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³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Radio host John Curley recently bought a car, but didn’t want to know what it was, didn’t want to see it, and didn’t (and still doesn’t) want to know how much it cost.

‘The contagiousness of kindness’ is real, says John Curley

“It was actually pretty comical. You wanted about as bare bones, minimum of a vehicle as you could possibly get,” said Brian, John’s car salesman at in Puyallup. “If you could take away the windshield and the keys, you would have that done.”

“I said to you, what is the lousiest truck you have there? Brian, what is the car, what is the truck that no one wants?” John recalled. “You said, ‘it’s going to be hard to sell this one,’ I said, ‘that’s the one I want!'”

John says his banker will talk to the car dealer directly and wire the money.

“I don’t want to know how much it cost,” he said.

“You must really trust Brian,” host Shari Elliker said. “Because if you’re telling a car salesperson, ‘I don’t want to know how much it costs,’ you’re leaving a lot of room there for them to make up a price. Don’t you want to know what it is compared to the same make and model in a different year, or something like that?”

“I was on the phone with Brian for all of about four minutes — that’s all I need,” John said. “I can tell the measure of a man in four minutes over the phone, with a bad cell phone connection in Cle Elem.”

It turns out John bought a 2021 Toyota Tacoma with 1,000 miles on it.

John’s bizarre car purchase story aside, Brian says the market has taken a turn in the last nine months.

“The biggest shortages that I’ve noticed have been with new car inventory — all because of a little chip sensor, they haven’t been able to get their new cars. So it has actually helped drive the used car market,” he said.

“The one thing I’ve noticed with the rise in some of the costs for used cars, the banks and lenders have really stepped up to help kind of compensate with rates that I haven’t seen in probably seven or eight years now on pre-owned cars,” he added.

Listen to the John Curley and Shari Show weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.