Earl Stewart on Cars - 03.17.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Grieco Mazda of Delray Beach

Episode Date: March 17, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits Grieco Mazda of Delray Beach to purchase a car featured in a television ad. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.trueoldiesfla.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

It's my kind of music. But what you're listening to now is Earl Stewart on Cars, which is a live radio talk show. That's right. We're right here in the studio while you're listening to us. And by we, I mean a team of auto experts here to answer all your questions about cars. We're a consumer advocacy show. We tell you how to avoid being ripped off by your car dealer when you're buying, leasing, repairing, or maintaining your car. Now, that's it in a nutshell. As I say, no music, although we do have a little surprise for you later on in the show that involves some music.

and see how some of you folks out there that love 60s and 70s can identify that with cars. That's going to be a little fun thing. We'll do a bit later. But the essence of the show is to try to help you avoid that minefield out there. And the minefield is in the car dealership lots all over South Florida. We do this, and I know I'm preaching to the choir, because we've got a lot of regular listeners out there

that understand that buying a car today, especially in some areas of the country, and South Florida happens to be one of those, is like having a root canal. It's a painful experience. You're bait and switched, you're lied to, you're cheated. The servicing and repairing isn't much better. And some of you out there might be incredulous at this.

They might say, well, that can't be, especially all you folks out there that are maybe related to car dealers or employed by car dealers or somehow or other indirectly involved in the commerce that car dealerships bring to South Florida, by the way, which is a very positive thing. A lot of people employed by car dealers and a lot of families depend on the income

from car dealership. So there are advocates of car dealers out there that are probably taking exception to what I'm about to say. So I'm going to give you a little backup. I'm going to give me a little evidence. And you can write this down. If you want to, Google it. Google Gallup annual poll.

The Gallup organization, been around for 50, 60 years. They're the most prestigious polling company, I'd say probably in the world, certainly, in the United States. The Gallup Annual Poll on Honesty and Ethics and Professions. You can Google this if you don't want to take my word for it. The Google, the Gallup Annual Poll on Honesty and Ethics and Professions ranks car dealers last in honesty and ethics or very near last.

They take all of the professions, not all of them, but all the major professions, probably about 50 of them. And they asked the simple question, how do you rank this profession, nursing, medical, retail, legal, all the different professions, including car dealerships. How do you rank them in terms of honesty and ethics? And of the 50 different professions, car dealers have either been last, next to last. The best year I ever remember seeing them, they were third from last. Last year, for the full year 2017, they were next to last. The last was a congressman or lobbyist? I think it was lobbyists.

And so the last three were politicians, congressmen, and then there was car dealers, and then there were lobbyists. At the top of the list, if you're curious, is nurses. People love nurses. They consider nurses to be honest and ethical professions. A lot of people aspire to that. So that's why we're here. By the way, this poll started in 1977.

This isn't a recent occurrence, and they haven't gotten better. You think when the poll would come out and all the car dealers would see this, this is a national poll, you'd think someone would say, hey, maybe we need to clean up our act. Maybe we should try to be nicer. But they haven't. At least they haven't gotten nicer, they might have tried. But they're still next to last. So you don't like it when you go into a car dealership.

cartilorship. That's the reason we're here. And we've got a team here. We've had a team member missing for a week or two. We had Rick Kearney. He's sitting to my right. Rick Kearney is a certified diagnostic master technician. We used to call him a mechanic, and we started call him a technician. Now we call him a computer, you know, an auto computer scientist. He might be out of work one day with electric autonomous cars. I don't know. I might be out of work as a car dealer. Technology is going at such a warp speed. We don't know where we're going to be six months from now. I was watching CNBC the other day Squawk Box. And they were talking about autonomous cars. They are predicting that autonomous cars will be regularly on the road in five

years. It used to be 10 years. And now I heard someone say 18 months. It will be legal in some of the estates. So, Rick, you've got a hand up there? Well, I'm still going to have a job because Because they're always going to need somebody to maintain and repair those vehicles. It just may be a very different job than what I'm doing now. Well, that's true. And that's what happens with Rick's job. He's really had to evolve like I have. I call myself a recovering car dealer for a lot of reasons.

Rick is advancing his technical knowledge at a very fast rate. He's in school half the time, at least it seems to me. And as I say, today when you open a hood up, you don't see anything you can regularly identify. It's a computer, a computer under the hood, and that's what we're all riding on, not a automobile, not a mechanical device anymore. We're riding on a computer, electronic device.

And then I've got Nancy Stewart, who is my co-host, been doing this with me for all these years. Nancy kind of assists the ladies and the men, too, on the buying and leasing. The repairing and maintaining is kind of Ricks category, But we jump into, and he jumps into the buying and leasing. We're all kind of generalists as well as specialists. And Nancy especially is an advocate for the female buyer.

And she's an advocate for females, period, because one of the things that we find, especially in card dealerships, are a lack of female employees. Women have a trouble, and they call it the glass ceiling. They're not paid equally with men. We know this is a problem. There's a lot of things happening with ladies' rights today, women's rights. And among them, one of the most serious we identify are the way women are treated when they go into buy a car.

But even more seriously, probably maybe the reason for this is there are no women employees. I don't mean literally, but less than 10% of females are employed in a car dealership. You're very lucky to find a woman on the sales force, find a woman on the service department. They just don't have women employ there. Correct. Thank you for that introduction. I'm going to advise our listeners that they can give us a call any time at all. We're interested in what you have to say.

You're going to tell them about our special for female callers? I will, yes. Give us a call at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772. 772. What is that text number? 772-497-65-30. There it is. 772-497-60.

472-49-6-5-30. And as Earl mentioned just a moment ago, ladies, I have $50 for each one of you, new lady callers, the first two. So give us a call. As I said, we love hearing from all of you. You make the show. So give us a call. 60, 9960, 772, 4976530. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

And normally we have Stu Stewart, Earl Stewart III, my son in the studio with us. We have substituting for Stu. We have Jonathan Cantor, who is a cyber guy. And he's always behind the scenes. He's always part of the show. You just don't see him or hear him normally. And you'll probably hear him today. That's right.

Good morning, Carol. He is really a cyber expert. And with technology going so fast, you need a guy like Jonathan around to help us stay up with the time. Definitely. So we tweet, we Instagram, we Snapchat, we Facebook, and all of this happens along with the radio signal. And we have video. We have podcasts that are posted. A source of information that Nancy will give you the details on later is available.

to you if you miss a show. We have our, we have podcasts of all the past shows. We have a place you can access all of our mystery shopping reports, which I've got to tell you about. In fact, I'll tell you about it right now. We have something very unique on this show. So if you're not really interested in how to buy a car without being ripped off by a car dealer, which is something we'll be talking about giving you some specifics, maybe you want to be entertained. And the entertainment, at the same time it's informative, is a reason. true in your face undercover mission and we send a secret shopper into some car dealership every week been doing it for 10 years and we terrorize all the car dealers in South Florida and you would think that we would have had some sort of an impact and we have I'm being honest I think we have had an impact we've seen changes in their operations so we're having positive I get my frustration is our impact is going so slowly. But this undercover agent goes to some car dealership between

south to Fort Lauderdale, north to Viro Beach. And we go in there and we pretend to buy or lease the car. Sometimes we pretend to maintain or repair the car. We'll take it in the service part. We don't do enough of that. But the biggest damage is really done in buying and leasing. And so we go in and we do exactly what you would do when you go into buy a car. We on an advertisement, we go in under some incentive that you put out there in the marketplace. Rick? Well, I think one of the biggest impacts that we can claim a little bit of credit for is trying to find a car nowadays with a defective Takata airbag for sale at one of these places.

You're looking for hen's teeth anymore, whereas you used to be, every lot had 50 of them ready to sell you. Well, I have to say, we are proud of that. We have had a definite impact on people being more careful about selling cars with defective to cut airbags. So that is true. And we've also had some impact on advertising. The advertising is still terrible, but it's not double terrible like it was 10 years ago. So things are improving a little bit, but not nearly fast enough. And that mystery shopping report will come up in the second half of the show.

You'll enjoy it. It's real. we name names we name dealerships we don't say a dealer in South Florida and we don't say a sales person or a sales manager we give you the name of the dealership

we tell you when we went in we tell you exactly what we did and we tell you the exact response so we don't pull any punches and if it's illegal and we've seen some illegal activities we say so and everyone says to me

I can't believe you do that because you must be why don't they sue you say these terrible things you say dealership ABC ran an illegal ad that's liable that slander the perfect defense against liable and slander you attorneys in the audience i know you're out there listening waiting for me to make a mistake you know this you can't touch me if i tell the truth the truth is a perfect defense against liable and slander nancy you're at a point uh yes first i want to well welcome jonathan

thanks nancy thank you so much for helping us out this morning and uh to the listeners i want to Thank you for spending your Saturday morning with us. We so appreciate you, and we will give you the good, the bad, and the ugly, as I always say. So you want to stay tuned for the Mystery Shopping Report, and the Mystery Shopping Report is from Graco Mazda. Graco Mazda in Del Rey, Del Rey Beach. And my goodness, as Earl mentioned earlier, I'm amazed that there isn't a owner of any of these dealerships that have had such a terrible report by us, hasn't met us at the front door right here at 95.9, 106.9 FM. I mean, the truth. We're speaking the truth. So you want to

stay tuned for the Mystery Shopping Report from Great Gomesda of Del Rey Beach. And ladies again, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call. 877-960-99. or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Speaking of text, we just got our first text in, and I'm going to ask you to write that text number down, and I'm going to ask you to write the column number down. The text number, get your pencil in hand, write it down,

because you're going to have something on your mind later on, and we probably won't send the text number out like we should. So write this down. Text us at 772. 4976530. Again, 772-497-970-60. And you could call us at 877-960-99-60. Write it down. 877-960. We've got a text from Victor in West Palm Beach. Now, he could remain anonymous. Victor chose to give us his name. Victor said, I understand that dealers use NADA, that's the National Automobile Dealers Association, I understand the dealers use NADA to find out the wholesale and resale value of a car.

Can I, as a consumer, get access to this and use this to better negotiate the selling price? Is there an alternative? That's a very good question. This involves insider stuff that most people don't understand. The NADA is not an accurate guide. The guide that come out is, first of all, it's not up to date, and the NADA numbers are also reflected by what car dealers tell the National Automobile Dealers Association their cars are worth. And there's a forum that dealers are asked to fill out, and they can say, you know, this is my 2015 Mazda, whatever, is worth this much money. and that music was not the radio station.

That was one of our people that forgot to turn their phone off. But at any rate, forget about the NADA wholesale guide. It is misleading. It's not only not helpful, but it can guide you wrong. Matter of fact, most of the books, that you see, the wholesale books, are not worth what you would pay for them if you had access to them. Car dealers still get them.

We've kind of eliminated. in my dealership using the books, we have the online version. The most accurate reported information of wholesale value is the Mannheim auction numbers. Mannheim is the world's largest auto auction. They're the virtual monopoly in the United States, and their numbers are reported real-time online. In fact, they're actually reported video. So the car dealers are able to see an actual car going through the auction block, watch the bidding, see the price as it is sold or not sold, and these numbers are real-time online. Now that's accurate, and that's the way the car dealers, at least the more progressive car dealers, get their information.

And even that is not as accurate as the actual price that a car dealer will pay for your car. I recommend to people that want to know what their car is worth, take the time to go to three different car dealers of your make. If you're driving in a Honda, go to three different Honda dealer, use car departments. Call the used car department, make an appointment with the used car manager or somebody that appraises cars. Say, I want to sell my car.

Don't tell them, I want an appraisal on my car. They'll say, don't waste my time. But you say, I want to sell my car. Car dealers buy a relatively high percentage of their cars. Well, we say, we call it over the curb. People come in and want to sell their cars. car dealers buy them. That's the real price, not the Mannheim price, not the NAD price. There's also a black book. There's a Kelly Blue book. All the prices are secondary to what someone

will really pay you. So you go to three Honda dealers. You go to Ed Morris Honda in this area and you say, I want to sell my car. I have too many cars in the family. And then you go to two other Honda dealers and say, and you tell Ed Morris I'm going to sell my car to the high bidder. That'll give you your best price. I've interrupt myself because I think we have a caller. We do. Harriet's calling from West Palm Beach. Welcome to the show, Harriet.

Thank you. Thank you. I listen to your program every week because I love it. Thank you. And it's the only time that I'm in my car more than a half hour to drive. Oh, thank you. I want to tell you, I bought a car two days ago from a lady. She's a woman, but she was a real lady.

I went in. I told her what I wanted. she gave me the prices. The word deal was never used. It was a price I can give you. That was it. I called my son in Atlanta. I said, I have a VIN number.

Can you check this out? He said, sure. I told him what the numbers were. He said, you're getting an excellent price. I said, fine. He's my guru. He's 40 years old. I'm twice the age.

Anyway, I went back. I made the arrangement. I picked up a car yesterday, and I couldn't believe. It took me years to decide to go to a female dentist or a female doctor. Now I find myself purchasing a car from a female car dealer. Well, congratulations. It was one of the best experiences I've ever had, and I highly recommend it. It's a Mercedes, and the woman is a lady.

Well, Harriet, that is wonderful. Nancy, I think, has tears in her eyes because this is her mission, in life to have more of this happen. Would you have a problem with mentioning the woman's name and the car dealership? No. Maybe we can drum up some business for them. This is the Mercedes-Benz dealership. It's called New Country Cars, and it's on Okeechobe Road, near military, and the lady's

name is Lori Berger. Okay. She works 14 hours a day, and she is there to make you. happy and I could not be more pleased. I'm sitting in my new car now with the manual because I didn't have time for her to go over everything that I have in this car that I did not have in my last car. Unbelievable. Harry, let me have that name again. New Country. I'm not familiar with that dealership. New Country? It's a Mercedes-Benz dealer, but their official name is New Country. Oh, okay. I know the one. Sure. I think the same owner has one in North Bond Beach.

So they call the dealership New Country Mercedes. Right, and I live at Ivis, and I'm much closer to the one on North Lake, but I have been going to this dealership for X number of years, and this is the first time I have ever had any kind of an interaction with a woman. Well, you car dealers, listen to that, okay? And half the buyers out there are women, and Harriet would prefer to deal with woman and most women probably would prefer to deal with another woman and I think a lot of men would prefer to deal with another woman so this is a message I know that Nancy's been pushing for a long time

I know you have some comments honey I do Harriet this is Nancy Stewart and I have a question what prompted you to decide on a female a sales consultant Peter, whom I adore, has just gotten through a long bout of cancer, and he's returned to Mercedes. And I said, Peter, I'm thinking of trading in my car. I used to race sports cars in the 60s. I want something that's got a real go, go, go. He said, you're too old for that. He said, I have someone here for you to speak to, and maybe you can relate to her.

And I said, her? Who's that? And he said, just go speak to her, and you will see. And not once, as I said before, did she use the word deal? Yeah. And that's what sold me on her because it wasn't like going in and making a deal. Well, that's a great story, Harriet. Unfortunately, I think that as far as females are concerned, there's probably 13% that make up sales consultants.

and I'm happy that you were, well, feeling comfortable enough to, you know, work with a female sales consultant. And I also want to tell you that you won yourself $50 as the first female caller. And it's good to be a female today, right? Not only were you going into the... Not only were you going into the Mercedes dealership. for how long did you say how many years oh my goodness that'll tell you how old i am okay well i was just you know what i don't think you're afraid to tell your age uh you sound like an independent strong uh woman who knows what she wants so uh you know okay i'm 77 and i just fortuitously

happened to fall into a mercedes in nineteen seventy nine when I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and I was driving a Lincoln or a Cadillac or an American car that said, made by Fisher, Fisher Motors inside. Yeah, yeah. I'll probably remember that. As far as your age is concerned, you and I are in the same ballpark as far as age is concerned. I know it's rather unfortunate me as an advocate for females. our age group seems to, you know, more or less get taken advantage of, because most of the women, most of the women, you know, our age has a husband that may, a significant other that may have passed away.

And you certainly don't meet this profile, and neither do I. But these, the females really need a whole lot of help out there. And they go out and they, you know, purchase. a vehicle and they go in with not as much knowledge as they should have. So I'll make this short because I certainly can get on my soapbox and go on and on and on. Congratulations as an independent woman and a woman who knows what she wants and you won yourself $50 and if you stay on the line you can give your contact information where I can send that check out to you. Lovely. Thank you. Would you like to share any other

comments with a recovering car dealer? No, but I think that any woman who is interested in buying a car should check, as Earl said, Kelly's new book or the Black Booker, Edmonds, any number of sources, or even go to a couple of dealerships and just

get the numbers and go home and go over the numbers with someone. I have two sons, and my husband drives the Corvette, and he's on the golf course or working whatever he can manage we see each other for dinner but i call my sons and i ask him to please go over these numbers with me or i would ask my next door neighbor who is the male um what he thinks or any any friend a cousin um correct anybody that you can rely on who has

more knowledge in cars yeah that's great advice and knowledge is power and uh well you know i'm i'm Thank you so much for calling Earl Storland Cars, and thank you for listening. And spread the word. Spread the word. Oh, I shall. Indeed. And you enjoy that new vehicle. Thank you very much.

Okay, stay on the line and give your information for me. Indeed. Thank you. Have a great day. What a great call. Yeah. That's a great call. Yeah, she said something that I've been pondering for a long time.

I've never liked the word. car dealer actually dealer never like to word deal and that's that's what car dealers are called and a lot of reasons is because that what most car dealers do a deal is a haggle it's a hassle and when you go into buy a loaf of bread you're not looking for a deal you don't want a deal you want to buy and car dealers should sell their cars for a price that they clearly and transparently disclose and they don't and I've often wondered why why we call ourselves car dealers why don't we call ourselves car retailers sellers right resellers I think how do you folks out there Harriet really is a first person that said to me like he never used the word

deal hit on a sense that made her feel better yeah sensitive why do we use the word we call ourselves you know and you know it will advertise come in for a good deal right The word dealer reminds one of like a poker dealer, you know, which is a card game. Great example. I like that, yeah. Negative connotation. So I'm not, I don't have to negotiate when I go into Publix for a loaf of bread, right? No, no, you can try it with the lap, I dream.

Ladies and gentlemen, again, thank you for joining us this Saturday morning, and you are an important part of the show. So give us a call toll free. 877-960, or you can call it, or you can text us at 772-497-6-530. I'll give it back to Earl. And I know we have an audience out there of auto industry people. We have manufacturer folks, we have, I'm always amazed because people will casually drop the fact that they heard my radio show, and they're from all over the wholesale and retail end of the auto spectrum. Listen to what Harriet said, our caller.

She felt more comfortable dealing with a woman. I mean, that's like a duh. That's a no-brainer. If you're a woman, you probably feel more comfortable exchanging ideas, thoughts, discussing things with other women. Not to say you don't like to talk to men, but you feel more comfortable. So I think you, heads up to the auto industry, hire more women, especially in your sales force, especially in your service department great information uh ladies and gentlemen we have a caller and it's meg who's calling from wellington welcome to the show meg hi good morning good morning i uh i called before

so i will admit i'm not a first time caller but love listening to the show oh thank you my husband and i are looking to get our teenage son he's 18 uh a car and we want to get a safe car but and we usually go with something like a Toyota which we've had in the past or Honda such look at one that's older in years but still safe my concern is still the airbags I was listening to you one time before and the concern is as the car ages that the airbags are no longer safe well this is my concern do I go with a car you know that's not a Toyota or Honda has a lot less miles on it

but then it's, you know, out of our reach as far as cost at time. Your thought? That's a very valid concern, Meg. And I wish more people were aware of this. Unfortunately, most aren't. And our legislators, the media, the auto manufacturers and dealers

have done a terrible job about making this very, very important thing, public. and you hit it on the head. The older a Ticada airbag is, the more dangerous it is. The Ticcata airbag is inflated by a substance called ammonium nitrate. Yep. Ammonium nitrate is okay when you first put it in the inflator, which triggers the airbag to inflate,

but it degrades over time, especially in high temperature and high humidity areas like Florida. So it's especially important in Florida or Arizona or California, wherever you have high temperatures and high humidity, to check any airbag that you have when you buy a car. First of all, it might not be a Nakata. Most of them are Takata airbags, but some are not Takata. Takata is the only one that we know of now that has a problem. And if you have a Takata airbag that's four or five years old, then it's a time bomb. It's getting ready to go off.

Not just when you have an impact, when you have an impact. accident but takata airbags have been shown to go off independently without being in an accident which is really terrifying so the simplest and best thing to do is do a triple check when you select that car for your 18-year-old son you got the VIN number and you can check it three different ways and you should because each each of these can be misleading the the most accurate and reliable would be the National Highway Traffic Safety Association website. And that website, and Meg, you can write this down if you want to, is safercar.org, I'm

sorry, dot gov, www.safercar.gov, g-o-v, S-A-F-E-R-K-R-D-G. Now, that will, you put the VIN number in, it will tell you immediately if it has a Takata airbag, if it's a defective airbag, if it has been repaired, or if it's a defective airbag and it hasn't been repaired, is there and inflator available. The real danger is to find out you bought a car that has a defective airbag and the inflator, the part is not available from the manufacturer.

So now you've got a time bomb and you can't fix it. So you want to do that safercar.gov. Then you can also check with Carfax. Every car dealer should offer you a Carfax report, C-R-F-A-X, computer report. That Carfax report should also tell you whether or not this car has a defective airbag. But we found it in our mystery shopping reports

to be misleading about 30% of the time. So the safercar.gov is very good. The most reliable source is to talk to, call the service department, it's the make a car you buy, let's say you're going to buy a Ford. You call a Ford dealership, you have a VIN number, you ask to speak to the service department,

you give them the VIN number, say, please tell me if this VIN and this Ford has a Takata Airbag that is defective. And they can give you probably the most timely information because the car manufacturer's computer is even more timely than Carfax or safercar.gov. Okay. All right. Well, that's helpful. You know, it's frightening to think that I could put my son behind a car

that's really not safe. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, here's another source of information is consumer reports. My blog this week was on Don't buy a car without consumer reports. Consumer reports will really give you use car. In fact, the annual auto

issue, it happens to be the April issue. You can buy it on the newsstands now. You can access it online. Consumer reports, annual auto issue, has a list of used cars the safest and the unsafest, the 10 most

recommended use cars, and the 10, don't buy these cars, the worst cars, a plethora of information about safety, insurance cost, and a number of other things. So safety, I'm so glad you're thinking about this with your 18-year-old, and every parent should think about this before they buy a car. Well, the other thing is, is our 20-year-old son is driving a car that is 10 years old. You know, but we bought it because it was a safe car. car but now that it has a hundred thousand miles on it it concerns me yeah it's a it's a it's a

concern but that uh as earl said the uh consumer report uh it's amazing this uh april edition that came out they've got all the recall and safety updates uh they are the best new cars they rate over 255 vehicles in this edition so it's really worth uh... picking up and you'll find all your answers right there in Consumer Report. Earl and I do not purchase anything. A toaster.

Don't buy a toaster. Without consumer report. And I have my own consumer reports of Christian that comes into the house and he has his own because we end up fighting over it. So you can pick that up Meg and like I said

your concerns are valid for your, you know, your sons. Yes. Well, you've convinced me to actually come and just shop with you all because I was telling my husband that I listened to your show on the way in, and he says, gosh, I'm so glad that you're listening to that and, you know, getting information. So he says, you know, here's your commercial, and he says he seems like a really nice, reputable man, and I said, yes, and the show is so important.

informative. And so I think you've just convinced us that we need to just come in and chop with you. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you, Meg. Thank you very much. And what a great call. And I'm encouraging the women to call. So spread the word, Earl Stewart on Cars, Saturday mornings from 8 until 10, Meg, and we definitely, again, appreciate your call this morning. Thank you. Have a great day. Give us a call tool-free. We have a whole lot going on this morning. We've got a mystery shopper report that is amazing. So you want to stay tuned for that.

And we have Jonathan is going to be joining in and Rick, and it's going to be an exciting, I guess maybe we have an hour and a half left. So we're going to have a lot of surprises. That's right. So thank you. Jonathan is sitting here in his green shirt. He is celebrating. St. Patrick's Day.

That's right, from the House of O'Canter. I like this, sure. Thanks. Ladies and gentlemen, so give us a call 877-960, or you can text us at 772-49-30, and Tina's calling. Our show wouldn't be complete without Tina. She's calling from Benita Springs. Welcome to the show, Tina. Hi, everybody.

Hi, Jonathan. How are you? One of my favorite boy names, by the way. Thanks, good to hear your voice again Yeah, I always told my mother If I ever have a little boy, Jonathan is going to be the name But that hasn't happened, that's okay Yeah, that's a nice name

But pleasure to meet you Thanks to meet you, same here So what's going on this morning, Tina? Yes, mm-hmm I found something really cool on YouTube There's this guy, he's kind of like a car nerd Or an engineering nerd And his channel is called Engineering Explained

and he went through the CVT transmission of the Toyota and why it's so good because there is a separate gear for when the car starts from a complete stop and when that gear completes its job it drops out of sight and then the rest of the CVT operates normally so he says it's actually very efficient and it's actually probably one of the best CVT transmissions out there

great information so if you're Rick jump on there I don't know if anybody I like that right Okay. Tina, just to give a quick kind of a definition for a lot of folks out there that really have no clue what a CVT transmission is, it's actually a continuously variable transmission. Everybody knows that when you get in your car and you step on the gas and it starts going forwards, the car will shift gears and you'll feel it rev up and then boom, drop into another gear and then rev up and then rub up and then boom. drop into another gear. The problem is that that range of time that the engine is revving up from, say, 1,000

RPMs to 3,500 RPMs, that range, the engine's not really efficient in that whole range. The most efficient time is a very small window around 2,000 to 2,500 RPMs for most engines. So a continuously variable transmission actually stays in that power band and doesn't really have gears. And Tina, I think we, Rick knows you understand this, and the reason I said something is because I think our listeners did. So once he explains that, then I know you'll make your point. It's almost like a, like stepping on the gas on a golf cart.

You never feel it shift gears, and yet the car will continue accelerating, and they are so much more efficient than a normal transmission that you see great power increases along with increases in fuel economy and decreases in emissions. So they're really great transmissions, but it's something that took a little while for the engineers to figure out how to make them work properly. Do you think that the traditional automatic transmission that has a planetary gear system,

do you think that's pretty much going to go the way of the Dodo Bird? Absolutely. Especially since, well, they're already going that way, especially since electric cars, which seem to be the wave of the future, and electric cars use electric motors and don't use really any sort of transmission except a CVT. That's interesting. And, you know, in the beginning when the Honda Insight came out and when the Prius came out, a lot of people were really downing those cars because they weren't so quick off the line.

Now, they're not meant to be race cars. But that's improved, too, the acceleration from zero to 60s also improved. Yep. Over time. And we're seeing other improvements, too. I keep going on about emissions and fuel economy, and that's one of the most important things. But, of course, you know, you've got to make a car, even an electric car, has got to be efficient with its power source because that's, you know, that's what gets you around. So a car that can make the most efficient use of that electrical battery.

is going to be the winner in the long run, in my opinion. There's a reason why all those muscle cars aren't out there anymore. Yeah, well, I'm not really into those. They look pretty, but that's about it. I'm not, you know. And the fuel economy in a muscle car, well, it's, what, 19 miles to the gallon, if you're fortunate, no, thank you. It looks pretty, but no.

Try more like nine on some of them. Oh, yeah, that's even worse. that's even worse. Yeah. Okay, and another question I have, on-board diagnostics. On board diagnostics one, we've had that in older cars, an onboard diagnostics, two. Is there an onboard diagnostics three that's come out yet? Technically, OBD3 has not really come out because the second version, the OBD2, has been pretty much bullet-prone.

and they've been able to keep expanding it to where they haven't had to redesign a whole new system. The original OBD onboard diagnostic system was for the very first electronic systems on cars, and that started in the 80s and pretty much was phased out by about 91 to 92 when OBD2 came out. Hey, can I jump in here because I'm stupid, and I'm sitting here listening to two auto engineers. And unfortunately, about 99% of our audience has no idea what either one on you are talking about. I am so guilty of that. So what I want to know is OBD1, was that when you smelled smoke? That means you had a problem.

And then OBD2. And OBD2 was when the fire came out. I'm joking here. But on board diagnostic, what I know now is that there are indicator lights that tell you, which I've always thought was stupid, that when your check engine light comes on, you've got to bring it in, and there's about 150 different things that can be wrong,

but they don't tell you anything about that. It can be your gas cap is loose, or it could be that you have a serious problem that your engine could be in danger of exploding. So I was hoping that there'd be an OBDD, oh, B, D, excuse me, OBD, that would say, your gas cap is loose. And then one would say,

pull over to the side of the road immediately and call the fire department. Because you're about ready to have your interview. That would be a great one. So there should be some sort of a specific indicator. You know what? In a perfect world. Yes.

I would say in a perfect world, that's how it would be. You should design the next onboard diagnostic. Oh, thank you. It should be your job. Well, the interesting part, the interesting part is, as I mentioned, how OBD2 has been evolving over the years, when OBD1 first came out, that's when we first got that check engine light. Before that, we didn't even have it.

because there was no need for that light. Well, OBD2, and on the original OBD1, you had to actually jump wires in order to figure out what the code and what it was trying to tell you, and there were only a handful of codes. So this is mainly an aid to the technician, not to the customer. All the customer knows is, I got a red light, and I'm scared to death. Please help me.

And then they come running into a cardio ship, and then they lie to them and say, they know their gas gap is loose, but they sell them a $600 repair. and they're never the wiser. So is OBD3? Is that, what benefits the customer, the person driving the car, or is it just something can make easier for the technician to diagnose the problem? Well, here's the new side of it.

The latest evolutions for OBD2 actually have it to where your car can send you a text message on your phone saying, check your gas cap. That's handy. Saying you may have this issue, you have this code. And it also sends that information not only to you, but to your dealership as well, the dealership you have selected. So if your car has an issue, that dealership can suddenly call you and say, hey, you know, we're seeing this code signing up on your car. There may be an issue that you need to come see us. Or they could simply call and say, hey, you know, we've seen this code.

Check your gas cap and make sure you didn't accidentally leave the gas cap off or forget to tighten it all the way. Well, the car dealers must not like that because they can't sell somebody new brakes when they don't need them. Yeah. That's right. Again, it's the evolution of the job. Hey, Tina, I really love this YouTube site. You brought our audience's attention to. Engineering Explained. It's got great graphics, and it really explains very complex automotive issues in a very simplistic way. So really, thanks again. I know you brought this audience several different YouTube sites to our attention. So really appreciate you out there, you know, scoping. out the YouTube videos for our audience. So it's a great site. Engineering Explained if people want to know how complex automotive processes work with some great graphics. Maybe we won't need Rick anymore. We can just shoot Engineering Explained. I'm only kidding, Rick. That's okay. Yes. As far as the date that OBD1 kind of went out, I used to have a 19, oh, I love this

car. It almost makes me sad to talk about it. But I had a 19, 995, for 18 years. I actually wore the steering wheel out on that car. That's how long I had it. But it was OBD1. And one of the reasons why that particular generation was so desirable was because there's like a whole legion of people that like to modify those cars. And it was actually easier to put a turbo on that car than it was to put a turbo on an OBD2 because there was less tuning. You can pretty much plug and play with it. So I never did that, though, because I had a I have a lead foot anyway. The last thing I need is more power.

Oh, really? I love that Miata. I really love it. Oh, nice guy. I would, if I ever save up enough money, I want a second one. But the problem is with that generation of Miata, if they're in good shape, they're getting to be worth more money now. They're getting to be worth, like, between $5,000 and $7,000.

And I think in the next couple years, you won't be able to find a good one for less than $10,000. They really are appreciating value. Yeah, exactly. It's just like the Celica that I enjoyed driving. Oh, those are great, too. And you have, you know, the Salara. There's a lot of cars out there that are really worth a whole lot of money because you can't, they don't make them anymore.

Tina, thank you so much for the phone call. We enjoy talking to you. And you always give us so much information. So spread the word on us. Oh, I certainly will. Give us a call again. thank you guys have a great morning thank you Tina thanks for calling in have a great weekend give us a call toll free it does 877 960 9960 or you can give us a call you can text us at 772

4976530 oh we finally have a man calling okay it's been an interesting morning with three ladies welcome to the show Howard Howard is one of our regular callers how you doing fine thank you good morning how are you doing by the way well we're great a wonderful day today you gave a lot of

you gave a lot of information and I really appreciated and I have a very important question to ask you okay can you hear me yes hear you loud and clear Howard okay good

all right a friend of mine who's by the way listening has a 2006 Accura. He has a lot of mileage on it. I think it's $250,000 or something like it. And he has two problems. Problem number one, he has a parasitic drain. And if he doesn't drive the car, at least every other day, it doesn't start.

That's one problem. Okay. Next problem, I'm questioning the airbag. The 2006 Accura, I believe, has a Ticata airbag. Is that correct? Probably does, I would say. Rick's checking it right now, but most Hondas have the Ticada. Yeah, Acura, I would say you're probably about a 95% chance that it's got the Ticada airbag.

But I'm double checking on the safer. I'm actually going right now to www. safercar.gov and this is the site that the NHTSA uses this tells them what cars are listed under this recall and I'm seeing let's see do you know what model of accurate it is yeah well he'll get on the phone it's here by the way okay I'm gonna put him on the phone okay yeah it's it 2006, it's a 2006 Accura T.L. TL. Okay.

According to this, now this is www. www.safercar.gov, the Accura TL, the 2002 to 2003, Accura 3.2TL, and the 2009 to 2014 AccuraTL are both listed. The 06 Accura TL is not. on this list right now. However, that's not to mean that it may not show up there within the next few months or something. So it's something you're going to want to check that website every so often just to be sure of what's going on. Make sure your car doesn't suddenly show up on there. Okay. Could you say that website again? I'll write it down.

Yep. It is www.safercar.gov. of. Okay. That's great. And then the parasitic drain that Howard mentioned, it's happened twice to me with new batteries. If I didn't drive the car for a cup, for a week or 10 days, the battery was totally dead. Right. I said that the cell went bad and wouldn't replace the battery because it was totally drained. I have no idea why the battery would, you know, go dead, especially on a year old battery. It just happened a month ago on a year old battery. Right. Well, basically what's happening is when you turn your car off, most of the systems, 95% of the electrical systems are supposed to shut off. But there are a couple of systems that are going to keep drawing just

little bits of power just to keep alive the memory for the computer, the radio, and a couple of the systems that you might have active. What happens is sometimes a relay may get stuck on, there may be a short circuit somewhere, and a system doesn't shut all the way down, so it's still drawing electrical power, and it's more than that battery can handle when it's sitting still for a length of time like that. Now, what's going to have to happen is you'll have to get it to a mechanic and he'll have to actually hook up an ammeter in line to read the current draw across that battery and if it's above a certain specification then he's going to actually have to start pulling fuses until he determines which circuit is still pulling power when it shouldn't be

it's a process that can take several hours to figure out what's going on and and why one system is staying operative when it shouldn't. So it's something you're going to want to find a good mechanic that you can trust and get a basic estimate from them at the beginning. Rick, there's no diagnostic information. In other words, this sounds like an old-fashioned way to solve the problem. You think with all the computers we have in cars now, even on a 2006, Accura, there would be something you could plug into the diagnostic that would say,

you've got to drain here, you've got a drain there. I mean... Well, unfortunately, I wish it existed because it makes my job a lot easier. When you said several hours, you've got my attention because car dealers are talking, the labor rates now are around $100 an hour.

So you're saying, you might be better off just to go out and buy a bunch of batteries because you're... Yeah, I was thinking that might sound. You're going to go in there and the guy's going to give you $500, then he might say, I can't find it.

I'm sorry, or he might have the wrong one. He might say, I fixed it, but I can't be sure. I have a question for Rick. Can't you just go out and purchase a parasitic drain tester? Is it that difficult for the consumer to do that on their car? This is something the average person is not going to want to try to do as a shade tree thing, because basically what you've got to do is eliminate all the circuits that are not drawing power

until you find the one that is continuing to stay on and draw electricity through that system. I notice that you can go to Amazon and you can pick yourself up the... Well, they have little testers, but they don't narrow enough for you. I'll make a recommendation. I would take it to a service area, ideally a Honda dealer, but if you have a good reliable technician somewhere that you know, take it to a reliable technician somewhere, and state your problem up front and get an estimate of what it's going to take.

And if they give you an estimate, they're required by Florida law to stay within 10% of that estimate. Do not give them a blank check, which is what you do when you say, see if you can figure out what's wrong here, because there will be a diagnostic charge. You might even find out, can you do a diagnosis for me at no charge? They'll probably say no, but you never know until you ask. But it scares me to death what Rick said,

that it could take several hours because you're going to be paying, you could be paying $1,000 to $1,000. find out what this leak is and I that would sound crazy to me I'd shop around and if someone says I'll check this for you for a hundred bucks that sounds to me like a bargain and then say okay I'll pay the hundred bucks but if you don't fix it then I'm not going to pay you the hundred bucks I'll pay you the hundred bucks to find out what's wrong but that's got to include fixing it that would be my advice okay I'm wondering if I've also had a very unusual problem. About a year ago, I had left my car at a parking lot when I flew out. And when I

came back, I could not shift the car. The shifting lever would not move. So the parking lock attendant opened a little dot near this thing and depressed the lever, and I was able to shift the car and get it home. I brought it to my mechanic. At the same time, by the way, the horn didn't work. And I can't remember one other thing didn't work in the car, and it turned out that he found that it was a fuse that controlled both the horn, another part of the car, and the shifting mechanism. He replaced the fuse, and it worked fine. And then a year later, I encountered the same problem. The same fuse went out. First, I'm wondering if that's a very unusual problem.

And second, I'm wondering if maybe that fuse could be the issue. with the battery? Well, right off the bat, the moment someone says that they fixed a car by replacing a fuse, it throws a red flag up in my vision like you wouldn't believe, because a fuse is simply a little piece of wire that is designed to protect the electrical circuit so that, say if a light bulb or the horn or something were to short out and draw too much electric current, that fuse is supposed to burn out in order to protect the wiring system from getting too much power through it and overheating and burning up. So a fuse never ever will cause a problem because the fuse is simply the safety circuit. Something else happened

that caused that fuse to blow. Well, I'm a layman here, Rick. So if a fuse burned out, there's a function in the vehicle that will no longer perform. What if a, what if a, What if you had a defective fuse that burned out to protect a device and the fuse burned out and the device wasn't working? If you replace the fuse with a good fuse and the device worked, then everything would work, right? I find that to be a one in a billion situation because fuses, like I say, all it is is just a simple piece of wire. Well, my TV set goes off and I go out in the garage and I see the circuit breaker flipped and I turn it back on and my TV set goes back on. My TV set's working because there was no electricity. getting to the TV set. But why did the circuit breaker trip is my question. Defective circuit

breaker, so I replaced it with a good one. All right, but a circuit breaker is a mechanical device. A fuse is just a simple piece of wire. Well, their defective fuse is just like they're defective circuit breakers. No, they're not. Fuses don't work that way. If a fuse burned out, it burned out for a reason. And there is some problem in that car that caused that fuse to blow. Okay. Let's not argue on the air here. But let's just go with what our suggestion is and see if you can get a bid on replacing,

on fixing that situation with your parasitic drain on the battery. The fact that the fuse burned out, and then it worked perfectly, the shift worked perfectly for a year, and then the fuse burned out again, I'm just wondering, wondering whether or not, if, as you say, the reason the fuse burned out is because there was too much, you know, electricity or whatever on that particular function, could that be the drain that's... Well, it's possible that they put the wrong fuse in. I suppose if you have a, you have to have a certain fuse of a certain size that will burn out at a certain spike in electricity, and if you put in too heavy a fuse or too light of fuse, that could be a problem there. yeah it worked though for a year perfectly fine I would say you've got some component in that car that has an intermittent issue

and when when everything is just right that component is causing that fuse to blow and yes that could definitely be the component that is causing that amperd straw that parasitic draw I've seen such simple things as a water leak a tiny tiny little water leak getting past a seal or past a windshield, and that little bit of water gets into some circuits, and that can intermittently cause a fuse to blow or cause that part to go bad,

but it only acts up just very seldom once in a while. I've got the solution to the problem, and we've got other callers we've got to get to. I'm going to make you a special offer. You bring your car in. It's a little bit of drive from Martin County. Bring it in to my dealership, and we will take a look at it. We'll diagnose it at no charge, and we will tell you the problem, and we'll give you a price if we have to do a repair on it. But because you've got such an interesting, complicated problem, I'd like to make this a project.

And can you do that? I can certainly do that. Thank you. What is your first name? Cy. Oh, you're Cy. Okay. Well, I have to take a minute and say that you've got a great friend, because I think Howard called last week about

a friend. I don't know whether you're the same person or not. I may be, but Howard is right here with me. Yes, that's right. I will, I'm here. Yeah, yeah. I was just telling Psi that he has a great friend, Howard, because you called last week

and you were talking about, you know, some problems with a vehicle. I wasn't sure whether it was the accurate or not. It was the accurate. It was the accurate. Howard, I want to take a moment and thank you for listening to Earl Stewart on cars. And bringing your friend in

on all of this. I'm going to bring him in. Yeah. So I think... I'm going to force him in. I'm grabbing him and putting him in my car. As long as the fuse doesn't blow before I get this. There you go. He's driving a Toyota. Toyota's no problem. There you go. You guys do.

Hey, listen, thanks for calling and thanks for listening, Howard and Psy. And look forward to seeing you at the dealership. We'll take a look at that parasitic drain problem. Okay, doke. Bye. All right. A couple of great calls. Give us a call toll-free.

If you'd like to share any of your stories of, you know, your engine, sales, lease, whatever, 772-497-6530. That is our text number. And you can give us a call at 877-9-60-99-60, and you can talk to any one of us. We are going to go to John, who's calling from Palm City, and he's a regular caller also. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. My comment is last week's shopping report, public traded corporation, auto nation, thanks to this show and the exposure of dealer shopping to them. That's three strikes, if anybody's keeping the score.

Our first strike, we exposed them that they, one time they didn't have a deal of fee, we pointed out later on. that they changed the policy and how to deal the fee. Second thing is selling cars at one time they wouldn't sell cars that had recalls on it. Thanks to this show, we showed that they are and were selling cars that had recalls. And now thanks to last week and outright misleading ads and fooling the public. This is really a shame because this is similar to like the Wells Fargo situation, a public corporation, publicly traded stock, and they put profit and stockholders first beyond anything else.

At one time, they had good policies. It was a well-organized dealership, number one, in the United States. And now, as I say, there's three full strikes against this dealership, and I don't know what it takes to have them shape up, whether it's Michael Jackson, the CEO, whatever it takes, but maybe stockholders themselves or the public can file a complaint and maybe they can turn them around. But it's a shame, and thanks to this show, they exposed the dealership. Thank you, John.

Just for the record, what we exposed last week was the fact that they did not even disclose by Florida law. You're supposed to disclose your dealer fee when you advertise a price on a car. And they did not even disclose a dealer fee in the fine print. Fine print is a terribly inadequate way to disclose anything. It's not a disclosure at all. And they didn't even go bother to put their dealer fee in the fine print. And when our shopper went in, they added their dealer fee, which is a direct violation of Florida law.

And I accused AutoNation of breaking the law, committing an illegal act. I haven't got served with any papers yet from Auto Nation about sued for libel or slander. So I guess maybe I'm telling the truth. well we sure hope that they change their policy and a large corporation like that it's dealing with the public it's just a shame that so many violations exist with them and to be specific there's 250 plus

auto nation stores the store we're talking about was auto nation Chevrolet and green acres and I don't want to accuse all 250 auto nation stores of committing illegal acts but the TV advertisement for Auto Nation Chevrolet and Lake Green Acres Lake Worth area was an illegal advertisement. You're correct, but I want to ask you another question.

The second thing, too, these cars that exist with Takata bag recalls, that they can't get the parts, and we know it's probably never going to be, there's nobody ever going to make them. Do you ever visualize a campaign similar to something like cash for clunkers that dealers or corporations will buy up these recall cars? That's a tremendous idea. I mean, do you think there's anything like that as possible? I don't know what they would do it, or maybe they were able to fix them,

or another company would, you know, supply the parts that it needed. But it's a very serious problem because there's many cars out there, and I'm sure you're holding some of them, that will never, never be repaired. We have over 100 cars frozen there. It's very expensive for me. The cars are depreciating, but we keep them in a storage lot, and we don't sell them. Most car dealers are selling. In fact, all car dealers, as far as I know, I don't know anyone that's holding the cars.

As you said earlier, John, Auto Nation used to hold these cars, and then they just started wholesaling them. Yeah, I like your cash for clunker's idea. Unfortunately, that would require political courage, and we have no political courage anywhere in the United States today. Both parties are out for one thing, which is to get say things to that we'll get them reelected to their base, Democrats, independents, Republicans. there's no one out there that really cares about the consumer, and I won't say there's no one. There are probably a few honest politicians are. The problem with an honest politician is they won't get elected, reelected.

And survival is the most important instinct we have. Man needs to survive. That's embedded in our brains, and we do anything to survive. Politicians will do anything to survive, which means reelected. And if they came out against the auto manufacturers and the auto dealers, and said, we're going to have a cash for clunkers campaign, bring your car in with a defective airbag that cannot be repaired because the inflator is not available,

and scrap it will reimburse you, basically, to buy another car, which is what the cash for clunkers program was. That would solve the problem, and it's a great idea, but as I say, our politicians, the vast majority of our politicians, on both sides of the aisle, haven't got the courage to do that. That's true, the public, the politicians will only admit that this exists in the same way many of the dealers. They avoid

the problem whatsoever. They don't want to talk about it. They don't want to talk about it. To the public that they're selling these cars. You get something like this bridge falling down in Miami and who can criticize a politician for railing about the bridge. We'll go after the builder of the bridge.

Terrible, terrible thing they did. Anything they know they have strong support from their core primarily and from everybody, they'll go out after. But when they something like it's going to be attack on car dealers or car manufacturers, the lobbying effort is so strong they can't afford to do it. It's like the NRA, you know, the gun control. No one's going to go after the NRA, and if they do, they don't get reelected.

And nobody's going to go after the auto manufacturers or the car dealers or else they won't get reelected. Right. I'm going to hang up and I'm anxious to hear the shopping report. Thanks so much, John. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Earl Stewart on Cars. If listeners want to see the YouTube video on AutoNation Chevrolet Mystery Shop, you can go to YouTube.com slash earl on cars. If you would like to share one of your stories with us, we'd love to talk with you.

The number is 877960, or you can text us if you're a little shy at 772-497-60. And I see where we have a couple of texts. A lot of texts are they're backing up on us here. I apologize for not getting to them sooner. Is that right? Here we've got one. Ladies, the text is, no, that's from Tina. Yeah, I guess that is from Tina.

Right, that was Tina. That was Tina, yeah. Tina. Ladies should regard buying a car like going into mediation with their ex-wife. If you do not get the deal you want, consider it a no-agreement-reach situation and walk out. I like that. Well, Tina, that is certainly something different. That's a different approach.

Divorce your car dealer. Quote from Chairlady Tina. Consider buying a car like going in a mediation with her ex-husband. I love that. Okay. Now, this is another text here that says, I mean, I got one here. Oh, I got before Tina. This is from Deborah.

I'm getting ready for work, so I don't have time to call. My credit was destroyed several years ago. My credit score is now on the high 500s, low 600s, and I need to get into a better car. How do you recommend I proceed? A lot of people in that boat, a lot of people in that boat, Deborah. And first, let me say, high 500s and low 600s is not as bad credit as you might think. There was a time when that was a difficult beacon score or FICA score to get approved credit on.

It isn't today. You can get conventional financing, and I stress conventional through a bank or a lien, from a Honda, Toyota, General Motors, you can get reasonable interest rates with a 5 or 600 beacon score. Now, you have to be careful that you go to a dealer that understands that. People will try to make you think you have bad credit with a 5 or 600 beacon score so they can take advantage of you, charge you higher exorbitant interest rates, even charge you a special rate to get finance, and puts you in a car that you don't really want to.

to buy people with low with the perceived to be low beacon scores are often taken advantage of so if you if you do feel like you have low scores always try the conventional financing first go to your credit union go to your bank uh put your cards on the table tell them the truth about your credit situation and you would be surprised how you how you can get reasonable financing if you go to one of these sharks out there the buy here pay here lots and some these other people that are advertising for people with bad credit, you'll end up paying 18, 19%. Someone with a 5 or 600 beacon, you should be able to get 8 or 9% financing.

Now, that's a lot of, that's a high interest rate because good credit can be 2%. But don't even consider 14, 15, 16% if you think you have a bad credit. Maybe you have credit that bad, but you probably don't. Next. This is from Anne-Marie. Okay, from Anne-Marie. Considering how fast computers and software change and become obsolete, I was wondering if you know whether the car companies will continue to support

and update the software in their cars for the next 15, 20 or 30 years, for example, will I be able to drive my 2013 Camry as an antique car? Right, and she says that she likes to keep her cars for 10 to 15 years. 10 to 15 years. I would say yes. I mean, that's a great question, and I'm not going to give you a blanket yes. I do know that car manufacturers are required by law to keep parts available for a car, and I'm going to have to shoot from the hip on this.

Rick says 10 years. I think it's longer than that. But there is a law that requires that manufacturers have current. parts available for cars for a period of time. The same thing will apply to software, and that's something that I'll try to get the answer for you that Ann Marie. We'll Google it, and

I'll be sure about the 10 years that Rick says on parts, and I'll try to get you a number on software. Something like Bluetooth, I mean, that's pretty, that hasn't changed a lot in the last 10 years. No, not really. The interesting thing about parts is

a 2013 car, if the part, that is needed on that car is still in use for a 2018 car, then that part has to be available all the way through 2008. So that 10 years is kind of flexible. It's 10 years from the last time that that part was actually used. All cars or just Toyota? That's all cars. The government says it has to be 10 years from the last time that that part was used in that car. Oh, so it's longer than 10 years. Right. It's a flexible number. But if all I'm saying it's like say if your 2013 had a part that was never used again then the government

requires that it's available up through 2023 so if you had a 2018 car and you you kept that car for 20 years and the part had been used a week ago then so theoretically you i understand yeah so yeah the reason i was skeptical about the 10 years is that i was a fiat deal back in the 80s and Fiat left the country at the time they came back about 10 years or five years ago so they left the country and I had Fiat's I sold a lot of Fiat's a good reason too and we my parts department was told that they would supply parts for longer than 10 years and I can't remember the exact number so the law probably changed so we'll find out well I want to thank Tina and Deborah and Ann Marie for their techs and for you folks

there who didn't jot that number down if you'd like to give us a call it's 877 960 960 877 960 and of course the text number is 772 4976530 and I am ready for an autonomous car yeah she's you know we've got we had a little thing we want to do and we're getting so many calls and text we having a chance to get to it we'll try to get to it sure and we've got we we we have a little thing we want to do and we've got we we we have a little thing we want to do and we're getting so many calls and text we've got uh we we we we we we we Actually, Jonathan came up with this idea, a very cool idea, is that back in the day, and I'm 77 years old, and I really had some really cool songs. I loved when I was a teenager in my 20s, and there were a lot of car songs back in those days. One of them was Little Deuce Coupe. I remember my 409, she sure is fine, and Mabelene,

and there's a whole bunch of them. So if you play one of these songs and listen to it, if you're a 60s and 70s fan, there's a lot of interesting terminus. and referral to parts on cars and things that some people remember, some people don't remember. So let's do a little contest out there. Rick knows all these parts. He's a car guy, and he'll be our expert.

But we're going to play this a little deuce coop on the air, and listen carefully, and they're going to be certain things. They're going to be talking about things. There'll be a flat-head mill imported and relieved, and she stroked and bored, and lake pipes, and... pink slip and things like that. Right. Keep your ears, listen to that, listen to the song, and then the first people to call in

with the answer to these different terms, we'll pay them 50 bucks. Well, you know, I thought this is really appropriate because this is an oldies channel. Oldies channel, exactly, yeah. And, you know, within it comes to a little Deuce Coop. It's a song that I'm sure a lot of listeners have heard hundreds of times. Yeah. And the lyrics kind of go through you. You're listening to the melody most of the time.

Yeah. And you don't really think about the words. but Deuce Coop, I believe, refers to a 1932 Chevrolet? No. No? 32 Ford. Okay, great. Well, yeah, let's play Cut One.

And we're going to jump into the song here right in kind of the middle. I'm not going to play it from the beginning. But this is right where they get into the technical or at least the component parts of this little Deuce Coop. So let's play Cut One. No? We have that? Okay. Okay, we tried, and I'm not going to sing it to you.

All right. The terminology is interesting. I'll read it to you. We've got the words printed. I'll read this to you. And maybe we'll figure out in the control room how to play the song. Okay, here we go. Just a little deuce coop with a flathead mill, but she'll walk a thunderbird like she's standing still.

She's ported and relieved, and she's stroked and bored. She'll do 140 with a top-in floor. She's my little do scoop, you don't know what I got. My little do scoop, you don't know what I got. She's got a competition clutch with a four on the floor, and she pursed like a kitten till the lake pipes roar. And if that ain't enough to make you flip your lid, there's one more thing. I got the peak slip, Daddy. How's that?

Love it. So I thought, you know. That was like a rap, wasn't it? That's right. Yeah, yeah, you could supplement your income. Excuse me, guys. Listeners, give us a call, 772. Well, that's the text number, 772 if you're bashful.

427-6530, and you can call us at 877-960-960. All right, well, you know, that term, Flathead Mill, I mean, I've heard a lot, but I thought, you know, maybe if either a listener knows or Rick wants to jump in and give his perspective. Well, we'll give the listeners a chance. Okay, yep. But maybe you want to talk. I know these terms well, because I grew up playing with a lot of old cars. Right. And I was hooked up with.

to club for a while, so there was a lot of information there. We're going to take our next call, or our lines are lighting up. Bob is giving us a call from Lake Park. Good morning, Bob. Good morning. Happy St. Patty's Day.

Thank you. Same to you. Happy St. Patty's Day. I had a follow-up. I called you a week ago Saturday about my experience with your friendly Ford dealer down the street. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, remember that, definitely. My friend was over there, and I was telling you what a horrible experience she had. After I had my conversation with you two weeks ago, what I did was I went and I put the hood up and I checked the dipstick, and I found that they not only overcharged me for the service, which they call the works. so, but they also did not fill the crank case up all the way. So it was a little bit more than just not cleaning the battery cable and over-inflating the tires and overcharging me. They also didn't put the full amount of oil in the crankcase.

They didn't do anything right. And I tried to see the service manager, but of course he was on his computer and he said, well, I'm going to be 15 or 10. 20 minutes. So I said, well, what's the name of the general manager? And he told me, and I went over to try to find him. And he wasn't there. He doesn't come in until like 1, 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I only sticking around for a couple hours. This was in the morning. So Scott Nicholas is his name. Scott Nicholas? The general manager's name is Scott Nicholas? Yeah, no relation to Jack.

Yeah, he's also part of the ownership group. Oh, is that right? Wow. So the only comes in for a couple hours around 1 o'clock. That's interesting. Yeah. So the service manager, Susie heard I was going over to the find the GM. All of a sudden he got off the computer and came out.

Good for you. Yeah. And I showed it to him. You know, he wanted to see it. they pulled it off, he saw it, he saw it, he went back there, he took care of it, and then I said to him, I said, well, how come they didn't put all the, I said, when I checked the dipstick, it was only coming up halfway through the hash mark indicator, and he says, well, that's in range.

I was wondering if you knew what that meant, because all the years that I worked on cars. Huh? What do you say, Rick? That's one of those things that they like to pull that term out, but basically what that hash mark range means is when your engine is cold, when it's been sitting for about an hour or more, the oil should be at least, in my opinion, it should be leased up in that hash mark range. But if you are driving that car for within the last 30, 20 or 30 minutes, that oil should be up near that top line right at the line.

and the only reason that they give you that little range area is because obviously as the oil gets hotter it's going to expand in size just a little bit it's going to it's going to take up a little more space and as it cools down it's going to contract a little bit same thing with coolant and the radiator so you know those levels are going to change just little bits at a time but that's why they always say when you check your oil it should be cooled down and your car should be sitting on a flat surface perfectly level so you know you're getting an accurate reading on that oil level right like I said I worked on cars my whole life so I've changed oil before and I know how I know the routine and I you know every time I've ever changed the oil the oil always come up in the end of the hash mark

and that would be after after running it so he told me he put he put another half a quart a little over half a quart back in there he says because it was uh it wasn't full and then I said I got the name of the kid that worked on my car, and I appreciate it if he didn't touch on my car anymore when they come in. And he says, well, everybody has a bad day. This was his answer to the whole thing. But it was just a, it wasn't just one thing. It was a number of things. Yeah, definitely.

Well, Bob, thank you so much. You really, you're a value to this show. You had a problem, and you expressed your problem. You went back to the Cardiola Ship, McCulley, Ford, by the. the way on North Lake Boulevard. I remember encouraging you to talk to someone up the ladder. Unfortunately, the guy up the ladder doesn't spend too much time in the dealership. So there's a lot of information coming out about McCulley Ford. The lesson learned really is when you do go up the ladder, it might be aggravation,

it might be a lot of trouble, but you're probably going to get your problem resolved, although it's not going to happen as quickly as you hoped it would have been. But don't give up. When you have a problem, I'm really unhappy with the way he made the excuse by saying that everybody has a bad day. That's not a very good thing to say to a customer. It's not very smart to say to a customer. But nevertheless, here's a car deal that's on our recommended list, McCulley, Ford, North Lake Boulevard, North Palm Beach.

And they really did a poor job with Bob on his car. Multiple problems. Not enough oil. they overfilled his tires, overinflated his tires. What was the other thing, Bob, the oil, the tires, and there was a third thing. They didn't clean the battery cables, you were all corroded. Arguably the worst thing.

They were all corroded. They didn't clean them and said they checked the battery. So I did a poor job. They've got an employee there. They're probably either needs to be retrained or replaced. And I hope they do that. And I'm not trying to pick on the young man that did it. The starting point for people, when they could work as a mechanic and a cardiolorship, Rick might have even started out that way a long time ago, is when you're changing oil, you're rotating and balancing tires, and you're checking tires and things of this nature.

So these kids are new on the job. They should have, it should be an apprentice position with a trained mechanic overseeing and checking their work. And this must not have been the case of McCleigh Ford. But thank you so much for calling in, Bob. And I'm glad you finally got it resolved. sorry you had to go so much trouble. Yeah, the problem was having to go back there three or four times to resolve something, which is, you know, my time is valuable to me.

Exactly. And, you know, the service manager had lied to me on a previous, the car had originally been brought in to replace the driver's side seat cover, which was under warranty. And when they put it in there, I wanted them to bring it around the block to the kid that specializes in seat covers, but they want to do it in-house. And they said the guy that does it, he does the A-Cs.

So he put it in there, and they gave me a Ford F-150 to drive, which was filthy. But I didn't say anything. I brought it back. I picked the car up, and the seat cover had all these creases in it. And when I asked them about it, he says, well, it comes folded up in the box. He says, you leave it in the car for three weeks, and the heat, well, The creases will come out. So I said, well, that's great.

So now I waited three weeks. Nothing happened. The seat cover still looked like terrible. And so I go back, and this time, they ordered another part, and that's when I asked them to do the other service, because they were going to have the car all day anyway. I told them to do the works because they were going to have the cough of the seat cover. And that's how it. But, you know, it's just one thing after the other with these people. and the service manager, he lied to me

because when I put the call back and he says, oh, no, he says it's the stitching on the seat. I said, why don't you tell me that the first time? I mean, why do you tell me it's creased in the box? I mean, it's just ridiculous. Well, Bob, I'm going to give you a suggestion. I'm not

going to defend McCulley Ford anymore because the more I ask the worst of service department sounds. Try Wayne Acres Ford. It's a long drive there in Lake Worth. Wayne Acres Ford, I know the owner. His name is Les Acres, he's a friend of mine. He, unfortunately, lives in Tallahassee.

He has a toilet dealership up there, but he owns Wayne Acres Ford. Take it down to Wayne Acres for service, and if you have a problem, I'll call Les Acres on his cell phone and tell him about it. He'll call the manager of Wayne Acres Ford, and he'll jump all over him. So we'll get you good service at Wayne Acres Ford. Forget about McCulley. Yeah, well, you mean Mullinx. Mullinx, I'm sorry. McCulley, I flashback at time 40 years.

McCulley was a preceder to Mullinick's. Yeah, Mullinckx Ford, forget about them, and take it to Wayne Inacford and Lake Worth. Okay. That must have been before Bed Smith, huh? Well, yeah, McCulley, McCulley, Beth Smith. Yeah, Beth Smith was the first, I think, and then McCulley followed him and then Mullinix.

Right. I've been around too long. Okay, Bob. You know, it was great talking to you, and stay in touch. Let us know how things went. If you went over there, Wayne Acres, that number is 877-960, or you can text us 772-497-6530. We have another caller. Charlie's calling from Stewart.

Welcome to the show, Charlie. Thank you very much. I have an answer to the flathead mill. Ah, four on the floor. Great. Go ahead. Love to hear it. I had a 52-flood V8 flat-head mill, and the plugs are all in the floor.

top and valve covers, they're not there. They're all a bunch of bolts on the top. You can take the spark plugs right off. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. And I actually had a four and a floor that I had somebody put in. But it was four speed on the floor, four shifts. It was great. Is he right, Rick? Fifty two forward. He is correct. Congratulations. Congratulations. You'll want 50 bucks. That's great. I could use it. And Charlie, if you stay on On the line, you can give us your contact information, and I'll get that checkout to you. All right. That would be great.

Thank you very much. Okay, Charlie. Thanks for being part of the show. Yep. Okay, it's a great show. I listen to it every Saturday. Oh, thank you so much. Spread the word.

Okay. Okay. Okay, Will. All right. Have a great weekend. Okay. You want to explain what the purpose of the flathead mill? Well, the flathead mill, the mill, of course, is just a term, meaning the engine.

But the flathead means that the cylinder heads, the valves were actually mounted in the engine block itself, not in the cylinder head. So that was where the term came from for flathead. And the four on the floor that's mentioned later in the song is the gear shifter was down on the floor and not up on the column like so many others and a four speed on the floor. And of course that flathead V8 mill was the 32 Ford was the little dues coop, one of the first ones to get it, and they were a rocket ship. Interesting.

And the lake pipes, those were those mellow roaring we used to love back in the day that made too much noise like a motorcycle? They were, but the lake pipes were the interesting term for that was the pipes actually ran outside of the car. Those big chrome exhaust pipes ran down both sides of the car. That was called the lake pipes instead of having the exhaust up underneath the body of the car. And when it says ported, relieved, and stroked and board. Now, those were engine terms. The valves were ported and the chambers, the valve, the openings going to the valves where it would send the air and fuel into the cylinders would be opened up a little bit, they'd grind them out a little bit. And that's ported and relieved.

And stroked and board means the stroke, they would actually put a little bit longer. crank shaft rod in it and it would actually increase the stroke of the engine, how far the piston moved, and the bore, they would increase the size of the piston and the size of the opening in the engine, the bore that ran in.

So instead of having the same cubic inch, it would actually be a bigger engine. Yeah, more horsepower. These were all custom things they would do on these engines in these shops and make these things turn into just absolute rockets. Okay, I think we've got to get to the mystery shopping report. We only got 20 minutes left. What do you think?

I think that's a great idea. That mystery shopping report is from Greco Mazda of Delray Beach. Listen closely. Oh, Grico is one of our favorite families of dealerships to target. And it isn't personal. I don't dislike the Gricos at all. It's just that based on our numerous mystery shops over the years, the Griko dealerships, and they haven't been down here that many years, I'd say six or seven.

But since they've come down, they just have some of the worst shopping reports. Along with the Naples dealerships, they just seem to stay. strike out. We have no Greco or Napleton dealerships on our recommended dealer list. This week's shop brings us to Greco Mazda in Del Rey. They used to have a Mazda dealership in North Palm Beach, but they sold that. And we continued our theme, anatomy of a car dealer advertisement. And this is where we go out and find a too good to be true ad and see if it is too good to be true. We came across this commercial that was offering TV commercial that was offering and what appeared to be an amazing deal.

A new 2018 Mazda 3 or CX5 for only $139 per month. I mean, a new car for $139 per month. The ad begins with an enthusiastic announcer claiming that though Griko's great, through, Griko's great upgrade event, you can drive a new Mazda for only $139 a month. The voiceover then specifies the mom. models you can drive that price. A new 2018 Mazda C3 or a CX5.

The commercial ends with the Grico tagline, we'll save you thousands, we guarantee it. You've probably seen that. That's a young Griko that says that. So let's play and we'll listen to the ad in the entirety. We'll play it for you right now. New Mazda's just

139 a month. I think that's the promo offer. We have another one that's the full it's a new Mazda's just 139 a month it's Greco's great upgrade event at Greco Mazda upgrade to a new Mazda 3 or Mazda CX5 your choice

only 139 a month lease at Greco Mazda we'll save you thousands we guarantee it now what you can't see if you're listening at home is the appearance of some microscopic and I underlined microscopic print

that appears at the bottom of the commercial this print appears for two seconds two seconds that's right at the very beginning of the ad and again give you another two seconds about halfway through this of course

was the ads required disclosure which makes me angry in two ways that the dealers would do this and that the regulators would tolerate it because it's a violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act that any modification of the price or payment

has to be an equal emphasis and displayed alongside of the offer itself so it's a violation of of the law, and here we are. Continued. You would need to be a speed reader with supervision to catch and comprehend what it says in real time. After pausing the commercial and

zooming in, we can see the disclosure. And this is what we have to do. I mean, it takes a long time, by the way, to rewind and then try to freeze the frame. And this is what the fine print says, which nobody is... You're the first to know what it says. Nobody else knows what it says.

Ryan Prince says, plus tax, title, and dealer fee. with approved credit. 36-month lease with zero security deposit and 15% off MSRP do its signing. 15% off the full sticker price to a sign. Those are my words. They just say 50% of MSRP.

10,000 miles per year. That's all the mileage you're allowed on this lease. All Mazda rebates and incentives to dealer expires at month in. Now, that's a fine print. Now, Mazda 3s have MSRPs that range in the low 20,000s, and CX-5s have MSRPs in the mid to high 20,000s. Since the disclosure states 15% due at signing, this would mean a down payment of $3,500 to get to the advertised payment. I'll just play the cut of $139 per month offer.

Upgrade to a new Mazda 3 or Mazda CX5. Your choice. Only 139 a month. That sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? 39 a month. It doesn't say anything else. We sent agency into the field to see what would happen. Okay, I'll speak in the first person as if I were agency.

I walked straight to the building in tenant finding out their advertisement of $139 per month on a Mazza C3 or CX5 lease was a real deal. I was greeted by Valentina. That's a pretty name. Valentina, a female salesperson. That's good. almost immediately. She introduced herself, asked me what brought me to Grieco Mazda, and proceeded to leave me to a small greeting table by the front of the door.

I let her know what I saw, that I had seen their $139 a month advertisement. I was curious about the details. We engaged in small talk for a few minutes, the usual qualifying questions that a salesperson would ask just to become more acquainted with the customer. I let her know that I would be leasing a car before the month end, but it would be for my wife. I also didn't have much time.

It was more concerned about the deal than anything else. My end game at Grico Mosso was to get the numbers. I wanted to see the specifics, the details, of the 2018 Mazza CX-5 for $139 per month. She quickly, Valentina, in an apologetic tone, said, zero down was not an option for a special like this. She didn't ask, what size down payment did I have in mind? I told her that I could afford $4,200 out of pocket. I assume that this should put me very close to the 15% down payment noted in the disclosure. At this point, she needed to ask the manager for specifics about the advertisements

since there were a few different ads in the store that were running. She returned after a few minutes for the paper and some numbers, and they went as follows. $4,200 down for a CX-5, that's the MSRP of $25,125, $36 months, 12,000 miles would be $216 per month. Now, that's not very close to $139, is it? I must have been missing something. Why couldn't we reach the promise 139? After asking her this question, she let me know that it's all in the fine print. No, it's like that's an excuse.

it's like that's an excuse and that she would write it out for me so she's going to write out the fine print in order to get to the advertised payment of 139 I would need and here we go $4,433 down payment $139

first payment $599 $595 acquisition fee that's a dealer fee from the lessor $900 tax payment, $300 tag cost, and then the dealer gets his little bit, too. That's a $799 deal fee.

Now, you add all that up, you really have a $7,176 down payment. So you got the down payment, and then you got the first payment, which they make part of the down payment, and then you take the $5.95 acquisition fee, the $900 tax, $300 tag cost, and $7.99, and you add all that up. So the $139 a month payment is $7,176 down payment. So here we are, a typical auto dealer TV commercial. The Greco disclosure is practically impossible, not practically. It is literally impossible to read and of no value to the viewers. And even if this one were able to read it by a miracle,

it didn't fully disclose all the money necessary to get the advertised payment. I have a feeling Grico Mazu will remain on our do not buy list, And, of course, to solidify that, we can have to take a vote here. But it's troubling to me, as I said earlier, that the regulators allow this to occur. It's a violation of truth. It's a violation of truth in lending. But it's also a violation of Federal Trade Commission, clear and conspicuous disclosure. You can have conditions in an advertisement, but they have to be clearly and conspicuously disclosed.

Definition of clear and conspicuous, they must disclose in the same font. same type size, tick size, is the offer. So if you have the payment at $139 and big, bold type, then you have to have the $7,176 down payment and clear and conspicuous type all alongside of the payment. And it's a violation federal trade commission rules, our regulators, Pam Bondi, and all the other regulators, the county office consumer affairs, a better business bureau, Department of Motor Vehicles, all of these agencies know this is going on, and they allow it.

So I hold them equally responsible to Griko Masta and all the other car dealers out here that are getting away with this. So we've got a little bit of time here to do with all. Jonathan, you're going to... Well, you know, Earl, this is about the fourth of these, you know, closer looks at these dealer ads that we've done now. And my hope is that, you know,

by raising the awareness of these types of ads with the general public, we will be invalidating this type of advertising going forward to dealers because there's a smaller and smaller subset of dealers that are doing this type of advertising. And I think if we can get people to especially see these on YouTube where you can freeze your screen and zoom in and use those types of techniques that will just eventually make this an obsolete way

of doing automobile advertising in the future for the industry. That's a great idea. And what Jonathan's talking about, this is a way we are able to learn the information. And you can go to car dealerships websites and you can actually view their TV commercials. They're putting them on. But the nice thing about doing it on your smartphone or your PC, you can freeze frame it. You can do a screenshot. You can stop it.

Then you can blow up the screen and you can see what the misleading facts of the N.R. And they all do. If there's fine print, there's something they don't want you to see. Right, right. And fewer and fewer dealers, as I'm noticing this each week, are doing this type of tactic. Yeah. So we're having an impact. I think so. I'd like to think so. I think we are, yeah.

And even the auto manufacturers at one time were guilty of this. And I have noticed that the auto manufacturers' ads on TV are almost all with clear conspicuous. When they do a lease payment, they'll do the down payment in Big Bowl type so you can see it. The irony about this whole thing with leasing, leasing at one time was a device, mainly for businesses, to have a low monthly payment, low cash out of pocket, and it was also a good thing for your balance sheet because you don't have a liability if you're a business.

You have a lease, you don't have a liability. It makes your balance sheet look better. And a lot of businesses opted for this, and they write the lease payment off, and that was what leases were all about. And then suddenly the car dealers jumped on the bandwike and said, you know, lease payments are low. They're much lower than the cost of buying when you finance the entire car because you're only paying for a part of the car. If you have a three-year lease and the car's got a life of 10 years, you're only getting 30% of the life of the car.

So they took the low payment and they made you believe you could drive the car without any cash out of pocket because that's what leases were all about for the payment. but I can tell you now if you see any lease ad on the television there will be a down payment I've never seen a lease advertised anywhere that didn't have a down payment and usually the down payments are not even

as this case here with Grico Masta they don't even give you the entire down payment you have the down payment then you have to come out of pocket for the tax the dealer fee the tag the registration the administrative fee and so by the time you add all that up you've got a double down payment

of what is disclosed. Absolutely. And I'm surprised they didn't focus on a stock number, meaning that there was only one car with that offer, which we did last week with AutoNation. That's another tactic that they seem to use frequently, and I think people are getting very savvy and aware of it. Very good point.

Very good point. The Florida law, speaking of stock numbers, is that you have to have an adequate supply of anything, cars, bread, TV sets. If you advertise a price, you have to have an adequate supply. line. Remember the old rain checks, give you a rain check? You've never seen a car dealer ad with a range check. The car dealers do it on purpose. And the way they get away with it and the regulators allow them to get away with it, they don't say clearly and conspicuously,

we only have one Honda Civic at this price. Now that's legal. What they do is they put in the fine print pound sign, hashtag 1765. A, B, C. And that's supposed to tell you that they only have one available at this price. That happens to be the stock number stamped on the car. You don't know that. Most people don't know that. And so when you read the, if you do redefine, Brent, you have no idea. And when you come in, say, I'm sorry we sold that car. Right. And I think we should also remind the listeners that all of your mystery shopping reports, I think, are 50 of them posted, are up on mystery shopping reports.com, reports in plural, if they ever want to go in and read the detail behind these

a great investigative reports. Very good. Mystery Shopping Reports.com. Yeah, reports, plural. And there are a lot of them at that site. So that's at your fingertips, ladies and gentlemen. As far as the mystery shopping report from Greco Mazdo of Del Rey Beach, so much deception and so unfortunate, you know, whenever you think about the consumer and what they're thinking whenever they walk in, $139.

That's your payment. How deceiving with everything else. And by the way, that microscopic print that you mentioned, boy, it was worth its weight in gold that you repeated that because there's probably no one who understood that fine print. Yeah. Nancy and I were talking in the car coming into the show this morning, and I was thinking about the fact that the legislators,

and the regulators, and I go on and on about that. I blame the car dealers, and I blame. But, you know, the fact is we have, and I say we, as a consumer, I'm a consumer, we've been lulled into complicity over so many years that we expect the car dealers to bathe this way. Yeah, so many wrongs. You talk to your friends, your neighbors, and it's a joke. You know, we're the jokes on the late night show, car dealers, you know, we're politicians,

they make jokes, and so we've had so many bad experiences, Gallup, comes out every year car dealers are the worst so when you buy a car it's like having a root canal you're going to have pain so you expect okay it's time to go out and buy my new car i'm going to have some pain and you go in there and they abuse you they lie to you and a whole lot of pain and it's been going on for a hundred years so we we don't file complaints and that's what we're trying to do with this show is stir you up file a complaint with the department of motor vehicles file a complaint with the County Office of Consumer Affairs, the Florida Office of Consumer Affairs,

with the Attorney General's office. We have a, I know I'm giving you too many websites, but you have carddealercomplaints.com. You can go there and get the, download the forms for complaints for the Department of Vehicles and the Attorney General's office and for the County Office of Consumer Affairs. File a complaint. It takes time.

That's the problem. People don't want to take the time. Time is too short. But if you don't complain, the regulators are complicit. These car dealers need supervision. And without Rick Scott, without Pam Blondie, what are we going to do? So Rick, what are your thoughts on this report? Valentina, I'm going to say a C, because she did seem apologetic with her tone,

but she basically, she knew what the games they were playing. and for the dealership in F, just that's it, F. Yeah, well, you know what, a good point there with Valentina, how nice that it was a female car consultant. So how many reports have we had where there was a woman in the report? Do you recall? Not many. I think that this here is, you know, new, hasn't happened in a long, long time.

And we're talking about Greco Mazda of Delray Beach, a lot of deception. Sorry consumers for the ones who did go in and realize that what did they have to take out of pocket? Almost $8,000. You know, anyway, I failed them. And it also seems like a certain class of cars fall into this type of advertising. We see this from Kia's, from Hyundai's, from Mazas. You would never dream of seeing this type of an advertisement for a Mercedes-Benz or a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW, I think that would almost be insulting to that class of buyer.

And this particular category of cars seems to be, and the dealers who are, you know, representative of these brands seem to fall into this role of feeling that this is, you know, impactful to their market, whereas others you would never dream of seeing that. Yeah, this is true. This falls under some politically correct commentary. I have to be careful, but the car dealers, I call the people that are really taken advantage of continuously victims, and victims partly are the ones that are, let's say, have a problem where we have a lot of people in from other countries.

We have people who English is not their first language. Put yourself in the shoes of someone, you're in Latin America, you're in Europe, you're going to buy a car and a Volkswagen and Idlebird. you don't speak German. Put yourself in someone that's from Latin America, and maybe they've only been here for a few years, they can't read English that well, they can't speak English that well.

This is a victim class, I call it. Another victim class we see are the, Nancy alluded to this earlier, widows. I mean, from a longevity statistical standpoint, women outlive their husbands. And oftentimes women that are in their 70s or 80s, are buying their first car because their husband passed away and the way things were conducted back in the 40s and 50s and 60s,

the men bought the cars and the ladies were the housekeepers. So you have elderly widows that are also taken advantage of. And then you have the young people. You have the people that have never bought a car before. So they're very young, the very old, the English language impaired, and let's get to education. We talked about luxury car. A lot of luxury car buyers are college educated.

They're sophisticated. They're doctors or lawyers. They're sophisticated, educated people. And a lot of people that buy Kiyas aren't quite so sophisticated or educated. And so they're victimized. So you're right. If you're buying a Mercedes, you're probably going to be okay. If you're buying a BMW or Cadillac, you're probably going to be okay.

If you're buying a Kia or even a Mazda or for that matter, any lower-priced car, watch out. I've just got one or a thing I would like to bring up from the news. yesterday an accident occurred down in Delray Beach where a lady lost control of her car smashed into the front of a public's and an innocent pedestrian was killed and there's a possible idea that the driver may have suffered a medical emergency which contributed to that and if we had autonomous cars right now two people would still be alive because the driver of that car, the car would have been able to detect that issue and take her to a hospital, possibly saving her,

and that innocent pedestrian would have gone home. Good morning, thank you. Another call out to Rick Scott and everybody else. Pam Bondi. We need autonomous cars now. Yeah, absolutely. I'm on board with that, Rick. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us this Saturday morning,

and we'll be back next week. Have a great weekend from Nancy Stewart and everyone here. Thank you. We'll see you next week. Thank you.