Earl Stewart on Cars - 04.02.2022 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of JM Lexus of Margate

Episode Date: April 2, 2022

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits the largest Lexus dealer again a year later to see how much over MSRP they will charge for a new 2022 Lexus RX-350 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. cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show.

Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back. Your auto rescue team. We're out here to rescue you from the evils of the car dealers in the world and help you navigate the purchase or lease of a car. with out fear also maintaining and repairing your car and we got a group here in the studio once a little late this morning but the rest of us are here and i'm sure that stew will be here shortly ran into some heavy traffic on the way to the show got rick kearney sitting to my right

and uh car dealers seem to talk more about new cars and anything else manufacturers talk about the new cars it's it's an obsession obsession obsession And what the real obsession should be with maintaining and repairing your car, because you buy a new car or a used car, whatever, it's new to you. You buy a car once every four or five years. Some people keep them 10 or 20 years. I was conversing on Facebook this morning with a woman who bought a GTO in 1966, a Pontiac GTO, and she's still driving it.

So you don't buy cars that often. You maintain a car, or at least you should, regular. And that's typically about every six months or 10,000 miles or 5,000 miles. I mean, depending on the car you drive, but at least twice a year. And you shouldn't run more than 10,000 miles without getting it checked, even if you are using the synthetic oil. And then you have little squeaks and rattles and rolls and things that worry you. Safety items, particularly, they come up, I don't care how good a car you got. You might have gone through the whole consumer reports thing and gotten the

best of the best but remember even the really really good cars have I hate to use the word lemons I mean manufacturing is manufacturing and you might have 99.9% of the product coming off the assembly line perfect but what about that one-tenth of one percent if you get one then you got a problem so Rick Kearney was in the studio is a unique individual he is versed on the advanced techniques in repairing cars. They're actually computers on wheels now. If you've been around as long as I have,

they used to be just purely mechanical. And that's the reason they called guys like Rick Mechanics. Well, he's not a mechanic. I think people still call him a mechanic. But he's really a computer diagnostic technician. And that's what you have to be. Software, firmware, you've got to be able to download and upload and all that kind of thing if you've

had problems with your Bluetooth coordinating with your car play your your radio your information system or whatever you want to call it you know what I'm talking about it can be a headache and if you have a question about cars and the working of the car the maintenance of the car the repair of a car something got worry. You're going to take a long trip. Maybe you're going to North Carolina or you're going to California or wherever you're going. You don't want to hop in a car and get on the expressway and find yourself Sunday afternoon with smoke or a very, very loud noise or something terrible. You want to be sure that car is checked out. So oftentimes you can call

Rick Kearney here at, I'm going to give you the number probably a million times during this show the next two hours. 877-960-99. 877 960 9960. What's worrying you about your car? What are you thinking about? You get in the car and you, other than the fact that you're worried about your low on gas, usually some little thing, you know,

maybe something happened with the steering or the braking or the horn wasn't quite right, something. Give Rick a call. He might be able to self, do a diagnosis that you can fix yourself or at least he can guide you where you you should go and how much you spend. And he's pretty good at diagnosing. And if you really want to get a good diagnosis, take a picture or do an audio recording.

Hey, this is the 21st century. You take your smartphone, get an audio file, shoot it over to Rick Kearney, we'll give you his text number, his email number, he'll give it to you. By the way, he's monitoring YouTube right now as YouTube.com forward slash rural on cars. youtube.com forward slash Erlund Cars. And you just contact Rick, give him a little bit of information and sure enough, free diagnosis,

no charge. We're all free here at Erlun Cars. And my oldest son just walked into the studio. He was a little bit off. He said he'd be here at 803. He was here at 806. But Stu monitors our

Facebook channel, and that's Facebook.com forward slash Erlon Cars. You can stream us. live, you can see Stu in all his handsome glory or Rick Kearney or Nancy Stewart to my left, my co-host and or

if you dare look at my pretty face, I'm right here. Shreamus, YouTube.com forward slash roll-on cars YouTube.com or Facebook.com ford slash Rurlong cars. So there's channels there.

And of course our telephone number 877, 960, 99060, prioritizing the telephone number. The telephone number shows your personality. You can also show your anger, show your confusion, show your whatever. You know, it's personalized. A lot of angry, confused callers. A lot of angry calls. 877. We love angry calls, by the way. And if if you are angry, really? Let's hear from you car dealers

out there. This show, we're the pro. of car dealers of the world. We have a lot of people say, why does he do that? He's made a good living and being a dealer all his life and now he's condemning his trade. He's being disrespectful

to car dealers. Well, we can talk about that. And we'd love to have you call 877-960-9960. If you're working at a car dealership, we mystery shop hundreds of car dealerships. We've been doing it for multiple years, Rick?

Oh, he was just waving on me. He was waving at Nancy. That's okay. Everybody's waving at you now, too. You know what I think? Hold on a second. We're a loosey-goosey shows. Now, calm down. We're friendly. No, no, I think with the car dealers that hate you,

I think it's because you're speaking the truth and not because you threaten them. I think everybody has the inner voice telling them when they're doing something wrong. You just made your inner voice very public. I'm not so sure. I'm trying to be an optimist. Well, I know, but I remember when I was evil, and I had an invoice that just said, you go, Earl, and screw those customers when they came in.

I mean, the more customers I could screw, the happier I was, and the more money I made. And I say that, not tongue-in-cheek. Thank you for raising me to have an interview. I've been in the business since 1968, and let me tell you, the stuff we did back then, it's embarrassing now. I mean, I'm telling you. Let's talk about undercoding. Bait and switch advertising. I wrote the book.

on Baton's Watch advertising. I was in a group of dealers. We met three times a year. They call them 20 groups, about 20 dealers. Get around and we compare notes, and we still do that. But back then, I was the king of the Baton Switch. I had a devious sale that I did, and they referred to it as Earl's Sale. And I won't tell you what that was all about, but it was devious, it was deceptive,

and it was unfair, all the above. Now, here I am. Here I am, and I've found the right way along the path to righteousness, and we're here to help you. We've got some other channels that come in that are more popular than the ones I've already mentioned, really. Sometimes, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Nobody else has this. You can contact the show, communicate with us, with total anonymity, Y-O-U-R, A-N-O-N-Y, M-O-U-S, Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

And we can't trace you. I know some people don't believe that. Because I think one of the reasons that the dealers were afraid to use that is because they think I really can't trace it. Because they're devious and they think it's a trap that I'm just put. Yeah, you can't. But I give you my word of honor. A couple of times I wished it could have been cracked, but it can't be cracked.

Actually, a lot of people on your anonymous feedback tell us who they are. I don't know why. But anyway, I guess they're in the habit of doing it, but we, on my word of honor, we can't find you. Or just Google a company incognito, but they're spelled instead of the, it's I-N-C-O-G, N-A-T-O, like, N-A-T-O, Incognito, Google it, and then you'll see. Yeah, it's N-A-T, instead of N-A-T, incognito with N-A-T-O-N-Cognito.com. And that's a company that you can sign up and have your own anonymous feedback. And I recommend. If you're a glutton for punishment.

To all businesses, truly. But anyway, I was saying, Stu, there's our mystery shopping report. We're doing it for years. Dispatches our secret undercover agent. Choose the dealership. And I don't, you know, it's the highlight of the show. We probably don't talk about it often enough. But if you haven't, if you don't want to listen to anything else,

tune in at the end of the show. Last 20 minutes, half an hour. We're on from 8 to 10 Eastern Standard Time. listen to the mystery shopping report. We walk in undercover and we have men and women. We, right now we've been using women for quite a while, one woman in particular, but we switch back and forth, because we've been doing it for years and years. And we pretend to buy or lease a car. Sometimes we pretend to repair or maintain a car. We don't do enough of that, but we'll do more. And all of these are online at our own cars.com. You can go to our mystery

shopping reports and go to the archive. We put them YouTube and you can see these that we've done over the years. Most of them are bad and we keep a track of the good reports and the bad reports and you could go online and discover the good dealers and the bad dealers at our own cars.com. We're great on the curve because there are no perfect dealers. In full transparency disclosure, we have a dealership. I own a dealership. And we're not perfect, although we try to be. It's a working process. We'll always be a working process. Anybody tells you they're perfect. Anybody tells you the best of the best? They're lying. It can't be perfect. There's no such thing as perfection. You just got to keep on trying. So, Kaisen. Exactly. Kaysen,

continuous improvement. So at any rate, if you're not in Florida, you don't. If you're not in Florida, not going to find too many dealers, although Agent Lightning, our undercover agent, has traveled out of state and out of South Florida, and we have several that are Tennessee and Pennsylvania. So we're reaching out, and who knows, one day we may do all the states. I mean, we keep getting bigger. If we can syndicate this show. How about why don't the three of us go on a road tour across the country, and we can do the, nobody knows to have a bad idea. What we should do is any time any of us go anywhere. we should make it part of the trip to do a mystery shopping report.

They wouldn't recognize us. We're not known. We're not known. I would love that. Okay, folks, let's do this. Let me turn the show over to Nancy Stewart, my co-host. She is the only man, the only man. She's the only woman in the studio with all men.

I can be a man. There's a woman in the control. What's our gal's name in the control room? Elise. Elise does a fabulous job. But she's alone here, Nancy's alone among a world of men in the studio. But she's a female advocate. At least is our first.

She's a female advocate. And she will give you a special offer if you're a lady listening to the show and you will call. It takes a lot of courage to call the show. Be live, radio. I know that. But you're doing your fellow women of service by getting them to participate. and the more participation we had by women, we're just trying to reach parity.

Over half the buyers are women. Why shouldn't be the people listening to Earl and Cars be women half? And we're getting close to it. So Nancy Stewart will tell you all about that. Yeah, let's get. I'm going to get through this real quick, ladies and gentlemen, because we have to get to the phones.

First of all, I want to mention, first of all, I want to thank all of the ladies that have supported me and their feedback has really, been instrumental in getting us to where we are today in the platform that we have built together and I really truly appreciate all of you and as a tradition goes every Saturday I let you know that you can receive $50 the first two new lady callers you can receive $50 for calling the show and just maybe saying hello or let us

letting us know how your car buying experience went, or if you're building on your old car, taking care of it and making sure it's safe to stay on the road until you can afford these outrageous prices. Our telephone number is 877-960-9960, and you can also text us at 772-497-6530. And also I want to mention real quick that you can subscribe at Earl Stewart on Cars, and you can take and subscribe to the following podcast apps

from your iPhone or your Android, and that's Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon, music, and Stitcher Radio. Also, don't forget, SoundCloud app. So there's a whole lot of options in getting in touch with us. I am going to go straight to the phones, and Well, one more thing, Dana, if you're listening, I have everything handled for you, and we're going to get that request that you made taking care of positively this week. We're going to go to Howard in Jupiter Farms. He's our first caller, and Steve and Bob, please be patient. We'll get right to you. Good morning, Howard.

Good morning. How are you guys doing? Beautiful day today. It is. Hope it doesn't rain. Okay, so first, I know you don't like the commercials. You don't like the infomercials, but let me tell you something. You have a writer, service writer, who speaks Spanish and French.

And I speak French fluently, and I spoke to him, and I went over everything that I needed, and I said, I need a cabin filter. It's two. He said to me, wait a second. you should get that every two years he said I don't know if you need it I'll check it out

and if you need it I'll give you a cabin filter when I came back he said we checked it out you don't need a cabin filter we do it every two years I've never heard of a service writer that

doesn't not want to sell you a thing what do you have to say about that sounds like Wilner to me it's rare you know you I read a lot of books on customer satisfaction, and I'm reading one now that makes that point that, you know, you can't make a person understand how to treat a customer.

It's almost, it's something that is developed during their earlier life somehow. So when you're selecting people, you have to, and you get lucky every now, and then that's what happened here, and we're just appreciate you're complimenting him. Hey, say something. Howard, say, I love Erlon cars more than anything in the world in French. And I like a lot, monsieur, because he's very good. He has made all the things good, excellently. Merci, beaucoup.

It just sounds so much better. Yeah, it sounds so much better in French. I love the French language. Oh, Spanish, okay. that he told what he had to do it was superbo I'm going to

use it always when I stay all the world oh wow all the world listen thank you for that my mother

my mother was Moroccan she spoke to me in Spanish and in French because they were on the border of Spain and French is the language

France as well as Arabic so I speak Arabic, French, and Spanish. What a great mom you had. If people today just understood that, a lot of people that are, you know, from

any from other countries, insist on English in the house. And what a waste. I mean, what a great mom you had. Yeah. Okay, let me say another thing. I was at Costco in line to get gas.

And I think it's a North Palm beach. Anyway, a guy was filling his gas tank and jumping up and down on his cart, and he kept on filling. And I said to him, excuse me, sir, I think you're going to ruin your canister. So he said to me, where'd you get that information? I said, her, no, I said, it's common knowledge. Google it.

He said, he already said to me, he said, I've been doing this for five years. I have no problem with my canister, so why don't you just F-O? Yeah, unfortunately, a significant portion of the world has that method of thinking, but you tried, you did the right thing. So I cursed them out in Arabic and I love it. Oh, I'd love to be able to learn some Arab curse words. That'd be a letter of them. Arabic is such expressive language if you want to be angry and passionate.

Howard, the only thing, the only thing I can speak. is curse words in the Sicilian. So it is useful sometimes. I'm going to call you after the show and give some really good curse words in Arabic and memorize them. Okay. Nancy, pedamad. I'm here by the Sicilian. My wife was Sicilian. Oh, really? Wow. You met her many years ago when you used to open up the new car boys, you used to invite them down and have it. You remember those days?

It's a long time ago. But anyway, she was very impressed with you, and she spoke to you in Sicilian. Ah, interesting. I like that. Thank you. You've got to be our most entertaining caller, Howard. I tell you what. And you're also one of our most intelligent callers, obviously.

But good Lord, keep on calling. You are amazing. I had no idea. I remember now he spoke French and Spanish. I didn't realize that you spoke Arabic. I mean, that is really cool. So, anyway, thanks so much for your contributions to the show. and please call again.

Thank you very much. Have a good day. Thanks, Howard. Always great hearing from you. Steve, give us a call back. I do apologize for your wait. We're going to go to Bob, who's calling from Lake Park. Good morning, Bob.

Thank you for your patience. Good morning, good morning. French. I remember they used to make cars they sold in this country. They were called Renaultz and Pugros. They were terrible. Earl used to sell Pugéges. Yeah.

I saw Pugégeos in my... My roommate in college at the University of Florida had a Renault. And I can remember fearing for my life when we were driving, you know, home. And that Renault was like a... With the brakes work? Right. I almost, you know, I was... You know, I was a kid.

And it was between that and a 240Z. That's when the 240Z first came out. Yeah. It was a Doxon. Yeah. And I didn't have the money. for either one of them, so I never really got one, but the Renault was

really a terrible terrible car. But I wanted to talk to you about something I came across this morning. I like to have your opinion on this article I read. It was in USA today about what Honda and their accurate division are doing. Have you read about this?

I'm not sure. What is it? It's called True Honda, yeah, their certified program. Yeah, it goes out 10 years. Right. That's pretty standard. Oh, I had never seen that before. Are they the only ones that are doing it? No, most manufacturers have a

certified program. They branded there as Honda True. There's as good though. I mean, it's about the same as Toyota's, but I think Honda actually gives like free oil changes, like two oil changes. But most of them... Yeah, so it means, yeah, they do a, they have a more rigorous inspection. I'm saying that for Earl Sturt's laughing, but there's a more calls for a more rigorous inspection

and then there's extra warranty coverage and some other little perks. Yeah, Bob, also the also accurate precision. They have one for the other division. Right, it's the fancy version for that. I had never seen that before. Normally certified pre-owned cars

usually cars that are just three years old, are they not? Usually, well there's a limited amount. I don't know if it's three years Honestly, I think it might be as far back as five years, and there's a mileage restriction, too, but I've got to check on that. From the date of the new car delivery. Yeah.

One of the problems, just as a heads-up, Bobbin, you know, a certified used vehicle can be great, but I've always had a problem with them because there's two things that are wrong. The manufacturers offer the certified program, and they advertise it, and they push the dealers, they have contests to sell. sell more and more used certified cars and I always wondered when they first came out why are they pushing used cars they sell me new cars they don't make any money when they sell a used car well wrong they say they make money when I sell a used car if I certify it because I have to pay them to certify the car now that's number one they're pushing the they're pushing the certified program

not because they're good people and they're worried about you bob they're worried about making more money and they sell they make more money from me because they push me to certify the cars now that would be okay if I did do the right thing but to certify the car it's gets rather involved and Rick is looking at me he knows exactly what I'm talking about it's a it's a fairly how many different items are required to be checked Rick on a certified car basically a certified car is a new car that the odometer does not read zero okay what's not We go over every nut and bolt.

Every suspension piece has to be checked. The light bolts, the seat belts, everything has to be perfect. So Rick says to we, he's talking about himself. It's up to the technician. And so a used car comes in. The used car manager calls the service department. A guy comes over, picks it up, the tech, and he's going to certify, yeah, I want to certify this.

So he comes back with a check sheet, and it's got all the boxes are checked, and now it's a certified car. Who knows what really was done to that car? I just want to add, there is a system of checks and balances, and that's if anything does go wrong, and it's not perfect. But if something comes back and something's wrong with the component that was checked off, that is no, that expense goes to the service department and could potentially affect the technician who claimed that he did this, but we had to fix it and pay for it. Yeah, but who's going to report that to the manufacturer? You're only talking about, you're only talking about mechanical, though, right? No, I'm talking, we're talking mechanical and also the TOTA certified checklist.

It's not just pure mechanical. Rick, give some examples. It's interior finish trim pieces. Yeah, there can be no, no deformed parts, no holes in the seats, the holes in the carpet. No dense or scratches. No dense or dings, you know, a few minor scratches might not. That's why it shouldn't be. I'm trying to get my point across here. A chain is only as strong as this weakest link. The weakest link is at tech in the car. in the car dealership where they're selling you a used car did he do the work chances no text get paid on commission and and they get X dollars to do the certification if they can do it five minutes they're ahead of the game right what

happens if the vehicle had been hit and then redone and you don't see any dense or scratches that's not that's also no that's also part of it it has to be I think I have a clean history report. CarMax we'll have that car fax. But those aren't those car max those car faxes are not always

they're not 100%. No. The vehicle would have to have been reported by the police report and have an insurance claim on it. But it's really easy when here's what we usually know for a one of a used car inventory

when we inspect it is very easy to tell if it's been had any paint work we use meters. So if any paint work or body work had been done we would know. And obviously, but there you go. I mean, there could be an unethical dealer, a Honda dealer that knows it's been a wreck and went ahead and certified it anyway. So it can happen.

So I'll get to my bottom line on certified cars. When you buy a car, Bob, if you want a certified car, go to the dealership, pick out the car you want, and say, you don't want it certified, but you want it to go through the checklist. And you could even take it to your own mechanic. But say, I want to be sure this is done. if they do the check and they correct everything in the check you got a certified car without the insurance policy and you're saving the 600 bucks or 800 bucks that the dealer had to pay the manufacturer for the certification which he passed along to you and the price so you'll save six or 800 bucks and you'll still have the same thing you have that you should have when they certified the car yeah they'll do that for you i mean some of the cars are already some of the cars are already been on the lot that are already certified I wouldn't know what I would say about this

but typically the service department charges the used car department about 150 bucks to do that inspection that's a lot cheaper the warranty you could offer say I'll pay 150 bucks and do the whole certified inspection

as long as they do what the used car department wants them to do I mean I'm not picking on Rick and his ilk I'm talking about Rick is unique and I'm going to say it's not just Rick in our shop

just for the listers out there Our guys do it right. We have, okay, we got 28 technicians. There's a rotten apple in every barrel. Okay, again, perfection doesn't exist. And there are some dealerships where they've got a lot of rotten apples in the barrel. Actually, by your rule, there's only about, I think, seven techs in our shop that are allowed to do certified. Okay.

All right, Bobby, excellent point, and I'm glad you brought up. You alerted a lot of people out there about the truth and consequences of the truth. certification of used cars but it's uh well according to the article honda said they're doing this for a particular reason and that's to attract younger buyers to get into their product and then they figured they have a large retention on people that buy their product so they figured if they can get them into a honda or an accurate money at an early age that they'll come back to you know another that's the philosophy that's the overall arching philosophy

when we discuss certified with the manufacturer that's one of the reasons they give us they but that's not the real reason follow the money bro follow the money they say it introduces younger people at a more affordable price point and then when they get married and have kids and they buy a sienna yeah the 600 bucks they make from the dealer

means nothing to them they donate that to charity right I'm being positions yeah okay I didn't know that I thought that was just, now, is that just something, are the American manufacturers doing the same thing, or is it just under? I'm pretty sure. All the manufacturers, they jumped on this certified used car big time.

You know, they get trips. They have trips and contests and prizes every month. We get a list of all the dealers in South Florida, the other Toyota dealers, who does the best job and certified cars. And it's not, it's not done for the goodness of their hearts. If you give me another minute, there's another important thing to talk about these things. Okay, you mentioned earlier about how far back you can, how old a car can be. I said it's mostly five years. There's a limit to the benefit that you get depending on how old, because it limits you how much warranty coverage.

So you could spend all that money for the certified car, but they might be certifying one that technically can be certified because it falls. It's 2017, and it has 99,000 miles. only 1,000 miles left to coverage, but you're still paying certified money for it. And so a lot of dealers do that to get this benefit. So they report them to the manufacturer. They certify everything that's technically certifiable, but the value doesn't be passed on. You should only certify the ones that are really good, is what I'm trying to say. For my experience years ago, when you went to the dealers a lot, and they had certified

pre-owned cars, most of those cars were usually off-lease, coming off-lease, and they still had mileage guarantees on them and they would still have uh they would they have and they would have uh they would all be only by three years old uh you know that was typically years ago what they did with the certified cars as far as i knew i never know they would extend them out and uh because i had looked at them years ago and they were mostly off lease cars and i mean and that's what they would do and then they were you just have to know what the in-service date was and then you would know how, you know, how long would have until you would get the extended mileage on the vehicle.

Well, Bob, thanks a lot. We've got to move along here, and we've covered a very important subject. Thank you thoroughly, and I'm sure we alerted a lot of people. Yeah, absolutely, certified cars. You want to know what you're getting. Bob, have a great weekend. 877-960. And you can text us at 772-497-60.

Let me ask everyone out there, did you know that only 1% of cars in the U.S. are electric? Less than 1% actually. And that's pretty interesting. Also, San Francisco is introducing Waymo on their streets, and I find that very interesting. Give me your thoughts. Taxi cabs. Taxi cabs. Self-driving taxi cabs?

Yeah. Rick. That's going to change pretty quick, too, because the federal government, has just announced that by 2026, the average miles per gallon that manufacturers have to meet is going to increase from 28 miles per gallon across the board on their cars. I think it was close to 60. 40. Is it 54?

40. 40 miles per gallon. Still, that's across the board on all their cars, including all the big trucks. That average has got to be 40. so they're going to try very hard to get more electrics on the road sounds like a great great idea folks what do you think out there give us a call also ladies

49 is it 49 MPG give us a call at 877 960 9960 and if you are the first lady caller you win yourself $50 the first two lady callers this morning win themselves each $50

also let me open up some conversation about Tim, T.I.M. Up at Traditions and has anyone taken advantage of that little ride? Everyone that I've spoken to really find it very interesting. Rick, your comment? I was just going to say internationally. Canada has announced that by 2035, they're going to stop the sale of internal combustion engine cars, new cars, in Canada, by 2035. California plans do? Yep. It's going to be very interesting.

So here we have no steering wheels, no pedals. Just an interesting future we are going to be encountering. I can't wait. Unfortunately, there's less than 1% of electric vehicles. And as I said before, about manufacturers and car dealers don't believe anything the government says either. And I think highly unlikely that Canada will make it illegal. I think somebody got his mouth got carried away. over his brain.

Could be, yeah. And he made a statement. But, you know, there's two ways that manufacturers can comply. And one is just to pay the fine. And if you're making enough money selling the combustion engine cars that don't get good gas mileage,

you can afford to pay the fines. So I'll just drive up the car. You also buy green credits. And Tesla and other manufacturers and Tesla's usually the only one. But they sell their green. credits if they get because they don't have any pollution and they earn these credits they sell them the General Motors in Ford and Honda and Toyota so if

you have the green credits you can sell a lot of gas guzzlers that pollute the atmosphere and have the green credits to cover it up so smoke and mirrors folks what what you read ain't what's gonna happen it's just what it's all over the place yeah ladies and gentlemen we're gonna go back to the phones where Marty's waiting from West Palm Beach. Welcome back, Marty. Good morning, Marty. I want to ask either Earl or Stuh

or both of them this question. The Honda dealer told me now, if you have a Honda lease, you have to either buy the car yourself if you wanted or turn it back to a Honda dealer. You cannot take it over to a Toyota dealer and have the Toyota dealer buy it. True, that sounds right.

Okay, is that true on Toyota cars too? They won't give a payoff, but if you have a sympathetic ear, which you won't find anywhere at a dealership, you could get it from a Toyota dealership, but they will not provide payoffs, so that means the dealership won't know what to pay, and send the check for it, how much it's then make the checkout for it. It is their car, Marty, so they own the car contractually,

and they can pretty much require that you take it to who they want. I can see why. If you're a Honda manufacturer, want the car going to a Honda dealer to return it because they have the control over the Honda dealer. If you take it to a Toyota dealer, they don't know the guy, they have no control and they might lose their car. Okay. And my second question is, let's say, I assume that, okay, that's true. Is there any way that I can buy the car from the Honda dealer or the Honda company, not pay the sales

tax and then bring the carovers, let's say, to you and you buy it from me. You have to pay the sales tax. And different manufacturers have leasing companies have different rules. But in some cases, they will allow you to deal directly with the leasing company. Sometimes they make you go through the dealer. The problem with going to the dealer is they hit you with their hidden fees. And unfortunately, there's no control over that. We had one caller a couple weeks ago that really did some research, and I think it was Hyundai,

but they got on the phone with Hyundai leasing, and they gave them the name of a dealer in Gainesville, if memory serves, that did not charge a dealer fee, and that caller was able to return the car, exercise the option through the dealer, and buy the car back with no additional fees added. So, every manufacturer and dealer is different, but you can minimize your extra cost to exercise your purchased option if you take the time. Okay, so I've got two years to worry about this. Yeah. But assuming that it's the same two years from now, so I would have to buy the car, pay the sales tax, and then sell the car to you, if I wanted a Toyota.

Yeah, you have to pay the sales tax if you buy the car, and that's the state of Florida. They won't let you get away without it. Okay. All right, so now you've got to make an extra 7% from you to make it feel worthwhile.

It shouldn't be a problem today. Or three years from now, I don't know. Different story, yeah. And just one other point I want to make, with the electric car business, would they say, oh, there's only 1% now or less to 1%. I think you're still going to have gasoline cars for the next 25 years.

I'm probably not going to be around to make sure that that's true, but I still feel you're going to have gasoline for a long time. Sure. To have everybody in the United States all of a sudden become electric and have no more gas stations and just have chargers, it's not going to happen. I agree, Marty. We still got horses. I agree.

And if there's no more gas stations, you know, where are we going to get slurpees and snacks? There you go. That's right. 7-11. Thanks for the call, morning. Love hearing from you. Let's go to Dennis, who's waiting, calling us from Lake Worth. Good morning, Dennis.

Good morning, Dennis. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you. I hear you all eyes every Saturday morning. Thank you. morning. Yesterday I was reading an interesting article. I'm from St. Louis

and the St. Louis Post dispatch where they were had an article about Napleton happened to pay a $10 million fine for ripping off, I guess, minority customers and I thought that was since Napleton never seems to do well in the reviews

with you guys, if you had heard about that. Yeah, he's the local bandit that we, it's almost laughable. The crimes committed and the loss I had no idea he was just as bad in St. Louis. I guess there was a dealership in the suburbs of St. Louis and there was 51 other dealerships and with minority customers, they were adding on things after the contract was signed, they

were charging them higher interest rates and they had to pay the federal government $10 million fine for their... Is that all? Is that all? Dennis, that's called the Napleton Way. Yeah, yeah, I know. I hear you, when I read it, I think, well, I'm not surprised about this because all the reviews I've ever heard and seen of you guys do in Napleton, so I didn't know if you guys had heard that, and I just thought it was a quite interesting take on Napleton. Dennis, doesn't it amaze you, though, that how we talk about it's in the press, it's, I mean, I mean, there have been, I can't list the number of crimes.

I'm just not talking about car selling crimes, other crimes, I mean, real crimes, and lawsuits, and it goes on and on. on and yet people go in and buy cars from mapleton it just keeps on amazing the amount of business that they still do the deals yeah it's the it's the you know low prices and it's the yeah trade values and you think they got it all you would think that the manufacturers would have some some concern and control but the dealers are so protected they're like an endangered species they are endangered i say they we and we're endangered but we're protected by state laws I could do about... Like spotted outs.

As a dealer, I'm a franchise dealer. I can just about do anything, and Toyota can't cancel my contract. I mean, I'm protected by state law, lobbied into the state of Florida, and all 50 states have these laws protecting us dealers from anything, from the manufacturers, from the customers, from the attorneys. I mean, we're bulletproof. I wonder $10 million or get their attention at all, or if that's just a drop in the bucket with all the yeah 10 million right yeah jump change yeah exactly that's that's great

information on Dennis it's sad but it's we we laugh at it but it's really sad that this happens and they don't do anything about it I mean why if you if if Nissan or he's got so many different franchises I don't know where to stop but it let's say for example if Nissan doesn't cancel Napleton who are they going to cancel nobody I mean he's got a contract and the allows them to retail cars for the public and all they have to do is cancel his contract but they can't do it so that's what we have thanks for the call very much dennis thank you thank you bye bye bye 877 960 or you can text us at 772 4930 ladies i'm sitting here with a hundred dollars

for the first two new lady callers you can win yourself 50 each this morning. Give us a call. That number again. 877-960-99-60. Now back to, I think probably Stu has some text ready. And it's already quarter to nine. We haven't gotten any text yet. I got, well, I just got a text. Let's see. Let's see who's this from. I don't even know. But the text, I don't have a name on there, but it says, if you ever seen a better incentive than this, And this is a Garvey North, and it's a Hyundai dealer, and he's giving away a dozen donuts with every car sold. Hey, maybe that's what Napleton's doing.

You know, I like that. Donuts for much. Donuts for March. Yeah, donuts for March. I love it. Thanks for the text, whoever you are. It's not very healthy. They're sugar-free.

Okay, that's good. From Anne Marie. She says, Good Morning. I understand that you only sell cars, you don't design them. However, I'm hoping you can answer this question anyway based on your long experience with cars. My 1989 Honda Accord had the horn on the edge of the steering wheel. Nowadays, most, if not all cars, have the horn in the center of the steering wheel,

and it appears that it's in the middle of the driver's airbag. If I blow the horn because a car is coming at me and we collide, my hand will be coming back at me at 200 miles per hour blasted by the airbag. Why isn't the horn on the rim of the steering wheel? what were they the manufacturer's thinking I saw this night I looked it up just to see and yeah your hand will be injured and you'll be injured but the point is you're going to be injured by the airbag regardless I mean you don't get out scratch-free and I don't know the answer to why they put it in the middle I think maybe has to do with the reaction time you know

you're getting a panic you just got to hit something well you're not going to believe this San Mary, but my Tesla, my Tesla plaid horn is on the steering wheel on the corner, and I hate it. And it's in the upper right. I actually have a yoke instead of a round wheel. And a little button there is the horn. And I got a bunch of other little buttons. And every time I'm in a situation where I want to blow my horn, I start slapping the steering wheel. I can find the horn. That's not the steering wheel. That's me. By the time I find the horn, the disaster is gone. And one, Elon Musk would put a horn button maybe maybe you talk to Anne Marie and she said hey don't you think people's hands might get hurt by this airbag right and he says yeah

but you know Mary we need to talk and oh but it's a really cool horn I can make my horn oh yeah sounds like a goat I can it'll even you'll even it'll even it'll even impersonate flatulence yes and you can say fart on the radio I can okay and I don't I don't like the word, though, so I'll say, Fletchance. And you can do a custom horn. You can say, get out of my way, you blankety-blank, and you can record your voice, and that becomes your horn. The problem is you can't find the horn when you need it.

Oh, God, I need counseling, all because he bought a Tesla. You know, you can also do a screaming goat sound, and it's the best one. It sounds like a human screaming. Oh, really? Yeah. And guess what? I don't drive the Tesla any longer. Either do I.

I'm going to get in trouble here, but I've written with Earl a couple times. I have seen the man drive. He doesn't need a button in the middle. He needs like one of those giant safety pads. A straight jacket. That the hand cannot damage because. Hey, Rick. There's not a scratch on the Tesla.

I am a seasoned passenger. Yeah, my Tesla's safety score is down to 93. You've got ice water running in your veins. You better believe it. Ice water. Thank you, Ann Marie. See, look at you. You prompted the one of the best comments.

I love it when we did. We just opened up the discussion. She does. We're going to go back to the phones. We are going to go back to the phones, and I'm going to tell everyone to please hold on. We're going to take Tony's call, but John from Palm City and Kim, who's holding from Palm Beach Gardens. Please bear with us. Tony, good morning.

Good morning to you. It's a pleasure to talk to you. I have a question of, I have a 2019 Avalon. It has an adaptive light. In other words, I don't have to... Turn on the brights. No, explain how adaptive light work. Okay.

It's a, basically, oh, are we talking about the adaptive high beans or the ones that turn? High beams. Right. So it detects oncoming lights, and when you're driving at night with your headlights on, it will put them on and put the high beams on. If it sees oncoming headlights or tail lights that you're approaching,

somebody will put them into the low thing, and you don't have to do it manually. It will automatically put them on bright or dim for you. So you put it on automatic, is that correct? Leave it on all the mind? Yep, you leave it on all the time. Okay. And I think that answer a question. Now, I have another problem.

Do you like that, though? Because I'm not sure I like that feature. I know it turns off, but it turns off at the last possible second. You'll be on a curve, and your high beams will be coming on, and you'll see a car coming, but it stays on the last second. As soon as it detects the oncoming headlights, it turns it off,

and I think I'm blinding the guy for a brief second. I don't know if I am or not. Well, there's actually two systems. One is the automatic headlights. We're getting too granular here. Let's go on to Tony's next question. I don't know if he had another question. Tony can say what he wants because I love his accent.

Okay, thank you very much. I don't love my accent. In Cuba, my accent. was, when I spoke English, I had a terrible accent when I spoke English. Okay, so, next question. I got a little boat. Can my avalon tow a small boat? Yes, a very, very small boat.

Very small boat. Do I have to put, you know, sometimes you have to adapt a certain thing and put something in your engine to be able to do it or something? Can you explain this how you can add something to the engine or cooler? I think

it's a cooler. Rick, doesn't the owner's manual give to you the towing capacity of even a car? Yes, and Avalon's actually technically are not rated for towing. How big is your boat, Tony? It's a Boston Whaler.

How big is it? Length? 18 feet. I don't know inches. 18 feet? Yeah, that's a small boat. Yes. Yeah, the boats and whale is a small boat.

Yeah. Eight feet. Yes, that's the smallest boat you can have. It sounds like a whale. It's a big whale. Yeah, it's a flat bottom. More like a tender. A flat bottom.

Okay. You probably won't need to modify anything on the car. What you're talking about is a transmission cooler, which is an added little radiator that hooks in to try to help cool the transmission fluid. You don't want to do that on an Avalon because the new transmissions are designed very, very specific on their amount of fluid. So you don't want to do that. We got a lot of calls waiting here, Rick. I think the basic answer, Tony, is I would be very nervous about towing anything because the owner-manual says you shouldn't tow.

If something happens and you get out of your warranty, you have a power train warranty on the 2019 even now, and you don't want to avoid your warranty, and it could possibly do that. So be careful. And when it says no one, the owner's manual, I recommend, you just don't do it. And Tony, I have an Avalon, and I certainly wouldn't think, you know, of towing anything on it or behind it. I hope we've answered your question. Yeah, you made me very sad. I'm sorry.

Yeah, it would make you sad. Tony, thanks so much for giving us a call. I hope to hear from you again. Thank you. Bye. Okay. 877-960. Please, John, well, we're going to go to John in Palm City,

but I'm going to ask Kim to please hold on. Good morning, John. Good morning. I have a question for Rick. People are keeping their cars longer now, and it's understandable why, and they don't want to spend a lot of money. The tire sensor, which is basically a computer in each wheel, it's a battery and it's a computer. The battery part, is there any particular life, people keep in car 12, 15 years that when that battery goes and you have to replace it, which is expensive?

And second part of that, can it be disconnected in any way from the computer? there is no known lifespan some of them go in five six years some may last 10 or 12 years it just depends on just luck of the draw but yeah eventually those batteries will die and you'll have to replace the sensor because they don't have a way to replace just the battery on your signal will not happen Rick is there something that flashes or says your battery sensor's dead yes the tire pressure warning light when you start the car will come on and it will blink for about the first 30, 40 seconds, then it will go on solid. That tells you that it's a bad sensor, not just a low tire. And unfortunately, there's really nothing you could do except maybe you stick a little piece of tape over that light.

I'll tell you a fast fix on it. My wife met a woman in the gym. Unfortunately, she lost her husband about a year ago from COVID-19. And she went out, and she's tired of the gas station pumps. It's like a gambling machine. I mean, a lot of them you have to pay. They're not accurate before you know what your money is due. So she went out and bought an instrument.

It's like a portable drill. I have the name of it. It's all Airhawk. It's an actual portable, the same portable like a drill, and it's a battery, the same type of battery it uses, and it has a gauge in it which you can set, and it shuts off automatically. It's fantastic, but they suggest that you don't use it for more than 10 minutes

because it tends to overheat, and it wasn't that expensive. It was $69, and then she took a piece of tape, masking black tape, and she just covered that part of the light of her car, but she's good because she checks it twice a month, her air pressure. She's very fussy about that, but the lighter noise, and she, She just taped it over, so it makes sense. By the way, this AirHawk company, it's an 844 number 570-9860, and it's a great instrument. You don't have to have a compressor around.

It even works from AC, you plug it in, and also you can plug it into the cigarette lighter. So I just thought I mentioned that, and this is the clever people, females today that are on top of things, maybe not so smart to you know cover up your sensor but you don't want to spend the money and I don't blame her I've carried a little plug-in air compressor in my truck for the past actually in my vehicles for the past 30 years plugs in the cigarette lighter and it'll pump up a tire John thanks so much for that information we really appreciate you every week you come to us with something new all the time. Well, clever of the females. Thanks. Thanks for that too, John. Everyone's listening to you. Have a wonderful weekend. I know you'll stay tuned for the Mystery Shopping Report.

Okay, we're going to go to Kim, who's been patiently holding from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning. Good morning, Kim. I have a question. I have a 2018 Honda Accord, and I've owned several Honda, and I'm ready to get, pretty soon get some new tires. I was wondering, because Hondas have such a bad road noise, does tires make a difference? Yes. Go on consumer reports, look for the best tires you can find on there, but you're pretty much going to find Michelin is going to make one of the best tires, and generally, Michelin's are the quietest tire. And the road noise you're getting is the surface of the tire on the road. That's what's creating the noise. It's just a lot of Hondas aren't insulated as well. So you hear that noise

transmitted a little more. And Kim, going to Consumer Report, that's a win-win situation. And you'll notice when you do replace your tires, it will, well, it really is, it affects a lot of factors. gas mileage, I could go through a whole laundry list here. Yeah, I subscribe to Consumer Report, so I will do that. I just didn't know if it made a difference if that's really what was causing the road noise was the tires or if it was just the way Hondas were built. Yeah. You sound like an educated consumer.

Kim, you've called the show before, haven't you? Yeah, a couple years ago I called. A couple years ago. Okay, well, thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate the answer. You're quite welcome. Bye-bye.

We're going to go to Mike, who's holding from West Palm Beach. Good morning. I'm sorry, he's in Vero Beach. Good morning, Mike. Good morning, guys. I just wanted to say I love listening to your program. It's a wealth of knowledge. You guys are doing a tremendous service for folks in West Palm Beach.

And I got to tell you, I'm listening to you guys up in Vero Beach now. on um i got a new car and i'm i'm new to this hd radio thing and and i'm listening to you guys on one or three one or three that's a channel three the hd channel three how are we coming through oh perfect crystal clear i wish i would have known about this sooner oh thank you phenomenal that i'm listening to you guys while my grandkids are playing soccer i'm in the car and it's it's amazing hey what are you doing go watch the kids game what are you calling us for i'm just kidding Hey, that's great. The HD radio, I know it's a digital signal.

I've never listened to it myself because I'm all just using my phone. But that's really cool. Yeah, definitely, Mike. How nice. Well, we'll start promoting that. Make sure if you have an HD radio, use that if you can't hear us very well. Yeah. So you have a lot of clarity, huh?

All right. Enjoy the game. All righty. Thanks, Mike. I want to jump in here about that last call. I just, I can't talk enough about Google. And so I just went in there, quietest tire for Honda Chord. I mean, you've got a huge number of super quiet tires.

First one I'm looking at, Tire Views, Moore.com, our quietest tire of all time for the Honda Chord, Bridgestone, Taranza Serenity, plus two. Next is a continental, pure contact. I mean, it just, Google's amazing. Amazing. I guess I'm glad more people don't do that. They wouldn't listen to this show because, frankly, a lot of our information we get on Google. I mean, we really get some difficult questions.

There's a need for both. Yeah. There definitely is a need for both for Google and Earl Stewart on cars. It's our personalities. Google has no personality, but they love us. Well, you'd be surprised. You and I Googled a lot over the, this past week, a whole lot. Ladies and gentlemen, excuse me, 877-960, 9960, and you can.

in Texas at 772-4976530 and don't forget we have the mystery shopping report coming up and we do enjoy hearing from you and how you grade that mystery shopping report and of course it's done as usual by a female mystery shopper she does a fabulous job and a lease is waiting for the first female caller to win $50 this morning so well we want to make her happy and we are going to go back to the phones where Julie is calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Julie. Good morning. Are you a first-time caller?

No, I've called. This is my third call now. Oh, thank you, Julie. I had a question. I have a friend I used to work with, and every day at lunch she'd go out and sit in her car with the car on, and the air conditioner, depending on the weather, and the radio. and she's at there for an hour and this guy in my office

thought she was damaging her car by idling it Monday through Friday for an hour. Does that damage your car? No, not really. You're using up some gasoline really, but it's not going to hurt the car because the engine's going to keep

itself cool by the way of the radiator and everything. You're not going to hurt anything at all doing that. And the other question is somebody told her, well, why is just turn the radio on and not the rest of the car, but she said that would drain her battery. How long can you have the radio on by itself without the rest of the car? Depending upon the health of the battery, 20, 30 minutes to a couple hours, but she's actually

better to run the engine because it actually helps keep that. It gives it a chance to actually charge that battery up full, and basically it's better to do it the way she's doing it, my opinion. And New York have to be careful because if you let it idle for more than three minutes, is it just trucks or cars? I think it's all of them. Everybody, yeah.

If you let your car idle for more than three minutes in New York City, I believe it was New York City, you get a fine, a large fine, and they pay the rat that turns you in 25% of the fine. Yeah, I heard that Dan call in the other day about that, maybe two weeks ago about that. How did you?

Wow. Well, hopefully there's nobody searching the parking lots in West Palm, so... Yeah, I'm no right. Well, Julie, thanks so much for tuning in. Thank you. And spread the word. We're building a platform here for the ladies, and we reward them by giving them $50 if they're a first-time caller. Right. Okay. Thank you for help. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to Frank, who is our regular caller from Jupiter Farms.

Good morning, Frank. we're talking fast this morning because we're really being bombarded with phone calls yeah I'll keep it short I know that's hard for me to do but I'll try two things I sent me a text message on a miles per gallon that we got on a new ality six cylinder the other day so while we're talking about mylets I saw one news today that now in a few more years they expect all the cars with a minimum 40 miles a gallon and so my question is is two-fold.

Do you think the technology would make any gas engine cars go that far? Or do they get a miles per gallon for the fleet averaging in for electric cars with the gas cars? Right. So it's the fuel standards or the CAFE standards. It's the average for the fleet. So that would include, you know, just for example, for Toyota because I know it, they're big tundras all the way down to their plug-in and they're fully electric vehicles. It has to average out to 49.

So they can do that. So that's why it's incrementally happening. Car manufacturing might just adding one electric vehicle can have a significant impact on the overall thing. But they're working on fuel efficiency on all their vehicles. But I just came out of that Tesla Model S and went to a 17 miles per gallon Toyota four runner. So I was getting a little bit tired of the Tesla. But that forerunner isn't helping. It's pulling down Toyota's Cafe, their fleet standard, their fleet average.

and their plug-in hybrids are bringing it up. Okay. I kind of surmised that because when the news are saying right now, the average is, I think, supposed to be 28 miles a gallon, and under four or five years, they worked for you. I go, holy cow. And I said, and I had a feeling the electric much of help. On a praise report,

last week I took to you guys because I had a new battery put in my pickup truck, and I couldn't get the rainboards or retract or, you know, do anything. and you guys said you've got to reboot it by taking the negative terminal obviously the cable and for a few minutes and redo it well there must be four different wires and plugs and I didn't know how I think it's not like the old days where you get like a you know a free-oastin socket or something and screwed so what I did I also called your advice I went on the internet and try to look things up and amazingly amazingly there's a thing about redoing that along

YouTube and I went out there with all the knowledge and start touching and push some buttons and resetting and from the from the cab and the steering wheel and all of a sudden they started working what a sense of gratification for a 70-year-old guy to be able to do something that you'd be able to do when you were half that age and not take it to a dealership and spend time and money yeah YouTube is amazing yeah no you guys help tremendously so let me let you guys get back to the other folks And as always, have a great weekend and we'll want to see you guys. Thanks, Frank.

Thank you, Frank. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. Ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call. You know, I say Google a lot. It's really YouTube, isn't it? I mean, YouTube is more people go to YouTube. For how-to things, like do yourself stuff.

Yeah. Google's a good place to. start but usually you probably end up on YouTube and the and it just absolutely they funnly you that way too if you know like any do yourself usually the top results are videos yes so that's great let's jump over some text this is a great one by the way this comes from Bob and he sent a link to an article and you're not going to believe this and it's perfect because you're just talking about how untouchable the car dealers are and they are here But in Arizona, two Arizona dealerships are being forced to pay $500,000 in restitution to customers.

I get a drop in the bucket, but they did it for bait and switch advertising. ABC and Pinnacle ABC was the local affiliate. Engaged in false advertising, this is from the Attorney General of the State of Arizona, who went after them. This is coming from the top. Engage in false advertising when they advertised low vehicle prices online but refused to sell those vehicles for the advertised price. The Attorney General alleges that ABC and Pinnacle Nissan would tell, oh, I'm sorry, ABC is the other dealership, would tell consumers they had to purchase certain add-on accessories, such as nitrogen in the tires, exterior protective coating, door edge guards, door cups, or window tint. These add-on accessories raised the price of the vehicle above the advertised sales price, and they denied it, and they said in some instances the salespeople inform the consumers that certain add-on accessories had been installed already on the vehicles and could not be removed. thus increasing the price of the vehicle above the advertised price.

And then they also informed consumers that they couldn't remove the add-on things because if they did it for them, they would what, have to do it for everybody. So that good job, EG, in Arizona. And I hope they're listening here in Florida because we need this. Well, it's encouraging. I like to investigate that. I'd like to see the process that led her or him. to that, but

in Ashley Moody, is that? Ashley Moody? Ashley Moody. Mooney. For some rate, Mooney? Mooney. Moody. Moody, yeah, Ashley Moody. Florida A.G.

I don't think she's ever gone after a car dealer. And the Florida Automobile Deals Association gets her elected, along with the NADA and the car dealers. And I guess she's afraid to bite the hand that things. pizza and putting it pretty simple, it's kind of shame.

You know, not to say that Ashley Moody doesn't go after some bad people, but she goes after people that are not lobbying her and not donating money to her campaign. And I guess it's better than not going after any bad people, but I think it should be indiscriminate and just, if you look at the dollars that are swindled, deceived, what's the word for? for taking money from consumers, who could compete with car dealers? So you buy a car, everybody buys a car. They're buying them all the time.

And every time they buy a car virtually, they're getting screwed. And our attorney general just sits there on her hands and waits for the next election. Did Pam Bondi do anything? I mean, the whole time that we've been on the air, you know, we have talked to her, like, you know, personally begging her to help us, you know, fight these car dealers,

Has she done any better than Ashley Moody? I'd love to have her call the show or text the show or a representative of Ashley Moody call the Texas show. If we're saying something that's out of line, Ashley, check our archives on shopping, mystery shopping reports. We have hundreds and hundreds of them. And you will see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, thousands, really, of car dealers that are breaking Florida law.

And I'm just curious why you haven't taken action against any one of them. Anyway, that's a redundant rhetorical question. I'm reading her Wikipedia page, and the things that she has accomplished is nothing remotely related to what we're talking about. So I'm very depressed. Now, I'm closing this browser window out right now. Okay. Let's get to another text.

Okay. Sorry, I had Ashley Moody up there. Jonathan Wellington. It says all car batteries are different. Yeah, all batteries have a finite number of starts in them. The question is, when you jumpstart another, another car with your battery, does it less than the life of your battery? Because you're not starting your car.

Not really. Not really? Okay. What's the difference between just like donating electrons and going through an actual start cycle? Well, because truthfully, if you're jumpstarting another car, your engine is running. Yeah. So you're using power created by the alternator, not anything by your battery. Oh, okay.

Gotcha. Altner is like a little generator. It is. That's exactly what it is. Okay. Alright. Here we go. I'm considering buying a lithium ion, I can't speak, a lithium ion jump starter. Do they do a good job as a jumpstart, lower dead battery as jumper cables do? Any recommendations on any good brands of lithium ion jumper bags?

Go on Amazon, check the reviews and consumer reports also, if you can find them. I bought a little, little bitty unit that is maybe about the size of like four or five cell phones put together in a stack. Will it work on your cell phone too? And actually it will. It has a USB output. That's awesome. And even a little flashlight on it, the cool part of this thing weighs only a couple

pounds. As long as the battery for the car still has some little bit of power. If you turn the key, the lights will come on, and it will try to move the engine over a little bit, this little tiny box will do it. We'll start the engine. It won't do it on like a totally dead-ass battery. If it's totally totally, totally. dead, it will not do it. But even on like a V8 tundra, it will start that dead vehicle.

You know what I do? I call AAA. And they're in five minutes and they take care of everything. And it's free. Five minutes, really? What if you're in the middle of the badlands? Yeah. I mean, Ricky, you got to remember that you are a certified diagnostic master technician. I'm also a type of person that my personality, I was raised to rely on myself, to get things done myself. You're kind of like Dodd City, you're a Matt Dillon kind of guy. No, I understand that. But most of our listeners, you know, and Nancy's over here, she's wiggling because, you know, she's a do-it-yourselfer, and she wants to pop the hood, and she wants to charge her battery and inflate her tires and check the dipstick.

and I'm just saying most of our listeners don't do that they call AAA and while we're talking about it AAA is just an amazing company and Nancy and I joined again I called them about a month ago and I've got a car dealership I got AAA quicker than I got my own car dealership, Stu?

That's because I missed your call Oh okay I'm sorry Actually this is not a commercial but you speaking you just triggered a memory and I'll forget it if I don't say it now I think it was a couple of weeks when we were railing against the roadside service for Toyota they fire that company

and they've hired AAA as their roadside company but that was great that you did that and they arrived like that because it was your car my car was dead yeah exactly so there again AAA I can't recommend them enough and the other stuff they got besides I used to be a director

for AAA years ago you probably didn't know that I didn't know that yeah and I was a director AAA and I got to know them pretty good. In fact, what we, well, this is the business, we'll just talk about it after the show, but we need to be sure we're signed up as a AAA approved dealer.

Okay. Because AAA members are very loyal to the AAA. Okay, we're gonna go back to the phones. Good. And John is waiting, he's calling us from Jupiter. Good morning, John. Good morning. Hey, quick little story,

and then I want to ask her all about some electric cars. Back in 1979, Earl, I bought a, Pontiac from Stuart Pontiac. Oh, bless you. And then I had that car for about three years, and then the paint started cracking. And as your customer service people, they took care

of me, everything was fun, and you guys kept it up through this day, so I really appreciate that. Do you remember any names from back then, John? I mean, you remember... You know, Earl, I was driving back and forth to college in Kentucky, so I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you. I just, you know, I was friends with... You remember Buddy Clark from Clark

The reason I ask is I got a friend that sent me a picture on Facebook, and I'm going to hold it up the camera. And this is 1958, and these are a bunch of technicians from Stuart Pontiac in 1958. I was still in high school. And in 1979, I was there in 1979 when you bought your car, so they were there a long time. Anyway, go ahead, John. Okay, you know, you were talking about the electric vehicles. You know, I've talked about this with several people. So you've got an electric vehicle in California.

Remember last summer they had all the rolling blackouts with electricity? Yeah. Could you imagine the electrical pool that everybody in California had an electrical car? No. I don't think they'd be able to power their citizens when they have air conditioning or anything. I mean, this thing's really gotten crazy. And if we're the only country that does this, If the world stays on combustion engine, what have we accomplished?

Well, it's a very good, realistic concern to have. And the thing I keep reminding people, we're talking about electric vehicles. You know, we're going to have the autonomous taxis in San Francisco and all this kind of stuff. And you got, I'm driving a Tesla. And we talk about it so much, you start to mentally perceive a lot of people having electric cars. and we have less than 1% on the road so you might have a little more than that in California but USA well less than 1%.

It's going to take a long time before we challenge the power grid and the power grid will have evolved and improved already what we're doing and we're talking about now is power is generated 24-7 and we can store power and we can store power to be used at peak times and it's a science

that is a working process but you're right and suddenly we woke up tomorrow and every vehicle was electric we'd have total chaos we wouldn't have the power to power our fleet of cars you're absolutely right

and with that as things expand guess what the cost everything goes up so we'll probably be back where we are now paying the same for, you know, fuel as we would be for electricity. Exactly, exactly. A lot of things have to happen. A lot of things, a lot of things have to change, and they will. And we hear so much about Tesla and Elon Musk and everybody's hyping. You turn on the news, everything's electric and electric electric electric.

They're going to be, as Rick said at the beginning of the show, 20 years from now, we're still going to have combustion engines. In fact, we'll have a lot of them 20 years from now. I mean, the cars you're buying from today, combustion engine cars are so good that they will last 20 years and no people are going to be throwing cars away i mean uh they'll trade them but they're still going to be out there you and i probably won't be here to see it no i'm going to have my brain frozen but there's still horses today yeah i know i won't be here yeah we'll have earl's head on cars i'll have a head here out here

problem. It's on and on and on and on. Anyhow. I just wanted to comment on that. Great comment. Thank you, John. Have a good time. You too.

Bye-bye. Okay. I was just looking up the percentage of electric cars that are on the road in California. And it says your new data also shows that California with only 10% of the nation's cars now accounts for over 40% of all zero emission cars. in the country. Thank you. 877-960.

Give us a call. What are your thoughts? Text us at 772-4976530. And don't forget, your anonymous feedback, your anonymous feedback.com. You remain anonymous. Say whatever you want. Now, we are going to go back to Stu. All right.

We have a text here that says, I have a 2017, I'm sorry, 2017. Accura MDX, it's been waiting for struts for about six months. My mechanic says he can't get the parts. Any ideas is where I can direct him to try and get these parts. Yeah, used parts, rebuilt parts, junkyard parts. I know I sound like a broken record. I'd Google it. And it probably is a stretch for that particular vehicle online available.

Somewhere, they're out there. Somebody makes them. Yeah, you've got to look hard. I remind people. we have a 1937 Pontiac on our shore floor at our Toyota dealership and that's all original parts we had the car restored what 15 years ago Stu and it took about three years but we restored it with all original Pontiac parts so there's all was the car that they're looking for

it's a 2017 Accura MDX you know there's struts all over to somebody yeah somebody Google it yeah come on yeah he's got a he's got a little harder Tell your mechanic, the La Cada. Yeah, yeah. We're going to go back to the phones where we have Gail calling from Palm City. She's a first-time caller. Therefore, she wins herself $50 this morning. Coaching.

Welcome to the show, Gail. Oh, thank you. Hi. You're welcome. Thank you for taking my call. I hope that you left not only your first name, but your last name and your mailing address so I can get that check out to you today. What can we do for you this morning? What did I give it to you?

Okay. Well, I have a 2004 Toyota Sequoia, and it has way over 300,000 miles, and I mean, we love the car, but I want a new one, and I don't want to buy one that has the old model, because I read about it, that they're going to change the model, and I like to know when we can expect those cars to be available, because I would love to be able to buy one. Great question. Part of a year, right, Stu, the new Sequoia? The new Sequoia, it's, every time there's a new product launch, they keep it from the dealers as much as that, but I think it's next year. It's 2023. 2020 is the model year, and when we get it, we'll find out closer to probably towards the end of this year. Launch like that, I'm just going to guess, late spring, early summer is usually when we see these big launches,

but it can change. Yeah, and there is definitely a wait, Gail. I get calls all the time asking, you know, for all kinds of questions in regards to waiting. It could be six months, eight months, could be a year, but be prepared and have patience. Well, what about can you place an order if you put a deposit down? Can you order the car? Well, that's, yes. So you're like the first to get one?

You're in my mind. And the problem is we wouldn't have specific information. or pricing or anything. But as a dealer, I can certainly take an order with the open end, and I'd be happy to do it. If you want to be first on the list, I believe you would be first. Well, here's, I don't know if that's true or not, but I would double check that. Yeah, right now, since there's absolutely no pricing information, it would just be like a contact list. So as soon as we had information, we would reach out and then provide you with that information and then could put an order in.

But right now, every car that you would buy, whether it's a 20-23 Sequoia or a 2020-1, one Honda court it's it's an order yeah here's something i'm not be talking to my son about this after the show for another reason but uh you should be able to go into a car dealership and you should be able to buy anything you want uh whether you had specific information or not you would just have to cover the conditions and the unknowns and you would you know for the purpose of getting put on a waiting list uh there's no reason the world why you shouldn't be able to buy we do that and the pricing right now i'm just saying i'm not sure the reason I want to be careful.

I want to give that information. So right now it would be MSRP, and that's all the pricing information. However. Right, right now it would be no more than MSRP because two years from now it might be. That's the point I was trying to get to us. And also, Gail, the cars that we have, trucks, everything on the ground are already promised. But there is that possibility that somebody may cancel an order, and somebody who's in the right place at the right.

right time can take that vehicle. But the bottom line here is to wait. And as far as ordering is concerned, you know, whenever the vehicle, not knowing anything about it, you just, you mentioned you would just like to order, you know, you've got to be prepared for, say, the unknown. And I don't know. I don't know whether I would want to do that or not. Well, you can cancel the order. This is true, too. There's a lot of variables, Gail. and we're in uncertain times and shortages. Order the car, Gail. We'll take the order for you.

If you want to cancel it, you can cancel it. And we'll put you on the list where we are. And somebody's waiting. Somebody's waiting out there for the car that you ordered and don't want. Well, I definitely want it. So I will definitely, you know, make that happen. I will call and find out the logistics of what I need to do to put. You better call us too or maybe.

because yeah I will yeah and we're creating a lot of lists here you know waiting list the order list and the callback list so times are changing okay well you have my information do you want to call me when yeah we've got your contact information in the studio yeah the if you left your information with the lease just know you know myself Stu Earl we can get in touch with you and put you on the list okay well that would be wonderful I appreciate that thank you you're quite welcome we're glad to do it for you thanks for being part of the show Gail

and spread the word we're building a platform here for the ladies no I feel terribly guilty because I keep saying this is not an infomercial and I just sold the car on our radio show I feel very guilty about it well it's difficult not to do and the way you put it you drive Gail it's uh you know I had I had to sell it to you well now I want you to sell them We're here for the consumer. Gail's a consumer.

We not only begged her to buy a car from us, we paid her $50, and now I'm sorry. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. That's very nice. You've been wounded. Yep.

My husband's been wounded. Call again, please. We'd love to hear from me again. Okay. Well, thank you. I look forward to you getting in touch with me or vice versa. We're going to do it. Definitely.

You'll hear from me. Okay. Okay, thank you. Have a good day. Thank you, Gail. All right, by now. Bye-bye. We're going to go to Rick, who here has some YouTube's.

Well, I've had a whole bunch of them here from Donovan and quite a few from Tim as well, too, in Florida. And I got to do this. Real quick, like we'll go, is a little off topic here. But Tim says, Rick, anybody ever tells you? you that you look like a combination of Brad Pitt, Robert Redford, George Hamilton, and Sloth from the movie The Goonies. Yeah, I told you that all the time. And I got to say, it was, it was funny, but, okay.

That's quite a combination, it had to be, it was funny to me. It was funny to me. It was funny to all of us. We're all laughing. Like, okay, with Donovan. He says, 99% of car dealers in Florida are breaking the law, and it's disgusting that our AG does nothing about it. She can't even be bothered to do something basic to help people who are getting ripped off. Tim actually comes in and says, okay, seriously, supposedly federal inspectors were in Daytona Beach yesterday,

finding dealers that did not have the buyer's guide, even on cars behind the lot, with not-for-sale stickers on the car. Is that a rumor? That was a rumor of it. So who knows? And why would federal inspectors be investigating cars? It would be state, wouldn't it? Well, if there were federal inspectors, that even more shames Ashley Moody,

the only people enforce the law in Florida are the federal government. The state government isn't enforcing the law, which is an embarrassment. But are there any federal regulations? Yeah. about how okay so yeah it is a federal regulation that you have an as-is sticker on all your used cars you have to have disclosure about what warranty the car has or does nothing have okay there's a fine

federal fine if you don't do it so the feds actually could be in investigating that and there's also there's also a loss they're going to have the bernoni label on the car and you can walk in any car dealership right now probably including ours and find a car without a monorone label when nobody ever checks about they come off they fall off you know yeah yeah there's no cars in the lot there's no minority that's true that's true yeah good point there good point uh by the way donovan also says Earl you don't have to worry about a couple things though because you've got a lithium 12-volt battery in your car that will last at least 20 years I have three of them exactly in that old Tesla years oh boy let's see what else did we

get here. Again, also, Donovan says, everyone should have a lithium jump pack in their car, similar to the one that I've talked about. You charge it once a year. You never know when you might need it. And I would recommend a little more often maybe plug it and charge it about every couple months just to make sure it's good. He keeps the charge like it pretty good, though. I mean, if he says a year, you're going to have still most of the battery after a year. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I charge mine about once every two to three months, and I'll use it several times a month. And you're just topping it off. Yeah, just to top it off. And it literally weighs about two pounds. Where do you keep it? It just sits in my toolbox at the shop. But the same thing,

the unit is so small that it weighs a couple pounds. It would fit in a glove compartment. I took it out of your box two weeks ago and you never noticed it. No, it's still there. Rick, yesterday. What's the, what can you power is? I mean, it's like a little power source. What's like the most juice it puts out? Could you run a blender with it? No, not a bunch of it, but it would definitely power up to recharge. Well, I was, somebody reported that you were making margaritas in your bag. I was just going to say that. Let's move along.

Come on. I have an unanimous feedback. This is Earl Stewart on cars. It's not, uh, combat. Rick, I'll tell you what. You exposed your place where your battery is. I don't drink tea, I drink vodka. We're going to be making margaritas.

Okay. I have an ominous feedback over here. Um, I wasn't here last week. My daughter had COVID. Josh was here, but this came up last week. John's statement about anti-idling laws applying in every state for every vehicle is false. Check the EPA website. Some states have laws for trucks, especially diesel, but there are exceptions for weather,

traffic, et cetera. I googled it, and I think in New York, it's for bigger vehicles. It's not for, like, cars. Yeah, that's true. I did the same thing, and I forgot. Thank you very much for reminding us. John, you're usually right. You missed on this one.

It's just New York. And they made a big thing out of it. It was on the network news. and they interviewed a lot of people that are making a good living. I mean, 25% of, like, what is that, $600 fine? And they talked to one guy on the street, he had his video cam out, and they say, how are you doing? He's got 47 today.

So he made $4,000. He's a bounty hunter. Wow. That's crazy. All right, someone anonymous feedback liked my comment about dealers being protected like Spotted Ows. That was a good one. Interesting. here's another one more anonymous feedback i drive a 2007 toyta forer recently the weather has been

nice enough to drive with the windows open yes it has uh i've noticed a very strong ammonia smell from the exhaust so strong that at times i've had to roll up the windows and use the AC i use shell gas with no ethanol but it has a nitrogen additive is the gas i'm using is it the gas i'm using or is there's something wrong with the vehicle it's definitely ammonia and i can only smell it when i'm driving. More than like that, the fuel he's using. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. Where's the ammonia come from? It's probably something to do with using the non-ethanol fuel. Most cars, since about the 92, 93, somewhere around there, cars have been designed to handle up to 10% ethanol. And now they're actually coming out there good for up to 15%. Am I going to have to Google this? Does, is

ammonia a byproduct pollution byproduct. I honestly couldn't tell you. I still Google. Well, I think, I know that pneumonia can be part of certain chlorate, what do they call, the hydrocarbons. Yeah. I don't know. Well, Google, let's find out.

I was going to something else. Because ammonia, good lord, and I'm smelling pneumonia, that's really serious. Malamonia will choke you. I mean, that's probably toxic. Well, it don't smell good. Pretty much everything in the exhaust is toxic. Yeah, so, well, I mean, I didn't even, yeah. I mean, quicker toxic.

I mean, when you commit suicide by emissions, you go to sleep. The reason behind, I got it, I Google, I googled. It says the reason behind this ammonia smell is the catalytic converter, which cleans up and converts harmful pollutants into less harmful emissions. However, when the catalytic converter fails or malfunctions, it can cause an ammonia-like odor in your vehicle's fumes. So that's, it is possible. Oh, it's not only possible.

It's likely that's what his problem is. Wait a minute. This site was Bobby Joe's, blog, and I was going to add, I don't know it was. That was from carotopics.com. So, you always check your sources, folks. Absolutely. I mean, we're going to be replaced by Google on cars. Yeah, this is a YouTube on cars. Well, we're going to be replaced by a computer for sure. I'm obsolete. I'm already, I'm very depressed. Okay. Next one, anonymous feedback. I have to keep charging my AC every couple of weeks. Mechanic says, I don't have a leak. Is there

something I'm missing, or do I need a new mechanic? Your mechanic is missing. His mind is missing. You got a leak. He's this, how much he, my question is how much he charges, charge you for every time he, when he recharges it. Can you believe that? I mean, that gives you an idea. We got Rick, who was the best of the best of the best, the best. But there are guys out there like this.

How can a guy look in the eye? And you've been in for coming in every, every two weeks for six months, and you have to put a, you know, coolant back in your system. And he says you don't have a leak. what what he's actually got is he's got a teenage kid going out there huffing the Freon that that actually was an issue for a while on home systems I didn't think of that kids would go to the home AC system where they could access the Schrader valve and they would release the destroy their brain cell destroy their brain and their parents are like why is it warm in here again oh boy hey I think we're all caught up on text and anonymous feedback

Oh, great. Okay. Nick and one actually put in an interesting thing here. He says, ask Earl if he watched the Tesla doing a massive jump in California. I did. Apparently a viral video. I haven't seen this one. Listen this.

Don't bother getting. We were running out of time, but these kids, it was a meetup, like a YouTube meetup. People at social media, they'll say, we're going to meet up here and video and get stuff to put on YouTube. And they said they're going to jump their Tesla model-ass plaid. and it was this hill like in a residential area and this is insane. They jumped it. That thing launched up, I'm not going to, 20 feet in the air, and then it nose down, I thought it was going to do an endo and roll,

but came down and smashed into a car and some garbage and destroyed the Tesla, of course. I often fantasize about going over a bridge. Right. You go flying through the air. You will go into the mesosphere. That would be, yeah. Alone.

Alone. You'll meet a second Tesla in space. Nancy, would you like to ride home? There you go. My car is slow and cumbersome. You read about some of these bridge tenders we got around here. You've read the, you know what the qualification to be a bridge tender in Florida? I know I digress here.

My school. It's so amazing. You have to have an eighth grade education and there are no requirements for training. There's no testing. And all you got to do is pull a lever. I'm kidding. I don't know anything about. There are no rule.

And in words, for you folks out of the Florida area, we had a, it was a terrible situation where the woman killed riding her bicycle. 80 year old woman. She's riding her bicycle across the Royal Palm Bridge, and they raised the bridge, and she fell, and she's dead, and they started investigating bridge tenders, and the bridge tenders, anybody who wants to be a bridge center can be a bridge tender. No requirements, no rules. Terrible. Anyway, I digress. Mystery Shop. Okay, we have the Mystery Shop coming up, and it is from J.M. Alexis, and ladies and gentlemen, it's real important that you vote on this mystery shop. with us. We love hearing from you. You can do that at 772-4976530. Mystery Shop from J.M. Lexus. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Okay, I'll read this. This is Sue does a great job writing up his reports. And Agent Lightning is the mystery shopper. About five years ago, the biggest Lexus dealership in the world, J.M. Lexus and Margate, Florida, dropped their dealer fees, almost all of them, and adopted a one-price, one-person sales model. And he says this sounds familiar, Steve wrote in their words, which is basically what

we're doing at our dealership. Margate, Florida, Al Hendrickson, Toyota is in Coconut Creek, and Jay and Lexis is next door to... For people who don't live in South Florida, there's 18,000 towns all crammed together, and Nobody knows. It's South Florida. I'll say Fort Lauderdale. If you're from out of state, which most people are.

Broward County. That are listening to this nowadays. Anyway, J.M. Lexus website states this. Now, there's another conversation I'll have to have with Stu after the show. But J.M. Lexington's website states that as the only South Florida Lexus dealer with no dealer fee. I know what you want to talk about. It's the claim. I know you know.

Here we are. The same people said we couldn't say that. Yeah. We're the only South Florida Lexis dealer with no dealer fee. J.M. Lexus ensures that you have to pay any unnecessary costs for your luxury vehicle. We have upfront pricing that's clearly displayed for your benefit. At J.M. Lexus, we never charge a dealer fee. The price we advertise, I'm reading from the website, as it were.

The price we advertise on every vehicle is the exact price you get. Dealer fees in our area can be up to 2,000. dollars per transaction and that happens to be the dealer next door to them by the way but this is funny but at jm lexas we only charge an electronic filing fee of fifty nine dollars and no additional dealer fee the fair competitive price you see on the next lexas on your next lexas is exactly as it is there is no hidden fee and small fine print that you'll have to sort through when you choose this uh most fine print is small isn't it it is anyway my there's a lot about this and i won't waste a lot of time going through this

but i will i'm going to call the general manager there again and talk to him i've done this before he's he's we have a new one and i know i know him now good mark hoppy okay and what i'm going to say now is that they are the best lexas dealer and we haven't finished report yet so maybe i changed my mind after we vote but i don't want to take away the suspense but we highly I mean, J.M. Lexus, they are outstanding. Okay, I'll continue with the mystery shopping report. The one person part of the sales process means a customer will have only one personal contact throughout the whole deal. I mean, just like when you buy anything else, you have one salesperson. No T.O. managers, no F&I managers, no after sale product managers.

They have deliveries technology specialists, but that's just to help learning the stuff in the car. They're not selling you anything. Right, right. This is a nice touch. part of a small but growing trend among progressive car dealers are already a tiny subset of the dealer body, I'd say less than 1%, kind of like electric cars, very few progressive cardiolists. J.M. Lexus has clearly carved out their niche. Is it niche or niche? I say niche. Neish, it is niche, yeah. It's the good guys of the South Florida luxury market. And every time we had mystery shopped them, they walk the talk. Agent Lightning was there a year ago and sent in a stellar report.

They were professional, friendly, and true to their word, although she didn't go through the actual delivery. Agent Lightning's salesperson explained how he would handle all the final paperwork with a remote personal assistant. It was very cool. And true of their website, the only dealer fee was a modest $59 electronic filing fee. Now, why? Yeah, that's what I said to the general manager,

I'll talk to their new general manager and say the same. thing. Fifty-nine bucks when you're spending 60-70, 120 grand on a Lexus, 69 bucks. I mean, why? Just roll that right into the price and be done with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here we are a year later in the car business and has gone another really cute expression to my stew. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I like that. You're dating yourself. Our burning question was, is J.M.S. is a resisting the temptation to run up their prices be on MSRP. I believe the stat I quoted a couple weeks ago, 83% of every new car sold so far.

It might have been last year. It might be this year. I can't remember the article. It's over MSRP, usually thousands over MSRP. Asian lining return on the anniversary of the last JM Lexus mystery shop to answer that burning question. Was this actually the... Not to the day, but within days.

Yeah. They're doing it the right way in nearly every respect. They have to be self-reguling when it comes to their new car pricing. All right? Well, we'll see. Here's the report, speaking on the first person, I'm Agent Lightning. Jody greeted me at the front desk when I walked in J.M. Lexus showroom late in the afternoon. I asked her if they had any SUVs in stock. I said I was shopping for a new RX-350 and was having a terrible time finding anything anywhere. Jody said she would need to get a sales manager for me, but she believed. the SUV on the showroom was NRX 350.

Jamie Lexus calls their salespeople sales managers, and they call their sales managers sales daddies. I'm going to pause to see if you really believe that. But I thought that was funny. I don't think everything all of his humor is funny, but that

really tickled me. I like that. They're called team leaders. I have to go see my sales daddy. That's funny. Thank you for appreciating me. I walked over at it. That's a Josh style. Josh, you sure Josh didn't tell you?

I hope he's listening. Yeah, right. I walked over to look at the white RX-350 in the showroom while Jody went to find the sales manager. The MSRP was 64,355, and there was a sign with their upfront price listed right there on the vehicle. The price was $64,6654, a $299 premium over MSRP. And again, I kind of go back to their $69 electronic filing fee, which is a deal. dealer fee, they're mocking up MSRP, $299, chump change to a Lexus dealer, it's even chump change to a Lexus buyer, why not be pure, why be a little bit pregnant, why not

just do it? No dealer fees means, read my lips, no hidden fees, and I sell cars at MSRP, why bump them $229, but they're the best. They're still the best, I don't take it back, that I don't take it away from $299. I played around with some of the buttons and explored the website while I waited for the salesman. Excuse me, the sales specialist. Is that what it is? Sales manager.

Sales manager, yeah. Waited for the sales manager. Euphemisms. About eight months later, Jody returned with Paul, introduced us. We made some small talk, and then Paul asked if I was interested in leasing or buying. I said, I was buying and not leasing. excuse me while I lick my finger turn the page

we walked about the car we walked around the car Paul went over some of the highlights but the presentation wasn't remarkable I could have been it could have been my imagination but on this visit energy felt different

maybe it was a demoralizing effect of extremely ill inventors you know you're that's very observant because I'm sure the energy of our salespeople is different I thought about that in a dealership with a one pricing like this

they don't pay on a percent of the profit as a commission and so when dealers are making a ton of money those type of sales people don't participate in it we recently increased our new car for that same reason yeah well salespeople they are shooting fishing in a barrel I mean when you work in a new franchise popular like Lexus or Toyota you sell every car

even when there's no COVID epidemic and you sell your cars fast. It becomes a different skill set to use for this. Like people who are good at organizing do well on this because they handle a bunch of things, but people are salespeople on the spot. Don't do well with this. And that's what happens to a salesperson. This is contrary to their personality. And they just, their whole energy is. There's an instant, there's like an instant gratification thing with selling a car. As a matter of fact, a lot of car dealers will actually pay you the next, your commission that same day. Yeah. And you'll home home. I'm going to sell the car. You

buy that one. Oh, Wong, he's going to buy it. Works in the door right behind you. So Paul couldn't seem to find the keys and something about how it was maybe being sold. He was accounting for his not energetic. He said he wasn't surprised they barely have any cars at all. He asked me to follow him back to his desk and asked if I wanted any water. Either cold or room temperature. Nice touch. I like that.

I prefer room temperature water, actually. And the Rolls-Royce dealership that you can pick your temperature. I'd like 40 degrees. I prefer my mom like 74. Exactly. My wife has asthma. Cold water can actually make her have asthma issues. So room-dump water is a very wonderful touch for them to have.

Thank you for sharing it, Rick. Paul asked me what my thoughts were, and if I was ready to buy today, I told him that my husband and I would make her final decision in the next day or two. I said we had worked at a few different models, and the whole process has been difficult. since there aren't any cars around. I asked if I could get a breakdown on the pricing. Paul asked if I was okay with not taking a test drive. I said, I'd rather look at the numbers. He pulled up a computer screen,

printed a worksheet for me. The worksheet showed pricing details and some finance options. The price was 64,654, same as posted price. He had a sales tax and GM Lexus's $59 mini-dealer fee, which he called, they call electronic filing. You know, a rose is a rose is a rose, right? A rose by any other name.

Semantics. Yeah, semantics. I mean, why play the game? We have no dealer fees, but we have an electronic filing fee, which is a dealer fee. So just call it a dealer fee. There was no estimated registration fee. Which is weird. Which is weird, yeah.

Paul reviewed the numbers and emphasized that they do not charge any dealer fee, as every other car dealer does. I'm tired of the semantics on this. He put the worksheet in a folder with his business card to handed it to me. As I was thinking, in my phone ring, perfect timing, and a perfect excuse. Okay. Are we through? That's the end of the report. That's the end of the report.

So there we are. And I picked the GM Lexus more than I probably should have. And I guess that's just inherent in me. Well, we have to. I mean, there's so much right. It was a good shop, I think, overall. And they really do walk to talk. it's just that little extra quarter mile they need to go and to get to the finish.

And I will say this. There is something important. I've got a little bit of time here. The Lexus manufacturer is Toyota. Toyota manufactures Lexus, as I just said. Lexus has told their dealers, you should not charge hidden fees. They did that, I think, more than five years ago. I think GM Lexus didn't snap too right away.

So, J.M. Lexus, I give them all the credit in the world because they did it. They were one of the first to do it, but they weren't, they were told to do it. They didn't do it on their own. Now, interestingly, Toyota hasn't told anybody in the way of toilet dealers to do it. Toil dealer, if you ask Toyota about, they say, each dealer is different. Each dealer is an independent businessman, and they can do whatever they want. But the same manufacturer, Akio Toyota, which owns Lexus and Toyota, he runs the ship. And they say that Toyota can't tell the dealers not to charge a dealer fee, but why does Lexus tell the dealers?

Can I tell our listeners what's really, really aggravating you right now? Seriously. They say we can't tell dealers to do that, but they do tell us what to do. For example, they told us that we can't say that we're the only dealer, Toyota, dealer in South Florida that doesn't charge a dealer fee they said because there's no we can't substantiate that with some you know a source with some data but we can we can on this show because this is a consumer advocate show so we can we can say that Earl Stewart Toyota is the only Toyota in Florida that doesn't charge any hidden fees that's true and if I did that in my advertising

Toyota would get very angry they would cite me with an infraction and if I if I didn't comply they would find they would take away our incentive money there could be certain sanctions that we could get yeah so there you go excuse me for venting now we've finished the report and we now have to get to a vote on jm lexas a minus a minus from stew that's his personal score that's my personal score do you have any uh I'm looking other things uh yep Mark gives him a B plus same thing as an A minus and Bob gives them an A-minus. We're all in sync. Very good. Any YouTube stuff? So far, we've got Tom Stickle, A-minus. Why Nicolindine the customer? Yeah. Brian Siddlocko sounds like a great dealership,

B-plus. Mark Ryan with a B-plus. Me, I'm, that $299 is a little annoying. I'm going to see A-minus. They won't get the A-plus until they go MSRP and walk. We'll see how important that is to them, because we're going to talk to the general manager down there. What do we have, Stu, as far as? Other grades coming in? It looks like everybody's on the same page. We're hovering between a B and A. Oh, yeah?

Very good. I've got Negan one here with an A. Uh-huh. I want to digress here for a moment and thank Donovan for backing us up on Pam Blondie and Ashley Moody. We need more listeners and texters, YouTube, Facebook, everybody to back us up. Yeah, Pam Bondi is retired, right? I'm going to give them. She retired, right?

Pan Bondi, yeah. Well, there's still room to let us know what anyone's thought. I mean, has the ratings gone up for either person who's in that position? So at any rate, I give them an A-minus. Yeah, I agree with you. A-minus. Good, I don't have to change anything on good. good dealer, baddealer list.com. Great stays the same.

And we recommend JM Lexis on the show. Unequivocally, we'd say that if you're in South Florida, I drive 20, 30, 40 miles to deal with them. I would go past Palm Beach Lexus to go there. Yeah, I would go past Palm Beach Lexus. I'd go by a lot of Lexus dealers. They really, they really do a good job. And we're going to try to get them to comply 100% I think actually it'd be good for them I mean of course of today's market they don't have enough lexas to sell so it's not going to mean anything in terms of allocation you know some of the manufacturers by the way have actually threatened

and I don't believe they can get away with the state law wouldn't permit them I believe forward a GM have threatened to restrict allocations allowance on cars to dealers who try to charge over sticker price for the car at least that's you know, jawboating, it's at least doing something. And I believe that all the manufacturers should do that to the dealers, and the same thing with hidden fees. Do you think that's going to be reinforced? I mean, we've read that in the Wall Street Journal in New York Times months ago about the restriction and allocation of vehicles. I don't know. I don't know. Here's something because we have time that I wanted a little bit of time now.

to mention automotive news there was a big article about the f and i and the back end the car dealers cause it and the uh financing of cars the money made and there's a very prestigious club uh with dealers that are really good at selling a lot of f and i products meaning gap insurance and maintenance insurance and extended warranties and also charging interest rate markups that they get kickbacks from the banks on That's the finance department. The dealers that really make a lot of money there are in the $2,000 club, meaning they make over $2,000 on every car they sell.

Now, the largest four groups publicly owned dealer groups in the United States are in that club. And with the COVID and with the restriction of cars, this is what has happened. Key is close. Automation is up there. Sonic is up there and a few others. But we need to go back at Shop Jam Lexus. It'll be difficult to see what they're doing in their F&I department. They really don't have a department. They have a little bit. Well, I know a little bit of what they're doing. The remote assistant thing, I'll talk to you about it, but I know exactly what they're doing. I wonder what their average profit is. I know what it is. Oh, you do? Tell me. No. No? I don't know. I was kidding. You don't know. You're lying. Okay. I think we're about

true. We do. We are. And I was just checking out automotive news. And currently 11 states definitely require lenders to refund

to a consumer who's canceled financed gap coverage. So that's a little bit about gap insurance. I want to thank everyone for joining us here at Earl Stewart on Cars.

Another great show. Thank you, ladies. Thank you, Elise. Thanks to our mystery shopper. thanks to all of us here who put this together. Looks easy, but it's not. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you right back here next week, Saturday morning at 8 a.m.