Earl Stewart on Cars - 04.23.2022 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Napleton's Northlake Chrysler Dodge Jeep

Episode Date: April 23, 2022

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning revisits Napleton's Chrysler Dodge Jeep after their recent negative publicity over their sales practices, to see how much over sticker price they will charge her for a new 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited Edition on their car lot. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

A live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female business. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert, on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us as my son, Stu Stewart, are linked to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube,

Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting self-forwarded dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everyone. We're back live right here

in Living Color, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. We're streaming and we're here for two hours from 8 to 10 this morning Eastern Standard Time. He just heard my recorded introduction. I'm Earl, by the way, and I'm in the studio with all the A-team. We've got Rick Kearney, the certified diagnostic master technician that can answer anything about your car. Diagnose it right on the air. Send us an audio clip or a video clip

to YouTube. He monitors YouTube, Erlon Cars. Facebook, YouTube.com.com. So he'll see your post right away. And sometimes we focus too heavily on buying and leasing. I say that because you drive your cars now longer than ever before. Two or 300,000 miles is no big deal with today's modern vehicles. And you keep them sometimes six, seven years or longer. And it's a smart thing to do right now, by the way, because you'll hear me say this during the show. It's a terrible time to buy a new or used car. Don't buy a new car. Don't buy a used car. Unless you have to. You're going to pay thousands of dollars more than you will in a few months.

Now, I've missed my forecast a little bit. I thought you could do better at the end of 2021. Well, it didn't happen. In 2022, this is my new forecast. By the end of 2022, you will save thousands. So make that old car run a little longer for you. And Rick can help you do that without getting ripped off at the car dealership or the independent mechanic. And you might even tell you you have something you don't even need to worry about.

And hang on to that car and make it work. And then by December, January of 2023, December of 2022, there'll be some deals out there. The microchip shortage will be in better control. The manufacturing production will be geared up. You're going to have competition back in the marketplace, which you don't have today. See, the reason you're paying so much for your car today is because, you're going to you have no competition among the dealers. Everybody's selling the cars

for too much. In my dealership and I have to say, I have to give you full transparency disclosure, I'm a car dealer still. Stu Stewart is in the studio with me. He's a general manager of Earl Stewart's Toyota, and we're in business as a car dealership. And every car

we sell, we brag about it, we don't sell any cars over MSRP. I have to laugh or cry, depending on how I'm looking at it. never in my history as a car dealer. That feels wrong. Yeah, right. It feels wrong.

I mean, you saw an Emma out, it just feels... After all the year, 1968. You know, we sold the car in the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, anytime we could sold the car in the past, and we sold for MSRP. You're doing a dance? Well, it was only because we only had one. It was a limited edition. It was, you know, but we never went over MSRP because we thought that was just too much.

And now every car we sell is an MSRP. And you're saying, if you're not in the market, you say, why are you telling me this? Well, I'm telling you this because we're thousands of dollars lower price than anybody else. The other dealers are charging thousands of dollars over MSRP, all of them, without exception. So don't buy a car today, folks, new or used. I'm talking about new cars a lot, but use cars are the same way. You know, lease vehicles are not available like they used to be. That's another factor in supply and demand.

people are keeping their lease cars. They're exercising their purchase options because it's a steel. And so that's a huge supply of raw material for used car lots and new and used car dealers, CarMax and independent used car lots, off lease cars. There aren't very many anymore. And because of the shortage there, people that don't buy new cars are trying to buy used. And I tell people that say, I have to buy a car and buy a used car. Well, before you have to buy that used car,

Be sure they're not charging anymore than I would for a new car. I mean, it is a selling, sellers market like I've never seen it before. So there we are. Now, going around the table, I talk about Rick, keep that old car running, Rick will help you. We got Stu, you heard him a minute ago. She was a general manager of our dealership. So he's in the day-to-day exactly what's going on category.

His claim to fame on this show is he dispatches our weekly mystery shopper. undercover Agent Lightning, and we dispatch her to, even out of state, to the places that you recommend, car dealerships that need to be shopped. We shop as many as we can in the state of Florida, but we also do out of the state of Florida. And I believe Agent Lightning is out of town now, right? Yeah, she's leaving to go out of town, so next week we'll have a long distance. Yeah, so we'll have another long-distance shop. So this is probably the most interesting part of the show. It comes in the latter part, the last half hour of the show,

about between 9.30 and 10 that we vote on the dealership. Now remember, we name the dealership. We name names. We don't pull any punches on this show, folks. We name sales managers. We name salesmen. I mean, we're right out there all the way out. And then you say to yourself, you think,

why don't why doesn't someone sue you and I love it when people ask me that I say because you can't sue me because I'm telling the truth you lawyers out there back me up the truth is a perfect defense against libel and slander that's right so if anybody caught me in a lie or if anybody caught me in a mistake I'd be sued hey we've been doing this nearly 20 years not one lawsuit got a letter once we got a letter I got a threat that we probably had more than one threat but every lawyer, every dealer's got a lawyer, and better have a lawyer, and especially Napleson, we can get on that later, Lapland definitely needs lawyers, but they will tell you, hey, you sue the person,

you're going to lose, and then you're going to have the negative PR. And if you get lucky and go to trial, you're really going to have a lot of PR. You don't want to be on court TV and have the truth come out because that's exactly what you don't want to ask. And, of course, to my left is Nancy Stewart, my co-host. Get him some water, will you? I think work's going to keel over. And Nancy Stewart is our female advocate. She's also the person that founded the show with me many years ago.

And we went from a half-hour show on a little station called Sea View to a two-hour show today. And she has brought our female audience up from almost zero, back it was zero, up to about 50, And she has a very special offer. She's going to tell you about right now to you first-time new females that might want to call the show. Okay, it's all yours. Good morning, everyone. We have another exciting show ahead. But before I tell you what we have for the ladies, let me remind you that you can subscribe to the...

Excuse me. I think we all have it. It's the wind. It's all of our allergies. I hope it's the wind. There you go. You never know. Okay.

back to subscribing to Earl Stewart on Cars, the podcast, using any of the following podcast apps from your iPhone or your Android smartphone. You can apply to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, that's Stitcher Radio, and the SoundCloud app. I was passing me something here I forgot to give out the telephone numbers Oh you did Okay watch this You can have that back Okay I'm going to close my eyes

You can give us a call toll free At 877-960 9960 Or you can text us at 772-497262 497-6530 I have that Greta Garbo kind of voice this morning Can you hear me folks?

I like that. I am husky. Springtime in South Florida. Really? So at any right, moving along here, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers, give us a call. And, well, as I always encourage you every week. And during the week, when I speak to you or email you, you hold an important part of all of this. You're the big piece of the puzzle. Women represent a huge opportunity for every single auto dealer everywhere.

Give us a call 877-960-99-60. And for you, texters, you can 772 take advantage of that number. 772-497-6530. And Rick's right there with the YouTube's. so we're going to go straight to the phones and we have John and Howard that have been holding we're going to go straight to John from Palm City Good morning John

Good morning to everyone Earl mentioned MSRP Today it's not only common but it's a race it seems like to people that are paying how much are we going to pay above MSRP And I'll give an example A car that's going to set a new record It's coming out

2023, Cadillac CT5V, Black Hawk. There's only 120 going to be made. Why 120? Because that's the 120th anniversary of Cadillac, the formulae Cadillac. It's going to be a tremendous ceremony in Lansing Grand River plant where the car is made. All the big people are going to be there. I don't know who and politicians will be there. But number one and number two has already been committed.

They're going to be numbered. They're a special addition at 6.2-liter engine, 668 horsepower, 0 to 60 in 3.4 seconds. And this car, being that only 120 will be made, will set a record of above, I don't know what the MSRP, naturally at least 100,000 or plus. And the record will be set with people buying these cars that they have to have the special edition first, especially the early ones, but they will be numbered from number one to 120. And Earl will tell you he talked about the past MSRP, which was rare, but not long ago when the T-Bird came out and the Camaro came out, people were paying way above list.

I know there was a Camaro dealer here in Stewart. He won a $10,000 above when it first came out, and it goes from there on, and it gets carried away completely. and it's only the big people that read of John Stalupi himself when the Super came out he had to have the first one and I think at the time

there was over $100,000 so I just want to mention that call this will be set a record of above price of an MSRP call I think it was $2 million that John Stalupi paid for that Super Yeah he did, yeah

two million That's a little bit over a sticker I think it's sticking around $54,000 so well it just shows you how crazy automobile world is getting. I mean, people have to have limited additions and they have to fight each other how much above MSRP that they're going to pay. So it gets crazy. It gets out of hand.

For sure. Absolutely insane. Well, thank you, John. That's at least the good news now is the good thing about the MSRP, it's always been a measuring tool for the consumer. And if you shop and compare products, and you're shopping and comparing a car, the same thing today as it has always been, even before this whole crazy COVID thing, you measure the car you're buying with respect to how much you're paying with respect to MSRP. The only difference now is it used to be you were measuring how much below MSRP you'd pay. Now you're measuring how much over MSRP you'll pay, but it's still a measuring stick. And it's a good thing. When you're buying a car, you should always be sure that the MSRP,

Monroney label, is on the car. Sometimes they're not. We shop someone the other day. There was no Monroney label. It was in the glove compartment. I think that was Napleton. Yeah. So if you, it's a violation, federal violation, you must leave the MSRP, attached to the vehicle. And literally, the only person that's allowed to remove it is a consumer. In practice, you sort of can ask the dealer remove it for you so you don't have to bring a razor blade and a bottle of water to when you buy your car so get your sticker off but yeah MSRPs are still important you just got to know which direction the dealers are charging over or above and stay away from those deals that don't display it yes illegal since 1958 yes it's a joke when they're not showing it to you it's in a glove

compartment somewhere it's against the federal law but evidently they don't care about the law Exactly. You're right, unfortunately. It's not funny, but it's the fact. Well, John, thank you very much. We love your calls. You're probably our most faithful caller over the many, many years. And please call again next week. We look forward to it. Thank you, guys, for being there. Thank you. Always enlightening, John. Folks talk about overpaying and, yeah, I don't need to go through the laundry list of things that are happening, you know, in the auto industry. but you can do something about it.

You can help do something about it. And just to stop all this trickery and all these illegal practices, go to www. Florida Law Protectingcarbuyers.com and let your voice be heard. Again, that phone number is 877-960-99-60, and you can reach us in number of ways. You can text us at 772-497-65-30. Zero, and you can also send the Spymaster General Techs, and also Rick is over there, and

Stu salutes us this morning. The general. And I salute you. A little general. Isn't it like this? It's pretty good. I think that's pretty. Okay.

Enough humor. We're going to go back to the phones where Howard is waiting. Good morning, Howard. Good morning. I hope you are all doing well in this beautiful windy day. I have a question for Rick. Rick, what is it better when you buy a battery, a sealed battery or a battery that you have to put to still water? Myself, just for the sake of being lazy, I'd rather have the maintenance-free sealed battery.

They're designed in such a way that helps recapture the fumes from the acid and let it condense back into a liquid back in the battery. So you don't have to worry about checking the fluid levels in your battery. It's just one less thing to worry about. How often do you have to pull maintenance on that battery to check it if you have a, if you have distilled water battery? Usually it's recommended once a year at least to make sure you check the fluid and the water level in the battery. Okay, what would cause the water level to go down? simple plain old evaporation

yeah okay all right I think you answered my question and thank you very much well one other question when I drive in my car with my remote

and I have my son in he has his remote the same remote something happens and all kind of noises happen you told me to take one remote and put aluminum foil on it. However, my son and his wife drive all the time. They have a Honda

row, a Nissan row, and they have their remotes and they have no problem. So why would I have a problem with the remote and they don't have the problem where they have the two remotes and the car? Might have sticky buttons on the one. If the buttons are being depressed enough that it creates a signal being sent, then that can confuse. the computer. Oh, I understand. Okay. I think you answered my question.

Thank you very much. Sure. Good day. Thanks to go, Howard. Thanks, Howard. Let me ask your question back on the batteries. How much more does a sealed battery cost than a non-sealed? They're usually pretty comparable in price.

They're pretty close to the same. Why does anybody buy anything but a sealed battery? I couldn't tell you. I just, why do folks buy stick shifts? anymore when an automatic does everything for you. But I guess it's fun to shift gears, but it's not fun to look at your battery. I mean, anyway, okay, just a curiosity question. Okay, well, any question is important.

877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. Do you have the latest column? I seem to have misplaced mine. I don't need it right now, but while you're doing, while you're doing that, I'm going to go to John, who's been holding in Green Acres. Thank you. Good morning, John. Hey, good morning. How are you? Well, thank you. I wanted to call and talk about the service department.

I've been a big fan of years. I've had Toyotas, and I've got a 19, two, 2016, Corolla, and since then I've added a Rav 4, and I always like to get the maintenance. I always come in and get maintenance whenever it's due. But this last time I had maintenance, something happened that kind of confused me and kind of aggravated me a little bit. After I had the maintenance done, a week later I got a letter and says, thank you for your service. You've taken the first step, and your car may need some additional. maintenance. And I thought, why didn't it all get done at the first? I don't want to be coming

back to the dealership again and spend another hour and a half for you to continue the maintenance. I don't know. I'll have to look into that. This is Stu. Typically, the only time there is ever any, like, additional things suggested is if at the time we were there, if you decided to put something off and let's say we recommended a service that you decided to wait later to do, we might send reminders saying, hey, don't forget there's something, you know, you could still do this and sometimes we'll even offer a discount to give you, you know, inspire you to come back. But if you, you know, when you come in for maintenance, you know, we don't send, do a partial thing and invite you to come back later, but I'll have to check into that. Yeah, I don't know

why you receive something like that. No, I don't either. I thought, I want to get it all done at the same time. Yeah, and that's what we want to do, too. Yeah, a bird in the hand. Yeah, we want to get everything done while you're there. I know that the service department is a big part of the dealership, but I don't want to keep coming back.

Just, I was there, and I spent time. I don't want to come back again, and I love you, but I don't want to come back again. You don't love us that much. John, John, Carl. I ask you to do me favor because you send me a copy of that mailor? Yes, I will. Okay, you can fax it. You want to fax it to me?

Why don't you give me a, I don't have a fax here, but I will do that. Yeah, it just gave me a copy of it, because I want to be careful. You know, most dealers, including us, we use outside marketing services to market our different departments, including service and sales, use cars, and sometimes the marketing companies to do things that we don't want them to do and we don't know about. So the only way I found out about them are from customers

even Toyota does things we don't want them to do. If you can give me a copy of that, I'd appreciate it. Hey, one other thing about that also I had the RAV 4 serviced and after that I got another

letter that says come back in and we will rotate your tires. If the tires need to rotate it, I won't have done when I'm there. Exactly, right. Sounds to me like we got a marketing company that's out of control. Yep. So we need to do it.

Or there was an error. That's either a catastrophic conspiracy or a mistake was made. You need to take a look at it, yeah. Well, give me the fax number, and I will see about getting those things. Do you have a phone? You can just take a picture with your phone and text it to us. My fax number is 561, 6,58. 0734

Okay, I'll see about trying to get that done Hey, but do you have a smartphone with you right now? Not right now, I'm sorry to say, but my fad has one and I'll see about getting hers and Sure, either way, whatever is easiest for you Okay, we'll do All right Thank you, John

Service is the best part of the dealership Thank you. That's right. I like to bring you it in and get it taking care of it one time, though, with things to be the main thing. Great. Great. Okay.

Thank you very much. Thank you, John. Give us a call to all toll free at 877-9-60. Don't forget, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. I'm going to take and change gears here for a moment and remind everyone if you didn't pick up the Florida Weekly or the hometown. news, you can go to Roan Khars and you can pull up his latest column. Open letter to Florida Attorney General, Ashley Moody.

There it is right there, folks. Is that a great picture? It's a lot of great information in this column and a lot of things that will. I think that's the look that she gave when she saw the column. Don't be judgmental. I'm not. She looks like she's taking it very seriously. That's a good point.

I feel a little guilty about picking that picture out because, but I notice, and anybody that reads, you know, the political stuff going on, if you're reading the Wall Street Journal and you see a picture of a Democrat, it's usually an ugly picture. And if you're reading the New York Times and you see a picture of a Republican, it's usually like, so people, they always pick out whoever side. You can always tell where the slant is by the beauty of the picture or the person they're running. Right, like they have pictures of Donald Trump and he looked like a bodybuilder. It's amazing, isn't it?

You Google like ugly this or angry-looking so-and-so. Let's see if we can get the worst picture ever. Is that what you did? Did you search for bad picture better? Yeah, I did. I went on Google. I went on Google and I googled Ashley Moody images and then I went through, I didn't Google, Google Ugly. I just Ashley Moody, and I went through hundreds of them, and I found the one that I thought would offend her.

I can't stop looking at it. And, you know, there you go. That was the intent. You know, that was a good point that you made. And she may be. We want people to slow down when they're scrolling and see that and then read it. She's looking at this, and she's very serious, and she's going to do something about it. She's considering.

We always want to be positive. Positive, positive, positive. Okay, folks, where was I going with this? I think we are going to go to Stu. He may have some text piled up. You don't have any YouTube's, Rick? Okay, we're going to go to Stu. Yeah, well, we'll start off with Anne-Marie's text.

Oh, good morning. Do we have a call? No, we're good. Okay. Your face lit up, I guess. Nancy gets really happy. Hey, Marie. Oh, okay, it was for Anne-Marie.

My face lights up, too. Good morning. Sad news for the local racing community. After 57 years, the Palm Beach International Raceway. 60. After 60 years, formerly known as Moroso Motorsports Park out west of Jupiter, Florida, is having a last lap celebration to mark their last day today, April 23rd, 2022. Starting at 11 a.m., there will be a parade of cars, drag races, music, food, and a trip down memory lane.

Spectator tickets for adults are 10 bucks. Kids, 12, and under, are free. The property has been sold to a developer who is trying to get approval to turn the site into a 2 million square foot warehouse space. The imminent demise of this racing facility prompts the question, have you ever taken a car out to that raceway to see what it could do? And that's from Anne-Marie. And the answer is, yes, I know Rick has. I remember years ago you raced an X-B, SionX-B out there. I will not admit to that.

And then Earl came this close to taking the Tesla out there. Yes. Ben-Anseye stopped that. Anne-Marie, we're on the safe wavelength. we were reading the same thing and it's amazing after 60 years out there can you believe it how time has changed and you know that's the way it goes anyway i think i smell let me see i'm a look in my crystal ball amazon maybe we don't have enough facilities for amazon on. Thanks for the taxi, Amner, Ray.

We appreciate your input every Saturday morning. I used to go out there and get by the track. I'd get a pass to be right up against the wall to shoot photos of the cars going by. Yeah. And, early, are you telling me you've never been out there to race? No, I've been out there to race. I've been out there to watch the race. Yeah, but I'm surprised you haven't been out to race.

He races on the motorways of Florida. Oh, this is true, I forgot, with me in the car. Highways and byways. Let's move right along there. Uh-oh. All right. I know he doesn't want to admit to a crime. This is from Steve in New Jersey.

He was a longtime texter, sometimes caller. Another state, Maryland has fined a new car dealer for bogus fees. It's in Maryland, and he sent a link to the Jalapnik article. It's the Attorney General of Maryland is charging Coons Kia for bogus fees, a million dollars. And I had just heard of that just now. Thank you, Steve. So who knows? Maybe there is a movement underway. We don't know yet. And who is that Coonsquia?

Coens Kia. And I know that dealer that named Coens, K-O-N-S, sounds very familiar. I went to dealer management school with Jeff Coons. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's a family. They've been in business since, well, the 60s. At least, yeah, right. Why am I so familiar with that? Have we talked about that on the show? I'm not sure do they Do you know if they have dealerships around here?

Yeah, they had a four dealership in. Oh, that's it. Okay. That's what it sounds familiar. Okay. Okay. Wow. That's great. Then we have another one here. Says, who sent this? I don't have a name.

I heard something this week on a YouTube video that Toyota might be increasing MSRPs between 700 to 1,000 pretty soon. Have you heard anything about that? I think this might be a terrible time to buy a use car. but a good time to buy a new one. Yes, Toyota just announced an increase of MSRPs across the board, and they range anywhere from $250 on the less expensive cars,

up to $700 on the more expensive cars, and those actually go, in fact, on 2022 models starting in May. The ones that get built will have the higher MSRP starting just next week. And remember, folks, all the manufacturers are, increasing their prices. When they increase MSRP, it becomes news like it just did here. But the easiest way to increase profits to the manufacturers is to decrease incentives to you and the dealers. And the dealer incentives and the customer incentives are huge. So you don't read about it though. You have to subscribe to Automotive News. But when they go MSRP,

because it's federally mandated law that it be displayed, it makes the front pages. So you might say Toyota increased this car by $1,000 MSRP. They probably already increased it last week by knocking off $1,000 incentive to the dealer. Which they did. For a $2,000 incentive to the customers. So, folks, this is a terrible time. I know I'm a broken record. Don't buy a new car today.

Don't buy a used car today. The manufacturers are getting rich. The dealers are getting richer. and you're getting poor. So don't play the game. Wait a little supply and demand kicks in again. That's a law. You can't get around supply and demand.

And it will sooner or later catch up. And then the dealers will be cut in each other's throats again. There'll be slashing prizes, line, cheating, stealing, bait and switch advertising. Unfortunately, goes along with all that. But the bottom line is, when that happens, the educated consumer can get a really good buy. Now, if you're going to get slam dunked, if you're going to be taken advantage of, and you don't watch your along cars, if you don't do your homework, you'll still be taken advantage of. But the average dealer, five years ago, was breaking even or making a few bucks or losing a few bucks in the new car department. Today, they're getting rich in the new car department.

So we'll be back to where they're struggling again if you can just wait and bear with it. and I'm forecasting at the end of this year. Yeah, and that's good advice, Earl. And Earl also wrote a column on that subject that he just covered. And you can go to Earl on cars and just learn, you know, about taking care of your old car and hang on to it forever. The amount of miles that you can put on a vehicle today is incredible. So you're sitting on a gold mine.

We're going to go to, we're going to welcome back, Julie, who's called us before, And she calls us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Julie. Good morning. I have a question. I don't think I've heard of dress before. It's kind of an unusual question. I have a friend who has an Impala.

About a month ago, she went on vacation. The night before, she goes out and has a steak dinner, inadvertently leaves the doggy bag in the car for her two weeks of vacation. Oh, God. She comes back, and there's a major roach infestation. Oh, God. Yes. Somebody said, you should use the fogger, but she was afraid it would ruin the

upholstery and that it might cause a fire in the car. So then she ended up getting roast motels, lovely. And she thought there were just a few roaches, but they would just fill up as soon as she put them down. Two questions. How did they get into her car? Her car doors are shut and her windows are up. And have you had anybody with this time before?

How did they get rid of them? Well, first of all, I'd like to excuse myself from this studio to go have the Willie's attack because I'm just completely... Roaches can get anything. I don't like, they could probably get into a sealed jar. They can squeeze their bodies into anything. But we've used bombs in our detail department for ants and other bug infestations on the cars. And we haven't had a fire issue.

I mean, that sounds like an issue. Rick's got something. The best recommendation that I have because I parked my pickup under a tree one time and wound up filled with ants, little ants. Oh, goodness. And the problem is that the cabs of a vehicle are not. not sealed airtight. There's plenty of areas where any insect, even snakes and rats and mice, can get in and out of the cars quite easily. Raid dry smoke fumigators. They, it's basically

it comes in a little plastic cup. You peel off the foil. You put about a quarter inch of water in it and drop the canister back into that plastic cup and set it in the car. Put like two of them in the cab portion of the car, the front and back seat, and one in the trunk, they do a smoke that will literally fill the entire car and it'll almost look like the car's on fire. The best part is that there's no wet residue that is going to affect any of the fabric or adhesives or anything like that. It will not affect the electronics and it will kill all the insects. I've done it on my own vehicle and had to do it on a couple family members vehicles.

And I can tell you for a fact, it works perfectly. It will destroy insects. Because she was wondering if when she was using a roach motel, it was actually insects from outside. We're drawn to mortuary car because of the smell and the roach motel. Well, the problem is if they, when the bugs get in underneath the carpet and everything, the fumigators don't always get, you know, the spray, they don't get down into those little nooks and crannies,

but the dry smoke will. Right. And you'll want to do it quickly before they start laying eggs or anything that might let them spread, get future generations. Yeah, I'll tell her, because she said the Roach Matel, they would be, like, absolutely full. You couldn't even see the bottom of them. There were so many roses in there.

Yep. Okay, thanks. That's a perfect solution. Thank you very much for the call. Thank you so much, Julie. Thank you. And thanks for staying in touch with us. Or you could sell your car.

Have a great weekend. Say goodbye to it. Thank you. You're welcome, Julie. Hope to hear from you again. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-9-9-7-6-5-30. Now back to Stu. Okay, we have another text here.

Interesting question. What do you think of the idea of using your smartphone to record the conversations and negotiations in the dealership or the conversations you have on the phone over the phone with the dealership. And that depends on your state law because I know recording laws vary by state. In our state

we can't do that in our mystery shops because you have to allow the person being recorded. You have to alert them to know they're being recorded so that would kind of screw up the mystery shop. We did try it once. We had a clever scheme with a GoPro camera that we put on the head of a

five-year-old child who would come the mystery shopper and the shopper explained it was a birthday present that the kid got and he won't take it off and let them you're being recorded and then unfortunately the kid kept stirring at the floor unfortunately the kid was a very very active kid and he was looking all he was looking everywhere but what was happening during the sales it was useless footage but uh yeah check if you're going to do that if you're going to check the laws of your state because you don't want to commit a crime while you're trying to get a good deal. Okay.

This is from Bob. He says, good morning. Will the start-stop feature on the cameras that also have auto-climate control if it's always left on with the engine, always be running due to the auto-climate setting? That sounds like a question for Rick. No.

Okay. Once it reaches core temperature, it'll shut the engine off, and the newer compressors are being run electronically. which means you don't need a belt drive for the compressor on some of the cars like the hybrids. Okay. I'm going to jump over to anonymous feedback, which just logged me out because I've been there for a while, but take me one second. And then there's some stuff came in.

This is from last week, but we didn't get to it. Actually, I think we did get to that one. Here we go. Regarding your mystery shop of Wallace Cadillac, as 99% of dealerships are doing now, It's just supply and demand. I went to a dealership, gave them the car I want, plus my name and number, when the supply and demand extra dollar amount, $5,000 isn't in effect anymore to give me a call, and I'll buy. I really don't blame the dealers.

FYI, official numbers from Automotive News for all 10 Wallace dealership shows that combining service parts, used cars, and finance department's revenue, not profit, but money collected, those are sales dollars, was $593 million. dollars. That's a lot of money. But then Wallace has real estate, taxes, salaries, insurance, upkeep, inventory, utilities, yada, yada. So the profit might not be so great. Then 10 McDonald's or auto parts store chain doesn't win your. Very interesting analysis. Yeah, I'm sure Bill Wallace is making a ton of money. And I read that article. And it's interesting. We need, we should go back and take a look at that. In fact, you can do it. The sales figures are available.

I mean, I think every dealership, I would think Florida would have the sales figures for companies because they have to pay sales tax. So if you have the total sales of a car dealership, you can apply the rule of thumb. The old rule of thumb used to be 2% or 3% net profit on total sales. So if you use a 3% on Wallace, I did that, it turns out to be a little bit over a million dollars.

net profit per dealership for the Bill Wallace Hutter Group. And, but just interesting, I thought the guy was... Which fits in what the size of their stores, it seems like. Yeah, but the net profit on sales is very low at car dealership, at least it was until now. It was only, the only thing lower were supermarkets, and that's probably changed too. So rules of thumb during this COVID crazy two or three year period don't apply. But when we get back to normal, if you ever want to know how much net profit a car dealer's making, just take his total sales and take two or three percent of it.

And that's what he's putting in his pocket. Yeah, put in his pocket. After everybody's paid. Another anonymous feedback. Why do rich old car dealer owners like Bill Wallace have to rip people off? Aren't they rich enough? I'm a rich old car dealer, and I don't rip people up. I think what it is is, I think that car dealers that are older and that have been successful,

I think they can become less and less involved with the dealerships, and they don't pay attention. And you created a company that is based on volume, profit, and commission. Everybody in the car dealership works on commission. So when you don't watch the store and you go out on your yet, yacht or you go fly somewhere on your private jet or you go to your skiing lodge in Vale or your hunting lodge in Montana hello Chuck Schumacher Earl right now is running through all the expensive properties of people he knows or the private island that's what I'm doing you want reality you want the

truth this is the truth and the castle in Monaco even if you had a honest car dealer that had been very successful now he's enjoying life. He's at the beach. He's doing something else. And when they cast away, when the castaway, the mice will play. And when you have everybody in your company paid on commission, what are you going to do? I mean, you're going to push sales any way you can. You send out phony service mailers. You send out, you mislead people about having cars in stock when you don't really have cars in stock.

And you charge them thousands of dollars over MSRP. it's easy to get away with hosing the customer and when the cats away the mice will play I don't know are they really all doing that I think they're sitting around getting inebriated and they don't know what the hell's

going on some people like to ski some people like the drink they're getting inebriated at their ski lodge fun they're drinking Pappy Van Winkle as they're taking down an African elephant I mean we know seriously we attribute a lot

of this card dealer activity to being evil and mean and trying trying to take advantage a lot of it is just stupidity or apathy is a much better apathy is a much better word apathy they don't they're not around they don't care and hey you know they get that big check in the mail or they're wired to their account in us in Zurich or wherever it goes they get you know Bill Wallace is looking at, you know, $12 million a year, pop into his account. Why should he worry about how they made it? I mean, it's not in the papers. Ashley Moody is not suing any of their dealers.

The regulators aren't calling him and say, your dealerships are doing the wrong thing. So he's fat and happy, and he's getting his check every week. It's apathy. That's a real answer. All right. Here's another anonymous feedback. This is really good to hear. here. Good morning. I'm not sure if you heard. Earl Stewart Toida was mentioned in a couple of

videos by Kevin Hunter, the Holborn guy. We mentioned a couple of dealers not charging over MSRP. It was part two and three of the video series, so I'll be looking that up. Yeah, I think we've had listeners recommend the Kevin Hunter videos before, so that's kind of cool that we've been discovered. Fabulous. Finally, finally. Right. Hey, we're doing the right thing. All right, we are all caught up currently with text. Okay, let me mention that number again. And for you ladies who haven't heard,

$50 for the first two, new lady callers. And you can take advantage of that this morning by calling 877-9-60-9960. And for everyone else, you can text us at 772-497-6530. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. And Rick, do you have any YouTube for us?

I do have one interesting one here. This is from our buddy Donovan. Oh, hi, Donovan. He says, last week you had a caller ask if an electric car could charge another electric car. And I had said, no, I didn't think it could. However, he says, this is actually not correct. Nothing stops an EV from charging anything. It's all in the software for the direction power flows.

He says, the new Hyundai Ionique 5 and the Kia EV6 have this feature. It comes with an adapter that turns the EV charging plug into a regular wall outlet, which allows you to plug in another EV to charge. The new Ford F-150 Lightning will have this feature also and has vehicle-to-home feature that allows you to power your house for up to three days from the Ford F-150. Several power utilities are also testing vehicle to grid, which will allow your EV to send electricity back to the grid at peak times

and get credit for it. It's really amazing what can be done with the power sitting in the giant battery in an EV. Well, thank you, Donovan. It's amazing, like Ann Marie and Donovan. We've got some really smart people out there. And we literally learn things from our customers. So, customers, from our listeners. So please call us.

And 877-960.960. And Your Anonymous Feedback.com is dropping off. We need to get you back on that. You remain totally anonymous. And all you have to do is go to this URL on the web, youranonymousfeedback.com. And everything you tell us is strictly off the record. We don't know who you are.

We don't know where you are. We don't know why you said it. All we know is what you said, and we will not censor it other than for profanity and vulgarity and that kind of thing. Or brevity. Yeah, right. We're not going to be critical. We'll take constructive criticism or, for that matter, a destructive criticism. Hey, so I just looked up the Kevin Hunter video that we just got the text on.

Oh, cool. And it is really cool. I'm going to share these videos on Erlon Cars. They're going through enlisting dealers all over. the country that are not charging over MSRP. And yes, we came up in there, and I want to thank Ernesto and Tom, who I believe are fans of this show, they showed their text messages to Kevin Hunter, letting them know that we're doing. So I really appreciate our listeners putting us out there.

But if you don't care about Toyotas, they're listing all sorts of dealers up here. And I'm looking, there's a Toyota dealership in Oakwood, Georgia called Milton Martin Toyota. I can't remember the GM. I know the general manager there. they're not charging over MSRP. They're about 40 miles north of Atlanta. So we'll identify these dealers out there who are not charging over MSRP.

There's not going to be a lot of them, but there are some. Yeah, I went to, I went to TQA and Toyota Quality Exhibition. With Milton Martin. I think of the Sun, I'm not sure. Well, it might have been Milton Martin. Yeah. Well, a really good dealership. They're very, very, very honorable.

Cutting edge, yeah. Yeah, they are. That's great. So stand by. If you want to look for it now, just search, go to YouTube. and search for Kevin Hunter, the homework guy, and you'll find the video like I did, but I'm going to post it, so that's really cool.

Let me jump up on Donovan's comment because automotive news was full of stuff I didn't know, this current issue, about electric vehicles. And here's something that Rick would be interested in is that the voltage on electric vehicles typically has been 400 volts. But they've come up now, and a few other manufacturers are going to 800 volts. And when you go to 800 volts, you get more amperage, and therefore you can charge your cars a lot faster.

And that's a really, I mean, it just shows the rapidity of the trend in technology and what's happening with electric vehicles. Another thing is really cool is there's a Vietnamese electric manufacturer. I mean, you know, for us old guys, Vietnam. Called the Fo. Yeah, here we are. Here we are. It's like Japan. I mean, you know, here we are, we're at war, and now there are our buddies and they build great cars.

Now Vietnam is building a great car, and they came up with a ability, it was on charging. Let me see if I could find my notes here. It's called Vin Fast is the name of the Vietnamese car. Vin, V-I-N, and I thought VIN stood for vehicle identification number, but it stands for Vietnamese. VINFAS, Vietnamese, and what they're doing now is they're building cars, but you don't get the battery. They build the electric car and they lease you the battery. And they'll lease you a battery, get this, at $35 a month.

Now the cool thing about that is it ain't bad. That's the most expensive part of the car. And what you have is you're going to lease the battery, but they're going to upgrade the battery and you'll be able to upgrade when they go to a better battery and you'll just keep the car and you don't have to scrap the car or trade the car in or worrying about it going bad in the future so it just I mean the technology they have two models of VINFAS the low price is $35 a month for the battery the other one's $44 a month and that's for low mileage and after that after 310 miles per month they charge 11

cents a mile. So it's a little more expensive. But it's still. To me, as a electric vehicle driver, I drive a Tesla. I can't keep thinking about the fact that in three years, the battery that Tesla is going to be obsolete. And it's the most expensive part of the car. But if I was leasing it, 36 months. Brilliant. That was 36 months? Yeah. Well, I don't, you know, whatever. So it's not just going to be technological innovations. It's going to be innovations like this. Like the batteries, the swapping out the batteries the leasing the battery yeah they take care of the maintenance stuff yeah so basically a person that drives a thousand miles a month which is about average yeah would pay approximately a hundred dollars a month yeah if they drove a thousand miles a month that or that's average

driving yeah and then just you whatever you'd cost you for charging it up yeah yeah but still that's um that's that and sooner or later you're going to see a uh a uh a a melding of a lot of these things. I love the 800 volts. I didn't even know about that. But to be able to charge your car, your battery twice as fast, because you have higher voltage, and there's a lot of other advantages too. So every day there's a breakthrough of some kind in this whole electric revolution. So it's really getting kind of fun to talk about. Still, remember, I think we're still talking about it too much because less than 1% of all the vehicles in the world are electric. And it's going to take a long time to

before that changes. All right. I just got some information here from Donovan. He says, Hyundai, Kia, Porsche, and Audi all use 800 volts. Lucid is the company that's out of Arizona is using 900 volts. And Jonathan, I heard that it's really not 900, but they say 900, but that's technical. I don't know. But eight or 900 doesn't make any difference.

But yeah, these guys are jumping. They jumped ahead on this, I think, unless there's a downside, I have to ask Elon ask about that. Why aren't his batteries 900, 800 volts? Well, he also goes on to say, the higher the voltage, the less heat that happens when charging. So in theory, the faster you can charge. But the

CCS charging standard, I'm not sure what the CCS stands for. Donovan, if you could, you know, give me a definition on that CCS. He says it's limited to 500 amps so it can only go so fast. Which I can understand, you'd

have to have some sort of a limiter on the charging rate. You better be careful. I'm going to replace you with Donovan on the show. Well, this guy's very sure. He's, he's my go-to for electric right now. He's, he's coming in big on the electric. He's, oh, you've been using Donovan. I've got backup. He's, he's been with us for quite a while. He's, he's my electric Google. I'm Earl's Googleette. Sounds like a dance. You hear that? I'm Earl's Googlet. I Google at. Yeah, he gave me a nickname the other morning. You know, back to EVs, would everyone agree that California is on the cutting edge as far as their proposal calls for electric vehicles?

They're going to make up 70% of the new vehicle sales for 2030. Do you think they'll be ahead of everyone? Well, you know, it all depends on how you look at it. You know, they certainly are the trendsetter. I mean, I'll say that, yeah. I agree with that. 877-960-99-60. Give us a call, folks.

Ladies, first two female callers, $50 for you. I know you can use it with everything that's going on. Our text number is 772-497-6530, and don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com. Rick, do you have any more YouTube's over there? I just said. Donovan does say that CCS is the plug. that every car uses that is not a Tesla.

I guess that's the name they're using now for a non-Tesla charging connector. Yeah, I heard that Tesla is a little tap dancing with Elon. He was going to stop including that adapter that you get for the Tesla charger that you use if you're using a non-Tesla charging thing. And then he says you'd order the car for 400 bucks. And then there was a big outcry.

I say if you're charging $120,000 for a car, why are you nickling, dimeing people for a $400 piece? So now he's going to make it easy to order, and he's lower the price to $200. Hey, you got to do what you got to do. But the impressive thing about that was a CEO of the most valuable car company in the world who got customer feedback and instantly changed his policy just by listening to Twitter.

So that's pretty cool, too. Amazing. Well, if we don't have any text or YouTube, I've got some. I got one. Oh, good. Let's see it. It was a follow-up on the text we got early. about the recording conversations.

He says, going back to my previous text about using a smartphone to record conversations, I was thinking that when you started the conversation, you would tell the dealership person that you were recording the conversation, and you're doing this to make sure that you're being dealt with honestly, and that if you believe that the dealership has told you something illegal,

the conversation will be forwarded to the state attorney general. Yeah, if you, as long, I think that's not violating any laws in any state, as long as you inform the person that you're recording them. and maybe tone it down, maybe not saying in case something illegal, just to make sure that we're all on the same page and that were clear on everything that was discussed. And if they have a problem with it, you know, you might have an indication that you're at the wrong dealership.

Well, I think that the negative of that is we would never get normal behavior. Once we said that, we wouldn't get the real... I think maybe for he's as a customer, a real customer, that's what they're... I think it's a great idea for a real customer. In fact, I wouldn't even record the conversation. I would just tell the jail person that I am recording it and you're holding in your purse

or you patch your pocket like this I'm recording this unless you have an objection to it I'd like to record this conversation I think they would probably moderate their predatory activity so they didn't go to jail but that's interesting

I love you callers and textors I mean who was that texter? I don't think There's a name on it. I could probably scroll. Oh, no, it's Richard from Minnesota. Richard from Minnesota.

Great idea. I mean, and then Donovan and Richard, I love you, texters and callers. Wow. Don't forget Ann Marie. And Anne Marie. I mean, she's the, what do you call the grand poohpah of all? Grand Puba. She's the leader of the pack.

Yes, she is. I kick every, that's the first text I read. She puts a lot of thought into it. She opens up the show. Exactly. It's actually really good content for the show from an entertainment standpoint. Let me, I'm going to ask the insiders here, auto insiders, in this. How many used cars would you guess CarMax bought from customers over the curb, we say, in the last 90 days?

Nationwide? Yeah. A million. Oh, I always overbid. See, 324,000. That's a reasonable. And I wouldn't get somewhere in the hundreds of thousands. It's amazing.

It got my attention. and it makes me realize how important it is for you folks that are thinking about selling a used car or trading a used car to get bids. And CarMax is a great source because they do pay real money. They also won't pay the real money if they don't want to buy the car, but they'll still give you a bid. So you better hope that CarMax would like to have your car. If they'd like to have your car, they will pay your really good money for it. And you can also try Carvana.

Here's another little tidbit of Carvana. Carvana lost money. Their profit went down. They were always losing money, but they lost less or more, less quarter. It was worse for them. Yeah, it was worse. And so they're starting to feel the pain a little bit, and they're having to go and sell more stock.

So Carvana's a little nervous. They're an IPO. It's a little shaky right now. But for a while there, they were buying probably and paying too much for cars. And they were number one on our recommended list. Always go to Carvana. I still say go to Carvana, but be a little leery now because they are starting to get financially unstable. We still use them as a resource in pricing cars.

And we buy anycar.com, another source. Shop it. You know, if you've got a Honda, go to three or four, a hundred. to use car lots. Don't ever go to a car dealer and say, here's my car, well, you give me for it, he gives you a price, and you say, okay, if you do that, it's just like him adding another $3,000 to the price of the new car. They always try to bring your used car and your trade-in for less money. And if they know you're shopping, if you just do this, when you go and say, now, you tell me what you'll allow me for a trade-in, I'm going to CarMax, I'm going to Carvana,

I'm going to, we buy the car.com, and then if you have the higher price, I will trade it in. So you have to let them know you're going to shop and compare it to his cars. But I was amazed when I saw that CarMax bought that many cars. That's a lot of cars. I know that's a nationwide figure, but 324,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter. That's more than they'd ever bought before, as a matter of fact. The other cool thing you can do, if you don't really need the new car that you just bought, take it to CarMax or call Carvana and make a nice tidy profit as we've seen.

We've had a listener on the show buy a new Ravre 4 from us and drive down the street to CarMax and made $5,000. That's Arbitrash. They call it Arbitrash. Have fun with it. Make a little money. Probably a whole new industry out there. A used car arbitrage expert.

I mean, moving. Maybe we've got to start that. All right. We'll call it Earl's Arbitrish. Flip it. I got a text. Flip it. Flip it.

All right, here we, this is a text, I think it came from somebody who texted us last week. It says, is there a point in a tire's life that will need rebalancing after having it balanced after buying it brand new? Also, does it matter if the tire technician put the weight on the front side or the back side of the tire? Please give Rick the floor, so he answers my question, and don't digress like you guys did last week, talking about how you guys used to use the lead weight to make toy men and fishing lines. sinkers and such. All right, we won't talk about that. Rick, I started that. You did. Have the floor, Rick. Okay. My way of saying it is if your tires are out of balance, you'll notice it when you're traveling between speeds of about 50 to 65 to 70 miles an hour, highway speeds on a smooth road,

if you start to feel a shake in the car or in the steering wheel. His question was, after you have your tire balance right later on well do you have to have a balance again that's that's what I'm I'll get it honest is the answer yes or no well yes they do because your tires can become out of balance but the way you know that it's time for a balance is if you're traveling at those highway speeds and you start to feel that little bit of shimmier shake when you're just cruising along at that slow speed now to make sure that it's not some other thing causing that vibration what caused This is the car to go out of balance.

It's been balanced, you haven't, assuming you haven't hit a bridge or something like that. Well, as the rubber begins to wear off the tire a little bit and you lose a thin layer, it actually can change the weights of the tire and make it just a little bit out. And believe it, as much as a half an ounce of weight can make a tire shimmy at those speeds because it creates a harmonic balance where it will bounce. So if you speed up to around 70 and then coast back down, you'll feel that shake start in, and then it will smooth out again as you get slower. And that's that harmon. And other types of shakes won't do that. Right.

Okay. So at that point, you should say, okay, I want to have my tires balanced. Now, on the old-fashioned steel wheels, so they're just those stamped steel wheels, we'll generally put a clamp on weight on the inside or outside, whichever place the computerized machine tells us that weight needs to be to get that wheel in balance. If it's an alloy wheel, the fancy aluminum alloy wheels, like most cars now. We'll use a clamp on weight on the inside if that can be done, or if not, we'll use those stick on adhesive weights in order to keep the wheels looking nice and not have to, you

know, scratch up your wheel by pounding those on, right. They hide them away. The only drawback with the stick on weights is that some of your feet. Sometimes they can fall off later on. You're putting me to sleep, Rick. This textor really wants to know about it. Very fascinating. Well, now I understand.

And that's it in a nutshell. Honestly, I used to wonder, like, if you have a vibration, how do you know if it's some other cause, a dent in your wheel or something like that? But when you slow it down, once you get a different frequency, I got it. I hope our texter has it too. And we're all caught up.

Okay. Let me mention something else here about, A long time ago I predicted this. I love it when I'm right about things. I guess everybody knows that Honda and General Motors are joining together to build electric vehicles, which basically means, I mean, did you ever think that Honda and GM would be one company? Because eventually all vehicles will be EVs, and there will be no longer a Honda and a GM, but Honda and GM will be a team building EVs.

I didn't know that. Yeah, so I didn't either. And what we're going to see is a huge consolidation worldwide because it's so radical. Like we did with tech, and as techs acquired each other, yeah. So I guess it's too soon to start worrying about this. But when you're buying a car from a particular company, a manufacturer, you should ask yourself, are they going to be around in 10 years? I mean, because you could keep your car today 10 years easily.

And if the car is not, I mean, you folks that brought Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs. Sorry about that. You feel me? Right. Saturn's. We're watching a new TV series called a startup, and there's a lot of, I have certain expressions. You like that? You know, dog.

You sound very hip. Feel me, dog? Do you feel me, dog? Yeah, bro. Okay. All right, bro. Hey, listen. Bro.

That is something to think about. In the past, who would have thought should I buy a car from Fiat because Fiat might not be around when I want to trade my car in? And you can imagine what happened to Oldsmobile and Pontiac when, you know, I mean... That's why I was laughing. This is a lunatic was leaving in and out a traffic in a little Fiat. And I just laughed at the future of his car manufacturer. I can easily see three manufacturers total in the world. in 20 years i mean i'll jump up i won't be here in 20 years so uh toy to honda

it would be i was wrong honda gm not it'll be jim honda they'll be crazy name weimo i mean it'd be yeah i mean it's just it google is you know apple apple's gonna have a car there you go i mean i you probably i think you just hit it it'll be apple and google and maybe one other tesla yeah apple and google and tespa i heard apple and toyta we're talking i got my my fingers crossed for that one. Yeah, it's got to be consolidation and the whole landscape will be different. It's exciting. I think it's going to be the Dark Horse, the Atari. I will buy that one. It takes me back. Okay. Okay, please call the show because we're starting a babble incoherently now, including me. Most importantly, and to your mention of not being here in 20 years,

you'll be here and you'll be in a different form. I'm going to freeze my brain. So heads up, everybody. Oh, here's a, I got something. He'll be part of the solution. Here's another very important thing, and I came across the automotive news. Suspicious auto loans are soaring. That's the one I'm looking at.

And suspicious auto loans are simply, you go into a car dealership to buy a car, you shouldn't, but you do, and you've got to finance it. and and and uh but your credit's bad marginal you have no credit oh but they saw your car anyway and you get financed and you're happy well guess what uh they phonyed up your credit application they lied to the lender they violated the federal crime and this practice by car dealers has always been rampant and now and you're complicit because you sign the credit app exactly i mean if you sign a credit application uh you're guilty and you've violated federal laws, 260% increase.

Straw borrowers, a straw borrower, means that you came in to buy a car, but they use somebody else's credit and maybe even put somebody else on the credit application and you're liable. And then when they discover it, your car's gonna be repossessed. So if you are one of those folks out there,

and a lot of us out there, have issues with credit, particularly today with inflation and a lot of other things, be real careful. And when that credit application is passed to you to sign, read it carefully, be sure the information is accurate, and if they don't give it to you to sign, run, because they signed your signature. And that happens. It's happening.

Remember, as I said earlier on the show, why do car dealers light sheet and steel? they can and because they can get away with it and they are paid on commission. Yeah, we talked about that. If I was a dictator and I could change all the rules of the retail car business, I would make commissions illegal. And I'd say everybody is paid on salary and that's it. It would cure a huge amount of temptation and crime in the auto industry, or for that matter, all industries.

that ain't going to happen.com. It ain't going to happen.com, bro. I feel you, Doug. I feel you, too. Hey, to put things in perspective, let's take a look at Point Predictives, the fraud team, and what they found, speaking of what Earl was talking about,

the 260% increase seeking a combined, well, over $309 million dollars. That's a lot of fraud. Okay folks we're waiting to hear from you and we have a mystery shopping report coming up. It's going to be fascinating and Stu has some tips. Yeah we have some really interesting anonymous feedback that are coming in. First question says if you're making so much extra money and profit how are you giving back to your employees who help make all that money for you? That's an excellent question, and I can't say that we have increased wages in every department from hourly wage employees significantly to the commission employees, particularly the salespeople who, our salespeople aren't paid a percentage of the profit, which is a good thing, but it didn't work out for them when we were selling less cars and making more money, so we increased the flat, we call it a flat commission. It's just a payment for selling a car significantly to make up for that.

our hourly employees, I don't think we have anybody under $15 an hour now. We've raised all that up, and that's in compliance with rising wages in our area to be competitive, you know, hiring people as important, but also because we recognize that, you know, we faced a windfall. And to address the problem, the question broadly, we're one of the few car dealerships, doesn't pay a percent of the profit when we sell a car. virtually every other dealership does. So if you're getting 25% of the profit, which is what the standard commission is, and a car dealership is selling cars at $5,000 every sticker,

the salespeople are also retiring soon because they're making a ton of money. So the average commissioned salesperson today is making a whole lot of money. And the car dealership itself, the dealer's making a whole lot of money. We had to change our pay plan because we were paying basically,

on volume and not on profit because we said the profit and therefore we had to raise our compensation and most car dealerships they probably have the reverse problem right they're cutting because they're paying out too much they're cutting they're probably cutting back on the day yeah yeah here's another question what is the current status of face masks at your dealership is a customer required to wear a mask at the dealership currently no We don't have a face mask requirement except for our employees who are not vaccinated, which is very few. Most of them are, the vast majority are, but the ones are still have to wear a face mask inside.

Right now, Palm Beach County has very, very low transmission rate, and it's considered safe in indoor public spaces. We change it if it changes in the future. If there's a surge, then we'll look at it in the future. You know, what I do with a mask, I believe, even if I feel relatively safe. I look at, when I wear a mask, I think I make those around me feel safer. If they don't know me and I'm around, you know, I always feel bad.

I felt really guilty the other day at Public because I went in and I wasn't wearing a mask and a guy who knew me came up and said, you know, he still wearing a mask. And I felt really bad because I probably made him feel uncomfortable without a mask. I feel the same way as at Publix. I just didn't know the person, but every time I walk past somebody with the mask, I wonder if they're thinking the things I was thinking. back when I encountered non-masters. I'm not a non-masker.

It's okay now. What's really reassuring is when you see somebody wearing the right mask. Yeah. Oh, I love that. The smart person. The right mask. Yeah. Not a sock.

Another anonymous feedback came in. Hello, when will Earl's second book come out? Will I have an audiobook version? And will there be an audiobook version of Earl's first book? Thank you. I'm glad you asked me. That gives me a chance to plug my book. I just have

I just accidentally I didn't mean to do this I have chapter 8 here and chapter 8 is Evil Earl gets retired and there it is right there and

I you know proof read it so I've got we're in the really real stages I'd have to say that the book will be available

by the end of the year I always say the end of the year for everything But I really think so. I'm just having a ball doing this book. It is so much fun. It's more like memoirs, and it's a real book. The other book, Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer,

is more of a how-to-do-it book about how not to get ripped off. This is my life and changes and includes Nancy and Stu. That's a good point. And my sons or other sons and people that are close to me. And it's better than having a psychoanalyst. And when I do the book, I dictate it to a guy that's writing the book for me. And we do two sessions, typically every Tuesday and Thursday, we go over it. And we talk back and forth.

And when he does a chapter, we go over the chapter. And living your past, reliving your past, is very therapeutic. Very therapeutic. It's been quite a revelation. And it's an amazing journey to go back. The new title is redemption of a recovering car dealer. So we have Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer, which is available on Amazon, and 100% of the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Very good.

Thanks, Rick. Okay, Big Dog Ranch Rescue. 100%. You go to Amazon.com and you buy Confessions of Recovering Gardealer. And I'm hoping, by the end of this year, we will have the new book, Redemption of a Recovering Car Dealer. Thanks for asking. This second book is really going to make a difference. It truly is, and it was good that you pointed out what you did, your first book.

It was sort of a tell-how-to-do-it kind of a book. But this book, it is just, like I said, it's going to be on fire. It's going to be amazing. that walk down memory lane can be therapeutic in some ways, but it may require more counseling afterwards. What about the audio version? They want to know if there's going to be an audio version of this one and your old book. You know, it's funny because I was talking to John Van Zelle,

my ghostwriter, about that, and he said, I've got a good radio voice. Well, of course I do, yeah. And he says, I should do it. And I said, well, yeah, I just want quality. I said, that would really be hard to do. So I'm wrestling with that. I mean, hours and hours and hours to do it.

So I listened to, Stu, you got me on to audiobooks, and I'm not reading books anymore. I'm listening to them. And it's much better. I'm much preferred. So, but I've heard the difference in quality in a good audio book by a good narrator is really important. There's a guy that I've heard, I can't remember his name, has narrated a few books. We've got to get in touch with him. Yeah, he's great.

So I don't know. I don't know whether. We'll definitely do an audio book because I think that's a new trend. We're both, yeah. That's the only thing. Maybe I'll record it. I sound a little bit like you. You do, yeah.

There you go. All right, we're all cut up. Okay. Renee O'Bergenois. René O'Bergenois. Who's speaking French over here? He is the reader for the Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child Pendergast series. Okay.

And I'll tell you, the man has an incredible voice. I think you'd do it justice. all right yeah oh i know what i was going to say i was just like we're talking as we were going down memory lane here uh and i was telling jonathan about it before and rick nancy and i are going to my high school reunion i i really respect nancy going to a high school reunion because it's got to be terrible for her but she's got to meet all these old people that she doesn't know and uh but anyway uh i'm having my high school reunion uh tonight uh for graduating classes It was 1956, 57, and 58, and I'm giving out copies of my book.

You're going there? I'm going there. I'm the featured speaker. See, I wouldn't be going, but I'm the featured speaker. I'm pretty close to the last one alive. What are you going to talk about? How much you miss everybody? I don't know what I'm going to be there.

And all fits, because we were talking about COVID before, and I want to be sure that everybody at the table, at the dinner table, had been tested. So they're going to be our table that will all be tested. And then we'll be talking about, you know, the other thing. I'm honored because of very famous people in my graduating class, George Hamilton, Bert Reynolds. A couple years earlier than you, right? Who? Didn't he graduate a year?

He's a year older. Yeah, 56, but it's, see, there's all together. Yeah, we're having 56, 57, 58. You have enough people to show up. You ask what all your father is going to reveal? Is that what you asked? I'm just curious what he's going to talk about. Are you curious where I'll be sitting?

You're going to be sitting in the front row. Oh, no. I'll be at the exit. I'll be sitting at the exit. We have a text. We have a text. Hey, I'm going to interrupt your texting because we have two phone calls. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to introduce Phil from Jupiter and Ron.

Hang on. Good morning, Phil. Yes, I want to ask you a question about, yes, I got a question about high test gas. I was in a Lexington, feel, looking at the, thinking about getting a hybrid. And on a hybrid, they recommend high test gas. And I just couldn't understand it. It's a little forsoil engine they use. And then the other question is, why would we, why do we use 99, 99, 91,000,

gas is what everybody recommends it has it but yet they make 93 so could you give me a little information about that and you what's what's the deal with recommending your high test gas well Rick can't answer that better than I can't buy I want to set it up a little bit by saying sometimes they recommend it and sometimes they require it and double-check your owner's manual or the cap on your gas or whatever they put it whether it's recommended if they if they require it, then that's a lot stronger language. If you recommend it, I say forget about it and try a lower octane.

But Rick is the authority. The only real difference in the fuel is the octane number, which is actually how fast the gasoline burns. The lower the number, the faster the gasoline will burn. And the reason they have it retarded slightly so that it will not burn as quickly is because, Because in the higher compression engines, low-octane gas can actually spontaneously combust right at the moment when it gets to its maximum compression, and that can actually cause two flame fronts in the cylinder, and that's one is fired by the spark plug, the other one is that spontaneous ignition point, and that causes a bang inside, and that is what's known

as spark knock. So when the computer detects that spark knock, it will retard the timing of the engine and will reduce the ability of that engine to produce its most efficient power levels, and that causes it not to run as well as it should. So when they recommend using the premium fuel, generally it's best to try to stick with that if you can. If it's required, then you definitely want to use the premium fuel. Otherwise, it can. void your warranty well why let me ask you this Rick why if they recommended what is going to hurt from dropping it down a level and and seeing if you get any on a knock or noise or problems right before we were telling the customers or the listeners that you can use a lower test

as long as it runs smoothly well and it will run smooth but the problem because you won't even notice it because the computer okay we'll pick up those sounds way fast than you'll ever even know it. You won't even hear it. Okay, but you're saving a whole lot of money and we realize that it won't be optimum performance, but you're saving a whole lot of money, especially with gas prices through the roof like they don't know. I mean, what's the difference between low test and high test today? A buck again? It's about 40 cents, 30, 40 cents. It used to be a lot less and actually now it's about 50 to 60 cents difference in the three levels. It used to to be only like 10 cents per level up. Now it's more like 50 cents to 60 cents a gallon, 20 gallons, that's 10 bucks a tank. And so if you can save 10 bucks a tank, tell me what is going to change my mind about that?

Well, just the effect that it can have on the engine long term. Okay, what's long term? Carbon buildup in 50, 60, 70,000 miles could cause issues with the engine later on. Oh, okay. I mean, I'm just saying because I can only basically regurgitate what the engineers say about the engine. They design it. They say, this is what you should be running in our engines. Okay.

Then I'm agreeing. I'm disagreeing with you. So Phil decided who you want to go with. I think that engineers typically overcompensate, over design. And it's a lot easier to be sure. So they say, let's tell them to use the premium. that way we know that won't ever be any problems and we won't have any repairs under warranty. I say that you're probably going to trade that car in long before you have any problems

if you drop it down one octane level and you save yourself a lot of money and then trade the car in and then we'll let the guy that buys are worried about it. What do they use 89 octane for? I mean, they always offer that 89. I mean, who would use that? Older cars that don't have all the computerization to it, if you start to detect a spark knock, you can step up to that mid-grade level and that will reduce that spark knock for you. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Okay, well, it kind of shocked me on a Lexus, on a four-cylinder engine and a Lexus hybrid,

a hybrid at that recommending high test. That kind of blew my mind when I saw. Well, drop it down, try the lower octane, and if it run smoothly, you're saving a lot of money and keep on trucking. Okay, appreciate it. Thanks, Phil. Give us a call again. Hey, 77960-9960, and you can text us at 772-497-2-497-30. Don't forget we have that mystery shopping report coming up, so stay tuned for that. We're going to go to Summerfield, Florida, where Ron is holding.

Good morning, Ron. Hey, good morning. How are you doing this morning? We're well, thank you. Thanks for calling Erlon Cars. Okay. This is a two-part question for Rick. Rick, I've always wondered, and I have a 2012 Highlander, and I still have the step-on emergency break. Now, I'm kind of an old guy, and so in the old days, you needed an emergency break just in case the primary brake system failed. So you had the step one emergency break, which would bring the car to a stop. So now all the new cars had the little tab, the electronic emergency break.

Does that work in stopping the car if it's in motion? Most people just, you know, I hear it referred to as just the parking brake, but will it break for us? Yes, it will. Basically, it uses electronic motors to physically close the calipers on the back wheels because parking brakes or emergency brakes are always designed to work the rear wheels and yes, it will stop that car.

Okay. My second question is I have a new Highlander on order, a hybrid, and I vacillated between just getting the two-wheel drive and the all-wheel drive. I know the all-wheel drive gives you a third electric motor in the rear. Does the weight of that motor take away from, from the mileage potential from the car. It has very little effect on it,

but the biggest advantage that you will have is the all-wheel drive features of that. You get on wet roads, if you travel north in the wintertime, you get on snowy roads, or even, say, you go down to the keys and you've got a lot of sand that's blown across the road. Any slippery conditions that all-wheel drive, along with the stability control in those vehicles, you will see a huge difference in the way it handles.

Does it require any additional maintenance? No. Because it's simply an electric motor with two little axles going out to those back wheels. No maintenance changes whatsoever on it. Okay. I was listening to the previous caller, and I want to just piggyback on something he was asking. Okay, so we buy hybrid vehicles to save gas

and to help not pollute the environment. So why would I buy a hybrid car that need to premium fuel? It's kind of counterintuitive, isn't it? Yeah, it is, but again, that's, you know, the engineers decide what they want to do, but bear in mind that hybrids that require premium are generally more of your upper-level cars anyways, where, you know, let's be honest for a lot of those folks, that extra 20-30-buck a week in fuel, that's not even pocket change. That's the, you know, the change that falls out of their pockets down in below behind the back seat.

Yeah, maybe I'm just more of a purist when it comes to trying to save the environment and save money, and I don't want to waste money on premium fuel and buy a hybrid car at the same time. So, you know, it kind of, they do a disservice to those of us who may want to move up to a premium car, but I'm not paying 60 or 80 cents more gallon just with a privilege of driving something fancy. One of the things to keep in mind, too, is the whole idea of a hybrid car was that they were more of a stepping stone to get people more used to the idea of the higher technology and moving into electric vehicles.

It's kind of that thing that you've driven a gasoline vehicle all your life. now you go into this hybrid vehicle that is halfway an electric car and suddenly you start feeling the differences and next thing it's like oh yeah I want that electric car for the next one that has full electric with the maximum amounts of torque total silence when you're driving down the road there's a lot of different advantages to them and hybrids were meant to guide us into the future really yeah yeah well thank you that was the questions i had and so i just wanted to make sure that the all-wheel drive didn't require additional maintenance and that required it to be in the shop more no as a matter of fact if you happen to be someone to say you're pulling a boat a hybrid

highlander is still one of the best options for pulling a boat that's within the towing range of that vehicle simply because one of the best features is that instant torque the moment you step on the accelerator you've got full torque to all four wheels to pull that boat up a ramp and if you've ever watched some of the YouTube videos of car you know these guys trying to get their boat up off the ramp and they hit a little slick spot and then the next thing you know that car that truck is getting a car wash well let me let me jump in here on this fuel economy and the hybrid and so and so forth I just pulled up AAA which is one of our Bibles, we use consumer reports, AAA, and AAA says, there's no question that

higher octane premium fuel has a potential to boost the vehicle's fuel economy and performance. However, engines have to be calibrated to require that to see the full benefit. And they say that they don't think that the boost in performance and fuel economy is worth the difference and cost between the premium and the lower octane. So, AAA agrees with me that buy the lower octane fuel, if your car runs okay as far as you can tell, you're saving a ton of money, and you don't want to have to spend the money on the high test. Yeah, I agree. All right. I agree.

Thanks for the call. I appreciate it. Uh-huh. Bye-bye. Okay. Thanks a lot, Ron. We are going to freeze the lines right now because we're going to finish up on our tech. messages with Stu and YouTube's with Rick and we're going to get to the mystery

shopping report so we're going to go right to Stu okay hey before we get to the last text I looked at this Coons Kia and Marilyn who's got fined I think this is a pretty significant so not only did they get busted for charging bogus feeds not including it in the advertised price of their car sounds like they have the same law and up there as they do in Florida but the settlement they have to pay a million which they're going to return to the consumers, plus $100,000 for the cost of the investigation, and then they have to agree to stop charging fees other than taxes or title fees. Really?

Right. So that's a precedent. So if I'm in Maryland and I just saw that happening, I'm going to start thinking about my dealer fee. And, yeah, who knows? Maybe this is of movement that's getting underway. Nice. The problem is just the law enforcement. The feds did it again, right?

Not the Attorney General. No, that was the Attorney General. Oh, was the Attorney General. Yeah, State Attorney General of Maryland. Oh, uh, so that's kind of cool. Do you have the name? Yeah. Attorney General is uh, Frosh.

Uh, where's his first name? Uh, Brian, Attorney General Brian Frosh of Maryland. Why? Wish we had him in Florida. Yeah. Okay. Well, hopefully, uh, you know, Ashley's listening. Uh, we have a text here from someone who has negative sentiment towards California.

He says, you said that California as a trendsetter is going to have 70% of electric vehicles by 2030. However, how is California going to charge all these electric vehicles on their grid when they can barely supply enough power now to not have rolling blackouts? And they have eliminated all their high power nuclear reactor type of power supply and went to all sorts of non-renewable supply. My answer to that is they're going to have to figure it out. It's going to be a tough one. Hey, but it's always good to set goals.

And, you know, you might fall short, but it sets the direction that we're moving in, and that's undeniable because we're moving to an electric future. I just think how much California has taught us about being safe during earthquakes and fires. Exactly. Right. I know what to do if we have an earthquake here. That was a good point to the text, you know, to what he said. Well, like I said, it's a tough one, and there's smart people figuring it out.

I think we are caught up with everything except, nope, that's right. We have something here from Bob on Facebook wants to know, Rick. What can you do to clean windshield wipers? Best thing would be a little bit of windex or other simple commercial available glass cleaner. Spray it on a paper towel and wipe it up and down the blade to just clean that rubber the best you can. So don't put that. No Vaseline? No.

Nope, nope, nope. Dumbity, 40. Don't do any of that. Didn't Ford just have a huge recoil on windshield wipers? I think it was just like hundreds of thousands of forwards. Oh, really? Yeah, something about that up. By the way, this one in from Kirk in West by God, Virginia.

Earl, your first book was outstanding. Looking forward to your second. Aw. That really makes me feel good. Thank you. Okay. We're good to go. Okay, I see by the clock, we better get rolling here.

Folks, we always call upon you to vote for the mystery shopping report. You're very important to us. You're a huge part of the show, and we appreciate you weekend and week out, if I didn't say it earlier. We shopped Napleton, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and you can vote by texting us at 770. 272, 4976530. So take advantage of that. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Okay, let's do it.

Welcome to Part 2 of our exclusive in Napleton Auto Group Exposé. To recap, the hammer finally came down on old Ed Napland. You know, we live in Palm Beach. Might be listening to the show. Maybe he'll call in. When the Fed said him earlier this month,

I like to have the Fed said him. It's the feds. Oh, good Lord. I tell you. I feel you, Doug. Him with a $10 million fine for ripping off his customers in general, and really ripping off his black customers in particular. Very sad.

Federal Trade Commission, along with state authorities, alleged that eight of Napleton's dealerships were sneaking junk fees. That's their terminology. And we like that. We're going to start using that. Perfect word. sneaking junk fees and unwanted add-ons, that's also known as dealer-installed accessories,

onto their customers' invoices. Napland also charged their black customers more for the same unwanted, worthless crap, again allegedly. So they're screwing everybody, but the black people are being screwed even worse, and that was the allegation, and that's the reason he forked up $10 million, so we could avoid, was it, $70 million,

and rip-off. You could only imagine the excitement we felt when we found out that two of those eight Napleton dealerships were right here in our backyard, down the street from our studios. Napleton's North Lake Kia and Napleton, Chrysler, Jeep Dodge, are both on North Lake Boulevard, as it were. We completed part one of our expose last week when Agent Lightning shopped Naples, North Lake, Kia. We had no idea what to expect, and we wondered whether they would try to behave themselves given the considerable heat

on the Napleton organization. I mean, I can't imagine the pressure. I mean, can you I mean, my God, if that had happened to us, too. The call I'd get from the, I mean, I couldn't sleep. I mean, anyway, you'd think there'd be chaos

and panic. Dad, the feds are here. Can you come down? The feds! If you I'd be like Marshall of Dillon's here If you miss last week's show

Here's a spoiler alert Napland's North Lakeia Did not behave themselves They were adding the same Unwanted garbage to their cars Junk as it were That the Federal Trade Commission Complaints said they were adding

To rub salt in the wound Napland also added $20,000 market adjustment 20, oh man, $20,000 up above the MSRP. And, I mean, you just beat the guy down with the $20,000. And then they added an $1,100 dealer fee, adding insult to injury. This week for Part 2, Agent Lightning headed across North Lake Boulevard,

the Daepleins, North Lake Kia, Sister Store, right across the street, Napleton, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep. here's a report I speak in the first person is if I am Agent Lightning female by the way I don't have to do a false set on that would be insulting it would yeah

I arrived in the early afternoon and entered the showroom the receptionist was busy on the phone so I wandered around for a few minutes before asking for help Carl came out to me first when I read that I thought it was Earl that would really be said Earl

I'm moonlighting over in Ableton yeah Carl came out to great and asked what I was looking for, I told him it was in the market for an SUV. I said, I understood the inventory situation. I was flexible on everything, model, color, you name it. I just hoped he had something in stock. I couldn't wait months for a new car.

Carl suggested the Jeep Grand Cherokee, probably because he actually had one in stock. He said it was a new 2022 Jeep Cherokee altitude. I've got my interesting names, Altitude, and led me outside. to see it. It was a big white four-wheel drive SUV with an MSRP of $49,225. I didn't see an addendum. We took a long test drive and along the way Carl demonstrated competent familiarity with the features and controls and made easy conversation. Before we pulled back into the dealership he advised me of the $9,9,995 market adjustment.

I told him I had not seen any markup sticker, he pointed to the windshield. Whoops! There was an addem label that I'd missed. Now when we parked, I walked to the sticker to inspect. It listed three add-ons. This is the junk, folks. This is the junk. Three add-ons.

Xylon, Lojacks, and Napleton care. The junkiest of the junk, of course, is the Napleton care, and the rest of it's all junk, too. $2,427 for three things that probably cost a couple of hundred. Yeah, I don't know what a lowjack cost. I think you can sell it for anything you want. I also know Naplom Care is a year's worth of maintenance for $200, and I don't know what car requires $200 worth of maintenance in the first year.

And there was no market adjustment mentioned. So they did not put the market adjustment on the windshield like they told me they did. I mentioned this to Carl, but he ensured me there would be one. I assure you. Oops. Glad you reminded me. Then he told me not to worry if I really liked the car. He would work with me.

That's the parlance de jour. Hey, hell, we'll work with you. What if she just sort of like the car? Yeah, yeah. What if I'm just mildly fond of it? We just sort of work with you. So we want you happy. We want you happy.

We went inside to his desk, Carl, to ask if I would like to, move forward to buy the car. I said, yes, but I wasn't about to pay $10,000 over his sticker. He told me again that if I really liked a car, he would make sure that they work with me to get me a great deal. Carl asked me for all my personal information and my driver's license. Then he left to speak with the sales manager about my deal. I waited just five minutes and Carl returned with a worksheet.

Now the thought occurred to me, Nancy and I were talking to the car. He says, how could these people, with all this spotlight of attention and the feds kicking in the door, how could they not behave themselves more? And the thought occurred to me. Agent Lightning goes in and they get her driver's license and they run her through the computer. Why wouldn't they know that she'd been in before? I guess people come back. They don't always buy a car. Apathy.

Yeah. It's lack of attention. And usually here's a very common. phenomenon. When somebody goes to a sales department and they log in the computer, salespeople sometimes will try and take a customer from somebody. So if they see they've been in the computer, they don't always alert the last person. Good point. I got a live person. This time I'm going to sell them. Very good point. I didn't even thought about that. Carl, blah, blah, blah. I wait five minutes and call a return with a worksheet. The top line was MSRP 49-225. They had a 9,000

$9.95 market adjustment. As promised. $199 for, you know what, nitrogen. It's in the air we breathe. You're breathing nitrogen, folks. Do you realize how expensive your lungs are right now? Your lungs are probably worth $199. $799 for Wenditon.

Boy, that is, that is... High-quality Wendantin. I think that's bodacious. You're going back to the 80s with that. Yeah. But is that the highest price? I've never seen window 10. I have 799 for window 10.

Well, the space shuttle's window 10, I think. I mean, normally it's like $199 or less. Oh, yeah. Cost on it is about $120 to the vendor. Yeah, yeah. So they sell for $150, $1.60. $8.99 for dealer services, hidden fees by any other name. They're all dealer fees.

$1.29 for e-file. And that's another phony fee to make you think it's a government fee. 149 private tag agency boy this is like a machine gun of fees here and that's the same thing too it's all BS they should just call them all BS fees and then $199 another BS hidden fee dock fee and these are junk fees and 99 98 for low jack 1230 for xylon and finally $199 for napal and one car care maintenance I'm exhausted and this is what the fit heads accused them of doing to the tune of $70 million and they're still doing it. The total markup over sticker MSRP was $14,796 over sticker.

And we said earlier in the show we feel guilty because we're charged in sticker. The out-the-door price was nearly $70,000 for this $40,000. How much was it? 49,000. 49,000, yeah. I went and said that this was not going to work for me. Carl said he could probably take off the nitrogen and the tent. I said I didn't want LoJack or Xylon either.

Yes, if I was sure, because both offer great protection products for me. I said no, and added the 9,000, 995 market adjustment, it's got to come off too. Carl, tears trolling out of his cheeks now, said he wanted to sell me this car and asked me if he would work with me if he could get me close to the $60,000 out the door. While he spoke, I found their online advertisement. Do you hear that? Advertisement?

Ashley Moody, do you hear that? I'm dreaming that she's listening to the show. Ashley, this advertisement was for $47,748. That was the advertised price on this car. That's less than MSRP. And that's $1,477 discount from MSRP. And we're at the stage now in the negotiation where he's going to try to get it for me for $60,000.

Now, wait a minute. Let me, Ashley, listen, Ashley, do you have a pencil? I wrote this down somewhere. Somebody go get Ashley, tell her to turn the radio up. I wrote this down somewhere. I can't see where I wrote it on. I'll have to read it off my page here. Florida Statute, Title 13, 501.976.

Paragraph 18, Ashley, did you get that, Florida Statutes? It's illegal to charge a customer. Oh, no, that's wrong. Oh, yeah, here it is. I'm sorry, 16, paragraph 16, for what I just said is. the same, but this paragraph 16. The advertised price must include all fees or charges that the

customer must pay, including freight or destination charge, dealer prep charge, and charges for undercoding, arrest proving, state and local taxes, tax, registration fees, entitled fees, unless otherwise required by law. In other words, they broke the law, Ashley. And so they violated

the federal statute. And I'm only kidding, because she hasn't enforced this law on any dealer, and they all do it. The advertised price has to be the price that you pay for the car, and they're violating the law. Okay, now Carl said that the price was a Kelly Blue Book suggestion. It wasn't Napleson's advertised price. I challenged them and showed it my phone again.

And right there it says 47,748 was their advertised price. He excused himself, presumably, to ask his manager. You know, you know, Carl might not have known. Maybe his manager told him, I don't know. At any rate, same thing, manager wrote on his card, gave it to him to show to me, I'm shopper, I'm the shopper, 60,000 OTD out the door. So they're still trying to sell it to me for thousands and thousands of dollars over the advertised price. I laughed, said I'm not doing business based on chicken scratch on a business card. Carl tried to be sure me they would honor the internet price.

I said, I need to see everything in writing now, so I can be sure everything adds up. Oh, I see where I wrote this. I couldn't mind it before. Ashley, Title 13, Regulation of Trade Commerce, Investments, and Solicitations, 501.976. Action of unfair or deceptive acts or practices, paragraph 16. That's the law they broke. And you lawyers out there, check me on that. If I made a mistake, if I made a mistake.

Napleton's lawyers, you have I made a mistake? Give me a call. Carl promised I would get all of that once I was in finance. That's also known as a box. I told him I was fine with not getting this car now and stood up to leave. Carl stood up too. Asked for a minute to see if you could get me another printout. Came back a new worksheet this time.

The market adjustment was just $49.95, $4,995. He took off the Zion lawn and the Napland care. Everything else was added. This time, the premium over MSRP was $7,369. So there we have it. The second Napleson shop after the feds kicked in the door, was it about a month ago. It's been on Channel 12 locally, and it's been all over the press. And here we are.

Voting time, I guess. know how else we can vote. I mean, it's a, it's a repeat of last week's performance by Napleton. Yeah. Word for word. Well, we have some grades coming in from Mark. Mark gives them a flat F minus. Thievery, he says. Bob says it would have been a C, but the mark adjustment window says F on it. I like that. We have an addendum. Congratulations. You got an A. but we have an addem that says it's really enough let's see anybody on Facebook I'm going to stick with the F

I've got to be consistent Napotton's North Lake Kia Napleton's Chrysler Jeep Dodge both get Fs from me I've got Kirk and West Buy God Virginia Napleton the 666 of car dealers

I'm working with them and they earned a solid F minus Mark Anderson, Mark from St. Louis. A. for Earl and Burt Reynolds going to the same high school. F for Napleton, keeping the scam going. Tom Steckle, they're consistent, 10 million Fs. Wayne Veit, market adjustment, F. Ernesto, F. Tim, what, no fee for listing all the fees? My market adjustment is an F-minus.

Brian, how does this dealership stay in business? Work with me. Ha, ha, ha, F. Mark Smith, F. Cramm, 1624, got to charge those fees so I can pay those fines. F. We have Vincent on Facebook. It gives them a huge F. And that's an F for me, folks. Yeah, I just, you know, with that kind of performance, we almost want to have another little. I think, somebody said that last week, a G or an H.

I mean, F doesn't seem to do it justice. Mrs. Sunrise? Well, I don't feel like Mrs. Sunrise right now. Do these people think that they're incapable of being conquered? I use the word loosely, or maybe overcomeed or subdued in everything that they're doing? I mean, how could they get away from this? Someone asked about customers coming into their dealership. That's just amazing that they can still be selling.

cars where is everyone um is anyone reading the newspaper is anybody watching tv it's for your own protection but he's got his followers i suppose i give him an eff yeah i i uh obviously i've got to give him enough um i i just uh i wonder um the prashness and the uh you know here we have so many regulars out there we know we know We know that a lot of people listening to this show that are in positions of power. We probably have legislators, poor legislators. There's got to be people on Ashley Moody's staff. I'm not going to flatter myself to the point where I think she'd listen to our show.

But there are a lot of people that know her that listen to the show. She's got to be hearing about it. The blog that we put out on Open Letter to Ashley Moody, I told Stu last week, I said, when this blog goes out, there's something called, in advertising, called Geofencing, where we can, where we can, we put the blog in Tallahassee. I did, and also in every major metro car market. So I did South Florida, Southwest, Tampa, Jacksonville. So people in Tallahassee, which is our state capital.

I don't understand. I didn't. Which is we have all of the, we have all of the legislators, a lot of the regulators, a lot of the regulators. a lot of attorneys, a lot of lobbyists. I mean, the whole, the legal heart of Florida is in Tallahassee, and the open letter to Ashley Moody was targeted, geo-fenced, targeted thousands of exposures in Tallahassee, our state capital. So everybody's read the letter, so either sue me or do something about this.

I mean, just don't pretend like it didn't happen. I mean, it's just like if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it kind of a thing. There's a whole bunch of people in the forest in Tallahassee, and you all heard it and call the show, as I said, file legal action against Erlancars and me. Do something. I mean, this silence is very depressing. So I don't know. We'll see what happens, maybe next week, the week after. And the local media, too.

I mean, we did have, we didn't know it was in the Palm Beach Post. There was in the Palm Beach Post. Someone told us, I haven't seen the article. But it was on Channel 12, WPC. So we salute WPC. But what about WPTV? What about, what's the other, WPBR? What about, you got Channel 10 in Miami.

I mean, there are a lot of big stations out there. And there's NBC. I mean, there's networks. Why don't you go out? You know who does a good job on this is CNBC, the Finance Channel. They talk openly about car dealers screwing customers. But you don't ever hear it on CNN or MSNBC or Fox or, you know, all the other networks. People are just kind of ignoring this issue.

I just don't know why. I guess it must be. It's almost like as if you didn't write. to call them. It's almost like as if that they, you know, unable to do anything wrong. It's almost like as if that... Like we doesn't have a radio show. The column that you

asked Stu about and would he, you know, how far the reach was for that, like, it never happened. Well, I got bad news. It didn't happen. It shut down, Facebook, shut down the ad, because it is a sensitive

topic containing social issues, electoral politics. requires us to get authorized first by confirming. So I'll try and go through a review with Facebook. We have to identify who's paying for it and a disclaimer because that's how Facebook handles anything political now. Well, it got to about 1,000 people before they shut it down. Well, let's get, let's, let's, uh, let's go through the review.

I would be interesting. I would be an issue, you know, I mean, Mark Zuckerberg is one of my heroes. I like the guy. And, uh, I would think that, you know, he's, I know he takes a lot of heat from almost to everybody, but I'd like to see what their Facebook review would do. They're resuming it now. We'll find out in 24 hours, or 48 hours. Oh, okay.

This is amazing. This is like a clip out of a startup. This is like a, you know, the fake news. This is happening on live radio right now. The silence is deafening, and it brings so much attention to the subject. Yeah. And it's just amazing. Ladies and gentlemen, continue to stay with us a weekend, and we,

out. We really need your support. Again, you're a big part of the show. We'll be right back here next Saturday morning, 8 a.m. Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you.