Earl Stewart on Cars - 04.13.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Ed Morse Delray Toyota

Episode Date: April 13, 2019

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

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart, Stu Stewart, and Rick Kearney. Reach them with your questions at 877-9-60-960, and now here's Earl Stewart. Good morning, everybody. It is really good to be back. My name is Earl. I'm a recovering car dealer. And this show is all about how to tell you how to avoid being ripped off by a car dealer, where you're buying, leasing, maintaining, or repairing your car. I'm doing the show for about 14 years. I'm in the studio with some other informed automobile people. To my right, I have Rick Kearney, who is our certified diagnostic master technician.

Rick has worked for me for over 25 years. He's been in the car business even longer than that. I always say he used to be a mechanic. Then he became a technician. Now he became an auto computer scientist. and that's because our cars today are everything we drive is pretty much a computer on wheels. Any questions that you have, any observations about the mechanics,

or I should say, the computerization of cars, you call Rick, and he has an answer for a 99% of the time. And for the 1% we have Google. And to Rick's right and to my right is Nancy Stewart, my co-host. Also, I'm married to Nancy Stewart, and we've been doing this show together. was the original partner on the show back in the day when we only did a half an hour show and we have evolved

over many years. Thanks to you, listening, watching because we're streaming now, by the way. And as he is a female advocate, who hasn't heard hashtag Me Too? Who hasn't heard the Me Too movement? You pick up the paper,

you turn on the TV, you go online, there's another man out there somewhere in trouble because the times they're changing. And the women have come into their own, and they should have come into their own, and they did. And we're very happy about that. Nancy is a leader for automotive issues when it comes to females, women, buying cars. I love to have you call the show.

Nancy has a special offer to make to new female callers. Let's tell them about that, Nancy. Yes. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our exciting show. That special deal that we have for the ladies is a, First, two, new lady callers. You can win yourself $50 this morning. Give us a call, say hello, or maybe share, well, your transaction that maybe you took place this past week whenever you purchased a car, or you lease a car, or maybe we're in for service.

That number is 877-960-99-60, or you can text us this morning at 772-497-30. I know that sounds too good to be true. Fifty bucks, cold cash, just for calling the show. We do this because we want to have a balance. I call it our Earl and Cars Affirmative Action Program. We want to have at least as many women callers as we do men. Why? Because half the planet is occupied by women.

And half of everything that happens in this world has to do with women. And this show has to do with buying cars. Why not have half? It's affirmative action for women on Erland cars. $50, gold cash, no strings or dash, unconditional, if you just call the show. And when we find when new callers call the show, they like it, they get over the fear of calling the show, and we have a lot of regular female callers down. We'll have to do a calculation.

I think we're fairly near our 50%, but we're going to keep on going until we've reached that. Yes, absolutely. We have really come a long way, and we've built quite a platform. And I thank you ladies for joining me in building that platform. And, well, we're excited to hear from you, so you give us a call at 877960-99-60. We have an exciting show, as I told you earlier. Or you can text us if you're a little bit shy at 772-4976530. Roe, we're going to go to our favorite caller from Benita Springs, and that is Tina. I look forward to hearing from her every Saturday.

Good morning, Tina. Good morning. How are you guys doing this morning? Great, great. What can we do for you? Okay, Earl, I already know the answer to this question, but for the sake of the viewers on Facebook and the listeners on the radio, what's the difference between a dealer and a volume dealer and which one would be the best one to shop for the best deal on cars?

Volume dealers will tell you that they're the best place to buy a car because they get some sort of special deal from the manufacturer, but that's not true. If there's anything good about the rules of selling cars, the manufacturers all sell cars to the dealers at the same price. A little bitty dealer in a little country town selling five cars a month, pays the same thing for his Chevrolet or his Honda's or whatever make car. sells as a guy selling 1,000 cars a month.

And there are dealers out there, by the way, selling 1,000 cars a month. So you'll hear more from the volume dealer because they advertise more. But shop and compare, and sometimes the low volume, the smaller dealers, are a good place to buy a car. They tend to treat you a little bit more respectfully, and they're not as quite as fast with the smoke and mirrors as the volume dealers. but either dealers, small or large, can give you just as good a price. Oh, that's good to know. I was reading an article online from someone that I can't remember what the website was, but they were talking specifically about volume dealers.

And a volume dealer for those that don't know exactly what Earl is saying, that these are people that sell lots of cars a month, and they usually have the big, huge, fancy dealerships. and what this article was saying in line with the volume dealers is they advertise so much that you're sick and tired of hearing their ads on the radio. And he mentioned specifically that if a dealership has to resort to all kinds of, like a dog and pony show to get you to go there and bombard you with ads on the radio or the TV that maybe you shouldn't go to that dealer because there's probably a reason why

they have to practically stand on their head to get you to come through their door. You know, that's a good point, Tina. Cars are a generic product, almost like cell phones and aspirin and some other things. You know, a bottle of aspirin is a bottle of aspirin, whether it's sold by Bay or some other manufacturer. Cars, because it can be so easily compared, particularly in today's world of the Internet, you can go online and in half an hour you can get 20 different quotes from 20 different dealers. So cars, you know, a Honda Civic is a Honda Civic, and you can buy it probably at 2,000 Honda dealers around the United States. There's probably four Honda dealers in your market.

So when a car dealer advertises the price on his car, he's actually setting himself up to lose a sale. Because if he gives you a viable, real price, and you take that price and you go to his competitor, they will beat the price. So to avoid that, they will make up a price. They will make a price that his competition cannot beat. But it's also a price that he won't sell the car for. Hence, the dealer fees, hence the dealer installed options. So I can guarantee you, if you see an advertised price online, hear one on radio, television, you can't buy the car for that price.

The dealer would not advertise a legitimate price because he would lose a sale. That's just a sad fact. And the regulators are not enforcing the rules to prevent that from being done. That's where we are. That's why this show exists. Earl Stewart on Cars. Great question, Tina. Thank you.

Oh, thank you very much. And I just wanted to mention that one of the local dealers here, who I won't mention, but he had a basketball toss to win a car, and he has concerts sometimes. and he does all kinds of crazy things to get people through the door. But as a quote-unquote volume dealer, guess what? He charges that dealer fee and won't take it off. Exactly, exactly. Just because you go to a volume dealer doesn't guarantee that you're not going to pay a dealer fee.

You will. I'll guarantee you if you go to a dealer. We got something later in the show where we're talking about a dealer we thought didn't charge dealer fees, but I'll talk about that later on the show. But as usually, you're spot on, Tina, and I really appreciate your calls. You are the best. Yeah, Tina. Oh, thank you.

Thanks for bringing that to our, well, to the listeners' attention. You always have something great to share with us. And Tina, I'll spread the word about the female caller and that she can win herself $50. Have you spoken to anyone lately? I was talking to a couple clients of mine yesterday. I work in a hair salon, for those of you who don't know. And I mentioned to my one client, hey, I mentioned Tammy and E. Ford because I told Earl and Nancy and Stu and everybody, I can't remember everybody's name this morning. My mind is going to blank.

But I mentioned Tammy and E. Ford, and they told them that I mentioned her story without mentioning her name about how good they were to her. She said, yes, those two ladies know about the show. Whether the call or not, I don't know, but I did mention it. And all you other ladies, that $50 is a thing, I can tell you that honestly, and I can't do this by myself, so you need to turn up the charge here. Yeah, absolutely. And I have to tell you, you're in the perfect place to spread the word on not only our show, but the female caller and how they can help you and I build this platform for women.

And I appreciate you mentioning us. So as usual, Tina, thank you so much for joining us, and we'll talk with you next Saturday. Okay, bye, Rick. Sorry, I didn't forget you. Hi, Tina. How are you doing? That's Rick. I'm doing good. 877-960-9960, and you can text this at 772-497-3-0.

I look at the telephone almost is old-fashioned today. hard to believe. You know, we don't have a home phone. That's you and I don't have a phone phone. We have a cell phone. And that's the case with most people. Rick, do you have a home phone anymore? We do, but the only reason we had is because my mother-in-law lived

us for a while and we had to have one. Exactly. Just through a heart monitor setup. I know she doesn't have a home phone. I know you don't have one. Actually, I have one plugged in out of superstition in case we have a hurricane. Yeah. And it's actually in a cabinet.

You can't even see it, but if we need it, it's there. Yeah. I have my princess telephone store. in the cabinet in the hallway, just in case, for the same reason, you know. If anyone knows what a princess telephone is, I'm not sure. So that number, in case you're old-fashioned, 877-960, 960, text 772-49-60, and I haven't introduced Stu Stewart, although we've been chit-chatting him with them a little bit. Stu is my son, and, you know, in my generation, all this stuff that we're doing is magical

with Stu. It's semi-magical with my grandkids. It's just the way life is. So Stu is put the link out there in cyberspace. He does the Twitter. He does the YouTube. He does the, of course, the Facebook. We're live streaming in color. I mean, I can remember when we didn't even have color in movies. Now we're live streaming in color. And you can do it. Pull us up right now. Earl and Cars and there we are and Twitter I forgot to mention Periscope there's a lot of them out there Instagram I guess we're not doing Instagram but not live on Instagram almost he can't do that but that's next right right Jonathan he's looking at maybe how's our bandwidth Jonathan is our control guy and he's smiling so the

bandwidth must be moving he cries real tears cries real tears but we've kind of got things going here it took us a long long time by the way thanks to all our listeners and our viewers who lived with us through the trials and tribulations of losing bandwidth, settling our Facebook would beat her out, and they were, you know, trying to post. But we're streaming pretty well now, and we're moving to a new studio in May, and thanks to the owners of the station here who are providing a beautiful new, the studio, the whole is being revised now. It looks beautiful.

I think we have another caller. We do. John's calling us from Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. I have a question for Rick. Most people don't notice. If you're looking for a used car, it would be good to get 2012 or later on an automobile. And the reason for that is a safety feature. It's called ESC. Can Rick explain to the people listening what that feature is? It's actually known as an electronic stability control. And it's mandated in 2012. on all new and cars that were built. Yeah, electronic stability control is actually, it's kind of a generic term,

but it includes all the basic features from ABS braking, the anteloc braking system, stability control that helps control the car in a curve or a skid. Say if you're going around a sharp corner, it'll apply the brakes where the computer knows it needs it. It actually adverse rollovers, doesn't it? It will prevent rollover accidents. It will help prevent skids and slides.

It will help prevent locking up your wheels, say in a light rainstorm or any rainstorm, actually. It'll help prevent locking the wheels, which causes loss of control. And it basically is one of the forerunners of what helps us get towards autonomous cars. Because obviously, it's very easy to make a car go. It's a whole lot more involved to get a computer system that can make a car stop properly. They've had this around for a while. And keep his safe. Oh, yes.

Well, John Sand has been mandatory by federal law since 2012. So that's something, if you're buying a 2010 or an older car than 2012, then you want to verify that it has the electronic stability control. And the odds it was an option. Yeah, before it was an option. Right. And so, but if you buy 2012 or 13, it positively has to have it. And basically what they did is they started out putting little bits of systems on each car

and learning how they were going to operate on the cars. And by 2012, they'd finally reached a point where all the manufacturers could bring all this, the steering control, the braking control, all of it together into one great package. and so now it's at the point where you cannot compare. I know everybody loves the old muscle cars of the 70s, but you can't compare the suspension, steering, and brakes on those cars to what we have now today on cars that have active control. And these cars actively work to keep you in control of the car.

I look back in my teenage years, I think I lost control of my car about three or four times a month. At least, yeah. Jesus. And that depends on how big a car. I'm not kidding. I was driving a forked. And that's why your father is a heavy drinker. That's why, but no accidents, you know, no major violations.

Do you care to show us your scars? Is there any stitches? I always recovered control of the car. Just momentarily lost. Oh, reflex is like a cat. A little loss in a parking lot, a slide, a skid, hydroplaining. And now... Or even if you're at a stoplight and it's raining, I remember just routinely applying too

much gas and spinning out at the light, even fish tailing. That doesn't happen anymore. And now that doesn't happen. John, that's a great question. I really appreciate your working on. The reason I bring that up is to me it's a big feature. I'll almost compare it in 1966. The government mandated seatbelts, which still some people

today don't use for some reason. At the same time in 66, not only that the seatbelts were mandated, the padded dash at every new car it was built, and also four-way flasher and two-speed wipers. And the major part of that legislation was the seatbelts. And for some reason, there's still some people today that don't believe that seatbel save lives, and they don't use it. And at the time, they were trying to mandate also that you couldn't start,

move the car actually, until the seatbelt was hooked up. I remember. But that never really went through. No. But to me, this ESC is a major, compared bringing back to 1966, an item for safety. Exactly. And especially combined with the seatbelt and the padded dash and the two-way wipers, electric wipers. That was also mandated in 66.

So, by the way, the first 66 cars, you would never guess where the switch for the four-way flasher was. Anybody can't a guess? I can't remember. Floor board? In the glove compartment of all the places. I was guessing. Well, ESC, just remember when you're buying a used car, a 2012 or later, it's an important safety feature to look for. John, fantastic call.

That is very important. Very informative. We should have mentioned that before, but really appreciate the info. Started from our old buddy Ralph Nader. I look forward to the rest of the report. Thank you, John. Hey, remember when the high beams were triggered with a foot switch? Right.

Yeah, it was way over up high to the left. Our old buddy Ralph Nader, though, in 66, he was the man that got started about those seatbelts. Yeah, definitely. Seat belts came out of the business in 1968, and we hated seatbelts because they were, you know, they get in your way. They didn't retract. It restricted your movements. There was no control. So everybody would just take a seatbelts and stuff them back underneath where you couldn't find them.

So we would trade cars then or sell used cars and you'd think it had no seatbells. That's because people had crammed the seatbelts out. And then when they came out with airbags, I don't remember the date of that, but somebody can Google that. 80s sometime, right? When they came out with airbag. I want to say 84 or 85 was probably the first airbag. Yeah. The airbags were totally rejected by Cardinals.

we were aghast because it increased the price of the car like $500, maybe $1,000. And back in those days, $500,000 was a huge amount. And the manufacturers were really charging all the money for these airbags. And we said, we'll never be able to sell the cars. Airbags are a terrible thing. They're going to cause the economy to crash, and we fought it and fought it and fought it. And now where would we be? How many dead Americans would we have?

And how the culture has changed. I still remember about 15 years ago when side airbags came. amount and the front airbags were required. You had to have them, but the side airbags were an option. They're about 700 bucks. And most of the customers I encountered would rather save the 700 bucks instead of putting in the airbags. It's not the case anymore. Rick? 1973 Oldsmobile Toronado was the first car with a passenger airbag. Wow. Fantastic. Torano. A good looking car. Thanks for that, Rick. 877-960-9960 or you can text us at 7702.

24976530. We have an exciting show, and we want to thank you. We do have to take a moment, and thank you for listening to Earl Stewart on Cars. We so appreciate you, and we want to thank Jonathan and Michael in our control room for adding to the show. We're going to go to Howard, who is calling us. He's a regular caller. He's calling us from Jupiter. Good morning, Howard.

Good morning. I hope everything is good there, and it's a pleasure talking to you, And now I have Cy on the line, and he would like to know about the Camry that he just bought for Merle Stewart. He has a question for you. Go ahead, Cy. Hi. How are you? Doing great.

Great. Nice to hear from you, Cy. I recently bought a 2019 camera XLE in the end of December from you. I'm a little harder hearing, and the clicker, when you click it to open and close, the car. In the book that comes with the car, it says it's adjustable. But when I dropped off the car for my 5,000

mile service, they indicated that there was no adjustment possible to increase the level of the sound. And I'm just wondering if there is a way to increase the level of the sound on that clicker. That is a great question because Nancy

and I are both hearing impaired and some frequencies we can't hear at all. Nancy, actually, we're a good couple because she hears some stuff I can't hear, but it's a real issue with elders. Rick, what about that? Unfortunately, the sound level, the volume of it, cannot be adjusted. You can turn that beep on and off. That can be adjusted, but the actual sound level comes from just a Piazza buzzer,

and unfortunately, there is no volume. adjustment for it. There should be. And, Sy, that's a great question. I'm going to contact. In the book, but I've got to tell you, in the handbook, the manual, it says it's adjustable. I could probably find the reference,

but it did indicate that they're set on a default. There are a number of things that are set on default, and that that's one of the items that could be adjusted. And that's why I was pursuing it, but maybe I should just check the book again.

Okay, actually, I may be wrong. Jonathan has just sent me a quick message here that says the settings in the control panel. Si, on your, the center control panel on your car, do you know how to get to the vehicle settings screen on that? I am right by the car right now. Okay, well, in that settings screen, there is a volume adjustment for it. that beeper. Okay. Yeah, let me...

And there's a $50 bonus for Jonathan in the control room. Who found Rick in an error. He got me. Yep, he got me on that because the new cars are getting so fancy. It's hard to keep up. We never claimed that we knew all the answers, but one way the other... Somebody here has it. We will find them.

And you can't throw it. I'd be glad to try it. Howard, I'll tell you what. But we owe you a big one here because that is an important question. I was ready to get on the phone with Akio Toyota, the chairman of board of Toyota, because I was thinking to myself, I didn't want to say, I didn't want to embarrass people on the air. I said that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard is to have a sound volume control

that you can't adjust the volume on. And Toyota's a lot smarter than I give them credit for, and we're not quite as smart, and we should be. But that is a great question. Try to work your way through that software. It's not always easy. Nancy and I have tried many times to make adjustments on the panel and the software settings of the cars, the newer cars.

If you can't do it, Rick will walk you through it after the show. And we'd love to hear from you to see if you successfully. And when you do it, either don't do it or finally do do it, let us know if the sound adjusted on the highest volume is good enough so you can hear it. Yeah, definitely. Sure, no. Which screen do I go to, Rick, and I will try it, and maybe you can give me a call after. Can you quickly explain that to Howard? Yeah, you'll need to get to the settings screen, and the little, the icon for it is going to kind of look like a circle, like a gear wheel.

And if you go into that and just start exploring in that section, you'll be able to find it. Okay. And Rick, well, maybe you can give me a cool waiter, or is that doable? He will. And what I'm going to do, I'm going to go to my car when I get down and I leave the radio show, and I'm going to adjust mine, because the louder that sucker is when I'm trying to open or close. Sometimes I'll be away from the car, and I can't hear whether or not it locked if it made it or not. So, Jonathan, fantastic.

Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, and I will go to the meetings and work my way through it. And Rick, my number is 201. Don't give you a number on air, Si. Give it to... Oh, okay. Okay.

Yeah, give your number to Mike, our board operator, and he'll get it to me before we leaves the show, okay? Okay, that sounds great. Thanks so much. Thank you, Cy. Thanks, Howard. My cell number is 561-358-1474. You're not afraid to give your number up.

That's my personal cell phone number. You've chosen to become a public figure. Well, you know, the funny thing is, people think I get overwhelmed with calls. I really don't. Nancy says I get a lot of calls. Maybe I do, but I don't get 100 calls a day. I have a size number anyway. Oh, gosh.

Okay, it's a matter of opinion. 877960, 9960, or you can text us. It's 772-497-6530, and we're going to go to Frank, who also is a regular caller from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Frank. Good morning. Good morning. I heard you guys talking about the high beam button on the floor. Does anybody remember the other button to change the radio station on the old Hudson's back in the late 40s? Change the radio station? With the button on the floor? Or are you saying, are we playing? Where is that button? The Hudson, remember the Hudson car?

Yeah, you know, I'm not really at all. I've never driven a Hudson. I've seen them, and I can recognize one, if there's one left. But where was that, Frank? Say again? Where is that? Are you going to tell us where the button is, or are you looking for the button? Oh, the high beam buttons on the left of high.

The Hudson button was kind of in the middle. Ah. Well, that's interesting. Now, there's a bit of trivia. When I was a kid, he used to. You know, make magic and make the station chain. He told me that he's pushing the button on the floor. Yeah, and there's also a choke on the floor, wasn't there?

I just had a flashback. I don't know. Yeah, I think when you, the older cars had a choke, and I think you could actually choke the car from a floor button. It was like the high beam button. So we got, yeah, I guess there were a lot of floor buttons back in the day. A lot. Yeah, a whole lot.

You had to be careful what you stepped on when you got in the car. Exactly. A lot of cars had the starter button down there. Yeah. Yeah, there was a button down there. Maybe that's not thinking of the starter, but you could set the brake. You could also set the break, also on the old, old cars. There was a button down there, big black button.

Okay, well, we walked on Memory Lane. Well, thanks, Frank. You're a great caller. You got any other interesting bits of trivia for this morning? Well, now I have this, this is RAV-4, Frank calling. Okay. Now I have a lot of buttons. Yeah, I got too many buttons today.

Back of the day, you couldn't find them. But today we got so many buttons. If you're looking for a button, you can always find one. 50 years from now, we say, hey, remember on that RAP4? You had to go in these crazy settings to turn off that beep. You're right. Now you just tell it to turn it off. Exactly.

Voice recognition. 8-7. Frank? I have to go through a lot of settings on my RAP-4 to cancel a route that I put in. It keeps telling me, make a U-turn at the next-old. Is that drive you crazy? Do you say nasty things to the voice on your navigation when they tell you to do that over and over again? Your true personality comes out inside the confines of a cockpit of a car,

and you get this crazy stuff being told you on the navigation. I say terrible things to her. Frank, I'm putting together a recording, and I'm going to do a video, and we're going to get Earl on the video. when he gets in the car, and when the car just, well, Siri doesn't listen to him, then we're going to do another video on the GPS. We're going to go through that, and there'll be a whole lot of, well, this will be strictly for adults to listen to.

It's going to be very interesting. Frank, thanks for a great call. You are one of our regulars and one of our better callers. Really appreciate you calling. Yeah, we'll play that more on Sirius XM. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, remember your anonymous feedback, your anonymous feedback.com. There you can, just as it says, give us your opinion, tell us how you feel about the show, tell us anything that's on your mind, your anonymous feedback.com.

Give us a call, 877-960, 960. Don't forget, ladies, you can win yourself $50 this morning. First two lady callers. Now we're going to go to Mill, and I don't know whether he's a first-time caller or not. Good morning, Mel. Yeah, hey, good morning. I am a first-time caller, and good morning, everybody. Well, welcome.

All right. My question is, in certain dealerships that you go in, they have, and I know three of them here in this area in the South Florida area, where they offer lifetime warranty basically on a power train. And you can go to any United States, Canada, to get any type of service done on that warranty, unlimited miles and all this other stuff. Basically, I know there's got to be some catch to it, but I just thought I'd find it if you knew anything about that.

Mel, you hit on one of the biggest scams, prevalent, widespread scams there is. The power train warranty is free, and the reason it's free is because it's worthless. The power train, and Rick will jump in here and correct me if I'm wrong, but power train basically applies to the lubricated components of the car from the engine all the way to the rear axle and the, you know, they call it the drive train. You've got your drive shaft. if it's lubricated as part of the power train and the rules on the power train warranty free quote unquote is that you have to follow the lubrication rules which is the owner's manual recommendation and some power trains actually have a more frequent lubrication than is recommended by the manufacturer back in the day I sold I gave away free power train warnings in fact I have one today I'll tell you about in a minute but we used to give a valvaline free warrant

warranty on all the cars we sold. And the valve lien required that the oil be changed every 2,000 miles. And in first place, no one's going to go to the trouble of change the oil every 2,000 miles, but just in case something happened to the power train, they have an out so they don't have to honor the warranty. So power train warranties are a free lunch, and there's no such thing as a free lunch. I'll have to, in full transparency and disclosure, I have to tell you something. in my current dealership, we give away free warranty, free power train warranties. We do that because our competition has been advertising of the free warranties. And we did a survey one time to see how important to people that we sold cars to

was a free power train warranty. And we found out that it was at the top of the list of important things. So the perceived value, Mel, is very high. Sounds really good. Free warranty. They usually don't mention PowerTrain, and they usually don't mention the fact that you have to do the regular checkups and the fact that it costs them virtually nothing. If you buy a PowerTrain warranty from an outside source, they'll charge you something like, what's to do, 15, 20 bucks.

Oh, yeah. The cost the dealer is not. For a lifetime warranty, 15 or 20 bucks, most dealers don't even buy it because it doesn't cost them anything because there's no claims. But Mel, the free power train warranties are worthless. Do not buy a car or make a decision based on a free. Okay, so why does not all of them offer if it's worthless? What they also did, they put a list of things. This thing covers cylinder block and head in all internal parts, intake manifold,

timing, gears, gaskets, timing chain belt covered, flywheel, valve covers, oil pan, oil, oil engine mounts, turbocharged housing, and all internal parts, supercharging housing, and all internal parts. engine control, computer, water pump, fuel pump, seals, and gaskets. I mean, this thing has a list that's longer than I could read all this. You can imagine it covers. You can imagine. You know, new joints and axel bearings and seals and all these different things it covers.

If it's not, if it's worthless, why doesn't all dealers offer that? Well, all manufacturers generally have an extended warranty on the power train to answer your way. Well, yeah, they do, but that's limited. I mean, I bought a Toyota. I got an extended. It was seven years, 100,000. Usually it's 60,000 miles, you know, what, five years? Yeah, you've read on everything that's covered, and you're right,

it's an extensive list because there are a lot of parts in a car. And if you name every part in a car, you better start today because you won't be finished until next month because there are lots of parts. So they have itemized. It sounds good, doesn't Mel, got your attention. You're reading what it covers, part after part after part. What you didn't read is what it doesn't cover. And when you read what it...

Well, that's what I did. I walked into the dealership. I said, I need an exclusion. Nobody, everybody was kind of like a deer in the headlights there. They didn't know what I'm talking about. Well, I've got to have, I need to have an exclusion before. I want to know what I'm doing. And plus, I don't have to, if I buy it from that dealership,

I don't have to service it from that dealership. I can go to any Toyota dealer. I'm just talking about Toyota. I can go to any Toyota dealership in the United States and also Canada. Yeah, exactly. Well, things serviced, and it's through a company called Allstate. Exactly. You don't actually have to go to a toilet dealer.

All you have to do is provide proof of service at any service department. And the other thing you didn't read is what do you have to do to maintain the warranty? What services do you have to change? Oil changes are the key. Look at and see how often you have to change that oil, and you have to maintain a record and proof that you did change the oil. Rick has a point. There might also be something in that.

fine print about if you develop any sort of leaks that if those leaks are not taken care of immediately and those leaks cause the issue well that's not an internal failure in the engine that was caused by an external source exactly and they can deny you on that the point is I hate to say this but you're going to have to take my word for it I've been a car dealer for over 50 years and I have seen the power trains do not fail I know a little something about the insurance business, too. Insurance. And I know of no car that I've ever sold where a power train component failed when that

car was properly maintained in terms of oil changes. So the power train warnings are worth the paper they're printed on, and don't ever let them use a power train warrant. I mean, you know, I've heard of people had transmissions that go out, you know, especially if they're pulling boats and things like that. Well, if you pull a boat and it's not according to the specifications of the manufacturer, then it avoids your warranty. They got it covered.

They really do. And they know that it doesn't cost them anything, and that's the reason they give it away. A car dealer is not going to give you something that is of great value. Tiny loss ratio. Very small loss ratio. The loss ratio is virtually nothing, and that's the way they look at it. And you ask, here's a good question to ask a car dealer that's selling that. Tell me one claim that you've paid on one of your power train warranties.

How long you've been selling them and have you ever paid a claim? And if the answer is yes, ask who it was and what it was for. They will not be able to show you one claim they've ever paid. We're self-insured on the one that we give away because we're not worried about ever having any claims. No claim, yeah. That's the reason we give them away is because if someone wants them and they insist on it. They feel good about it. We give them a power train warranty.

anybody out there want a power train warranted come see me i'll give you one off the street that's a good point stu we got to inspect well great question this is what what dealer are you in now up where i have a toilet dealership at north bond beach earl stewart toyota come on and i'll give you a free power train warranty we got to expect the car first yeah yeah exactly in fact if you're buying a used car if you or you have a car you want to buy one they're going to go over that car with a fine tooth comb on a new car, you know, all they do is say you have to maintain it according to the manufacturers or maybe even tighter requirements.

Right. I mean, water pumps, they say, are covered. You know, I mean, that's going to go. Eventually, you know, you're going to have leaks in the weep holes and it's going to go. Well, remember what Rick said about leaks. Read the entire warranty, Mel. Read the entire warranty. You will find things in there that you'll finally It might take you an hour and a half, and you better get your magnifying glass out.

Yeah, you have good vision. Is the water pump, isn't that a maintenance item eventually has to be replaced, the timing, belt, or chain? Depends upon the vehicle. Some are, some are not. But again, is that a common thing? Water pumps anymore, it's pretty rare that we have issues with them. But, again, they're going to find ways to put some little exclusion in there,

some little wording that is going to knock it out. And even if they do have to pay out on one out of every 10,000 of those policies, they're still making out. Well, listen, we've covered this thoroughly, and you have informed a lot of people because it's a great question. And as I say, everybody should know what's going on. Absolutely. And please call again.

Thanks for being a first-time caller. Okay, thank you. Please call again. Power train warranty, worthless. Ladies and gentlemen, 877-960, or you can text us, 772-497-6-5-30. Ladies, just in case you just tuned in, I have $50 here for the first two new lady callers. Now, I'd like you to get your calendars out, your planners, mark this date. Take out a pen.

It's really important. Yes, pen, pencil. Okay, we have a huge event coming up on April. the 25th. So Earl and I would like to invite you to a free seminar on how not to get ripped off by a car dealer. Seniors versus crime from the Florida Attorney General. Yeah, folks, the Attorney General's office has partnered up with us to put on this special event. You don't want to miss it. It's going to be a whole lot of fun. Please join us on Thursday, April the 25th at 2 o'clock at 600 Brandywine Road in West Palm Beach.

The United Methodist Church is providing us with this gathering place. Very kind of them. That's right off of I-95, Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard, and we'll get you the exit number. Yeah. The next time we talk about this, Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard, we're very close to I-95, so very convenient. And all the seniors versus crime members and all the people, people that follow the senior versus crime will be attending.

But it's free to the public. Anybody can join us. You're not going to want to miss it. It is the first 500 attendees will get your book. They will have confessions of a recovering car dealer, free of charge. By the way, if you didn't catch what I said earlier, free. This event is free to the public. So it's going to be big.

It's actually 900, Brandy Wine Road, not 600. My bad. Don't go to 600. 9-100. Oh, thanks, Stu. Brandy Wine Road. Okay, sounds good. And that's April the 25th, the 2 o'clock, 900 Brandy Wine Road in West Palm Beach.

Rick Carney will be with us, Nancy Stewart, and I will be there. And it's Stu's birthday, so he won't be there. I told you where I'm going to be. April 25th. Chuckie Cheese. And you get off on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard. It's really simple. We'll give you better directions on the next announcement, but please show up.

And if you're not interested in going, tell your parents or your neighbors, you're grandparents, because this is perfect for seniors, and that's the whole point of the... Okay, now, if they want to reserve seats, because the book goes for the first 500 folks that show up, free book, Confessions of Recovery, Guard Dealer, they contact us by... You can email us at Sandra V. That's S-A-N-D-R-A-V at E-S-T-T-O-O-O-O-R-E-S-T-O-E-S-T-E-E-S-E-E-E-S-E-E-E-E-S-1-4-6-1. and just give us your name and we'll make sure you get that book. We'll save you a seat. First 500 seats, first 500 people get a free book.

Okay, that sounds good. Hey, Stu, would you repeat that reservation thing again? Uh-huh, you can just email Sandy. That's at SandraV at E-S-Toyota.com. That's S-A-N-D-R-A-V at E-S-T-Toyota.com. Or call us, 561-844-34-6-1. There you go, folks. We have plenty of time.

to make those reservations and like I said it's going to be you know a great event and are we impressed that the the attorney general has partnered up with us for this event so like I said make a note on your calendars 877960 or you can text us at 772-49730 now back to the recovering car dealer we got some items of a business we need to take care of um A lot of you folks out there might subscribe to USA Today, and I'm just hold up the front page a couple days ago. Buyer Beware, through model legislation, used cars can run deadly risk. Headlines, USA Today, Buyer Beware, about selling of used cars. Now it says used car dealers, it's new car dealers, they also sell used cars, so all car dealers sell used cars.

And I congratulate the USA today for finally picking up on something that is very, very dangerous. If you haven't gotten this article, we'll talk about it later, but it is telling you why there is a conspiracy among car dealers to stop the law from being passed to make it illegal to sell cars with dangerous recalls. That's what the dealers are doing. They're conspiring with their legislators to pass laws to make it. make it okay to sell a car with a dangerous recall. USA Today headlines. I think we have a caller. We do.

We have a caller Henry from Jupiter. Good morning, Henry. Good morning. How are you? I have a question. It's a little out of the ordinary, but years ago, if somebody was to come in and trade a vehicle at your dealership, they would trade it at, let's say, a $10,000 trade in, buying a $20,000 car.

they would pay the tax on the difference is that right that's correct that's still still that way today we have a variety of dealers that are that are jockeying to buy your car outside of the trip outside of the purchase so they just say we buy any car I think you even have a sign up that says we buy used cars is that right that's correct okay so I come over to you and I train in a Toyota because or excuse me I sell you a Toyota because you're probably going to give me a few more dollars for that Toyota because you're in that business. And then I go across the street to Chevrolet,

and I buy a $30,000 Chevrolet with a $10,000 sale on my Toyota. So that's a $20,000 difference. But the state of Florida is going to ask me to pay tax on the full $30,000 at the Chevy dealership, isn't that right? That is correct. Is there any way that I could connect those two transactions to where I'd only pay money? on the $20,000 difference.

Not really. You're looking at a $600 problem on a $10,000 car, 6% for the sales tax of $10,000 trade in. You're losing that deduction of $600. And it's a very good point. I'm really glad you brought that out because there are a lot of folks out there advertising that we want to buy your car.

And I want to comment on that in a minute. So what you should do is when you're shopping and comparing your car, and this show is always advocated getting three bids on your trade in. Never trade your car in to the dealer you're buying it from without getting competitive bids from at least two other sources, preferably the same make, as you mentioned earlier. The same make will give you a little bit more,

a Toyota dealer give you a little bit more for a Toyota, a Honda deal will give you a little bit more for a Honda. But you have to be aware of what you're losing, which is, as you said, the sales tax deduction on the value of your car. $10,000, you're losing $600. So if you get a third-party dealer that'll give you $600 more for your car than the trade-in dealer, it's a wash

because you're going to lose that $600 trade-in deduction. But that's a great point, Henry, and I'm glad you brought it out. The point I want to make about these folks advertising to buy your car, these folks that are advertising to buy your car are taking the car that they buy from people that respond to the advertisement,

out to the auto auction, and they are selling it to other dealers. And they're making money. And they're making a lot of money. So these folks that are saying they'll give you more money for your car, they're going to give you less money for your car. If you do your homework, if you listen to Erlon cars, cars, and you get three prices on that car. If you get three competitive bids on your trade end,

you will always get more for your car than you will if you sell it to the guy out there on TV advertising. We buy cars for more. They don't buy cars for more. They buy cars for less. Stay away from those guys. Or you can use them as a source. Get a bid on the car.

See what it is. And then you'll appreciate how much your car is really worth when you take it to the used car manager at a dealership of the same make car that you're getting a bid on. Well, it also seems to me that the state is partly to blame as well because the VIN number is traceable. That car that is registered in my name suddenly becomes registered next week

in someone else's name because I traded it with you and you've resold it. The state has gotten paid if it's through you my trade and my purchase is through you. They're only getting the additional revenue on the increased value of the new car.

If I was to sell my car to Chevrolet and then buy a car from you, then the state's getting taxed twice and the state is as guilty as the East Cars dealers are. Well, if you You can flim-flam that, not having to pay the sales tax, but it's not worth it. You're cheating the state, and the state will, as you say, they will catch you if you...

No, no, I don't think you understood my point. If I trade through you, somehow the transaction is blessed by the state, and I only pay tax on the difference. Right. If I sell it to an individual or to another dealer, and then that person registers the car. Now, this is a car that taxes have been paid. Now it's re-registered and taxes paid again. Well, the dealer doesn't pay taxes on cars. It's the retail buyer.

So if you sell a car to these folks that are advertising, we buy your car. They're registered dealers. They have a license to buy and sell cars in Florida. So when we buy and sell cars as registered dealers, we don't pay sales tax. When we retail the car, that's from the sales tax. So if you sell a car to a dealer, he takes that car. and sell it to the customer, the retail buyer. The retail buyer has to pay that 6%, not the dealer.

Oh, no, absolutely, absolutely. But what I'm saying is that the state is aware that my car is registered in my name today. Tomorrow it's registered in a different individual, so taxes is either paid at full price twice or if it's through a dealer, then the only the difference is paid. So the state likes it when I sell my car to an individual, and then come and buys the car from you. Well, if you sell the car to an individual who is a retail buyer,

then the sales tax must be paid then by the purchaser. Sometimes people will phony it up and they will not. Well, yeah, yeah. I know about that part. You get in trouble. Okay, well, listen, you've answered the question. That's a good. Henry, call again.

That was a really good question. That was a valuable question because it was advertising or rampant around here and you let us make a good point. with our listeners. Please call again. Thanks. Bye-bye. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-49-30.

And another reminder to you, ladies. We've got another hour's show left. And first two new lady callers can win yourself $50. So give us a call. This USA Day article I was talking when Henry called just then, a buyer beware through model legislation. Use cars can run a deadly risk. What this is all about is the states have legislated,

the car dealers have lobbied in the legislatures to get a rule that says car dealers must disclose when they have a dangerous recall when they sell a car. Now that sounds pretty good, doesn't it? They should disclose, right? What is a disclosure? A disclosure is something that's buried in the fine print. A lot of talk about that now on TV, radio, online.

Facebook, how many times do you sign something online that says, I agree? And there's reams and reams of disclosure that you never read. People don't read disclosure. When you buy a car, when you buy a house, that's the reason lawyers exist. And I think they're the ones, they're the judges and the lawyers, they're the ones that have gotten this legislation through that says, as long as you put something in fine print, it's okay to do. So, the used car dealers, and they're not used car dealers, they're all car dealers, new car dealers sell used cars.

Any dealer selling a used car is trying to get it so that the legislation doesn't do the right thing. They do not want to see it illegal to sell a car with a dangerous recall. You tell me, I dare any car dealer. I dare anybody with the Florida Automobile Dealers Association. I dare anybody in the retail automobile business to look me in the eye or look you in the eye and say it should not be illegal to sell a car with a dangerous recall. I dare you. You won't do it. You haven't got the courage.

Double dog dare you. Double dog dare you. And if that's the case, why aren't you supporting legislation? The reason you want this disclosure is to take the heat off your back. you car dealers take the heat off your back and then you say hey well we're disclosing it you're not disclosing it you're burying it in the fine print so somebody pick up the ball here USA today they're a credible source right yes how about the new york times how about the Chicago tribune how about CBS news TV online what about the rest of the media take a look at

this this is what's going on they are trying to cover up the fact that our federal and state legislatures have been remiss and making a law to make it illegal to sell a car with a dangerous recall. What the hell is going on? How can they get away with this? I don't know. It's terrible. I know we've got some politicians out there.

We got Ashley Moody, our attorney general, and we have our governor. We have a lot of folks, state senators, representatives. these. Why don't you, why don't you sponsor a bill to make it illegal to sell a car with a dangerous recall? I'll tell you why, because you've got the Automobile Dealers Association, the Florida Automobile Dealers Association, and you've got the National Automobile Dealers Association, and you have all these car dealers that got lots of money that get you elected. And you know that if you try to sponsor a bill, they'll come after you, and you won't get elected. And that's all I've got to say about that. Very passionate. 877-960. I say that to cool me down. 877-960.

Throw some water on him. Thank you very much. Or Texas is 772-497-6530. I did this just makes it. My hair's on fire that you can make a statement, it's okay to sell these. these recalled cars as long as you tell the customer. Not okay. You don't tell them.

Nobody tells them. Here's disclosure. You want to hear disclosure on a car with a dangerous recall? Here's disclosure. Customer walks in, Sally, and I'm Billy, and I'm the salesman. And Sally wants to buy this car over here on the used car lot. This car has a defective Takata airbag on the driver's side and the passenger side, and there's no fix available.

The inflator is not available. No fix. It might blow up in your face. Here's Billy. Here's Billy disclosing to Sally. Sally, you shouldn't buy this car because it has a dangerous Ticada airbag and we can't fix it for you. And we don't know when we can fix it for you.

And if you're in an accident or even if you're not an accident, that Ticada airbag can explode in your face selling steel shrapnel. It could kill you, blind you, maim you, or all the above. Sally, you shouldn't buy that car. Now, that's disclosure. That's pretty good. Their disclosure is it's somewhere in the fine print.

Sign here, and that's disclosure, and they don't do that. Unbelievable. We have a color. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call with your thoughts. How do you feel about what Earl just shared with you? Hey, 77-960, as you can hear right here in the studio, we feel pretty passionate about the Takata Airbag. And you can text us at 772-4976530.

You can use that text to rate that mystery shopping report that's coming up. And we're going to go to Jenny, who's holding from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Jenny. Good morning. How are you? Good morning. We're great. Jen.

Excellent. Good to hear. We can hear you. We hear you a loud and clear. Can you hear us? I sure can. I can hear you. Oh, great.

I had a question about when the little sensor comes on, something that's wrong with your car, and then you go to get it checked, and then they tell you what it needs to be done, but then the light never comes on again. Do you really need to get that fixed? You know what I mean? Well, Jenny, you hit on one of the most commonly asked questions,

and it is one of the biggest, in my opinion, lack of concern and understanding by manufacturers. That's a check engine light you're probably referring to. And Rick has probably answered questions a thousand times on this if you had customers and everybody else. The check engine light is coded. And when the check engine light comes on, there's probably one of about a thousand things,

or at least several hundred things, because you'll go wrong. About half the time that check engine light comes on because your gas cap is, loose you didn't tighten it all the way probably about 75% of the time 75% so the first thing it's a good question because everybody has got a big question mark over their head about that if your check engine light comes on the first thing you do is you go up to your car you open the gas thing you check your cap be sure it's tight and start the car again and see if the light goes off let me ask

your question do you have to reset the light or they can actually what what will happen is if you're say you had just a momentary brain stumble and you left the cap loose or left it off and you realized it when that light came on you tighten that cap up and swing in at a local parts store auto zone something like that and just ask them to clear the code they have little code pullers they'll come out they'll plug it in and they'll clear that code for free the alternate way is the light will stay on until it sees 40 cycles of the ignition, 40 times that the car has started it up and run, that that same problem did not occur.

So it may take a couple of weeks, but yeah, if the car's running normally and you think it was just a gas cap or something simple like that, wait and see if after a week or two the light goes off, then don't worry about it because whatever problem the computer was seeing has gone away. It may have just been a glitch in a sensor. Yeah, Jenny, you can also go to one of these. What was your favorite store to go to, the independent that will do the test for you at no charge?

AutoZone is great. Discount auto parts. AutoZone, discount auto parts. Those are two. You used to be able to find one of them. And they will, for no charge, they will check your car, tell you what the code is. And as Rick says, about 75% of the time,

it is your gas cap. You tighten the gas cap, and they will clear the code for you, and you'll be good to go. If it was something else, they'll tell you what it is, and then you can take it to your dealer and they can fix it. Aren't future models supposed to come out with something a little bit more descriptive, like the future check engine lights will be replaced with specific issues? Actually, what's happening right now, this is getting, again, this is kind of big brotherish, but the cars are actually being designed to where when your check engine light comes on, it will automatically send a signal to the nearest dealership for your car that dealership will get that information from the computer and say oh it's a gas cap it's a loose gas cap that's all it is we know that and they can call you up contact you and say hey jenny we we noticed we got a signal that your check engine light came on and we see that the code means that your gas cap is loose most likely why don't you go ahead and check that cap and tighten it up and we're going to tell your

car to shut that light off and take care of it right now and that'll solve your problem you never even have to go into it anywhere well Jenny thanks for the call and I think we answered your question and then some and just don't worry about it to ruin your vacation you could be on the

turnpike and you're on the way with the family and it's Sunday and that check engine light comes on and you're terrified because theoretically there could be something serious but the odds are very slim that it is and if there's no other physical sound or rattles or smoke or any other kind

of a symptom. The other gauges. Relax. It's hard to relax. That's the reason the manufacturers are stupid to do that. It's a question. If it's yellow, don't sweat it, if it's red, stop the car. Right. Yeah, exactly. Folks,

give us a call toll free at 877-960-9960 or you can text us at 772-497-6530 and don't forget we do have the Mystery Shopping Report from Edmores Delray Toyota. That's part of the Costco Auto Program. And I want to give a shout out.

Our listeners have so many different ways, so many options to listen to our show or even view our live podcast. And I want to give a shout out to Lou, who's sitting in his car right now. He's pulled over on the side of the road, and he's listening to our show, and he loves it. Fantastic. We've got a bunch of text here. They're backing up. I didn't realize. It started in a pile of it.

Yeah. I'll try to get through them pretty quickly. First one, this is from Dell 197902. Okay. I have a question I'm hoping you can help with. I want to know how does tax get calculated on a new car? Let's say I have an offer at $26,000 for a car and I have a $7,000 down payment. Do I get charged tax on $26,000 or after the $7,000 payment is deducted, making the loan $19,000 and $7,000 tax?

is 20,330, and I can address that. The answer is you pay tax on the full purchase price. Your down payment is between you and the lender. You still have to pay tax on the full amount. So the $7,000 down just reduces the amount that you're borrowing. If it were a trade-in, then you would get an exemption, but not for a cash-down payment. That is correct. Okay, we had another one here.

In 2001, I was new to Florida. I learned to the dealer fee. Then I went to New York for a family visit. I went to a Chevy dealer in New York and bought an Astrovan. They laughed at the dealer fee. The only drawback I had to pay tax in Florida in cash. So, yes, I guess Florida is pretty notorious for having extremely high dealer fees. Now, we're the Wild Wild West of dealer fees.

There's no limit to the dealer fee you can charge in Florida, and there's no rule what you call the dealer fee. You can call your dealer fee bagels. That's right. You can call your dealer fee Rick Kearney. You could call your deal fee. Cream cheese. Oh, pick on Rick.

We're the Wild Wild West. You're paying a dealer fee if you're in Florida. And there's a direct correlation to latitude. So the farther south you get, the higher the dealer fee. So just remember that. Okay, the next one. This is from Anne-Marie, our regular listener and Texter. Good morning.

The top-of-the-line vehicles have all the bells and whistles safety features. Not everyone can afford the top-of-the-line vehicles. What safety features come on the basic models nowadays? I can say that these basic safety features are becoming more and more common and included in the standard equipment of vehicles of all manufacturers. Now, there's still some cutting edge stuff that you'll see on higher ends that will be introduced as a luxury feature, and then eventually it becomes part of the run-of-the-mill cars or just the average. Yeah, they put them on the high buck cars. We talked about the Turinato many years ago was the first vehicle to have airbags, but pretty soon they all had them.

And the same thing with luxury cars today. If you see it on a luxury car, in a couple of years, it will be on the medium and low-priced cars. That's right. We have another text here, anonymous texter. It says, I've been looking at Toyota forerunners. I found a couple on CarMax website, and I noticed a couple of them had unresolved airbag recalls. Should I be concerned? You sure should be concerned.

They can kill you, and I would never buy a car with unresolved airbag recall. If the car has an available fix, then just be sure. to the dealer before you get it and drive it. You let the salesman drive it to the dealer in back and then when it's fixed, you can drive the car. Don't put your family in a car with a dangerous recall. Don't put your baby, your wife, your husband. Don't put anybody in the car.

You know, this passenger side versus driver's side is an interesting issue too because you might have a driver's side airbag fixed and the passenger side unfixed. When that hand grenade goes off, two feet to your right, it's going to get you too. So passenger's messenger, if it's in the front seat somewhere and it explodes, you're in danger. Yeah, we see a lot when we do these mystery shopping reports. We see a lot of cars that can be fixed. They're sitting there at the seller's lot and they just don't do it. Even if you don't buy the car, if you demand that they fix it before you buy the car,

maybe they'll get the word and start fixing these things before they put them up for sale. All right, we've got another one here. This is from Joe on Boynton. because my 2019 Toyota CHR, the steering wheel locked up and the key would not turn on the other day and we called Toyota and they said it was a theft feature and told us how to unlock it. What did we do to make the car trigger this feature?

Joe from Boynton. Well, I can answer that, Rick. You just jiggle the steering wheel. And sometimes it'll happen when you pull up against the curb and when you pull up against the curve it locks the steering wheel to one side, coxswain, and then you have to struggle. So you might have to get somebody with a little muscle to wiggle it for you.

But again, it's a defect. It shouldn't be that way. That's true. The cars that do that, they should fix that. It's just not right. And if you go to YouTube slash Earl on Cars, you can see a video that Rick put together, Jonathan, on how to unlock that steering wheel. Rick is a moose. He can unlock any steering wheel.

If you can't do unlock your steering, well, you come see Rick. I can unlock them without the key. Exactly. Crunch. Okay. All right. So we have another one here. It was from Karen, I'm sorry, Karen's teched this a few times.

She says, I want to buy a used mid-sized car, no older than a 2016 model year. What cars should I steer clear of? I'd like to jump on this one, too, because I've already pulled up. Consumer Reports worst used cars. Karen, all you've got to do, just Google Consumer Reports, worst-use cars. So at a glance, I'm not going to read you the whole list here, but basically they're saying stay away from a lot of Acreve Models. They have a whole list of cars you do not want to buy.

So just check that up. If you do nothing else, at least find out the ones you don't want to buy. You can argue about the recommended list. But when they say, don't buy this used guard, hey, you're asking for trouble. That's right. Okay, so we have a question from Mark Pike. Sorry, I used the last name on Facebook. It could be a pseudonym.

I have a 2018 Tacoma and was wondering why you can't delete a preset radio station. I can't find anything in the owner's manual about it. And this is right up a Rick's alley. How do you delete a preset radio station on a 2018 Tacoma? Actually, all you need to do is set the radio to the station that you want to listen to and touch that preset button and hold it until it beeps and it will switch it to that new station. But will the old station be deleted. It will change that preset setting to be from, say, if it's originally on 107-9 and you want

1031. You simply turn to 103.1, press and hold that button, and it will set it over to 103.1. Now, you can't actually clear it out to where there is no station listed. For some reason, they just decided not to have that as an available feature, but you can simply change it to a different station that you want. That's one of the easier features on the newer cars. Okay. And then we have one. This came in on Your Anonymous Feedback. And it says, I went to Napleton Dodge in Kissimmee, Florida, and several years ago and had a really horrible experience and we'll never go back. We are going to do car shopping for Ford when the 2020s come out and would like to know what dealership we can where we can trust, somewhat trust. Can you have a mystery shopping done at Palm Bay Ford and other dealerships in the Orlando area for us Central Florida residents?

Thanks, love the show. I have, first of I owe that texture an apology. I saw that anonymous feedback, and I think he rescinded it. Thank you. I don't think I responded. Maybe I did. But anyway, I'm going to give you a tentative recommendation of Bolinex Ford in Apopka. Apopka is about 12 miles from Orlando.

And Jerry Mullinex is the owner of that dealership. and he is in that dealership in Apopka. And no dealer fees at that store? They don't charge dealer fees at that store, I don't believe. And we have something else to talk about with the Malnakes Ford that we'll address later in the show. There was an issue with the North Palm Beach store, the Ford store on North Lake Boulevard, whether they charge dealer fees or don't charge dealer fees. But the mantra of the Malnix Ford stores has always been no dealer fees.

and I've spoken to the two dealers. I talked to Larry, and he's in Nisemirna, and Jerry is in Apopka, and neither one of those charged dealer fees, they tell me. But try that one, and if they do charge a dealer fee, if the Apopka Mullinix Ford store, please let us know. Yeah, let us know. Last time we went up there, Agent X went up there,

and there was no dealer fee, we scoured the buyer's order. It was pretty legit. Fantastic. Overall, most of the Mulek stores, even when considering their small dealer fee, they do a pretty good job taking care of the customer. Okay, the last one, this was somebody who actually had an earlier question about their 1994 Lexus Door. Anyway, they want to know, I'm at work now. They want to hear the answer, will there be a podcast of this broadcast, or can I find the answer on your Facebook page? The answer is yes.

After the show, just give it a couple hours. If you go to earlongcars.com, you can find the link to all of our shows. All the podcasts are listed up there. So earlongcars.com, and you can hear every show that we have broadcast at least in the last few years. Fantastic, yeah. And we're out there, you know, we're out there for a lot of reasons. We're out there for you. We're also out there for the other car dealers that don't like us.

And we'll be talking about one of those car dealers a little later in the show who has sent us a letter. I'll tell you who it is. It's off-lease-only.com. They sent a letter to us threatening to sue us because of a YouTube video that we did on the mystery shopping report on off-lease-only.com. So we want all you car dealers out there to know if you want to sue us, we have got perfect evidence for you because it's in podcast, it's on YouTube videos. We don't destroy anything. We don't shred the show after we talk. It's there for posterity.

So attention cardinals, if you want to sue us, go to the podcast, or go to the YouTube videos, and we're there. Do we have any more? We are all caught up. Do we have some? Got three over here from YouTube. The first one, this is a little confusing to me, but ETS 42681 says he saw an ad for a Kia on the computer for a new model. He had a price, and it stated after transportation cost. what is the deal?

And he says, is this ADM? I don't know what the ADM part is. Additional dealer markup. Ah, okay. Yes. Well, this is a serious offense. When car dealers charge you for the delivery of the vehicle from the manufacturer to them, that's a violation of a federal law.

And they get away with dealer fees, and there's a lot of reasons for that. But with the freight, they call it. The freight, and we talked to John from Palm City last week. destination destination charge they call a destination charge when the manufacturer ships a car to a dealer there's now a standardized destination charge if the car is built in Detroit or built in Kentucky or built in California all the dealers pay the same freight and it's a standardized freight this is included in the cost to the dealer it's on the dealer invoice it's on the manufacturer's suggested retail price it's absorbed by the dealer and he paid that manufacturer's for that. For him to turn around and charge you again is double dipping. It's a violation of federal law. Okay. And the next one we have is from Anzac 87 asking about the new Rav4. What is the Toyota Safety Sense? That's out of my field of expertise.

Toyota Safety Sense is the brand name for a suite of safety features that are standard on all the new Toyotas now. And it includes the things we talked about, vehicle stability control, the analog brake system, the advanced airbags. And there are some things that aren't part of it. Like, I think blind spot monitors are not part of it. But there's a... They work in conjunction with it as well, though. Yeah, everything works together. But there is a, like we mentioned before, it used to be optional for some of these safety features. And the manufacturers are beginning to realize that this is what consumers want. And they're becoming part of the standard equipment.

The TSS or Toyota Safety Sense represents about 9, 10, 11 features that work in conjunction to keep the car safe. A lot of active safety features, well. Yep. Okay. And the last one I have, I think this person might have accidentally got their text in the wrong box, but I'll read it out here from Mark. It simply says, Casey was great, not pushy, said she does the same thing while waiting for her dentist, good employee. I'm wondering, do we have a Casey in sales anywhere, or?

We have a Brian Casey. K-A-C-E-Y, but I just figured I'd throw that out. So Casey, wherever you are, wherever you work, Mark was very happy with your service. Okay, let's get down to, let's get the numbers and text numbers. I think that's a great idea. Give us a call toll-free at 877-960, or you can text us at 772. 4976530, and remember the mystery shopping report is coming up from Ed Morse Del Rey, Costco Auto Program. And also, you might want to pick up the, well, I think that Wall Street Journal,

the quote from Adrian Roberts, a telephone call that you got on the box. Was that just this past week? Yeah, Adrian Roberts, a reporter out of Detroit for the Wall Street Journal, did an article on the fact that the profit margins in new car sales and used car sales is diminishing. The net profit per car sold is diminishing for a lot of reasons. And so the car dealers are trying to make up for that profit, and the way they make up for it is in the finance office. And she called me, I was interviewed and quoted in the Wall Street Journal,

is saying that this is something you need to be very wary of because car dealers are making more money on the financing of the car, selling of after-sale products in the F&I office and sometimes referred to as the box. They'll make $2,000 in the box and they'll make $1,000 when they sell you the car. They're making about twice as much. So once you buy the car, it's not over, folks. You've got to get your guard up. Beware, you're going into the finance office.

And you're quoted in that article, aren't you? I am quoted. I was very honored. One of the few reasons that I get quoted more often is I'm the only card you will answer the phone. Yeah, they got a question for car dealers. You try to get a car dealer to answer the phone from a reporter. And they have a rule where they don't allow their employees to answer the phone. So there's no way you're going to get Chuck Schumacher on the phone.

No. And the manufacturers don't want their dealers talking to the press, usually on things like that. Exactly. Adrian Roberts, thank you. And like Earl said, you just can't get in touch with these owners of these car dealerships. And Earl, 24-7, get in touch with him. Charles is giving us a call this morning. Good morning, Charles.

Hey, how are you? Great. How are you doing today? I'm good, I'm good. Hey, can you take some criticism without getting angry? Absolutely. I promise. Don't get me too mad, though, because I'll come and find it.

Okay. I'm going to make this short, sweet, and I'm right on the money. Don't give both phone numbers out at the same time. there are a lot of people out here like me that are very old we're driving we don't have pencils and we're not going to get either number when you do that you're going to lose a lot of callers that's a good point yeah i like that it is a good point it's a good point constructive criticism thank you the reason i called i want to get funny but it's serious people would rather go to the dentist than go to an automotive dealership that's right

He's laughing. He's in studio laughing. That's true. That's true. Very true. Hey, wait a minute. Tell me I'm wrong. You ain't wrong.

You ain't wrong. You ain't wrong. And the Gallup Bowl proves that every year. Now, wait a minute. I'm going to say something else. You're not going to like this one. I'm not going to like this one at all. Okay.

The Attorney General should look into the goings-on that takes place, not everybody, but some service departments. Sure. Absolutely. Tell me, I'm wrong. Absolutely. you're absolutely right the attorney general i had it happened to me about three months ago but i'm in a position where i i didn't care if i could beat um and it was my own fault to doing business with the service department in the first place and i researched into independent

private mechanics and i elected to go with the service department and that was my mistake and uh and they beat me and there's nothing you can really do what are you going to do well charles one thing you could do is talk about it on the air. Yeah, let your voice be heard. If you want to tell us who the dealer wasn't, what happened. Here's an interesting thing. Let's talk about it on the end. I'll tell you what happens to me about it, but I won't name the dealership.

Oh, if you want to. If somebody goes into a dealership and they're going to have service work done on their automobile, based on my experience, every single part, every single part number should be on that dealership, on that invoice. Sure. And the cost of every pot should be there, and the labor should be there. Not just a general statement like I was victim of. And I think that general statement was deliberate.

You know, I don't, I haven't bought a new automobile since my Volvo S-60. I bought for my wife a few years ago. I bought a brand new Volvo for my wife, S-60 some years ago. This is 10 years ago. Had the thing two days, it got hit in our driveway, and moved halfway across our lawn. We didn't even know it because it happened in the middle of the morning. morning by a drunk driver and I brought it back to the dealership on a car carrier and I left there with another car and they were so pleasant and so nice to me

they had a car I almost bought before this one because I didn't want my wife to get to go a few days without a car and the tradeout was good because they got the the the auto body work but I went into a dealership and I asked for the it was due for the timing belt the time he built in this particular car was due to at 55,000 miles. I brought it in at 90. In fact, it's interesting because of Volvo, that belt was due, I think, around 60.

And I didn't change that until around the same. Maybe 100,000 miles, I changed that. But my wife doesn't have to accelerate, and I had sports cars if I want to do that. But the long and the short of it was, I had estimates, 700, 600, 850, and this was everything. This was both belts, the tensioners, the pulleys, the water pump.

Because, you know, once it's all apart, you might as well do it all. Yeah, you're trapped. And you can buy them as kits. Exactly. Although I gave them $900 and change. Now, if you think I'm making this up, if your studio isn't in Nebraska, I'll bring you my invoice. All they put in this car. You can email it to us.

It was two belts. They didn't replace the water pump, the tension is, the actuator, whatever they call it the thing, nothing. And their excuse was none of it needed to be replaced. The water pump wasn't leaking and this wasn't leaking. So they still charged me more than the estimate and didn't give me the product. Charles, how much over the estimate? Charles, how much over the estimate was the charge? Yeah, they gave you an estimate.

$100 and change. Okay, there's a state law says you cannot change more than 10% over the amount of the written estimate. So was that more than... Right. I never left with a written estimate. Ah, okay. That's the point I'm making, and that's the reason I'm making my call. Yeah.

I'm blaming myself for all of this. It is my fault. Right. And I should know better because I've been doing business with dealerships my whole life. I've seen all the changes. Your call is much appreciated because you're sending a message to 20. thousand people out there listening to you and you learn a lesson. Charles

had to pay the price, but you can learn a lesson from Charles so you don't have to pay a price. When you go into a cardio ship, you write ask for a written estimate. That estimate is written on the repair order and they cannot exceed that by more than 10% by Florida law. That will

protect you. And don't ever ever just get a verbal estimate and go home and wait for them to call you because they'll do to you what they did at Charles. Same on me. Thank you very much. A great call, Charles. Thank you, Charles. Have a great day.

Remember that written estimate whenever you go into the service department, please. 877-960-99-60. Worth this weight in gold. And we're not going to give out the other number because Charles says you only want to give one number out of time. The number is 877-960. Do we have a text, too? Yeah, just a quick question.

I said earlier on the show that if your check engine light is yellow, don't worry about it. Steve on Facebook says if the check engine light flashes, it's usually time to stop the car. And I want to make sure that I didn't give out bad information. Is that correct, Rick? If the check engine light is flashing, should you stop the car? Yes. That indicates a misfire. And that means you're actually creating a situation where you could potentially damage the engine or the catalytic converter, which can be quite expensive.

Very good. Thanks, Steve. We're running close to time here. We've got a great mystery shopping report, and I do want to cover a couple things quickly. The Mullinx Ford issue, we're keeping the Mullinx Ford on North Lake Boulevard on the recommended list. I've had additional conversations with Larry Mullinix. We still haven't, I don't know what the word, has reached a total understanding. And the way I left it with Larry Mullinx and with Scott, and I apologize, his last name escapes me.

Nicholas. Scott Nicholas at Mullinix Ford, North Lake Boulevard. I've had a conversation with him, too. The way it is left with the Malnix and with Scott Nicholas, who is a part owner and the general manager, I believe, is that if you're going to charge a dealer fee, don't advertise that you do not charge a dealer fee. There seems to be some confusion on the part of the Malnexes and Scott Nicholas

as to what a dealer fee really is. and I tried to explain it that a dealer fee is anything that you add to the price of a car after you advertise the car or quote the price that is taxable. Yes, but I do believe on Mullinux's buyer's order in North Palm Beach, they actually call it a dealer fee. We discussed that too. Yes, I don't know what the ambiguity is. I'm trying to be kind because the Mullinac's name is a good name in Florida.

The father, the guy that started out Mullinix in the Fort Lauderdale, Miami area, is a legend in the car business. He's one of the few. He started with the one price. He started with a no-dealer fee. We're trying to keep the Mullinick's name clean, and we are going to verify that they've stopped advertising no-dealer fee, and we're going to verify that by another mystery shop, and we will keep them on the recommended list if they do that. We just want to establish some transparency here. We like them.

They're good neighbors. Yeah, great. Exactly. So we've cleared that up, and I had some money orders of business here that we, I think we're going to have time after the mystery shopping report to do some more chit-chatting anyway. But it's such a good mystery shopping report. It is my compliments to Agent Thunder and to Stu, who is the proofreader, a very good, And ladies and gentlemen, you can rate this mystery shopping report this morning.

Just give us a text at 772-4976530 because the mystery shopping report is from Ed Morris Delray Toyota, and that's the Costco Auto Program. Before we start, should we give another plug to the speaking event? Absolutely. Nancy, let's tell us about our... Yeah, let's do that. Earl and I would like to invite you to a free seminar on how nice. not to get ripped off by a car dealer. Seniors v. Crime from the Florida Attorney General's Office

has partnered with us to put on this special event. We're going to have a great time, folks. Please join us on Thursday, April the 25th at 2 o'clock, at 900 of Brandywine Road in West Palm Beach at the United Methodist Church. They're providing a gathering place for us. The first 500 attendees will receive, themselves a free copy of

Confessions of a recovering car dealer. Thank you very much. And it's a hard copy. This April 25th 2 o'clock. That's exit off of 2 o'clock. That's exit off I-95, Palm Beach Lake Boulevard. So you folks can always find that.

You exit east. It's really west. It's really easy. It's right near the exit on Palm Beach Lake Boulevard. You exit west on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard, I-95, and you find 900 Branding Wind Drive. And as I said, the United Methodist Church,

is offered us their meeting room to use that. It's free, open to the public. And I want to thank Ashley Moody, who is our new Attorney General. Ashley Moody is a new Florida Attorney General, and we had a little bit of a rough relationship with Pam Bondi. But Ashley Moody and her division, Seniors Against Crime, have invited us to speak. And you've got to credit Ashley Moody, the State Attorney General,

for allowing us to speak to the, seniors in South Florida at this event. And please be there, April 25th, 2 o'clock, exit I-95, Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard, 900 Brandywine Drive, and that's the meeting room at the United Methodist Church there on Brandy Wine Drive. Yeah, we're really happy and humbled out to be invited to such a, you know, important event. Okay. Now, mystery shop of Ed Morris Delray Toyota has to do about the Costco auto buying program. about a year ago, Earl Sturant Cars conducted an eight-week expoise.

Eight weeks, we did this every week. We did a couple hundred of them. Well, we did a mystery shop every show for two months. And then we called a bunch of people, too. Oh, no, that was the, yeah. Yeah, we did a lot of them. Anyway, eight-week expose on the Costco Auto Program for two months. We exclusively shop car dealers that participated in the popular car buying service.

we did this because at the time we had a problem with how the program was being managed the Costco auto program isn't actually operated by Costco it's actually a separate firm company it's called affinity a f f i nit yi affinity auto programs running things on behalf of Costco although buying program had rules in place to prevent dealers from misleading and taking advantage of their customers these rules were bare were barely enforced and it got to be the point where we really had to do something about it by the way another reason why this is urgent this whole Costco thing is urgent the Costco auto buying program is becoming extremely popular and in 2018 last year there was a 25% increase in cars bought by Costco members to the Costco auto buying program

to from 2000 to 2017 2018 25%. There were over 600,000 cars purchased. Huge, huge. So you need to understand this is a great way to buy a car with the caveat that will become apparent in this mystery shopping report. Costco is such a respected brand. It evokes great customer service trust, transparency, and great prices. We all shop at Costco. Nancy, Stu, Rick, I, any educated consumer in my mind should be able. the same time every Saturday, too. Yeah. It's crazy. Costco.

The only reason you don't shop at Costco is they don't have a warehouse near you, but they're expanding. They don't mark up anything they sell. This does not talk about the automobiles, but they don't mark up anything to sell over 15%. When you buy something at Costco, if they have the product you want, you know you're not going to be gouged.

Anyway, I digress. Consumers feel safe is the bottom line. And that's the reason the Costco Auto Bike program is growing by leaps and bounds. Successful. We eventually worked out our differences with the Costco Auto Program and the Affinity Group. They assured us they would do a better job policing their participating dealers. But we did say that we would be back to follow up and see if their efforts were kept up. A caller to this show with a request to check out the Costco Auto Program at Edmort's Del Rey Toyota reminded us it had been a year.

and it was time to return, and we did. To refresh everyone's memories, here's a brief recap on how the program works. CAP, CAP, CAP, requires, as a Costco auto buying program, requires participating dealers to offer their absolute lowest price to Costco members who go through their program to buy a car. Now, this isn't stated on the price sheet. It does not say that.

And I don't believe it even mentions it to the members. They only mention it to the dealers. They only mention it to the dealers. I think that's a mistake. I agree. You need to know what you should expect. Costco, and we talk to the top executives of the Costco Auto Buying Program, and we talk to Costco all the time because we're Costco approved dealers.

They require, if you're going to be a Costco dealer, that you sell your car for less than you sell to anybody else. So if you're not a Costco member and you come in on a sale car and you sell the car, and then a car, Costco member comes in right behind you. Costco requires that they sell you their car lower than the sale price that you just sold a non-cosco member. It is a great way to buy a car. With the obvious caveat, the dealer's going to behave himself.

And the dealer has to submit their prices on every model they want to make available. Yeah, to Costco. And Costco blesses it as being a fair price. Costco members go to Costco Auto.com. You know to write that down. If you're not a Costco member, you should join. What's it cost? 100 bucks.

There's different packages. You go to 30 bucks a year, I think, is the cheapest one. Well worth it. For 30 bucks a year, you cannot afford not to be a Costco member. I own no Costco stock that I know of, and I am not. You just like the hot dogs. Yes, I like the hot dogs. And the chickens, $4.99 a chicken.

Ah, but I digress. They select the vehicle they want to buy, and the participating dealer for that make and model is revealed. The Costco member will then receive confirmation emails from both the Costco Auto Program and the dealer explaining the process. Imperity, if you go to Costco Auto.com or call, and you deal with the Costco Auto Buying Program, people, and you learn what to expect and how to follow the rules. the members instructed to ask for one of the authorized dealer contacts identified in the confirmation email and present their Costco membership card. Very important.

Very important. You follow these rules. If you don't follow the rules, they'll lie to you, the dealer will. A non-cosco-approved dealer or salesman will tell you this is the Costco price. You've got to go. You can't just go in and say, hey, I want the Costco price. Otherwise, you'll get flim flam. You're like a lamb to the slaughter.

To be safe, go to Costco Auto.com and do the process. Exactly. Now, the member, must all, that's you, if you're a Costco member, must also, should be shown the special member-only price sheet that shows the exclusive pre-ramed's Costco member savings. My dealership was exposed by a caller named Frank because he called, and our salespeople did not show him the cost of, only machine we were in violation it was an error but it was still we didn't have the vehicle listed in the program and that was an error and then when he asked the salesperson he said that was the Costco price we assign agent thunder to go through the Costco auto program purchase process at edmore's del Rey Toyota exactly as the program calls for we wanted to see if the dealer

would follow the rules here's a report I'm speaking as if I I'm agent thunder I began my mission at Costco Auto.com, entered a Delray zip code, 3344, and picked a new 2019 Toyota Camry SCE, and entered the information on my Costco membership card. I clicked Locate Dealer and saw the Delray Toyota was the authorized dealer. So any make you have, they will tell you where that nearest dealer is at the nearest Costco auto warehouse. I received the confirmation emails within a few minutes. One was from the Costco Auto Program and identified six different

salespeople is the authorized dealer contacts. There are six salespeople at Edmore's Del Rey Toyota you can choose from that are certified by the Costco program. The one from the dealer the one from the dealer came from the email. Okay, yeah.

Yeah, the email from the dealer came from the dealer. Yeah, the email from the dealer came from a salesperson named Steve, and there were five others. He was one of the authorized dealer contacts on the Costco program. So far, so is good. As I read Steve's email, my My phone rang. It was Steve.

He said, you received my inquiry and asked when I could come see him. I said I could be there after lunch. I would have asked, next time we do a shop like this, I would have asked Agent Thunder to ask for the Costco member price over the phone. You can save a lot of shoe leather that way, folks, because if you get flim flammed, you don't have to go back and forth and drive your car and waste the gas. So Costco members, when the Costco member deals, a salesperson calls you or you call them,

when there's communication, email, or otherwise, say, please give me the Costco member price, recommended price that you have on your Costco member price sheet on the car that I'm interested in. They should give it to you over the phone. Yeah. Okay. And Steve emailed it. You know, he emailed to the car, to expect. the Costco member's only price sheet with my special reserve pricing.

Yeah. He didn't email the price, but you should get the price. Just the sheet. Yeah. Email the sheet, yeah. As I read Steve's email, my phone rang. It was, I got that. I got to Del Rey, too, just before 2 p.m., and went to the showroom.

I asked receptions for Steve, and she called him on the phone. She said it would be just a minute. Sure enough, a minute later, Steve showed up, escorted me to a seat. He asked me if I had used the Costco Auto Program before, and I said I hadn't. He said it was a great way to buy a car because the prices are preset, and we won't have to go back and forth to get the solid deal. All true. The conversation switched to the Camry. Steve asked me if I wanted to go with the one I had configured on the Costco website, New 2019 Camry S.Gray.

I said I did. He asked me if I had any particular options I wanted to get, and I said that I just wanted a basic one with formats. I said I understood the S.E. was pretty well equipped. Be very careful any time you've picked a car out, be it with the Costco auto buying program, true car, or just on an advertised price, be sure you stick with the one you picked out. You may be tempted to go to a different car. Don't do it. Stick with the car you picked out. The most obvious, dangerous thing you can do is change to a different car because it goes back to square one. you start all over again. If it's a dealer fee issue, it wasn't an advertised car.

He can add the dealer fee legally. You can't have the dealer fee to an advertised price. Always stick with the car you intended to go with when you walked in the door. We went to the parking garage to pick one out. Steve asked qualifying questions as he walked. He asked about financing and leasing, whether I was trading anything. And I said I was paying cash. I did not have a trade.

Steve said this would be an easy deal. We found one I liked. It was pre-dawn gray, mica, with a gray interior MSRP, 27-791. It had four port installed accessories, Toya Guard Platinum, $699 for that baby package. Carpet, mats, clear paint protection, basically transparent plastic appliquez. It's just over-priced. Yeah, they put them in little cups to the door handle, so if your ring or key doesn't scratch the door. I don't think this is the one on the hood.

It's the door package. Yeah, yeah. And phone cable charging package. There was nowhere other denims. This bumps the price up $699. The whole package is probably worth $200. Just a heads up on this particular. You know that phone charging cable package is just two cables that you can buy at Best Buy.

But they're red. Right, they're bright red. You can get better quality ones at Best Buy for a quarter of the price. She said it was tough getting on. a car out of the garage so he'd get a porter to pull it down for us he calls someone on his phone we walked to the front of the showroom the car showed up five minutes later Steve put on a good presentation inside and out we took it for a test drive up and down US one back in the showroom Steve left me at the desk explained that he needed a few minutes to print some things

for me returned with a Costco member only price sheet for the car we selected and a Toyota consumer sheet which is sort of like a mini mononi label the list of standard features and options so far so good yeah i will say one thing though the consumer sheet has two views that you can print one is a customer only view only shows msrp and the retail prices you can click a little button on the computer and do the one that shows the cost of all the things probably should have done that because then you know what you're really paying for the you know what they're making and it would fit in really well with the costco i like that i like that we went over the member only price sheet it showed the correct umsrp 27 791 two discounts

totaling 6,028 bucks. My member only price was 21,763, but there was an asterisk. The asterisk indicated the disclaimer they read, price does not include any tax license, $899 administrative fee. Dealer fee. That's a dealer fee. $199.75 cent electronic filing fee. That's a dealer fee.

$85 tag agency, which is a dealer fee. Then I. down my member only price were those three dealer fees totaling $1,183.75. So to the Costco price was added $1,193.75. Now, this is where we have problems with Costco. Disclosures there. It's on the Costco member price sheet. But why do you have to do the arithmetic?

Why don't you just ask or require the dealer Costco to include all of their extra profit in the Costco price? Why is it okay to have the Costco price separated? Don't make me do math? Yeah. Why do you do that? And they couldn't really adequately answer that. I can because then they can charge whatever the heck they want on those dealer fees and make a ton of extra profit. It gives the disreputable dealer chance to get you.

I think what it is, like you said, Agent Thunder should have asked what the Costco price was on the phone. So if he asked that question, they're going to read him the 21-763. Come on down. It's only when you get there that the other shoe falls and they have the fees on. Yeah. So the Costco price, basically it says the Costco price is not the Costco price. The Costco price is a Costco price plus. the dealer fees, plural.

Some of the dealers, we found Schumacher the other, you know, a few months ago. We shopped them on Costco, and they were, they were, they separated out their dealer fee on the Costco member sheet, but they omitted another dealer fee. And we called Costco, and they called Schumacher, and Schumacher made the change. Now, I'm not saying Chuck Schumacher had any knowledge of that anymore I'm saying, Larry Mullinick's any knowledge of what's going on. This store. I find out a lot of car dealers don't know what's going on in their stores.

added a $400 dealer fee to your dealership, didn't tell you. Ah, just kidding. Exactly. Yeah, for sure. Hey, shenanigans, administrative fee, shenanigans, electronic fee. That's my new definition. Steve asked me if we had a deal. I said we did.

But I asked if I could put off delivery until Saturday. I wanted to take some pricing paperwork to my mother-in-law, a little twist on the wife, you know, the mother-in-law, because she was giving my wife and I the money for the purchase. Steve did not have a problem with this and I said I could take the and said I could take the member only price sheet I asked him if he had

anything more official from the dealership Steve said like a buyer's order and I said yeah he said he'd get one of those from the business manager to print for me and asked to make copies of my driver's license insurance card sure no problem after a few minutes Steve had my buyer's order

for me the selling price was actually $8 more than the price but I didn't raise an issue eight bucks you know error trial little little type of no problem epilogue it appears at Edmarsh del Rey Toyota went by the book and followed the Costco auto program protocol it wasn't perfect though and here's why there are actually more than one member's only price sheet the one that Steve showed age of thunder was legitimate it showed the price the discount of MSRP

but it doesn't show the pricing structure for that model. In other words, it doesn't show how much above or below invoice the price was based on. There's another document also called the member-only price sheet that shows this info. So we need to tell our audience to ask for both member, most Costco member price sheets. There are two Costco member price sheets. Is that accurate, Stu? That is correct. For example, I mean, here's a

on this is ours and so it basically shows you $1,400 under invoice, $1,100 under invoice, so it shows you how they come up with the price. So I asked for both Costco member price sheets, you Costco shoppers out there. What kind of deal did Asia Thunder get? He actually got a heck of a deal. It was about a $500 profit.

Yeah. And that is Slim Jim. And that's with everything. That's with the dealer fees. That's a real profit. So what happened here? is that and we talked about this just before the show we were successful in talking with the affinity a company Costco auto member program executives and we said that

you have to be fair and the prices that you ask the car dealers to put on their member sheet and you can you must take into account their dealer fees so they took into account the fact that Edmores Delray Toyota was going to add $1,100 in dealer fees to the Costco member price. And they did do that, and it was still a good deal. $500 over the net cost, the real, real cost to the car dealer. It was a good, good price for the Costco member at Edmore Stelray Toyota, and they went by all the rules.

My only criticism is not of Edmore and Stellaray Toyota, is I'd like to see the Costco auto program. get a little tighter, and require that all those dealer fees be included in the Costco member-only price. And if they do that, man, it is the only way to buy a car. Okay. We can vote on Edmore's Delray Toyota as far as this shopping report. Do we have any members or the postings?

We have one, two, three, four. I'm waiting for Linda's because she votes every week, but we have Ed give him a C-plus. Bobby, a B, Danielle, a B-plus, Joni, and A-minus. And let me see if Linda's chimed in yet. Okay, Linda gives them a big fat C. Thank you, Linda. Big fat C.

That's a healthy C. Let's go around the room here and do that. Stu, you want to vote? Yeah, I'm going to give them a B-minus. They lose points on just the dealer fee thing, but we're grading on a curve. Like you said, the problem is with the Costco program, which is still a great program. It's just that allows too much wiggle room to not be perfectly transparent.

Exactly. Nancy? I'd like to see the Costco program tighten up, as you used the word earlier, and to tell our listeners to please remember to ask for both of those Costco pricing sheets. And also, I'm going to give them an name. A minus. A minus, Rick. Wow.

Nice. That's a high score, I believe I've ever heard from. Ever in the history of the show. That's pretty amazing over there. I'm going to go with the B-plus because I just, three dealer fees, you know, that they're just kind of tacking in there. It's a lot of dealer fees. Yeah, it just, it wasn't perfect. Yeah, we had two more grades.

Came in, Edlin, on Facebook, gives them a B, and Steve gives them a B also. And I will say that here's, obviously, they're going on the recommend. the list it was it was a really good deal i mean i mean other than the dealer fees even accounting for those they were even the accessories they weren't selling at full list they they cut down it was a really good deal so i'm going to give them an a minus too i'm going to match uh nancy's i that's one of the best yeah experiences uh the shopper mystery shopper agent thunder went in as an informed costco buyer and went by the rule book and he got treated real well

and he got full transparency and he got a great price. He didn't get stopped on. Let me tell you something. If you can buy a new vehicle for $500 over the net cost, I'm not talking invoice, folks. Invoice has got a lot of

profits back then. They actually bought a car, if he'd have bought it, for $500 profit from a toilet dealer, that is very rare. And they did, I guarantee you that Del Rey, Edmore's Ratero does not sell cars to other people

for that lower price. So they met the rule of Costco, their lowest price. And I applaud them. We have a couple of more grades that came in. It's a split. Doug and Ollie are in disagreement. Doug gives them a B, but Ali says A-plus. Meow.

Meow! By the way, as you're wondering, we haven't lost our minds. Ollie is a kitty cat that watches the sunrise that Nancy I do every morning. And And that's, I think, Ollie and Doug are brother and sister. They're related.

Yes, clearly. And L.J. on YouTube is giving him a C. Says, a tack on too many fees. Yeah. Yeah, you know, we would give them a C maybe, if it weren't for the tech, we'd grade on the curve. And when you consider every car dealer, every car dealer, even Mullinix, I'm sorry to say,

and we may change our ruling on that. But they're all charged a dealer fees. It's just the fact of the life of buying a car in Florida. Well, but if you look at a C, you could say you're still giving them a passing score. It's just you got to keep your common sense about you when you go in there. Is it difficult to get the members-only price sheet, both of them? I mean, do you have to fight for it? It's unusual, and it'd be hard to do.

You have to be an educated consumer. You have to go buy the book. You have to stay close to Costco. remember also when you're a Costco member you got a problem you go back to Costco and you tell him he got flam flam by that Costco dealer they will take care of it they will take care of it they will cancel that dealer unless they play by the rules and then they will shop them again so I'm starting to feel better and better

about the cost of the block program I feel still feel bad about the dealers but in this case here you got a dealer they wouldn't buy the rules yeah and maybe they made him do it I don't care He did it, and if you want to buy a Toyota, you couldn't do any better than Edmore's Delray Toyota on the Costco auto buying program. Go buy the book, and if this is any indication, you'll get a damn good price. And we're putting them on the recommended list. It's a feel-good day, you know. We know we're making progress here at Earl Stewart on cars, and they're tightening up the program.

All kind of good things are happening. A little bit more time, and I will just say, Nancy Stewart, Earl Stewart, the two of us have been invited by the Attorney General, Ashley Moody, and her seniors Against Crime Group, and we'll be speaking April 25th at 2 o'clock, 900 Brandywine Drive, just off of I-95, Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard. Rick? The easy way to get there, folks, take I-95 to Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard, go west to the second traffic light, which is Robbins Drive, take a right and then a line. Left on Brandy wine. And Rick will be there with us, by the way. Rick Kearney will be with Nancy and I. So if you have any high-tech problems, questions,

Rick will be there to answer all your questions. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we have come to the end of another show, and we thank you for listening to Earl Stewart on Cars. You're a big part of this whole thing that is, well, epic. And tune in next week. We'll be right back here at 8 a.m. Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you.