Ken Nix
Auto Appraiser
The 411 on Ken Nix, Independent Auto Appraiser
Hi, my name is Ken Nix and I’m the owner of DiminishedValueOfOregon.com and I’d like to welcome you to our site. I’ve been into cars all my life. I grew up in a Chrysler dealership my Uncle owned. My mother was the office manager, my other uncle the Service Manager, my cousin was a mechanic and my Grandfather even lived on the premises.
My Love Of Cars
I guess my love of cars started when I was little. My brother was 15 years older than I was and he was into drag racing. We lived in a small town in Northeast Texas and we had several old cars on our property including a ’58 Chevrolet Impala, which my brother wrecked drag racing, right in front of our house. I would play in the Impala, a ’56 Chevy or a early 60’s VW Beetle every day, pretending to win the Indy 500. Of course, A.J. Foyt was my hero back then. I amassed a collection of over 4,000 automotive magazines and books in the 70’s and 80’s. And, I read every one of them from cover to cover. I especially loved Sports Car Graphic. I must have read the issue with the 308 GTSi at least a thousand times. I especially had a love for 911 Porsches, BMWs, VWs, and other European cars.
An Epiphany
After working in car sales for over 2 decades, I quit car sales completely and started a consulting business for automotive marketing. I was presented an opportunity work for Diversiform, which provided marketing for dealers. Diversaform was later acquired by Reynolds and Reynolds (also known as REY REY), the largest automotive business in the world. They provide forms, management software and professional services to car dealerships. I was initially hired at Diversaform by a man named Oliver Connelly who mentored me and made me realize that you have to stop and take a deep breath of life once in a while. This is when it really hit me just how much I had missed in watching my kids grow up. 12-16 hour days at a car dealership is not a place for a father. If you’re in car sales, have kids and reading this. I suggest you quit today. You’ll be glad you did in 10 years.
In April of 2010, Aaron Butler, a local auto appraiser and at the time a sales manager at Sunset Audi/Porsche, approached me about working with him preparing Diminished Value Appraisals. He paid for my license and I started doing research on appraisals and diminished value. My father always told me, if you want to be the best, surround yourself with the best. I reached out to two of the best auto appraisers for diminished value in the country, Tony Rached of Diminished Value of Georgia, and Justin Petty of Petty Details in Texas. They provided me with years of information about Diminished Value and producing appraisals that stand up in Court. I credit them for providing me with such a good foundation that has lead to our success. Since then, there have been many people that have helped me along the way, one of which started as a client, then became a trusted friend and advisor, Lance Sholes. When I met Lance he was the Used Car Manager for Ferrari and Maserati. He contacted me to produce an appraisal on his BMW. He’s also been the Used Car Director for one of the largest auto groups in California and is currently the owner of Uniquely European. When I need help, Lance is usually the first person I turn to, especially with exotic cars.
The person I have the most to thank is my wife of 30 years. If it wasn’t for her, I would have never found myself and turned full circle to the person my parents raised. I live to help people. I love my job as I have a chance to make a difference and help advocate for people and it’s a great feeling.
When looking for an Oregon Vehicle Appraiser, you of course want someone with experience. I have over 30+ years in the automotive business, with over nineteen in the Portland, Oregon metro area. I’ve sold Porsche, Volvo, BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Honda, Toyota, GMC, Pontiac, Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge, Chrysler, Kia, Hyundai, Mini Cooper and just about any current style vehicle you can name
When it comes to Volkswagen, Honda and Toyota, I was always the go to person for product knowledge. I was the Founder of VolkswagenOwnersClub.com, MyFastGTI.com, and JettaJunkie.com. I’m currently an Administrator for AutoGuide.com. While employed by Diversiform and Reynolds and Reynolds I worked with many of the largest auto groups in the country including Champion, Lanphere, Crestmont, Autonation, Penske Auto Group, Maita, Van Tuyl Group, Ron Tonkin, Fletcher Jones, Red McCombs and AAA. My connections in the automotive industry enable me to produce the most accurate appraisal, no matter what type of vehicle you may have.
I feel my background in sales gives me a distinct advantage when compared to our competitors. I’ve found that most auto appraisers’ backgrounds are in auto collision or insurance adjusting. Most have never sold a car in their life and have no idea what is happening in the market. I believe my background in actual vehicle marketing, sales, inspection and valuations is the main reason my appraisals are so successful.
What I like
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Specializations
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Certificates
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The 411 on Ken Nix, Independent Auto Appraiser
Hi, my name is Ken Nix and I’m the owner of DiminishedValueOfOregon.com and I’d like to welcome you to our site. I’ve been into cars all my life. I grew up in a Chrysler dealership my Uncle owned. My mother was the office manager, my other uncle the Service Manager, my cousin was a mechanic and my Grandfather even lived on the premises.
My Love Of Cars
I guess my love of cars started when I was little. My brother was 15 years older than I was and he was into drag racing. We lived in a small town in Northeast Texas and we had several old cars on our property including a ’58 Chevrolet Impala, which my brother wrecked, drag racing right in front of our house. I would play in the Impala, a ’56 Chevy or a early 60’s VW Beetle every day, pretending to win the Indy 500. Of course, A.J. Foyt was my hero back then. When I finally got rid of my car books in the 80s, I had over 4,000, and I had read every one of them from cover to cover, sometimes two or three times. I especially had a love for 911 Porsches, BMWs, VWs, and other European cars. My desire to better myself came from my first cousin, Harold Nix. Harold was a very successful attorney, and I aspired to be a self made man, just like him. Right out of high school, I started college majoring in Pre-law. I went to work for the summer at the local steel mill making $10.75 per hour, when the minimum wage was $3.10 per hour at the time. Since several people were retiring, I was making over $14.00 per hour within a few months and my thoughts of a law career ended.
Go Getter
When I turned 20 I decided I had enough of working at the Steel Mill. Even though I was making a lot of money, it was dangerous and I watched a lot of people get hurt. So I started looking for a side business I could do. I developed a binder for phone books with advertising. Instead of the normal large ads, I make my binder yellow and put one line ads into categories just like the yellow pages, only on the outside of the book. It was a hit and I sold most of the ads within 4 months. I was approached by a guy who wanted to buy the business and sold it.
I took that money and paid a guy I knew $2,000 a month to teach me how to package and process loans. I opened an office in Longview Texas and proceeded to start helping people obtain loans for cars, houses, funeral parlors, dental equipment, and even a large apartment complex, which was my largest loan for 1.9 million. I opened several businesses over the next couple of years and was doing very well until one day I realized I had been embezzled by a business partner and had lost everything.
Being only 23, I moved back home with my parents. The local steel mill had laid off 2500 people, and nearly 5000 more were laid off from contractors who worked inside the steel mill. I digressed. I was depressed with no money, no car, and no luck. I sat in my room watching the movie Club Paradise, over and over and over. Then, my dad gave me an ultimatum. Get a job or move into the hunting cabin. Job it was. I finally found a job 50 miles away at a resort called Holly Lake Ranch. Little did I know that they hired anyone. And, I mean anyone. If you could breath, they’d hire you. There were over 150 salespeople selling timeshare condos. Well, 149 were, because, I couldn’t sell anything. After 3 months of no sales, the sales director called me into his office and said, “Kenny, we really like you, but if you don’t sell at least one timeshare in the next week, we’re going to have to let you go.
A Miracle
Frustrated I was being let go, I made a bee line for the driving range. One of the free perks for the employees. I was hitting the balls as hard as I could when I sliced a ball and it nearly hit this older guy at the end. I thought I was going to get fired right then, instead he asked if he could give me a few pointers. I figured, better to eat a little crow than to be fired. He showed me how to hold my club, pivot my hips and told me to keep my eye on the ball. I swung, and the ball just floated through the air and landed about 3 feet from the peg. I was truly blown away.
The man asked why I was in my Sunday best on a Monday and I told him I worked there in sales, but not for very long. I had been pretty much been given my walking papers. He said he used to be in sales and if I was willing, maybe he could teach me enough to keep my job. I figured, what do I have to lose? So, he assigned me some homework. Go fishing, canoeing, swimming, hiking, and a bunch of other activities we had at the resort. He even rented a cabin for me to spend the night in with my friends so I could see why it was a great place. He told me, if you don’t see the value of what you’re selling, how can your customer?
Since you were assigned customers based on your closing average from the last 7 days, I was of course, as usual, dead last. Which meant that the first two days back, I didn’t even get a customer since it was on a Wednesday and Thursday. Friday, I finally got my first customer around 6 PM. Wait, did I forget to tell you I had to be there at 8 AM every morning? After a 50 mile drive to work in my Mom’s Marquis. So I drove my customers around the resort, doing and saying everything the older man had told me to. I brought them back to the sales office and showed them the Red, White and Blue weeks. Red weeks were priced at $9,500 but the manager would come in with a special deal at $6,500 to close the deal. So, nobody really paid $9,500. The husband looked at the wife and she nodded and he said, “We’ll take two of the red weeks!”. WHAT! you’ll take two? At $9,500?
So I ran to my manager, and he told me to settle down and he’d be out in a minute to try to close the deal. I held up the signed buyers order and he nearly fainted. The next day was our big day, Saturday. Because I had sold two red weeks for full price, I went from dead last to the eighth person out. Remember, there were 150 salespeople and where most everyone had customers over the past week, I had very few. Since it was based on the last 7 day’s closing average I shot to the eighth position. I had three customers that day, and sold all three. Sunday, I was first out. Which didn’t set to well with the other salespeople, especially the people who had normally held the top 5 positions consistently.
After a month, the owner of the resort flew down and they had me stand up on the Saturday morning meeting. Little did I know, the older guy at the driving range that gave me all the sales tips was none other than Zig Ziglar. The funny thing was, although all the top sales people knew who he was, I had never heard of him before that day. I was hooked and Mr. Ziglar was right. “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want” – Zig Ziglaran
Back to School
I was promoted to a Manager’s position for the resort within just a few months. Once I had enough money in the bank, I quit and went back to college for Computer Science. That’s where I met the love of my life, my wife. We had a baby and we were having a hard time financially. Working for a Peripheral manufacure wasn’t making ends meet. So I started selling cars for a dealership in the 80’s, in a small town outside of Austin Texas. We later moved outside of San Francisco, California where, while working for Val Strough they put me through extensive training. My mother had a heart attack and we moved back to Texas where I worked for Glass Chevrolet and whe the Chevrolet and Ford dealerships were put together, Frank Berka. Since I was the only person in the dealership with extensive computer knowledge, I immediately strarted doing the marketing, vehicle orders and communications with GM. Mr. Ira Van Glass taught me a lot about not only the world, but also people and basketball. At least indoor basketball. Mr. Berka taught me a lot about appraising cars and business, which were sometimes hard lessons. If you were off on the appraisal from what he thought it should be, he’d dock your pay for the difference. Both were fantastic mentors.
Outspoken
I’m a little outspoken and tend to have a hard time keeping my mouth shut, especially when I see someone being taken advantage of. Seems I’ve had that problem all my life. I was fired from a Honda Dealer in Northern California and Blackballed because I refused to sell a Truck I knew had a damaged frame. The dealer didn’t like it because I told the customer not to buy it. He bought it anyway from another salesperson. I’ve had managers threaten to fire me many times over the years due to my speaking my mind if I felt someone was getting taken advantage of.
An Epiphany
After working in car sales for over 2 decades, I realized that I put money over doing the right thing. It’s easy to justify things when you say you’re doing it for your family. I quit car sales completely and started a consulting business for automotive marketing. I was presented an opportunity work for Diversiform, which provided marketing for dealers. Diversaform was later acquired by Reynolds and Reynolds (also known as REY REY), the largest automotive business in the world. They provide forms, management software and professional services to car dealerships. I was initially hired at Diversaform by a man named Oliver Connelly who mentored me and made me realize that you have to stop and take a deep breath of life once in a while. This is when it really hit me just how much I had missed in watching my kids grow up. 12-16 hour days at a car dealership is not a place for a father. If you’re in car sales, have kids and reading this. I suggest you quit today. You’ll be glad you did in 10 years.
In April of 2010, Aaron Butler, a local auto appraiser and at the time a sales manager at Sunset Audi/Porsche, approached me about working with him preparing Diminished Value Appraisals. He paid for my license and I started doing research. I got in touch with two of the best auto appraisers for diminished value in the country, Tony Rached of Diminished Value of Georgia, and Justin Petty of Petty Details in Texas. They provided me with years of information about Diminished Value. I credit them for providing me with such a good foundation that has lead to our success.
The person I have the most to thank is my wife whom I’ve been with for 30years. If it wasn’t for her, I would have never found myself and turned full circle to the person my parents raised. I live to help people. I love my job as I have a chance to make a difference and help advocate for people and it’s a great feeling.
When looking for an Oregon Vehicle Appraiser, you of course want someone with experience. I have over 20+ years in the automotive business, with over ten in the Portland, Oregon metro area. I’ve sold Porsche, Volvo, BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Honda, Toyota, GMC, Pontiac, Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge, Chrysler, Kia, Hyundai, Mini Cooper and just about any current style vehicle you can name
When it comes to Volkswagen, Honda and Toyota, I was always the go to person for product knowledge. I was the Founder of VolkswagenOwnersClub.com, MyFastGTI.com, and JettaJunkie.com. I’m currently an Administrator for AutoGuide.com. While employed by Diversiform and Reynolds and Reynolds I worked in collaboration with many of the largest auto groups in the country including Champion, Lanphere, Crestmont, Autonation, Penske Auto Group, Maita, Van Tuyl Group, Ron Tonkin, Fletcher Jones, Red McCombs and AAA. My connections in the automotive industry enable me to produce the most accurate appraisal, no matter what type of vehicle you may have.
I feel my background in sales gives me a distinct advantage when compared to our competitors. I’ve found that most auto appraisers’ backgrounds are in auto collision or insurance adjusting. Most have never sold a car in their life and have no idea what is happening in the market. I was speaking with an appraiser just the other day and he didn’t know what a hard or soft book car was. (Example: a vehicle that is a national fleet vehicle, think rental car, who may have a current book value at $15,000, but due to having a large amount of cars being dumped into the used car market when that model is retired from a rental car agency is only worth maybe $11,000 due to supply and demand) And I believe my background in actual vehicle sales, inspection and valuations is the main reason my appraisals are so successful.
