Earl Stewart on Cars - 01.08.2022 - The Best of Earl on Cars with Mystery Shop of Coggin Honda

Episode Date: January 8, 2022

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local Honda dealer to see if she can get a good deal on a new Honda Accord. 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 as my son, Stu Stewart, our linked to cyberspace 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. My name is Earl, and I'm a recovering guard dealer, and I'm alive in color right here on this radio station. You heard my recorded introduction? I have to say, to our new listeners, welcome. You're about to experience something, listen to something. Maybe watch it if you're on YouTube or Twitter or Facebook. But you're about to experience something that you've never seen before.

It's a candid, live, tell it like it is. No Punch is pulled. We name names. We name places. We talk more candidly live than just about any kind of show. Maybe 60 Minutes. These folks out there, remember the old 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace? They've kind of modified.

They're not quite as aggressive. But I'd say we're close to a 60 Minutes kind of a show. And we rely heavily on the fact that this show always tells the truth. At least what we think is the truth. I mean, there's never been a time. We make mistakes. And then we admit it. And we apologize.

But transparency and, honesty on this show about how you should buy or lease your next car, how you should maintain to repair your car without getting taken advantage of. Car dealers, and I'm talking to the new folks, I apologize to our regular listeners, and we have a lot of regular listeners, but car dealers for half a century that I know of, because that's about how long the Gallup annual poll and honesty and ethics and professions has been conducted. And for about a half a century, they're ranked at the bottom of the list in honesty and ethics. Here is a giant retail organization, one of the largest retail organizations in the world.

Thousands and thousands of car dealers. I mean, they're like gas stations. It used to be like banks. There's not as many banks as it used to be. But everywhere you go, there's a car dealership. And you take them all together and you ask all the people in the United States, what do you think about them? The people in the United States says, we don't think they're honest or ethical. And it's going on for 50 years.

Interestingly enough, when we hit the digital revolution, you know, the information explosion age, artificial intelligence, you know, a lot of businesses cleaned up their acts. Think of some great stories you deal with. Amazon, Costco, Target, I could go on and on. There are a lot of honest retailers out there. How many honest car dealers, transparent car dealers can you name? There's some. You know, I don't want to downgrade.

I talk to car dealers frequently to call me up and say, I appreciate what you're doing. And unfortunately, there's a lot more that aren't happy at all with the fact that we tell it like it is here. So your calls and your observations are extremely important to us. That's really the purpose for the show is to educate. I mean, there's a little entertainment going on. We try not to be boring, because if we bore you, you're not going to listen,

and what's the point in trying to educate? But our call-in number is 877-9-60-9-60. Again, that number, call-in, old-fashioned telephone kind of a call-in. 877-9-60-99-60. Get a lot of calls, and we love the calls. Calls are more personal, and, you know, it's just a dialogue. I have a dialogue. Text, it's more of a monologue, but we try to answer all your text.

And that text number is 772-4976530. That's 772-4976530. And we have a unique input that has become one of our most popular, is anonymous feedback. You can text us or communicate with us by total anonymity. It's hard for me to say, anonymity. It's a good word. And that is your anonymousfeedback.com. That's the website that you go to, your anonymousfeedback.com.

Don't know who you are, where you are, and you can say anything you want to. If you want to say something that you're afraid would embarrass you or embarrass us, there's your way to go. your way to go. And we don't mind it, because sometimes the truth hurts. And if you tell us the truth, we love you. If you don't tell us the truth, we're not going to, what are we going to do? We don't know who you are. So take advantage of that. If you have something sensitive, you want to communicate. You just want to be, you don't want to be hassled. You know on me calling on live radio. That can be a little nerve-wracking. Your Y-O-U-R anonymous, A-N-Y-M-M-U-S, Feedback.com, Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

So, again, to all you new folks out here, this isn't all about buying cars or leasing cars. Sitting on my right, there's a guy named Rick Kearney. He's worked for me for about a quarter century. And I am a car dealer. I mean, that's something, the regular list is, no, you might not know. I am a car dealer.

I'm in business today, but this is not an infomercial. In fact, I get embarrassed when people talk to me about, on the air, about buying a car, servicing a car. I'm not trying to drum out business. Now, listen, I'm not going to kid you. If people know what I'm doing and they respect what I'm doing and they come in to buy a car from me, I'm happy. But I'm not here.

That's not my purpose. And I think you'll see that if you listen. My regular listeners will say that too. But Rick Kearney can answer any question. you have about any car 95% of the time truly and if you're a little bit nervous with this COVID epidemic

running out of control it's peaking in January they tell us going to be the worst it's going to be and then it's going to get good after that we get the vaccine but January is kind of a rough month it's going to be a rough month for folks out there if you're afraid

going into a car dealership to get your car fixed to repair and maintain you call Rick Kearney you give them the symptoms to the problem of the car and Rick will tell you what the problem is and sometimes we have to resort to Mr. Google sometimes we have to say we'll get the answer for you but 95% of the time

Rick Kearney can answer your question and by the way he's monitoring our YouTube account and that's just Erlon Cars 4.Slaidt slash YouTube. Erloncars.com 4.Sash, what am I trying to say? YouTube.com slash rolling cars. YouTube.com

for slash relin cars. Rick watches that personally. And then Stu is doing the Facebook. That's Facebook.com forward slash rowland cars. Stu's watching that. Stu is also our cybermaster, our spy agent who dispatches

our secret chopper, which is the greatest part of the show, the most interesting. And I've been yacking too much. I'm going to introduce Nancy Stewart. She's our co-host. She's a founder of show with me back 20 years ago and we start out at a half an hour now we're doing two hours and having a lot of fun so nancy uh tell them about your nancy's a female advocate meaning

she is trying to build the audience uh you lady listeners out there listen to what nancy has to say i think you're going to like it absolutely i like your look this morning you thank you yes i like it i like it a lot uh ladies and gentlemen welcome to erlon car if you just tuned in. And I have an announcement. Earlsvigilantes.com. Please sign up. Do you consider yourself,

well, somewhat of an auto expert? Take a look. How do you like our hats? We're all wearing our hats. Thanks to Stu. Stu was behind this, well, beautiful, handsome black hat. And all the vigilantes are getting hats, too, That's right.

We're going to send this batch out to the current crew of vigilantes, but we are working in another design. We want to have an assortment of designs to choose from. So you could pick a red hat, maybe a green hat. But right now, they're the black hats. But don't take that the wrong way. The black hats, in this case, are really the white hats. That's right.

We're the good guys. You've got a whole thing going on here. I know. It's looking good. Stream of consciousness, you know. And look at Rick over there. That's a dog on the logo. Looking so important.

and we got Jonathan. Jonathan, a huge part of the show. He's got his hat on. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, you can sign up for Earlsvigilantes.com. And like I said, if you consider yourself somewhat of an auto expert, and you really want to help the consumers in your community and help us sign up. Now, we are going to get to some other topic, and that's the ladies. Ladies, did you have a car shopping experience this week or service?

Anything at all you'd like to share with us? Please do. Give us a call. 877-960-99-60, and the first two new lady-callers, you can get yourself. $50 this morning. $50 for the first two new lady-callers. Our number is 877-960-99-60. We are going to go to Howard, who has...

been patiently holding. Thank you, Howard. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. My question is, actually, it's a first statement. Changing your car battery is pretty hard if you're going to lose your radio. Actually, I mean, I've heard cases where somebody changed the battery and the radio went dead completely. Rick, can you explain that? Well, some stereos have what's called a security code in them. And these are on a lot of the older cars. Newer ones, the radios actually don't even lose memory

on the cars that are now about four or five years old. The systems are a lot more sophisticated. So even if you disconnect the battery for four or five minutes, you've got a window of time that you can get a swapped out and you won't lose any of those memory things. There are devices that you can plug into like the cigarette lighter that will keep the systems powered up just enough to keep that memory going. Or I've even seen a few cowboys out there that will actually start up the engine and while the engine is running, disconnect the battery, pull the old battery out and put the new one in. I don't recommend it because if that positive terminal touches anything metal on the car,

it can short out the entire electrical system. So be aware of that and be very, very careful if you're changing batteries. Sounds to me like you experience these different things depending on who you bring to your car to. You want to go to somebody who knows what they're doing. I can easily see it now. You take it to your mechanic. It doesn't know what he's doing. and you get your memory erased on your radio.

He says, well, that's just what happens when you change the battery. Listen to the wreck, you realize if he knew what he was doing, it wouldn't have happened. So, again, another reason to take it to a qualified technician. And I also recommend be very careful jump-starting a car because if you accidentally get those cables backwards, even for just a split second, it can blow a whole bunch of fuses and cause havoc with your car. So I'll be very, very careful with those.

Okay, my next question is, Japanese cars don't have a hot ignition, which means that you can't plug something in to your 12-volt port, you know, and hook up a battery to it and then change your car battery, because it's not a hot ignition. I know American cars, The 12-volt port is hot, but not a Japanese car.

Is that correct, Rick? It depends on the make, but yeah, for the most part, that's true. My Lexus has a 12-volt-old. But if you turn your key off, that power outlet is dead. Okay. So what he's saying is if you're going to use one of those devices that plugs in the cigarette lighter or the power outlet in order to keep your memory alive,

you've got to have your key turned on at least to the accessory position. Oh, that's what Howard means by hot. Exactly. Oh, okay. Okay. I should explain that. But American cars that the ignition is always

always hot. In other words, I know my son had a Monte Carlo, and he changed his battery, and he plugged in something in the cigarette lighter with a 9-volt battery and so he didn't lose his he told me he was going to lose his radio

this is an old Monte Carlo and he didn't have his radio code so he did that all right so that's what I wanted and one other question I have to ask you how often do you fill the cells and the battery

and how do you check that the cells are okay it depends on the battery because some are maintenance free, but if they do have the little caps that can be removed to fill with water, then any time a car comes in for a routine service, I make sure to top those off. So about every six months, every 5,000 miles, it can't hurt to make sure that the level is proper and add if it needs it. Now, what kind of instrument you use to, a certain instrument you use to fill these battery caps, you push something down and you have like a reservoir

and a little port that you push it down into the cell and it fills up the water. You ever see one of these gadgets? I've seen them, and to me it's just, it's a, I don't know, Ruth Goldberg device. It just seems like they're a little more hassle than they're worth. I just use a simple little water bottle, you know, one of the 20-ounce water bottles, and just go very careful. to fill some water in there. I use an eyedropper. It takes a long time to fill it up, but it works. Get the old-fashioned turkey basture out.

Okay. Thanks, Rick. And thank you, guys. Have a good Saturday. Thanks, Howard. Howard is a regular caller every week. And as you can hear, Rick has a sense of humor. Give us a call tool free at 877-9-60-99-6.

or you can text us at 772-4976530. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. And stop for a moment and sign up for Earl's Vigilantes. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Let's go over to the Cyber Spymaster, Stu Stewart, and see what's going on with the text. And we have another interesting mystery shop, don't we, Sue? We do, indeed.

We have a lot of texts, and we have a lot of anonymous. misfeedback ready to get to. I did want to touch on the mystery shopping report. I just can't get over and I'm going to probably be saying this for the next year. Having a new and now we can call her a veteran mystery shopper just makes life so much easier for me. We can go back and cover ground and that's what we did that we did this week. We're able to go back to a dealership that we were just there six or seven months ago. And with one mystery shopper, that's kind of tough to do. So, I mean, it is not that unusual for a real car shopper to go to dealership and then come back a few months later.

It happens. But obviously, we reveal some of the stuff that happens, you know, on the air and everybody's listening, it kind of, it can blow our cover. So we went back, a fresh, brand-new mystery shopper to Coggin Honda up in Fort Pierce. And, well, we had an interesting experience that I'm not going to reveal now. You'll find out around 9.30. It would be great to be a fly on the wall in car dealerships in Brown, South Florida. and listen to what they, you know, we're here on live radio.

Every car dealer in South Florida knows they could be the target. And there's got to be some interesting conversations. Probably you couldn't play them in the air because they would be also. If they were really, really astute, if they could, like if I was, if I thought, and we might be for all I know, we mystery shop ourselves. And I don't know when our mystery shoppers are coming to see us, so I'm surprised too. But there are little clues that I probably leave around little breadcrums. That might be an indicator, you know.

I'm not going to give it away. But there are, obviously, it's a, there's a little prep that goes in to the investigation before we dispatch the shopper into the field. So there's some little research. So in some cases, there could be phone calls to the dealer. Who knows? But you'll never know. You'll never catch me.

Okay. Let's go to the callers, and we have West Palm Beach calling, and that's John. Good morning, John. Welcome to Errol on cars. Good morning. You can hear me okay? Yes, I can. Okay, great. I was calling, I tried to get in last week, but I got in the radio too late.

But several things. The first one was the young lady who had the problem with the lug nuts. Yes. And, you know, with the swelling and all that, I just want to let the audience know that you can go to AutoZone, or one of the parts places and they do make a socket that fits over the lug nut and the on the inside the scroll is reversed so it's like you can go ahead and put it on there and then you can take off the lug nuts um with with a little effort and it pops them off uh and also that tool that socket

is also for those people who have lost their wheel lock you know the special wheel lock that goes there. If you lose that, don't be afraid because there is a socket that will take those off using an impact wrench. And I'm sure that your dealership, I know mechanics have them in their toolboxes and that, but it also works on lug nuts that have swelled as well. And then, Earl, you did a great job last week on giving us advice how to, with dealer complaints and that? Yes. But I need the other end of it, insurance complaints.

One of the things, I bought a used car, the excellent condition, except where it stated on the car theft, that it was in an accident. Dealing with my insurance company lately, I found out that because the VIN number shows that the car was in the accident, my insurance rate went up. And I told him, I said, I didn't, I wasn't in the action. I bought the car. The dealership fixed the accident, which was like a gouge in the door. You know, it had to be, you know, pulled out and painted.

And they took care of it because I don't know where the cars came from. It came from Austin or what. But the car faxed state that it was in an accident and, you know, and it wasn't severe. You know, no title restoration or anything like that. was just a minor accident. John, who told you that? Was that the agent? How did you find out, or did someone say to you in writing that we've raised your rate

because the car you bought previously was in an accident? Yeah. If that's true, I don't think that's, I don't think that is true. I don't think insurance companies do raise your rate. If you have a car that you bought and had a previous accident, there's no reason why they should raise your rate. I'm surprised that they would tell you that. Do you mind telling us the name of the insurance company? It's progressive, and right now, I thought that we're car shopping.

I'm fortunate enough to be a teacher, and I have a lot of time. You know, and so I do a lot of shopping. You know, I filled out online, you know, save money on insurance. So I get all these costs. Everyone is giving me the same prices, but right now we have the lowest rate that we can get with all the incentives. What it happened was, what it happened was, we understand our, we, oh, boy, we were paying for at least Honda and the genesis, this, we were paying, and plus my son's car, he's the one that has the Celsius that we brought in, the 91 Celsius, we were paying $380 six months, and that was for full coverage on all the

vehicles except for his. As soon as he became a licensed driver, because we understand that the insurance went up because he went from a permitted driver to license, we understand that. But with the Honda, we had a flat tire in a construction zone, and because the car was moving at 15 miles an hour, and we had to blow out and it scraped the side wall, they considered it a moving accident. And I was not an accident with any other cars.

Just that he had to go, you know, get it taken care of it. John, here's my recommendation. You should shop your insurance. I mean, I know you get preferred rates through your teachers' organization, but I would, everybody, this is advice for everybody. If you haven't shopped your insurance rate in the past three or four years, you're paying too much money. The insurance companies will regularly raise your rates as much as they can. I've never heard of them use the excuse that your car was in a previous accident. I think that's BS.

I think that someone misinformed you. And as far as the other, when you have a difficulty with an insurance company, go to another insurance company. If you're with Progressive, go to State Farm, go to Geico, go to Allstate, shop some quality insurance companies. I promise you you will be able to get a lower rate if you shop and compare and do that every three or four years. But as far as complaining about an insurance issue, there's one great place to complain, and that's the floor. And if you're in Florida, which you are, Florida State Insurance Commissioner's office. You go online, I haven't got that address for you right now, but go online, Google, Florida State Insurance Commission. And they have an area there for complaints and comments, the state insurance commissioner.

When they get a letter from the State Insurance Commissioner, Geico Progressive Allstate, it gets their attention. Because just like the Department of Motor Vehicles can put a car dealer out of business, the state insurance commissioner can put an insurance company out of the business. So if you have something serious, that's where to go. But as far as your cost of your insurance, shop, keep on shopping, and you will get the lowest rates, too, has a point. That website is MyFlorida CFO.com. MyFlorida CFO.com.

Got that, John. My Florida, Charlie Frank, Oscar.com. And you can also call 1877-693-5. two, three, six, and that's the complaint line for the Florida Insurance Commission. What is that numbers, too? Well, I'm driving. We'll have the recording will be up on YouTube and Facebook afterwards, but it's 1-800-6-9-3-5-3-26. Thank you.

I was just going to say I'm driving right now, and so I'll just listen to the recording and get the information, but I appreciate it. Thank you. Or you can text us back or call us back. We'll give it to you after the show if you can't get it. it otherwise. I'll go ahead and I'll rewind, listen to the podcast. Thanks for the call, John. I really appreciate it.

I'm sure a lot of people share your frustration with the insurance companies. Please call again. Thank you. Yeah, John. That was a great call. Keep in touch and go ahead and listen to that podcast and you can pick up all the information. Our number is 877-960-99-60, and you can text us. at 772-497-6-530.

Don't forget, ladies, I have $50 for the first two. New lady callers. Now back to Stu. Alan Napier, who a lot of you guys don't know who he is because he hasn't been on the show in many, many months. But he is our collision expert, insurance company expert. He's been listening. He did chime in and say that they can raise rates

based on discovery of a previous accident. Discovery of people with previous accident. A previous accident. And if you have a previous accident on your car, even before you owned it, if it comes to light, that there's a, I guess it could result in a higher expense of repair. Well, yeah, an insurance company can raise your rate if you wear a green shirt. That's true. I mean, they're business people.

They're a business to make a profit. And they have their own, what do you call it, algorithm for deciding how to charge people. There's a lot of controversy because they say people, they charge women more than men, They charge, you know, because you have a certain zip code, they charge you more. The answer is yes, they do. Yeah, the question is whether they do, it's whether they should they. But I think it's an excuse, I mean, to me, common sense says if I did it my fender and I traded that car in and I sold it to Rick. And Rick bought the car, and then Rick's insurance company ran a car factory board and say, oh, Earl did that fender on your car you bought, I'm going to raise your insurance premium.

he would say why and any normal person would say why and a smart person would shop the insurance and go to another insurance company that's right yeah absolutely and ladies and gentlemen boy is it important for you to shop your insurance

rates change faster than you know and to keep yourself covered and not to and not pay too much for your coverage check your insurance it will benefit benefit you. Now back to Stu. Let's get some anonymous feedback. This is a good one. I finally get your point about dealer fees. I used to buy the line from dealers who charge dealer fees that the out-door price is the only thing that matters and that you built in these fees into your price. I think they're talking about you. But now that you explain that adding a dealer fee after the fact to an advertised price is the real sin. It allows a seller to advertise a price a grand lower that you're

and they really intend to sell it. Thank you for explaining this more clearly. It doesn't matter if you have profit built into your price, as long as what you see in an ad is what you get. It allows consumers to shop and compare the American way. Yeah, and what that anonymous feedbackers talking about is we've joked on the show that our competitors, and full transparency, we do have a car dealership,

our competitors will say, oh, that Earl Stewart, he really has a dealer fee, but he hides it inside the price of the car. And that, you know, it sounds good. I mean, you know, yeah, he hides it. Well, the point is profit is something, first of all, dealer fee, our profit. All your profit is supposed to be baked into the cake,

into the selling price of the car. Yeah. Our phone bill, the sales commission, the light bill, you know, the maintenance cost. I mean, all the, anything that a businessman has has to be baked. into the price of his product and then you advertise that price and you sell a product and you make a profit but when you take something that's not baked in and say that's my price

and they sign on the dotted line and then you slip them a thousand dollar extra profit that's where the violation goes Rick it's kind of like going to Publix and you say yeah I want to buy that cake and they say okay the cake is ten dollars by the way if you want the frosting on it it's another $5. Yeah, the public fee. We have a public fee. What it is, is they take advantage. Buying a car is a little bit more complex, you know, than buying a carton of milk.

So there are some legitimate fees. And they go, well, we could camouflage a bunch of bogus fees in there. Because when you're buying a car, you're expecting to pay some sort of DMV fees. It's commonly accepted by the public. But they're not educated in what those are. So if we put a bunch of official sounding fees in there, they'll buy it. And probably 75% of them will pay it. And so that's what they do.

Stay tuned for the mystery shopping report. This mystery shopping report at the end of the show, we have the mother of all hidden fees. I should say plural, definitely, the mother of all hidden fees from a mystery shopper. We have never seen anything like this before. You know, I sit here a weekend and we got,

and I ask myself, why? Why does it continue to be so complicated to purchase a vehicle? Well, ladies and gentlemen, Keep listening to us, and we'll help you through your shopping experience. 877-960-960. Ladies, I'm waiting for you to give me a call. $50 for the first two new lady callers,

and we've had quite a few ladies following up with phone calls for the last three weeks. It's been great, and I do need you to help me build that platform. 877-960, now back to Stu. Speaking of that platform, you want to mention who is listening right now and commenting on her Facebook page? That's right. Tina from Bonita. Oh, Tina. Yay, Tina. We miss you, Tina.

We're chatting online, so I hope she calls. Yeah. Okay, let's go back over to anonymous feedback. Let's see, let's start from the most recent that's just popped in. Before everyone gets to Lovie Dovey with Carvana, read the reviews. There are Carvana horror stories all over the Internet. All they are is slick marketing, beware. That's a good point. Carvana, for those folks who don't know, a lot of people do know because

of the advertising, they went public a while back. And when you go public these days and you sell your stock, you make hundreds of millions of dollars. And these companies go out there and people are aggressively buying stocks these days. Stock markets are an all-time high. And when you have hundreds of millions of dollars because of initial public offering on stock, you can saturate the airwaves and the digital waves with advertising. And they have propelled themselves, bootstrap themselves up to a national name,

and they are very prominently well-known, and they sell a ton of cars, and they're also losing a ton of money. So Carvana is a used car company online. We've shopped them a few times, and we have had. honest success. We haven't seen any shenanigans, but that's not to say they don't exist.

But it is a source of used cars, and they are tapped in on the fact that people will buy cars, used cars. People will buy used cars online. Something 10 years ago nobody would have believed. That's right. Okay, folks, we're going to go to Palm Beach Gardens and talk to Mark.

Good morning, Mark. Good morning, everyone. How are we all doing today? Nice to hear from me. you. Good. Yes, thank you. It's a little chilly out in the patio, but enjoying ever since the sunrise this morning. Oh, thanks. Anyway, I have it to share an interesting service experience this week. 2017, Camry, noticed it's my mother's car, but we use it for transportation. But my daughter drives me around because of my handicap. Yep, but she complained about some grease on the passenger rear wheel opening that grease was getting splattered onto the rear bumper.

And she, because of my situation, I couldn't get under there and look at it. But anyway, she took some on a paper towel of this greasy. It was on the back bumper. and it appeared as though that maybe a suspension boot that was packed with grease may have been cut or something like that. So it's a type of thing where you obviously don't want to drive on it like that, and you want to take it in, which we did, and talk to the Alexandra in the service. And so anyway, I asked her to please put it up and take a look at it, find out what's wrong with it,

and give me a call so I'd know what kind of damage is. I'm looking at financially meaning. So anyway, after a while, she called me and she said, you wouldn't believe this, that somehow you picked up a piece of citrus. It actually was a grapefruit that had come up off the road somewhere and lodged into the rear suspension. And the driving caused this fruit to, you know, for juice to come out of it, was getting mixed up with road debris, and that's what was flinging all this, which actually

did, I didn't touch it, but it looked like bearing grease, and I was so surprised, and I talked to myself, we ended up getting a set of tires and doing alignment, so it cost me anyway, but anyway, that's the good things when you go in for service. It didn't smell like grapefruit? No, no, no, no. vitamin C will actually give you a better fuel economy. I should have gotten a spoon. I should have gotten a spoon to get some slices out of there.

But after the fact I thought to myself, you know, this would be a good story to share with listeners. Because what about a situation you go into a dealer for service that might not be on the up and up? They very well could have said that something was wrong with the suspension. And this would need to be done. That would need to be done. And let's say a service rate of $180 per hour, well, we need to do this,

I could walk away with a $600 or $700 bill. And not knowing for sure, again, because being in a wheelchair, I can't be able to get under there. It would have been prudent if that were the case to ask for, you know, the old parts or some type of evidence. But that's a situation that if you're dealing with the wrong service department or the wrong mechanic, a person could get hung for some money and they could just do a little bit of maintenance on it and, you know, you could be ripped off. So therefore, the thought is transparency and truce in service, which is a hard thing to find these days.

So service people beware, always, you know, check with the qualified mechanic to have it looked at. Well, thank you, Mark. Thankfully, our service experience was exceptional, and that's the reason why we come back. So I didn't mean that to be an advertisement for Earl Sewer Toyota, but just to call in and give something that, It was kind of funny, but it would have turned out to be a lot. My, thanks for that call very much. You know, we concentrate too much on sales, not enough on service, and there's far more shenanigans going on with service than sales.

We really should focus more. So thanks very much. That was an excellent point. And please call again. We'll see it sunrise. Sounds great. You guys have a wonderful weekend. The same to you, Mark.

Thank you for calling. Oh, by the way. Hi, Alan Napier. I hear you listening. Have a good day now. Absolutely. Bye, bye, now. Everyone loves Alan.

He's 7-7. Bye-bye. 877-960. And you can text us at 772-497-6530. And Mark was saying that he didn't mean for this to turn into an infomercial or whatever. You know, Mark, the luxury of this show, freedom of speech, you give us a call and you state. your facts, what you want to share with us, and we appreciate it, and we give it some attention. Ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers, how was your service this week?

There are a lot of ladies going through service drive more than you know. Now back to Stu. All right, let's jump over to some texts. This is interesting. What kind of education slash work experience is best for someone thinking about getting into car sales? sales. What kind of income can one expect? Then there's a follow-up question. How can I know if the dealership I apply to is honest and won't make me compromise my standards of morality? And that's from Ali in St. Louis, Missouri. Well, the experience isn't as important as the ability. If you had, if you could, then you want to be in sales and a car dealership, you should be a good salesperson. You should be able to sell insurance. You should be able to sell lingerie. You should be able to sell real estate. If you have that ability to be likable to people and to communicate well, if you have good communication skills and you're likable, you could have a great career in the auto-monthly business.

The average salesperson, Stu knows better than I. I'd shoot a number out there probably to make you around 50,000. That's about right, yeah. And a really good salesperson can make a quarter million. and I would say no salesperson that keeps his job would be making less than 20 or 25,000. So it pays fairly well, and there's opportunity for advancement. As far as finding out an honest dealership, look at it the way you would if you're buying a car. You can go to Google, you can go to dealer tracker.

That's the one that's a specialty tracker for car dealerships. You could go to Yelp. Word of mouth is fantastic. Talk to people that have dealt with that dealership. And maybe you work there. Maybe you deal with that dealership yourself. If you have, honesty is something that is kind of a word of mouth thing. But yeah, you want to find an honest dealer.

I'd rather, my father had an old expression. He'd rather be in hell with his back broke. I'd rather be in hell with my back broke. and I'm using the grammatical incorrect saying just because it sounds better than work in a car dealership that was dishonest. You go in there as a reason to turnover is so high in car dealerships

because good people don't want to do dishonest things and you go there and they make you do things that you don't want to do. They run an advertisement for a price that they will not sell the car for and they make you a party to the crime. Yeah, you're the front line. You're the guy that bears the brunt of their anger.

Yeah, they're hiding somewhere on their yacht or in their airplane or on their ski lodge. Most dealers are not anywhere near the dealership, and you're on the front lines. You're marching out there, and you take all the abuse and anger for people that have been deceived. So find an honest dealer, and you can find yourself a good career, and you can make a lot of money. And another great resource, and this is for any field that you want to get into, is go to glassdoor.com, and that's a like a job site where you can find a job but it also is an excellent review site and they have reviews of companies made by their employees and of course you're going to get some disgruntled employees that might put a review on there but companies that have a lot of reviews

you can be a little bit more confident in the overall sentiment of their of their staff and if they treat their employees really well it's more likely they treat the customers well is more likely that they run an ethical business so always read the review and you can find those on glassdoor.com. Yeah, write that down. Right information. Anybody looking for a job anywhere. I've never heard of that.

I think Stu told me about it the first time I heard about it. Glassdoor, you know, just like a Glassdoor.com. And whether you want to be an electrician, and whether you want to be a scientist, whatever company you want to work for, find the company on Glassdoor.com. Big of the company, the more of the reviews, the more of the reviews, the more honest the reviews,

reviews and find out what the people that work there think about the company. If there's one review that says there are a bunch of crooks, maybe take that with a grain of salt. But if there's 300 reviews and that's the sentiment, don't even apply. Absolutely. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We are going to go to a first-time female caller, and she is. I believe she's from LaBelle. And it's Mary. Maybe she knows Dawn.

Good morning. Good morning, Mary. Good morning. Welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much. I'm calling with an insurance question. I have a Honda CRV, 2011, with 101,000 miles on it. Wednesday, I was involved.

in an accident and I want to know how I can guarantee that my insurance company which is USAA will accept or will provide genuine Honda parts well you're gonna I would ask them I they probably will if it there if they're crash parts if they're not I would really raise a stink but you do have a challenge there because many insurance companies try to do the repair for less money and one of my crusades

and when Alan Napier was active on this show we used to talk a whole lot more about the fact that insurance companies often try to put what we call aftermarket parts on cars and you can bend with that as long as not something in affecting the safety of the car. But a bumper, a fender, a hood,

these are things that absorb energy in the crash. And these are safety tested for OEM, meaning original equipment manufacturer. So if you have a Honda, when Honda builds a hood, the federal government says that hood must pass the United States crash test. If you buy an aftermarket fender or hood from maybe built and made in Taiwan or some other place and they are not safety tested, they're still legal to sell. The insurance companies will tell you, well, they're certified. You know, these are quality fenders.

They like to bandy about the term quality. Well, they might be quality. They might be shiny and they might really fit well and they might love them to look at them. but they've never been crash tested. Ask your insurance company, progressive. I'm sorry, it was USAA. Ask USAA, is this fender, if it's a crash part, whatever you have to have done.

Has it been, is it an original equipment? And they say no, it's, you know, but it's certified. Say it's been, has it been safety tested in a crash? And if they say no, which they will, then you demand it. And then you have to go to bat and call somebody, maybe an attorney, but I'm a strong advocate that any crash part

should be an original equipment manufacturer part, and you should make a lot of noise with your insurance company about it. Well, this involves the bumper, so I appreciate that good advice. So I want to make sure that it's been safety crash testing. If it's a crash part, meaning if it's, if it's, if think about a head-on collision as easy as to think about, if you, if you have something hit the front of the car, the fenders, the hood, and the bumper are parts that need to compress so that you're not hurt inside the cabin of the car. And that compression has to be measured, and it has to be just right.

It can't be too slow. It can't be too fast. and that's the key thing about safety testing. They have to be on the crash parts. Now, if they're going to put a side view mirror on your car and it wasn't manufactured by Honda, that's not such a big deal. The side view mirror is not a crash part. Okay, but a bumper would be.

Yes. Okay. Well, I appreciate your advice very much, And I'm just in the early stages of dealing with the insurance adjuster. And so I'll parrot your language there. And mention also that I've consulted with Earl Stewart. And perhaps that will carry some weight. I still had a point, Mary.

Yeah, for follow-up information or any additional assistance, Mary, if you go to Earlsvigilandies.com, We list our vigilantes, and in Florida, there's one named Mark, and he happens to be an insurance and collision specialist, and he has texted us saying he's willing to give you any information that you need, and just go to Earlsvigilantes.com, click on Find a Vigilante, and you'll see Mark's email address right there under Florida. Excellent. I am writing that down as we speak. Perfect. Well, thank you, Mary. This is what it's for. Mary, I can't thank you enough for calling, and please stay in touch with us, and if any one of us can answer any of your questions, feel free to give us a call. I appreciate that very much because this is my first time dealing with an insurance company on a crash that was not.

It can be pretty tough, let me tell you, and I'm sure that you know you sound like an educated consumer. Mary, thanks for being a first-tone caller. You won yourself $50, and I hope to hear from you again. That goes to your deductible. I'm so happy. I'm holding up my vigilante at. That's the first, most direct, obvious use of Earl's vigilantes. And we're establishing vigilantes.

These are volunteers that will help us. In this case here, it's an insurance agent, and we had an insurance question. So anybody around the country anywhere that would like to get a free hat and also help out other people that have difficulty with insurance companies, with car dealers, with service departments, anything related to the automobile, and you have some sort of expertise, or maybe you just want to report something that's going bad to us and we can take action. But if there's any reason you'd like to be a vigilante, we'll sign you up.

We'll put you on the website, earlsvigilantes.com. It's also on Earl. on cars.com if you furnish this with your picture we'll put that up there. If you don't want the picture, that's okay, but we'll put your contact information. So anyone that is Earl and Cars follower

will have a vigilante, hopefully, in their geographic area. Okay, Rick, do we have anything from you two? Actually, we got a really interesting one here. Negative 1 says, Earl and Rick,

I own a 79, 1979, 10th anniversary Transam. Wow. True, classic car here. Wow. The 400, 4 speed with 56,000 miles. Oh, man. It's been in storage for four years. I'm having a hard time finding the correct battery locally.

Is there another size that would fit in the space correctly? Even Google comes up with different answers. And I said, I'm having a harder and harder time finding parts for older cars without ordering online. Yeah, this is going to be a really difficult thing for the older cars. My number one source for this that I would go to is a company called Year 1. It's year, just like the year, O-N-E-1. And they are probably the best source for classic and muscle car, for the American

muscle cars that's the place for any parts now for the correct battery for your Pontiac probably the best thing you can do is just find what the dimensions are that you need measure the battery actually with the tape measure and go online and look and just about any place that you find a battery listed for local places they will tell you the the specs the measurements of the battery that should give you a chance to be able to match one up for its cold cranking rating, and the size of the battery so you can get the right size to fit in there. Yeah, year 1.com.

But year 1 is one of the best places I've ever seen. Unfortunately, for finding parts for one like that, you're going to be stuck with going online to order parts because they're just not available locally. The only other place I can think of that might be able to help you out, and I mentioned this place several times, just because I see their lot is always full of some really cool classic cars and it's Palm Beach prestige autos over on Dixie Highway just north of the Good Samaritan Hospital. And believe it, I know nothing about the business, but every time I drive past that place, I drool seeing the cars they have out. They just have some of the most incredible classic cars and tons of them. And you can't tell me that a business that has that many cars waiting to be worked on isn't doing something right.

Okay, thank you, Rick. That's great. Okay. Okay, we're going to go to Bob, who's been holding, and he's calling from Lake Worth. Good morning, Bob. Good morning. How are you? Doing good. Okay.

Yeah, what my question is, is last year, whenever the pandemic hit in March, we wanted to get, get back to New York quick. So rather than take the car back, we flew back and left the car here. And so now what the problem is, is that my registration is running out, but I can't re-register it until I can get a New York emissions inspection. So my question is, is there any place around that does that type of work? We have to ask the Department of Motor Vehicles, Florida, my guess is, yes, there is a way to do it because you fit into a group of people in the hundreds of thousands of people that have cars down here from New York and other northeastern states that are, you know, we call them snowbirds. So it's got to be a common problem. Be honest with you, I don't know the exact answer, and the Department of Motor Vehicles is closed on the weekend.

So I would call the local Department of Motor Vehicles and ask that question for the Department of Motor Vehicles. And we could certainly research that and get back to you. But, Stu, do you have an answer to that? I don't. That's the same thing I would have said. You might be able to find information online, but you could speak to a live person on Monday morning.

Yeah, any government bureaucracy is difficult to communicate with. If you have a problem and you can't get through, because we're an automobile dealership and we communicate with the DMV all the time, we have people there that we know. Real people, you know, that you call, you can actually talk to and not have to do the push one for this. So if you only get stumped, just shoot us a text or give us a call after the show or any time. and we'll have our title clerk and our dealership call the DMV and get that answer for you. Okay, well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Bob.

You're welcome, Bob. Stay in tune and listen to our show every Saturday morning. I think we're going to go to Stu. Sure. Sure, we got our Nesto is a longtime listener from in Gainesville, Florida. And he just sent an interesting article from Motor Trend. He said that Dodge sold only four. new Dodge Vipers in all of 2020.

You're kidding. Nope. You know, it's a, you know, high performance, like, muscle car, but not high volume. I mean, you could have won a lot of money on that, I would have bet. If I just asked you how many they sold, he would have said 2,400. Yeah.

Yeah. You would sell, it would have been a low number, but it would have been in the thousands. Wow. We sold more Supras last year than they did. We sold five in a whole year to put that in perspective that's like about a thousand Camry's. Yeah, Bob, I hate to say this, but I don't believe that. It's

a motor train. I looked at it right here. Is that right? No, here's a deal. They stopped production three years ago, so these are what's left, so that's the caveat. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Interesting nonetheless. Definitely.

We're going to go to Jupiter, where Rob is holding. Good morning, Rob. Whoops, Rob's gone. Okay, Rob, give us a call back if you can, and we'll go back to Stu. Okay. here's a text says Jay Leno on his show

Jay Leno is no longer on the tonight show he has a car show. Yeah, I love it. What's it by the way? Jay's Garage or something like that. Earl and I watched it. Jay Leno on his show says that ceramic coatings are better than wax to protect your car's paint

is this true? Now we've talked about Caranoble wax as being the best thing for your car on the show. So I did text Alan to find out if that's true. He says yes but at a much greater cost and it's not something that for somebody who trades their car in

every three to five years that you'd want to do that wax is perfectly sufficient but if you're a collector like Jay or if you're a rich guy and expense there's no object then you do the ceramic and it is better and it looks better and it costs a fortune

we're going to go back to the phones that is a crazy show though we're going to go to Palm Beach where we're going to go to Palm Beach where we have Dave the dog walker good morning Dave good morning guys there I'm coming out a new blue tooth is this sound all right or do I need to get out of blue teeth not coming through very clear

all right let me get on let me get on the speaker and I'm really sorry about that okay say hello It's about the same. It might be a little worse. Yeah, I don't think it's any better. On these older corners, particularly when you're trying to stay original, normally the size of the battery is important to fit in the tray, but also the position of a terminal.

Sometimes they're on the wrong ends, sometimes when you're, you put a battery in on the wrong side, not the wrong end. I used to go to the wing in. Yeah, we're on the wrong side of the battery as well. Sometimes you're rigging tables. I went into this a number of times and then ended up having to use the cable of those limits. And you don't really want to have to do that with an older car

because negative tables oftentimes sneak down somewhere towards the frame for the ground and it's just another thing to look out for with the battery on an older part. Well, thank you, Dave. That's a very good point. I didn't know any of that.

So what do you do? You have to be careful about a lot of things, not just size, but position and the terminal location. Very interesting. Well, if you were to picture the battery sitting in front of you, and the positive terminal was in the upper left corner, the farthest corner away from you on the left side, that's generally what they call an F-type battery. And if the positive terminal is on the other side over on the right-hand corner far away from you, that's an O series. So if you're looking at the number of the battery, and it'll say something like a 24F or a 24-O,

that helps you determine where that positive terminal is on the battery. You realize you and Dave are boring, 99% of our audience right now? I mean, who cares? I'm only kidding, Dave. Your point, you called, and the question was asked, and you gave us some valuable information. I'm just saying that most people don't change their own batteries these days, and I don't.

Nancy does, of course, but she's a grease monkey. I'm sorry, but... Yeah, my wife, my wife still still. fixes her own cars. Well, anyway, congratulations. You're a knowledgeable guy, Dave. Thank you very much for the call. How's the doggy doing?

Can I ask another question? Please. Okay, last week you talked an awful lot about five or six different times about oil changes. And we had a franchise, a narco franchise in California back in the 80s. And one of the motor oil today, had what was their top line supreme motor oil was a 1040 weight graphite um do they are you aware is that type of oil still available a graphite oil oh yeah it was horrible it's stained everything and but it had some really good properties to it for instance we

noticed over the year uh in our older cars because we were we were we were were driving souped up, like 64, two-door impolas, cars like that, the valve guides, or the seals and the valve guides would be worn, and this green light actually seemed to fill the seals a bit, and the cars stopped using oil and smoking over a period of a couple of years using that oil. But it was horrible. Yeah, I looked it up. It's called cracks. Okay It's an additive oil Yeah, it's still out there on Amazon right now

I don't know if it's something we'd want to endorse No, I said... No, I wouldn't either Actually, because it is really messy and if you get any kind of a leak It's going to permanently stay in your driveway But it did have It did have some properties we really liked

And we used it in the older engines And it was even before There was much popularity of the synthetic oils but it ranked right up there with the old Union 76 Triton motor all. It was great stuff, but God, it was messy. Okay.

Well, Dave, your dog is saying, let's go. Come on. Hey, Dave, thanks for calling and tell your wife. I said hello. We share the same profession, and if you need anything done on your car, just give her a holler. I will, guys.

Thanks again for doing the show every week. I really enjoy it. Okay, I think we're going to go to Stu. Sure. Another tax, speaking of dogs. Folks, remember, if you're using a pet restraint system in your car for your dog, please use a shock-absorbing leash. There are numerous choices with great reviews on Amazon.

And I think I saw something about that recently. That makes a whole lot of sense because I think when you put your dog in a pet restraint thing, they're still attached to their leash. You don't want them a choke if you get into an accident. Do they make crash helmets for doggies? No, but you could probably work on like a child-sized bike helmet, I'm guessing. I don't know, depending on your dog. There's an opportunity for an entrepreneur, crash helmets for doggies.

Yeah, try to get, try and put the helmet on your dog. I'm picturing me trying to squeeze a helmet on Oreo. I want you to bring Oreo in because I want this on Facebook. You'll just see all the bandages on me as she destroyed me as I try to do that. All right. We have a text here. All these commercials for CarShield are driving me crazy. This is nothing more than an extended warranty. The way they have these celebrities pitching this like it's some brand new miracle product is sickening.

They don't mention you'll be paying a fat premium to get some level of probably questionable coverage. They use fear to sell insurance policies. Ice-T said when your check engine light comes on, it's game over. Shame. Yeah, I'm getting those in the mail all the time. It's a rip-off. It should be stopped. Lying, deception.

They use the Department of Motor Vehicles database, and they shotgun millions and millions of these things out. They call you, they email you, they snail mail you, and extended warranties, forget about them. If you get solicited for extended warranty, throw it in the trash can. They're worthless. They're overpress. it's a scam. Yeah, especially

the tactics they use it with the direct mail because the omelip will say warning, and it looks like it's coming from the Department of Motor Vehicles. They're good. They're doing what they do. Your warranty is expired. People get these weeks after they buy a new car. Occasionally we get calls a lot of times from older customers

who get it in the mail, you know, and they're raising hell because how could you sell me a car without a warranty? And then we have to slow down and explain it to solicitation. Yep. So throw it in the recycling bin. Okay. Over to anonymous feedback. I like this one. The greatest high-tech feature in cars now is the latest backup cameras. The guidelines allow you to maneuver your vehicle just like playing a video

game. Love them. I cannot imagine going back to a time when I was forced to crane my neck and rely on a rearview mirror. And I fully subscribe to this sentiment. It's the greatest in the world. I totally rely on those, by the way. It's probably crazy. But, you know, I got to have a feeling I'm not doing the right thing. I never turn around, look behind me. I rarely look in the side view of mirrors except to see the indicator lights. And I'm actually flying instruments.

I get into my car, and I'm on instruments. And that's really the way it's going to be because the car will be on instruments when it's autonomous. So here we are. It's a nice transition. We're getting used to these things. We don't even realize that these things

will be applied when it's fully autonomous. I'm telling you, I know what they're talking about. So for years, we've had backup cameras and you have the guidelines, which warns you when your bumper is going to hit something. The newer ones actually show you where your car is going to go. So you can look at these curving lines. You're like, if I continue on this path, I'm going to wind up here. And it is like a video game.

And if you're good at video games like me, you're an even better driver. If you even stop the car to where you're not moving at all, and turn the steering wheel back and forth, you can watch those lines move. Yeah, that's great. In relation to tell you where you're having. So ladies and gentlemen, I'll tell you what. There's a whole lot going on in the interior of a car. And you can just look at the person driving beside you, in front of you, behind you.

You can do everything, but let's see, eat, well, you can eat dinner in your car. Anyway, please drive safe and concentrate on the road. We're going to go to Mimi from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Mimi. Good morning, Nancy. Thank you for taking the call. I have a 2004 old mercury I called you about before, and a 2008 caravan. The mercury has to go in the shop and get fixed because it doesn't run.

I haven't had it towed over yet. I mean, it runs. The engine goes, but it doesn't run. What I wanted to know about the oil changes, I've been listening to the show and other people. Right now I've been switched to synthetic. blend for the mercury. And I wondered, should I stay at that? I mean, when I get it fixed, I want to give it to our daughter. Now, is it better to go with the blend and you don't have to change the oil for 10,000 miles? I think Rick can answer that question.

Well, I'll try. And Rick, tell me if I'm right, do whichever is less expensive. If you can change your oil once a year with a synthetic, and that costs you less than changing it twice a year with the fossil, then go with the synthetic or vice versa. So it's a cost decision. You've got an old car, a 2004 mercury. You don't want to spend more on oil than you have to. Go with a manufacturer's recommendation, which is probably fossil fuel on a 2004 mercury. It is.

So it's not dangerous to switch back. No. Okay. Oh, well, that's good to know. Thank you. What about the 2008 Dodge Caravan? I can afford to get the synthetic blend and change it every 10,000 miles, if that's... Go with the fossil fuel, the regular oil.

The cheapest oil you can buy that is recommended by the manufacturer, Chrysler recommends a particular type of oil, buy it for the least amount you can buy it for, and use it according to their recommendation. Okay, so I should... I don't have the manual. They didn't sell it to us with the manual. It's probably six months.

every six months or every 5,000 miles or 6,000 miles. With the WD 41, the basic? I don't know, Rick. A 2008 is probably going to be a 10W30 motor oil. But the easiest way to find that is go right online and Google it. I guarantee that owner's manual is online somewhere. Very easy to find. Okay.

I'm not real techie, so what would I put in? 2008 Caravan Owners Manual. Really? Google 2008 Owners Manual and then find the oil part in. Or maybe call the Chrysler G. Dodge Dealer and get the service department and find somebody there and ask the question, and they'll give you the answer. They probably get a lot of calls on those things,

because most people lose their owners manuals. I do. okay and then i'll just do what it says well thank you very much have a wonderful day keep roasty toasty bye thank you thank you for tuning in uh stew what do we have we have texts we have anonymous we'll go over to anne marie who just sent in a oh hi am mary excellent questions yeah uh good morning i was pumping gas at a Costco 800 miles from home when the gentleman behind me told me that he noticed my rear left brake light light was out and I might want to get that fixed before I got stopped and ticketed. I thanked

them because I wouldn't have known if he hadn't said anything. A solitary person can check to see if their headlights and turn signals are out, but one can't step on the brakes and jump out to see if the brake lights are working. Yes, you can. You can? Well, let's finish with a other thing. You can explain what the solution if it happens again. You can back up to a wall and flash them. It's been a while since I bought a new vehicle, so I'm not up on the latest features, do the new vehicles have sensors that would let one know if brake lights are out? It would also be nice if one could just check their screen on the dash for a notice from the tire sensors indicating that what tire pressure is on each tire. Since tires are getting more

automated, it would be nice, but they could tell us what needs attending to, whether it's a brake light or low tire pressure, or do all new vehicles already have this technology? Thanks. I do know that some of them will tell you the actual tire pressure in which in the particular tire, And I don't know if all of them do, but that is definitely something that's coming. I'll let record address the brake lights, but I think that would be a great idea for a full comprehensive dashboard that tells you what's working and what's not working. Well, back in the early 90s, Camry's used to have a sensor that could tell you if a taillight or brake light was out and lighted a little died on the dash. I don't know why the manufacturers, engineers, haven't picked up on that and said, hey, it would be so simple to do that. and be able to tell you when a light is out on your car

and show you which one. They found out that the cops tell people so they don't need to do that. Believe it or not, the cops nowadays won't even care. They're not looking for lights out or headlights out of it. If you see the number of cars I see on the highway with brake lights out or headlights out.

I have a question. Are the brake lights now predominantly LEDs now? Is everything LED? Oh, most of them, yeah. It might be because they just don't burn out. I mean, obviously they can malfunction, but they don't go out nearly at the rate in condensable. But the simple method is, if you happen to be parking at a shopping center or something, somewhere like where you park up to the building, back into the spot, if you've got a glass wall behind you, a glass front behind you,

and when you stop, look in your rear view mirror and you can see not only your brake lights, but also your reverse lights to make sure both of them are working. There you go. All right. Well, we got a question for you, Rick, while you're on a roll. It's from Mark. Says, question for Rick, is it true that once you use synthetic oil, that you must stay with synthetic? I was told that by a service writer. Is that true or false? Old Wives tale. There you go. Smoke and mirrors. No, if you're changing your oil, if you decide to switch to synthetic for a year or two and switch back, it's not going to cause an issue. as long as you're using the proper weight of motor oil. And I always recommend, especially on the older cars,

check your oil once in a while to make sure you're not burning oil on those older cars. Very good. You got any messages over there? We actually have one text that came in. Let me get this up here. Come on. Come on. New phone.

It's teaching me how to work it. Honestly. Okay. Customers asking 2012 Mazda 3I with a four-cylinder Sky Active engine. They say the motor idles a bit low sometimes and when the AC compressor goes on it tends to kick on and off. They've cleaned the throttle body and the mass airflow sensor, but the idle is still a little bit low. The throttle body on that one is going to be an electric motor activated and controlled by the computer. So if it's not a computer issue, it may be that that motor inside the throttle body is starting to get a little bit tired.

You may want to have that checked out by a mechanic, but you're probably going to be looking at a new throttle body. Okay. We have a text from Colin who is weighing in on another way to check your brake lights. I'll just read this one. Good morning all. I just heard you mention a text about checking your brake lights by yourself. yourself. In the past, I've used to leave a two and a half or five-pound weight on the brake while I quickly ran around and checked. I hope that helps someone. I guess you could do that. Just make sure it doesn't fall over onto the accelerator. Well, just keep the ignition off. Oh yeah, that's right. It doesn't have the car. Even while your key is off, your brake lights will still turn on when you step on the brake. There you go. And then Anne-Marie follows

up, says, thank you, Rick. I never thought of backing and parking from a store with glass windows to check my lights. Simple and brilliant. Thanks. and Rick is nothing if not simple and brilliant Simple for sure You know I didn't mean it no way I'm sorry about that Rick is not simple that's a complex man Let me mention real quick ladies

I have $50 in my hands I have $50 for the next new female caller $50 give us a call 877 960 9960 And if you didn't pick up your consumer reports for January, wow, do so. There's a lot of information in there.

And you know, what really stands out, I was looking at reliability predictions, Earl, and I was noticing the subcompact SUVs, and the Jeep Renegade, the Jeep Renegade comes up with a 19 score. Let me straighten it out for you. Scores are based on a skis. scale of zero to 100.

A score of 41 to 60 is considered average. Yeah, but it literally looks cool. I mean, that's the reason people buy jeeps because they're really... I'm tempted to buy a Jeep because they're so cool, and the fact that they're totally unreliable,

and they have high resale value. You've got to tell it like it is. That's right. I mean, there are a lot of good things about a Jeep. Maintenance and reliability and safety are not some of those things. but looks, resale value, you know, Jeep is the only thing that's keeping Fiat Chrysler Corporation above water. Let's turn into a cult.

You're talking about a pair of Pujo. People don't appreciate this, but I was a Pujo dealer one time. I sold 12 cars one month and I won a trip to Paris. I mean, that's how, that's a volume, Pujo dealer. I'm serious. I sent Janet. I remember when you went. Yeah, and then Fiat, you know, fixing it, and Tony, I hate to say that,

but it's one of the worst cars ever built, and the Pujo, my opinion, was one of the worst cars ever built. They're all merged, now with Chrysler, and the only thing keeping the Chrysler Corporation afloat is the Jeep, and the Jeep is the most unreliable vehicle on the planet. Aren't those Pujo's, diesels? Weren't they diesels, the Pugos? they had diesels, yes. I remember, I think you took a beige diesel pugia home, and I think I threw up

when I saw it. It was that bad. Okay, folks, Earl mentioned that he just might pick himself up one of those babies. Okay, here's a visual for you. Earl, in his cheap renegade, he's got his Earl's vigilante's black hat on,

and he's, well, he's got his foot to the pedal. Give us a vote. What do you think? Will he look good in a Jeep? I don't see him in a renegade. I see him in a wrangler. Yeah, a wrangler, when I say look, the wrangler,

the Jeep renegade doesn't look down here. Oh, you think the... The big wheels, that new evil eye look on the front of it. There you go. I like it. You know them. I'll never get one, but I like it. And how do I get into that, baby?

They're sexy. We're going to go to John in Palm City. Hi, John. We're having a good time here. Great. Good morning to everyone. Good morning. To the person that called in about to Pontiac have several sources.

Rick was pretty good on the one he gave. But the big one for parts is original parts group. Everything they want for that Pontiac collectible. They can be online. They can get a free catalog. OpGI.com, 800, 243, 8,000. and a manufacturer of that battery that he wants to make it for many odd sizes. This is the company directly, make it for odd-sized boats and collectibles.

It's a company called Delka, D-E-L-K-A. They're in Pennsylvania. They're in Lion Station, Pennsylvania, 610, 682, 6361, the exact size for that Pontiac. And the good source, as I say, is this original parts group. I just wanted to get that in today before the shopping report. Thank you, John. That's fantastic. I hope this guy is listening, because you are really a great source of information. I started to say something about John from Palm City,

knows all that kind of stuff, but that's really cool. I know that no matter what type of car you own, somewhere there's somebody that's selling those parts. One of the reasons I know, because I restored a 1937 Bonniac, It took two years, and it cost me a fortune. But it's all original. And imagine shopping around for this part and that part for a 1937 car. And we found them all. I didn't.

The guy that restored it did. But that's really cool. Thanks very much. Original parts is OPGI, like Oprah. OpGI.com. That com, right. Fantastic. Pontiac, anything he needs for that car.

And it's a big outfit. And Delca, D-E-L-K-A-K-A company. They're in Pennsylvania, 6-10, 6-8-2, 6-3-6-1. Fantastic. Thank you, John. I really appreciate that. I'm only too happy to help. And by the way, that 37 Pontiac was a fabulous restoration.

I happened to know the shop that did it. Yeah. They moved the other part of Florida, but fantastic work. The harbor up in Northern Florida. Yes, Harbor Restoration. They're in Rockland, Georgia. Florida now. Yeah, yeah. They make a lot of money, John. Yeah, but they do

top work, and you owe the old saying you get what you pay for. They're artists. They truly are, and they don't rush, and when they do it, it's perfect, so you're right. And when their finished product is done, when the car sells on the market later on at auction, the fact that they restored it adds extra value to the automobile. Good point. Good point. Thank you, John. Thanks for joining us. I'm looking forward to the shopping report. Very good.

you. We really look forward to hearing from John every week. 877, 960, 9960. I see about the clock. You could squeeze one or two phone calls in. So take advantage of that, especially the one female new caller out there. I have $50 for you. I think we're going to go back to Stu. I don't see a sign down there with Rick. Okay. Let's see. Hello. This is, by the way, anonymous feedback here. Hello, my local Toyota dealership said they don't service Lexus and only service Toyota. Any reason a Toyota dealership won't service a Lexus, especially since Toyota owns Lexus? I understand not being able to do warranty work on Alexis. Thank you.

It makes no sense. I think you've got some bad information. I think if you call back that Toyota dealership and ask for the service department, he would say, who the hell told you that? And he's probably going to, you know, admonish somebody. Yeah, Toyotas and Lexuses are just about to. the same thing. Lexus costs a lot more money and it's got a lot more bells and whistles but any good qualified Toyota technician can work on Lexus except as the caller said or the texture said for warranty work. That's because Lexus won't reimburse a Toyota dealer for warranty work on Alexis. So you have to take it to Lexus for warranty work. If you

have a Toyota, or you have a Honda, go to an accurate dealer. If you have a Toyota, go to an Toyota, go to a Lexus dealer. If you have an infinity, go to a Nissan dealer. If you have a Chevrolet, go to a Chevrolete, go to a Chevrolete dealer. Take it to the low-price spread brand, and they will charge you half of what the electric car dealer charges you. Lexus dealers charge a fortune. Toilers sometimes charge a fortune, too, but it's about half the fortune that the Lexus dealer charges. So take it to the low-price spread, save a ton of money. That's right. And this might be a follow-up question that's related. It says, Rick, are you able to be a certified Lexus mechanic, dual certified?

Nope. Well, he could be. He's qualified to be, but Lexus would not give him the certificate. They jealously protect their brand, and they try to treat themselves like they're a separate company, but they're not. They're Toyota. The reason they like to do that, same reason Cadillac and Infinity and actually. do that, it's a brand thing. It's a prestige thing. When you go to the country club, you'd like to say to the Parker, I have the black Lexus. You don't want to say you're driving a Toyota when you're at the country club. So the people that out there that want to buy a luxury brand, they're proud of it. They don't want to say that Lexus is really a Toyota or that

Cadillac is really a Chavillade. But under the skin, that's what they are. Excuse me. Okay, folks. Prima donnas, I think. We're going to go to Boynton Beach where we, Paul, holding. Good morning, Paul. Yes, good morning, guys. Happy New Year to the radio family. Thank you.

Thank you. I have a 99 Toyota. I've called in before about the car. Up until about a week ago, it was performing perfectly. And then I put in a gas line. additive that i've been using regularly probably for forty years it was like a dry gas product because of the water that sometimes comes from the gas

stations and uh... now i can't get the vehicle to start in the morning and the day after i had a quarter of a tank of gas when i put the additive in fully intending to go fill the car up and uh... next day I tried to start the car, and all I could smell was ether, and the car wasn't starting.

Then eventually it did start, and now I have what could be best described as like pedal fade. As soon as I put my foot down on the gas to accelerate, nothing happened. I have to basically start pumping the pedal, and I can't get the car to go above 40 miles an hour. and quite frankly I'm afraid to drive it I want to get stuck somewhere this could be a very bad thing or you might be able to get away with just a simple

shade tree fix here's what I would do you have another vehicle that you can get around with a little bit oh yeah we have a second car yeah I would get a couple of gas cans of fuel fresh fuel take your car put it in the driveway, start it and just let it run. You say it's only got about a quarter

tank. Just let it run until it runs empty. Let me digress because I did go buy a gas can and I went to a gas station and I got five gallons of gasoline. And that allowed me to start the car and get it semi on the road, but it still is not performing the way the car did it was a flawless performance for that car up until a week ago have you been using this product before and i still have the the pedal fade problem where if i try to accelerate it does nothing happen and it and it does backfire sometimes have you used this product in this car before oh yeah like i said it's it's like a go-to thing for uh you You know, I lived when we lived up north, something we would put in every winter.

And it was, I got it, I, it's an off-the-shelf product. Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's something that's made by a company called heat, and it's in a yellow, you know, plastic container. And it's probably, if I, if you saw it, you probably realize you might have used it yourself. Paul, this is a long shot. I'm just thinking, you know, even additives, reliable activities, you might have got a bad can, I mean, or a bad bottle. I would go online.

I try to contact the company, which might be difficult, but I try to find, just like you would if you had a problem with the car, if you have a problem with this product, go online, and Google it, and you might have a chat room, or you might have some conversation about that. Because what you say is so unusual, it could be total coincidence. Maybe that 99 Toyota was getting ready to have a problem, and it was just coincidence that you put the additive in.

But I don't believe in coincidences, and it could be some of the additive, and maybe somebody else has had the same experience. And if you could somehow get through the company, They might have a tech support or they might have somebody that you could chat with or email and see if you could get some feedback. But I think Rick's kind of stumped, I think, and I am too. Well, my next thought would be it would need to get to a mechanic to be able to check fuel pressures,

check the exhaust output, make sure the exhaust isn't plugged up. I mean, because there's quite a number of things that cause this issue. Well, he doesn't need the car right now, so I think before you go to a mechanic and end up paying something. Because the mechanic, to give him credit, he's going to have to charge for diagnosis. And you're going to be looking at a couple hundred bucks just for diagnosis. I would try, I'd go online. I'd really research it heavy online and see if I could get anything that would indicate that this gas additive was the culprit.

Something I thought about, and I went back to where I bought the additive and asked the clerk at the store, who has been very knowledgeable in the past. when I've had questions. Yeah. Didn't know anything about that, but I'll try the Internet. A long shot. It's a long shot, but worth a try before you go to the mechanic. Yeah.

And like I say, the other, if you want to try this, just let the car sit outside and just let the engine run until it runs completely out of fuel, then put in about 10 gallons of fresh fuel, and just kind of flush the system out and let it run again. You think it would be advisable if that, you know, causes any improvement to just change the gas filter too just in case? You're going to have a real tough time because the 99, I'm guessing this is a Camry?

Camry, yeah. Yeah, the fuel filter on a 99 Camry is located over on the driver's side of the engine compartment, and it's actually kind of tough to replace unless you know what you're doing. but it's really not a Toyota actually listed as a non-servisable item in other words they don't even recommend replacing it as a maintenance thing so I would try just running it out of gas first

and putting in fresh fuel and flushing it through see if that makes a difference first all right I'll give it a try but I do have one other question with regards to the newer Toyota's the 2021-2020 model other than the rear cameras, what kind of safety equipment does it come with? Does it have like

collision avoidance, any of those other bells and whistles? Everything. Yeah. Everything. Paul, you wouldn't believe it. It's going to be, if anything, it's got too much. If you want to try one of those out, they have gone overboard on safety. If you can go overboard on safety. But the difference between an old Toyota of,

even a five-year-old Toyota, much less a 20-year-old Toyota, or any car, they're so darn safe today, you can't believe it. All the high-tech stuff, what used to be optional is not becoming standard. And it's smart because, I mean, it's available. It's probably not that expensive for them to make. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure I'll be in for a rude awakening when I sit in behind the wheel of a new car. But I took a course from AAA that had...

explanations of all those devices, so hopefully I'll be ready. The good news is it's dummy-proof, so most of the stuff, you don't have to do anything. It's just doing it for you anyway. So it's more important to know what it's telling you, but you really don't have to do anything. It's all passive, and it's great stuff. All right, well, gentlemen, thank you for your time, and you might be seeing me very shortly up at the showroom. I hope so. Thank you, Paul.

Hope to hear from you again. folks I can't go to the mystery shopping report without mentioning Earl's latest column and do you know Earl Stewart can guarantee you that you can whatever card that you buy that you can get the lowest price and do you know why he says just go online some of us are a little nervous in this digital revolution but guess what else Earl Stewart says he'll walk you right through the process every step of the way and you can be guaranteed that he will do it he's even put a limit on the number of people that are going to ask him what was that number again 100 okay folks you heard it right here let me help you buy your

next new car online well a lot of people out there we get this called every day the people that we say, we'll go online, Google it, go here. A lot of people aren't that savvy. I mean, there are a lot of spark people out there that weren't born into the digital age, and they continue to operate in the analog age. And, you know, they read books instead of go online, and they, you know, they use telephones instead of smartphones and blah, blah, blah. So we're changing so fast now that we've got to the point now when you buy a lot,

automobile, if you don't buy it online, you're going to pay too much, probably. And so I just want to walk some people through out there, and I volunteered to help a limited number. We'll see what happens, but I'll help you go through the process. And it's on earlancars.com, the blog, this week. Okay, and this is related. We can get to a couple of more anonymous comments before we get to the mystery shopping report. This one says, hi, my local toy dealership says, I'll match your out-the-door price, but they treat customers as a transaction instead of as customers.

Should I drive this to you, or should I drive three hours to buy from you because of your honesty and you know how to treat customers instead of buying local? And I think I know what your answer is going to be to that. Well, the answer is you buy where you can get the best price. And I encourage people, and I think any legitimate one-price deal, unfortunately, have very few of those. I can think of CarMax is a used car dealer

and I believe Carvana is another one. Very few new car dealers will do this. But if you can get a price that's what you should do, an Alphidor price from a dealer, take and shop that price. I don't care whether it's me or any car dealer.

Once you have an out of the door price, shop it and compare it. I mean, that's what you do with everything else. Why do you want to buy from one dealer when he's selling the exact same product that 10 other dealers are selling. If you're going to buy a hat, you're going to buy a TV set,

you're going to buy a loaf of bread. Well, maybe a loaf of bread is not that expensive. But any expensive item, if you don't get at least three bids from three different competing businesses, you're going to pay too much money. So that includes my price. Take my price and shop it and compare it.

If you get an out-the-door price and beats it, go with it. That's right. All right, here's a question for Rick. Good morning, question for Rick. I have a brand new 2020 Rav4 all-wheel drive. You need to turn the steering wheel about three inches to the right for the car to go straight. Toyota has done two alignments under warranty and nothing has changed.

They're telling me there's nothing they can do. I have opened a case with Toyota, but they have not been any help. Has Rick seen it on any Rav-4s with this issue? If you send me an email address, I can send photos of the alignment printout. No need to be anonymous. This is just the easiest way for me to send the questions when I can't listen when you're live, and that's from Ryan.

And we have the email address. So, Rick, I'll give this to you after the show. You can send him an email, then he can send you picks of the sheet, and maybe you can help him out. Moving along really quickly, this is a great question. Does the out-the-door price apply to lease quotes as well as purchases?

Yes. And, of course, let me repeat the definition of Al-Fadour. That comes up in the mystery shopping report, which is coming up next. Dealers use that term all the time, out the door, but it ain't out the door. And out the door price, here's a definition. Memorize this. The out the door price is the price you write the checkout for, hand it to the car dealership, salesman, get in your car and drive home. There's nothing that you have to pay other than the amount of that check.

out-the-door price is the price that you write your checkout for hand it to the salesman get in your car and drive it home and if you make it clear to the dealership you're talking to when you ask for an out-the-door price tell them to put it in writing

email you text you write your letter verbal won't cut it because verbal is where the confusion comes in or I should say the deception comes in email me the out-the-door price, Mr. Car Salesman, and here's what the out-the-door price is.

The price you write the checkout for that I'm going to give you and that you're going to let me drive that car home with that check. I get the check, you get the check, I get the car. That's the out-the-door price. It's pretty simple. It is simple, but they abuse it all the time. The Mr. Shopping report coming up abused it, and all car dealers will tell you it's out-the-door when it's not.

That's the reason I came up with a farm, The out-the-door price. Go to Earl on cars and pull that form up. Is it still on the website, Earl? Oh, yeah. Okay. Absolutely. Out-door price affidavit.

One last one. We'll squeeze it in before we get to the shopping report because I think it's charming. One time, many years ago, I went with my dad to buy a new Chevy. He was a Chevy guy. My dad asked the salesperson for the dealer's price. The salesperson with a straight face stated he could not disclose the price until my dad agreed to purchase the vehicle. Dad left that Chevy dealer.

he was so angry he went to look at a Nissan he bought a Nissan Maxima and he never considered a Chevy again and that's what happens yeah it is you hear that car dealers you're digging your own graves out there okay folks we are going to go to the mystery

shopping report of Coggin Honda of Fort Pierce and we remind you every week your vote is very important so send it in 772-497 6530 now back to the recovery car dealer. Okay.

For some reason, we keep forgetting to mystery shop, Coggin dealerships. Back in 2016, the 13th year of mystery shopping reports on this radio show. 13th? Did you do the calculation on that? I could be a little bit off, but we're roughly in that 15 to 20 year range.

I'm getting old. I don't remember. We realized we never investigated Coggin dealership. We targeted Coggin on then Fort Pierce. They failed, and we never went back. You're right, we should have. Four years is too long to go between mystery shops at any one dealership, so much can change, and it does daily, much less yearly. We see this every week as we move dealers on and off the recommended dealer list.

Dealerships turn over salespeople and management constantly, marketing styles, technology changes. So back in June, we returned with Agent Thunder to investigate one of the most bizarre things we'd ever seen from McCartney, which of Agent Thunder was our mail shopper that we had for... And he's still there in the wings. Yeah, we still used it. We've been using Agent Lightning a lot.

And when we investigated before with Agent Thunder, we discovered the Holy Grail of Hidden Fees. I like the mother of all... The Mother Load. Mother Load. Looking over Cog and Honda's website, we saw they offered online buying, just like every car.

dealer-on-earth claims to have now, but it isn't really. We selected a new 2020 Honda cord and making going through the steps to find our Al-Mine price. We were surprised to get what appeared to be an Alphidor price. What I just said a minute ago. The MSRP was 24,975. There was an itemized discount of $192, $1,982, which gave us a sale price of $22,993. Then they added $1,292.72 in 70 cents in sales tax. And in sales tax. It was a breakdown of fees of flabberg. It was never in the history of this radio show, have we seen anything so ridiculous?

Frankly, I forgot about it. And I saw it, and I said, how could I forget that? I mean, it's truly comical. I actually thought it was a joke, and it wasn't. I mean, and they're doing it regularly. And what's even more amazing is Kagan Honda in Fort Pierce is owned by the Asbury Auto Group, which is one of the largest auto groups in the country. They have two or three hundred dealerships. They're traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Matter of fact, their stock just hit a new lie Friday, $165.76,000, new 52-week-high, Asbury Auto Group, Cagan Honda. So whatever they're doing at Cagananda is making them a ton of money, all right? It was a breakdown of fee, okay, here we go. I'm going to reach you to the breakdown of fees. This is the mother load, holy grail of hidden fees, and you're not going to believe it. Okay, advanced, I'll go through it fast. Advanced replacement, $2.80. State transportation fee, $21.

Service charge, $250. Transportation disadvantage, I underlined that one. What? A dollar 50 cents. Agency fee, what? $4.75. Lemon law. That's legit, yeah. Juvenile justice? For a dollar. For a buck. Initial registration fee, 225. Security fee, well, that's that. A dollar. Title service fee, $425. I'm a car dealer, folks. I've never heard of most of these. Title service fee $425, fleet fee $28, surcharge, state transportation, $1.20, lien fee. How do they know you're going to buy? You're going to finance the car.

There's no lien fee unless you finance the car, $2. That's my favorite. Oh, yeah. Reflectorization. What is it? Hard to pronounce. Reflectorization. 50 cents.

Maybe that means they polished the car? I don't know. It reflects the car. I don't know. Law enforcement radio system. What? A dollar. Air pollution control.

They all have air pollution cars today. A dollar. Title fee, $48. dollars registration fee 4560 odometer fee a dollar frivis frivis

FRIVS we looked it up last time I don't know I'll do it again 50 cents hey here take it I'm not going to 50 cents I'm not going to argue

I love this one Emergency Medical Service a dime 10 cents what do you get for that If I get a band-aid If I have a heart attack You come out to my house

Get me CPR That's all you get. Decal on demand, a dollar, pre-delivery service fee, now we're getting a normal language, $799.99 for the phony pre-delivery service fee, which is a dealer fee, which is profit. All this is profit to the dealer. And private tag agency fee $98. You pay the private tag agency, $10, and you charge $98, and who cares what you pay them anyway, because it's part of the cost I do a business. Anyway, that took a lot. long time to read, but it was so bizarre and unusual. We have never seen this many hidden fees from one dealership. And this is a publicly traded company, Asbury Auto Group. Yes, that was real and came off Coggins on his website. In case you don't believe me, here's a screenshot, and I'll hold this up to the camera here. This is to show that we didn't make this up. The fine print that you see there in the middle, or everything I just read.

cog and honda.com and go click on any listing that's on every listing yeah yeah so agent thought it went in with this price uh was subject to the old school treatment and was given a final price 877s higher than the posted online price this is our previous shopping report uh this week we went up with agent lightning our mission was to go in and try to buy a new 2021 honda cord sport we identified online with an outdoor price of 31 000 381.23. And as expected, this price included all those nonsense hidden fees. Holy grail of all hidden fees. And where am I now? Here's the report. Upon entering a show him at 9.30, I approached the receptionist who was thankfully wearing a mask. Asked for a salesperson. She spoke on the intercom

summon help for me. We waited. No one came. Receptions theorized The sales department must be in the meeting. We waited a while. Then Spencer approached. Spencer asked me to follow him. He led me to his desk. He referred to a document titled Cagan Honda guest sheet and asked me a series of questions.

As we began discussing the vehicle, Spencer's manager, Victor, came over. Victor made small talk and assured me that I was in good hands with Spencer. This took close to 15 minutes. I looked around. I was the only customer in the showroom. I think Victor was bored as we spoke. Spencer excused himself to get the car. I met Spencer out front as he was pulling up with the accord.

He parked, got out, began to go over the features for me. Then he asked for my license so he could check out a dealer plate and returned quickly to take the car for a spin. He explained he had a pre-planned route as we pulled out onto US 1. Then demonstrated a very good command of all the details of the car. He also said he had only three months in the business. which was remarkable considering how much he knew about the car i believe he only had three months although sometimes they'll tell you that young guys especially with honda toada they have

good training product training and i believe the asbury other group has excellent product training and i believe this guy went through intensive training when we got back to the store i told spencer layroom about back at the desk he entered more of my information on the computer then left to get a worksheet to review with me he was back in a minute or two with a worksheet Top line was MSRP, $30,070. There was no discount. No discount. He added wheel locks for $74.

Here we go. Dealer installed accessories next to dealer fees, hidden fees, the worst crime they commit. You didn't ask for it. You didn't want it. It's put it on the car, whether you like it or not, and here's what they put on there. Wheel locks for $74, way overpriced, splash cards for $141, way overpriced. Cargo tray, 124, way overpriced, has $60 for pinstripes. You could put on for $15 or $20, $12, maybe.

Then he added sales tax for $6.43, tag and title fees. And finally, $7.99, another hidden fee called dealer service charge. In all, the grant total, $1,198 was added in unwanted, worthless equipment and hidden fees. fees. So that was the Alpador price until he got another price. Now this is the real Alphador price. $2,0.6 dollars higher than the online price. I told Spencer that I had no attention of paying full price, pointed out he was charging me a full list plus a bunch of ad-on garbage. Spencer responded by asking me what other cars I had in my household. Spencer was well-trained, very calm. I asked him why he wanted to know this. He said he was trying to see if I qualified

for a conquest rebate. I said we only had one car and it was a Honda. Spencer then shifted to trying to discuss monthly payments. I said that I wanted to pay cash, but he didn't seem to hear me. Spencer was well trained. Didn't hear a word. I want to pay cash. Just kept on going. Called his finance manager. I want to be cash. Called his finance manager. Called his finance manager to intervene. So here comes the finance manager, Jeff, came in to convince me to finance. I told them, as I explained the expenseer,

I'm going to be paying cash. He asked me, what payment I would hypothetically be comfortable with. I'm not hearing you, man. I'm begging you. I'm begging you. I want to pay cash. I don't care. I help my ground. I helped my ground, he shifted back to price.

He asked me what price I would be comfortable with. Old school, old school. Publix, what price would you be comfortable with for this loaf of bread, Mr. Stewart? I'll give you a net one. Let me talk to the manager. How about a dollar? I'll see what I can do.

Can you sign here? Commit to it's bread? I said I'd be comfortable with a healthy discount off MSRP. You're trying to full list me, slap me in the face with a sticker price plus plus, plus. I said my husband wouldn't let me come back to the dealership if I brought home the worksheet Spencer had given me. Jeff, the finance manager, left to get new figures from the desk. So we go from the box to the desk. He returned with another worksheet. He explained

he never sees deals like this. That's his verbiage for, boy, this is, we're really, you're stealing this car. Yeah, I never see this. By, you're stealing this car. He must like him. Yeah. And I was in for a good surprise.

Why? I've already been surprised. This time, the MSRP was discounted. Listen to this, folks. discounted $3,545, making the adjusted price, $26,525. Then they added the same crap. Out the door, I was now $30,072.50, $3,500 less just for putting up a little fight. Slam, bam, wow, $3,500 less. The price was also $1,300 less than the online price.

Now, that is really unusual. Just switch back to financing and start, oh, Jeff, switch back to financing and start to explain all the great rates on the head, and I should really consider financing. Folks, car dealers make twice as much when they finance the car, you want to want, why they keep going after you on the financing, they average about $1,000 profit on the car when they sell it to you or less, and they average twice that on the financing. So sometimes they break even or even lose a little bit of money when they sell you the car and when they finance it,

they can make $4,000, $6,000, $7,000. They average, auto nation, the biggest retailer of cars in the United States, averages $2,000 in financing. So that's why the fight is on. Anyway, I cut them off going back on finance. I said if we could discuss all that after I reviewed with my family, and made a decision to move forward. I thank both men and left.

So, here we go. Eplog, went for the throat on the first pencil. This vernacular car dealer stuff for really trying to nail you. Go for all the money. You know, if you don't ask for it, you're not going to get it. This is a sales meeting. Okay, man, you've got to ask for sticker plus.

If you don't ask for it, you're not going to usually get it, But you're going to, every now and then, someone's going to sign another dot of line. But you have to ask first. So they went in asking for more money than sticker, thousands of dollars over a sticker. And there are vulnerable people out there that are not, maybe English isn't their first language. They don't understand what you're saying. Maybe they're very young. It's the first car they ever bought.

Or maybe it's an 80-year-old widow who had never bought a car before. The husband and all the shopping in the family. He passed away, and she comes in, and guess what? Slam dunk. You pay $5,000 over his sticker because you asked for it. That's the sales meeting that these car sales would go through. No two people pay the same price for the same car and the same car dealership.

Just remember that. So if you don't do your research and your homework and you don't negotiate, I prefer the research and homework, then you're going to pay too high a price. So there we are, and we have come to the voting time, Kagan, Honda. I remind everybody, we grade on the curve. Back when we shop a Kagan Honda before, I think we were a little bit more strict. I just have to say that.

We know that all car dealerships have some very distasteful practices, and if we were to fail a dealership for charging dealer fees, for example, we wouldn't have anybody on the recommended list. So we started grading the car dealerships on the recommended list. On the do not recommend list, we have the worst of the worst. We're remodeling that. This is in process. So we're going to go to a grading system.

And it'll be your decision as a listener and as a consumer, whether or not you feel that the grade warrants a recommendation. Yeah, if you have two Honda dealers or three or four on the recommended list, I'd start with the one with the highest grade. And if you have a B and the next one down is a C, go with the B first. Yeah, and we have grades coming in now, and they're not good. We have from Mark, we have a D minus minus. We also have an F from, oh, I just lost my spot there.

That's from Bob Gisman F. On Facebook, Linda, Gisman F, and I did commit my New Year's resolution is to be a little bit tougher, and I'm giving them a D. Okay, Rick, what you're saying? I've got Nate Ward, typical old school experience, D-minus, Mark Smith, D minus, so sad. Wayne Veit, D minus, Negan 1 with a D minus, and Tom Gilliland,

find the Exeter Fast F, Mark Ryan F, Boris Balabin F, Ernesto Ortega F, Tom Stokel, they don't deserve an F, but that's the lowest grade we can give. So an F. Myself, I'm going to go with the D minus for, Yeah, because you know what to expect with them. I hear you.

So if you're armored up, you can do some damage. That's the secret thing for Honda, exactly. Push back a little, don't accept anything. In the car business, they'll also, another vernacular, I hope it's not too crude, they'll drop their drawers if you push back. Mrs. Sunrise, Nancy Stewart. Thank you. Again, it's complicated.

You know, what's up with this? I want to pay cash. I want to pick cash and you're not even listening to you. Then they bring in a manager. What are they going to do? Pull a tag team on you just to break you down. And then because you fought, you got $3,500 less for putting up a fight. And like all the guys said here, you know, we got to pass them.

Otherwise, there won't be any place to shop. So I give them a D minus. What did you get? I gave a D. A D. I'm going to give me a C minus. They're going easy. Well, I'm going easy because they truly didn't.

You know, you have to differentiate between the people that truly lied. Yeah, that's true. Okay. I want more fees. I'll give them a C. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in again this Saturday morning. We do appreciate your company. We'll see you right back here next week.

Have a wonderful weekend. Stay safe.