Earl Stewart on Cars - 02.19.2022 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Ed Morse Honda

Episode Date: February 19, 2022

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits the local high volume Honda dealer to see what they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2022 Honda Civic EX. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. I don't know what the weather's like in your neck of the woods, but in South Florida, at least in this part of South Florida, very foggy. and I mean all over the place pea soup type of fog we're here to do what we love to do

I wasn't a radio talk show host for a long time and later in life Nancy and I decide to do this show and we started it hasn't been 20 years but close to 20 years ago

a half hour show and come to find out we just love doing it I hope you love it 10% as much as we do. I mean, Rick Kearney and Stu Stewart, everybody in the studio, Jonathan, this is

fun. Think about it. If you've never done anything like this, I guess you have to have the personality that lends itself. But to go in on live radio, you know how popular scary movies are? People love to be frightened, scream,

and Halloween and all that's kind of stuff. live radio is scary maybe that's why we like it you come in and you just don't know I mean let's face it we could really make total fools out of ourselves in fact we probably have and so it's scary

but we it's a challenge and I think all of us probably have a little bit more of the competitive spirit so I just want you to know I hope you have fun this isn't all about teaching you when to buy a car how to buy a car or lease a car

maintain repair. It's fun. And I feel a little guilty about laughing in the mystery shopping reports, but we've been doing it for so long. We've seen so many different ways that the dealers are taking advantage of you. And I have to say, when I say that, that we've seen some good dealers out there. And maybe I'm an optimist, call me a cock-eyed optimist, but I see things getting a little bit better in the way the car dealers are addressing the sale and leasing of cars and the repairing of cars. So if you're a youngster, I don't think we have a whole lot of youngsters out there, but you know, if you're a teenager or something, I think the good news is by the time you get

up to, you know, maybe 25, 30 years of age and you're buying cars, I think the experience is going to be a whole lot. I promise it's going to be different, and I hope, and I think it will be a whole lot better. So let me start by going around the horn here and talking about our folks that are in the studio. The gentleman on my right who just came up and turned on the live feed on my Facebook. Thank you. Thank you, Rick. I've been sitting here talking to a camera that wasn't on. Well, that's actually just recording an extra video source.

Anyway, so you've seen my beautiful face from the get-go, if you're on Facebook. Rick, and Nancy's going to talk about my blog this week, having to do with maintaining and repairing your cars. And Rick is the guy that probably ought to get the most calls. There's two hours. I almost said this hour. We're on radio for two hours. Wow. And it's a terrible time to buy or lease a car, okay? We recognize a lot of you out there have to have a car. And some of you just flat want a car. And I'm going to shut up because we got a call, and we prioritize our phone calls. And Nancy is scribbling a bunch of stuff. We got three phone calls.

And there she is. Nancy Stewart. Good morning, everyone. Boy, do we have a fantastic. show ahead as Earl was starting to tell everyone and we have some calls backed up we want to get right to them uh we're going to go to our excuse me for a moment let me mention here $50 for the first two female callers the first two new female callers 50 dollars and guess what we have Pam calling from Martin County and she is a first time caller we want to welcome her to the show good morning Pam hi good morning good morning Very well. Thank you. Thank you for, thank you for joining us this morning. You won yourself $50. And if you leave your contact information with Elise Roberts in the control room, I'll be able to get that out to you.

You have a couple of questions about dealer recommendations. I do. I have a, oh, I get a 2008. Accura, and it's, I just want to know if I needed to get, if it was necessary, that I get a synthetic oil or not. I think Rick can answer that for you. 2018 is probably going to be synthetic, but you'll want to check either the owner's manual, or just open the hood and take a look on the oil cap, and it will tell you whether it should be synthetic oil or not.

Yeah, 99% sure it is. Yeah. You can just pretty much count on that. 2018. None of the current model cars now are recommending fossil oil. It's usually synthetic. Okay. Can you tell me about what an average ballpark figure I'll be paying for for an oil change of synthetic?

I suggest to take it to an independent or a Honda dealer instead of the Accura dealer because it's going to be a lot more at the Accura dealer. Typically, a synthetic oil change, probably around $60 to $80 to spending. on the size of the engine, but that could vary greatly if you're going to a luxury brand dealership to get it done, or you're going to a little old Honda dealership. Okay, all right. Okay, well, all right, and is there anything else I need to do when I do an oil change, simply an oil change? Pam, yeah, we, Stu is absolutely correct.

A Honda dealer is going to be less money than an accurate dealer, and this goes for all the luxury cars versus their, you know, the lower price price, You know, you go to a Cadillac dealer, you're paying more for an oil change and you do a Chevrolet dealer. So if you have a Chevrolet or a Cadillac, you take it to the Chevrolet dealers, save a lot of money. Which will save even more money if you find just a good independent mechanic or some of these fast-loop companies. You don't find one that's honest. Got a good Google rating, maybe some referral in people that you know go there. But oil change is pretty basic.

You just want to have some expertise. You don't want to have somebody that's never changed your oil before. and reliability, but if you can find the right, you can save a huge amount of money and oil changes on your car just by finding a reliable person. It doesn't have to be a dealer that can change your oil and be honest with you. And one last thing, Pam, just locate your recommended maintenance guide, and if you don't have a copy of that, find it online by just searching the maintenance schedule for your 2018 Accura.

And then I'll only do what's required on that maintenance schedule, because no matter where you go, it's independent or a Honda dealer or an Acura dealer, there's going to be an attempt to upsell you on services that you might not need. So the best thing to do is look at the guide and only do that. Now, if there's something wrong with your car, that's a different story, but on maintenance, only do what Accurate tells you to do. Okay, good, good, great advice. Thank you. I appreciate both of y'all's input. Pam, it's always important for you to get three different prices and to be prepared whenever you go out there and it sounds like as if that you are an educated consumer but still there is that moment whenever you can be taken advantage of

even with an oil change so as stew said about your manual going to the internet looking all that up and what rick said you can't go wrong please give us a call again and let us know just exactly how things went as far as that's concerned okay great thank you you make me feel so so much better about this oh I'm so happy it's great to be reassured

before you go out there I'm glad we could help you have a wonderful day and thank you again thank you okay we're going to go we're going to go to John in Palm City and John is a regular caller

good morning John good morning to everyone Electronics is on my mind. In 2019, Gary Gilman from California, he leased a brand-new Subaru Outback. Six months later, the screens went completely blank,

dead. He bought it into the Subaru dealer, and it took one month to fix the problem. He was disturbed to no end. He filed a class action suit with other people, and in 2020, Subaru settled for $8 million. didn't recognize any negligence or anything,

but they did settle a class action. Then it started actually the same year with Ford, the touchscreen system at Ford. Ford had a major problem with it, didn't admit any wrongdoing, but Ford settled at that time for $17 million, and it continues. In 2021, Honda had a problem with the ACRA.

Okay, same way. electronic equipment, the class action suit was, people said that it was danger involved, the safety issue, and Honda, through accurate division, settled for $30 million. This is a problem, and basically the dealers can't fix this. It uses, as Rick would probably say, know in it, and don't expect anybody at the dealership to notice electronics. It uses the Apple CarPlay or Google's Android system, except Tesla, smart enough people. They use their own in-house system, and they have none of these problems because they contact you through directly.

So it's a major problem, and dealerships don't have anybody in the dealership, and you can't blame them for it to fix the electronic problem. But one other thing about Tesla, Tesla's smart enough to, prior to 2018, they didn't use this, their in-house system. So the government made them recall 100,000 S's and X Tesla's on a recall, and they called the car in to repair them. But they were smart enough after 2018 to use their own house. so congratulations again Tesla one step ahead of all of them I don't know before I want to

like dump on Tesla but I can say that it hasn't been completely rosy and I've had some electronic issue I have a current electronic issue with the Tesla Model S I'm driving as a matter of fact that where it's powered it's conced out and died and I'm getting an error warning so the only way

you can get service on the Tesla is you use the app so I set an appointment on the app it's for March 9th so that's in a couple of weeks and I try to contact them, is there any way, there's no way to get it sooner, and the thing is literally dying on me periodically, so I'm a little down on Tesla this morning.

I don't blame you, but they seem to be ahead of the pack by not using these regular systems that the others use. So, I congratulate them on that. They don't use the Google Android or the Apple CarPlay.

But I just thought I'd mention this because it's frustrating, and even an expert like Rick, whose top mechanics, you can't expect them to go to electronic school and to learn these electronics. I mean, it's like unbelievable. Somebody like Rick, who's honored with a rating that he was given from Toyota recently,

they possibly cannot, you know, learn this electronics completely. I mean, it's unbelievable. It's for an outside source. But 99% of the time you just have to unplug it and plug it back in, and then... Oh, okay. I'm just joking.

People who know that are listening. That's what I do. actually John I want to mention too we know about the shortages of a new car well if anybody's waiting for a brand new Porsche

they are really in trouble because not only the new Porsche's but a ship that left Germany the Porsches and 1100 luxury cars went on fire but thank God they saved

the 22 crew members but it was still burning as of Friday it's just drifting around the Atlantic right and luxury automobile that was an amazing story, John.

So you're going to have an extra weight for a Porsche. It's not going to wash up on the beach around here, is it? No, I don't think so. It happened shortly after it left Germany, so. But thank God the whole crew, 22 members were saved. Yeah, they didn't get hurt. Yeah, absolutely. Well, John, it's always a pleasure speaking to you,

and you take a priority as far as your phone call is concerned. you always have so much information to share with us. Thank you so much. Thank you, and I'm glad to see this morning, boy, somebody else from the town that I live in Palm City, and it's a female caller, and boy, they're surely listening now, which is great. Yeah, thank you so much for that, John. I appreciate it. Give us a call again, and as far as the female callers are concerned, we certainly are building a platform here at Earl Stewart on cars because they are important, and we recognize that weekend and week out. We are changing the attitude of the female buyer, lease person, service person.

Give us a call toll free at 877960, or you can tax us at 772-4976530. And don't forget, ladies and gentlemen, Earl worked very hard to put this out there to help you, the consumer. And that is www. Florida Law Protectingcarbuyers.com. Take a look at that, and it is a column, and it is at Earl on cars, and you can take a look, leave through it, and it will help you maneuver your way around this minefield, especially these last three years that have been so volatile. Back to the recovering car dealer. Yeah, speaking to John's issue of problems, so he's speaking about the Subaru, this week's automotive news had an interesting article from JD Power Reliability Study. up for the camera. Most of you don't subscribe to automotive news. That's a trade journal,

but every manufacturer and every car dealer in the world reads this thing. It's a weekly. And you've all heard of J.D. Power. I've not my favorite source of information, but they're reliable, they're honest. I don't like them because they sell their analysis and their surveys to the manufacturers in order to advertise their product. And that's really, I prefer consumer reports. But it's an interesting thing in this J.D. Power recent survey of new cars. And the JD Power Survey finds the incidence of issues in the first three years of ownership and they per hundred cars.

So they have a, and by the way, Tesla doesn't appear in the report because of their volume of sales. But they have most of the other manufacturers. It was a real shocker here. I bet you can't guess. I bet nobody can guess. Who, the number one, the best car manufacturer, car and manufacturer

in terms of reliability in the first three years. It was a shocker to me. Kia? Yeah. Yeah, you cheated. But that's okay. Congratulations.

You held it up to the camera. I know, I know. So at least he had cheated. Sorry. Right there. But you do see a whole lot more key is on the road and they are, well, as you said, number one, J.D. Power. And of course, John from Palm City was talking about Subaru.

They appear well down on the list. And if the person that bought that Subaru had checked his report, he or she would have known the Subaru has 226 instances, 226 instances by the first three years of ownership and that's a lot of call

on the dealer and call on the manufacturer so it's about twice as many as Kia with 145 and brand ranking is pretty low for Subaru just for your end of occasion here

it's interesting not a surprise to me but I'm not going to hold it up because Rick will cheat and look at the camera again, but guess which manufacturer, which model? He's got his eyes covered. His last, the worst, 284 ranking and brand ranking. Can I guess? Sure.

Now for a Mayo. No? Fiat. No. Range Rover. Ah, no. You're close, though. I'll give the prize to you.

Land Rover. Oh. Oh, that's what, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. industry average is 192 and if you're I'll just read that quickly here it's interesting starting from the best to the worst Kia Buick Hyundai Genesis Toyota Lexus Porsche Dodge Cadillac Cadillac Cadillac Chevrolet mini that's surprise

higher than I thought monster okay we've got too many calls on the whole I'll stop reading and Nancy will introduce our next caller yeah we have a whole lot of information so stay tuned stay with us we're here for two hours and stew is managing the text messages Rick is taking care of YouTube and I'm taking the calls so we have a whole lot to get to sorry for this speedy voice of mine this morning but we're really busy we're going to go to Frank before we go to Frank 877 960 or you can text us at 772-49760 and don't forget but Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We're going to go to Frank,

who calls us just about every week from Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank. Well, good morning to you all. Timely day for asking you some information real quick while we were just talking about Subaru. I got to throw this out. Remember they're a commercial inexpensive and built to stay that way, so

obviously it's not quite right anymore. Well, it's still a good car, Frank. This is a surprise, and as I said, Julia Parr is not in my favorite source of information, but they're not perfect, obviously, but I think in general, consumer reports ranks them quite highly, and that's my Bible in terms of what I should buy. No. Well, here's our dilemma. Amory and I are looking for a new car. This has been a real jump out there. Oh, I know. It's not something that we need. It's something we want. So the nice part

about that, when these dealers disappoint us, we just walk away. Unfortunately, now I've found a that we actually like and that dealer if you want i can name them yeah what the heck is uh the alley up in stuart for years they had no fees above um or no markup with this stuff going on above msrp as of last week they went from no markup to 10 000 they said well it's negotiable so i'm not going to do that but here's the thing that came in mind and it's just like that other gentleman and said, are the cars, with the lackadaisical way, the people around there nowadays in this new dilemma here, if you think they are going to be reliable, because with electronics and stuff going on, for instance, we had a pool pump filter redone, and at least. We had some, a gate

electron over, and they left it, you know, the hole open. Other things, it's like the detail, attention details, doesn't seem to be there that was there five years ago, 10 years ago. And we're just wondering, and I was in Costco last night, and the guy that helped me put some toilet paper in my cart, he's making $30 an hour. And he says, when he works on the weekend, it's time and a half. So he's up to almost $50 an hour. I go, holy cow. You know, the pay is up there, and I don't know, actually Costco is pretty good with the quality. Yeah.

But we're just wondering about these cars with all this electronic stuff. I think, Frank. No, I don't think so. I mean, we can tell, I promise you, if we wanted to list. ongoing, you know, issues with cars that mechanical and regular electronic problems would probably dwarf, you know, electronic, you know, computer issues and things like that, just given the history. And it's the same thing that Earl says. He goes, you know, eventually these are going to be components in cars. We've got to drive them. So you look to consumer

reports and other sources, information. They point you in the direction has the least problems and the most reliable. But this kind of way it's going. I mean, I mean, I love John when he calls on the show, but I was listening to him, like, you know, reciting different cars that, you know, went dead and inspired a lawsuit. And I think of how many mechanical issues inspired class action lawsuits. I mean, Rick, I know that there's a lot of electronic things, but there's also certainly a lot of, like, physical things that are just breaking. It's just funny you should mention that because seven of the ten problems on the J.D. Power are technical. Most of those are infutainment related. So the mechanical problems are getting

better and better. It's the high-tech problem. Well, it doesn't. By the way, Frank, it doesn't mean that they're unfixable. Audi is ranked near the bottom. If you're interested in the J.D. Power Survey, you'll have 232 problems with that on the average in the first three years of ownership.

And here's interesting, too. The top luxury rank car, you'll never guess this. I'm looking at the rickies looking over my shoulder. The top luxury rank car, are on the JD Power in terms of problems, is the Genesis. Is that unbelievable? Oh, yes. Yeah.

Yeah. So anyway, you want an Audi, and like you're saying, you shouldn't buy it, you know that, but you want it, you can afford it, and you're treating yourself to something you want, do it. I mean, buy the Audi. And there's good luck. You're going to pay all the money for it. That's the way it is today.

Yeah, well, Amory has her Lexus since 2000. that comes into your dealership all the time for service well not all the time I mean you know sporadity and Randy is just an excellent service advisor and so the other thing is we can always go back to Orlando where there is no dealer fees

and they'd take a thousand off for military they'd take a thousand off for ownership I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I'd buy below MSRPs. Well give me the name of the dealership do you, can you remember the name? Yeah, Alexis of Orlando. Oh Lexus I thought you were to add an out of there Yeah, Blylech is, oh, no.

And the guy in the sales department, Josh, you know, like your son's name, has been excellent. I mean, it's just, it's a great dealership. Yeah. But Amory just doesn't like that huge front grill that looks like, you know, it's a whale shark trying to swallow a bunch of plug. Probably never heard that describe quite that way. I like it. Let me let you go. I know there's other folks, so I'm going to go up there and do a little fight.

I'm going to wear my hat. By the way, thank you for the hat. And I'll give you a report next week. It's going to be good, bad or indifferent. Love to hear it. Thank you. You guys have a great week. Thank you.

We love hearing from you. And I look forward to hearing from you next Saturday with all that information. Again, folks, 877-960, or you can text us at 772-49-30. And don't forget your anonymous feedback. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We are all caught up on our calls. Who wants to go first? Rick has some YouTube's. He's going to share with us, and then we're going to get to Stu.

I've got a couple quick ones here that are just, they fit right in with what we've been just discussing. Tom Steckle says, good morning from Orlando. Just a two and a half hour drive to the promised land of Earl Stewart Toyota. By the way, my zero D-L-R-F-E license plate, it's his vanity plate on his car. Zero dealer fee, very good. Zero dealer fee, it's great. I love that one. Is a conversation starter.

Have referred several folks to you and Molynex Ford. Then Steve Ward says, we have a double whammy now. Supply chain issues have made it a seller's market. Now inflation promises to drive. prices even higher. Is there ever going to be a good time to buy again? And he also comes in with a comment here, this from Steve Ward again, check the Audi of Stewart website. They have a 900-mile used 9-11 turbo cabrio, a Porsche, with a market adjustment increase of, glad we're all sitting down for this one, $146,000

market adjustment. I'll just make it $150, you know. Well, you know, here's a sad part about that. And I don't want to get political at all, but we are, you know, our country here is getting wider and wider diverse in terms of the low part and the high part. And we've got more billionaires by far than,

I mean, you use the term, now the way we used to use the word millionaire. A millionaire is, you know, you're part of the rank and vile. Unless you've got a few billion, you know, you're just a middle class in this country. Unfortunately, there's a whole lot of people in the lower 10% that are really getting screwed. Can't afford to buy a lot of important things. But when you're shopping for an Audi, you're a fat cat, right? If you're not a billionaire, you're worth a few hundred million.

And who cares $145,000? Can you think about why these luxury cars are getting away with what they're getting away with? There are buyers out there. And Frank, you know, Frank's not a billionaire. He just called in. He says, I want a car, and I'm going to buy it. And he knows he's going to pay too much money for it. So the dealers are feeding off this strange economic situation we have in this country.

And Audi of Stewart will sell that car for $145,000. over a sticker, they could probably get $245,000. You want the car, people buy it. It's chump change to a billionaire. Yeah. Was that an obvious story? And this one from Negan 1, I've been watching prices on the expensive pickup trucks,

the RAM TRX, and the new Ford Raptor. Both trucks are in the $80,000 to $90,000 MSRP range. Most dealers have ADM, which I'm guessing that's the edge, adjusted dealer markup, of $15,000 or more. Question is, is there any way to avoid paying sales tax on the ADM? ADM is part of the price. You don't pay sales tax on what the manufacturer says the MSRP is. You pay sales tax on the total price of the car.

So you're going to get that 6% in Florida, and there's nothing you can do about it. Yeah. And one more popped in here from Richard Swartz. With dealers supposedly making record profits in this time of scarcity of cars, why would dealers ever go back to the previous way of large supplies of cars? Well, you know something they're smart, they won't, and if the manufacturers, the problem will be with the manufacturers. Think about it. As long as we have as many manufacturers as we do, which won't be much longer, because when we see the renaissance of autonomous and all-electric, you're settling in a sea of land, game much sparser of a manufacturer. Do you know, how overall has incentives gone down?

Because if they've been lowering, and they have been lowering incentives, that might be the calculus. If they're saving more money, you know, if they are. Yeah, whatever they're going to make the most money. If they're going to make more money, flooding dealers lots with cars, they're going to do that. If they're to make more money with less cars and lower incentives. Manufacturers are making record profits and why.

There's another thing that they're building the higher-priced cars. The manufacturers, they can only manufacture so many cars, they can only get so many microchips. So which manufacturer, the manufacturer is going to manufacture, which car? The price car that he puts out there, or the luxury truck typically. Trucks are the cheapest to build. Trucks and SUVs are cheaper to build than savans. Yeah, or sports cars or anything else. So the manufacturers are making money hand over a fist in this shortage.

Deals are making money hand over a fist. It is absolutely a seller's market out there. You are definitely playing defense if you try to buy a car today. And folks, I want to add to that, Earl and I were talking this morning about these high-priced luxury cars and the manufacturers building them. And as Stu said, you know, there's more profit for the manufacturer and for the car dealer. But I added to this, what about the consumer? So this is what this show is all about.

And if you listen closely, you can just arm yourself with so much knowledge, so much power, and you can get over on these price gouging without using any profanity here, and you can stay in control, and we have so much information for you. Give us a call toll free at 877960, or you can text us at 772-4970. I think that Rick has finished with the YouTube for now. We're going to go to Stu, who has a lot of texts that have backed up. All right, we have a text from Anne-Marie. John touched on it, but Anne-Marie says, Good Morning.

This is a sad story. A ship carrying 3,965 cars, including 1,100 Porsches, and 189 Bentley's is a blaze in the Atlantic off the Aesores. Reportedly, everything is on fire five meters above the water line. The cruise has been rescued. at least one vehicle was a special order and the customer has been waiting since August well that's not so bad we got people wait a longer than that

inquiring minds want to know whose insurance covers the cars while they're being shipped who takes the loss the shipping company the car manufacturers the dealers the wannabe owners and number three if you order a special order a vehicle do you have to pay in full when you order it and once delivered well you get the nail

I mean insurance is going to cover a huge amount of that and I don't know who does it's probably the shipping line probably the I mean, probably everybody's got insurance. You know, these fat cat manufacturers are so, you know, are so loaded that I, they probably self-insure a lot of this. I mean, I don't, I doubt very seriously if they have zero deductible on a ship going down to sea. I don't know. I mean, what are the odds?

Probably not. Anyway, to answer your question on a special order, you pay for a special order vehicle when you, when it's delivered to you. But you're probably going to put in a deposit, and depending on the, you know, the dealer and the manufacturer, on a special order, it could be a non-refundable deposit, which is legal here in the United States, to just make sure that you're clear on that. But most cases,

you don't have to pay for the car until you sign in when you see the car when it comes up. The law requires they put on your receipt for whatever you pay them, or whether or not it's refundable, and what are the terms and conditions of the refund. If you don't get a receipt, then

you've got a problem. And excuse me, Stu, I have a question for you. This cargo ship that's been abandoned out there in the Atlantic Ocean with these cars that are burning. What, what, where do, I mean, you just can't grab a fire extinguisher

and put out anything. Where do they, how do they find these experts to get on this cargo ship to put this fire out, it's burning out of control? I don't know. I mean, maybe at this point they just abandoned it's going to burn out and become a salvage thing at some point. Who knows? I don't know.

Big loss. We don't cover burning ships on rolling cars. We'll have to find another expert on that. Okay. Maybe it'll rain you know. Maybe it'll rain. Maybe it'll run into a hurricane. Okay. We have another text. This is from, oh, there's no name on it. It just says, hello, good morning, everyone, last month. Last, I texted a message regarding my upcoming lease. It'll be up in July. At that moment

I was in between returning it and getting a new lease. After further thinking calculations, it's better for me to buy it since I know and took care of the vehicle, such as a maintenance interval. Not only that, you're buying it way below the market. Last month, tax, I didn't include which state. I live in California. I want to buy the vehicle, and I want to find out from your experience since you're a Toyota dealership.

If there's any advice you can give me if I can buy it from the leasing company in my state of California without getting the dealer involved in my purchase. If you have any info, it will be greatly, and please, thank you. You're probably leased in your car through Toyota Finan. financial services. That is, that's probably most people who are leasing a Toyota in the United States are leasing through Toyota Financial Services. We, in the Southeast, we, we, we work with Southeast Toyota Finance, which is a totally separate company. And with Southeast Toyota Finance, I know you have to go through the dealer to buy your car. No, you can go directly through.

You can go directly through there? Okay, thank you. I'm correct. They just changed, yeah. Okay, so, and chances are they were inspired by TFS. So contact Toyota Financial Services and inquire about what your options are. It sounds like you might be able to skip the dealer altogether. The good news in California, they cap the dealer fees at, I think you're about $175 or $100 now. So even though they can add that on, it won't be that much. Believe it or not, if you did it here, you could buy your own car and you could put over

$1,000 in dealer fees on your own car, buying the car that you've been driving for three years. But that's Florida. All right. Let's move along. Okay, I didn't click the link, so All right, let's jump over to anonymous feedback. I know we had some coming in during the week.

And the first one says, I have a 2016 Honda CRV. It was broken into by removing the driver's side lock cylinder in the handle. I gave it to you. I took it to the dealer. I'm in Mexico. And hey, we have an anonymous feedback from Mexico. And to get a new cylinder, it was going to take three months.

so they put a blank cylinder in. My question is, if the battery goes dead and the auto doors do locks and not work, how do I get in? You have to drill out that lock cylinder, that blank. Oh, really? Either that or try breaking in through a window. Explain what's happening here.

So you put a blank cylinder in, that means what, that you can use the key remote to... Right, well, pretty much any car that has the new smart key system, there is a little mini key that you can pull out of that remote and put it in the door lock to unlock it.

But if that lock is broken, they can put a blank and cover it over so somebody can't stick tools in there and unlock your car. Oh, okay. That's what they can't... Right, that way they can't try to jimmy it open. But if your battery goes dead

in the remote to where you cannot unlock it or the battery in the car, you would have to basically call locksmith who would try to open the car by going in through the door itself. Okay, so here's a simple question. If your batteries can last longer than it takes to get the appropriate parts in, you're fine. So make sure all your batteries and your remotes are good.

Am I correct that if you hold the remote closer to the lock, I mean, it's just a matter of low power on a key? Not necessarily. Because most time that radio signal from the key to the car, you want a good solid signal on that but those those little batteries in the remote I'm saying to you if if you try to unlock your car with the keyless remote and it doesn't work get closer and you get closer that can that can sometimes work yeah that's what I just said so yeah but those batteries in the remote

they're like three or four dollars yeah put a new battery in there once a year I'm not saying you always stand close to yeah there's eventually a thing will go dead I have another question for you. If he replaces the battery and it takes the old battery out, is he going to be in the same situation when he puts it, it'll still work, right? It puts the battery in, even with the blank. Okay. All right, good.

You're good down to Mexico. All right. Next anonymous feedback. It says, I went to Napleton Accura this past week. On every MDX, that's their SUV, and every MDX, they've added $5,000 of dealer options and a market adjustment of $9,995. That is $15,000 above the MSRP of $53,000. You want the top line of the MDX, there's a $25,000 of the top of the line MDX, there's a $25,000 market adjustment,

plus the $5,000 dollar, $5,000 dealer-installed options, which brings the selling price to $98,000. They said there's not much room for negotiating the add-ons or the market adjustment, not much room. No, you know, you're going to pay the price, especially on electric cars, and, you know, you've got a lot of alternatives. If you've got your heart set on that model, Acura, you're just going to go to shop and get the lowest addendum. They're going to be addendums on everything. And then you've got to watch dealer fees, dealers' tall, accessories, and you're playing the dealer's game. You're the stranger in the poker game, and they're going to get you, if you want to buy that one car, you've got to have. I would think that you might want to shop around for an alternative and shop a wide range online.

And probably the best thing to do is to order the car from an accurate dealer that is a Costco member and find one that will agree to sell you that car at the Costco member. price when the car comes in because if you order the car you're going to get it in six months or three months or it's going to be a long time so chances are when that car comes in if you can wait it's going to be a lot less remember the Costco member price is the lowest price by contract the dealer has a contract with a with Costco and yet they have to swear in the Bible that that price is the lowest price lower than any price they sell that car to anybody else for. So even if you pay a lot of money for it, it's less money than

everybody else is paying. So Costco member price to a Costco dealer who agrees to let you have the price at the times. That means when you're signing on the dotted line, you don't know what the price is going to be. I could care it to you. One thing, it's not going to be higher, it's going to be lower. But you've got to find a dealer that would agree to that condition and I think most of them probably will because they look at this way what do I got to lose that car won't be in for months and I'm not going to worry about it and I don't even know what the price is but it'll be a fairly decent price so anyway give it a shot yeah and you went down that route that road and people are having cars sold out

from under them so most dealers and I don't say most but maybe most are going to money's going to talk. So if you, even if you negotiated that, you've got to put that in running and shove it in their face if they try and pull any monkey business. But we've heard horror stories of people have been waiting months and months for cars and the buyer willing to pay a higher price comes along and they'll sell it out from under you.

Okay, and more anonymous feedback. Hi, are there any brands that you can recommend where I stand a greater chance of buying a car off the lot rather than ordering one and waiting six months? When I read that, I left and I thought, well, not a Toyota dealership. I actually looked it up, and there is industry information on day's supply, which means how many cars, how many days, a dealer has 30-day supply, that means that he's enough cars to sell over 30 days.

If he has a one-day supply, he doesn't have any cars. If he has 100-day supply, he's got a ton of cars. So Cox Automotive ranks the manufacturers based on day supply, and currently the ones with the lowest day supply are Toyota, Kia, Honda, Accura, Lexus, all these popular cars. If you want one of the higher-day supply, meaning a much more likely chance that there's going to be cars on the lot to buy, then you want to look at Fiat's or Alpha-Romeo's.

No! Oh, boy. Don't look at Fiaties. Al-DES. Tesla. But they don't really have dealerships. Ram, Jeep, Dodge, Lincoln, Mazda, Buick, Volvo. Those ran out the bottom 10

in the highest day supply. Here's a problem. You're looking at day supply, and you need to understand what day supply is. day supply for a Toyota dealer, especially a large toilet dealer, a low day supply could be 100 cars. And if they're selling a thousand cars a month, they can have 100 cars. And you're talking about a Fiat dealer. He sells one car every other month.

And if he's got one car, he's got 30-day-sploy. He's got a huge day. He's got a 60-day supply. So you have to look closer than they. supply. And also that's very true because even though I saw Jeep was on the bottom of the list, every mystery shop we've had, there is a shortage of jeeps. Now they've had some on the lot, one or two, but it's still, you're not going to find a big, a car lot filled with cars anywhere. And lastly, the reason that a lot of these dealers are keeping some cars on the lot,

and in my dealership, we don't have virtually no cars. The cars we have on the lot of the cars that the customers haven't picked up. Right. There's 20 cars, but they're they're spoken for. Yeah, they're already spoken for. So, if a dealer really has unsold cars on a lot, he has an ulterior motive because it's like an auction.

You come in, he hits you with a huge addendum, and you say no, and he says to you, probably, I'm sorry, I'm not going to beg, please move your car because there's another buyer out there that I'm going to talk to, and they'll probably pay the price, I ask.

So when you have the cars, we're used to, we Americans are used having the instant gratification of going into a car dealership and buying a car on the same day and driving home. That is insanity. It was insanity before it was a seller's market. Today you go into a car dealership and you buy a car and you bring it home that day, you will never get the negative equity out of that car.

You're going to pay so much more for that car. So it's a good idea to order the car. But if you have to have it, where it's Frank, one of my regular car. call and says, I just want to buy it. He's going to buy the car. He knows he's going to pay too much. But if you have to have a car, you're going to get holiest. You're going to have to get the lowest addendum that you can find, shop around, and then buy the car. Okay, folks, we have some calls that are backed up. I'm going to have to interrupt Stu. Sorry about that. But let me mention this quickly. We certainly have an abundance amount of information to, you know, share with

you every week and we do appreciate your calls and that is at 877 960 9960 but more importantly Earl's latest column is about take the title is take good care of your older car save thousands when you replace it and it is a great column as all of them are and you can find it at Irwin cars you can find it a hometown news or the Florida weekly and you can go to Erlon cars and read all of his columns and that is take good care of your older car save thousands when you replace it we're going to go straight to john who's been holding from west palm beach thank you for your patience john good morning good morning going back to the key fob and a weak battery um or even a regular battery here

your key fob for instance works 20 feet from the car and if hold the key fob to your head the water in your brain in that will magnify the signal and you get another five feet let's say so 25 feet right holding now if you have a weak battery and your battery's starting to weaken on your key fob

if you hold it to your head you know like near the temple region and it'll have more juice to open up the door lock. It works. You're absolutely right. I've tried that. It sounds like a joke. I guess if you have a big head, it works even better.

And it's your 6'5, too. That leaves me on. That's true. It's strange. I demonstrated it from my son in the bargain log. I tried it without putting it to my head, and then I held it to my head, and bam, it works. So that's a great chip, John. You also have a large metal plate

in the side of your head, though. Oh, that's true. Well, I don't know if it works with a bottle of water. I don't know why he couldn't just take a bottle of water and put the key pop behind the bottle of water. Electrolites. Yeah, I never thought about that.

You stuck it to your chin, I think. And here's another trick with a bottle of water. You need a magnifying glass. And you don't have yourself normally. You can put in, you can use that bottle of water as magnifying glass. and put it on what you're trying to read, and they'll magnify it a little.

Yeah, but it dampens down the information sometimes. That's a little bit. You've got to dry it off. Me guys. Thanks, John. Thank you, John. I have a Gallupole here on honesty and ethics, and we still remain at the bottom.

And the last three are car sales people, lobbyists. We're talking about car dealers. And it's just amazing. but I'm just here to remind everyone we're weekend, week out, and we're here to fight the fight and lead you in the right direction. So we're going to go back to the phones, and we're going to Darcy, who is calling us from Stewart. Good morning, Darcy.

Good morning. I was calling to ask about the RAV for, I believe it's prime. Yes. Is that hybrid or election? A RAB4 Prime, it's a plug-in hybrid, so it works, yeah, so you plug it in, there's a period of where you can run on all-electric power, but then when that battery, when that runs out, it goes to a normal hybrid operating mode. Okay, so a hybrid is the same thing almost? Yeah, well, a hybrid has a gas motor and an electric motor, and the computer uses it in conjunction to maximize fuel efficiency, so some of the time it will ride on just electric, and other times the motor is a computer. assisting, the electric motor is assisting

the, right? Is that the way where it's, Rick, I don't want to get on the limb here. No, the thing. The motor charges the battery. Right. That's great, because I ordered a Ravrefour hybrid from you, and it'll be coming in March. Okay, great.

And the gentleman, Bruce, was a very professional and very pleasant salesperson. Oh, thanks for saying so. Yeah, great. Thank you so much, Dorsey. And that was in Lake Park. Yeah. You're going to love it.

I drove a rabbed for a long time. It's actually pretty quick, and it's a really neat car. You've got to love it. Okay. Well, my real estate recent Beamer driver switched to Rathport, and she loves it. But I've already owned five Toyotas, so I've been sold on them for years. You know. You understand.

Yeah. Yeah. You're an educated consumer, Darcy, and I believe that the... Now, I grew... I grew up in Lake Park, Florida, but I now live in Stewart, and I always thought, this is where Sue needs to live. Interesting. They spell it wrong, though. It's like it's your name or something.

Yeah, but they misspell it. They got to correct that. Okay. Thanks for calling. Darcy, are you a first-time caller? No. Okay. I thought I recorded.

I did call before. I didn't recognize your name, but thank you for calling Earl Stewart-owned cars. We certainly appreciate you sharing your story with us. And, Stu, I believe that the Rav-4 is still in the number one slot, took over Camry's number one. Yeah, the whole industry has shifted away from regular old cars to SUVs and trucks. But, yeah, the Rav-4 became the Toyota's number one selling the car, yeah. There you go, Darcy. What can we say?

It's all been said. great great purchase thank you for joining us we're going to go to Howard in Jupiter who also is a regular caller good morning Howard good morning how are you doing guys great a little cold up here

I'm still in the Bronx I'm waiting to come down and my balcony is not done so I should be coming down in a couple of weeks how cold is it my kids are up there this weekend so anyway my question to Rick Rick why isn't throttle cleaning a service that's done in a maintenance program, throttle cleaning,

because at one time my throttles are stuck and I had to have it sprayed and cleaned. And why is not part of a maintenance plan to keep the throttle clean? I really couldn't tell you why they won't put that in as maintenance. something more of like a when it's needed type thing it's like when your brake pads wear out the because of the way people drive differently in cars you're never going to be able to predict when brake pads are going to be worn out when it's time to replace your brakes same thing with the throttle body varying ways of driving cars the throttle body sometimes can actually clean itself so if you're if you're the person that you get out on the highway

and do a lot of highway driving, that throttle body will actually begin to clean that carbon build up off all by itself. And otherwise, if you're someone that does a lot of in-town short little hops, a lot of idling time, the carbon starts to build up on that throttle plate, and it can cause a little bit of rough idle, and sometimes even with the older cars that still have a cable running to that throttle plate, you'll step on the gas pedal, and it'll stick, and it'll feel like you have to pop it past a sticking point before it will start to let the engine rev up. And we just go in there, pull the hose loose, and use a special cleaner pad,

and we scrub all the carbon off of the throttle body, and put you back together in your back in business. How about, do you ever hear of a product called Tecron liquid that you pour into the gas tank? Techron. I think they sell it at... Yeah, I'm just not a big fan of any. additives into the fuel simply just for the case the fact that most modern fuels pretty much all of them now have plenty of cleaners in them it's it's more just driving habits are what's going to make the best use of those cleaners because even with all the added stuff if you add and add and add to your fuel you're

actually just going to kind of give yourself more headaches in the long run and it's an unneeded expense whereas every once in a while take the car out for a good long highway drive, give it a chance for things to heat up and self-clean, and you're going to be in much better shape for it. And it's a lot less expensive than some of those $10 and $12 and $15 additives that you're pouring in once every two or three tankfuls. Yeah. Good information. Thank you very much, Rick. Any time. Thanks for staying with us, Howard. Look forward to hearing from you again. And we're going to go to Bobby, who's calling us from West Palm Beach.

Thank you for your patience, Bobby. What can we do for you this morning? Hi, good morning. Well, I've been on a crusade lately about the thieves in the service department. And I wanted to talk about break jobs because it appears that resurfacing brake rotors doesn't occur very much anymore. and I believe it has to do with it's easier, faster, and they make more money by just replacing the rotors.

And in fact, I say that because at a Toyota dealer, they didn't even know what the tolerances were for brake rotors for machining them, like how thin they can be and still be used. What do you think about that? my opinion resurfacing rotors is we do them all the time we seldom replace rotors until they get down to the fact that they simply are going to be too thin to meet specification up north a lot of northern cars they replace the rotors almost every time because road salt corroding those brake rotors makes them almost unserviceable even after just a short time and here in South Florida the only time I've seen them where we have that same effect is cars that live right near the salt water and they get a lot of that salt onto the brake rotors if they get so corroded so much that they're pitted or hot check to the point that they're simply we just cannot cut that rotor properly we're going to recommend replacing it but yeah for some reason a lot of shops now are just going straight to the idea of replacing rotors

rather than resurfacing. And I'm not a fan of replacement if you don't have to. Bobby hits a reason. There's more money, right? I mean, if they could get away with it. Plus, you know, the other thing I was going to comment on Bobby is in today's, you know, new normal, everything is topsy-turvy. Technicians are very hard to come by. Technicians, like all other professions, are moving around a lot.

They're going where they can make more money. They're going, maybe they just retire. Maybe they don't want to go in because of the COVID. But every thriving business today has a shortage of skilled personnel. And if you're going to a dealership that doesn't know the tolerances on your brake pads and they're working in a toilet dealer, you're talking to an unqualified person. And they probably had to hire them. They should do, but they did because they need someone when people come into the service drive.

And you just have, when you go into a service drive today, speaking to all you car owners, be sure you have a qualified technician. Some things you can look at are how long has you been there. Every manufacturer grades technician, we talked about Rick Kearney on this show last week. He's ranked number four in the Southeast United States in terms of skill. So you can find out if you want to drill down when you go. go into the dealership, who's your top techs? And also look at their ASA certifications. And tell me again what that stands for.

It's actually the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence. Yeah, yeah. Bobby, go ahead. For a consumer, that's kind of hard to do. Yeah, yeah, it is. I mean, you know, you pull up and the service writer gets your car. You don't even know who's working on your car unless you have a question and you can go out and find them.

So, God knows that. One other thing about brake rotors, though, that may be interesting to people, is that the tolerance, the minimum width of a brake rotor is actually stamped onto the brake rotor. You can see it on there. So I've had technicians not know what it is, and I've shown them that, and they're surprised. Well, they shouldn't be working there. And Bobby, you're right, it is hard, especially if you drive into a service drive, you've got to get a service salesman, he's got three people waiting behind, he gets paid on commission, and he doesn't want to have a long conversation with you about who the good techs and the bad techs are. And he also doesn't want to get to a political situation where he steers business to somebody and somebody else doesn't have work.

So my advice is you call a dealership, try to get hold of a manager, explore. And listen, if you want my business, I need to know who your top technicians are. And if I have to wait, I'll bring in the next week when he can see me. I don't want to talk to the guy you hired yesterday because you had to fill a seat. I want to talk to the guy that can fix my car right. So, yeah, it is more trouble, and it's up to you whether you want to take the time to do that. But I'd be afraid to drive a car into a car dealership today if I weren't a car dealer. One last thing for Rick about breaks. So they put new brake pads on and they squeal. Is that something I should take back to them and say, why are these squealing?

Yes. There are certain things that can be done. Well, if they didn't clean up the mounting points properly and sometimes there's lubricants that need to be put just a tiny bit on the brake pad shims, or If the pads have been replaced in the past and somebody threw away the shims, those pads really should not be making noise. And if they're done properly, then the brakes should not make noise. Now, I will throw one caveat in there, one exemption, and that is South Florida, especially in the summertime, early in the morning when you first get in your car and you start driving it, you're going to hear a little bit of noise from the brakes.

That's because of that humidity that we get in the summertime that causes a light layer of corrosion on the brake rotors overnight. And so for the first one or two times that you hit the brakes, you may hear just a little bit of noise. And if it goes away, that's completely normal. It's an environmental thing that nobody can get rid of. I don't think even Rolls-Royce can make breaks that are totally silent in Florida 100% of the time. I think that's very much for the help. I keep Rolls-Royce in air-conditioned garages. Well, yeah, they have their own special climate control places, but.

Okay, Bobby. Do you have another question? Thank you for the help. Any time. Thanks for the help. Great. We hope to hear from you again. Thank you very much.

I want to remind the ladies that I do have $50 here. I need another first-time female caller. So give us a call, and you'll win yourself $50 this morning. we have so many money saving car tips during this show right here and everything is free and we're here to guide and lead you and as I said earlier in this minefield but also our listeners are so important because you educate us too and we thank you for that so give us a call tool free at 877 960 9960 and don't forget about that Florida law that Earl took apart and dissected and put into, well, Lehman's terms, so to speak, and that is

www.W. Florida Law Protectingcarbuyers.com. And you can read that past column how to know if a Florida car dealer is breaking the law at Earl on Cars. Also, I'm going to take a moment and show the audience our confessions of a recovering car dealer, and this book is just amazing, and it certainly is something, it's an investment, and at the same time, you're going to be learning a whole lot and passing it along to family members, and it is a great contribution to big dog, little dog ranch and there we have a couple of

big dog I don't know where the little dog is but he's in here so there he is and everything goes to all the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Little Dog Ranch and that is as I said a great investment and it is just an amazing book

when an abundance of information confessions of a recovering card deal And we also have a great mystery shopper report coming up, and that is from Edmore's Honda. Hold on to your hats and stay tuned. I think we're going to go back to Stu. It looks like as if that he might have some text to share with us. Yeah, I have another anonymous feedback.

It says your video about the stolen catalytic converter reminds me when I had an outdrive stolen. The insurance company would only pay for a rebuilt outdrive, so I said I would pay additional money for a new outdrive. Allstate refused to pay the, claim unless I stuck with the used part. My question is, what is an out drive? That's that piece on the boat that is the, uh, the propeller. Oh, okay. Oh, I thought he's talking about a car. Okay, no. Okay, so someone's a boat part was stolen off. I didn't know they had a, okay.

As when you have a, the engine on your boat is not an, uh, an outboard motor. Inboard outboard. It's right. It's an inboard and then the out drive is actually the drive shaft and propeller assembly that come out of the boat. All right. Have I tuned in in the wrong place? Is this Earl Stewart on boats? I'll tell you what is big business, stealing those parts off to put a big business. Well, I'm smarter right now than I was when I got here because I knew what an out drive is now. So it's always a good thing.

All right, let me jump over some texts, I think. Let's see. Oh, here's a good one from Bob. It says, good morning. Do Toyota hybrids gas engines all turn off when the vehicle is at a stop? If so, isn't that the same as the start-stop feature in regular gas tootas that you have in the past are not fond of? Well, yeah, the hybrids cars will go to an idle. You'll sit there and it feels like it's not, nothing's on, and you hit the gas and start going.

No, that's not the same thing as the start-stop, which is a function in just the all-gas models, just to save gas, well, to keep it from burning gas while it's idling, and that's pretty annoying. Believe it or not, the hybrid, it doesn't feel like that. It's a totally different feeling when the hybrid goes idle and you gas it up again versus that start-stop. Here's two of the biggest differences. The hybrid gas engine gets started by way of the high voltage battery spinning the electric motors that are bolted up to the engine that are actually the drive motors for the car. The start-stop system uses a normal small electric starter motor that uses a 12-volt battery, and it's a much more violent action because it has to use gear reduction to start that engine. engine and it's a much more... That's why you feel that...

You're right, a violent vibration that you feel when it starts up. Not to mention the fact that the starter and the 12-volt battery on the start-stop systems actually have a maintenance shelf life of a time when they're recommended to be replaced and they're quite expensive. Whereas the electric motor and the hybrid battery, depending on how you drive the car, they can last years and years and years and years. years. So it's not the same thing, so don't let it scare you from buying a hybrid. And it's, it's going to be the same with any manufacturer and not just Toyota. Hybrids is a long proven

technology. When people ask me about hybrids, I remind them, we got our first Prius at our dealership in the year 2000, so 22 years ago. So, I mean, my children weren't born, and they're all out of the house now. I can remember walking around, I can remember walking around the lot where we had Priuses and not knowing a whole lot about them and all of a sudden one would crank up and you think you were imagining things yeah and you want to hear something interesting we have sold so many hybrids and serviced and worked on so many hybrids at our dealership and i truly think i can say less than one handful five cars have ever needed the actual transmission or the electric motor assembly replaced.

I personally have only ever done one. That seems to be the one part of the hybrid system that has just, for all of them, has been bulletproof. And that's amazing to me. All right. We have another text from Buck out in California, and he is just lamenting. He says there's a comment to make.

He has no idea what he's going to do when his old truck finally breaks down between the prices of used vehicles and new vehicles he will definitely be stuck trying to buy one

and he doesn't want to have to buy a scooter to get to work love and nurture that truck buck and put in a I don't know

yeah it's we don't know where when the end of the tunnel is going to appear I read my latest blog because that's all about exactly what you're talking about

yeah so nurture that love it keep it lasting until prices come down all right I think we are caught up. Actually, no, Amory has a follow-up to the ship fire in the Atlantic. So the lithium-ion batteries of the electric cars on board the ship have caught on fire,

so that adds more complications to try and extinguish it. Reportedly, a tow for the ship can't get there until Wednesday, so that doesn't sound promising. So maybe it will just melt into the bottom of the ocean. Yeah. Disappointing. So we're all caught back to you. Oh, great.

Can I read something from the automotive? Certainly. This will interest you and Stu and everybody in the room here too because car dealers always lie about their profits and their prices and but the public companies which are becoming the dominant car dealers now, they're publicly owned and the Secured Exchange Commission requires that they release the truthful numbers. If they lie to the SEC, they go to jail. So here's an accurate.

Here's one of the largest car dealer groups in the country, and the quarterly report just came out with what they make and how much they're making. First of all, okay, I'm going to interrupt myself here because we got Marty, and he's holding, and we prioritize phone calls. Yeah, we definitely get back to that column from the automotive news. We're going to go to Marty, and I'm so glad to hear from you, Marty. Been a while.

You're out there working for us. welcome good morning how are you doing we're great I got two questions I guess they'll probably go to Rick first of all

my wife's got a Honda the RV that has that automatic stop if you press this a button on on the car

that's stop feature will go off right but as soon as you start again it'll be on again. My question is, why didn't they do that in the reverse? Why didn't they leave it so you don't have that? If you want the stop, start, then you press the press a button. Oh, you speak my mind. You speak my thoughts, exactly. For folks that are wondering what he's talking about, there is a cancel button for that automatic start-stop feature, where when you get

in the car and you start it up, you can push this button. And until you cycle the key, off and back on, it will cancel that start-stop feature and let you just drive the car normally. I got a question. And for some reason, they should have just put it as a switch that you could turn it off totally and only have it come on when you want to activate it. But no, they did that. My question, and I don't know if any of the answer to this, is the mileage estimate for the vehicles,

does that include the usage of the smart stop? Yes. So that's why? Because the regulators to get the cafe down to the fuel standards, they start introducing these features. And I think if they made it an opt-in, they couldn't include it in the mileage estimate. Ah, okay. I see it. Yep. And it sucks because you should be able to turn it off and leave it off. But, yeah, if you can remember it becomes a habit, then it's less annoying, but I was never able to make it a habit.

So it's still a very annoying feature. And either if I happen to be sitting in the passenger seat, I'll push the A or then my wife she'll push the A or whatever. It's a team effort. If you both think about it, you might remember it 50%. Well, you will once you stop. Right. Once you stop and it gets that jerk.

Yeah, you'll wake you up. You remember if you didn't press it. The other question I have for Rick, I bought my Toyota two years ago, February 26th of 2020, So the Toyota Care is off in another few days, but this car came with the ToyoCare Platinum. Do I have to tell the service guy when I go in there that I have the platinum, or will that be automatically? It's in the computer, but remind them, I don't know, just to make sure. But yeah, when they pull it up, all the coverage, all warranties, including Toyota Care, Toyo Guard, if your car happened to have it on it, factory warranty,

extended service contracts, all that is visible when they start play up in the computer. Yep. Now, as a consumer, I would never have paid for that. I mean, you're getting two oil changes

and four tire rotations with it. Right. But sticker-wise, it has a $699 price. That's right. So you can do that for a lot less than $6.99. Absolutely.

But my negotiating, skills got me that thrown in the car without paying for it. So I can't complain. But I just wanted to know if you got to tell the service rider. You don't have to. But like I said, at our dealership, we don't see that many cars with Toyager because we don't sell it unless it's a customer request. But it's going to be visible.

But you know it. And if he doesn't mention it, then mention it. I didn't get it. Just to let you know, I didn't get my car. your place, but I do all my service in your place. No, we actually, at one point, we tried selling Toy Guard at our cost to see if that was something customers wanted, you know, it wasn't, so we stopped doing it. Yeah, it's probably worth maybe $200.

Yeah, it includes there's some rental car in there, but that's all hypothetical. You have to use it for it to be a real benefit. All right, but at least I found out what you said about the auto stops. Yeah. Thank you so much, Marty. Stay tuned for our mystery shopping report. It's going to be a doozy. Okay, have a good weekend.

Thank you. The same to you. You know, as far as the female shopper, it's a financial disaster for these dealers to ignore us. And let me tell you something, things have gotten so much better for that particular shopper. And the bottom line is for women to be treated as equal to men. And so it goes without saying that we do, you know, entertain the idea with different female callers.

Weekend and we got in the platform has grown considerably. And there are a lot of women out there that have really had a great experience. So with that said, I want to go to my next first time female caller. And her name is Denise, and she's calling from Stewart. Welcome, Denise. Hi, good morning. You've won yourself $50 this morning, and if you leave your information with Elise, who's in our control room,

she'll pass it along to me, and I'll get that checkout to you. Oh, I love that. Thank you. That's very sweet of you. Thank you. What can we do for you this morning? I just want to say thank you for the service that you guys provide, and I hate to bother you, but I have a question. I purchased a 22 Volkswagen's house, which I love. But two weeks ago, the engine harness went wonky. And they've had the car now for over two weeks.

They're repairing it. It looks like Mokesleg and Lego. It's totally dismantled. But I have concerns about the concept of replacing such a vital part of the car and not having issues after that. And knowing nothing about the harness, I was shocked to see that it looks like a a giant squid with all these tentacles. So it's very concerning.

So my question is, should I worry about the repair of it? And if so, what to do about that? It's a difficult thing to say because without knowing the technician working on it, there's a very wide range of technicians that you're going to find at every repair shop anywhere, be it a dealership or an aftermarket shop. Let me interrupt, Eriga, Denise, where do you have, which Volkswagen dealer has your vehicle? Wallace and Stewart. Yeah.

I think you need to, first of all, I don't stick with a Volkswagen dealer, obviously. Yes. And there are people. I would express my concern to the service manager and to Bill Wallace, the owner. You can also voice your concerns to the manufacturer and let them know. If you call the manufacturer about your concern, they will hopefully intervene on your behalf. They have technical specialists available to aid the technicians of the dealership. So if you got a dealership, and we talked earlier about technicians today not being fully qualified

because good technicians are hard to come by. Any employee are hard to go by during this time. So you want to be sure you get a good technician on the vehicle, and you should be dealing with somebody up the ladder. If you have a problem, you've got an 800 number for Volkswagen. They will contact the service manager or the dealer and or the dealer for all complaints. your complaints going directly to Volkswagen, come back to the dealer.

So that's a good thing. And your last weapon, when you have a car, this car is under warranty, right? Yes. You have a, there's something called the Lemon Law in Florida, and if they're dragging their feet and repairing it, you need to go on record and writing by email that you're concerned that they're unable to fix your car

and you don't want to get combative you want to be nice now but at some point when you feel like you're not getting the right expertise to fix your car you should mention the Lemon Law that gets everybody's attention I guess the dealer's attention

because it's a a disgrace on them that they have to be involved in lemon law and the manufacturers hate the lemon law and usually when they think that you're thinking about invoking the lemon law they will really hustle to get your car fixed how long have they had your car?

I just purchased it the end of July so it's brand new and the thing is I did reach out to Volkswagen because I had to pay for my own rental and I'm hoping for reimbursement, but they have not responded to me at all. I went to the main 800 number. I have a case with them, a case number, and I've gotten nowhere. And how long has your car been at the dealership for this repair? Just about over two weeks, maybe three. Wow. Okay. All right, Denise, I'm going to give you the atomic bomb here. If you will email me,

you've got my email address, it's Earl on Cars.com. email me, and I'll respond, and I'll give you Bill Wallace's personal cell phone number. It's Earl at Earl on Cars. I'm not trying to impose, you know, I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble. No, no, no, no. You've got it right. You should be concerned. And you could just tell Bill Wallace that you have a problem.

You tell me your friend to Earl Stewart, and he knows me, we're friends. And if you'll just Earl on Cars.com. and Earl at Earleoncars.com, E-A-R-L at Earleoncars.com, and I'll give you his cell phone number. I don't want to give it out over the air, but I would, but I just, you know. Not a good idea. Well, I appreciate that. Sure. And Denise, let me tell you that Lemon Law, boy, that'll take you a long way if you have to use it,

but the way you've been treated with this situation, that's far too long for your car to be sitting at a dealership and also that expense that you didn't factor in that you have to rent a car so you've gone about this you've dotted your eyes crossed your teas you've done everything that you could and you know we're not promoting that you attack anyone nor have you or we are going to attack anyone so take advantage of the information that earl just shared with you You're entitled to your money back on the rental, so don't compromise on that at all. Rental cars are very expensive today, and a lot of dealers are being reluctant to loan your car, but you are fully entitled when your car is not drivable under a new car warranty to have your reimbursement for your rental costs.

And rental cars out there, too, price gouging is taking place. It's everywhere. It's rampant. So, Denise, good luck. I hope you stay in touch with us. look for that cell phone number at Earl's information that he just shared with you. And Denise, congratulations, and thank you for helping me build this platform for ladies right here at Earl Stewart on cars. Well, I appreciate your support and your kindness. You guys are wonderful.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend. Don't forget to send me that information. I will not. Thank you. You're welcome. So we are going to go back to Earl because I've been.

believe that he wanted to discuss the record new vehicle profit figures. This is actual from the financials of the Penske Auto Group, which is, I think, the second largest retail group in the country. And this is interesting. To me, and we're in the business, and we rarely ever get the real numbers from what the other dealers are doing. But the average of the hundreds of auto dealerships that Penske has, is the number of the Their average gross profit per vehicle is $7,006 for the last quarter.

Now that doesn't count the finance profit, which is another 2,000. So can we round this off to pretty close to 10,000 for every car, the thousands and thousands of cars. He's making about $10,000 for every car. His profit, this is the Penskega Group, locally they own Palm Beach Toyota. I will give you an idea of the names of the dealerships you don't see, but there's a Penske Auto Group. The average profit on used cars is $2,884 out of all the used cars.

Now, that's a $1,000 gain from a year ago. So the prices, you can see what's happening. They probably don't include a dealer fees in that. They don't include the dealer fees, they don't include, and they don't include the, and they don't include the F&I, the finance, you know, the interest and all that kind of stuff. So it's absolutely incredible, the unconscionable, immoral profits that are being made. And the only people that are paying the price for this are you, it's a seller's market, and you're in trouble. There's nothing you can do about it, but it's really obnoxious because it's citing increased costs driving that, but that's not what's happening. If that was the case, the profits wouldn't be so big.

The profits would be the same. You raise your prices to get to where you used to be. Exactly. And the manufacturers doing the same thing. So it's a double whammy. Everybody's getting rich, the dealers, the manufacturers, and you're getting poor if you buy a car. So don't buy a car. Do not buy a car.

Save yourself a whole lot of money. Keep that old car you have. You know, sometimes the cost of maintaining that is quite profitable. We're going to go to Charles, who's holding. Thanks so much for your patience, Charles. She's calling us from West Palm Beach. Welcome. Actually, it's North Palm.

But my question for all of you is, and Earl's probably gone through this 100 times, I've just missed the shows. What are the legitimate fees, starting with MSRP, which I know is negotiable, transport, which is probably fixed taxes? Well, that's Sanchez's issue. But starting with dealer prep, to me, I couldn't really imagine why there'd be a dealer fee other than the car gets washed and a couple of gallons get put in the gas tank.

wondering what are the legitimate fees and when Earl when you're having Writers Block or the Florida Weekly maybe that would be a great place for you to list all of them Charles would be a very short article because the only legitimate fees are government fees so if there's a on your buyer's order

your installment sales contract you see something that says fee if that's paid to the federal state or local government it's legitimate. And the only legitimate fees for the, by far large, there are a few minor fees at $2 or something, but for the significant fees that you pay to the government, it's just your license plate registration and the self-tax. That's the big one, 6% in Florida. So the simple, a shorthand way to handle this with a dealer, say, listen, I want your out-the-door price plus government fees. only. Now that cuts to the bone. A lot of people get confused on the title of tag and registration and because the dealers learn now how to make phony fees, hidden fees, sound like their title tag and registration. Some of those tricks are electronic filing fee, not at all a government fee. Electronic filing fee is a phony markup for a very small fee.

that is paid to a private company to do the registration and tag work. Tag agency fee, that's another BS fee that they make you think is a government fee. But the acid test of a government fee is there sales tax charged on it. When you see a fee and the foreign of sales tax has been charged on that fee, it's not a government fee. It's a phony fee. So, be sure you're to stress government fees only, giving your answer to our price. I'm only going to pay government fees.

And when you see the government fees that you think are government fees, look at the buyer's order and find out if they charge you sales tax on it. If they did charge you sales tax on it, they're lying to you. It is not a government fee. Oh, okay. Well, that's very helpful. You know, I'm just going to share a little bit of history with you. My dad.

after World War II had to buy a car. And the dealer, it was a Pontiac dealer, actually, which you find interesting up in New York State. The salesman wanted a bribe. And as a result, we never, ever, ever set foot in that car dealership again. And I'm thinking that with all of these adjustment fees, et cetera, that dealers may, in fact, be taking a very short dealers. turn view of the market. I'm glad you're the exception.

Well, thank you very much. My father started business in 1937. And back in those days, I didn't come along until 1968. And when I started to work for my father, he had, his hidden fee, was a dock fee, and it was $6.50. So, you know, it's been going on for a long time. Well, I mean, I just wish it was as easy as buying a pair of shoes or something like that. Go in, this is the price, and everybody, you know, you make you money. I mean, I don't have to go up to the shoes. I can just go right down the road, Bill Stewart, paying my money, and not feel as if I've been taken. Wouldn't that be great?

It really would be. It would be wonderful. Keep up the good work, and I'm looking for his second book from, from you. you all. I've got a couple of copies of confessions that I passed out to our sons, but there's been so much more stuff coming out that maybe it's time for a second book. You must be a minor. It is indeed. I'm getting toward the end of my second book, and the title is redemption of a recovering car dealer. And I'm just about ready to see the rough draft. I'm working with a ghost writer

named John Van Zile, and we do bi-weekly telephone interviews and text back and forth, and he's interviewed my son, Stu, he's going to interview Nancy, he's interviewed one of my competitors who used to run Del Rey Toyota, and he's interviewed the Consumer Advocate out of California, Rosemary Shan. Sheehan. Sheehan. Rosemary Sheehan. Great lady.

And also the president of the Florida Automobile Diligence Association. So I'm getting the good, the bad, and the ugly, all the different views. And that's all going to be, and it will be brought up to date as you requested, Charles. So thanks for asking. I'll let you know as soon as it's finished. Great job, Earl. Thank you very much. And what is your name again?

Charles. It is Charles? It is. It is. Okay, great. Hey, Charles, to your, when you first got on the phone and talked to us about fees, you know, there's nothing wrong with fees. It is the hidden fees that lead us into this deception, and it's really not necessary. And you had a great idea, and I also want to add to that, don't go anywhere.

Stay tuned, because you talk about fees. Let's take a look at the mystery shop of Ed Moore's Honda that we're going to get to just in a couple of minutes. It will interest you. And thank you for calling. Thank you very very much. All righty. Hey, listen, you know, while I have you, I called once before, and I had a question. And if Toyota would do this and other cars do this, we drive Volvos, which have the most comfortable seats in the world.

But the question I have is, why is the front passenger seat not got lumbar support? My wife has back issues and very few cars. have lumbar support for the front seat passenger. Well, lack of intelligence on the part of the manufacturer, because I totally agree with you. I love lumbar support, and, you know, it's just something that they were, if the manufacturer was smart, they would put it in. There's a cost thing, you know, everything is pricing and advertising and total cost,

but I totally agree with it. It's a great suggestion. We'll pass out along to Toyota. Great suggestion. Okay, keep up the good work. Great job. Thanks, for all. Thank you.

Folks, we're going to freeze the lines, and we're going to concentrate on some texts, some YouTubes. We're going to get to the Mystery Shopping Report, and that text number is 772-497-6530, and I think we're going to go back to Stu. Well, just real quick, because this is something that's kind of been eating at me or bothering me on the government fees and the taxable, and I just looked it up. There is an exception to the taxable taxing on legitimate fees, and that's the Florida of the battery and tire fee, which is

a good fee. And the sales tax for some reason is assessed on them. I mentioned that, and it's negligible. It's negligible. $6.50, but it's taxable. I don't want anybody to throw a fit in the showroom and say, that's not legit. When you're paying $5,000 over a sticker, you're not going to be worried about

the $6.50. Yeah, a fraction of the cost. More great information right here at Earl Stewart on cars. I believe that we are going to go to the mystery shopping report. Oh, yeah. Okay, we can go out leave.

And that mystery shop is from Ed Morse Honda, and I want to let our listeners know your vote is extremely important. Take advantage of it. We would love to hear from you. And that text number is 772-4976530. Now, the mystery shop from Edmores Honda. And I think we're going to have some time after this because we're getting started a little earlier than normal.

So keep your text coming in, and your anonymous feedback's coming in. Can't take phone calls, but we will have your anonymous feedback or your text or your Facebook or your... We're not doing 20 anymore. Either YouTube or Facebook.

So this mystery shop of Ed Morris, we've probably known him. He's no of the chains. It's actually growing. I thought after Ed Morris died and Ten Morse died, I kind of wondered whether the chain would continue, and it's actually growing.

I've seen blurbs and automotive news. They're buying dealerships around the country, so apparently they're alive and well and prosperous. It's been nearly two years since we mystery shopped at Norshant. It was in the thick of the pandemic. It was before the aftershocks of the global microchip storage hit and the supply chain interruptions. The mission was trying to shop online and get the lowest price possible using competitive quotes.

Agent Lightning, and it's our female shopper, was able to use a low price from Bremenonda and get an even lower price from Ed Morris Honda, and then she got an even lower price from Kagan Honda. These are old southwarded Honda dealers using true car. Now, that is a classic textbook way to buy a car. in a buyer's market. In a matter of fact, it's not a bad way to buy a car, even when you should be buying a car. If you don't get three bids, you don't get three prices off the door, you're paying way too much money. That mystery shop occurred in a different universe. Back in September 2020, dealers had tons of cars to sell. They were practically giving them away. It was a buyer's market. Our advice was to get at least three out the door quotes from competing dealerships.

best way to find the lowest price. Well, guess what? Still the best advice. These days, all the prices are much higher, but our shopping guidelines are the same. Get at least three quotes. You might find a dealer willing to sell close to MSRP. Now, here's the philosophy of this. I don't know if you feel like I did, but when I buy something, I don't like to pay a high price. But you know something? If I can, if I can think that I got as low prices anybody else did it mitigates the pain you know i it's not high it's only high if you're in time but everybody really hurts the pain the stabbing pain is to know you've been suckered and and you find out your next door neighbor bought the same car from the same dealer the same month

same day right and paid two thousand dollars less than you did oh the pain so you can avoid this pain even in a seller's market where you know you're paying too much, but so is everybody else. You just don't want to pay more than what your neighbors pay, if you get what I'm saying. So both philosophies apply. We returned Edmore's Sondon this week to see how things have changed there. The Edmore's dealerships are considered to be fairly tame, are not known for big addenance or bushy sales staff. And again, this is all relative.

They're kind of boring, relatively speaking, and that's a compliment, boring compliment. If you want to, you want some excitement. Go to Hendrickson. Go to Hendrickson. Or Napleton. Or Napleson. You like sports. You like fireworks.

Yeah, we've got some callers out there that enjoy it. Frank. Who is it? Frank. Oh, Frank goes to the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, John in West Palm. Marty.

Marty, yeah. I mean... All these guys like, no. But the times are changed, and maybe the Ed Morris dealerships are going to change with them. Ed Morris' grandson, Teddy Morris, is running things now. From the looks of the latest ad campaign, he's trying for a cool makeover for his dealerships. So here we are. So many dealers are just...

Really, it makes me feel... Oh, he's going to play the video. Oh, the video? I'm sorry. Let's go. Sorry. It's there for the sale, and that's it. But we wanted our customers to know that we have your back during the sale, after the sale,

and when it's time to buy your next car. That's why we say you're always backed by Morse. So I don't think Earl could see the, saw the video. I've seen it many times. You've seen it before. So it's Eddie Morris, and he's got aviator sunglasses on a beard and like in a muscle tee. Yeah, I didn't realize what a cool-looking guy was.

I mean, he looks like a TV guy. He's trying to, looks like he's kind of doing the Matthew McConaughey thing, like we're in the Lincoln, like, talking with a voice like this. Yeah. Back by Moore. but we're making fun compare it to somebody if you want to compare him to Frank Hernandez I mean at least he's you know he's civil he's oh yeah yeah and I like the I like the commercial Jason went to school with him or my brother Ed Earl's other son

went to school with him at for a car dealer school back in the early 2000s yeah and I've never been able to get over the teddy thing I and that's just silly I mean a lot of people are call Teddy. I mean, yeah, probably there was Teddy's out there. Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah, I know. I just, Teddy, I just, I can't get away from, uh, the hell especially. I want you to be my teddy bear. I don't know. I can't get out of my head. If I have that name, I'd want him to call me Theo. Okay. We said as you're lighting in to see how things have changed at Edmores haunted. As Teddy, I want to be your teddy bear. I managed to keep it cool during the inventory crunch of 20, 2021, 22.

Before heading out, here's a report. I'm speaking of the first person if I were Agent Lightning or female shopper. Before hanging out there, Edmore Sondon, I decided on a long shot to try to get a Costco price on a new Honda City. I had no look finding any, so I called, listen to this carefully. I'm impressed with Agent Lightning initiative, and this is something very valuable, very good information. information. She tried to get a Costco price on a Hans Civic, having no longer. So she called Costco Auto Program, the 800 number is right online.

You could go to Costco's website, a Costco auto buying website, and you can talk to a real-life human being at Costco, and she spoke with a woman named Teresa. She told, Teresa told me, as I'm agent lighting, the closest civic on the Costco Auto Program was in Savannah, Georgia. Wow. But you laugh, but hey, we're going to find out what that price was. I mean, this will be an addendum.

We'll follow up. Because the Costco Auto Program requires that you sell the car at the lowest, lower price than you sell that same year-maker model to anybody else. So, just like I said earlier, you might be paying a high price,

but it's the lowest price anybody's pain and that takes away some of the pain. So this Costco gal Teresa suggested a similar model. I love this. I didn't know that they would do this, Costco, suggested, hey, check out the Hyundai Yolatra and directed me to Napleson Hyundai. That made me nervous on those like Boulevard. I said, no thanks.

Now that I've said that, I have to go back and explain why that may be nervous. A chain is only as strong as this weakest link. A Costco auto buying program is a very strong change. The weak lengths are the dealers. So when you go to the dealer, the weak link and the chain of the Costco auto bike program, you've got to go back to Costco and verify the price they gave you as legitimate. There is a price that Costco knows they should have charged you. You tell them the price you were charged, and Costco will say,

hey, they were wrong. They overcharged you by $2,000. I'm going to call the dealer. They will call the dealer, and if the dealer will not agree to honor their contract, they'll cancel that dealer as a Costco approved dealer. So,

I love this. Direct communication with Costco. You Costco members out there remember that, and call the Costco, and if you have a problem, and you want to know where other other Costco approved dealers are, unfortunately, Savannah, Georgia is a long drive. But, you know, you might even be able to get lucky.

Do it all online. No reason why not. You know the car you want, and the price is guaranteed. Pay the transportation, and they'll deliver the car to you. So don't rule out Costco just because a lot of dealers don't have the prices listed. The reason they don't have the prices listed is because they want to gouge the hell out of you when you come in. That's the reason they have the cars on the ground and they haven't sold them yet. Because everybody walks from the door, it's a, the old game.

You know, who's going to pay the most money for the car, and that's who gets to buy the car. So don't rule out Costco, even now. But in this case here, we gave up with Costco, headed on Edmore's Honda. I arrived early evening, and I was quickly greeted with a fist bump by Mike. We exchanged pleasure trees, and then I changed the subject to why I was there. I asked if he had any civics in inventory.

Mike said he thought they did, but he would have to check. He excused himself and was away for just a minute before returning to tell me he had one in stock. He also had a list of in-transit vehicles. These are vehicles that were shipped from Honda, and there's somewhere on a train or a plane or an automobile between the manufacturing point and the dealership. And he has a list to all of those, so he checked that out too. I told Mike I wanted to take something home today, so he suggested we take a look at the one in stock. He got the keys, asked me to follow him out onto the lot.

We found it right away. It was a 2022 Honda Civic EX, White with MSRP of $26,760. Manufacture suggested retail price. But wait. There was an un-Ed Morris-like addendum sticker next to the Maroni label. it was short and sweet $2,995 for mud guards

what? And wheels was this bought on the auction I mean what mud guards for $3,000 for mud guards what are the mudguards cost Do you want me to

excuse me let me ask something before you talk to Rick what do you think? Do you think I go to Amazon and get those for maybe starting at $30? What about those wheel walks? I think I can get them for maybe $35?

Just saying. $999 fee. Teddy Moore's list price was $30,754. Okay, now that's a pretty big kick-up in MSRP. Mike walked around the car while doing his thing. I asked about the identity and he said it was a reflection of the market right now.

He assured me that $29.95 was well below what his competitors were adding to their prices. Well, it might be below what the competitors are adding to their prices on the addendum label, but there's a lot of other ways to add to prices, and we'll see what we will see. I asked him if the 2995 for the wheel locks and mudguards was negotiable. I kind of lie. I don't think he was lying here. Mike said that legally they can't list that charge as a market adjustment.

Well, why not? I mean, you can if you want to. But anyone can guess that mud cards and wheel locks don't really cause that much, he said. He'd do his best to work with me. It's just an unusual thing. I guess he's being honest. Give him credit. Give him credit for being honest to that extent.

We found his desk and asked about the Costco program. Mike said Costco was a way to go. I love Mike for saying that. Before the inventory situation, he said, that's the way to go. He said, now it was a dealer's market. He showed, and it's true. Another truth from Mike.

He showed me a copy of Bremen's brandon than another customer taken from Bremen. And dealers always do that. We do it. We save addem labels, and some of them was outrageous things and show them to our customers in our dealership. Brayman was adding

$4,256 for almost the same garbage. and Shade Morris was pushing. Mike taught me that he makes $350 if he sells a car and doesn't get paid a traditional commission. Now, that's good

in a way. It's not good for Mike because the other dealers are paying their salespeople 25% of the profit. I've heard there's been some emergency packs introduced.

They're not getting what they got. they're scrambling because at least you're probably right it's probably hit by now but when it first happened and it began to sell his market there were no cars and people were begging to buy a car at any price think of it if you can make we just looked at uh they're making a couple of thousand a car yeah we just look at uh at a Penske auto group averaging uh what was it uh 7000 8000 8,000, let's say $8,000 a car. What's 25% of $8,000? That's $2,000.

So these dealers are making $2,000 a pop, and they sell $10 cars in a month. That's not too bad. $20,000 a month's not a bad month's earnings. I think the $3.50 that he's doing, I mean, like we at our dealership

when we don't have a traditional commission-based sales they pay per car. I think this might be an emergency measure by Ed Morris. They stopped paying them to present us. Oh, absolutely, yeah. Because the sales were making so much money. They were retiring to the coast of France. You know, there was, I mean, they were buying pletial mansions.

And, you know, it's really, it's a topsy-turvy world out there, folks. And, you know, I probably need a third book just to write about this after I get finished my second book. But that's good. He was out a fixed amount, and he wasn't adversarial doing combat with every customer. He makes $350. That's a nice amount of money to make,

if you can sell enough cars. And he is your advocate, because he makes the same, whether it gets your good deal, or you have to pay too much money. So in a sense, he's on your side. So that's the place you want to buy a car where the salespeople are compensated

not as a percent of the profit they make on you. He was back fast. He went to see the manager. He called the closing table. Find out what he could do. He came back with a worksheet. Top line, MSRP 26-760. After that came a whole bunch of stuff.

Yep. I never mentioned earlier. This is the sneaky stuff. $4.99 for Zillan. some sort of a wax a road hazard for 359 global you probably got free road hazard with the car anyway global free maintenance for 450 global I like that global free maintenance oh okay I'll take their word for it EMH appearance package Edmore Sonda okay this should be Teddy Morseye yeah Teddy Morse

E-T-M-H, yeah, a T-M-H, yeah, a pair of us back for $29.95. So, again, the hidden fees, the additional fees, the addendums, they got it all. That came the $999 dealer fee. We got an $85-ag agency fee and $199.75,000 electronic finance fee. I talked earlier on the show about how dealers impersonate taxable fees. And you think, hey, $85 tag agency, that probably goes to the department. Department of Motor Vehicles, right? And the electronic filing fee, that goes

to the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles, right? That goes to Teddy's Sunglasses Fund. It was to Teddy's Retirement Fund. My price was $32,346, $5,5,586 over MSRP. Like I said, there were three add-ons that could be removed,

but he prefers to leave them in the presentation so we can work down from here. Sounds like a new guy. you know i mean i like to jack up the price real high yeah we can work down from there people enjoy that you'll feel if i take it off too soon it won't feel as good you want to feel like you you fought me and we fought together against my manager and finally i guess we emerge from the rubble we emerge and you feel so good so i'm not going to take it off now i'll take it

later. I told them to remove it now. I don't... She don't mess around. That's Agent Lighting. And God bless her. She's a tough gal. Yeah, amazing. I said they needed to come down more on the price. Mike left, and he said he'd be back a few minutes, and the games continue. I still wear my mask if I can't lick my fingers to turn the pages of Stu's beautiful report here. A few minutes later, a sales manager named Chris appeared without Mike. He had a new worksheet, a dendom sticker from Johnson Onda of Stewart. He wanted to show me that his head-ons weren't as big as Johnson's head-ons.

He brought up Costco again and said, no dealers are honoring the Costco program because of the market situation. Well, think about that. Think about that. Yeah, it's not true. We proved it's not true. But why wouldn't they have a Costco? All Costco says is you will charge a lower price. It'd be a hundred dollars less.

But it has to be a lower price than you charge anybody else. Now, if you charge everybody else an arm and a leg, you don't mind giving it to, on a Costco member, for an arm and leg less $100. And so what he's really saying is, the dealers that won't put the price to the Costco program, what they're doing is they're getting all they can from, you know, the weak parish or the strong,

If you come in there and you get tough, you shop and compare, you get close to a sticker. If you come in there and they slaughter you like a lamb, then you end up paying $10,000 over a sticker. They don't want to do that, the Costco program for that reason, because Costco is going to cancel them if they violate the law of selling to list to somebody else besides a Costco member. Okay. Now, Mike showed me the worksheet. It was $1,500 lower out the door, so they came down. When I pressed Chris for a better price, he said he could come down maybe $700. I asked for that in writing. I'd have to get me a revised worksheet. This is the third trip? Third way to the trip. The latest worksheet had an out-the-door price that was $798 lower.

I thank Chris and Mike for the time. Chris warned me that his last civic will not last long I told him I knew that. So here we are. It was an interesting experience. It was we had good and we had bad. I have a picture here of their addendum label and I did a blog a long time ago called Beware of the Phony Monroney and this is the picture as I hold them up is on the I'm pointing to it with my finger. That's the phony 40 Monroney with my finger here is you see how if you're on Facebook or YouTube you can see how

it looks like it's all part of the big MSRP Menroney label but it's not it's a counterfeit Monroney and their counterfeit Monorone Mark Tuttle was it 3 or 4,000 Oh with everything in there

was it was about 5,000 over MSRP Yeah now the final price they came down a little bit they're still well over MSRP. He came down to think a total of two grand or about 2100. So here we have one of these interesting shopping reports where

the salesman truly was an honest guy and he was on this and he's not making a living. Everybody's got to make a living. He's following the rules of the dealership. He was honest within his limitations with the customer and we got a vote on the curve.

So we need to decide. I still have an issue though. and it's not it's not Mike the the salesperson it's the dealership yeah true the there was an addendum label on it it was their front and center they even put their dealer fee on the dental label which by the way I think is required it is required so they're doing it and that's great and everything but then when he got written when agent lightning got written up

it was everything on the add xylon and the other stuff there's more stuff that surprised so that was a true surprise that wasn't transparent we've been saying for weeks like Listen, you're going to pay over MSRP, but these dealers that are putting it front and center and being honest about it, we can't follow me because you can walk away from that. You're a little bit more committed after you've gone through some negotiations, some test drive, and then some new information gets dumped on you. Then you're kind of, you spent time, you like the salesperson, and so I don't like that. So I was inclined to go to more of a C type of grade, but I'm going to give them a D-minus. And we have one another grade, and that's from Jonathan Wellington, gives them a C, and also, Bob.

Bob gives an A for Mike and a C for the Emergency Medical Hologram, EMH, Edmortana. Stu, you said it well. You said it very well, and we're going to run out of time here if we don't move quickly. But I'm going to go with a, I'm going with a failing grade. I mean, these packages that you get hit with before you walk out the door, it is just so deceptive. and I can't say enough we're going to go to Rick for his vote.

Mark Anderson, Mark from St. Louis, Ed Moore saying nothing about a hound dog, D-minus. Tim Gilliland, too many fees added to closing, D. Mark Smith, too many fees, D. Tom Steckle, D-minus, out-the-door price

didn't include legitimate tax tag and title. Wasn't truthful about Costco. Brian said Lacko. There's two D's in Teddy. I give him a D. Cram, 16, 24. D, I'm backed by my wallet, not your addendum.

Wayne Veit with the D-minus. I'm following the crowd with the D on this one, folks. I love our YouTube fans. These guys are awesome. I would give it my D, but because I like his commercial so much, I don't give him a C-minus. Oh, okay. So you want to continue to Teddy's continue cool.

He's just like the beard. His cool look fund. Okay, folks, we're out of, do you have anything else for me? No, it's a great show. We're out of time right now. Thank you so much for joining us this morning and stay tuned next Saturday morning. We'll be right here. Have a wonderful weekend.