Earl Stewart on Cars - 03.23.2024 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Ford of Murfreesboro, TN.

Episode Date: March 23, 2024

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels to Tennessee to visit a Ford dealer in Murfreesboro to see how much they will charge for a new 2024 Ford Bronco Sport on their car lot. 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, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “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”

The content, information, and opinions expressed during the related show are those of the show personalities and guest alone. And not those of Vic Canellis Media Group, its parent affiliates, or stations. VcMG Live is not responsible for any content information or opinions expressed. User bears full responsibility for their reliance on such content, information, or opinions. Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female business. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car.

Also with us as my son, Stu Stewart, 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 South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Here we are again in the studio. We're in South Florida, the Sodom and Gamora of car dealerships. We're down here reporting on what's going on, not just in Florida, but we're actually doing a mystery shopping report out of state in Tennessee today.

You regular listeners know about our mystery shop. That's probably, I talk a lot about other things on the show, but if I have, it's kind of like the cartoon. And remember the movies where you had a cartoon, sports, and news a long time ago when we used to go to the movies? Well, it's kind of like the cartoon, but it's an informative, it's an informative cartoon where we pretend to buy a car. We have a undercover agent. We refer to her secretly as Agent Lightning. We can't reel her to identity. and if you hang in there, if you're just listening now,

you don't want to listen for two hours because we're on from 8 to 10 Eastern Standard Time, but tune back in the last half hour and pick up the mystery shopping report. We, as I say, for 20 years we've been doing this, we go in to pretend to buy a car, and we just go through the same thing that you go through when you buy or lease a car,

and we report exactly what happened. I mean, we don't spice it up. We don't have to. It's a car, it's a car, tune. And cars are sold in the United States, and I suppose some other countries, in a way that retail products are no longer sold. They sold the way horses were 150 years ago. Horse trading, that's what it is. It's not retail. It's not Amazon. It's not Target. It's not Costco. It sure is in Costco. Great place to shop, by the way. It's taking your life in your

hands and walking into a dealership and playing games and we reveal exactly what happens. Very, very few of our dealerships get really good grades, but we have to give you some good grades so you have a place to shop. Anyway, stay tuned for the Mystery Shopping Report. For you new listeners, we're here to help you buy a car without being taken advantage of, not just buy a car, lease a car, maintain or... repair your car and uh more qualified i don't want to brag but we uh we've been doing this a long time um we're we have a car dealership i've been a car dealer uh since 1968 if you can believe that

and uh i've had several dealerships uh all different franchises and right now we have a toy dealership and northbound beach i tell you that because we don't want you to think if you're new this is not an infomercial. I hate infomercials. I mean, when they come on television, especially when they suck me in. I say, oh, look at this. They're going to tell me how I can lose weight. Oh, look at this.

I can get rid of that headache. And you find out it's somebody with a white coat on a stethoscope, pretending to be a doctor telling you about a product that he knows nothing about. He's reading a script. This is not an infomercial. We are here as consumer advocates. to help you buy a car without being taken advantage of lease a car, maintain, or repair your car. And by the way, before I get carried away about buying and leasing cars, let me say this.

Cars are built better today than they ever been. That's a good news. I mean, it's as hard to buy a car and dangerous to buy a car as it ever was, but it's a better product. They last longer. they cost less to operate they're safer I mean there's very few things about a car today that's not far better

than it was five years ago 10 years ago and you go back 25 and 30 I can't believe we drove those death traps I mean I don't know how many of are old enough to remember driving cars without seat belts much less airbags and I can't tell you

the other unsafe parts of those cars that you didn't know about But they were death traps today. That's amazing. In our dealership, we have a collision repair shop, and we have cars brought in that are almost in a basket. I mean, we have cars that you look at that, Rick, and you say, oh, my God, how is the passengers, how is the driver?

Oh, they weren't hurt at all. And so it's amazing the safety that we have in our car state. But you still have problems with them. They're complicated for one thing. I've got a certified diagnostic technician in the studio. You regular snow Rick Kearney. He also monitors the YouTube channel. And if you didn't already know this, we streamed this show on YouTube.

YouTube.com forward slash roll on cars. So if you have an issue with your car, get a free diagnosis from Rick. If you go into a dealership, you go into an independent repair facility and go through the process, you'll probably pay a few hundred dollars just to find out maybe there's nothing wrong with your car but or it's not serious or maybe you find out there's something wrong with your car that's not wrong with your car if you know what i mean so if you have a noise if you have a smell if you have a rattle a vibration anything that seems out of the norm for your car it's got you worried call rick at 877 960 986 that's our old-fashioned telephone [phone]

And you'll do a pretty good job of diagnosing your problem. You can also text us at 772-497-65-30. Again, that text number is 772-497-65-30. And talk to Rick, and you just have, you don't have to ask him about a problem. You can make a suggestion. Tell them about an experience you may have had with your car's repair and help other who are listening to the show, benefit. A high percentage, I was going to say 50%,

but at least 50%, of the things that you will learn from this show are from our callers, from our textors, from our YouTubers, especially the YouTubers. We have some folks out there monitoring YouTube, YouTube.com, porth slash roll-on cars. They are exceptionally well-informed on automobiles, how to buy, lease,

maintained, repair, and we learn from these people. So we're kind of like a center gathering location for people that are both knowledgeable and not so knowledgeable. So if you're not so knowledgeable, listen. If you are knowledgeable, contribute. And you can contribute by calling, as I say, 877-960-99-60. Sitting to my left in the studio here in North Palm Beach, Florida,

is Nancy Stewart. she is my co-ho she is my wife she's a co-founder of the show and she watches those phones like a hawk we've got like five lines coming in they light up and sometimes they light up we have to get to them quickly we stop what we're doing we go to the telephone because we like the telephone we like everything we like text we like youtube we like facebook by the way facebook.com forward slash on cars. We like all the communication you can give us, but we favor the phone because the personalities come through. So Nancy has got a laptop computer right in front of her, and the studio controller will flash the phone call on the screen, the name of the caller, and we stop

what we're doing to get to the phones. We prioritize phone calls. Nancy Stewart is also a female advocate. That can have a negative connotation, especially to you guys. But the fact of the matter is, Nancy is really ahead of her time. She recognized the fact that females have been considered second-class citizens in this country for a long time. And if you go back to the 50s and 60s or even 70s, for that matter today, it's still not 50-50 for the female. And the only thing that we can tell you this 50-50 is they buy half everything they're buying half the cars they're servicing half the cars they're dealing with car dealers and manufacturers and the products about 50% of the time so they should have an equal say and that is one of the reasons that we call nancy

a female advocate when you call this radio station or if you call us and you haven't called before and you're female she's going to tell you right now about a offer that is too good to be true well it's It sounds too good to be true, but it's true. You're not going to believe this. You're not going to believe the offer if you're a female, and you haven't called the show before. And you call 877-960-99-60. Nancy will tell you why that is really a good idea this morning. Nancy, the microphone is all yours.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Quickly, we are going to give away $50 to the first two new lady callers. the first two new lady callers and what I'd like to do is go right to the phones and talk to Phil Phil's been holding for a while Phil's calling us from Jupiter

good morning Phil good morning yes I got a question I bought two new cars four months ago I bought a Prius and I bought a Benza and I haven't got the second key phob in yet. And they

checked yesterday, and I said they didn't know when it was going to come in. So what happens if I lose a key in the meantime? I mean, how would I get another key from this little key from this little tag that I got on the key? It's a silver thing with

a number on it. Yeah, Phil, you just hit on one of the most common complaints. I literally, there's not a day goes by that we don't get a complaint at our dealership of this issue. And it goes back to the a microchip shortage, it goes back to the supply chain interruption, and the manufacturers were selling every car that could possibly manufacture, which was diminished because of the supply

chain issue. And in order to sell a car, they have to have a key. Well, normally, you have two keys. But in order, they had to decide, do I want to give my customer the two keys that I always give them, or do I build a car and sell a car that I wouldn't otherwise sell if I'd sell it with one key. And you guessed the answer. Rick has his hand up. Here's the practical answer. Some high up in Toyota came up with a plan. They have a set number of keys set aside for emergency situations like that. This is Toyota you're talking about. Right. Yeah. And it's Toyota, this is Toyota

corporate motor company Toyota. And so what would happen is we would order in one of those keys saying the customer lost their key it would be a customer pay situation and we would get that key in we would get your car towed to the dealership and we would then program that new key to your car to operate it oh okay

so that little silver tag I'm looking at the thing is that is that how you would identify we can identify that's the key code but we can identify by the VIN and it's just in your vehicle records right there. We can make a computer just by accessing that. You don't need the tag.

Nothing goes wrong if you lose that little tag. There's a database that has those numbers all stored in it for your car. But having that key tag just makes it a little easier that if you say I need a new key, here's my tag. That's the code for when they cut that little niblet key that could unlock the driver's side door. Okay. So if that happens, then, I just call. and then you all do your magic and make it happen, basically. Right.

But that can get really expensive, so you want to be very careful not to lose that key. But how long, I mean, okay, they're telling it, it's been four months. So what's the time frame been usually? I mean, I have you all. I have seen customers that had to wait almost a year to get the key. A lot of it, I feel a lot of us politics with the manufacturing. And if you raise a big enough stink in the right way, you can get a key a lot quicker. So it's a chronic situation with all manufacturers.

And I would suggest you take your complaint to the top, to the owner of the dealership or the general manager of the dealership. It's the very least the service manager. and it's like everything else if you're a good customer if it's a situation that might require a hardship on you they as Rick said earlier

there's always a few keys I mean it's like the old joke the guy goes to the hotel says I'm sorry we sold out and he says well if I was the president of the United States would you have a room for me and of course you know the answer somehow there'd be a room for the President of the United States.

So if you make your issue with a key serious enough and chronic enough of a problem, and you talk to the right person, you can get a key pretty quick. Okay. Well, I appreciate the information. Thank you. Thank you, Phil. 877-960-9960. That's the number you can reach us at.

And you can also text us at 772-49766. 530 and don't forget your anonymous feedback.com we have some interesting viewers here this morning I'm not sure if anyone's following the feed we've got we've got some people uh Johnny Z is viewing us from Missouri he said it's 34 degrees wow I hope you're someplace warm and cozy shorts and t-shirt weather and we also have We also have Casey. Casey's watching us from East Tennessee. Okay, as I said earlier, I have $50 for the first two new lady callers.

So give us a call and share your thoughts with us or just say hello. That's 877-960, right? Well, we've also got Negan 1. He's out in Arizona. Is he? Yeah. Hi, Neegon 1. Okay, we're going to go back to the phones, and we're going to talk to Howard, who's a regular caller.

Good morning, Howard. Good morning. I hope you all are well. It's not such nice weather today, but we'll get better. It's been better. Hey, Howard. I hope so. I tend to walk.

Anyway, I received a letter from Josh, and it's like an extended warranty. We recommend you obtain a vehicle service contract so that you've received. protect yourself against financial costs, mechanical, and electrical repairs. That's not Josh Stewart. Okay. Yeah, I know. That's why I'm calling. It says Josh Stewart, sincerely Josh Stewart.

No way. Okay. Well, forward it to me, Howard. Yeah. And forward to me, too, because we're not supposed to do something like that. I'd love to see what the letter says. Yeah, I'm passing by, so I'll drop you. off.

Yeah. I'm passing by. And I called up. And I said, are you, are you Toyota? I said, oh, yes, yes, yes. I said, well, how much you charge for the extended? Oh, $4,000. And, yeah, so it's.

Real scam. Yeah, I know. I realize it's a scam. But I, I'm going to, I'm driving a pair, so I'll give it to, uh, uh, lady at the desk. Okay, and then I'll grab it. And we're going to give it to our attorney because that's, uh, uh, that is, uh, certainly misrepresentation and they're, they're, they're actually, uh, attacking our company

and our brand by using the name of one of our managers as a, uh, uh, uh, come on. So thanks for the tip. We might, uh, we'll cut you in for 10% of what we get when we sue them. No, come on. Okay, great. 20%. 20%. I'll take 15

Hey, you're negotiating with this We didn't even try to negotiate Yeah I just had you 20% Come off I'll drop it off today With some passing box I'll call Josh

Because Josh will be there Maybe I'm going Maybe Josh has gone rogue No I don't think so The only thing I'm wondering is if it's I can think of a follow-up email If somebody didn't get a warranty Well they have to purchase the car

Saying it's still available But we don't have any warranty where somebody says how much your warranty costs, $4,000. Okay, thanks Howard. Maybe that outside company hired someone just because their name was Josh Stewart. Well, that's an excuse, but it ain't going to get them off the hook. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I'll repeat that again, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call tool free at 877-960.

And, you know, a consumer report did a survey recently. on getting your vehicle repaired. Tell me how you feel what decision you would make if you needed to get your vehicle repaired. Would you go to an independent shop? Is that what you prefer? Or would you rather go to the dealership? Give us a call to you at 877-9-60-99-60.

And at about 9.30, we have our dog of the week, and his name is Vanilla. He was, he came to us from Texas, from the Texas, excuse me, Texas border. Boy, the pollen is driving me nuts and everybody else. Okay, so everyone will just have to listen to me, clear my throat, Rick cough, and Stu rule his eyes. I'm not rolling my eyes. 877-960-99-60.

or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. And you can also go to the Big Dog Ranch website, wwwwbidog Ranch Rescue.org. Take a look at all the beautiful dogs that they have up for adoption, and maybe you might want to run out there and take a look around. It's a great place to visit. We're going to go back to the phones, and we're going to talk to Dan.

I believe Dan's calling us from Coral Springs. Good morning, Dan. Good morning, everyone. How's everyone doing? Great. All right. Two quick questions. One's easy.

When I start the car in the morning, should I let it, a warm off 30 seconds or a minute, or can I try to be? And the reason I'm asking is I was in another car with someone else. They started a car and they just put a drive and started driving without letting it warm up. And I was curious, you guys warm up the car before I start actually moving the car. My opinion, it can't hurt. I can't say, I can't tell you for a fact that it helps, but I can say it certainly can't hurt when you first start the engine in the morning. let it run for at least 10 or 15 seconds.

Even that small amount helps get the oil circulating a little bit, let it run a little bit to get a little warmth into that oil so it can start circulating and doing its job of protecting the engine. Because overnight, not only does that oil settle down all the way down into the oil pan itself, but the water vapor that's in the air, especially in Florida with as humid as we get it, That water vapor is getting inside the engine and getting everywhere.

So there's little condensation droplets all over inside. And that oil actually helps pick that water up. And as soon as it heats up, of course, the water evaporates and goes out. Before it can do any damage, starting the engine and immediately going into drive, it almost kind of be like, you know, the instant you wake up trying to jump out of bed. If you're not ready for it, eventually you're going to hurt yourself. Same thing with an engine. As they get older, just that little extra time gives them a chance to warm up,

and I think it makes engines last a lot longer. When I wake up, I sit on the side of the bed for about 15 minutes. Right. I'm always going to get that long. But even just a few seconds, you know, you spend a lot of money on a car. Just that little bit of time to let the car warm up, I think it'll make them last a whole lot longer. Same thing with the transmission. Everything gets a chance to kind of get into getting gear and get it all lubricated and ready to go.

And it's better for your investment, really. Okay, and in the case where the car is a little older, like my car is a 2016, so it's eight years old. Should I let it warm up more than 10, 15 seconds? Because you've been old to the car? 15, 20 seconds is plenty enough. I mean, I'm in a 13, and 15, 20 seconds, that's all I ever give her. My truck's ready to go, and I'll tell you, at 175,000, 177,000, it's running great. I mean, I expect to get another 100,000 out of that truck easily.

Okay, great. So my second question is more on tires and balancing. I would say about a year ago, I went ahead and got new tires from tire. kingdom. And I got it at 70,000 miles. When the car had 70,000, I got a four set of four tires. And then when I asked them, how often should I rotate in balance? They said, well, every 5,000 miles. It's okay. So, but, you know, unfortunately, with everything going on in life and with work, I should have went back there to have my tires rotated at 75,000. But by the time I thought about it, it was, it was like a little over 83,000. So I missed the 5,000. So I missed the 5,000.

And so my question is, seeing that the tires have already have about, I would say, about 13,000 miles on it when it should have rotated at 5,000. They did the rotation, but now should I wait a little extra longer to make it even on the four tires so that it gets, or should I go back on the 5,000 mile rotation? I would go back to that 5,000. And for a tie of balance, I don't really advocate having your tires balanced as often as that unless you're feeling an issue. You know, if you're starting get a vibration at highway speeds, then, yeah, I would get them balanced. Otherwise, keep that rotation going every 5,000. It's definitely better for the tires. Makes them wear longer, last longer, and you get your money's worth.

The key, I think what Rick is really saying here, the key is to look at those tires at least every 5,000 miles and probably at least every month or so. I mean, if it takes a long while before you put 5,000 miles on it, you shouldn't let a lot of time go by for someone inspect your tires. Now, when they inspect them, that doesn't mean they're going to align them, mount them, and balance them, of course, but you look at them, you find out is there uneven wear, is inflation correct? And when push comes to shove, the most expensive thing you've got on your car right now are your tires in terms of maintenance and repair.

To replace those tires is extremely expensive today. So it used to be, there was a whole lot of other things in a car you had to worry about. Right now the cars, even a six-year-old car, he said it was six years old. Even a six-year-old car has got incredibly stable maintenance, repair. pairs and everything else. You can drive a car forever without having to fix it today compared to what it was 25, 30 years ago. But your tires are just like the tires you had 25 or 30 years ago.

If you knock them out of alignment or balance, hit a pothole, hit a curb, you're going to ruin a set of tires. Now you're talking maybe $1,000 for a set of tires. So get them checked at least every 30 to 60 days or every 5,000 miles, depending on your driving habits. Yeah, and the one thing I learned when I went to Tari Kingdom, I thought they were going to do a rotation and balance, but it wasn't. It was done in 20 minutes, and I asked about the balance, because according to my receipt,

when I purchased the four tires, it said balance for life. And I thought they did that automatically, and the gentleman said, no, we just rotated. Unless you find that it vibrates as you drive it, we would just do the rotation with no balancing unless you let us know that it's not driving safely or bumpy when you're driving. So that I learned. Yeah, that's their small print thing. And it's like Tire Kingdom or any other service department, what, and I'll include myself in our dealership, we love people to come in. I mean, there are different reasons.

We love people to come in. We like to think because we want to be sure we're taking care of their car. A business wants people to come in so they can make money. So Tire Kingdom wants you to come in as often as they can get you to come in. And the, The good answer, why that is, because they can find something it needs to be done. The bad answer is when they get you in, they can sell you something you don't need. So it's like anything else. Servicing or buying a car, buyer beware. But for your tires, you're going to have to take a chance.

Go in at least every 5,000 miles or two or three months and have your tire checks because it's a safety issue. And when you have a problem, you can say, show me, show me the nail, show me the uneven wear. me the alignment reading on the computer printout on your alignment machine, when they tell you you need to have work on your tires or a replacement tire, just be sure they show it and prove it to you. Okay, and then I do, and just as a follow-up, I noticed that on my bill has said balancing for life for $24. Do you feel that's a junk fee added on? Most service departments have a junk fee. They call them various things, hazardous waste,

disposal fee, miscellaneous, miscellaneous shop supplies. In South Florida, the average is probably $25 or $30 just to come in. So when you get your invoice, go through and opposite every charge, there should be some work completed. If you see something that you don't recognize, that's probably the junk fee. And then you have to ask the cashier, what is this? And she'll probably say something like, oh, all our customers have to pay this. Then you say, I'd like to speak to the service manager because I don't want to pay this.

I had my wheels aligned. I had my wheels balance. I bought a tire. That's what I'm going to pay for. I don't want to pay for your hazardous waste disposal or I don't want to pay for whatever else you have under miscellaneous. I don't like miscellaneous charges. I'm not going to pay it. If you say that forcefully, 95% of the time they'll take it off the invoice.

The amount you mentioned, sir, is that they're charging you for. on this visit, or was that the original? No, yeah, that was the original purchase. When I purchased the four tires, they went ahead, and they charged me $24 total for four tires at $6 a piece for lifetime balance. Right. Yeah, that, again, like Earl said, that's to get you to come back every $5,000 so they can look your car over and try to find something to sell you.

Right, because also they did charge me a one-time balance. balance fee of $40, $10 when I purchased the tires, and then the additional 24 for lifetime balance. Right. Yep. That's getting you to pay so that you now you think you have something of value there that you want to use. So you're going to keep going back there. And every time you go back, they have the opportunity to look and see if they can sell something on your car. No, I agree.

I agree. Well, gentlemen, thank you very much. and you guys do a wonderful service to us for out here, and I really appreciate all the info. Thank you much. Thanks, Dan. Give us a call again. 877960-9960,

or you can text us at 772-4976530. Ladies, you still have time to give us a call, $50 for the first two new lady callers. We're going to go back to the phones and talk to our friend Jersey Mike. Good morning. Good morning, Mike. Hey, good morning, folks. You're doing a great show again. I just do it every week, and I've got some input for you that you'll find interesting. Okay.

The kebab issue, okay? I had a disaster. I was coming back from North Jersey on 95 in a stop to the service center. And I took my dog for a walk in the area. It was a nighttime dark, okay? And unfortunately, I was a lot. went over and got, like, some candy or something, coffee, whatever, and a little, you know, would have the convenience stuff and that, you know, whatever you call it, like that. Anyway, I lost my key bump. I said, oh, oh, oh, where did I leave it? I carry a flashlight in the car.

I went searching here, there, everywhere. I'm almost to the point where I'm going to have to go and get the car towed from way up north. I only got a hundred mile allowance on my AAA car. I said, this is going to be really bad. Well, I finally located it. Now, I learned a lesson from that. I was someplace, I'm not sure where it was,

but there is a place, it could have been Costco over here on North Lake Boulevard, where there's a man inside of a portable van, and it's kind of like a yellow-orange color, and he actually makes keys, and I got a separate key bomb made for $300, and I keep it separate in my pocket loose from the one that's using all my key chain that I've attached my belt loop so it is available I'm not sure where it could be but

we have there are vendors yeah there are sellers out there and we've used them in the past and with our like with our used car department you know if we need to make an extra key from for like a BMW or something we don't have the computers for I think it works on most of the time I don't know if there's any problems but there's nothing and also I think we realize Is it Ace Hardware, it does? Would they do the same thing? Yeah. So there are available.

It's still a lot of money, but it's not as much. I think you get it from a dealership. It's going to be closer to 500, probably. It's a lot less expensive than getting told a few hundred miles. Yeah, that's also another factor. Yeah, you've got to realize. Very true, Mike. I've used, I've used Ace Hardware.

And back in the day, I used CVS. Oh. Things have changed. So let me talk about a couple other things. I used to be a motorhead. I had a 68 Corvette. At that time, I was the agent of a muscle car. We used to drag and all that stuff.

And I had to dinoed out after I got done working on it with Pam and sidepipes and a whole bunch of other things at 490 horsepower on a dynamometer. And I could do 060 in 4.0 seconds. So we had a 30-foot pounds of torque. Yeah, I was a lot of fun. I never lost a race. I only took it out on the weekends. And every time I would get out, everybody wanted to race me.

but no, and there was a place in Fort Adams, New Jersey, on Route 17, a highly traffic location called the Steward's Root Pier Stand, and that's where everybody would go with your hop-up cars to go racing. You go down to New Jersey Parkway, there's a strip there where you could go racing, basically, you know, late at night, you know, because the traffic wasn't too bad. So I'm just, you know, sharing some things with you. I get another question for you. And I want to talk about Big Dole Ranch real briefly, but I was out there all afternoon

yesterday. I got to say some things to your audience. I got this here, 2014 AST, Cadillac. I've had Cadillac since 1977. I'm 78 years old, okay? When I used to buy them, I used to put 60, 70,000 miles per year on them with my business. I ran my own business. So I would turn them around every three years because I basically burn them up.

But I followed the manufacturer's manual, and I never, ever had a breakdown or a problem with any one of those Cadillings. I go out and I buy this used 2014 AST and it's been nothing but a nightmare. I'm not going to go through all the things that went wrong with it. I think we have some. We've heard about some of them.

Yeah, go ahead. All right. Well, what looks like leather is not leather and it just crumbles off. Is there anywhere at a place I can get that done reasonably well? Yes. Because I want to get rid of his car and get myself maybe a Subaru or something

that doesn't break down, you know? We use a company called S-A-T, and it's Sun Auto-T-T-T-Rim. It is the top-turn-to-trim. And we use them for leather, and they are excellent. They're reasonable. I don't know if they are, like, doing, like, straight retail. I think the best thing to do is maybe contact me after the show or just send me an email or a text, and I can contact them.

How do that? How do I do that? Well, they are, oh, to contact me? You can text me right on the show's text line, if you want. It's 8777. 7.7-7-2-497-6-5-3-0. I haven't said that number. I got 7-7-2-492 in last four.

Okay, 772-497-6530. Yeah, it texts me and then I can... 5-30. Okay, I will. And we can put you together. But here's the thing. There might be, you're in West Palm? Yeah.

Yeah, okay. There might be some vendors up here in the area. We've just been using this one for years because they have a pickup and delivery service. They're set up to service dealerships. Oh, okay, great. But there could be. What I would look for is just auto trim. Just look up on Google or if you have a phone book.

Okay, I will do that. Thanks for that. Let me see what thing. I was around before seatbelt came to cars, okay? And the dealerships at that time, and I'm talking about, they introduced seatbelts in 69, 68 didn't have that. I got a 55 Chevy here, believe it or not, that runs pretty nicely also because I collect cars. But the point is dealerships at that time made their money in the service department. They made no money selling cars.

You've been going to a railroad dealership back in the 70s, and most of the cars that they had there, they sold for a big discount off of the sticker, the window sticker, the MSRP cost, because they made their money with their service department. Well, that's probably, I'll jump in there because I was selling cars back in the 70s, too. And for many years, not recently, not in recent history, but for many years, The new court departments, if you look at the financial statement of the dealer was kind of a break-even sort of a thing. But if you add in the things that are not apparent like extended service contracts and finance profits and things like that, it has a different picture. But yes, the competition among a lot of franchises, new car franchises, is so intense that the new car department is on the average about a break-even.

The service departments, on the other hand, are quite profitable. Now, that's history. Things changed in the past three years enormously, and it's a tail wag of the dog. In COVID and post-COVID years, the dealers have made virtually all their money in the New Guard Department because they're charging $5,000, $15,000, $20,000 over a sticker price. Things are returning in normal. But if you look at the whole picture of auto retail, the service department is the most profitable department compared to and the new car department just by itself is about the least

profitable department that's right that's what it was back in the 70s yeah hey uh Howard rick just text me there is one uh central auto trim in west palm it's local um and I think they they were they do uh retail so in other words you can uh work with them so if you want the number I'll put it on central auto trim 5-61 area code six, six, oh boy, six eight six, nine six one one. It's a six eight six nine six one. Got it. That's great. Okay. So let me say something about a big dog ranch. I was out there all that. A lot of people don't know this, but that is a no kill and it's the only one of the United States, a place where they had board dogs. And they just went to Puerto Rico and brought back a whole bunch of

bunch of dogs that were, you know, from a bed storm or something like that, they do wonderful work out there. I've already adopted one dog out there. And then the dog of the day, a few maybe a few weeks back that you were talking about, I ran out there. By the time I got there, it was gone already. Wow. Wow. That's great to hear. Oh, yeah, really. And let me say this. A lot of people don't know this, but you'll talk. about what benefit you offer with regard to the fees and all that. But if you're a veteran, which I am in Vietnam

Europe, you pay any euro, okay, you pay only 50% of any adoption fee. That's right. And when you get that dog, everything has been done, including a chip in it, should it get ever lost. Yeah. So it gets

croomed. It has all the population. You get all the documentation, all the paperwork. This is so far from the pounds. If you have a problem with your dog, you can take them back. and it's free of charge and get it looked at by the veterinarian. Yeah, I'll tell you what, Mike, they cover it all out there. Yeah. And I don't know whether you heard automatically.

Exactly. I don't know whether you heard our dog of the week today, but Vanella came to us from the Texas border. So Big Dog Ranch, you know, it's a no-kill. It's a no-kill facility in the United States. I know. So, you know, we thank you for promoting Big Dog Ranch. I have another call. Let me just say one last thing.

There's a veterans building out there. So any new veterans out there may be wanting to get a partner for life. And they're one of the best creatures to have as a partner for life. Go out there and see the veterans building because they'll teach you very, very well. You know, we share our brotherhood, basically. So I'm just letting everybody know that out there. Just so many great things about Big Dog Ranch. Thank you.

877960. And you can text us at 772-497-60. Ladies, I'm still waiting for a phone call. First two new lady callers, $50, too? Yeah, real quick. I think we keep making error. Big Dog Ranch Rescue is the largest cage-free, no-kill shelter in the United States. That's right.

I think we keep saying it's the only one. There are other no-kill shelters. That's a movement to have new-kill shelters, but nothing comes close to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Nothing comes close. Thanks for pointing that up. Okay. 877-960-99-60.

We are going to go to Chase. Good morning, Chase. Chase is calling us from Palm Beach. Yes. My question is this. We're referring back to the gentleman called about 10-15 minutes ago, about starting your car and letting them warm up I always thought that the transmission

in the motor and the oil pin was a sealed unit Nope There's go When your engine is running There are however many cylinders you have Those pistons are flying up and down Inside that crank case

Creating a huge amount of pressure If they were sealed airtight That pressure would be just exploding that engine apart. So you have the crankcase ventilation, the PCB valve, and your transmission, although it's relatively sealed, it's got an air vent as well. So there is air getting in and out of them.

And, of course, Florida moisture is kind of like sand. I mean, it's going to get in everywhere. Yeah, and I'm sure that depends on, you know, any part of the country. I mean, originally from Massachusetts. Oh, yeah. And we warm days and cold days, you know, throughout the seasons, too. Yep. So I appreciate the call back.

I mean, that's great. I'm glad you turned me right on that. That's perfect. I appreciate that. Thank you. Very welcome. Have a great thing. Thanks for calling.

Thanks, Chase. Give us a call again. 877-960-960, or you can text us at 772-49-60-stew. Do we have a pause in the call? calls. Can I say something about Jersey Bikes? About Jersey Mike? And we're going to go to Andy who's calling us from Wellington.

Good morning, Andy. Good morning. Yes, good morning. My name's Andy. I'm from Wellington. And I just wanted to let you know. I did receive that same letter about the extended warranty. Really?

Yeah. And it looked pretty official on the outside like it was from you guys. Andy, let me in the run. because I got the answer, and we're pleading guilty. Something I didn't know about and Stu didn't know about, but... Or remembered. We have a company, it's a Toyota, which is the Toyota Distributorship, for you folks have been around for a while.

You remember Jim Moran, he founded the Toyota Distributorship for the United States back in the late 50s, early 60s. And he has a company called JMNA. We sell extended service contracts that we design ourselves for our customers. They are marketed. We use the company that administers those is the Jim Moran and Associates, which is the Southeast Toyota company. They train our people and they administer the warranty that we design.

They also are, what I've just found out, they're marketing that extended contract that we sell in our dealership. And I don't particularly care for that letter, and we will address that. But let me just say that this is live radio, and Andy, you and Howard were able to tell Sue and me something we didn't know about our own dealership. we're not doing anything illegal. We're not doing anything that is not correct. But I don't like the flavor of it. It sounds like too much of a, I say on this show, and you've heard me say this, if you give the solicitation for a warranty by mail or by text or any kind of solicitation,

don't totally ignore it. And here we're doing the same thing that I'm telling you to totally ignore. or so. We will change that, either stop it or change it. And thanks for pointing this out to us. We had the letter after I heard of it. I didn't, neither student or I believed we were doing this. I texted Josh Stewart. He says, yes. And here's a copy. He said it's a copy of the letter. Yeah, I had, Wes, one of our listeners, sent a copy. I can't say this, that I think when we agreed, it was a matter of contacting service customers. I don't know who approved the, the text of the letter. So we got to, I agree with you.

The text sounds, it's not high pressure, but it's a little doom and gloomy. Well, I kind of felt that because I listen to your show a lot and I know you're kind of your stance on extended warranties and I would never consider getting one of those. No, listen, this is a beauty of live

radio and I, we open ourselves up to and we love to find out things that we Wouldn't you would think we wouldn't want to hear it because we do want to hear them. We do want to hear when we do something wrong. We just found out by the fact that somebody, you know, here we have something going on in our own company that we didn't know about. And we found out about it.

So here we are pleading guilty and as charged. And thanks, Andy, and thanks for Howard for calling this to our attention. But we will address that issue and make it right. you're quite welcome okay great have a great day thanks Andy give us a call again I think we're going to get to Stu and Rick early

we've got a little pause here on the lines we have a pause I have Amory has her first text she's been waiting here since 759 a.m. Good morning my 2013 Camry has the standard notice to turn the gas cap closed until it clicks the last few times I filled up I didn't hear the click

and my hearing is still okay. The cap feels as if it's tightly sealed and I haven't seen any warning lights on my dash this prompts the following basic refueling questions and we'll do them one at a time. One, can a gas cap seal properly without clicking? Yes, it can, but it means that it's getting to the end of its lifespan and for like $35, you can get a click.

I would get a new gas cap. Okay. And that's $35 to $45, I believe, is Toyota's retail price. Okay. So her second question is, what should I do about it? Which you just answered. So you're coming to the end of the lifespan of your gas cap. For under $40, you can get it replaced. Number three, when is the best time to refuel when the gas gauge reads half full, quarterful, or less, assuming ones in an area with plenty of gas stations? This is South Florida. We get storms. We lose power. We have weird things happen here. Be ready.

I like to fill a mind up Anytime I'm below a half I stopped fill up to take Well you were a Boy Scout Always be prepared Yep I was Unlike me You've run out of gas before

And number four No I've never run out of gas I just let it get to the You know To the minimal When you're feeling the full of anxiety When your dad is saying no no You gotta stop

From the Seinfeld episode where you keep going Number four What happens to a car If you do run out of gas Is there sludge in the bottom of the tank that can mess things up? No. The field filter is on the field pump. There's a sock on it, basically, that will keep anything from getting in there.

However, running it out of gas can be a little hard on the engine. Not really anything real dangerous. Right. But it's going to sound pretty horrible when it starts running out. And in order to get your car to restart, you generally need to have it, least three gallons of fuel back in there. Okay. Because otherwise the computer is going to say,

wait a minute, I'm obviously out of gas, and it's not going to reset things and let you restart until it sees a certain amount of fuel in there, knowing that it's got enough in there that won't damage the pump by trying to run dry. How many gallons are in the typical, like those handheld cans that you get when people got to run down to the gas station and do it manually? Yeah, most of the big ones hold about five gallons. Okay.

Oh, so you've got those big square ones, but I've seen some smaller ones. The little ones are usually one gallon. And I can help you. Yeah. It might get you going in a pinch. Okay. With that one gallon, you might have just enough that it'll get you going and get you to the pumps. Okay.

All right. Thanks, Rick. Okay, we're going to have to go back to the phones. We've got John who's calling us from California. Good morning, John. Good morning. How you doing? We're great.

Nice to hear from you. Same here, a longtime watcher on YouTube. Oh. Thanks for calling. Thank you. Hey, you're a 6 a.m. out there now? Yeah, I get up at 5 in the morning to watch the show every morning. Wow.

That's great. Thank you very much. That's awesome. Thank you. Jonathan, thank you. So my question is, so I took my car to the dealership and, you know, how you pay to get it diagnosed. and so they misdiagnosed my car. They called me saying that my car was done and it was repaired.

I went to pick it up and the problem was still there. So they had me pay for the repair that didn't fix anything. And then they told me that it was a more larger expensive repair that needed to be done. So I asked them if I could just get my money back because they didn't fix anything. And I'm just wondering, is there's something I can do to try to get my money? money back since they didn't fix it and they misdiagnosed my vehicle to begin with? I take it to the top as far as you can go. You're probably dealing with a service advisor who are really serviced salespeople.

They're paid on commission and they don't like the idea of giving money back because it comes out of their pay. But if you go up the line far enough, I would certainly start with the service manager, the real manager who runs the service department. And if that's not satisfactory, you can take it to the general manager of the dealership. If you really get lucky, you should be able to talk to the owner of the dealership. Yeah, it's something at this point. California's got some pretty good laws out there. And are you familiar with a company out there called Cars, C-A-R-S- as acronym. I'm trying to figure what it stands for, but it's a consumer advocacy group.

I know the owner is a woman, and her name will come to me in a minute or maybe. Rosemary. Yeah, Rosemary. Rosemary. Something around. Shehan. Sheehan. Yeah.

Is it Sheehan. Sheehan. Shahan. If you want to Google that, S-H-H-H-A-N, Rosemary Shahan, C-A-R-S, if you were to email or text, her, she would get you reply in California extremely fast. She is probably the number one consumer advocate for auto owners and auto servicers in the world. It's consumers for auto reliability and safety. Consumers for auto reliability and safety.

And I think I probably still have her in my context. Hang on one second. Boy, it's been a while since we talked to her. Yeah, we exchange notes Every now and then And she is listened to the show And she's Did we ever have her call in?

I don't remember And she's been a great asset to us for sure Here's her email address Do you have something you can write on? Not on me right now But I can text I can do I have you guys on the text line as well Or you can just replay the show

because it'll be on YouTube. Yeah. Oh, there you go. Yeah, I can do that too. Very good. We'll say it. And tell Rosemary that Earl said hi. Oh, go ahead.

Read the email, so he's going to play the show back. Oh, read the email address out loud. Okay. The email is R.S. as in Rosemary Shahan at car consumer.org. There you go. R.S. as in Rosemary Shahan at. car consumers plural car consumers dot org there you go okay got it I will play it back right right in the middle right at the halfway point yeah I love the show guys I love what

you guys do thank you so much thank you John okay give us a call again John but we're gonna go to Marty good morning Marty Marty Marty's a regular caller my man Marty hi how you're doing great how you doing Marty I got a question, I guess, for Rick. On the Toyota Crown, it's got three drive modes, sport, normal, and eco. Other than being showing you that it's in a different mode, I don't know if it's just an advertisement to make you think you've got three different modes. No, they got modes?

We got modes? No. My question is, does it really do it? Yeah. It tightens the steering, suspension, like in the sport mode. It will do a little bit. Primarily, one of the things it'll do is if you put it in eco mode, it's going to reduce how long the AC compressor runs.

Because believe it or not, that's one of the biggest energy thieves on the car because the compressor is run electrically now by the HV battery. So it's one of the biggest users. of power use a lot of power and it'll reduce the amount that it runs so you may feel a slight difference in the temperature of the air conditioning in the car and in eco mode but it will actually save you quite a bit of power by doing that well you know you just i i learned something too marty excuse me i know i'm interrupting but i i had no idea i always thought it was a joke when people would say i i haven't got much gas left so i'm going to turn off my air conditioning so are So it's a true fact. It really does. If you're on empty and you're looking for a gas station, turn off the air conditioner.

When my friends and I drove to California back in 1991 in a Corolla, we had a U-Haul thing on the roof that killed the gas mileage. I mean, it was horrible. So we didn't run the air conditioning the entire trip. We're going through the death. I don't know. I didn't know. It was the number one energy burner. MythBusters actually did an episode on that.

but yeah i'm sorry keep the car on normal yeah normal's the best spot yeah sport uh sport basically is going to try to give you a little more feel feedback in the steering wheel a little more road feel and it's going to try to get you more road feel in the suspension but it's really not going to make that big a difference normal's the best one that you want okay that's that's where i've kept it so far. And, you know, I checked the mileage. Obviously, the nice part is you're definitely getting better mileage with a hybrid. Oh, yes. Especially in city driving, you will see some, an incredible increase in your fuel economy. Now, when I've driven the car to Miami and back, I don't think it gets that great mileage. No, because when you're up on the highway and that that long

traveling. It's got to run the engine more often to keep electricity to run the car. What happens is when you're in city driving, every time you let off the accelerator, it's putting the wheels into a generator mode so that you're using that spinning motion to create electricity to recharge your battery. So your regenerative braking helps get energy back. And then when you're sitting you a traffic light and shuts the engine off, you're not using any gasoline at all there either. So you really do save a lot of fuel in a hybrid in city driving. Right. But up on the highway, it's getting the same mileage as any other gasoline car.

Now, one other question I have for Rick. Sometime I'm driving along, I take my foot off the gas, I get that regenerative braking where I feel it, you know, really breaking. Yes. Other times, it just seems like it's not there. I don't know if it's supposed to do it every single time or not. Now, the computer's going to determine when it wants to do that. There's a lot of factors that it takes into play as to whether it's going to try to get full power or not. You remember when we had hurricanes come through, when we all lost power, we're on generators.

And you plugged in, say, like a toaster oven to your generator. and you could hear it go and really drag down. That's the electromotive drag that is created when you're basically asking for a lot of power from that generator. And the computer can tell your engine, the electric motors, hey, when he lets off the gas and starts to break or even just coast, I want full electricity coming back to my battery. So it will create the most electromagnet drag

and you'll feel that car slow way down. But at the same time, that's creating the most power to go back to your battery. Yeah. All right. So far, then everything's working right. So I'm happy with the car so far. Excellent. Yeah.

Thank you, Marty. All right. Have a good weekend. Give us a call again. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye, bye, Marty. Remember, you can take advantage of your anonymousfeedback.com.

That's Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And again, I will mention $50 for the first two new lady callers, $50. Give us a call, say hello, or share your experience with us, whether it's in service, whether it was purchasing a vehicle, leasing a vehicle, whatever. We would love to talk to you. Our number here is 877-960, 9960. and you can text us at 772-4976530. You may want to write that text number down.

You'll need it in order for you to vote on our mystery shopping report that will be coming up shortly. Okay, I think we'll go to Rick and get some of those YouTubers exposed. All righty, so far, the only one I've got here, John Z. Freidly said back when we were talking about tires, he says, speaking of tires, if you lease from Toyota and have to replace a tire, make sure it's the same rating or higher as the factory original. Otherwise, you're going to wind up having to pay for that tire when you turn your lease back in.

They will send you a bill if your tires are not of the same rating. One is, there's all different kinds of ratings. What kind of rating you're talking about? I believe he's speaking of the speed rating for the tire. Speed rate? Yeah. When you look on the side of the tire. Oh, okay, okay.

You'll have the measurement for the tire. Yeah, that's a safety issue, sure. Yep, yeah. But they're not going to do about the rating in terms of the inflation or the soft, you know, the, the treadware rating. No, this is actually the speed rating. Yeah, that's important. Yeah. Meaning, meaning if you have a performance car, you have to have the high-speed rating tire

because if you don't, you're going to be in trouble when you're going real fast in your high-performance car. Exactly. Yeah, other than that, where it's been kind of quiet on you today. Can I do something that's really totally? May I say something that's totally automotive unrelated? Okay. I'll be right with you, Karen. You hang on.

Oh, no, I didn't know you had Karen on. I'm not going to do that with Karen. Okay, Karen. Good morning and welcome. Hi, Karen. Good morning, Karen. Hello? Hi.

Hey, hi, Karen. You don't remember me, of course. I have a picture of you, your husband, and my pit bull on my phone. Oh, and I bought my little Tacoma truck back in 2017. Yeah. But anyhow. It's been a while since you called. I've never called

Oh great That's what I have for you $50 I have $50 for you And if you stay on the line When we're finished talking You can give Mike In the control room

Your contact information He will pass that to me And I'll write you that check I will need to know Where to send that check So stay on the line when we're done talking. Okay.

I won't take up a lot of your time. I just want some somewhere. I need some information, someplace to go. Okay. And you guys are so knowledgeable. And I can call me in. Okay.

What can we do for you? I'm newly retired, and I got excited and bought a van to put my dogs in and to travel in, and not using it. And I went to Del Rey, and they, listed it as a cargo van. It's a 2023. It's got 5,000 miles on it. And it's the same size

of my Tacoma truck. That's why I bought it. It was 18 foot. You know, everybody makes a mistake now and then. And I bought it thinking I would travel and do this and do that well. I'm still so busy doing other things after retirement than I don't get it. And so I took it to Delray and they said, oh no, just take it to CarMax. So I went up to CarMax and they wouldn't take it. Nobody will take it. So I put it on on the trader. Oh, my gosh, they're coming out of the woodwork. You know, everybody wants this much money for this, $800 for

that. I'm like, oh, come on. eBay, they all want money just to advertise it. And is there anyone, any dealerships that take a small little van? Oh, sure. Karen,

I would if you have something you can write on, there are a number of sorts of to sell used cars, you have a better opportunity to get a sell and get a good price for that van than you ever had in terms of dealing directly. One of them, Carfax, you've already tried. Carfax apparently didn't want to give you a price. I'm a little surprised, but the fact that they wouldn't shouldn't dissuade you. You've got we buy anycar.com online, and it's just the way it sounds, we buy anycar.com. You could go online, describe the van, and sell it actually online.

They verify what you told them, of course, before they... Well, I could take it back to La Mesa RV, where I got it. It's got the solar top. It's got the refrigerator. It's got everything in it. It's a beautiful little thing. Yeah. So you say go to We Buy Anycar.com.

Or there's another one called... There's so many of them now. Broome, V-R-O-O-M, V-R-O-M, V-R-O-M, V-R-O-M, V-R-O-M. dot com. It's a crazy saying. I'm V-R-O-O-M.com. There's, uh, Carvana. Carvana. They've been around longer than the other two. I missed the first part. Is this a specialty van? Two ends? Is this a specialty van? I didn't hear the very beginning of it. It's a, uh, it's an 18M rise. Yeah. It's a Dodge Ram fan. Yeah. Um, maybe we can't, you know, it's one of the little. Let's get, I'll talk to I'll talk to Ted Caboosh. He's, he's, he's one, our wholesaler. Yeah. In the past, we've dealt

with us at um and it does cause a pause we've had these conversion vans and um pulled up these dodge and nobody knows what to do with them because there's a basic van that it's in the books and all that and then a lot of work has been done to create um what it is and you need a specialist for that i think um yeah i think the bigger companies would have a more uh wider view and a wider wider when you said that car max didn't want to give a value on i'm thinking the only way they would do that if it was a weird conversion thing so right well just because you don't deal Just because CarMax didn't do it, there's no reason not to try the other sources. And then if you can take it to an RV dealer or someplace like that, as Stu said, that would be...

We have our wholesale guy. He is also an RV affixionado. He travels all over in his RVs. So I think he knows, he'll know. So can you just text me the information to this? Do you have the show's text number? No, I don't. Okay, it's 772.

497. 6530 that's 772 4976-497 6-97-6-9-7-6-5-3-0 yep and you text me all the information you can give me on it as much as you can and then I'll forward that your contact information and then in this week coming up we'll get to you and find a good place to sell it oh let me just do a quickie 772-497-6-5-3-0. That's it. And, okay, and who do I text this to?

To me. To Stu. It goes right to me. It goes to my computer. Okay. Thank you, guys. You know something, Karen, that we buy any cars, it's amazing. I see that advertised like every five minutes on TV.

Yeah, I do, too. And a lot of people don't know that they can take advantage of that. So you got, we buy any cars, and you have a room, and you have a carvona, and you have us. Well, you know, you pay for your mistakes, and I'm willing to do that, because I want to be in a pretty little forerunner. I love my Tacoma, and everybody says, oh, we can take your Tacoma, Andre, not in advance. I said, you're never touching my Tacoma or my dog. I'm telling you. And those forerunners, I'll tell you, they've got some.

some great, great-looking and very comfortable forerunners. Yeah, they're so cool. That's where I started. I was very close to Del Rey Toyota. Be a good choice. I went up there and they said, oh, no, if we're not going to take it. Girl Stewart won't take it. I'm like, well, okay, maybe they can.

And then I was listening to your show and I said, well, maybe they can direct me to somebody. Right. We might take it, but we might place it. I just Googled how to sell a conversion van and there's a thing called RV Select. Inc.com. There's a couple other places that buy them and sell them

so that might be worth just Googling it. Well, I went RB Universe and, you know, you're just paying money for everything and you're not getting

anything for it. And it's like, okay, well, when we sell it in 120 days, then you'll get paid and you don't even know what they're going to sell it for,

you know, and you know it's not going to be as much as, well, I'm never going to get the money out of it. I know I'm taking a hit, but I just don't want to be killed over it.

Well, send me that info, and we can see what we can do to help you out. Thank you guys. Karen, don't forget, I cannot send you that check unless you stay on the line and talk to Mike and give me your contact information where I can mail that check. I will do that right now. Okay, Karen. Thank you.

Give us a call again and spread the word. Let your lady friends know that we are trying to build a platform right here, header on. cars for the ladies they are an important part of the show and the auto industry 877 960 or you can text us at 772-9753-0 as I said earlier your anonymous feedback.com take advantage of that that way you can as the you know website says you can remain anonymous we're going to go to fred uh who's been holding thanks for your patience for it good morning good morning nancy how are you uh we're well thank you good i've called a few times i'm in palm beach gardens so every time we go down north

lake going east i see that picture of this handsome guy you got to be real careful nancy he's handsome he's rich and he owns a car dealer i can i can't I keep him locked up. I had that feeling because with all these single women here, hey, they're going to marry, Earl. Hey, Fred, they don't want to mess with me. Let me tell you right now. I don't want to mess with you. So this question is really for Earl.

My wife also called the show years ago. She worked for four different car dealerships in New York, and she knew a lot. But I'm about halfway through your book that I got through. Amazon. And it is just absolutely fascinating all the things that go on behind the scenes. Unfortunately, she knew it, but not at this depth. But I started, I got to the part of the photographs. So I got some personal questions that I hope you could answer. I'll try. Earl. When you started out with your dad in the business, did you learn from the bottom up? Or did he just stuff you in and say, hey, you're the boss?

I started selling used cars and that was a real education. I, you know, that was old school and I was a rookie and I was in the used car lot. I'll just share with you one little quick story. I first got there and every time somebody came on the lot to buy used car, another salesman along the side of me would say, oh, that's one of my old customers, his name was Wayne Fisher and he'd go out and either try to sell him a car or sell him a car. So after a couple of weeks, I realized that everybody that walked on the lot was Wayne Fisher's old customer. Of course, he was cheating me just like he cheated his customers by we called it skating the customer.

I was called skating, meaning stealing a customer from another salesman, yeah. But yeah, you might say I learned that. Actually, before that when I was in high school, I worked in my father's parts department at Stuart Pontiac. Oh, okay. And I know the book is, I don't know how many years old, all three of your sons, they'll work at Earl Stewart? Yeah, they do. Josh, Jason, and Stu sitting right across from me now.

And what are there? And we even got a grandson working now, I mean, Eli. I'm just curious, what are their managerial positions? And what is Nancy's position besides being your boss? Well, that's about as high as you could go. It's called the chairman of the board. I'm a boss of everybody except Nancy. She's my boss.

The chairman of the board. Okay. I'm the general manager of the dealership. But I sold cars for a long time, and I did lots of roles in the dealership before I got to my old age. Earl's really old. I'm old, but I'm... We're old. And so did my brothers.

My brother, Jason, who's bet he was in the business longer. And all of us, he started back in, like, 1990 working at Earl's old Pontiac dealership. And so he's been doing it for 40 years almost, and I'm doing it for 30 years almost. Yeah. Right. Okay. So now, I know in the book it said, and I've heard you say on the radio numerous times, you are volume-wise the biggest in the southeast. Is that still correct?

And where do you stand nationally as a Toyota dealer? In what? Well, no, we are not, we are not, if I said that, I was lying. We're not number one volume wise. Never been. We were, we were probably, what about, 75th, nationally is 1,200. There's 1,200 dealers or 1300. We're probably number 100 or something like that.

In the top 100 right now. And then we'll fall out of the top 100 by the end of the year. It'll be like 120. And in Florida, in Southeast United States, in the distributorship, we're probably, what, 100th? No, we're higher than that. We're higher than that. We're in the top 50. 60th or...

Probably top 50, something that, yeah. And what about customer service? You guys got to be number one. We're highest. We're highest in retention for dealers are size. In other words, the true measure of customer satisfaction,

they gave up on the surveys because the dealers cheated to get the surveys up like the Google. although there's a lot of Mickey Mouse going around with customer reviews. So what Toyota wisely has done, and most of the manufacturers are doing this now, they judge a dealer's customer satisfaction by, if you buy a car from that dealer, does that person come back and buy another car? If you service your car with that dealer, does that person come back for another service?

How high a percentage of your customers come back again, again, and again. So for dealers in our size, in our volume, our size group, we're number one. Oh, that is something you guys should be proud of in customer service, too, and keeping a customer, most important. And the last thing that I know somebody called up, they beat me to it. I know the mystery shopper is always on the side of the salesperson, but you hit it on their head one day when the person called up and said, That's just part of it. What happens when you go to the service department and you've got to meet people like Rick, you know,

not joking around with it. You know, there's a lot of hard work and it's continuous. And, you know, each and every one of us have been at the helm. I have to share this story every once in a while if I call Stu and I have a prospective customer. He tells me he doesn't sell cars anymore. And I know he's just playing with me, but you asked what he did at the dealership, and he is the general manager.

So customer service is so important. And on any given week, there are a lot of customers, whether they're regular or perspective, I speak to them. And it's really very, very important. And that's what's kept Earl, you know, where he is today. day, along with Rick, Josh, Jason, all of us. So thank you for asking. So you are literally the customer service manager?

No, I'm not a customer service manager. I don't have time to be a customer service manager. I wear a lot of hats, and I fall into a lot of different categories. So 35 years at this, I just fall into a lot of different categories. A VIP of special projects also. Go ahead, Rick. When people wind up in the service department and they meet me, they just fall in love with me. Yeah, exactly.

You know, I don't understand why, but that's true. I'm cute and cuddly. He's cute and cuddly. There you go, cute and cuddly. Well, I love listening to the show, and I have the same philosophy. I'm a customer service manager for office furniture chairs, and my motto has always been because we have salespeople out there. They work their rears to get a sale, and all they need is one thing for me and my crew to screw up, and they just lost their commission, and they lost the customer.

So I know how valuable customer service is, and to me, it's a team effort. And from what I've seen, you guys are great, and I love listening to your show, and thank you for your honesty. You're welcome. Thank you, Fred. Thanks, Fred. Have a great weekend. We're going to get to Doug, who has been patiently hold. Good morning, Doug.

Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me? Welcome. Yes, we can. Good morning. I'm calling from DeQuesta. I bought, I didn't buy, I bought a 2001 toil-a-a-a-valon about five years ago. It came from the Toyota place where you have your business. And I have a problem. It just started. I mean, the car is like brand new almost, and it's 23 years old, you know, but it runs great and everything. But all of a sudden, I have a problem that started.

And both of these happen at the same time. The airbag light came on, and at the same time, when I put on my high beams, they don't work. But when I push my high beams, you know, you know. You can't flash them, but you can turn them on. No, I can flash them, but I can't turn them on. on. Yes. Now when I flash them, the blue light comes on for the high beams, but when I turn them on, by pushing it, the light doesn't come on and the high beams don't come on. And at the same time, that airbag light came on. Can you help me? Rick is scratching his head, and he's thinking right now. Module D in the fuse block. Get out of here. Really? Okay. All right. You're the pro. Avalon's of that era have a module. It's whole. It's whole. some of the fuses and it's actually a logic module in the fuse block and under the

hood of the car and it causes when it goes bad it causes such weird havoc that anytime I hear a weird combination issue like that now I'd have to go and check the wiring diagrams to make sure that it's part of the airbag circuitry as well but I'm willing to bet it is I've seen him where windshield wipers will do the weirdest things or not function at all. Headlights is one of the number one indicators. When your high beams are acting goofy and weird, it's always that module D in that fuse block under the hood.

It takes about an hour and a half to replace it. But if you stop it, we can double check the diagnosis on it and get you a price on it at the dealership there. And it's a very straightforward part to replace. place. It does take a little bit because we have to kind of disassemble part of the fuse block for the way it's installed. Do you have dug a ballpark or what's going to cost them? I'm going to say five to 600 around there, including the part. I think that's about right. So will you be able to diagnose it without going through the replacement process? Would you be

able to, as a way to diagnose it and say, that's what it is, it's going to cost you five or six hundred bucks? or do you have to replace it, charge him $5 or $600 and say, whoops, it didn't work? Well, we double-checked to make sure that the problems he has, that each of those circuits is running through it, and it's kind of like a smoking gun at that point. It says, yeah, that's going to be it. But I would say 85 to 90 percent certain right now

that that's what's causing that problem. I'm trying to put myself in Doug's shoes. So I just want to know that if I hit the short end of the stick and I hit the 10% where it wasn't it, and you put in a new, what's he going to have to pay us? Yeah, at that point, we'd have to continue tracing all the circuits to figure out what's going on. But again, I'd be pretty confident that's it. Okay. Well, Rick's pretty confident.

I'm pretty confident, too, Doug. I think that's what you should do. Well, sir, I thank you for your help. Well, what is the module D? Is that underneath the fuse box? It's actually, when you look, if you pull the cover off of the fuse block, you'll see there's a certain section where there's like a whole stack of fuse is all one right after another, and then you'll see a little module box that has only three or four, maybe five

fuses in it, and a big space where it's just part of that block, and it's actually an entire logic control module itself with certain fuses in it, and it has plugs coming into it from underneath. And that's the unit that controls all that logic circuitry to several of those integrated circuits. And that's the one that goes bad. And how much is that unit on itself is obviously replacing? I'm going to say replaced about $600. That's what the part would cost? Just guessing, I'm guessing the part's going to be around $3 to $400. It is a guess. You'd want to double check that.

You could call the dealership, parts department, and tell them you're looking for that module D in the fuse block. They'll know what you're talking about because we've done quite a few of them, and they can give you a customer pay price on it. Well, sir, I thank you very much for y'all's help, and y'all have a wonderful day. Oh, thank you, Doug. Thanks for the call. Okay, we are going to... I got some. I got a good question for Rick from Jim in North Carolina.

Says, Rick, I'm thinking about buying a new 24 tundra with the regular twin turbo engine, the non-hybored. My question is, are you seeing any mechanical problems with the new tundras? Like, now that they're, when they came out, first came out in 22. Consumer reports are not rating the new tundra is recommended as a recommended buy in the new issue in April 24. They are recommending the RAM 1500 is a good dependable truck, which I find hard to believe. I don't, though. I mean, but anyway, I want to buy a new tundra, but I'm a little leery because of this. And that's from Jim, North Carolina. Before you get into it, I want to say what Earl always says is when you have a brand new vehicle that comes out, I mean, a lot of people

rush and get it, but it is worth maybe pausing a year because some things get shaken out in that first year of ownership they get a lot of reports and it doesn't mean it's a bad car but you are getting it's like why people don't like to update their phones immediately like sometimes the update causes problems yeah when the when that tundra first hit there were nationwide um quite a huge hit where they had problems with the turbos themselves and i remember on the the technician social media groups that were in the huge debate was drop the engine or pull the cab because they were literally

lifting the cab of the pickup off the vehicle in order to get to access to replace the turbos. But it seemed like it was like six months that everybody was screaming about the turbos and it went away.

Okay. And suddenly it was like they found all the bad ones, they got them fixed and we haven't heard another peep on those. it's so rare. Yeah, and that perfectly, the police supports, you know, Earl's advice on that, which is, I mean, that's a real world example. Yeah.

There is an issue with the turbo in the same model year. The ones that were sold first had the problems, but somebody buys one six months later, the same model year, same line. Everything was beautiful. Yeah. And at this point, we really don't see a lot of continuous complaints about Tunger. It just, the only thing I see on them, this is South Florida. and we are, for some reason, we're truck capital.

Everybody's got a tundra down here. Yeah. And for the amount of them on the road, we don't see very many issues with them. Yeah, that's good to hear. Right now there is a recall on a lot of them for a fuel line on top of the fuel tank where they're in the process of a, it's like a two-stage thing for the recall, but that's being handled. It wouldn't cost a customer or anything anyways.

Yeah. other than that they're they're pretty solid trucks i got my fingers crossed consumer reports likes them better next year i think so i know well we got smart we have smart uh listeners they're checking out consumer reports even before they're calling the show yeah uh okay we are going to uh we're going to talk about vanilla and uh he is our dog of the week and he's so cute He's a retriever, Labador, and he comes to us from the Texas borders. And he's just a lovable little thing, and he's not going to stay small very long. They have specifications here, and he's going to get anywhere from 60 to 99 pounds.

So we have a little video. It's very brief from Big Dog Ranch, so everyone, would you like to take? Take a look. And then I work with a big dog ranch. This is Vanilla. He is a two-year-old lab retriever mix that we rescue from the border. He is 61 pounds and he's a very sweet, loving dog. He's in her room with other dogs with him.

He rescued him from the Texas Mexico border with a bunch of other dogs. A bunch of really sweet dogs that were not trying to get them very loving families. Manila is one of these sweetest dogs on the whole ranch. That is a dog's dog right there. He is so sweet and calm. Well, I know why they named them vanilla. Yeah, that coloration. Yeah, I just want to describe, basically, there is a sweet-looking, puppy-looking lab, white-ish fur, creamier, is a creamy nose.

And remember, folks, we pay the registration fees for vanilla, and it's quite a savings. it's $200, a $200 value. Here's what you were looking for, Earl. Oh, there we go. There you go. So at any rate, $200 value, and you can go to big dog ranch rescue. And you can take a look at all the other dogs that they have for, up for adoption. And you can take a look at vanilla.

And by the way, Earl's book that one of our callers mentioned is Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer. And 100% of the proceeds go right to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Woof. I was looking for you. Big dog, little dog. Sorry, my. Where's my sound effects? I was distracted for a moment there by a text.

being a little dog that's all right boom there you got it so that's that's like kennel cough

or do you have that book up there or do you want me to pull up my book okay Earl Earl we're all

visual aid what happened to your conflation there is okay okay so here it is

can they see it Jonathan 100% of the proceeds go to big dog ranch rescue you can go to

Amazon and pick the book up and it's an it's an amazing book with amazing information and a lot of details in it and it is definitely worth purchasing so now we are going to get to the mystery shop yeah can I just say something I love it when you look at me with those big blue eyes to do dogs or not to dogs or cars but we have a caller named Jersey Mike which triggered my mind when you said the book that

also triggered my mind that we give 100% of the proceeds of Confessions of Recovered Cardinal to the book to Big Dog Ranch Rescue Jersey Mike which happens to be my favorite submarine sandwich and also more of our favorite callers. Oh my God, great store. On the 27th of March

Wednesday, 27 March they give 100% of the proceeds of every submarine sandwich they sell to charity. Really? Yeah. And they have like four or five hundred.

I mean, there's Jersey mics everywhere. But there's so many of these advertisements which say, you know, if you buy a washer or dryer, if you buy a boat, if you buy this, we give money to charity. We buy a pair of glasses and we give a pair to. So they give 10 cents or they give a buck or they give, you know, a penny. But, you know, that's the reason we have to say we give. 100% of the proceeds of confessions of recovered card dealer to make the wretch but I got to tell you if you want the best suburb sandwich you ever ate

jersey mics and on the to buy it on the 27th of March and it's given a hundred percent a hundred percent that's almost unheard of except for yeah it's millions and millions of dollars yeah that's incredible I'm putting out my calendar I digress so how many subs are you in order that's next Wednesday by the way you know what we could do let's buy lunch for the dealership on Wednesday there we go we're going to buy it for 150 people there

yeah yeah let me put that on the calendar that's great idea Rick's being like where's my sandwich right I'm putting it down okay okay we're going to get to the mystery shop and Agent Lightning did another

great job she was she was in Tennessee right Earl that's right yeah she was in Tennessee and she She mystery shop, Lance. That was kidding. She mystery shop, Lance.

She was at the Ford dealership at Murfrey's Borough in Tennessee, and she did a great job. So. Okay. She's all yours. Handsome. I remember this place because I can't pronounce the name of the city. My mouth trips on itself. Murphreysboro.

Murfreesboro. Murphreysboro, Tennessee. Murphy's Borough, Tennessee. I bet you'll be able to say it a whole lot better after you have some McCall in tonight. That's true. You're right. Speaking of the first person, I arrived at the morning, was greeted by customer service lady, who asked if I was here to see anyone in particular.

I replied that I was not, but I was hoping to get more information on the Ford Bronco, the infamous for a Bronco for you folks that remember OJ. She asked for my name and then returned to a young salesman and said, J.C. right here will be happy to help you. J.C. extended his hand for a gentle handshake and then asked me to follow him to his desk. He asked me what was most important to me in a Bronco and then turned to his computer, pulled up all the models he had in stock.

He asked me to pick one to test drive rather than going outside in the freezing cold weather to search one outside while it was cold. I check the temperatures. It was 55 degrees in Murfreesboro, Tennessee at 5 a.m. Today? She said it was a little bit colder. Yeah, it was like 30.

38. I was in New York yesterday, believe it or not. Were you? I went there and came back the same day. Wow. Back to Murphy's Borough. That's a rough trip. I chose this Robin's Egg Blue.

So he suggested I wait inside where it's warm, and he'll pull it up for me. I met him out front. The Munrooney label, here we go. The Monroeny label was in its proper place. Wow. About the only place I could think of where the Monroe label is not in its property place is in Florida. You'll never find a Monorny label, especially in South Florida, in its proper place. It's anywhere, but on the window of the car, which is the federal law.

The Menorne label was $38,355 on this particular Bronco. And, of course, there was an addendum label, the infamous addendum label to inspect. It added $1,196 for door-edge guards, tent, window tent, of course, door cup protectors, and membership in the Ford of Murphysboro Connect. And that was a vehicle tracking app. You know, it's, I'm not going to hold a picture up, Agent Lightning took a picture of the addendum label. And the addendum label is one of these phony mononies.

It's a counterfeit. And the Ford logo is prominent on the addendum label. Now, when you look at a document and it has the Ford logo and the Ford name, You think Ford Manufacturing Company, you think Monroney Label, you think, okay, it's safe, it's a manufacturer. It's not. It is. And in fairness, Morfrey's Bureau, Ford has a disclaimer at the bottom that says that it's not a forward label. But you don't read down that far, and that's the way.

That's why we call them phony Monroney's. He went over all the features. That's JC with me. the salesman, and then I asked if I'd like to drive it. We went on quite the test drive while J.C. continued sharing info about the Broncos with me. He was very knowledgeable

and entertaining. Now, Nancy and I chit-chatted about that on the way to the studio this morning, and of course we said, you know, the type of salesperson that you fear the most are not the snake in the grass, not the guy with the mustache and the white shoes

and the plaid jacket, not the guy that really looks and sounds like a crook is the sweet oh he could be my nephew he could be my grandson he's so nice gentle handshake the guy you like open the door for me because the guys think and I say the guys the people that can fleece you of the most are the ones that you like the most the ones that you trust and it's all about trust So I'm not disparaging, disparaging, J.C. at this point, I'm just saying that when you buy a vehicle, we look for people we can identify it with. We like a good smile, real white teeth, well-dressed. We look for people that, hey, I can trust this guy.

But you can't trust people from looking at them, just a basic listen in human nature. That gentle handshake could be very deceiving. Yeah, yeah. Okay, back to the Mr. Shepard report. Once back for the test drive, we went back to the desk. I noticed a Bronco backpack sitting next to where J.C. sits, the salesperson. I made a comment on how cute it was and asked if it was his backpack. He smiled and said, no, but I'll gladly give it to you if you buy this car for me today.

Bam. Look at it. There you go. He went on to say that it was a promotional item valued at over $400. So now we have a, now instead of it, on the addendum label, we've also got extra stuff that we can sell you or give you to induce you. That $400 value is probably 40 bucks. It's only a markup of about 1,000%. So, anyway, inside it was a first aid kit, battery booster box with cables, fire extinguisher.

And I was a little worried when I saw a fire extinguisher. I'm not sure that's a good idea. I mean, when you go to buy a car, you don't want the guy rushing out and says, you better take this with you. I mean. Well, you might park next to a Kia in the parking. Anyway, JC then asked for my license to copy and put my information into his computer. he asked me if I was sure I really liked a vehicle I said yeah he then asked me if he knew my county sales tax I said I was almost

positive it's 7% it's not 7% in Florida is it no well and it is but on vehicles it's the limit it's the first disability huh I just think it depends on it is it's not a statewide thing we have a it's 7% in Pompich County anyway JCA explained how they would do all the legwork of getting me my floor plates while also issuing me a temp, Tennessee plate until my permanent one comes in the mail. JC asked me if I would be financing it today for how I planned on purchasing. I replied, likely financing. That's a good answer, by the way, because in my blogs and recommendations, general recommendations,

let the dealership believe they're going to finance the car for you. They make more money financing the car than they do selling the car. It didn't used to be the case during the height of the $10,000 in MSRP era. But now that we're getting back to a competitive market again, it is going to be true again. The dealer would make $2,000 on the financing. He might not make that when he sells you the car. So if he can anticipate that $2,000, he might take it a little bit easier on you on the price as you negotiate. So don't ever say to a guy, I'm paying cash.

For everything else, if you say I'm paying cash, you're motivating the buyer to cut the price. To a car dealer, when you say cash, say cash, you're motivating the dealer to raise the price because he can't make anything on the back end, we call it, in the business, can't make anything on the financing. Then he asked if I'd be putting anything down. I said probably 5 to 10,000. I then asked him about putting it on my credit card. We've been asking that question several times of our mystery shopping reports.

As we found out, there's a new scam going on where you can get a deal to charge the customer legally for the use of the card, the credit card. So we've been playing with that. A lot of dealers are not really jumping on that. He asked if I met the entire purchase. I said, yes, is that possible? he said, unfortunately, they only allow up to $5,000 here, which is about standard because they're paying a merchant fee of anywhere from 2 to 3%. And they don't want to pay that. So if you put $5,000, the merchant fee is 3%, which it is on Amex, then it's costing them

$1,500. I mean, $150. He then said, even if he's a used, even if it's a used car for, say, $3,500, you You couldn't put the entire purchase. Now this is, I'm going to read this, but it's all BS. He then said, if it's a used car, say $3,500, you couldn't put the entire purchase on a credit card to explain that it becomes a liability for credit card companies, and their dealership doesn't allow that anymore.

If the dealership says do it, then you can do it. You just have to pay the merchant fee, so I don't know why he said that. No, it's just an excuse. he said essentially by doing so it would be a loan from your credit card company that they aren't aware of which is silly because they're aware of it because you have to phone it in and say is it okay if I take this amount of money

toward the purchase of this car and the credit card company says yes or no so how is that without their knowledge but that's a complete misinformation right there probably just I'm not accusing J.C. of telling it on truth I'm just saying he's just uninformed Or maybe his manager misinformed him. I don't know.

Jayce said years ago, you could, but unfortunately, they no longer allow that. I said, I understood. I would like to see how much this one would cost me out the door. He said, sounds good. Please give me a few minutes. I'll be back with some numbers. A few minutes later, he turned on the sales worksheet. Backing up a little bit, whenever you use the word out of the door,

it's become a standard phrase, unfortunately. It doesn't mean anything if you don't define it. Out the door. You define it the way you want to define it. I like to define out the door as what can I write a check to the vendor for, hand them the check, take the product and take it home. That's out the door. I mean, it's literally out the door, but the dealers don't look at it this way. Unless they chase you out the door and get some more money.

That's the out of the door that they like. Yeah, Jayce's top line was MSRP 38, 355, $38,355,355, a $924 discount came off before. It always comes out before. He added $998 and $6998 for the addendum items. Then he added $970 and taxable fees, which is a fancy name for junk fee. and there was no breakdown of that, by the way, before adding sales tax and some small non-tax fees. Yeah, I didn't see anything for tag or registration,

so I assume there's some tag and some junk fees in that taxable fee. Which, by the way, that makes it not taxable fees because the tag fee is not taxable. I'm sure. Anyway, it's confusing, which is supposed to be. You really don't know what you pay when you buy a car dealership. Even when you don't finance, that's where you sign. the papers. So when you say you're not going to finance, you're going to pay cash, what you're

really doing is you're giving them another chance to finance the car, because they will explain to you why they can give you a better deal than your bank or your credit union, and a car dealer cannot 99.9% of the time do it. The only time a car dealer will be able to give you a better deal with your bank or credit union is with the manufacturer for that new car as a, what they call a subvented rate, which is a discount, turned into a low interest rate. That comes from the manufacturer. Those are legitimate, but that doesn't happen very often. He asked me what I was looking for to be at per month.

They love you to answer that one, because you can play with that. You know what I'm talking about? $750 per month is a lot different on a 36-month loan from a $36-month. a 48 month loan from a 72 month long from an 84 month loan are there 96 month loans now I bet you there are I I have seen 84 months are not uncommon yeah but I would not be surprised they love to hear the monthly payment all that'll fit into my budget yeah that'll be nine hundred and fifty dollars a month for 200 years I mean when you leave that door open do a 15 year mortgage on your car you can't do that right uh

Again, he asked about the Vermont, I said, which is smart. I said, it's not really about that, as it is the final out-the-door price for me. I let him know that I would need to talk to my husband, and he's not available until later this afternoon. That eliminated her argument, or my argument is Agent Lightning, to have to, oh, take the car, call your husband, text the husband, tell him to come in the dealership. You know, he won't be available. She knows how to head that off.

J.C. said, I understand, he asked if there's anything he could do to earn my business. You don't ever say, what do I do to sell you a car? You know, a smart sales, but doesn't want to sell a car. That's a dirty word. You want to earn their business. You know what I mean? It's all about the lingo. I declined, thanked him for his time and left.

He didn't let me know that they have a lifetime power train warranty. Ooh. And if I own the car long enough, to go through 25 engines. That's all. I love this, Rick. They would gladly keep the 26th engine in. Now, agents, folks, I don't want to say engines won't fail.

Yeah, engines will fail. But that's if you don't put oil in the car. If you lubricate the car, if you go by the factory record, I've been the maintenance, injures never fail. We found that one interesting thing, though, this week, though, because we offer a free power train warranty. We found that that we've had one claim out of, and we've been doing it for like... Yeah, well, and we probably, yeah, which is, I'd love to see what that claim was.

I can't imagine. Yeah. Oh, you're right. It doesn't necessarily mean an engine replacement. It could be anything. You're right. Yeah. Well, there was an $8,000 claim, so it was probably...

Yeah, the power train warranties are free because they're worthless. Don't, don't buy a car or not buy a car because the lack of a, or a presence of a free power train warranty. the catch is that you have to go by the manufacturers recommended maintenance and if you do that they just don't fail Rick says he's got a pickup truck with a 170,000 on it 178 almost and you'll probably have 300 on it before you know it and it'll still run fine I'm going to run that truck for as long as it'll go it's going to outlet you right and if something does fail at this rate if something does fail it won't be the power rate it'll be something else the AC or something's going to go yeah Okay, back to the shopping report, where am I here? Oh, yeah, the injuncy passed on the power train warning, so we're voting time. And he reminded her that she would get the backpack full of goodies.

Oh, yes. She would do that. Yeah, $400 worth of a goody. It's an all right-looking backpack. Yeah. So he was very smooth. I mean, J.C. was likable. Oh, I didn't put the backpack in there.

might say lovable. I love the soft hand shake. We had a hard hand shake a couple weeks ago. That really makes women mad when someone grabs their hand and just, you know, pumps it like a gorilla. You know, women don't like that.

And so here we are. Yeah, I like that, a lovable salesperson. General Shake. Murphy's Bureau of Tennessee. We're going to vote on the curb. We try not to flunk everybody even though we'd like to flug them. We'd get a emotionally involved. We need to have car dealerships available because we have a recommended list

and a do not buy list. That's correct. And you can vote at 772-497-6530. Or just go vote on YouTube. That's where everybody's voting now. Okay. No one's texted me. That's okay. I got Jonathan Popkose. The phony Monroney and the funny baloney salesman, addendum items and junk fees garners the dealership A and C. That sounds like it was going to be a lot worse than a C, but we're grading on the curve. I don't like that sound effect. That was my double stroke rule. Yeah, it was pretty part for the course.

I don't know if we're judging. I'm trying to access my memories of our prior Tennessee shops because if we're grading on a curve and we don't see very many addendum labels in Tennessee, then this would be, you know, less than a C. And we typically say when you get out of South Florida, especially in these, you know, and especially in the north that the cardiolers get nicer. I'm going to give them a C-minus. Okay. Okay, I've got T-cash, says, D.

Pardon me. You want me to read your YouTube lens while you're choking over there? Sorry about that, folks. That's okay. He says, I'll throw in my own $20 backpack. Negan 1 says D. When they ask for a payment, I always say $2.50 a month. Joseph Kelleher, D, grading on the curve.

Doug Tesler, Ella gives them a C. And over here we have Johnny Z says, Too much baloney next to the Monroney, a D for me. I love that. Get down to the next ones here, here we go. said Latko, never buy a Ford. It's a D for me. Cliff's Fix says D.

And Tim Gilliland says D. Mark Smith says he got in a little too late to score the shopping report, so he'll rewatch it. And it's a great later for me. Oh, thank you. I'm going to say C. I think it's pretty average. Yeah.

I think it seems like a reasonable place that you could work the deal a few. You go in there knowing what you need to know to do the right job. Yeah, no, overt larceny, just subtle larceny, but not crazy larceny. Nancy? Okay. Go ahead. I'm going to give me a C-minus. I think that on scale things, it was a little less than average, but like Rick said, it's, you know, pretty standard deception.

and J.C. was really smooth as silk. Yeah, he definitely was that. And she's $400 for that. Was that that package, that kit? Is that the value on that was? The knapsack. Napsack? My knapsack on my back.

I'm in a stream, but there's the backpack right there. I forgot to include it in the report. I don't know why I did. Oh, that changes my score. I'm putting, giving a G plus. I'm going to give me a D minus. Okay, there you go. A one, a D minus?

That's pretty bad. D minus. All right. So what's the official is recommended? We passed. That's the past. Okay. All right, Lance, it's safe.

You can go to Fort of Murphy'sboro. Okay, guys, it's time for us to wrap things up here in the studio. And I want to thank all of you who have. have joined us this morning. You're an important part of the show, and we certainly enjoy your company. Stay tuned next week. We'll be right back here, 8 a.m. on the oldies channel. Have a great weekend.