Nevadan at Work: Car seller succeeds judging soundness of engines, character

Juan Miguel "Jona" Gamboa, a lifelong mechanic who owned his own shop for seven years, decided to try a career leap in 2007.

A used-car salesman he knew approached him about joining forces to open their own lot. The repair business had grown gradually but Gamboa still took side jobs to supplement his income. As his four children grew up, his wife urged him to cut back his hours so the idea of a dealership looked appealing.

"My friend couldn't get a license but he told me, 'You can do this,' " Gamboa said. "I guess the idea of making more money is why I opened the place."

The place became G Force Auto Sales.

Early on, with the economy still expanding, G Force prospered. From a small corner lot on East Fremont Street, Gamboa took over the lot next door, where the shop had been, more than tripling his average inventory from about 20 used cars to about 70.

But as the economy stumbled, so did sales. His friend turned out to be a weak manager and they parted ways. He had to lay off most of his staff and ultimately retrenched back to the corner lot.

"It wasn't good timing," he said. "Those were rough, rough times. I ended up with a boat but I didn't know how to steer it so I had to learn."

He had to figure out what would sell to his blue-collar clientele. He had to learn how to read people as well as he could diagnose a leaking head gasket, making snap judgments on who would try to repay him and who would stiff him at the first opportunity. He had to master to art of massaging financial terms to make a car affordable to the buyers he trusted.

And he had to do it all without any formal business training.

Gamboa said he no longer talks about expansion. But he adds that he is holding his own where he is.

"Compared to everyone else, I guess we're not doing that bad," he said. "I was talking to some guys at the auction lots (where he buys cars) and they were saying how horrible it was. To me, it's not that bad."

Question: What did you learn about surviving a bad economy?

Answer: In my situation, being a small business, probably (to) make sure that when you take a step, it's solid. Probably trying to go big quickly hurt me. The same cars I was selling on the big site I now sell at the small site with less overhead and less headaches. The timing wasn't right. Probably business school would have helped (me) to notice that it wasn't the right timing and I didn't have the right equipment or the right people.

Question: In rankings of which professionals people respect the most, used-car dealers usually rank at or near the bottom. Does this bother you?

Answer: It did at first. Sometimes my kids point to the salesman in the cartoons with the clothes with the squares all over and the big smile and say, "Is this you?"

I am not a salesman. The one time I went to buy a car for my wife I didn't like the way I was treated. I try to treat people the way I want to be treated. As for bother, I know who I am and what I do. That's probably for people who don't know me.

Question: Where do you get your cars?

Answer: I go to the auction lots. You learn that (it) is pretty much the safest way. Having them process the deal, you are secure that you are going to get a good title and the right paperwork. If something happens, you know where to go to correct it. Before, my partner used to like to buy from people on the street, but it is risky, very risky.

Question: The auction lots are sales assembly lines that go through hundreds of cars at a time. How do you pick what you want?

Answer: My average customer pays about $3,000 to $5,000 for a car. I tried newer cars and more expensive cars, and they sat here for a long time. Cheaper cars, sometimes people don't even care about them. Over time, I noticed which ones were good and which ones were bad. Sometimes you love a car but nobody else does. You have to know what other people want.

Question: Once you pick your targets, how do you know they are good?

Answer: That's where being a mechanic comes in. In the first 30 seconds, I know how far I'm going to go. I look around the body to see if there's much damage. Second, I get in to see if I like inside. You don't want one owned by a smoker because the odor is so strong sometimes that you can't get it out of the car and people don't like that. All that in the first 30 seconds.

Then you spend five minutes to look at the cars that I like closer. You put in the key and start it. I can hear from the noises what shape the engine is in. You put it in gear and feel how it engages. Those things come from practice. After that, some places let you move it around and put it in second gear.

Then, there is this (holding up a portable scanner that reads the engine computer codes). There (are) a lot of tricks. Sometimes, you don't see a check engine light but sometimes they pull out the little check-engine light bulb. If the check engine light doesn't come on when you start the car, you say, "What's going on." Then you try to find out from the codes. From the codes, you will not get a specific reading but a choice. This might cost $1,000 to fix and this might cost $50 to fix. Sometimes a car looks crooked and you look at the fender and there's a lot of Bondo from someone fixing the car after it has been in a wreck.

In my head I work a price and decide if it will sell.

Question: Has the economic recession changed your routine?

Answer: Before 2008, let's say, it was easy. I usually just went to one auction, maybe two. They would have 2,000 cars I could sell. I used to go at 6 in the morning and do my inspections. Now, if they have 300, that's a lot. Before, people used to have money and buy new cars. And that created a lot of trade-ins that went to auctions because the dealers had to get rid of them. Now, people now are buying more used cars so the dealers are holding their trade-ins. Now, I have to divide myself to look at other places and have to use my time wisely.

Question: How do you set a price?

Answer: It's a combination (of factors). Finance companies will make a loan based on the book value. Finance companies see paper. They probably will never see the car and the never see the people. For me, it's a combination of the right person, the right car, the right numbers.

Question: How do you pick which buyers to work with on price and terms?

Answer: Some people, and I can see it, they had a pretty good credit rating when they had a job, and you can see they just lost their job in a casino. They are working in another place where they are not making so much money. They lost their house, they lost their car. But you look at them and talk to them and you think, "This guy is honest." This guy is going to pay and he's going to pay. On paper it looks ugly. But you can see there is a nice person trying to get back to where they used to be. I can see that now, but I didn't see that before. Some people you can see in their faces that they are lying to you. It's up to me to take the risk or not. Every day it's getting tougher and tougher to finance people.

Question: Your business card says G Force has "the easiest financing program in town." All car dealers say that.

Answer: Sometimes, I feel that it's cheesy, but it works. I would like to say different things, but that's what people look for.

Question: How long did it take you to learn character assessments?

Answer: It started when I went on my own. I made some mistakes. People are just like numbers, I guess. You can get a good number, like a seven, or you can get a one or zero. Sometimes, I get it wrong. I think this guy is going to be awesome and all of a sudden it falls on me.

If I don't think somebody will pay, I don't want to sell to them. To repo a car, I feel bad.
So I try to work with them every way possible. You have to adapt to the situation. But if they start hiding from me, then I get scared that the car will end up in some place like Baja California.

Contact reporter Tim O'Reiley at
toreiley@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290.