Earl Stewart on Cars - 03.03.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Off Lease Only

Episode Date: March 3, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits Off Lease Only to purchase a car with a Takata Airbag recall. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.trueoldiesfla.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. “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”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars. This is not a musical show, by the way. I know you're listening to the True Oldies channel, and it's a great channel. I love it myself.

It's my kind of music. But what you're listening to now is Earl Stewart on Cars, which is a live radio talk show. That's right. We're right here in the studio while you're listening to us. And by we, I mean a team of auto experts here to answer all your questions about cars. I am a bit immodestly refer to myself as an expert because I've been in the car business since 1968. I am in full disclosure still a car dealer, but you're not listening to an infomercial. You'll hear no reference to my dealership. I'm not going to try to sell you a car at all.

I'm trying to give you information to help you buy the car of your choice, repair, maintain the car of your choice. Everything you might have in a way of a difficulty about going out into the car dealer world. And whether you're repairing or maintaining or buying or leasing, it can be a bit of a drag, bit of a challenge. And that's documented by a study that I refer to every week on this show to add validity to what I'm saying. It's a Gallup annual poll on honesty and ethics and professions. That annual poll documents, since 1977, by the way, 40-some-odd years, since 1977 car dealerships have ranked at the bottom or very near the bottom of the annual poll on honesty and ethics and professions.

It's kind of a shameful thing. It's shameful to me personally because, as I say, I am a car dealer and I have been for a long, wrong time. So I don't like the idea of my profession being looked at so negatively by most all Americans, but they do. And so this show, Earl Stroned Cars, is a way to make that right. And we've been on the air for over 10 years. And we listen to you. We listen to your suggestions, your criticisms, your personal experiences. Those are particularly interesting. We also like to hear from you that can identify a good car dealer out there. We know they're good car dealers. It's just not enough of them. In fact, we ferret out the good ones and the bad ones

in something called our Mystery Shopping Report. So if you're new to the show, you've got to stay tuned for this, the Mystery Shopping Report. We go out every week. We're doing this for, as I say, over 10 years, and we visit some car dealership in South Florida, go down as far as Fort Lauderdale. I don't think we've gone to Miami yet. We probably will. We've gone as far north as Vero Beach, but we pretty much covered the South Florida area. And we go in to pretend to buy or lease a car. Sometimes we go in to pretend to maintain or repair a car, usually buy our lease,

and we tell you exactly what happened. We tell it like it is. We name names. We name dealerships, name salesmen, sales managers. The only person we don't name is our secret shopper for fear of retaliation. And car dealers know what we're doing. and we post, and we just started doing this, by the way,

we post our mystery shopping reports online. And, Stu, what is the website for our new mystery shopping report? It is mysteryshoppingreports.com. Uh-huh. Very simple. Easy to remember. I was very amazed that we got that name for our mysteryshopping report.com. Nancy?

I'd like to tell the ladies and gentlemen that if they'd like to be part of the show and you are an important part of the show, give us a call. I'll toll free at 866-960-99-60. Excuse me, that's 877-9-60-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-530. And speaking of the show and the mystery shopping report, I have an announcement to make. Earl Stewart on Cars' podcast is now available on Suncloud.

We've posted all our past shows going back to the beginning of January, so if you can tune in to hear our show live on 95.9, the poem or True Oldies 106.9 on Saturday mornings, or if you've missed any part of our past shows, you can hear them now whenever you want on SoundCloud. Simply download SoundCloud app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. Or you can go to www. SoundCloud.com and search for Earl Stewart on cars. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, thanks, Nancy. That's very exciting. You know, we're really getting sophisticated.

I mean, this is high tech stuff. I love it. SoundCloud. And we've got all of our, what are we called, podcasts. Yeah, podcasts. And they're also going to be available. on the Apple Pod app that you can get with your phone. It comes with your phone if you have an iPhone.

Wow. And so we're going to get it out there. Yeah, it'll be nice because I have so many complaints about missing, you know, our listeners or, you know, our followers missing the show. And why can't they get the show later in the week or when it's convenient for them? And now they can. This whole video thing with our YouTube, by the way, is just absolutely taking, it's going crazy. I'm getting calls all the time now from all around the country. Usually, I mean, they're not picking us up on our blog, and, of course, the newspaper columns that I have.

The radio show, we get some calls from that because you can stream it. But we're actually getting more calls on YouTube, our YouTube channel, than just about anything else. And I'm talking to some people from Pennsylvania. Still, I referred a couple of them to you. Talk to a gentleman from Illinois and also somebody from Ohio yesterday, looking for advice buying a truck up in that area. Yeah. So that's what we do, folks. This is why we're here.

We're here as a service. We're a consumer advocacy show. And I don't know of any other consumer advocacy show. I know on cars. I don't know of any certainly that does a mystery shopping report. I spoke. I always get a laugh every time. I do a lot of public speaking.

And last week I spoke between the Northside Kiwanis Club, a great group of people. And about 50% women, by the way. Nancy couldn't join me. She normally joins me at all my speaking engagements, but she had a little setback with some minor surgery she's totally recuperated from. So I was there at the Kwanis Club, and I always say to the folks at the Kwanis Club that the car dealers hate me because I have these mystery shopping reports. And I said that Bob, never been sued at 10 years, plus I've never been sued. And I said, if there's any lawyers in the audience, you'll back me up on this. And we had one lawyer in the audience. I said, well, tell me if I'm right or wrong.

The perfect defense against liable or slander is the truth. And everybody laughed. So I always get a laugh when I do public speaking. And I talk about why I haven't been sued. And I see Colin from the control room smiling because he's part of this radio station. He doesn't want to see me suit. Nobody in the radio station wants to see me suit because they'd probably be adjoined in the suit. Of course, they have a disclaimer where they claim no responsibility or liability.

But the fact of the matter is these mystery shopping reports are pretty vivid. They're pretty candid. We actually tell the truth. And we have two lists. We have our recommended dealer list. And I recommend you don't buy from this dealer list. And we come about these from the mystery shopping report. So for all you true oldies fans that were listening to this great music and you suddenly got me.

Sorry about that. Well, it's all, yeah, I'm sorry about that. You know, I might do a song or two in the second half of the show. I'm only kidding. By the way, I want to say one thing. If you go to earl-oncars.com, you're going to find links to all those. Our YouTube channel, Mr. Shopping Reports, Good Dealer, Bad Dealer, List.com, check your car for recalls. We've got all the links right there on the first page.

And the I cloud? In the cloud? In the cloud? I think so. I'm not sure. Okay, we'll be sure. If we don't, we'll put it on there. That's a great.

That way you only have to remember one thing, Earl, Stuart on cars. Earl on Cars. And also on YouTube, if you just search Earl on Cars, you're going to find all those videos. Erl on cars, yeah. I mean, we almost have too much information. I get confused about it, but the video is really the coolest

because you really get a lot more of the feel for what we're doing and the more of the detail and it's easier to comprehend. Let me go around the room and talk to the folks here or the studio or just let you know who's here. I got Rick Kearney on my right. Rick Kearney is a genius when it comes to auto mechanics. In fact, he used to be called a mechanic back in the day.

But he's blessing. And then they started calling him a technician. And now his new name is auto computer scientist. And if you haven't bought a car in four or five years, you're in for a real surprise because we don't sell cars anymore. We're selling computers on wheels. I say that a little bit tongue and cheek. But the fact of the matter is that the cars today are so sophisticated

that it takes a guy like Rick to be able to fix them, basically. It's true. The average car right now has 30 to 40 computers in it. Wow, that's amazing. That is amazing. And, you know, if you're a do-it-yourselfer, I'm sorry because you can pop the hood on that car. You can get on your back and climb underneath the car.

You can look all over. You're not going to be able to tell what anything is. anymore cars our computers very very sophisticated and there's some good news and bad news about that and next to Rick Kearney on his right and my right is Nancy Stewart you heard from her a little earlier and she's my co-host she's been with me from the get-go on this thing and she does as I say normally goes to speaking engagements and she's the co-host on this show thank you very much she's also a woman's advocate yes exactly and it's funny you should mention that so I'm to take advantage and follow up here.

Ladies, if you'd like to see me on YouTube, how women can get more respect in a car dealership, I'm still up at Earl. Is YouTube at Earleoncars.com? Earloncars.com. Okay, so you can catch me over there. And ladies and gentlemen, that number again is 877-960, or you can text us. You can text us at 772. 4976530. Remember, you are an important part of the show. We can't thank you enough for joining us on Saturday morning and spending some time with us, and we learn from you, and you learn from us. So give us a call. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

Nancy, you're going to give out any cash today for first-time women callers? It's funny you should mention that ladies, if you didn't receive the past lady winners, if you didn't receive that $50 for us, me, please give me a call and we'll reconnect and you can give me your contact information. As far as the new ladies that are listening to the show, the first two new lady callers can win themselves $50 this morning. Yes, $50. So give us a call. Give us a call and share your information with us. Or you can ask any question at all for any of us to answer. That number again is 877-960 or you can text us to 772-497-60 and we are going to go to Bob who's been holding he's calling us from Lake Park good morning Bob good morning how is every one this morning

we're doing great great it's a beautiful day it is listen I have a I'm having an issue with a service department at the local Ford dealer that's down the street from you Mollinix Okay, yeah, that's it

And, you know, I appreciate the fact that you're always talking about you know, what these car deal is to go in to buy a car and I understand the game but I'm to the point now where I think I would rather pay more money for the vehicle and pay the dealer fee

and have exemplary service to save the money on the deal fee and save a little bit of money on the car and then have a service department that is just a, it's a nightmare over there. Bob, let me ask you a question. How far up the ladder have you gone to register your complaint? Have you spoken to the service manager of the dealership who was in charge of all of the mechanics and technicians

and service advisors? have you spoken to him well they just hide they were they were operating oh they just brought somebody in recently and so he's not really he doesn't really really I don't even think he knows what's going on in there and as far as the services advisors are concerned they've turned over so many service advisors in the last year year and a half I mean you're always dealing with a different person really so you're You can't even build a relationship with anyone. But, I mean, the last time I went in there, I took it in, I had a coupon to get the Mustang done, an oral change, and, you know, the rotate the ties and everything, it's supposed to go through the whole car. And so then I leave it there all day for like five hours, and I come back and pick it up.

And what they did was, first of all, they overcharge me. And I said to them, well, why are you charging me this number four? and they said, well, we had to put six quarts of oil in the car. And the car only takes five. That's the capacity on the car. So they corrected that. They fixed that. I get home with the car, and I noticed that they over-inflated all the tires.

The tires are supposed to be at 32 when they're cold, and all the ties were at 36, 37. They put too much air in the tires. And then just by happenstance, one of my neighbors needed to have a jump a couple days later. So I took the back, there's a cover on the battery. I took the cover off, and the cables are all corroding from the condensation. And, you know, and they told me that when they went through the car, they're supposed to go through everything. And on the paperwork they gave me, the mechanic, who I found out who he was,

he put down there that he thoroughly checked the battery. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know, I know he didn't do that. I don't know what else he didn't do either on the list. Sure. As far as I know, maybe he didn't even change. Well, I have to go, now I have to go and pull the dipstick. Thank goodness is a dipstick on this car.

Because a lot of guys don't even have them anymore. But now I have to go through the car myself and see if you checked everything out. And I tried to talk to the gentleman. I want me to bring the car back on Monday and leave it all day again just to clean the battery cable off. And, you know, and I think so. Bob, your complaints are very valid. And I hear the frustration in your voice, and you're absolutely right. should be very, very unhappy.

I can only say this. From the reputation of Mullinx, we have a good dealer and a bad dealer list. We have a recommended list and a do not buy list. Mullinx is on the better dealer list. Now, I say that, and we say we have to have a good dealer list or a recommended deal list, because if we were absolutely severe in our grading of car dealerships, there wouldn't be anybody on the good dealer list. So Mullinx is not perfect, and they obviously, in your case, they're far from perfect.

My suggestion to you is that you itemize your issues and that you speak to somebody up the ladder. If you can get through to one of the Mullinx owners, there's brothers that own the Mullinx. They have several dealerships. That would be great. If you can get to someone higher up the ladder than whoever you're speaking to, because there are people in the Molinix organization, I believe, that would like to help you and that would like to correct the problems. I mean, to overinflate your tires, to add an extra cord of oil, to say they've inspected your battery and not clean off the corrosion. Clearly, they didn't do it.

You've got some incompetency there, and someone in authority would like to know about that. I think if you did this, you have a good chance with Mullinix to get things corrected with an apology. and they'll probably take a lot better care of you the next time you go back in. The other alternative, and then you'd have to go to Wayne Acres Ford, or you'd have to go to Al Packer Ford or one of the other Ford dealers. You can always go to

a different Ford dealer, for that matter, go to an independent mechanic. But you've got yourself a pretty good dealer there. He's just got some problems he doesn't know about. You've got to talk Larry and Jerry. Larry or Jerry Monix. I'm going to try to meet with the

general manager was not there. yesterday. And I'm going to try to meet with him this week and see what he has to say. This is not the first time. I mean, this is just the latest of what they've done to me over there. You know, it's close by, so I don't really want to have to take the car to Alpaccair. Right. Well, you're far away. You might be out of the frying pan into the fire if you do that. Malnix is a relatively good Ford dealership. Larry and Jerry, write that down. Larry

and Jerry Malnix. And if you were persistent, I believe you can get through to those two guys. But start with the man you've got the appointment with, and then say to him, you spoke to Earl Stewart. He knows Larry and Jerry Mullinix, but you'd rather settle it on a local basis. If he can help resolve it, so that doesn't happen again, you're fine with it. Otherwise, you're going to talk to Larry and Jerry Mullinx and tell him that Earl Stewart told me to Colin. And you'd be surprised, the further up the ladder you go in any business, whether it's a grocery store or a car dealership, the further up the ladder you go, the more likely you are to get a resolve.

You find somebody that really cares and isn't aware of the problems you're having. And you're doing that person a favor by talking to him. He will thank you. If you talk to Larry or Jerry Malnick's, they will thank you for pointing out these things that happen. They don't like it because if it's happened to you, it's happened to dozens of other customers. and they don't hear about it. Okay, that's good tip. Thanks, Earl.

And maybe you can start another list for the service department of the car dealerships and rank them also because if service is extremely important part of the relationship you have after you buy the car. You're absolutely correct, and I've often thought I feel bad about the fact that we don't do more service shops, and I certainly will give that serious consideration. I believe we should do that.

Bob, thanks very much for the call. Hey, would do me a favor, call back in next week and let me know how we'll win. I will. Thank you so much, and you all have a great day. Thank you, Bob. And keep listening, Bob. Your complaint is certainly valid. And, you know, to add a little more fuel to this fire, I had a young lady go over to Malinix last week.

And her vehicle sat in service for three days. They never took a look at it. So Earl's suggestion to her. that we passed along to her that was same, you know, the same suggestion for you to go to Larry or Jerry, and that's what she did, and I'm waiting to hear back from her. So as Earl asked, please give us a call and let us know, update us on your situation. That number is 877-960, and you can text us at 772-497-60, and John has been waiting patiently from Palm City.

Give us, how you doing, John? Fine. Good morning to the entire crew. Thank you for taking my call. Oh, you're welcome. I have two technical questions for Rick. One is the catalytic converter, which came out in 1975. Every American car has to have them on it by law.

Has Rick ever ran across a car, especially a high-mile-car, that needed a new catalytic converter? Oh, yes. Okay, how is it detected? Because we don't have emission checking in Florida, and what are the symptoms that it needs? Is it a computer-related that you find that they're defective? You'll get a check engine light.

What happens is there's basically an oxygen sensor before the catalytic converter and another one afterwards, and the computer reads the signals from both, and if the signal from the back sensor, tells that computer that that catalytic converter is not operating properly, it triggers a check engine, light, gives us a code, and it's very straightforward. It says, replace it. Okay, but they're pretty expensive to replace. Am I not correct than that? Yes, they can be quite expensive.

Have you ever been to court? Somebody told me that the engine wouldn't run. It was stalling so bad, and the catalytic, this is a high mileage car over $200,000. The engine would stall on them, and they went in but listen to this the mechanic that he used didn't replace it he took it off and all those beads and metal that's inside were all loose and he just shaped it and came out and put it back again absolutely illegal sounds like to me right yes it is because you're defeating

the emission system on the car okay I just want to find out you know how you do determine but they don't rot like the old muffler system and exhaust system of years ago. They actually don't rot out from salt, from the salt air or, you know, from rough roads. No. What normally happens is the catalyst inside starts to break down, and it simply doesn't do its job like it should. But it's an emission thing, and it's only in extreme cases. Would anybody see an actual symptom from it?

but other than that it's only going to it'll set off that check engine light and they can be quite expensive to replace so it's something that you'd want to get checked out by a couple places make sure of the diagnosis and get a couple different prices on repair okay well well earl is you know old and i'm two years older than him when they first come out they were nothing but a headache i had a 75 Chevy caprice and at the beginning when they came out they had a sofa smell that came out to him. And under warranty on my car, they replaced it twice. And then to make it worse, I had a driveway that had grass in the center part of it,

concrete driveway, and actually it would set grass on fire. So what they did, they put the heat shields on it. I remember that, yeah. Yeah, John, they're so expensive to replace that some people with older cars really have to make a decision of conscience when they realize they've got to replace a catalytic converter because a car might not be worth as much as a converter. So that leads to the question, what do I do? Do I trade it in?

Do I sell it? Do I keep on driving it? But, you know, if you got a car worth $800, you don't want to spend $1,000 to fix it. And some people just, unfortunately, elect the fact to keep on driving it. They'll drive okay, but they just are violating the law, the federal law. And that's fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, we do not have emission checks here in many parts of the country they do but we don't so you can get away with it only you know that that check engine line is on and only you know that your catalytic converter is bad so let your conscience be your guide

well second question i have is a friend of mine the key fob i guess you'd call it a key fob but the uh the sensor is built into the key the cause 10 years old and i looked at it and i said to him you need a battery because the LED, the red LED light, was not operating, which probably would show was the battery. So it was the battery. He put a brand new battery in, but then it was beyond that. The sensor

that that operates in the car was gone. Is that in different positions, that somebody could do that themselves on some cars? His was a SUV, and the sensor to that was in the rear tail light, above, uh,

not the tail light, the license plate light, but it was a plug-in like a bulb, and it got complicated because the entire panel on the rear deck had to be taken off but put this plug-in sensor. Are these sensors or computer, whatever you want to call it? Are they in all different places on different model cars? Yes, they are. As a matter of fact, if it's what's called a smart key car, there can be as many as six or eight different sensors throughout the car to pick up that key in various locations. Wow. So there could be one inside each door, one inside the car, one in the trunk. Yep, there's quite a few. Well, his is a 10-year-old car. It was just one involved, and I'd say

it was in the rear deck, you know, on the trunk that lit for the vehicle, and it was, you know, a small part, but it's not so easy. You don't put it in yourself because the entire panel had to be taken off in the interior. Right. All right. Well, do they go often? No. Very, very seldom does an internal sensor go bad on those. It's usually the key itself, the battery in it, or, and I'm going to actually kind of throw Mr. Scotty Kilmer under the bus a little bit. Remember that guy on YouTube that kept saying, put your remote in the refrigerator? Yeah.

Well, anybody that wears glasses, like Stu, Earl and myself, when you've been in your car and you've got that AC set, nice and cold, and then you step out into a nice floor today and your glasses fog up instantly. Imagine that same thing is occurring with that key remote. When you take it out of your refrigerator and you walk outside, that condensation immediately collects inside in little tiny amounts, and it starts to corrode those little circuit boards in there. So that's something you want to be careful not to do that, but it's usually going to be one of the key remote itself or just a simple battery in it.

By the way, the battery, the simple battery, he works in Indian Town. He went to a place called Batteries and Bowls, and they put the battery in a no-charge, you know, the small battery that goes into it. And the funny thing about it, they give a lifetime guarantee on that battery on any one of their franchises. But I said to him, wait a minute, lifetime warranty, you got the car ready 10 years, how much longer you think you're going to keep it. Yep. But if it's good to know, it was very nice.

to him and they, you know, didn't charge him, and he actually put the battery in that keyfoam. Yep. John, thanks for the call. Thanks so much for being poor of the show, John. Keep on listening, and we appreciate you being so dedicated to us. We'll talk to you again next

week. We are going to go to Tina, who's been holding, and Tina also is a regular. She's calling from Benita Springs. Good morning, Tina. Hi, guys. How are you doing? Doing great. Hey, Tina. I was just thinking about the big picture, a big part of the problem in purchasing the car and having it

being on a deal. I know that Florida Auto Dealers Association, I think that's the name. A lot of dealers, of course, are members of this, but, Earl, I wanted to ask you specifically, how heavily does FADA lobby the government? That's their whole purpose, Tina. A lot of people think of it as some sort of an auto dealers association where we get around and talk about how to fix cars and how to make our guns. customers happy. We don't do anything like that. All we talk about, and I say we, I used to be a director of the association, and I was also in the executive committee, so I really know exactly what goes on there. It's a lobbying organization. We make as much money as we can through vendor relationships. All the car dealers that are members of FADA have, And that's probably 95% of all the car dealers in Florida. You almost have to be a member of FADA.

You use the vendors that FADA recommends, and then the vendors kick back money to the Florida Automobile Dealers Association. And, of course, you have the dues that we pay, and we also have PAC committees that we contribute. So we give lots and lots of monies to FADA, and FADA gives lots and lots of money to the, folks that are running for political office. Our Attorney General, Pam Bondi, she got elected largely through the efforts of the FADA. All of the state representatives and senators are either on the

we approve, if they like car dealers, they're going to take care of car dealers, you scratch my back, they get donations. If not, they don't get donations. And then also, you have the National Automobile Dealers Association that doubles up on the ante when it comes to contributions. So if FAADA They ask NADA to help local candidates. They get that kind of help. So it's a little bit like a National Rifle Association. Exactly. It's a very, very, very powerful lobbying organization.

And unfortunately, the people they're trying to help are the car dealers, not the consumers, not the car buyers. I was just going to say that very thing, that people have to understand that NADA and FADA are not consumer-oriented at all. They are strictly for the dealer. Exactly. You never have been. Exactly. It was really terrible. They never did take a consumer, a pro-consumer thing on the Takata airbag issue.

And their only concern was the car dealers. They had no concern whatsoever for the buyers of the cars with the Takata Airbag. So the car dealers are in the, you know, they're in business to make money. And the FADA is their boy. And the FEDA takes care of them. and the idea is to enhance their profits. That's the end of the conversation. Yeah.

And a totally unrelated question, this is for Rick, but there's a very small part of an automobile that's also one of the most important, and that is the PC valve, and could you explain exactly what that does and why it's so important to change it on a regular basis? The PCV valve, yep, that's been around for many years, and it's the positive crankcase ventilation valve,

and basically all it does is it takes the vapors in the crank case of the engine down where the oil is and all the moving parts and it brings those oil vapors up into the engine to be burned rather than allowing those pressurized vapors to go out into the atmosphere creating an emissions issue and that valve can become plugged up over time that's why they recommend having it changed out every couple of years just so you don't have a any issues with it beginning to plug up and seize up and what that can do is the temperature increases in the engine those pressures can build up a little bit and it actually starts to force that oil vapor out past the seals and makes the seals leak a little bit so that's why it's a good idea to replace that every so often you know Tina Tina I've been I've been in the car business for almost 50 years and I had no idea what a positive crankcase ventilation So thank you very much for answering that question for our listeners and for this car dealer.

Oh, no problem. Thanks, Tina. Thanks so much. You guys have a great morning. Thank you. I hope you had another question. You're such a great caller. We love to have you call, Tina.

Do I have another question? I don't think so. My biggest question was the NAD and the FADA. Well, I appreciate it. Well, if you think another one, call back in, we love you. Okay. much love you guys to have a wonderful morning. Bye-bye. Thanks, Tina.

Thanks, Tina. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-960, or you can text us at 77272-49-7-6-5-30. And Earl has a great blog in not only the hometown news, but the Florida Weekly that you can pull up at Earleoncars.com if you didn't pick up the Florida Weekly or the hometown. news and the name of that column is beware of the phony monrooney a great great article also i'd like to repeat what i told you this when we first aired this morning the earl stewart on cars podcast is now available on sound cloud we posted all of our past shows going back to the beginning of january so if you can't tune in to hear our show live on 95.9. the Palm or True Oldies 106.9 on Saturday mornings,

or if you've missed any of our past shows, you can hear them now whenever you want on SoundCloud. Simply download the SoundCloud app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. Or you can go to www.com and search for Earl Stewart on Cars. Or you can just do SoundCloud.com slash Erlon Cars They'll take you right there. Very good.

That's great information, Stu. Thank you for that. So, ladies and gentlemen, we have a whole lot to get to and you're an important part of the show. So give us a call tool free at 877-960-9960. And the text number is 772-497-6530. Mystery Shop is going to be.

coming up, and that is from off-lease.com. The topic, something near and dear to our hearts that we've been fighting for two years and asking Attorney General Pam Bondi for help and the governor, Rick Scott. So stay tuned for that. Now, back to the recovering car dealer. Well, speaking of text, and that number again is 772-497-653-0, if you can text us and remain anonymous. I have a text, and I'll just read it to you.

What role does a sales manager play in a car sale? Is he really needed to review each sale with the rep, meaning the salesman in the back and forth process? Can't the sales rep close the deal by himself? I find the whole process very frustrating, and this is Rich from Stewart. Well, Rich, what you're referring to, of course, is the classic way of selling cars. It's the 20th century version, and that's the way cars are still. being sold by most dealers in the 21st century.

It's kind of like a, well, it's not respecting the wishes and the comfort and the courtesy that you owe your customers. So it's the old game playing thing. You come in and the hassle, haggle, negotiation process, the game has played this way. You give the person a very, very high price, meaning the person, meaning you, the customer, give them a very high price, inflate the price, even over sticker price. That's the reason that we have dealer addendums. and dealer list prices

as opposed to manufactured suggested list price. You heard Nancy earlier talk about the phony Monroney. Well, the Monroney label is the MSRP sticker mandated by federal law. There are phony Monroney's that car deals have to inflate

the price of the car. Why? Because when they negotiate, they can come down in price. So they give you that super high price, maybe $2,000, over MSRP, and then they come down a little bit of the time.

and in the process, they go back and forth to the sales manager. And the consumer is supposed to be fooled into thinking, I'm doing a really good job negotiating. I'm getting the price down. So when you finally buy the car and you take it home, you tell all your friends and neighbors, boy, they try to sell me this car for $26,000. I got them down $3,000.

I really got a deal. Well, the fact the matter is, you probably paid $3,000 too much anyway because they inflated the price by $3,000. and may well have sold you the car at the MSRP. So that's the story. Try to look for one-price dealers. The company that we're shopping this afternoon,

the used car outfit off-lease.com, is one price. CarMax is one price. Mullinx Ford, I believe, is one price. They say they are. They say they are. Yeah, you have to be careful. The car dealers out there that say they're at one price that are not. bottom line pricing comes to mind from Alpacar Ford, and that isn't really one price.

But anyway, that's the name of the game. The best thing to do is to shop online, avoid the game. When you go into a car dealership, you're almost sucked right into that game because the salespeople are trained. They don't know any other way to do it. They are issued orders to give you a price that is far above the price that the sales manager will eventually accept to sell the car. for and they'll keep you there as long as they can in that game going back and forth before they'll finally sell you a car. It's not a pleasant process. Remember ladies, so you can win yourselves $50. I know you're out there listening, so give us a call. $50 for the first two

lady callers. Please take advantage of that. $50. You can do something with that. 877960. 4976530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. You know, I had an interesting call the other day. Actually, it was an email from a group that I spoke to. And was someone with a 2016, or it was an older Prius, and not that old, but the question was replacing the key fob. And I'm in the process now trying to help her. She didn't want to pay the $250 or $300 to repeat. place are key fob. And so I went online and I found on Amazon a lot of key fobs that were purportedly able to replace the key fob of manufacturers' cars. So I'm getting you a preliminary heads up on that. Buyer beware, even on Amazon, but Amazon does have a return

policy. And the prices on these key fobs remotes were considerably less than what the car dealers charge you. Bear in mind that the manufacturers charge too much to the car dealers and then they mark it up again and they charge you the markup over an exorbitant markup in the first place. So a lot of these key bombs out there now are selling for 300, 350 even higher. So check Amazon and Google and go around. There are aftermarket remotes that are being made available and hopefully they'll bring the price down eventually. This particularly one that I was checking out on the Prius, there were two models, one with a black logo and one with a silver logo, and the one with the correct logo would do the job for about a third of the price of what

the manufacturer was charging. So heads up on remotes. A lot of folks now don't really realize that the remote they have for their car, if they lose it, they're out of pocket $300 or $400. In fact, there's even lost key fob insurance that some car dealers will sell. you. So the good old days when you just had a key that you stuck in ignition are gone. We had a caller last week that said, why can't we go back to that day?

The problem was with a key that you stick in the ignition and you start your car, you have to take it out of the ignition and you're not going to leave your engine running. And we talked about that danger. So the keyless remote is a really fancy high-tech thing, very, very convenient in a lot of ways. But it can be dangerous and against very, very expensive. A lot of ups and downs and how many times did I get a call on the replacement, you know, of the remote and how expensive it was and still is. So great information, ladies and gentlemen, give us a call toll free at 877-960, or you can check us at 7-7-2-497-60. Back to the recovering car dealer.

Yeah, write the number down. We're getting hit a little lull here. that always makes me nervous but write the number down because if you're listening you're likely to come up with a question later on we get a lot of chit-chat a lot of back and forth and you hear things and if you want to say something you don't have the number written down you'll wish you had so write this number down 877 960 9960 that's 877 960 9960 and if you want to text us write this number down too There he goes 772 497-6-5-30. That's 772-497-65-30.

Rick? Just a quick word on those key fobs. Folks, beware getting them from places like Craigslist or eBay when you're buying them used. Because I know for a fact with a lot of Toyota's, especially Prius, the second generation, if that key fob was programmed to operate another car, some of them, matter of fact, a whole lot of them, cannot be reprogrammed to operate another car. Because I always thought it would be pretty convenient

if you had a husband and wife that both owned the same model of car and they programmed each of their keys so they'd only have to carry one fob and could drive both cars. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Once that key has been programmed, to a car in a lot of cases, it cannot be programmed to another car ever again. Yeah, I wouldn't buy anything on Craigslist, and I certainly wouldn't buy a used key fob from anybody.

Right. But Amazon has got the protection because they give you the guarantee. Yeah, now that's got a safety factor to it. So if you can save $300, $300 on Amazon with the right to return it. If it doesn't work properly, you're not out of pocket anything. I've got another text, and I'm going to give that text number out again because sometimes people like to text more than they like to call 772-497-6530. Text us, 772-497-6530. Here's the text. I'm shopping for a new car, but don't want to overextend myself with all of my other expenses. Are there some guidelines that you can provide

about what percent of my paycheck I should limit to a car payment? Cheryl from Jupiter. You know, honestly, I don't know what that number is. I think that you certainly should consider your monthly payment. I think you should also consider the equity in the vehicle that you're buying. That's equally important really to the cash flow, the monthly payment. I'm going to pull, if we have any financial advisors out there or bankers, lenders, if you have a number that you can give Cheryl on what percent of your paycheck should you be paying for your transportation in terms of out of pocket every month. I'm going to say less than 10 percent, but that's just a wild guess.

But I think equally as important as I say, if you're buying a vehicle and you're buying a vehicle that has a high resale value in lease terms as a high residual, and you are financing it over a reasonable term and you're getting a good interest rate, you're building equity in the car. So even though your payment might be stretching your budget a bit, let's say, $500 a month, and that's tight for you, it's not as tight as it would be if you were spending $500 a month and you weren't building equity. It's just like saving. Building equity is like putting money into the bank.

So if you build equity in your car, when you come, to trade the car again, whether you just want to or you have to, you have that equity for a down payment, which can reduce your payment the next time you buy a vehicle. So just to kind of a wild-ass guess, I would say 10% or less, and be sure you're building equity with a car that has a high resale value at the end. And you can find out which cars have the highest resale value by just checking consumer reports. All kinds of ways to get knowledge

and empower yourself so that you're in control. I had a text from a young lady who was asking me about the car that she owned and she was taking it in to the same dealership where she was going to

purchase a car and I told her the best way to go is to keep that trade in separate. Take a a couple of dealerships and find out what that car is worth. You know, you can go in and attempt to purchase a car without that trade-in. You may be better off because you'll get more money for it. So take that information and empower yourself.

Our number is 877-9-60-99-60, and you can text us at 772-497-60. Back to the recovering car dealer. And, you know, you told me that this past week you heard from Rosemary, Rosemary Sheehan. Yeah, Rosemary Sheehan, yeah. As a matter of fact, our shopping report is involved with a part of something I have to say about Rosemary Sheehan. Rosemary She is someone that I wish lived in Florida. She's in California, good for California, unfortunately for us in Florida. and she's an amazing woman.

She's an advocate for car buyers. And her organization is called Cars, C-A-R-S. It's the Center for Auto Safety. And you can, if you really want to, cars.com or cars.org, I believe, you can check her out, check her organization out. Get a lot of information, even though it's California-based, that would apply in Florida.

But she's a real tiger. And she's been going after the people that are taking advantage of car buyers for a long time. She had an amazing victory recently in California against CarMax. Now, CarMax is the largest retailer of use cars in the world, huge. And she went after CarMax because they were not disclosing to their customers that they had dangerous recalls, Takata Airbags in particular. And so I've been kind of going back and forth. We actually had Rosemary call the show.

and I think I'll have her call the show again. But there's a major victory. We'll talk about it later with the mystery shopping report that applies to you directly here in Florida, thanks to Rosemary Sheehan's efforts in California. Yeah, she's definitely driven by a whole lot of passion, and she is a tiger. That's Rosemary Sheehan.

We're going to go to our next caller, and that's Desiree from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Desiree. Thank you for the call. What can we do for? for you. Good. Good morning, you guys. Good morning again this morning. I have a bit of a situation. I had taken my vehicle to a local, reputable, a clinic. It was like a car. I want to say maybe car clinic, and I had them to look at my vehicle. I was having some grinding sound. This was actually

back in July of 2017. So they mentioned to me that it was my lower ball joints, and they needed to be replaced. So I had them to replace that and fix those. Fast forward, here we are again. I just took my vehicle back down there because I was experiencing the same thing, not thinking that it would be the same thing because it hasn't actually been a year. and started to experience that same sound, that grinding, sound pulling. It was so bad.

And so when I went back, he told me the same thing. He said, well, you're going to have to have your lower ball joints replaced. So the first job they did was $481.44. And now when he just told me that I needed to have. have them, uh, done again. I think he either forgot that he had done them. So then he charged me now $5.25. So I asked him, I say, could you by any chance give me the printout of the job that you guys did back in July? So he said, sure, he gave me the printout. And I'm looking on the printout and I'm saying to myself, wow, this is July 14th, 2017. Uh, you are showing on here

of that you guys did that. He says, well, that's not what we did. He said, now I have to replace the upper ball joint. Well, Ford Mustang, the O2 that I have, doesn't have upper ball joints. They didn't make those on that particular vehicle. And it's the struts that, you know, doing the car. So my question is, is what is going on? I actually took the car for a second opinion, actually for a third opinion.

The second opinion is Tired Kingdom. I had them to put it on their machine. They called me out for me to look up underneath to show me what had happened. I took pictures of it. They didn't do it. Wow. So I'm like, what do I do? So I called and talked to talk to the.

them yesterday, the manager of the place was not there, so they told me to call back Monday and so that they can try to rectify this, but you know, at this point, this is a pretty good place that most people go to to have

their cars, you know, fixed, and I'm not here to down them. They should be, you know what I'm saying? So, my question is, what do I do? Well, where is this place? that you had the repairs done Desiree I had it done at car clinic it's down in Lake Worth okay and they said they replaced the lower ball joints the first time back in July

when Tire Kingdom looked at it did they say that yes it looked like those were pretty new there no no they're not so in other words they they told you they replaced them but they didn't replace them no and not only that The side that's doing the most noise, when I looked at the rubber around the top of it, it is flat. There is no grease. They told me that there was no grease in it at all. They couldn't even get the screw off. And then on the other side, the screw was missing, but there was oil, I mean, grease in that part.

and they were like what did they do so the the head mechanic for tire kingdom said to me they're trying to take you for a ride because this is not done there's no way that this could have been done back in july for you to come back and it looks like this now so here is what they here's what tire kingdom wrote on their paper uh ball joints that were put in needed to be greased before putting in, and one does not show grease fittings at all, is what they stated. Desiree, let me ask you a question. How high up the ladder have you taken this? Have you spoken to the owner of Car Clinic?

I'm not familiar with that company in Lake Worth, but did you speak to the general manager, the owner? Not yet. I spoke with his sister. He was the one who sat down and told me this. He was the one who actually sat down. When I went in, Wednesday, he was the one who said that, you know, this is what the problem is. And so when I asked him about the paperwork that he had prior done, you know, the actual invoice, the paper that he had already done, he said, oh, well, that's not the one.

He said, no, I need to go and make sure I take care of the upper ones because it's the upper ones now. And I'm thinking, like, wow. I think you need to get to the highest person you can speak to there, and then if you don't get satisfaction, then you have to file a complaint. You go with the county office consumer affairs. You can go with the Attorney General's office. You go with Better Business Bureau. That's not the strongest source, but you need to tell them, you make it right, or else I'm going to have to take action. and hopefully if you get to the person that really in charge

and you show them that letter from Tire Kingdom then they will take action and reimburse you or make it right but when all else fails you go to file a complaint and then if that fails then you have to hire a lawyer which that's the last thing I recommend to anybody right yeah and see that's what I really didn't want to do but you know I'm like so disappointed because my other third opinion was tires plus and this was

someone who you know I'm familiar with mentioned this as well he said what you don't have an upper ball joint on that particular vehicle so who told you that you know and I'm just I'm so disappointed and so because this was supposed to be like a place that everybody goes to, and I'm quite sure that some of your listening audience are familiar with this place. They are supposed to be awesome, so. Well, I'm just looking at them online. They have a five-star, or close to a five-star Google rating.

You can check them on Better Business Bureau. I mean, it could be, you know, they're good companies that just have people working for them that shouldn't be there. And I have some people working for me, probably, that shouldn't be there. every business has people that are not doing the job. The problem is, can you get through to the guy that really cares? And I talked to a man earlier, about Mullinix Ford, the same situation. So try to go all the way to the top at Car Clinic. And call us back next week and let us know what happened.

Feel free to use my name, Earl Stewart, and just tell them that we're talking about them on the radio, and we believe that they're a good company. They have a 4.9 Google rating, BID of the Business Bureau I'll bet it's probably good too and we think that he made a mistake and he'll make it right

and call us back next Saturday and let us know. I sure will. Thank you guys again. Desiree, it's always great to hear from you and you know you use the word disappointing and it certainly is disappointing and you know

to get into a situation like that where you know possibly the end result would be an attorney is an unfortunate situation because that takes forever so i hope that you can solve your problem uh with some cooperation uh with the people that uh you know you say are very reputable and everyone goes to the mineral said it's a five star so give us a call give us an update let us know what's going on i sure will guys you guys enjoy the rest of you saturday thank you so much thank you for being part of the show give us a call toll free at 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-60. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

I say this so often to so many people. In the last week's show, I spoke about how I was able to get through or the customers were able to get through to the top dog, so to speak, to the person in charge. and we do a lot of trashing of car dealerships and we talk a lot of bad things about car dealers and the way they operate and it isn't that it's not true it's the fact that I think a lot of car dealers

are resentful because they have good intentions and I bet 75% of car dealers have good intentions unfortunately only about 10% of them execute and deliver to the customer and a lot of that is just because of the ignorance of what's going on. It's very difficult when you're running a chain of car dealerships. We've got people out there. Let's talk about Schumacher.

Dick Schumacher, the founder of Schumacher, Buick years ago, came out of Chicago. Noah's son, Chuck. Chuck has grown tremendously. He's got, I'm going to guess, 15 franchises in Del Rey and West Palm Beach area. And he can't possibly stay on top. top of all his employees. I'll bet he's got 500 employees. And in that huge barrel, there are a lot of apples, and he's got some rotten ones out there. And Car Clinic probably has

a couple of rotten apples. If you can get hold to Chuck Schumacher and you've got a problem with any of his dealerships, he's going to make it right. If you can get hold of the top guy or near the top guy, you've got a much better chance of getting your problem resolved. So always remember that. And feel free to call me. I know most all of the car dealers. I know most all of the general managers. I'm not saying they love me, but they respect me. And if you invoke my name, you'll probably be able to get through to some people to get your problem resolved. Great information. And we're not looking for them to love us because we're just looking for them to respect us. Give us a call to free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at

772-497-6530, and we have a call from Paul from Palm Beach Gardens. Welcome to the show, Paul. Oh, thank you for having my call. I would like to say I have, this is my third call from Earl. I get my third corolla, and I have to say very happy except for one little problem. Well, that's sure. Hang up on it. Hang up on it.

I'm kidding, Paul. Go ahead. No, Errol, I bet you, Earl. Listen, let me tell you something. I'm an auto record dealer from New York. Farming cars only from 1970 to 19 until the last five years ago. Uh-huh. My T-E-21s, my R-A-42s, they're embedded in my head, if you know what they are, right?

Oh, yeah. You know what those are, right? Uh-huh, yeah. T-E-21s. He wants you to tell them what they are. The old corollas, the old silicas, the R-A-42. Yeah, I've been. That's a toilet since 1975, yeah.

Yeah. That's a good car. Oh, yeah. Those numbers are stuck in my head. It's so funny. Anyway, when I was supposed to turn in my two vehicles a couple of months ago, I got a card from somebody saying to check with us and bring the car to us and we'll go over it and all that baloney. I mean, it was very official looking, but it was very unnecessary because when I brought one car there,

they made a sheet that looked like four pages that I had 14 accidents the other car which was in two accidents had nothing nobody complained about one thing it's amazing so I don't know who those people are and really they weren't necessary because I brought the second car back without even going to them

and the sales lady what the heck was the name Sierra something like that very tenure or something very nice helped me very help my family and was very good a good deal Oh, good. But you know what I'm talking about, that?

I think that somebody sends, it's not your company, though. Well, yeah, I understand. Yeah, it's, you know, I've got, I talked about that earlier. We all make mistakes, every business. I don't care whether Apple makes mistakes. In fact, I had, you know, to me, Apple is my hero in terms of consumer treatment, and they really messed up on something. And it wasn't that bad, but even the best companies make mistakes,

What makes a difference between a good company and a bad company is being able to access the person in charge that can make a decision and who cares about the customer. And virtually every company has one. I mean, hopefully they have more than one, but the bigger the company, the more they should have. And they should also make it easy for customers to have access to people who can hear the complaints and be fair. So one of the games that companies play is be sure the boss doesn't find out what's going on. And no one likes the boss to find out or hear the complaints. They try to protect the boss, you know, quote unquote. They don't want the boss to be bothered.

What they really don't want to have happen is have the boss learn some of the stuff that's going on that will reflect badly on them. So when you find a car dealership or a computer store that doesn't want you to talk to the boss, You turn around and walk out and find a computer store or a car dealership that will encourage you to speak to the people in charge. That's the bottom line. Don't look for perfection in businesses. You're not going to find it. We still got you there, Paul?

Oh, yeah, I'm on the ball. Okay, we're here. That wasn't really the topic we were discussing. Yeah. I think you've got tangent off on me. Okay, well, I thought I was talking about this thing. Somebody tell me what Paul's problem is we'll try to address it. anybody know

repeat yourself paul you said you had a problem with your corolla no never the greatest cars on the road like i said i was in order records for 35 years those are the best cars we ever took in junk and sold them anyway they were great well i apologize tell me tell me again what your problem is well it was all taken care of because your sales lady who helped us was very good Great. Like I told you, the form that we got in, the mail, from some companies telling us to bring the car to them, and they will check out the car for us and then bring it to you, which was fine.

But when I brought it to them, when I got it back from them, they had like four sheets, four sheets of freaking problems. The car was black, immaculate, that had an accident, had less than had like 28,000 miles on and brought it back in. The way the sales lady saw it and said, there's not a single thing wrong with this car. What the heck of these to be pages? And that was the truth. I had a car. The second car we brought in, had two accidents. You people fixed them perfectly.

When I brought that in, they couldn't find one thing wrong with the cars. So I don't know about that company that you used or they just have had to be sent these things and get paid by you people. You're talking about lease cars, I presume. Only lease here. Yeah, these cars. Yeah, well, you're talking about the end of the lease inspection where the leasing company has a check sheet that you have to go over. You raise an important point because everyone should be very careful about that. You should be physically present when the inspection is made,

or you should at least go around and go through the check sheet when you return the car to the car dealership that you lease the car from. And if you really want to be careful, you get your smartphone out, you take some pictures of the tires of the interior and the exterior and keep that as documentation. Stu has a comment. I can address something that's kind of interesting, a strange thing that they do at the end of the lease, and it sounds like this might have

happened to you, if you had any damage, even if it was repaired perfectly, and I think that happened, right? No, no, the car that was damaged, they never found anything. The car that wasn't damaged was, like, less than 30,000 miles after three years. Yeah. It's unbelievable. When they get the cars back, they'll check and see if there was any paintwork, and even if it was done perfectly, then they ask us to send an invoice for the repair, then they

wipe out the charges. So it's kind of like an exercise they go through. Maybe they'll catch somebody sleeping and they'll pay the bill. Don't know why that. Okay. Well, that's scary. But basically it was unnecessary because when you turn in the car, you don't have to bring it into them people. I brought the second car right to new people.

No problem. Turned it in. That was the end of it. Yeah, the inspection should be made even if you don't return it to the leasing company. And sometimes the leasing company will visit you. It depends on where the car is leased and how it's leased. But there's always an end of lease inspection, and that's always a potential liability for you if you're

leasing a car. Some leasing companies are absolutely terrible. They'll go after you for thousands of dollars of damages that don't exist. Sometimes the damages do exist, but they exist because someone drove the car and damaged the car after you turned it back in. So with all that said, when the car is in your custody and control and you're returning it, be sure you have documentation, be it pictures or a copy of the lease inspection form signed by you and a representative to defend yourself when they come after you. I would say in about half the cases, from my experience, the leasing companies go after repairs that are not justified. And you can usually, if you contest it, you can usually get them reduced or sometimes even eliminated. Sure, if you get another car.

Turn it in and get another car. problem. Yeah. Paul, thanks very much. I really appreciate the call. Hey, and I appreciate your service that I've received from your place at all times. Thank you so much again. Wonderful. I appreciate the compliment. Give us a call again, and thank you for all that information. And if you're not careful, whenever you turn in that lease, you know, you've got to do your homework.

You know, there's, like Earl said, you know, sometimes there's just, there are complaints about the damage on your car are not valid. So taking pictures and being very careful how long that car sits on the lot whenever you turn it in. You have to take all those pictures of every side of the car before you turn it in. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-960 or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. Okay, I've got another text here, I think. I think we have four of them. Wow. Four of them.

Here's one I can't answer, but maybe I'll. It doesn't make any difference, but I can answer them, but not I answer them. I'm a good guesser. Do I know any good suppliers of parts for a 1968 Thunderbird? And the first thing it pops into mind is Google. No. I go on Google and I say, what are some good suppliers of parts for a 1968 Thunderbird? And you'll have a whole bunch of them.

Rick? And I would Google a company called Year. year job g-e-a-r no year as in the year oh year year year the year date year one this company the they specialize in antique cars older cars um their biggest specialization is for general motors the camaro's uh the shoebox chevies but they also do thunderbirds they also handle the chryslers the the the old muscle cars and 68 is right in their golden zone. So they would be the...

Y-E-A-R-O-N-E or a numeral one. Year 1, O-N-E. O-N-A. And they actually, they produce or acquire parts that are equal to the original O-E-M parts so perfectly that they're actually used for restoration of these vehicles. How cool. Very good. Okay, I got another text,

and this one is probably for Rick, too. Do damage brake pads have any long-term effects if they haven't been fixed within a certain amount of time? I think the answer is yes, but Rick, I'm sure, we'll elaborate. Oh, absolutely. If the brake pads are damaged in any way, I would have them replaced immediately. I mean, break pads, you're talking, even the most expensive ones on the most expensive luxury cars,

are a couple hundred dollars. for the average passenger car from the factory you're talking $50 or $60 aftermarket as low as $10. I would not skimp on brake pads. I have a question. The term was maybe inadvertently used

or on purpose. I'm not sure to damage brake pads having long term effects. I know Warren brake pads are not damaged. That's normal, but maybe that's what he meant when he said damage.

Can brake pads be damaged or do they just get worn? They can be damaged actually. Say if the mechanic when he was going to install them accidentally dropped them, the friction material can crack. Of course if they're damaged then that would have to be the

mechanics fall, right? Very likely. Or in a collision the pads could become warped or damaged. As a matter of fact, as simple a thing as when you're driving your car and your brakes are nice and hot and you run through a puddle, a water

puddle, that water can cause the pads themselves to warp just a little bit, and that could be considered damage, but any issue to do with brakes that they're not in tip-top shape, I would definitely be, that's one of my number one things. Get them

repaired quickly and get them made proper. Okay, that's a good answer, and like Rick said, you don't mess around with your brakes. Sometimes you have to err on the side of caution with your brakes. Okay, we've got another text. Love these texts. For you

people out there who don't want to call because you're a little nervous, shy, camera shy, or should I say microphone shy? Just call us at 772. What's that number? I lost the page here. 772-497-6530. You sound so much better than I do when you do these. Do it again. Do it again.

Oh, he's so sweet. Listen, ladies. Are you listening on it there? If you're not going to do it again, I'm going to continue with my text message. Oh, come on. You gave me the mic. You didn't tell me how much time I had. That number is 772-497-6530. And ladies, if you're listening, $50 for each one of you, first two female callers. Give us a call.

Okay, text. We've got four in a row here. It's very exciting. Wow. If you get a key from Amazon, how do you get a program? And how much would that cost? Now, silly me, I should have commented on that because that's exactly right. You do have to have a program.

And I'm going to, I don't know exactly how much it costs to program, but I think it's probably negotiable. And I would say it could probably be around $100, maybe $125, $130, to program one. Do you know off the top of your head, Rick? For a Toyota, you're actually right in the ballpark, and I mean in the infield. Yeah. And it does require most of our newer cars, what's known as a scan tool or a computer that we plug into the car and program it in. so yeah that is something you'd want to have a dealer take care of but as far as key fobs question being if i buy a key fob on amazon buy on amazon because i'm safely protected from the

return privilege and then i find out that i need to get a program you're not going to get your program feedback and you can't try it out until you program it so there's another good point that i left out in my first answer so and i will say this 100 125 bucks is in the is in the ballpark for a Toyota. I don't know about other vehicles, but I will say this, negotiate, because I think $125.25 is too much, and I think you can negotiate.

Call two or three places and see the best deal you can get on the program if you buy your Amazon fob from your key fob from Amazon. Great information. We're going to go to Steve, who's been holding. He's calling from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Steve. How are you?

Hey, Steve, what's up? Hello. Hi, what can we do for you, Steve? Ah, I just wanted to say, Mr. Mrs. Stort, thank you very much for being such, the greatest leadership in definitely Florida or in the world, because I got a Hyundai from West Palm Beach, and I don't like it, and I wish I could trade it in. But I'm right here down at the culinary station from the dealer, and every truck I see go by, I beeped the horn, and I raise the thumb, you know? Because I know it's got the sticker, and I just want to say, thank you so much. far as my breaks and all the other stuff, you know, I've, even if I have something, I don't

get to wait, but I'm bringing my Honda in to get service at your dealership. Because everybody I talked to, from 80 years old, up around here and stored, or a 16-year-old guy had a Toyota, and he said, I've been going since I, well, let's see, he's 20, 22, but he said, I've been going since I was 16. And I said, great, you know, I said, your customer service is great. And thank you so much for being here and doing stuff, because, you know, there's no dealer fleas, there's just right there. And I, you know, I was, it's a strange.

Well, thank you, Steve. That means a lot. I really appreciate that endorsement. And, you know, as I said earlier, there are a lot of dealers out there that mean well. And if you can get through to the guys like me, the only thing that sets me apart is people, it's easier to get hold of me.

All you've got to do is listen to the radio. But there are a lot of car dealers out there that mean well. And if you really fight, you'd be surprised how many good guys are out. out there. They just don't watch their business closely enough. Well, they don't have the old-fashioned customer service, you know, like you do. And it's just, the fellow I talked to, he said, you know, he had the mats or something, and he said he wasn't, and you gave him the mats.

But a million dollars in, you know, free tires for cars, you're not going to find anything like that. I mean, that's an expense to you. And, I mean, I just, I know your customers, the people that I talk to and I see, you know, I want to get in. I'm definitely going to at least serve my Hyundai Forte Day here. I mean, my Akea Forte there, yeah. I appreciate it, Steve. Thanks very much.

You have a great weekend. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your show. Thank you. You're welcome, Steve. That was a great call. Thanks, Steve. And keep on listening and spread the word that we are here every Saturday morning.

Yes, every Saturday morning from 8 until 10 right here on the true oldie station, 95.9 and 106. Now, back to the recovering car dealer. Steve's endorsement was so nice that I feel necessarily that I have to talk about this not being an infomercial show. This show is strictly above board. I'm not trying to promote my dealership at all, but in total transparency, I have to tell you, I do own a dealership. And I have for a number of years. I've been in the business for almost 50 years. But what I'm doing now is pure consumer advocacy.

The show is not something that I pay the station for. It's a consumer service. It's not an advertisement in any way, shape, or form. And when I get compliments like that, I feel necessary to let you know that they were totally unsolicited, although I have to tell you I appreciate them. They're very nice, and I thank Steve very much. I got another text, and I lost my text sheet,

and I'm afraid to tell Nancy, oh, here it is right here, 772 497-6530 Text us at 772 497-6530 Now here's the text I just got If a dealer doesn't have the exact vehicle that I want Let's say color

Can I get the same deal if they get the car from another dealer? Boy, is that a good question Something that Well It's a serious problem with all car dealerships And because of that is a serious problem for you. And there is such a huge proliferation of colors and models and equipment, accessories, options,

year, make, model, millions and millions and millions of combinations out there. And customers are very discerning now, and they want exactly what they want. They want the color, the equipment, the style. And if you have a car dealership, whether they're selling Chevrolet, Hondas, or Ford's or whatever it is, and he had every combination. He wouldn't have enough room in South Florida to put every vehicle. I'm exaggerating slightly, but you'd have to carry probably a couple thousand cars or more, 5,000 cars to have every choice.

So car dealers naturally like to sell out of their inventory because it's cheaper. When you come into a car dealership, you probably have a specific car in mind. And the chances are about 50-50, maybe, maybe not even that, that they're going to have that car. So what happens? They're going to talk you into buying the car that they do have. If they have to get the car from another car dealership, that incurs an expense. You've got insurance costs. You have the cost of the gasoline, the driver.

You have a lot of accounting cost. It's time-consuming. Plus, the fact, if you have to get the car, there's a chance the customer might be. change their mind so the mindset of all car dealers is when they come into the dealership to buy a car if you don't have the car they want put them in some car that you do have it solidifies the likelihood of consummating the deal and it saves a dealer a lot of money so what can you do you should get the car you want and you should get the color and the exact accessories if

you don't want a sunroof you shouldn't take a car with a sunroof even if they tell you they're giving you a sunroof free they're lying to you they can't give you that free it has to be taken to consideration in their cost and their price so stick to your guns and say you want the vehicle and the only way you can be sure you're going to get the right prices to shop and compare the price with other dealers finally you're going to find a dealer that's got the best price who will also locate the car he might even have the car that they didn't have in the first dealership so you're going to get that another danger by the way and I know I'm wrong rambling on here but this is important another danger is when you don't buy the car that you came in for all of your research goes down the drain you might have been on edmunds dot com you might have gone to true car you might have got a consumer report you might even gotten prices from other car dealers and that's all on one specific unique vehicle if you vary from that vehicle to another model or accessory combination then you've got a different cost structure and so suddenly they can trick you on the price.

So all your research to ensure that you're getting a fair price goes out the door. Find out what you want to buy, stick to your guns, buy that car, and nothing else. And if you have to wait a few days or even a few weeks, it's a good investment in time, your time, and your money

to stick to the car. So that's a long rambling answer to a simple question, which was, in case you forgot what the question was, if the dealer doesn't have the exact vehicle that I want, can I get the same deal if they give the car from another dealer. Stick to your guns and get the same deal,

whether they get it from another dealer or not. That's great information. You know, it's great information. That's all I can say. Stick to your guns. You want a certain car. You went into the dealership for that car, and it's so easy for everything to get flip-flopped,

and it's, you know, it's a tap dance. So knowledge is power. Stick to your guns. You know the car that you want. and you don't leave unless you get that car, or you go somewhere else. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We're giving you a lot of numbers and letters and things to write down, and I confuse myself. But I've got to give you this Mystery Shopping Report website, and I'm speaking not just to you,

our consumers, our car buyers, but all you car dealers out there. See if your car dealership is on that list. www. www. W.mistery Shoppingreport.com. Reports. Plural. Uh-huh.

www. www. Mystery Shopping Reports. S. Mystery Shoppingreports.com. That has, what about 50 mystery shopping reports? And we're adding more as we go along. I think we have 79.

79. So chances are you car dealers out there, you car salespeople, you might find your name and lights. You might find your car dealership, mystery shopping report. Go over it and sue me if you think I didn't tell the truth because we've been doing this for 10 years and no one sued me yet. So you car dealers, be sure to go to www.mischoppingreports.com, read your mystery shopping report and call the show or call your attorney. to start trying to change your act. Try to change what you do. You know, I'm giving you an

excuse. I've been talking about you guys are really nice people and you really don't. Oh, yeah, Jonathan's holding up in the control room a picture of our mystery shopper. He's got dark glasses on and a trench coat. Now that's true. I know that is. I was trying to be funny.

I know you know. So, go there and if you, listeners, who are consumer activists, you can help learn a lot. You'll see the actual blow-by-blow description of 75 plus purchases. Some went well, some went poorly,

some are on the recommend list, some are on the do-not-buy list. So I think we have another caller? We do. We have another caller. And that's www.w Mystery Shopping Reports.com and you're going to have a whole lot of... That was just a fantastic idea that stew i believe came up with just a little just just a little that was stew's daddy actually it was a group oh boy i'm in trouble

okie dokey that was stew's daddy we're going to go to al who's holding in green acres hi al what could we do for you hey how you doing good morning hello earl hey all how are you doing good earl first of all you the guy that takes care of the dogs oh yeah yeah i uh i take pride in the fact that i have in the affiliation with Big Dog Ranch Rescue, Big Dog and Little Dog, and Al, are you okay? I think you just coughed.

Oh, no, no, that wasn't me. That was one of the dogs. That was dog. Actually, I'm new to the area from Honolulu, so I've seen you, and you know what, first good on you for the dog thing. Now, back to cars. What do you think about extended warranties on new cars and used cars? Extended warranties are insurance policies.

Basically. An insurance policy is something that people buy for peace of mind because they feel like the financial burden should the event they are insuring against occurs that it would make them, well, it would be impossible for them to be able to take care of it or make it uncomfortable. They'd have to change your lifestyle if they had to spend too much money. So you buy insurance policies for peace of mind. Now, if you are comfortable financially and you buy a good vehicle, meaning it's a new vehicle with a good warranty, there's really no need at all, no need per se for an extended warranty, especially on a new vehicle, and especially on a vehicle that has a high rating in terms of reliability, and you could go to consumer reports and get this data very simply. If you're going to buy a Honda or a Nissan or even a Kia or Hyundai,

There are a lot of cars out there that have extremely good quality. And I don't recommend if you are able to pay for minor repairs that you worry about spending a lot of money for an extended warranty. On a used car, it's a little bit of a different story, but not that big a different story. Because you need to check your used cars out just as carefully as you do a new car, maybe more carefully, and go through find a car with high reliability, low maintenance cost. you don't need that extended warranty. Now, the next phase that I get into on this is they're good extended warnings and bad extended warranties.

If you are going to invest in an extended warranty, then get the manufacturer's extended warranty to be safe. A lot of car dealerships own their own warranty companies, and it's up to them what they're going to cover and what they're not going to cover. If you're buying a Honda and you buy a Honda extended warranty, it's legitimate. Honda has a set price for their warranties. and they tell you what's covered, what's not covered.

If you want one, that's who you got a Honda, that's what you should buy. On the other hand, even a manufacturer's warranty isn't necessary on a good car. As I said, it's an insurance policy. Insurance companies make a ton of money. The reason Warren Buffett is one of the richest men in the world is because of his insurance companies, Geico and the other insurance companies, owns. Insurance companies are amazingly profitable. So

they take most of your premiums and they pay out very little in claims. That's the secret to their success. So the bottom line, Al, find a good car, check it out carefully and don't worry about buying an extended warranty. I wouldn't buy one if I were you. Okay, you know, I really appreciate

that because I'm considering, I'm a part-timer here with Honolulu and I'm considering buying a CPO. So with a CPO, like I say, if you go from like an Accura, a Honda, Toyota, or Nissan, you're going to be in pretty good shape. You start talking a Beamer or a Merck, you're talking about risk. Exactly. Your European cars are more expensive

to repair, but by the same token, if you buy an extended warranty from a BMW dealer, he's going to charge you an arm and a leg for it. They still make a lot of money there, too. But you're absolutely right. The cars, you mentioned, are all great cars. The cars today are so much better if you're buying a late model or a new car, so much better than they've ever been before. The reliability is amazing.

I've been a car dealer for 50 years, and it is tough at our service department. I've got Rick Carney sitting next to me. He's worked for me for over 20 years, and he would tell you that the work that he does to repair cars today and fixed cars today is nominal compared to what he did 15 and 20 years ago. The cars are so much better today. So I'd save my money on that if I were you, Al. Well, I got you right on the cars are much better, much better than my 68 Malibu. I've got to tell you that.

There you go. But, okay, then, well, I really appreciate your input on this, and I'm going to be car shopping. I'm going to give your place to try first. So thank you very much for your time. And don't forget the dogs. If you need a dog, I'll get you a deal at Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Yeah, we got a lot.

Oh, I'm covered there. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you, Elle. Take care. Thanks for the call, Al. Stay in touch. Give us a call again. Let us know how that car purchase turned out.

Give us a call tool-free at 877-960-99-60. If you're hungry for something new, you found it right here. And you can also text us at 772-497-6530. And I would like to tell our listeners and our callers that Earl Stewart on Cars' podcast is now available on SoundCloud. We've posted all of our past shows going back to the beginning of January. So if you can't tune in to hear our show live, 95.9, the oldies channel, 106.9, well, they're both oldies channels, 95.9, 106.9, on Saturday mornings,

and if you've missed any of our past shows, you can hear them now whenever you want on SoundCloud. Simply download the SoundCloud app, the Apple App Store, or the Google Play Store. I'm starting to weaken. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, you can take that shortcut and you can go to saunclad.com forward slash earl on cars. So I hope I made myself clear. If I didn't, I will repeat that before the show is over. We're going to go to Frank, who is calling from Jupiter Farms.

And welcome to the show, Frank. Hey, good morning, guys. Good morning. Yes, you guys are great. I put it you on in the morning, and I don't do anything done. for two hours, but that's right. Thank you. Anyway, in regard to Earl

wearing different hats, I had a gentleman at the house yesterday. I got a dog from Big Dolk Rescue Ranch, and he was very happy about that. I'm happy that Earl does what he does. I'm just curious if the people that see your commercial on TV, when he said that the dogs have no dealer fleas,

understand the similarity. If you know, if you know your show, they did it immediately, but I compliment and commend you for what you guys are doing, and I'll just leave it short today. Well, thank you, Frank. I appreciate that very much.

Yeah, the dealer flea thing, the dealer free thing, just is a little interesting bit of trivia. When we did that commercial for Big Dog Ranch, my son, my youngest son, Josh, came up with that. We kind of winged the commercial. We just had the dogs, and we have the dogs in the studio,

and my son, Josh, said, hey, try this, dad. and he said, you know, we'll answer the phone, we'll have a bark, and then we used, he came up with the phrase, no dealer fleas. We don't even have an advertising agency, so I've got to give my son Josh a lot of credit for being creative. We still got you there, Frank? Well, Frank, thanks.

Thanks for the phone call, Frank, and thanks for the compliments. Stay in touch. Our number is 772-497. And you can give us a call at 877-960-99-60. Well, we have about 20 minutes left to the show. Would you like to go to the Mystery Shopping Report? Yeah, let's get to the Mystery Shopping Report, and we can probably still take some calls, too. But this mystery shopping report is especially significant.

We shopped off-lease-only.com, and we're, we're getting off of our theme of anatomy of a car dealer's ad this is what we've been doing in the past we take an advertisement find uh something is too good to be true and go in and bust them uh but we're getting back now to the takata airbag in plater recall issue which is extremely important we've spoken about this terrible situation on this show for nearly two years i can't believe it's been two years that this terrible situation has existed and it hasn't gotten better by the way the Takata Airbag issue is worse than ever. Millions of vehicles remain unfixed on the road and on dealers' lots.

They're time bombs. These cars are time bombs waiting to explode. There's no state or federal law that prevents car dealers from selling used vehicles affected by this deadly defect. There isn't even a law that mandates to disclosure. That's the amazing thing. No law that mandates to disclosure of a car with an airbag recall

unfixed that can kill you. Don't have to tell the customer when you sell the car. Although some dealers have adopted policies like voluntary disclosure that keep some consumers informed. The absence of regulation means lives remain at risk every day.

Now, I mentioned Rosemary Shahan from California, the head of the Center for Auto Safety. And she emailed me the other day, and in fact it was a day before yesterday, that they had a startling, wonderful, amazing victory. And the headline in the press release is,

Consumer wins landmark safety recall case against CarMax. California Court of Appeals rules in favor of the consumer. Tammy Guitarez of Bakersville, California, has won an important victory against CarMax, arguing successfully that she had alleged valid claims that CarMax acted illegally when the auto giants sold her a car with an unrepair safety recall. The modified

ruling issued by the 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno on Thursday, February 22nd, is widely considered to be the first decision challenging the legality of car dealers selling unrepaired, recalled, used cars that led to state

appellate court ruling. Now, I'm not going to reach with the whole press release, but this is, trust me, this is amazingly important. I have sued a Rigo Dodge, Chrysler's Jeep, and this litigation, we're on appeal in this litigation. There has been a total, see, no evil, hear, no evil, speak, no evil, attitude taken by the auto manufacturers and the car dealers about this whole Takado thing, are legislators from Pam Bondi to Rick Scott in Florida, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

They're ignoring the fact that car dealers are selling time bombs every day with Takata Airbags unfixed and not disclosing. Finally, we have this precedent-setting landmark ruling in California. So that's case law for you lawyers out there. You'll understand what I'm talking about. That's case law that says that you car dealers out there now that are selling used cars with Takata Airbags and you do not make a clear and conspicuous disclosure to your customer. you're breaking the law and you are going to have

some serious problems because of this landmark ruling. So with that said, we'll move along with our mystery shop of off-lease only.com. Since 2000, mid-2016 we mystery-shopped over 100 car dealers who were offering Tacata afflicted use vehicles for sale.

Only one. Only one of those dealers informed our shopper and stopped the sale from taking place. The sole dealer who passed the decatta test was Mullinac's Ford on North Lake Boulevard. Now, you heard the caller, if you listened to the whole show, that was complaining about Mullinick's Ford and complaining about their service department. And we said that Larry and Jerry Mullinick's brothers that own Melanick's Ford are good folks.

And here's documentation that Mullinick's Ford is a good deal. They're the only dealer that disclosed to our shopper that they had a car in their inventory with a defa fixed to cut airbag. Yesterday we chose, well, and I forgot to mention that we went around a second time with Malnakes Ford and they failed to disclose. But I think that all goes to the fact that you've got people working for you

that aren't doing their job. And you've got to get through to the people who care. And I believe Larry and Jerry Malnakes do care. Yesterday we chose another dealer to investigate about the Takata Airbag, off-lease-only, Palm Beach. off lease only is the largest retailer of used cars in our area

larger than CarMax 3,000 used cars per month out of three locations trust me folks I'm a car dealer that's huge if these guys are selling Tacita cars they're making a much bigger negative impact on our community than anybody else now

carmax who this precedent setting landmark case occurred against California they're the largest in the United States off lease if they keep going like this They're going to be the largest in that. So the larger the dealers that are selling these cars, the worst damage they're doing, the more time bombs they're putting on the road. Well, we know that they're selling Takata cars, but we can easily find them listed for sale on their website.

Identifying the offending vehicles is also easily accomplished by copying the van and running at safercar.gov. You can do the same thing. C-A-R.gov, G-O-V. If you're going to buy a used car, you put your van in to the safercar.combe website, and it'll tell you if the car has an outstanding recall, Takata or otherwise. Yesterday, we found a 2015 Accura, R-D-X with a driver's side Takata Airbag inflator recall. We triple-verify this on Carfax. You can check this on Carfax for your own car with a van.

and we take with Honda Accura's recall website. It appears that there is a fix for it, meaning the parts are available. That's important because there's some Takata airbag recalls out there on cars that they don't have the airbag replacement parts yet. The inflator are not available. You buy the car, you're stuck with a car that cannot be fixed, a time bomb that cannot be fixed. Offleash only does not fix their cars.

They're just their used car lot. They don't have a service department. and they're not going to fix a defect, but they should go to another car dealership of the franchise to have their cars repaired. And I suppose they do some minor cosmetic work, but they don't do campaign recalls. They can't.

They're prohibited by law. We sent Agent X in to find out if we could buy that 2015 Accura RDX from CarMax. If we could buy it, and if we did buy it, where they're going to tell us that it was a dangerous car. Okay, speaking in first person as if I'm the shopper, I arrived at off lease only on Congress Avenue in West Palm Beach around 3.30 p.m. I was impressed with a new facility.

The lot was enormous, and the main building was new and modern looking. I walked into the showroom and was immediately greeted by a woman who asked if I was looking around or if I had a car in mine I wanted to drive. I said I'd found a car online, and I would like to drive it. The woman had me a piece of paper with a diagram of the lot with sections marked with letters and numbers. The vehicles were grouped by make. The accuracy were in Section E1. Very sophisticated.

Very, very, you know, very, very modern, effective, efficient business, awfully only has been grown into, from a dirt lot in Lake Worth to a very sophisticated car dealership. I walked outside and found Section E1 and located the 2015 AccurRDF, we'd identified earlier. I tried the door. It was unlocked. I opened the door and sat on the driver's seat. A second later I was approached by a valet. I got out of the car to greet him. He said someone wanted to, you won't know if someone wanted to drive the car and won't know if I was that person. And I said, yep, I'm here to drive the car. And he got in the driver's attempt to start the engine. The battery was dead. The valet, I got a cart and the tools and a jump box.

A minute later, the engine was running. And the valet said he was pulling the car up front. I walked in the direction the valley had gone towards a large bullpen area with a tent-like canopy. I was greeted by Christian, a salesperson. He asked me if I was the one who wanted to drive the RDX. I said I was. And he asked for my driver's license and insurance car. I didn't want to use my real name, so I said I must have left my license and insurance card to West Palm Beach, Acura, kind of like I'm shopping around for a car. Because every car dealer should ask you for your license and insurance card. And I just made up the story that I left at West Palm Beach Accura.

Christian said I couldn't drive it, but I could still check it out. He said they could buy it, but then I'd have to run back over and get my license at some point. We looked around the car and under the hood. I asked him, here we go. We got three questions that we asked on these Takata shops. First question, I asked him if there was any mechanical issues. Christian said there were none. That's a question that you have to wonder.

Is that accurate? No mechanical issues? Got a defective airbag. Is that a mechanical issue? I think so. Certainly, me, the cardman thoroughly checked out. He said that it was still under factory warranty anyway. Now, it's in 2005, 2015, so I guess theoretically,

if the mileage, it would still be under factory warranty, but that doesn't address... Not much left. Yeah, not much left. That doesn't address recalls. I asked him about the brakes, and Christian, reminded me that they checked everything out and the brakes were okay. I asked, so everything safety-wise, now here's the third, the obvious, you know, clencher question, safety-wise is okay. Everything safety-wise is okay. No issues. Christian said they would not let a car

leave the lot with any safety concerns. Now that's either just a stupid remark or a lie. I'm not going to be too judgmental here. But when you let a car leave the lot, leave the lot with a time bomb that can explode in your face and kill you. I think that's a safety issue. Oh, yeah. And you're letting it leave the lot. He said we'd check out the Carfax

report. Oh, okay. We went inside and reviewed the Carfax report. Christian said there was an accident on the Carfax report and pointed it out. I examined it closer and while I'm examining it, I saw the Takada recall that Christian had yet to mention. It's right there.

Now, these Carfax reports are rather lengthy. It looked like a pretty severe accident where the car was undrivable afterwards. So when you look at a Carfax report, you've got to read it, and you've got to read it carefully because there is a lot of information. Sometimes there are multiple pages, six, seven pages. And the Takata Airbag recall was on one of those pages. This did not seem like a big deal to him, and he went on trying to sell me the car. He asked me if I wanted to take it, and I said I was.

I asked since I still had to get my driver's license anyway if I could take a buyer's order with me I said I'd like to show my wife he said he would I said that he could do this but it would have to be a generic one without my name or information on it the sale price was the same as the online price and the price of the window sticker 20,999 all they added was sales tax $500 in registration and title fee and a $79 tag agency fee now I hate to talk about minor stuff. Off lease only claims to be no dealer fee. A tag agency fee is a dealer fee, albeit a small one. But I will say this.

Again, this is minor. CarMax or Carfax, CarMax is a one-price dealer. That's a good thing to say. For real. So I don't want to be purely negative here, but the focus of this is on the Takata Airbag. And the bottom line is that offleasonly.com, who's a largest seller of use cars in our area, Palm Beach County. Probably the state.

Probably the state. Do you think they're bigger than CarMax? Well, they're outselling CarMax and Boynton. Boynton, yeah. That's amazing. Let's put this way. They're huge. They're huge.

Where they came from. And so they're selling a ton of these cars with Takata Airbag recalls, and they are not disclosing it. Now, if you just tuned in, I just read you a court-finding. in California, case law saying it's illegal to sell a used car with a dangerous recall without disclosing it. Now, it ought to be illegal to sell a used car with a dangerous recall, period, because it should be up to CarMax and it should be up to off-leaseonly.com or anybody else to take care of the repair.

Now, if you can't, if you're not a franchise dealer, you should be required by law to take it to the franchise dealer and let Honda fix that tick out of your bank. before you offer it per sale on your lot. Exactly. There's too many ways, even if you have good intentions, that you can accidentally sell one of these cars, and the customer doesn't understand. Rick?

I just want to reiterate that coming from the NHTSA website, National Highway Traffic Safety Association, the government, Honda Airbags, the older they get, the more likely those inflators are to explode like a grenade. As a matter of fact, they've said that some of the, the older hondas, they are up to 50% likelihood that in an accident that will detonate like a grenade instead of inflating the airbag properly. And there have even been a couple reports now of those inflators detonating without an impact. So folks, if you own any car

that you even think might have a Takata airbag, please go to that website, www. www. is my car recall.com, check your car's VIN number, find out if you have an open campaign, and please get it taken care of. And we don't want to confuse you. Safercar.com. If you go to Ismycarrecold.com, it takes you to Safercar.com. I'm starting to prefer safer car.com because it's shorter. S-A-R-C-R.gov. And check your VIN. You need to do this. The car dealers will not tell you. Now, this might change. And this This whole situation in California against CarMax could have effects all over the country.

And hopefully it will lead to having the cars, having this may be illegal to sell the car. That's what should happen. But at the very least, it should be illegal not to disclose clearly and conspicuously that this car has a dangerous recall. I'm really shocked. It's really a statement on our legislators, on our regulators, on our whole moral conscience of this country. that we're allowing the largest retailers have used cars. Two of them. I wonder what percentage, if you take offleash-only.com and CarMax,

and you put them together, what percentage of the total number of Takata Airbag cars are being sold? It's got a huge number. And we had to bust. We finally busted CarMax, and hopefully this will hit the headlines. It hasn't hit the headlines yet. I haven't seen that on network news.

I haven't seen it on cable news. The only way I found out about it was from the email that I got from Rosemary Shahan of cars in California, the consumer advocate from California. I haven't seen it hit the news yet. So what's going on? And it is definitely newsworthy, and what a job she did that wasn't an easy feat for her. My hat is off to Rosemary Shahan. You know, I can't emphasize enough. I mean, she's saving lives out there, and why hasn't it become more newsworthy right here, right here where we live?

I mean, this dealership that's huge is selling cars, a lot of cars, and they have potentially, they can drive off the lot, and it's, you know, your life is over, so it's an important issue. I'm going to ask Rosemary Cheyenne to call the show. Maybe she'll have time to call the show next week. Unfortunately, that's West Coast time, so she's going to have to be up pretty early in the morning. But she's very passionate about what she does, and she cares a lot. And hopefully there'll be some more developments in the situation with CarMax. This case law, as I say, I'm suing a Rigo, Chrysler-Jeep Dodge on this issue. And we're trying to, if this is going through the courts as we speak,

Hopefully this will have a positive impact on our success here. If we can bust one dealer here on this issue of the Takata Airbag recall, it'll be a domino effect, and you'll see all the dealers in Florida starting to pay heed. And you'll have Rick Scott and all the other politicians that are dragging their feet and the regulators, Florida Automobile Dealers Association, Pam Bondi, and all the other ones that are in the pocket of the car dealers, because it's an economic issue. If we have to stop selling, if car dealers have to stop selling cars with Takata Airbag recalls, it'll be a huge negative economic impact on the car dealers and on the auto manufacturers.

So that's the reason it's being stonewalled and ignored. And I hope some of you media out there will pick up on this and do something about the, the press release came out on the 26. Consumer wins landmark safety recall against CarMax, California Court of Appeals, rules in favor consumer. So you press media folks listening. It's huge. Publicize it.

Publicize it. Get it out to the public. Yeah, definitely. And remember, ladies and gentlemen, you can enter your VIN number whenever you go to safercar.gov. Enter your VIN number, and you can check out whether your car has been recalled. Okay. How much time we got? We've got about three minutes. Two minutes.

It gives me a time for a big dog ranch rescue. commercial. There you go. Okay. Now, you can kill two birds with one stone. I wrote a book called Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer. All the proceeds of the sale of that book go to big dog ranch rescue.com. By the way, Big Dog also ranch rescues small dogs. We really should call ourselves Big and Little Dog Ranch Rescue. But at any rate, buy a copy

of Confessions of Recovering Car Dealer on Amazon.com. And when you buy 100% of the proceeds of what you pay for the book, the profits 100% of what you pay for it goes to big dog ranch rescue big dog ranch rescue has right now we've got about 500 dogs in stock yeah we have saved over 3,000 dogs we do not euthanize our dogs we save them and we find homes for them they're the biggest no-kill shelter i believe in the entire state of florida so if you're looking for a dog go to big dog Ranch Rescue there on Okeech Boulevard way west in Laxahatchie

Groves, way west. 3,000 acre brand new facility out there, and there's an amazing woman by the name of Lori Simmons, the founder and president. She is totally, I spoke to her on the phone yesterday. She's right now in the process of trying to rescue two dogs from the Palm Beach County

shelter on Belvedere Road. She had rescued three dogs from euthanization yesterday in Miami. One had been hit by a car and the other two, I don't know the circumstances. That's all Laurie Simmons does is save dogs, and that's all Big Dog Ranch Rescue Dog does as save dogs. And you can help us by volunteering or adopting one of our dogs or by donating big dog ranchrescue.com. You can go to their website, www.bdrr.org.

Very good, Colin, thank you. www.bdrr as in big dog ranch rescue.org. And Earl, everyone wants to thank you for what you did yesterday. That was, you know, you played a big part. Trying to save a couple more dogs. Yeah, and you worked on it very hard, and it was successful. Thank you for that. Ladies and gentlemen, I think that we have like one minute left, so I'm going to give you

some interesting news that we have, and that is for all of you to make it convenient so that you can go ahead and watch the past shows. And those shows start, they went back as far as January. So we posted all of our past shows going back to the beginning of January. So if you can't tune in to hear our shows live on 95.9 and 106.9, the true oldies channel, Saturday mornings from 8 until 10. You can go to SoundCloud.com forward slash, on Cars, and you can pull up all of our past shows.

It'd be a lot of fun. So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to take a moment to thank you for joining us, spending part of your Saturday morning with us right here at Earl Stewart on Cars. We'll see you next week, same time, from 8 until 10.