How Cable Dahmer Saved Half A Million In Broker Fees

The Payoff: Money Freed, Margins Up

‍“Two weeks of dead capital vanished overnight. Now the recon guys beg us to slow the trucks down.” — Stephan Morris, Used-Car Buyer

Declaring War on Delay

Cable Dahmer Auto Group runs eight rooftops across Missouri, pushing ~1,000 units a month. Like most dealers, they knew that moving iron cross-country came with built-in waste. But nobody wanted to admit just how much. 

Every load they bought in California or Michigan sat 14-plus days waiting for a broker to haggle $25 off a carrier’s rate.

Nobody in the C-suite even knew the true transport spend. Just that it hurt. Every day eaten by transit wasn’t just lost time. It was burned money: 

• Floorplan costs ticking up,
• Arbitration windows slipping away, and
• Reconditioning teams standing idle. 

The Breaking Point

In early 2023, Used Car Director Tom Bear had had enough. “We’re not in the car business. We’re in the finance business,” Tom says. “Every extra day in transit is money on fire.” Fed up, he decided to bypass the middleman.

Sick of paying a “middle-man tax,” Used-Car Director Tom Bear posted his next load on Auto Hauler Exchange (AHX). As a carrier-direct marketplace, AHX shows the real market rate, up-front with transparent fees and a no-B.S. attitude. “If you’re not good at much, be great at one thing: getting cars moved,” Tom explained “AHX is how you do it.”

A New Way to Move

The difference was immediate and impossible to ignore.

Gone were the two-week black holes. Cable Dahmer’s vehicles now moved from auction to lot in an average of just four days. Truckers, finally paid real “market rates” (and not broker leftovers), snapped up loads within hours. For the first time, Tom and his buyers had real control: direct communication with drivers, live status updates, photos at pickup and drop, and everything tracked in one place. No more 800-number phone tag. No more “let me check with dispatch.” Just cars moving, and fast.

But speed was only half the story. 

By stripping out the hidden broker fee, Cable Dahmer started saving an average of 25 percent per car. It added up to over $500,000 in transport savings in the first year alone. “I about fell out of my chair,” recalls Used-Car Buyer Stephan Morris, describing the moment he learned what carriers had been paid versus what the dealership had actually been charged.

The kicker is that they were working with the same haulers as before. And since they were now being paid what the load was actually worth, they jumped in the cab today, not “when it pencils.”

Turning Bottlenecks into Bragging Rights

There was another unexpected side effect: capital that had once been frozen in shipping jail was suddenly freed up. Instead of waiting two weeks, million-dollar purchase batches landed in under five days. Arbitration claims they previously lost because cars showed up too late dropped to zero. The money saved and the time regained didn’t just please accounting; it powered aggressive new buying and record inventory turns. In fact, recon teams were soon calling Tom, begging him to slow the process down.

“The past 18 months, we haven’t missed an arbitration window,” Morris says. “Now, anytime I post a shipment, I know without question it’ll hit recon before the guys have even finished the last batch.”

Why This Matters (and How to Steal the Playbook)

• 25% drop in freight spend isn’t just a “cost cut”. It’s a margin revolution, which put Cable Dahmer on the GM’s hero board.
• Faster capital turn means gutsy bids at auction, less floorplan drain, faster reconditioning, and more gross profit per car.
• No-fuss logistics from pricing transparency, one-invoice accounting, and zero delay or drama.
• It means confidence to buy anywhere. Bad logistics used to limit Cable Dahmer’s acquisition range. Not anymore.

Stephan’s advice? “Audit your own invoices. Post a single load. Once the clock starts, you’ll never go back.” Tom puts it more bluntly: “Everybody has to move cars. If you’re not using AHX, you’re just feeding brokers your margin.”

Time is Money

Cable Dahmer didn’t just cut costs. They chose to break with everything the industry had accepted as normal. That’s where this story stops being about saving on vehicle logistics and starts being about freedom: freedom from invisible costs, from slow-turn headaches, and from the grip of the status quo.

For dealers ready to stop burning cash and start moving at the speed of business:  Read the numbers. Sign Up. And post your first load.

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Want to dive deeper? Check out our earlier article breaking down this powerful podcast episode: Faster Shipping, Lower Costs, Better Results — Meet Auto Hauler Exchange