Earl Stewart on Cars - 01.07.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Tesla of West Palm Beach

Episode Date: January 7, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits the local Tesla dealer to see what the shopping experience will be for a manufacturer direct to consumer retailer. 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, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “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 is my son, Stu Stewart, our LinkedIn Cyber. 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 live, and we're back in the new year. It's kind of can't play it. It's hard to believe. First show, Verl on Cars, for the new year. and it's going to be an exciting year. Last year was pretty exciting.

And things are changing. The excitement is the change that we're saying. My perspective is probably a little bit more, I don't know what the word is, dramatic than yours because I've been doing this thing. I've been a car dealer since 1968. So here we are. And 2023, gosh, the change is accelerating.

It's actually a little scary because you pick up the newspaper. Nobody picks up a newspaper anymore. I was just talking about my newspaper's no longer being delivered. The Bond Beach Post just stopped. So I can go online and read it, but you've got too many other sources of online news. But every day something dramatic is happening.

And the automotive industry, both the wholesale and the retail seem to be at the crosshairs of a lot of change. I've got the annual issue of the automotive news on the desk beside me and what is coming on

to us car dealers and I am in way of full disclosure a car dealer still. I have a toilet dealership in North Palm Beach and what's coming for us is a little scary. I mean, for example, extinction? I mean, I'm talking about no more car dealers. The way it's going, I can see it.

For you folks, tuning in now, we did something we probably should have done a long time ago. We shopped the Tesla dealership in West Palm Beach. Now, it's not really a dealership because it's not owned by a dealer like me. It's owned by Tesla. It's owned by Tesla. It's owned by a the manufacturer. He might as well say Elon Musk owns it, but it's owned by the manufacturer, Tesla. And that's very unusual because virtually all car dealerships are owned by individuals. So what's coming is the fact that there won't be any Earl Stewart's or Schumacher's or all the car dealers you hear about out there, are either family or there or they're

like AutoNation or Penske, Sonic Automotive, the public manufacturers, but there are still auto dealerships that are tied in with the manufacturers. We're seeing, in fact, I was mentioned in the annual issue of the automotive news, that we see it coming now that the manufacturers will be retailing cars, not car dealers. I don't know what we car dealers are going to be doing, but I can, guarantee you in 20 years there won't be any car dealers as we know them today. Now there might be

individuals that are indirectly employed by the manufacturer that you think of as a dealer but the controls will be in the hands of the manufacturer. That's what I think is really got all the car dealers

pretty well shaken up. They're talking to their associations, they're talking to their legislators and their states. and the federal regulators and the senators and Congress and the rest of it. They're trying to save this old system that we have called car dealerships. So I've been doing this for over 50 years. My sons are in the business.

My wife is in the business. We're all kind of wondering what's going to happen. That's the big thing I'm looking at in 2003 is when will that other shoe drop and we car dealers will not be what we are today. Well, a lot of you out there are plotting now because we've revealed, and we do this typically every week in our mystery shopping reports, we reveal the way cars are big retail.

And this is really kind of the cruel and unusual way cars are sold is one of the reasons why we probably won't be around for a whole lot longer because of the way we treated consumers. I have a question for you. How do you feel about the non-negotiable prices and the fact that there will be no inventory? Well, I think that it sounds to a car buyer

who likes to negotiate like it's bad, but let's face it, the price of a loaf of bread in public is non-negotiable. The price of an Apple phone is non-negotiable with Apple. Most of all prices are non-negotiable. So, competition is what dictates price. If you have three Buick dealers in a market, and they all are selling cars at a non-negotiable price,

which Buick dealer will you choose? You choose probably the one with the lower price. And then the other deals will say, hey, Charlie over here is selling a whole lot more cars as I am. Maybe I should lower the price. That's what competition is supposed to do, dictate what you sell cars for. without having to argue about it.

I mean, and without having to be tricked, what we do now, we go into a car dealership, and they give us a price, and it's not really the price. And you go home and you think about it, and you decide, well, maybe I'll buy it, and you go back to the car dealership, whoops, hidden fees, dealer-installed accessories, finance and insurance profits,

and suddenly you pay $3,000, more than what the dealership told you the car was for. So it's good and it's bad for non-negotiations. Some people love to negotiate. I don't, and most people I know don't either, but a few people do. Anyway, stay tuned. The mystery shopping report is, every week is the most exciting part of the show. People really love that because it's the real world.

I mean, you're hearing opinion now on my voice, my words are opinion, and the callers, which, by the way, their opinion counts. But the mystery shopping report is, that's the way it is. we send a mystery shop under cover agent into a car dealership every week and we pretend to buy a lease a gar and we report back to you exactly what happened

we say we tell you what the salespeople said what the manager said what the dealer advertisement was and the whole results of what happened and usually it's not too pretty but we score them and we put them on our sheet by the way in a little while Jonathan was able to put together

a list of the best shopping reports and the worst shopping reports for 2022, and that's interesting. I think we're seeing the caliber of shopping reports improving, slowly, but slowly improving. I mentioned callers, and callers is what makes this show. We encourage callers. I mean, we do preparation before the show, and we decide what we're going to talk about. We have topics, and we have consumer reports and automotive news and information, but we always want to hear what you, the listener, has to say. And we encourage you to call the show, and we're going to give these numbers out

and website addresses, URLs out, probably until those of you are listening to the show for a long time are going to get tired of hearing it, but I apologize in advance. Most people only listen to the show for 15 or 20 minutes. We want to catch you. We want to tell you how you can. can call the show if you so desire.

The phone number is 877-960-99-60. That's 877-9-60-99-60. We encourage you to write that number down. Why? Because you don't have a question right now. Probably you will. You'll hear another comment from a listener, or you hear a comment from one of us.

And you'll say, I have a comment, and you'll have written the number down. 877-960-9960. Now, if you'll call the show, you'll get through pretty quickly because Nancy Stewart, my co-host, sitting to my left here, she has her laptop computer, she's looking at it, and Jeremy, in the control room, when the call comes in, he'll pop it up on the laptop screen, Nancy will see it,

and she will interrupt Rick or me, we will go directly to that, caller as your your calls are priorities what it's what you are saying comments criticisms are welcome by the way suggestions and we love to hear your stories about buying maintaining your car speaking of maintaining cars for you new new listeners Rick Kearney is sitting to my right a Rick is a certified diagnostic master technician and he's been doing this for 25 26, 27 years. He's worked for me for that period of time.

He was in the business before he worked for me. And he has seen change like nobody else. Because the technology, well, I don't know. The way the cars are sold is evolving, but slowly. The way cars are built and the technology is, you know, the 21st century has really seen some amazing changes. And Rick is, he's in school half the time. I say that almost without exaggeration.

He's online or going to a class because the changes in the cars are amazing. In this automotive news, Nancy was going over it before the show and they show some of the new, in fact, consumer reports did an annual issue also on changes in new cars. The changes in new cars is so dramatic, it's actually begun confusing.

I mean, it's, it's, It's a positive, but it's also a negative. If you haven't bought a car, and if you're driving a car you bought six, seven years ago and you buy a car today, trust me, you're gonna have to talk to Rick or you're gonna have to buy a hand, you're gonna have to read the owner's manual,

you're gonna have to go online to figure out how to operate the car. The cars, or maybe they're too complicated. I'm driving a Tesla, and I will drive a Tesla. And there's not a day goes by when we say, now how do I do this? this. I mean, the other day, it started to rain and I said, turn on windshield wipers and then the little thing says, this command not recognized. So then I had to find the button. And I mean, it's just

everything is different in the new car. So be prepared. Now, most of it's good. So if you have a question about your car, Rick Kearney, sitting to my right, he monitors a YouTube channel, or you could just call the regular number 877-960-960-9-6-0-9-6-0-8-7-9-6-0 and ask to speak to Rick. You can save yourself a lot of money. I mean, it isn't inexpensive to go into a car dealership or an independent repair shop today

and get your car fixed. I mean, the labor hours are now are $100 or more. and they try to sell you as much as they can, you can call the show, describe a problem, and resolve the issue for nothing. I mean, sometimes you can just find out it's not an issue because you should have pushed that button instead of that button,

or you might find out that the warning light or the blinking thing that came on that scared you isn't anything to be concerned about, or it might be something you could do yourself. is a do-it-yourselfer and fix it. Nancy's open to the consumer reports and she's looking at the pictures of some of these changes

that have been made in the new cars that she'll be buying today. And I agree with, you know, she said I agree with her. They're going too far. The beauty of a car should be the simplicity and ease of using it.

I mean, if you're in a hurry to go somewhere, you don't have to worry, you don't want to have to wonder how do I get my seatbelt buckled or how do I turn on the radio or how do I turn there on the turn signal? I mean, it should be simple. And we're going toward that ultimate simplicity,

which is autonomous driving. That's going to be the exciting part. Nancy and I are driving at Tesla, which is fully autonomous. And it's a little scary. We can talk about that later. If you don't want to call the show at 877-960-99-60, You can text us.

It's 772-497-6530. That's 772-497-6530. And Rick also gets those. By the way, my son, Stu Stewart, are your regular listeners, and Jonathan said, as I came in this morning, how's Stu doing? Well, that's my oldest son.

He's a general manager of my dealership, and he also sits in the mystery shop chair. he's in charge of the Mr. Shopping Report. He's still doing it from home, but he has a back issue. He has to get treated. And he's feeling better.

He's got some hope on the horizon to get that disc that's a problem. He's got a herniated disc he's going to get fixed. And then he'll be back on the show. He's doing fine. Probably listening right now.

But he is monitors the text. He also monitors the anonymous feedbacks. All of that is being monitored down by Rick Kearney. So he'll be busy over there with all the ways that you could contact the show. So you call the show 87-9-60-99-60. Nancy will answer the phone after Jeremy takes your

information and gives it to Nancy. And if you do a text, 772-497-6530, Rick will answer it, and also YouTube. So we're at YouTube.com, 4-slash-roll and cars. you can post you can even send a file an audio file, a video file Rick will read it diagnose your problem with your car

save you $500 or more and he also is monitoring facebook.com forward slash rolling cars so we're streaming we're texting we're audio we're everywhere

and we're all over the country Jonathan put together the list of the best shopping reports and the best shopping reports were not in Florida they were out of the country and maybe maybe our view because we are in Florida and we are in South Florida which I fondly refer to as the Solomon Gamora of the car dealers we are we are really at the belly of the beast of the car dealers in South Florida so maybe I have a slightly negative view of

of car dealers because my competition out there and most of them is pretty rough and we've had some shops in Tennessee and Pennsylvania that were surprisingly nice in a different parts of the country in fact even in northern Florida

they were better than what we see in South Florida so we'd love to hear your experience and we have our secret line secret from us not from you it's your anonymous feedback.com Y-O-U-R-A-N-Y-M-O-U-S

Your Anonymous Feedback.com And you can, you go to that URL, that address, go online, and you can say what you want, ask any question. We don't know who you are. We don't know where you are. We can't come and get you to get even. We don't want to anyway, but some people like the privacy. So your Anonymous Feedback.com

used to be our most popular line. It's not as popular as it used to be, but if I just, oh, that's my iPhone. I thought I lost my iPhone. That would be a tragedy. We've been there before. I mean, it's part of my brain, my Google. I mean, I'd have to have someone to leave me out of the studio without my iPhone. In a stray jacket.

So we're asking you to call the show. If you don't call the show, I'm going to thread you. I'm just going to keep on yakking. So if you call the show, I'll shut up and listen to you, and I'll try to answer your questions. 877-960-9960. Now, I'm going to turn the mic over at Nancy Stewart, my co-host. She founded this show with me 20 years ago, half an hour show.

We're now two hours. And we've evolved to, you know, longer show. Hopefully more information. but Nancy is our female advocate and you ladies out there you know her half the listeners by the way our ladies

when we started out I'm not sure how many were listening but nobody called and so we decided Excuse me I can tell you exactly who called

I bet I don't think anyone else can there was one lady who called and she was very faithful to the show 20 years ago her name was Jenny and Jenny

was the first female caller to support me. Absolutely. So if you're a lady, listen, because Nancy has a very special offer to incentivize you to call the show. If you haven't called the show before, and she'll tell you all about that.

And I just got to thank her in the New Year for what she has done over the past 20 years to build this into a show fitting with the 21st century, a show that's 50-50, female, male. We treat the ladies like we treat the men just to help them

buy a car without being ripped off by cardio. So thank you, Nancy, and the mic is all yours. Thank you. Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome. I think what we'll do is for the ladies is that we'll just follow through from last weekend

and I'm going to extend $100 to any to the first two female callers from Broward County. $100 and right here in good old Palm Beach County it remains $50 to take advantage of that this morning and give us a call at 877 960 9960 that's 877 960. Don't forget you can text us this morning at 4976530 and a special thank you to Sandy Wilson who sends his prayers out to Stu as we all do. We really miss them. We're going to go right to the phones, and we're going to talk to John

in Stewart. Good morning, John. Good morning, John. Hello, John. Are you there? Can you hear me, John? Well, my drop you. Okay, John. John, I'm going to go to the next call, and I'll get back with you. Chuck, are you holding? Good morning, Chuck. Good morning. This is Chuck. Welcome.

What can we do for you this morning? This is Nancy Stewart. Oh, this is Chuck from Oklahoma. And can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you now. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was interested in the electric vehicle debate. I'm on the groups, all the F-150s.

lightnings, looks like they've been shipped out around the country. And so I'm getting a lot of feedback from all the people in my group about their experiences with the electric vehicles. And I listen to you guys talk about your test list. I guess one of my first questions

was your autonomous driving. Is that on the local roads or only on the highway are they allowing that? Well, I'll answer that is on all the roads. They have two forms. if you buy a Tesla with the autonomous feature of the software, they have a highway version.

It's not fully autonomous that functions on a highway. And then if you pass a safety test, which you buy the car, you pay the money, by the way, they got your money anyway to turn it on. The software is built in, but they will not activate the software and your Tesla fully for the city driving and the highway driving until you attain a certain score for 30 days

and then they turn on the software they announced that they do and they tell you that you must keep your hands on the wheel keep your eyes on the road or else to turn it back on. And they can tell if your hands are off the wheel if your eyes aren't on the road and they turn it off.

They did that to Nancy and me and gave us a warning that it had to do with our hands not being on the wheel. So yes, you can once you pass the safety test you have fully autonomous in the city and on the highway

it isn't perfected Chuck it's we were a little disappointed because the fully autonomous is how can I say this actually too careful

the cameras and the that are all around the car that see the lines in the road they see a child and a dog on the sidewalk, they see all the cars coming toward you, coming from the perpendicular to you, and coming from behind you. It sees everything.

It's really amazing. You can look at the display on your car when you're driving fully autonomous, and you see what the car sees. And so it will, in an abundance of caution, sometimes slow the car down so much that the car behind you says, what's this guy doing? Let's face it, the average driver isn't that careful. And you see the situations. You probably do it yourself.

I know I do it. I don't slow down quite as much as I should sometimes. And I'll see a potential situation maybe with a kid with a bicycle on the corner. And I look at him, and I'm thinking maybe he's going to come out. But I don't slow down. The car will. And actually, I hear in Oklahoma, we have the deer. There's always a deer on the same.

side of the road. I don't know if it's going to jump out or not. Yeah. And your Tesla, if you had fully autonomous, would stop sometimes, and the car behind you gets angry and blows the horn. So we found ourselves not using our fully autonomous feature as often as we thought we would because of that fact. Right, right. I was going to ask you, too. I had a friend yesterday. I saw his car in our parking lot at our business, Nissan Leaf. So I talked to him about it. It's the 2017.

He bought it off a Carvana. And, of course, he got some kind of a great prize. But he said that, and I was going to ask you about it, he said he measured it out at three cents a mile compared to maybe gasoline price, I guess he was talking about. That's correct. You do save substantially. My Tesla on my app on my smartphone, my iPhone, my iPhone, gives me a month. savings that I've had, should I buy gas. It knows the price of gas in my market, and it knows how far I drove, and so it does a

calculation of what the gas would have cost me had I bought gas, and that it knows what I pay per kilowatt hour for electricity, and it gives me a calculation every month that says you saved $175 by using electricity and, you know, balance. instead of gasoline. So yeah, it is a, it does save you a lot of money. Rick had a comment. You also saved yourself probably $100 or more every six months to a year in oil changes and fluids that you're not using. That's a good point. So Chuck, I think, you know, fully autonomous. I would buy a car today again that was fully autonomous. I just wouldn't use it all the time because on a highway perhaps on a long trip it'd be perfect but if you're going to in south

florida right now this time here it's a season we call it in south florida where all the snowbirds come down and and enjoy the weather and the roads are jammed crowded it's just crazy a lot of construction and it's just too much for today's fully autonomous car it becomes over when and becomes overly cautious I put a sticker on the back of my Tesla that said this is a fully autonomous self-driving Tesla. I did it because people thought I was not stopping the car when it saw a caution light in the middle of the road. So I want them to realize that you might be mad but get mad at the car, not me, because I've got fully autonomous turned on it. Well, what's the rating on the battery packs? Because all these people that I hear complaining, they're always trying to say, well, their first complaint is they don't think the grid is going to handle charging millions of cars, which I said, that's always going to change.

They're going to upgrade everything as they have to. But also, if you buy a used car, what's the lifespan of the battery pack? Is it going to be 100,000 miles or 200,000 before the battery pack has to be changed? and it's it varies from from car to car the uh we we did a mystery shopping report on the Tesla I say the Tesla dealer the Tesla manufacturer and they are quoting any mystery shopper the I'm going to try to find this in the report here is to well yeah the eight years or 120,000 miles for all batteries. That's the warranty.

Oh, that's a warranty, yeah. So it's going to last much longer. Well, they can or they cannot. I mean, it depends on the battery and depends on the manufacturer. But, yeah, you would expect that the battery would last longer than the warranty, but sometimes they don't. It's something, it's a caution when you buy the car. But when I, I should have known that because I have a Tesla, but frankly, I was a little surprised at the mileage. what's the on a hybrid car the mileage is much higher on the battery right the

actually the warranty on the hybrid systems on Toyota is 10 years 150,000 miles so it's a higher 150 and this is only 120,000 right on the on the on the Tesla but I think that that's something that will improve Chuck I think you're going to see the you're going to see the technology accelerate on that and I can easily see that going to a half a million miles from 120,000 but right now it's

concerned if you plan on keeping the car for a long time and those batteries are very expensive of course right but I would think that the biggest change over the years would be replacing a battery pack sure you buy

the used car at a really great price and then you have everybody fighting to replace the battery so the prices are going to come down so you know for me I'd buy an older car even so find out what the battery replacement cost is replace that battery by the used car and then boom good to go yeah we had a caller to the show you mentioned a Nissan Leaf we had a call into the show that did exactly what you described I bought a car from a local dealer it was a Nissan Leaf and it had most of the battery used up and in no time at all after they bought the car the battery failed.

And they tried to sue the dealer. They tried to sue Nissan. They had a lot of litigation. But they didn't get anywhere because a warranty is a warranty. And, you know, a buyer beware. When you buy a car, you better know what the warranty is. And the warranty is expired. It's going to be a problem, especially for electric battery.

Did they say what the price of replacing the battery? No, the dealer did it happen to be not a very good dealer. It was, my memory serves it with a dealer in South Florida called Napleton. They're one of the biggest dealers in the country, actually. They have number 10 or 12 volume-wise. They have dealerships all over, and they're not known for their customer-friendliness, and they just told the customer to take a hike. You know, you bought the car, as is, and you're going to have to pay the piper.

Is Hertz in these companies going to start renting these EVs, do you know? They will, and again, I think eventually we're going to see that, well, I believe by the end of this decade we're going to have all electric cars, and the rental companies will be in the setting. Chuck, we have a whole bunch of people holding. Yeah. Thank you very much. We love calls from out of the area, Oklahoma. Yeah, Chuck, thanks so much for listening to us from Oklahoma. We really appreciate hearing from you, and I hope you give us a call back again, you know, with your opinion on these EVs that we're seeing.

starting to drive. Have a great weekend. Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you so much. We're going to go back to John, and I'm going to ask Sherry to please hold on. John from Stewart, are you there? Yes, I am. Oh, great. Glad

you called back. Yeah, you were going to, John, or you're here, and I'm saying, yes, I am, and then all of a sudden it went off. But, yeah, I have an experience and a question real quick. Oh, great. Go ahead. You ready?

Yes. Okay, so I got the money down at your dealership for a, it's going to be a 23 now hybrid Highlander, and so I'm still waiting, but I never drove one, so I was trying to look for some, a place that had some, so somebody called me, something online, so they called me from this dealership up in Fort St. Lucie or somewhere up there, and they said, yeah, we got one coming in is 33 days out. I said, okay, what is it? And he said, I said, how much is it?

He said, it's $50,000. I said, okay, I said, how much is it the addendum? He said, well, I don't know that the manager has to put that in there or something like that. I said, well, I'm not going to even look at it until I see what you're charging for it. So he said, okay, so I hung up. And so he texted me right back, and he texted me this sticker on the window. He said, this is in the window. And so it was $50,000.

But I said, but then, you get to the good part, they had a $4,900 addendum and a $12,000 market value, market value, whatever that thing is. And so I called him, I said, there's no way I'm going to get this. Well, why not? I said, well, it's $16,000 over this sticker, and I'm not, I don't want a car that bad right now. He goes, well, he said, you can have to pay that anywhere. I said, no, the place that I got to afford from, they don't put an addendum on them. He says, well, it takes a year to get the car.

I said, well, I'm not doing him to get the car. And he goes, well, making an offer. I said, I'm not making you an offer. You know, that price so high. And so he said, well, I said, Earl Stewart is just going to, he says, you're going to get it, Earl Stewart. And I said, yeah. And he said, well, you're not going to like it or something. And I said, oh, I said, I'm not getting it.

I don't want it. I'm not saying it's thinking, you know, $60,000. So he got mad at me and everything, and we hung out. But I thought that was very interesting that. John, did you say that the market adjustment was, how much did you say it was? $15,000. $15,000. $50,000 car ended up in $60,000 dollars.

Oh, yikes. Well, this is exactly why. we're seeing a change in the whole way cars are sold everyone is aware that this type of thing goes on too much and we're seeing the manufacturers

getting concerned because it affects their profitability too the public is getting smarter and smarter and they just won't put up with it there was a time when you could get away with this car dealers have been getting away with this for years and years

almost 100 years and now there's a rebellion going on people are saying I'm just not going to put up with it so we're going to see a change very quickly about the way cars are sold and manufacturers may be selling them directly just as Tesla is doing so I know how you feel

when you have to go through that sort of experience and makes car buying a very negative experience and hey if you have a negative experience you don't buy as many cars right exactly and then I have a I have a question for Rick real quick.

Okay. I have a 2008 Fortier Cayenne S, the V8, and so the Czech engine lights came off, but a hundred and 49,000 miles. I went to it, it's like auto zoning, and they put it in the computer, and it says, engine, position, system, performance, bank, one. And that's what I had on the other, my other car, I had a Mercedes, and it put the same thing. Is that something common of group in cars? What is it? I don't know.

I honestly couldn't tell you, because European cars, especially the German makes like that, are a complete foreign language to me. I've only just started scratching the surface with our new Super that has come out because they are produced by BMW. I would have to say, can you tell me again the code definition they gave you? The code was T as in Paul, triple zero eight. And what did it say it was? It says it was the Indian position system performance. It's one of those sensor things, something like the timing belt or something. Right.

That would most likely be the same thing I'm guessing is a crank shaft position sensor. Yeah, that's what it would be. Yeah, a crank position sensor, they can go bad quite easily because basically what it is, it's a little sensor that pokes into the side of the motor near where the timing belt or the timing chain would be, and there's a little gear wheel in there. And as that gear wheel turns, the sensor picks up the teeth on it, and it tells the computer where the crank shaft is, what position it's in in the motor. being a German car

that could be several thousand dollars just to replace that sensor especially a Porsche I'm sure they are very very proud of them yeah so I don't know what I was going to do is I was going to sell it

and then when I get my car with you guys but if it's got the light on nobody's going to buy it for the light on I would sell it like that anyway So I looked it up and instead of you like eight hours of labor and give about $1,600 or maybe $2,000, which is, I just thinking I'll have to probably, guys just go ahead and probably replace that. What do you sell it when the car's open or what? The place I would check into, it's on U.S. Highway 1, just a little ways north of Good Samaritan Hospital from Palmish Lake Boulevard and U.S. 1. It's called Prestige Auto.

It's on the east side of US One. The one thing I know about that shop is anytime I go by there during the day, they are loaded with work. And you don't get that much work unless you're doing a good job. Yeah, yeah. Well, John, I hope we were able to answer your questions. And I thank you for calling. Do you have any other?

You have any other questions? No, I think that's it. Okay. Thanks for tuning in. It's not a plug-in. It's just a regular hybrid. And so you guys think those are probably really like one of the best cars I could fly for that price range, you think? Thank you so much.

Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Have a great weekend. We are going to stay with the phones. We're going to go to Sherry, who is a first-time caller from Palm Beach Garden. and she won herself $50 this morning by calling Earl Stewart on cars. Good morning, Sherry.

Good morning. Welcome. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you, Sherry. You won yourself $50, and if you stay on the line, and if you give Jeremy in our control studio your information, he'll give it to me, and I'll write that check out for you this morning, and I'll mail it to you.

You're welcome. What can we do for you this morning? Well, first, we had gone for dinner last night with friends of ours in Boynton, and they were very impressed with Mr. Stewart. They had gone and gotten there Camry from him and said the nicest man and really impressed by the service received at your dealership. Well, thank you. And we said, oh, we pass them every time we go to the beach.

The reason I'm calling is I was a bookkeeper, biller for auto dealerships for 20 years. And I was always aware of the terrible reputation salesman had. It always embarrassed me. And as an auto biller and a bookkeeper, I saw where all the extra money was done, where when people were financed, how they bumped up the fees. And I always thought it was so terrible. And when my husband and I went to get cars that my good friend, who was not a terrible salesperson, would go get cars. And right away, I would say to the finance people, I worked in

the billing department. I worked in auto billing. Don't pull any extra stuff on me. And they would right away dismiss us, fill out the paperwork, and let us go on our way. And I did the same thing when my brother-in-law went to get a car. I said, I was in the auto business, so don't try anything. unfortunately now that we're relocated from New York to Florida and my friend got unfortunately passed I'm a little nervous when it's going to come time to go buy a new car because of everything I hear going on and especially my husband and I listen to you guys every morning every weekend and I hear what goes on in the auto business and it's really very distressing you know it's probably has even more of an impact on you because you know

of your job description and how long you were involved, you know, in the department that you worked in. And the fact remains that, you know, and I don't know exactly when you started working in this field, has it, was it 10 years, 20 years? It was 1990s when I started. Okay. I used to work for a Chrysler Dodge Jeep dealership. then I worked for a

Volvo BMW dealership then I worked for a Ford dealership and I finally stopped about 14 years ago I got out of the car business and I went into being a regular bookkeeper Yeah my point was in asking you was that you know things are

They're changing Not to the speed that we would like but it has to be, you know, I can't even think of the word for you to go out, you and your husband, to purchase a vehicle with all the knowledge that you have and you just have to go out with a suit of armor, so to speak, and stands your ground, and it sounds like as if that you pretty much did that all this time. Absolutely. When the time comes that my husband and I do look for a car,

I think one of the things we're going to do is definitely go to Costco. Well, you have definitely done your homework, that's for sure. Now, my next question is a technical question. Okay, we'll switch it over to Earl or Rick. Okay. Go ahead, Sherry. Okay, so my battery had died, and I knew it was almost three years old. So I had called AAA, and they came right over and installed a new battery.

The man did a wonderful job cleaning all the connections and such, and he looked and he saw some oil leaking, and he said, it looks like you're going to need to replace your, what is it called, Val Body Gasket. The car is a 2013 Honda Accord, what about 64,000 miles. Does that sound like something that's a reasonable thing to do? yes he was probably mentioning the valve cover gasket that's what I meant yes yeah this is basically it's a big metal or plastic cover on the top of the engine that just seals the whole top over the valve control on average I would say at a decent outside shop

you'd be looking at about $200 to $250 to get that replaced should be right around there Oh, I thought it was more money. Okay. And the fact that it's a 2013 car, that's about what happens? Yeah, because usually that gasket is actually a rubber material. And over time, they do start to get a bit stiff and hardened up. And the oil starts to seep out from them.

If it's just a small seepage and you're only seeing just like some oily mud, the oily dirt on there, it's not too big a deal. If you're starting to see oil actually dripping all the way onto the ground, then I would highly recommend getting it done. I would actually check online, find a couple different shops that specialize in Japanese cars. I recommend an aftermarket shop. It'll be less expensive. It's a very straightforward repair.

Take the car and let them inspect it and give you an estimate of what it'll look cost to get that replaced and then go with the best price with a shop that has good reviews and you should be like I say around 250 maybe a little more but shouldn't be much more than that and how long does it take to go replace it a couple hours hour and a half to two hours okay fantastic thank you very much you love listening to the show thank you so much Sherry and don't forget to give your don't forget to give Jeremy your information so I can get that check sent out to you, okay? Thank you so much, and everybody have a great day.

Happy New Year, Sherry. We're going to go to Howard, and I'm going to ask Bobby just to hold on, and we'll get to you as quickly as we can. Good morning, Howard. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you. I hope you all fine. Yes. And a lovely day today, a little cool, but I can take it.

Yes. Well, my car was being fixed up in New York. I had a fuel line broke. So I was driving my son's Mini Cooper. And every time I stopped, the engine would stop. And then it would start up again. I have questions to Rick. Is this a good feature?

And doesn't it strain the starter motor? It is one of the most horrible features. I have ever seen installed on any car they started doing this several years ago for a bunch of different models for Toyota a bunch of other

manufacturers went to this and the idea was to try to cut the emissions and to try to cut the raised fuel economy ratings on the cars. So when you would pull up to a traffic light the engine would turn off

thereby saving fuel raising the fuel economy rating of the car and because it shuts off, it stops the emissions and raises the emissions rating of the car. The drawback is that the battery has to be a special high-capacity battery. The starter has to be a special heavy-duty starter. And unlike normally when they say these items are meant to be replaced when they wear out, these items need to now have an actual recommended lifespan of time and miles, which you'll find in the owner's manual, that say at such and such number of miles and such and such an age, it is recommended to replace these units whether they're functioning or not, because they say they're going to

die soon because they've been getting so much abuse from that start-stop feature. It's horrible. I wish they had a way you can simply turn it off permanent. You can't disconnect it. But the only way you can do it is most cars have a button that you can turn it off. But the next time you shut the car off and then restart it, it reactivates it. It's horrible. Right. You have to reactivate every time you start.

Most of the time I forgot to react it. Oh, yeah. It's horrible. Yeah. Another thing, another question. That car, believe in that call. for premium fuel. So my son says, don't use premium because it doesn't make a ping.

So in other words, if I don't hear a ping, I can use regular fuel on a car that calls for premium. Is that a fact? You're not going to hear the ping because the computer has knock sensors and it will hear that ping long before you ever do and it will retard the timing to prevent it from pinging. what you will get is a very minor loss in performance of the engine because obviously the ignition timing is being retarded back to prevent that pre-ignition.

What is the ping the sound of? Ping or knock is pre-ignition. It's spark knock. So ping and knock are the same thing? Yes. And basically what happens is the fuel is actually igniting too soon in the engine in the combustion chamber and that's when you

what happens then is you get two flame fronts in the combustion chamber and it makes that knocking sound remember back in the 70s you get in the car you hit the gas a little too hard and if your timing wasn't set right you just tak tak tak tak as you're accelerating

and that was spark knock or ping well now they've got sensors on there the computer detects it within a millisecond and it automatically adjusts its settings to prevent that so that you're not damaging the engine, but you do get a little loss of performance. Truthfully, you're never going to tell the difference. You'll never even notice it.

Stick with regular fuel and save about 35 or 40 cents a gallon or more. Yeah, that's what my son does. Yep. Great. I mean, it's a mini-cooper. It's not a race car. Yeah, but it's a BMW. Oh, well, still.

Howard, thank you so much for the call. Do you have any other questions? No, thank you very much. Have a good day. It's always a pleasure to talk to you guys. Thank you for calling, Howard. Thanks for being part of the show. Don't forget www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

I still don't get ping and knock being the same thing. Well, ping is actually the minor, the lighter sound. I don't know. Spark knock is the louder one. I mean, typically when you have a word, it emulated. the sound. The action. And you got a knock and a ping.

You knock on the door. You don't ping on the door. True. He came to the door. I digress. Let's get back to the business. He came to the door and he no. 877-960-99-60.

Text us at 772-497-6-5-30. And we're going to get to some texts and Facebook and YouTube, all of that. But we are going to stay with these calls that are coming in. And we have, I want to remind the ladies in Broward, don't forget that $100 that you can win this morning by giving us a call at 877-960, that's from Broward. And I still have $50 for any, for our first female caller from Palm Beach County. We're going to go to Bobby, who has been holding patiently from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Bobby. Happy New Year.

Hey, Bobby, you there? Good morning, Bobby. Okay. What we're going to do is we're going to go over to Rick, and we'll take a look at some of the text and some of the other things that are backing up. Bobby, give us a call back. Let me jump in front of Rick just for a second. A few callers.

I have an interesting question. I asked the people in the studio here this question before we went live on the air. I was reading in Automotive News. Who is the highest compensated CEO, head of an automobile manufacturer in 2022? And how much was that compensation? Who was the number one? I give you an example. Everybody knows General Motors and Mary Barra.

Mary Barra made a lot of money. Mary Barra in 2022 made $62,2,2,260,880,880. $12. That's number, well, she's number four. So who was number one and how much was it? If you know, call the show. Okay, Rick, it's all yours. Okay. Let's see here. We are going to start off with Bob. He's got good morning. This doesn't make common sense to me. If Autonomous is so safe, why would they turn it off on a driver that has made a few errors in driving? Wouldn't it be safer to have it on if it's so good? Well, you weren't listening earlier.

Nancy and I are driving fully autonomous, it's called the Model S. It's also the PAD, the Tesla Model S plaid, fully autonomous. And we got an unpleasant surprise when it turned on our fully autonomous function software. We found out that it was actually, I hate to use the word frightening,

but, yes, frightening to some extent to drive, because the autonomous feature is overly cautious. The average driver, and you just have to drive this way, can't really do everything exactly according to the book. If you're on the expressway somewhere and the speed limit might be 65, and everybody else is going 85, you're probably going to go more than 65,

just so you don't get rear-ended. You also do the same thing with cost. washing lights, you do the same thing with pedestrians. Think about it, the human judgment that we make cumulatively when we're driving the car, we take into effect what the other drivers are doing. Perfect example is a four-way stop sign. I mean, I know there's a rule that the guy on the right has a priority, and I mean, there's a lot of good rules, but the fact the matter is, you go to a four-way stop, what do you

do? You look at the person. If they don't see you, uh-oh, if you make eye contact, then there's usually an exchange of a hand wave, a smile, something that communicates, you go or all go. Autonomous cars don't do that, and they will perhaps in the future, but they don't do that now. Well, because one in 50, maybe one in 100 cars right now around you have that autonomous ability.

But when it gets to the point where 99.9% of all those cars are autonomous, now it becomes a huge safety feature because they can communicate. The problem is we'll never get there until they bring the feature up where people will not feel uncomfortable. Yes. That feature that we have in our Tesla cost us $2,500. And for $2,500, that's a feature we can't use now because if we really need to go somewhere get there in a timely fashion without people blowing their horn at us and making obscene

gestures, then we can't use it. So you have to improve the autonomous feature, in our opinion, before it will ever reach the saturation point that you're talking about. It's baby steps. We're in the baby steps. Exactly. But it's coming. It's coming.

For sure. But it's coming. For sure. We just have to be patient and hopeful for the future. Okay. This was from Jonathan and Wellington. What is the average annual cost of charging your electric vehicle at home? That's a good question. I don't know. I should. I can get that for you. Of course, it depends on where you live and it depends on, you know, the cost of kilowatt hours in your neighborhood and how much you drive the car.

And when, what time you're plugging it in? How much you're using the car, yeah. I'm convinced that it is a substantial saving over, let me go ahead with the next question. I can look it up and see what Tesla says I'm saving now. Well, this one also is from Jonathan. It says, when female callers win their $50 check, how soon are those checks sent out? What was the question?

When female callers win a $50 check from Nancy, how soon are those checks sent out? normally they're sent out within you know any time from after the show to I'll say I'm going to go out on a limb here Tuesday so I would say like two days two and a half days normally and you know by the way talking about checks being sent out in the year 2022 ladies there are some of you who did not share your contact information and I have no way of getting in touch with you and there's not an expiration date on these checks so if you're listening and you're out there and you have been a winner please my email address my phone number I'm accessible so 561 386 6498 you can text me you can also send a text to our text number here on the show and we can get that information

to Nancy as well so because we want to make sure that If you've got your 50s coming, you want to make sure you get it. We want to be sure you do. Let's go back to that other question. I have the answer for my testimony. Excuse me for a moment. Jonathan, is that Bobby calling back? Is he still hanging?

Bobby, can you hear us? Bobby from West Palm Beach? I know that you called earlier and you hung up. Okay, we'll go ahead, Earl. Rick, you're Jonathan was asking what is the average annual cost to charge

your electric vehicle at home? And we talked about variability of location and the cost per kilowatt hour how much you drive whether you drive more at night or daytime. This is just,

I drive more at daytime and for the last 31 days and I get this on my iPhone, my Tesla app on my iPhone. For last 31 days I had I used 183 kilowatt hour

It cost me $25 on my power bill at my home because I have a charger in the garage, and I save $50 in gasoline. So I don't do a lot of driving, and so $50. A typical driver would probably save $100 because I'm driving about half as much, we have two cars. Okay, and you've had the car how long now? A little over a year. Okay, so you also saved yourself the cost of one oil change. Sure.

Which average car now that uses synthetic oil, and oil change is probably about $100 to $120. And I'll never have to worry about the brakes because I never used my brakes. Right. The only thing you've got to watch for is the tires. Exactly. So you're looking at it. There's a lot of other factors in electric vehicles.

And of course, the big, you know, the 800-pound gorilla is replacing that battery. We had a call at the beginning of the show. And as we all know, the warranty on these batteries, I think on a Tesla is 200,000 miles. It'll last longer than that, probably. But when you do have to replace the battery, forget about it. It is a huge expense. So you need to amortize the cost of the battery when you're calculating comparison with gasoline cars. Well, and of course there's always that horror story of the customer that was trying to get a battery replaced on their Chevy Volt.

And I believe it was Roger Dean Chevrolet that was charging them something like $30,000. Yeah, it was either that or a Nissan Leaf. It was one of the original earliest electric cars. Well, as a matter of fact, here on YouTube, Donovan, our good buddy Donovan and Robert Profit, we're discussing that one back and forth, and it turned out the major reason for that is because that particular battery is no longer in production. There's a very limited supply. Of course, the price has skyrocketed.

Yeah, it's probably an obsolete battery anyway, so you wouldn't want to buy it if you could. But if you consider, say, compare that to like the hybrid battery in a Toyota Prius, I know that if a customer had to replace that on their cost, you're looking at about $3,500 installed for that battery, which is a much more reasonable level. But it's a hybrid battery. It's not a complete battery. Right. And as a matter of fact, another thing that Donovan had mentioned is that the country, The country of Norway has said that they will no longer be allowed to sell internal combustion engines. And by 2025, there will be no internal combustion engines cars sold in the country of Norway.

And yet he says, it's incredible the amount of chargers for electric vehicles that are all over the place. And he said, for folks worried about cold weather, now this is Norway. he said you go over there and they will prove to you those cars do just fine in the cold weather i'm not good at geography but what are the what countries border norway uh the finland and the soviet union and uh sweden i believe and basically there's going to be a lot of people buying their cars in sweden they're up in the arctic circle they literally are going all the way into no a lot of these countries make these radical rules and And, you know, it could completely cost their economy, too.

I mean, if we said you can't buy a gasoline car in the United States, I guarantee a business in Mexico and Canada would soar. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Donovan, thanks so much for joining us every Saturday. You just, you know, you're a great asset. We're going to go back to the phones real quick, and I'm going to see if I can talk to Bobby and ask Rerner Steve to hold on

and Sarah from Boynton Beach to hold on. Well, good morning, Bobby. Good morning. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Welcome back. We can. Loud and clear.

Great. Thanks. This wasn't what I was calling, but a friend of mine owned a Tesla from about the start, and he tells me it's about $3 per 100 miles of charging, which is substantially cheaper than buying gas. Absolutely. That's that story. So I'm a coupon commando. I like to use coupons to try to control what car dealers do to customers.

I'm calling in to call Mr. Stewart to task this time because, one, he doesn't take competitors' coupons anymore, which I didn't know. And he had always told me he did because Toyota dictates what kind of coupons each dealer has to publish so they don't publish the same ones. And some have $20 off and some have $179 for a break job, for example, a particular price or $20 off. And I've always thought that car dealers can't be trusted, so if they're giving me $20 off, they're probably marking it up by $40, which may or may not be true. So I brought my car in Dural Stewart, and I'll be darned if they didn't do a bunch of stuff that made a $600 job, $800.

I'm not sure how to fix that except to go to Palm Beach Toyota. Well, the whole coupon thing, Bobby, is get them in the door. This is, I think coupons oftentimes are too good to be true. And the reason, you know, the old saying, if it's too good to be true is not true, you'll come in with a coupon and you end up buying this, that and something more and you spent far more money than you intended or perhaps should have spent to take advantage of that coupon. No automobile dealer or store, retail store of any kind will sell you something below their cost and then see you walk out the door without spending

any more. The purpose is to get you to spend more. We've wrestled with coupons. We like Our philosophy has always been put our best price on our service, put our best price on our cars, and then give the customer the privilege and the right, exercise is right, to shop and compare. When you shop and compare, you want a quality work, a quality product, and you want a fair price. But the coupon basically lures you in with the idea that they really want to, to sell you this world change or this tire rotation or whatever the coupon is for at this low price. The fact of the matter is, the price is actually

less than what it costs them to do the work. So they can't let you out at that price. They can't let too many people out at that price. Otherwise, they're going to lose money. So they tell you you need something that you don't need and they sell you that service at a higher price because you don't have the time or wherewithal to compare the actual.

price. So coupons are something we don't, we don't do it. At my dealership, we used to accept anybody's coupon, and then we found people that were, you know, they're coming in with coupons. And just for the, they'd have the major, the work they wanted done at the other dealership that come in with a coupon, with a discount that actually cost us money. So we, we stopped doing that. But that's, that's a too long answer to a simple question. I apologize. I've learned a lot from you over the years listening to you, but I'm not sure I believe all of what you just said. And I think you definitely don't make as much money selling a, let's just use an example, a break job for $199 if you normally charge $279. You'll make more money if you

charge $279. I still think you make money at $199. You just don't make as much. But now, the next thing and this is just for the people that are listening and i had a good one of your good service writers just didn't just didn't do what i asked them to do and then it ended up costing me more money things like draining the transmission and refilling the fluid instead instead i got a flush which is a different thing and as i understand it not all that necessary i have a car it's $150,000 a mile, so I'm not even sure I needed to have it drained, but you get some advantages of draining it by putting new fluid in, and that's what I wanted. Another thing that they told me was, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, listen, I don't want to take up, we have 20,000 listeners, I don't want to

take up their time with complaints you have against my dealership. What I will do is personally look into it, and do you have a pencil handy? I want to give you my personal cell phone number. I do. And I've talked to you and I call you and you answer. I'll tell the people that. Yeah. Well, I do answer and I give my cell phone number to all my customers. But I don't want 20,000 people out there be being concerned about one dealership. I'm actually a consumer advocate. I'm calling them just like we do about all the other dealerships. Yeah. About what goes on and what to be aware of. Just to make the consumer aware.

Well, I appreciate that. And the main thing is, and I think you just basically said this, you know, you can go to a retail store or a car dealer or anything else, and you can have a problem, and you will. There's no, even the Apple store or Costco. You go to a really, really great retailer. You have problems. The good thing about Apple, a good thing about Costco,

and I like to think the good thing about my dealership, is when we do something wrong, the customer would call us, explain it, and we can make it right. least have that opportunity to make it right so uh yeah i uh there's no such thing as a perfect retailer and i'm definitely not one we make mistakes probably too many but we try to correct them and i appreciate the call very much i definitely agree with that and and i'm talking to the owner right now which is proof that you do that so well thank you i appreciate that by me i will give you i will give you a call well good thank you bobby thank you very much er will be waiting for

that call. He takes all of his calls. Trust me. I know. I'm his wife. You have a great weekend. 877-960. Or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30.

And we're going to get back to Rick in just a couple of minutes. And Roadrunner Steve has been holding. Thanks for your patience, Roadrunner, Steve, and happy new year. Welcome. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you.

Okay. Happy and healthy New Year, everybody. Happy New Year. It's great to hear your voice. Meep, beep. Yes, yes. Hey, I just seen a fact. 95% that the test was just still on the road.

Uh-oh. Five percent made them home. so now they brought up this subject of Norway what all that people at work in the automotive business is going to do what are you going to be out of work now well it's you know it's I can laugh at it I'm 82 years old but it is kind of tragic I mean you take young people in the business and people contemplating going into the business

you're looking at an entire industry a huge industry industry, and I was going to say evolution. It's more of a revolution. So I worry about it for my family, because my sons are in the business. And like so many changes, they will go slower than we think, but they will continue to change. And I think you can look at Tesla now. Stay tuned if you have time, Steve, for the mystery shopping report. We shopped the Tesla dealership. The Tesla dealership is a wave of the future. That is the way cars will be sold. Manufacture will own the dealership.

It'll still be similar to a car dealership, but it will be where you'll order a car, probably get it in a few days, but you won't be inventorying 500 cars, and the treatment will be much nicer. There'll be no haggling, no hassling, there'll be no hidden fees, there'll be no dealer-installed accessories,

They'll be hosting you on the financing. You'll go in and you'll buy a car and it'll be a pleasant experience. And who can blame the customer for asking for that? Well, Earl, if that happens, there'll be no more radio show. Oh, no. You're right. I'll have to come up. Oh, I know.

We'll find something to talk about. I'll go after somebody else. I'll go after politicians. I'm going out. My friend owns a 2017 Jeep Cherokee. I'm sorry. He owns a 2017 Jeep Cherokee, the one with the two batteries in it. Yep.

You know, it has to stop and start garbage in it. And these batteries are located under the seat of the car. Right? And they wanted to get the battery. They had a hard time getting these batteries. Nobody wanted to install them and all that stuff like that. You finally found the place to do it. The mechanics stay away from that type of way when it's that type of vehicle?

Oh, we just charge all a bunch of extra labor. I mean, Chrysler for a while. If you're charging more labor. Chrysler for a while, there was one model of their cars, one model of the Dodge cars. they put the battery in the fender well. You actually had to take the tire off and take the inner fender liner out to access to 12-volt battery.

So you can change your tires and your battery at the same time. You save time. Yeah, but we charged a lot more money for those. I don't blame it. I mean, that's good for the dealership. But, I mean, it's for the Lego, the guy at home to do that

and try to do that. You know, like, oh, I ain't doing this. I'm bringing it to the dealership. I ain't that time for it. See, even remember you're talking about a Jeep Cherokee. You talk about a Jeep. You look at consumer reports. The Jeep is just not safe.

The maintenance is high. The insurance is high. Everything about a Jeep logically is not something you want to buy. But it's an incredibly popular vehicle. You drive along the road. They're everywhere. They're everywhere. And people buy on a motion.

And I have to tell you, I would love to drive a Jeep just because it's so cool. looking. But I wouldn't want to own one for a long time because I couldn't afford it. Wait a minute. It's not the vehicle that's cool. It's the guy behind the wheel that's cool. Remember. You got a good point.

Money don't make the man. Man makes the money. Steve, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks for opening our 2023 first show of the new year I'm off to a car show right now

so everybody have a safe and healthy new year oh thanks have a hot dog for me where yeah me no no no they're made in Norway I don't want one of them and buy a chicken 499 okay have a great weekend we have we have some ladies holding here

so we've got to get moving So I'm going to tell Connie in Coral Springs just to hold on. We're going to go to Sarah, and she's calling from Boynton Beach. Good morning, Sarah. Good morning, Nancy. Good morning, gang. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to all of you.

I wish you were healthy and happy. Thank you. So I have a question for Rick this morning. I have a 2012 Lincoln Mercury. a, oh no, I'm so sorry, a Lincoln, MKZ, hybrid. So I just had to get a new battery, which is no problem. But I'm having a door problem. I was wondering if you could help me out with that situation.

The passenger door is open, and you can open it from the inside without a problem, but I have to hand lock it. Now, the driver's side just happened where, I think it's an electrical problem because I cannot open my door from the inside. It makes no noise, and I have to open my door from the outside, roll the window down, open the door. That is an electrical problem, do you think? The door, the one that's not locking, that you have to manually lock, that sounds like an electrical issue, the door lock actuator. It's the little motor that moves the lock itself.

the other side though where the inside handle's not working that's probably the linkage usually where that door handle is there's going to be like a metal rod that goes from the handle over to the door latch assembly and when you pull on the handle it moves that rod and that's what tells the latch to release and if it's become disconnected or broken at one end or the other the plastic clips hold it in place can break sometimes if that's what's happened

that's why you're having that problem what you'd have to do is get a mechanic to pull the door panel off to find out what has disconnected or what is broken in there so they'd be able to figure out how to get that back together for you ironically enough

I was a mercury marquee girl and I used to do my own door problem with the window So I'd put it back on its motor. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Yeah.

So if I take my door off, I could probably see if it's on the latch or not. Right. What I would do, first off, I would go on YouTube and look for a video that shows how to remove that door panel. Because sometimes the various different clips in that can be hidden in a funny way. And this way, they'll show you how to get it apart without. breaking any of the trim pieces or anything. So you get the door panel off easily and without costing any more money. And once you get in there, I guarantee there's a video that'll show you how that linkage is supposed to work and what most likely has either broken or

disconnected. And then you can get the parts from either your Ford dealer or aftermarket, rock auto.com maybe. And you should be back on the road for only a few dollars. Sarah's probably not going to want to do the work. But, you know, the cool thing about YouTube is once you inform yourself, when you take it in, the person that does do the work knows that you know, at least approximately what needs to be done. Right, yeah. May I just say that I am so grateful to this show.

Thank you all so much. Oh, you're very welcome. I love listening to you and I love listening to everything, and you just made so much sense to me. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. I wish you all a wonderful, wonderful day. Thank you so much, Sarah.

Thanks for being part of the show. Happy New Year. We're going to go to Connie, who's calling us from Coral Springs. Hi. Hi, Connie. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for taking my call.

I have a Honda CRV. I'm driving. And it's not that old. It's only 2017. The air conditioner has, it doesn't have that many miles on it. The air conditioner has never worked right on it. I have two other friends that have older Honda CRVs, and the cars work great, except for the air conditioning. Is this a defective part on this?

Is it something about the make of the car? It's odd that you've got friends with the same issues. Yeah. The first thing that I would have checked those, I would have a mechanic do what's called an evacuate and recovery and recharge, and install what's called ultraviolet dye. There's a type of oil that is used in the air conditioning system that actually winds of traveling throughout the entire system of the AC and we add a special dye in there.

So then if it's got a leak, we can use an ultraviolet light, a black light, very strong one, and it will show us where that dye is coming out and where the leak is. Just about any mechanic's shop has the ability to be able to be. has the ability to do this and probably would charge you around $100 to $120 just to do that service.

Oh, yeah, around the nose, $111. I just Googled it. I have a maintenance agreement. That should cover that, right? Oh, yeah. If you've got a maintenance plan that has extended warranty to it, if it covers air conditioning repairs, then yes.

Okay. Thank you. And there's a common problem, you're right I googled it there are that particular issue in Honda CRVs is a common problem thank you Connie thanks for being part of the show thank you we appreciate your call before oh yes I know spread the word I well thank you thank you thank you share your spunk with all those ladies you know and your knowledge we love hearing from you you're welcome we're gonna go to Denise and she

she is calling from where I'm not quite sure I think it's Singer Island welcome Denise oh hi hi this is Denise Capriotti yeah I've spoken to you twice Denise I've been waiting to hear from you

okay well the saga goes on about the Hyundai I'm just thinking if you're a woman wanting to buy a car don't go to Hyundai any dealership because I've been to the one at Napleton and they really didn't do a good job and we had arguments and they wouldn't call the fidelity insurance, you know, the extra warranty

that I have on tires and the wheels. So I went to, I went to Wallace where I bought the car and the guy, the service guy was so nice and he's like, I'll take care of you. I'm sorry you experienced that. I'll call this insurance and we'll get this all taken care of. That was before the holidays. He said, you know, you might have to wait a month because the guy we hired to fix the rim, you know, is that far out. So I called just a few days ago, and I said, well, I'm ready to bring the car in. He said, you know, you're going to have to wait four to six hours while he does the car, polishes out the rim, and he's not available for at least another month. And I was like, why didn't you tell me that before? Why didn't we set up an appointment before?

holidays. Honestly. And he started yelling at me. He said, look, I'm trying to help you. I've gone out of my way. And, you know, if Napleton messed up and I'm trying to help you. And I said, well, I didn't want to get into it with him. And he finally said, well, I'll give you the information from the fidelity insurance,

you know, the case number and just take it there back to Napleton. And I was like, you know, I just don't want to even deal with this anymore. I feel like I'm getting a run around. Yeah, exactly. You know, what arrogance. I'm glad you called and shared your story with us, Denise. And as I said, I have been waiting, you know, to hear from you because I did get your envelope back. Please talk with Jeremy.

Give him your contact information so I can resend that check to you. Oh, okay. It's sitting on my desk just in case you're wondering why you hadn't received. it was returned to me oh well that maybe I'm supposed to go in and meet you that'd be that'd be a good thing too but seriously Jeremy you'll take your information he'll pass it along to me that's your contact information yeah I'm wondering if I took my car into Toyota if I could be helped there with the wheels slurred you know girl look at it and see could she could could could

could Denise be helped at Toyota dealership about what I her tires oh sure yeah bring it in okay I'll bring it in let you look at it and see what you recommend yes definitely it was great hearing from you Denise thank you thanks for being part of our show happy new year thank you thank you thank you so much you're welcome Rick, do you have some texts or face time for us or YouTube? Let me get the text back up here. While Rick's pulling that up, I just want to let all of you know that we do have the mystery shopping report coming up later

and that you definitely can vote on the mystery shop, the Tesla from West Palm Beach. You can do that, but going to 772-497-6530. Let me give this out because Jonathan went to a lot of trouble to put this together for the new show. These are the top best dealers for 2022, worthy of note. Unfortunately, the top three best dealers are not in Florida. So our floral listeners, I apologize. If you're in Tennessee or Pennsylvania, you'll like this. Top dealers on our best dealer, on our good dealer or bad dealer list,

which you can access on our website or blog at earluncars.com. You go to earlancars.com, we have all the best dealers and the worst dealers that we grade at the end of the show, which is coming up pretty quickly. It will have a mystery shopping report and we'll grade that dealer, and they will go on one report or the other. The best dealers for 2022 were Riverview Chevrolet of Irwin, Pennsylvania, the very, very best Riverview Chevrolet of Irwin, Pennsylvania. They actually sold car at $828 below NSRP in the middle of this COVID issue

and the pandemic and the part shortage of the rest of it. So congratulations, Riverview, Chevrolet, the best of the best in 2022. And then number two, Action Nissan of Nashville, Tennessee. And that was only $300 over MSRP, and there was no hidden fees and things that bumped it beyond that. And the third best dealer of 2022 was Mike Hamlin, Hyundai, or is that Camden? Camden. Camden. Camden, L.I.N.

Mike Camlin, Hyundai of Greensburg, Pennsylvania. So one Tennessee, Nashville, and Irwin and Greensburg, Pennsylvania were the top three dealers. The worst dealers These are the terrible one In 2022 No surprise Good old Napleton North Lake Chrysler Dodge Jeep

Napleton is the devil incarnate When it comes to The Worst or the worst Congratulations Ed Napleton On being the worst in 2022 Second

And I This hurts me Because I know Bill Wallace Wallace, Chrysler Dodge Jeep of Stewart, Florida, now relation to me, Stuart Florida and South Florida. And then Hollywood Kia

in South Florida. So those are the top three worst. Napleton, Wallace, and Hollywood Kia. The worst of the worst. And I gave you the best before. So if you want to see the whole list, just go to Erlandcars.com. Good dealer, bad dealer list.

And you can see all of them. And there'll be another one on there until we do the mystery shopper report in just a couple of minutes. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, Rick, do you? Well, we've got Anne-Marie's text. Oh, Anne-Marie. She's a little late this morning. She says, good morning, and may everyone have a healthy, prosperous, and happy new year. 2022 has been a tough year to buy our car due to car shortages.

I've been wondering how the market has changed over the year. One, are the cars coming quicker for manufacturers now? Two, which Toyota models are the easiest slash fastest to get in? Which are the slowest, most difficult to get in? And what model year do you expect, slash, hope, to see the electric BZ4X to be delivered? Thank you. Well, the BZ4X is being delivered now. And I'll tell you, a shocker, it's not settling all that well.

And I'm not sure why. We actually have, I know Toyota dealers that are trying to sell their BZ-4-6-haul electric vehicles. And it's completely caught me off guard. I thought that there would be so few of them that they'd be snapped up by, you know, people that want to be the first guy on the block to get a Toyota all-electric. But that's not happening. And we are actually not getting in Florida yet. And, in fact, even in the southeast, we're not getting.

These were from dealers outside the southeast United States. So, BZ4X. As far as the easiest car to get, Anne-Marie, and this goes for Toyota or for any make, it's usually the more popular car. It's the car that the manufacturer builds the most of. Like the corollas, the Camrys. Yeah, the oddball car, the unusual,

car, especially when it comes to accessories and colors, will hold your car up a long way. So I ask the dealer, if you're going into a Chevrolet dealer, you're going into a Toyota dealer, you ask them which cars are coming in quicker? Car inventories are building now. Three or four months ago, car dealers had, well, I won't say that. Some of them had cars. All car dealers had cars in stock, most all, because they were charging so much money.

They would, in order to have cars in stock, they would charge thousands of thousands of dollars over MSRP until somebody came in so desperate or so hard, the expression, stupid, that they would buy the car. And now we're actually seeing inventories built. Toyota, again speaking of one manufacturer, had their biggest manufacturing date ever in November. they built more cars worldwide Toyota did than they ever had before. So that'll tell you that things are changing

and in 2003 it will be back to whatever normal turns out to be probably by the third quarter of this year. Great information. Everybody's happy about that. Okay. We have one other here that this one is from Jim and he included a picture it's a I guess a finance alternative

from Car Mart in Fort Pierce and this I guess is supposed to be an example of various finance offers and I'm going to just read this off it says finance alternatives doesn't say what car it is but market value

$48,99 discount savings minus $6,225. Vehicle price, $42,774. Accessories, $2,995, dealer fee $899, $4.25, license and title, $425, Tire and battery fee, $6.50, $0.50. Filing fee, $389, sales tax, $2,873.84, for a total of $50,362.84. Then it says, due on delivery, zero, one month payment.

Apparently they're doing a, you buy the car, but you only make, you finance one payment. Oh, sounds like a lease. Yeah. And it's a one-month payment of 50,362-84, which is the total amount. APR, 45 days to the first payment, 0%, and the amount financed is 50,000, 362, 6% tax, taxes and fees 4593. I'm going to let you look at this, Earl. Maybe you can make a little more sense of what we're looking at there. Yeah, I heard it pretty well. It doesn't make sense. Okay, you know, the amount of finance is $50,000. Doing delivery was zero because they're going to finance the whole amount. So, so that's, I see what you're saying, your 45 days of the first payment. I'd have to, I'd have to read this and check it out. I will say this. It looks to be like,

They did a complete disclosure. It's confusing to me as to what they mean. I thought it was a one-pay lease, which some people do, but it doesn't say lease on there at all. A one-pay lease is not unusual, but this doesn't say lease, so I'd have to research that and get back. But it does seem like a pretty good deal on the car. $48,99, it's a MSRP sticker, and they're out-the-door prices $50,000. But says you're financing the car, so there's zero percent. There's something about that.

Never respond and execute on an ad that you don't understand. Right. If I don't understand it, I don't think anybody out there would understand it until you go in and talk to them. But send me that on my iPhone. I'll research it and give you a more intelligent answer next week. We're running short on time. This guy is caught up on the text messages.

Okay. Okay. So we're finished? Yes. Okay. Folks, we're going to get to the mystery shopping report. That's Tesla, West Palm Beach. Remember, you can vote at 772-4976530.

And you know something? You have to pick up this consumer reports for February. Their road report, some of the things that are in here, about financing, everything that we haven't gotten to. we hadn't had a chance to a great read it will really help you in every single aspect of the car purchasing and leasing everything now the recovering car dealer well this is kind of a watershed moment I kind of wonder why we didn't do this a long time ago and shame on us because we have only one, while there's two now,

there's another electric vehicle manufacturer that's selling cars directly. But Tesla, up until now, has been the only car dealer, and they're not a car dealer. They're a manufacturer, and they sell directly. And the law, in all 50 states, makes manufacturers sell through franchise car dealers. And that's the problem.

And that's the reason this show exists, or else to run cars, because the franchise car dealers are screwing the customers. And we're trying to help you and save you from the deception and the lies and all the rest of it that go through with the terrible experience of buying a car retail. So we went to Tesla and the manufacturer is the dealer. They're one and the same and we shopped Tesla of West Palm Beach. Where I've, speaking of the first person is if I were Agent Lightning, it was the name of

our mystery shopper, amazing woman that does a great job. and it was for over a year, but two years maybe. Okay, arrived just as they were opening. As I walked into the door, all three salespeople smiled and said, welcome. I asked, who the lucky one that gets me today? The one girl says, you pick. I walked straight over to her. She introduced herself as Georgia.

And that's a pleasant experience. I mean, think about it. If you're a regular listener, there's usually some aggravation occurs in the first few minutes of just walking into the showroom. In this case here, it was happiness, smiles, full humor, pleasant so far. Paragraph 1, everything's good. West Palm Beach, Tesla. Georgia was very knowledgeable and gave me a very thorough rundown of the new Tesla

that had been there on the lot for sale. I was quite impressed with everything that the Tesla has to offer, but even more so that she pretty much knew everything there is to know about the car. She sat in the car with me and even showed me the doggy mode. I said doggy, it's written dog mode. If you leave a pet in the car with it running, you can watch it from the cabin camera. Now, Nancy and I, in our Tesla, when we go into a store, if we go to the Palm Beach Mall, or the gardens of all, I should say, there goes my age reflecting.

Palm Beach Mall's only been gone for 40 years. We were going into pardines. The garden's ball, and it's hot outside. We parked the Tesla, and we push a little button that says dog mode. And the big screen in the front of the car comes up, it says, my owner will be right back, and he set the temperature for 72 degrees. And when we come back from our two-hour or whatever we're doing, the car's at 72 degrees.

Really cool idea. We use that a lot. Yeah. And I say, at any rate, dog mode. And then you can, if you're worried about your dog, you just go to your iPhone and you can see the dog whatever he happens to be doing, trying to start the car, chewing the upholstery, whatever he's doing, you can see what your dog's doing in the car. They didn't have any there for me to test drive. I remember this is a manufacturer selling directly, and also there's a shortage. Georgia said she would call me when they received one, or I could go to the dealership and test drive one there, but she doesn't run my money.

and buying from them because they can't help with any questions. Now, she's talking about other dealers that are selling cars. Anybody can sell a Tesla. All you have to do is have it traded in, and you can sell Teslas. Use Teslas, you can't sell a new Tesla. She also said the Tesla hold their resale value really well, so likely a new one would be right around the same price as buying a used one. Now, the only thing I could say negative, this salesperson wasn't quite on top of things.

Tesla, up until a couple months ago, that was a true statement. But in the past couple months, Tesla prices have come down. And actually, Elon Musk reduced the Tesla price considerably, and the value of used Tesla's has dropped also. So it's an unusual phenomenon, and I don't blame. Georgia or the other salespeople at West Palm Beach, Tesla, from not knowing that fact. This is a model you've been over with me for the sale. I decided to go through with building my own, as this is what she suggested for this shop. This is the order for the Model S, and that's the top of the line I built with Georgia's help. The Model S has the full autonomy, total Tesla self-driving available.

starts at $105,000. That's a lot of beans for a car, but it's a heck of a car. Then you add on the software. Earlier I said $2,500, I was wrong. $15,000 just for the software for full self-driving.

So, Mystery Shopper, Agent Lightning, took the Model S, added $15,000 for the software that will turn it into a fully autonomous car. a fully autonomous car, you can get in the car, you can say, take me to Publix, it'll take you to Publix. And you have to keep your hands on the wheel because they require that, because this is a beta program, meaning it's a test program, and the law requires that you disclose this. But $15,000, you can buy yourself a fully self-driving car.

Take me to Taco Bell. Take me home. Whatever you have programmed in your navigation, take me to work. It'll take you there. And you never have to turn. Turn signal, speed up, slow down, get off the expressway. It does all that. And you still have to keep your hands on the wheel or it'll deactivate the system. Nancy and I learned the hard way

because we have two strikes against us. We took our hands off the wheel twice. And Nancy once and me once. Now we can only do that three more times and they take away my fully autonomous, which I paid $15,000 for, in which case I'll no longer like Elon Musk as much as I do now. We hope that won't happen. And I have nothing to say. That's right. Okay, the car, this fully autonomous car that Ancient Lightning is buying,

is white with a black interior. That's included in the price. Other collars are upgrades. I'm not crazy about that, but they tell you, right? I mean, the only thing you can get is a white with a black interior, and if you want a different color. I got a red, and I paid a lot of money for the red car. I have no problem with charging a lot of money for cars, because competition will take care of that. I have a problem with pretending you're not charging the money, and then sneaking it in with dealer-installed accessories, with hidden fees,

and with all the other nonsense that all other dealers do. So here we are with a manufacturer selling directly. What do I just do here? I think I just, okay. Other color grades are, oh, I think I got my thing. I missed that. I apologize here. The back of the page says eight years, 120,000 miles for all batteries.

four years for $50,000 for drive units, dog mode, so on, voice command, anything. Hold on. They're giving me all the charges, okay. Breaking it down. Yeah. Okay. City driving is in beta mode and needs safety score before self-driving. That's what Nancy and I had to do, and we drove for months and months and months. actually we never got up to the 100 score that we needed to activate the self-driving we got close

and fortunately Tesla decided to lower the score grade and so we met in the middle and we were now authorized and there's a very happy day for us city driving is in beta mode needs safety score before self-driving but on your I-95 or any turn pike highway

it works as soon as It's been calibrated around 20 miles. Cabin camera does pay attention to your eyes. So if you're a privacy freak and you're buying a Tesla, be aware that cameras are everywhere. Cameras are all over the outside of the car. Cameras are all over the inside of the car. It sees you and everything you do.

And when you're trying to do the autonomous, if you're not looking at the road or not looking where you're supposed to be looking, your hand comes off the wheel you'll lose your autonomous driving capability and basically that was pretty much the the experience a very pleasant one she said the car would be with us in a matter of it could be a few weeks or a month or two and there's no no tricks you get what you buy you pay a lot of money for it and that is why

Tesla is the number one selling luxury car in the United States. I bet you didn't know that. It's also why Elon Musk is making a lot of money. I asked this question earlier, and I said, who's the number one CEO manufacturer? And no one called in, but the number one CEO manufacturer is Elon Musk. Now, when I tell you how much money he made in 2022, you're not going to believe me.

Okay, are you sitting down? We're sitting down. Are you sitting down for this? The number one paid CEO of an auto manufacturer in the USA and the world in 2022 is Elon Musk. Elon made $23 billion. There's a B there, folks. B, B, billion.

Elon Musk in 2022, for operating Tesla made $23,452,910,10,176 in one year. Now, you can't blame him for change, you're an extra for autonomous, right? So, you know, people will hate that, but the fact the matter is, he built the best product at the best price. Number one, watch for selling car, and he's making a ton of money. One of the reasons he's making so much money is because he's not going through dealerships. When manufacturers go through dealerships, as state law requires in the United States and most other countries, I think. When they require that, the cost of the dealership to the manufacturer inflates the cost of the car,

and, you know, it's just they're not making as much money. Manufacturers know that now, and they see how much Tesla's bacon, and that's the reason all the manufacturers will be emulating Tesla, and that's the reason we talked earlier in the show about this, that the dealer franchise system is doomed to disappear. I believe you. I am going to tweet, Elon, my short list of complaints. Oh, okay. And I'm going to wait for a response. On the autonomous? I won't hold my breath.

on the autonomous on the Tesla autonomous is not ready for the road yet I'm talking about a few things like the you know just getting into the Tesla and the lack of

the ability for the passenger to hold on while you're driving you're holding onto the yoke you've got something to secure you because you can be tossed to their in pro in that Tesla

anyway folks I hope you enjoyed the show. I think we're down to the wire. Oh, we got time. Are we going to grade the report? Got to what? Grade it? Oh, of course. We haven't done any grades. How could we forgot that? How did we forget that? Of course. You know, I was so stunned by, and I won't say anything. The billions. I was stunned by the report to ask why are we going to vote. So now we're going to vote. Okay. I'm anxious to get my coffee. Let's see here.

Bob from Maryland says A for Tesla of West Palm Beach. That's all we've got on the text messages so far. YouTube. Okay, I got a couple coming in on YouTube. Tom Steckle says, Not seeing a worksheet, I'm assuming no dealer or other fake fees. If that's the case, I'd give them an A grade based on Earl's description. Johnny Z. Fradley says A.

It would have been A plus, but they didn't have a demo to drive. They should have one of each car to demo. Tim Gilliland, A for honesty, but I'll keep my Prius, thank you. Scott Hunter says A, but way too expensive for me. Ryan said Lacko, Tesla deserves an A. Mark Smith, A for honesty, out of my price range, however. Wayne Vite, A for Tesla. for me again

I'm going to go with the A grade but I kind of got to agree with them because I did just look up real fast the lowest price that you'll get on a Tesla base price is about $46,000 on the Model 3 with just a basic car

so yeah they are very expensive cars to buy you know 43 is the average price car and so they don't have a low price car, but 43,000 is about average of all American cars. Okay. And Eric Ming says A for the review, but I honestly wonder what if the cyber truck will ever make it to consumers.

Kirk and West Buy God Virginia, Tesla, you say, the future of car buying and the treatment of the customer equals A plus. And that, whoop, here we go. Marie says that sounds like they earn an A, but then luxury car dealers tend to treat their customers better. True. Jonathan and Wellington, A. Enough

said. Nancy? Okay, I'm going to give Tesla West Palm Beach and A. I say A plus. So, I think, I frankly was surprised. I thought there would be a little bit more lackadaisical.

Nancy and I had a few experiences with them earlier, several months ago and there was kind of a lackadaisical we had to wait and a few other things so this dealership unless this is a fluke they really got their act together because i would have given them you know maybe a b-minus before but uh this was an excellent experience yeah definitely um i just didn't like the idea that you couldn't you couldn't see the car you couldn't feel touch smell you know and i know there is a shortage but that's beyond their control really i mean and while i'm thinking about it, let me ask you this, is there still a car out in the mall when we were out there last?

Very few. Very few. I mean, that's because of the high-demand, low supply, microchip shortage. I mean, all the manufacturers. The dealers today that are committing the crimes are the ones that don't have a shortage because they're charging so damn much money for the cars, they have cars in the lot. And if you want to pay $6,000 over sticker, they say take a hike and they'll sell it to somebody that will pay too much money, so I don't fault them for not having any cars. Yeah, great comment. Jonathan, are we down to the wire? We have

two minutes left. Okay, I want to thank who are you, Earl? Rick. Oh, my vote. I'll give it the A. You're giving it an A also. I mean, if you don't give Tesla an A, you don't give anybody an A,

and I think it's kind of, we'll talk about this in the future as we go along. The fact, we might even be able to go to an absolute form of grading if we had more Teslas to shop. And maybe that's what we should do, shop some more Teslas and find out there's, I don't know, where the next Tesla probably down in Fort Lauderdale. Yeah, we can explore that. You know, I want to thank Agent Lightning for her, you know, a fabulous talent to do these

mystery shops weekend, and we got 52 weeks, as a matter of fact, and she does such a fantastic job. And I can't end the show without thanking Stu and his talent for creative writing. He does such a fabulous job at a time right now when it's a little more difficult for him because of what he's going through. And he is in our hearts and our prayers. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. And again, Happy New Year. Have a great weekend. We'll be right back here next week at 8 a.m. Bye-bye. Let's come.