Earl Stewart on Cars - 04.27.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Advantage Ford Stuart

Episode Date: April 28, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits Advantage Ford of Stuart to purchase a car with an special advertised price. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.trueoldiesfla.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. My name is Earl. I'm a recovering car dealer. This is Earl Stewart on Cars. And we're a non-musical show. This, of course, is the true oldies channel.

And by the way, round of applause for us, please. We're number one with adult listeners. How about that? This show is a variance from the norm because this is not musical. As I say, we don't play true oldies on this station. What we are is a consumer advocacy show. We are a show about how not to get ripped off by car dealers.

And I am a car dealer, and I have been doing what I do as a car dealer since 1968. So I came up in the car business, in the 20th century, learned all the bad habits, learned all the wrong way to sell cars, just like all car dealers do. And later in life, I decided I should do something about it. Something about maybe I'm being selfish,

maybe my legacy, maybe my family's legacy, maybe the fact that when I'm at a social event, I don't like to admit that I'm a car dealer, I'd like to go out with a little bit of dignity in what I've been doing my entire life. So this is what the show is all about. I'm trying to help you. I'm also trying to help, excuse me, other car dealers.

I'm trying to educate them as to the fact that being honest and transparent with their customers actually is good for business. And for those that are a little bit slow in learning this, I'm talking to you, the consumer. We're asking you to learn some of the tricks of the trade that I don't use anymore, but most dealers do. and at this point of my introduction on this show, which, by the way, we've been doing this show for over 10 years. Started out a half an hour. We're up to two hours now, and we have a much larger audience,

and we're feeling very good about educating you, the South Florida automobile purchasers, and the South Florida automobile dealers feel good about it. We know, and this is what I'm going to cite a statistic that is important, because a lot of people don't believe that car dealers are not selling cars the right way. Try this on precise. The Gallup Annual Poll on Honesty and Ethics and Professions. Honesty and Ethics and Professions.

Now, this is a poll of the U.S. car buyer that's been done every year by Gallup. Gallup is the most prestigious, trusted polling organization of the world. In 1977, they started the Honestown. and ethics in professions and they give the people that are being polled a list of all the major retail professions mainly but all sorts of professions they even have nurses they have telephone solicitors they have congressmen they have lobbyists they have car dealers they have I suppose appliance salespeople and of all the professions every year since 1977 car dealers

been rated last or next to last last last year for the entire calendar year 2017 car dealers were next to last and lobbyists or was a congressman I forget any rate car dealers are perceived by the public as being dishonest unethical and non-transparent and isn't a fluke and there hasn't been an awareness where the ranking has gone up. You'd think that if you started out in 1977 as dead last, the industry would kind of rally and say, you know, we've got to do something about our image,

but it hasn't. So that's the reason we're here. We're just one little sparker of light in South Florida trying to get your attention, but probably more importantly, the attention of our legislators, the attention of our lobby, I say lobbyist.

I mean, I think I've gotten their attention. But of our regulators, the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, the folks at the Better Business Bureau, the county office, the Consumer Affairs, all of those supposedly consumer advocate organizations, they tend to stay away from regulating card dealers. I can pick up a newspaper. I could go online now.

I can listen to a radio commercial or TV commercial. and I can cite hundreds of violations of Florida law. So we've got the laws, we don't have the enforcement laws. Actually, we don't have enough laws, but we do have a few. So that's what this show is. Mainly on this show, we want to listen to you. And I went on and on, I saw Nancy Stewart looking at me. Nancy's our co-host on this show.

And what she was saying to me mentally was saying, let's give out that telephone number, let's give out the text number, so people can talk to us. That's right. Good morning. Thank you for spending your time with us for the next two hours. We would enjoy hearing from you. That number is 877-9-90-60, or you can tax us at 772-49-65-30.

Well, as I was looking at you, I was thinking about Rosemary Shahan and what she has done. Well, I'm glad you mentioned Rosemary. Rosemary is probably the most stalwart recognized in some areas feared woman in America. She's in California, but she has had national significance in writing the wrongs of car dealerships and car manufacturers, for that matter. Rosemary Shahan, California, her organization is CAR, C-A-R-S, an acronym which I can never remember, but it has to do with, as I see, honesty and transparency for manufacturers and car dealers. She's single-handedly responsible for the Lemon Law. Everybody thinks the Lemon Law, wow, is that a good thing that we have?

When you buy a new car that can't be fixed, you have remedy now in national federal law. Well, actually, it's state law in all 50 states. And Rosemary Shahan started that in California 30 years ago. and she is, of course, to be reckoned with. We've had her as a guest on this show. She's called in. Rosemary, Shan, and I regularly correspond by email. She's done a wonderful job

and drawing attention to the terrible Takata Airbag debacle that nobody else seems to be paying any attention to. And she's even won a successful lawsuit against CarMax, who is the largest seller of used cars in the country. And CarMax is selling cars every day. hundreds of cars every day because they're so big with defective to cut airbags and she was able to bring this to the attention

of our legislators and she's getting some remedies and she's won some lawsuits on that there have been some fines charged against General Motors and CarMax thanks to Rosemary Sheehan's efforts anyway we're we're nowhere near the importance of Rosemary Sheehan but this is what we aspire to We'd love to be considered a Rosemary Jayhan on the East Coast. And we're going to keep on trying until we have more success.

Kaizen, Japanese word for continuous improvement. We're going to try over and over again to get better and better on this show. And you can call us and help us be better by dialing 877-960-9960. Even if you don't have a question now, you probably will have a question. And if you write it down, not if you're driving, of course. If you can write it down, you will have a question. You can call, because we go for two hours. We're going to be on to 10 o'clock.

877-960-99-60, and you can text us. We get a lot of text. I've got a couple texts here. I'm going to read just a second. But our text number is 772, every code, 772-497-3530. 772 497-6-5-30. And the text that I alluded to

was from one of our favorite callers and she's a woman from, is it Benita Springs? Yes. Tina. She says in the first text, this is Tina. I found another great website. Yourcarangel.com.

Y-O-U-R-C-A-N-G-E-L, your car-angel.com. very helpful for consumers. This person also has a YouTube channel. His name is Greg Mackey, G-R-E-G-M-A-C-K-E. He also sells himself his services as a consultant, but he has tons of free resources. So Tina has come up with a number of these sources,

and if you want to write that down, Your Angel, Your Carangel.com. That's a good source. of information. Now I've got another text here. I'm glad I gave that text number out. I'm going to give it out again. It's working so well. Text number is 772-497-6530. 772-497-6530. So, okay. Next text. I've got to turn the iPhone sideway so I can read it. Text says, hi, could you please list exact steps to take

when buying a new car to get a fair deal. I'm a female and have not had good experience with car dealers. Thank you. Well, the caller, the texter, is not alone. Most people don't have good experiences. Females sometimes have worse experiences. That's one of the reasons Nancy is very important to our show because she's not only just a car consumer advocate,

she's a female car consumer advocate. And before I read this text, Nancy, tell our audience about the real special deal we have for first female callers. That special, excuse me, that special deal for you ladies is $50 for the first two new lady callers. So give us a call. $50. Just a call to say hello, or if you do have a question. we will try to answer it.

That number is 877-9-60-99-60, or you can text us at 772-4976530. But remember, you will have to call us, ladies, to win that $50. Cold cash, no conditions. We're not trying to trick you. It's just money for you because you're a female and you're the first time you call the show. And we feel we should have about 50% of the people calling the show

as females. Because half the females buy cars, half the females have problems for some reason, and we're not sure what it is. We don't have 50%. So we want 50% of our audience to call the show. Now, the text just came in, I'll read it again. Would you please list exact steps to take when buying a car to get a fair deal? I'm a female and have not had good experience, one of the car dealers. I would say the most important thing you can do, the simplest thing.

to keep in your mind is competition, meaning car dealers are insanely competitive. And if you're buying a Honda, Honda dealer A hates to lose business to Honda, or a Honda dealer C. And there's typically, in any market, at least two or three Honda dealers, or any other dealer of a make. So you get a price on the exact car you want to buy. exact, that's important. You don't want to be going back and forth on which car you buy. Decide with consumer reports or some other source of information. The exact car. Get the MSRP

manufacturer's suggested retail price and compare that car price with at least two other car dealerships. That is the best way, the simplest way. I won't say the easiest, but it's the simplest way to get the best price. If you have a firm price from a Honda Dealer A or Toyota Dealer A and you go to the next dealer or the next dealer, they will fight hard for your business. Now, an easier way is to go through a third-party source such as Truecar. Truecar.com is nationwide. They have probably 15,000 dealers signed up. And Truecar has dealers whose contractual arrangement with them is to give you their best price with government fees only added. Government fees only added.

Another source is Costco. Costco auto buying program, I recommend a lot. Now, I have to give you a little aside here. I'm having a little problem with Costco. So I am communicating now with the Costco people about a flaw that they have in their system. But the Costco auto buying program requires a dealer to give you the lowest price that they will give anybody else. So when you buy a car from any Costco dealer, whether it poor, Chevy, whatever it may be, contractually, he has signed an agreement with Costco that says, this is the lowest price, I will sell this car to anybody. That's a great deal.

You go online, you have to be a Costco member. That costs maybe 50 bucks or something like that. Well worth spending. And by the way, the true car is free. The dealer pays the fee. Costco. The dealer pays the fee, too, but you also have to be a Costco member. And those are two ways you can get the lowest price.

Nancy? I was going to add that Consumer Report is definitely another option. Exactly. consumer reports is part of the true car program and you can use consumer reports I recommend consumer reports car buying program also but you can also get that information free through true car but you get more information on what car to buy which is highly important through consumer reports Nancy and I say this all the time consumer reports it's like our consumer

Bible we don't buy anything without checking consumer reports and she's holding up for the camera for those of you who are streaming this video the annual Consumer Reports edition the April edition is the best single source you can possibly have to pick the right car and to buy the right car at the right price so that's my information to the texter female or male number one competitive bidding on the exact same car two and three Costco auto buying program consumer reports auto buying program, which is the same as the true car auto buying program.

877-960-996. The phones are silent. This makes us nervous here at Earl Stewart on cars because... It means we've got to talk more. That means we've got to talk more. And we're nothing without you. Your calls are what makes the show interesting. We love live radio.

Remember, this is live. I mean, people call. We had a call a couple weeks ago about my dealership, Earl Stewart, Toyota. And I don't usually mention that, but we had really done something that got the guy unhappy. And it was a real live complaint

on live radio. So that's the reason this is so exciting. I can get a call from a car dealer. I beg, I beg car dealers to call the show, but they won't. Ladies and gentlemen, you are an important part of the show, as Earl has stated. And if you'd give

the call 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30 my throat's a little raspy this morning yeah a little raspy and by the way you can see you can watch us live right now by going to Facebook you go to facebook.com slash Erlon cars oh yeah we got a bunch of viewers right now is that right uh well five we're just getting started okay so Facebook There's more people watching this live than there are in the studio. Oh, this is really cool. Okay. So, Facebook.com forward slash Earl on cars.

Correct. Fantastic. Or if you're friends with Earl and Facebook, member of the International Sunrise Club, just go to Earl's page. It's live there, too. Yeah. And ladies and gentlemen, knowledge is power. And it definitely, you know, will slow down the chance of you being taken advantage of.

So if you have any questions about buying a car, leasing a car, maintaining a car, please be part of the show at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us with your question if you're a little shy, 772-49765-30. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I think we have a caller. We do. It is our favorite caller, Tina. Good morning, Tina.

Good morning, guys. How you doing? Great. You're doing great. I was watching a video Scott E. Tomer had put out, and it kind of made me want to talk about this because it's really an important thing for people that have no choice but to go to a buy here, pay here a lot, which I don't like those things, but you know what, for some people, they do serve a purpose. And he was talking about buying a car at auction. Actually, he bought a Toyota truck, and it turned out that the thing was a complete rust bucket, and he had to rush out and well the entire undercarriage in order to make it serviceable.

So he says, you know, if you go to a car auction, or if you have a friend of yours that has a license that can take you to a car auction, he said, don't do it under any circumstances. Just don't. Because you can't examine the car, you can't look at it. it's kind of like a, it's an as-is type of situation, which we talked about that the other week. So, my point being that if you go to a buy here, pay here a lot, I can guarantee you over 50%, maybe even close to 90% of those cars were bought at auction. Yes, yeah.

And that's something you really need to be aware of. Well, that's true. Auctions are for professionals, and professional buying cars for, you know, if he's an honest person that wants to buy good cars, he knows how to do it. But it's buyer beware totally at an auction. There are some requirements for disclosure, but they're very limited. And the cheap cars are the ones that nobody else wants to buy, and that's what the buy-hear-a-peer lots have to have.

They have to have the cheap cars. Typically, the buy-hear-peer-lots are selling cars for, you know, under $10,000 or maybe even under $5,000. And you can patch your car together. where it'll run it'll start and it might run a few blocks but they offer no warranties or guarantees typically and when you buy one from a buy here pay here that you don't trust now there's some buy here pay here lots out there that are trustworthy and as you said earlier Tina they do serve a purpose because if a

person has zero credit or just absolutely terrible credit then buy here a lot's often will finance them where otherwise they would have no transportation was whoever and there are a few buy-here payer lots of the trust were the one locally that comes to mind is beach cars that is a family operation been around for a long long time i'm not recommending them or endorsing them but they've been in business for a long time and from what i heard and this is a only hearsay you can get a fair shake at beach cars but 99% of these buy-here-payer lots are just a necessity that people have to buy a car from because they can't go anywhere else, Tina.

You're absolutely right about that. Yeah, and then there's also, we talked before, about the trap of buy here, pay here, that some of these buy here, pay here places. You literally have to pay there. You can't mail in your payment. You can't call on your payment. You have to show up in person and make that payment.

So if you live on the West Coast and you buy a car in West Palm Beach, guess what? Every week or every month you need to make that payment, you have to go to that dealership. Exactly, yes. If you have to resort to that, then, you know, just shop around like you would with any other car sales place, try to get reports because Better Business Bureau and some of the other consumer groups

will have rankings on these places. Try to find a place that's been in business for a while. And then be sure that the buy here, pay here will report your payments to the Credit Bureau. Because the only way you can reestablish. Exactly. That's the way you can reestablish credit if you make your payments. time and you know you do it because you have to and then when you make your payments hopefully you can graduate one other thing a lot of people think they have to go to buy here pay here

lots but you would be surprised some conventional lenders are buying deeper is the term we use in the industry they're buying more liberally with bad beacon scores and bad credit than in the past and in my experience as a car dealer I see people get financing finance with beacon scores as low as 500 even below. Now, you still pay a high interest rate from a conventional lender, but you're not going to pay 35%, you might pay 10%. That's a big difference. Well, this brings me back to the conversation you had earlier about women buying cars.

I think this is just my opinion. I think the first step is to go on a loan calculator online, figure out how much you can afford that way you can know what your ballpark payment will be. The second thing that you should do is go to your bank and find out how much you can afford and what your payment will be. Because I know from my own experience buying my last card, what the dealership did is they threw a whole bunch of numbers at me right from the beginning. And I think they did that to confuse me. I know they did that to confuse me. But in the end, I won out because I knew how much I wanted to put down, how much I wanted to pay.

I knew how much my payment was going to be. and we were negotiating the payment. They wanted the payment to be like $50 more a month than I really was comfortable with. So when, I know I'm telling the story again, when I grabbed my keys and I was fixing to walk out, that's when everything changed and I got the payment I wanted. And I, this is, well, you know, you can go 72 months.

This is no, I'm not paying more than 60 months. And they negotiated that down to 60 months. So by the time I walked out, I paid what I wanted and that worked out perfect. Yeah, you've got to be tough, Tina, and unfortunately, the average consumer isn't that tough. You can only advise, and that's what we do on the show. You said something earlier. A high percentage of people out there now are just letting the dealer do the financing.

And that's crazy. You need to always trick with your bank or your credit union. Even if your bank won't loan you the money, they can give you some good financial advice if you're a customer of the bank. And if you don't have a bank, go to a bank anyway. because dealers do what they call indirect lending. Banks, of course, do direct lending. So you're eliminating the middleman with a dealer.

He's getting a cut of the interest, and the dealers mark up the interest. That's just like they mark up the price on a car. So if you go directly to a bank of the credit union, you're buying from the source. Yes. Now, speaking of markups, I have a question. There's tax tag and title,

and I realize that, you know, the state of Florida it pretty much regulates the price on that. But don't dealers sometimes add on to the tax, tag, and title and inflate that cost? I mean, is there a way to know what your tax tag and title cost really should be when you're negotiating the price of the vehicle? Yes, Tannie. You can call the Department of Motor Vehicles, but a simpler way is to, when you're looking at a quotation of a car dealer and they have something that you think has to do with tax tag

and title, you can look at the invoice, buyer's order, whatever they want to call the worksheet, and find out if they calculated sales tax. Now, if they calculated sales tax on something that appears to be a fee, maybe even electronic filing fee or a tag agency fee, if they calculate sales tax on it, it is not a government fee. Sales tax is not calculated on tag, tax, and title. So if you look at the buyer's order, you can determine that way. And I believe we have a caro, you stay holding now, and she's from DeQuesta.

And as soon as we get through with Tina, we're going to get right to you. But that's the best way to determine whether or not you have a phony government, phony fee or a legitimate government fee. Yeah, that can be tricky because I was thinking about that, like, well, even if they don't charge a dealer fee, they can inflate the cost. the tax, tag, and title, and you might not realize it until you really examine it. And as we know, those buyers' invoices are a joke anyway. So that's something else you have to be aware of.

If they inflate the tag tax and title, they would be having to charge sales tax on the inflation amount. And if they're not collecting sales tax, they're violating a state law. So if you find a deal of this doubling the price of the tag, then he's violating a state law, and he could really get in serious trouble. I was going to say he's breaking the law. What we see a lot in the mystery shopping reports is when they're estimating the tax, I mean the tag fee, they inflate that a lot in these worksheets, and we don't know what's in there. And it's not until you get into the business office where they break that out.

And a lot of dealers are using a software program that goes right to the DMV that calculates it. But if they're over-inflating it when they're giving you that initial proposal, they might hide that extra somewhere else, maybe an electronic filing fee or a private tag agency fee. Good point. Yeah, great information. Well, Tina, have we answered your question about that? It was an excellent point. A lot of people benefited from your question.

Oh, thank you. Anything else we can answer for you or any other comments? We love these websites. Oh, yeah. I was going to say one more thing. There has been some bad PR with Tesla, and they've had lawsuits. They're considered one of the least reliable car companies out there. and I don't think that company has turned to profit

so I'm wondering if in the near future if they don't get their ducks in a row if all these people that have Tesla's are going to eventually have a hard time getting parts because the company may indeed have problems and eventually go under it, something to think about. Well, something to think about. I think Elon Musk has got a lot of money

and if he bails out, he'll be on the hook for providing parts. I think we talked about this before. I used to think it was a longer period of time but Rick Ernie says it's only how many years? 10 years. So the company is obligated, and I think Elon Musk is obligated to provide parts. But you're right about Tesla. They're getting a little shaky now.

They're falling behind on their technology, which is all they really had going for them. Speaking of Tesla, as a matter of fact, there was a story in the news recently in Lutz, Florida, where a lady says her Tesla went out of control and accepted. accelerated wildly and went through one entire building into the second part of a building into a karate studio. The Toyota used to do that all the time. Yeah, I'd say I wouldn't be buying a Tesla right now. Nancy and I were actually considering it one. Kara, we know you're holding. We're going to be right with you.

You should still get one. Come on. Yeah. No, I, I, we tried, we test drove one about two months ago. Nancy and I did. And my reaction was that the technology had fallen way behind. BMW, Audi, a lot of the German manufacturers, Porsche, are coming up with greater technology, greater styling, and also the electric power.

So I think Elon Musk and Tesla has had their day in the sun, and it's fading. The sun's going down on Tesla. Tell me you're not going to buy a BMW. Oh, but come on, Earl, when you press that gas puddle and you're going 0 to 60 in 3.8 seconds, that hatches in a shrill. So tell me you didn't enjoy every minute of that. That's what tempted to be. Well, Tina, it's a great thing to think about, but we're going to pass.

You look like you're 16 years old when you got out. Tina, thanks for being part of the show. We love hearing from you every Saturday morning. Well, thanks for inviting me. And ladies, the $50 really really is a thing. It genuinely is. Thank you. Tina got her 50 bucks a long time ago, right?

Yes, sir. Okay, we have Carol holding, so we're going to go straight to Kara. and good morning, Kara. Good morning. How are you? I'm well, thank you. First, Kara, I want to congratulate you for being the first female caller, and you won yourself $50 this morning. And if you stay on the line, you can give us your contact information, and I'll get the check out to you. Congratulations. That's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much.

I actually have two questions this morning. One, Tina, was sort of referring to the manager, the business office. I know in the past when I've bought a car, that's where I have found the most pressure with the manager trying to put add-ons that I don't really need and things like that to try and inflate their prices. How do you either get around or work with that? And my second question, which is kind of unrelated, I've, over the course of the last, oh, 15, 20 years have been leasing cars, and I'm considering moving from a lease to a buy. looking for your opinion on difference between

the two, why I would go with one over the other and coming in off of a lease, I have nothing coming in. So it's not like I've got a trade in or a great down payment or something. So I'm worried a little bit about those monthly payments on it. Well, Karen, two very important questions.

They're arguably maybe the two most important questions to protect consumers. Addressing the first one, the business office, the card deal is referred to it as the F&I, as in finance and insurance. It's the most profitable. It's also the most secret department and car dealerships.

They make more money in the business office, aka the F&I office, than any other department. The box. Exactly. They mark up the interest rate that the bank charges them. They let you believe, in many cases, that they're financing the car. They also have a lot of what the car dealers call products

that they sometimes hide. in the contracts. You'll end up buying something like GAAP insurance, maintenance contracts, road hazard insurance, any number of things, car alarms that are buried in the fine print of the contract, and you think all you're doing is getting your car finance. It's not until you, if you do, ever read the contract, which is very difficult and long to find out what you actually purchased that you didn't know you purchased. The average profit and the finance insurance, aka business office of car dealerships, is probably around $3,000 on a car that they finance. Their average per vehicle sold, including the ones that they don't finance, is over $1,000, maybe $1,500.

AutoNation, the largest car dealer in the U.S. Their average profit per car onto finance and insurance is $2,500. dollars. On the cars they sell, they only make about $1,500. So what you can do to protect yourself is realize, number one, that it's not there to handle the business and the paperwork. That's what the car salesman will say, well, let's get all that paperwork taken care of now. You get a lot of forms you have to sign. What he's really saying is we're going to go in there and try to lay you away with a high interest rate and sell you a lot of products like extended warranties and maintenance and

Gap insurance. It used to be credit life insurance. They probably still sell that. But there's any number of products. There's menus they have with sometimes a dozen or more products that they'll slip in on the price of the car. So you realize that they're going to be trying to do that. And that's the reason, as we discussed with Tina earlier, first caller, the reason you go to your own bank and you go to your credit union. You don't need their business office. If you go to your own bank and you go to the credit union, and you come in with a check. Now, sometimes they'll actually try to sell your products when you come in with a check, but you're, I'm having a lot of static in my headphones now, so I'm not ready.

It's Colin. So at any rate, be sure that you have checked with your bank and your insurance company before you go into the business office. Now, the second question is pretty important, too, and that's the lease or buy. And before I get into the second question, Kara, did I clarify things for you as far as the business office is concerned? Yes, with one exception. I absolutely understand all of that. But if you were considering a lease, isn't the lease only through the dealer?

You can't get a lease through a bank, so you'd have to be working with them in the F&I department, wouldn't you? That's generally true. There's probably exceptions where you can lease to a third party without involving the dealer, but that would be highly unusual. typically the dealer is using their what they call their captive lender a Honda dealer would go through Honda and a Chevrolet dealer would go through General Motors and they would be the one that would be handling the lease

used to be more common other banks used to get in the other banks did but the other banks work with the dealers too so if you're going to lease a car you're going to involve the dealer and you're right you will be going through the F&I business office you're not immune from products

and extra extras in the leasing either because the dealers can mark the rate up on a lease which would increase your monthly payment. They can also choose the, of course, the capitalized cost is what would otherwise be called the selling price of the car. And I always can encourage people to buy the car before the lease and I don't mean literally, of course I mean figuratively, get the best price that you could buy it for and then that price should be plugged into your lease contract is what they call a capitalized cost so the rate and the capitalized cost and the residual which is the estimated value at the end of the lease is what determine your monthly payment

leasing leasing worries me a lot when people ask me about it because it's so complicated if you're a sophisticated buyer lessor then that's great because sometimes leasing can be preferable is always at least as good as a purchase. But it's so complicated, it's so much easier for the dealer to take advantage of a consumer with a lease. Cardinals average about $1,000 more profit on leases than they do purchases. Now, as I say, a sophisticated buyer, leaser, can get just as good a deal on a lease. but you have so many variables you have I could almost do a whole show in leasing the first variable you encounter

is something called an acquisition fee our mystery shopping report today was a $697 acquisition fee which is profit to the lessor oftentimes split with the dealer there's also there's also an origination fee

there's a disposition fee at the the end of the lease, which is just profit to the leasing company. There's a above normal wear and tear charge that they always try to get you for, usually inflated, charging your money because you drove the car too hard. Maybe you have dings and dents, and maybe you have a stain on the upholstery, maybe your tires are worn too much. And typically, they exaggerate. In our experience, as a dealer, we have to go back to the leasing company all the time and argue with the leasing company on behalf of the lessor. So, rule of thumb, buy it, don't lease it.

Rule of thumb, always check with your bank and credit union before you finance with a dealer. Sometimes a dealer will have a good deal. Low interest rate. Manufacturers often, often, often 0% financing or 1% financing, and it's their way of discounting the car. And usually when they do that, they'll give you an alternative of maybe a $1,000 rebate or 0% financing. And it gives you the opportunity to make the calculation and see what's the best for you.

Cara, two great questions, and you've benefited a lot of the people listening because a lot of people ask that same question. Great. Well, thank you so much for your help. I appreciate it. Well, Carl, please call again. You're a first-time caller. Stay on the line, and we're going to send you $50, no conditions. Just give the contact information to Colin.

in the control room, and please call again next week. All righty, thank you so much. Thank you, Kara. This column that you wrote, it leads me to tell our listeners, never go car shopping alone. And you can read that column at Erloncars.com. And that goes double for ladies. So give us a call with your questions, your opinion,

anything at all. You are an important part of the show. 877-960-99-60, where you can text us at 772-497-65-30. Now back to the recovering car dealer. You know, we're on a real role here. We have all-female callers so far. Okay.

Hey, you guys, it's okay to call now. You can call now. Not yet. Oh, we admit we favor female callers, but it's okay for a guy to call. And you can call us 877. 960 9960 that's for people that want to be live on radio and if you don't want to be live on radio you can text us at 772-4976530 and speaking of text we got a text right here says oh it's for

Ron in Kansas I love it when we get out of state oh that's really cool Ron from Kansas he says thanks for what you do can you get a good deal if you special order of vehicle versus buying one of the from the off the dealers lot how can you find out if a dealer's honest and trustworthy enough to do business with okay part one can you get a good deal if you special order yes you can and the thing to remember is we have a caller frank i say your name there i'll be right with you as soon as i answer this text question uh the dealers will fight you not to special order a vehicle they love to sell you a car out of stock why because they get their profit faster the salesman gets his commitment

commission faster and oftentimes the commissions are higher if you sell out of stock so they will try to persuade you not to special order of the car if you can wait in your patient I encourage you to special order your car be sure you find out about how long it will take and stay on top of it because usually they take longer than they tell you you want to be sure that you know where the car is coming from is it coming from Japan or is it coming from Jacksonville or is it come from a local dealer all those things are in important and yes you could get exactly what you want when you special order a car color equipment

options everything if you get one off the lot you're going to have to compromise you're never going to find exactly what you want if you buy it off the lot part two how can you find out if a dealer's honest and trustworthy enough to do business with well frank ron i'm sorry run you're from kansas so i can't help you with our good dealer bad dealer list for florida buyers and for south Florida buyers. We have a website you can go to www. www.gooddealer baddealer list.com.

Is it plural list or singular list? W. www.w. Gooddealer, baddealer, list.com. Lists. Plural? Thank you. Otherwise, what I would do is just go through

my due diligence. I would check with a better business bureau. I check with Google reviews. You can check with all the reviewing service. There's something called Dealer Raider, which is less trustworthy than Google reviews. And just check with friends and neighbors. You need to do that because there are some people out there that you just don't want to do business with. And Ron, thank you very much for texting us all the way from Kansas. Absolutely. We're going to go straight to Frank,

who's calling from Jupiter Farms. Welcome to the show, Frank. Well, good morning, Earl and Nancy. I appreciate you all taking the call. Good morning. There's many things I feel like talking about. So if I go in too long, just to cut me off and go to the next caller. Oh, okay. You just left a good dealer, bad dealer list. The ironic thing, I'm cleaning my desk after months of paperwork.

And I just last night, it came across that because I wrote it down from one of your shows several weeks ago, went online and saw the list. And I agree wholeheartedly with your selection, especially for Napleton, all their dealerships, unbelievable. Prominently on that list on the right side of the page. Yeah, they should be in bold print. But the other thing I was calling you about, several weeks ago, months ago, actually you had that contest about, you know, a little deuce coop and the flathead and all this and the questions. That was very nice.

I like that. I actually was way nice. I thought your question was going to be what the pink slip was as opposed to all the engine parts, which luckily I grew up in the era where I knew all that Anyway, the other thing I was going to discuss with you guys is leasing. I actually got a lease car last year for the first time. And I do normally buy, obviously, I had to buy all these cars before.

But this particular model was a Jaguar X-type, or F-type, with the R, the V8. It was well into the six figures. to buy that car to buy a normal jag with a six-cylinder it's going to be over a thousand a month for the next five years to lease that car

I actually got it for about the same price with no money down there was a dealership over in St. Petersburg I believe called Crown Jaguar I'd probably push them but they had us an ad where no money down $1,000 a month

and I went to the local Jaguar dealer and they said there's no way you need like almost $20,000 down, 5,000 miles a year is all you can go on it and you won't be able to find a better deal and they assured me that I'd be a full drive all the way to do. Anyway, as it turned out, they actually stood by and I got a very nice

and unfortunately I haven't put too many miles on. It's a little harder to getting in now that car with my older age and my older weight, but it's definitely a stunning vehicle. The nice thing is because I realize on these expensive cars like a Mercedes and the BMW's effort

a few years, even if you bought them, the value is going down so much because people realize once they're out of warranty, it's like holding a hand grenade with a pin pulled. When's it going to blow up and you're going to get your checkbook out? Yeah, that's true. And the service, I mean, like you heard a couple weeks ago with the guy with his break job for over $2,000. I mean, I have Mercedes also and I take that in. And the B service is like $1,400 and it will change is 800. I mean, it's insane. Oh, exactly. I tell people that have the electric cars that have counterparts to a lower car. If you drive a Lexus, take it to a toilet dealer for service.

If you have an infinity, take it to a Nissan dealer. But with Jaguar, you're stuck. So you've got to go to a Jaguar dealer if you want factory technicians. But it is fun driving the car. My daughter talking to it. She says, you've been nice to all of these other people. It's time to be nice to yourself. So it's nice when a younger person encouraged you.

And she's under 20s going to college. And no, she's not, you know, how should I say, greed at all for herself? She likes to see what her dad can do. How nice is that? Boy, what a great story. Thanks for sharing. You know, a Jaguar was my dream car when I was a kid, the XKE. You remember the XKE?

It's a real classic now. And that's been, I guess I was probably in my teens. And I would have probably committed murder if someone would have gotten me an XKE drag, a red one, you know, with a saddle interior, convertible maybe. Yeah, I was first enough to go to pilot school with the Air Force jet pilots. And when I was out there, my roommate had a Jaguar X-K-E that was in the shop almost every month. And I was out there. I was the only one that had a brand-new Porsche Red 9-11S.

Everyone else had cordless in the Air Force Academy. It was part of that pilot thing, you would have your ego. But my Porsche never broke down, and his was always in the shop. But I believe the new Jackson, especially since I got one with the warranty. I don't worry about it. Let's give Crown Jaguar a plug then. Where are they located? Over in St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg. And the lady I spoke to his name Ginger. And I went over there with, you know, all due diligence. In fact, I brought a salesman, which I figured would be the best thing to do from Napleton that knew us. And I said, okay, go in with me. I'll tell them you're my attorney. but they didn't try any tricks just as they said

and also it was hard to find a Jaguar in Florida on the East Coast thought it was a nice bright red with a black leather interior red stitching or a model and it was but it is fun when you drive down I'm sure you felt the feeling when you drive cars

that people go by and give you a thumbs up and it's you don't want to be shuddered with something like that but in any way I love your show and hopefully appreciate what you guys do Will you call again? I really appreciate your call, Frank. Thank you very much.

Yeah, definitely. Give us a call again. Our number is 877-9-60-960. Or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We're going to go straight to Howard. Before I start dancing. Hi, Howard. Hi, thank you for taking my call.

I think I have a couple of interesting things to tell. you today. Oh, great. And the first thing is about the airbags. Senator Amy Clutchabar, what a name, a Democrat for Minnesota. You heard about that, right? I did not, but I was just kind of, I was going to ask you to spell her last name, but maybe that's one of good. Okay, let me spell the last name.

K-L-O-B-U-C-H-A-R. Wow. Democrat for Minnesota. Wow. Okay. What she did, she heard testimony. last month of the recall of Takata Automotive Airbags, which have sprayed

shrapnel that has killed 22 people and injured hundreds more. She's continuing to put pressure on Honda Motor Corporation about its efforts to track out the most dangerous airbags. I'm not paraphrasing, I'm reading it because I think it's important. Takata airbag inflated is known

as Alphas installed in certain 20001, 2, 3, Honda, and Acura models have been shown to pose a 50% risk of rupture when the airbags deploy. According to Honda, more than 60,000 vehicles still contain alpha inflators. Senator Amy Klobuchar wrote a letter Wednesday to Honda, Vice President Rick, is another name, Shostek, given the significant public safety threat caused by these effective parts. The removal of all alpha inflators from America roads must be an immediate priority.

So let's see what the story is now, since she's putting pressure on Honda. Yeah, 50% chance of exploding. That is absolutely mind-boggling. You buy that car. First of all, it's an older car. There's no way you're going to get any disclosure. You're probably buying it from a buy here, pay here, or some other independent-use car dealer. and you've got to have a 50% chance of being killed.

And our legislature's done nothing. Rick has got a point. Well, that's a 50% chance that it will rupture when it is intended to deploy in an accident. But there's also a very real chance that those airbags in those older Hondas can explode and rupture without an accident. Just simply while you're driving down the road, that airbag could literally extend. explode like a pipe bomb for no reason whatsoever. Spontaneously. That's why they're so dangerous.

I got a question for you, Rick. Yes, sir. You say it's the humidity that causes this. Is that correct? That's one of the factors is the heat and humidity because the ammonium nitrate accelerant, the chemical that is used to create the explosive force to create the gas to fill the bag, degrades over time, but humidity is, one of the factors that causes it to degrade

so much faster. What's your question, Howard? The next question is what if you live in Arizona, you have zero humidity? There still is a potential because unfortunately there's all it's not zero

humidity. It's somewhere in the range of Arizona, places like that in the desert. They do have around 30 to 40% humidity, but it still exists and that degradation will still occur. over time. Okay.

All right. One other thing I'm going to talk about is the dead fob when you were starting the car. And according to this, if your battery is depleted and you don't have a backup key, there are ways to start the car with the dead key fob. Now, let me see if Rick knows how to do this. Oh, on cars with smart key system? Yes. well, you simply hold the fob up to the button, hold it directly against the button.

Is there anything you don't know, Rick? Oh, there's tons. Trust me, the more complicated these cars get every minute of every day, I learn how little I know. It's just that I, there are certain esoteric things. There's these little things that, yeah, I kind of keep some of the useless seeming knowledge in my head. but yeah I learn every day how little I actually know about these cars one other question so why isn't it why don't you service the key fob like every three years

put a new battery in one that should be one of the service recommendations am I correct to say that well it wouldn't be too bad of an idea but I've seen some key fobs like the one that I'm using for my pickup which is just a normal remote it's five years old and still going strong some will last five six seven years others will be gone in a couple of years and it's just a simple watch battery it's a simple matter of you just walk into any parts department and they'll swap out that little battery for you in about

five minutes time I just had a great idea you get I'm an inventor at heart solar power key fobs I come up no that's a good idea too here's my idea Howard and you and I you financed this and we'll get a patent on it you know the chargers that you have on on your smartphones and things that you just have plugged in and you lay your charger on top of the that's what they need to do

an inductance kind of a charging device could be on your dash somewhere you set your key fob down and let it sit there we charge all the time while you're driving you're putting a charger on your key fob all the time while you're charged and you never have to worry about the battery going dead

patent that. Who's going to get the pattern than that? Or a small plutonium reactor. Your idea, you know, but I may steal it from you. Well, we're not going to steal. We're partners.

That's a good idea. This is being recorded, so you have some some protections here. You and I will split the profits on that 50-50. Okay, very good. Thanks for taking my call. Howard, you're great, please.

Continue listening to the radio program. Thanks, Howard. On the radio. We love hearing from you. Give us a call to all free at 877-9-60-99. or you can text us at 772-49760. And remember, folks, we do have the mystery shopping report coming up and it's always interesting. So don't go anywhere. And just a reminder, if you're unable to listen to our live show or you want to listen to any of our past shows, you can always

subscribe to the Earl Stewart on Cars podcast on your smartphone or tablet using any of the following podcast apps. That's Apple, SoundCloud, Google, we're everywhere. So there you go. Back to the recovering car dealer. Okay, all you manufacturers out there are thinking about stealing my idea. We've declared Howard and I are going to patent it. We are on record right now.

We're on record. So General Motors, Toyota, forget about it. You had your chance. We have just come up with the key fob, the smart key, What do we call them? What's the official name? Smart keys. Smart keys. Smart keys.

Smart key that never needs to rechargeing. And we also have backup plans for the plutonium reactor and the solar-powered keyfub. Exactly. Exactly. Okay, call us at 877-960-99-60. Write the number down. If you don't want to call us now, you will want to call us later. 877-960-99-60. And text is 772-49-960.

76530, please text us. 772-497-6530. We do have a text. We have a text from last week. Now, apologize that Earl Stewart and Cars went to the Bahamas last weekend, and we took a vacation, and we're back, and we missed the show. We planned to the replay, but we got some text that came in. And she re-texted that just now, so this is a fresh. Oh, this is a fresh one. So she's listening.

She texted last week, but she's listening now. This is Anne-Marie. That's not Anne-Marie, my daughter-in-law, is it? Nope. I don't recognize the phone number. Okay. Good morning when I bought my 13, now, 2013, Camry. I was working and putting almost 15,000 miles a year on it. I use synthetic oil since day one. Listen carefully, Rick.

I think I'm going to throw this one at you, and I've retired. Now, maybe put 8,000 miles a year. Should I, or could I, switch to regular oil? I bring my car in every six months or 5,000 miles as per Toyota's recommended maintenance schedule. So you got the question? Technically, yeah, you could switch to regular fossil oil, what we call the standard fossil oil. You might see a little difference in fuel economy, and you might see a little difference in the way the engine runs, because your engine is meant to run at tighter tolerances with the synthetic oil that is a thinner oil.

It could possibly cause a little extra wear on the engine, but with the amount of miles that you're driving, I don't think you'd see really that big of a difference in those issues. I think the effect of it would be minimal. The effect on your wallet would probably be a pretty good thing because after all the fossil oil costs about half as much as synthetic. oil. Well, if you believe the

engineers that say that you need to change your oil every six months, whether or not you put 5,000 miles on your car, 10,000 miles with synthetic, that's a fact that a lot of people can't digest or believe.

But I believe them. I don't think anyone's trying to comment on that. When your car sits and you don't drive it, your oil collects contaminants and you have water vapor, you have condensation, you have

just general gook that is in your oil, whether you want it or not. So cars sitting that don't get driven at all need to have their oil change. And that water vapor is the biggest one. It's that humidity, the moisture that gets in there. And believe

it or not, I know the old saw, oil and water don't mix, but the oil actually does try to help capture that water and it surrounds it and tries to keep it from causing any corrosion inside the engine. So six months, we have a, that's probably the most common question I get

as a car dealer in Florida because we have a lot of low mileage drivers. People retire. They don't put as many miles on their cars they did before. And, you know, somebody put two, three thousand miles a year on your car and you say, you want me to come in and get my oil changed

every six months? Why? Well, that's the answer. You heard it. And we have a lot of humidity down, here. We have a lot of water in the air, water vapor, and it does condense, and it gets in your oil, and you've got to change it every six months, even if you don't drive the car. Great information. Give us a call toll free at 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30.

You know, there's back to the oil topic. There have been a few ladies that have asked me, when they park their car in the garage and they go up north, is it necessary? And they go up north just not, you know, for a couple of months, but maybe longer. Snowbirds. And it's so important. Pardon? Snowbirds. Yes.

And it's really important that they maintain their car for that very reason. Ladies and gentlemen, that number again, if you have any questions, and we would love for you to be part of the show. give us a call toll-free at 877-960-99-60. Rick's here. He can answer all of your questions. We have Stu, our cyber guy, and myself, Nancy Stewart, and, of course, the star of the show, Earl Stewart. So, again, 877-960, where you can text us, at 772-497-6530. And let me remind you about our debut in video.

And last week and the week before, last week was a rerun, we are now on video. And you can watch us right now. I'm going to wave at you. And Nancy will wave at you. And so, well, Rick and Stu, Facebook.com, forward slash Earl on Cars. Facebook.com forward slash Earl on Cars, E-A-R-L on Car. So you can go to your smartphone, your PC, your Mac, put that in the URL, Facebook.com, for it slash Earl on Cars, and you're looking at Nancy's pretty face, my ugly face.

And I guess you can say Stu and Rick are kind of ordinary. You can't see me. I'm getting, I set up the cameras. Can't see, okay. Anyway, this is kind of exciting. We have to come up with some visual stuff pretty soon. I don't know what it will be. Yeah.

Yeah, we're looking at Rick's baby face, I call it. He's got a baby face. He does have a baby face. But I might mention this morning that we do have an event at the library in North Palm Beach. Isn't that right, Mr. Cardiore? It is, absolutely. And it's at the North Palm Beach Library. And it's on US One.

And we're having it's for the kids. We're doing a popcorn thing. Yeah, we're going to pop some popcorn. Yeah, we're bringing the popcorn machine. It's a big event. Exactly. And we're going to be... We'll be over there on May the 9th.

May the 9th, from 2 till 3.30 or 4 o'clock at the North Palm Beach Library. And we're encouraging the kitties to read books and come into the library. And we're going to bribe them with popcorn. Wholesome, whole grain popcorn. Will it be whole grain? Is that what we... I think all popcorn. Oh, okay.

Well, you know, as long as we're talking kitties, I've got to say one mention here. Happy belated birthday, Stu. Stu just turned 50 years old a couple days ago. Thank you very much. You're right behind me. Wait a minute. Or you're a little bit older. I was a week and a half ago.

That's right. That's right. We're on the back nine now. Okay, call us at 877-960-9960. We're a little quiet in here. We like the calls. We like your comments. And I challenge anybody in the automobile retail business to call us.

And I don't want to be belligerent about it, but we'd like to hear your constructive or otherwise criticism. We have a caller. Wonderful. John is calling from Boynton Beach. Welcome to the show, John. Thank you. The reason I called you were talking about rechargeable key fobs,

and I just wanted to mention that Minnie has those. You put them in the dashboard, and you drive along, they charge themselves. Oh, darn. I thought I had it. I was going to patent that. The reason I know that is because we have two sets of keys. My wife, that's her car, and I have a spare set in the house,

and you have to remember every so often to take that spare set out and use it. Wow. Otherwise, it'll be dead when you need it. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? Now, many, do they manufacture anything besides the many? Well, it's made by BMW, but I think that's all. they

Well, maybe BMW has that feature, too. That's a great idea. I mean, I would encourage all the other manufacturers. Why haven't you come up with that idea? John, where do you actually have to set it to

charge it? You just, what you do is when you get in a car, you put it in the dashboard. Just on the dashboard. Well, no, you plug it in. Oh, you plug it in. But it's not a key, you know, it's a fob. I got you. It's not a keyless thing. You stick the fob in the

dashboard and that allows you to start the car and go and why you're driving it charges that's also the car's computer when you go into the dealer they have to take that key fob from you and put it in their machine and find out the diagnostics of the engine I'll be darned now that's really cool of course now I suddenly realize you still have my patent because I'm talking about inductive inductive charging where you don't even have to plug it in if you uh if you've ever right with my iPhone and Stu put me onto this, you just plug this little pad in, and at night I just set my iPhone down on the nightstand, just lay it down, and this charger is all night long.

A lot of cars have that in the center console, the key charger, where you simply set your phone on it, and it wirelessly charges your phone while you're driving. Oh, if you can charge your phone, why can't you charge your key fob? Exactly. I got it. Yeah, you still got it. I still got it.

I believe it's called Chi. Chi, Q-I-C-C-Ch charging. Yep, to charge. Yeah, that's a good idea. And I just wanted to say I was up at your shop and looking at some used cars, and I ran into a fellow, what was his name, Julio Sanchez, and he was really fantastic. I think he was a manager.

Yeah, yeah. But he was very informative. I was just looking to get some information for my daughter. I was looking to buy a car, and he was very helpful, even though I wasn't really there to buy the car that day. Well, thank you very. And I actually bought my first ever tour. Toyota in 2013 from your shop in North Palm.

But that was before the current pricing, the way they do it now. That's a question I had, though. Shop, when you said that Costco gets you the best price, it's just the best price for that specific dealer. Is that not correct? No. What Costco does is they calculate the pricing of all their dealers, and they will call a dealer.

They call us. I'm a Costco dealer, and they will say, this particular model, this Tacoma or this Camry, you're priced $100 too high. Bring your price down. And they make you bring the price down to a low price in the whole market. And that's one of my beasts with them, by the way, because some of the dealers will add the dealer fees to their prices. And they should be included in the price.

price that they calculate to tell the other dealers to put their prices in. So we're forced to put our prices in at a lower price than we think it's too low because the other dealers have put those prices in, and then they add $1,000 or $2,000 in dealer fees when they come in. But that's a personal beat between me and Costco, and I'm fighting that battle right now. I'll let you know how it comes out. Okay. Thank you very much.

John, thanks for the call. Very informative. if I did not know that about Minnie and the rechargeable key fob. Great information. I thought that was fascinating, so I texted our controller who doesn't want us to say his name on the air. But he drives a mini. Should be driving a Toyota. Sean Gepard doesn't want to mention the name.

I think he was kidding. But he says it's really cool. He charges his key fob all the time, and the dealer, the mini dealer logs his service by taking his key. So he plugs the key in somewhere at the dealership, and it's like magic. I love technology. It's exploding. I mean, I just love this. I'm a techno.

You know, for an old guy, I'm a techno guy. You know, I just love the technical stuff. But, yeah, that's great. I mean, charging will be obsolete. I mean, charging will be inductive before along. We'll be charging things from the ground will throw up radiation. I love the idea that in about 30 or 40 years, we'll all be driving electric cars that automatically receive their power from inductive

It's built into the roadway. And as you're driving, the car is automatically charging, and you're going right along. Yeah. Amazing. Interesting. Do you have another text? I do have a text. Oh, you do?

Let's give the numbers out first. Okay. I was going to ask you a question, but I'll wait. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-3-0. And that text that she just gave out, we have a text. text is this after market truck bed liners

2014 Ford F-150 should I be concerned about water getting in between the liner and the bed after a car wash or power wash Joe from Abacoa that's a great question we had a call her a week or two ago

with that very problem a lot of rust and Rick that's the problem it is bedliners are a great idea the add-on plastic bedliner. However, they do have a tendency to capture dirt water underneath that bedliner, and that plastic does move tiny amounts, which allows it to literally abrate itself against that metal surface,

and you're actually wearing the paint off underneath, and that causes, of course, open metal that can rust. The best solution really is I would actually do a rhinole. liner, a spray-in liner, spray-in bedliners. I remember we talked about it. They are, R-H-I-N-O, like a rhino, like the rhinoceros. Yeah, that's one of the top companies that makes them, but there are several companies that make spray-in bedliners.

They even make kits for the do-it-yourselfers. A friend of mine actually did a liner, the entire interior of their Jeep. And I've actually seen quite a few vehicles where they have literally put spray-on-thruilers. bedliner on the entire outside of the vehicle as opposed to paint and it's amazing stuff and i've even seen some people that double it they put a spray in bedliner then put a plastic bed liner so that they don't wind up denting or damaging the vehicle where do you buy rhinoliner uh best place go online and find a local shop that will install it places like truck and trailer USA race side truck and trailer

all these places there's lots of local companies I would Google them check their Google reviews and make sure that they're using a good high quality product and go for it what's the average price I have seen prices ranging from

around 200 to as much as three to 400 dollars is it like a guarantee I mean they're guaranteed not to chip yes most of them have a guarantee for a certain length of time and obviously any liner could be destroyed with a serious abuse but for average daily wear and tear

this stuff is awesome. Does it look okay? They look great. Yeah. So it would enhance a resale value of your truck? Absolutely. I love endorsing good products. Yeah. What's the one we endorse with the windshield that you put on there that Rain X? Yeah, Rainex. That stuff is fantastic. You have your windshield treated with

Rain X, R-A-N-R-A-I-N-X. Rain X. You put that on, and when you're in a thunderstorm, I just fascinate, watching the, the rain doesn't even hit your windshield. It goes off so fast, you can just, you don't need a windshield weather. And Florida love bug season, that stuff is awesome. Very good. There you go, folks. You just heard it right here. We are talking about everything, everything. So give us a call with some of your ideas, some of your questions, at 877960, or you can text us, if you're a little shy, at 772-497-6530.

I was going to ask you about that spot that we saw on TV last night about, we talked about it in the car on the way over, and the gentleman's holding a cup of coffee and he's riding down the road and he claims that it's very smooth. It's some sort of a computerized deal that has your wheels lift up. The car senses the bump or the pothole and then your wheel automatically

comes up to avoid the shock of that. What I saw and demonstrated in the WPTV looked like it didn't work but it looked like they were trying to make it look like it would work because when they hit that pothole the guy was bouncing around. Yeah. But he didn't spill his coffee, so.

No, he didn't. He didn't spill his Starbucks coffee. Well, technology is going to be, technology is going to, I mean, it's going to make lazy people out of all of us. You won't even have to avoid a pothole. Have you seen the new one now for that C-stabilizer device that goes in your boat? And it literally,

it's like a gyroscope that literally eliminates the swaying, of a boat imagine when they can divide something like that for a car for automobile suspension car sickness would be a thing of the past exactly i like that idea folks you got a couple of texts i got some text here's going to read some texts that he has we got a follow from am marie let me mention to we have a we have a 50 dollars to give away the next female new female caller so i keep that in mind. And Desiree, we will get right with you in a moment. Earl's going to go ahead and read a text. Desiree is one of our wonderful callers.

Okay. Is this a follow-up for Anne-Marie? Why are automotive companies changing from keys to key fobs? Yes. I'm a ludite. A ludite. What's a ludic? Luddite. Someone who doesn't like technology. Oh, I'm a letter. I just, I learned something else. There you go. Nobody else learned anything because I'm the only one that doesn't know what a lot of ideas, but who likes old-fashioned keys because you know when you're, when you're, you know, it's not to be said for old-fashioned cases. I kind of feel the same way. I sometimes think we complicate our lives.

I mean, I could have lived a very happy life without a key pop, although it is very convenient. I get into my house by saying Siri opened the front door. So that's true. I mean, you know, we all have to recognize that there are things ingrained in us. I mean, we grow up in certain ways and adopting a new thing or sometimes just more of an annoyance to some people. Well, I'm 30 years old, so that's a... This is very true.

I'm a millennial. This is very true. Are you 29 or 30? I just turned 30. I mean, that was 50, sorry, I screwed up. And I think I have another, I think I have another one here, too, another text. Okay, here we go. I have, let's see, oops.

There we go. we have a 2015 Honda CRV is it necessary that we take it to a Honda dealer if we do not who would you recommend ratio Phil a difficult question the Honda dealers typically have the trained technicians they have the diagnostic equipment they are higher priced than the independence and they typically have more to answer to. They have to answer to Honda, for example. And you really have more cloud as a Honda owner

with a Honda dealer in service. But sometimes the prices are just so damn high that you just have to find yourself someplace you can go and save a little bit of money. So that's a good question. Phil, there's no obligation, even if your car is under warranty to take your car to a Honda dealer.

Now, you have to take your car to a Honda dealer to have a car repaired and reimbursed by Honda under warranty, but you can have your car maintained anywhere as long as you can document that you have the maintenance done prescribed by the owner's manual. So if you've got a good independent technician, a good, honest independent technician will tell you what he can do and what he can't do. And we know some people out there that do repairs on Toyotas, and I'm a Toyota dealer, and when a person comes in with a Toyota, they'll say, you better take this to a Toyota dealer because I don't have the diagnostic machinery or the were-with-all, the skill to do this. Rick Kearney, sitting beside me, is what they call a certified diagnostic master technician. Goes to school all the time, online a lot of times, and he has to stay up with the,

rapidly exploding technology in automotive. So he's truly, we call him a computer auto scientist. So some of the independents just don't have that kind of skill. But for routine maintenance, yes, you take it to an independent. Who can I recommend? Who do we recommend?

Unfortunately, I don't really know of any techs right off the bat after market shops that would specialize in Honda. But my advice for anyone with any car, if you're looking to find a good good tech, go online to the forum sites for your particular brand of car and talk to people

there, find who they recommend, and then check the reviews and Google reviews on that mechanic. Do your homework. Well, Pet Boys is, I mean, they're a national brand, aren't they? They are. Locally, I mean, I don't know if they specialize in Honda, but we know Curtis Noble up in Jupiter on Center Street, honest technician, good guy, also an acutech tech. and Lake Park. That's another good one.

As a car dealer, we use outside services, and sometimes we'll send cars from our used car department. It could be a Mercedes. It could be a Ford, and we'll send it to an independent because we don't have the skilled technician.

So that's the reason you'll want to go to the factory technician. Sometimes they don't have the... Yeah, yeah. But I hope we answered your question on your Honda, and fortunately a Honda of CRV is a good car.

You're probably not going to have a lot expensive repairs. Yeah, great car. I want to thank Desiree for her patience, and we'd like to welcome you to the show, Desiree. Good morning. Good morning, guys.

Good morning, good morning. Well, I have a good question this morning, and with me being in this car business for a minute, I remember a couple

coming on a car dealer that I worked at for many years on North Lake Boulevard and I remember this couple coming in in a beat-up truck and as I was standing out with the guys, with the sales guys as soon as they saw these people drive up,

they disappeared because they saw the truck, didn't want to wait on anybody, didn't want to wait on them because they just knew that they didn't have the money, they couldn't afford it. But there was one sales guy, and he said, Dad, you know, I'll talk to them.

When the guy approached this couple, they had a down payment, not a down payment, but they were able to purchase the truck, the F-150 that they purchased with flat-out money. They were able to buy it right out. Cash buyers. Cash, cash buyers. and so my question this morning is based on that when we talk about people who cannot afford

to go to a dealership with a good down payment and then they can't afford to buy the kind of cars that they want so they get stuck with the kind of airbags and all of this but my question is the beacon score or the down payment if a person has a low beacon score but a large down payment, could they get the card they want or if they had the money and not a saveable beacon score, could they pay cash for it? Well, sure, Desiree, that's something that it's an equation that the lenders have, and they have a requirement

based on your beacon score is how high a down payment you have to make. They have to have equity in the car because that's their collateral. And if they have to repossess the car, then they have to be able to dispose of it and hopefully recover their losses. So if you have a sterling credit, if you've got a very high beacon score, you can buy a car with $0 down because the lender has so much confidence that the car will not come back. But if you have a bad credit score, frankly, the lender's worried that maybe I've got a 5% or 10%, or even greater chance, I'll have to repossess the car. And if I repossess the car, I have to have a large down payment at the get-go

so that the value of that car, when I sell it, will put some cash in the bank for the lender. So, yeah, it goes all the way up to where you can't have any loan, and then you have to pay cash for the car. But if you have just like to say a 550 beacon score, you might have to put $5,000 down where somebody with a $700 beacon score would only have to put a thousand dollars down okay and see i'm glad you said that because that was part of the actual question another part that if a person has about you know five thousand to maybe eight thousand dollars to uh put down on the vehicle that they wanted uh would that be substantial enough for

them to be able to get the vehicle that they wanted if they had that much of a down payment you know from the five to eight thousand yeah five to eight thousand yeah five to eight thousand is significant. Of course, it depends on the price of the car. A lower price car, that's a whole lot of money. If you're buying a high price car, like a $60,000 or $70,000 car, that's not as much

money. So, but yeah, some that's got $5,000 to $8,000, that's considered a very significant down payment. Okay, cool. That was my question. Wow, that's good. Okay, I just really wanted to know that because, like I said, you know, when I started out with this,

I started out, even at your dealership, greeting the customers. And, you know what I'm saying? So starting from there and then working myself all the way up to customer relations manager, you know, these questions, it's just, you know, you just want to know, and if it's someone that's listening, they kind of wanted to know what difference between the actual beacon score and a down payment, you know what I'm saying? I say to people, when you go and do your homework to buy your car, if you have a large down payment, save your money first. Do your own homework, save your money, you know what I'm saying, so that if whatever car you want,

if it's a pre-owned vehicle, from a Mercedes to whatever, save your money, don't rush, you know, get around the way that you were, you know, that you were able to get around first, but then just have that big down payment and you can get whatever you want, depending on. the vehicle. Good advice. That's very good advice, Desire. I appreciate your sharing that with our audience. A lot of people benefit from that. Thank you so much. Yeah, you guys have a good morning.

We love here from you, Desiree. 877960 or you can text us 772-497-6530. We are shortly going to share the mystery shoppering report with all of you. And that

mystery shopping report is from Advantage Ford and Stewart, so stay tuned for that. The funny thing is, I had a call from a customer or a prospective customer that was going to buy from Advantage Ford and Stewart and was upset with the treatment there, and that's not why we shop them, but when Stu told me that we have chosen Advantage Ford for our shopping target. I said, what a coincidence. I just had a customer called me complaining about treatment that he had there. So it'll be exciting to see how it went. And if you've had any experience with Advantage Ford, then call us. We'd love to hear your experience with Advantage Ford. They will be the topic of our mystery shopping report very shortly. Calls

at 877-960 9960. Nancy is, okay. We're going to go straight to Bob, who's been holding from Lake Park. Good morning, Bob. Yes, good morning. How is everyone today? Great. Good. I have two things.

First, not the main reason for my call, but I had called and left a message with your son, Jason, about an article in the Washington Post about the Takata airbags. I'm not quite sure if you're sure if you're sure to not, but it was quite interesting. Thank you very much. Jason forward to that to me. And I would suggest you might want to look at it. Excellent article. I appreciate that, Bob.

I did see it. The main reason for my call is I was wondering, are you aware of what's going on with the Congress Avenue extension and how it's going to affect your business? No, I'm not. I figured that because most people aren't. And what the county is doing is they're going into a meeting on May 15th, the vote for a realignment because there's a new property owner in there, and they're not

only going to realign the road, but they're going to re-engineer it. The new property owner wants to put a gigantic industrial park in the old garden's trailer park there, which is going to serve as scores of semi-tractor trailers. Most of them are going to be coming down, I guess, off I-95, and it's crazy because the extension was actually supposed to relieve the traffic on North Lake. But what they're proposing here is going to make the traffic worse. And all the communities that live off in North Lake, like Ibis and Steeplechase, PGA National, all these communities, Hunts Club, Horsesewakers, that use North Lake Boulevard are going to be in for a rude awakening when they try to come down North Lake.

And even if they have to come to your dealership, a lot of these people will access your dealership directly down North Lake Boulevard. Now not to only fight all the traffic, but not to fight all these semi-trucks that will be coming into service these warehouses that they're putting in. And the county, who already had a previously line that approved through the middle of the property, which would negate this person from doing what he wants to do, refuses to pay for the right-of-way because they're saying that they're broke. And they all have the money, and he's giving them the right-of-way if they move. the road all the way to the eastern part of the property, which will allow him to build this gigantic industrial park. Now, I'm a little confused because I read in the Palm Beach Post not too long ago, but the new public county administrator was dancing in the aisles because the county had gotten

a triple A rating from S&P. They took an $800 million on the sales tax increase and refinanced all their bet over the last five years and saved another $71 million. yet they're saying they're broke. And I want to ask you, because I know you read the Wall Street Journal, and you read Bounder, you're a fairly knowledgeable person about credit ratings. Why would standing in poor, get the county a AAA rating? Only 11 counties in the whole country on the AAA rating,

if they were broke, they didn't have the money to pay for the right-of-way to put the road in on the already approved alignment. Can you answer that for me? Well, I tell you, you caught me cold here. Stu just sent me the article from the Palm Beach Post. I'm going to have to bone up on this and read it. I didn't know about it. Thank you very much

for calling it to my attention. I can give you a more knowledgeable answer next week if you call back in. Let me investigate this and see what I can find out. Thanks very much for taking the time to call this to our attention. Yes. Thank you very much. But your time

is of the essence because the county commission is voting on this on May 15th. I got you. So, you know, trying to get the word out to all the homeowners communities that are on North Lake. We'll get the word out. And thanks again. You really got the word out by calling the show. Thank you very much.

Yeah, that's what my intention was. And thank you very much. And if you get a chance to read that article in the Washington Post, it was quite informative. That was. On the Tocati Epics. I know you're gravely concerned about this. I actually emailed the author of that article, and I'm trying to get her to give me a call. and I appreciate you sending us that article very much.

Thank you. Okay. Well, you have a great weekend, everyone. You too, Bob. Thank you. Thank you so much and give us a call again. We have Jay, who's holding from West Palm Beach. Welcome to the show, Jay.

Thank you very much. I have a story about a truck and also, I guess, kind of a lesson learned, and I'll get to the story quickly. But I had a 2007 tour egg. It ran well. I bought it from a friend very well. maintained, hard on gas. I mean, it was a gas guzzler. Right around the hurricane last year, I'm driving down the road, and all of a sudden I feel this very, very heavy vibrating

coming from underneath the driver's side. Initially, I thought it might have been a flat tire, so I pulled over, checked all the tires, it wasn't. Got in the car, started driving again, felt it immediately again once I got to about 30 to 35 miles an hour. turned around, went home, and I went online to try to check and see if I could find the, you know, put in the symptoms of it and see if I could figure out what was wrong with it. Turned out, it looked like it was the drive shaft. And so I obviously couldn't drive it anywhere because I basically couldn't even go over 25 miles an hour without it rattling. And I wasn't sure what was going to happen to it. So my only option ended up being somebody coming to my house to work.

on it. I had a friend recommend these guys, and I know it's not the smartest thing to do, but I was kind of stuck in a situation. So this guy comes over, gets underneath my truck, checks it out, he says, your drive shaft is fine. It's the casing that needs to be fixed. And at that point, I'm sort of at his mercy of thinking, okay, maybe he's being honest with me because he could replace the drive shaft if he wanted to. I went back and looked at the old records that I had from my friend who sold me the car. It turned out that he had put in a brand new drive shaft back in 2014. And so I told this guy, I said, okay, if it's just a casing, let's do that. Well, these guys are, they're kind of rogue mechanics. So they, you know, they said, well, we got to go down to Miami to get the parts,

come back up. This thing turned out to be this long, drawn-out process. First, he went and got the casing for it, came back, and I sat there and watched them put the drive shaft into the casing, I'm guessing that's how it works. I don't know. And it turns out that he said, well, it's not fitting correctly. I have to go get another one from Miami. And this drags on longer and longer. Then it turns out, he says, well, you do need a drive shaft.

I can get you a used one. Now, the new one when I looked back on the records, was somewhere around, I want to say it was around 15 to 1,800 or something like that. And so I told him, I said, all right, do what you have to do. He said, I can get you a used one. Comes back, he says, well, the used one was kind of, I have to go get another one. And this is just dragging on and on and on with this whole process.

And then when he finally got it fixed, he calls me, he says, it's, but, and I'm not even sure if I'm explaining this the right way, he said, I need to add some oil or something to, like, grease or whatever the case was. He said it's going to be another $100 to do that. at that point i'm sort of like well i don't know if he's lying to me i'm thinking he is but i don't know for sure maybe i i would think that that would just be an automatic process instead of telling me yeah you know do you want to do this or do you not want to do this obviously i'm going to say yes ended up he fixed it sort of i got back in my truck started driving and the first time i drove i get back on the highway i start feeling the rattling and he told me

he said you have to give it enough time to get lubed up and get everything in there and get it rolling smoothly again. First time I drove it, I start feeling the rattling again. Not as bad as it was initially. And obviously I called him, told him he never returned my phone call. At that point, I basically just turned around. I had seen a Lexus online that day, turned around, went back home, called the Lexus dealership, said, this is what I have, this is my credit, this is how much I can put down, this is what I'm trading in. I want to come in, take a look at this car. If it's what I want, let's just put everything down and buy it. So was sort of at Lexus's mercy that day, too.

I ended up trading in the Turegg. They gave me $1,400 for it, which I was a little surprised that I got that much for it. But, you know, I ended up paying for the whole process of my truck. I think it was around $7 or $800. I only paid the guy cash. He would never give me receipts or anything. So I suspected things were a little shaky to begin with. But it was one of those things.

It was very much a lesson learned. Yeah, well, you might have got lucky. I mean, it was bad as it was. It could have been worse. and you were able to trade it and get a little more than your thought. So a lesson well learned. You might have saved you a lot of money in the future.

Yeah, but, you know, I have a good car now. My mechanic likes it. The mechanic that I go to, he likes it. So, you know, I'm happy now. But I just wanted to share that story with you for anybody out there. It's a lesson learned. Yeah, when the guy comes to your house and lies in a driveway and works under the car

and has to keep going back and forth to Miami, that's red flag number one. And then when he has to be paid in cash, that's red flag number two. And then when he won't return your phone call, that's the final red flag. Yeah, it basically, what it boiled down to, it cost $700 to drive my truck at 20 miles an hour to a Lexus dealership to trade it in. So that was, you know, that was an expensive tow job there. Well, you've got a great car, probably the best car in the world. the Lexus is ranked number one in Consumer Reports,

so I don't think you'll have anybody on their back in your driveway working on that Lexus. It'll be, it'll work. No, not anymore, and I'm very happy with it. So I just wanted to share that story. Great call, Jay. Thank you very much. Yeah, what a story. Goodness.

What a story. Thank you, Jay. Call again. Give us a call again with another interesting story. Our number is 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6. And we do have a text. We have a text from Tina. Again, thanks, Tina.

Boy, we'd be nowhere without Tina. She's a textor. She's a caller. She's amazing. Please kindly tell Desiree, I'm a big fan of hers, and thoroughly enjoy hearing from her pound girl power. Hashtag. Hashtag. Pound.

You're a ludite. I just gave away my age. You're a ludite. You're not a lettite. All right. I am, I'm a recovering let night. Okay, hashtag girl power. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thanks, Tina. Okay, I think we've got to get to the... Thank you, Tina. I think we've got to get to the mystery shopping report, but we do have, okay, mystery shopping report. Yeah, our mystery shopping report today is from Advantage Ford and Stewart. So, uh, stay tuned and listen up. Well, we previously shopped them before twice,

and we had different results from the two shops. The first time, back in 2015, we sent a shopping agent in the role of Larry Laydown. That's our vernacular for people that just agree with everything the salesman wants to do. Just easy mark. Advantage Ford took advantage of a shopper, selling them a new Ford Escape at full MSRP, plus a $599 dealer fee. Now, you have to ask yourself, is that bad? Well, that's what dealers do. I mean, you walk in and you say, I'll buy it.

It's just like anything else. You have to, you know, you have to use some discretion. You have to do some homework. So I don't hold that against, and we didn't hold it against advantage for it. You go in with, you know, your wallet out, you're checking your hand. They're going to take advantage of you. Our second time was in August of 2017. This time we sent our shopper in to check out an ad that promised $4,700 off MSRP on a new Ford Escape.

This time they didn't do so well. Despite showing the salesperson in the ad with a $4,700 discount, our shopper was ignored and written up with a discount of only $1,200. When pressed to give our shopper the discount in the ad, the salesperson said the vehicle did not qualify without any explanation. Our shopper had uncovered blatant, Beaton, Beaton, Switch, and Advantage Ford, and we so reflected that by putting them on the do not recommend, do not buy from this dealer list. And in using a peculiar thing we've noticed while preparing for each of our three Advantage Ford mystery shops is their online reputation. This is interesting. Back at 2015, their Google rating was 3.8 out of five stars.

That's not very good. And there's only eight reviews. When we return in 2017, the number of Google reviews had soared to 186. That's amazing. But their rating remained the same, 3.8 out of 5. As of this week, Advantage Ford's reviews have increased to 240 reviews, but their rating has dropped to 3.7 stars out of 5. Now, I have mixed reactions about Google reviews.

There were a time when Google reviews were the benchmark. they're clearly not cheating. They're not cheating. It's easy to cheat. It's easy to cheat on Google reviews, but apparently advantage forward, advantage forward has not figured out. So I would take those at face value.

They're not doing that. They're old school. They're an old school. Been around for a long time. I think it's the same owners. I'm not really sure. Something cool that I kind of ran into that I kind of want to do on future mystery shops

is on other review sites, Indeed.com, which is an employee I saw that, you know. And if you go to Indeed.com and put in any company's name, you can see the reviews of their own employees and former employees. And it's really enlightening to see

what kind of place these businesses are, these dealerships are, based on what they're employees. And we can do that at our dealership. Yeah, we look pretty good. Interesting. Very. I learned something new every day. Thank you, Stee. Indeed.com.

Yeah. I love it. I went on a tear and started looking. up every car dealer I could think of last night. Yeah. That is really, this is really cool. And it's anonymous, right? Yep.

Yep. They can post their salaries, experiences with management, their overall impression, and they get a rating. I love it. Yeah. Because we've been looking for an anonymous thing for our employees. Now we have it. Sure.

Yeah. Well, it's good. The good, the bad, and the ugly. That's right. Tell it like it is. That's transparency is truth. That's what we all aspire to. Very much so.

Okay, thank you, Stowe. This week we sent Agent X in with a similar ad to the one we investigated last year. We found an offer of $4,352 off sticker, off MSRP on a new 2018 Ford Fusion. A little aside, did you see where Ford's going to stop making the fusion in all sedans? Yeah. Boy, the death of the sedan. Who would have thought that would have ever happened? I think trucks, fans, and SUVs.

Anyway, the fusion was $189 a month lease. When the price that I gave you was advertised was $43.52 off MSRP. It was either or. Either or. Would they honor the price or payments? Or the, like the last August bait and switch, try the switches to a higher profit deal. Here's the report. Speaking of the first person, I pulled in.

to Advantage Ford at 9.30 a.m. parked and began to explore the lot. I was trying to catch the attention of a salesperson. I could see some inside looking out at the lot, but no one came out to meet me. I decided to go inside and ask for help. I told the receptionist, I needed a salesperson, and she called Reggie. Reggie was very affable. Asked me how he could help. I asked him if there were any good deals on the new Ford Fusions. Reggie replied with what sounded like a canned response. I laughed when I saw this. This sounds like a robot. Reggie says, all the deals are great at your advantage. Then he said, I will make sure you leave today with a great deal on a new Ford Fusion.

I mean, just like a kind of robot kind of thing. We'll probably, we'll have robot salesmen. I found it to be a little cheesy, and I agree. Reggie then subjected to me to a long list of qualifying questions, S-O-P, old-school, by my trade, credit, blah, blah, blah, blah. I answered all those questions. I would most likely be paying cash, although I would consider a lease, and I had no trade.

I told them I had put a lock on my credit, but my credit score was 700, so they could, you know, go based on that. Lock on your credit. I guess you've always been able to put a lock on your credit, right? I don't know how recently that is, but, yeah, it's really involved now. I kind of like that. What do you do? You just call... There's different services, or maybe you can go right through the bureaus, I'm not sure. That's something you might want to do, you folks out there listening,

because they're going after your credit score and your credit application, and that's privacy stuff. I mean, people, you know what your credit score is. You don't want them to necessarily know what your credit score is until you decide you want them to know, and here's a good excuse. That'll get them off your back. Hey, I put a lock on my credit. But this is what my credit is.

Yeah. I know what my credit is, and I want my privacy. I'm going to tell you, 700 Beacon. Good idea. Yeah, I like that. That's the way to stay in control. Okay. I told him I had a luck in my credit.

I told him I would buy today if I like the deal. That's what you, you know, you took the words right out of his mouth because they're all wondering. They want to ask you, who are going to buy the day? Reggie and I walked outside to find my car. we settled on a base model, the lowest price fusion on the lot, according to Reggie. The MSRP was $23,390. He gave me a quick presentation, then we took it for a drive. When we got back, Reggie tried the trial closed.

Did you like it? Yes. Would you like to take it home today? I said I needed to see the numbers. Reggie asked me to fill out a credit app. I reminded him that I had a freeze on my credit, and I plan to wait to make a deal to unfreeze it. Reggie said, no problem.

We'll base everything on the 700 score you told me had. He left and got a worksheet, a buyer's order. On it was a standard grid showing my lease options and purchase options. The lease payments range from 211 to 299, depending on the down payment, which ranged from 1,000 to 3,000. The purchase price was 22,295. a mere 1,095 off MSRP. That's not much of a discount.

There was also a $599 dealer fee. So to be fair, that's not much of a dealer fee. That's probably the lowest dealer fee I know of. And I would say the average dealer fee in South Florida would be well over $1,000, maybe $1,500. When you add them all up? Yeah. So $599 is not a big dealer fee, which shrank my distance. count just to $496 off MSRP.

That's nothing, especially on a fusion, which is not a popular model. However, there was a $4,500 rebate, surprise, that was taken off the bottom line after sales tax and government fees. It looked like the price was even better than the ad price. You don't see that very often. Nope. Surprise, surprise, surprise. I told Reggie the cash option looked good, but pressed him on the lease.

payment. I showed him my phone with a picture of their ad on it. I bet you that shocked him. I asked him about the $189 lease payment. Reggie appeared to feign a memory lapse. He said, oh, I forgot, and he excused himself to get it for more information. Well, caught him cold. Ran and just talked to the manager. They returned with the manager, Rick. Rick sat down to explain. The lease was for 10,500 miles per year. That's not a lot of miles, so to most people, average mileage, 15,000 miles a year. And you're going to get charged probably 25 cents a mile for anything over the minimum. I needed to put down $3,000 to get to the $189 payment.

And that payment did not include sales tax. He made a point to emphasize they were honoring their ad. Well, good. Amazing. You know, you're going to honor your head. Rick then tried to close me and pushed me to unlock my credit so he could fine-tune my deal. I explained that it would require my wife to okay it,

and she was at work until that evening. I told him I would discuss it with her when she came back home. If everything looked okay to her, we would be back on Sunday to take delivery. I took a few pictures of the work sheet and left. It appears at advantage for it honored the cash, sales price, in the ad. They fumbled on the lease a little but came close. The lowest lease

payment on the worksheet was $211, $211 a month with $3,000 down. Just like Rick said, however, $189 plus 7% sales taxes, $202, $202, $202.00, not 2011. That could be anything.

It's close, though. Yeah, that was close. We're surprised. Advantage Ford, that's the reason we go back, right? We get a bad one, and we get a good one we get a good one we get a bad one the only thing we can count on is inconsistency inconsistency and uh one other good thing i mean i'm i have to say no

addendum sticker nope nope i have a picture of the of the car too i forgot to send it to you but nope no sticker we didn't check them with true car but my guess is it was probably it's right in line yeah no i did check it i didn't include it yep they're right in line so it's a good price so we're uh we're going to do a vote here now We've got a vote to put on Advantage Ford in Stewart, Florida. We put them on the recommended list or the do not buy from list. I know how I feel. I have a question for you.

What was the dealer fee previously? It was the same. It was the same? The last time. Yeah, they haven't moved their dealer fee up. Very interesting. And they also don't have multiple dealer fees. I know very few car dealers now that don't have multiple dealer fees.

And I'm running out of, you know, a space on, we are compiling a list, and we are going to have it for you shortly, where we will have not only the dealer fees of all the dealers in South Florida, this is a big task I might add. It's a real challenge. We'll have the dealer fees. We'll have the names of the dealer fees, how many they have, and what the total is. I mean, this is just absolutely important information because, don't know what the dealer fees are and we have deal fees from Advantage Ford and Stewart only $599 to dealer fees like Al Hendricks and Toyota in Coconut Creek, $3,000. So dealer fees, and I emphasize the plural, multiple fees, totaling up to as much as $3,000 and as low as $599. When I was looking on Indeed.com for Al Hendrickson, Toyota, because I had to see that. They actually had surprisingly high reviews from their employees, but the complaint that I saw was having to justify all their fees.

So the salespeople don't like it. Is that right? Interesting. So, excuse me, the acquisition fee I see here for $645. There's a lot of fees on here. Advantage is doing a whole lot better. I give them a C. A C. Now, I'm glad you brought that acquisition fee up,

because on the lease option, there was an acquisition fee. Virtually all leasing companies charge acquisition fees. It's a nasty, dirty little secret fee that the leasing companies put in their pocket to the leasing company, just like the dealer fee is profit to the dealer. And sometimes, would you say half the time or more, they split the acquisition fee with the dealer. Not an even split, but they kick something back. Yeah, they kick back some money. So when you lease a car, and I always say leasing is complicated,

don't forget about that acquisition fee. I'd like to say one thing in defense of Advantage 4, though, the advertised lease payment did include that fee. So it's not something that's a surprise later. Good point. Well, the Black Widow gave the highest score we've had in a long time. I see. Now we'll go to Rick Curny.

I'm going to give Reggie a B because I think he was a little cheesy, a little pushy. Advantage, I'm going to give them a B only because they do still have a dealer fee, but it's a B plus. And I think they're a pass because I think they actually they gave them a very reasonable deal

and I think it was acceptable for the cash deal that he, when our investigator went in, he first asked for the cash deal, and I think they gave him a very reasonable offer on that. I agree. You know what I'm going to do? I'm scoring on the curve now because I don't serve in absolute terms, I don't believe this.

But on the curve, I'm going to give them a 99% until I'm going to give them at two A's. Wow. All right. Okay. Well, I was going to give them a B because the one thing I wanted to caution was they did use the term down. And so there's a lot of, there's a big difference between money down and money out of pocket. And you don't know until you get into the business office what they're actually going to charge you. Is it going to be sales tax on the down payment, first payment, dealer fee?

There's a lot of stuff that still can surprise you. I'm going to pass them, too. I think they should go on the recommended list. And the reason I gave the A is this, and I said on the curve, absolute terms, they don't get an A, but in relative terms, if we shop 100 dealers, how many of those 100 dealers would be as good as this report? No addendum, no multiple dealer fees.

The dealer fee they had was low. They honored the advertised price. They entered the lease payment. So on a curve, we give me a congratulations, Advantage Ford. And if you want to buy a Ford, we recommend Advantage Ford and Stewart. And they are old school, but they're basically honest, at least in the shopping report. But we will be back. Yep.

877-960-9960. We're almost out of time, but we've got a little bit of time if you want Texas. And excuse me, we have $50 for another. Oh, we still have room. One more female call, or if you're listening out there, 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. And don't forget everyone, we're going to be at the library over in North Palm Beach, popping popcorn for the kids. Well, I'm going to do a commercial because we have a little bit of time. I'm going to hold up my book, Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer.

This book is available on Amazon. It's fun to read. It's a handbook on how to do it, how to buy a car. Lease, maintain, or repair your car. That's the live one. Oh, the live one. So go to Amazon and buy Confessions as a Recovering Car Dealer. 100% of the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue.

There we go. Big Dog Ranch Rescue. It's our charity of choice. And Big Dog Ranch Rescue is located in Laxaheachy, Crows on Uncle Joby. brand new 3,000-acre facility. We have over 500 dogs available, and we are finding homes. We found homes for over 2,000 dogs last year. This year we're on target to find homes for over 2,500 dogs,

and we are a no-kill shelter. So if you buy a copy of Confessions of Recovering Car Dealer, you can save a dog, and you can also save yourself a lot of money when you buy your next car. Thank you very much. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, first, before we go, I'd like to thank Jonathan and Colin for all their help with our show. Absolutely. And to remind all of you that we're right here at the True Oldies Channel, 95.9 and 106.9.

And we will be looking for you next weekend. Have a great day. Bye-bye. I don't know.