Earl Stewart on Cars - 04.04.2020 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Autonation Chevrolet Greenacres

Episode Date: April 4, 2020

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

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

This was Earl Live, Earl Stewart, Earl on Cars. And this isn't a rerun show. The discussion was, maybe we should play one of our. goalie-oldy shows but we decided to come into the studio here and give you a real live show we're taking all the precautions and I hope you are too these are interesting times I should say and everybody is very concerned a matter of fact I'm for you folks streaming us on Facebook I'm wearing gloves and I also have a mask that I wear when I'm outside I love how the gloves are match your shirt color exactly you like that yeah this could be a

permanent look for you. Yeah, I might. It's almost like your shirts, these melted down over your hands. Yeah, these gloves are amazing. I was just talking before we went live on the air that the tactile features, you can, you can feel things, hot, cold, liquid, and you can turn pages. You can do a surgery with them. Absolutely.

I might even become a surgeon. We have. You've got to maintain a little levity in this situation. I hope we wish you all the very, very best out there. And for you new folks, this is a story. This is a show about how not to get taken advantage of by a car dealer. And you can access it on the blog, earluncars.com. You can call us at 877-960-99-60 and be live and talk about whatever you want to talk about.

877-960. Or you can text us at 772-4976530. That's 772-4976530. Rio. And it's a special situation here. We're buying cars today because of necessities. These car dealerships are all open because they're deemed a necessary business. I sometimes wonder how necessary car dealers really are. But when you stop and think about it, you need your vehicle, particularly in areas like Florida. Florida doesn't have a lot of mass transit to get to work, to get to the doctor, to get to

get tested for COVID-19 to go to the pharmacy. Cars are a necessity. So you want to keep your car running, and you might need a car, so that's the reason car dealers are open. Rick, you're looking at me with a smirk. Well, Mark Ryan just posted on YouTube that he says, Earl looks like a member of the Blue Man Group. That's right.

And listen, if you're watching, I love this scarf, and it hides my neck where it waddle and wear it hangs down like that and I can wear it like this all right we need to get you a blue one let me just pull it up wait you have like 20 of those shirts fancy you should take one cut it out to a pattern and give them a mask the same material and cut it's for the sky for you folks on radio I was just playing anyway hey listen if you can't laugh at excuse me they're doing that with bras oh yeah yeah you have to have the right side so anyway what I was saying before the levity overwhelm this here is that

we think that there's some really opportunities out there to buy cars during this situation. You can get bargains today. Desperation brings on the manufacturers and the auto dealers into actually giving them some good deals. And we have a mystery shopping report today

for you newbies. That's where we go into a car dealership somewhere in South Florida. Pretend to buy a car or lease it. We typically respond to what had. bait and switch ads and just about all car dealership as today are bait and switch and we go in there and see what happens we pretend to be real people buying real cars and we name the names of the dealership and the salespeople the managers involved and we tell you exactly what happens sometimes they break the law and we say ABC Honda broke the law haven't been sued in 17 years so we are apparently telling the truth because I guarantee you there are a lot of car dealers out there like to to me and the radio station and hurlorn cars and everybody else. But it doesn't happen because we tell the truth as we see it.

So what we're going to say today is even though it can be a great opportunity to buy a car, it's even going to get better. We don't recommend you go out immediately, unless you obviously have to have a car. But if you're thinking about buying a car, the discounts and the incentives and the interest rates and all the other motivations are going to get stronger. They're going to get stronger both from the manufacturers and from the dealers. And to get serious for a moment, when this is all over, I hope all of you are well and healthy.

Unfortunately, there are going to be a lot of car dealers that aren't going to be in business after this is all over, and there's going to be some manufacturers too. This thing is going to last a while, and it's going to shut off business considerably. we're doing a forecast of a 60% drop in business could be worse

when you do that you have people that lose their jobs but you also have car dealerships that go out of business and you have manufacturers that go out of business so my first piece of advice to you today will be select who you deal with

select the car you buy you can easily get a financial opinion on a car dealership not so much a car dealership but a manufacturer by their bond ratings if a car dealership has weak shaky bond ratings that is a rating they get when they need to borrow money then it's something you might want to avoid use cars are your best deal but try to choose a make that could be serviced after this is all over rick you had a point i was actually going to wonder you got any predictions who you might think as manufacturers that might be a little shaky.

I know we've seen like Yugo and Daiatsu and DeW have come and gone. Who do you think might just might be on shaky ground? This is, in my opinion. I watch CNBC all the time, the financial network. And all you have to do is look at the stocks of the car manufacturers. And you look at the bond ratings. Ford is shaky. General Motors is shaky.

Nissan is shaky. and I don't want to brand anybody is going out of business I hope all of them make it I think competition is good the more the more manufacturers and the more car dealers if you're careful and do your homework the better a deal you could get if you only had one manufacturer and one car dealer I hate to think how much they charge you for a car

so competition is good for the consumer but check it out I mean off the top of my head I say General Motors Ford and Nissan, and I don't know about the others. Chrysler probably is shaky also. So think about it, and think about the car dealership, too. You have a car dealership that is a small dealership. Maybe they've closed. Some dealerships are actually closing.

Most of them are open. The ones that have laid awful lot of people, and word gets around. So just use that as a common sense before you decide to buy a car. 877-960-9960 is our phone number, and our text number is 772-497-6530. That's 772-4976530. I'd like to have Nancy Stewart, my co-host, say a word or two, because she represents the ladies, the females, and the audience. She represents everybody, actually, but she has built this audience,

a female-wise, almost 50-50, sometimes better than 50-50. And when she was off the show for a few weeks, when she had surgery on her foot, the female listenership or viewership dropped off considerably. And when she came back on the show, it built up again. So she has a special offer for our first-time female callers. Nancy, tell us about that. Good morning, folks. Welcome.

You just tuned in. You're listening to Earl's time. do it on cars. And I'm here to invite the ladies to give us a call this morning. You can win yourself $50. The first two new lady callers, $50. You can sure use that right now. 877960. Or you can text us at 772-497-30. But remember, you've got to call to win that $50. I can't do this myself. I want to take a moment and thank all of you that called me this past week. And I really appreciate you supporting me.

And some of the compliments I got this week, well, it certainly was humbling. 877-960-99-60. We got a heck of a show coming up. And remember, www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We'd love to hear from you. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Rick Kearney, who is sitting on my right, is our automotive expert, technically speaking.

I've called him everything from a grease monkey to a mechanic to a technician to an auto computer scientist. Maybe a few names we can't put on the air, too. I was just going to say that. But the man knows his stuff. A man knows his cars. He knows if you have a problem. And during these times, you know, you might prefer not to have. have to go back into the dealership and get a diagnosis.

You'd rather, maybe you're a self-quarantine. Maybe you just decide you want to stay home. Now is it time to call Rick Kearney. If there's a squeak or a rattle or a condition with your car, that you might be able to fix yourself, or at least you have to bring it in. And remember, some of the dealers were offering pickup and delivery services. So if you have something that bothers you about your car, which is vital, It's very important to a lot of people.

I feel nervous about the fact that if someone took my car away from me, I would be very, very depressed. Sometimes you just feel like you need to go some places, and that's what Rick can help you with. 877-960-99-60, that's 877-9-60, or text, Rick, or any of us, is 772-497-6530. that's 772 49766530 I think Rick has got some YouTube have already come in We've got one

And we've said This is an international show Yeah Well guess what I just got verification Yeah we are Give me five bucks Is asking this question

From Australia So cool Wow The other side of the world I love Aussies I love Aussies This is great We are truly hitting around the world.

The whole time the kangaroo down. If the anonymous commenter from a few weeks are listening, ha. Yeah. So, anyway, his question is GM slash Holden is pulling out of Australia. Do you think it's a good idea to buy one since they will not be made there anymore? You know. Or maybe not made at all. I'm not familiar with Australian law.

American law requires car dealers and manufacturers to maintain availability of parts. That's your main concern. I think a Holden could be fixed by a lot of people, but if you have to have a particular part, that would be an issue. I check with my Australian law. I'm sorry I can't advise you on that.

We could probably Google it, and Google is the other half of my brain. But as long as you can get parts, everything I know about the Holden is a very good car. And you probably are going to have some Australian law that matches an American law that says you've got to have parts for, what is it, five years, seven years? Actually, I think for the U.S., I believe it's 10 years minimum. Check on that, and a hold on would be a good purchase. Also in the studio, we have my son, Stu Stewart.

He's a general manager of my dealership, and I want to be totally open to all you folks that may have turned in for the first time. I am a car dealer, and I do have a car dealership. Stu operates, he's a general manager. And this is not an infomercial. I replete. This is not an infomercial. This is a consumer advocacy show. You'll never hear us push our brand, which happens to be, we happen to be a toilet dealer.

We don't push that. We talk about when consumer reports comes out with a bad report on Toyota, and they do. And their bad Toyota's reported in consumer reports, as we speak and we talk about those in a manufacturer like Honda or Chevrolet or Chrysler has a better vehicle. We talk about that too. Purely

for you as a consumer to get the best buy. Anyway, Stu is also our spymaster general. He is a guy that guides our team of, we don't have a very big team but we have one as a lot of substitutes. There's certain information that we don't put out there.

Undercover. Undercover mystery shopping. Tell us about our mystery shopping. This is to me, even when I know about it, I get fascinated that we get away with what we do. Well, before I get into that, I want to ask everybody to come on down. Our deals are insane. Oh, we have zero percent on. That's a Joe.

I was waiting. You're fired. I was waiting for that as you were telling everybody. This is not a commercial. Sorry about that. Wait a minute. Tell the audience about your meditation skills. Well, Nancy, you know, was experience a slightly elevated heart rate, and I was.

showing her how to do deep breathing exercises while you're all listening to earl we're breathing in and breathing out um the mystery shopping report uh what's amazing is even though we've hit clearly a majority of the franchise dealers in palm beach county quite a few in martin county quite a few in broward county and then we we spread it out all over the place we've even been up to pencil cola and uh just when we think we're running out of things to investigate new things pop up and it's just a lot of times it has to do with the context of the the times. You'll find out later that as Earl mentioned earlier, a lot of offers are going to come out. A lot of deals are going to be offered to the public because of the huge hit that the economy and business is taken. And car dealers especially, well, not necessarily especially, restaurants especially, but car dealers are feeling the pain. The manufacturers are scrambling to come up to the rescue. The federal government scrambling to come up to the rescue. So the landscape changes constantly so we go out there and I also want to say as far as the mystery shopping report goes we are practicing extremely careful social distancing techniques and

protecting our shopper and and the dealerships that we visit you'll hear in the show today our agent thunder was wearing gloves and a medical procedure mask not an N95 those are needed for medical workers but just a you know a cloth or almost like a paper thing but and keeping the distance. So we are taking it seriously, but we think that now, especially because things are so uncertain and businesses are getting desperate.

I think our service that we provide with the Mr. Shopping Report has probably never been more important. I agree. I think your desperation breeds extremes, and there are going to be some extremely good buys and there's going to be some extremely deceptive advertising. Rick, I didn't give you a chance.

You know, we haven't. A lot of people don't know you, and we have people that are just tuning in. Give us a brief recap of your history and how you have come to be. I've been in the business for 50 years, and I've never known any man that has more broad knowledge about vehicles. Hey, we're a Toyota specialist, but Rick knows all about all different kinds of cars. And any time a friend calls me or any time I have a question, and Rick Kearney is a guy we go to. When did you first start being interested in cars? Probably somewhere around 1980 when I started helping my dad work on his car,

and unfortunately he wasn't a very good mechanic, and he didn't know a whole lot about him. Where did you get it from your mom? Maybe. It may have. I kind of like to think it might have come from my grandfather, the skills or genes for it, but basically I just started, I enjoyed getting dirty and playing with engines and making things work and figuring out how they worked. And when I started working on cars for a living and I started seeing that electronics and computer controls were going to

be the way that cars were going, I figured, well, that's what I've got to learn. So I just went for it and studied everything I could. And I've always been kind of a trivia buff. So I filled my head with every useless fact I could find. And sometimes it comes out all right. So, well, you've got to have a computer not only for repairing cars there, but to keeping yourself up to date. And you remind us all the time about Google. And you remind us all the time about if you have a problem with your car, how you can get help online. Absolutely. There's all nothing you can't find online even about cars well as a matter of fact going with right now today's atmosphere with what we're having to deal with one of

the things that we've had to stop doing is technicians will not be able to ride with the customer in their car yes due to safety concerns however the customer still has a fantastic weapon to help diagnose these issues so like you were saying if you've got a squeaker rattle or something I going on with your car grab this little tool grab your cell phone and record that noise record whatever that thing is that it's doing and get that in a recording great idea and then just simply send that to the service advisor's audio clip if you're if you're so versed or get your grandson your granddaughter your

daughter son whoever's versed in that and you you upload the audio clip on email and text and shoot it in As a matter of fact, a couple weeks ago, I had a gentleman, he had actually called into the radio show, and he had a noise with his AC system. And the way he described it, it was like I'd never heard anything like it. He got a video, actual recording of that sound, and he came into the dealership, and he transferred it to my phone to where I could hear it. And it still was like nothing I'd ever heard. But now I had something that I could send to the engineers in San Antonio, Texas, where in Toyota's bases, and say, hey, listen to this guys, look at this. And it turned out that it was simply the system was a little low on Freon, and it was causing this very odd noise.

You could do the same thing with video clips. If you had uneven wear on your tires, or you add something that he did visual. You know, we've all talked about this, but I believe that when this coronavirus passes in ancient history and everybody's fine. again I think that a lot of things are going to be done differently and I think because we do so much networking now digitally we're talking audio clips and video clips we're talking text and the other I wouldn't be surprised if it would be a rarity for somebody to come into a car dealership and rarity for I think it's going to be a lot of the remote control stuff that we're doing now

will stay with us forever and part of what what's going on right now is we're learning new things from this we've got a challenge before us everybody in the world is facing this incredible challenge and we're adapting we it was the old movie Starman where the Bob Bray whoever the guy was said the quote people are at their best when things are at their worst and it just seems to work that way that we learn to adapt and how to overcome challenges like this so So when you've got a challenge with something going on odd with your car, let's adapt, let's find a way to solve it, figure out some new ways.

I just have an idea. We've got all these great tools. You heard what Rick said. If you're listening to this and you have a little problem with your car, you can do an audio clip now. Go out there and record the noise that is bothering you or do a video of maybe your tires are wearing unevenly. And you can send it to the show, 772-497-6530.

You can send it to our text number, 772-4976530. Rick can look at it and give you a very professional diagnosis. It might save you a trip to the car dealership. How are we doing on text? We get any text in? Yeah, we have some anonymous feedback. Yeah, we have some anonymous feedback, and we have some texts that have come in. I'll start with anonymous feedback.

This actually came in after the show last Saturday, but after we had already gone off the air. And as a caveat, I did a tiny bit of research after reading the question because I wanted to address it. This is regarding the coronavirus, Wikipedia has an excellent article titled Native American disease and epidemics that explain how 30 plus percent of the American Indian population was killed by various diseases when the Europeans started coming to the U.S. in the 1770s and 1780s. Europeans started coming towards the U.S. in the 15th century, but that's okay. Anyway, and I mentioned the Indians had no immunity. It seems like when I watched the news, the hotspots seem to the areas in the U.S. with a high population of immigrants.

I read that one, yeah. If some would write about this in the newspapers or talk about it on the TV, they would probably be labeled as a racist and fired and run out of town by the liberal do-goaters. Like your radio show, the research I did, looked up COVID-19 areas where there's a high number of cases. And the commonality seems to be high population areas and areas that were slow to put into place social distancing. And a couple of facts for you. Santa Ana, California has one of the highest immigrant populations in the country. I think it ranks number three on the list, two or three. Atlanta ranks number 80 and

Santa Ana has a much lower incidence of COVID-19 cases than Atlanta. Another example is Irving, Texas, one of the highest number nine in the country in immigrant population has far fewer cases than... Well, it was such an absurd allegation that their problem, the COVID virus is spreading because of immigrants. It was such an absurd thing that I posted it on my Facebook page and commented that it proves that the biggest problem we have in this country. one of them is lack of education. People, he's probably sincere or she's probably sincere, but clearly doesn't know what he or she is talking about. And it's an education issue.

Rick? Well, just my thought is, unless your family tree traces all the way back to one of the Native American tribes, we're all immigrants. Yeah, that's true. And truth be don't. That's all right. I'm Scottish. The Native Americans were immigrants and went to.

I mean, you know. Yeah. Okay. Let's do a commercial for 23 in May, because that's true. Exactly. Excuse me, we're going to take Tina's call. She is a regular, and she's calling us from Benita Springs. Welcome to the show, Tina.

Good morning, everyone. How are y'all doing? Good morning. Doing good. How are you doing? Good. I hope everybody is well. We are.

I just pulled up an... Good, that's good to hear. I just pulled up an article on car and driver. I don't usually read car and driver too much because they're kind of biased. towards sports cars. And I don't think that they're always the greatest reviewers. You need to get somebody who's average show public to do a seat of the pants test on cars. But anyway, there's a big headline here that says Ford wants government to sponsor cash

for clunkers type program. So basically, Ford is asking for an embellished bailout from the government with his cash for clunkers thing. And Earl, I was wondering if maybe you can go into how the cash for clunkers thing worked quite a few years ago and had your take on it. Well, of course, Ford didn't get the bailout before, and maybe we owe them one, I say that tongue-in-cheek. We bail out Chrysler and General Motors

and didn't bail out. Ford, Ford, does need a bail out there hanging by a thread, and I don't know what's going to happen. You know, I hate to sound cruel, but we really have too many other manufacturers now. I don't mean we only need one. but we're getting to the point now in history where we're going to there's going to be a quantum change in the way people go from point A to point B

it's going to be all electric, we know that, it's going to be autonomous eventually, we know that, whether or not it'll be autonomous, whether it'll be ride sharing, there's a question. So the way car dealers and manufacturers exist today, I'll shoot way ahead, just to be sure I'm right, and 20 years will bear no

resemblance to what we do today. There'll probably only be two or three manufacturers. There'll be software manufacturers, and we don't even know who the assemblers will be. It'll be Shenzhen, and it'll be Apple. Yeah. I don't know who, I don't believe our government or anybody will support bailing out automobile manufacturers as they are today. Interestingly enough, the automotive stock that's doing the best today is Tesla. And who would have thunk it? I mean, if you told me that six months ago, that Tesla was probably the most high-demand,

high-bought stock of all the automotive manufacturers, I wouldn't have believed it, but that's true. Turning out the cars. Exactly. Hitting the targets. So, Tina, you know, I think it's going to be, we got two things coming. We got the revolution. of technology that's going to happen and we also have the revolution of the

coronavirus so coronavirus will be over hopefully in a few months and then the next thing will be talking about the revolution of a technology we have mixed feelings on the cash for clunkers thing though because it was philosophically it ran against your beliefs

but it did benefit all the car dealers and it was a crazy time this was back in 2009 and July and August 09, and it was one of the craziest periods of our lives in the car business. We sold more new cars that month than we'd ever sold in our history or since. Yeah, Nancy said to me the other day that John from Palm City, one of our regulars, said that he'd seen an article on Earl Stewart and the New York Post. And I said, I didn't see it.

I don't know what it would be. So I Googled New York Post and Earl Stewart, and I found the article on Cash for Clare. clunkers because we were from way back then way back then we had continued to apply the program and and take the money in at the enhanced value when the government stated that they had run out of money and we gambled to think that the government is going to leave car dealers or people there was a rumor as a rumor and so we went ahead and we ended up to be one of the largest cash for clunker dealers in the United States back then we kept on clunkin yeah we kept on clunkin clunkin clunkin and let me take a moment to thank john thank him for you know his uh communication with

me all the time if he doesn't call me he mails me something uh Tina you are a breath of fresh air I love hearing from you we all do thanks for helping us dredge up those memories from cast for clunkers I love talking about the old days yeah we almost burned a building down Hey, Tina, go on, forget about that. Go on YouTube and search for The Last Clunker, and you'll see my brother who killed a 1997 Dodge Dakota or something like that. Yeah, I remember that. No, seriously, I had to disable the comments because a lot of people got really upset that we were destroying cars.

Threatening lives. Yeah. The Last Clunker. Well, there's an unintended, there's an, oops, can you hear me? Yep. We can hear you. Okay. There is an unintended consequence of this cash for clunkers thing. If it does happen again, the market's going to get flooded with more cars with Takata airbags, which is the last thing we need, but that's probably what's going to happen if the whole thing gets instituted even through one auto manufacturer such as Ford. Excellent point, Tina. I think we have another caller on hold, do we?

We do. We do. Tina, thanks so much. You are our first and best calling. every week and I thank you please call again next week and we've got to get to our next caller thanks Tina Mark we're ready for your call Mark calling us from a Lake Worth welcome to the show Mark hi I'm the gentleman Rick work with on the air conditioning sound a couple weeks ago yes sir yeah the interesting thing was yeah you thought you had it lick but I think you're gonna have to check with your buddies back in Texas or we got to find out which part it is I drove out of

there and then I stopped made a little errand run got back in the car and five minutes from home got in the car shut it off and that crazy decibel what do you call it whistle sound that harmonic sound you called it yeah I'll be darned I thought we're forward Before we get into this, summarize it because we have thousands of listeners out there didn't hear Mark and the issue. So summarize it first, then you can answer Rick Mark's question. Mark had taken his car to another Toyota dealer, and they had replaced his compressor and a couple other parts on the AC system. And what happens is when you shut the car off, a few seconds after you turn the car off, there will be a low whistle sound. I'm sorry.

And what it seemed to be was in the AC system, when the gas pressures were equalizing, something was causing a harmonic whistle. And it literally was the sound of a tuning fork. And Mark actually, he got an audio clip of it, a recording, because we weren't able to get it to happen in the service drive when he brought the car in first. So once I heard it and I started playing with it, then I was able to get it to occur quite a lot. often by playing with the AC controls, and so we tried totally evacuating the system and adding a little extra oil and recharging it, and that seemed to have solved it, because I couldn't get it to happen again after that in 45 minutes time. Okay, that brings us to the President, so apparently, Mark, it's not solved, is that right?

Yeah, I know Rick's the genius with these things, but this is a challenge, I guess, that Well, sometimes it takes a little longer time to figure out what's going on, because these cars, it's almost like the cars have a mind of their own and that they just want to mess with us sometimes. We'll bring it back, Mark, and we will, eventually, we're going to figure it out, I promise you. I promise, I can see this rich determination and knowledge. All right, I'll give the dealership a call and find out when he's in or if that's something up. Great. Well, thanks, Mark. Sorry we didn't get it the last time, but we'll probably get it next time. I have a huge faith in Rick, and he's like a bulldog. He never gives up until he gets done what he wants to do. Boy, that's for sure. Call us next week, and we'll see how we'll win.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. It was great hearing from you. Stay in touch. 877960 or you can text us at 772-4976530 www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com And we've got a great mystery shopping report coming up about 930, so you want to stay

tuned for that. That's from Auto Nation Chevrolet. That's in Green Acres. Green Acres is a place. And I have a text from Jessica that we're going to get to. And this here would be for Rick. She wants to know if her battery will die. Well, she hasn't used her car in about four weeks. And now that we're really on lockdown, she's very concerned. Good question. And I've got a great

answer. You need to drive it a little bit. If all you do is just jump in the car and drive around the block a little bit, but I would let the engine run for at least an hour for every two weeks, give it at least an hour to make sure to charge things back up. Be sure the garage doors open when you do that. Actually, I wouldn't even do it in the garage. I would pull outside onto the driveway, so you've got no chances of gases going in the house. But, yeah, never run a car in the garage for any length of time that you don't have to, but definitely get outside and just let that engine run for about an outside.

And it's a good idea actually to drive around the block a few times because otherwise what can happen is your tires will develop what are called flat spots from where they've been sitting in one spot and when you can start driving that car again, it'll take it several hours of good hard driving before those flat spots will smooth out and while you're doing it, that car is just going to be thump, thump, thump, thump all the way down the road. Interesting. That's a great answer. You really covered all the bases. Maybe there should be a letter that people can carry with them when they're driving the car around the block. So when the cop pulls you over and says, this is a quarantine, where are you going? You say, I'm driving my car around the block to keep the battery charged. You know, Jessica, to your concern, I experienced that problem. And I drive in Avalon. And it sat for, I would say, three weeks, three and a half weeks.

And when I came home, the battery was dead. And it was quite a dilemma because you end up having to, well, I did, had to have my car towed. So thanks for the text and spread the word. Ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call tool-free at 877960-99-60. Or you can text us if you're a little shy. It's 772. 772-497-65-30.

That's right. We're going to go to Howard. Thanks for holding Howard. Howard. Howard's a regular caller from Jupiter. Nice hearing you guys. I'm glad you're keeping us safe by having the practices in your dealership, which reflect your interest in keeping us safe against the virus, which will go away eventually.

So, and I picked up a couple of things you were saying, and I have a question concerning keeping your car battery running. I used to put a trickle charger on a car. However, that was an old car. I don't think, can you put a trickle charger on a car now, or, and do you have to unhook the batteries to put the trickle charger on? You can absolutely put a trickle charger on. For folks that haven't heard this term before, basically it's a little battery charger that can be hooked up to your battery either by the way of little clamps like the jumper cable style or you can actually have the wires attached right to the bolt and bolted in place

and they've got a little connector that you can disconnect to leave those wires there for when you're driving the car. car. And basically, you just plug this right in, plug it into the wall, and it will keep a very low charge going into the battery to help maintain that battery while your car is just sitting. There's an excellent idea. And you don't have to unhook the negative clamp on there. You could leave everything hooked up and then you'd do the trickle charger? Absolutely. I didn't know that. Okay. Well, since we're talking about batteries, my next question is And when your battery is five years old, you recommend changing it, even if it's, you know, even it's working. Is that correct?

I would recommend having it tested. And if it's borderline to the new testers now, they're not like the old school things that would just kind of give you a general idea. These new computerized testers are so good, they can tell you if that battery is borderline going to fail. So if you test that battery and it says it's getting old and it's time to go, then go ahead and get a new one in there. They call that a load test, right? Yes. Oh, it's in other words a special load test that wasn't available years ago. Is that correct? Right. They have testers now that are computerized to the point of which they can detect and give you a pretty good idea of how long that battery has left in its life.

Okay. Now my last question is for Earl. Will hybrid cars be discounted because of the low price of gasoline? Oh, yeah. You're all cars are going to be discounted. And cars in general, SUVs and trucks are the ones that are holding the price. But when you add the corona crisis to the low price of gas, cars, especially hybrids, will be very cheap. you're going to see a lot of incentives and discounts from the manufacturers, low interest rates from the manufacturers, and also discounts from the dealers. But as I said earlier in the show, you're also going to find people, car dealers that are going to try to confuse you, bait and switch you and raise the price on you. But if you do your homework, you'll get a better deal on a car today and even better than that in about three weeks.

I'm guessing three or four weeks, you'll be able to buy a car cheaper than you ever bought a car. your life. Okay, good. That's where I want to know. So in other words, you recommend waiting at least three weeks. I would say, I'd say the end, you know, kind of play it by ear, but I'm thinking by the end to April, that's when I think the momentum of this whole corona crisis is being talked about to kind of peak. Yeah. And then I think the incentives put in place as we go through April will be there, then strike while the iron's hot. You got the end of the month going for you on April 30th. or even May 1st, right toward the end of the month, you got everything going for you.

They're really good, a great price. Yeah, the manufacturers are kind of just are watching the situation, seeing how April's playing out. We're all doing that right now. So they've already immediately, like Toyota incentives, they already beefed up, for example, on the 2020 Camry, they had only a $250 cash incentive, and now it's $1,500.

Watch that get bigger. And not just Toyota, all manufacturers. Yeah. and we had a great information great information as always and I appreciate your help thank you very much and have a good day thanks I wish you're going stay safe ladies 50 dollars for the first two new lady callers give me a call any question at all or if you just want to say hello 877 960 9960 and you can also text us at 772-4976530. And don't forget,

www.W.W. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. I have a text from Patty, and she lives in Texas. Her lease is up, and the dealership is closed. Really? She should have taken care of it quite some time ago. Well, do you have an answer for her? What kind of car was it? She has a Chevrolet Equinox.

You can take it probably to any Chevy dealer. Yeah. It doesn't have to go back to the same dealer. And also, you ought to check with GMAC or the leasing company and see if they are extending leases. Leasing companies will be extending leases. And if you'd just rather not go car shopping now, you might try to get an extension. Okay, Patty.

I hope he answers your question. Don't forget, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call at 877-960-99-60. Okay, we got some more text. Before we go to the text, I want to mention because I was thinking about Howard, when you talk about buying a car, our mystery shopping report, we checked out an advertised car, I'll just tell you a little bit ahead of time. And the advertised car, correct me if I'm wrong, Stu,

they were advertising it zero percent financing no payments for four months and was it 84 months 84 months real long term 0% and no payments for 120 days now I said to Nancy in the car we were talking about on the way to the radio studio

I said it almost makes me want to buy that car I mean that that's probably a sweet a deal on the surface without digging down deep as you'll ever hear zero percent for seven years 84 months and no payments for the first four months.

Yeah, that payment's going to be like a lease payment, but you're going to own it. Yeah. Now, if you do trade out, you know, every three years, you're going to have, take a while to get some equity in that car. But not as long because there's no interest, so it sounds like a good deal. But listen to the Mr. Shopper report around 930 toward the end of the show, and you will find out what really happened to that sweet deal that was advertised. Yeah. Okay. Let's leave it to a dealer at a month.

muck it all up. All right. This is from Anne-Marie, and this is kind of related to the questions we had about the battery charging. Good morning. I hope everyone as well. The safe thing to do is shelter in place and only go out when we really have to. Obviously, we aren't using as much fuel as we used to. I was wondering, what is the best thing to do when it comes to refueling? Should we top off after a few weeks, or should we wait until the tank is low and then refill, even if it's been over a month or two since our last fill-up? Thanks. That's a Rick question. Before you answer that question, Robert is holding from Palm Beach Gardens. Thank you for your patience, Robert.

Excuse me, Roberta. Oh, that's okay. My vision's guard. Well, thank you. How can we help you, Roberta? Yes, I was just wondering about the 2014 Dodge trucks. Somebody told me that they didn't have smart plugs. I just wondered if that wasn't true.

that they did have spark plugs in that kind of truck? I don't know if that's a stupid question, but... No, no, believe me, anything's possible. Rick, what's... No, all gasoline engines have spark plugs. The only engines that do not have spark plugs are diesels, and they actually have what are called... Oh, diesel.

Right, they have glow plugs that last quite a while, but their... Diesel's actually run a very different design than a gasoline engine, Okay, so the diesels, they don't have spark plugs. Yeah, not per se, but they have a device, like Rick says, with the glow plug, something's got to ignite the diesel, and they also have the compression. Right, diesel's actually run by using high compression to cause it to ignite the fuel. The glow plug simply warms up the cylinder and adds heat in when it's needed on a cold engine,

so it makes it easier to start the engine. Part of the ignition process. Yes. Oh, okay. Thank you. That answered my question. I appreciate it because I was arguing with somebody over that. We weren't sure. We had no idea if it did or not.

Well, thank you for calling us. Roberta, are you a first-time caller? Yes. Please stay on the line. And Mike in our control room is going to take your information, contact information, and that will allow me to mail you, $50 this morning for being a first time

female caller Oh, thank you Wow, that's your help than this time of year Yes, most definitely And Mike will Take your information Okay, great, thank you so much Spread the word, Roberta

Roberta, right We were in the middle of answering a text question I think... Right, that was on fuel And my recommendation, I would go ahead and just top up every couple weeks If you're down below, say, three quarters of a tank, go ahead and top it up a little bit. It can't hurt to drive the car to the gas station, give it a few moments of running time,

you know, help basically exercise the car a little bit. I'm going to disagree with your expert opinion. Okay. My opinion is, first of all, no one wants to have to go into a gas station because you've got to wear gloves or something to pick up the gas pump. You don't want to touch things. You don't want to get out of the house. and gas prices of anything are going down.

So if I were driving the car, I would stay out of the gas station until I had to go. No one's closed in the gas stations. True. Very few people are using gas. And if you've got a tank full of gas now, if you're not driving as much as I'm not driving, you're probably good for a couple of months before you have to go in.

And gas prices will probably be a lot less. Very true. And for the second part of it, though, gasoline modern fuels do not go bad it would take three four or five months before you would ever see any sort of problem with the fuel degrading due to time you watch the walking dead they've been driving cars with old gas for like 10 years now true very good steve very good thank you sir yeah the modern gasoline you're you're totally safe um however i would i will caution that can of gas that has been sitting in your shed for four or five months, do not put that in your

car, run that through the lawnmower or something, a less expensive engine, something that's going to just burn it because it doesn't really care about fuel and use it up that way, but yeah, don't put that in your car. You could really cost yourself quite a hefty bundle by using old gasoline that might have been contaminated because it's in a container that's sitting in your shed. 9060. Who knows what kids put in that tank of gas anyway? 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-49-6-5-30 or post on Facebook or YouTube.

I mean, you can get us any way you want. Let's go to some more text. We're never going to get through these anonymous feedbacks. We got a lot. Yeah, anonymous feedback. I won't give the URL out because we're too many. It's your mom-in-nose Feed-Mec.com. I wonder why car dealers and newspapers radio TV are exempt from the FTC Truth in Advertising Rules and Regulations.

I think that was said tongue in cheek. It seems like it. It's something, probably one of my pet peeves, and I've ranted and raved about that for a long, long time. And why our regulators, they're to blame our regulators and our legislators. I'm looking for a thing I have a printout. It's a Federal Trade Commission printout that basically says, I can't find it. It says that when you advertise a price or a payment, if there's anything that will modify that price or payment

where it's actually higher than what the price or payment says, it has to be conspicuously displayed in the same size type as the actual price or payment. So it's totally ignored. You've all seen the lease payments on television. That's a good example. They'll have leased this new Cadillac for $399 a month. And take delivery today for just $399 a month.

And then they'll flash on the screen for five seconds, if you're lucky, the disclosure. Well, if you stop and do a still shot on the screen, and then you blow it up, you'll find out that you need $10,000 down. It's still hard to read. Yeah. And you still can't. So the texter is being tongue-in-cheek. They are not exempt, car dealers are not exempt, but the legislators and the regulators, the governors and the attorney generals, are in the pocket of the car dealers.

And the car dealers, you can't get elected in the state of Florida, probably most other states, attorney general or anything else, unless you have the car dealer lobby behind you, the car dealer association and the car dealers. They got a lot of money, and they buy people positions in office, and they don't enforce the laws with regard to us simply. That's right. Next. More anonymous feedback. Earl, this is a good one. Earl, I'm glad my comment was a great conversation starter. You've made small comments about wanting critical feedback.

There it was. Earl's nemesis. That was a halfway decent signature, wasn't it? It is complete fiction, I assure you. To challenge your take off, check of my cloak. challenge to take off my cloak of anonymity. Why should I? You've created this anonymous platform

and are very proud of it. I'd love for my company to employ incognito, but I don't think the big wigs would go for it. Earl, please continue with the show. Keep challenging those bad dealers to be better. Signing off now, some dude stirring up crap that he knows nothing about. You know, I congratulate the anonymous feedbacker.

He's obviously an intelligent guy. He got a good sense of humor, and he was accusing me. He fooled me, though. Yeah, well, he did. He kind of fooled me, but I thought he was a worthy opponent, even though I thought he was attacking me. And maybe he wasn't. Actually, here's what it did.

It might be Jim Powell. Well, no offense to the guy, you're anonymous, but I got to say, I go, I think the way you're using sarcasm is confusing your point. And I'm just being honest, because I mean, so now I realize he was being facetious, but before it seemed like he was being too serious. What he said to the people that don't know about this when we talked about it before, and I posted it on Facebook, he was saying that I am using this show as a forum, a propaganda to sell myself as an honest, transparent car dealer. And as I tear down all the other car dealers, I'm enhancing my own brand and image. so hopefully you'll come and buy cars from us and by service from us. And the fact of the matter, it's true.

Yeah, there's some truth in that. It's true. I mean, I know that's happening. Now, is it my primary motivation? No. But I know that people that hear me tell the truth over and over again and are unchallenged legally by any car dealers, by what I say, you've got to believe, hey, this guy, either he's mentally,

or he's an honest car dealer. It's kind of like saying you're just a nice guy because you want people to like you. Yeah. I mean, if I were that devious to do it solely for that reason, probably wouldn't come across as good. But your theory could be, I mean, you could be right. I could be right. Rick wants to do a YouTube.

Well, we've got a couple here. Okay. Let me bring up Tony R's first here. He says, what's your thoughts on a 2017 Nissan Pathfinder SV 4x4 with only 18,000, miles for $18,000. It's cherry inside and out and has a clean Carfax. Should I still be leery? Snoot, you're going to have to Google that. I'm not good on appraisals.

Are they more interested in the price or if it's a good car? I think the price, I think you. The price, when we get to another question, I'll appraise it. Yeah, the Nissan Pathfinder, as far as I know, there's not a bad car. No, they've been pretty decent. Yeah. You know, let me say this, too. A used car is judged by a different criteria than a new car.

And when Consumer Reports comes out with a new car reports, which is my Bible, the car is new, and they haven't had a time to run and experience problems. And so a new car can get a high rating. The Tesla, for example, got the highest rating ever given a car, 100% reliability on a particular. their new Tesla model a few years ago. And that just blew my mind. I almost bought a Tesla. I got so excited. And then, after the Teslas were on their own for a while, we found out that they're not perfect cars, after all.

And for a period of time there, there were no Tesla's recommended by Consumer Report. So a Nissan Pathfinder that is a few years old, could be a great car, but it might not have been recommended that well as a new car. One of the reasons I think it's always better to buy a good to use car is because it's got a history. And you can even have a car that typically

doesn't have a good history, but this one does. And if you have the repair history on the car, you can get a real diamond on the rough and get a great buy. Okay, we're going to go to Bernie, who's calling from Palm Beach Gardens. Welcome to the show, Bernie. Thank you very much.

We appreciate it. And my wife and I've listened to you for many years, and you saved us money in our last car. And as you were saying just a few minutes ago, I think a good buying opportunity to be coming up here at the end of this month or by the end of May for sure. And that's part of my question coming up. I'm looking at your important links on your website, which is quite handy. But I was wondering if you could add one to that. And that is, I know you've repeatedly said on the radio, what are the legitimate, costs on purchasing a car and what are the not legitimate costs all the extra wonderful names

they come up with for just getting money from you but you know it would be handy if you actually put that on an important link what are the legitimate prices or what are not prices what are legitimate names of the legitimate costs that you would look at when you went to a car dealership we know it's tax that that's a given there has to be some kind of license fee. But after that, I have no idea. I know you said it plenty of times when I'm usually either driving or I don't have a piece of paper in front of me or write it down. Well, Stu's got an answer for that, I do. And it's actually, it's a great question. And it's, and it's really hard to answer. Because the legitimate fees that you get, you already mentioned sales tax is one.

In the state of Florida, there is $6.50 for a tire disposal and a battery fee. And those are state charges. It's very small, but it's legit. And the other is your title registration fee. Now, we've seen dealers on our mystery shops lump in electronic filing fees and private tag agency fees into one line that they're calling registration. I think they're allowed to do that on a worksheet. On the actual buyer's order, there's going to be a separate line that says title registration or something to that effect. Those are the only legitimate fees you're going to see. That's sales tax, your tire and battery fee, and the actual cost to register that vehicle and apply for a title.

Yeah, Bernie, what Sue is saying that we could name all the fees to watch out for. Actually, we couldn't because car dealers are making them up as we speak. And there's probably, I'm going to just shoot from the hip, 15 or 20 different names that we've uncovered for dealer fees. Dealer fees is generic for an added price to the car after you come in on the advertised price or the quoted price. So if we gave you every dealer fee name to watch out for, as this show is being conducted, another dealer is going to come up, and he could call his fee Pirel.

I'm holding up my can of Perel or my bottle of Perel. So that's silly, but you see what I'm saying. You can name it. The Florida is the loose estate in the union for dealers and dealer fees. and they allow a car dealer in Florida to name a dealer fee anything they want. I think, though, I like your suggestion, and we will do what you're asking. We will name all the dealer fees that we know of, and we will put them on the list. We'll also do something for dealer installed accessories and try to cover that for you also.

But what Stu is saying is we say by exclusion it's simpler. We say, unless it's a government fee, don't pay it. If the advertised price or quoted price, if the car dealer wants to add something that is not from the government, meaning sales tax, tag registration, or $6.50, tire tax. If it's not a tax or fee, the government charges the dealer, then don't pay it. I fully agree you wouldn't be able to write down all the flim flam choices and words they use but you've actually told me what I was after and this is what my suggestion is you said sale tax, tire disposal and battery and title registration fee if you could just put that on these are things you should be paying for and nothing else that would be helpful great idea

we'll put up today if you put it right on the bottom of your dale door out deal out to the door, download the out-the-door form or add it to it, these are the fees you should be looking for, and then anything else is bogus, that would be helpful, too, for a future car bar. Well, Bernie, you have to be careful even then, because one thing the car dealers have started doing is they're trying to counterfeit impersonate registration fees. They have something called a tag agency fee.

That sure sounds logic like it's a government fee, doesn't it? Or how about, yeah, tag agency fee, or how about electronic filing fee or e-filing fee? They've learned how to make their added profit sound like a government fee. So you almost have, the acid test, the acid test of a government fee is, does it say, do they charge sales tax on it? I want you to hear the answer because I might not be able to hear it. Okay. Well, I guess I will. I'll through my ear fa.

Okay. How are we doing? I have a text from Pittsburgh. Hometown. Okay. What happened to Bernie? I think we lost them. Oh, okay.

Before I get to that text, I'll go to Olivia, who's holding in Palm Beach Gardens. Welcome to the show, Olivia. Good morning. Thank you very much. You're welcome. I've been listening for a couple of years and just haven't, you know, take it all in stride. And a question came up. My three years ago, my brothers and sisters and I, we leased the car from our 83-year-old mother from a dealership in Stewart.

And she got hounded, like within the first month, constant from a call center to do with Nissan telling her that she, needed to bring her car in for an oil change and you know it was driving her to the point where she was like we need to take my car and you know she had a thousand miles on it um so they never got they didn't up sale her because we wouldn't let them when we took the car in for the oil change i changed the number on her record to my phone number never got a call back from them ever um i've been dealing with a uh a dealership and under the same family name for 15 years in Martin County, never got a call from then. They never, you know, because I think it's the age thing. Well, we turned her car in earlier, earlier, first week in March, and it was in mint

condition. She had 9,600 miles on it in three years. We took video of it, you know, everything, perfect condition. We got, we got an email stating that they want to charge $100 for the wheel covers that they are damaged now when we turn that car in it was detailed it was i mean it looked better that when we turned it i mean it was i can't say enough nice things about it and it's not the hundred dollars it's the principal that now my mother 86 years old it's like they're trying to get that money back because she only had one oil change because she wasn't due till 10 000 miles and we think that they're trying because they couldn't up sale her that they're trying to get that money well that's that's a shame and i that car probably

is worth it could be worth more than the residual value i'm sure you don't want to exercise the purchase option um because your your mother doesn't need the car apparently and uh but this dealer and this leasing company will probably take your mother's car and sell it at auction and make a nice profit where they could make a nice profit if it's the way you describe it low mileage and perfect condition, the car is probably worth more than the residual, which is what they anticipated when they set the payment schedule up. I would protest it. I would call the leasing company and just confront them. I've had success in my dealership by doing this.

We sometimes find, in fact, it's not unusual to find overcharges by leasing companies. I hate to think it's a conspiracy, but it seems like, sometimes it's just almost automatic the leasing companies will go back out and try to charge you for abnormal beyond normal wear and tear and try to charge you for paint work or tireware or interior upholstery and other things and it's worth calling and trying to argue to see if you can't get them to wave it i will we will do that thank you so much olivia and we listen every saturday Thank you. Olivia, are you a first-time caller? I am.

Congratulations. You just won yourself $50 this morning, and if you'll stay on the line, and Mike in our control room will take your contact information, and I'll get that check out to you this morning. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. You're welcome, Olivia. Give us a call again. Okay, 877-960-1960 is the call name. in number 877-960-9960. The text, 772-4976530, 772-497-6530. And Rick? Well, we've got one that Donovan Lewis is asking, this is on the earlier question about the FTC and the truth in advertising. He says, if this is all true, why is the FTC or the state not doing anything about it? If any other business did that, they would be in trouble. But car dealers get away crap advertising of the

price. Here's my opinion. And can I be sued by the Attorney General? I'm not sure. My opinion is that most investigations and regulations are enforced by state attorney generals. And to get elected Attorney General in Florida, you have to have the support of the Florida automobile Dealers Association, the National Automobile Dealers Association, and the individual car dealers. Car dealers and their associations have almost as much money as trial lawyers and insurance companies. And you're never going to find anybody to go against trial lawyers. You're never going to find anybody go after insurance companies. And you're never going to find anybody going after car deals. The Attorney General, unfortunately, and this has been, I go all the way, back

to McCullum when I remember, I think the show first started. Bill McCullum. And we're in our third, we're in our third Attorney General that I can recall, and they just sit on their hands and pretend like everything's going. They go after the kind of businesses that don't have any influence on their election. Like human growth hormone vendors. Exactly. And I think that's the fact.

I think everybody knows that. Because if you're a car dealer, you can get away with just about anything in Florida. Yep. Okay. You know, we ought to have a contest to see what listener can come up with the most imaginative term for a dealer fee. Okay. Okay, let's get back to Pittsburgh. See if we can beat the dealers at their own game.

Lori is interested in whether or not the dealers will have parts if she needs to get her car fixed. in light of everything that's going on. Yeah, I'm sure we will. I think that, again, I'm a glass, half-old guy. I think this thing... The demand will meet supply. ...will be over before too many more months, and that's not going to be a test of the availability of parts.

Yeah. Right now, for most modern new manufacturers, the parts delivery system is pretty sophisticated. They can get parts the same day, and when the volume slows down in service departments, the, like I mentioned, the supply will meet that demand. I can do a lightning round of text because I don't think we're going to finish all these texts or anonymous feedback before the end of the pandemic.

You ready? Well, that's good. Let's go as fast as we can and still be legible. Here we go. Because I've been able to get the answers ahead of time. So I've been considering buying my 16-year-old son a 2008 FJ cruiser. I've read that they're reliable and have a lot of safety features and seem to hold their value. Can you offer any thoughts on a first-time driver using that as a daily driver?

Are there things to look out for when buying those model year FJs? That's from Chris in Georgia. He says, thank you. And I can't address that. They are, believe it or not, and I'm going to surprise my father here, consumer reports, gives them a five out of five in reliability and a five out of five in owner satisfaction. That said, you're crazy to buy your 16-year-old son a 2008 FJ Cruiser. They have terrible gas mileage, and they have terrible visibility,

and they're fun to drive, but as a first-time car for a son, if you're going to spend money in that range and that $16, $17,000 range, or get one with newer safety features that 2008 FTA Cruiser. It's got analog brakes and all that sort of stuff, airbags.

It doesn't have all the new stuff. What's the safety rating by? It's got a high safety raising, but for its year. I mean, back in 2008, you didn't have blind spot monitoring and all the other stuff. So I'd think about that twice, that said, your kid is going to love you if you get them on because it's a cool car.

It is, yeah. And that's just my opinion. The next one is a unanimous feedback. Rick, with the know-how you've gained over the years working on cars and with four of your most competent car-savvy friends, how quickly could you and your team replace the engine of an 80s-era Ford escort? Pause, let Rick answer. It wouldn't happen. don't work on ford. Okay, a crack team of

UK Royal Marines replaced the engine in 42 seconds that included a short test drive to prove that the new engine works. Now this would be impossible to do with today's computerized engines, but if Rick would step up to take that challenge, my money is on him. Rick, I'd be on your team with my one screwdriver and claw hammer that I have in my

house. Okay, that one's way too long. Folks, brevity is what we need on the radio show. Stu has told a dad choke or made a dad pun in the past. Here Here is one that just reminded me of Stu. While in quarantine, I'll be telling inside jokes.

Thanks and have a great day. Yes, I'm one of Stu's fan club members. I got a fan club? Wow. All right. Congratulations. Thank you. I do tell dad jokes because I am a dad,

and I thought my jokes were good until my kids started calling my jokes. Dad jokes. Ah. Yeah. Earl, I came across a new dirty trick in a YouTube video today. When a dealer goes on a pre-appraisal

walk around your trade-in before the appraiser takes your car on a joyride, he or she may ask you, if you were given $1,000 or $1,500 to fix anything on this car, what would you take it in for? This is meant for you to deval your own car by the same dollar amount. Just don't answer that question. I love your show and keep the info and entertainment coming. That's a great idea. I'm going to cover that in our next sales meeting.

Well, actually, that's a standard operating procedure for all car dealers, is to prepare the customer for a lower value of the trade-in than they anticipate. And one of the ways you do this, I haven't heard of that one, but that's worth trying for you car dealers out there. What is standard is to walk around, you see, say, a scratch. You don't even say anything to the customer, but you have the customer with you,

and you walk over, and you lean over, and you look closely to the scratch, and maybe you go. You touch it. Yeah. And then everything you see, the tires, you get down, and you look at the, If they're worn tires, you rub your hand on the tires,

you open the hood. In other words, you look at everything that is possibly a blemish or a problem. And so that if there is anything on the car, he's worried about, he knows you've seen it. And he's therefore prepared for a lower value on the trade-in than he anticipated, which is why when you trade your car in,

you should never rely on the car salesman or the car manager's appraisal. you should get separate bids on your car from a lot of sources. You can go to CarMax, AutoNation Appraises and buys cars over the curb. You can go to We Buy Anycar.com. You can go to Carvana. Stu can probably come up with some other sources that you do. You can get, if you're driving a Honda Civic and you want to buy a new Honda Civic,

go to two or three other Honda dealers and go to the used car manager. Say, what will you buy the car for? you can establish a very good market value for your car without relying on the appraisal. They call that a silent appraisal. Yes, a silent appraisal. Are you limited to swapping dealer inventory with another Toyota dealer within the Southeast Toadet distributor coverage area? Can you dealer swap inventory with another Toyota dealer in another part of the U.S.

outside of Southeast Toadis territory? And would there be a financial penalty as a result? It can be done. It is unusual, and Toyota and Southeast Toyota both frown on it. But in a pinch, we've done this in the past. To give you a quick example, a long time ago, Toyota came out with the plug-in Prius, before the Prius Prime, and it was only available in certain areas of the country, and we bought a whole bunch, I think, from Maryland. And that was a mistake.

It took like five years to sell them all. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Hey, we took a chance. But anyway, it can be done, but it's kind of tough. Okay, here's a fun one, anonymous feedback. Good morning, and hello, Earl. I think it would be fun to have you go around the studio and ask everyone what would be his or her nomination of the best driving song.

Maybe you include Alan by text message and also the guys in the control room. I quite enjoy The Boys of Summer by the Atari's. What is your top driving song, Earl? Thank you and keep on rocking. What is my, I sing a lot in the car. and then Nancy slaps me. Love is lovelier. Yeah, I go oldies.

This is a true oldie station, and it's perfect for me because I'm a 50s and 60s and maybe early 70s kind of a guy. So I burst into song, but I don't have a favorite song. Rick, what's your favorite song? While riding in my catalog. That does not sound like a driving song. That's like a parking. song. Come on, Little Nash Rambler.

What's yours, too? Mine changes with the era. I had a high school and a college one. I would say my favorite one right now is Tintz by Anderson Puck featuring Kendrick Lamar. Look it up. Never heard of it. Nancy, what's yours? I'm not going to tell you. Okay.

Bob Sinclair. World. Hold on. Okay. That's just one of them. I love to sing in the car. Okay, next. You wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and you're singing And I'm saying, God, Earl, we've got to get some sleep.

He's singing in his sleep. All right, can the mileage on digital odometers be turned back like they could in the old days with mechanical odometers? No. Didn't think so. Hey, that one came in twice. What they do, by the way, is they just replace the odometer. And then it becomes, you know, it's legal to put in an odometer, a brand new odometer. and then you just have to say

it's a brand new odometer. Somebody watching Ferris Bielberg? Rick is says that's not right. We actually buy, when a car comes in that we're going to replace the computer board that has the odometer, we require that the car stays at the dealership until we get the new part installed.

The part is sent by Toyota to a company that programs in the exact same mileage and they send us the part, so when we install it, your car still shows the accurate mileage that's on that car. Okay, let me ask you this question. I'm Joe Blow, and I'm in Kentucky, and my car's in an accident,

and they repair it, and the odometer has to be repaired. Does the law require that they put in an odometer with the same mileage that my car hit? I don't think the law actually requires it. Okay, well, that's what the question was. Back in the, and I don't know if it's changed with this sort of procedure, if there was a replacement odometer, there was something that had to be declared, and it was labeled TMU, otherwise known as true mileage unknown. In many cases, we see cars with new odometers, and I think it's great what Toyota's doing, and I think it helps the customer, and it also minimizes the amount of fraud going on. But there's not a law saying you have to do that.

If I was a bad guy and I had a car with 800,000 miles on it, and I thought I could get more money for the car by putting a new odometer in and then having people say, I replace the odometer. I don't know how many miles. I might sell the car for more money saying I don't know how many miles. True story here. The car came into the shop. It was a Camry hybrid that the odometer showed 70,000 miles on it.

and it was an older car and the moment I got in the car I thought something was wrong because there was no carpeting it was all vinyl and there were holes all through it where they had removed the plastic safety shield and the taxi meter devices and there was even yellow paint

in various spots and when we tracked it down by running a car fax we found that the car actually had been at a dealership and had over 200,000 miles this fellow had bought the car online sight unseen from someone down in Miami and then it came to us because they had a hybrid issue and the battery was going bad

they thought it would still be under warranty and obviously it was completely out of warranty. The best protection against that sort of thing is just good record keeping and you'll find those inconsistencies and Carfax Carfax notices it will highlight odometer discrepancy and so if a car has service records Every time it goes in a shop, they record the mileage, and then you would see unusual things.

That's what you want to watch out for. But you've got to do your homework. Next. Folks, give us a call toll-free. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-497-6-5-30. And if you picked up the Florida Weekly, take a look at Earl's latest column. That's Coronavirus Catch-22. A great read.

Let me hold that off with the camera here. also you can take a look at Earl on cars this is the one I just said oh good okay okay let's go to the text Earl what do you think about this Car Shield program that they advertise on T thanks for all you do for our community and that's from Phil and in the interest of time we had another question from Robbie in Stort Florida said has the same question I listen to your show every week probably know the answer this question car shield extended maintenance warranty is spending a fortune on TV advertising. Is it for real? And do you accept it at your dealership? I can answer that. That's all it is. It's an extended

service contract. The same sort of thing that they sell in the car dealer in the box at the dealership. They're just branding it differently. Like it's a miracle product. It's an extended warranty. It costs a lot of money. And you could rip on that. We should investigate it. My feeling is it's a rip-off. My feeling is that it's a highly overpriced extended service contract because that's what everybody's doing. I am peppered. I have a car in my own

name and I'm peppered with these in the mail and most of them are just power train warranties and they charge you thousands of dollars. So put it on our ledger that we're starting when we say things we're going to do and then we don't

get to them. We will get to this. We will examine the car shield. We'll find out what the value is. But my gut tells me, don't buy it. There's been a lot of money on advertising, and I've never seen this before. Most of these extended warranty companies are using direct mail, telephone, texting, email. They're going after you that way. But someone is spending big bucks on this car shield, and I think it's a rip-off.

We will give you the actual facts next week. We'll dig into the details. There's a text. I have a 2010 Scientist. I bought it three years ago to use as a... a hoopty. It now has, what is that? Those great big giant wheels that people put on cars. They lift them way up and put the big wheels on them.

Got it. It's a hoopty. It now has 112,000 miles, runs fine, gets great mileage. In fact, it has become my primary driver. My mechanic says that it is in great shape and has many, many miles left in it, but when idling at speed or at speed, the engine sounds fine. But pulling away from a stop, it sounds like the tappers rattle. Is this normal or due to age and mileage? Is there any valve train adjustment recommended, or as my mechanic says, just drive the thing and stop worrying? Thanks for your great program.

No, because the camshaft sits directly over top of the valves on that, so there's no adjustments on that engine for adjusting the valve train. So the mechanic's right. Drive the car and enjoy it. Very much. It's a good mechanic. Request your mystery shopper to include dealer cleanliness and affection control procedures from their mystery shopping visits.

This will help protect new car shoppers from getting a pesky COVID-19 infection. I never heard that thing described as pesky. Does the mystery shopper now wear a mask and gloves when we visiting a car dealer? Yes, Agent Thunder in his shop yesterday wore a mask and gloves. And without getting in too much detail, but we are commenting on the practices and the behavior of the salespeople and what they're seeing. He does a report on his observations on cleanliness and social distancing. So good point, and we will continue to focus that. on that during these menstruations are expanding as the virus proliferates and gets worse.

And as everybody knows, in Florida, it's recommended that everybody wear a mask when they're outside. At first, it was thought that masks were only required if you were ill and prevented from spreading the illness. And now there's some thought about protecting yourself with a mask. So we're trying to stay on top of the recommendations and being err on the side of caution. absolutely good morning john from california i think it's john from the west coast of california john from california here wants to ask is there something we can do to get chrysler to own up to the lifter and camshaft failure there's a lot of videos and people they have complained to chrysler but they claim not to know anything about it even though there's

tons of videos to prove that the lifter fails and the camshaft goes flat is there's something we as consumers can do to make them on this defect on the five 5.7 HEME motors. Talking about it is good. It hurts sales. The more people talk about it. National Highway Traffic Safety Association, that's the only authority that can do anything about it. I guess they have their plate full with a lot of other problems. I agree that maybe they don't take actions as often as they do, but maybe it's because they're just overworked and underpaid. That's right. This is from Kyle. Atex. Good morning, everyone. I hope everyone's safe and healthy. questions about how aggressive and desperate are dealers and manufacturers right now to sell a car

since I read that March sales numbers were horrendous for many car makers. I remember in 2009, 2010, seeing cars for 40% off MSRP and thousands below invoice. In a time like this would be, would a dealer rather lose thousands and move a unit or not make a sale and hold tight? Thank you. Stay healthy. Well, dealers will always make a sale if they can make a small profit or or even sometimes, depending on bonuses and incentives, technically lose money on one car. But that's only if they make money overall. The desperation is there.

The dealerships are worried about their existence. Car salespeople are worried about their jobs. The manufacturers are worried about their existence. This is the worst thing I've seen. I've been in the business for over 50 years. I've been through a lot of crises, this is the worst, both in terms of our health, our lives, and our economy. So it's a terrible, terrible situation, and any car dealer, a manufacturer that has any brains is scared to death. And that breeds desperation.

So you can use that as an opportunity to get a really great price on a car. Just be more careful than you have a. ever been because remember car salespeople are paid on commission they get 25% of the profit they make on you if a car costs $10,000 and they sell the car for $10,000 for $11,000 they make $250 if they sell it for $20,000 they make $2,500 so they're going to sell you the car for as much as they possibly can the advertisement that you came in on means nothing to them They'll try to switch you to a different car. They'll play with the numbers.

Or they'll switch you to financing where they make more money than when they sell the car. So think about it. You're worried about losing your job. You're used to selling 15 cars a month. Now you're selling five cars a month. You're a car salesman. Somebody walks on the lot. You haven't seen anybody on the lot in four hours.

Now, there is dinner and groceries for your family. You ever see, like, Bugs Bunny and the Tweety Bird turn? into a roasted chicken, you're the roasted chicken. Exactly. So desperation is there. So, yes, if you've done your homework and you are careful and you shop and compare, competitiveness is your best friend, you will get a dynamite deal on a car,

but you will also be taken seriously advantage of desperation. Just remember, whatever price that car is, the higher it is the salesman's making more money. The dealer's making more money. the sales manager is making more money the manufacturer is making money you are you are the

twitty bird and the dealer is Sylvester You're a savory pork shop And the thing is during the COVID-19 epidemic everything that we've taught on the show still needs to be applied

you shop multiple dealers get different quotes Yes This advice will serve you during this better than ever I wish there was a way to find out because a dealer who was in poor financial health is more likely to engage in more desperate tactics as opposed to someone who could sustain this during the economic downturn.

That's an excellent point. You can't know that, but a financially healthier dealer is more likely to be able. I'll tell you, I'll share something from my past experiences. When a car dealer is in serious financial trouble, it's a liquidity problem. He doesn't have the cash to continue in operation. And one of the ways dealers will raise cash illegally is by not paying off the loan on the cars, they call it floor plan. If a dealer has 100 cars, new cars and 100 used cars in his inventory, he's borrowed money from the bank or from the captive lender to have those cars on his lot. When he sells the car, he has to pay the lender off.

As soon as he sells the car, he has to pay the lender off. So what will happen is he'll float on the lender, and that's the way he raises cash to do business. Also, dealers will not pay off the trade-in. You trade a car in, and you buy a new car, and then two months later, you get a done, you get somebody calling you from where you finance to use car, and say, you owe us two more payments.

You say, I traded the car in two months ago. Well, you did, but the dealer didn't pay your car off. These are all the things that happened during desperate times, and it will happen again. So when you trade your car in, be sure that the loan is paid off. Check with your lender that you finance you trade in with to be sure the dealer paid your car off. And also, well, you don't care what happens to the dealer, but the dealer is probably not going to play if he's in trouble, won't pay the fly. floor plan off the loan on the new car you bought. And that's how they go down fast. A reason

you have to be careful, Rick? I'm going to slip in this text. It's from Irvine, California, and this is from Kira. And thank you for the text, Kara. Kira's single. And she needs to purchase a new car and wants to know what she should do first. Well, Kira, being, I won't even emphasize single, just purchasing a vehicle you must do your homework before you go to the dealership if that's what you choose to do to go into the dealership but doing your homework is extremely important knowing what you want so that you're not talked into some other purchase and that's the make the model the color everything and do your homework and like I said know exactly what you want and don't be interested in so much of the numbers if they throw at you, well, listen, you know, I can make your payment or extend the, you know, the financing, you know, all the mumbo-jumbo that they go into. So please do your homework, knowledge is power.

And thanks for the text, Kara. Okay, we've got time for more text. Yeah, we have more incognito, anonymous feedback. if the COVID-19 crisis causes competing Toyota dealers in the area to close their doors, what will happen to their sales territories? Would your dealership have the option to open another Earl's Toyota location and those open territories? Hey, nice thought. Yeah, I don't think you're going to see too many car dealerships closed.

I was surprised when you talked about the one in Texas. Car dealerships have closed if there's been a coronavirus incident to do a deep cleansing on the dealership. I've heard a couple of stories like that, but then they open up again. There's also a question of whether contractually a car dealer can close without threatening his contract. I think they probably can close without a threat on their contract, but I think knowing the mentality of car dealerships and the fact that it is a vital service, I think that in some way, shape, or form all car dealerships will remain open. They might limit their hours, They might even close on dates.

For example, we've closed on Sunday at our dealership for service. And we shorten our sales hours by a couple hours. And service. And service. So we'll adapt to the volume of business. So if a car dealer was selling 300 cars a month before the coronavirus, and now he's only selling 100, he will adjust accordingly. Yeah, and the sales territories, those remain.

So in the chance that a dealer went under, there would just be a buyer to, take by that dealership probably an auto nation or a Terry Taylor would buy the store at probably at a good price but that territory would remain would Earl Stewart be able to we would probably try we would probably try yeah I mean

if there's some opportunities out there we would certainly be looking at them and that's probably going to happen on the note of car sales going slow remember too that service shops are going slow as well sure so folks

when you take your car in for maintenance or service if something sounds like they might be pushing things a little bit get a second opinion or play the Missouri card show me exactly and get a second opinion no I repeat I say this so often but I know they're new listeners only do to your car what your owner's manner recommends as far as it's concerned look at your owner's manual if you don't have an owner's manual you can Google it and download it read what it says

for your particular your make model car. And when you take it in for service, that's all you want them to do, just what's on the owner's manual recommended maintenance. Earl, in hindsight, do you feel that it was a good decision for GM to discontinue the Pontiac and Oldsmobile brands from their product line? Yes, I do. No skin off your teeth. Fortunately, I sold my Pontiac dealership to Chuck Schumacher a few years before they

canceled Pontiac, Oldsmobile. They had too many, General Motors had too many similar makes. And a Chevrolet and an Oldsmobile and a Pontiac and a Cadillac, oftentimes they were the same car. We talk about the Lexus of the Toyota being the same car. And Saturn. It was a joke with, yeah, it was a joke with General Motors. I mean, you could buy a Cadillac version of the Chevrolet Noah or the Pontiac Ventura,

and they were all the same car. You just paid $10,000 more for the Cadillac. Yeah. I still get a kick when I see a Pontiac on the road, though. Yeah. Nostalgia. Yeah. All right. Here's another anonymous submission. Give me a break, Earl. There's no way your radio program can be considered essential during our state shelter and place orders. As a community leader, you are setting an awful example. I assure you, I am not alone in this opinion. Please learn to show a little humility for once. You will survive a few weeks out of the limelight.

well you know it's hard for me to be you know you know it's hard to be humble when you're great I mean oh Lord it's hard okay folks um let me let me say this on a serious note the radio station is essential and radio is protected under the essential businesses and we just happen to be a part of the radio show we certainly don't think that we are an essential service under the government guidelines, but we think we are a good service for you people out there who have to buy cars, which are essential, and

service. So we're kind of like part of the automobile dealers being essential. We are helping you being avoided, ripped off by the car dealers who you have to go to, whether you like it or not, if you need a car or need to get your car fixed. And also just consider how drab and boring your

Saturday mornings would be without the show. Yeah. Come on. And I am an amazing person. You wouldn't have Blue Man Group. That's right. You know, we have so much deception going on. And, you know, on a more serious note, we have really taken, you know, and been very serious about coming in here. And we're, what, six, I don't know, six feet away from each other.

We've taken a lot of precautions. And I guess what, folks, you're really important to us. And it's important for you not to get ripped off. and there's still so many people, consumers, that are having that happen to them, and we really care about you. So to that text, call it what you might, call it what you may, we're here to do a job, and we're being very cautious, very careful. If you get a chance, go to Earl on Cars and read another one of Earl's columns that economic threat to auto industry, huge opportunity if you need to buy a car and if you didn't pick up the hometown news

just go to Erwan cars and you can see all read all of his columns now back to the recovering car dealer and our mystery shop. You want to go got a quick follow-up question from a texter when you were talking about car dealers floating the floor plan are those floating payments tactics

that a failing dealer does legal since you have contract uh they know very illegal when you you you violate uh the law when you when you take a car that is financed by bank america and you sell it and you don't pay the uh the loan off that's uh it's considered fraud uh you're you're really uh in a lot of trouble uh if you do that and it's almost standard operating procedure that car dealers do this during recessions and during bad times you will see dealerships that are closed down by lenders. And it's really kind of a, it's a sad thing. I have friends that ended up in jail because of this.

And I think it's desperation breeds desperate measures. And, you know, actually, a former, I won't mention his name because I like the guy and he's a good guy, did something wrong, and he had to serve time for it. but a former president of the Florida Automobile Dealers Association, or actually a former, I'm sorry, a former director of the Florida Automobile Dealers Association went to jail. Alan commented on Facebook, his favorite driving song is Red-Headed Stranger. The album, he said.

Oh, okay. Thanks, Alan. Is that Willie Nelson? I've never heard of it. I don't know. Is it? I'm looking at Rick. I don't know why. Rick, is that little. I'm looking it up right now. Well, let's do the mystery shopping report, and then we can go back to the text if we have time.

It's 940. So let's go to mystery shop of Auto Nation, Chevrolet, and Green Acres. That's in southern Palm Beach, central Palm Beach County near Lake Worth, if you haven't heard of Green Acres. But I always thought, Lake Worth I've heard of. Now it's Lake Worth Beach. But anyway, central western Palm Beach County. The COVID-19 pandemic is delivering a devastating blow to the global economy. Millions of Americans have filed for unemployment, 95 million last, I heard.

It's probably 105 million now. As businesses across the country close their doors to help stop the spread of the virus. The modern world has never seen anything like this. I don't think the world ever saw anything like this. We had plagues and things in the past. I don't think we ever had a worldwide. pandemic. Maybe I'm wrong. It's just something that I've never seen, and I've heard nothing like it in history. As we did during the financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession

that followed, our country's taking extraordinary measures to soften the blow. A massive relief bill and an even bigger financial stimulus act was passed in the last couple of weeks, but it's not just government that are taking businesses large and small as scrambling to take steps to ensure their companies survive this unprecedented crisis. It's just unprecedented is the perfect word. During the Great Recession, automobile manufacturers offered huge incentives and innovative programs to entice consumers to feel secure enough to go through

with vehicle purchases during the frightful economic insecurity we face. This was when we began to see manufacture warranties become extended to eight and ten-year periods, 0% financing became the norm facilitated by the U.S. Fed dropping interest rates to zero. This was the time when Hyundai and some other manufacturers all over job loss protection with deferred car payments. Last week, we talked about how during trying times, desperate businesses can represent both opportunity and risk to consumer. The instinct to survive can drive companies to do extraordinary things to keep sales going. These things can be legitimate or deceptive.

dealing with car dealers, there's going to be a lot of deception going on. I mean, there's always deception. The deception will be even more and even deeper than we'll be seen. We talk about some of the things car manufacturers are doing now in response to the

pandemic. As in the Great Recession, we're seeing deferred payments, job loss protection plans, zero percent financing. These offers are coming directly from the manufacturers, and those are the legitimate folks. The manufacturer, are legitimate, but they're being twisted.

The ones by the dealers are not necessarily, probably not legitimate, and they'll even twist the manufacturers offer to their advantage. There's always a danger of the individual car dealer taking advantage of the consumer who come in and to get the other offers. I say, there's the danger, it's a done deal danger. It's going to happen.

And we're surprised if we see someone that doesn't try doesn't try to take advantage of these manufacturer offers. One such offers being made by General Motors, 0% financing for 84 months, 7 years, 0% for 84 months, with no payments for 120 days, 4 months. Now that is a doozy of an incentive. And I was serious when I said to Nancy, driving in this morning to the studio,

I'd even got my attention. I mean, how can you go wrong with that? Four months, you're worried about your job, you're worried about being laid off. Hey, I can buy the car, and even if I get laid off, I'll probably be back in work in four months, and I won't have to make any payments for a month. And I got 84 months. I got seven years at zero percent interest. Where do I sign?

I mean, this just sounds like too good to be true. So the four months of deferred payment may be very attractive to someone. I just said this. It's uncertain of their job. We decided to mystery shop, Auto Nation Chevrolet, and Green Acres, aka Lake Worth Beach, Lake Worth, Central Palm Beach County, to see if the GM offer is, one, as good as it appears, two, is it faithfully offered to the shopper by the dealership

is described with no monkey business. We've gone from shenanigan to monkey business. I'm trying to mix it up. I got tired of shenanigan, although I've, you know, monkey business. All right, you just, I have a challenge now to come up with more synonyms for that. Agent Thunder took the job. Here's a report speaking in the first person. I'm Agent Thunder.

I walked into the showroom of Automation Chevrolet wearing a medical procedure mask and latex surgical gloves, just like these. And I had a mask here, but I used this. Yours is a bandit mask. Yeah. And there weren't all other customers from what I could see. Floor traffic, as we call it, customers coming into guardial ships is dropped to a minimum. It's gone. Yeah, way down.

I expected to be drunk by desperate salespeople, but this didn't happen. I walked toward a reception desk that was greeted by a young man before I got there. His name was Bill, and he politely asked me what brought me in. I said that my lease had expired, and I was on my last month of a three-month extension. I thought I'd run out of time and needed a new car today. I also said I had to get out of the house. I was going stir crazy. That's true.

That got a laugh on a bill. There's a lot of leases out there, folks, and a lot of these leases are coming due. We had a text earlier in the show, and our advice was you might get an extension from the lissor, and that might be the best way to go. If you don't want to go out of your house, you don't want to go into car dealership, get an extension on your lease that's not a bad deal. It's easy. 90 days is like a given. They won't give you a hard time.

And sometimes I'm predicting that given the conditions here you're going to see lessors offer extensions. The funny thing is sometimes the lessors are at odds with the dealers. And we've seen this in the past.

If a lessor is financially threatened and they have a car coming back and let's say the used car market is dropped, they have to take that car and sell it at auction. If they're going to take a loss on that car, which who knows during this coronavirus crisis threat, and the economic crash we're saying, used car prices could drop like a rock. So the lessors might want to keep those cars on the road, and they will be at odds with

the dealers. The dealer wants the lessee to come in and buy or lease another car. The lessor might not want that to happen, so they're able to be offering extensions of six months or longer to lessors, and that would be to your advantage. So stand by, and if they don't call, you call them if you don't want to buy another car. Okay, Bill asked me to come in. That's the salesman of All the Nation and Green Engers on the Nation Chevrolet. I said that my lease expired.

Okay, I'm coming in. I also said I had to get out of it. Okay, I did that all that. Bill last said he could understand. I said that I assume that now would probably be the best time for a good deal considering how bad business is getting Bill agreed and told me about the 0% 84-month program. I choke on that.

Never seen anything that good. Even during the Great Recession, I don't think. 84 months. 72 we saw. I responded by telling him that was exactly what interested me and why it came in. I told me I wanted to get a new. 2020, 2020, Chevy Iquinox, the midside SUV, I cautioned Bill that I had no interest in playing games, no haggle, no hassle. I expected a good price up front, and I didn't want to get into

the haggling situation. Bill assured me that not only was Auto Nation up front and transparent, they were highly motivated to make a deal. Now, remember, this is Auto Nation. They're a publicly held company. They're traded on the New York Stock Exchange. And they have a fiduciary responsibility. They have wide exposure. AutoNation and the other publicly held companies as a class are going to be more honest and upfront and less deceptive than individual privately owned dealers as a rule. We sat down at the desk, went over the particulars of the vehicle that I wanted. We settled on an LT trim with an MSRP of $30,740.

Bill asked if I wanted to go see it and drive it. I said, I would like to drive it alone, considering the need for social distancing. Bill said, of course, Bill probably breathed a sigh of relief. You didn't want to get in there. Yeah. We went outside, found the SUV. Bill went through his walk-around presentation,

offered me the keys, and said he'd wait for me to return. Drove around the parking lot, out on the Lake Worth Road for a quick spin. Back at his desk, Bill asked how I liked it. I said it was great, and it would be perfect for my car. family he responded by suggesting he write it up and then offered me some advice here we go now listen carefully very very clever he said that 84-month program was good but that they had even better incentives going on now here debate now this is the switch he said that 84 months zero percent deal was at

full MSRP now that's not true I looked at the disclosure there is no mention of that yeah yeah the manufacturer suggested retail price is just what it says suggested the manufacturer suggests that price the manufacturer cannot tell a criteria car dealer what to sell his cars for if there was a payment advertised and they calculated that using that he could say this yes but this should be applied to any a car dealer can sell a car for over the suggested price MSRP or for below it they typically sell below it because the MSRP is a big fat profit. And this salesman, AutoNation, publicly owned company, lied to our shopper.

He said that the 84-month zero-percent deal was at full MSRP. He said he could instead get me a $6,000 rebate. I could still finance for 84 months by I just wouldn't get the 0% financing. Now, that part sounds true because the lenders typically offer. a cash or a subsidized interest rate. So you get to take either the 84-month 0% or you get $6,000 discount. And you typically want to do the arithmetic on that

because you have to decide how much you want to finance. How big a down payment are you going to put down? How big of the discount did you get? And what kind of interest rate are you going to get? Exactly. So, I mean, if you wanted to pay the car off sooner, it would make more sense to take the $6,000 in rebates, but you better be getting a good interest rate

and getting a good price on the vehicle. No way you could make that decision at this point in the negotiation. So he goes on, I can still finance Friday for a month, but I just wait, okay. He said he thought that would be a better route for me to go. I said I was confused, and Bill suggested he read up both ways for me to consider. He asked me if I was planning to put any money down. I said $3,000. Bill left for a few minutes, came back with two worksheets,

one for each scenario. He said he was able to offer the same dealer discount. on both $1,230 off. So he's already contradicting himself. He's discounting $1,230, whereas before he said that the 0% was for the full MSRP. Yeah. He took off 1230 from the $30,740 MSRP. This made my alternation price $29509.

Then he added, here we go, there's always, and then he added $199 for window 10, which you didn't want, but it's already on the car. $4.99 for a three-year protection package, which is pure BS $499. Next came sales tax, legit fees, and then

the inevitable $799 dealer service fee. He calls it a service fee. You add them all together, $1,497 in hidden added profit that they're now coming out after the advertised price. With $3,000 down and 0% for a month, my payment was $365 a month

for seven years. That's a lot of years. I'll be 60 then. I wonder how long it would take to build any equity in a car at $365 with $3,000 down for seven years. Figure, 50% residual after three years. It's going to be. It'll be a long time. Yeah, probably four or five years. You're going to be upside down. Then with $3,000 down in 0% for 8 or 4 months, my payment was 365.

Then Bill revealed the deal. Okay. Okay. That was the first one. He took off $12.30 plus the $6,000 rebate. We don't get to 0% now. My automation price was 23-509, but then he added the same crap he did.

And the first deal, I just read $6,000. sue's words exactly. My payment was $3,000 down at 4.99% for 84 months. That's a high percentage at 84 months. And it was $348, $17 less than the 0%

deal. Now, what you're seeing here, and if you're a regular listener, you will recall me talking about it's 954 now. I'm going to move up, move quick here, automation switching from F&I profits, or from car profit to F&I profit,

they decided they were going to raise their profits on their new cars, their markups because they were losing money in the new car department, and they're going to slam bang you in the F&I department. And so that's what's happening here. They took away the 0%, try to induce you not to take it by offering you a better discount so that you would take the financing, their financing, and they give you a higher interest rate. And they're making a couple of points on you.

They make a couple points. And then they're going to hit you. you with a lot of products like Gap, extended service contracts, maintenance contracts, and you name it. So that was the bait and switch from automation. Bill asked if I was ready to choose an option to proceed. I replied that I came in with the intention of driving away and new Equinox, but the new option threw me for a loop. I asked it would be okay if I took the worksheet home with me to study for the night. He said to be fine, and that's what I did. So here we are. We had the bait and switch.

We had a really dynamite offer from General Motors Chevrolet, and then we had the manipulation and the multiple fees. So we need to vote. Who wants to go first? We just have a few minutes, so I'll go quick. We got coming in online on text. We have D, D, D, F, C, minus. I'm waiting for Linda to give me hers.

But, you know, typically this because, oh, sorry, Linda, gives them a sneaky big fat F for them. Wow. You know what? I'm going to agree with Linda, even though this is part for the course, typical car dealership behavior, they're taking advantage of a national program designed to offer assurance and comfort to people who worried about being able to make car payments, and they twisted it around. It's a shameful thing.

It's like price gouging. This is not the time to do that. Exactly. Rick, what do you say? Give me five bucks says F. I love this guy's green name. It's awesome. And for myself, I'm agreeing with Stu F.

Nate says it C and Mark Smith a D Okay Mrs. Sunnice This is sort of a repeat of last week bait and switch I give him an F We got a slimy F from Amy on Facebook

and Andreas His feeling very charitable today gives him a C And Mark Ryan With a D minus Yeah You know I'm going to give him a D minus I think we've got to pass them I don't like to

And I think it was a shopping report as an example of what you have to watch out for, you're going to see some really extremely good incentives for the manufacturers that are legitimate, and you're also going to see what AutoNation did is take that extremely good incentive and twist it to their benefit. And it's survival for all the auto stores, all their auto dealers, including AutoNation. Think about it. Automation is a big, big public company, and they've got to make money to survive. and they are going to push finance and insurance department big time. If you go to an All-Nation store, be real careful about financing with them

because that's where they're going to go for the jugular. Do we have any more? Couldn't have said it better. Folks, thank you so much for tuning in, Earl Stewart on Cars. We want you to stay safe and tune in next week at the same time. Have a wonderful weekend. And be careful out there. And we're wearing gloves, and we're wearing masks by the brown side, and you should too.

Thank you.