Earl Stewart on Cars - 04.10.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Beaman Chrysler Dodge Jeep of Murfreesboro TN.

Episode Date: April 10, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning Travels over 800 miles to visit Beaman Chrysler Dodge Jeep, RAM, Fiat in Murfreesboro Tennessee to see if she can purchase a new 2021 2021 Jeep Gladiator High Altitude 4X4 at the advertised price featured on their website. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

Well, I don't know what it's like in your neck of the woods, but here in South Florida, it is gorgeous outside. A perfect day, and everybody is in a good mood at Earl Stewart on Cars. It's a happy day anyway because we love what we do here. We love helping you, the radio and the cyberspace audience. We love the dialogue. We love the exchange of information. And I say exchange seriously because we learn a lot from you too.

Your calls are very important. We're able to field most of your questions. Your comments are usually extraordinary. We have some good regular callers who I look at as friends. We have new callers. We have a very, very special offer for female new callers that Nancy Stewart, Mike Co-host, will explain to you in just a couple of minutes. We probably have one of the most, what's the word, capable auto technicians anywhere in the studio. I introduced them in the recorded introduction you may have just heard.

His name is Rick Kearney. Without peer out there, virtually without peer. You can find them on YouTube at Earl on Cars, and he does a lot of YouTube clips on things that you encounter daily, common things that you hear a noise, you smell something, you feel a rattle or a roll or a rock. You've got a problem with the car, and you don't know what the hell it is, and you don't want to go into a car dealership because they're going to nail you. They're going to tell you you need to have a new engine or a new transmission. You just want to get rid of that rattle or vibration. And we do YouTube's on that. Rick Kearney does, and they're very educational at Erlon Cars.

YouTube.com, porr slash Earl and Cars. And Rick, I call them right now. I mean, if you're my age, if you're a senior, pick up the telephone. Call 877-960. 9960. Might want to write that number down. 877-960-960. Because you'll come up with a, you'll think of something you want to ask Rick or ask

Nancy or ask me, ask Stu. We're here to help any way we can. If you're a member of the cyber generation, which I guess a majority of the world is now, I used to be part of the majority, and now I'm no longer. my age, but most of you understand texting. I mean, that's about 95% of the population. You can text us. It's 772-497-6530. That text number again is 772-497-6530. And then we've got Facebook, Facebook.com, forward slash, Erlon Cars. We have YouTube. In fact, you want to communicate with Rick Kearney directly. He's our YouTube.

monitor still monitors the Facebook and you can text us so anybody and you can call anybody we prioritize the calls 877 960 960 we prior towards the telephone because we've only got I think four phone lines coming in and if we get too busy and we start yak and I'm the biggest yacker here but if I'm yeah can do much sometimes we in the past we have a neglect the calls we try very carefully not to do that. Nancy slaps me if I'm yacking and the phone call comes in and she monitors the phones very carefully. So we prioritize your phone calls. They're better, really. I mean, I'm not putting telephones down as being old-fashioned. They're far more personal. And you get to

know somebody when you hear their voice and flexions and whatnot. You know, text are a little more impersonal. But we love to hear your voice and the dialogue. You have a dialogue with a phone call. 877-960-9960. Got to mention, again, our mystery shopping report, the highlight of the show. Sometimes we take it for granted, but every week I think, you know, nobody else is doing it yet.

I've never seen anybody, I guess, take the chance to go out and visit, let's say, a business, We do retail car dealerships, but how many shows have you seen where weekly, somebody goes into a business, pretends to purchase a product, and tells you how they were treated. I mean, it's better than a Google rating to hear what really happens. It'd be nice if you could have to see how this best buy compared to Target compared to Walmart. Wouldn't it be nice? Well, you can find out how car dealers compare by going to AurelanCars.com, and we have shopping.

and we have shopping reports, mystery shopping reports. And every week we have a fresh one. This was made just hot off the press, Thursday. It was made in Tennessee. And we went into a Tennessee car dealership, our mystery shopper, Agent Lightning, and pretended to buy a Jeep. And it's very educational.

There's something new almost every week, something extremely interesting this week, and every week. So they're fun to listen to. then you vote on them at the end of the show do we pass ABCDF if they pass if they don't get an F we put them on the recommended dealer list

but we have the scores there now too we didn't used to and you can look down under Nissan dealers look under Honda dealers look under Chevrolet or four dealers and find the dealers that are recommended not now unfortunately we can't do this haven't yet reached out in all the states

like we're just mainly Florida and mainly South Florida but You're going to love the Mr. Shopping Report, I promise. So that's in the second half of the show. Let me, and by the way, Stu Stewart, my son, and he's also in charge of our cyber shopping, and he oversees Agent Lightning and Agent Thunder. He is, he is, writes the report.

I read it. He writes it, and he coordinates the whole thing. So he's Mr. Cyberspace, and I'm just the pretty face that reads it on the air. I'm going to introduce Nancy Stewart, my co-host, and she's been with me for 20 years as the co-host of Earl Stewart on Cars. It started out as a half-an-hour show, and she's built the show immeasurably with female participation. And you females listening, a lot of you listen, I know that, and some of you watch on Facebook and YouTube. But we don't get as many callers as we like. We're pushing 50%.

We've had over 50% some weeks, but we want to get that a steady, normal thing. So Nancy, that's all yours. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. We certainly are, well, humbled by the talent right here in this studio from, you know, everyone that surrounds us every Saturday morning, and we give you this free advice, information, and Rick and Stu and Jonathan. It's just an amazing team, and we're very fortunate. On to the ladies, as I always say, never underestimate the power of a woman.

And ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers this morning. When you're sell $50, it's real easy. Give us a call at 877-960-99-60. and for the others you can text us at 772-497-6530 and don't forget your anonymous feedback.com right there you can well express yourself and would love to hear from you also if you didn't notice I'm wearing earl's vigilante's famous hat this morning and we just love our volunteers that are signing up helping us and you don't have to be an auto expert but you can you know join and and help people in your community and well in addition to that you can be helping us too so go to earls vigilantes.com we are going to go straight to the phones and talk to howard who is a

regular caller from jupiter good morning Howard good morning hope you all find and the beautiful day tomorrow is going to rain but we need the rain so we do rains okay my question it's not a question is actually a statement about brakes when I I had drum brakes my last drum brake car was a 2001 Toyota Camry with the rear rear drum brakes my question is why the drum brakes worked fine in the rear why don't they work fine up front I have a question for Rick. The number one reason with that is drum brakes have a tendency to become out of adjustment. Even though they're supposed to be self-adjusting, they don't work as effectively as disc brakes, which are self-adjusting.

And disc brakes actually are much stronger. They've applied much better stopping force. And since the front brakes do 70% of the stopping of your brakes, that's the best ones to have. That's why pretty much every single vehicle Toyota makes right now, and just about anything, anywhere else you'll find, they're going over to disc brakes all the way around, all four, yep. So Toyota doesn't make any drum brakes anymore in the rear car. I think the only holdout right now is the Tacoma pickup still has drum brakes on the back.

And I don't know why they haven't switched that over, but that's the last one. Because they work real well on the Tacoma. Well, they last forever, too. They work great for me. They were never replaced. I always backed up. The adjustment is when you back up, they get adjusted, correct?

They're supposed to. But unfortunately, that doesn't work as effectively as it should. What is the difference in cost, Rick? You mentioned that the disc brakes are more expensive and now they're standard on most cars. how much, what's the approximate, what's the break job cost on a drum, a complete break job on a drum brakes versus disc brakes? They're actually pretty similar in price right now.

So the maintenance is about the same. But the initial cost, you're saying, of the whole system? That's what I think is the initial cost of building you, but for some reason Toyota has switched every other vehicle, including the tundras, over to disc brakes in the rear. I see. But Tacoma, they've kept him his drum. I don't know. Maybe it's a tribute to the past or something. Great question. How did even the dealer didn't know the answer to that question completely. And that's the reason I love the call. I learn as much from Rick as you do. I really appreciate that kind of a call. Okay. Thank you. And one other question. Since we're on breaks, a friend of mine told me, and he was a tech. He said he can

replace his brake pads. And he's going to take a look at the disc or rotors. What's the correct word? Disc or rotor? Either one. They're interchangeable. Okay. So he says he look at it and he's going to stand it down and he's going to put the pads on without cutting the rotors. So I told him it's, you know, he's taking the chance because I believe what happens is that the the pads get a certain shape and they contour towards the rotors and when you put new pads on they can actually scuff the rotors up

and not really seat correctly. Am I correct? Yep. Okay, great. So now if I'm going to do a break job and I bring it into your shop, which I will, do you mic the rota to see if you can use the rotors or do you have to, you know, is there a situation where you have to replace the rotors after you mic them?

Yeah, when you, now he's using the word Mike, which is basically it's a slang term for using a micrometer to measure the thickness of the rotors. Thank you, Rick, a lot of people don't. So you and Howard a couple of tech heads. We're gearheads, that's for sure. Yeah. So anyways, you're measuring how thick that rotor is. And once that rotor has been worn down to where it's too thin, it's not safe to reuse it because as it gets thinner like that,

it can't really dissipate the heat properly, and it will begin to warp, and then you get major brake pulsations. So yes, we do measure the rotor. We make sure that it looks clean, that you don't have any cracks or anything like that in it, and we'll measure the thickness of it, make sure it's safe to still be used. And if it is, then we will grind just a thin layer off each side of it to make a nice, smooth, clean surface for those new pads to ride on. Next question, the last one.

Why should I use a Toyota rotor and not a Chinese rotor? Quality. You get what you pay for. You can buy those cheap rotors, and the first time that you are driving, you get in a rainstorm and those rotors are nice and hot and suddenly that cold water hits them, they warp. Well, let me jump in there and say this.

Chinese is not a synonym for cheap. There's some Chinese products that are outstanding. Yeah, absolutely. And a matter of fact, your iPhone was probably made in China. Shenzhen. Yeah. So remember, it's become, there was a time a long time ago when Chinese product was pretty crappy, but they're just, they're like the job. Japanese, they've learned a lot.

We are surrounded by Chinese products right now. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, after market is a better term than Chinese product. And after market also can be good. My big gripe about after market products, meaning they're not made by the manufacturer of the vehicle that the part is on, is the fact that they don't have, they're not been safety tested. And this is particularly worrisome about crash parts, your fenders and your hoods and things like that. But it's all about quality.

quality if you have a high quality product and we use we use tires they're not made in the United States because we find tires sometimes from Japan or China or some other country that are superior high you look at the consumer reports I promise you their recommended tire list their recommended product list includes a lot of overseas manufactured parts America is using overseas manufacturer because they do a pretty good job of it in certain countries better than we can. And one note on aftermarket parts, quite often you can find aftermarket parts by the exact same company that makes the parts for the factory, and they're cheaper.

Yeah, you're buying a Chinese part that's actually OEM part sometimes. Yeah. Okay. You should buy crashable parts like a pump. No, not crash parts. Exactly. All right, thank you very much for the information. Thank you. You're a great caller. We appreciate that very much. Have a great weekend, Howard. Yeah, let me, let me, can I, Nancy, can I give this, uh, anonymous, you give the anonymous feedback. I just looked at my phone and I don't see very many anonymous feedback. So normally we get a whole bunch of them. We better mention that again. Remember folks, uh, www.W your anonymous feedback.com. You can go there and, well, express yourself,

as I say. And it certainly is a great avenue for you if you're a little bashful. So at any rate, 877960, or you can text us at 772-49-30-30. And I can't go without mentioning Earl's new idea, and that is to, you know, acquire some volunteers for the ones that are not really, real tech savvy. And as we all know, you can get the lowest price online when you purchase a vehicle. And there's a whole lot of us that, you know, can't maneuver our way around the Internet. So he came up with the idea of, you know, getting some, well, some of us to volunteer to assist some seniors that are buying cars and a literal form. comment on the

yeah it's just it's unfortunate that a lot of people are being left in the lurch with technology is moving so fast faster than a lot of people can keep up with I find it hard to keep up with and we know that a lot of seniors do too so

whether you're a senior or not a senior whatever your situation is you're not comfortable with a smartphone computer you're not on the digital age yet and you want to buy anything if you If you're not using an Amazon or buying your cars online, you're paying too much money. So you need to understand it.

If you don't, we'll do it for you. If you, we want to form a national group of volunteers that will be available in different parts of the country to assist you in buying the car. You'd pick the car. You do all your research. You do your homework. And you come up with a specific vehicle you want to buy. And then you submit this name to one of our volunteers. and they will go online in your area and give you the best deal online.

You save thousands of dollars that way. To walk into a car dealership, you're allowed to pay a $5,000 profit, and you can buy it online and pay the dealer a $700 profit. It's a huge difference. So we're looking for online volunteers, and that's on the Erlon cars. That's true. That's correct. There's a little form.

The email goes directly to you and me, and we'll get to set up. The page, we're going to build a separate page in addition to the vigilantees, for this and that should be live by Monday or Tuesday. Fantastic. Great. That's good news. We're going to go back to the phones where we have a young lady who's calling for the first time. Her name is Janet and she's from Boynton and she wins $50 this morning.

Good morning, Janet. Good morning. Thank you. Welcome. I have a question for Earl Stewart. All right. You can go ahead and ask them. Okay. I would like to know why they tell you that you have to have a lube oil and filter every 300 or 3,000 miles versus every three months, I guess it is, whenever you really don't drive that much. Can you go longer?

They don't do, when you say they, do you mean the dealer that sold you the car or the manufacturers? The manufacturers now are recommending oil changes only once a year, 10,000 miles. That's because most cars have since. synthetic oil. There's still a few cars out there, very few that have the older fossil oil, and then you should change that every six months or 5,000 miles. But there's no routine that makes any sense anywhere that should suggest that you change your oil every 3,000 miles or, what you say, three months or 2,000 miles. It's a one. Once a year, or 10,000 miles. Oh, great. Okay. Thank you so much. What kind of car do you have?

You don't mind my asking. Toyota Ravre 4. What year? 18. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's got synthetic oil and every 12 months. I remember this, a lot of people

don't do much driving and they can put 1,000 or 2,000 miles, especially during the pandemic on their car in a year, which is, you know, not much mileage. You still need, the one thing you really need to do, really two things,

but change your oil at least once a year and also check your tires at least it should be every 30 days, but if you did it every 90 days, it's okay. Tires are a safety issue, and oil is very important to the running of your car properly and also it could cost you a ton of money if you run too low in oil. One more question for you. Sure. What happens if they change your oil and they put in the old kind of oil? They should tell you, and the only reason that you would want that is because it's less

expensive, but it also requires more frequent changing. So when you add up the frequency of change with the increased cost of the synthetic oil, it's almost break-even. So I would always go with a synthetic oil, and I would take advantage of the one year. But if you want to save money in the short run, you can do that, and then you have to go in every six months. okay thank you thank you janet nancy stewart here thank you for calling being part of the show helping me build this platform that's so very important and congratulations on your fifty dollars

i have one question for you before you go has the pandemic changed uh your routine of having your car maintained taking it into the dealership as has that schedule been interrupted No, I always take it in September, and they do everything that they have to do, and that's it. Great. Okay, thanks for giving us a call, and I hope to hear from you again, and spread the word. I shall. Earl Stewart on Carr Saturday morning. Okay, and how do I get my fishing?

Thanks, Janet. Just stay on the line, and they'll get your information, and Nancy will have a check out to you very quickly. Thank you, so much. Thank you, Rick. 877-960-99-60. Where you can text us? 772-497-6530. And Earl's Vigilantees, don't forget, consider signing up and helping us out.

That's Earl's Vigilantes. And you can go to Earl-on-Cars and get all the information that you really need. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, I think it's time we get some of the text. What have we got over there, student? Yeah, we'll kick it off with the Amarice text, as is the tradition at Erlan Cars. Amarie says, good morning. A friend had her wallet stolen.

That prompted me to wonder, what if the thief had also stolen her purse and car key fob? So here's a bunch of questions concerning keys and fobs. And there is a bunch of questions, so pay attention, Rick. Let's answer them as we read them. So number one, do you know of any new cars that come with keys instead of fobs? And that's, yes, I mean, they're becoming rarer and rarer, but even in Toyota, most of the starting models, like, say, Corolla, for example, the Corolla L and L.E will have an actual traditional key that you stick into an ignition and turn it. And then the higher models, the SC and the XSC and all that will have the push button start. We see that in some trucks as well.

But we're just slowly seeing a migration away from the traditional key and going to the push button smart key system. Can't speak for other manufacturers. We do see trade-ins that come in with real keys as well. also but the trend in the industry is go away from the old traditional push it in the addition and turn it type of key how much do replacement key fobs cost at a dealer what's the general ranging cost and general range is a lot 350-ish right for programming and in both sets of keys I believe there are aftermarket providers it's still expensive even we have a vendor at the dealership that we

use to make replacement keys and still like 180 bucks sometimes to get a key don't know why other than that they're little computers but I think there is a little price gouging or something going on there on the part of the manufacturers the parts is what cost so much money and there's about a 40% mark up so when you get a quote from a dealer on a remote key keyless remote there's a lot of room for him to discount it so you push him for a discount on that key and also when you're when you're shopping was it A's hardware and a lot of other places do the keys.

Almost everybody is in the business. So rather than pay for the OEM key, we were talking earlier in the show, the first caller about aftermarket parts, Chinese parts or whatever you want to call it, this is a case where you don't want to buy an OEM part. If you got a remote key that works, a quality one from aftermarket source,

it's going to be less money than the manufacturer will charge her. And the second part of her question, He says, she presumes a replacement key fob for a luxury brand would be more than a regular line. She's absolutely right. You should see some of the keys. Earl should show them your key for your Lexus. That thing probably weighs about a half a pound, and it's made out of, it's got metal in it. This thing's solid.

So I don't even want to guess how much that would be to replace, do you know? Remember Donovan, one of our YouTube viewers said he was trying to deal with a dealership to get a second key for a, Porsche that he had bought. Oh, yeah, yeah. And the Porsche key was over $800 for one key Bob. Now you're an iPhone price territory. Almost. Excuse me for a moment, but has the price of the remotes gone up through the years? Yes. Yeah, I think so as they, yeah. Because there was a time whenever I would, it was very easy for me to get a remote for a customer. And the price was, well, it was, it wasn't cheap. It was near two, three, three, $300. But now I agree with you. I think that, and why? Why has the price escalated as it has?

I don't know. Inflation. That's what I'll say. Well, it sounds good. They become more complex. They do more things. $600 remote key in Alexis cost more money than an iPhone. You can buy an iPhone for less as I think it's supply and demand. You know, it's just taking advantage. Why do they do it because they can if they get away with it. Okay, we're going to go, are you, do you have any other? Well, if you have a caller, let's go to the caller because Anne-Marie's text. Let's go to Rich, who was, we lost Rich. Rich, give us a call back at 877-9-60-99-60.

We'd love to hear from you. Back to Stu. All right. Continue with Anne-Marie's questions. Are there any alternatives to replacing a fob rather than going to the dealer? And we've already answered that. Yes, you can. Ace Hardware.

I don't know if Home Depot can do it, but Google it. Key replacement, and you're going to find an alternative. that's less money than the dealer is going to charge you. She wants to know how fast a key cop-fob can be replaced if the loss or stolen. Generally, that's something that part that a dealership will keep on hand. I don't know about the other providers of these things. But at the dealership, if you came in with lost key, it can be done that day. And depending, I guess, on how busy the service department is.

We're talking about buying it online earlier in the show, too. We always go back to this. It has to be programmed, though, so somebody has got a program. Yeah, exactly. And then you get screwed on the programming, too. So I don't know what you can do about that other than, well, let me ask Rick the question. In actual time, you program keys, right? All the time.

How much of your, not your flat rate time, your actual time do you spend from the time they give you the car to the time you can program the key and then you return the car to whomever? It can take up to about an hour and a half sometimes. Well, that's more than I thought. So an hour and a half is a lot of time. I'm really surprised that's a lot of money. Well, the procedures now, because program the new key fobs to the cars now, has become much more difficult.

Toyota has tried to make it where thieves aren't able to use devices that will copy the signals. So what they've been doing is they're getting more secure radio signals. and it makes the fob and the car talk back and forth to each other more to get confirmation. So in order for us to program a new key fob, we actually have to go online to Toyota's secure website, put in special code numbers, and get authorizations from it in order to let us program that new fob. So the hard actual time from the time you're ready to go. You got your computer, you got the car, you got the key, and you're ready to go. It's going to take you, what, a half an hour?

About that, yeah. But you've got a lot of other time, because you've got to get the car. You've got to get the information. You've got to fill up the form and the rest of it. Okay. Okay, I'm going to interrupt, everyone. We're going to, Rich was kind enough to give us a call back. Good morning, Rich.

Welcome. Hello, Rich. We got you still? Are you talking to me? There you are, yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Good morning, Rich.

This is Colonel Blancher. Oh, good morning. Hi, Mark. Somehow, when I called in, nobody answered a phone. It just went, like, live to your show. It's kind of weird. I got a, excuse me, a question for Rick. 2017 Camry X-E, I'm kind of worried about the windows,

as I know the window regulators. Aren't they still one piece with a ribbon drive? No. the regulators on the new cameras now are a kind of a X-shaped scissor metal bracket device

the electric motor runs the regulator and it almost literally looks like a pair of two pairs of scissors doing an X pattern to raise and lower the window and believe it or not they used to be on most all cars

as my memory goes back but then they went to some cars went to a ribbon drive where sometimes the ribbon would get cut and break and get pulled into the motor and then you had to replace the motor and the regulator. My question is, is knowing the expense to replace window parts. As my window passenger window, because, you know, I can't drive anymore because I don't have a right foot. But as the window is going down, about halfway down, is like a bump and then it totally gets pulled into the door but am i looking at a potential short-term window problem or is can that be solved possibly through lubrication what is your

best guess without looking at it uh lubrication generally is not going to do much because we we try not to have anybody spray anything inside the doors because we found that silicon lubricants can destroy the door lock actuators. So we're very careful about not spraying things inside them. It's possible that there's maybe some foreign material got in the track of the little rollers for the regulator or that one of those rollers has gotten a flat spot or jammed up a little bit. It's something that would need to be taken apart. We'd have to pull the door panel off and inspect it or maybe even a bolt loosened up a little bit and as it's going up and down it's kind of jolting that bolt around.

side. What is the best guesstimate? It's all one piece now, right? Regulators all one thing. Motor and actually or a scissure mechanism? Well, the motor can be replaced separately from the, from the regulator. Okay. But upon inspection, if you notice like the roller has got a flat spot, let's say, can that be simply replaced or does that, again, have to be part of the a scissor assembly yeah it would have to be the whole regulator they're only available as as an assembly about how much do you think honestly I couldn't even give you a guess because it has been years since I've had to replace a regulator they they very seldom go bad anymore same with the motors they're there they've become bulletproof so there's a pretty good

possibility could be take the trim panel off and possibly find that born material or lubricant or tighten something up and so then we'd just be looking at the hourly charge yeah there's a good possibility of that gives me that gives me a little bit and make me sleep a little bit easier um also um i just had one question about the uh vigilante program how do you guys think that's going so far i've only had one interaction Do you guys see a lot of response from the consumers? No, we haven't, Mark. We haven't yet because we just got it off the ground.

So we need to get a pretty decent base of vigilantes out there, publicize it more. We're just getting it off the ground on our website. Right, okay. All right, you guys have a wonderful weekend. You do, Mark. Thank you. See you at sunrise.

Thank you. again you know in regards to the comment that was just made about Earl's vigilantes I think the shortage of volunteers is based on there's a lot of consumers that feel that you know they have to take an engine apart and you don't you just need to just get out there and talk to people in your community see how they feel about the dishonesty this sometimes goes on at the card dealer. And you can sign up, help us, help you, help the people in your community, and please, earlsvigilantes.com. And you can get yourself a free hat. You see mine? It's a little big

on my head, but there it is. Kind of cute. And we're going to have shirts and all kind of other things. So take advantage of that. And we are going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk Frank who's giving us a call from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Frank. Good morning. How is everybody today? Excellent. Great. I'm the guy that caused your blood pressure

to go up a couple of years ago with my RAD 4 with your salesman. But anyway, when that lady Janet had called earlier today, My ears perked up because that was my wife's name before she, unfortunately, passed away. And my RAF4 tells me every 5,000 miles to check the oil. You, to change your, rather, you would say 10,000. Are you talking about the maintenance required, or are you referring specifically to the oil? Well, the maintenance required.

It says every 5,000. That's correct. Yeah, you need to check your tires, and you know, you're, you're calling. should be inspected just overall for safety. This doesn't cost you anything and the tires are the main reason you should come in because after 5,000 miles you could have a road hazard you don't know about a slow leak and you don't want that to occur on 995 at 7 o'clock at night so yeah you need to bring it in and then the oil still only has to be changed once a year. Oh well they've been changing every 5,000 miles.

Well, if you have fossil oil, in other words, that's every 6,000 miles, 5,000 is fine, 7,000 is fine, when they say 6, that's an approximation. But there's no reason to change synthetic oil every 5,000 miles. If you only put 5,000 miles on your car in a year, then it's being changed at 5,000 miles, but it's whichever is greater. If you have one year or 6,000 miles, I mean, 10,000 miles, that's when you should change your oil. Stu, you were saying? Oh, I'm saying on fossil oil, it's 5,000, every 5,000, not 6. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, Frank? Well, yeah, I'm a little confused, but okay, because, you know, the first two years are free. Well, if we're telling you at my dealership that you have to change your synthetic oil every 5,000, thousand miles on then we owe you a lot of money so you just uh you send me send me the bill because we don't change oil every unless you unless you have kept the car for a year or we request it we have some customers that request it yeah like rick's where he changes his oil every 1,000 miles yeah we have some we have some gearheads out there people to think uh they have to use the most expensive oil and i know people that change your oil every two or three thousand miles i mean it's

It's useless, but it makes them feel good. And we don't tell them, no. We just say, you're wasting your money. The first two years we're free because, you know, Toyota pays for it, not you. Uh-huh. That's right, yeah. Well, mine is that. Anyway, okay.

All right, Frank. Have a good day. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the call for ink. Back to Stu. All right, we can continue with Amoree's first text. It's a doozy.

Amory, give me a break next week. I was kidding. All right. If I'm on vacation, my fob gets lost or stolen. By the way, just as a reminder, Amory was asking about lost key fobs, and whether any cars still have regular keys or if they're just all push-button start. And she wants to know if she's on vacation. Fob gets lost or stolen.

Can another dealer create a new one from me? Yes, you need to have identification and proof of ownership. You can do that. If I accidentally lock my keys in the car, how does AAA open up the car? Yes, I have a key. It's been a long time since I did that. Do they locksmith sort of thing or are they do it? Slim Jim, what are they doing, Rick? You know? Well, Slim Jims don't work very well anymore because they've changed the designs of the doors. Yeah. So I go with the old trusted and true for me, which is I have a plastic wedge device and a little vinyl pillow with an air pump.

Yeah, we're talking about AAA. And they will do about the same thing. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. We basically, we make good use of our misfits. vent youths, and we break into the car very carefully. By the way, let me give a little plug to AAA, by the way. AAA is so good that Nancy and I signed up for AAA. And I was thinking one day, you know, I'm a car dealer, and all I got to do is call the dealership, and they're going to come and help me. But I said, well, what happens if it's on the Sawgrass Expressway,

and I'm on the side of the road, and, you know, that's a good, drive away from my car dealership and I want to have something right away. Triple A will track me on my GPS and I have an app, a AAA app, they track me and I open the app, I hit my button, it signals the emergency response closest to my car on the Solidgrass Expressway and I have a car out there getting me going again in a few minutes. It takes a lot of stress out. A lot of stress and you're talking, you're talking about 100 bucks a year, 50 bucks a year. It's really cheap for two.

So AAA, American Automobile Association, road service, emergency response. Don't have the dealer sell you that. Buy the AAA version. Great investment. Back in the day, the old coat hanger. Okay, folks, we're going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to Roadrunner, Steve.

Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Welcome back. Beep, beep. Well, I carry two slim gyms in the trunk of my car. I opened up many of your cars down here in Publix and Walmart's parking lot. You never know when you get an opportunity to still a car. I just make sure I asked my UD owner.

I was up at Nissan in West having my frontier service for an oil change. You're up like weather. Yes, I know. My appointment was for 9 o'clock. I got out at 11 o'clock. Oh, boy. So I'm looking at a Nissan Ultima. I'm just checking out the car is killing Pines.

So this young lady comes over, and she goes, oh, you're interested in this guy? I said, no, I'm getting service on my vehicle. So she asked me a few questions. So I asked her a few questions. I said, what's this price, $275 for mud flaps? I got no answer. Right?

And then they had a $250 thing for this. beast that looked like aluminum foil on the bumper. I said, what's this for? Well, that's the bumper guard. Meanwhile, it's laying on top of the bumper. Well, right away she caught on,

I knew a little what was going on. So she goes, okay, have a nice day. My other thing was, I seen this commercial. I'm not sure what dealership it was. LNZ Lexus. Is that a dealership down here? J.M. Lexus.

J.M. Lexus and Margate. It might have been them They had a commercial on TV Pay no dealer fees All you pay is a $1,395 electronic filing fee That's the only fee you pay Yeah, maybe it was Lexus of Pembroke Prime

Maybe it was Craig Zinn's Lexus dealership That could be, I haven't seen that That's very interesting, Frank I have to keep my eyes on it It's not a dealer fee J.M. Lexus does not charge a big dealer fee. They have a very small one.

We mystery shopped them a few weeks ago. I even called the general manager down there and said, look, we recommend it your dealership. You do everything right. It's a very pleasant, honest experience. But you advertise you don't charge a dealer fee, and you do. And he said, yeah, I don't know why we do that. He's looking into it, and it's only $60, and they call it an electronic filing fee, but by law, that should be called the dealer fee.

He doesn't pay $60 for that. This one wanted $1,395 for electronic filing fee. Wow, that sounds like Al Hendricks and Toyota. It was just the first time I seen the commercial on TV. It must be new. Yeah, catch the name of that dealer next time, Frank, and give me a call. I'd love to find out who's doing that.

Yes, and that's why I just seen it once on TV. That's why I wasn't sure of the name. I'll be looking for it. Do you remember what channel, what network it was show was on? Oh, I might have been on Me TV or something like that. Okay. All right. Thanks very much.

We'll be looking for it. All right. Let's have some more good talk today. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Frank. Thanks for being a follower of ours. Have a great weekend. I love Frank's energy.

I really do. I mean, I feel happier after Frank calls. Yeah. Steve is, he's a great caller. We don't hear from them often enough. Folks, I've got to have a question for you. You know, things have sort of slow down a little bit with auto development. But Consumer Report has been well paying attention to these new electric cars that are, well, coming soon. How do you feel about it? Are you ready to make a purchase in that direction? give us a call toll free at 877-960-9960 or give us a text 772-497-60 now back to stew okay let's get to another text I'm going to jump over to some other ones because

Amory I'll get to the second two-thirds of Amory's text next Saturday we have other texters here so one says is it okay use common household cleaning products like 409 on the interior surfaces of my car. And I think we had questions like this before. I'm going to defer to Rick in a second, but what I'm going to suggest is I think it's okay on hard plastic surfaces, but I think some of these things with the detergent can dry out, some things like the vinyl and leather and things like that.

There's lots of products that you can get at Pet Boys and things like that that are designed to clean the interior of your car. So my guess is I would shy away. from just like the harsher chemical things. Yeah, when you say the interior car, there's a whole lot of different material. There's glass, there's plastic. You got a steering ability.

You've got the seats. You've got the dashboard. You got the floor. You got the overhead thing. So, you know, it's, you know, Rick could do two hours on that because each component of the interior of a car. Yeah, I was saying, obviously, cloth is something would be, obviously you wouldn't.

I'd say plastic wouldn't be terrible. I'd say warm, mild soap and water. Yeah, you don't want to use anything harsh in the interior of your car. Spray that 409 on your skin. See what it does. Don't do that. That'll give you an idea, but stay away from those harsh chemicals for the interior of your car. We're going to go back to the phones and talk to John in Palm City.

Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. According to the website, it's called I-C-car, and it talks about colors. of automobiles. They claim that 39% of the buyers say that a color is more important than the brand of car. An example that they give. I'm not going to say exactly, I hope Rick doesn't have this color. A pickup truck, okay?

The worst color that you can get on a SUV is beige. It loses 46% of its value in three years, but if beige is on a pickup truck, It only loses 18% of the value in three years. They've mentioned the top colors on this website. We're naturally white, black, gray, silver, the worst colors, purple, brown, and gold. Yeah. They give an exact, and also metallic paint is better than the regular non-metal for resale. And they give an exact example.

The example is a 2017 Mazda, MX5. That's a two-seater. they talk about it after three years. After three years, it decreased in value, but if it was red, it's more desirable, but if it was a gray metallic, it would be 1,046 less money if it was that color. So it's very interesting on colors

and what they can do for resale, especially after three years. and the funny thing about one that they do mention yellow less than 1% of automobiles in America are yellow but yet it's desirable and it's uh it has a good resale probably if you notice like taxi cabs that's where they're yellow because you can spot them and they're safer so I don't know if that's the basic reasons behind it

but you do see very few yellow cars but it's an interesting website it's called will I see car? Well, that's great information. That's very true. When we appraise a car, we are a car dealer, as you know, and our appraisers, the first thing they

see is the color, and they immediately form an opinion, and if it's a popular color, we don't get... One thing you don't want to do is buy your favorite color, unless your favorite color happens to be white or something that is always a good color. You can't go wrong with white.

If you buy a white car, you can't go wrong. You can lease whatever color you want, though. Yeah, you can, and that is something, which is amazing. If I was a leasing company, I would have a different price for different colors. Absolutely, have a higher residual. Yeah, I mean, it's a huge difference. If you buy a bright red, give me a car, Camry, you know, that car is going to be worth $1,000 less than a white one when you're ready to sell it.

And it's the same thing to the leasing company, and they take the head. But they still let you get away with it. So that's the answer to the question. If you've got to have your favorite color, lease the car, don't buy it. Yeah, I think getting personal when you choose a color for your vehicle, I really think it's a real bad idea. You know, on our way into the studio this morning, beautiful Jeep, the color, purple. What will the resale value be on that Jeep?

There are 700 people in the entire country that would buy that Jeep. There's who? There's only 700 people in the entire country that would buy that year. So the depreciation is something to take into consideration once you drive off that lot. So don't make it personal. The colors that you mentioned, John, best way to go. Purple is mentioned in that website. One other point that I want to mention, too.

I've always been a kid in a candy store, and I still love to go to dealers, especially looking at models. But this week, Wednesday, I was in Palm Beach. Beach Gardens and went to the Tesla dealer. Now sit down for this one. The show room on the second floor of the mall. Entirely empty with not one model to show you. So I said to the sales lady, she said, well, we sold everything. Tell them the story. Where's the cars? Tell them the story. In these two weeks, they're going to come in in two weeks. So I don't know whether they're whether to pull out in that location or there's just a shortage. of cause, but I, in my opinion, it's a disgrace that you're going just to look like I do

and the different models that they have, and it's completely empty. Well, John, it's illegal in Florida, it's illegal in Florida for a Tesla dealer to sell a car from a dealership. You can buy a car, a Tesla in Florida, from a dealer, but you have to buy it online. Now, they do have cars in inventory, usually for demonstration purposes, and display purposes. Now, other states, it's not true, but most states, you cannot sell any car if the manufacturer is dealing directly. So Tesla sells you the car directly, and therefore you cannot buy it because the dealer franchise laws. Only car dealers can sell you a new car from their location. The manufacturer, in this case, Tesla, will sell you one online, but you have to

order it and wait for them to deliver it. Hey, John. But I've gone there in the past, and they've always had a model or two. Yeah, they show you what they look like. Yeah, it hasn't been really encouraging the few times that Earl and I have stopped in. There hasn't been anyone around at that location. But I have a question for you. Have you, when you are up this way, do you take advantage of maybe going over to Tesla in Riviera Beach?

No. Have you been to that location? My wife, like that shopping center. So I go there. And she's like a kid in the candy store, too. In some of the places, she goes next door to Tiffany and company just to look around directly next to the room. I like her taste. I like cars, but that's the only place that you can look at any automobile.

And I was very disappointed just to see an empty showroom. And they're saying that it'll be two weeks before they'll get any model in on the floor that you can just look at. Well, Tesla sales are extremely hot. They're on fire. Tesla stock is on. fire. Electric cars like Tesla's are on fire. So it's a high demand, low supply, and I believe her. I believe there were no cars because eventually they, you know, they, eventually they sell everything, but you still have to buy it online. My guess is if you buy a car on the

showroom floor at a Tesla dealership that's in stock, you have to still go through the online process. I don't know how they get around the law on the delivery. They probably, they probably do something that's technically illegal and people don't know about it. But, you know, how do they get rid of the car that they have for display? I guarantee you they don't scrap it. No, absolutely. Well, it was an interesting thing to see an empty Tesla place, empty showroom. Rick had a report on a comment.

They get rid of them by putting them on a rocket and shooting them up into space. Did you see that? It's orbiting the sun. Only the registers. That was one of them. Excellent. Good point. All right, thanks, John.

Thanks for a much. Thanks, John. We love hearing from you. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call to all free at 877960 or you can text us at 772-49-60. Or you can text us at 772-4976530. I'm having a problem with this hat, right, Jonathan? You've got to put the headphones over the hat. Bad idea.

Well, we're dealing with a head that's real tiny. Anyway, ladies, give us a call. Sure, your car purchasing, your servicing experience, all of it, and win yourself $50. I'm waiting for a second female caller. I think we're getting way behind on text. So give us a call toll-free at 877-960-99-60. And we are going to share some texts with you this morning via Stu. Okay.

I got anonymous feedback. It says, is it possible to fully remove the third row in a new Highlander to save on weight because we will never use those seats? Do you foresee any problems when they are removed? I know that the third row seats in a Highlander are fold flat, so they're automatically going to the seats. Unless Rick knows a secret way to take them out, I don't think it's designed to be done that way by the owner of the car,

but you can weigh in on that. I'm sure they're removable, but not for repair, I'm sure, right? No, they would have to be unbolted, literally from the vehicle. Can you do that? Yeah, it can be done. Okay, there's nothing. It's not prohibited. It's a pretty, it's like a big mechanical thing. You push a button, they go down.

It'd be a major operation to do that, and then. Yeah, he wants it for better gas mileage and for... And then what would be left? There wouldn't be a cargo area, just being exposed, to a bunch of, you know, machinery? Well, you would have certain areas where there would be openings in the carpet. You'd have bolt holes. Yeah, this is not a good idea.

Let's put this way. Yes, it can be done. Be sure you get an upfront, bottom line, guaranteed price before you do it, because it's going to be expensive. Okay. I'm going against that. Don't take apart your highland. You're going to have problems. Don't do that.

Yeah, don't do that. Never say no. Get a Rav 4, it has better gas mileage. folks you're hearing it all right here great information uh we're going to go to coral springs and uh we're going to talk to stew good morning welcome good morning good morning i love your show thank you very much too sitting right across from me well he loves the show because there's another stew we don't we don't get to run into each other that often i've only met three other stews in my entire life good to meet you sir earl runs into stew every sat every saturday morning with my name

only six only six i'm one of them My question is on transmission service. If it's a self-contained unit, why would you need to service it? I understand that the viscosity of the oil breaks down, but why is it recommended to change the transmission oil at, say, 50,000 on some cars? Well, it depends on who's recommending it, Stu, because the transmission doesn't have to be flushed

or changed in cars and sometimes the dealer's recommended anyway, and that's so they can make money. If you have a specific car manufactured mine, are you saying there's a manufacturer of a vehicle that recommends that you change the transmission of 150,000 miles? Yeah, well, actually it's on a

Dodge journey, a 2014 Dodge journey with 105,000 miles. I see. What do you think, Rick, is that? 2005, that's a 15-year-old car. Maybe that's accurate. 2014. So it's seven years old, basically. I don't go by age on it.

I go by the miles and by the use and also check the owner's manual, your books, to see what the factory says about that fluid. If it's just been a normal everyday driver and you're not doing anything serious, heavy towing or anything like that with it. I wouldn't worry as long as the fluid by the

manufacturer says that it's the lifetime fluid which most of them have been for like the last 10 years, I wouldn't do anything with it. I would not flush it. I would not change it. You're going to get a lot of pressure to do it anyway because car dealers are starving for maintenance work and when you get recommended

maintenance, there's two kinds. Manufacturers which you should listen to carefully and adhere to and the dealers which you should ignore. Go with the manufacturers recommended maintenance, and it applies to transmission fluid and everything else. Right. Okay, so I understand that one. So I got another question.

I used to be in automotive, and I managed Goodyear and entire kingdoms during the last 30 years. Oh. When people come in and they say, well, why does my dealer charge me $370 for a 30-K service, and you do most of those visual inspections? that are on a 30K on when you do my regular oil change tire rotation you pull my wheels you check my brakes you're checking the CB boots making sure no cracks checking the filters and even if I get a filter replaced at let's say my tire chain shop my oil chain shop it's still going to be way lower than a 30k service price at a dealer well 30,000 is typically

the most expensive thing you have to have on as far less than it used to be, and dealers typically overcharged. Rick, what do you do on a 30,000-mile service? On the Toyotas right now, it's an oil change, tire rotation, an air filter, and a cabin filter. Okay, and what's the charge on that? I'm going to guess... $120? Well, no, that's...

Excuse me, that's about the price of the oil-change tire rotation because of a synthetic oil. So I would say probably around 2 to 250 at the most. So it depends on the car and it depends on what's recommended in the owner's manual. But you don't really have an expectation that costs you any money until about 30,000 miles. Yeah. Right. Okay. Thank you for my answer.

I appreciate it. You guys are awesome. Hey, still, listen, I'd love to have you calling again because you ran Tire Kingdom. I got in a lot of trouble with Tire Kingdom a few years ago because we didn't have a mystery shop, and everybody got mad at me because the mystery shopper wasn't treated right. In fact, the president of AutoNation called me, I mean, Tire Kingdom, called me, and I got a threatening letter about being sued. So we shopped again. It still wasn't a good shop, but it was better than the other one, and we published the second shop. So I have a history with Tire Kingdom,

and I'd love to talk to you again if you could call in some week in the future. Absolutely. And Tire Kingdom, I've been out of the automotive. industry for about 12 years now. I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take the aggravation. But if you know somebody, word of mouth, recommendation is the best thing.

I live in Coral Springs. I use Tires Plus, and I know the manager there for 30 years. Gotcha. So they treat me like told. They service my work truck had 429,000 miles on it before I

retired it. And they did all the work on it. Wow. Well, thanks. through that I appreciate that very much I really hope you'll call again next week if you can absolutely I will thank you Stu what a great relationship

to have with you know Towers Plus it relieves you of all the stress whenever you know someone personally and you've been dealing with them thank you for the call 877960 back to Stu

which stew are we going back to you Stu oh me Stu Okay. All right, let's go over some more anonymous feedback. Why would you bring your car in for a 30-K service at a dealer for $300 or more? Well, it depends on my car and depends on what the owner's brand you're recommended and that you're being treated fairly.

Remember this. You don't have to bring your car to the dealer for the 30,000 miles service. You can bring your car anywhere to have its service and maintain. The only thing you have to be true, you don't get warranted. to them free that it's somewhere else but shop around get a quality service you just heard Stu he was talking about tires plus you got a lot of quality service departments out there call them up say I've got such and such car you're making model this is what the 30,000 mile service recommends well will you charge me the second part in his question he I didn't

read that part says well usually an oil change and a tire rotation is 50 bucks why pay more typically at 30,000 miles there's a lot more items that are added in it whether you had a deal or anywhere else. Just for example, for like a tundra, because I had that up already. We were talking about the transmission fluid. But there is retorke propeller shaft bolt, the two air filters.

So there's more items. So it's going to be more than a regular service. But, yeah, you don't have to do it at a dealership. Okay, the next one. I love compliments. I love Stu's suggestion last week about a personal reconnaissance drone that docks on your car to get Intel on traffic conditions.

It reminded me about the helicopter about to make a flight on Mars, weekend that one ducts on the Perseverance rover so cool I agree that is very cool did you hear about that yeah well you got it on Google Maps and you got it on ways I love it yeah well the drone you get actually real-time visual intel I'm saying you heard about the helicopter Google's almost real-time I mean everybody everybody that's got a cell phone is being tracked real-time yeah so you hear about the Mars helicopter

No. You didn't? Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. NASA stole my idea. Yeah. Oh, here's a good one.

More anonymous feedback. Your dealership was giving vaccinations in your showroom last week. You're not concerned about the long-term effects of an unproven and rushed medication of millions of people. This is irresponsible and reckless. Never pegged you for a sheep, Earl. Well, you know, it's extremely controversial. I don't need to tell you. You watch TV.

You go on Facebook, especially the social media. there's a sharp political divide between getting the vaccine and not getting it and the rest of it and I don't want I'm not going to get political on this show it's I can tell you by scientific well I will tell you why we do it because Stu say scientifically has been proven that there's a far greater risk from not getting the vaccine than getting the vaccine now that's not my idea that That's the greatest scientist in the world. I know of no legitimate scientist valid with a track record that recommends that you don't get a vaccine.

A lot of people who say they don't want to get a vaccine, and they've gotten the vaccine in secret. And they're ashamed to get the vaccine, but they know it's the right thing to do. But they're buddies that are politically on the other side, I think it's a bad idea. And it's just so, yeah, we are asking all of our employees. at our dealership to get vaccines. We are getting them for them online, and we found a company now that will come into the dealership

and give the vaccinations. Rick has been vaccinated, I've been vaccinated, Nancy's been vaccinated, Stu's been vaccinated, Jonathan's been vaccinated, and we're all getting vaccinated. And over 60% of our employees at the dealership are now vaccinated. And we're still getting, because they open up to other categories, Rick.

And thank you very much for having done that because my wife and daughter, got vaccinated at the dealership this past week. We're vaccinating the families of our employees as well. So we're not saying there's no risk to having a vaccination. We're saying it's minimal risk. And here's one statistics, Stu shared with me. And I repeat this to myself every now and then when I get nervous

that there's not one recorded death or hospitalization from anybody in the United States. That kind of changed recently. Okay, recently. Okay. In Michigan. Yeah, out of millions we have, I don't know. Oh, yeah, it was a fraction of a percentage point. So it's unquestionably scientifically the recommended way to go. But that kind of news, it has such an impact on a decision of getting a vaccine. And like Stu, I mean, I don't know where you could see his hand, you know, back and forth, shaking his hand.

but I have to say that, boy, oh, boy, I'll tell you what, thank goodness for Earl Stewart. And whether he likes it or not, we're going to compliment him for going above and beyond as far as saving lives and the number of people that have done a complete turnaround and gotten a vaccine, even though in the beginning they were just deathly afraid. So we're going in a right direction.

I can argue that. complimenting me. I'm doing it for my own life too because if I go into the dealership and my customers have been tested or have been vaccinated and my employees have been vaccinated and I've been vaccinated, I'm a hell lot safer than that weren't the case. So the thing about

getting a vaccination, whether you want it or not, think about your family, think about your friends, think about the people at Publix and Costco and wherever the hell you shop. And if you've been vaccinated, you make the world a little bit safer. everybody has that mindset we are going to go to Kentucky yeah Kentucky hi Michael welcome your first-time caller love hearing from Kentucky maybe hung up because he

doesn't believe in vaccinations he just yep are you there Michael lost 30% of the country right there oh good good morning welcome okay I'm born in 2019 I've been trying for a while. I got some concerns about this CBT transformation. I had, I have a 06, which I bought new, and he went out on me big time. So now I got some concerns for about this next one. What are your concerns, Michael? Huh?

What are your concerns about it? The CVT, because I've been reading a lot about it, and so I wonder how would they hold up? Now when I'm an old vehicle about 80,000 miles or anything about how long that you to last there are any improvements? They've been improving the quality on CVTs quite a bit. The biggest advantage, for those that might understand the term, it's a continuously variable transmission. Now the biggest advantage here is if you think about the way the cars operate when you're driving, when you're driving, when you're driving, when you're step on the gas, the engine revs up as you're speeding up and then it'll shift to another gear

and then shift to another gear and shift to another gear. A continuously variable transmission that is properly set up, the engine doesn't need to rev way up and it go way back down and way up and way back down. The computer can keep the engine at what's called the sweet spot where it's producing the best amount of power with the lowest fuel or best fuel economy and the lowest emissions and actually keep that engine right at that range because the transmission, instead of only having three, four, or five gears, it actually has an almost infinite number of gears because it's constantly changing the way the transmission moves. And basically they work so much better that way because you're not wasting fuel.

and losing power, it keeps their engine running at the perfect spot where it's producing maximum power and giving it the best of the world. So does that answer your question, Michael? Yes, I think it does. I just have some concerns. Good thing. CVT is a good thing. Yeah, they're getting better.

Yeah. Okay, okay. All right. Thank you all a lot. Thank you, Michael. Okay. Another text we have one from Mark, and then we've got to jump over. I'm guessing Rick's got some comments coming on on YouTube as well.

Mark says, I'm getting a low-battering warning on my dash for my keyfob. Can I change that with a standard battery myself, or must I come to the dealer for replacement? And does that require programming? I asked Rick on the side, you can take that anywhere. Pep Boys, discount auto parts for about $10, and no, you do not have to have it reprogramming if you're replacing the battery. I got that right? As a matter of fact, even any of your local jewelry stores that change watch batteries, is the same type of batteries. Yeah, it's the same type of battery.

What if he got the battery? Is it hard to change you to decide if you order the battery in Amazon? No, they're very simple. Like a little screwdriver and pop it open? Yeah, a corner or a small screwdriver. Yeah, you get the same-day delivery on some products. I ordered what I ordered the other day. Got it at the same day.

I ordered the morning. Oh, dates. I ordered some dates in the morning because I ran out of dates. Were there any wasps in your dates? And that night, the dates came. Where did you get those from? Probably from Whole Foods. Oh, wow.

Crazy. All right. Rick, you've got some comments coming in, don't you? We've actually got a couple here. Donovan was tagging in on the Tesla information, and he says the Tesla store on Okachobi actually should have some cars there on site that you can look at. And then, of course, when you order it, he says they can fulfill their orders usually within a day. I don't know how sure that is right now, but...

Wow. And... They must have a warehouse real close. Could be, yeah. Dagan, one, had actually been asking me a few questions. about his air conditioning on a 2010 Ford. I won't go into all the parts that he's replaced on it, but he was actually asking about the evaporator cleaners,

the foaming cleaners that we use. And a lot of places sell these. We do it in our dealership. If you like to run fresh air when you're driving with your car and you do get on a lot of dusty roads. You know, that's such a great feature that cars have that other air conditioners don't have. I thought maybe it would be nice if I could do it in my house.

But normal air conditioners, the only one that you get fresh air and still cool it are cars is a great feature. Exactly. And what this product does is that we actually spray it through the drain hose where the condensation drips out of the bottom of your car. And it phones up and fills that entire box with a soapy chemical that will break down any dirt particles or dust that's in there and then let it drain back out. It's really not a bad idea to do that once in a while because it helps to prevent clogging up on the evaporator core and things that can actually start to eat into the core

and damage it a little bit, causing corrosion, which can cause that core to fail. And air conditioning repairs can be very expensive. It also puts a nice fragrance back into it and keeps a cleaner for you. What is the owner manual recommend on that? Owners manual actually doesn't recommend it. They don't really take that one into account.

You're not trying to sell me some dealer-recommended service that I don't need, right? Could be. Okay. But he was asking about it, so I figured we'd let that be put out. I don't know. You know, the other thing, when you talk to a tech guy, like, you know, he mentioned earlier, deer heads, you know, people are nuts about maintenance sometimes, and if they're really, really into it, they're talking about,

They'll change your own. Rick changes his oil every 20 minutes. I'm exaggerating. I'm switching to olive oil next week. But he babies that car. He's got, he drove with Tacoma. I think he had a million miles on it. I mean, these techs take such good care of their cars

that you could eat off the floor. They never break. They are maintained to perfection. And they overdo it. And which I guess if you want to keep your car for 20 years and 500, hundred thousand miles that's the way to do it that's what Rick does yeah let's see what else do we have here um Derek was actually asking about transmission fluid the

lifetime transmission fluid and whether he should do what's called a drain and refill and actually drain and refill is not really a good idea anymore because you're only changing a small amount of the fluid that's in there and again in my opinion unless you're doing severe duty on whatever vehicle a lot of towing or something like that most of the new cars now have a lifetime fluid that never needs

to be changed what else do we have here oh what Wayne commented in that corvettes should be yellow yeah I agree with sports cars you have flashier colors I'm going to go to that website that John from Palm City recommended

I'm really curious if they've done some really good research on that I see car dot com I think he said and yeah your reds and your bright colors on the sports cars but you don't want to get a family sedan and bright red you're going to cost yourself a couple grand and resale value and the last one I have here is and I'm sorry I'm not going to try to pronounce this whole old name because it's oh boy it would tear my tongue apart I'll just say Danny says looking for a new Highlander XLE what can you do for me

And I think, Earl, your advice on how to get pricing on Highlanders probably is the best answer on that one. Yeah, you go to my website, and again, this is not an infomercial, a man asked the question, we're the only deal that I know of that gives an out-the-door price online. You don't have to come in, I don't know if you are. You go to Earl's Store on Cars.com, and you go to new cars, and you can see a Highlander prices, pick the one you want, and you get the out-the-door price, our lowest price, our best price. you take that price and you go to your nearest store dealer and you show it to them say I can buy it there for this beat it and they oftentimes will or they won't one way or the

other you have the you have the ability to shop and compare prices and the car dealers won't give you that we do and that's what we do so yeah Earl Stewart on Cars.com what I talk about Earl Stewart Toyota.com that's our website and go to the Earl Stewarttoll.com and get the lowest price and then go to the Toyota dealer in your market show them the price and see if you'll beat it or meet it yeah all right you caught up we are caught up over here okay great let's see it says this is Toyota the manufacturer say anything to the dealerships about how soon the micro ship shortage will disappear the new car stocks will return to normal we do get notified last one we got a couple

weeks ago from the president Southeast Toyota saying that there is some delays in some of the domestic plants, Georgetown and things like that. They assured us they weren't cuts to production. They were just pauses. I haven't received anything directly saying when it's going to end. That's something you probably read a lot more in Automove News or watching it on CNBC. I don't know when it's going to end. You can chime in.

You know, it's funny you should mention that. Earl pointed out an article that was in the money newspaper. I believe that was USA today and they talk about the chip the chip shortage and it really hasn't affected Toyota that much and I think it was because of the tsunami and Toyota was really prepared so to speak so it didn't really you can take a look at this or all if you want to make a comment well I think I think that is relatively true but it's still affected Toyota this maybe not as much as certain other manufacturers but affected everybody in the auto industry Okay, we're going to go to Rich who's calling us back from Jupiter. Good morning, Rich. Good morning. Welcome. What can we do for you? Well, I had sent a text, but I figured I'd try and call back.

I have a 2017 Toyota Tacoma. It's the third vehicle I bought from Earl Stewart. It's my wife's vehicle. I never drive it. and I drove it the other day and the transmission just shifts up and down up and down and I've done some research that you guys can reflash the transmission with another code to make it shift normally yes as a matter of fact that's one of the places where Toyota really goofed on the Tacoma with the 2016 model year on up for some reason they did not program those transmissions properly. You can stop in. I'm pretty certain it's an, I want to say

eight year 80,000 mile that's under warranty for that refresh. Just come in and say, yeah, my transmission's not shifting properly and it should, like I say, it should be covered under warranty for you and I'll put a computer to it, reprogram it, and it may actually have as many as three older versions that you may be back out of. So it's actually been updated like three or four times now for that transmission reflash. And the guy that works next to me in the shop has a 16 that he's had done. And he says, it is so much better now that he's gotten all the latest updates in it. He said it's a world of difference. How long does it take, Rick? Once the car comes in the shop, I'm going to say about 35, 40 minutes, maybe an hour

at the most. Yeah, be ready for two hours total waiting time and get you in and out. Yep. Now do I need to make an appointment to do that? It'd be better. It's always better to make an appointment. Okay. I appreciate the information. You have the trucks only got, I think, 48,000 miles on it. Me and my wife love our Toyota. It's the third one we bought from you. We're always treated great,

and we love the bagels. Thank you, Rich. We did, too. Thanks, Rich. Love to hear from you again. 877960 or you can text us 772 49760 and I have $50 here for the next female caller, new female caller. Now back to Stu. Anonymous feedback. If your CVT transmission, by the way, this is now transmission Saturday. That's all we're talking about today. But if you're CVT, your continuously variable transmission were to be dying, are there any warning signs or does, does it just die instantly? That's almost an unanswerable question

because it would really be hard to say just what dying is. They don't really have the same systems to slip like older transmissions did. I would say most likely your first indication would be check engine lights coming on saying, hey, the computer's seeing an issue and a dealership would be able to diagnose that pretty quick.

Okay, there you go. more anonymous feedback just wondering where have all the cloth seats gone if you don't like leather replacing them with soft text seems like we're going backwards to vinyl the vinyl seat days I prefer the seat of the fuel of cloth

all the cloth seats have gone to the starting and mid-grade models of most cars because he doesn't have dogs or kids right that's true yeah there's there's advantages but if you don't if you're a single person driving around with no dogs or kids cloth's fine but yeah usually to get cloth you'd have to go to like

For example, and forgive me, I live in the world of Toyota, but for example, a Camry. Starting level of Camry will have a cloth seat, and then as you move up to the SE and the XSE, you are going to get the soft text leather. In defense of soft text leather, it's a far cry from vinyl. Vinyl is stretchy. It definitely feels like plastic. I couldn't tell you if I sat in a car of softx leather, whether it was real or not. And it's more, I think it's more environmentally friendly.

It's certainly nicer to cows, and there you go. All right, let's see. Eat more chicken. What a great campaign that was. It seems like in the last 10 years or so, car prices have increased about 25%. I'm curious, is the dealership's profit got up 25%? Are they still struggling like they usually do?

Well, when you say car prices went up 25%, I'll accept that. I don't know that that statistic is accurate. Maybe it is. You have to remember that the value has gone up 25%. The cost of ownership, if you look at it as your cost of between trading cycles or cost of leasing, your cost of owning and operating the car, I don't believe it's gone up 25%. Matter of fact, if you go back in history, and I go back to 1968 when I started in the business,

even though I had new cars on my lot for $2,000, in terms of real value, that probably was more expensive than the car on my lot now for $40,000. So it's hard when you're looking at absolute dollars to compare apples and apples. I think today's new car, if you negotiate the price, you buy online, you use competitive shopping to get your lowest price, it's the best value since I've been in the automobile business. You can buy a car now nearer the dealer's true cost than you could back in the day. If you're a sophisticated chopper, if you listen to this show, if you read my book, Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer,

if you go to Erloncars.com, use all the tools available to you, you can get a slam-bang dozy of a low price compared to any time in history. That's right. The consumer has never had a better position. The playing field has been leveled with the Internet, that's just changed the whole game more anonymous feedback oh boy okay we're gonna have to help this person when going to buy do I start with MSRP or dealer invoice price how do I found out what the dealer's cost is is it true can I refuse all those add-ons and ask what the general dealer fees are what I'm hearing from your comments is that you shouldn't pay more than $75 for the doc fee is that correct thanks for your help I let me give them a short answer yes

Your first question, get the MSRP, competitively shop with at least three dealers of that same year-making model car that you're going to buy, and buy it from the dealer that gives you an out-the-door price with the biggest discount from the MSRP. And I could go in and address each issue, forget about the dock fee, forget about the invoice, forget about everything except apples and apples, the same vehicle compared with three-dealership from the same MSRP, out-the-door price. price, the price you're right to check for and give it to the salesman and you drive home. Right, because all that other stuff are tools that the dealer use.

The invoice is a tool that the dealer uses. Just get that out of your head. Follow that prescription. Smoke and mirrors. They use all those things, dock fees, dealer addendums, dealer installed accessories, all this hidden fees. They're done to confuse and screw you. MSRP, guaranteed by law, is the same on every car of that.

you're making model and if you get the biggest discount and it's true discount out the door you got the best deal that's right okay we're gonna go back to the phones and we're gonna talk to a first-time caller Chuck who's calling us from Palm Springs good morning Chuck good morning how are you this morning we're doing well what can we do for you have a have a quick question about leasing versus buying is it ever economically to lease a car for three, a car that you really want for three years and then turn around and buy it? Or is that like paying eight or nine years for a car? It's usually not, you're usually not able to buy the car at your lease option price and come out ahead.

There was a time when you could, and every now and then you still can. But the residual value, your lease option price, is typically not a real good value in most cases. I would say at any time, if your lease is ending around now, you have a better shot now. Because the used car prices are insane. We have regular cars worth $2,000 more than they would in normal conditions, and that might be it. Excellent point. I should have mentioned it. But only now. This ain't going to last. So if your lease is ending now or next few months, you might have a shot.

We're having a crazy spike in the used car market. Your car is worth more now than it was a year ago. And cars usually depreciate. We're seeing cars now that are traded in. cars, used cars, that we were selling for the same amount of money as there they are today. And no depreciation. They're not appreciated it. We're scrambling just to get inventory to sell in the used car department. And right now, like, for example, we're looking at Tacomas. If we were to go to an auction and buy Tacomas, we couldn't do it because they would be priced higher than the

new ones. So right now, if your lease is then and now, check it out. Call the dealer, get a pay off and see what you can do. Yeah, no, I don't have a lease. I just was interested in that concept. But I am in a Tacoma in about a year or two. There you go. All right, but it is crazy, though. Thank you. Thank you, Chuck.

Okay, more anonymous feedback. Your YouTube video on The Waiting Game reminded me of a funny interaction with a Honda dealer in Maryland we had a few years ago. My wife and daughter were at the dealership. The price offer from the dealer was net of trade around 2,000 more than my numbers.

The dealer incorrectly assessed them, as unprepared and easy marks. The salesperson actually insulted me and the pricing I had set for the vehicles. They left the dealership. After getting a few miles away, the salesperson called with a revised offer, which was $1,000 less than what the offer was earlier.

My wife simply said, you had your chance, goodbye. The next day we visited a different Honda dealer. We bought the same vehicle, same trim, same MSRP, everything, for 2,000 less than what the first dealer offered initially. The lesson, never be afraid to walk away anytime you feel. uncomfortable. I'm glad that you read that and it is so true. Time is your

friend when buying a car. The longer you shop, the longer you do your homework, the longer you wait, the lower your price. And if you buy the same day you go out on the market, they're going to take advantage of you and you're going to pay way way too much money. The waiting game works in your favor. They'll tell you the exact opposite. They'll say, I give you my lowest price today. If you leave, I'm not going to give you my lowest price. Now, if that isn't a bunch of nonsense. And they do that. The car dealers is so important that you buy a day before you have a chance to what? Think and consider. That's what they want you to do. Buy on a motion. But you've got to use logic

and common sense, not a motion when you buy a car. Got time for one more before the mystery shopping report? Sure. Okay. More anonymous feedback. I watched your mystery shopping report on off lease only, and I would never suggest that anyone buy a vehicle that has been wrecked and repaired. You have no idea, really, if it's safe, and when you trade it in, look out. The value will be lower than Blue Book because of the past wreck. Even you probably paid a lot less for it in the first place.

Well, off lease only is the Walmart. It's not Nordstrom's. And it's low overhead, high volume, low prices. But you have to be careful what you buy. They do buy just about any kind of a car at the auction. but they tell you, and you can get the information on Carfax or auto, what's the other one, Carfax and... Oh, Auto Check.

Auto Check, yeah. So you need to check because they will buy a wreck car that's been repaired and sell it to you. And you get a hell of a price on it. I mean, their average price per used cars sold is less, just like Walmart is less than Nordstrom's. So I'm going to imagine that the current conditions is kind of hampering their business model

because now they're paying more for a used car. cars than they ever have. Everybody's paying more. And so when you buy a used car from a dealer, you're paying more. Wherever you buy it, all fleets only.com. Carvana is paying insane money for cars, but you should check with them anyway. Vroom, a new player, Vroom, you know, Automation will buy your car from you. It's a seller's market if you have a used car.

If you have an extra car in a family, a used car that you don't need, is sitting there, gathering dust, Shop it around, you'll get far more money today than you ever will. If you wait a year from now, it's going to cost you a lot of money because supply will catch up with demand. That's right. It's a good time to sell your car. Yeah. All right.

We're caught up. Okay. Let's get to the mystery shopping report, and we sent Agent Lightning out of state again. Or she actually went out of state, and then she did us a favor. I like it better if we say we sent her. It sounds like we're like, you know, our tentacles are reaching everywhere. Beeman, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Fia. Why do they call themselves that?

Let's call them Jeep. Beeman Jeep, yeah. I mean, they don't sell any fiats. They don't sell any Fiatz. They don't sell any Chrysler's. They might sell a few Rams. They sell Rams and Jeeps. That's what they sell.

Hey, do you know the Beeman name? Ring a bell. At one point, I thought we knew the Beaman group. I knew Beeman. He was in my Pontiac 20 group. Okay, yeah. 110 years ago. Okay.

Is it Todd Beeman? I can't even think now. He's the old man's probably history and probably his son. Yeah. Okay. Earl Stewart on cars went back to the road with this week's mystery shopping report. Agent Lightning returned to the Nashville, Tennessee area for another almost record-setting long distance with the mystery shop. The long-distance record was set a few weeks ago when Agent Lightning investigated Murfreesboro. That's a ton cooaster. Nancy and I were trying to pronounce that in the car. Merfreesboro on Nissan. She traveled 809 miles on that mission.

This week she came close, Beeman, Chrysler Dodge, is 797 miles from Mercedes or studios in Palm Beach cars. Resposed, surprised by how bad things went at the Murfreesboro, Nissan. We incorrectly assumed a smaller, more rural market wouldn't have the sort of car dealers that we typically see down here. Agent Lightning's experience could have come straight out of Miami. straight out of Miami, Dodge City, when it comes to buying a car. They're about the roughest market anywhere.

It used to be L.A. was rough, but they've tamed L.A. Marshall Dillon went to L.A. and tamed it. Shopped the dealer. Get rid of the dealer. Exactly, and now it's a tame market. I mean, we need Marshall Dillon into Dade County now. You're Marshall Dillon. Yeah, I am Marshall. I can be here with my badge.

We were surprised by, okay, Murfreesboro, Nissan, checked all the boxes, bait and switch air, unwanted, and started. dealer installed accessories. The waiting game, high pressure, big-head dealer fees. They did as well as the bad boys of South Florida. And let me a little aside here, I know we're running a little short on time here. Nissan dealers are historically the bad guys. And front page in today's automotive news, you don't read this folks, but Still and I and Nancy do. and the headline is they got a new guy in charge of Nissan

and they brought them in because Nissan is foundering their bankruptcy they're courting bankruptcy their CEO was arrested and jailed and then he escaped from jail I mean outside of that they don't have any problems in a case he was smuggled out in a

speaker case and the dealers hate him and anyway one of the reasons what would you expect that a Nissan dealer, would you expect a good attitude? I mean, when you're going through this. Anyway, they got rid of the other

guy, they got a new guy in there, and you know what he did? He threw out stair-step financing. And you know what Automotive News called the Stair-Step Scheme? And that's another show, and I've talked about it before, but it's a bad thing that puts too much pressure

on the dealers and the customers. Anyway, back to the shopping report. The question is, Okay. Oh, the Nashville metro area may be more familiar, similar to our area than we realized. When Agent Lightning told us that she was making another trip to Tennessee, we got our shot to test the theory.

Since we don't know the area, we asked Agent Lightning to select the dealership. We didn't learn the name of our target until the report came at Thursday night. She has total autonomy. She's so good and so professional. That's right. I just make it happen. Yeah. See as I'm going to Tennessee?

Send me a report. Now, I'll pretend it like I'm Agent Lightning, and this is a report. Before driving over to Beaman Chrysler, I went on his Jeep. I went on their website to find a car to pretend to buy. I found a new 2021 Jeep Gladiator. I love the name. Gladiator. High altitude, macho, right?

Yeah, that's the pickup truck that they have. High altitude, four by four, was an MSRP of $55,400. The list of showed a $4,000 discount, $1,000 rebate, and a final price of 50,400. You know, I was thinking about when I read it, final price, all these euphemisms they use for anything but what it should be, a true outdoor price. Here's how these popped into my head.

The final price, that's one, bottom line, you see a lot of bottom line prices that are BS, discounted. Here's a discounted price. Or this is your price. Adjusted price. Adjusted price. The only thing you want, folks,

And they'll call it out the door, too. But the only thing you want is the real out of the door, you write the check for it, and you take the car, and you get out of there. That's an out-the-door price. Anyway, I arrived just after 6 p.m., wandered the lot for 10 minutes, before it inside the showroom. We're in Tennessee, if you just tuned in. Wlish was small, a little dated, but much nicer and cleaner than Murphysboro, Nissan.

Not a single person there wore a mask. I was the only one. And she said she had upstairs. People were staring at her with the mask. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I had a customer call me and complained because one of my salespeople wasn't wearing his mask. It was outside, by the way. Outside, yeah.

It was outside. But at any rate, the point is it's a major event. Everybody gets hysterical. Anybody walks around with the mask. In Tennessee, ain't going to happen. In Tennessee, they don't wear a mask at the cardiolships, apparently. I was greeted by a receptionist who offered to get a salesperson for me. I wait for a while, maybe 15 minutes before Karina approached me.

my first female salesperson, female on female. We have right there, Agent Lightning, with Karina. Karina apologized for how long I waited, explained they were swamped that day. She said she wore a lot of hats and were responsible not only for in-store sales, but also phone sales and Internet sales leads. Then she went on in some detail

about how they handled the sales leads in their store. They don't have an online department. Instead, all their salespeople answer to an online lead who distributes leads among them. They're using the word lead in multiple applications I thought was kind of funny, but the manager's got a lead. And it's the way for the future. That's the way it's going to be, and pretty soon it will be that way. Everywhere there's not going to be any more real

walk in the door one day. It'll all be online, and that's the reason we're forming the online assistance team. After I had a full understanding of their lead handling process, Karina led me to a desk, again asking questions. We talked about me and not about the Jeep, the Jeep I wanted. I gave her the stock number of the one I found online

and I asked if they still had it. She checked and reported back that it was available. She said that I had picked a beauty. She asked if I'd ever driven a gladiator. I said, no, I dated one once. I said I was familiar with the regular regulars, but I had never

driven the gladiator. She told me, about several cool features on the gladiator like the adjustable tailgate that she went to the keys get the keys she was back quickly and we walked outside to find the gladiator walked around it fixed to the rear window was the fanciest nicest looking addendum i've ever seen dealer addendum sticker and it was a beauty glossy white blue black it was for the premium safety package Cahu connected car? It's Cahoo. Cahoo?

I'm pretty sure, yeah. What's that mean? Okay, so I'll run down these things. So the first thing is Cahoo connected car. It's just a GPS tracker. You can buy these things, by the way, on Amazon for about $50. Oh. And you have an app, and you can track your car.

Cahoo, I like that. The second thing is called pulse collision avoidance. Now, that sounds like the pre-collusion system that stops your car. It is not. It's a little thing that they attach to the wiring harness that goes to your brake light. And so your center-mounted height, brake light, the one that goes up, you know, on your rear window, it'll pulse, it'll flash to get the drivers behind you attention. That, therefore, potentially avoiding a rear-end collision. And then the last one, you could probably explain, permaplate exterior appearance.

Rough the dust, this BS, you know, you finish on your car is very good. You don't need anything except normal wax, and that's up to you. And maybe once a year, so it's up, say, every 30 days. this is literally rig waxes his truck every day so it just depends on my clockwork how obsessive you are i can tell you that this package probably cost the dealer i'm going to say under a hundred dollars yeah even it sounds fan it sounds way better than mud guards but it and it sounds very high tax charge was one thousand two hundred eighty seven dollars a thousand percent markup to be conservative yeah okay we climbed inside taken for a test drive the notice the fuel

gauge was buried on empty korena has sense of humor about a remarked on my bad luck and have had to wait so long and now we've driven in the car with an empty tank. We drove to a shelf station. Kareen asked me if she get me something to drink and went inside the pay. She came back and put some gas in the Jeep.

She didn't say they intentionally keep low fuel levels so the gas doesn't go bad. Now that's BS. It's puffering. It's BS or she's testifying to their very slow turn rate. Maybe they keep little gas in the Chrysler's and the fiats.

I'll tell you what, the reason they don't put a lot of gas in a car in a car dealership is because the salesman will find the car with the most gas and drive it home. And take their day down on it. So every car dealer deliberately puts as little a bunch of gas in the cars because everybody in the dealership's driving the one that's got the most gas. Particularly when gas was over four dollars a year. You put more gas in the jeeps. A little insider thing there that most people don't know. On the long test drive, Karina impressed me with her knowledge of the vehicle. and this car had so many cool features

like, oh, I told him about Nancy about this, Nancy loved this and I love it. Listen to this feature on this cheap glad eater, yeah. When you're putting air on the tires, the horn will beep when you reach the proper air pressure. That's very cool.

How cool is that? Nice. Wow, I love it. I mean, I almost buy a car that had that feature. You don't need a gauge, you can go to a gas station and put the quarter in it. There you go. There you go. Music to my ears. Yeah. We returned to the dealership park.

Karina went on for another 15 minutes describing the features of the performance for the Jeep. It was now after 8 p.m. Why, you've been there for two hours. It was dark. Wow. We returned to the dealership park. Karina, oh, yeah. Yeah, okay, I just read that, yeah. We went inside, found the same desk.

Karina worked on the computer a little, then said she was going to get the figures out of the printer for me. She told me that the pricing policy is straightforward, and they give everyone the online. price. I watched her get the worksheet from the printer. She didn't speak with anyone. No sales manager have a refresher. So it sounds good to me.

At first glance, the worksheet appeared to show the same price I saw online. MSRP, I mean, it was the, what do they call it? Final price. Final price. It was the final price. It must be the, you know. So she says that was 55,400. And there was a $4,000 discount.

a $1,000 rebate, another discount, sale price was the same as the final price, final price on the listing, $50,400. Well, that's the final price. Here, here's my checkbook. I'm going to hand this to you. Wait, don't do that. It's not really final. But then came the ads, okay? Of course, we got the $1,287 for what cost the dealer $100 and premium safety package from the addendum. And there was also a $698 surprise dealer fee. That's almost $2,000 in extras from the final price.

Yeah, that's the final price plus $2,000. I asked her if there was any room on the price. Did I skip something there? I told you I was reading this. Yeah. Huh. Try to lick my thumb, and I got my mask on something. Excuse me.

Okay, I'm on the right page. I asked for there's any room on the price. Karina said the most she could do was maybe another $200, but only if I was close to making a deal. She defended the price by saying she had already taken $5,000 off. Good retort. I asked about the adenable and said I was interested, and I wasn't interested in getting any of those things. She responded by saying, since the sticker was already on the vehicle, it meant that all those items were already installed. She couldn't do anything about it.

I can't do anything about it. Karina asked if I was ready to wrap it up and take it home. I said I needed to discuss at home with my husband. I would call her in the morning. She walked me to the car, said she'd look forward to hearing from me in the future. And here's the epilogue. Agent Lightning made the point to describe Karina warm and friendly, very professional. And this goes to Nancy's point.

We need more female salespeople because females... Because you don't see it coming when they get you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, that's true, yeah. Because you feel more comfortable. We all feel comfortable with certain types of people. And it's obvious that women feel more comfortable with women. A lot of men feel more comfortable with women. I'm one of them.

When I go into a retail store, which isn't often these days, but when I did go into retail stores, I've always rather I deal with a nice woman than a guy. I don't know. They're gentle, their empathy, they listen more. They don't, you know. Talk over you. They don't push me around.

Except Nancy, Nancy pushes me around. This is very interesting, many of the bad sales tactics were in play at Beeman. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, Lightning said she would have bought the car from her. If she was there to do it, she goes,

it was such a pleasant experience. Love the experience. Now, I have to say something, I told Steele of this when we came up in the elevator to the studio this morning together. Showing how difficult it is to really catch everything a dealer's up to is when a professional is caught with his pants down. In this case here, Agent Lightning, who is, I consider a professional now, she was fooled by something. And Stu, who wrote the report, he was fooled by something.

And that doesn't happen very often. I got lucky, and I happened to get my magnifying glass out, and I looked at the addendum label on the picture taken on the addendum, the $1,287, $100 cost, you know, addendum label. And in the fine print, which you couldn't read, I mean, literally I had my magnifying class. It said that the option, the installations of these accessories on the car are not factory accessories,

and they are not required to purchase. You can buy the car without them. Now, Agent Lightning was told by Carina, that she had to buy it because they were installed in the car already, and if you want to buy that car, you're going to have to get them. So whether she knew about the fine print,

it's possible that the salesperson didn't know about the fine print. The fine print was put there by the lawyer for the dealer, by Beeman's lawyer, probably because he got sued one time. Probably from the company, because we saw this premium safety package. I googled it, and it's being sold by dealers

all over the country. So it's a thing. that somebody went to the dealership, they sold it to them, and they probably put it in there because they probably got in trouble for... Yeah, yeah. They actually, the important thing is they said the, they said purchase of optional products and service contract options not required

for vehicle purchase or to obtain financing, and that's a big, big no-no if you say, to get financing, you've got to buy this from me, so. So there you have it. Interesting report, much better than the Nissan report in Tennessee before, and, and

it's interesting, so let's hear the score, they'll be coming in online. You haven't already done it. You could text us, you could Facebook us, you could YouTube us, you can't call us. You can't call us, the phones are turned on. But let's hear your votes,

and we'll poll the members of the studio here. We got them coming in. Linda gives them a C, and that's pretty charitable from Linda. The Black Widow. That's right. Oh, Nancy's a Black Widow. It's usually a big, fat F,

but we've got a C from Linda. Also, Jonathan Wellington gives them an F. they can take their final price and go dot dot dot mark gives them a C minus bad dollars and then we got a D plus and who's this from here

that's from Tom Tom gives them D pluses no pressure and took time to explain but the false addendum claim in dealer fees keeps the grade below average and I am leaning towards that I'm not sure if I'm going to be a C minus or a D plus which actually is the same thing

so I'm going to give him a D I don't like the addendum. I don't like all that sort of stuff, but they get points for Karina because she seems like a good salesperson. Rick? Well, we've got RICO with a B,

Wayne with a D minus, Tom Gilliland, or Tim Gillan, I'm sorry, not the worst except for the mass, C, Andrew with a C, John with a C minus, and let's see, Mark Ryan with a C,

and E.C. Olson with a D, Myself, I'm going to go with the C, I think except for that addendum, that was pretty good. I too am going to give them a C. Okay. I'm going to give them a C plus. And I think that I didn't realize that the fine print was from the manufacturer of the denim label. I think it's entirely possible that nobody ever read it. Dealers don't read fine print.

I don't read fine print. read fine print. Nobody reads fine print. Fine print is the biggest joke on the entire human race. It was something that was entered by attorneys. And without fine print, we wouldn't have any attorneys. So it's just a joke. If I was elected president of the United States, I would buy executive order eliminate all fine print.

And if I was emperor of the world, I would do it also. The thing is, the reason I can't give him a higher grade, It's just because I think the answer to Agent Lightning when she says, I'm not interested in any of those things, maybe make a shot to explain the value, even though we know there's not value, and then offer, well, we can get another vehicle for you, a newer one. You know, make the sale and don't do that. Somebody doesn't want equipment, don't force it on them.

Yeah. We got a little bit of time. Let me mention something that I had planned on this thing. But it's very interesting. Volkswagen was rumored a few weeks ago, or maybe a couple of months. ago that they were going to change the name of their product in this country to the volts wagon, D-O-L-T-S-V-S-Voltswagon. Now, the media jumped on it and so on so forth.

The Automotive News just wrote an article. Volkswagen, that was an early April Fool's a joke or something, and they lied to the media, and the automotive news called Volkswagen and said, true and they said yes it is true they lied to the media and they wrote an editorial about it now why am I talking about this because it's a moral thing Volkswagen was the one you recall that lied again about their emissions and that they've fired and almost jailed their CEO for for lying they actually created a device on the computer of their Volkswagen that when you put it

on the emission test, the EPA test in the United States, they put it on their diagnostic equipment. It tricked the diagnostic equipment into thinking the emissions were less than they actually were. It was premeditated from the top to sell more cars that are spewing out contamination. I mean, that speaks to the moral fiber of the automobile manufacturer.

And here they're lying to the media. You can lie to the customers, folks, but you don't start lying to the media because they're going to get you. The worst company to try that. Yeah, you don't want to lie to the media. Ford might have gotten away with it. But not Volkswagen.

There's a history there. It's bad. So anyway, Volkswagen and watch it. And not to mention, I talk about the morals, I mentioned earlier, the CEO, G-H-O-S-N, you know, they caught him stealing. They caught him, what did they catch him doing? He was arrested. for something. And then they jail them and the escape from jail. The morals of the auto manufacturers

are really in question these days. Not all of them, but some of them. Nissan and Volkswagen for sure. Okay. I'm on the ring. I stop. Well, I think we settled it. We give the grades to beam in Jeep and we're almost running out of time. Yeah. So we're going to give a good grade. unfortunately this is in murfreesboro or someplace in tennessee that's the only place you can buy a jeep is up there and look at our our reports at hurl and cars will tell you the recommended dealers and you can pick your nason or a jeep dealer and buy from there we have recommended dealers in all makes by the way goes was how did you pronounce the guy's name from nason goson or goson goon yeah so it was some illegal accounting practices

and fraud. So that was he what he was arrested for. Yeah. Or is he on the lamb right now? He's just out there? He's on some country with a non-extradition treaty. Lebanon, right? It could be, yeah. Something like that. Crazy. Only in the car business. Okay, take us home, Nancy.

Oh, okay. Folks, thank you so much for tuning into Earl on cars. We love your company. Stay tuned next Saturday morning. Same time. We'll be right here.