Earl Stewart on Cars - 03.13.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Lexus of Palm Beach

Episode Date: March 13, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Lexus of Palm Beach to see if she can get the best deal possible on a new 2021 Lexus ES 350 sedan. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. We're back again to help you navigate that minefield out there in car buying land, car leasing land. We offer advice and honest advice. Not always right. But we are most of the time, and Sue is also in charge of our mystery shopping operation, which is a unique thing you won't see anywhere. Well, maybe on, you know, they used to do it on 60 Minutes, and they probably have a few shows.

I think NBC TV has done some mystery shopping. CBS does once in a great while, but week after week after a week, we've got hundreds, probably thousands of mystery shops of car dealerships all over Florida. and even out of state on rare occasion. And we go in undercover, pretend to buy or lease a car. And this is what Stu is our cybermaster. He has an undercover agent. We have actually two active undercover agents now, one male, one female.

We use them alternately. And the female is relatively new on the scene in doing an outstanding job. We haven't had a regular female mystery shopper in a long time. Agent Lightning, we refer to her. And of course, Agent Thunder is the email. And we just have a lot of fun with that. And it's probably one of the most educational things we do. So I hope you will go to Earl on Cars.com. That's our blog, Earl on Cars.com. And you can access the archives for our mystery shopping reports. You can access a good dealer, bad dealer list. There's all sorts of links for information that will make your life easier. You know, if you buy a copy of Consumer Reports or subscribe online to Consumer Reports and you go to Erloncars.com, you have all the information.

You don't even need this show to get a good deal on a car or to have your car service or maintained. If that's your question. We get a lot of calls to Rick, and we can actually almost repair your car on the air. You can shoot us a video or you should as an audio. or you can just ascribe it. Our call at number is 877-960-99-60. It's important that you contact the show.

You could do it by a regular telephone, 877-9-60-9-90-60, or you can text this at 772-497-6530. That's 772, 497-65-30. And, of course, your anonymousfeedback.com. I say, of course, because you're new to the show, you don't know what I'm talking about. But your anonymousfeedback.com is a URL link that you can contact us through. And nobody, not the CIA, not the NSA, not the FBI, nobody can find you. You're anonymous.

It's like being in the witness protection program. So you can contact us, say anything you want. And I'm kind of, I'm half joking now because we get a lot of serious, good feedback. In fact, there's some feedback we get and say, why would they be anonymous on that? Some people just like their privacy, right? I've always wondered about that. We have this great platform that allows you to say anything. We have no confessions to murders yet.

We have, we've had no. Like, I was cheating on my wife in my car and it broke down. What do I do? Everything's pretty innocuous. Hide the evidence. Yeah, and it's weird too because we have a lot of enemies, don't we? I mean, the car dealers don't like us, and a lot of the employees of dealerships, I mean, they're very resentful, especially with Mr. Shopping reports, because we name names, and we name sales managers and salesmen, car dealerships, and we name the offenses, the things that were done wrong. Of course, we also recognize the good dealers and the things they did right, but you think some of the dealers that we said broke the law would, well, first of all, you think they might sue us.

I think that the reason we haven't been sued is because of lawyers. I imagine there are dozens of car dealers out there that were on the phone with the lawyer, screaming to sue them. I had thought about that. And then the lawyer says, okay, we can sue Earl Stewart. I go, are you prepared for discovery when we start, you know, bringing out all the evidence in the barris orders and all the things you do? And they're going to say, you know, on second thought, I'd rather not make that public information. Yeah, if you sue somebody, you have to be ready for the PR, the public publicity. Because, you know, you can video trials now.

A jury trial is really risky. And if you want a lot of conversation about your business, that's a good way to get it. Sue somebody. Or be sued by somebody. Either way, it's no fun. Also, Nancy Stewart, as I say, is out, and she's having a little recuperation going on with her foot surgery. But Nancy is our female advocate. Of course, Agent Lightning is also a female advocate, our undercover agent.

Nancy has built the female following of the show remarkably. And it's been over many years. It's been slow. And we will honor her offer, which she makes every week for the first new female caller. First new female caller, we have first two. First two, I'm sorry. First two. We're very generous.

50 bucks. That's right. You heard me. If you're female and you haven't called the show before and you call the show, you get $50 unconditionally. We send you the money. You don't even have to ask a question if you don't want to, but we'd like you to do. And if you're a new female caller, $50 for the first two.

So if you've already called the show, you know, call a friend, call a relative to female. So if you haven't called her old on cars, guess what? You can make $50. Why do we do that? Because people that call, usually call again. And we have a female following, probably unlike any show of this type that call in regularly. We appreciate all you ladies out there because, let's face it, this isn't politically incorrect, is it? Men and women are different, and men and women think differently, and they act differently, and they expect things differently.

Women, when they're buying cars, they buy them differently. And the car dealerships are, oh, boys' clubs, even today. You look at any car dealership or auto manufacturer, for that matter, and you're looking at 90% male and 10% female. Now, why should that be when 50% of the buyers are female? So you ladies out there call the show, 877-9-60-960, first-time caller. First two female callers, first time, $50,000 cash. Pretty good deal. Let's see, where should we go?

You want to start out with some text or YouTube's, or do we have anybody contacting Michelle now? Yeah, we can start off with our, with Ann Marie. We have a text waiting for us. Fantastic. Actually, it just came in right when we started. Motorious, not Notorious, it's Motorious with an M. Motorious has a story about C-8 Corvettes falling off lifts and getting totaled in dealer service departments.

The story says that this is likely due to staff being used to the front-engine designs of the C-6, being used to the front-engine dies of the C-6 and the C-7. CA-8-C-8 have the power train pushed further back. They're mid-engines, aren't they, the new ones? C-8, I believe, is mid-engine, yeah. Yeah. So they have the power train push further back. This change of the weight distribution, which in turn requires unique lifting points for these cars. Since corvettes are not the only vehicles that are subject to the laws of gravity, I can't help the wonder. One, what happens when the vehicle falls off a lift? Two, what does a dealership do in a case like this?

And three, what should be done when a vehicle falls off the lift in order to make things right? It's a great question. This is Rick. You can answer this thing. I go, but it's an example of also. sorts of things that can go wrong with your car by mistake at a car dealership because accidents happen we set a car on fire a few weeks ago so you know things happen well my Pontiac dealership burned down right because we had a car up on the lift and it was leaking gasoline and static electricity ignited it and the whole damn dealership burned down so what do you do with great question right well first we panic everybody was screaming you all scream and then you run The question is, if it does, number one, we check under the car to make sure there's not a technician underneath the car, all right?

First thing, yeah, we make sure everyone's safe because I have not seen a car actually fall completely off a lift, but I have seen some cars come close. We've had some very loud noises happen in the shop, and a lot of guys come running and make sure everyone's okay and safe first. Rookie technician? Not always, believe it or not, even some of the veterans. Don't very many names. I will freely admit. I actually had a forerunner once that I didn't get the lift set quite right. And the lifting piece that we used that folds up to get under fell down.

And when it did, the car dropped a bit and it damaged one of the running boards. That's the worst one I've had. So you hear it right here, honesty and transparency. Here we are a technician admitting that he made a mistake. 25 years experience. And I still, I make mistakes. And you know, that's amazing thing. You know, every business makes mistakes.

And all you card deals out there, listen, and sit a lie into your customers, say, look, yeah, we make mistakes. Admit it, because they know you do anyway. We're humans. And then apologize and make it right, and they love you more than if you never made the mistake. Yeah. We're human beings. We're going to make mistakes.

That's part of life. And so you simply correct it. You apologize. You correct it. You move on. And you learn from it, turning it into a learning experience. Hopefully others learn from it as well. For example, we have increased the distance between any welding can be near another vehicle.

We had it. That happened a month and a half ago, I think, a spark from a welding, managed to go further than anybody thought, landing the car, and it was enough to ignite some of the plastic material in the car wound up in a big insurance job. And we did the right thing. We apologized to the customer. We used his insurance settlement and got on a car at no cost. But yeah, these things can happen. And it is a dangerous place in a car dealership. We take it for advantage. Car dealers have insurance, and that's one of the reasons. You should have insurance, too, which would cover you, but they're double coverage. Yeah, so generally speaking, the safest part of the car dealership has always been in the showroom because there's some serious work going on in body shops and service departments, car washes.

I mean, there's all sorts of dangers there. You don't think about it a lot. If you go online and search for photos, there are some horrifying pictures out there of cars that have fallen off of lifts. and I mean it looks like the I've even seen one recently where the actual body of the vehicle separated from the frame of the car from the frame of a truck actually

I sent Jonathan the link that Amory sent so it's got pictures of Corvettes that have fallen off list I don't know if he's a deal with it's the center of gravity is wrong as a matter of fact we've actually had customers that we've had to ask them to take their pickup and actually go and unload the bed of their truck because they had so much stuff in the back of the truck we could not safely lift it

because the center of gravity was so far back it would fall off the lift. You know, I forgot to mention that we're on YouTube and we're on Twitter. And I keep thinking about the telephone and the text, but YouTube.com for slash Erlon Cars and we've got Facebook.com forward slash Erlon Cars.

And you can watch us in living color. It's not as nice a show because Nancy Stewart, our co-host is recuperating from minor surgery. but you ladies out there don't forget to call I'm going to feel like we're letting Nancy down if we don't have some female calls down now we've had a female texter and Marie Delgado

who was one of our most reliable sources of information with the smartest ladies I'd ever met and she's a regular caller and we're very fortunate to have her any more text we got you got a couple YouTube Ernesto is asking how reliable is a dealership pre-purchased inspection

example I find to use Toyota RAV-4 at a Honda dealership, is it better to take it to a Toyota dealership for the inspection or better to go to an independent mechanic for an inspection? It's not so, I mean, ideally, you could take it to a Toyota dealership for a little, for better, but, you know, to check up, I assume you're talking about a used car, and any reliable technician can check over a used car. You just want to be sure you have a reliable source, but you raise a good point. The average car that you buy it in a car dealership, that you use car,

has a checklist. They all have checklists. And some of them are 20s, 30050, they say, you know, we have a gold check, we have a platinum check. We check everything. Well, they've got a guy working on check these cars that's probably at the bottom of the pecking order in far as technician goes. I mean, the person that checks used cars

is not going to be the top technician in the dealership. Might even be a starting position for people. Also, it's a volume operation, because if a dealership selling 100 cars a month, they're probably checking 200 to 300 cars, and it's like an assembly line thing. You do a lot of it. And you've all seen check sheets.

This is a blank sheet, but you've got item after item after item after item after item after item. And the thing I always say, when you see the checks aren't individually checked, they draw the line through it like that, that's a red flag. So sometimes they're not carefully checked. I would always take a car that I was buying from dealer A

to an independent or to another dealer and with a good mechanic, I'd pay him. Check this car for me. I think I'm pretty sure they really checked it out. And we're going to go to John in West Palm Beach now. Call her. Oh, hey, John. Hey, hello. The shop story, I wasn't going to say anything

until something reminds me. I believe a couple weeks ago, you know, if you're talking, and someone next to something about spontaneous combustion. I don't know what is about it. Anyway, I was bringing the shop. I was working. I had my transmission pulled out of my GTO.

I was cleaning it with a cleaning solution. I think it was paint there. It's on the floor. We're right here in the rain. About 150 feet across the shock. There was a guy welding. Well, the tubes were going through the drain in the floor all the way together at the shop. He was welding, a spark went.

The spark was ignited the fuse. within the drainage system of the shop, it went all the way across the floor and caught my hand and my leg on the fire. Wow. And it was just the gloves in my pants. That's where the paint center was on. Oh.

I was hurting. He just burned the hair off my arms. But that's what went through my side. I was out, oh, my gosh, I just spontaneously that we could have busted. Because we didn't know where it come from, so we started thinking. And then after that, whenever we had the clean parts,

they allowed us to use the paint from it because they have the ventilation system. You clean parts there and just made sure we didn't make a mess. And, you know, the bend that stuff out, you know, the fumes out of the shock, you know, because, like I said, you know, a spark hundred fifty feet away, you know, and that was traveling through the, the water, the, the vents in the floor for the water. Yep. But, like I said, I was, you know, I remember you guys talking about spontaneous combustion. That's what had gone through my mind when this occurred. Well, thanks, Johnson.

Thank you for sharing that with us. That's, I'm glad you're okay. Yeah. Well, it's proper ventilation is the most important thing in the shop. Yeah. Well, this is back to the 80s and we weren't so much, they were, there, oh, she was working in that at the time, but, you know, not as it's duty as today and everything that you guys have to go through, you know, as far as, you know, conducting the business and all the safety precautions. Yeah.

well thank you John absolutely yeah yeah thank you John you're a good caller appreciate that I hope you call again and that was a very good informative call to a lot of people after safety is a lot more developed today than it was then when I my Pontiac dealership burned down that was like in the late 50s and that was a scary fact that was he the early 50s because I was just a kid and there's a wooden dealership of course we don't build things out of wood anymore and I'm sure we have a lot better fire precautions than we do but the safety precautions today are a thousand times better than they were back in those days absolutely John called again

thank you very much 877 960 9960 we prioritize phone calls because people have to hold and we only have three or four lines don't like people to wait yeah and we appreciate it you can text something and any time during the week, leave, and we'll get to it eventually. Exactly, yeah, sooner or later. We get to the text, and we also get to YouTube pretty quick, and we get to the, well, don't get Twitters anymore, do we? No.

And, you know, I read where they're auctioning off the original tweet. Did you hear that? Yeah, Jack Dorsey's original tweet. And they have, the bidding has gone up to $25 million. How do you receive a tweet? Is it like a screenshot? I can do that. Do they print it on paper signed by Jack Dorsey?

I guess it must have been. I don't know. We do have some texts coming in. This one might be a little controversial, but I think it's worth talking about. Steve and West Palm Beach text us. It says, hi, Earl. I love the show. Please share your thoughts on the latest news concerning Big Dog Ranch Rescue in regards to money, allegedly being funneled to Donald Trump and other politicians.

Do you feel that's appropriate? Thanks, Steve and West Palm. Well, I don't believe it in the first place I've heard. heard that. That's been on the social media. And I would find it impossible to believe that there was anything like that done. They tried very hard to keep politics out. And I am on the board of directors. In fact, I'm personally liable if that's going on. And I see the financial statements regularly. And I've seen nothing like that. There's zero political contributions or anything. Now, We do have social events at, I say social events, we have fundraisers at Moralago, which is, you know, was Donald Trump's home, or it was the White House when he was president of office, I guess you call it, and we did pay for the facility, and we made a huge, it's a non-for-profit, we raised a lot of money for the dogs. In fact, a couple of other facilities that might have been owned, or at least have Trump's name on it, money was raised. And as I say, I see the financial statements, and they go all the money raised. So if you spend X dollars to rent a facility, which happens to be owned by Don Trump,

and you make $10 X dollars in terms of funds, and you save thousands of dogs' lives with those funds, to me that's the way to go. So I don't believe that. But if it was proven otherwise, and I think what I read, by the way, it sounds exactly what you described was the facility was rented or paid for it to use for fundraiser. I don't think there was anything about actual payments. So I think Steve might have phrased it wrong, but I go back and read the article. I can tell you, listen, I mean, Lori Simmons, who started it, has done an amazing thing. And her political preferences are very public.

But we focus on the good that Big Dog Ranch Rescue is doing. I said just because we're in the heads, you know, we know people make my public statements. Doesn't mean that the work they're doing isn't incredible. And that's what we're focusing on. And I can tell you, for anybody who knows me, you know, I'm not going to, I don't want to, you know, my sensibility is, I'm okay, supporting this journey because they're doing an amazing good, better than anybody in the whole day. I think it was somebody, Dillinger, or one of the famous bank robbers, ask, why do you rob banks? And he said, because that's where the money is. And why do we have fundraisers in Marilago and Palm Beach?

Because that's where the money is. And some very wealthy people over there are very generous. You might not like rich folks, but they do have a lot of money. And when they give it to the dogs, to save dogs' lives, give it the big dog ranch. And we raise millions of dollars by having these sorts of affairs. I don't particularly like those affairs. I don't go to the ladies' wine and dine fundraisers in Marilago. Neither does Nancy, but that's just the way we are.

But they've got a lot of people with a lot of money that give our dogs a lot of support, and that's the reason we have fundraisers at nice places in Palm Beach. That's right. Go where the money is. Go where the money is. No, we're not dumb. All right, we have a text from Dax in California.

It's a new texter. It says, hello, I try to catch your live stream every Saturday on YouTube, but I always miss it, so I just listen later on. My question was asked by Marty, and this was referring to our show last week, how to get the actual price which the invoice doesn't show on an invoice that shows holdback and floor plan or advertising. You mentioned asking the dealer how much discount will be given on based on MSRP. Does the discount given by the dealer, this is kind of difficult to read, I'll just read it, does the discount given by the dealer should I ask for the detail discount what qualifies me? What in your experience should I be looking into and the dealer maximum discount?

account on the document my daughter asked me to help her negotiate her first vehicle target is June of 2021 apologize for the long text but would great would help us greatly appreciated and that's Dax in California so I think the main question is just yeah let me just say this and you explain but one of the reasons you focus on the MSRP is because as that's a standard document the mona label is dictated by law federal law every manufacturer of trucks and cars in the United States has to have that. So there's a uniformity with invoices. Every manufacturer has a different

type of invoice for his dealer. And, you know, we can read the invoice on a Toyota because we are a Toyota dealer. But Honda would be different, General Motors, Chrysler, all the invoices are different. And they're very deceptive documents. First of all, the name is a lot. The invoice is not an invoice. An invoice is something that you pay for a product, that's not what you pay. Car dealers pay far less than the invoice they get because they get a lot

of money kick back. So when you start asking about discounts from invoice and invoices, you're asking for trouble. Stick with the MSRP, shop competitive dealers, and then get the maximum discount from MSRP. Yeah, that's all I was going to add. I think

that there's a lot of unnecessary confusion when people start thinking about how to approach it. And We joke around, we said we really don't need a show about how to buy a car. We just need to have a statement that says get three bids or more. The idea is its competition is how you get the best price because the playing field has been so muddled and made so confusing with fees and holdbacks. And it's totally natural for, you know, for Dax to go, should I be focusing on a percentage discount on MSRP or a dollar amount below or above invoice. All that stuff is really kind of meaningless because the car dealers have kind of created a situation that makes it impossible to navigate.

So the best thing to do is use the power of the market and get various bids and work dealers against each other. And then they're still working on the MSRP, the dealers, to deceive you. Our mystery shopper report, you'll hear the latter part of the show, had, you know, a change to the MSRP, to has changed to the Monroney label, and unfortunately that's not illegal, it should be. The Menroney label was established in the United States Senate

and the House of Representatives and voted on and it became law. And it was passed at the time so that you would have a comparison from three different Chevrolet dealerships. If you went to three different Chevroleteship dealerships to buy a Chevrolet, the dealership that gave you the maximum discount

would be the best deal. Now if the Chevrolet dealership has an addendum label, or we call them phony monies, they could give you a bigger discount by artificially marking the MSRP up $2,000. They could discount the car by $2,000, and they're still selling it to you a full sticker.

So when you're shopping and comparing, be sure you're looking at the real Monroney label, and then compare that, get the maximum discount, and buy your car. Exactly. Do you get any text over there, Rick? I actually have one here from Guy Larrabee, who says, who can you complain to when a Toyota dealer doesn't respond to your concerns? A lot of people. I'd start with the upper management of the Toyota dealership.

Chances are you're speaking with a salesman or maybe a sales manager. You've got to take it to the top and you do it in writing, email or text. Anything that you have in a way of a conflict with any business, especially a card dealer, now that we have texting and now that we have email and everybody is pretty much able to do that

if not write a letter, be in writing with your specific complaint. Then after that, I would use the 800 number to the manufacturer. If you do that, if it's a Honda dealer, you go to 800 Honda or whatever the number is, and you file your complaint online, and they will notify the upper echelon in that dealership, and they will find out about it. Too often people are fighting with a salesman. Maybe he promised to give you a free loaner every time he came in for service.

He doesn't want his boss to find out. So when you ask for the free loaner, they look at you like you don't know what you're talking about. It's because a lower echelon person on the dealership made a promise he couldn't keep. So get through the upper people. And then your next step after that, then you start to play hardball. Doesn't work with the upper echelon of the dealership management. It doesn't work with the manufacturer, the contact of the upper edge of line. Then you go to something like the Department of Motor Vehicles.

And that's free. You file a complaint with the Florida or the Georgia. wherever you are, Department of Motor Vehicles. That really gets the dealer's attention because they have the power of life and death over a dealer. Florida Department of Motor Vehicles can cancel the dealer's license,

can fine the dealer, and they don't have to go through a judicial process. They just say, the head of the Department of Motor Vehicles said, you owe $5,000 because you've violated the rule, or we're suspending your license for three months, or we're taking your license away. So any dealer gets a letter from

Department of Motor Vehicles, it gets their attention. That's hardball. And then I could go on and on. You've got the Attorney General's Office. You've got the floor officer. You have the Consumer Affairs Office. Better Business Bureau is worthless. But Google ratings. There are so many different ways you can attack a business that is wronged. There's almost too many ways. But prioritize, like I said, and you'll get a result. okay we'll go back to the text we have one from there's no name on it says I'm about to buy a car from Florida fine cars is this place reputable I keep hearing about hidden fees after online prices have says something else should I even bother well that's the beauty of the of the mystery shopping report and good dealer bad dealer list.com I refer to that and currently fortifying cars has a D they did pass but they have a low score and I can tell you that as of August of 2019 they had an $899 dealer prep fee and a $597 electronic filing fee so it looks like it's about 1,400 bucks and hidden

fees that you can expect forifying cars to add to the advertised price looking at the at the mystery shopping report it wasn't a terrible experience but we gave them the D for high fees and some some iffy sales tactics so it's always bars but where anytime you go to any any car dealership but certainly floridifying cars maybe a little bit extra careful when you go in there are they are they a chain or they are they uh is important one location there's a they have a lot on a military trail down on that car road just kind of south of ok chobie or south of southern and um so i'm not sure if it's a chain it might be um but the only

location that i'm more is the one in west palm beach yeah i think they they bought a dealership facility i think in they mean yeah yeah yeah i don't remember which one it was it was one of these guys that moved out off that car row you know wasn't that the old Saturn dealership in my military that's what it was yeah that's what I think so yeah all right uh another text here says Toyota is supposedly making an EV announcement on the 17th do you think we're finally getting an all electric car from Toyota um I read about that as well um yeah I think we are but not we're not I think it's for um Europe they announced that there's going to be like a small SUV sized all electric vehicle uh for the European market and that's probably what this is

but we'll find out. We talked about it on the show a lot. I mean, Toyota, for its reputation as being an innovator and all that, is kind of behind the times on the electric vehicle development. But we will see some from all of them. This is inevitable, and that's going to happen with any manufacturer. Some will be trailblazers and some will be playing catch-up. And in this case, Toyota's playing a little catch-up. Good news is they've got a ton of money and the ability to catch it pretty fast. So hopefully, we will see it in the state soon. You know, it's just, it's almost like batteries. I mean, you can talk about cars, but the name of the game when it comes to electric cars is having a battery, the right battery. And if you have, you've got to get the cost down and you've got to get the range up and you've got to get the life of the battery. The life of the batteries already, Tesla's advertising a million miles.

So that's a lot of miles to put on the battery. so everybody's going to be there and Toyota will be one of the players but also will be some of the people that you don't expect people you never even heard of which leads us to our next text which is like electric vehicles on the mine

have you heard of the new electric truck startup canoe yeah there is a whole bunch of them starting getting it's getting confusing now there's Rivan which is the truck that's supposed to compete with the Tesla truck and read an article about canoe It's a cool looking...

Is that like a canoe? It's spelled differently. It's like C-A-N-O-O or C-A-N-N-O, like canoe. It's kind of a cute little name. And it's a pretty neat looking truck. It looks like the bed, the sides fold down to turn it into a flat bed. It's really neat looking. I'm really excited imagining what the roads are going to look like in five years or three years even

because these things are going to start coming to market, especially these startups. Like, you know, we all know Tesla and we know all the big manufacturers, but some of these little ones are going to start making their way on the road and who knows which ones will become big well trucks you know you can see where trucks are a natural first of all size is a factor that they could carry huge battery you know and uh and they go long distances uh you know not stop and go stop and go and uh i think we're going to see almost 100 percent electric trucks before we see almost 100 percent electric cars yeah it's just going to be i've been doing a lot of traveling on the turn bike unfortunately because I've been going to Cleveland Clinic with Nancy's foot and saw grass expressway and for a turnpike and the amount of trucks that

we see today during the pandemic I haven't been on the highway a lot yes that's that's the canoe truck yeah that's cute so it's gonna be it's gonna I think you're gonna see a whole bunch of amount is my point yeah I'm gonna get one electric truck no gotta get one Somebody was listening to our conversation about static electricity, sparks, and the Pontiac dealership burning down. It says, how seriously should I take warnings about turning off my car's engine and not using my iPhone while I gas up at the service station?

Well, first off, always shut your engine off when you're refueling. You can cause a checked engine light, which is a minor thing. But shutting the engine off most important because gasoline fumes are heavier than air. They will sink and travel along the ground. So if you've got a hot exhaust, a little bit of a spark or some other ignition source and hits those fumes, boom, you could have a quick fire. So it's always a very, very good, I shut the engine off. I never thought about that. So the gasoline vapor actually settles to the ground.

Yep. Oh, wow. Now, as for the cell phones, I think MythBusters pretty well solved it. No, it's almost impossible to cause a fire with a cell phone. But you've got the lithium battery in the cell phone, so that might be a factor. That would be an independent event from the set of electricity. Right. Now, the real thing to be concerned about, and this, you'll see a lot of people do this.

They'll put the pump in the car, start pumping, and then they get back in the car and get back out. Now, we don't see it as much here in Florida, but in northern states, especially in the wintertime, it's very cold and dry, you'll get that static shock. and if you touch right near the gas door with that static electricity shock that spark can be enough to ignite makers I can remember I just flash back to when I was going to school and Troy New York and I was in Elmira

was really, really cold and boy I tell you when it's 10 below and you're pumping gas you're going to get back on the car yep but make sure when you get out touch something metal before you get near the gas pillar. Interesting. I know I did a vacation out to Las Vegas once,

and the desert air out there is so dry, and you're walking on that carpet, everywhere you go, you'd get a static shock. That'd just terrify me when I was like, I hated that. I'd go to my brothers, and you'd shuffle on the carpet and touch them on the back of the neck.

Yeah. Ooh, I missed that. Okay, here's a text. Says, KQRS Radio in Minneapolis, Minnesota has a morning show that each week as a guest who is an employee of the Walser Automotive Group of 25 dealerships. Today, he had a few comments about not having dealer fees

and how ridiculous it was for a dealer to charge a $900 document fee when all that is involved is to tap two keys on a keyboard to submit all the documents. Great. I'd love to find this show and listen to another car dealer. It's preaching the same message. The point about the dealer feed is it is a joke about the justifications that are used for the dealer fee this guy says well all you have to do is click a couple of buttons to submit the paperwork that's true but that's not what the dealer fees really for it's not really a document fee is what the dealer fees and that's a generic term

encompassing just about anything you want to call it it's a hidden fee the most accurate name is hidden fee and the reason dealer fees exist at virtually all dealerships and I'm so happy to hear one or even a group that doesn't do that is because they're selling the same product. Think about it. You're a Chevrolet dealer. And your Corvette, your Chevrolet, your Chevrolet, is exactly the same as the Corvette dealers

sold by six other dealers in your market. They're all selling the same thing. And so, well, if you advertise a price, a real price, they're going to buy it from... We have a caller online. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, you know. No, no, you did the right thing. John from Palm City. Good morning, John.

Hello, John. Good morning to everyone. Hey, John. You mentioned the coming of the Toyota Electric. Well, anybody that doesn't have an electric vehicle on the workbench will probably go totally out of business. True. Jaguar just recently announced no more gas engines vehicles in the year night at 2025. Jaguar, by the way, is the one that owns Land Rover.

People don't know that. Yeah. But just to mention a few that are already out, you know, there's a company called Lucin Motors. It's a luxury EV. It's the fastest EV in the world. The vehicle's not cheap. The Mustang is out, $43,000. You get a $7,500 credit from the government.

The Tesla Model Y, $42,000, no credit. Volkswagen has an ID4. I'm not sure the price on that, but there is a government credit on it. The best one really is the Chevy, price-wise, is the Chevy Bolt, which is 35,000, and there's no credit on that one. And they're coming left and right. They're having problems because there's shortages of the metals for the batteries, nickel, the chips are shortage. But here's the proof of really what's coming. United Airlines ordered 200 airplanes, strictly electric.

Those are made by the company called Archer Aviation. Is that right? I didn't know that. 200. It's an actual order that's in. You look up Archer Aviation. I don't know if it's a public traded stock or those are the manufacturer of it. It's unbelievable.

This is an actual order that's in. So it's unbelievable. I mean, it's not only around the corner. It's here. And like I say, if they don't have on their workbench, the actual vehicle, you know, almost ready to be produced, the company's not going to be around. How would you feel flying on a

battery-powered airplane, John? You know, the thought of a battery... You know, I mean, I'm a, you know, a high-tech guy, but there's something scary about having a battery-powered airplane to me. It'd be kind of neat because it'd be so quiet. Absolutely. I agree with you.

You know, it reminds me a friend of mine. He's a collector of, especially World War II airplanes, and he offered me a ride in one that was all rebuilt. I said I'd rather decline on it. I'd rather go in an antique World War II. I'm a automobile. I'm on the ground, so it breaks down. What do we do when we're up there? Look out. But here's a major problem that's going on, and people don't even believe this. There are cities that are going to

totally ban all automobiles. Totally. One is, this is right in the plans already. This is a city I've been in, beautiful city, in 1969. There's 160,000 people. people, Germany, Heidelberg, Germany. You're kidding. I was on Heidelberg. ... vehicles to the future will be allowed in that city. They're making plans with bicycle paths, bridges. Of course, there's a river surrounding around it.

And then there's other countries, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, and Britain that are also planning this. And believe it or not, Heidelberg and Stuttgart, which is the headquarters of Mercedes. They've already banned all the diesels from being registered. from being registered in this city. So it's unbelievable when you believe that this city of Heidelberg will not allow any automobile, period,

whether it's electric or whether it's gas or diesel. Best beer in the world in Heidelberg. Absolutely. I was there for a Poverfest. Unbelievable. Well, thank you, John. I tell you're a fountain of information. I believe that a city would outlaw all vehicles.

Amazing, yeah. I don't even know it's legal. But I guess, you know, in the United States, I don't think you could do that. I mean, maybe. No, I don't think so either. Yeah, exactly. I agree with you. But they're here.

They're coming. And if it's not ready to be made by a manufacturer, they're not going to be here. Well, thank you, John. Thank you very much. You're a great caller, and you're a good friend. And Nancy and I miss you, and wish Nancy a quick recovery for me. Regards to Nancy. Hope fast recovery.

Thank you. Thank you, John. Take care. So speaking on Nancy, I'm feeling guilty about no female callers yet. We've had a female textor. So Nancy's home now, and she's going to be scolding me when I get home if we don't have a female caller. Now, I've got to remind you, 50 bucks to the first two new female callers. I mean, I know I'm a car dealer, but trust me, when I say this, there's no strings.

There's no conditions. If you haven't called the show before in your female, and you call the first two, 50 bucks. We're not giving out a scratchy lottery ticket that you might be a winner. No. You're guaranteed to win. I think part of the problem is it's too good to be true. No gold coins. And we sell this show.

We say, if it's too good to be true, it's not true. Well, there's one exception. $50 to the first two female callers is too good to be true, but it is true. It's too good to be. We said $500,000 to the first two lady callers. I wouldn't believe that. I wouldn't believe that. I think it's $150, $100 every Saturday.

Okay, well, let me give you the numbers. as long as I've been doing that. I give them the 50 bucks. I forgot about the telephone number. 877-9-60-9-6-0. Lady callers and mail, but the lady-cullers get 50 bucks if you haven't called the show before. All you've got to do is dial 877-9-60-99-60 and say, hi, I'm a lady, and we send you 50 bucks. You don't have to say that exactly. Well, we don't have a lady-caller, but we have Michael from Kentucky. That's good. Hello, Michael.

Hello. Hello. My name is Michael Elliott. I'm trying to buy a 2018-19 past founder, and I'm going crazy. Oh. I bought your book. I'm really, really joined it, it's giving me courage. My person is, who's over to be a good price to accept, out-the-door price to sell.

On 2018 and 19, Pat-Finder, Here they're running around at $22,000 and $27,000 miles between 25 and 40 miles. I think 40 is a little high. I just need to know what would be a good outdoor price to accept. Where did you start looking? Did you start looking for the Pathfinder online? Online. Okay, good.

I don't have a curve. Excuse me. I don't have a curve to go to the lot yet. Did you see, were there a few listed, or did you see a lot of them out there, or was it just a couple? It's a lot. I saw most of them like in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm not from Nashville. Okay.

Were you on Auto Trader, Michael, did you use their auto-trader source? I went to True Car, something called Edenson. Yeah. You ought to use Auto-T-O-T-R-D-E-R.com, and that way you access virtually every Pathfinder in the world. I mean, they have, every car dealer has his full inventory on Autotrater.com. and you can sort by price, and you put your year 2018, and you can sort from the lowest price to higher prices. And, of course, you have to be aware of hidden fees.

And when you can start it that way and then to identify the fact of what the fees are that they're going to add on top of that. But I just had a friend of mine bought a vehicle or used car. I didn't have one. He wanted to buy it from me, and he wanted to buy a used car for his son. It was an unusual used car. I can't remember what it was now.

He ended up buying it in Tennessee and had a chip down, but you can find any car you're looking for on other trader. You just have to put the zip codes in and move out progressively further from where you live. And then I'll let's still give you the pricing information. I'm just looking locally down here. I mean, and it's going to be a little bit different up in your area. With average miles, you know, if you're considering, you know, 12, 15,000 miles per your average, And I'm not talking about the big platinum version, but the SV is like the middle grade versions. Looks like they're right around 19,000 being listed for 19,000 with about 40, 45,000 miles in here.

So that might be a good target price to kind of look at. Plus tax and tag only. You don't add anything to that 19,000 except sales tax and license plate. And that's where they get you. They can put $1,000, $3,000 and hidden fees. So, you know, if you find a $19,000 padfighter, be sure it's out the door plus tax and tag only. Yeah, because we discovered, so you're looking in the Nashville area a couple of weeks ago, we actually did a mystery shop. I don't know if you heard the show then.

And I wasn't sure if dealer fees and hidden fees were that bad up in your neck of the woods, they are. So beware. Just remember everything you're looking online is going to have probably around $1,000 and extra fees added to it. And then follow our usual prescription, which is find three of them. that are really close in miles and trim and everything like that and get bits from each one of them and they kind of work those dealers against each other. Let them know, hey, I got a guy down the road has almost the identical pathfinder to the one you have. It's got a little bit less miles or whatever the case is and use that to try and get your best price. Okay, okay. I thank you all. Thank you, Margal.

I really love your book. Oh, thank you. And then the doggy sack, you know, that, what you paid for that book? Did you buy it on Amazon? John? Yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah, that went to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and that's the largest no-kill shelter, one of the largest finding of homes for dogs in the United States. And you contributed when you bought the book, so thank you very much. Okay, thank you, sir. Thank you, bye-bye. Okay, 877-960. We got a male caller there. We need some female callers. 50 bucks for the first two new female callers. You know, I've got to mention this before the show is over. Nancy and I just got our consumer reports in the mail. And this is the big issue. This is the annual auto issue. And I'm holding it in my hand if you're on Facebook or YouTube. And it's the April issue. If you don't

buy anything from Consumer Reports, buy this as a magazine stand or go online. And you can subscribe online to the whole year. I think it's only It's a relatively reasonable. It's cheaper online than doing the hard copy. But this baby here has got 260 vehicles rated and reviewed. This is where you start when you're buying a newer used car. I mean, why do I push your consumer reports? Because they're beholding it to no one. No manufacturer, no dealer, nobody.

They won't take any kind of a bribe from a vendor. They will not even allow a vendor to use their name. name when they advertise. So they are squeaky clean and they're honest and they give you straightforward reports on the safety and the even prices of cars. Rick. And we're going to go to Diana from Boynton Beach. Good morning, Diana. Hi, Diana. Good morning. My husband, my husband listens to your show. I'm sorry, morning. It's very informative. Thank you. Diane, are you a first time caller? Yes, I am. $50. $50. Thank you very much. for going and the person in the control room will get your contact information so we keep it

private and we're going to mail you a check for $50 just for calling the show and thank you so much how can we help you this morning I want to point very interesting to an electric car for my next purchase which is down the road but I want to get out trying to gather as much information as I can my question is does an electric car do I need something installed in my house in my garage to have a electric car in my driveway or a garage, whatever, to recharge it. Great question. Rick, you could probably answer that. Some cars actually do require a special charging station, but most of them now, from what I've been able to find out,

actually will charge up on just a 110 outlet. They have their own box that comes with a car that you can plug right into the wall on a 110 outlet, and most of them advertise that they use about the same amount of electricity is leaving a lamp turned on. The only advantage to the 240 is that charges faster, but when you go home at night, you plug the car and you've got a full charge on 110,

and when you're ready to drive it out in the morning, it does need several hours. You only need the fast charger if you're going to be running in and out exhausting your battery, but 110 should be just fine. Yep. And how long would that last the time? Well, it depends on the car you buy.

They have some Teslas out there that are getting around 350 miles to a charge. And I would say the average is probably pretty close to 300 miles now. Yeah, I think the new Mustang says that with normal driving patterns, they're getting close to 300 miles out of that new EV Mustang. That's better than what I'm getting on my car. Wow. I have another question. I don't know if you're able to answer this.

We live in the community here in Florida, 55 plus. Now, they are taught, how about electric cars for the condos and things? Well, we wouldn't have, what would they use, we'd install one station for all of them, and then they charge the number on it, the card? Another great question, because that's the alternative to having your own personal place where you can charge it, is to have electric vehicle charging stations. And I'm sure you've seen them kind of popping up around town, like in various parking lots, you know, at our dealership, I think we have, like, eight of them,

anticipating future demand for these things and if you live in a condo maybe that's a good topic to bring up with the condo board you know what's going to down the road because you might be the first one in your condo to get an EV but you won't be the last one so maybe it's something that comes up at a board meeting and maybe the installation of a few EV charging stations great ideas I never thought about that I lived in condo for many many years and that's very very true hopefully Diana they're probably already talking about it if not you should raise the issue at the next meeting but we do have some people that have left cars in the condo and they are going to the

beach where to have it's harder it sure it'd be a lot more convenient to have it in your in your parking garage and your parking lot they're going to pay for it they'll just increase your association fee but hopefully if it gets spread out it won't be too bad okay well thank you so much i appreciate your timing that's what you see as you're continuing your work well thank you Dian, spread the word to your female friends that we're proud of our female caller base, and we would like to have more, and you can tell

them we still have $50 left. You got the first $50, and we had another $50, so if you had a want a friend that needs a little cash for going out to dinner, or maybe you don't go out to dinner, do a takeout, and 50 bucks. Okay, well, keep up with the electronic

information, because it's really important that's the way that it's used your environmentally do. All right. Well, thank you. Take care. Bye-bye. Okay, let's... 877-960-90-90-60. We're doing pretty good, now I feel better. Yeah.

Well, we've got a couple of YouTube so we can go to real quick. SSS-R-C-R-85 is asking, how long does the battery on a hybrid highlander last? Hmm. And... Looking at you, Rick. Yep.

For the most part, the hybrid highlanders seem to have their HV, the high-voltage battery, lasting longer than any other model that I've worked on with Toyota. And I have honestly worked with Toyota now for 25 years. I was here when the first Priuses came in to the dealerships. And because I have that challenge

and I've studied everything I can about them, I seem to get the majority of the hybrid cars with issues. We do a lot of Prius batteries. We do a few avalon's, but there's not a lot of avalon hybrids because they came out kind of late. The cameras, we do quite a few, but not near as much as the Prius because there's so many more of them on the road. But the Highlanders, very rarely do we replace batteries for them.

It almost seems like they seem to last longer. So I'm going to say you're good for probably 2 to 300,000 miles on Hybrid Highlander. Coach, remember you heard it here first that are on cars. I don't even think Toyota knows that, but it's almost counterintuitive. As you say, the Highlander was like, you think, the second vehicle. It was. And so you would think that the newest vehicle, like the RAV or some of the other more would be a later technology but I guess what

they're doing is they're just putting the technology in the newer Highlanders and we didn't sell very many Highlanders when they first came out right with a battery so that's very interesting yeah but tell me again how many how many miles should they look for I'm thinking you can do at least 200,000 miles or more yeah that's a that's pretty cool now that the cool part with the hybrid Highlander too is if you're someone that you're gonna pull a boat It makes perfect sense because electric motors develop 100% full torque the moment you give it power. There's no ramp up, no buildup to it.

So if you need to get a boat moving or pull it up out of the water, I'd want a vehicle with massive amounts of torque. That's why the trains are so powerful because they have a... They're electric. And let's see here. Glenn Schmidt says, Earl, it wasn't John Dillinger that said that's where the money is. It was a bank robber by the name of Willie Sutton. Willie, yeah, Willie Sutton. I love that.

I mean, I wonder if he really said that. Willie, why are you, Rob Banks? Well, that's where the money is. He just heard Sir Edmund Hillary mentioned that's why he climbs the mountains, and he goes, I got a version of that. Why did you climb that mountain? Because it was there. Exactly.

Because that's where the money was. Okay. Donovan Lewis, he texted in quite a bit on YouTube here, but he's got some great information here. He says, the Volkswagen EV, the Volkswagen electric car is around 32,500 after the tax credit, and is probably one of the better deals. And he says, he predicts that by 2025, which is a lot of sources to back this up, there's going to be a significant portion of new cars will be electric, probably over 30%. He says, the best-selling Porsche is the electric take-cam that outsells all their other cars combined. and he says

Ah, okay, he says 110 volts is not really good for electric cars. You need a 220 volt installed in the house to make the car properly usable and 220 will charge from 0 to 100% in about 7 hours. The 110 is intended

mainly for emergency service. And a model 3, I'm guessing the Tesla, with non-long-range battery, takes four days to charge on 110 volts. Really? Wow. So I gave out some better information. I don't know. I've got to look that up.

I mean, because I have the plug-in vehicles designed to work with a 110 and like I have a Prius Prime at home. Right. It doesn't take that long and it is designed to use. Well, the average, the average driver is going to pull the number of the area here and the lives in the urban situation probably doesn't travel more than 30 or 40 miles a day. So why are we talking about if you only get it, if you have a car that will get you a 300-mile, miles on a full charge. If you have 20%, that's 60 miles. So, you know, 110 would be plenty of time. But I think I said, I misspoke when I said it would give you a complete charge. I think there are some, though, that will get 90% charge on 110 overnight. Maybe not Porsche or certain other ones, but the name of the game is a check with the manufacturer, and each one is going to have a different statistics in terms of what their vehicle will do. Tesla is one of the best. from what I understand. But you don't need the 240. I really think if you're an urban driver, if you're a long-distance driver, forget about it. You better get yourself a 240-volt

charger. Yeah. Well, and also, you figure people are different. So some folks will run a car until their gas tank is almost totally empty before they go to the gas station. And other folks, as soon as it hits a half a tank, they're going to go to the gas station to fill it up then. And by the time this whole thing happens with electricity, electric vehicles all over the place, you're going to have vehicles that have a 500 mile range, not a 300 mile range, and may be even greater. I mean, that's the whole point.

If you're able, imagine having a gas station at your house where you could top off every night, and that's all you're doing is stopping off. Yeah, I mean, I do a total of about 20-mile round trip every day, and that would be perfectly fine. I could get a charge for probably 10 minutes to get me to work in back. Exactly.

Okay. And we're going to go to Kevin in Buffalo, New York. York. All right. I'll be staying warm. Good morning, Kevin. Oh, we're warm. Look, hey, it'd be a lot warmer if Nancy was talking to. That's okay. Enjoy talking you back. You're our sunshine. This is my question, but talking about comments on the electric vehicles. I worked for an agency maybe 20 years ago that when a first Rav4 electric car came out, you barely got 30 miles out, 30 miles range with it. And the heater ride, it was even less. Look how the technology has changed the electric vehicles over the years. They'll still improve.

It's very interesting to see. My question is from, I think, last week before you, made a comment about headlights and yellowing. You mentioned a place to buy film to put over the headlights to keep them from yellowing. But I didn't take notes very well to find out where you bought that product from. The one that I bought was from a company, I believe, was called, nope, this wasn't the one. I beg your pardon. I would have to look that up again.

I deleted that website because I'd used them just the one time. Basically, I just went on to Google and searched for 3M headlight clear film, and then I bought it off the internet. But I would highly, after trying to install this film on my headlights myself, even in the shop where I had all my tools and everything, I highly recommend find someplace that does like the vinyl wraps or the vinyl stick on like that and have it done by a professional, someone that has experienced. and knows how to do it because of the contours of most of the headlights, the way they're rounded, you're going to have a real hard time doing it yourself if you don't have the experience and know-how. Kevin, text your text number to our text line,

and that'll keep it confidential to come to us, and then Rick will send you the name. He'll find that name and text it to you. Our text number is 772-497-6530. That's 772-497-6530. You text him, your text number, he'll have it, and then here's such of that information. I just found it. It's clearmask.com.

Clearmask. It's C-L-E-A-R-M-A-R-M-A-S-K, Clear Mask. Okay, very good. And they do the vinyl headlight, and they have vinyl pieces for the whole front of your car if you want it. but it's using a 3M film made by 3M and but again I would highly suggest a professional to do the installation for you okay what about we have plastic coverings over the bumpers is there something

it's out there to protect the coatings on the bumpers yeah I think it's the same manufacturer I think it's 3M they do all sorts they do a bumper guards they also do like on the leading edge of the hood the little the leading edge it gets hit but the chip rocks and things like that and then also little areas like the little cup areas where the door handles are or if you have a ring or something like that our watch can scratch the paint so they have a whole suite of products to do it the little the downside is you can't see it i mean it's clear um probably not on the on the headlights but up on the hood you can see the edge where

it appears and sometimes can get dirty um but it's it's so it's a trade off but uh Kevin we talked last week about being careful when we put coverings over the bumpers because you have sensors there work where they tell you blind spot cars approach things like that so anything again if you get the manufacturer's version it's gonna take that in consideration if you don't buy manufacturers version be sure you don't obstruct some sort of a sensor on your bumper right have the pros to it now the the that clear mask website has those plastic pieces the plastic film literally for it looks like almost the entire car if you wanted to do that but do be careful where

you might have any sensors already now you brought up sensors i have a one-year-old car and i wanted about talking about reliability when i took my car in i wanted a census for one of those side alert things were had shortened out what is the longevity of these new electronic parts have any comment on that part uh we don't see that many issues on toyotas with them that i personally have worked on the biggest issue that we see is from impact you know a lot of folks you know you've you're in a parking lot you accidentally bump another car or they bump you you may not even be in the car you may not even be aware of it and the plastic bumpers on most of our newer cars will absorb a minor impact but those little sensors if they get a good impact at five miles an hour that may not even leave a mark that you can see yeah that can still affect that sensor and mess it up so that's one of the bigger issues isn't so much the expensive too those are expensive a couple hundred dollars yeah it's not so much the the reliability of the sensor itself is the durability factor and you know whether it gets banged in too hard

or not that varies another question i wonder about insurance but it's probably a good idea to check your insurance coverage because if you have bumper coverage i mean you know for dinks and this in the bumper what about that expensive sensor with the insurance company cover that it might be something you want to ask all state or state farm yeah yeah but the technician's data was to shorten it and that's fine but what I didn't care about when they tried charging me for the part and they finally said oh it should be under warranty so to the listeners always just check what your bill says just don't pay the full fee whatever they try to charge you right yeah because those they should unless

there's impact damage to it that they can see and prove then it should be covered under warranty yeah if my last question is that I don't know why they do this now I notice the front headlights are all LED but when you turn the turn signal on the daytime running light turns off what is the reasoning for that i'm sorry one more time on that with your front headlights especially the daytime running lights i know they're all LED but around here when you turn on the turn signal see your right turn signal the right uh daytime running light will turn off and i don't know what the reasoning is that for what you're trying to make a turn with the turn signal yeah i've noticed that a lot of manufacturers have that i

don't understand the reasoning unless it's so that the turn signal then is more visible without the LEDs overpowering it? I'll bet that's here. That would be my guess. Well, that makes the clear answer. Great question. What is the reliability of these LED headlights now? LEDs actually have become pretty reliable.

They will last hundreds of thousands of hours. Sounds great. Well, thank you for all the information. Thank you, Kevin. Stay warm in Buffalo. Yeah, 26 degrees right now. We are. Hey, so I was looking that up.

So that is the answer. Basically, it's to make the signal more visible. It's common in modern cars. I've never noticed it. Pretty cool that our caller just did. All right. Let's see. Let's jump over to some text here.

This is from Joe, and Joe, we was listening to our electric vehicle conversation. He says, what do you make of the argument that because of electric cars, less gas will be sold, and it will be a loss of taxes for people? the roads well we just have to address that with more tax I mean it'll be they'll have to tax the you know to compensate for the you know changing to was it Will Rogers or Samuel Clemens who said the taxes death and taxes are only inevitable thing so yeah the only two sure things all right so that's what they'll figure don't worry about the roads yeah don't worry about the politicians

get your money they'll figure it out okay let's see here let me let me mention something I have made a note to mention this morning because I get so many calls about leasing dilemmas, leasing problems. And there's just been a huge surge in leasing, and we won't go into why, but people are just leasing cars more often than they ever had before. And there's a lot of problems when you lease a car. I talked to a young man in Martin County, his father read my column, and he was the son got into this dilemma. And so the son called me, and I tried to help But he didn't notice the fact that he had a 25 cent per mile charge for over mileage at the end of his lease. Oh, oh.

And he is a Chevrolet, that's General Motors. So, first of all, 25 cents per mileage at the high end. And it's a shame that General Motors charges that much, but they do. And so he has an $8,000 extra charge. And I'll continue and talk about that. But we have a caller. We prioritize our callers. Rick, who's on the line?

We have Patty, first-time caller from Palm Beach Gardens. Wow, Patty, ka-ching, 50 bucks. Way to go. Thank you. What's on your mind, Patty? I have a question about the electric warranties for the cars. The electric cars, the warranties. Are they different from the standard warranty on vehicles?

Are they going to be more, or are they going to have an extended on the batteries? How's that working? Well, I tell you, that is a... extremely good question. I hate it with people say that on TV all the time, but I'm saying now sincerely, it is a good question. I think that's, I think the answer will evolve. It will be

a competitive situation. Probably Tesla will set the pace and people will copy Tesla because you're the big electric gun car manufacturer now. And they should be able to give you a much better warranty on electric car

in general because there's fewer moving parts. Electric motors are far more reliable. Electric motors don't fail. Internal combustion engines with pistons and valves and the rest of it, I mean, just so many moving parts is this bound, things are going to break and things happen. So electric vehicle is just a thing of beauty mechanically, and they should last a lot longer. In fact, it's a car dealer's worst nightmare because we don't know what we're going to fix when other cars electric I mean just there's nothing going to break other you know eventually everything wears out but you talk about million mile batteries and things like

that so but the that's the good news is the warranty could be much bigger but you know the funny thing is car manufacturers don't extend the warranty unless they have to and they and you have an interesting phenomenon a lot of the cars that are least reliable will put a good warranty on it because they have to to sell the And then the cars that are highly reliable will have a fairly frugal warranty because they sell the cars without having to give you the warranty. So the length of warranty on the car is not necessarily a reflection. In fact, it's almost a negative reflection either way on the reliability of the car.

But Rick, you had the point? Donovan just popped in a comment here on YouTube. It says federal regulations says that an electric vehicle battery has to have a warranty for 8 years or 100,000 miles minimum. I don't believe that. I don't know if it's a federal regulation or not, but I do know that Toyota right now, the batteries are warrantied for 10 years, 100,000 miles.

But anyway, yeah, it's a work and process, Patty. It's a great question. And I think it was going to happen when the electric vehicles become the main vehicle on the road, we won't worry about them already because they'll all be so good, that people will buy a car and they'll keep it for 20 years and you won't have to get fixed it won't break

it's going to be a miracle car that electric vehicle car that eventually comes to us in the final version no such thing but you know near the final version will be about as perfect a car as you ever want to consider right now I have another question with that being said about the electric cars lasting longer do you anticipate the labor rate going up for service?

This is a great question. Yeah, there is no labor. There is no labor on an electric car. I mean, I hate to say this. Rick won't have a job. I mean, yeah, looking for a new line of work. Yeah, I mean, we're not talking about tomorrow

the next day. We're talking, Rick will be retired by the time this happens, but, but it's going to happen that you're just not going to have to repair cars anymore. They'll just be there, though, eventually wear or you want another one because you're tired of the color or something like that but the ultimate electric vehicle you won't ever have to fix oh okay the main thing you'll have is tires yeah maybe or maybe they'll have a tire the last forever could be yeah exciting living today patty

i'll tell you what i'm 80 and i'm so excited about the way things have changed in my lifetime and good lord if we have the same change in another 80 years and we'll have far more change. I mean, what's going to happen in the next few years is going to be Disneyland. It's going to be cool. It's going to be amazing. I mean, life is going to get so much better

for everybody. I'm getting giddy. You're so positive. I was thinking what Patty was asking because we're already seeing this. Like, what's going to happen right now is because cars, forget about electric vehicles, have already become way more reliable. And so there's a huge, service

departments are not as profitable as it was. there's less things to fix, and that creates a dangerous situation because you get a desperate situation. Some of the people are desperate to sell some service that may not be necessary, so that's another thing to watch out for as cars get better and better. Right. Well, Patty, thank you so much. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your call.

Will you please call again sometime and next week, preferably, but anytime you can call and spread the word with your lady friends, and we're out of $50. dollars. You got the last 50. We've already given out the first 50. And if your friends call next week, get in early, and make a quick 50 bucks and make Nancy happy.

Yes, yes. I will. I'll tell them. Thank you, Patty. Really appreciate. Bye-bye. Okay, folks. This is very exciting. Nancy will be proud of me. You're doing our job for. 877-960 or text us

at 772. 4976530. What do we got? There's some text. So, wait, but I was in the middle of a thing about leasing. Yeah. And this victim... Go ahead. I'm going to interrupt you again. I love it.

We've got Allen in Orlando. Hello, Alan. Hello. Hello, Alan. Yeah, I got a question. All these new cars now come with Turbo Pro engines, which are requiring 93 octane, which today is getting well over $4 a gallon.

Are we still getting good gas mileage better than when we had the regular gas engines? I think so. Rick, what do you say? I haven't really seen too many in the way of turbos because right now Toyota's not making cars with turbochargers. I got one. But I know they're coming. So I'm going to wait to see what their requirements are for fuel. but if they're requiring 93, you know, you may need to run it. However, the cool part is that the turbos, the turbocharged V6s and turbocharged four cylinders

are actually producing the amount of power that VH used to produce and doing so to a much lighter weight. So that trade-off is that you are going to get better fuel economy by dropping so much of the weight off of that big old engine you used to have. My turbo only requires 89. Really? Yep. Mine requires 93. Alan, does it require or recommended?

That word can mean long. That's required in the manual. Mine's required 89. It's a BMW engine. Each time I go to the gas pump, you know, my blood pressure goes up because it's getting over $4 a gallon here. Time to get an electric view. Well, that's a good question.

I'm going to ask Rithka's question, and I'm asking it for you too. What happens if Alan did use the 89-79-73, and I'm not suggesting that he do this, but what would be the worst-case scenario if he would use the 89? Worst case scenario is increased pre-ignition to the point that it could start to damage the engine. That would be the absolute worst case, and it would require, like, the perfect storm of events for that to occur. Yeah, and I got a lease car. I don't want to mess around with that. No, I'm not suggesting. I'm just hypothetical. The manual says you're running, start pinging, you know, and then bring it in right away,

And you're, you know, when you step on a gas, you're not going to get the power that you had. I realize that, I have plenty of power. Yeah. I mean, I'm 84 years old. I got, you know, it's a four-cylinder, a 2.0 turbocharged. It's a general motor's car. But it just irks me every time I have to fill it up, even though the tanks now are smaller. And still, you know, that pump gets over $4 a gallon, and it looks like it's going to get worse this year.

And, you know, you're driving a little more now since, you know, the virus is. kind of getting down. Sure. So it's just going to cost more money for everybody. Yeah. They think they're going to be, uh, their expenses are going to get down a little bit. They're actually, if they're driving, they're going to go up. You're doing the right. You're doing the right thing, Alan. The reason I ask the question is that engineers, automotive and all engineers tend to err on the conservative side. They'll design something and we find cases where they tell you to use a 93 octane and if you use a few, 89 or even 83 the vehicle runs just fine they tend to air on the conservative side which

naturally would you can't hurt yourself but you're costing the users or more money and uh i guess i like to live on the edge a little bit so i but i don't recommend you live on the edge i wouldn't want anything to happen to your engine i got i got one other question it involves leasing you i just heard you a little while ago you mentioned you're getting a lot of calls or something or problems about Leasing? Yeah. Yeah, well, my last three, let me ask you this question. My main question is, how do I cut my time in the back office?

My last three leases have been one-pay leases, because I don't like to pay interest. And I've had a problem each time, this is with General Motors, each time I go into that back office, they kind of give me the blank look when I tell them, I'm not paying their interest, I'm not paying that rent charge. I'm paying you one check, and that's it. and they kind of looked at me like, you know, I'm talking a foreign language. Yeah, well, they're paid on commission, Alan, and they get a percentage of everything they can tell you that you don't need. And it's unfortunate fact of life.

I suggest you find it either that I would, next time I leased a car, I would just say, look, here's what I want to do, and we're going to do it my way, and do this on the phone or by email. I did that the last time. I went right to the general manager. Oh, did you? Good for you. And I had a very better experience. It took me only an hour to get out of it.

Yeah. My last one, three years ago, it took me four hours to get out of that back in the office. Oh, man, that's where they make all their money. That's in the FBI office. We call it the box, you know, because it's kind of like a torture chamber. And that's where they make all their money. So they're going to work you over pretty hard. Okay, enjoy your show.

Thank you, Alan. You have a great day. You too. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Okay, we're right. got some text we got some youtubes and anonymous feedback okay well we start with some texts here this came in a little bit earlier in the show he's looking to buy

a use Lexus and he's a question has to do with getting the vehicle inspected because we've talked about bringing it to your own mechanic he says what's the best time to get that inspected before talking numbers or after you've agreed on a price and then he says I'm looking to purchase a certified use Lexus is it still neck on a certified cars it's still necessary to bring it to your mechanic or should the dealerships certified inspection be sufficient. So a couple of questions there. First one is, when should he bring it to his mechanic for inspection before or after numbers are discussed?

I think before, well, I would say after the numbers are discussed, I think you want to know what's going to cost first, and then the last thing you should do is take the mechanic. And yes, you should never let the dealer and sell any of the car be the final check on a used car. I mean, I'm not saying they're to be a dishonest because it just made a mistake. You need somebody that has your interest at heart, and the car dealer has selling you the car at heart. The guy that you take it to and pay $120 is going to have your interest at heart. In fact, he's going to try to find things that are wrong. And if he finds a few things, all you have to do, you can still buy the car, take it back,

and say, you probably didn't know this, but this has to be fixed, and they fix it for you. where you take the cars. That's one thing I would never not do. I mean, you've got Carfax, you've got a consumer report. The safest thing when you're buying to use car is that independent mechanic that you trust. I don't mean it has to be a not dealer mechanic, somebody that you know is a good mechanic, and you're going to pay him, and he's going to take care of you. That's the most important thing buying to use car. That's right. Well, we got one for Rick here. This is an ominous feedback. This is the battery light on my 2007. Rav4 Flickers while I'm driving on the expressway, and after a few days the car no longer starts.

I put in a new alternator, a new battery, a new relay, but it still does not start. Ugh, please help. Sounds to me like you've got a wiring issue, a loose connection somewhere or a wire possibly starting to break. You'll need to get a mechanic involved that knows how to do electrical really well and understands voltage drops. and now we're going to interrupt to go to Will from Oklahoma.

Hello, Will. Thank you, Gary. Yep, you're on the air. So I had a question, maybe it's a little more financial than technical. I'm in college right now. I'm a junior. I don't have, I mean, like other college students,

I don't know. But luckily, I was through a connection I was able to get a 2016 Ford F-150, and I'm just curious if do you think it's worth it, concerning that the truck is in good condition, would it be worth it to keep the truck, or should it be smarter to sell it and buy something for about half the price and keep the money? Well, you know, I think it depends on your financial situation. And you, 2016 is, you're out of warranty now. And if it's well maintained, it's a good truck.

It's a number of best-selling vehicle in the world. F-150s are great trucks. You know, if you sell it and take the money and keep some and then buy a least for expensive car, then you can probably find a reliable vehicle. If I were in your shoes and it wasn't a financial necessity for me to raise cash right now, I keep that F-150 because it's really a great vehicle. Yeah, okay.

That's kind of what people had asked, family, kind of said the same thing. Yeah. I just wouldn't sure. You know, sometimes I just kind of feel like it's irresponsible or just weird to have a truck worth that much when you have a fraction of that in the bank account. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah.

You might add, of course, in the long run, a good truck like that is going to save you money if you don't have to fix it a lot and you don't have to worry about it. Peace of mind, you're going to college, you're a junior. You got enough problems. At least I did when I was a junior in college. And you work hard, you study hard, and you don't want to have to worry about your vehicle. Unless I needed the money, I'd keep that 2016. okay awesome well thank you for calling oklahoma i think this is our first call from oklahoma

i believe so thank you very much i hope you spread the word in oklahoma and we'd love to have some more calls from your part of the country yeah i'll let them know all right take care bye bye all right we've got we're getting near the mystery shopping report yeah and uh nancy stewart has not called the show and uh and you're probably dozing off but we'd love to have hear from you and if you don't call out we'll be on the mystery shopping report so give us a call well we've actually just shut the phone lines down for the miss sorry nazi yeah you're out come myself on though to say a quick shout out to a buddy my name rob and his associates at advanced auto parts in hope sound they're listening they listen every saturday oh and it's good to know that

an auto parts store is listening to us and maybe taking some of our advice and spread into their customers absolutely you know I I encourage people to find auto parts that are quality and less expensive and without exception when you buy a part from a dealer first of all the manufacturer overcharges the dealer for the parts and then the dealer overcharges you for the parts so you've got a double whammy and if you do your research and you check reviews and you check for quality you can usually find a part in an independent auto store that is far less expensive of equal quality than an OEM part so you actually have a very

Nancy just called me somebody take over you actually have a pretty good chance of being able to find a part made by the same manufacturer that makes the factory parts that you can get right from the other parts store so say if you're looking for a part for a Toyota this made by Nip Denzo, you can sometimes find that same part in the auto parts store for about two-thirds the price made exactly by Nip and Denzo. It's the same part, just less expensive. I didn't realize that. So they actually buy, oh, yeah. Very interesting. I'll tell you what. Yeah, so thanks for listening and you save yourself a ton of money. And what's the name of the

store? Advanced Auto Parts. I've been Hobbsound, and it's a fellow by the name of Robert that I've known for many, many years, and his associates are up there listening to us right now. If you live in that neck of the woods, whoops, south floor, advanced photo parts, see, Ron, buy your parts there, don't buy it from the dealer, and save some money. Absolutely. All right.

Okay, where are we now, still? We'll do a lightning round of some of this anonymous feedback. Okay, good. Well, first, we have a, we'll finish up the text. This is from Nancy and Jupiter, not your Nancy. It's got a different phone number. I wondered for a second. How good is the auto insurance that one may

buy to pay for work on any motor or transmission, et cetera, problems. One company advertises quite often on TV. I believe, Nancy, you're talking about Car Shield. We see the commercials all the time, and it is insurance, good catch on that. I've looked up a little bit over the, we've seen over the years,

we've looked them up. They have mixed reviews online. It is a, usually they have a payment plan, a monthly payment plan of $150, 100 bucks a month. So if you're not getting, that can really add up over course of the year, a couple of years, if you're not getting the benefits, of it. It's just an insurance product, and I would be very, very, very, very wary of that

and before you're purchasing it. I would not buy an online extended warranty or insurance or whatever you want to call it. I wouldn't do it. I just wouldn't buy it. It's trouble waiting to happen. If you're going to buy an extended warranty, I would deal with a reliable source. I would read it carefully. Most of these advertised warranties, you don't know what you buy until you send them the money. And they're not going to send you a copy. of the contract, which is absolutely stupid. And they'll give you a bunch of generalities about what

it covers, but they won't tell you what it doesn't cover, and that's where you get in trouble. So don't buy online, television advertise warranties. I got one in the bill yesterday. No matter what iced tea tells you on TV. Ignore iced tea. All right.

Now that Ford, this is anonymous feedback, now that Ford has just recalled 2.6 million vehicles for Faulted Ticata Airbags, will you resume the Takada test mystery shops yes yeah we will and uh i just uh i just don't get me started uh it's one of the i've been a cardiota for over 50 years and one of the most uh depressing things i've encountered is the way this takot earbag thing was handled and endangering the public of the lack of concern now because the pandemic and the covid and a lot of things that need attention are

are not getting attention paid to. But as an automobile dealer for so many years to see the way this to cut airbag recall was handled, it's a terrible thing. I blame the manufacturers. I blame the airbag manufacturers, the auto manufacturers, and the dealers. They're all guilty.

And our state and federal leaders. Yeah, exactly. So I can shut up up. I'll be talking for the rest of the show. In all reality, though, as far as mystery shopping, I did look at the recall covered. Most of them are pretty old. I think the most recent model is a 2012.

So those are kind of getting harder and harder to find. But we'll search. We'll search every week, and we see them on a dealer's lot being sold. They're hard to find, but the older they are, the more dangerous they are. Yeah, that's the cruel irony to that. Only two more anonymous feedback when we get to the mystery shopping report. Okay. This sounds like it's maybe coming from a car dealer.

He says, I agree that dealer fees are deceptive in the sense that they are really extra profit added to the advertised price. But what is the alternative? What other industry has an entire economy of Parasite industry is designed to undercut its prices? No other industry has its pricing and cost structure made so public. Car dealers have no choice to play this game if they want to earn a profit. Well, I don't like to comment on our dealership, but my answer is that we don't do it, and we sell a lot of cars, and we make a lot of money, and we do it honestly and transparently. So who do you think you're kidding? Try it. Have you tried it?

Try not lying to your customer, and try not sneaking hidden fees, in by rationalizing it by what you just said and see what happens. And if you don't believe that we don't do it, Mr. Shop, our dealership. We put an out-the-door price on the vehicle. We don't add any hidden fees. And if they take our price, they can shop it and find a lower price. And they do. We just talked about a toilet dealer at Coconut Creek that beat our price because we gave our

alpha-door price. He took it down there. The customer did. And he got a lower price at Al Hendrickson, Toyota. And it wasn't the end of the world. We all survived. Yeah, we survived. We laughed about it. And the next guy that goes in, Al Hendrickton, Toyota, will get raped, and he'll pay $4,000 or $10,000 over sticker.

So that's the way the car dealers make their money. If you hard nose and negotiate and get a really good price, they've got to make it up. So the little lady walks in. You show weakness. You're dead. Yeah, yeah. We will stipulate the car business is very hard, and it is frustrating. As a dealer, it's a frustrating.

It's so hard. It's brutal competition, but the answer isn't to cheat and lie to your customers. I hope that guy's listening. Well, guess what? We have one more anonymous feedback, and it's from my favorite guy. I don't know who it is, but I think it's the same person because he starts every anonymous feedback with, Hey, Earl. Hey, Earl, how come I never see cats in cars while I'm out driving?

I see dogs all the time, because dogs are better. Boom! All right, it's going. The cats are underneath the seat. Cats don't like right in the car. They don't stick their head out of the window. That's an obvious answer. I can, seriously, I've had cats and dogs.

every cat i've tried to take on a car ride freaks out and makes horrible noises that don't sound like they belong on this planet and dogs love car ride so there you go and you love cats i know you love cats because we had cats when you were a kid i love all all animals absolutely okay we're ready mystery shopping report alexus upon beach and automation dealership you know there's a lot of automation dealerships out there luxury car dealerships are the ones that don't have to call themselves automation uh the other ones uh do call themselves automation but they admit their automation. I'm not sure why.

Lexus of Palm Beach currently has a B on our recommended dealer list. They earned this grade three years ago shortly after they announced they're adopting one-price sales model on their use vehicles. Not to do, but on the use. Now, some Lexus dealers do it on new, too.

For example, JM Lexus does it, and Lexus manufacturer recommends that their dealer do one price on new. But I don't know what percentage do. Palm Beach, totally does not. Anyway, on the shopping this three years back, we sent an agent P, agent P. Yeah. Boy, Rick, Rick Patton.

He's not a mystery shepherd anymore. We can out him. Okay. To investigate and we're pleasantly surprised to discover that Lexus of Palm Beach was true the one price process on used cars. They're not on new and most Lexus Steelers are not. Lexus of Bob Beach is a good company on our recommended dealer list. The other two Lexus Steelers on the list are very well.

well-behaved and have the grades to show it for luxury dealers tend to impress like that. I mean, it's just, we could ask why, and that's there'd be another show. But it is true. Luxury dealers tend to treat the people who matter. Rural Sturon cars typically conducts mystery shops on non-lexury dealerships. We do this because luxury bands represent a lower share of car sales in most markets, and we try to advise the broadest group of consumers that we can. We can help more people by shopping, say, a four-dealer, because, force, market share is about 14% of all the manufacturers that's a big chunk in contrast BMW has only about 1.8% of the new vehicle market and when I read that

I'm thinking of myself I mean I guess that's accurate still but every car on the road seems to be BMW around Palm Beach County that well that's national I guarantee it's probably in the three three to five range around here and every BMW driver is crazy and they all and they all drive too fast and they're all big shots and they've got a lot of money. And I guess I was, you know, I don't know. Technically, I drive. I probably offended a lot of people.

I'm technically being a driver, W drivers. In contrast, okay, where we go. So that's why we're shopping and luxury dealers. Oh, Infinity only has nine-tenths of one percent of the U.S. market, and I believe that, I don't see very many infinities on the road here. Well, the BMWs. And South Florida luxury brands command a larger share of the market than they do nationally.

I mean, boy, they really do. everything's a Mercedes, a BMW, what's it? Audi, a lot of outies. Tons outies. And Jaguars. Jaguars, yeah. Jaguars, yeah. Acquare smackera.

If they call themselves an electric car, I guess. Is he calling yourself a luxury? Wow. Yeah. Anyway, so we'd be doing our listeners of the disservice that we did not include luxury dealers among our mystery shopping report. It's what we're doing.

So this is for you, Beach County, all you rich folks out there. This is for you. And Beverly Hills, I think we have some listeners out there. Yes, that's true. We have to acknowledge it's a bit more difficult to invest in a luxury brand. These types of dealerships normally keep a low profile. Of course,

you know, country club kind of a thing and are not known for outrageous sales practices or marketing gimmicks. The expectation for luxury dealerships that they will provide the superior customers or experience and offer higher end amenities to their sales and I think they have

like Starbucks coffee things and you know maybe tea and crumpets and at Land Rover. You could get the tea and crumpets. Of course we can assume that Lexus at Palm Beach has maintained its consumer friendly ways and a lot of things could change in three years. We thought it would be a good idea subject to Agent Lightning's treatment. So we gave Agent Lightning or Target and told her to do her thing. That's what we just turn or loose and say go in there just like you were or not a mystery shopper, you were just going to buy a car

and do what you would normally do. And that's what you did. I'll be speaking of the first person if I were Agent Lightning, a female. From my first mystery shop of Alexis Steel Ship, I decided to dress the park and take a nice bag with me. It was a coach.

I mean, yeah. I was a coach bag, she told me. I never thought about that. I mean, do ladies really, when they dress up, they carry a bag? I guess. Yeah. They carry a, when they're not dressed on,

they carry a crappy bag, Oh, okay, was a nice bag. Oh, a nice bag. Okay, I see a nice bag. It was a coach. Yeah, a coach, maybe, yeah. I arrived at 12.30 p.m. park found my way to the show of entrance. As soon as I walked to the door, I was greeted by Michael, a masked salesman.

Who was that mask, man? It was a good thing, though. Remember? I knew that one was coming. Yeah. I can't help myself. Oh, sober. Michael, welcoming, asked for my name, and led me to his desk.

Once we were seated, he asked for my driver's license. Michael entered the info we read. I like this. Michael entered the info he read for my license into his computer while simultaneously asking me about the Lexus I wanted to buy. It was impressive. Now I'd like to see that.

When I saw that, how do you input... I'm picturing this. I'm a driver's license. So I'm approaching the day. Yeah, I don't know how you do that. I couldn't do it. I mean, multitask, I guess. I told Michael that I was interested in

new 2021, ES 350, preferably in a rich, deep blue. He searched his inventory on the computer, announced he had several in nightfall mica. Why do they come up with his name? Nightfall, Mike. That doesn't sound blue to me. Sounds blue to me. He said, that's a shade of blue you want. I'll believe it when I see it. He asked if I was interested in taking one for a drive, and I replied that I was.

He needed my insurance card, and I handed it over. Michael filled out a form labeled test drive agreement and asked me to some more questions. He said the ES350 was very well equipped across the board from safety to infotema. And he wanted to know what features I consider to be the most important. I told him that having the latest safety features

was my top consideration. Michael asked me what I hope to accomplish at a dealership today. I love this. I laughed and said, I hope to drive home in an elixis. Michael laughed too, and we can definitely help you with that, he said. He excused himself to get the keys, returned a few minutes later with his manager, David.

David was holding my driver's license, he handed it back to me and told me the S-350 I wanted was actually parked in the showroom. They needed a few minutes to get it outside from me. I suggested driving another one just like it and joked that I didn't want to put any miles on my new car. Very clever. Michael and David left then I should put miles on someone else's car and I guess they were serious

Michael left to get keys to another vehicle while I inspected the ones in the showroom, the one in the showroom. It had an MSRP of 47, 235 but there was an addendum. Wow, dumb, dumb, dumb. That's something you normally see in luxury dealership, addendum.

And that's a funny Menroney, stuck next to the Menroni label, it adds another $1,000 for the old appearance package. What a bunch of nonsense that is, appearance package. And a three-year dent protection program. What do they get you on that, too? That's very profitable. These dent protection programs, they make a ton of money on those.

In the appearance package, they make two tons of money. So the $1,000 probably cost them $200, $800 in their pocket on that deal. Dealer list, I see as easy to see, as opposed to MSRP dealer list. That dealer list is the phone E. Monroney, inclusive, 48,233. I met Michael outside just he pulled up in the twin to the ES350 in the showroom. We took a pretty long test drive in only 30 minutes. Michael did an excellent job educating me about the features of the car.

He focused on safety features, having obviously paid attention to what I told them earlier, which is comforting. I mentioned the addendum items and said I wasn't interested. He's talking about the parents' package and the debt protection. I said I wasn't interested. He said it was a good, great value, and it protected my interior from spills and stains. I said, my kids were growing. I don't need a drink in my car.

Michael said, I'll see what I can do. Back inside and seated at Michael's desk, he won't know if I was paying cash, financing, or leasing. There's good reasons for that. I told them I was planning to pay cash. I would entertain financing if the terms made sense. If you're buying a car, never tell them you're going to pay cash. Let them think they're going to make money on you if you lease or finance. You wouldn't know how much I would put down if I did finance.

I said I put down $5,000. Then Michael spent some time telling me that I should consider getting an extended warranty and go in right for the jugger. make a ton of money on those extended warranties. Automation, by the way, leads all auto dealerships in price and finance. So automation sells more warranties than anybody else. They make a ton of money on warranties,

and they make a ton of money on financing. And they put their label on it, the automation warranty. And when you go on to buy any card an automation dealer, watch out for the box, because that's where they make average of over $2,000, on every car. You think you paid too much for the new car? They made, on the average, over $2,000 in the finance office. That means that customer A, they made $4,000. The customer B, they made zero. So it's like Russian roulette when you go into an automation finance

in the church department. He said it was counterintuitive to get a warranty for new Lexus, considering how reliable they were. But he explained, because they were, because they were, were so reliable, the extended warranties were very reasonably priced. Very clever. See, he anticipated what you would say. Yeah, why do I need a warranty on a brand new Lexus? That's what I say to everybody buys. You buy a good car, you don't need a warranty. He said, yeah, it is a good car, but boy, have I got a deal on the warranty. Well, I don't want to deal on something I don't need. I mean, it makes sense, and it's true. I mean, if you're going to get on a Chrysler, it's going to be a more expensive warranty. Exactly. Anyway, he said there would be a

reason place I told him that made sense I'd consider it Mike excused himself to get the numbers and Mike is a quality salesperson by the way you'll find this and watch your car dealership they get the pick of the cream they get the cream of the crop you go into a key dealership or a Nissan dealership you got a problem not so much but this move Michael slick and he knows his product and he's a good salesman he returned with a worksheet the top line was MSRP 47,000 235 oops he took all 1235 labeled Auto Nation Savings and then he took off $1,500 customer rebate. Automation price was $44,500.

Then he added, here we go, 509 for the three-year appearance package. Another 509 for the three-year, oh, they were both 509. They increased them by $10 on the denim it was $49. This made the vehicle selling price $45,518. Which is important to note that the automation price is not the same as the selling price. Yeah, exactly. And it's also important to the selling price. is not actually the selling price either.

Exactly. Outside of that, everything's okay. He had a sales tax, state-tired battery fee of $6.50, that's to obfuscate the hidden fees. And a hefty $500 tag registration fee. Here we go, $149, electronic-votic fee, hidden fee, and a $7999 dealer service fee hidden fee out the door, $499. Michael said that since I had some hesitation about the appearance package, he was able to do a little better on the price to make up for. it. He said that since he has a preloaded on the car, this is the very best way not to charge me to full amount. Okay. Michael's good. Michael's slick. He asked if I was satisfied with the final

price. I asked it was still negotiable. Michael laughed. Everything is negotiable. I said, well, go back, ask your boss if you could do better. Michael laughed again. Michael left a lot, done it. He got up and headed back to the manager. He came back with another manager, not David, this time. The new manager didn't mention his name. Not good. First unprofessional thing I've seen is this Lexington dealership. The manager thanked me for coming in, said he'd look forward to doing business with me, and he walked away.

Well, that did a lot of good, right? He's like, I need a T.O. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, I was puzzled. We call that a fly-by T.O. in the train, a fly-by. I was puzzled to ask Michael if I was able to get any break on the price. Michael said, I probably gave a bit of price when I was ready to discuss financing. You better believe it. If we could put you away, if we can lay away in the finance.

department. We can't say the car for a dollar deal on the price. Yeah. Michael looked very just important. I wasn't planning to take the car right then. I explained I really needed to go over the proposal with my husband. Michael want to tell me what he needed from him and that he would not what did he give me to buy the car right now? Yeah. The final go for the jugular. What do I got to do to get the deal now? I told him I had everything I needed other than a little more time to consider things. He asked me to give him a deposit. Boy, a little aggressive for a luxury store and warned that someone could literally

walk in five minutes after I left and buy it and I said they wouldn't be able to get hold it for me I said in that case I'll buy one of the other four cards you got they're exactly the same it only works if you get one of a guy exactly so there we are that's a store where getting near

the thing yeah I only got a pink automation pen that's pretty cheap you know for I mean for a luxury card you was a lousy plastic pen. I mean, giving something nice. Right. Well, the joke was he gave the pen and says here, you can use this when you sign in. Sign it, yeah, it's a big joke, yeah. I hate that pink automation.

I don't, that it clashes with the cars, in my opinion. All right, we got grades coming in. Not too many. We have a Linda, very charitable, gives them a D. Normally, she gives him a big fat, something. And then Jonathan Wellington gives him a D, and who. We have another D here, and this is from Tom. And Anne Marie, chimed in, she's gizma D, behavior is all to her team in South Florida. I'm going to do a little bit better.

I'm going to do a C, because I think that sounds like average behavior. Maybe not for our luxury car dealership, but for all dealers, pretty typical experience. C for me. Rick? We've got Mark Ryan with a D-minus. Tim Gellaland, Snakes games, C-minus. Wayne with a C-minus. and for me

I got to drop it down to a D because I just he tried to play a few too many games a little too slick Yeah I'm going to give a C minus We have a good Lexus dear J.M. Lexus and Coconut Creek that we recommend and

they're definitely better. I'd give them probably a B or B plus and Palm Beach Toyota will give a C minus very good And that's it. And that wraps it up.

And we hope you enjoy the show. And we miss Nancy. We'll be back next week. Bye-bye, everybody. Stay safe out there. Let's come.