Earl Stewart on Cars - 01.12.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Mullinax Ford of Apopka

Episode Date: January 12, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits Mullinax Ford of Apopka to purchase a car with an identified Takata Airbag Recall. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.streamearloncars.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “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”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. We're back for another auto-infused two hours of everything you want to know about cars. How to buy, how to lease, how to repair, how to maintain, basically how to avoid being ripped off by a car dealer. Sounds a little bracy, but it's true. My name is Earl, by the way.

I'm a recovering car dealer in full transparency. I'm also a current car dealer, but this is not an infomercial. And if you're a regular true oldies fans, great music from the 60s and 70s, this is not a musical show. This is real, live, hardcore radio talk. And we really get down and dirty. We do things like Mystery Shop, other car dealerships. We take live, candid calls from everybody.

We love criticism. We love constructive criticism. We'll take any kind, basically. We love for you to call us. And we have text. We finally, knock on wood, after many weeks it perfected, are streaming. That is, streaming in the Internet so we can be out to the whole world. And we have a huge wide band of information going to.

out this morning. It is going out to Facebook. It's going out to Twitter, Periscope. It's going out to where else we got. YouTube. YouTube, the biggest. YouTube. YouTube is big. And so anywhere out there, folks, go to facebook.com.4 slash whirl on cars. You go to your YouTube channel, and we're out there streaming. So you see us in living color. And I say us, because I'm not here alone in the studio. Couldn't do this by myself, but I've got a team here of experts. And we've been doing this, by the way, for many years. Not

the entire team. Nancy Stewart and I, my co-host, Nancy Stewart and I have been doing this for about what, how many years I lose track? 13 years. I say 13. It could be 14. Something in that era. Started out as a half an hour show expanded to an hour, now we're

two hours. I've got an automotive technical computer I don't know what you want to call him. Rick Kearney is his name. He's been with me. He's worked for me for a long, long time. Been in the car business for longer than that. And he's a walking encyclopedia.

Actually, he's a walking Google, right? He's a walking Google. You can call Rick Kearney, and you can ask him anything, mechanically, technically. I really should say electronically these days about your car. I bet you're having problems with your Bluetooth, link in your Bluetooth with your smartphone. Rick can help you. on anything with a car. Nancy Stewart, as I said, my co-host, she's a strong woman's advocate. And we're in an era now where women are suddenly realizing they haven't been treated fairly

for a long, long time. And in fact, since the beginning of history. And so we're finally getting into the 21st century where we're going to try to equalize things. One of the ways they've been most picked on has been walking into a car dealership or driving in. to a car dealership to have your car service or going in to have to buy a car women are not treated with respect and courtesy that they should and Nancy Stewart has been she's ahead of her time she's been talking about that as we said for 13 years and she sees life in the automotive world from a woman's perspective which is extremely important she's outnumbered here in the studio there's three of us guys and there's only one of Nancy but she makes up for that many many times Thank you. You've got a special little treat for our female callers, don't you? Yes. I'd like to let the ladies know that if you give us a call this morning at 877-9-60-9-60, you can win yourself $50, the first two new female callers.

And also, I'd like to give a shout-out to the ladies who may not have received their checks. If you'd be kind enough to give us a call at 877-9-60, 990-60, a Rudy who helps me out. an awful lot. He'll take your information and he'll pass that along to me and I'll get that out to you and I apologize for that. Also, you can text us this morning if you're a little shy and that's at 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Thank you, Nancy. And as I say, nothing takes priority over you. Your calls are the lightblood of the show. And I say this honestly. we actually learned things from you a lot of things

we've got a lot of brain power out there in radio land and Facebook land and YouTube land all over the world I can't wait for our first international call by the way we haven't had any calls from overseas as they say but that's true yeah so YouTube I know you're worldwide and Twitter is worldwide

Facebook certainly Facebook has got what 2 billion members something like that That's a third of the population of the earth. Exactly. And so all you folks out there, it's important that you contact us. You can do a posting. You can do a text.

Nancy just gave you the text number, 772-497-6530. And, of course, we have the old-fashioned telephone. You know, Nancy and I don't even have a home phone anymore. The old-fashioned. We have a cell phone. I mean, I'm 78 years old. I can't believe that the telephone is obsolete now. It isn't really, I mean, but it's the smartphone.

I was really caught off guard on Thursday whenever I was asked, where is your landline? Landline, yeah. Remember I said something to you? And I just looked landline. Yeah, we don't have one. Well, anyway, that old-fashioned relic is 877-960-9960. If you still have one of those dinosaurs, I might think silly because your smartphone, but, you know, I'm just... They've simply evolved.

A comedian license I have to say that. 877 960 9960 but let us hear from you and as I said earlier we don't have to be told what we want to hear we would love to hear what you want to say as a matter of fact we even have an anonymous link an anonymous website that you can go to and you can ask questions make comments you can tell us what you really think about this but seriously folks we'd like to have you call us and Beverly Hangout will be right with you call us on or communicate with us on our anonymous link that anonymous link is your anonymous feedback.com www.w-w-w-o-you-r---------------------------------------------------------. So you can reach us anyway, and

we've been reached. by yes uh congratulations beverly and welcome to earl steward on cars you're our first female caller this morning and you won yourself 50 dollars and if well i can't go ahead and if you'll stay on the line when we're finished uh you can give rudy your information and i'll get the check out to you a huge thank you for the program for the anonymous website i have a program that helps four single women, and this will be a huge blessing. It's the first time I've ever even heard of this website, so I thank you so much. Well, fantastic.

Beverly, the company that does that, if you want to set it up for your own use, is called incognito. And it's not spelled the way it sounds. It's incognito, I-N-C-O-G-N-E-A-T-O, like Neat, that's Neat-E-A-T-O. And that company does the anonymous websites for a lot of blue-chip companies like, I think, Amazon and public radio and Adobe, but it's really a national, probably international thing. The anonymity is absolutely guaranteed, but thank you very much for calling. What's on your mind? Well, I guess that's on my mind. I caught the tail in of what you were saying about how women are treated differently, like on cars and different things.

And I guess I've lived kind of a privileged life in a lot of ways, but since I had a tragic death in my family three years ago, and I started a program to help four really needy women to keep me busy to get my mind off my grief. And I'm really amazed at how people, not just women, but women that are not on a certain financial level, how they're treated differently. Like if I ever was to have a problem, which I wouldn't, but if I did have a problem paying my electric bill late, I could call in and they would extend it. But all four of my girls for different reasons because of abusive ex-husbands, no child support, and different things are really struggling, and they don't get treated the same as I do. And it's heartbreaking to see what happens to a woman when she gets down on her luck. So that's what's on my heart is helping single women. Well, Beverly, can you tell us how women can contact you with your program?

We'd love to give you some publicity on the air because Nancy, she's a strong. advocate from an automotive standpoint. It's really wonderful to have folks like you taking care of women from all aspects. What is the way they can contact you? Absolutely. My unofficial program that will be official soon is called the Russ Jr. program. It's in honor of Russ Elgin, who was a very honorable fire chief that got killed three years ago in a fire, in a plane crash. And he was just a wonderful person. And when he died, I decided to carry. on his legacy of being kind to people and it stands for rise up and seek success and my phone number is 561 42743330 and i truly have been praying for a miracle because i have this one lady that

her ex-husband went to jail for abuse and she has five beautiful children and she is in desperate need of a car and not good credit so i actually am trying to raise funds to help her get a car but If there's some wonderful car dealership out there that has one extra card, that's what I'm playing and believing for. Well, that's marvelous, Beverly. I'm so proud and honored to have you call our show. Let me give that number out again. This is the Rush Junior Program, and Beverly is an advocate for this.

If you call this number, 561-427-4-330, you can speak with Beverly, and she can give you advice. can help on how to remedy a problem you have as a woman. Yes, and we need programs like yours. So thank you so much for the program. Thank you. I won this morning. It's a huge blessing, and I can't thank you enough.

Well, thank you, Bethany. Nancy, I know you have some comments for Beverly. Beverly, I can't thank you enough, as Earl said, for doing what you are doing right now. and there's more of it going on out there with the ladies than, you know, anyone really suspects, and it's always great to have an option. That's whether they can come to you or I hear, you know, from the ladies throughout the week and whatever, you know, tip I can share with them as part of the life that I've lived.

And being a single mom at, you know, at a very, young age and having to learn to negotiate in so many different ways. It's women like you and myself that are, you know, helping these ladies. And again, thank you very much. I thank you. You know, one of my favorite stories is the starfish story where you said you can't make a difference when you're throwing the starfish back. But the little boy says to the man, I made a difference to that one. And if every successful woman that's on her feet would take one woman under her wings, it's not this world would be such a better place and that's why i love your program because you're given us good information yeah definitely uh there's a whole lot of vulnerability whenever you're

you know financially strapped and you're a single uh single mom and unfortunately there are people out there that just really like to take advantage of that so again thank you for your work stay on the line beverly we got we got fifty dollars we'll send you and uh maybe you will you might even want to use that to help some of the folks you're helping, but thanks so much. You'll give Rudy your contact information, and he'll see that you get a check in the mail.

I appreciate y'all so much. Thank you. Bye-bye. Give us a call toll free at 877-960 or you can text us 772-4976530. And thank you everyone that is tuned in, Earl Stewart on Cars this morning. We appreciate you.

as much as you appreciate us. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I've got a signal that we have a posting or a text. We do. Actually, this is a incognito that came in from your anonymous feedback.com. Oh, wow. And it's actually very relevant because we have a similar issue in our mystery shopping report today. The question is, is there a rule or reasonable expectation of a discount for demo cars?

Say 4,000 miles on the clock, but no owner. Can one request new tires and an oil and filter change? I'm having trouble finding data to understand what is fair and reasonable. Thank you. Well, a demonstrator vehicle can be a very good value. It depends on the mileage, and you have to be sure it is a genuine demonstrator. Interestingly enough, the way the title law goes in all the states, until a car has been titled, it's considered a new car.

One of the dangers is being sold a car with miles on it that was used as a demonstrator, but they just don't tell you. It's a matter of the dealer's word. Is this a demonstrator, or is this a car that has been tried out by customers? Every time a car, a customer comes in, if they wish to take a ride in a new car, they can take a ride. Matter of fact, before the car even gets to a dealer, it can be driven by salespeople and other dealerships. Cars are often dealer-treated, swap back and forth between dealerships. A car from Jacksonville coming down to North Palm Beach, has got 300 miles on it.

not a demonstrator, it just happened to be transferred. Cars are also test driven at the factory because they have to be checked for flaws and quality control check. So there's a dozen or more reasons why a car could have mileage on it. But if the salesperson is up front and says this is a demonstrator vehicle and we are discounting it, if they're truly discounting it and you can verify it by shopping and comparing, it can be a value. Just be absolutely sure. the car has not been titled. Just a mere act of titling a car with zero miles on it

depreciates the value significantly. And you also have to be aware of the impact possibly on your warranty for miles being put on it and the in-service date. And I think that might vary by manufacturer. I'm not sure if that's a state law. Typically a few hundred miles

is not a problem, but a few thousand miles can be. But you should all be sure that if you have a car with miles, that he says it was a demo, that the amount of miles on the car is added to your warranty. So if you've got a 36,000 mile warranty and there's 360 miles on the car, be sure that your warranty extends for 36,360 miles. Great information. 877960 or you can text us at 772-4976530. We're going to go to a regular caller. Tina's giving us a call

from Benita Springs. Good morning, Tina. Good morning. How are you doing, Nancy? And good morning. Earl and Rick and Stu. Nice to see you this morning. Oh, thank you. Nancy, I haven't had a chance to talk to you for a little while, and I figured today would be a great idea to chat with you. But I found an article on Automotive News this morning about a Subaru dealership in Massachusetts,

30% of their sales force and their workforce is women. All right. And they're doing a bang-up business because they are women. And so I'm hoping this is the beginning of the tide's beginning to change in the automotive industry. Yes, it definitely is. We're getting a lot of attention, let's put it that way. And there are more and more women who are interested in getting into the business. I have to say that we here at Erlon Cars, we are working on that ourselves.

and our goal is 50% and we're working on it and we are dedicated to reaching that goal 50%. So to what you just said, what was the name of that dealership again? I do believe it's called Planet Subaru and it's in Hanover, Massachusetts. Oh, in Massachusetts, okay. And they're at 30%? Yes. Yes, they're in that. We're only at 20% on the show.

This isn't just women's sales women. This is also women that are working in the engine base, too. This is the whole sales force and the entire workforce. Yes. Stu, I didn't quite catch what you. I said we're only at 20% on this radio show. Okay, well, that's an interesting figure. Yeah, but she's the prettiest out of all of you.

That is absolutely true. And he's probably the smartest of you. That is true, too. Hey, wait a minute. Hey, Tina, have you caught any of the shows that are airing now, I myself have, and they're geared toward women, and they're working on vehicles just like Rick. And I have these garages that have opened up, and it's definitely an interesting time. Have you seen any of that? No, I'm not really a big TV watcher.

I've missed out, but I guess I have to get on Netflix or get on Hulu and do some catching up, but I think that's great. I think it's kind of like the unofficial glass feeling that women haven't really been able to cross. And for a long time, it used to be, especially male customers, felt really funny about a female working on their car. But now the tide is starting to change. I heard one time about someone that was taking his Porsche in to get at service, and he was shocked when he found out that the master mechanic in that particular, particular dealership was a woman. And there she was, and his car taking apart the wiring harness, and he was freaking out. And the general manager said, hey, listen, she knows what

she's doing. She's trained. She's a master mechanic, and after he explained it to him, then he kind of calmed down, but there was just this immediate prejudice. Interesting. And this type of exposure that we're getting, as I mentioned, you know, these programs on TV, on, you know, morning or I can't even remember I had accidentally fell upon it, but it was just mind boggling that these women are working, you know, they're under the car and over the car and they're working on it, like I said, just like Rick. And this kind of exposure is reinforcing in the auto industry, the intelligence of a woman and what she can do, whether it be in sales, whether it be in the body shop all over the spectrum.

I'll jump in here as a man for a minute and tell you, in my 50 years in the business, and Stu will beg me up on this. We find that your average female salesperson is much better than the average male. One of the reasons is that most of the customers, male and female, and their polls to support this, would prefer to deal with a female. Now, I'm not speaking to mechanics and repair, but I'm speaking to the sales force, you come into automobile dealership. Most people, women and men would prefer to deal with female.

And that's the reason I, it's a shame. A lot of females don't understand that. You women out there are listening. You are a better salesperson on average than the average man in an automobile dealership. And if you're looking for a career, that is a great career. If you can find the right dealership, of course, but you don't want to go into a dealership where they flimflam people. But if you can find an honest dealer that would like to hire salespeople,

he'll be very happy to hire you as he knows you could do a better job. You know, for the bottom line always, as we know, is money, you know, no matter what you're talking about. And for the female to be ignored in the automotive industry is a financial disaster for that dealership because where they're, We're powerful. We know a lot. We're into details. We're, you know, we're very personable. And we really take our jobs, well, very seriously. Well, the thing is, too, that, you know, many years ago, like in the 60s and 70s, a lot more women were married. Now there's a lot of us,

including myself, that are single, divorced, widowed. We don't have a husband or boyfriend to fall back on to help us buy a car. So we have to stand on our own two feet. And that's what makes this show so great because Earl Stewart on cars and you guys make it easier for us to stand on our own two feet and say, hey, this is what I'm paying. I'm not paying that. I'm not paying that.

No deal. And you have the power to pick up your keys and walk away if you don't like what you're hearing. Yeah. And I'm hearing from more women that are going straight to the Internet. and they just have this this I'm on the phone with them and I can feel the energy through the phone of the power that they feel that they have and they control there they are sitting in their home on the internet these they're in touch with the you know the whatever dealership that

they're dealing with and they they don't know whether it's a man or it's a woman so she really has an advantage so there's a whole lot going on right now that is geared in our direction and putting us in a very powerful place. Well, I'm hoping that this dealership in Hanna, Ramascus, Planet, Subaru, I'm hoping that they set the stage for a bunch of dealerships to come. That way there's a little bit more of an even playing field. I mean, still a long way to go. It's still a meal-dominated business that maybe this is a sign of the tide

starting to turn, and it's 2019 already, so it's more than enough time for the tide to turn, really. Thanks for bringing that article to my attention. I'll have to take a look at that. I have a recent automotive news on my chair as we speak, so I'll take a look. Tina, thanks so much for the call. We always appreciate you calling us on Saturday morning. Thank you, everybody.

You have a fabulous weekend. Thank you, you too. Thanks, Tina. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. And don't forget, we're streaming all over. We're high-power streaming. YouTube. YouTube is big.

So we'd love to hear from you, YouTube folks. And, of course, Facebook. Facebook.com. Forrestless roll on cars. You got Twitter. You got Twitter. We got Periscope. We're all over cyberspace.

And I was amazed that one of the first comments we got was on our anonymous link, which is simply, if you want to speak to us, want to remain anonymous, for whatever reason. Some people just, you know, like privacy, anonymity. It can be a good thing. So youranonymousfeedback.com, www. www. www.orgononymousfeetback.com.

You can tell us what you had to say. We will never be able to find out who you are, no matter what. Never. I think we have a text. We do. This comes in from Phil. The question is, Good morning, Earl.

What are your thoughts, recommendations on the Toyota CHR? I'm going to bounce that back to my son, because he's more familiar with the products than I am. And I might flip it over to Rick. He can address it from a mechanical standpoint. Well, the CHR is a what they call a crossover. It's a interesting-looking vehicle. It looks like something out of the future.

It's somewhere between a corolla, which is like a compact coupe, I mean a compact sedan, and a mid-size or a small SUV. It's small. It gets good gas mileage. And it's getting pretty good reviews, but it's only been around for about a year or so. So no complaints yet. Rick, have you seen anything unusual about these vehicles? It's a bit of a turkey.

Oh, boy. A turkey. I'm just doing a play on words there. They're actually built in Turkey. That's just one of the funny things about them. No, they're an interesting car because of the angular appearance to it. The design of them. Yeah, I didn't even know that.

So our CHRs are imported from Turkey. That is correct. That is the most astonishing thing I've heard. Globalization, that's fine. And I'm a toilet dealer. It's the modern world. We're getting them for, it's coming from everywhere. Now, we are quickly moving a little at a time, but we are moving towards a global society now.

But the design on them is just such a, it's so. slightly different from everything is just that angular appearance, like where the door handle is on the rear door is way up high there. It's a very interesting looking vehicle. I was a little bit surprised. I have two teenage kids

and, you know, they're getting to the age where cars are a little bit more important. Neither one of them were very excited by the design, I thought they would be. Yeah. And from a sales standpoint, I'm seeing, you know, people older, you know, adults.

buying these cars. I don't see a whole lot of kids with them. Well, they do seem to have a bit of extra headroom and leg room in the back for the adults a little bit more. But really, mechanically wise, well, they're a Toyota. They just don't break very often. So we really don't see a lot of them in the shop right now, except for just basic maintenance. Yeah, they've been not that long. So the aerodynamics of the car is much different because of the angular? It's, yeah, I mean, it is, it's a decent design aerodynamically, so it does get good fuel economy, but it's just, let's just say the look at it is a little bit surprising when you see it. It's not quite as in your face shocking as like the old Pontiac Aztec, which, I mean, let's be honest, that one I believe was voted as one of the ugliest vehicles ever produced in the United States.

Didn't that become famous again when it was featured in Breaking Bad? It was, yes. It was amazing, but it beat out the Edsel for simply being the most recognizable ugly car out there. Were you asking, Nancy? I was going to ask, what was the opinion, you know, of your oldest teenager whenever you presented that car? I mean, it wasn't bad. It was more like, it's all right. When I first saw it, I thought that is cool looking, but, you know, I'm an old fart, so what do I know?

I just googled consumer reports in CHR, and here's what Consumer Reports has to say. Toyota finally has an option for consumers shopping for a tiny SUV. So the keyword there is tiny. It's a tiny smallest SUV you can buy. We rented a pre-production version from Toyota to get an early look at the CHR before we buy our own next month. So they haven't done an opinion of the CHR. Next month, the next issue of consumer reports, we'll have a CHR evaluation. And whoever sent us a text, if I were you, I'd wait until the consumer reports came out before I bought one.

Yes, absolutely. Always the way to go. 877-960-9960, and you can text us at 772-49-6530. One of the reasons that we think we've got a really neat show is because we're different. everybody says they're different, but we can prove we're different because we do a mystery shopping report every week it'll be coming up at the end of the show and we visit a car dealership somewhere in South Florida

this happened to be in North Florida. We're really reaching out to all areas of the state to pretend to buy or lease a car and we go in there undercover and then we report exactly what happened. We talk about prices, we talk about recalls, we ask if the car is safe, we ask all the questions

that an informed consumer should ask and we tell you what the answers were. Sometimes we don't get the truth. Sometimes we do. We really get some interesting even comical experiences and we report it back to you on this show with

no expurgation. Is that a word to expurgated? That is a word but I can't be sure if you're using your character. We don't censor it. We don't censor it. We tell you exactly how, and we say the name of the dealership, we tell you the name of the

dealer, the salesperson, the managers, and the only thing we conceal is the name of Agent X, who is our undercover agent for fear of his life. And we've been doing this, as I say, for 13 years, so we have terrorized a lot of car dealerships in Florida.

So if for no other reason you should stay tuned to this show, nobody else does that. We wonder often why we haven't been sued. Liable, slander, The answer is, if to tell the truth, you can't be sued. Well, you can't be sued, but you cannot win a lawsuit for libel or slander if you tell the truth. Rick?

One note, though, we have found a few car dealers that should be extremely happy that we mystery shopped them because, in all fairness, they did one bang-up job. What was the little one up there in Fort Pierce, the Wallace used car lot? Easy pay? That's correct. easy-picked. I mean, that was impressive. We also do favors to dealers who might not know

what their staff is doing. I mean, a lot of dealers are kind of absentee, and they don't know what their salespeople that their managers are doing with their customers. We're helping them out. A whole lot of exposure. We're going to go to Rod, who's calling from Lake Park. Good morning,

Rod. Good morning, everybody, and happy new year. Welcome back on your trip. Thanks. Hopefully, Earl, you got some pictures of the old Pontiacs and stuff like that. I did. I got a, our tour car was in 1953 Ford, so we have some great pictures. Okay.

I wanted to know, just out of curiosity, do you all know a lady by the name of Airy? Erie, is that like A-I-R-E? Yes. No, I can't think of that. Who is Erie? She says that at one time, she used to help take care of y'all's children. Huh. Wow.

Stu, do you remember, Eric? Because he's my child. I'm scratching my head, but, you know, I'm suffering from memory loss these days. Okay. I'd love to get her contact information, Ron. It would really be cool to talk to somebody that took care of our kids. if you can get that information or just tell her to contact me

directly, she can call me any time call me on the show or I'll give you my cell phone number. Rod, she's not thinking of writing a book, is she? No, no, she just, you know, she had the honor of doing that and I've

known her for a long time. Her sort of living boyfriend, I've known him for jeez millennia well tell her to call me I'd love to have a chat with her and reminisce that would really be fun and I apologize for not remembering her name

but we've had more than one babysitter I think from time to time yeah yeah and so I'd sure love to chit chat with her thanks very much for telling her actual her actual name is Elveda I spell that um

A-L-Z-E-A okay but uh with With her babysitting and such, she went by Airy. I got you. I'll ask her. Very educated black lady. She's very smart. Well, that's wonderful.

I can't wait to talk to her. So please sell her, give me a call. Yeah, by the way, for about, oh, 15 minutes now, your Facebook streaming, Comcast failed you again. Oh, boy. I didn't know that. Thanks for the hedge up, Ron. Jonathan in the control room there. We're live.

Yeah, we lost it, so I don't know what's going on. I know, we're live. Oh, we're live. Yeah. We are live. Maybe, hopefully, it's just an isolated thing. A little glitch. Yeah, could be a glitch on your smartphone or computer, Rod.

But according to our end of the thing, we are streaming, we're sending, we're not sure we're receiving. I guess that's the way we should have. I'll try back with it again. All right. Enjoying the show. show and you know welcome back okay be sure to have erie call me now okay i'll i'll just get it i'll just get it through through the through uh through uh through your your work uh work line there yeah perfect thanks so much thanks rod have a good one rod have a great weekend 877 nine 60 or you can

text us at 772 4976530 and remember we have the mystery shopping report coming up from Molynex Ford, and it's going to be a doozy. We have Michael, who is on the line, and he's calling from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Michael. Hey, guys. This is Michael Pursuit from West Palm Beach, Florida. How are you? Hey, Michael.

Hi, Michael. Good, man. Just listening this morning, and good job. The show sounds great. I actually had a question today for you, guys. Great. how do you think the car world I mean do you think you know all this new stuff with Amazon and how you guys are adjusting to the Amazon world is that a is that a huge

benefit for the car dealership and are you seeing other dealerships you know trying to copy suit now Michael it can be interestingly enough the auto retailing is one of the few retailers that you can look at it either way the auto dealers look at it as if they're protected in a unique way. And I'll explain in just a second. But by Amazon is, one product that Amazon is prohibited by law from selling is our automobiles. Automobiles are protected by state franchise laws. And so that's a long story.

I could do a whole show on how that happened. But in every state, all 50 states, car dealers have a protected, they're a protected species. and nobody can sell a car except another car dealer. Even the manufacturer cannot sell a car. And the manufacturer determines who the dealers will be. So if Michael, you decide you want to be a car dealer, you can't sell new cars. You can sell used cars all you want.

But if you want to sell new cars, say you want to sell do Hondas, you've got to go to a Honda manufacturer and ask them to give you a new franchise to sell cars and contract. And that's step one. But you still have to find a place that you can sell them. So you have to find an address. If you live in Florida, you have to say, I want to sell them from this address. The Honda dealers who are already there have to say it's okay with them that you become a Honda dealer.

So it's almost impossible for someone to say even Amazon, hey, I think I'd like to sell cars. Because the manufacturer has to say yes and the dealers have to say yes. and this is all by state law. Now, with that said, a lot of people can emulate Amazon. You can do online car buying, but if you do online car buying, it will ultimately be from a car dealer, not from Amazon. Okay, cool. That's good to know. Yeah, it'll change, and eventually time will change,

and the consumer will demand that the laws be changed. but you're looking 20 years in the future or even further. It's bad for the consumer, by the way, because if Amazon could sell cars, they could buy them with a lot less hassle and haggle for a much better price, but the law is protecting the car dealers. Wow, that's pretty good to know.

Well, thanks for the call, Michael. Goal, guys. You guys. You guys have a great day. Stu, you're the man. All right. You too, Michael. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Keep listening. We're going to go straight to house.

Howard, he's calling, and he is a regular caller from Jupiter. Good morning, Howard. Good morning. How's everything to you guys this morning? Hey, Howard. You're good? Yeah. Great.

Good. Glad to hear that. Okay, here's what I read in the Palm Beach Post today. You remember the guys clicking clack? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Our talk. Yes.

One of the guys that passed away, but I think the older brother is still doing the commenting on, you know, on the car problems. Yes. He just mentioned the metal shield that goes underneath that protects the car, it protects the catalytic converter. And he said that if you don't have it, it could set the grass underneath where you park on fire, And it could also actually call the fire inside the car,

which I don't understand how it could cause a fire inside the car. I can understand how it could set the grass underneath the car on fire. And they said that it's not a big deal, but it should be replaced and it's not that expensive. It's like $200 or something to fix. One of your thoughts about that? I think Rick has an answer for you, Howard. as a matter of fact Howard

pulling it right from the newspaper's headlines this happened several years ago a couple was out in the acreage area the acreage locks the hatchie area and they had pulled their car off the side of the road I'm thinking they were trying to turn around but the car got stuck in the loose sand

and it basically buried it right to the bottom of the car when they were trying to get you know moved this car the heat from the catalytic converter insulated by that sand actually built up and set the interior of the car on fire. It literally created like an oven effect and it caught the car on fire

and the people, I believe, were injured at the very least before they realized what was going on and this car suddenly just started burning inside. But yes, catalytic converters have heat shields around them that are meant to flow air through and help dissipate a little bit of the heat. but unfortunately in order for them to operate they have to run at a high temperature anyways they're generally operating at over 500 degrees Fahrenheit so when those heat shields if they get

damaged they really do need to be replaced or repaired to make sure that they're operating the way they should be how do you repair a heat shield well if it's simply that it has gotten loose a little bit where the crimps are I've actually been had good success with using pliers just to straighten the metal back in place and re-crimp it. Or, in the case of a heat shield where the screws hold it to the body of the car have broken loose, we simply use a large fender washer and put it back together. And it's actually a better repair than a new heat shield

because you've got a little larger metal piece holding it in place. Those heat shields are just light aluminum for the most part. Another case, can you actually fashion a heat shield without having to get the part from Toyota? No, if it's really damaged to the point that it needs to be replaced, it's best to go through the manufacturer and get the proper one for the car. Okay, got you. Okay, very good. Thanks for the information.

Thanks for the call, Howard. It's great to hear from you, Howard. Excuse me. I hope your friend's doing well. 877-960-99-60, and you can text us at 772-4976530. Rick has a comment. One other quick note on, of course, it seems to be my little windmill that I tilt at continuously here. Toyota just recently announced 1.3 million more cars worldwide have been added to the list of Takata Airbag recalls.

This just came out in the last week or so. On the 10th. And it's, I mean, folks, these are cars as new as 2016. That unfortunately, because of the way this Takata situation came out, they had no option except to keep putting in these airbags that eventually will degrade. But it gave them a little bit of leeway to get others up to this stuff of manufacturing the more. or the newer ones that will not have this issue. So even if you're driving a relatively new vehicle,

only two to three years old, please go to www.w.com and check your VIN number to see if your car is under any and all safety recalls. Get it checked and get it repaired. It costs you nothing except a little bit of time. And if it's something that's going to take some time and they need to get parts for it, they'll even get you a car. And it costs you nothing.

But please get this. Just for your own safety and that of your friends and family riding in the car, please get this done. And what is that website, Rick? www. www.safercar.gov. Okay. That's a great segue into our next question from a texter.

This is Anne-Marie, who says, good morning. I see there is a new recall for Alexis and Toyota models due to their airbags. I was wondering if the dealers have the parts to fix these vehicles. Please let me encourage the driving public to go to safercar.gov to see if your vehicle has been recalled. If it has, please take it to the dealer to get it fixed. It is free and it could save your life. Thank you, Mother Hen.

And to answer her, yes, all the Toyotas that were added to the list, they already have parts and remedies available. So the notices are going out, and like Rick says, it's a free fix. But please open your mail, check your email. Check your email. The interesting thing to this, unlike other recalls, when Toyota built those cars, I hate to say this, they knew these were defective airbags. Ford knew it, Honda knows it. The manufacturers are building cars now, and they are putting defective to cut airbag inflators in there.

We can't speak for Toyota. Toyota is not. Toyota is not, but I believe others are. And for a while, Toyota was. So because of the lack of replacement inflators, the manufacturers don't stop production. They should, but they don't. And they keep building the cars. And then after a couple of years, they have some sort of a calendar that says, this airbag, we should tell people that it's defective.

And, of course, there's a time factor. There's an hourglass as that inflator gets older and the warmth and the humidity work on it. tick-tock, tick-tock. To worse and horse. Suddenly it's going to be going off. It's a time bomb. And when the time bomb hits that, you know, that red spot on the dial,

the thing explodes. So this is going to go down in history. One day, we will look back on this and say this was the most egregious, terrible thing on the consumers of automobiles, buyers of automobiles that ever happened. It is a conspiracy by the manufacturers, by the car dealers,

by the legislators and the regulators, this thing is so huge. You've heard the term, too big to fail. The automotive economy is too big to fail. And the regulators are looking at it that way, and the dealers and the manufacturers are looking at it that way. Because if somebody said, stop selling cars with defective to cut airbags,

it is against the law, the economy would crash. And so we were sacrificing lives for the economy. Yep. Great information. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. We're going to go to Jerry, who's a first-time caller from Jupiter. Welcome to the show, Jerry. You won yourself $50.

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. I've been listening to your show for some time now. Oh, thank you. Stay on the line and you can give your info. What can we help you with Jerry? I have a 2013 Lexus ES350. I'm sorry, it's a 2011.

I didn't need 2013. 2011. I love the car. We've had several Lexuses. I went through the horrible Takata Airbag problem. It took me a year to get that completed, but it is done. But my problem now is, is, I have, the locking system is not working.

It's working properly on the driver's side. All of a sudden, at the same time, all three locks by the passenger side and the two backseat sides do not respond to anything that is not manual. In other words, I can reach around to the back seat, flip the switch, and you can open the door. And the same with the other three doors, but I can't use the master switch to unlock inside the car or either one of my key fob automatic unlock system. Do they work sometimes and then just suddenly they stop operating? No. It was working perfectly. Then all of a sudden, it does.

did not work. And all three of them quit? Yeah. All three of them and quit exactly at the same time. Now, I've taken it, I've had it, you know, evaluated, and actually I took it to the Toyota dealership because I generally got very good service there and it's closer to my home. And anyway, and to repair it, they're telling me it's like a close to a $2,000 job. Wow. And yes, wow. And I'm on a limited income, and, you know, you take good care of a car.

You know, we've owned it since it's day one, bought it first through a lease and then bought the lease out because we like the car so much. And then to have this happen, to have this big expense, and it doesn't make sense to me that all three would go out at the same time and say I had to replace the activators in each door plus the whole latch system. Jerry, how many miles on the car? 58,000. Low mileage. What I would recommend is

I would contact Lexus directly. The Lexus experience number there, 800 number. I know that's available online, but also the dealer would be able to give it to you. And I would go with polite persistence.

Yeah, be nice. I've got a case number from Lexus. I feel like it's not going to end well. It's out of warranty. It's this and that. But I went online because not only am I having problems, but it seems like it's a very common problem, and this is on vehicles from 2000,

I think it was either 6 or 7 all the way up through 2000. 17 the exact same thing happened on not only the ES 350s but also some of the higher end cars the 400 series and also the RXs so believe it or not it's a big systemic problem that they don't want to admit to and uh I don't feel I should bear a $2,000 fix now the other thing is is I went to a regular mechanic called I didn't take it there and explained all this to him and he said well he went on something he was going on online I guess that they the mechanics used on this and he said there was a fix there that said that if you took disconnected the battery totally and put the negative and the

positive connections together held them together for 30 seconds it would reset it now that made sense to me because it sounded more to me like it was a computer reset problem than it would be mechanical because of the fact that everything happened all at one time exactly you know not one at a time not even one time it was everything at one time i'm afraid to do that because uh there wasn't anything that said whether or not it affected any of all your computer settings in your car i was afraid I'd get another mess started, if you know what I'm saying. Jerry, let me interrupt for a second here. Before you try something like that, and I think Rick is going to tell you that's not a good

thing to try. That doesn't sound like science. That sounds like you don't ever want to put the negative and the positive together, and that's really bad. Here's what I do. May I ask where you bought or leased your Lexus? What dealers are you? Actually, it was up in.

in New Jersey at the time. New Jersey? But it, yeah, but it's been through, you know, Tennessee, Vermont, now in Florida. What Lexus dealer have you dealt with down here? I've done both with, actually I've done the one up in Port St. Lucie plus West Palm Beach, and then I've been just doing my maintenance work with Toyota there in Stewart. The reason I ask is here's an approach that's worked for. me with Toyota, with my Toyota dealership, and the dealer, if he is persuasive and he's on

your side and will work with Lexus, can often get goodwill taken care of that normally won't be taken care of. So I would try to talk to the nearest Lexus dealer, Palm Beach Lexus. I would try to get to talk to the general manager of Palm Beach Lexus. And I would, what I do, the offer that I make Toyota that they find hard to refuse, As I say, I'm going to repair this car for this customer, and I will do it for what I pay my technician out of my pocket, and for what I pay Toyota out of my pocket, would I pay them for the part, would I pay my mechanic for the labor? My dead cost, which will be about half of what that $2,000 is, and I'll do it with no profit to me if you will goodwill and take care of the other half. When the dealer will be willing to make a sacrifice on your behalf, oftentimes, at least with Toyota, and I think Lexus would be the same way, you might find out that Lexus will goodwill that.

They don't want a goodwill $2,000, but they might want a goodwill half of that, which is what it would cost them if the dealer truly did it for his absolute dead cost. Give that a try, Jerry. And then if that doesn't work, call me back, and we'll go to Plan B. But I hate to see I have to pay $2,000 for that repair. Alexis is supposed to be the best car made in America. It's not number one. Oh, I know. And it gets all these consumer report write-ups also.

And I'm probably going to mention to them that it seems to be systematic, all these things I've found online about the same thing and why it's not been mentioned that I saw. Well, in actuality, Jerry, it's not just the Lexus. The Toyota models have the same issue as well. There are a lot of Toyotas, and we replace a lot of doorlock actuators. They even told me that the whole latch assembly has been changed from the original because it was a problem.

Now, that's where I got into the mindset. of why should this be my problem, even if it's half of that price? Jerry, you're right, and Lexus is wrong. You tell the general manager of Palm Beach Lexus that Earl Stewart told you that he should ask that you offer Lexus, meaning the general manager of Palm Beach Lexus, offer Lexus the manufacturer to do your repair at his dead cost. And that'll be about $1,000 if they quoted you $2,000. And you will then ask Lexus, the manufacturer.

manufacturer to goodwill it for $1,000, that way would be zero out of pocket for you. Especially since it's a safety issue. A safety issue, exactly. It is a safety issue. Be sure to use that word safety. It is a safety issue. So please give that a try and then call me back. Call me on the show or just call me directly and let me know how you did.

And I'll give you some more advice if need be. But I have a hopeful feeling that might work. You, I did call the people, the Lexus dealership in Port St. Lucie, because I had had such good luck with them, too. I think you'll have better luck with Palm Beach. I think you'll have better, yeah. Go with Palm Beach, Lexus. And they know me, and they know that's the right thing to do, and they just might do it for you. So call me back, and let me know how to work.

I appreciate the call very much. I'm sorry they're giving you the runaround, and that's what it is. I wish you the best of luck. Thank you, Jerry. Stay in touch. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. I have a text. I think you have some by the look in your eyes. Reading my mind again.

I have one, and it's from Brianna. And she wants to know, and we've been asked this question before, is paying cash for your car the best way to go? No. Next question. Okay. Stu? Sorry, Brianna, I'll give you a call and we'll discuss it.

Brianna, the reason it's not the best way is because car dealers make more money when they finance your car than when they sell you the car. And when you know that I'm a car dealer and you come in and you say, I'm going to pay cash, you tell them you're going to pay cash, I know that all my profit is going to be made when I sell you that car because I'm not going to have a second shot at you to finance it. oftentimes when they think they're going to have your financing, they will negotiate a lower price for the car with a hope that they can make even more than that when they finance it. So never disclose up front that you're a cash buyer.

Leave that for after they have, you've agreed on a price. Yeah. That's part of the whole arsenal. You've got the dealer fee. You get the finance. They'll be willing to advertise and sell the car even below cost knowing that they're going to make it all up when you get into the box.

Yeah. As a matter of fact, I'll name a name here. We've got offlease.com. Offlease.com sells cars at very low prices. You can't buy a used car for less money than offlease.com, but you can't pay more in the finance department than you do at offlease. So you'll pay a $1,000 profit to off lease for the car you bought,

and then you'll pay them another $5,000 when they finance the car. So don't be a cash buyer in the eyes of the person that you're buying the car. I should say the dealer. Yeah. And Brianna, to your second part of your question, you know, it's not really important for you to discuss how much you want to pay for your car every month. That is off the table and should not be discussed. There's more important things to discuss. If you'd like to give me a call after the show, I can talk to you.

That's very true. 877960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. John's calling us from Palm City. He's a regular caller. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. Hey, John. I just want to talk about an item that affected record holiday traveling.

It affects people that want to buy a new car. And it's not mentioned much on the news, but we are at record low with the price of gasoline. And people are wondering when they traveled around, why is there such a difference? Well, let's start off with the state sales sacks on gasoline. People don't even know what they pay. in Florida, per gallon, it's 41.6 per gallon. That's state gasoline tax. Now, it's affected with the 67 counties

because some of the counties have their own tax on top of that. But people don't realize how low when they travel. I mean, in South Carolina, Georgia, 31.6, California, forget it. They're one of the highest, 53.5, and one of the lowest is Arizona and Texas. There's nine states now that are below $2 a gallon. 35 cents or more, there's 14 states. Below 25 cents, there's like 18 states. So it's a tremendous effect on what we pay at the pump.

Sure. And it's state gasoline tax that's involved. And people that live, we live in Florida, we have no idea that we're paying 41.6, just state tax on the gasoline. I just want to bring that out. What's the federal tax, John? I don't know what the federal is, but I'm just going by a chart that I saw on state tax.

Now, maybe that includes the federal. I don't know. I didn't, you know, look that up. You probably could get it on the computer. But, I mean, you get it like Pennsylvania. That's the highest I saw. 58.7 per a gallon state gasoline tax. The area is like 23 cents.

New Jersey really just raised it. They were one of the lowest. They're 37.1 cents. New York is 44.3. It affects us when we've been traveling, especially around, you know, for the holidays, people wonder why there's such a variance. But Texas is 20 cents a gallon, and now they're below $2 in Texas on the pump.

Yeah, Stu just Googled it. It's 18.4 cents. tax, and it was just last raised in 1993. A long time. It's not indexed with inflation. So you add the 18 to the 46, and you're talking about 41, you're talking a lot of

tax. You're absolutely right, John. Very good information. Well, I just want to mention it also to mention Earl and I, our favorite car, today it starts an auction in Arizona. There's going to be seven of them this month.

Barrett Jackson, collect a car auction, and they're going to, I'm not sure if it's today or tomorrow, a 68 PontiVo, Pontiac convertible factory bucket seats and fuel injection is going to be offered. And these are the cars to buy for people, especially there's no reserve on it. And rather than go through a restoration, these cars are fully restored, and somebody can pick them up for decent prices because of the fact that there's no reserve on somebody's. Incidentally, this month alone, this is the month for collective car auctions. There's seven major companies that are going to sell thousands of cars. Just some of them are good in, silver auctions,

Russo and Steel, R&M, Sudby's, and some fantastic cars. So it's on the motor trend. Used to be called the Velocity Channel. If people are interested, just following it, it's very interesting to see some of the action and some of the numbers that go through. I thought I'd bring that out, but this car, 68, Bonneville, lights up a light for Earl and I both together. I mean, this is a red car. It sounds fantastic. It would be interesting to see what it sells for. Yeah.

The first Bonneville fuel injection was 1957, so I thought maybe it was a 58, but it's a 68. That's interesting. 68. Yeah, 68. That would have been the first car you ever sold, possibly. It could have been the first car. I drove one. My father had one.

He was a Pontiac dealer, and they were like a rocket ship back in those days. Yeah. Absolutely. And people don't realize that cars in those days, like Chrysler, with 57, 24-barrel carburetas on it, even like a 60 Cadillac El Dorado, 58 had 3-2s. These are standard from the factory, and a 60 had 3-2 barrel carburetors on it. many of the cars factory were dual compound carbureation. Yeah, 10 miles per gallon.

I mean, it's ridiculous with the cubic inches. 70 Cadillac came out with an Eldorado with a 500 cubic inch engine. And boy, with that thing a gas burner. You could watch the needle move on the gas gauge. Yes, yes, exactly. But gas naturally was a lot cheaper than old days than today. But we're getting there. We're getting, you know, we're getting good prices finally.

instead of this 3 and 350 a gallon that it was getting up to, and then people weren't buying like SUVs and some trucks, heavy-duty trucks that were burning, you know, gasoline engines with a lot of bad gas mileage. But it's different, and today cars like Fiat that came out thought that they had a windfall when the gas was $3 and above, and boy, I'll tell you, I don't see a Fiat anywhere, a new one on the road, even in the rental.

That's because they all broke. They're all off the road. Fiat's about the worst car on the road. I'm talking, and I'm speaking from personal experience, they were the worst when I was a Fiat dealer many years ago, and they haven't improved in quality today. They're terrible cars. Well, in those days, you remember Fiat.

Fix it again, Tony. Yeah, exactly. All right. I'm looking forward to the shopping report. Thank you, John. It's a good one. Thanks, John. The one thing I've always wondered with gas prices,

You see one station right now at $2.10 a gallon. And a mile away is another station $2.60 a gallon. And a mile away. And it's like you wonder how some of these stations can stay in business. It's an impulse side. I'm going out of gas. And you go for the nearest gas station. So it's true.

And you can count on the, if you're near 95 or the turnpike or any major thoroughfares, You can count on high prices. And if you go in the backwood somewhere, you go six blocks away from activity where there's not a bunch of car traffic and the gas prices are lower. Or you go online. What's the app that tells you where the lowest gas prices are? There are a bunch of oil. Gas buddy?

Is that what it was? There's a ton of them. If you want to, you can buy gas cheap. You can buy gas cheap typically 30 cents a gallon less than you normally pay if you want to go out of your way to find. the gas station, that's all. There's certain ways you can do it. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-60. And remember, you can vote on the Mystery Shopping Report when it comes up.

Now back to the recovering car dealer. Got some text, don't we still? Yes, we do. The first one is on our Facebook live video. It's from Mark. Mark says, I have a 2018 Toyota Tacoma. I heard there's a recall on them for a faulty master cylinder. when our notice is coming out and when will the fix become available i'm looking at you rick

searching right now mr tocoma driver and technician extraordinary well mine's a 13 so it's not it's not covered under that uh recall but i'm pulling that up right now for the tacoma recall i'll tell you well rick's looking for that um i'll move on to the the next text that we have and this is from who's this from ah robert and fort pierce he says if i'm taking over someone else's lease payments who's on the hook for the lease mileage restriction robert in fort pierce well you are because you have to have the permission of the lessor so you are the person responsible of the entire contract you can't take over a person's lease payment without the permission the lessor he wants to be sure you got the money to make the lease payments and uh he's uh you're you're

obligated to return the card yeah so when you do these like uh swap a lease the services where you're you can get into an agreement with someone who has a lease contract and they just don't want to drive the car for whatever reason, that's a secondary agreement. But the first person who leased the car still has a contract with the leasing company. Why didn't know that? Yeah. So technically you are because you are agreeing to do it when you take over the lease. If you didn't do it, the person who originally leased the car can still get in trouble for

overmilege. But you're still responsible for the mileage overage. You're responsible for all the cost of the lease. Yes, when you do the agreement with like a swap lease thing, if you did something informal, say you drove a relative's car and you took over for them, obviously they're going to be responsible for it. I don't know how the leasing company, the bank, feels about these swap a lease things. They probably don't like it.

It's like a sublet. Well, they don't care because they really, I think the answer is that once a swap a lease makes the deal, then the paperwork goes to the leasing company. They own the car. Swaplease is a third party. I've got to check that out because I'm not sure. I'm not sure, but we'll look into it. Robert.

Well, that sounds complicated. It is. A third party, I think of myself now as I'm Honda leasing. I buy a car. I own the car and I go to Rick Kearney and I lease him that Honda. He owes me 36 payments for $395 a month. now Rick decides he doesn't like that so he goes to some company called swap a lease

signs a bunch of papers and next thing you know Nancy's driving the car Rick is not off the hook the contract is between me and Rick meaning Honda leasing Nancy if she makes the payments that's wonderful but if she doesn't make the payments

I'm coming after Rick not Nancy Nancy's going to have to go after Rick yeah that was the point I was trying to make the other thing they don't like it because when they did the contract with the original lessor, they checked out of this credit, they made an approval, and the third party, or the second person, they don't know anything about this, about them. So do not take over the lease payments until you know that the leasing company has approved

you, and then you are totally responsible. Rick, did you find out the... I... Yep. That is, Campaign, Jay is in Juliet, 06, and it is on 2018 to 2018 to... 2019 Tacomas. There are nationwide about 44,000 vehicles involved and we are replacing the master cylinder, the brake master cylinder. The parts are available and they are at dealerships now. If they get in big influx, it may take a day or two to get all the parts in, but it takes probably about two to two and a half hours to do that job. And so, yeah, if your vehicle's under that recall, just contact your dealer, set up an appointment, and get in there as soon as possible to get that master cylinder replaced.

And here's some general advice for all folks that give recall notices. When you call the dealership, be sure that they have the part for the recall, if parts are involved, and then make an appointment and tell the person you're talking to that you want that part reserved for you when you come in. You want to drive 40 miles coming into the dealership, drive on the service drive, and the service This is why I just says, I'm sorry, we don't have that part. And that happens way too frequently. And with recalls, oftentimes the parts are in scarce supply.

And they don't have enough parts when the recall notice is issued. And if too many people go in, there are going to be a lot of people finding out that they've got to go home again and then come back again. Don't let that happen to you. However, if you're concerned, and obviously this would be a safety concern to me, the Breakmaster's, cylinder you could lose your brakes if you do not feel comfortable driving your vehicle take it to the dealership either drive it there or have it towed there contact the dealer and ask them to please tow your vehicle to the dealership and tell them i don't feel comfortable driving this vehicle they will put you in a rental car and cover it until your vehicle is repaired if it is a safety

item they will right right that that is a safety issue and of course if they have parts available Well, they'll simply get it taken care of right then and there, and problem is solved. Exactly. How are we doing on text? I got a couple more. So we have Amoree texted us and says, State and County Gasoline Taxes help pay to maintain the roads. I'll settle for higher gas taxes if I don't encounter potholes that will kill my car.

Well, that's a matter of personal choice. Another argument to be made for gas taxes is the fact that we are fossil fuel dependent. We burn a huge amount of oil and gas, and it goes into the atmosphere, and it creates problems. So the higher the gas taxes, the more likely the pressure is on alternative sources of energy. And this is what has happened in Europe. In Europe, you think we've got high gas taxes, and the U.S. actually has some of the lowest gas taxes. The only place you can find lower are in Saudi Arabia and a few of the other countries where they have... Gasoline seeps out of the ground.

They have too much gasoline, yeah. So that's a philosophical thing, and eventually we're going to be all-electric, and this will be academic if we won't care. And that's a perfect lead into the next text, which says, Earl, do you think the auto industry will go all-electric, or will we keep some gasoline-powered vehicles? Well, there'll be antique cars. I mean, John from Palm City will still be buying cars at the auction that run by gas 20 years from now, 30 years from now. But no, there won't be any gasoline-powered cars. There's no need for it. Electrical power cars are superior in all forms except for range.

And the only thing keeping electric cars from being on the road 100% now is the cost to the batteries and the range. Range has almost been beat because you're going to see some cars out there now that will get 400 miles on one charge. And the charging stations are becoming more and more common and it's just a matter of getting the battery cost down. Rick? Well, and like we say, the car came out to replace the horse and buggy,

but if you look around areas, there's still horses all around, so. I haven't seen one in weeks. Rick, come on out to Wellington, near where I live there. They're all over. Yeah. Or in Amish communities in Pennsylvania. Okay, another text? No, we are all caught up.

Fantastic. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, remember you can vote on the mystery show. shopping report this morning, and we do love getting your perspective, and you can do that by texting us at 772-4976530, and that mystery shopping report is from Malinex Ford. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I'd like to remind you all of a common ongoing scam in the mail and by email, and these phony warranty companies. I got one the other day, and I'll just hold up.

It looks pretty official, doesn't it? And the highlight is my highlight, but it looks very official. I own a vehicle in my own name, and I get these all the time. You probably do, too. And it's always the same con. They say your car's close to running out of warranty, and you have just a certain amount of time to call this number or email this address and send some money so we can extend your warranty.

And the implication is this is the manufacturer. Your implication is this is some sort of an official agency and it's a sense of urgency, a lot of bold print and a lot of lies. So if you get anything in the mail, email or snail mail, ignore it if it has to do with extended your warranty. If you want to extend your warranty, then you can contact your dealer and you can even contact your manufacturer and they can refer to you to a dealer that has the manufacturers extended. warranties. A manufacturer's extended warranty is legitimate. I don't recommend them, but they're legitimate. These that you buy

in the mail are usually power train warranties which are virtually worthless and they charge thousands of dollars for these and they're worthless, they're a scam, and they're rip-off. So heads up on any kind of warranty extension. Great information.

Again, ladies and gentlemen, we'd love to hear from you vote on the mystery shopping report that's coming on 877-960 or if you want to text us with that boat 172-4976530. And I'm going to remind you of something else. I was amazed last week when I picked up the current consumer report and they have an article in there on auto repair chains.

Who can you trust and not? And that is in the February, the current issue of consumer reports. I've never seen this before. One of the most difficult questions we get all the time, where should I take my car to get repaired or maintain? And my stock answer has always been, you can get a lower price at an independent repair chain. You can probably get a better quality repair in a dealership. And then I always talk about ASC certified and trained and getting several bids, all that's still good advice. But now we have something additional in its Consumer Reports, February edition.

And they go out and they tell you the different independent chains, and they also tell you the car dealerships that are generally better. Now, you still need to be aware that the ones they recommend is only good as the people that work there. And you can have a top-rated car dealership. Toyota is recommended as being one of the better ones, Honda. But if you go into a Honda dealership that don't have good people or a Toyota dealership that don't have good people, you've got a problem. But go to Consumer Reports February edition or go online.

Stuart, can you pull that up online? Because I'm trying to thumb through the pages here. And the February edition, there's the auto repair chains. It might be, if you Google it under that. My Consumer Report was missing this morning. Good morning. What's the name on the back of that consumer report? Okay.

877-960-9960. That's our phone number, the old-fashioned phones, 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-960. And of course, we think we're screaming on Wi-Fi, we think we're pouring out Facebook and YouTube. at YouTube and Twitter and Periscope, and we sure like to have you post some comments on any of those streaming devices out there.

We have a text just came through. Nope, no, I just found the Consumer Reports February edition with the Car Repair Shop ratings. And it's, actually, it's a great article, like you mentioned, it has a whole bunch of advice, similar to what we dispense here on Erlon Cars. And then they have a whole rating of dealership service department.

and they go down into the independents. I looked at it last week. Who were the top two or three dealerships? The top dealership repair shops are Lexus, is topped with an 83 score, followed by Volvo and 83, and a Toyota by 82. Those are the top three. Lexus, Volvo, and Toyota.

And then what about the independents? The top three are the top one with a score of 90. It just says independent, retailer followed by Jiffy Loeb at 88. Oh, interesting. And I don't know if that is a, if that's a company name, it's the worst company name I ever heard in my life. Well, it must be, independent retailer.

That's strange, right, yeah. Yeah, so then Jiffy Loeb followed by Goodyear Audit Service. You know, I make fun of Jiffy Loeb, but that is a real plus in their column. And we kind of make fun of all the quick loop places. Yeah. But the fact that Jiffy Loob is ranked by consumer reports. I mean, I really trust consumer reports, and I'm sure there was some extensive

shopping that was done. Yeah. Rick? Well, if you have a jiffy-lub with, I'm sure they're franchised, and the owner and manager of those stores says, we're going to do things legit, we're going to concentrate on what we're doing, which is simply oil changes. We're going to sell filters when they need it, and the flushes when they need it, and we're we're going to play by the rules and do things right, you could run an incredibly profitable business doing that, and especially as word of mouth gets around that you're playing by the rules and doing it right, people are going to come to you because, again, you can be in and out of a jiffy loop in 15 to 20 minutes versus a dealership that's going to be 45 minutes to an

hour for an oil change. Just to round this out, let's talk about the bottom three amongst manufacturers. is the bottom three are mini, BMW, and then let me, I want you to guess the last one. Fiat. Pretty close. Jeep. Jeep.

Jeep. Yeah, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram. And then on the independence, and this surprised me, at the very bottom, well, the second from the bottom is Pep Boys. And that's followed by Mavis Discount Tire. So, that's a big difference between Pep Boys and Jiffy Loop. Yeah. If you had asked me last week, or two weeks ago, before I read this,

I would have said that Pett Boys was above Jiffy Loop. So, consumer reports, you know, I really, you've got to go along with them. Yeah, absolutely. We're going to go to Howard. We have a couple of calls coming in at the last minute here, and we're going to take Howard from Wellington. Good morning. What can we do for you, Howard?

Good morning. I make the, if you guys can come out about shop fees that most dealerships charge when you bring your car into service. It's like going to the doctor and getting, extra charge because you've got a band date put on your wound yeah it's a dealer fee of the service department and virtually every dealer does it i do not know of a dealer that does not do it i hate to say it but we don't i don't i used to a long time ago back when i was evil the shop fee is a percentage that they arbitrarily add it can be 5% 10% and they come up with a

fake name like the dealer fees do deal when you buy a car they call it doc fees and e-filing fees and tag agency fees when you have in car service the shop fees are miscellaneous hazardous waste disposal there's a there's a there's a dozen different names there's no law in florida that says you can't name it anything you want to so my recommendation howard when you go into one of these shops and most of them will do this virtually all you say to the uh can't share, what is this charge here? And she'll Hammond Hall, and you'll say, well, I'm not going to pay it. It wasn't quoted to me.

I'm paying for the repair you did. I'm not going to pay anything extra. And if you make us think about it, oftentimes, more often than not, they will remove it because they know they're doing the wrong thing. Rick? There are two of them, however, that are legit and as the tire disposal fee and battery disposal fee, recycle fee. Recycle fees.

That's not legitimate. Well, I thought when you buy a new one is charged that and then paid back later. It's overhead. It's called the cost of doing business. You know, your power bill, you're talking about purchasing a new vehicle fee. Oh, new vehicle. Yeah, the state, yeah, the state tire and battery fee is legitimate. Oh, when you're buying the car.

We're talking about shop fees. Oh, no, no, no. Howard does. When I was charged shop fees, I told them, I say, well, then give me the rags and give me that can of WB40. use. Yeah, give me the rest of the break flows. I didn't know all the food. And hand soap.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Just to come out of a chip, you lobe, every time I went there, they always try to help sell me on something that they really didn't need. Well, that happens in a lot of car dealerships and independence. And remember, everybody's on commission, Howard. So they get, what, 5% or 10% of whatever they sell you. And that really separates the honest people from the crooks.

unfortunately commission is part of our society and I have my technicians and my service advisors on commission and my new year's resolution is to come up with a bitter pay plan that does not pit technicians and service advisors into an adversarial relationship because honest people are going to treat you right but the people with a little larceny in their heart if they're on commission they're going to come after you and uh my day so p it's a bad pay plan yeah all right appreciate it okay Howard thanks for calling keep on listening we're going to go real quick to uh Doug who's calling from Boca good morning Doug hello hi Doug how you doing hey Ali hey how are you well thank you um I have a question sometimes when I get gas, I get better mileage, and other times I get gas from a different station, and then I get

worse mileage. So, I mean, as much as three to four miles per gallon more on some gas that I get, so, I mean, from one Chevron to another Chevron, this one Chevron I get four more miles per gallon, and the other one I get less. Same brand, same brand and same octane. Absolutely, yeah. Well, you stump me on that. Every now and then we get stumped, and we're going to have to Google that and see.

I can't think of what could cause the problem, but that's significant. Two or three miles per gallon is significant. And if anybody out there in Radio Land knows the answer to Doug's question, I'd be interested in hearing. But Doug will go into Station A in Chevron, fill up his tank, and you'll get a certain mileage, and then you'll go to another Chevron station, get the same octane, same brand, and you'll get two or three miles a gallon more or less.

And I don't know why that is, Doug. I apologize for failing you on that. No, Ollie can't answer it either. If Ollie can't answer it, there is no answer. I feel better now. Ollie is Doug's kitty cat for those wonder who Ollie is. Well, Doug, thanks very much. We should have a reward for people who stump Earl and stump Rick.

Well, the only thing I really could come up with on that. I was going to jump in on that. You know I will. I hate being stumped. I want to solve these problems. The only thing I might guess is temperature changes from one time to the next. I mean, like, this past week. You're stretching, Rick.

Well, this past week, temperatures have dropped a lot. Air conditioners are not having to work near as hard on the car, therefore you're not using as much fuel. Versus a week and a half ago, it was a lot warmer. And your AC had to work harder. That's the best answer you're going to get, Doug. If this happened in the summer too, you know. Good answer.

It wasn't with the winter. Well, we'll research you, but that's the best we can come up with now. Talking, if anybody else knows the answer, 877, 960, 9960, give us a call or text us at 772-497-6-5-30. Until then, Doug, blame it on our way. I'll think of some prize to give you for stumping the panel here. A big bag of cat. Have a good bag.

You're welcome. Give away cookies. This show's getting expensive. Big bag of catnip. Cats, you're still talking. That'd be great. Yeah, exactly. A laser pointer for Ollie.

We have a couple of texts that just came in. Great. here's one years ago i tried to buy a car and they said i was upside down on my trade the salesman asked if i had gap and when i said i did he recommended pushing it into a canal so i could get out of my loan clean i left in shock dan and sebring that's called an insurance fraud dan yeah actually there is a term for they call it stove piping yeah yeah but it's but it's fraud and well you know the sad thing is i believe it i believe it happened and uh fortunately he said years ago I'm glad modern dealerships aren't doing that.

That's called a felony. Oh, yeah, you've got a lot of trouble for that. If you're listening, that's bad advice. Don't do that. The next one is from Emmanuel in Lake Worth. He says, I went to one of those cheapo gas stations, and I think I got a tank of bad gas in my car that's causing severe knocking. How do you get it out of my tank?

What should you do? Rick, best advice, you just need to drive it out. However, what you can try, and it's going to be a very rare time that I will recommend trying an additive in your fuel. If you're getting Spark Knock or PING, PEP Boys or your local auto store, look for a product called 104 Octane Boost, or it's an Octane booster. Most of the products are going to be about the same. And you just pour some of this in your fuel tank according to the directions on the can,

and it will raise the octane level of the fuel and help reduce that spark knock. Wow, that's cool. 104 octane boost. I never heard of that. We used to use that back in the day when we'd take our cars out to Moroso and that because you could tune the carb and tune your timing a little more to get a little more power out of it, dump a bunch of this in the tank, and you would not get that spark knock, and you could abuse your daily driver on the drag strip.

Yeah. Now, another thing we want to recommend to this texture is you can try to get the repair covered by the gas station. And you mentioned it was a cheap independent. That lowers your chances. But nevertheless, if you can prove by your receipt and the advice to folks out there when you buy gas, keep your receipt and use the same gas station regularly. If you don't do both those things, then the gas station can deny responsibility. And if you don't have the receipt, hopefully you put it on a credit card because you'll have a record of that transaction. Yeah, exactly. But if it's just spark-knock, they're probably going to say, well, there's no real damage to your car. Just drive it out. Well, yeah, if it's only that.

But it becomes serious. Oh, yeah. We've seen some bad stuff, yeah, water, sugar, mud. We're all caught up, yeah. We're caught up, so it's time for the mystery shopping report. Okay. Folks, we're waiting to hear from you. We'd like you to vote on that mystery shopping report from Malenix Ford, 772-4976530.

This is Malenks Ford, by the way, in Apaka. We shopped Melnick's Lake Park location four times. They're on North Lake Boulevard, and have had mixed, but mostly good results. Malnick's Ford was the first, and for a long time, the only car dealer to pass the Takata test. They did this when they were on the subjects of our massage. they were one of our subjects of our massive south florida tucata mystery shop that saw literally dozens of dealers followed by misrepresenting the safety of use vehicles they were selling we always like mullinics and we've placed them on our recommended dealer list for many years there are no haggle approach which they stick to and there are no dealer fee policy uh interestingly enough even before and i full transparency uh i am a car dealer and many years ago before before i dropped my dealer fee because i used to charge one four hundred ninety five dollars

better fact uh malnakes ford uh poor dealership he had in fort lauderdale area at the time did not have a dealer fee and uh he was well known at that time for not having a dealer fee so he really pioneered no dealer fee so it's interesting it's a historical thing uh the dealerships now have expanded there are more dealerships and they've been operated by malnix's sons I believe unfortunately the last two times we shopped them we were disappointed to find out that they were in fact Mullinex was in fact charging dealer fees in August 2017 and again in January of 2018 agent X returned with Mullin X buyers orders that listed a $53 charge for dealer delivery

fee fifty three bucks it's you know almost why very small in today's scheme of things. Well, it multiplies with volume, so. Yeah, well, it has up. But the average dealer fee now is probably $800. But he had another one, Malnix did, $49. He called Florida Dock Stamps. And frankly, we were shocked at this.

In both cases, Agent X was paying cash. Well, and the dock fee, even if you charge the, you don't charge documentary fees on the cash purchase. So it was added insult to injury. But they're still tiny compared to most South Florida dealers. Mollinx Ford and Lake Park charges $102 in dealer fees. That might be brilliant. So a customer comes in, they see a $1,000 dealer fee.

They're going to want to negotiate with that if they're somewhat educated. $102, they might be likely to say, forget about it. I'm getting a deal. Yeah. I'm a huge discount on my deal with me. I mean, if you have a $1,000 dealer fee and they, say take off the dealer fee, they're not doing as well as Molnack's Ford is

with their hundred. Well, Monarchs returns you're advertising to, we have the lowest dealer fee. Well, that's what we used to tell people. We had one of the lowest dealer fees in town back 15 years ago, yeah. What made this especially egregious is the fact that they heavily promote, that they don't charge a dealer fee. It'd be

better if they were honest about it. And I, this baffles me. I don't know why they would do that. Molnix has six locations in Florida, and all of them promise no dealer fees. We decided to go check out one of their dealerships outside of the South Florida area to see about two things. You know, South Florida, it's really rough and tumble, the wild wild west. The further north you go, generally speaking, tamer things get,

although we do have the Kia dealership that we shop last week. It was the worst we've ever seen. That was on the West Coast, which was almost North Florida. It was huge. Huge. There was only one man with a fortitude to take our... a mission to a popka and that was agent x and here's a report as if i were agent x prior to setting out from all next four to a popka i found a 2006 Ford Mustang on their website that had both

driver's side and passenger side to cut airbag recalls and no parts available get this no parts so these deadly safety defects can't be remedied the Mustang was priced is at $5,500. I called ahead to make sure it was there, spoke with a salesman named Mike, who told me to come on down. The car was there. I told Mike it was his lucky day because I intended to buy two cars, a new 2018 fusion hybrid for myself and the 2006 Mustang for my son. Mike sounded enthusiastic and told me to ask for him when I arrived. I got there around 5 o'clock in the afternoon, walked into the show. showroom. I asked the receptionist for Mike and waited a few minutes. A very friendly looking

middle-aged guy approached and asked if I was blank. We can't tell Agent X's real name. He said he'd already found a great deal for me on the 2018 Ford Fusion and wanted to know if I wanted to start with one that that car or the used Mustang. I said I wanted to look at the fusion first. a new one. He led me outside, told me about himself and the dealership as we walked to the car. He said he had been selling cars for Mullinix for 14 years. He emphasized that this was a no-hackle dealership and they didn't charge dealer service fees. So far. So good? So far, yeah. Looking fine. We arrived at the Fusion Hybrid. Mike launched into a nice presentation. He suggested we test drive it and I agreed. He had the keys already in

hand we hopped in drove off i noticed the odometer that indicate 2,481 miles already on the car i didn't say anything and neither did mike that's something you don't normally notice and when you're test driving a car buying a car take a look at the odometer you don't think about it but new cars all have miles on and also be make sure that you're not looking at the trip odometer yeah exactly because you could have miles on a car and make it look like nothing i make that mistake but I look at it. So, we got back to the show on. Mike tried some trial closes.

He asked if I liked the car and if the numbers look good, would I like to take it home that night? He reminded me again that there were no dealer fees. I said I would like to take it home if the numbers were right. At his desk, Mike wanted to know how I was paying for the car. That's classic. I told him it would be cash and he accepted that without trying to convince me to finance. and in the tough dealerships,

they will beat you over the head to get their financing. That's where car dealers make the most money. Last week, they wouldn't even tell them the price. Wouldn't tell them. Unless he filled out of a credit application. He told me I was going to be very happy because he was going to save me a ton of money due to the fact that the fusion we drove was a demo.

Then he could sell it for thousands less than the one that was technically new. Now, that's not true. the word can. He can if he wants to, but there's nothing about a demo that makes them sell them for less money than the fact that you know it's a demo,

which is one of the reasons how you need to be careful. I also didn't like how he kind of waited until he had gotten Agent X to love the car before he mentioned that was a demo. Demonstrators are not typically subsidized by the manufacturers. That meaning that when a car dealer uses a car for a demonstrator, he just uses it and there's no subsidy involved. He's not getting a discount from the price. So when he discounts a demonstrator from you, he is really taking it out of his hide. You know, he's not, he's lowering his profit by being honest with you because you should get some discount.

Even if they depreciate the car, they're still just recouping a little bit of a loss. So he says he's going to get a really good deal because it is a demo. And it could be, but it doesn't have to be. He said this was still considered new because it had never been titled, which is true. And it's also wrong, by the way. There should be a Florida law. Now, there is a Florida law. It has to be disclosed.

It has to be disclosed. The Florida law says that if you sell a car which has been used as a demonstrator, you have to disclose it in writing. And there's a paper that says this car was used as a demonstrator. Or previously sold, even if it wasn't titled. Or previously sold. And you're supposed to sign acknowledging that you've read the paper. Typically, you don't read it, and you just sign all the papers.

Now, where it should be is on the title, and it's not. And floral law should have all cars that use as demonstrators shown on the title. If it's a rental or lease car is shown, if it's a police car is shown, a lot of things have to be shown on the title. Why wouldn't you show that a car was used commercially to sell other cars, as a demonstrator but they don't do it and the manufacturers do have the um the ability or the for the dealers to report it as a demo yes so and a lot of dealers just don't do that they just don't do yeah um so technically it's new he said this was still considered new

because it never been title he said i was getting the best of both worlds a new car for the price we used one i said let's see the numbers mike left to get a worksheet buyers order turned in a couple of minutes, sat down and presented to the deal. The MSRP was $28,230. He had discounted it to arrive at the selling price, with $20,500 plus tax and tag. That's a big discount. It's pretty good.

I did look up to see what a used 2018 Fusion hybrid would be. It's still on the high side. They're going for around $18,000, maybe $18.5. So it's a little bit higher, but like he said, it hasn't been titled, so that does give it some value. And there was no dealer fee, which surprised us. 22,000, 289 out the door. He said I could take delivery that night, or if I need a little time,

I could give him a $100 deposit to hold it for a few days. I said, let him know after we discussed the used Mustang for my son. Mike said, great, let's take a look at it. It was at the far side of Olmex's enormous lot. We took a golf car over there on the ride. Mike cautioned that the car hadn't been through. the shop yet or detail asked me not to judge it too harshly i asked him whether the car was safe considering it hasn't been checked out yet he said it was but they would make sure during inspection

and they wouldn't sell it if they determined it wasn't safe the moustache a little rough mismatched tire brands dirty trunk with garbage in it mike started the engine and it roared Mike said it had a cold air intake, and I said, my son will love of that. I asked about accidents, and Mike said, we look over a Carfax report when we went back inside. We drove the car and returned. Back at Mike's desk, he said that the price was $5,500 plus tax and tag, no dealer fees. Again, pleasant surprise. I'd already been through the no-haggle thing with him, so I didn't try to get a

discount. Mike left to get a printed copy of the Carfax report. He returned and we looked it over. By the way, a lot of dealers say they're no haggle, no hassle, but they really aren't. And if you were dealing with somebody that says they're no haggle, no hassle, it isn't going to hurt you to try. Right. And you should. And you should always shop and compare their price. Don't take no haggle, no hassle is the gospel. We see a lot more, uh, one price, no haggle, approaches with used cars.

It's a little bit rare. Well, Alpac or Ford, for example, they say bottom line pricing implication being no haggle, no asshole, they negotiate. Yeah, yeah. One other thing I just wanted to point out real quick was the Carfax report. Very important. Molinax, I was actually surprised to see you can't access the Carfax report on their website. And pretty much every car dealer, even the small little buy-hear pay-hears, we'll list that

on there. You can check it out before you get to the store. We had to run at our own with our own. resources. Now, was that, that's a choice of Mullinick. Yeah. So that's a strike. That's a strike against Mullinx, who used to be the pristine best Ford dealer and one of the best car dealers we recommend. Why would Mullinx Ford not permit you to access Carfax reports on the cars online? It doesn't cost of anything, does it? Not to put it on the website. They'll pay a subscription for the things, but they obviously have, they have the service. Yeah. So that's a strike against

Mullinix. It's either an oversight or a, could be an oversight. I asked him again if it was a safe car. He said it will be when we get it through the shop. I asked him if he would get that handled and he asked me to give him a $100 deposit to hold it while I was inspected. Now, here's another suggestion for Mullinx. You have the Carfax report. You have the car. Why haven't you put it to the shop? Or why wasn't it in the shop? Why wouldn't the first thing you do when you take a car you had time to advertise it yeah put it online yeah you put it online you advertise it you had the car waiting for me when i came in the car should have been in process yeah yeah so just a suggestion and that's done by design i mean when they

get a car especially a cheap one they want it on the website right away yeah and maybe if they can't sell if they wholesale it they don't want to spend any money on it i asked him if he would get that handle He asked me, okay. He said, unless I gave him the $100, it's likely another salesperson would work a deal on it and probably sell it, which is true. It's not a bad idea to give a salesman a deposit to hold the car,

but be sure that you have a receipt that says you have a refundable. And he's telling the truth. It's tax time. People are going to be getting tax refunds. A $5,500 car is very attractive. Florida law says, if you do not have a refundable, on the receipt that the deposit is refundable it's not refundable that's a bad law all deposits should be refundable i felt some mild pressure but agreed to give him the deposit mike said it should

only take a day and he'd call me with the results of the inspection he also said my deposit was good for holding both the new um which was a demo fusion port fusion and the mustang that's cheap i asked him if my deposit held the price and he replied it would unless they found any major repairs. I thanked him and left. Mike called me the next day to say that the Mustang passed inspection. They replaced two tires, but we keep the price at $5,500 plus tax and tag. Only $6,357 out the door. He asked if I was ready to come get it. I said maybe, but I had concerns about the Takata recalls. Mike said that recalls are common. They fake all make some cars. That's a true statement.

Like shabby's and Toyota, this is true. He said it was nothing to worry about, and I would get a letter soon from Ford, letting me know when the recall can be fixed, and there would be no charge for me. This is what really got us upset. Nothing to worry about. Upset.

Now, obvious is something to worry about. The other thing is he probably won't get a letter. If this... Yeah, how is he going to get a letter? Yeah. Ford doesn't know about it. Yeah. Ford knows who they sold the car to the first time.

He could be a second or third or fourth owner, and typically these letters. He would be the fourth owner. Fourth owner. And the chances are like a snowball in hell that they are going to ever get a letter. Really shocked by all this. The other thing is, I didn't see it printed out on my copies, too,

but we know for a fact that there is no remedy. That is correct. Okay. So there's no remedy. available. So he would, he misinformed the person of the fact that there's no remedy available. Was that premeditated or stupidity or carelessness? No, I think he's, he's, well, he's not being completely genuine. He says he'll get a letter from Ford saying they would let him know when the recall can be fixed. Oh. He's not saying it

can be fixed. He says it'll be notified. Okay, so he's telling a true. He's telling, okay. He's not going to get notified. He's not going to get done. Yeah. Okay. Okay. It's, uh, It's a terrible, disappointing thing on a very good dealer that has a good reputation. And I don't think we followed through before. I had said before when we discovered the dealer fee that we're going to try to get through to the Mullinx folks. And we never did, but we need to somehow or other. There's a good family dealership group that is going to hell in the handbasket. And first they went into the dealer fee game, and now they're going.

into the deception and the Dakota airbag thing and it's just sad as well it's doesn't have a dealer fee uh well in this case here i'm glad you mentioned that on the buyer's order there's a blank dealer fee for a small amount so our prior shops discovered the dealer fees but if you look uh there's a copy there for a 49 well no there's nothing there's nothing in there it's It's zero, but... Dealer handling fee said zero. Yeah. Which means they didn't put a number in there.

Or they're using it to as a, like a sales tool, like to draw attention that they're not selling it. It's disturbing. And we need to... And it could be that each... There's six Molinx dealerships. Maybe they have different policies. Different ones. We'll have to call and find out that.

But anybody knows anybody in Malinix? There's six dealerships. Give them a heads up. We would love to be able to... get them down the path of righteousness again. They were a good dealer, and we're going to rate them now. We don't know whether we're going to rate them as a good dealer or bad dealer. Do we have any votes so far?

We have four so far. We have new, for the new, I guess they mean the new car portion, A, used F. I guess that averages out to a C. The next one is a C minus. We have an F and a D so far. Yeah. That's disturbing. Who wants to go first in the studio here?

I'll go first. I do like Mullinax Ford. I did like to see the development with the dealer fees in the last two previous shops. They have points in my mind for not doing dealer fees up in a popka, but I can't pass them after how they handled the Takata portion of that shop. You can't. So I've got to give them an F.

Nancy? I'm going to give them an F. just doesn't represent you know who I am the mystery shopper clearly mentioned this vehicle was for his son and added to the dealer fee the whole thing's pretty sloppy I give it an F

I want to go split I want to do two grades on the new car I want to give them a B because I think if you if you split these into two separate deals on the Fusion Mike was totally honest that it's a demo

he gave him a very reasonable discount and no dealer fee and if all if that was the only car that we were mystery shopping that would have been a B or an A right off the bat that would have been an exceptional mystery shop so I'd like to see them

get a split great on that give him a B for that but on the Takata one it is a solid F because he should have immediately said this cannot be fixed you know he should have at least been

up front and saying it cannot be repaired and I agree with you I'm going to give him an F also and Lyndon on Facebook chimes in with a big fat F. Yeah big fat F you know the F and the

Ticada trumps the B or the A or whatever you want to give them on the first part because in a lot of ways this Takata shop is arguably maybe the worst shop we've done on Takata because he knew that the remedy was not available and he told him to buy the car anyway and that he would be notified by Ford it just is absolutely unconscionable and either he was sadly misinformed or and I just don't believe it I think it was a premeditated act to sell the car and I think maybe it's hopefully He's a salesman.

They said to work for him for 12 years. 14 years. He's been there for a while. We're going to contact Molanex, and we will call the dealership, and we will have to speak to the Molinex. If there is a Molinx there, if not the general manager, we'll have a conversation, and we will report back to you next week as to how a good dealership who went bad can be revived.

Sounds good. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in Darryl Stewart on Cars, and we want to thank you and there's a lot of ways for you to spend your weekend and thank you for spending it with us. We'll see you next week. Thank you.