Earl Stewart on Cars - 01.14.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Arrigo CDJ of West Palm Beach

Episode Date: January 14, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning revisits a local Chrysler Dodge Jeep dealer to see if they will honor their online price for a new 2022 Dodge Durango SXT SUV. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. We're back on a chilly, chilly morning here in South Florida. I feel embarrassed. I know I'm talking to some folks in Buffalo, New York, and other places where it really gets cool, but us Floridians you get down in the low 40s and you're just not used to it

but anyway it's kind of actually it's kind of nice for change because it'll be warm in two days and it's nothing wrong with a little shivering every now and then but we're streaming so we're all over the place we're talking to Oklahoma

we're talking to you know folks in Canada across the pond as far away as Bali and we're on YouTube, we're on Facebook. One of the introductions, we do this every, my son, Stu, has been out for a while with a back issue. He's going to get that resolved this week.

He's going to have a little surgery, outpatient, so he'll be fixed up and back, I hope, in the next couple of weeks. But he's our cyberspace expert. He's in charge of dispatching Agent Lightning, our mystery shopper, and he's also the general manager of our car dealership, which gives him real-time knowledge of what's going on today in the retail automobile business. So, Stu, I know you're going to do fine

and get that surgery behind you, and you will be back with us. Meanwhile, we got Rick Kearney filling in for Stu, and he's going to be monitoring the Facebook. So if you want to talk to us on Facebook post, You can go to Facebook.com forward slash earl on cars And also YouTube, YouTube.com forward slash Earl on cars. So we have a huge YouTube following.

In fact, they're a bunch of cool people, too. They're knowledgeable, they're contributors. We have all different types of callers, and we have some that are really sharp people that do their homework. And on YouTube, we've got a lot. lot of those. And we look forward to that. YouTube.com forward slash Erlon Cars. Nice thing about the streaming posting is you can post

pictures, videos, audio clips. And so it's kind of like a real world kind of a call. Now, that's not to say we don't really favor our normal callers. And I think Siri is talking to me. Sorry. Sorry, sorry. Surrey's talking. Trying to double check our settings here. Happens to everybody. It's the 21st century. I mean, we're surrounded by digital people. I actually asked Alexa to remind me to stop off at the pharmacy on the way home to pick up a prescription. And she'll remind me at 10.15.

So it's a new world that we're in and exciting world. If you want to call us on the old-fashioned telephone, and you know something? I really hope they never completely replace. phone calls. I know we use cell phones to make phone calls, so that can give you the technology kick. You know, you get, oh, I'm using my Apple to calls. But the calls are good. A human voice being heard and responded to by another human voice is something special. It's psychological. I think you can become more friendly. I think you can understand people and actually analyze them to some extent when you hear their voice. So our landline, as they

call it now. Our landline is 877-960-960. You should write it down if you think about calling later. It's a two-hour show. Hey, this is a little after 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. We'll be on the air for two hours until 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

And you might think of something you want to say. So if you didn't write the number down, you'll say, oh, darn. You might even say, oh, damn, but whatever you say it's 877-960-9960 now texters we've got a place for you too some people just don't want to I'm a texter I admit I will text oftentimes rather than call it's it's quicker and it just saves you a lot of time so our text number is 772-497 6530. That's 772-497-6-5-30. Now, Nancy Stewart, my co-host, sitting to my left here in the studio in North Palm Beach, Florida, where True Oldies is located in North Palm Beach, Nancy Stewart, she has a special offer for you first-time female callers, and it's going to involve this text number. It's going to make it a little easier for you. So she'll explain that later.

But if you're a first time caller and you're a female, you really should write this number down. Text number, 772, that's the area code, 772-497-6530, 7-72-497-6530. So those are the popular ways to contact us. And everything we say really is indirectly related or indirectly related to our blog, our website blog. And that's just earloancars.com. www. www.urlonecars.com is a, gosh, it's a treasure of information. I mean, I'm not bragging, but we've been doing this for 20 years,

so there's a lot of info on there. And we have mystery shopping reports that we have, posted over the years, hundreds and hundreds of them. We have a good dealer, bad dealer list. Every time we mystery shops, our car dealership, we grade at ABC, D, or F. If you're after a failure, and you go on the do not recommend list. Hey, we had an A last week, can you believe that? I think it was our highest score ever.

It was the Tesla dealership on Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach, Florida. Congratulations to Georgia, the salesperson, and that whole team out there, you've got the highest score we've ever given our car dealership. And we have some pretty bad scores, too, but not so far on any Tesla dealerships. I think our worst score might be on Ed Napleton store, probably. Anyway, wealth of information on www.orgoncars.com. And if you miss a show, we have our podcast, and we have on YouTube, we've got video clips of subjects that we cover within the area. And we have Jonathan here in the studio that puts these together for us and takes the meat of a rant that I might make about some subjects and puts the good stuff in, and we put a video clip on YouTube, and then just go to YouTube.com for us slash or a long car.

So that's pretty much what we do here. I mentioned Rick Kearney earlier, and I got to go back to Rick because we get hung up on selling cars. This is all about how to get a good price, how not to get ripped off when you buy or lease, and we sometimes neglect service. And funny thing is, service is neglected in cartilage chips too. So what do we call, what's the slang expression for the service department, Rick, and the, car dealership. We're the back end. The back end. Isn't that terrible?

I mean, you could also say the rear end. I mean, it's just kind of an insulting thing to say, where do you work? I'll work on the back end. All right, but I got one thing to tell you. Yeah. Anybody that's ever had their back end get closed up, you know that the brain gets real foggy and messed up after that. So don't mess with the back end.

Anyway, the back end is what car dealer is called. service department and they just that's where they put them the glory guys or the new car sales people they get all the glory they win the trips uh the manufacturer honda general motors whoever the manufacturer is they salute these people and they put pictures in automotive news and they give them prizes i mean it just meanwhile the guys that really keep the cars going the guys that that take the cars and fix the mistakes the manufacturer made under warranty and all these things they're in the service department.

So if you have an issue with your car, and you probably do, who doesn't? I mean, if you're driving a vehicle today, you have an issue probably because there's a lot of things on the car you just don't understand. The high-tech stuff is so high-tech

that you can't figure out how to drive your car. Nancy Stewart pointed an article out to me that she found the other day and I believe consumer reports and it shows the high-tech new car good things that people can't figure out how to use

and so that Rick can help you there so if you have something on your car a button or a switch or a light or something that you just say what does that do and maybe you're afraid to push the button I've seen buttons that I'm dying to push

and I say but I'm going to hurry, I might never get where I'm going if I push that button. In fact, I've done it. I mean, sometimes when I lost control. I give you a heart attack because I push the buttons. Go on. So, you call Rick Kearney. He will give you a free analysis of any year-making model call you got.

He's better on toilets because we have a toilet dealers. But he's pretty damn good on just about any kind of car you got. If you have a squeak, rattle, a roll in your car and say, where's that coming from? What does that mean? Should I stop and get it fixed? Or that infamous warning light comes on. Check engine. Oh, my God. Check engine.

Should I pull over the side of the road? It's Sunday. I'll never find a dealership or a service. What do I do? I mean, that's what these lights and warning things do. And while you can, you call Rick Kearney at 877-9-60-9-9-60. or YouTube because he monitors that and Facebook. I mean, it's impossible not to get hold of Rick if you've written these numbers down.

So we have a caller, and I forgot to say we favor the dial-in number. We will stop what we're doing, and I'm stopping now, because we have a caller. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Errol Stewart on Cars. We have a whole lot to get to, but first, as Earl said, I want to get to the first phone call this morning, and I'll get back with you some information. that I have for everyone and also rewarding the female callers. So for now, we're going to get to Sarah, who's calling from Boynton Beach, and she has called

before, and I think I recall what you're calling about, but I'm not going to guess. I'll let you talk. Good morning, Sarah. Good morning, Nancy. Good morning, gang. I'm calling for the back. guy. Rick, I called last week. I had a problem with my door. That's it. Door. Yep. The door handle. So I went and had the door handle looked at, and it was the handle itself broke. That's all I needed was a handle.

Isn't that amazing? Excellent. Wonderful. That is fantastic. And I want to thank you for your info and thinking that it was a little clip, but it was just as simple as the little clip. That's great. I want to thank you very much. Back end is the front end for me. There you go. Well, we're like the base of the pyramid. Without us, the whole thing falls down.

Crumbles. Well, the back of the pyramid, too. The back end of the pyramid. Thank you all so much. I love your show. Thank you. That's awesome. Thank you so much, Sarah. Give us a call again.

Have a great weekend. I will. You do the same. Earl mentioned earlier about the new features that we love and some that we don't love. You know, you can read all about that in the Consumer Report, and that's the January, excuse me, February edition. And, boy, there's some real changes that are coming about that are right there that you can, you know, order. the next time you purchase a vehicle. And...

I think it's January, yeah? Oh, is it February edition, too? I'm talking about the new features and the ones that we love and some that we don't love. And there's two good ones of January and February, yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, you might want to pick that up. Also, I want to, you know, just do a little bragging here

and to let everyone know that we have really, reached an audience in Palm Beach County, Broward County, Martin, St. Lucy, Okachobi. We're all over the place, and we enjoy your company, so give us a call this morning. At 877-960-99-60, where you can text us at 772-497-2-497-6-5-30. And for the first two female callers this morning, whether you're in Broward, Palm Beach, That's Fort Lauderdale for you folks that aren't familiar with Florida. Fort Lauderdale, Miami area is pretty far south. We call it the Sodom and Gomorrah of car dealerships.

They are probably the toughest, nastiest, crookedest dealers in the world are in Dade County, which is Miami, and Broward County, which is Fort Lauderdale. Yeah, we'd just, we'd love to hear from you. Hear all your stories, as Earl said. It's pretty crazy down there. and also we have our mystery shopping report and we're going to get to that another interesting shopping report from Arrigo

we also would like to extend the $50 as I said earlier to the first two female callers and also you know if you so wish you can text me your contact information if that's easier for you take advantage of that That's 772.

We would prefer that, wasn't we? I would. Yes, I would. It would be simpler. It would come. Yeah, that would be simpler. Something to refer back. So the telephone number is 772-4976530.

Again, that text number is 772-4976530. And don't forget, your anonymous feedback. Yes, your anonymous feedback.com. there you can take advantage of you know saying whatever you want and you nobody will know it's from you now back to the recovering car dealer

you know we have so many facets and features on this show and we've been doing for so long we neglect things and I know oftentimes the call is said what about this one of the things they say what about this is our vigilantes and that is a great idea. I don't even know who came up with the idea. We've been doing

for a while. And if you're streaming us, I'm going to put my little vigilante hat on here, and there's a little badge there. It's just a little something that we give you to let you know that we appreciate your participating. And the participation for the vigilantes,

I'll hold this up closer. You can see the little badge there. Vigilante is, in the positive sense of the word. I mean, you can construe vigilantes to be a bunch of rabble rousers and you're doing bad things but I'm thinking of the good vigilante

and we're looking to have people in different markets around the world around the United States certainly that are knowledgeable I mean they're sophisticated car buyers they've been there they've done that they're car buffs they understand cars and maybe they're just listeners to this show for a long time

We've created vigilantes by people who will listen to this show. And you will be in your market available to people that need your help. We have a list on earlancars.com. It's a vigilante list. You can volunteer there, click on Earl's Vigilantes, and then you put your contact information in, and that becomes available to people in your market. So if you're in Minneapolis, or if you're in Paducah, Kentucky,

or if you're in, you know, Bali, or wherever you may be. A local car shopper, maybe a young person, hasn't bought a car before, maybe someone that's alone and doesn't have any help. And, you know, a widow, we find a lot of widows who are victimized. And you can go to our alone cars, vigilante list, and pick a name. And it's a volunteer thing. You're not going to, we don't give you anything except a hat. It's a really nice hat.

So, if you volunteer for Earl's Vigilandis at Earlancars.com, people in your neighborhood will be able to come to you for help. And then they could come to us for help anytime, but sometimes you're better off in a market knowing the dealers and knowing the local customs. You can probably offer better advice than I can, you know, to somebody that's in Buffalo. I don't know how the dealers operate there. I know how they operate in South Florida. And so pretty rough.

And we know how to help people down here. So earlsviglantis.com. How are we doing on text? How are we doing on YouTube's or Facebook? Well, we do have one interesting note here from Donovan. He says, as I'm sure you're aware, Tesla did a massive price drop yesterday. after several price increases over the past two years, as much as $13,000 on some models.

How is your dealership, or how do you think other dealers will handle that the used test lists they now have are thousands of dollars more than what are new Tesla costs? Well, they're in serious trouble, and that's a great question. The used car market is really scary right now. And the dealers, they rode that bandwagon of used car prices skyrocketing to the point where they were actually selling, literally selling used cars at higher prices than new cars. And it just got crazy. And then the bubble burst. You've all heard that expression, like in the stock market.

Well, the used car bubble burst. It didn't burst completely. But used car prices drop precipitory. And so what happened is a lot of big guys like CarMax, Carvana.com, a lot of the big auto nation, a lot of these big used car retailers had all this inventory that they paid too much money for. So what do they do? Well, what business people would tend to do is they tend to ignore it. And when you ignore a real problem, like if you've got a cavity, you know, what happens to your tooth if you don't get it fixed? But if you don't get your inventory fixed, people stop buying the cars because the prices have come down, but yours are still high.

What you have to do is bite the bullet. You have to write down the cars, take a loss on your financial statement, and just basically say, I say I've got a million dollars where they use cars in my inventory, but I really only have. have 800,000 and I'm going to have to take a $200,000 loss this month. Well, very few companies have the courage to do that. I did it at my dealership, and I still have to wear a Kevlar vest from my own managers because they're very mad at me because we took that big loss and fixed their paychecks. CarMax didn't do it.

Carvana didn't do it, and they're still out there trying to sell overpriced used cars to you and you're smart enough probably hopefully not to pay that so shop carefully car prices have come down some car dealers have refused to ignore that I have ignored that so what you should do is be particularly conscientious about shopping used cars prices are down probably 20% from just a couple months ago and and they're going to come down more there's still too high but they will they will come down Shop and compare. And I always

recommended CarMax is my favorite car dealership. They're biggest. They're the most honest, transparent. They if you buy a car you don't like, you can take it back with certain conditions, and they'll buy your car at a fair price.

I've had nothing good things to say about CarMax, and they are the biggest. They're nationwide. But they've got cars overpriced now, and I wouldn't recommend you buy a car from CarMax. And they're not even negotiable. It used to be a good thing because they're one price that they put their lowest price on every car. Well, right now, they're one price they've got on every car. There's too high. So you should go somewhere else for that model car you're buying, shop and compare.

Any other texts? Well, continuing on with that one, actually, with Donovan. And he says, they had to do the top to qualify for the new tax credit. So a Model Y is now $13,000 cheaper and gets a $7,500 tax credit. He says, I actually purchased a new Model Y yesterday because of the drop. It was the first car buying experience I ever had, first new car. Cool. For Donovan, that's saying something because he obviously has got a lot of experience with vehicles.

If that's his first new one, congrats Donovan. He says, my second best car buying experience was at Earl Stewart Toyota, and it sadly got knocked down by Tesla. Wow. Well, you know, we missed me shopped Tesla

last week, and it got the highest grade, and you're going to see a lot of that. I mean, the change that's going to be taking place that only scares car dealers, and should make you happy as consumers is the fact that and Nancy and I talked about this coming in now she says when is this going to happen

and I said we don't know but we just know that it will happen and I said we probably won't be here to see it because you know we're senior citizens but I would say for sure in the next 20 years probably in the next 10 years you will see more cars being retailed directly by the manufacturers

than you will see by the car dealers. And there was a very interesting article in the current automotive news that what were the two cars, the Lucid? The Rivian and the Lucid? Yeah, the Rivian. Rivian?

Rivian. Rivian. The Rivian and Lucid. Did you ever think that they would be mentioned in the same conversation with Tesla when you were reading that article, you know, and to what you said about us not being around, you know, whenever these other car dealers come into the same, you know,

situation that Rivian and Lucid are in right now, I think it's going to happen while we're alive. Yeah, so that was Illinois, that was the state of Illinois, and it's a state-by-state thing because it's a state legislators that were bought and paid for by the car dealers and the car dealers associations. And so they've always had the, if you want to sell a car, you've got to be a car dealer.

And that's the way it is. And they beat them. Rivian and Lucid went to court, and they won. And that's the way it's going to be. Tesla is one. So there's three manufacturers. Now, these two, Rivian and Lucid are very small now, but they will be bigger, I think.

And Tesla sure isn't small. They're huge. So that day is coming. Yeah, definitely. And it was predicted back in, you know, December, if not earlier, that the prices on these Teslas were going to drop and they were going to be noticed. And there will be a whole lot more people out there

that can afford electric. Well, in all fairness, let me say this about Tesla. Tesla has the highest margin. Now, you think about, You think about why the car dealers should not have the exclusive franchise on selling cars, and you say that's because I'm going to pay too much money for the car, which is all very true. The fact of the matter is Tesla makes more on a car that they sell you directly than any of the manufacturers. The average margin that General Motors or Ford or Honda or Toyota will make on a

new car is three or four percent three or four percent that's not bad change i mean a 50 thousand dollar car that's no that's not with the volume that they sell yeah with the volume they sell but that's all they get you know what tesla's average margin is over 20 percent so when when tesla cut their price you know that that was nice of them and but they're not dying i mean they're not panicking i mean if they cut their if they cut their if they cut their if they cut their price by 3,000. What was they on the Y? 13,000.

Okay, 13,000. Well, I wonder how that would translate percentage-wise to what their margin is on the Y. My guess is they're probably still making a bigger margin on the Y than Ford or GM is making on their cars. So Elon Musk is not starving to death because he cut price on the cars. And sooner or later, we knew he was going to have to cut the price on the cars.

And he is the largest manufacturer and seller of watch your cars in the world. Wow. Well, maybe not quite large enough for him, and that's the reason why these prices are dropping. And it's going to generate traffic in the right direction. And that is Tesla to be bigger and better and sell more cars at a reasonable price. Let's give that phone number out. 877-960-99-60. And I forgot to mention earlier that we prioritize the telephone because we've got five lines, I think,

and we don't want you to wait. And it happens. I have to tell you, it does happen, and I've had people complain. But when the call comes through, the switchboard puts it on Nancy's laptop, and as soon as she sees it, she waves at me or Rick or whoever's talking, and we stop and we put you through. So we'd love to have your calls at 877-960-960, especially if you're a female and you haven't called the show before and then we're going to give you 50 bucks cash, no conditions.

We just send it straight to your house. You don't even have to make any comments. You could just call the show because we want to keep our parody of female versus male callers 50-50. And that number for you females would like to get a, fast 50 bucks. You haven't called the show before. The first two, 877-9-60-99-60. Okay. Rick? We have quite a few here. We'll start off with Anne-Marie for the first text. Good morning, Anne-Marie. She says, good morning. I need Rick's expertise. I recently brought my

2013 Camry in for its six-month checkup. It now has 89,000 miles. got an oil change tire rotation and was ready to go in an hour. The service advisor said that the tech noticed a rattle coming from the steering column when he took the car for a test drive. There was a note on my paperwork that the power steering bushings needed to be replaced. I hadn't noticed the rattle before, but driving home, I hit a rough spot in the road, and I heard it. My questions are as follows.

What is a power steering bushing? what does it do? How soon should I bring my car back in to get this done? Is this something that can wait a week or two, or should I bring it in as soon as your service department has an opening? Yes, I do realize that ignoring this is not a safe or sensible option. Thank you for your help. And she says, P.S., I hope everyone is feeling better.

Thank you very much, Ambury. Your 2013 Camry has electric power power. steering. And the bushings they're talking about are actually two little plastic gear wheels that connect the electric power steering motor to the column to assist in that steering. And although certain parts of it we've found over the time, over the years, 10-year-old car, 89,000 miles, one of those plastic bushings, unfortunately, sometimes does start to break apart. Now, it will still function. The power steering will operate normally. That bushing is actually there just to help provide a little extra flex so that you don't hear the motor whining in the power steering. You

don't get that electric motor noise that would otherwise come through the column and be loud and annoying. And windows do start to break down. When you go over bumps, you'll hear this rattling sound coming from right under the dash there. And it doesn't. does take a couple hours to replace those because we've got to lower the power steering column, take the motor off and replace those bushings and to rebuild it back together. So it is a little bit labor intensive but not too bad. It's not a huge safety issue that is going to be an instant breakdown. So if you need to let it go for a couple weeks or a couple months, you're just fine on that.

But it is going to get louder and much more noticeable as time goes by. No, it would never be dangerous. It would just be annoying. But it will get to the point where almost every little bump, you'll hear this noise under the dash. And so it'd be a good idea to go ahead and get that done. And obviously, if you're going to trade the car in, if they were to take it for a test drive,

they would certainly hear that noise very quickly. Well, let me just mention something about what you said. A couple hours to replace. let me for those who haven't heard this we've mentioned it before on the show hours are on a term that are thrown around a car dealerships loosely and the definition of hours we think we know what an hour is you know there's 60 minutes in an hour but sometimes we're not talking about clock hours we're talking about flat rate hours which is a misnomer foisted on car dealers by the manufacturers I think to confuse everything. everybody. Rick Kearney, he gets paid on the flat rate hours that are in a manual from Toyota. And if it says 2.3, then he gets 2.3 times what they call the flat rate hour. Now, you and I think of an hour as being 60 minutes, but a flat rate hour could be $150 dollars. I mean, it's not. Indirectly, it's related to time. Because at one point, when this

operation was created and the paymaster, do we have a telephone call? We have four telephone calls. I'm going to shut my mouth. Okay. Hey, Ann Marie. Thanks for the text. We definitely always enjoy hearing from you. And there's some things in life that are annoying, right? You can't fix them. This is annoying. It can be fixed. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We're going back to the phones, and for Charles, we're taking his call first, but for Laurie and Warren, and the rest of you, just hold on. I'll be

right with you. Good morning, Charles, and welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars. Good morning, Nancy, and Earl, and Rick. Rick, you sound a lot better than you did about two weeks ago. Thank you. Practically a death store. First of all, Earl, great job on everything. I enjoy your book. I enjoy reading your Florida Weekly's, and I certainly enjoy the show.

Thank you. So much from all of you. There's a question, I guess, for the back-end guy. KeyFob article. Great article, Earl, but I wondered, since I don't really engage in car theft, if I could just buy a car fob, key fob, from Amazon and then just go over to your dealership and use it and drive off in a brand new whatever, that probably wouldn't work. So how do you calibrate something that you get from Amazon? Well, we will install parts that you buy elsewhere.

I mean, it's not a matter of, I think we want to be sure that it's the right part. If we install a part on a car, then we're responsible for it. But... What I was getting that specifically has to do with the key fob itself. When you buy it from Amazon, you've got to somehow rather... Oh, you have to have a program, yeah. Yeah, that's... That unfortunately is controlled by the manufacturer,

and they want to control the security. They have an owner of one of their products, and they want to be sure that a thief or something isn't getting a... key fob that's going to be used in the wrong way, like to steal the car. So the problem that you're encountering is a high price of programming, which is something that the dealer decides. There's a flat rate amount on that, as we started to talk about earlier. You could look it up in the book, but the book typically is a little high.

I would shop around. and you could try. Competition is a great thing, Rick. I think he's asking actually about the technical aspect, how it's done. Some manufacturers are set up like Toyota, where you would simply bring the key fob to the technician. We will use a scan tool that communicates with the car and we tell the car, all right,

we're going to program a new key to you that you will allow this key to operate. Our scan tool then has to communicate back to Toyota, and we have to get authorization from a manager in the service or sales or parts department to authorize that communication to let us then have a passcode that will tell us, okay, now you can program that key. It's actually quite convoluted, and there's a lot of checks to it, checks and balances to make sure that only a qualified technician can legally program a new fob to

operate a car. So, Charles, your question wasn't about cost? No, well, it was about what prompted me initially was the article. And I started thinking, well, if anybody can buy a key fob off the internet, you know, I can go down to Earl Stewart and drive off in his Tesla tomorrow then. No, you know, because verify your identity. A little bit more, you know, it's a little bit more involved. Then I have a question specifically about my situation. We have a 2012 XC60 Volvo. And about three or four years ago, we were having a problem with the key fob.

And it turned out that we had to repair, replace the antenna, you know, the little sharp fin that's on top, which almost never happens according to Schumacher Volvo. Okay. But anyway, it was replaced. This year when we came back down to Florida, we got a little signal on the dashboard saying replace KeeFob battery. So we did that on October 26th. And now it needs to be done again. And I'm just wondering if there is, you know, it could be just a bad battery.

But do you think there might be something going on, Rick? One of the things that we do see is if you leave the key fobs, say if you hang it up like a hook on the wall in the garage where it's close to the car, that key will actually be communicating with the car all the time because the car is always ready to look for the key and the key is always going to be ready to respond to the car. They communicate back and forth by way of the radio frequencies. So what you might try doing is try to make sure that you store the keys a little farther away from the car, something like 20 or 30 or 40 feet away from the car. That way they won't try to talk because if the car senses a key coming into its range, it's going to send out a signal to that key saying, hey, are you legally allowed to start to open the doors or start me up? and your key will respond back. Well, every time that key gets that alert and responds back, that uses battery power from the key so that can wear it down.

And if it's stored, you know, kind of close to the car, it might be continually talking back and forth, and that would wear that battery down. That is why I listen to you guys every Saturday morning. Thank you so much, Charles. You know, Rick talked about this a couple of weeks ago. I was having a problem with my own vehicle, and I realized that, you know, my keypot is inside my car, and it's there all the time, and it trains your battery. So I, too, have learned a whole lot.

Charles, thanks so much for giving us a call, and we hope to hear from you again. Okay, thank you very much, Nancy. Have a great weekend. We're going to get to Lari, and Lari's back with us from Palm Beach Gardens. She hasn't called for a while. Good morning, Larry. Good morning. I'd like to know my air tire light was on, but my pressure in all four tires was the same.

It was like 33. Is that like too low? It might have been close to what's called the threshold. This cold weather snap that we've had where all of a sudden the air temperatures are dropping quite a bit. basic science air and temperature and pressure are directly related so as temperature goes down air pressure goes down so when your tires are cold the pressure in the tires will drop a little bit now the sensors in the tire are set to where they'll have what's called a threshold that usually is about six to seven pounds below what the program pressure of the tire is so if your tires

at 35 pounds when they set that level, the threshold will be like 28 or 29. And if that temperature drops low enough that the pressure goes below that 28 to 29 pound level, it'll turn that light on. And it can take a little while before you drive the car enough that the tires heat up and bring the pressure back up. And then the car will see that new pressure and it'll turn the light back off. What you can try doing is just add a couple more pounds of air up to about 36 pounds and see if that turns the light off. And also, depending on what car you have, some models and some makes had a fifth sensor. If you had a full-size spare, they were uncommon, but a lot of them did have it where there's a sensor in the spare tire as well.

So if that one's running low, that can trigger that light on as well. Okay, great. Thank you. My pleasure. Appreciate it. Laurie, it was great hearing from you. Give us a call again. Our number here is 877-960, or you can text us at 772-49-60. And don't forget, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. You can text me with your contact information, or you can go through the control room with

Jeremy and leave it with him. Either way, you would get your check if you leave your contact information. We're going to go to Warren from New Jersey. We haven't heard from you for a while, Warren. How are you? Good. How are you guys?

I'm glad to call. I got a question for Earl, a couple of questions. I'm reading about the fact because I'm in the market for a new car, basically looking. And what happens to repo, repossession cars? I mean, they don't park them at a bank. what happens to them? Do they go wholesale? Do they wind up in dealers? Like, what happens to them? Are they a good buy or shouldn't you bother with them?

Okay. You're talking about what type of car? A repossession car, because I'm reading about a lot of cars are being repossessed by the banks because people can't make the... Oh, the repos. Yeah. They're restricted as to how they're disposed of. And it used to be a game that the dealers would play with the banks and they would end up with buying cars at unfair prices. The lenders now, all lenders, credit unions, banks, I assume credit unions are included in this, but anybody that finances a car in general, they have to sell the car at an arm's length price so that the original owner that had the car repossessed isn't taken advantage. job. So typically they'll take it to a public auction. The monopoly, basically, of all auctions is called the Mannheim, M-A-N-H-E-I-M. They're definitely nationwide. But there's a lot of other auctions, too. But when you have people bidding, free bids on whatever they want

to bid for the car is high or low, that's a pretty fair price, established as a wholesale price. So that's where the deficiency that the lender goes after the original owner for is the difference between the auction price and what they owe on the car. Well, how do you know if you're getting one of those cars? Where does it eventually wind up after an auction? Do you get any? In other words, they have to go somewhere, and Manhattan's not selling them. I mean, where did they eventually wind up? Do it wind up in your dealership or somebody else's dealership?

Anybody can buy the car, so it has to be sold at auction. Now, there are some exceptions to this, and I'm not an attorney, so I don't know exactly, but 99% of the cars go through public auctions. And you can find out where it came from by tracking on the title. you can track the owners. You can go from the manufactured certificate of origin. When the car is brand new, they have a piece of paper they call the MSO manufacturer's certificate of origin.

And then when it's first sold, it's the title. And once you have the title, every subsequent owner is shown on the title. Right now, all this is done electronically. So let's say that Bank America financed the car to you, and you didn't make your payment. and they repossessed the car. Bank America would take the car to the man I'm auction, and I might buy the car

because I buy a lot of cars at auction for my dealership. So if I buy the car, then that is a matter of record. I take it to my dealership, and then Rick Kearney decides he wants to buy the car from me, so he buys it at Earl Stewart, Toyota, and then his name's on the title. So down the line, if somebody else decides, to buy the car, they can track that

ownership from the most current owner to the original owner, which was the manufacturer. All right. Okay. The second question I have you. I guess I haven't talked to you also. I have a couple of questions because I'm in the market.

I know someone who bought in the Tampa area, put a link in, I don't know, one of the models, the Navigator whatever, and he bought, what do they use to call them, mobility, when you give you cars to your salespeople, or something, dealer, cars or something, and he got a tremendous amount

off on. He was like a $60,000 car and he got a $45,000. Do they still sell all of those, you know, the dealer cars? Or that's still something he just lucked out on? This is just plain and simple deceptive advertising.

I see it every day, advertisements of dealers. There's no regulation. The dealers will have a repo sale. and they will say bank representatives are present and the implication, very strong implication is that these are distress cars that were taken back

and therefore they will sell to you, retail, to you, and that huge savings. Well, it's illegal to do that. The federal lending laws will not allow a bank to repossess a car and then take it and sell it to somebody else at a distressed price.

That is a violation of the law. They have to sell the car, wholesale it generally, at arm's length price. And whoever buys it at arm's length, they're right, they have a basis in that car that is anybody else would have

because it's a fair price. And they mark it up, you know, to make whatever they want to make. But anytime you see an ad by car dealers in Tampa or anywhere that say that they're having a special sale because the manufacturer or the banks or anybody else is cooperating with them to mark these cars down way below the market. They're lying. They're just flat lying to you. And somebody should tell the Attorney General of the state of Florida, Ashley Moody, that they're violating the law

by unfair and deceptive trade practices, they are misrepresenting what they'll really sell these cars for. So, yeah, ignore these sales. I got just one other question and statement. In past before COVID, especially if you were in the Northeast, I lived down in Florida for a while, but up here in the Northeast, in the cold weather,

somebody used to tell me that the end of January was the best time to buy a new car, especially in cold weather climate, because of the, you know, they just weren't sold a lot. People, dealers would do anything. Do you think that that's going to be the case again where January, end of January,

end of February, where you have to make quotas and stuff that you can get on the car? Yeah, it's not so much the month because the month varies. In January, typically before COVID in Florida, in South Florida, it's probably a terrible time to buy a car because business is great.

The car dealers are being, can hold a higher margin and they have more customers to select from and the prices are higher. If you live in Buffalo, New York in January, the car dealers have to dig the cars out of the snow and the buyers have to follow the snow plow in to be able to find a car.

So it's a good time to buy a car because the dealers are desperate to sell a car. So it's a good time to buy a car when nobody else is buying cars. When business is great, it's not a good time to buy a car because the dealers really get greedy and mark their cars up more. One of the last quick statements, I noticed over here by going to dealers that they've pretty much gotten off that $5,000 market re-evaluation. When my cousin in Arizona told me he was looking for a car and they're all sticking to that $5,000 over the price. So it was just sort of a statement to you that it seems to different parts of the country

Different things are happening So again, I don't know He said they all were insisting on the $5,000 But here in the Northeast They pretty much dropped asking for the $5,000 So I just would I make that statement Yeah, it's all relative And it's so sad that

Any advertisement that you see And this sounds like Somebody that didn't know the show and doesn't understand buying and selling cars and hear me say this. Every car ad you read is dishonest. I defy anyone out there, car dealers, car buyers, anybody

to show me a complete advertisement of a newer used car that I cannot find something dishonest and illegal in. The advertising is, even by the manufacturers, You know, the manufacturers every day are advertising, for example, leases, and they'll say, New Honda Accord, $229 a month. And in the fine print that you cannot read, it requires a large down payment, maybe $5,000. That's a violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act,

which says that the price that you pay has to be, if it's modified, The modification must be in the same size print as the price that you're advertising the car to sell for. If you see a car dealer's ad, it's like the old joke. How can you tell when a lawyer's lying is when his lips move? How can you tell when a car dealer's lying? It's when he advertises. And the same thing holds true for manufacturers. That's right.

All right. Thank you very much. Good luck, guys. And thank you for your help. I appreciate it. Thank you, Warren. Give us a call again, Warren, 87960, 9960. Our text number is 772-4976530, and ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers.

And that extends to Palm Beach, Broward, Martin, St. Lucy. Well, you know the drill. And you can text your information to me at 772-4976530, where you can leave it with Jeremy in the control room. I want to address a young lady by the name of Marina. And Marina called the show on New Year's Eve. She called on December 31st. And she was from Broward County.

She won herself $100. And it's been, well, a little difficult in getting it to her. I didn't have the correct contact information. So, you know, it took a little. longer for her to have a check written to her and mailed. But I did talk to her several times. Actually, I talked to her twice, I believe it was. But Marina, if you're listening this morning, I want to let you know that if you check your inbox, you'll notice that I sent you an email on January the, it was this past Wednesday, whatever the date was there. And I told you that

because of this unnecessary confusion with your address and your apartment number, I was going to go ahead and issue you another check, and that was on Wednesday, and that check was for $100, and that check went to your address, the correct address with the apartment number, and I requested that you tear up the check that I had sent you on January 4th. So please, I'm begging you, text me, call me, email me, and let me know you got that check. Okay? 877960-9960, and as I said earlier, you can text us at 772-497-49-0.

And your anonymous feedback, take advantage of it, your anonymous feedback.com. And now back to the recovering tar dealer. A quick bullet in an article in the automotive news I read that surprised me that odometer fraud is up sharply. And a lot of us, in fact, I was included in that group I found out later, but I thought that with a digital age, with digital odometers, and it was impossible to set an odometer back like we did in the old days. back. When I first started in the business, that was standard operating procedure.

Used car a lot. We had a guy in West Palm Beach. His name was Ed Zuck. And he'd come by and he'd head every car dealership, used car department. And they'd walk up to use car manager and say, what do you got for me today, Charlie? And he said, well, get that Chevrolet and that Oldsmobile, get that Toyota over there. And he would tell him how far back to roll the odomers. Then they go to the next dealership and every dealership but down. All dealerships were, we call it, clocking the odometer. And they started enforcing it and they made the odomers a little harder to clock.

And I thought that it pretty much stopped. But according to automotive news that the criminal digital technology is caught up with the safety technology and there's a huge increase in odomers being rolled back, The number one states, I bet you can guess the number one state, it's Texas. I mean, everything happens in Texas. But Texas is just rolling the hell out of those automators. And you're buying a car at Texas. You better get a check.

But what's the number two state? Florida. Either Texas or Florida. We're the Sodom and Gamora of the states in anything involved. I didn't know to be warning people about that, but you check your paper trail. You've got Carfax. You can check the odometers. And I talked to a caller earlier about how you could track the chain of ownership of a car all the way back to the manufacturer.

You can also track the mileage all the way back. Every time that car changes hands, there is a mileage. So even if the crook that it rolls back the odometer does a good job and you can't even tell by looking at the car or the odometer, if you find out that the car had more miles than it has now three years ago, that's a red flag. So check the odometer, check the ownership and the odometers of ownership of his use car. Absolutely. You know, I'm sitting here giggling because I'm thinking about my best. bad side and how easy it was back in Pittsburgh back in the day to do just what you said and if I couldn't rule that odometer back I could find somebody that could it was very easy

so you know it's a it's an interesting day and in a different age that we're in anything can happen okay Rick okay now some of you may be aware there was a recent news story from California of an accident that occurred on San Francisco Bay Bridge where a Tesla suddenly braked on the bridge and caused an eight-car pilot. People were injured. Gary has sent in a text photo here that I'm not sure where the original photo came from here, but it has a little bit of information. Says the Model S breaking incident caused an eight vehicle pile up where nine people were injured, including a two-year-old child. This is from the California Highway Patrol. The footage first obtained by Intercept shows the white electric sedan driving over San Francisco's

Bay Bridge in the second furthest lane. As the Model S travels in its lane, the car's owner claims his vehicle's left turn signal and brakes activated during full self-driving. The unsanctioned braking occurred after the video's Model S changed lanes in front of a line of fast driving cars. A trailing SUV is seen almost immediately hitting the brake Tesla's rear while seven more cars added to the pile up. He sent this photo in, so I just wanted to bring this up because we do talk about Tesla quite a bit. I just have one thing. This is just my opinion. If you're driving a car and another car suddenly applies the brakes in front of you for whatever reason, whether it's a malfunction of that car or any other issue, if you have

a safe following distance, you should be able to avoid that car or slow down. If you're following too close to that other car. Well, again, I disagree with you rarely, but I disagree with you now. Legally, unfortunately, what you say is true. And if you hit somebody from behind, you're automatically considered guilty. But we all know. In fact, if you want to make a little bet, I would bet that I could get you to run in the back of me. I would get a car that you didn't recognize, and I would manipulate myself in a way that you would probably.

hit me because I could slant. There's a lot of people who make a living doing that. It's true. Lawyers hire people to go out and get hit in the rear so they can sue somebody. But if anybody goes to Earl and Cars.com and reads a recent blog and it's entitled Earl and Nancy Drive autonomously, it's about our experience and our Tesla S plaid and our discovery, discovery that the Tesla fully autonomous Tesla self-driving is not safe enough for retail distribution right now. And so we are very careful about driving that car. I talked to a friend of mine yesterday that has an S self-driving.

His car, his Tesla, stopped on the railroad track for no reason. And what happens is we've had our Tesla stop to make a left-hand turn three lanes to the right, where it would be impossible to do it. And we've also had our Tesla stop at a caution light that you see out on the street. You know the ones near our dealership, the fire department on US1, those sit there and flash yellow all the time. Yes. People don't pay any attention to them. True.

Tesla did. Stopped. Now, you could say legally, that was not going to hurt anybody, but you can get hit in the back and somebody gets hurt. But now, the Tesla is not ready for distribution right now for people that, you have to be more careful driving it when it is fully autonomous than when you're driving it yourself. It's a new set of rules. Absolutely. I'm going to ask you to hold on to that thought if you want to continue, and I'm going to jump back here to the phones. And Carlin, thank you so much for holding.

Carlin is calling us from Stewart, and she is a first-time caller. Good morning. Yes. Hi, good morning. Welcome. You won yourself $50 this morning, and you have for the first-time caller, and I can get that out to you, the check-out to you. you can simply text your contact information if you so wish at 772-4976530 and I'll repeat that number again before we hang up oh wait a minute or you can leave the question I give it to you while I'm talking to you pardon me can I give you my information what I'm talking to you

Well, honestly, I would rather you text it. So if I had to refer to it, I have it. I have that information. Okay. And as I said, 772- 497-6530. Okay. 65-30.

Yes, 772-497-6-5-0. Yes, 772, 497-65-5. Oh, okay. Okay. What can we do for you this morning, Carla? Well, my brother gave me his number to call you up and talk about my Kia Soul. And I was wondering what kind of questions were you interested in? I mean, what information you're interested in.

Could you repeat that? Your brother did what? He gave me this number to tell you about my Kia Soul. And I was wondering what you wanted to hear. what you wanted to hear. What we want to hear? Actually, what we're doing is we're building a platform here

for the ladies on Earl Stewart on cars. We've been on the air for a number of years. We have Earl Stewart, and he's my husband, and of course there's me, and of course there is Rick, who is very knowledgeable. If there's anything you know, wrong

with your car he can answer just about every single question and of course we have our vice president of digital everything and as I said you know we're just trying to accumulate some ladies to call in and we're building a platform for them and by the way it's been a little well quite successful I would say and I thank you for calling so as far as what you have to say, you can say anything at all, or you can just tell us how the weather's doing. Rick wants to talk to you, Carlin. Are you having any special issues with your Kia?

Well, I noticed that my tires, I need to replace, you know, a little bit more frequently than I have in the past. Okay, that can be a result. Sometimes certain cars do have, I'll say they dislike some brands of tires. And sometimes the brand doesn't drive well on a car and a wear out quickly. What you might try doing is checking consumer reports to look for tires that are rated for the most longevity and the best value for the money. Or if you just want to go with just the gut instinct, my own personal favorite, I usually like either Toyo or Michelin for my choice for tires. Michelin, I like Michelin, too.

Michelin makes a fantastic tire. When you go buy tires, I mean, trying to get a good price and a good tire is not easy to you say. I mean, you usually end up spending a good deal of money on them, just so you have good tires. Yeah, Costco generally is going to be one of your best bets. I'll double down on that. Costco has your best selection. They have unconditional return. They have the best prices.

So even if you're not a member of Costco, it's only $65 for an annual membership. And it'd be worth paying that just to be able to save the money on a set of tires. Okay, I'll keep that in mind. I mean, I just love my cancel. It's just such a nice little car with a lot of. room on the inside and you know here I live in Florida so right now 95 I could take it up to 80 90 miles per hour no problem I mean the car really handles it yeah those are nice cars in my opinion yeah I mean I haven't had any other real issues you know I maintain my car

you know all change every three six months you know make sure it's water and you know whatever else it needs. You know, I never take my gas underneath, you know, a quarter of a tank, and it just drives. You sound like an educated consumer carlin, and maintaining your tires is so very, very important. Not everyone knows that. And, you know, it affects so many different things, you know, the ride, the gas mileage, just about everything wearing tear on your tires. but Consumer Report, I believe it was the December edition

that gave out some great information and choices on tires. So I hope we helped you this morning and that you'll spread the word that we are looking for ladies to give us a call, and you'll get that information to me. Well, I'll tell my Stewart Girl here in Martin County to give you a call. All righty. Thank you so much.

you have a great day thank you you too have a wonderful weekend 877960 99060 or you can text us at 772 4976530 I'm so excited John from Palm City is calling we haven't heard from John in weeks good morning John I went to several countries and traveling and it was experienced got a little sick yeah got to be very careful especially I see on cruise ships.

It's unbelievable what's the germs in the COVID-19. But that's another story. What I want to say is it's so unfair the way they're treating Elon Musk, corporate America, the news media. I mean, they really would like to see the man. He has the most successful car out there. It's not 100% perfect, but it's the best of all electric vehicles. And the other companies are really out to get him.

him. Media has run like New York Times, has run ads with the autonomous vehicle, that stopped school bus. They showed up a full-page ad that it didn't observe a stop school bus and wiped out the children that were getting out of the bus. And then they're pushing the fires. I mean, it's unbelievable that they would like to put this man completely out of business. And that's, they know that he has the best of the best in vehicles, and he's selling it. And by the way, The reason he's discounting it now is to make it more affordable for the people to buy the vehicle. Absolutely. And that's in Europe and the United States, 20% price reduction.

The news media can be relentless, and they want to see you fail. I mean, just as far as the batteries go, auto insurance, easy study, as far as fires go, the number one fire is caused. This is a study in 2021. It's called by hydrids that the one had the most. fires. I have the percentages of it. And then after that, it's internal combustion engine, and the EV vehicles have the least amount, 25 per 100,000 cars that want on fire. I mean, they're playing up everything too big, and people have to remember, in 208, the Traffic Safety

the administration, established standards of any battery at 48 volts or higher. And Rick will tell you in 53, I mean, he wouldn't be around, but he never saw a car battery, 12-volt that actually won't on fire. And we used to have six volts. And if you take some batteries today, there's safety on it. Take it in a smoke detector. It's a 9-volt battery, okay? And And it tells you right on it, when you dispose of it, do not put it into a fire or be cautious on it. And that's only for nine-volt. So it takes a lot of caution.

I mean, a battery is, by the way, it will disconnect. Mercedes started at first, in case of an accident, the car automatically disconnects an electric vehicle. So there's a lot of things that are involved. And one of the other reasons why it makes electric car so expensive is. is the cost of lithium. Lithium has tripled in the last year. So there's a lot of factors involved.

But Elon Musk is out there trying to make it more affordable, and he does have absolutely the best. And everybody, including Earl and Nancy, will attest to that. Nobody comes close to what his car is. Absolutely, John. And they've got their teeth into them, you know, and they're not going to let go until, well, they're ready but all that is great information and as long as we educate ourselves as consumers you know

we know the truth you know about Tesla we know the truth what it's going to cost you you know for a Tesla and it's it's it's being made affordable for you know the little guys so to speak and it's a great car and he is a very intelligent educated person by the way and he knows what he's doing. Rick? Absolutely. Car of the future. One of the factors why manufacturers,

and this should be across the board on every single car, at the moment of an impact that is hard enough to deploy airbags, the engine and any drive systems should automatically be disconnected and shut down and the brakes should be automatically locked. And the reason I say this is because at moment of implementation, impact, people in the car are in shock. And I have taught this quite a few. I've taught a lot of first responder classes on how to handle hybrids and electric vehicles that are in an accident. And one of the first things that surprises a lot of the first responders, one of the things that

the firemen and the police officers did not take into consideration is the fact that these vehicles can be sitting completely silent and yet be ready to launch. At a moment. And say the driver is sitting in that driver's side seat, their foot on the brake, and suddenly for whatever reason, after this accident, their foot goes from the brake to the accelerator. Imagine Earl, your Tesla S, if you stomped on that accelerator pedal,

and a vehicle that can go from zero to 60 miles an hour in less than two seconds, and a firefighter just happened have walked in front of the car, not realizing that the car is still in operational mode. So in all the classes I taught, one of the first things that I told them was, get that vehicle turned off as quickly as possible, and do not walk in front or behind that vehicle until you are 100% certain that it's immobilized. And we always took a hybrid car with me on these classes, and I would start the vehicle up in the parking lot and show that.

how silent that car could be, and then I would, several times, I'd even put it in a parking lot, stomp on the gas, and what they would steer in amazement as this little Prius would suddenly take off like a rocket. And it drove home to them the fact that that silence does not equal non-danger. So, folks, if you see a car in an accident and you choose to be the good Samaritan, you want to try to help someone, please do not approach from the front or back of the car, come from the side, and the first thing, look in that driver's side window, make sure that vehicle is turned off, and if not, ask the driver to turn it off, reach in and turn it off, do whatever you've got to do, but don't walk in front or behind until you're 100% certified

the vehicle's the motorized. Horrible thought. Good point. Wow, it could be detrimental to your health. so John are you still with us safety first safety first yeah absolutely well John welcome back we missed you and we hope to hear from you as usual thank you and I hope your wife is doing well happy new year you got sick from me when we were traveling oh I hope you're feeling better oh yes thank you're welcome time to recuperate yes oh forever okay then have a great weekend okay guys I'm looking for

forward to the shopping report. Thank you so much. We missed hearing that. Okay, we're going to go to Howard and Frank and Jupiter Farms. Please hold on. Howard's calling us. He's a regular from Jupiter. Good morning, Howard. Good morning. How are you all doing? We're well. Do you think you're back home? Does it feel like it? Actually, I like it. It's nice. The reason you like it is it's not going to stick around. That's exactly correct. And you know very well living in Pennsylvania. Oh, geez.

It's good to be here. I have a question for Rick is for wheel alignment. Why is wheel alignment a point? Can you explain Camber and Chaser? And what could happen if you hit a bump or something and the wheel alignment is knocked out. I know what happened to a friend of mine. He parked and when he parked, he pulled in and he hit something. When his wheels were turned and he had to get a wheel alignment. Could you explain that? Most older cars had several adjustments for the alignment. Cars with the newer front wheel drive

cars with McPherson Stretts suspension, generally Castor and Camber are not a adjustable, but they are on some models. Just to give it a real fast breakdown, if you were say floating above the car and you look straight down at the tires, almost imagine if you're looking at your shoes, if the top of the tire were tilted in towards the car or out away from the center line of the car, that's called camber. And the reason camber is adjusted is in order to help compensate for road crown, which is the curve of the, the curve of the road so that the water will drain off when it's raining. You also have what's called Castor.

Caster is basically designed to kind of help correct in steering and improve your steering as well. And it's the angle between the top of the strep mount and the bottom ball joint, whether it's tilted forwards or backwards just a little bit. And then you have toe, which again, if you look down to your shoes, say if you moved your toes inward like a duck, that's toe in, and if you moved your toes outwards like a pigeon, that's toe out. All of these, some mechanics will use in order to get your car to run nice and straight down the road while still being able to steer easily around corners and keep your tire wear to where your tires are going to wear in the best pattern that they can. Hitting a bump, because most of these are adjusted by what's called an elliptical or an oblong

shape bolt that when we turn this bolt a little bit, that's how it changes those angles. If you hit a bump hard enough, it can actually shift that bolt a little bit, and it will knock the alignment out of whack a little bit. That's why we recommend having your alignment checked about once a year. And when you get new tires, it's always a good idea to have your alignment checked and adjusted to bring it back to proper specification. Okay, so when you align, let's say I bring the car in and I say do a wheel alignment and you check it and you see I don't need a wheel alignment. So the possibility you say to me, oh, we checked you a car and you don't need a wheel alignment?

Yeah, that happens quite often. I didn't know that because before I went to Earl Stewart, I just used to bring it The fire sign, I'm talking about 30 years ago, and they automatically never asked me a question. They did the wheel of line. Right. But I guess, yeah. 30 years ago, the technology was putting, mounting on heads. They used lights and mirrors and strings.

And setting up the machine to measure all these angles was quite complicated. Nowadays, a lot of dealerships actually have these devices that you simply, drive the car over and as the car drives over it it measures the alignment and can tell you quite accurately whether or not the alignment is in or out our dealership however we have regular alignment rack but it uses laser beams and it only takes about five to ten minutes to set this thing up and make all the measurements to see if the alignment is out or not so we can quickly tell you and if your alignment is still in spec and does not need to be adjusted, but that's it.

Matter of fact, we offer that as a complimentary service. Howard, anybody buying Searle, anybody buying a new car should always be sure that that new car, it has the alignment check before you take it home. As you know, missile line tires can cost you a lot of money by the time he noticed the problem. And so you might get a little argument from the dealer. The manufacturers don't like to pay warranty compensation to a dealer for doing in alignment on a new car. They have this hallucination that all new cars are perfectly aligned.

If you know the path that a new car follows from the assembly line, to the dealer. You're talking trains, planes, and automobiles. I mean, you've got cars being loaded and unloaded from boats or trucks or railroads. And every time a car gets on or off, a truck or a railroad car, there's a chance that you could hit the tire and wheel in some way that it'll knock it out of alignment. So a car comes, that's a brand new car, and you buy it, and it's out of alignment. Two months later, you come in for your first check and you say, oh, Guess what? You need an alignment. Well, it's a, you've roared your tires. So you need to be sure that your car was checked. And I'm talking to you, Howard, I'm talking about all the new car buyers. Be sure that you have your new car alignment check before you take it home. Very good information. Thank you very much, guys.

Thank you, Howard. Thank you so much, Howard. We're going to get quickly to Frank, who's calling us from Jupiter Farms. We're running out of time. We're going to take Frank's call. Good morning, Frank. Oh, good morning to you all. Happy New Year, of course, a little late, but barely than ever. Many things. I absolutely find it fascinating on the description of toe in and tow out with ducks and pigeons. And it helps to visualize in a much better way for those of those may not be so tech-savvy.

Thank you. And let's see. The other thing, I was up in Stewart the other day to look at a golf cart or something. And so I stopped by the Aldi dealership. And surprisingly, they got a lot of cars in the showroom. It's filled, and there's cars out front. So the supply is starting to trickle in, and they got a bunch of electric cars also. And that was a place you had mystery shop several months ago.

It did pretty good. But here's the other thing that really came to mind the other day. I'm driving back on Indian Town Road from US 1, and I noticed this, oh, my goodness, a white van coming up very high speed behind me. like as if he's main on him, what is top of the red light. And he's, like, really arrogant, aggravated on him going maybe too slow once the light turned green. So he's weaving in and out. He's going, and I noticed the tag said garber, buick, GMC.com.

And it was one of their delivery trucks for their, I guess, chop, you know, mystery, or not mystery, excuse me, their repair center or their service center. And all the way up, every light he's in. And now he's weaving no turn signals. Surprisingly, surprisingly, the Jupiter police were not out there that day because this guy would have been nailed. And in Bentley, through all these probably eight or nine traffic lights, every time he was way ahead of me, we were almost back side by side at the next red light until he got on 995 going northbound. So here's my question. Have you guys ever mystery shop that Garber, B.O. GMC up there?

Pardon me? Did you ever mystery shop, that Garber, Buick, G.S. Yes, just a few weeks ago. Oh, okay. I missed that. I must have been out in a town or something. You can pick it up on our website, go to hurlancars.com. We have copies of that report.

Okay, I will definitely do that. Because they seem very rude attitude. I try just being polite and saying, you'll at least speak to that employee. This is your insurance rates, and it could be someone's life at stake with him, with his attitude. But they only want my phone number, they said, we'll call you back. And I don't feel very comfortable about waiting, having someone have my name and number. But anyway, okay, I'll go on your mystery shopping report and see. Yeah, you can go over to Erlon Cars and you can find what you're looking for as far as the mystery shops are concerned.

And also, I'm not sure whether you tuned in last week or not, but, you know, the vice president of the digital department, Jonathan, and he did an Earl Storone car's mystery shopping report summary. And you can, for 2022, and he, you know, named the three best dealers and so on and so forth. They're all in chronological order. But it's an interesting bit of information. You want to take a look at that, too. Oh, I will. Yeah.

Unfortunately, we had some major repairs going on that we decided to get rid of our 37-year-old windows and putting in all those storm-proof windows. And when you have 53 windows and three doors to be replaced, it was a long process, plus expensive. So I unfortunately miss some of your shows. So that gives me a chance to go back and listen to your shows. Thank you for the advice. And also, Garber is on the MSR.

It's on YouTube, the mystery shop from Garber. It's on YouTube. And you can go to YouTube.com. over slash Earl on Cars. Great. Well, I appreciate all this advice. You guys are great. Thank you so much, Frank.

I'm going to tell something about your vigilantes, too. So they do a good job. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a great weekend. You too. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Okay. I think it's time for us to get to the mystery shopper report. I had a subject that was so interesting. I want to bring it up. Maybe we can talk about it next week, but you can think about it. between now and then. Toyota is, as you know, that's a franchise of our dealership,

and I always have to over and over again say, this is not an infomercial. We're not trying to sell you toyotas. But we are affiliated with Toyota, and we got a lot of respect for the manufacturer. The chairman of the board of Toyota has come under a lot of criticism for lagging on the electric vehicle front.

Everybody else has jumped on EVs and Toyota stuck with the hybrids and they were pushing hydrogen fuel cell. And they just kind of got behind on the whole electric vehicle thing. And Akio Toyota, who I respect highly and he's family, the neat thing about Toyota is their family-owned and operated. You know, the original Toyota and he's the grandson, Akio. he came up with an idea that at first I said this is ridiculous and then I can't I can't stop thinking about here's what Akio Toyota is suggested that rather than scrap gasoline cars that total combustion cars convert them over to EV you put a battery in it and a motor now if at first this is almost sounds laughable

And then I can't get out of my head. And he said the reason being, in Toyota, you've got to remember, is worldwide. They are, I don't know how much you travel or where you go. You'll see a Toyota wherever you are. Toyotas are all over the world in the outbacks of areas that you'd never think you'd see a Toyota. They manufacture and retail everywhere. And that's the reason they're largest manufacturer of the world. So, they're basically saying that if you're worried about the carbon issue and the pollution

issue and getting rid of gasoline fumes and so on and so forth, and you really want a clean planet, you're not going to get there by building a whole lot of electric vehicles because it's a big world. And most of the cars are scattered all over the world, not just here in the United States, and you're not going to see the push for electric vehicles in Tanzania and Afghanistan and San Pablo. I mean, there's millions and millions of combustion engine cars that are going to keep on going and pollutant. He says there should be a movement to take these cars and convert them. First of all, I'm assuming he's going to save you a lot of money, and the battery prices will come.

down the electric motor price will be down and Rick you're probably more qualified than anybody here to say how expensive will that be to take a you know a 2018 combustion engine car and convert it to an electric vehicle I mean I'm not putting you on the spot now we haven't got time for a careful analysis I would I would actually consider the idea that replacing the drive line to electric really shouldn't be all that complicated. I mean, say if you were to take like the hybrid of a Prius or you really only need the electric motor and the batteries, converting it over really shouldn't be all that huge of difficulty.

I'm putting you on the spot now because there's no way you could give me an accurate answer, but your answer would be more accurate than mine. If you've got a $40,000 vehicle, combustion engine, it's worth $40,000, how many thousands of dollars would cost to convert that to EV? Well, it's buying, finding that EV drive system. Yeah. I mean, because like... Yeah, yeah, you'd have to have a manufacturer for that purpose. Right.

Anyway, we'll talk about it some other times. The process, if it wouldn't be that great. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. We can pick up where we left off next week. We're going to get to the mystery shopping report, but, you know, you're a, you are a big part of this, excuse me, mystery shopping report, and you can simply, you know, grade the mystery shopping report after Earl's done reading it at 772-497-6530. That's 772-497-6530. The mystery shop this week is from Arrigo. A Rigo, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram.

We vote on the curve, so you don't fail somebody if they're about an average dealer. You give them a C. All the dealers out there have their problems, so A, B, C, D, F. So we'll ask for your votes at the end of this mystery shopping report, which, as Nancy says, is of Rigo, Chrysler Dodge, Jeep Ram. I arrived around lunchtime and found the dealership quite busy. Was that the one in West Palm Beach? That is definitely

Yeah, several dealerships. No, wait a second. I'm not positive of that in West Palm Beach. She arrived around lunchtime. There were two people ahead of me checking in with customer service. A lady greeted me and asked me if I was looking

for anything specific. Now, for you new listeners, I actually didn't do the mystery shop. Agent Lightning who happens to be a female, did an outstanding mystery shopper. I'm speaking in the first person is if I were her. I'm sorry, you were right.

That was Arrigo in West Palm. I just took a look at the rest of the mystery shopping report. I informed her that I'd seen a dodged Durango online and was interested in seeing it. She asked for a moment to find a salesman for me. A few minutes later, a salesman named Eduardo approached me and introduced himself and shook my hand. He asked me to follow him to his desk. And once there, he asked me if I'd been there before.

I told him that I'd been there quite a while ago. to which he replied, welcome back. Showed a picture of my phone of 2002 Durango that I'd seen online and he asked me for the stock number. Edouro asked me while I was currently driving. I told him that I had

a hybrid RAV4 but was looking for a third row vehicle. I also mentioned that I was not looking to trade anything in because I love my hybrid. He informed me that the Durango was at another location And that's where I was asking earlier about the location of dealership.

I think Arrigo has about five stores. Now, O'Rego, by the way, doesn't own these stores. And this is another subject. It's kind of a pet peeve for me. They advertise as if they do. The Arrigo brothers, in fact, the father, have been around for a long time in South Florida. They've gone from just one dealership to three or four, maybe five. And big volume.

A lot of advertising. And everybody knows Arrigo. That's the name. And the Morgan Auto Group bought them out several years ago, but nobody's ever told anyone that the Morgan Auto Group bought. Larry Morgan, who I know, well, and his son operate the Morgan Auto Group. They're the 10th largest auto group in the country. And they owned all the Arrigo stores.

But you'd never know it to see the commercials. I just kind of just a little strange thing that bothers me a little bit. At any rate, said that the Durango was another location. It was another Arrigo dealership, which is really another Morgan Auto Group dealership. He said he had a similar one, and I could test try it if I liked. He could bring it down. That would only take about an hour I'd read and left to find the keys. So right away, here's a little wrinkle.

They're advertising cars as if they were in their dealership. And when you come in, there might be in Fort Pierce. They might be in Miami. I mean, they don't really have those cars there. They have them at some of their other dealerships. That is not transparent. And it's highly unlikely, as you'll learn from reading as I read this report, I'm not likely that you're going to get that car

that's not there at the dealership. After a few minutes, Eduardo returned informed me that the car had just arrived, but the detailed person had the keys and needed to track him down. He asked for patience while he found them. I asked if there was another one, I could see her drive,

a test drive to which he said he would give him another moment. I'd give him another moment. He returned with another salesman, Jesus, and introduced, him to me. I was not sure but why Eduardo left

and Jesus would be helping me. Jesus took my information that Eduardo had started and asked me to catch him up on what I wanted. Jesus pulled up the car I'd seen online, but it was located at another dealership. Here we go.

He suggested we walked the lot and see what dodges they had available. We walked around the lot and didn't find anything so. We started to go inside when Jesus spotted a white Durango up front. We walked up to it, and Jesus opened the door, but it looked like it belonged to someone. There was a cup in the cup holder,

and I told him I was leaving because it was someone else's car, someone else's car, and we were getting trouble. He laughed and said that he should have locked it, and he shouldn't have let it unlock. We went back inside to his desk, and he tried calling the other dealership, but no one was answering. He apologized for not being able to help me and excused himself to go talk to someone in the sales office.

I sat there for at least 15 minutes before he came out of the sales office due to someone else needing him. I was now annoyed and started walking around and looking for him. One of the other salesmen said he would be right back, but it had been at least 20 minutes, and there was no sign of him. Just then the salesman pointed and said, he was right there, as he was coming in from outside. He saw that I was not happy and said to me in an agitated voice that they did have the vehicle, but in order for them to give it to him, meaning they, meaning the other dealership that the Morgan Auto Group owns,

they'd have to trade another car that was more desirable, worth twice as much, meaning he could sell it and make twice as much profit. So here is what's happened. Let me interpret this. The Morgan Auto Group, aka. O'Rego Chrysler Jeep Dodge, is doing some deceptive advertising by advertising cars at locations that they don't have the car at. They're saying if there's five dealerships

and there's 500 cars at the five dealerships, they're implying that all 500 cars are at the West Palm Beach dealership. But they haven't got the agreement from the other dealers that they will cooperate and let them have the car. So it's not transparent, it's deceptive advertising, and that's what they're doing. So you're caught in the middle. You're the customer, Agent Lightning, the mystery shopper, is caught between the guy that decides to do the advertising for the Borgon Auto Group and the individual dealerships that don't want to cooperate. So you get caught in the middle, and you're the one that gets in.

inconvenience and take an advantage of. I continue. He then said he was there to make it happen and that he would be right back. Four minutes later, he returned with a worksheet. Worksheets are not legal documents and they are deliberately used for that purpose so you can't get in trouble with a worksheet

just like a piece of scrap paper. You can write anything you done you want. And so the laws of the state of Florida or any other state don't apply to a worksheet. So when you see a worksheet, don't get too impressed because they can say anything they want and can't be held accountable.

The top line labeled market value selling price was $43,350. There was a discount of $4,250, and then they started adding it was $2,995 for the Arrigo Advantage. And, you know, that's a bunch of fabric coat and polish and nitrogen and the tires. I don't know what they put on it, but $3,000 worth of garbage that they add to the price of the car. Then they've got a $998 dock fee.

There's no dock stamps. They just called a dock fee because they like the word dock fee, and it sounds official, and you believe it, and it's not true. So there's a lie. $394 in taxable fees. taxable fees, that's the asset test of a hidden fee, a dealer fee, a BS fee. If there's sales tax charged to you on the fee, it's not a government fee, it's profit to the dealer. So now we got $295, $2,995, plus $998, and all that's garbage, hidden fees. The real price was $43,487, which was $137 over MSRP, which is not bad.

They're just advertised MSRP plus $137. It's not a bad price. You know, it's a mystery. All that to arrive at $137 over MSRP. He then said he was almost there. He then said he was almost there to make it happen. I'm almost going to make it happen. And then he would be right back.

Four minutes later, he returned with a sheet, another worksheet, I guess. I had him go over all the fees and then asked him about taking the regal advantage off. His response was, then I wouldn't make any money on this. That's how I make my money. I mean, I guess in a sad way, it's honesty, right? I mean, he's telling you the truth. He doesn't care about you. He doesn't care about a fair price.

He doesn't care about transparency. He cares about how much money he's going to make. And that's the way car salesmen are paid. The more money they make off of you, the more money they sell you the car for. So you have a basic adversarial situation every time he's locked to a car salesman. He's trying to make more money,

and you're trying to buy the car for less money. I said, well, I don't have a need for it. He asked what number he would need to be at to make this happen today. Old school. Old school. I thought for a moment and said, pretty much right at MSRP out the door. Well, it's only 137 over. I mean, there's an opening there.

You know he could knock the 137 off. after all the online advertising price showed $8,968 off and that's why they played the game they were selling the discount they should just sold the MSRP to buy that vehicle at MSRP in today's market it's not a bad price

but they had to try to steal and to mislead by implying they're going to give you an $8,968 discount they could only do that by marketing it up with BS hidden fees so they can market it back down again. Unbelievable. I said I'd have to think about this

and get right back to him. He said he thought, I was ready to do this now. I said, well, very, well, the price is still much higher than I expected for what was online. He said, only $4,000 away. And I interrupted him

saying, I'm quite capable of doing the math. and then you add it on your portion of the 2995 or Rigo advantage that I don't want. He said he would take that off, but I would end up losing that much off the total savings. Talking about going in circles, I was even more annoyed now, and I said, I haven't even driven the car or seen it. How can I make a decision? I walked away but made the mistake of stopping to use the restroom before leaving. He caught me on my way out of the restroom and asked me to come back for a moment, please.

As I approached the desk, a sales manager, Travis, introduced himself and asked me what price I would need to be at to go straight to finance right now. I threw it back to him and said that I was expecting to be under MSRB, out the door with the online advertised price. I showed him what I saw on my phone. I mean, that's what was on your advertised price. Florida law says that the advertised price must be the price that you charge plus government fees only. That's the law.

You broke the law. He then started to say how it's hard to qualify. Here we go. here it is folks this is the hidden deception it's hard to qualify for all the possible discounts

owning the farm equipment now that's a discount how many of you own farm equipment that would qualify you for a discount okay and you have to be in the military okay so if you're a soldier and you own a tractor

you qualify how many soldiers are shopping with tractors right now. Oh, you also get a discount if you're a first responder. So if you're retired military with a tractor and you've got a second job

as a fireman, now you get another discount. Before I responded, yeah, I get it, pretty much just a bunch of BS to get people like me in the door. He responded rarely, do they lose a deal over numbers? So I need to tell them where I wanted to be. to make that happen.

They're used to, they're there to sell cars and even willing to lose a much prior, a much higher price vehicle to do so. He's looting to his other dealership that would require them to trade for the car he wants to sell by giving up a car that would make a huge profit if they sold it. So it's all insider stuff that makes absolutely no sense. It all adds to the deception and the premeditation of this entire mystery shop. So I've got a bunch of, I started, we don't have time to do this, but there's some fine print here that I had to bring my magnifying glass to read.

It is absolutely atrocious. So that's the report. And we've got a couple minutes to go, time to get our mystery shop votes in. As I said earlier, we grade A, B, C, D, F is only for a terrible, terrible shop. And when they're terrible, terrible, we put them on the do not buy list on our old cars.com. A's are almost unheard of. We gave an A last week to the Tesla dealership on Okotobie Boulevard in West Palm Beach. A's and Fs are very rare.

Most people fall in the middle. That's because we grade on the curb, C, Ds, B. you know, these. So who's got some grades? I've got a stack of them coming in. Let's see. We'll start on the first YouTube channel here. Joseph Kelleher, D. Cars in my area are selling an MSRP with no hidden fees except for a 175 dock fee.

Now that's actually not bad. Do you say what area? No, he didn't. Hey, Joseph, what area are you in, Joseph Keller? and let's see we will go to Frank in Jupiter Farms he says

oh thank you for suggestion okay he was I guess he's coming in in a minute for the grade Mark says misrepresentation and bait and switch D

we have Jonathan and Wellington Arrigo gets an F for me oh wait a minute let's see okay he says his wife did get the check. So Marina got the check, Nancy. And

he gives Nancy an A plus, plus, plus. But Arrigo gets an F, too slow, too unprepared, too many fraudulent fees, too deceptive and too unprofessional. Bob says F for Arrigo. Total waste of time. Disrespectful. It's the Arrigo disadvantage. By the way, their commercials are really bad.

I like them They're entertaining I mean they're not They're no good when it comes to buy the car But if you want to chuckle They're pretty good Reminds me of old Chuck Curcio From Tyre Kingdom

Yeah Now that was a classic Okay Wayne Vite Sounds like an Arrigo flimflam F Rocky Blockatiel F for fake pricing

Donovan Another F for me Tom Stuckel D-minus for deception and disappointing. Sales experience, not quite as bad as Napleton, but close. Mark Smith, I give him an F. Tim Gilliland, F. Brian Siddletco.

How does this dealership stay open with the false advertising? F. Johnny Z. Freedly, F. I'm surprised they didn't give an owning a Tesla discount. Oh, and Jonathan Keller says he is upstate New York, 60 miles south. of Rochester. For me, it's an F. I mean, they're just, even walking in there prepared, you can't be prepared for the games they're going to play. I had to say, bear in mind, this is going up back to back with a Tesla A. So going after a Tesla A, this sounds so bad

that I think we're leaning pretty heavy on Rigo. Larry Morgan, by the way, is a good guy. he's got too many dealerships and he can't watch all the stores excuses, excuses I want to know something were they on candid camera I give them an F too many games

what an exhausting process What is your I'm going to go with a D I mean I I call Larry Morgan before on a bad report he called the store and straight things out

I can't be doing this every week for you Larry but I'm going to call you and I'm going to tell you about the store and tell you to look in there see what you do to make things right i think they should stick to commercials that they are kind of funny johnny and jimmy i'm not sure who it is okay uh it's not important ladies and gentlemen thank you for joining us we do appreciate your company you're a big part of the show we'll be right back here next week same time eight a m stay tuned have a wonderful weekend

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