Earl Stewart on Cars - 03.16.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Ed Morse Honda

Episode Date: March 16, 2019

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

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. We're back again. We're doing this radio show, or at least a different station, but the same sort of thing, for about 14 years. You true oldies fans, they have come around to become Earl Stewart on Cars fans.

We really appreciate that. We've got some newbies out there. Just a little reminder, we don't sing to you. This is not the True Oldies singing session. This is the how not to be ripped off by your car dealer session, to put it kind of succinctly. My name is Earl. I'm a recovering car dealer. I am still a car dealer, as a matter of fact, in full transparency.

But this isn't an infomercial. This is a show to help you navigate that minefield that we all have to navigate. if we own a car. You're going to have to have your car serviced, repaired. You've got to buy a car every now and then. And that means you have to go into a car dealership, used car, new car. And it's not always easy. We found out that there's a great need for advice and help in the purchase of a car, the leasing of a car, repair, maintenance of a car. And that's what we do. And that's what Earl Sterling Cars is all about. I constantly refer to a Gallup poll that has been conducted every year since 1977 on honesty and ethics and professions.

Honesty and ethics. You know, you read the newspapers and watch television, you go online. The media today has got a lot of ethical questions. There's a huge ethical question now where some very prominent people have been cheating for their kids, bribing coaches to take tests for their kids. I don't know whether it's an epidemic. I know whether we have a moral problem in our country, ethical problem. But I know one thing.

We've had an ethical problem with car dealerships for about a century. I mean, it's about that long that the franchise system for automobile dealers has existed. The manufacturers about a century ago decided that to market their vehicles, they wanted to go through franchise dealers. And that might have been the biggest mistake. ever made and you're saying to yourself right now wait a minute aren't you a franchise dealer yes i am i guess you could call me a hypocrite i've been a dealer for over 50 years i've made a good living selling cars my family is involved in my business and this is part of the evolution that

i made that's one of the reasons i call myself a recovering car dealer because as our culture has changed as our digital revolution has occurred is the consumer demand for you're going to have to show me whether it is your show and stew over there because it's kind of distracting that's Nancy Stewart, my co-host

and my son over there really have a little fun while I'm trying to do my introduction but I'll continue I'll continue and time out for us we're going to hopefully amuse you as we hopefully just did then. Ininvertently, of course. We're going to try to educate you. We're going to

try to bond with you because we need to have you call the show. And it's important that you participate. It's a exchange questions, comments. Not everybody agrees with what we have to say here, but we've got a wealth of knowledge in the studio. Sitting to my right is Rick Kearney. Rick Kearney has been with me about 25 years. Quarter century, that sounds like a long, long time. makes me feel old well it happens fast Rick I'm warning you one day you'll be sitting here like me

and you'll say where to the time go anyway Rick is a mechanic or he's an auto computer size boy you're really full of energy this morning Nancy Stewart has been dosing on something I'm not sure what but

Zephyr Hills I see it extremely happy anyway Rick is a auto computer scientist today, terminology, and he's an encyclopedia. I guess that's an old-fashioned term, but let's call him a Google. The Wikipedia. He's like a human Google. My children would, if I said encyclopedia, they would say, you mean Wikipedia? Any question you have about an automobile you can call here, if you're not near Google.

But actually, Rick puts it into human terms. Google's a little bit, still computerized kind of a thing. And Rick can answer just about anything you have to ask him. about your automobile. Nancy Stewart is our co-host. She is a female advocate. She gets a lot of calls from the ladies, and ladies have in the hashtag Me Too movement that everybody's aware of worldwide. Everybody's aware that they haven't had a fair shake

in this male-dominated world, but they're coming on real fast, and Nancy is a catalyst. She encourages you ladies to call the show. I encourage you ladies to call the show and we love to hear from you and then you'll tell you about a little incentive we have in a minute about reasons for you specifically if you haven't called the show before why you should call and my son stew is connecting us to the cyber world uh and rick does too we all have to participate now because we finally got our bandwidth out of this radio station somewhat under control where we can actually now stream to facebook we can stream to YouTube and we can stream to Periscope. So we're live streaming while we're radioing and we get just

about as many maybe more posts and questions and comments on our live stream as we do from our normal calls. We also have a text number. I'll give you those numbers right now because it's so important that you do call us or text us or post if you're going to stream us on Facebook or Periscope or YouTube. But our text number is 772-49765-30. That's 772-4976530. And our call-in number is 877-960-99-60. That's 877-960. I encourage you to write the number down because sometimes you haven't got a chance. It might be driving, whatever the reason may be. But you will have, if you listen, for a fair amount of time, you'll have a question or comment, I promise you. Because we really get into some cool stuff.

The coolest thing we do on this radio show is our mystery shopping report. And we do it every week. We've been doing, as I say, for like 14 years. Hundreds of car dealerships have been visited by the secret team mystery shopper. We have undercover agents. The current one says known code name is Agent Thunder. and Agent Thunder visits a different car dealership in South Florida every week. And we pretend to buy or lease a car, typically respond to some kind of an advertisement.

And we see what you go through when you go in to a car dealership to buy a car. It ain't pretty. I'm sorry. We do have a scoring system, and we put the dealers that pass our scoring system on the recommended list. If you don't pass, you're on. Don't buy a car from this dealer list. we have to grade on the curve because we really don't find I hate to say any

but most any car dealership that this would get an A by an absolute terms of measurement for one thing they'll charge some sort of a hidden fee they sneak it in on you it's a dealer fee and this hidden fee is virtually 100%.

So how can you get a perfect score if when you advertise a car you don't tell the customer the prospective customer the real price and virtually no dealer does that. So we score on the curve and if we didn't score on the curve, we wouldn't have any car dealerships in Florida. That would be quite a burden. So buyer beware when you go into a car dealership, even on the recommended list, be very careful. And we'll tell you some of

the things you can do to be extra careful when you go into the car dealership. With all that said, and without the phone's ringing, and I do encourage you to ask, to have the phones ringing, and ask Nancy Stewart, my co-host, to tell you a little bit about the female thing that she does, which is so important on this show. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. This morning I'd like to, we would all like to encourage all of you to give us a call, and you can be rest assured our show will be very interesting between the Mystery Shopping Report and all the text segment of the show.

read your text aloud and answer them on the air. So you want to take advantage of the text number that is 772-497-6530. And also we'd like to encourage the ladies to give us a call and win themselves $50. That's $50 for the first two new lady callers. 877-960. So there's some interesting information in the automotive news that we might get to before the show is over, get to your text messages, and also to encourage you to rate our mystery shopping report. You are a big part of the show, and we thank you for joining us. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Rick just reminded me, I mentioned this earlier, but we're actually up and running, streaming

on all three out streaming sources, which is amazing. We actually got Facebook, and that's facebook.com forward slash earlun cars. Facebook.com forward slash earlancars. We also have YouTube. We also have Periscope. First time we've had that streaming ability in a long time. So all you onliners out there jump on. You can not only listen to us, but watch us.

And you know what else? Anywhere on the planet, people can listen to us. And I want to remind everyone if you didn't catch our, if you don't, if you did, can get a chance to catch our live show, you can always go to the following podcast apps, and that is Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google, we've got it all. You name it. You name it. You name it, we have it.

If we don't have it, we can get it. Just let us know. You and I better quiet down. Otherwise, the recovering card dealers can ask us to. take a drug test He'll suspend his recovery I'm going to fail 877-960

I think we've got some text already Don't we still? Yeah we have four that were waiting for us when we started the show this morning The first one came in from Jennifer to Nancy And I'll start with that one This is for Nancy I'm a single woman and I'm about to buy my second new car

My first experience about four years ago buying a used Kia Optima was terrible. The salesman was very condescending and controlling. I did buy the car, but I left with the feeling that I'd pay too much. I'd like to buy another Kia, but I dread having another bad experience in paying too much money. Very interesting. Well, Jennifer, I'm sorry that you had such a bad time of it, excuse me,

in buying your first new car. But there are some things that you can do to minimize your pain of buying your second car. And first of all, you can shop on. online before visiting the dealer. That's a great advantage right there. You can bargain online with the dealer's internet person and negotiating for the best out-the-door price. Government fees only, tax and tag.

Check prices with Costco and TrueCar. When you're ready and you're comfortable enough with the salesperson assigned to you, being a female you may want to ask for a woman's salesperson you know i i think i misspoke there if you're not comfortable if you're not comfortable with the salesperson that's been assigned to you you can request a woman salesperson shop the value of your used ottoma with the used car department's two other Kia dealers besides the one you decide to buy your car from. If you're near CarMax, get a bid from them. Finally, if you're going to finance your purchase,

check with the bank or the credit union for the best interest rates in terms. So I hope that will help you. And stay in touch with us. Let us know how it's land. That's good advice for anybody. If you follow that formula, it's hard to be taken advantage of. It's difficult to do, though. It takes a lot of mental discipline and time, and you have to really restrain that emotion that overtakes most of us when we go into buy a car. It's not easy for a person to ask for a different salesperson. As a car dealer in full transparency, I mentioned earlier in the show, I'm still a car dealer.

One of my concerns with my customers is, do we pair the right sales sales. person with the right customer. I mean, let's face it, everybody's different. I mean, we speak differently, we look differently, we think differently. And as a retailer, which is what I am as a car dealer, I'd like to take two people whose chemistry matches, two people that can bond or feel comfortable with each other. But that's not the way it works. Unfortunately, you come into a car dealership, either the car dealer has a system that says, you take the next person that comes in, that's called an up system, or they just have a kind of a gang system where they all lurk around the front of the dealership and the fastest salesperson to the customer

grabs that customer. So what happens is you often have people that are just not suited for each other. So the odds are that you can find somebody more compatible when you go into a car dealerships do? Unfortunately, asking for a woman, car salesperson, is going to be a challenge. Because we know there's hardly any, I mean, there are women in the business, but they're very, very small numbers. I mean, even our dealership were just around 20% for the, I actually read an article that showed the NASA's astronaut corps, 34% of their astronaut core are women.

NASA is doing a lot better than car dealers are. Exactly, yeah. Good point. And one thing that they'll ask you, we have Mary Holding, Mary will be right. with you. Mary from Pennsylvania will be with you in a second. I just want to add one more thing is that when you're a female shopping for a car, you can go online to find out if there are female there. If you feel more comfortable talking to another woman, then you can usually get the name online because most car dealerships have the names of their salespeople and usually

pictures. And if you can, if you're a female looking for another female, you could actually call that female, make an appointment come and speak to her from the get-go. You know, it's priceless, and then we'll wrap this up as a fact that we're living in a golden age and going to the internet, you know, it gives you an advantage, it switches

the advantage from the salesperson to you, and you can arm yourself with so much information before you go into the dealership and you can be in complete control. So, Jennifer, as I said earlier, stay in touch with us and let us know how that went. We're

to go to Mary, who's a first-time caller from Pennsylvania. Good morning, Mary. Good morning. Welcome to the show. Thank you for calling. You're a first-time caller, and you've won yourself $50 this morning, so after you're finished speaking with us, you can talk to Rudy. He'll get your information, and I'll get that checkout to you. So what can we do for you today? Well, I just wanted to say I just loved this. I found this channel on YouTube and I just love watching it all the time and I wanted to share what it happened to me when I bought my used car and then I don't know if I went I needed it to get a used car that was you know fairly inexpensive and I went and it was you know quite daunting to say the

least and I went to a bunch of different places and finally I don't know if it was I don't know why but I went to Lehigh Valley Honda which is, you know, a reputable car, new car dealership. So I figured I would go there. And how I was treated, I just couldn't believe it. First of all, we went for a test drive, and there were only a few cars, but I figured I'd take my chances because I'd rather buy a used car in the $5,000 or under range from a reputable used, I mean, new car dealership,

because some of the ones I looked at at the used car places were just, insane. I mean, one of them I went to and the door handle fell off and then he's like, oh, well, I'll just fix that for you. I said, oh, no, no. Anyway, so I finally decided I'm going to go with this place because it's probably

a better idea, even though they only have a few cars. So, I really needed a car by now. My other one got, wasn't running anymore. So we went to do the test drive and I'm driving and the guy, he's like you know, not really even talking to me that much.

And then he answered a phone call from his wife and was telling her how he had lost the sale earlier in the day, which I thought was very unprofessional. Awesome. Yeah, we drove for a little while longer. And we basically went back to the shop, and I was, you know, thinking about which car I wanted, and he said, well, I'm going to go now.

I'm going to go meet with one of my friends who just stopped in. You don't mind, do you? So anyway, which I didn't mind because I didn't want to be pressured or anything, but still I thought that was quite odd. But actually I did end up buying the car because it's a 2009 Hyundai Alantra, which I think now maybe I was a little overcharged for, but I took it to a mechanic and they did find that it's a good car. So hopefully that's true.

But I don't know. I just thought that was a very strange experience. Yeah, that was quite an experience. Yeah. Well, thank you, Mary. Yeah, I'm hoping my car is good. It's a good car. Hyundai Alantras are a very good,

I think consumer reports considers them a very good vehicle, and I think you'll get a lot of use out of that. You were very wise to have it checked out by a mechanic, and that's probably the single most important thing you can do with a used car. Absolutely. You know, there's so many ways that, you know, you can really be made to feel uncomfortable. But this is quite a story you shared with us. It was almost like as if at the end of the test drive you wanted to say to him,

look, I am really sorry that I took up your precious time. At least you may have been thinking that. But this is new. This is something new that you just shared with us. Gosh, that was, again, quite a story. So, I can't thank you enough for calling. I'm sorry, I didn't interrupt. Maybe he didn't want to be bothered because I wasn't a new car, you know, buyer.

I don't know. Maybe he didn't want to be bothered with my little small car per. I don't know. Yeah, well, it's kind of a rule of the dice as to, you know, putting your finger on just how, you know, he wasn't interested. I don't know. It might have been raining, you know, maybe he didn't have breakfast. We could go anywhere with this. So, anyway.

Mary, thank you so much and enjoy that $50 and stay in touch with us and enjoy that Hyundai. Thank you. You're welcome. Hope it gets a little warmer out there in Pennsylvania. Annie is calling from West Palm Beach. She, too, is a first time caller. Welcome to the show, Annie. Hi, good morning.

Yes, everybody. Oh, we're great. You've just won yourself $50. Oh, awesome. Thank you. Stay on the line and you can give Rudy your information and I'll get the check out to you. What can we do for you today? So I have a question. I've been listening to your show for a long time and I have a 2011 C-300 Mercedes that I absolutely love.

And at some point in the near future, I'm going to want to get a different Mercedes and newer model. but my problem is there's no fix for my Takata airbags that are currently in this car. So I don't know what to do about trading it in, selling it. I'm on the website almost weekly to find out if there's a fix, and there's still no fix. And have you gone to your dealer to ask for a loaner car? They should provide you with a loaner car. the car you're driving is unsafe. Have you asked?

No, I haven't. I would suggest that. That's a great suggestion. Thank you so much. Did you buy your 2011 from the Mercedes dealer? Did you buy it elsewhere? I bought it from a Mercedes dealer. I take it back to that Mercedes dealer.

You are his customer. He owes you this. And Mercedes policy, I believe, is if customers request, they will provide you with a substitute car. I'd also, you know, insist on a nice car. I mean, you bought yourself a nice Mercedes. They should loan you on other nice Mercedes. I'm not saying the exact same kind or model,

but they don't want to be giving you a Chevrolet if you're a Mercedes. Good point. And I think that when you go to the dealer, you might face a challenge. This is on Mercedes website. They said one of the questions they have an FAQ frequently. questions. It says, can I get a loaner vehicle or alternate transportation until the parts are ready? And Mercedes answers, this recall was launched as a precautionary measure. We have no

incidents with our vehicles, and there is no reason to stop driving the vehicle. And I would like to editorialize that and say that's a bunch of BS. Yeah, you're going to have to insist on the loaner vehicle. And when you go to the dealer, and you could tell us the name of the dealer now if you like, or you don't have to, of course, I think you just need, as Stu said, you have to insist. I'm really surprised at Mercedes for making a statement like that. Most of all of the other manufacturers are providing free loaners when people ask. They don't like to advertise it because they obviously don't want to have to have thousands of cars out on the road if they don't have to.

But I don't know of an incident where a owner of a vehicle with a recall to cut airbag with no fix has gone to the dealer and the manufacturer and asked and been turned down for a loaner. If you are turned down, you call the show back, and we will assist you. Okay. The problem is the dealers in California. I see. Try a local dealer. I've recently moved back to Florida. Try a local dealer.

There's the dealers in West Palm Beach and North Palm Beach are under the same ownership. North Palm Beach, Mercedes, and West Palm Beach, Mercedes are under the same ownership. Mercedes of Del Rey is. owned by Auto Nation. Try one of the two dealerships in West Palm and then also call the Auto Nation. Auto Nation is a nationally

owned company and they are reputable and they are honorable. I believe if you contact them, you'll probably get a good positive reply. Okay, so it's an unlimited loaner until they get the fix? Yes. Do they have the fix

and they're telling me they don't? The fix is, it's the part is a problem. There's a part called an inflator part of the airbag, blows up the airbag, inflates the airbag when you're in an accident. These inflators are in short supply, high demand, and there's a backlog. Now, there's even a possibility that when someone has a loaner and they report this to the manufacturer, they might even swing around and see that that dealer gets inflators before someone who doesn't have a loaner out. But yes, the fix. is they know the fix, they just don't have the part.

And I have a feeling you might be surprised that you get it quicker when you get their loaner car. Okay. All right, well, thank you very much. There's no reason. Call us back, Ann. There's no reason that you should be inconvenienced by not getting that loaner car.

And, you know, this isn't your fault. So get that loaner car. Stay in touch with us and let us know how things went. I certainly well. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Have a great day. We're going to go to Veronica.

She's calling us from West Palm Beach. Welcome to the show, Veronica. Hi. Yeah, my name is, yeah. Okay, the reason why I call is to let you know how good your program is. Oh. Thank you.

Thank you. Because my sister, her key was broken, and she went to her dealer, and the key was $315. Mm-hmm. I told her about Ace Hardware. And she went there, and she ended up paying $25. Wow.

Well, that's great. Thank you so much. That makes us all feel good. You know, we sit here for two hours, and we talk a lot, and we wonder how much help we're actually doing, and that's about the most gratifying thing I've heard all week. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

Are you a first-time caller, Veronica? Veronica? The first time caller, yes. Veronica, I have $50 for you today. We encourage ladies to give us a call on the show every Saturday, and that encouragement is to gift them $50. So if you stay on the line and give Rudy your information, we'll get that $50 out to you this week. Okay. Thank you so much. The reason why she didn't call, because she cannot talk on the phone on a Saturday,

I wanted to do it to call. Thank you. Tell her that we're happy to help. Very. Thank you. Remember, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. You can go there and you can, well, voice your opinion, give us some advice, whatever.

And we'll read it on the show. You can even make a wisecrack. In fact, we've got a wisecrack that came in. And we encourage you because we've got a thick skin. And Rick Kearney, I got an... I got anonymous feedback. Rick, tell them about the joke. Well, I've got this one.

I'm going to read this out. The question comes in. It says, Rick, I have an annoying oil can light illuminated in my car's instrument cluster. I'm sure this is oil level, not pressure. Do you know what it may represent in most cars? If it is the level, can I install a longer dipstick, relocate the sensor, or disconnect the sensor altogether to turn this light off? Thank you, the wheel man.

And in actuality, sir, most cars, the oil can light comes on when it is an oil pressure issue. However, if you're sure that yours is oil level, what you may want to do is check to make sure of the type of oil in your car. Now, there is a particular synthetic oil. Rick, you're trying to get into the guy. He was joking. And you're going to try to put him to sleep. Oh, I was going to try. But anyway, that's proof that we would love to have your anonymous feedback,

no matter what you say, as long as it's not profanity or vulgarity or that kind of stuff. But as well, you know, have a little fun with us. Have you got something you want to say? If there's profanity, Rudy will just bleep it out when we read it. Exactly. Right? It's the old joke of a longer dipstick for when your oil level is low. Your anonymous feedback.com, just the way it sounds, Y-O-U-R, A-N-O-N-Y-M-U-S,

I do that because Stu's amazed how fast I can spell anonymous. I've always been impressed with that. Yes, your anonymous feedback.com. And say anything you want to say, we read all of them, we reply all them, at least we try. If we haven't, please re-contact this because we really enjoy getting these anonymous feedback. And we don't get that much anonymous feedback. There are a lot of companies out there that are terrified to have something like this. And can you imagine what Comcast would get if they had anonymous feedback?

Whoa. The systems would blow up. AT&T, you know, Florida Power and Light. We do anonymous feedback because we got thick skins and we have a sense of humor. We can take insults, but we get some really good creative things that we would otherwise never hear. We separate the wheat from the chaff, but we talk about the chaff. Yeah, did you hear a story about the CEO of what? Walmart, I think he did an anonymous feedback thing because Walmart's been going, doing a lot of

cost cutting, kind of get their numbers in line. And so he solicited feedback from all his employees all across the world. And the number one request that he got, basically they said, did we cut too much costs? They said, because they eliminated toilet seat covers and the employee's restrooms. And they demanded that they put the toilet seat covers back in there and he granted the wish. Is that right? No kidding. But of all the things they could wish for.

Worldwide. Give us a... Totally see coverage. Right. Now, I do have a couple others here from YouTube, however, comments and actually questions here. Okay. Raymond Max on YouTube is asking about his... Let's see, let me get the proper up here.

He's got a 2016 Camry SE and says he changes his oil and filter every 5,000 miles, which... That Camry's actually got synthetic oil, so you only have to do it every 10,000. Okay. But doing it early, every $5,000, that can't hurt. No, but you don't want to do that. You're wasting your money. Well, his question is, is it reasonable for me to expect to get 300,000 miles from my car? Well, I can't say that every one of them is going to do that amount, but it certainly is possible.

How can I find myself disagreeing with an auto computer scientist? I would say that a 2016 Camry S.E. properly maintained and driven according to the way you should drive a vehicle, you don't take it to Daytona racetrack, would definitely get 300,000 miles. I think it's actually very likely. And believe it or not, the number of cars that I see in the shop now that I work on with over 200,000 miles and pushing 300,000 has been increasing through the years. It's amazing how much longer these cars last and are fantastic.

that way. And Ernesto from YouTube, he says his family is a Toyota family. And they have a 2014 Camry L.E. that he's wondering, does it have a CVT transmission? I know what that is. Continuously variable transmission. Exactly right, sir. Okay. And what he's asking is, should he be concerned because of the recent Corolla recall on the CVT transmissions. And the answer there is a resounding no and no because the Camry does not have a CVT transmission. Therefore, you shouldn't have any worries about it. And for anyone interested, the Corolla recall was actually,

we are reprogramming the computer to control those transmissions a little better. Very good. Okay. We've got a bunch of texts, don't we still? We do. We have a text from Elliot. Elliot says, hi, Earl, this is Elliot. I would like to know if you can do a secret shop on Beth Smith, Toyota, or Kia. He is always advertising free this and free that. Well, I can answer on your behalf, sir. Of course we will.

Because we're always looking for new ideas, new places to shop. Sometimes we get in a rut. And, like, for example, last week we did like two or three Kia mystery shops in a world in a row. And so, yeah, new ideas are always welcome. So you can count on Agent Thunder to pay. Beth Smith a visit. Yeah, Beth Smith,

one of the other Kia or Toyota, and their bombastic TV advertisements certainly attract Mr. Frank Gonzalez. Mr. Frank Gonzalez. Who is a wonderful human being?

He's a great guy and he's entertaining as the Arrigo's are. And I see this latest commercial by Jim and John Arrigo is absolutely funny. I mean, it is entertainment.

And one of the keys to a successful advertisement is to entertain. If you can entertain, and remember. And then you remember them. So we make fun of some of these car commercials, but they have to, you have to, if you turn off the commercial,

no one's, you know, not going to work. It just really grabs your attention. Exactly. For sure. Stay watching. And I can say this, Frank, I mean, listen, we're going to give a completely impartial report on your dealership. But I will say, as a person,

one of the nicest guys I remember. He is really nice. All right. The next one is. This is from Joe Mandelo in Boca Raton and also Cleveland, so he is a snowbird. Please discuss in depth, or all this is going to be a project for you. Please discuss in depth buying from a dealership that negotiates and one that has a set price. How do you know the fixed price is the lowest? Thank you, Joe Mondello. Joe, that is an excellent question.

I love you guys when you call and ask something I should have thought about and covered. I'm going to repeat your question because I want everybody to listen carefully. Joe asked, how should I deal with a car dealership that has a fixed price versus a car dealership that does not have a fixed price and should I believe the fact that the car dealership has a fixed price is really the best price? A lot of car dealerships imply or even say that they have one price. One price is kind of like a buzzword now. It's like online sales.

Everybody wants to be online. Everybody wants to be one price. Very, very few have true online buying. Very, very few have one price. If they say this is a bottom line price, I'll mention names. Alpacker Ford says he has a bottom line price, implying one price. It's negotiable. And they add dealer fees.

Dealer fees, I'm glad I said that, because even the one-price dealers aren't really one-price. because almost all of them had dealer fees. You should always challenge the one-price dealers to see if that's the price. Say to the dealer, you want an out-the-door price. And they say, well, they say, well, that is my out-the-door price. You say, okay. And you're saying that all I have to do is pay sales tax and buy a license plate. I do not have to pay anything for non-government fees.

And that is the challenge to one-price dealers as well as non-one-price dealers. As far as dealing with a dealer that doesn't have one price, well, that's the whole game. Nancy answered that question for a female caller earlier. You really have to shop and compare. You really have to get separate prices on your trade-in from three other sources. You have to get your bank and credit union best rate in terms. When you're dealing with a haggle-hassel dealer, you really have your work cut out for you. And you also have to check, you should check with True Car or Costco.

You really have to hit them with a whole nine yards when they're haggling and hassling because there's all sorts of tricks up their sleeve. Okay. All right. Moving along. We have another one. This is from Andreas. And Andreas is a regular follower on our live Facebook videos.

But he texted us this time. He says, hello, this is Andreas, your Facebook friend and Saturday morning radio follower. My wife went to the local Toyota dealership this morning to check on a low-tire pressure warning. The service technician came back within 10 minutes and a fuel system maintenance job that requires immediate attention. From checking and fixing the low tire pressure warning on the spare tire, how did the technician check or know that there is carbon buildup on the throttle body? Does this shop not listen to Earl Stewart to know that fuel additives are snake oil?

What's your recommendation? Ignore the fuel system maintenance. It's on a 2014 round four in thereup in Greenville, South Carolina. Well, that's fraud, isn't it, Rick? Not really, but it's borderline. Questionable for sure. I can give you my prediction this morning, right? Yeah.

Everything is almost in moderate. I'm just not feeling the whole concrete level today. We're extremes on this show, extremists, sorry. But I can give you my opinion of what occurred. The technician gets a repair order that says low tire light on. He knows that it's cold outside. and cold weather triggers low tire pressures because the air gets compact more

and it drops the pressure with temperature. That's science. He goes out, he gets the car, he drives it in, he checks the tire pressures, all he has to do is add air to the tire. But meanwhile, he spent 15, 20 minutes or however, even 10 minutes doing this. And in his mind, he's not making any money for this time

because he's a flat-rate technician working on commission. So immediately he goes for the, quick slam dunk, tell this customer, hey, did you notice that your car runs a little bit rough first thing in the morning, especially with this cold weather? And it's an obvious thing. Of course it will, because the computer's got to compensate for that cold, very dense air going in the engine. And it's going to run a little bit rough. That's normal. Plus, carbon buildup a certain amount will make the car run just a little rough when it first starts out. Fraud, right? Yep. Okay. And so he's looking to throw.

some money in his pocket by figuring out some way to get something out of this. And Andreas sent a screenshot. They have a little – that dealership up there has a little tool, and they use it to communicate between the service advisor and the customer. And it looks pretty scary here. So he's got – it lets them know when they deferred service. Like if you turn down, they recommend something. You turn it down. And then it says in bold red print needs immediate attention.

Deferred service, complete fuel service, EFI and throttle, 120. So that sounds pretty scary. Yes. Yeah. I might do it. No, it's, remember this, folks, that car dealers, everybody in a car dealership virtually,

and most car dealerships are paid on commission. The car dealer themselves is on commission, it's profit, that's commission. And the mechanics, the computer scientists, the technicians, whatever you want to call them, they're on commission. The sales advisors in the, Service drive when you come in, they're on commission.

The service manager is on commission. Nobody makes any money until they sell you something. They don't get a salary like a lot of people do. So there's nothing wrong with commission inherently if you're dealing with people that are being totally forthright and honest with you. But we're talking human beings. And out of 100 human beings, how many of those are going to be totally trustworthy, transparent, and honest?

You never know. So it's buyer beware when you draw. drive your car into a car dealer service department. Your best protection, use the recommended maintenance in the owner's manual. And when they differ from that, be very wary. And if it's any kind of money at all, you get a second opinion from another mechanic or car dealer. And I'm going to throw out a little secret here. And this one, I can guarantee you, is about 99.9% concrete.

If your car is running a little bit rough in the morning, it seems like when you stop at a traffic slide like the idle goes a little bit low. Ask them how much it costs just to clean the throttle body. This is usually about $30 to $40 expense. There's no parts needed. It's just a simple little bit of carbon cleaner spray, some throttle body spray, and a scrub pad and rag. It takes about 15 minutes for the technician to do it.

What is the throttle body? The throttle body is on the engine. It's a big butterfly-type valve, a circular. valve that when you step on the accelerated pedal, the computer opens this valve to let air into the engine. And it's how the computer controls how much air goes into the engine for it to breathe and burn that air with the fuel. So you just need to wipe down the old throttle body.

If it's got carbon buildup on it, which 90% of them have carbon buildup if we haven't cleaned them recently, it should cost about $30 to $40 just to clean that throttle body real quick. How long does it take, Rick? About 15 minutes. It takes 15 minutes. And what sort of parts are involved other than a rag? Just a rag and some cleaner spray.

So you have 15 minutes with a rag. They're going to charge you $40. Is that something that you would recommend an amateur to try? No. Not really, no. Because there's too many things you can. If you do it wrong, you can damage things. However, for that $40, you're.

car will run so much better for about the next year I recommend it in Florida about once every couple years. Let's move along here. Just don't pay $129. No, but $40 is a whole lot nicer than $130. What if I just square

WD40 on it? No. All right, sorry. Okay. I can remedy my whole problem in the morning if that happens to me. Call me if you need me to snow. I just go back to bed. You put WD40 on the windshield because it repels water. And the 3D30. And

the 3rd. throttle don't do that folks okay so we have let's get back to work here uh lenny texted us and he he texted last week so lenny says uh good morning i talked with you last saturday and you gave me great advice i bought the 2019 krola sc for 17,800 out the door any advice from me when i pick up the car today um also the 17800 i was able to get them to throw in window tint and body side molding thank you lennie so but so today so you've done your deal right and you've agreed on it you're going to go in there and you're going into finance today lennie this is the this is where the other shoe might fall i mean it might go well you might wind up at 17,800 out

the door but i'm going to turn it over to the recovering car dealer uh because this is right up your alley well if you haven't been through the finance that's called the box and the parlance vernacular of car dealers it's where you're put all alone with the f and i guy and the f and i guy is one of the highest paid people in the dealership the f and i p and i p People make a lot of money. They make more money than the salespeople. They make more money than the mechanics. Some of them make more money than the car dealer.

I mean, it is not unusual in some car dealerships for an F&I guy to make a quarter million dollars a year. A good F&I guy can retire early. I'll tell you, in South Florida, I don't know if that's the average, but they make a ton of money down here in South Florida. Pretty lucrative business. Yes. So, you bought the car and you think it's all over. emotionally you're drained you really did your homework you're so proud of yourself you're patting yourself on the back and then they put you in the box with the

F&I guy and the F&I guy talks fast he's got a computer that spits out paper like a like a printing press spits out newspapers I mean you know the you know the picture of that and they they deluge they drown you in paper and you'll hear initial here initial here sign here sign there there may not even be a a product presentation because many times the products are sold and they just don't tell you about it. And it's almost impossible.

You take that paperwork and you put it in the drawer and you don't look at it again. Some people can't find it again. So the car dealers make more money selling you the finance and the after-sale products like Gap insurance, extended service contracts, maintenance contracts,

etch, road hazard insurance. I could go on and on and on of things they can slip in and you don't even know you're bought. So beware. Now, Lenny did just text us, and he's already wrote the check and gave him the check. So hopefully everything will be smooth sailing from here on out.

Lenny, the only thing I could say is if you're getting this 2019 Corolla, there is a lot of new technology features. Make sure your salesperson goes through everything with you. Make sure you understand everything because, like we said, these are rolling computers now, so there's a lot to learn. Way to go, Lenny. Nice job. Yeah.

Okay, we're all caught up. Thank you, Lenny. Hey, there's Rudy's sound effects. Thank you, Rudy. Love it, love it, love it. Hey, 877-9-60. Give us a call. And you can also text us at 772-497-6530.

And we are on a roll this morning. Irma's calling us from Tampa, and she is a first-time caller. Irma, good morning. Hi. Hi, where have you guys been on my life? Oh, thank you. You just won yourself $50. Oh, well, Candy, my friend who worked with me at the bank, we're both retired now.

She lives in Jupiter, and she told me about your station. I went, oh, I love it. Oh, thank you so much. I have one here in Tampa. All of us here at Earl Sterling, Carr's, thanks you this morning. Stay on the line and give Rudy your information, and I'll get that. to check out to you next week. What can we do for you this morning? Oh wait. Don't I get to ask a question? Sure you do. You can ask a question. You can tell us to improve our show, anything at all.

Okay. Here's my main question. I have a 2006 Honda CRV. So it's a little old, but so am I. Every time I take it to be fixed, you know, something else, something else, something else. And I'm the type that my kids think I'm crazy because I go look at videos all the time to see how to do this. and how to do that. So I said, I think it probably is the power steering fluid pump or something like that. So I went, oh, no, no, no, it's not that. It's not that. So then they fixed something else and then something else.

And then my belt, what do you call that belt? It was getting all oily. Timing? So they had to change that. And it was still leaking somewhere in my garage. So I went back and I said, this is still leaking. It says, oh, it's just underneath the plate. It'll eventually dry.

It never did. So then I said, you know what? This is a local place here in Carrowwood. So I decided to go to Honda, and I said, could you please, you know, check it out, see what's going on. And believe it or not, it was the power steering pump. Wow. This whole time. And I spent over $1,000.

Wow, that is. And they did the diagnostic, what do you call that, computer thing? the scan tool or the health check yeah so does that actually tell them what it is no not a leak it would be something that probably transmit electronically a leak is just a leak and i guess it just requires some experience in which case they didn't have very good experience because you diagnosed it properly boy i either challenged them on that or am i you know said i i told you what it was and you told me it wasn't and then you charged me a thousand dollars um I don't know whether you'd be successful, but I'd at least tell them.

Are you still there, Irma? Yes, sir. Okay. Well, thank you very much. I hope you become a regular caller. I love ladies like you that empower themselves to challenge technicians or car salespeople and YouTube. It sounds like you do a lot of YouTubing. And there's a...

I love that. Yeah. My kids, I can tell you think I'm crazy. Mom, you're not going to learn. anything yes I am yeah everybody out there let me tell you YouTube is something that you need to acquaint yourself with any kind of a problem no matter what it is you go to YouTube and you put the question in there and there's 25 people that got an idea on a 30-second or a three-minute video clip and some of them are very

very good Rick is waving at me so Irma I just want to throw this one thought at you I wish you had stuck with your gut instinct on that power steering and gotten a second opinion. You know what? I should have gone exactly to Honda right after they said one thing. I said, well, let me go get a second opinion. And I hope the listeners are listening to me always go for a second opinion. That's really important.

And stick with your gut instinct because you were right on the ball. You knew exactly what was going on there. I'm not even a mechanic. You have good instincts. Bell problems can, well, they can affect a lot of things under the hood. Over here in Tampa, I had to get you on my tablet. Well, we are worldwide, thanks to the Internet. Well, you know, you might want to hang your shingle out, Irma.

You've got YouTube, so you could say Irma, the technician, and every time they have a problem, you just YouTube it. And you could be a diagnostic technician. No, I'm going to go to you from now on. Irma. Thank you for being there. It's a wonderful thing. Beautiful.

Yeah. What's more beautiful about it is, all of our, well, all of our advice is free. All of our answers, you know, it's a win-win situation. God bless you, you know. Thank you. Please call again, Arma. The best thing is that God has put somebody like you guys on the radio to inform us.

Those of us you don't know. Yes, absolutely. So thank you so much for doing that. You're not Rick's mother, are you? Irma. No. Irma, you know, you talk about, you know, finding us and, you know, our popularity, we reach over 20,000 listeners every Saturday morning.

I know, and Candy, my friend, and Jupiter told me about you. I said, oh, my God, that is like a wonderful thing. Yeah, absolutely. I got to go find it. And then I couldn't find it that first week that she told me about it. And then I said, well, you know what? I'm going to try my tablet. And there you are.

There you go. Spread the word. Spread the word. We're trying to build a platform here for all of the ladies, because they, too, are very important and you just proved it with your mechanical genius mind thank you have any female mechanics you know we're trying to hire my my crusade is to have 50% employees and we're trying to get that in the whole dealership well you know they did a story on a female mechanic on the news the other extra last week i would love to hire she's from newport ritchie and they were just bragging and bragging

a bathroom. I said, oh my gosh, I wish somebody would open up a mechanic shop with just all females. Yeah. There actually is a lady who did that in California. Really? I can't go way over there. In California, there is a lady who she decided she wanted to shop. And she opened up her own shop with all female mechanics. Yeah, absolutely. They would make because people trust women. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. I'd have 100% female employees if I could. I'd like to have everybody working for me as female. They're just all, if I had to choose one. sex or the other, I think I'll represent female.

It just can't find female technicians. He wished he had three daughters. And, Nerma, you know, I don't qualify as a tech, but I can make sure the air pressure in my tires is correct. I can fill my windshield wiper fluid and so many other things. You go, girl. But I, too, am very old. Again, thank you so much for being there.

I just love this. Give us a call. Give us a call. about it, I went, oh, my God. Thank you so much. Give us a call again. Bye-bye. Thanks, Your Honor.

We're going to go to John. I wish all my son were women. You go, girl. We're going to go to John. You better sit down for this one, calling from Palm City. Hey, John. Good morning to everybody. I'd like to mention a tried and proven vehicle.

You're all saying good things are worth waiting for. It's the sixth generation of the Ford Explorer. It's going to come out. a midsummer. It's a brand new version. It's a tougher and more versatile SUV, has a sturdier frame, better traction, all great for towing. And it'll be out this summer, about midsummer. It starts at 32-765. That's for a four-cylinder. That's 300 horsepower. There's an optional six-cylinder, which is 365. And later in this year, they're going to come out with a hybrid that'll have a range of over 500 miles per hour.

We all know the popularity now of SUVs, and it's been debatable. People say, when was the first SUV? That's questionable. Some say it's in 1935 with the Chevy Carriol. Others say it's a 40 with the Willie's Jeep. Some say Land Rover. But the popularity of SUV is out of sight. I don't have to tell you.

Even Nancy mentioned that she's going to put her. into one. It's a fantastic. My first SUV that I owned, I bought it a few years ago. I'm just sorry I didn't go into it a long time ago. They're not station wagons. People think it's a station wagon and it has a different height, ground capacity, and there's actually no capacity, you know, comparison. Yeah. But I want to mention that vehicle. And you know, popularity of Ford's, I don't have to tell you. It's, I mean, every Ford model almost that they made is like the trucks, the Ford F-150. By the way, Earl mentioned commercials.

I think one of the hottest commercial that they have, and it's drummed into people. They show a line of Ford trucks, and it's a jingle of, we've got a long way to go in a short time to get there. It's been people's mind, but it is the number one selling truck. F-150, and people forget that model Ford today, which they sold over 10 million, came out in 64 and a half, the Mustang. Mustang for 2020 will be the most powerful Mustang that ever came out. It'll have over 700 horsepower with a 3.2 liter engine in it. So Ford is a leader. they're one that did not require to bailout when we had the government bailout.

So I just want to mention this. We'll see what consumers rates this new Explorer. Yeah. But people should keep it in mind that are looking to buy a new car. Well, absolutely. I can't wait to see the consumer reports on that. And I didn't realize, six-generation.

That's, didn't realize the Explorer had been around that long. Very good success. Yeah. Thank you, John. Hey, John. All right. John. Have a good day.

Are you still there? If you're still listening, John. You mentioned good things come to those who wait. You're our good thing on Saturday mornings, and we really look forward to your call. And you've been with us through thick and thin, and we want to thank you all of us here at Earl Stewart on Cars. Thanks, John. Have a great day. Coming up on 15 years.

Really? About, yeah. Wow. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-49-3-0-49-0. And don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. We're going to go to Alan, and Alan's calling us from Jupiter. Good morning, Alan. Good morning.

Good morning, Earl. Good morning. I have a, your caller that called earlier, excuse me, regarding Mercedes got my attention this morning. I leased a Mercedes from Mercedes North Palm Beach in 2018. And my question is, they push very hard for you to buy the package of maintenance on the car for their lease for taking care of it and I wonder how much is really required when you lease a car from Mercedes or probably any other dealership are you required to do to this car to return it my feeling is kind of that the list at Mercedes anyway goes

as long as you're armed of items that they want done and I think well part of this stuff they're getting back because they own the car at the end of the lease what are your thoughts on that as far as the maintenance what's required by you as the operator and what is that a scam or a pack or whatever they call it Alan I think that the leasing companies normally even the captive leasing companies Mercedes in this case they're more interested in the overall condition of the car they're going to look at the dings and dents and they're going to look at the tires stains on the upholstery and things like that.

I've never had a leasing company question me. I've been leasing cars for over 50 years and say, did they have their oil changed according to their recommendations. You're under no requirement. Remember, when you own a new car to take it to the dealer for maintenance, you can take your car anywhere. The main reason that you want to maintain your car is to maintain it in good running conditions, so you don't have a problem.

Also, if you're going to keep a car, which is not the case in a lease, you want to be able to have the longevity there, 300,000 miles or whatever you decide you want to drive your car for. So my answer is check to see if the maintenance that are asking you to have performed is truly Mercedes factory recommended maintenance as dictated in the owner's manual. I would be surprised if the first three years maintenance of their Mercedes and the owner's manual was voluminous if it was a lot of maintenance. Every car today has minimal maintenance for at least the first two years and right up to the third year, very minimal maintenance with the synthetic oil. You're only looking at changing oil every 10,000 miles and you check the car twice a year. the total cost I can tell you on a Toyota in the first two years of ownership is less than $100. That's what that's going to cost you. So you should not have to worry about that, and I would definitely not worry about Mercedes leasing,

causing you to have this done. If they sold something to you in the finance department when you lease the car, my guess is this was a maintenance contract probably designed by, by the dealer. The Mercedes, the owner of Mercedes of North Palm Beach owns multiple other Mercedes dealerships, a lot of them in the New York, New Jersey area. My guess says he has his own company, warranty insurance company, and he probably designs his own maintenance, extended service contracts, and puts anything he wants in there, and then he sells you a maintenance contract that will be marked up over that. So, short answer to your question,

no, there's no reason why you should have to worry about the maintenance with respect to Mercedes leasing. Okay. Well, I was in there recently to the dealer, and for a 10,000-mile inspection, it's over $1,000. And that seems, and they do things like fill the reservoir for the windshield washer at, you know, price. And they say you have to replace the wiper blades every year, even if they're not worn out. That's part of the maintenance package, et cetera, et cetera. So thank you for your comments on it. I just, it seems like a lot to me.

And I agree that these new cars require very little maintenance, except for the oil change filter and, of course, brakes and tires, et cetera, that normal wear and tear items. but to replace things on a time basis, and it seems more to take care of them than me. Alan, that's outrageous, $1,000. I had no idea it was that high, but you're being ripped off. You shouldn't pay $1,000 on a new Mercedes after one year. And I think you should go to, I would check with a Mercedes dealer in Del Rey, even if you just made a phone call, and just say I bought a Mercedes from North Palm

Mercedes, the Mercedes Dior and Del Rey is owned by Auto Nation, they're a legitimate outfit. That's not to say they might not be trying to charge you some extra maintenance fees, but call them down there and say, what would you charge me for my one-year inspection on a Mercedes? I have a feeling it would not be $1,000. Also the other thing I say to anybody that owns an luxury car, if you can go to a good independent mechanic and you can do this legally, according to your business. maintain your warranty.

You don't have to go back to the dealer to have your service done to maintain your warranty. You can have your service maintenance done at any kind of a technician independent store, PEP Boys or Firestone or Goodyear or wherever you want to take it. Keep your receipts and there's a challenge to warranty work because you didn't have your maintenance done, be able to show them that you did your fact you recommended maintenance.

But for them to charge you North Palm Beach Mercedes, $1,000 for normal maintenance, maintenance service in one year, that's outrageous, bordering on being ripped off. Rick? Alan, did I hear you say that they were charging to fill your washer fluid? Yes, $7.95. Yeah. That's a rip-off.

They're ripping you off. Yeah, a gallon jug of the blue stuff is $1.99 at any parts store, and every dealership that I've ever heard of, we fill them for free with the blue stuff. I bought minor Publix. Oh. You know? $7.95. That's ridiculous.

Wow. Well, I just want to say there's a great show, and I can't say enough about it. I want all my family to listen to it. Of course, I have grandchildren that live here in Florida, and they're coming of age. One is 18. The other one's 16. And I let the buyer beware. That's my...

My caveat, I guess. Your show is great information, and if I can get them up early in the morning, I'd let them listen to the show. Good luck with that. Thank you very much for all you're doing. Thank you, Ellen. Alan, let them sleep in. Just let them listen to the podcast in the afternoon. Yeah, there you go.

There's so many different ways. You can listen to that show later on today. Don't forget about Earl's column, and that's in the Florida hometown news, and the hometown here, Earl, has just handed this to me. Think twice before leasing a car. Seniors, think twice before leasing a car. There you go. Wow, this is powerful stuff.

Hey, why is that? Why shouldn't we lease a car? I'm just, now you got me into it. You got to read the article. Seniors, think twice before leasing a car. Hey, Alan, go to Earleoncars.com, and that article is right there online. Yeah, it's the most recent one, and it just kind of spells out the pitfalls and things to watch out for. Yeah, it's a great article.

Okay. Thanks for calling, Alan. Stay in touch with us. Thank you very much. Good day. You're welcome. Let's go to Howard and Jupiter. Hi, Howard. So just dial back in. We'd love to hear from you. You're one of our favorite callers, and maybe we yaked too long there, but give us another chance. 877-9-60-99-60 for Howard or anybody else would like to call us. I think we've got some text over here. We got a couple. First one, this is from Marta. Marta says, if you open a service facility with all women. Linda, we'll be right there. If you open a service facility with all women, you wouldn't be able to handle all the business you got you would be overwhelmed on day one wow love to hear that yeah maybe we ought to do it uh we've been trying ground no i'm saying ground up just it's like we'll put it we'll put the call out women technicians and service advisors um next one

it's from bob and stewart um good morning my question oh i'm sorry we have linda waiting so yeah yeah we'll get to this in a second good morning linda Linda's calling from Hope's owned 2015 Toyota Corolla L.E. I bought it from the local dealer and Stewart. I take it in for a regular maintenance. But after this last maintenance

in January, I noticed a clicking noise in the back rear side of the car When I come to a slow stop, I call the maintenance department and mention this to them and ask them if I should bring it in. And she told me that it didn't sound like anything, and it would be okay to wait until my next maintenance appointment, which would be in June. But I'm still kind of leery about it. And I was wondering if you might know that if it's something serious, I need to take care of before then. What do you think, Rick?

Linda, let me ask you this. Do you have alloy wheels or steel wheels with hub caps on your car? I don't know. I'm willing to bet that you probably have the steel wheels with plastic hubcaps. and what happens quite often with those plastic hubcaps if they didn't get the hubcap installed quite right when you're driving especially very slow speeds in a parking lot with the windows down where you can hear it

you'll hear this little tick tick tick sound and it's actually the tire is pushing and it's actually causing that hubcap to flex just a little bit it's an odd thing I understand how crazy this sounds but if you stop in there and just ask them to reinstall your hubcaps make sure those two rear hubcaps are properly installed odds are that's going to take care of your problem oh okay well thank you so much

and linda ask him ahead of time if there'll be any charge for that if you're their customer you bought your car there this should be a courtesy oh yeah no charge at all they shouldn't charge you for that no oh well thank you thank you linda thank you so much Stick to your guns. Get back with us and let us know what happened, Linda. You're an important caller. I'm going to take it in.

Okay. Thank you so much, and you have a great weekend. Thank you. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And remember, you can take advantage of that text when we get to the Mystery Shopping Report this morning and you too can vote, and the mystery shopping report is going to be a doozy. And I now have my Tina Fix.

Tina is calling from Benita Springs. She's a regular caller. Good morning, Tina. We missed you. Oh, good morning. And how are you guys doing? Welcome back. Thank you for missing me.

I'm glad somebody does. What's going on? Okay. Okay. Buy three times. Get one free. We need to talk about that whole tire buying rabbit hole because it's weird as ugly head again. So the listeners and the viewers on Facebook need to know what to watch out for when buying tires.

Well, there's a lot of extra fees for one thing, Tanya. You've got a lot of these tire companies will add kind of like a dealer ads, a dealer fee. And service departments, they had a miscellaneous supplies fee. car dealers have their extra tire dealers, I should say, have their extra fees. And you need an out-the-door price on tires just like you need an out-the-door price on a car. And most tire sellers are reluctant to do that. You know, the buy three, get one free is just every product you see they'll say that. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

And when you buy three tires to get one free, they're just marking up the The other three tires are enough to cover the cost and the profit of the fourth tires. So when you go in there, there'll be road hazard insurance. There'll be, I'm trying to think of all the other fees that they have in there. They're kind of like car dealers. They have created creative names for different fees they had. And the best way to preclude this, I'd get on the telephone. I'd call Tire Kingdom or whomever I'm going to buy my tires from.

I tell them what type of tire I want. and I say I want four of these tires I want you to put them on my car for me you're going to have to mount the tires and then you're going to want to balance the tires I want to know the athodore price and tell me every fee and extra charge will have included. Rick had a point.

Yep. They're also going to be quite often limiting that special deal to only certain sizes of tires and sometimes certain brands and models. So always check on that. Make sure the tires that you want and the size you need are covered under that and watch out when they start asking to charge you for the valve stems most cars nowadays from about 2010 on up all of them

have tire valve sensors and you do not replace them whereas the older car is much older than that we used to replace the rubber valve stem every time and they would charge for those rubber valve stems. Nowadays, if they look like they're trying to charge for valve stems, call them on it because they shouldn't be. That's great information, Rick, really. And Tina, I almost forgot Costco is the place to buy tires. You get a very good price. They're honest, they're fair. They even give you free nitrogen, I say. I was just going to. I show up and I say that, but at least, I don't believe in nitrogen, but at least if they don't charge you for it. And I've actually They shopped Costco from my dealership.

They'll sell tires over their retail that I pay more for wholesale. So their volume pricing is huge, and they only mark, they don't have anything that they sell you. They mark up more than 15%. And you get a fair shake at Costco. Well, excuse. I have a quick question for Rick, too, regarding tires. Okay. Well, we're on the subject.

Rick, I know that years ago, I don't know about now, but years ago people used to try to save money and they would only replace like maybe one tire. And sometimes they would do this on the rear axle. And I don't know if it's true or not, but I've heard that with rear-wheel drive and four-wheel drive vehicles that you want to have both tires on the same axle to be the same. You don't want two different tires.

Is that so true, or could you explain to our Facebook viewers and listeners why it would be a really bad idea to have two different tires? tires in the same axle. I always recommend tires in pairs. In other words, the two fronts or two rears, and when you're replacing tires, the new ones, if you're only doing two, should start out in the back. The reason for that is that the cars are much lighter in the back end and the best tread should be back there to help get water away when you're driving the car in a wet situation, which, hey, this is South Florida we got rain all the time here and the other side of it is running two different tires

even just if the treads look very very similar having two different tires on the front of the car or on the back can cause what's called a tire pull and it'll make your car pull to one side of the other so that's a very really not a good idea that's why I always recommend at minimum two tires or four tires never one or three Yeah, and can't you ruin the mechanics of the car like the suspension or the part of the drive train if you have two different tires from the back or the front? That's unlikely, but however, on some older cars, say around 2005 to 2007, right in that area, a lot of them, the tire pressure systems and the ABS systems can become confused if the tread depth is different sizes. So that can cause issues But yeah, that's why I always recommend minimum two tires or four tires

Never one or three Yeah, so you can't just buy three tires and pay extra for the fourth one That's a bad idea Which you're paying extra for anyway if those people are offering that deal I pass that sign every day at a certain tire dealership on beneath each road So I thought, you know, I got to call them on it while I'm talking to the guys and Nancy. Do you have a Costco over there near Benita Springs, Tina?

There's one in Naples. There's not one in Benita. Is Walmart a good place to buy tires, too, or is Costco a better deal than Walmart? I think Costco is a better deal, but I think Walmart's good, too. Would that be Sam's Club probably for the tires? But, yeah, I think they got great prices at Walmart, Sam's Club, and Costco. Yeah, that's good to know. three simple places that you can go to and don't mess

if anybody else. Exactly. That's the way to do it. Well, Tina's good to hear from you. I haven't heard from him a couple of weeks. We really missed you. We've been having a lot of women callers, and I think you were probably the catalyst. You've been with us for a long time. You call us regularly,

and we've had more female callers this week, I think, than we've had male callers so far. Yes, absolutely. We have. Awesome. A lot of, it has it been a lot of new female callers? Yes, we've had quite a few. Yes, quite a few. Building it up.

I'm glad. I'm glad. I hope you get to write lots of checks this week. Well, we have you to thank for that, Tina. You really started it all. You really, you're rounding them up. Thank you. And bringing them to us. So thank you for your participation. Give us a call again. 877960, or you can text us. 772-497-60. Now back to the recovering car dealer. We have Ron from Urvier Beach. Rod, thank you for holding. How can we help you this morning?

Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Yeah, Rod, the old crash test dummy. A lot of the cars, instead of getting $300,000, I've been getting at least $500,000 on my vehicles, and one, I got $736,000. Holy mackerel. That is amazing. You're the traveling man. You maintain your car, Rod.

I've never seen a well-maintained car that didn't last hundreds of thousands of miles. And every night, it was an exception to every rule, but most people just don't take care of their vehicles. If you do the factory recommended maintenance religiously, 300,000 is a piece of cake. This is very true. I also wanted to talk about what are you talking about cleaning the throttle body that a lot of the vapors you get behind there the used up NOX

vapors and oil vapors and such like that it forms like an oily sludge so yes cleaning that is a good thing Rod how often do you clean your throttle body in your cars because you get unbelievable mileage in actuality I went to a special course

and there's a little hole that goes through a little real small hole and I put down paper towels stuff like that and I size that hole up just a little bit that was a $150 class and I had to be real careful about how large the size and how large not to and that's the last time

I cleaned my throttle body well that's interesting everybody could take a lesson from you because I don't know anybody that has ever gotten 730,000 miles on a car that's a new record

why didn't you go for a million I was trying to Earl but the thing started looking so bad and shabby that my lady friend said you know You can't park that in the yard anymore. I'm like, what?

She goes, it probably's a rested hump. We might have got you in the Guinness Book of World Records. I was bringing. I put an umbrella down. So, no, seriously, it was getting pretty bad. I think the engine would have made it. Rod, you're my hero. You're my maintenance hero. You could have just thrown a blanket over it.

Exactly. Well, thank you very much for being such a good, regular caller. And I hope you can call again next week. week you're always very interesting yeah humorous interesting well enjoy today thank you thank you we're going to go to ward he's calling from steward good morning ward how you you're doing today ward do we have good i'm good that's good that's good thank you what's up hey uh girl yeah hey erl's ward how you know i was up in stewart today and uh the gas station a salesman pulled in with a brand new uh toy o that's why i look at the stick

and court the sticker says $6.95. So, you know, a nice guy, nice young guy, he looked pretty good. So I said, well, you know, Earl Stewart says that, you know, he shouldn't be paying that dealer fee. Mm-hmm. He said, well, ask Earl about the son and salt package he puts on his cards. The what?

Do you have a son and salt package that you sell? No. I never heard. I never heard of a son and salt package. That must be somebody else's product. That's funny. You've got to give the guy credit for a fast comeback, but we don't have any sort of additives to the factory equipment on the cars.

Well, I guess he was pretty little indignant about it, because, you know, he was kind of early, and he was dressed nice, I didn't fill in a car up with gas with somebody, but you said to ask you about you have one, you have a deal, so you just hide it somewhere. Yeah, that's what you. That's a lot of the defense that they play, that I hide my dealer fee. Maybe we'll have a contest.

I'm thinking, that's a great idea. I'm going to have a contest. If you can find Earl's dealer fee and bring it to the radio show, we will pay you $100,000. Oh, well, I win. It's built into your profit. It's normal. Well, that's where it's supposed to be.

But they have to show me where it is. But it's in the price of the car where it's supposed to be. I win. Okay, Rick. Sit down. Because it was funny, because he came back to a quick on that, you know. You guys thinking of an app, you gave, you gave to Treasure Coast, or not Treasure Coast, and I don't know what they call it, but you gave them an app, you have a week.

Well, Ward, thanks very much for that. I have my spies everywhere, all you car dealers out there, and so whatever you say, we're going to hear it back on the radio. Ward is one of my spies. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much. remember that you can vote

you can text us and share your vote with us on the mystery shopping report at 772-4976530 and we're going to go to Jenny who's calling from Palm Beach Hi Jenny Hi how are you Good how are you doing today

I'm doing good thank you very much What can we do for you? I wanted to know I've been driving a while and I'm not sure. I was just wondering how do you tell if you need a wheel alignment? Well, Jenny, wheel alignment checks are free. And there might be a few dinosaurs out there trying to charge you for it. It's not a bad idea checking your wheel alignment every time you bring your car in for service.

And as a matter of fact, that should be done automatically. If you're concerned about it, you should just call the dealer, find a slow time, come in there and ask them to check your alignment. no charge. The alignment machines now are very sophisticated and you get a computer print out that gives you very specific information about which wheel, front, rear, right, left, and the type of misalignment there may be. There's a green zone and a yellow zone and a red zone. But alignments are very important because you can really ruin a set of tires quickly and I've done it so I know I'm speaking from experience. When you get your wheels out of alignment sometimes you won't notice the where because where it can be on the inside of your tires

and it's hard to see sometimes. But check your alignment at least every, in South Florida with all the potholes and the curbs and other kind of stuff we're bumping into all the time, I check my alignment every couple of months just to be on the safe side. It doesn't cost you anything. Oh, good. Thank you. That answered my question totally.

Very good. Thank you so much. I appreciate your help. Thanks, Jenny. We love you, female calls. Yes, thank you, Jenny. That wheel alignment is real important. Thank you.

Thank you. Give us a call again. 877-960-99-60. Or you can text us at 77249-9-7-6530. I think Stu needs to catch up on some text, don't you, Stu? Yeah, we have four in the backlog here. Let's see here. First one is, okay.

It's for Rick. Rick, are tune-ups even a thing anymore? my dad my granddad yells at me every morning I'm sorry I'm sorry all right let me get through it my granddad yells at me every morning and says I'm past due for my tune-up

I always yell back he doesn't know what he's talking about and tune-ups aren't even a thing this just makes this just makes him matter and he keeps screaming at me I'm sorry I have to regain my I'm a drug test you and Nancy this is funny

this just makes him matter and he keeps screaming at me Rick give me something I can use to shut this down I'm up to date on my maintenance help okay you have 30 seconds Rick very quick definition of a tune-up

a tune-up used to be adjust the carburetor adjust the ignition timing and adjust the points and replace the spark plugs nowadays carburetors don't exist ignition timing is covered by the computer, fuel injectors

covered by the computer, replace spark plugs when your manufacturer calls for it, and that's all you need. I'm out. Okay, that was good. All right, moving along. 23 seconds. I do apologize for that. That's objectively funny.

I don't care what anybody says. Okay, Amory is a regular listener, regular texter. Amory says, good morning. When a customer brings a car into the service department, save for a routine maintenance, entire rotation, they see the service advisor, sign the forms, and wait. When the car is ready, the customer pays the bill, grabs the keys, and then gets the car. What should a customer do if they find out that the shop broke the plastic wheel covers?

Thanks. Well, you just ask them to pay for it. This is not uncommon. I mean, things do happen. You get grease on your steering wheel. You get grease on your seats. Sometimes they'll break something. And if you go into a sloppy shop with untrained technicians, you know, your car is at risk.

it's a good idea to inspect your car before you drop it off I think oftentimes the question is are you sure you didn't do that yourself I got a great idea I just webcams and the service drive you don't need that you got your own webcam you take your phone get a video do a quick walk around and take you 30 seconds get a quick video of your car and then then you got some evidence

exactly good idea well actually a good service advisor should take the customer and walk around the car with the customer and point out each item. And they should also be aware that on older cars with plastic hubcaps, sometimes, you know, they've gotten kind of brittle with age in this Florida sun, and sometimes they do break. I mean, it just, unfortunately, that's a case of plastic hubcaps. They do wear out and break over time.

So something to be aware of. But sometimes they do break in a shot. Well, this is a problem for you. Anne Marie, it's also a problem for car dealers because people sometimes will break things and not remember or not realize it. You bump up against something and you break your help cap. And the first time you look at it is when you pick your car up after you left it with a dealer. So maybe it wasn't his fault. So good idea for the dealers and the customers to check their cars out before they leave it in the custody of a car dealer for a day or two.

That's right. Okay, Bob and Stewart says, good morning. My question is that the newest trend seems to be. to put four-cylinder turbo engines in most cars and SUVs. How durable are they, or are they, as they say, pushing the limits on engines that size? No, the technology is really getting a lot better on these. And the biggest thing is that these small engines are able to produce massive amounts of power, but using less fuel and using the fuel much more efficiently and producing less emissions.

So it's a win-win situation all the way around. That's a good thing. They're able to squeeze more power out of a smaller fuel-consuming and more efficient engine. And the turbo is part of that, smaller engine, better fuel economy. That's technology, progress. Yep. That's good. Are we cleaned up on the text?

We were all caught up. Yeah, there was one text, but I had a follow-up question that wasn't sure, so we're good to go. Okay. And just a couple of YouTube comments. Lenny says he's in Atlanta, Georgia, and just found us, and he says we've got a great show. and Raymond says Hi Earl each Saturday

my wife and I watch your program we've learned so much thank you wonderful you know all your YouTube folks and your Periscope if we have any Periscope folks Facebook spread the word

because it is so cool that we're now growing out of South Florida we're no longer just a South Florida show we're I guess directly international we've had Canada so we're international

so if you're YouTube and you find it somewhere spread the word We'd love to hear from all over the United States or the world for that matter. I'm waiting for the first intergalactic call. Okay. Well, you might be there to get it. And ladies and gentlemen, this has been a pretty exciting show.

You know, in light of the fact that we've had more female callers this morning, excites me. You helping me build this platform here at Earl Sturber on cars is, you know, it's just amazing. I'm impressed with all of you. and just a few numbers I'll throw out there. This is from Automotive News, and there was an interesting article, women impacting dealerships, and do you realize that women buy 200 billion, 200B billion in cars and cars in service, and 85% of women are a huge part of the buying decision?

So, let's level the playing field. And, well, there's power in numbers, ladies. And, again, thank you. You know, we might have overdone this woman thing because we had more women called. So maybe we should start fining the men when they call. $50 for the women and $50 fine. It'll be an in-and-out.

We'll just pass it along. Thank you, your first male caller. Just kidding. We're going to charge you $50. We have one more text that popped in. Okay. Hey, the rim shot. Really?

That's it. I'm telling you. Regular listener, regular textor. This is Steve up in New Jersey. Good morning, girl. Steve from New Jersey. Over the years, I've always bought new cars new and kept them well-maintained, never kept a car for less than 15 years, and the oldest was kept for 20 years.

However, particularly after the speed of change with safety technology, my guess, a car needs replacement every six to seven years. What are your thoughts on this matter? Hate to be the passenger in an old car hit by a new large, SUV or pickup truck. Are we talking about not being able to keep the car multiple years because of the

safety issue? I think he's talking about just all the new technology that's getting introduced and keeping for 15 years you're going to be way behind the times if you keep it that long now. Yeah, it will be and I have mixed emotions because it's kind of ironic

the fact that once the manufacturers finally built a real Swiss watch type of a car mechanically and the maintenance is very low. Repairs are minimal and they've got a car that'll last we've been talking 300,000 miles years and years

but the technology is caught up so fast and has accelerated that now the safety technology is making cars obsolete so you have to make a tough decision used to buy a car because you had to buy a car because they broke. They don't break anymore now you buy a car because you want

to be safer. That's a good problem right? And how much longer, this acceleration and technology will go. I'm not sure, but I think it depends on you. I mean, if you feel safe in your car, don't worry about it. If you're concerned, you're concerned about your family, and you really, really appreciate some of the amazing safety features that we have in cars. I think it's worth the investment to buy. I'm a car dealer, so I'm full transparency. I'm trying to sell your car. So I like to sell cars. You really don't have to buy one anymore.

You buy one because you'll want to. Yeah. I think that falls under the category of modern problems. I mean, everything with technology from your cell phone. You've got to upgrade it every year. It's crazy. Even your refrigerator, I feel behind the time, the refrigerator has come out. They're connected to the Internet.

They do all sorts of stuff. Amazing. Everything. Even my thermostat, it's very anxiety-inducing, I think. I know what you mean? Yeah. How many iPhones have bought? Well, 10.

One every year for the last 10 years. I felt the same way about my Formica repair kit. I was just going crazy with this, and I decided maybe I didn't know everything, and I went to the YouTube, and I was doing it right. There you go. Mystery shopping report. I got a job for you. Mystery shopping report of Edmore's Honda.

Hard to believe that it's been two years since we last paid a visit to Ed Morris Honda. Edmores Honda is one of the three Honda dealerships in Palm Beach County. The other two are Brayman Honda and Green Acres in Delray Honda and Delray Beach. Located on Blue Heron Boulevard in Revere Beach, right next to I-95, Edmorse sells quite a few less hondas than either Bremen or Del Rey. It's not a good thing. The Edmores family still owns the Edmores Group of Dealerships. the founder, Ed Moore, Sr., passed away several years ago, and his son, unfortunately, Ted Morris passed away a few years ago, too.

But I believe there's a grandson and granddaughters. There's Teddy, who is the grandson. Grandson, yeah. I'm not sure if he's still involved anymore then. At any rate, there are multiple all the way over to Tampa, Edmour's dealerships. Hans is a very popular car in our area. It's got about 9% of the new car market. So, but one out of every 10 cars you see is a Honda.

They build very good cars, high consumer report ratings, and you can't go wrong with a Honda. Ed Morris Honda also plays a special role in my history as a consumer advocate. During the early days of my crusade against a dealer fee, the Ed Morris Auto Group made public claims that I secretly concealed a dealer fee in the price of the cars I sold at my Toilet Hill Ship, Interestingly, we had a comment about that earlier in the show. So actually, they ran a commercial. It was a radio commercial back then, accusing me of hiding my dealer fee and my price of my cars. So I sued Ed Morris on that, and it got into be quite a legal battle back and forth and depositions and all the type of stuff that goes on.

Ed Morris did stop the radio commercial, and we fought it out for, I guess, probably a year or so. And then, interestingly enough, his attorneys sued me for defamation because I said something about, you know, I can't imagine I'd ever say anything negative by the lawyer. Yeah, I think you were fair. How many people remember the name Scott Rothstein, a lawyer in the Fort Laugh? Waterdale area. He was kind of like the South Florida Bernie Madoff. And Ed Morris's attorneys were part of that scandal. And a matter of fact, Ted Morris, Edmores senior, or junior, Ted Morse was Scott Rothstein's best friend. And that goes, that's kind of an

interesting story. Catch me sometime at a bar and I'll tell you all about it. Although unintended, my legal battle with Ted Morris served a vital public function. It's shining yet another unflattering light on a cardular practice that had remained in the shadows for decades. And I give them credit for that. I mean, it really brought to light a lot of the fables and nonsense and the shadows of this whole dealer-free thing. We worked it all out, Ed Morris lawyers and I, and even Ted Morrison. I. Ted Morris and I had a long conversation. In fact, I called Ted. I said, you know, we can continue this thing, spending bunnies on money on lawyers. I think you made your point. I made

my point. You stopped the radio commercial. And one of your dealers, one of Ed Bors's dealers, dealerships actually dropped the dealer fee for a while. So I think we got what we were looking for. I said, let's say we call it quits, and we called it quits. Best way to sell a legal thing is not go to court. Last week, Agent Thunder assumed the persona of Larry Laydown. Now Larry Leadon is somebody that walks in

is a sucker. You know, the old P.T. Barnum, there's a sucker born every minute. There are a lot of Larry Laydowns out there that get taken advantage of. I feel bad when I say it because a lot of them are nice people. Just because you get taken advantage of it doesn't mean

you're a bad person. You're just not a careful person. You just haven't listened to this radio show. You haven't listened to the radio show. Larry Laydown. And he went into... His wife, Linda. Yeah, Grecoe of Del Rey, and is unprepared.

And this is what we did with Ed Morseanda. And here's a report. I speak in the first person, is if I were Larry Laydown. I pulled in Edmorsonda around quarter to five. Thursday afternoon, I went into the showroom, greeted right away by a very friendly receptionist.

I helped myself to complimentary chocolates while she paid the salesperson for me. Dave, the salesman approached after a few minutes offered me his hand. He was pleasant. Ask what brought me in. I told him, I wasn't completely sure. I said my wife and I had a 14-month-old daughter, so safety was my primary concern. I paid my wife, I said my wife, I had a, you know, I said that, didn't I? We also needed some practical functionality. We had strollers, diaper bags, and things like that to deal with. It seems like the other day I had stew in a stroller.

Time blows. I'll still ride and... That was a six months ago, actually. It was a baby buggy. Exactly. We walked over to a white CRV right there in the showroom. The MSRP was 28,000 at 29-5 dollars. I think you skipped a paragraph there.

Yeah, I did I? That's right. I'm getting... That's okay. I'm a drug test. It's all fluff. I'm a drug test myself. Dave delivered a comprehensive presentation.

He systematically went over each and every feature, describing and explaining the benefit to me, a real pro. A real smooth guy. He asked me if I was ready to take a test drive and said I was. I assume we'd go outside and find a similar car. But instead, Dave got the help of a couple of other employees, and he drove the CRV right out of the Edmore Showroom. I climbed in, and we drove off the lot.

Dave wove subtly through questions into our subtle questions, probing into our conversation. If I was a regular consumer, I wouldn't even realize I was being probed. I would have been aware of this, unaware of this information. And this is a real slick salesperson. Salespeople are trained to learn as much about you as they can. your budget, your desire to finance or not, pay cash, maybe a leasing candidate, the more they know about you, the more they can find the right car and sell you the car they want. And the better salespeople don't make it seem like they're interrogating.

Exactly. And interrogation is a sign of an amateur, and Dave was not an amateur. During the conversation I revealed that I had never bought a car from a dealer before, I told that my credit score was below average. 658 beacon but my wife's credit score was very good they've learned that i did not have a car to trade in but i had about four thousand dollars that i could use as down payment and larry lay down you readily uh explain everything you you vomit up information you you tell everything to it which is okay because you want to find the right car and if you don't it's not a

privacy issue with you tell them as much as you can so you can find the right car that'll fit your needs we've returned to the dealership they've continued to probe in a pleasant way and walked inside he wanted to know what payment I was hoping to get I said her budget would allow us to go no higher than say four hundred dollars I was completely ignorant of what kind of payment I could expect to pay I didn't know that is true Larry laid down Yes, that's gold. Dave said he believed we could go, we could be close to that on the CRV.

We just drove. He offered me a bottle of water, a seat said he'd get the numbers for me. He returned with a worksheet. Before he began, Dave told me that March and April were the best months for the year, which is fairly true. I think there's a lot of action in March and April. We call it use car season because there's a lot of people with tax returns. Yeah, a lot of volume in March and April,

and it's not a bad idea to tell the customer that it's a good time to buy a car. You don't want to say it's a bad time. I would say December was better. December is definitely better. End of year. He said they have great interest rates and lease specials, and I'd be happy with what you're going to show me.

The worksheet looked familiar very familiar to Grico Q's. There was a grid of payment options. I commented when we did the Grico shop, that there's something I hadn't seen, but I think it's a new, kind of a in vogue way to sell cars. It's kind of like an advanced digital age of four square kind of a thing. Foursquare is a way to find out what is your hot button, monthly payment, down payment,

trades in allowance, discount. They want to find out what gets you toward the bottom line. And this new system helps in that direction. The top line was indicated on the price was market value selling price and the amount of $28,0295. Market value selling price is an innocuous, vague term to make you think that it's an honest price. But it's just a term to justify raising a price above what is true market value. Market value is what people actually pay for cars. I'll digress a bit and say that Truecar is your best bet to find something approaching a true market value

because they wire in to the car dealer computers and they know the actual transaction prices. The transaction price is a true market price, not a number that a car dealer puts on an addendum label. The market value was $28.2.95. That was a discount of 2145, which made my price, $26,150, $26,150. Then came the ads, large, large number of ads. X-L-L-Z. Ex-Z-E-Z-E-L-L-O-N. I don't know.

I googled it, by the way. X-I-L-O-N, $499, $289 for road hazard, $479 for ECH, 289 for ECH, 289 for wheel locks and splash guards and 120 for a cargo tray. Now, that all adds up to 1676. I could go through this, and I can tell you what each thing was. It's not worth your time because it's high-priced undervalue. The key is to raise the price. My guess is of that $1,676, less than $300 would be legitimate, maybe much less than $300.

The new selling price was $27,826. Below that, and large print had read plus tax title fees and payoff. Fees. Now here we have the subterfuge. The fees were not itemized or printed anywhere in the proposal. This worries me very much. On the way to the radio show this morning, Nancy said, Did you see anything unusual by the shopping report?

and this is kind of what I did see unusual is the fact that more often than not the dealer fees and the multiple dealer fees are disclosed earlier and the new trend seems to be to not disclose the dealer fees until you get into the finance department so that makes it much darker and more difficult for you to discern the extra profit the hidden profit to the car dealers all car dealers have hidden profit and they hide it in the firm of a non-government fee. And we used the generic term dealer fee. Years ago, 15 years ago, there were realic things called dealer fees. In fact, most of the dealers called their hidden profit dealer fee. And because it became so commonly known and used in the language dealer fee, they said, ah, we will change the name to something else. We actually have dealers today advertising no dealer fee, but they do charge an electronic filing fee. They do charge a notary fee.

Which are just as big as the original dealer fee. Yes. They don't charge the original dealer fee, but it's bigger. We've seen them on their buyer's orders. It says dealer fee and then pre-printed zero with a dollar, but right below that, there'll be $600 for some other bogus fee. So at least if you disguise these non-government fees, and you put them on your sales, buyers order, worksheet, whatever you want to call it. You give the buyer pre-notice that it is being charged.

And by the way, the Florida Automobile Dealers Association opinion is the dealer fee should be disclosed on the Monroney label, or the addendum, I should say, to the Monroney label. This is rarely done. And it's not done on the worksheets here at Admorest Toyota. I mean, sorry, Ed Morris Honda. So, all you know is you've got the xylon, the road hazard, the edge, and the other nonsense on the addendum label. You don't know that you have the hidden fees.

The fees remain hidden, and they remain hidden from Agent Thunder. If he had gone online, you would have seen they have an $899 dealer fee. At least. In the fine print. By the way, state law says the dealer fee must be included. in the advertised price. I don't consider, I'm not a lawyer, but I think my opinion is valid.

Included in the advertised price means included in the advertised price. Disclosing it in the fine print is $8.99, but not adding it in to the price is not including it. So I consider this a violation of law. Now, one of the payment options came up close to my requested payment of less than $400. The best was for $441 a month, and that was for 72 months and $5,000 down. I told Dave I had questions. I said I only wanted to go for five years, but I couldn't afford a $5,000 down payment.

Even though I was supposed to be laid down, I had to ask him about the add-downs. Dave said it was an Edmore's program and sensing by shifting demeanor, quickly added that they were optional and would take them off. So remember this, always object to the dealer-installed options. Virtually every dealer has dealer fees, hidden fees. Virtually every dealer has dealer-installed options. Object, object, object. Over half the time, they'll take it off, just by the objection. But the Larry laydowns, the real Larry lay-downs, don't object.

Sometimes they don't see it in the excitement of the car buying process. I asked him if he could keep my payment at first. No, I think you skipped over the... Okay. I asked why he included them without explaining what they were up front, meaning the accessories, the nonsense. Dave struggled to answer and eventually admitted they come preloaded on every proposal. He apologized for the lack of transparency, and we moved on. And this is true.

Virtually every deal you have will have an addendum label, and they're pre-installed on every vehicle on the lot, even though they're not included in the advertised price. I estimate if you could keep my payment at $475, but with a 60-month loan, not $72, and only $3,500 down, Dave said he would make it happen. Okay, there's a note. We ran the numbers using a $27,150 selling price,

thunder's selling price, plus $1,000 in dealer fees, and $475 is very doable. with $3,500 down on 16 months. So he can be done. Yeah, it could be done. I shook Dave's hand, said I'd be back the next day with my wife. Dave asked me to wait and left. He came back, the sales manager, Chris.

Chris tried to persuade me to take it tonight. They always do that. He wasn't obnoxious about it, though. And when I asked if the deal would still be on the table tomorrow, he said it would be. So that's good. He didn't say, if you don't take the deal now, call your wife, here. We even had one time a salesman said, I'll go home

and pick up your wife and bring him back into the dealership. That's high, high pressure. I think we had one actually went to Agent X's house. Actually, you remember? In the driveway. Yeah, Agent X. Amazing man, Agent X. And his wife was amazing too. That she'd tolerate something like that.

Well, we never saw the dealer fee. And the dealer fee was disclosed as Stu said earlier in the fine print but only on the online ad and it wasn't on the worksheet so when you go into the finance office we had a caller earlier asking about that finance office when you go in there it's a flurry and people sign things that they don't know they're signing who reads all the voluminous paperwork when you buy anything i don't i don't think anybody

in the studio here does it's just become part of our culture trust unfortunately is part of the American culture. But who can you trust? Not too many people. I say that sadly. I say that nervously. The reason lawyers exist is because of the lack of trust.

And what would happen? You want to be totally safe when you buy a car? You hire a lawyer. You bring him in with you, and he reads all the paperwork. I get a lawyer when I buy a house. If you did that, commerce economy would come to a brutal stop. It would just stop. The economy of the world would crash. In the United States, I think we have one lawyer for every 100 people. In Japan, they have

one lawyer for every 10,000 people. Does that tell you something? We have the world's record. We have more lawyers per capita than any other country in the world by an exponential number. So, we try to trust people but you can't and you go into the finance department and that's where they get you they had fees they had maintenance contracts they had extended service contracts they had etch they had products that you don't even know I had a call from a person in an official capacity the other day can't mention his name because he asked me not to but he's a member I'll say this he's a member of the seniors versus crime and he told me about one car dealer that is assaulting his customers mainly in the finance

department and they're adding products that their seniors don't even know they're buying he had one person he was in his 80s that bought over $3,000 in products from a particular dealer that he didn't even know he bought and he didn't find out about it until past the time when he could cancel the contract You can cancel a lot of insurance-based contracts within 90 days, but you have to do that within the first 90 days. After 90 days, you're stuck with them. So the finance department is the most dangerous department in the dealership. And in this case here, I think this is where Edmorsanda is springing the dealer fee.

Oh, yeah. So there we have it, and now we have to vote. We have some grades that came in. We have about four minutes to go. Let's start with our online scores of Edmoresanda. First one from Ed Halfway through That's what he said

Halfway through Already an F for the ads So he didn't listen to the whole report Before he failed him Marta gives him a D Larry gives him a D plus Steve gives him a D in Bunny

Gives him an F If you don't mind I'll start with my opinion You know Grading on a curve I would A low passing grade Objectively speaking F

Yeah So I have to repeat this We grade on the curve folks If we did not grade on the curve, we'd have no car dealers recommended. And so it's the lesser of evils is what we have on our recommended list. Way better than Graco, I'll tell you that much. Absolutely better than Grico. Nancy.

$120 for a cargo tray. That's a heck of a cargo tray. It's a heck of a piece of plastic. Yeah. Is that where the BS is kept? Exactly. That's right. And it's not optional.

It's standard equipment. Exactly. Mandatory. Give them an F. Okay. here next um i'm going to d minus barely passing i mean they're they're they're doing what all the rest are doing and it's just one of those cases where you you've got to know before you walk in there you got to know what you're doing yeah you know i i almost want to fail them i because of the

hidden dealer fee yeah that was handled worse than we usually see yeah uh dealer fees uh we give a pass on dealer fees because everybody has dealer fees, but to hide your dealer fee until you go into the finance department. We usually see it on that worksheet. Yeah. Yeah, you make the final ruling. It's your chef. Yeah.

I think we better fail them. And I think we have to, we need to draw the line of the sand somewhere on dealer fees. And so all you dealers listening out there and all you employees of car dealerships, let the word be known. We will fail you.

if you hide your dealer fee from the customer in the showroom. And you should either put it on your addendum label or also your endentable label or also your worksheet or whatever document. The document that you show the prospective customer before he goes in to the finance department, you must show all of your dealer fees in writing. If not, we're going to flunk you. It's too late when they get the finance.

It's like asking the play for your plane ticket it after you already got on the plane. Exactly. You're not going to say no. And we're going to make a big deal out of this now, folks. So all your dealers out there, we're not going to say you can't charge a dealer fee because we know you won't go for that. But we are going to say you have to show your customer the dealer fee.

Give them the right to complain. Yeah. All we want is transparency. That's it. That's the bottom line. Or include it in your advertised price. That would be crazy. Exactly.

And Angel from YouTube agrees with you, Earl F. Very good. Oh, thanks, Angel. So, ladies and gentlemen, we've come to the end of our show. We want to take a moment and thank you for being a huge part of our radio show. And we appreciate you every Saturday. Have a great weekend, and we'll see you right back here next Saturday. Oh!

No. Thank you.