Going Broke to Look Rich: The Hidden Nightmare of Owning a Luxury Vehicle

The Isaiah Factor Uncensored starts now. And welcome to the Factor Uncensored. We are in the garage of Dr. Abdullah Kudrat, and you may have seen him around town in this, the Batmobile. And, of course, he has a fleet of luxury cars, many cars that people dream about and people attempt to buy, but they simply can't afford. afford. We've seen story after story on YouTube, people going online complaining about the financial nightmare that they have as a result of buying cars they simply cannot afford. Everybody wants the luxury until it's time to pay luxury maintenance, honey. It's a never again for me. On top of that, you can't even move the same anymore. Like with my Honda, I could park anywhere and not think about it twice. But with this Benz, I gotta think about where I park if it's gated. So my car is a Mercedes, right? Convertible. I bought it about a year ago. And the headaches that a Mercedes gives is terrible, terrible. And the pricing of everything is out the roof. I'm not, I am never gonna buy another $100,000 car until I'm rich, point blank period. If you're watching this and you're thinking about getting a luxury car just pause for a moment and our guests are here on the factor uncensored we have with us Sherry Handrinos and Jonathan Gwynn guys you're both wealthy now and doing well but you had your beginnings hard work hard there you go there you go take us back to the beginning we're talking about individuals who've gone on social media complaining they bought these in luxury cars and now they simply can't afford them the upkeep the maintenance and it takes a toll you said you had your story like that in the beginning sherry yeah so actually when i was 19 i became a vice president of a makeup company and you got a free mercedes like you got a $800 allowance for a car and i was like this is amazing right didn't even know what a mercedes was before that and didn't grow up you know knowing that and uh but then what you don't realize and i was in detroit at college a tire is $400 you blow out a tire and i i definitely got a lot of flat tires and the i-75 detroit uh freeway and then your oil changes hundreds of dollars so i think it's almost like when you get a house people don't realize if you get this house and you build it you still have to run the ac you have to run the lights you have to do the upkeep right on your home that's the same for a car um i also had a porsche a couple years ago and i got rid of it because i mean you you have to allow at least a couple thousand dollars a year for maintenance on that if you're going to get it at least i mean i'm talking just for one oil change a year i called the dealership and they were like, $2,400. I said, for what? For what? I didn't do anything wrong. And did you at all feel trapped once you bought that car and you realized, okay, this is what I have to pay now? Yeah, especially when I was with a company that was, you know, giving you a car allowance and it had to be for a Mercedes. So I did get three different cars. I would lease them, you know, two years, two years, two years. But I was responsible for the maintenance, the insurance. That's a whole nother thing. Because being a dumb 19 year old, I got the hardtop convertible in Detroit that's a whole different insurance game there you don't know these things you know you're just like wow i got this shiny amazing car and they're beautiful but you have to budget i and i believe that in anything in life you know all right jonathan what has been your experience well uh when i was 28 isaiah and that's quite a few years ago but uh i actually um hit this really big job in hollywood i was working for a big cell phone uh entertainment company back when it was new on cell phones. And my salary was the biggest salary I'd ever made. So in my mind, I thought, well, I'm going to go buy a car that was a little bit more than what my salary was. And I ended up buying a Mercedes SL, very similar to the one that's orange that AK has. And if you ain't got AK money, you ain't going to be buying. You got to ask him. Maybe he'll give you a loan for the oil change. But here I am thinking I'm cool, and, you know, I'm, like, just barely making it paying for this big car that I bought. You know, Mercedes SL, Roadster. I thought, man, I got the car, and it was a great experience, but I will never do that again. I mean, don't ever buy a car. And how soon did the regrets kick in for you? Was it after maybe the warranty ran out or just routine maintenance? It took a toll. When I had a $25,000 bumper bill for hitting a spot that was too low, that was like enough right there. And that happened like six months into the car. Many people buy these cars either because it's been a lifelong dream of theirs or because of a social status. Which would you guys go lean towards as far as the reasoning behind buying the car? For me, it was two different reasons. One was, I thought it was free, right? Because I had that car allowance. And I thought it was cool. Nothing's free, Sherry. And I was 19. We know this now, right? The other part to it, though, was when I got my Porsche, it was a dream car, per se. When I found out my regret came in was when the car window, that tiny window in the Mercedes, got broken into in Detroit. And I was at a bar. We came out of the bar. That little window in that car is a couple thousand dollars. And I was like, wait, what? Huh? What do you mean? that little little window and um so for me it was both it was like okay i'm getting this car allowance getting a Mercedes i thought it was great um and then the Porsche i really wanted and i sold it to Carvana they gave me a better deal than the dealership to buy it and what do you guys think of individuals we know a lot of people are out there buying cars based on their perceived social status do you feel any type of way about that any sympathy or i know they're going to learn as they continue on this path of trying to keep up with the Joneses well you know honestly that's the whole reason i bought a Lamborghini at 28 years old was because i was on the red carpet and i thought oh man i'm becoming a celebrity i gotta drive what a celebrity drives but don't do it honestly it's not worth the social status going you know having to barely get by because you're driving this machine that you can't afford just hold off and wait till it's the right time to buy something like that or you got AK money and you can buy ten of them and it doesn't matter where do we get this AK money well we're here this is a beautiful ride Jimmy this is amazing hard work and good investments there you go and what would be your advice in the last 30 seconds we have here for young people out there who are chasing that social status once i was done with the mercedes i i got gm cars i'm a gm girl and i still we actually have the same exact car now an suv don't buy unless you got the cash and you can actually have disposable cash that you can buy your car and you even if it's a used dream car wait till you have the cash absolutely thank you guys for joining us and we'll be back with more factor uncensored with the experts and they're going to tell you how to maneuver the market especially when it comes to those luxury cars should you just keep your damn hands off we'll be back with more factor in just a moment and welcome back to the factor on cents and we're talking about individuals who buy luxury cars maybe that dream car that they've always wanted but they realize they simply can't afford it now we're talking to some people who can't afford it and they're going to give you their advice we have with us dr abdullah kudrath better known as ak the man with the batmobile 31 cars one helicopter one airplane one tank and one hovercraft and there's more coming and of course the classic batmobile also we have with us ron kardashian la cafedon company here and we have mickey mcgill our financial expert so mickey first of all when you heard these people talking about their dream car and buying that car when they simply couldn't afford it your thoughts on Yeah, so here's the thing. When you're looking at that dream car, making sure that you can afford it, it's what are you giving up in order to do that, right? So your budget can only sustain so much. And I think most people don't think they're giving anything up, but they are. Well, the thing is most people don't take a look at their savings, their retirement, their future before they do it. They're like, hey, I have all this excess money. I can afford a car. It's a $1,000 payment. I can do that, no problem. But what you're not counting on is all the stuff that you're supposed to pay in the future, and it throws everything out of whack. Everything is great right now until something goes wrong. Anything goes wrong, boom. You may have to, your car may get repoed, house may get foreclosed on. You have to really take a look at your full amount of money where you have coming in. And Ron, one of the things we talked about was people buying expensive cars for their social status in society. What would you tell a person who sees that as a rise in the community, simply a vehicle? Yeah, well, the whole statement is, you know, for years we keep up with the Joneses, right? And so there is a competitive nature as a human behavioral expert. Standard human behavior does default to trying to make yourself look bigger than you are. The problem with that rationale is that sustainability, which we talk about a lot in business, right? And a good business mind will always be thinking about sustainability. So I often advise clients to say, hey, listen, before you make a substantial purchase at any price, to your point, right? look at the sustainability angle can you sustain that lifestyle because at the end what happens is this begins to affect the body biologically increase anxiety stress and then you deal with ailments that our doctor probably could confirm right right right though you know just to put that in there and it is for me as well you know i remember my father early on saying son this is your money you know you better make sure you can make that monthly payment so on one side of it it's like get something that you do love but don't do it at the cost of competing with somebody else and aka you have 30 plus vehicles but you look at each vehicle as an investment and nothing about social status tell us about that yeah i mean i love cars i really do and not think of cars as an investment that's almost an oxymoron right because it's typically a depreciating asset now i love unique cars that are collector's items right and when i couldn't afford them in medical school and residency i would just look at ebay look at them watch what they would sell for watch them go down to a certain price couldn't afford it still and then watch them shoot up so over the years i developed this art on knowing what car is going to go up in value right if they're limited production if they're the last of a certain type you know last of the doors that go like this the last of the naturally aspirated last of the twin turbo before hybrid and i would understand the market so i bought a few couple you know the key is to be patient because if that's your dream car you will kill that dream real fast when you're struggling to pay for it or having to maintain it you're gonna hate that car so appreciate it from afar until you really understand when is the right time to get it but for me you know the time was right i got some really good deals and then now that i'm known as the car guy everybody's calling me to sell a car when they want to sell it fast the people who try to fulfill that dream and now they're trying to get out of it so i can lowball them i say look you're not gonna like my offer but if you want a quick sale here's my offer so i'm doing the math in my head i'm like okay this car is normally 200 grand i offered him 140 he took it i could turn around and sell it for 200 or since it's a luxury class car i can roll it into my limousine company and i've got a whole plan for every car so if you do it like that then it can make sense but as far as status symbol you know i guess some people have to fake it till they make it but for me i just you got to love the car and i think for a good point that you're mentioning that having it as a business deduction you know what i mean if you can subsidize and write the vehicle off if you use it 50 percent for work right and now we have i don't know about here but is there the six thousand dollar Yes, section 179 of the tax code. You can apply some savings. And I guess everyone has their thing. I never really cared about expensive clothes, expensive restaurants. So where am I gonna spend my money? In something that I am passionate about, that I think I can either maintain value or go up in value. And so far, my collection has actually grown as a whole. And one of the things that these guys mentioned, Mickey, that a lot of people, young people misconstrue and take the wrong information take the wrong walk away with is when you talk about tax breaks as a result of cars it's not for everybody no no not only is it not for everybody the tax break is different for what people actually think it is right if you buy a hundred thousand dollar car and you get a depreciation let's say you have forty percent taxes a hundred thousand you get back forty thousand dollars you're still out sixty so if you don't have a purpose for it if you don't have a reason for a business then it is an expense and this is the thing too i'll say this i was at an event one time and there was a guy who's worth at least half a billion dollars he was at the ensemble theater and he wrote a big check for him when he was leaving i was like oh let me go see what he's driving left out on a honda accord right so to the good doctor's point it's you know where do you want to spend your money if you're not a type of person that cares about eating out or traveling and all those things and this is what you love if you budget toward it's okay if you're you know i love to travel then you won't want to have a big house or expensive cars because you can afford to travel every year so find out what it is and try to budget around that and really quick last word if you can tell any young person out there any person who's chasing this dream of buying a car they can't afford like five seconds each what would you tell yeah i would say one is you got to research it you got GPT you got AI right avoid high interest rates because you're going to pay double for the car avoid buying brand new if you can get it used and be patient for the right time i would i would ditto that uh don't be afraid to buy used because you can you can duplicate i bought a g wagon and uh i always wanted that i didn't want to pay 350 my mechanic said if you can find a 2011 we'll bore it out and put a 2025 front end on it and i took the wisdom i got the car. So think smarter so you don't have to work harder. Smart. And like AK said, you don't want to end up hating your car because the psychological impact of buying a car you can't afford.