Earl Stewart on Cars - 04.01.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Braman Honda

Episode Date: April 1, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local Honda dealer to see what they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2023 Honda CRV Hybrid 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's side. space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership.

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. We're back in action. This is live, at least as right now, so we can never use this for a rerun, I guess. I should have kept my mouth shut. What we do is we help you buy a car or lease a car without getting ripped off by a car dealer doing it for a long time

and it's just not me we've got a group here of experts. Yeah we are I mean I'm not bragging we focus on one thing and that's automobile retailing and repairing we get into the

problem that the entire automotive world mainly the United States has with the system. The system is not a good one for channeling cars from the manufacturers to use the consumer. The hiccup is a dealer, and that's a long story. You regular listeners to the show have heard me talk about it a million times. Bottom line is, it's not a pleasant experience going into a car dealership. I compare it to a root canal. It's worse to go into the dentist. people don't like to buy cars

you would think that the manufacturers and the car dealers would get it and change things and they are being changed but you know how that goes things change very slowly particularly in large industries and

there's nothing much bigger than the automotive industry I mean maybe insurance I'm not sure but they're huge and a big ship when it's on a course takes a long time you can swing the wheel over to the port side or the starboard side. It takes a while before these big, big ships can start to make the term.

I think the automotive industry is in the process of doing that. I like to think this show, Earl on Cars, has had some small part in doing that. We thrive on you, our listeners. I say listeners in the broad sense, because viewers, I mean, what do you call people that are online today that are digitally absorbing the show. You're absorbing it on YouTube. We're at YouTube.com forward slash hurlorn cars. Facebook.com forward slash relon cars.

And, of course, we just have this old-fashioned radio show, and we still reach thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of people on the radio. But we're dwarfing that, I think, digitally right now. A lot of this is in podcasts. All our shows are available on podcast. We're also available on our blog, earlancars.com. We archive the shows.

You can get them on YouTube. We do clips. Jonathan in the control room over there. He takes the best parts of the show, most interesting, sometimes controversial, puts them into a 60 second or a three-minute or whatever YouTube. clip, audio, and post it on YouTube.com, Florida, Sajrol on cars,

and you can go to YouTube and find all sorts of interesting tips on how to take care of your car without getting ripped off. Cars are better than ever, that's the good news. They're more reliable, they last longer, and

the problem is, the way the dealership networks are set up, and the service and the repairs system is set up, they're counting on your car to break down. Well, they're not breaking down very often. And they don't require much maintenance. So what are they going to do? Well, they're going to sell you something you don't need. Or they're going to sell you something at too high a price, or both most likely. So sitting to my right here is, if not a major, the major part of the show, because you've got

to get your car fixed more often. You've got to maintain your car more often. You think about maintenance and repairs more often, but you only buy a car, or lease a car. What? The interval is getting longer and longer on it. They used to be three or four years now. It's six or seven years. It might be nine or ten years by now. So you worry about buying a car. Let's put the difference every seven years. But you sure ought to go in twice a year to get maintained and repaired. And if you follow your owner's manual on your vehicle, which you definitely should do. I mean, I spoof and laugh about a lot of things. Dealers do.

I spoof and make fun of a lot of things. Manufacturers do. But the one thing the manufacturer does do right, as far as I know, all the manufacturers I know of, they put in their owner's manual, which is difficult to decipher. I'll give you that. But if you follow the instructions about maintaining your car according to the dealership, it will be a fair amount, and it will be a small amount, and it'll keep your car going for a long, long.

time. So Rick Kearney, if he will contact him, and here's the ways you can contact him. By the way, he monitors our YouTube channel. So YouTube.com forward slash Erloncars. A lot of our really good followers, listeners, viewers are on YouTube. YouTube is growing like crazy. I mean, I remember when YouTube was just kind of a funny little thing and you never thought much about it, kind of like I thought about Google when I first came out. Now, YouTube is a tail wag of the dog. YouTube's bigger than everybody, except for TikTok,

and they're about ready to take down TikTok, you know. So when TikTok goes down or goes back to China, you're gonna have YouTube, number one, digital way to get stuff. You know, you can learn about anything by getting a YouTube video clip. I do that all the time. Now, I don't do it as often as I should,

But every time I'm scratching my head about something with my car, my home, where I buy something, how I fix something, I lose an owner's manual, first thing I do is go to YouTube. And it's amazingly easy now. It used to be you had to get the wording right and everything had to be right. YouTube is very intuitive. And I think there's some artificial intelligence going on there because you can ask a question that even after you write it doesn't sound too intelligent. But YouTube figures it out, usually, and you will get a huge number of solutions, probably more than you need. We're kind of like the radio version of YouTube, and Rick Kearney is a person that you can talk to. And let's start out by calling Rick, or me, or Nancy, or my son, Stu, if he shows up.

Hopefully, he will be here. Is Stu going to be here? Anybody know? Okay. I think he said that he's headed for Philadelphia. Oh, he's on his way to Philadelphia. I didn't know that. So you can't reach him in Philadelphia,

so it'll just have to be the ones here in the studio. And that number to call is 877-9-60-99-60. That's 877-9-60. Now, texting, write this number down. Probably don't have a text you want to say this right now, but we will get to our text. So Rick will be picking up the,

text as well as the YouTube's, and we will accumulate those, and we will probably get to all of them before the end of the show. That text number is 772 4976530. That's 772-4976530. As I said, we prefer the phone call for one reason. It tells us something about you, your personality, your state of mind. I mean, you're either eager or you're, you know what I'm

talking about. I mean, human speech I don't think is ever going to dissipate. It might be eclipse somewhat by digital means, but the human voice, the sound of the voice, you know what I'm talking about. Nancy Stewart sitting to my left, my co-s, she founded Earl and Cars with me about 20 years ago when we were just a little half-hour show on C-view Radio on Saturdays. No, it was on Thursdays, I think. I don't remember what it was. Yeah, Thursdays.

And half-hour, and we blossomed to two hours right here on True Oldies. She has a laptop computer she's looking at right now. When the call comes, goes to the studio, Jeremy is in the studio. He will take

your call initially. He'll put you in the queue and hopefully you go right through, but if not, he'll put in the queue and we prioritize your call at 877-9-60-9960 and we will stop what we're saying like me I'm yacking too much right now already if a call came through Nancy would slap me in the head and we would turn around and take the call no she was just faking she was we have a call we are going to skip my introduction and we're going to interrupt a rule and we're going to go to John who has been holding for quite a while from Palm City. Good morning. Good morning. I'm in another world because

this radio station just played a number one tune of 1977 Dancing Queen. It brings back a lot of memories, including a person that I met at the time, and he was the Auto Steft Squad of New York City. Long story, because I had a 76 corolla that was stolen at LaGuardia Airport, but I won't go into that details. Here's what his opinion and my opinion. The two most important documents that you could have on any automobile today, the most important, beyond belief, is one, the MSRP. You're only going to get that if the car is new, okay? And also the 17-digit serial number that comes on the dashboard, below the windshield, that has every automobile. It must be displayed by federal law. It came out in

1981, and here's the detail on both of them. He enjoys going. He lives up in Lake George, New York, but he's no bird down here. His experience were going to a dealer. He copies on his camera, the MSRP, the actual one.

Earl did a blog two weeks ago about the MSD manufactured Monroney sticker. What he does, he copies that. Not the phone he's next to or anything. He goes. into the salesman and said, this is the call I'm interested, it's stock number so-and-so, and here's a copy from the window of the MSRP.

And that's what he says to the salesman. He gets turned away 90% of the time. He said, this is the MSRP. How much will you discount from that MSRP? Don't give me the nonsense about add-ons. Don't give me the nonsense. I'm going to the Motor Vehicle Bureau myself. I'll get the tax and title and I'll pay that.

And guess what? 90 some odd percent they will walk away. They will not talk to him. And we all know what the situation is. And then let me tell the importance of, especially on a used car, of the 17-digit serial number, each, and I won't go into the details. Each digit means something. It starts off with the American, whoever manufactured it, has a,

symbol, Japan, J, every symbol, including the one in the middle, has even the plant that the car was made. Your insurance company knows what engine is in the car. And of the 17 digits, I think one or two of them are kept perfectly secret. You don't know what they are, because that's for the law enforcement. And also, that serial number, just the latest consumer reports tell you about etching. And you're wasting your money completely because these numbers are many places on the automobile, places that we don't even know about.

So you're wasting your money completely when they're charging you $2,000 or $3,000 for edging of your windows. But I just want to point out the importance of both of these items that I mentioned, the MSRP and the 17-digit serial number, which is a birth certificate, actually, of that car. It must always be displayed. By the way, the two rivets he told me that hold it on, you can't duplicate them. Only the manufacturers supply that digit, so it's on the stolen cars or anything. If they're removed, they can tell right away just by the digits. I mean, they're rivets.

So I just thought, mentioned the two major items on any automobile, on a new one with the MSRP, and on any automobile, with the 17-digit serial number. Great information, John. I tell you, I can see where your friend is getting thrown out of a lot of card dealers just because they don't like an informed shopper like that. What I do, if I were your friend, I try to use that information online. They're enlightened dealers, not many of them, but they're coming online,

and they're coming aboard, and they're out there. He can cover 25 car dealerships online in the time it takes him to do one car dealership by foot, you know, by driving in and going through the process with the manager of the sales. He saves a lot of time. But that's great information. The Venn is one of the best kept secrets. That's the vehicle, you know, the serial number. Venn, they commonly refer to it as the vehicle identification number,

and that is loaded with information. And most people don't even know that. Again, you could go to Google and put a VIN number in and get the information that usually only the dealer said. I didn't know. I'm a dealer. I didn't even know there were two secret numbers.

I got to check that out. So this is only for law enforcement, John? Yes. It's not known. I don't think even like Rick would go what those symbols are. Incidentally, I want a question for Rick, if a person buys a used car, can they go back to say it's a Honda?

can they go back to the Honda dealer with that serial number and they can't tell him who the owners were but they can tell them can they tell them if that car was ever bought in for service? Yes. As a matter of fact, if you run a car fax on it, that will also include 99% of that service information because all of that is now computerized and it's although like you say

the personal information is not available but whether they replaced air filters, whether they had an air conditioning repair, break job, oil change, tire rotation, all of that becomes service records that they're allowed to get access to. Well, that's good information. They should buy any used car besides the FARCACs. You can go further with investigation on it. Well, it also makes it helpful in such cases. You bought a used car.

The battery dies. you go back to the dealership and find out, hey, the previous owner just put that battery in eight months ago, and that dealer will usually say, hey, that battery's under a one-year full warranty, so here's a new battery for free. Wow, that's valuable information. Incidentally, he told me ring came out now. The ring doorbell brand new. It's just announced.

He doesn't know the full details on it. You can buy from them a ring that you're in. stole somewhere on the car, and it follows your car. So if it's stolen or anything, it can be monitored with this ring. It's brand new. It just came out. I don't know. He doesn't know much details about it. Kind of like a LoJack system. Yeah, exactly. Hey, John, you know, talking about valuable, we can't thank you enough for the valuable information that you share with us. You can't, well, you probably can't imagine how many people just did not know what you just shared this morning on the serial number, on so many numbers.

Everyone says, why are there so many numbers? You just explained it all. And we thank you for that. And we thank you for calling the show every week. My pleasure. We have a great mystery shop coming up, so you stick around. Great. I'll stay attention.

Yes. Thank you, guys. Thanks, John. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to Bill in New York. Bill is a regular caller. Good morning, Bill. Good morning.

I have a question for Earl. Okay. What is the Lexus equivalent of the Toyota RAV-4? What is the one of the RAV-4? The Lexus equivalent would be the, I believe it's the 200 NX, is about the same level as the RAV-4. okay um uh thank you um that's the that's the only question i have to you i want to thank you for your show and um i really appreciate it yeah bill that's a that was a really good question and i i didn't know the answer i'm glad rick did um i encourage people out there when they're buying

any car um a lot of the manufacturers have two divisions and they they build pretty much the same car in both division but they label one of them they're lucky and the other one, they're low price spread, if you know what I mean. Like Honda has the Accura, and it has the Honda. And the Chevrolet, or General Motors has Chevroletes, and they have Cadillacs. Nissan has the Nissan and the Infinity. And you'd be surprised, not only can you service and maintain your car, if you buy the luxury car, say you buy an infinity, take it to a Nissan dealer.

They have technicians that are trained to fix the car because they're basically the same car. Toyota dealers can fix Lexus a lot cheaper than a Lexus dealer will charge you for repairs or maintenance. So it's, and you can even buy the car. I mean, if you buy a Lexus, you're going to pay for the name. If you buy an Accura, you buy a Cadillac, you buy an Infinity, you're paying for the name.

The actual vehicle under the skin, transmission engine and all the other important stuff, navigation electronics, are pretty much identical between the luxury version and the non-electric version. So I'm really glad you asked that question, Bill. Right, that's good to know.

Thank you very much and have a great weekend. Thank you, my friend. Thanks, Bill. It's nice to hear from you again. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to give you a website that you might want to jot down. We've talked about it before. And it's how you can check on Florida car dealers that are breaking the law.

And you can do that by going to www. Florida Law Protectingcarbuyers.com. Jot that done. You may need it today. You may need it in the future. It really is a great read, and it will definitely guide you in the right direction. Also this morning, I have to mention that the ladies can win themselves $50 this morning. Two female callers, new female callers, can win themselves $50. And did you know that women,

well, they're responsible for purchasing 54% of cars. Yeah, of the cars out there in the United States, and they influence 84% of all vehicle purchases. So ladies, Give us a call. Share your experience. How did it go? Whether you leased, whether you purchased, whether you had service, anything at all, or if you just want to say hello, 877960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

You know, we haven't given out our anonymous feedback, and I can monitor that. Noah thought. I don't think Rick can and Stu's not here. So we have a special way of contact. It's for you new listeners. You're regulars, Noah. I've given this information out a lot. It's a URL.

It's a website. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Y-O-U-R-A-N-Y-M-O-U-S feedback. This is the way it's spelled. F-E-E-D-H-T-K.com. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Now, when you go there, you enter question, comment, criticism, any communication you want. And I don't know where you are, who you are.

I can't find you. I can't knock on your door because you made me mad. We will take that almost unexpregated anonymous feedback and read it on there. And I say almost because we don't do the profanity or vulgarity. But feel free. If you feel that angry, say it the way it is. We'll put a bleep in there, but we'll get the essence of your message across. Your, Y-O-U-R-A-N-Y-M-O-U-S, Feedback.com.

Some people just like privacy, and I'm not one of those people, but I respect those of you who do. In fact, sometimes I wish I did have more privacy, but I just decided I just opened myself up to the public, and I've done it, and I'm happy with that status. but a lot of people would prefer to communicate privately, and that's a really, really good way to do it. And, of course, we've got the regular number, 877-9-60-99-60,

and we will prioritize those. Nancy will stop whoever's yakken, probably me, and say, we have a caller, 877-960-99-60, or text us at 772-49-30, and I know you YouTubers out there are probably YouTube and as we speak because we always have more YouTube comments

than anything. YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars and which used to be, I thought the really high-tech interesting thing. Facebook I was really excited when I figured

it out Facebook. Now it's just for old people. The younger people don't use Facebook, and it's dropped out of usage. It's way down to the bottom, way below most everything, but we still have Facebook. I like Facebook. We still use it. Facebook.com

ford slash Earl on Cars. We got a caller. We are going to go to Howard, who gives us a call every week from Jupiter. Good morning, Howard. Good morning. I hope you're all well. It's beautiful day outside today. Yes, she is.

Right. My question of Rick, about brakes, specifically rear brakes. My question is this, why don't rear brakes wear out as fast as the front brakes wear out? Gravity. When you're driving a car, the force of inertia, all that weight is traveling along going straight ahead, and when you step on the brakes, all that weight still wants to continue forwards, So gravity makes it pull slightly downwards, and it makes all the pressure go on to the front brakes.

The front brakes do 70% of the stopping power of the car simply because of inertia and gravity. So your rear brakes, all that weight is moving forwards, the back of the car tends to lift up a little bit and become much less weight on those brakes. So they actually have to use what are called proportioning valves to reduce the braking effort to the brake. rear so that your rear brakes don't just lock up because they don't really have any real weight on them and you don't lose control of the back end that way what a great explanation that was i i mean i knew the front width i never thought about that way inertia and gravity well said thank you're you're an engineer so you understand it better than i but it's interesting that

i i thought about you actually what i thought i'll be honest with you i'm i think a lot of things are until Rick sets me right. I used to think it was because we had cars. The engine was in the front and most of the weight was in the front. And I thought that's what did it. I'd never thought about the braking and the inertia.

So that's... That's exactly what I thought. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I don't dare think about these things unless I talk to Rick because usually I'm wrong. Yeah. The next question about breaks. I had a 2003 Camry. It had drum

brakes in the rear. I had 150,000 miles on it. The drum brakes never were, you know, affected. I never had it cut. So my question is, number one, why did the drum brakes last longer than the pads? And number two, why did they discontinue the drum brakes if they worked fine? Well, drum brakes, although they seem to operate nicely and they don't wear nearly fast it's because they do much less stopping power but the other fact of it is they're a lot less efficient at actually stopping the car than disc brakes are disc brakes get much better efficiency and work much better stopping the car if you've ever driven an older car from say the 40s 50s when they had

four-wheel drum brakes all the way around and you step on the brake, you were putting all your weight down, and those big old cars, then, they were just keeping on going. The brakes weren't very efficient. Drum brakes just don't work well. Not only that, but

if it rained, we went over a puddle, we lost the brakes. Slips sliding away, yep. That happened to me once. My 59 Dodge Wayfarer with Fluid Drive. You don't remember Fluid

drive you're too young, right? I've read about it. I've read up on, believe me, the history of how these systems all came about has fascinated me. And right now, I would bet, I think we've got something like

40 techs working in our shop and I would be willing to bet there's maybe one or two others in the entire shop that can even tell you what points and condensers are, let alone having ever touched a set of them or adjusted them or even used a dwell meter. And yet I have because I understand the history because if you understand history of something,

you know where it's going. That's my feeling. But anyways, for drum brakes, they were the old history style. And it amazed me that Toyota kept going with drum brakes on the back of Tacoma pickups, even today. Every other vehicle has gone to disc brakes in the back to improve that stopping power. Now, yes, they do wear on a little faster than drum brakes, but that's because they're actually getting some use. And because they can get better power, and they can actually help control the brakes, and especially when you're using such things as dynamic braking, which is the computer, your anti-lock brakes,

actually controlling each wheel and the braking power going to each wheel. It's amazing how much that technology has improved how those brakes operate. You think back to some of those cars of the 50s and things we used to have to do and teach young drivers how to handle skids, how to handle every little aspect of controlling that car. You were literally controlling a wild bronco, as to compared to today where it's the gentlest of mares that you're driving. I mean, these cars today literally are on the edge of driving themselves and you don't have to control it anymore. The car will control it.

Okay, one other question. If you're replacing brake pads and you have a Toyota, should you use Toyota pads or I think they're Wagner pads, I think they're called, you know, pairs that come from different manufacturing companies and are not Toyota. Some are metallic, some are semi-metallic, some are ceramic. I don't understand the whole thing. Can you explain about metallic, semi-metallic, ceramic, and the difference between Wagner or Toyota pairs? I'll hang up now because I'm talking too much.

I'll let you explain that. Thank you very much and have a good day. No worries. There's lots of aftermarket companies out there making brake pads, and most of them are excellent quality. They're great to use. Some of them do make more noise than others. But one thing I will always recommend,

avoid metallic or semi-metallic pads, because pads are much cheaper than the rotors. Pads, semi-metallic and metallic, will wear down the rotors faster. rotors can be resurfaced usually two or three times before they become too thin to be usable and have to be replaced. Do all the manufacturers use non? 90% of manufacturers use ceramic brake pads so that the pads wear out, but your rotors, you can simply recut them and reuse them. Oh, burn over and the metallic is what you want to avoid.

Right. They're less expensive. They're actually a little pricier in the aftermarket world. world, but that's because it's a hype thing. They hype them up. Oh, these metallic brake pads, which sounds great, except when you realize that you're paying more, they wear the same amount of time as ceramic, and yet they eat up your brake rotors, so you've got to replace the brake rotors. It's your next break job. They're not as good as your cost less. Interesting information today. Hey, folks, we're going to get back to the phones. We have a lot of calls that are backed up.

give us a call if you didn't jot that number down 877-960-9960 don't forget your anonymous feedback dot com we're going to go to mark in lakeworth and marty in west palm hold on for a moment good morning mark good morning how you doing we're well thank you nice to hear from you yeah i just wanted to relate uh a used call experience i had uh i went to sell my 2010, Toyota, Corolla, LE, and it had 91,400 miles on it. And I went on KB, and I went on Edmonds just to get an idea on a range of what I might expect. And then I went over, interestingly, the CarMax, and they got a big sign. You can't miss it.

it says all transactions will incur a $399 fee so in the used car market it's there too now Yeah they've raised their dealer fee

I think they were lower but they're joining the rat race and although that is still much lower than all the other dealer fees is still a lot more than they used to charge But like I said the sign is there and it's, you know, real big, you can't miss it.

So I gave the guy the car keys, they drove it around and looked at it, and back and forth, and I'm the original owner, and I take good care of it. I had the maintenance records to show. All right, we'll give you $5,400. And I said, that includes the $3.99? No, we're going to, you know, we've got to take off $3.99, so it's really $5,000. Oh, I didn't realize what you said.

So not only they charge their dealer fee when they sell your car, they charge you again when they buy your car? Yep, that's what the guy told me. You hear me say week after week, I learn more from my callers than they learn from me. I'm learning. I'm learning from Rick. I'm learning from you. I didn't know that. That's unconscionable. What? I mean, if you're going to charge a dealer fee when you sell a car,

you can say, everybody else does. I've never heard of charging a dealer fee when you buy a car. Mark, did you say it was $3.99? Yeah. Gosh. Yeah. I said, that's a lot of money to do paperwork. It is, yeah.

And it misleads you. I mean, if you call CarMax and you say, how much were you paid me for the car, they're going to give you a price. But it's another $400,000. They're charging the dealer fee. when they buy your car. Thanks so much for that.

That's their language. Yeah. We're sitting here. Wow. We're shaking our heads, looking at each other. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. Here's the rest of the story.

So they give me the printout, you know, it's good for three days or five days. Thank you. Then there's a place directly across the street. This is in Boyton Beach. And it's called Car Drop. I don't know if you ever heard of it. No. Okay.

And they got the guy outside with the big plaque at after you see Carmack's Sears, you know? I drive in. It's the middle of the day. There's nobody there. Guy comes out and takes the car keys, looks it over, drives it around the parking lot. And he said, did you go to CarMax? I said, yeah. He says, you mind telling me what they offered you?

And I said, no, I'm not going to tell you. I want to hear your office first. Good for you. Right? and he says, I'm going to make you an aggressive offer, you're not going to leave, you know, you're going to sell me your car and blah, blah, blah. And he comes back and he says, I'm going to give you $6,000 for the car. And I don't have any transaction fees.

He can do right away. So I said, well, this seems like, you know, selling a car to them seems like, you know, the reverse of buying a car. We've got to play this back and forth game a little bit now. Yeah. Yeah. So the guy says to me, and I'm looking, and he gives me this whole printed thing about their offer. And there's font at the bottom, and it's not size 10, 11 or 12.

It's like 14 or 15. And it says, if you make the deal today, we will give you an extra $100. Okay? So I'm at $6,100, and I take out my phone calculator, and I'm playing around with it. And he says, no, you know, you look like you're hesitating. I don't want you to leave. You know, I'll give you another $100. Okay.

I said, all right, you know. That's worth your time. You should have stayed there for a few hours. You don't ever know. Yeah, I'm telling you, you know, it's like sitting in a card dealer, you know, the reverse where you say, hey, you know, I don't have the right price. Come on, honey, let's go. You should have got out your calculator, your iPad, and just sat there and just did some back and forth.

I don't know. Text one of your friends or something just to get this guy. Did you sell it, Mark? Wait, wait. So I said to him, okay. the word 63 I said to him

all right Megan 64 and we have a deal and he said No I can I'll meet you in the middle So I sold it for 6350 Wow you're

That's a very very great negotiator Mark Yeah a great negotiator What's the name of that place again Right next to CarMax and Boyden Car Drop C-A-R-D-R-O-P

Right across the street Yeah that's a great location I'm sure they thought long and hard before they bought that property there I think there's some other I spent a long time Nancy and I were there a few years ago and there were a lot of little places around

there but what a great location CarMax they advertise like crazy and so you get every time you go to CarMax you go past this company and the others in that area and CarMax they have a computer software program they don't appraise cars like anybody else

they're computer they input And if they don't need the car, they will make you an offer anyway, but it'll be way below the actual value. So here's what happens. You come in there, if they give you one of those low balls where they don't want the car, then the guy across the street, like you just found out, he's able to pay you a lot more money for the car. But you never come down there to get the price. CarMax lowballed you, and you went over finally negotiated a good price. So that's a great story.

I mean, $5,000 over there was $63.50 here. You know, that's, I mean, this is the first time I've done something like this. So in all my life, I've always sold privately. But I said, you know, I'm getting too old for this nonsense of people showing up, not showing up. Any wrong. Disadvantage. And then they want to beat you up on the, every little thing they want to knock money off. It used to be the way to go, but.

Yeah, I mean, and then today, you know, I mean, I don't know. They don't like something. Somebody's carrying a gun or a weapon. I just, you know. It's all part of the world going sideways, Mark. That's true. Mark, we can't thank you enough for the information you shared with us. You've really made our morning.

Thank you so much. I got to jump off. We got a bunch of callers. Okay. Have a wonderful weekend. Please give us a call again. We'll do. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. We are going to go to Marty in West Palm Beach. Hi, good morning. Good morning. Welcome, Marty. I got a question for Rick. On the blind spot monitor on Toyota, when you put your turning signal on, if a guy's in your blind spot, it'll flash on the mirror, but there won't be an audible sound. Is there any way to make that audible?

And I heard even on the 23s, it's not audible. If the turn signal is on, I think it means you should be looking at the mirrors so that you're seeing it. So they're expecting you. I don't think there's a way to reactivate that audio. I'd have to look into that. That's not standard. you'd have to do a special modification. Yeah, that's probably going to be listed in our customizable features.

If you stop there in a dealership and just tell them you want them to adjust that, they should be able to do that pretty quickly for you. Customizable features, is that as recommended by Toyota or as recommended by us? Customizable features is something where we can take our Toyota TechStream scan tool, connect it to the car. So it's factory authorized. Yes, and we can change certain features like your seatbelt buzzer. When you get in the car and the seatbelt buzzer beeps like over and over and over,

we can actually switch that to where it only beeps just one time. Is that in the owner's manual? A lot of it's listed in the owner's manual as to what we can change. Some of it the owner can do by themselves, just doing things with the center console and the radio systems. others, we actually have to use a scan tool to go in and do it. The beep for when you put the car in reverse, and it beeps inside. We can set that to be a single beep or continuous beeping while you're backing up.

Wouldn't it be amazing if the cars with amazing features that they talked about in the consumer report that they would detail all of that for the consumer? And it would just be automatic. I went on, Rick, I went on Google. and I ask about the audible, and it said, no, Toyota does not have that audible. Now, you obviously work on Toyotas, but Google said no. Now, I got to, I mean, obviously, when my car finally gets her, I'm going to ask if you can do it. I mean, I've got a 20 now, Camry, which, like I say, it blinks.

If you put on the left turn signal, it will blinks. right here it will blink but there's no audible on my wife's CRV if you turn it on there's an audible so it blinks and it's also audible so the other thing is it's like when you get in your car and you have your air conditioning going and it's loud and everything you can't turn up the volume on some of these like rear cross traffic alert or stuff like that yeah way to make it louder? Some there is. And the only way really to check is each individual model has a lot of different features that can be adjusted. And the only way to do it is that we actually hook in our scan tool and we go right through the list. You can actually sit in the car with a

technician usually, at least at our shop, and say, yeah, turn that one on, turn that one off, turn that one on, turn that one off. Okay. Now do you charge for that? We normally do get a half-hour labor, you know, because it's the technician's time where he has to hook the scan tool up and sit there adjusting each one with you to get, you know, to customize your vehicle to what you want it to do. Well, like I say, if you just want an audible on the rear cross traffic alert, so to take about a half hour. Yeah. Okay. Okay, Marty. When the car shows up, I'll bring it in there and see if you can do it.

We're looking forward to seeing you. You've got to jump off. I have another call. Have a great weekend. We're going to talk to Mike in West Palm Beach. Good morning, Mike. Good morning. I want to first compliment, Rick, because I bought a Hyundai, 2018, in around 21 or 22.

and it had 12,000 miles on it. I bought it from Earl Stewart. And I'm going to tell you, it's the best car I ever owned in my life. I'm really, really happy. I passed it on as a wedding present to my daughter. But in any case, I didn't have to put anything into that car. I went from 18,000 miles to 39,000 miles, and everything was perfect in that car. I was really, really happy.

They did this car faxed on it. It was a one owner never leased. So I was complimenting him on that. What model, how do you have that? It was the Sonata. A Sonata, yeah. What a great car that is. They've had it now for years, and, you know, it's just been really, really good for them.

So I'm really happy about how sharp you people are over at Earl Stewards. I've got to tell you, I've worked for Earl for 28 years now as a Toyota technician. 28 years and I'm one of those you take the word racist and you switch a couple letters it's carist and that's me I would never consider another vehicle except a Toyota my family members quickly found out that if they didn't own a Toyota don't ask me I wasn't going to work on it

and yet the Hyundai has come so far that I literally have almost considered trading my Tacoma and buying a Hyundai Suna Faye, that new SUV-looking pickup thing they have, it's gorgeous. I mean, they've got some style and they've got quality and it's like, wow, you know? Mike, I just want to consume. I mean, conservatively, 41 miles per gallon on the highway, if you're, you know, really watching what you're doing, okay?

around town, you know, 22, 25, something like that. I mean, they're a great, great car, really. Yeah. They're awesome. But let me get to my questions before we went out of time. I got three questions for you. What do you call this dashboard screen on my 2014 ATS catalog that I have? They usually call that the center display.

Every manufacturer has their own name. I know, but I want to say is, I cannot. find it on rock auto because i got to replace it doesn't work anymore and uh amongst other things that were problems with this car when i bought it i should i should have had it to my mechanic first i made a bad mistake by not doing it i recommend that to everybody you can buy a used car take it to a mechanic you trust first before you sign on the bottom line absolutely uh they want a thousand dollars at the auto nation catelac for uh replacing that screen and i figure i could go to rock auto and i can't find it in rock auto they think i'd get it a lot less sometimes they

don't carry it uh you might check on ebay okay um a lot of companies that do what's called uh like l kQ which is they're a car i don't want to call them a junkyard anymore they're a recycling center they take the old busted up cars they find the parts on them that are still good and they recycle them So, LKQ does a lot of business online on eBay, and they will put a guarantee on that part, sometimes six months, sometimes a year, that they will replace that part if it doesn't work for you. So, I mean, then you've only got just the time and effort of installing it, but you can find some pretty good deals on her. Is that LQ you said? No, it's LK, the letter, three letters, LKQ. And it stands for like, kind, quality.

You got it. Okay, let me ask you my questions that I'm having a problem with, okay? I've got to replace that screen. I'm hoping that'll be able to get it for a lot less than $1,000. By the way, I go back. I'm 77 years old, so I put points and plugs and distributors and timing change. I had a 427 Corvette one time. I really worked.

I took the heads off, the racing job ought to put a camera, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm a motorhead, so to speak, all right? So I know when it came to computers, I stopped because I don't want to invest that much money into an analyzing computer system. So anyway, going on, my Cadillac, when I stop at a light, has a rough idle. I've tried to do, you know, injector cleaners and this and that. What might be to cause it out? Otherwise, this car really got some type because it's a turbo. It's an ATC 2014 turbocharged car.

but at idle it just rumbles unless I put it in neutral the two things I would look at are the motor mounts because when motor mounts start to get soft and they wear a little bit the vibrations are transmitted more into the frame and you feel the engine more and the other is

the big butterfly plate in the throttle body maybe get some carbon on it just pull the hose off so you can see it take a Scotch Sprite pad, spray a little bit of throttle body cleaner on the pad. Don't spray it directly and just enough to dampen it and scrub that throttle body plate and the round bore of the throttle body. Get all the carbon out of there and see if that helps you out.

Now, you said throttle body. You're talking about your pedal or are you talking about another part in the engine? On the engine, you've got the airbox with the air cleaner. big hose goes to the engine and where it becomes metal that's your throttle body I got you okay I know exactly where that is the other question I have is

this is really screwy I get good cold air conditioning coming out of the driver's side vents and hot air heated air coming out of the passenger side vents I was told that you got to charge your air condition that doesn't make any sense to me at all

because I don't get nice cold air out of the driver's side exactly true only when i'm moving yeah you're just you're low on free on really yeah okay mike mike we can't answer any more questions or we're gonna have to charge you that's okay i'll pay for it i'll pay for it because it's very important i was 12 you just got nine hundred dollars worth of diagnostic every measure and we have callers waiting i know if i if i clank the battery turn loads that may reset my actuary is there any truth to that possible Disconnect one, let us sit, reconnect it, but you are low-on-free-on. So I shouldn't clank, and I should just reset. Okay. Thank you.

Absolutely. Mike, it was nice speaking to you. That was $1,200 worth, by the way. Absolutely. We'll send a bill. We'll send you a bill. Okay. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-30.

Don't forget, your anonymous feedback. dot com ladies a reminder $50 for the first two new lady callers give us a shout just say hello or make it really interesting how was your service how was your leasing how was your purchase did you buy new did you buy used 877 960 9960 now back to the recovering car dealer you know I just I hope Mike is tuned out I don't want to hear this But when he was talking about his Hyundai Somato, and being such a great used card, he bought it from us and hadn't any trouble with it. And then Rick went on about how he loves the Hyundai. So I whipped out the annual Consumer Reports auto issue, and this is something you should have in your library.

It's current on the newsstands now, available online. but one of my favorite reports in this are the new cars and used cars to avoid. There are a lot of good cars out there. Most cars are good cars now today. I can say that safely. So it's better to know the ones that you want to avoid. And the used car to avoid is the 2018 Hyundai Sonata.

So I did forget one thing, and Donovan actually brought this up, Hyundai and Kia are still having some issues with their electrical systems catching fire. I'm not saying Hyundai is a good car, and Kia's a good car. They're much better than they were when they first came over from Korea, and they're getting better every day. So they're great cars. I'm just saying, I think the point I'm trying to make is, here is a man that bought a car, we sold it to him.

whether we knew or didn't know, I'll have to get my lawyer before I can answer that, that it was on the worst car list, but we sold it, so I plead guilty. But he's had extraordinarily good experience with it, and this is in 2003. That's a five-year-old car. Five-year-old car. Going on six. So, consumer reports isn't the final word. I think Mike said something that Trump's consumer reports and everything.

If you're going to buy a used car, take it to an independent mechanic who can trust, have him go over it. So even a car on the do not buy list, you check it over, and if it's in good shape, buy it. Maybe you get a better price because it is of the do not buy list. Then you have to pay $100 to a mechanic to check it out. That's the best $100 bucks you ever spend. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Yeah, there you go. You can find a gem in the rough sometimes.

And sometimes you can get that right Hyundai that's not going to. going to catch fire on you. How are we doing on texted YouTube, Rick? Well, YouTube has been kind of around the clock a little bit here, but I'm going to answer one question. For Johnny Fradley, the GR-86 that's coming out for Toyota is going to be, I don't believe Subaru's involved with this one, and it is going to be the all-Toyota,

and it's based on what's known as Gazoo Racing, which is the GR portion of the new Supra, the GR Corolla, and now the GR 86. Yes, that is supposed to be in production for 24, and we're looking at that coming very soon. Okay, and for text messages, let us go right to Anne-Marie, as we usually do. Good morning, Anne-Marie. She's actually got one here that came in from March 25, but we're kind of continuing up. It says, good morning, all. What's up with Tesla and steering wheels?

First, Tesla came under federal investigation because at least two steering wheels on Model Y SUVs detached while they were being driven. Good Lord. Now, that's a horror story there. That's like something you see on a comedy show. Exactly. Reports say the cars were being delivered to the buyers

without the retaining bolt that attaches the steering wheel to the steering column. Then Tesla announces that they had $700 steering wheels to replace the yokes on some models. So I guess some of them they don't like that fancy little pilot-looking thing. They want a full wheel. Apparently there's lots of Tesla owners who dislike the yoke because the replacement steering wheels sold out in a week at $700 a pop. Tesla has been a leader in technological advances for years. why are they now goofing up on something as basic as steering wheels?

Do you have any ideas? Thanks. P.S. Palm Beach Post readers voted on businesses they felt were the best of Palm Beach is for 2023. Congratulations. Earl Stewart, Toyota won first place in the following categories. The Best Auto Dealer Service Department, Best New Car Dealership, Best Oil Change Service, and the best used car dealership. Well, thank you, Anne-Marie. I appreciate that commercial. And we're very proud of that. It's our fifth year of winning those awards. Congratulations. And she went on to mention also the CNN, or CNN story that announced this thing of the issue with steering wheels.

Let me tackle the Tesla thing. We drive, Nancy and I drive a Tesla. And we're not touting the Tesla. as being a defect-free car. One thing is driving as crazy now is the windshield washer has failed twice, and now I have to take it into Tesla because anytime something fails twice, and I've got to agree with them, they want to report it, they want to examine it and see why.

They're going to have to replace probably the washer motor again. They may have a problem. And we've had little issues like that. So what's extraordinary about Tesla is a technology. And the fit and finish, we used to call it the old days, leave a lot to be desired. Every time I close a door on the Tesla, it worries me because it doesn't sound like it closed all the way,

but it does. And that's partly the composite material they use, and everything is lighter today. So if you've never driven a Tesla and you buy one, you're probably going to have a lot of things that are going to irritate you because they're going to be a little different. But like everything else, when you're the driveability, it's a fun car, it's a technological miracle, and that offsets a lot of the glitches.

You know, I can tell you right now, Nancy's Avalon, as far as I'm concerned, she drives an Avalon too, is a better quality car than the Tesla we're driving. But it can't hold a candle for the Tesla in terms of performance. So, yeah. Where I used to say easy, easy, when someone would close my Avalon door on the Tesla, I believe I may have to have my shoulder replaced because it's mostly on the passenger side. As far as the yoke is concerned, my hands are small so I can, you know, maneuver the yoke.

And I kind of like it, you know. And as Jonathan said, the yoke's on you. Oh. Speaking of the yoke, somebody actually turned on the, I didn't know it had a steering wheel heater, and we can't figure out how to turn it off, so I'll have to Google it. The other thing, until we get down to Tesla, you know, in West Palm Beach, I'm taking up my time cleaning the windshield inside and out. I just, I won't drive with a dirty windshield. Can't use the washer.

Wash is broken twice. I won't drive with a dirty windshield. That's all there is to it. Oh, by the way, speaking of Tesla, let me change the subject on you. I was going crazy because, oh, we have callers. I'll shut up. Let's go. Sorry to keep you holding, guys.

Everybody that's holding on our lines, we're going to go to Maryland from Delray Beach. And Maryland is a first-time caller. And I want to thank her for calling and let her know that she can stay on the line and she can give Jeremy her contact information. He'll pass that along to me before I leave the studio this morning. And I'll write that check out to you, Marilyn, and send it to your contact information. Welcome. How? Hi.

How you doing? Okay. That's good. I'd like to ask you a question. I moved from New York to Florida, Jolet, eight years ago. I came with a, I had my car set from New York. I have Toyota, you know, the Toyota Cavalry. Mm-hmm.

And I went to the well-known, you know, Toyota here in Joway Beach. I don't have to mention his name, I'm sure you know. And I used to always service my car, okay? Now, I have the car a long time. The reason I keep the car is I only have about 62,000 miles. and the car is a night. So it's pretty good. You know, I don't really go that far.

It's usually, you know. Yeah, that's pretty low miles. Yeah, it's got low miles. So my son said, where are you going on? What are you going to sell the car for? It's got low mileage, okay? And I have serviced the car since the day I got my car, whether it was in New York or here.

Always service the car. Never said a word. The problem with the car dealership is every time I go, they never have the same service car. If I get one that I like that knows my car, next time I go for service, he's gone. I have never seen the service man there who, you know, is there more than six months. They're always fired or they quit. Okay, so that's not the story.

The story is I probably started to have a problem with the car. And by the way, every time I needed tires, they told me I would spend that. I used to say to my daughter, why are always changing tires? I don't go anywhere. Oh, they told me if they heat here. And I was just taken for a ride all the time Anyway, about two years ago I had a problem with the car

They told me it was something with the engine And the car kept making noise If I put the car like in park I would hear a noise If I was standing waiting for coffee And Dunkin' Donuts, you know, when you wait You can really hear the noise Whether my head on the break or it was in neutral

It would hear this You can hear the noise People can hear it So I brought it into them, and they told me it's this, it's bad, it's all kinds of things. I walked out with a $3,000 bill. I cannot believe it. And I kept complaining, but I still have the noise. Oh, they don't hear it.

We don't hear it. How can you not hear it? Everybody hears it. Let's go outside. Maybe you'll hear it. No, no, no. We would know. I kept bringing it back within that year that the noise was still there.

I finally got set up. I went to get my car service again, and I told the God. it's still there the noise, okay? So finally one person heard it, okay? He calls another guy and they hear it, okay? Not as much allowed because they're inside the place where they work. Okay, they take the car away for me for one week. They keep it, they're busy, and they come back and they call me, tell me that it's the engine now

and that I'm losing oil, and they have to get a new engine, which would be about $4,000. Oh, wow. Oh, my. And I swear to God This is the service manager Came out also I said are you crazy So I called my son in New York

And he gets a hold of them on the phone He said, don't do anything Just leave it alone Let her drive the car out Okay And I drive the car out He said mom don't go near them anymore Go check the oil on yourself

See how it is Because they told me I'm going to lose all my oil It's going to ruin me I'm going to have no car It's already now a year My oil is fine I still have that noise when I keep it in, you know, neutral, but if I step down heavy on the brake, the noise stops.

I could have that about a light, and I press now heavier on the break, the noise stops. But if I'm light and I'm just, you know, waiting, and I keep the car neutral, you'll hear that engine. You know what I'm saying? You hear like a noise in the car. Yeah, Rick, what do you think? I think you stirred Rick's interest, Maryland, and I think he can answer your question.

Okay. It actually is one of the things I would need to hear it myself but the technicians there are not doing any favors because the first thing they should have done if they couldn't hear it they should have said bring the customer

with the car, let's go for a drive, let me hear this noise and have you directly pointed out to the tech. But you can't diagnose it just from this. The noise is only when I'm in park. Oh, when I'm waiting for, you know, it's not when I'm driving. Yeah, Marilyn, if I stop for a lighter, if I

stop it, don't get under the air. You can't hear it. Yeah, this is something I'd have to hear it for myself, but I guarantee we can find it, but I would just have to hear it myself. Marilyn, it seems to me you've invested too much time already with this dealer,

and I recommend that you find another, either independent mechanic or another Toyota dealer in the area. It always Going back to the same dealer When you get this kind of treatment It's not a good idea

I think you should Maybe ask some of your friends That I have to be I do a new mechanic to go to a private I'm going to test it out But that's not bothering me I'm bothering me that After so many years of doing business with them

You try to rip me off Yeah I'm disgusted No excuse for it Marilyn Where are you located? Delray Delray Beach, and I'm not, I do know who I use, I don't have to make it up, it's right on here, you know, Delaware Beach is one of the most well-known, and this is what I have.

Yeah. Obviously, something's wrong because he can't keep this bed that work for him. Well, he's gone, but, I mean, they can't keep the people that work for them. Yeah. Yeah, it gets you pretty hated. Marilyn, I agree with Earl. It's time to move on and either go to a, you know, a mechanic, you know, or if you'd so wish, go. to another Toyota dealership, but these people down in Del Rey, I'd forget about it.

Yeah. You know, that's the only thing I can do is. I'm using the way it is, and I'll see I'm going to buy a new car, look for a new car now, but I'll definitely not go there. I happen to love the Toyota. It's a great driving car, and I love it, I hate giving it up, because it is a great, comfortable drive. And believe it or not, I don't know what the 209 has, but everybody comes to me. They want to buy the car. I'll go to the water. I guess they want the part. I bet. I bet.

That's a great car that you're driving, and it's definitely worth you moving on and checking out what is wrong. Marilyn, please don't forget to stay on the line to collect, you know, the $50 from me. Jeremy will get your information, and I'll send it out to you. What's $50?

You're the first time female caller, and every week we pay $50 to the first two. new female callers. So you'll have a check arriving in the mail within the week. So unbeknownst to you, Marilyn, you're helping me build my platform here for the ladies, and I thank you. That's funny because I just heard my radio on. Usually listen, I never had your phone. I'm always looking to the news. And I said, you know what? I'm up. I'm going to call you and tell you about my car. I don't want to mention a car dealer's name, but I really was taken.

and they won't get me anymore, that's for sure. They do lose the customer. I'll find another Toyota. I know there's one that far. Thank you so much, Marilyn. I, you know, can't wait to hear back from you. We've got callers backed up, and I'm going to have to jump off right now. Thank you very much.

Thank you. You're welcome. We're going to go to John in West Palm Beach. Fred and Dick, hold on. Good morning, John. Good morning. Good morning. which John is it you got a bunch of them

yeah we sure do I'll get to you later I'll get to you later with their last names we hear you John okay very good I just wanted to get clarification on the article about the steering wheels coming off on the

test list did the article say that these were new vehicles being delivered to the customers yes I think that I think they were talking about the model Y. Yeah, and it doesn't matter, which these cars weren't even on the road yet. It's just quality control missed the bolt on the two steering wheels.

Because I would have a different concern if the customer had taken the car and it came off while they were driving. Well, I think they did take the car, John. I think I don't know that all of them came off, but I think that there was some sort of defect where some of them, apparently. either almost came off or would have come off, but whenever they see a defect like that, they bring back all the models to correct it. It gets your attention, John. Have you ever lost your steering wheel?

No. Okay, here's a true story, John. Hey, John. Me, Nancy Stewart, I lost my steering wheel in my Mazda about 36 years ago, and it is a feeling you would never, ever forget. I hit a I hit a pull it's frightening so we've really gotten this news has really gotten Tesla's attention and it is well deserved hey John I'm I'm quoting directly from the CNN website with this story federal safety regulators are investigating Tesla's Y Model Y

SUV after at least two instances in which owners said their steering wheels became detached while the vehicle was being driven. The owners. The NHTSA is looking into the 23 model year. It said in the two instances in which the steering wheel came off, the cars were delivered to buyers without the retaining bolt that attaches the wheel to the steering column. The report did not say if there were accidents or injuries, But according to CNN, the cars were being driven by the owners at the time when the wheel came off. Thanks, Rick. Okay.

Good. All right. So I heard it incorrectly. But now the most important reason why I called is, Rick, I owe you an apology for last week. Last week I had made a comment about the younger people, those born 90s that, you know, made a comment. not be able to work on older cars and that's an assumption i made and and i just want to apologize that i i know you guys are knowledgeable and i know that you're able to fix things and my comment last week after i had listened and thought about saying you know man i hope i didn't insult them by

because they were young and they you know they didn't know which way they were going uh as far as uh the automotive industry in that i no no no insults john i don't you know no insults John, what's great about the show is that everyone has an opinion, and they're entitled to it, and we enjoyed your opinion. John, I'm going to have to run. I got to jump off. I got a bunch of calls backed up. Yep. Thank you.

Have a great weekend. Okay, Fred, thank you so much for holding on. Fred's calling us from Palm Beach Gardens, and Dick, I hope that you have more patience. We'll get right with you. Good morning, Fred. good morning guys and girls how's everybody great great nice to hear from you okay i've called once before i listened to the show every week so just a couple of things really no questions just observations so when we drive on north lake going north and we go to the beach there's a big big sign that has a

beautiful picture of some guy by the name of earl stewie man you don't you don't look at 82 years old in that picture buddy the picture was taken a long time ago I'm afraid to put my current picture up and you know why for it because he looks better now than he did then oh you're

precious and you can stop by the dealership and you can check it out and you can agree or disagree that's what's also great about the show Earl's come a long way he's cutting younger and younger and younger

I'm going to throw him out. Well, that's good to you, Nancy. Well, we do drive by there, and we'll be driving by there today because we go down U.S. 1 when we go to the beach. So the other couple of things I have, even though I knew this, because I'm pretty educated. My wife called the show a few months ago. She worked in the car business in New York for 20 years, so nobody could pull anything over us. So my brother listens to the show also, and he had his service car. He needed his car service.

I'm not going to give out the name of the dealership. It doesn't make a difference. And he was walking around the showroom. And just like you say, there was a sticker price on a car. It wasn't from the factory. It was not a factory sticker price. The price at the top was handwritten in. Then they had 2495 for the paint guarantee for seven years.

Then they had the thing with the tires spent $5.95. And then they had a market adjustment for $2,000. So they were right. up in the price by close to $6,000. It was just a joke. It's sad to hear. Now, that's so common, unfortunately. South Florida is the worst or the worst.

Los Angeles and Southern California used to be the worst. But Florida is out doing them now, especially South Florida. From here, I say here, Palm Beach County, south to, I won't go as far as Key West. I'll just go through Miami. are some of the most deceptive distrusting dealers or to be distrusted dealers anywhere in the United States. It's just terrible. The average extra fees down, I've lost count.

I used to say $1,000. Now it's probably thousands of dollars. It's a terrible place to have to buy a car. Yeah, and you can go over, Fred, to North Lake Boulevard, and you can pay a market adjustment. It's only $10,000. Trust me, we pass. Appleton, every time when we go in that direction, West, and my wife and I joke around,

well, let me stop off there, see if I could get it far for less than $10,000. But I don't want to keep you guys too long. The only other couple of things I've got to say in admiration is I'm going to be a customer service manager for office furniture chairs for over 40 years. I admire everything that you groups say, but I have to defer directly to Nancy. Nancy, I practice it from day one, honesty and transparency to your customers. They might not like the answer you're going to give them, but they want a true answer. And I admire that, and I think you guys are the only people I know of probably in the car industry that are honest.

So last and closing, we've had Hondas pretty much all of our years. We just love the Honda. I've had a couple of Toyotas. and we're definitely knowledgeable enough. But I don't know if I really want to deal when the time comes for us to get a new car of dealing with these people here that good, better, and different.

When the time comes, we are coming to Earl Stewart first and foremost to you guys. Thanks, Fred. Thanks so much, Fred. You know what makes us feel warm and fuzzy is the truth. Day in and day out, you know, we just, we're steadfast,

and the truth will say, you free. Fred, if you want to buy and pay $10,000, I'm joking, this market, I'm being really bad right now. I just read the Napleton Auto Group, the duo, just bought five dealerships, and that's Paul Napleton and Danny Randolph, and they're out there in Wisconsin and Illinois, noise, so their dealerships are all over the place, and so is the high prices. Fred, it was great talking to you. Same here. I'm going to pass the picture, and I'm going to wave to you, Earl.

Thanks, Fred. Have a great thing, guys. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to go to Dick, who's been holding, he's calling from Jupiter. Good morning, Dick. Good morning. How are you all doing?

We're great. Good to talk to you. Just got a couple of quick comments about some of Earl's testimony. with comments. I'm a I've called in before. I'm an 86 year old Tesla S driver. I love it. But one of the comments he made this morning

was they didn't control the steering wheel heat. It's right on your app. Oh. It's in the car under climate. You get a little steering wheel there. Oh, I'll be doing. Yeah, you can do it on the app. I'm opening my app right now.

I'll be saying. Okay. Go to the climate and you see a little steering wheel there in the top. Well, thank you. See, I don't really do this show to educate people. I do it so I get educated. I've had more answers today on this show that I gave to the people that are listening to the show.

That's not fair. I feel like I should need to reverse the process. The other one is last week you talked about me and you hit the full self-driving four times and they took you off the game. I think you're probably not putting it toward you. You've got to turn that wheel just a little bit. You've got to do that all the time. Just touch it. If you just put your hand on it, it don't work.

I heard of mail you. By the way, Errol Donovan had come in with information also on how to turn that steering wheel off. So I sent you that in a text message. Oh, thanks. Oh, we love Donovan. I'm going to make a list of questions. And from now on, I'll just start the show and I'll ask the questions. and let everybody help me.

I mean, I got more questions than I have answers. One more on Ms. Huzzler. And that's the full self-driving thing. This comes out with a new update yesterday. I've got mine up. I've tried to hell already. It's much, much smoother. It's more like a real person, no turks and whatnot.

Oh. So you get a chance to try it. It's improving market lately. It's still got a couple problems. Wow. Like 90-degree terms. It really can't see around the corner. well, and I'll like that person, but it's much, much smoother, and I'm using it, and it's great.

When I got my car to come to the radio show this morning, and I had a little pling up on the display and another software download, and of course, I scheduled it for tonight. I didn't want to wait for it to happen. That's it. It's a long one. Yeah. Oh, is it a long update? I found out, I don't know if you were listening, Dick, when I was, uh, um,

talking about the autonomous driving and how I was trying autonomous driving without Nancy in the car because she is more intelligent than I am and she realized it wasn't as good as it should be. So I got another strike. In other words, I had my hands on the wheel, but now I have three strikes. And five strikes, I lose my autonomous. I found out the other day I went to the Tesla store in the Gardens Mall. and I asked them, I'm afraid to try autonomous because I thought I was doing everything right. They said, oh, new software change.

They're washing your eyes. So apparently when you were driving, you weren't keeping your eyes on the road. Well, it's entirely possible. I mean, a good-looking babe may have across the sidewalk. I mean, I'm a human being. I might not a look out, Nancy wasn't with me. Nancy don't kill him. Who knows what I was looking at?

Give me a break. I know. You were probably on Beach Road. I was with you, as I always am, and you were checking out the young girls who were wearing their thongs. Oh, busted. I'm busted. Bam, bam, bam. I wish I never went off. I'm sorry. He looks at them whether I'm with him or not. I told you he's getting younger and younger. Yeah, he's phone alert. Uncontrollable. Big thanks. You love Tesla as much as I do. And in spite of their problems, there's nothing without problems. But if you can have an exciting car like we're driving, I don't care what happens.

It is the state-of-the-art technology in the world and automotive. I'll probably end up a hundred cars in my career. I'll probably end up in a hundred cars in the hell of have problems. Yeah. One last time, my girlfriend has a Prius and is serviced by you guys. He just loves your service, so thanks. She has a what? She has a Prius that we serviced recently.

Well, thanks, Dick. I really appreciate to call. Enjoy your Tesla. Okay. Have a great weekend, Dick. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-65-30. Don't forget that you can read Earl's column in the hometown news, the Florida Weekly, or you can go to Erlon Cars. And his latest column is pretty interesting, and it's the growth of news, car inventories is bringing back competition lower prices so great read take advantage okay guys what you got for me well i think i do have if we got some uh youtube or text let's take those first

we got some texts here text great um this one from duane hi earl i have a 2012 Toyota Camry xLS with 150,000 miles on it. I'm an infrequent driver and plan to have the car another five or six years. Beyond the normal owner's manual maintenance, is there anything you'd suggest I do to

meet this goal? I live in the snow belt with salted roads and have an undercoat applied every year. Rick, you go down and say better than I can. My best suggestion is a car wash that does the underside wash and really works to get the salt off. I'm sure, obviously, you've already

been using this. I find one of those to use during the winter and, of course, good maintenance on the car, the exterior during the summertime, and a garage to keep it in. But a 12 with 150, you're already doing the right thing. I haven't lived up north in a long time, and I haven't, you know, and I'm during sunny South Florida immensely. But when I was up north, I know exactly, I envision what up north was, and that was to me in the 60s and 70s. So what, isn't the undercarriage of our cars now treated

where they don't have that problem? Are you saying if I live in Buffalo, New York, and they're still putting salt on the roads, and people are driving the cars, and they're rusting away, the bottom of the cars? Well, the undercoating and the treating that they put underneath of them,

eventually it's going to wear. He's already on an 11-year-old car. You've been down here all your lives too, almost. I mean, so what, you're telling me that I don't hear any complaints from people that lived up north talking about rusting. I don't, what's the last time

we had anybody complained about a rust? It's really rare, but that's because a lot of them, like I say, are using these car washes, My step-sister lives in New Hampshire, where she gets quite a bit. And my personal back family, the majority of my family, live in South Dakota. So they, trust me, they see some snow. And they get rust. And they see some rust.

Okay. Well, another reason I love Florida. A lot of it, the reason that they don't see the big issues with it is they maintain by the car washes that washers that wash underneath with heated water. to get that snow and all that salt and the ice off the bottom. That's a beautiful country. But, yeah, Dwayne, it sounds like you're doing everything right on that car. Okay, let's go to another. Okay, we are going to stay with the phones or at least go back to them,

and we're going to talk to Tim and Jupiter. Good morning, Tim. Hey, folks. How are you this morning? Good. Hi. Good, good, good. Called a few times before.

for my, we've got a 2019 Jeep Cherokee latitude. Making model of the car actually doesn't matter, but we took it in. Check engine light came on. It was a sensor. They replaced it, a big local garage chain here. And I asked them to do an oil change while we had the car in. Pick the car up.

There was no oil change in the invoice. I said, what's up? uh with the oil change and the and the guy said uh we noticed some uh silicone around the seal of the oil plug and we can't do an oil change and i i'd never heard of this before and and i said all right he said i'll i said what can i do he said well have the oil pan replaced and he corded me 600 some bucks to do that. I'm wondering if you guys have ever heard of this, should I go back to the chain where I got

the oil change and see, you know, see if they maybe would make good on this. If I had this replacement done, would they pick up the invoice? Or what do you guys suggest? 2019, how many miles on it? 55,000. Okay, so, and you've been running synthetic oil, I'm guessing?

No, I don't know. Let me, wait, I think, isn't your, your complaint is they can't change you at all because of the oil pan, some sort of a seal. I'm getting good. Okay. How many oil changes, so you're doing about every 10,000 miles, right? Well, we do about every six or seven, I would, or five, six, seven. Okay, so you're on like eight or ten oil changes. Yeah, I would say that's right.

Yeah, that's pretty young for an oil pan to have stripped out. I would return back to the place that you had it done last and say, hey, why is my drain plug in with silicone? If it stripped the threads out of it, what happens is the drain plug goes into the threads of the pan, and sometimes they'll get some younger guys, they're too aggressive, they tighten them down too much, they over-tork it, and it damages the threads in the oil pan. Young, just untrained or stupid. Well, yeah, that untrained. And if they've over-torked it and they damaged it, that's on them. Because that pan should last no less than 20 to 30 oil changes or much more. They're designed to handle that.

And if they over-torked it, that's on them damaging your car by inexperience or lack of training. and in that case, they should be responsible for replacing that oil. That's probably not a bad idea to use the same person or same company to change your oil all the time. It's like buying gasoline. If you have an issue that comes up, you know who you went to. Hopefully you're going to a reliable person. Every now and then you have to go to somewhere different, but try to keep with the same maintenance people if you can.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And, yeah, I think I'll go back there. I'll talk, try to, you know, talk to the store manager and be reasonable about it, see if they can, if they'll be willing to, you know, pick up that, uh, whatever that cost me, will cost me. Yeah, because the place that you were just at, when they see that plug is siliconed in, they know that if they pull it out and they can't get it to go back in securely, they're now on the hook, not only for the possible cost of that oil pan,

but if you leave with that plug just barely glued in and it falls out, you lose all the oil and your engine blows up, they can now be held responsible for the cost of the entire engine. So that's why they didn't want to touch it. Yeah, I get it. I get it. All right, guys, that's very helpful. I love the show. Thanks again for the help.

Oh, you're welcome, Tim. Please give us a call back. Let us know how that went. Yeah, this is one of the... I'll try to do that, thanks. This is a good point. to emphasize is when you go to an unknown independent auto oil change place or something else, and it seems like there's one on every street corner.

You have to remember, and this is true in even dealerships, in our dealership, the entry place for a person, we just had a technician retire after 44 years with our company, and he started out when he was 17, changing oil. and then he moved up and got trained and went to schools and moved up the letter. So the person that's changing oil is a novice, and that's considered the simplest job in the dealership. It happens to be the simplest, but it's also probably the most important because if you screw up and you strip the oil on the plug for your oil pan,

and this comes down, you blow your engine, and your cars could be totaled. So it's good to know that the person that changes your oil is a professional, has done it many times, and knows what he's doing. If you just go into Jiffy Loeb or some other of these chain lubrication places, you don't know whether the kid was hired last week or not, and you don't know whether he was trained properly. I mean, maybe you're training him, and you just don't know it. You don't want to be training this guy.

You don't want to be trained before he changes your oil. Absolutely. Absolutely. We've got some time before the mystery shopper report. Do you have any other text there? I've got several here, actually. Yeah, let's see. Let's see.

This one. Good morning, Stu. I was wondering if you could talk about the new electric car by Toyota. I saw one at Kendall Toyota and took a look at the price and applied to the model. Do you carry this vehicle? Thank you for a great show. Richard Downing and Coral Gables. And Richard is referring to the new BZ4X.

Oh, that's a mouthful. Yeah, what a great man who came up with that, huh? Yeah, that is Toyota's new all-electric vehicle. And as a matter of fact, I just went to a training course on it just a couple weeks ago. And it's a pretty interesting vehicle. It's not quite Tesla's level for acceleration. How many miles to a charge? Now, there's a trick, because Toyota actually is pressing it saying it's 250 to 300 miles,

but I have it on good authority, and that Toyota's going to get mad of me, but I don't care. I like being in trouble. I have it on good authority from friend to a friend that the SET guys that have been testing these things themselves are seeing 180 to 190 miles on a charge. especially here in Florida, where you're running the AC, because it is hot out there, and that air conditioning uses a lot of that electric power. My advice to you is don't buy one. First of all, it's going to be hard to buy one. Second of all, when you buy one, they're going to charge you all the money

because it's a limited supply and hide them in. A lot of people want to have the first one on the block, and you want the first Toyota EV. You're going to have to pay through the nose. Our first one showed up at our dealership the day before yesterday, and I believe the sticker price is somewhere around $55,000. Yeah, we charge sticker, but all the other dealers would be marketing it up. And, of course, it was a sold unit, but that's the first one we've seen at the dealership.

They are kind of a comfortable car to sit in. They got some neat displays on them. They're interesting cars, but give it a little time for you, start looking at one. They're the new game in town. Toyota was late to the party, and there's a lot of uproar in Toyota about why that happened, and they're still late to the party. They've made the decision to still push the hydrogen fuel cell.

Rick and I were talking about that before the show started. So if you're looking for an EV, Toyota's not the place to buy it, and it probably won't be the place to buy it for a while, which is sad for me because I am a Toyota dealer, But I got to tell it like it is. I would shop around. I'd check consumer reports. Tesla's not the only game in town.

There's some good EVs out there for people that have been pushing a V and sold on V. Toyota, up until they fired Akiot Toyota, the current CEO, Toyota, up until then, was going in the other direction. Maybe history will prove them right. But right now, it's not the place to buy an electric vehicle. vehicle. And the real interesting thing that I've heard recently is that for 2024, probably a little late in the year, Toyota's bringing out an electric Tacoma pickup to compete directly with the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Rivian. However, they've also said it will most likely be priced much more competitively, probably in the $35,000 to $40,000 range as compared to the

lightning, which is a little over 50. Wow. Okay. Amazing. Okay, folks, we've got the mystery shopping report to get to, and we encourage you to vote on the mystery shopping report. It's real important that we hear from you. Yeah, we're great on the curve.

So don't fail a dealer just because he got you mad. Every dealer in Florida will get you mad. We have to have some dealers recommended, so if it's really bad, you're not. Give them a D or a C-minus or a D-minus. But when you fail them, we don't put them on the list. And if we failed everybody, we would have nobody to recommend in Florida to buy a car from. So that's not going to work. Yeah, and you can do that voting at 772-497-6530.

We mystery shopped Bremen Honda. So back to the recovering car dealer. Okay, Bremen Honda there in West Palm Beach, a big Honda dealer. Brayman, as you know, is a lot of dealerships, BMWs and other make cars. Speaking of the first person, if I were our undercover agent, Secret Agent Lightning,

I arrived at Brayman Honda, mid-afternoon, and was greeted by a salesman standing outside, waiting for a customer. He greeted me with a big smile, ask how he could help me today. I told him I was here to check out the new hybrids and ask if they had any in stock. He informed me that they did,

have a few on the lot, gestured towards his desk, saying, ladies first. It's always nice to hear. Once at his desk, he asked me to write down my name and phone number for him and then inquired if I had ever been here before, I replied that I'd been, I had been there,

and I even bought a car there several years ago. Agent Lightning, by the way, is lives in this area, so Agent Lightning has shopped a lot of places, and she's able to answer in the affirmative. often when that question is asked. Interestingly, she's never been exposed. She's been good enough to not being exposed as a mystery shopper. Okay, back in the persona of Agent Lightning,

he suggested that we go out to the lot so we could see what they had available together, and they had two new, 2023, Honda CRV Sport Hybrids, and I chose a white one. My salesman still hadn't officially introduced themselves, but he was wearing a name tag that read Jorge. Jorge excused himself to go to get the keys and left me waiting by the car.

The Munrooney label indicated the MSRP, Manorobi suggested retail price, manufacturer suggested retail price, I should say, was $35,650, but Brayman was going for more. Well, that's not a surprise to anybody. The addendum label, I'll fix next to the Maroni label, added

$39.99 for wheel locks. They sit down and relax because this is going to take a while. $399 for wheel locks. $379 for a window tent. $1,995 for xylon paint and leather protection. $399 for a basic maintenance plan. And you've got to sit down for this one. $580 for pinstripes and storage cars.

Penstripes and door-edge guards, if they cost $100, that's a lot. So they're charging $580 for pinstripes and door-edge cars. So this all adds up to $3,752, making the Bremen list price, not the Manorini label or MSRP, the Bremen list price, $3,750 over a sticker, which brings the total to $39,000 for, too. But as you probably know, there will be more. He returned only a few minutes later, and I could hear that he used the auto start from the remote key to start the vehicle. He approached the car inform me that it was actually running right now. But it was so quiet because it was a hybrid. I mentioned that I heard

the clicking, and I figured it was running to which he complimented me on my awareness. Very polite, very good salesperson so far. He opened the driver's door for me to get in, closed it, walked around to the passenger side before climbing in. Jorge went over all the different features the car had and pointed out that the interior lights for the 2023 models were new and were all LEDs. He also showed me the different driving modes, noticing that the car was on E. He suggested that it might be best empty. He suggested it might be best if I just drove it around the lot since there wasn't much gas. I agreed. mentioning that the car had only two miles on it, and it was still this low on gas.

Wow. Well, obviously the gauge is off, but it gives you an idea of, and I think the gauge is deliberately under, or they overstate the gas, just to give you a little safety factor. Understate, yeah, yep, I get you. So anyway, but it is interesting, it is, to be on empty with two miles on the odometer is, is interesting. I drove around and backed into a parking spot, and we headed back inside. On the way, Jorge went on to tell me how electric vehicles are the future and how they're much more powerful than gas vehicles. Both statements are true, in my opinion.

Once back inside, Jorge asked me if we could make a deal today, if the price was right, that's the price was right, that's standard sales procedure. I replied that I would need to discuss it with my husband before committing, and he said he understood. I informed him that we don't want any extras like wheel locks, door-edge guards, paint protection, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and he assured me he understood. I like that response. I understand. It's a good thing to say anytime when you're in an argument or discussion or negotiation, you can understand.

That's saying you're being polite, but you don't agree, but you understand. They mean a lot of things. He excused himself to print out the sales. returned a few minutes later with the sales worksheet. They all got worksheets. Why do they have the worksheet? Why don't they bring in an invoice or a buyer's order? Because the worksheet is not a legal document,

and they don't want to commit themselves. So they have a worksheet. If you look at the bottom of every worksheet, the car dealer gives you, or salesman gives you, at the bottom of the fine print it says, this is not a legal document and requires the signature and it goes on and on. We got the fine print.

Okay, the selling price on the worksheet was $35,650. They added $3,750 for the accessories we covered earlier, plus $998 processing documentary fee. My real price was $40,400 before taxes and legit government fees. After looking at Ovarie reiterated that I didn't want any of the extras. Jorge replied that the paint protection and window tent had already been applied. I mean, that's just stupid. I mean, it's not stupid.

It's smart on their part because people fall for it. And that gives them an excuse why they can't take it off the price, even though the cost of the application of the paint protection and window tent is a small fraction of what they're charging you. Because all of these dealers sold accessories are highly infighted in price. So he didn't think he could take this off. I expressed my doubt about buying the car then, as we had never used any of those features with past vehicles.

I asked about the other fees, and he explained that they were electronic fees for the title and plates. Now, that's not an explanation, that's a Dodge. Or he may have even been misled by his banning. And the manager may have been misled by the general manager of the dealer. You never know whether the person spouting the untruth had that same untruth told to him as a truth. You don't know. The buck stops with the owner of the dealership, but that's Brayman, Norman Brayman, and you're never going to get him to talk to.

He's totally out of touch. and then as a dealer fee which he claimed I like this the dealer fee which he claimed was dealership's only profit that's a new one see we put our profit right there with everything else is we don't make any money on we don't even make on the dock fee we don't make any money on the pay protection we don't make any money on the nitristen in the tires the only thing we make money on is a dealer that's a new one you gotta

you have to give Jorge credit for being interesting and different. He then asked you if we could make a deal right now if he took the fees off. In the business, we deal as we call that, if I could, would you? The manager says the salesman, give them if I could, would you?

That means you get them to commit. You're not going to sell in the car, but by giving them to commit, you deflate the balloon. You deflate the consumers balloon a little bit and you keep deflating the balloon until you pop it and that's when you slam dunk him so if I could would you or I said he would take these fees off if we had a deal then I questioned him whether his manager would approve

this to which he wrote at the bottom of the worksheet $2,000 and said done call your husband I've never seen that done but okay he pushed harder telling me to go ahead and call my husband, and that we would step away so I could call my husband secretly. I added the secretly. Lucky for me, my husband is great at playing a game, and Agent Lightning uses her husband frequently, and he's a great sport, and even they have family, children, and they've even used their kids in some of these shopping reports, and the husband quite often. so she must have said I'll be shopping Bremen Honda so when he called, she actually called her husband

and he declined my calls and when I texted him that I needed to talk to him by buying the car I came to see he responded with something short like later so he was busy he really was but that's what the that's what the plan was she knew he would do that Jorge returned I told him my husband wasn't available until later he asked me to please wait so he

I guess his manager to come to talk to me. I walked outside waiting for them to return. The manager approached me and asked what he could do to get me to buy the car right at that moment. I mean, these guys are good. Now, when I say good, I don't mean in the real definition of good, but they're good at what they do, which is ripping off customers.

I mean, they are well-trained, they're smooth, they got good play back and forth for the game. You know the game. the manager to the salesman game so they're good I walked outside waiting for them to return the manager approached me and asked me

what he could do to get me to buy the car right now he explained that Jorge had pretty much committed to taking off the $2,000 and selling the car to me for MSRP and I asked and I asked if he agreed to that

the manager confirmed that he did okay so he says I agree urging me to buy the car right now I told them there was no way I was buying a $40,000 car without my husband agreeing and seeing it first. I thanked him

then both of them assured that I'd be in touch. So there we have it. I mean Bremen is they saw a lot of cars. They saw a lot of B.M.Ws. They said a lot of Hondas. All the different makes and they are professional. I mean

I know some of the people in the Bremen operations. They're not shoddy. They screen. their people are good, they're smart, and they do what they do well, and they make a lot of money when they sell their cars. So there we have it. There is the mystery shopping report.

You grade on the curve, please, and you have to, unless you see some dishonest, lawbreaking, the seat, you should keep it between an A and a D-minus. If you want to flock up, go ahead. I'm not going to tell you how to vote. you vote the way you want to vote and we will take the sum and substance of the average of your vote and come up with a final vote so let's see what votes we have in so

far Rick okay let's see oh they're flying in right now and this one was a previous thing let's see ah from Jonathan and Wellington too many add-ons I'll give this ship an F. No time for games. Next one, we have Bob. It was a C for Brayman Honda, but I had already applied my grade protection, which I could not take off. So it became a D. I love this. Mark, no market adjustment, still junk fees, D. But he did have a good point with the no market adjustment. Ah, let's see here. Paul Anderson.

Standard add-ons, standard sales pitch, C-minus. Doug Tesler, L.S.S. F for fail. Meow. Here we have Toyota Tacoma, 1952. I vote a C-plus. Negan 1. I give him a C, but I have to work for a fair price. Tim Gilliland, not the worst, but still a D. Brian Siddletko, D-plus.

Mark Ryan a D Donovan A D The cost of those accessories It's just way too much Agreed Scott Hunter D Rocky Blockatiel

C-minus Not the worst we've seen Very true Guy Larraby D for the add-ons For myself I only saw one Heard one real

Untruth Which was that bit about Oh this is our only profit flat out lie that kind of insults me any average person is going to know that's a flat out lie

he could have been lied to by his manager I mean I don't think he was dumb enough to believe that but maybe that makes me go from a C to a D I'm knocking them because of that one but other than that I saw it as

being a C and average just they're playing the typical games Nancy? Typical games for sure and boy all these add-ons my goodness I give them a D-minus Okay

I'm going to give them a C I would like to say this we really vilify the addendum labels that is the market adjustment where you just take the MSRP and say because we don't have very many of these and you want this really bad

I'm going to charge you an extra 5,000 it sounds terrible It makes everybody, man, including me. But it's still more transparent than the BS fees when you charge, what was it, $399 for window 10 and pinstrives. So when you charge $300 for nitrogen or some of dealer-install accessories that are way inflated in price, that is trying to make you believe there's something that's not true. That's far more dishonest to say, hey, I only got one of these. I can sell it for $5,000 over a sticker, and I'm going to.

I mean, that makes me mad. I don't like them when they do that, but it's not dishonest. You look at me in the eye, and you tell them to the truth. And if I don't like the truth, I could go somewhere else and buy a car. But the sneaking end of these BS hidden fees, I don't like that at all. That's totally dishonest. So that's the reason I gave me to see. Yeah, $3.99 for the wheel locks, $3.79 for the window town.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're out of town. and we want to thank all of you for tuning in Daryl Stewart on Cars. You're a big part of the show. We enjoy your company. Weekend and week out. We'll be right back here next week. At the same time, 8 a.m. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

We'll see you then.