Earl Stewart on Cars - 03.19.2002 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Mike Camlin Hyundai of Greensburg, PA.

Episode Date: March 19, 2022

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels over 1000 miles to visit a Hyundai dealer in Greensburg PA to see what they will charge her for a new 2022 Hyundai Kona SEL. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back. My favorite day of the week, Saturday morning. Earl Stewart on Cars is probably something we do anyway, even if you weren't listening. because we have so much fun in the studio. I mean, I'm about half-serious about that, too. We really enjoy it.

And it's your feedback that is most interested to us. We prepare for the show, and we try to come up with some topics that you're interested in, check the automotive news and the local papers and everything. But your questions, really, that's what's so cool about live radio talk. It's you have the immediate pulse, the real-time pulse of what's going on in your minds, which tells us what we need to talk about. So I encourage you, even if you're a little timid, we have some venues to come through to us communication-wise.

But if you're an extrovert and you don't fear talking on the radio, live, it is scary. Some people, it doesn't bother. but we love to have you call. That's the blood and soul of our show or the call is because we get to know them. We hear their voices, their emotions, their happiness, their sadness. And we find about their experiences just recently, all over the country, all over the world, really. So if you can call us at 877-9-60-99-60, that's 877-9-6. 609960, you're really helping the audience, you're helping us, you're helping yourself.

It is really, really cool to come up with some challenges and questions, experiences, and constructive criticism. So if you haven't got a question now or a thought about it, you might want to write it down. If you've got a pencil handy, if you could type this in or write this in somewhere, 877-960-9-6-0-9-6. 960. Now, everybody doesn't call because, as I said earlier, we're not all extroverts, but if you want to text us, we have a text number. And that's probably the most popular thing these days communication-wise. I prefer receiving a text or sending a text to the conversation. That's just me. But if you're like me, text us at 772-492. 499. 976530,

772 4976530. Now, the nice thing about the text is we will get to it. I mean, sometimes you can't get through on the phone. I apologize for that in advance. I know some of you have called and the lines were full. The lines are busy and you have to wait. We try

everything we can not to make you wait. Nancy Stewart, my co-host, she watches the monitor on her laptop. And as soon as you get on the line, she knows it. So unless the lines back up too far, we try to jump. I will stop, whatever I'm doing. And so will Stuart or Rick, and we go right to phone calls. But if we don't, then the text.

The text is 772-49765 through zero. And guess what? Nancy Signal, we have a caller. We do. A regular caller. Good morning, everyone. We're going to talk to Howard this morning. He's giving us a call from Jupiter.

Good morning, Howard. Good morning. How are you guys doing this morning? Beautiful morning. Yeah. Gorgeous. Very. Well, I'm down in Florida now. I'm at you for them. I'm looking at my sliding doors. Ah, you made it. Yeah, I see a balcony. Yeah, I see a balcony. They reconstructed my balcony.

What a nice, nice thing to come home to. How nice. Long enough, yeah. And it's the last day of winter. Good for you. I'm going to break a record today, I believe. I don't need break breakers like that. I don't like it too hot, but what can you do this in Florida?

My question is about rotating tires. Usually you rotate back, front to back. Why not criss-cross? That's what I... Before radio tires, you couldn't do this. but I think radio ties you can crisscross, is that correct? Actually, that's opposite. It was the old polyester bias ply tires that we recommended crisscrossing,

and it was because of the design of the belts in the tire that they would wear kind of funny, but crisscrossing would help to avoid that odd wear pattern. The modern tire, which pretty much has been around the past 20 years or so, steel-belted radials, the problem with crossing steel belted radials is that they will create a radial tire pull quite often and so if you cross them during the rotation if you're crossing them as they go to the back you won't really notice it

but once those tires go up to the front you'll actually get a pull to one direction to the other we see this quite often with cars we'll have a customer come in and we do a tire rotation and they come right back and they say my car is pulling to the right like crazy. And we cross the two front tires, drive it again, and it goes straight as an arrow. Really? Never heard of that. Really interesting. Now, another question. I was driving down the I-95 from New York. I was going 80. And I know there's some people who go going 90,

actually. Now, when you change your oil every 10,000 miles, if you're doing that high-speed driving. Should you change it at 10,000 miles when your engine is revving up that much? 10,000 is still a perfect number to stick with. Bear in mind that traveling at those highway speeds, your engine kind of acts then like a dishwasher. It gives it a chance to get that oil really nice and hot. The oil then works on all the deposits in the engine and breaks down any of those little deposits that have been building up. And because it's running at that nice highway speed for a good length of time, that's actually what helps

clean your engine out quite a bit. So it's not a bad thing to do that. I love that analogy. Dishwasher and oil. Well, if you think about it, your dishwasher runs for a long time with really hot water. It's a good analogy. And that's what cleans all that

goo off your dishes. Same thing with the engine. One other question about tires. My son has a car, I think it's a mini and it's a z-rated tire and he found a deal at Costco or Sam's I believe Sam the same car a trade and I know it has to do with if you're driving high speeds he doesn't drive high speed can he go to an eight rated tire eight rated tires one step down one step down Yeah, H generally, they're totally fine for everyday normal highway driving,

even at speeds of 75, 80, 90 miles an hour. The higher speed rated tires are generally intended for the more performance cars that would be traveling, or potentially could be traveling at much higher speeds. Like Earl, he has absolute Zeta-rated tires because, you know, his car will do 475 miles an hour on the straightaway. I've never been over 400 yet I have a Camry is Z rated

my ties is Z rated which is great I like it yeah and that's actually quite often on the lower profile tires you'll find they will get them to a higher rating that way the tire can cover a lot more models of cars too okay next question

I'm a snowbird I go up north a lot of potholes How was this going to affect my suspension? Drive shafts and everything, could they get out of whack because the pothole? In other words, my question is, if I hit potholes a lot, what damage does it do to the car? Well, the first thing is you're impacting the tire itself, which can damage the rubber in the tire, cause damage there. it can damage the wheel on a good hard impact it can warp the rim or even sometimes crack it or break the rim other suspension components of course are going to feel all that abuse so if if at all possible

you know if you can slow way down on the really bad roads take those potholes at a nice easy speed gentle as possible and avoid them if you can really yeah it's hard to avoid them when you're up Yeah, I understand that one. Yeah, but the drive shafts will not be affected, correct? Drive shafts are going to be one of the last pieces, really, to have any real effect from that. It's more like the alignment could get knocked a little bit out of whack. The struts are going to take some abuse and the various suspension components in the front end. But the drive shafts really are not going to get as much abuse.

A non-struts How long does a struts last in the car? Let's say A car that's driven pretty hard Oh nowadays Even with really being abused 80, 90,000 miles or more The technology on that has come up so far

It used to be we would recommend struts Every 35, 40,000 miles Now it's like, nope They just Unless one of them happens to develop a leak Or get bent or damaged from an impact, they just go right along. Okay, now, yeah.

My last truck that I had, my Tacoma, 270,000 miles on my old 4x4 Tacoma, I never replaced the struts or shocks. They were perfect all the way through. Wow. That's very interesting. If you drive with Florida, that's why. If you drive up in New York, you've been up there. The roads aren't quite as smooth.

Yeah. I drove through New York once, once. Everywhere. Like on the interstate, the turnpite, everything is like big chunks in the concrete. It's terrible. They have less nails than we have down here. Drive-through Pittsburgh.

Oh, I haven't known that yet. By the way, it's the freeze and thaw that does it. Florida, you don't have freeze. How far up do you have to go on 9.95 before you get freeze and thaw? In other words, North Florida actually will get some freezing temperatures in the wintertime enough that it will start

to harden the ground up, but really into Georgia or the Carolinas before you start getting that really hard freeze in the ground. Yeah, okay, that's great. Howard, you got some great questions. I really appreciate your call. I learn from your questions and Rick's answers almost as much

as the audience. You really ask some interesting ones. We really appreciate appreciate it. But I learned from your show. Well, thank you. Oh, thank you. You guys are great. You guys are great. Keep up the good work. Thanks, Howard. I'll call again next week. Oh, we hope so. Thank you. Enjoy that balcony. Have that right weekend. Okay, back to the recovering car dealer. Well, we're just talking about how valuable the callers were, and you just witnessed it live. I meant what I said to Howard. He's been around a long time, and he's, uh, he's, uh, he's, uh, he's,

knows a lot about cars, comparatively speaking, and he comes up with some very interesting questions. So things change, and, you know, the cars today are so different from the cars 10 years ago, or if you're driving a 20-year-old car, forget about it. It's our brand, everything's almost different in the cars, the tires, and everything else. So you callers out there, please consider calling the show at 877-960. I gave you the text number, 772-4976530, but I didn't tell you about our special line. Nobody else has one of these. I've heard no radio shows, TV, anyone that uses this anonymous feedback. And we get a lot of emails through anonymous feedback. So if you go to this web link, Your Anonymous Feedback.com, Y-O-U-R-A-A-A-A-A-E-A.com, Y-O-U-R-A-A-A. N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S anonymous. Your Anonymous Feedback.com You can communicate with us

and remain totally anonymous. We don't know who you are or where you are, and you can say anything you like. When we first did this, and the reason most other people don't do this is they're afraid of criticism. I think it would be wonderful if politicians had these, don't you?

Wouldn't it be nice if you could wire or email anybody CEO of a company you know the manager of a company if we all had anonymous we can really find out what the world really thinks about us and we do that and we're

cutting edge no one else does it and you know something interesting very few people attack us you know we see these every week we see them all week long and usually they're constructive and it's very interesting so your anonymous feedback.com

and of course we're on Facebook Earl Stirling Cars forward slash Facebook.com got that backwards, Facebook.com forward slash earl on cars. And we're also on YouTube, YouTube.com forward slash irling cars. So you stream us live

and you can see us here in the studio. We took our mask off about three weeks ago and you can see our pretty faces. Well, it's one pretty face. And we would love to have you stream us. I want to ask you specifically, you heard Rick's knowledge just a minute ago when Howard called. Anyone has a question on a car.

They're electronics. Or weather. Or weather. You can get the information from Rick Kern. He's a certified diagnostic master technician. And he is up to date because he's always in school. He's doing online classes. He goes to real classes.

And he's learning daily. If you don't learn today and you're in technology like automobiles, you're way behind. Be careful when you're taking your car into a technician, be sure that they're up to date. And we can talk about that too, how you can confirm that. Sue Stewart is in charge of our mystery shopping reports. We've got another one out of state. I love going out of state when we do that. It compares cultures.

I mean, I've lived in South Florida all my life. But, you know, the world is not like South Florida. The Midwest is a different story. And the East Coast and the West Coast, North and South, all our cultures are different, and car dealers are different. And we're learning this when we mystery shop out of state. So you'll be thrilled to listen to the report. Stu also monitors our text, anonymous feedbacks, and our Facebook. So I'll shoot it over to Stu and see if he's got anything for us.

Yeah, but Mr. Shopping out of State, is great. Like you said, comparing cultures because usually, and I'm not going to say it's the case every time, but typically we're seeing better-behaved dealers up north. And so it opens a window to the listeners down here in South Florida who hear how it could be, how it might be if enough people, you know, stood up and kind of fought back against it. And as high prices cars are today, you might want to fly out of Pennsylvania and buy one. Yeah, listen to the shopping report.

I think the math would work. Yeah. Yeah, so we start off every week. We try to with Emery's kickoff text, and she's got one waiting for us this morning. She says, good morning. Originally, auto manufacturers face supply chain problems due to a lack of chips from other countries. Now some companies are having supply chain shortages because they can't get wiring harnesses from Ukraine. I have three questions.

One, are there any other parts that come from other countries that are in short supply? Yes. As a matter of fact, I've got a big, big update. Southeast Asia is getting hit. get really hard with COVID, Vietnam, Malaysia, and a ton of Toyota parts come from, and I imagine other manufacturers come from that same region of the world. And we just got notified there's going to be some big cutbacks in production because of that. So we're seeing supply chain issues in Southeast Asia. That's a big one. Second question. Let me hold this up so we can see why

Ann Marie is such an amazing caller. In my hand, I'm holding the automotive news, which is the trade journal for the manufacturers and the car dealers. And the main op-ed comment in the automotive news, and this is the current automotive news, says you can build a car without chips, but not without wire harnesses. Now, Anne-Marie, somehow, rather, maybe she subscribes to automotive news. But isn't that amazing? I hope you're listening, Anne-Marie, because you are, by far,

our most intelligent, perceptive, interesting texter. I mean, you really give us some great text, and we really appreciate it. But that's very true. It is. The story is picked up in Reuters and Financial Times and ABC News. But the big one is the automotive news. I think they're the ones that led with it.

So, yeah, you've got an inside track, Amory. Your second question is, could it now be in our best interest to build all our parts in this country like we used to, so our manufacturers wouldn't be it immersive shipping, stafoos, or shortages, materials and parts coming from other countries. Unfortunately, we're in a global economy now. I don't know if you can untie that knot at this point, but we get your point. I think that isn't interesting point. I agree that we can't just always source locally our parts, meaning the USA. But I think we can be thinking in terms of

the countries that we contract with. And I think we should always have a backup. So basically, if you've got yourself some parts that are coming out of China or Russia if I were a manufacturer I would second source those that a few other calm or places because you never know what's going to happen in these volatile areas of the world

and unless you have a backup. It's not just things like this. Remember Takata crisis? Yeah. Get rid of Takata airbags but the problem is there weren't any of their sources so they had replaced the bad Takata airbags with newer bad Takata airbags. Yeah, really makes sense.

Amory's third part to her question says, frustration abounds for both companies and their customers due to shortages. What would you suggest, and this is a great one for Earl, what would you suggest the best way to have happy customers and companies? Well, you know, it sounds corny, but I think you're just honest with your customer. Sometimes it's painful to be honest because sometimes you have to, if you tell the truth and you're totally transparent, you have to tell them something that is not good for your business. and that's hard to do some people can't do it they can't afford to do it but if I think the best thing

you could do with your customers is just lay it on, lay your cars on the table Believe it or not like we've, surprising we've seen on these mystery shops most salespeople are doing that up front or setting up expectations. Now they're probably doing that so they can get a higher price

but they're telling you up front that you're not going to find a car right now you're going to wait six months to get a car but the trick is is like you said being honest about the situation and communicating, because what we've experienced is when you have 500 orders that you're trying to manage and people are waiting for their cars, if you're not communicating properly, people get frustrated, they're in the dark, they don't know what's going on.

So constant communication, constant honest communication is the answer. You know, interestingly enough, the way the prices have soared now, in a way dealers are being more honest. You could say they're being honest and cocky and arrogant, but, you know, you can say they're being honest and cocky and arrogant but at least honest is part of it so when you come into a car dealership a lot of them that we mystery shop

of as Stu just said the first thing you hear is you know we're short of cars and we're going to have to charge you in addition over and above MSRP the last survey showed that 82% of every vehicle, new vehicle sold

in the USA 82% of those were over MSRP and the and that is thousands of dollars it's it's over two thousand dollars average so they're telling you that up front mainly because it's true and they know you have to pay it if you want to buy a car so that's a it's kind of ironic Rick you had mentioned Takata we actually are still replacing Takata airbags even today and folks N HTSA.gov slash recalls.

Check your VIN, see if your car has any open recalls. Okay, back to Stu. Okay. Okay. Do we have a call? Yeah, I'm going to interrupt Stu. Folks, that number is 877-960.

We're going to go back to the phones. Thank you for holding, Marty. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Great. Nice to hear your voice this morning. How's things going?

Good. I got a couple questions for Rick. Okay. First question, why can't they make a car that has a fixed alignment so that there's no way that the car can go out of alignment, and therefore tire companies and dealerships and garages don't have a job or make money off alignments? Well, some cars are actually pretty close to that. most cars with a McPherson strut suspension in the front that's basically the almost all cars now you have no adjustment for Castor or Camber really only the front toe and a lot of the

smaller cars the back wheels have no adjustments whatsoever tow or anything the problem being on that that say you live in an area where you have a lot of road crown like here in South Florida, the roads are really steeply pitched to the right to help water flow off. If we can't adjust the alignment to compensate for that, when you're driving down the road, you're going to be fighting that steering wheel to keep from having it turn right all the time. And vehicles that have different changes in weight can change the alignment angles the way the car will drive. So being able to adjust those alignment specifications, say your car gets a minor little bump, hit something pretty good with one side and it bends something just a tiny little bit if we can

make a small adjustment with the alignment to bring it back into specification your car will drive normally not cause any other damage even with that component not being perfectly straight like it was before by great question and great answer I learned something I did too I never thought about it I thought I was going to say well cars move and they're going to get out there's I didn't realize that marty great question great answer thank you I got a nice I'm just going to shut up and listen today. I got another question for Rick. Is there any chip shortage at Earl Stewart, Toyota,

where they need this chip to fix the problem? Well, yesterday there were no corn chips in the snack machine. Actually, right now, the chip shortage is actually starting to catch up. We're starting to get cars in stock. For parts coming out of the parts department, we're not seeing issues quite so much on back order parts for the chip issues. We are seeing part shortages on some other things that you wouldn't really expect. Like air filters are getting increasingly hard to get.

Just simple air filter for the engine. Is that because of 12-volt batteries? That's because of microchips? No, it's just the like COVID and other things like, like Sue was saying earlier, COVID in the southeast. But as far as microchips, have you had any parts that? weren't available because that part included a microchip and we've had we've had a few we've had a few certain electronic components that we've had a few times but i was talking to our getting

better i talked to on uh they're considering ways like similar to what ford is doing shipping some vehicles without some features um and that's a discussion that toyd is having right now they haven't done it yet um but for some things that are not you know crucial it speed up an order car and get delivered and then they bring it back later for the rear backup camera or whatever they're leaving out. Right. Well, we actually had... Just another fact, just so you know, I took my wife's RV over to Ed Morse Honda for service, for their six-month service. They had two CRVs and a lot. One was an all-wheel drive one, and one was their real cheaper one, and all their cars have a 2009-95 add-on.

Pretty standard. Pretty standard. As I said earlier in the show, 80% every car sold in modern history the past several months has been over a sticker price. And typically, before the situation

with the microchip shortage, the average car sold at over $2,000 under sticker. So it's a huge swing. You're looking at about a $4,000 swing in prices. That's huge. That's the reason we tell people.

don't buy a new car today if you can help it. Right. No, you're right. You're right. All right. Thanks for all the information. Have a good day. Great call. Great call, Marty. Thank you. Bye, back. Thank you, Marty. Again, that number is 877-960. You can text us at 772497530. And that site that you can go to www. Your anonymous feedback certainly is helpful.

for anyone who really doesn't want to call or expose their name or even text. I think we're going to go back to Stu. Sure. I'm going to jump over to anonymous feedback because we're all out of text. This is a really interesting one. UPS trucks almost never take left-hand turns. By favoring right-hand turns at all times, unless a left is unavoidable, the carrier saves millions of gallons of fuel each year and avoids emissions equivalent to over 20,000

passenger cars. It might be a good tip for your listeners. I tried that one time, but I kept going in a circle and I couldn't get home. I was going to say you wound up in Miami or something. Is that possible? MythBusters actually took that one on. Really? It was in one of their later seasons

and they studied and they said yes, they actually found that if they could plan it out properly, it would actually save a certain amount of fuel and time for the drivers. amazing program and we learn a lot from it

they were going for everything they would try it yeah that's great okay the next one just a question for us is thank you so much for doing the brayman BMW for the mystery shop can we do a Mercedes dealer next time

maybe not next time but we will do a Mercedes dealer really soon right now our mystery shopper is out in the field somewhere in America somewhere in the country we will not reveal it but she's nowhere near a mystery. Maybe she could find a Mercedes dealership somewhere else, but we will do that for you, we promise. I think we ought to send it to

the Lamborghini dealership. They have tons of cars I heard. Yeah. I think that would be boring. I mean, yeah. Well, I would spice it up with like all sorts of, you know, I would make it funny, I'm sure. There's an anonymous feedback. I live in a street-level condo. Can I use the 220-volt outlet from my dryer in a very long cable? to charge a Tesla. Well, you won't be able to draw your clothes then. You can use a 220-volt outlet I know that to charge electric vehicle. I don't know about the safety or the wisdom of running a long extension cord outside of your condo down the hallway. But I don't know how long you're

talking about. Rick could probably address this a little bit more expertly. That's one I would shy away from. I would be very nervous about the idea that especially a long cord that you're going to have to run it across grass, cross sidewalks. Yeah, I mean, someone's going to trip on. Yeah, I'd be real nervous about that. Here's an interesting bulletin on charging. The Israelis have a company in Israel has come up with a battery charger that currently will charge an electric vehicle up to 100 miles in five minutes.

And they are working so that before too much longer, they'll be able to charge that battery up to 100 miles in two minutes now that is really interesting because you know sometimes you're on the road and you don't want to have to wait it's 20 minutes now for 80% charge but two minutes on a supercharger yeah two minutes is really cool that beats that beats a gas fill up but seriously it's for the anonymous feedback question submitter check I mean these charging stations like a charge point charging station is around a thousand dollars I mean, that's a lot of money for an individual, but for a condo, I mean, there's probably going to be more people getting electric vehicles that might be in the interest of your condo association to, you know, to splurge on a couple of charging spots in front of the building. And I could just imagine what an HOA would say about that cord stretched out your car.

The condo commandos will come around and unplug that cord immediately. So that's it. We're all cut up. Do you have any questions or comments on YouTube, Rick? actually the only one I've got so far is Negan 1 says I got word major shortages in electronics for industry

electrical supplier just sent out everything's on four month back order and the food industry is actually being affected so you know this thing is not affecting just cars this is like affecting pants the entire world it's affecting everything yeah very true

even that remote you use turn that TV off and on Rick, how is the nickel shortage going to, you know, affect the auto industry, electric vehicles? Barteries. I mean, 60%, I believe, of... Nickel is used in a lot of the hybrid batteries. Yep. Well, and that's also a big part of why electric cars are having such an issue is the metals and the materials needed to produce those batteries.

they're only found in certain areas and they're quite expensive to mine so you know it's coming folks it's coming it's just it's going to take some growing pains exactly you know it's amazing how resilient you know we we are

because we just keep the laundry list it's longer and longer well we didn't switch away from horses and into cars overnight you know that that took quite a few years to do that full switch over to cars yeah this is true And it's amazing that we sit here and we're talking about batteries and electric vehicles and everything.

There was a time that, you know, nobody really wanted to address the issue. They weren't ready. And everybody's talking. Everybody's talking. Hey, 77-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-530. And ladies, even this morning, we didn't forget, even though we didn't mention it earlier, $50 for the first. two new lady callers so uh you've got plenty of time to call in we've got uh over over an hour because about 9.30 we swing into the mystery shopping report and agent lightning did a fantastic job

again we are going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to john in palm city good morning john good morning to everyone nancy just brought up the topic of nickel she just hit the Buffalo head right away what's going on with nickel. Nickel, this year so far, is up 500% in price. Leon Musk just raised the Tesla, which you justified, $1,000 on one mile, $2,000 on another. Why so important? Not only the price of paints, but the nickel alone that's used in an electric vehicle battery, it uses 80 pounds of nickel.

Oh, Lord. It comes out to $1,750 per car battery, and the cost is still tremendously rising. And incidentally, you talk about wiring harnesses from Ukraine. There's a big problem on a BMW plant in South Carolina because all the BMW SUVs are made in that plant. And I don't know exactly, they're not saying, but there's a terrific shortage because those vehicles with the wiring harness. But getting back to nickel again, And the reason for raising, it's the biggest, one of the biggest countries that we get our Russia from is in Siberia, is in Russia, believe it or not.

And, you know, it has to do with our exporting, but it's an individual, a very wealthy individual that owns the largest producer in Iberia, and they use it for the nickel for producing stainless steel, and it's a private owner. So I don't know if the sanctions affecting this individual or what, but it's a major problem. But let me tell you about other supplies with the new cars. Just take paint. I bought a paint in blows a week ago, and it's a fake out. We're getting pay more for less.

You think it's a gallon of paint. You read on the label, and it says right on a gallon, 3.43 liters and it says 116 fluid ounces. Now a gallon is 3.78 liter, but the can looks just like you're getting a gallon. So this is going on with our food products, with our cleaning supplies,

with everything. The one thing I'm shocked about is in quite a few shows back. Howard put this up. Finally, Walmart got in the summer fluid of the windshield washer fluid and it distinctly all across it says made in the USA and here's the catch plus 32 degrees only it's a summer formula so as how it once pointed out people like him you're going up north you're putting that fluid in your car down here and it actually

freezes and the plastic container that the uh went the uh uh uh your break uh any freeze will freeze on it and cause those things to replace are not cheap. So you have to be very careful. I still don't understand to this day why a product that's made in America has been out four months, but they finally got it in a Walmart and it flies off the shelf.

So I just want to point out some of the shortages in particularly nickel. I mean, it's a problem with electric vehicles. You know, definitely. I just want to shout out on that. See, Nancy, 100% came up with that nickel problem. You know, it's amazing the things we don't even think about, you know. Well, you imagine 80 pounds of nickel in each EV vehicle,

and that's $1,750 per car, per battery of nickel. I got three batteries in my Tesla, so I wonder how much they weigh. Well, here's the scary about it. The majority of the way of your car. Robbing the batteries from these, we've already in. the problem. We mentioned a few weeks ago on this show, part of the country where they're stealing the

catalytic converters. My daughter lives in Brooklyn on one block alone. It's a good neighborhood. Brooklyn Heights, four cars overnight, cut the catalytic converter off. And it's not only the cost of the converter, but when they're cutting it off, your tailpipe

and your head of pipe are damaged. So it's expensive, probably maybe $3,000. And again, the product that can't get it. So, and the scary part, you're short on TV, they're bending down with a portable electric drill, and they're drilling holes in a gas tank, and draining people's gas, which is a dangerous procedure. It is. It's very, very frightening. I mean, it's the cost of a product that makes it the thieves

start stealing it. So I've done enough for now, but I just want to point out the nickel that Nancy brought up mentioned. Thank you very interesting. You always have great information for us. We look forward to talking to you again next week. We are going to go to Bobby, who's calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Bobby. Good morning.

Nice to speak to you. I often call and get information, and I thank you for giving me the information, but I want to encourage the listeners to take the information that they get and use it at the car dealers. I'm surprised when I invoke or... Earl Stewart's name or Rick's name or the information that I get. When I tell them what I know from what you've told me, I get a different level of service. And it's pretty interesting.

And I think it's worthwhile that people go ahead and do that. Instead of just assuming that the dealer knows what they're doing, recite back the information that you got from the show, and it worked. This is true. I mean, I'm not kidding. And this, thinking back to the earlier days when I first got into the business, usually it's a salesman person assesses a customer, tells the manager about what kind of person they're dealing with. You know, this guy's a chisler. He's working, or this guy is a internet warrior.

Anyway, the guys that display knowledge and they have some information about the way the things work, they go, this guy is an insider, you know, just, path to least a resistance. So instead of putting up a fight, you're more likely to get the breaks, but it's just by talking about what you're. you know. You don't have to be arrogant about it. You just come across as an educated, well-informed person, cite the show. That's a great idea. Or cite the information that we're giving out. And Path of Lease Resistance, they're not going to want to put up a fight. They'll move on to the next person they can consider a sucker. Right. Right. And they're often surprised that I say, I was speaking to a car dealer. And occasionally they'll say which car dealer is sort of, and I'll tell him and it and that sort of it sort of changes the conversation the other thing I wanted to

talk about I spoke to I thought this was interesting and I didn't know about it I talked to a man whose business it was to represent car dealers in getting manufacturers to reimburse for warranty work and I didn't think that would be a business but like for instance like a dash You remember when the dashboards had to be replaced? Well, his job was to get reimbursed the car dealers. He told me I think he worked one of the places was Hollywood Toyota or something. He would go to the manufacturer and say,

this is our labor rate, this is our cost of the part. And then he reimbursed that way. Can you give us the name of that lawyer? Or maybe if you don't want to give it to us on the show, maybe you text it. I love to know an attorney that specialized in that sort of thing because we get a lot of requests. I don't. I only met him once, but I will meet him again, and I'll get that information, and I'll get it to you. But isn't that an interesting business?

It is. I mean, lawyers listening, there's a huge demand for this, people that are educated in consumer law with respect to automobiles, servicing and buying, factory warranties, and things like this. the problem is you can know you've been taking advantage of but unless you have some knowledge of the subject if you're an attorney you're sometimes you're a little bit of reluctant to represent them i looked it up i didn't see anything i'm surprised there's there's an awful lot of lawyers out there that are car warranty lawyers and yeah it's a whole it's a thing i didn't know existed interesting again i continue to learn my next blog see bobby that's the reason we love phone calls without your call we wouldn't have known that

now we'll be able to get that information maybe even put it on our website and share it with our listeners because I've called lawyers on behalf of callers before and they say I'm sorry I don't do that call this guy and it's hard to find

just without knowing where to go now we know where to go we'll check it out well present company excluded it's sort of nice to hear that the manufacturers try to teach the dealers, just like the dealers try to keep the questions. Right.

I don't know if that's nice to hear, but yeah, I get your point. Well, it gives you a little comfort. Right. Thanks a lot for the information. Thank you, Bobby's Bob. And Bobby, if you're still listening, you know, boy, are you right.

You know, just checking everything on. Internet, you have it at your fingertips before you walk into the dealership, whether you're getting your car service, whether you're purchasing a car, at least whatever it is, but knowledge is definitely power. and you get their attention when you walk into service.

So, Rick? I just would like to say that to me, an educated consumer, someone that knows about cars and comes in and says, hey, yo, can you show me why you're recommending this repair on my car? Yeah. That's the customer I want because when I take them back and I spend 30 seconds saying, here's the leak, this is what I'm seeing, this is what I want to do to correct it,

and they make an educated decision, boom it just goes smooth quick and easy there's no second and i get to go working on the car and i'm not sitting around waiting while they're trying to service riders trying to explain to the customer why they need it because an educated customer makes all the difference in the world and you don't have to be from missouri and customer for for anyone out there don't be afraid to ask the mechanic to show you what they're talking about and tell you why you need that repair yeah so helpful is it's the best way because that way you understand why it needs to be fixed and you can make an educated decision. You can explain it to your family.

One of the problem with that is it's very hard to get to the technician and usually you're dealing with a service salesman. He calls himself a service advisor and he insinuates it. He's an expert and most of these guys are not. Some of them do have knowledge. In fact, probably a lot of them have some knowledge. But the technician is the one that has the knowledge required to fix your car. And it's very difficult. I know very few customers that have called the show,

and very few customers, period, that told me about conversations with the actual technician. Yep. Okay. That's a great point, Rick. We're going to go to Frank. He's a regular caller from Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank.

Well, good morning to you all. I actually have a little problem that I'm sure you guys are going to be able to solve. Okay. And I have a 2018 forward. F-150 pickup truck, and the battery, even though it's only about a year old, they put in under warranty, it's no longer warranted once the truck went out of warranty. So it's kind of mystifying. So I need to get a battery.

And I remember a show several months ago where you guys were talking, I believe it was Napa, where they have the better batteries, or do you think about Battery Plus or exactly? We were talking about Battery Plus, I think. Yeah, the main thing to look for with the batteries, you want to make sure that you get the proper size battery for your car, whatever vehicle you're running, make sure you have the proper size battery, and look for a good brand name, diehard interstate, but also try to find the highest capacity, cold cranking capacity battery that you can get. They generally will last longer because they've got more power in the battery,

and you're not putting as big a strain on each time you start the car, so the battery will actually last a little longer that way. Okay, that sounds interesting because I was looking at that. The battery that's in the truck now is an 800 cranking nap, and they have that a battery plus the dorsail battery, but then they have something else called the X2 Ultimate, da-da-da-da-da-da, and it has 930 cranking naps. It also goes from a 36-month total replacement warranty of 48,

or maybe no, actually 60 months. excuse me, 60 months. And they said something about it. It's a two type of thing. It has starting power and reserve power. It has two complete batteries and one. Right. They're going to hit you with a whole lot of terminology there

and really try to confuse you, just like any advertising place will. But the main thing you're looking for, and it's not so much the cranking amps, because they'll tell you cranking amps that it's rated at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. You want to know what the cold cranking amps are, which is rated at zero degrees.

And a lot of batteries, that's only a very minor difference in the amount, but a lot of them, the cranking amps will be really high, and the cold cranking amps will actually drop quite a bit. So that's the number you want to actually look at as the cold cranking amps. And Frank,

I know people get tired of us talking about consumer reports, but while you were talking to Rick, I just pulled up auto batteries on consumer reports. Highest rated batteries are the Delpho, BU 9065 and then there's a super sport platinum AGM and I'm not going to read them all out but there's a lot of recommended batteries on consumer reports and it gives you the very best one best one is are rated 91 there's three three batteries the Delphi Superstar and the interstate so there's a wealth of information out there you just

have to access it you know I feel really That's kind of I wouldn't say stupid because, you know, then you make people think you are. Nah. I belong to the consumer reports for years. I take their surveys. I didn't even think about going on consumer reports. Yeah, I'm like that, too. I have to have you remind me sometimes.

Same thing with Google. Yeah, Google. All the time, I'm scratching my head. I say, oh, I'll Google it. You'd be surprised the information you can get. But we're all like that where maybe our grandchildren or children will be able. will remember, I mean, it'll become part of the way they think. Well, I got to take that call, but you guys have a great day.

I'll appreciate the help. Thanks, Frank. Thanks so much, Frank. You know, we just can't say enough about Consumer Report. You know, go to ConsumerReport.org. A wealth of information. Google, there's so many, there's so much information in our fingertips today. It's just, it's really definitely amazing.

Talking about information, you know, I can't go without mentioning. Earl pointed out a AAA living to me this past week. And what was in it, lo and behold, is a subject close to my heart that I mentioned a year or two ago. And that is crash statistics. And the fact that female dummies are just not. female dummies are not used it's all it's a male ummies that they're using and isn't it amazing i mean consumer report doesn't say much about it and here they are they do all this testing and they're into safety and so is uh triple a everybody uh but why uh why aren't their female

crash dummies and children and women are 20 to 28 percent more likely than men to be killed, and 37 to 73% more likely to be seriously injured. Well, there's some statistics. Well, it's proof positive of the male chauvinist world we live in. And, you know, I evolved, I think, any of my age, we were raised in a male chauvinist world, and it's evolving. But for the United States government, safety. testing, official government safety testing, to only test male safety is outrageous.

And I'm surprised that there isn't a groundswell of women out there saying, what the hell? I mean, we've got a lot of women in the legislature now, Congress and the Senate. Why aren't you saying something about that? The National Highway Traffic Safety Association and the I-L-H-H-H-H-S-A was the insurance. You're talking about I-I-I-H-H-S. Yeah. These two testing agencies should definitely have the safety ratings for men, women, and what about children?

You know, children, they don't get to vote, so children can forget about it, right? You can't vote. But if your parents knew that the cars that you're driving in are far more unsafe for you than for them, and especially more unsafe than for your father, it's crazy. And when you see a five-star safety rating, that means it's a five-star safety rating for a five-foot-nine, 170-pound man. Exactly, yeah. Well, yeah, this is true. That's close.

They, quote, 171, you know, 5-9-inch male. But the fact remains the two places that we think we're safe with because they're doing all this. It's like the FDA, you know, I mean, you feel pretty secure that it's been approved by the FDA. Let's go to the, you know, the National Highway Safety, Traffic Safety, and, of course, the, as they're all mentioned, I-IHS, you think you're in good hands. Well, do I want to read, do I want to read, a crash test bias puts female drivers at risk from guess where? Consider a report. This is the 21st century. I'm in good hands, though.

You are in good hands. but on another note I'm not happy about it I feel really guilty about it Oreo looks like he's eating good I'm sorry that's the sidebar anyway ladies $50 for the first two new lady callers

how do you feel about that did you know that? I have a question for Stu and for Rick is there a car manufacturer that does test these vehicles do a female crash, test?

I have no idea. Vova? I have no idea. No. No. Nobody knows about Volvo? No. It doesn't make any difference. You have to have... I'm just putting that out there. Yeah, you have to have a federal standard. The car manufacturers, if they did test their cars, I wouldn't trust it.

I mean, you have to have an independent third party do the safety checks on cars. Because otherwise, you're going to paint the picture, say, I've got... Every manufacturer builds the safest car. you asked them. I googled it. It says Volvo is developed female anatomy crash pest dummies.

I don't know if they're using it, but Volvo is interested at least. Because they say they did. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it caught my eye this morning. 877-960-9960. Ladies, give us a call. $50 for the first two new lady callers.

Can't go wrong. Any questions at all or just say hello? We're going to go back to the phones where Jay is giving us a call from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Jay. Good morning, everybody. I have a 2009 ES350, I've got 150,000 miles on it. About a month ago, I had the front and the back brake pads and rotors replaced, and then also had the power steering pump replaced. Yesterday, I went in to get, and I normally get the heavy work like that done at a local mechanic, and I went in yesterday to go get an oil change. I usually take that to one of the different little retail ones around town that do it.

And one of the things that they suggested that I needed done was the brake fluid changed out. They basically said the fuel system cleaning, but they said the brake fluid looked very dirty. Is the brake fluid being dirty have anything to do with the brake pads of rotors being changed out? Should that have been something that my mechanic spotted when he was changing the pads and the rotor? Should he have noticed that the brake fluid was dirty, or is that not something he'd be looking for? He probably should have looked at it. Pardon me. Break fluid, basically, we only recommend it when it really starts to get dark colored and looking dark and contaminated.

Otherwise, we don't get too concerned with it except for just checking the level. A brand-new break fluid is going to be kind of a yellowish straw color, and as it gets older, starts to darken up. It's absorbing a little bit of moisture from the air. And so there's really no maintenance interval that is recommended by any of the manufacturers for replacement. It simply said as needed. You know, if it becomes contaminated, it should be replaced. Well, dark brake fluids stop your car less efficiently than light colored. Still works just the same. So I'm saying, as long as you have enough break fluid, you know, okay, yeah.

He always has the best questions. So I'm kind of at their mercy when they're telling me that it needs to be changed out. Basically, the fuel system, the fluids need to be changed out. I'm sort of at their mercy to trust them on that, right? Yeah, pretty much. Well, that's the reason, you know, that's the reason the educated consumer. Now that you've got the answer on the brake fluid, you could just say, look, I know the dark break fluid is just as good as light break fluid,

so I don't want you to change my brake fluid unless I don't have enough break fluid. with them, I need some more. There you go. Okay. All right, perfect. That answers my question. I appreciate it. Thank you, Jerry.

Thanks for the call. One other thing that we'll put out there is, even if the brake fluid starts to look a little bit low, you'll want to have the brakes inspected because break fluid should only get low as the pads begin to wear out. Then when you put new pads on it and you compress the pistons back in on the calipers, that fluid level will come back up. so technically you never should have to add brake fluid to your system if there's a leak then you'll need to get it fixed and have break fluid added in great information okay we're going to go to the phone back to the phones and we're going to talk to julian from west palm beach hi good morning good morning welcome thank you i started driving in the 70s a while ago and at that point i had a tape player then it was

went to a cassette player, then it went to a CD player, and when I bought my 2021 Corolla, it took me a day to realize I have no player. Why did they remove them? It's just they're, they follow the technology. I mean, they don't have eight-track tape players anymore in the cars, but it's always very frustrating, especially with people who have large collections of music and certain media. I remember when they first switched over from cassette players to CD, and we had a ton of customers, and we would offer burning their tape collection on the CD, and right when we got good at that, they got rid of the CD players and now everything is streaming. And so it is frustrating keeping up with the

changes in technology. You can transfer all your CDs to your phone. You can put it online. You can put it stream it or you can stream it. So you can just store everything you want to play on your iPhone or your Android, and stream it through a Bluetooth, and it's, once you get used to it, it's a lot easier. Yeah, once you get, once you get used to it, it is a transition. And, Julia, and you asked a question that I've asked myself a hundred times. I still ask myself that question when I get in my Avalon. And gosh, do I have the CDs?

Do I have the A-TRAX? I mean, it's just amazing. I wonder if someone would come into the house and say, oh, what are those? I mean, they wouldn't even know them. millennials, grandchildren, you know, great-grandchildren. What's funny is my kids who are Gen Z, my daughter and my older son,

they're into cassettes, vinyl records, all the old-fashioned ways of listening to the music, they think it's so cool. They're out-selling CDs, you told me, I think. Probably, yeah. And, well, I know a record, vinyl records are making a huge comeback.

I have one myself, but my kids, they think cassettes are the greatest, and CDs, and they like holding things. I'm like, we got rid of those two-de- decades ago. I once saw a car with a real-to-reel tape player. Really? Oh, my gosh. Interesting. Jolianne, how long has it been since you called? Custom-built-in. Last week.

Pardon me? Last week. Oh, you did? Okay. I thought of recognized your name, but I wasn't sure when you called. Yeah, I called about what I found out the name was electronic brake. Yeah, electronic break. Oh, yeah.

Were you a first-time caller? Last week. Yeah, were you? Okay. Did you get your check? No, because I was, I know the lady in front of me got one. No, I didn't get a check. They didn't take my information. Yeah. Oh, and that's your chance.

Let me tell you what. You send me your address. That's it. I send you a check. So all you to do is send it to my email. And you can get that. What is your email? You can, yes, send me your address to my email address.

And I can make out that check and put it in a mail. Right. What is your email address? And you, just like so many other women, that have called in, I'm not sure why they think that they can have a check sent to their email, but you can't. So, Nancy S. at E.S.Toyota.com. Nancy, what was the next letter? S, as in Stewart.

That's like Sam. Oh, Stuart. There you go. Nancy S. And what was the rest? E.S. Toyota. Oh, okay. dot com all right easy easy thanks for the phone call i must say i felt like kind of an idiot

spending a day looking for the thing on that um in my car just i could possibly find an opening and there was none so no cd opening oh no interesting thanks for the great question thank you i love it have a great weekend eight seven seven nine six oh nine sixty or you can text us at 772-4976530. Okay, guys, which one of you are ready to go? I got one quick one here. It's kind of interesting. Derek Lopez says,

I went to purchase a car from my sister, saw a great phony-monroney addendum. $7,995 added on for a lifetime. It's killing him. It's killing him. Lifetime PowerTrain warranty, Lifetime window tint, Lifetime pinstriping,

and complimentary service department, Wi-Fi and snacks. That's not, $7,000 isn't complimentary. Can you theoretically charge for something that you're offering complimentary? I've seen that a lot. I've seen that a lot on like some,

a lot of addendums that they'll throw in every amenity that the dealership has, like car washes, maintenance, manicures, but they stick it on the addendum label. I didn't hear tarot reading. Oh, yeah, no tarot reading. That's coming. That's coming.

I mean, what's life coming to? 877-960-9960. You can tell we're a bunch of comedians here. Whatever way we have, we have to get through it, folks. But I'll tell you what, you out there, you guys are just the most important, and we love you every Saturday morning, and we love sharing information with you,

but most of all, the information that you give us, how you educate us, you're an important part of the show. Don't forget that. 877-960, 9960. We are going to go back to Stu, who has some texts for us. Yeah, I was just wondering why we haven't had any questions about the gas prices, which are just insanely high and ridiculous. And then I got a text from Niga,

and I don't know if Jonathan can put it up on the screen. I don't know if he sent this just a rough, it in or just to be nostalgic it's a picture of gas prices from the 70s says just add it put a four in front of these things look at that johnson's going to put it up on the screen look at that 27 dollars 27 cents a gallon for regular yeah my current blog is about gas prices yeah so call us about the gas prices we really want to talk about that yeah i'm gonna brag yesterday morning i paid 399 a gallon at Costco all right did you and boy i'll tell you what costco sams they're all great places ago. And folks, give us a call. Are you using GasBuddy? Are you using GasBuddy more often now

than you did before? 877-960. That's a great app, by the way. It does far more than just tell you the lowest gas price. It tells you where it is. It tells you the highest gas price. And you can put any zip code you want in there. I mean, it's very sophisticated. Easy app, gasbuddy.com. And before you buy gas, you can save yourself $8, $10. It's dramatic how much the difference between two stations just down the street from each other are. I mean, from the dealership, there's a gas station to the north of us and one to the east, and they're about 15 cents apart in price. How much?

$0.15, and you can see their signs. Yeah, I don't understand. I'm going from recollection, but in my last blog, I did the gas buddy thing for my zip code, and the price is varied by 84 cents a gallon. Multiply that times 20 gallons. Yeah, that's crazy. I'm jealous of Rick. I'm going to find that under a $4.

Yeah, it's great. Isn't it, Gas Buddy? Location, you know, and if you're in the area, how much you can save. It's a great, great app, Gas Buddy. Take advantage of it. Mark Smith just posted 354 a gallon at one station in my city of 7,300 people in Southwest Iowa. 354. Hey, so we're all panicking.

It's going to come down. But you don't want to drive to Iowa and we're together to think again. I don't think the math works on that. No, that'd be a little rugged, but it'd be a nice drive, though. It would, yeah. I've never been to Iowa. We have a text from Sean in Cleveland, and he asks us,

would we consider having someone from the center for auto safety on one of our shows to continue the conversation about safety? And I'll answer for, oh, yeah. Well, any expert, any guests that we as interested, we would love to have them on the show, either as a call in. A call, yeah. Or physically. in the studio now that we're past the Omicron

surge. Yeah, that's great. We would love to have any kind of guess. So please, all listeners suggest if you have an expert or somebody who you think might be willing to call in or visit us, that would be great. We have a text here. P.S. Gas is high to make up for when COVID hit no one was buying. You know what? I'm going to get to agree with you because when you look at the oil company's profits,

it's not like they're just adjusting prices in response to increase cost of oil, their profits are all-time records. So, yeah, it kind of hurt the year when no one was driving, and they're going to make up for it. Like car dealers. Like car dealers are doing it right now. Good point. 2020 was rough, and then it got really good. Yeah.

On the rise. All right, well, I'm all cut up over here. Let me plug consumer reports because I know we do it every week. This happens to be a special week. we got our new auto issue. It's the April issue, and I'm holding it up if you're streaming. It's a doozy. It's the April issue.

And if you don't do anything else that you here recommend it on the show, buy yourself a copy of the auto issue, the annual auto issue of Consumer Reports. You should go online too. You should sign up for CR.org, customer reports.org, and you should do it online. It's relatively inexpensive. And you can go to a library and you can go online free to consume reports or you can actually get a free copy or you can borrow it. You can check it out.

That's a hot-looking Hyundai on the cover. Yeah. And some of the topics, my favorite topic is the best and worst cars. And they give you a list of all the worst cars and the best cars. you know I don't expect you're going to go out there and always buy the best car number one ranked because you like styling maybe you like the dealer maybe you like the salesman that works there for whatever reason but don't buy the worst but don't buy the worst yeah why would any why would anybody buy the worst car of all the man it's got to be a pretty charming car

no I'm not all the ticket to stimulate some calling I'd like you to guess what is the worst make not model what is the worst make car sold in the world and that's in consumer reports the very worst and i don't guess i know what my answer would be but i'm not going to say it okay is there is there a russian car yes sir zeal zi i'll yeah you're thinking i'm a hug no it's not a ugo no it's not a ugo okay um if we don't have any calls i can i can give you some more on the consumer reports. Hey, I have something. I'm going to interrupt you. It's about safe. It's about headlights. And it's in the spotlight again. And Rick always

has something great to say about these headlights, but also in the AAA magazine, they talk about the automakers, they're getting an incentive to offer better headlights on more vehicles, reducing the number of nighttime crashes. What do you have to say about that? But, you know, considering it has been in the spotlight before, and they really have fine-tuned the headlights to work a whole lot better.

I think there needs to be a warning light on the dash of every car when your headlight bulb goes out, and it needs to be big, bright, and obnoxious, because one of my pet peas is driving around and seeing people with their high beams on because one of their low-beam has, headlights is burned out and they're not going to get into the headlight fixed is that right it's annoying is all get out to me but I mean that's just something that people it your headlights are important if one of your bulbs burns out get it replaced if they're really not that expensive in the long run okay let's get the number out again we need some more callers yeah we definitely do that number is 877 960 9960 and you can text us also at 7 172-497-6-530 and don't forget your anonymous feedback.com.

And we forget that people dial in and dial out. So I don't think we're giving the number out often enough because of the fact that we're now in the second hour and people that list the first hour, they called in and now we need to give the number out in the second hour. And I'll do that again. Write it down, write this number down, just in case you can't call now.

or you don't have a question. 877-960-99-60. That's 877-9-60-99-60. And the text that come in, the anonymous feedback, we save those up, but we don't have any in the archive now. So text us at 772-497-65-0.

That's 772-497-6-5-0. 6530 and the anonymous feedback usually we have so many of those we can't get to all of them so you're anonymous feedback.com y-o-o-u-r-a-n-n-y-m-m-o-us feedback.com give us a shout hey um you say the number a whole lot slower than i did that's great he's trying he's trying to stretch out the show so we get to mr shopper report to wrap up the headlight safety spotlight um let me say this i think um rick what I really like about it is that the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety developing, you know, this incentive program, you know, I think it's a great idea because headlights are very, very important, and they're important to maintain. Headlights bore me.

What's that? Headlights boreal. But night driving in general is a very interesting subject. Look at Nancy. Put the camera on Nancy right now. I'll put one quick word out. It's a post from Donovan. He comes up with some good information here.

We can finally have adaptive headlights in the U.S. It only took the U.S. government a decade plus to say it was okay, even though Europe and Asia, they've been around for well over a decade. I got a better idea. We eliminated headlights entirely, and everybody wears night vision glasses. Okay. Or night vision. I say just get autonomous cars and eliminate headlights.

That's right. How about the, okay. What I'm honest with anonymous cars, you don't need headlights. That would be a very interesting experience. Exactly. Okay. But seriously, I did, Dad, you got a look over there at Nancy. She's glaring at you.

But on night driving, there was a really interesting article in Road and Tracker read yesterday about that human beings are just not meant to drive at night. And there's a whole host of reasons why. And they said over half of all fatal traffic accidents happened between like 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. So it's at night. We can't see. It's from biology, physiology, physiology. all these different reasons why everything in between it's a miracle that we're able to drive a car at night

i'm telling you and you know i realized that just recently when i had to leave the house at 630 in the morning you know the world sure does look a whole lot different and your headlights that you turn on and your physiology is different your your body your clock you're you're shutting down you're getting ready to sleep and you're not as alert and all that and then i got to deal with my circadian rhythm i mean that's off i don't even talk about circadian rhythms because they're going to change the uh Make daylight savings permanent. Hold a second. When they make daylight savings permanent,

we're all babbling incoherently right now. You realize that. I am going to go back to the phones. Because we're not getting any callers, and nobody knows what to say. Hey, hey. Tell us about your barracuda. How about that?

Or how about your diet? What about my biological clock? Yeah. Okay, I digress. Okay, we are going to go to Sheila. I think Rick's going to leave. Thank God. Sheila, thank you.

Sheila is a first-time caller. Oh, come on. Sheila, good morning. Do you hear us? We're crazy this morning. I hear you perfectly. Thank you. You're welcome.

But can you hear our craziness? Okay, Sheila. No, I don't hear crazy. Go ahead. You are a first-time caller. And for that, you win yourself $50 this morning. Thank you for helping me build this platform for the ladies. and if you send me your address, I can send you $50.

How would you like that? I accept. I love it. Two-word answer. And send that address right to my email address, okay? Go to Irwan Cars. My email address is right there. I'll save you some time.

Okay. So what's your question? She forgot. No, no, I did not forget my question. Ladies do not forget their questions. You were talking about the rise in gas prices. So why do people think the gas prices went up? Well, most people don't understand why gas prices go up, but it gets a little bit more complicated.

But what say you? Well, it's oil prices. Right, it's a market. It's a priced on the international markets. But seriously, what happens is when oil, skyrockets, which it did, then the gas manufacturers, the distillers, the gas stations, Exxons, and mobile and the rest of them, they all say, oh, high oil prices are preparing the public so I can raise gas prices. Typically what happens, there should be, logically supply

and demand, there should be a big lag between oil prices going up and gas prices going up because there's a lot of gasoline and refined oil in the pipeline, but they raise it anyway because they know they can. So it's supply and demand, but it's prompted by a record high oil prices. So, sir, why aren't we gas independent? Well, that might be a question for, you know, another show. So there's so many opinions out there, Sheila, for your first question, your second question, and you really get knee-deep in, well, the real answer.

Well, the reality is that nothing is independent, is that it's a global market, and that to just say we're going to be gas independent is not a realistic thing. It's, like you said, it's priced on a global commodities market. And when there's a perception or an actual shortage, the price will go up. And if there is a surplus or a perception of a surplus, the price will go down. Yeah. And we were just talking about the oil companies and the profit that they're making right now, the sort that really makes up for, you know, everybody that was off the road during the,

when the pandemic first hit. So there's a lot of variables here. And it is a huge discussion. And like I said, everybody's got an opinion. And then there's the, you know, real answer. So I hope that. I have a question. I have a question.

to me it seems probably the we'll call it the beginning when we cut off our pipeline well keystone they cut off that pipeline yeah as soon as we cut it off it started going up yeah it was never running on ship push uh shipping gas so there it had no effect on on on markets just on perception on future production we're getting into a political discussion yeah it does turn on and on and on. But Sheila. There's two sides. I think the simple answer, Sheila, is supply and demand.

And the good news is, 20 years from now, there won't be any gas cars to worry about. They'll all be electric, and the gas crisis will be over. But Sheila, I've got two more calls waiting, and I do appreciate your call. And please, spread the word. Let the ladies know that we are trying to build a platform here, and do send me that address, and I'll get that $50 out to you. thank you very much I enjoy your show and

I listen to it as much as I can oh thank you so much we're going to go to Charles you're you too have a great weekend we're going to go to Charles who's holding in West Palm Beach good morning Charles and Tony hang on don't go anywhere Tony's calling us from Georgia

we'll be right with you after we talk to Charles good morning Charles well good morning I've got a couple of questions for you one And I had to replace my battery, and I'm wondering, it did not, quote, get recalibrated by the dealer. It's not just bogus or what's going on. What car do you have? What's the year and model?

I've got a volub. I've got two volvos, actually. And they're both up, well, one's in Connecticut and one's down here in Florida. And the AAA replaced the battery, but the dealers said, oh, well, it's not. properly synced or calibrated or something like that that needs to be done usually the only thing needs to be done is like the the power windows might need to be initialized as they call it and same thing for like if you have a sunroof or a moon roof and usually that's accomplished by operating the control at each door you'd simply press it for the down position when it gets all the

down hold it for a few seconds and then pull it for the up position and when the way it gets all the way up hold it for a few seconds and do the same thing for your power roof if you have one I didn't know that's a great information they develop they have a memory as to where the full open and full closed is so that the auto features will work and so as long as those are functioning normally the only other thing is the computer in the car will take a little time to relearn its settings when you're driving because what happens when you replace the battery it forgets everything that had learned while you were driving the car so it doesn't

learn how you drive the car so it's going to kind of like relearn that and it may drive a little odd for the first couple days but it's going to relearn it very quickly and you'll be just fine couple more questions. One other one is oil changes. I drive maybe 3,000 or so miles during the winter down here, and about the same amount when I'm back up in Connecticut. But each time I do that, I bring it into the dealer, and I'm told, well, you need an annual oil change. I figure that oil has been around for a couple million years, and why do I suddenly need an oil change after a year? And only 3,000 miles. Good question. Right. Bear in mind, the evil. when your car is sitting still, the outside air with the water vapor of water moisture is getting

into your engine, and so that is actually contaminating the oil a little bit at a time. You know how you get your condensation build up on the windows, and it will drip down. That moisture is forming inside the engine as well, and that water and the dirt are beginning to mix with the oil. That's why we recommend still, at least once a year, an oil chain should be done, According to what your manufacturer says in your owner's manual, and it will usually say like one year or every 10,000 miles or like every six months, every 5,000 miles. Whichever comes first.

Right. Whichever one comes first. And it's going to be based. Each car is different, though. I've seen some, they say once a year or every 7,500 miles. Charles, that's one of the most commonly asked questions and misunderstood. stood and many people like you, it makes sense. We have a lot of low mileage drivers for customers in our dealership.

And some of them just, all they do is go to the grocery store or the drugstore and they might put two or three thousand miles a year on the car. Why do I have to change more oil when I only got 3,000 miles in my car? I mean, that makes sense, but Rick explained it. It has to do with sitting in a garage or anywhere you keep your car. as well sits there, it has problems with condensation and contamination, even though you don't drive it. Yeah, I don't mind. I mean, the cost is de minimis, so I don't really worry about it.

I just wondered if that was real. My bigger questions actually have to do with hybrids and electrics. I understand that the electrics are coming. I'm just trying to imagine a horror show that occurs, say, on the Jersey Turnpike, when there are 20 cars waiting in line for a quick charge and you've got to wait in line for that to happen and then somebody, it's almost like the old days when you went to the laundromat,

someone left their blue jeans sitting in the dryer and they never came back for him and you're sitting there waiting for this guy to get back in his car while he's enjoying a... Charles, you're absolutely right. ...or something like that. And how are we going to deal with all these pilots that people waiting for their charges?

Yeah, today, it would be a challenge. If you suddenly put all electric cars on the road today, it'd be a hell of a problem because you wouldn't be in line, like you say. But technology is taking care of it. And earlier in the show, you probably hadn't tuned in. I did, but be Israeli. Israeli, yeah. So you'll be able to charge a battery faster than you can put gas in your car, and we'll have the infrastructure, the charging stations in place. But it'll be painful as we grow, like any major change.

Imagine in 1890, somebody's saying, well, if you gave every American a car, how are you going to fill it up with gas? There's only two gas stations in the United States. Exactly. I mean, things will adapt. Okay, I have a final question. With a Prius. Prius has been out since, what, 2000 or 2005? 1999.

Something like that. In Japan. Yeah. Okay, well, it was a couple years. But the batteries, this is a question that everybody has to ask because I'm thinking about a hybrid. But I'm thinking about the battery life and the coffee. to replace. What's the story with these old Priuses? What happens? I mean, didn't I hear about somebody who had a Tesla that the battery had to be replaced prematurely and he just decided to

blow it up? Yeah, he exploded it. I saw that. Yeah, Rick, tell him about Priuses. Actually, let me correct one thing here. Donovan, who, he has a lot of knowledge on this. So this is something I didn't know. He says, Volvo has to reset the batteries like. in the computer because it resets how the car will charge the battery as it ages. He says a lot of European cars, the computer charges the battery at a different rate depending on its age and it will not reset itself automatically. Okay, well that was a whole different question from the previous caller. What about the Prius batteries?

Generally, Toyota wants to try to get any old hybrid batteries back so that they can be properly recycled. Let me ask you this question. I think this one answered, Charles. When's the last time you had to replace a battery in a Prius? I mean, there's millions of Priuses on the highway. Let's see. We did one in the shop about three days ago. Okay. Over six-month period, how many Prius batteries do you replace? I'm going to say six to ten at the most. In a six-month period. Like one a month. Yeah. So it's not a huge problem. It seems like it might be. But, you know, it's like the, a lot. the batteries in all electric cars and they say yeah they have a life and when they expire you know

when the batteries dead you got to replace it it is expensive but usually the life of the car is about the same as a life of the battery and the car gets scrapped or the car goes away somewhere I don't know what happens to old cars like old soldiers but uh we just don't replace we just don't replace very many previous batteries and there's millions of them on the road and the greater majority of those when they eventually are too damaged in an accident or the customer just decides, okay, that's it, it's time for it to go.

They wind up at a scrapyard where most of the parts are recycled. That's interesting. Okay, well, thank you very much for all the information. Thank you, Charles. Look, it could work. Thanks, Charles. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye.

Thanks for calling. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3-7-6-5-3-6. and we're going to go to Georgia where Tony has been holding good morning Tony thank you thank you for taking my call

thank you for being so patient yeah I've called once before I've got a question I have a 2010 Honda that got caught in a puddle and sat for about an hour and a half before the tow truck picked it up I took it to

a mechanic and they said the engine lock up and I got to replace the engine. All right? I'm wondering if that's short of time, like two hours, would cause that kind of problem. And I subsequently ended up just buying another Honda Odyssey. So I got this car sitting on the curb.

What's the best way to junk it if I got to replace the engine? How deep was the puddle? Actually, the puddle was not very deep. It should have just came up to the bottom of the engine. maybe about two or three inches above the bottom of the engine. Well, the question I actually have on it is, was obviously the engine was running when you went into the puddle. Did it stall out and stop? It started stalling actually before I went into the puddle.

Okay, it was a heavy rain. Uh-huh. And then when I went into the puddle, it definitely stalled. Okay. And when you tried to start it, if you turned the key, what were you hearing? Oh, boy, it spent some months back in August, but... Yeah. Finally, the battery just ran down, okay?

So... But was the engine still spinning over? Or would it just do like a loud clunk sound? no no clunk sound no clunk sound no clunk sound at all okay but but i think the mechanic is telling me and i'm suspicious that it locked up yeah you should get it checked again because rick's wondering if a water was sucked up into the engine right they should be able to show you what what normally happens in a case where you run into water like that is water gets sucked into the air intake and gets sucked inside the engine

And that's because a lot of cars, for some reason, they put the air intake really low. So when you hit that water, that wave initially hits, and it doesn't take a whole lot of water in the engine. And that engine is spinning really fast. And when it tries to compress that water, things bend and break. And then that locks up that motor. That didn't happen in Charles case because he said he was having a problem before he went into the public. Right. And if it stalled out and you could still crank it and it would crank over,

over pretty much normally, I'd have another mechanic look at that engine. You may not have all that much damage in the engine. It may still be worth fixing it. You always want to get a second opinion when you talk about an expensive repair anyway. So even if he's right, you want to confirm it, just like a doctor, you get a second opinion. And if you didn't get a whole lot of water inside the car, that car could still be worth quite a bit of money. I mean, it may very well be worth putting a used engine in it. I would get second opinion on what went wrong, you know, what you've got going on with yours right now.

Yeah. But a 2010 Honda, those are worth the money. They're worth keeping because they just, hondas and Toyotas are the two brands that they're kind of like the everyman car. Everyone can find a way to afford one. And Subaru. Oh, and Subaru, yeah, I keep forgetting Subaru. They're such great cars. I couldn't have said it any better.

But they hold their value. So that's one that's worthwhile. I wouldn't give up on it just yet. Especially in this element. It's just, Tony, it may be worth your while to get a couple more opinions. It doesn't, does it sound like as if it's a flood damaged car? Not really. It really isn't, I don't think it's classified as such.

Yeah, and even if the water got really deep and seeped in, that doesn't cause so much of the damage in the engine. It's when the water gets really deep inside the car that causes, at that point, Now you've got problems that you don't really want to be involved in. Tony, I hope we answered your question. Okay, I'm going to add this. When the tow truck came to pull me out, it put me deeper in the water, and then that finally got into just at the floorboard of the cabin. But that was only for about 20 minutes.

Okay. If the engine wasn't running, that wouldn't have hurt it any more than it was. Right. No, the engine went away. Yeah, and you can sometimes even dry that out with a couple things of that damp rid. You can get it at Home Depot. Yeah, great product. And put those in and close the doors and windows up and just let it.

And it will suck up all that moisture out of there. Yeah. That's a product I use. I believe in that, definitely. But I definitely get a second opinion. Okay. I will get the, I will do that. One last question.

If I have to junk it, what's the best way to do that? Get multiple bids. Back during cash for clunkers, you remember that? we used to get multiple bids and you'd be surprised how the bids they'll go anywhere from $300 to $3,000

and even though you have what might be a salvageable car get at least three bids Yeah, you can find those guys on the internet they'll say we buy junk cars and they'll have signs around quite often

I get several bids from them and see what they say Internet, best way to go but please give us a call back let us know how that works out for you Tony. Okay, thank you. Yeah, well, wait to hear from you, Tony.

To the roadrunner out there, sorry we didn't get to your call quick enough. If you're listening, I'm not sure. I think Jonathan is just about ready. It's about that time he has signaled me. We're going to freeze up the lines because we do have to get to our mystery shopping report. And Roadrunner, Steve.

You've got to be fast to catch the Roadrunner. Me. Are you still there? Roadrunner, Steve? Damn. Oh, there you are. We were fast enough. There you go.

Yeah. Okay. My question is, maybe a guy from Department of Motorville from Anthony. The cars today with the backup camera

and self-parking cars when somebody goes to take a driving test, are they allowed to use those advantages in order to pass the driver's test to get a driver's license?

I'm going to say no. You're a allowed to use them, but you must also make sure that you use each year, well, not the automatic parking, but you must also, if you're doing the backup portion, make sure you use the mirrors, and you turn and look over your shoulder and do the, you know, the full look around. I was just talking about the self-parking thing. And the reason I know this, I don't pass a driving test.

One of our texts at the shop, his daughter recently failed her driving test because she did not look around and look in the mirrors. You were relying on the backup camera. When I was teaching my kids to drive, we had, I said, yes, these are nice little technology. You still have to learn how to look around and use your eyeballs. Yeah, that's a bad. Now, Doroh, could you take your Tesla in full self-driving mode and get your driver's license with that? Yeah, I haven't got my safety score higher enough yet.

Or yet now. I'm still at 96. Okay, that's way better than me, but I don't have a Tesla anymore. Okay, but the guy that just called, he should get the damper in that dollar tree. It's a lot cheaper. It's only a buck in a quarter. there you go yeah thanks thanks for that roadrunner Steve it's great hearing from you

I was supposed $1 on four gallons of left 90 so I'm a happy camper there you go all right everybody stay safe and well you too see you see you see me thank you we'll hear from you again I hope okay bye bye bye 772-4976530 we implore you to rate the mystery shopping report

and Asian Lightning did a fabulous job again and that mystery shopping report is from Greensburg, Pennsylvania Mike Kamlin Hyundai and I think we're going to go back to Stu real quick. Yeah, we had a few texts that came in. They heard the slowly red text line and they texted us. Amory says, could you please explain automatic light settings?

If I keep my car lights in the auto setting, do cars switch from daylight running lights to full, low beams when it's dark, and are there tail lights on the daylight running lights? Please clarify. So yes, if you are in automatic, when it gets dark enough, your headlights will come on normally, and when it gets light enough, they'll go out. That is, with the daytime running lights, though, your question, they do not have tail lights on when the daylight, when they're running,

and that actually kind of poses a problem because people, the daytime running lights, it's a lower intensity than the regular headlights, so it can get dark. You might think your headlights are on because you see light in front of your car, But your taillights are not on, so that is an issue. Great question. Yeah. Next question, who's this from here?

This is from Sean. I'm approaching 40,000 miles, and my service person says I'm reaching the recommended interval to change my spark plugs. What do spark plugs do and how important is it to change them? And he has got to 2019 VWJETA. Okay. Spark plugs basically are what ignites the air fuel mixture in the combustion chamber. of the engine and following the manufacturers recommended time for replacement what happens is if you don't replace them in time they'll begin to wear down and eventually you won't get as good a solid spark

therefore it cannot burn the mixture properly and you're going to start to lose a little bit of power in the engine and you get a lot more carbon deposits and build up in the engine typically how many miles you see in that happen well it depends on the car they told them for 40,000 yeah some some cars at 30,000. Other cars 40. Other cars are rated. They use special plugs and they can go up 150,000 miles. It would be in the scheduled maintenance guide of the owner's manual. Exactly. So, yeah, Robbie, just make sure that that that's what it says in your owner's manual, it's scheduled maintenance guide, that 40,000 miles is when you're supposed to on that vehicle. Can I back up to Ann Marie, because her? Yeah. She always makes me think. And I was thinking

while she was, you were reading her text. Brake lights. In my Tesla, and hybrids and all electric cars, when you take your foot off the glass, not in hybrids, just electric. Well, you know, the brake lights don't come on when you take the gas off the gas in the hybrid. No.

It does on Tesla. It doesn't on Tesla either. It does, too. It does? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Wait, when you take your foot off the accelerator,

the brake lights will come on. brake lights come on even if you're coasting. Yes, you can see the, you can actually see it. There's a little display on the car. Wow. In the Tesla. I didn't know that. I didn't know that.

No, no, let me explain a little bit more. So if you're driving in your car and you ease off the gas, it won't come off. The computer knows at a certain point, when it, when you start to actually slow down, then the brake lights will come on on your car. Well, when you slow down in the gas, when you take your foot off the gas, the brake lights will come on, even if you're not touching the brake pedal. Yeah. Is that right?

And what about the hybrid? No. Hybrid, you take your foot off the gas. The brake lights will not come on it unless you press the brake pedal. So the hybrids should do what Tesla does. Well, it doesn't slow it down nearly as much as what you do. All electric, yeah. I use that as your brake.

When I'm looking out and I see brake lights. Isn't that good to know, though, now that you thought that you were breaking, but nobody knew you were breaking? Yeah, yeah. They knew you were breaking. Yeah, thank God for that. That's good for you to know as well. You're safe. One last question.

This is Robbie and Stewart. it says, good morning. Do modern hybrid cars hold their value as good as non-hybrid car or better? Historically, hybrid cars have hold their value more than regular gas. And now in this current weird inventory shortage crisis and use car prices or surging, I don't have any data whether how much better it is now, but traditionally, hybrids have held their better. Are you speaking of Toyota others or all? All hybrids. I just, I looked it up, so I don't know. It was like after four years, this is a few years ago, so that's why I mentioned we're in a weird situation.

And it was, after four years, a gas car, on average, lost 50% of its value, or 54% and a hybrid loss, like, just under 50%. So it was a little bit better. Yeah, that's very interesting. I didn't know that either. Okay. All right, I think we're ready to go to that mystery shopper report. And I'm going to remind everyone out there you can text us with your rating on this mystery shopping report from Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

We'd love to hear from you at 772-497-6530, and that's from Mike Kamlin, Hyundai of Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Okay, if Greensburg, Pennsylvania sounds familiar to us, because Earl Stewart on cars was doing some mystery shopping up there back in September. Agent Lightning paid a visit to Smale, S-M-A-I-L. That's a funny name. Yeah. I think it's got to be the family name. It's from catty shots.

Sounds like snail. Smale, Mazza, just as we were getting into the worst part of the worldwide inventory crisis, and boy, was it a change from what we've seen here in South Florida. We talked about this earlier in the show. Cultures in different parts of the country. I mean, let's face it, the Midwest, they got nicer people out there. And it's very interesting, and I know I'm overstating it, but each area of the country is different,

and this mystery shopping report reminded us of that. At the time of the shop selling over, of the last shop in Pennsylvania, selling over MSRP was well established across the entire country. South Florida is expected. Dealer pricing was more brutal. Everything is more brutal in South Florida than in most places. What we didn't expect was a discount, which is sort of what we got at Smale, Masta. Smale gave Agent Lightning, this is the previous shop, a $269 discount off MSR.R. RP, unheard of. Of course, right after that, they added in a small dock fee, dealer fee, $394. In South Florida, it's $1,000 plus, but it was the closest thing to a discount we'd seen in a while, and since, as a matter of fact. Going back to Greensburg, Pennsylvania,

will give us a clear understanding of what we experienced last time. Smil Mazda is either a one-of-a-kind, super-duper-awson dealership, or it's representing of the other dealers in the Pittsburgh, Metro area, in the Midwest, or somewhere in between, we're going to find out now. Knowing if there's an oasis of car dealer goodness in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is valuable information for our audience, and that's why we do this. Agent Lightning traveled to this area this week and volunteered for another long-distance mystery shop. Her mission was the same. Pick out a new vehicle, hopefully in stock, try to buy it for MSRP or less. If you could get for MSRP, you really got yourself a home. home run in today's market.

We honestly didn't know what to expect. For the most part, the situation is the same as it was last September. Vehicle supply is not keeping up with demand. Deals are charging thousands of MSRP using devices such as market value adjustments and cheap dealer installed accessories. Cheap, and I call them valueless. Things are still crazy here in South Florida and we have ever reason to believe things will be crazy in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh. So we're going to find out. Here's a report. I'm speaking in the first person,

like Iowa's agent, Lightning, and that female. For my mission in Greensburg, I deputized my in laws to be a part of the Earl Sterling Cars investigative team. My mother-in-law is actually in the market for a new car, against her wishes since her car was told a week ago, so she played the role of a customer. Perfect. It's a reality. It's really going to be fun to go at them with a very realistic situation, and my father-in-law came along for the ride. My mother-in-law, Donna, is interested in the small SUV and is actively considering Hyundai's. So she called the local Hyundai dealership Mike Kamlin Hyundai, C-A-M-L-I-N-M-L-I-N-A, in

Greensburg, Pennsylvania. She made an appointment with a salesman named Jesse, and we hopped in the car and drove to the dealership. Jesse met us in the lot where we pulled in. He asked Donna some questions about what she was interested in and made some small talk with us. I said I was there to make sure Donna doesn't buy anything she doesn't need. Jesse said he completely understood. Jesse led the three of us into the showroom, found a desk for us to sit at.

As he pulled up the dealership new car inventory on his computer, he sighed and admitted they didn't have much to choose from. that every week nowadays. Jesse became excited as he reported that they had a new 2022 Hyundai, Kona S-E-L, an all-wheel drive that just came into stock. He checked to see if it was available and happily let us know that it was. I asked if we could see it and Jesse told us to follow in. As he walked, Jesse told my father-in-law they noticed his U.S. Army veteran hat and asked if he was retired military, very observant of him. My father-in-law told him that he was, and Jesse said that he could get a $500 military rebate from Hyundai. Now, that was a pleasant surprise.

It's a nicer application of that real rebate, as opposed to using it in an ad to lower the price. Yeah, a real application. That's how it's supposed to be used. And Stu was eluding the fact that they advertise, including a rebate you can't get, and then they ask you if you're in the Army, and you say no, and you say, I'm sorry, you've got to raise a price $500. But in this particular situation, it was real. We all thought that was great and thanked him. Then he said they could get another $500 off if they chose to finance with Hyundai.

And that interested me right there, and it's even more interesting as we go along. We found the Kona, cute little SUV, and Pulse Red. Donald loved it. The MSRP was 26,345. Now, that's a low MSRP. There was no addendum in sight. a little bit, highly unusual, especially in South Florida. The car was still wrapped in plastic, just came off the truck, inside and out, and there was

only one mile on the odometer. I don't think I've ever seen a car. We typically see like six or seven, like it's... Maybe they don't test their cars as thoroughly as Toyota test. Jesse went over all the features with my in-laws while I hung back and observed. Jesse really took his time with them to answer the questions. That's nice. He went on to sell the dealership special offers.

Lifetime power train warranty and oil changes for life. He said they even offer complimentary manicures every Wednesday. Yeah, she texted us about that. Now, that amazes me because I can see that in a Cadillac or a luxury car dealership. Hyundai. But offering complimentary manicures and Hyundai dealership. Hyundai and Greensburg, Pennsylvania. And Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

I don't know. I can see maybe Beverly Hills. Yeah, right. Jesse and Donna took a test drive, and when they came back, he asked if all of us, if we had any questions before we got the numbers together, Donna told him that she planned to finance with a credit union, and we advise everyone. Check with your credit union, if you have access to one, typically you'll get a much better interest rate. So check with a credit union, hempfield area federal credit union in Greensburg. She said she needed to bring them a buyer's order.

Jesse said that wouldn't be a problem and told her that Hyundai offers 0% for 48 months and 3.5% for 72 months. Now, the thing that I find interesting is we see a lot of incentive programs where it's the cash or the lower interest rate. Here, apparently we have the cash $500 off if they finance with Hyundai and 0% or 3.5% for a large. longer term. You reminded her that they would get an additional $500 off for going through $100 finance. So in this case you have your cake and eat it too. I love it. Donna and I said that's good. He left to get the numbers, returned it with a worksheet, and there were no pricing details, just a selling price and a grid with payments and terms. The selling price was 25, 345, which reflected the $1,000 in rebates, military and Hyundai finance.

And I wonder myself, I just, you know, it's probably not important to anybody would be. Why would Hyundai incentivize someone at 0% and... Well, I mean, Toyota doesn't do that directly. They have loyalty, so if you lease or finance with them, you get an extra, if you come, if you're repeating, you know, going back with them. you get another 500. But yeah, I've seen this before. So yeah, I don't, I don't quite understand the motivation. Yeah. Sometimes they want you to finance with them because they make money when they finance. Even the finance company can make money. So here they make no money

is zero percent and then give you $500. Anyway, I digress. Jesse said that he included gap and oh, yeah, it wasn't. Jesse said he included gap insurance and an extended warranty in the payments. Okay, well, there's a first little, you know, shady thing that we've seen. Donna told Jesse that if she financed with them, she would want only GAAP insurance and not the extended warranty. Very smart thing to say. I asked for a better breakdown of the pricing. And if you put nothing down, you got 0%. You know, that's a gaping insurance could be a good buy if her were a priced rate.

Jesse said you'd be right back with that and came back with another worksheet. I like it without a mask. I can lick my fingers now when I turn the page. This was labeled the cash deal structure. It showed the same price, $25, $3.45,000, as well as $9.95 and optional items. And that was a gap. Yeah, he explained that was the gap insurance. That sounds like a lot of money for gap insurance.

It's in the pocket. Yeah. In the ballpark, okay. And then a $4.22 dealer fee, and they call a document prep fee, which is really low compared to what we see in Florida. So, a low dealer fee and fairly price-cap insurance and a good price in today's market. Jesse then pulled up Hemfield Credit Union's website,

very smart, found their published financing rate. He showed us that Huntay's rates were better and remind us again that you get an additional $500 rebate. Don agreed to use their financing, but only if they promised to run their credit only once, Jesse promised. He ended them two credit applications to fill out as they were pulling them out down his credit union, representative called her on her cell phone.

Wow. They discussed the offer from Hyundai, and the representative from the credit union said they could do much better than what was published online. That's interesting, too. I mean, it's kind of a hometown. Yeah. I mean, obviously they're not going to be able to do zero percent, but on a longer term, they might be able to do better on 3.5.

Exactly. exactly. I don't decide to wait and told Jesse this. She needed to take some time to hear what Hemfield had to offer and sort of everything out. We thanked him for his time, gather our things, and hit it out. And there you have it. Different culture, different part of the country, different car salesman, and it's just, it's like La La La Land compared to Port Lauderdale, Miami, or Palm Beach County. It's like Kansas. It is, like Kansas, yeah. Back in Kansas.

It is. So we got a vote. And I don't want to take the vote by giving my opinion, but it was a breath. It's pretty clear. I think they get nay. I don't have any texted in yet, but a feeling the sentiment will be the same. Yeah. It is, or any of YouTube votes?

I'm waiting on them, but nothing just yet. You know, I would almost want to encourage Angel Lightning to do some other out-of-state because, you know, maybe we're not appreciating the true temperature of the country when it comes to morals and transparency of car dealers because it's night and day. For sure. Greensburg, Pennsylvania, compared to Miami, Florida. Yeah. Miami.

Yeah, it's just night and day. So I don't know how we're going to do this, but we can't actually be sending her all over the world. No, but we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it, yeah. Bob says they get an A because you get a manicure there. So it sounds like Bob likes his manicures. Thanks, Bob. Yeah.

I mean, if you're in Pennsylvania and we go to our recommended list, that's great. But, I mean, South Florida, you're out of luck. but I'm telling you you might even want to drive to Pennsylvania or fly if you get a good price. If you have any reason to go up there if there's any excuse, that would be a good time to make it a car buying mission.

With these high prices, it probably would pay you to drive a distance because you want to shop online. So let's say you did live in South Florida. You might want to drive to Orlando. We found out that you could buy a Lexus at MSRP in Orlando.

That might have changed. They changed. Yeah. You could a month ago. Yeah. And then they... But I think you can still buy a Lexus and Coconut Creek from Jim Lexus for just a teeny-weeney-dealer fee. And so you have to...

If you could get a car, MSRP somewhere, it would pay you the drive to that location. Okay, we got a few coming in on YouTube here. Negan 1 says B for Buy, A, if they do pedicures, Kirk in West by God Virginia says a solid A and he also goes on to say how about trying Wheeling Subaru in Wheeling West Virginia well so suggested okay Brian Siddlocko I like this dealership A Mark Anderson Mark from St. Louis in the Midwest or he says Midwest Honesty A Tom Steckle B plus only negative was the unspecified options for 995 Didn't change when the extended warranty was removed.

Well, Tom, that was actually the gap insurance that she had talked about. Fairly priced, though. Donovan says, got to give them an A. He says, I would like to see you go to a Hyundai, Kia, or Ford dealership, and try to buy an EV to see the experience difference. Cram 1624 says 422 fee, question mark. Well, I mean, for a dock fee, that's actually pretty low compared to... What you get hit with down?

There should be no dealer fees. They should be no hidden fees. But if you've got to have one, make it low. And for me, I'm going to say A minus on it. If they didn't have the doc fee, it'd be an A plus all the way. But I'll give them the A. What do you say, Mrs. Sun, Ryan? Thank you.

Excuse me. You know, I question the Gallup poll, the honesty, ethics, and the profession. and we're way at the bottom as the auto industry just stays right there. It hasn't moved. But you read a mystery shopping report like this, and I think it's a great idea that you have that we, you know, well, extend our reach a little more and check out these dealerships if we possibly can with Agent Lightning everywhere.

But I give Mike Kellynne, Camden, Hyundai of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, I give them an A. And there's really something to be said about the credit union and the interest rate that they continuously offer in spite of what's going on in the auto industry, the shortages, and everything that affects us. There's a chance for a person to, you know, finance their car at a reasonable interest rate. And A. You know, one thing we can do is shop small towns. Let's shop some small towns in Florida. Are there any small towns in Florida?

There's a lot of small towns in Florida. Boy, is there ever. I'm talking about small towns that are out of a metro area. Yeah, we could like Eustis or Link City or figure it out. Mount Dora. Mountain Dora, I like that. Is there a mountain in Florida I'm not aware of? No, but it's a little town in kind of like central Florida.

Is that where Andy Griffiths from? Very similar. Yeah. But it's like all... Like a mom, Paul. decorated up with fancy paintings, everything, it's a very down-home little city. Okay. We'll try it.

Did you, did you read the... I'm going to give them a day. Okay. I mean, that was... We got two minutes. One and a half. I got tears in my eyes. It was, you know, you'd be surprised how frustrating it is to go after a terrible report, terrible report.

And I just, I just, it's like a rainbow. You know, you, there is, there is. there is honesty in this industry you're like an ER doctor or like a who has just been burned out by just so much carnage that you just can't take it and then you get a happy story and it just changes your day yeah you suddenly get that one where

the lady comes in with the baby being born just as she's walking in everybody gets to see the baby exactly yeah hey let's take a trip to green acres let's go to you know Andy Griffin's neck of the woods we have one minute left Stu, do you have something for us? I'm going to find a town called Mayberry, and we're going to mystery shop it.

There you go. Even if they don't have a car dealership. Let me say one thing. Nobody came up with the worst car, according to the annual honor. Wait, wait. Negan 1 actually did have one vote in on that. He said Land Rover. He was close.

The worst car is a Jeep. I knew it. And the next to worst was GMC and Mitsubishi was third, but Land Rover, I think it was fourth. The best car, by the way. That's a source on that. That looks like your notebook. That's your handwriting. I wrote from the summary point.

The best car was Subaru. There you go. The Subaru, the best make car. Overall. The worst make Jeep. So, I would have guessed, Fiat. Hey, the recovering car dealer is going to close out the show this week. I have one moment.

Have a great weekend. And stay tuned. Next week. We'll be right back. here at 8 a.m.