Earl Stewart on Cars - 02.15.2020 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Southern 441 Nissan

Episode Date: February 15, 2020

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits Southern 441 Nissan to see if he can purchase new 2020 Nissan Rogue at a very special monthly price. 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. “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. The Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us is my son, Stu Stewart, our LinkedIn, CyberSiber, space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show.

Hi, everybody. Well, here we are. We're alive. We're old Stuart on Cars. Got a team of other experts in here. You just heard my recorded introduction. And I say this almost every morning, every Saturday morning. how much we really like doing the show.

When I listen to radio or watch television, one of my criteria, if I enjoy something, it's because the people that are putting on the performance, I perceive them to enjoy it. So I hope you enjoy Earl Stewart on Cars because I promise you, everybody here in the studio, Rick and Stu and Nancy and myself, and Jonathan, in the background, he's not participating.

But we really have fun. Believe it or not, we laugh. We cry occasionally, but that's usually the technical difficulties, but knock on wood, we don't have any technical difficulties going on right now. But we love what we do. We feel like we're bringing something important to the airwaves, the video waves. We're talking to people about how to buy a car, or release it or maintain or repair it, without being taken advantage of.

And that makes me feel good. We all feel good about that. it's not partly because it's a unique thing we don't i don't know of any other show that does this and uh we kind of flaunt authority because authority isn't taking care of you out there the regulators not just in florida but all over the country probably the world for some reason give car dealers uh pass car dealers are operating as if they were in the 20th century In fact, early 20th century, they haven't evolved. They haven't grown in terms of sophistication and ethics and morality, honesty, transparency, all those things.

They're frozen in time. And they're back in the horse trading days of the early 20th century. And it's just a shame. There's a lot of reasons for that. But here we are, and we are here to help you any way we can. The best way we can help you is if you would contact us during this show. We're on for two hours.

And you have two hours. You can text us. You can call us. We're on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. We're all over cyberspace. The text number is one of our most popular numbers. We seem to get a lot of text. I like the text because we can store the text. We'll get to them

during the show, but sometimes if we can't get to it right away, we'll get to it a little later, whereas the phone calls sometimes pile up, and sometimes we don't get to them, and you're not going to sit there with a phone on your ear for half an hour, but if you send us a text, we will get to it during the show. Text number is 772-4976530. What's on your mind about cars? What's on your mind about, are you thinking about leasing a car?

Or you think about, how do I get the most money for my car? How do I be sure? How am I sure I'm getting an honest price, a fair price? Or you've got a little funny thing happening. Your car's vibrating or making a funny noise. And you're thinking about the last time you took your car in because it was making a funny noise, it cost you $2,000. And you're saying, I don't want to go through that again.

We've got Rick Kearney. Rick Kearney is a certified diagnostic master technician. He's got all the badges. He knows everything there is to know about fixing cars. and maintaining and repairing them properly. And I'm talking about even what we have today and the sophisticated computer-on-wheel-type cars that we're driving. So if you have a question about repairing, maintaining, Rick's the guy.

And the rest of us, Nancy Stewart and Stu Stewart and myself, can help you in the sales end of it, buying and leasing. So 772-497-6530. If you haven't got a question or thought now, write it down. 772 497653 and of course we'd love to have you call

calling is really best if you can get through and I have to say sometimes we've had technical problems with the phones but if you don't have to wait too long and you can call right now the lines are quiet

I believe so if you wanted to call now we could get you right away 877-960 9960 and write the number down like I said before with the text you might not have a question right now

but you will. If you stay with us for half an hour, I'm not expecting you to stay with us for two hours. Love you to stay for two hours, but that's a long time. You'll have a question. The call in the number is 877-9-99-60. 877-9-6-9-960. Facebook. Facebook.com. Port slash Erlancars. Facebook.com.com slash Erlant cars. And YouTube.com. forward slash rolling cars right so there we are and of course periscope and Twitter we're all over and the postings will we will get to those too we banks the postings now here's our most interesting contact number nobody's got this I mean I've never heard of anyone do this ain't gonna happen dot com is one of them I forget about that one I was

thinking I was actually think actually ain't gonna happen dot com that's a website in progress and we're putting some of these crazy, stupid advertisements on there that car dealers say come in buy a car for $20 a month. You know what I'm talking about. But what I was really thinking about was our anonymous feedback line. If you want to remain totally anonymous, all you have to do is go to anonymousfeetback.com. Your.

I'm sorry. Your anonymousfeedback.com. Why, oh, you are? You're Anonymous Feedback.com. Your anonymousfeedback.com. I know I'm a broken record, but you've got to give you time to write it down. And people like that. I have a lot of people that say, listen, if they want to have a comment or they want to make a criticism

or they want to whatever, why don't they just call the show and identify themselves? Why do they want to be anonymous? I'm telling you there's nothing wrong with anonymity. I mean, we have police lines. that have anonymous informants. We have whistleblowers for corporate America. And there are people want to remain anonymous. I mean, cut them a little slack.

I don't mind being, you know, I'm a public figure. People know me, and that's just me. But there are a lot of really good people out there. They just want to have their anonymity. They don't want to be bothered. So you can email us www. dot com anonymous a n-o-n-y-m-o-us I just did that because I'm proud that I can spell anonymous and I can spell it quickly anyway kind of like Mississippi I like

right M-I-S-I-S I-P-P-I-Rick a lot of people might want to remain anonymous because that way it doesn't seem as though they have an agenda you know if if they're known who they are and there's someone in a specific industry it may seem that they have an agenda that they're pushing. And people then won't listen to what they're saying. They'll see, oh, I'm seeing an agenda here, so I'm not going to bother listening. Exactly. Versus anonymous, the only thing you have to hear are there words, and you may pay attention a little more to those words and actually hear what they're saying. Whatever the moment. They actually give us a venue to people that do have an agenda. And

we realize that when we open ourselves up the total anonymous input feedback, we realize that going to have some people, they're going to come in and try to assassinate us with, I don't mean literally, but although I do wear a Kevlarvist, but come in and try to say something bad about us, maybe a competitor. Because remember, I am a car dealer, and I forgot to mention that. I have a car dealership. This is not an infomercial, but I've been a car dealer for 50-plus years, and that's one of the reasons I'm so good. Hey, I'm patting myself on the back. I'm good because I know what's going out there. I used to be, like all the other car. And that's the reason for my book, Confessions of a Recovery Cardioling.

So I've been there and I've done that and I could out-trick the best of them back in the day. But I recovered, and I'm recovering every day, and I am a recovering cardio, so I'm really good. So if you have something you want to say, go ahead and say it. What should we do now? You want to start out with Nancy, you got to tell the folks out there about why you're so important to the women of the audience. Okay, well, first I want to say that I like your jeans. Thank you. Really spiffy.

I just moved in from my 38th to my 36 waist. Yay. Okay. You, applause. Okay, pause for the cause. Ladies and gentlemen, buckle up. You're in for a wonderful ride this morning. This radio show is like nothing else.

We listen to you and what you want to ask us. We don't cut you off anything at all. And we share knowledge with you. We save you money. We answer your questions. All of it. And it's a different type of talk show. So give us a call tool free at 877-960-99-60,

or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And in addition to all of that, we encourage female callers by giving you $50, $50 to the first two new lady callers. And, you know, what a wonderful advantage. No strings. You can give us a call. You can become, you're a first-time caller, and you can become part of the show and learn something new every single Saturday morning between 8 and 10 o'clock. So take advantage of that, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. we are going to interrupt our introductions and go to John, who's been waiting in West Palm Beach.

Hey, John. Hey, hello. John, you're kind of faint now. Let me turn my volume up here. We got you there? Okay. What's up? My wife has a lease cart.

It's four more payments left on it. And she keeps getting calls, you know, she can possibly turn it in early and they've got something else for her. But also, you know, they remind her that, you know, the car needs to be, you know, make sure everything's working when you turn the car. We're going to have the car details. But I want to find out, is there anyone that provides a service that, like, pre-checks it for a lease? Like, you know, you need new tires. Or before you turn in the lease, you know, make sure you have new tires. Is there anyone that does, like, a pre-chat for the lease before you turn it in so you don't get hit with all their charge?

I know they'll get money, it seems like it's just the one that get hit with, and when we turn in the lease, from you I learned to, you know, take pictures, take video, you know, before, you know, when you turn it in because it's going to sit on the lot. You know, I'm not going to put gas in it. I'll return it empty. That way, you know, they're not driving around on my gas, and I don't even know who's going to be driving it after that. But is there any other precautions that I need to take advantage of before this lease gets turned in in four months? John, I think that the only thing you have to be sure

is that you document the exact condition of your car, document it, exact condition. your car when you turn it in so a camera your smartphone camera is the best way to do that and you also want to make notes of it you want to be sure you get your odometer mileage and pictures of the interior and the exterior and especially if you if you have a scratch get a picture of the scratch because you don't want to be you know charged for something that doesn't exist and you're absolutely right when you return a lease car particularly if it's got some gas in it a salesman's liable to jump in that car and use it for his personal driver for a few weeks until it gets a gas tank on

empty and who knows what's going to happen. So you could be charged for things that are not your responsibility, but there's a lease check sheet that has to be filled out. It's either done by the leasing company. Sometimes the dealership will do that. Stu, can you add to that? Yeah, you're going to get, when you get the notifications when it's time to turn in your lease, there will be an opportunity, and I know that Toyota, Honda, I don't know what kind of vehicle with your driving. Is it a Toyota or a Honda? A Honda. Yeah, there's a service they provide. They come out and they do a vehicle inspection, and they know

anything that's going to be charged to you. And if you schedule that ahead of time, you're able to get a heads up on anything that they're going to have an issue with, and it gives you an opportunity to get fixed at a more reasonable charge. Because, like you said, once you turn it in, then you're kind of at their mercy. And then what Earl said, I can't emphasize any more. And don't do pictures, do a video. slowly walk around your car, get the bumpers, get the door edges, get the tires, go through the interior, and just keep it on your phone. So when you do get a bill, if you do, then you have perfect video proof of anything that happened after you turned it in.

And you could do audio with a video, John. You can mention the odometer mileage and verbal comments as you do the video. Now you really got yourself an ironclad documentation of the condition of that car when you turned it in. Because if you just do pictures, you're going to miss the one spot they're going to have an issue with it. So do a 360 inside and not with the video. Shouldn't take it much based on your phone. Okay. Honda, when they go to contact me about the pre-inspection type thing, can I contact him or do I wait until they contact me?

You know, I'm always a big proponent of taking action. You know, if you wait and let's us say they have some sort of, you know, bureaucratic glitch and they don't do that and it's too late. I'd call them and say, hey, listen, I want to get on record on a vehicle inspection and then see if they can help you schedule that appointment. Is that through the dealership or through Honda? Through Honda.

It would write directly through the lender. Through the lender? Yeah. Okay. All right, so that's on our contract and all that. Yeah. And then we, and then she also purchased that some type of, for $5,000.

that's built into the plan. You know, if there's any dings or dents, they fix it. You know, and I'm sure there's a co-pay or something before that. A little deductible or something. I'm not sure. I guess it depends on the plan. I mean, I know some warranties will have deductibles. Usually the prepaid, like the wear and tear packages,

I don't think there is a deductible with that. I could be wrong. Okay. John, thanks for the call. Your question is on the market. minds of thousands of less horrors out there. It is the most dangerous time of the lease is when you turn a car back in. We see the bills come in through our dealership, and I don't know what the average one would be, but I would say, what, $600 maybe, and you see them for

$2,000. Yeah. So they almost always try to hit you for something. Tires will get you. Yeah, tires. You've got to have a certain minimum treadwear. That's another thing you want to check, and you probably should measure your own tires. But video, it is too, right? recommended and it's a shame you have to go through that but the leasing companies are hungry and they will get you on anything they can get you with unless you have something to disprove them um okay very good yeah because i'm not going to lease again i'm just going to pay the 350 and not least or you know or purchase purchase a used car off your lot if they'll if they'll do that so or from you guys all right thank you johnson

Thanks for the call. Thanks, John. Give us a call tool-free at 877-960-99-60. And as you just heard, Stu and Earl shared some pretty important information on leasing, and those pictures are worth their weight in gold, or even as Stu suggested, a video. That's what I do when we have a hurricane coming. I'll take my phone.

I walk around my house. I can't get up on my roof, but I go there just in case. There's any dispute later on the condition of my insured. property you know you do look at it that way with your car great idea yeah that's a fabulous idea it's time dated right on an iphone it's time dated so there's no dispute over when you took the video correct yeah exactly uh so uh anyway folks that's what you're in store with uh for uh we're we're talking about everything and anything that concerns you uh 877 960 or you can text us at 772 49765 30 and don't forget www www

www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We're going to go to Howard. He's a regular caller from Jupiter. Good morning, Howard. Good morning. Beautiful day today, except the rain that's coming. Anyway, I have a comment to make. When you lease a car and you get a scratch

and you take it into a body shop and they paint it. I was told that the leasing company can actually find out that it was repainted and they could see the quality of the paint and by putting some kind of a meter on it. Is that correct? Yeah, as a car dealers have the same meter and they're very common, say, when they appraise a car,

you just run a little scan sort of a tool all over the car wherever paint is and it measures the thickness, let's say, basically measuring how many coats of paint you have. So if you have a situation where you had your car repainted, it picks it up right of way they you can't get away with even a touch-up on a with a paint meter and once it's been

painted if you have a fender painted you're immediately gigged it makes no difference how good the paint job is by the way and this is one of the unfair things that you need to be aware of if you lease a car and you have an accident and you have it fixed and they do a great job which they should a really good paint job on a fender or the whole car you should not be able to tell that the car was painted. It should look just like the car did before. A really good painter is an artist and they can paint the car where nobody can tell without, I call it a paint meter. So the leasing company will detect the paint job and they will charge you anyway. So now you have to go and dispute it and say, listen, I have this repaired by a world-class body shop. They did a perfect job. You can't tell the car's

been painted and you charge me $2,000 because it had been an accident. I want you to take that off. You can dispute that and you will win the dispute. I can only speak for Howard and I know that you go through Southeast Toyota Finance too. We don't like the way they handle it because they will send you a bill, just like Earl said. All Southeast Toyota asked for is the invoice and shown that it's done at a reputable body shop. Then they waive it. But what we always wonder is how many thousands of customers just pay it and don't know they have to do that that's why we want everybody to listen to this show right so if you got a bill if you're releasing company you know just to send it sorry Howard go ahead no would it matter if you have okay let's say

I lease a car and I have a deep scratch and I go to a regular body show let's say I go to Earl Stewart Toyota by me going to a Toyota dealership to have it painted with that make the difference yeah and most cases, and be honest with you, it's a kind of a gray area. So let's say you had a shopping car hit your door, and then you had the whole door painted, and it's done at our body shop or at a trail body shop, you know, whatever, and it's a reputable place, and they do a good job. You're going to send in the bill, they're not going to charge you for that. I don't know what happens if a truck side swipes you and you have a, you know, massive body damage and paint,

even if it's brought up, because the reason for it is eventually that leasing company, they want to sell this car and it and it does have diminished value so i guess they're going to make a judgment call on uh on the the extent of their loss their financial loss and my suspicion is if they're going to lose a lot of money on it they're probably not going to let up on uh on their customer they're going to try and get them to pay them the damage fee um but if it's you know a door panel offender painted by a reputable place you won't get charged but you got to be smart enough to to send in the the the invoice okay i got a fast question for Rick, if you permit me to ask you with a question,

very concerning batteries and concerning the maintenance and cleaning of the hold-down clamps and everything. I notice I have a 2017 car, and the hold-down ramps are full of that corrosion, battery corrosion. What are that cool that build-up from the battery, that white stuff that goes around the hold-down clamps and the terminals? Anyway, I want to clean that up, but I don't want to unhook the battery.

Can I just clean up once there, or do I have to take the hold-down clamps off and clean it up? That's just normal battery acid corrosion, and the best way to do it, take just the clamp, the hold-down clamp off. Clean it with plain water, really. Just a simple water hose and a toothbrush, let it dry, get it nice and dry, and hit it with. the quick coat of undercoat spray that you can get in any auto parts store? You use your wife's toothbrush. Yeah, that's a good one.

And then the acid content then will help keep her teeth nice and white. And then same thing for your battery terminals. When you get done cleaning it and it's all dried down a little bit, just put a light coat of that undercoat spray on those terminals and that stuff will actually it'll be able to be removed very easily

afterwards, but it will prevent the oxygen from getting to it, which oxidation is what causes that corrosion, and the oxygen in the air is what causes it. So, quick coat of that paint on there, everything will be fine. Now, I won't have to take the terminals off, then. Is that what you're saying? Do I have to take the terminals off? Won't even need to disconnect the terminals. Just use a water hose and just try to keep the water just on the battery area, scrub those things with an old toothbrush a little bit, a little bit water and once they dry just a quick bit of spray and boom they're fine and what's the name of that

thing that you pick up at an auto store that coating what is that called well they make battery terminal protective spray which you can use or just simple undercoat spray like the undercoat that you'd spray underneath the car you know for rust protection it creates like a rubberized barrier, and I like that stuff. Just a very light coat of it. Yeah, and it's spray can, I guess, right? Yep. Okay, very good. Thank you, Rick.

My pleasure. Thank you, Lord. Have a good day. 877-960-9960, or you can tax us at 772-497-6530. I have a text from a senior citizen. Her name is Audrey, and she leased her vehicle, and it

was a 48-month lease she has recently become incapacitated, and she wants to know if she has to, if she still has to maintain her auto insurance, will there be a problem if she discontinues it? Sadly, yes. And even if it's in the garage and she promises not to drive it, as long as she has that lease car, she must maintain her insurance. And that's one of the scary things about leasing. no matter what happens, if you can't drive eyesight or other health problems,

or even if you pass away, if it's a 48-month contract and you've got 24 months to go, you owe 24 payments, and that includes your insurance costs. I imagine if you pass away, it wouldn't be the insurance cost, but if you're still there, even though you can't drive the car, I've fought that battle for my customers in the past, and it just doesn't sound fair, but they look at it this way. how do they know the person's really not driving the car and they are protecting their collateral? There's also another minus, correct me if I'm wrong, can't your license be revoked if you don't stay up to date with that auto insurance?

Well, it could be if you're financing it. This is a lease, so they need to know that their collateral is protected with collision and also the liability because there's a liability of the less ore as well as the lessee. Yeah, there you go, Audrey. I hope we answered your question. We are going to go to Tina, who's been holding from Benita Springs, a regular caller. Good morning, Tina. Good morning, Tina. Good morning, you know, one of my clients, I was doing a blowdry on North Carolina yesterday, and she was talking about her dashboard light.

And, you know, it used to be that dashboard lights or practical lighting was very straightforward. You knew what was what. But now, because a lot of cars are being made overseas, dashboard lighting can be extremely confusing. She says, well, I have this brand new Lexington SUV that I got. And the light with the triangle and explanation mark came on, and then it went off. And then it came on again.

And she says, I was afraid to drive the car, and she said, do you have any idea with that man? And I said, to be quite honest, I have no. But just in general, I think that dashboard lighting is very confusing. So I'm going to try to make it simple for people, and I'm probably not 100% right. But if the light is red, you need to service that car immediately or stop it. If it's an area that needs a tendency to very soon as to the green, it's pretty much okay. So correct me if I'm wrong.

Rick wants to answer this real bad because he knows it way better than me, Tina. But I learned some stuff recently, and I agree with you a million percent that it's getting more and more confusing. there are all the little icons and I'm a smart savvy tech guy I'd like to think and they come on and there's so many different little indicators the exclamation point started to scare me because I had the same you know basic you know common sense thing if it's red stop the car don't drive it in if it's yellow it's caution you have a little bit of time like a maintenance light is yellow right it doesn't mean then nothing bad's going to happen to your car but if it's red you could be having an overheat situation something that's really bad but the exclamation points

could be for anything like so when I ran out of windshield wiper fluid which is an extremely critical dangerous situation as you know I'm just kidding but um an exclamation point came on when I was getting low on fuel I got I got a exclamation point so I'm not sure if that's a critical thing it's just but I did learn that it's like they're using it for everything now but that is kind of like a foxy sort of thing red stop yellow don't worry about it Rick please what's the what's the real deal? you're right on base but I'm going to give you a little extra trick

because like Tina was saying her phone was cutting out against I'm just going to give a quick recap what she was saying is the number of different lights the symbols that you'll see on the dash on all these different cars there are so many makes and models

and there's such a variety now of those different symbols and some companies will use their own symbol for something that just it seems crazy What the heck does this mean? Well, here's a quick trip. Take a picture of it with your phone and put it on Google.

And I will guarantee you that you'll get a definition of what that little indicator means. Wow. I love that. Oh, boy. What an idea. The Google I-Sight thing or what they call that? The Google Eye site. Or there's also a website that this works for pretty much any image.

It's called Tin Eye, T-I-N-E-Y-E. and Tin Eye, any image anywhere, if it matches up to a picture that's on the Internet somewhere, you'll find it. So that picture of that symbol, you'll be able to find what that symbol means simply by having it match up to another picture. That's so cool. Now, Earl told me about this. We were having lunch the other day and the Google app on your phone. I mean, I knew it was there, but I never played with it. So I tried it out and we were at a restaurant, and I just took a picture into space, just past our table.

It recognized the background, and the first thing that came up was the restaurant. By the way, it was City Seller. It was a great lunch. We endorse it. But it was really cool. Wow. We literally, these things here, these cell phones, we have all the knowledge of the known world at our fingertips. I was trying to pull the icon up.

Can you find it on? You just have to know how to find it. And a simple photograph that you then put that photograph on Google, like on TenEye, you'll find that image. Now, by the way, one of the more common images that uses a an exclamation point.

Is that Chrome or Google? Google. And Rick, Tin, T-I-N-I. T-I-N-E-Y-E. And that works for any image at all. Yeah, there's a... I could have used that the other day. There's a little icon, you can see there.

Uh-oh, here comes to do with the camera. Well, I found coping. The boys are experimenting. She has a little light coming right next to the microphone. I've created monsters. It's fantastic. You opened up a can of worms. Okay, let's move along.

We're degenerating into a tech freak show. Tina, thank you because you've brought something out that will help us all out. That's not me. Well, thank you. Well, thank you. Well, thank you. You know, I just want to say something. When you call next week, your sound quality,

either where you are the phone you're using or something is so bad I can't I can only understand about half of what you say Rick's got the best ears and stew the next best but if you can check your phone I'm not sure what it is

but you fade in and out is it a handheld phone that you have portable yes I think next time I call you I'm going to stand outside that's probably going to make a difference oh okay okay just don't get on the roof No

You're an important caller Tina And we have to hear you loud and clear We love hearing from you Tina Yeah Thank you, thank you And ladies Nancy and I can't do the fire yourselves We need to so please call in Thank you Tina

Thank you so much Tina Why can't there be like a little manual Like a short version of all these little icons That come up on your dash I mean, the other day it drove out. That would make it too easy. The manufacturers like to challenge their owners. When you buy a car, they don't want to make it too easy for you.

There's a big manual. There's not a little easy manual. Even the, what are they called it, the small, like the little mini. The quick reference guide. Quick reference guide is better, but it's still like, it's hieroglyphics. That's the other thing. I guess they do a lot of research into picking these icons. Like, you would think that would be something that, you know, all of humanity would

recognize, but it's not. It's what I use. I think they use international symbols and things like this, but nobody knows what the international is in America. That's what really muddies the waters. Okay, let's move along here. We're getting mired down. Anyway, everything's important.

So, I'm going to thank Warren for holding on as long as he did, and he is calling us from Fort Lee, New Jersey. Good morning, Warren. Hi, how are you guys? Thank you for calling. How are you? Yeah, I'm terrific. I just wanted to tell you guys, I was involved in rather, if somebody to let you know about a scam that goes on,

I drive back in Fort Worth, in Pompano Beach, Florida, at Fort Lee, which is 1,250 miles. So I had driven down from Fort Lee, which is right across the bridge from New York City to Pompano Beach. And my mechanic in New Jersey always looks at my car. week I have a four tourists of 150,000 miles on it. Anyway, before I left Pompano to come back to New Jersey this week, which I went from 80 degrees to 30 degrees, but that's another story. I took it to one of those, you know, little oil change places. Yeah, Jiffy Lubbers.

Yeah, exactly. So I figured, you know what? I was down. It burns a little oil, so I figured, you know, I'm not going to start adding oil to it. I'll just change the oil. So anyway, go in, change the oil. And then when I'm done, they hand me, besides paying the $35, they hand me a sheet, which they said they checked all of this stuff. And on the sheet, there's a big thing to fail.

And, of course, you're going to ask what it failed. It's like it felt like in 10th grade. It failed the math test or something. So there's a big failed sign over there. And I said, well, what did I fail? What did the car fail? So they take me over to the car, open up the hood, and they play it a little flashlight. Even if there was an elephant in there, you couldn't see what they were flashing.

Anyway, this guy who looks like you wouldn't let him change a bicycle tire, he's flashing his light, and they're telling me that the tension on one of the belts is no good, and another belt is crack. Now, I know I had this car checked out from head-to-tell before I left New Jersey to go down to Pompano Beach, and I trust my guy in Fattenham. And they said to me, for $450, you can get this fixed today, right now. They have all the time in the world. So I said, a thank you, but no thank you.

Close the hood. Let me pay my $35 and get out of here as soon as I can't. So I got back to New Jersey a couple days ago. So I went over to my guy, and he sent down one of his guys to look at it, opened up the hood, put the flashlight in, closed the hood within 10 seconds, and said to me, nothing wrong. We checked the car up before you left. things change. He says there was a total scam. They wanted to sell you a couple of belts or

something. He says it's a 10-year-old car. Of course, there's going to be old. And, you know, right now it's not an emergency. He says there's no rush to fix anything. I don't see anything that would have to be taken apart. So I just thought I'd tell you guys that they're not to fall for those oil place scams. Yeah. Well, Rick's got a comment, Warren, but let me just say this about scams. You're a sharp guy, and they're not going to get you. But if he does that, 50 times, and I don't know how many times a day it happens, he's going to get probably 10%, maybe 5%, and if you can sell something somebody doesn't need and make a fortune when there's nothing wrong with the car, and you only get 5 or 10%, you're making a lot of money.

But Rick, what is your comment about the... Well, Warren, you said you got a Ford Taurus, was it? Yeah. Right, correct, 150. Yeah, so you should have like two belts on there at the most, maybe three, and, you And even so, those two belts, if you bought Gates or another brand name belt from the local auto supply store, I'd expect the price to be around $60 to $75 total retail price for those belts. So they're getting almost $400 labor just to install a couple of drive belts. Mr. Stewart, I need to switch over to them.

Well, if you're on the cruise line, then you might as well get all the money. I mean, why charge them a fair price when you're lying about the problem? Yeah. If you could trick them, go all the way. Man, that is insane. The best part about it is the way they did it because they didn't, you know, attack me with it. They came out, you know, with the bill, whatever it was, $35 for the all change. And this sheet, you know, like, you know, this whole sheet and it had failed on it.

Like I said, like you just failed your math test in school, you know, and the mathematics. next teacher, just give a red, take it home to your parents or something. Of course, they know you're going to ask. You know, they don't say anything. And you say, what does this fail mean? And like I said, it was like this whole thing, putting that light in the under the hood. You know, I can tell, like I said, there was an elephant in there. I didn't know what's in there.

And, you know, they went through this whole thing. And, of course, I said, no, here's the $35. Let me get out of here. And it's just, I just feel terrible for people who are going to go in there. and you're going to get scammed on this thing. I mean, it's absurd. It's really terrible that they pull this stuff on. Yeah, Warren, you know, we always often say on the show we're preaching to the choir

because folks like you listen to the show, and there's so many people that don't listen that get taken advantage of. It happens every day, and it's like these folks in Nigeria that send out five million emails, and they say, your uncle died, and there's a $10 million estate, and if you'll send me $1,000, I'll bring the rest of it over to you in a paper bag. And you read something like that on your email, and you say, how could this possibly trick anybody? Remember, it's volume. They're doing a million emails, and there's one sucker out there.

That's all it takes. And with you, Warren, they didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of tricking you. But there's some little old lady that's going to come around, a widow, and she's never encountered a situation like this. and she falls for it, and they score $450 for doing nothing. Right, right. I mean, they have those IRS scheme. I mean, I'm retired, so I go back and forth between, let's say, of New Jersey and Pompano where my house is,

and I'm going to go back again next week. But I get these scams all day one on the phone, not going to something else, and they call you up and say, you owe the IRS money, et cetera, et cetera. But anyway, thank you. I'm going to give you a call in a couple weeks or something, I've had a car, a new car.

but you get a lot of great information from you guys. Thank you, Warren. Thank you. And I enjoy your program. You really get information about buying cars, selling cars that you really can't get anywhere else. Oh, thanks so much, Warren. Have a great show. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Give us a call again. Don't lose that Jersey accent. I love it. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a question for you. What do Valentine's Day chocolate strawberries and Earl Stewart? on cars have in common.

They occupy 75% of his stomach. They're addicting. They are very addicting. Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, very addicting. So, ladies and gentlemen, don't go anywhere. We've got so much more to get to.

And I want to thank you for tuning in all of us here. 877960, or you can text us at 772-4960. Or you can text us at 772-4976530. And don't forget, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We'd love to hear from you. We love controversy, anything at all. Take advantage of Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Now, back to the recovering card.

I think we got some text over that. A bunch of lines on the paper. Oh, yeah, yeah. A lot of tick marks. I'm organizing them now. I've got anonymous feedback. I've got texts and Facebook comments. We'll start with a text.

Oh, you'll like this. Nancy and Earl. You like this. Hi, Earl. I'm watching a show called Castle. And on that show, it's about detectives, and it's about airbags exploding in cars. And there's a car company that knows about it, and the detectives are finding out that they're covering it up. I thought you would get a kick out of it. Even the television shows are coming up with faulty airbag stuff, all of a sudden, have a good day. It's called Castle. That's the next thing I'm going to watch. Where is it? I want to Netflix. I don't know. We can probably Google it. Castle. I just wrote it down. Thank you very much. I just wrote it, John. It'll be on our list. There actually is some investigations of, I believe, Tesla, and I believe a few of the guys went to the slammer, that there was a concealment of the whole problem going back many, many years.

Wow. I'll watch that, too. I'm getting to the end of my binge-watching list. Yeah. Okay. Now you have an email that is a mild excoriation from Steve in New Jersey. Hi, Earl, Steve in New Jersey. Just following Rick's politely persistent advice, which Rick always recommends,

I've asked this now four times, and I don't believe an answer was provided. Ever able to ask the Consumer Reports author of their crash test bias, how male-focused testing puts female drivers at risk. The author stated that female drivers in front seat passengers versus males are at a 17% greater risk of death and a 73% greater risk of serious injury from an accident. Well, this is very true. And it's a sad comment on the equality of male and female in the world. And as you know, there's a huge discrepancy.

And everything is male-oriented. I know I'm a male. Back in the day, I was a male chauvinist pig, just like I'm a recovering car dealer. I was a crooked car dealer, and I was a male chauvinist pig. Times are changing. And this is 2,000. Barb White, I can't answer my phone now. So I'm going to have to call you later.

So it's sad, and I wish people would listen. And I think half the drivers are women, they should be just as safe for women as they are for men. So you have to over-engineer in the minds of the auto manufacturer. Steve wanted to know if you were going to contact the author of the Consumer Reports article about it. Oh, okay. Well, I plead guilty. I missed that. Yeah.

So we have the title of the article. I'll help you out with trying to track down the author and we'll reach out. Well, let me get this straight. So the author did say this. Yes. And so contact the author to say, Huya. Maybe we get them on the show.

Maybe it gets more information. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There's so much injustice when it comes to things like this, crash testing and a lot of other things. Children, pets, women. I mean, how could women be put in the same classification? But you can't assume that a woman is built like a man.

I can tell you from personal experience, there's a big difference between women and men. Am I ridiculous to say they should test it for dogs too? Well, I think, you know, let's leave the, I mean, I love dogs, as you know that, but I love women more. Yes. And I think that we can do the dogs. Let's get, let's get safe for all humans first. And then we'll move along to the other creatures, yes.

Okay. You know, the article that I read on this topic that we're discussing is that it's more likely for women to get, hurt, if not die in an accident, 73% of women that are in that vehicle to what you said earlier. 73% more likely. Yeah, not 73% of, yeah, yes. Yeah, more likely. More likely. Right.

Yeah. And what you said about dogs, I think that anybody that's in the car should be protected. Oh, yeah. All right. Next one. I have a question. There are so many cars on the road that have broken windshields, bald tires, and a multitude of problems. Why did many states get rid of mandatory arms?

auto inspections. I would think it would be a good revenue generator for them and maybe keep some unsafe cars off the road. The answer is very simple. Politicians are the ones that control our lives. Politicians have to get elected and having auto inspections is very unpopular.

We had all inspections in Florida a long time ago and everybody hated it. You didn't like the idea we have a busy life, right? Suddenly your auto inspection sticker wears out or you buy another car or whatever it is and you have to get your car re-inspected. and they go to get inspected, and there's a line a mile long, you're late to work, you're late to school, you're late to wherever you want to go.

People do not like auto inspections. Therefore, the politicians want to get re-elected. They come out against auto inspections. Oh, boy, I'll tell you what. I used to hate sitting in line. Rick is, I used to hate sitting in line and waiting to have my car inspected. I just dreaded that day, and I really had to a lot, a lot of time. But in Pittsburgh, it was necessary, mandatory.

Hey, a quick note here in Florida, and this is from my own personal experience, if you have full coverage insurance on your car, which most of us do anymore, and you do have a crack in your windshield, you can get your windshield replaced free of charge. It's Florida state law that the insurance companies do not charge a deductible to replace your windshield. I just had mine done by, I have state farm insurance. I called the Glass Company, had my insurance card handy. They got me on a three-party line with the insurance company. And in less than 10 minutes, they were setting an appointment.

They came out, replaced my windshield. Boom. Everything was fantastic. And I'd like to throw a quick shout out to Gator Glass for having taken care of me like that and to State Farm because everybody made it easy for me. It was so simple. simple thank you right now new windshield great that's a very good tip hey we are going to uh interrupt everybody and we are going to go to d lee from lake worth good morning d from lake park but

okay lake park it's a spooky show today you guys are like um having a good time yeah i'm having fun d are you a first time caller There's a, like, a strange static sounding. Go ahead, Dean. We can hear you. Move around. Are you okay now? She's the first time.

Yeah, it's, I hear you clearly now, but it's in and out. But we can hear you. Go ahead. This is a big weekend where I'm going to buy a new car. I called a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, it's not going to be from your dealership because I don't need the SUV Toyota's. Mm-hmm.

I'm going to buy a new Nissan Kicks or a new cross-check. And these dealerships do have that $9.99 fee. So you've talked about extensively that I believe I should not pay. Right. Is that correct? That is correct. You need to make, well, it's about a $1,000 dealer fee is the average that we're seeing. actually a little bit higher than that now.

Really the most important thing is the out-the-door price. So make sure you're getting prices from different dealers and look at the out-the-door, because they're all going to have a dealer fee. You can choose to go in and do battle with them and insist on taking out the dealer fee, and I think that just might be a long waste of time. The best thing to do, if you're looking at Nissan's,

try a few different. There's several Nissan dealers in the area. Save yourself some time and try and do this online by going to their websites, and you could do it from your kitchen table and get some committing prices. But make sure they give you an image, even with a picture with their cell phone, and have them email a picture of their actual buyer's order

that shows all the little hidden fees they could potentially do that. Do you, the best way to define an out-the-door price, and you can say this online, write it online, or you can speak to the salesperson or the sales manager would be better, out-the-door price is the price that you fell out on your check that you write your check for and bring it in and hand to the salesman and you can drive the car home the out-the-door price is the full price including everything that way you'll avoid all the surprise and as stew said the dealer fee is just part of the price for the car the only danger to the dealer fee is when it's hidden and added after the fact so if you get the out-the-door price and you define it clearly to the Nissan system salesperson, and they say, okay, bring me a check for $25,219, and you can get in your Nissan and drive it home, then that's the way to shop and compare. Do that three times and get the best out-the-door price from three different Nissan dealers, and you will get a good deal.

For example, if you call up and you say, give me your best price on a Nissan cross-tech, the price they give you on the phone is meaningless. You have to say, total that up, everything. What am I writing a check for? I've done a lot of research on the computer already. So today's my get in the car, drive it, see if I like it, and kind of see which one I want. Well, there you go. As long as you've done your prep work and you're ready for them, I hope you enjoy the cross trek. And make sure you drive that car quite a bit to make sure it's comfortable and that you can see everything properly and it's the right car for you.

Yeah, that driver's seat is really important as far as. comfort. Allow you to take the car for more than a short drive. Would they allow you to take it for a day or so? You should. As long as they'll let you at least a few hours. And if they'll let you take it overnight, that's preferable. Drive it in all the conditions that you normally drive your car to be sure that you like it.

And listen, before you sign on the dotted line, if you want to text us or call us or email us, give us the information. We'll be glad to give you an endorsement. that you're getting a fair price. Indeed. Sometimes these dealers will let you take the car overnight. I mean, if they really want to seal that sale, you know, take advantage of it. I'd check it out.

Can I call you or email you at the show hours? Sure. You email us anytime. Call us anytime. Thank you all. You're so great. Oh, thank you. Thanks for being part of the show.

960-9960, or you can text us at 772-4976530. Now back to Stowe. We have a text from Ann Marie. Good morning. I love your show because your show is the only place people can contact with all their questions about cars and dealers and get a straight answer. Not only that, but if we miss the radio show when it airs, we can always access the podcast later on. Thank you very much. What a nice endorsement.

Oh, thanks, Sam, Marie. So my question for this week is, How often should a sun or moonroof be lubricated, especially if it's one that you don't use very often? You know, I'm going to let Rick answer that, but my thought was I've been driving cars for a long time with a lot of sunroofs and moonroes, and I've never even thought about it.

I've never lubricated one, and if I had to guess, and I don't know, I have the answer Rick does, I'd say don't worry about it. You're actually very, very close. The only thing I would recommend is open it once in a while when you're cleaning the car and clean the rubber seal nice and well

and maybe put a little bit of that rubber dressing on it that's available from the auto parts stores. Okay. We have a text from Karen. Good morning. I see where Toyota is coming out with an all-wheel drive Camry. Should I wait a year before I consider purchasing it just to see if it has any issues?

I believe that that's a good policy with all new vehicles. I don't care whether it's, brand new or if any time you have a changeover in technology or even styling it's best to get the bugs out wait a year before you buy a brand new model and I know that's like a hard thing to do because a lot of people they like to have that fresh new model and we find out oftentimes with our dealership that the new Toyota comes out there's glitches that are in the in the 2020 model that aren't on the 2021 and it's true for all cars It's human nature. It's true for life.

Yeah. Think about this. When a new update comes out for your phone, if you rush to update it, you're usually, oh, I don't say usually, but quite likely to run into a lot of problems. Fortunately, like the phones, the cars get a lot of software update, so there could be a shifting issue on the all-wheel drive camera that could come out. I think the all-wheel drive is so cool. You know, I got to have an all-wheel drive.

Because it's just such a great concept, it's been around for a long time, but the fact that now the cost was coming down where we can have it in just a normal car. But I wouldn't buy the first year it came out. Yeah, I go online and see what kind of issues come up. But like I started to say, some of these issues can't be fixed with a software update. So give it a few months at least.

I mean, six months a year. Good point. I'll tell you what, that new Camry with the AWD, amazing. What a beautiful car. Okay. Rick, there's no name on this. Rick, can you give us an extensive tutorial slash explanation of the latest safety features available on new vehicles?

I have a 2016 Highlander, and I thought I had the latest in safety tech. It turns out this isn't true. How can I keep up? What am I missing, Rick? No, I can't. Okay. We don't have enough time. It scared me to death when they said extensive.

Oh, okay. Let's not pick on, Rick. I would Google and look at the new. cars and just Google every single term. I got something easy for you to do. This is easy. You're driving a Highlander. All the manufacturer websites have a compare vehicle function.

Yes. So what you can do is you can go on, you can go to Toyota.com, and if you're looking at a Ford, I'm sure Ford has its comparable little thing on their website, and choose a 2020 Highlander, and then compare it to a 2016 Highlander. And in a grid forum, it'll show the features that one has and the other one doesn't. and that's an easy way to do that. Some websites like Edmonds.com are you to do that? I didn't know that.

Oh, yeah, sure. You can do it. Edmonds.com does it. I think Kelly Bluebook does it. And it might even be better if you're using a third-party site like Edmonds because you probably select every vehicle that exists. They lay them out side by side, and you can say like adaptive headlights, and they'll have a little dots as if it has it, if it doesn't. It's a pretty cool tool.

You know, with all the knowledge on the Internet and Google and the rest of it, if everybody, we should probably stop talking about that. because then we'd be obsolete. If everybody knew, all they got to do is go to Google and find out anything we say, well, that's not true to. Because we know some of the nitty-gritty stuff that Google doesn't talk about,

some of the deep-down dark web kind of things that go on with Cardiard. There are also inaccuracies out there. I mean, that's one of the things, and I know I'm doing a slight tangent, but we do teach our kids how to source reliable information online because there's a lot of non-reliable stuff out there. If you Google the box,

It wouldn't tell you that's the CF and I department. No, the dealership. Correct. No. Okay. So we're fresh. Keep listening to us. Okay. In line with vehicle safety and tech, it says, if vehicle stability control is so important, why do manufacturers make it so easy to turn it off?

I drove a week with my VSC offlight illuminated. Was I at risk of losing control of my car? Great question. Why? I honestly don't know. Now, there are a few vehicles. Well, right this down, folks. Rick Kearney doesn't know the answer.

I don't know why they would allow that. What time is it? The date is February 15th. At exactly 858 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. He doesn't know, but he's still going to tell us about it. The only thing I'm going to say is that if you're driving, say, a vehicle that's four-wheel drive, a truck, and you're going to go to an off-road situation, I could understand having need for turning it off

if you're out playing in the mud or something. It's okay if you roll over in a rough condition. Well, when they're going out playing in the mud, you don't want some of those safety features kicking in because it'll detract how you're driving the vehicle when you're off-road. Because stability keeps you from rolling over, doesn't it? No, because from over-stereage.

Oh, right. It's better for controlling the traction and things like that. But in normal driving, situations on the road anywhere else. I want all those features on. I think you're right. I think it's if you want to do donuts or burn somebody's lawn like we used to do back in the 80s. Okay.

I never did that. Earl's been there, done that. We're going to interrupt everyone, and we're going to go to our favorite caller from Palm City, and that is John, who has been patiently waiting. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. I just want to address the three categories of dealer abuse that not only this show had But Earl and Nancy, even with seminars, first group that they dealer picks on is the seniors, second is the minorities, and third is females.

They walk into the dealerships. The one that's number one with me is how seniors get ripped off. Now, I attended in April, I think it was 2019, of a seminar in West Palm Beach, where Earl and Nancy were invited by seniors versus crime. and that's a big group in Florida with 44 officers. They have over 2,000 volunteers, and it was a fantastic. There was a woman there right here from Stewart that was abused by a dealer, and she was very, very strong about her beliefs and what happened to her. Matter of fact, I think she even mentioned that she walked up and down in front of the dealership

with a sign so the public could see the abuse that was taken to senior. But it was a great seminar, and I just want to tell you about this group for seniors that have been ripped off by car dealers. It has local offices, 561, 844-3461. There's a nationwide number. They have 44 offices in the state of Florida, 800, 203, 3099. And the great thing, not only the seminar, the first 500 people, it was at a large church, church in West Palm, they all received a free copy of Earl's book, Confessions of Recovery Car Dealer. And I just want to thank them again for what they do. They go to libraries,

they go to groups, different knights of Columbus, and many groups, federal foreign wars with lectures and education, especially from the senior citizens. And one other thing I'd like to comment. I'm looking forward to the dealer report every week, the shopping report. But even though less than one-tenth of one-to-one percent of people affected by this, I notice that there's a brand-new dealership in Stewart of Maserati and Alfa Romeo. I would like to see once, even though, like I say, less than one-tenth of one-per-cent people are in that category of shopping to a roads dealer or a probably most of them are in Fort Lauderdale, but I'm sure that the people that shop for those type of automobiles

will not be subject to the abuse that the regular consumer goes into his local Honda dealer or Nissan dealer that that would get. So I would like to see that in the future, especially since it's so close here, like the new Maserati dealership. I'm not saying anything bad about it. It's actually run by a large group from Miami that has the Audi and, you know, several other dealerships. Yes. But it would be very interesting to see that how the person is treated.

And I'll tell you what I'd love to see, but they'd recognize a voice. I'd like to see a female like Tina go into one of these places. And boy, they wouldn't pull anything on that female that they would do normally when a female up the street walks in. Isn't that the truth? I kind of want to go and drive a Maserati. They wouldn't recognize me up in Stewart, I don't think. I'd love to go. Well, I'm tempted to go in just like a kid in the candy store.

I'd like to go around anyhow. And the good news, it's by a reputable dealer that came up from Miami. Earl knows who it is. And he does a pretty good job up here with his Audi, and he has Accura. Yeah, I think I know the dealer. He was in the Florida automobile dealer. Mario Magado. Margado, yeah, yeah.

He's my buddy. I know him. He's a good guy. He's got a lot of dealerships. He's sorted out with, I believe it was Pontiac. He bought the old Pontiac dealership in South Miami a thousand years ago. Yeah, he's a good guy. He put up some beautiful buildings here in Stewart.

Really, state-of-the-art, beautiful-looking buildings, and it upgrades the area for a car dealership to roll around him. Yeah, very good. Well, we'll check it out. Thanks. I'll see it in the future anyhow, one of the upscale automobiles dealer shop. We will check it out. Yes, definitely.

Thank you guys. John, thanks so much for exposing us as far as the speaking engagements are concerned in so many people that we can share our knowledge with. And it's, like you said, it could be the library. It could be anywhere. So thank you for that. and thank you for being a follower of Earl Stewart on cars. We're going to go to Jay in West Palm Beach.

Good morning, Jay. Hey, Jay, you're still out there? Hey. I am still out here. How are you? We're doing great. How are you doing? Good.

I have a 2009 ES350. For a while there, I was thinking that I was having issues with my left front tire not keeping the air in it. and the tire pressure light would keep coming on on the dashboard. When I took the car in, I got the oil change, and I explained to my mechanic what was going on with it. He said he would check out the tires. They ended up rotating the tires. He dipped that tire, said there was nothing wrong with it,

wasn't showing holes or anything like that. Now I have the light that's coming on again, and I'm looking at the left front tire again, even though it's a different wheel on there, and it looks like the pressure is going down again. Is there ever a situation where the axle could be causing something where it would bring the tire pressure down on a certain wheel, even after it's been rotated around? My first thought on that, hearing that situation, I'd put a camera on your car because it sounds like somebody's messing with you. there really is no way for a tire

especially if you've already if you've rotated the tire for the same location to suddenly begin losing air again unless someone's doing it on purpose or maybe the first diagnosis was incorrect and they didn't catch the leak well but then it would be the left rear tire because you had them rotated

the tire went to the tire and wheel went to the left rear Yeah, and it looks like the left front now is lower on pressure and maybe it's just, maybe I'm just looking at it wrong. But that tire pressure light keeps coming on. After I got the rotation, the light stayed off for a couple days. When I filled up my tires again last week, the light stayed off for two days and then the light came back on and then when it was really cold the other day, it came on and then it came off again and now it's back on again. So that's where I'm wondering. And the air doesn't look like it's down much, but it does look like it's down. Well, do you have a button on your dash down low to the left of the steering wheel, right?

That'll, for resetting the light? Yes. Okay. Try this. Get a good digital tire gauge and set all your tires at about 30 pounds exactly. Then turn the key on and press and hold that button until the light blinks three times and then goes out. you may have to try it a couple times turn the key on press and hold the button until the light turns off then turn the key back off back on and press and hold the button until the light blinks three times

wait about five minutes and the light should turn off wait about five minutes and then go ahead and reset your tire pressures back to where you normally would have them at around 32 to 35 PSI and what that'll do is it'll reset the threshold where that light turns on at and it will actually set it just a hair lower because if the threshold is set too high, when you're driving your car and your tires are at 35 PSI and then they sit and cool down and drop to around 32 to 33, it may trigger that light a little too easily.

Okay, so maybe that's what the issue is. So just go back in, put it at 30, and then go back in and reset the whole thing. Yeah. Okay, all right, I'll try that. I'll let you know then. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thanks, Jay. Thanks, Rick. I didn't know that. It's very interesting. Great call. You know, we got a lot of calls. We got a call last week about these, this time of year when the weather gets warmer and then it gets colder, things like that. I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but this is just annoying.

I always suggest put some more air in your tires, and you have a range between what the manufacturing. recommends, and what the tire manufacturer, the auto manufacturer recommends a lower range of lower inflation, and the tire manufacturer has the maximum or the highest inflation, split the difference. Usually you have like a eight pound difference, and put four more pounds from the minimum, and that way you don't have the annoyance when the cold weather comes and goes back and forth. Exactly.

And as odd as it seems, yesterday afternoon I got in my truck, and, you know, it's quite Often those outside temperature gauges will read really high when you first start up. It was literally 100 degrees Fahrenheit on February 14. And I just heard from Karen and YouTube, she's up in Michigan, and she says they are freezing up there. So it's amazing the wide range of temperatures you can have right across this nation. How are we doing on text? I have a real quick text, and it's from Gigi. in L.A. While watching the Super Bowl, she saw the Genesis that will soon be launched if it hasn't been already.

And she wants to know if you think that that would be a reliable SUV for her to purchase. I think it is. I'm going by memory, but I check consumer reports. I know my broken record when I say consumer reports, but I believe the Genesis is a very good vehicle. And shit, that's the GV-8, I think she said, SUV. okay okay we have a text here says Earl is it true that new cars do not have spare tires what happens when you have a flat thanks for all you do and that's from Phil well it's been that way for a long time and it's a rarity now to see a full-size pair so you have donuts the smaller version of spare that's one thing they have little kit that you

inflate your own tire with they have a I can say they have portable pumps that you can plug into your car and inflates your tire, but there's just something we have to live with in the 21st century. The cars are smaller, the trunks are smaller, and the cafe requirements, meaning the fuel mileage requirements is such that any weight they can save, they take advantage of it, and a wheel and tire wheel on. We also have cars with run flat tires on them that have no spare or tire-changing equipment at all. And I've even seen cars with a special compact spare that has no air in it and a little pump to fill it up

before you put it on the car. The spare tire is a endangered species. Full size, yeah. What we're seeing is on cars. You're getting a donut. Some, like the hybrids and the electric ones might have a, like the run flight kit. Usually, you're only seeing full size spares on

trucks now and SUVs. Yeah. Okay. We got one here from there's no name on this. It says, test drove the new Highlander while having a 2008 sienna check for purchase for service. Mr. Goldberg in service was very good. Thank you.

I assume he's talking about our dealership. Wow, what a great vehicle. Talking about the new Highlander. Some torque steer while testing the acceleration going over the Blue Haram Bridge. Does all-wheel drive reduce that effect? Offline is fine, and that's a right question. What is torque steering? Does that mean like when you kind of swerve a little when you accelerate or?

Pretty much. it's uh transmissions on front wheel drive cars you've got two axles to go out to the front wheels one of them is short one of them is long well when you step on the gas nice and hard that longer axle will actually twist just a little bit so one wheel gets a little more power than the other and it will make the car kind of pull to one side just a little bit when you're stepping on the gas pedal hard that's called torque steering it's because too much power to one wheel traction control generally will reduce that quite a bit, but some people can still feel it. And all-wheel drive will actually reduce that a little bit because the power is now being spread to all four wheels instead of just two.

This is an example of why I like being on the show. Yeah, I just learned something to it. Yeah. Very cool. I'm a sponge of knowledge. I sure hope you know what you're talking about, Rick, because I'm believing all this. I totally believe it. It's absolutely true. Okay, okay.

If somebody's, please Google. Oh, by the way, Jonathan, let us know that the show Castle that we talked about is available on Netflix now. Oh, boy, that'll be great. And by the way, Mr. Hand, chimed in, he says, asked them about that Marzzerati. Ask if it'll do 185 miles an hour. Well, I'm test driving it, so I'll let you know, Mr. Hand. There you go, yeah. All right, Mr. Hand.

Okay, we're going to anonymous feedback now. Okay. The best first car for a teenager is a school. Let me read that again. The best first car for a teenager is a school bus. I'm sorry. Old codger. It's too in the old codger.

I'm an old codger. I am, I am full disclosure, an AARP member, so yeah. But you look like a child. That's to your eyes, guys. All right. Best first car for a teenager is a school bus and the responsibility to shuttle his or her stuffed animals and to town them back. Who wants their stuffed animals?

stuffed animals. Okay, I didn't read this all the way through. Who wants their stuffed animals to get into an accident? They'd better be real careful to bring them home safely. I think that's, it was a nutty codger, not an old country. I don't know what's going on there. We had a strange, somebody, the word cilantro keeps appearing, there's a mystery there. We'll tell you about it later. Hey, about those school buses? Yeah. Let's put some seatbelts in those school buses. I think they have them now. I hope you're right. They do, which I could never understand Because, you know, up until what you just said, it's only the driver who had a seatbelt. The only safety feature in the old school buses that I can remember was a rubberized bar in front of your face.

Well, you know, it's not even funny. And it gets me mad when I think about it is why don't all school buses have seatbelt? No, I think, well, I don't know about the older ones. No, they don't. No, the newer one, the reason I know the new ones my kids wrote on did, but I don't. Well, I'm talking nationwide. It was just a terrible thing happened in some state, and there was a big thing about why they don't have seat belts. well, they don't have seat belts because the people that are in charge are a bunch of morons.

And not to put a seat belt in a school bus, it should be a capital crime. Yeah. Yep. So the rubberized metal bar in front of their face isn't doing the job. Ain't doing the job. All right. Okay. This is a theme lately. We've discussed how to maintain your leather and fake leather seats. Rick, what can be done to slow the deterioration of the rubber around the doors and sunroofs? thank you, a loyal listener.

I have to find Alan's email now. Actually, I've got a pretty good memory on that one because now full credit for this to Alan Napier, our body shop manager and sometime co-host on the show here. Who Googled it? He did, but he's the one that brought this information out. And basically, it's recommended to use a very mild detergent and water to clean those rubber gaskets and available from your local lot of parts store rubber dressing compound just spray a little on a rag and just gently wipe a little bit on those rubber door seals can use balsamic

dressing I actually know that's better on a Caesar salad you're going to want to use that rubber dressing just to clean them up a little bit and just a very light coating on them and that way your rubber seals on your car will last a whole lot longer. Don't forget your sunroof and your back hatch. Okay. Okay, this one's for me on anonymous feedback. Stu, can I order a Supra where all the BMW parts, engine, controls, transmission, and infotainment are sourced from a 2020 corolla. Thank you. No. Okay. I don't think you can. I mean, I guess if you're skilled enough, you could probably modify it. I heard that the 2020 Supra, there are kits that people are converting them to manual transmissions, which

sounds like a pretty expensive mechanical operation. I think it's stupid. I agree. Okay, more anonymous feedback. Can a good person who wants to help people make the right choice for a car in an honest and transparent way become corrupted by the ethics of the cart of the dealership and then turn greedy with the potential for higher commissions? I'd love, in other words, if you're a good person and you go to work for a car dealer,

will you turn to the dark side? It happens all the time. It happens all the time. It's amazing. Maybe one of my books when I finally get my second book done, maybe my third book will be, what corrupts people? That's a great chapter in the car business. Because I know a lot of really good people that they're good people.

And somehow they're corrupted because they work for a car dealer. Well, they go on to say, I would love to sell cars because I love cars and helping folks, but I also like money. And, you know, it's a really good question, and I think it would make a great chapter in the new book. It depends on the individual. There's a lot of temptation in the car business. Yeah. When you're in an industry that has a reward system based on profit.

Yeah, the whole culture is based on taking advantage of customers. You suddenly find yourself taking advantage of them too, and you just don't even realize the morality issue. Or if you do it, you bury the, anyway, I'm honest. No, no, but honestly, in the car dealership culture and a lot of car dealerships, there is a lot of, you know, propaganda. You are in brainwashing going on. A salesperson can be convinced that customers are dishonest. They demonize the customer.

They do that. Briers are liars or liars. They get a psychologist on here some week because to justify in their own minds, here's the favorite phrase in car dealerships, buyers are liars. people and sometimes wires are sometimes people do misrepresent things about their trade in or say they have a lower

price from another dealer when they don't but that's part of the negotiation process the point is by making the customer the enemy then you feel better about taking advantage of the customer goes who cares if you shoot a bad guy and that's what I think that's the psychological

phenomenon they dehumanize the customer as well credit criminals is another example they call people of bad credit slugs. You do that in war. You demonize the enemy. A World War II, the yellow peril, the Japanese were slain-eyed terrible people. We put them in camps and prisons in the United States and they were bad people. So when you burn five million people in Tokyo, that's okay because they're demons. Right. And that's what I'm off on a ramp. This is a very important thing for people. Stop me. No, I got to chime in a Saturday morning sales meeting, which is

happening all over the country right now as we speak, well, at least in the Eastern Standard Time, and they're preparing for their day, their big selling day. A lot of these meetings have the feeling of a, like, a military sort of like URA sort of pump-up session, and they're getting ready, their troops ready for battle right now. You guys at home are drinking coffee, getting ready to shop for cars, but right now they're in sales meetings getting pumped up, and they're getting their aggression, the testosterone is flowing, and they're ready to go to war, and that's what's happening right now, All across the country.

Wow. You got my attention. No, that's a pretty scary picture. It really is. Seriously, picture chanting, clapping. You're right. We need a psychologist to kind of examine that phenomena. There's a real thing happening.

This sounds like I prepared this, but I did. I forgot until we started talking about this. This is an advertisement I got on my iPhone, and I'm a dealer, car dealer, so people approach me because they know my dealer, and they're advertising. And this particular company is called, they call himself rich dealer. And it says, most dealers and managers agree that this business used to be more fun. Customers used to be really excited when they bought a car. Wasn't it great when customers were happy and the grosses were high?

That means. And win, win. And these days, a lot of dealers, the business is just a grind. The traffic is a bus. Every customer wants a lower price. Can you imagine that? The customer wants a lower price. Every customer wants you to throw in something for free.

Every customer wants to know what your true cost is. What's going on? And sometimes they still give you a bad review. You should read that in a touch your voice. This sucks. And this is all about, I mean, it's an advertisement to car dealers. So, anyway. I love that site.

Thank you. That's crazy. Hey, if you just tuned in, you're listening to Earl Stewart on Cars right here on the Oldies Channel. And ladies, you still have time to give us a call. $50 for the first two. new lady callers. Give us a call. Please, ladies, I need to hear from you.

877-960-99-60 and the Texas 772-497-6-5-30. And I think we're going to go to some YouTube's that Rick has. We've got a couple real quick. Guy Larrabee is asking, he says, My Canadian dealer recommended a service on my car for $195. and Wallace Kia says it should have a different service for a 270 plus a brake flush

and he says he doesn't really have the specifics on it so my answer to that one is go with the book that's in your car that is your factory not dealer but factory recommended services for your car

and if the factory doesn't recommend it don't do it unless they can come up with a very very good explanation of why it's necessary as far as i know no manufacturer recommends flushes some of them do like uh they recommend toyota will recommend a coolant renew at a hundred thousand miles okay but that's not a flush well it's a coolant flush you actually you need to flush out the old coolant put in new coolant oh at a hundred thousand miles okay i i thought that was just replacing i didn't Well, that's what a coolant flush would be, is replacing it. But other than that, nope.

And the next one I have here is John Strine. He says, I know you've commented on this issue before, but I'd like an update, if there is any. The issue with the white paint on Toyotas. I don't want to purchase a white-colored model if that issue has not been resolved. Thank you. Well, that's a very timely question. There's a huge recall on Toyotas now. white paint and it's a delamination issue and it's going to be very very widespread which is good news

for you because it will cover it under the recall you get a new paint job new paint job so uh watch your mailbox watch your email inbox and you should be notified if not and you have a white card you have a problem with delamination is appealing your paint actually begins to peel in certain areas and if that's the case, Toyota will be taking care of you and paying for that. Exactly. Now, I think they are, they go, they're older cars, but it goes all the way back to 2008s, up to 2019 cars in some cases. So it's a big, there's millions of cars out there.

And if you're having the problem and you complained before, and they told you to take a hike that's not covered under warranty, because your paint warranties only three years, 36,000. miles you come back now and say I understand that Toyota has confessed and they have some defective paint on white cars and there's 580,700 corollas affected by this just corolla that's just that's just the tip of the iceberg there's yeah 332 rav4 so it's uh standby yeah absolutely free paint jobs free paint jobs white cars yeah jump on that uh ladies and gentlemen Thank you for tuning in, Daryl Stewart, on cars.

You can see that we've got a lot of information to share with you. We're going to go to Dave, who's waiting for us to take us call in Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Dave. You're there, Dave? Okay, I hope I'm not cutting out. I hear you, a loud and clear. Okay, yeah, I just throw this out for your consideration as the owner of a business. I was surfing online, well, for a...

couple of weeks, but last week I finally decided to call into your dealership and check out a Highlander, which I've been very interested in. And so the little insignia pops up online and says, you know, can I help you or something to that effect? And so I usually just say no, but this time I said yes. And someone came online and said, I'll be your concierge for the day, and, you know, I can answer any questions that you might have. So I said, well, does the price of this Highlander, is this an out-the-door price, or do I have to, you know, add tax and tag? And so the person online said, well, is this something you'd be interested in? Well, of course, that was my reason for calling.

sure but you know it just seemed like i she says well i can't give you that information and so i'm beginning to get frustrated to the point where i was probably turning color a little bit so at the end she wound up saying i think was she i don't know i'm not quite sure but uh i got the message that said, thank you for calling, have a nice day. So I really got frustrated. I called the 800 number, asked the girl who answered the phone. She connected me to a lady. And the lady after, you know, I said, this is a basic question.

Is it an out-the-door price, or do I have to add, you know, this to it? Sure. And she's finally, finally, after about three prompts, I said, no, that doesn't. She was trying to connect me with a salesperson, which I would just wanting to know the simple answer to this question. Sure. And so it's very frustrating.

So I wound up buying my lease car because my lease was ending. It ended the 27th of this month. It is ending. So I just went ahead and bought it. Yeah. And so, you know, it was so frustrating because, I just, you can understand my point. I do.

Yeah, and I can address that. It's kind of demeaning. Anyway, I'm just throwing this out, you know. No, thank you, thank you very much, and I can address that. So every car dealer has a chat function on their website. It's pushed by the manufacturers. But when you're chatting with a chat person on a website, you're not talking with somebody at the dealership.

They call it managed chat, and they have a call center, and they have people that are chatting with customer all around the country, and most of the time you're going to get a generic answer, you know, and if they get a question that they can't answer, well, let me get a salesperson for you. We use a chat company as well, and we just got rid of them for that very reason. So we're able to monitor these things, and when we see conversations that look like the chat agent is tone deaf to what the customer is actually asking, we contact them and say, hey, these guys need to be able to answer these questions. I finally got to the point,

with our dealership where we got so frustrated with it we fired them and we picked up a new chat company which actually just came online on Thursday this week and it's really hard because it's also another thing that's called not to get two technicals it's hybrid chat so sometimes you can have somebody from the dealership jump on and communicate and one of the things that finally pushed us over the edge was I was chatting with somebody over a he was just giving us a compliment online and one of the other chat agents from the company jumped in and says are you interested in a new or use vehicle even though they didn't read that the conversation we're having had nothing to do with purchasing a vehicle so um the answer is it's uh it's just a bad customer

service the answer is thank you very much because i never realized how frustrating it was uh your description uh summarized that if you really want to hear someone that knows how to handle chat, go to Apple and you go to any time you chat with Apple or some of the more advanced companies, they realize you can't use this canned chat company

and we learn the hard way and your experience is the reason we changed. Hopefully, maybe check us out again and I'd like to see your experience next time you call and use the chat because most of the chats are absolutely stupid. Okay.

Okay, I hope that we have answered your question, and we're going to go to Tony, who's waiting in Palm Beach Gardens. Hey, Tony. Hey, good morning, guys. Good morning. I listen to the show all the time, and I like it. I appreciate it. I'm glad I'm a devil's advocate this morning just because you had it too easy so far. Okay.

And I heard the segment about how the salespeople get a little bit greedy, get a little bit corrupted, and how buyers are the liars. And I wonder, does that apply to the mystery shopper? Well, our mystery shopper, let me see if I understand your question, Tony. The mystery shopper is definitely, you know, he's undercover agent. definition, yes, he's lying because he's telling the customer that he is going to buy a car and he's not. I guess you'd say we're operating under the end justifies the means, just like the police do when they run a sting operation. If you want to catch a crook, sometimes it takes a crook to catch a crook. So what we're operating is a sting operation, giving the salesperson

the opportunity to be honest. And if he's honest and forthright and transparent, in his sale, we put him on the recommended dealer list, but if he tries to light, sheet, and steel, we put him on the do not buy list. So we're using the end justifies the means, but you're absolutely correct. We are having to be non-transparent in our undercover work.

Well, don't misunderstand me. I believe in the Mr. Schindman, I think. Yeah, but you're right. You're right. Yeah. But I just thought somebody's got to give you a little bit of a hard point. No, you know, listen, Tony, we find people that will not mystery shop for that very reason and some good people. And some people are so good and they're so ingrained in them that they don't want to mislead a salesperson.

You know, they take everybody for face value as being an honest moral person and they walk in, they see a nice clean cut young man and a young lady and to have to mislead that person with the ultimate. possibility of embarrassing them or making them sound out, sounds as if they're bad people, they won't do it. And I respect that. And our shoppers have to have a little bit of larceny in their heart, I guess, to be able to go through what they do over and over again. We look at it as the greater good. But your point's very well taken. Well, in fairness, to you guys do, I know that in every business, there are some customers that are, quote-unquote customer from hell, you know. Yes. Yes. But you have to do that.

You have to give customers a benefit of the doubt. And if there was ever any justification for not being forthright, it's the way cars are sold today. So when a customer comes in and says, your competitor gave me a price $1,000 cheaper than yours, it might not be true, but he's fighting fire with fire because that salesperson is not telling him the truth about a good price on the car. The good price on the car for the salesperson is the most he can sell the car for. So how are you going to fight fire with fire if you tell them the truth and say your competitor match your price? You say the competitor to beat your price because you're trying to negotiate. Right.

I still think you guys are doing a great job, and I appreciate you taking my call. Thank you, Tony. Call again, please. Thanks so much, Tony. Speaking of the mystery shopping report, we have one coming up. It's going to be a doozy, and it is from Southern 441 Nissan. and the lines have been shut down. So if you want to get in touch with us,

text us at 772-497-6530. And also we would like you to be part of the voting process on that mystery shopping report, Southern 441 Nissan. Now back to Stu. We have one more anonymous feedback to read. Earl, in regards to your intro in which you said that dealers are stuck in the 20th century, isn't that our fault? the dealers were allowed to set up laws or legislation and restrictions for how and where dealerships are formed where it's not easy for an honest person to build another one, another Toyota dealership, next to a scrupulous dealer's lot.

Furthermore, it is easier to be scrupulous and steal customers' money than making a profit by being unscrupulous and steal customers' money other than being honest, but the general population is also not standing up to this en masse for a fight to change in legislation. Furthermore, say the people stand up, and the legislators in office are bribed by the dealers, and we put such weak legislators in office. This is the people's fault, and until all the people put honest and engaging legislators in charge, nothing will get done to make the dealers better. A select few dealers will naturally, and without force, take the honest, transparent business practice to heart, but not enough to bring the dealers out of the bottom range of the Gallup poll. Thank you.

Well, this has to do with the power of the dealers of pocketbooks, and the dealer association's pocket books. Right now there's a battle going on in Tallahassee. The manufacturers are in mass coming forth to change the laws to allow them to sell cars directly like Tesla does. And there is efforts by the manufacturers in Florida right now in the legislature to change the rules. Right now, unless you're a franchise car dealer,

you can't sell a car in Florida. The manufacturers are trying to change that. law and the dealers are fighting a tooth and nail and they're gathering a huge amount of money I mean it's it's like the war of the Titans the manufacturers versus the dealers you think the manufacturers

have all the money but you'd be surprised if you take all the thousands and thousands of car dealers and the money they make there's not that many manufacturers there's a whole lot more car dealers plus the car dealers are local and they can influence

their local legislators the car dealers vote and the car dealers know people in Florida who vote and when they go into Tallahassee and say don't pay any attention to the manufacturers who say they want to sell cars directly listen to us because if you don't you're not going to get

reelected because we're not going to support you they employ a lot of people they can rally their employees one last thing on Facebook video it's from Wayne says I heard Toyota have a 20% stake in Subaru when will Earl Stewart Toyota be able to sell Subaru's love to it's a great car

I wish I could sell Subaru's. I wish I had a Subaru dealership. It's a great automobile. A quick follow-up from John Strine on that white paint issue. He says, I understand about the recall. My question is about cars today. Have they fixed the problem? I'll be purchasing a new Toyota within this calendar year

and want to know if I should consider a white model or not. The old problem, I think, I'm confusing and I confuse you, and I apologize. because there was an older problem with white paint having to do with clear coat. And the clear coat was not on all white paint. Without clear coat, it fades faster. That problem, I believe, has been resolved. But now there's a new problem with white paint, which has to do with the fact that they don't have the base correct

so that the upper layers peel off. But that's on older cars. Older cars and current cars. And current cars. Okay. So John would probably be best to avoid. a white Toyota for the foreseeable future? Yes, and then the good news being that they are recognizing the problem.

So it doesn't happen on all white Toyotas, but if it does happen, the good news is they acknowledge. To clarify that, Rick, it goes up, on Krollas, it goes to 2019, the other ones were up to 2017, so none of the ones, the 2020s. And there's really not, that's basically all that's available now. So, but the honest answer is we don't know. We could be surprised with the recall in a year or two. We don't know. Okay, a quick mention before we get to the mystery shopping report, and that is you can go to Erwin Cars and read his latest column.

Why do car dealers lie about their prices? And you can also read that in the hometown news in the Florida Weekly. It's a great read, take advantage of it. Why do car dealers lie about their prices? Okay. here we go. 2020 mystery shop of Southern 441 Nissan. That used to be the old Royal Palm Beach,

and then it was sold by the Penske Auto Group to a guy by the name of Terry Taylor, who is the largest privately held group of car dealerships in the United States. I think he's got 100 dealerships or 80. He's got a ton. Yeah, he's spreading like a virus. Yeah.

We have never mystery shop Southern 441 Nissan. It's always fun. to break new ground and go where no mystery shopper has gone before. Last month, we speculated that we may be close to the point where we shopped all of franchise dealers in Palm Beach County. We've got to quantify that. I'm going to write a list and start checking them off. Having no familiarity with this dealership,

we were able to investigate one of their ads with zero preconceptions. The ad we found was an online offer to lease a new 2020 Nissan Rouge. Is that it? Rogue. Rogue. Rogue. Rogue. Rogue.

Rogue. Rouge. You transposed the G and the U. Exactly. For just $128 a month. $128 a month for a brand new 2020 rogue Ain't going to happen.com. Below the payment was the term 36 months,

the VIN and a selling price of $26,870. A low lease payment always calls for a closer look. Boy, I tell you can take that to the bank. The whole point of lease advertising. is to give you a low payment. And it's just a joke the way they don't care about how much cash you've got to come up with.

It's just a joke. And, of course, we went straight to the fine print. Plus tax title lease. This is a fine print. Plus tax title lease an $899 dealer fee. Lease for 36 month

with approved financing through Nissan Motor Acceptance Corporation. $3,888 due its signing. $3,88. to get this low payment, and then that's not all the money. You've got the dealer fees added to that. 12,000 miles per year, zero security deposit required C dealer for details.

Let me ask Stu a question. Does anybody require security deposit anymore? They used to. Yeah, I haven't seen that. I think that's an acronym. I think they used that. They would do it for people if they didn't qualify. Let's say you didn't quite get the credit score,

and they'd say, well, with two security deposits, we'll approve you. I haven't seen that. I think they say it, even though the lessorers don't even require it, because it sounds like, it sounds good. Because people, oh, look, no security deposit. They don't say nobody charges. Well, because people, you know, looking for an apartment to rent, you know, that's a nice thing to avoid. There are specific things we look for in lease has. The first being the total amount of money required at signing, always, always ask that question, especially when you have a little lease payment.

This amount should include the down payment, all taxes and fees. Sometimes they leave out the taxes and fees and first payment. There's always something they leave out. You want to know how much cash do you have to pull out of your pocket or out of your checking account before you get that payment. We also look at the contract terms length and miles allowed, miles allowed. I've seen mileage allowance as low as 5,000 miles. 10,000 is fairly common. 7,500 is not uncommon.

We also want to see if the offer is for a specific single vehicle in stock, and this is almost always the case. In this case, the offer appears to be for a specific VIN. Now, Stu and I had a conversation the other day at our dealership, and we were trying to get service advertisements without any fine print. And Stu went in and actually talked to the Toyota, the advertising company and said we don't want any fine print in our ads and they insisted that we put in the fact that we have to put the VIN number of the specific car we're talking

about to prove in their words to prove that the car exists to show no no no as an example car example car so but the way we're getting around it is we're going to make that really clear this is an example car they're more available but yeah yeah but most dealers use it to get the The way this is being used, a specific van, that's the only car available, and it's not an example. It's all you can buy, and when you try to buy it, you can't buy it. Cars are already sold. Okay. The total amount, and we're back on the shop of Southern 441 Nissan, in case you just tuned in.

The total amount of money due for this deal was hard to determine. The ad indicated 3,088 was due, but it wasn't clear if that amount included the sales tax. tax, title, license, and the $899 dealer fee. You know, clearness and transparency is not something that is a dealer's friend. It's your friend, and he's not going to make it easy for you to interpret the fine print. First of all, you can't read it, and when you read it, you can't interpret it. The 36-month term was a normal length than the 12,000 miles allowed per year was reasonable. 15,000 is average mileage, but 12,000.

Toyota considers that a low, oh, this is not a Toyota, but Toyota considers the 12,000 miles, a low mileage term. Yeah, exactly. Most is 15. That'll tell you right there. They want low mileage cars when they come back in off lease. Most of the time we mystery shop lease offers. We don't get the advertised payment with the advertised terms.

But as I mentioned before, Southern 441 Nissan is virgin territory. We came with no prejudice or preconceptions. Agent Thunder was ready for everything. I'm Agent Thunder, speaking of the first person. I arrived in Southern 441 Nissan in the late afternoon, grabbed a parking spot right up front. I entered the showroom and walked to a reception-style desk with two men wearing jackets and ties.

I used to wear a jacket, I'd die. Yeah, we all did. Yeah, back in the day, it was a dealer uniform. You know, long white shirts, ties, jackets, crazy. And they were standing my on the desk. One of them asked how he could help me. I said I needed a salesperson. He said he would page one for me.

There must have been managers. I thanked him, asked for the restroom. I made a quick trip to the restroom. And when I came back, there was a large gaggle. I would prefer pack. You use gaggle, I would say. A large pack of salespeople. Like a gaggle a geese.

You know, I did, a long time ago I promised to start using different terms for like groups of salespeople. I had to get back on that. I like that. In front of the salespeople, it was a little intimidating. They were all, all of them. they're waiting for me. The man originally greeted me, introduced me to a man in a red gold shirt named Lloyd. Lloyd suggested we get started at his desk. We sat down at a round table and Lloyd took out a piece of paper, began asking me for information like my name, phone number.

He scribble all this on a piece of paper. Excuse me. I just got a text asking, will you be showing a video with this Mr. Shopping Report? I don't think we have a video, but we have another video with another dealership. I think we should start doing videos with all of our shopping reports when we come in on and out Yeah, yeah The response last week

But Jonathan usually puts together a video for this This will be on our YouTube channel Yeah, we'll put it on YouTube But I think we got so much Comment about our video On Palm Beach Toyota last week That I think we should probably DisoP

And thanks for that Finally Lloyd asked me What I was there for I told him I was doing the legwork From my mom she saw their ad for 2020 Rogue. I feel funny saying for my mom, I'm 79 years old.

That is kind of sad. I'm speaking. I'm speaking as if I'm age of thunder and he is a child. I shouldn't have given out that much information. He's not a child? He's young. Yeah, he's younger than me. Yeah, too. Old guys. He looks as old as me though. We use a terminology a lot. Your dad knows. Nancy uses it alone.

These kids. She saw their ad for a new 2020 Rogue with a really low 128 dollar per month payment. She sent me in to see if the deal was real. Lloyd knew about the offer. He said it was an online special, then pulled it up on the computer. You read the add to me and said that the advertised payment required some money down plus fees. That's interesting. Like money, fees and money are somehow not the same thing. Yeah, it's going to require some money down also. Oh, you also some fees. Oh, yeah, you got some of that too. Not just the money. We need

fees and then he abruptly said he needed to see if the car was still there Lloyd stood up began to walk away then turn and asked kind of like a Columbo he got up turned around and suddenly turned if I was taking the car today you know how I interpreted that was he was gonna talk to the manager and then he realized the managers the first thing is asking is he's taking it today yeah right I said that my mom would come in tonight if I told her the deal was good he returned ten minutes later with Sal the sales manager sell explained the the car was gone.

Cars out of here. No more car. It's gone. Sold that car. But I shouldn't be concerned. He had a few comparable vehicles that are available. Now, this is the way it's done, folks. You're listening to a, and maybe watching the classic bait and switch.

Oh, I'm sorry. That advertised car was just sold. We got some just like it. We got some that are comparable. Okay. he said Lloyd would show me any one of those comparable cars. I asked if they really only had the one car for the ad. He said, yeah.

Then reiterated the part about the comparable ones. Some just like it. Yeah, don't worry. We got some just like it. I asked if the payment would be the same with the same terms. He said the payments may vary a little, perhaps $15 or so. Very little. Now when you say very little, how much you want to bet that they're not less? No, it didn't vary.

Only varies one way. Yeah, it varies one way. The variable up a little, $15 or so. He said we'd have to find the exact twin to the ed card to get the payment exactly. I told him that my mom wouldn't come in unless I told her, Mommy's not coming in unless I told her it was exactly the same car that she saw in the ad. I told my mom, okay. So, Sal told Lloyd to find one with the same MSRP.

And folks, typically, you have many cars in the same MSRP. Dealers order cars and bunches in the order, you know, several, half a dozen of one with the same MSRP. Sal and Lloyd left me to wait. Lloyd returned in a few minutes and said he found a rogue with the same MSRP as the one on the ad. But he couldn't find the keys. Yeah. so car's not here

and sold the keys are gone and now I can't find the keys he said another sales person probably had them he asked if I could wait longer for him to track it down

I said I really didn't want to wait any longer Lloyd suggests again that we look at a comparable one I refused and said I'd wait Lloyd left and returned 15 minutes later with the keys he showed me the car and did a good job with this presentation.

I noticed a big 173 addendum. 1,973 addendum, aka phony Monroney, added BS to a car that you don't want to bump up the MSRP

to trick you. Free lifetime warranty that you only cost you $1973 and they say that's worth $1997. If you look at the picture, so there's two separate lines. One says free lifetime warranty and says value in 1997. Then the 1973 is they charge you for like door edge guards and a cup guard.

So I feel like I owe them $3 because they're only raising the price, 1973, and they give me a free warranty for 1997. I feel guilty. I was ripping them off. Here's the $4.00 I owe you. This is laughable. It's laughable if it didn't actually happen. I want to know what happened to the gaggle of salesmen. Where did they all go?

They flew away. I declined a test drive and said that mommy will want to drive it. And when she got it, when she got here. We went inside and I asked Lloyd to give me something. Mother will want to drive. Lloyd wanted to give me something with the numbers. Where you're getting rowdy. You're all getting rowdy.

I said he needed to get me a document with the ad price in the same term so they could take mommy. Well, no. You said he couldn't give them the numbers because they hadn't run his mother's credit. Mother's credit, right. But they're working on a pay, they put the number on the, on the ad. Of course. And then all you do is put based on a beacon score of 720.

And so it doesn't make, you don't know mommy's credit. It doesn't make any difference. I said he needed to give me a document. Lloyd said they couldn't guarantee the payment knowing her credit. I said if she didn't qualify, that was another story. I wanted to show you that you would honor the ad payment for tap dancing, smoke and mirrors, is what you're saying here, folks. Deception, a bait and switch, all of the above. Lloyd excused himself, returned with his general sales manager, cue choral music. I just picture the big man descending down.

Like, hail the chief, dumb, dum, da, dum. Maybe. The GSM sat down, made small talk for a little too long. Then he told me that they were having an IT issue, internet technology issue, and couldn't print anything. Okay, now, can't find the car, the car sold, and the computers don't work. Very creative. See, I would believe any one of those things. But not all through it.

No. I asked him if he was kidding. He said he really couldn't print anything then. That might have been true. I bet everything else was alive. Oliver Dad, Lloyd, email it to me. I'll email it to you. Stand by.

We're still standing in mind. I said that that would be okay feigning mild irritation. The GSM, general sales manager, left. Lloyd confirmed my email address. I left. The email never came. I called twice, left the messages for my salesman, but he should have to call back.

Epilogue. It was clear to Agent Thunder to me that the salesperson, sales manager, and general salesman. all made an effort to switch to a different vehicle from the one in the ad. The sales manager casually suggested that payment may vary $15 or sell or so from the ad payment. A $15 increase in payment amounts to an additional $540 in profit on a 36-month lease and could be more than $15.

Yeah, he was pretty vague there. Yeah. Around $15. Of course, we can't know how bad it might have gotten, but since they failed to give H and Thunder a buyer's worksheet. I got a little addendum here. Stu didn't even know about this, but... Oh, boy.

But the owner of Nissan 441 Southern Nissan is Terry Taylor. And the general manager over there is... How do you pronounce it? Circe? Sircy? Scarce. Andrew Sears. I don't know. Andrew Sears.

Anyway, he's a nice guy. He's my Facebook friend. And when he came to town a couple of years ago, I congratulated him on his promotion and wish him the best. And he's a nice guy. You see his advertising, and I think he's the guy you see on television with his kids. Who kids? Yeah, they're beautiful young boys, I believe.

And they're just really cute kids. He's a nice guy. And I don't want this to be any kind of a character assassination because he's working for Terry Taylor and he's running the dealership. Anyway, he called me. And hi, Mr. Stewart. This is Andrew Sears with Southern 4th Friday. Well, I'm reading from my voicemail, my written voicemail,

asked me to call, said that he heard you want to sell your car dealership if you'd give me a call back and gave me a cell phone number. But I thought that was ironic, don't you think? Here they're wanting to buy my dealership, and we're doing their mystery shopping report. I guess we enjoy that more than you do. but I thought it was ironic. And the answer is no, I don't want to sell my calculation.

Now we've got a vote. Yeah, grades are coming in. Yeah, the grades are coming in. We got William on Facebook. It says F, even grading on the curve. Then we have Marvin gives him an F. John, that's not Marvin, that's Maria. F. John, F.

Erie, F. I'm waiting for Linda's score, but I'll chime in later. I give him an F, too. Okay. Nancy, what about you? well what about me the mystery shopping report is disgusting and between the gaggle of

you like the gaggle between the gaggle of salesmen who by the way disappeared I don't know where they went and the IT issues and the whole well I'm not a lot of curse on the air F Amy Golden gives them an F with three exclamation

points and Amory gives them a shame on them all over F This is an easy one. I've got Wayne with a big F. Karen, a big fat F, F, F, F, F. We've got Mr. Hand. Fail, fail, fail. I love our fans.

Agent Thunder went to buy a car and they were selling goats. John Strine, Big Fat F. Frank, of course, saying they've been thunderstruck F. Oh, I like that. Thunderstruck. Yeah, I see. You know, this one of these reports that we sometimes have that doesn't do anything extraordinarily bad, but in this case here, they did everything bad.

I mean, it was just like a, it was the deception was not more extreme. It was just more voluminous than the normal. Yeah. So I got to funk them too. Yeah. You know, and when disasters happen, it's never one thing. It's just an accumulation of little errors. If they just done two or three less bad things, we could have let them squeak by with a deep.

but everything was we don't have the car we can't find the car we can't find the keys the computer doesn't work blah blah blah blah blah blah too much deception a gaggle of excuses

hey do you know what a group of buffaloes are called I heard no a gang or an obstinacy I'm gonna use that next week oh that'd be great are we getting near the end of the trail we are near the end yes we are ladies and gentlemen

I want to thank you so much for tuning and Earl Stewart on cars. We sure do have a good time here, and we hope you enjoyed the show. And we'll be right back here next week at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning. Keep it safe out there. Keep it safe. I don't hear our music. Oh, there we go. Vettledo, too.

Vennepo. Vennepo. Beto. Let's go. Oh, no. No more way. Oh,

wow. Oh, go. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Thank you. Two.

Uh-huh. Let's come. Oh! No. No. Oh. Oh. Thank you.

Thank you.