Earl Stewart on Cars - 01.06.2024 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Palm Beach Mitsubishi

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local Mitsubishi dealer to see how much they will charge for a new 2023 Outlander PHEV SEL SUV on their lot. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female business. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us as my son, Stu Stewart, our LinkedIn's side. space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show.

Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back against all odds, folks. This is a live show. I always hesitate when I say that, because one day it might not be alive. We might be doing a rerun we do with some of our shows. But Nancy Stewart, my co-host, has COVID. And I thought I had COVID, but I got tested and I'm negative. So here I am.

And then Jonathan, who is the entire back end in our control room in terms of mainly video, YouTube, and that kind of thing. We finally allowed them to take a vacation after about 10 years. And so we thought we'd be without video. but Stu Stewart thinks he may have figured out. We don't know. He's trying. He's trying. And now I know what Jonathan goes through.

We're working, yeah. He's got things that looks like he's doing something over there. So anyway, we know we're on the radio. At least we're fairly sure. I told the folks the story before we got on the air about when I first started, I did an entire hour show when I found out the station wasn't on the air. So that was back in the old days. Anyway, with all that yak-yck, you just tuned in, I better say something intelligent,

which is, this is a show, a live talk show on radio that you can call into at 877-960-99-60. That's 877-960-960, and you can talk live on the radio. And we talk about how to buy a car or lease a car, repair or maintain a car. by car, I'm talking of vehicles, trucks, SUVs, anything you drive down the road except motorcycles, I guess. Without being ripped off by the car dealer. Car dealers, if you're new to the show,

if you're regulars, pardon my repetition here, but car dealers just don't know how to do it. They don't know how to take care of their customers. They're not honest, they're not ethical, bait and switch advertising. They're retailing cars the same way. The first set of dealers out there, that Henry Ford set up 100 years ago, bait and switch.

I mean, it's even worse than it was back in the day because the manufacturers entered into it, and that's a whole other story. But I don't need to tell you. Most of you have cars. That's the way America is. Cars are cars, and especially in America, everybody wants to have a car.

If you don't buy a car, you lease a car, or you rent a car, or you borrow a car, or you're riding a car on Uber. I mean, it's our world here in America. And to get one, sooner or later, you have to go into a car dealership. And if you go into a car dealership, you really got yourself a problem. It just, they don't treat you with courtesy and respect. They try to trick you.

They try to get you buy something that they can make a big profit on, but you don't necessarily want or need. Anyway, if you're new to the show, you're in for a treat. First of all, it's live radio, and that's exciting. We get pumped up. We love what we do. We've been doing this for about 20 years. Now, unfortunately, as I said at the beginning of the show, Nancy Stewart, my co-host, my wife, who started the show with me about 20 years ago, she's not feeling well.

She's home, and she wouldn't come under the studio anyway because she's very contagious. I got lucky, and apparently I'm immune to COVID. I got tested yesterday. So we're in the studio without Nancy, and Nancy is our champion for the female listeners. So I'm asking a special favor of you female listeners out there. Without Nancy here, without Nancy Stewart by my side here in the studio, she's watching us, hopefully, on YouTube.

We're trying to get set up on YouTube. If not, she's listening on the radio. And we're doing our best to get the YouTube thing going, but it may not happen. If we can't do that, it's going to be like we start out. We start out on radio. And we have the call in number. We have the text number. I'm giving you the call in number.

I'll give it to you again because the calls are very important. 877-960-9960. We'd love to hear from you. you. If you're a woman, female, you haven't called the show, Nancy Stewart will send you a check for 50 bucks if you're a first-time female caller. I mean, it sounds like too good to be true, and as your father told you, it ain't so if it's too good to be true. It's not true. Okay, well, this is true. 50 bucks, a check in the mail, no conditions. If you haven't called the show before you're female and you call 877 960 9960 Nancy Stewart will write out a check

for you in a couple days you'll have it before next Saturday if you're the first time first two new female callers why do we do that well when we started the show and even it's true today to some extent men like to talk about cars I mean it's a man thing it was a man thing It's no longer a man thing. That's what we're trying to cure. We want the ladies who buy over half the cars, who drive over half the cars, especially service.

They seem to bring them in for service more often than men do. I mean, the ladies are more involved with automobiles today than men, and we don't have equality when it comes to calls. So, hence, the $50 to the first two new female callers, If you call 877-960-960, you get a check in the mail from Nancy Stewart, no conditions, no strings attached, before next Saturday. She'll have it to your home in the U.S. mail. And we'll ask you to leave the contact information with our studio, Jeremy, who's in our studio, to keep your contact information secrets. So when you call the show, stay on the line, and we'll give that $50.

bucks with all that said turn it over to nancy we'll turn it over to nancy oops yeah yeah nancy is not here but you better be listening now because we're generating a female caller so you let us know if you're out there and you call the show if you like i mean uh um it's a let me get into my normal uh part of the show which is it should be at this time of year which is what is it, January the 6th. We're into the new year. We're in to an exciting

2024 because everything's upside down in the car business. Retail and manufacturing. I mean, we've got electric vehicles replacing the combustion engine. Huge controversial topic.

I can see a lot of you folks out there and say, yeah, right. Ain't going to happen. No, no. Electric car's not going to happen. I mean, it's almost a political thing. It's like getting a Republican and Democrat in the same room. Either your combustion engine person or your electric vehicle person is just a lot of emotion in that. But the statistics and the scientific facts say, let me be safe here, in 20 years, you won't be able to buy combustion engine cars. You will not be able to buy a combustion engine car in 20 years.

So I just saw a high live victory sign from Stu, meaning the YouTube may be working. We sure hope so. I can report that we are live on YouTube. YouTube.com forward slash earl on cars with sound and video. Hallelujah. YouTube.com. Ford slash earl on cars. YouTube.com forward slash earl on cars.

And that way you stream us. You see us. It's not that that's so exciting. But we have, you know, some props every now and then. Like, I'll hold up a, you know, something from automotive news, and you'll be able to see it better, something like that. Perfect. And so, let's say, video is important.

Rick. But more important, we're going to the phones. Oh, good morning, Bob. Good morning. Hey, Bob. Good morning. Also, I would like to say, I hope Nancy has a quick recovery. Thank you.

For her instance. And I see that we're already going to court. So the NADA has already filed a lawsuit against the FTC, and along with another organization out in Texas. So this is going to be interesting to see how this plays out in court. It'll be a big fight. Big fight. It's going to be a big fight.

And I also understand there's also a committee in Congress that was formed that's against it. So, you're kidding. No. And I'm not sure who makes up. I'm not quite sure who makes up the committee. There was 17 Democrats that came out in favor. But they said there was a House committee that was formed that is trying to block it. So you're going to get into the politics of all that.

I didn't read that. Yeah, the politics of all this stuff. Yeah. The other thing I was going to say, I did go on Amazon today to see about how this process works for buying a car. Right. And I've kind of gotten stumbled a couple of times. One time they sent me out some to a deal that was like on Long Island. And then this morning, I tried it again.

And I tried the most basic models, you know, the most basic colors. I fact they tried three different models white with black interior which is the basic stuff and it says there's no models within 300 miles of any of any of the models I try to three different models of the Hyundai Tucson

as you vote so I'm not quite sure how this is going to work maybe it's just a there are yeah I think they're like they're partnering with with some dealers so maybe there's none in the south floor or within your that range here that's done it yet but I don't know it has it launched

yet? Have they begun? No, we're talking about the Hyundai on Amazon. Amazon, Hyundai, Genesis, and Kia. And they're starting out with Hyundai. But, yeah, they actually haven't kicked it in yet, Bob. I think I know the, I have been on Amazon to the Hyundai purchase thing, too. And they should make it a little clear what they're doing.

You're right. But when they do kick it in, it will be, according to them, it will be purchasing a Kia or Hyundai or Genesis starting with Hyundai in the same manner you buy a loaf or bread or whatever else you buy on Amazon it'll be done completely through Amazon but it will be the car at your option can either be delivered to you through the dealer but it'll still come to your front door or you can pick it up at the dealership but the payment the financing and the pricing and everything will be under control of Amazon right well they do have it up on the website but like I said

Oh, I haven't seen it recently, so I'll check it out. Yeah, it's up there. They just, it just keeps showing me that there's no vehicles within 300 miles. So I'm not quite sure what dealers signed up. Maybe there weren't any local dealers in Florida. I would have a hard time imagining a lot of dealers, Hyundai dealers, especially in South Florida, wanting to do it. Yeah, there are 18 dealerships as all in the whole United States for Hyundai that they'll start out with.

So they'll start out with 18 Hyundai dealers and probably won't have one, definitely won't have one in each state. And it'll be just a pilot program. So as Stu just said, the Hyundai dealers are probably reluctant to stick their toe in the water on this thing. My guess is the Hyundai dealers that go forward will be the ones who have, owners have multiple franchises. So it'll be like maybe a Penske Hyundai dealer or a Lithia Hyundai dealer, an AutoNation Hyundai dealer. Somebody that doesn't have all. their eggs in one basket.

If you're a Hyundai dealer and all you've got is a Hyundai franchise and you take that leap to go with Amazon, you'd be afraid for your franchise. You'd be afraid for something happening. But it'll happen. There's no question in my mind

that's going to happen. And Hyundai, the manufacturer, is very wise to see this because they got into the United States late and they are having a heck of a time competing against Honda and Toyota, not to mention even the big three,

because they got into America too late, this will be a way for Hyundai to leapfrog and get right up there and give Honda and Toyota General Motors and Ford some serious competition. Okay, well, I got just one more question. I read that the... Yeah. And it's a Toyota question, so maybe you can answer it.

I read that the Toyota Supra, the sales, this year, had collapsed on what they did last year. And is there any particular reason for that? Is it because, do you think that's because of the price or the availability? It's the type of car it is. You know, you get overplay, over publicity. Everybody loves a sexy sports car. The fact that matter is, people don't. don't buy sexy, high price, fast sports cars for cars.

They buy them to impress their neighbors or to drag race on $9.95 or because they got too much money. They don't know what to do with it, but it's not a bread and butter car. So it didn't surprise us as a Toyota dealership that the very first supers we had many years ago didn't sell that many. And today, high price, in this case, oftentimes gas guzzling, compared to everything else, vehicles don't sell very well. So, yeah, you see them on advertising on the news. Everybody's excited about it, talks about it, and then you look at the statistics. Nobody's buying them.

So we were not surprised. Okay. Well, I want to wish everybody a happy new year, and I look forward to your, you're going to have your shopping report today. Yeah, you'll get you. That's a doozy. Oh, okay. 99% of them are. Thanks for the call, Bob. All right. Have it a great day.

You too, my friend. And now we've got Roadrunner, Steve. Oh, beep, beep, roadrunner. Good morning, everybody. Nancy, get well soon. Happy New Year to everybody. Thank you. Good. It was hard getting true to you last week, but I got through it today. Did you read the story about the Tesla droids that attacked the work of the Austin plant?

The Tesla. I missed that part. Say that again, Steve? Yeah, I'm here. You'll say that again? The Tesla robot attacked one of the workers at the Austin. Well, I didn't hear about that now. Attacked?

I mean, that's good news and bad news. It sounds like the robot's working. Yes, but the funny thing is, It says the injury was apparently not severe enough to require the employee to take time off the work. I wouldn't go back there. I mean, you know, I'd be scared. What could happen with that? Also, it wasn't in that movie, attacking the robots.

They had brain throws coming out of the arms and all that stuff like that. I mean, that's some story. The other thing I want to talk about, is my i got a nathan frontier right so my battery went dead and it was the last day of 2023 so i called up triple a the guy was here in a half hour right put the battery in you know normal standard battery you know just loosen the clips and put it in pop pop pop it's in so on tuesday i call up Nissan yeah you know your battery exposed i bought the battery in january 20 2020 so he goes oh yeah

interstate battery so I told me I had a battery put in by AAA new batteries well we can put a battery in for $199 in labor I said didn't you what I just said I said triple A put the battery in my car he goes yeah but we can put one in for you also I'm like so I said

let me ask you something am I was the is the battery pro rated he goes no I said, well, it said on the battery, 85 months. He goes, yeah, but they only last three years. So when you put 85 months on the battery from? So then he goes, well, you don't have a Nissan battery in your car. I said, oh, stop right there.

I was going to say, I told them, listen, Nissan don't make batteries, okay? They made in the factory. There's a guy there with Ford stickers, sticks a Ford sticker on the battery. Another guy that puts a mopah stick on the battery. It's another guy that puts a chevalis to come on a battery. Nissan does not make batteries. All of a sudden, you hear crickets on the phone. With that, and I didn't hear nothing, so I just hung up.

I don't blame you. That's crazy. Sometimes they're not trying to lie to you. They just are misinformed. You know, the manufacturers will brand a part, a battery, or whatever. may be brand it with their name but they bought it somewhere else just about there are very few parts that manufacturers I'm talking about critical component parts that manufacturers actually build by they they buy the parts and assemble them but a lot of people I guess including technicians

and service advisors say oh it says Toyota we must have made the battery but uh you know people get fooled by that yeah they have to buy that fabulous my other quick question is When I opened my gas cap, right? What's all that black stuff around the inside of the door? Dirt. Mold. Oh. The airson, I thought.

And I wanted to ask you, but I couldn't get sure. See, I thought it was some, like, using that gas that has the sugar in it, you know, the stuff they got out now. The ethanol, you mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, with that. So that's just mold. That's there? Yep. It's a mold.

you get a good car wash cleaner I'll wash that out toothbrush Not your usual one Yes I usually one I pay myself very well and I'm a good tipper Okay Hey Steve

Let's get well soon I want to talk to the woman and not the men sometime She'll be back next week Happy New Year Okay Thank you Thank you

So Steve's still listening I was going to say before he signed off that the consumer reports, February, the very, very current consumer reports, you probably only get it if you subscribe, but you can pick it up on the stands pretty shortly. February, it's got a really great article in there about batteries, car batteries.

And Rick can confirm this. I guess I kind of knew it, but they really drove it home. You have to make a decision whether you want the lead acid, and they call the other battery an AGM, absorbed glass mat, absorbed glass mat. So the AGM is a higher tech, better battery, but it costs more money. A lot more.

Yeah. When you say a lot more, we're talking double or what? 60 to 80% more. Yeah. Consumer reports kind of insinuates you should go with the AGM. I guess when you're talking batteries, it's kind of like you don't want to necessarily save money. And it's like if you have a pacemaker, you know, you want the battery. If you have a car is kind of like a pacemaker.

I mean, you don't want the car to stop on I-95 or the turnpike. And if I have to pay 60% more that something is going to give me 60% more likelihood that my car is going to start or not stop, I think I'm going with the extra 60%. Well, it won't necessarily stall on you or die on you on the road. No, I know. What it'll do is it's going to catch you that one night when it's pulling. pouring rain, and you're out in the boonies with no cell reception, and you go to start the car, and it won't start.

Or you get back into town after a vacation. It's 2 o'clock in the morning, and you're all by yourself in the airport parking garage, and there's a guy really weird with a raincoat and dark glasses, and you get in the car, and you'll want to leave, but the car won't start. It's kind of one of those things. Exactly. And that's the worst time. Yeah.

Okay. It'll never do it at the time when, hey, there happens to be a guy. standing right there with a set of jumper cables. That's not the time your car is not going to fire up. It's always the worst time. Exactly. Okay. Where are we with phone calls, YouTube?

Well, I could jump over. Do we have any calls? Not at the moment. They all call for Nancy. I knew that was going to happen. That's okay. Amory texts for me and you, for all of us. Well, let me get the number out because maybe that's one of reasons.

There's one thing that Nancy does very well, and we forget without Nancy. Nancy, are you there? okay well we hope you're listening we're on youtube youtube.com not audio though we're having for some reason the audio ain't working the video is working everything's looking like it's set up right though okay 877 960 9960 the call in number 877 960 960 960 if you don't have a call you want to make right now no thoughts write the number down please if you're not driving of course 877 960 and 960 now we'll go to amory's text okay amory says good morning the latest statistics that i can find shows that the unemployment rate in florida was 2.9% as of november

2023 sounds about right yeah does that make it harder or more easier to fill an open position when one becomes available um it feels like it makes it a lot harder especially on um like well all positions, really. It's like everybody has a job now. So that's the trick there. Second part for a question was, do dealers poach good employees from each other? Just wondering, we try to. Yeah. We try to. And when I say we, I'm speaking as all dealers, they're not really bribe, but they're enticed with signing bonuses, gas allowances, demos, special pay plans, all sorts of incentives to get a good salesperson or a good F&I salesperson or a good service salesperson to come on board. It's done for salespeople. I'll tell you how important

it is to our dealership and I think to a lot of businesses out there is harder today to hire quality people than ever before since I can remember. And you probably, wherever you're dealing, you're dealing at, you know, the department stores or lawnmower services or plumbers or whatever you're doing, you're finding that the service is not there, that the phones answering is not there, the quality of the people that we're dealing with. The quality is coming down. So if you're running a quality business, where do you find quality people? In our dealership, For example, we pay our employees that work with us, we like to thank the cream of the crop because we really have some good people.

We pay them a $1,000 bonus if they can bring in a new person that we hire. And so that's how important it is. And that's for any position. Any position. And our employees, fortunately, and we found that quality people know other quality people. So we've got about 150 employees, and we like to think of them as the cream of the crop, and they are. And so they have people that they know and deal with, friends, for all these neighbors, and they say, hey, you might want to consider going to Earl Stewart Toyota, and I get a signing bonus on paid if you are hired and remain with them. I can make $1,000.

So that's how important it is. Well, I'm going to take 50 away from you. Good. Linda, our first time caller from Jupiter. Wow. They do call on Nancy's not here. Hi, Linda. How are you?

Well, God, thank you. Now that you called, I'm really good. I've enjoyed listening to you many times, going to work. So I figured, all right. I am a grandmother, and I have a chore. I'm just a CHR right now that I just love, but it's just too small to put the stroller in. I just need my family. Get bigger, so I was thinking about the Kia Sorrento, and I was just wondering your thoughts on that.

Measure it out very well, especially that back cargo area, and compare it to your CHR. But I'd also look into some of the others. Subaru, their outback, I believe, and a forester, has got some good storage areas on it. Toyota, we've got the RAV-4, the Venza, the Highlander. Honda, I think the CRV, and I'm really not up on some of the good Honda models, but those are my top three choices, really, especially kind of above the Kia. I would look at Toyota, Honda, and Subaru, and not even necessarily in that order. And Linda, I would also say that once you've narrowed it down to the two or three that you'd like to consider buying,

actually try the vehicle out and try to use that storage area and with what you typically would be using for, whether it's golf clubs or groceries or furniture or whatever you typically kids, you know, dogs, whatever you are carrying around, try it. And even if you have to rent a car, if the dealer doesn't have one, it'd be worth a one-day rental just to be sure you like it.

Sure. That's a good idea. And one last bit of wisdom for you? I try to consume reports before you settle on any SUV. I looked at the Kia Sereno right now, so it does pretty good, but not great, and reliability. So it's 61 out of 100. But it's kind of the yellowish green.

But the owner's satisfaction is a three out of five, and it's in the yellow. So I didn't read the details. So if you can, you can get a copy for free at the library, but other than that, you've got to get a subscription. All right, thank you. Linda, make sure you stay on the line so that Jeremy can get your contact information and we can get a check out to you within a couple days.

Nancy Stewart will be writing your check. She writes them personally and she will mail it. She mails it personally. She puts it in the mailbox herself and she needs your contact information. So if you get that information to Jeremy, just stay on the line, Jeremy will get it from you

that way we keep it confidential. You don't have to put it. that got over the air. You will have that check before next Saturday show. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Have a great day. You too. And that number again, 1-800-877-9-60-9-60, and we are going to Bill in West Palm Beach. Yeah, I have a question for Rick. Tell me about low-tire pressure indicators. I've got a low indicator light on my dash. I've checked all the tires. I've got a compression. home, so I've checked the tires. The tire

pressure is correct. However, the light doesn't go out. I've been told that each of those indicators on each tire as a battery is operated by a battery. Is that correct? In most cases yes. One battery or all of them. Yeah, it depends on the car.

But the first thing you should also check, depending on the car again, who I think he just dropped off, but hopefully he's still listening online. Bill, the first thing you check is the spare tire because there are quite a few models out there, older models, that had a full-size spare and had a sensor in the spare as well. So check that one. And if that's not the case

of all the tires are right, then it's probably one of the sensors has stopped working or the battery has died on it, and you'll need to have that sensor replaced. And we are now open and clear on the phone so folks 877 960 9960 our text number 772 497 65 30 what is that 65 3530 6530 6 530 I got two of them I'll give you one of those should have one of these over here for me yeah all right well Anne Anne Marie went on to say since we have a call she says get well get well soon Nancy and rundown this is rundown for today's show but I've that's for me. But yeah, right now currently no audio on YouTube, but the radio is good.

And, but the streaming, audio streaming is good. So you can listen to us. If you want to get fancy guys on YouTube, you could watch and then listen to streamerlawncars.com. We have 18 people watching on YouTube right now. Yeah, they're watching

without the hearing. So, hey, thanks guys. We love you. They have text. Can't you bring the text up? I don't know if closed capsule would work. It would only work If it's hearing what you're saying, it's not hearing it, because there's something with this unit here. I have a mixer, and I have an output, and there's something going on. And it's been sporadic, so who knows.

It might be a bad chord, and that'd be pretty embarrassing. But, you know, I've got a feel-good story that I read online earlier, and I thought this one really kind of was cool. A U.S. serviceman apparently had saved up quite a bit of his money. he went to a dealership, a Dodge dealership, in the Midwest, and ordered a Dodge Challenger, brand new in 2023 Dodge Challenger, Demon 170, which is a very limited production. Sounds very scary. Super fast car. This is the one that will actually beat Earl's Tesla on the quarter mile. We don't like this car.

He ordered it in a color pattern known as F8, and then with... he was deployed overseas his family member was going to pick up the car when it came in and the dealership now he'd even made arrangements he was paying 50,000 over MSRP

the dealership sold the car out from under him to another customer for a higher price oh my god and when the sales the serviceman found out about it he contacted Chrysler Dodge Chrysler

and started complaining about it The CEO of Chrysler stepped up when he heard about this story and took one of 40 special edition Dodge Demons, had it arranged to be made in the specifications and color that the man had originally ordered, sold it to him, or they are selling it to him, at MSRP only, no markup, and they've even arranged for Jay, Leno to present the car to him. What, what a great PR that was. That was a million dollars in PR. I got to hand it to Chrysler for that one. That was standing up and taking care of a customer and saying, no, we're going to do right.

And now we got John in Palm City. Hey, John. Good morning to everybody. I got a question for Rick. Dull headlights in South Florida, the common problem, plastic. Absolutely. Did Rick have a hear of?

sarah coat kit it's on amazon and it's under twenty dollars has he heard about that or has any result in that i have not heard of this is it a cleaner yes it's a cleaner and i see a standard first and then from what i understand you code it with that and i say it's very successful but let me ask you this question do you have any so-called shortcuts or recommendations to clean the headlights on these cars when they get though. Before Rick answers, John, just one thing, because I consider myself an Amazon expert.

My life is half Amazon. I buy everything on Amazon. But anyway, I always go to the Amazon ratings, and the Amazon requires that the people buy the product before they can rate it. Now, that doesn't eliminate

fraud, but it minimizes fraud. And you can go through it. I always look for something that has four plus stars, like 4.1, 4.2. You can find some of the 4.7. It usually is a great product. And then I go to the reviews, and I don't read the good reviews. I read the bad reviews because it's mostly all good, and I find out what the worst thing they can say about them is, once you go through that, you're pretty well assured. I've never gone through that process and been disappointed with an Amazon product I bought.

So just a little tip, especially on something like that headland cleaner might help save you a lot of time. Well, it's called Cerro Coat, C-E-R-A-K-L-T-E, and it's on Amazon. It's under $20, and I heard the ad on it, but that's good advice that you give to look up and see what the ratings is.

Yeah. Go ahead, Rick. Now, what does Rick recommend on cleaning the headlights? Well, I've used a lot of products. I've done my own personal headlights. car several times on my truck. I've done family members cars, and I'll tell you most of the products work equally well, and they will bring that back to a crystal clear, shine right through appearance, and it'll last about a year to a year and a half, and then it starts to fog up

again. The only thing I have found that will extend that year and a half and does it beautifully, I did this experiment on my own truck. I got 3M clear vinyl wrap. And I'm no good at the wrapping part. So what I do is I put just a big square piece over the main portion of one headlight after I'd polished them up, made them look as good as they could be,

and I put that on just one side. And then I waited. Now it's been about three and a half years, and even that 3M side, has started really getting cloudy, but it's still 50% better than the side that I have just left alone. That other side is just opaque, but the one with that 3M clear film has done amazing, and that's been several years now. So my plan, actually, for my truck, I'm going to buy a new set of headlights pretty soon

and replace it with them aftermarket headlights. They have all the fancy lights in them and all that, and dress it up a little. little. But what I do, I'm going to take it into our shop that we have, our new tint shop, and have them do a 3M clear vinyl covering on those headlights before I install them so that that way they'll last so much longer. And it just, to me, if I were going to spend the time and money to have your headlights polished and really clean them and shine them up, consider the extra cost that you might have to spend

to get that 3M vinyl put on your headlights and I think you'd see a nice increase in the lifespan. Thank you, Rick. Well, that's great advice. You think by now it's been going on for so long

that the manufacturers would do something about this major problem. Yeah. Unfortunately, they went from glass to polymer and it is safer. The polymer is safer and it weighs a lot less.

But it's ugly. But it gets ugly. John, you've been around long enough to know the real reason manufacturers don't worry about things like that. The manufacturer wants to sell you a new car every three or four years. Now, they can't do that anymore. So now it's every five or six years.

The sad fact is, I mean, it's a happy fact, but sad in terms of sales, is the product and quality product, thanks to competition, has made a car something today that you buy. You buy the right car. You could keep that car for 10, 15 years, several hundred thousand miles. And so they're not designing the cars to last that long, but they do. So it's the old good news, bad news thing.

Yeah, they don't want to, and if you trade the car in, They don't care about the used car trade, and they don't sell that car. Somebody else sells it. So every car that you buy today is going to have those little glitches like that. You're totally right. I agree with you when the headlamps. It makes no sense that the headlights get yellow after a few years. Makes no sense, but that's the way it is.

They don't care. Okay. Thank you, guys, for the advice. Thank you, 7-7. 960-9960. Nancy Stewart is home with COVID and she is our co-host here female advocate. We have had one

lady caller first time and $50 check. Nancy Stewart is probably making the check out right now and it will be male to her and Linda was our first new caller. We have another $50 for the second new female caller. I'm trying to do as good a job as Nancy. I know it's not as good job but I'm trying to uphold her end of it while she's coughing and sneezing and miserable

at home right now with a with a COVID she was yelling out the phone number when Rick was was botching it at any rate another 50 bucks for the first time if you haven't called a show before in your female we'd love to give you 50 bucks and bring up the female listening audience yeah we're tired of just the bros yeah she's already sent me a text I have to write out the phone number a thousand times on a piece of paper and give it to her to the next show that's the punishment that looks like a chalkboard behind Earl you can write it

on there I'll bring a I'll bring a piece of chalk next to you Jonathan would be so mad at me that's his green screen oh I'm sorry you know with the if I wanted to get fancy I was planning on trying to throw up some

green stream pictures behind you but apparently just the basics are hard enough to keep going just to bring it up to speed I think we have audio on YouTube but it's of some lower quality but they can hear it's just kind of staticy oh cool so it might just be the quality of this piece of equipment that I bought so we'll find out but I got a text here from deck now he says good morning all regarding the Ford Connect 2011 rear brakes from last Saturday you remember that we're talking about the drums and

happen to hammer them off yes okay so regarding the with the rear brakes from last Saturday show there is no adjustment at the back plate as there's no flywheel on the bottom spring. So many thanks and happy new year at all. So I guess that. Wow. It worked out. That's good. Thanks for keeping us up to date. And let me look over here on anonymous feedback because we don't have any more text. We have lots of comments on YouTube I can see now, but they're regarding, they're helping us get the audio right. Yeah. Here's an anonymous feedback here. I recognize the style. Hello, Earl. I've been checking your inventory for some time now, and I don't see any attractive Toyota Sienna minivans on your lot, but mostly high-end vehicles, which are kind of expensive. Any feedback would be welcome. I see Infinity of West Palm Beach has immaculate Toyota minivans, but they still believe in junk fees, thanks. I saw that amount as feedback, and I sent it to our used car manager and to our wholesale manager to see if we could help. Remember, when you do anonymous feedbacks, you can ask for a reply.

Now, it still protects your identity, your privacy. Just because you ask for reply, we have to reply through the anonymous feedback. Let me show you. If you're watching here, this is what I see. Yeah. It's just a list of messages. I'm holding the still. And the message appears, but there's no contact information.

And if somebody wants to reply, although this box right here, there will be a little box, and it will say reply. It will go to you, but I don't know. I don't know where it's going. It just goes. It goes through encryption. It's called Who Answered Me or Incognito. It's spelled N-E-A-T-O.

Any of you're interested in the anonymous feedback, if you're business owners or just people listening to the show, but it's really a cool way to hear from people who are otherwise afraid to talk to you. It's like the police hotline. I mean, people don't want to be identified. They see a crime committed or a suspicious person or a package, you know, maybe a bomb. They don't want the aggravation and the publicity, so they do it anonymously.

We have this anonymous feedback. You can sign up for this. It's incognito, I-N-C-O-G-N-E-A-T-O dot.com. No, it's not dot-com. It's a weird... Well, it's strange because their actual website is, who answered me that the company is is Incognito. It's Who Answered.Me.

Dot me, yeah. But the company is called Incognito, and the website is all one word, who answered. Dot me. But Incognito is spelled differently, right? Yes, it's like Nito. Like, Nito.

Well, where do people do that? I mean, when you market, if you're a marketing product, you don't make it difficult. Because maybe the real spelling of incognito was already trademarked. But now we are going to go to Marty in West Palm Beach.

You're Marty. Hi. Good morning. Good morning. Yeah, you're coming through. I got you on this audio on my phone and watching you on YouTube. Okay, excellent. So that part does work.

It looks pretty stark. Here's my question. Here's my question for Stu or Earl. All right. The used car prices when you go to do a trade-in have so dramatically gone down. and since the retail prices of cars or the MSRPs have stayed the same, no discounts, unless you really need a car, I have to follow Earl's advice. You've got to walk away for now, and I want to know if you agree.

I totally agree if it's, you know, if there is a, you know, something you're expecting to get and you're just not getting it. Now here's the other part of it is, It doesn't, like, turn around and start, they don't start appreciating it again. So if that's the market, you know, and you don't need to trade your car, then I would say just wait. But if you're, you know, waiting, I wouldn't expect, like, used car prices to start just coming, you know, coming back. Yeah, Marty, what I would do, let me add to that. It's so easy to sell a used car today.

You go back 10 years, it was a nightmare. I mean, we used to warn people on the air. If you're selling your car, you know, don't meet with a person on a dark street. I mean, be sure they have the title. Be sure they're not going to assault you. I mean, selling a used car to, you had to go to extreme measures to do it. Today, you have a lot of companies set up that are equipped to do this online. So even though the market's down, I would go ahead and I would go ahead and shop my car periodically.

You know, what's going to take you an hour of your time to sit down with your smartphone or your PC and go to We Buy Anycar.com, CarMax, Vroom, multiple, multiple sources out there and shop it with the car dealers use car departments, too. It's kind of fun, too. The reason I suggest this is we do this for a living. I mean, when people come into our dealership to buy a car, we try to find the best price we can. I'm getting a red phone call. Maybe you go.

Anyway, that's a, we take and call some of these outside sources that are from CarMax is our favorite. And to be sure, we're giving a fair price or a high price from the trade-in. Marty, I don't do anything, but once every a couple of weeks, you might suddenly find some guy out there or company that gives you $1,000 more than you thought you'd get. You might want to grab it. Probably not, but it's worth a few minutes of your time. Yeah. All I can say is from six months ago, the value has come down so much that it has made the new car purchase. and for me personally

not worth it because my car my used car is still running great yeah well you're absolutely right you're absolutely right and sometimes keeping that used car running great is the better

option yeah let's put it this way you can buy a lot of gas instead of spending another $20,000 and $25,000 on the trade, and you can buy a lot of gas for $25,000 on a non-hybrid car. You're right about that. You know, people get caught up in these little things that you're absolutely right about that, Phil.

Gas is not the primary reason you buy a car. Yeah, and I don't know if you know this, but Tesla, they said this, Back at the end of 23, they said in 24, they're going to reduce the prices even more. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if they are or they're not. Oh, they will. You know, Tesla, you know, the old joke about, I'm afraid to look back because someone might be gaining on me. Elon Musk has B.Y.D.

I gaining on the Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer. And they came out of nowhere. The only people that knew that was happening was Warren Bull. and Charlie Munger, his partner, he passed away. They were in on B.Y.D. years ago. They're a super sharp company, and guess what? They outsold Tesla in the fourth quarter of 2003. I mean, they came out of nowhere, and they're Chinese.

They build a quality car, and they have an amazing battery. And so it's going to be... It's fun to be alive if you're in the car business because you see things happening that you never dreamed would be happening. So I love to get up and check the news every day and see what happened. Now, that car is not being sold yet in the United States. No, it's being banned. They're outselling Tesla worldwide without even being able to sell the United States. Biden administration has put tariffs or maybe just an embargo, I don't know, whatever,

but they're not allowing the BID to be sold in the United States, protecting the United States electric vehicle industry. Yeah, all right. All right, well, for anybody that can't hear you, like I say, I'm using the phone for the audio. So you're coming through nice and clear on that. so hope Nancy gets better soon. And we'll see you the regular way next week. Sounds good, Marty.

Thanks a lot. Okay, have a good weekend. 877-960-99-60. Go ahead. I'm going to say, now we'll welcome back, Lynn, a repeat caller, from Boynton Beach. Hello, Lynn. Good morning, Lynn. How are you?

Hey, I'm doing well. I just wanted to say that the other day I spoke to Nancy. I had gotten my $50 check, and I didn't realize that at my bank, they don't take checks anymore at the ATM to deposit. They just take cash. So I had gone to the bank now. My husband's driving me because I'm recovering from a broken neck, right? So we go up there a few times during the week, and I'm getting all frustrated. So it ended up where I just put it in my purse and forgot about it for a while, but it's been almost a month.

So the other day went back to the bank, and I found it. and they had to go to a person to deposit the $50 check. But I called Nancy because in the check you gave me a card, and there was a number on it. So I called, and I really couldn't believe Nancy answered the phone. And I knew she sounded kind of, like about two days ago, I think. And I was like, oh, my God, so we had a little chat, and I explained what was going on, and she was going to, I said,

I just want to make sure you get in touch with your accountants because I know these things have to, go through you know well so we had a nice little chat and i felt bad because she didn't feel good i could tell and um but i have to tell you you know she is a trooper and um yeah and so we had a really nice talk and you know you guys you were so lucky to have her as a mother and a wife you know because she is just wow just great you're not only that but she has fantastic penmanship you know on the check when she was saying you know So I just wanted to get in touch and say, you know, prayers, finances.

And every, I was, I had called a few months ago about saving the insurance on my car. And I called and I stayed like over $250 on my total insurance bill for my two cars. And that's what, when I called, that was what I had called about. So that, too, every time I get my thing now, if I have price, I'm like, wow, you know, great. So thank her again for that. But I just wanted to call and say that, you know, you people, your whole family is just fantastic. and we love to listen to you and getting information. Nancy's listening to you right now at home, and that will make her feel better.

Okay, happy New Year to all of you. You too. Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye, bye, bye now. Wow, to win her for caller. We have her for life now. She was a new, the first time call her before.

Now she's part of our... We got her. Yeah. Welcome to Erlon cars. And we'll say good morning to Frank in Jupiter Farms. Hey, good morning, guys. Good morning. Hey. The lady's part of the new Stewart family instead of the Schumacher guy.

Anyway, did you all see the sunrise this morning? How beautiful that turned out. Well, we were just talking about that before the show, and Earl showed us pictures of the sunrise on his phone. We didn't see it personally, but yes, we did see it because we saw pictures. It was, like, glorious. And I was telling my dad that I don't live near the ocean, but inside my bathroom, it started glowing orange this morning.

like, what's going on? Is there a fire outside? No, it was, yeah, he's showing that on live on YouTube right now. Yeah, we live in paradise. I take you a picture, by the way, of the SpaceX rocket launch on Wednesday. Oh, yeah, I saw that. You just sent that to me. I can't put it on the air because I'm not as talented as Jonathan, but it looks, it does look like a lion riding a, like a surfboard or something. Yeah, yeah, I need to, I haven't seen that one of those for live. That was someone posted from Jupur Farms. But I had the golden opportunity back when I was still in the Air Force downrange. I was on a rescue plane, and the shuttle would go overhead of us in case anything happened.

We had special crew members to go save the astronauts. That's cool. That was cool. But the other thing, let's see. I was going to talk about something. Frank, as long as you talk about spaceships and having actually been involved in that, Are you aware that the, uh, SpaceX now the, all the spacecraft are stainless steel? Yeah.

Did you know? Yeah. Yeah. Star ship is. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. Uh, what a radical change. Right.

Uh, to go. And stainless steel is pretty heavy, too. So it's, uh, it's, uh, apparently it's cheaper. Yes. And, uh, it's working a lot better. Yeah. It seemed to work. Well, I got one quick joke.

You always know I have a joke for you guys. since the Zaha Day season. Well, we went out for Chinese last night and we got talking to the waiter. He told me he lived in Japan during the war that was a kamikaze pilot and his code name was Chalmaine. I said,

well, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't kamikaze pilots sacrifice their own lives? He replied, yes, but I was chicken chamein. Hey, look, you know, you're talking to a former pilot of air lines and militaries I get to I guess

That's an old one probably See I can appreciate that Because I'm an old guy like you Frank So but that used to be hysterical But you know It's As long as you did that Bad Taste joke

I'll give you a bad taste joke back When I first started out As a toilet dealer You know back in the In 1975 And even before that I guess Probably one of my jokes was on Pearl Harbor Day

I used to joke about we were going to have a let bygones be bygone's day sale Bygones sale. And, you know, it was back when I was evil and had no feeling or sense of or sensitivity whatsoever forgetting about the fact that it was a horrible, horrible Pearl Harbor was a terrible thing that happened

and the whole world were too the greatest catastrophe of all mankind, and to be joking about that, only an idiot like myself back in those days would say something like that. Time allows for these things eventually. Maybe not in 1968, but nowadays

you could joke around about Well, the sad thing is when you tell some of these jokes, because the age difference of the population out there, they don't even know what a Kamikaze pilot was. They don't even know. Right. They think it's a shot with vodka and lime juice, I think.

Whatever a kamikaze Sounds about right. That's what we had in Gainesville. Well, thanks for calling, Frank. Well, again, I'll wish it was Nancy. Oh, thank you so much. We will, definitely. She's listening, so she hears all the well-wishes,

and I'm sure it's helping to speed her recovery. Yeah, we'll talk to you next week. Have a good one. All right, thanks, Frank. And good morning, Jay in Hove Sound. Hi, Jay. Good morning. I've got an issue, well, my mother and

law does. She's at 94 years old, and she only drives like five to 10 miles a week, and she's been having a problem. Her battery keeps dying, and I believe that's because she's not out driving it enough for the alternator to charge the battery. Does that sound right? Exactly correct. A couple things you can try. The most obvious, of course, is a trickle charger that either plugs into the house and would keep a small charge going on the battery or they make solar... Let me ask a question about that, Rick,

because I have the same problem, Nancy and I, we love the Tesla so much, we drive the Tesla all the time, and we don't drive her Avalon, and the battery keeps going dead. To have a trickle charger on there, is there a way you can put a trickle charger on a car without having to open the hood and close the hood

and oh yeah okay is it a special kind of charger you get that you can connect from inside the car or something like that not really it's it i i hooked one of these up on my mother's car years ago where it simply has a little cord that comes up by the windshield and i zip tied it to a piece of trim so she could simply unplug just one simple cord and the short end of course was kept to the car but it was locked in place. Have you patented that device? No, because all I used was zip ties. Mechanics simple.

I'm telling you right now, you would spark the sale of trickle chargers a million times. Because, I don't know. Jay, am I right? I mean, you've got a 94-year-old mother-in-law. She's not going to be popping the hood and closing the hood

to put on and take off her trickle-charger. Probably has to call you. Then you got to go over the house. Wouldn't it be nice if she could just slide that little, basically a switch? Yeah, it was just a little plug. She would just plug it in when she'd drive up to the house. She would grab the cord, I had a little, just a hook, so the cord would coil up and hang on the hook. She would grab the cord, pull it over, plug it into the car, and it would just slowly charge the battery.

And when she was going to go somewhere, she'd unplug it, hang the cord on the, the hook and off she went what do you think about that jay that sounds like a great solution and yeah she's got a 2002 lincoln car town court with 37 000 miles on it oh wow yeah uh now the other option to consider and this is uh one that uh you know would take some getting used to is the idea of using ubers and because i mean i see a lot of cars to come into the the shop and I admit I look over things quite carefully on the repair order and all this and I notice a lot of very new cars two three four years old extremely low miles and I question this because I wonder someone is making a four or five hundred dollar a month car payment or

more plus a hundred dollars a month or more for insurance to drive a car 20 or 30 miles, maybe 100 miles a month. Let me stop you in mid-sentence, okay? The reason you're saying this is because you're a young man. You don't understand a 94-year-old woman, or in my case, an 83-year-old man. We want our car. We don't want a bus. We don't want a taxi. We don't want an Uber. We don't want a limo. We want... We want... Want to get up and go. I had an uncle, Uncle Charlie. years and years ago. And Uncle Charlie got too old to drive.

I remember he had a Cadillac. And every Sunday, he and Aunt Marion would go around and visit everybody. That's what we did back in those days. You visited houses. You pull up and announce knock on the door. We don't do that anymore. Yeah. That's weird now.

When he could no longer drive, he refused to sell the car or do anything with the car. Uncle Charlie had to have his Cadillac in his driveway. It was an old Cadillac, by the way, a 20-year-old Cadillac, and it just sat there. The tires were square, but he felt good because that was his car. And that's why old people like to have their cars that they can drive. I know there's a lot of people out there saying, yeah, but they shouldn't be on the road. They shouldn't be driving. Easy for you to say, you're not 94 years old, but I'm just telling you that if the Strickle Charger idea you just gave Jay is great.

it'll really, really be a... I simply offer it as an alternative. Yes. But I do understand that because I remember the days when we had to try to discuss with my father about it was time for him to give up his license. Yep. And one of the hardest things in my life, I'll tell you.

Yeah. Stu, I don't wish that upon you. Thank you very much. The next thing, I won't launch into autonomous driving, but that's one of the reasons I'm such an advocate at a fully autonomous driving. It's not here yet. People get mad at me when I talk about it.

I got a bumper sticker on my car that my son gave me that laughs at it. And it should be laughed at today because it's not ready for the road. But when autonomous cars are safe, and they will be, it is going to be the greatest boom to the older driver ever. And people are getting older and older. I mean, you know, 94 years old, pretty soon we'll be talking 104 years old. I don't even worry about that Because I know when I get to that stage I don't even think about that

I got 20 more years to worry about it It's a done deal for you 30 more years maybe Yeah And also You know she went into it To a Lincoln dealer And they told her that they don't sell

Like regular old sedans Anymore they're all SUVs Is that true? Yeah It's really funny because I saw a Lincoln Continental yesterday I don't know how what it was Town car. Continental.

Continental or a town car. Yeah, and it was a big saban. And it looked really contemporary like a brand new car, and I looked at it, and I thought they didn't make them anymore. It might have been a few years old, but, yeah, they're done with that. No more cars. They gave her one of these new Lincoln's to drive, and she absolutely hated it because of all the new technology.

I was wondering, does any phone manufacturer make something that's more like the old Analog... It's never going back that way. No. Never going back. All the manufacturers, everything looks like a computer. Everything has a large screen on it now with a lot of infotainment. And for that very reason, you'll find on the used car market, if you have a clean, well-maintain,

a Lincoln Town car, or Lincoln Continental, or any vehicle of that type and description, where it actually has a trunk that you can put a couple of sets of golf. clubs and some groceries and some other stuff, when you have a car like that, and it's well taken care of, it's worth a lot of money because there are a lot of old people that's still like me. I mean, I wish we had, actually I do. I've got a good trunk on my desk because it's a hatchback. You got no engine. Yeah, no engine. You got plenty of storage space. You know, it's interesting. There is a market for simplified phones. There are people who are sick of smartphones, the distractions, and you can buy a simplified phone.

there's that one but there's a lot there's a lot of very stylish ones that are like they're great but they just they don't have the stuff I wonder if there is a market for a simplified car that just had you know like exactly what you're saying great idea man just it's still sophisticated

and a great technology safe as anything but you don't have to look at the distractions well you know what that car is got a cassette player that's a fully autonomous car you're right when you don't have to you don't have to worry about you just get there and talk you walk out the car pulls up and it opens the door and you get in and you say take me a taco bell or Walgreens.

And you can ignore all the bells and whistles. Just enjoy the ride. I'd love to see that. I would think somebody would start manufacturing like a 68 Camaro. Yeah. Well, you know what they did, those kind of retro-looking cars, but they still put all the technology in it. They could have just one less step and just kept it like it was back there.

I'll tell you what, a new Lincoln Town car today, limited production would be you can sell it for whatever you want to sell it for. People would buy that car today. And for the next 10 or 20 years, that would probably be a pretty good product. But it'll die, and the fully autonomous car will be here. They'd sell their soul to buy their childhood back.

That's right. Well, yeah. I'd like to get my old super back. Thank you, Jay. Okay, and now we've got Bobby in West Palm Beach. and Howard please hold on wow they're backed up good morning bobby hi good morning

um i was calling to report good work from rick which happens all the time but i was calling to report it to the boss but since she's out i'll tell you earl i just want to i just want to let you know that that that rick remains accessible for car problems and i don't want to pile up a long line in front of him, but whenever I email him or have a problem, he always turns up and gives

not just a superficial answer, but a good answer. In this case, it was a transmission on a Toyota, which has lifetime fluid, which is a little skeptical. And he seems to be of the opinion that don't mess with it. Is that good summary really? That's my opinion. My truck has 175,000 miles on it. Original transmission fluid. I've never touched it. And that's on a pickup truck.

And I've done some heavy towing with that thing. It sure seems like, it sure seems to me, and we're talking about Sienna in this case, but it appears to be quite a few of the Toyotas. Part of the lifetime transmission fluid is that they've made the transmission unaccessible for mechanics. Is that correct? Yes. There's no dipstick anymore. The procedure to actually fill and top that fluid requires a scan tool, watching the actual temperature of the transmission, adding fluid, adding fluid, watching a little overflow drain plug in the bottom of the pan, then adding a specific amount back into it after you've finished. It's a

It's a very complicated system and a very complicated process to get that fluid level exactly correct. And if it's off by even, say, a half a liter, that can actually cause the transmission to act funny. This discussion isn't even going to be taking place. We're talking about a mechanical device, a transmission that has been as nearly perfected as such a complicated mess can be perfected. perfected. And that's what we have now. But the really good news is transmissions will cease to exist because electric vehicles don't have transmissions. So it's an obsolete product. So the car manufacturers are not going to work on transmissions anymore. What we

see is what you get. It's never going to get any better. And when they break, there's not going to be another one to replace it with. You're going to get an electric vehicle with no transmission. Yeah, you're probably right, and it probably won't be too long from now, so I guess we need to stock up on transmission. To change the subject quickly, not to try to deceive the elderly, but sometimes the car not working is a way to keep people that shouldn't be driving from driving. And so getting it fixed isn't necessarily a good idea. You might just want to live with that. But I will say this about it, and we deal with the elderly from time to time,

if you can tell them, you know, I'm going to come by on Wednesday and take out the breakfast, and then we're going to go to Publix, and then we're going to go to Walmart. A lot of times they're good with that. If they know there's a regular schedule and you stick with it, but as you said, Earl, idea of having the car there is comforting to them. Yeah, we're talking about them like they're a different species.

I'm one of them species. What you're saying is exactly right. When I was 50 years old or younger and I'd see these blankety blanks on the road, I used to have derogatory

names for them. I find myself today, referring to that old bastard or something of that nature some derogatory comment and I even will describe people I'll say if I get somebody

complains about something I might say to my service manager yeah he was an old guy just called me and I'm thinking of myself wait a minute he was younger than I am so there is a mindset unfortunately

people a negative mindset toward older people and I'm an old guy that makes fun of old guys so it's just not right. You never change. You are who you are. You know what the thing is

if there is a negative perception it probably comes mainly from driving and the anonymous car thing is going to eliminate that from culture. If there's no old people driving slow or frustrating people and I'm saying that because you know just characterizing what we're saying.

But in the few years, no one's going to think about it. No. Right. But having a time when somebody comes and takes them somewhere is also, it's a scheduled event and they like it. And you as car dealers probably know better than most. Two people staring straight ahead can solve a lot of problems talking to each other while they're driving down the road. That's right.

You know, it's not as bad as it sounds and it ends up being better than they think. Yeah, well, in a lot of cases, you're right. And I, as soon as said, fortunately, we're not going to have to worry about that much longer because we're going to have the best of all worlds. The elderly can either have their own, they can ride by themselves in their autonomous vehicle or they can have their friend ride with them in the autonomous vehicle. And if you ride with other people and autonomous vehicles, you can chit-chat, you can text. play bridge you can you can have you can play pinnuckle drink gin so it's going to be a great world

in a few years no no transmissions and no drivers there you go that's all going away all right thanks very much and and kudos to rick again so and let the boss know about that all right thanks bobby we'll tell her okay where are we uh we are going to howard in jupiter good morning Howard. Good morning. How are you all doing? We're doing great. That's great. Okay. I have a question for Rick. This is a conundrum. I'm trying to figure out how this has happened. Every once in a while, maybe once a month, when I get out of my car, 2017 Camry X-L-A, the trunk opens. And I don't, you know, I don't know why it's opening. So I go around and I close it.

And the next, maybe the next two months will happen again. So I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing to add the trunk over. I'm not pulling the lever in the front. This is the remote? Manual opening. Do you have smart key? Yes. There you go.

And the key's in your pocket. Yes. You're opening. And as you're getting out of the car, I'm guessing, like me, probably getting a little, up there because I'm going to be 56 this year and I've noticed I move funny getting it out of my truck now it takes me a little effort some funny moves and I'll bet something in your pocket is pressing against

that button and it's because your car's already unlocked even hitting the unlock button won't do anything but it's something's pressing against that trunk button and holding it just long enough those odd times that your trunk is popping open that's amazing i think you hit the nail on the head i just realized that's the only way and i was thinking about something like that but you know i'm 88 ysola i forgot no but you're going through like what's every single possibility here it could be this this

and that that's the one thing you left them to the average car dealer uh they were to charge you a 150 dollar diagnostic fee and then they would probably have fixed something they didn't really fix and say now you're you're good to go Howard that'll be sixteen hundred and twelve dollars I learned my lesson a long time ago the idea where I pull in is you you know

a friend of mine I purchased a Toyota and I went with him and he has a 2019 then he said to me yesterday I think I'm going to go to another mechanic because my warranty is over.

I said, are you kidding? The other mechanic is going to sell you something you don't need. When you go to Earl, he only sells you things that you need. And not only that, what about the bagels? He said, oh, the bagels, oh, you're right. The bagels are just tiebreakers. If you find a dealership that's just as good as us, yeah, but they don't get the bagels. Now, for that bit of advice,

You can make the check out to Rick Kearney. Send it to it. Totally kidding. Totally kidding. Okay. No, that's okay. Rick, you're great. And Earl, keep up to good work.

Thanks, Howard. And you're a shining light to what, to car buyers and, et cetera. Okay. I'm losing my trend of thought. Okay. Thanks, Howard. Have a good day.

Happy New York, Howard. Thank you. and 7-7 oh I'm sorry go ahead we'll go to Bob in Papano Beach good morning how you doing Earl have a great show by the way

I want to start every morning if I'm up you know what you said about cars being too complicated I have a S-class Mercedes and I get one every every six years or so I traded in and got a new one

and I was like the car but the new one is very they have this computer screen on it and when it's sunny here in Florida you can't see it out well and that's one thing and I'm really kind of just

keeping the old car and I only have about 35,000 miles on it so I know it runs well but a few years ago one of my trade-ins maybe 10 years I traded in and I wanted something very simple who was also S-Class

they gave me the liminal condition it didn't have a lot of things on it and there is a market I think for less as best a few things you could use but a lot of those gadgetry just complicates things I'm about 84 years old

so I'm listening to your call is about old people I don't feel that old my mother died at 102 my contractor his mom died 160 and she was driving until about six months beforehand never got in an accident

so it's something people have to realize too it's the nature of individuals too you just can't you can't paint with a broad brush like that Not an old guy earlier, 83 years old boy. He's a kid. The bottom line is I really wonder about these electric cars. I live in a condominium, so I really find it difficult to charge it, whatever.

But I just wonder what's going to happen with them because they have a big investment in a political thing. It'll be perfect for me the way I drive and just plug it in and go, you know. but I don't know we'll see what goes on with that well it's going to it's going to be a bumpy road I mean electric vehicles

it's a it's a watershed huge quantum leap for what we do and Tesla's leading the pack now BYD is hot on their tail and

you know we're talking about old guys you know Unfortunately, I won't be around when the water's calm, but they will calm, and my grandchildren will be driving fully autonomous electric vehicles with batteries ranging from 1,000 to 1,500 miles. There will be no problem whatsoever, probably inductance charging. You'll pull into the garage. You won't have to plug anything in. the floor of your garage will put an inductance charge overnight on your vehicle.

So, yeah, but for you and me and even people younger than us, this battery thing is going to be a challenge and how far you can go on a charge. Don't forget some of the inductive highways where, as you're driving on the highway, you can recharge your car. They've tried that in Europe, really? It's going to be a bump in the road, but you're right. Today, you and me, we're going to buy, I have an electric vehicle, it's a Tesla, it's a, it's a challenge, it's only because I'm a gadget freak, I enjoy it, but if I just won the car for transportation, I'd say it drives me crazy. Right, you'd probably get a hybrid or something like that.

Yeah. Yeah, I like that Toyota hybrid Islander. It's a very nice one. I'm thinking about trading and Mercedes into that. I might come up to I'm confident to see you guys. I would love that. Really, I'd love to do it as you.

Guys run a good business too, I think. I like people I could do business with a handshake. The car industry is hard to do that. That's true. It always has been. Thank you for your service, by the way. You do a great job. Thanks, Bob.

Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. And that number is 877-960-99-60, or text us, 772, 497, 6530, and we are going to John in Stewart. Hello. Good morning, John. Good morning, guys. Hey, I have a pristine 2002 MR2 spider.

It's got 92,000 miles on it. And so I went in to the local dealership here, and they want to do an $800 service on it, change the fluid. I was thinking I didn't need to change the transmission fluid like you guys were talking about. And oil change and, I know, basically that was it. I don't think that's necessary. What are you guys saying?

Let's see, 2002. I'm trying to remember. I think that one was the beginning of WS, but it might have still been the type T fluid. Regardless, I, myself, unless it were acting up, I would leave it alone. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Yeah, I'd be very comfortable leaving that one go. How's it running? If any broke, don't fix it.

Yeah. It's running well? It runs great. Yeah, it runs great. It's fantastic. It gets like 30 miles a gallon or so in the highway. It's just been a great car for me. That's that little convertible, right?

Yes. Yeah, I remember I drove. Yeah, I like driving around in that. It was fun to drive. Yeah, it's really fun. So, yeah. I was too tall for it. Like everybody said, give you some, some kudos there.

You guys do a great job. and appreciate it. Have a good week. Thank you very much. All right. You have any callers? We are clear on the phones for the moment. Can I get in a little bit of a commercial?

When I said commercial, I'm thinking Big Dog Ranch, but that's not what I had in my head. The show started out with the fact that the Federal Trade Commission is being attacked by the car dealers. We knew this was going to happen. And for you folks who haven't been familiar with this or tuned in to the show before,

The Federal Trade Commission has come out with some amazingly positive, consumer-friendly rules to make car dealers treat you honestly and ethically and transparently when you buy a car. It's revolutionary, and these rules go into effect July 30th. Now, we knew this was going to happen. There's going to be a huge, organized, extremely well-financed, campaign to get your legislators to overturn the Federal Trade Commission and fight them to stop these rules from being put into effect. This is a huge, I'm asking you, listeners, if you have any thoughts, and I'm talking to the

stew sitting across from me here, maybe with our website, earlancars.com, we could come up We need to maybe do an organized anti-lobying campaign where we're reaching all 50 states now and this show. And every congressman, every senator is key. And if we could somehow get the folks that listen to this show, get proactive and let your legislators know, you'll want the Federal Trade Commission rules to happen. No consumer, no car buyer does not want this to happen. And finally, in writing, it's going to automatically kick in July 30th, 20, 24.

How can we give the support and the pressure to our legislators in all 50 states to stop them? And I don't mean state legislators. I'm talking federal legislation in the U.S. Congress. any ideas we'd love to hear from you. Well, definitely on Earl and Cars, we'll put all the resources there. Right now we have the link to make the comments, but I think we're past that point. We just want to make it easier people to find their representative in Congress

because they're going after through in Congress, creating committees to try and weaken or attack this thing. Should we start with the senators, and I'm just thinking, practically speaking, I don't think that they have like that select committee setup. I think it's so much harder to meet with the Senate. and I'm just saying this from when I did that. But there's so many congressmen. See, the problem is if you're in California, New York,

you've got a zillion congressmen. How could we on our website focus and say, this congressman is for the FTC regulation? This congressman is non-committal. This congressman is against it. We'll have to start looking and see where that information is. And if we can get that information, we'll try and centralize it on Erlan Cars.

But if you're listening now, if you know who you're rep is, I'll tell you right now in our immediate listing, area. It's Brian Mast. And then right to the south of us is, oh gosh, is it Ted Lou? I'm not sure. No, he's in Fort Lauderdale. Anyway, look up your local rep and your center. We have two centers in Florida. You got Marco Rubio and Rick Scott and all these guys, Democrat, Republican, they listen to who the lobbyists and the people to get in front of them. So like you said, we're all resting easy. He's going, oh, we got this great rule coming. But there is an organized

campaign nationally to squash this, or at least to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, rest and easy. You're to neuter it. Yeah. Politics, politics. And I hate politics, and I'm not good at politics. And as I said, I could never run for public office because I could never pass the background check. But then there's a, there's a statute of limitations.

It doesn't go back forever. You're all, you're fine now. Yeah. I got a text here from, from Bob. Let's talk, we were talking about the older drivers. He says, take 50 drivers that are 16 years old. 80 plus drivers who do you think are the safer drivers? Because my money is on the 80 plus drivers.

I wonder what the statistics are. I'll tell you, yeah, I don't think, yeah, I think on the extreme ends, if you have a 125-year-old driver, you might want to be careful around that, and a 16-year-old driver, because they're nuts. Well, here, you know, and let me say this. This is coming from an old guy. It isn't the age. It's the acuity.

and you know, you can have a driver that is 65 that shouldn't be driving and a driver that's 95 that should be driving. Well, I got it. We have an 83-year-old guy here who can talk exponentially for two hours, and it's all in the individual. So I would say this. As much as I hate to say this, there should be an enforced way to have people at a certain age,

prove their ability to drive again. I hate to say that, but what if we did it to everybody? It's too easy to get around. I won't mention the name of my doctor, okay? I've got a general practitioner, and I've been going to him for years, and I said to him just out of curiosity

because we're friends, I said, look, you've got a lot of elderly patients here, and I see them in the park a lot when I come and see you, and they shouldn't be driving. I says, how many of those people are driving cars? He says, Earl, he says, their licenses are gone.

They know they can't pass the test, and their license expires, and they just drive very carefully and hope that they don't get seen. But he basically said that most of his patients should not be driving, but they are driving, and they don't have licenses. So it's a crazy mess. It's a terrible mess. It's a sad statement, especially if you're an older guy. or old a gal.

I was looking at it more from kind of a financial side myself is the idea of you're spending the money on a car payment, insurance, maintenance, fuel on a car that's sitting and depreciating. And if you add all that up, the amount that it would cost to take luxury Uber rides. Here's the problem. It's not a financial issue.

Right. And that's decided. And there's no way. when I was your age, I didn't get it either. I used to say, they had to take that son of a bitch's license away. Well, and on another side of the coin. I think you can say that. It's not always age either.

A friend of mine, a very good friend, worked in the Department of the Palm Beach County Library System called Talking Books, which are books on tape for people who are visually impaired to the point that they cannot read a book. So if they were, check those out, you grab their license. Well, what would happen is normally these would be mailed to the people sent through the mail. However, they had a large number of their patrons who, and to get these, you had to sign up and actually show medical reason why you should be allowed to use this Palm Beach County service.

And they had a large number of their patrons who would drive to that office to get the things they could see. pick up their audio books. Did they flag these people? Did they flag these people? No. Okay. Well, there are a lot of people that like audio books like me, and I can read just fine. Stu doesn't read anything except audio books.

Right. Well, this was back in the 80s when we didn't have the Internet for them. So what? If people had explained to me about audio books 20 years ago, I would never read a book again. Right, but this was back when you couldn't get them on Amazon. It didn't exist. And this was the only way to get these audiobooks was to go to the place or to have them mailed to you. Hey, was your doctor's name?

Was it Mandrake Kirby, the guy you didn't want to identify? Yeah. I think that was Johnny Carson's doctor. Yeah, I was just saying that there were people legally blind that were doing this who were driving to get these books. So it's not just age. I got you. Not to belabor, I was just thinking as far as assessing the ability, maybe they should do it periodically. I haven't been assessed for my driving since I was 16.

I mean, maybe they should do every 10 years. Well, I just got my eyes checked. I got my cataract surgery. Let's be fair. And I got a letter from my ophthalmology saying give them a license. But they didn't tell me to take a test. Right. Once you start at age 30, every 10 years, you've got to take a test to prove that you're a good driver.

Well, you should. Yeah. I mean, it should be, yeah. I don't think it should be based on age. But that's so, that's autonomous. You're right. Exactly. We have a new future coming.

Okay. Let's do that. Okay. Our phones are shut down now. so we're ready for... Okay, and you can still text us. We'd love to have you. Text us at 772-497-6530.

That's 772-497-6530, or send us anonymous feedback at youranonymousfeedback.com, your anonymousfeedback.com. And when we get to the mystery shopping report, we'll probably have some time, and we can talk about your text or your anonymous feedback.

And we have YouTube up and running in its basics. So please vote on YouTube as well because we love your comments there. Yeah, vote on the curve. I'm going to read this Mr. Schreiber report. There are no really great dealers. So there's no A's, I don't mean that literally, once in a while. And there are not very many Fs. I don't mean that literally either.

But you know what I'm talking about, average. Shoot for the middle. The average dealer is pretty bad. That's a C. Here we go. We mystery shopped. I didn't know they were there. If I did, I forgot.

Mystery shop of Palm Beach, Mississippi. Last I heard of Mitsubishi dealer in Palm Beach County, it was on North Lake Boulevard, and that's another story. Mitsubishi is probably the lowest volume vehicle sold. I'm surprised it's still around. And I'm surprised it's still around. But it's interesting. They're on Australia. Avenue in West Palm Beach and I'll speak in the first person as if I were Agent Lightning

or crack undercover agent that goes in undetected and pretends to buy a car and comes up with these fabulous mystery shopping reports she needs a theme song she does yeah I'll work on that you have a theme to play with you right okay I'm Agent Lightning I walked in mid afternoon 138 p.m. was met by an employee as is due on Palm Beach, Mitsubishi in West Palm Beach, Florida, Palm Beach, Mississippi. The salesperson, or this person, it wasn't a salesperson, asked,

do you need a salesman today? I replied, that'd be great. He accused himself, looked around for a bit, and returned to say, I believe they're all in a meeting. I love that. I'm looking at the two cars of the shroom floor. He came back and said, I called her. She will be down when she's done with a meeting. Now, this goes back to my old days when I was this this is what actually happened in my dealership and if there's one thing if the owner of this dealership is a buy by this name is Chris Barion I happen to know the guy personally Chris Barian you know if you I don't know how much money you spent when you bought Palm Beach of Mississippi or built it but it was probably a lot of money and you didn't spend all that money to have a dealership so when a customer prospective customer

comes into your dealership at 1.38 p.m. in the afternoon and comes in to buy a Mississippi and the receptioner says, I'm sorry, all the salesmen are in a meeting. That's what happens. So I just thought I'd throw that out there in case Chris Berrien is listening. So the salesperson said that she'd be down shortly. the person I was speaking to responded let me see if I could find out how long it'll be you walked away again a few minutes later 149 p.m. The time stamps. A saleswoman approached and asked have you been to help yet today?

No I haven't been to help you're in the meeting I haven't to get help anyway that's that's a divergence I digressed I replied no I haven't and she asked me to follow her to her desk. At her desk, she asked, do you have a vehicle in mine? I said, I like the idea of Mitsubishi's new plug-in hybrid, the Outlander P-H-E-V. She went.

This is the first time someone's ever came in here and requested the Mitsubisi from me. No, I was kidding. And wondered if they had any. She looked one up online and said, I got one. I'll grab the keys. We headed out to the lot.

She hadn't made the keys to the new 2003. Remember this is 2004 we're talking about. Now, new 2023, folks, just a little editorial comment. Be careful when you talk a new car today because we've had a calendar year

change. And at 2023, when you trade it in, whenever you decide to, they're not going to know whether you bought it in January of 2024 or January of 2023. To them, it's a year old car. So you're looking at a new car that's a year old.

It's nice if you can get a 23 sometime in 22. Yeah, or it could be two years old. You could buy a new 2022. So here it is a new 2023-Mitschampich Atlanta PHAV in Black Diamond. I saw the MSRP was $48,05 with no addendum. That's a good sign. That's the only good sign you'll see in the shopping report. We talked a little bit about the gas savings I would be getting, but the salesperson, she wasn't very informed about the car.

She said, if you want to take it for a drive, we can go back inside for me to get you registered, a copy of your license, and a license plate. I asked, can I drive it around the lot so I can see it real quick? I don't want to drive it until I know if I'm going to move forward or not. She agreed. Waited there while I went around and played around with the property. parking and the new gear shift. When I backed into the spot, she stepped back over to meet me at the car and asked, what do you think?

I said, I like it, I'd love to see the pricing on it. I saw a deal on your website that's offering this vehicle for $41,055, a $6,500 discount. Now that's a huge discount, folks. I mean, if you're shopping for a car or you have in the past couple of years, you just don't see a $6,500 discount off of MSRP. I showed her the ad on my phone. We went to her desk. I showed her the outline, the online pricing I was seeing. She called over a sales manager and introduced himself as Mark.

Mark shook my hand very firmly, squeezed pretty tight, making me jump. say, owl. Yeah, what's up with that? Rude. This is comical, but it's not comical. I squeezed my hands so hard. I yelled he didn't say anything. He just came over and squeezed her hand. Like, I'm sorry. And jumped right in taking over a computer.

So, I was going to say, it just gets worse. It can't get much worse. I showed him the online deal on my phone and said unfortunately there's a typo just a typo things are constantly changing you know how that goes he clicked on the drop box

drop down box and pointed out what all needed to happen to qualify the 6500 so they hide the conditions and you have to hit a box that drops down that says you have to be a you know,

a communist or an astronaut or, I mean, apparently their online pricing included an assortment of unobtainable rebates for the average person. We've seen this before. You know, you've got to be a farmer. Seriously, there actually is a farmer discount. You have to be a farmer.

And there's a real estate agent. Yeah, real estate agent. A $500 customer conquest rebate would be all that you may be able. to get, he said. Now, Conquest, that means you are driving a competitive car. Then he suggested that I consider leasing, saying if you lease, $6,500 or $6,700 would come off the top with the electric vehicle tax credit. And that's true, but I also, it's true also with a purchase. You have to get set up. We're doing that now with our dealership.

It's not true for all electric vehicles either. So we didn't do the research. on this. But anyway, be careful when you talk an electric vehicle rebates because not all electric vehicles qualify. Now, I do know, I don't know if they did it the same as the, remember they did it wasn't cash for clunkers. It was the old tax credits and they'd had a certain amount per manufacturer. Is that the same case with this or is there a cap? I think this all, I think that they change at this time so that all the rebate goes to the dealer who can go directly to the customer. Right. Yeah, right. So, yeah, we have a portal that we're

setting up now. So something buys an electric vehicle from us. That comes off like a rebate at the time of sale. Yeah. It's an automatic thing, yeah. He suggested I lease it. This is a, listen carefully. This is pure fraud. He suggested I lease the car and then

once I make the first payment, pay it off or refinance it, mentioning that it's a loophole. Many people don't know about it. Well, it's a loophole that people, whether they know about it or don't know about it, it's a terrible idea because if you buy, if you lease a card, you make one payment. You're screwed. Yeah, because you, you owe 36 more payments. Right. Or 48 more payments or whatever length of the lease. This might have been possible, maybe right in the beginning of this inventory surge where you could have gotten out, but not a day into your lease.

For just a terribly premeditated false advice given by this person, the salesperson from Mississippi. I ignored the leasing aspect, went straight to the pricing. Your website showed I was getting $6,500 off sticker, MSRP, not $3,500 before the EV credit. It then sent for me to come to his office where he could help me better. I followed on the way, continued to say that he honestly doesn't like that. sales tactics that dealerships use and then named a bunch in our area that also don't give the details they advertise yeah she didn't say which ones they were i hope it wasn't us well well he's in west palm beach and the fact that he's working for a missibishi dealership

that doesn't sell any cars would tell you he's having a hard time getting a job because a car sales person worth his salt would not ever go to work for a mississippi dealership he trying to get a job at a dealership that sold a lot of cars. Ms. Abishi does not sell very many cars. On the way, he continued to say that he honestly doesn't like the sales tactics. Oh, I just said that. I replied, this is exactly the way my husband refuses to step foot into a car dealership with me unless he has the final numbers, knows exactly what he's dealing with.

We've been burned too many times and appears this is going to be another one of those. He said he understands what he can, what can he do for me? is to call the owner of the dealership. That's Chris Berrien, by the way. It ain't got to happen.com. I don't think I could have reached Chris Berry, and he's one of these people that is hard to reach. And plead my case that the online shows a $6,500 discount,

and we're only $3,500 now. Let them know we have a pissed-off customer, and hopefully they'll give me the deal. So that ain't going to happen.com. The guy's, the salesman is desperate at this point. The saleswoman, right? Yeah, saleswoman and a manager. And a manager.

And we only have the name of the manager. Gotcha. No, I'm sorry, we did at the end. There's a card. I didn't include the picture. Not important. So I said, please show me a price as if I was buying and leasing so I could show my husband. Mark printed off the lease first to try and sell me on this.

He was explaining it to me as I was looking at the sheet. He said, did Agent Lighting really say that he said this? Yes. I didn't make this up. This is so bizarre. Mark printed out the leaf sheet first to try to tell me on this. He was explaining it to me as I was looking at the sheet, and he said, look at my eyes when I'm speaking. Yeah.

I mean, that would have just, I looked up and then right back down as I was shocked that he said that. I mean, of course, that's really weird, isn't it? Look at my eyes. When I, yeah, I had a moment, like, when I read this, and I pictured, like, this bizarre thing, look at my eye. I thought it was like Zanzibar, like, his whole time. It's so bizarre. The mesmerizer. Sounds misogynistic to me.

Well, that's what it is. I think she was probably taking notes, and he was irritated because she made a comment that they were getting frustrated, and he, yeah, he was. brood and how dare you not look at my face when i'm speaking maybe he was talking when i talked to you that's what you say to your child look in my eyes uh the top line showed msrp of 48,000 five dollars he took off a 3500 discount to make the sonic price or cap cost capitalized cost 44,505 dollars he reduced capitalized cost using a federal tax credit of 6750 dollars miss the busi's finance

a $1,500 rebate, and a $500 conquest rebate for leaving Toyota. Agent Lightning drives a Ravre 4. I also volunteered a $5,000 down payment. Cooked into the lease was also an $1,199 dock fee, junk fee. The lease also allowed for only 10,000 miles a year, pretty low. But that's not that low. It's about average, really. have any other fees on, no other dealer fees?

There was. That was the, all we can see on the worksheet was that dock fee. Yeah. Oh. So, but we've seen this when we have these worksheets there. There would have been a lease admin fee, which we don't call a junk fee because it's a leasing company junk fee, but it's a junk fee. So, yeah, there would be, and the admin fee that Agent Lightning didn't see, probably

would be around $700. hundred bucks. Yeah, but we also don't know what happens in finance either. No. So this is a very simplified worksheet. Yeah. It doesn't have all the detail we usually see. You then said if I decided to purchase, I could talk to my accountant by getting a rebate back for the pHEV electric option, mentioning that I may or may not qualify for that on my next year's taxes. You're willing to say that I would not get the Capty Bank option. That's for leases only. He said he would will honor a $500 conquest rebate because I have a toilet car now in my household. He pushed hard on the lease option by help, firm, and left.

And, of course, car dealerships typically will push to lease because the lease is where they make more money than they do when you buy the car, on the average, probably about twice as much. So there you have it. A shocking, I hate to prejudice the grades by saying this, but a shockingly bad Mr. Shopping Report on a shockingly small dealership. It is shocking because usually Amory, Mary doesn't grade often, but she came in here right here,

she's the first one I got. What kind of salesman squeezes the hand so hard it hurts? Physical assault doesn't back off and expects to sell a car. False advice, rude, et cetera. Here's a crushing automatic F. You know, the salesperson sounds like a psycho. Yeah, well, no, that was a sales manager. Sales manager.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he crushed his hand and said, look into my eyes. Right. Oh, here's from this from, I got this from, from Bob. A for Palm Beach Mitsubushi. Oops, I'm sorry, that's a typo. It's really an F.

Yeah, things change all the time. Thanks, Bob. Yeah, I mean, like some of the, like the business stuff wasn't like, you know, so far out of left field, but the, that those personal touches, is the crushing of the hand and telling her to look in the eye, not Amory. Amory is not our shopper, by the way. I have Amory on the mind.

And, yeah, I'm going to fail them. There is shady advice with, you know, the whole and bad advice with getting out of the car early. So, yeah, I'm giving them an F. Well, probably is, you know, make any difference anyway because nobody buys cars there anyway. Right. right but you know

someone is going to ask us do we have a Mitsubishi dealer on the recommended list I'm going to say can I tell the story about Stu and I got a call from our real estate agent because he has some property on North Lake Boulevard and he wanted to sell it to

us because he could get us the Mitsubishi franchise so after we got through laughing and say who would want a Mitsubishi franchise and the sad thing is I will mention our real estate agent's name because it would embarrass him. But he actually, he, to sell the property, he took 25% of the property and sold it to a

Mitsubishi, so they didn't want the Mitsubishi franchise. They lasted how long? Months? A month? Yeah, I mean short. No, no longer than that. Really? I think probably a year.

But nobody wants to buy Mitsubishi's. Anyway, I digress. More votes. Okay. We've got Donovan says, this is easy, F. Mark Anderson, grade D, 500 bucks to leave Toyota for Mitsubishi. Who does that?

Tom Seco, F. My dad shot down Mitsubishi's in World War II. This deal deserves the same treatment. That's right, they were the zeros. Terrible sales tactics and fraudulent advice. Guy Larraby, because of the inaccurate lease information and the doc fee, I give them a D. Brian Soplatko, it's a D for me.

Johnny Freedley, look into my eyes, Mr. F-minus. Maybe the sales manager knew she was Agent Lightning. Cliff Picks, look at my eyes. I would have walked out, F. You know, I'm laughing there because Nancy's not here, and Nancy, I sometimes refer to her as the Black Widow because she really is tough. And a lot of people agree with her, by the way.

She's really tough when she creates these dealers. I mean, we'll give a C, and she'll give enough. Well, I wonder what Nancy is thinking about this. She may be on her way over to the Mississippi dealership. Now, you know, Nancy's got COVID, because if she didn't have COVID, she'd come over there and kick your ass. I can tell you that right now. Terrible, terrible report.

I'm going to give them enough. I don't ever give that, too, but, man, that's a terrible report. I wish we had a camera on Nancy right now. Her face is probably 16 shades of purple. Listen, if you're on the way over to the Mitsubishi, don't do something you'll be sorry for. Go over there and cough on them. No, that would be biological warfare.

Don't do that. I texted Nancy. I want her grade. Don't feel obligated to it if you're feeling under the weather. Well, there you have it. You know? F or Palm Beach, Mississippi, they're going on the do not recommended list.

And a couple more great skiing. Easy there, Rick. Excuse me, sorry. I can have you. Mark Smith, gives them a D, Johnny Z. Fray, the LOL Donovan. Sorry, that's not a great. And Donovan, the FCC is loving this radio show today,

LOL. And did you get extreme rides? I did not. F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, a bunch of Fs. Oh, man. There we go. We got just a couple seconds here. We're thinking about Mississippi and we're thinking about the F we just gave,

and we're thinking how bad the car dealer network is. And we're talking about the Federal Trade Commission, getting rid of dealers, and how we're talking about direct sales. And if you think a car dealer or a manufacturer has got a problem like Mitsubishi, how about Fisker? Fisker, I think one of the first electric vehicles. And they're so desperate that they're going the other way. They're looking for 50 dealers to sell their cars because they can't sell them direct. Here they have the Holy Grail. They have exactly what all manufacturers want.

They want to be like Tesla and sell cars direct. How much is the franchise? Let's check it out. Nancy gave us her graph. Nancy gave us her grade for Palm Beach, Mitsubishi. It's a long line of FFSA. Thank you. I saw one of those fiskers down at the Aventura Mall years ago in the mall.

Yeah. And I got to admit, though, that was a beautiful car. Yeah, it was a good-looking car. It was gorgeous. But. I mean, you got to be desperate, but here you are, you can finally have a pleasant retail on this experience, and they can't do it. They can't even do that. They've got to sign up the, hey, Matt, maybe Mitsubishi.

Chris Berrien, Mitsubishi. Get yourself a Fisker. Fisker, Barian, Fitzger, Missington. A Fisker for Andrew Hines. That would be great. Well, I think even with our technical stuff, we did pretty good without the two biggest helps that we have in the studio.

I mean, I was really nervous about doing it without Nancy and without Rick, but we'll see you next week. Yeah. Here on Erlon cars.