Earl Stewart on Cars - 03.01.2025 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Napleton Jeep of West Palm Beach, FL.

Episode Date: March 1, 2025

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local Jeep dealer to see what they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2025 Jeep Wrangler 4Xe. 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”

Hello, 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 listeners. 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, this is my son, Stu Stewart. our link to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, text messaging, and our encrypted anonymous feedback service. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report.

He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting the car dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back. We're live. It's our second show since we had several missed shows. My health is good. I'm feeling good. And here we are to help you navigate the minefield of finding an honest dealer to buy your car from,

no matter whether it's used or new, expensive, or middle or low place. We're here to answer all of your questions. We were overwhelmed, really, last week. We'd been off for weeks and weeks because of my illness, and so we kept running reruns. I said, I kept thinking, and Nancy and I were talking all the time about, but when we go back, we're going to lose all of our listeners and our YouTubersers and our Facebookers and all that because the show has been gone, and a lot of people get disappointed when they tune in a rerun. But guess what?

Last week was Dynamite, our first live show, and we had, gosh, we may have set a new record in callers. And, you know, with me talking like that, I'm thinking about the way our luck goes, or my luck goes anyway, I hope we do it again. It's important. We have various ways you can access. There's a lot of people stream us on YouTube. YouTube.com, 4.slashirlancars, and Facebook.com forward slash hurlun cars. so it's almost become the major source of people absorbing our show and that's visually and with the audio but I get worried because we love our callers the

people that have been with us for years a lot of people aren't into streaming and particularly older people like me and so you prefer to have your radio as radio and you listen to it and a talk show used to be a big big thing and there's not a whole lot of talk shows around now radio radio talk shows so we offer something that's become unique because of our technology in the 21st century I'm going to give this number out probably too many times but I don't really mean that you can't really get out too many times when you figure we're on the air for two hours that's a long time to listen to anything and we uh 8 to 10 Eastern standard time 8 a.m. in the morning until 10 a.m. in the morning of course and if you're listening for 15 or 20 minutes we have just one chance that you may be to call and give us your question or advice or suggestions whatever so our call in number please write this down because I know you're not going to call me right now but write it down because you may come back into the kitchen

or wherever you got the radio going, in the car, and call us at 877-9-6-0-9-6-0. That's 877-9-60-9-6-0. You know, I look at that telephone number as I read it out, and the 9-60 was the original, what do you call them, call letters, call numbers for the radio station 20-some-odd years ago. When we started, when we started this show, and Nancy Stewart, my co-host and I started the show with a little company called Sea View Radio.

They sent sold it out, exchange hands a couple times, and we used to do the show on Thursdays for half an hour. And it was scary because radio was radio back then. And, you know, we had a couple shows where nobody called. So we really appreciate you. So don't get mad at me when I give you this number out. Nancy will be doing the same thing. 877-960-99-60. And we have a text number, which is 772-497-6530.

And, of course, we've got our basic website. And that's not too high-tech for most of us today. it's earl on cars.com and it's kind of like the hub of the wheel, earl on cars.com. That's where we archive our mystery shopping reports.

That's where we go in every week and pretend to buy a car and tell you what really happened in the buying experience. We air that at the end of the show. So we've got those archived. We've got my blog

archived. So it's good Ehrlichars.com, www.orglandcars.com, you virtually have everything that we've ever done. I mean, from back 20-some odd years ago to today. And we also have a list of dealers that we recommend, car dealers. And you can check that. And you'll find out the ones we say don't buy from. So we do that. And I mention that at some length because it's no one else I know that doesn't. I mean, it's just. It's not done on the air anymore where you name a business and you name the salespeople and you name the managers. I mean, you tell everything about the car dealership, and if they treated you right, we give them some good grades. We ask you to vote on the show, and then we post it. So I'm surprised that other people don't copy this, but they don't. I am going to turn the mic over to Nancy Stewart, my co-host, co-founder of the show, and she is a very special person.

First of all, she's a female. Is that redundant? She's a female, and she has seen the light long before a lot of other people saw the light, and she has brought the female population that we are broadcasting to, videoing to. She's brought them into active participation. with the show by calling the show so she's going to talk about a special offer for you new female listeners out there right now it's about 50-50 when we started out it was zero female callers all male callers so i hereby turn the microphone over to my lovely wife nancy good morning everyone

and welcome we're so happy to be here our second week after a two-month hiatus i believe it was we have a whole lot to get to. And in the news is Amazon. Again, and Amazon aims to transform automotive retail. And they have a young lady here that's in charge, and this is going to be quite a journey. Quite a journey. Her name is Fan Jin, and she's the director and general manager of Amazon. So we have a whole lot of auto, well, information to share with you on that level. Also, we have our dog of the week. We haven't had one for a while, but Muffin is back. You may remember Muffin, but he's been over at Big Dog Ranch for a while, and he's about 47 pounds. He's a terrier mix, and he's a cutie pie. We have a nice

video for you to take a look at later on in the show. Mystery Shopper Report, as you usually, Another great mystery shopper report. That number here to reach us is 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-4976530. Don't forget your anonymous feedback. We love hearing from you. Anonymous feedback, text messages, and YouTube, and Rick and Stu do a great job at that.

you'll hear from them later on in the show. But as Earl mentioned earlier for the ladies, $50, $50 for the first two new lady callers. So give us a call toll free. Help me build this platform here for the female audience. Sometimes we feel left out. But recently, we've really had a lot of lady callers, and it's been quite refreshing that they're in on the show and they're looking for information

in a lot of cases, they can share something with us that we're unaware of. 877-960-99-60. Again, 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Shame on me. I forgot to mention probably the star of the show. It's called Earl on Car.

but we found out we get more calls for people that are puzzled over the driving of their car, meaning the high-tech stuff that's going on now. Or some of the old tech. A lot of do-it-yourselfers. I'm always surprised. So questions are called in about the operation of your car. And Rick Kearney, our certified diagnostic master technician, I think if we went back and counted up the contacts, most of them would be,

from Rick. It ought to be Rick Kearney on cars instead of Earl on cars. But if you have a, if you have a Rick, shake in his head now, he just, don't do that to me, don't do that to me. But, no, he volunteers to come in on the show and it just started out as a, you know, it never occurred to me that more people were, it should have occurred to me when I think back on it. I mean, the people who are listening to the show are people that own cars. and people keep their cars for six or seven years now and and so most of the people that accidentally dialed us on the radio or YouTube probably I have no intent of buying a car but the chances are they got a little problem or maybe a big problem with the car so Rick Kearney certified diagnostic master technicians

that's kind of like having your PhD and well they call him Dr. Kearney but you won't find very much that he can't help you with instead of taking in the car dealer and being taken advantage of or independent mechanic that either maybe he's not trying to take advantage of it but he just doesn't have the wherewithal the education the knowledge the you know it's very difficult to diagnose a car problem even a good mechanic has difficulty all the times we have to bring in the technicians from the factories I mean these are these are really high-tech people. By the way, if you're new to the show, we are a Toyota dealership. We have a

toilet dealership in North Palm Beach. And I say that occasionally not because I want you to know that we're a Toyota dealership because we want to sell your car. But we'll tell you we're not trying to sell your car. We want to be honest and transparent. So if you know up front that we are a Toyota dealership and we've been one, I've been in, I started that dealership in 1975 so we're just trying to help all car buyers and we happen to have a car dealership which gives us an inside look at what's going on and Rick can answer your question I give you some advice about maintenance or repairs what else was oh yep one thing I would particularly like to I would like to ask you to do this morning is let us know

if any people have had an experience in dealing with Amazon. There's a lot of things going on now with Amazon, and they have opened it up to all Hyundai dealers in all 48 states. I almost said 50 states. Alaska and Hawaii, I guess, they didn't get the deal. I don't know why, but 48 states. And it is a seamless, totally safe buying procedure. And cars are being sold now in all 48 states.

And Amazon sets the price. And the delivery is through the dealership. And it's a very interesting concept, which I think could cure all the ails that we argue about and talk about on this show every week. So again, give us a call at 877-9-60-99-60. That's 877-960-960. Your Anonymous Feedback.com

Every now and then we get a doozy. And I love people who can advise, criticize, praise, whatever, when they know they can't be identified. That's the reason police departments have, you know, secret. You won't be identified if you report the crime kind of a thing. And so that's what we do. We won't identify you unless you want us to do, but it's just at youradonymousFeedback.com,

just the way it sounds. www. www. com. Okay, well, I'm talked out. I've got my, Nancy's got a hand up in the air. You know, it should be interesting to see how many dealers partner up with Amazon.

You know, after they see the journey with Hyundai and Janice, and Kia, I believe. Yeah, Kia Genesis haven't signed up yet, but we think they're going to be signing that very quickly. Right now, any Hyundai dealer is invited to sign up in any of the 48 states. Exactly. Our number here is 877-960-99-60, where you can text us at 772-497-6530.

Now back to the recovering car. Let's go, let's go to Rick. He hasn't said a word, and Nancy and I are mainly me, have been doing the battling. But Rick, what's interesting out there in the world of, I can't figure out how to do this on my car? The 2,025 models, every year there's a quantum leap in technology. So one of the problems that people can anticipate. Well, good morning, everybody. Let's just follow our little tradition here.

We'll start right off with the text from Anne-Marie. Oh! She's every week, she has some really great questions and stories for us, so we're going to start right off with her. Yeah, we really look forward to hearing from her. Good morning, Anne-Marie, and thank you so much every week for your text. And she says, good morning. Computer chips were in short supply during and after the pandemic.

Consequently, many people only received one set of keys or key fobs when they bought their cars. This prompts the following questions. Since you're a Toyota dealer and can't really speak for other brands, do Toyota's come with one or two sets of keys or key fobs now? Well, Toyota's still trying to get two sets of keys or two fobs for every new car, and they're going back and they're catching up with all the folks that only got one key, and they're sending out reminders to folks.

Hey, these are now coming in. We're getting them in stock and setting up appointments with folks to come in and get their new keys program. So they have that second key. And I'm pretty certain all the other manufacturers are doing the same thing. They're all trying to get caught up from this. It's a long road, but it's coming along. And she said her second question, what is the cost of a replacement key fob through a Toyota dealership? Well, now most of you know, I'm sure that, you know, a lot of new cars are what we call a push to start.

So you've got that little key fob that's just a simple box. And these, depending upon the model of car, the make of the car, can range anywhere from about $75 to as much as $200 for some of the more luxury cars. And for some of those fancy cars, the fancy European cars, they can be $3 or $400. dollars. They're quite expensive for some of them. And most of them now are very easily programmed at the dealership. It only takes a few minutes and usually is restricted to the dealer that you have to have a program there. And the reason for that is it's a security thing, folks, because a lot of you will find out when you get that second key and it gets programmed, every time you get in your car for like the next week and a half to two weeks,

you'll see a message pop up on the dash that says new key has been programmed. And the reason for that is say you go somewhere and you want to use valet parking and somebody nefarious gets hold of that key while they're nearby or maybe that key is just close enough to your car that they can program it.

They'll program a fake key to work your car. And the next time they find your car, which can be easily done, they now have a way to access and steal your car. So that's why when that message pops up, it's simply telling you, hey, a new key was programmed

in, but usually within a week and a half or so, that key will, that message will vanish. Rick, just to jump in there quickly, there are a lot of other sources to buy a programmable keyfob, and I just went to chat GBT,

websites like an Amazon offer a wide selection of key fob so you can go to Amazon and also programming services. Ace Hardware is an example of auto parts stores like NAPA and APA parts auto parts there are a lot of specialized vendors out there so before you end up paying three or four hundred dollars for a programming service or even for the also with additional charge for the fob itself shop it online and you'd be surprised there are a lot people out there to get you a bargain on this.

Yep. And the way those actually work is the key that you have is programmed to your car. It has its own code that will talk to your car. And when you get a new key, it has its own code and it will talk to your car. But what they do with those aftermarket ones is they actually program it to duplicate the code that you have on one fob.

So now you have two fobs that are kind of like identical twins. Bear in mind, though, make sure you check the quality. Check the reviews on those when you do buy them, because some of them are not the best quality. Make sure you at least get one that you know is going to work properly. So check the reviews. That's one of the reasons I like Amazon so much, because if they do send you a key fob that doesn't do what it says when you bought it, you have an unconditional return. So Amazon is going to give you the pricing, and they also have the unconditional return. and I'm basically waiting for the day

that Amazon takes over all retailing in the world because they're into cars now and they sell virtually everything you can buy from a walk-in store, which is not good news for a lot of the smaller businesses. Absolutely. Okay. So now I've got an interesting little news article

sent to us by a fellow called DEC in Boca Raton. DEC? DECK. Oh, unusual name. Yeah. And this one is, I mean, it's a futuristic thing that, well, I got to say, this will be interesting if it comes out. Apparently, Mercedes-Benz is experimenting with solar paint. In other words, the paint that they put on the car is actually going to be reactive to solar light from the sun

and will actually be able to somehow hook up to help charge the car and actually give electricity from the sun while you're driving along or even while it's parked in your parking lot. Now, of course, folks with a garage, you know, it would be a little more difficult, but hey, that is some pretty interesting new tech. You know, granted, it's beginning stage right now, But just think about the day when you don't have to charge your car up anymore. You don't have to buy fuel anymore.

It's just automatically getting free energy from the sun. I think that's pretty cool. Yeah. And by the way, Donovan and Johnny Z. Freidly, they're talking on YouTube here about a little bit about key fobs here. And Donovan mentioned one of the newer technologies that's coming is that your phone can be. key as well, your cell phone. And this is actually in place with a lot of the hiring cars

are now allowing this. What happens is you can actually send an electronic key for your car to someone else's phone. So say you're out of town and somebody wants to come and borrow your car and you authorize them, you can send

them a signal to their phone so their phone can then become the key to unlock your car and authorize them to drive your car without even having that mechanical key fob in their possession let's back up for a minute

to the solar paint sure I ask everything that I ever hear I double check with chat GBT and on the average car it would basically provide energy your solar paint for

20% of everything if you're an EV if you have an electric vehicle and depending on your location because of your location on Earth with respect to the sun. If you lived in Stuttgart, Germany, and you had an EV, the solar paint would give you 62% of the energy that you needed to drive the vehicle. Wow.

That just knocks my socks off. I can. I'm an older guy, and I have a degrees in physics. and I get so excited when I find out about what technology is done. This is something you'd never dreamed about 25, 30 years ago. And the technology today, 62%. So you folks are listening or watching in Stuttgart, consider a Mercedes and gets a solar paint.

That idea is coming. I mean, you think about it. Wow. Every crazy thing that we have nowadays started as somebody just had a weird idea, and probably 90% of the people out there thought, that's crazy, that's nuts, and never going to happen. And look what we've got now. Think about, now you got me excited. I'm doing all the talk, and I'm listening, I told you ridiculous, Mark, but I think now about, I have a thought process, and I say, oh, that would never work. I said, wait a minute, and I go to artificial intelligence.

I go to, you know, I happen to like the chat, GBT, but there are a lot of sources out there. And if you can think of it today, if your mind will think of something that can be done, I believe the odds are in the 90 percentile that it can and will be done. So it's just an exciting world we live in. Solar paint, amazing.

And Rick, before we move on, as far as the key fobs are concerned or key foots is it still just as expensive well let me put it this way more expensive to go to a dealership and get that replaced it's well a lot of key fobs are if you if you've lost all your keys you really have to go to the dealership to have it done because you have to have in order for like a locksmith or some to make a second key fob for you and after market version they have to have your original key fob to duplicate the code from it but if you've lost all your keys you're kind of stuck you have to get your car to the dealership so that

they can program new keys to it or is a dealer authorized by the manufacturer and you know we're toilet dealers so you know if if a customer came in with a toilet they bought from our dealership and said I want to know that the key code to my key, could we give them that? No, because it's, we're talking about a code number that really is only, it's electronic. And even the passcode for it is approximately 256 characters. And some of them even more.

And now it's because, it's because obviously for security purposes. Okay, for you listeners out there, that's an interesting subject to work into because you own the car, you own the keys, and I think the law would say that if you had to know something about your car and you can prove you were you and you own the car, you should be able to have the key code. And who cares how long the key code is, you're going to email it to Amazon and you're going to have them do the key for you with the program. So it's nothing to look into.

Yeah, exactly. And it'd be worth considering. Yeah. A lot of questions. Before we wrap this up, so you would say that it's compatibility as far as going into the dealership, which makes it a little easier to duplicate, but it's less expensive to go to a locksmith. Right. Especially if you still have at least one key, you can get it done a lot cheaper.

Yeah. And I'm really fascinated with these prices. because I'm going to go back to like the 80s and what it would cost me to replace, you know, my Kifah. So anyway, that's the interesting topic that Rick just covered, and now we are going to go to the phones. Cool. So we're going to interrupt Rick for a while, put him on pause, but he'll be back with so much more. We're going to go to Marty, and Marty is a regular caller from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Marty.

Good morning. Glad you're both, glad everybody's back. Oh, thank you. And Hope O'Roll is feeling better. I am. Thank you. Good. I've got a beef with Toyota that I know there's nothing you can do about it, but when people are buying cars for $40,000 and $50,000, and my one year just came up in February.

And now, if you want to keep your remote subsist, on your phone, they want to charge you $25 a month. And I think it's ridiculous when you're spending all this money for cars, that now you have to pay to keep the subscription up. At least you'd be included for three years, not one, but to me it's very petty. And I know that Toyota's in business to make money, but I think it's poor business.

I totally agree. totally agree i i totally agree marty and uh i have a lot of uh see i wear two hats i have my toyota hat and i have my consumer hat and you can't wear two hats at the same time so this uh oh you can but you look foolish but uh that's why we have this show but yeah i i i don't like the way uh toyota puts me on the front line and and and and and and and and and involves me and having to tell the customer that this particular part, for example, or this particular operation cost this much money. As a retailer, I can price my products any way I want to.

But for them to pull a stunt like you're talking about to give me something free for a year and then say, okay, your free gift is expired. Now send me $500 if you want to keep it. And they've done that, and all the manufacturers are doing that. So it's like a trick to get you to buy into a convenient remote or accessory or whatever it may be. And when you like it, and maybe you didn't even know you had to subscribe to it, suddenly it won't work anymore. And then you get the leather to the mail. Oh, if you'd like this, we'll only charge your $1,000 a month or whatever is I exaggerated.

And remember a few years back, I think it was BMW that did this, they had heated seats in their cars. So when you purchased the car, the heated seats were one of the, it's actually a built-in feature of the car. But of course, because it's all connected through the internet to where the factory can talk to your car, they actually had it where after a certain amount of time, they would turn off the feature of the,

heated seats unless you paid a monthly subscription so that you could still use your heated seats and when that came out and people found out about it they went insane and for good reason and BMW very quickly said no don't okay never never we're not doing that anymore your heated seats will work now just fine because I agree totally especially the idea now if it was something like OnStar or one of the other connected services where you push a button and you're talking to a live person, I can understand that because there's overhead. They have to pay for that person to have a connection to talk to you and have a live person there. But when it's simply a computer program that you already own everything in that car

and you're simply connecting to their computer database that they're not. spending a doggone dime on it keeps it it's up and operational why should you have to pay a subscription to that i mean we're not talking that they're spending any extra money making new content that's going to be available on that it's all there they just want to charge you just because they can yeah and i i totally agree that's ridiculous everybody in the studio agrees with rick he's got a good point it's just very it was very very simple, let's say you forgot to lock your car door, well, you could lock it with the phone. Right, yeah.

And now, obviously, when you get to that screen now, it says your subscription expired. Yep, exactly. I mean, that's annoying. They've got these security, the door locks for your front door at your home that you can have your phone will lock and unlock your door for you from anywhere. and you can send keys to other people so they can come and gain access to your house and they don't charge your subscription you buy the lock, you own it,

you have access with your phone to that system and you don't pay any more for it. It's a one-time cost. And that's the way a car should be. You should not have to pay a subscription to use features that are built into your car when it comes out of the factory. That's just my opinion, but I'll stand by it.

And what I do know, they can add $500 to the sticker and include it for the life of the car, and people won't realize it anyways, and when the car gets discounted or whatever the selling price is, it's in the price of the car. Marty, thanks very much. I love it when people call and ask about misbehavior by Toyota, because I'm one of the few dealers that isn't afraid

to say, you made a mistake, and this is not the way we should treat our customers. Marty, we've got a bunch of people on the line now, so thanks again for the call. Thank you. You're welcome, Marty. Thanks so much for calling. We look forward to hearing from you every Saturday. Thanks for bringing such a, you know, interesting subject to the forefront. Ladies, how were you treated when you went into the dealership?

Did you go in for service, lease a car, rent a car, person? a new car. How were you treated by the salesperson? We'd love to hear from you. And if you're a new caller this morning, you can win yourself $50 and we want to hear from you. And here's proof. You can win yourself $50. $50 for the first two new lady callers. Share your experience with us and the ladies that are listening. Help me build the platform 877-960. 9960 we're going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to john who's calling us from west palm beach good morning john hey good morning um speaking of the key fobs if you go to Costco they got a truck out there the truck uh does key fobs and it's pretty reasonable and this is

why i call except for european cars so if you've got a mercedes or bmw you can't get the key fob You know, that's dealership only. They only serve, they can only service, you know, all the other brands, American and Japanese. Okay. So you're saying the high-end luxury cars. That's great information. Great information. They can't get, they can't make the key fob for that person who has the high-end luxury car?

Yeah, just the European cars, you know, the European one. Okay. BNW, you know, whatever they are. Okay. but they are making the basic key fob right yeah well they're they're replacing them or you know making a copy yeah like the push start right yes you know and the all the key fobs yeah well that's great uh rick has that have they been doing that for a while apparently this is something a relatively new but it's interesting that he mentions that because a little bit farther back in the chat uh here on youtube

Kim appreciates life. It said, avoid those key fob vans in the BJ's parking lot. They're a huge rip-off. And she says, they prey upon the older folks here in South Florida. So I would use a little caution there. It sounds like Kim might have, she might have tried that one time and not had such a good experience. John, when did you see the... Well, my, I went to, I needed to replace key fob on our mini Cooper.

And I happen to see that, uh, uh, orange, uh, key fob van thing in the parking lot at Costco. It's, it's part of Costco's, you know, it's part of Costco. Uh-huh. And then it's a mobile service, but they, you know, they were there in the parking lot or whatever. And, uh, they said they couldn't do the European cars. So I, so I have no content, I had, that's the only context. that I had with them. I didn't purchase anything, so I have no idea

about the BJ's one. You know, so I don't know. But once again, that's one of those, you know, you got to be an informed buyer. Yeah. You know, an informed shopper. Exactly. Coming to that stuff.

That's pretty important. That's why this radio program is so important. John, thanks so much for the compliment. And same thing with the Earl Underground Cowboys. people I forgot what it's called it's been so it's been two months but as soon as I retire I'm going to get on board with that so well thank you very much and by the way I just was playing

around with a chat ChbT and remind us Nancy and I both drive Teslas don't tell anybody because we're a toilet dealership but we both drive Teslas and the key on the Tesla is on your smartphone and so you can cheat you can if you lose your smartphone you just get another smartphone because it's programmed into your key is programmed into your personal smartphone and there is no such thing as a key fob so it's it's it shows you how technology-wise in a few years there won't be any more key fobs no and that's correct I have a Tesla also and I have the little Tesla key card that's model thing and that that was a little pricey though because it's more of a toy type thing

that i think they run 180 but you're it before you have the your key access on your phone you use that little credit card thing and if you lose credit cards and replace them those are 35 you have to purchase those yeah yeah we purchased a couple of them yeah and and but fortunately when we go to that's just anyone wanting to buy a Tesla when you go in that's you your window of opportunity when you're picking up your new or used Tesla ask them, I've got three other drivers in the family

and I get an extra G-card. And they will give it to you and they'll program it for you. After that you have to buy it. Well, that's very good information right there. Thank you. It's a little expensive, doesn't it, John, when you have so many drivers under the same roof.

Well, you know... I'm just glad that with my daughter they have the little restricted that I can only set it to 65 miles an hour and she can't go faster. Well, that's good. So, I just think about all those little features in that. Well, thank you, John. And it's amazing how many people are driving Teslas down there.

I just, you know, being a Tesla owner as we drive around, I don't know what the count is, a percentage penetration is in South Florida, but there's a lot of Teslas out there. Yeah, I got a feeling. It's more like every five cars, there's a Tesla. For every five cars you look at, you know, on the road, there's a Tesla. I doubt that. You know, John, that's 20% market penetration. That would be tops in the world.

It could be locally in 33458. Oh, boy, you're filled with all kinds of information. I'm filtering it down to the. Hey, John, you know what's interesting that we have seen in the north end of town are the cyber trucks. The cyber trucks that are being used for commercial reasons, we have painters. We've got tile people, but they're in these cyber trucks, and they have the advertisement painted on the cyber truck. So I'll tell you what. Boys with their toys.

Anyway, I thought I showed that with you. The cyber trucks are everywhere, but they're in our neighborhood, which restricts our movement. Thanks for the call, John There's no room on the road. When you stay in your neighborhood, are you talking about your dealership? No, I'm talking about up in Jupiter, where we live. Okay, yeah. Yeah, and these commercial vehicles, cyber trucks, are coming in,

and they're working, you know, construction and different jobs. But it's just recently that we've seen the cyber trucks. And some of them are painted red, some of them are painted like a, crazy blue color so it's obvious you know what they're driving and it's also obvious that they're in there to make some money yeah and they're getting a lot of attention this is my point they need to they see you coming thanks john if i was to sing you a picture where's the best place to send it if what if i were to send you a picture of my car where is the best place to send it uh you could send it to me if you want did you send it to the text number yeah text the text to yeah to the 772

4976530 that's a good idea rick stew okay that's all right thank you you got you got the number yeah okay sounds good hey john great talking to you give us a call back again glad you guys are back glad i'm back all right but i have a great weekend uh you know and i'm finally accustomed to carrying my phone into the garage because each and every time in the beginning you know to get into my plaid i i said oh i forgot my phone oh i forgot my phone because i was always you know accustomed to carrying a key a key well now that now they have the option on the apple watch or your apple watch now yeah it's it you have a lot of a lot of options let me let me mention while we have a little lull as far as the calls are concerned. I haven't mentioned it

before, well, for a couple of weeks, Earl's vigilantes. Yeah. I mean, is there anything better than Earl's vigilantes? And you can sign up and you can help someone, you know, in your neighborhood. And you don't have to know how to, you know, take an engine apart or anything like that. Right, Earl? Well, I can take an engine apart, but I just You can't put it back together again. You do that inside the house. You take it apart. I put it together, right?

That's right. You dirty, I clean. We're going to do a commercial. Remember that Swifter commercial? That was so cute. I digress. Ladies, please give us a call this morning. I want to hear from you.

Two ladies, two new lady callers. You can win yourself $50. this morning, you can share with us your experience, whether it was, as I mentioned earlier, whether you're buying, leasing, servicing, whatever. And I think by now you know that there are more ladies in the dealership than there are guys and in the service department, especially, they're taking care of service. So ladies, you play a pretty big part in the auto industry and for them not to recognize. it you know what i always say financial disaster now back to uh do you do you want to earl do you have any

anonymous feedbacks that you'd like to share or is stew gonna take care of that i got i got i got them all here you got them all there okay so uh rip will take a pause and there's no calls stew oh sure um let's start with uh the longer one just in case we get calls later um anonymous feedback comes into your anonymous feedback dot com and we have no way of knowing no one has any way of knowing where they're coming from. So you send it to that your anonymous feedback.com. It pops up into this website and our email boxes and it's completely anonymous.

All right, here it is. EV parts are gonna be cheaper. If you have access to cheap charging, but the insurance is still gonna be higher than internal combustion cars. But the problem is the battery pack. Only can be charged up to a limited number of times, which usually works in a car for eight to 12 years at best.

And since the battery pack, change is close to price for a full car I just lost my spouse for a coal park car and in a used car case it costs more than a car then basically the battery life is the car life

so since the car is a short life it will lose its value fast and if you factor in how much you lose if you sell it within the four year to five year time frame then yeah it isn't worth it and this is just pure money on the pure money side of the problem don't get me wrong

there are cases where it is a good able to get an EV, like if you live in a city and your workplace or home has free or cheap charging, then you go for it. But even then, I would only buy an EV as a second car. There's no way I would have only an EV. Very fair thoughts and well put. Well, my feeling about that is, I think this amount of his feedback is informed, but he's informed from a couple of years ago. And technology for charging, we just talked about earlier on the show that there's now solar paint. You can paint your car with solar paint, and depending on what area of the world you live in, it'll supply 83% of the energy for your car to go if you have an electric vehicle.

So high-tech changes. Charging used to be the big problem. And was it a destination security, what they call it? Rain check. Yeah. Yeah, if you research buying a car in EV three years ago, you better research it again because that range of anxiety is no longer a problem. And another thing, just to consider, like, there's a lot of good points that he makes.

There are obstacles as the technologies have adopted. You know, this is like an old, you know, beaten comparison, but like when we switch from horses and buggy, the cars, there were places where cars just made sense, and there were places where cars absolutely did not make sense. That changed over time pretty rapidly, historically speaking, very rapidly, and it's kind of like that now. Yeah, if you live maybe in a remote area in Idaho or Wyoming or even in the northeast

and upstate New York, yeah, maybe it's not ideal, but right now, yeah, it probably makes more sense in a metropolitan area, but that's changing every day. and the other thing is I want to address a lot of people come in with an argument against EVs on the economic side you know on the cost and I don't think anybody is here is going to argue every single point it is a more expensive technology that's coming down every day in price in China they've got this they got it down and EV it's less than a ICE a returnal combustion yeah BY day is the largest seller vehicles than China. They even have, I read there's, they have like their version of Apple,

their high-tech gadget company, has at least an electric vehicle as well. And I read an article, why can't Apple do it if these guys can? And the answer is the infrastructure in China, it's just set up to build millions of EVVs. We have a caller? B-Y-D. It's in the news. We're going to go back to the phones. We're going to talk to Bob in at the Lake Park. Good morning, Bob. You know, Bob, are you there? Yes. Good morning, Bob. Welcome back.

Thank you. I think I can cancel my prescription for Xanax now. You know, after listening for over 20 years, you know, you have withdrawal. Well, what a nice thing to say. I'm glad that we could serve as a replacement for that. Thanks so much, Bob. Thank you. I wonder, you haven't addressed the situation with the Cause Act. That was the biggest news since, you know, since you've been off the air.

I guess they cabashed it. And it's no longer going to be enacted. And I also wanted to talk a little about the Subaru. You were talking last week about Subruis and hybrids. and the Subaru really hasn't been involved in hybrid technology at all. They just recently started to produce some cars. I think they have two models that have a hybrid, but they're just starting to come to the dealerships now.

So there's going to be a very low supply. So I would imagine if you went into a dealership and you were interested in that type of vehicle, you're going to be subjected to probably some type of market adjustment on it. and, you know, Toyota owns 21% of Subaru. Yeah. And I was wondering what you thought about maybe at some time, Toyota maybe going and taking, you know, full control of that company,

similar to what Honda and Nissan was proposing, you know, it looks like there's going to be some kind of more consolidation in the industry. Yeah, I guess that was, I don't know if that was, Earl know better at me if it's industry-wide, and I don't know the financial situation of Subaru if it would benefit them. I know Toyota's doing fine. Have you heard any whispers of that?

I don't think that will happen in the near future. I think it will happen probably with other makes. Subaru is just a unique company in the fact that, as you say, Bob, they are small, but they are extremely well-managed. and the fact that they don't have as many hybrids and other things that would really kill some manufacturers. Subaru does such a great job of quality and marketing

and customer satisfaction that they would be considered an underdog in survival if they were any other company besides Subaru. But right now I put my money on Subaru over a lot of other larger manufacturers that do have hybrids. But I think you're dead on as far as industry-wide, you're going to see more consolidation. Otherwise, you know, because the ones are not going to be able to hang in the new economy.

I guess they're going to have to be absorbed. Yeah, look at Nissan with Honda. Honda just said, oh, oops, we changed our mind. And that's the way these mergers go. The stronger rights deal, you know, the stronger manufacturer. and Toyota, basically, you asked the original collection was about Toyota buying other companies. Yeah, they'll buy them, but they'll buy them at their right price

and for what they need and the consolidation. If we have more than three or four auto manufacturers in 20 years, I'd be amazed. I'm sure they keep the brand, though. It was something that I read in Barents. They were talking about the possibility that at some point, you know, since they already own 21% may go ahead and have control the whole course. I thought it was interesting. What's your thoughts about this, what happened to the

Cars Act? To the what? The Cars Act. Cars. Oh, the FCC. Cars? Yeah, the FTC rules. Yeah, that was a little disappointing. It wasn't a surprise. And as I say, as you probably know, Bob, as you're a regular listener. We signed up as a friend of the court

and wrote an amicus, hired a law firm, our dealership did, and sent that in to support the CARS Act. So it just got shot down by the National Automobile Dealers Association and the Texas Dealers Association. It didn't surprise anybody.

I mean, hope springs eternal in the human breast, so when they came up with it, on this show always said, gosh, it sure would be great. But you know, in the back of my mind, if the act had passed, we've got enough laws on the book right now to keep car dealers honest and transparent. The problem isn't in a lack of laws and regs. The problem is in the lack of the enforcement of the laws and regulations we already have, and it's politics. You know, I mean, look at the new Attorney General for the United States, Pam Bond.

Bondi, is that who is, Pam Bondi? That's it. You know, and she, before Donald Trump decided he wanted her for Attorney General of the United States, she was, had her hat in the ring to come back and be an attorney general again in the state of Florida. So they, you know, you know, Ashley Moody is out too, you know. Well, she's a senator now. Yeah. Right.

So you, I know you were telling people to call Ashley. Yeah, don't call her anymore. You'll never get through now. Well, I guess you could still call her, but, I mean. Oh, it's hard to get through to a senator. We were just looking for help on, you know, what you're talking about, cars. And it turned a corner. What can I say?

We just want to help on a little issue. That's all. That's a little, you know, honorable issue. I get it. Okay, well, I'm glad you're back. Thanks, ma'am. Try to stay well, like the rest of us, and take one day at a time. Yeah.

Don't overdo it. I hear you. Very true, Bob. day, everybody. Have a great day. Thank you. Thanks for the call. You know, that partnership between Subaru and Toyota, you know, that was a pretty good, you know, move on both parts because they collaborated on two different cars, I believe. There were sports cars, or would that be an accurate statement? Yeah, they respect each other, and they'll put their name on a car built by Subaru.

The Subaru will put their name on a car built by Toyota. So that's the ultimate respect of another company. company, yeah. Yeah, the Subaru, I believe, was the BRZ. Yep. And then the Toyota is the GR-86. Uh-huh. Same car.

Oh, it is? Oh, totally, yeah. And then there's other partnerships. The Super was made with BMW. Well, as a matter of fact, Toyota and BMW got together and made that partner. and I'm going to say it, the travesty that they called a Supra. That's a travesty to me. I enjoyed every minute.

But Toyota and Subaru are talking about getting together for another Supra. I'll do that one. And that, in my opinion, will be a Supra. Okay. It'll be a Subra. A super deserving of the name, Supra. It'll be a Subra deserving. You heard it right here, folks.

be a Subra. I think they're going to name it a better Supra. Okay. And it will be. I'm going to interrupt, everyone. We have, well, I'm going to talk to the ladies again. I'm waiting for you to call

ladies. Two new lady callers. You can win yourself $50 today. Give us a call. Talk about whatever you want. Help me build the platform here. Call me at us at 877-9-60-99-60.

We're going to go to Frank, who's a whole from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Frank. How are you to do? You're still out there, Frank? Yes. There you are.

Mr. Stewart, I enjoy listening to your show every Saturday for the longest time. And I took some advice from you. And when I went to dealerships and they tried to get me to pay $1,500 for a deal of prep fees and $1,000 for, you know, other fees that were ridiculous. I just walked out of the showroom. But I saw an advertisement with Lincoln, Schumach, and Del Rey, that indicated that they were, one of the vehicles. I was looking at was um, um, um, Corsair. And they were advertising at $350 per month with no down payment.

That was on Thursday evening, Friday morning. I go down there at 10 o'clock and he said that it's no longer that, that information was no longer available or that, that deal was no longer available. I was like discussing and, just okay thank you have a good day and I walked out but what was my recourse on that I I wasn't sure what I could have done Frank why will you back up a little bit and tell me about your experience in our dealership you said that you were charged $1,500 for for what? Yeah well I was I was looking at Infinity Q50 in Fort Lauderdale and they off and they're you know I asked them for the out-the-door price,

and they included $1,500 for a deal of prep, and another $1,000 for administrative fees. I got sure. So I misunderstood you. I thought you had, you said you'd come into our dealership. No, not yours. Not yours, this is good. Yeah, very good.

Fees are, we call them junk fees, they are a hidden price increase and it's the cancer of the auto industry the car dealers all of the United States participate so it's the Steelership in Fort Lauderdale is just following the handbook that car dealers all have advertise the price lower than you or your competition would ever sell the car for and then when the customer comes in sneak in hidden fees to raise the price where you can sell the car and that's that's been going on for a hundred years in the car retail car business and it's coming close we hope and pray to a stop but you were victimized just like virtually every other

car buyer what about the false advertising with schumacher and del Rey on that corsair they told me it was advertised that evening at 5 p.m. somewhere around there that the call was being leased for $350 a month, but no down payment. I even took a picture. I took a picture of it. Then I went to the dealership that morning, the following morning, and he said that deal is no longer available. Yeah.

South Florida is the worst of the worst, and the way car dealers are transparent and honest. They are dishonest. They are non-transparent, and there is no regulation. And this show has been on the air for 20 years, trying to get somebody to do something about it. We've talked and communicated with every attorney general from 20 years ago till today.

So the laws are on the books to say what they are doing to you and all the other car buyers are illegal by Florida law. The problem is the Attorney General and the other enforcement agencies that are purportedly out there to defend you and other consumers, they are totally without value. They will not go to bat and enforce the law.

And that's where you are. I'm amazed now that more people don't raise more hell about the way our regulators fail the consumers in South Florida, and all over the United States for that better. Yeah, but, Earl, I consider that false advertising. It is. It's false advertising. And, in fact, this will really make you angry. the manufacturers are also breaking the law with false advertising. If you watch a television show or go online video,

you'll see a car advertised for a certain lease payment, say $275 a month. And then at the bottom of the screen, almost invisible, will be a disclosure that says that's what $10,000 down. Now, the law says, the Federal Trade Commission, says the advertised price of a product, cars and everything else, has to be the price that you can buy that product for, adding only government fees such as sales tax and the license plate.

That's the law, but the manufacturers are violating the law because the fine print is not readable. So when the federal government authorizes illegality, you're in serious trouble. I mean, they know what's going on. That's why I took a picture of the advertisement on TV, so I could look at all. Yeah. And I didn't see anywhere that they were going to charge me any money for, you know,

or any down payment, rather. And, Ron, I'm going to congratulate you. You sound like as if that you're an informed consumer. You were in full control. And, you know, if there's something that's even more annoying to me, that is, you know, the market adjustment fee, and they can slip that in very easily. It just depends on how much you need a vehicle.

And, you know, you could be charged anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000, and that's just one of the other fees, you know, that they don't talk about, and you've got bin etching feet. You've got so many fees, you're covered up, you're confused, you know. They're coming from all sides. They threw so, they played around with the numbers. they threw so many numbers at me and they try to confuse you and uh yeah they try to confuse you with advertising fees and then they try they put the pressure on in your purchase right away or

or tell you're not going to get a better deal right you know i got to buy you now yeah and and we haven't even talked about the extended warranties i mean there is just so much uh that you can be hit with and being a consumed an informed consumer excuse me an informed consumer is I'll tell you what it's worth its weight and gold right Rick better than the consumed informer

what what insurance extended warranty do you recommend which one is the better the manufacturer if you're going to buy an extended warranty we don't recommend extended warranties on this show

it's a matter of personal choice. We don't say never buy one, but if you, for peace of mind, you want to have an extended warranty on your vehicle. You should go with the manufacturer's extended warranty. If you buy a Honda, they have one. If you buy a Chevrolet, they have one. So be sure you, before you pay the money,

be sure you to find out what that extended warranty does not cover as well as what it covers. Yeah. Yeah, my mechanic, my mechanic warm, he says, get something that will cover the seals. Yeah, Rick's giving you a thumbs up for that. Yeah, we've got to run now. We've got a bunch of calls on the line, and thank you so much for calling. I appreciate it very much.

Thank you. It was a pleasure talking to you. It was nice talking to you, too, Ron. Give us a call again. Our number here is 877-960-9960. You can text us at 772-497-653-3-3-3. Zero. Stick around. We've got the mystery shopping report. We've got muffin. We've got a video to show you. We got all kind of stuff to get to. And ladies, I'm still waiting. $50. First two, new lady callers, give us a call. Talk about anything. Say hello. 877-960. We're going to go to Ron in Boca. Good morning, Ron. Yeah, hi, I'm a listener for a pretty long time, and I always hear Earl talk about his book, and I try to locate it at a couple of different libraries.

Is that available at your place of business, or is it available on Amazon? It is available on Amazon. Yeah, it's on Amazon. Am I using the right title, recovering? Confessions of a recovering car dealer. Earl, do you have your book right there? Yeah. We'll put it up on the screen right now.

That's Confessions of a recovering car dealer. And you can go to Earl on Cars. You can get the book there. You can go to Amazon also. And 100% of the proceeds goes to Big Dog Ranch. Yeah, that's why I want to get it. And I wasn't sure that. title i've been walking around for years in my head i'm going to a going to go into a hospital

into a hospital for an operation i said this is a good book to get and i tried to get it all week and i couldn't get it okay i will try to get it on amazon well frank are you going to be in the dealership any time soon i can leave a book there for you before you go into the hospital i'm down in boker i'm not going up to most pump yeah okay i understand uh but i appreciate I appreciate it very much that your show, and I appreciate the information you give the consumer, and I'm one of the consumers. We really appreciate you. Good luck in the hospital, Ron. I will say a prayer for you.

I hope to hear you call in it soon. Okay. I'll be in there for about a week, they tell me. Okay. God bless. Thank you very much. You're welcome. 877-960-9960, and you can text us at 772.

497-6530. We're going to go to John in Palm City. Good morning, John. Welcome. Good morning. I want to personally welcome Earl Stewart back. Thank God he's okay. And I just have three powerful words, power of prayer.

That's what I think is all about. Isn't that the truth, John? Wow. Absolutely, if you remember, President Trump, when it was attempted assassination, and he turned to the side. he said himself, God save me. So I just want to thank him for coming back and being healthy and stay healthy. I want to also put some more joy to today's show on TV commercial, which is fabulous, in my opinion. It's from my era, and it's about weather tech formats, if anybody saw it.

It has everything in there, a car of my era, a Lincoln, four-door convertible, Continental. In that ad, it has senior citizens, it has the stressing of no alcohol, they're drinking tea in the car. It shows the good times people were having when we had the convertibles, and it's just everything in it. It even has a scene, a part of Tomor and Louise, when they go airbound for a while, and it's really funny. It just reminds me of other good, some TV movies. One was Cousin Vinny's my favorite show. and film are in a wheeze, but I just want to bring a little joy,

and everybody didn't see that. They should watch this ad, and it's really funny. That was the Super Bowl ad, right? Yes. No, this is for the Weather Tech formats. Yeah, yeah, but I think they played it during the Super Bowl. Oh, yes, yeah, yeah.

You can find it on YouTube, anyone wants to see what John's talking about. Just search Weather Tech ad on YouTube. It comes up. Yeah, the Lailies are driving around in their old cars. What a great commercial. Which I'm one of. I like the scene where the girl in the courtroom spins around and opens her blouse up

and the guy up on the witness chair grabs an oxygen thing and puts it over his mouth. Crack me up. John, thanks for bringing some warm and fuzzy. If I ever got into trouble. Yeah, we need a lot of warm and fuzzy right now. Right. But I just want to say if I ever had legal troubles and go back to my cousin Vinny and I had a trial, I would love to have a mechanic representing me, Rick. Rick would be wonderful. Absolutely. I thought right away this is the guy that I went on my side. Honestly. Hey, John, have you seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off?

No. Oh, you've got to watch that. Okay. I won't give away anything. It's in line with Alma and Louise and, you know, my cousin, Vinny, there's a lot of great... Yes, I will. I'll look for it. All right, guys, and welcome back to Earl again.

God bless you. Thank you. Thank you so much, John. Thanks for staying in touch with me and supporting me. I appreciate it. 877-960-9960, and you can text us at 772-497-7-6-5-3-0-6-5-3. We're going to go to Frank, and Frank calls us from Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank.

Well, good morning. And again, like last week, welcome back. It is so refreshing to hear you guys live on the radio. Thank you so much. I have a neighbor that drove over to the house the other day. He saw me on the street, and he had the neatest old Toyota truck. And I told him about your radio show, and about maybe he, when his wife calls, she can earn $50.

Oh, thank you, Joe. Thank you. Oh, she's just too shy. She's just too shy. But anyway, and it's like from listening to your show, it has helped many shoppers and consumers, myself included, in buying a car. And it did save me money. And I also, I guess the big thing was the other day when I was getting that Lexus general manager or assistant general manager came out. And I said, okay, now you're coming out of the, oh, geez, now I can't remember what it was, the box.

And he says, how do you know that? And I said from Earl Stewart. Oh, you know, Earl Stewart. They didn't think the world. We met Vivian the other day. My wife and I were in there. And she just has acclades upon accuracy about you and nothing. And so it's really nice and happy people.

And before, as you talked about the boxer and Subaru, and I said, But GR 86, it's got a boxer engine. It sounds like a Subaru. I didn't know what you guys said mingled, Toyota and stuff. So that was kind of interesting. They're hard to find. Your dealership didn't have one. I love that you're going around talking about the box.

People should do that. Like, use the terms that pick up on the show, T.O's, you know, lay down. Oh, yeah. Going to the box. Bell to bell. Ding to dong. On and a lot. Bust of bugs.

Rolling iron. A lot of times, just for entertainment, I go to different dealerships and mystery shopping in my little Frank's way of doing it, never thinking I'm actually going to buy the car. I'm like, your Asian Lightning actually end up buying a car at the dealership. She was Mr. Light or, you know, mystery shopping. Right. I felt the same way with the Lexus. I'm very, very happy we got it.

But here's a question. The car insurance. Okay, I'm retired military, so I've been with USA for almost 40 years or GEICO. everything is getting outrageously expensive. Someone said Costco had auto insurance. And I always forget to ask Costco around there, but I know you guys are very loyal Costco people. Do you know anything about any way of saying on auto insurance and staying age?

I'll look it up, but I wouldn't be surprised when you walk out of Costco, you walk through like an aisle of Costco programs and things that you could do. Yeah, oh, I know. I wouldn't be surprised, but I haven't heard of it. Okay. Let's see. I guess that's about it. It's always a pleasure. Again, wherever we go, Earl Stewart brings such an absolute, you know, everyone has always positive things to say. That's like here.

Thanks for spreading the word. You guys have a good weekend. We appreciate you. Thank you. Let me see. Want to get to Rick? Just a real quick one here. Donovan says Costco insurance is, no longer in Florida. They left two years ago. They're following all the other insurance companies.

Yeah. Interesting. Deserting us, all of them. Interesting. Okay, we're going to go to Bill in Lake Worth. Good morning, Bill. How are you today? Thank you.

Thank you for calling, Bill. Hi. Good to hear you all back. I had something I wanted to bring up with Earl. Okay. Go ahead. Earl. You got a problem with Earl?

Earl, glad you're well. Hey, I heard you mentioning about the key fob and how you should be able to get the code for that because you own the car. And that got me thinking about something, correct me if I'm wrong, but if I walk into your dealership with a proverbial briefcase full of cash, and I pay you cash money for a car new or used, and I drive out and I own it free and clear, it's mine. It's my understanding in Florida. but you do not get the actual physical paper title to it, that the state holds that in Tallahassee.

Is that right? That's correct. Yeah, it was a, a few years ago. A long time ago, but you can get a paper copy. You can request one and get a physical. Do you have to pay them for that? I don't know. Probably.

I don't think the state does anything for you. I don't really know, but it would be a processing fee of some, so I don't know. It couldn't be much. Yeah, not that it's not. the money's going to make me or break me, but it's just, you know, if I, I'm just wondering if, um, when you go to trade a car in at a dealership, if they charge you for that, not going to, it's no, a chunk fee or anything, but what I'm wondering about is how much money that brings into the state.

A fee for duplicate titles? I think it's 25 bucks. I mean, shoot, um, it's about 25 bucks, I'm thinking, um, it's, it would add up to a lot. I would imagine them, I mean, you, you, you, you scale it up. millions, not millions, but thousands. I don't think it would be like a huge revenue source, but, you know, they're making some money. If you're thinking of, you know, I'd have to be able to prove to you that I own it, right? I think usually in the course, I mean, the reason I'm just saying, I mean, individually you might run in a situation where that's, you know, it's important.

Just our dealership, man, we're doing, you know, 3,000 plus car sales a year. And it's really, that's kind of the way it's done now. It's like everything else is just, you know, the title of ownership is just information. And that's, you know, if all the computers break down, we're all screwed. But right now, it's all, go ahead. Earl's got, I'll have something. Yeah, Florida charges $2.50 for a paper title. Duplicate title.

Okay, yeah. Okay, I was wrong on the 25 bucks. Maybe that's because Janet's been lying to me all these years and how expensive it was. You lost the title? That cost $25. You know how many titles I've lost? none so when the cars come from the manufacturer how they send the title straight to tallahassee or how does that no new cars come in they don't they're not titled yet because they're

new so they come in a match manufacturer's statement of origin called an mso and that's uh that's also held securely and it's electronic as well but there are copies of msos and then once it's titled the dealerships title clerk will go through the process of uh with the state of titling it for you Now, you could get bogus junk fees that a dealership might charge you saying that they're titling fees because they mark these up with, you know, private tag agency and all this other stuff. But the actual cost is negligible. The crime comes from the dealers, not the state. Donovan on YouTube says that he just recently got a title from the DMV in Port St. Lucie, and he said it was $10. and he had to have his registration and identification.

Yep. There you go. But you know what? You could also buy a new car if the dealership, you know, so they might charge you the $10 or $20, but you could ask them that for the paper title when you get a new car. Yeah, the in-person fast title service is $10. Mail and request is $2.50. And online request is $4.50. So that's more than anybody wants to know.

No, but, I mean, it's thorough. And that's chat GBT. I knew that. I didn't know. I know that was chat GPT. Chat GBT. We've been talking about chat GBT. Today's is Saturday, I think.

It's been a part of our lives. But you and I. If I woke up tomorrow morning and found out chat GBT left town, I would be totally depressed. I never used it before, but now this last month, you know, it's just I'm addicted and I'm speaking to her. all the time I like to see you have other callers I know you have other callers I'll let you guys go thanks Bill thank you all back stay in touch thank you so much

we've got Jonathan do we have time to get to Stu and yeah man I'll go fast because there's one thing I wanted to bring up it's time for the news and did anybody hear the story of the guy this happened in Utah It was in December It's still recent enough to call it news A guy buys a He goes to Sandy Utah

He goes to this Mazda dealership Tim Dali Mazda In Sandy Utah And he buys this car from the dealership Several hours later He changes his mind He wants to bring it back And he says

He returned to request his money back This is hours after he took delivery We return the vehicle He had bought however staff advised Murray They had bought the vehicle As is and the vehicle cannot be returned in exchange for his money back. Mary told the manager that since they're not going to give him his money back,

he was going to drive his vehicle through the front doors of the showroom. So the guy walked out of the building, got into his newly purchased vehicle, and he, true to his word, he drove it, smashed it through the thing. Salespeople were jumping out of the way, and then he gets out of the car. There's a video for it, and if you look up the story, it's insane, and it's something that, oh, we never worried about that, but I'm surprised it doesn't happen more. off and you know uh there's been movies uh you remember a Cadillac man with robin way um that had nothing to do with a car sale but still you know the idea of um

dramatic scenes at a car another great movie all right once you get it i know we have some texts coming in rick can get to us you get we will pull up our text thing again i put rick on the spot he wasn't ready i have a computer this week i mean i could but yeah that's what's different i kind of like you doing it that's what's different i was wondering it was sitting that you haven't had your computer i know right now the only one we got in is from debby in west palm beach and she says welcome back guys good to hear you all oh i think we got one from memory yeah we actually read annemaries earlier oh you did yeah okay good did you give her good answer we were a little he had of you there did you all the answer a lot

of information about key fobs and getting key fobs duplicated the last batch was late last year i think. All right, we're good. All right. Amory, you're good. Let's go to another anonymous feedback. This one came in from Bob Green. I'm just kidding. We don't know it came from. Every tire should be dated

just like an invoice, voice, or a bill or a carton of milk. That was me. No encrypted codes. Just the date like we're used to seeing. And they're referring to the fact that to read the manufacturer date of a tire. It's a long series of numbers, and it's not

standard date format that anybody would recognize so you have to learn how to interpret it and if you ever want to you call in rick and tell you again because we keep telling people and it's not easy to remember well it's it's actually a pretty simple set of it's what you're looking for the last four digits and you really don't even need to worry about the the first two of the pair because that's the the number of the week of the year okay so the higher the number the later in the year but those last two digits is the year that's the last two digits of the year that that tire was made so pretty much that's that's the main ones you're looking for yeah if it says 19 that tire was made in 2019 okay says 24 the tire was made in 2012 this is the test of my memory let's bring it up again in a couple of weeks yeah and see if I remember it because that's really easy the government employee that came up with that yeah has a disease mind probably has a fire It doesn't have to be so complicated. I think part of the reason why they did this this way is to try to keep things uniform.

And the main reason being, if you think about it, internationally globally. Well, if you think about the way we here in America will write a date. Yeah, it's done differently in UK, it's done differently in Japan. Today is 0301-2025, whereas in Europe it would be 0103. how many digits is that whole number though the whole digit a whole series can be up to eight or ten numbers they could put all every date format right because that actual do t there's space for that identifies the the manufacturer of the tire and even as information for which plant it was made in yeah and then has just those last four i'm gonna cut you off

because you i just i just dozed off okay let's let's move on to the next anonymous feedback. Well, yeah, but listen, before we do that, I have to get in my comment. Nancy and I talk about it every time we come into the studio for the radio show, and that is autonomous. Autonomous driver. And I'm a test pilot, and Nancy is also a test pilot, because we each have, you know, Tesla's that we drive. So it's hard to explain, if you're interested in autonomy in a car. the feeling that you have when you are a guinea pig. Yeah, you're a guinea pig. That's me.

I'm in the front seat of the cyber truck, passenger side. Guinea pig. Now think about this. Here's why I love our autonomous testes. They do things safer and that I do. Most of the time. Things I'm incapable of doing, they they see better than I do they hear better than I do

and now file that away in your mind Stu just raises his hand I have a question now okay the other side the other side of this long long sentence I'm making is a fact that it also does some crazy things so when you drive it and you like it you have to say part of it you are different than I am

as driver and you're and you're the good things you do Mr. Autonomous I don't weigh the bad things. It's hard to accept that. It's like what I do when my wife drives. Well, that's a different story. Everybody's different. But this will drive away or terrify any drivers out there

are thinking about buying autonomous car. We came to the studio this morning. It's about the tape and the driveway. No, no. The blocked off driveway area? No, no. The two cones that were. Yeah, they're coming in.

There's tape. Yeah. So it was totally. confused by the two cones and then drove over to another street and proceeded the wrong way on a one way street on the other side of the so it does say it did something yesterday too that was crazy but it also does some things that you think about you know i wouldn't have known that child was there it'll no it'll see i know it'll see a child behind your car that you could not see in the rearview mirror you could not see the backup camera you're saving lives yeah and you're saving

There's a lot of good points with what you're talking about. Eight cameras. When I pulled into the studio late today, the normal drive is blocked off with these cones. And the first thing I thought of, because I looked over, I could see the parking lot. I saw you guys were there. I'm like, I wonder how auto self-driving handled this cone thing. I did what it did. I went into the oncoming wrong way just because I wanted to get in.

So I did the same thing I think your cyber truck did. What was the only way to get in? Either that or to totally reroute. I mean, how smart is a cyber drive? You're very smart. You're a good driver. So the cyber truck did exactly what you do. We chose the exact path.

Same path. Hey, Earl, have you seen the video of a Tesla that's going through a cemetery and the camera shows there's nobody visible but on the TV screen for the car it's picking up people on the side of the road? Yeah, I'm sure that's real.

I'm just saying. Maybe there's going to be. smarter than we are. Oh, it's picking up ghosts? It's actually showing figures like there are people on the road, but when the camera looks up. I'm going to put you on front street right now, Rick.

Do you believe in ghosts? I do. Okay. That's what I used to do when I was in high school. Throw a little balls at me. Hey, interesting information, Rick. Sorry to Russia, but we have got to get to muffin. And you know who muffin is.

That is a terrier. It's a, excuse me, mixed terrier. And let me say a few things about Big Dog Ranch where muffin is staying and has been out there for, you know, for a while. And that is that Big Dog Ranch is the largest cage-free, no-kill, dog rescue organization in the United States. Weather is beautiful. You should go out and take a walk around. And they were founded back in, I think it was 2008, and they've rescued, they had to have rescued over maybe 75,000 dogs. And just recently, they just brought in, I think it was from Missouri, Yuan, you were listening to the same thing.

And they got these Yorkies that they brought in. and of course they're mixed and it was so well enlightening they were so cute they had them on TV and well my point is that you know they need to be rehomed and they need someone to adopt them they need to find a loving and safe forever home so with all of that said as I said the weather's great a great time to go out there to take a walk around go to puppy land my friend favorite place, and they've got the veterinarians out there. They've got so much that they use to take care of these poor dogs that they, well, come in contact with from China, Puerto Rico. I could just name a dozen different locations that these dogs come from, and they're not in

great shape, let me put it to you that way, and Big Dog Ranch gets them. up and running around and healthy again so we're going to show you a video of muffin and muffin has some restrictions she she she prefers to be the only animal in the house first of all and she doesn't like cats and she likes to cuddle and she's she's going on a leash and uh she's a high energy as you can imagine she's 47 pounds three years old and she's a terrier mix male and she's right there at big dog he is right there at big dog ranch for you to take a look at okay jonathan want to roll that tape thank you how you guys doing i'm joseph i'm work here at big dog ranch for the past eight months and this is muffin who's been here twice as long as me for about a year and a half

now a little bit over. He is a very sweet job, very timid and calm and relaxed. He came here with a shattered arm. We had it surgery removed, obviously, and he's been doing great ever since. He loves to cuddle, loves to lay down, loves to play, and sunbathe. Right, most of you? There you have it. And let me mention Earl's book. Confessions of a covering car dealer and that you can go to Amazon. You can go to Earl on Cars and purchase the book. And it really has a lot of information in it that you can use any time, all the time. Next year, it doesn't matter.

And when was it, when was the book? First published? One was it first? Yeah, published. 2012. 2012. So, you know, my point is, does at the book, put it up on the shelf. if you can have it forever.

It is just so much information. What do you think about muffin? Look, I mean, she... He is really cute. He is a tripod. He's got missing a leg. But very cute. He needs a special home.

She's very sweet. I know they said the cats might be a problem. I think maybe with the missing a leg, maybe it's not a problem. I mean, cats are pretty quick. I'm just saying. Yeah. Or maybe the cat was the reason he's only got three legs.

That's possible. I thought about that too. But anyway, yeah, if you go adopt Muffin or any of our other sponsored dogs, we pay the adoption fees. And that gets up there a little bit sometimes. We're trying to remove barriers and make it easier to adopt dogs. So like Nancy said, go out there and visit. It's a wonderful place. They love having visitors.

You can get a little tour and see Puppy Town. And it's really cool what they have going on out there. entire setup just to get dogs in there, get them healthy, and get them homes. Yeah, absolutely. And I didn't mention earlier that Muffin has a microchip, and also the adoption fee has been reduced to $225. And there's just all the reason in the world to go out and take a look at Muffin's face. Isn't he cute? He's just like a little dull. It's a kisser. okay we are going to get to our mystery shopping report and let me share with you the text number where you can vote on the mystery shopping report at 772-4976530 and also you can go to a good dealer bad dealer list.com and just well check out what is available out there for

for you. Okay. That mystery shopping report is from Napleton Jeep. Napleton Jeep. These are all new. These haven't been aired before. We're just a couple of weeks behind when we were off the air, but we kept doing the mystery shops. And I think we still have a couple more to go. Oh, that's good. So this is only a few weeks old, so it's still very relevant. This actually was done on the 13th of January, so about six weeks ago. Yeah. So you want to stay too. for the mystery shopping report from Napleton Jeep and Agent Lightning did a great job again. And as I said earlier, 772-497-6530, you can cast your vote there on the mystery shoppering report, which is Napleton Jeep.

Okay, Mr. Recovering Car Dealer, what do you have for us? Well, as our regular listeners know, Napleton is, One of the most, what's the word? Notorious? You can't say that on the air. Notorious. Jonathan's using bad language. He's so bad that he's actually

have Attorney General offices after him. He's paid fines, but nothing phases him. And he's probably got 50 dealerships in the country. And so if he has to pay a million dollar fine, that's junk change. He didn't have to worry anymore because I'm sure he's. So I just want to give you this head. A lot of the dealerships are in Florida, but he's around the whole United States.

I'm going to read this mystery shopping report of Napleton Jeep, and the first person is if I were Agent Lightning, the actual mystery shopper. I arrived around lunchtime and walked around the lot looking at the Jeep Wranglers before heading inside. No one approached me, so I went to the front desk. A young lady greeted me with a smile, welcomed me. I said, I'd like to talk to someone for more information on the Jeep 4x-E-S. I've been... Four-X-E's. Four-X-E's, yeah, 4X-E-E-S.

Four X-E's, okay. She really picked up her phone page for any available salesperson to come to the front. A few minutes later, a salesman came over, extended his hand, introduced himself as Joe. Where is this, Sue? Where is this, Napleton Jeep? On North Lake Boulevard. North Lake, okay, yeah. Because he's got so many cars.

Yeah. Car stores, I wasn't sure. And I showed him the Jeep I've been looking at online and mentioned that I saw it discounted. He stopped me right away and said, I want to explain that the online pricing shows every available rebate combined. Now, this is unusual.

I'll just give you a little thing that they would say that. You might not qualify for all of them. Are you still interested? Now, I digress a bit from the actual reading of the report, but the thought occurred to me that somehow word may have trickled down to the sales forces that Napleton had been fined by the Florida Attorney General about the only dealership that's ever been fined, I think, by the Attorney General. And in some other states, Napleton is so bad in the way he treats his customers around the country

that if you see a dealer that's being actually reprimanded by a government agency, it's probably enabled him. I mean, that's how bad he is. At any rate, this disclosure about the online pricing and what's included, what's not. I think it might have been actually covered by a manager somewhere, because the same thing happens in every other dealership, we missed a shop and they don't ever mention that back to reading the report I replied yes I'd like to see the pricing yes would you like would you like me to

get the keys yes I said Joe returned a few minutes later and asked me to follow in to the Wrangler he mentioned that there were boxes in the back and wasn't sure if they were for this particular Jeep or if they were just big stored there I offered to remove them if I wanted to see the back seats but I told them I already knew what they look like. I was more interested in the 4xE aspect. The seats could stay folded for now. We went for a short test drive on the back roads of North Lake Boulevard. Once we returned to the dealership, Joe suggested showing me a regular Jeep as well for comparison. He grabbed the keys for a model with a power roof that slid all the way

back. This one was not a 4XE and pointed out the differences between the two. Then we went inside to his desk so he could speak with one of his managers and get me pricing on both models. I waited about 12 to 15 minutes. A big Instacart order popped up for me. I asked... I want to interject here because that might be confusing. Agent Lightning also does some work as an Instacart shopper. And so she got a notification that there was something important for her to get. There's a job waiting for us. and now time, now the clock's ticking. Yeah, very good.

I read that, the thought never occurred to me. But thank you. I didn't know she was doing this with Instagart. Yeah. He said, they're a bit busy, but it should be soon. I didn't see many people around, but I waited another eight minutes, then I went over to him again,

asked if it was almost ready. He said he believed so. I told him, I have to run to do this order, but I'll be back in about 30 or 40 minutes. And you have it ready for me then? He said, sure, so I left. About 40 minutes later, I returned to Fland Joe still sitting at his desk. He apologized, admitted he still didn't have the numbers.

He said he'd check with his sales manager. When he came back, he asked, am I, yeah, you're good. When will he be able to come back for, say, another hour or two? We could get this done. Now, this is all kind of silly. And one of the reasons I'm chocolate and students chocolate is we're imagining what would happen if they did that at our dealership to actually have a customer leave promise you they'll be back shortly and the simple question they asked you hadn't done a damn thing about it. So this isn't about transparency or honesty. It's about poor salesmanship. So we sometimes get emotionally involved with that. back. Yeah, I replied, I'm not coming back to sit for another hour or two, waiting for a price. I've already been here for an hour, left for 40 minutes, and all I want is the pricing on the two jeeps that I'm interested in.

He said he understood and went to talk to a sales manager. I overheard him say, she's back. Lisa didn't say like, she's back. Yeah, and as I say, we're reacting as car dealers, though. Yeah, sorry. This ain't funny at all. You know, it's not funny for business. Whether you're buying tires or TV sets or houses, this is not salesmanship, folks.

You don't treat customers this way. After a few more minutes, I walked in the sales manager area and asked if this going to take much longer. I said I was happy to go elsewhere. If I couldn't get a quick price, they insisted they were working on it. That's a lot of work to give you a price on the car. The price is on the window shield or the window.

It's like they're mining Bitcoin for the price. Then a sales manager named Marcos came out. Markos said the price will be whatever the internet price is plus sales tax. Whoa. I mean, imagine that. The price that you advertise is really the price that I pay. Okay, we'll see. I stopped him and said, your salesperson told me the internet price may vary.

And it could be anywhere between. between the internet price and MSRP, depending on which discounts I qualify for. Okay, Marcos then told me he'd only been here for four months in the sales manager's position. But as far as he knew, the price was the internet price plus sales tax. The dealer fee, okay, here we go. And a new place.

Sounds like this guy, this new manager, Marcos, thought the dealer fee was a government fee, a legitimate fee. That's the most charitable way of looking at this. Yeah, yeah, and he, you know, he added that he would talk to a sales associate. He then asked if I knew the difference between the two jeeps. I replied, yes. One is a 4x E, and the other is a regular.

I still don't know the difference between these two jeeps. The four-X-e is a hybrid, I think. Is a plug-in hybrid. Electric hybrid and regular. Okay, yeah. Do you know the difference of the doors? I said, what do you mean? Come with me, let me show you.

By the way, real quick, that sounds innocuous right now. What he's doing, this is in sales technique. This is called slowing down the customer. He's going to focus off the price and back on the product. Yeah, slow them down, slow them down. Don't let them leave. So we walk back out to the Jeep so we could point out the boxes in the back. I already knew about them.

I said so these are the half doors Joe wasn't sure about. Marcos confirmed, yes. I was a bit annoyed at that point. So there's no real difference in the doors, than the 4xE comes with an extra set of haftors, which I was already interested. Marcos asked for my phone number to text over the pricing sheets. I asked him to email them to me instead, since I need to print them out and look them over. He agreed and said he'd do a full breakdown and understood that I was in a hurry and I left.

Eventually I received an email attachment that just included some handwritten numbers at the bottom. No full breakdown. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled. So they're on it. He took their printouts of the Menroney label that they hand wrote on one. So for the non-X-S-E, the one that we're looking at, it just says 51,675 plus plus, and then underneath that the total amount out the door, 57092. and without getting into the details it's pretty easy to see that clearly they have about a

thousand dollar dealer fee in there and they have some other ones in there because um sales tax on $51,000 are on $3,000 so there's another there's some other stuff in there and I didn't do the math I can just look at it and tell you that it's it's a lot and then the other one was the same thing same was it for the excess for the XSE one and that was 54,000 plus Plus, plus, $6,000 later, you're off the door at $60,046. So that's the shop. Yeah, there it goes, folks. And I say mainly for our new listeners, this is, we're great on the curve.

And this is not considered an atrociously bad report when you consider the competition and other car dealers, especially South Florida. We're great on the curve. If you're going to vote, we don't like to see too many A's or too many Fs because it kind of distorts the reality of the way cars are big sold all over the country. If we have an A, we're really excited and happy. Yeah, and we have. We have had A's, you know.

Yeah. So we are, you know, we're voting, you know, on these mystery shopper reports. Very, I feel we're being very fair. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd love to hear from you. How about how you feel about this mystery shopper report? You want to vote? Go to 772-4976530. Rick?

Well, let's see. We got Frank here first from Jupiter Farms. He says, as soon as I heard Napleton, I immediately cringed. I thought, yeah, I immediately fainted. I think Frank probably intended that it's an F. Bob and Maryland says it could have been a good grade, but my online grading system doesn't qualify for any of the rebates. Oh, my God. So it's an F.

And let's see, here we go over on the YouTube channel. Donovan says, that's a complete waste of time. F. Tim Gillilands says customer service at its worst. Adios, goodbye, farewell, F. Johnny Z. Freidly says, I tried to give it. a D minus minus, minus, but my finger would only press F. Neo Shazam says D minus. They eventually gave a price, overpriced, and really took their time

to give it. Brian said, Latko, can you wait an hour for my vote? F. Mark H. D minus, dazed and confused, trying to wear the customer down when you can come back and sit for two hours. Mark Smith says, D-minus. No way, Napleton. And for me, I'm going to say, D-minus, they're not quite as egregious, nasty like we've seen in the past. They may have learned a little bit. Yeah, maybe.

Or maybe they're just falling apart and slipping. Before you give in your final, because we have a couple more, I influence you, Roadrunner, Steve says, I was in a good mood today. I give a C, beep, beep, he's in a real good movie. And then Jonathan and Palm Coast popped in, this dealership gets a well-deserved F. I call him as I hear him. Nice.

Or you. You're doing a D? Yeah. A D for you. Yep. The best thing that happened in the shopping report was when the salesperson alluded to the way they handled the rebates in the pricing.

And like my dad said, I think that's probably, because they either that salesperson didn't want to go down with them. Hey, I told them about it. Or maybe it's a directive from management. I don't know. So that was nice. The rest of it, like everybody says,

was a complete waste of time for Agent Lightning. Anybody else who was a real buyer, I don't think would have given them that much time. It certainly wouldn't have left, come back off. It's just crazy. And it's as bad as it gets, I think. I mean, it doesn't have a giant markup label. It doesn't have some of the most, like the fireworks of it.

But this lazy, and I'm sorry, guys, it was a lazy sale right there, what you guys were doing. And it was bad for the customer, and then you throw in all your other junk. You got a D from me. And we just got a few more. My second channel here was lagging a little bit. Nican 1 says, F, seems like not giving a number breakdown so they won't get in trouble. Tom Steckle says, F, quintessential, Navelton. No disclosure of junk fees and inability to provide a quick price.

Totally unacceptable. T-Cash says with everything I hear about Chrysler, Jeep, Ram, Stilantis these days, I would guess nobody qualifies for the loyal customer discounts. F. Joseph Kelleherd D-minus grading on the curve. And Mark Smith says, I give him a D-minus. No way, Napleton. And Guy Larrabee says,

nothing ever changes at Napleton, a big fat F. All right. Established 1937. Yep. Here's a little tidbit while you guys are reading out the reports on

the votes, I mean. I went to Chatch EBT, my new twin brother, I've adopted him. And I asked, Chatch EBT is Ed Appleton regarded as an honest and transparent dealer. I haven't got time on the air to read everything here.

They're kind of wording sometimes. I'll take you down to the conclusion, which is, let's see here, while some customers have had positive experiences with Enable to dealership, there have been significant legal challenges and customer complaints related to their business practices. Prospecting buyers are advised to conduct thorough research and exercise due diligence when considering transactions with this dealership group. There's a State Department warning for it enabled. So, you would have never gotten this on Google. And I know I sound like I'm a stockholder and chat CBT. I wish I was, but I'm not.

But seriously, folks, chat CBT is the new Google and the better Google. And there are others. This happens to be the leading artificial intelligence source for information. But, you know, before you do anything, before you buy a box of, Cheerios before you buy insurance before you buy a car. Go to Chad CBT and they will give you the facts. So we got some folks. We need we need Nancy's grade and we need your grade. Oh that's right. I it's a Naples store. I have to give it a C minus. Oh generous. But it's not Florida. Hey I kind of want to say real quick for your grade this one

this will not influence you at all. I just I did go Google. the same thing. Is Napleton considered an honest car dealership? It's still pretty good results. It doesn't concern it, but the first thing is watch out for Napleton. It's on Reddit and then horrible experience. FTC takes action. BBB complaints. Auto dealer in Naples find $10 million. So all the results are pretty bad. Very much so. I don't know. Where do I begin? I'll make this brief. I give them an F. I just want to alert the audience that, you know, under a destination fee, a market adjustment fee, VIN etching, and you can look for this one also.

Dazed and Confused fee, that's right there on that list. So that just tells you something about this mystery shopping report. So unnecessary, so unnecessary, you know, with the environment the way it is now. And, you know, how difficult it is out there. I don't think there's anything that Napleton will say or do that would appease me, would calm me down. I just, they have so much making up to do for their ridiculous way of selling to the consumer, taking advantage of them, you know, hijacking them in a dealership. So I digress. Almost makes me want to take out my mugshot of Mapleton that I have in my favorite pictures.

Oh, that's in the post office. You haven't been in the post office. That's probably hitting below the belt, but, you know, he was... It's fun. He was arrested and booked for DUI, but... He's a big boy, and he played his game, and this is called Punching Up. Yeah. He's a billionaire. Come on.

Yeah. There you go. All right. Okay. What are we on? Is that a show? Were we done? Jonathan.

We have four minutes. I've got four minutes left. What would you like to? Let's take the automotive news. You and I spend some time on that this morning. I'm proud of automotive news because they, if you've been listening to the show, where our car's for a long time,

you know that they always took the dealer's side, that everything was strictly biased. And it makes a lot of courage. The advertisements and the sales, and the subscriptions to automotive dues are by car dealers, mainly, and all auto manufacturers. So the editorial slant now to the automotive news is actually in favor of the consumer. And they're basically saying that, you know, if car dealers don't get their act together and start treating the 21st century consumer properly,

you're going to cease to exist a lot sooner than probably will happen anyway. And I think automotive news is maybe looking selfishly at themselves because there ain't going to be no automotive news if there are no automobile dealers. And the way things are tracking right now, you're going to have Amazon, and you're going to be buying vehicles online, and the car dealers will cease to exist as we know them today.

And since I've been a car dealer since 1968, that saddens me. I mean, that's my whole life pretty much. It's been what I'm doing as a gar dealer. It is disappointing. Thank you for your response. And I can see by the clock that we are out of time. I want to thank everyone for joining us this morning.

We so enjoy your company. Stay tuned next week. Same time. Right here on the Oldies Channel, Earl on Cars. Have a wonderful weekend.