Earl Stewart on Cars - 03.21.2020 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Arrigo Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram of Ft. Pierce

Episode Date: March 21, 2020

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits Arrigo Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram to see if he can purchase a new 2019 Ram Pickup truck advertised on TV with a very attractive discount. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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 is my son, Stu Stewart. are linked to cyberspace 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 self-forwarded dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back. This is the recovering car dealer live.

You just listen to my recording. And we're live in the studio, and we have a special surprise. We have Nancy Stewart. my partner in crime and my also my wife and my co-host and she's been doing this show with us for 17 years been out of commission for a few weeks with a little foot surgery and she's recovered got herself a boot on to walk with and she's just doing fine so welcome back nancy stewart welcome back and we've got everybody we've got stew and we got we got rick and we're here live on a exciting time in our history in the 21st century first time i can recall, and I've been around since 1940, an international, a worldwide crisis, and we're broadcasting live from North Palm Beach, Florida. Jonathan reminded me that we are an international or at least a national show right now, people from all over the United States. I'm hoping folks from all over the USA are listening to Earl Stewart on Cars. We're going to try to bring

a little normalcy back to your life, and we're not going to be talking a whole lot about you know what, the coronavirus, we know what's going on and we know we're going to get through it and we know most of us are going to be fine and we're going to be careful and we're going to try to keep our spirits up. So this show is about how to keep your spirits up and also keep money in your wallet in your purse when you're buying or leasing a car. Also when you're maintaining or repairing a car. Now fortunately, or depending on how you look at it, unfortunately, car dealers are remaining open. I guess car dealers are considered an essential service, and certainly your car is an essential service. You need the car now for all sorts of things that be tested for the virus,

for one thing, to get to the doctor, get the hospital, to get to the pharmacy. You've got to have your car. So car dealers are going to remain open, I believe. I spoke with the president of the Florida Automobile Dealers Association yesterday morning, and he said that all the the dealers that he knows are still open and I've checked with the dealers of South Florida and we have no notice of any car dealers closing so they're out there they're out there for you and they're off there against you and this show is to help you how to defend yourself when you go into a car dealership to get routine maintenance or repair or to buy or lease a car new or used and we're here for you we hope that we have a lot of input from you and we talk about that

every Saturday morning that your calls are the essence, the lifeblood of this show. We actually, this is just not a gratuitous statement, we actually learn from you. I mean, I've been in the business for 50 years, and I'm learning things almost every week from you out there in radio land or YouTube land. I've got to say, Facebook land, cyberspace. I want to give you our contact numbers if you're new to the show, or even if you have been listening to the show before, but haven't written these numbers down. I'd like to ask you to write these numbers down. You might have nothing

to say now, but later on, something will come up from a caller or from me or Rick or Nancy or Stu. Our call-in number on the old-fashioned telephone is 877-960. You can call us at 877-960. And we will prioritize phone calls because we don't want you waiting on the line a long time. And if you do, you'll tie up all the lines and people who call in won't be able to get through. So callers are, you know, it's more personal when you call, but you don't have to. That call-in number again is 877-960-99-60, and texting is really big. Texting, because that way we build a backlog in Stu over there is right. your information down, making a log, so we get to your text.

We get to the text, but not as timely as a call in. But we get to all of them. Next week, we covered everything. So our text number, 772-4976530, that's 772-4976530. Now, YouTube, we're on YouTube. So you're going to go Earl on Cars on YouTube. We're on Facebook, or on cars on Facebook, and I think we're, are we on Twitter, Jonathan, or is Twitter down again? Twitter's down, Periscope is down, I think, but YouTube and Facebook are the biggies and the text there.

So we're here to, you know, answer your questions, to give you some suggestions, some advice, and we'd love to hear from you at any time. Let's go around the table here, and especially to Nancy Stewart. my co-host. She is the female advocate in the group, and last week in the other weeks when she's been out, we've had some female callers, but not as many. And she's a stimulus

for all the ladies out there in the audience to call the show. Very important. Half of you are buying and leasing and maintaining and repairing cars, so you should be as interested or participate as much, be a part of the show as the men. And then she has a special offer in Sennie.

for you a first-time lady callers nancy good morning ladies and gentlemen great to be back back with all of my co-workers stew rick jonathan oh boy i miss you guys uh i'll tell you what we are here to well for a while create a diversion in your life a good one and i hope that you stay with us our next two hours and uh for the ladies you're a really real important part of the show because as you will know, we are building a platform here for you because you are an important part of the show. And to Sweden the pot, we are giving you first two lady callers, $50. If you give us a call this morning at 877-960-99-60. And of course, you can text us with your questions if you are a little bashful.

At 772-4976530. And there's no strings attached on that 50 bucks. I think a lot of people say, no, there's always this. Well, I'm a car dealer, so obviously they think there's a string. But this is an unconditional 50 bucks. If you're female, you haven't called the show before, you don't have to ask a question. You don't have to make an intelligent comment.

You don't have to sing a song. You don't have to look at the fine print. If you call the show and you're the first time female caller, we're going to send you a check for 50 bucks and that's just to stimulate your interest. You can just call and just give us your address. Yeah, call and give us your address. Yes, absolutely. Great idea.

And I am going to mention www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Boy, do we love that. Is that the greatest thing that's ever happened? You can share whatever you want with www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And no one can trace you. Exactly.

So take advantage. We can't find you. Even though you get to make us mad, no matter what you say, we'll never know who you are. It's like a whistleblower thing. You know, it protects you against, you know, retaliation is what I'm trying to say. Absolutely. And we have an exciting mystery shop this morning. Oh, yeah.

The last part of our show at Arrigo, Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep. Ram. You got to go O'Rego. Fort Pierce. He got me brain rush. You got to go O'Rego. Yes, absolutely right. Yeah, and we got an exciting video to go with it to keep your attention.

So, we'll move on. Yeah, let's move on to Stu because he is the Spymaster General of the Mystery Shopping Report. And this is arguably, I don't think that's even arguably, it is the most exciting part of our show. And a lot of new listeners out there, as I say, we're nationwide, don't know what we do, and Stu can sum that up for you. Before I do, I want to say what Nancy's doing right now, I would never permit that at my dinner table, foot up on the table. Nancy has to keep her left foot elevated, so it heals.

I'm going to put it behind my neck. As Jenny suggested, good morning, Jenny. Are you listening? I believe you can, because that's... I love your energy. You're a lot more flexible than anybody else in this room, I guarantee it. You better believe it. Yeah, so I was worried about this week's mystery shopping report because of the global pandemic.

And the number one, I was concerned about having the mystery shopper being the only customer in the car dealer showroom because traffic, you know, foot traffic, customer traffic is down in car dealerships. And there's a certain anonymity when they blend into the mass of customers in the showroom. If you're the only one, then there's a lot of attention on you. So I was worried about that. And then I was also worried about Agent Thunder, you know, how he felt. about going in and exposing himself. Tell the new folks about what the mystery shopping report is.

It's yesterday's news to our regular audience, but the new folks. So for those of you and other lands, we're not familiar, every week we send a undercover operative into a local or sometimes not so local car dealership. They pretend to be a customer. Sometimes they respond to an ad that we've seen online or on TV, and they pretend to go in and buy the car and tell the story about what happens. They'll send me a report.

I'll put a little dramatic flourishes here and there on it to make it for good radio. I'm thinking about that too. But it's the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. We name all the names. We give the names of the salesperson, the manager, and all the details. The number one goal is we like to get the buyers order,

the actual purchase order back, so we can kind of unpack and dig down and see all the extra hidden fees and all the other stuff that they don't advertise. Tell them the truth. Tell them why we know we're telling the truth over 17 years. Well, we've made a lot of harsh accusations in the last 17 years. We have accused big fat cat rich dealers of lying and breaking the law. And we've said that literally you are breaking the law. If that wasn't true, we would think that we would have gotten a letter from an attorney have been summoned to appear in court. Well, we did get a letter, but it was only a threat.

It was stupid. We've never been sued in 17 years. Liable and slander, the truth is the perfect defense against libel and slander. And everybody knows that. And that car dealer is very reluctant to go after us. I'm sure he gets advice from his attorney. I guarantee you, a lot of cardio said, I'm going to sue that, blankety-blank. And the lawyer says, yeah, the lawyer's going to say, well, was he?

lying and uh and then that's when the conversations gets legal and you and they says you realize that if you sue him and you lose it's going to call attention to your dealership and if you have a jury trial and with cameras you're going to be the most embarrassed humiliated car dealer on the face of the earth so the attorneys are a lot of fun exactly for us exactly not a lot of fun for the other guy uh excuse me we're going to go to bob who's been holding patiently from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Bob. Morning, Bob. How you doing? Oh, no.

Do we lose, Bob? Sounds like we lost Bob. Bob, listen, if you're listening, somehow we've disconnected you, and we would love for you to call back, 877-9-60-9-9-60, that's 877-9-60. And my apologies, we'll try to pick up the call next time and not drop it And anybody else, we'd love to have you call. And we were just interrupting Stu there, and he was on the, but we interrupt everybody on the show when we have a call. A lot callers take precedent.

Yeah. So, but the other big challenge we had last week with our mystery shop report was Agent Thunder, who is our current chief mystery shopper, chief investigator. He and his wife welcomed their new baby into the world last week. So he was kind of, you know, hung up in new parent land. And so we were going to give them a break. So we tried to find another operative to go into the field. And there's a lot of hesitation. It's scary to do in good times.

And then I think the whole the coronavirus thing kind of scared them away, too. So made a last ditch effort to get Agent Thunderback out in the field. And he did it because he's dedicated. And he did a great job. And he went out there. And he was a little nervous. Yeah. Because not everybody.

You volunteered to do it. But, you know, your face is known in the industry. I had a baseball hat. Yeah. I came in to work on this week wearing a baseball hat jeans. Very low-key. You wouldn't have recognized me. But I kind of wanted to do it.

The undercover boss. Exactly. So, but we got a good shop this week. And like we do every single week. And, you know, it's like the postman come rain, snow, sleet, hail, global pandemic. We will be there. in your dealership uncovering the ugliest of the uglies absolutely also let's move around to rick kearney and you heard this in the induction but rick has worked for me for about 25 years about

a quarter century does that make you feel old rick and uh being old makes me feel old rick is uh interesting about the thing about rick as he started out uh back when mechanics were pretty essential and basic excuse me your bob's back oh great bob Sorry, we're disconnecting you. Have we still got you on the line? Bob? Oh, boy. Bob, do you have your mute button pressed on your phone by any chance?

Hello? We'll give him another shot. Yeah, keep trying, Bob. I hope it's not our end if we've had other people try to get through, but we've somehow not been able to communicate with Bob twice. And I was just talking about Rick, having been in the business a long time, back when repairing a car was, by today's standards, pretty rudimentary. And I would say intuitive, you could open a car hood, and you could identify the components.

Rick, when he was a kid, actually, I guess, took a car apart, or you helped, used to do repairs with your father. Yeah, I worked on cars just as a kid, built home go-carts. You know, always liked to work playing with engines and getting dirty and playing with the tool. And it starts that way. It shows how your head is wired. You are wired with that talent of being able to intuitively fix things. I was born totally without it. In fact, one of my famous sins in life is I take things apart and I can't put them back together again. And I order things that are not assembled and I can't assemble them. But you've had this natural tendency. And then it's evolved into computer science because cars have evolved. and they're so complex today. One of our biggest problems is a car dealer is to explain to customers how to work their cars. I don't mean literally how to drive

it, but how do you, what's this button for? What's this switch? What's this touchpad? And they're so complex today, Bluetooth, and you name it. Well, compared to cars of the past, going back to the 50s, I mean, nowadays, cars are more like the space shuttle. I mean, it's if you look inside pictures of the cockpit of jet fighters and big jumbo jets and you see all those switches and controls

and you're just like amazed by how much there is but that's almost what cars what a car driver has to be nowadays is a pilot you have to understand all those controls and it's almost overwhelming and I like to tell folks Sometimes it's best as take your owner's manual and read a couple pages a night, and you'll learn some really interesting stuff about your cars and what they can do now. A lot of calls used to be, and we've been doing this for 17 years back then. The calls were how to fix a car and so on and so over. Today, it's what does this mean on my car? I get a signal or how do I, you know, why doesn't my sound system work properly?

They are very, very complex. We have so many safety components and items that are integral and important that people don't even know how to use probably. So if you've got those questions, I think we have a caller. Yeah, we're going to go to Howard. Hey, Howard. You on the line? Please be on the line, Howard. And Bob, if you're listening, give us a call back.

Sometimes we have, you know, a few technical problems. We can't go to bomb anymore. But we usually get through it. And Howard, the same applies to you. You're very familiar with the show. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-4-9-7-6-5-3-0. Let me ask this. How are the text working?

They're coming in. We'll start with some text now. Yeah, I wanted to transition. You were talking about the high-tech, how complicated the cars are. And in this past week, I had a text exchange with a listener. I do get the text during the week. usually I'll receive the responses for the show, but I responded, the text said, Earl, is it possible to order a car without any of that modern technology on the dashboard?

I would like a car with only a radio on the dashboard, or are you forced to buy a package whereby, if you want a steering wheel, you must buy the package containing the GPS, etc. And I replied to him, I said, listen, that'll be tough these days. You know, most of the cars are coming up. You know, a basic standard car is going to come up with a bunch of goodies. there was an article that came out last year on U.S. News, I guess it's U.S. News and World Report. It was the top 12 cars for technophobes, and the list of the cars that had the least amount of extra, like what they call infotainment equipment. And so if you want to check that out, we'll put that up on Earl on Cars.com.

It'll be the easiest way to find it. You can click on the link and read it, but I do warn you, I read the article, and it's not low-tech. You're not going to find a car with an AM radio. It's almost like your cell phone. You know, when cell phones first came out, all you could do was make a phone call. And now these things are connections to the Internet with millions of apps available. They can do everything. The difference is you can still find a flip phone that does nothing about make a phone call.

That's true. You can still find those. So the response I got, this was from Joe, he says that's an absolute shame. As an attorney, I think that's a case. by virtue of a class action, could someday be made managing all those chotch keys on the dashboard or more distracting than texting while driving? Okay.

We're having a lot of mechanical problems here. We've had technical problems. Our phones aren't working, and now Nancy's headphones aren't working. That's okay. We're in a global crisis. I'll move on to anonymous feedback. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, you can give us a call. Toll-free at 877-9-69-6960.

Except the phones aren't working. You can text us at 772-497-6530. And remember, never give up the ship. Let's load up on the text right now. Let's load up on the text right now because we are having technical problems with the phone, and that text number is 772-4976530, 772-497-97-6530. And we also have Your Anonymous Feedback.com. we usually get a lot of those

and people just like the anonymity factor and I don't think we have any now do we do we do that's good they come in throughout the week and there's a couple of good ones in here so what was the day to last show it was the 14th so we're good I got like a week's worth of stuff here all great okay so here's one the unlock signal from my key fob seems to be getting weaker

I have to be right next to my car in order to unlock it from far away it doesn't work anymore. Are there batteries inside these fobs that need to be replaced? It seems like a sealed unit that cannot be open. What suggestions can you give to me? As Rick makes his way to the back to his station, I can answer. Yes, there are batteries in there and they can be replaced. Yes, I can. And I don't think they're expensive. They're like there's little watch batteries. It's not like losing a key. So when the batteries die out, I think it's a fairly cost, a reasonably cost item to get going. But Earl has a trick to extend the signal.

of your key fob. Yes. What is that? Well, I stole that. I must have Googled it. You can amplify the signal on your key fob by holding it to your forward or to your chin. And that sounds like a joke, but it's true. You actually extended, I've proven it by measuring the distance from my car that I could

activate the door locks, and then I would reach the point where I could no longer activate them. I'd walk another 10 feet, and I'd hold it to my head and open the door lock. actually work. And so I think I got as far as 20 feet further than I could normally do it. I think I have a lower amount of conductivity in my head because I can't get it to work. There's been that like that since you were a child. Exactly. I was, they used to call me a rubber man. Anyway, maybe it's because you're taller than me. Could be. You got a broader, broader signal? I don't know. I don't know.

All right, let's move on. We got another one here. This seems like more of a general, maybe a philosophical question. Do most people with convertibles run the air conditioning with the top down? I think we did this before. Well, this is from the 17th and today's 21st. Maybe it could be maybe they asked it again. It's still a great question. Well, here's the question. There is no way of knowing. Yeah, I have a theory. I have a theory that they do. I think it's, uh, I think people leave the air conditioning on all the time. And I think people drive convertibles for the effect and the freedom of openness in the air and the sun and for people noticing them when they have their new Mercedes convertible and they're wearing their new sunglasses back in the late 80s and i think the air conditioning

continues to blow feels good and that's the way it yeah i had in in the late 80s i had a 1971 Volkswagen super beetle convertible and i put the top down all the time but it didn't have any air conditioning well that worked so i couldn't do it okay we got one oh here's a good one this is uh this is a great question because it it looks bad on us but I can answer this. It says, I'm a Costco member looking to purchase a new Avalon. I went to Costco's auto program website, entered my zip code for Palm Beach Gardens, but they recommended a Toyota dealer in Coconut Creek about an hour away.

Now asking us, isn't your dealership part of the program anymore? If not, will you match the Costco price I obtained from the other dealer? So when we saw that, and actually we were concerned, we looked into it. The way the Costco program works, the dealers choose which models they want to appear by pricing them according to the Costco pricing guidelines and it's a really, really low price. We will exclude certain vehicles that we consider to be a low demand, I mean high demand, low supply vehicle. In this case, the TRD Avalon is excluded from that pricing system because it's exactly that.

It's a high demand, low supply vehicle. That doesn't state, that's not permanent as the demand lets up on it. We will price it normally and probably include it in the Costco buying program. Good. Hey, listen, can Jonathan or Rick or somebody go back and talk to the guy in the control room and find out if he's just given up on the fact that people can't call the show, or maybe they could call one of the senior management people here, and find out why people can't call the show, and also why Nancy's headphones are not working. Okay, let's move along. We'll take another text now, and you folks out there, I apologize. serious technical problems months ago, and we thought we'd got them all worked out, but we're back in the talk radio show business with our phones not working, which is kind of embarrassing. Yeah, and I'd just like to say for a moment a warm welcome if you just tuned in to Earl Stewart

on cars. We have a lot of amazing information for you. A great mystery shopper report, and we're going to deal with this technical problems, and it should be, well, remedied. very soon and stew has a lot of text messages that he'd like to share with us okay this is another anonymous feedback says these are crazy times where everyone trying to stay home and not go out but sometimes you just need to get gas go to the store to buy some food so what precautions during this virus should i take when i go to fill up on gas at the gas station that's a great question i'll just shoot from the hip on this and stew and rick and nancy can jump in but i think uh the important thing is to don't touch things with your bare hand that are likely to have been touched by

a whole bunch of other folks like a gas pump and buttons you know when I came into the studio this morning Nancy and I came in I used a wysol wipe I'll hold our pack up to open the door and I use that to push the elevator button and I use it the door handle to get into the studio might get mugged for that yeah and I wipe off the microphone and the buttons on the switches so when you go into any service like a gas station if it's something you touch all the time in home that's one thing but it's something other people would be touching they even recommend that with delivery of food and boxes delivery of when I got my

newspaper this morning I wiped off the wrapper of the newspaper my hands after I took the wrapper up you can either use the disinfectant to wipe your hands all after you touch your contaminated object, or you can wipe off the contaminated object. Same thing holds true with anything in your car. You go to a valet parker, or you take it to the service department of the dealership at our dealership or wiping off the steering wheel, disinfecting it, and putting a wrap on it. But you shouldn't trust anybody. I'd re-wipe off my steering wheel and disinfect my hands.

Any other comments? Rick? I would avoid trying rubber gloves. you know like the surgical gloves and that simply because putting them on and off you're going to be touching the outside surface of that glove with your bare hands then so if they do get any sort of contamination on the gloves trying to reuse them you're going to recontaminate so the wipes are actually the best idea yeah the rubber gloves I think are for those people who are going to keep them on and if you if you're doing something I had I had somebody come out of the house the other day and outside service to come come in. He was going to check the house out for a lot of things. And he was wearing rubber gloves. And he walked around the house, and he was touching all sorts of things. And he was there for probably an hour, hour and a half. And I didn't follow him out of the car, but my guess is

when he went out of the car, he took his gloves off, probably threw him in a trash thing, and he probably disinfected his hands, and went on his merry way. So, you know, if you think about what you're going to do and how long you're going to do it, sometimes rubber gloves are a good idea. sometimes they're not gas stations I think you know you consider every public you know facility has to be one of the most highly trafficked you know concentration of hands you know you get thousands of people probably a day and there are some gas stations that are doing a nice are putting hand sanitizer and wipes out there by the pump and I would encourage more gas stations to do that the one I went to on Thursday did not and it was probably the nastiest looking

pump I've ever I'm not going to name the place So that's why we carry Perel in the car, and we carry LISO wipes in the car. That's a good thing to do. Rick, you've had a point? Yeah, also the great thing about the wipes is not only are you avoiding touching that surface, but you're also killing any germs or virus that might be on that surface. Whereas gloves, of course, would simply be taking a chance on spreading it further. So the wipes are a great thing.

Rick, what did the guy in the control room say about the phones? phones are operational we're just waiting for calls to come in okay i'm gonna be texting nancy i'm gonna call and we'll see you got exactly give us a text and i can read folks uh give us a try again i just got a text and i'll tell you what it's great to be back i'm just my usual multitasking uh with everybody uh but from the higher ups here i just got a text that you can give us a call and we'll take your call successfully at 877 960 9960 and again you can text us at 772-4976530 and don't forget www your anonymous feedback I'm just calling in to see I can get through

fine we're ready to rock and roll okay put the call through and see if we can see it on the screen well they're working on the laptop the program crashed on the laptop okay we're gonna go to Dave in West Palm Beach okay I just tried to test it I'm not sure exactly what happened but good morning Dave oh congratulations Dave thank you Dave has given you a test drive to see if the phone line it can work it's been giving us busy signals for about a half hour and now it rang and I'm glad to hear it's coming coming across thank you thank you thank you Nancy welcome back Nancy welcome back Nancy welcome back Nancy she's

Having a headphones problem, but Dave says welcome back. Oh, thanks, Dave. No headphones. You bet. Listen up. Gas stations. Okay. I walk a lot of dogs for people.

And so we use a lot of hand wipes, and we use a lot of vinyl gloves. And you can't find any of those in the stores right now. Yes. And I use dog poop bags. There's plenty of dog poop bags. single use, go to the gas station, slip the glove on, or the bag on, pump your gas, get all finished, turn the bag inside out, and throw it away. Great idea, Dave. Thank you. That's what I mean about callers being so important. I'm going to do that. I hadn't even thought about that. Wonderful idea. Yeah, you can still find dog boot bags.

All right, guys, listen, I hope your phone lines stay up and running because... I do too. I can feel how frustrated. You're a great guy and a great caller, and what a wonderful idea. And I'm going to repeat it just for the folks that might not have heard it. Dave walks a dog a lot, and he has these little doggie bags that you use when the dog goes to the bathroom, and you pop it in there and throw it in the trash or take it home, whatever you're supposed to do. And you can use those doggy bags and stick your hand in the bag,

and you operate the gas pump, you open the door, you push the elevator, button, all these things, because you can't buy the PRL and the disinfectant wipes. They're sold out. A little trick I had was I ordered a huge multi-gallon jug of disinfectant with my idea that I would make my own disinfectant wipes until I read the directions on the bottle. Is that he got those chemical burns? And it's exactly. It said wear a mask when you open the bottle.

So I'm back to plan B. Dave has given this plan B. Thank you. You know something else, fellas, boys and girls. There are other things around your house that will work as disinfectants. I mean, just household stuff. If you can mix up a spray bottle. Rum. The right proportions of bleach and water or vinegar and water, or even, be careful, ammonia and water.

It'll go a long ways to help keep your car, your steering wheel cleaned off. What I heard for suggestions on that, though, is not to wipe it off, but to miss the air and let it air dry. Uh-huh. You know, we're practicing our safety as much as we can, but like you said, we can't get some of these products in the store. Great idea. Dave, what's your background? What are you, you have a scientific background? What is your, those are two ingenious ideas that I haven't heard anywhere.

A dog walker I'm retired I meet to Florida in 2008 and got bored I couldn't go fishing every day so I started walking dogs and I not only love it but I get the sunshine and the vitamin D

which is also very important right now I get the exercise I've called the show a number of times I'm that fella from California that used to have one of those tuna franchises that Atlantic Richfield used to run. Oh.

And I have called a couple of times. Well, we appreciate it. Well, you're... I hope your phones keep working, fellas. I do, Dave. Thanks so much. I can't tell you how much we appreciate those suggestions. They're all great suggestions.

And I'll be repeating them throughout the show because, you know, in spite of the fact this is Earl on Cars, everybody's got the coronavirus on their mind. And I haven't seen in the newspaper or heard on television your suggestions. of using a doggy bag to put over your hand or creating your own disinfectant with a little bleach and water around the house because you can't buy the PRL and the Lysol disinfectant wipes anywhere so Dave have a fantastic weekend and thanks so much for the call 877 960 9960 we think our phones are working now and for those of you who have been waiting 877 960 9960 we're going to go to

to Bob who's been holding. Good morning, Bob. Thanks for calling back. Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you. I called last week and spoke about a problem I had with my brakes, where they failed to operate in. I was involved in an accident, no injuries, but the car was smashed up pretty good. And I got a letter this week from Toyota as a result of their examination of the car, having sent a sent a technician out to examine the car. I'm told by some of your employees that he was working on the car

for five hours. The result of their letters states that there was no problem with the brakes. The brakes worked, for them. And they implied well, he must not have pressed the box

that breaks hard enough. I checked that yesterday morning. I'll try to get the letter. And you don't have to touch that break that hard to know that some reaction is taking place in the breaking system. So I'm sorry, I don't agree with them. Well, I don't. But, I mean, there's nothing that can be done. But you asked me to call you back.

So I told you what I found that you said was a result of their examination. Well, Bob, I'm glad you did call back breaks or not something you can be careless about. But what I'd like you to do is when you have time and ASAP, because rakes, you know, this could be something serious. I'd love to have you, if you could, bring your car in right away to the dealership. I'll give you a car to drive, and we will keep your car until we fix it. And shame on whoever looked at your car for as long as they say he did and said there was nothing wrong with it. I take your word for it, and we need to have someone take a hard look at that. and you will have a safe car to drive until we fix it.

And my apologies. Well, it's very nice. I appreciate that. I didn't expect that, but that's very kind of you to do that. We'll alert the service manager. And Rick, will you be back at the dealership out of the radio show? Not today, no. Okay, well, you can tell Glenn.

Who will be in? Actually, Glenn is going to be there today. Okay, Glenn Ballard, if you'll write this name down, Bob, Glenn Ballard, B-A-L-L-A-R-D. He's a second command to service manager who's off for the weekend. Glenn Ballard, we will alert him. Rick will text him during the show to expect you. We will give you a no-charge loaner, and we will fix your car. And I'm so sorry that you've got this runaround.

Hey, Bob. All right. Nice to say that I appreciate that very much. In a comment I will make about the car, one thing I am happy about, is that one of the other problems I had with the car from the time I bought it was a kind of a rough shifting transmission. And he did fix that, I believe. It runs much more smoothly now. Now, you'll have a chance to test drive it perhaps or Mr. Ballard or somebody, and you can evaluate it.

But it is much better than it was because I know reading and consumer reports, the evaluation on the camera. has been that the, it's a little rough shifting. It's not terribly smoothed. But now mine's smoothed out a great deal. So I thank them for that anyway. Sure. Well, thanks for saying that. I'm glad we're able to help the transmission,

and we will fix the brakes, too, you have my word. And give us a call next week, or give us a call before that. I'll know after I talked to Glenn this morning when he looks at your car, what the status is, and we'll be sure to keep on it. Have a fantastic weekend. Thanks again, and my apology. Rick is waving at me.

Bob, can you give me a quick rundown again on the timeline of what occurred when the accident occurred? You said the brakes didn't work? No accident. There was no reaction from the brakes when I pressed a pedal. Nothing happened. The car kept rolling, and I pressed several times, and nothing transpired. And this was on February 1st, I believe, yeah, February 1st, six, seven weeks ago not.

Okay. On Saturday. And I hit another car. Oh, you did? I didn't realize, no. Did the airbags deploy? No, they did not. Because I was backing. See, when I backed out of the parking spot, I was wanting to go forward.

And usually what I do is hit the brakes, get the car stopped, and then move to drive. well before I could do that the car kept rolling back it wouldn't stop so I kept rolling back concerned with that and I lost track of what I should have done is to look at the monitor which would have told me I was approaching his car

and I hit him I didn't damage him too badly I was told by your body shop that my damage would they might call moderate but they did an excellent job the car is perfect now I'm very pleased with it okay and I think I got you know, the parts of the transmission smoothness, I think that's been worked out pretty well.

And the brakes work fine now. But again, and I had this happen with an 08 Toyota, too, same thing. And it's just random. It's the luck of the draw, all of a sudden you hit the brakes and nothing happens. Okay, Bob. Thanks very much for the call, and we're on it, and Glenn Ballard will give it his total attention. And when you get to the shop, just ask for Steve Go,

Goldberg. He's the acting service manager today. Right. Oh, good. He is my service manager. I'm my contact there anyway. So I'll talk to Steve. We'll text them both. They'll be expecting you when you come in, Mom. Very good, sir. Thank you very much, Mr. Stewart.

I appreciate it. Take care. Okay. Give us a call toll free at 877-960. We'd love to hear from you this morning. And you can text us at 772-497-65-30. zero. I think that Stu may have some I do indeed

okay here's one from a funny guy isn't it time Toyota brings back the Corona for folks who don't know I think the Corona was a pre president predecessor to the Toyota Corolla everybody's on their phones times we live in right now

the Corona was somewhere back in the 70s it was it and it was just one of the models it co-existed with the Corolla Well, actually, Corona was one of the earlier Toyota models, very early model. Okay. All right, next one. Oh, this is a great question.

What is a reasonable amount to put down on a lease? So we've been talking about these ads. We've been investigating all the time about the big down payment. Sir Earl, what is a reasonable amount to put down if you're going to lease a new vehicle? Well, I think a reasonable amount is zero, and leases were created for the very purpose of being less cash out of pocket. And they evolved into a money machine for the car dealers because they found out they could lure you in

with high down payments in tiny, tiny fine print. In fact, I... You know they cap you on the amount you can put down? Yeah, and this is what I use when I read the advertisements and the old-fashioned magnifying glass. I had to use it on the origo. I take a picture with my iPhone and then I zoom in. Exactly, but no, if you want to lease your car, you should put as little out of pocket as possible.

Here's just to add to that, when you are getting a lease presented to you, you got to ask, well, I don't want to overcomplicate it, but when you, at the end of the day, after you've leased the car, given them a down payment, made all your payments, paid the disposition fee, everything at the end of the lease, that's going to come to a total. And you can get that information before you sign on the dotted line. So get that total, the total amount of payments, the total amount of down payment, the dealer fees, anything else, you're going to have a pocket, and you're going to have a number. And then you can compare that alongside a purchase. And you might be surprised at the end of the day, if the dealer is trying to take advantage of you, you might be coming more out of pocket on that lease than you on a finance purchase. I love that. That's a lot easier than, you know, thinking of all the different variables, just have one total. it's easy to find on every lease contract it will say the total number of payments it adds it up

and also if a dealer is doing a good job and we don't see that often i believe that the like the truth and lending act requires you to put the total amount of payments in the fine print and uh and we obviously we don't see that because we look at these ads all the time but uh but you need that information to make a good decision okay phones are working 877 960 9960 that's 870 77-960. We'd love to hear from you, and the text is working because we are getting text. It's 772-4976530, 772-4976530. Can we tell if we have any incoming phone calls? No, not at the moment. Jonathan is sending me the calls. Oh, okay. No calls. 877, I'll give it out again.

877-960-99-60. My apologies to those that tried earlier in the show. You had a busy signal, and now the phones are working, because we've had Bob and Dave call, and the phones are working. 877-9-60-99-60. And we'll go back to some texts that are coming in. I'm going to go to our Facebook live video page,

and we have comments and questions coming in. Andreas, who is a longtime viewer on Facebook, says, for the shopper looking for a car with a simple radio, there is an option. An old car revived to be nearly new again. Florida-based Revology and California's based singer-vehicle design takes old cars,

and they rebuild them in their classic fashion with new materials, as well as some new tech without going overboard with the infotainment. Wow. It kind of reminds me, if you've seen there's a story going around, there's a contest, you can win a,

it's like a 1968 Porsche 9-11 with a Tesla power train in it so it's got the body it looks like you're tooling around in a 60s era vehicle but it's all high tech four motors all electric no transmission we have on our showroom floor at our dealership and for those of you don't know

I call myself recovering car dealer I'm also a current car dealer but this is not an infomercial I like to say that the reason I am glad I'm a car dealer is I've learned all the tricks because I used to do them myself. But I digress. I have a 1937 Pontiac on our showroom floor,

which was the first car. My father sold in 1937, and it's on my Toyota showroom. And we couldn't do that to that car. Yes, let's do it. No. Let's electrify it. But it's the original. An unused car is a useless car.

Oh, man. What a beauty. We're going to go to Dario in West Palm, Beach welcome to the show oh good morning dario hello good morning good morning can you hear me yes yes we do okay um i just got a question for you guys i have my three about three tundras from you guys and i always um i'm looking forward to get a new one but i keep waiting for a new model or like, is it Toyota going to come out with some kind of hybrid or some kind of, like a hybrid model tundrat? Yeah.

Yeah, Dario. See, Toyota has made a number of pronouncements over the years that their goal is to go to having an electrification of every single model, including the trucks. And that doesn't mean an all-electric. It means hybrid, all-electric, possibly even a fuel cell. But there are plans, but we don't have a date. We don't know what it's going to be. I do know that I think we're getting a 2021 Tundra remodel. I don't believe, and it hasn't been announced, that it would be hybrid.

But we're seeing other manufacturers going that way. Obviously, the Tesla cyber truck has got a lot of attention and it kind of opens up the possibilities what you can do with how strong and how much torque you get in electric motors. So I would be surprised if we don't see it in a few years, but I couldn't tell you exactly when. Okay. Yeah, I guess, I mean, recently I just got a travel trailer, and I mean, my $200, the one I have right now is 2008, and one of the issues that I have, but I guess,

I think they corrected it with the newer one. The gas tanks on this one that I have is a 23-gallon, so when I pull a trailer, you know, I have to keep the stop in every 200 miles to, like, refill. On the newer model, I believe the gas tank is bigger, isn't it? That's a technical question that is completely lost on me, but Rick might be able to tell you the fuel capacity of the current ones. I'd be surprised if it was, Rick. I would have to look up the spec on what the fuel capacity actually is, but I doubt they're going to change it much.

They usually like to stick with one standard size as they're going along with them. Are you looking to see if the hybrid is going to have a bigger tank, do you say? Well, no, I'm just saying, like, the ones right now, the one in the, like, the 2020 models, do they have a bigger gas tank, the one I have? Mine is a 20-08 model, and it seems to be the gas tank. It's kind of small. It's about 23 gallons, I believe. Well, you stopped this, huh?

We don't know the answer to that. Intuitably, I said, I don't think so, but I'm not sure. Are we talking about a future model or the current model? Future model. Yeah. That's a tough model, the current model right now. Oh, the current model, I can look on Toyota.com. I'll give you a...

He has a 2008. I'm working that up right now. I bring my truck. But I haven't, you know, decided should I do it now, or should I wait and see if they come out with something new? While you're looking... While you're looking at up, the thought occurred to me that with gas prices down

and likely to go down much further, You know, we're looking at gas under $2 a gallon. We could be looking at a dollar a gallon when you look at oil being in the 20s, which is historical low. So a lot depends on what happens in the world today. Rick, I mean, Stu has a answer, I think. Yeah, the standard fuel tank is it's 26.4 gallons now. And then the limited and the platinum, these crew maxes are, and these are all crew maxes, by the way, 38 gallon tanks

So they're getting smaller Yeah you see Mine is at crew max limited And yeah I got about 23 gallons So the new What are the What is the gas mileage rated on yours With the higher bigger gas tank

What do you mean with that What is your MPG rating I think it's about 17 right now Okay I mean this I don't know how much this offsets it But there's a you know intersection point The The combined is 18

miles per gallon on the new one, so it has a little bit better rated gas mileage, so maybe a smaller tank doesn't have that much of effect. But don't know. I don't know for sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much, guys, and I really like your show. Thanks, Dario. Thanks, Dario. Did you know that gas is 99 cents in Kentucky? No, it doesn't surprise me. It's going on. We're in a whole new thing now. Everything is recalibrated. This impact, if it remains with the price of oil, being so low, gas prices will be down below a dollar a gallon. And this whole electrification thing and hybrid thing could be affected.

It's all about cost of operation. And if you can fill your tank, you're going to see a proliferation of trucks and vans and SUVs. Gas tanks will getting smaller or maybe bigger. I don't know what they're going to be, but you're not going to have a big push for electrification. of gas is like it was back in the 1950s. Certainly not then, but we had a really, really low dip in gas prices. It wasn't like in 2009, 2010, it got done really cheap. Our inventory manager, I'm going to have to let her know to go look for that cheap gas.

She's a remote worker, online worker up in Kentucky. Yes. Okay, do you want to get a text? Yeah, a text, yeah. All right, so this is a good one. This is kind of in the coronavirus theme. the texture is carrying. She says, I use essential oils as a disinfectant.

I just put some lemon oil or tetra on a spray bottle, and that works. I did look that up. I do have to kind of dispel that that will not be an effect of disinfectant against any viruses. I'm not sure it would work on bacteria either. It's probably best to get something with alcohol or bleach or some of the recommended. I would just say go on the CDC website and see what's the most effective. way, but I would be really, really suspicious about the essential oils. I think chlorox is readily available if you want to buy it in bulk, and you probably have

something around the house anyway, and I think if you look at the directions and just add a little corks to water, as Dave, one of our earlier callers, I'm going to repeat two of his ideas that I just think are ingenious and almost like, duh, why didn't we think of this? Davis retired and he's walking dogs now is a part-time job or whatever and the little doggy bags that you have to use when you're walking dogs, little plastic doggie bags you stick your hand in it to pick up the dog poop

and then you reverse the dog and tie it off the top and dispose of it later and those doggy bags are readily available and maybe they won't be readily available after everybody hears this because the first thing I'm going to do when I'm get home is where a thousand doggy bags, poop bags on Amazon. Yeah, you better attempt to. And you carry that in your pocket, and every time you want to open a door or push an elevator

button or hit a keypad, you know what I hate? I was in Walgreens the other day, and they still want to give me, it means they give them their phone number. So I'm going to hit that dirty keypad with all the coronavirons on it. And they don't even have Purell or a hand sanitizer to use after you hit the keypad. You know what, this is funny. So for the last 20 years, they've asked me before my phone number, and I go,

nah, I don't got it. So finally, to stop, I finally, I relented, and I gave them, I set up the thing. And then they asked me the other day, and I just looked at them, I'm like, you're in mind. I just go, I don't have, no, I don't have a rewards account with you.

Shame on Walgreens. And then I use Apple Pay, so I don't have to touch anything. Great information. That Clorox is real tough to come by. Also, Publix is doing a deep sanitized process on their carts. Yeah. So that's a great thing.

And also a great thing that Laurie, she's not a first-time caller, but she's on hold. And she's calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Larry. Good morning. How are you today, Nancy? Hey, great. Nice to hear from you. And very good speaking with you.

So I have two questions. One is from my daughter, who would have been a first-time caller, but she's very shy. So her question is, she's. She has a 2008 Hyundai Launtra, and the lug nuts on the front of her car on her tires, heat very high. And she's wondering if you guys know a reason for that. And now that I'm asking the question, I'm wondering, how does she even know that her lug nuts are getting out of you? That was my question. I check them after every drug.

Right. But that is her question. Friction. Actually, the number one reason is that a front wheel drive car, the engine and transmission are literally about a foot away from those wheels. They're creating massive amounts of heat, and they're actually connected physically by way of the axle and all the suspension components, so that heat is going to transmit right out to the wheels, and the other cause of heat there are the front brakes.

time you step on the brakes, you're actually converting the kinetic energy of the moving car into friction to slow the car, which creates heat energy, and that's dissipated through the wheels into the air. Okay, so that makes a lot of sense. Would that have any bearings on the tires? Like, to me, like, what you're saying then, I mean, maybe my question is stupid, but would that, like, soften the tires? any wear on let's say the air pressure or anything like that it'll cause the air pressure to

actually increase just a little bit two to three pounds while you're driving but it won't cause any damage to the tires because they're they're made to handle it yeah they have a they probably have specifications on heat because at higher speeds they get pretty warm and maybe even hot I don't know if you're going 100 miles an hour during the summer on 995 which you shouldn't be doing. I bet your tires are awfully, awfully hot. They do. They'll get quite warm. Matter of fact, that's why race cars, their tires wear out so fast because the tires literally heat up to the point of almost melting. Okay. Wow. That's hot, hot situation. Okay. My question, is this a good time to buy a car? I'm in the market for a car and I've been holding off. Um, it's a good time. It's,

Is this like an ultimate time to buy a car? I'm thinking maybe, you know, with people not spending money, maybe finance rates are down right now? Mm-hmm. Lori, I think you hit on something that just occurred to me when you asked the question. The best time to buy a car is when the dealers and the salespeople are hurting.

I want to sell a car real bad. And right now, floor traffic into, we call it, the customers coming in is dropping off. We're seeing it on our dealership. All the car dealers are seeing it. A lot of them are remaining open because of the service department. It is an essential

service to keep people's cars running. And we're shortening our hours. Other car dealers are shortening their hours. And salespeople work on commission. And if a salesperson is used to selling 15 cars a month and now he's only selling

four, he wants very, very, very much to sell one. With that said, you should be ultra vigilant when you buy a car because that hunger and high desire and also bring on deception and people, you'll be lied to. But if you do your homework and follow the guidelines of Earl on cars and are very, very careful, you can get a real good deal on a car today compared to three months ago. like to add that we had information given to us by our Toyota distributor to expect unprecedented incentives coming at the other side of this whole crisis because they realize every manufacturer is going to realize that there's going to be an enormous amount of pen-up demand, people that

put off making a decision, and they're going to want to get that share. So whenever things get mixed up, a car manufacturer wants to get a bigger share of the sales, and they're going to put a lot of rebates, low interest rates, a lot of reasons to make you choose that manufacturer. And, Lori, I have to tell you that, you know, knowing what you want before you walk into that dealership is pretty important. Also, don't hold back on the questions. Ask anything and everything is all important. And it's a great time to buy a car. It's also a great time to be very, very careful.

And Rick? Right. So you made a point to me, am I better off waiting for those incentives than rebates? Yeah. Yeah, I think there's two ways to look at it. Today's better than three months ago. But as Stu said, it's taken a little while for the manufacturers to jump on the incentive bandwagon. When we buy cars, as a car dealer, we buy cars from the manufacturer, they can vary the price just by giving us what they call dealer cash.

So let's say a Honda dealer has got a lot of cords in stock, and they're not selling. and he paid an average of $25,000 each for those accords. Honda could today or tomorrow say, we're sending you $5,000 dollar cash, dealer cash, rebate incentive to you so you can help sell those cars advertise more. So his essential cost goes down. I think the way this corona crisis thing is going,

if you waited a few days, if you waited two weeks or 30 days, you'd probably get an even better deal on 30 days than you would today. Oh, absolutely. Then I'm going to do that. I've waited thus far, and I'm going to do that. And before I go and get my final car, before I make that ultimate decision,

I'm going to do my homework, and then I'm going to come to Earl Stewart. Oh, thank you. And I'm going to get that out-the-door price in writing. Thank you, Lori. You know, well, Lori, no matter where you're in, up being a smart negotiator well what an advantage you have i don't care if you're purchasing a toothbrush at any rate i want to extend our 50 dollars to your daughter and if you could please send me

her contact information i can get 50 dollars out to her oh well that's so kind of you i really appreciate that she can use it in these times we watch out for the shy ones we take care of the shy ones You too. You too, Lori. Bye-bye. Thank you. At the risk of not, we don't want to make it look like a commercial. We're not the only one, but try to see if you can get, you know, during this and you're not comfortable going to do a showroom, see what you can accomplish by doing as much as you can online.

Like if you can get, avoid your time in the dealership. So if you can get some prices online, you can still, everything we talk about on the show, sending out multiple emails, getting multiple price quotes, you can do that from your home. So, you know, when you said coming into the showroom, you don't even really have to do that. And some dealers even allow you to buy 100% online. Roger Dean Chevrolet today in the Palm Beach Post, front page on the lower part of the front page, we deliver anywhere in Florida. So I think the car dealers are, they'll do anything to sell your car. And as Stu said, you can conduct it if you're careful, purchase of a car totally online.

Just be sure that when you buy the car, that if it's not. not the way it was represented that you you don't have to take it you want to the one bad thing about paying and doing everything online is that you want to be sure when you finally see the car that you can get out of the deal otherwise just like amazon or zappos you send them back no questions asked exactly and also did you hear what earl said dealerships will do anything to sell you a car so it's so important that you trust your dealership and you trust your dealership and you trust your salesperson. Give us a call tool free at 877960 or you can text us at 772-49760. Don't forget we've got that fabulous mystery shopping report. It's well so elegantly written by the famous Stu Stewart.

Rick had a point earlier. Yeah you'd mention the idea that the salesmen are hungry because of low traffic service departments are going to be the same way good point and all repair shops are going to be the same way so you're exactly now's the time where you really need to keep your eyes open uh consider second yeah opinion second estimate yes and really make sure that you've got a shop you can trust i think we have another caller here yeah we're going to go to howard uh he is a regular caller he lives in jupiter hi howard how are you welcome back thank you hearing your voice again oh thank you thank you okay here's my question a car production i heard it they're not producing cars anymore like they did before you're right story on that well it's just it was largely from the united

auto workers i think and they pressured the manufacturers i don't think they had to pressure them too far because uh they are wondering about operating at full production when in the face of a world crisis and it's unprecedented times. So you're right, all the manufacturers close down. I think in many cases there are large pools of vehicles available in dealer inventories in case of distributorship and distributor inventories. And there may even be some manufacturer pools of cars available. I don't think there'll be a car shortage. I think that if the hint of the economy being revived, the manufacturers will crank up. again, but it is a little scary. I've never

seen this since I've been a car dealer where everybody just stopped building cars. Toyota made an announcement that they're going to shut down for just two days later this month, and they extended that to 10 days. So Toyota's going to go completely dark on the assembly line for 10 days, and that will amount to about

75,000 fewer Toyota's produced. And in all likelihood, it's probably going to get extended beyond that. Yeah. But right now, there are cars available. and that's one of the reasons I quit.

There's too many cars available in dealer amenities. We have a text from memory. I have one more question for Rick. Rick, why did they change front wheel drive? Why did they change the rear wheel drive to front wheel drive? I used to have a real wheel drive and never had any maintenance done to the rear axles. So can you explain why most cars now are front wheel drive?

More control. It's actually better control because you get basically less moving parts. You've got a much smaller unit of the engine and trans axle up in the front now. And cost, they decided, hey, front wheel drive was easier to produce. I'm sure there were many, many reasons. But personally, I think if you really want the best option, I would look at an all-wheel drive car anyways.

Yeah. When the front wheel drives... Yeah, up north, I think front-wheel drive is much better because you have snow. By the way, there's no snow in New York City this year. It's very strange. And I remember big snowfalls, and I had a rear-wheel drive. I couldn't get out of the snowmout, but a friend of mine had a front-wheel drive, and he was able to pull right out.

Yeah. Even in the rain down here, I remember when I was a kid, my dad's going to get mad at me here, but I used to spin out in intersections all the time. I had a rear-wheel-drive Seleka-Supra, and if you accelerated too fast and the road was slick, this is in the days before traction control and stability control. But, yeah, it was pretty scary. That hasn't happened to me in many years.

Yeah, the perfect car is a four-wheel drive, all-wheel drive mid-engine. A perfect balance, and that's the ultimate car. And when we have all-electric cars, I guess, you know, whenever the ultimate car, it'll be all-wheel-drive mid-engine. Yeah, because you could put a motor at each. wheel or a motor front axle motor rear axle and have your battery in the middle you'd have beautiful balance

that. Those batteries in the electric cars they've been really tested to last let's say five, six years. I'm talking about the all electric car like the Tesla.

I think the last five or six years I think it's a big problem is the holding charge so for mileage. and the breakthrough that is going to really make everything go all-electric right away will be once they break through about that 500-mile range. If they can break the 500-mile range, they're very close to it. Think about it.

You don't have any reason to have a gas-powered car if you have that kind of range. So what's going to happen to the oil industry? What's going to happen to Saudi Arabia? I'd be a wealthy man if I knew. That's what news for that. Right. If I knew the answers, I heard someone the other day said, and I, this is going to sound political, but I can't help myself.

He said somebody should, Donald Trump should call the king of Saudi Arabia. MSB. And say, listen, raise the price of oil or else we're going to catch you off. No more money, no more arms, no more weapons, no more assistance. We're not going to protect you. Raise the price of oil or else. and hang up on him. And I like that.

It made a lot of sense. Okay, pretty good. Okay, thank you very much. Have a good day, guys. Nice to hear from you, Howard. We're going to go to John from Palm City. John is a regular caller, and we would certainly miss him

if he didn't share his time with us on Saturday morning. Hi, how you doing, how you doing, John? I'm doing well, thank you. You have a very deep voice this morning. I don't think this is John from Palm City. This is another John. John from Palm Beach. Yeah.

Oh, that's the reason. He sounds so young. First-time, a long-time fan of listening and acknowledging how much you have given back to the community, not just in the car business, but in so many other ways. Thank you. I compliment you for that. My question is, A few years back, to add to my fleet, I went and got one of your anniversary corollas.

I think it came in a couple, three different colors, and I got the burgundy or blackberry, whatever you guys called it. It was a great little car, except it didn't have a power seat. And when I gave me out as loaner cars, courtesy cars, if one of my clients, customers, friends, needed a car to replace what was being worked on, The constant complaint was that it didn't have a power seat. And for one of the reason, I guess, to keep the price down, they offered this wonderful, wonderful car with no power seat. So I went and I called the local Dodge store because they had come out with its reusing the name of the dart.

And they advertised during the Super Bowl and other places that it got 41 miles a gallon. and so I said I'll just get one of those and add that and so I called and I called several times and they didn't seem to have any of those 41 mile a gallon ones so I kept working up the chain and kept leaving my number and I said I don't care if it's a stick and automatic whatever

I said I just need the one that's in the ad well obviously they don't make that car Well, lo and behold, I get my auto week or car and driver, whatever I was getting. And they do those little road tests after a few months and sometimes a little bit longer. And the two different road tests that I saw from two different publishers both said the same thing, 27 and 31, 32, 33. Obviously, the local Dodge store wanted me to be on the... 3-10 to Yuma, and I don't mean

the one, not to come with Russell Crow, the crafts, but the one with Glenn Ford, Vera Miles, and Van Heflin in 1956. Right. Obviously, one way, but my question is, as so commuting,

or Carson used to say, is there a question in here somewhere? And we do have a mutual friend, a very generous guy, Barry O'Brien, and he deserves a call out that he and his wife has given back so much

in the community. My question is, how did this get by EPA or whatever the authority is that they can do that advertising? They were obviously trying to compete with Toyota and everything else, but at the time that the bench was 40

miles a gallon, and nobody did anything about it. Yeah, John, it's a... It's just a lack of enforcement of the laws we have on the books. I think about that every Saturday when I go through the mystery shopping

report because almost without exception, there are laws being broken. And our Attorney General, State Attorney General, the local enforcers, there are so many people out there that could take action, regulators, but for some reason the car dealers have

immunity. I think it's just the money and the power they have. Car dealers are very wealthy people. They make a lot of money, There's a whole lot of them. They have extremely strong organizations, state and national. And, you know, you've been around a while like I have, and you know how people get elected.

They get elected with money. And it's a kiss of death to a car dealer to come after a car dealer and prosecute him. And the Attorney General won't do it. I've been doing this show through probably four Attorney Generals, the state of Florida. And now one of them has had the courage. to step up and charge a car dealer with anything serious. Occasionally, there'll be a warning or a threat,

but you're exactly right. And so the answer isn't more laws on the book's answers enforcing the laws we have. Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yeah. Do you hear you? Yeah, we hear you. Did I drop out, or can you hear me now, John?

I think we have a... It's like a Verizon commercial. I'm here. Okay, good. But anyway, but anyway, I... You're absolutely right about the regulators not enforcing law. They should far more. Today, in the mystery shopping award, you'll see a couple of violations.

This particular deal that we mystery shopped, you know, did not do full disclosure on what he advertised. The price was far less than you couldn't buy the car for. I hear you. I hear you loud and clear, and it just seems like, you know, just as you said, the power that they have in Tallahassee. I mean, that's right. We have no state. You're right.

John, you mentioned we had a mutual friend, Barry O'Brien. We almost asked Barry O'Brien to do the mystery shop. We were having, earlier on the show, we were talking about with the coronavirus thing and people being afraid to go out. We had a hard time finding a mystery shopper, and our mystery shopper was home because his wife had just had a baby. And Stu was thinking about suiting up and going out himself, and he had a disguise already. And I said, why don't you call Barry Bollinger? because Barry told me he says he loved a volunteer so Barry if you're listening or John if

you're talking to him tell Barry we're going to give him a shot one day he knows the business yeah he has a lot of time on his hand selling and buying with Barry O'Brien anyway thank you so much and the way you guys do this is that the example for everybody thank you John have a great weekend stay safe thanks John you know his talk is about Tallahassee the lobby the car dealer lobby in Tallahassee being powerful is true. So I agree with designating automobile service departments as an essential service.

You get into a little bit gray area on the new car showroom, and they are included in the essential businesses. So I guess you can make the argument if someone's car completely died, they would need a replacement car quickly, but I think it's probably more a function of any FADA saying you better

include the car dealers in that if you want to get reelected, Governor DeSantis. What's Uber and Lyft doing, by the way? I haven't heard. I guess they're still operating. Yeah. I mean, that would be an essential service to transportation, yeah. Okay, we're going to go to John in Palm City.

The real John. Sorry, John in Palm Beach. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. Good morning to everyone. Welcome back, Nancy. Thank you. I was always a big Chevrolet fan, and it was kept pretty quiet.

February 21st, they made the last Chevrolet Bel Air and that Detroit plant, I always be pronounced, it's Hamatrack plant, and also the Caddy CT6. Now, the plant is closed, 800 auto workers, United Auto Workers were laid off, but 753 of them were offered relocations to other plants or buyouts. But here's the good news. The plant in Michigan, Detroit, is being converted to EV production, to spending $2.2 billion. investment in our plant, and they're going to go all out on electric vehicles, including, by the way, a new Hummer again, is a proposed model of a Hummer of a pickup truck, a thousand horsepower, 11,500 pounds of torque, zero to 60 in three seconds, almost sounds impossible.

I'm getting one. Wow. But the good news is a total renovation of the plant and only EV vehicles will be produce. By the way, this last Chevrolet Bel Air, it was a gold car with gold trim and it was immediately sent to Detroit Heritage

Collection. You know, some people are crazy over the first and last of series. But it was kept pretty quiet. And like I say, I always love Chevolets. I learned to drive at a 55 Chevy. It was the first year of the V8. Actually, that was

the 50 millionth Chevolet that was produced. And I've had them through the years and always had good luck with Chevolets. Yeah. And back during the eras, you were either a Chevy guy or a Ford guy. Yes, exactly.

That's right. Ford again, instead of the movie, Ford versus Ferrari, it was Ford versus Chevy. That's right. And racing, unbelievable, both cars, one more powerful than the other. And that was the first year with the Chevrolet when they put

the V8 in it. And it was uphill in the horsepower race from then on up. That was one of the most difficult things Toyota had was to shake the Ford and Chevy Truck guys because you were born to buy Chevy trucks for the rest of your life or born to buy Ford trucks, and Toyota was considered the villain, the evil people from across the sea.

And a joke when it came to trucks. It was, yeah, yeah. I mean, they had good long-lasting running trucks, but nothing to compare to the big fords and Chevy's. Exactly, yeah. That's changed. But still today, the fours, what F-150 seems to be the most popular

truck on the road. Still is, yeah. I think it's the number one selling vehicle. Correct. Yes, absolutely. Well, look forward to the shopping report. Thank you, John. I appreciate to call. Their fleet business doesn't hurt. Thanks, John. It was nice here from you.

877-960, or you can text us 772-497-6530. And we're coming up to the mystery shopping report soon. stay tuned for that and stay with us i have a text that i'd like to get to and it is from uh mary and dallas and she is asking about the recent recall uh for the lexas and the toyota uh it seems that their engines are overheating or catching fire uh can you elaborate on that who knows the details on those particular recalls do you know on the uh the uh the uh the uh

There was something about... I know we have the fuel pump issue, and then there's... Food pump as well, I'm not thinking of. Yeah, I don't think it's a fire risk. I think it just caused the engine to stop all the vehicles operating. Right. The main condition that they found is a stalling, usually while driving at higher speeds. Toyota's still trying to get the bugs worked out to figure out what the repair is going to be on that.

That one is still an interim phase. To tell Mary, for anything that she wants to know about all recalls, and Rick normally reminds us of this, safercar.gov, go to www.safehercar.gov. You put your VIN number in, and it tells you everything you want to know about any recall your car needs, and whether parts are available or not. That's not a bad website to check before you go car shopping, especially for used cars. You don't have to have a VIN number. You can just go to make of car.

and they will tell you for Ford or Honda or Subaru, whatever you want to buy, all the recalls out there outstanding, and if parts are available, if you're buying a used car and you happen to buy a car that doesn't have a fix available, you're in serious trouble, especially if it was a dangerous recall. Here's why Rick didn't, and I didn't know about this because we are totally immersed in Toyota World. Lexus, but not the Toyota models, did recall $115,000 for a possible fuel cylinder, a leak which could be an ignition problem so yeah 2019 2020 I think added to that list if my memory serves me well is the RAB 4 not only the I believe the Rav 4 hybrid also so I hope

we answered your question and go to that website that we're all suggested we have let's see here what we have we have Frank from Jupiter he's been on hold thank you Frank good morning well good morning to you guys hey Frank I'm out here in Jupiter forms and I was gonna I always like listening to you guys on Saturday morning but this morning I had to take a phone call from Comcast and it was almost like a he'll see where it's going to go to in a moment I haven't had any TV any internet anything for over a day and it's just

it's been horrible and I hate Comcast but I got the most a deliberate person that was actually in the car business way back when and for about an hour we've been talking about cars his father-in-law I guess had a Pontiac dealership up in Orlando

Macon, Mayor I remember you were in Pontiacs at one time and then also he went to he was a service manager for them And he said, you know, back in those days, how it was. You had about 40 or 50 people, the parts and everything on thinking about your guys, your service guy there and stuff like that. And he went over to Ticeville and got in a Chrysler Plymouth dealership over there by the time NASA was starting to crank up and all. And then he started talking about floor plans, have the cars, like the banks actually on the cars.

You get an interest on them and how many cars. And it sounds like I had Earl Stewart about cars. And I said, you know, it was like really a cool thing down memory lane about the cars and trucks and everything else. So did you know anyone up in Orlando, any of the dealers way back? I knew a guy named Dennis McNamara that was the Pontiac dealer in Orlando many, many years ago. I don't know all of them from out there, but he was. Yeah, that was him, Dennis McNamara. He came down, I guess, from Chicago with a bunch of money and got a dealership.

Yeah. Yeah, there were. That was a different day, and the dealers kind of knew each other. Today, we don't know each other that much, but I guess there were fewer dealers, and we seemed to get together more, and you knew dealers from all over the country, and now we have such a proliferation of makes and brands of cars and dealerships that it's not as personal as it used to be. Yeah, no, it was, and it actually seems like I got to cut cable,

so they're going to have someone come out sometime tomorrow, good luck with it I just went through it well here's here's the thing too my daughter's down here from college because they shut down and they need to get on the internet and she said there's forecast and internet

she's going to be crashing because we've got millions of millions of people on the internet that you never had before you know I heard that that's a scary thing I mean I think I'd be rather I'd rather be without most anything than the internet I mean if you stop and think what a vital part

where lies it is today, communication, everything. But I hope she's wrong about that. Well, I do too, because, I mean, it's kind of, in one way, I'm this virus thing. I'm kind of more or less hunkered down with those. I'd imagine to do that. I'm going to afforded my whole life. You're usually hunkered down for a hurricane and that a good day or so.

Yeah, that was the silver lining to the whole coronavirus thing. At least we kept our power and internet, but in your case, sorry about that. You know what my family did last night? We played Clue at the dinner table. Board game. Very cool. No plugs. The kids and I lived doing that in the evening.

Nancy and I streamed Netflix. So we got to have the Internet. The funny thing is I have chickens. I'm a sentinel station for the county. We come in each separate, like the canary and the coal mine. That's cool. So we always have eggs. But you can't believe other people now call me up for eggs.

Because you can't get eggs. Yeah, it's crazy. Well, chickens are still laying the eggs, but they're buying them up too fast. It's kind of like toilet paper. You know, there's a steady supply of toilet paper and eggs, but the hoarders are out there, you know, beating down the door at Costco in Publix at 7 a.m. And taking all the eggs and toilet paper.

I tackled an old lady at Whole Foods, grab your eggs. I love making my own hard-boiled eggs. And boy, oh, boy. Oh, God, where are the eggs? Stu? You did what? I'm going to find Frank's house. Yeah, Frank, I'm going to be knocking on your door to get a couple eggs.

I'm going to reverse look up your phone and find your eggs. The one lady came and said, the eggs are now $10 at all, and she said, I don't care, I'll buy them. Oh, boy. Price gouging the eggs, watch out. Anyway, you have a great show, but it was really neat listening to your Patriots. Thanks, good luck with Comcast. Yeah. You're going to need it.

Stay safe. It was great hearing from you. Enjoy your eggs. Great hearing from you. Well, hang on. Here's my last thing. The money I get from the eggs, it goes from my daughter's

Egg education fund. Ah. Brimshut. That's like Big Dal Grants. Exactly. Thanks, Frank. All right. Thank you.

Give us a call. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6. 6530, and I haven't heard any your anonymous feedback. We have a few more, but I do want to say that I was roundly defeated by my 12-year-old daughter and my other kids. I'm terrible at Clue. So tonight, if they're not listening, they're probably still asleep, I'm going to go on the Internet, I'm going to find strategies to win Clue, and then tonight I'm bringing the paint.

The Butler did it in the living room with a hammer. Like Colonel Muster did it in the living room. I was great at that game. And, you know, my girls and I back in the 60s and 70s, there wasn't a night that didn't go by that we didn't play a board game. That was the thing to do. So we're doing it. We're back to those times.

It's really nice. Yeah. All right. We got a text from Anne-Marie. Okay. She says, good morning. Welcome back, Nancy. Oh, thank you, Anne-Marie.

Earl brought up a good point. People buy cars and don't know what the different buttons do. Could you possibly do some videos on what the different buttons do and then post them on YouTube? I can tell Amri is someone of a Luddite as she's referring to the buttons, but that's okay. And put these videos on YouTube, such as how to connect your phone with your new Toyota, or this is how your trip odometer works, et cetera.

These pointers are brought to you by Earl Stroat Toyota. It would be a two-four. Public gets information and you get advertising. We do that, and you can find that, not just from our dealership, but most dealerships do that. If you go to our YouTube channel, which would be YouTube.com forward slash Earl Stewart Toyota, or just go to YouTube.com forward slash Toyota, because Toyota does them too.

All these informational videos. As a matter of fact, we're currently redoing the brand new, the newer models right now. And so those will be put up on there. So YouTube, basically, anytime you want to know how to do anything, go to YouTube. There's always an instructional video. You're absolutely right. The problem is, it's like with Google, we have to train our minds. as people that have been around before Google and YouTube,

and we're in the habit of asking something or saying, well, I just don't know the answer. All answers are available to he who uses Google and YouTube. And I found YouTube videos on the most obscure, strange things that you would. And they're not all good, but usually they're pretty good. So, yeah, we don't even have to have this radio show. I've said this before. If everybody knew how to use Google and YouTube, you wouldn't need Earl on Gars.

YouTube's great. I love watching surgery. Yes, you do. Anne-Marie reminded me because I thought we didn't have the answer, and then Stu said we did, which we do. But people call and they ask for things, and we say, okay, we're going to do this. We had an anonymous feedback that said we should keep a spreadsheet on this, and I'm going to designate Stu

and I already declined that in direct. We will keep a log of commitments we make. Sometimes we remember sometimes we don't, but we have the best of intentions. You know, the log is right there, that little rocket book you got there. Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm the ranking

member of Erlon Carr, so I'm delegating that. But it's a valid response, and I've had other people say, and I've actually been embarrassed, people say, well, did you do that? And we forgot. You know, Rick, has done a lot of road testing and, you know, hands-on experiments and things. And he's done most of the ones, but I think we forgot once or twice.

We've got one in progress right now. The clear tint film on headlights. Exactly. I've got one headlight covered at one knot, and we're going to... This one's going to be a work in progress. This is going to take several months to give it time to really evaluate, but... We have all the answers. We know them here in this studio where we find them on Google fast enough.

Or we do research and we come back. And now we have a research log that we will be keeping. All right. We've got a text says they took a road trip from Juneau Beach to the Blue Ridge Parkway in the 1990s in a two-speed corona with four big guys and a ton of camping gear. We had to get out and push on a few steep side roads. We're talking about the Toyota Corona in the time of coronavirus. exactly. Earl, recently I was walking and listening to an old show of yours on YouTube. You made an alarming statement. You said the Jeep was a dangerous and unreliable automobile. Oh, jeez. Oh, here we go. My 56-year-old daughter drives a 2006 Jeep Army-looking, which she purchased new and has between 30 and 40,000 miles on it. She has a slow and careful driver. She has hardly had any mechanical problems with it and no accidents. but has taken it to body shops three times

and had between $3,000 and $4,000 worth of work on the car because of rust and rust consequences. Could you enumerate those items that you know make it unreliable? And please, specifically, very specifically, enumerate those items that you think make it dangerous. Thank you, Joe. Well, let me say this about the Jeep. And when I use the word unsafe or safe or reliable or unreliable,

I'm always quoting consumer reports. So you can go to consumer reports.org and you can Google, I mean, click on Jeep, reliability, and they'll tell you exactly what's wrong with it. But you have to understand that the most reliable vehicle in the world, let's say it's a Honda, I don't know what it is, Honda model, and the most unreliable might be the Jeep. I'll just use those as hypotheticals.

If you build 100,000 jeeps, you're not going to have 100,000 unsafe cars, the jeeps are 100,000 unreliable. Of those 100,000, a higher percentage of jeeps will be unsafe and a higher percentage of jeeps will be on, and cost you more in maintenance, et cetera. Because even the manufacturer of the worst car in the world, let's take Ugo. I think at the time it was the worst car in the world, I'll bet that there was one good Ugo. I mean, they might have built 10 million Ugoes, but there might have been one good one. So it's a percentage.

There's still three on the road. It's a percentage game. And I'm glad your daughter has a good Jeep. There are good jeeps out there, but many of them, I would say probably most of them, over 50% are not good values. They are not as safe as their competition. And they also cost more to maintain and repair and insure. Rick? And the number one reason why they're unsafe is the loose nut behind the wheel.

well that's true well I'm gonna give you something I'll just say this I'm gonna shoot from the hip on this if you're driving a Jeep and you have and you're in an open Jeep you've seen them with no roof no sides and all you

got is your seat belt on just use your common sense I mean if you're in an accident in a Jeep and you roll over a few times I mean put me in a four-door sedan compared to a Jeep put me in an electric hummer yeah and there are jeeps I know that have the roof

and have the size, but you see these Jeep, what do they call them, the Jeep something or others? They got the Rubikons, they got the Ranglers, they got all this sort of stuff. There is, by the way, to answer the question, go to NHTSA.gov. They have a lot of safety ratings there, and also the

IHS has safety ratings. The Jeep Wranglers do get mixed safety ratings. It's just a fact you can find all that in line for the specifics. But if you just Google Jeep safety ratings, you'll find all the different testing on it. One of my favorite things on YouTube is watching the videos of people doing rock crawling with their jeeps, and they literally are driving

up boulders and rocks that I couldn't climb up. It's amazing. Unbelievable. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to go to our mystery shopping report, and we want to ask you to be part of the scoring. We're going to put our calls on hold. And before we do that, I believe that Rick may have YouTube. I've got two quick ones here. M. Ave is asking, Hi, team. Considering the current economic situation,

do you think it would be best to wait on buying a new car? Will discounts be better in the next few months? Thank you and welcome back, Nancy. And I believe Stu actually had just addressed this. I would say that. I would say wait, see what's coming. And the other thing just a little bit more seriously

is, you know, for the economy, I mean, you make sure that you're... It's a 938, gentleman. Well, you know. Just read a little faster. Yeah. Worry about your own job. Yeah.

And the other quick one is, good morning, Mr. Stewart. I was just wondering, how did you decide to sell Toyotas as your main brand at your dealership? I was lucky enough to buy a Toyota dealership in 1975 and when it wasn't that popular a vehicle. And it turned out to be a better vehicle than I thought it was going to be. And it's all luck. Okay, let's get to the mystery shopping report. and if we have time after the mystery shop and report, we'll get back to the YouTube's and the text that we have

or maybe even a call. But let's get with Mystery Shop of Arrigo Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, Ram, in Fort Pierce. And for those of you who have the video or YouTube, you'll recognize that face right there. And that is the owner of Arrigo, Dodge Jeep, Chrysler, Ram. Johnny. Johnny.

And there's also a brother Jimmy. Some of our best car commercials on television in the last 20 years, and by that I mean entertaining, have been brought to us by the O'Rigo brothers, and they truly are. Jim and John O'Rigo produced quality, polished, and very funny ads. They're natural in front of the camera. Older brother, Jim, he's plays a straight guy, and the sillier younger brother, Johnny. Entertaining car commercials are a part of the Rigo family history. You know, it's not easy to be funny on TV, and if you fail, it's embarrassing.

But they do. You have to be, there's a certain beyond ridiculous that you can go to to actually be entertaining. And they are. I mean, I'll stop what I'm doing to watch an Arrigo car commercial. They are entertaining. In the 1990s gym and his dad, Joe, put on Arrigo Dodge on the map with hilarious radio ads that featured celebrity impressionists. You can't forget those.

Spots featured famous people like Bill Clinton, Eddie Murphy, listeners, come on down. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold Schwarzen. I forgot about that one. Anyway, with this in mind, it was a real treat to catch their latest TV ad the other day. It was a college basketball March Madness sort of a theme. March Maddenance has been canceled, of course. And a teacher Jim and John seated at an announcer's desk like Network Sportcasters.

John tells him that there's more to Marshal. And then basketball in spring training, he has cars and trucks streaming out of his ears. I didn't like that that much, but it was kind of, but it was, the idea was good, but the visual effect wasn't as good as it could have been. We see computer-generated images of vehicles streaming out of John's ears while he mugs and plays the comic to the camera. Actually, I think it was Jim. I got a mixed up. Okay, well, Jim, John, you know. An announcer has heard proclaiming that Arrigo overstocked and the viewer can get $15,000. off new Rams. Now, have you ever known a card dealer that wasn't overstocked? All

car dealers are overstocked. They're all slashing the brides all the time. But when you do it in comedy, it's not offensive. When you do it in serious direct thing, it's offensive. So he's found that magic spot in advertising to have an endearing commercial because of the comedy and you watch it. And that's what all car dealers want is you to watch the commercial. If you turn it off, you're wasting your money. An announcer he has heard proclaiming I just said that. We paused the

playback, okay, to study what was on the screen. The first thing we notice that the small up to just before the colossal $15,000. And up to it was like virtual or almost or... It's what you mutter before you say something good. Up to.

That means... $15,000. That means that there's one car that may or may not exist that has that big a discount on it. then we studied the fine print fine print which is incidentally impossible to read unless you record it and pause it like we did and who does that

nobody and you can't do it I do you gotta be me and Jonathan do that please note that this commercial is 15 seconds long there's no way we're reading this fine print and just couldn't read it and start to stop watch exactly

read it exactly so we talked earlier about why these rules were violated and why somebody didn't arrest these people or find these people. And we talked about the power, the financial power of the automotive lobby. The Federal Trade Commission says that you cannot advertise a price or payment that has a disclosure that modifies the price or payment that is not clearly and conspicuously displayed near the price.

And so that's a federal law that's violated every day. Take it to the logical stream. $15,000. fine print not really yeah right exactly so here's the fine print which you can't read in 15 seconds and we saw this on the 15 second commercial subject to prior sale amounts may vary that's a good one on select on select stock vehicles plus tax tag title dealer fees installed options i circle that 799 dollar dealer fee which is by the way not what they call it in their on their buyers order

and all applicable fees. All discounts, rebates, incentives apply to dealer include conquest slash loyalty must qualify. So you've got to qualify for all these. Other qualifications may be required.

You must qualify and you might have to qualify again. You're not wearing red pants. I qualify. Well, you don't qualify over this. You're not wearing red pants. You don't qualify. Offer for well-qualified customers, not all customers will qualify. Sorry. I never read the word

qualify so many times in one paragraph. Exactly. Sea dealer for details. I would like to walk in. The next mystery shopping report will walk and say, we want us hear the details. The details are you don't qualify. And you'll say what details? Well, the details are I'm supposed to ask you about.

Footage slash images for illustration purposes only. Duh. You could be advertising hondas. Varing model may be shown. It's a delicious hamburger. No, that's a Dodge Ram. So the fine print says basically we can lie, cheat, and steal all we want,

and we've disclosed that fact, so we're off the hook. So what does all that even mean? Well, spoiler alert, it means you're not getting $15,000 off anything. And we have our website that you can look at this on. Ain't going to happen.com. I bought that URL website just because I like the way it sounded. It's funny. And now we're having to do it.

He loves it. Say it again. I say to Nancy all the time. She'll say, are you going to wash the dishes? I say, ain't going to happen.com. We have time for a 15-second commercial spot. We can play it right now. Oh, absolutely.

I forgot about that. Want to roll the video? Hey, stay tuned. If you're on Facebook or YouTube, you've got to watch this. This is going to be the commercial that we're talking about. Love it. There's more to Markston basketball straight training. What?

I've got cars and trucks. out of my ears. Whoa. O'Ricco's overstock, get new rounds, up to 15 grand off during a round truck month. You gotta go to RICO.

Up two. Hey, play, can we play that again? I just like the audio. They're going to take you longer. There's more to Marchton basketball street training. What? What?

Your ears. Your ears. Orico's overstocked. Get new rounds. Up to. 15 grand off during round truck month. You got to go Rigo. Up to.

Okay. So we sent Agent Thunder in to investigate, it was kind of like a formality. I mean, we knew how this. We were pretty sure that we knew how this would end. But, of course, we sent him in, and this is his story. Okay. I'm speaking in the first person like I was Agent Thunder. It wasn't very busy at a regal Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram and Fort Pierce, therefore referred to as a Rigo Dodge previously.

All cordial ships are not as busy as they used to be because this is during the coronavirus pandemic and hopefully when we do a rerun we won't rerun this show later and the pandemic will be all over and everybody will forgotten about it by then i was greeted by a salesman named crow it's sorry crow is that like during the coronavirus i thought maybe crow magnin that's what i thought actually as an anthropology and crow kept his cRO crow kept his distance and seemed relieved to notice i was keeping mine we sort of waved elbows at each other not touching you know the corona bump

we talked about what brought me in I told him I owned a coffee company I'm like that and needed a pickup truck to haul roasting equipment I said I saw the ad for 15,000 dollars off and I had to see if it was for a real Crow I go think see I keep thinking the crow I'm trying to think

what's that short for I don't know we should have asked Cornelius crow got me off the ad truck right away I mean this guy was a pro and you'll see and this is what we tell sales people when they take control you have to control the customer he said they had a great deal on trucks and he would totally hook me up with a great deal but the ad price would require all the rebates so right away he got me off and the theory is and this guy is a professional theory is you face it up front and if you're gonna have somebody

to insist on being treated honestly and fairly he'll just let go home and you get somebody else that'll be a sucker that won't be treated. You get a salesmaning that morning. They said, get them off the ad right away. Get them off the ad. He would be able to get them all. He added there was only two trucks that would work on. And so he's saying, let me show you something.

It won't be as good as we advertise, but I'll find you something that will be good. And Agent Thunder just nodded, so here we go. I'll make you happy. I'll make you happy. I began to protest, but Crowe was already talking about the other trucks. He had how to be happy with the day. discounts the Riegel was offering. So he had the control. Rather than fight

with him, I let him leave me outside to see the trucks. We stopped at the head of a long row of white Dodge Rams. Yes, all white. I figured since I was pretending to buy a work truck, I wouldn't complain to crow about this. White is also the most popular color. And you're not going to... People say

I don't want a blue car, I don't want a green car, but you can sell somebody a white car because it's not offensive to anybody. White cars. And a lot of commercial and business trucks are just weight. Okay. He asked me what I needed in a truck. I said bed size and payload were most important. I needed 1,000 pounds to 1,500 pounds, payload capacity, and a 6-foot bed capacity and 2-wheel drive. Crow led me to a RAM, 1,500 tradesman, watt cab. Now, we're talking about Arrigo, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, and Fort Pierce. Okay? He just tuned in. Okay, quad cab, 3,3,3,790, and there was no addendum.

That's a plus. There was no phony Monroe, just the MSRP on the window. Crow led me to a RAM, 1,500 tradesman quadcal. I just said that. On the windshield, there was a big sticker that read, yes, it's new. It's cute. Then a big 24,000, 995. I asked if that was the price.

Crow said it was the best price. It was a price after the discounts and rebate. It didn't include tax and fees, okay? Fees is the magic word there. There are real fees and there are phony fees. This just says all fees. Crow said it was for a 6-foot, 4-inch bed with a 1,700 payload capacity, 5.7-liter V8, 2-wheel drive.

I said it was perfect. crow went on to give a thorough presentation he was a truck expert he asked me if i wanted to go on a test drive but i declined and said i wanted to bring my partner back in later that afternoon he'd be the one doing most of the driving we made our way back inside and crow explained to me why they were discounting this truck so much he said they have too many carryover 2019 models the manufacturer has huge rebates and the rigos are known for their crazy discounts. Well, they are known, and they're known for crazy TV commercials. I like that. Back at the desk, we went through the usual routine. He gathered information about me, put it into his computer. Then he went to his worksheet. The MSRP was listed on top, 35-970,

and ballpoint penny wrote a rego discount, 4225. My sale price was 31-745. Pre-printed on the worksheet was a $799.99 and 95 cent pre-delivery service fee and the $159 and $959.95% electronic filing registration fee. So there was not a dealer fee. There were dealer fees, plural, and neither one of them were called the dealer fee,

which was in the name and the disclosure, the fine print. But they were called pre-delivery service fee and electronic registration in the filing fee to confuse the buyer and to slip it by the buyer. Next case, legitimate fees and sales tax below the septal. You talk of another $6,750 factory rebate total out the door $28.73.

The total discount off MSRP was $10,975. That's a pretty good discount. But this was reduced to $10,015 after factoring the hidden fees. 2015 and still not too shabby. I said, Crow, I'll be back with my partner in a couple hours. It was a summarize. As we guess,

there was no $15,000 discount for Agent Thunder. It was bait and switch, but he was given a pretty good deal on a truck that he picked out. With the help of the Big Chrysler rebate, Rigo, didn't have to work too hard to come up with that price. 4225 Arrigo discount was actually about $3,200 when you had the pre-delivery

and the electronic registration, which, as I said, are both dealer fees and the generic cuts. What they call these names by anything the dealer choose to call it. The TV ad was definitely bait and switch, but not quite so bad as we've seen recently. The question

is, does Crowe get credit or condemnation for addressing the rules right up front? So we'll leave it up to you, the audience. We've got time to hear some votes, I think. Yes, we do. And we have to remember we're grading on the curve here. This is not absolute fail or pass. We grade on the curve. The grades that I got

so far have Janie with an F, Bob with the C minus, Martin with the D, May with an F, and Alan with the C. So the grades are a little bit more varied than we usually see. I think it's a little ambiguous here. I'm going to go ahead and pass them with a with a D plus. I'm not sure if Crow gets credit for addressing. I think that's a sales technique. I don't think he was necessarily, you know, trying to expunge his soul or come clean. I think he just wanted to avoid a conflict. I bet

he sells a lot of cars. I just have the feeling he was a real pro. I've been in a business a long time. And I hate to say it, but controlling is something that you need to do and sale. Real estate people do. Refrigerator, salespeople do. You have to control the procedure.

Yeah. So, yeah, I'll pass them. What do you guys think? I've got Mark's Smith with a D minus, Frank, of course, with a D, Mr. Hand with a B, and I'm going to give him a, I, M. Ave just came in with a D minus and says, why not just advertise the real deal? Why bother with the bait and switch? Oh, because people don't come in. Well, 10,000 off would be a pretty good draw.

Yeah. They did it, you know. They did give them 10 grand. I'm going to give them a C because, you know, it's a big. It's based on what your competition does. The reason for the terrible beans is you have to have a lower price in your competition. I'll bet you that Napleton, Chrysler, G. God, somebody else is doing it.

Somebody is advertising $10,000 off. So you advertise $15,000. Roger Dean, Chevrolet. $17,000 on. Yeah. So it's a dominole effect, and you feel like you have to outlie your competition. It's an arms race. Nancy?

I'm going to give them a D-minus. it's a perfect bait and switch i'm not real happy with it uh we're going to take a look at that video and uh sweeten the pot yeah i would say um i'm going to give him a c and well i think that i think that it i almost want to give him a b we had one b over here um i think that if origo is in fact offering legitimate discounts to his exaggerated discounts that's almost a B

mitigating factor I'm not exactly sure how good that price is so I'll just drop him down to a C but he'll be on our recommended list I did check it out on TrueCar I couldn't see an actual price but I could see the average and it's pretty good

I'm going to give him a B then to be true to the curve we have to differentiate a little better on our long Mr. Logman over here. Remember, we said we're going to start grading a long time ago on a numerical so when we have our recommended list, we can have the better dealers of the top

and even on the recommended list so you can differentiate, not just pass or fail. I've also got Mark Ryan with a D and Karen with a C-minus. I think we have better grades here than we've had a long time. Yeah, there's quite a popery of them.

Everyone feels a different way. Okay, we've come almost to the end of the show. Do we have time for another text or anonymous feedback? Yeah, I can go to some anonymous feedback here. Not really car-related, but spend more time cleaning fingernails than the end of your fingers, and don't touch your face. This tip was given to ECHO-Lab employees meeting yesterday. ECHO-Lab is involved providing cleaning and disinfecting hospitals and years of experience.

I'll say that again. spend more time cleaning your fingernails and the end of your fingers. Interesting. And don't touch your face. That's very interesting because I just been doing my whole, well, I know I'm not supposed to touch my face. I watched that Vietnamese commercial and they show you doing this, like get your fingers. Ah, okay. One other car-related one, Earl, your dealerships must go through thousands of tire replacements.

What do you do with all the old tires? They are disposed of in an environmental friendly manner, and some of them are ground up and used for road service. and other purposes, but the profit margin apparently is so narrow. We tried to sell them directly to the people that use them on the roads, but the cost of transporting the tires was prohibitive in the nearest place that tires are recycled, I believe, is in Alabama. So maybe there's an opportunity for somebody out there that wants to get in to the tire recycling business.

You might be able to compete because you have less cost in transportation. transportation. But tires are, I have to dispose of my tires in a proper manner. Otherwise, I get fine. All right. Okay. Well, thank you very much, all of you folks out there for watching us on Erlon Cars. And just remember, you can get all this information and more by going to Erloncars.com. That's the blog. And through the blog, Erlancars.com, you can listen to our archives on our mystery shopping reports, podcast on all of our old shows, and everything we've said over all these years is available at earluncars.com. Have a fantastic weekend. Stay safe and keep a positive attitude. Tune back in next week from 8 to 10 Saturday. We'll be here. Come rain, come shine, come coronavirus.

Bye, bye, bye, everybody. Let go. We're going. We're going. Go! Go! Let's go.