War Stories From the F&I Office with Rudy Graff

F&I veteran Rudy Graff brings decades of grit, grind, and gut checks into a conversation that reveals the high-stakes game behind the deal jacket.

Rudy Graff—aka “Rudy Boss”—joins the crew to unload decades of wild, real-world experience from the F&I trenches. From his early days dodging lemon law landmines and printing contracts with a daisy wheel, to leading compliance initiatives at one of the country’s largest dealerships, Rudy’s journey through automotive finance is anything but boring. He shares how a recession pivot turned into a career, why he operated under an alias in the Wild West days of F&I, and how working the phones and fighting for a spot gave him a front-row seat to the evolving auto landscape.

Now with ComplyAuto, Rudy breaks down the modern compliance tightrope, the hidden costs of a single digit typo, and how AI is changing the game—one autofilled form at a time. He peels back the curtain on how even tiny address mismatches can snowball into repo-level disasters and explains why today’s F&I professionals need more than sales chops; they need tools, process, and precision. If you’ve ever wondered what F&I actually does or why compliance is everyone’s business, Rudy makes it clear: protect the store, protect the customer, and never underestimate the power of automation.

Timestamped Takeaways:

[0:00] Intro with Paul J Daly, Kyle Mountsier and Michael Cirillo

[3:02] Enter “Rudy Boss”: Rudy shares how his F&I alter ego was born out of early dealership antics and the need to fly a little under the radar.

[5:47] From Phones to Frontline: His improbable entry into auto, starting with cold calls and ending in battle-tested F&I leadership.

[10:47] First Rule of F&I—Protect the Store: Rudy emphasizes that compliance isn't optional—it's mission-critical.

[15:12] Real-Life AI Impact: How AI is catching human errors—like address mismatches—that can trigger costly customer blowback.

[19:22] Why Your Next Repo Might Be a Data Entry Problem: The ripple effects of a single mistake and why AI is essential to clean deals.

[23:37] Looking Ahead—AI, Blockchain, and Bulletproof Compliance: Rudy and the team envision the future of document validation and regulatory tech.

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Transcript

Paul J Daly: 0:00

So Michael,

Unknown: 0:03

yeah, just says he doesn't

Paul J Daly: 0:06

even know what I'm gonna ask. He's like, I don't want to hear

Unknown: 0:14

it. This is Auto Collabs. I don't know. I'm nervous. So there's

Paul J Daly: 0:18

literally a porta potty across from my window. Now,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:23

are you still on this Porta Potty thing? No, I actually, I

Paul J Daly: 0:26

actually, like, I started recording, like, the video where I kicked the door open and I come out and I say something clever. I can't remember what I said, and I don't know where the footage is, but I bet it's gonna be awesome if I find it.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:41

That's, that's really, that's the whole story.

Paul J Daly: 0:43

That's the whole story. I wanted to be excited about it and be like, oh, you know what? That reminds

Kyle Mountsier: 0:49

me of a porta potty time that I kicked in the Porta Potty door. It was awesome, dude. There was, there were

Paul J Daly: 0:55

some antics going on with porta potties when you were in college. Speaking

Michael Cirillo: 0:58

of porta potties, you know, one day, Where's he gonna take this one, one time I was in an office, and both we had, you know, every office has one of those people that you're like, how do you get any work done when you're in the bathroom for like, seven hours of a day, right? We had one of those scenarios, and I had to go to the bathroom so bad. So I full on committed to getting in my truck and driving back to my house, and my car broke down on the way home. Oh no,

Paul J Daly: 1:24

guys, that's a bad one.

Michael Cirillo: 1:27

I'm waiting for the segue like I'm just trying to feed material to Kyle. JpT, Kyle, and I'm like, what is I have

Paul J Daly: 1:33

another story that I mean, if he has one, I have another one that can attack. I'm like, I don't think we should keep tagging on Porta Potty stories. Well this, I think porta potty, this is a regular bathroom story. Oh no, my office in the last building we were at, I wasn't even thinking this through, but it was across from the bathrooms, right? And so, like, that's a problem. I kept my door shut a lot, but the real deal is that I had to move my desk to the other side of the office because it was really weird when people are going, like, I could make eye contact, right? And so I was like, Hey,

Kyle Mountsier: 2:03

we're going in and out. Yeah, speaking of offices that are normally across from the bathroom, oh, that's a great way, actually, right? Because normally down the hall, back to the right, then across in the bathroom. Talking to Rudy today, he's a storied F and i Manager in the auto industry. Now works with comply auto after being with Galpin for so long, and I'm excited to hear his stories. Because, you know, like, if someone's been in the business for a while, and they were anywhere around the F and I office, like they know about our business, they've seen stuff with the band the ugly that we're not going to keep talking about porta potties, but we will probably talk a lot about F and I and the stories in the car business. We hope you enjoy this conversation with Rudy. All right, we got Andy, Rudy Graff and I said that on on purpose, because my first question is, you know what I gotta ask? We gotta know, how'd you get the name Rudy boss? Well,

Andy Graff: 3:02

that's my F and I character. That's when I get into a form work in the F and I office, really,

Paul J Daly: 3:10

yeah, yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:12

Was that like, that was like, a crew? Did someone name you, or did you name yourself?

Andy Graff: 3:17

No, it's a little bit of a joke. It just stuck with me all these years. So years later, they called me that I think may have been I started so long ago in the business, and it was like, back then, it was a little bit of the Wild West in F and I. And so sometimes maybe you kind of want to keep your head down, and maybe, you know, you didn't want to let the customer know what your real name was, in case there was a little boomeranging back. Oh boy. So maybe if they ask for Rudy, as opposed to Andy, they would be like, Hey, where's Rudy? Who's Rudy?

Paul J Daly: 3:49

Wow, that's a blast.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:51

That means you've been in the business a hot minute. Take us back. Like, What? What? What did getting into this business look like? Because sounds like you. You've seen, you've seen it all, because maybe where that where that heart came from, isn't where you are now. But where did

Andy Graff: 4:05

this? Oh, man, it started a long time ago. I actually was in real estate, and if anybody remembers, because I'm dating myself. And 89 there was a big real estate recession. So there was an ad in the newspaper said, train for a recession proof career in the automobile business. So I'm thinking, Okay, it's 1990 let's go for it. And so I didn't, never, ever work there. And right before that, I go to an F and I office. This is a true story. So I go with my friend to go buy a car. This guy's quoting us a payment. Now, it's a pack payment. I don't know anything about it. It's got leg in it, as they called it, and they're telling the payments 333 and I'm pretty good with math, so I'm telling the guy, it's not 333 it's 300 so we go through the whole process. We're in F and I, and I'm challenging the guy. I'm like, print the damn format. I'm telling you it's 300 it's not 333 I'm not the second baseman from hell, right? So the guy's like, fine. I print the thing out. Payments, $300 a month. I'm telling my friend. See, I told you. It's $300 a month. I'm so naive. I have no idea what a leg is. I don't realize that this payments been packed so they could sell them product for like, you know, $10 more, you get the $6,000 extended service contract, right? Isn't that a deal, right? And, you know, even though math is always the same, this is how they sold back then in the early 90s, right? And so I'm, I'm dumbfounded by the whole thing, and so putting two and two together, I'm thinking, This guy's an idiot. Doesn't know math. I'm good at math. I need a new job because I got blown out of real estate because the recession. So guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to train for recession proof, for a career being a finance guy in a car dealership. So I go to the first interview, the second interview, they're like, don't work that way, son, you gotta work the line, right? You gotta go sell cars, yeah? And so one by one, everybody's,

Unknown: 5:47

he's like, it's just 300

Andy Graff: 5:49

before I knew anything, right? Yeah, right. So I finally get my first job. The guy's like, don't worry, you're, you know, like the Italian, don't worry, you'll get the job. Oh, and so I find out, yeah, I'm not in F and I, I'm on the phones in F and I, I'm not a finance guy. I'm cold calling customers trying to sell product and get them back in the store. I'm working for the F and I director, who also moonlights as the leasing manager. So I'm calling lease customers trying to sell product and get him, you know, to not buy out their cars, to come back yet. I did that for like, two years. Finally, I'm begging and pleading to be a salesperson at this organization. And they're like, you know, son, you can't sell cars here without experience. I'm like, I've been here for two years. Like, yeah. And I'm like, You're telling me, I gotta go work somewhere else, sell cars for a year or two and then come back. And they're like, yep. And I'm like, no, what? I'm like, I've been a good employee for 10 years, right? Working the phones, cold calling people. Like, that's how it works. Said, but there's a but I got one option for you. I'm like, What's that? He goes, You handle the lemon law customers. I'm like, How bad can those people be? Right?

Paul J Daly: 6:57

Yeah, everything's going fine. They're not stressed. They're not worried about anything, and they have a really high view of the store at that.

Andy Graff: 7:06

Oh yeah. They love everybody, right? I mean, and you want to talk about, they are relentless. They will figure out what your home phone, you know, back then barely, you know, cell phones were coming out. They figure out your home phone. They're doing site visits. They're showing up, just nagging you to death, because, you know, to get to lemon law, you gotta get pretty far down the back

Paul J Daly: 7:25

too. It wasn't even close to what it was now like, now it's like, oh, the third thing, everyone knows it's gonna happen. And right back then it was like, No, it was brutal. And

Andy Graff: 7:35

so these people were the worst of the worst. They were just like, haters of everything, and they just were driving me crazy. Anyways, long story short, like I did that for a year, it almost caused me a divorce, almost caused me my job. And after a year of doing it for the company, like, you know, take one for the team, if you will, they're like, Okay, now you can go sell cars, and by the way, you know you're not going to get any leads. You got to go get your own leads. You got to work your way. So I did that for a couple years, and then I finally got my shot in F and I and so then I started, you know, doing the F and I gig.

Paul J Daly: 8:06

I love to talk about, like, so you've obviously seen the industry from a different era, actually, like, what you're talking about, the way F and I worked, and the way compliance worked was a whole different world than it is today. And now compliance is, you know, front and center. Sophistication is growing rapidly because of technology. And you know, compliance is, is it's not as much a conversation of if it's when right, if someone's going to find something right, because you can always, I can't remember who it was. They said somebody can always find something right? Like, if you, if you're looking hard enough, you always be able to find something wrong with something. And a lot of a lot of it is like, how can you be as certain as possible that mistakes are getting caught and that you have the ability to say, like, we've been doing extreme diligence to make sure we are compliant. How would you explain the modern compliance environment, especially now that all this new AI tech is being quickly injected into the industry. So

Andy Graff: 9:04

great question regarding the compliance of today, a lot different than it was in the early 90s. No question about it. I believe now, because I work in California, and it's very litigious, and I think a lot of the lemon law lawyers that you see out there, they're not even trying to go for a lemon law they want to look at the deal. That's what they want. They're on what I call the fishing expedition, because there's going to be something wrong. It's not an if it's a when there's there's hardly ever a clean deal out there. Every deal has got some sort of problem with it. And the question is, when do you catch it and how much does it cost you? So you want to get in front of that as quickly as possible. I mean, the truth is, and in my kind of later roles in my career in the car business, I was, I was the VP of sales, and when we trained fi people, you know, and I know there's a lot of and I think this. Is going to probably raise some eyebrows out there, but a lot of people say finance people are out there to make money. But the primary function of a finance person, their first and foremost function isn't selling product, is protecting the store, protect the deal, right, exactly. And if they're not protecting the dealership and they're putting money in front of that, that's where you start getting real problems. And I'm not saying that they shouldn't do both. They should protect the store and make money for the store, absolutely, and they should make sure the customer has a great experience. So all three of those things. But how do you do all three of those things? You know? How do you do it? All right? And a lot of finance people today were really just sales people that just were better sales people. They just did a better job than everybody else. So now they're the finance guy and,

Kyle Mountsier: 10:47

yeah, they're not lawyers, right?

Andy Graff: 10:50

And they weren't great with paperwork last time as a salesperson. I mean, I'll tell you, I was never great with paperwork, but I got better in finance. I wasn't perfect, right? Two the best people with paperwork are they're the people in the business office that send the deal back to you, going, dumb ass. This again, right? Billy,

Kyle Mountsier: 11:09

amazing at paperwork. I'm telling you

Andy Graff: 11:14

true story. One of our biggest competitors had multi rooftops down the street from us. Did exactly that. Kicked out all the F and I people, literally phased them all out, got rid of them. Said you can go be salespeople or F and I people, somewhere else, whatever you want. We're closing down the F and I people. They took all the billing clerks and made them F and I P and, you know what? The paperwork is perfect. But they didn't sell anything, right? So it was like, it was like, an epic disaster, right? So they're like, Okay, this isn't gonna work. So then they replaced all those people, you know, with FMI people, and the pendulum swing the other way again, right? Now, suddenly, you know they're selling. Grosses are good, but the paperwork sucked, right? And so you

Kyle Mountsier: 11:55

find that perfect. Think about this. I think about this, Rudy, you've got a deal jacket that's typically, maybe slightly less the size of a mortgage, right? Like mortgage is this thick, right these days, and you just, like, barely move your fingers down, and that's, that's an automotive deal jacket. And, yep, a mortgage takes anywhere between 45 and 60 days to prepare has multiple people preparing the documents, alongside realtors that are re inspecting those documents, multiple checkpoints, notaries that are actually on site, like this incredibly complex system To just a slight, just a little bit bigger of a deck, and F and I managers, and the F and I process, whether it's single point of contact or F and I managers, are responsible for that level of prudence in like, everybody's going. How do I get them in the F and I office in seven to 10 minutes? So they don't, so they don't expire their Yes, or maintain, like, that's a brutal proposition, to be quite honest. Like, when you put, when you square it right, with similar type of transaction,

Andy Graff: 13:09

that's a good point. Yep, you're absolutely right. I you know FnI people don't remind me.

Kyle Mountsier: 13:17

How did you deal how did you deal with it? Like, when you were in the, in the in the office, how did you deal with it? Was it, did you like, was it checklist? Was it process? Was it some of all of the above? Did you have like, what? What was your process before you before there was, like, more technology introduced to, like, Deal Jacket printing and stuff like that. Right? It was like, impact, sound.

Andy Graff: 13:43

I was before dot matrix. I was with the impact printers that had the freaking daisy wheel that used to, like, have every letter in the alphabet and a couple characters and numbers, and it would circle around. That's all that's remember that that was old school,

Paul J Daly: 13:59

school. Holy cow, we should have one of those that is sort of

Kyle Mountsier: 14:01

well, but, I mean, we're shifting right and, and it's kind of good, because we have much more compliance coming down the pipe right, and we're looking, we're still staring down the barrel of whatever the new iteration of the cars rule, even that's been, that's been kind of put to the to put the bed, but there will be something new that arises, probably at less impact, but we're staring down the barrel of, like, significantly more compliance than we even had, like, three or four years ago. What's the new trend looking like?

Andy Graff: 14:33

I think leveraging AI is the way everybody's going. I think using AI to improve speed, improve processes, consistency, reliability, thoroughness, I think give us some practice. Because

Paul J Daly: 14:49

I think one of the things that I think people hear all the time is we're gonna leverage AI. So can you give a couple specific instances in F and I, how AI? I think that helps people wrap their mind around like, oh, it can do that, or it can be now I don't have to do that anymore. Could you, like, just kind of like, talk to the back of the class for us for a minute.

Andy Graff: 15:12

Yeah. So imagine looking at a driver's license and seeing an address, right? And then somebody takes that address and types in the address onto another form, CRM, DMS, whatever, right? You ever do that yourself in real life? You take some information. I mean, I hate it too. Like, where you go in the auto fill feature isn't there? You gotta then take the information. Like, maybe it's a credit card number, right? Or, you know, have you ever gone to a bank where you wanted to, like, copy? You got some password keeper, and you want to copy your password because it's 16 characters and it's complicated, and you want to paste it into a field, but the freaking website won't let you paste it angry. Now, you got to sit there and paint the longer you talk to angry, right? You got a painstakingly type it

Paul J Daly: 15:59

and, like, reference. Imagine doing

Andy Graff: 16:01

that over and over and over, yes, doing that over and over again, 16 times, 20 times in a day. Because every F and I deal, you're double checking an address of a person, right? But you got to make sure that what's on the driver's license matches the paperwork. So what do you do? You take a piece of paper that you print out, and you hand it to the customer. You say, hey, double check that I spelled your name correctly, and double check that I put the address right, right. And they look at it, and they go, Yep, looks right, but guess what? It's not right. They themselves missed the typo, right? You transposed two numbers, or you forgot the apartment number. There's not a dealership I talked to today that says that doesn't happen. Well, guess what? Who doesn't fail that test? Ai doesn't fail that test. It catches it every time ever. It just catches it. It just sees it. It's so obvious to it, because what we see is numbers. I don't know how AI works exactly, but it sees it as data, and it says it needs to be a perfect match, or it's not a match, right? And it catches every time. That's what AI is doing. Now, that's what we're doing with our tool, and that's just like, that's like, what, less than 110 to 1% of what he's doing. But it's critical, because the byproduct of that seems like not a big deal, but check this out. What happens is the bank doesn't process the payment coupon to the right address, so the guy waits 90 days before somebody starts calling for the bank, going, Hey, you haven't made your first payment or your second payment. What gives? Right? He knows darn well that he should have paid the payment, but he's using the wrong address as an excuse. Go, guess what the next call is, call the dealer. It's not my fault you sent it to the wrong address. Well, it kind of is, you knew you had a payment due in 45 days, so he's blaming it on the dealer. So now the dealer's got to call in a favor with the bank, and that that doesn't stop there, because now, in a year from now, when he doesn't get his registration renewal, and it misses the address right because it goes to the neighbor's address or the address on another whatever right doesn't go the right part of it. Guess who the next call is? They're like, Oh yeah, I got pulled over. My registration is late. Well, I didn't want to pay the money in the first place. Now there's penalties. Guess who he's calling again, the dealer saying you screwed up my address. I didn't get the renewal. I'm not paying these fees. And the good dealers, the dealers who really care about customer service and doing things right, they go, Okay, right? And

Michael Cirillo: 18:27

then I'm wondering, how many of these people are upset when

Unknown: 18:32

you know uncle Frankie shows up with a tow truck and takes the vehicle away, like, that's way worse. How much of this scenario, actually, what percentage of what you've just explained has an impact on overall car repos that they're reporting. Because it's like, I just didn't know what I was supposed to Hey, I'll be honest, though, like I moved here from Canada. It is the weirdest thing to me that I can drive the vehicle home from the dealership. And then every time I buy a car, I'm like, how they paying for this thing in Canada? You can't leave the dealership unless you've given them the void check. The insurance companies come and given you your plates. You got to register. Like so many things happen. So here, I mean, we buy, I don't know, four or five cars here. And every time, I'm like, wait, what? How am I

Paul J Daly: 19:23

driving this right? Now, right? Yeah. And

Unknown: 19:26

then, like you said, 45 days goes by and I get a letter in the mail from, you know, whatever it is, Toyota Financial saying, set up your account. And I'm like, how, how are we even allowed to drive these things? Right? Fair

Kyle Mountsier: 19:37

point. It is, wow, but, but that's, I mean, like, Rudy, the thing you said is, like, what? What you don't realize is the residual impact of a single digit on an address line. And yeah, what if that's one of the 33 things that AI is doing the impact not just to like the bottom line or your employees. Employee satisfaction. It's con customer satisfaction, right? So we, we keep talking about employee experience, right? It's not just good enough to have them feel great when they buy the car like that. There's touch points that you don't even realize are happening sometimes that are 4591, year, two years down the line, that are created by, like, just a digit mismatch, right? And those are the things that we need to be thinking about. Like, how do we leverage technology? How do we leverage things like, what you guys are doing there? I comply with the deal tracker. Ai, how do we leverage those types of things to make sure, in one increase employee satisfaction? Oh, I don't have to, like, manually enter this stuff all day. But also, how do I help that? You know, then it's customer satisfaction and compliance all wrapped up into one. And we have the tools. Why not use them these days? Right?

Unknown: 20:53

Drugs? Yeah.

Michael Cirillo: 20:56

Well, listen, this, we have, this is fascinating, right? And I'm telling you, this is, this is, this is one of those things that I think has got a lot of people thinking they're like, What is the ripple effect of the small thing, and how much is it costing us? And I imagine you have all of that data, which is why we can't wait to connect with you soon. Hey, how can those listening and watching get in touch with you?

Andy Graff: 21:21

Two ways, real simple. They can just go to our website, you know, which is comply auto.com and on comply.com there's an inquiry form. Just say, hey, I want to talk to Rudy. I'll call you back. I'll send you an email. Or you can go ahead and just email me directly. If that's all right with your listeners, you can always email me at Andy, at comply auto.com

Unknown: 21:46

All right for joining us here on Auto Collabs.

Michael Cirillo: 21:59

Okay, but just before we recap Kyle, like, how do you actually do the segue? Man, it's the game is tight. Michael

Paul J Daly: 22:08

hasn't been able to think of that for the last 20 minutes. That's why you asked

Unknown: 22:12

him a few questions. Waiting to ask. That's it. That's quiet

Paul J Daly: 22:16

in this episode. He's like, how does Kyle

Kyle Mountsier: 22:20

just got that little, like, bubble up there about the segways that's got a lot of sickness. You and Ben Hadley, you're just, like, enamored by the Segway game. Me, you know, when you do segues 1000 episodes in a row, like Paul and I, we just got the Segway game down. You know,

Paul J Daly: 22:34

I'm glad we talked about, like, the practical solutions so that AI can fix, because again, I know I said it, or I asked the question, but the reality is, with AI deployments, a lot of people just can't wrap their head around, like, what the AI is going to actually do, right? Such a broad term. And I think, you know, some of the examples were right on the money, because every like, the it's black and white, it's it matches, or it doesn't match, it's there or it's not there, and I think that that those are the types of things that make up probably 98% of the compliance headaches that happen. And so I'm glad to see it, you know, just start to be deployed across the board. Next up, I just want AI to, like, be able to operate QuickBooks for me. So I know it's compliance in QuickBooks, but if they can get on that next like, just show me last year's P and L year over year. I

Michael Cirillo: 23:26

mean, this is a really compelling use case for AI in which future generations may never have to worry about compliance again, because it won't be a thing anymore. I think between

Kyle Mountsier: 23:37

AI and blockchain, that's what I think. I think you're gonna start to see AI and blockchain. You're going to see blockchain come back in. AI is going to be the tool with, with social leverage, to connect the data and make it really, really resilient. And, and, and when we get into like, AI, document sourcing, right? Like, how do you validate document? Real, realness, right? It's, it's gonna, actually, I just got my new passport, and I was my passport was 10 years old, staggered at the complexity at which, like the materials and the overlays and all that type of stuff, had to go in. Because, you know, I mean, you've seen the photos. You've seen the photos of the the IDs and the licenses and the receipts and the bills that are coming out from GPT like, oh, things like this are going to need to be in in processes, especially around highly regulated industries, which Auto is.

Paul J Daly: 24:38

Well, there you go. Just another thing AI is going to do to make our life easier.

Kyle Mountsier: 24:44

There you go. Can't make sandwiches, can't

Paul J Daly: 24:47

podcast without us. Can't come up with Porta Potty stories on on the fly, on the fly with good behalf of Kyle Mountsier, Michael Cirillo and myself. Thank you so much as always, for giving us a few minutes. Nuts and hanging out on Auto Collabs.

Unknown: 25:02

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