Earl Stewart on Cars - 03.09.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Grieco Kia of Delray

Episode Date: March 9, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl's mystery shopper, Agent Thunder visits Grieco Kia of Delray to see if he can purchase a new Kia Optima at a promotional price. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. “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. My name is Earl, and I'm a recovering car dealer, and I'm doing a radio show out here on the True Oldie channel. We don't sing to you. We just talk about cars.

How not to be ripped off by a car dealer? When you're buying a car, leasing a car, maintaining, repairing a car, Whatever it is you do with a car dealer, it's kind of like walking on a minefield. You have to be very, very careful. And that's the reason we exist. I say we, because I'm in the studio here with a group of auto experts. To my right is Rick Kearney, who is a, well, we call him an auto computer scientist. You may refer to him as a mechanic or maybe a technician, depending on your age.

But he's really an auto computer scientist. He understands everything there is to know about the, electronics, the computerization, and a little bit of mechanical on cars. He can answer all your questions, and he's, he bats about 990. Every now and then we get stumped, but hey, we got Google, so we can find almost all answers that you may call us or text us about. And to his right is Nancy Stewart, my co-host, here on Earl Stewart on Cars. Nancy is, well, not only my wife, she's a part of,

this show because she's a woman's advocate about automobile dealers. Why do women need a special advocate? Well, because women have been taken advantage of for many years. Can you say hashtag me too? It's a movement going on now. Yesterday was International Women's Day. And things just aren't the same today as they were 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. I was born in 1940, grew up in the 50s and 60s, and times were different.

Nancy is about my age, too. And so we had that vantage point of looking at the way life was for women and the way it's evolved. And believe in car dealerships are far behind in that evolution. So Nancy will address especially the women in our audience, and she does a good job of it. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And we've got Stu Stewart. Howdy, howdy. Stu is my son.

He's part of our business. Now, in full disclosure, you have to know I am a car dealer. I say that with a little bit of trepidation because I know that you don't hold car dealers in the greatest of esteem. But I have been since 1968, but remember I'm a recovering car dealer, and I like to think I've evolved. I've evolved into a consumer advocate, and that's what I am. I'm a consumer advocate to help you. Stu is part of that team, and he is, well, he's not a millennial. What do you call yourself, Stu?

I'm a Gen Xer. Gen Xer, okay. He's a Gen Xer. He's got a perspective also on the way cars are sold. And he came along about the time. I was getting ready to get out of the car business. And he said to me that he might want to join me in the car business, except for the fact he just didn't like the way cars were sold.

And he was instrumental in the way I changed my life, the way I sold cars. Changed my personal life, too. Made a lot of changes over the past 20 or 30 years. And here I am. at 95.9 FM, 960 AM, 105.9 FM, True Oldie Station. And another station before that, I've been doing this radio show for 14 years. I hope we have some new listeners, and my apologies to our regular listeners, who've heard a lot of this over and over again.

But I have to set the stage because a lot of new folks tune in and don't know what's going on. Expect me to sing to them. I don't do that. Why are we here? So here's the Gallup poll stick I do. The Gallup organization is one of the oldest and most trusted polling organization in the world. The Gallup started doing a poll in 1977, and it's called Honesty and Ethics in Professions. Honesty and Ethics and Professions.

They ask you, the American consumer, to vote on which businesses do you think are the most honest and ethical? And, of course, by default, which businesses aren't. And every year since 1977, car dealers have been either at the bottom, I mean dead last, or second or third. Occasionally we get eeked out by congressmen or lobbyists. Last year, I must say, car dealers were able to maintain the dead last spot. 2018, car dealers were considered by the American consumer, the American car buyer, the most unethical and dishonest business so that's why we're here we talk about why that is we talk about what we can do to change it what you can do to change it and this show is part of it

we ask you to call the show and we have a lot of ways we can we can be contacted the old-fashioned way is just 877 960 9960 you might want to write that number down because you'll be listening to the show and something will come up. You'll have a question, a comment, a criticism. By the way, we welcome your criticisms. We love a little controversy. That's good talk radio. If I agree with everybody, that's no fun.

877-960-9960. Now, our more popular than calling, and I think texting is almost replacing phone calls today, is the text information, the text posting, you might call it. And that's area code 772-497-6530. Text us at 772-497-6530. And we will answer your question. That'll be anonymous.

Plus, but wait, there's more. We're streaming. We're streaming on Facebook. And I believe we have the bandwidth because we got Jonathan in the control room in there, and he's adjusting things so that we can also stream on YouTube. So, Facebook.com

forward slash roll on cars. Facebook.com forward slash roll on cars. You can see me and Nancy and Rick and Stu in Living Color as we speak. And Nancy's beautiful, by the way.

Nancy, oh, very good. It's very good. Just look at it yourself. Yeah, fantastic. Nancy, tell the ladies out there what we have. have in store for them if they call the show.

This morning, ladies and gentlemen, but most of all, ladies, let's celebrate International Women's Day again this morning. And you can help me do that by calling in at 877-960-960 and share your opinion

with us or give us some advice by doing that. You can win yourself $50. The first three lady callers can win them themselves $50. The first three new lady callers help us to build a platform here at Earl Stewart on cars, and I do need your help. We, as women, need to stand together and let our voices be heard. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. Now back to the recovering card.

One of the things that I talk about the show over and over, and I apologize to our regular listeners, is leasing. I talk about leasing a lot. When Nancy and I speak, Rick and Nancy and I speak at different groups, for example, we're the Cascade Men's Club last Sunday. And one of the most common questions, in fact, we got into a very long discussion, Q&A about leasing. Leasing has become very, very popular, mainly because. The auto manufacturers and the car dealers are pushing it, and there are a lot of pitfalls to leasing. A lot of things that you don't know about that are, that's concealed on the fine print, and the leasing contract. Car dealers, before Warren, make substantially more money when they lease you a car.

Car dealers also are able to control you more and bring you back. People who lease cars are far more likely to lease another car or buy another car from the same home. dealer and of course they're also far more likely to buy another car through that manufacturer so the auto manufacturers are pushing leasing chances are if you've seen an auto ad recently it was a leasing ad and that's a reason there's nothing wrong with leasing other than it's far more complicated it's also easier for you to be taken advantage of because of that but you need to understand if you made the decision to buy a vehicle and you're prepared and you've done you your homework and you go into a car dealership and that car sales person says and he will say

have you considered leasing or i think you should lease the car it would be less expensive or it's a better deal for you to lease a car red flag should go up because in most cases that car dealer is making a thousand or two thousand dollars more when he leases your car there are a lot more hidden fees when you lease a car than when you buy a car. When you buy a car, the hidden fees are famous, you know, the dealer fee, which goes by multiple names. Most dealers in Florida now have at least two, maybe three, or even four dealer fees. This averages about $1,000 with leasing. There's multiple more fees behind those. Beware, and when they say lease, the red flag goes up.

We have a first-time caller. Her name is Karen. Welcome to the show, Karen. What can we do for you this morning? On YouTube, to a lot of Earl's videos on how to do certain things and all that stuff. So I am in a situation where I have a lease vehicle, which I will be having to turn in in a little. bit. And I am 78 years old, and I don't, I don't know if I should lease another vehicle

or with the idea of purchasing one, with the idea of that being maybe my last, my last car that I will, you know, will ever get. And I did talk to my salesman last week, and he said, if I bring my car in now, they will forgive the remaining note on the car. And I told him, I said, well, wouldn't that just, you know, whatever is owed on it, let's say $1,200, I don't know, $1,200, they would just forgive that. And I said, wouldn't that roll into it somewhere in the price of a, you know, of a new car? He says, oh, no, it wouldn't show up at all. And so I sort of in a quandary, I really don't know what to do. I know you, you know, it's hard to find a salesperson who is, you know,

up front with you and honest night, and I said, it wasn't leasing more profitable for you than, you know, purchasing? He says, oh, no, not at all. So I just need some guidance, what to do. Well, Karen, believe me, you're not alone. I mentioned the Cascade Men's Club that Nancy and Rick and I spoke at last Sunday, and there were multiple people that were in this situation. My last column is Seniors Beware when you're leasing.

When you lease a car, you are obligated for all the payments of the lease, 36-month-lease. When you sign that contract from the first day, you owe the leasing company 36 monthly payments. And you've also been money out-of-pocket for the upfront fee, security deposits, first-lease payment, tax and tag and things like. this so you're out of pocket a lot when you lease a car and then if you something comes up you're in your 70s Nancy and I are in our 70s things happen you've got

ways that doctors say you shouldn't drive anymore vision hearing reflexes a lot of seniors have to you know stop driving cars and of course we recognize the fact that there's also, you can die. I mean, there's a lot of things going to happen where you can't drive a car. The older you get, the higher of the probability. Therefore, you need to understand this, that there's no getting around the debt that you owe the leasing company. If you lease a car and you can't drive it anymore for a very good reason, even the doctor gives you a letter, the leasing company doesn't care. You still owe that.

Now, there's the possibilities that you can assign this lease to a third party. This is pretty tricky, and it depends upon the approval of the leasing company. There are third parties companies that this is what they do. They find a third party that will have the credentials to be approved by the leasing company and assume the lease price at some number doesn't necessarily have to be what you owe. So my advice is lean toward purchasing in this stage of your life. and you can there is no inherent advantage to leasing other than the fact that you don't have to come out of pocket you shouldn't have to come out of pocket as much with a with a lease as a purchase now when you what your salesman alluded to if you turn your car in with them they waive something called a lease disposition fee varies from leasing company to leasing company it can be as little as three or four hundred dollars it could be higher it's a on the manufacturer but if you buy another car from that same dealer or from

that same manufacturer they will waive it too it's the manufacturer that gives you that privilege of waiving that disposition fee don't feel like you're obligated to go to that same dealer if he knows you're obligated to come to him then he will not be flexible in negotiating the price let the dealer know that you want to purchase another car and set a lease it and let that dealer know that you're going to another dealer, let's say you're buying a Honda, go to the dealer that leaves you this Honda, and then check with two other Honda dealers to get the best price, because there's nothing that keeps a dealer on us better than competition,

taking the exact same vehicle that you want to buy and getting prices from two other dealers with the same make. That way they will waive the lease disposition fee, and then when you're making payments on that purchase, you're building equity. And if you can't drive and you build equity in that vehicle, you can sell a vehicle and actually have cash in your pocket and set out of writing out a check for 30 payments or 18 payments or something like that.

I hope that answered your question, Karen. Well, yeah, he said he would forgive that, if I handed a car and now he would forgive the last four payments of the lease, but wouldn't that show up somewhere else if I were to purchase or lease another vehicle? I mean, they're just not going to swallow that, are they? It should. When they put that into something else or hide it in the next vehicle that I purchased?

Right. Sometimes a manufacturer will have a program while they will waive on certain payments, a number of payments toward the end of the lease. That's one of the reasons manufacturers like to lease. you cars because they can use that to induce you to buy or lease another car from them. But if it's a salesperson

saying that he will do it, then he's not being honest with you. He will include those in the next lease and it should show up in there if you examine it carefully. But it's difficult to spot that. Same thing with the purchase. It's difficult to spot that. If he makes that claim

you ask that question, yeah. You ask that question and you see in black and white from that manufacturer. If it's a Honda dealer, the Honda should have in print to you saying we have a special program, Honda, that if you turn your car in now,

we'll waive X number of payments. If it's not coming from Honda manufacturer, it's phony, and you will be paying that because you'll hide it in the purchase or the lease. Yeah, speaking only for Toyota, they require you to sign a rebate for them. So if you get any of this thing.

I currently have Malibu, 16, 2016 Malibu. And I certainly don't want the new 19 ones because they've got that CV transmissions in which I don't trust at all. And I know they use, at least in some of their cars, they use the jack-coached CVT. And I've heard that's really bad, really bad transmissions. So, yeah. So you know of any reputable? you have a little dealer here Well I think on our recommended dealers

I believe we have Schumacher or Schumacher Chevrolet on our recommended dealer list too I'm looking right now Let's see You know Yes Shumacher Chevrolet and North Palm Beach

Directly north of Ann Arbor Oh That's right you're up Yeah I don't I would what I'd recommend you do Karen is go to Google Ratings and see, find out the Chevrolet dealer in your market that has, I'd say, at least four stars.

And you can also, I'm not sure in the General Motors leasing, if you buy another General Motors product, if they'll waive that or not. Do you know that? Stu, if you buy a Buick or Lisa Buick, couldn't tell you. I don't know the answer to that. But, yeah, I check your Chevrolet dealers in the Ann Arbor market and find them on the high Google rating. dealer raider is another form of rating and Yelp is a dealer Raider

There's a dealer Yeah it's called dealer raider.com It's just You want to do beware of that Because they do accept advertising from dealers So there is a little conflict in there But it's another online review so I don't want to get another Malibu I think I'm heading

Leaning toward maybe a Hyundai sonata or a I don't know You know Honda maybe I don't Hyundai's a good car. Go to consumer reports, Karen, and look at the recommended vehicle. As far as I know, they don't, maybe I'm wrong, correct me if I'm wrong, they don't offer the Apple CarPlay or Android on their phone, on their infotainments. I don't know about that. I know a lot of the manufacturers are adopting that. Toyota was a late

coming to the game. They just did it. And they're now adding Android CarPlay, whatever that version is called. so we don't know Apple and Android Well yeah Well that's Toyota and most of the manufacturers Are jumping on the bandwack And with that I don't know about Hyundai in particular

I can Google it for you But Karen I know I was just wondering if Toyota does now offer it Oh yes 2018 models Yes starting with the 2019 models Which is most of the Toyota models now So they do

Oh the 19 but not the 18s Okay There's not very many 18s left right now If you go to consumer reports all that information is in there. The new 2019 auto issue just came out. And if you either buy that at the newsstand or go online and join consumer reports, they have an amazing amount of information.

Tell you which cars have the Apple CarPlay, which ones are recommended. The safest ones, the most fuel efficient. And Hyundai ranks pretty high on that, Rick. Hyundai says that 11 of their current models have Apple Carplay already. Okay, great news. And the Hyundai is a good quality car. They've really improved their quality over the past several years. And I believe they have some of the consumer reports recommended top cars.

Oh, okay. So I should get them consumer reports then, okay? And remember, by going to a different make, they're going to hit you with a lease disposition fee that you... How much is that, approximately? For Toyota, it's $350. For other dealers, I can't say, but it would be several hundred dollars. Oh, my God. But let me...

They really hope you there, don't they? Don't let that blackmail you into staying with a vehicle you don't want to buy. $350 would be a small investment to pay to get the car you wanted. Get out of that cycle. Yeah, exactly. Because that's a... Right. Yeah, I really need to get out of it at this point, I think.

Okay, thank you very much. Well, I very much appreciate all your advice, and I listen to you and watch your videos all the time. So thank you so much. Have a beautiful day. Karen, are you still there? This is Nancy Stewart, and I just want to let you know from listening to your conversation. It doesn't sound like as if that you're going to be taking advantage of. It sounds like you're pretty much on top of things.

It saddens me that I have to advise women not to go shopping alone, and even in this 21st century. And leasing can be, it's got a lot of twists and turns. Like I said, it sounds like as if you're on top of things. And I want to take a moment. I had someone to go. My husband passed away recently. Yeah. I address a lot of women just like yourself that have had, you know, their husbands

pass away, and you're, you know, the perfect person to take advantage of. But it sounds like as if you've got all your ducks in a row. seniors are just victimized every single day I want to thank you for calling Earl Stewart on Cars and helping us to build a platform here for women and if you stay on the line Rudy who's in our control room we'll get your information and I'll get that check out to you

and good luck and stay in touch with us thank you so much I'll let you know how everything turns out I'd appreciate that all right thank you very much you're welcome we're going to go to John who's calling from Palm City. Good morning, John. We still got you there, John. Yes, good morning to everyone on this beautiful Florida morning. I just want to mention

a very important item. Some of our listeners are not aware of. There's a class action suit nationwide against Kia and Hyundai. The cars, if you saw some of the videos, they burn and they burned right to the ground. It's certain years, and it's a very very, very serious problem. And a lot of people are not aware of it. So I just want to tell anybody that drive those cars, check with the dealer, make sure your car. Evidently, it's a gasoline fire, and once it starts, boy, I'll tell you, it's a whole car. Is there a recall?

So I just want to point that out. And there's a lot of things that are not recalled officially. For instance, in February, there was 111 complaints against GM pickups to large pickups and SUVs. There were nine crashes and two injuries as a result. The brake doesn't fail, but it's a diaphragm in the vacuum pump for the brakes, and it causes longer stopping distances and efforts to stop the vehicle. And that's just, you know, it's darn shame when people spend. 20, $40,000, $40,000 on a vehicle, and then they wind up in a vehicle that's unsafe. It's very, very frightening today.

You didn't hear about this years ago such a serious problem. This Takata incident is a perfect example, and I just don't know which direction we're heading, but all of them are not on the national recall list. So I just want to warn the people that own the key in Hondas, check it out. thoroughly and make sure that your car is not one that's susceptible to this problem. And I want to mention also, last month I mentioned, I couldn't think of his name. Jerry Seinfeld, very famous from TV, sold his 58 Porsche for $1.5 million. He's being sued because it was a bogus car. Now Jerry turned around in New York City last week and said that he got stuck with that car from a European

classic collectible firm in California who falsified and certified the authenticity of that car so it's you know there's two auctions

major auctions coming up from collected cars one is in Fort Laud there March 29th on R&M another one is next month the big one Barrett Jackson I would advise people

unless you have a lot of money I mean I followed auction but I never bought a one mainly because I don't have the money to buy him But I wouldn't be buying at these collector car auctions when all you've got a guarantee is of the title. You can't drive the car. It looks beautiful on the surface. Many of the cars have a reserve on them that you don't know about it.

And you're paying a commission that's beyond belief, 10% on a buyer, 10% on a seller, and an auction, a registration fee. So, my opinion, any collector car auction, unless a person has a lot of extra or spare money, I would stay far away from them. You can't bring it to a mechanic. You put your hand up, you own it, period. There's no backing out. You can't stop a check on it. It looks beautiful on the surface. I mean, Rick will tell you some of these cars are beautifully restored, but they may be full of fiberglass.

and I just my advice is collect the car auctions which I've been following for years I wouldn't buy at one at all good advice John I appreciate that I'm sure Jerry I appreciate you to look forward to the oh by the way don't forget tonight one hour ahead on your clock otherwise you'll be late for church tomorrow oh thank you very much I did forget that thank you John thank you for being part of the show John we appreciate your call every week have a one wonderful weekend. Give us a call, tool-free. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And don't forget, you can take advantage of Your Anonymous Feedback.com. There, you can go and you can say, whatever you want. It's definitely 100% authentic. It is your anonymous feedback.

Just like it says, you can't be identified. Take advantage of it. Youranonymous Feedback.com. Well, we've got some text, don't we, too? Yes, we do. First one came in from Anne-Marie, who's a regular texter. She says, good morning.

The choices facing snowbirds and vehicles are few. The most common choice is to drive both ways. Years ago, they used to say that getting there is half the fun. However, I suspect that went in the way of the Burma shave signs. There's vehicle transporters. Friends have tried them with varying degrees of sense. satisfaction. Auto train is great if one is going to that area in Virginia. One can leave a car sitting down here for five or six months, but I've heard that isn't good for vehicles, or

you can rent a car for the season from a car rental company at the airport, guesstimating about $6,000 or more depending on the vehicle, location, and company. Earl, you have a dealership where people can lease a car for years and rent a car for a day or two while theirs are in the shop. Do you or any other dealers have options for people who might want to rent a car for five or six months. Just wondering. Yeah, I think most rental companies have a short-term, they call them rentals versus leases, are available. And don't forget Uber and Lyft, they have some amazing programs now. If I were a snowbird, I'd be in, I'd be doing Uber. They got so, what, $399 a month or $299? $299 for $450 worth of rides. Yeah, and that worked out to be, we did the mileage on

that. It's up in like 250 miles. Yeah, it was pretty good. I mean, And you just pay for the overage, so it's not, I mean, you might end up paying $300 in a month. I mean, $400. Rick? You know, that would work great. And then if, say, you were in Palm Beach, you wanted to go up to Orlando for a weekend, you ran a car for the weekend. Yeah. I think this, we don't realize the effect Uber is going to have on our lives.

A lot of very smart people think that this whole ride-sharing thing, this lack of ownership, will take over the whole world. nobody will be buying these things we call cars today. A great food delivery the other evening. Yeah. Nancy and I used Uber Eats. Really? Yeah. Lubriets is delivering in the Palm Beach County area now.

Yeah, we were so excited. Very professional and, you know, digitalized and the whole thing, the tip, the payment. On time. Everything is there on time. And a picture of your driver before they come up. And the driver is out front now. and Paul's the whole thing. So we're looking at an amazing change.

Good app. Good app. The app's good. Yeah. Another thing to think of is there are ride sharing programs like Zipcar in some cities. I don't know if we have them down here. I think we definitely have them in Miami. Maybe not West Palm Beach, but you just use a car for a couple hours at a time using an app

and you just leave it wherever, and people find it with the app with the GPS. Yeah. I don't like that idea, but I know it's been tried. They tried it in New York City. It didn't work. And I guess, you know, because people will take the car and they leave it wherever they want to leave it and they're supposed to put the keys in it

and they're not supposed to damage it and they're supposed to clean it up. There's a lot of supposites. I think they start with an app, though. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think there's keys. All right. Steve in New Jersey texted us.

He says, Hi, Earl, Steve from New Jersey, due to our health needs a need to buy a car that maximizes safety and comfort. We need a car strictly for long-distance travel. to visit our grandchildren who live over five hours away. I'm considering a three-year-old certified pre-owned Ben's S-class. What are your thoughts about buying a CPO luxury car? Well, you've got the money to spend.

Mercedes is a good product. I would immediately check with consumer reports because they rate use cars as well as new. My gut feeling is to stick if you're looking for reliability, to stick with Asian cars, I think. But the Germans are, you know, Volkswagen's got a good quality car now. Mercedes, they all vary. The problem is you can't go with one make a car

and just make a blanket decision that all Mercedes are good, all Toyotas are good, all General Motors cars are good. Consumer reports breaks it down, model by model, within the makes. And almost, I say almost, every make has good models, and bad miles. Rick? And don't forget the basic, simplest thing, have it checked by your independent mechanic

and fully inspected. Even if it costs you a hundred some odd dollars to have it inspected, then you know for sure what issues it might have before you take a big plunge. A single most important thing you can do. You got car max, they're a good

seller. You got carfax. They're a good checker. They will see if the car's been involved in an accident, but all those things are important, but if you don't have it checked out by your own mechanic, I say your own, because the dealer, whoever sell you the car will say he checked it out or he'll have it checked out, but that's his man. You need your man. Yeah, and one more thing to consider is when you're looking at a certified car, there is a cost to that. The dealers will tend to spend more money on

fixing a lot of things to bring up the standards that maybe another lot might not do, and And the warranty that comes with it does add to the cost of the car. So it's not totally free, even though it does come with the car. But read that warranty closely to make sure what it does and does not cover. Yeah, usually the most attractive part of a certified warranty is a power train warranty. Now, I don't know much about Mercedes, so maybe you might need it. But in a lot of the cars, it's not really a very good warranty. Now, here's a little trick on certified warranties.

When you're shopping certified warranties with a dealer, say, listen, I want one. that's been checked for certification, but I don't want the warranty. And if they put it through the check for the certification, then you're basically booking the warranty yourself. And as I say, a warranty is just like an insurance policy. Insurance policies always pay out, you know, take in more in premiums than they pay out in claims. So you're betting against the house when you buy an insurance policy

or when you pay for an extended warranty on a certified country. So you can have the car checked out. The insurance company has to check out and said they'll bet on it, but you don't have to pay the premium. Just buy the car that's been checked out. And it's almost like as good as having a certified car. Give us a call toll free at 877960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. And Stu, I think you have one or two more texts. We have one more text.

It's from Sid in Boynton Beach. Sid asks, what percentage of the dealer fee goes to pay the commission for the sales rep, the manager, and the dealership on the transaction? Zero. The interesting thing about the dealer fee is that the salespeople are taking advantage of just as badly as a customer. I've never understood why the salespeople don't rise up, like the consumers should rise up and say no more to the car dealers on the dealer fee. The dealer fee, be it electronic filing fee, tag agency fee, notary fee, doc fee, all the many names dealers call it to hide it from you.

It's profit, P-R-O-F-I-T, profit in the pocket of the dealer, not in the pocket of the salesman or the sales manager. The profit goes to the dealer. And this profit is what the salesperson should be paid on. The average commission in Florida, in fact, probably the whole U.S. is 25% of the profit. If a car dealer makes $2,000 on a car, then one-fourth of that, or $500 is the commission that salesperson should earn. If that $1,000 of that $2,000 profit is dealer fees, then the salesperson is being cheated out of $250. dollars and the sales the 250 dollars it should go salesperson is going to the dealer additional profit to the dealer so if you're a car salesman out there think about it at the very

least you should select a dealer that has lower dealer fees because it's going to be awfully hard for you to find any dealer with no dealer fees we're going to go to david who's calling us from west palm beach good morning david hey good morning good morning Good morning, Earl. Love your show. Thank you. I'm listening to you every Saturday while I'm driving around the city working. And, man, you guys, and you guys are great.

Thank you. And welcome. And I have this question. It's got to do with cars, but not mechanically. I had purchased a vehicle and bought cap insurance through the dealer themselves. And I went in there about a year. ago to try to figure out how to get rid of that gap insurance and the same dealer they kind of pushed me off like we're not telling you how to get rid of it is how I felt and so I just kind of

like walked out of the place and I'm wondering if you might tell me how to get rid of the gap insurance because I know my car is now equal to what my insurance would pay so David I think you're trapped I think during the first 90 days Stu does that can GAP be canceled like an extended service contract in the first 90 days? Yeah, I believe so without a proration. I'd double check on that, and I don't know if it varies state by state, but yeah, you can cancel that. And you need to check with a lender, as Stu says, because it's like financing. When you prepay a car, if you have a 48-month contract and you decide to pay it off in 24 months,

it isn't pro-rata, meaning they don't just divide. your finance charge over the 48, and then you only pay half of it. They do it by something called Rule of 78, which favors the bank and the lender, and the lion's share of which you pay still goes to the bank. My guess is gap insurance is covered the same way. You could have canceled it in Florida in the first 90 days, and every state is different. But after that, it would be pro rata rule of 78, and you can call your lender and he can give you the number and tell you exactly how much you would have to pay the other thing is that if you prepay it you're not going to get your money you're not going to get your money back they will just take it off the end of the loan so it won't be a they'll send you a check for the amount you get back you will have to wait till the end of the car payments and then it will be deducted from your last payment Carl you're in the bet

Man, I'm, like, crystal clear now. Well, David, thanks for the call. I've had the car for, like, I bought the car in 16, and it was already used. So, you know, I'm just trying to get rid of the gap, but I figured it could make my principal lower, but now we'll call the lender and go from there, and, man, keep on doing what you guys do. I love it.

Thanks, David. I appreciate you being a listener. Thanks, David. You're welcome. Have a great day, okay? You're welcome. Remember, ladies, you can win yourself $50 this morning. First, three new lady callers.

$50. Give us a call with your opinion, maybe a little advice. We look forward to hearing from you, 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. And Janet has text me, and she wanted to know when the best time was to purchase a vehicle. And Janet, first, I'll answer that, and then I'll send it back over to Earl. He can add whatever he needs to. But for me, I would definitely think about going out during the day, first of all. It's a whole lot clearer to you as to what you're looking at if you're on the lot during the day.

And as far as what time of the year at the end of the month, at the end of the year, and that's a lot of great advice and you do not have to make a decision that day. You take your time, you get your information, go home and think about it, digest it. Don't let anybody rush you. Now, back to the recovering car dealer. That covers it very well. You want to do all your homework and research, check the car out and drive it, get some prices. You can do that anytime.

But when you come to the point where you're ready to make your final decision, you selected your dealer with the lowest price. Good time was wait till the end of the month. The end of the month is when the frenzy, the selling frenzy goes on, car dealers, car manufacturers, the advertising. Everything is the fever pitch. And if you can ever take advantage of a car dealer, which isn't often, the time would be in the last day or two of the month. You could probably squeeze an extra hunters or maybe a couple thousand dollars. out of a dealer at the right time of the month, which is typically the 31st, 30th, when the bonuses start to fly.

Yeah. And Janet, they're looking to get rid of a lot of their inventory. But, you know, there's a few women that I've spoken to that they go out in the evening. And for the life of me, I can't understand that. That's not a real good idea. Hope I answered your question. Have a great day. And stay in touch with us.

We've got some text coming in. Rick's got some. Stu's got something. I want to say something else to David, because I think I left something out. David called earlier about gap insurance, and Stu, listen to what I'm saying here and correct me if I'm wrong. With gap insurance as opposed to an extended service contract or other types of aftermarket products, gap insurance is most important during the early ownership of the car. So I can see why a lender would be perfectly justified and not refunding the gap insurance after a certain point. You would be taking advantage of the lender if you were to have the GAAP insurance for the first one year of ownership when the danger existed for the lender and then you paid it off. So I might have given you some bad advice, David. I think, based on how long you've owned it, I think you may be out of luck to get any kind of a refund on GAAP after the first year or two of having driven the car. And now, Rick, you've got some text here. Well, we had one from Raymond, was asking a 2016 Camry,

does he need to service the transmission at 30,000 miles? And that answer is no. That car has WS-type fluid, which is good for the life of the car, with normal driving conditions. You never need to worry about it. Great. And we also had a comment from M on YouTube, saying that he thinks we ought to be syndicated,

nationwide. So my answer back to him was, well, we had just spoken with a caller from Michigan. So technically we are actually nationwide. And next, we will take over the world. We'd love to syndicate. That'd be fun. We've talked about that in the past with a previous radio station owner. We had talked about kind of a mini-sendication, three or four stations, I think one in northern Florida. But, yeah, that'd be fun. If any of syndicators out there, all you got to do is call. Definitely. 877960.

Again, you can text us at 772-4976530. I'd like to take over Ashley Moody's office, and nobody knows who she is. She's the attorney general who took over Pam Bondi's job. She focused on seniors this week and didn't hear anything about the car business. I've talked about a lot of scams. We're going to go to Rod, who's calling from Riviera Beach. Good morning, Rod. Good morning, all.

Last week, you all were talking about the changing out the brake fluid and, you know, certain miles or something like that. To me, the classes I went to, they said that if the color of the fluid is starting to get the least bit dark or a bit dark. That's why you should change it out because it absorbs moisture and starts getting darker and darker. Especially if you put your finger, if you can,

into the brake reservoir and there's just a little bit of like goop mud on the bottom. Boy, is that long fast due to change out. A lot of people don't change your stuff out, unfortunately, and then you got your ABS brakes to get problems, et cetera, et cetera. That's very good advice, Rod. Yeah, also number two,

there's a lot of people going back to buying old cars and stuff like that and I want to see what you think about that. You know, if you're going to the auction, like John said, if you're going to this, going to that, have somebody with you that has a little magnus that can check the seat, if there's fiberglass, is there actual steel on the vehicle, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, I think at auctions, I'm not really familiar with the antique auctions. I know that at regular auto auctions, and our dealership buys a lot of cars, sells a lot of cars at the Mannheim auctions. Mannheim is the main auction in the U.S. They own most of the auto auctions. And they give you the opportunity to inspect the cars well in advance. you can go out days in advance the cars are there and all made available for inspection and you can bring your mechanic you can drive the car you can check it out very carefully and the

auto auctions are also required to disclose ahead of time major things that are wrong with the car or they cannot they can sell it under the red light which means there is no disclosure and you buy the car as is if there's any misrepresentation at a Mannheim auction then you can get your money back. And they gave you a certain period of time to say this car was misrepresented. So with an expert, as you say, at the auction, checking the car in advance for you, you can pretty much safely buy a car at the auction today. And that's not a bad idea.

If you have a friend that will do that for you, charge you a fee for his services, you can buy a car at wholesale and pay a $2 or $300 fee and get a real good buy on a car. Yeah, I've done that for years with certain select people, and it's worked well. Yes. I pretty much looked from the bottom up, because the bottom of it, if there's any type of accident or if there's any type of befall to it, you're going to pretty much see it from the bottom up. Exactly. Also, you had gotten a Pontiac, I believe, that was on your showroom floor there.

Do you still have that older Pontiac? We sure do. That was the first car my father sold to a lady by the name of Annie Swan in 1937. When he started as a Pontiac dealer in West Palm Beach in 1937, he sold that 1937 chieftain to Annie, and he charged her MSRP, $976. And we bought it back about 50 years later, I think. She couldn't drive it anymore. It kept it in her garage, and it deteriorated, but we had it restored,

and it's all original Pontiac. Every part on it is original, and we keep it on our show report. What year is that? 1937. Oh, okay. Boy, for 37, 900-some was pretty, pretty pricey, pretty expensive, but it was a good-looking car that I saw there. I've got a friend of mine.

It's got a one-owner. got a 1941 Chevy that he's that he's finally decided he's going to sell I've done a lot of research into it and everything and the 41 is just before World War II

and they added three inches to the car it was the first year of synchromesh transmission all kinds of different things and not a flathead but you know new improved engine and all that stuff and I'm kind of I'm kind of kicking it around.

Do I want to do anything with it or not? Well, it's expensive. The restoration is very expensive. But then again, it's an investment. And if you get a good restorer and you really get it, it's almost like investing in the stock market. I mean, if you have the right car and the right restore restoration done, 10 years from now, you can almost bet you can make a profit. My 1937 Bonniac is a family heirloom. I'll be passing along to my sons and my grandsons, and we'll keep it in the family forever.

By the way, on that 1937 Pontiac, my father sold to Annie Swan. He charged her a $6.50 dealer fee. Uh-oh. Yeah. Well, you know, $6.50, that was groceries for a week probably back then. In 1937, $6.50 was a lot of money. You better believe it. Yes, sir.

What are you thinking about? The price was $934. I've been trying to get you on stream today, and I can't seem to get you up. I got March 2nd, but I don't have the other. I only got you on radio. I'm sorry, Ron. We've got that being corrected. On May 1st, we'll be in a new studio, and right now we're kind of playing with the feed

so we can do YouTube and Facebook at the same time. We accidentally had the wrong date on that live stream. Oh. The March 2nd is actually today's live stream. Oh, but it's been corrected now. Oh, did you hear that? Yeah, it's fixed now. Well, Rod, thanks very much.

You're a great caller. Yeah, we like, we love hearing from you. I'm sorry, Rod. I didn't hear what you just said. I say, happy day to all. Enjoy the day. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Give us a call tool free at 877-960-90-60, or you can text us at 77249-9-7-6-5-30. And don't forget, ladies, first three lady callers can win themselves $50 today. And the text number is 772-497-6530. And I think Rick has maybe one or two. It's our student's turns. So we've got four texts over here. Okay, before we go to Howard.

We go to Howard. Good morning, Howard. Thanks for the call. How you doing? Good morning, everybody. Beautiful morning. I have a couple of questions for you. Actually, the first one is for Rick.

Rick, I was told that I could change a battery in the car without disconnecting it from the ignition by using a jumper. Is that correct? Yes, you can do that. A lot of modern cars, the radios in that. And I'll say this actually, the newer cars up to a few years a couple years ago when you disconnected the battery

you would lose the memory to the radio and the memory to the computer and everything and the newest cars now the radios will keep their memory but the computer still loses its learned values so we actually in our shop we'll use a trick we'll use a jump box or a battery charger and hook it up to those cables

so that when we disconnect it, we don't lose the power to the car. We will use safety precautions of rags or fender liners to make sure we don't short anything out. You've got to be very careful. You don't want to short the ground with that positive terminals. But as long as you're doing it carefully, yeah, you can very easily replace the battery and not lose power to the car

and not lose any of those memory functions. Okay, my second question is, this for Earl. What's the difference between Toyota God and Toyota God Platinum? I believe I have Toyota God Platinum. Can you explain the difference? The difference is that

Southeast Toyota makes a lot more money on the platinum than they do the regular. But the answer is the platinum is the one with the extra maintenance, and the non-platin doesn't give you extra maintenance. It's just an insurance thing. So what Stu's saying is there's a germ of benefit and the Toyo Guard platinum because you get additional two years oil changes,

which is some tangible value. The rest of Toyo Guard is a bunch of smoke and mirrors. The only value to Toyo Guard is the actual service, which is provided for additional two years. Toyota manufacturer gives you the first two years of service on the car. A lot of manufacturers, BMW, and almost all the manufacturers now are giving free service for the first. couple of years, sometimes three years.

With Toyota, it's two years. And then Southeast Toyota has a package that gives you an additional two years of free service, which is only oil changes and tire rotations. And the rest of it is paint sealant and road service,

emergency road service, and rental coverage. Rental coverage, which isn't worth much. They charge you too much money. They charge you $699, which is ridiculous. The dealer cost on that is only about, what is it? But $240.40. So the dealer only pays $240 for it, and he charges you $699 for it.

Okay, so what I have in my glove box, I have this folder that says on the back that I have Toyota Guard Platinum. So, in other words, when I go for an oil change, would they know that? They would. It would be in their computer. should insist that they you shouldn't have to do your oil changes for the first four years depending on the amount of miles you drive should be covered the first two years by Toyota manufacturer and the second two years by the Toyota distributor that's a great deal to get your oil changes for that long it never heard of a thing like that before yeah well it's it doesn't cost that much to change oil and the car dealers

like to get you come into a dealership because when you come in to change your oil, they're going to try to sell you something else. And remember, that brings up the point I always try to make, only go with your factory recommended maintenance. If you look at your owner's manual and you look at the first four years, you have very,

very little maintenance. I think your total cost of maintenance in the first four years, based on average driving, is less than $100. With getting subsidized. I have a question for Rick. I travel. I'm a snowbird so I go back and forth and I load up my car and I really you know it the angle of the

car the front goes up so back is loaded down now I was reading the manual and it said if you carry a lot of stuff of your toe you should have your the bolts in your car tightened is it am I a candidate for that or not uh there's really not a whole lot that's going to need to be tightened. They're more looking at like the lug nuts and things like that, but your lugs are going to get pretty well secured when we're doing tire rotations anyways. The reason we love seeing guys like you that are putting a heavy load in the car is because you're going to be putting extra wear and tear on the tires and the brakes. And when you're coming in for those, that third and fourth year of services, like Earl said, you're only spending, you know,

you're not spending anything on the oil change in the tire rotations, But 30,000 to 40,000 miles is when mechanics start to drool because we're looking to upsell you on the tires and the alignment if you need it and on the brakes. Because that's about the time when those brakes are starting to get worn down. And once they're getting thin, we're going to sell those brakes if they need it. I thought you were just hungry when I saw you drooling. Hey, Rick. No, no, I'm hearing money. Rick, I have a question for you, Rick.

That's what mechanics do. What about fuel? Now, fuel economy, of course, is going to go down a little bit with that load, so you're going to want to try to avoid anything extraneous that you don't really need. But obviously, if you're traveling, you know, you're going to have to carry what you need. Yeah. How are? How would the load affect the tire wear?

Mainly because the extra weight in the back is putting extra pressure on those rear tires. The rear, when you're rotating the tires, the front wheel drive cars, all the weight is up front so the front tires get most of the wear and then when you rotate them every 5,000 miles it gives them a little bit of a break they ride a little smoother and easier in the back but when you've got that heavy load in the back it's just accelerating that wear okay so why should you put good tires in the uh on the rear instead of the front they say if you if you're buying new tires if you're buying two you should always put it in the front can you explain that because normally you're not carrying all that weight in the rear and therefore the rear end

doesn't have that extra pressure on them and especially in Florida with the amount of rain we get you want better tread in the back so that it works that water out away from those tires and gives you better traction in the rear in a breaking or panic situation that's great information thank you very much have a good day thank you my pleasure thanks thanks uh for being part of the show. We love hearing from you every week. We're going to go to Harold, who is calling from Lake Worth. Welcome to the show.

You with us, Harold? Yeah, I'm here. Question for you. Is there an advantage to purchasing a new vehicle through like a Costco program or through an auto broker? Definitely. Costco is probably

your best bet. If you're not a Costco member and you're anywhere near a Costco, I would definitely join. The fee is nominal and Costco's got a great auto buy program. With that said, I always have to tell you to be aware of the dealer because the program is only as

good as the dealer is honest. And there's too many dealers out there both for TrueCar, which is another good auto buying program, and Costco that will take advantage of you. With a Costco program, you've got to go online, you should go online, to Costco, put in your membership

number. They'll identify the dealer that are certified by Costco, they'll also identify the salespeople that are certified in that dealership. Speak only to those certified salespeople at that dealership. If you go on the dealership and just say, I'm a Costco member, I want the Costco price, the little idea, tell you this is the Costco price, and it's not the Costco price. So say, I want to speak to Mr. Bill Jones, who is the certified Costco, certified salesperson in this dealer. And when you get Mr. Jones, a certified Costco salesperson, tell him that you want to see the Costco price sheet. Look at the Costco price sheet and verify the price that you want to buy on the car that you're looking at.

You also need to look at the sheet to see what dealer installed accessories or dealer fees, which should be disclosed, that will be added to that price. If you do all that, you'll end up getting a lower price and you'll get anywhere. Okay, very good. Thank you. Thanks for the call, Earl. Ladies and gentlemen, and particularly the ladies, if you just tuned in, I'm giving away $50 for the first. Well, we're done to two more new callers. So ladies, take advantage of that. Give us a call.

We'd love to hear from you. And Earl's latest call appears in the hometown news and the Florida Weekly. and you can go to www. earl on cars.com and you can read this week's column, which is seniors, think twice about leasing and all his other columns. He's got quite a few on that website. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Text are backing up. We've got six texts. I think you got thousands of listings on your blog.

Fantastic. Do you know when you started it? Yeah. Summer of 2006. Two. Yeah, it's been 13 years you've been writing columns. Wow. You should make a buck.

Oh, wait a minute, you did. I did make a book. We'll plug that later. We are getting back to context. Oh, this is a good one. We're going to have fun with this. You're going to have to put the hourglass out to stop the conversation. Earl, I know you are against putting nitrogen in tires, but basic science proves you wrong.

Nitrogen molecules are much larger than oxygen molecules and cannot fit through the microscopic holes in the tires. think of these as pores that oxygen freely leaks out. You are against something because you don't understand the science. Dean and Del Rey. Oh, boy. Make some popcorn. Dean, the basic fallacy in your argument is that the air you're breathing, the air that's in your tires right now is 78% nitrogen.

So if what you said was true, your tires would never go flat because you'd always have 78% of everything. As a matter of fact, a great way to really have a tire that you never had to put air in would be to put extra air in so that when all the oxygen molecules went out, nitrogen molecules would stay there forever. So I've just disproven your comment. And my other disprove of your comment is that Consumer Reports did a test independent. I always say consumer reports is the only testing agency that is totally pristine on us

because it's not profit, not for profit, they accept no advertising, they will not even accept a donation of a product from a manufacturer, they will not let a retail or a wholesale company advertise if they're approved by consumer reports, they're totally without sin. And they did a one-year test of every tire in the United States, and they tested them with nitrogen and with regular air, and there was no difference in the wear and the longevity and the amount of time that the air left the tire. Rick? Well, one other part that he seems to be missing,

the Dean's missing. He says that the nitrogen molecules cannot make it through the microscopic pores in the rubber. But what you're missing, Dean, is that the biggest area of leakage in a tire is where the tire rubber bead meets against the metal wheel, which is never going to be a perfect seal and doesn't need microscopic spots it's got spots where any molecule

would leak through regardless of size we're just not appreciating how small molecules are molecules are incredibly tiny and Dean by the way also when this whole nitrogen phenomena hit 20 years ago 10 years ago I forget how long car dealers have decided they're going to sell nitrogen

I have a rental company and I took half my cars, filled them with pure nitrogen, half my cars, tires, fill them with a regular air, and ran my own test, and found out that consumer reports was right, there was no difference. And it's just a waste of money, Rick? And just to give nitrogen it's due, there are places where nitrogen has a very real effect,

and that is in aircraft and the space shuttle where they needed to be able to predict exactly how much expansion would occur when traveling from an extreme altitude to a much lower altitude where pressure and temperature make a huge difference. And in race cars, extreme temperatures. And in race cars where the tires heat up to incredible temperatures because they're doing 200 to 300 miles an hour, some of them, and they need to know the exact expansion rate of those gases in those tires. So, Dean, if you're driving 300 miles an hour, you should get nitrogen on your tires.

At 35,000 feet, too. He may just be driving at that speed. Dean, I have a question for you. What about Consumer Report in that, I believe it was a year-long test that they did, are you willing to go toe-to-to-toe with them? Or do you like all the information Consumer Report has for us, month in and month out? Okay, let's move along. I'll wait for your text.

We have a question from Steve on our Facebook live stream, and he wants to know, are you aware of any dealers? and the other dealers that do not have dealer fees. Can you name some? We just found one, didn't we, Stu? Mollinex Ford in a popka. In a popka. Molnix Ford and a popka.

And we checked Molnix Ford locally, and they did have a dealer fee. Yes, they do. So it's very hard to find. Now, CarMax, CarMax does not have a dealer fee. I think they do. They do? I think it's a little tiny one. A small one.

Yeah. How about? Okay, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, we just don't know. We're trying to find a dealer without a dealer fee, but it's so hard. You know what happens? And I think one of the reasons that we get fooled is car dealers will actually advertise no dealer fee,

and then they'll charge a tag agency fee or an electronic filing fee or a notary fee. And we know several dealers that are advertising no dealer fees, and it's a play on words, semantics, and it's a lie and it's deception. Yeah, I think we all went backwards. There was a time, and this predated the electronic filing fee where, gosh, I think it was like around 2010, maybe 2009, where several dealers in the area dropped them, but they came back. Yeah, we've slid backwards. Yeah, we're looking for dealers without dealer fee. Anybody, dealer, salesperson, customer, anybody out there in radio, YouTube, or Facebook land, if you know a dealer that doesn't charge a dealer fee, we'd like to hear about it.

Let's pay a bounty for that. Pay a bounty. Yeah, 50 bucks. All right, 50 bucks. We need to see the buyer's order. And we're not eligible because they can't be Earl Stewart. Oh, darn. Done deal.

That was going to make me 50 bucks. All right, Facebook live stream, Steve says, I've never found a shop that does a break job that included bleeding the fluid. Do you know of any? That's for you, Rick. That actually is not, bleeding the fluid is not really necessary when you're simply replacing the brakes. If the fluid is dirty or old, then we would bleed the brakes out and actually flush all the old fluid out and replace it with new fluid. But it's a separate operation.

It's kind of like if you're doing an oil change, you're not necessarily replacing the air filter on the engine as well. It's just simply two separate operations. Got it to help, Steve. Next one, this is, oh, we don't have a, Lenny. Lenny texted in he says I was looking to buy a certified pre-owned Toyota Corolla SE 2017 but I noticed for about 2 to 3,000 more I can get a brand new one of a drive-out price of $17,879 and some of them go up to 20,000 miles any help on how to get the best price can you please help or tell me what a great price is to pay thank you very much I can address the pricing because I look that up for Lenny please do so the typical listing in Kelly Blue Book for a 2017 Corolla SE is 15,200. So out the door, if you figure in taxes and government fees, you should be about 16-5 out the door, which is considerably less. However, the operative term was typical listing. So that means there's going to be another $1,000 or so

in dealer fees at it. So considering that, you're really looking at a price of 16,100. So after After taxes and tag, you would be about 17 to 5 out the door. So you're in the ballpark just a little bit high than the typical listing with typical miles on that car. And then the question is, do you want a new car for, I believe you said two or $3,000 more? That's just a personal call. You're saving $2,000 or $3,000, but you're getting more because it's a new car. You've got the new car warranty, and you've got the bells and whistles and the new safety features. I should quit saying bells and whistles because you probably have a couple safety features,

at least a couple, on a 2019 that weren't on the 2017. I'll shoot from the hip. I'd buy the new vehicle, but I'd be sure that I negotiated and got an off-the-door price because the first price is usually not the final price, and I'd go with a new. And just to throw an extra thought on there, certification where the warranty covers the drive line only, and it's that drive train warranty, I wouldn't even worry about that

because Corollas have got such a reputation that as long as the car's had proper maintenance, which you can check the maintenance records before you buy the car, as long as you've had good reasonable maintenance, that drive line is going to outlast the body of the car. There are certifications that cover more than the drive train, and they cost more and you pay for it. But, you know, here I am recommending a new

car over certified when I always recommend certified over new and I think what made me say that was the fact of the safety features that you that you're passing so anytime you're thinking about buying a used car you have two decisions to make how much additional safety features do you want find out specifically what they are and what they mean to you personally with your family and then realize that in terms of reliability and longevity of cars today, that used car will last as long as you want to last, really. So it isn't a matter of reliability so much as safety when you're making that new car, used car decision today.

Okay, we've got some more text. Just one last little comment, and it's from Steve on Facebook. He suggested that consumer reports should review dealers too. That's a great idea. That's a great idea. It's so hard to find anybody that will be critical of a dealer. But if anybody would do it, it would be consumer reports. But then again, we'd have competition with me.

They found us. Yeah, that's right. I mean, here we are advocating. I'm not advocating consumer reports because I'm afraid they'll be competitive, but it can't hurt. That's right. You've already tainted the waters there. Exactly. We're all caught up with texts.

No, we've got some over here. We've got some U-tubes. Yep. Frank is asking, what does the life of the vehicle mean? If you go beyond a certain age or mileage, should lifetime fluids be replaced? And it's kind of a gray area really on what is the life of a vehicle. Because if you've got a car, say here in South Florida that is getting regular maintenance, it could last 300,000 miles or more.

If you've got a car up north in, say, where my sister lives in New Hampshire, dealing with road salt and the slushy weather in the winter, and other issues like that, that car may last half that time because of rusting everything out. That's a great question. So what should they do? They should physically inspect the fluid? My recommendation on that is I would look, I would have to treat each case individually, but I would invest in inspecting the fluid, check it, and otherwise, if you're not really sure and not comfortable about it and you're willing that you want to keep that vehicle for a while, go ahead and change out those fluids.

It can't hurt. What about waiting for symptoms? In other words, is it too late when you get a symptom from your transmission fluid? It's too late probably at that point. You've done damage. Yeah, in most cases, if you're starting to see issues with the way the car is operating, a fluid flush or a fluid change is not going to have any effect at that point. It's a little too late.

300,000 miles, depending on your location, you should always just go ahead and change that fluid. At that point, I would definitely. Yep. Okay. Okay. And Raymond is asking, Earl, what are your thoughts on mobile one products? Well, I don't know. I don't have any opinions on mobile one products.

I've seen some commercials. Yeah. Rick would be the guy to answer that one. Well, the interesting part is that Toyota actually uses Toyota brand. oil that we buy from mobile. So Toyota oil comes from mobile, and we simply rebranded in the Toyota bottles. But is there really that much difference between oils? I don't think there's really that big a difference, especially with, you're still changing it at

the same rate. So all these big, you know, the fancy commercials in that, I think a lot of your money is just going to pay for those fancy commercials. So some are better with thermal viscosity breakdown than others? Could be, but I think as long as you stick with one good brand, a name brand of oil, and you change it regularly, I think you're going to be just fine. That's a testament to the efficacy of oil companies advertising, because how the heck would I know thermal viscosity breakdown?

My favorite oil commercial goes back, all you old guys out there in the audience, I remember Andy Granitelli, and he, He had a, he stuck a screwdriver in the oil. Yeah. And then he tried, he picked up one screwdriver because he could get his fingers around it. But he picked the one in the product he was selling, and it slipped off. And therefore, you should. I wonder how he did that.

The supery oil. Wasn't that for Slick 50? Oops. I thought that was a, I had a friend named Slick 50. Ah. That was a product that was big in the day. It was slick 50. It was an additive that you put in your engine oil.

Yep. SDP. That was the one. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Rudy. I remember the ones where they drain the engine. Hey, Rudy, you're not that old. How'd you know that? He Googled it. Ah, Jonathan actually told me. Ah, yes. Our team.

Jonathan's not that old. It's like my age. It's like my age. We've talked about. Okay, we got any more text? Yeah, we have a couple. If you have a worn-out fabric interior, can you re-upholster or get leather? How much does this cost? And there's no name on that.

I think you might have stumped us on that one. Not at all. There are quite a few shops that can either repair fabrics and leathers or they can recover it. And you can spend anywhere from a couple hundred dollars for seat covers that they reinstall up to a couple thousand depending on the quality level you want to go to. It's a very nice way to make your car look really nice inside again by recovering those seats. I would just be careful when you ask, if you go through a dealer,

they'll mark up the leather packages, so I can tell you that the dealers cost. If it's just for a car, you're probably looking around $800. So if they're going to charge $1,600 for it, you know, go somewhere else. But you should be able to get for $1,000 for leather for a car and a little bit more for an SUV. And I would look around at a lot of the aftermarket shops that are out there right now. Yeah, cut out the middleman.

They'd be happy to have you. come in. Absolutely. Okay, let's see. We have another question here. This is from Saul and West Palm Beach. Saul saw a YouTube video, said he should use WD40 to clean the fog off his headlights. Any thoughts on that? Yep. Go ahead. I saw that same video and guess what? The same guy did another video a couple weeks later. With mayonnaise. And he said that the WD40 only lasted a week. Really? Yep. And it went right back to foggy again. So you should keep a can in your car well actually and as silly as this sounds i'm going to get a little video clip that we'll get to jonathan but my own pickup the headlights are foggy they're looking pretty bad right now so my plan for this afternoon if the weather holds nice i'm going to get a kit and i'm going to restore my headlights

this afternoon and get them looking good again so i'm going to do some video of that and get before and after pictures and we'll have some stuff to show you next week on that i got a better idea bring the kid in and let michael do it for you our uh youtube guy so what is that what is the what is it about wd 40 i know it doesn't last is it just because it's like a lubricant and it it is it fills in the little gaps in the little holes makes it shiny clean looks really pretty for a couple of days and within a week it's right back so olive oil would be fine WD40, I have a little knowledge of this, WD40 is just an amazing company, very small. They're based in California, and they have found a niche.

And before technology really got cranking, they got their name all over the world. And it's like aspirin. It used to be, it's become a Kleenex, I should say. It's a generic term. So you don't ask for a solvent or a lubricant anymore. or penetrating oil. You'll want WD40. Everybody, WD40, get to WD40.

Absolutely amazing. They're so small that if you want to talk to the president of WD40, you can call the company in California and he can talk to the president. Look, there's a bunch of guys at a room, and they got a big drum there, and they're mixing this stuff up, right, and they're pouring into the cans. And they're selling the world, the world, WD40. And with the older cars that I used to have when I was a kid, especially here in Florida

I always kept a can of WD40 so that if I ran through water I could pull the distributor cap off and spray it in there and it would get the water out of the distributor cap to where my car would run again without having to do any fancy cleanup. I think I did that in my old VW Beetle.

Yeah. Great product. You can go into my garage and you can find WD40, you can find Houdini, and you can also find... A whole lot of olive oil. J.C. I drink all that. Anyway, they're all great products. Some of them have silicone in them, some of them don't, but WD is a great product.

Rick? I've got one other text here. Mr. Poppy, 67, is asking, good morning, Earl. Can an aftermarket alarm system be installed on a 2019 Subaru Forrester? It has a push-button start, and it does have a factory-installed alarm system. Mr. Poppy, I'm kind of wondering, are you looking for some added features to add? on to your factory system or are you looking to replace it because most of the factory systems now are integrated so well into the car that they work a lot

better than the aftermarket systems if you're simply looking to add features on to it my next step would be to go talk to the folks over at Best Buy the geek squad there those guys now they not only handed computers they've got a crew that handles automotive installation for aftermarket electronics and they do some incredible work. Second choice, world of sound. They're a little more expensive.

But they also do some really good installations. Yeah. Very good. Okay. We've got some more. Yeah, we have a couple here. Let's see. Good morning. You were just talking about oil. What about gasoline? Are the top tier brands that much better? Do any not have ethanol? And do you see the benefit in your service and partsware? That's Rob and Stewart.

Well, the name brands are not better gasoline. but they're more popular they sell more and one thing you want to be careful of is buying an off-brand off the beaten track type of gasoline from a gasoline station where the gasoline sat there for too long popular brands in high traffic locations also typically cost more but you can find sometimes a popular brand with just a moderate traffic count that you can be safe to buy from and we also recommend that once you choose that brand and that station, you buy it from the same station if you're not traveling all over the country.

Because if you ever have a problem, you can go back to the gas station and say, I only buy my gas here, I got some contaminate gas, and they will take care of you, and they will pay for the cost. Save the receipts. Save the receipts. Very good. And if you charge money with your credit card, it's automatically saved on the computer. And another thought is that the old saying of, if you go to the money,

to a restaurant and the bathrooms are dirty, then the kitchen's probably dirty. If you're looking at a gas station and it's old and run down and beat up and really rugged looking, odds are those fuel tanks have not been replaced or cleaned out in quite a while, and that may increase the chance of contaminated fuel coming out of those tanks. Good point. But I hesitate sometimes to tell people to go with high traffic. I said that, But it's amazing the difference in gas price between the high traffic and the lower traffic areas. Try to find a like a shell or a popular brand in a slightly off traffic area. You'll save 50 cents a gallon.

You mentioned no ethanol. There's an app, I think it's called Pure or something like that. You can Google it, but you can go to, yeah, it's called Pure Gas. You can go to your app store and get an app. called pure gas. With your GPS, it'll show you all the ethanol-free gas stations in your area. And ethanol-free, of course, is absolutely best in boats, recreational vehicles, the much older vehicles that were designed before we started getting all this ethanol put in. But modern cars nowadays can handle just about every modern car.

We'll handle up to 10% ethanol, and the newest ones are able to handle up to 50% of, and even up to 20% ethanol without having any issues whatsoever. Very good. How are we doing on text? We got one more. It's from Josh and Palm Beach Gardens. And he says, where is the best place to look if I'm in the market for a 1988 to 1993 Toyota Land Cruiser?

Thanks, Josh. I think I can field this one. AutoTrader.com, but put in any distance. Because if you put 50 miles, 100 miles from Palm Beach Gardens, there are none, so you're going to really have to expand your search radius. Well, I don't know you could do that. So you could just say any distance. Yeah, defaults to 50 miles on AutoTrader, and then you can expand it out.

But I did that a few times, and there's not a whole lot of them out there, but you're going to have to look nationwide. Well, that's great to go. I was thinking you just had to put in zip code after zip code after zip code after zip code. You can just so any distance on AutoTrader would give you all the used cars in the United States. Yes, everybody that's listed on AutoTrader, correct. Wow, wow. And that AutoTrader, by the way, has almost all dealers on there. So isn't that kind of cool?

You're going to be looking at virtually every used car inventory in the entire United States on AutoTrader. I can't tell you how cool an app or a company that is. It's just an amazing company. Have to be careful. Buy or beware. When you get a price on AutoTrader, it doesn't include dealer fees. So you're seeing prices understated sometimes by thousands of dollars. But at least you're able to locate a car that you might not otherwise find anywhere.

That is correct. And also to do a little work for you, there are 32 land cruisers between 1988 and 1993 nationwide. 32 of them. And that amazing. So for car collectors, you can go online and you can get prices. You know, online is the only way to buy a car. It's the only way to buy a new car. it's the only way to buy a used car

you're absolutely nuts if you get in your car and start driving around knocking on doors and talking to salesmen auto trader, auto trader, auto trader. That's right. If that just gets you in the door, gets you where your product you want to buy is located, then you've got

to do your due diligence and get competitive pricing. But what an amazing website that is. Great information Earl. Very good. We're all caught up. Are they all cut up? On that land cruiser question, I would look online at a company called Amazonia

dash 4x4.com They're going to get in trouble. Located in Jensen Beach that specializes in land cruisers. Now, I wasn't sure about this one, but I'm pretty certain there's also a shop in Stewart on US1 that specializes in land cruisers.

The guy had a stack of them out there on US1 for sale. So look around. There's a lot of car clubs, too. that you can find good information, and you might find that old land cruiser for sale. Okay, guys, it's at the end of the Texas and you too. I have a text from a lady from Pennsylvania, and before I go on, ladies, don't feel left out this morning. I try to get to your taxes, and this show is for you also,

and I'll extend this to you. Even after 9.30, whenever we get into the mystery shopping report, call in anyway, and I can't take your call. None of us can, but you will win $50 just for calling in and give Rudy your contact information. I'm going to get to this text from Pennsylvania, and it's from a young lady by the name of Mary. She decided to walk into a Ford dealership

and take a look around, and she was by herself, and she really felt dissatisfied. She felt very angry by the way she, was treated and she I think the for her the last straw was that they were asking if her husband was on his way before they were going to show her anything and what she did was that she just turned around and she left Mary I encourage you to call the show next week and update us on just exactly what took place whether you ended up buying a car at another dealership but I can say that this does go on quite often, more often than we suspect.

Thank you for the text. Also, as far as the mystery shopping report is concerned, please text us with your, well, rating on how you feel about the mystery shopping report. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I wanted to just mention something interesting. It's a point of information. We all know about Amazon. often referred to by small businesses is a death star.

It is forcing a lot of smaller businesses out of business. And a lot of controversy about Amazon. On the other hand, Amazon is one of my heroes because we buy a lot of products on Amazon. It's a great source. Jeff Bezos company, he's the richest man in the world now. Amazon is just about the most capitalized, most expensive company in the world. I don't mean to buy from, but in terms of value, Amazon is, we got a letter from Amazon. I say we, my dealership got an Amazon letter from the attorneys telling us to cease and desist.

We had a billboard on North Lake Boulevard, and I'll just hold of the letter up. There's a copy of our billboard. And the billboard that we had was Amazon stylecarbying.com. We were offering to sell cars online in the Amazon. style and the lawyers for Amazon said that was the wrong thing to do and technically they're right and we agreed to cease and desist but I just want to make this point that online car buying is something that you should consider even when you're dealing with a conventional dealer you can't buy cars from Amazon as a consumer you should wish you could because

Because if Amazon and Walmart and Target could sell cars, you would truly get some good prices and you'd get out-the-door prices. You'd probably even get cars delivered, as you do now, with all of online products. But the state laws, the state franchise law, prohibits anybody from selling cars to you except car dealers. Amazon can't sell them. The car dealers are having to go online, and to one degree or another, you can still buy a car online. Unfortunately, you can't do it like you can with an Amazon product, but rather than wasting your shoe leather or your tire rubber on your tires and driving around and walking around and going to car dealerships, go online. I mentioned AutoTrader earlier. That's what made me think about it. Go to AutoTrader, go to True Car, go to Costco, go to the dealerships and get the price from them online and insist on an out-the-door price.

that is the only way to get a good price now on the internet so be sure that you do your car shopping online i know you have to go to the car deal chip to take delivery but that's after you will confirm that this is an out-the-door price that you can bring a check in for or your bank can give you a check to bring in to buy that car and drive it home you don't go through the haggle and the hassle and negotiation get your prices online and with that said it's time to get to our a mystery shopping report. And this week we shopped Greco, Kea of Del Rey. They're located at a dozen, about what a half dozen, maybe more car dealerships by the Greco name of South Florida.

For the second week in a row, Earl Stewart on Cars is focusing on the bad boys of South Florida car sales. Last week, it was Napleton. Napleton, North Lake Kia. This week it was Grico, Kia, of Delray. So, we're picking on Kia

dealers I will say this it sounds prejudiced when I hear myself say it but Kia dealers seem to be of the less ethical kind of like the least honest prisoners at Sing Sing it's kind of a call of degree but for some reason Kia dealers seem to be a cut below the average car dealer and that's pretty low Kia bills a good car counterintuitably, ironically, the Kia is a pretty good car. The Hyundai is a good car, Kia, Korean cars. Quality is good. The quality of dealers is not good.

That's true, and they tend to cater to a segment of the market a little less income and maybe more susceptible to the shenanigans. Credit challenged and people that are desperate to buy a car, and they tend to take advantage of those people. It's easier for them. We have three of four Greco dealerships on our do not recommend list at good dealer, bad dealer, list.com. You can write that website down, good dealer, bad dealer list, L-I-S-T-com, and find our recommended versus not-recommed dealers. The three of four include the Kea location in Delaware Beach.

We visited Thursday. That was not recommended. We've had more fun reporting about Greco dealership. than any other because their sales tactics have become totally outlandish. Long-time listeners might remember the legendary Ghost Mazda of 2015. We go ran an ad on a new Mazda CX9 that promised a ridiculously low price. We said Agent XN, who was no longer with us, to investigate, only to be told that this vehicle had just been sold.

Following up, we revisited their website several days later, only to find that. the same vehicle still being advertised, the ghost vehicle. Subsequent checks over the following weeks revealed the sold car, supposed to be sold, still advertised for sale at the same price. But that's not the end of the story. We found the exact same car being advertised at the same exact price on the website of Greco's sister, Moster dealership in Delary Beach. Again, this ghost car continued to be advertised for weeks.

after they claimed it had been sold. I mean, that's just blatant dishonesty. That still gives me a chuckle. It does, yeah. I mean, and they had to know what we were doing because we're talking about it on the radio. They just flaunted it, I guess. We last mystery shopped the Grecoe dealership

back in November, 2018. Greco Ford, that was a used car sale investigation, and Greco Ford failed the decadet test. It's been a while since we checked out the new car operation. that's what we did this time we sent new agent thunder our new undercover guy and trying out the role made famous by agent x larry laydown so agent thunder went in as a sucker you know naive i'm prepared i trust car dealers just here i am just give me a good deal give me a good deal

and if you promise me it's a good deal get me done get me done i'll buy the car here's Here's a report. I'm a person as Agent Thunder. I arrived at Grecoe Key in Delray Beach at approximately 5.30 p.m. I had a hard time finding where to park wound up finding a spot pretty far from the new car showroom. I walked into the showroom where it was apparently dinner time. So a lot of salespeople gathered around the front desk enjoying pizza out of a delivery box. One broke away, came to greet me. He said his name was Eduardo. Asked me what I was? looking for him. As soon as I began, Eduardo asked me to hang on a second and said he needed to get someone else to help me. It seemed like he had remembered a forgotten appointment or something.

Maybe his pizza was getting cold. That's, I, that's what I think. I think it was some really good pizza. You think a customer, I mean, a salesman would be hungrier for a car sale than for pizza? They have some excellent pizza in Delray Beach, so I'm wondering. I don't know. I began the Larry laydown routine with Michael. I told him I wasn't sure which car I wanted. I said only the car, the only cars ever owned were hand-me-downs from my parents and my wife's parents. I never really dealt with a car buying experience before. I mean, that's really a setup for Larry Laydown. No homework, no pricing, no competitive measurements. Michael said I shouldn't stress about it and said that it wasn't as bad, the car dealers weren't as bad. as everyone makes us out to be i told him my main priorities were economics and safety that's good i needed a responsible payment a reasonable payment i'm sorry reasonable payment and good fuel efficiency and i wanted to feel secure with my wife and baby in the car i told him my wife and i were both teachers we're doing okay but we needed the payment that would work with our budget

Michael suggested the 2019 Kia Optima I think that's got a pretty good rating I walked me over to a small table with a couple chairs we sat around about 10 feet away

was the sales manager's tower a high countertop which is the top of the managers said visible to me we have visual aids in this shop you report when I saw that I saw maybe the manager was just very short

but it could have been a tower item not sure Small talk was over, Michael asked, how's your credit? I replied by asking him why you wanted it to know. I mean, it's a sensitive subject. I mean, people don't walk up on the street and say, what's your credit number?

What's your beacon number? It's sensitive. How's your credit? What do you want to know? Michael said it would give them a good idea, which vehicle to work numbers on. I guess maybe the price vehicle would be logical. I told him my score was so-so, about $6.50.

I told my wife had better credit, and I said her score was around 720. I went on to say, we needed the payment of no more than $360 to work with our budget. I told them we could come up with $2,500 down. Now, just as an aside here, don't do that. If you find yourself in a position of being questioned about your credit score, say it's none of your business or say, I've got a good credit score. Don't let that become part of the discussion. We'll get to that later.

Exactly. What do you got to offer? When you do that, then the buzzards start to circle because when they sent someone that is desperate to buy a car because of a questionable credit rating, they're not going to treat you the same anymore. They're not going to treat you the way they should with courtesy and respect as if you can make a buying decision. Michael asked if I was ready to go find a car, and I said I was. we walked over to the line of Nokia Optimus Michael said the LX trim

is the one we should look at he said it was the base model but still had a lot of great features I picked out a snow white pearl with a black interior the MSRP was 24,0795 but there was an addendum

the typical prevalent common addendum for an additional $1,595 for stuff like pre-delivery service charge that was $999. Floramats

$148 Nitrofil, we just had a caller about nitrogen. That was Dean from Del Rey Memory Serves, which is nitrogen is about as hocopocus as you can get.

He's probably selling it to Gricocia. Yeah. $199 for the worthless nitrogen. Zerg, she yield another useless product 249 after all that up it was a dealer list of 26,354 so list price is not a term you should be comfortable with MSRP manufactured suggested retail price is what you should search for list usually means dealer list on the drive Michael appeared to be very interested we don't want on the drive obviously convincing me to lease. Okay. They call it the flip, the lease flip. Said earlier to another caller, car dealers push leases because they make more money into conversation. You mentioned

that earlier, didn't you? I did. I said I didn't think my credit was good enough to qualify the lease. He said he could probably get me a good lease with my 650 score, but he could be sure if my wife, who had a 720 score, FICO score, uh, cosine score, uh, cosign, with me i said i didn't know anything about leasing but michael said it was a great way to get a car and it was perfect for a budget conscious people like me it was also perfect for commission conscious people like michael because car salesmen make more commission when they lease you a car the car dealer makes more profit also you're going to come back and lease or buy another car because they penalize you if you don't and the manufacturer feels the same way so when you go and do a

car dealership today they're going to push you push you push you to lease the car i said i didn't know anything about leasing but michael said it was a great way to get a car and did i just read that back of the dealership i waited at the little table and watched michael confer with his boss at the tower after several minutes michael returned with a bottle of water and a pricing and payment worksheet. The left side of the paper showed a matrix of payments, options for both loan and lease. The right side was like a buyer's order with the price fees and taxes all itemized. I haven't seen those before. Have you used to? No. It's sophisticated. It's also sinister. And it's a well thought out approach to maximize the profit to the dealer. It's very interesting.

a matrix of lease and purchase with different down payments and also different profits to the dealer. The closest got to my payment and down payment was option number two, 36 months with $2,895 out of my pocket for a payment somewhere between $365 and $375. The payment range is always suspect. The management in the dealerships always say, hit them with a range. don't give them a firm payment give them a range of payment and when you go into the box

which is the finance office you always end up at the higher end of the range or maybe even higher I said I didn't know it was a little more money than I wanted to put out and the low end of the payment range

you gave me was $15 out of our budget Michael jumped up said he'd run another scenario went back to the head peering over the countertop and spoke briefly came back with a second worksheet and explained that the payments got much better with my wife on the deal.

So now they're factoring in the wife's credit. This time, with $2,895 out of pocket, I could get a payment somewhere between $317 and $317. Wow, said me, Larry laid out. That's a great payment. It totally works with a budget. You don't ever want to say that to a car dealer. I said I'd have to scrape up another $400 for the down payment, but I said I thought my wife would sign off on the deal.

I told Michael that I would head home, talk with my wife, and come back on Monday to do the deal. I said we were heading up to the Universal Studios for the weekend. We were at, by the way, if you just tuned in, this is the mystery shop at Grecoquia in Delray. Michael wasn't having it. He tried to get me to do the deal that night. Old school, you got to buy it now. He said, just let me call my wife and have her come in now. I said, she was having the baby.

She's putting the baby to bed. Michael asked, if I would do it now, trying to get me to buy the car. If I would do it now, he'd take another $20 off the payment. Isn't that? What does that tell you? Yeah. Only at a car dealership. Can you imagine buying a loaf of bread or a TV set that way?

I mean, cars... Well, they did that around the year 943. Right, maybe so. Anyway, that's how much pressure. He'd take $20 off the payment, which is a huge reduction in price by the wife. $600 and something, yeah. Yeah, huge reduction in price. If I would tell my wife to forget about the kid and come over the cardio...

Let's keep the baby up to 10 o'clock. Yeah, you just leave the kid there by himself. come die and we get $20 off the payment. Call the babysit. Outrageous. I said we talk about the additional $20 off on Monday.

I thought that was a good parting shot. I can't do it tonight, but we'll talk about that $20. Exactly. Exactly. The epilogue, Agent Thunder, experience that

Grico Keel was a typical car buying experience in South Florida, truly. Nothing terribly shocking about it. It is shopping, shocking, but not, relatively speaking,

because it's common. Fortunately, Agent Thunder was naive and unprepared, and he was convinced to lease a new Optima without understanding what he was getting into, or he led the salesman to believe. His practical payment in reasonable terms hid the fact that Michael and the head behind the counter, the manager, were selling Agent Thunder a car for MSRP plus $999 dealer fee plus $3908 unwanted accessories, notwithstanding leasing. And Thunder was also charged to the lessor's $695 acquisition fee. Michael made no mention to his budget-minded customer about the disposition fee at the end of the lease, $3 or $400.

Potential over-mileage charge, which could be thousands of dollars, depending on how many miles you drive. There may or may not have been disclosed later in finance, but Agent Thunder bought the car when we learned about the super low payment. The deed was already done. When you hear that, it doesn't matter if they're showing them fine print in the finance office. The guys already thinks it's a good deal. I got my magnifying glass out, and I brought that here. We use this on all the ads. I use pinch and zoom.

Yeah, and we have there. And so by looking at the shopping report here, we found out something more. Besides the documentary fee that was disclosed of $900. 99. There's also something called an electronic filing fee for $132.95. There's also a tag agency fee of $79. So the dealer fees were not all disclosed, which is really bad. That's a big no-no. It's illegal. And this is what we are in the process of now with a firm of attorneys filing a class action suit against dealers that violate the Florida statute of Florida deceptive unfair trade practices on dealer fees. And one of the ways they do that is by not disclosing the dealer fees. So the document fee of $999 was disclosed. They changed the name on the dealer fee to electronic filing fee, didn't disclose that,

and they also changed the name again called a tag agency fee. So there was roughly $1,200 and they only disclosed $1,000. dollars violation of floral law they mix this up by the way in the fine print which you can only read with the magnifying glass or by freezing the screen and expanding it on your computer they mix it up with the battery fee which is a legitimate fee of dollars fifty cents the licenses which they ran it off to five hundred dollars and the lemon law fee of two dollars and the tire fee they mixed it all

up in the fine print so it made the documentary fee the electronic filing fee and the tag agency fee appeals appear somewhat legitimate one thing they all have in common is fees but fees are not real fees if the sales tax is charged on them sales tax is charged on the dock fee electronic filing fee and the tag agency fee which are all profits to dealers which are all dealer fees out there in radio, YouTube, and Facebook land, if you're a witness to anyone doing what we just described at Greco Kea and Del Rey, we'd like to hear from you

because our attorneys who are going to file the class action suit are looking for witnesses. We cannot encourage someone who is a victim to file the class action suit. That's illegal to ask someone to file a class action suit. But it's not illegal to ask someone to file a class action suit. But it's not illegal to ask someone. for witnesses to this act being performed.

So if you know someone who was victimized by not disclosing dealer fees in a purchase or lease, let us know. You can contact us. Well, you can do it anonymously. Anonymously. That way, you know, you're not a stooly. Your anonymousfeedback.com would be a great way to contact us, and you don't have to squeal on the dealer or squeal on your friend.

but if you're a witness to this happening, you contacts us at Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Y-O-U-R-anonymous, A-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S, Feedback, F-E-E-D-B-A-C-K-com, Your Anonymous Feedback.com And let us know, if you witness any car dealer with yourself or another person not disclosing the dealer fees by any other name,

then we'd like to hear from you. Speaking of anonymous feedback, we got one while we were talking. Let's hear it. Earl. And there's excellent. Earl, Honda is suing Massachusetts. Actually, Honda financing North America is suing Massachusetts. Massachusetts has a law written in such a way that does not explicitly express that a lien holder be notified that a car has been confiscated.

The car can be confiscated by police, sent to the impound lot, and subsequently sold at auction. The original lien holder is removed in two ways. a new and clean title is issued, and the lien holder does not get the money from the auction. What are your thoughts, a loyal listener? Now, Honda is suing Massachusetts. The Honda financing North America is suing Massachusetts. Boy.

So they're saying the lien holder, the bank doesn't have to be notified if it's been confiscated, I guess, by authorities such as the police. Well, that sounds outrageous. I'm surprised that they just wouldn't settle that. how could you not notify the lien holder would you confiscate a car? Correct. I have a feeling this will probably,

they're going to win this one. Well, they're going to win it. Why wouldn't they settle? Class actions are very, very expensive. And you think that the state of Massachusetts is very interesting. I'm not at the Google to confirm that. And if you're listening, who sent us a text,

I'd love to have you follow up and let us know. also do a little research and find out what Florida and the other states do. But as a lender, I would be in state of shock. Not having a law degree. I didn't say common sense would tell me that you'd have to let the lien holder know. Yeah. That's just me. Yeah.

Since we've got some time left, I must have gotten through that shopping report rather quick. I do have time for a commercial. And so don't turn off the radio right now. It's not a real commercial. is for big dog ranch rescue.com. It's actually for my book. Thank you very much. Big Dog Ranch Rescue is my favorite charity, Nancy's favorite charity.

And we're looking for homes all the time for doggies. Big Dog Ranch Rescue finds homes last year for close to 10,000 dogs. That included about 5,000 that were brought in from other places that were hurricanes struck like the Virgin Islands in Puerto Rico. But typically, we find homes for about 5,000 local dogs. We're the largest no-kill shelter, Big Dog Ranch Rescue, in the state of Florida. If you buy this book, Confessions of Recovering Car Dealer, which is my book, I am the recovering car dealer, is a handbook on how not to be ripped off by a car dealer, just like this radio show is. And if you go to Amazon, Amazon.com, who is threatened to sue me, by the way, not about the book.

About the billboard, I digress. You can go Amazon.com, buy the book, and 100% of the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. And you could save a dog this way. We also have a beautiful facility out on Okachobi Boulevard and West Palm Beach. Many, many acres. We have a lake for the doggies, a swimming pool for the doggies, walking paths with AstroTurf.

we have our own veterinarian we have our own trainer and if you want to go out there and shop for doggies or go online and shopper doggies at bdrr.org BDRR as in big dog rancashk uh-huh www.w dot bdrr.org you can look at all our dogs out there and find one you like and shop around and we'd love to have you help us out. It's just a shame what happens to dogs. They get abandoned. People move into homes, or I should say apartments, condos that don't allow dogs. I was talking to a gentleman the other day at Cascades, and he had a dog that was over 50 pounds, and he had to find another home for his dog. Unfortunately, people aren't always thoughtful about finding other

homes when they move, and some dogs are just abandoned on the streets, and thousands of dogs are turned in in Palm Beach County. They're found running free, running out, and a lot of people that rescue these dogs, quote-unquote, euthanize them after a period of time. Big Dog Ranch Rescue does not euthanize dogs. They have dogs that are brought over from shelters that do this. We get calls from all over the country. We have trucks, cars that we send up to other states and pick up dogs, bring them to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and we save them by finding loving homes. So you can do your part.

And you can also do yourself a favor, or friends, relatives. If you want someone to buy a car, then you don't want to be ripped off by a car dealer, you buy confessions of a recovering car dealer, knowing that all the money that you paid for that, 100% goes to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. And that's the end of my commercial. Thank you very much.

Thank you very. Oh, listen to that. Special effects. Steve Leto, L-E-H-T-O, who's an attorney who posted a video on that Honda case. Really? A video. Interesting. Fantastic.

Hometown News. We have two minutes. I have time to tell you about Florida Weekly and Hometown News. This is Florida Weekly. This week's issue of Florida Weekly is Don't Get Spotted. A story about being careful about car dealers telling you to take the car home immediately when you pick your car out. And this issue, this blog ran in Hometown News last week. They stagger each other.

Oh, he's so cute. And what is my... They went back to that again? Yeah. And what is the hometown news blog is what? Seniors, think twice before leasing a car. And we had a call about that in very subject. seniors be careful before you lease a car because you have to realize you're obligating yourself for all the payments on that lease and even if you die or can't drive if you die your estate can be held responsible i had a call about that article saying that he had seen his wife had passed away and the estate was not held responsible because his wife was only person on the lease we checked with the leasing company they say they will not actually

pursue this in the courts, but you could legally, technically be held responsible anyway. Yeah, he stood, did anyone rate the mystery shopping report? Oh, gosh, let me take look here. Sorry, I was too busy. We had a text that came in a little bit late in the show,

so I wanted to make sure to answer that. We only got one minute left. Yes, we have Dan, who's given them a C-minus. We have Mary, which is given them a D-minus, and hold on the check, Facebook. Okay. I'm giving them a D minus. D minus, Rick, what's your score?

I'm going F all the way around. We have an F on Facebook, so. Yeah. I think we've got a pass in my Aito. We're moving so fast here. C minus for me. On a curve, we're going to give them a minimal passing score because they didn't do anything worse than the other card dealers in that area.

Well, this is a big moment for Grico. Ladies and general. I've got a YouTube grade of D. Yeah. Yeah. In popular vote, they fail. But again, to maintain a credible, don't buy, do buy recommendation, we can't fail them because we've got too many cardials out there just as bad. That was our history shopping report from Del Rey. That's Greco. That is Greco Kia. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for tuning in Daryl Stewart on cars. Have a wonderful weekend. See you back right back here. Same time, same station. Come to me. Welcome to me. Let's come.

Oh, wow. No. Oh, wow. Oh!