Earl Stewart on Cars - 01.26.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Palm Beach Toyota

Episode Date: January 26, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. New Agent Thunder visits Palm Beach Toyota in Royal Palm Beach to purchase an advertised used BMW to see if he gets the advertised price. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.streamearloncars.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. We're back, Nancy Stewart and myself, Rick Kearney, Stu Stewart, our favorite part of the week, believe it or not. We love this show, and we hope you like it too. I always have to say at the beginning of the show

because we are on the true oldie station that this is not a musical. I promise I won't sing to you. I'm doing you a favor. Trust me, I'm not going to sing. What I do do is talk to you about automobiles, essentially how not to be ripped off by a car dealer. That's the theme of the show, Earl and Cars, and we'll give you advice,

and we'll implore you to call into the show, advice on how to buy a car or release a car, or maintain or repair your car by not being taken advantage of. Car dealers in this country, and I understand worldwide, kind of exist in a different universe from the rest of retail. They're in the 20th century. Most of the retail has entered 21st century, and you just don't get treated the way you should be treated by car dealers.

That's another show, that's another story, why that happens. I do have proof as to the fact that it does happen with the annual poll, the Gallup annual poll on honesty and ethics and professions. Excuse me for you folks that have heard this before, but to me it's startling that since 1977, the Gallup organization has conducted a poll on the best and worst businesses based on honesty and ethics. In 1977, that's well over 40 years. And every year, car dealers are near the bottom. Last year, 2018, they were dead last, which really hurt me a little bit because I'm a car dealer. I still am a car dealer. I've been a car dealer since 1968.

It's my chosen profession. It's my family profession. My wife, Nancy, my son's too. I have two other sons, Josh and Jason. It's a family business, and we're all in it together, and we're proud of what we do. But I have to tell you, when I'm at a party or a social gathering, and people ask me what I do, and I say I'm a car dealer, the looks on their faces sometimes. There's always a joke.

It's a joke. It never, nobody ever just goes, oh. It's a late-night comedian joke, a car dealer, you know. And the fact that the car dealers are considered and held in the lowest esteem by the Gallup poll every year for 40 plus years, they think we're the most dishonest, most unethical folks on the planet. So I take it personally, and that's really why this show exists, because I'm trying to do something to raise the bar for all car dealers. I want to be able to look a person, a friend, and acquaintance, and I can be at a party, and I can say, I'm a car dealer, you know, like I'm a doctor or I'm a nurse. Maybe that's why you hate parties.

Maybe it is. Yeah. I never thought about that. If you were a doctor, you'd be all over, he'd be hitting the town. You must be a psychologist. That's probably, you know, it's probably, never thought about that. I have a good intuition. So anyway, that's the way we're, the reason we're here.

And we're going to have a little extra focus on this show this morning because I'm involved with a firm of attorneys. And we are, I'm consulting. I'm an advisor because I'm a professional car dealer, about dealer fees, hidden fees, I should call them, about what car dealers do when they sell you a car and they add money to the price of the car that they quoted you or advertised. And this is a violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. This is a copy of the pertinent portions of that act. Florida and Septive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

And we are going to pick a number of large dealer chains, and I say we, the law firm will, and they'll go out to the public and they'll find people who've been wronged by this, meaning that they saw an advertised price for a car, really a good deal. They came into the dealership, and suddenly that advertised car isn't sold at the same price, that was advertised and there are things that are added to it and these are the hidden fees generically they're referred to

as dealer fees but specifically dealers can call them anything they want. Registration fee they can call it a title fee exactly notary closing fee dock fee administrative fee electronic filing fee tag agency fee I could spend

two hours I could come up with two hours naming what they name and then in the state of Florida order to, there's no limit to the fee. Theoretically, a car dealer could charge a $5,000 electronic filing fee or whatever you want to call it. And they break the law when they add it to the price that you have seen advertised.

And that is what is wrong. And so this firm of attorneys plans on filing a class action suit on behalf of the wronged and the people that were taking advantage of. And we're looking for witnesses to this act. We started talking about this last week, and we're looking for witnesses. And if you witness this act of advertising a car to price and adding hidden fees or adding the hidden fees and not giving the full disclosure, the disclosure has to be given no matter what they call it,

doesn't have to be called a dealer fee. In fact, most car dealers don't call this hidden fees. fee a dealer fee they call things like e-filing fee electronic filing fee tag agency fee if you had to pay a tag agency fee or any filing fee and the disclosure was not given and the disclosure but basically says this charge represents costs and profits to the dealer for items such as inspecting cleaning and adjusting vehicles and preparing documents related to the sale that's the exact language I'm going to again this is the required legal language that you must see if you pay an extra fee

no matter what they call it an extra hidden fee that is not a government fee that's another key this charge represents cost and profit to the dealer for items such as inspecting cleaning and adjusting vehicles and preparing documents related to the sale so we're looking for witnesses if you are if you are witness to a violation of this Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. You could call us. You know how to reach us. We've got a lot of numbers here.

It's 877-960-99-60 if you want to call us on the phone. [phone]. Or you can text us. We have a text number 772-497-6530. and you can stream us video we're on facebook facebook.com port slash earlun cars we're also on youtube you can stream us at streamerellingcars.com www www. www stream earlancars.com

Periscope. dot TV. Periscope. So we don't want to confuse you, but we'll remind you throughout the show. And if you go to just earluncars.com. We list all the ways you can stream us and listen to us. Of course, you can listen to us on the old-fashioned radio, too. Now, I don't want you to get the feeling this show is all about dealer fees.

It's not. This show is about anything related to cars. And we get a huge number of calls on, am I taking advantage of it, might have my car repaired or maintained. Or you might have a question. You've got a little noise in your car. You've got a vibration. something about the mechanics

or the computer computerization of your car. That's the reason we have Rick Kearney, who is sitting on my right. Rick is a certified diagnostic master technician. And he, I know I'm exaggerating

slightly, he knows everything about the computerization. Of course, we call him an auto computer scientist. If you have a problem with your car, the odds are 99% he'll be able to diagnose it for you. And he's been with me for

20-plus years. He's been in the business even longer than that. Every time I look for Rick, he's in school somewhere, getting trained. Online learning something new. Yeah. The technology is changing so fast, folks, in cars. I don't need to tell you, if you've shopped a car any time in the past couple of years, you'll probably find out that the new cars have got all sorts of exciting new,

a special safety items, things that you really shouldn't be without. cars are great you can buy a car today and drive it 300,000 miles 25 years ago 50,000 miles with pushing it so the cars are much better but the safety advantages are what I'm asking you to look for do we have a caller we do we have a caller but first I want to let the ladies know that they can win themselves fifty dollars this morning first two new lady callers and fortunately in today's world you don't As a female, you have no reason to tread going into a car dealership. We're learning a whole lot more, and we're working together to build a platform right here on Earl Stewart on cars.

And that number, 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. We're going to go to our first caller who, well, she joins us, for a single Saturday, nearly, and her name is Tina, and she's part of the platform that I'm building here. We're building it together, and she's from Benita Springs. Good morning, Tina. Hi, guys. How are you doing this morning? Good. How are you? Good morning, Tina. Well, I'm doing okay. I'm hanging in there. I wanted to talk a little bit about Colorado and California. And the reason why is because zero-emission vehicles are going to become an industry standard eventually. So California has a mandate for zero-emission vehicles, and now

Colorado has also adopted one just recently. And I realize it's going to be phased in, but Rick, I'd love to know your, and Earl, I'd love to know your thoughts about zero-emission vehicles. Well, obviously, they're good. They're good, yeah. We all like them. There's always an argument on both sides of an issue, and we don't like to turn the show political. Clearly, no one could disagree with the fact that if we had all of our vehicles with zero emission, it would be a wonderful thing for a lot of reasons. And we do have, we are on a positive trend in that direction. And the emissions, as I understand it now, even with hybrids and with the advanced technologists,

technology in internal combustion engines. The internal combustion engines of 25 years ago were really terrible polluters compared to what we have today. You take a car today that's not a hybrid that is just a plain old internal combustion engine and the emissions are down to a very low level. The federal government, especially in the United States and in other countries, some other countries, have really taken some good steps. Hybrids were like a magical thing. that would really help to a tremendous amount. And now with the all-electric and the battery technology, zero emission is just a matter of time.

I think that we're winning the race. That would be my bottom line, Tina. We are winning the race toward the emission problem for automobiles. Well, it used to be that an electric car or a low-emissions car had not such great performance. But Tesla's proven that wrong. Yes. Tesla now has a very, very high-performance car that a lot of people clamber for because that little thing is fash in greased lightning in the dead of summertime.

Well, the interesting thing that a lot of folks don't really know about electric cars is that when they were first building them, they were detuning them a whole lot and putting a very tiny electric motor in order to maximize the very minimal amount of battery life that they had. Because the big drawback was the battery could, not produce enough power to drive that car any great distance and if you had a car that had great performance it was well for want of a better term an electricity guzzler it would just suck the battery dry in a very very short time now that the battery technology is catching up now we can go back and get some good high performance electric motors in these cars and oh if these

These cars didn't have traction control, they'd burn the tires off them. There's no way you could keep tires. It would just literally rip them apart because there's so much power available from electric motors. Yeah, Tina, I think that the electric motor is so powerful, has such a great amount of torque. It's actually almost a negative. I thought we were getting away from the days of the muscle cars that we had back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. And now we're actually getting back because you're right. blow the doors off any internal combustion engine, any electric motor will do that.

But that's not good. I mean, it was fun when I was a teenager, but who wants that kind of power now? If anything, we're probably going to have to start putting governors on electric cars. Because the ludicrous mode in a Tesla is really a danger. I was in a test row of a Tesla with Nancy one day at the Tesla dealer, and he says, you want to try the ludicrous boat, and we were up at a stoplight. He says, now step down. And before I knew it, I was doing 70 miles an hour.

Oh, yeah. Nancy still hasn't had a three seconds. The neck still isn't fixed after that. But that's not the power. The power is not the problem. You're right about that, Tina. Yeah. Well, imagine.

Things have definitely come a long way, and I think that's good because it's going to make the electric vehicle much more attractive to other customers that are very discerning about what kind of vehicle they want to buy for themselves. Yeah. The battery technology is the name of the thing. the game and it's advancing at warp speed. Whoever can win the battery war will own the electrical car market. Some say Tesla's ahead. Some say they're not. I mean, there are other battery

manufacturers out there. Some very smart people building advanced batteries. The cost has got to go down, too. Right now, in a Tesla, the battery is about two-thirds of the cost of the vehicle. And the good news and bad news on battery technology is the fact that the, is a technology advances your battery becomes obsolete so if you buy a new electric car today with a battery in it and three years from now that battery will be obsolete that means two-thirds of the value of your vehicle is obsolete you should lease electric vehicles as opposed to buy them and once it stabilizes and we get a battery let's say that's got 500-600 mile range on it then it'll

stabilize there then we only have to get the price down but years from now, there won't be any internal combustion engines, except as collector's items, it will all be electrical vehicles. Yep. Yes, and for people that want to have an electric vehicle but don't have the money for it now, like I talked a few weeks ago, just wait a year or two, and the depreciation hit will kick in. Within a year or two, you'll be able to buy the car that you want for a much lower price. Great.

That's a great idea. And like I also mentioned before, there's companies that sell refurbished batteries for a much lower price than the dealer. So that's also another option to consider. Shop around. Absolutely. Yeah. You're right. For the used vehicle buyer, electrical vehicles, hybrids, and all electric vehicles, the Chevrolet bolt, you can get some steals on. You mentioned one, I think, when you call them before, Tanita. I'm sorry, Tina. When I think of your name, I think of Tina Bonita. Excuse me. They rhyme.

Tina Bonita. Tanita. Yeah. Tanita. Anyway, I think you told us was a Chevrolet Gold you saw advertise for like

one-third of the price of what you would expect to pay. So it's a real value out there. They only have about 200, 250-mile range.

So what? There are a lot of people that never drive 200 miles and have a clip. I don't. I mean, hardly ever. And if you've got a place

to plug it and charge it up, hey? They're a perfect commuter car. Yeah, exactly. Definitely. Gina, thanks so much.

Sharing your input. Oh, thank you for inviting me, and ladies, I can't do this on my own. Please call, and everyone else, please be here every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Thanks for the plug. Thank you very much. Thank you, Tina. Have a great weekend. Look forward to hearing from you again. Give us a call toll free at 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We've got a great mystery shopping report coming up. the second hour of our show from Home Beach, Toyota, and, again, ladies, the first two female callers. You can win yourself, excuse me, you can win yourself $50.

So join with us. We're having a great time and would love to hear from you. We have a caller. I don't think he's ready to. Well, let me mention this on our Mr. Shopping Report because it is a high point of the show. and we usually do that in the last half of the show, or the last quarter of the show, I should say. And this mystery shopping report focuses on the violation

of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, so be sure to stay tuned. Excuse me. We have a caller. Nick is calling us from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Good morning, Nick. Hi, Earl, Nancy and Stu. You may remember I called.

I want to say it was late November, early December, about the multiple security deposits from Toyota Financial Services. How are you all doing? Doing fantastic. How have you been? Hey, I'm good. So I just wanted to update you on my situation. So I did get a lot of runaround from the dealership.

Hey, Nick, do me favor. For those of listeners that aren't familiar with the situation, could you just summarize what occurred and then bring everybody up to date so understand the findings that you're going to bring us now? So the Multiple Security Deposit Program is something that Toyota Financial Services, I believe Mercedes-Benz and also, by extension, Lexus Financial Services do. BMW used to do it, but they recently discontinued it. And what it is is it's an opportunity for people to put refundable money down,

to buy down the money factor, which is the imputed interest rate on a little. And it doesn't matter if you have good credit or, as they would probably say less than perfect credit, you can still whatever trunch, you know, your credit is slotted into, you can still buy down the factor, which, you know, can significantly lower the cost of the lease. In the case of the lease that I recently grounded, I returned the car. I save $20 a month over a 36-month term. So, you know, it was well worth it to save $720 to put $15. 75 down that, you know, I just last week got back. But I ultimately, and did not get into another vehicle, and I am driving a family members of 2016 Prius 4 touring, which is, you know, a nice car, which has lots of bells and whistles.

And I'm probably going to sit tight a bit and then maybe over the summer or, you know, in a few months, you know, see what's out there and get back in the car market. Well, that's good. I think you sound like a very educated consumer. Most folks, when they're leasing, just think in terms of getting the lowest payment. And sometimes I can get people into trouble because a lease, as you know, is a little more complicated than a purchase. And the fact that you were frugal enough and wise enough to be able to reduce your monthly payment by an upfront payment, and which fit into your budget anyway was good. Leases today are used to trick people to come in with a monthly payment,

and they do that mainly by increasing the amount of the down payment required in the fine print. And sometimes it's outrageous like a $10,000 down payment in the fine print, and suddenly instead of that $250 a month payment is $350 a month or more. So leases are for the aware consumer who does read the fine print, but they can be a great way to own a car, or drive a car, I should say, you don't own it, and that's what a lot of people don't understand. They think they might actually be buying it. They're building no equity with a lease. And the other gotcha in a lease, and I know I'm preaching to the choir with you, Nick, is the fact that the often will have very low allowable annual mileage. And they'll 5,000 miles. I've seen leases advertise with a limit of 5,000 miles per year in the fine print. And if you average 15,000, like the average driver, and you put 10,000 extra on your car every year, 30,000 extra at 25 cents a mile when you turn your car in, do the arithmetic. You're talking about thousands of dollars.

So I appreciate the call, Nick, and I hope you can call the show again. I love to get calls from out of state, Cambridge, Massachusetts. So a little chill. Do you have time for another question or another comment as well? Absolutely, sure. What is it? So the comment I wanted to share, and I encourage your other Toyota enthusiast listeners, I made the trip, when I was out in St. Louis, I made the trip to Georgetown, Kentucky

to go and tour the Camry and Avalon facility. I think it's officially called TMMK, Toyota Manufacturing, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky. And it was, let me just say, I mean, it was well worth the five-hour drive. And, I mean, the whole facility is just so completely immaculate. And, I mean, it just gave me so much confidence any time I get behind the wheel of a, you know, Camry or Avalon, for that matter. And, you know, they also, as of, I think, late 2015, they also are doing a limited number of ES, non-hybrid units on the Lexus line. but they have a complete separate, you know, Lexus, everything on a separate line. That's so cool.

And it's on my bucket list. Apparently, they are trying to get the tours starting at the Corolla plant, which is in, I think, it's Blue Springs, Mississippi. And, you know, so Toyota's trying to, I guess, trying to do more of that. I mean, what I really would like to see, because I lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area when I worked for American Airlines, they have that new, facility down in Plano, which is just, I mean, incredible in and of itself, but I don't know if they want the public going through corporate.

Yeah, that's supposed to be huge. Plano, Texas. It's a lot of land out there. Yeah, yeah, no, and I mean, it's a great facility. And then on the, to go on, build on the question from the last listener, I am actually looking at making a move to an electric vehicle, and that's part of why I am waiting. And I know that Toyota said they had a press announcement, I want to say about a year or nine months ago, that they will have an electrified option for pretty much the entire Lexus and Toyota lineup.

Will they do a pure electric vehicle, just a pure battery electric, no gas, you know, not like of the Prius Prime variety, like not just the, you know, conventional hybrid, like the Prius that, you know, Toyota obviously has shown. great leadership and really led the auto industry in. I mean, will they do something fully battery electric like Audi is about to do like the Chevy Bolt with the B you know, like Tesla obviously

like is that in the pipeline that you know? I think Stu can answer that question. Hey Nick it's Stu yeah Toyota made the announcement that by 2025 they'd have an electric version. That was the first announcement there'd be an electric version every year they have an annual

dealer meeting. Last year it was in Plano at the new headquarters, and they kind of clarified that. They said by 2025, exactly what you said, Nick, they'll have some form of electrification on every model worldwide. But there was a caveat. They said that's not necessarily in every market. They could be in China, which is probably the first place that they'll go. And when they say electrified, they don't necessarily mean a full electric version.

That is coming, but by 2025, you're not going to find a fully electric Camry in the United States. They're eventually going to get there, but it's going to be, when they say electrified, they mean hybrid, they mean plug-in hybrid. They do mean pure electric, too, but it won't be, the whole Toyota fleet

won't be electric in five years. How about hydrogen fuel fuel cell, have they given up on that entirely? They shifted the focus. They have the Marai still? Yeah, it's still, you can get the Mariah in California and maybe in Oregon, I think, but it thinks just the West Coast and it's still in beta.

They don't have the infrastructure, the hydrogen fueling station infrastructure. But when Toyota jumped into it, they're looking at every possible way to get away from the gasoline, and that was one of them. But I think Tesla proved and GM proved that there is viability with the all-electric vehicles. And one non-Toyota question, if you don't mind.

Sure. What experience, what perspective do you all? have on the Chevy Bolt with a B. You know, I've test driven it several times. I even had a dealer up here in the Boston area that had a used unit. I guess somehow come back recently that let me

do an overnight test drive. You know, should I be a bit leery getting into a GM vehicle having driven Lexus, Toyota and a Nissan vehicle for some time? I mean, is the quality reliability there? I mean, I probably won't keep the car

for more than two or three years, and I am looking to lease it, but I'm just not sure with their reputation and, you know, the car is going to suddenly have all kinds of problems. Yeah, we're going to sound like a broken record, Dom, but we're going to recommend consumer reports for that. So Consumer Reports does give it a recommend. It's not the highest score that we've seen. It gives it a 70, and to be honest with that, I don't know if that's relative to other

electric vehicles, but it doesn't look bad. So I would go to consumer reports.org and check out the Chevy Bolt for the full review, but it looks like they think pretty highly of it. Nick, I'd also say this. General Motors is a whole different company than they were 10 years ago, and they are modernized, they're efficient, and they are a real player. The Volt, by the way, they got the jump on Toyota with electric. They gambled and went with the electric vehicle, and Toyota did not. And so they really have, I think, a little lead on Toyota and all-electric.

So I think the bolt, they discontinued the Volt, you know, with a V. Yeah. The Bolt with a B. I think in the short run, you're better off if you want an all-electric vehicle. I would buy the bolt and not wait for the Toyota because the Toyota is going to be a while before they have something like the bolt. But the fact that Toyota is so big and powerful. and got so much money that 10 years from now it could be an entirely

different story. But right now the bull is a good value. And at the risk of sounding like a toy to a commercial, I just want to say that plug-in hybrids seem to be a pretty good alternative. I drove a plug-in Prius and I didn't think I was going to like it, but if you're able to, if you're

a commute, your driving habits are work with a shorter range, that's a viable alternative to pure electric. And one more question or I guess comment. more to just sort of tie this all back, you know, and I've been looking at doing the bolt lease and the two things that I've been running into is, I mean, even if I get a really aggressive dealer discounts, that again, I've looked at several dealerships in the Boston area

here, you know, and even if they'll discount the $43,000 car because I want the one with the forward collision warning and the lane keep assists. And fortunately, you can really only get that on the Premier and I think some of the LT models, but they haven't had any in my area. Anyway, even if the dealer gives an aggressive discount, and they don't, the problem is General Motors, GM financial, does not pass on the $7,500 tax credit that the lien holder gets. So they get that, and now it's $7,500 through the end of March, then it starts phasing out because they hit the threshold. Right. But they also, there's like a 4% money factor right now, even if you have tier one. And, I mean, that's driving up the payment. And it's like, I don't want a, you know, a $480, you know, payment on a Chevy.

I mean, to me, it just seems crazy. But they're absorbing the depreciation for you. And that's the reason they have the high money factor, because they know they're going to have a vehicle that's depreciated. So you have to choose between buying and leasing. And if they ruin the lease with a 4% money factor, then I'd buy it. Here's what I do. I do a truecar.com

and I would search multiple dealers with true car and that's the best way to get the best price on a Chevy Bolt. Yeah and I mean I had looked like there was a dealership in like upstate New York that's about an eight hour drive

from here and they were having they were having like it was a 2018 that it's been on the dealer lot for while and I was thinking, you know, it was specced out with the color and the equipment that I want. And I'm wondering if, you know, I could go and get a good discount on that and then claim the 7500, which I am told by my tax advisor I am eligible for. And then I'll get the incentive from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and it could end up being a really good deal. But what

I'm concerned about is that is that the car has been sitting for 13 months near Buffalo, New York and you know I don't know if what condition the batteries in you know the tires I worry that if a car has been sitting for a long time particularly a battery electric vehicle that there really could be severe impairments to its range and useful range and you know other things Nick my advice to you as I say this true car I think if you use that you'll get the bet price I'd like you to call back in next week and let us know your experience be careful of dealer fees Nick added non-government fees Even when you are, if you're dealing with Truecar, they are not supposed to do that.

You still need to check them. But be sure that anything they add to the price of your bolt when you go in to buy it is a government fee. A non-government fee is a markup that they should have disclosed. Be careful. Use True Car and call us next week. Please, I love to hear your experience. Thank you so much for the call. Thanks, Nick.

Thanks for all you do. Hope you had a good vacation. You too, Nick. Thank you. Stay in touch. or you can text us at 772-4976530 and remember ladies and gentlemen we want to hear from you we have a lot of information to share with you but we encourage you to share your information with us especially the ladies this morning we are giving out $50 to the first two new lady callers

and we're going to go to Bonnie and Bonnie's visit is visiting visiting us from New York. Wow. Isn't that great, Bonnie? Thank you for taking the time to give us a call. That's okay. I'm happy to my, I'm down here. There's 92nd birthday.

You're what? I'm sorry you're breaking up. Can you hear me better now? Yeah. All right, well, I'm down here celebrating my father's 92nd birthday. Oh, congratulations, and happy birthday, Daddy. Yeah. He's pretty with it for 92.

And he told me that there is a conversation about cars, and I'm in New York, and I do drive. Interesting. I don't have a car anymore, but I have to rely on the services of Uber and other types and I find there to be a real interesting thing in the car when they picked me up

like even if they had a Corona or a yeah hey Bonnie are you on a cell? Bonnie Bonnie if you could I don't know if you have your

radio on or you're not if you're a speaker or if you're not speaking directly into your phone but you're fading in and out and we believe the problem is on your end could you try to maybe speak up and speak directly into the microphone yeah we've we've lost you completely now uh just a bad connection um okay now i hear you go back over here okay because my father is this better yes oh great so i just find there to be a complete inconsistent in the cars, and I'm wondering if maybe that might be motivation for these companies to uniform or unify some sort of system for their vehicles.

Well, the car dealers and all the manufacturers, you know, competition is based on trying to say you have a better product than your competition and you have a lower price or a better value. So I don't think you're ever going to see consistency among all the automobile manufacturers. And the only consistency you see among the dealers is that most of them are trying to take advantage of you. We recommend on the show that you use a third-party source to kind of even the playing field and bring to you the most transparent and honest deals on cars. and we recommend two

Truecar.com, T-R-U-E, C-A-R-TruC-C-R, and Costco. If you're a Costco member, if you're not, we recommend you join Costco, a relatively small fee. But both of these third-party sources will bring you the dealer that's most likely to give you a fair price on a car.

For anyone going out on their own today, trying to buy a car and dealing directly with car dealers, it's a real minefield. It's dangerous. and you can be taken advantage of. If you do deal directly, and we don't recommend it, we recommend that you deal exclusively online, and you deal with the Internet departments.

Internet departments have the lowest price. In our mystery shopping report this afternoon, we shopped a car, and the first question the salesman asked, where did you get the price? And we got it online from their website, which is a lower price than the salesman would have quoted. So either buy online exclusively or deal with Truecar or Costco, that's your best bet.

I see. Okay, well, thank you so much. Well, thank you, Bonnie. And happy birthday to your dad. Are you a first-time caller? Thanks. Yes, I'm a first-time caller. My dad raves about this show.

Congratulations, Bonnie. Stay on the line. I have $50 for you. Oh, thank you so much. How do you like that? That's a happy Saturday. Yeah, that's a happy Saturday. Also, a happy Saturday is all the information that we give out here that's free.

And let me tell you, the best place for you to go to purchase a car is great to the Internet because they don't know, you know, whether you're a man, woman, you know, and you can remain anonymous. So, you know, you're going to get the best price and the best treatment. Good luck to you. Thank you so much for the service. Thanks. You're welcome. Give us a call to all free at 877-9-6.

So, 9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. I believe Stu has some texts. You're doing that mind-reading thing again. It must have been on my face. Okay, so the first one looks like you have a critic. So this is for you, Earl. You use the word dealer fee to attack your competitors. This is for one reason to steal their business.

This Consumer Advocate Act is a con. You know better than anyone else that dealer fees don't matter. You used to have one, and you claim to stop charging it when you figured out the marketing angle. The bottom line is the only thing the customer needs, the bottom line is the only thing the customer needs to worry about. You play with numbers and claim to be a saint. You don't fool anyone. That hurts. No, it doesn't hurt at all.

It makes me feel good that we finally have some criticism, even though, you know, who likes criticism. Now, I'd like you to please read that again. Yes. Slowly, clearly, loudly. I want, we have somebody that has the courage to call the show or text the show. I congratulate. There's no name on us. This is anonymous, sweet.

Anonymous, okay. But nevertheless, it is a communication. So please read it again clearly and slowly. Someone that thinks that I'm full of it. I will read it again. Thank you. And by the way, your point is. Spot on. We're touching a nerve here.

Yes, that's sure. Okay. You use the word dealer fee to attack your competitors. This is for one reason to steal their business. This Consumer Advocate Act is a con. You know better than anyone else that dealer fees don't matter. You used to have one and you claim to stop charging it when you figured out the marketing angle. The bottom line is the only thing the customer needs to worry about. You play with numbers and claim to be a saint.

you don't fool anyone well thank you very much for that let me let me address that um first of all let me say there's some truth into what he said i used to have a dealer fee yes my dealer fee was $495 um i grew up in the business when i started in business in 1968 dealer fee was 30 my father no my father had a dealer fee it was $6 and 50 cents it was and I just thought But that's what all dealers do. It was dealer to feed. Never bothered me a whit. And then it suddenly occurred to me as time passed.

All we have to do is raise that $6.50. And it increases our profit because we can advertise a car. You know, Pontiacs back in those days. I could probably advertise. I remember advertising a Grand Prix Pontiac at $4,995. And so when they came in, we could get the $4,995. dollars plus six dollars and fifty cents because we added it after the advertisement lunch and then i was a college graduate and i was a real smart kid and i said what if we raised it to uh 16

and 50 cents whoa so this is all your fault yes yes oh my gosh now i know why we're doing that and so i slowly kept raising the dealer fee and finally i got it up to 495 dollars and so we would just add that and all the other dealers. And I used to do a poll. I'd see what all the other dealer fees were. And we never wanted to be too high because we could say our dealer fee is no higher than everybody else's.

And at some point, and this goes back 10 or 15 years, when did we stop the dealer fees too? 2004. 2004. So that is 15 years ago. 15 years ago, we stopped charging a dealer fee. And I had a catharsis.

I had a revelation. I saw a vision or something. I threatened to quit. Oh, it was horrific, wasn't it? I'll never, ever forget that day. It occurred to me that what we're doing was wrong. We tried to treat all of our customers with honesty and transparency, but we weren't. I said, if we're going to be honest and transparent and be true and honest, we can't have a dealer fee.

So I stopped the dealer fee 15 years ago. There was a hue and cry. Everybody was going to quit. We can't do this. It was a coup d'et. How can you take four? $495 off the profit of the car. But we did it.

And what we did was we just advertised the price $495 higher. So that the customer, now we had the full transparency. So we removed our dealer fee and we raised the price of the car. Giving the customer the opportunity to shop that price. To shop and prepare. And as time passed, now dealer fees are in the thousands of dollars. And we do not have a dealer fee. and yes, and there was also a marketing angle there too.

The marketing angle was, I could say that I was the only dealer without a dealer fee. And I advertised this, and guess what? More people came to buy cars from me. So I was a little old dealer in Lake Park, Florida. I was selling maybe 90, 80, 90 cars a month. And suddenly, I became the largest volume car dealer between Orlando and Coconut Creek. And I was selling thousands of cars a year and people are coming to me because I'm the only one that doesn't cheat them by adding hidden fees to the advertised price of the car. So to answer your questions, yes, I used to charge a dealer fee and yes, it was kind of a marketing idea because the marketing idea was, hey, if I don't charge a dealer fee and everybody else does, then more people will buy a car for me.

I might make a little bit less on the car than that dealer does, but if I sell 10 times as many cars, I'm ahead of the game. And I've been exposed by the texter, and I plead guilty. But I would like to address the texter. It might have started out as a business marketing decision, but over the years when you started to identify some of the other, a lot of the other practices that were going on, I just want to testify that this Consumer Advocacy Act is not an act.

This is what consumes Earl Stewart's every waking moment. moment. And it actually, to the point where it frustrates us on the business end of things. Exactly. So I'm just saying that to whoever sent this in, who is probably, I'm imagining a car salesperson or somebody who works at a dealership, it's not an act and it's not a conjo so. But again, I don't want to put down the texter. Even though it was anonymous, he had the courage to send it in. And I know there are a lot of other people out there that would like to send in text or calls or however they want to do it. Now, also, So here's something else.

A lot of the car salespeople and maybe even managers have been propagandized by their dealer by someone up in charge. We talk to car salesmen that I believe have been lied to by their supervisors. We talk to car salesmen that say that what are required by law, that all dealers have to have a dealer fee. If we charge one person a dealer fee, we must charge everybody a dealer fee. This is untrue, but the salespeople that say this to our mystery shoppers, I believe some of them, many of them probably, have been propagandized because you take an honest person, they need to make money, you can make money selling cars, and you go in there, you don't want to do anything illegal. And what a lot of these car dealers are doing is illegal, and I wouldn't want to risk going to jail or being fired or sued if I was working for a, car dealer. And the car dealers, I think, are guilty of some of the propaganda we get from the salespeople, not the salesman himself. Yeah, so here's your Saturday morning challenge. You're all in sales

meetings this morning, getting ready for the big weekend. Ask the sales manager, is it true that it's required by law? Sales manager might not know the truth, but your GM knows. It's not only not required by law. What most dealers are doing now is illegal. It's a violation of the Florida deceptive unfair trade practice. Act, you must include all of your non-government fees in the advertised price of the car. If you don't do that, you're breaking the law.

Yeah, and you can head south, and a dealer fee could be as much as, what, $2,000? Yeah, or closer to $3,000 now? $3,000, yeah. The Wild West down there. Al Hendrickson, Toyota, and

Coconut Creek, has when you add the nitrogen in the tires to the, what is it, the a tag agency fee and the dealer fee approaches $3,000. It's crazy. Let me just give a general, let's address Broward and Miami-Dade County. If you want to save a lot of money, just drive north to Palm Beach County or Martin County,

and you'll probably cut that dealer fee in half. So no matter what kind of car you're looking at, if you're looking at a Ford and you'll live in Broward County, drive up to Fort Pierce or something. Great advice. Great advice. And it will more than overcome the extra gas. Yeah, and it's great that we have Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Ladies and gentlemen, take advantage of it.

Okay. Stu? Okay, yeah, we have another text. This one gave me a chuckle. Okay. It's only a matter of time before someone gets electrocuted to death by one of these electric cars. Now they say they're going to drive themselves. That's great.

We'll have self-driving electrochairs on the highway, not the future I imagined. Well, you know, it sounds like It sounds like a nutty comment The fact of the matter is And Rick has told us a lot of times on the show If you have a hybrid car Or you have an all-electric car Do not do it yourself in the repairs

You do not want to try to repair Or maintain an electrical car or a hybrid Because it is very high voltage And the first responders in accidents Are trained by Rick Rick Kearney does seminar for the fire department, the police, the first responders, telling them when you're in a,

you got a car that's been hit a lamp post and things are really bent. You want to deactivate the car so you can maybe rescue somebody from the car. And just to be clear, I'm not laughing at the text, I just thought the language was colorful. I like the word electrochairs. Yeah, and electrocute yourself to death.

Yeah, that's a good one. But Rick has a lot of experience, yeah. Well, so far as I'm aware, although we have hundreds of thousands of Priuses, Highlander hybrids, hybrid Camrys, Avalon's, on the road in Florida, are in the U.S., not one technician has ever lost their life to a high voltage situation working on one of these cars, and we literally are digging right and we are getting into every single part of them. there are so many safeguards and shut down switches you're trained you wear these heavy gloves i've seen the gloves you guys were well we're supposed to anyone got a non-lethal shock that you know about like where the hair shoots up in the air no okay not even close there there's there's too many safeguards it even even just pulling the safety plug but taking panels off there are microswitches

built in that shut down that battery okay it's there's way too many safeguards that is good to know the text. Yeah, the last one, actually, it's on the topic of electric vehicles is from a regular text or Anne-Marie. And she says, Good morning. I recently read that Ford will be building an all-electric Ford F-150 truck. Glad to hear electrics are advancing, and that is pretty

cool. Yeah, you know, Toyota, Alexis is building a, well, this is autonomous. We got so many, you had two parallel technology, autonomous and electrical. I was really, I don't know if you knew this, do Alexis, the first autonomous vehicle

Lexus will bill will be in L.S. 500. Really? Yes. Well, I can't wait to drive your new L.S. 500. I'm driving an L.S. 500 now. Or ride in it. It's going to drive for us. And a lot of these cars that we are buying today, the new ones, are actually autonomous, but they're just not, the switches and the throne yet.

The software is there. When's that coming out? I'm not sure. Probably within the year or two. Okay, good. I was thinking I might be getting too old to drive when that comes around. Yes, right. We're all caught up a text. Fantastic. You're a regular comedian this morning.

I'm channeling my brother, Josh. Oh, there you are doing it well. Let me tell you all about my blog and my newspaper column for the last week. It was a direct challenge to car salespeople, attention car salesmen, joined my witness protection program. And this is on my blog, earluncars.com. We're asking car salespeople, to call us

anonymously or otherwise if they witness any of these acts of deception by charging hidden fees to their customers. Now, what a lot of car sales people don't realize and we talked earlier in the show about them being propagandized too. One of the reasons why they may be told

that we have to charge all customers as fee is because car sales people do not get paid on dealer fees. Now think about this. In South Florida, I'll be kind, the average dealer fee is about $1,000. Good round number. The car salesperson's commission is 25% on average. So when a car salesperson sells a car and adds a thousand dollar dealer fee, he gets 25% of the commission of the profit. The dealer says his profit. He doesn't get 25% of the $1,000 dealer fee. Now, that is profit.

The dealer puts that right in his pocket. Pulls it away. Take it off the top. Exactly. That goes to buy the airplane, the yacht, right, you know, whatever. His private chauffeur, whatever the dealer has. And the salesperson gets, pardon the expression,

screwed on about $250 because every time you car salespeople are selling a car, if your dealer's average fee is about $1,000, He is stealing $250 from you. What is a salesperson to do then? Wait, jack up the price of the car. Well, he can jack up the price of the car. To make it more profitable. And when you get into an argument with a car salesperson and you say,

why can't you just take this dealer fee off? And he says, because we can't take it off, the law prohibits it. That's why he's been told that probably by the dealer. So a lot of the salespeople are not. aware of this. A lot of lying going. And if car sales people are listening, listen, the dealer's taking that $1,000 dealer fee or

$2,000 dealer fee or $700 dealer fee, whatever it is, he's taking that and he's putting it in the bank and that is profit. He's paying taxes on it, I hope. Some of them. IRS hopes, too. It's profit. And you are not

getting a nickel. And your pay plan probably says you're getting 25% of the gross profit on the car. The dealer fee is part of the gross profit on the car, car salespeople. So if you'll let me know, and we have the anonymous number, because we know you don't want your boss, the dealership, to find out that you're rattled on it, and you just go to Your Anonymous Feedback.com. www. www.youranonymousfeedback.com.

Tell us the facts of what's going on in your store. If we use it, we can make it part of our class. action lawsuit. And a sweeten a deal for you. We'll tell you about all sorts of other kinds of monkey business that your boss is dealing with you that you probably don't know about. Exactly. Great information, ladies and gentlemen.

Read it here on Erlon Cars and it's simply called Attention Car Salespeople or salesmen, join my witness protection problem. And the witness protection problem is the anonymous feedback. This anonymous link, Your Anonymous Feedback.com, cannot be penetrated. It is by a company called Incognito. Encrypted. Encrypted. It's used by Amazon, by Adobe, by the public broadcasting service,

and a number of other blue-chip companies. You use Your AnonymousFeedback.com. Nobody. And it's for real, because I submitted when I said that Earl was an idiot, and he has no idea it was me. Oops. There you go. Ladies and gentlemen, help us to expose this deception.

Remember, your anonymousfeedback.com, and we have a mystery shopping report coming up a little while, about a half hour. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-960, and you can text us at 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I've got a bulletin that came through yesterday from the Florida Automobile Dealers Association, and this is a panic bulletin sent out to all the members. The FADA is basically the lobbying group for all car dealers in Florida. And this basically says, warning dealer fees under scrutiny in Florida. Warning, dealer fees under scrutiny in Florida.

Run! Are you protected? Lots of lawsuits are going on in Florida regarding dealer fees. FADA, Florida Automobile Dealers Association, has cautioned you in the past not to have dealer fees appearing on the retail installment sales contract. That's a finance contract for you folks that buy a car and finance it, which most people do, because you don't have the disclosure of these fees on the finance contract. Florida Automobile Deals Association strongly advises dealers to put these fees on line one. Well, obviously, that's number one, which is the total price of the car.

Am I right, student? Yes, correct. So further deception, they're telling you to include all these. these dealer fees that you are telling the customer were fees, put them in the price of the car because that's what they really are. If you need direction or clarity, please

contact FADA by calling so on and so forth. So a lot of lawsuits going on, folks, and our efforts are going to be part of it. We're going to be part of a class action suit, and there's going to be a lot of other. The heats on, the dealer fee in the state of

Florida. And we have a caller. Yes, we do. John's called to chat with us from home city good morning john good morning to everyone speak about dealer fees i don't know what the year was but earl stewart is responsible uh or in california there was a big thing going on about deal of fees and one of the main people that they consulted about deal of fees was earl stewart i don't know what the year was and they agreed the legislature of a 75 which i think still stands today, dealer fee, and it was all done through the efforts of Earl Stewart, consulting, just like he is on, today he's on the consulting with the class action suit.

So maybe you could give us the details, Earl, but it's a $75 fee maximum. That's the amount that they charge now, and it's a lot to do with the efforts of Earl Stewart. Can you just give me a little details about that? Yeah, thank you, John. California has got some excellent consumer protection. And they now have a law, and I did consult with the president of their consumer group out there. C-A-R-S is an acronym C-A-R-S, Consumers for Auto-R-R-R-R-Bility and Safety. Consumers for Auto-R-R-R-Bility and Safety, Cars, C-A-R-R-S, an amazing organization.

And they have protected the California car buyers by having a law that says, If you have a dealer fee, call it a dealer fee. If you have a dealer fee, you can only charge $75. And if you have a dealer fee, you can't change the name. You can't increase the price. It's not right that you're going to charge a distance of $75, but at least you know this. All dealers charge the same thing. You can factor that in mentally.

When you're car shopping, you know what the car, the dealer fee is called. and it takes away the And why that's really good for consumers out there because most people, when they shop for a car now, they're going online. And this is a common habit of all online shoppers when you're looking for a product. You get a list of things for sale,

and then you sort it by price low to high. So in a state that doesn't regulate dealer fees, like Florida, you can have a list. You think you're looking at the lowest-priced car and working your way down the list, but you don't know what that dealer fee is. California, when you sort prices from low to high, high, you know exactly what you're getting

because you just mentally add $75 to every price you see. Exactly. And we often say, talk about auto trader, auto trader cars.com. Nobody recognizes, including Costco, I'm sorry to say, fully recognizes.

There's some recognition with Costco. But any time you're looking at prices online, they have to play the game with the dealer and they don't include the dealer fee in the price. So when you're sorting any third-party source, for the best buy, you're not getting the dealer fee. And it's just not getting the dealer fee.

It's just a lot not knowing the price. I mean, if you have a $2,000 dealer fee, you're understating the price online by $2,000. So you might as well not use the source. Yeah. And a lot of things, when you get attacked like that texter who says you're like hiding it in your price, the thing is if advertising didn't exist,

then the dealer fee wouldn't matter. The whole point is the deception that you experience from the time you see the ad, and the time you go to the dealership. That's the problem. Exactly. John, I hope I covered it. Thank you very much for bringing that up.

It's something that should be in Florida, and hopefully we'll be one day. Hopefully, maybe with the new governor, we never know, but I sure would like to see it because, as you say, it's pure profit, and it's people not aware of what they're really paying. Exactly. Well, as Stu just said, online shopping is the best way to go, but if you're relying for prices on third-party stores, remember they do not include dealer fees.

And when you're buying a car in South Florida, you're looking at between $1,000 and $3,000 that you really have to be accounted for before you buy a car. Never buy a car with anything included in it except the government fees. Looking forward to the shopping report. Thank you, John. Appreciate your call. Thanks for staying in touch with us.

Boy, no wonder we're at the bottom of that. Gallupole. Goodness gracious, I'm telling you. It's so simple, you know, it's so easy to do the right thing. Deception. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call to free at 877-9-60

9960, and you can text us at 772-4976530. And we're going to go to Johanna and the calls from Jupiter. Good morning. good morning I'm sorry I'm sitting in my car at a park where I take my dog and it's raining so he can't get out and he hasn't stopped whining so if you're whining that's what it is put him on I like to have a word I'm a first-time caller and I'm sure you have answered this question this question thousands of times but I have not heard it so I'm old and over the years we've bought many cars and

and there's always extra costs. How do you know what are legitimate costs? Because I did hear you say that there's thousands of different titles that they list the fees under. So what are legitimate costs? We know there's taxes, tag. Yes, I've definitely paid cleaning fees in the past and everything else that they've named. But how do you know what are legitimate extra costs? That's a great question, Joanna.

And maybe we've covered it, but it's a fine point. If people understood this, they could absolutely defuse the effect of the dealer fee. The acid test to if something added to the price of the car is a legitimate government fee, is very simple. Was there a sales tax charged on that amount? If they have a fee, they call it a tag agency fee. It sounds legitimate. It sounds like part of your license and registration. Tag agency fees are not legitimate.

Electronic filing fees are not legitimate. legitimate. The reason you know for sure the dealer will not charge you state sales tax. Florida has a 6% sales tax. If they don't charge 6% on the fee, it's not a fee, not a government fee anyway, it's profit to the dealer. So if the salesperson won't be honest with you, you can just look at the calculation on the vehicle buyer's order and you will see that 6% has been added to the total legitimate price of the car. price of the car. If an item on there that was added did not have the 6%, it's not a government fee, and it's, they're cheating you. It is a added profit to the dealer that was not disclosed. Just look at the line that says sales tax. Everything above that line is illegitimate. Everything below that line is legitimate. Exactly. Oh, okay, because I've even paid transport, fees. I mean,

I've, you know, they're always listing something. Exactly. They're ingenious, Joanna. They come up with every day when we do a shop, we find a new name for dealer fee. On today's mystery shop, they had abbreviations that made it even harder to understand what it was SVC, D-E-L-F-E. Yeah, transportation is... Oh, no, I've seen that repeatedly, and of course I've always asked, but I am always told, yes, it's either the state or it's federal or that it's required by law, there are always, always extra costs.

Exactly. the dealers do this for the simple reason that everybody's advertising the same product you got a Chevrolet in a typical market you'll have four Chevrolet dealers and they're all advertising the same models and if everybody put their lowest price on there it would afford the shopper the car buyer the right to take the lowest price and go to another dealer and say I'll buy it from you if you beat the price so no one wants the consumer to know what the real price is So by advertising the price without the $2,000, $1,000 additional profit, the hidden fees, you come in because they can actually advertise the car below their cost. And so the other car dealer can't possibly match the price because he'd be losing money. So you come in with advertisement that's below the dealer's cost. He slaps on another $2,000. Now he's got himself a tidy profit. So that's the reason the dealer fee exists, so you can trick the customer into coming in the door.

Well, you know, that's funny because I've also found there have been a number of times, because I'm very business savvy, and I make deals. And there have been several times that I've either walked or I've gotten prices off. But I have realized through the years that the best deals I get are the cars I don't need. if I'm in a position where I can walk I always get the best prices you know if I really don't need the car but I want it

you know or I've got or I've got extra time sure I mean I've even waited one or two months on a car where I've had a dealer call me back and not $10,000 dollars off of a car you know why it's been very easy to walk yes I fell it one was a Jaguar an old Jaguar I fell madly in love with it but I

certainly didn't need the car we already had five you know, in our six-person family. And a month and a half, two months later, they called me back and it knocked 12 grand off. Suddenly, all the dealer fees were gone along with everything else. So that really was the smartest way. But thank you, because I do see so many different titles. And you always know, anybody going into buy a car knows that there's going to be thousands that they're going to add to the cost. Yeah, the only thing that dealer fees have in common, the names are.

They're all different, but they always have a fee, because fee carries that insinuation that's a government thing, you know, governments charge fees. And so they'll, whether it's a tag agency, electronic filing fee, administrative, notary, documentary, there's always fee on the end. So when you see fee, that's a red flag. And then you do the test with sales tax charged on it. You go to the, what is it, line one, or the, just the top line. Top line, where it says when you see sales tax, anything. thing below the sales tax number is legit is you're covered but if you're not if they didn't charge sales tax on it it's not a government fee and do most of them are there i mean do a lot of

them once you realize this and you can say to them look i know exactly what this is do a lot of them take it off or do they let you walk when you when you catch them cold on that uh the next thing to say is that i don't i don't want to pay the dealer fee and then they will say we have to charge it by law try this okay you go ahead and charge the dealer fee but take the amount of the dealer

fee the thousand dollars and reduce the price of the car by that and they go ahead and charge me the fee that'll be a wash so if it's illegal to remove the dealer fee it's not illegal to reduce the price that's correct and then if they won't reduce the price by a thousand dollars do what you said Joanna

it's beautiful you do a 180 you'll walk out the door sometimes they'll chase you right out to your car sometimes they'll let you get home oh yes I've had that I've had that yes I've had that or you know the funny thing is a lot of times I won't give them my information

and it doesn't matter because in this day and age all I did wrong was call them so now they've got my number so I've had them call me back and I said where did you get my number oh well you know it was saved when you called in exactly in most cases, I think, if you do

exactly what Earl said and suggest that they reduce the selling price by the amount of the dealer fee, you might go back and forth, I'd be very surprised if they don't do that. Now, it all depends on how much profit they think they're making on the car. So if they're making no profit, they might not,

or very little profit, they might not do that. But in 99% of the cases, they're making their money, and they'd be happy to eventually take it off. Joanna, we'd like that. And also they judge. They judge whether they think you really need the car or whether you're really going to walk or not. Yeah, exactly.

Walking is powerful. There's a lot of deception out there. Johanna, I want to thank you for being the first-time caller, and I have $50 for you. Oh. So leave your... To take the sting off that last dealer fee.

Leave your information, and I'll get the check out to you. I'm sorry? Leave the information with Mike and the control room he'll get your contact information so you don't have to give it out over the air and then we'll mail you a check for 50 bucks i thank you so much and i appreciate your station and all your help thank you keep listening uh isn't an amazing walking is so powerful she just proved it they called her three months done the same twelve thousand dollars exactly uh ladies and gentlemen we have a whole lot more information for you so keep on listening

we're going to go to Nick. Nick's calling from Naples. Good morning, Nick. Fort Myers, everyone. Hey. Thanks for taking my call and a brand new listener and watcher and just found your channel on YouTube for the broker video and kind of got my question arise and also saw

the Fusillo video so thank you for posting that. I always wondered and knew that the payment or the cruise fee came in the form somewhere so I was kind of good to see the breakdown on where that comes out of. So thank you. You're welcome. What can we do for you today? Yeah, the question I had about brokering or buying through a broker was actually renting or leasing

a commercial space now and got it for personal projects to work on cars, et cetera, and thought since I have the commercial space, it might be worthwhile looking into an independent dealer license and just wanted to get your opinion on going that route versus just buying through a traditional broker and didn't plan on more than three or four cars a year as kind of projects and possibly, you know, like copart or salvage auction cars and just wanted to be able to purchase them cheaply. Yeah, Nick, a lot of the brokers, I'm not sure, I think maybe most of the brokers,

don't have a dealer's license. They operate through the dealership. In other words, the dealer actually sells the car and he's the official seller. So he, the dealer has a dealer license. The Brokers Act is a middleman and they get the commission from the dealer for the broker's fee.

But you could get a dealer's license and deal directly, in which case you'd have to buy the car from the dealer, and then you would resell it to the individual, the actual retail buyer. I think it's a good business. I think with the deception we have,

with so many car dealers taking advantage. Someone that understands all the ins and outs of a car dealership that knows all the... I'd make a great carbroker. You could study it. You could read my book, and you could be a good car broker. You basically just have to know how not to be cheated. Once a car dealer recognizes you and he realizes you're a broker

and you can bring him plus business, he'll probably deal with you fairly anyway. and then you have to decide then what's a fair price to your customer. I always advise people that use brokers, check the broker to be sure you're getting a fair price. Broker has to make a commission. A typical broker's commission is around $500, but some brokers will make a lot more than that. Some will make a little less in that, and it depends on the volume you do. But I'd say total transparency with your customers.

Say, listen, my commission is this, but I can save you another. another $2,000 or $2,000 by dealing with the dealer and lay it on the line and then let your customer make the decision. You avoid a lot of aggravation, headaches, hassles, and you hear what goes on if you listen to the show, the browbeating that the typical car buyer gets today when he walks in a car dealership. What would you say if it was to purchase a car for myself without a dealer's license? and a lot of those auctions require you to buy through a broker, you know, rather than from a dealer.

And a lot of the dealers don't seem to want to work with individuals, at least that, you know, in my experience, that they won't want to bid on your behalf, let's call it. Well, it depends. You know, if you pay them a fair amount, then that has to be negotiated, and it would depend on the dealer. It's plus money to them. you have to find a dealer that's buying at the auction that you can trust. That's a real handful right there to do that because auctions are buyer-beware. You know, caveat emptor, wholesale auto auction. You really got to know what you're doing because you can easily be taken advantage of.

But if you can find an honest dealer that will buy cars for you and you negotiate a price, the price would depend on the volume he could do. If you're only going to buy one car a month from him, he might want to charge you $4,500. If you're going to buy 10 cars a month, he might only want to charge you $100. And then, again, that would be negotiated. We deal with, we actually sell cars for other dealers at the auction. I am a dealer, and I have a full transparency. I have a toilet dealership, and I have a full-time buyer, seller of wholesale cars.

and he actually sells cars for other dealers, and we charge them a fee for us. It's a common practice. It's perfectly legal, and you just need to find someone that you can trust before you get into it. Last question, you've been great on giving so many awesome recommendations for things like the Costco buying program I've heard and just a couple other quick ones in the short time I've listened, but can you give any recommendations on a broker in Florida? There is a broker in Miami, and he was, I had it in my, I had it in my, I had it in my come across one, and I don't want to say the name out loud, but it's a web-based, internet-based company that's headquartered in Miami, and it seems like a fee-based service, like a monthly

service, and that's not, you know, I was looking for just a single-purchase type broker. Yeah, we work with a company called American Chariots. Ah, that's it. Yeah, down in Miami. And I don't know if it's all online. I'm only familiar with just the, you know, the American Chariots in Miami. Interesting enough, one of the attorneys in the class action lawsuit that I'm consulting with buys all his cars from American Chariots. And he won't go into a car dealership because he knows what happens.

And American Chariots has been in business for, I'm going to say, 20, 30 years. have been around a long time. Yeah, their website is just Americanchariots.com. Yeah, Americanchiris.com. Well, keep up the great content. I appreciate it once again, and you've gained a new listener and subscriber. Awesome. Thanks, Nick.

Thank you so much. How to go one. Let us know every now and then when you see a really interesting Pachillo advertisement. We love him. It's huge. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call toll-free at 877-9-60-99-6. See where you can text us at 772-497-6530. And hey, guess what?

We feel a little generous. Let's hear from another lady caller. I have 50 more dollars right here in my little hands. And your billfold. Yes, there you go. And I'd like to share it with you. Ladies, help us to build this platform for the female shopper. again 877960 or you can text us at 772-4976530 and back to stew

hey we got some text actually comments on our Facebook live video Linda Facebook friend of yours says Earl you are full of it full of love and concern for people and full of knowledge about cars keep caring keep up caring for us viewers oh Linda I gave her a laugh emoji on on that one. She fooled me for a second. Andreas is also a regular watcher, and he just has some comments here. He says, I like what Earl

recommends. Compare three or four out-the-door prices. I don't care what makes that number, and dealer fee or no dealer fee, if I like the number and if I like the dealer, then I will likely purchase the car. I've heard you or someone else say that some dealers said, I have to charge

you the dealer fee because we have charged others. If we didn't charge you, then it wouldn't be fair to all the other customers of shop with us and then he just finishes up says the best uh the best negotiating tools is to be the ability to leave yeah let me address that issue because there is a slight nuance of concern when a dealer charges one person on dealer fee and doesn't charge another person a dealer fee and that's been exaggerated and blown up to say they have to charge a dealer fee with the the essence of of truth there is the fact that if in terms of discrimination if you were to charge you were to charge you

all women dealer fees and no men dealer fees, then you could be shued for discrimination. If you were to sue an African-American person dealer fees, but all Caucasian people, no dealer fees, that could be discrimination. It's a discrimination issue, got nothing to do with dealer fees. You can charge, as long as you don't discriminate against race, creed, or color, you can charge one person in a dealer fee and not charge the other person in dealer fee. Okay. John Neal, also a long-time listener, Facebook friend. John says, good morning, Earl and Nancy. I need some advice. My uncle is retired from General Motors, and he has points that he says are worth $13,000 off a new vehicle.

Is he old and confused? Because that seems like a lot of money. Second question, do I negotiate a deal prior to telling them that I have these points? John, I don't know what those points are. I know there are employee purchase programs that General Motors have. which is a generous good program for employees I'm not aware of the points something we don't have all the answers maybe 90% that falls from the 10% I'm gonna have to research that and I'll get back to you the points the person earns over a period of time to buy cars one one of my concerns there that would make it untrue is the fact that General Motors today is the new General Motors

completely different General Motors from how many years ago did they go bankrupt and they completely reorganized, and the new General Motors has no liabilities to the old General Motors. So it makes me doubt if he's been with General Motors for a long time, if he's accumulated points that are appropriate today. It's still valid, yes. We have a text. This is from Dennis, and it's just an update.

He says, Good morning. I called in last week about diminished value because Carfax reveals accident with structural damage. I contacted Geico, the insurer of the person who hit our vehicle. surprised to find they actually have a diminished value division in their claims department. They want to inspect the vehicle, and he's going to keep us posted on the progress. That's from Dennis in Palm City. Wow, that's great. I didn't know that.

Thanks, Dennis. Yeah, that's really good. And then we have one from, here we go. This is from Mark. And Mark has a question about the delivery fee from the manufacturer. And he sent a picture of the bottom of a window sticker where identifies $895 for, it says the delivery processing and handling fee. And his question is, okay, so I understand your argument about dealer fees if they're not explained and disclosed to a customer up front, but why does Toyota put on their window sticker

delivery, processing, and handling fee? And why is that not on the window stickers in other states? Is that why you do not have to charge a dealer fee, so you have no participation as a dealer in that fee in the window sticker? And I think there is a little confusion between the difference between the manufacturers, delivery fee and the dealer's dealer fee, which sometimes they call a delivery fee. Well, there's also the fact of Southeast Toyota has a fee

because they're an independent distributor. And one of the reasons why the MSRP on a Toyota in New York would be different from the MSRP on a Toyota in Florida. Right. It's because of the added... But that's just the cost. On the Monroney label, that doesn't appear. It appears on the invoice of the vehicle.

Right, but he's talking about the 800. 95 delivery fee from Toyota. Yeah, the delivery fee, which could also be called freight, is standardized for all cars and all makes. It's a federal law. All manufacturers have a freight delivery fee, and it's standardized, no matter how far you are from the factory. It used to be if you lived too far from the factory, the delivery fee was higher.

They standardized, and that is something that's legitimate. What you have to be careful of is car dealers will charge you again for the freight. And there are car dealers out there that are using freight and destination fee is a name for their dealer fee. It's tricking you in to believe that you have to pay them the freight when you've already paid it because it's baked into the MSRP and invoice for the car. Yes. Already been paid for. Double-dip.

You don't pay for freight twice. That's right. And the last text is from Andrew and Jupiter. Why would a used car dealer allow me to take the car to another mechanic for an inspection? Why would he take the chance on losing the sale? Well, only if, as Joanna said earlier, if you have the courage to say, if you don't allow me to do this, I'm going to leave and you'll never see me again. You should absolutely, there should be no argument. I would say it this way.

Why would a car dealer be afraid to let you take a car to an independent mechanic? Especially if you make it clear, if you don't allow me to do this, I will not buy a car from you and you'll never see me again. Great, great information. 877960. And I'd love to get from Stu another text from Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And you can text us also at 772-4976530. And we have Kathleen, and she's calling from Port St. Lucie. Good morning, Kathleen.

Hi, how are you this morning? We're great. Good, how are you? I'm good, thanks I listen to this program every Saturday morning I find it very informative and very educational

coming from a family of New York mechanics keeps me abreast of what's going on in Florida I bet that's quite an education Kathleen are you a first-time caller first-time caller okay you won yourself $50 that is wonderful

thank you so much It made my Saturday morning because it's really kind of nasty out there. Yeah. Something to smile about. Yeah, exactly. You stay on the line and you can give Michael in the control room your information. What can we do for you this morning? I had, you had talked about needing a female caller, and I decided to call and tell you folks.

Thank you so much for being there every weekend to keep us up to date. Yes. Well, we hope we've added to your list of the, mechanics that you do know and all the professionals here at Earl Stewart on cars. Keep on listening. Okay, thank you.

You're welcome. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-4976530 and don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. Well, I'm happy to say someone did submit some anonymous feedback

on your anonymous feedback.com. com it's for rick says here is some more criticism rick's beard no shave november is over lose the beard l-o-l i'm just jealous because i can't grow a beard that's sent from a four-year-old child and hope sound i'm kidding and just for that one day you'll be able to go through that it's going epic length awesome i can't wait to see it epic epic okay we have frank who is uh holding and he's calling us from Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank. Welcome back. Well, good morning to you guys. It's nice to be back. I've been on some cruises and I figured. When you're out of the country, I can hear you on the radio. I'm not going to pay

$3.99 for Wi-Fi to listen to you on a Saturday morning. Sorry, I just don't have that budget. But a couple of things we'll get to. Did you hear about a Nissan car delivery container ship losing 3500 cars on the fire and the crew members jumped overboard oh wow that's a lot of cars it was on the new on the ship yeah the ship is huge I mean over a thousand foot but somehow they got on fire and they were in the Pacific ocean coming from Japan to the West Coast yeah I see this online right now competition from Nissan right now yeah that's crazy Oh, goodness.

Now, here's another question my girlfriend had and I couldn't answer. What does GTO stand for? I know GT normally means like Grand Touring, but I don't have a clue what the O stood for in GTO. Do you know? Grand Tourismo and the O, Stu's Googling it right now.

It's Italian, of course. It is homologato. Grand Tourismo homologato. Homologato, yeah. And we call them goats. Only Nancy understood me. I'm impressed. I remember the judge and things like that.

I'm not too far behind you in age, and we were definitely in the golden year of cars. Yeah. One other thing when I was growing up, Sunoco, you could go down to the station and dial in different octane ratings. Yeah. It's curious, how were they actually changing octanes from low? I think they went all the way to 104 or something back then, like race car engine. Go up to 263. somehow.

Because I know today you have tanks just like for regular and for premium and maybe mid-range. They're all separate tanks when the trucks come with three hoses and three different I had a flashback to my teenage years and we always bought our gas as a snowco station

because they had that dial and you could pull in the snowco station and it would go up to 260 and there was a rumor among all the crazy kids my age that if it could actually go to 280. But it wasn't marked on the pump because it was illegal. So we would try to get the gas station owner to take the dial

and turn it up where there was a blank and there was no number on there for the 280. And then you would pay him extra to get the super high-active. Well, there you go. He was happy to do it too. I bring it down memory lane a little bit there. Okay, now for the real meat of the... of the conversation.

Yeah. I admired you for reading that letter today. I'm a disgruntled person. I have a feeling, obviously, it was a dealership or someone. Yeah. And they were probably trying to see if you would actually read it on the air. And not only did you read it on the air, you repeated it and went through it. And I found that's commendable. And by far.

Thanks. Well, thank you. The other thing, too, when my girlfriend and I go around shopping for cars, either for herself or the kids or whatever, um we always fight the dealer fee thanks to you but you talk about a lightning rod i say well earl stewart doesn't have dealer fees you might as well just shot him up because they jump up and start hollering well he's has the dealer fees he's high in them he's lying to you oh my goodness gracious you want to you want to watch the reaction to dealers just go in there i mean you can't do it because they know who you are i mean the regular you know listener on your radio station

especially in the Palm Beach area and Mike and just mentioned a role or Carol Stewart and the whole place just turns upside down. Taking your life in your hands. And whether it's good or bad, it's nice knowing you guys.

Well, thank you for taking the call. Thanks very much. Thanks, Frank. Thanks for listening. 877-960, where you can text us at 772-497-6530. How about another text from Your Anonymous Feedback.com?

We do have another text to read. But I just wanted to say for the last 15 years I've been searching for that dealer fee that you've been hiding. I can't find it. I'll tell you what. Any car dealer that will contact me directly, I'm going to tell them where I hide my dealer fee. It could be worth a lot of money from you. Right. We're going to have a scavenger.

We're just putting it out there. Let's have a scavenger. Where does Earl Stewart hide this dealer fee? I will, but you have to call me personally. So all you car dealers are out there call me, I'll tell you exactly. I promise you. How can they reach you? I gave them my word of honor.

I will tell you where I put my dealer fee. Okay, there you go. How can they reach you? We have another anonymous feedback here from your anonymous feedback.com. I like that we're getting these. And I'm not going to read this one. You've got to read this one. Okay.

Your boss. Oh. Right there. Oh, Earl Stewart is the sexiest man on radio. Oh, of course. Of course. I knew that. Yeah, it's a little awkward for me.

You're my dad. I can't read that. All right. And then we actually have John Neal followed up. We tried to answer his question about his dad and the points that he had built up with General Motors. And he just says his uncle claims his discount is tied into the bonus GM gave out after the tax cuts. But he still wants to know, should he tell the salesman up front about these points or should he negotiate the deal first? I would negotiate the deal first.

And if the points are legitimate, then they should take them off whatever the deal is. If they wouldn't take the points off after you negotiate the best price, then there's something funny going on. Yeah. Yeah, always negotiate first. Yeah. Keep your Trump card in your pocket. Even with True Car and Costco, you should always negotiate. And that way you're comparing a low price with another low price, and you take the lowest price.

And I'd also just want to add, too, because we've seen this before when they put out these employee deals. you still got to go from dealership to dealership online, save some time. But you can have a great employee discount. I remember when General Motors did this during the Great Recession, a dealer fee can wipe out a sizable chunk of that discount you're getting. So you still got to shop around. I have a text, if we have time for it, it's brief. Okay.

This here is about a Honda pilot, 2007. and when she starts her pilot out, it sputters and it makes a grind. We haven't got time for a long diagnosis. Grinding noise. Do you guys have an answer for her? Rick, can you do it in 25 words or less? For a noise, go see a good mechanic and show him the noise. There you go.

I'm curious. How do you show a noise? A telescope. Demonstration. Yes. Is your imagination. If we have time with a quick text, quick we have to get to, and then we can move on, I guess. This is, no name on this, says, hi, I just turned 65 when I'd like to buy my dream retirement car, the Lexus L.S.

I plan to keep it for 10 years, for long distance travel, and then get something smaller. In light of pending technology changes, is it better to buy or lease? Well, I would, again, there is no magic answer there. I would say you want to lease if you get the best lease deal, buy if you get the best buy deal. When you lease a car, and anybody that's turned 65 needs to remember when you sign on the dotted line for a lease, you're obligated for all those lease payments. So if you have a 36-month lease and for some reason you're 65, let's say you have a problem with your vision or some other feature that causes you being unable to drive. you still have to pick those 36 payments. You're not building any equity when you lease.

So I would say this, I'm going to reverse what I said. Forget about the lease. Go ahead and buy the car and negotiate the best price. All right. Okay, let's move to the mystery shopping report. We mystery shopped Palm Beach, Toyota. They're located in West Palm Beach, Florida. Because I own a Toyota dealership, our mystery shopping team

goes to great lengths to avoid the appearance of unfairly targeting my direct Toyota competitors. However, our team can't ignore Toyota dealerships and their sales practice is because Toyota sells more cars than anybody else. In Florida, 13% of the vehicles in our market are sold, and that's the highest percentage. A large number of consumers deserve to know which dealerships to give their business to and which ones to avoid. So much as this sounds like I'm trying to give myself. Anybody of advantage, I am just trying to give you the full picture.

There are four Toyota dealerships in Palm Beach County, my dealership, Ed Morris, Delray Toyota, Southern 441 used to be called Royal Palm Toyota, and Palm Beach Toyota. This week we shopped Palm Beach Toyota. The last time we paid a visit to Palm Beach Toyota was two years ago in January 2017. When we investigated them for selling used cars with Takata Airbag recalls, We checked out a 2011 Honda Accord with a defective driver-side airbag and learned that they were more than willing to sell this unsafe vehicle.

They failed the Takata test. And to be fair, everybody failed the Takata test. Almost. Everybody, almost. 90% of them. Since our last visit, Palm Beach, Toyota's changed locations, moved from its whole facility on a military trail to a brand new one on Southern Boulevard right near the airport. And I visited that personally.

It's a beautiful dealership. They've got an incredible looking service department. The floors in there look like a museum. I mean, they're just normally garages are all greasy. Beautiful, beautiful facility. Give it a few years. Yeah. Well, everything ages.

Palm Beach Toyota sells a lot of cars, almost 4,000 new vehicles every year and nearly 2,000 used vehicles. Their new facilities have only helped them grow their sales. and this is why it's important for this show to keep our listeners informed. Palm Beach Toilet Sales Practices, good or bad, are sure to make a big impact on thousands of consumers in our area. And let me say this. We used to be the largest volume Toyota dealership between Coconut Creek and Orlando.

We used to be the number one volume Toyota dealership in Palm Beach County. They outsold us last year. Ten years running, come on. Yeah, we outsold them for 10 years. And last year, they outsold us. So give the devil it's due, right? Congratulations, Palm Beach, Toyota. For this investigation, we again focused on used cars.

We began by trying to find a used car for sale that had a Ticada airbag recall, but we were pleasantly surprised that not one of the used cars they showed in their online inventory had a Ticada recall, a Toyota with a Ticcada recall. Kudos to Palm Beach, Toyota. However, we did find a 2011 BMW 3 series with Tijuana. two recalls. That sounded pretty scary. A wiring harness defect was one that could catch fire and a defective PCV valve heater that could also cause a fire. Both problems had parts and fixes available, but they just hadn't been done yet, although the first recall was announced

in 2015 and the second in 2017. Now, it just ain't right, pardon the expression, to sell a used car with a dangerous recall and shouldn't do it. You take it to the BMW dealer, they fix it free, cost you nothing, and then you sell a safe car. You don't want to advertise cars

with dangerous recalls. And I think a car that could catch you on fire qualifies as dangerous. The car was listed online for $10,977. There were several interesting disclosures on the ad. This is very interesting.

This is fine print on the online. add quote some of our used vehicles may be subject to unrepaired safety recalls check for a vehicle's unrepaired recalls by VIN at safercar.gov now to me that's pretty rotten here's a car that can kill you when it catches on fire and blows up and you put that fact in the fine print when all you have to do is take it and get it fixed and no charge to you. Why it's disturbing is that it's a cover your ass move

right there. Yeah, it's a lawyer. They, I'll name names. Who owns Bobby Stoio? Roger Penske. Everybody heard of Roger Penske? Roger Penske. Roger Penske,

trucking, Roger Pinsky, dealerships. Racing? Racing. Roger, I'm speaking to you. I don't think Roger is listening. But Roger, why would you put this from the fine print? Why wouldn't you fix these cars? Tell your dealerships to take them and give them fixed free and then sell them.

You don't know what he reads, fine print. So it's a C.YA with a lawyer. Here's the other CYA. It is the customer's sole responsibility, fine print. It is the customer's sole responsibility to verify the existence and condition of any equipment listed. And it is the customer's sole responsibility to verify the accuracy of the prices. with a dealer, including the prices for all added to the country. I enjoyed

that one very much. I laughed. Here's another one. All advertised prices exclude government fees and taxes, any finance charges, any electronic filing charge, and any emission testing charge, and all advertised prices expire

at midnight of the day of posting. They turn into pumpkins. Yes, they do. Cinderella. This is called, why is there a price, That's a good one, the Cinderella Disclosure. And so every price is going to expire. So every price, first of all, you don't open until 9 o'clock.

Midnight comes at 12 o'clock. So you're online at 9 o'clock after you're putting the kids to bed. So you've got 15 hours. No, you wake up in the morning and the price has turned into a pumpkin. Prices are only good for 15 hours. All right. I like the way you were shaking when you said that. Okay.

Now. So we have a new. Agent X is in Kansas. We turn to our news, Mr. Reefatian Agent Thunder. I like that. Agent Thunder. Agent Thunder was given his orders and sent to Palm Beach, Toyota, Thursday afternoon. Here's the report, speaking of the first person, is if I were Agent Thunder. I arrived at Palm Beach, Toyota, around 2.30 p.m.

I exited my car, walked around the parking lot for a few minutes. I didn't see any salespeople, so I decided to go inside. I was approached by a female greeter as I opened the front door. She didn't give me her name, but it was very nice, said she would find a salesperson for me. It didn't seem terribly busy. The greeter was having some trouble finding a salesperson. I witnessed her speaking with two different men. I assume we're salespeople, only to see them walking away from her and looking frustrated.

Finally, she found someone who walked with her back to me. She introduced me to Luis. Luis shook my hand, suggested we go outside to look at cars. He didn't ask my name, or if I was there to see anything. particular once outside I told them I'd seen a 2011 PM3 series on their website and asked to check it out we strolled the lot found the car Luis asked me if there was any other cars I was considering and if I'd been shopping around I said I was mainly looking online but I'd seen a price by

another Toyota dealership who had a nice used Audi A4 for sale he asked me which dealership and I replied that I preferred not to say but I did say that this dealership did not have a dealer fee oops Luis knew right away who he was referring to and he smiled and said you know that's BS right I said we'll see I haven't really gotten into pricing with him yet Louis turned to discussing the BMW he said it just came in stock and it was very nice he didn't have a lot to say about it but other than the fact it had a low miles 58,000 It is slow miles for that year, 2011, and it was priced right, $1,900 below NADA retail.

I asked him if it had any mechanical issues. He said it ran great and had no problems. Now, that's a little worrisome. It had passed their inspection. I asked about accidents, and he said he would print a Carfax report for me. I didn't mention that I had already seen the report, and I knew it had been in an accident. Functional damage reported. on the Carfax report.

Louis said we should drive it. He excused himself to find the key, and I waited by the car. He came back with just a key, no tag. We drove the car around the parking lot, never leaving the property. I thought this was unusual, and it is.

First time I've seen that. But said nothing partly because they have such a large amount of property out there. Big dealership, lots of property. They took it up to 80. I'm kidding. We parked a car where we found it, walked inside together on the way I asked him what my price would be.

Luis responded by asking me, how much was it online? Interesting that he didn't know. I said it was 10,977. And Luis said that the MSRP was 12, 977, and 10, 977 was the best possible price. I put MSRP in quotes because there is no MSRP on the use card. No, MSRP is only, it's a legal federal term. It means manufacturers suggest retail price and use cars if they charge, if they go to the MSRP and a BMW, clearly it would be a lot more than that.

What he means is the dealer's list price, the dealers suggest its price, which oftentimes they try to confuse with the MSRP. Back inside the building, Luis led me to a cafe area and offered me a seat. Very nice, by the way. Stu and I, no, Stu hasn't been in there. I've been in there. Too scared. Kind of a cool cafe. They buy you snacks, coffee, it's all free.

You get free coffee, and it's really nice. Nice. I'm too scared to go. Yeah. I reminded him about getting a Carfax report, but he walked away, and I wasn't sure if you heard me. I waited for a long time, maybe 20 minutes. I played ballsy on my phone. Just balls.

All balls, okay. You can tell I'm not a game player. While I waited for him to return. When he did, he told me he had good news. He said his manager told him there was a minor oil leak, and they were not going to fix it. That's good news. What he could take $1,000 off the price because of that. I asked Lewis why he said there was no mechanical issue.

If there was an oil leak, he said a car of that age should be expected to have some leaks, and this was a leak, and it was minor. Nine-year-old, well, eight-year-old car should be expected to have leaks? He showed me his worksheet, a buyer's order. the top line showed an MSRP. And that's really worrisome there because now they're putting the MSRP into writing. And that's a violation of federal law.

You can't have a manufacturer suggested retail price on used car unless it's really the manufacturers, which would be much higher than $9,900 or whatever, 12,174 dollars. I bet you that's a function of their computer program. Could be. And they don't differentiate.

Probably inadvertent. And, of course, Palmish Toyota, Penske Auto Group, as part of a public health company. They are really accountable for these laws. And so, Roger Penske, if you are listening, change that when you're selling a used car. You cannot cause your suggested list, manufacturer's suggested list. I said it didn't look too bad, the price, and asked him if it was the best he could do. He asked me where I wanted to be. I said I wanted to be at the lowest price.

Luis asked me if I would take it, if he could get me. to $12,000 even out the door. I said I would take the deal. He'll have to go check with his manager. I reminded him again to get the Carfax report. I think I saw I nod in acknowledgement, but when he came back, he didn't have it.

It's kind of hard to get that Carfax report. Don't know why. Which is weird because they posted on their website. It's right there. Yeah. Louis said we were good to go at $12,000 out the door. He asked me to sign the worksheet, and I did. Then I asked if he could hold the car

for me for two hours because I need to bring it to my wife. We were both going to be on the title. He said, no problem. I said that when we got back, we would need to look at the Carfax report. Luis looked embarrassed and said he was sorry. He forgot to print it for me. I told him not to worry about it, but I asked him if it was a safe car. And again, he said yes. Epilogue. Palm Beach Toyota advertised a used car price that does not include their $9,99.95, dealer why don't they just call it $1,000? I don't know. So the fee was mentioned in disclosure language, but like nearly every car dealer in Florida,

this violates state law. The dealer fee must be included in the advertised price. And I talked earlier. This is Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Pactors Act 501, 976. That's the Florida statute. This is a violation of the law. Very serious. Very serious.

The amount of all dealer fees must be included in the advertised price. In other words, disclosing it in fine print and the bottom of the ad won't cut it in the eyes of the law. Also, we happen to know that Palm Beach Toyota has another hidden fee. in the amount of $129, they call that an electronic registration filing fee. That's a mouthful, electronic registration filing fee. This fee did not appear on the worksheet. And Agent Thunder signed the worksheet. If he took the sale all the way, what was that you just told me?

Oh, nine minutes. Okay. If he took the sale all the way, it would come out in the finance department. Now, that's where things are spit out of the computer. at the speed of light, papers like this, sign here, sign here, sign here, here, and here. And I don't know how many times. Press hard, three copies. Exactly.

So, once you get into the business office, you move at warp speed and you sign stuff that you don't even know you're signing, it's worse than buying a house. With regard to the recalls, Luis failed to disclose these. He may have genuinely forgotten to print Carfax reports, but clearly he didn't consider this a priority. consider the priority, a dangerous recall. This BMW could catch on fire at any time. And that's right, clearly disclosed on the Carfax report. The only reference to that is the fine print on the online ad that nobody would read except us. And we probably had to do a screenshot and blow it up to be able to read it. That's the only disclosure about the recall. That's basically it. a terrible job of misrepresentation of the dangers of the recalls. Also a violation of the law when it came to advertising the dealer fee that should have been included in the advertised price. And they omitted a dealer fee that we know that they have.

So outside of that, it was a perfect shopping report. Oh. I'm being facetious. That's wonderful. Other than that, it was great. Ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you that you can rate this mystery shopping report and you can, by texting us at 772-49765-3-0, that's Palm Beach, Toyota. I must say I'm a little surprised that a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange,

I would say well-respected, a lot of regulators out there looking at them all the time. You'd think they would be more careful in their advertising and in their conformance with state law, particularly the Florida Deceptive and Unfair trade practices like. So I'm not surprised if they want to expose themselves like this. They're very brave. Shall we poll the scores with our callers? Yeah, we have some listeners already chiming in. We have three grades so far.

Linda says, I was going to give them an A, but then after I heard about the recalls, a big F. You don't sell cars with issues like that. People's lives mean more to me. And Doug gives them an F. Dean gives him a C and we'll wait from the come in and we can probably give our grades

and see if we get some more coming in. Rick, you want to start with? I'm giving him a D minus. Lewis just sounded a little like he didn't ask a name. He barely introduced himself. Well, that just means he was not a good salesman. Yeah, he was.

Let's talk about deception of the not getting the car fax not disclosing anything and just too many fees I'm giving them a D and it's only because it's all the things that we've been preaching for years that everyone needs to watch out for

yes okay D from Rick and Nancy the thought of being in a vehicle that possibly could catch fire it doesn't sit well with me I'm going to give them an F. Flat failure from Mrs. Sunshine and Sunrise, I mean. Mrs. Sunrise.

Sue? I'm having a hard time. We have some grades that came in online, so we have Gabe gives them a C. Eric gives them a C-minus, and Bonnie gives them an F. I'm a little conflicting because I got this whole grading on the curve thing on my... What they did wasn't extraordinarily bad when we think about every other car dealer, but it's still pretty bad. So I'm going to give them two grades. The absolute grade, I'm giving them an F because dealers shouldn't do that.

But if you put them on the curb, I'm going to give them a curve, sorry, a C-minus. You know, until you said that, I was getting ready to go with an F. And, you know, I think I got carried away. I'm getting carried away with the class action lawsuit and the thought that here's a publicly traded company that might have a higher. order of accountability and responsibility to adhering to the rules. But if I did that, it wouldn't be true to our grading on the curve. And for you new folks, what we mean by grading on the curve is the fact that if we get an

absolute grade, there would be practically no dealers in Florida that would pass. We have a recommended dealer list and do not buy from this dealer list. And there'd be nobody on the recommended dealer list if we didn't grade on the curve. So for that reason, I'm going to go along with Stu. I'm going to give them a passing grade. It paints me. But on the curve, they're not that bad compared to most of the other dealers in South Florida. Part for the course.

So we'll keep them on the recommended dealer list. We have two more grades. Two more grades. We have from John gives them a D, and then Jeff gives them a D minus. D minus, yeah. I'll tell you what. I'm sorry, folks. I know some of you're mad because we've, we, we, we,

We passed them and we put them on the recommended list. But let that be a heads up to you. When you look at our recommended dealer list, you still have to watch yourself because these dealers were scores were on the curve and buyer beware at every car dealer you go to in Florida. You just have to be careful. Watch your back. Just on a little sad note is the location of Palm Beach Toyota right now,

it's a five-minute drive to the BMW dealer. ship where they could have had those recalls taken care of. I didn't realize. Five to seven minutes because they're at Southern and I-95 and the BMW dealership is right there where Okachobi and Palmish Lake split apart. Interesting. They're very close together.

They could easily have just had a couple porters, take that car over, drop it off, pick it up a day or two later. Take care. And had no recalls open at all. Take care of the customer. I think we still have a moment here. I'm going to jump off to another interesting subject on the Florida Exceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

This is interesting. I haven't talked about this. The advertised price must include all fees of charges that the dealer must pay, including freight or destination charge, dealer preparation charge. And it doesn't, it's not supposed to be, you're not supposed to charge for the preparation charge

that's already been done by the manufacturer. And that's on the disclosure. The disclosure says this charge includes cost and profit to the dealer for items such as inspecting, cleaning and adjusting vehicles. That amount is reimbursed on all new cars by all manufacturers. So all the state law itself is deceptive. They know that all the manufacturers reimburse the dealers for inspecting, cleaning and adjusting the vehicle. Rick does that on cars.

All mechanics and all dealerships clean, adjust, and inspect the cars. And the dealers are passing that along to you as a dealer fee and saying that's why you're paying me to clean, adjust, and it's a double dip. Very bad.

The PDI. Michael, we about out of time here? We got one minute left. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, everyone here at Earl Sterodone Cars wishes all of you a great day and we want to thank you for tuning in to our show and you are the reason it is a great show so we'll be looking for you next week have a great weekend