Earl Stewart on Cars - 01.30.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Sutherlin Nissan of Ft. Pierce

Episode Date: January 30, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Sutherlin Nissan in Ft. Pierce to see if they will honor their BOGO (Buy One, Get One) offer on a 2020 Nissan Sentra from their website ad. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Your auto keep me from being ripped off by a car dealer team is assembled and ready to go on this beautiful morning here. South Florida. It's, I can't believe it's January, is January 31st? Good Lord. 30th. 30th. Okay, yeah. I got a day ahead of myself. We're here to help you learn some things, maybe be entertained a little bit, and we encourage you to participate

in the show. That's what live radio talk is all about. It's kind of fun to do. The adrenaline thing, all of us as we come into the studio every morning, feel that a little adrenaline rush, you know, stage fright or whatever you want to call it, you know, what's going to happen?

Who's going to call? Who's not going to call? Am I going to have the right answers? It's fun, and it's, we're totally natural here. We don't rehearse anything. I mean, we get prepared for the show, information-wise, but we expect you to call to keep us on us, to keep us on our toes.

and we've got a whole lot of ways to come to call the show or contact the show. We sometimes bore our regular listeners with going over and over and over it again. But we've got some new folks out there, and we're trying to grow. We're trying to get bigger. In the past year, we have really made a quantum leap, I believe, at least geographically. I mean, we're coast to coast. We're overseas. We get a lot of calls from Midwest, the far west.

West, of course, Florida, we're based. But I'm really surprised with a broad interest in our show. You can call it on the old-fashioned telephone just by dialing 877-960-9960. As I say, some of you are going to get tired of hearing that number. Some of you have got to memorize, but a lot of folks are new. We just don't know how many we have out there. So if you're thinking about calling a show,

You might want to write the number down in case you have a question later. We're on for two hours. We'll be here until 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. And as I say, that's South Florida time. 877-960-9960. I always give the text number out. That was a real innovation, a quantum leap forward. When we got a text number many years ago, we were doing this for close to two decades.

and the text number is 772-4976530. That's 772-4976530. And you might want to write that down too. Now, we came up with something brand new about a year ago, maybe a year and a half, I'm not sure. It's a way to speak to us, talk to us, as you say, communicate with us anonymously. And that is Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

Your, Y-O-U-R, anonymousfeedback.com. And you go on the website and you send us a message, a question, a comment, an insult, a threat, whatever you want to do. I mean, you know, we love to hear what's on your mind. And sometimes people don't like to, you know, share their privacy issues. I understand that.

So if you want to maintain your total privacy and communicate with us. And that's become, arguably, our single most popular form of communication. Start out was hardly anybody responded, then people got the hang of it. Your anonymousfeedback.com. We cover, this isn't just all about buying cars.

I've got a guy sitting in my right named Rick Carney, been with me for a quarter century that knows about everything there is to know about cars. Test me, if you don't believe that. We're talking about before the show, show, we have something called a new owner's event. Full transparency, we have a car dealership, but this is not an infomercial. And every couple of months, we invite all our owners in, new owners in, and Rick addresses

the audience. And we have a contest that says, Stump Rick. And anybody can ask any question about the car and stumps Rick, then they get a prize. So Rick's pretty smart, and I give them all the credit in the world. So when you're calling us, 877-960-9960, remember Rick Kearney, and also in this video with us is Stu Stewart, my son, and Stu is an active general manager of our dealership, and he is on the firing line. He's in the trenches, we like to say, and he sees what's going on in the car business

every day. I saw what was going on the car business every day for many, many years, and now, Stu is is the hands-on. I get a lot of it because I'm still involved in the dealership. Nancy Stewart is sitting, she's to my left. She and I are very actively involved, but not directly. We talk to a lot of customers, and we hear a lot of phone calls, emails, text, and everything else.

So we're pretty much on top of that. But Stu, if you're looking for some current today knowledge, like what happened to this model vehicle yesterday or so on and so forth, he's right on top of it. He's also our cyber mystery guy. He does the mystery shopping report, not personally, but he supervises it. And that's the highlight of our show.

Mystery Shopping Report, you just tuned in, and if you want to listen to nothing else, you want to hear us, Yak, or particularly me, you might want to tune in the last half hour of the show. We visit a car dealership somewhere in the Florida area, and we're going to buy our lease a gar. And we tell you exactly what happened. You can go to our blog, earluncars.com,

and we have a beautiful new recommended dealer list that Stu created for our website. And we have our good dealer, bad dealer list, and we have now an innovative grading system, and he segregated all the dealers by manufacturer, and score and so you can go from the top of the list to the bottom you want a really good dealer you can go for somebody with a with a high grade and if you're if you sometimes they don't know too many dealers don't have high grades so you go we used to be black or white recommended or not

recommended now uh student a great job of assembling that and go to uh good dealer bad little dealer list.com or go to earl on cars.com and the good dealer bad deal list is there and that's And that gets us back to the mystery shopping report, which is where we get our information for the good dealer, bad dealer list. It's pretty accurate, hands-on. We've been there, we've done that. We've learned to buy a car, and we have one for you this afternoon. Another doozy, I'd like to say. You'll love it.

And that is, if you have questions on how to buy a car or lease a car, a car, a car, Steve's your guy. And Nancy Stewart, my co-host, my wife. the founding partner of this show. She and I founded this show back about 20 years ago. And she's also a strong female advocate. She constantly reminds everybody that half the people in this country are female, a little over half actually,

and half of them are buying stuff. I don't mean just cars, but everything. They're consumers, and they're out there hands-on buying as many cars as men do. Used to be men bought more cars. Now women are buying as many cars and maybe servicing the cars

paying for the service. So she is here to try to build our female audience and we try very hard to build a female audience. Maybe women are just smarter than men. I know a lot of them are. But we don't get as many calls

we'd like to get from the ladies out there and I'm going to turn the mic over to Nancy. who is going to give you a special offer that we have for you if you will just call the show, you female callers. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I like your hat. Oh, thank you. Everyone who is watching us on Facebook or YouTube, you too can have the same hat.

It's quite, I think it's a good-looking hat. Stu has something to do with that. But each and every one of you can have a hat, And all you're to do is join Earl's Vigilantes. Yeah, Earl's Vigilantes. And with doing that, you can help us. You can help the people in your community. And you don't have to be an auto expert, but just get out there in the trenches.

And, well, I think it would be a good thing for all of us. So, Earlsvigilantes.com. sign up and you can join us every week. You can even call the show and share your experience with us and what you found out in your neighborhood. With that said, again, that telephone number is 877-960-99-60. And as Earl alluded to earlier about me being an advocate, I definitely am in a lot of different ways but my heart is with the ladies and I've occupied this well I'll say this a seat that I take every week and it's definitely been a journey and I have to tell everyone that we've come a long way ladies and even some of the car dealers have come a long way because well

for lack of another word I'm going to say they were a little careless and stupid because they didn't realize the impact that women have in the auto industry and how they affect well finances which is very true to a car dealer's heart so some of them finally smartened up and realized that they had to respect women and see them as a serious buyer or even serious when they get service, lease, purchase, whatever the deal is, they are respecting women a whole lot more. And that makes me happy. But this morning, ladies, you can win yourself, $50. First, two new lady callers, $50. And just call and just call and just call. and give us an idea of what you were part of this week.

Did you take your car in for service? Did you purchase a car? Did you lease a car? Did you purchase a used car? So, you know, we would love to hear from you and your experience. And there's so much to experience when you walk into a car dealership. So remember, $50 for the first two new. lady callers.

Now back to the recovering car dealer. Yeah, I want to apologize for massaging my microphone with my wissol wipes. Bob, me, you're careful. Yeah, I thought a small critter had gotten into my headphone.

Excuse me, guys. We're going to go to the phones, and I'm going to thank John from Palm City for holding as long as he did. Good morning, John. Good morning. I want to talk about Nancy's Power of Women.

I have today's headlines, and right in front of me, GM decision to go electric rocks the industry. That's been done at a decision by the CEO, Mary Barra, of General Motors. There will be absolutely no more gasoline or diesel cars after 2035. She's vowing to have cell-only EV or zero-emission cars before then, no diesels, no gasoline. And at the end of what I want to say about her, I want to ask her, question. This is a very big decision for the industry, made by a female, incidentally, and I think it's a good decision. And General Motors are ready for preparing. They're building a plant in

Ohio just to build batteries. They've already committed $27 billion by 20, 2025, to build 30 all model EV vehicles. Now, they have made mistakes in the past. 202. They came out with a Hummer 2 that weighed 6,600 pounds. It only got 10 miles per gallon. It was twice the weight of a Honda record. It was 6,600 pounds. A big mistake, in my opinion. It's a failure. It's completely, they also, over 20 years ago, they came out with a full electric was called EV1. They wouldn't even sell it to the public. They leased it only. And they were all destroyed except two. was snuck out and they're in museums now, but it was not a no profit for GM, and the car got discontinued. Today, they even have an electric, it's called a bolt. It's not a hot item.

You don't see many of them around, but this is a major, major decision that's made by a female, and I think it's a very good decision, and it's the history, it's the future. The only thing is I want to ask Earl a question. I see gasoline, and everybody does. Raising tremendously in California, my brother-in-law tells me, he travels, he's a trucker, and it's just below $4 a gallon for 87 octane. Now, what I see going on, I look on the roads, and like one out of three vehicles are SUVs. Now, with the gasoline going up so high, does Earl can foresee very shortly a period where people will be just be parking these SUVs and buying. again the smaller economical cars until we get adjusted to the

electric vehicle. What's Earl's opinion on that? John, that's a very interesting question. Be honest with you, I haven't given it a lot of thought, but it is a good question. I didn't know that gasoline was up to $4 in California. And

I got to believe it's a short-term issue. I think what we're saying is a spike based on short-term supply and demand. The demand overall nationwide, worldwide for oil, is way, way down. And people see the handwriting on the wall, like Mary Barrow, in the future. But the short run is hard to predict, like the stock market.

I mean, the GM stock just hit a new high the other day. They've been a terrible stock for a long time. A lot of people are protecting they're going to go out of business. And Mary Barra is doing what she's doing, and I'm not taking anything away from her because she has to. It's a matter of survival. All the manufacturers and including, and not just the car manufacturers, but a lot of the software people out there are all targeting the same thing.

The Googles and the Apple, Apple's going to come up with the car now. So when you're high-tech, a mega-buck capitalize huge corporations worldwide decide they're going to build an electric car, and you're General Motors, and you've already been in bankruptcy, not too long ago and you're back out again she's really got a lot of motivation to come up with an all-electric fleet in 2035 she will do that if she if they can survive and I say the same thing for Ford and Chrysler Toyota Honda all the manufacturers we got just too many manufacturers and we have a lot of them that

are fragile I don't think that Chrysler Fiat will be in business in 10 years And that's my opinion. How can you possibly have enough demand to support what we're seeing happening when they don't have, you're not going to have a lot of people survive. Look at Tesla. I bet against Tesla, John, I bet you bet you bet against Tesla. And yet Tesla continue to rock. And now they're worth more than all the other car manufacturers put together.

Now they're the heroes. They saw the promised land, and now they're heroes. So I'm a lousy predictor. I just don't know what's going to happen. It's going to be fun watching, though. And I salute Mary Barra for, you know, sometimes just to see she just to maintain the status quo, squeeze out a few bucks profit,

but she's going for the goal, all electric, and I wish her the best. I agree with you 100%. In regards to what Nancy's saying, And not only that she's the CEO of the major corporation with a great decision, I mean, this has happened every day. You take Walgreens, which the owners actually have Walgreens, they have a residence out here in Hutchinson Island, Walgreen just elected the first female black woman to head the corporation. So women have come a long way and are continuing to go a long way.

And it's just unbelievable. I mean, even a woman vice president, we never thought we've had it. And here it is, it exists today. So it's a great decision, in my opinion, and it's going to put GM way ahead of the others, but they're going to catch up, and Volkswagen and all, this stimulates them, this decision to get going on their electric vehicles. So competition is the best thing that can happen in the industry. Well, thank you, John.

I know Nancy is very happy to hear you say those things. I totally agree with you. And it's good to say it's too little too late, but better than not at all. And the women are coming on. What is happening for the females? Yeah. And John, to your comment about General Motors, you know, I think it was a tough decision for General Motors to put Mary Barra in the position that she's in. And these decisions that she has made from the beginning, it might seem like as if it's in,

easy task, but it definitely is not, because I think that she has really moved General Motors in the right direction, and things are changing so much. And we'll talk about the electric cars and, you know, the planet, and how we're trying to save the planet, and how everything, all the, everything is moving in the right direction, but not everyone. is on board with that so when she makes these decisions uh i'm sure she gets some flack from some people so uh my hat is off to her and uh general motors they had their thinking cap on when they decided to choose her because she's powerful aggressive and she's very educated and she's going to change everything for general motors thanks john absolutely i agree with you thank you

so much for the phone call. We enjoy talking to you. Look forward to sharing the mystery shopping report with you this morning. Okay, I'll listen carefully. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, 77-960, or you can text us 772-4976530. Don't forget, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Do you have anything to share with us as far as is, how about dealer fees, which ones are legitimate, anything at all? How'd your service go? How do you feel about our show? 877-9-60-99-60.

Now back to the recovering car dealer. Let's go to our messengers here. We've got a YouTube over Rick can talk about. Negan 1 is asking, I would like to know how trading in a car saves you money on sales tax in simple terms or should I say how it benefits towards sales tax? I'm not sure I understand it all.

It's true. Yeah, it's, I guess if you're not in the business it's kind of weird, but when you're trading in a car basically that's like cash, the equivalent of cash, you're only paying the price, the sales tax on the difference of the purchase

between the price you're paying and the trade value you're giving. You've already paid sales tax on the first car. And I don't know if there's anything more technical than that. It might be one of those things that's just the way it is, but do you know the origin of that? I mean, I think the logic is you've already paid sales tax on the first vehicle, and you're only paying tax on the difference. Well, it's a good law. I mean, they're a few and far between sometimes, but it's a law that some states have.

Some states don't. And I wonder if the car dealer lobby had anything to do with that. Yeah, and it's a good thing to keep in mind when you're buying a car, because your trade-in has two values, the appraisal value. and the sales tax it saves you. And if you go out and sell your car yourself, that can be a great idea if you get more money than the dealer would allow you. But in Florida, for example, we have a 6% sales tax.

So if you have a $10,000 trade in value, you're losing $600 in value if you sell it outside the dealership. And that's the reason it's good to get a bid from another person that will buy it and then tell the dealer, if they can match it, can match it, you'll trade it in, because then you get the bonus of the 6% savings. Okay, Sue, you've got some probably anonymous feedbacks over there. Oh, yeah, the bunch of her coming in.

Before we get to that, we're going to go to a first-time caller, and her name is Renee, I believe. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the show. I'm enjoying your show. Thank you. It's very informative. I'm a new listener.

I have a used car that the window tenting is old and it's gotten real wavy. I was wondering, is it possible to easily remove window tinting, or especially on the rear window? Am I going to have to replace the whole window? It can be done, but it's a very labor-intensive. I don't know how much it would cost, but it takes a long time, but a detail company can do that. You might even ask a tent company what they recommend based on the type of tent that they put on the car.

It is something that a novish really shouldn't try to do, especially on the back window, if you have any of those, like the heater, those little wires that heat up the back window, the defroster. But it's done periodically. For example, at our dealership, if we get a trade-in that has some tent that looks like it's bad. And in a lot of cases, we'll take off the tin anyway just because not that many people want to buy a car, but use car a tent. So it does, it is a pretty, it's a pin in the butt to take off, but it can be done. Renee, what year is your car? It's a 2004.

Okay. You know, as Stu said, and I highly recommend, because I've been in that position before, you don't want to attempt that in any way yourself or have a friend do it. you know that tent it can be pretty tedious and you know if you want to retain the value of your vehicle you're going to make sure that you get somebody professional to take care of that and not only that if you're going to you know trade in your car at any time but not only that you know for safety reasons it's really a must to get someone professional to take care of that Yeah, Renee, stay tuned.

We're going to ask our people out there that might know, including our own dealership, what it costs to remove window 10. Maybe we give you an idea, because as Stu said, when we trade cars in, we have windows 10 that doesn't look too good. We'll try to take it off, and we sell it out to somebody. So we'll get an answer for you. If you stay tuned, we should have that answer for you in a few minutes. And thanks, Renee, and congratulations.

You won yourself $50. Thank you. And remember, always, three bids. Take your car out, take it to three different, you know, locations, and because you can really be taking advantage with something with a repair like that. Thank you so much. All right, thanks. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Hey, 77-960, or you can text us. 772-497-6530. Now back to Stu. All right, before we get to some of these text messages, Earl had mentioned the new recommended dealer list, and we had a lot of fun putting that together, and like he said, the way we are grading the dealers, and we've been doing that anyway, but we stopped making it a pass, fail, either or, and we just put the grades up there on the site for you to make your own choice,

and it's that we have not every manufacturer, but almost, and it's sorted by manufacturers, and each dealer is sorted out by their grade, the best. grade at the top. And I thought it would be an interesting thing to calculate the GPAs, the grade point averages of each manufacturer to see who's the worst and who's the best. And the results were, some were surprising, some weren't the highest GPA of all the manufacturers out there in all the years we've been mystery shopping. Grade point average. Grade point average. They don't have honors point average. It's just GPA is a 3.3. And that is a B average, not quite a B plus, Subaru, followed by BMW with a 3.0, and from here it goes down.

Lexus with a 2.8, Audi with a 2.5, Ford with a 2.1. The used car dealers, 2.1 also. Volkswagen, 2.0. Honda, 1.9, Mercedes, 1.5. Chevy, 1.5. Toyota, 1.4. I'm amazed at Mercedes. Wow. Well, there's only two Mercedes Mystery Shop, so we don't have a whole lot of grades. Toyota 1.4, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, 1.3, Nissan, 1.2, Hyundai, 1.1, Kia, 1.0, and Accura, 0.0. Yeah, and Acura, 0.0. So, needless to say, none of these manufacturers are getting into the Ivy League. Actually, I don't think any of them will be able to get into the University of Florida with the grades that they're getting, so they really got to step up their game. And is it that difficult to do?

Huh? I really don't think so. It just takes leadership and will and recognition of what customers want. Exactly. You know, management, you know, crack that whip. Yeah. Anyway, pardon the expression. I think Rick just fell off his chair.

Anyway, that's just me. 877-960, or you can text us, 7-7. 2-497-6530. We are going to go to Frank from West Palm Beach. Welcome back, Frank. Good morning. How is everybody? Everything is great. How are you? Okay. I just heard Earl say sales about 6%. I think it's 70% in Florida. Well, Frank, it's, it is. There's a, in Florida, it's 6%. Then there's an extra county text. And that goes by, by, by county. So each county can have additional sales tax or less. Around the state, the average is 6%. Oh, okay. I'm in the wrong part I did. I'm into several percent. You've got to move.

And New York is real high, I think. I'm only 15 miles from your dealership, so. Well, you pay the sales tax in the county that you're registered in. So even if you bought a car from us or someone down in a different county, you still pay where it, wherever you register it, whatever your home address is. You still there, Frank? I think it would have lost, Frank. Thanks for calling, Frank. If you can still hear us. Yeah, welcome back and give us a call again.

I think we're going to go back to Stu. Sure, we got a text from Anne-Marie. I was waiting for me when I got here. Actually, a minute after we started the show. Good morning. TorkNews.com has reported that in 2020, Toyota increased its stake in the Subaru Corporation up to 20%. January 27...

Did she say Toyota? Toyota has a stake, a 20% stake in Subaru now. Ooh. As of January 27th, the story in Tork News, they said that Subaru has acquired nearly 9 million shares of Toyota, which officially ties them to Toyota. One, does each company stake in the other give them a chance to share and collaborate on technology

as a way to avoid costly lawsuits on patent rights? and expand the resources. And two, what other advantages come from large stock purchases between companies in the same field? And then she has an automotive question. But what are your thoughts on her first questions? I think that it's, first of all,

they're still competitors at 20%. They're still definitely competitors. As a matter of fact, Toyota is one of the reasons why they bought the 20% and might just spend to own their stock because Subaru is just an amazing company and they're very small. They're like a gnat

compared to Toyota. Toyota is the giant of the industry and Subaru is just too small. I wish they were bigger because they build a great car. The quality of their dealers is very high, so you just heard Stu.

They have the highest rated grade porn average on our Mr. Shopping list. So they got everything going for them. They don't have the supply because they're not big enough. And it's one of the best kept secrets. What a great car

Subaru is. So I think Toyota is saying, hey, listen, I hear footsteps. They're small footsteps, but they're gaining on us. And we're a dinosaur and they're a little rabbit. But let's find out what they're doing right. Maybe we can copy them. And then I don't know why Subaru is buying toilet stock other than the fact that it's beginning up like a rocket. And maybe it's just a good investment. Maybe we'll see a merger. Yeah. Her second question actually answers. It'll never be a merger, I think Toyota would buy Subaru. They would absorb them. Emery's second question is what other about, her question about using sharing technology.

Her second question answers that question. So yesterday there was a story that came out that said that Toyota and Subaru will collaborate on an all-electric SUV and that will come to the U.S. shores in 2022. That's next year, folks, because it's 2021. I'm still early in the year. It's going to be about the same size as the Subaru Forrester, and customers in Europe won't see the new Subaru Electric until 2025. If the story's accurate, the U.S. will get an all-electric Subaru in 2022,

when we see an all-electric Toyota. Like I said, that answered your question. So clearly this collaboration with Toyota and Subaru is going to result in this joint EV effort. And I think we talked about last week on the show, Toyota is developing EVs, but just not for the United States right now. So they're focusing on markets which have stronger requirements for emissions like China and Europe. But there is a, this year, I think there is a small SUV, all-eV vehicle that's going to be released in Europe this year. And at some point in the following years, it's going to come to the United States.

But, you know, listen, Toyota is really behind the ball on this. I think they put all their stakes in hydrogen technology and hybrid, and that totally makes sense because they've dominated the hybrid market for the last 20 years. They kind of do what they know, but they need to get on the ball. I agree with you, Stu, absolutely. We're going to go back to the phones, and we are going to go to a regular caller Howard from Jupiter. Good morning. How are you, Howard? Good morning.

I hope you. Yeah, fine, thank you. I hope you all well. I'd like to discuss the future of electric cars. You know, I'm an independent. I don't go to any parties. I vote for the people that I like to. I think Biden is really pushing this.

President Biden is pushing this, and I think it's going to, I personally think it's going to think of the future. However, there are a couple of questions I have. Did you know that, you know, cobalt is the product that the batteries are made from? And cobalt is mined by slave labor. I don't know if you knew that. No.

Yeah. And so the thing is producing a great product, but people are producing it are suffering. So it's a big question on that. And my question is for Rick. These batteries, cobalt batteries, do they cause pollution when they're made? I know. Yes, they do. There is a footprint made when they are producing the batteries. And that's one of the reasons why they are not disposed of like a lot of other products. They are completely recycled when they reach into their lifespan in a car. I know Toyota, for all of our nickel-metal hydride batteries and especially the new lithium batteries that we have in some of our hybrids, every one of those are going back to Toyota as fast as they can get them. There are a bunch of them that wind up in junkyards, unfortunately, and some of these outside companies are getting hold of them, but they are getting recycled at an enormous

rate. Unfortunately, you know, the world is what it is, so it's hard really to control what happens in other countries, you know, what they're doing to provide. produce their natural resources that they then sell to these companies. Howard, I've got to ask you this question. You said slave labor. You were exaggerating to make your point. I wasn't aware that we had slave labor anywhere in the world anymore. I think we still had slave labor. Where is this? Yeah. I just didn't know that. There's no legal slave labor anywhere on the planet. I'm not saying it didn't happen illegally, but there's no legal.

I mean, you could call it as a, you know, bad working conditions and sweatshop sort of stuff. Yeah, I thought that's what Howard was saying, but not literal. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Howard. Appreciate the call. Anything else on your mind? Oh, yes.

I'm still waiting for a, you know, a toy. Oh, yes, here's one other thing. A friend of mine had just bought tires, and he said these tires very, very expensive. expensive, and if you get a flat, you can still ride on them. So I said, okay, so you get a flat, you can still write on them. How long can you ride? So you can ride 50 miles and then get them changed. So I wanted if it's worthwhile to buy these tires.

They're double the price of the regular tires, but I think once the puncture goes through them, they can't be used again. again. So, Rick, can you tell me about these tires and they did three times the price for a regular size? It's worth buying them. Those are called run flat tires and they

actually were very popular a few years back for quite a while. We don't see them near as much anymore and the reason being that it is a one-time used tire is once it is punctured it cannot be repaired. Run flat

tires must be replaced. if they get punctured and because of the road surfaces we have you know the amount of debris in our roads you know i mean everybody remembers the blue roof seasons when all the hurricanes came through and the amount of nails that were all over the roads you know you tell a customer hey i know you just spent five hundred dollars each on these tires and you got a nail in one 20 miles after you bought it but you got to buy a new tire and so a lot of folks went with the idea of saying, well, we're not doing that again. We'll get regular tires that can be repaired as long as it's safe to do so. And the answer to our, no, it's not worth the money unless you've

got so much money you don't have to do with it. If I had a Rolls-Royce and I was a billionaire, it'd be worth buying a set of tires every time I had a flat because I'd know I'd never be inconvenience. I could just drive wherever wanted to and put a new set of tires on there. and if I had to spend $1,000 on a set of tires and I'm a billionaire, that's pocket change. Yeah. So that's a no-no. There's a no-no, yeah.

Absolutely. Okay, thank you very much for your information. Thank you. Have a good day. Thanks, Howard. Great hearing from you. Remember, ladies, we're looking forward to one more new female caller. Do you know why?

You can win yourself $50. $50 this morning, I have $50 right here in my little hands for one more new female caller. Not that I don't want to hear from many of you that listen to the show and call me throughout the week. There's something, well, maybe you feel that you feel a little uncomfortable and maybe you'd rather text. But hey, throw caution to the wind. Give us a call. express yourself remember

Madonna that's the song that just popped now you put that airworm in my head and I'm going to be voging all day I'm just kidding there you go and for Rick Rick did you see the

before we get to Stu he has a whole lot more text did you see the new Bronco commercial I have not I believe it aired last night I'll have to look for that I've been waiting for it

All I can see is OJ running through the airport I've seen a couple of the new Broncos on the road and they're pretty interesting looking vehicles They look really good They really are They've come a long way I can also see I can also visualize OJ hiding in the back of that Bronco

Anyway that was a long ride Maybe the new white Broncos will be a low-selling model In contradiction to most other white cars I don't want that one Okay, back to Stu. You know, people must have tires on the brain. Howard called, speaking about the run-flat tires, this is from Bob in Las Vegas.

He says, Why are we still using pneumatic tires that need to be replaced after a few years of wear? You would think that by now, using advanced materials and technologies, a permanent tire could be developed that would not require replacement or repair.

I doubt the astronauts on Mars will be driving rovers that might get a flat tire. Very good point. I totally agree. I've said that on the show, and I still say it and there's a

eventually it's going to happen with the technological data explosion we got going some guy's going to come up with a hey here's a tire the last forever

and it'll happen excuse me guess what else it's really important that we're all well there's more people looking at it than ever before the environment

think about it Yeah, whoever develops it, you know, that's a well-paying innovation. Rick, I've seen articles recently about a design where I'm sure you've seen pictures of these tires where it's actually not a pneumatic tire. The honeycomb pattern. And then these are designed that the tread on the tire, when you remove it, it can actually be reprinted, adding material on it and recut. And then they simply, you don't throw the tire over.

That sounds like a Mars rover sort of thing. Like a 3D printer. Exactly. That's how it would work. You would take this, replace the tire, give the customer a new set, off they would go. Then you would take the original one and it would be recycled by simply adding more material, cutting new tread on it, and boom, it's back in business again. We're living in a world where you can imagine it, it's true, and we do this every day.

One of my favorite things to do now is think of something I need and not even know that it exists. even know that it exists and they go to Amazon and find out a product has been invented and available. I didn't even know existed. So things are happening at war speed today and the tires are the same way. It's like when your pants started falling down because you're losing so much weight. I wish something can hold these up and you want on Amazon and you found these things called suspenders. Speaking of tires, last week, and this wasn't tires, but Firestone, that was my segue. We referred somebody to Firestone. And Sandy on Facebook comment, it says,

I just wanted to tell you that she had a wonderful experience at Firestone in North Palm Beach on US One. She needed regular service and backbreaks and rotors. Thanks for the great referral. Sean was very professional. Happy to oblige. Well, boy, I love it when we get a positive report. People are always looking.

I mean, tire dealers are almost as bad as car dealers. And you go into a tire store, and they're out there. Everybody's on commission like a car dealer. dealerships and you go to a set of tires like the two get one for you or buy three you get one free or they give you a ridiculously low price and you come in there and they got a string of add-ons we call them dealer fees and hidden fees in the car business now they're hidden tire fees and you're paying for road hazard insurance you're paying for uh mounting and balancing and uh and i'm leaving off a whole bunch of stuff the things shop fees yeah

Shop Beach, yeah. So, yeah, Firestone and North Palm, is that North Palm Beach? North Palm Beach, North Lake Boulevard. North Lake Boulevard, Firestone, North Palm Beach. A good tire dealer, you can go in there and be treated with a courtesy and respect. We actually mystery shopped them years ago, and it was a question about, I think we had a tire with a hole with a nail in it and wanted to see if they would agree to replace it or say they couldn't replace it on the side, if it was in the sidewalk, and they got an A.

I've forgotten about that. All right, here's a text from Kim in Palm Beach Gardens. You guys are going to think this is a crazy question. But whenever I pick up certain takeout meals, I'm looking at you five guys. The smell stays in my cars for days. Please tell me how to, one, prevent this, and two, get rid of the smell. Great. I have the same thing.

All right, so here's what I've tried. I've tried driving back home with the bag of five guys in my car with the paper bag rolled up so it doesn't escape, but then you're steaming your fries. Roll all the windows down and take it home, but that didn't work. So I'm waiting to hear from Rick or anybody else who can tell me how to do this. I did that too, and the trunk, it permeated the whole car. It didn't work. It will, yeah.

My suggestion on that, the best idea I would have, is one of those large thermo bags that actually seal. Yeah. Granted, you're going to steam your fries a little bit, but no offense. Five guys' fries are soggy. A small cooler. Yeah. But the steam they're going to build up. You need something that actually seals.

Like, you know, a playmate coolers, when they close the top, they don't seal very well. There's a lot of air gaps there. You need something that'll seal it over so that it's airtight and you're good. That's a great question. I'm going to say something very dangerous on the air, but I am almost 100% sure that my wife is not listening. The best way I get to keep the smell of my car is to convince my wife to go pick it up in her car. Oh, or just use her car. Or just hand the bag out the window when you drive home.

All right, let's move along. It's funny, whenever I purchase my green smoothies and put it in the car, my car smells. It smells good. Divine. I think what Nancy is getting at is you don't want your car to stink. Don't eat that unhealthy, terrible garbage. Well, buts fried chicken. That is the best fried chicken on the planet, and not to mention their fish sandwiches.

And you go in there and you get a takeout by the time you get home, you smell like a restaurant and the car smelled like that until it finally goes away naturally. And what's the name of the restaurant? Buds. Buds fried chicken. North like Bullard.

They are the best. Oh, wow. You never, ever leave Buds. You eat that fantastic food right there. Oh, man. Forget the car. Last thing on five guys, though, it's like me and my brothers,

we always try to eat healthy and we shame each other when we find out that we have broken, breaking bed and eating garbage food. You can never get away if my brother Josh gets in the car. He'll go, ah, I see you broke bed last night. I'm like, okay. You see? That's what happens.

And even, you know, just because you're in the restaurant and you finish that food immediately, it still has a penetration to get your mind working. And you wonder, oh, my goodness, what's happened to the inside of my stomach? Anyway, I digress. All right, folks, you're listening to Erlon Burgers. And, okay.

Rick, you got any messages? over there. I've got about four of them going right now. Okay, let's see here. First one we had. RICO says, good morning. I'm wondering about dealer quotas. Do all dealers face the same numbers from the manufacturer?

And could you please give examples of the number of cars that need to be sold in each bracket? I recall it depends on the market and it depends on the dealer and the franchise. And their forecast and everything. They all have forecasts. So if you're You have a market assignment.

If you're in New York City, it's a huge one. If you're in Paduca, Kentucky, it's a small one. If you're selling Nissan's, it's a smaller one. If you're selling Toyos, it's a higher one. But it's competitive within your brand, and it's very serious. And if you don't achieve that, potentially the manufacturer can cancel you as a dealer. And this is one of the reasons, Nancy and I were talking about in the car this morning as we came to the show, why Nissan dealership

seem to treat their customers so badly and we blame the manufacturer to a large extent because they put undue pressure on their dealers to perform and they don't support the dealers the dealers rank them last in the dealer attitude survey by the National Automobile Deals Association

and so you just absolutely if you don't hit your quota as you say, Rico, 75% for Toyota. I don't know what it's for other deals. They'll cancel you as a dealer. So huge pressure. That's right. And to give you an idea of like the range of these objectives or these quotas,

and South Florida ranges from 634 is the highest quota this month, and it changes month by month. And the lowest is 19. So it's a huge range depending on the size of the dealership. And that's per month. That's per month. Exactly. New vehicles per month.

That's Key West Toyota, by the way. It's only required. to sell 19 cars this month. And Hollywood, $6.34. There's a whole lot of people that don't think about these quotas and the pressure

that these dealerships are under in order to meet that quota. And guess what? They'll do anything to sell a car. They will take no prisoners. We talked about stair step incentives on the show a lot, and

there's big bucks for hitting it and exceeding it. So they're, like Nancy says, there's a whole lot of motivation, one, not to fail, and two, to get rich. What's the last thing you do with the dealership before you go home, Stu? Take a shower? The last thing you did the dealership? I'm sorry, not you. You text me how many new cars we sold. Oh, yeah, exactly.

And so what will I say to Nancy? I say, Nancy, we sold 14 cars today, and that makes me happy. When Stu says we sold six cars, I'm very depressed. So there is an intense competition and pressure on all car dealers to sell their quotas. Great question, RICO. Yeah, definitely. There's a whole lot of pressure and competition at 1215 North Federal Highway number two. Okay, we're going to go back to the phones, and we're going to go to the roadrunner, Steve, and he's calling us from Boynton.

Good morning, Steve. Good morning, everybody. Hey. Hey, how you doing? Good. Okay, I like that talk about the car smells. Oh. My favorite car smell when I was in New York was the car smell of White Castle hamburger.

Oh, yeah. Look at us. Slyders. Look at it. Now, the trick that I used to do is, if anything else smelled in the car, I would get a pot. And I get incense that are in shape of a pyramid big. and I would like the incense in the car, but stay with the car. Yeah.

You put it in the pot. Hey, Steve, how long ago was this? What? How long ago was this? You're talking about incense that are like a pyramid? How long ago was this? Walmart has these little incense that are shaped like their cone incense. Yeah, I know what they look.

I know what they look like. We're talking about the 60s and 70s. A lot of people used to use us, but they used them for different reasons. From the hippies. So he smoked some pot and then he burned some incense. I wasn't on camera, was I? And let the smell take the odor out of a pot. You can get all those flavors.

Lavender, vanilla now, and everything else. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I used to buy him by the case. Oh, you must have been a party girl. Well, why cash in all the incense? But that's an old hippie trick. There we go. Since I'm an old guy, I'm 68, so I remember stuff like that.

Yeah, well, I'm 78, Steve. I did in a car magazine one time. Yeah, I remember a whole lot more than you. But White Castle was my favorite smell. I don't care how long it stayed in the car. I'm lucky to be alive. Steve, it's great hearing from you. Okay, it was good.

Keep up the good work. Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. Give us a call at 877-960 or you can text us at 77-49-30. Remember ladies, $50, I have it right here. One more new female caller. Now back to Stu.

Kim and Palm Beach Gardens, who sent the text about the five guys, I think, hit a nerve. so we had Steve John in California text says what I do is roll up all the windows and whatever side the bag of food is on I open the window about an inch it creates a vacuum and then he uses a good air freshener so I'll try that if it's like pulling it a current sucking it at one window

we'll try that you know what I'm going to have five guys for dinner tonight I think we've planted some seeds this morning during this two-hour show You can see, or you can hear folks, it's pretty versatile. We have a whole lot to talk about anything and everything. We're going to go back to the phones, West Palm Beach, and not a first-time caller, but I believe that it's Minna, Mina.

Yes, it's Minna. Good morning. Good morning. I just wanted to comment with regard to the slave labor question that came up. you know, seem to pass quickly. It's really now referred to as human trafficking, and it does exist, unfortunately. Yeah, I agree with you 100%. People through force, abduction, fraud, and child soldiers,

and it is perhaps a dirty secret that these batteries are made that way. and the country that does make these batteries, that makes the lithium, it's not good. Right. No, we said that there was no legal slave existing on the planet anymore. That's definitely a huge problem, and it also does with prostitution and child abduction and all sorts of things like that. Well, it's human trafficking, and I can't imagine that. you know, human slavery was ever legal in the world, across the world, but maybe just in certain countries,

but human trafficking certainly exists all over the world. So I just wanted to mention that point, and it is a dirty secret about the batteries for the electric cars. So thank you. You're welcome. And have a great day. Thank you, Minnie. The same to you.

Give us a call again. know it's unfortunate that topic and sometimes it's taboo for everybody but first thing I think about is children that's all I'll say you have any comments do you have any questions give us a call at 877 960 960 now back to you know I haven't mentioned your anonymous feedback but please www.w your anonymous feedback.com and don't forget about earl's vigilantes you You can see him and his hat this morning, and you too can have a hat just like that. Now back to Rick, I believe. Well, we've got Donovan says a couple weeks ago I mentioned about a problem getting a second key made for a Porsche purchased at Mazdo Palm Beach.

He says he posted a negative review for the dealership, ended up getting an email address, and emailed to Daniel, a higher up, and Daniel promised within one hour to resolve the issue even if he had to pay for it himself. Well, it's been about two weeks since that, and nothing has changed. They're now ignoring emails, calls, and text messages. Seems once they find out the cost of the key from Porsche and the locksmith can't make a key for the car, they decided to just ignore everything. It's a horrible way to do business because you write a Wii O sheet and then you ignore it. Are there any options before getting a car?

a lawyer to contact them. I really would say to avoid Mazda Palm Beach, they're not a good dealer at all. Very shady. Well, Daniel, you've done one thing. I mean, Donovan, you've done one thing, you've got Daniel's attention, and he's on live radio now. So Daniel, if you're at Mazda Palm Beach, this is an accusation made by Donovan that you're really treating him shabbily regarding a question. You made a promise to do something, and then you never even returned his phone call. It's drawing a lot of unwanted attention. I'm thinking, mystery shop.

Yeah, mystery shop, or you wonder, have you ever wondered how many customers, Mastah, Palm Beach is losing right now? People are listening and thinking, I'm thinking about buying a Mastra. And where would I go? And Mastra Palm Beach,

we're talking about you, and you've got to come back. Maybe you're totally innocent. But if you are, give us a call. And we'll put you in touch with Donovan and you can take care of him or you can say he's not entitled to what he's asking for but to not answer or respond especially when you're on live talk radio makes no sense to me yeah okay and we've got George says in your professional opinion which is the best luxury

large SUV for under $60,000 any large SUVs for under $60,000? I would defer to consumer reports but I guess Lexus under 60,000 under 60,000 for a large no I can't yeah I can't think of many gosh you know let's do a little research I know I'm thinking that Nissan and Toyota possibly Subaru they don't do a large SUV like Nissan has a what's their big one I'll look it up well we'll move along but consumer reports a great place to go I remember the last couple of issues of They were targeting cars that were used cars and new cars and the prices and how you can save. We're going to go back to the phones, and we're going to go to John, who's not a first-time caller,

and he's calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, John. Hey, good morning. Good morning. What can we do for you? I'm also, and it's what I can do for a previous caller from last week that was looking for a trailer hitch. I'm just calling I wasn't able to get through last week

and he was saying about the dealership and getting a trailer hitch for his car in that and I found that the one place and I don't know if this guy was answered or not or if you were able to help him out because the show it ended but U-Haul

does a great job in installing and selling trailer hitches and you know we think of U-Haul as being just a place where you rent a trailer well they're also trailer it's specialists and uh that that's the place to go uh they know their business and the installers they know what they're doing um i'm not i don't work for you haul but i found that for trailer hitches and that trailer accessories like bike racks they've got them all there hmm that's a great resource very much so

the trailer hitch, to the light kits, and they also, you know, they ask you, you know, well, what are you, what's the trailerage for? And then they, they, they tell you whether or not your car, you know, it's going to be able to handle it. You know, the weight, you know, on the side of the door and all that, you know, whether it's class two or class three, you know, so they know what they're doing. All right. That's a great resource, great resource for us. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. thank you thank you so much john do you have any questions okay john's gone you know this is why we love our callers our listeners our taxors everybody i can't express to you how important

it is that you are so important to the show extremely important and we appreciate your company every single Saturday morning and also the communication that we have with you throughout the week and I just want to take a moment all of us want to take a moment and thank everyone give us a call toll free at 877-960

960 90-60 and remember www.w your anonymousfeedback.com and you can also text us at 772-497-6530 We have a fantastic mystery shopping report coming up, the last half hour of the show, and it's another Nissan. So stay tuned for that. And now I believe we are going to go back to Rick.

I think I see his little side in there. Yeah, I got just a couple more here. Mark Anderson says he did a bit of quick research and just to kind of put a final cap on this whole cobalt thing for today. he says he did notice where the country of the Congo produces most of the cobalt in the world and apparently they have been accused of using child labor to do this and that Apple has stopped using them for their resources and my last one I have here is Wayne Fight

which by the way says the Nissan Armada is their big one he says could you mystery shop Ed Morse and check his $7,500 rebate if he's not the lowest price. Have we seen something about that, Earl? All you got to do is make a suggestion, and they go on the list. Yeah, we will definitely be paying a visit again. Yeah.

Hey, I'm getting, do you have another YouTube, Rick? We're caught just at the moment. Got up right now. Okay, great. I'm going to take a moment to mention Earl's column, and he has a column that appears in the Florida Weekly, and I'll tell you what, is a doozy. answers to top 10 devious statements made by a car salesman.

You've got to read this. Definitely have to read this. And then also in the hometown news, he has another column, and you don't know what you paid for your car. Another great read. And if you want to read any of his past columns, simply go to Erlon Cars. I'm going to tell you what, you'll get a great education, one that you can apply to whether you purchase a new car, whether you, you know, purchase a used car.

And now, with all of that said, we have a first-time female caller who's won herself $50. And her name is Sharon from Jupiter. Good morning, Sharon. Good morning. How are you today? Great. Welcome. Thank you. I didn't have any problem. I just wanted to let you know that I feel like I should be a spokesperson for Toyota.

I've had eight of them, starting with, I've had eight Toyotas. You're a poster girl. I know. I love Toyotas. I even had the MR2. Oh, wow. Way back when and the Celica and you name it, all the way up to the SVV. Stelika was great.

Yeah, it was. It was, my little stick shift. I loved it. Did you have a convertible? I never did. Yeah, mine was a convertible. Was it? Great car.

Yeah, yeah, they really were. I've had two Camrys, Highlander, Raff Four, Siena, you name it. I've had it. And they're just terrific. I tell everyone, you know, they are zero trouble. Absolutely. Low maintenance. I know.

They're absolutely amazing. So, anyway, that was it. Sharon, thanks for sharing that information with us. And most of all, thanks for calling Earl Stewart on cars. Congratulations. Yeah, I appreciate it. I love the show. I listen to it every Saturday, and I just really enjoy it. It's just such good information. It definitely is. Share that with your girl club, and we look forward to maybe hearing from your friends. I did. That's funny. I did. A coffee this week. I told everyone, and I said I would get the phone number so that they could call.

Thank you. Have a wonderful day. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Nice hearing from you. I think we're going to go to Stu. Sure. We had another text from John in California.

It's a very great question because last week we found that Ford finally acquiesced and recalled a lot of Takata cars. John says, good morning to all. Love the show on YouTube. My question is, are we all safe from Takata Airbags on any of the new cars being manufactured now? And I believe that is the case. I don't think any of the defective ones have been made for a couple of years or a year or so so I think we're safe

from that but we're not safe from the ones that are still out there and the good news is you haven't heard a Takata mystery shop in a long time because I can't find any Takata airbags and I look every week I will start looking at Ford's because that was announced so we

can start seeing if we can identify some of those and make sure that the use car dealers out there are the new car dealers anybody selling one of those are at the very least giving a good disclosure. I mean, we know that they're not going to refuse to sell it. We give up that crusade, but hopefully at least they pointed out and recognize it

that is a serious danger that can cause death. Addressing John's concern, one of the problems is that Takata went bankrupt a few years ago, and they're out of business now, so there are no such thing as a Takata airbag anymore. But there are a lot of manufacturers out there that are suspect because they're using other methods that are considered dangerous. And the whole idea of the accelerant and the cartridge that blows up your airbag,

that inflates your airbag, I should say, there's a lot of concern from other manufacturers who are doing a Takada-like thing, and the accelerant is very, very important. And there's a lot of news on that, a lot of concern. But as I say, we are safe from Takata airbags, but not safe from dangerous airbags. Rick? One thing to be aware of also is even if your car has had a recall on a Takata airbag and has been in and had that recall covered, double check your VIN number on Is My Car Recall.com and with the NHTSA, because what they're having to do,

do in a lot of cases is they're not putting in a redesigned new airbag that doesn't have that same old propellant because of the trials of trying to get those they're actually replacing them with the original style airbag but it's simply a brand new one so it's now it's resetting the timer on that time bomb so basically you're replacing it with a light what the manufacturers are calling like for like. So they're kind of hedging their bets. They're hoping that eventually all these old cars with the old Takata airbags will wind up in the junkyards and will be phased out and they're gone.

And you can ask the seller of the car, are you sure this isn't a Dakot Airbag? He'll say, I can assure you this is not a Takata Airbag because there is no more Takata Airbags. Yeah. And they may think that it's been corrected, but run that VIN number. Double check it because there may be a new campaign

and we see this. The cars that we have already put airbag inflators in once, twice, the third time, suddenly there's another campaign and we're putting more of men and they're being relisted. That's great information. So always run those VIN numbers.

Yeah, definitely run that VIN number. Just when you thought the Takata topic just, well, just blew away, just was, you know, not talked about it anymore. It's out there. It's real. We are going to go to Doug from Boka. And Doug's been with us before.

Good morning, Doug. Good morning. This is Doug. Hi, Ali. And our little Allie, Ellie, so my friend, he's from. So my friend, he's from Boca, but he lives in China. And the other night he said, come on, get on with me. I'm going to go through Hong Kong and downtown China,

because they're going to be having the New Year thing and all that and so he took me through the city and the thing that I was interested about is most of the cars there are now are electric including his

so he said that 90% of the cars are electric and he said some are so good that they're rivaling the Pespa and they have a bigger range and they're just as luxurious they're cheaper

but for some reason they're not because of the tariff obviously they're not able to export them to the United States is what he said and want to know if you knew anything about those cars yeah we were talking about that earlier Doug it's just I guess it's the Chinese government and they made a decision to get really strict on the type of vehicles they can sell and you know I guess to address climate change and and and all that they actually I mean there's a lot of I think there's Chinese male electric vehicles I'm not sure the names of the

manufacturers out there but I was reading some of the same stuff that you just mentioned that they're a pretty good quality and but you're right they're not getting exported certainly not to the United States no but it was interesting because he's from Boca Raton and he kept me on for like an hour it was really fun watching that because he was by the resort that was like right on the ocean or it was unbelievable so you say he was in Hong Kong is that where he saw the electric cars he says actually

all of China now is electric cars but yeah he was near Hong Kong because they're having the the New Year's thing and I think it's the year The Year of the Monkey. I don't know, I was just guessing. It's the year of the cat. There you go. I like that song, by the way.

That's right. Well, it's good to hear from you guys. Yeah. So Ellie does watch the computer, so we're going to get her watching the sunrise one day, and then she'll take over where Ali left off. Oh, thank you, Doug. That's great. That'd be a nice replacement, Doug.

Thank you so much for the call. And she is a silver bengal. Ooh. Beautiful. She was a rescue, and she's absolutely gorgeous. She looks like a leopard. Send us a picture. We will.

All right. You guys have a great day. You too. Thanks, Doug. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. 877-960, 9960, or you can text us.

772-497-6530. We're going to go to Rick. Well, I just wanted to mention we're actually right towards the end of the year of the rat. Are we? Okay. Hey, that'll make Ellie happy. A little snack. Let's get some anonymous feedback.

We haven't heard any from that yet. All right, this one's for you, Earl. Back when you were bad, were you ever threatened by disgruntled customers or employees? Actually, yes. I was chased up the stairs and locked myself in the office, and I had to dial 911, and the police came and rescued me. Do you remember an old story back when we were eating at a delicatessen a deli down in West Palm Beach,

and I forgot to give you a message that somebody had called when you were out at the dinner the night before? They were going to kill me? I had a totally... So every Saturday night, my folks, went out to dinner and we had a babysitter. And I apparently somebody called, I answered the phone and said, I'm going to kill your dad and fell asleep.

I forgot to tell you. It wasn't until lunch the following day. Oh, somebody called for you said they're going to kill you. And the stare that you gave me, I will never forget that. It all worked that well. You're still here. You made it to 80. Yeah.

Next, anonymous feedback. What was your favorite car movie? car used cars used cars I think when I read the question I'm thinking

well how many were there's used cars and then there was Cadillic man yeah and I thought well that also applies to things like

so I'm going to say my favorite car movie was cannibal run oh yeah yeah it wasn't about selling cars

it's about racing up across the country but hey how about Bueller stay off Ferris Bueller stay off oh yeah

turn that odometer back next anonymous feedback says what's with all the glossy piano black trim in the new models it's a magnet for fingerprints dust and scratches a deal breaker for me you know and i couldn't agree with you more it looks nice the day you get the car within within a couple of days it is a mess but i don't know it's just a trend you know different trends come and go in car interiors and that leads us a nice segue to the next anonymous feedback, says, where have all the cloth seats gone?

They seem to be getting replaced with vinyl, otherwise not fake leather. They started out cloth seats, and typically on the starting and mid-grade models, that is what you get. But in contrast to the problems you get with glossy trim, I think that these artificial leather seats are, in my opinion, much better than cloth, they're easier to clean. clean, and they tend to look better. They don't wear as quickly as...

Don't smell as good, though. I don't know. I think it all smells pretty toxic to me. Nothing like fresh Corinthian leather. Yeah, but the cows didn't like that. Okay, this is for Rick, and this is a total card geek question. Not calling the poster a geek, but Rick's a geek. Can you do a quick list of the negatives? Sorry, Rick, you are.

I am. I admit it. You're a nerd. I'm a nerd. Can you do a quick list of the negatives of turbos on four-cylinder engines versus naturally aspirated V6 engines? Actually, the negatives are starting to go away. One of the biggest issues with turbos was they didn't have a lot of longevity. Turbos would wear out very fast because a turbocharger was spinning so quick.

For those that aren't really aware of what a turbo actually is, this is actually a device that, is run by the exhaust of the car and it spins basically fan blades to take the fresh air from the engine and suck it or fresh air from outside and suck it and force it into the engine to give more power turbocharged engines produce more power than a normal aspirated engine and in the past turbocharge was kind of great for a younger car but once that turbo started getting older they'd break down pretty quick. Now, however, turbochargers are actually getting a lot better longevity. The quality has come way up, and they're actually able to take a four-cylinder engine and produce more power than a V6. So what you're actually going to see now, as time goes by very quickly here in the U.S.,

the last of the gasoline engines, we're going to be switching from V8s and V6s down to turbocharged four cylinders because they're more fuel efficient they can produce as much power and get the job done but they also produce less emissions because it can burn more completely so you're actually going to see better quality i think why aren't there any engines out there or your car is designed to take advantage of the moving air over the car in other words they used to have the scoops and i think they were ram jets and all that yeah why can't when you're on the highway doing and 80 miles an hour? Why can't they use the huge force of that wind? A great question. I wish I knew more of why they, and especially one of my biggest questions

is why they have the air intakes usually set so low close to the ground down in the grill, especially here in Florida, where we get so much rain, if you run through a puddle, you're splashing water, huge amounts of water, that then goes into that air duct, and there's nowhere for it to go inside it gets sucked right into the engine and suddenly you've locked up your engine you could even have a fan powering a generator in

the front of the car and that would actually give you additional so this is what happens when an engineer and a auto technician get together yeah there's some crazy ideas we're talking about electric cars so now you have used the wind

power to power the generator to charge your battery. I mean, it makes all the sense in the world. I think I'm a patent, but don't tell me anybody I said that. Search it for it on Amazon first, though. Boy, how many times through the years, Earl, have we said we're going to patent out,

or you've said to me, you had a patent out. Yeah, all the time. And here it is right now. It's very real. It's out there, and you can purchase it. Rick, I have a question for you. It's about oil. What have I never changed?

well not me literally but what if I never changed on my oil but just added it when it needed to be added new car I've seen a lot of people have thought that was an idea that a car would simply

begin to burn the oil and eventually they just could keep adding oil and it would be fine the problem is that what's going to happen eventually enough dirt and enough garbage is going to build up Eventually, we're all going to die.

What does eventually mean? If I have a new car, if I have a new car, a couple of years. I got a 36-month lease. And 36-month, I'm about 15,000 miles a year on it. And every time it gets down on oil, I add oil. At the end of three years, when I turn my lease in, what will be the condition of the car? Most likely that oil is going to be so gumbed up down in the oil pan

that it's going to plug up the pickup, not have any oil pressure, and you're going to be bringing a good car in on. And that will happen in three years? It was not the time, it's the mileage. Because remember, you're only going to see this issue from the miles. So if you're doing 15,000 miles a year, by the average, yeah.

In probably about 30 to 35,000 miles, you would have enough gunk in that motor. Just in time for your inspection. You know, I could have partially blown the motor up by that. You know, I could have partially, answered, you know, that question, but I wanted your professional opinion. Before I leap forward, let's back up for a second. Are you talking new, used? Any car. Any car. Oil changes are needed. You know, I'm kind of weird when it comes to filling my tank. And the reason I'm weird is because

I don't think that there are a whole lot of people that take in change from regular gas to premium. And it's sort of for me, I'm thinking that I can honestly see that tank, and I'm sort of flushing it. I'm kind of giving it, cleaning it out, like a calonic. Now, but putting premium fuel in a car that only needs regular fuel, you're actually doing yourself a disservice by costing a lot more money, and it's not going to help your car at all. Yeah, well, let's throw caution to the wind as far as the money is concerned. I'm talking about, you know, maintenance on the car and keeping it running as it should. And I forgot to mention, quote-unquote, you can, the car is, you know, made for either premium or regular. In light of all that, it wouldn't matter.

It doesn't do any good at all. Around 50 to 60 years ago, it would make a difference by running a higher-octane fuel for a short time to help decarbonize the engine a little. but on modern cars if your car is designed for 87 octane fuel run 87 you're not going to see any change by running 93 it's not going to help the engine and by burning slower it actually is going to cost you a little bit of power and maybe a little bit of efficiency and you may lose some of that fuel out the tailpipe things have changed a whole lot since I was pumping gas into the car in the 50s I haven't moved forward. Okay, well, I'll quit doing that.

877-960, or you can text us at 772-4976530. Remember, we have a great mystery shopping report coming up from southern Nissan. Now back to Stu. More anonymous feedback. We have two Toyota dealerships in my hometown. Both of them had the same model car on their lot. I used Toyota about three years old. Miles are similar, and so was the condition.

but one was $1,000 less. The other one was red, and I like the other color better. So I told them I'd buy it if they could match the price of the other one. They let me walk. So I went to the other dealership, told them I wanted to buy their car. They wanted a $299 dock fee. I told them I'd only pay up to $75. They refused the budge.

So I got my salesman and reduced my offer by $224 to pay the ridiculous dock fee. Boy, you don't know what ridiculous is. He went to the sales manager. The sales manager came out and said, Sir, we're not going to play games over $224. When you get serious about buying a car, you're welcome to come back. So good day.

So as of now, I still haven't bought a car. Man, I'm curious, where is that? That sounds pretty bad. That's called Ruffin' You Up. And we see a lot of that down here. When you listen to the Mystery Shopping Report coming up, it might sound familiar to you. like Earl always says every single week the best way don't get bogged down in the weeds about the amount of the fees and all that focus on an out of the door price and compare three dealers and that's usually your best way to get the best price it is a little bit tougher on used cars because each one's different but a current the same model year of a Toyota recent model year used Toytas use Hondas consider those commodities they're not one of a kind so there's plenty of plenty of places to find a car very

cylinder the one that you want. Absolutely and if you can avoid it, don't go into the dealership alone. Yep. Next anonymous feedback. I bought a salvage title car in Texas, fully insured and manufacturer warranty. The county has a form you can take to a used dealer who assesses the car is depreciated, lowering the tax on the car. I paid $100 to a dealer, not the one I bought it from for their signature. He looked puzzled, took the money and signed it. That's interesting. I think Texas has a very unusual law, as I recall. We had another issue about Texas, and they have a classification, or they don't have a classification for cars that have been totaled,

and so you can actually get a title. You can take a car that was totaled and rebuild it, and it doesn't have to have a special title. Next one. So your take-home message is to get the car around the end of the month, plus or minus a few days in the 30th or 31st, right? Is buying the car on the 20th of the month a good day? Also, since all months have at least 28 days,

also would the end of the quarter months be a better incentive? Once again, don't get bogged down too much in the days. Yes, towards the end of the month, as dealers get close to their quota, if they're short, they're more likely to give you a better deal. but it's a great question on the quarter and I don't know how about other manufacturers but I can tell you that Toyota has a quarterly incentive for their dealers

and that could be play a factor so at the end of the quarter if they hit a quarterly objective for the past three months it's a huge amount of money and so dealers would be motivated to maybe take less profit on a deal towards the end of the quarter

if it helped them get to that big incentive but for the average car buyer that would be awfully difficult to know you'd have to be an insider and understand maybe someone that works at a particular franchise dealership. 30-day cycle is the best way to go because virtually every car dealership of the United States has month-in bonuses and incentives.

For the sales people, the man, here. Let me correct something I said earlier about Texas. When I said they had a different law about the way cars are totaled, the law has to do not with collision cars, but with other problems. for example, someone that never changes their oil. Or if you have a mechanical problem that totals a car, there's nothing wrong with issuing a normal title on that.

It's totaled, but you still get their title in Texas. Okay. Here's a question for Rick on anonymous feedback. Earl says that the manual states your new toy does never need a transmission fluid change, then go with the manual. Almost all the mechanics I know state you should change. change the transmission fluid, but it's a very intricate and precise ordeal to change the transmission fluid on a new or newer Toyota. So, Rick, my question is, do your mechanics understand

that they are trained to know how to do this precise transmission fluid change on a Toyota? Unfortunately, I don't know of any shop or service center close to me that I would trust to do this precise transmission fluid change. That's actually very true, and yes, all our techs are well trained on it. Especially because when these newer transmissions first started coming out, we actually had a case where a technician accidentally pulled the drain plug on the transmission instead of the engine. And we had to be extremely careful to get it perfect because he didn't, and the transmission wound up blowing up. We had to replace it under warranty.

So there are issues like that. You have to be very careful. under warranty if it was dealer error. Oops, I probably shouldn't have mentioned that part. Well, we kind of worked it through. But truth be told, we are trained properly, and I will tell you one fact, my Tacoma has 130,000 miles on it,

on the original transmission fluid, and I have no intention of changing it. Granted, I don't do a lot of towing with my truck, but as long as it's running fine I'm going right along with it let me address the answer too the reason a lot of mechanics

want to change your transmission fluid even though the manufacturer says no is because you get paid to do it and the service drive the man that tells you you need to replace the transmission fluid he gets paid if you do it because everybody's on commission

so you got a commissioned service salesman you have a commission mechanic and you have a commission service manager telling you you need to change your oil. The manufacturer knows better than they do. They built the car. They designed it. They built it. And it's their reputation on the line if it doesn't last.

So believe the manufacturer don't believe the dealer. Earl, I have a question for you in your experience. How often does that happen today? commonly unfortunately because the cars today are far more reliable they need less maintenance they need less repair and the service departments of the world and independent and dealerships are suffering they're struggling to make profits and there the i would i would venture to say the amount of maintenance and repairs is less than 10% of what it was 20 years ago yeah and our commission plans our sales plans, our compensation plans,

are designed the way they were 20 years ago. Now, in order to sell enough service of the service drive and for mechanics to have enough cars to fix, they have to do more than what the manufacturer recommends. And they come up with the dealer recommended list, and I say ignore it, go with the manufacturer. So you're saying that this tactic still exists? Yeah.

It's out of necessity because service departments need to make a profit. Dealers need to make a profit, and the only way to do that is to sell you more than you really need. I understand. I think that we're, I'll use the word all in a moment of desperation to, well, fulfill our quotas, no matter what the cost is to the customer. So, ladies and gentlemen, keep your eyes open. power. Keep an eye on every aspect of the auto industry. Now back to Stu.

We just have a couple more before we get to the mystery shopping report, and it is a little bit on the long side. But there was so much that happened. Okay, hello, car people. I have a question about Toytas. I'm in the market for a new fuel-efficient Toyota. I have a truck. I plan to keep, but I have

to travel a lot during the work week. I need a reliable fuel-efficient car. I also happen to be six feet, four inches tall. Hey, that's Earl's How is the height on your smaller Toyotas? Well, that's always been a problem for us tall guys. Thankfully, I stopped growing around 6 feet, too, so I fit into a very small car right now.

But yeah, that's a problem. So the most fuel-efficient cars tend to be smaller. But hybrid SUVs are widespread by all manufacturers, Toyota, blah, blah, blah. The Toyota Rav-4, I think you might build a fit into that one because it's not a little car. But also the CRV, I think, has a hybrid and check out other manufacturers as well,

but you might fit better in a mid-sized or small hybrid SUV and still get like 40 miles of the gallon. Earl, what vehicle would you say would be most accommodating to you and your heights? Whether it was yesterday, last week, last year? The bigger the car, the better. I like big cars. They're more comfortable, yeah. Are you comfortable in the Avalon?

Yeah, I am. I'm more comfortable than Alexis. Yeah, that's a good. Thanks for bringing that up, because there is a hybrid Avalon, and that's a big guy can fit in that for sure. Yeah, I think the auto industry has caught on, and they're really taking the comfort of the consumer into consideration a whole lot more than they ever did before,

and I'm talking about that front seat. You don't realize how much time you spend in that front seat, or maybe a person's height or wait. Rick has a question This is just kind of a little Just a thought of my own The first generation Cyan XB

It was It was the TARDIS of cars Yeah my geek is coming out again They were bigger on the inside than they were on the outside You literally Earl could sit in a Cyan XB And he'd still have four or five inches

Of clearance above his head For some reason They made that car car to where a tall guy, a big guy could sit comfortably, and I haven't seen another car yet that I would compare to how that one was designed. I wish the engineers could look at that one and use it as a benchmark. Well, they can, except for the fact people don't want to buy it because it was ugly, and that's a reason on the outside.

It was on the outside, yeah. It was on the outside, yeah, but they could design that interior in such a way. It was like a big, it was awesome. It was like a big bread box. is what it was like. A toaster. And maybe it was sold, you know, in the beginning because of the woofers and tweeters.

You know, I mean, they had such a sound system. You know, it really attracted the younger generation. Okay, I digress. The last one, it says, whatever happened, I lost my spot, whatever happened to the old new car smell, go to a car max in a hot day and open the door. It makes you want to gag, especially with leather upholstery. By trying to hide the smell, they make it worse.

And then we did, we talked about that last week, too. When you tried to mask a smell, it doesn't work, and it does smell worse. I don't get the new car smell thing. I know that it's a nostalgic thing for people. You're smelling a lot of chemicals and solvents and all that can't be good for you. Well, you don't smell with your nose. You smell with your mind. Yeah, you're right.

And so when cars were first built, they smelled like new cars. And it was a dangerous odor, actually. They proved the new car smell is actually toxic. But people bought a new car. and they identified with new cars and the smell and so new car smell became the in thing

and it really doesn't smell very good but if you think it smells good your brain smells it and not your mind my wife's from Georgia every New Year's day she cooks a bunch of collard greens and our house smells like a fart

you can say that in the air right you can say fart but it is a heartwarming nostalgic smell for me and we're caught up okay okay guys to all our listeners

and our texters everybody, you're a big part of the mystery shopping report yes, you definitely are, so be part of the rating system because we are going to the mystery shop and that's of Southern Nissan.

Okay, Southern and Nissan. We investigated Southern Southern Nissan back in May of last year. They earned a D-D-minus for a host of bad behavior, bait and switch ad, maskless employees, and that was during the very first big wave of the COVID pandemic. And a big fat, $3,000 phony Monroney, dealer addendums. Everybody's doing it, but that's a big one. That's a real big one. Sutherland's grade places them in the bottom and half of a not-so-distinguished

group of Nissan dealers on our good dealer bad dealer list. This isn't good. Nissan dealers, as we discussed, they're probably the worst behaved dealers we mystery show. They are definitely. That said, Sutherland has an interesting story. Sutherland, Nissan in Fort Pierce, Florida, is owned by George Sutherland and a partner. A man named, believe it or not, U.S. Marine. You know, his father really had a sense of humor, didn't he?

And they probably came up with a middle name to make it fit the U.S. Marine. Together, they own small group of dealerships, all in Florida. U.S. Marines are a full name O'Rick, Stanley Marine. I guess I'd want to be called U.S. Marine if my first name were O'Rick. Yeah, O'Rick. Anyway, it's a hell of a story. Begin his career as a bartender with a dream of owning a car dealership.

According to Florida Weekly, U.S. O'Rick was recruited into car sales while working in a restaurant in Tampa and quickly rose to the ranks and began running his own stores. That's very cool. I mean, say what you will about his dealerships. I don't know. We'll find out at the end of the mystery shopping report. But you've got to admit, that's what I call a rags to riches story. Bartender to owner of a string of dealerships.

U.S. brain was just 28 when he met Mr. Sutherland and began their partnership. Wow. This time around, there was another Sutherland online ad. they grabbed our attention. The offer was what is known as a Bogo, which is an acronym for buy one, get one. I never heard Bogo. A stew did. They're common. Yeah, common. Bogos are quite common in fast food restaurants and supermarkets for low-cost items like French fries and pints of Benadiery ice cream. A Bogo offer from a car dealer for

new Dissons raises a little healthy level of suspicion. Okay, I'll show you that. He's putting And then on the screen, here's the, you know, here's what the ad looked like. Bogo. I guess everybody knew what a Bogo was but me. If I saw that ad, I'd say Bogo. Bogo is back. Who's he? Was he a clown?

No, that's bozo. Anyway. So, accordingly, the ad, if you buy a new mid-sized Nissan Ultima, you'll get for free a new compact Nissan Central. Unbelievable. No, literally. it's unbelievable in one line of teensy tiny print that catches this based on a 2019 now we're talking 2019 folks this is 2021 in case you dozed off 2021 they're selling 2019 Nissan Alma ultima and then if you lease a 2000 2019 purchase oh yeah you buy the ultima and they give you a 24 month

24 month lease yeah okay they give it 24 month and that's on the central yeah that's the small car yeah my fourth thought first thought was wow they still have 2019 models on the lot and we check and they had just one um you know when you when i read this i had a flashback that was a common trick a while back uh and uh i think they stopped there a lot of people stopped doing it because uh it was just too egregious You know, excuse me for interrupting you, but whenever I first read the mystery shopping report and I saw a Bogo, the first thing that I thought of, pay less shoes. I mean, maybe I'm showing my age, but I believe that that's where that all started. And I was really glad that Stu had put in the mystery shopping report, the acclimate, buy one, get one. So, anyway, my thoughts.

back to the recovering car dealer. So my second thought, well, this is an eye-catching very compelling bait-and-switch ad that must be investigated and that's what we did. So we called Agent Lining. Here's the report, speaking in the first person, as if I were the shopper. As soon as I received my orders,

I headed to Sutherland's Nissan's website, NissanForkPierce.com, to find the ad to see if there were any more disclosures. If you're listening to this, go to nisonefortpeerce.com, Take a look and you can see it on your computer or your smartphone and see exactly what we're talking about. It's probably still up, I believe. It is.

Yeah. There were none. This was a forum I could fill out to get more info on the offers. I submitted a request using my husband's name. I received a reply from Megan, a retail sales specialist. And she basically said, came back pretty quick, I think. Hello, Frank. Thank you for your inquiry on the bogo sale.

This offer from Nissan has been very popular since it was released. And see, from Nissan, remember that. It's been very popular since it was released, and everyone who gets it loves it. This is where you buy a vehicle, such as an Ultima or a rogue, and you get a brand-new Centra for free. Yes, for free. And remember, she's repeating this. This is a two-year lease at no cost to you, and at the end of the lease, you're going to either turn the vehicle in or buy it out of the lease and finance the remainder. Did you have an idea on what vehicle you were hoping to get into?

Or in regards, Megan Meyer, retail sales specialist. Now, I may be confused, but if someone says they're giving me something for free, I assume I won't have to give it back in two years. Well, I would think everybody would agree with that. I also notice that the email claims that the offer is from Nissan, which implies this is a manufacturer, national factory offer, leading, they're not lending credibility. However, I checked no other

Nissan dealers are offering a logo and manufacturers don't do that. So this is blatant, this is not true, this is an untrue statement. It's a lie. Nissan is not making this offer. But it is a rule of thumb. If you see a manufacturer

advertises 0%, it's real. Or half a percent or 1% financing, it's real. If a dealer advertises 1%, he's lying. So that's the reason they use the manufacturer to whitewash the fact that they were misrepresenting something. I also noticed the misspelled eccentric, which, you know, that's a typo. I don't worry about that.

Clearly this email was designed to defuse some of the anticipated anger this ad will cause with Sutherland's customers. I didn't reply to it and said I headed right up to Fort Pierce to continue my investigation. I arrived in the morning and was half-heartedly greeted by a receptionist, wearing a mask around her neck and using her smartphone. I waited for her to finish, then I told her I was there for the Bogo deal. Still gazing at her phone, she said she would get me a salesperson. He picked up her desk phone, hand said, made a call. Then she called Quinn, Q-U-I-N-N-N, Quinn, and be with me shortly. Quinn came over wearing a mask properly, good.

He said he would get a salesperson for me. He walked away a few months later. He was back with Tim, also wearing a mask the right way and holding the customer info sheet. We sat down on a desk and Tim launched into the familiar interrogation. As we finished, I showed him the ad on my phone, told him that my husband refused to come in with me because he believed there was no possible way anyone could get, buy one, get one free on a car purchase. He said, I was getting tricked. Tim chuckled said, we'll make it happen and really show your husband.

He explained that I would have to finance the purchase of the first car. Then I'd get a two-year lease for free on the center. Another salesperson, Dan approached us at this point, and brusquely asked us to move so we could make room for his customers that he had coming in and we had to change desks. We relocated to the next desk and continue to discuss the buy one, get one free deal. Dan apparently overheard and expressed irritation at learning a

second car was a lease. That's the guy next door that just made his move because he decided to interrupt again. He said there was a full disclosure in the ad and there shouldn't have been any surprise from me. Now this is just blatant rudeness. Yeah.

And you know it's not deception is how to lose a sale. So the quality of the salespeople we found that Nissan dealerships is below average, far below average. And the reason being, and I'm digressing now, I know.

But if I'm a car salesperson and I'm a professional and I want to sell cars, I'd first apply probably at a Lexus or a Subaru dealership or a very popular car. And then if I couldn't get a job there, I'd move on down the line. And after nobody would hire me, I would knock on a Nissan dealership store. And they would probably hire me. And this is unfortunate. I hate to say this, but it's unfortunate that anybody that had a quality salesperson doesn't want to work for any son-dealer.

And I know I'm making a lot of people mad at me now, but I've got to tell the truth. That's what I do. Dan stood up and hovered me over me to see if he... No, she said, yeah, she said there was no. disclosure on the ads you showed them the phone yeah show them phone so I got on my phone and I'm looking at the ad then sort of hover over the back of me to look at what I was looking at told me to keep scrolling with my phone I did and showed

him there was no sort of legal disclosure there and this is another gym Dan rebutted me by saying the ads were designed for desktop computers not mobile devices if I'd had a real computer I would have seen the full legal disclosure And the fact the matter is, Dan's not only stupid and crooked, he's behind the times because cell phones are far more used now by consumers than PCs. I can tell you right now, it's 70% mobile. The people that visit our website, and that's industry-wide. Exactly. So, Dan's a moron.

We design them for mobile. We do. If it's not designed for mobile, then, anyway. It's not Dan's fault. He's been living under a rock, so he has to move. That's right. I returned my attention to Tim, asked me to follow them outside to see the inventory. We found a due 2021 Nissan Ultima, they couldn't find the 2019, I guess, because it wasn't there,

with an MSRP of $28,960. There was also an addendum stuck right next to the Moroni label. When you know I say addendum, it was a doozy. This added another $4,627 to the MSRP, making the new list price, $333. 587. Tim left to get a key. I stood by the ultima for 10 minutes. Tim returned with the key. We went on the world's shortest test drive, quick orbit on the block. We returned to the lot and Jim asked if this was the car I wanted. I said, it was, but I wanted to see the buy one, get one free car, the center. I mean, you know, I'm buying two cars. I'm getting one free. I want to

see what the incentive is. We walked around the lot, futilely looking for a Centra. We went inside so Tim could figure things out. I sat down the desk, waited again. Tim came back 15 minutes later with the key to Accentra in his hand. He said it was a, it was hiding on the other side of the lot. We went outside to take a look. It was a 2020 model. And I asked if that would work for the office. This 2019 model was specified. He wasn't sure. And said he'd find out. We went back in, found a new desk. He asked me to wait while he spoke with the manager to work up the deal. He made a U-turn on his way to see his boss and walk back my way. He asked me to tell him on a scale of 1 to 10 how my credit was. I said it was almost a 10. I have a score in

the high 700s. Then he asked if anyone in my family was out, here we go. Active military, a recent college grad, or a Nissan owner. These are all the qualifications that nobody can meet that they put in there to keep the price down, the advertised price down, not the real price. He was back in about five minutes with a worksheet for the Ultima. The top line was $33, $9.55, $360, $368 higher than the dealer list, not the Maroni, the dealer list. So that $49.95 over sticker, a $1,500 rebate came off, making the adjusted price $32,455. Then he added 50, as if that was enough, and now he's going to hit me with $54 for key replacement,

but I didn't ask for, and then he's got $105 in taxable fees, which, as you know, a taxable fee is a hidden fee, and a $799 dock fee, which is a taxable fee, and it's also a dealer fee, it's a hidden fee. So everything is smoke and mirrors here, folks. My effective selling price was $33,413, ready for this. you better sit down for this one, $4,453 over MSRP.

Now you're starting to understand where they're going to get the money for that 24-month lease from you. I knew it. Hello. He showed me a grid of payments with varying terms and down payments. Instead of challenging him on the ridiculous price he was charging, and I asked him about the buy one, get one free car. He jumped up and said he needed to see his boss. He's back at 30 seconds with Chris. I was fast. Chris had all sorts of attitude

and wanted to know what I needed better explain. He wanted to know what he needed to do to make this deal. I said that for starters, I don't know anything

about buy one, get one free car and that Tim didn't have much to tell me. Chris said, honestly, that both cars were in the price Tim presented.

He said, I would get the details. Oh, this is beautiful. You're going to get the details on the free car the ultimate when you get into finance. When you get into finance, it's too late. You're signing in. You bought the car. And this is unbelievable that they would not give me the details at this point. I said this would not help me convince my husband. The deal is legitimate. I said I needed to run things by him. And right now, I had nothing to show him. Chris counted by saying that most people

came to the dealership to buy cars. Now, he's getting aggressive. He's getting insulting. and most people come to the dealership to buy cars, not gather information to take home accusing me. He told me to get him on the phone. Get the old man on the phone and I'll explain things to him. He didn't say an old man. I was

editorializing. I said my husband was a meeting all day and not available. I was there doing legwork so we could determine if this buy one, get one free thing was legitimate. This seemed to anger, Chris. getting angry at a customer. Wow, I'll tell you.

No wonder he couldn't get a job in any other dealership, who was who belligerently said this isn't some rinky-dink, Mickey Mouse dealership. We're one of the biggest dealerships around, and we don't know anything that's not legit. I bit my tongue, and Chris

took out his phone, showed me his calculator. $8,496 was already on the screen, $8496 already on the screen. He was prepared. He said the way this works is they'll cut a check to me for $8,0496 that I'll sign over to him to cover the two-year lease. He said, all the lease paperwork will be explained finance, and I'm going to prepay

the lease for two years, and I'm going to write a check out for it, and I'm going to give it to him, write. I turned my attention to the worksheet and pointed out the inflated price and the fees. I said, I wasn't interested in the dealer and stole package. Chris was rude. He said, the extra how they were able to do the buy one get one free deal rude but honest rude but honest you're paying for it it's not free though

that's BS then he actually laughed and said did you really expect to get discounts want to buy one get one free you can't make this stuff up I said I've gotten buy one get one free deals at Publix and used coupons

this wasn't a bad zinger for a nasty man Chris sarcastically asked if I'd ever bought a car at Publix you ever bought a car at Publix? Hard to believe you can't make it. Cardiola say that too like well Kelly Blubrick says my car is worth $10,000 they go

can you buy it from them? So anyway I wonder why Nissan stores are doing so badly. I was steaming, I turned him out, I turned him out. I tuned them out. Tuned them out.

It went on about how big they were, blah, blah, blah. And how well, they take care of the customers. I took my last shot. I said, I needed him to take off the addendum items. Otherwise, I wasn't going to be doing business with him. He said he couldn't budge one penny, set up, reached for the worksheet, although I already had taken a picture of it. Chris grabbed it, put his hand on it, said, it stayed here. He pointed to where it said, for internal use only, which doesn't mean that you can't have a copy of it. I gave him a dirty look, turned around, walked out, and there we are. She called him a pompous

asked you. I didn't put that in the more. Yeah, I think you, Nancy would have called them worse and so what have I. So there we are. And we're getting near the end, so we need to do a vote on this. No, I think Nissan's getting near the end. Yeah, they are. Good point. Okay, who wants to go first? I'll go first. I have no reservations or qualms about failing Nissan in Sutherland Nissan, and I hope everybody agrees with me because I can't wait to do the first update of the good dealer, bad dealer list.

Fantastic. Any knowledge feedback? Yeah, I'm going to see the grades are coming in. Oh, yeah, here they are. Linda, fat F, yet again. That is awful. Bob, F for Sutherland, and a second F, a second, Bogo.

They get two S. One is it Bogow F. Amory gives an F, rude, aggressive, and obnoxious, not unusual, but they've earned an F. And Frank gives them an F, too. And, oh, and Mark gives them, who's one of our vigilantes, also gives them a Bogo F. Get an F, get another one for free.

I like that. That's very fine. I've got Wayne Vait with a gigantic F. Ernesto, he's feeling generous, a D-minus. Mark Ryan with an F, Tom Gilliland, F, my own. It's an F. Well, Mr. Sunrise. Well, I think that Dan is a two-faced politician, and I think that the...

I don't think that we can use that word on the air, can we politician, not a dirty word? It's a dirty word. Yeah. I retract the statement. Also, I believe that the dealership is corrupt, and I give them an F for fraudulent. All right. You make the final call. Well, I don't even have to...

about it. M.F. I do not buy Nissan from Sutherland Nissan on our recommendation. And you've got a couple, more than a couple, two or three maybe, people that shouldn't be working in any guard dealership. And where do you go after you get fired from a Nissan store? I don't know. Jail? I don't know, but I'm telling you, he's dragging down the GPA of all the Nissan dealers. Okay, folks. I want to thank everyone for tuning in to Earl Stewart on Cars. We enjoyed your company, and I hope that you enjoyed ours. Stay tuned next week, same time. Have a wonderful weekend. Stay safe. Let me go.

Let go. Take go.