Earl Stewart on Cars - 04.08.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of JM Lexus of Margate

Episode Date: April 8, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a the highest volume Lexus dealer, JM Lexus to see what they have in inventory and whether they will honor their "no dealer fee" advertising pledge. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back. And the most exciting, what, two years, one year? How long has it? It's been exciting for probably three years. this is a live version of the introduction you just heard and my name is earl stewart i'm in a studio with rick kearney and nancy stew stew stewart may be here we'll let you know shortly you usually gets here a couple minutes late got jonathan canter over there on the production area and uh

here we are to have another fun day another fun saturday morning this is eastern standard time where we're broadcasting but we're all over the globe so So we've got podcasts, we got YouTube, we got Facebook, we got, we're all over. And if you're interested at all, you can find us somewhere. Our shows are archived. Jonathan puts together some great YouTube clips of every show. Really, the essence, most interesting parts of the show are on YouTube. Instead of hanging around for two hours while we get, can you listen to people that call the show,

you could just get the essence of the subject that you're interested in at our YouTube channel, YouTube.com, port slash row on cars, or just go to YouTube and ask a question, and you'll probably end up with us. We've been doing this for a long, long time. The car business, manufacturing, and retail is upside down. I keep thinking it's going to write itself, and I've been predicting, I think my favorite forecast is it's the end of this year. I've been saying that every year, so I'm going to say it again, okay? End of this year.

You can buy a car today, new or used, if you need one. I still don't recommend that you buy one because, you know, we live in America, we're prosperous, we're fully employed. We talk about economic issues, and we do have some, but relative to the rest of the world we're in pretty good shape and a lot of you folks out there can buy afford to buy a car I mean let's face it there are a lot of countries where they can't so if you want to treat yourself to buy a car that's okay I mean life is short if you waited for the best deal on everything that you ever

bought you probably buy very little consumption if you can afford it is a nice thing to be able to do and I'm just saying that I really believe that car prices are especially new car will continue to come down towards the end of this year used cars are kind of funny used cars have to come from new car sales and new car sales have dropped off considerably and so there are not that many trade-ins a lot of used car sales come from leasing leasing is really taking a big hit so there's not that many used cars off lease so the supply of used cars is limited the prices coming down slowly use car prices are stews here and use car prices come down

and then they go back up again so it's it's even more important than ever to compare the new cost versus the use cost for a while there you pay more for a used car if you could believe this than the exact same model new car I mean that actually happened so the educated consumer this show still is a very important show to the people that are thinking about going out and buying a car whether you need one or whether you just want to buy one

we've got some good stuff coming on the best stuff that comes in is on the is on you the listeners and we urge you to call the show for you new folks who haven't memorized or written down the number I haven't memorized it yet I mean I kind of memorize it but I got I look at the sheet just to be sure our call-in number is 877-960

9960 877 960 960 and Nancy Stewart my co-host sitting at my left she has a laptop and computer she's looking at the screen we have Jeremy in the control room you know when you call and the show 877 960 99 the Jeremy answers, and I think we've got four or five lines, and when we really get to crank, those lines are busy, and we try not to have that happen. We'd like

you to get through. And then when you get through, we don't want to have to have you wait while I'm talking, or Rick or Stu or Nancy. So she will stop what we're doing. She'll wave at Stu, wave it, Rick, wave at me, say, we have a caller.

And we'll put the calls through priority. 877, 960 9960. Now, some of you haven't got time to call or you don't know when you can call, so you text. Any time you want to text this, at 772

4976530. 772 4976530. Our YouTube channel, as I mentioned before, is YouTube.com for slash Rowan cars. Rick Kearney, who is also our certified diagnostic

master technician, everybody on this show wears a lot of hats. So he's monitoring YouTube and he gets a huge number of callers. Now, he gets calls for, you know, for Stu, for me, for Nancy, but for Rick, because he can diagnose problems right here on the radio, on the streaming, wherever you may be. He can diagnose your car. Save you a lot of money. Not to mention the time. I mean, you got a little something wrong with your car.

Do you really want to take the time to go to the dealer or go to the independent repair shop and go, you know, the time? Time is money. I hate cliches, but that's a good one. Time is money, money is time. How true. So you don't want to take the time. Well, take five minutes instead of an hour and a half. Call 877-960-960.

Or at YouTube.com, force, slash, rolling cars, and do a post. Rick Kearney will look at the YouTube. You can send them a video clip. You can send them an audio clip. Ask your question. We have probably more calls for Rick than just about anybody else because you've got to get your car fixed

a lot more often. You have to maintain your car. That issue, that problem, whereas not as big as buying a new or use car, is far more frequent. So save yourself the aggravation, the time, and the money, and call Rick. You can reach us on our website

if you haven't got time to listen to us on the show, Erloncars.com, and we have got just about everything we do on the show right there. We even archive our mystery shopping reports, which is the highlight of the show. Stu is the Cybermaster General of our team of undercover agents. Right now our team is just one, but that's all we need.

We do one mystery shop every week. Agent Lightning, amazing woman. And she's just, you talk about reality. She'll go in with her husband or kids. She is really good. I mean, when I read the mystery shopping reports, even though I know who it is, the way she goes about it, it's just so real.

She has learned exactly what consumers need to know and how to elicit that information from the salespeople. So here she is undercover in some car dealership, somewhere, usually in the southeast United States, and more often than that, in South Florida. And she is responding to an advertisement, or she is responding to a situation. There's always a, we always have a reason

as to why we visit a cardio ship. We'd like to revisit cardio ships, just because a cardio ship strikes out and gets an F, and we don't put them on our recommended list, we get up another chance. and if they do really well just to be sure it's not a fluke we go back and we hit them again so

Erlancars.com you can really see in our archive all the shopping reports and we have a good deal of this and a bad deal of this we grade the deals on a curve so beware on the good deal of list they're not all really good

they're good on the curve but you know what that is you know when you're in school that's what they that way they grade you. I mean, you can get a C, which really, you might not be a real bright, but everybody else in the class is not real bright either, you'll get a C. We're talking about cardiologists. None of them are real ethical, none of them are real transparent. I don't mean literally. I mean, there are a few, but most of them aren't. Therefore, a C average means, okay, they're average, but be careful if you're looking for a C average dealer. Okay, let me give up

numbers one more time that I'm going to get Nancy on the phone because Nancy Stewart is a female advocate and she has an incredible offer for first-time lady callers and she'll tell you about that in just a minute at 877 960 9960 you ladies out there listening yeah but she don't want to call rethink that if you call you're going to have a real pleasant surprise Nancy will tell you about that texting 772 4976530 and I'm going to turn the mic over to Nancy. Thank you. Good morning

everyone. We're going to go straight to the phones. Julie has been waiting and she's calling us from Coral Springs. She's a first time caller and she is going to win herself $50 today and what a way to start the show. Good morning, Julie.

Yes, thank you. Thank you for your program. You're welcome, Julie. You've won yourself $50 this morning. If you stay on the line until we're finished and talk with Jeremy in our control room, you can give him your contact information, and I will get you that check, and you will receive it in the mail. Thank you. That's wonderful. Thank you so much. I have a question. I'm kind of puzzled. I have an 03, so it's kind of up there. I don't use it too much because I am retired. And I don't know where to park it to protect it the best way. Sometimes I looked to all the cars at a park where the sun is beating down. And I think of all the damage that could

be done if a car sits a long time in that kind of weather. Or am I better off putting it under a tree? And I have options where I live. And the tree would protect it from the heavy sun. However, there's damage from the sap that comes off of the tree. So, I mean, either way, I guess I'm going to be spending more money. I think cleaning it maybe. I don't know. I'm really puzzled. Where to park it? It's so funny. Yeah. Jolie, excuse me, you have a lot of options. Really, you do. The tree is not. one of them i wouldn't put my car under a tree um as far as um the for a number of reasons uh let me point out just one here sap and burnt poop are two of them so the sap is so acidic and it's so

damaging to your vehicle it just wouldn't be a good idea now i'm just going to give you a couple of options because we have rick here and rick can answer this question much better than i can Also, I would, you know, I would think about a cover for your car, not to keep it on all the time because of the condensation and the heat and everything in between the car and the cover. But those are a couple of things. And before I spend too much time on this, I'm going to switch over to Rick. How do you feel, Rick? I would obviously avoid parking under trees, sap. dripping, things like that, but also bugs that can fall on your car and infest your car.

Coconuts. Oh, coconuts, yeah. But leaves, especially, that fall on the car on the windshield area, they can actually migrate into the air conditioning filter. And quite often, they'll even get down in the blower motor and start making a lot of noise. Now you're stuck with having to get the blower motor cleaned out. So there's a lot of reasons to avoid parking. of trees. The best thing that I can advise is because most of the Florida sun hits afternoon,

if there are any tall buildings near you that are to the west of where you park, try to park to where the shade from that building would hit your car for the afternoon. That's when the heat really builds up the most, and having that shade then is the best time. That's a great idea, Rick. yeah well I'll look but I have looked in where I parked and I didn't see anything like that that's why I just don't want to do what about the car cover like Nancy suggested you probably get one on Amazon or at Walmart are they heavy are they heavy I don't know what the weight is some of them can be quite lightweight because the new materials that they have on

them they're lightweight fabric and they breathe very well yeah the only drawbacks to those again is frogs and lizards and toads quite often like to get up underneath them. Let me ask a question I'm thinking I put myself if I were Julie. How often let's say that she just want to leave her car where it is.

How often would she have to have her car waxed that would protect it indefinitely? Depending on the color of the car if it's a darker color, I would have it done at least every three to four months. Lighter cars six to eight months.

And just to find some place it does detailing? So I think the answer is, Julie, if you can afford to have your car waxed or do it yourself every three or four months, that might be the – that way you don't have to worry about buildings to the West and the fabric of the cover and putting the cover on, taking the cover off. Just have it waxed it to take a half an hour, an hour, and you're good to go for three or four months. That is really the best option. Yeah, it's going to be quite an experiment for you, Julie. Julie, back to that cover that I suggested, not keeping it on, but periodically putting it on.

Right now, as we speak, I have a fractured back. If I put, if I use my lightweight car cover, I can pick it up with no problem. So I'm not sure whether that addresses your situation or not, what you can pay. up in what you can't. But that's quite a statement from me. That means that that cover, that cover is quite light. How much damage would the car actually get if it's sitting in the actual sun? Well, you've got to phase the paint. You'll have to have a paint job just about even a good paint. I'd be a little bit worried about two. What color is it, did you say? It's an old three camry.

but what is it white no it's dark green okay that's better I'm concerned about the heat doing damage to the motor anything in the motor oh no it will hurt that you don't have to worry about that

just the pain oh okay yeah that was my main concern so we're just looking at aesthetically you're looking I was looking more of inside if it's beating down I keep thinking thinking how much damage is that heat doing to the parts that are inside the call.

Yeah, all the way around. Well, Julie, I really hope that we answered your question, and please feel free to give us a call back and let us know what you decided. Okay. Stay on the line and get that contact information to Jeremy, who's in the control room. Okay, thank you very much. You're welcome, Julie. Thank you for calling.

Spread the word. We are building a platform here for ladies. Oh, I do. Yes, I do. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. 877-960 or you can text us at 77249-9-30. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com.

We love hearing from you. And I want to take a moment and thank all of you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on cars this morning and spending this Saturday with us. And we have a whole lot to get to, and we are going to get to all of it in the next two. hours. I want to give you a website to go to that's really important. And if you're wondering if the Florida car dealer is breaking the law, well, you can find that out. You can go to www. Florida Law Protectingcarbuyers.com. So jot that down and I will mention that again later on in the show.

I should probably change that to Florida car dealer, Florida car laws not protecting dealers. that would be more accurate that would be less ironic yeah we are going to go to Howard who has been holding in holding in Boyton Beach good morning Howard good morning welcome I have a problem I had a 2005 Toyota Camry I got it from my wife's roommate in college her mother died and left it to her she sold to us very cheap for a $50,000. It only had 51,000 miles on it. So I got in a wreck with it in the front end, and it didn't damage the offenders, but the whole hood and the radiator. So I was very, very close to home. So instead of getting a tow truck,

I drove it home. I figured there wasn't that much fluid that ran out. I figured I could just take it right home. So I got the, I got it towed to the body shop, and it, it cost me $4,000 to get it. The body work done, and he gave me a good deal on that, and it looked like brand new and stuff like that. So when you try to start it and stuff, he said that he thinks it's a crack block or a crack a gasket or something like that,

you know, the head gasket or whatever. So I took it to Ed Morris. I told it down to Ed Morris Toyota. They wanted $9,000 to put a new engine. That sounds exciting. So, yeah, well, and then I brought it to this. They only work on Toyota and Lexus and Del Rey. I took it to him, and he said he would do it for like about $5,000, which I can't afford.

I already, you know, put $4,000 into it and this and that. So anyway, I had a couple thousand dollars put aside and stuff. I parked it. I couldn't afford to, you know, I get an annuity check. and it would take me like six months before I could pay for the whole thing, you know. So I don't think they would hold it for me or whatever. So I sold it on offer up. I sold it for about $2,000.

So I had that, and I bought a Toyota Camry 2007. I bought. And it used to be running all right, everything like that. But now they tell me when I went to buy it stuff, they told me that the title's good and stuff, and they give them some extra money. He's going to go get the title and the registration for me. So I find out that it was an auction car.

So we have to bring it down to Miami or something to have it inspected. Does that sound feasible for you? I don't know what they mean. Who do they want to inspect it? You're saying that the dealer bought the car at the auction? Yes. I don't know why they would say you had to bring a car. of Miami for an inspection. Do you

do you used to? No. I'm just going to miss something there. I smell a rat here, Robert, and I think you need to get somebody else's opinion on what's going on here. There's no... I gave $300 to get, you know, to get the title that same day

and their registration and stuff, you know. And I already have insurance on it for my old car, you know. I put the plate on. so this car is it's insuring but it's not legal really you know

does that sound right the $9,000 for an engine you know they say that I scorched I scorched three cylinders by driving it you know and I only drove

if it did need the engine that's a fair price the question is and this is too late now because you know you already sold it and bought another car but but I always recommend that you get at least

three opinions on a major repair especially in an older car because $9,000 was more than the car would be worth and so it would be crazy to spend that money. It was only 50,000 miles on it was like for in though I'd worry about my

new by 2015 and you know when you you're buying that from the dealer no no I put this privately oh okay it's in 2007 i bought it for three thousand dollars right and new tires and stuff it runs fantastic you know the oil is nice and clean there's no soot coming out of the uh what it called the tail

pipe or anything because i heard that they had to burn oil hey Howard Howard you you said you were in an accident correct yes okay and you you've taken care of all that that aesthetically Well, yeah, it was my fault. It was my fault. And what you're wondering is something I believe that Rick can answer, and that was what you were talking about with the bolt, what was it? The cost of the engine, yeah. Yeah.

That's actually about a fair price. But you've already gotten rid of that car. Yeah. For the 07, if it's a private sale, do you have the car in your possession now? Yes, yes, I do. I got a bill of sale for it. I would tell them, no, you need that title and registration in your hands immediately. Well, the title, you just need the title.

Then you can take the title to the DMV to get it transferred over to your name. Even though it was from an auction, out-of-state auction. Doesn't matter. That's making a difference. And at your leisure, unless you've already had this done, I would take your car to an independent mechanic or a Toyota mechanic. and have it inspected to make sure that things are in good shape on it, just so that you don't get caught unawares, you know, some surprise.

I took it to a private mechanic. Okay, perfect. Okay. Which I knew for 15 years, and he said, it seems to be a hanged. He says pretty soon you'll need some front brake pads. All right. All right. That's just right there.

We've got some callers waiting here now, but your situation is so important, Howard. We'd like you to call us back. when you get some of this resolved. The most important thing is that you've got a car and you paid the money and you don't have the title. And you need to get the title ASAP because it could be a scam. I don't want to scare you, but you really should always have that title in your hand

when the cash leaves your hand. I know. I missed up. I missed up. Well, you know. And I'll check on that right away. And call us, you don't have to wiggle next week. you can call, you can send us a text about the information.

We'll call you and try to help you between now and then. Right. If you don't hear from me, I'm going to call you next week. Oh, good. Thank you. Thank you, Howard. I'll let you know what happened. Okay, thank you for taking my call.

Looking forward to it. Have a great weekend, Howard, 877. Thank you. I love your show. Oh, thank you so much, Howard. I do. I love your show. I listen to it every week. We appreciate our callers, and you're one of them.

You guys make the show. Thank you. So we are going to, I'm going to give you that number, 877960, or you can text us at 772-4976530. Take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. We're going to go to Bob, who is calling us from Lake Park. Good morning, Bob. Good morning. I want to wish everybody a happy holiday.

Thank you. Yeah, Easter, Passover, and Ramadan. There you go. All together. I want to thank you, yes, I want to thank you for going over and shopping Brehman and Honda on my suggestion. And if you do remember, I told you that the online ad I saw was they said under MSRP. And I was surprised that you gave them a C, my friend. I'm much more in line with Nancy on the grades.

you know all things considered i had a friend that went to high school with i had a friend that went to high school with norman brayman really uh yes north philly he used to own the philadelphia eagles you know yes he's been he's a quite quite successful guy yeah he his success stem from marrying a woman who's a father owned a chain of liquor stores so that doesn't hurt i'll drink to that Yeah. I think the liquor stores might be worth more than the Philadelphia Eagles. I'm not sure. Right. I didn't know that. That's interesting story. And Rick, last week, was talking about the Ford Lightning F-150, and he said something about $50,000. You know, they've raised the price on that thing four times since they've introduced it. You can't get into the base model now. It's just the shade under 60. And if you go up to any of the other trims, you're up in 80 and 100. So this is what the manufacturers are doing the new Mustang that they just opened the order books on that was slightly redesigned to look like a fox body car.

They raised the MSRP on those things by 10%, which you never see in the car industry. Usually even when they change over to a new design, normally the percentage of increases never that high. So I think people are going to have a shock when they go into buy vehicles, not just on all the fees and everything, but when they start looking just at what these manufacturers are doing with raising the prices on the vehicles, it's quite distressing. And then you have to add on to that. The interest rates now are around 7%, I believe, why I read. So between the higher interest rates and the deal of fees and the addendums and the market adjustments

and the manufacturer is raising the MSRP, people are going to be hard-pressed to get into a new car without having a huge monthly payment. True. You know, so that's, you know, that's basically, I just wanted to thank you for Shopping Brayman. And I think you've got to toughen up on your grades there, my friend. C-grade is, I wouldn't be.

I understand you can't give everybody a failing grade, but he was advertising under MSRP, and he was, you know, that's just a total fabrication. We reserve the right to revise any grade, so we can always go back and change it. I didn't know that. Okay, well, I would suggest you might want to, you know, think about maybe taking another look at that.

Yeah, and Bob, I try really hard to be so fair, and it's so difficult when certain things are so obvious. So that's my reason for, you know, the way I vote. I know. I'm kind of in line with the way you vote. I'm a lot more tougher. Yeah. And I did want to tell you, I did check with the one out-of-state dealer for the Mustang out in California,

and they won't do it over the phone. They won't sell me that you have to be present to do the deal with him for this car. and you also have to do the shipping to him. So I would have to fly out. I'm not going to do that. I didn't have to fly out there and then have to use his shipper to bring the car back if I didn't want to drive it.

So he told me to give you a follow-up. So I did check on that one vehicle. Great. I enjoy your show and I hope you have a very nice holiday. Thank you so much, Bob. We enjoy your company. Okay, thank you. Have a great day.

Have a great weekend. give us a call again 877960 or you can text us at 772-49760 and don't forget we have that mystery shopping report coming up and that is the last half hour of the show I'll keep it a mystery I'm not even going to mention the name we are and also don't forget ladies we have $50 for the first new lady callers this morning Julie has already called this morning and she won her $50. We're going to go to Howard, who is giving us a call, and Howard's a regular caller from Jupiter.

Good morning, Howard. Good morning. Happy Easter. Another Howard. Hey, how are you doing? Happy Passover. Okay, great. Okay. I have a question to you.

Okay. Do you hear about insurance companies not wanting to insure Hyundai's because they're at bed. I heard this two weeks ago. I don't know how two it is. You know, Hyundai and Kia. They're just, they're so easy to steal that they're afraid.

And I don't blame them. I mean, they're the only two, actually it's one manufacturer. They own both companies. And they just never made the upgrades, which are, the upgrades now in anti-theft are remarkable. It's really hard to steal a car today, unless it's a Kia or a car. Hyundai, so those particular year models, the insurance companies are being smart. They're going to say, we want to insure them. Yeah, but, Rick, can you explain exactly why they're being, why they could be, a person

could steal it very easily now? I mean, to me, in New York City, there used to be guys that had a certain machine or somebody, and they were able to calibrate the car, so they could, they were, they were, to get in. But cars have progressed so much now that that's impossible. So what makes the

Hyundai easy to steal? What exactly is the problem there? They don't use locks. They're using very old technology. And it's a technology. It's very easy to get around. Like their immobilizer system

just can be defeated without really needing any special high-tech spy equipment to do it. And it just, unfortunately, their systems are, you know, very amateurish. They're elementary. I'll read from Colonel Google. Why are thieves targeting Hyundai's and Kia's? Many modern Hyundais and Keyes lack a useful anti-th theft device called an immobilizer,

which prevents a vehicle from starting when someone attempts to use a key or key fob that doesn't match the car on key. So it's just they saved a lot of money on not spending on some technology that should be vital and required in a car. I just read an article about this device that was banned by Amazon. It's called the Flipper 1. Did you hear about this? No. I never heard about it until I read the article. It was a little device. They sold them by the millions on Amazon and they could be used to skim credit cards, open garage doors, open car doors that didn't have the newer generation rolling code technology

and what they call rolling codes but I was pretty horrified that I thought something was being sold for years for like 20 bucks that millions of people would buy and steal your credit cards in your car. It's insane. Even today you can go on Amazon and buy a set of

lock picks and you can go on YouTube and find all kinds of videos on how to use them. How to break in the cars and houses. Oh, did I answer your question? Absolutely. I never thought you had this much information about it. I didn't have any information, yeah.

Yes, you do, Howard. I have Google also, but I hadn't Google, so my fault. Okay, thank you very much for all the information. As always, you guys are great, and I'll call you up next week. Thanks, Howard. Thanks, Howard. And Howard, you're probably hung up, but you can listen on the radio. I didn't mean to put you down for going.

That was a great question. And the fact that I got on Google, the fact of the matter is that I don't know what percent of the planet, it's got to be at least 50 percent of the population or like me. Either Stu has to remind me or Nancy, I say, now how am I going to do this? And they'll say, Google it, and I go, duh. I mean, it's not in my nature.

It's not the way I was born and raised and educated. I mean, you know, when I went to school, I used a slide rule. I didn't even have a calculator, so what's Google? And my mind won't adjust to the fact that we have almost every answer in the world available to us online. Not just Google, but there's a many sources of. And I'm glad you made the call, Howard, because, as I say, most of the audience is not going to Google these things. I mean, when Google finally takes over, there will be no more Earl and Cars, because you'll have all the answers. Well, chat GPT is practically there.

Thanks for calling. Great to hear from you, Howard. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-49765-30. And don't forget, I need one more lady caller to win herself, a new lady caller, to win herself $50 this morning. And while I'm on the topic, ladies, did you know that there's more being done to make women safe in cars? but why not be bolder? Why don't we do more? Why don't we have, you know, women being as safe as men?

It's a win-win situation. And also, did you know that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has found that female drivers have about twice the odds of suffering from a severe injury in a front of crash? Also, women suffer more injuries to their lower extremities. And that was in the April 3rd edition of Automotive News. And here's an interesting site you might want to go to anyone, ladies, men. And that is the auto professor. The auto professor website provides a new vehicle safety rating system called Auto Grades,

based on crash statistics, which includes safety information pertaining to age and gender. Gender, that'll take you a long way, so maybe you could go to the auto professor on your PC and pull up that website, the auto professor. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-97-6537. zero. Okay. Now back to the recovering card. Let's get to some text. We got any text, too? Yeah, we do. We got Anne-Marie's kickoff text waiting for us. She says, good morning. The pandemic played havoc with the supply chains. It limited availability of vehicles for several years. It appears that things are finally improving and more vehicles are arriving at dealerships now.

Since you're a Toyota dealer, I'll limit my questions to Toyota's. One, which models are the easiest or fastest they get right now? and two, which take the longest to get. The general answer is the cars that they make more of, get here faster, and I can give you an example because I actually pull up our wholesale estimate for the next 90 days or so. So in the next 90 days, we're going to get about 350 Toyota's allocated to us. And just, I'm looking at the numbers here.

So out of all those, we're going to get 37 corollos, 58-Rav-4s, 21-wheel-drive Tacoma's, But then I'm looking at the same list. We're going to get one Prius. No Prius primes. But that's how many cars we're going to get. No, I'm saying this. So the answer is corollas are fastest to get, Camry's, regular RAV-4s,

but the plug-ins, hybrids. Let me interrupt one more time. The hardest to get, and the question is the reason Toyota builds a lot of corollas because there's a whole lot of people want to buy them. So if I'm a corolla buyer, am I going to be able to buy a corolla a lot faster? I'm trying to explain that. So we're filling those orders. Every single month, there's 37 people who are waiting for corollas are getting them.

So it's only taken a month or so to get a corolla. A Venza, which is a hybrid crossover, in that three-month period, there's only going to be one delivered to our dealership. That means for the dozens and dozens of people waiting, only one of them are going to get a corolla. I mean, you get events if they're waiting for a carol. And, of course, the same thing would apply to accessories and colors, you know, to pick a coroll that is fairly popular. It's the fastest way to get a car. If you just had to get a car, you'd say, give me, I need a car in any color, any price, you get one right then. If you wanted a particular model, be brought on the colors and equipment, even trim levels, if you're not particular about what you want to get.

Say, I have a very, very broad, give me a lot of options and you'll get one. Yeah, that's a good point, too. Because I think there's really a lot of consumers who don't realize whenever they get into the detail of the car that they want shocking pink or something, it is really going to slow down the process. Yeah, exactly. So if you want to, if you need a car and you want a car right now, you can get one. Yeah, you'll get one if you just don't have to have so many particular. Rick? Hey, Stu, you just answered questions for three of my YouTubers here.

Okay. But the one question also I have here is from Toyota Tacoma, 1952, what's the average time to get a new Toyota Sienna or a Highlander hybrid XLE? He'd like to purchase one, but he doesn't want to wait eight months to a year to get it. Start looking at possibly used ones, but you're going to be like we were just talking about earlier. The prices are pretty high. Yeah, and what Stewart and Rick are talking about is is the price, a fair price. reasonable price, which is not by today's standards. So if you find the car you want on the showroom floor of the dealer, there could be the reason that he's asking $10,000 over sticker or even higher. The dealers that have highly desirable cars on the showroom are charging highly undesirable prices.

If you want to buy a car at a fair price, then kick in to what's popular and how long it'll take to order it to come in. But if you're set on those, possibly a used one would be a quicker way to do it because you're looking at these siennas. I mean, they've picked up production and also have some information. Like, for example, we were talking about how they're making, Amory mentioned their text, how their production is picking up the supply chains or getting more free. We know that in the second half of the year, for example, Rav4 hybrids, which are pretty

tough to get right now, looks like they're almost doubling in production in the second half of the year. So we're going to get more. So we're going to, we'll probably be getting more news like that as time goes by, because that was actually surprising to me to see how many RAV hybrids are going to be being made in the second half.

So yeah, stick to the bread and butter cars. Nothing special and you can get them quicker. Cool. All right. Let's see. Another text. I have one for you, Mr. Stewart. Earl, where are you from before Florida?

How long you've been in the car business? Before Florida, I was not on the planet or the universe. Right, you didn't exist. So I was born in Fort Lauderdale, 1940. And how long you've been in the car business? I know these answers, but this is directed towards you. Sue handles my biographies. 1968.

He went in the car business approximately five months after I was born. Yeah. So I actually knew him as an engineer. Stuart Pontiac, 1928, South Vixie, and West Palm Beach. Telephone, Temple, 3, 4,555. Okay, here's another text. This is from Sandy. She says, I purchased a 20-23 Sienna in December.

We were just talking about these and received only one key fob. It was told the second one will be mailed to me by Toyota and haven't received it yet. You have an idea when they're getting sent out? And I texted to find out that we were told four to six months, so you're close. So we're about four months since then. but we could probably make a call and I will make an announcement next week if I hear anything or just call me

or call the dealership we'll see if we got any notifications but we were told four to six months and I think I'm caught up on text okay Rick well actually Robert Gardner had been asking that question about Earl so I guess he got on both the economists here

that leaves me with pretty much just one from Guy Larrabee, he says, Good morning. What do you think of Toyota's new president doubling down on hydrogen, no existing infrastructure, and praising Tesla's no dealer model?

Well, I go back to what I said last week, and a lot of people didn't hear what I said last week, which is this. I don't, I'm afraid to count Toyota out. My personal opinion is the hydrogen route is the wrong route. Rick told me this morning, I didn't even know this, that Toyota is going to be building a hydrogen burning car, meaning you fill up with hydrogen, in addition to the hydrogen fuel cell, which would be an electric vehicle, they have got tremendous insight.

The thing that some companies like Toyota have, they have the ability to look into the future and not worry about the short run. And in order not to worry about the short run, you've got to have a lot of money, folks. I mean, you've got to be able to suffer some really downswings. And Toyota is really taking a huge gamble by not jumping on the EV Express. I think that they shifted towards that. They're just not letting go of hydrogen. Yeah, but they're not shifting much. And it reminds me of the days of Prius.

I can go back and see, in my mind's eye, people laughing. I remember the President General Motors. He was bringing down the house at speeches throughout this Prius. This Prius is going to be a hybrid. What a joke that is. And look at it. It really looks stupid. And blah, blah, blah, blah.

And everybody thought it was a joke. Well, the rest is history. So I don't count Toyota out. One of the comments that I saw on that was that they're also looking. idea that hydrogen fuel cell cars and hydrogen combustion engines would not require the major amounts of lithium and nickel metal hydride batteries. So these are issues that they're looking at for the long, long term. I'll say this also.

Toriago also has a conscience, believe it or not, and it's a corporate, a huge corporation with a conscience. And they are thinking about the carbon footprint. they're thinking about the global warming and this is such a political subject that I don't even like to bring it up on the air because you know you got you got them so it's for it them that's against it and they hate each other well I I know what I feel and I know I think I know what Toyota feels and I think that I think that you know I'm not going to worry about this because I'm 82 years old but my great-grandchildren are going to worry about it and I

think this will be one hell of a lot better planet for my great-grandchildren if we did if we did if we had reduced the carbon footprint much much greater and faster that we're now doing and I think Toyota's looking at it as they're not worrying about the great-grandchildren they're looking at the great-great-great-great-grandchildren they're really taking a long view on this I'll call you and raise your one great I hear you okay but it just seems there They're really doing the long-term view. They're looking long. So, hey, it's refreshing.

It is definitely a studio thing. It's because of Kochi, Sato, that they're being a whole lot more aggressive because he's younger and has so much input, so much intelligence because of his age. I always thought that Akio was young, like the young fresh blood for Toyota. And it kind of turns out, I think we're. I'm close to age as Akio, we're both in our 50s, I think. Akio might be a little bit older than me. But it turns out we're no longer the young kids anymore.

Yeah, we're fascinated with Toyota because we're Toyota dealers. And so that's a simple answer is I think Toyota is making the wrong choice. But I also think Toyota has proven to be a hell of a lot smarter than I am. So I hope I'm wrong. Maybe I hope I'm right. I don't care. It's interesting also that Koji Sato is also praising Tesla's no-dealer model. I wonder if Toyota wants to try to follow that themselves and not have the years.

I'll say this. Stu's talking about the fact that the top dog in Toyota is saying, I really like Tesla's no-dealer model. No other manufacturer would say that, but they all believe the same thing. The manufacturers, they're between a rock and a hard place. they created a monster with car dealerships and they hate it and in the room that has been debugged so there's an electronic listing devices and the doors closed and soundproof all these CEOs of all these manufacturers saying how the hell are we going to get rid of these car dealers and and they don't dare do it because right now they'd be biting the hand that feeds them they need the car dealers right now but they know it's not in the future dealing a cars this ain't going to happen dot com so or so we're going to have a major revolution and car dealers as we know them today are going to be like tyrannosaurus wrecks they were not going to be

around anymore with lips yeah well okay let's switch gears for a minute i'm going to talk about female car buyers and what is the most popular and what what is just not the most favorable to them RAM, GMC, Ford, Tesla, and Dodge have the lowest female buyer representation. Now, I'm not sure how accurate that is, because I see it a little bit differently, but that's another show. The most popular with women is these brands are the highest female buyer representation, and it starts out with Buick, Misabushi. It goes to the mini, the Lexus, the Infinity, the Mazda, the Kia, and the industry average. And it's very interesting what women like and what they don't like. Anyway, they're being looked at and people, the auto industry is taking them seriously.

On another note, I have $50 for one more new female caller. Our telephone number here is if you have any. any questions at all. If you have any texts, you can get in touch with us with YouTube, with Facebook. There's a number of ways. Our number is 877960-9960, and you can also text us at 772-497-3-0. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

Nancy spoke earlier about safety and cars designed for people, not just for men and the increased risk, death rate, injury rate, and most scars to women over men. And she also mentioned the website, theautoprofessor.com, the t-h-e, theautoprofessor.com. I didn't know about this. It was featured in automotive news from a letter written to the editor of this week's Automotive News. And that letter was regarding a woman that I haven't heard of, Norma, H-U-B-L-E. I'm ashamed to tell you. I'm not sure how you pronounce it.

Is it Hubble or Hubble? I'm going to say Hubble. And she's also on public radio. Now, she has, this website is amazing. If I were a woman, in fact, I already wrote it down, so write it down. This website is just theautoprocessor.com. kind of easy to remember the auto professor. I feel like I'd like to be called the auto professor, but I'm not.

So remember theautoprocessor.com. If you're a woman, go to my website. It isn't a bunch of reading to do. Just pick out the car that you're thinking about buying or several cars. They give you the safety rating of women in these cars. I didn't know this website existed until it was mentioned in automotive news. So right now, as you regular listen to the show, no, cars are designed by men, they're built by men, they're sold by men. I mean, it's just a shame.

They just forgot about the women and the whole process. So, because women are built differently than we are, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that in a crash, they're going to get injured. And they get injured far more often, far more seriously, and in some cars more than others. If you're thinking about buying a Honda cord or a Chevrolet Corvette or a Toyota Corolla or a Rolls-Royce, whatever you're thinking about buying, go to Theautoprofossor.com, put the car in, and they'll tell you how it compares in safety. I mean, what can be more important? Or how about you have women in your family?

You know, sisters, you know, aunts, anybody. It doesn't have to be women, don't, but if you have women riding in your car, don't you want to be safe? I mean, if I were Uber, if I owned Uber or I owned Lyft or I own some big fleet, I'd be bragging about the fact that I only use cars in my fleet that are safe for women. And you manufacturers out there, you morons, they're still building cars today, just ignoring the safety of women, boy, you want to get all you manufacturers you hate Tesla or

Ford hates Chevy and everybody's competing but what you're forgetting half the buyers out there are women and you're building on safe cars so that's my rant. I thank you for that and so does everyone out there that's listening. I mentioned

earlier you're a big part of the show we certainly appreciate you and we learn so much from you Give us a call toll-free if you would like to ask any questions at all or advise us on what we don't know. Our number here is A77-960-99-60, and you can also text us at 772-497-6-5-30. I'm going to go back to the phones, and we have a few that are lined up here, and I'd like everyone to be patient. I'll get to you and I have Nancy on the line

and I have Shelley on the line so hang on Renee. Good morning Nancy, welcome back Hello Hello, welcome back Nancy Oh, it's Renee My name's Renee Oh Renee?

Okay Renee, where are you calling from? Yeah, I was asking Jeremy about Nancy because you guys are good Oh, thank you. You're welcome. I have a question on recalls. Okay.

How does one know? No, I've wanted to know this for years, and I just forgot about asking anybody. So can you please, John, I'm asking. I get distracted here by somebody. So how do you know when there's a recall if you have 100 people or 50 or 1,000, and they have a problem with the car, your car, the same thing. and they don't call in. Yeah. Does the manufacturer bring up?

It's real easy. It's real easy for you to check on that. And I'm going to ask Rick to address that. And it has everything to do with your VIN number. There's two ways to go about it. The first one is simply go right online. Is Mycar recalled.com. And safercar.

Gov. Yeah, you only need one. Yeah, safercar.gov, just put in the VIN, which you can get that right on your insurance card, or there's also a couple spots that are easy to see it on your car. If you open the driver's side door on the body, you'll see a sticker that will have that VIN. And type that in on the website, and it will tell you if there are any safety recalls that have been issued for your car. Well, excuse me, but what happens if it's not listed and nobody knows the manufacturer doesn't know there's a problem? Are they honest, the manufacturer or the dealers or whoever is responsible to tell the consumer or do we have to report it and when they have a thousand people?

Like, what's the, how does it become a rule? Well, there's no law for them to disclose it. It's a... Oh. Right. But if there is a recall already issued for your car and you go to the dealership, you can ask them to run your VIN, and if there are any open recalls, they will look and find them. And I'll be more than happy to do them because the manufacturer pays the dealership to do those recalls. They get paid pretty well.

They don't have to answer a whole bunch of questions. They don't have to prove anything on warranty. They simply do the recall, and it's quick and simple. And as a technician, I'd rather do a simple recall because I don't have to diagnose anything. I simply do what the paperwork tells me to do, and I'm done. Now, if you have a problem that your car has not gotten recalled, but you think there might be a problem with the car, that's where you have to actually go in and have it diagnosed. Oh, it's the dealer?

you mean to go to the dealer where you or a price or or well any mechanic can diagnose the car for you but if if you think it's something that is covered under warranty or under a recall then you've got to go through the dealer oh okay okay thank you and if you have a I have a vintage car thing and there's no statute like say you get like a vintage Mustang or something and there was a recall on it we're past the limits right Like if you're past, oh, you're not. Safety recalls, if it's a safety recall that is on safercar.gov, where the government has told them,

you must have this recall available on this car. That car is under recall forever, and they're required to be able to do that recall even like 15 years later, 20 years later. What year is your vintage car? 69 shall be. I doubt there's any open recalls on 69 Shelby's. Yeah, they really didn't even have them back then. If there's 66, though, pony, it's a regular...

Yeah, you're not going to have any warranty or recall repair on that vehicle. No. What about the 66 convertible Mustang, like just the 289 hypo? Nope. No, again, those are cars that what you want to do is go out there this weekend, wash and wax them and make them shine like brand new pearls and he give me a call

so I can come over because you've got two of them and we can take them out for a nice drive to really give them a little bit of exercise I'll take the convertible light I love those I'll pay for a gas you're funny thank you my husband has the 4-4-2

the 4 on the floor four barrel dual exhaust I'm really into cars I eat sleep and breathe cars and I love your show Oh, thank you so much, Renee. We have such fun talking to you, and I hope that SafeCard.gov helps you out. Give us a call again. We'd love to hear from you. Renee, are you a first-time caller?

I called last year, and you guys answered my questions, fantastically. So I called again this year. Awesome. Good to hear from you again. Same here. Keep it up. Kudos. Oh, thanks you so much, Renee.

and thanks for supporting the ladies here at Earl Steer-O-O-O-O-N-Cars. Give us a call again. Of course. Thank you. Any time. Thank you. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to Shelly, who is a first-time caller, and she's from New York.

Good morning, Shelly. Hi. How are you? We're well, thank you. Shelly, stay on the phone after we're done talking and talk with Jeremy and give him your contact information. He'll pass it alone to me. And I will write you out of check and mail it to you. Oh, wow.

Thank you. You're welcome. What can we do for you this morning? Sure. My dad simply loves your show. He's calling, he lives in West Palm. And he says, hey, you better call them and ask them the question. I just bought a Kia Soul.

Love my car, 2003. But then I hear on the news that they are stealing these cars left and right. Do you know if Key is doing anything to, you know, kind of make the car more safe? Safer. Safer. It is a really safe car right now. I don't know how people are getting in. Besides.

The safety fish features are beyond. Like, I can't even tell you. Yes, exactly. You want to know whether they're doing anything to keep the car, you know, in your possession, number one, and locked up. and everything, well, you heard about insurance for Kia and for Hyundai, and it doesn't exist. But I'll let Rick talk to you about the safety of your vehicle. Right now I'm not aware of Kia doing anything retroactively to try to help prevent those. Things that you can do are install a good aftermarket alarm system with like a kill switch.

something that will disable the ignition um that's really the best options that you might have right oh boy okay well I appreciate it because I didn't think I mean when I bought the car like I said I've had it for only two months and the safety features are amazing and then I'm driving and I hear thank goodness I already have insurance for the car but I didn't think it could get any safer and now they're stealing them left and right i'm telling you if there's one thing it's true oftentimes the inexpensive anti-theft device is something that tricks the potential thief into thinking there is a device even if there isn't one so they have decals for your car this this car protected by anti-theft device and of course the cheap one is the old post that you can

used to tie you know lock your steering wheel but anything you do toward making the potential crook who's coming to steal your car he's going to go to the one park next to you that doesn't have the decals on even though it might have the theft device that the other yours doesn't have he's still going to avoid your car right that steering wheel club that earl mentioned i loved how people were all about well yeah but all they got to do is take some liquid nitrogen and put in the lock and then they break the lock. You know, I kind of wonder, Earl, how often do you walk around liquid nitrogen in your pocket?

Never leave it on the road. And he's a chemist. Good point. Well, Shelly, thanks so much for giving us a call. And spread the word that we just want to, you know, build this collar base for ladies, make them just as important. Thank you so much.

You're welcome, Shelly. Have a wonderful weekend. You too. All righty-78-960. We're going to go to Howard, who's holding in Fort Lauderdale. We've had a run of Howard's this morning. Howard number three. Come on down. Good morning. I'm going to turn down my radio. Can you hear me?

Yes. Okay, okay. I don't want to... My name, hello? Yes, we're here. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. My name is Howard. I've been selling Kia's 30 years. I'm 52 years old.

The car, I remember when they were, I was selling Sophia Kia. They were like $12.99 at the time, $12,99. I was selling them. I got a Kia. I love Kia so much. I got a 2016 Optima. The car had an oil consumption problem in the motor. I'm the second owner of the car.

I bought the car with only 12,000 miles on it at Gunther Key. over there in Hollywood I love this car so what I did was I you know always got the oil change and I've always had the records on when I did do oil change so when I went to the dealership

and Rick Case over there in Sunrise I live in Sunrise they wanted proof that I did the oil changes that's what they requested so I got all the proof I went to the oil place I didn't get The world change has done at Kia.

I got them done in another place that I trusted. And they gave me all the paperwork, went there, and they told me at first they weren't going to do it because of the mileage, but I only, I bought, I'm the second owner. So at 58,000 miles, it was still good, and I proved it. And Kia put a brand new motor in this car. I just want to thank Kia. I've been up, you know, I love Kia. They're just, they ride like Mercedes.

They're the best. Well, Howard, I agree with you. As a matter of fact, I think that Kia is finally, Kia and Hyundai both have reached a very high status in consumer demand. Interestingly enough, last year, more Kia dealerships were sold Kia and Hyundai dealerships than ever before. the dealers are starting to realize now that it's a great car, high-quality Kia Hyundai. This thing with the theft, you know, there's a lot of talk about it. It shouldn't happen to Kia, but in terms of quality, reliability, look at consumer reports.

You're absolutely right. Kia is a fine product. Rick, Rick, can I just say one more thing to what you just said? Sure. As far as that goes, I got a letter in the mail from Kia, and they're, they, they, They sent the anti-theft thing, and they told me to bring the card to the dealership, like you said, about fixing the problem. Like, all they need to do is run the VIN. They sent me the letter that stated in that.

And I have GEICO insurance. I pay, I've never had a DUI, never had a ticket. I'm 52 years old. And my insurance is $40 a month. Wow, that's pretty good. I'm just a little confused on some of these people saying that the insurance will cancel them. I'm in the hottest spot of theft. I'm in Fort Lauderdale, Sunrise Area.

And let me tell you something. This car, I've actually, I'm a little embarrassed to tell you guys this, but I've actually been thrown out of my house with my girlfriend and I, and I've slept in this car for three days. It's a comfortable car. No kidding. I need to touch. Was it the girlfriend's house or your house?

No, it's my house, but I laughed and took off. You're a real gentleman. I love you guys. I love you guys. I hear you, you know, this is, I love talk radio, and you guys are awesome, and I appreciate everything you guys ever say. You're on point. Oh, thanks so much, Howard. Howard, how much did you say your insurance was, and you're 52? I pay $45 a month with GEICO, and I have a $500 deductible. So, I mean, you know, the people that are saying that their insurance is this and that, you know, there's a back. back story to that because maybe they're driving records too high. Not the fact that it's a theft car. Exactly. There's a lot of factors. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. And I love you guys and have a great day and happy Easter. Happy Easter, Howard. It was great talking to you. 877-960 or you can text us at

772-4976530. And we're going to go to John. John's a special caller. He calls us from Palm City every week. Good morning, John. Good morning. Two topics came up concerning me. One was a 69 Chevy. The second is oil consumption. For 60 years, I've been buying brand new Chevolets. I was a General Motors man and in 1969 Rick would appreciate that I had an SS 396 brand new Chevelle SS 396 with a Muncie

4 speed Every 200 heavy Oh my God Every 200 to 250 miles It burnt a quarter of oil So wouldn't the Chevrolet What did they determine? A brand new short block engine

Brand spanking new But still did the same problem Guess what? They took the cylinder heads from the old engine and put them back on that engine and it was valve seals. Oh, yeah.

I've got to tell you, that's why you need a good mechanic because that's a waste of money and time and from then on in I stopped buying chevales and General Motors cars and I just want to tell you something. The car I drive today,

it's a Toyota Corolla. I went and looked up my original bill of sales. I bought it in 8476, a Corolla station wagon. Earl will sit down for this one of the price. The oldest Toyota dealer in the United States, it was Lincoln Avenue Motors, Jamesburg, New Jersey. Wow.

I don't have the manufacturer of MSRP, but my bill is sale, $4068, $370 for the air condition, a total of $4438, and only a $20. registration temporary tag because I was a resident in New York State. It was not only the best car that I ever owned, no problems at all, but it was purchased at this oldest Toyota dealer from the owner directly, and he told me, I will give you a guarantee you will love Toyotas if you are unsatisfied with this car in any way up to 30 days, return it to me free, and I'll give you the check that you bought it with the credit union, and ever since then, I've purchased nothing but Toyota Corolla's.

That's the car I drive now. I've never had any problems with them other than doing regular maintenance, brakes, you know, tires, batteries, and fantastic cars. I can't tell you anything better, in my opinion, that's on the road. And Toyota Corolla is number one in mine, and it's the car I drive. And I want to just tell you something, in November, I was on a cruise, and it covers. six countries and six of those countries when I had stopped in the ports I asked the original you know owners of cars and that's a lot's different brands of Toyotas in those places and guess what they told me the number one car in their mind is a Toyota and that's exactly what the one

of puzzled me completely in the Grand Cayman Islands that's uh British owned and it's right hand drive yeah guess what the Toyotas that were in there For some reason, they allowed the left-hand drive. That was like a mystery to me. But by far, people that I spoke to said number one car, Toyota. I can honestly tell you, from my experience of just noticing cars on the road, some of the oldest cars I see still going are Corolla's, and they still command a good price. We're getting up to be branded in infomercial, so we have to be careful here.

Absolutely. I agree with you. There were other fine cars that are out there. No question about it. Honda, Kia, we just talked about Hyundai. Yeah, there's some amazing quality cars out there. And American cars too. I know you never bought a

Chevrolet again, but I promise you, John, if you bought a Chevrolet today, you would be blown away. The Chevrolet is a high-quality vehicle. Quality has made a quantum leap in just the past few years. And it's sad that Buick and Oldsmobile would discontinued.

Also, great cars, in my opinion, too. Yeah. Absolutely good point. There's so much competition out there. You're absolutely right, John. And there's so much to look at with some amazing new features, safety features. And the auto industry has certainly become, well, they're really putting vehicles out there that can really accommodate each and,

every one of us if a bad call was built today it wouldn't be around you go was a perfect example absolutely okay guys happy Easter happy Easter John it was great hearing from you have a great weekend our number here is 877 960 or you can text us at 772 4976530 we're going to go to Marty in West Palm Beach good morning Marty good morning how are you today we're great nice to hear from you i have a question for either rick or stew my car that i ordered in march of 22 is now supposed to be coming in in may it's supposed to be coming in in may the beginning of may that's the hybrid camry xyle my question is i've never had a hybrid uh hybrid before a few hybrids i've

driven in I hear sort of like a whining noise not that I'm whining but I hear a whining noise and I'm just wondering is that is that normal or do I have to bring it back already once I get it and hear that noise when you hear in the wine it just sounds like it's whining a little when it when it's accelerates and when you slow down. Now here's one thing it might be. I'm just going to speculate here before then Rick will jump in. The hybrids emit a high frequency sound to give it noise because when they're in that battery mode. So when you start off, you're slow and the electric motor is not running or you're pulling into a driveway and it's all EV, it's silent and you would possibly sneak up

on somebody and kill them. So it makes this, what I describe, is an otherworldly demonic howl. that kind of like this and I can hear my if I'm in the backyard and my wife or my son pull up in their hybrids I hear this high with this whiny sound and it's designed to alert animals and pedestrians

that's what I think it is but Rick if there could be an issue that especially in reverse because 90% of the time when hybrids are in reverse the gasoline engine shuts off so you get this wailing sound. Yeah. And

at one point... It's literally made by a speaker. Yes. Yeah. At one point, they were going to make it a customizable sound. Right. So you could choose your own. Like bongos and parrots and crickets and things like that. But they decided to know, let's go

with this standardized sound so that anyone who hears it would recognize this is a hybrid. Yeah, it is kind of spooky. Does that sound like what you're describing? Okay. Well, Well, what I'm saying is I don't have the car yet until May, but I'm saying I've been in a couple. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yours is going to do that, too.

Okay, so I don't have to bring it in saying, oh, what's wrong with it? Nope. No. And unless it's something else like they're... The electric motors do make a little bit of noise. It can make a high-pitched noise. That's the electric motors, and that's going to be normal. You know, everything that moves is going to make a little bit of noise. You ought to see me first thing in the morning. I make a lot of noise. And I just wanted to tell you, and my last General Motors car was in 2000. So for the last 23 years, I've either had Accords originally and then went all to Toyota's.

We had Buick that had transmission problems. So no matter what you say that the Buick might be a wonderful car today, I'd never buy another Buick. Once you go Toyota, once you go to Toyota. and you have no problems for 20 years, I think you stick to Toyota. Yeah, good point. Marty, it's always great talking to you, and all I can say is that your car is right around the corner.

All right, it's in sight now. Yeah, exactly. We'll try not to sell it to somebody else for more money. Yeah, I'm trying to get there. I might have to sleep over there to make sure. Marty, you'll be there before the car gets there. Yeah. We'll check in next one for your weekly update, too.

If I see a tent pitched, I'll know it's you. Yeah, I told the salesman to make sure it doesn't fall off the truck. That's happened before, not to scare you. Have a great weekend, Marty. All right. Have a happy Easter. Thank you. Happy Easter to you, too.

We're going to go to East Tennessee, where we're going to be talking to Casey. Good morning, Casey. Well, good morning, y'all. How are you doing today? Welcome from East Tennessee. Yes. Hey, I've got a question probably for Stu, and not sure quite how to frame it, but I'm getting ready to buy a car, excellent credit, and I'll put about 10,000 down. I wanted to know kind of the back, the F&I office, when they are looking for financing, I wanted to know what I could look for in that kind of scenario.

Do they offer better interest rates and do the banks contend with one another to try to get that loan? Or how does that work? I haven't bought a car in years. Well, the only way I would go with the dealers financing is if they have a special incentive financing. You know, like you'll see 1.9% or 2.9% back in the less crazy days, it was 0% all the time. Those are legit as long as it's coming from, they're a manufacturer. year. The question you had you exactly right. Dealers

will also work with a lot of other banks that aren't their like Ford or Toyota and they will, the bank that benefits the dealer the most is generally what they'll go with and they'll make profit on the spread on the interest rate. So I'll turn it over

to Earl because this is really up his alley but looking at your own lender or credit union is it would be the way to go if there's not incentive financing available. Casey, at the F&I office, they call it the box dealers among themselves. It's in the torture chamber and cool hand, Luke. It's the place that in normal times, car dealers make far more money per car in the box in the F&I department.

And your interest rate would be higher and you would probably be sold or maybe not even realize you were sold products that you don't need. So, yeah, Stu said it perfectly. Credit union or your bank, and I would go with a credit union. I didn't really press them. If you're not a member of a credit union, you can join one. There are a number of quality credit unions that for a relatively small annual fee, which you'll recoup immediately in interest rate savings. For a very small annual fee, you could be a member.

And there aren't any legitimate, or there are very, very few legitimate. manufacturers subsidize interest rates today and you just stay out of the box buy the car stay out of the box one last question what would what would you guys consider for a good credit and that type of thing what would you consider a decent interest rate nowadays is there kind of a spread it's definitely it's come up about six percent for new cars okay okay okay well that Well, that answers my questions. I'll just make sure I stay out of the box or break the line. You'll go in there, but don't get beaten the box.

Don't even go in there. Don't go in the box. I got you. All right. Thanks so much, Casey. Have a nice to you, sir. All right. Bye-bye.

Have a great weekend. Back to the recovering car dealer. Yeah, we were talking earlier about Toyota, and I got embarrassed because of the, you know, we are Toyota dealership, and people do like the car. They like condos and keyers. We talked about that too, but I get nervous because this is not an infomercial, but for you, very, very pro-patriatic American folks out there, and I'm one of them, I mean, we're all Americans, we're proud of that, and it is humbling to think that this Japanese, right after the World War II

of the terrible, I mean, things that happened and the attack on Pearl Harbor, and now you're buying these, the Japanese cars. But this is interesting about the Japanese. And it also applies to Asia because you're talking about Hyundai Kia. Where do you think Toyota learn how to build a quality car? It was from an American. And right after World War II, an American Edward Deming, he is from Wyoming. But he was an engineer, quality expert.

So after World War II, I mean, there wasn't much left of Japan. They invited him over, and he spoke to their engineers, their manufacturing people, and he explained to them how important quality it was. And they copied. Now, most of the... I think they even visited American plants prior to World War II. Yeah, probably that.

They copied everything. But the point is that the manufacturers of the United States, they ignored Deming. You know, here he was American, and they wanted to build. big gas guzzlers and they didn't care about the safety they didn't even have seat belts and all of a sudden so it's i guess that the moral to this story is that the best people the best companies are the best are those who admit when they don't know something and are not afraid to

take advice and seek out someone they can do better uh the japanese have any uh saying toriela and i'm I'm sure all the Japanese manufacturers, Honda, have this thing. Kaizen, K-A-I-Z-E-N. Kaizen is a Japanese word for continuous improvement. And it means what it says. If you build a great car, you're not satisfied with it. Because next year, you've got to build a better one. And that one word sums up the secret to success for Toyota, certainly.

a lot of the other Japanese and Asian manufacturers. Okay, folks, we're going to check with Stu to see if there's any texts. Yeah, we have an anonymous feedback that came in. Quick question. We're talking a lot about Kia and Hyundai. It says, are Kia and Hyundai the same? Are they owned by the same company? And yes, they are.

I think the parent company is Hyundai, right? Yeah. And then Kia is a sub-brand. Well, it's separate. I'm not quite sure how it's structured. But, yeah, it's the same company. On text, we're all caught up. Actually, we're not.

We have one, let's see here. Good morning. I will be starting the process. This is from Cindy, the text. Good morning. I'll start the process of buying a new car in the near future via email to multiple dealerships in my region. I'm looking at buying a hybrid,

so I know I'll have to get on a waiting list for a future allocation. When I send the initial email to ask for an out-the-door price, do I tell them how much I'm willing to? to pay MSRP and that's from Cindy well what kind of defeat the purpose because that's what all car dealers want to know how much they can get out of you how much will you pay and that gives them an idea of well of what they could take in the way of profit but no I would go out I'd go online you start not exactly right I wouldn't you know I used to say three or four car dealers how about 30 or 40 car dealers

online is the way things are sold you all are buying stuff on on amazon i mean why i could mention a whole bunch of other online places you deal with too but they're the 800 pound gorilla and that stuff's coming from all over manufacturers and dealers are starting to adapt now so it isn't going to be unusual for you to go online and buy a car from somebody i think the uh the the separation point will be the cost of transportation. You're not going to buy if you lived in West Palm Beach, Florida. You're not going to buy a car in Los Angeles

if you have to have it a trucked all the way out. It's probably not going to happen, although it does happen. It happens rarely. Yeah, but if you're looking for a Honda, you could probably find 500 Honda dealers within 500 miles. Yeah. But your online

is, what a tool for you. Let's say you have a quote on a car, that's you know a thousand miles away well you don't want to go a thousand miles you or you don't want to ship at a thousand miles you don't have to tell the dealers that you're dealing with when you go back because that's the negotiating process so let's see you do 50 dealers 50 Chevrolet dealers and some of them you're not about to go that far to buy the car then you go back to

the dealers closest to you you've got all these prices so you say I have a price that you're negotiating online I have this price. You don't have to tell them it's in Los Angeles, and you live in West Palm Beach. Just say, I have this price. That's the way you negotiate. So you're getting a real price

because you're explaining to all the dealers that I'm going to prepay for the car on this credit card or this bank draft or whatever it may be. So they know they got a real live one. They know you're going to buy a car or they're pretty damn sure. So you will get a lot of prices, trust me.

And you're going to get a great price. And today's standards are a great price. Anything below MSR to be today is a great price. MSRP is a good price. So, yeah, go online and shop, shop, shop. It'll take you two hours. I'm exaggerating. And after that, you just go back and you tell them,

this is what I'll pay for the car after you have a dealer that you can buy it from. And, Cindy, a bit of advice. if you're going to be emailing 50 car dealerships, get a new email address, and don't use your main one. Otherwise, you'll never find another email for as long as you live because you will be inundated. And make up your phone, give them a phony phone number,

and like Stu says, get a Gmail address. It's free, a Google. And it's just, it's so easy. You can get the lowest price you're ever going to get for that your-make model car just by doing what I said. all right and i that is it for texts okay uh rick do we have any from youtube uh we're a little caught up here um one question that johnny z fradley had a kind of an interesting thought is uh let me pull

this good a word for it let's see um where would you take a car with a recall that is no longer sold in the u.s like sob or rennall or something like that and that actually would have me a little bit stumped you would be out of luck you can take it anywhere to get a fix but you're not going to get a fix under the recall

if there's if manufacturers out of business there's no one to pay for it so you're you're not to pay for it yourself I ran across I was Googling something earlier in the show and I learned something like I say I do every show do you know when the first federal recall was

when? When? And that was two years before I got into the car business. I didn't even, I'd never heard of recalls when I got the car business, so I don't think there were that many recalls. Also,

the first recall period, not by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the first recall was over 100 years ago. And Henry Ford recalled one of his cars. So, but if the manufacturer's gone, you've got a problem.

If they're not here to take care of their customers, and it's a U.S. law, even if they're still in Europe, they're not going to pay for a recall in the United States. Okay. Okay, folks, I have to mention to you, how do you do the ones that can see the backdrop behind Earl? How do you like that? that's the Cadbury mini egg car and Jonathan came up with that idea

isn't it beautiful? Oh I just love it very very creative we are going to go to the mystery shopping report but I do want to mention the Florida Weekly I don't normally bring in the magazine with me but don't

forget folks that you can read Earl's all of his columns not only in the Florida a weekly. I'm not sure whether you can see this or not. I'm holding it up. But also in the hometown news so take

advantage of that. Also, Earl on cars you can go there and you can read all of Earl's columns. Okay, we are going to go to, would you like to go? I have some entertainment here. I'm on hold up. This made me laugh.

Automotive news. How many of you know who Carlos Gohn is G-H-S-O-N. Carlos Gohn, regular listeners, we've talked about them a lot in the past. He's one of the few automotive people, in fact, one of the few people, period, to be CEO of three Fortune 500 companies at the same time. He was the idol of the automotive business. Everybody, all the manufacturers, all dealers, they worship Carlos Gown.

He performed these financial miracles with various manufacturers, some of them being Nissan, Mitsubishi, Pujo, Renault, all over. But they made a movie of his life. And it's called Fall of the God of Cars. You don't want to mention that. The Fall of the God of Cars. and if you if you still don't remember going as that's spelled funny G-H-O-S-N he was accused by the Japanese authorities of financial misconduct in 2018 and here's the excitement and

and he escaped on an airplane out of Japan and he packed himself in and some luggage he can't make this stuff up and they got through customs and security and everything and then He flew to Lebanon, and now he's still in Lebanon, and they're making a movie of his life. I haven't heard of the... Who's going to play him? Al Pacino. Have you ever heard of Michael Winterbottom is the name of the... The guy that starred in Mark, Tony Shalub.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Tony Shalub. Tony Shalub. Yeah, he's a great actor. He's playing Gone. Yeah. You don't want to miss that. I mean, and of course, we don't talk about it.

They downplay with these, see ya, I could name you so many crooked, well, the former head of the Toyota's going to jail. I mean, I'm not Toyota, the head of Volkswagen. They moved him to Audi to keep him out of the way, but when he was with Volkswagen, he prepared a counterfeit phony software system. So when they sent their cars to the United States and the Environmental Protection Agency sent them. through testing to see if they could form this this counterfeit software phony said it the emissions are clean and it disguised the fact he was shipping dirty emission this is the head of Volkswagen so gone he's just following the tradition I mean it's amazing the lack of morality some of these top CEOs of automobile

manufacturers and that we don't talk about but I we can all see the movie that comes out. Yeah, that automotive news is really not only an informative magazine, but it really has some interesting stories that you don't normally hear. There's so much. I remember the Oscar Meyer-Weiner Mobile in it getting stolen. No, wait a second. Yeah, it did get stolen. Yes, it did. And then there was the other story about the Tesla.

Okay. Stop to get their battery charged, and they were caught. They robbed somebody. I'm not sure it was. I think it might have been a Costco. They walked out with thousands and thousands of dollars of merchandise. Okay, folks, enough of this silliness. We are going to go to the mystery shopper report,

and as I always say, you are an important part of grading this mystery shoppering report, and you can do that at 772-4-9. 676530. We went to Margate, Florida, or at least Agent Lightning did, and she shopped J.M. Lexus. Remember, 772-497-6530. Just give us your vote. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Okay. A mystery shop of J.M. Lexus. It says Margate, and it is technically Margate, but it's like, try Coconut Creek, because people have heard of Coconut Creek, and we think of it as being in Coconut Creek, which is some people think of being in Fort Lauderdale, but that dense population of the south, Jay of Lexus is the number one Lexus dealer in the world,

sales-wise. They're also the number one Lexus dealership in the world, customer satisfaction-wise. They are an amazing... And niceness. Overall niceness. Yeah. Amazing dealership for a lot of reasons. And it's a very interesting dealership because it's owned by the J.M. family. That stands for Jim Moran family.

That's the estate of the late and great J.M., Jim Moran, who Stu and I knew personally. Nancy knows personally. He was the first Toyota distributor in Southeast, back in the late 50s. and we were one of the earliest of his dealers. I knew him when he was a Pontiac dealership. Amazing man. And the reason we shopped J.M. Lexus, we recommend J.M. Lexus if you want to buy a Lexus if you're in Florida.

As a matter of fact, we recommend them just check the delivery charges. You might want to have one shipped from J.M. Lexus. So we recommend them. Now, the reason we shopped them is a couple of reasons. We shop too many bad dealerships, I think, and we know they're bad. You know, Stu and Nancy and I and Agent Lightning will talk about our shopping target, and we usually think in terms of a real dog out there that's really ripping people off. I mean, it's more fun, and you get to laugh and curse, and, you know, it's better entertainment.

But we've got to remember by focusing too much on that type of dealer. It wears down our souls. It wears our souls down. Yeah, that wears our souls down. It also makes people think it maybe it's worse than it really is. Here's a really good dealership. Now, there's another reason we shop them. It's when Agent Lightning said, who do you want me to shop?

And I said, J.M. Lexus, she says, well, they don't have a dealer fee. I said, yes, they do. She says, no, they don't. I said, we'll go find out. So anyway, we're going to find out. And I think you regular listeners know the answer to that comment. but you haven't if you're not a regular listener then this will be interesting to you

we shopped it because they're advertising heavily on television no dealer fee come into J.M. Lexus no dealer fee and just think how effective that must be I'm not allowed to do that by the way as a toilet dealer to say that I'm the only toilet dealer. You can say I have no dealer fee

but you can't say I'm the only Toyota dealer that you are. Yeah, but that's what J.M. Lexus says. This is not an ad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. No dealer fees. Here we go.

Speaking of the first person, I were Agent Lightning. I arrived at J.M. Lexus and Margate, Coconut Creek, later in the evening. Entered through the side door near the service department. As I walked through the dealership, I didn't see anyone around, so I continued toward the front desk. The customer service representative greeted me, took down my name and phone number, informed me. me that a sales manager would be with me shortly. That's another nice touch. I'm not sure they're really managers.

They call, because what they do is, because I don't think this is addressed in the report, they have a process. They call it's one price, one person. So a customer deals with one person the whole time. They don't have a box there. So it really is much more of a manager. He's managing the whole sale from A to Z,

and you won't see anybody else there, just a one person. It's good salesmanship, it's good marketing. and it's also truthful. I'm back in the dealership. I wandered around examining the inventory of the showroom floor and came across an intriguing sedan. A 2023, Lexus ES 250, all-wheel drive with an MSRP of $47,505.

Now, that's amazing. I'm amazed because I'm amazed at how low that MSRP is. And I think about our Toyotas, and we brag about... We're right there. We're almost there at the price. I wonder why would I buy a Toyota if I could buy a Lexus

at the same price? We need to do a little research on that. But there it was. MSRP. I'm not saying I can buy it if MSRP, but that's what J.M. Lexus advertises is no dealer fee. Heavy, heavy advertising.

A few months later, Pedro approached extending his hand for a firm handshake. What can I do for you, I asked, feeling nervous. I replied, this is a first for me. I never had to shop for a car all alone before. But unfortunately, due to being in the middle of a divorce, I'm in the need of a car. I told him I hadn't settled in a vehicle yet, but I was intrigued by the ES, that's the model.

This is very intrigued by it. Similar to our Camry, I see our Toyota Camry, and the shirt. Pedro in card if I was looking to lease or purchase I told him I thought I'd buy but I would want to talk to my brother before making a final decision understanding my situation Pedro asked if I had a certain budget in mind

I mentioned him that I'd like to stay under $800 a month if possible I made a note to myself I felt that too yeah yeah we're all payment buyers we're all payment buyers and $800 is a lot of money oh by the way back up on

on the price of the MSRP 47,5005 over 5. Toiler just announced the average price of a new Toyota is $50,000. Yeah. So we might have to do a lobbying to do. You know, I might have to lobby Toyota that they have to raise their prices or to lower their prices. You have Lexus raise their prices. Yeah.

Here we go. Okay, the Pedro smiled, nodded, asked me to follow him to his desk. Pedro then asked if I wanted him to pull the ES 250 off the shoreroom floor, ES 250 Lexus, which is the equivalent of our Toyota camera, for a test drive. It was, I inquired if there was another one available without going to the trouble before knowing if I could afford it. He explained they didn't have another one, but he could show me the price if I preferred. Now, I'm amazed that they don't have, maybe it was because it was an all-wheel drive. they've got to have other ES 250s.

So it's probably all-wheel drives. Maybe they don't have a lot of those. After some thought, I decided to see if the numbers made sense before moving forward with a test drive. We walked over to Pedro's desk, and he pulled up the information on his computer. It looks like you were here a year ago. Funny how they caught that.

Agent Lightning does this on a lot of dealerships, and they don't know. If they do know, they don't tell. color but we good dealerships always log into their computer all the contact information of everybody to walk through the door so they know when you came in what car you'll want to buy how much you're offered they know all about you but the other dealerships uh haven't brought it up he said oh you're in here a year ago of course I think a little chill like well I have a theory on that is uh we have

time right um and and most dealerships um it's very very possessive. Salespeople don't want to give up sales to other people. They don't want to know if you've been here before because they don't want to have to turn you back over to another salesperson. At JM Lexus, they don't care about that. It's one price, one person. You go in, there's no competitiveness with salespeople.

Yeah, it's inside information of a couple of car dealers. You heard you're right. Here first. Car dealers, pay on commission, and part of the system is that if a customer came in in August and didn't buy from Charlie and he came in in December

and bought from George, Charlie gets part of the commission because he was the first contact. If he finds out about it. Okay. He then mentioned that their dealership provides itself on not charging dealer fees. Whoops, not charging dealer fees. And unlike most dealerships,

selling cars at MSRP, Pedro, unlike Mummo. Pedro explained that a credit score of 680 or higher would qualify me for Lex's best rates in the shorter of the financing terms, the lower the APR would be, which is true. He then showed me the prices on the screen.

I asked if there was any way he could print something for me to compare the different options. Pedro clicked a few more times on his keyboard and led me to the printer. He picked the worksheet and handed it to me. Now, in most car dealerships, they would have let you take a picture of it. They'll grab the iPhone on your hand and, you know, I mean, they shame you just, oh, I can't give you that writing. I can't give you, I can't give you.

Yeah, that's proprietary information. Right. I'll get in trouble. So you hear all the good stuff that's coming from this J.M. Lexus encounter. The selling price was MSRP. That's what it said, selling price. Everything added to the price was legit, except for the $59 and let electronic, electronic filing fee, $59. now that's why we haven't got time so i i i i i haven't got time so i'll tell you what if you want to go

to irwin cars you can go to errone cars and read my blog uh march 19th two thousand 15 well electronic fee electronic filing fee aka dealer fee an electronic filing fee is a dealer fee J.M. Lexus, advertise. We don't charge a dealer fee. For God's sake, J.M. Lexus, for $59. I'll pay you the $59. Be careful, careful, careful. They sell a lot of Lexuses. You scale that up. How many Lexuses do they sell over a year? It's so easy. Take that damn $59.

Electronic filing fee is profit to J.M. Lexus. and it's not in the advertised price. It even technically makes you violating the law. You advertise the price that you can't buy the car for. It's only $59. Why? Get rid of it. I'll tell you why.

Get rid of it. Because it's about $300,000. Actually, you know what? That's the J.M. Lettons, that's pittance. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. After we went on over the numbers,

Pedro pointed out that I wanted a lower monthly payment. If I wanted a lower monthly payment, I could consider a lower model or put more cash down. Lower model than that, wow. I didn't think there was much lower. But you get a front wheel drive. Oh, front wheel drive, yeah.

That'd probably knock about three grand off the price or more. Yeah, you're right, yeah. Or maybe an I.S. He placed the sheet in the folder, had it to me. Thank him for coming. And Pedro was very kind, not pushing it at all. He showed me his business card inside the folder and encouraged me to call him any time,

assuring me that he would be more than happy to help. So anyway, I kind of gave away the story too early about the fact that this is a great Lexus dealer. They're honest, they're moral. I can't say they're real smart because they get rid of that damn $49 electronic filing fee. What is the game? I even talked to the general manager years ago about that. I think of that. I think they reduced it.

I think it was $99. You have to talk to Colin Brown to get rid of that. You have to do what? Talk to Colin Brown to get rid of that. Colin Brown. Yeah, you're probably right. Colin Brown. is the, he's the executor.

He is the chairman. A James family. A Jane family. He runs the show, and he's an attorney, and I know him from way back of the day. He's also a good guy. Yeah. Okay, it's voting time, and for you voters out there, remember that we do use the curve. I got scolded on that earlier in the show because I gave a mystery shop a higher grade.

You get emotional with things, and then you let your emotions affect. you're grading, and it's okay to give somebody a D or a D minus, because they will go on the recommended list. We have to do that. But when you fail a dealer, they don't go on there at all. So you're going to be sure that you have dealers that are really bandits, you know, that are breaking the law and are really going to take advantage of you before you give them an F. So that's all I'm saying.

Okay. Some grades coming in. I have a B plus, I mean, a B minus. A B minus, there's no name on that one. It would have been a B, but with my unadvertised electronic grading fee for $159, it's a C. And Frank gives them an A-minus, Frank in Jupiter Farms. Refreshing Shopping Report for is a change. And I agree with Frank, A-minus, yeah, I was just going to give them an A.

I'm going to give them an A. I reserve an A-plus for the dealer that doesn't have the $59, but it's still an A. I don't want to try to save something because eventually they'll have to kick that $49. Where are we going to go? Yeah, right. Exactly. We have to give them, we can give them extra credit. Yeah, so I'm going with an A.

Okay. Well, I've got Mark from St. Louis says, darn, I couldn't use the timely line, they laid an egg. Grade A. Grade A egg. Doug Fleck is asking, MSRP isn't cost, and with such a high-volvely, them of sales, don't they still get bonuses from the manufacturer? Not many. I mean, I don't think Lexus has many incentives for the dealers there. Don't know how that works there.

Yeah, and I couldn't say this about anybody except JM Family. The profits that dealership or a drop of the bucket to what their net worth is. They're huge. Oh, again, I digress a bit because we've got a couple of minutes. Because the reason that, see, this car, this dealership, J.M. Lexus, is effectively owned by the distributor. Because the distributor is owned by J.M. Family for Toyota. Distributors and manufacturers, it's against the law in Florida to own a car dealership, a retail car dealership, if you're a distributor or a manufacturer. And you say, but what about J.M. Lexus? Simple. They just changed the law.

It's illegal to sell a car unless you're a dealer, except if you're J.M. Lexus, and that shows you the power of lobbying. And J.M. Lexus, you want to talk about power. Ooh, man, they are powerful. And the good thing is, their truth, justice of the American way, they're doing good. Their distributorship is a great distributorship, and their retail store is a great retail store. They're powerful. Okay.

And Tom Steckle says, I'd give them an A. Mullenax charges $24 as well, and we also gave them an A. Brian said Latko. Lexus is the best quality car, and this dealership deserves AAA. Johnny Z. Freidly, these peeps seem excellent, an A minus due to $59 fee. I recommend to all my bunny friends. Johnny's hurting me here. Mark Smith, I give him an A.

Rocky Blocketeel, first time I'll give a dealer an A. Tom Gilliland, or Tim Gilliland, beg your pardon, A. Vincent G. B, still a great place to buy. And I got to say, I'm A. I'm going to say, what can I say? I'm like Stu. I'm going to say the plus for when they drop that $59 bucks. Yeah.

Okay. I really think that the $59 is just so petty. A D. It just breaks my heart. $59, guys. Boy, what a reputation, JM. Don't get yourself worked up now. I do that easily.

I like doing that. I think my audience likes it too. Work. J.M. Lexus, you know, what a great. Mystery Shopping Report, but $59, so petty, you would have gotten an A from me, but this morning I'm giving you an A-minus. Well, there you heard it. We have never given anyone higher scores, and maybe they'll just keep the $59, but they're still the best place to buy the car. 59 bucks in the grand scheme of things buying Lexus is

nothing too serious All right I'm going to go buy Alexis this afternoon Yeah I think in this environment This mystery shopping report was You know it was pretty good And there's $10,000 You know

Markoff fees there's so many different outrageous fees And as I said there's $59 But for me it was still very petty Okay. You're ladies out there. Don't forget Theautoprofessor.com.

Theautoprofessor.com. Check it out before you buy a car. Input the car you want to buy. They'll tell you how safe is that car for women because you won't find that out anywhere else. All the other manufacturers are, and dealers, you'll find a sticker that tells you what the National Highway Traffic Safety Testing was.

But that's for men. They use men dummies. find out the auto professor.com yeah thanks for putting that out there normal Hubble does a great job

at the auto professor and she grades everything for the ladies before you purchase your vehicle you can get a lot of information from that website the auto professor okay ladies and gentlemen

we're at the end of another great show and everyone here wishes all of you, a great weekend, and I wish you a happy holiday. Happy Easter and all. Happy Easter, happy Passover and Ramadan. Thanks, everyone.

Stay tuned next week at the same time, 8 a.m., right here at the Oldies Channel. Thank you.