Earl Stewart on Cars - 02.24.2024 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of I-95 Nissan of Riviera Beach

Episode Date: February 24, 2024

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local Nissan dealer to see what they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2023 Nissan Rogue SUV. 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, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “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 LinkedIn cyber. space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show.

Good morning, everybody. We're back again. And believe it or not, we're just as happy about this show as we hope you are. We love doing this. It's once a week. We come in for two hours. and just have a ball, we act normal, natural, honest, transparent, and say whatever we want to say. We try to tell the truth.

And what reminded me about that was the disclaimer that you just heard from the station and said that the Vic Canales media group absolves themselves of any responsibility of what we say on this show. I kind of chuckle when I hear that. I don't blame the radio station, a company, for being dubious. I mean, you put several people in a studio on a live mic, and you're talking to tens of thousands of people, and you just kind of wonder what they're going to say. So we have to control what we say, and our control is called truth. Yeah. Truth is a perfect defense against libel and slander, and that's what a lot of radio stations

they're afraid of, somebody shoots their mouth off. That's the reason you don't see too many live shows because sometimes you accidentally say something stupid. And I probably have and I probably will. But there has to be intent. And we always try to tell the truth. And the proof is of the pudding. The proof is we've been to know of this show for about 20 years.

Now think about that. 52 shows a year times 20 years, that's a lot of shows. two hours a show, it used to be an hour, but still, we've probably been on the air for hours, I mean, for days, if you had all the hours together, days and days. And during all that time, nobody has sued either the radio station or us. And I should knock on wood when I say that. I mean, you can sue anybody for anything, but I think what happens when car dealers and car sales managers and salespeople and others out there that hear what,

we're talking about and saying about them, they probably get angry, and they say, I'm going to sue that guy. So they call their lawyer, and the lawyer says, what did they say? And the salesman or the manager or the dealer-owner will say, they said this, well, is there any truth to that?

Now they start to back off a little bit. And then they hand in awe, and then I think here's the real thing that scares car dealers from suing us because they know that I would demand if they were going to sue me I would demand a jury trial I would demand all the publicity we could get I'm a real ham as you know it's reason we do this radio show and the truth would come out in the in the trial car dealerships don't need the truth they need opaqueness as opposed to transparency so here we are

We're going to take your questions, your comments. We have a lot of avenues to do that. Our most popular is our telephone, the old-fashioned telephone. And that is 877-960-9960. If you haven't called the show before or if you haven't heard the show before, give us a call. Maybe you want to listen for a little while and see what's going on. But basically, we're here as the recorded introduction. said to help you avoid being taken advantage of when you buy or lease a car or you're

maintain or repairing your car. Car dealerships are notorious for lack of transparency and unfair or deceptive trade and sales practices, advertising, bait and switch. So if that's happened to you, we'd love to have you listen. I'd love to have you call the show. If you haven't got time to call now, why don't you write this number down? 960 9960. That's 877-9-960. Now, we've only got five lines

coming into the station. Nancy Stewart, my co-host, is sitting on my left. She's also my wife, and we've been doing this for 20 years. We got together and founded this show 20 years ago. And it started out as a half hour, and now it's all the way up to two hours, and we have a big,

big following. So Nancy will give you priority treatment. but if you're going to call 877-960-99-60. We like to hear your voice. Your personality comes through. We have some amazing, regular callers, but we want some new callers, too. We like to have people that haven't called the show before.

And we won't put you on the spot. We won't embarrass you. You say what you want to say, and you don't say what you don't want to say. And we'd love to hear your personal experiences about buying or leasing cars, maintaining a repairer of cars. If you have a car dealership you'd like to recommend,

this isn't all negativity on this show. We have a recommended dealer list that we are trying to build every week. And we put the names, locations of the dealers that will give you a fairer, more fairer treatment than other dealers. So, recommended dealer. Hey, if you had a great service experience or sales experience,

call the show at 877-9-60-99-6-6. Of course, vice versa, if she had a terrible experience, let's hear about that too. We name names, we name dealerships, we name sales managers and salesmen in our mystery shopping report, which is, I think, the highlight of the show, my son, Stu Stewart, he's sitting right across in the studio from me. He just waved at me. He's our cybermaster guy. He manages our undercover agent, Agent Lightning, and dispatches her to various locations around the country. country. She's back in Florida, by the way. She's been in Pennsylvania and she's been in Tennessee

and she's been Michigan, I think. She's been all over the place. But she's back in Florida and we have a slam-bang doozy of a mystery shopping report locally right here in Palm Beach County. Right down the road here. Yeah, just right very close with a few minutes of the studio. So, Stu's in charge of that. And he's also. Also, we're on top of the day-by-day happenings at the dealership, which is, we have a dealership in full transparency. We are car dealers. This is a consumer advocacy show. This is not an infomercial.

I repeat, this is not an infomercial. I hate infomercials, and we see them too often. They disguise themselves as information, but they're really commercials. We are not that. promise you. So, but we do have a toilet dealership. I feel like I need to tell you that because I think it's an asset, it's a benefit. Having been there and done that, I've been a car dealer since 1968. I mean, I was right down in the trenches were the worst to the worst, and I've changed the way I do business. But I know how they did because I probably passed

along a few dirty tricks to a lot of dealers out there. You were a pioneer back then, like you were a pioneer now. I was a pioneer thief. You're going the other way, though. I'm a pioneer consumer advocate. What will be my next career? I don't know. Anyway, I'm yacking, and I get carried away. If you call the show, Nancy Stewart,

make me stop talking, make Rick or Stu Lover's talking, stop and get to your telephone call. 877-960. Now, Nancy's going to tell you about a super special offer for you ladies out there that have not called the show before. We know you're listening, But we want you to call, and she has got a doozy of an offer for you, and she's going to tell you about it right now. Absolutely.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Before I get to that, I have a special announcement to make this morning. You know, Earl and I do an international sunrise every single morning. And if you don't know, you should tune in, and it's a whole lot of fun. But my point here is that we... That's on Facebook, right? Facebook.

My point here is that we always sing happy birthday to someone and everyone is special. But this morning we forgot. And right now I would like to wish Maggie Stewart a very special happy birthday. She turns 20 years old today, I believe. That's right. And that is Stu's daughter. No longer a teenager. Oh, my God.

Our granddaughter. 2.0. Yeah. It's crazy. And it's really kind of hard to believe. And I know she's not listening, but Stu can pass along to her that we do wish her. We can send her a magnificent birthday, 20 years old, what an age. Spending it in Manhattan.

Yes. I'm going up next week to see her, by the way. Okay, back to the show. As Earl mentioned earlier, I do have a special offer for the list. ladies, and that's $50 for the first two new lady callers. That's $50 for the first two new lady callers. And ladies, did you know that a lot of shoppers hesitate to buy online? They feel that they really need to go into the dealership. And honestly, the only time you need to go in is when you want to test drive that car that you chose. And by buying online,

it opens up an enormous range of options for you. So we have a lot of information as you tune in and stay with us the next two hours. We cover everything. We've got the Mystery Shopping Report. We've got the latest blog. We're going to talk about car insurance. There's just a lot of interesting things that will peak your interest. So stay with us.

877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3-0. And please don't forget your anonymousfeedback.com. And we have something special from Big Dog Ranch that I came across this morning. And you want to stay tuned for that at 930 is a story that will tug at, your heart. And it is just an amazing story. And it just proves, it proves wholeheartedly what Big Dog Ranch does. They're an amazing organization. Again, that number is 877-9-9-60-90-60. And you can text us at 772-497-6530. We're going to go right to the phones. We have Howard holding, and he is

a regular caller. Good morning, Howard. Good morning. Welcome. Well, first of all, it's not the regular Howard. This is the new Howard. The new Howard. You're the new Howard.

Sorry, we'll call you, Howard. I know you have a regular Howard. The only reason I was calling is just a suggestion. Did you ever think about mystery shopping, Earl Stewart, Toyota? We do. We do that. We do that. We do.

I shopped a real store Toyota yesterday, yeah. So we, yeah, we do that regularly. It's, I keep telling the dealers that we mystery shop that hate us, you know, I'm doing you a favor. You should do this yourself. There's a lot of these owners just don't know what's going on in the trenches until you send somebody in to pretend to buy a car or have them call or have them text

and see the way people are really treated. Until you do that, you don't know what's going on in your own store. well good yeah good good for you because i thought that was kind of a obviously it couldn't be agent lightning so what were the great poor but not for what you might you know not for the typical things but definitely not giving information as quickly as we as we asked them to and not explaining the difficulty getting some of the limited ability uh limited availability vehicles um in a way that is the way we teach them to

In a nutshell, I texted the store in the morning before 9 a.m. And by about 4 o'clock of the afternoon, I hadn't got a reply. So it's just I got an automated reply, but I didn't have a human reply. Anyway, listen, our dealership has got false and problems. Every business does. And I don't care whether it's a restaurant, a retail store, whether you're going into, Even Costco makes mistakes. So you just have to accept that.

And what separates the good stores, the good retailers from the bad retailers, or the good retailers make mistakes, but they apologize, they try to make them right. And, you know, they ask for input from people. So, yeah, there are no perfect dealers, and we certainly aren't one. And I'll tell you what, Howard, this guy sitting next to us, he keeps us all on our toes. You know what we believe in at the dealership. That is Kisen, continuous, continuous improvement. Let me, does four mean that's an A?

Is that the top of four? Pardon me? Pardon me? Is the score four, the top score? Oh, four? No, we don't do a numerical score. We just do a grade score. And the last thing, yeah, that's what I said.

I'm assuming you got all that. The last thing is, is there any case? because I listen to it when I'm in the car and I sporadically all the time. But if I came in and asked one of you guys, Stuart, whatever, if I take you guys to go to a dealership with me to help if you guys do it? I'll be honest with you. We can't. We're just, we'd be spread through thin. We have 20 or 30,000 people listening. We have the best way to get advice from us if you don't call the show would be to text us or email.

and you can do that and we be honest with you we sometimes fall behind on that too but well we help we call people and text them and email them as best we can but we're getting pretty big and that's the reason we have the blog I would recommend this I've been writing this blog earluncars.com just go to your online website earluncars.com and I have covered virtually every topic of about buying, leasing, maintaining, or repairing a car. We have a nice search engine on that. So if you're going to lease a car, or if you're going to finance,

you're worried about trading in a car, if you're worried about any specific thing about buying, leasing, maintaining, a repairer car, put it in the search engine, and you'll probably find a half dozen or more blog articles that will address your question. Well, I appreciate that. I don't want to take up too much more of your time. Hey, Howard, yes, you're welcome to take up more of our time.

but let me mention this to you. You said you are, listen to us. Have you heard me mention Earl's vigilantes? No. No? Well, you can go to Earl on cars and you can join Earl's vigilantes. And it's just a matter of helping others that are going to purchase a car. And getting help.

And receiving help too. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it's really a great way to help not only others, but somebody in your neighborhood, and you don't have to know how to take an engine apart. So if you're interested, you can go to Earl's vigilantes. That's Earl on cars and take a look. All right. And the last thing is, two things. One, I agree with you, Napleton is the worst. I bought a 2013 hardtop. convertible. The service is terrible, but that's beside the part. I have a 72 Dotson 240 Z and

an 87 Mercedes. Nobody wants to work on old cars anymore. Not the Dotson, but the Mercedes. I'll have to, I'll call you separately. I don't want to, as I said, I don't want to take up the time. Unless you know anybody that likes to still work on old cars. I know, Rick, uh, Rick's got a little talent for that sometimes. No, no,

no, no. He doesn't like Dotson's? We have a guy at the shop named Javad. Yeah. Who loves German cars. loves BMWs, but me, I speak Toyota. I've had the same mechanic for, you know, 35, 40 years, loyal, honest, but he's retiring, and nobody, you know, it's tough to get part of it. Anyway, thank you very much, guys. You do a great service, and I appreciate it.

Thank you. Awesome, thanks. The new Howard. New Howard. The new Howard. Okay, we are going to go to Jersey, Mike, who is a regular caller. Good morning, Mike. Hi, there.

great show again as usual i really really appreciate and i have a friend of mine who's listening uh not here but he's traveling now and uh he has a bmw and believe or not it was bought here in south florida and i advise him against doing that he didn't buy from the vm value you and ideally bought from somebody who sells sports cars okay uh-huh and in any case uh he's put 6,800 or more dollars into that over the period of the last I'd say four months and he's only probably driven it for about a week to two weeks at tops during all that time and it's still sitting at that location are there any are there any state regulations that I maybe could quote to tell him to go investigate because he's actually

being taken very much advantage of right now right now the car the hood is open even when it rain we're all the parts laying right there on the on the side on the parking lot that's crazy It's an independent use card dealer that sold it to them. They're right down here by the airport. I don't, I mean, just selling a car that breaks down after the fact, I mean, there's no law there that protects you. What about the fraud? What about the fraud that you're committed? I mean, you can speak to a lawyer, but usually it's, a lawyer is going to tell you you're not going to have much of a case.

All right, okay. But if something was done during the transaction. transaction or prior that did violate any laws, like if things were illegally misrepresented or they broke any regulations, that type of thing, it could be worth exploring. But if he went there and they said, here's the car, and it's this much money, he paid for it, and it's as is, and he leaves, he doesn't have recourse. One other thing, one thing they put in a water pump for him, and it didn't even need a water pump. All I needed was the nipple that collected that shit. Because I'm a motorhead. I go back to the 60s, okay?

and I used to race Corvettes and all that stuff. When they were Corvettes, I mean, unless you want to pay over $100,000 today. Anyway, let's go back to his situation. So I know motors, I know what's going on. And I told him, you know, why did you spend $875 for a plastic water pump? When you put it out, they showed him to come out of a fine. I said, at Rock owner, you can get, I got a steel one. Rockwood will get you a steel one for $365.

He's not a motorhead, is he? No, he's not. So if you said that to me, I'd look at your cross-eyed. Like, I did what? What did I do wrong? Rick wouldn't make that mistake. Let me go to another topic, which is very much of interest to me. I'm a big supporter, big dog ranch, and I'm a veteran of Vietnam era,

and is a gentleman out there that runs one of the buildings, and he's a veteran. And I already adopted one dog for this friend of mine who's having that problem with the BMW. For him, because he lost the dog, so he broke and heart. I got another dog out there, and he's just very happy. So I'm like, better than the wife for him, unfortunately, but that's what it is, okay? It doesn't have a wall. And I just want to know, what is she going to talk about, 930? And the reason I'm going to ask that is because the last time she talked about something,

I ran out there by the time I got there, because from where I lived, it was already adopted. Oh, really? Yeah. you didn't get you didn't give them a deposit no no somebody else yeah you know what happened did you call them ahead of time or any chance to say no no i just got in the car probably just you know nonchial on and i ended up out there like one o'clock or two o'clock in the afternoon it was already gone oh was it a puppy you know they got a lot of dogs out there at new top and no a lot of people i may not know this but i think that's the only no kill yeah that's why i were with them in the

United States. I don't know if it's all of the United States. I think it's definitely Florida, but I can definitely search that and find out because that would be a good that's a great bragging point because... Let me say one other thing. Being a victim, if you are and you go out there, make sure you let them know you are.

I'm talking to your audience now. Because when you do that, anything that you help out with by adopting one will be 50% off the normal price of that option. That's right. You're also going to get a dog that's been totally taken care of. It has a chip in it. It gets lost. It's going to be groomed. It's going to have all

inoculations. And you're going to get paperwork to document all that. You'll get an entire pack with all the veterinarian history and everything. They are... And they've got a lot of dogs out there. Yeah. A lot of dogs. A whole lot. And there's even more right now, Mike,

due to the fact that Lori just brought in a bunch of dogs from Texas and a few other places. And I have a story coming up at 930 that you'll be interested. And, Mike, it's always a pleasure talking to you. I am backed up with phone calls. Let me just say one thing quick. I had a 69 Corvette that I knew I'm a motorhead. So I really worked at 0 to 60 in 4.0 second.

So it moved. Why do these people buy $130,000, $140,000, $140,000 a $140,000 a quarter of it today brand new and it's not standard ship there's no fun here I don't think because it looks like a spaceship I don't know I mean yeah there's very few standard

yeah various two handshakers left it doesn't make any sense it's not fun I appreciate your show you do a great job keep it up oh I know one last question I've been here in a lot of advertising on this station for Kia

up in Orlando is that worthwhile going up to what they got going on I don't know. I don't think we've shopped the Kia Orlando, so I can't say. You don't know. That's a long way to go to buy. There's some of the key adlers.

Right. You know, they have a disclaimer on the show saying they don't necessarily espouse the views of the shows. We can't necessarily espouse the advertisements on the station. Oh, I see. Okay. We'll have to look into that, Mike. This is serious right now. I just lost two of my new female callers.

Oh, geez. We got to go. Oh, Mike. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks, Mike. We'll talk to you next week. Good morning.

It feels like afternoon. Yikes. Bob from Lake Park. Welcome. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. How are you doing today? Good.

Good. I think New Howie, if he wants somebody to go shopping with him at the dealership, he should get Marty to do that. Marty's would probably take up a little too much time that New Howie,

I don't think he wants to stay there for 12 hours. That's Marty's technique, I think. He's to wait him out. It's always a good idea to have someone with you, even if you're savvy and you know how to buy and negotiate and all that. It's always good to have another pair of eyes and other pair of ears. A lot of data is going back and forth, and somebody with you can maybe take notes or remember something.

And if you ever get into a lawsuit, or if you ever get into, he said, she said, two against one. So you're outnumbered when you go in by yourself. Bring a friend, even if the friend isn't going to give you advice, having two of you there psychologically gives you a little edge and buying a car. I think Marty's too tough, though. I don't think you'd have a point. Yeah, he would.

Yeah, he's a good guy. Now, last week, someone called in and said something about alpacca's deal of fee being a $500. That's not true. It's double that amount. Okay. And also, they don't put the, they don't put the price

of the cars on the windshields anymore. They have a, something there that you have to scan to get the price. Really? Like a QR code? Yes. Well, they better not do that

on their new cars because that's against a lot. You can't do it on use cars either. In Florida, you have to have a sticker on the car. Well, they do have the window stickers on there, but they have this other thing that you scan to get the price, right? Bob, when did you see that, a barcode? Last week.

Last week? Interesting. DLFT is twice the amount that the person told you last week, not 500. Is that right? Yeah, twice. Well, that's always been there for years there. Yeah. Well, we appreciate your call and the information that you've shared with us. We'll have to look into that barcode then. I did have a question for you, Nancy. Sure. Do you know what percentage of ASC certified mechanics or female?

Less than 1%. The percentage? I just guessed. A very small part. I think it's less than that. Why do you ask? 1%. I just thought it was interesting that. because there's such a shortage of mechanics. Why don't they get more females to become ASE certified to work in the dealerships? I think maybe they should have like a scholarship program or some incentive to get more women involved in that profession. I think you make a very good point. Back in the day, it used to be a very physical thing working on cars.

Today it's more of a software thing. So it takes a lot of training and a good brain and ability to think. And women are equal to men on all those scores. But if you want to go back 50 years, you know, you had a wrench and you're getting dirty and you're lifting things and you're, you know, it was a mechanical sort of a challenge. Now it's more of a mental challenge. But you make a very good point, Bob, I think. Yeah, thanks for bringing that up.

Excuse me. And, you know, I'm looking through my information. is a group of ladies that have their own shop, and they cater to ladies and men. So I think I'm going to continue to look that up, because I've forgotten the name of the location. I have one more thing. Sure. I think I've ever heard it on the show before to help someone purchase a car. I'm not quite sure how they would go about doing it, but I've noticed, and we haven't had

this situation for because of the pandemic and everything. But now that the dealers have vehicles on their lots, if you can find a car that's been sitting on the lot for an inordinate amount of time, that is going to give you a lot more leverage when you go to make the deal. But how would you determine, I know the salespeople know how many days the vehicles have been a lot, but how would the customer find that out? You'd have to ask one with a dead battery and the square of tires. right exactly it's called in a tree growing through the through the hood the um you'd have to ask

um you'd quiz them sometimes they like what's the oldest car in stock that's a quiz for for a sales manager um a lot of them probably wouldn't even know i that's my my guess is they won't know because i don't think most manage their inventory well that's a good point and uh in normal times uh all car dealers incentivize their sales people to sell the old cars the older cars have been around for two or three years, and I'm not exaggerating. They are dealerships that have cars, have been sitting there for a couple of years. They pay what they call commission flats. Typically, it could be $500, even $1,000.

Get rid of that old piece of junk, and I'll pay an extra $1,000. The problem is, when you come on the lot, even if you're not looking for a bargain, the salesman is going to tell you that old piece of junk is a bargain because he's going to get a flat, commission of a thousand dollars if the sales manager will accept the price that you're willing to pay so it's a double-edged sword there in terms of it depends on the kind of dealership like if you go to a toilet dealership their oldest vehicle might be 30 days old yeah depending exactly um or um but there are some dealerships now that have cars i know the four dealers yeah we just mystery shop one that had a two-year-old new car on the lot yeah there's some there's something well i'm not

about two years but i mean there are some some dealerships that have cars that have been sitting there for 90 days, 120 days. And something like that, you might have more leverage than if a car just came off the truck. You're absolutely right, yeah. Even if it's the same exact car, model, everything. So I'm just saying that's a good point. You're trying to help people shop if there's a way that they could find out. Here's something I think that could be done like in a negotiation situation, which we don't usually recommend. And you're looking for another drop. You say, do you have a car just like this that's been here a long time? You know, I'll take a look at that.

Could you get me a better deal on one just like this that's older? And see what they say. Because that is in their, I mean, you don't want your inventory to sit, and there is incentive for them to take a lower price on it. Right. Okay, that's good information. Now, last week you were talking about vehicles that have cylinder deactivation. Yeah.

And I remember back in the 80s, General Motors came out with a vehicle was called the 468. Yeah, we were talking about that last week, I think. The disaster, along with their diesel engines, and the Cadillac Cimarron, and the Cadillac Catera and the Alante. They've had a lot of Cadillac has had a lot of bad, bad ideas over the years, and I would stay away from that. Yeah, we can't blame for trying. Definitely. Bob, that question you asked earlier about female mechanics, that garage is out in. Houston is called ABC 13, Houston.

And there's more than one garage, not saying in Houston, but in other locations. So thanks for bringing that to my attention. Bob, it's been a pleasure to talk to you. Do you have any other questions? No, I was just thinking maybe the Stewart family could start a scholarship incentive for women. for women. Yeah, definitely. And not only that, but these female mechanics are catering to underprivileged.

So there's a whole lot of good stuff going on in that direction. All righty. Well, you guys have a great weekend. Thank you. Thanks. And to the ladies that called earlier, please give me a call back. I promise to prioritize your call. Stu?

Real quick, New Howard asked about the key dealership in Orlando. we did mystery shop Jonathan pointed out to me two years ago in 2021 like right in the beginnings of the inventory crunch and it's a city key of Orlando and the grade's not on the mystery shop

but it's definitely an F I think it was the largest markup we had seen over MSRP ever to date it was 18,000 over MSRP where was the epilogue but I don't think it stopped there because this was in June of 2021 and so the prices

continued to rise so I wouldn't be surprised if we had one with a larger markup just just scanning through the old report there was a lot of back and forth and Jimmy was the sales manager and there's a mark it doesn't look like a good report yeah so I've forgotten about that we shop so many stores yeah all right okay we are going to give that number One more time, or several times throughout the show. So if you don't have a chance to jot it down now, you will later. I'll be mentioning it. That number is 877-960-99-60, and you can also text us at 772-497-9-3-0.

And don't forget your anonymous feedback. We are going to go to Jean in Jupiter, and she has called B-4. Good morning, Jean. Hi, good morning. I have a question for Rick, and good morning to you all. I really learn a lot, and I really appreciate your help. Thank you. Yeah, I've had Prius since 2013, and, you know, you mentioned Prius to people, or hybrids, you know, they glaze over. They just can't, I don't know. It's like you're talking from out of space. My question is, though, I know there's an engine and a motor and a battery. I understand about pretty much the engine and the battery, but how does the motor fit in with those?

two other things. Well, there's actually two motors, and basically they replace the transmission of the vehicle. The electric motors drive the wheels, and they reverse it to generators when you're coasting. So basically, they also act as a starter motor to start the engine. So they've got the biggest job of the whole thing. Basically, when you start the car, you put it in ready mode, the electric motors are what powers the car. They drive it down the road using power from the battery.

And when the battery starts getting a little bit low and it needs to be recharged, the gasoline engine will start up and the one motor then becomes a generator and it produces electricity to recharge that battery. Then when you're driving along and you let off the gas and you're coasting, the other motor will also become as a generator and it will recharge the battery. and it will recharge the battery. And you remember when we had hurricane season and everybody had their generators running

and you'd plug something in and you hear the generator go and really run down? Well, that's called electromotive force. It's dragging. So by using that regenerative power, letting that generator create electricity, it actually slows the car down without ever using the brakes.

So the great thing is your brakes last a lot longer on the car as well. Right, right. I've heard that. Wow, that's amazing. I didn't know the motors, or two motors, did all that. It's a pretty, it's neat. Computer controls everything,

and it's this neat system of charging and discharging, and it just works together very harmoniously. And the electric motors have much more torque than a regular gasoline engine, so you get a lot better acceleration, And it's a lot more fun car to drive. If you haven't tried an hybrid or an EV, it's a lot of fun. Yeah, amazing vehicle.

Plus, if you get a version of it's all-wheel drive, they simply add another motor in the back that has two axles going out to the back wheels, and you get all-wheel drive with electric power. Mm-hmm. Wow. Well, I really do enjoy it. I love the CVT transmission. You get in other cars and you hear this train, and you're like, what's going on?

Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, thanks. That really helps. You know, the motor was that integral part of it. That's pretty complex. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Gene, thanks for calling. And spread the word, let the ladies know that we do have a show here

and that they are an important part of that show. I agree. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Have a great weekend. we are going to go to Kevin and Kevin is calling us from Buffalo, New York. I hope that Kevin is right here

because it's pretty cold in New York. Good morning, Kevin. Oh, it's never cold in Buffalo here. It's always sunny, warm. Uh-huh. I want to listen to the Earl Stewart team. Uh-huh. Like San Diego, huh?

Exactly. My family was just in San Diego, and it had high windworm warnings. and it was below 60 degrees, so it wasn't... Yeah, climate change. Anyways, I have a Lexus GX-460, which is obviously made by Toyota. Is there a tool that I could buy

to relearn the tire pressure sensors when I rotate the tires? That's for just a chrome owner and not a mechanic. Ah, you shouldn't need to. Because when you're rotating the tires, the sensors will automatically still be read by the car

and if you're talking about the one where it shows you the location of the tires on the car that will adjust itself as you drive the car. It may take up to like 30 miles of driving time but the computer will realize oh okay those tires

have moved from the front axle to the back axle but it will adjust itself. Even for the spare tire? For the very few cars that have a sensor in the spare, it'll realize that that one is back there right most cars don't have a sensor in the spare because most of the spare tires are those compact spares that run at 60 PSI and they just don't they never bothered putting a sensor in them how does sensors work are they like um like a 3G

signal or is it like a what kind of signal is they communicate with it's it's a radio frequency signal I'm not sure what you know what it would be called is for 3G or anything anything like that. But it only has to send that signal just a short distance like 10 to 15 feet at the most to the receiver that's usually located on the C pillar of the car and it's up high so that way it gets a good signal in. And of course, the computer looks at the signals and it only trusts the ones that are with it all the time. That way it's not getting confused by maybe reading a signal from another car. That's cool. I'm sorry for interrupting, but I'm fascinated. Are Are there any other systems in the car that use wireless communication within the car besides the tire pressure sensors?

Well, you've got Wi-Fi, you've got cell signal. Besides the infotainment. I mean, something like there's something a component in the engine communicate with somewhere else in the car, wirelessly? Not wirelessly, no. Okay. That's pretty cool. The sensors kind of have to because... I think, Kevin, we're having a conversation among ourselves here, but we haven't forgot you're on the phone.

Oh, I didn't forget either. You know, it's very helpful to me, too, your conversation. It's all-intelligent conversation. I like it. Yeah. All right. Do you have any other questions? I do have a full-sized spare tire, so it'll sense it by itself.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, team. Wireless. Thank you, Kevin. Thanks, Kevin. Give us a call again. Let's go to Stephen.

He's been holding from Stewart. Good morning. Good morning, Stephen. Hello. Hello. Hi. Welcome. I just want to add something for you, the listeners here.

Mullenax Ford, this only pertains to people to live in Florida. Mullinax Ford on North Lake Boulevard and Palm Beach Gardens has no dealer fees. That's right. Zero. And we've tested it. It's true. They were a pioneer, by the way, Steve. And people think we're the first dealer that doesn't have a dealer for you, no junk fees. but Molinix pioneered that years before we went over. So I salute him and his family. It's a family-operated group of dealerships. And I think at that time, I heard about it.

He was in, at a store in Fort Lauderdale. That's where I first heard about no, you know, no junk fees. I copied him basically many years ago. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for doing that, Earl. Awesome. Anybody who's interested in buying a Hyundai can go up to Central Florida Hyundai in Claremont, Florida, which is right in the Orlando area.

They have no dealer fees and no baloney when it comes to additional fees of any kind. So you're going to pay MSRP or you're going to get a discount, one or the other. So that's Hyundai and Claremont. What's the name of the dealership? Central Florida Hyundai. Central Florida Hyundai and Clara. Wow. I tell you, that's a breaking news bulletin.

No junk fees. What about dealer-installed accessories? Is there anything that they add to the car, like stripes or nitrogate in the tires or anything like that, that is not factory installed? Earl, it's been five years since I bought a car from them. And when five years ago, they were adding absolutely nothing at all. That's fantastic. Central Florida, Hyundai?

Central Florida Hyundai. in Claremont, Florida. In Claremont, very good. Now, the pandemic and the subsequent supply chain things did a lot of weird things to some dealers. So we might have to go up there and see if they maintain their ethics. Yeah, we appreciate it. When people call in with good news like that, it's very exciting. I mean, we hear about bad dealers all the time, but the good dealers, like Central Florida Hyundai in Claremont, are a rarity.

so thank you very much and we'll verify that we'll do a double check because as you say it's been four years or five years since you were there but we'll verify that and get them on our recommended dealer list yeah yeah yeah and also stephen let me mention this you know you sound like as if that you could be a volunteer for earl's vigilantes you might want to consider it and it's it's educating consumers when it comes to buying a car and and servicing a car, anything at all. You know, the people in your neighborhood or the surrounding area. So you can go to Earl on cars and check out Girl's Vigilante's. And we'll give you a vigilante hat, too. Yeah, we'll give you a hat. All right. All right. I'm on board.

Okay. I'm on their website, and they do advertise no dealer fees still and low-upfront pricing. So that's a good sign so far. Yep. Yep, it is. Thank you, Stephen You're welcome You have a great weekend

Bye Okay, we are Sorry about that They need to make this place larger Okay Where can I go to Roadrunner, Steve Amy

Good morning, Steve Welcome How are you He's got a weird connection Steve, are you there? Yes, we're one of Steve here. All right. Okay, I was up at the Den of Thieves yesterday with my buddy,

which is Green Acres Nissan, okay? Uh-huh. I'm walking around, so I've seen a 2024 Nissan censure, manufacturer's retail price, $28,000. Okay. So now I look for the crooked stuff. Okay, market value, $4,999. That's the adjustment.

Right? All right. Okay, now here we go. Protection package. Oh, boy. $1,9,000, $9,000. Hit windows, seat coat, car covers, paint, and door-edge guards. So, for $28,000, you add on another.

$7,000, that's $35,000. Oh, yeah. Okay, disgusting. But my thing is, let's say I go to an Italian restaurant, and I want spaghetti and meatballs. Okay, well, you know, we got to raise the price. Oh, boy. Well, who are you in it too?

Well, we got to add around $4,99. All right, I'm hungry, I'll eat it, right? Oh, Mr. Roadrunner, Steve, would you like a protection package? Oh, jeez. $19.99. Here's my protection package. Hey, Steve, are you on Earl's Vigilante's list? No, no.

No? No. No, with the protection package for 1900, the waiter gives me a handful of knackings and a bib, so I don't get spaghetti sauce on my store. This is, sick. For $7,000, I go out and buy you used car. It's for messy people. that's quite a story that's crazy I know and I thought they're supposed to put you know the

listing of the car on the side window they don't do that no more I they're supposed to I mean on new vehicles on the you get the law in Florida they don't I mean I're not a hundred percent but they have it on a dashboard there you go we miss your shop outside of Florida and all the shops that we did outside of Florida they have the window sticker where it's supposed to be but for some of in Florida thinks they're immune to the law and they put them in the trunk they put them in the back seat they uh they disappear entirely uh they just don't care yeah and the funny thing was i wanted to take a picture of it but the eyeballs were on me right so i said yeah let me write it

down i didn't have a pen so i see wanted to work it oh can i help you yeah my wife's giving me a phone number can i borrow a pen from you yeah yeah no point he gives you the pen so i take out my pant i thought right and this down. I said, yeah, thank you. Here you should pen back. Don't worry about using your phone. You can take pictures. Everybody does that. It doesn't mean that you're up to nothing. You can use your phone and everybody's doing it. Hey, Steve, thanks for entertaining

us. That's crazy. I mean, I thought that, you know, that market value was gone. They still doing it? We've seen it still. I think we saw it recently. It's just maybe they're more willing to get rid of it because that's what happened on a couple of our mystery shops

where it was there and they objected and it away. I don't understand that. I wanted to yell out. People don't buy a car here to get a walkie. That's crazy. He should pick at them. Hey, Steve, I got calls from all over the country lighting up my X screen. Oh, the funny thing was, every vehicle in there had the same market value. So you went to an upgrade. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. You go to a low Nissan five grand. Uh-huh. Okay. That was always illogical. Have a great weekend, Steve. Bye, Steve.

Thanks, beep, beep. Thank you. We are going to go to Howard in Jupiter. It is the original Howard? This is O.G. Howard. That's the old Howard. We have a new Howard. Hey, Howard, real quick.

I don't know if you were listening. There is a new Howard, and I have some information for him real quick. He recommended the Central Florida Hyundai. I'm looking on their website, on their disclaimers. Their disclaimers look like our disclaimers. It doesn't say anything. There's nothing hidden so far. so it looks like they're legit we got a mystery shop them that's the final test what's up

Howard yeah are you talking to me yes talking to the old Howard okay great I'm the old Howard two things I have to say my friends as a Genesis 2017 and I called up and I told him and said his radio stopped working so he went to Napleton in North Palm Beach and they wanted $600 just to check it. Then he went to another Napleton and... Why? Why? If he's your friend. Do you guys ever talk about the show or anything?

No, I told him about you. All right. And then he went to Napleton and the Montcalfieldy and they wanted $300 just to check it. So it's half the price. Your friends are massacist. Hey, he's a glutton for punishment. If you really like Napleton, you should go

to the Martin County Appleton. It's cheaper. So guess how we fixed it? Rick, guess how we see? He fixed it in five minutes. He banged on the hood with his hand. What do you have going on? The amplifier was not working, and he had no radio signal. And he was able to open the hood and fix it in five minutes.

Disconnect the battery, wait a minute, and plug it back in. You got it. That's what he did. Radio to start the work. Reboot. Reboot works for everyone. That's what we do. He plugged it and plugged it and plugged it and plugged it back in.

Can you explain why that happened? Yeah, please explain this. The electronic circuitry inside, the programming got caught in a loop, and so it went into a shutdown mode, and you shut off all the power. It rebooted the system, and everything was good again. That's why it works on everything. Yeah, I wish it works on humans.

He goes, unplug a human, re-plug him in. He's good to go. I think they do that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Another question. Rick, what's the advantage and disadvantage of steel wheels?

They dent more. It must be an advantage. It used to be the big advantage to them was that if you accidentally hit a curve and you bent it a little bit, a good mechanic could actually straighten the wheel back a little ways. and they were easier to balance and they would hold the balance a little better but anymore there's no real advantage and the alloy wheels just look so much better

the quality on those alloy aftermarket or even factory wheels they look better the quality is just fine a lighter there's no real reason to have steel wheels anymore okay and okay another question hubcaps whatever happened to hubcaps

to hubcaps. I saw a car in 2017. No, you're right. Yeah. So the steel wheels are gone. There goes the hubcaps. Well, and if you, Hubcaps, most of them are plastic using a metal ring in there as a spring to try to hold them in place.

Those plastic tabs, as they come on and off every time you rotate the tires, they start to break. So the hub caps wind up making noise. They fall off. They're very, if you look to get just one from the factory to replace one, fell off. They were very expensive. So most people I tell them, hey, just go to Walmart and get it set for

40 bucks and put on there. And even then, it's like again, alloy wheels just look better, and they hold up better. Yeah, but the wall not all makes, not all cars of different makes have hubcaps. I think Toyota's

the only one. Is that correct? Oh, any car company that makes us, that has steel wheels offers hubcaps. Okay, I got, so steel wheels are still made by different automobile companies. Oh, yeah, every company still puts steel wheels on some of their cars. The LEs all come with steel wheels, correct? Do you an L.E.?

I'm not sure. Actually, I don't think that's accurate, but I do know the lower trim levels are the ones where you're going to get steel wheels. I probably got to get steel wheels on my Tesla because I'm hitting curbs all the time. That would be easier. You can just bang them back instead of replacing the wheels. I got one curb leaving where I live. When I come out of my community, I hit it about once a week. That's why I joined.

I heard they're going to name that Earl's curb. Yeah, Earl's Curb, yeah. Okay, thank you very much for the information. You're welcome, Howard. Thank you, old Howard. Go to Turtle Fest. They have a festival there. Is that this weekend?

Oh, sorry. Only today. Only today. Only today. Okay, get out there. Only today. Turtle Fest. Thanks, Howard. Thanks, Howard.

Okay, folks, if you didn't jot that number down, it is 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-65-3. You know, we haven't given out our YouTube yet. And that's the reason Rick is loafing over here because that's his channel. And you can stream us at YouTube.com forward slash rolling cars. In fact, our most informed, educated, really cool followers, best-looking, are on YouTube, and they're all Rick's followers. YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars.

Rick will monitor that station. Look at your postings, and when we get one, he'll read it. So please go to YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars. That's great. We've actually been having an interesting little conversation on here. Is that with Donovan? Donovan was, he's here, he's here today, yeah. But Steve Miggs came in and he was asking,

with modern cars, all having video screens in that, what's going to happen when those video screens start breaking and they're no longer available? And believe it or not, that's something that you've heard of built-in obsolescence that we have in a lot of our products nowadays. Yes. Imagine that when a car has a video screen, that is the proper size for it

and they quit making that particular version 10 years down the road when the factory is no longer required by law to be able to produce those parts for that car for replacement if that screen breaks you're going to have a hard time finding some company that's going to come in to be able to step in

and repair that screen so my prediction is one of two things either a lot of these cars are going to wind up getting sold for scrap because if the electronics start to go out and they can't be repaired the car becomes almost useless or we're going to find a lot of aftermarket companies that are going to step in just like they do with cell phones uh you know there's a lot of aftermarket places that are repairing cell phones yeah so as these tv screens and that on these cars start to break and the electronics start going out companies are going to step up and they're going to fill that

gap, I hope. Yeah. I think there's a whole lot coming in that direction, and I'd like to talk about it, but we don't have time. So I am going to thank John from Palm City, my friend, and caller, for holding. Good morning, John. I hope you're still there. John? Yes, I'm here. Thanks for hanging on. Okay, no problem. Sorry for the wait. I got a question for Rick. on a car battery, new ones, especially an oddball size. Did he ever put one in the car that's brand new and it's defective like it's an odd ball and it's been sitting in a distributed show for a long time and it doesn't take a charge? I have seen that happen even on, and now I'm going to use this term, the Group 24 battery,

which the Group 24 refers to the size of the battery, and it is probably the most common size out there. It's like the double A battery of the car world. Probably three quarters of the cars out there use a group 24 battery. And I've seen a brand new group 24 battery that you put it in the car and it fails. There's no product that human beings make that works perfectly every single time, every single one of them. They're, you know, we're human, All these products are made by humans, so occasionally one of them has an issue, and they can fail. That's why we've got warranties. Well, the good news is there's only two major battery companies in the United States, very big.

One is Claryos, which is the former Johnson Control Company. They're the biggest. They make interstate die-hard, Advanced Auto, Optima, Everstar. They make so many of them. It's unbelievable, and it's called Clarios. They bought outright from Johnson Control. Second one is East Penn, which is a Decker battery. They're in Lines Station, Pennsylvania.

They make the batteries for Napa, AAA, O'Reilly, Durasso, DuraLest, AutoZone, et cetera. I didn't know that. There's only two battery manufacturers and the whole United States. Wow. Some of them are bought in from China. odd board brands, but the major ones are only two, and people should get the right battery. Instead of looking at the booklet when they're dealer that you get the battery from, there's a company, which is international, called BCI Group.

BCI rates the size, like Rick mentioned 24, which is the most common. They have every size listed with the year of car, or if it's from a truck or tractor or whatever, And it's very important that you get the right BCI group battery. Otherwise, you could have major problems. It could be sitting too high. It doesn't, the case doesn't hold the battery down good. And an example I could give you, my neighbor told me his grandson has a major problem with a Mustang. I said, what's being?

Let me bring it in. I want to look at it. And I looked at it. He took a battery from another car, and it's too high. And believe it or not, it's his. hitting and shorting on the metal from the hood of the car. Wow.

So it's very important that you have the proper BCI group. It's Battery Council International in your automobile. Exact manufacturer original. Absolutely. 100% correct.

All right. Well, I'm glad that realizes that it's only major, and people have to know that. Two major companies that make all a letter. acid battery. Actually, it makes me a little nervous. You know, when you have too few competitors, they're only two companies, and then they have different brands making you think that each brand

is a company. But when you've got one company making all the brands, all the batteries, and just changing the brand name, that's a lot of control they have over price, distribution, quality. I prefer more. I like it when you've got four or five companies competing. when you only have one or two, that's a kind of a scary proposition. That's called Monopoly. Yeah, Monopoly, yeah. Okay, well, yeah, how'd you like to have the only car dealership of the United States? I wonder what the junk fees would be in that.

They would just change the name of the brand. That's all put different names on it in the same company. Yeah. There you go. All right, guys. We're waiting and looking for that shopping report. Oh, thanks, John. There was an old episode of The Simpsons where they go to see the Beard Brewery

and they had one big pipe that came out and split into three that went into the duff light, the duff old, the duff, this. It was all the same stuff just being put under a different name. And that's what these batteries are. They all come off the same assembly line and they slap a different sticker on each one. And then they give a different price on each one. And you think you're, oh, hey, this one.

It's a big brand name, but it's the same as the one next to it that's $20 cheaper. You look at the size of the battery, you look at where the terminals are to make sure this is the proper configuration of terminals for your car, and you look at the cold cranking amps on that battery. You want it to be matching or higher than what your factory battery was. Well, one of your auto manufacturers now, when you look at Honda and then you look at Ackey, It's the same manufacturer. So oftentimes you can buy a Honda that's basically the same as an

Accura and save yourself several thousand. You're not going to get the gingerbread and the bells and whistles, but the basic vehicle. The same thing is true with General Motors, with Cadillac and Chevrolet. Same is true with Infinity and Nissan, Toyota, and Lexus. We always recommend on the show. If you have the luxury model, if you're driving Lexus,

take it to a Toyota dealer. You're driving a cord. take it to a Honda dealer. You're driving a Cadillac, take to a Chevrolete dealer. They're General Motors dealers. They can fix Cadillacs and Chevroletes. Save yourself a ton of money because the luxury guy pays twice as much as the guy that bought the Chevrolet.

Okay. Great information. Hey, folks, you want to hear about car insurance? I'll spare you the misery here, the whole article that appeared in the Palm Beach post. I'll just give you some rates, so I hope everybody is sitting down. Florida comes in at $3,945. Number one. Number one. New York. Number two, $3,840. Louisiana, number three, $3,618. dollars and if you're ready to move I suggest that you go to Vermont where the insurance they come in at number one Vermont listen to this 1,353 dollars what's the difference

and then if you want to head out to Idaho you can yes ridiculous isn't I was saying it's so there doesn't seem to be like a region it's like all over the place you got south it's expensive north this everything supplying to the ridiculous Idaho they come in did I say Idaho $1,421 no I didn't mention Idaho

and third Maine $1,507 The most beautiful states have the lowest car insurance Yeah and the ones with lower populations So if you think your food bill is high take a look at car insurance

and if you haven't taken a look at your policy I would recommend you do so because there's always room to negotiate I guarantee if you've had that same policy with the same company for four years and you call you will get a significant discount just from shopping around absolutely and I'll tell you what

if you look into these new policies there are so many ways to cut cost so many. We don't even have time for me to mention how many different ways. So take girls advice. Hey, 77-960, or you can text us at 772-497-2-497-60. I think it's time to go to the guys. Rick, what do you have for us? Well, on the subject of batteries, Donovan says very few companies globally make lead acid batteries anymore, which is a standard car battery. And 80% of each new battery is made from recycled old lead acid batteries. But good thing for our environment. More brands need to start to move to lithium 12 volt batteries, and we would solve a lot of the

battery problems we have today. So many brands have made the batteries so small and are pulling so much more current than ever before, and people wonder why. the batteries only last two years if you're lucky which sets very true and believe it or not it's you would think that cold weather states would be harder on the battery but it's actually not true the colder the state the batteries seemed to actually last longer they have to struggle a little more to get your car started in that very cold temperature but you get down here in Florida with our heat and humidity so are you talking about not just car batteries a 12-volt car

battery, but electric vehicle batteries, are they also last longer in coal states? I think that might turn out to be true, but that one, we're going to have to wait and see to get more evidence on it because, of course, they are lithium. They're not a lead acid-type battery. That would be interesting, though, I mean, because basically the performance is shut down and basically it just kind of freezes, it doesn't really, can't store, you don't have a much lower range, so you're not really utilizing a battery, so it's probably getting less, you know, wear. I mean, I know it's not where, it's not

mechanical wear. Right, right. But it's a chemical wear. Yeah. Earl and I were talking this morning about the electric vehicle and there is no way to detect the length of the battery.

There's nothing on paper that says, hey, listen, the battery is going to wear out such and such. You know, and you've got five more years. It's nothing. Right. You have no real information to go on, just kind of like averages. As a matter of fact, Donovan just came back again.

He says, an EV battery doesn't matter where it is for its overall life because it's temperature controlled by the car. Okay. The car can heat or cool the battery as needed to keep it at its optimal temperature. Donovan, I love you. The guy's awesome. He's amazing. He really is. I really would like to meet him one day.

Yeah. You know? You got Google, we got AI, and we got Donovan. Yeah. We'll fly them in for your birthday. Sounds good. Yeah. But why were all the Teslas are, and all these EVs during that like super cold snap running out?

This big disaster up there. What was going on that? Well, and there again, it's that super cold temperature. It was beyond the normal cold. Yeah. And that was a, that was an odd occurrence. Yeah, when you're 45 degrees below zero, I don't think the heater's going to have. The article that Nancy's talking about is one of the reasons why there's chaos in the used vehicle EV market.

Think about it. Ev batteries can go for $20,000. So you go and buy a three- or four-year-old EV. You don't know. You don't know how the owner of that car, when did he charge. For example, my Tesla says don't charge it beyond 80% for maximum life. If you charge you 100% every time you charge it, you're going to decrease the life with a battery. Someone buying my car four years from now, they don't know whether I abided by the 80% or not. They also, they might not know where the car was.

It could have been in Minneapolis. It could have been anywhere. That's what I was saying. You can only go by averages. They won't average this car does this, but you don't know if you're going to get a battery. So how do you know? How do you know what the training value is? How do you know what to pay for a used EV?

Yeah, that's what my point was. Is there a test for a battery? And you know what? To replace that battery, the replacement, it comes in. in between $5,000 and $20,000. There's a mode in every Tesla to see the battery life remaining. It's in the service menu, and you can run a test that will give you the battery percentage life left.

Who is that? That's Donovan. Donovan. Oh, no. Come on, who do you think had that one right there for us? They call the men of yellow. I'm going to leave this seat. Donovan, you take over this seat.

I'm telling you, this guy is a... Do we have his text number or something that we can communicate directly with him? We do not, but I think I can reach that. Hey, I don't need Google. I have Donovan. I'm going to have a t-shirt made. Where's Donovan from?

People will buy that t-shirt. I can't wait to find out. It's local. I find out how much better I have. We're all going to be at your door. I know from his post, that he travels quite a bit. I know he's involved in automotive,

I think purchasing and selling a lot of cars. But does he travel in our direction? But I'm also pretty certain because he knows Palm Beach County quite well, especially West Palm, so I'm quite certain that he is a local. It'd be interesting to talk to. Hey, guys, we've got to go back to the phones.

I just lost a call, but Frank has a whole lot of patience, and he stayed right on. And before we go to Frank, ladies, I want to remind you $50 for the first two new lady callers. Time is tick-tock, tick-tock, it's ticking away. So give me a call, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Frank, what's up? Hey, good morning.

I'm driving, so I don't have a chance. I wanted to send you a car tune that was hilarious. Well, we won't stay on long. I don't want to... It'd be quick. I don't want you to wreck your car. actually I'm in line at Costco right now to get gas so that'll be oh I'm not going to be moving for a while

but um quick back to the batteries about saving life I just noticed something myself on my um cell phone it says if you don't charge it past 85% you're going to extend the battery life much longer there's a setting on your phone where you can get a smart charging where it will do that it'll just tap it same thing as a Tesla it tops off at 80%

yeah my computer does the same thing so when I part of my phone and overnight I'm over charging it um go in your settings under the go to battery and then there's a there's a battery smart battery savings thing you turn it on and it will it's i think it comes defaulted to on so you might so but it shows a full charge but it's not really a full charge yeah oh okay i think i've got that on well yeah actually mine will show 85 percent which is fine i don't talk about much i know that's probably surprised you for every sergeant morning i don't talk much but anyway um and about the cold for the batteries i think that's also an interesting fact too

because I know a lot of people keep their batteries in the refrigerator to extend their lives. So there's a lot of interesting facts you brought up. But here is real quick for your dog fanciers. The other day I was in a park. And there's a tree there with a bunch of sticks laying around the tree. And it said, dog's library. There was even a little dish there for some water. And, you know, the sign said, take up a stick, leave a stick.

That's cute. Where was that? There you go. that was just a made-up thing that Frank made up for you guys. Frank made it up, okay. You invented it. Hey, you should trademark that, the dog library. Hey, there you go.

Thanks for dog library. But anyway, I'll let you guys go because I am driving, but we'll talk to you next week. All right. Stay safe. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to Marty, and he is a regular caller. What's new, Marty? Hi, how are you?

We're great. We're waiting to hear from you. Okay. I have to disagree with Earl, and it's, It's something that you... Hang up on him. Hang up on him. Hey, Marty, I'm the only one that disagrees with Earl. You're number two now.

And Stu probably agrees with Earl because it's his father. Now, my point is... You don't know too very well. My point is this. I just negotiated a deal where the car dealer came down over $16,000. Wow. Because the car was in stock. The car was on the ground. And to me, all I'm saying is if you try to do that online, you could never do that. Did you buy the car? Yes. You did? Yeah. All right. What'd you get? It's a crown.

Oh, very good. Wow. Congratulations. My feelings are great now. And I wouldn't have done it except it had everything that I wanted on it, and it had the advanced technology package. Yeah. But they discounted the car off MSRP, and they gave me $4,000 more for my car as a trade-in. Well, where was the $16,000 from?

What, they started it. Oh, okay, so they're way over MSRP. Right. Okay, gotcha. Well, good job, Marty. How long did it take? Congratulations. It was, you know, a few hours.

Okay. Marty, just in a way of full disclosure so that people know, you are a very shrewd negotiator, you're very well informed, you're a vigilante, you've got all the information, and so you can go into a car dealership and you can hold your own. 99% of the people that are buying cars can't handle that. And the ones that can't handle it don't want to handle it. You're one of these negotiators that loves to negotiate. So you go in, do battle.

You come out invigorated and say, boy, I really had a good time. I beat that salesman up pretty good. But the average person just wants to go in and get in, buy a car, get out and go home and not feel like they got to take advantage of. So, yeah, if you're a Marty-type negotiator, you can go head-to-head with a lot of these dealerships. Just go in there and spend the day or a couple of days, and if you're really good, you'll get a good price. Yeah. Well, I think if the car obviously was not on the lot, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

Yeah. But when it's there, that's when they say it's time to talk turkey and you guys. Right. And that's what you did. It's just you have to have the fortitude to do that. And Marty, you do. I've been doing it for a while. Newer generations have no experience doing this.

So it was way more common. Everybody, every family, you know, you had the dad probably did the negotiating and all that. And it was common. And the kids witnessed it. The kids today, when I say kids, 40-year-olds, 30-year-olds, they didn't grow up with that. And it's not always just a warning to. is that you have to have the or not, it's just being able,

you know, having the skill, it's wanting to. Nancy and I, she's negotiator in the family. I don't like to negotiate. I just, I just don't, you know, it's just not my style. Nancy, if we're going to buy something, I bring her along because she goes in,

head to head, and she can negotiate. So it's negotiating as something that's always going to be some people that are disappointed. I have people now, here we are at our dealership, we put our lowest price on every car, and sometimes people take offense at it. What do you mean? You won't cut the price.

And I have my standard retortive, listen, we give you the same price that we give the press in the United States or the King of England. I don't care whether you're an important person or a person just fresh out of school or a person that doesn't speak English. We all, we charge the same, our lowest price on every car.

And they are insulted by the fact that I, well, you mean you won't even give me a $100 discount? I say, no, if I did that, I'd have to, I wouldn't be true to my word. I say, that's my lowest price. And if I cut $100 to your neighbor and you paid $100 more than your neighbor, you wouldn't like that. So it's interesting. The negotiation is a dying thing, I think. I think in the advanced civilization we finally arrive at, it won't be a negotiation. Right.

You'll have to go to Morocco and go to a carpet bazaar. if you want to get your fix. Well, I just, like I just wanted to say, basically, that's the only thing I ever disagree with the role on. I know. You did start off of your comments with that. No, I see your point. I see your point. Hey, Marty, don't like, don't make me look at.

Hey, and by the way, listen, we negotiate. We send Agent Lightning out in the field every week, and she does our negotiations. Well, we negotiate when we buy for the dealership. I mean, I have a rule of the dealership. You get at least three bids. We don't buy anything. without at least three bids, or at least we're not supposed to.

Well, expensive things. We don't get three bids for the turkey sandwiches. I took my trade in to CarMax and a couple other dealers, and they were a lot lower, excuse me, offers that I got from this other dealership. So it was still...

So who did you beat up? It was Al Hendrickson? No. Okay, got it. God, who's got a big markup like that? Yeah, well... You can tell us. Well, I don't want it to go on the air.

I don't want it to go on the air. Okay, okay. I'll probably still do my service over by you. You're still the nicest, most polite dealership. Marty, we're not offended at all. And I'm seriously... You're not going to get free tires, Marty. You've got a better price than we're offering.

That's true. it's true and I'll tell you these tires are big yeah yeah they're big you got the soft ones now so maybe trade them out and get some long-lasting ones yeah I looked at these these are 21-inch Michelin so they're not I'm sure they're not cheap oh boy wow

hey Marty it was great hearing from you yeah sorry to offend Earl today oh hey He's used to it. I think you're a cool guy. I like knowing negotiators. Maybe, you know, I used to have a guy that worked for me at the dealership.

He probably wouldn't mind mentioning his name. His name is David Silverstein. He's passed away, so he didn't mind. Anyway, when we buy things, you know, we buy, you know, air conditioners, preters for the dealership, anything that we had to buy. I mean, we buy a lot of stuff. you know, we got a big dealership. So when

we got down and this was the best price, I'd say, give it to David Silverstein. David would call and he'd inevitably get another 5 or 10% of the price. So I respect negotiators like you Marty and I just

that's just not the way I deal but it works for you. Yeah, and just to let you go, the only thing I could say is the car was still too expensive. Well, you know, okay, thanks for it. Yeah, thanks, Monty. All right, have a good week.

Yeah, you too. We are going to get to the guys here with YouTube, and we're going to go to Stu. He's got some texts for us. I got Amory. She's got a little story for us. Oh, great. Hi, Ann Marie.

Once a better time. Good morning. I've encountered it, and I'm speaking in the first person as if I am Anne-Marie. That's your line. I've encountered poor behavior and car dealerships over the years that resulted in me walking out the door and refusing to buy a car from them.

Here are a few examples. I asked to see the dealer's selection of four-door sedans and the salesman only showed me two-door sedans. Goodbye for not listening to me. In 1978, I asked if the car came with a full-sized spare and the salesman told me full-sized spare tires were a safety hazard. Of course, he pulled the high-pressure routine too. Don't insult my intelligence.

I'm out of there. The most annoying incident was when I had a contract to buy a new 1978 Plymouth Horizon, which was Motor Trend's car of the year, and we agreed that I would have the check for my credit union in hand, and I would pick up the car at noon on Wednesday during my lunch hour. I showed up at the dealership at the appointed time. My salesperson was nowhere to be found, neither was the manager or anyone else. The receptionist couldn't find anyone either. I waited a half hour hoping someone would see me, but no one could be bothered to take the check and give me the keys to the new Plymouth horizon. So I went back to work. I had been torn between the Plymouth and a Volkswagen rabbit, and I had a firm out-the-door prices for both cars.

That invisible Plymouth salesman gave me my answer. I went to my credit union, gave them back the check, and had them make a check for the Volkswagen dealer. I called the VW dealer and said I'd come by after work to pick the rabbit up. It was ready when I got there They got my money and I got the car The Plymouth salesman called my home that evening Threatening to sue me for not buying the horizon I told him that neither he nor his manager could be found

When I came to pick up the car at the greed upon time And that's why they lost the sale He became even more argumentative So I handed him the phone over to my father Who told the salesman off in no uncertain terms So my question this week is what is the most outrageous behavior that your mystery shopper has ever encountered? And I don't think anything has happened like that.

But then again... Well, didn't someone chase Scott Cadmus out of the dealership trying to get the buyer's order? Okay, yeah, that was, well, the most outrageous behavior, that was on our part. We had our service manager go in because we wanted to get a copy of Palm Beach Toad's buyer's order, which had eluded us, and he went in, And his plan, he just walked right into the finance office, opened a drawer where they keep the unprinted buyers and pulled it out and walked out and they all chased him. And he just kept walking until the car got in and drove back to our dealers. Another time, he almost came to Fisticoffs with a dealer in Fort Lauderdale.

We had him to do that again because I think we wanted him to get another buyer's order because that was our mission. We were trying to get everybody so we could show what the dealer fees were. And same thing here. Somebody encountered him and it almost got to violence. How exciting. Yeah, I mean, it's so funny, I'm really, because I think I am jaded. Because a lot of the things that we're reading over week after week, we just, you know, we say we grade on a curve, and it's not shocking to us anymore. To a brand new shopper like you in 1978, you know, probably still living still at home with your dad, you know, that was a horrible shock.

But, you know, we're old, wizened car dealers. We've had the crazy thing, the ghost car that disappeared. We've had some very rude treatment. We've had Agent Enlighten be told to stop talking and listening or to look someone in the eye when they're speaking. Stuff like that. And obviously just the tactics that the car dealers have been doing in South Florida. But we'll think about it.

I'm sure you got some stuff in the old days, too. Not from mystery shops, but stuff that you did. Yeah, we'll have to think about it. Literally, we've done thousands of these. So sometimes it's difficult to recall. We probably should have a third column recommended, not recommended, and outrageous behavior. That's a hard question anyway. It's like, what's your favorite scene in the favorite movie you've ever seen?

Favorite scene? Well, you've got 18 million movies you've seen. You're not going to think. I love the scene, and I love the smell of the napalm in the morning. Okay, from Apocalypse Now. Okay, all right. You've got a great brain. mine's not that great I got a tech question for Rick from from deck he's got he got two

jugs of super tech extended life the coolant it's not pink for Asian cars can he use it in his Lexus his 2007 Lexus Rx 350 you can if you really if you really want to what I would highly recommend is to drain as much as you can of the old coolant out and try to get as much of the new stuff in. It's going to make a rather unpleasant color in the reservoir, but it should mix in normally. Okay. I got one more question. I don't have a name. I love the styling and the economy of the old Lexus C2 200H hybrid. That's that little hybrid car. There are seven plus year old cars now. They've been out for a little while. What should I look out for when looking for a good use model.

The first thing I'd be cautious with, I would get it to a Toyota dealer or a Lexus dealer and have them hook up a scan tool and scan the hybrid system to see if any codes pop up or anything looks out of phase with the data list for the hybrid system. Because I'd be concerned about the batteries. I was going to say, I've heard you say on this show, before, that it's really hard to tell how long the Prius battery is going to last. And so we talked about batteries, not being able to tell how long EV batteries, but even a hybrid battery. So you also said that you would actually take him and revitalize all the cells

in a Prius battery, but nobody else would go through all that time and trouble to do something them like that. Well, that actually was a first-gen Prius. So the technology has leaps and bounds over those first ones of the first days of them. But

still, all batteries are going to have a lifespan. That's a fact of life. But I would just have a check, make sure they're very careful to check that system over, and just look the car over carefully for any signs of damage. Are you aware if the

Lexus hybrid battery is the same. It's a 10-year 150,000. I think that's the warranty on all the Toyota hybrid, across the board, for Lexus as well. So I would advise the Texter. You're going to get a better price on the older ones. Like you said, the oldest ones came out in 2017, and you'll get a better price, but you're often going to have less life on the battery. The battery warranty does follow the vehicle, so if it does have failure within that 150,000 miles and 10 years, then you can get replaced under warranty. Right. But you get too old, you're going to, you don't want to run into that.

Yeah. But even so, if you do wind up having to replace that battery, the prices on them have come way down. I would be very careful, though, of some of these outside shops that are doing these battery replacements. Check them over carefully and make sure that you get good reviews. I got a warranty on the battery on the battery. Some of them can be really shady.

Yeah. And also finally, look at Lexus dealerships and try and get a certified Lexus. You're probably going to get a better vehicle than if you got it from an independent seller. Excellent idea. Yeah. Okay, guys, are you finished? I'll finish chatting. Great.

Okay. How do you like that? That's a doggie card. What's going on there? Big Dog Ranch. They sent us this, isn't this a beautiful card? They sent that to us, and they said, we love you okay that's my introduction to dog of the month that we have not

we've never done this before and I came back with videos next week by the way folks big dog ranch is short volunteers and it takes a lot of while time and effort to do the video so but we will be back with videos if you if you think about it you might consider volunteering for Big Dog Ranch rescue They need volunteers real bad. But this week, we're going to reenact the video with Rick playing the dog. And let's go ahead. I was kidding.

At any rate, this is... I was on the big dog ranch rescue site, and this popped up. And it was the dog of the month, and her name is Daisy. Listen to her story. Meet Daisy, a three-year-old female mixed breed. Daisy's story unfolds from the... deaths of cruelty, saved by an angel in Putnam County, Florida. Three heartless figures sought to hang her, but intervention at the 11th hour spared her life.

Now sheltered at Big Dog Ranch rescue, Daisy grapples with shadows. Her trust shattered by human cruelty. The leash, once a weapon, is a symbol. of her trauma she needs a patient hand whoops I just lost her a hand a hand and gentle guide to rewrite the tragic narrative that stains her past can you be the chapter of hope in Daisy's heartbreaking tale and she is just I don't know do you have that up on the screen I'm getting a picture of Jonathan right now I think Jonathan has it up on up on the screen and there she is

she's so cute I have a hard time reading that paragraph there absolutely absolutely and Jonathan her breed and wait do you know what that is her breed and wait I'm going to try and find that right now yeah yeah I have a this is just a But this is just a copy, you know, that I have. At any rate, you can go to big dog ranch rescue.org, and you can see Daisy and so many other dogs. I certainly hope that you don't find another tragic story like this one. But there are a lot of dogs there. And as Earl mentioned just a minute ago, gosh, I'll tell you what, they really need volunteer.

tears badly. They really do. So if you have a few moments in your day and you can go out there, it'd be wonderful. They're in Palm Beach County in Laxahatchee. There's just west of Palm Beach. And if you haven't

heard of Big Dog Ranch, they are the largest in the United States. No Kill Shelter. So go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue.org. Daisy's a five, five and a half year old female cattle dog mix, and I just found her, her little bio page, and then I just lost it. But yeah, so she's like a young, just beautiful dog.

She just needs, like they said, a very patient, loving person to help her continue to gain trust. Yeah, this is just a heart-wrenching story without a doubt. If you didn't get a chance to pick up the Florida Weekly, Earl's column appears in it, and he is a great column. Well, they're all great columns. It's hard to pick and choose. But the latest is when, how, who, complaining at a car dealership. And he goes through how to complain effectively. So you want to, if you can pick up the Florida Weekly, it appears.

years in that, and also the hometown news, and of course, Erlon Cars. You can read it there. Okay, we have a mystery shopping report that we have to get to, and it too is worth sticking around for. You're going to enjoy this one, and you can vote at 877-960, and the mystery shop of I-95 Nissan in Riviera Beach. Well, you can't, we don't, we're not going to be calling in the votes, but they can, I'm sorry.

They can text us or we do it on YouTube, yeah. Yeah, you can text us. That's the first time I've ever done that. 772-4976530. That's 772-4976530. There you can text in your vote for Mystery Shop of I-95-N-E-9-5-3-0. mystery shop of I-95 Nissan in Riviera Beach. Okay.

Back to the recovering car dealer. And as I always say, we grade on the curve. No perfect dealers. So A's are very rare. Fs are very rare. We're somewhere in between. I'd like to see the status grow a little higher than it is, but it is what it is.

So we have to have a recommended list. And if they're on the recommended list, they don't have an F. I'll look for an A, but you probably won't find one. You'll probably find a B or a C, and you just have to settle with that. So this dealership at Nissan is in Riviera Beach, Florida. Speaking as if I were the agent Lightning herself, I arrived early in the morning and was greeted by four men. Wow.

All but one stood up as they saw me walking through the door. Ahmed smiled, introduced himself and asked if I was there for anyone special today. I said, I don't have an appointment scheduled, but I'd like to know more about the car. I saw online that shows special pricing. Okay, here we go. Online advertising. I told them about the new 2003 Nissan Rogue SV advertised on their website. It had an MSRP of $34,420 and a huge $6,833 discount.

Now, that's what the advertisement said. So I hope the Federal Trade Commission is listening. This is an advertised price for a $6,8333 discount. By the way, as another little aside, beware new cars. This is a new 2023. In case you haven't checked your calendar, this is 2024. You know, when you buy a new car that's been sitting on a lot for a year, it's just about the same thing as buying a used car.

so if you're not buying and getting advantage of the depreciation on that car, then you're not getting a good price. So new is only look at the calendar year, that's very important. It might technically be a new car, meaning that it hasn't been titled yet, but that doesn't mean anything three or four years from now

when you trade it in. Okay, continuing on with the mystery shop, the salesperson said he'd be happy to help me, walked over to his desk, where he, He pulled out a chair for him to sit down. Asked if I'd like anything to drink, coffee, tea, or water. He then asked to see the car I was looking at on my phone.

He looked out the front windows and asked, how did you get here today? I don't see any cars in the parking lot. I said, I was dropped off hoping to get this online pricing and leave with a car. He said, he liked that. I've been his eyes lit up. I got a hot one here. I got a live one. She got to have a car.

She got no wheels. He looked at the ad on my phone and I asked a series of questions about whether I had a Nissan at home, if I was a recent college graduate, or if I was in the military. Now, regular listeners will know what that's all about. They're applying unobtainable discounts in their discount, which is misleading and not stated in the ad at all. he then said that their online pricing is your absolute best pricing and mumbled something about online pricing requiring a series of rebates.

That's our best pricing, but of course he got the rebates. Well, I acted like I didn't hear him, and then he asked if I plan on buying or leasing. Another standard qualifying question is what we call it. I said definitely buying probably or I might pay

I'm probably paying cash, but I might finance. I saw online there were several different finance specials as well. It said, great. He then asked if I had a certain monthly payment in mind. I wanted to be at saying, looking at those numbers online, I'm guessing somewhere around $500 to $700 depending on the credit and the final price. I said, I'm not worried about that. I'm primarily concerned about the final out-the-door price.

He then said, okay, could he get my money? license, then he would go get the car, meet me up front with the car. I waited out front for about five minutes. He came out and handed me my license back, then he said he'll be right back with the car. A few minutes later, he pulled up front, opened up all the doors and the hood. He let me know that all the cars now come with a three-cylinder turbo engine that still gives a boost when going, but it's much better on gas. Amman then went on to tell me that this particular car would not get me out the door where I wanted to be, I replied, isn't it the same car I showed you online?

He said, it is, however, you don't qualify for all the discounts to get that price. And, of course, you'll remember he asked me if I was a college graduate, if I was in the military, and if I had St. Make at home, and these are all factory rebates that very few people qualify for. He said that is the same. However, you don't qualify for the discounts. If you click on the little red eye, and I've got a display, Agent Lighting took a picture of the ad, and I'm telling you it's a little bitty eye, and it's a red eye,

and you have to click on it, and there's no indication that there's anything there, and then if you click on that, it says, what's required to get that price? I clicked the disclaimer link and saw that the $6,800 discount, included two expired rebates. Nothing made sense, and it didn't have the military in there at all. It just said.

Yeah, so this is so bad, it's actually getting to be a little nauseous. I mean, not only are they lying, but they're even not. Their disclaimer isn't even a disclaimer. The disclaimer is, they're not even lying efficiently. So I hope the Federal Trade Commission listens to some of this stuff. The, you know, combat auto retail scams, you're looking here at an incredibly perfect, actually imperfect, because they screwed up their scam. But this is the kind of thing. The Federal Trade Commission is trying to target with the cars, combat auto retail scams, regulation that's supposed to go, in fact, at July 30.

but the Texas federal judge has put it on hold because of the Texas Automobile Dealers Association and the National Automobile Deals Association. But I just hope someone's listening. This is not untypical in car dealership, especially in Florida. So I said, well, it clearly shows an online price of $27,587.

He then suggested that you could show me something closer to my price range. I said, no. What you advertise was by my price range, what you tried to sneak in on me, isn't. That's an ad lib. I said, no, I want to see pricing for this. I didn't say I couldn't afford it,

but it was looking, I was looking for a deal. I told me to forget about going on a test drive at this point and asked him to please just show me the numbers to buy it. He went back inside. Soon you'd be back with the numbers. sat back down, almond left,

Victoria two minutes later, sat down saying he needed to get a bit more info to get the numbers. He said the finance company was Nissan Mergers and Acceptance Corporation in MAC.

And one can't get both special financing and online pricing even though it was advertised to the contrary. So the advertising is totally deceptive and illegal

and I can't say enough negative about their hand. It was just the ultimate worst of the worst. Illegal. He then pulled me up in their system again to confirm my address and left again. A few minutes later, he turned with a worksheet and said, I'm pretty sure you're going to like these numbers and be happy.

Trying to pacify me now. How could I be pacified after this? He then turned over the paper to show me my deal. Top line was MSRP, 34,4,424,000. There was a $5,833 discount. He highlighted the adjusted price of $28,587, highlighted that, okay, and said that was what I was paying for the car. I mean, you gotta think I'm mentally retarded. Then he highlighted the out-the-door price of $35,681.15.

He didn't highlight that $1,09. $1,973 appearance package. There's a junk fee, dealer-installed accessory. The $287 taxile fee is another junk fee, or the $999 dock fee, which is another junk fee. My real price was actually $31,846, which represented a $2,574 discount from MSRP. Now, remember, it's a year-old car.

It's a new car and name only. It's a year old. So in the sense that it's below MSRP, it's a pretty good deal. I'd say it was a pretty good deal if it was a current model new car, but for a year old new car, I don't think it's a good deal. But a far cry from the $6,833, advertised discount. I mean, why isn't this guy in jail? I mean, you advertise a $6,833 discount, and it's not the case.

And he's getting away with it. I mean, he's selling these cars. That's the reason that, of course, I came in the dealership in the first place. I asked, what's this appearance package? Here we go. He said, that's standard for all their vehicles. I said, this is the first time hearing of it. Of course, it wasn't the air.

He went on to say it comes with door-edge guards, lifetime window tent, whose lifetime, interior protection, against rips, spills. and also car washes. Of course, the car washes mean you've got to come back to the dealership, and if you're lucky, they might wash your car. You live 30 miles away. You can drive 30 miles for a car wash. I asked him what could be removed from the price. He said, no.

I said, okay, thank you. I appreciate your time. He asked me to please wait here a moment so Ken, his numbers guy, could come talk to me. I texted my husband to call me to get me out of here. He called me, and I kept my phone to my ears. I walked towards the door. Ken, reach me before I escaped.

And that's the way you feel when you go through something like this. You've got to get out. You've got to escape. Extended his hand for a shake and asked how I like the numbers today, and I said, if my man Ahmed took care, if my man Ahmed, this is the salesman who took good care of me. I said, I wasn't thrilled. I continued speaking on my phone to my husband with my iPhone

glued to my side, the side of my head as I walked out. So there you have, boy. That's a classic bait-and-switch, illegal. I can't think of enough negative things to say. It reminds me of the pre-pandemic type of shops. Yeah, exactly. It's I-95 Nissan and River Beach Fort. That's in Palm Beach County adjacent to West Palm Beach.

And it's just off of I-95, I-95 D-Sand. And I'm pretty sure that is a Terry Thomas, Terry Taylor. Yeah, I think so. After investigating, we finally uncovered that, I think. So we'll be looking for your votes. We vote on the curve. And if you're going to give it F, this is about as bad as you could get. If you're going to give it A, and I won't even explain that because you know what I?

It's not an A. So I don't want to poison the votes here. But vote your conscience, but remember, we do vote on the curve. I have a vote in from Anne-Marie F for illegal behavior. I was thinking about the same thing in wondering if I could make a standard of mine. If there's something obviously illegal, do I automatically fail them, even though there's a lot of legal stuff going on amongst all the car dealerships. But this is particularly egregious.

I'm going on with Amory. I'm going to fail them. That's my grade. And I'm going to refresh my screen. I might have another grade coming in, but I know Rick's got it much over there, I'm sure. We are having a little technical difficulty right now. Oh, no. We lost one channel, and we do not have our live feed right now.

Oh, dang it. Okay, well, what do you think? Rick. Give me just a second. Okay, wait a minute. I got votes. I'm live. Okay, here we go.

It's Becca. Mark Smith, I give the dealership a D-minus. Pretty good for me. Ridiculous. Tim Gilliland, this one's easy. A big, juicy F. Brian Sidlato, I'm going to give him an N for never buy a Nissan, false advertisement. Tom Steckle, D, year-old model, and the rogue is one of the most overstocked models.

Too many add-ons and junk fees. no nitrogen saved them from an F. Tom Steckle says a D. So see who we got else here. Mark Smith also says, if I'm going to buy a Nissan, I'll use Carousel Nissan in Iowa City. All right, we've got a Mr. Shop them.

Joseph Kelleher, F, deceptive advertising, and junk fees. For me personally, I don't want to go with the nuke option, so I'm going to give it the D-minus just to say, hey, you're going to fight tooth and nail against them. We're watching U. I-95 Nissan. Yeah, but we can't, you know, like we say, we don't really want to give everybody the absolute F

or the absolute A unless they really, really deserve it. I'm going to say, I was definitely influenced by Amory. She came in there real fast. Oh, Jonathan gives them an F, Jonathan on the coast. That's very cool. And we also have another F here. Who's that this year?

I don't have the name on this one. But F, my people say F. Well, now, this shopping report makes you realize why Terry Taylor doesn't want people to know he owns these stores, because he has to be very ashamed of this. And I don't believe the guy really. I mean, the guy's a multi-mult.

He just bought a home, What was it? Was it a Palm Beach or somewhere around here for $35 million? I mean, the guy is, he's got more, he's the largest owner, private owner of car dealerships in the world. And so he's got so many of these things going. He keeps his name off of it. You really have to. Very smart.

Yeah, he's very smart. But this is, I would think, see, he has deniability, I guess, of this illegal action. and it's just a shame. I mean, I don't care. He owns it. He's responsible. You might have too many dealerships to watch and take care of, but shame on you.

That's your fault. Not the customer's fault. And for the customer to have to go through this and your dealership that you own and you take profits from, I think is wrong. Nancy, well, what do you think about it? Need I ask? His house was paid for by appearance packages.

I'll make this fast. We have three minutes left. I hope everyone read an open letter to Marco Rubio and Rick Scott. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, Earl has been working with the Federal Trade Commission talking to them about this car's role. And this car's rule, the car stands for combating auto retail scams rule. and he has been working constantly feverishly and he's trying to get this pass and what a shame

you know Nissan in Riviera Beach I'll tell you what this is just awful it's just awful I would give them something less than an F if that was possible but I have to give them an F

We talked about a G, I think, last week. We did. We created a new category. Something of this. Where are you going? G plus. Well, I'd like to give them something, but I can't do it on the air. So for that...

You're the Navy Widow today. There you go. Okay, folks. Thanks so much for joining us. And Earl, did you vote? Oh, F. I'm sorry. I just, I was so verbal during the report, I didn't think I even needed to, but that's an F. And like Sue said, if we had another grade, maybe we should have another grade, because that's

the worst report I can remember in a long time. We'll have to work on that. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. You're an important part of this show, and you tune in every single Saturday, and we so appreciate it. Have a beautiful weekend. We'll be right back here on the oldest channel. Let's go Thank you.