Earl Stewart on Cars - 03.25.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Kia of Chattanooga

Episode Date: March 25, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent travels to visit a Kia dealer in Chattanooga Tennessee to see how much over sticker they will charge for the hot 2023 Kia Telluride SUV. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Here we are again, your automotive advisory team right here, live in the studio in North Palm Beach, Florida. And we're getting ready to listen to your calls and questions and inquiries. This is a live radio talk show, and we also have streaming. We're streaming on Facebook and YouTube. We'd love to hear from you wherever you happen to run across us. We started out just as a local show about 20 years ago, and now we're all over the globe.

And we're also videoing everything. YouTube is a huge channel for us. I think YouTube is like the number two social media, digital kind of a community thing in the world next to. TikTok and we've all heard about TikTok. We're not on TikTok yet, I don't think, but we are on YouTube. Rick Kearney, who is sitting to by right here, and he's our certified diagnostic master technician that really is an expert on the internal goings-on of your vehicle, whether it's hybrid gasoline powered or all-electric, you can ask Rick. Right here, live on the show, You call us at 877-9-60-99-60-877-9-60 and say, hey, Rick, I got a strange noise,

and you can either send us an audio file, or you can just impersonate the noise, tick, tick, tick, tick, or whatever it is. And, yeah, that's a good one. That was Stu across the studio from me here. and Rick will give you a diagnosis. It's free, no charge, save you a lot of money, maybe a lot of aggravation, concern. If it is something serious, and he'll advise you that too. But usually when these squeak rattles and rolls you hear in a car,

you hear, you smell things, and usually it's nothing. I mean, usually it's not a big deal. But once in a while, it can be. So if you could call us at 877-9-60-9-9-960, Rick can help you there. You can text us, too. My son, Stu, will cross away from me here as watching the text as they come in. 772-49765-30.

772-49765-30. And we'd love to hear from you ladies out there. Nancy Stewart, who you regular listeners know, has been with me for a long, long time on this show. We founded it back, C-Vue Radio, And it was only half an hour show on Saturday. Now here we are. No, it was Thursday.

Yeah, Thursday. Then we moved to Saturday. And then went from half hour to an hour to two hours. And we'll be on 8 to 10th this morning, Eastern Standard Time. We'd love to hear from you. And Nancy Stewart, she's built the female audience. We're having more female callers than ever. We're usually right around 50-50.

and we have a special offer, Nancy does actually, and in a moment I'll introduce you to her, and she'll tell you about the special offer for the lady listeners out there. We have a line that is my, we just don't get enough calls on Your AnonymousFeedback.com. That's a URL as a web page, and you go to Your Anonymous Feedback,

just the way it's spelled sounds, It's your anonymousfeedback.com. And you can communicate with us one way, if you want. I'll just say what you want to say, any way you want to say it. If you want to swear, that's okay. We won't read the profanities on the air, but we'll go bleep. And we'll get your idea across, I promise. We love your anonymous feedback, and we get those scatterings.

We used to get a lot. It used to be almost our favorite source, and it kind of tapered off there. Right now, YouTube is still our strongest sort. YouTube.com forward slash earl on cars. And I didn't even mention Facebook. That's Facebook.com forward slash rolling cars. Facebook has faded from popularity. I think with the generational changes we're saying, Facebook, I'm big on Facebook.

Nancy's big on Facebook. But it's down there like number five or six in the choice of the social media. YouTube's still quite high. I don't know how we're going to get on TikTok. Maybe they might be banned by the time we figure out if we want to be on TikTok. But it is entertaining. I mean, Stu told me to check it out. He says it can be amusing and entertaining.

And it is. I'm starting to retract my suggestion now. Anyway, here we are. You make the show. I can yak forever. All of us. We love to talk. I mean, that's the reason we're on a talk show, right?

So excuse us when we go on and on, but we all tend to do that. We'd rather hear what you had to say and ask questions that we can answer. We can answer most of them. If not, we get sneaky and we go to Google, who knows everything. And we've got this artificial intelligence thing going on, which is just, I'm a techie. I love that kind of stuff, and it is just absolutely amazing. I wrote a blog I do a blog every week

and I wrote a blog that I confessed it wasn't me it was artificial intelligence wrote the blog just you tell the AI what you want to talk about and it's like a robot intelligent robot

and they do things like that I actually saw I believe it was on the news last night or the night before last night oh yeah you can you can read minds artificial intelligence by showing them pictures of things that you think about they can tell you what your reaction is to the picture by photographing

the inner workings interior of your mind the the way the neurons run there it's like a heat map kind of a thing it's really spooky really getting scary in fact maybe I'm not really Earl Stewart, maybe I'm AI. This could be a big, big thing, right? I'm going to do the whole show. At the end of the show, I'll tell you if it's really me, or if I'm checkbot or something like that. Okay.

Anyway, I almost forgot about the most popular part of the show. It's routine to us because we've been doing it for so long, but undercover agent goes out, this is for the new people, I know you'll, your regulars know this, undercover agent goes out somewhere, usually in Florida, this time it was in Tennessee, Chattanooga. Chattanooga. And visited a car dealership.

Every week we do the same thing. We've got hundreds of them, hundreds of mystery shopping reports, pretend to buy or lease a car. And then you just, we relate back to you exactly what happened. them. We don't pull any punches. We name names. If they do naughty things, we say it. I mean, we say that is against the law. This dealership broke the law. We mentioned the salesperson's name, the manager's name, the dealer's name, the location, the whole nine yards. If you were tuned in when the show started, you heard the disclaimer that the owner of the radio station, rightfully does. He says, hey, not in these exact words, but this Earl Stewart and Cars. They're responsible for everything they say. I have nothing to do with it. I disavow any knowledge.

I mean, they really have to legally get themselves off the hook of the radio station could be sued. But we've never been sued. I just knocked on wood. We've never been to, almost sued. Got a letter. Yeah. Yeah, we got a nasty letter from a lawyer one time.

But they won't ever take us to court. Why? Because we tell the truth. And you lawyers out there know that the truth is a perfect defense. is libel and slender. So you can say anything you want on radio, television, Facebook, YouTube, you can say anything you want as long as it's the truth.

So that's what we do. We tell the truth about the car dealers. And I think it should be an asset to you car dealers out there who are listening and we know you are. You don't call the show, but we know you're out there. You should listen. You know, we mystery shop our own dealership, by the way.

We, in full transparency, we have it, toilet dealership at North Palm Beach. And we missed to shop ourselves. Why? Because we know we're not perfect. Nobody's perfect. And we find out things that we're doing wrong. And we make modifications. I mean, when you have a bunch of, we've got about 30 salespeople and we've got probably twice that number of people in the service department. And individuals are individuals. They're not perfect. So when your employees are doing things they shouldn't be, you dealers out there, you owners, your managers should know about it. Mystery shop yourself.

If not, listen to us and we will do it for you. And you could go online to Earl and Cars and we have all of our mystery shopping reports archived. And you can go back and check dealers. We have a good dealer list, a bad dealer list. I'm starting to ramble too much.

I'm going to go to Nancy. And she's waving at me now. Good morning, everyone. You're an important part of the show. I want to take a moment and let the ladies know they've really been instrumental in getting us here right where we are and we don't take that for granted I want to let all all the ladies know this morning first to new lady callers you can win yourself $50 just give us a call let us know how you're purchasing or servicing experience went or just

give us a call to say hello 877 960 99060 and if you're in the market for a used car vehicle and you know maybe you're going to spend that tax refund well the news isn't real good the prices are rising on used cars yes they are rising so you've got a little bit of time to get out there and take a look around and do some research 877 960 or you can tax us at 772-4976530 we have a lot to get to we're going to go right to to the phones. And don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com. We're going to go to Kay, who's calling us from Plantation. She's a first-time caller, and she has been very patient, waiting for us to take her call. Good morning, Kay. Hi, good morning. Welcome. You just won

yourself $50, Kay. Thank you. You're welcome. Stay on the line and give your contact information to Jeremy in the control room, and I can get that checkout to you. Okay, thank you so much. Okay, welcome. What can we do for you? I have a 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix, and I was watching it yesterday with the hood up because I was filling the windshield wiper container. And I think I, with the hose, I think I lost the top of the container. It may be in my car somewhere.

I couldn't find it. I didn't see it on the ground. So right now I only use water in the windshield wiper container, and I was wondering, do I have to get a lid, or could I put foil on that? I mean, I'm going to get a new car pretty soon, so. But I was just wondering how important that is that I have to lid on the windshield wiper container. Tinfoil and a rubber band. Simple answer.

oh great because most times you can't buy just the cap that they want to sell you the entire washer jar sometimes you can get just the cap but even then it's like eight or ten dollars a nickel's worth of tinfoil and a rubber band problem solved

thank you thank you so much that's a relief isn't that great to hear Kay I mean you think that you know you've got a catastrophe on your hands because that lid what it looks like. It looks like as if it's so protecting and so many other things. But Rick always has the answers. Great. Well, thank you very much.

You're welcome, Kate. Spread the word. Let your lady friends know that we do give $50 for the first two new lady callers and each and every one of you can help me build a platform here. Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you.

You're welcome. We're going to go to Bob who is calling us from Maryland, I believe. Good morning, Bob. Welcome. Good morning, Bob. Oh, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for calling. Sure. We listen every Saturday. Oh, thank you. I have a two-part question for Rick. Rick, my daughter has a 2008 cyan, and she had an oil leak. She went to a mechanic, and they said it was a valve-cover gas. basket. Okay. And they told her that the reason that she had a leak was because she did not use synthetic oil. She used conventional oil. She said had she used synthetic oil, she said had she used synthetic oil, she wouldn't have had the leak. Is that accurate?

Nope. Not at all. 2008, you're talking, what, 15 years of that rubber. The rubber gasket on that just as a little thin layer of rubber that fits in a groove and it seals the the valve cover down onto the cylinder head they're going to deteriorate over time that rubber's going to harden up it reacts to the oil so it's a natural thing it's really not a super expensive repair the part should be around $40 $50 at the most the labor to replace it less than $200 and for that car really not that much to get you right back on the road um it's just a normal things wear out eventually and not that big a deal wasn't her fault not her fault at all okay thank you second part of the question is i'm sorry that's right he's allergic to me yeah The second part of the question is, or the second question is, before she had that fix, she had gone to a gas station to get some oil, just in case she needed to top off her oil tank there. And they said they wouldn't sell her the oil that they had because it was an expensive oil,

and she had been putting what they said with cheap oil in, the same weight, same numbers. But they said you can't miss mix an expensive oil and a cheap oil, even if the numbers are the same. Is that fair? Where? Rick's face right now. There's a lot of missing information out there. There's some funny smells coming from that office? Honestly. Where are they located?

Wow. That must be in Colorado or California because somebody was doing something there. They probably shouldn't have been doing it. Yeah, they were drinking some Kool-Aid. No, one factor that I always say is if you're going to switch from regular oil to synthetic oil or synthetic to regular, just do it at an oil change so that you change all the oil at the same time and don't mix weights of oil. But that being said, if your engine is low on oil and there's motor oil on the shelf, I don't care what brand, what weight, what type of oil. oil is better than none in your engine. Get some oil,

whatever it has to be. And as long as, if you look on the oil cap, there will be a number. On her car, it should say something like 5W30 or 10W30, and that's the weight of the oil. And as long as it's 10W30

oil, what's listed on that cap, any oil will do just fine whether it's regular synthetic. When you're in a situation that you've got to get oil in that car, put oil in it because it's better to have something in there than nothing that's what I thought thank you very much my pleasure you're welcome Bob man all I keep thinking about in 20 years people listening to a recording the show have no idea what the hell we're talking about yeah true

WRW oil what are you talking about yeah what they've been doing without oil okay we are going to stay with the phones remember 877 960 9960 and also you have You can text us at 772-4976530, and don't forget Your Anonymous Feedback, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And let me take a moment and let all you know how important you are to the show. We certainly enjoy your company and how you inform us weekend and week out. It's quite an exchange that we have here. We're going to stay on the phones, and we're going to talk to Lindsay, who's calling us from Fort Lauderdale. And she is a first-time female caller.

Welcome, Lindsay. Oh, hi. Congratulations. You just won yourself $50. Please stay on the line after we're done and give Jeremy your contact information. In turn, he will give it to me, and I can send you a joke. Well, thank you so much. You're welcome.

What can we do for you today? I have a 2020 Prius that I'm going to take to the dealership on Tuesday, so my dad said I needed to call you and ask before I go. I had new tires put on my car about two months ago because I guess I went over one too many potholes and I ate right through my tires. That one's on me. So I got four new tires and an alignment

and my 74 miles to the gallon has now gone down to 60 or 62 miles per gallon. Do you think something has broken like a sensor or, you know, when they change the tires? No. The tires that you had on there previously were probably a little harder compound tires that will get a little more mileage because of what's called a lower rolling resistance. The easiest way to describe this, if you took two tires and sat them side by side on the ground

and gave them the equal amount of force pushing them forwards, one is going to roll a little further than the other because it's got less resistance and it will roll smoother and the smoothest tires are going to give you the best fuel economy. What happens is when they put the new tires on, they may not have put quite as much air in the tires and dropping even four or five pounds of pressure

can cause your fuel economy to drop a bit. You may ask them just to raise your tire pressures up a little bit and that will actually help improve your fuel economy. Okay. As I, you know, as soon as they went on, I checked the, you know, the numbers on the door and the numbers on the tires and everything was exactly the same. So when I had my Minnie Cooper, the guys that Minnie always said in Florida, they over at BMW, they over inflate the tires down here in Florida because of the road. That's what he said, and I used to get great mileage in my mini. But I never had any problems, you know, before. And I spoke to somebody about tires and they said, you know, harder and softer they're like one way you get a better ride you know one way we get a better

gas you know fuel efficiency and I'm like well I'm getting neither the car drives like crap now and the gas mileage has gone down yeah absolutely it's the crappy tire I guess yeah that the tire pressure is so important and it affects so many aspects of your your vehicle so you did the right thing taking a look at the you know the door jam and all the other different places and keeping you know, on the PSI. Do you think it's worth having somebody take another look at it, Rick? I mean, if it's not the, it's not the tire.

It's, oh, it'll be the tires, but it could also be if they put a lower quality brand of tire on there, a lot of places will sell you what's done almost as a store brand. Does it as a low rolling

resistance tire costs significantly more than a regular tire? They can, yes. So that's one thing. I think about Lindsay is if they did put one that wasn't the low rolling resistance, you would have to pay more for the tire. So that's some consolation for your gas mileage dropping a little bit. I don't know what the difference would be. Do you, Rick, between a low roll? It's the compound in the rubber.

Yeah, I mean the price difference. Oh, it could be anywhere 20 to 40, even $50 a tire. Yeah, well, that wouldn't save or that wouldn't compensate for the lower gas mileage. okay okay hey Lindsay um okay thanks so much guys Lindsay I have a question for you do you have your own a little gauge that you check your PSI with I do have that I don't use that I use my uh I just plug in the tire pressure thing and I call it lady proof because it's it's so super simple you just plug it onto the tire it tells you what it is and then you type in you know 32 or 34 whatever it says I like that I like that so I call it lady

Yeah, lady proof. That's easy, easy. And you probably know that it's best for you to, you know, to inflate your tires in the morning because of, well, the day's heat. So you sound like an educated consumer, Lindsay. I want to thank you for calling. And please spread the word to your lady friends. Tell them that we do have $50 here for the first two new lady callers. Okay, thank you so much, guys. You have a wonderful weekend. 960, 9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Hey, did anyone hear about the Camaro retiring, the muscle car? Mm-hmm. Jeez. Do you believe that? I'm so cynical. I think they're going to end it, and then they're going to bring it back in two years as like something like they're going to reintroduce it and sell it for a billion dollars. Could be.

Well, you know, I believe that you're absolutely. right and maybe you have some insight no no insight connections no it's just I'm cynical and old and grumpy they're doing this on purpose oh geez them what am I Chrysler did it with the charger the the challenger the dart what's that new one they just brought out I don't know hellcat is that something

no they bring the barracuda back hear how he said they don't know I don't know I'm sorry it's like they've run out of names everything that goes around comes around they bring it back I got something special in my bottle Winner shirt Oh sure Sure

At any right You're right And by 2024 It's going to be over You know for the Camaro But here's the good news It's coming back as an electric vehicle And it'll be in 20

I don't know where I'm going to be In 2035 So they're copying Ford What they did with the Mustang Except for the Mustang came back in a strange transformation. The Maquis doesn't look like a Mustang. True.

Not even close. Yeah. Well, hopefully the Chevrolet is going to do a whole lot better than Ford. I'll tell you what, I couldn't believe what I read, that Ford had lost so much money on their electric vehicles. I mean, a whole lot. We're talking B, as in billions. Hang in there, Ford.

Yeah, exactly. We're rooting for you. Honestly, yeah, we want to root for everybody. Okay, I will share the rest of my information with you guys later on the show, so you want to stay tuned for that. I have a bulletin on low rolling resistance tires from the previous caller. Apparently, they presume to cost about 15% more, which is more significant than we thought,

but it has a reduced tread limit. that life of about 30%. So when you consider that, it might not be such a bad deal if you get a little bit less gas power. I think that's significant. I mean, well, tread life is 30%. That's a lot of money.

More expensive. Doesn't last near as long, but it gets you a little better fuel economy. Yeah, 15% that cost more. So really, when you look at the increasing costs and the fact that they don't have the same life, that's 45% of the cost. cost of the tire that's a big number and you have to drive a lot of miles to overcome that that's right if you find a set of good michelins that have a good high mileage warranty on them

yeah and get good life out of it and keep the tire pressures up your tire your fuel economy won't drop that much and you'll actually make out in the long run yeah that's a win-win situation keeping that pressure up absolutely i mean to have to check that all the time because it affects some of how your, how your vehicle runs, how your fuel gets, you know, the nice part is that the newer cars, one and two and three-year-old cars now, not only do they, can they show you the tire pressure, it'll show you the pressure of where each tire is on the car, and those have become quite accurate.

They are very accurate with their numbers, so you can pretty well trust that that's the right pressure. Wasn't that great news in the Consumer Report that that would be available to the consumer? Boy, easy, easy. Which tire is it? There's no more guessing. So at any rate, let's go to Bob in Lake Park.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. No one's talked about Tesla's yet. I'm shocked. I'm getting ready. We've kind of danced around it. We were talking about the extinction of gas engines.

I get it. I think the last caller, though, said she had a bad ride. guys didn't ride comfortably, and I think everything's a trade-off. So even though it might cost more money, you know, you have to consider, you know, how the car rides on the road also, I think, consideration. But I did see something. Ford has filed for a patent. When you buy a car from them, if you don't make your car payment,

they're going to be able to lock you out of your car. And then at three in the morning, they're going to be able to open up your garage. garage door and autonomously drive back car to the impound lot and I was wondering what you thought about that. Wow. I doubt I don't, I doubt

Ford's doing it or maybe they're just I believe they made a patent. I mean people patent all sorts of ideas that don't actually make it to market. No, they have that technology available now, but it's a great idea. Whoa. It depends on how you look at it. I mean, it's a little scary. Some banks, we know about banks

that have trackers on cars and kill switches that disabled cars if they don't make a payment. Those are kind of problematic because that can happen. If you don't turn your car off, you're fine, but for some reason you're turn your car off at the bridge or something like that. I think the negative publicity would outweigh the financial

benefit if Word got out that Ford was really doing that. And some poor orphan... Your car drives away from you. The car repose itself. Some poor figure, as you say, was disabled on the Golden Gate Bridge because they had

and made their car payment. I think that would be pretty negative PR for Ford. But it's crazy. Okay. So I have a question for Stu. I found a couple of cars that I may be, I'm trying to find a replacement for my Mustang. And I found a couple, but they're not in state.

One is in Virginia and one is in California. So I never bought a car. You know, I bought a car in New York once, but then I got a temporary play. drove it down and registered it down here and paid the sales tax down here and so forth and so on. What is the process if I want to buy a car from one of these dealers, a Ford dealer from in Virginia or California? So out of state, and you want to drive it down here? No, no, no, I'm not going to drive it.

They'll have to. No, no, no, I mean, you want to register it, and you want to keep it down here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I take the plates off my other Mustang and sell the car myself. Most states have a reciprocal arrangement with their DMVs that allow you to go ahead and take, they can handle the registration for you. Some are weird. I can't remember which ones those are, which required you to actually, I think you have to get it there with a temporary play and then pay their, whatever tax they have and register it. But I'm pretty sure Virginia isn't. This wouldn't have a temporary play.

I would just have... You'd just be transferring or... Yeah, I have a plate. I take the plate off my old car. The dealership should be able to handle all the tag work for you. What's the buying process, though? How would that work? The buying process.

Right. I mean, I'm just going to send them a check before I get the... Before I get delivery of the car? You don't want to... Well, like right now, that's... It's pretty widespread doing orders, so a lot of people are buying... cars side unseen right now. The one thing I would stress is, let's just cut through all this.

Let's say you found the absolute lowest price car, and you're going to go with that one. Get something pretty strong in writing the terms that you want to see in this order, in the delivery, you know, that gets you an out in case you are not satisfied for damage or missing equipment or anything that changes. Well, I already saw the windows. I mean, I got the windows. The car is there. You've seen the car.

I've seen the car. I look at the window stick, the car's on the lot. The price is not a relevant issue. I just want to understand what is the process. Well, transportation is pretty expensive, Bob. Have you got quotes on the transportation to Florida? Not yet. No, I haven't gotten to that point.

I was surprised. I think prices have gone up. I have a friend of mine just check with me about price to get a car in New Hampshire. and I told them I thought it would be $6 or $700 it's $1,000 and I shopped around

on the internet and so you're looking at a pretty big slug so if you're saving the money and it's the only car that you can get of that description then it's worth the extra transportation but it's pretty, you know

you can almost fly up there or drive it back for $1,000. If the dealership does a lot of that sort of business like we at our dealership we work with a lot of shippers and so we have

deals with them so we you know it was our shipper that quoted $1,500 and I Ted Kibouche told me so I got on the I got on line and I found one for a thousand so I think we need to research it changed we have more than one shipper so we and we go with

the lowest one so that's what if the dealership has like does business like that they're likely to have access to a decent price but you do outside of the shipping issue, how would you actually do the sale? In other words, would I send them, just send them the money before they get delivered? You're talking to them, right? You're having to come. Don't just send them money. You're dealing with a salesperson or a representative of their sales

manager who's handling the deal. As long as you can come to terms online, you can handle everything via email. They can send you documents or FedEx overnight. If they have a docu-sign sort of process. A lot of dealerships aren't having that. You might be assigned removing. Bob, if you're concerned about it, you could use escrow account, and anytime you buy something, typically you could go through your attorney or their attorney's escrow account, and that way you're not going to get taken. I mean, if there's a trust issue with a dealer, then the escrow. Well, I don't know. I don't know the dealers. I mean, these are out-of-state dealers. I mean, they're four dealers, but that doesn't mean, as you know, that doesn't mean it.

Yeah. So it depends on how. safe you want to be. If you want to be totally safe, if they deliver the car to you, you checked it out, it wasn't exactly what you want. You would just say, no, I'm not going to pay you, and the money would be an escrow, and they couldn't give you a hard time. So, it's a judgment call, and then

you have to pay an attorney, you know, probably a couple hundred bucks, or maybe more to do that. Is that how you do it at your dealership? If you have somebody from out of state that wants to, say they want a supra, and they call you up, they want to buy the super, and they want you to ship it to them, is that how would you work that? We would order the vehicle because everything's going to be in order with it,

just the deposit that's refundable. When the vehicle comes in, the final... Let's say it's sitting on you a lot, and somebody calls you up. They researched it. They went all over the country, and you're the only one that has the color they want and the packages that they want.

Okay, we're talking about a hypothetical because we don't have any on the lot. So there's a car on the lot, and then we come to terms on... Hang on second, Bob. Um, we, we come to terms on the price. Um, we don't ship, we don't, the car does not leave the lot until we are paid in full or have a cashable contract if we're financing. Okay. So how does that work? Basically, why you the money?

Um, we can, they can send us a check in the mail. They could wire the money directly into our account or they could drive over with a suitcase full of cash. Exactly. Bob, it's not a big deal. This is done all the time. And, uh, I, I think it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a few. If you're dealing with a franchise new car dealer, chances are you're not going to have a problem. If they try to screw you, you go to the manufacturer, they'd be in serious trouble.

So I wouldn't worry about it. I think you're maybe overthinking this in terms of someone trying to steal the money. Yeah, but Bob, whatever you decide, please give us a call and let us know what your decision was because there's a lot of options here. And it sounds like you've explored all of them. Well, the thing is, if I have to send somebody 50 grand over the, you know, a check for 50,000, I don't want to try to get my call. Yeah, yeah, okay. All right, well, you guys have a great day, and thank you for taking more. Well, you're welcome, Bob.

Thanks. Have a great weekend. 877960-9960, or you can text us at 77530-4-970, your anonymous feedback.com. You know, we went on to chat new. Tennessee well we didn't the agent lightning went out there and she did a great mystery shop we were there in spirit we're there in spirit exactly we're all over the place so you want to stay tuned for that we're going to go to the recovering car dealer we'll see if we have any tax or fow of youtubes we got amory sitting here i got to kick it off of the emory good morning anne

Emery says, Good Morning. Insurance ads on TV do their best to convince us that we're in good hands or they'll be there like a good neighbor or that their staff will protect our homes and vehicles 24-7. Your dealership has a body shop that fixes vehicles that have been in accidents. That is true. One, in your experience, and I understand the other body shops, collision centers have may have different experiences. Which insurance companies are the easiest to work with to get customer vehicles fixed properly? Two, are there any insurance? companies in your experience that are extremely difficult to work with? Or three, are all insurance companies pretty much the same to work with? And four, what should drivers look for an insurance company when they consider picking a company other than price? And before anybody jumps into it, I just want to say that I didn't know this until today, that consumer reports actually ranks the insurance company. You knew that. You knew that. You knew that. You knew that. They absolutely do. And number one is. And I've got to say, where is Alan when we need I know. Well, I was going to say

from our point of view, all the insurance companies are lovely, wonderful professional people to work with, and we appreciate their business. But consumers have their own opinions and we know that USAA is the number one by consumer reports. First of all, I would disagree with us.

I'm kidding. What I was going to say is that insurance companies are like car dealerships. You've got four dealers, you've got Toyota dealers, you've got Honda dealers, you've got Old State, but you also have the local adjusters, the local managers, and the people you deal with. And they're only as good as the weakest link in the chain.

And you can go with Allstate, which is a very reputable, well-known company, and you get a jerk who's an adjuster, you've got a problem. And you're dealing with human beings. Same thing with car dealerships. You know, we're a car dealership. We pride ourselves on our integrity and the way we treat our customers. but people come into our dealership and they get screwed around because we have somebody that's not doing their job.

So it's really hard. I don't think any of the insurance companies we deal with are chronically bad. One good thing about insurance companies in each state, they're regulated by the state insurance commissioner's office. And I say to people that are having problems buying a car, go to the Department of Motor Vehicles, and it really gets that dealer's attention. I say if you have a problem with your insurance company,

go to the state insurance commissioner, write them a letter, copy the insurance company, and that gets your attention too. Because the insurance commission can put an insurance company right out of business, and that gets your attention. All right, Anne Marie. And let's go ahead. Excuse me, Stu. We're going to go to Linda in Plantation.

All right. Good morning, Linda. Good morning. Love your show. It's very informative. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for waiting. No problem. I have a question regarding checking the transmission fluid.

I have a 2014 Dodge Grand Caravan, and I do little things myself, like check the oil, and I wanted to check the transmission fluid. So I opened up the hood. I looked for the dipstick. I could not find it. I then called over my neighbor, an older gentleman, who I thought, you know, would be able to help me, and he started looking in the engine. And he also couldn't find it.

So we pulled out the owner's manual, where it has the picture of the inside of the engine, and I looked up transmission fluid, and there was nothing at all on how to check the transmission fluid. So I went to the Internet, and it said for this particular car, there is no dipstick on the 2014 Dodge Grand Caravan, that if I want to get a check, I've got to bring it to a dealer. and they will insert their own dipstick, and they will check it for me. I can't believe that something like this exists. That's not right. I'm surprised.

That's really amazing. That's not right. Have you heard about that, Rick? Oh, yeah. As a matter of fact... Did Toyota do it? Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, Toyota Transmissions, it says right in the repair manual.

Inspect for external leaks. If no external leaks are found, it can be assumed that the transmission fluid level is correct. Wow. I just learned something else. It's sealed. Most transmissions are now using basically

a lifetime fluid. The fluid that Toyota uses is designated WS. And these fluids are never meant to be changed even if you're towing or anything like that. As long as it's within the reasonable use

of that vehicle, then you don't need to change the fluid. It's good for the lifetime of the vehicle and the fluid level where it used to be on a dipstick you had a range that was almost a quart of change that you could have on that that fluid level it's so temperature responsive now it expands and attracts by temperature that you have to set the fluid level when it's at a very specific temperature range and you have to have it almost perfect within like a quarter of a quart to a half a quart, perfect level.

But you say the dealers are furnished with the ability to check the... Yes. We do have the special equipment to set the food level properly. How special is the equipment? I mean, a dipstick is a dipstick, isn't it? Right, but now you actually have to put the transmission into a special mode. You tell it, go into this mode where it can sense the temperature properly. and when the temperature is in a very specific range

that's only about 20 degrees of temperature, that is where you have to have the fluid set it as perfect level. And if you get too much or too little, it can cause damage to the transmission. It's got to have a very specific amount of fluid in it. So obviously if a customer were to do this and they didn't get the fluid level exactly right, it could damage the transmission.

And they're saving a ton of money on dipsticks. Yeah, guys, I think they, that term is considered offensive now. It's called a oil checker stick. Okay. Oil checker stick? A dipstick is offensive term. Brenda, I tell you, what a great question.

I learned something, and you did too, and I'm very impressed that you're a female do-it-yourself or Nancy prize yourself on that. I mean, Linda, I have got to stop and say for a moment here, boy, you blew me away with your conversation. My goodness gracious, there isn't anything that you couldn't do. Hey, hey, what's up with the, what's up with the, you told me not to say that anymore? Dipstick. No, the other, you said not to call it that. You said to call it oil.

An oil checking probe. Fluid level indication device. I don't like any of it. I want my dipstick back. I'm an old-fashioned girl. I did call you a few weeks ago. I was a first-time caller, and I really enjoy listening to your show. But I just try to keep my car well-maintain.

I try to do the basic things myself, and here I can't even check the transmission fluid. Yeah, what's up with that? Go figure. Well, but it used to be transmission fluid was recommended to be changed about every 30,000 miles. Now, you never have to change it for the life of the vehicle. Three, 400,000 miles. It's good. Really?

You know, the problem is about five years ago, I did have some type of a problem. with this car I brought it in to the dealership and there was something they changed the seal and they took out they drained the transmission fluid and they replaced it so I wanted to check it because I hear a little bit of a click when I put my foot on the gas pedal and when I release it and it comes and it goes it's just a light clicking sound so I'm trying to be my own diagnosis of trying to check things on the car to see what the problem is. I would try this. Go on YouTube and look for a video that tells you how to clean the throttle body. And it's a very general procedure. You know the Scotchprite pads that you use for scrubbing dishes?

Yes. Basically you're just going to use a piece of that. Be very careful. You don't drop it down in in through the throttle body but you're gonna use just a piece of that and just basically scrub the throttle body opening where the big butterfly plate is on YouTube you'll be able to find videos they'll show you how to do that what we find most often is carbon buildup will actually start to collect on that plate and on that throttle body housing and it gets a little sticky and when you're stepping on the

the throttle on the pedal the plate will will stick for a second, then it will pop loose, and that'll make that little tick sound you're hearing. And then when you let off, it'll make a little tick sound as it's going back. But if you're the do-it-yourself or that I think you are, I bet you can find a YouTube video that show you exactly how to go in, give that a quick clean-out, and that'll probably take care of your noise. Wow, you guys are fantastic. Oh, you're fantastic, Linda. Linda, doesn't it make you, Isn't it therapeutic? I mean, you know, you're going out to the garage or the driveway and you're taking care of your car.

For me, it creates a diversion for me to the fast-paced, stressed-out life that, you know, goes on because we've gone sideways in the world. But it definitely is therapeutic. And now what I'm doing is not only do I do things on my Avalon, but I'm doing things on our Tesla, which is a whole lot different. And Earl just always warns me, don't touch that button because we don't know what that button does, but I'm a curious person, and I like pressing buttons.

But back to you. Boy, oh, boy, you are a do-er-yourselfer. Thank you for your fantastic help. I appreciate it very much. Great show. Keep up the great work, guys. Oh, keep on calling, Linda. We love hearing from you.

Okay, 877-960. And you can text us at 7-7-7-7-7. to 4976530. Your anonymous feedback.com. We're going to get back to Stu, as I know he has a lot of text. Well, I just have a perfectly timed anonymous feedback. You're saying that we hope card dealers are listening. Here's something, I'm not sure.

I disagree with Earle's assessment that manufacturers will be going direct to the public in the future. While many of today's car dealerships may close down and their sales procedures may change, the service side will always be needed as long as cars are running. Many people like the convenience of dealerships and don't mind paying for their services, especially the high-end luxury dealerships that owners of those vehicles prefer. Well, the way cars are today, yes, you're right. There will always be requirements for service department. But remember, cars are changing.

And once we get to 100 EV, the maintenance and repair an electric vehicle is a quantum drop. from a combustion engine car so yes you'll always have to have some sort of a service area for even electric vehicles but they'll be much smaller I mean when you look at the size of the average car dealership and the average service department you know our dealership we you know I I soon probably knows the square footage I don't know but we is this huge and we've got any thousands 30 technicians how many how many stalls do we have 40 something I mean, a huge millions and millions of dollars invested in these service facilities.

And this service is going to be dropping, fast forward 20 years, all the cars are electric. You'll have one-tenth, and I'm guessing, but about one-tenth of the service required on a car that you have today. So, yes, dealers in that sense, but see, Tesla has service centers, but they're owned by Tesla. I think you're going to see Honda, General Motors, Ford, they'll all have service centers, regional. They won't be on every street corner because you don't have any very, very many problems for electric vehicles. And you'll swing in and have your electric vehicle checked and swing out again. As a technician, I've already seen a huge change in the amount of maintenance that's being done on vehicles just from when I started back in the 90s to now. and it's accelerating.

I see young guys coming into the field now and I wonder what their career is going to be in 10 years, 15 years, what are they going to be experiencing? I don't know where I'm going to be because I don't know, you know, it just things are changing so fast. It's amazing.

You're right. This is a watershed, moment and automobiles and worldwide and you know people you know our great grandchildren will look back on this time and say wow you know what a primitive what a primitive thing combustion engine cars were can't believe it not only do they cost a lot to buy they cost a lot to maintain and they pollute the planet and blah I mean they're going to really be they're they're going to be looking at us like cavemen in 20 years based on our transportation means they'll be looking at us like we would look on a blacksmith right yeah i mean

granted there's still blacksmith but not near as many as there were 200 years ago yeah yeah yeah i'm astute does uh the kids say to you hey hey dad what what did you use that for or was that were you used in that telephone back then uh in your cell phone it was the size of a breadbox do they it's always question yeah it's always a fun conversation when I talk about like the old technologies but it's all over TikTok and social media that's got a thing they have kids

who are presented with like an old computer and they say all right turn it on and it's so you watch them start to explore it it kind of looks like chimpanzees that found something that you threw into the enclosure and they're kind of scratched in their head and they can't figure it out and they love the idea of the

that there was one phone in the house that everybody shared and then and what about the extension I mean, did you live through that? I mean, it was very, very different back then. So it's kind of crazy. You don't realize how much things has changed until suddenly you're older and you go, wow, things sure have changed. Yeah.

It's kind of crept up on us. I can say that about TikTok because many, many years ago, you know, someone told me you're missing something. You should go to TikTok. And I didn't think TikTok was for me. But I went anyway and I checked it out. And guess what? It's not for me. And what I worry about is, you know, the generation that is really, I don't know, what is it, 50% of your teenage family and so many others that go right to TikTok.

And there's some, well, not so pleasant stuff on TikTok, and it's a little dangerous, but it's a great way to, well, advertise. Okay. Listen to this. This is really neat. Rick, I have a question for you. My Honda, 2019 Honda Accord, is hesitating when I push the gas. And when it goes, it shudders as it accelerates. What could be the problem? What was the year? 2019 Honda Accord. Hmm. Hesitates at a shutter. I would be looking at transmission issues there.

Okay. I asked chat GPT. And it says, I'm not a mechanic, but there are several potential reasons why. wondering if AI can help do it with the diagnosis. Sure. Some possible causes could be dirtier clogged fuel injectors. Over time, fuel injectors can become dirtier clogged, which leads to poor fuel delivery and performance issues. A malfunctioning mass floor MAF sensor, it has seven possible suggestions. That's kind of neat. Even if you don't use it to diagnose your car, you could definitely use it to educate yourself before you went to the service department and sound like a genius. Yeah, there you go. I think we might be over-emphasizing AI now.

I mean, the potential to AI is gigantic, but it's not there yet. And I've seen, I'm playing with it all the time. Now, the other day I did... This one is the newest one. The other day I did my walk, and I always tried to do my power walk, my two-mile power walk, and try to better my record, and I'm always trying to get a record. In order to calculate my fastest mile, I have to use some basic algae.

algebra to do that. So the other day I said, instead of me, you know, writing on a pad, I'll just ask AI. And they came back with this answer that was so authoritative and grammatically correct and, you know, it was just very sophisticated. I said, wow. I said, that it was wrong. Yeah. I said, I thought I walked faster than that. And I even told Nancy, I said, look, I got an answer from AI. I went back and checked. AI, and they were wrong. But the neat thing is you could tell it was wrong, it would apologize and probably do it right.

Probably, but 10 years from now, it's got to be a whole different story. It's not going to be wrong, and it'll be fun to watch the progress. Yeah, we went round and round over that. Hey, listen, guys, we thank you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on Cars

just until you just tuned in. Yes, you're listening to Earl Stewart on Cars, and give us a call at 877 960-99-60. or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We've got a couple of calls holding, and we're going to get to Howard in Jupiter. Good morning, Howard.

Good morning. I hope you're all well. Beautiful day today, as usual. Yes, I am. Have a couple of questions. What's happening with the Mariah now? I know they're only driven in California. Do they stop that?

no they still I think that they still are manufacturing it but like you said it's only in California or I don't know if they have in Japan but it's not a it's like you said it's more of an experiment it's a good way to describe it

yeah but it seems to be I mean the the thinking behind it is that it uses water you know it's it's ingenious it uses a fuel cell like they

used to power things up in space and it just takes air and it splits it into water and I think it goes under the heading of one of the few major mistakes Toyota made and hydrogen fuel cell Akio Toyota is no longer you know run on the show that was his baby so he got it he got on the fuel cell hydrogen bandwagon wouldn't get off and until it was too late. Now, Toyota's playing catch-up to get back in the EV business. Yeah, that's interesting. One of the question about the throttle body cleaner,

you know, when I was younger, I used to do it myself, and I used to have carburetor cleaner to spray on it, and it would be perfect. However, I can't do that anymore. I'm 87, so if I bring it into Earl, your place, and I say, let me have a service on the trouble body. That's usually not a service that you do. You have to request it.

You don't offer that, correct? We will offer it if you come in and say, I've got a problem, and that may be one of the solutions that will offer. If you ask for it as a service, we will do that for you. The only caveat that I will say for any, do it yourself is out there,

If you use a spray like that, do not spray it directly into the throttle body, spray it onto a rag or a piece of that scotch spray cleaner and shake off the excess because you only want just a little dab. Just a little dab will do you. You don't want too much of that in there because it can actually gum up the electric motor that operates that throttle body and can cause you a lot of money for damaging it. So just a very little bit on a cloth, wipe it out real well, and be done with it. Okay, that's a good point. I never thought of that. I always sprayed it on it. Yeah, that's a problem.

On the old carbureated cars, you were fine with that. But with throttle body, the new throttle bodies on fuel-injected cars, you don't want to just spray it in there heavy-handed. Yeah. And that's true, Howard. Everybody, you know, like you just said, you know, they spray directly on whatever they're working on. But I find now that if I'm working on something, definitely I spray it on a cloth first before I apply it as to whatever I'm working on, because I don't want to, you know, make the problem worse by gumming it up, as, you know, Rick said. Well, I suggest if you don't know what you're doing, go on you two, and then if you two doesn't help you, go to the dealer. But don't take any chances.

I took chances by spraying. I never had a problem. Then again, I was lucky. According to Rick, I beat the odds because I used to spray it right on the follow. As long as you didn't inhale it, too, Howard. Yeah, that too. Don't inhale. Howard is always great hearing from you.

And it's always great talking to you and have a good day. And you guys are great and wonderful and you help people. I've been talking to several people about you. They had no idea that you don't. charge a dealer fees. They had no idea that if you have a problem, bring it into Earl and they'll discuss it and take care of it. And another thing is what I told him. I said if you go to an outside mechanic and ask him to fix something, he gives you a price, and then he calls you up and said, oh, there's another part we have to install. It will be extra. Earl Stewart doesn't

do that. He gives you a price and he sticks to it, which is great. A lot of people, don't know that, by the way. Josh says hi, by the way. Josh says hi. Oh, Josh? Yeah. Hey, Josh. Okay.

Howard, thanks so much. Thanks for being a follower. Clower, that's good. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to John and West Palm Beach. Good morning, John. Hey, good morning. Let me put the windows up so you can hear me.

Okay. Thanks for hanging on. Oh, you're welcome. As far as the, you know, the future, and it happening about, you know, as far as the technicians, they're all going to adjust and adapt, I believe, and they're all going to have to adjust and adapt into electronics and electronic performance as more and more EVs. You know, when I was at your dealership a couple weeks ago, you guys represented like

four or five different EVs that were on your lot, started with the Rivian to the Kia in that. So you have serving, you know, and if they're servicing them, they come in, they're going to have to know how to service those. But as far as dealerships closing up, if they do, I see a lot of potential for a lot of these mechanics that can still work on old cars. Good point. Good point.

Because how many people right now can go out and buy a 1970, whatever, and then be able to advance the timing on it by turning the distributor if it doesn't have EFI or an electronic ignition. I've still got a dwell meter. I mean, you know, I don't even know, Stu, you know, you said you started the 90s or whatever, but, you know, you've got spark plugs, but how about the rotors? Well, John, I give you, here's a good example. I've got a 1937 Pontiac on the shore floor of my toilet ship.

Yes, I saw it. And I don't think there's any mechanic we got in the dealership that knows how to work on it. I mean, I don't mean literally because it's pretty basic. But it is really amazing how to say on top of technology, I guess you just don't, you can't possibly train a mechanic how to fix a 1937 vehicle and a 2023 vehicle. I mean, they're two entirely different animals, and it is interesting. They would have to unlearn things. Yeah. Very much so.

And forget what you know, you've got to go all the way back to the basics. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Points and condenser. Here, rebuild the carburetor. What? You rebuild these, don't we just talk about it to the new one on and rebuild? No. This was going to have to be rebuilt.

Memories. You know, make sure the float isn't, make sure the float's still working. Oh, yeah, don't forget the float. But, yeah, like I said, you know, but there's still going to be need for mechanics who can work on the older, especially since classic cars from the 50s and 60s. We need people. And, you know, how many are posting those on YouTube? You know, YouTube's not going to be able to answer everything. They could answer the general, but when it comes to specifics,

you know, like Rick said last week, I remember said we still have blacksmiths. So we'll always have car mechanics. It just won't be as many. But we don't have as many horses, so that's the reason we don't have that many blacksmiths. Yeah, we've got to get some horses. John, it was a pleasure talking to you. We got some calls backed up, so give us a call again. You're quite entertaining.

Thank you. We're going to go to Bill, who is holding, and he's calling us from New York. Gee, I hope it warmed up a bit. How are you doing, Bill? I'm doing good. I have a question for the mechanic. Okay. Rick is ready.

Okay. Rick, when I watch vehicles being pulled out from a ditch by the tow truck. okay you're still there bill yes i'm still there um i was wondering when they pull it by the wheels can that damage the wheel bearings not likely usually when they're pulling them out of a ditch or something they're going to hook a chain up to the uh the frame or the unibody structure of the car to try to get a safer pull on it when they do have to try to hook up to the wheels it's not really going to hurt the wheel bearings very much because they're going very slow at it and it's it's not

anything in a jerking motion but once the car's gotten damaged in a ditch there might be damage to it anyway so it's going to wind up at a body shop for repairs anyways okay now the other thing I wanted to say was that I find that with the transmission fluid on these vehicles, that I think you're better off changing the transmission fluid at maybe 60,000 miles because I don't believe in a lifetime transmission fluid. And most transmission shops and pretty much all dealerships are going to have what's known as a fluid exchanger machine that it connects in on the cooler lines for the transmission and it will basically, when we used to do a transmission service back in the day, we would

drain and fill the pan and we would change about four quarts of fluid. Transmissions back then usually held 12 to 15 quarts of fluid. They still hold that same 12 to 15 quarts, but now you fill that machine up entirely with 12 to 15, whatever. it's rated to be for that transmission, and it pumps all the old fluid out and all fresh new fluid in. They're designed to do that specifically. Bill, let me just say one thing. I know how you feel, and we have a lot of people that listen to the show. They say the same thing about oil changes. I don't care. I'm not going to change my oil only once a year. I'm going to change it. We've got people that change their oil every

three months just because they believe strongly in it. But the fact the matter is, with today's technology you don't need to. And the reason I jump in, I mean, if it makes you feel better to change your transmission fluid, then by all means do it. But there are too many car dealers out there in other service departments that they try to sell you this transmission flush and change the transmission fluid when the manufacturer says clearly you don't need to do it. I mean, I put my faith in the manufacturer, they're engineers, their scientists. I mean, these guys are pretty good. I mean, they're on top of. technology and manufacturers aren't going to tell you not to repair something or

or maintain something if it needs to be maintained so I know it's hard to get used to these things but don't don't be taken advantage of I want to I want to thank you all and I watch you on YouTube on every Saturday so thank you very much thank you Bill okay I think Stu Rick's got some YouTube's I actually got a couple interesting ones here. Like from Donovan, where he mentions that, let's see, try to pull this where he was, ah, there we go. He says, to what Stu was saying, service will still be needed, even when all vehicles go to electric vehicles, but they'll require a lot less service. Car dealers will be smaller delivery centers with a small service station

attached. He says, there'll be lots of tire shops when we're all EV. And he says, I'm with Rick on it. Guys coming into service industry today better get a very good understanding of electronics or they'll have a very short career. And myself on the tire in tire mention, I think tires, one of the things that they're working on now are 3D printed tires that you would simply drive in and they would simply exchange your wheel and tire assembly with a brand new one that's got the tread printed right back

on to it. And instead of using a pneumatic filled tire it'll have like a honeycomb format inside of a form to absorb all the bumps and bangs as you're driving down the road and you're not going to have pneumatic

tires anymore. So you have no more flats, no more worry about checking tire pressures. And when the tread where's out they just put a new belt assembly on there may still need honeycomb and has new tread cut in it you might need an alignment maybe an alignment yeah but even then amazing we've seen everything else turn to computers and adjust you know electronic adjusters why not a little servo motor that can simply make minor adjustments and adjust your alignment as you're driving down the road yeah I

think if that's the last thing that remains that that's That's how it's going to go. It's going to disappear. And what a great place to do it. I have some anonymous feedback from something we talked about last week, unless we have a phone call, which I'd rather get to. Okay, Frank. Thank you for holding.

Frank's calling us from Jupiter Farms. Well, good morning. It's always my pleasure to hold. That way when I'm holding, it's not just listening to a dial tone. I actually hear the radio station in the background because I'm courting us to turn my radio offers, no background feedback. So I've learned over the years, you know, guys I'm teachable so anyway with that while we're talking about tires it's just the

other day it's just I mean like two days ago I was over on PGA and up at a medical building and with a lot of turns and this and that and these cement curbs and I'm sitting there at looking these curbs with all the black tire marks these people run into these curbs I mean on a daily basis because whatever probably because of our age group nowadays or just it's unique I mean it's an an interesting maze of, and I can see how many tires are being knocked out of the limer or scuffed up, but anyway, that's not why I'm calling. Last week I meant to tell you, and I forgot, I get sidetracked. But on Thursday morning, I was at Costco, a little after nine something, pumping gas, great time to go there.

There's very few cars. And the lady next to me was rant and raven and all upset, and I said, hi, what's going on? and she said, I just came from Napleton. And she used words I don't want to use on the air because I get leaped out or I get fined by the FEC. But she was very upset with Napleton. And I said, well, you need to call 877-960-99-60 on Saturday morning to tell Earl and Nancy Stewart about her. And I said, and you might even make $50. And she goes, what, phone sex?

I said, no, no, just make the call. I got some good news for you. You couldn't have brought up a better subject because I've been wanting to talk about you're not streaming. I know you're in the car, but for those that are streaming, I'm going to hold up this week's automotive news.

And Napleton has been terminated by Hyundai. Napolent has two Hyundai dealerships in Palm Beach County. West Palm Beach, Hyundai, and North Lake. come to, I think. And finally, Nissan's been after Naplesden for a long time. So they basically gave them a termination letter. You committed murder. You said the only way a card dealership gets terminated in Florida if he commits murder. Well, it was actually, it was actually sexual abuse. Metaphorous, speaking. Ed Napleton Jr. was tried several years ago. for sexual abuse of a, actually, I think it was a Hyundai employee, a trainer, and went

in the course. Anyway, the reason I think it's interesting is that you didn't know about it and nobody locally knows about it. The local press didn't pick it up. And to even add insult to injury, even though Nissan has terminated NAPLON Hyundai in Palm Beach County, both of them, they will continue to do bad. business because they can appeal it. So the appeals

could last two years or longer. So meanwhile all the people in Palm Beach County that want to buy a Hyundai you got to go to Napleton and Napleton is going to be the dealer for Hyundai in spite of the fact that these on the menu, I mean

Hyundai. Hyundai. The Hyundai the manufacturer doesn't want to have you there have him there as a dealer, but he's there. And this all goes back to the strength of the dealer lobby in Florida the fact that they have the Attorney General in their pocket Attorney General has never done anything here's a here's a dealer that has been taking advantage of customers for years and years and years they become a joke

actually you know if you want to say crooked dealer you don't say that you say Napleton and here they are still in business the only way Nissan was or Hyundai was able to get rid of them was because of a it was they were accused of rape and they got the charge reduced to sexual battery or something like that. And he got five years probation, five years probation. I mean, if you would have seen this video that everybody had access and viewed, I mean, it makes your skin crawl. It's just, this is just an amazing story.

And just like Earl said, appeal after appeal, after appeal. And they still do business. And what Stu said, you've got to commit murder to lose your franchise. I just, it's insane that right here on North Lake Boulevard, we have a dealership that was investigated, fined by the federal government, and that FCC, millions of dollars, that was part of the group, and then the own manufacturer comes and shuts them down. And then this is all happening within the jurisdiction of the Attorney General, the state of Florida, and the local prosecutors and investigative. investigators. It's all, it's been happening here. So the, the, the, the, the big higher ups are looking at it. It's right under the nose. Well, I tried, the manufacturer tried to

terminate Hyundai for warranty fraud. They were they were, they were, there, there, there was a, a transmission issue and, uh, Hyundai had, and so they extended the warranty on the transmission. So Napleton went out to the auction and was buying Hyundai's of that vintage and bringing them in to repair them under warranty and and they, they got off, Scott, free on that one. So it's unbelievable what a dealer, as Stu said earlier, you got to commit murder and be caught red-handed before you can terminate a dealer in Florida. You know, Frank, you know, all of this ranting and raving here in the studio, let's talk about the consumer. My goodness, let's talk about the consumer. Do these people need this much money that they have to violate everyone who walks through that dealership?

I mean, it's just, it's disgusting. You, I don't know anyone who's gone to the dealership and left who didn't take a shower. I mean, it just turns your stomach. Yeah, no, very, very true. I mean, you would think sooner or later the people will learn like you guys told us, and I did myself and other your callers, just walk away. Don't buy it. Okay, let that next dummy come and buy it if there is. But sooner or later, there won't be any dummies left to buy the cars and people be.

educated thanks to your show and others like us going out there and and talking about how unscrupulous they are yeah well we talk about you know reaching every consumer and we talk about you know people talking to us but there is so much more work to do by us there's so many more consumers to reach because they're still taking it being taken advantage of and it just to it breaks your heart it just really does and we want to spread the word and we hope that you do we hope that you spread the word about the radio show on saturday mornings and everything is free you know all of the information everything that rick shares with everyone stew all of us so frank thank you so much for calling all right you all have a very nice day and i appreciate

you being on the air thank you we're going to go to marty in west palm beach Good morning, Marty. Good morning. How are you? Welcome. I have a question for Stu. Okay. I'm right here. Okay. My 23 Camry, XLE, I was told that's coming in May.

So it'll be 14 months since I ordered it, but it's finally going to show up. So that part is good. My question for Stu is, in 24, for a 24 Camry, they're supposed to be making some changes. Other than cosmetic, are they doing anything different? Just cosmetic, as far as I'm aware of. Usually it's a pretty big deal, and they do a total, a major refresh or a remodel. Okay, but it's not, let me just ask you this. I probably should ask you this personally.

Is it worth waiting for a 24 versus a 23? But I've waited 14 months for this car. Marty, how old are you? Only 78. I'm only kidding. I'm just saying that, you know, if you, at some point, you need to buy it because the technology is moving so fast now that you're going to see a huge number of improvements and changes.

But if you want a nice car, I say treat yourself and don't worry about moving. Yeah, just do whatever. Yeah, because this one's going to be. to be just marginally different from the next one but I feel I totally get where you're coming from it feels like they're like cell phones now and I feel a compulsion and I have to restrain myself to not get it every year I'm so proud of Earl and Nancy how long what did you guys go before you upgraded to your your current iPhones you went years you didn't do it four years yeah some people can't do that with cars we have customers that come in and

they're buying a car every every other year because they want to keep up with it You know, it's nuts. But I'd say, Marty, just go ahead and get to 23 and then, you know. Yeah, well, this car also, this car also I ordered as a hybrid, so this will be my first time. And Marty, it's the good news for you. You were worried about your trade in. You're going to see retail prices going up for used cars this month. Wholesale prices have already gone up, and right about now you're going to see used car prices rising.

And May, when your car... when your new car comes in, your trade-in is going to be worth more than it would be today. Well, I'm hoping. I'm hoping, I'm hoping, Earl, that you're correct. I'm glad you said that. I want to pay as little as possible. Yeah, I don't blame you. We want you to pay as little as possible. Absolutely, Marty. All right.

Have a good weekend, everybody. Thank you very. You do the same. Thanks for giving us a call. Okay, Rick. I got one quick one here. This was from Negan 1. He is, hey, Rick, let her all know he no longer has the fastest production car. Oh!

What? The 2003 Dodge Challenger Demon 170. Demon, I don't like that. Just recorded an 8.91 second quarter mile at a 1,025 horsepower straight from. from the factory. And then it exploded. Oh, no. But what's the zero to 60 on that guy?

Isn't that the benchmark? I'd have to look that up on this one. But this is where Dodge is just basically, they're going insane with the Challenger. They're building these, like, certain ones. It's like the Hellcat, but they're only building a very limited number of these, obviously. There is a factory option for a parachute.

in this car no no yes that would be illegal you can't have a parachute popping out of a car on the highway you can't have it on the road it is an option that you can actually have this option on this car i mean you'd have you'd have crooks getting that so they could make their getaway the cops come up they pop their parachute out but you'd have to rob a lot of banks to pay for that car i'll bet but it dodged did this with the hellcat when they came out with the hellcat challenge and then they came out with this demon that is like a ridiculous amount of horsepower.

It's literally a drag strip car that has been built to legal road standards just barely. Well, you know, there's a new super plaid coming out, Tesla's super plaid, which my guess will be even faster than the plaid. So maybe that's what I've got to do is trade my

old plaid in on the super plaid. You should get a demon. It goes 0 to 60, 1.6, 6 seconds, and yours is 1.8 something, isn't it? 1.9? Well, from 0 to 60? Yeah, 0 to 60. It's under... Under 2, it's 1.88, I think, is yours, and that's got you by fractional... Yeah.

But to me, I'm looking at it like, wow, you guys are just... Oh, my goodness, but... How loud is it to go that fast? Oh, I couldn't even imagine. It's probably got some, there's probably some special button that you push. To make it louder. Totally bypasses the mufflers right into a straight tailpipe. And just, yeah, we're talking ridiculous things here.

But, it's, oh, Niga one just, yeah, he just came in zero to 60 in 1.66 seconds. Crazy. Just over one and a half seconds. Wow. If any, I just, most everybody out there hasn't experienced that. And I, of course, I did 1.6, but 1.9. I'm not saying this to be dramatic. It affects the body.

It is faster than your mind. Faster in your mind. Well, faster than my mind. You're right. Maybe not your mind. But when you, for the very few times I've ever accelerated that fast and my testler, I am fully aware of the total danger because imagine going so fast that you're still, mentally in one position

and your car is half a mile ahead of you. So that mentally it's just not a healthy way. You're still starting to push the accelerator in your mind. I only have one question. What happens when that thing is 88 miles an hour? He goes back in time. He goes back to 1958 as a matter of fact. His senior year at Pompey Chai.

At the under the sea dance. All right, we have an actual comment from a listener. Paul Anderson on Facebook says oil should be changed at 3,000 to 6,000 miles if it's full synthetic. The reason why manufacturers, say, 10,000 miles is to make it appear maintenance costs would appear lower. And that's Paul's theory. Well, you know, these people believe in these things strongly. And I guarantee you we have some text now that I don't think Rick is one of them. maybe you are that you actually baby you know they love their vehicles i mean you you love your

vehicle and you want to take care of it and you want to be sure that it's okay it's almost like a dog you know it's like your pet yeah he told me i have to feed my dog once a week and that was good enough i'm like nah yeah so i you know i i don't take that away from me if you feel better to change your world every three months go ahead and change it you if you're going to forward it Go ahead and do it. It may not help, but it can't hurt. Yeah, I can't hurt, right? Oh, and Donovan just came in.

He says, the demon has actually already been beaten by the Lucid Air Sapphire, which is 1,200-plus horsepower and even faster. Lucid is an electric car, the electric start up there, like, super luxury car. I didn't know that. I didn't know. They're still saying that Tesla is the fastest. So the lucid, what's the model? Air Sapphire. Is that out yet?

Or is that coming? I'm wondering. Donovan, if you know, is that Air Sapphire out for sale right now or is still on its way? I'll get one of those. Man. Let me look at it up. Air Sapphire. How much of those cost?

How do you suppose Sapphire? S-A-F-P-H-I-R-E. All right, let me get to this. We have another text to hear. Bob says, with miles per gallon, miles per gallon, miles per gallon, everyone's minds, I've had this experience. For the last 20 years, approximately I've had three new Toyotas. On each one, I changed the air filter to a filter that allows more airflow.

The result's been, for me, one to three more miles per gallon. Why haven't the manufacturers capitalize on this if they're so concerned on MPG? FYI, the brand I use, starts with a K and ends with an N. Yeah, that's K&N. By the way, those K&N reusable air filters. It's all it is, K&N. Yeah. Thanks, Bob.

They require special maintenance. You have to take the filter out, get by a special kit that has cleaner fluids that you wash it with. Then you have to re-oil it. It takes several applications of the oil. It has to soak in several times before you can put. it back together. It's a several-hour adventure and it costs like 60 to $80. How often does it have to be done? About every 30,000 miles is recommended. Okay. If not more often. Whereas a factory paper filter, you can simply change that out in five minutes and if you buy aftermarket,

you're looking at $10 to $15, $20. Factory filters are $50 to $60. And the reason the manufacturer likes it is because they keep getting to sell you that very inexpensive but highly marked up paper filter over and over so so it's worth it if you can have the time you know what you're getting into every 30,000 miles you got us take an afternoon and you're not driving that car and you're getting the filter all cleaned and prepped to go back in so it's a permanent way goes back in you use it for 30,000 miles and use it for another 30,000 yeah that's crazy Back on the Lucent Sapphire, that is supposedly faster, and that it will, 1,200 horsepower, it's going to be introduced, and it said this year. So it may have already been introduced.

It's also a quarter of a million dollars. Donovan, yeah, he says you can order it. It's $250,000. And he also says the plaid just got unlocked to go above the 200 mile per hour speed. speed limit and they can add more power with software if they want so if you were to travel out to Montana where there are roads there with no legal speed limit provided you're driving within safe responsibility of your vehicle and you're unhappy with your life you decided that sawgrass express way they don't have a speed limit yeah you can do 200 there out to Montana all I

can say is good luck boss and a good bike crew is up to date You know, it's going to be, it's a whole new generation of gearheads, you know, the software tweakers, and when you said unlocked, I'm like, well, no crap, you can unlock an iPhone, which is very controlled by Apple to do it, make it do whatever you want it to do, and you can unlock probably a Tesla to make it do whatever you want to do. It's going to be a fast, crazy future. Absolutely. You know, I think we're getting pretty close to our mystery shop. What do you think, guys? Oh, yeah. Want to do this? Let me do this. I have one on one other Tesla thing. I kept my mouth buttoned on Tesla for most of the show. Did I say, did I talk about this last week? I've got three strikes on me now on my Tesla.

You didn't bring everybody up to date from the next, from the last, I don't know why. Anybody out, I think I talked about last week, but I'm going to repeat my plea. Anybody out there with Teslers that want to use autonomous, you know how they measure your hands on the wheel and the rest of it and if you break the rules they give you a strike well right away Nancy got a strike I got a strike we had two strikes and everything was fine of course Nancy wouldn't let me put the autonomous on when she was in the car so I put it on the other day when she was in the car and I drove about 15 miles fine all of a sudden it hit me with a strike and I had my hands on the wheel I don't know why I thought Nancy might have sabotaged it

she might have yeah I told I told him I did She was there. I got a camera hooked up inside the Tesla. But what about the other strike? So I think you're short of strikes. So you lost it? I think you've got four. No, I've got three.

So you guys can't do the autonomous anymore? Okay. We need to check that because I think it's four. You have to get back up to 100 or what do you have to do? Back up to 100? Well, there's new rules now. Tesla's really relaxed everything. So, okay, Jonathan's given me, Jonathan's in charge over there with the time.

Hey, folks, don't forget to go to Earl on Cars and take a look at this new column that he wrote. Leasing a car is more costly in post-pandemic year. In this post-pandemic year, it's definitely, definitely worth reading. Go to Earl on Cars, and you'll be glad you did. As far as the mystery shop is concerned, vote. We really enjoy getting your votes in, and you can do that by texting us at 772-4976530. We went to, well, Agent Lightning did a fantastic job, as I said earlier, and she went to Kia of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and, of course, Stu wrote this, and what a magnificent job he does week in and week out. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

Okay, Mr. Shop of Kia, of Chattanooga, and I was so happy that Agent Lightning chose to go in on the teleride to shop the teleride. It was, I guess, the top pick and consumer reports. They really rave about this vehicle. So if you folks out there, this is holding it up for you streamers, the Kia Telleride got a score of 87, which is very good. They basically say that this is just one of the best cars we've ever tested. So that's what Agent Lightning did when she walked into Kia of Chattanooga and see what would they charge for the best car because her reports ranked in 2003.

So here I am as if I were Agent Lightning. I arrived at Kiev Chattanooga mid-morning, was greeted by a young salesman as soon as I stepped out of my car. He asked if I was here to see anyone specifically. I told him I didn't have an appointment, just wanted to see if they had tell your eyes of stock. He confirmed that they did and extended his hand to shake mine and introducing

himself as Hayden. The fact that they have cars in stock tells you something. If you go into a car dealership today and you're looking for a specific model and if they do have several cars of that vintage the red flag should go up

because the reason they have several cars that are in inventory just because they're charging all the money for the car. They deliberately are going to maximize the price to you to minimize their inventory but still have a few to get the last dollar out of you when you come in. If they're charging a fair price to you, chances are you ought to order the car. And that has a price. people will pay a lot of money to get their car today. We have a caller Marty that calls in every week.

He's been weighed eight months for his car that he ordered from us. And that's the way it is if the prices are fair. If they're not fair, you're going to have to pay thousands of dollars over. So, here we go. I told the salesman, I didn't have an appointment, just want to see if they had any telemarked. He confirmed that they did, and shook his name, his name was Hayden. He asked me to follow him to where the one telly ride they had the stock was located. It was a new 2003 Kia TeleRide S, all-wheel drive with an MSRP of $42,465.

By the way, the consumer reports that ranks the Telluride the best car gave a price range of $35,08990 to $52,985. That's a pretty wide range, and I'm sure they're looking at equipment and trim and other things as well as the fact that you're not going to buy one at MSRP. And the high price, they said that they, in their experience, on a 2023 telleride was $52 called $53,000. the Embassy had a $42,000, $465, and here we are with the addendum decal next to the minority label, which included a $2999 market adjustment, $4.99 for accessories, dealers installed accessories, $1.99 for all-state theft protection. And that bothered me, Stu, all state. I don't know if they are providing edge to dealers, but that's what that is.

We should have checked that out. I'll check it out. Let you know next week. Maybe they spelled Allstate with one L. Yeah. And $2.99 for Premier Defense, which was fabric and metal protection. Key of Chattanooga's list price was $46,461,000, which was called $4,000 over MSRP. The car was locked, so Hayden excused himself to get the keys.

Hayden was a salesperson, as I said, promising to return shortly. Trudeau's word, he was back in less than three minutes. Aiden showed me the car's features, and then it took me on a test drive. The 2023 model had 200 miles on it. When I mentioned this, he explained that someone had likely pre-ordered it and then changed their mind. I don't get that. It could be dealer-traded.

200 miles is not a lot of miles to have on a new car. It happens. Back in the, yeah, in the... These days it's rare, but it was very commonplace to have a car. And remember, when you buy a new car with miles on it, that's added to the mileage warranty. So unless it's got a lot of miles, I mean, like several thousand. But I think they will, you sir, let me know what they'll extend the mileage. I know it's over the thousands.

Over a thousand, yeah. Because they can put it, you can actually put it into a demo status. I think it's more likely. It's the only telluride they got in stock and they're selling it. They're trying to sell it for whatever. So it's been driven a lot. It's been a test driven. I think you're right.

Back of the dealership, he asked if I like to tell you, right? I sure did, but I wasn't keen on the 2999 market adjustment. He said he understood, but unfortunately, he couldn't remove it due to their little inventory. I mean, it's an honest answer. I expressed my hesitation about the markup, explained that the car was meant for an investment property in Georgia. and Aiden suggested going inside so his sales manager could prepare a sales sheet to give me the exact final price. Well, we know where we're going now, right?

Back and forth. I asked if there was any cash or financing incentives, but he said he doubted and explained that such offers were up to the manufacturer. He wasn't aware of any. I followed him to his desk where he asked for my information, including where I plan to register the car. I told him this would be a first for me,

asked if he knew the best way to handle it. Apparently, you know, he understands Agent Lightning's from Florida, and they're buying the car in Georgia. He asked me to give him a minute to consultant sales manager since this was new territory for him as well. Sounds like a newbie, new salesperson. He returned shortly and told me I could register the car either here or at my home in Florida, in Georgia or Florida.

I chose the easier option for now. He left me at his desk, and again, to Fed. the sales price sheet and returned a few minutes later with a worksheet. The market value selling price was the full pop. That was $46,461. Then they add the same stuff again, which is absurd. They double dipped. You know, double dip. So they've already priced it in once, now they've got to price it in again. $199 for all state theft protection. And that's etch, glass etch. I just find that hard way that Allstate insurance really has that

as a product. It's a cheap product that's been around for 20 years or longer with car dealers. It costs a dealer about 20, 30 bucks to do the edge and they charge. They do. On Allstate's website. Oh. Yeah. Shame.

Yeah, they like it. Shame on you, Allstate. It says it protects against auto theft. You know, actually I take back the shame on you. It's the price. It's the shame. Actually, the glass etch, it's not a bad idea. Oh, I'm sorry, no, no, no. I'm sorry, this is just information from Allstate about what etching is.

Yeah. Okay, let me keep looking. If you have a glass etch on a car, it's kind of like webcams. The bad guy is going to go to the house that doesn't have the video security cameras, and why take a chance? So if you have a glass etch and you get it at a fair price, which might be 50 or 60 bucks to give the guy a profit. And you've got the glass hedge.

The potential car thief will go to the car next to it that doesn't have the glass edge because it's got the VIN number. And a cop can spot it, and it's just less safer for the thief to steal a car without the glass hedge. Okay, now that I've done an endorsement for Glass Hedge, and of course $2.99 for the Premier Defense, which is wax and fabric protection,

which is a joke for $300, crazy. Then they added a $7.99 processing fee, which Hayden said was a dealer fee, and we call it a junk fee. Hayden actually explained each item in the sheet without me asking, and that's unusual. I asked if there was any possibility of a price reduction,

but he reiterated that was highly doubtful due to their low inventory, honest comment. I thanked him for his time and asked if I could take the sales sheet with me. He told me it was for internal use only, but offered to let me take a photo. Now, a lot of times, they don't want you to take the photo. We haven't had Agent Lightning tackled yet or had the camera knocked out of her hand, but she has been risked confrontation by taking pictures. So there we have it, and we got pictures of all the...

documents and we have someone in Chattanooga, Tennessee charging thousands of dollars, $4,000 over MSRP. Double-dippin. Or Keateli-Ride. By the way, all-state insurance does sell it. I looked up all-state vehicle protection

and it's etch, but it also they use microdots and I've heard of those before. They're a little tiny sand grain-sized identification things that's supposedly in a national database. law enforcement, and that's part of the product. If you have a parent,

the theft deterrent products on your car, it is probably worth a reasonable amount of money, not a lot of money, because you're going to protect your car a little bit. A professional, they're going to pay any attention to it, but the amateur that's out there for a joyride, he's going to steal

a car that doesn't have a parent theft protection on it. So we've got to vote, and we have a situation here as we often have were the treatment of the individual was not arrogant, it was not insulting. We don't know about the advertisement because the Agent Lightning went in just to say, I'm looking for Telly Ride, she didn't respond to an ad. Most of the times when we respond to an ad, we get into the nitty gritty of legality because

typically the advertisements are illegal, so we can't say anything about an advertised nature of Kia, of Chattano. Tennessee but we do have the behavior and the pricing of the salespeople and we'd love to hear what your votes are yeah well from Bob we have an F-minus he says if I'm in Chattanooga I'd rather get some moon pies made by the Chattanooga baking company than shop at Kiev Chattanooga I love moon pies that's an old-fashioned treat right there isn't it yeah then Mark still some dishonesty involved C-minus and I'm kind of I'm worth with Mark a little bit more. Because the double

dipping thing, maybe they just don't know what's going on. It's could just be programmed the computer just to load it in. I don't know, but it's, um, we've learned to accept the higher prices as long as it's all been up front and transparent and there was some it wasn't completely transparent here.

So I'm going to give them a D. I've got Tim Gilliland. What? No nitrogen? Nothing to see here folks. Move along. C-minus. Johnny Z. Freidly. D. Not as bad as many South Florida dealers. Okay. Scott Hunter, F. When do the addendum's end?

Rocky Blockadele, D is for double dipping. Brian Sidlato, double dipping dealership deserves an F. Mark Smith with a D, Mark Ryan with a D, and Negan 1, F, no buy, double dip. myself the double dip kind of I'll go with a D on it because you can obviously

when you argue that they're going to take that off but still the market agenda D yeah you know I sometimes I feel guilty myself when I come down on a dealer for charging high prices

because I mean if I look at the macro thing of pricing. This is the way products are priced. Diamonds are very rare, and so you pay a whole lot of money. You know, like a particular pink diamond or a particular cut or a particular size. It's all about supply and demand. So the cartilers found themselves in a very, very short supply, consequently a very, very high demand, and they follow the rules of supply and demand. With total honesty and transparency, I find it difficult to punish a dealer for charging a lot of money as long as he's transparent and honest about the fact. And this salesperson did say a couple

times, we can't lower the price because of the scarcity of the product. And we just don't have, we only got one or whatever he had in stock. You're making me feel guilty. Well, I... D-plus. And what would you give them? What would your vote be? I go along with what Rick said. The double dip was the only real strike I see against them.

I'm going to give them a C-minus. Okay. Double-dipping early SARS the deal for me, and I give them a D-minus. Okay. I think that's it. You know, doing business the right way. All this is going to have.

happen with these dealerships if they chose to do business the right way is that I'll tell you what it's so easy we're not reinventing the wheel here your business is going to double triple and people are going to come to you they're going to believe in you and that's the bottom line so there's just so much lying being done today and well maybe there's too many people watching TikTok. But when you come into a car dealership and they give you an obscenely high price on a car and they are honest with you about that's the price and that's the end of it, at least you have the opportunity to go out and shop and compare and find a lower price somewhere. It's when they won't give you the price or they give you the price that's not really the price

and they bump it up when you come back. That's the, that's the sin that gets an F out of me. I think it's also a possibility that that's an error. Because to get something to print on these worksheets, we always see the final product. Setting it up is kind of hard, and sometimes it gets screwed. I see things mislabeled all the times. I mean, I think they're trying to collect this, you know, worthless, you know, this dealer-added stuff is worthless, but it might have been a mistake to add it up. I was a little surprised at just in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to see something pricing like this.

I thought for sure. In Chattanooga, it was just going to be like mom and pop and no dealer fees and all that. And moon pies. Yeah, this was kind of like Fort Lauderdale. And moon pies, right. Isn't that something? That's quite a statement. It's just like Fort Lauderdale.

All right. Okay. Did you, we have a couple minutes left. Yeah, I was just thinking about the evolution of the car business. And I don't know the answer to this, but I think that when this whole splice, demand situation is behind us and production studies and flows and there's no more the microchip shortages for all intensive purpose is gone i mean it's hardly a factor now at all but there's some other factors i have a feeling that you're going to see more and more people ordering cars i think

you're going to see people being more specific about what they want and i think the manufacturers they're going to be better about building the cars quicker. I believe they're going to be more regional distribution areas. So it makes sense. You go in, you're going to spend $50,000 or $60,000 on a product. You'll want what you want. You want your color. You'll want your trim.

You want your accessories. You'll want what you want for that price. And if you have to wait three weeks or a month or a month and a half, now I agree with you. You don't want to wait a year. You don't want to wait eight months. but if it's a month or about that, you want what you want.

So I don't think car dealers are going to have a thousand cars in stock. They might have some, but if you're flexible on some, you know, there might be a few to choose, but most people are buying their phones online right now. You wait six weeks for your phone. Yeah. The old way was

the honky talk, the fly-by, you know, you come in and you get it delivered out of stock and you roll them and you don't give their money back no matter what. Those days are I think people are going to be ordering your vehicles. And we'll see if I'm right. It'll be, we'll know in about a year.

Absolutely. Well, folks, here we are at the end of another show. What a great show. And because of you, viewing in Facebook, YouTube, and sending us your texts and just being a big part of the show, we definitely enjoy your company. Stay tuned next week. Same time, we'll be right here at 8 a.m.

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