Earl Stewart on Cars - 01.18.2025 - The Best of Earl on Cars with Mystery Shop of Davenport Honda of Rocky Mount, NC

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Today’s show is a re-broadcast of one of our past Earl Stewart on Cars shows. Go to streamearloncars.com between 8am and 10am eastern time to listen to the audio re-broadcast. If you have a question for our auto expert team, you can text it to [phone], or online at youranonymousfeedback.com, and we’ll answer it during our next live program.

Hello, 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 listeners. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us is my son, Stu Stewart, our link to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, text messaging, and our encrypted anonymous feedback service. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our mystery shopping report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting car dealership. And now, on with the show.

Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back, and we're a little different this morning. Very exciting. Change always is not always a good thing, but... But you've got to have it, so you work and you try to improve. The Japanese have a saying, Kaizen, continuous improvement. So you folks that are viewing us, and you may be viewing us on YouTube. You may be viewing us on Facebook or on Facebook.com for slash rolling cars

and YouTube.com for slash early on cars. Well, notice that may be a little bit of difference. we've kind of rearranged things in the studio a little bit moved our green screen and so on so forth and we've got a situation where we can communicate better with each other Rick and I basically Rick Kearney and I switch chairs and it gives me and I think everybody's got a little bit better seat I like this better yeah Stu just walked to the door he says it's looking good Nancy what do you think great okay chosen a better time to be in the car business. I mean, usually when you're in an endeavor, when you're in something, you don't see a total metamorphosis of a business. So we have just gone

from the horse and buggy into the 21st century big time with autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, and keep your fingers crossed, a rebirth of the artificial old-factual. car dealer the car dealers will be coming back as human beings that will treat you with honesty and transparency I like to think this show has had a little bit to do with that because we've been doing it for 20 years and Nancy and I started this on a little radio station called Sea View Radio about 20 years ago 30 minutes and boy at first day morning that we went on the air I think it was a Thursday morning I don't think anybody was listening.

We were sweating bullets. We were praying. We even had to get, we had to get somebody to call the show, so we had some people to call the show just so we were supposed to be a live talk show. So we had to ask people to call the show. We had a few shills. Yeah, shills. In the first few months.

Right, right. And now. I'd be calling Stu and asking him, please ask somebody. I wasn't on this show. I was the show. I would call in to ask you a question. We reminisce here in the studio room here, whatever this is. And boy, oh boy, fast forward to, what is today, July 6th, 2024.

And, man, I don't know where to start. We have the Federal Trade Commission, kind of like Marshall Dillon coming to Dodge City to clean things up. We have artificial intelligence just absolutely changing everything with the manufacturers, with the car dealers, everything we do. And we have a consumer that is arms and legs smarter and more informed than 20 years ago, or God help them 50 years ago, it's just embarrassing. in the show we got it we got a great posting on YouTube I think it was about from a

employee of the car dealership that we mystery shop and we'll talk about that later it's it's enlightening to hear what car dealers and car dealers and car dealership employees think about what we're doing and you know it's like any other change You have the leaders, you have the followers, the people in between, and then you have the people that just don't care. I mean, they don't know. They're totally in a form. Speaking of mystery shopping reports, I keep forgetting that a lot of people have never, you know, listened to this show before. So the highlight of the show, and really the sum and substance, the proof of what we do.

The proof of the pudding is our mystery shopping report. We send out an undercover agent every, every week. And we even had a new state. We're in North Carolina. Mr. Shopping reports have been in Michigan and Pennsylvania and states I forget about, mainly Florida, we'll be honest about that. But we really hit a lot of different states and different types of dealerships.

Mom and pop shops, you know, members of giant change like Auto Nation and Lithia. I mean, car dealership business today is big, big business. So we just about covered it all. Our undercover agent, we call her Agent Lightning, goes in and pretends to buy or lease a car. And, I mean, she knows the car business. She learned it with us.

She started out, in fact, she started out pretty damn good. She was very good, her first for shopping reporters, I recall. but she's really good now I mean she she gets it and the and the answers on our questions and answers the things that she puts down for us Stu writes it in a very informative and sometimes amusing type of prose and all I do is read it so I'll be reading that mystery shopping report and we were usually cut over to that around 930 after a little after that the last second hour of the shirt We're on from 8 to 10 Eastern Standard Time every Saturday and we know that the average watcher,

viewer, listener, whatever you want to call yourselves, is on the radio, we call it as a broad term expression because you might be on YouTube, you might be on Facebook, you might be on Zoom, I almost forgot that, I mean this change is breathtaking. We've been trying to get on Zoom 100% for about a month, and by golly, I'm knocking on wood, I think we're there. And Jonathan Cantor, they ought to give them a medal. In fact, I will give it on the medal of some kind

for finally navigating this very, very difficult, technical feat to be able to take a radio show and turn it into a Zoom show. It's like taking the radio and turn it into a movie. radio and turn it into television. So you want to know why radio is getting obsolete? I mean, what's the last time you really listened to the radio? I mean, seriously, think back what you did 30 years ago. Radio, radio, radio, now, every now and then.

When you're in the car, you know, every now and then. So we are going, we got, is there a name for that? Zoom Adeo? Oh, Nancy's flagging me. I know what that is. Zoom Aedia. We have a call? I'm down here.

Yeah. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. you two numbers for now that you might want to jot down for the ladies $50 for the first two new lady callers and for the those of you who well have a Zoom account and can give us a call on the meeting ID number you can do so at 926-589.0586. That's 926-589.0586. That's 926-589.05 86. And for the first two Zoom callers, guess what? You can win yourself $100. Wow. So take advantage of that this morning. You can also call us at 877-9-960. If you'd like to be part of the show, you can text us also at 772-49-6-5-30. We're going to go right to the phones, and this is pretty exciting.

We have somebody calling us from Harlem, New York, and his name is Renee. Good morning. Welcome. I think we just lost Renee. Hello, Renee. Was that the name, Renee? Renee. Renee, could you give us a call back?

We may have been just a little slow on taking your call and would love to hear from you. of my memory serves me well I don't believe we've ever had anyone call us from Harlem New York or go to Howard and he's a regular caller from Jupiter. Good morning Howard

Howard. I'm now 15 miles I'm now 15 miles from Harlem, New York. Are you like that? Maybe 12 miles. So here's my question. First of all, how are you all doing? We're doing great.

Great. If you see Renee, let her know she should call us back, please. You know, Renee, if it's a woman, it ends in two weeks. If it's a man, it ends in one evening. Okay. I have all kind of trivia. Okay, okay. So anyway, here's the story.

I have tires for life, but I'm in New York now, and I have one tire that's losing air, and it's like five years old, and I was told that I shouldn't get it fixed, because it's five years old, and once they break it down, it's not good. So there must be a nail, but I'm losing a pound like every day. So I've been filling it up, and number one, what should I do? What kind of tire should I get? And my cover for this, if I save the old tire and bring it to you and show you that

it's a solace, Kumho Solis. you have all four of them. So it ties me, what should I do? Well, Howard, I'm going to let Rick give you the advice on the tire as far as what, you know, what you're permitted. Let me say the tires for life program. That's a special program our dealership has where we give. We supply tires for people for as long as the only car. We cap the cost at seven hundred, seven hundred, seven hundred dollars per tire. And, uh, total, I'm sorry. And, and, and, but you get as many tires. as long as you keep the car.

But you have to maintain it according to fact you recommended standards. So the reason I did all that is because people don't know what tires for life is. Now they do. So you go ahead and buy the tire that Rick is going to be recommending, and we will reimburse you for that.

But I'll let Rick be the expert on what type a tire and what precautions you should take to be sure you do need to buy the tire. and we'll let Rick have the mic. Well, the first question, have you had the tire checked by anyone to see why it's leaking? Okay, no, but I know a little bit about tires. I know it could be leaking from an old sidewall, like it's over five years old, or could be leaking from a little nail, or it could be leaking from the valve.

Right. So those are the three places. I checked the valve out. It's not the valve. The first thing, I go to, find a tire shop, a reputable tire store. Costco, I'm going to go to Costco.

Okay, they should be able to handle it. They'll pull the wheel off and either just spin it and hit it with soapy water that they'll spray on there or they'll put it into a dunk tank. I prefer a dunk tank myself because then you can see the bubbles coming out wherever the leak is.

now if it's a nail or a screw or a piece of wire or something like that and it's in the tread in the middle of the tire then it can be safely repaired all they need to do is pull whatever it is out take the tire off the rim and put an internal patch that's the safest method and of course you know if there's enough tread left that it's reasonable to do this and once you put that patch on there

that tire is good for the rest of its life I mean you're it's fine Okay, I went to Costco, and here's what they told you they would do. They say what they do is they plug it. They don't plug it. They insert something inside to see where it's going. Then they take the tire off, and they patch it from the inside. So they're doing two things, I believe. So let me put it this way.

I think Costco's reputable. I don't think they would do anything wrong to fix your tire. Am I correct? Right. You know, Costco's going to, they've got a reputation to uphold. No better place to buy a tire than Costco. They are honest. The prices are extremely low, and they're very informative. So whatever, if I were you, I'd do whatever Costco recommended, I think you could do that safely. But we got Rick here to double check on that. Yeah, if they say the tire can be repaired, then that's what I would do.

Especially if it's got 530 seconds of tread or more left. on it and they say yes, it can be repaired, I would simply have them repair it. However, if it's got a puncture in like the sidewall or the very edge of the treads that cannot be repaired, you'll need to have the tire replaced and probably just go with whatever they would recommend for a tire what they have in stock. Once you've replaced it, just bring the receipt for that back to our dealership and we will cover that. under Tires for Life. That's great.

You guys are great, and I appreciate all the help that you're giving us, especially now when I have this problem. And let me tell you something. It's high here in New York, and it's in Florida. So don't worry about people saying, oh, I'm in New York, and the weather is great. I'm not going to go to Florida. It's pretty hot here, too.

Yeah, but next week it'll be 70 degrees. Yeah. Right. Okay. Thanks, Howard. All right, nice talk with you. We're going to go to Tricia, and she's calling us back, and she joins us almost every week, and we appreciate her call.

Good morning, Tricia. Yes. Listen every week, yes. Two things, Nancy. Number one, I did try. I did log on to Zoom. I know you were asking people to come on. Zoom. I got on Zoom. The problem is I sent you a message. No one replied. And to prove to you,

I was on Zoom. I could tell you what everyone was wearing. All the guys were sitting at a table, three guys at a table. Earl was on the right side wearing a light blue shirt. And Nancy, you were sitting in a royal blue computer chair with your beautiful red and blonde hair. Yeah, you could have seen this on YouTube. I don't believe you. Just kidding. I'm sorry that we couldn't speak.

Yeah, we think we've overcome the technical problems. And so if you try it again, we'll be able to see you. Yeah. In fact, we'll give you another 100 bucks. We'll give you 100 bucks for trying. Thank you. And we have the audio. think fixed. So why don't you go to your Zoom account and try to call us back and you can earn

another 100 bucks real fast. Okay. Just one, 100 bucks is fine. Okay. Thank you. Hey, Tricia, did you write that number down for the meeting ID? Yes, that's how I got on Zoom last week. Well, I was referring to this week if you still had the number available to you. Oh, always. Is it a different number this week no it will always remain the same number so trisha go ahead no what what were you going to say uh i was just going to thank you for calling and we looked forward to uh hearing you give us a call back and seeing your face well thank you to another another another another thing i am going I'm making an appointment to have my alignment checked for Earl because, remember, I had an issue with my tires wearing out. Oh, yeah.

And Earl said, you do free alignment checks, right, Earl? That's correct, yes. Yes, I'm making an appointment to go up there to an hour drive for me, but it is worth it, to get, you know, an honest opinion. because, you know, I don't trust anybody else. And also, I'm going to get an oil change, and I'm going to get my alignment checked. Because remember I told you two weeks ago, I was told my control on, whatever, like, you know, $1,500 worth of work. And then I went to another friend of mine, and he said nothing was wrong. So I'm going to make an appointment to go up there, get all this done, have you.

You guys check underneath my car, too. Sure, we're glad to. Yeah, we do a routine check and see what might not be just right, and we let you know what that would be. And by the way, we appreciate your company, our dealership, and after we give you your free alignment check, we're going to show you a computer printout of your car and exactly what the machine told us in detail.

So you will get a, it's either going to tell you, you definitely need to have an alignment. You might want to consider one or you don't need one at all. And that's, that way you have the machines measurement right along with the service advisory you're talking to. So anytime you go anywhere for an alignment, it should be free number one, number two, you should see the computer printout. Yeah, but I won't trust a computer printout from anybody because I know guys, budget that's why i'm coming up to you guys and i don't trust anybody you know how and i told you the guy that i do trust doesn't have an alignment machine but my third question is will i get to meet your beautiful people up there when if i go up there will i get to meet you and nancy let's say

if i make an appointment on tuesday or the end of next week would i be will you be up there so i could meet you well we're in and out of the dealership so you do what you do what you said make the appointment and once you have made the appointment we'll know about it so uh you know we're in and out and we have a you know kind of a crazy schedule but uh you just go ahead and make the appointment and if it's humanly possible for us to be there we will be there okay great okay And I'm going to try Zoom again, but we will go. Thank you for that, Tricia. We look forward to hearing from you on Zoom.

And thanks for being part of the show. Have a great weekend. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Let me be clear about that Zoom meeting ID number. If you're going to call that number, it's only the first two new Zoom callers that would receive a hundred dollars that number is nine two six five eight nine oh five eight six

and ladies for you the first two new lady callers give us a call toll free at eight seven seven nine six oh ninety nine sixty uh i got to congratulate uh roadrunner for uh all of his patients this morning he's been hanging on for quite a while and uh Doug will get with you all So good morning, Roadrunner. Meet me. Good morning, everybody. Everybody, have a good holiday? Yes, we did.

Good. Okay, last Saturday, after I spoke on the phone, three hours later, I get a call from Nissan about my 2016 frontier. So they go, hello, Steve. How are you doing? This is so-and-so. He just happened to see my trucking hair because I was with a friend. He goes, would you be interested in selling your vehicle? I said, no.

So, you know, I like my truck. Well, I've seen you looking at the new frontier. I said, yeah, it was very nice. He goes, well, what do you think? Oh, I think $5,000 for a protection package is a little ridiculous. Oh, you ain't got to get that. You ain't got to get that. I said, what about that other $10,000 you aired on?

I forgot what they call that. The market. Adendum, a market adjustment addendum. Yeah, so he goes, you want to talk to a salesman? No, no, no, you've called me. I want to talk to you. So I said to him, I asked him about that $10,000.

Again, you want to talk to the salesperson? And I said, no. So I said, let me ask you this. I mean, I know you told me you knew at this job, but you just happened to call the wrong person. They're going to have your picture up on a poster and dealership. They'll have Stewart College, right? All of a sudden, you hear pinch drops.

Oh, no. He goes to a home wall. He started like Ralph Crandon from the honeymoon. So then I asked him about if they got hacked, okay? He said yes. So I said, you still hacked? He goes, yeah. I said, well, you're selling vehicles?

He goes, yeah, we're doing it manually. Oh. Well. So how do you figure that? Well, I have a pencil and paper. That's the way I started selling cars, Steve. I go back 50 years, we didn't know what a computer was. The first computer we ever had in the dealership was called a wang.

1989 or 80. But everybody used a pen and a pen and a, you know, paper. People forgive me, my great-grandchildren don't even know what a pen and paper is. They call them stylists. And the other thing, I'll tell you this fair story. I'm in public. Now they ask you for your phone number when you check it. out? Yeah. Right? So I told

I said, she goes, what? She phone number? I said, Pennsylvania 6, 5,000. So she's looking at me. She didn't know idea what you're talking about. She got one of the two elderly people behind. I mean, he's part of laughing. So she goes, is there an area? You called for that? I said, no, no, listen, you just have a good day. Yeah, my dealership, pineapple number was

Temple 3, 4, 5, 55. That's a good. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, very good. And if that lady's going to visit your shop to get home alignment, you should have told me to bring Danish. This is where you guaranteed to meet her. All right.

Everybody have a good safety. We love you, Steve. We love you. Have a great weekend, Steve. I just what my ex-three wives told me. Thanks for being part of the show. Okay, we are going to go to Mimi. She's calling us from West Palm Beach, and we certainly enjoy hearing from her that women are making up, you know, making a big difference in the auto industry, and it's probably because they've been recognized finally.

Good morning, Mimi. Good morning. I don't, should I be turning the radio down? Yes. That's a great idea. You have feedback, yeah. Okay, let me see that, because otherwise I'm hearing two of you. turn it way down

In fact off would be best But way down Okay I got it way down now All right A couple of things I am looking for a vehicle And I did go to your dealership I'm not really happy with a salesman

How do I switch I only saw him once Am I like married to this person Absolutely No not at all Mimi You know what Mimi You have You're in the driver's seat

You got all the power I love women asking me that question. You can have whatever you want when you walk in to the dealership within reason. And, you know, just because you were met by one salesman, it just doesn't mean you've got to, as you said, you know, have someone come in and perform a ceremony where the two of you, you know, get married up. Great. I'm glad to hear it.

I did experience some of the things you spoke about when you warned us. One dealership had like this whole package you had to buy, to buy a car. I'm looking for a used car. And it was like a, you know, a big package. It had the nitrogen tires and this and that. Oh, boy. Yeah. So, of course, I wouldn't go back there.

The other one was a Japanese company, not yours. And they still had the thing from COVID. where you added $5,000 to the price of a car. Well, they're a living in the past, yeah. Did they tell you that was a market adjustment? In it, I did, he didn't say a word. I read what it said. He put it up to me to read because he was brand new.

It was the second day at work, and he really didn't know what it was. And it said that it was because it was a car that was scarce and very popular. something like that in my own words. Anyway, so getting back to your dealership, okay, I just wanted to let you know that when I went, I was asked to walk all the way to the other end of the used car area where the other dealerships, a lot of them will just bring the cars to me, which I like better. Anyway, when the lid was raised for the trunk area, a whole lot of water came down into the trunk. Of course, I was like, hmm, this shouldn't happen. And the person just said, oh, it was

raining a lot. You know, that's why I want a different salesman. I don't, I want somebody who's going to take what goes on seriously. Anyway, so it turned out, um, the person walked away and I was like, um, inquisitive, because I listened to you enough to know, you got to find out. My husband and I were mechanical together. So I saw one of the lights in the back on the lid or the trunk lid. It was smashed. And it was a certified car. And I thought to myself, I know that had to happen after, you know, so I don't know. I guess you have cameras in a lot. Somebody smashed your light. Well, thank you. Maybe this is a particularly helpful to tell us. And we mystery shop ourselves by the way we have 160 170 employees and we have uh we're

considered a large dealership i would be foolish to think i didn't have some rotten apples in my barrel and i do and we need training and we need constantly to get better but certainly the improvement that we need to make because we listen i mean this is live on radio and so we're not ashamed of the fact that we are unfortunately we're human we we have people we're not a perfect dealership and the only way we do as well as we do is we apply our motto which is Kaizen I said earlier in the show Kaysen K-A-I-Z-E-N so Japanese word meaning continuous improvement so right away just from your conversation we'll be talked to our salesperson

people about checking the cars more carefully. It will be, we'll also, we're, I'm working right now with the other managers and we're coming up with a system that will allow sales, uh, people that are buying cars, our customers, to choose the salesperson they want. And, uh, in your case, you'd like a person with a little bit more sensitivity to say, oh, don't worry about the water pouring in the trunk. It's been raining. That was a nonsensit.

thing to say but we worry about compatibility some women prefer to deal with other women if you're if English is not your first language you prefer to speak with somebody that maybe that's fluent in Spanish Spanish is your first language so we want we want to match the customer with the salesperson that would make that customer feel more most comfortable so thanks for bringing out these very important things and helping us get better Okay, thank. You're welcome. I was, after seeing those, there was another one I got to look at, or they needed a key for one that was upstairs. There was a cart with a assistant manager in it, and I told him about the light. So I presume it's been fixed by now, yes. It should have been fixed.

And all of our cars should be checked regularly, and they come in fast, they leave fast, and sometimes we drop the ball, and we did here. And my son, Stu, who is our general manager, he'll be on top of this. So we encourage. Now, when I come into your dealership, it was a holiday or an after hours and nobody was there. You know what? When are you there? I'm sorry to have to interrupt you, but I've got a lot of calls back.

up, but I want to leave you with this thought just to help you understand. You have just helped us. And I don't know whether you realize this or not, but 85% of car purchases, they're from women in service, maintenance, spending money, all kinds of money in the dealership. So your phone call this morning, you know, like I said, I hate to cut you off. but I have a lot of calls here so please I want to thank you for calling and good luck thank you have a wonderful and give us a call back and let us know how it went oh yes okay thank you by-bye you're welcome we're going to go to Marty good morning Marty you're out there Marty okay we're going to go to Doug Doug is also a regular caller good morning

Doug. Good morning. Can you hear me? We can. Okay. I have a 2001-toil Avalon. My Freon has leaked out of the vehicle. So I got it recharged.

It leaked out again. The mechanic says he can't find a leak in there anywhere as far as under the hood area. Where else could this free I'll be leaking out of? Rick could answer that for you. The evaporator core. Is that inside the dash? Yes. You said it was 2012?

No, 2001, Toyota Avalon. Ah, 2001, okay. Yeah, what you're looking at is under the dash, you've got the evaporator, which kind of looks like a little radiator. It may also have a connecting tube and the expansion valve. And what I would recommend, because the price of those pieces, are not really a huge amount of the job. The main cost of the job is the labor.

I would replace all three of those items that go inside that box because the dash has to get partially removed from the car or even completely removed in order to get that box out to change those pieces inside. So, yeah, if it leaked out pretty quickly, and you've got no signs of oil or anything, leaking outside, all's left is the evaporator core, and that is the most common thing that starts leaking on them. Yeah, he did say that there was some little bit of oil around the compressor,

but he thought maybe that was from, you know, before when he had changed oil or something. I don't know. He said there was a little bit oil around a compressor. Yeah. Normally what happens when we recharge a system to look for a leak, we'll add what's called an ultraviolet dye that we inject into the AC system and this actually

circulates through with the refrigerant so then when we come back to look to see if there was any signs of a leak we'll put on these very fashionable yellow glasses and shine an ultraviolet light that it's just basically a very strong black light

and it will make that dye glow so if there is a spot where it's leaking all of a sudden we've got this beautiful greenish yellow glow coming from that spot when the light hits it, and you can see exactly where the leak is. But if you can't find anything on the outside, it's a process of elimination. It's going to be the evaporator core. You're probably looking anywhere around $12 to $1,500 to have that replaced. Okay, one other question real quick. Back to my airbag lights flashing on. You told me

it was, could possibly be some kind of water underneath something that was collecting somewhere. I didn't understand that. Well, the, the, your evaporator box for the air conditioning sits directly over top of that airbag computer. For some reason, the engineers, oh, you got to love engineers, they, they put this very delicate computer directly underneath a box that is constantly getting hot and cold, hot and cold, hot and cold, and cold. And as anybody in South Florida knows, if you've got an ice cold bottle of water and you walk

outside for two minutes, it's dripping condensation off of it. Well, that same thing happens with that AC box, and that condensation will drip right onto that computer. Now, they do have plastic shields over it, like a plastic vinyl adhesive pieces put over top of it. But even then, some of that moisture can work its way down

into those connectors. So that is a potential place that should be inspected. But most likely, you're going to wind up having to replace that computer. Okay. When you got in 2001, you need to be thinking about because you're an adage machine up

start adding up the cost because at some point, you might want to, I don't say you trade it in on a new car, but you might want to trade it in on a little bit later model certified used car. How many miles do you got on that one? 104,000.

That's low miles from 2001. Yeah, that's very low miles. I'm not getting rid of this car. Okay. Yeah, because what I was going to suggest if you were going to consider letting the car go, what I would do is I would charge that

AC up. You'll have a technician charge it up. Well, it's not going to blow and ice cold. He's not going to do that. Yeah. But any Toyota that's running and with cold air commands a high price. People love the older Toyotas

and they'll pay a fortune for them. Yes, I love my Avalon, and I'll just go ahead and pay to get it fixed whatever it costs. It's a great running car. I can't really blame you. It's a great car. It's a great car, and that's what I have. I really appreciate you all very much for answering my questions,

and you all have a great day. Thank you, Doug. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. We're going to go to Dick, and, well, he's our first YouTuber. Excuse me. Zimmer. He's our first Zoomer of the morning.

Good morning, Dick. How are you doing? Well, we hear you. That's exciting. And I guess we can see you, so I haven't got a monitor. Congratulations, our first successful Zoom calling. I see him. I see him.

Jonathan Cantor, a round of applause. Wow. We can see him on the YouTube channel. Oh. Nice to see you. and Tesla driver. And I wanted to commend you on your discussions on the Tesla. We're trying to work on that echo effect.

You're calling us from the Grand Canyon? Hey, this is a big bathroom. To congratulations, you won yourself $100 today. Yeah, can you hear my discussion? I was just talking about the Tesla I'm a Tesla driver same as you all and I fell into mirror Earl and I've called before this one to call to commend you on your discussion about the full self-driving and my experiences were like yours is wonderful you know even if I need to get a monitor that's what I'll probably do next week because we also are getting the text and that we have the text. Oh. Very good, yeah.

Is a text going to go? No, I'm not. Yeah. This is a little psychodilic. It is. I propose. Bring back any memories? Can you hear me at all?

Oh yeah, we hear you and all. In fact, if you speak in short bursts, we can hear what you said before the echo wipes up. I think we're in Woodstock. Let's cut this. Bad radio. I don't think I've ever seen right.

Laugh that hard. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Good morning. We're going to get the echo of fix and give Jonathan's another challenge. But you are. hear an audio and video, albeit the video, much better. You're not a bad looking guy.

I'm a little more handsome than you are, but you're pretty good looking guy. You love to have you call back and we'll have that Grand Canyon effect eliminated. And also, Jonathan, you'll get that contact information? Or shall I suggest to take that he leave his contact information with Jeremy in the control room. room. And if you can hear me, Dick, please, if you want me to write that check out and send it to you, give Jeremy your contact information. We're going to go to, first let me say that Renee from Harlem, New York this morning, was our first caller. And I sure hope that you're listening, Renee, and that you give us a call back. We'd love to talk to you.

We've not had a caller from Harlem. Earl and I would love to talk to you about our memories of Harlem. We've had some great times in Harlem. Went to a place called Rayo's restaurant that's not there anymore, but it was really a cool place like right out of

a, it's kind of like a mobster hangout. Yeah. Like out of the mafia. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, give us a call back. We're going to go that number, that meeting ID for the zoomers that want to call us as 926-5890586. And for you others, 877-960-99-60. Yes, Rick.

We've got at least one request on YouTube here that if that Zoom caller could please call in on the regular number, they would definitely like to hear your comment's story on your issues with your Tesla and the full self-driving. Oh, great. Okay. So, yeah, if you could call us back on the regular number, that'd be great. And that number is 877-960-99-60. So now we are going to go back to the phones, and we're going to talk to Marty.

Good morning, Marty. Good morning. How are you? We're having a whole lot of fun here, Marty. Yeah, yeah. The echo doesn't work too good. Oh, you don't like that psychedelic kind of a flare that we've got? given the show? You might have to give $100 to anybody that can understand it. Now, no. I've got a question for either Rick or Stu or you or anybody there. Okay, we're ready. A lot of tire places are rip-offs, just like a lot of car dealers.

I'm going to tell you why. Two years ago, on my old car, I had a nail that was in it was in the tread, but it was closer to the sidewall. So I took it to three different car tire places. They also don't know. You need a new tire, $275, and hello and goodbye. So I took it to a place over on Okeechobee Boulevard, which is a no-name repair shop. And I said to the guy, can you put a plug in this tire?

The guy said, oh, no problem. He put in the plug, charged me $15. It lasted over two and a half years before I even traded in the car and never lost an ounce of error. So I think people have to beware of where they take the tire to because I would say tire stores, they make their money on selling tires. They don't make their money on putting in plugs. You're right. You're absolutely right.

And I just honestly, you probably did get scanned, but one thing to remember also is that, and Rick, I think will back me up on this, a plug, a plug don't always fail. They fail sometimes. They might even fail half the time, or maybe most of the time. Depends on how you drive, how long you keep the car.

So when you're talking about tires, it's kind of like talking about your heart, you know, you might be able to get by without taking your heart medication and you might live a long life that way but you've got a better chance if you do what the doctor says so the problem is you've got to find a smart honest

doctor and you need to find a smart honest tire guy and that's like finding a hens tooth there's not a lot of them around so I'm glad your tire lasted two years with a plug Rick you've got I know you need to comment on that well

just going by the training that I have had from Toyota and I'm sure they looked up to get all the liabilities and the legalities on this because one of the things as a technician that I have to be aware of myself is if I do a repair on your car that is, shall we say, not considered safe and approved and something happens if your tire blows out and you get in a crash on the interstate, you and anyone else involved in that car,

crash, I'm responsible for that. If I'm the one that I decided to go ahead and repair that tire, even if I knew by my training that that was not a safe repair, even if it may work 80% of the time, 90% of the time, but the one time that it fails, if someone gets hurt, I'm responsible for that. That's on me, because I did that repair, even though I knew I was taking that tiny chance that it was unsafe. Well, let me jump in there, then we'll finish this up. The idea is transparency and giving the customer the choice with full explanation of the pluses and minuses. So if you clearly explain, and we would also verify this on the written.

repair of a document that we recommend you not plug the tire but if you want us to plug it we will plug it with a full disclosure that the plug will work about 90% of the time but the plug doesn't work then all the terrible things Rick just talked about can happen so you have to you know we're the masters of our own destiny I don't want a salesman telling me if if if you don't let me sell you a new tire you're going to die if you if you let you let you let you let you let you if you have it plugged, I'm not going to plug it, you go somewhere else, I'm not going to be responsible. That's not honesty and transparency. So Rick needs to lay it out to a customer, and any place you do it needs to lay it out unless you make the choice.

But a smart company, a smart technician, will also verify in writing what his comments and recommendations were. Okay, I just want to make one other comment. At the automobile club, when you used to call them for a flat, they used to have that guy with that truck do a plug if you wanted one. Yeah. They don't do it anymore. And the reason they don't do it anymore is because of those liabilities. And I can't trust, AAA is a big company,

and they can't trust everybody that goes out to fix a tire with giving the full transparent disclosure. Oh, you're right. Yeah. You're right. all right Marty it was a pleasure thank you for

being part of the show every week have a wonderful weekend our number here is 877 960 9960 thank you everyone

for your patience I see where the I've got all kinds of phone calls and they're out of state we're going to go to Chuck he's calling us I believe from Oklahoma

Oklahoma I'm sorry I knew that was coming Suriant Morning Chuck Welcome Good morning I love your show I love the echo

and my brother with the Woodstock Do you like that echo I'm happy We're going to fine tune that Jonathan overdone some music It's another job for Jonathan Hey what else has he got to do

Poor guy's going to have a nervous break time I got a 2001 Toyota also So I commend that. That's pretty hilarious. Mine's got only about $85,000. Bought brand new in Houston, Texas. So I don't know if I'm going to keep it until I die.

But anyhow, the reason I called, I finally got my Chrysler fix after taking it to two or three mechanics and finally to the dealership who kept it for a month. And I had to get a rental car. And then it was ECM, PCM, throttle body, all these other things that apparently the mechanics couldn't figure out. So I'm on the groups on Facebook for all the Chrysler's, and all my friends are telling me everything to do.

And I'm like, I'm leaving this to the dealership. They're the experts. And the dealership, I actually have two dealerships that I work with, one in Asylum Springs, Arkansas, and the other one in Fayetteville, Arkansas. And I love both dealerships, especially. the one in Fayetteville because they saw all the brand new supercharged challengers and stuff anyhow the dealership had it and I said well why can't you fix it he goes well we're trying and I said well can you try it a little bit harder I'm a little tired of rent a little smarter maybe

he says well just bear with us so I would call once a week saying what's the progress and you know every excuse under the book and so I called my dealership and fairbill I said why can't This guy in Silo Springs fix a car. And he said, well, even I have problems finding a mechanic that can fix a car if it's 10 years old. Yeah. And I'm ready. And so I said, okay. Truth in love.

Truth in love. But I finally get the car back in town, and it still doesn't run. It's still in the lightning bolt. And all my friends say, it's throttle body. So I finally said, okay, look, I'm going to get a map sensor from O'Reilly's for $40, because that may be the part that's name. and I'm going to get some cleaner for the throttle body that the one guy put on and said it was I admit it was aftermarket but he said it was on a due price and he said I cleaned it up perfectly and stuck it in there it's good anyhow I went out there and took that thing off because I used to work on cars back in the day when I enjoyed that kind of stuff and I sprayed the heck out and all that black dump came out of that carbon build up right so I cleaned it out as good as I can and everything. I didn't want to take it all

while, but I'm just going to clean it because the butterfly's sticking, right? So I put it back together, boom, it starts up perfectly. Drive it up and down the road. He goes to drive it like 40 miles an hour so the computer does the rebound. Well, you're from that era,

and that's the reason we can't find technicians. I mean, I'm not going to guess your age, but my guess is you're over 40, and if you, Rick's work for us for 25 years, And that's why he can do that. But there are even cars Rick Kent has a clue about.

The first car I ever sold in 1937, or my father sold, if I didn't sell, was a 1937 Pontiac chieftain. And you want to have a laugh, get the oldest mechanic he got, and bring him over there and say, can you fix this? He'll say, what's that? Because a 1937 car is unidentifiable by 99% of the technician. in the world. Rick got it running.

Yeah, Rick gets it running. It's the most basic of machines, right? I'm a historian, though. I love the history of the old cars. Oh, by the way, we still have that 37 Pontiac Chief, and we didn't mention. It was bought back like 20 years later in the 60s, and we've had it, and it's been restored,

and it's sitting there. It's beautiful. I drove it to my high school's 100th year anniversary. Oh, yeah, Palm Beach High. Yeah, Palm Beach High. Why is a 60th Chevy and Pala Super Sport with a rag top. Nice. Yeah, we got to run.

Nancy's got a bunch of calls backed up over there, and it's nice to talk to a good old-fashioned mechanic that knows what he's talking about. Thanks, Chuck. I used to be an old-fashioned mechanic, so that tells you how old I am back in Pittsburgh. I worked on all of my cars. My dad was born?

Much simpler. We also have Purdue. For Earl to know. Pardon me? We have Purdue alumni. That's right. Ah, there you go. Lofi Anniana.

Where's Lafayette? Thanks, Chuck. Give us a call again. Okay, we are going to go to Tennessee. We're going to talk to Larry. Hi, Larry. Hi, there, folks. I tell you what, you got one of the greatest shows in entertainment

and in knowledge and perception that I've ever listened to on the radio, and I'm 78 years old. I'm not going to pay you for saying that, but I... Thanks so much. I'm not going to argue with you either. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, let me tell you my experience with Earl directly, okay? Oh, boy.

I went to his dealership when he was running the show at, you know, Vixie and Salt Lake Boulevard. He still runs the show. And he personally gave me the Carfax right there in the parking lot on a 2018 Serento and I talked with him about it a little bit he handed that to me

and he gave me the information I didn't even ask for the car fax he just had it in his hand and gave it to me that's how straightforward Earl is with regard to doing the right job well I took that car I bought it for $18,000

and I'm sorry I had 18,000 miles on it I bought it for 11,000 dollars wow i i when i david my brought my my son-in-law as a gift for the wedding with my daughter it had 40 000 miles on it i never put anything into that car through the course of all of that duration amazing amazing and believe let me here it is though because i'm a cadlock man okay this is a court that's in place you know what larry a friend of ours who sounds just like you, is also a Cadillac man.

Well, let me just tell you, let me finish the thing about the Sorrento. You couldn't turn it up to number four on the air condition. You had one, two, three, four. You had to leave it on three, because otherwise you get force-bitten in your nose. That's how great that car was. Wow. And I'm not exaggerating. It was just unbelievable.

Yeah. And I never put a penny into it. I did what the manufacturer's man you called for, oil change, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever, you know. I mean, brake players are good for 100,000 miles, I think. And it used to be, back in the day, break players were only good for about 18, 20,000 miles. This car was just unbelievable.

And I'll tell you what, Earl was so straightforward. And, I mean, he just knew his business, and he was, he was honest. It was, one of the only honest car dealerships that I ever did. You're making me blush. You're making me blush. Thanks, Larry. I think we got a bunch of, I think we got a bunch of callers here backed up. Thank you for the compliment.

You're a great guy. Yeah, we appreciate your call. Give us a call, you know, when you can. Maybe next Saturday. We are going to go to Doug, who has been patiently holding. Good morning, Doug. Good morning. Happy Saturday.

I was just calling to say, to say, to say the echo was nice. Oh, that's very nice. That's very nice. I like that. But I am a tech, and if you're running Zoom and someone has their mic open, you will get that kind of feedback. So when a customer, when someone calls on Zoom, make sure they have their monitor, their monitor off or whatever, or else you're going to get that feedback. Oh, thanks for the tip. We'll try that.

Maybe it wasn't our fault, or maybe it was. I don't know. We'll work it out. Jonathan's a technical genius on this stuff, so we'll get to figure it out. Okay, so you remember you guys in 2018 when my Honda got hit by lightning, and then, you know, they tried to fix it, and they could never fix it. Yeah. Well, on June the 22nd, we had a really bad storm in Boca, and I took my car to get the new car. I have the GR to get it. The oil change finally, right?

At 3,300 miles. He says, hey, you need an oil change. I go, okay. And the guy at the body shop, he liked, and he comes out. He says, hey, Doug, how have you been? And then he looked at my car and he goes, hey, did your car get hit by hell? And I go, what?

So anyhow, my car got hit by hell. And now it's got little dings on it. uh yeah we've seen that happen hail is rare in florida but it does occur on what you may consider is talking to your insurance company about it no i did they said that they would definitely fix it and it would be an active god

so so there wouldn't be any you know the deductible is only 100 that's not too fast there you go so yeah so i have two active gone incidences in about four projects. Other than that, I'm okay. Ella is okay. Well, it's good to hear, meow right out of to Ella, and tell Sam IZ-A, hi,

and it's nice to have a nice family like you watching the sunrise and listening to the radio show. You guys, have a great week. We love you, guys. Have a great week, too. Love you, too. Bye-bye. Thank you. Give us a call again. And we're going to go to Tom and Jupiter. Good morning, Tom. Hey, Tom. You out there? Tom? Tom, Tom's here.

Hey, Tom. Good morning, Tom. What can we do for you? Well, I didn't realize you picked me up. Anyway, I'm sure you've been asked this question before, but I didn't hear it. I don't have the radio on a couple hours every Saturday. but the question is well you got iced tea advertising car shield you know and all that you pay this much and they take care of everything and also one call endurance

these places and I'm wondering Rick and you guys what's the story is it worth the money no and you know I Rick Rick can tell you how much the money costs the problem with

these advertisements I mean I you know Nancy and I are just absolutely that we're targeted we're targeted with average because we're older we get every pharmaceutical company in the world

we're getting cremation homes we're getting caskets and so they target people and people that are of a mindset that they might want to have their car fixed they scare them to death and they offer you something

they call an extended service contract or a warranty, but if you read it, the first thing you want to read is what the law requires they put what's not included. And you'll find out that about 90% of everything that's going to cost you any money is not included. But they also

have a lot of little stuff that because you're a lot of mechanic, you're not technically inclined. It sounds good. But the fact of the matter is, if it's advertised on television, if it's advertised on any kind of high-pressure media

where they say, buy this, it's a great deal. It's absolutely the opposite. Do not buy. If you're going to buy one, shop it carefully and buy it from the manufacturer will sell you extended service contracts. I don't buy those either,

but you don't want to buy one that you buy over a TV ad. And you know what, Tom, they really air that commercial a lot. Yeah. Did I hear you say that? was iced tea i yeah yeah that one is red i mean and they said they both him and his lady friend they sound so convincing yeah over and over the same with uh danica patrick does one for endurance

too exactly exactly yeah well i had a strong suspicion uh what you're telling me was the case but i wanted to check with you guys the experts and get your opinion on that and so anyway that's all the questions I have for today well it was great hearing from you Tom all right thank you give us a call all right thank you we're still waiting for

another call and we have that meeting ID and you can call us at 926 589-0586 and you can win yourself a hundred dollars we have

we're waiting for you know one more Zoom caller. So, if you've already called us on Zoom, ladies, I'm still waiting to hear from you. 877-960-99-60, you can win yourself $50. First two, new lady callers. Take advantage. Or you can text us. Hope everybody's jotting all these.

We have a lot of numbers. 772-497-6530. You know, I haven't mentioned Earl's vigilantes in a while, and it's certainly near and dear to Earl's heart, and you can help not only us, but maybe your neighbor, you know, by joining Earl's vigilantes. We've got quite a list, and you don't have to know how to take an engine apart, but just, you know, put some information out there. with your neighbor or in any way at all you can join you just listen to the callers we've had some of you are so knowledgeable yeah educated consumers that you need to share this expertise uh with others and if you go to earls vigilantes.com you can sign up uh some of you who have called today um was it tom in oklahoma or chuck in oklahoma i mean there's a very

knowledgeable guy. There'd be some people out there in Oklahoma that would like to be able to contact you, Chuck. And if you volunteer, you're on our website, which is, which is earl-oncars.com, www. www. Earleoncars.com. And you're listed as a vigilante. And that's someone that has some specific car knowledge that is willing to share with the less informed. And there's a whole lot of people that are less informed. This show, we're preaching to the choir. Let's face it. The YouTubers that follow Rick all the time, and a lot of our callers, really, they listen to the show because they enjoy it, but they don't need it. The people that need it are the ones that don't listen. So hence the need for the vigilantes.

You need to go out and find people in your community, and if they can pick up and call Chuck locally in Oklahoma, and he can say, hey, listen. He could also tell you to listen to Earl and Cars or go to Earl and Cars.com or he could give you his own advice. So please consider joining our vigilantes. Yeah, it'd be fantastic. And, you know, as Earl said, you can share your expertise with, you know, those that are less fortunate, you know, that get taken advantage of.

And, boy, do we see a lot of that going on. We are going to go to John, our favorite caller, from Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning. I have something on my mind that dealers stock it to people. You talk about junk fees. It's registration fees when you buy the car. My opinion is, and Earl would confirm it, I wouldn't pay any more than $20 extra for the privilege of the dealer getting you license plates. What's Earl's opinion? What does it cost the dealer for the electronic filing fee as an average?

it cost us 10 bucks is the last time i checked yeah it's uh it's uh computerized now if you go back 20 years before the computers did this uh then there was a lot of accounting work and and manual labor of kind of source but today it's we don't have a person in our dealership anymore that does that because we have it's computerized and uh there are even companies out there they do it for nothing. And what the dealers do is they take a $10 charge and then they mark it up by $450 and that's all profit. But they lie and tell you that this is a cost to the dealers.

Not cost at all. It's a big fat profit center. Well, some of the dealers really suck it to the people hundreds and hundreds of dollars extra. But keep in mind in the state of Florida, when you buy a car where you come for the first time and you don't have a plate previous, there's a $225 initial plate fee.

That fee goes to the state transportation fund. But if you had a past car, they'll have a record on it on a computer that you turn the plate in for a car you sold or something, you will get that credit. You will not have to pay the $225, or if somebody in the same household with the address will get that credit also,

should they register a car? So that's important for people to keep in mind. Basically, also, your license plate in Florida is good for only 10 years. After 10 years, you need a new plate completely. That's because of the weather in Florida. They figured it could be weird from the gun and everything. But that's a $25 fee. And if you haven't had a new plate in 10 years, there's a lot to choose from now.

I've seen every possible imaginable play of Florida Ripids. There's no uniform Florida plate in you. It's crazy, isn't it? Yes. Just to help clarify, John, John's absolutely right. A brand new tag is going to be brand, is going to cost a little bit more. It's that deposit, John mentioned, that goes to the state. And then after that point, you can transfer the registration, and it's considerably less

whenever you have to transfer it to a new car. That's important to keep in mind because people get shook up when they say, wait a minute, 225 extra, any new license. plate that's issued, you have to pay that fee. Right, plus the registration title fee. What I want to say is, I think it's a rip-off when you renew for two years because they don't give you any reduction in price. I know.

So what's the sense? You may not even have that car. Well, it's a convenience, I guess. I'm on two years now. It's just easier for me. Well, it's convenient. That's why. And also, believe it or not, Florida started a new system.

Right here in Palm City, you can renew your plate in a public supermarket. It's a special machine that will let you easily follow the instructions and you can do your license plates. That's really interesting. I wonder any other publicses are doing that because that's something. No, it's going to be to spread to other publics from what I heard. Oh, good. And there's a lot of technicality on a plate, too. I won't go into details.

If you're 100% veteran disabled with this form FDVA, you get a license plate for only $4.80. since annual fee a year, but there's a lot of technicality only in your motor vehicle can you inquire about the different type of length of place that are available. Okay, but that's still good to know. Thanks, John.

Okay, all right, guys. I'm waiting for the shopping report. Oh, thank you. It's great hearing from you. Okay, we're going to go to John in West Palm Beach. Good morning, John. How are you? Hello, John.

Talk to me. There you are. Hello. Uh, first, uh, on the license plate kiosk at Publix. There's one, um, one of them in, uh, Palm City, uh, yeah, I think John was just, the John right before you, um, mentioned that. Oh, that's Palm Springs here in West Palm Beach. Oh, okay.

Oh, that's great to know. Okay. So you can renew your tags at Publix's. That's great. Yes. Huh. And then, uh, my question initially called was, have you dealt with any of these extended warranty insurances through your shop?

You know, have people come in and say, well, I have this extended warranty, and then the people say, you know, and they think they're going to get it fixed, and you've had to tell the people that they declined it because, you know, we don't cover them. It doesn't happen all the time, but people do come in with warranties. usually the good ones, you know, the legitimate ones, we can look them up quite really easily with the

very worst, it's an 800 number that we would call, but in some cases there were conditions like it had to be performed at the dealership, it was sold or there was a restriction that wasn't known or an exclusion in the warranty coverage

that wasn't disclosed. So we see that from time to time. We don't see that with legitimate warranties coming from, you know. John, John, one of the little known facts about these warranty companies, one of the little known facts is that the dealers own, many of the dealers own these warranty companies. We own warranty company. And the warranty company is an extremely lucrative type of business to own.

There are great tax benefits. If you want to go back far enough, most of the dealers had offshore warranty companies. I mean, you really want to get down in the dirt. They weren't paying taxes on their warranty income. So the evolution has now come to, they're more honest than they used to be. But when a dealer owns a warranty company, he is, in fact, he has to be honest to his duty to fix your car when it needs to be fixed. because when he does fix your car is coming out of his pocket.

So when you buy a warranty, first of all, if you're buying it from the dealer, find out if it's the manufacturer's warranty, and even when it's the manufacturer's warranty, he's going to be participating when he sells you the warranty because the manufacturer encourages him, and the more warranties he sells, the more people come back to them

to get their cars fixed under that warranty. So after all that smoke, It boils down to the one thing, honesty and transparency. I recommend you buy an extended warranty only from a manufacturer, and if you're going to buy it from a dealer, then be sure you're dealing with an honest, transparent dealer, and be sure you know what the warranty covers and what the warranty does not cover. All right, great. Thank you.

Thank you, John. You're welcome, John. Thanks for giving us a call. Well, now I'm happy. is calling. She's a first-time caller. She has just won herself. Fifty dollars. And she's calling us from Hope's On. Good morning, Elizabeth. Good morning. How are you this morning? We're great. We're so happy to hear from you. And if you stay on the line when you're finished talking with us, you can talk to Jeremy. He's in the control room, and he will take your information and pass it along to me, and I'll write out a check and send it out to you. Oh, that's wonderful.

That's wonderful. I have a question. My husband and I have a debate. Whether or not it is important to shut the air off before you shut the car off or make sure the air is off before you turn the car on. Does it make a difference? Not worth arguing about it, but I'll let Rick. That's marriage.

That's in relationship advice. Don't argue. I don't know. I don't know. The technical answer is. So let's hear the technical answer. That came from the heart. That was real.

Elizabeth, you made my morning, Elizabeth. That's good. That's good. This is a universal problem. Do you know that? The difference of opinions in relationships. And as my husband would say, hey, guess what? That makes a horse race.

Okay, Rick, it's all yours. I'm going to throw out one qualifier here first. I do not know which one of you chose which answer. So there's no way that I can tell this person I'm backing. But here's my opinion. We're open-minded. It'll make no difference whatsoever by turning the air conditioning off before you park your car. However, there is one caveat there.

For a time, we had cars that when you shut the AC off, or when you shut the car down, the air conditioning boxes were so tight of tolerance, and they would seal up so well because the engineers had tried to get them so perfect that the moisture that was inside that box here in South Florida, especially in the summertime that we've got, it would sit in there with no airflow. and it'd be just like that wet towel that you dropped on your bathroom floor and left there for a day or two with no airflow it would very quickly start to get that musty, mildewy odor. Very good, very good. So one of the things that the engineers were recommending

until they could get around to do a reprogram on the computer system for it, what they would recommend is set your AC to fresh air, intake and turn off the compressor like yeah when you're about a quarter mile from home so it's just the fan blowing and that would help you reduce the amount of moisture in there and then when you parked it leave it on fresh air intake so that air could circulate through there well what they've done now is a far more than elizabeth or her husband wants to yeah well they have changed

the programming now to where when you park your car it automatically opens up that box to he tells you how to make a watch yeah okay well it helps to understand yeah what the answer it helps you it helps you yeah that's helping me i'm learning all sorts of stuff over here but for for whichever one said which it won't make a single change whether you shut the AC off versus leaving it all set so that when you start the car up it starts blowing cold as soon as possible correct correct okay okay thank you for your help Thank you, Elizabeth. Thanks for amusing us.

And, you know, on a more serious note, you do know that you have really encouraged other women to call the show, and you're helping us build a platform here for the ladies, and we definitely appreciate that. Yes, that's great. That's great. Yes, I appreciate that. You guys have a great day. Have a great weekend. Bye-bye. Okay, we're not having any difficulties

with our Zoom so I'm still waiting for someone to call us on the meeting ID number which is 926-589 0586 that's 926 589-089

0586 and I'll tell you what we are we're clear on calls so probably be a good idea to either go to your anonymous feedback or Facebook or YouTube and then and also one of us can find Jonathan's text that reads the from the that's from Garber posting yeah yeah and we can do that too whenever you're

ready to I can't find it yeah you have it all right no if you'll pass it down well I get to Amory's text while you're looking for that okay Amory says good morning it's summertime and that means people will be hitting the beaches and the pools to cool off it's easy to jump in the water and forget that your keys are still in your pocket. In the old days, when you just had a simple old key and you jumped in, you could just dry the key off on your towel and drive away. Nowadays, keys have chips in them and many vehicles, just have a key fob. One, what can you do if you jump or fall in with either a key with a chip or a key fob? Two, can you just dry it out? If so, how? Thank you with a smiley face with sunglasses, because it's summertime.

If it's a keyless entry remote type, has the buttons on it, if you get it out of the water super, super fast, shake it as dry as you can, and try to get it somewhere where you can get air blowing on it, you've got a small chance. What happens if you go swimming and you get home and you realize it was in your swim trunks all day? You're going to pay. That's going to be done. Yeah, it kills those. Water and electronics do not mix very well at all, and it's going to let the smoke out. You won't see it, but it does, and it kills that electronics, and those keys that... Are there waterproof cases that you can get for your keys?

There are some... For the adventurous types? Yeah, there are some, but they're kind of like the original waterproof cases for cell phones. It's basically a Ziploc bag. Okay. So if you want the simple answer, get a Ziploc bag to put your... your keys in and it will seal out that water i want to know i want to know what happened to amory on the fourth of july that make us make her ask this question she probably got tossed in the pool

oh boy that should be pretty interesting troublemaker you know i'm going to interrupt you stook we're going to i'll go back to our zoom number and uh dick jonathan just told me that he is waiting to talk with us okay hi dick And we still have the echo. Is there anything that we could do with the other end, Jonathan, that we could tell him to, what do the one caller say about the echo? If their microphone is turned on? Microphone. Hi.

It's back. Hi. Hi. Hi. Yeah, we're hearing your echo. And we have you on, we have your face on, don't we have your face on? or do it I don't

I don't see Dick's face I don't see your face and I'll hear your echo I see Rick do you see he's on he's on the YouTube channel right now Oh great so we got the video We just have an echo

We have the audio echo and the video And you win yourself a hundred bucks We see you do I'm on both YouTube and Zoom Oh wow you're a Checkman. Whoa, wow.

Hey, can you try close the window for YouTube and see it with just Zoom? Maybe that'll kill the echo. Yeah, because it's not as bad as it was before. I'm not on the YouTube. I am on your telephone. You have me waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. Hey, Stu. Your Zoom and telephone?

Yeah. Try, try putting your Zoom on mute. Mute one of them. we might have to take this to a higher technical level there we're confusing me he's on the telephone with a echo and he's not on zoom any reason at all i needed to laugh well listen thank thank you for helping us get this right and i know we're driving a lot of people crazy but uh i guarantee you we'll get rid of this echo one way the other it will happen we shall prevail.

We will. All right, Jonathan. Cut it. Are we back on Earth? Hey. Wow. That was a rush. That was cool.

I think I hear that. Rick, what is in that? The CIA uses that for, to breaking people down. M.K. Ultra. That's right. What's in that spray bottle with the red liquid, Rick? Can you hold that up to the camera? That's just a throat spray?

Okay, just don't spray that anymore. I think it had an effect. on our broadcast this morning. I'll leave a man alone. He's spraying his throat. You want to go to some more text? You want to go to that Facebook or YouTube posting or Facebook posting? Hey, good morning, Karen.

How are you? Karen's watching us again. Hey, Karen, do you have a Zoom account? If you're listening, 926-589-0-586, you can win yourself $100,000,000. morning if you call me us well one quick note mark H is recommending for the echo try having our control room turn off all the microphones but one on our end and see if the if that gets rid of the echo zoom effect well it might be a challenge for Jeremy I'm not sure yeah we could turn off our own

okay I got I have a text from Karen she absolutely does not want to talk to no one. And she said that she felt like she was, she felt like she was on mushrooms earlier. Hey, hey, glad to be of service. Yes, whatever it takes, Karen.

I have some texts if we don't have any phones coming in here. You go ahead. Okay, I thought I had a text there. Do you want me to read this? Go ahead. Can you put that up?

Are you going to put this up on the screen? Okay, I'm going to read this, what is this, a YouTube posting? It's a comment. You used to, a YouTube comment. And we select things, first of all, we should be getting more YouTube comments and more Facebook, you know, comments because we do regular messages and other stuff, but we should get to these. And I'm glad Jonathan did this because we get the YouTube's that are posted

are just fabulous. And here's one. And I'm going to read this from the printout of Jonathan's text to me. I remember you. You were all over TV years ago picking up a red phone and stating your name. Please look us in the eye and tell us that you're not pot calling the kettle black and that you've never fired a manager or a salesman for not pushing the boundaries of a sale. You must know from your own experience as a car dealer that this is a man.

This is exactly how it's done across the nation. After viewing your Google reviews, it's apparent that you may be in the same category of some of the dealerships you shop under false pretense. Oh yeah, mystery shop. Now this was posted by a fellow that was a service advisor to Garber Buick in Fort Pierce that we mystery shop two weeks ago. It really got them angry. And the name of the shopper is a name of the service advisor, service salesman, is Tom Camlet.

So Tom, first of all, thanks for listening to the show, watching the show. And I think Nancy said to me, boy, it's really cool that the service advisors at Garber Buick and Fort Pierce are listening to this radio show. That's really good. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. You're a guy, you're a guy that's in the business, and you're in the trenches. Hard job.

So you speak from who you are and what you do, and I respect that. So I'm going to read this one more time, just so I get this right. This is what the YouTube posting said, and it was from Tom Camel. Tom said, I remember you. You were all over TV years ago,

picking up a red phone and state of your name. I used to do that as TV. commercials a lot. Now we switch largely to digital because people don't watch broadcast TV anymore very much and our demographic doesn't watch it. So we do the same thing that we, you saw, Tom, we do it now on digital. You got Instagram or Facebook or, you know, all that kind of stuff. Still got the red phone. Yeah, I still got the red phone. Please look us in the eye and tell us that you're not the pot calling the kettle black and that you never fired, This is very interesting.

You never fired a manager or salesman for not pushing the boundaries of a sale. You must know from your own experience as a car dealer that this is exactly how it's done across the nation. After viewing your Google reviews, it's apparent that you may not be in the same category of some of the dealerships you shop under false pretenses. Oh, yeah, mystery shop. Okay. Let me say this. I probably didn't fire any managers, even back when I was evil, because I didn't like to fire people.

I've never done that. And I don't, what we do is we advise people, we coach people, we train people. And usually we try to coach them and train them so much they quit because they realize that they can't change. But we don't fire people for things like that. But for like 15 years, we haven't had a sales process where we would, have a reason to be upset from maximizing it. It doesn't

work like that at our dealership. And for you people that don't understand what he meant by that, there are card relationships now that have rules, ABCD. Always get the name, address, and telephone number. Always. And this is like comes down from the mountain on the

it's like Ten Commandments. It says Val Shelt introduce the customer to your manager and that's so and if you don't in some dealerships if you don't do that the salesman's fired but i i read this as the gross maximum he's talking about getting all the gross is what he's talking about yeah yeah getting all the gross he's not talking about the email address does you go back

for more does you grab back oh yeah they sure they were going to pay us a thousand dollars over sticker but you might have got two thousand dollars over sticker you're fired you're weak yeah so that doesn't no we don't do that and uh mystery shopping is a great thing for you to do i mean you could mystery shop us. We mystery shop ourselves. That's how we found out what you do at Garber Buick because we send an undercover agent. Maybe we should shop Garber's service department. And here's the other thing that's interesting. He said after viewing your Google reviews as apparent that you may not be in the same category of some of the dealerships you shop under false business as well. First of all, we have the best Google reviews of any dealership that you can

find of our size and but the reason you can find negative Google reviews on our Google's our weather website we don't take them down see we don't we don't we don't protest we don't yeah we also don't farm or you know they try and get good reviews yeah we respond to the ones so if there is a negative review you're gonna there's gonna be an honest response from me personally usually so we're we have more positive Google reviews than any I know. But we also have bad reviews, but look closely at the bad reviews. There are no, there are no claims of lying or bait and switch. And the reviews are answered. So anyway, thank you,

thank you, Tom, from Garber Buick. I hope you're listening now. And I welcome you to mystery shop our store and send the report in. We'll read it. And see, I can't lose because first of all, you're probably going to get a really good report. But if you get a bad report, then I'm going to find out where a problem is and fix it. So you can help us get better by mystery shopping, Earl Stewart, Toyota. And then call in and you can read the report. So that was, I really thank Jonathan for finding that.

We need to do a better job of going through all those postings and coming up with nuggets. I love it when people in the business. You get notifications? Yeah, Jonathan gets notifications. We get notifications on every comment, so Jonathan gets them as well. So that one stood out. Very good.

And there's a few that you and I have caught every once in a while after the show. So, you know, this is interesting. This is one of Rick's friends on YouTube, and it's Johnny Z. Fradley. Fradley? Fradley, yep. Johnny Zee. And he says, welcome to Earl Stewart and The Grateful Dead Hour.

So everybody out there was really... I should have played. That's what I should have played. There's a little... A little Franklin's Tower or something like that. Yeah, it's not too late. I apologize, Johnny Zee. I play Beatles, but next time, next time we go into the rabbit hole.

And, you know, there's so much information I have right before me that we worked on this morning. It's not going to be any time. We've got to get to Rick and we got to get back to Stu. We have your anonymous. And that's what makes a good show. The customers, the customers, the callers make the good show. And we have Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Also, and there was a great article in the Wall Street, Wall Street Journal yesterday. And I think that Jonathan is saying that we got four minutes to the mystery shopper report. So, Earl, what would you like to address? Do we want to go to Rick and back to Stu? Annonymous. Which one you want? What do we want to do? I got just one quick

one here from Donovan. I just want to read this one by Donovan. It's, he says, more wonderful news about Florida. Florida under the bipartisan infrastructure law that was passed in 2021 is getting $198 million to install electric vehicle chargers along highways in the state. Several gas station chains in Florida are now demanding the state of Florida start to distribute the funds from the NV or NEVI program because the state has not given out a single dime of that money. Florida is the number two state for EVs in the U.S., yet we are the state that is furthest behind in using this money for chargers around the state. Ohio just finished their second round of chargers being installed, and Oklahoma is installing chargers now with their money, and they are ranked towards the bottom for the number of EVs on the road. so I don't know which state is number one

but I think probably Nevada because Nevada is was first on the ball with EVs I know that but that is pretty impressive our governor governor's name is DeSantis and he wants to be president

the United States or vice president and so it's politics and that's I mean I'm not picking on DeSantis but I got to salute Oklahoma and some of other states that actually have people who run the state that care about the people in the state that are driving electric vehicles.

The Sanis is going to be to Sanis. Absolutely. And I think Rick mentioned much earlier in the show that there was somebody out there that wanted us to, you know, share our experience about Tesla and the updates and everything. And you and I spoke this morning about the autonomous. And you can just... Tell them about leaving the house this morning.

You know, you can just enter into your navigational system, you know, where you're going. And they, you know, autonomous comes back and it allows you to know how long it's going to take you to get to your destination, which sort of rules out, you know, stepping, you know, getting out there and racing to your destination. If I ever had an accident, and Nancy ever had an accident, the two things that we do, and we're guilty, before we had fully autonomous. We're guilty of starting getting in the car late, going to the doctor's appointment, going to the, we got to be someplace,

got to be at the airport, wherever it is. And we start late, and so we go into a panic, and we rush. And you're angry with each other? Now, now we just, we tell our fully autonomous, Tesla, we've named Ms. Nancy, and we say, take us to the airport, and Ms. Nancy says, be at the airport at 1143 now miss nancy knows do you ever feel like you're talking to yourself the shortest the shortest route to the airport it knows the traffic patterns because it sees all the

drivers on the road and it knows just within a minute or two takes all the thinking out we arrive within a minute or two when they say to do it so we relax and don't have to rush not only that pardon me for interrupting you but the pedestrian part of it that we don't even see but Ms. Nancy and there's a lot of pluses that she does but there is times whenever she just becomes unpredictable and it's not a good thing I scream at her a lot. Well a lot of times I accuse her of being unpredictable and in fact she's just knowing more than I do and more often than not she knows more than I do and I just let her do what she wants to do. I'm getting more and more permissive because she's doing things that I should have been

doing all along yeah there you go hey you know there's two uh that guy that made the comment on youtube he also did anonymous feedback on that so that was the same message he came out on two channels so i wanted to thank the guy from garber um for doing that because we like it when people are using oh yeah anonymous feedback so thank you for using that channel as well cool yeah thank you thank you very much um unfortunately um Jonathan is telling me that we have to go to our mystery shopping report is there something Rick that you can mention real quick no there's nothing Rick can mention real quick okay oh I was just passed away from John listen folks we have the mystery shopping report and it is from a Rocky Mount

North Carolina that's Davenport Honda what a great place in the world and and you can vote on is it beautiful yes you can vote on this mystery shopping report by going to 772-497-6530. That's our text number. And remember, good dealer, bad dealers.com. And you can go there and you can see some of the great and the good and the bad and the ugly. So take it away. Davenport Honda, Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, God's Country.

A new town, a new state for a car shop this week. Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Speaking, the first person, he said, I were Agent Lightning. I walked in the door, was greeted by Gene. He extended his hand for a gentle handshake, introduced himself and then asked,

what brings you in today? I said, I'm here on vacation, misplaced my driver's license, and couldn't find it in time to make my flight back to Florida. Oops. Boy, Ms. Agent Lightning is very creative and imaginative. I'm in the market for a new car, and I hate

flying anyway, so I figured I'd get one up your driver home. I added, I found my license, by the way. I like that. Gene chuckled and asked, is it too hot outside to go and look for the car, or would you prefer to look on my computer online? I said, well, it's not so hot to me.

He laughed, motioned for me to come outside with them to see what they have. I found two different cars, and I liked, a new question mark kind of a thing, 2004 Honda Accord EX, and a new 2004 Honda Civic EXL Hatchback

with an MSRP of 30,200. Now, the reason there was a little question on the new on the 2024 accord, the accord was a service vehicle with some miles on it, so I'm not going to go into a rand about what the difference between a new car

and used car. I'll say that for another week. Gene showed me the addendum label next to the Monroney label, properly affixed in the correct spot. Amen. I mean, and we are not in Florida, folks. The bernomal labels were it supposed to be. This shows what available accessories we have. This is Gene Target. This shows what available accessories we have available for this car. He said, and you as a customer, listen to this, refreshing, you as a customer can add on what you want

rather than what many dealerships around here do, they just put them on anyway and overcharge you. So there he said it. And this dealership, they show you what we have that we can put on if you want to pay for it. Yeah, they have all that stuff. They have the all-weather mats, cargo mat, splash guards, spray and bed liner, all this stuff.

Actually, a lot of the stuff is useful, toolbox, roof rack, things like that. But that's their accessories. And that's what retail is all about, and that's a customer's choice. The price is there, they can take it or leave it, and that's the way it ought to be. Not the way it is in 99% of cardiolship, so good. We walked inside to his desk.

I asked him if he could show me the prices for both the Civic and the accord. He pulled out a notebook, wrote down, the info on the computer screen. These were my prices for each. This was very quaint. Yeah, it is quaint, yeah. I mean, I'll hold it up.

It's not handwritten. Might have something to do with a seat. CDK thing. I don't think so. Oh, it was? Well, I don't know. Well, she asked about that. Well, no, they got it working, though, so never mind. So, but they had just got it working. He's an old guy. He's been around for a while.

You'll find it a little bit later that the salesperson. So it's probably old habits, which is nothing wrong with writing with your hands on a piece of paper. Gene said they have an $899 dock fee. Now, that's what he said. And that's not a cheap doctor fee. and that shouldn't be there, but it is, okay? So let's call a spade of spade. And only $1 for a 30-day paper plate, we call them,

to take the car back to Florida. He said I'd pay all the taxes once I got home and registered there, which is true. I asked them if they have a printout that shows me payments, interest rate specials, etc. He said, of course, I can do that. I just need to put you into our system. But I'll gladly do that for you if you have a few minutes.

I said, sure. I asked him if they have any special rates. He pulled up on his computer with the specials, which can vary depending on individual credit. That's interest specials. He shared that they just got their sips back up yesterday. That was the, which, by the way, I believe, almost low car dealerships up after the cyber hack

that cost millions and millions of dollars to a lot of car dealerships. Hundreds of them. We'll be talking about this CD. K cyber hack for a long time. But it's all over now, the dealers are all back in business. And they paid the ransom.

They're just counting the damage, yeah. They paid the ransom? I think they paid the ransom. Oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah. They did. There was $10 or $20 million. Crazy. Which is a shame, I guess. I mean, it's just a shame you could get

away with something like that. But that's another show. Okay, here we go. Three point, here's a special score. based on credit, 3.9% for 24 to 48 months, 4.9% for 49 to 60, 5.9% for 61 to 72, and today's great climate, that's pretty damn good. So you do the arithmetic and find out how much of my financing for how long and is it worth it worth it to me. I thanked him for the info but said I would pay cash. Gene excused himself for a few minutes, returned with a

worksheet reviewed my numbers for the civic the top line was MSRP 30,200 and there was $1,712 discount boy nice to see a discount then he added back the 899 doc fee and $1 in non-tax fees for the temp tech I mean that's Mickey Mouse I mean who's going to talk about a buck no tax or title since I'd be handling this in Florida. That all made sense. As I read the document over, Gene told me that Mr. Nelson, 90-plus years old, owns this dealership. And Gene has been working, his that's his son, and now his grandson, since 1988. Wow. Gene asked me if you plan on purchasing this car. When would you do it? Explain that he finishes up today at 4. Was that a Friday? Yeah. And I won't be back

until Monday at 9. He said, not to worry, though. Anyone here can help me through, although he prefers to take care of customers. He introduced me to Anthony and said, you'll be here all weekend. If I need anything, he thanked me for coming today and walked me to the door.

So there you have it. Nice good. And we vote on these things, by the way, if you're new to the show. And we vote on the curve. That means that average dealers are not too swift. So an average dealer is not too swift is going to be getting a C where maybe you to give them an F because they did something that you didn't like.

But we don't give a lot of Fs because if we, unless a dealer is so dangerous, criminal, we want to have your option to be able to buy it from him, but know that you have to be careful. On our recommended dealer list, that's pretty good. On the do not buy list, you don't want to touch them. You can vote at 772-497-6530. Well, before I mentioned the voting, Anne-Marie texted and says, story behind the question. The friend went swimming with the key to his wife's car in his pocket. When he got out, the wife's vehicle did start. I was wondering if he should put the key in a bottle with dry red to make sure things were dry in order to ensure domestic tranquility.

Would that work, Rick? Dampred is the best thing you can do for that. Yes, Sam, Marie, do that. I remember in the old day of stock, I used to use rice. Yeah. You take your phone and throw it in the thing of rice. Yeah, no. So now that we have, damper it actually works.

It is the best. Rice just puts dust in there. And if you do it, use raw rice, don't cook it first. Or fried rice. Don't use fried rice. And don't put the key in the microwave. They get a, I'm going to give, I'm going to give them a B plus. They can't get an A, because A is a reserved for junk fee free dealers.

But this was as pleasant as it gets, and I think it has something to do with Rocky Mount, North Carolina. It's the elevation, about 2,000, 3,000 feet. It's beautiful. What's your grade? B plus. B plus. Yeah. I think, I mean, they're not perfect, but, you know, find me a dealer that doesn't have a,

the dealer fee. Isn't that where you had the fiasco with your scotch bottle? Oh yeah, they don't sell alcohol in a lot of parts of it, Carolina, so.

I'll save that story. You have to go to a state store. For another time. I was feeling well, mischievous. Man, she hid my scotch from me. I'll just tell it. She hid the scotch from me. He freaked. And she had me running around this cabin in the mountains,

frantically looking for my scotch there. He freaked out. I had to slap them around. I had to drive 80 miles to get a new bottle of scotch. He had to drive into Tennessee. I think we almost went over the mountain, didn't we? Yeah. You almost went over the mountain.

Oh. Okay, great. I'm confused by the seating order. Rick. I've got Joseph Kellerer says, B would have been an A without. the high dock fee. T-cash says B.

Would have been an A except for the high dock fee. Guys, hey, you're right in sync there. Okay, Tim Gilliland in Toasty Yuma, B-plus. The $899 dock fee prevents an A. Johnny Z. Fradley, even though a $900 fee, I'll give them a B-minus, so refreshing to see an uncluttered quote sheet. Mark Smith, this dealership deserves a B-plus.

Brian said Latko It's an A today Mark H, A for transparency Cram 1624 B What happens when you get in the box? He wonders We don't know

Myself, I zoomed in on that list of addendums And I noticed they have a free Dealership for Life program That has free car washes, free loaner vehicle access, free inspections, a lot of free stuff on there, added right end

for no extra charge and I'm going to break that level a little bit I'm going to say an A minus even with the doc fee for me I've given them the A minus I think this this is a place that I would say is looking to earn your business

legitimately right they're using an addendum for a whole different purpose they're using an addendum just to promote the dealership as opposed as a bait right yeah I got it I like that I think you're right Rick there's a lot a plus unfortunately that doc fee just sticks out at me and you know it's just like a

thorn in my side I just don't like fees but there as I said there's so many pluses so I'm going to give them and I hesitate I'm going to give them a B I'm I'm I'm going to give them a B too here's one little nuance I think you mentioned this to Nancy and I were talking about did you see how the salesperson spelled doc yes D-O-C-K now that maybe I'm reading too much into that but of course doc is a D-O-C abbreviation is a documentary fee a documentary fee is charged by the bank it is not profit to the dealer and so I'm thinking that the salesperson I didn't know what the doc fee was and you think it's kind of like

duct tape and it was just like that's the way doc's a doc fee I I was giving on a little bit of grief. Yeah, right. It's something that's been said so long. It's become its own word. It doesn't mean anything. He was probably 18 when he came to work there and, of course, there's the dock fee. And he's been saying it like, right. The dealer has a boat, I think, and he keeps his boat of the dock.

There's a, maybe, I don't know. I am surprised we have not used that before. How could we have not have used that before? A dock fee, yeah, it's a dock fee where he docks his yacht. Anyway, I'm going to give him a B, and I think it's a breath the fresh air. It's a Rocky Mountain High.

Exactly. Well, it's an Appalachian Mountain High. Smoky Mountain High. Been a lot going on this two hours, speaking of psychedelic drugs, Woodstock. We're shaking that. We've got five minutes left. Do with it with thou wilt. Well, you know, I haven't talked about the Federal Trade Commission, and we were proud to be quoted. In the automotive news, it probably means nothing to anybody except car dealers, but in the automotive news, we were recognized as one of two dealers in the United States that wrote an amicus brief

to the Federal Circuit Court in Texas who are trying with in concert with the Texas Dealers Association to get the Texas court to nullify the Federal Trade Commission regulation. So we're asking all honest dealers out there to join us in this amicus. Basically, I'm paying for it. I've paid our team of attorneys too much money. All attorneys in my mind charge me too much money, but that's just a personal feeling. And it's paid for. So if you want to join the amicus brief and you're honest and transparent,

it will help get the Federal Trade Commission regulations, combat auto retail scams that's the acronym combat auto retail scams cars and it will it puts some teeth in into the regulations but thank you automotive news for mentioning earl stir Toyota as being the author of the amicus brief it was in this week's automotive news very proud very proud of the good part yeah congratulations okay how much time do we have Jonathan All right. Let's tell some jokes. Okay. And I got all sorts of material here that I didn't think we're going to have time for it. You really have, you brought jokes, for real?

Yeah. Here's a good one. Here's the Raiders coach, the head coach for the, is it the Las Vegas Raiders now? Yeah. Yeah. He and his wife went bankrupt because he bought a car dealership. What kind of car dealership did he buy? He bought several Nissan and Hyundai. And he owes him $28 million. And he had to fight, he and his wife, I mean, I don't want to laugh. I mean, I'm not a big football fan, but there are a lot of big football fans out there.

But, you know, it's not easy to run. Coaches have now business getting into something that ain't or nothing about. That's what I'm saying. It's a hard business. It's a hard business. And a lot of you people that are football fans, they're head coach. which is the fact that his wife is going down with him. So he personally, from his own personal,

which was a, I don't like hearing that. Corporation, but anyway, he did do it. Was he by himself? He didn't have like a group of investors or? No, it was just he and his wife. And the dealership group collapsed in 2018. And now Hyundai and Nissan are after him. And he's declared personal bankruptcy.

Oh, boy. Okay. Okay, that's not good. and remember what a little mentioned earlier we have two minutes i'm going to mention it real quick and that's about junk fees uh dock fees junk fees uh anything that is taking of taking it away money out of consumers pockets that's called cars so we'll talk more about that next week i got a quickie here fisker and bankruptcy this is why you don't be care you want to be careful before you buy an EV.

The Fisker is liquidating their inventory and they're selling their EVs for $14,000 each. Really? If they spent $51,000, cost them to build. Can we? Now, these Fisker is going to, all these cars are going out. They'll be on used car lots and their cost basis is $14,000. If you bought a Fisker, you're in trouble, depreciation, or if you're paying more than $15,000, you're in trouble. Yeah.

So, back to cars, we're striving for transparent. It's called transparent pricing. Don't take advantage of the consumer, and we're still fighting for it. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us this morning. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you right back here. 8 a.m. Thank you.