Earl Stewart on Cars - 02.18.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Chatham Parkway Toyota

Episode Date: February 18, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels to a Savannah Georgia Toyota dealer to see if they will honor their online price for a new 2023 Toyota Highlander Hybrid that is on the lot. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Well, we're back again. Your auto team help you avoid being ripped off by your local car dealer. We're broadcasting out of South Florida. We're all over the place. We're getting to the mystery shopping report in Georgia. You'll hear at the end of this show. And we reach all over, Oregon, California, Canada, Virginia, occasionally crossed the pond overseas.

And we're streaming, too. We're not just a radio show anymore. 20 years ago we were when Nancy Stewart and I founded this show with a little radio station called Sea View, which subsequently was sold and we now have Vic Camelli a group which has been wonderful to us allow us to express our opinions

to you, the car buyers of the world and he's awarded lawsuits he has a disclaimer on the beginning of the show and he says he takes no responsibility for what we had to say

but we've never been sued. Why? Because we speak candidly, but the truth is perfect, a perfect defense against libel or slander. And we talk about car dealers. We name names. We name dealerships. Mystery Shopping Report is probably the most, I guess you could say, dangerous thing if I'm, if I was worried about liability, because if a dealer is stealing, we say you're stealing. If a dealer is being honest, we tell them they're honest, but we also say when they've been dishonest. We talk about the sales managers. We name that name if we have it. We usually do, and the names of the salespeople. The only secret name is, of course, our mystery shopper, otherwise known as Agent Lightning.

And we don't do that for liability purposes. We do that to protect her identity so that she can go to different dealerships without being spotted. And usually that works. Usually, our mystery shopper does get spotted. Agent Lightning is our current mystery shopper, and she's been with us for, I guess, almost a couple of years now, but we've had other mystery shoppers over the years. That's an informative and entertaining part of the show,

but the best part of the show is you. I'm not saying that to flatter you as you listen. I'm saying that because the callers to the show, I use the callers in the broad sense because we also have the textors. We also have the anonymous feedback that go through the website anonymously. We have YouTube, YouTube.com, forward slash earl on cars. We have Facebook.com forward slash earl on cars. And you can also go to www.

stream earl oncars.com. www. www. stream earl-oncars.com. And we are right here in the studio, Nancy Stewart to my left, me, and we've got Rick Kearney. We've got Stu Stewart. He had some back issues.

He had those taken care of. This week he's in Philadelphia, visiting our granddaughter in college. And hopefully he'll be back next week. But you, as I say, call the show not just with your contributions, but with your criticism. Constructive criticism would be preferred, but any type of criticism

will be accepted. We want to hear what you think about us and what we can do to improve, but your contributions in terms of what's going on in your community are very helpful. And your experiences when you've had your car in for service, maybe in for body repair, maybe you've got some issues with an insurance company, mechanical repairs, electronic repairs, computer repairs. We're all driving rolling computers now. They're not really mechanical devices anymore. They're far more sophisticated, and they're better,

and the product is getting better and better and better. We'll talk today about the J.D. Power survey, and they took the 2020 cars, and three years later, they report. reported back on the number of issues per 100 cars on the road for each main car. And that's interesting. I mean, there's some big changes. For example, Kia made a quantum leap forward in quality. I remember when Kia first came to this country from Korea, it was just kind of a piece of junk, kind of like the Ugo.

Remember when the Ugo came from Italy or Russia, depending on where it was manufactured? It was just a, of course, the Ugo still is a piece of junk. But the Kia has really come up in quality. I mean, it's right up there competitively with some of the best makes. So that's kind of interesting. And a lot of people consider this show a negative comment on the auto industry. It isn't really negative. It's just real.

And if you listen carefully, a lot of good things are happening. And we are at a watershed moment in auto history. And I think I can say that because I've been in the business since 19. 1968. And I've seen a whole lot of change. The auto franchise system has been around for about a 100 years. And we're seeing that change as we speak. It's changing. The auto manufacturers are talking about selling directly to you like Elon Musk and Tesla do. And the dealers are a little bit upset about that, obviously, because their investments, their businesses, their employees themselves, their, their lively. are at stake. Suddenly, what would happen if Honda decided to eliminate their dealer network and sell directly to you like Tesla does? Well, think about all those Honda dealers. Something to be said in their defense because they've got a lot of money invested in what they do. Let me give some numbers out. As I said earlier, you make the show. The telephone number is 877-9-60-99-7.

6.877-960. You'll hear that number a lot, and we'll all remember, remind you about that number. It'll probably bore the heck out of some of you folks that listen to a greater portion of the show. But remember, people tune in for 15 minutes and then they tune out. That's the average statistic I've heard. We're a two-hour show. We're on from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time today. People are listening all over. So I'm going to give the number out a lot. Please forgive me if you're listening for a long time. But it's 877-960-99-69. Nancy Stewart to my left.

He's got a laptop open. She's looking at the screen. We have Jeremy in the control room here. Jeremy will notify her when that phone rings. He'll get your contact information. And he will let Nancy know that you're waiting to speak. If I'm yakkin or Rick Kernie's yakkin or whoever's yakking, or whoever's yakken, we'll stop

because we prioritize phone calls. We like the phone calls. Personality comes through. It's just warmer and fuzzier. I think it works really well to make the show more interesting. So please call 877-960-99-60, 877-960, and we will answer that phone, ASAP.

If you don't want to use this phone and you want to text, I'm a texter. I prefer text phones, personally. The text number is 772-497-6530. That text number is 772-497-6530. Now, Rick Kearney is also monitoring those as he monitors Facebook. Facebook.com, forward slash roll-on cars, and, of course, YouTube. That's our biggest source. I don't know why, but it is. YouTube. YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars.

YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars. So there we go. I'm going to introduce Nancy Stewart now. Most of you know her. New listeners don't. She co-founded the show with me 20 years ago. She is a strong female advocate. And I mean that in the most positive sense. has built this show from no female listeners or callers. Well, we probably had the listeners, they just weren't calling. Remember, half the world is female,

and half the people that buy cars and drive cars are female. What does that, why wouldn't anybody be calling the show that was female? Well, she changed that. Now we had pretty close to 50-50 female callers, and we're still encouraging you ladies out there to call the show. If you haven't called the show before, listen to this offer that Nancy's going to tell you about.

It sounds too good to be true. It sounds like there's strings attacks, but it's not. It's true. Nancy? Good morning, everyone, and welcome. You are an important part of the show. Very important. Give us a call, tool-free at 877-960-9960, and you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30-6-5-30. Ladies, not everyone knows that women represent a huge opportunity for the auto industry,

but we know it this morning for the first two new female callers. I have $50 for each of you. Take advantage of that and give us a call at 877-9-60-99-60. And as Earl said earlier, we have some good news. We have things are changing. The inventory shortage is, it's not quite as stressful, still a bit stressful, but as I said, things are moving in a positive direction, and used cars, the used car prices have fallen. I believe it's 25% and still, you know, have a lot further to fall.

I have a website for you this morning that I'd like you to take advantage of if you run into any problems in purchasing a vehicle, leasing a vehicle, anything at all that has to do with you, the car buyer. That's www, Florida Law Protectingcarbuyers.com. Jot it done, you'll need it. Florida law protecting carbuyers.com. Again, give us a call 877-9-960, or you can text us at 772-4976530. And don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. We are going to go straight to the phones. We are going to talk to Jeannie, who is a first-time caller from Hope Sound. Good morning. Good morning, Jeanne. Such a pleasure. The website. Thank you. I love that. Oh, thank you. You can, Jeannie, stay on the line when we're finished, and you can talk to Jeremy. Give me your contact information, and I can send you a check for $50. Well, thank you.

Welcome. What can we do for you this morning? well I'm not I've been told that my car needs synthetic and a mix a mix oil so I want to do full synthetic and I'm told that the mix is a better run on my car so as a consumer I want to make the right choice and know an answer from a professional exactly and now Rick can definitely help you make that choice, Rick? Why? What car do you drive? A 2019 Cia Forte.

And do you know what the oil cap says on top of the engine? Usually right on... Oh, God, I don't think she's on, Rick. I don't think people here. I'm telling by what the dealership tells me. Yeah. And I'm not too happy with the dealership. I call them Steelerships now.

Yeah. Unfortunately, there's a lot of bad ones out there. The best way is either checking your owner's manual or if you open the hood and just look for the oil cap, it will usually say on there a number, probably something along the lines of like 0W20. And if it says that, then that is a synthetic oil. And that's the way that Kia, the factory recommends for oil. that engine. And that's the oil that I would tell them, use this oil. I don't want anything else. I don't want to hear about your fancy Rasmataz. I want what the factory says should be in this car. And in your glove box, you also should have received a maintenance guide that will tell you what the factory recommends for maintenance is and at what mileage intervals and time intervals, and if you follow that maintenance guide, you'll get the best service out of your car. Perfect. I will look in my manual.

I never even thought about that. Thank you. You know, Janie, I was just going to say, I think we think in terms, I have a negative opinion about owner's manuals. You know, we're in the digital age now, and I think the owner's manuals of automobiles are one of the last things they're going to be brought up to date. We should have a digital access like we do everything else. Where do I go when I have a question?

I don't call Rick. I don't call Nancy. I don't call anybody. I Google it. We do a lot of Googling, Cheney. So all you had to do. I shouldn't tell you this because you wouldn't even have to listen to the show. But you just Google your Kia and you say Kia and the model number.

and what oil do I use and bam, bam, bam. It'll tell you instead of walking out the car and popping the hood and look at the at the cap on the oil, which is what Rick just told you to do. And then you don't have to call a dealership either and get put on hold and

transfer three times and then disconnected. You just take out your smartphone, bam, Google, bam. You got the answer. I like that, thank you. That's funny. And Jeannie, to what Earl said about the owner's manual, I love the quick reference owner's manual.

You know, you can just leave through there with a quickness. But this morning, maybe Rick thought he was talking to Nancy when he said, pop the hood, because I pop the hood all the time. There's also the owner's manual and the maintenance guides. Those are available online, too, so you could Google those, pull them up and find it in a couple seconds. Everything is on the Internet, and Google is a great. resource for you to get all kinds of information. Jeannie, do you have any other questions? No, I don't at this time, but I did enjoy this conversation. Oh, thank you so much. That makes us

very happy, and I'm sure all of the listeners enjoyed your conversation, too. And I do have to thank you for helping me build a platform right here for the ladies. As I said earlier, and a lot of people do not know this women represent a huge opportunity for the auto industry and for them to ignore it is a financial disaster thank you genie it's true thank you spread the word look forward to hearing from you again i certainly will call back thank you okay that number again is 877960, 9960. You can text us at 772-4976530. And also, your anonymous feedback, you can take advantage of that.

And also, I gave you a website earlier, and recently there's been a big request for that website, and it is to help you to know if the Florida car dealer is breaking the law. Which is going on a whole lot. And that is WWW, Florida Law Protecting Carbuyers.com. Take advantage of that. Jotted Dunn. It's important information. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I just Google what type of oil you're supposed to use in IKEA

and popped up just as 5W20 synthetic oil. The best Kia for our 2019 Kia is the S5W20 synthetic oil. So again, I say that, you know, kind of half tongue and cheek, but really the one of the problems that we have with the cars we own is we don't take advantage of the simple, accurate, straightforward way to go. And the search engines today, and if you're, you know, over 50 or over 60 years old, maybe you're not quite as digitally competent, but I bet you have a son or daughter or a grandson or granddaughter that is, and they can show you or they could do it for you. But it's amazing now. The search engines are now going into artificial intelligence, and Microsoft is coming up challenging Google.

And there's a lot of thought that Microsoft, with their artificial intelligence, it's still in the beta program now, will exceed Google in terms of a search engine. But Google is also using the artificial intelligence now where you can just go online with Google and just verbally say, hey, I'm driving a 2019 Kia, what kind of oil should I use? And they'll talk back to you. And it'll be a, you'll have almost like a human conversation and like you could call Earl and On Cars, except they're a lot smarter than we are. I'll tell you, the information, the world's at our fingertips, without a doubt,

if you have a computer, or if you don't, you can always go to the library, but there's so much information that you can obtain. And Google is just amazing. Moving along here, did you know that Tesla is to open some EVs? It's going to open these chargers to non-Tesla EVs. I'll tell you what. Good marketing move, is it not?

And as Earl said, those are superchargers. Okay, we are going to go to Rick, if you have anything for me or for the audience. We can start right off with Anne-Marie. text as we always usually do. Good morning, Ann Marie. She says, good morning. Many of us have kept our cars longer than we usually do because of the lack of new and used cars. Keeping a car longer makes it more likely that we'll have a warning light come on at some point. Some lights are just reminders to get us to do something like the service required. Others indicate an immediate need to take action. Call a tow truck. Could you please go through the warning lights and

indicators? Which ones are just warnings and which ones indicate imminent danger? Thanks. Well, there's actually a very simple way to judge this. You'll see the lights on the dash have one of three colors, except for the high beam indicator, which is usually blue. You'll see green indicator lights. Those are safe. That's like. Like your headlights are on, maybe cruise control is on, don't even worry about those. Those are just informing you that a particular system is turned on. Yellow lights are warning. This is something that you should look at when you get a moment.

Maybe it's your tire light running a little low on air pressure. Could be just temperature causing that. Or maybe one of the tire sensors is starting the batteries getting old so that yellow light will come on. Yellow is just like the yellow on a traffic light. Caution. Red means danger. Shut the engine off. Find out what's going on because red is you've got a problem that could cause damage to your vehicle. Rick, didn't we have that same text last week? Very similar. Yeah. But it actually was a question, I think, about the flashing check engine light. Oh. Yeah. We got a lot of calls on that and a lot of texts.

So on the check engine light, when the flashing, you need to stop and get it taken care of immediately. Yes. And then with the other warning lights, the color code to tell you, yellow, red, or what was the other one? Green. Green, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Very good.

And also with that warning light, I didn't hear you say, so confirm if this is an accurate statement on my part. But the gas a lid that could possibly be open that would activate that yellow a very real possibility yep okay get the little list back up here I'll see this one is from Bob he says good morning this past week I've been looking at different new cars on Auto Trader there seems that a lot of dealers are lowering their prices below

MSRP even if they had some extra is they appear to being sold very close to the manufacturer's MSRP. I checked some of the MSRPs off on manufacturer's websites. There are some over, but this puts a lot on even far for pricing. Have a great day, Bob. Yeah, the prices are coming down, but the warning that we have been on the show on the show for the whole time we've been on the show

is buyer beware. The general level is coming down. MSRP used to be the most the dealer would charge and now it's become a good price with the microchip shortage which is over and with the manufacturing restrictions

which are over. We're building the inventories and the prices are coming. coming down. So it's all relative. You have two things to worry about the actual price you play and the relative price compared where you might have bought it better. So it's still complicated. You're still going to be paying more than normal, but the new car prices are coming down. But by the same token, the costs they're going up for the manufacturers, and in that sense, their costs are rising. So it's complicated. It boils down to one simple thing.

Competition is your best friend. No matter whether cars are being sold for $5,000 over sticker or sticker or $5,000 below sticker, it'll be a long time before we get there. But if we ever do, your mission as an educated consumer is to go out and shop and compare. Competition is the more car dealers you have, in your market of the make car you want to buy, the easier it is for you. If you're in a metro area, you probably have five, six, seven maybe, toilet dealers or Honda dealers or Chevrolet dealers,

and be sure you shop each of them within any kind of a reasonable driving distance. There's really no excuse anymore not to do that because you can shop online. And I also recommend you do that. Don't think in terms of MSRP. That's a moving target. It used to be MSRP, how much over MSRP do I have to pay? And it'll come down to MSRP. Then it'll be how much under MSRP do I have to pay.

But that number has to be determined. The best way to get the lowest price, and I feel bad about the people that don't have a Costco car, a warehouse in your market. But if you're anywhere near a Costco warehouse, the Costco auto buying program is the best I know of. And the reason for that is Costco contracts with the dealers. And a good percentage, a very high percentage of the car dealers are on the Costco auto buying program. The contract they have with Costco says, I will sell no car in my inventory at a higher price.

I will still add a lower price that I do to anybody else if you're a Costco member. Now, it costs you $65 a year, I think, to join Costco. So if you're not a Costco member, join. I mean, $65 is chump change compared to what you can save in buying a new car. Or a used car. They have a used car program also. So no matter, it's a moving target, the prices are coming down. And rather than you try to determine exactly how far the prices,

it'd come down because that's an average. You know what they say about an average? The guy who drowned crossing a river because it had an average height of five feet, you know, averages have highs and lows. So if you don't get, you can get a below average price at Costco. You will get.

You'll get the lowest price in your market at Costco. So that's my recommendation. I have a question for you. We talk about MSRP. talk about fees, whether they, and we don't have enough time for me to mention all the fees, dock fees, deal, anything you want to spaghetti fees. When will we not be talking any more about market adjustment? When will that be eliminated? We're talking now about used cars plummeting. We're talking about Tesla in the same conversation, which you can pay for a used Tesla today

is, I don't know, is it like $6,000 less? But market adjustment, we see that in a lot of our mystery shopping reports, and we see that a lot with customers calling us and telling us, can we get out of the market adjustment fee? Well, it's coming when the manufacturers sell directly, and that's what the dealers are doing. They're driving, the dealer's worst fear is that they will, no longer be franchised to sell the make car they have.

And there's a pretty big dealers out there, Auto Nation, Penske, Lithia, Sonic Auto Group. I mean, there's big investments in auto dealerships. I have a big investment in our auto dealership. So I'd hate to see me being no longer franchised to sell Toyotas. the games that the dealers are playing to take advantage of customers with the dealer addendums and the dock fees and all the other hidden fees

the dealer install accessories and everybody walks into a car dealership and they pays a different price the better bargainer you are the better, more sophisticated, the more experience the lower the price you get. If you haven't bought a car before and you're not shrewd

and the dealer can outfox you then you pay a huge price. So the dealers are going to be the reason behind their own demise. And it's getting close. All the manufacturers, I promise you, are having secret meetings saying, how are we going to get out of this dealer franchise system we got? I want to sell cars.

We want to sell cars directly to you like Tesla does. Now, this show, or on cars, we've shoped, Tesla and we shopped what was the other one? Lucid. Lucid. Lucid. And we shopped Tesla twice?

Once. But the two electric manufacturers, Lucid and Tesla, they don't have any hidden fees. They don't have any dealer-installed accessories. They sell at the same price that the manufacturer sells for because they are the manufacturing. They're not in business

separately as a second markup. There's only one markup. And then to win the market, you try to have a competitive markup. As a matter of fact, Tesla is gaining a lot of market share right now because they have lower prices than lucid. Lucid prices are so high they're having problems. That's what competition is supposed to do for you, the buyer, the consumer. And what you don't have in the retail franchise system is honest competition. You have dishonest competition. You have disown this competition. So long way of answering a simple question. It'll probably be five to ten years and there won't be any more addendum labels or anything else because of manufacturers will be selling directly. Well, I really think it'll be less than that. If,

and it's a big if, Ashley Moody were to get involved. The Attorney General has a lot to do with this. I want to tell you, market adjustment. I'm in a lot. Market adjustment. I'm in a optimist, market adjustment. I mean, please, we're talking about fees. Let's talk about market adjustment. My goodness gracious, it should be outlawed. When you're talking about spending an investment on a car or a home, these are big investments in your lifetime. Back to the car, let me tell you, to be paying five, six, seven thousand dollars for a market adjustment, it is just not right, Ashley Moody. Nancy, that's not going to happen.

The dealers control the politicians. So you're telling me the Attorney General can't do anything about this. She can, but she won't. What is she in office for? She won't. See, that's the point. And the reason we have a lot of Attorney Generals, we have a lot of local regulators,

but the auto industry, including the retail, the dealers, and the wholesale, the manufacturers, the organizations and the political action committees, they are the ones who control what regulation we have. Ashley, Moody, and all the other 49 Attorney Generals, if they buck the National Automobile Deals Association and the State Association and the dealers, they'll never get reelected. So this has been going on for 100 years. We've had franchise dealers for over 100 years. the regulators aren't doing anything. We are having a watershed moment in our whole history

of auto retailing, and the retailing will go from the dealers to the manufacturers. When it goes to the manufacturers, there will be no dealer fees. There will be no addendum labels. There'll be no hidden fees, and that's the only thing that's going to save the industry. I understand what you're saying, but all of this wasted time on manufacturers and dealers continue Continuously, continuously battling each other. Washington, D.C., battling each other. Let's do something productive. Let's do something for the people, the consumers.

That's why everybody was elected. That's all I'm saying. And this is not right. A market adjustment fee, it is not right. I'm leaving for Washington, D.C. Everybody, bye-bye. Okay. A little bit of heat.

This one is coming in from Anonymous and says, is a Tesla fender bender difficult or expensive to repair? Can you drive around a Tesla with damage until repaired? Also, is it expensive to insure compared to your other cars? Thanks. It is very expensive. And this was pointed out to me about a week or two ago. We were talking about insurance. Tesla is coming out with her own.

own insurance. And I think the reason they're doing that is because the regular insurance companies, GEICO and Progressive and State Farm and Allstate and the rest of them, they do charge more. It isn't because the Tesla has problems with autonomous driving, and there's a lot of people that blast Tesla all the time because they say the autonomous, they're unsafe, and blah, blah, blah. It's because the materials that Tesla use. advanced materials that they use are rare and expensive and so if you have a fender with a Tesla it costs you a lot more to repair than you have a fender with a Chevrolet or a Honda this one's from Jim in North Carolina he's his Earl on a new

23 Toyota Tacoma from the time you get an allocation from SET how long does it take for you the dealer to receive the vehicle. I know once you receive the allocation, the car has not even been built yet, but was wanting to know how long it will take the dealer to receive the vehicle, particularly the Tacoma. Thanks, Jim from North Carolina. Yeah, it sounds like someone that has a Tacoma in order because we've got a couple thousand cars on order in our order bank. Every model of a particular make has a varying pipeline. so to speak. And the Tacoma is a high demand, low supply, and it's got a long pipeline. When we get allocated a car, all that means is that Toyota has said, we're going to build the car,

and they will very quickly assign a VIN number. So as soon as the car goes into production, we have a VIN number, and that's, of course, the vehicle identification number. That is the specific car that's being built. Now, how long is it going to be from the time we get the VIN number? It depends on supply and demand. Depends on where the car is manufactured. For Toyota, most cars are manufactured of the U.S. now, and some other made cars are in the U.S., some cars are only made overseas. So if the car's coming from California or Japan or your local state, that all figures into it and then how many people

are asking for that particular maker car to buy so it could be from the time we get allocated it could be a week or two or it could be a month or two and we can find out and we should tell you

one of the problems we have with our dealership is our salespeople are just getting lazy because they're not really selling cars the way they used to they're taking orders and they're seeing it to the manufacturer and then we're waiting for

Toyota to decide to build it I don't mean decide when they can build it because of the demand and supply situation. So they're order takers now. They're more buyers than we've ever had. The prices are higher than we've ever seen

and so we take the order it goes into the manufacturer sure if the person that order the car changes their mind, that's okay with us because there's three or four people waiting for that same car. So it's a surreal situation we find ourselves in. And I apologize to my customers because we don't do a very good job of telling you, we should call you every week and say, Mr. Jones, you ordered this Tacoma from us a month ago.

We just got allocated for best knowledge, that car should be in in the three weeks. weeks. And then you call them next week and say, I was wrong. It's not going to be three weeks. It's got to be two weeks. You know, when you spend $40,000 or $50,000 on anything and you have to wait, you want to know when you're going to get it. And too many dealers now are just taking these for granted and they don't keep the buyers informed. And I know it's not just my dealership. It's a lot of other dealerships that do that. So great question. And for all of you that are listening to this show right now, and you heard what Earl said, this is an important subject to us. We realize that communication is extremely important, and for so many of you who have ordered a vehicle, and you haven't exactly, you know, heard from a dealership, you know, once every maybe two weeks, I'll say once every two weeks.

Actually, it should be once every week. We have empathy and sympathy for you. We realized you spent a whole lot of money and you've been waiting a long time. But I'm just here to let you know that we know it and we know it's an important topic. And we're working towards perfecting the whole situation. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6. 530. We're going to go back to Rick, but first I'm going to tell Howard. Howard, if you're still listening, give us a call back. Sorry, I couldn't grab your call quick enough.

Okay. And this one came in on Facebook from Chuck. Earl, what are your thoughts on the Tesla recall? Oh, interesting. They're recalling my car. My Tesla planned. I think it's good. Elon Musk's response to that is Tesla, recall is not the right name for what happened with Tesla. He says, there is no recall. In other words, we're not asking, NHDSA is simply saying you have an issue with your autonomous driving and fix it. And so the Tesla owners who have a recall car don't have to bring their car back to Tesla because they will have it fixed online. just by leaving it parked in their garage or wherever it's parked. It's going to be a software repair, and it will be done wirelessly.

It'll be done Wi-Fi on AT&T wireless, and you'll never even have to bring the car in. So I keep my Tesla plugged in every night, and I won't have to wait. I'll just walk out when they do their recall, and I'll get a little flash on my screen and say, your recall has been accomplished and it'll be fixed. It had to do, the recall with Tesla had to do with what they call Toyota self-driving, total self-driving.

It isn't really, that's a misnomer. The autonomous still has a lot of bugs that need to be fixed. And Nancy and I have encountered this. As a matter of fact, I had to promise Nancy I would never turn on the autonomous when she was in the car. So the other day when she wasn't in the car, Because you know what I'll do. I do carry a blade.

The other day when I wasn't in the car and I was driving somewhere, it was really kind of a scary situation. It was a... That's an understatement. So it was the grounds for the NHTSA repair was the fact that their autonomous driving software sometimes directly caused the car to... violate local traffic laws. So that's a technicality they went out on. And I can see that, but we all violate local traffic laws.

Humans, they probably violate local traffic laws a lot more than Tesla will. I know one of the things they're going at, which I thought was interesting, when I had my car, Tesla on autonomous, up on my screen, it says 55 miles an hour. Then it says, adjust. Now, I can adjust it up to 65. Now, that's a violation of the law. So I'm sure somebody... But by the same token, think about this.

If you ever been on 995 or any other turn bike highway and the posted speed is 65 or 55 or 75 or whatever it is, and if you go at the posted speed, what happens? You get run over. You get run over. So Tesla has an adjustment, because if you don't have an adjustment, it's unsafe. If you adjust it, you're breaking the law. But if you don't adjust it, you get rear-ended.

So that's what the Tesla recall is all about. But I love the fact that I can just not have to do. You know, how many people don't have the recalls done because you just haven't got the time to take it into the dealer? You call the dealer. You can't get through the switchboard on the phone. And when you finally get it in, they say they don't have the part. and if you bring it in, they'll tell you it take it one day and it takes three days.

So people don't get recalls done. And 25%, well, no, 75% of the people never have the recall done. Because there's all kinds of recalls. I mean, some of them are not really dangerous, but most recalls would never accomplish because of the inconvenience. Now, in the digital age, most of our recalls are all going to be done wirelessly while your car is parked. I love it.

All right. This one is from another, Bob. He says, when buying a used one-year-old car, is the original factory warranty valid to the new buyer? Yeah, the warranty, the factory warranties go with the car, not the buyer.

So no matter how often it's changed hands, if you've got a three-year-36-000-mile warranty and Shane Chan's changed three times and you're the third owner and they're still less than 36,000 or three years on the car then you still have the warning and that's got us caught up here

on YouTube and text messages how many people this is interesting and I run across this out of my news how many people know of an auto manufacturer called VinFAS V-V-I-N-F-A-S-T

VINFAST How many people have ever heard of this? If you haven't heard of VINFAST, then you don't know the CEO. The CEO of VINFAST is Leithi-Thu-Thui, T-H-I, T-H-U-Y. I mean, all the experts in here. I'll float that out there, and maybe someone out there knows the answer. If you don't, you can Google it. If you know the answer, give us a call at 877-9-6-0-6-0-9-60.

It's an auto manufacturer, and the CEO is L-E-L-E-L-E, Phi, T-H-I, Thu, T-H-U-E, T-H-U-E-Y. I just, I mean, they're a big manufacturer. They're new, obviously, and it'd be interesting. Who knows about that? Okay, let's talk about the conflict between the dealers and the manufacturers. This was written up in automotive news, and Nancy went on a rant about 20 minutes ago about the Attorney General, and why don't the regulators do something about cleaning up the act of the dealers? And this speaks to what's happening now.

It's this watershed moment in our auto history. The manufacturers are some openly, for example, Honda, saying we're going to sell direct to the consumer. I mean, that's got to shake up a lot of Honda dealers. Others are kind of not talking about it, but behind closed doors, all the manufacturers are saying, how can we get out of these franchise dealers that are embarrassing us by the, the games they're playing by the fact that auto dealers are last in the annual

Gallup survey on honesty and ethics and professions. No, or not? Oh, who is? I looked it up. December of 22, we actually moved up to number three. Wow.

From the bottom. Ahead of lobbyists and telemarketers. Oh, telemarketers. So doesn't it make you feel good as a car dealer? We're only better than marketers, telemarketers, or lobbyists. And the lobbyist are why the regulators aren't doing anything to clean up the act. So here we are the manufacturers trying to go direct for obvious reasons. They want to sell more cars.

They want to sell cars, honestly. They don't want the reputation of the dealer to taint their reputation as auto manufacturers. And that happens all the time. I mean, there's some very, there's some quality dealers out there. I mean, manufacturers out there. They really want the best for their customers, but they have to go through a third party, which is a car dealer, and the car dealer is embarrassing them. That's got to be cleaned up. Now the dealers are attacking the manufacturers, and there's a secret war going on. The dealers are going out to the manufacturers to try to make more money. They are going to their lobbyists and to their state associations, to their federal associations, trying to get the manufacturers to pay them more than they're entitled to to do warranty work. And the mediators,

I read this in automotive news, and they kind of represent the Henry Kissinger's between the car dealers and auto manufacturers because they have to cater to both. They're saying, hey, listen, you dealers and you manufacturers, you've got to come together. If you don't come together, and you start fighting each other, then who's going to win? The consumer's going to win, because the consumer is going to get their way, and the manufacturers will be selling direct. Well, one thing I can say about the dealers and manufacturers, they're consistent. With that said, we're going to go back to the phones where we have Bob holding.

He's calling us from Lake Park, and Marty will be with you momentarily. Good morning, Bob. Good morning. I'd like to make a correction on that. the warranty transfer with Hyundai. Okay. The second owner doesn't get

the full warranty transfer on the power train that gets reduced. Oh, what's reduced too, Bob? I believe it's reduced from 10 years to 5.

It goes to 560. I think it's 10,100 and it goes to 560 on the Hyundai's. Well, thank you very much for correcting me. You don't get the pull up. You get the other part of the warranty, I think, is transferable, but there's an adjustment made on the second owner. I see.

Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Do you drive a Hyundai, Bob? No, I have a Mustang. Thank you. Thank you for calling. Okay. Have great day, Bob.

Thank you, Bob. Our number here is 877-960-9960, and you can also text us at 772-497-6-5-3-0. We're going to go to Morty, who's holding in West Palm Beach. Good morning, Marty. Hi, how you doing? How are you doing today? Great. I just have to, excuse me, if the car manufacturers were to sell direct, who's going to do the service? Well, they'll have, probably be set up like Tesla is, they will have actual satellite repair areas for the cars in their market.

So they'll have, it'll look just like a dealership. Matter of fact, I always call the Tesla dealership, it's not a dealership, it's owned by Tesla. And Lucid also has a repair facility. They have technicians and they do exactly what a dealer does are probably better because they're going to treat you a lot more fairly. You're not going to have hidden fees. You go to the service department today.

We talk about dealer fees a lot, hidden fees. Service departments have hidden fees. They don't call them dealer fees. They call them miscellaneous. They call them hazardous waste disposal. The dealer screw the customers in the service department and the showroom. Manufacturers don't do that.

I'm not saying maybe they're better human beings than manufacturers. I'm saying a big target like General Motors or Ford or Honda or Toyota, they're afraid and they're a big target. And if they start taking advantage with hidden fees, they're going to get nailed in a hurry. So don't be worried about getting your car fixed. They'll have regional areas also stockpots. I have a warehouse, stockpalling cars, and they'll have locations where they can have them readily serviced.

I know. Look, every time I come into your dealership for service, I mean, people are coming in there constantly. And then there's also people that come in with no appointment, that they have to get something fixed. So I'm just wondering, they would have to have, now obviously they sell more Toyotas than they sell, you know, electric cars. Not for law. So, you know, right now Tesla can have its one service area on Okachobi Boulevard for everybody that bought a Tesla in Palm Beach County. But I think they're going to need you on sale.

Well, not as much. I mean, I appreciate that. I mean, I hope they need me, but I've got to face reality. And the cars today, I mean, I'm doing this Tesla, I'm not, hey, listen, there are better cars. in Tesla, Tesla's got problems, you know, I mean, they got a lot of problems. But the concept of Tesla and the electric vehicle, flash forward 10 years, all the cars are going to be so good that you're not going to require maintenance, hardly at all. Repairs will be done wirelessly while your car is parked in your garage.

I've been in the Tulsa store once or twice. I've had the car for a year. I talked last week, I think. I had a windshield washer. My windshield washer was malfunctioning. Tesla came out to my house and went in the garage, jacked it up, put in a new washer motor.

So even when there is something that has to be done, they'll be doing it in your home. They understand, a lot of the people understand, now that the consumer wants convenience. They want to buy a car, they want the car to get them where they want to go and back home again,

and they don't want it to be a complicated part of their life. So there will be that convenience who we have, but that just won't be the need for it, Marty. I know how you feel, but 10 years from now, some people will buy a car and they'll never have it into the service department until they'll trade it in.

They'll never go to the service department. I got one other question that Rick, I'm sure can answer. Years ago, cars needed a tune-up. Now I never hear of a car needing a tune-up. Do they need tune-ups? Well, years ago, a tune-up was the technician would adjust the carburetor to adjust the flow of the fuel going in, and he would adjust the timing on the distributor.

Well, now the computer controls the fuel going in, in through the injectors multiple times a second per cylinder and it adjusts the timing multiple times a second per cylinder. So technically the computer is doing a tune-up on your car probably 20 or 30 times a second as you're driving down the road. It uses the information from all the sensors to determine what adjustments it needs to make. The only thing that really is done now is most cars, I'm going to say, are on 60,000-mile spark plugs or 120 or 150,000 mile for the spark plugs. And that's a tune-up anymore, is just replacing the spark plugs when they're come due. How would a person know, I guess, if the car's not running right, that they need spark plugs?

In the maintenance guide on your car, it'll tell you at what mileage you, you? You should replace the spark plugs. Okay. And is that a simple job now, or is that still the dealership will shaft you? Some cars, it's 20, 30 minutes. Other cars, it's four or five hours. Like, say, a Highlander just did one yesterday. You've got to remove the intake plenum, which is the plastic piece that flows all the air

to each individual cylinder to access those back three spark plugs, and they are buried. Thankfully, those only need to get done every 120,000 miles. And what would the cost of that job be? Around $450 to $500. Oh, good. Well, I guess if you're going to keep the car that long, it's still cheaper than buying a new car. Yep. Yeah.

All right, very good. Thanks. Thank you, Martin. Earl, don't worry about it. You're going to be in business a while. I'm not worried about it. I'm worried about, not for me, for my sons, because they're in the business. So, I'll be honest with you, we're all, every dealer, whether I admit it or not, is worried about this issue.

And we all see the handwriting on the wall. We just don't like to talk about it. All right. Have a good week. Thank you, Marty. Great hearing from you. remember ladies I have $50 for the next

new female caller $50 so there's still time for you to give me a call at 877-960 we're going to go to Dominic who's calling us from Coral Springs good morning Dominic good morning I've got a question about a car that I have I've got a 2006

Lexus it was top of the line and I decided that that would be my last car when I bought it I was 65 and I just had it redone and had all jocks and everything done and now

my headlight was going out and I told her to put a new headlight in and he says it's not a new headlight at the assembly and he said what you need to do is buy a new car Is there any inexpensive way to fix the headlights on this Lexus? It's got 61,000 miles on it. Truth be told, the most cost-efficient repair is to replace the headlight itself. It's the assembly.

It's an LED-type assembly. It's going to be a few hundred dollars, but on an 06 Lexus with 60,000 miles on it, and I'm going to kind of step onto a limb here and guess that you've got a garage kept car. You keep it in the garage? I used to be for my wife put her car in the garage. Ah, gotcha. But I'm betting it's probably, this car probably looks really, really good. It does.

I would replace that headlight in a heartbeat. I would go to another mechanic, say I want that assembly, get it from. Lexus and replace that part because truth be told, you've got a fantastic car. An 06 Lexus with 60,000 miles is going to last you

another 10 years or more. There's nothing wrong with putting a little extra to get that headlight in properly. And the cost of that versus the cost of a new car, I'd stick with that old one all day long myself.

Okay. I was quoted $2,000 a head light. Yeah, unfortunately, it is expensive. Can you shop that? I mean, where can you buy a headlamp assembly other than Lexus? You can get aftermarket headlight assemblies. The only drawback, they may not last as long, but that is another alternative. Look online on Google, on Amazon, and look for headlight assemblies for your car. And one other thing you might consider, for any of it. operation service or maintenance operation on Lexus, if you can find a toilet dealer you

trust, they will do the maintenance repair work a lot cheaper than Lexus. Lexus is the high price spread. Most of their customers are very affluent. Most of them have a few extra bucks to throw around, and they charge higher prices. A Toyota dealer in your market that you can deal with, you should at least get competitive pricing there. But if you could go online or have someone, you know, when your kids or somebody you know that's handy online and shop for the Lexus 2006 Headlight Assembly, even if it's an aftermarket, if it's, let's say if you buy it on Amazon, for example, if it has high ratings, but for the people that bought it, then you can take that assembly to a toilet dealer and you might save

yourself a whole lot of money. I mean, it sounds like a lot of trouble, but if you go to a Lexus dealer, you've got to pay all the money. They get all the money because they can. Well, I'm actually going to disagree with the Earl on one point here. I wouldn't go to a Toyota dealer. I would go to an independent mechanic because an independent mechanic is actually going to cost you even less than a Toyota dealer will. And the only reason I had mentioned of getting the part from Lexus is you would then know even a Toyota dealer for a car. an 06 for that assembly, he's going to have to go through Lexus to get it.

But an independent mechanic can quite often get a wholesale rate through Lexus to get a lower price on the headlight than you were if you went in, walked into the dealer and bought it yourself. But they're also going to give you a lower price on the actual installation. And I know there are lots of good independent mechanics out there that can do that job perfectly for a very good rate. And you might also even consider the website called rockato.com for parts on there. But if you do, I would look very carefully at what parts you're looking at and what the

reviews are and make sure you get a good quality one. When you, Rick, this is for Dominic. If you were to purchase a headlight assembly kit and you were to take it to that independent, you know, repair shop, would they accept the fact that you brought that kit in? Yes. They would? Most independents would have no problem with that. Because I see here, I Googled it, and there's prices that range from $250 to $1,000,

but then there's prices from $75 to $400 if you do take advantage of what you just said about taking it to a repair shop. Right. I'm looking at, because I was, I was quoted $2,000 a light. That's amazing. Was that at the dealership, Dominic? Was that at Lexus? No, it's my mechanic.

My guy go to all the time. Oh. Dominic, I'm looking at Amazon right now, and Amazon's Choice, which they usually put four stars plus. There's a company called AC-A-N-I-I-I. And they have prices in the $400,500 area. So I really believe, I prefer Amazon because you can get the reviews for people that have actually bought the product and they rate the product.

So I'd go to Amazon, put your model in Lexus. I'd buy it on Amazon. And as Rick suggested, I'd take it to an independent mechanic that would install for you. You'll save yourself a lot of money. And one other quick suggestion. Go ahead. Go online and look for Lexus forums for local Lexus owners, because Lexus is another one that has a great following of owners that love their cars. Connect up with some of the guys on there that are local in Palm Beach County area or local to you. And ask them what mechanics they go to, who they trust with their cars.

and you can get hooked up with somebody aftermarket that can do some incredible work for you. Great information. Well, appreciate it. And let me tell you this. I really appreciate your show. Thank you. I enjoy listening to it

because it brings me back to when everybody was honest at one time or another. Thank you so much, Dominic, from all of us. All right. Thank you so much for your information. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Keep on listening.

Have a great weekend. And we are finally going to get to Howard. Howard has been waiting patiently. Good morning, Howard. Good morning. I hope you all find. That's such nice weather on the beach today, but it's better than up north. By the way, did you know something?

New York City has not had snow this year. They broke a record. January 29th was the last time in history that it's snowed. So it has not even in Central Park, not one inch of snow. Wow. Amazing, right? Okay, let me try to stump Earl, not Rick. Earl, I have a question for you.

Okay? Okay, ready? Yeah, I'll give you a hit. All set. Okay. How do you try, how can you Ford a Jeep, Ford, F-O-R-D? I'll give you a hint if you can't answer a question. now say that again how do you ford a jeep

F-O-R-D a jeep how do I ford a jeep not a Ford Ford Ford F-O-R-D how do you Ford as an a Ford no he said not a Ford F-O-R-D how do you Ford a jeep And I was, you mean like Ford across the river with a Jeep? You gave it up.

I want an Earl to answer. Rick, I'm sorry. I may have a scratchy voice, but I got a clever mind. Yeah. So can you explain that? So Earl can learn something? I just, it's the language is, if you're crossing a river, you're ford the river.

Yeah. So if you've got a jeep, you're going to drive across the river. I understand fording a river, but I didn't understand fording a Jeep. So that's, yeah. Yeah, I did it.

You know, in Korean. Oh, so you had a real Jeep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Now, Earl, I have an idea. I think this may work. In order to save a lot of fuel, I would suggest that the government puts into place a plan 2025, one quarter of the cars must be hybrids. 2006, three quarters, et cetera, and going down the line. What do you think of that idea? Instead of just going straight into electric to have more hybrids.

being produced, and the government is insisting on this. What do you think of that plan? Anytime you say the government insisting on something, I get nervous. And, you know, the government, we've got the greatest country in the world. But politicians are politicians. And they tell us what we want to hear. And behind closed doors, they take a lot of money from a lot of big companies and other people. people to do what they want to do.

I'm not, you know, I very vehemently criticize our government and the politicians, but at the same time, I'm applauding them because I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the world. But, I mean, I'd rather have all the crap that we take from our politicians and all the influence that the lobbyists have on the. our legislatures and our regulators, then live in China. I don't want to live in China. I don't want to live in Libya.

I don't, this is the only place. But I just don't, I don't like it when they monkey with the economy and try to, even when they have good intentions, they pass these laws, they turn around and backfire. I think the electric vehicle revolution will take place just because it's a better product. you know, it's, you build a better mousetrap. Somebody is building a better mousetrap now, and the world will flock to your door when you do that. So, EVs are going to come, and you can do subsidies,

you can do, you can punish people for not having an EV, but it's going to happen because the electric vehicle is a superior vehicle. Okay. My last question is, why did they discontinue the solar? I think it was 20, 22, when it was discontinued. Yeah, it's terrible. Toyota, you know, as a local dealer in Florida, I thought it was the dumbest thing they've ever done.

But if I were to talk to the head of Toyota, remember, they saw these cars all over the world. And we see a lot of convertibles in Florida because this is convertible territory. You know, especially during the winter, what's nicer than being out with a top down and you're convertible? So, but, you know, if you live in Minneapolis or you live in, you know, Anchorage, you know, the world is a big place.

You know, I could tell you exactly what happened. The Salera wasn't, wasn't, it was taking up space in some assembly line somewhere. People want to buy a lot of Toyotas, and the assembly line that they had to build the Salaras wasn't getting used enough. They could use it to build something that's selling faster, so they discontinued it. I felt the same way about a number of models that were popular in the Sun Belt states, but they weren't popular in the rest of the world. Today, the good news for you salar owners, they're worth almost what you paid for at the beginning. I mean, a salarer is like an antique car that's worth a lot of money.

Do you get any salarers and you use car a lot? Not enough. I mean, when they come in, they get sold. Every time I talk to a salar owner, I say, And this is before the shortage and the pandemic and all that kind of stuff. But the solar convertible is such a highly desirable car. I say to them, you know, hang on to that car. It's only going to grow.

The only car you ever bought that's appreciating in value. And I said, if you ever decide you don't want to, please let me buy it because I'll pay you a lot of money for it. But if you have a solaric convertible, and there are other cars like that that just you get lucky you bought it at the right time. and they're worth more today than when you bought it. No other used car can you say that about. That's great news to Salara owners. Yeah. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And Howard, you have a better chance of pulling over someone who's driving a Salara, a Celica, an Avalon, and making them an offer. It's just amazing how much those cars are worth right now today. Okay, thank you. Good information. Thank you. Thank you, Howard. Thanks for your patience. We're going to Doug in Boca. Good morning, Doug.

Good morning, Doug. Maybe we lost Doug. Good morning, Doug. Hey, I'm here. There is. Good morning. That was quick. I missed the sunrise today, but I'm sure I can watch it later.

Hey, Doug, did you know that Boca Raton is one of the few cities that will not allow car dealers? They're a very smart government there. They ban car dealers. If you want to buy a car at Bocca Raton, you've got to go to Delray or south to Fort Lauderdale. I know, isn't that amazing? Well, I'm glad that you didn't try to start a car dealership in Boko. so my question is I'm sure I'm beating a dead horse

here but I think I'm going to give up on the Toyota GR series I even told your dealership and they say oh we'll get back to you I go okay it just seems like it's such a hard car

to get and if you want want to get it, then they mark it up anywhere between 10,000 to as much as 20,000 on the model. Now, it's a bad situation, and I have it with my own sales force. We're right now on a mission to relearn the car business. We've been living in Lala, Disneyland, or whatever you want to call it, for the past three years. and this is true for all car dealers and the salespeople I'm probably going to get a lot of salespeople

mad at me now but it wasn't your fault I'm not mad at the salespeople because of anything they did we are living in an artificial bubble of prosperity and if you're a car salesperson today

people are begging you to buy a car and you're doing them a favor and you're charging them all the money for the car and then you order it and then you go and find somebody else to order the car. You don't even want to tell the customer you sold the car to last month

if and when his car is going to be there. So it's a sad situation. I like to think my dealership is doing a better job than others, but I be honest with you, I get calls and so does Nancy all the time say, I bought a car three months

ago, I bought a car four months ago, when's it going to be here? I call the He didn't return my phone call. And everybody in my dealership listening to me now is saying, boy, I can't believe he's saying that about us. Well, I don't, I'm not saying that about all, but some of us in all of the dealerships down there are not treating our customers the way we should.

Yeah, and I mean, even with my car that I bought in 2020, the S.I, they keep calling me up. They go, hey, we want to buy your car. come in, we have a new SI, we'll give you a deal. So I went in there to Delray Honda, and

the sales guide said, okay, we'll take a look at your car. So they looked at my car and they said, okay, we're going to offer you 27,000 for it. And the new SI is only, are you sitting down? 43,000.

I looked at They call that stealing the trade for stealing the car. Yeah, that's, it's always been a huge part of the business is every car dealer always tries to buy a car. Well, this is just, that's because it's a horse trading business, the only one left. For 100 years now, car dealers have been treating customers like they're buying a horse and not a car. You know, they call it haggling. and they do it when they sell you the car and they do it when they buy your car.

So when you say, what? You're crazy? Oh, wait a minute. Let me go talk to my manager. Instead of 27,000, maybe we can do a little better and they play the game. Meanwhile, you can sell the car for twice that and you've got to go through this

game playing. That's the reason the franchise system is dead in the water. They're dead. They just don't know it. And 10 years from now, there won't be any car dealers. Wow. Well, I hope you're still there because you're...

I hope so, too. But I'm 82 years old, remember that? Really? I never do that because watching you every morning. Well, thank you. I feel like I'm 22. I mean, you do this every morning. It's amazing.

The sunrise, yeah, not the radio show. Yeah, exactly, Doug. At age 82, and age 80 to, you know, the schedule that Earl and I have. It's amazing. I'm looking for two people that are our age and keep up the pace that we keep. And there's things we do you don't even know about. Doug, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for calling, as always. Have a great weekend, and we'll talk to you soon. And Ella says hello.

Oh. Hi, Ella. Meow. Hello. Okay, we're going to go to Roadrunner, Steve, who's been holding in Boynton. Always a pleasure to talk to Roadrunner, Steve. Good morning. Good morning, everybody.

Good morning. I feel happier already. You fill us with energy. Yeah, ain't it forge your river? Not ford to river. Ain't it forge, F-O-R-G-E? Yeah, you're right, yeah, forge. Ford a river, forge a knife.

Oh, Ford. Is that right? Oh. Yeah, Ford the river. I'm not to Google that, boy. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I know you're right. When you hit my age of 92, you'll get a little smarter.

Is that right? God bless you. I'm giving you a story. I'm giving you a story. Okay, tonight at 8 o'clock on Me TV, they're going to have the greatest Mopart chase ever seen on TV. Look on. Everybody, remember the movie, dole?

Yes. okay it's either well that's on tonight at eight o'clock with a permit i think it's a signet or the dog start i'm not sure because i couldn't get the straight google on it plus it was a slant six motor with that and the funny part was when dennis we was driving the car the car was overheating so guess what he did to cool down the car what trip do you always use i'm afraid to ask We put the heat on. We love you. I love that on my 69 barracuda slits.

Put the heat on. There you go. And that's invited, everybody. Have a good weekend. Hey, Steve. Thank you. That was a 71 Plymouth Valiant that he was driving. I was a Valiant?

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. And it was great. Yes.

And he was up against a 195 Peterbilt. I just Googled it. And he never seen the driver. Because I remember that movie because that, oh, that was one incredible movie. Yes, it was. One of the greatest Mopar chases in history.

Yep. Well, speaking of that, I've been watching Highway Patrol. Oh. Do you know what was forfeit? He switched for him. He started driving Dodge Corrinette with the push-button trains on the dashboard. Wow.

And they were all V8, because they seemed to dual exhaust. Yeah. Okay, that's it for me. You have a lot of information for us, Steve. We love you. Unfortunately, in eight hours and 47 minutes, I'll be in bed. Because that's one. Oh, okay.

So I might miss that show. Thanks, Steve. D-V-R it. Just D-V-R-it. There you go. There you go. 148 episodes. I'm up to 140.

Holy moly. 10-4? 10-4? 10-4, Steve. Listen to our mystery shopperry report, Steve. We'll talk with you later. Yes, I do. I love them.

Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, folks. I'll give out that text number. It's really important because, It's 772-4976530. You're a big part of the mystery shopping report when it does come up. We have a few things to get to before that.

But again, that number, 772-4976530. Now, back to the recovering car dealer. Well, nobody called in about the new car company that I asked about earlier. VinFest, V-I-N-F-A-S-T. If you Googled it, that's cheating. but it's a Vietnamese auto maker and their CEO is Lee Thie Thu Thui

and the Vietnamese folks out there tell me if I mispronounce it. L-E-T-H-I-T-H-U-Y But he's a CEO and they ship their first cars to California in January and they're going on sale this month now they're going to be big big

in EVs they're starting out with piston cars but they are going to go all out for EV you have to but you know the whole idea you know you older folks out there I mean that remember Vietnam

and even the older older folks who remember you know the World War II I started in business with Toyota in 1975 now that's a lot of long way from 1945, but still, I can remember when I started in 1975, a lot of people were just bitter because I can't believe you're selling a damn Japanese car, you know? And you can't

blame people. I mean, you lost your son, or maybe you were wounded yourself, and you fought of the war, and it was pretty rough. And now here you are buying a product from the enemy in your mind's eye. And when I first heard that, the fact that now we are friends, and it's kind of cool that that can happen. I know I'm getting philosophical here, but that you can, it gives you a hope in my mind

that you can have a terrible, terrible, bloody, deadly war, and then years later, you become friends and you become partners in commerce. That happened in Japan. It's happened in Vietnam. Maybe it'll happen with Russia and China. I mean, it would really be nice if we could just have all friends for countries, and it is because it is a global economy that we're dealing with.

Absolutely. It says right here in the automotive news that drumming up vehicle buyers remains a challenge. It remains a challenge for the brand, which is virtually unknown in North America. VINVAS has about 12,000 U.S. reservations. for this VF8, VF9, electric crossover. The other little bolts that I get from automotive news of interest, especially to you Ford owners out there, Nancy and I are, I say friends with we know, the CEO of Ford

because he was Toyota originally. And Jim Farley, James Farley. very great he's a smart guy he's a good manager but the reason we liked him so much is that he understood the buyer and he had compassion he understood

he started with Toyota as the head of the Sion division the Sion division was a vision that Toyota had hey we're going to build a car and we're going to sell a car

the way cars should be sold because we know cars are being sold wrong now and they're being built wrong also and they came up with this kind it was like a pie in the sky dream as it turned out you know the bubble popped but jim farley pushed it and did a great job and we had a lot of conversations because we had a sion franchise they made the sion franchise separate from toyota you had to have your own showroom you had to have your own salespeople they didn't allow the you to mark the price up the price you saw was the price you paid. They had a lot more safety features, and it was a great vision. Well, it was a huge flop, and Jim Farley left, and he went to Ford. So Ford saw the same thing in Jim Farley,

I think Toyota saw, and they brought him in. Unfortunately, he's been there for two years, and Ford is stumbling now. So for you folks that are Ford owners out there, Ford's having some real problems. And Jim Farley, if anybody can bring him out of the slump, he's been there for two years. He hasn't done it yet. He made a statement that is almost hard to believe that he would publicly say this. He said that Ford has 25% more engineers to build the same car that our competition does. Ooh. Them's fighting words. I mean, how do you think everybody in Ford fields that works for Ford Motor Company, when the CEO says, I'm going to start firing engineers. And if he's going to be firing engineers, he's going to be firing a lot of other

people. So be thinking about it. I'm not telling you to trade your Ford then. Ford builds some very good products, like the F-150, the best-selling vehicle in the world, I think. It's certainly the best-selling truck. And it's a very good truck, by the way. So you can have a great product, but if you don't have the management and the vision, we'll see if Jim Farley can deliver that. But it's words of warning to you, for others out there, keep your eye on it. You'll want to be another Osmobile or another Pontiac, you know, because there are no more osmobiles and there are no more bonnetics.

This whole landscape we see of manufacturers, there's not going to be as many manufacturers 10 years from now, as there are now. So you're better off to be with one of the winners to one of the losers, so I'll be thinking about that. Absolutely. Okay, I think it, do you have any more breaking news for us? We've got a couple of here, though. Do you have some texts?

First one, the comment from Rocky Blocketeel, he says, you guys are in your 80s? Amazing, you look great. Well, thank you very much. Who was it? Rocky Blockatiel. Rocky, thank you so much. We'll definitely take the compliment.

And this one from Paul, he says, here's a legal question. I noticed on buyer worksheets shown during mystery shopping reports that sales tax is added at the end. Last week, your report indicated the sales tax was charged on the phony dealer fee and on the phony government fees. Since a government fee is a tax to begin with, how can a dealer charge a tax on a tax? Or charge a tax on something that doesn't exist. Who keeps that money? Well, I don't even remember about the particular incident, but there are dealers that will inadvertently, or on purpose, probably inadvertently,

charge a tax on a tax. And it's a mistake, but it is illegal. can't do that. You can't tax a tax. And that's my definition, the litmus test, is it a phony fee, is it a hidden fee, or is it a real fee? The litmus test is, did they charge your sales tax on that? And you can calculate it. You take your buyer's order, or sometimes the worksheet, and you can look at the sales tax, and then by looking at the sum total that the sales tax was charged on, find out if they did charge you the sales tax. tax. Deals get in trouble all the time for not charging sales tax on things they should, but sometimes they probably do it the other way, and they're making money for the state of Florida, in my case, or whatever state you're in, and they're charging sales tax on a tax it's not supposed to be. And this one, hi guys, Casey and Canada. I was down to my dad's down in North Palm Beach, and I loved your show. Question, I have a 2020 Tacoma,

and I do all my own maintenance. Why is it so hard to find a detailed maintenance schedule that breaks down everything for plugs, fluids, et cetera? I'm finding so many conflicting schedules or schedules that don't list the front differential or transfer case interval, oil intervals. Where can I find an accurate schedule that I can print and keep? Casey, it's already been done. You should have in your glove compartment in the manual, along with your owner's manual, a maintenance guide that will tell you every, about every, for a Tacoma, it should be broken down as every 5,000 miles, exactly what the factory recommends

for maintenance on your vehicle at that particular time. If you don't have that book, stop it at your local dealer and ask them for it. Odds are they will be more happy to order one and get it for you. they might charge you a couple $10, $20 for it. The other way is you can go online and find it online you're looking for the Toyota

factory maintenance schedule and print it right off of there. Now, if I heard this correctly, that person is doing the maintenance themselves. Yes. Now, this is a long shot because

Toyota Tacoma is a good product. You're probably not going to have already problems. the problems that would be covered underwarning. But Toyota requires that you have that work done. If you have it done other than a dealership, you should keep your receipts. I'm not sure what

you would do if you do it yourself. What I would suggest and Rick maybe has a better idea, I would suggest that you keep a little diary. And when you do it, put the date and the time. If you bought some oil, show the receipt for the oil,

oil filters, the same thing. But if you keep a running diary of the maintenance you did, it would be some form of proof. Unlikely that they would give you a problem with that. But certainly if you go to an independent repair or maintenance place, you get receipts there. All they require is the maintenance be done. And you have to have some kind of, if they say,

well, you couldn't have possibly been doing the maintenance because this particular, failure could only occur if you didn't change your oil. You have to have a counter argument of that. Exactly. Saving the receipts, awesome. I definitely do that idea. Because I actually did have a customer that came in one time and we pulled the oil filter off of their car. The car had like 35,000 miles. The number on the filter was the only way you get that number is when they come from the factory. The filters that Toyota will sell you or anyone else would sell you has a different part number on it. So I knew it was the factory original filter. This customer

said they'd had their neighbor, they'd been paying a neighbor to do all their maintenance. The guy never changed the oil once on this car and the engine was full of sludge, locked up and destroyed. So make sure if you're going to have someone do it, find someone that you definitely trust that's going to do it right, save your receipts. And if you're doing it yourself, like Earl says, save your receipts along with the list of exactly what maintenance you did. And that way you've got a paper trail to fall back on. That paper trail is very important.

And saving your receipts is always a good idea. We are going to have to get to our mystery shopping report. We're running out of time. I want to let everyone know that Agent Lightning walked us through the Chattel Parkway Toyota. She recently was in Savannah, Georgia, and I'll tell you what, Agent Lightning is irreplaceable. She is just amazing, and the encounters that she has had through the years is also amazing. So please vote this morning on the Mystery Shopping Report, 772-497-60. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

Okay, here's a report, and as Nancy just said, this was in Georgia, and we love it when we can compare other markets. We found the Pennsylvania market, for example, to be a lot low-key, a lot more honest, a lot more transparent, and even Tennessee. So we know South Florida is the worst or the worst of the worst, so we're comparing apples and oranges oftentimes. So good to get out of state. Here's a report. I'll be speaking in the first person as if I were Agent Lightning. I arrived at Chatham Parkway Toyota in Savannah, Georgia, and was greeted by a friendly customer service lady

who asked if I was looking for a particular salesperson. I replied, no, this is my first time here. And she called out to a salesman named Chevy. I find that kind of humorous. A salesperson named Chevy in a toilet dealership. But he gets a lot of kidding for that. and asked if I was, if he was available. Chevy came over to shake my hand,

politely asked me if I wanted a refreshment and only found someone to help me. As I looked around the dealership, I couldn't help but notice that all the sales managers behind the glass office were wearing bright red suit coats, sport jackets, I guess you could call them. Isn't that interesting? They had a soda fountain machine, coffee, and snacks,

and that was a nice touch. A few minutes later, a salesman named Thadius, Heinz, I introduced himself and asked what brought me in. Interesting names. I just saw names interest me, Chevy and Thaddeus so far. I saw you have a few hybrid Highlanders in stock, and I'd like to check them out, I said. We have one available.

Now, I'll pause here briefly. The auto manufacturers that I know Toyota for a fact, being a Toyota dealer, they control the websites of their dealers. and they unfortunately put on the dealer's website the car being in inventory when it's not and I don't know why they do that. I've argued directly with Toyota about that and they gave me one of these

well that's just our policy. I love that, don't you? Someone's doing something wrong. They say, well, that's the way we do it. I get a lot, doctors do that a lot and hospitals do that a lot. But auto manufacturers, I don't like it. If you say a dealer has a car, the car should be on the ground.

It shouldn't be on a truck somewhere between the manufacturer and the dealer because customers will come into your dealership and ask to see the car and it's on the truck 200 miles away. If you're lucky, it might still be in the plant. So here, Agent Lightning came in and saw several Highlanders stock and found out fortunately they did have one. Okay, back to the shopping report. Let me grab the keys and we could take it for a spin, he said.

Thaddeus. Since it was raining outside, Thaddeus offered me an umbrella, nice touch. You got to love the southern hospitality. When we approached the car, I took note of the window sticker and their addendum, the infamous addendum. The actual MSRP was $44,701. The addendum listed, love this stuff, market adjustment, $3,500, market adjustment, what you love it, nitrogen, $250, nitrogen, wind of tent, oh God, they really went all the way on this, too, $495, too, $495 for window 10, screen shield, $295. out later what that is. 295 is absurd.

Of course, she had all that up, and it spells mother, no. It spells $49,241 instead of $44,701. During a test drive, Thaddea showed me all the features of the car, including the screen shield on the computer screen

that they installed for an extra now on the... Yeah. Yeah, $2.95, $2.95 for a little plastic thing, they put up a... $300 for a screen protector that you can put on yourself. Yeah, right. After a return of the dealership, I asked for my license and contact information.

Can I ask if you own your own home and how long you've lived there, he asked. I interrupted him to say that I didn't want to run my credit up just yet because I wasn't thrilled about the huge market adjustment on the sticker. Most dealerships, not all in this area, are still doing market adjustments. Thadius explained. You remember when you're a kid and your mother said, why did you jump into the lake with all your clothes on? And you said, because all the other boys and girls did.

And I won't tell you what your mother said. You know what your mother said. So Thadius says, well, all the other dealers are screwing the customers, so we screw the customers too. I also shared that I thought it was a total rip-off to charge $250 for nitrogen, which is essentially just air in the tires. And if you remember how your high school chemistry, you probably know that air is 78% nitrogen. So they're charging you, what was it, $250 to put air in your tires.

And consumer reports, by the way, if you're still doubting me, consumer reports, Google consumer reports, nitrogen in car tires. Google that, and you will find that after our one-year study of all-make tires, they concluded consumer reports that nitrogen is worthless. So if they charge you nothing, it's okay. Go to Costco. Costco puts nitrogen in your tires, but they don't charge you for it. So it's worthless, but you don't pay anything for it.

So why complain? He said he'd speak to the manager to see what he could do about the additional options. So the game begins, right? Oh, the mean manager is doing this, but I'm on your side. I'll go to the manager and I'll be your advocate and I'll fight for you to get a lower price. That's the game. That's the carbine game. And you wonder why the manufacturers want to sell cars directly like Tesla.

Faddy's excused himself returned about 10 minutes later with a worksheet, the infamous worksheet. The worksheet is, as you may or may not know, exists because. it's not a legal document. So you can play games on a worksheet. It's not a legal document. And in the defense of the dealer, if you hire a lawyer, it says, well, that's not the

buyer's order. That's just a worksheet. That's just a negotiation. So we didn't say they had to pay this. This is just their worksheet. So that's the interim thing. You'll never get a copy, or I don't say never, but rarely get a copy of the real buyer's order

because it is a legal document. If you're lucky, you'll get a copy of the worksheet. I was able to have my manager remove the adjustment completely, he said. He presented me with a worksheet. Now, I've got the worksheet here. This is what a typical worksheet looks like. If you're streaming or you're on Facebook or YouTube, you can see this. And the MSRP is still 44,701.

And the selling price, they say, it's 44,701, but it's not really the selling price. See? And below that, they add process stock fee. That's her name for their hidden fee. I say it's hidden because they're still saying the selling price is 44,071. It's not because this is profit, $869.50 that's added to the 44,701. So why do they call it the selling price? Because they're lying to you.

Then they add to the selling price. I mean, you sell the car for the selling price, don't you? No. The luminar film, another $295. The winded tip, another $495. The nitrogen, another $250. Now, he just said his manager was going to take away the increase. The only thing he took away was the market adjustment.

Then he added it back in on the worksheet. Bottom line, 869 plus 295 plus 495 plus 250 added to the advertised price, 44701. Turned the page. Thaddeus explained that the processing and dock fee, which was 86950, included the dealer fee. Registration and plates. Now that's just not true. It's just not true He charged the sales tax

On the whole amount He did not separate it out And if you look at the worksheet You can see total sales price And you can see that the sales tax was added there So There we are In Chatham

Near Savannah, Georgia And we have to grade this dealership on their relative selling ethics and honesty. I say relative, it's a curve, we call it, because so far we've never found a perfectly honest dealer so we don't say an A is 100%. We say we grade on the curve. You know, you probably had that

in school. If the best grade in the class was 85, then they get an A. If the worst grade in the class was 65, they get an F. You don't do 100 and then draw the line somewhere arbitrarily like at 70. So if you've been listening to the show or if you're kind of generally knowledgeable about the show, when you call them the grade, we hope you will. fax it in or text it in or don't fax it in or call it in.

We will read your score. But give us a relative grade as to whether you think Chatham, Toyota, and Savannah, Georgia should be A, B, C, D, or F. Okay. And Jonathan, are you referring to this part of the mystery shopping report? No, there was some text after the report. Oh, the text after the report? Do you have that, Earl?

What are we doing? Do you have that report that Jonathan just mentioned? I don't know. Here. Yeah. Oh, Thaddeus. Oh, yeah. Thaddeus explained to the process of doctrine.

I read that while I was walking away. I'm sorry, I just didn't read the last two paragraphs. While I was walking away, sales bench ran over and asked if I had any questions. My only question was, is this your absolute best price? He replied that it was, which is, that's rare. Usually they'll say, shop it around. If you could do a better, bring it back, we'll beat it. But he said, no, that's it.

He'd remove the market adjustment, but the other options had already been installed on the vehicle. I said, I have to check with my husband before making a decision, and I would get back to him. So that's the rest of the report that I forgot to read. And as I say, please, let's have your vote. And do we have any votes? And that's 772-497-6530. take advantage of that text number and vote on Chatham Parkway Toyota of Savannah, Georgia. And the grades are coming in.

Johnny Z. Fradley says F for fabulous rip-off. And he also commented. He said, Lumar Film is Window Tint. He thought they were double-charging. But actually, I think the Lumar Film, they probably also make the screen protector that they put on the radio because they hit 295, and that's what that screen. screen protector was charging as. Ah, let's see, Rocky Blocketeel says D for deceptive. Tim Gillland in Yuma, what century are we in? Still pushing nitrogen, window tint, and initial

market adjustment, and fuzzy math? Get them a D minus. Tom Steckle, my mother told me to give them a D, just a shade above Napleton. Scott Hunter, F, fees, fees, fees. And said, Latko, too many fees, F. Mark Ryan, D minus. Frank, we've got, let's see, oh, enjoyed the comparison of dealerships in Florida being compared to dealership in Georgia as comparing apples to oranges. Or I guess it would be more appropriate, say peaches to oranges. Gray D for the dealership.

Bob says, F, stay away from this dealer. nitrogen scam alone earns this grade for me I'm going to give I'm actually going to go with a C minus I'm going to say they've got everything is like put

right in front of you yeah off the curve you can you can fight it a little bit I bet if she actually had stayed and fought they would have taken off the price of at least a nitrogen yeah I've seen maybe something else yeah she had fought harder longer but But, you know, you've got to draw the line somewhere.

And this one just in for anonymous. Wow, deception at its finest. A big fat F. Okay, Nancy. Okay. I'll try to make this short, but, you know, here's my opinion. And that's when a dealer decides that this vehicle is in high demand, and that they decide to, you know, hike up the price for,

market adjustment, 5%, 50%, you know, whatever it is, whatever they decide, it's wrong. It's very, very wrong. And they didn't do this mystery shopper out any, they didn't, how can I put it without being cut off on the air? Anyway, it wasn't anything that it was favorable. They shouldn't have had a market adjustment on there to begin with, and that's the way it is. nitrogen and everything else, come on. It's all old school. Time to move forward. We're in the 21st century. We want to make car dealers look a whole lot better than they looked yesterday. For that, Chatham Parkway, Toyota, you get an F from me. Okay, I'm going to give

a C-minus. I agree with Rick that the average dealer was probably just a little bit better, but not much better, C minus, instead of a C. I think it would have been a lot more honest to keep the addendum and just say, I'm raising the price that are X dollars because of supply and demand. When you start putting fees in that aren't fees and false charges, things that are just not real,

then you're getting deceptive. But if you look somebody in the eye and say, I'm going to charge you $2,000 more for this car because I can because it's high and demand low supply. I might not like it but I don't, I would still respect the fact that you have the right as a

business person to do it. By trying to trick me to think that this fee is legitimate to get the money, I'd rather have the addendum. Absolutely. And no excuse. So that's the reason I give you a C minus. Okay. Folks,

thank you so much for joining us this morning. We enjoy your company absolutely Saturday in Saturday out it never gets old stay tuned next week at the same time we'll be right here have a fabulous weekend