Earl Stewart on Cars - 04.07.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of DriveTime West Palm Beach

Episode Date: April 7, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits DriveTime of West Palm Beach to buy a car with a Takata Airbag recall. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.trueoldiesfla.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “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”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. My name is Earl, and I'm a recovering car dealer, and this show is called Earl Stewart on Cars. Earl on Cars. Let's be more personal about it.

I'm sitting here in a studio at 95.9, 106.9 FM, And I'm on the true oldie station. And you're wondering why is a car dealer or a recovering car dealer talking to me instead of singing to me? Well, one reason is I can't sing very well. And the other reason, this show is a consumer advocacy show. It's a show live radio talk. That's right. You're the most important part of the show, by the way, your phone calls.

Live radio talk. And it's all about how not to get ripped off by your car dealer. I just put it in the vernacular, simply, offend some people, mainly car dealers and employees of car dealerships. And I go on to explain that I'm not addressing all of you, unfortunately most of you. We're going to tell you today how you can buy a car, lease a car, maintain or repair your car, without being taken advantage of. Does that sound a little nicer? Yes. How to go in and get a fair price, a good price, how to have repairs done that are needed and not needed, maintenance that is needed, or not required.

You don't want to pay for something you don't need. You know what I'm talking about. Think about the last time you went to buy a car. Maybe you blocked it out, kind of like your last root canal, you blocked that out. You don't like to think about unpleasant things. You talk to most people at a party, you're sitting around talking to friends or at the water cooler or whatever, and you start talking about buying a car. There's always some exciting stories, aren't there? Yes.

Why should it be so exciting when you're investing $40,000, $20,000, $60,000? You know, you spend more on a car than just about anything else. Your home is your number one expenditure, but when you buy a car, that's a lot of money. And you borrow a lot of money, and you pay interest on that money. so it's a very important act in most people's lives so why should it be exciting and why should be negative so we're going to help you today and we help you every Saturday from 8 to 10 and we talk about things that you can make notes of we give you sources on the internet that you can refer to one of the things we do and you know I'm going to interrupt myself here because I

said earlier this is a live radio talk show you can call me 877 960s 6.9060, 877, 960, 960. If you don't want to call me right now, which I wouldn't be surprised, if you're driving, you're not going to want to write a number down. But if you have a place, you can write something down, write this down, 877-960-99-60. So when you do have a question or a comment, criticism, constructive, or otherwise, I'd love to hear from you. I'm not alone, by the way. I've got some very intelligent, informed, experienced people in the studio with me. To my right is Rick Kearney, who is a certified diagnostic master technician.

We call him an auto computer scientist. He's been in the business for over 20 years. There's not much about a car that he doesn't know about mechanically or electronically, I should say. Today we talk about electronics more than we do mechanics, because electronics are what make up. most of the car. Rick has said, and I believe he's right, that it took more computer power. Today, there's more computer power in a car than there was to put a man on the moon. Oh, way more. What was it, 1990, 99, 98, 91?

When do we put the man on the moon? 69. The first time? 19609. So you're riding on a four wheels running a computer around, and that's the reason it needs people like Rick Kearney. So if you have mechanical, technical questions, questions about servicing, maintaining, or repairing your car, you call 877-960-99-60, that's 877-9-60, and you ask to speak to Rick or me or anybody else. And to Rick's right is Nancy Stewart.

She's my co-host. She's somewhat of a female advocate. She's an advocate for women. She will tell you later on the show and remind you regularly that the first female caller, First female caller, if you haven't called before, if you haven't called the show before, and we're amassing a pretty good following, by the way. So if you haven't called the show before, and you call the show this morning, Nancy will see that you get 50 bucks.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Cash. We will not. No questions asked, no requirements. You don't have to give us a credit statement. You don't have to perform any sort of services. There's no strings attached. We just want to pay you $50 because you,

You called Earl Stewart on cars and spoke to us. And that encourages other females to call. And I remind you, females buy 50% of all the merchandise in this country. And cars are the most expensive homes. And we don't have enough female callers. Yes, yes. Yes, absolutely. We'd like to encourage the female callers.

And I'm here to give you some information about, well, number one, there's strength in numbers when shopping. and negotiating for a car. And that goes double for women. So please, ladies, give me a call at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Ladies, the first two new lady callers. As my husband said, you can win yourself $50.

The first two new lady callers. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Thank you, Nancy. And then, of course, across the table, sitting across the table, is my son, Stu Stewart. Good morning, he says. And it's a cyber guy that we've got here. Stu has got a Mac computer in front of him. His fingers are flying as we speak.

He's tweeting. He's Snapchatting. He's Instagramming. He's Facebooking and all the other things that the millennials do. And some old guys like me. I do a little bit of that myself. It's interesting. Stu might want to talk about it one day, maybe even today, about

all the excitement about Facebook and all Facebook knows about you and everybody else seems to know about you and the privacy issue, you'd be surprised how car dealers can target you in their advertising. They know how much money they make, they know your ethnic background, they know where you live, they know what kind of a car you drive, they even know your politics, they even know, well, there's not much they don't know about you. So the new form of advertising on Facebook, if you're upset about what happened in the presidential election, you might be thinking about what's going on with advertising. It is really amazing. You can be in a car dealership in Tulsa, Oklahoma,

and there's another car dealer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that would like to sell you a car, and you could be in his competitor's customer service lounge, and he can send you an advertisement. So, well, that said, I think Nancy's waving at me. I think we might have a car. Yeah, I've got to go to the restroom. ladies and gentlemen

again you are an important part of the show so give us a call if you just tuned in you're listening to Earl Stewart on Cars 877-960 be part of the show because you do make the show we're going to go to

Angela who's a first time caller and she's calling from Wellington welcome Angela what can we do for you good morning how are you I'm fine thank you I just wanted to say, I am a first-time listener. I've never heard this show before, and I'm grateful as a female to have someone like Earl

who's willing to be a consumer advocate and educate us on issues that we're not aware of. And I did want to let you know also that I did buy a car from your dealership in 1995, My very favorite car, as a matter of fact, it was a Pontiac Grand Prix, and it was kind of a cherry red, which was beautiful. And it was the first car that I had that had the radio controls on the steering wheel, and I really liked that. Wow. Well, that's great, Angela.

Unfortunately, Pontiac is no longer with us. That was the first dealership I ever worked at. It happened to be my father's, and he started at 1937, on South Dixie. you probably didn't live in Wellington then that's a long drive from Wellington you probably lived in the West Palm Beach area I did well thank you very much for calling and if you have any interesting experiences you'll want one of the things that Nancy really gets angry about is women being treated disrespectfully you know the type of thing with the old boy kind of an attitude

many car salespeople seem to have and you walk in and you want to buy a car if you're female and they'll say something really smart like you should bring your husband with you to help you pick it out or you want to go home and discuss this with your husband because I know you probably can't make a decision. Have you ever experienced any kind of a chauvinistic attack like that? I have. Yeah, a lot of women. I was shown that the car featured a mirror on the visor.

And I thought, really, a makeup mirror. That's what you're going to be, your selling point. Yeah, they figure horsepower and miles per gallon are too complicated for a woman to understand, but you can understand how to put your lipstick on, so here's the mirror. It's amazing how insulting. I think it's getting better. I mean, back in the day, it was rampant. I think today, and we do a lot of mystery shopping reports, we seem to see more respect.

Have you experienced more respect in the past, say, five years or ten years? Angela, then you did back when you bought your Grand Prix? Well, considering I've shopped with my husband most of the time. I see. Although the last time I bought a car, the gentleman, I gave him a price point, and he was showing me things that were about $5,000 over my price point, and I didn't quite understand that. So I don't know.

I guess so, maybe a little less chauvinistic. They didn't mention anything about me, you know, with my husband or anything like that. I'm the one that actually brought it up. Most car dealers today, I think, have come to realize it's just bad business, and it's only a few of them that are really as bad as they were a long time ago. Angela, I'm glad that you had a great experience whenever you purchased your Grand Prix. I'm sure that you know that this is still a very much male-dominated industry, and women like yourself who have the ability to negotiate, you know, are not going to be taken advantage of, and it sounds like as if that you, you know, went out and before you went out, you did do your homework. So I commend you for that. Not everyone has in the automotive industry has gotten the memo. this is the 21st century and things definitely are getting better for women.

So I thank you for calling Earl Stewart on cars and I want to let you know that you've won yourself $50 as a first-time caller. And if you stay on the line, we can get your information and I'll get that check out to you. All right. Well, thank you very much. Call again, please, Angelo. We love to have female callers and you've got a lot to talk about. We'd love to hear from you maybe next week. or the week after.

Yeah, Angela, spread the word and tell all your lady friends, and I hope to hear from you again. Well, thank you. I hope so. Thank you. Give us a call at 877960, or you can text us at 772-497-60, and we have another $50 waiting for a lady caller, so that's pretty exciting. You do make the show, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to go to Bill, who's holding in West Palm Beach.

Good morning, Bill. How are you doing, Oro? Doing great, Bill. How are you been? I'm talking about a 1977 Butterville. You got any idea if I get what I'm from? Hey, Bill. You folks listening, Bill is not only a customer, but he's all so famous.

He did a commercial for us. He loves us so much that he did a TV commercial, and it's one of the best TV commercials we ever ran, and I want to thank you very much for that, Bill. Yeah, it's great, Bill. You did a great job. And worked upon you. Well, Earl, no, that.

I bought about 20 calls from you, and bought one last month. How about that? That's right. I can't believe it's taking you this long to call us, Bill. And listen, Earl, say by the 1977, when he stole me from the county, Commissioner's office. Uh-huh.

That was quite an interesting time. The county office of consumer affairs. Alice Skaggs was our, the first county office consumer affairs commissioner. And Alice did a great job of disrupting and going after all the evil car deals. Unfortunately, back in that day, I was an evil car dealer. And Bill, and Bill worked for Alice. But he kept me in line. And we had a good rapport.

It's funny going back over the old days, but back in the 60s, 70s and 80s and even 90s, it was a while, wild west at Palm Beach County. We're taming a little bit, I think, Bill. We're, you know, with this show and our mystery shopping reports and people like you who, you know, you've been trying to tame wild dealers your whole career, and you did a great job working for the County Alps Consumer Affairs.

So thank you very much for calling in. Now, you don't get $50, Bill, because I know you're not female. Hey, Stu, I remember when Earl first met me, Earl said, okay, Bill, I'll take care of a problem. He said, by the way, half of you made down at the County Commissioner. And he said, I told him, I tell you what, I thought that offer, come up for the lien. That's right. I said, oh, I can't do that.

He said, how about, and I'll have a free car, too. I can deal. Right. And goodbye, John. Bill, now, you're giving out all my evil secrets. Unfortunately, the statute of limitations is up, so I cannot be... I don't think it's a crime to hire the representative from consumer affairs. I'm not sure.

I know there are a lot of lawyers listening. Hey, Bill, listen, I don't want to cut you short, but, you know, you don't want to get me put away. He was just looking for a... Hey, so, all, you guys, take care of. I'll see you guys. I'll see you guys. All right, you too. Thanks for the call, Bill.

Well, thanks for all your hard work over there, consumer re. That's absolutely. That's a long time ago. Yeah. Well, that was really a... Well, you can still be thanked for that. That was pretty tough work back then, rounding up all the cowboys.

In my next book, I'm going to include a chapter on me and Bill, because that was... It'll be titled, me and Bill. Me and Bill, except. I think we have another caller. We do. John is calling from Palm City. Good morning, John.

Good morning to everyone. I just want to mention. It should upset Volkswagen prospective buyers or Volkswagen owners. A big article in a photo, 8 by 7 in New York Post dated March the 30th. The title of it is called Lemon Grove. It's an area photo of Volkswagen. I would estimate it looks to me like they couldn't fit it all in a photo, but it must be 100,000 cars.

So far, Volkswagen, since February 28th, has purchased back 350,000 that's cheating on vehicle emission control system. I mean, you can't believe this photo. It's as far, they couldn't fit them all in on it. And so far, the cost of Volkswagen on buying these vehicles is $7.4 billion, a million, a million, billion. And they paid $4.3 billion to the federal. government and it's not finished yet with the so we got 12 billion right away at a cost of

Volkswagen and these are the diesel vehicles sold since 2-0-09. Wow. That was a goodwill gesture instead of these cars just rotting in this field in photo shows, wouldn't it be a good part on Volkswagen to

take these cars and probably what the heck would it cost for Volkswagen to install a regular gas gasoline engine and sell them to the people that desperately need cars and a used car market and, you know, as a goodwill gesture to get these cars back on the road instead of just sitting there and riding away. I like that idea because what was on my mind, as you described this, what are they going

to do with these cars? I have a horrible feeling that they're going to end up on the market somewhere, but where, and what you suggested would be a really brilliant idea. also be a very humane, a nice thing to be able to do that would help regain their image that they've kind of crushed here with what they've done. But donating those to people in need, I think is a huge, great idea. Well, hopefully something gets done because just to have them, I look in this photo, just to rot away in California and nothing gets done about them.

It's a sad state. and it just shows your corporate America how a penalty if you total of two together of 12 billion so far and it doesn't even seem to dent them or in their stock

and corporate America is the only one that could afford and that's a bad mistake that they made and the CEO as a result of that has resigned but that doesn't solve the problem Volkswagen is a huge they're the largest or either one

or two. They're one, either number one or number two. Toyota was the largest manufactured. And I think Volkswagen is now the largest manufacturer. So they're, they're so well financed that they're able to take a hit of billions of dollars, which is huge. I mean, if you can lose a few billion dollars and shake it off, they've got another problem going. Of course, it's these tariffs. If they impose a 25% tariffs on Volkswagen, that's going to hurt them immensely, too. So they're, I'm surprised that the fact that Volkswagen stock is holding up as well as it is. I don't follow that stock. but I'm surprised that it hasn't taken a hit.

They must be very strong financially, not to feel that. Well, it's just food for thought I put forward for people that are contemplating buying a new Volkswagen. Yeah, absolutely. It's not very goodwill for the company. Absolutely. They're not honest people. I mean, not only, there wasn't a mistake. They did it on purpose.

It was premeditated. They plotted to avoid detection of the fact that these did not comply with the emission controls. so it would fool the testing machine and then they have people confess there's one person in jail in America right now, Volkswagen engineer, and I believe there's some Volkswagen people in Germany that may be going to jail.

So it isn't a matter of we're sorry we made a mistake. It's a matter of we lied, we cheated, and we didn't get away with it. Let's just hope that no other auto manufacturer would ever even think of doing a situation that happened like this. John, I think they already have. I think there's investigations into Audi, and I believe there's a couple of other investigations going on.

Audi, Porsche, there's a couple others that they're looking at. Of course, I believe most of these are all under Volkswagen's parent company anyways. Could be. I'm not sure about that. I think there's an American company that's being investigated. I don't think they've proven anything yet, but if it's as easy as it was described to fool the EPA testimony, machinery, then I'm surprised that more people didn't do that.

I have a feeling that the other shoe will drop. We'll find out other manufacturers were guilty, too. John, thanks for the call. That's very, very interesting and valuable information for our listeners. Okay, have a good morning. I'm looking forward to the shopping report. Fantastic. Thank you, John.

Thanks, John. If you just tuned in, you're listening to Earl Stewart on cars right here at 96.9 FM and 106.9 FM right here at the True Oldies Channel. This is an important phone number I'm going to give you. I would love to hear from you. We all would. You make the show. Hey, 77960, 9960, or you can text us at 772-49760.

We're going to go to Tina, and Tina's one of our regular callers from Benita Springs. Welcome to the show. How are you, Tina? Good morning, everybody. How are you doing? How are you guys doing this morning? We're great. Hey, so what's going on today?

What do you have for us? Well, you know, I was kind of thinking back to John's conversation. You know what? I think that these companies should do, and I'm thinking they probably will do, those cars that are sitting there and just wasting away, which is really a shame and terrible for the environment, by the way. These auto companies probably are thinking about parting those cars, out because they would make so much more money if they parted those cars out.

And for people that don't know what parting a car out means, say, for instance, if you have a car that was ruined or wrecked, you sell the parts individually. That way you can gain back the money that you lost from your car that was wrecked or whatever. So that's just my two cents. Well, Tana, you are amazingly knowledgeable person. Most people don't understand that. And it's interesting, you take a car sitting on a short floor, a brand new car, and let's say the asking price is $40,000.

If you took those parts and you went into the parts department and you priced it out part by part, that car would sell for something like a quarter of a million dollars. So this is one of the greatest, which doesn't make a lot of sense, doesn't? I mean, that gives you an idea of how much the manufacturers mark up the parts when they sell them individually. The true cost of the parts could probably be determined by just taking the cost of the car

and then taking it apart and assigning a value to each part. This is a reason, remember they used to call them junkyards. I don't know what they call them today, but there are massive, massive enterprises that are computerized and that will go and pick up cars and take

them apart and put the parts in a bin and put it on the computer and sell them and they make billions and billions of dollars. So that's a very good suggestion. If Volkswagen did that, they probably are doing that, taking the cars apart and selling them and making more money than they did when they sold it to the dealer. Well, if they had any brains, that's what they do.

They wouldn't let the cars sit there and rot unless they were looking for a tremendous tax write-off. That would be the other thing, but, you know, if they're not parting those cars out and selling the parts and they're not using their heads. Well, maybe they're listening. Maybe Volkswagen, if your Volkswagen dealers out there listening, if you want to get some brownie points with the manufacturer, you can say, I have a great idea they can fix your idea, Tina, and pretend as theirs. Say, have you thought about this and call Volkswagen?

But I love the idea, Tina. That's ingenious. I mean, I don't agree with what they've done, but, you know, they're in the money-making business. So if you want to make a profit, here you go. There you go. You know, you can send me a few dollars if you want to as a reward. Send money, no flowers. Send Tina $50.

We pay $10,000 the first time you go, so don't be cheap. cheap, send her 50 bucks for an idea that'll make you $50 billion, right? Well, I think you ought to do it like per car, like a dollar per car, right? There we go. Oh, that sounds good to me. There was another issue

that I was kind of thinking of. There are particular car brands that just, I don't want to try themselves on having unreliable vehicles, but their vehicles are known as being unreliable. Christ, sir. Yes.

We're 30s. Cheap. And I figured out why these companies do this. This is just my opinion, probably not the real thing, but just my opinion. I think they do it because they want to get you into a lease program. You know, have the car for a short period of time before it starts going bad, turn it in, and get another one of their vehicles. And another reason why I think they do it is cost cutting.

And the third reason I think they do it is, well, cost cutting. and then I'm trying to think of the third reason. I came up with a third reason. Well, they want you to buy. In other words, if you do buy their vehicle, they want you to keep buying. Like, if you've had the car for two or three years, trade it in and get a new one,

they want people to consume more of their vehicles. Those are just, in my opinions. I want to know what you think. Well, Tina, I tell you what, if I was a manufacturer, I'd be hiring you as a consultant. I've wondered for a long time, and I never thought about that. You heard Stuie, while you were talking,

he said, jeep. I mean, talking about jeeps. Jeep is what's keeping Chrysler Fiat alive. Fiat's, you know, that's a piece of junk. They don't sell any Fiats. They're so cute, though. Chryslers, nobody sells any Chryslers. They sell a few Dodge trucks. But what keeps the Chrysler Fiat? Did you know that Chrysler Fiat outsold Ford last month in the United States? Chrysler Fiat. Now, that is such a misnomer. Chrysler Fiat didn't outsell anybody. Jeep outsold Ford. Chrysler Fiat dealers exist because of their Jeep sales.

The Jeep sales are not only voluminous. I mean, they sell tons and tons of jeeps, but the Jeep is considered one of the sexiest, hottest cars on the market. It's also one of the cheapest cars to manufacture. Think about it. The Jeep was designed in World War II. Now, yes, there have been some modifications and some of the fancy looking jeeps. but the essential design of a Jeep hasn't changed in, you know, what is that, 80 years or how long has it been since World War II?

So here's what they're doing. They've got a car, it's the best of all worlds. They've got a car that's cheap, cheap to make. So when they sell it, they sell it for a lot of money if they have a huge profit margin on jeeps. Then the jeeps don't last very long, as you described. They break and they've got to buy another Jeep. so it's a it's almost like a drug it's not good for you but you have to have another one Rick well there's actually another side to that as well so many people who buy jeeps

you get into this whole thing of immediately modifying the jeeps raising them up putting big tires changing all sorts of things and immediately jeep Chrysler uses that as oh well you've modified it so guess what that's no longer any part that you've changed it's no longer under warranty and it saves them a bundle there as well yeah good point i mean as these cars break jeep just says sorry we're not fixing it under warranty if you want it fixed pay us more money yeah and they consistently break and they consistently break and the consumer consistently purchases another jeep it's a culture and this is just our opinion this is a consumer sports fact of life if you look at the reliability and cost of maintenance and insurance and everything else uh cheap

consistently ranks in the bottom. You're a genius, Tina. That is absolutely, that's what's going on. I see in the future here, Tina, maybe a position as a CEO. What do you think? I don't know. I ran a hair salon for quite a few years,

and I'm not sure I really want to be a CEO of anything. I kind of enjoy taking care of my clients and going home at the end of the night and not worrying about the money. That's sort of a nice thing. How nice is that? What was it going to say? I know what else I was going to say. Those less reliable vehicles like Chrysler, Fiat, and Cheap, those are good-looking cars.

I mean, you have to admit, they're awful pretty on the outside. So I think that's another selling point that people say, well, you know, I don't care if this or that falls apart. It's awful pretty. But you know what? You don't want to have a car that's like a good-looking boyfriend with no brains, you know? I like that. Sorry. There you go.

You know, another interesting thing is this is really counterintuitive. A Jeep has high insurance costs. It has high maintenance costs. It is not safe. The reliability is low. But guess what? Jeep has a high resale value. Absolutely.

Everybody wants something. Everybody's just. Until they finally just stop, people will buy. When you put a Jeep on a used car lot and you have to fight the customers off or they're bidding to pay to buy the car. So it says a little bit about what sells cars. It's emotion and not logic, not common sense. And like Rick, excuse me, like Rick pointed out about the modification on these jeeps,

all these drivers are headed to the Grand Canyon, right? Oh, yeah. They go everywhere with them. Well, as you were saying with that whole idea of buying with your heart, look at how many Dodge challengers have sold. I mean, just because older drivers, like guys, my age, Stu's age, we see the Challenger, and that's the, that was the muscle car of the 70s that everybody had to have that muscle car.

That's more of a male macho speed thing, you know, there's a power thing. But you see the shape of that car, and you just love it. You don't care what's inside. Oh, it's pretty. It's pretty. I would love to have me a purple one, but I don't want to pay that much for gas, and quite frankly, because those cars were made for guys anyway, for the most part. very short. I'm just barely five feet

tall. I don't think I'd be tall enough to drive that car, so that kind of saves me from being in one, but I don't want to dodge. Sorry, Dodge Lovers. I'm not into the Mopar thing. I like my Toyota. I'm happy. I always apologize when I slam Jeep because I got friends that drive jeeps.

When I go home today, I'll see dozens of jeeps on the road. And, you know, maybe I'm spoiled. Maybe I'm being disingenuous. But the facts are the facts. The Jeep is a piece of junk, but it's

a sexy piece of junk. Yeah. Logic is watching. I was going to say they're awful. I was going to say, Earl, they're awful pretty. Yeah, they are. I like them. You know something? Every time I see a Jeep, a Jeep, I look at it, and I have to say, I've got to say, that'd be fun to drive that. I mean, I like to drive it, but my logic and

my mind says, you know, I wouldn't want to do it. I mean, I'm amazed that they passed the safety test, and are allowed to drive them on the road. Why does a car without doors? Why is that legal to drive? It seems to me, would you want your son or daughter or your mother driving a Jeep with no doors?

What happens if you're in an accident, a side impact? How does that get by the safety test? I got a kid who's about to be driving. There is no way he's driving in the Jeep. Anyway, they apparently passed the test. Yeah. Yeah. I guess that roll bar.

cage around them the logic of that purchase the logic just goes right out the door if you get T-bone the roll bar's not going to do you go no uh-uh but if you've ever seen

some of the YouTube videos of people driving jeeps off road and they're literally climbing up the side of a cliff that I couldn't climb up in my hands and feet I couldn't get up to and they're driving a Jeep right up the side of it

It's amazing. Well, Tina, I hope I don't get sued by Jeep or Mastafia, but I mean, I don't think you or I have said anything that can't be documented, so the truth is a perfect defense. That's true. True, true, true. Consumer reports confirms it. Consumer reports confirms it, and so does carcomplaints.com.

So, hey, you know, that's our backup. Yeah, definitely. That's a good backup. Tina, thanks for calling. We enjoyed talking to you every Saturday morning. And are you sharing a lot of information with us? So thank you, and we hope to hear from you again. Oh, you sure will.

Thanks so much, guys. Have a great one. Thank you. Have a great Saturday. This is Earl Stewart on Cars right here at the True Oldies Channel. And you can give us a call and be part of the show. We would love to hear from you at 877960-9-960, or you can text us at 772-49-7-6. 6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

Well, we've been having so many phone calls, we haven't given out our text number, but in spite of that, we've got a couple texts already. I will give the text number out, 772-497653. Many of you choose not to be on live radio for a lot of good reasons. Shyness is one of them. But if you want to text us, we'll keep you anonymous, and we'll answer your question. Or we'll read your remark. texting us at 772-497-6-5-3-0.

Here's the first text we received this morning. Can you explain the history behind the move from being a Pontiac dealer to a Toyota dealer? How come you didn't stay a GM dealer? This is Lewis in Palm Beach Gardens. They call me lucky Earl, Lewis, and I've been lucky on my life. I'd rather be lucky than smart. And my whole life, I don't know what it was. Born under the right star, I'm a Sagittarius, I don't know.

But nevertheless, I am very lucky. And I was playing poker. I don't want to get into a long thing here. If I was playing poker one time back in the 70s, early 70s, and somebody said, would I be interested in buying a car dealership? That's when I was a Pontiac dealer. And so I said, well, I'll buy anything of the prices, right? I called the guy named Dick Raffo in New York,

and he was being sued by General Motors for cheating on warranty, and he had to bail out, and he had to raise some cash. So we had a Toyota dealership. Back at that time, nobody had ever heard of it. Nobody knew what Toyota was. It was a piece of junk, actually. So I bought the Toyota dealership for next to nothing, and that's how I became a Toyota dealer.

And then, you know, history will tell you this, then Pontiac was dropped as a dealership by General Motors, and it no longer exists. So out of blind luck, I ended up with the best franchise in the country and got rid of the worst franchise in the country. Yay! So you can call me, lucky. Okay. Yay. Now my next text here, let's see here. We have

Hello, just bought a new Tacoma from Earl Stewart because of a conversation I had with Rick, Rick Kearney. How about that? Rick on the radio show. What is the required maintenance to keep the warning on the truck? Rick. There's a book in the glove compartment of every Toyota that tells you what the factory recommended maintenance is. And the first five services are covered by Toyota anyways and then after that it's well actually right from the beginning every 5,000 miles rotate the tires and every other service every 10,000 miles you're going to do an oil change and at about every 30,000 miles you'll be changing an air filter and a cabin

filter and until about 120,000 miles that's it that's when you'll do spark plugs and And at $150,000, you'll do engine cooling. In other words, it's all in the owner's manual, fall the owner's manual, don't do anything that's not in the owner's manual. Speaking of oil changes, Nancy was mentioned to something. She read the Consumer Report, the newest issue, what would that be the June or May? Anyway, what was that thing about oil changes that you mentioned? That is the May edition. May edition, yeah.

The question was, I put only 6,000 miles a year on my car. I think Rick can help me out with this. can I skip an oil change or two? And a consumer report answers the question. A typical driver racks up about 12,000 to 15,000 miles annually, and we'll usually need two oil changes a year. But even if you're driving only half that distance, it doesn't mean you can skip oil changes.

Rick, what do you have to say about that? And why is it so important even though they don't drive that? amount of miles that they should have attention. Especially here in South Florida, it's recommended change your oil every six months or 10,000 miles on synthetic or 5,000 on regular oil. And the reason for that is the humidity and the condensation that we get here in Florida. When you came out to your car this morning, I'm sure you saw that nice, thick layer of water all over the car. Yeah, condensation.

And that moisture is in the engine as well, and it takes a little bit for it to burn off. That moisture can be damaging to the engine parts, but the oil will clean it away and get rid of it and clean away any dirt that's in the engine. That's why, even if you don't put a lot of miles on it, that moisture and dirt is still accumulating in there, and it needs to be cleaned out. The only way to clean it out is an oil change. And that oil becomes less effective. as it lays

sitting there just soaking up that water it breaks down over time that's why that six months is in there but oil changes are a whole lot cheaper than a new engine. Absolutely good point. Well it's good to have consumer reports endorse that because it's one of the

most common problems in areas where you have low-mile as drivers and the older we get and I put myself in that basket the less I drive. I don't like to drive to Miami anymore I won't drive to, you know, Orlando, unless I have to. Lunch?

Yeah, lunch. I go to Publix, and I go to work, and I go to the drugstore. So I don't put 15,000, 20,000 miles, and we have a lot of people that are retired. They'll put 2,000, 3,000 miles a year in their car. They cannot understand why they have to change their oil. They'll wait until, say, maybe I get, you know, 15,000 miles before I change more oil. And a consumer report backs that up. There are a lot of good reasons.

Change it time-wise. And you have the manufacturer's recommendation. Go by that. Whether it's 10,000 miles or 5,000 miles, whatever you're manufacturing. If you're using synthetic oil, it's 10,000 miles. If you're using fossil oil, it's 5,000 miles. But be sure you look at the mileage and the time.

Don't let six months go by if you have oil in your car. You want to get a change. You want to get a checked. Absolutely. And if you leave that contaminated, oil in your car. It can lead, as Rick, you know, said earlier, to having to replace your engine or a shorter engine life. So that's my take on the changing your oil. And the consumer report is something to look at this month again. The May edition has a whole lot of information

that you all would love to read. Give us a call toll free at 877. or you can text us at 772-49760. I think that Earl has a text. Yes, we do. We have a text from Ray in Hope Sound. Ray asked, can you shed some light on the term with approved credit? Who determines the criteria for approval? Ray, that's a confusing term, and I'm glad you brought it up. The person or the institution should determine. And what approved credit is, is the lending institution. Unfortunately, it isn't stated that way. If you go to a bank, obviously, they have criteria for credit approval. And the interest rate they will charge you, the down payment they will require. Collateral, they'll require all those things.

But the dealers leave that open. And by leaving it open, they're allowing themselves the freedom to charge you a higher interest because you believe you have not good credit. You should go to your bank or your credit lending. Hopefully your credit union are actually better, have you better rates than bank. So if you're not a member of a credit union, you should consider joining one even for an annual fee.

It can save you a lot of money. So your bank or your credit union are your two best sources. You go to one or both, and they will tell you what your credit approval, rating should be. They'll tell you what your interest rate should be. If you go to a car dealer, they can use that to manipulate, as I said, the amount of the down payment and the amount of interest they charge you. The higher the interest they charge, the more money they make. Car dealers make more money, financing cars than they do selling you the actual car.

A car dealer will make typically $1,000, maybe $2,000 on the sale of a car, but they can make $3,000 or $4,000 on financing of the car. That includes selling you things like credit life insurance, gap insurance, maintenance, extended warranties. They have a list of menu in their business offices a mile long with added products, they call them, that they can put on the car and often conceal in the payment that you don't realize you've actually purchased the product. So the finance office is the major profit center for car dealers. And if you go in there without shopping and comparing your rate with your bank,

or your credit union, then you're going to pay too much money to finance your car. But approved credit is a general term, only to be defined by your bank or your credit union. Really, very important to get the financing approval in advance, as you stated, from your own lending institution. Give us a call. The lines are completely open. We're waiting to hear from you. We have $50 to give away to the next female caller.

She's a first-time caller. And we have the mystery shopping report from Drive Time, and what a mystery shop it is. So with all of that, again, you're an important part of the show. We're going to go over the good, the bad, and the ugly, and we hope we have a whole lot of good this morning. Give us a call tool free at 877960 or you can text us at 772-497-6530 if you just tuned in. You are right here at the True Oldies channel and you're listening to Earl Stewart on cars. Now back to the recovering car dealer. For our relatively new listeners, remembering that we've only been on this station, True Oldies now for what, two months, three months,

we do a mystery shopping report is the high point of our show is coming up shortly and we visit some car dealership in South Florida and we pretend to buy a lease a car and we tell you exactly what happened undercover agent goes in disguised as a buyer

or leaser and he talks to the salesperson usually the sales manager and he tells exactly what happened was he taken advantage of was he lied to was a car that he wanted to buy misrepresented. So you want to stay tuned for this shop.

We name names and we name cardiologists. It's going to be a great two hours. So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for spending your time with us right here at 95.9 and 106.9 FM, the True Oldies Channel. We're going to go to Bob. Hi, Bob. Yeah, good morning. Good morning.

How are you? Elliot Kleinberg, he has this column in the newspaper and they're looking for a car dealership name across the street from the Carefree Theater but not it's not talking about you

I mean Earl Stuart Pontiac Do you remember that? Well that's where Stuart Pontiac was in 1928 South Dixie we were right across the street from the Care Free Theater but there was another car dealership that was across US 1

from the Care Free Theater What's the name? Was that McCoy? Well, McCoy was across the street but it was further south. Directly across the street. There was years and years ago, I'm talking back in the 30s, there was a Packard dealership there. Then it changed to a Rolls-Royce dealership and then it changed to a Mazda dealership. Now there was my Mazda dealership, but after the Rolls-Royce...

No, that your master dealership was an olive. Well, it was on, no, it was a U.S. 1. It was on Olibe before that. Yeah, it was on South Olive at the other end of the block, just a block east. Yeah, and then we moved the Mazda dealership from there to the U.S. 1 in about 1970. No, wait a minute, it was about 19, probably 78. We started the Mazz dealership on Olive in 1970. Well, somebody claims that there was a Chevrolet dealership.

Okay. They're across the street from the Carefree, which was later bought out by Roger Dean Chevrolet. Exactly, exactly. That was further south, too. And that was, let me see. What was the name of it? That was Austin Young Chevrolet. Austin Young.

Austin Young. interesting story about that seems like I got interesting stories about everything don't I but Austin Young's son was an adventurer and this was back during the days of the Castro Revolution in Cuba and he flew to Cuba to join the Castro rebels Austin Young Jr. and he was captured by Castro and he was no he was captured by Batista and he was imprisoned and then Austin Young Senior had to shell out a lot of the money that he'd made selling Chevroletes to get Austin Young Jr. out of jail.

A little aside there, I have a... Good old days, right, good old days. Well, that's a great call. You know, I'm so happy. I'm 77 years old, and somebody asked me a question, and I can remember something that shows you that I still got my marbles, so I was able to remember Austin Young. And your dealership there on Flamingo.

Stuart Pontiac. Right at the entrance on Flamingo, there was two guys there, father and son. They were the oil changers. You mean just for like a Jiffey Loop kind of thing? Or you were talking about people that worked for me and my father? Oh, yeah. Oh, okay, yeah.

I mean, they were fantastic, you know. They guaranteed you 15 minutes, I think it was 15 or 10 minutes, whatever, you know. I can't remember. In and out, goodbye. Great call. Thank you so much. And, I mean, they worked in as a team, father and son. Yeah, I know. I can see them, but I can't remember their name.

Oh, neither to watch it. Anyway. Thanks, I appreciate. And you had one of these salesmen, completely bald-headed. Yeah, how was, it could be Bob Boyd. How's that for me? I don't know. We had a lot of bald-headed salesmen.

I tell you that. I could tell them stories about those salesmen. the statute of limitations. Including you. Including me. Yeah, I was one of them, I'll tell you. John Patrolists? All right.

Okay. Thanks. Take care. Thank you. Bye. Take care. Okay. Thanks, Bob.

That was an enjoyable walk-down memory lane. Memory Lane. I enjoyed that. Give us a call toll free at 877-960. Or you can text us at 772-497-6530. You're listening to Earl Stewart-Oarn. cars, be part of the show. Give us a call. Lines are open. We're going to go to Howard. Good morning, Howard. Howard's a regular caller. Good morning, everybody. What wonderful weather we're

having here in South Florida. Yes, it is. I just said my son back to New York and raining, snowing, and it's 20 degrees colder than it should be. Ridiculous weather. Isn't it amazing? My goodness. Okay. I'm going to try to stump Rick. Rick, are you there? I'm right here. Are you ready? Okay. Rick, remember the Dotson? Dotsons, yeah. Dogs love trucks. It was that old commercial they had. Okay, I have a question for you. I almost bought one.

The bolts, the nuts, and everything are the Dotson. Were they metric or S-A-E? The first Dotson coming out. Now, think carefully. I'm going to bet on the original Dotsons that they were S.A.E. Only for the reason that that would have been right about the time when Dotsons were coming out would have been right about the time when the U.S. was doing all of our rebuild work in Japan. And I'm willing to bet they would probably have been right on that bandwagon with getting the U.S. rebuild systems, and they probably would have used our sizes for the first couple of years

and then switched over to metric. Absolutely, and that was a selling point. One of the selling points, that Dotson is SAE. You don't have to worry about metric because Americans really can't understand the metric system, and they never will, and I don't know why that happened, but what could I tell you? Howard, can I ask you? I have another question, if you read. Sure.

Why doesn't car, well, I don't know about American cars. I don't have any American cars. Well, why doesn't the foreign cars have the ability to flush a transmission with some kind of a bolt in there you could take out and flush it instead of having to flush the whole thing? I don't think any Japanese car or foreign car has that ability. Am I correct? I couldn't give you an across-the-board answer on that. But for the most part, most of the modern cars the last couple of years, transmission fluids now are a lifetime fluid.

Unless you're doing a lot of towing or really extreme conditions, you never need to change the transmission fluid anyways. But that being said, if you're going to change the fluid on the American cars where you simply drain and refill the pan, you're only changing about four quarts of fluid on a transmission that can hold 12 to 13. 14 quarts. And Rick, correct me if I'm wrong, but transmission flushes are a rip-off anyway. And that this is something that most car dealers will try to

sell you. And as Rick said, first place, modern cars, you don't need to replace the transmission fluid. And even when we did need to replace it, you replace it. You don't have, you drain it and you fill it up. You don't have to go through the flush, which they charge you extra for. That's just a gotcha. Well, the other side of it is

a lot of folks come in with a transmission problem and a dealer will try or even an outside shop will try to sell them a flush and instead of helping the problem which it won't fix anything it can actually harm the transmission more so if there's already a problem that exists so in most cases if you don't have a problem with your transmission on cars that are three or four or five years old I would not do anything to them. I would follow the manufacturer's recommendations and consider it lifetime fluid and not mess with it. Okay, you say except for towing, is that correct? Well, if you're in extreme conditions, if you're towing a heavy trailer all the time, if you are driving off road a lot, getting in places

where excessive amounts of water or other contaminants may get in there, then you may consider, yeah, changing the fluid or flushing it out. But that's a very rare, situation for most people. We're talking about a tenth of one percent of people would be in that situation. Okay, my last question. On top of the roof of the car, there's a little thing that sticks out. I think that's an antenna. Now, why is some bigger, some smaller, and some of them have a rod coming up? Can you explain that? Well, because they got away from those nice long whip antennas that hang up and get caught up in car washes. They went to that small, compact antenna that's actually

an electronic computer inside it to help pick up the radio waves better and most of those antennas now instead of picking up just AM and FM they're also picking up your XM serious satellite signals that's great okay thank you very much Howard Howard before you hang up

can I let me ask you a question I've always had a theory and it's good to have an old timer calling in like me I almost bought a Dotson dealership years ago and back in day, imports were extremely popular, but Dotson's were a hot car. I mean, Dotson was, I think, arguably as popular as Toyotas and Hondas. And then when they renamed them Nissan, it seemed like I always thought that being the dumbest move, corporate move. Somebody decided, I don't

want to call my car. Dotson, I want to call it Nissan. People didn't know what it was. They never advertise it. But meanwhile, Dotson had really built themselves a reputation for quality. Remember the 280 Z, the Dotson 280Z? That was an awesome little car.

That was like a Corvette. People had to have it. Now nobody wants it in this off. Do you remember that time when Dotson was a hot car? Absolutely. I almost bought one, but I had a thing twice,

and I bought a Pontiac. That should go down in the business schools. of the world as a case study in stupidity. You have a hot car, a popular brand. It'd be like changing Cheerio's name to, you know, smackies. It goes right along with New Coke and all the rest of those. Well, thanks, Howard.

I knew. It's just one thing, that Dotson was too small. That's one of the reasons why I didn't buy one. I mean, it was a joke. I mean, you got hit, someone hits Dotson, it's over. So that's the reason why I bought a Pontiac. But they were zippy little cars. You get into it, and you can't get out.

Absolutely. Okay. Thanks very much for taking my call. I appreciate it. Thanks, Howard. Yes, sir. Hey, I miss Cy. Who is the guy?

Yeah, Cy was with Howard. Yeah, where the heck is he? Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're waiting for your calls. We're right here at Earl Stewart on Cars, and we would love you to be part of the show. What kind of haggling did you do this past? week. Did you get what you wanted from your trading? Did you keep it separate? We're here to expose all of the bogus fees and the dealer's scams and we'd love for you to share your story

with us. So give us a call toll free at 877-9-60-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-60. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Okay, we've got two texts, and I'll give that text number out, again, because we love the text, just like we love the calls. 772-4976530. That's 772-4976530. First text, what about the oil that says you only have to change once a year? This is a common question. We've answered it before, but I can understand why it's asked again.

For years and years and years, we had fossil oil. Along comes a synthetic oil. Synthetic oil is really fossil oil, but that's a long story. It's just a type of oil that will accommodate closer tolerances, and the manufacturers are building cars to much closer tolerances than ever before. So you need an oil that can handle that. And yes, synthetic oil only needs to be changed once a year, based on your mileage, 10,000 miles or once a year.

It's good oil. In fact, even before it became required, a lot of technicians would use the synthetic oil because they saw a head, even though it's more expensive, about twice as expensive, but if you only have to use it half as often, it's a break-even. So that's the story. The later model cars pretty much all require the synthetic. The older model cars, fossil is fine. Now, I've got a second text. Very nice text. Good morning. It shows a breath of fresh air for consumer. I'll listen to you every Saturday morning and I've called before. My question is this. We have a 2011 BMW X5 diesel that we bought new. Why is it today when you get the brakes done, they tell you about that the rotors need to be replaced too. In the old days, you usually just replace the brake pads.

This dealer usually charges close to $2,000 to do all the brakes. I thank you, and this is Robert from Stewart, Florida. Rick, you've got an answer. I've got an answer for that one. Normally when you're doing a brake job on a car, we replace the brake pads and do what's called resurfacing the rotors. We put them on a brake lathe that grinds a thin layer of metal off, so to make sure that the brake rotors are perfectly straight and smooth, and to give a good surface for the new pads to made up to so your brakes will perform well and they don't make noise. The drawback is that a lot of performance vehicles, and your BMWX-5 is very likely one of them,

the rotors have holes drilled in them. These are air ventilation holes to help reduce heat that builds up on the brake rotors. The problem is those brake rotors cannot be resurfaced on a standard brake lathe that is available in every automotor shop. It requires specialized equipment. so the option is you either replace just the brake pads and you might get a little bit of noise or issues like that until they break in or you have to replace the rotors each time now if you are driving your vehicle at highway speeds and you step on the brake in a good firm manner if your steering wheel stays nice and straight and smooth then I wouldn't worry about replacing those rotors I would put on a new set of pads and go on down the road.

Rick, let me ask you question. You said if you don't have the specialized equipment, I would assume BMW dealers would probably have the equipment. If you're going to an independent shop, they would not have the equipment. If you do have the equipment, how much would you save by having the rotor smooth instead of replaced? Well, when I say specialized equipment, I mean equipment that probably most BMW dealerships do not even have. because they simple BMW's rule would be replace the rotors because they are it's it's an odd design with these air holes drilled in them yeah and well let's let's specialize it means

difficult I understand I understand that but are you saying that if you did have the specialized equipment it would not be a good idea to go against BMW's recommendation right okay so who cares about the specialized equipment yeah okay that's that's why my recommendation is if you don't have what's called a pulsation when you're driving your car then I would put on brake pads it's two thousand dollars a fair price and that sounds about right for BMW because like you were saying with the cost of automotive parts and their markups they're expensive yeah they're a lot of money you know my observation here also is here is BMW making

design change that is going to indirectly cost the customers lots of money So when they're advertising that fancy new BMW and they drill the holes in the rotors, if they hadn't drilled those holes in the rotors, the maintenance costs would be far less. So these are things car manufacturers don't like to talk about. And unfortunately, the consumer is unaware until the time comes. And then his last brick job cost him so much less, he wants to know why. So Rick answered it. And thank you very much, Robert and Stewart.

Sorry, we don't have better news for you, but you know, you buy a BMW, you got to pay the piper. No, it's those performance parts. Exactly. Boy, I'll say that's expensive. By the way, I've got a public service announcement real quick here. Ford has announced a recall on 350,000 F-150 trucks and expedition SUVs because of an issue with their transmissions. And it also includes the F-650 and F-750 vehicles.

The problem is that when you shift the car into parts, it may not always go firmly into park and the vehicle could then roll creating a very dangerous situation even after you've gotten out of the car it could suddenly begin to roll oh man i've got an inclined driveway i put my car in park all the time and get out i can see that baby rolling right over me exactly so if you own any sort of a ford f-150 a ford truck at all check your vin number on safer car.gov and see if your vehicle is it covered under this recall. And if it is, contact Ford as soon as possible to get this issue taken care of. 350,000 F-150s. And that's in North America. There's 300,000 in the U.S., 50,000 in Canada, and like 2,000 in Mexico. But if you own

any sort of a Ford F-150 truck, an Expedition SUV, or an F-650 or F-750, which those are those really big ones. Contact safercar.gov is the website. That's the NHTSA website, the government website, put in your VIN number, or call your local Ford dealer and give them your VIN number and find out if your car is covered under that recall. I recommended Ford dealer by the way on the Earl Stewart recommended to buy list is Mullinux Ford in North Palm Beach.

Our buddies at Mullinex. Thanks very much for that, Rick. it's a very good point, mainly because the number one selling vehicle in the USA is the F-150. There's a ton of the F-150s out there. Thank you very much. Great information. Give us a call toll-free at 877-960-960, or you could text us at 772-497-6530. We've had quite a few texts. Ladies and gentlemen, here's just a little reminder if you're unable to listen to our live show

or you want to listen to any of our past shows, you can always subscribe to Earl Stewart on Cars' podcast. On your smartphone or tablet, using any of the following podcast apps, Apple, SoundCloud, Google Play, Google Play, Music, Stitcher Radio, tune-in radio, pocketcast, and overcast. And if you would like to watch highlights from our show, go to YouTube.com slash Earl on Carls.

So that's just a little reminder for all of you. And that telephone number again is 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-65-30. And we are here on the True Old East Channel, and you're listening to Earl Stewart on Cars right here at 95.9 FM, 106.9 FM. again the true oldies channel and we hope that we're helping all of you out by listening and we thank you for listening you're sharing a lot of information with us and we would love to share a lot of information with you so bob is holding and bobby is from west palm beach hi bobby yeah good morning gang good morning yeah you were talking about jeeps earlier like what's your take on the rubicon

Jeep. It's nice looking. It's a good looking. It's a bigger Jeep, right? Bobby. Box here. Yeah, the Rubicon, I think, is the four doors, one of their four-door sport models. Yeah. Yeah.

Get a little Google actually going here. I believe the jeeps cumulatively have what we described as a quality, maintenance, repair, and insurance problem. And I'm glad we get a caller from somebody's interested in a Jeep. I can say this about a Jeep. They're fun to drive. They look beautiful. And the really good tangible value of the Jeep is good resale value. And it defies all logic and the fact that it doesn't have the Consumer Reports endorsement.

Rick's got some information. Well, let me correct one thing. The Rubicon is not the Fordor version. I'm looking right now on Jeep's website, and they're showing their 2018 Jeep Rangler J.K., the Rubicon Recon Edition, and I got to say that's one, beautiful looking. That's a beauty, yeah. That's awesome looking vehicle with an MSRP starting at $39,000. That's a lot of money for that beast.

Bobby, the only thing I would, here's what I recommend you do if you're thinking about buying one, maybe you have one. I would go to Consumer Reports Auto Issue, and I've got it right here in the studio. I carry this with me all the time. And the Consumer Reports Auto Issue gives you all the information on all the makes and brands sold in the United States. Maintenance history, repair history, insurance costs, safety consider. How about the Kelly Blue Book? And the Kelly Blue Book is secondary.

Kelly Blue Book takes advertising. Kelly Blue Book, car dealers pay Kelly Blue Book a lot of money. I pay, I'm a car dealer, and I send a check in to Kelly Blue Book every month. All car dealers. They have a dog in the hunt. They don't want to come and attack any particular brand or make car. Consumer Reports is totally independent. They do accept no advertising.

Even when they buy a product to test, they pay full retail for it. They won't take a free toaster from the manufacturer. They go into Kmart and they buy a Kmart's gone. They go to Target and they buy a toad. So. Yeah. And then use your own judgment. I'm not telling people not to buy Jeeps.

I'm telling people to use your own judgment. There's something to be said for the enjoyment of people drive cars because they enjoy it. And if you get enjoyment out of a Jeep and I see, I hardly ever see anybody in a Jeep that's not smiling, they always seem to be they have a surfboard. They're happy. They're going somewhere. They're having a good time. Yeah, you can go anywhere, man.

And when you trade the Jeep in, you get good resale value. The only thing you've got to worry about is the same. safety. It's kind of like outside of this, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? I mean, the only thing you have to worry about the safety, insurance costs, maintenance and repair costs. These are things that you go in and your eyes open. I wonder about the suspension of these things. The engines are not reliable. They cost a lot to maintain and repair.

He's asking about the suspension. Oh, the suspension? Which, uh... Suspension, yeah, they're, I mean, they've got to be somewhat durable on the suspension. I haven't heard too many issues about these. I've got, I've got a couple friends that own jeeps that they've had for several years, and they do the thing to take them out in the woods and beat them up in the mud and drive through everywhere they can. Most people don't do that.

They just drive them on the highway, and they're really cool looking. I mean, every time I see a cool Jeep, I look at it, and I'm longing out. Oh, yeah. you know, I was just, I was just, you know, about looking at or looking around at them. You know, it looks, it's a pretty little, a little, sexy little cheap there, you know, I think. But, you know, going back now, you've been around a long time, right? Yeah. Yeah. I remember, I bought one of my cars from a place called Jimmy Brian Dotson here, Okieauvichovie, you know, back in 80s.

Yeah, I remember that place. Yeah, and, you know, I bought a Boston, a Dotson B-210 from him, and I kept their car for a while, you know, it's a nice little car, you know, but, uh, you know, uh, and I kept it all the way up as well, no, 1990. Now, in 1990, I decided to get an oil change, you know, now. On Uncle Chobie here, uh, it used to be this place called 10-minute oil change, right, across from Staples is what Staples is now, right? Right. That's a bunch of good old boys, yeah. I took there, my car there, I got an oil change, you know, when I got home, you know, I was seen, uh, my oil,

the half a tank, I'm leaked out there, you know, that's son of a bitch than left the plug up. I'm off my engine there. Oh. I took her back. Yeah, I took her back there. All I got was a damn sorry, you know, and everything. So I got some new oil put in it. So I later on, I took it down in Lauderdale.

Went down a lot of Dale, a bit of time down there. On the way back, one night there, I see my car started smoking. Look at white smoke like a damn prop dusting coming down 95, you know. Yeah. I took it all the white. He said, he said a damn engine blocks and crows. That's a nice little, neat little car, and I had to get rid of it.

I bought it to nothing, you know, but it has a nice little time in that car, you know. Well, Jimmy, I mean, I appreciate the call very much, Bobby, and you said Jimmy Brian was a car dealer. Interesting thing about Jimmy Brian. He drove a Rolls Roy, so he did very well. Yeah. And he pioneered, you're talking about oil changes, he pioneered the $9.99 oil change. and when I became a toilet dealer in 1975, I copied Jimmy Bryan because he had an extremely busy service department,

but he used to do an oil change for $9.99. You lose money on that, but you get him in the door, and then you lie to the customer about all the work he needs to be done, and you can sell a bunch of stuff. So thanks for bringing back those old illegal memories that I have. Yeah, that was fun, Bobby. One funny note, as long as we're doing in Memory Lane. Yeah, Memory Lane.

Bobby, thanks for a great call. Yeah, good. You too. Bye-bye. Bobby had mentioned Whitey's Auto Supply, Wattie's Auto Parts. Yeah, I remember that, too. And that was the one on military trail.

I practically grew up in that place, fixing my own cars, and there was an old fellow working in there that this guy knew everything about every car, and he would sit and tell me every wrench and every bolt that I had to take loose to work. That was how I got my start working on cars. Oh, priceless, priceless knowledge. Was that Mr. Whitey? No, just this old fellow. of working in there and he just he knew every car that was great great memories uh ladies and gentlemen pick up that consumer report it is uh worth its weight in gold you can uh find that

april edition uh you can know you can go the library or if you don't subscribe to consumer report so there's all kinds of ways of getting that knowledge from go online consumer report yeah another way is just to go online they've got the Best used cars under $20,000 and recalls and safety updates and the best cars under $30,000. So that's the April edition of the Consumer Report. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-2-497-6-5-30. And I see where we have a first-time female caller. Oh, wow.

And her name is Ann. Good morning, Ann. Good morning. How are you today? Just fine, thank you. I have one question. Okay, before you ask your question, I want to let you know you are a $50 winner. Thank you.

You're welcome. And after you ask your question, you can stay on the line and give your information, and I'll get that check out to you. Thank you. You're welcome. So what can we do for you today? Gas treatment fluid. it. How well that tastes carry you again. Rick is smiling right now.

Well, it goes right along with the old whiplash Snidly and his snake oil. Okay. Snidly Whiplash. I had it backwards. Basically, that's all it is. It's snake oil. All those things that they recommend. It's just a way to get your money in their pocket. normal gasoline that is sold at a reliable service station is exactly what your car needs double-check your owner's manual or just look inside the gas door for your car to make sure you're using the proper octane level if you don't see anything in

there that says premium fuel required then stick with the regular 87 octane and my best recommendation save your receipts always and try to fuel up at reputable stations, you know, a brand name station, and you'll be just fine. The modern fuels have all the cleaners and detergents that your car needs. It'll run perfectly on it. And if there ever should be an issue, say the tank gets water under something from the gas station, and you have receipts showing that you bought fuel there, those stations, because of the name that they've got to stand up to, they will take care of you. Well, thank you. I'm a mobile person. and I use premium, so I guess I'll be okay.

Absolutely. You might recall a few years back, Shell stations had an issue with an excessive amount of sulfur in the fuel that they had brought here for a while, and cars were breaking down right and left, and Shell Corporation, if you could show a receipt showing that you had fueled up with Shell gasoline, they would cover the cost of that entire repair. I mean, they stepped up and they took care of everything. So, and mobile, again, they would do the exact same thing. So just save those receipts and drive happy. Well, thank you so much.

You gave me my answer. My pleasure, Ann. Thanks for the phone call, Ann. I listen to you all quite often, too. Oh, thank you for that. Thank you. Spread the word on the $50 for the first time, two female callers. I will.

I will. Yeah, one of your friends. could win $50. And it was a pleasure talking to you. Stay in touch. And you stay on the line and we'll get that information from you. Thank you. Thanks for calling.

Give us a call toll free at 877-960-99-60. Or you can text us at 772-4976530. We'd love for you to, you know, share your experience with us, whether you bought a used car, you know, whether you bought a new car. car or a lease would love to hear from you. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, the text number is working 772-4976530. It sure is. We've got two more text.

This one says, this is from Angel. Don't have to identify yourself, by the way, because some people just prefer to remain anonymous. Angel and Green Acres. You mentioned earlier that you were a Mazda dealer. What did you think about the rotary engine and the RX7 and 8? Why did it go away?

the rotary engine was one of the most amazing engines ever invented and it had everything going for it except for durability unfortunately the seals on the on the rotor were never be able they were never sealed properly and the engines would blow up after 50,000 miles they did all sorts of things to solve that problem they never did the rx the first rotary engine I sold was an r100 it was a almost like an economy car. And they were terrible gas miles. I should say there's two things. They never got to gas miles going, like 10, 12 miles a gallon.

And they would blow up. And then they came out with a sports car. Great sports car. It outran everything in its class because the piston engines were entirely different design. They would just run the wheels off a piston engine car. And they had very little cubic inch displacement compared to the piston cars. So finally, they just couldn't get their act together, and the RX8 went away, what, about seven or eight years ago, or less than that. They kept trying to sell the car, but they never did.

I got so curious because I had my Mazza dealership in 1970 to, I think I sold it in like 1985. And I called a couple of years ago to a Moss dealership. I spoke to a technician. I said, did they ever figure out anything about these RX-7s or RX-8s? They says, no, they still blow up all the time. And they kept building them. So I don't know. It's a shame.

I just kept praying. If they could ever have perfected that rotary engine, you would have seen it all over the road because they were far superior in so many respects. They just kept on blowing up. Get blowing up. Look at it. Now I've got another text right here.

This is a follow-up from our BMW caller. That's Robert from Stewart. He says, we were wanting to trade our 2011 BMW X-F, diesel in. The BMW dealer gave us a price about $5,000 less than book value. They said it's because of the airbag situation and the auction prices went down because they assumed the bag has been replaced. I'm loving this. They had BMW sitting on their lot now they can't sell because they can't get a new airbag. However, we bought so many new BMWs, so I called BMW corporate and they got my airbag replaced. Unbelievable. Still, the dealer is afraid

to put any more money in it. My wife wants an Earl Stewart-Torado. What is your policy on trade-ins with cars who have airbag issues? Thank you, Robert from Stewart. I need two hours to answer that question. And Rick, I'm not going to talk to you because I don't have time to answer the question.

Actually, I'm just going to make one note. You can ask Jonathan the question, but I'm not going to answer you. The first thing I want to say is the dealer is lying to you. They are offering the same trade in value on these cars with or without the Takada airbags. These cars are being traded in as if they were nothing wrong with them.

Now we see this because we are very much immersed in the wholesale market, and we see the value of cars that go through the auction. And there is no difference between the cars going through the auction with or without the Takata Airbags, even with the Takata Airbags that don't have replacements. this BMW dealer I love to know his name, Robert, if you would text us the deal, is it Brayman or is it the dealer up in

north of here? Was it Stewart? Is there a BMW dealer up there? Bramman, West Palm and Jupiter. I don't know. Yeah, Robert from Stewart, let me know the name of the dealer. I want to expose this guy because he's not telling you the truth. You should be able to come down to another

BMW dealer and he will give you a fair trade and allowance on your car now that's good news and bad news the bad news is there should not be a good trade and allowance on these cars because they're dangerous but because the public is not aware of these to cut airbag problem they are buying the cars unbeknownst trading them in unbeknownst then the dealer takes the car and he sells it to another buyer and nobody knows they're buying time bombs. And that's the terrible thing about the Takata airbag equipped cars. I guess it's good news in the sense that you would really be angry, wouldn't you? If you found out that people would allow you $5,000 less than the book value, he was doing that

to do what we call in the business, steal your trade. You can discount a car way, way down. New car, use car, you're selling way down. All you have to do is take the trade in for far less than you discounted the car. So you steal the trade and you can mark down the car a lot. Or you can mark the car up a lot and you can give the buyer too much money on the trade. So that's what's this all

about. If you'd like to get a fair price on your BMW, I'd be happy to you can bring it to my dealership or you can call and we will get you a trade and allowance. Robert just texted us. It is Coggin BMW in Fort Pierce.

Oh, me. Thanks, Robert. Coggin, BNW, shame, shame, shame on you. You know, Luther Coggin was a personal friend of mine. I'm not sure he's told. Luther Coggin? Luther. I never knew that.

And also, his brother George, and I don't know if Luther. I think Luther sold out, and he doesn't know Coggin anymore. But whoever is operating Coggin in Fort Pierce, BNW, shame on you for doing that. Because these BNWs with the Togaharkeback problem, just like the Hondas and the Toyota. are going through the auction and are being traded in for the same amount of money. It's a sad statement to our regulators, our legislators, for keeping this huge problem secret. So thank you very much, Robert, and we'll be happy to help you anyway get a trade-in,

a fair trade-in allowance on that 2000 BMWX-5. I have a text. The tax is, should I pay cash for my next purchase? Would I get a better deal? The answer is no. You'll get a worse deal. Counterintuitive, as they say. Most people will get a better deal when they buy a product for cash, except for cars.

Because the car dealers make more money financing the car than they do selling of the car. I said this earlier in the show, but it bears repeating. Average profit on a newer used car to a dealer is around $1,000, maybe $1,500, maybe $2,000. Of course, sometimes a slam-a-old. Don't can be a $14,000 profit. But usually the average profit on cars is around $1,500. The average profit when you finance a car is much greater than that. So car dealers make more money when they finance a car.

So if you come in and say, I'm a cash buyer, they laugh. They say half my profit is gone. More than half my profit is gone. And they say, are you sure? Because we can really get you a good rate. So if you're in a cash buyer, don't tell them. And think about it. It makes sense.

It's much easier to sell warranties and paint protection when you're discussing cost in terms of payment. Like $12 a month sounds a lot better than $2,000. Exactly. The profit in the finance department is more than just the interest rate. As a matter of fact, in most dealerships today, or at least many dealerships today, the products they sell outdo the interest profit. So keep it a secret. Say you want to finance the car.

And then after you negotiate the best price, you get three bids, three prices from three other dealers, then you can say, surprise, I'm not going to finance it, I'm paying cash and write him a check. Absolutely. Great information. I hope we helped you out, Jennifer, and answered your question. Give us a call at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-60. We would love to hear from you, you make the show. we've got several texts.

I've got another text here. I'm so excited. I'm telling you. Because we haven't never had this many texts. These are really good text, too. Earl, Johnny from Riviera Beach or car dealership in California. Okay. It's from Johnny.

I'm Earl and he's Johnny. Car dealership in California is suing Toyota over certain types of Priuses from 2010 to 2015 that he set her unsafe. The cars were recalled because the converter was overheating, causing the engine to stop running. The cars were recalled, and the software was supposed to fix the problem. But the dealership said it didn't because the cars are returning with the same problem. They have a million dollars of these used cars on his lot that they refuse to sell because they're out safe.

I didn't know about this. Do you have a problem with this? Do you have a dealership out in California that I don't know about? Do you have a dealership out there? No, no, no, no. This sounds like something you would do. No, he's not saying, no. Do you have a problem of these Prizes?

Toyota said there is no problem. I think I might know about this. I think I might have read about this. It's not a money news. I think the dealer is a crackpot, but I'm not sure about that. I'm not protecting Toyota because Toyota and I have our differences. A lot of things Toyota does that makes me angry.

But I think this is a dealer who's kind of a wacko. Hogan. It's Roger Hogan. Roger Hogan. Yeah. And, but we have no knowledge about it. Rick knows of no problem like this. You do?

Can they be fixed? They can indeed be fixed. Okay, that's all we want to know. If they can be fixed, but the dealer, the question it has to do with the fact that the dealer is suing Toyota because he says they cannot be fixed. So there is a problem that can be fixed and the dealer is wrong. He is suing Toyota. in our opinion unwarrantly.

There is even an extended warranty from Toyota that covers this concern for 15 years from data first use regardless of mileage. So Johnny,

thanks for the call. If you have a Prius, don't worry about it. It can be repaired. And this dealer in California, as I say, is trying to make some money off of Toyota. And he's not right, and Toyota is correct. Thank you very much for the text.

Yes, thank you so much. Give us a, I'm going to give out the text number more than the telephone number because that's all we're getting is text this morning. It's easy. We're not complaining. I don't use the phone anymore. Yeah, one, two, three. There you go.

772-497-6530. That is the text number. Keep the text is coming. We're enjoying answering your questions. And if you'd like to give us a call, 877-960-99-60 would be the number, the most important number. Now back to the recovering car dealer. We're getting close to the mystery shopping report and is an introduction to the mystery shopping report. It has to do with people with impaired credit.

And I talk often about protecting the consumers and that's what they're. this show is all about, and I sometimes say, but we're preaching to the choir. You can listen to our listeners, Tina and Bobby and Bill and John, and all the calls we have, they're informed. Most of you listeners out there are very informed, so we're preaching to the choir. You know, you have to mention Desiree's name. You talk about being informed and staying, you know, on top of things, and she got her problem solved. So what I'm saying is I want to be sure you understand who we're trying to protect.

We're trying to protect the victims that are not listening to the show. And so we need your support as the educated consumer listening to the show to speak to your legislators and the regulators. Pam Bondi, pick up the phone and call Pam Bondi, email Pam Bondi. Talk to your state senator, your state representative, and say, Why isn't action being taken against these car dealers that are taking advantage of the victims out there? Now, who are the victims? The victim we're going to talk about today in our mystery shopping report,

and that's what made me think about this, are the credit impaired. People that have bad credit are probably the largest single group of victims. The other victims are the very young, never bought a car before. The elderly, a widow, never bought a car before either. How about the education impaired? How about somebody just, you know, had to go to work before he could even finish high school? He had to help support his family. It doesn't have the education. How about the English language impaired? How many immigrants do we have, second, even third generation, but first generation especially, that can't speak or write English?

How'd you like to be in France or Germany or any country that the English language wasn't spoken? And the contracts and the signs, nothing was in English. Put yourself in that person's shoes. We have thousands of people in Florida especially like that and the credit impaired. This is who we're talking to and unfortunately many of them are not listening. So let's get into the mystery shopping report. The mystery shopping report is of drive time. time is a used vehicle chain with 134 locations in the United States. CarMax is a large

used car independent use car group. Drive time is to 21 in the state of Florida. The Westbound Beach location on Okeechobee Boulevard opened up about four years ago. This car dealership brands itself as a haggle-free, one-price, modern way to buy used car. However, a handful of times Earl Stodon cars is mystery shopped them. They've done a poor job. living up to this promise. Our past investigations have revealed a very old school customer experience that focus on its in-house financing. Drive time is basically a nice looking buy here, pay here a lot. In other words, they finance the cars directly. They lend the money. They are the banker or the lessor. They're the ones that fund the financing of these cars.

and this is for people that can't get conventional financing. This is for people that cannot go to a bank, cannot go to the credit union because their credit is too bad. Focuses on getting people with poor credit, high-interest loans. We also checked out drive-time sales practices when it comes to use cars with Takata airbag and plate of recalls. They failed each time. Even two weeks in a row last fall.

In each case, the salesperson failed to stop the sale or even to properly warn the shopper of the potential danger presented by the recall. This week's investigation focused on the Takata Airbag recall again. There may have been an improvement on our listening area over the years we've been doing this. What's two years, three years since this Takata thing is? About two years now. Yeah.

So over the past two years, we have really changed the behavior of many car dealerships. And remember, there are millions of these vehicles out there. unfixed for two reasons most people are unaware they even have the vehicle when they bought it because the car dealers are not disclosing this there's no law saying they have to disclose it also there are a lot of these that can't be fixed the ticata inflator part of the component of the airbag that blows up and it's causing the problem aren't available so you buy a car with a defective airbag and you find out about it and you go into the BMW dealer you go into the

the Honda dealer, the Toyota dealer, and they say, I'm sorry, we don't have the part. You're going to have to keep driving the car. Now, in some cases, the manufacturers are loaning cars to people that are worth this, but millions of people out there driving around in a time bomb, and they don't know it. So we'll keep checking out the dealers in this area and reporting to you what we find. That's what we did. Before sending in Agent X, we identified a used 2012 Honda Pilot XL, EXL, with a, 105,904 miles on it. Now, remember that these Takata Air bags degrade over time. They're

unstable as they get older. The 2012. That's a six-year-old car. This one's about to blow. This one's about to go. And it's in Florida. High humidity. Two things. Age and humidity and heat. Three things. Heat, humidity, and age. This car's got it all. The no-hangle price for drive time, drive time in West Palm Beach was $17,995. It was afflicted with a passenger side to cotter airbag inflated recall.

This was confirmed on safercar.gov, also on Carfax, and also on the manufacturer on this recall website. We found that the individual sources are fairly accurate, but none of them is 100% So if you want absolute total assurance, or at least as much assurance issue you can get,

you should go to safercar.gov, put the VIN number in, get a Carfax report, that will have to VIN number, and then call Honda, or call BMW, call the manufacturer of the car. And then you're probably 99.9% sure. There's the report. I call drive time from my car as I was headed down, I-95. to begin my investigation. I want to make sure the 2012 Honda Pilot were still available.

I spoke to someone who said it was on the lot. I didn't get a name. I was approached by a sales manager named H-A-S-E-E-B. I believe I'm pronouncing that, correct. H-A-E-E-B. As soon as I enter the building, Haseeb wanted to know if I had talked with anyone yet, I said I had called, but I didn't know who I spoke to.

He asked for my phone number and then began to tap away on his phone. He said, hmm, I don't see. you in our system. He told me to wait and he would get someone to help me. I waited for a long time, maybe 20 minutes. I got bored so I wandered outside to try to find the Honda pilot. I found it. Walked around a little more and went back inside. After another five minutes, I was finally greeted by a salesperson. He did not tell me his name or asked for mine. The first thing he said to me was to ask if I'd brought my pace stubs with me. Can you believe that? Yeah. I was

Why'd you like to walk into Target? Your piece of me. Or publics. And they say, may we see your pay stubs? I was taken aback. I said I was there to buy a 2012 Honda pilot. I said I'd called earlier but was told and was told it was available. The salesman did not appear to listen to me.

Just ignored it. He asked if I had done a credit app online and if I had money for a down payment. Now this is drive time. It's got a nice facility. They've got cars out there. You drive in, and all they want to know is you've got your pay stubs. If I've done my online credit app, and if I've got enough money for a down payment.

This will tell you the status, the type, the M.O. of these type of... And it doesn't look like that kind of place. It doesn't look like that. If you Google it, they have all the pictures on there, you can actually do a tour through the showroom and the lot. It's really nice looking. The salesman didn't appear, or I said that, indignantly, I asked him, what was your name again?

I got his attention. Finally, he introduced himself as Faisal, correct? F-A-I-S-A-L. So we got Haseeb and we got Faisal. I repeated that I had come to see the 2012 Honda Pilot for $17,995. Faisal told me that they begin the process with a credit obligation. Here we go. But I interrupted to say that I really wanted to look at the vehicle and drive it.

That's the reason I'm here. Then he looked like he just remembered something and said, hey, I spoke to you on the phone about that car. I had no response. He again said, we needed to run credit. I shut that talk down by telling him I had my own financing with my credit union. Faisal looked perplexed and remarked, they don't get very much. They don't get very many cash deals there, and that's because it's a lot that specializes in the victims of people with bad credit. Now, people with bad credit, and the reason I call them victims, is because they have to have a car.

There are very few cars that they can buy because most sellers of cars use conventional financing, and most conventional financing will not finance somebody with really bad credit. So they have to go to a place like drive time. Or, well, there's a number of... Offleased. Offleased. Offleast. And they have to buy from them.

Now, when I say they have to buy a car, some people buy a car because they want a new car. They like the new car smell. Some people buy a car because their old car isn't running properly. They don't like the looks of it. There are a lot of reasons to buy a car. A person with impaired credit only buys a car because he has to. do. It is a challenge. It is the most difficult task for a person with a

so they are at the mercy of the seller of the car. The seller of the car can dictate the terms. They can dictate the price. They can dictate the payments. They can even tell you which car you can buy. And so that's the reason they're victims. They can't negotiate price because they can't buy a car anywhere else and they can't negotiate interest or terms or down payments. They are victims. They are at their mercy. That's why the drive time for the world exists. Faisal got the keys and we drove the car. It was clean, seemed to drive well. I asked him where they check out and fix the vehicles before the sale, and if they go through an inspection, Faisal said they did and point to a small building

and identified it as their shop. He said they do an 89 point inspection and the cars all have a 30-day, 2,000-mile power train warranty. Now, power train warranties are totally worthless, They might as well make it a lifetime power train already, right? Yeah, why skim? Why be cheap? 30-day 2,000 mile. I asked him how this one checked out if there are any problems. He said, there are no problems.

Now remember, if you just tuned in, this car does have a problem. It's going to blow up and kill you. That's a big problem. It's a time bomb. It's got a Takata airbag that hasn't been repaired. And he says, we checked it out. There's no problem. Okay. Drive time. What's Palm Beach? You regulators, you're legislators, you're listening. We've returned to the lot and parked. I asked to pop the hood so I could check the oil.

I inspected a dipstick and saw that the oil was dirty and had not been changed. I showed Faisal, who ensured me that they had changed the oil, and that it was black. It was black only because the engine was hot from driving it. So Rick will enjoy that. I knew Rick's head was going to explode when you read that part. Everybody knows that when you drive a car. He's holding a skull together right now. The engine causes the oil to get black.

And then it gets clear again as soon as it cools up. Yeah, I mean, Faisal, obviously, is not a diagnostic master technician. We went inside, and Faisal showed me to a seat. I asked him if the pilot had been any accidents. Sounds like, you know, I saw a pilot, you know, like, Snoopy. With the scarf? I have a strange, but this is that sound funny. Has the pilot been in many accents?

And so I asked him if the car had been in the actions. He said he would need to get his manager to look that up. He left and never came back. That was it for Faisal. That's the end of Faisal. He's asking too many questions. Instead, Haseeb came over, that's H-A-E-B, who we met before. Who he met before.

With an auto-check report, he pointed to the auto-checked. check score and said 88 was a good score now I've got a snapshot here of the auto check score and I'm not sure I go explain that to me Stu I put that in there so you could explain it yeah I don't know it's a rating system that they put on the on the report I think they basically look at it relative to other you know yeah obviously it's not a very accurate score when the car is gonna blow up and kill you yeah and it's got an 88 score so If it has a defective Takada airbag, how it could score 88, which says it's within the range of all these cards, I just don't know.

I guess the point was to ignore the auto check score. Maybe. We need to, we need to pursue this. I asked Haseeb if there were any safety issues, to be more specific, that I should be concerned with Haseeb did not answer my question. That's an interesting thing. Haseeb and Faisal, both when they had a negative response, just didn't say anything. In other words, they asked a question they didn't want to answer, instead of saying, I'm sorry, I won't answer the question.

I'm going to try that at home. Yeah, just don't pretend like you don't hear. Yeah, exactly. Instead of answering my question, he said, so you want to buy the car? I said that my credit union thought it was a fair price, I would buy it. I said, I want to make sure I wouldn't have any problems down the road and asked him again about any safety issues. Haseeb replied that they make all their cars sellable with no problems or issues. Now, how many times has the Mr. Chopper been lied to?

I stopped counting. I lost counting. Do you count not answering a lie, but even the answers were lies. I pointed out that the oil hasn't been changed. no problem and that he'd send it to the shop as soon as we make the deal. But I guess he didn't know that Faisal said there was nothing wrong with the oil. So they might change the oil. And I'll come back and say, hey, the oil's clear and I've been driving the car.

It's supposed to turn black when I drive in the car. But I digress. He left to get the numbers and returned with a printed buyer's order. The no haggle price was a selling price, $17,995 plus sales tax, and $670.6.7,000. $7.8.10 cents and fees. I asked what the fees were. He said $299 for the dealer fee and $380.

and $10 for the license plate. There were options for extended warranties and a GPS tracker, but Haseeb did not push these. He said they probably only use a GPS tracker when they finance the car so they can find you when they want to put the hook on the car.

And they charge you for it. And they charge you for it. Yeah. It's mandatory. Right. He said he could hold the car for a day and I thanked him and left. Drive time once again failed the Dakota test. While Haseeb did not proactively conceal the recall on the other check report, he glossed over it, ignoring Agent X's questions. He didn't bother to review the details of the report. There was willful ignorance. He may not have known about the recall, but we're pretty sure he didn't want to know either. Now here's

an observation. Nancy and I talked about this on the way in today. We've been wondering, where are these cars going with the defective Takata Airbags? Because we've had a fair impact, a very good impact, on the market in South Florida. The car dealers that we've been shopping know we're going to come in and embarrass them. And we've embarrassed quite a few, for example, O'Rigo Chrysler Jeep Dodge. I'll just call them Arrigo Jeep from now on. But the Arrigo was selling cars without disclosure with Takata Airbags. I sued Arrigo.

Everybody knew I sued Arrigo. And we went to court over this. And as time passed, the General 5 and the Palm Beach Post and a lot of other media, CBS News talked about this issue. Suddenly, all the car dealers down here stopped selling cars with Takata airbags. And I say, oh, that's not true. some of them still are but most of the franchise new car dealers who seem to have the most to lose and possibly a little bit of pressure from the manufacturers have stopped so where where all these cars going i think they're going to drive time i think they're going to the independent used car lots

offleafleaf.com drive time car max and the millions maybe it's not millions but i would say hundreds of thousands of independent used car dealers the other there's there's there's for every new car dealership there's probably 10 independent used car dealers most cars sold in the united states by far are sold as used cars most of those by independent used car dealers so these cars with defective taicada airbags the time bumps are being sold mainly by the independent used car lot so what i'm saying to you out there, be careful any time you buy a car anywhere, new car dealer or otherwise, be doubly careful when you buy a car from an independent used car dealer. These are the folks that are buying these to cut airbag cars.

I say buying, they're buying them in auctions. Car dealers, like where we go, they're taking all the cars that are traded in with to buy airbags, and they're taking them to the auctions. That's what car dealers do with all the cars. say they don't want to retail. So the concession that O'Rigo and the other dealers made is we won't retail the car, but we will wholesale it. When they wholesale it, somebody's going to retail the car.

Drive time. Offleash.com, CarMax will be. And then Charlie's used cars and Billy's used cars and Tommy's used cars. You drive down a military trail on West Palm Beach, Oko Chobie Boulevard, there's independent used car dealers all over. They are selling cars. many of these are selling them to the victims. So now we have the most vulnerable people in our

society buying the time bombs. Huge story, right? NBC, CBS, ABC. Why doesn't someone jump on this? Why? Well, I'll answer my own question. There's a lot of stuff in the news. The lobbyists. The National Automobile Deals Association, the billions of dollars, that the car dealers and the manufacturers and the association's spend to lobby Washington and Tallahassee and all the state legislatures and all

the Pambondies of the world, the Attorney Generals that are elected by the car dealers and their money. That's why the victims of society, the people that have to buy used cars, are buying time bombs. Okay. Well, you know,

my take on this mystery shopping report at drive time you know there are there are consumers that have to go to you know a lot like this but it's not to you really have to be careful and you can save yourself from being a victim by doing your homework before you go into a dealership like this and we realize that there are a lot of consumers out there that can't afford a car so they go to the buy here pay here Nancy, we got a vote, and we only got about one minute left. Okay, driving an unsafe car and having your life taken is, you know, not an option.

So on this mystery shopping report, I give it an F. Rick? Double F all the way around. I'll give it a triple F. BFF. Yeah, big fat. Terrible, terrible. Criminal almost.

It's not criminal. That's the bad part about it. I guess lying isn't a crime. You can lie to a customer. They're already on the do not recommend list. so we don't have to do anything. If you'd like to see the YouTube video of the Mystery Shopping Report, you can simply go to YouTube.com slash Earl on Cars.

Maybe we should have a third category, a death watch. You have the recommended and not recommended and danger. Run for your life. Run for your life. What did we talk about on the way in, you know, establishing that third list? We've got to go. We've got to go. Oh, unfortunately, the show has come to an end,

and we thank all of you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on Cars. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll talk to you next week.