Earl Stewart on Cars - 02.06.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Bev Smith Kia

Episode Date: February 6, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Bev Smith Kia in Ft. Pierce to see if she can get the large discount on a new 2021 Kia Sportage EX featured on their website. 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 is 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. Well, here we are. Favorite time of the week. I know you can't believe that, but Nancy and I and Rick and Stu, we really live a good. forward to the show. You heard my introduction. I covered the basics. The fundamentals. We're here to help you folks out there on Radio Land and Facebook and Twitter and YouTube all over the planet. While your next car, at least your next car, repair, maintain it without fear.

Every time I start that, I start thinking about, I can't believe I'm saying it because of all the retailers in the world, car dealers are still lagging behind the 21st century. They were behind in the 20th century, and they did things the old school way. So hang on to your hats, call in, because your calls are the most important thing, and I don't have my call number here,

because I've been doing the thing for 17 years. 877, 960, 9960. That's right. Or you can text us. I don't know where you are. At 772-4976530. You'll have that in front of you in one second. Okay.

So the calls are the key, the postings, your anonymous feedback. I hasten to advise you to be aware if you haven't listened to the show before that you can speak to us and remain totally anonymous. Well, thank you very much. I have those numbers. I got here a little late this morning. didn't have a chance to get my set up the way I wanted it to be, but, hey, that's live radio. If you've been listening to the show for a long time, you might remember the time that

I had a flat tire on the way, and I had to call the show in for the first 20 minutes. Live radio, it's fun, really. It gets the adrenaline going. I think it gets us at our best in the studio here, and hope you enjoy it. I mean, this isn't all an information. so this is also an entertaining show I'd like to thank we have fun let's put that way if you don't too bad but we we love the show I mean we'd be here even if you weren't listening because we have fun and I I think I think we love what we do you know that's if you have a job and you do what you love you're

doing I mean you're one of the luckiest people on the planet too many people punched the clock and and I mean we We've got to have people punch the clock. We've got to have people earn a living, and it's pretty important. But if you can punch the clock earn a living and love every minute of it, you're blessed. And we are. We love what we do here. We go, go, go.

Yeah. Over a real store on cars. 877-960-99-60. Write that number down. You might not have a question now, but you will. I promise if you stick around with us for a few minutes, write it down. 877-9-6-0-9-6-0. Don't write it down if you're driving.

Text number, 772, 497-65-30, that's 772. 497-65-30. And the famous anonymous feedback, your, Y-O-U-R, Anonymous, A-N-O-M-Y-M-U-S feedback.com, dot com, your anonymous feedback.com. I just got a phone call, only on live radio. I'm going to have to hang up on somebody, but I forgot to turn my silence around. That's how discombobulated I am this morning, but...

Can I tell you who it is? No, you wouldn't know his name, actually. I barely recognize the name. So I'm going to talk about the folks in the studio that I already talked about in my recorded introduction just briefly, and we'll go around the horn here, because, as I say, calls are important, and probably the most frequent calls we get. I'm not sure about that, but it seems, Rick Kearney's sitting to my right is an automotive,

he's a certified diagnostic. He's been in the business so long that he knows everything about cars. I was trying to say, certified, what am I trying to say? Certified. Faster diagnostic technician. Yeah, that's a mouthful. certified master diagnostic technician. He's called an MDT.

Yeah. I was watching Rick work the other day. And guess what? He can do it now. Blindfold. Yeah, if a car's broke, he can fix it. That's the bottom line. And if you have a question about cars, save yourself a ton of money instead of going into a car dealership and getting ripped off in the service department. You got a little squeaker rattle or

noise or something that's bothering you a little bit. Call Rick. 877-960-99-60 or post it to Facebook. Facebook.com forward slash rolling cars. Facebook.com forward slash rolling cars. And because same thing with Instagram,

Twitter, Periscope. We don't get a lot of periscopes, but we're out there all over cyberspace. You know, if you go to a car dealership and say, there's something wrong with my car, can you fix it, what do you think the answer is going to be? they'll say, sure, sign here. So better to have an idea of what your problem is

and the idea of what the cost might be before you go in. So you call Rick Kearney. And then to Rick's right is Stu Stewart. He's also Earl Stewart, but he's my son. Don't call me real. And he's, he is hands-on in the dealership. We are a car dealer. We have a car dealership.

This is not an infomercial, my hasten to add. We will not try to sell you a car on the show in any way, shape, or form. And we will admit there are a lot of better cars out there than what we sell. A lot of worse cars out there than what we sell. There's some good car dealers. I won't see there's a lot of good car dealers, but there are good car dealers out there. We're not the only ones. And the good thing about being a car dealer, and I've been a car dealer since 1968, you heard me right,

1968. I've been there and done that. I've done it the wrong way. I did it the long way for a long time. And so I know all the tricks of the trade. I know what can happen when you come into a service department, when you come into a sales department. I know about bait and switch advertising because I did it. I'm not proud of it. And that's the reason I call myself a recovering car dealer. In fact, I wrote a book. There it is right there. Confessions. Confessions. Confessions. a recovering car dealer. I just spilled my guts, told it like it is. And the book's available for you so you can learn how to avoid being ripped off by a car dealer. It's available on Amazon. I'm not selling you the book because I want money because I don't get money from the book.

All the money from the book goes to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. That's right. The biggest, no-kill shelter in the United States. We take dogs in. We have 600 dogs right now. We found homes and saved 63,000 lives. Yes, doggy lives. Confessions are recovering car dealer, 100% of the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and you learn how not to be taken advantage of by car dealer. So that's who I am, what I do. And to my left is the love of my life, my co-host, co-founder of this show 20 years ago, and a strong female advocate that has succeeded and bring this show to near parody with our female listeners. And we call her Mrs. Sunrise. We call her Nancy.

And she's also going to tell you about an unbelievable offer to you new listeners for first-time female callers. But first, ladies and gentlemen, as far as Earl's book is concerned, and the proceeds going to Big Dog Ranch, if you haven't been out there you've got to get out there we were out there just this past week and there is still additional well construction going on

places just amazing and those 600 dogs that are all talked about I think they were all over us each one of them cuter than the other and they had so many puppies it was unbelievable but it's a place that you can literally spend the day in

and myself after I left there, I said, hey, what do I want to do if I ever get a day off? I'd like to go out to Big Dog Ranch. The spa out there for the dogs? Incredible. Take a trip out. Weather's perfect for it. Go out to Luxahatchie.

Big Dog Ranch, they cater to big dogs and little dogs. So, on with the show. Earl was talking about being an advocate for the ladies. Indeed, I am trying to be. build a platform here. Well, it's been a little slow in the process, but we're moving forward. The 21st century has certainly taught all of us a whole lot, the females, that is, learning that they are a huge part of the auto industry. And I always add to that, that if a car dealer doesn't realize who we are, well, it's called a financial,

suicide. So with all of that said, I have $50. $50 for the first two new lady callers. $50 for the first two new lady callers. Call and say hello. Call and share your shopping experience with us. Did it go as you planned? Did you take your vehicle or the family's vehicle in for service? Anything at all? We'd just love to hear from you. also a couple of other things in the news there's a lot in the news we're going to talk about well I don't know whether we'll get to it or not but it's a little teaser and that's about automobile insurance

and it was in the believe the Palm Beach Post this past week and driving less how to pay less for your insurance and it's something that we really lack doing going

to our policy checking on it just every so often because prices change and right now it's the new normal the pandemic and things are changing all the time and you'd be surprised your your insurance company just you know may listen to you and whatever you have to say and you can reduce your car insurance another thing that's interesting in the news is that is a young lady she's 42 years old She's in Marion County, and she now sits in jail. And she is the major thief in Marion County of the catalytic converters. And they did a raid and found about 90 of them in her home.

And the converters are in the news now. They are just being ripped off of cars in guess what? one to three minutes one to three minutes and guess what the most expensive converter is on the Dodge Ram the Dodge Ram

$2,500 the going price for that is $3,460 those precious metals go far 877-960 or you can text us at 772-4976530

we're going to go straight to the phones. And don't forget, www.W.W. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We're going to go straight to the phones, and we're going to talk to John, who's been holding from Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. Thank you for always being there and such great enthusiasm. Two questions I have for Rick. First question, I want to know the opinion of Rick about the step-lider design on the tailgates of the GMC trucks. Rick is an old-time. Rick is an old-time. I'm truck owner, and I want to see his opinion of that, and the second part of it, if it's so great, how come other manufacturers don't have that same process? I want to see what Rick says.

My opinion on it, for an old guy like me with bad knees and a bit of a belly, that's a great idea. I mean, makes it easier to get up into the vehicle, into the bed. Why the others haven't followed, I can only guess that maybe it's... I don't know what that is. I bet a lot of our lifters don't know what the step ladder design is. That's about so our listers can. On the GMC, and actually there are some others that have come out with these. When you open the tailgate on your truck, they actually have this fold-out little ladder

so that you can step up to climb easily into the bed of the truck. And I think they even have like a little handrail that pops up. So it makes it easier for someone that, you know, you know, isn't a 20-year-old kid to get up into the bed of the pickup when you need to get to something up near the cab. One quick observation from somebody that didn't even know about it, I think it's a great idea. Yeah. And I think that's one of the reasons why the F-150 is the number one-selling vehicle in the world. Well, it's actually GM has this.

Yeah, well, GM, you know, GM is... Well, the F-150s a Ford. Yeah, I understand that, but the point is that General Motors owns Ford, and they're pretty good. I mean, I'm sorry. General Motors is a competitor for it. Yeah. And I think that they're trying to be number one. And a better way than to...

Oh, yeah. And I like that. I think it's a really cool idea. Why nobody else has done it, I don't know. But I have seen others, though, they have like a step that you can hit with your foot and it will pop out from under the bumper. Yeah.

But if you've got the tailgate open, you can't use that. It's going to be embarrassing to the other truck manufacturers, the fact that Ford owns the market and has for so long. Oh, yeah. And I think they're all shooting it Ford, and I think one day someone's going to catch them up. They will someday, but I don't know, because the F-150, that thing's just, I mean, ever since the F-100, even before that, Ford's just owned it with trucks. They came out with the aluminum. Everybody said they were crazy, and... And it worked. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, what can you say? John, thanks for that. I didn't know about that. Earl entered the car business in 1968. On this show, we recognize that there's other great automobile manufacturers, and one of them is Subaru. Subaru was formed, just when Earl entered the car business, was formed 53 years ago. And in 1989, Subaru merged with Isuzu, and they failed. at their first factory in Indiana.

And I just want to bring up the fact that Subaru has very good ratings. And I'll bet you, even Earl probably didn't know from 2007 to 2016, there was a joint venture where Subaru produced the Toyota Camrys under a special license. Were you aware of that, Earl?

You know, I have a vague memory, but I'd forgotten it. That is interesting. You know, it's amazing. I didn't realize how long they've been here. And I'm also, I wonder why it's taken them. They haven't grown. And they build a great car, highly, you know, respected quality and pricing, competitivity, and everything else.

But they just have never grown up to be like a Honda or Toyota. Don't understand why. I agree with you 100%. But that's why I want to mention that we don't only talk about one or two different things. brands. There are some of other great cars out there, and Subaru happens to be one of them. Well, thank you, John.

Always a great call. I love it when people tell me somebody didn't know. Step letter, tailgate idea. What a great idea. Very nice. And Subaru also has the highest grade point average of all our mystery shop dealers. Good manufacturer, good franchise. Okay. Great information.

Call again next week. We love you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. 877, 960, 9960. And we love your callers. We love our regular callers. We love our new callers. And, of course, Nancy, remind you,

first two female callers, 50 bucks, ka-ching. No conditions. If you're new, you haven't called the show before, and you're female, we want you to call. We want to pay you money for it. We're not ashamed. Also, don't forget, www. You're anonymousfeedback.com.

still a cybermaster yes I have to compliment you on the shopping report I think Agent Lightning did a great job and it was different I was a little bit worried because we shopped this particular dealer before this is the third time in the year yeah but it seems to get interesting

it said they're all different it's like a box of chocolate you never know what you're going to get I can't I can't take any credit for this this is all Frank Gonzalez He gets all the credit for hiring. Well, you'll hear it in the shopping report, but for running the offer that caught our eye, it was a big bait-and-switch ad we saw,

$8,000 over Kelly Blue Book for your trade, and that just makes it easy to come up with a plan and a mission for a mystery shopper. And it also brought out something that probably a lot of listeners aren't aware of. There's a whole industry out there that car dealers are their customers, and this industry is,

is a bunch of con artists that designed direct mail and now it's digital. Tent sales. Tense sales. Deceptive advertising, get them on the door. They call it move metal. We looked at this particular vendor, this particular fellow that's affiliated or came in and did business with our mystery shopping target, and he guarantees to move a lot of metal. That means sell a lot of cars. And you can see how cold it sounds, move metal.

They're not even selling cars. They're moving metal at any cost to the consumer. And they make a lot of money selling canned promotions to car dealers. And a lot of times they guarantee X number of cars get sold. And it's quite a, it's an inside look at car dealers behind, the curtain as to what happens and why you get victimized. We did a, I think we mystery shopped a tent sale several years ago with Agent X, and we did a little research.

We found the promotion company, and I think it was, I can't remember if it was a slasher sale. A slasher sale was a popular sale in the early 2000s where they would have the organizers of the event, the company come out, and they take over the salespeople, the sales managers, they set a desk. Turnkey, you pay the money, and they do it all. They bring in the closers, and a lot of them are kind of a little rough around the edges, you know, like knuckle-cracken, suit wearing, just heavy hitters. And they come in and they say, get there early at 7 o'clock in the morning, and they generate a whole lot of buzz before the event, and they sell a lot of cars.

And Earl just mentioned they guarantee, in a lot of cases, a certain amount of profit to be made or a certain number of cars to be sold. And if they don't, they give you your money back. They give the dealer the money back. So they are highly motivated to make every deal they can. And that doesn't mean that they're going to give you good deals. That means they're going in hard with the pressure. You know, I interrupt you, Stu.

I'll tell you what, it sounds like as if that this has gotten just a little bit more sophisticated than when it was going on in the 20th century. I remember it like yesterday, and it was a lot of shenanigans. But today, it is just amazing that this. way of selling cars is become such a well i don't want to get bumped off the air so we'll just move on i think you guys get the idea i think uh frank gonzalez the uh general manager and partner of bebsmith kia uh for providing us with rich material to use this week absolutely i got something else that's a nice way to put it a little uh little preview not next week but the following week

we're going to have our longest distance mystery shop ever. The previous record holder is old by, it was up in Pensacola. I forgot the dealer up there, Alan Turner, I think, up in Pensacola. We're going up to Tennessee, and we'll be in the Nashville area. And so I'm giving a heads up to the dealers up there. I'm not going to tip you off onto which franchise. I won't say anything.

We're going to mystery shop. But how far away is Nashville about 800 miles? That's Sherry. We'll do that after the show. Nine hour drive. All I know is Agent Lightning is excited. Okay, guys, I'm going to interrupt everybody and go to our first-time female caller, and her name is Tanya, and she lives in the Jupiter area. Good morning, Tanya.

Good morning, Nancy. Welcome. This is my first. Thank you so much, Nancy, and I've been listening to you now for a couple months, and I have a question. We've had some really cold nights, and when I've. leave for work in the morning halfway when I'm on my way to work my tire pressure light comes on and it says that you know it shows the tire that that is a little low and why is that every time that it gets cold well I'm going to send that question over to Rick but off the top of my head

I do have to answer that because I do check my PSI on my own vehicle and the temperature to really affect your tires. And you have to check your tire pressure whenever it is cold and it has certainly, certainly been colder. So it is going to really affect your tire pressure. Now we'll go to our genius who sits across from me, Rick. It's actually just plain physics, really.

Cold temperatures causes pressures to decrease. If you took a balloon and blew up a balloon, tied it up and put it in your freezer in a few hours it would shrink down as the air got a lot colder inside that pressure decreases and the balloon would get a lot smaller bring it out let it come back to room temperature it's going to come back up and it's just a matter of cold causes pressures to decrease so you can add a little bit of air to your tires that's why I always recommend keeping your tires up at the level that is the number on the sidewall that's tire, that keeps it a little higher than that threshold point for the tire pressure sensors.

So when you do get that cold air and the pressures go down, you don't lose as much pressure in the tires. And, Tanya, there's no danger to drive the car when you get in the garage and the warning sensor comes on because as soon as the tires warm up, the air and the tire will expand, and it'll be up to standard recommendations. So you're talking of a couple PSI, three or four pounds per square inch, and that comes back quickly as you drive the car. But like Rick says, so you don't have to see the light at all,

just put about five more pounds of the air on the tire than you have, and it won't even come on. You'll never know that the air is expanding because the light won't be coming on. You need to get over that threshold. Tonya, let me take a moment and let you know that you sound like an educated consumer because that pressure in your tires is really important. It's amazing what it affects on your car. But these tires are carrying a lot of, well, how many pounds would you say, Rick?

How many tons? What is the number? The average car right now is about 4,000 pounds. 4,000 pounds. And it affects the wear and tear on your tires, everything that you have in your trunk affects your tire it's just amazing so you are definitely on the money an educated consumer and I can't thank you enough for calling and saying hello to us here that was yeah and that was a really great explanation because the PSI when the light comes on

for example it'll say you know 28 and then as the day gets warmer and I start my car and then it goes up to 30 you know so that definitely makes your explanation was excellent that makes sense yeah that's a real confirmation thank you so much and i hope to hear from you again oh thank you so much nancy and i love your show and my husband and i listen every saturday morning so this is the first time i i've called so i really appreciate your your explanation and your your advice. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Spread the word, Tanya, tell your girlfriends and tell them to give us a call because they, too, can win $50 for the first

two new callers. Yes, I certainly will. Nancy, thank you very much and have a great day. Thank you. Enjoy the Super Bowl. Yes, we will. You too. Enjoy the Super Bowl. I had to mention that because there's more women watching the Super Bowl this year than ever before. So things are moving in the right direction for women. They are. They are. I agree.

There's a lot more women watching this year. Yeah. We have a whole lot more to do, and we can do it. Yes. Thanks again. We do, Nancy. All right, thank you. Have a great day. 877-960. Or you can tax us at 772-4976530. And don't

forget about Earl's vigilantes. the girl's hat got a lot of, well, they've got a lot of attention this past week, and there's a whole lot more, well, people at the Big Dog Ranch that know all about girls vigilantes, and I think Stu can sum it up for us. Well, we've set up a website, which is a kind of a meeting place for people who want to help consumers in their area, help avoid getting ripped off, get in a car or getting a car service, and people who need help. So, and it's a one-stop shopping.

It's Earlsvigilantes.com. If you go there, you can volunteer to be a vigilante, or you can find your state and find one of our vigilantes, and you're able to contact them to get advice and assistance getting your car, getting your car serviced or fixed. We actually have collision experts, body shop experts as well, and so it's a great resource. If you need some information in the week before,

you know, before Saturday, where you can call us and we'll give you the advice, too. But if you sign it to a vigilante, you get a cool hat with a cool logo patch embroidered on it. I forgot to wear my hat this morning. Oh, yeah, well, it was a rush this morning, so you're forgiven. But anyway, go to Earlsvigilandies.com, check it out. It's a cool looking site. And also, while I'm plugging our web activities, we also have a refreshed, remodeled, recommended dealer list. And that's at good dealer, baddealerlist.com.

It's all one word. Good dealer, baddealerlist.com. And we have graded all the dealerships that we've mystery shopped over the years. And I did a little count. There was a period of time before we started saving these mystery shops digitally. At one point, I think you were actually getting handwritten reports in the very beginning. So they're not all there. There's hundreds and hundreds of them.

But like I'm looking back, we were doing mystery shops back in 2005, 2006. And I think the earliest ones there, I think, are on from 2012. So the oldest ones are probably lost to history. But some of those dealers might not even be in business anymore. So this is a refreshed up-to-date list of the behavior of car dealers in South Florida and beyond. That's interesting that you mention that about handwritten. Here we are 17 years later. And I'm kind of an old-fashioned girl, believe it or not.

And I'm still pen and paper. I do have my PC. I would love to get a camera on your setup over there. I got papers up to my eyeballs. And my problem is I don't throw everything away, but my oh my, how things have changed as far as this show is concerned. We have definitely moved into the 21st century and include a lot of consumers that weren't even recognized some time ago. Let's get to the call. We've got our YouTube over here. Rick, what's the YouTube then?

Michael Elliott's asking, Earl, should I trade my car in or sell it to a private party? It's a 2014 Nissan Maximum with 89,000 miles, and he also asked, do I have to pay dock fees in Kentucky? Probably pay dock fees in Kentucky. I don't know. We'll have to double check on that. We can Google it for you and get you an answer. As far as selling your card online, selling it yourself, that wasn't a bad idea a long time ago, but it's a hassle. and it's always been a hassle.

We recommend that you use some digital selling techniques, and one of those would be Carvana, another one would be CarMax, another one would be We Buy Anycar.com, and I might be leaving out a couple, but the whole used car world has become digitalized in the past two or three years, and it's so easy now to get prices, on a used car. I mean, you can check sources like Kellybluebook.com and Cars.com and Edmonds.com.

And then the best, if you really want the most accurate, did he mention the make of the car? Nissan Maxima. Okay. You've probably got two or three Nissan dealers in your market. Call the used car manager at each different Nissan dealership and say, I have a car, I want to sell you. I don't want to buy a car from you. I just want to sell a car. and go over there and let them appraise your car. Dealers buy cars as many as they can. Use cars are in short supply, high demand, low supply.

So they like to buy your car, but they also like to buy it cheap. So what you do is you go to the first Nissan dealer and say, give me your best price on this car. I want to sell it. I'm downsizing. You know, pandemic, unemployment, I've got problems. I need a money. I've got another car in the family.

What will you pay me? Because I'm going to go to the Nissan dealer down the street, see what he'll pay me, and then I'm going to the Nissan dealer over here, and then I'm going to CarMax. You get the idea, competition. Get the best price you can from each dealer, and that's probably going to be your best price in your market. You'll do. And I'll answer you a quick about Kentucky dock fees. Earl Nancy, I have a good friend up in Louisville, Dennis, and he's got a Toyota dealership up there.

He has a dock fee, I think it's $2.99. And I looked it up. The data is old, but in Kentucky, it's around $300. $350 is the average, and up to about $700. So not as bad as it is in South Florida, but there's no cap in Kentucky. So they can charge whatever they want and call it whatever they want. Great information, Stu. Earl, I have a question for you.

Let's say before the pandemic, I know a lot of consumers that have sold their use car privately, and the reason for it is because they'll get more for it if they have the time, and there's a security and safety, you know, to take into consumers. consideration, but would you say that was an accurate statement? Now, like I said, before the pandemic, because nobody's going to have anybody come into their house to take a look at a car. Well, it wasn't so much the pandemic. It was the fact of digitalization of the used car market where you can get a price for your car from many other sources, and you can get a competitive price. When you're dealing with individually, you have credit problems, you have security

problems. You have credibility problems. Selling a car for one individual with another can be a real nightmare. And I would put that on the bottom of my list. Safety issues too. Safety issue, yeah. So, yeah, I don't recommend it. Ten years ago, it might have been kind of a good idea today. It's a bad idea. Yeah, definitely today it would be a bad idea. But back then, a person would get more for their car than they would if they took it in and, you know, sold it. Anyway, we're going to go to the phone lines and we're going to talk to Marty good morning Marty good morning how are you we're well thank you a quick question I've got a 2019 Camry that is on a lease the lease is up in November if I

decide not to get another Camry in other words that that's get the 500 and that that saves the 350 for southeast Toyota by getting another Toyota. Can I sell that car outright? Will somebody buy it so I can make any money on it? Well, you have to find, you have to do the arithmetic, Marty. There's a purchase option that you have in your lease contract. So you need to find out what that number is.

And then you need to say it's $17,000. Okay, $17,000. That range. Then you have to determine what the market value for your $2,000. 19 Camry is in your market. And you can get that the same way I just described before by shopping it with other toilet dealers. You could go to a toy dealer used car department and see what they would pay for your used Camry. And you don't have to tell them you don't own it at the time and you don't have to tell them it's a lease car. Just tell them you want

to sell it. And that way you'll determine the market price versus the $2,000 versus the purchase option price. So if the market price is higher, then you exercise your purchase your purchase option price and you flip it. You turn around and sell it to the dealer that offered you more money than the purchase option price. Okay. Can any dealer, though, buy it for my payoff price? They can't buy. No, well, the dealer can't buy it if you want to exercise the option. They can buy it if you don't exercise the option, but you have the right. You have the right of first refusal on buying that car. I mean, do I physically have to buy it and then sell it?

Well, what you do is you, yeah. Sometimes the dealer do, it's called an in-and-out deal, so it's a simultaneous transaction so that you'll handle the purchasing and then the selling and the reselling back to you. But you've got to watch out because that's an opportunity for some dealers to slip in hidden fees on that, even though you're buying your own car. And there's also a fee from the lessor. to you that you'll have to pay and the dealer will typically charge you their

dock fee, hidden fee, a dealer fee, whatever you want to call it and that's a factor and that's something you should negotiate with the dealers say listen I'm not going to pay you this if I'd rather deal with another dealer and won't charge me any fee or whatever but you will have to pay the fee to the leasing company Okay, so in other words, you have to pay a fee. In other words, normally, if you don't get another Toyota, you're going to pay $350. Exactly, exactly. So in other words, you're going to still pay $350 even though you're buying it.

Exactly, and then you would also have to, well, you're not going to, the one thing you're going to get out of, you're not going to have your above average warrant terror because you're going to be buying the car. So the warrant there is your problem. Okay. But in other words, even if you did this through your dealership, you still have to pay the $350, but in your dealership, I'm not going to get any dealer fees. Exactly.

Exactly. We have no fees. Right. Okay. All right. Let me see what happens in November. Okay. Call us if you need any more information, Marty.

Thanks very much for the call. Yeah, Marty. Give us a call again. He's 7-7-9. 609960 or you can text us at 772-49760 and that little teaser that I mentioned at the beginning of the show about how to pay less for your insurance boy Alan if you're listening give us a call did you know that certain policies have a standard offer and it's a low mileage and if you like everyone else is you're sometimes your car sitting in the garage forever um you ought to take advantage of looking into your insurance policy uh i think we have a no no call i we got plenty of text and i'm sorry there is there is a call i hope snuck back in yeah good morning miss allen and jupiter uh i have a question i was listening to

the previous caller regarding leases i have a uh uh two thousand and eighteen Mercedes E300 that I leased for three years. I liked the car, so we bought it. And my question is, is it generally a smart thing to buy the lease car? I know it depends, I guess, on the residual value, whether car manufacturers that are better buys than others or or leases to deal with. Yes, it is, Alan. If you can get it near the market value, you don't have to buying below the market value. If you want it yourself, best thing about the 2018 Mercedes, you drove it for three years. You know the car, you know you took care of it, or you know you didn't take care of it, but you know the car. When you buy a car off a used car lot, it's a pig

and a poke. You don't know what happened. You have to take the seller's word generally. You can do a car, you can check some facts and have it checked out by a mechanic, but you know that 2018 Mercedes better than anybody. So if it's a good car and you had no problem, you have a with it, you maintained it, it'd be worth $1,000 more than what you could buy it for if you had to buy it off of a lot. Yeah, another comment on buying the car. I went to the dealer and asked him about buying it from him, and, you know, if that was a smarter way to do it, well, they guarantee the dealer in question just said, well, we guarantee the car, they buy the car back from you, after you, and then they lease, send it, sell it to you, but they add another year's warranty

to the car, but they charge you for that, of course, plus a dealer's fee involved in the transaction. So I bought it directly from Mercedes-Benz leasing company, whatever that was. That was smart. And they didn't, we had just had whatever the title tags and, and, you know, Yeah. What was a tax was involved, but that was it.

But anyway, it's just my comment. It's a great show you have, and thank you for being there. Well, thank you, Alan. And that was a smart movie way. Dealing directly the Mercedes, you saved yourself some money. And that warranty probably wasn't worth the paper it was printed on anyway, probably a power train. Right, yeah.

Okay, well, thank you very much. You all, have a good day. You too. Bye. Thank you, Alan. You know, I have to take a moment and thank all of you who are listening, who are texting, who are calling. You're an important part of the show, and we certainly appreciate you every single Saturday.

Give us a call tool free at 877-960. 9960. Don't forget, www.W. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And I have $50 for one more new female caller. Now to Stu. Hello. Thanks for it. Before we get to Anne-Marie's text, because she always has the first text of the day. That's a new tradition.

Anne-Marie gets the first text of the day. But this made me laugh. We were talking about dealerships hiring event coordinators to come in and put on these sales, heavy-hitting, high-pressure stuff. Robert in Annapolis texted us and reminded me there's a movie out called The Goods. Well, it came out a decade ago, I think 2011, about a car dealership that is about to go out of business. they have to sell 200 cars that month so they call in a company

to do a sale at their dealership. It's called The Goods. It's Jeremy Piven, Ving Rames was in it. It's a comedy, The Goods. The Goods, yeah. G-O-O-D-S. Yeah, and so it's a hilarious, it's a comedy about a car dealership

doing everything they can to sell 211 cars in a short period of time. Oh, I know. I watched it. And, yeah, I already looked it up. You can rent it on or get it on Amazon Prime. Oh, cool. Are those car dealers right here in Palm Beach County? I think it was in Las Vegas, but I could be wrong.

I don't remember where the setting was. But we'll jump over to Amory's text. And Amory says, good morning. I was watching Motor Week last Saturday, and they showed an electric pickup truck being put through its paces on a very snowy track. That got me wondering about the performance of EVs, the electric vehicles, under extreme cold and heat conditions. How could the EV battery be protected from extreme cold or extreme.

heat so the vehicle starts every time one wants to go somewhere. Internal combustion vehicles have engine heaters up in Minnesota. What would EVs need up there? What would EV batteries in the heat of a summer in Arizona need? How impervious to temperature extremes are EV or hybrid batteries. Thanks. Looking at you, Rick. That one is, I want to admit it, it's over my head. Really? Let me take a stab of. I think, I think, I think, that what Amory is referring to is when we first started out with electric vehicles, it was a huge problem. And they were laughing at the Chevrolet Volt, because if you had one in Minneapolis, you know, your expected life or the distance you would go would go from

300 miles to 75 miles. Yeah. And so it's just all a matter of technology. And I don't believe that temperature is going to be a challenge. I think that the technology, that the technology of the battery that they've designed today. Every day goes by, there's a better battery. And this is what it's all about batteries. And there's a huge, huge. You look at the vaccine we have with the COVID virus. Where am I going with that?

Well, when we got hit with the COVID virus, they said it's going to take 10 years to develop a vaccine. And they got one and less than a year. The scientific knowledge and data that we have today is focused on batteries and electric vehicles. And we're talking now about an electric vehicle, autonomous electric vehicle, in two years. And that's the Apple Hyundai Kia merger.

So I don't think, Anne Marie to answer your question, that today or tomorrow it's going to get better and better and better. They're not going to let that stop this. No, no, this is inevitable. All right. When I say it was over my head, I just mean more out of my range of expertise. Oh, yeah, sure.

It's out of my range. I guarantee, like you say, the engineers that are designing them have taken that into account. And they've probably got batteries that can handle Alaska. We can't tell the specific technology that's going to handle that. But if a Tesla has stopped in Minnesota during the winter, it would be front page. Everybody was after Tesla. You know, Elon Musk, he's a smart ass. He smokes marijuana.

He's crazy. He breaks truck. companies going down the tubes is never going to make it and now they're worth more money than all the other auto manufacturers together and he's the richest man in the world and he's the richest man in the world

and I guarantee you if there was a hiccup with one of his cars having a problem in cold weather we'd have heard about it oh yeah you remember when that car crashed and there was a fire and it was front page news for a long time and it really called

the question the safety of it but he overcame that I don't know. He smoked marijuana. Big deal. How about Einstein? How about Behoven? Beethoven? How about a whole list of people that did just that? Wow. Are they intelligent? I digress. All right. Craig sends the text. He says he wasn't able to call him to the show today, but he listens all the time. He says, good afternoon, Earl. I have a great question for Saturday. We won't be able to call in. I own a 2014 Jeep Cherokee 2.4 liter that needs to have the spark plugs changed. I was quoted a price of $465 from Auto Nation Pembroke Pines with the service advisor telling me it's a two-hour labor job.

After watching a YouTube video, I change the spark clubs myself in about 25 minutes. I understand the service department is one of the most profitable areas of any dealership, but how can they justify charging two hours of labor and get away with it? Well, because they can, and the hours are not clock hours, they're flat rate hours, and flat rate hour is not, it's somewhat related to time, but it was established by the manufacturer or somebody's book, automation, it probably was a legitimate factory flat rate manual, and they measure, they have a laboratory with technicians working on cars,

and when they have a new operation on a car, they time, I suppose, many technicians probably come up with an average time for an average technician to fix it, and that's what they put out, and that's what you get charged, even though the technician, Rick is a technician, he can fix a lot of cars in half the flat rate time chronologically, and a good technician will generally average well below the flat rate time chronologically in terms of real time. So that charge you see on the repair order of $185 an hour is really more like over $300 an hour because in terms of time. It's another illusory deceptive, maybe not so intentional, but maybe it is way car dealers charge you. And the whole automotive industry, the independent industry, uses flat rates. There's a one of the different manuals. Chilton. Hilton and Chilton. You know, people publish these things, sell them to dealers,

so that the customer says, why don't you charge me two hours? Well, it says right here in the Chilton manual. The big one right now is all data. It's online, but again, it's just a source for flat rate times. Yeah, the hour that you get charged is not a clock hour, it's an hour manufactured for the charge on the car. They shouldn't call it out. or they should call it points or units or they should say but to use the word hour is I think intentionally deceptive okay all right we got more text let's jump back over to them thanks this also there's a follow-up question well I'm sorry another question from Robert in Annapolis Maryland it's a serious question I racked my brain wondering in what circumstances a lease is a good option for a consumer but I truly can't think of one is there any point

that a lease is a good overall long-term option? A lease is a good option for a business for their balance sheet. And businesses are concerned about their balance sheet, the profit and loss statement. And they want to be, they want to have something that an auditor or CPA looks at and says, there's a stronger business.

So when you lease a vehicle, it doesn't become, come a, it's a, you make a monthly payment and it enhances the value of your balance sheet. You don't carry a purchase and a monthly payment if you have to finance it. So there's a very subtle technical advantage to a business. There is no advantage to the individual consumer. Now, with that said, the manufacturers and the dealers love the lease your cars so much that the manufacturers and the leasing companies come up with, special incentives to motivate you to lease a car. And if that motivation is strong enough

for a lease, it can make a purchase second choice. And you should always evaluate a lease in case there's a special deal. He'll kick up the residual value, they'll lower the rate just to suck you into leasing. They want you to lease because when you lease, you're more likely to come back. You have to come back because it's their car. So you have to come back to return the car. and then they're going to get sure with another purchase or another lease. The funny thing is dealers will try to convince consumers to lease saying that you don't have to worry about depreciation, and that's complete nonsense because your lease payment is depreciation.

So barring an enhanced lease program from a manufacturer, it's $6,000 to $1,500,000, they're going to pay depreciation on a lease payment, or are you going to pay depreciation when you trade your car in? And they'll also say, well, if you tend to trade your car in every three years, I don't know very many people that do that. But if you did that, then leasing would make sense. And I'll go back to Earle said, unless there is an enhancement and some kind of incentive program

that's supporting that, it's generally not that great of an idea. Yeah, leasing, another reason leasing came to be was because of no down payment. I mean, think about it. Anything else you lease, you lease it. You lease a building, you lease this. You have a security deposit, but you don't have down payments. So with car leasing, they give you a low payment.

and say, hey, you know, that's great. It's a lease. Well, yeah, $5,000 down. You show me one advertised lease by a dealer or a manufacturer that doesn't have a significant, usually large, down payment in the fine print. So they've taken a lease, and they've turned it into a way to move the metal, to get cars sold to you,

to have you take the legal obligation to make the payments. It's not a purchase, but you know what I'm saying. it gets the car out the door and leasing is a great tool because it brings you back. It gets you out the door, ka-ching, they make the money and it brings you back and they sell you another one so it's purely

a tool of the dealers to make money. There you go. All right, we got a text from Larry in Columbus, and I don't know if that's Columbus, Georgia, Columbus, Ohio. Where else is there at Columbus? It could be a Columbus, Florida, I don't know. But Larry in Columbus says, what do you think about

waiting until they put me in the box before acting like I was changing my mind about buying the car and then saying I have to leave to see if they'll chase me out and offer a lower price. Your mystery shoppers have threatened to leave only to wind up with a better deal. Figured I'd give it a try. Thoughts? It's a great bluff. And I have one of my favorites expressions is it's not a bluff. The best bluff is when you're not bluffing. So I think you should turn around and walk out,

walk out slowly so they can catch you, don't run too fast, because oftentimes come out to the car and say, listen, come on back in, I've got an idea. So if you want to play that game, that's the way to do it. The ultimate bluff is to say the price is too high and I'm going to your competition and slowly walk out the door, slowly get in your car, and see what happens.

if they don't chase you, then go to the competition and get another price. Sometimes they stand in front of the car. Yeah. But I think if you do follow our advice and you get three out-the-door prices and you wound up at the dealership, you might not need to do that. However, if you want to give it a shot, it's worth trying. I mean, if they're honest up to you that point and they were clear and gave you information, maybe they're giving you a good deal.

Yeah, three prices is always the way to go. Ladies and gentlemen, I have to mention Consumer Report. What a great magazine. And in the March edition is 10 car owners love the most. And boy, I'll tell you what, it is really got a lot of road report here. And it's quite interesting that list of the cars that owners love the most. Pick it up, go online, CR.org, I believe. If I'm wrong, somebody correct me, if you're listening here in the studio.

I-77-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. www. www. Your anonymous feedback.com. I want to thank Nancy because I was going to say, no, it's actually just consumer reports.org, but I tried CR.org, and it works. You just save me a ton of time. Thank you.

You sit down my typing time. You know, I have to also add that Sue Fogelman is desperately looking for an answer to her question. And her question is that she wants to know why her new car, I believe this is her personally. She didn't put it exactly like that. I'll read it word for word. How do you feel about new cars cutoff when stopping at lights? Yeah, that's the fuel-saving feature. It's an automatic cutout when you step on the brake out of light, your engine actually shuts off, so it's not burning any gas.

And then as soon as you lift your foot off the brake pedal, the ignition starts and it starts the car. It's about as smooth as they can make it, but I answered her on Facebook. I'm not a big fan of that. I know it's a good thing, but it's annoying. It's a little unsettling to feel complete quiet if you're not in an electric vehicle, and your engine stops, you'll lose that vibration. And there is a slight hesitation when you take your foot off the brake and it starts. It's a quick thing. You can't really just slam onto the gas and take off, which might be the reason why I turn mine off on every car trip.

There's a button and you can turn it off if you find it annoying. Now, the problem is the button doesn't keep it off all the time. As soon as you stop your car and start it up again, the system is reactivated and you have to turn it off again. What about the Lexus that? The old drives? I don't know. Do you have that, or does the automatic stop? I don't want it.

I hope I don't have it. And if I did, I wouldn't use it. I think it's a joke. All right. There you go, Sue. Unvarnished opinions here on Earl Street, Twitter. It sucks. I hate it. And Stu? Because he's a cowboy. Okay, we are going to go to the telephones, and we have Howard from Jupiter. Here's a regular caller.

And thank you for holding Howard. Good morning. That's quite a right. I'm going to make a correlation between pies and batteries. And then you say, what kind of a relationship does a tire have to do with the battery? Okay, here's my formulation. Batteries last about five years. More or less, it'll be a little bit more or less. That's that correct, Rick.

Tires should last five or more years also. No matter how much the thread that you have, left, I think aging on tires, you have to start worrying about it after the tire is five years old. A friend of mine who lives down here permanently said he doesn't have to worry about the tires when the tread life goes down to, you know, he has a penny and he puts the penny in and he says, when I can't see Lincoln's head, when I put the penny in and he says, when I put the penny in and there's nothing to show it's flat then I'll get the tires I told them that's wrong because you have to realize that the rubber ages and you could be driving on

dangerous tires what do you think of that Rick personally I think as long as the tires aren't showing major cracks or anything from dry rot I don't really have too big of an issue with the age of the tires below, say, seven to eight or nine years old? Well, six years is what the NHTA says. So there's six years is a point where you start to be concerned. If there's no cracks and you do a visual inspection, then you're good to go. But I wouldn't buy a set of tires, and you can check the manufacturing date on tires. I wouldn't buy that was four or five years old.

I'd buy fresh. I'd be sure they were manufactured this year. But six years is where you need to raise the red flag and be concerned. Okay, does it have to do with the climate? For example, take a car in Phoenix, Arizona compared to a car in New York City compared to a car in southern Florida. Sure.

Would the tires be affected by those climates Yes, absolutely. I mean, we have on the planet. You know, you make a firestone or a Michelin tire. You've got some on the Sahara Desert. You've got some in the Antarctic, and certainly, you have extremes. So manufacturers build things to fit an average, and if you're an extreme environment, you better be careful. I understand that. So we're, in other words, before you buy a tire, let's say you go into a firestone. You have to check when the tire was manufactured. Is that a good question to ask the person, let's say, at Firestone?

Well, you can check for yourself, and Rick remembers the code. I can never remember the code, but it's on the sidewall of tire, obviously, and I guess the inside wall. And what's the code that will tell the date of a tire, Rick? How do you interpret that? There's what's called a DOT number, and it's going to be sometimes printed on both sides of the tire, sidewall but the date code is usually only going to be out of one side and what

you're looking for is the very last four digits and there'll be something in the name uh and well um let me correct my mind here it's the last four digits the first two are going to be from zero one to 52 and that's the number of the week of the year that it was produced and the last two digits are the year that it was produced so So if it's like 0-421, that tire was made in the fourth week of 2021. If it's 50 of 17, it was in the 50th week of 2017. And there's no law against a tire dealer selling you a car that was manufactured in 1912. So another one of our stupid situations that we do for consumer protection,

there is no law saying that someone can't sell you a tire that was manufactured in the 19th century. So it's stupid, but that's the way it is. So it's a good idea to check and be sure that you buy this year's tire. It doesn't have to be the one that was built yesterday or last week, but the one that was built this year. Yeah, what an understatement. Gosh. Thank you for the information.

Have a good day. Thanks for all, Howard. You're welcome, Howard. I know of consumers just recently that have bought batteries that are outdated, not alone, tires. So it's still happening. You really have to do your homework. Well, old batteries and old tires don't go away. Somebody sells them sometimes.

So if a tire doesn't get sold, you know they're not going to throw it away. It's legal to sell. So I would think a reputable tire seller, like Firestone probably, would probably say Michelin, probably, the dealer would probably say, look, we didn't sell this tire last year or the year before. I know a guy that will buy him. You just want to be sure you don't buy them from the guy that the Michelin dealer, the reputable Michelin dealer, sold him because he wouldn't sell them to his customer,

but I promise you they don't throw them away. And they sell them and somebody else, eventually down the line, some sucker comes in and buys them because the price is right. Yeah, sure. Everybody's, well, not everyone, but a lot of people are flying under the radar. Stu, do you have... Oh, yeah. I got so much material here that will last this. You're going to stay... 20 minutes.

Oh, we. Text here, it says, I had my car in for service at my local Toyota dealer here in the Orlando area. I was told that I need new brake pads. I told them to hold off because I only have 35,000 miles on my corolla, and it seemed like it was too soon. I asked some friends on Facebook, and overwhelmingly, I was advised that there was no way my car would be ready for breaks at 35,000 miles, with the exception of one friend who said by 30,000 miles, I would likely need breaks. I'm going with the majority. What does your team think about this? Well, Rick will tell you, a lot of it depends on how you drive.

And you shouldn't have to have breaks in 35,000, but you don't drive right. If you drag your foot on the brake and some other things, you used to have a check. I mean, it's not worth risking your life to save money. And you go to a reputable dealer and you ask them to show you the brake pads and explain. That's the answer right there. I mean, have them to show the pads, but I mean, I don't think it's not unreasonable

by 35,000 miles to have your bake brands ward, is it? I mean... I have seen cars, Prius, even, that normally the brakes don't even wear. You can't count the hybrid, yeah. But I have seen Priuses with 10 or 12,000 miles that need brakes because the person lives near the ocean and salt has a huge effect but I go with the Missouri answer

show me take me out to my car show me the brakes don't bring me a brake pad because you might have pulled that out of the trash cam take me out to my car show me the pads and show me the little brake measurement tool you have which is just a simple

it's a three color gauge basically green yellow and red and they just hold it up against the brake pad, and they should show you how thick that measurement is. And you might be thinking that I wouldn't know what I was looking at because I have never seen a break pad in my life. And if he showed it to me, I wouldn't know. You might be thinking that, but he doesn't know that.

And so when you bring it in, you say, listen, I want you to check my brakes. And if you think I need breaks, I want you to pull the paths, I want to take a look at them to verify it. That'll put the fear of God in him, and he'll probably be a lot more careful about trying to sell you a brick pad you don't need you know a lot more honest because it is the pads okay all right next one what do you recommend for car dealing services do you suggest a private mobile service or one of those auto spas I see around town

detailing cleaning your car oh gosh I mean I would yeah I would I would look for if you're on Facebook or if you have any groups look for recommendations I think it's all depends on who you get I mean you want some of the good reputation is reliable and it's not going to damage your car look for look for a car wash it has a long line yeah that's that's a great one by my house i detail my car right in the driveway um something else you can do which is a little unconventional um and i'm not kidding but downtown west pond beach you'll see in these buildings uh with the like law firms they'll be set up in there there will be a a detail thing in the parking garage cleaning the cars of all these uh all these high powered lawyers up down there

So I would think they would know where to go. They're getting their Mercedes got clean. Yeah, that's a great place. We're going to go back to the phone lines, and we're going to go to West Palm Beach. John's calling. Good morning, John. Hey, good morning.

I have a technical question. This is for a 2002 Toyota Avalon. Okay. And we just purchased the car. And before I take the dash apart, the lights on the, on the clock and radio and the air conditioner, those are not lighting up. Is there something I should check before that, before taking apart and changing those little

light bulbs in the rear? That's my question. How do I get that to light back up again? Those are all part of the same illumination circuit on there, so it's most likely the bulbs have just burned out on unfortunately it just means a matter of disassembling and replacing those little bulbs could be a fuse no because it would that would take out a lot more than just those the fuse that powers those powers a whole bunch of things okay because you could see the clock working uh but it's very very dim and nothing brightens it up it's just uh so i'm at I'm thinking that it's the light bulbs. Well, if you can see the clock, because it's a digital clock,

you may have something else going on there. You may have a wiring issue. Okay. All right. Then maybe something's loose then. Yeah, that's something you'd want to get in and do a little extra checking on it. Make sure you've got proper voltage getting to everything in there. Okay.

Very good. All right. Like I said, okay, very good. All right, thank you. Yep. Thanks, John. 2002 car. There's an 18-year-old car,

and I guess you just sometimes have to put up with little things like that. You should be happy the car runs well and safely, and you have a little lighting issue. The problem is when you buy an older car, you get a bargain, you get a good price, and then when you take it in to get something, little fixed, it could cost you a pretty good percentage of what you paid for it. I mean, it's a risk.

It sounded too like John has a little experience and is a do-it-yourself. Oh, yeah, if you're a do-it-yourself or that's a whole different ballgame, yeah, sure. And in case like that, Joe, if you've got a little knowledge, you can work your way through it. And, of course, YouTube is a great place to find information to help you learn how to get that in. There's videos out there on everything. amazing if you want to tinker okay dope jumping back over to some text messages why do do cars start to feel loose after a few years the steering wheel the handling the handles the knobs the windows do bolts and screws and welds loosen over time no but everything that you've

mentioned is a moving part and moving parts wear down eventually they just start to wear and loosen up a little bit. Yeah, that repetitious movement. It has an effect after a while. Compared to your body, the hands, everything. So there you go. Cars are like people. When they get old, they start to wear that a little. All right. Old tired and angry. I like this one because it's a good point. I didn't mention this when I wrote up the mystery shopping report about the mask wearing. Agent Lining did indicate everybody at best with Kia was wearing a mask. That was good. But the texter says it's encouraging to see so many car dealerships enforcing mask wearing and your mystery shop reports earlier last year it was disheartening to see so many cases disregard i wonder how many

lives could have been saved if these people had gotten their acts together earlier preaching to the choir that we made that a feature that mystery shop reports that always comment comment on that and you're absolutely right back in april may even uh well until there was even after there were mandates by the counties, we still saw incidences of people not wearing them properly, wearing them down over their chin or something like that. Yeah, let's hope everybody got the memo that's out there in Tampa

watching that Super Bowl. Because some of the news that I saw yesterday were too many without a mask just sondering around. We're going to go to Bobby in West Palm Beach. Good morning, Bobby. Hi, good morning, everybody. I was calling today about repairs and my general rule of thumb is no matter how old the car is I get

engine and power train repairs done at dealers and then as the car gets older I tend to get repairs done at more local mechanics at a better price what do you think about wheel bearing is that something that I would think that would be a local mechanics job on an older car I Yeah, a good mechanic can handle wheel bearings without an issue. And could you, while we're on wheel bearings, could you talk a little bit about sort of wheelbearing noise as opposed to tire rods and just all the things that go into sort of the noises and wobbles and shakes that come out of having front end problems in this case? um so wheel bearing usually makes kind of a i don't know it's like a low roar right but uh wheel bearings usually you'll hear like a growling sound that will get louder the the quicker

you go and one of my tricks that i use for testing a wheel bearing on cars are trying to figure out just where it is if you can find a road that you can do about 30 35 miles an hour and have no other traffic. You literally weave the car from side to side so that the weight of the car moves over to each tire. You know, as you're going side to side, you'll feel the weight of the car moving. And when the weight gets heavier on the side with the bad bearing, the noise will get louder. And when your weight moves to the other side and takes the weight off of that bearing, the noise will quiet down. And that can tell you which side has the bad bearing. And you just got a great excuse to a drunk that get pulled over.

You say, I was just checking my wheel bearings. I suffer. My wheel bearings might have been bad. That's it. That's a good tip to zigzagging. An old mechanic taught me a trick sometime that if you could find a little road that had a building, a building wall next to it. Sometimes you could drive along and hear noises in the car that bounced off the wall. That's another one I use. which which helps we were taught you were just talking about shakes and shimmies in older cars

so what causes like a like I guess more of a shimmy like you're going 40 45 miles an hour you put the brake on and you get a little wobble you get a little bumpy wobble in your brake pedal what's what's the cause of that when you step on the brake and you feel the the pedal start to shutter or the steering wheel shutters, that's actually when your brake rotors are beginning to get warped or have thickness variation that we'll call it

and it means that either the rotors need to be resurfaced or replaced if they're getting too old and too thin and one of the quick things to do is get up to around highway speeds, 50, 60, 70 and step on the brake kind of firmly and try to determine

is it the steering wheel where you feel it most or do you feel it kind of in the seat or in your feet down on the floor? And that will tell you, because if it's the steering wheel, it means it's the front brakes are giving you the issue, and if you feel it more in the seat of the car, it's usually at the back. Well, that's a lot of good information. Thanks very much. Thank you, Bob. You're very welcome.

877-960-9960, where you can access at 772-497-9-7-6-9-9-7-6-5-3-0. Don't forget, ladies, $50 for the first, first, last new female caller. There's still time to call in. You must have some experience to share with us, or maybe even just a question. 877-960, and you can text us at 77249-9-60, and you can text us at 772-497-6530, and you can also get in touch with us at www.W.W. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. St. Okay. We have a text from Donna. Now, Donna called us back in July asking a question about a recall. I'll just read her text. She says two questions, two comments. One, I call it in July about the Camry recall. At the time you said I was not in the recall, and I remember that. Actually, I don't entirely, but I can see our text before.

You sent us your van, we ran it, and your vehicle was not in the recall. She says, now I've received a notice from Toyota that she has a recall, but there's nothing to do. So what she's alluding to is she was now notified that her car, Camry, is in the fuel pump recall, but there's not a remedy yet. And so she was advised to do nothing. So what do I do? Wait, my two Camrys are not accumulating miles these days. Even though I should come in every six months, the mileage doesn't warrant it. Am I putting my tires for life in jeopardy?

and that's a question for our dealership. And also, I called my insurance company about reducing insurance for low mileage. They said they don't do that in Florida. And she also enjoyed your entry this morning very much. Real quick, so I'll let Earl address the recall situation about what you do as far as waiting. Now, as far as the servicing your vehicle,

your recommended service is to get the service done every six months or every 5,000 miles, regardless, even if you're not putting the miles in it, so you'll still need to do your irregular oil changes and tire rotations. So even if you're a low mileage, but I'm not clear if any insurance companies do offer a low mileage discount or they'll change your policy. But I'm going to turn it over to Earl to answer your question

about what do you do now that you've got the recall notice, but they don't have a fix. Well, there are companies that, you know, are you talking about collusion insurance and liability insurance? I think her main question is, how does she handle the recall now that she's been notified that she needs a new fuel pump, but they don't have a fix for it yet. Well, Don, if you feel it's a safety issue, I feel it's a safety issue,

if you're driving on the expressway and you have this, your fuel pump does malfunction, the car can stop, is that right, right? You would feel the engine start to sputter almost so you're running out of gas, basically. You lose power on the expressway. So to me, that's a safety issue, and you have to pull over the side of the road and who wants to pull over. Nancy and I were on the Sawgrass Expressway last Wednesday, and it's a real exhilarating, scary kind of a thing.

And if my fuel pump went out on the Sawbrass Expressway, my whole life would flash in front of me. I wouldn't think I'd make it. So what I would do is I would go to the dealer and say, I don't feel safe to drive my car. You can't fix it. I want another car to drive, and they will give you a car to drive. It's a matter of asking.

They're not going to tell you that, but I'm telling you that. Okay, that answers her question. Let's jump over to anonymous feedback. And the first one came in a couple of days ago. It says, Business Insider has an article about a global computer chip shortage, which could result in a loss of $61 billion in car sales this year. And several auto manufacturing plants are closing due to shortage of computer trucks. And that's true. I read that Ford is pausing production.

And I think... The F-150 plant, Dearborn, closed. Yeah. The shortage is also affecting smartphone manufacturing worldwide. And I read that the article, it looks like because companies like Apple and other, you know, high-tech industries, they're willing to spend more money on the chips than the car manufacturers are. So they might be getting the line share. We've seen some production slowdowns and some availability issues with Toyota.

I don't know if that's related to the computer chip shortage. It is. Now, we've been notified by Toyota to express less production. Yeah, well, we knew that I didn't know if it was directly tied to the chips. But, yeah, so that just kind of gives you, kind of illustrates the way cars are made. It's a global network of parts and manufacturers and, you know, a shortage in one small area of the industry can have an effect that, you know, propagates out through the whole industry, and it is a serious thing. But it also has to do with microchips in general because the demand for microchips in this digital age that is absolutely economies and businesses, you think we're in a recession, we're not.

We're actually in a very prosperous times depending on the industry. And there's a huge demand for microchips, unanticipated. And microchips go in everything today. I mean, you don't have anything that you buy practically. My toothbrush. Yeah, everything's got a microchip. So manufacturers are cars, not only are they selling more cars than ever, I've got a, this is a current automotive news, I'll hold it up.

The headline article says, after record profits amid pandemic, dealer outlook soars for 2021. See, the big profit right there. And the dealer's profit this year, the year before, the year before, for the past 10 years, the dealer's profit of climb, climb, and climb in 2020, it soared in 2021. So when a car dealer cries bad mouth, I can't sell you the car that cheap,

they're making money hand over fist, net profit. The average dealer, I think I got it here, the average dealer in 2020 will make $1,780,000,000, $1,786,000. $1,786,000. The average dealer, now that's net profit. That's after bonuses and all the expenses and paying Uncle Sam, $1,78,000.

In 2009, the average dealer made $668,000. So they made almost, the average dealer today is making almost three times as much money as he did in 2009. So ask yourself, are you making three times as much money now as you did in 2009? I don't know anybody who is except cardiolers. And there's a few plants that have closed down. And it has really affected the industry. We're going to go back to the phone lines and we're going to talk to Frank.

Frank's a regular caller from Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank. Well, good morning, Nancy and Earl and the rest of the gang. I had a pleasant meeting with two-year employees yesterday, of all places. I was on U.S. 1, heading northbound and got stopped by the bridge there just after the golf course. And I could tell, obviously, with the Earl Stewart van, that was one of your employees. And I realized that the car in front of them, Alexis RX-350, was probably being taken back to a customer's house because the driver got out wearing his mask, which I go, that's pretty good.

You're outside the dealership, and they're still wearing their mask, and went back to chat with the guy in the truck who also had a mask. And I mentioned that I know you guys, and I told him a few of my jokes and things, and they were nice enough to laugh. But the gentleman you would know is the mouth of the south. He's a tall black gentleman that was driving on horrible with names. Kevin Middlebrook? I think so.

But then when I mentioned named Randy, because my girlfriend, Ammarie, brings her Lexus into your dealership because it's closer and more reasonable the price and Randy's her advisor and the guy that the car that was being delivered was one of Randy's own customers and but of course it's really nice when the employees always have such good things to say about you about the big Lexus you drive and then that reminded me because again a few weeks ago was your anniversary and I meant to say when I saw you about two years ago before the pandemic out there on Indian Town Road near the

C.R. Chick's place. I see this tall gentleman walking out and opening the door for his wife. And you can see they're still in love and happiness, even at their older age. And that was you and Nancy. And I said hi to you briefly there. Well, I was with Nancy when you saw that.

That could have been very awkward. I realized that. That's why I didn't want to say what it really was. No, I'm cheesy. But anyway, obviously, and they talked about Big Dog Rescue Ranch and the bagels, and it's just I mean it's just you've got a wonderful personality a wonderful crew your family your workers it's really a good place to go well thank you I appreciate the compliment right

and see our chicks I highly recommend CR chicks by the way okay yeah I like it too they did me a really big favor for my club I had four turkeys I had to cook and the manager was nice enough to put him on his rotissory instead of me trying to cook four giant turkeys. Oh, wow, cool. No, they're good people there. And I see sometimes I get their left-over scraps for my critters, the raccoons. It's like they're nice few.

They're great people, definitely. Well, thank you. Keep the show up. I'm telling more people about you, and I'm trying to hit some female callers, Nancy. They're out there. They definitely are. They're just a little shy. Yeah, unlike me.

But you have a good day, and thank you for taking the calls, always. I love hearing you guys. Thank you, Frank. You too, right. Bye, bye. Have a great weekend. 877-960. Don't forget, I have $50 for the next new female caller.

Now back to Stowe. Let's go, Rick. He's got a YouTube. Got a couple of them here. Ernesto is asking, he says, I have an 09 Kia Optima with 110,000 miles with the original drive belt on it, the serpentine belt. I'm going for an oil change service later this month.

Should I get the belt changed, would I also be good to get the water pump changed at the same time? And my recommendation is shine a flashlight down on the belt, and if you don't see any cracks in it and it's not making noise or afraid or anything like that, if it looks like it's in good shape, I would leave it alone. And if your water pump's not making any noise and you don't have any signs of leakage from it, I would leave it be. But the average repair shop would try to sell them that water pump. They're going to try to sell it as a preventative maintenance.

Oh, it could go bad anytime. Well, not necessarily. And if it's been on there that long and it's not leaking and it's not making any noise, leave it be because it's the animal you know versus the part that they might put on that might have a small defect and suddenly go bad in 5,000 miles. They would make the argument if we'd have to replace the water pump later, and we'll have to do double labor because right now we'll be in. We could take it out now?

Well, no, because he's asking, should he do the water pump and the belt is preventative? Oh, oh, I got you. And I don't see the need for it anymore. What's the operation where they replace a water bump routinely? That's when you do a timing belt. When you're taking the timing belt off on cars that had a timing belt with the water pump behind it run by the timing belt, then we would say, hey, you know, at this point might be a good idea because they'll save you money if it goes bad. later yeah you know but yeah i i wouldn't okay i'm an interrupt i'm gonna interrupt you uh i'm so

excited uh we have Kimberly who is a first time caller cool from port st lucy good morning good morning welcome thank you what can we what can we do for you this morning and congratulations you want yourself fifty dollars what can we answer for you should i buy new car or use

better value used cars better value yeah i would i would agree with ero use car um more more uh more for your money definitely i agree Oh, well, that's great.

There's the three of us. It's unanimous. Earl, do you have anything else to say? No, I just, most people don't understand that. You have to do more homework. You have to be more careful when you buy used car. Be sure it's checked out by an independent mechanic. You get a Carfax report.

Be sure you get your campaign reports on www. Is Mycar recalled.com. Exactly. So do all that, be careful, and you eliminate that first year depreciation on a new car. But the right used car is always a much better value than a new car. Yes, Kimberly. Even though it's a used car, you know, you have to apply a lot of knowledge. And it's just, I always say, knowledge is power.

And you really have to do your homework and find out whether that car, first of all, is the car for you. comfort just the list is endless but just do your homework before you you know make that major decision you know to buy a new car used car or a home those are decisions that people make every day and they really have to do their homework okay Kimberly I wish you a lot of luck and I hope that you stay in touch with us and again congratulations on winning $50. Thank you, ma'am. You're welcome.

Okay, let's take it. We've got another YouTube over here. Well, Donovan Lewis, who's been having the issue with the Southern 441 Mazda, where he bought a Porsche from them, and tried to get an extra key, and he's, they had given him a wheel and promised him a key, and then went back on it. Well, he says, good news after three. months they finally agreed to pay for the cost of having the key made by Porsche and he says for anyone struggling to get a dealer to pay for something that they agreed to don't give up and don't underestimate the power of negative

reviews on every website possible eventually someone high up as a dealer will see them and probably not be very happy that's great advice and it's unfortunate that you had to resort to that but today a bad Google Review causes pain on a business. And a lot of us out there, Nancy and I, we always check Google reviews before we choose a restaurant, a department store, whatever we're buying, whatever product. We always, local places always have Google reviews. And you go from one to, we're looking for a new dry cleaner right now.

And we found one in our same market that has much higher, much more. Google reviews and a little bit higher than our current ones so you're right post a negative review someone will see it at a reputable dealership or company and it'll get some activity yeah and also like especially if your complaint is uh following a pattern if when you read bad reviews look to see if there's the same type of complaint appearing over and over again you can give a lot more confidence that's really happening so if you're if you go on there and post your review and it it matches up with some of the other complaints it's uh it really have an impact okay you got some text over there still yeah uh we're on back over on uh anonymous feedback um years ago

we used to get our get cars protected from rust with zbart or zibart zbart zbart zbart how are today's generation of cars protected from rust by the main by the manufacturer do i still need an optional dealer or third-party rust protection service if so much if so how much does it cost No, sir, rebop, you don't need it. But if you really want to spend $700, you can get toy guards. But you don't need it. No, that's a red flag. Someone trying to sell you rust protection today, forget about it.

They're taking advantage of you. Don't do it. I got a question for you. They used to call it rust and dust. I get the rust part. Explain the dust. I guess probably the dust had was like the paint ceiling or the polish or I don't know. Any opinion?

I don't know. I mean, I never thought about it. I used that expression all the time myself. You've been saying for 50-some years. I didn't know what this was. Me too. I was like, wait a minute. I've never actually thought about the phrase. Is a new car that has a rough idle covered under the manufacturer's power train warranty?

No. Definitively. Well, I mean, I suppose theoretically it could be. Well, if it's in the warranty period, it would be, possibly. Rick. well they say a new car so if it's if there's a problem with the car not running properly then yeah that should be covered under warranty especially if it's a brand new car yeah not the power train warranty that would be well it'd be under the factory engine yeah it's the engine yeah

i'm going to be shopping for a hunday sonata soon could you put route 60 hundy and vera beach on your mystery shopping list for sometime in the future you have me hello of course we will let me make a note of that. I'm always looking for a new place to the shop as we spread out across Florida. Okay. What is the scam with very low prices on Craigslist that are not realistic? I saw a 2013 CRV with 60,000 miles fully loaded clean title. You didn't give me the price. Anyway, what's the deal? Okay, Craigslist is kind of like the wild west of online classified ads. Some car dealers list their cars for sale on Craigslist.

It's kind of a labor-intensive thing because you have to keep relisting, and a lot of individuals do it. I'm just going to say, my personal opinion is I'm not attacking Craigslist. I'm sure there's some value to it. It seems I've heard so many bad stories about rip-offs, even safety issues, things like that. I'd be really suspect, but if you are looking at a car in Craigslist, get all the information, run a Carfax report if you can, check for reclass. calls but it's definitely barbara where you're taking a risk by buying a car through that you know I'd say away from the Craigslist I agree it's just trouble waiting to happen all right the next one okay oh you got a call no go ahead yeah we're done

what happens if I get a dog from big dog ranch big dog ranch rescue and it doesn't work out can I return the dog absolutely yes you can absolutely you know the last thing big dog ranch is uh once his unhappy dog owner because We want you to take care of the dog. And if you have a problem, keep taking care of the dog. We want to take it back, and we'll find a better home. As I recall, don't they ask you to sign a document that you will not take that dog to any other pound or anywhere else? That's correct.

But if you have an issue, you must bring it back to them. That's a good point. And another point here is that there are some people that have adopted a dog and they've had it forever. And because of age, health, or whatever the case, they sadly have to bring the dog back. And they do accept them. That's right. And they find a good home for them. They also have a bunch of resources for you because there's lots of different reasons why people can't keep a dog.

Sometimes it's financial. And on their website, they actually have resources. There's grants you can get for financial assistance for pets, believe it or not. Humane Society. There's something called Angels for Animals, Red Rover Relief grants. so they'll work with you and obviously if it's the decision you have to make they want that dog coming back there and they'll they'll place it with a home that works out better so don't worry about that they have a better return policy than a real stroke Toyota we only have seven days you get a little bit more time with big dog ranch rescue and I think wow we're all caught up okay hey if we have time maybe somebody can answer a question for me it's about insurance and my topic that I talked about earlier in the show, and that's the CC-Ailetic converter.

Does insurance cover that when it's stolen? Technically, I think it would if it's a theft of a, you know, somebody broke into your car and stole your media. You know, comprehensive covers vandalism, and that's vandalism. There you go. Comprehensive. But they have to get that dolly and slide under your car. They don't use a dolly.

well they can battery operator saws all and slide right up under and it's in their hands absolutely the saw just do it boom okay we're going to get to the mystery shopping report it's a doozy and it is from Bev smith kea and you are a part of the voting process let us know how you feel about the mystery shopping report now back to the recovering car dealer? Well, we spent a lot of time this year in Fort Pierce, Florida. I was wondering why we were focusing so much in Fort Pierce, but it's a different market, and the dealers are different,

the buyers are different. You go 60 miles south or 60 mile north, and it's interesting how the demographics change. So we found the demographics there are very interesting, and I've been very interested. myself and the mystery shopping reports in that area. I can see you can't neglect that. It's different. Down here, it's all different ballgame. I say down here in Palm Beach County. Last week we mystery shop Sutherland Nissan, and the week before it was Bill Smith, so we really hit Fort Pierce hard.

Both dealers did poorly. Beth Smith earned a D. Sutherland was given an F, and that would mean that Sutherland is not recommended. He will not, we recommend you do not buy a vehicle from Sutherland Nissan. Now, we'll be back to Sutherland and give him a chance to redeem himself. And we do that with all the dealers. But we go back to the good dealers and we keep them all for the expersion honest. This week we return to Fort Pierce, another Bessmith dealership, Bessmith Kia. The last time we were in there, August, Agent Thunder investigated their ad for employee pricing on new Kiyas. despite subjecting a shopper to the typical car dealer

shingrenner, Ms. Smith, Kia, actually gave Thunder a good deal. I remember that report. When it was really employee pricing, we'll never know. But I was surprised when I came to the end of the report. We gave them a passing grade of C-minus. That was a huge improvement over the prior Best Smith-Kia Mystery Shop in April when they ran a deceptive ad that cynically exploited a local credit unions, was that space, space, space coast.

Yeah, credit union. And they had a legitimate offer for first responders, frontline health care workers and first responders. And they exploited that ad. That shop earned them a big fat, as Linda says. Linda style. Yeah, Linda style. And F.

So they're off the recommended list. Well, they would have been off anyway. Once again, it was a Beth Smith ad that attracted our attention. This time, it was an ad on Facebook for a buyback event where for a limited time, it's always for a limited time. That's not in the advertising handbook. Always a limited time. Beth Smith Key is Buyback Center.

They don't have a buybacker. They just finished building it. They got one now. They got one for the sale. But their buyback center will pay $8,000 over $1,000. Kelly Bluebulk value for your trade. Now, www. ain't going to happen.com, but that's the reason we went in.

We called up agent licensing, asking for her to investigate, and her marching orders were to pick out a new 2021 Kia Sportage, EX, to buy. She'd have to use her own vehicle as a trade-in. Prior to departure, we had our experts appraiser accord. the actual cash value was determined to be $17,000, $17,000 for the accord she was driving.

Next, we had to find out what Kelly Bluebook had to say. Kelly Bluebook's trade-in value was $16,017. So if Best Smith-Keele was going to really honor the offer, they'd have to give Agent Lightning $24,000 for a trade, $7,000 more than what our people, our appraisal experts thought the call was really worth. And today, you're pretty much on the money. I mean, someone that knows how to appraise a car and someone has access to the Mannheim real-time daily market,

you can really be within a few hundred dollars of the exact price of a used car. So when we say that this was $7,000 more than what is really worth, we're pretty accurate. Here's a report, speaking as if I were Agent Lightning. Before leaving for Fort Pierce, I went on Beth Smith-Kee's website to get a better feel for their sportage inventory, and what sort of pricing I could expect, their website,

showed several EX models available with discounts of $5,700 off MSRP. I got to around noon park, was greeted right away by Stephen as I climbed out of my car. I told him that he startled me. And then I was there for the... $8,000 over Blue Book buyback offer. I like that, Blue Book Buyback offer. A lot of bees.

Steve came, Steve told me to come with him inside to meet, oh, you can't make this stuff up. Buyback, Billy. And this is a... I don't have gold as soon as I saw that. Yeah, see, that wouldn't work in Palm Beach County, I don't think. I don't know. It works, Pembley.

It works north. I mean, I think our customers would start laughing hysterically if we tried to invite them in to see Byback Billy. And ours would, you know, but maybe further south, I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, I think even in Miami they'd be laughing at the Byback Billy. Maybe they'll call Billy. But Byback Billy works.

I don't know. Is that? I don't know. How do you say that with a straight face? I can't. Fortunately, I have a mask on. We entered the Shoreroom and headed over to a big desk, buyback bully,

buyback billy, and buyback Billy was a bully, by the way. Byback Billy stood behind the desk and greeted us as a way approached, and this really was, by the way, by back Billy. Immediately Byback Billy reached out, extended his hand, asked me to give him my car key.

He said he wanted to get my trade and evaluation going right away while Stephen helped me find my new car. Not sure why, but I reached it in my back, grabbed my keys, handed them over to Buyback Billy. Billy ran out the door and Stephen asked for my driver's license

and he led me to a table where he gathered all my personal information including payoff on my trade. Then he asked me about the vehicle I wanted to get. Stephen told me the buyback event was going great. He excitedly said that yesterday alone they sold six cars.

It's not a lot of cars as it still. It is in Fort Pierce. In Fort Pierce. Maybe. If I sent you six cars, we sold six cars you'd send me a sad face. I would do it. I'd be one of these.

No, you wouldn't. He excused himself to get the key to the sport of GX I picked out. A few minutes later, he returned without a key and asked me for some more information to help him get an official payoff on my trade. I said I felt I'd given them enough info for now. I said I wanted to see the vehicle and numbers before I provided anything else.

I mean, they're getting ready to... It's give and take. Yeah, exactly. You want more information. Give me a little something. Tell me what this price is going. going to be. Stephen accepted this and left to find the key. I've waited for 15 minutes. It's amazing. I've all, you know, it's just the time that people are made to wait in the

process of buying, you know, you think you'd be excited. Well, they, uh, sometimes, uh, maybe they have a problem with their key machine. Sometimes they need a cigarette. Yeah, exactly. You know, I think you hit it on the end. A lot of smokers in the car, but there's too many. Uh, anyway, um, We went outside to see the vehicle. MSRP was $33,085. The addendum label, the infamous, always present, seems like, addendum label for dealer-installed accessories. I've got to admit, this is one of the more extensive lists of dealer-installed accessories.

Probably a little bit more value than most, but still, a little more. I don't know. Those more physical things. They didn't leave anything out, let's put this way. Now, listen to this, mud guards. Well, do you forget to tell them how much they're charging for this stuff? Who wants mud guards? Wheel locks.

Trouble waiting to happen. Cheap wheel locks. You don't want cheap wheel locks, and these are cheap. Sunshade, nitrophil tires, nitrogen. Please help me, Lord. Nitrogen. I mean, consumer reports is it's not worth a nickel. It's not worth anything.

Pinstripes. Tag bracket. Tag bracket. They're going to charge them for the best meth kea? Tag bracket? I don't know if that's it. I think a lot of new vehicles have a front bracket thing that's an option and it's usually in the trunk. And it comes with the car.

They're charging $4,000 for it. First oil change, which is probably free from the manufacturer. I don't know that. With key, it is with both cars. And a car wash, not lifetime. Right. They'll wash your car when you come in for the first free oil change. Yeah, we wash the car already, and it's free.

We're not going to charge you for it. Otherwise, we put it on the add-in-a-old. and they do. They charge you for the dealer preparation. So you're charged, and now they're giving it to you free. No, they're charging you again. Window tent, pocket guards, door-edge guards. And it's absolutely insane. $4,000 for that stack of garbage, worthless.

You don't need any of that. You don't want any of that. Anyway, Beth Smith's list price, not the MSRP, was 37,579, MSRP 33, and this is 375. He gave me a quick presentation, and we left for a short test drive. When I returned, I showed Steve in my phone, on which I had the Internet pricing on the new 2021 supporter GX models pulled up. I asked him if this was about what I should expect to pay,

he said he didn't think it would be a problem. This is typical answer. in the training class. Okay, if they ask a specific question, what do we say? You, Charlie, say, it's not going to be a problem. No problem. Yeah, no problem. No problem.

Don't get into a discussion until you've got them sitting down with your pen and hand, and the buyer's order ready to sign. Oh, here we go. Back inside the showroom, Stephen led me over to buy bag billy. walked away, Billy handed back my keys, asked me to take a seat, now I'm working with buyback

Billy. Remember, Billy is hired, and he hires himself out to dealers all over the United States, and he comes in, charges Bill Smith Key. I'm going to guess, what do you say, 20 grand? Oh, yeah, something like that. It's going to be a huge amount of money. Charged the dealer at $20,000, and the dealer, of course, has to make back that cost, plus what he sells you the car for for his normal profit. So the irony to these special

sales is that you're actually paying more money because you have to pay buy-back billy. It's 20 grand. And where are they going to get it? They're going to get it from you, the buyer. Where am I here? Ask him take a seat? Yeah. Stephen said he'd be back. Yeah. I asked him

what the offer on my car was. He said everything was in the computer. and they would go over that later, push it back, push it back. Not going to give you an answer too early. Several minutes later, a man came over with some papers in his hand. He was probably a manager, but we didn't get a proper introduction. The man said he thought he had a deal, though it would make me happy. He sat down.

That was probably part of Buyback Billy's crew. Probably. Yeah. And this is a travel crew. They go around and they go in, do the sale. They go to the next dealer, next dealer, and they do all these sales. make a lot of money. He sat down, put the papers face down

on the table. I guarantee that's right of the book. Never laid the papers face up. Put them face down. Don't let the mark see the papers. He turned a yellow paper over and showed me the appraisal on my trade. I'll turn the page here.

There's a list of deductions for damage they found on my car. The deductions for a recon totaled $2,000. Here we go. Here we go. Building the devaluation, devaluing your trade. Then the man told me the Kelly Blue Book value was 14,000. What was it really?

We looked at up. 16. 16. So they lied about the Kelly Blue Book value. We checked the Kelly Blue Book, and they cut that by $2,000. Or they exaggerate on the condition. Her vehicle was in very good condition. I used the category very good to get 16.

Yeah, exactly. It's easy. It's subjective. You know, there's reality and subjectivity. He said he had to take off $2,000 for the damages that they would have to repair. Then he showed me the promised $8,000 oberage. My trade in value was $20,000. The man asked me if I thought that was a fair offer of my car. Trial clothes.

I told him it seemed reasonable. So, you know, I don't know, make him feel relaxed. But I wanted to see what I was paying for the sportage. I mean, we're talking about the trade, and we have no idea what they're going to charge for the new key I want to buy, the new sportage. On Q, the manager guy flipped over another sheet of paper, this one of familiar-looking sales worksheet. He showed me the top line, market value was 37, 614, way over MSRP. He took off a $2,500 rebate, which made my selling price $35,114, still way over MSRP. now I don't know I mean we're over sticker folks this is a sale

buyback billy special sale and we're paying thousands of dollars over MSRP okay that's the reason you always that's how they pay Billy that's how Billy pay that's how Billy purchases fancy suits okay instead of the twenty thousand dollar on buyback you missed oh I missed this yeah I showed me the top line market value I love that market value. That's smoke and mirrors. 37,614. The market value is what they say the market is, which is a lie. I did that, didn't I? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, okay. Now I don't know how this happened, but I completely missed a glaring emission. Not surprisingly, okay, in the

middle, in the middle and the value of my trade. Instead of the $20,000 on buyback billy's appraisal sheet, my trading allowance of the sales worksheet was 17,05. It was only after my mission was completed, did I realize this? And I made a note on the margin here as I was reading this. It's not surprising. There's a lot of numbers, and I'm throwing a lot of numbers at you. You imagine how a buyer, a potential buyer, is when the salesperson and a manager and buybag billy are throwing these numbers out. And it's dazzling. You're not having anything in writing. A lot of this is verbal. They won't show you the real numbers and so it's easy to smoke and mirror you into believing what they say and

that's the worst thing you could do is believe what they say a manager guy didn't draw any attention to the trade he went on totaling up the price which included $898 here we go hidden dealer fee on hidden feed total off the door price was 43,133 I'm pretty sure I missed a trade issue because I was so flabbergasted of the ridiculous over sticker price that they were trying to charge. I said, whoa, I think you've got the wrong car here pointing to the market value price.

I said MSRP on the car I wanted was $33,000. The manager interrupted me mid-sentence to say the dealer-installed options package was included in the market value price. I was irritated by his interruption and for the unashamed way he informed me on the inclusion of a bunch of over-price

unwanted junk. Now, when you do one of these turnkey sales and the crew comes in, they're going to be out of town the next day. And the people in that crew are on commission. Everybody's on commission. And all they care about, the buyback billy crew is to get the job done and get the number of cars sold that he promised you so that buyback billy gets paid. And if he has to piss off a few people in the process, he'll do it. And he'll be out of town. He'll be in Albuquerque. when you're complaining. So we need to move along. The manager, let me mid-sentence to say the dealer installed

option of the package was included the market. I did it. Irritate, okay. Here we go here. I said, well, your price is way too high. I tell him I'd seen the internet pricing for the same models, and I expected him to be in that range. The manager then asked me what it was I hope to accomplish today. That's

irritating. I was not expected the question. It was taken aback. I said, I was there to buy a car. He replied rudely. Asked me if I thought I'd be able to get the amazing trade allows and get the special internet pricing. I mean, that's arrogance. I mean, you'd never speak to a customer that way. I asked him, I knew there was always a catch, but I did not expect them to hit me for 43,000

for a sportage. He suggested we talk about payments, switch them, and not to focus on the price. They love that, get on payments. He pointed the payment grid, asked if I could take the car, if he could get me, $643,000. $654 range. I played along and acted an outraged. I told him that there would be a $200 increase on my current car payment.

I had now, I was unmoved, said the 2012-21 Sportage was way more car than my 2019 in a quarter. We went back and forth, cocky attitude, arrogant, and I left in the conversation. It reminded me of the Sutherland thing. Yeah.

Horrible experience, and I just, you know, I think, no mitigating circumstances. show him Billy's uh I want to show you I want to show you a picture of buyback billy there's buyback billy slick right yeah nice suit yeah great smile by back billy slick billy okay I guess we need to vote we have grades pouring in from all over the internet I'll start with Linda's another F from me go away Billy we have a nickname for Billy too it's A.K. Ripoff Billy

and then we started getting grades coming in before you even got it through so I don't need to hear anymore this was like a third of the way in F, F, there is not a grade higher than F so I'm concurring Pesmith Kiah gets an F from me Okay folks we're done to two minutes

I can min F. I've got a total of six Fs here from YouTube and it's F for me This is the biggest failure I've seen in a long, long time F for Merle F for Fort Pierce Do we wish it would be the last? Sorry, folks. Okay, thanks for joining us. Thanks for being part of the mystery shopping report from Bev Smith Kia. And have yourselves for a great weekend. And again, thank you for joining us every Saturday morning and enjoy that Super Bowl. Go Tampa. Bye, folks.

Go. Let me. Go. Thank you. Oh. Oh. And go. Uh.

Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh.

Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Go to me. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Let's go. Let's go. Uh-huh. No. No. Oh! Oh!

I don't know.