, and a 280-hp Dodge crossover trading below the price of a new Kicks. With new-car payments at record highs, a well-reconditioned performance unit is the cheapest excitement on any lot in town. The catch is always the same — service records and a real recon budget, because these cars punish the guy who skips the pre-buy.