Earl Stewart on Cars - 04.27.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Mazda of Palm Beach

Episode Date: April 27, 2019

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

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart, Stu Stewart, and Rick Kearney. Reach them with your questions at 877-9-6-0-960, and now, here's Earl Stewart. Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to our regular listeners. I think we've got a pretty good crowd out there, and welcome to our new listeners. This is Earl Stewart on Cars. It's a How to Do It Show, how to survive when you're buying or leasing, maintaining, and repairing your car. And we've been doing this to one extent or another.

Started out with a half-hour show about 15 years ago. And we've evolved into a two-hour show. And we've also evolved into a group of folks here in the studio. I've got Rick Kearney, our auto-technical guy. I've got Nancy Stewart, my co-host. I've got Stu Stewart, who is my son. Stu is our cyber guy, communication guy. And we really feel like we've grown and got.

gotten better and I know our audience has grown. And as I say to our new folks, this is the true oldie channel, but we're not going to sing to you. We're going to talk to you. Hopefully you'll talk to us, arguably the most important part of the show. I really think it's not arguably it's true. Your calls, your text, your post, because we're streaming, we're streaming live. YouTube, Periscope, Facebook, and we're out there in cyberspace all over the world, literally. So you can catch us anywhere.

stream us, listen to us on the radio. You can call us the old-fashioned way at 877-960-90-60. And there are a lot of folks who like to call. It's kind of cool. The calls are good. Sometimes people are a little bit timid, and so then we ask them to text us because you don't want to have to maybe identify yourself,

and you can text us at Area Code 772-4976530. So you can call us, you can text us, and I say we're on Facebook. Facebook.com 4.slash Earl on Cars. Facebook.com for slash Earl on Cars. We are, as I say, also on YouTube.

So, if a YouTube Periscope, Twitter person, forgot to mention Twitter, we're all over cyberspace. I love to hear from you. 877-960-9960. One of the most exciting parts of this show is our mystery shopping report. And we always, I think, surprised people when they hear about that

Because it's a little risky We actually visit a cart needle ship somewhere in South Florida And we've gone, oh gosh, we've gone all the way up to, I think, Pensacola And we've been south as far as Miami We've been to the West Coast, I think I think so Yes, we went to coral, wait, the Kia store, the big Kia store out there That's right, that's right.

So no car dealer in Florida is really safe, and we visit them every weekend. We've been doing this for years. So what's that, 52 a year? We'll be visiting you, Mr. Car Dealer. If we haven't seen you, we'll be in and on your door. It's kind of cool because we name names. We name salespeople and managers, the dealerships, of course. And our undercover agent goes in.

We use different people. have favorites. We use pseudonyms. Agent Thunder is our current undercover agent. And he's very good, very good. Pretends to buy or lease a car. We have to do some pretending to service a car too. We need to go in there with maybe something like a fuse disconnected, you know, and see if they want to charge your $2,000 to replace your fuse. We haven't done that in a while, but we'll do that. And then we tell it like it is, we have dealers that do a good job, and we have dealers that don't do such a good job, and we maintain a list. Good dealer list, we got a list. Actually, we have more dealers on our good dealer list than we have on our bad dealer list.

With that said, I have to explain that we grade on the curve. And you know what that is. We don't use an absolute system. If we use an absolute system in A, B, C, D, F grades, we wouldn't have any car dealers at all. Because all the car dealers, unfortunately, charge hidden fees. Sad to say, it's become almost accepted. I guess it has been accepted. The Florida government has accepted dealer fees,

and they allow car dealers in Florida to charge anything they want. It's hidden profit, additional profit, but the state of Florida says that's okay as long as you disclose it. But to disclose is a loaded word, you know. How many papers do you sign when you buy a car? Kind of like buying a house, only worse. 74. Is that right?

No. Maybe. I believe it. And it's fine print, and fine print is fine. You lawyers out there, thank you for that. I mean, you've got the whole world operating on fine print. Isn't it amazing? Can someone tell me what the purpose of fine print is?

You can't read it. There's no law saying how long it has to be on the television screen or the online screen. And if you don't have, even if you have 20-20, You know, the law ought to say, readable if you have 20-20 vision. But there's fine print out there you can't read, even if you have 20-20. So you see what I'm saying. It's a minefield. We're great on the curve because we have to give you someone to buy a car from.

And when you do buy a car from somebody on a recommended list, we want you to take care. We want you to shop and compare. We want you to be very, buyer beware, even on the, but don't go into the dealers that are on the do not recommend list. I'm going to give those numbers out one more time because it's very important, and we particularly are appealing to the female audience. We build up our female audience considerably over the years, thanks to Nancy Stewart, because she has really made it her mission in life to do a 50-50 balance on her own cars. Half the people out there in the world are females. Half the people out there buying automobiles, servicing automobiles are women. And we find women have a unique insight for a lot of reasons.

We always know that I always tell you that we haven't treated women the way they should be treated in this world. We treat it probably better in this country than most other countries in the United States, but we still don't treat them the way they should be. So we want all you women out there to step up to the telephone or to the smartphone or to the computer and Facebook us or text us. You can text us to 8777. I'm sorry, area code 772-497-6530 or call us at 877-960-9960.

We had a great presentation. Rick Kearney and Nancy Stewart and I had a presentation that we did a live audience of seniors. It was in West Palm Beach. It was sponsored by the Seniors v. Crime, and a division of the Attorney General's office. And I think we have a lot of you folks that were there. How many do we have 172?

172 seniors. A really good crowd, and we were there for over two hours. And what an amazing group of people. The people were there were probably, I was kind of preaching to the choir because I told them that we need folks like them that are educating themselves and are staying on top of it

in the car buying, repairing, maintaining circus, you can call it, so they can take care of themselves to help their peers, you know, the people that are being taken advantage of. A lot of seniors being taken advantage of out there. So thank you all you folks that showed up last Thursday afternoon between two and four. And I want to mention Rick Curry again because we often have questions about how cars are service, maintain and repair. Rick is our auto computer scientist.

He used to be a mechanic, then became a technician. Now he's an auto computer scientist. And Rick, how long you've been in the business? A little over 25 years now. Yeah. And you've been working for me for... Most all of that. Most all that. And you go to a lot of schools.

And we'll get back to Rick in a minute, but I think we have a caller. We do. Good morning, Dawn. Don's calling us from LaBelle. Hey, it's Don. One of our favorite callers. Hey, Don. Besting experience this week, I went into a local independent oil change place, not a franchise here in town.

And I've got the 2012 Camry hybrid. So, of course, I wanted to get the 0W20 full synthetic oil. And they did it in 10 minutes, so it was real quick. But while he was doing it, I asked him, how did my oil look after, you know, during this change? Because I noticed the filter was black, which the cartridge, you know, I'd never seen the cartridge before. So I was kind of surprised it was black. So I asked him how it looked. And he didn't answer, but he said, well, you've got to change this every 5,000 miles.

And I said, well, the manual says 10,000 miles. and he insists that it's 5,000 miles and that if something goes wrong, Toyota will not cover it because I didn't change it every 5,000 miles. And so it made me, he was sitting in insistence, so I went home and looked at the manual,

and then I noticed it's a little confusing because Toyota says, if your car requires full synthetic, it's 10,000 miles, but if it doesn't require, require it, it's the 5,000. So then I look further and my manual says that although you're supposed to use the full synthetic, you can use the 05, I mean the 5W 20, but if you do that on the next oil change, you're supposed to put in the 0 W. So I'm not sure that that means it's

not required or is it required. It's kind of confusing. It's confusing to me. Rick, what's the answer? The actual answer there is that when they were first getting the 0W20 oil in our cars, it actually was not that easy to come by. So what they did is they provided just kind of a little out for you that if you were in a situation where you needed an oil change and the oil was not immediately available, you could use the 5W30 oil, but they recommended use it only for a 5,000-mile interval. and switch back to the 0W20 as soon as you could. But it was simply to say because at that time there was the possibility that you might not be able to get that oil.

They should have said that in the owner's manual. It had been clearer. They tried, but unfortunately this is another one of those cases where they were translating them from Japanese into English and sometimes the translation, you have to translate the translation, is what it is. You know, I forgot about that. You know, a lot of owner's manuals you read that are translated are kind of hard to understand.

Does that make sense to you, Don? Yeah, that does, in fact. So my question now is, should my filter look black and should I continue doing 10,000 mile changes? 10,000 miles is absolutely fine. And yes, it's not a problem that the filter looks black because that means it's doing its job. it's catching the dirt and the debris and everything that is going through your oil and it's collecting it and getting it out of the oil to keep your oil nice and clean to keep working its job through the engine.

Yeah, okay, because that's the first time I'd seen the actual cartridge, so it's kind of shocked me, and I thought, well, gee, maybe it's too blackers here, a degree of black, and I noticed the oil, my oil's never been, you know, looking dirty, but on this change, you could definitely see it was very clear, the new oil. And then another question is, is there any way of determining that they're

actually putting in 0-W-20? You know, I question them twice just to make sure. Is there any way a customer would really know? Well, that's tough. Unless they had the can, I think they use the bulk oil. So, Rick, is there any way without seeing the can that they use

and they don't use cans? They use the bulk, certainly a big high volume jiffy oil kind of a place unfortunately without except for what they put on the receipt which they could put anything on the receipt there's no way to really tell you probably could if you did the chemical

analysis but that would cost you too much money wouldn't be worthy ever it's a good good question though Don I you know what's to prevent I've often wondered even more extreme what if they were buying filtered waste oil I mean and not even knowing

what kind of oil they put in I guess out there on the market you can buy about anything. So if you're ABC Jiffie Loo Boil Company, you go out and you buy 6 million gallons of the waste oil and filter it. Now you have a very cheap oil. And who's going to catch you unless they take it to a chemical analysis firm? And where even would you find one? I mean, you'd have a bit of difficulty finding a place that could analyze it and the cost of it.

Interesting. That's a great question. You're making me a little paranoid. Now, I'm wondering about the oil I buy. How do I know? Let me ask another quick question. I asked this once before. On my hybrid, somewhere around where that oil filter is,

there used to be a rubber thing hanging down that was maybe like a nine inches wide and six inches. high with a little slot in it, it seemed to be some sort of a wind diverter or air diverter or something or a shield maybe. And it's not the ones in the wheel well, but it was somewhere around where that oil filter is. I tried to look at it while the guy was doing the oil change, but I couldn't see anything, but it apparently has fallen off. I'm wondering what that is and is it important to get another one put on there.

When they build the cars from the factory, they put a lot of little air dams on there. And the number one reason for it is that when they're testing the cars for the fuel economy and the different factors that the EPA requires, those little air dams can make a very tiny difference, but the tiny differences add up. So in real world, you're really not going to notice any big loss of fuel. economy if one of those gets lost you might get a little bit of wind noise here and there if something gets torn up on those those little splash shields but as you're driving on the highway you know life happens those are going to get caught they're going to get damaged and pulled loose

eventually over time and you can you know have them replaced unfortunately sometimes it can take a day or two to get the parts in so you may be looking at a bit of expense there but for the most part, as long as the car is running normally, you're just fine without them. Yeah, and I was wondering, would it also serve a purpose of a splash shield for something important in that area? And I couldn't figure out what that would be. So that's why I was concerned, is it protecting, was it protecting from splashing something important up there?

Yeah. I love your calls, Don, because you're asking questions I don't even know about. And Rick has got the answer. He says it's an air resistance issue. But on my cue, you know, when I put something together, which I should never do when I order something in a box, I always end up with a couple extra parts, and it worries me. Don't worry about it.

And so with a car, if I'm looking at my car and a part's missing, I'd worry about it too, but Rick says no problem. Yeah, a lot of, like I say, a lot of those little, they're small air dams, they're really just meant for that airflow that, like I say when he originally designed the car the tiniest little change can make a big difference on the numbers

across the board that help them with the EPA and it's the idea that if you can get a Camry hybrid and you can knock a quarter of a mile per gallon more fuel economy into it then that lets you have

a little more leeway on one of your trucks that's not going to make as good if it passes an EPA test and who cares if it falls off after the customer. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, and it's hard to say because, you know, they're held on with little plastic clips and screws. And real life, boy, it can beat up a car. Great question, Don.

Yeah, well, thank you, and I look forward to the mystery shop today. Thank you, right. Thanks for the call. Call again, please. You know, I know you text us, but we love your call, so I'd like to hear from you next week if you can. Yeah, definitely. We have a very important person right now

that's holding. And before I hear from him, I just want to thank him for participating in, you know, our very, very important seminar that we had at the United Methodist Church. John from Palm City has been with us from the get-go, and he's added. He's contributed a lot to our show. And him driving down from Palm City to be part of the seminar, well, we're humbled by his presence. And we want to thank the Florida Attorney General's office and Ashley Moody. She has partnered up with us, and what a revelation. We're going places. We're going to hit everyone who takes advantage of senior citizens and everyone in between.

So we feel like as if, you know, we got a little in our step today. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-99. Ladies, don't forget, you are an important part of the show. $50 for the first two lady callers, 877-960-99-60. We're going to go to John from Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. I'm just calling to thank Earl and Nancy and Rick for their wonderful session Thursday in West Palm Beach.

fantastic 172 people I mean questions nightmare stories and it's great to have this organization seniors versus crime and for anyone that wants a 800 number

and the rest of part of Florida we're lucky we have a branch here in West Palm Beach but in the rest of part of Florida it's an 800 number 203 3099 that's the

we're Florida-wide, worldwide, statewide number, and it's www.W.W.S.Criam.com. So, again, it's thank you for Earl, Nancy, and Rick. Unbelievable. I had Rick on a side with technical questions. I don't think there's anything that he can not answer. And, again, I thank you guys. But I do have a question for Earl.

you hear these nightmare stories right here in the Treasure Coast or Nancy read out important information from a female that was there and I have to talk to her my question to Earl is how come with all these major complaints in the corporate world that the manufacturers or corporate America is not so fast to revoke franchise of these habitual offenders

and documentations of people. Do you think that they hesitate because they're worried about their stockholders or they're worried about publicity from it? What do you think, Earl? The reason is that the manufacturers, what corporate America, is hesitant to just go after these people,

you know, other than faulting with probably letters and warnings, but just to completely revoke the franchise and I'll give you an example, not so in a car dealership, but in years ago over here in Florida, Anheiser Bush, which is Budweiser, they completely took the franchise away from the Orlando Budweiser distributor. And when I lived in New York, the next county from me, which is Nassau County,

outside of New York City, they totally revoked from Harbor distributors. They revoked their franchise. So it seems like years ago, they did more of this, you know, actions than it's being done today. What do you think the reason is, Earl? John, I think I know what the reason is. The automobile retail dealers, the nationwide, there's about 20,000 of them.

I'm not sure of the total count. They're extremely powerful. Car dealers make a lot of money. They're wealthy people. They are influential, politically influential. They're well-organized into association. and they contribute to political action committees. They have a lot of influence in their state legislatures in Florida and Tallahassee,

the Florida Automobile Dealers Association, FAA, they are a very powerful lobbying group. Also, the manufacturers are powerful, but for a different reason. Ironically, the car dealers started out and organized to protect themselves against the manufacturers. The manufacturers were predatory. used to do exactly what you're talking about, John. They'd cancel dealers. Dealers have to bribe them to get their franchises.

There was a lot of corruption with a factory against the dealers. So the dealers organized, and they got the state legislatures to give them protected territories and to protect their franchises. Now, counterintuitably, they're not worried about the

factories and the manufacturers anymore. They're immune to any sort of attack by the law. A car dealer can do all sorts of bad stuff and the manufacturers are prohibited from canceling or terminating the franchises, the contractual agreements. In Florida, this is a lot of people don't know this. Franchise agreements typically were one year, 50 years ago. And then they made two-year franchise agreements. Then they went to six-year franchise agreements. John, the franchise agreement in Florida is called a perpetual. When a car,

dealer gets a franchise agreement, it's forever, it's for life. And that was put into law by the Florida Automobile Dealers Association and other associations and other states have similar. So unless a car dealer shoot somebody on, you know, on U.S. 1 or Fifth Avenue, they're not going to take away their franchise. They can do a lot of really bad things. And the manufacturer, his hands are tied. He cannot take away that franchise.

makes sense and one particular thing that was brought out on the seminar which people really get stuck on the destination fee that's included it's even listed in the MSRP on every window sticker of a new cartage of purchase yet it was pointed out how many dealers constantly add that on to the final paperwork and it's charged again and that's Earl and Nancy pointed out that that's a federal violation, and it's actually possibly $10,000 fine, am I correct? Exactly. It's federally regulated that destination fee by the United States government. Every car dealer has to pay that fee is included, as you say, in the MSRP,

and, of course, the invoice, the dealer pays to the manufacturer. So when you counterfeit that federal fee mandated by Congress, and you charge it twice, it's a federal violation. Well, it was a great session, and I thank you for all three of you, again, for running this to the public and public being educated. Thank you, guys again. Appreciate it very much. Thank you so much, John. We hope to do a whole lot more in the future with the Attorney General and really get out there and help a lot of people.

That's what makes us feel good, that we're out there not only educating, but to help. trying to intervene on a transaction that it already took place. We're going to go to Howard, and Howard gives us a call from Jupiter, and sometimes Cy is with him, but I'm not sure if he's going to be part of the conversation or not this morning. Hi, Howard. Unfortunately, Cy is not with me today. I have a couple of things to tell you.

First of all, I want to wish Sue, happy birthday. I know he's not there today. No, I'm here, thank you. Thank you. I'm here. Okay. You're here? I'm here. Yeah, he's here. Okay, Stu. I have a couple of questions. I think Rick can answer these questions. Number one, on my, I have a 2017 Camry, XLE, and on my Bluetooth, I want to know how to store contacts, the telephone contacts, in the system so that I could. press that button and get the telephone without dialing the phone.

So, Rick, can this be done? Can I do it or can someone else do it for me? Actually, when you first paired your phone, it should have asked you if you wanted to transfer in your contacts or your phone book, but you can also do that through the settings, yes. In your owner's manual, it will show you exactly how to get into that. By going into settings in your Bluetooth section, there will be a spot where you can transfer in your phone book. Okay, okay, that's one thing.

Also, tires. I think my tires have seen their best days because I do the penny test in the tire, and when you see Lincoln's head, it's okay, but mine failed. So I'm going up north And next week So I don't want to go with ball tires So how can I When I'm going in for a service appointment

On the Let's see It's going to be May 1st So how can I be sure that the tires are checked out And make sure that they're good If not I want the new two front tires Just let your service

So how can I be sure of that When you get to the service drive, just let the service advisor know that you're concerned about the tread depth on those tires and that you want to check. Okay, so it determines whether I get tires or not, because I have that free tires thing. Ah, and the tires for life? Yes, I have tires for life. When the technician measures your tires, if they're below 3.30 seconds, then they will qualify. And if not, since you're going on a trip, we can even pro-rate them if they're still, you know, if they're still at fours or close to five, and you want to go ahead and just get them done,

we can still pro-rate those. And for a very minor cost, gets you right back on the road with brand new tires. Okay, so I see my service rider and he takes care of it? Absolutely. That's great. Okay, one other fast question. I want to get a jump starter for my son's car. He has an old Mustang.

There are two types of jump starters. There's the lithium iron jump starter that's rated at 450 p.amps. And that's the old-fashioned one, the big one, that's rated at 900 p-amps. Which one should I get? The smaller one, lithium iron, or that big jumpstart, the old-fashioned one? If you're looking for something just to carry around for emergency purposes, I would go with the smaller, more compact model, and just make sure he's aware that he'll want to set a reminder on his phone

to remind him to charge it once about every couple months, because any battery, even as it sits, is naturally going to lose a little bit of charge over time. Yeah, which would last longer? The lithium iron jump starter or the other one? Hard to really say on that, but I would go with the lithium ion. Okay, gotcha. Okay.

It's very compact. That's one good feature. Yep. Okay. Thank you very much, Rick. Thank you, Howard. Thanks for being part of the show. Howard.

Give us a call toll free at 877-960-9960. And we are going to go to West Palm Beach. And we have a caller who wants to talk about as Rev for. and his name is Frank. Good morning, Frank. Good morning, Nancy, and everybody else. Hey, Frank. I enjoyed your presentation on Thursday.

Thanks for coming. We enjoyed your company. I call myself RAV 4 Frank so you know who I am. Rav Frank. But now, it was wonderful. I brought a friend of mine with me. he was very impressed because he never heard you.

And my question, all the pictures that you took, where are they going to be? I'm working on it. Michael Pursune is our official photographer videographer, and we're trying to get the pictures too. I think it must be in the lab developing them.

He's in the dark room right now. He's probably listening to the show, so Frank, just put a little pressure on them. Say we want to see these things online. Frank, I was working on. out last night very late trying to retrieve those pictures but I guarantee you the

pictures will be on our Facebook page yeah of the two of us Frank well will it be someplace else yeah we'll probably don't do Facebook oh yeah we'll email them to anybody that's called you call us text us

uh give us whatever we can text them to you can email them to you we can put them on uh Earl oncars.com we'll put them up there But some non-computer people, we can just do it. We'll bail them to you. I mean, whatever has to be done, because we've got some really good pictures, and we'll be sure you get them.

Yeah, we really have some great pictures, and we were going to do a slideshow this morning if I would have gotten the pictures last night. But I guarantee you we're working on it. And by the way, I'm the guy that recognized John's voice. How could you miss that? Yeah, right. John's famous.

He's amazing. When you and Nancy and he had a picture taken, I said, gee, that sounds like John. Well, anyway, thank you so much. Thank you, Frank. You're a great caller and a great guy. Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks so much for calling in, and thanks for attending our seminar.

And we hope to do a whole lot of that in the future because it's people like you that really make us feel good. And at the end of the day, we just, we love helping everyone. We've got a lot of text backing up over here. Shall we ask too? Yeah, that text number is 772-4976530. We have seven. Okay, we'll start.

Two over here, too. Uh-oh. Okay. Well, let me start. We have one that came on Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And let's see. Oh, it's a long one. But I have two, here it says, I have two questions for the venerable Rick.

One. Can you break it down? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'll pair it down. one is there any truth to preserving a car's clear coat by not washing a car can the dirt slow the destructive manner of the sun let's address that one i would call that a no complete opposite my recommendation is wash and wax at least once or twice a year if not more often because the wax will help protect your clear coat way better than any dirt ever will okay and number two i've always believed in having a car with a man manual transmission due to the low maintenance cost. Have there been improvements in traditional automatics to make them last indefinitely?

If so, they would even be the manual transmission because the clutch would need to be replaced at some point. For the sake of the argument, I keep my car for 20 years, replacing one clutch is okay, replacing one automatic transmission is not okay. Rick? Well, we do so little automatic transmission work in our shop now that I don't think we've had a transmission problem come into the shop in at least the last six to eight months. And we are a very busy shop.

They just don't make them anymore. Automatic transmissions just don't break. There was something on the news I called on WPTV briefly this morning. I didn't hear it. I just saw the thing as something about manual transmissions coming back or something like that. So that's something, and piqued my curiosity, I'll find out about that. But bottom line is today's automatic transmissions are far better than a manual. This is better on fuel economy, better on acceleration, better on, they shift better than you can.

They're much better. Okay, great. We have one from our longtime texter. This is from Amory. She says, good morning. Thank you for the seminar about seniors versus crime. It was very enjoyable and very enlightening. The average person often thinks that running and learning.

leasing is pretty much the same thing. I was wondering, from a car dealer's viewpoint, is there a difference between renting a car and leasing it? Thanks. Yeah, there's a huge difference. And you're absolutely right, Anne-Marie. By the way, I enjoyed meeting you in person at the event. And being one of our very, very best callers, it was nice to see what you look like, and you look great, by the way. Anyway, leasing is a long-term contract you can't get out of. And a rental car is just something you rent for a day or an hour or a week. I think legally speaking, they have a limit on a rental car, I think, is six months. And that's a legal definition.

I found out, at the seminar, by the way, and I get phone calls all the time by people that do exactly what you're talking about, they confer, they confuse the leasing and the buying. And unfortunately, sometimes it's at the suggestion of the automobile dealer that the lease is just, something like it's a rental and if you change your mind bring the car back you sign a 36 month lease or 48 month lease you owe 48 payments or 36 payments and if you drive the car for a week you still owe 36 payments and a lot of people get fooled that way and it's a shame car dealers will deliberately switch people who come into buy a car to a lease and i have i've had two elderly people in the past week that have called me on exactly that problem they thought

one thought she was in her 90s God bless her and Sharpe's attack and she was going to return her car and one knows she was going to get any money back because she'd made a large down payment on the lease we had one

I believe at the seminar another question but I had another question about the exact same thing they were thinking about leasing and I had to explain what it was so you most of the people listening to the show and Marie I know you and most everybody understands what a lease is, but there's a surprisingly large number

of people out there that get confused. And in my lease presentation, in my lease presentation, in my presentation, Seniors v. Crime, one of the ten things that I said is all things being equal by a car rather than lease it, because leasing is very hazardous. Excuse me for a moment. At the seminar, I was asked this question three times about leasing. and the lady's husbands had passed away. She has a car.

He had a car. It was a lease. She wanted to know if she was responsible for the payments. And I told her yes. And she said, is there any way of getting out of this? Yeah, and there isn't. And I was sad, you know, to tell her that there was just no way to get out of it. Yeah, leave the country.

Yeah. Oh. Okay. Leave the country. This is from Robbie and Stewart. It says I have a follow-up question to the oil question. We bought a new 2019 Four-Runner limited from you two months ago. What oil is in it?

Synthetic or regular oil. 2019 Four-Runner will be running 0W30 synthetic oil. Okay. I think all the Toytas now are calling for synthetic, correct? Yes, but with the exception that the four-cylinder Camry engine, Camry engine uses 0W16 synthetical details. This is a show for all car

owners and the alert out to everybody and I didn't realize this until last week when Rick mentioned it before that there are still some cars out there that manufacturers I believe one of them was a Mercedes or a Subaru or something like that so always look at your owner's manual but 99% of them require synthetic will

yeah but some of them still have a very low mileage for when you have to change it out yes so check your owner's manual carefully on when you're required to change that oil yes that's right okay we have another one uh the older you get your vision i'm sorry the older you get your close-up vision degrades this makes fine print even more insidious because the most vulnerable to this practice seniors are even more susceptible short of buying a high power magnifying glass What do you recommend, Beatrice and the Villages? I'll tell you, I think it's going to be a long, long time before we abolish Fine Print. Maybe my grandson, maybe Jake can take this up.

But Fine Print is one of the stupidest things that was ever created. It was created by lawyers, and they created it so they would have job security. And every contract that you sign has got Fine Print. fine print what is the purpose of it unless you have a lawyer read it because not only can't you read it from visually yeah yeah but you can understand it's put in legalese it's very difficult to understand should be abolished and i just don't think it's going to be certainly not in my lifetime but maybe jake my grandson do you think it's created out of greed and deception what a terrible thing to see about a lawyer but i agree with you yes yeah i think that

they're trying to carve out so many little caveats and exceptions and there's so much language to describe all these little gotchas, it can't possibly fit on a normal size piece of paper. So by necessity, they have to shrink it down to microscopic size. Now on advertisements, here's what I'll recommend to people who can't see up close like me, who wear

progressive lenses. Newspaper, yeah, you're going to need a magnifying glass, but if you're looking on an ad on a computer, this is how we do it for the mystery shopping report. You can zoom in on a computer screen. So if you're looking on an iPhone, you can like pinch out if you have an iPhone or an Android or something like that. And even on your computer screen, there is a way, and I'm just going to tell you right now, it's a little technical thing, hit control, and then the plus sign on your keyboard. And that will zoom it in. And it works like a magnet. You just helped

a half a percent of our audience. Maybe. I disagree. I'm still thinking elderly people, mainly because I'm an elderly person. I'm 7 or 8 years old in that seminar we did. We had seniors, and so many of those seniors are there talking about the difficulty of buying a car online. I say it's the best way to buy a car is online. A lot of people cannot buy a car online because they're not equipped with the technology they have to have to have. So it's really, really a scary time for seniors. They can't understand the purchasing process. A lot of them are forced to go into the dealer.

ships and that's what the car dealers want they want the person to enter the building and then they got them and i've talked to so many elderly people that call me they live maybe in port st lucy or the martin county or maybe south in broward county and they say i say have you shopped around with other car dealers they say i can't i'm i don't want to drive on 95 i don't want to get in the turnpike and i don't know how to use a computer so if you have a crooked car dealer that happens to be the seller of the car you like and he's five miles away and the next one's 40 miles away, you're trapped and you have to deal with that person and those dealer and those dealers know that they have a captive audience and it's just a, I'm starting to get emotional

here, but it's a terrible situation. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call, pardon me, Stu, give us a call to free at 877-960-99-60 And don't forget what Earl just spoke to about seniors and about going out shopping. Remember, consumer reports, I can't stress enough how important that magazine is to you and whether you get the right deal, the right car, the right dealership. Remember, these people are not your friends. Consumer report, front to back, back to front. There's too many ways that you can get over on the dealership and the antics that they're going to pull on you.

And I know some of you folks are tired of us talking about consumer reports, but Nancy is absolutely right. It is by far the best tool. And for you seniors who can't go online to consumer reports, you can access a consumer report in any library. And with your library card, you can actually go online if someone can help you go online. but you can get the consumer reports in any library. Go in there, get the annual auto issue or the most current issue, and you will find the tools that you need to take care of yourself and not be taken advantage of.

All your questions would be answered, truly. Texas 772-497-6530. Linda, I know you're holding from Palm City. Would you... Well, we'll go ahead and get to Linda. I would just want to follow up on the fine question. is if you have a kid or a grandkid, that's a very good thing. Earl made a very good point.

Driving tens of, or 20, 30, 50 miles to a dealership is kind of a tough thing. But if you have any relatives, younger relatives that are a little bit cyber savvy, have them check out the advertisement before you make that drive. Let them do a little work for you. You've earned it. Great idea. And I'll make them feel really, make the grandchildren feel important, useful. And they need that right now.

So it's a win-win situation. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-99-60. Don't forget, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. We're going to go to Linda, who's calling from Palm City. Hi, Linda. Hi, Nancy. Oh, it's so good to hear from you. Well, I couldn't wait for your show for this weekend

because you might remember that last weekend I called about the Trans Am that I had and that it had seen better days. And now I had to buy a car for the first time I'm going to dealerships. The last time I was dealing with dealerships was way back in 1990. So I haven't had to do this for a long time. Yes. And I have to tell you, it is kind of a nightmare. Now, I did come down to your dealership to look at used cars,

And I couldn't know what I wanted, but I will tell you that the people that I met were very, very pleasant and very nice. And I even took a stroll with Alan Napier around the lot and talked about the Trans Am, and it was a very wonderful experience for me. But I finally have decided on the type of vehicle that I want. And I'm leaning to the Nissan Marano, and I found a platinum model up here at Infinity of Stewart. And I just would like to share with you what's going on because I'm kind of nervous about the whole thing. I do like the car. But, you know, I said to the fellow that was the salesman taking me for a test drive, I said, well, you know, I got something in an email from you all. got dealer fees i said you know earl stewart doesn't charge dealer fees and he says oh yeah they do

they just stick it in the price that even mean i'm sorry say that again i said i don't even know what that means yeah yeah it's uh that's a standard that's a standard uh resource they don't know what to say and we i think we were kidding the other day on the show and we said we have a thousand reward for anyone they can find where Earl Stewart hides his dealer fees. But, yeah, they have to say something. And by the way, I don't know if you bought a vehicle there, Linda, but the owner of Infinity of Stewart is a friend of mine. His name is Mario Margato, M-R-G-A-D-O.

And I bet if you called Mario Margato, he would tell his salesman that we're not really hiding anything. If you say anything with enough self-assuredness, and confidence, it sounds believable. Girl hides his dealer fees in his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You see, I didn't believe him. I knew, you know, as a salesperson myself, you know, I can see through the, you know what, that is being thrown out there.

Yeah, we'll call it to shenanigans. Exactly. But before I left, I said, you know, give me your out-the-door price. And he said, well, I'll send it to you. I'll text it to you. I said, I don't want to, you know, I'm 65 and I don't, you know, texting is not one of my most favorite things. But I said, you know, email it to me. So they did.

And they gave me a sale price on the car of 22 with a big discount of $100. Then they stuck on something that's called taxable fees estimated. of 389, 95, then a dock fee of nearly 799, then the tax, and then non-tax fees of 9750 for a grand total of 24, 596 in change. There's no way in the world I'm paying that kind of money, and I pulled up the Carfax, and I found out that this automobile had had a, what appears to be a minor vendor-bender, back in 2017 it says that the airbags were not deployed it looks like they might have somebody might have tapped them in the rear end and then they hit the car in front so but and then

there was a recall from Nissan with regard to the anti-block's anti-lock brake system which none of that has been resolved and so you know I'll tell you this the vehicle As far as the body, I mean, I noticed certain things, and I pointed it out to the guy, and he said, oh, yeah, we'll do whatever you want. We'll do whatever you want. We'll get that fixed and everything. If I go back, I'm going to be bringing one of my male friends with me because I think that, you know, they think because I'm a woman that, you know, I don't know what's going on. But I've been doing my research on this. I mean, to go and look at this Carfax and all the things about it, I'm not.

I'm trying to protect myself. And the car has a very pretty interior instead of your typical black. It has a beige interior, which I know some people would say, well, geez, you don't want that because, you know, it could get really dirty. But as a female, this car screams me. It's just a very attractive vehicle. It has just shy of 20,000 miles. so it's a four-year-old car with less than 20,000 miles,

and I think that it could be the right fit for me, but I don't want to be taken advantage of, and I couldn't wait until your show to talk to you about it. So any advice or guidance you can give me is more than appreciated. Well, Linda, what I was going to recommend, and maybe Stu could do this with his laptop, I would go to AutoTrader, and you put in a description of this vehicle,

and I believe you said it was Nissan Marano. And then what year was it? It's 2015. 2015. Is there a model number to it as a like XLE or something? It's a platinum. It's the top of the line. Platinum, okay.

And AutoTrader, while Stu is typing with the keys there, is one of your best sources for finding cars that you're looking for, used cars, a particular description, and it'll show you every Nissan of that description in the United States, virtually every car dealer uses auto-trader, and they display the entire inventory of used cars on there. The hazard is, when you sort by price, which you can do, you can find the lowest price vehicle of that description, but the car dealers add their hidden fees on top of that, so that's where you have to be alert.

But it gives you a pretty good idea. Does you come up with anything still? What year was it again? 2015. You can also, by the way, you can put in a range of prices that you're willing to pay. So if you say you didn't want to spend more than $30,000, you can say between $29,000 and $31,000, see what's available for sale. But like Earl says, remember, you've got a mentally add about $1,000 in hidden fees that's going to come. So 2015, well, there are none out there.

In this area? Oh, I'm sorry, in the radius I chose. I got to, you have to tweak it a little bit, so you can put, like, any distance from your zip code, or you can put 10, 15 miles. So I will, oh, I'm sorry, any radius, yeah. I mean, I've been searching online, and I see, you know, where there's some down in West Palm at off-lease and, you know, with auto-trader going, you know, down to Miami, Fort Lauderdale, you know, I'm seeing all that. I'm just wondering, you know, how I attack them with all these fees that they're sticking on here. And also, you know, talking to me about extended warranty. That's the advantage of online and you're savvy to be able to do this is to make the call.

And when you find those Nissan Maranoes that you're interested in, you make a call, you say, what's my out-the-door price, including any fees that you may charge, and you still have to be careful even then. but that way you don't have to drive to Miami or drive to Orlando and be disappointed. Remember one thing. Dealing with at a car dealership is kind of like dealing with a bully. They will charge the fees of the people who don't protest and put up with it.

If you fight back against the bully, a lot of times they'll back down, especially on a used car. They have enough markup to play with. So if you go in there and say, I saw your advertised price for X number of dollars, I'll pay sales tax in any legitimate government fees. That's it if you want my business. and if you kind of hold your guns, it's a little scary.

It's not easy to do, but if you stand up to it, there's a good chance they might not charge the dealer fee. Did you get a price on the Marano? I couldn't find any platforms. One of the problems you're having, Linda, is here. Nissan is a low-volume car manufacturer, and you're talking about a particular model that is very low-volume. So there's not a lot of Nissan Marano's available,

and you're going to probably have to drive away to get the best. deal. And I think Infinity of Stewart knows that. And if you're shopping and comparing only this particular model, year-make model, you're going to have a hard time finding anything close to home. Especially where she's looking at a platinum

trim level. Yeah, exactly. And you can expand it out and that would probably be the way to go. Even if you found one in Orlando, you might not want to drive there. You could still call Infinity of Stewart and say, I found one. Just don't tell them where it is, but they've got, you know, AutoTrader.com.

They can kind of watch it, too. I made a mistake. I had new vehicles checked. So there's quite a few that showed up with any distance from our zip code here. So there's a bunch of them, yeah. Sorting from low to high, yikes, looks like they're running around. The lowest price ones are about $16,000, and they go up from there. So that's a good starting point.

Use AutoTrader.com and then look at the radius indicated there so you expand it slowly. But fortunately, there are more than we thought there were. And that's the way you negotiate with Infinity of Stewart. You see, I found this one online at this price, exactly what I want, but I'd rather buy it from you because you're closer. If you meet the price, out the door, I'll buy it from you. And that's where you start.

Yeah, there's 18 within 100 miles of here. 18. Nissan Morano's. with 100 miles platinum platinum okay what about the financing in this this this pushing for extended warranty because it's out of warranty i would all things being equal to my rule of thumb don't buy an extended warranty uh typically uh they are overpriced and typically they have coverage of items that you don't need more than the items you do need the electronics the navigation the expensive computer stuff on a car is often not covered in the extended warranty. So all things being able, if you have to buy an extended warranty, buy one from the manufacturer.

If Nissan has an extended warranty and it's on the car that you're buying, then that would be the one I'd buy. But all things being equal, I wouldn't buy it. And also, don't feel stress. You can change your mind later on and add it after the fact, so don't feel pressured while you're in the finance office. Take your time, slow down. and then if you felt that you needed to get an extended warranty, you can call them back and add it later. It has to be inspected by a technician before they put the warranty on.

Okay, Ann? I'm sorry, Linda. Linda? Should I get my own financing? You should use your own bank or your credit union. Typically, you're going to get a far better deal on interest and terms if you go with a credit union is best, but use your own bank. And they'll give you the quota on the terms and interest rate. And on a used car, that's going to be your best deal.

Okay, Linda, I want to congratulate you for letting all the women know this morning that you're well ahead of the game. And women can be well ahead of the game. And all the homework that you're doing, this is what we talk about every Saturday morning, and you're putting that to use. And remember, if a salesman is pushy, disrespectful, or intimidating, walk. And I can't stress enough, the 2019 Consumer Report, the buying guide, there are a lot of nisons in that buying guide that will give you a whole lot of information. Thanks for being part of the show. Stay in touch.

Okay. 877-960, 9960, and we can go to, I believe that you had finished up the small, print and all that too so we're going to go to tina tina's patiently been holding from benita springs she too is a real important part of the show good morning tina good morning how are you guys doing great on great well ford is in the middle of a criminal investigation from miscalculating vehicle emissions but they claim it's not going to be another dieselgate situation so they are working with the feds on this, but yeah, they've done some miscalculating

and they say it's an accident, so they're being pretty cooperative because obviously this is not a position they want to be in. But the interesting thing is Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz and Fiat Chrysler are also dealing with criminal probes of their own,

and both of those companies are accused of using defeat devices and software to make the cars appear to run cleaner than they actually do. Yes. So, Daimler and Fiat at Chrysler are in the same position as Volkswagen right now. Yeah, it's amazing how widespread this was, and they've actually put the ex-CEO of Volkswagen in the Slammer, I believe,

and the Grey Bar Hotel, as it were. But I hope they... I'm surprised that they're going to with the criminal investigation of Ford, I would think with them being cooperative that maybe they wouldn't take it to that level, but the Department of Justice isn't tooling around. Yeah. Henry Ford's the one should have gone to jail. He was a bad guy, but morally anyway.

Well, at least they'd learn how not to do it after watching the Volkswagen fiasco. Exactly, yeah. Now, it's an interesting message about the morals of our world. We typically think about car dealers as being bad guys, but we never thought of the manufacturers being bad guys. You know, when people operate on commissions and profit, you have to be careful. Sometimes the head guy says,

listen, I don't care what you do, just sell a bunch of cars and make a bunch of money. And when you issue orders like that, you got a lot of people down the line that go to extreme means that you didn't anticipate they would go to. And that's what's happened, I think, is the CEO of Volkswagen said, look, we're going to sell diesel cars in the United States, we're going to pass the emission controls, we're going to get by the EPA, and we're going to sell cars, and if you don't do that, you're fired. then he had a bunch of engineers said how are we going to do that

it's not humanly possible and they said oh I got an idea we'll cheat and they put on a little deal in the engine that recognized the fact the engine was being tested and changed the emissions just for the purpose of the EPA test and then the rest is history

how much were they find oh peanuts compared to the total value pocket change Volkswagen yeah yeah Tina it's a terrible thing it's a buyer beware and whether you were talking with manufacturers or with dealers.

Yeah, here's the question I have, though. For those states that have annual emissions testing for everyone that owns a vehicle, now I've got to wonder if those regulators in those states are going to look at suspect dies with spokeswagons, the Fords, and the Daimler Fiat Pricer vehicles, and it's going to cause a real problem for the owners of those vehicles because we'll say, hey, listen, you know, we're going to bypass whatever it is, they can bypass and find out that a fairly new car can't pass emissions. And then

the poor owner of the car ends up having to spend all kinds of money to try to get it into spec when it wasn't their fault to begin with. That's why I love you, Tina, because you're so smart, and you asked a question I hadn't even thought about, and I don't know what's going to happen.

I cannot believe that, you know, I don't know how many states still have emission testing. Florida stopped it. It was politically unpopular. But I know there are several states that have it, so you pull in your Volkswagen, and it doesn't pass, and they won't give you a sticker,

and they won't register your car, you can't buy a license plate, what are you going to do? Class action lawsuit. Get mad. Yeah. California, New York. I'm thinking Pennsylvania may likely, yeah.

Anybody out there? I think Jersey still does. Yeah, we're international. Do certain sections of Tampa and Miami we still have emissions testing? I don't think Florida. I don't think anywhere in Florida has it. I could be wrong about that.

But if anybody out there who has had emission testing on their car, wherever state they're in, we'd love to hear from it, especially if you're driving a Volkswagen, I'd love to hear if anyone has ever had a problem with emissions based on the fact that the new car they bought had been phonyed up and did not comply with EPA. standards because we're nationwide now. Love to hear

from anybody. Thank you, Tina. Great comment. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. Tina, you're getting some love online. Everyone loves Tina. Everybody loves Tina. Yay, Tina. Thanks so much for calling, Tina.

We'll talk to you next week. Here, welcome. 877-960. Rick's got a bunch of questions We are a little backed up on the YouTube collection here. Okay, let's see. Our first one here, Frank is asking, what are your thoughts on engines with cylinder deactivation?

Do they affect the short or long-term reliability of a vehicle? Next. Well, the only one that I know of that actually did this. Cadillac and Chevy for a while, but mainly Cadillac had a V8 engine. engine that they called their 2468, it was actually the 468, while the vehicle was driving at highway speeds, they could, the computer could deactivate cylinders. The other name of that car was a joke. A piece of junk.

Yes. It would turn it from a V8 into a six and possibly into a four-cylinder engine. That was General Motors. To try to keep it running at highway speeds and save fuel and save power, you know, save emissions. Nice concept. It did not work like it was supposed to. Frank, that was one of those weird fiascos.

And as far as I'm aware, Cadillac and General Motors, but Cadillac especially was the only one that ever really ran that engine. I think there's a Ferrari or a Lamborghini or an exotic car out there. A couple of other. Tried or something. We could Google that, but I don't think it's been a. success anywhere no that was one of those things that kind of like that uh start stop technology that they tried it's just it's not working in the real world it looks good on paper but not in the real

world so i would stay away from those if it were me personally okay my next one here mr hand is asking mr hand how you doing wrong mr hand but yes very close there uh do used bmws have a reputation as bottomless money pits. And in my opinion there, pretty much any used European car, especially the BMWs, the Mercedes, the higher-end cars, they tend to be very expensive for repairs. There are very few outside shops that will deal with them. I can tell you that.

And the ones that do charge a lot. Get an extended warranty for one of those cars, you're going to pay thousands and thousands of dollars. yeah just if you buy a luxury imported car you probably ought to stick within the warranty period after that you're in trouble and especially since unlike a lot of the Japanese brands where if you have a Lexus you can go to a Toyota dealer if you have an infinity you go to Nissan Accur you can go to Honda exactly yeah if you have a Mercedes they don't have a lower priced equivalent, you know,

a younger brother. Cadillac, you go to a Chevrolete dealer. Right, but the European cars generally don't have that little brother style. Okay, next one here is Scott is asking, do all dealers automatically have Toyota Care on their window sticker? No, yes.

It does. Toyota care, it's a Toyota thing, it's just a maintenance thing, and they pay for two years of maintenance when you first get the car, and that is on the Windows store. And Stu hesitated because there's an additional from a product called Toyo Guard that adds the free maintenance for another two years. Another two years. That's also on the Windows.

And it's only in Southeast United States. That's Southeast Toyota. So our worldwide fans, it doesn't apply to you. Okay. And Mark from Vermont, you're frequently talking about leases. Is it possible to reassign a lease to another price? person. Yes. And there's swapelise.com. I have that app on my phone and it is possible. It's not necessarily easy because remember the leasing company owns the car and they have the final say on if

somebody else will take over the payments. They don't like people to take over payments and they probably, if I were the leasing company, I would find reasons not to because you've already gone through the vetting process to approve one lessee. And you'll wonder why he doesn't want to make any more payments and why he wants to put this third party in. So when you lease a car, assume you can't do a lease swap. But if you have to,

I would go to swapelief.com. Is that what it is to? I believe so. And check it out. There's probably some other agencies out there, but it's difficult. So there's an app for that. There's an app for everything. Okay. And Scott, again, is asking

a new one here. When trading in a car, should I use the NADA or Kelly Blue Book value? Sometimes they're very different figures for the same car. I would recommend Kelly Blue Book. NADA is mainly for lenders, and it's

usually to establish loan to value that banks do. Kelly Blue Book years ago was way off base, I think, over the years. It's pretty close to it's a pretty accurate estimate for trades now. And a true car has a valuation system

also for trades. And I think I'm right on this. The reason is unreliable is because the dealers fill out the forms and send the values in to the manufacturers. And so if I'm a Buick dealer and I'm sending in the value of my used cars to General Motors, I'm going to exaggerate because all dealers want the value of their particular make to be high because they trade in a lot and they can sell more cars that way. Uh-huh. Okay. And now we have my last one here, M. Ave.

Now, this one's a little bit of a long one, but I recently bought a used 2018 Kia Soul. And after a few days, I noticed the car is tracking to the right. I'm assuming means pulling or drifting. I took it to a Kia dealer who performed an alignment, yet the problem persists. They try to tell me that he needs new tires, saying the existence. are different brands. Is it reasonable to suspect that different brand tires may cause a car to track or to pull, given that the speed and size ratings are equal? And he says, I will say the wear is a little uneven on the right side. So in this regard, I'm starting to believe them.

And he says, I will also add that I suspect the power steering motor or mechanism may be to blame, but I'm not entirely sure. Well, here's the primary answer, if your front tires are different models, even if they're the same brand, but different model of tire, the tread design can be different enough and the radial resistance of those tires, that that can cause a pull. The fastest way to determine that it's just simply in the tires is to simply ask them to cross-rotate those two front tires, right front over to the left front, left front to the right front. If the pull changes, because worse or even corrects itself, then there's your answer.

It's in the tires. And 90% of the time on front wheel drive, McPherson's truck cars, it's going to be the tires. So I would start there. Just ask them to cross them. And if that solves it, then you've got it set. Oh, and Frank actually has a little follow-up. Honda used cylinder deactivation in their late model V6 Accords, calling it variable cylinder management.

Now, I only wonder, though, is that a deactivation, or is that simply using variable valve timing to slightly depower certain cylinders and work on the valve timing to change the power output of the engine? But that would get a very technical side to it there, so I don't think we want to try to get into that. We'd have to have a whole show just on engine design. operation rule of thumbs stay away from any kind of cylinder deactivation i i would definitely avoid those myself i think that sort of thing could be a little tricky to work on okay a little

tricky to make it work right in the real world okay i want to give her okay don't give the text number it anymore uh we're getting too many texts really we need three hours ladies and gentlemen take advantage of your anonymous feedback dot com we would love to hear you hear from you. Tell us how you feel about the show. Each one of us, maybe your, you know, last transaction with these car dealers, putting it mildly. And I want to give a special thank you for Rudy and Jonathan's participation out in the control room. They really help us out a lot. And ladies, remind you again, $50 for the first two new lady callers. And that number is 877 960

9960 And remember that you can read the auto lemon law In the hometown news this week And it's a pretty good read And there's a lot of Earl's columns Today's and in the past At Earleoncars.com

One of my favorites is the one that Earl posted on April 1st And that was a tool For an honest price from a car dealer. And there's a form there that you can fill out and take with you when you do go into a car dealership for your next transaction.

It certainly will insure an out-to-door price. Again, that number, 877-960-99-60. Okay, let's get back to these texts. We'll do. I just want to say one thing. Nancy, your idea for that forum was brilliant, and we have that form is on Earl-on cars for download. So if you want to take that form into any car dealership,

And you're asking them to commit to not add anything to the price other than sales tax and legitimate government fees. EarlOncars.com and download it right there. What is the, how do we label it? Is it labeled as an affidavit for a vehicle purchase? You're trying to stump me. Final out-the-door price. I'm going to it right now, and it is. It's under important links, and we have things like check recalls, true car, Costco auto program.

it's on top of the list. This is download out-the-door form. Out-the-door form. Download the out-the-door form. Very good. Okay. All right. So, yeah, I'm going to do the wrap.

We're on the speed round for tech. So let's get through these real quick. First one says, speaking of mystery parts, we were talking about that earlier. What are those rubber plugs that come in a small plastic bag in new cars?

My salesman said not to worry about them. Gale and Little Rock, Arkansas. Huh. Little Rock, Arkansas. Wow, that's cool. One of those little plugs. When they put the cars on a car hauler. Ten seconds.

There are small holes in the body that are meant for the tie-downs. Those rubber plugs, which are mainly meant for northern cars, are meant the dealers should be popping those into place in the body. And the reason they do that up north is because snow and ice and road salt can become impacted up inside those frame rails. and very, very quickly rust out those frame rails causing major damage to the frame of the car on unibody cars. So if you live in Florida and you're a snowbird and you go up north part of the year, it's a good idea to get those. I would have those installed. Now, down here in Florida, where we see a lot more in the way of quick rainstorms with big puddles forming,

I usually recommend if you're going to be in Florida all the time, pop, keep those out simply because those holes allow, water that does get into that frame to drain out quickly and easily. I would say they should always be put in because who knows when that car is going to go north during the winter and if they should be there. And if our dealership isn't putting them in, we should be. They should be put in. Are you saying that it's worse to put them in down here, though? Actually, it certainly couldn't hurt to have them in down here.

And who knows when the car is going to go north. Very true. And generally they are installed by Toyota as part. of the PDI inspection, they are supposed to be put in place at that time. So the salesman that told you, don't worry about it, was wrong. Especially in Little Rock, because I think they get some snow there. Oh, yes. You should take that car back and say, you're wrong?

Put these plugs in and watch them because he might not know where to put the plugs. Boy, was that great information. How important. I never knew that. Me neither. And I said, I don't need these little, I'll just throw these in the trunk. Okay, the next one. Isn't it true that for a long time only,

cars were required to have monroney labels and trucks could be sold for whatever the salesman dreamed up absolutely correct never understood that I guess it was back in the day when trucks were commercial and they weren't to like passenger cars

or was the technicality on the law they said all cars got to have a window sticker it was lobbied probably lobby that's not a car you know I remember that well I remember when it happened and I can remember you know the concern of the dealers and they were just they were just livid about the fact

that there had to be an honest label on the car. And that did, I mean, I think that came around in the 80s. No, no, no, but the trucks were added. Well, trucks later, yeah. It was like 30 years after that, so. Interesting. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to give you that text number because we would love for you to rate the Mystery Shopping Report.

This is coming up in a couple of minutes from Mazda of Palm Beach, and it is a doozy. So we are going to go to, did I give out that text? number 772-497-6530. We are going to go to Al and Belinda from West Palm Beach. Good morning. Good morning. This is Al, and I have something, I've been listening for months, and I have something that seems to be pretty obvious to me, and yet it's never been mentioned. The fact that you have a Toyota dealership, it must be the most popular one in the area, because since you have such a, what do you call it a crusade against those people who have extra charges,

can I ask you, when you sell a car, do you have a front end going out with no charges except to the federal tax and sales tax? Yeah, we sell cars without any hidden fees, and we post our prices online, quote them on the phone, we give them verbally whatever, however you want to get it. We can put our best price on every car we sell so that the buyers will have the opportunity to shop and compare it with our competition. Frankly, we don't always have the lowest price. We like to think we usually do, but we encourage people to shop and compare our prices with the other toilet dealers in the area. As it should be. As it should be.

That's called the marketplace, the free marketplace, and that's the way commerce is supposed to happen in the United States. Now I have a first time caller Belinda She does some work for me and she drives And here she is Hi Belinda, welcome to the show As a first time caller you won yourself $50 Are you there Belinda? Hi, how are you?

Hi, we're fine, how are you doing? Welcome to the show You have a question for us, Belinda? Yes, um... I don't know what to say. Just the android driving up to the car. I think Belinda is a little nervous. That's okay.

My car that I have. I'm looking for... We're having a little bit of a problem hearing you, Belinda. Come over here. You have to give your name in the dress. Come up. Well, Belinda, you're still qualifying. If we can get your contact information,

we're going to send you 50 bucks and I can understand you being nervous yeah we'll make it easy you don't you'll take you off there just talk to rudy yeah yeah yeah and thank you very much and maybe next week next week you can call uh with a question if not that's fine but thank you very much takes a lot of nerve takes a lot of nerve to talk about 20,000 people out there I should be nervous are you serious are you serious how on homo homo hom in homo hom okay we got some more text do we do yeah yes we do question, can your Toyota dealership honor a warranty service or repair

on Alexis? Sal and West Palm Beach. No, we cannot. The Alexis division is separate. We recommend that Alexis owners find a Toyota dealer somewhere near them and have them do the repairs and the maintenance.

But Lexus and Toyota are the same thing. Toyota requires that warranty work be performed at a Lexus dealership. Okay, we have a caller from Miami good afternoon or excuse me

good morning O'Leo we spoke to you last week didn't we? Yeah but for some reason I got cut off

and you I'm glad to hear from you question to ask you okay when you get a change when I get a line am I next yes you are

thank you okay what's your question O'Leo okay my question is I'm going of not I got a

construction job of northern in new york city actually it's a in middle town new york uh and uh question number one uh i have the uh windshield wiper fluid uh it's 32 and when i'm going to be in the winter time should i drain it out and then uh put the the antifreeze fluid in the reservoir you know the windshield fluid what should i do if you're going to be heading up north yeah it wouldn't be a bad idea to put some a good quality windshield washer fluid you don't necessarily need to drain it out because we're at the beginning of summertime and by the time you get up there you'll probably have used most of it anyways driving up there I would just fill it up with that

nice blue fluid that you can buy at any parts store and you should be just fine with it where can I buy that antifreeze which you wipe here in Florida they don't sell it I think not do they the washer fluids that you can buy right here at PEP Boys

discount auto parts auto zone it's all got that same alcohol content in it that will allow to act as a an antifreeze actually for that washer fluid it says 32 So 32, you know, it means that below 32 is going to freeze.

Is that correct? Actually, no, it should, because water will freeze at 32. With the chemicals that they put in there, its freezing rate should be a whole lot lower, down more like around 2 to 3 degrees. I have a little expertise in this. Prestone offers an all-in-one, deep-freeze windshield wiper fluid for below 27 degrees Fahrenheit.

So you can pick that up at Pet Boy. AutoZone or Amazon.com. And Julio, if all else fails, you can pour a little Smyrna off in there, and that'll take care of it for you. And, Julio, this is Nancy. Oh, I'm sorry. This is Nancy, and I was born and raised,

lived most of my life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I never had a problem with my windshield wiper fluid, and I picked it up at AutoZone or anywhere else, and I never had a problem with it freezing up, and the same with my anti-freeze. I never had a problem with that. So I think with all the knowledge that you've shared with us for the past couple of weeks,

you'll be right on top of things when you head north. Thanks for the call, Julio, and have a safe trip, and we look forward to talking to you again. Well, you can call us from New York. We're international now. Call anywhere. I'd love to hear from you when you're up in Middletown. Okay, what about this thing?

You're talking about putting plugs in, taking plugs out? I didn't hear that. Well, when you buy a car, they have these little rubber plugs and envelopes, and down south, apparently some of the dealers are in warmer climates are not putting these in. Rick has said these should be put in, and they should protect the car against salt, intrusion, and when you're up north and the sludge and salt and all the terrible things that they have if you're not in Florida. And we think the plugs should always be put in. But those are on passenger cars, so if you've got a pickup truck, it won't have those rubber plugs.

Okay, that's good to know. But if I'm going up north, I have a 2015 Camry. So I go to a dealership in Miami, and they will put it in for me for nothing? Yeah, because those plugs should be in the glove box in a little plastic bag. If they're not in there, they may have already been installed. okay now how can I tell I look underneath I can see for myself correct yep

just a little behind the front wheels on the frame rails there will be an oval hole and it should have a rubber plug pushed up in there okay you should you say that these plugs should be installed no matter where even down south

it's not a bad idea to put it in yeah exactly okay thank you for your information you guys are great and if I come up past you, I'm going to say hello. Calls from Middletown. Yeah, give us a call back. Stay in touch, Julio.

We love talking to you. Good luck with your trip. New York State. All right. Very good. Bye-bye. Very good. Okay, we've got a few more text.

We're going to get to a first-time caller, but first I want to let ladies and gentlemen know that we got a mystery shopping report coming up, and that you two can vote on that mystery shopping report. Your vote does count. and that is 772-4976530 and remember your anonymous feedback.com your anonymous feedback.com we would love to hear from you we are going to go now this is number three I am so excited we have another lady caller who's calling us from Lakeworth I get very excited about our lady callers good morning Kathy good morning how are you welcome thank you I listen to you guys

every Saturday morning when I'm driving and I have a question this is really weird I bought a car 2015 BMW on Labor Day and I remember the guy telling me that the tires had nitrogen in them well a couple of days ago I was driving in my low tire came on and I went to fire I pulled in right into Firestone and I just asked me to fill my tires up because it showed low Does it make a, did they put air in my tires, or does it make a difference if I put air in my tires? Kathy, it makes no difference. Air is nitrogen and nitrogen is air. The air we breathe, the air we put in our tires is 78% nitrogen.

And consumer reports has conducted extensive testing proving there's no value or assistance in any way, shape, or form. You should never pay for nitrogen in your tires. Right. It already has nitrogen in there. Replacing it with air, as I say, that's 78% nitrogen. But it's a device that car dealers use to make money, and they tell you that it's a valuable thing that will make the car get better fuel. Well, that's my next question.

So I call the dealership, and I said, listen, I just was afraid of my low tires, so I stopped in and got air put them. Do I need to make an appointment? And service told me, yes, you need to come in. Not true. I really didn't need to come in. No, no. No, that's a device they use to have you come back.

And when you come back to get the nitrogen, they say, oh, by the way, we need to fix this. We need to fix that. It's only going to cost you $900, and you came in for free nitrogen. Okay, so I don't have to worry if I get low-tire. No, that's just a nitrogen scam. They're trying to get you in the front door, just like Earl said, just to sell you whatever they can. You could walk in the front door They'll sell you some steak knives

Yeah, we're at a point The only thing that you do want to have checked, Kathy Is make sure you have Some shop somewhere, a tire store or someone Check your tires to make sure you don't have any nails or screws In those tires that caused you to lose air And cause one of those tires to go low Yeah, I will do that

I was just a young kid and I wasn't even thinking I just remember that word nitrogen when I bought the car, that my tires had nitrogen in them. So then, yeah, you just filled them up, but I will do that. I'll have my regular little mechanic just to look at my tires. I appreciate that. I was waiting for Saturday so I could call you guys. I'll call again, Kathy.

I'm so happy to hear from you. I truly am. And that nitrogen, you can just go back and tell them that you know it's not going to improve your fuel economy, your tire safety, wear and tear. it's a scam and you're an educated consumer yeah and we're not this is not just our opinion and we've been pitched by suppliers that try to get us to sign up with nitrogen and the whole pitch is you get them coming back to the to your service department that's the whole thing like rick was pantomiming a fishing pool hooking somebody with a hook and that's exactly what it is yeah we actually tested our rental

fleet of cars we ran half the rental fleet with nitrogen the tires half without out, and we found absolutely no difference in tireware, fuel economy, or anything. So after that, consumer reports did the same thing, and now we know 100 percent, certainly, nitrogen in the tires is worthless. And if you're racing in the Daytona 500? Can I ask you one more question? Sure. Oh, what do you think about?

I should keep flat runs on this car, though, right? It's made for flat run on a BMW? Run flat tires? What's your opinion? Yes. Because run flat tires are designed that if you get a nail or screw in the tire and they lose air, you're safe to drive on the car for up to 50 miles at up to 50 miles per hour. The drawback is that you probably do not have a spare tire to change out on your car. And the other big drawback is that if those tires are damaged by a nail or screw, they have to be removed.

replaced. They cannot be repaired. They're not cheap. No, they are not. That's what I was told. But my question is, do I really need to keep them on this car? Is this car made for the flat run flat? No, you can replace them with a non-run flat

and it's probably a good idea. Well, the only problem there is if you do get a flat tire, you don't have a spare to put on it. I have a spare. Right. I have to get a spare with a spare. Yeah. Okay. Well, I was just curious because I'm people I talk to say, oh, no, no, that's the performance of the car.

You have to have the run flat that are made for that car. You have to keep replacing them. That's right. I was just wondering what the professionals say. Well, call again, Kathy. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Well, thank you.

Well, thank you, Kathy. Thanks for referring to us as professionals. I think that Stu or Rick have some more text. Rick's got one. Rick's got one. I got five. well after you sir scott anderson's asking he says i'm curious why dealers are allowed to false advertise without any repercussions my local toyota dealer advertises no cost free maintenance for four years but clearly on the window sticker

it has a charge for six hundred and ninety nine dollars for extended service oil changes in rotations for two years, so it's being charged but is advertised as no cost, which is a lie. What is the name of the texter? Scott Anderson from YouTube. Scott Anderson, if you would send us that advertisement, I would send it to the Attorney General. I think there's a confusion.

It sounds like he's talking about a Toyota, and there's two things. There's Toyota Care, which comes from the manufacturer Toyota, and they refer to it as no-cost maintenance. Then there's Toyogard, which is cost maintenance. You're paying for it, but you're getting, it's almost like getting a very expensive maintenance. Well, that's an interesting point, though, because there is a charge, and they're saying free maintenance, but on the, Toyo Guard is on the window for $699, and he's saying, and then you're advertising free maintenance.

How could it be free if they're charged in $699? I think they're trying to, they're muddy in the waters. Yeah, they're blurring the lines there between this toy guard. I think it's more than a blur. I mean, intentional blur. I think it's a falsification of advertising. And I think what's going on, Scott, is the fact that virtually all Toyota dealers in Southeast United States

have Toyo Guard on their cars. They buy that from Southeast Toyota. And Southeast Toyota provides that free maintenance for the last two years. Toyota motor sales, the manufacturer, provides it for the first. two years. So Toyota Munder Sales doesn't have anything on their MSRP that charges you for that. No. It's included in the invoice and the MSRP. But Toyota, Southeast Toyota is charging you. They're charging the dealer. The dealer's passing the charge along to you and he is advertising free and he's wrong. Here's how you handle that. You demand a car without Toy Guard or at the very

at least only pay their cost for the Toy Guard, and I'll tell you, it's $224. Yeah. But that's a, that's, I'm going to, Scott, I hope you can contact me, Scott Anderson. I'd love to see that particular advertisement. Scott Anderson, if you could email or text or call or whatever, mail it to me, snail mail, love to see that advertisement, Scott Anderson. Okay.

Okay. Just a quick comment. We were talking about BMWs. This is from Robbie and Stewart. It says I've had years and years experience with new BMW and Mercedes-Benz. After the warranty, hold on to your wallet. BMW, big money works is the worst. And then add to that the terrible resale and depreciation.

Thank you, Robbie. Earl has a prejudice against B&DF. I know, actually, I like BMWs. I just don't like the people that drive them. Uh-oh. We love the people that drive. We don't like to think. They drive too fast.

They're crazy. They drive too fast. I'm just telling them. Okay. Has that anybody seen you drive? Well, I'm a, I have a problem. I have a mental problem about the way I drive. I realize that.

Ladies and gentlemen, we just heard some breaking news. Would you care to elaborate on that? We've got to move longer. Yeah, we're going to, all right, so good morning, Earl. This is from Phil. Good morning, Earl, my wife parked under a pine tree and their sap on the car. What would you recommend to remove? Great program.

April 25th, thank you for your help to us seniors. That's from Phil. Do you know what you can remove Pinesap with? I'm looking up right now. Baby oil. I don't know. And ladies and gentlemen, while we're Googling that, we'll move on to the next text. Okay.

Enjoyed your seminar Thursday, and even though I didn't meet you in person, I wanted to be there to support your radio show. Thank you so much for my copy of Confessions. I especially enjoy the old photos at Stort Pontiac. I was in my teens during the 60s and spent a lot of my time they're drooling over your Pontiacs and still love those 60s cars today. I own a 65 GTO. I also love Toytas. My daily driver is a Tundra.

You don't know me, but I feel a very strong bond to you and your family. Keep up the good work that you do, and I look forward to a personal handshake in the future. Thank you. That's really nice. That's beautiful text. I just want to say, confessions you refers to as Confessions of a Recovery Car Dealer. you can buy this on Amazon, 100% of the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Confessions of a recovering car dealer available on Amazon, 100% of the proceeds, which you pay for it,

goes to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, the largest no-kill shelter in Florida. Where's the bark? Perf. Sorry, sir. Okay, Stephen, on Facebook, is that question for do-yourselfers. The oil filter in one of my cars goes in upside down. It leaks all over when removed. Is it possible to punch a hole in it to allow the oil to drain before removing it?

Would a vent hole let the oil filter drain before the filter is fully removed? Mr. Kearney. It will let it drain some. I'm curious as to which, what model of car that is, because my own personal Tacoma, the filter sits technically upside down. But they gave a nice little drain tube at the bottom of the housing that holds it. You've got to move along quickly. So I can put a bottle under there. Quickly here.

But, yeah, try popping a hole in the top of that filter and let it drain for a few minutes back into the engine. Okay. Sounds good to me. Guy, who is in Ottawa, Canada, says, what do you think of stop-and-go technology, and what effect does this technology have on the durability of starters? We don't like it, Scott.

It's something we think was a mistake. The manufacturers, he's referring to you pull up to a stoplight, and the engine all and it goes off and then it starts again when you depress the accelerator it's a bad deal manufacturers also decides a bad deal and pretty soon they won't be around anymore okay next

and the last one is just a comment answering on the question of the sap in the hood and I will read them I'm not necessarily endorsing them bug spray contains petroleum distillates or WD40 same reason my advice I would

YouTube it check on YouTube and find products in the local auto parts stores, I think with a little bit of research, you'll find some very good products that are specifically designed for Treesap. Sounds good. For Scott Anderson,

which email address would you like him to send that info to? Earl at E.S.Toyota.com. Okay. Or Earl at Earle on Cars. And ladies and gentlemen, just a heads up on the mailers that are, you know, is there a certain time of the year? year that they send these mailers at?

All year long. I mean, it's insane how many mailers was brought to my attention during the seminar. So beware, ladies and gentlemen. It's simply a ploy to get you in the door. It's, don't believe anything that you read. And John, thank you

so much for sending me this important mailer from Treasure Coast. That's Treasure Coast Toyota. Okay, where are we now? We at the Mystery Shopping Report. It is time for the Mystery shop. Okay, let's do that. We can come back to text. You can send us text

and we'll try to get to them if we can get through this mystery shopping report, which is arguably the most important part of the show, at least certainly the most entertaining, at least for us, and we hope you enjoy it too. Mystery Shop of Mazda of Palm Beach. They're on North Lake Boulevard in North Palm Beach.

According to the credit reporting agency, Experian, the average car payment in the U.S. in 2018 was $530.30. I had no I'm shocked. $530 average, wow. I would have guessed $3.50 or something like $3.30.

I would too. That's a lot of money. As a matter of fact, the average payment of $5.30 is at a historical high. Also, a number of people are making, a record number of people who are making car payments. In 2017, 107 million people had auto debt. That's 43% of the adult population. Now, that didn't surprise me. I thought more than 43%.

but that's a lot of people. Well, not everybody has a car. Exactly, yeah. Everybody doesn't have a car. It seems like they do, but is this situation, and I love this research that was done in this case, is this situation, was that you or Josh?

That's all I mean. It's all made. Josh gets no credit for them. That is excellent. Josh, if you're listening, you've got nothing on me. You got nothing, right? Is this situation that makes car payment advertising so hard for people to resist?

Any car dealer, car dealers know how suggest, advertising and extremely little payment can be. And by the way, the manufacturers do the same damn thing. Oh, yeah. They come in with a low payment, low payment. You don't see a $530 payment. That's where... The average is.

Who's going to call on that? Exactly. With tens of millions of Americans paying over $500 a month on car payments, wouldn't an offer of $199 per month sound pretty good? You hear that a lot, don't you? How about $99? Even better. That even sounds better.

Whoa, 69. No. yes $69 per month that's what Mazda Palm Beach on North Lake Boulevard is offering on their website now I would have to say this and this is me

show them that ad by the little bit if you said to me I'm going to sell your car for $69 a month I would say you're just you're making a joke where can you possibly

find a $69 per month car payment I think they went too low But, you know, there are peaked out there victims. Why don't they do a dollar a month? I mean, come on. Let's take it to the absurd. Anyway, that's what it is. I'm, folks, if it's too good to be true, you've heard the old saying,

and it's not true. There's no free lunch. You've got a lot of cliches out there that say you should ignore something like a $69 per month, but that's what Mazda Palm Beach did. You saw, I just showed it to you on YouTube. The offer was for 2018, Mazda 3 sedan. and Mazda Palm Beach still has quite a few leftover 2018 models. Stu counted them.

There's 38 of them. Be careful. We had a question of the seminar the other day that Nancy and Rick and I did in West Palm Beach. And one person had bought a 2018 car recently. And I've seen cases where they'd be advertising, and they probably are, 2017. You know, technically, you could advertise a 1937 car today as a new car. car because the definition legally of a new car is

manufacturer certificate origin is a car ever been titled if the car hasn't been sold and titled you could call it a new car doesn't make any difference how old it is it is now that's a good law right a new car can be as old as you want it to be

other than the title as an experiment I'm going to I'm going to sequester one car and we'll sell it 10 years from now it'll probably be worth more it'll be a clutch of it might low mileage Okay, the payment of $69 was prominently featured in large bull type and next to it in much smaller typeface was lease for 36 months.

I looked at it and in my first glance, I thought it was a monthly payment. We down below was some fine print disclaimer language in an extremely tiny light gray font. It was difficult to read, but by enlarging it on our computer, we could make it out. Now, I'm going to show you, there it is there. Point to the light gray. This, it looks like a little shadow. It looks a smudge. It looks right.

I thought it was a smudge. It looks like a little effect that makes it look like it's through, you know, it's a... What a joke. And it's legal. Those are words. They say it's legal. You can't read it. We blew it up and here's what it says.

INC for include all costs to be paid by consumer except tax, tags, and dealer fees. which are additional and maybe due upon lease signing. With Tier 1 credit approval, that means you've got to have squeaky clean, excellent credit, and include all incentives, see dealer. You know, that's like we're not even going to do fine print, just see the dealer, and he won't know, and he won't tell you anyway. Lease closed in, and based on terms above,

requires due at exceptions. $5,996 down payment. Ouch. Yeah. First month payment. zero security they throw that in there I guess there's not security

deposits ever I never I never see that used to be in the old days all the time and then there's a $5.95 a bank fee which is added

and usually correct me if I'm wrongs to the payment should include the inception fee I think that they're saying that the 5996 down payment includes that the first payment

and the bank fee and then the other stuff is additional tidy five bread we found the catch a whopping 5996 5,996 down payment was needed to get the advertised monthly payment it also appears this down payment did not include the sales tax on the down payment which is $360 or you know $306 or dealer fees at least a thousand this means the total customer would have to come up with would be well over $7,000 now you can buy a car for $7,000 And you're thinking, I'm going to get this car for $69 a month. That's with a $7,000 out-of-the-pocket cost. Right. We sent an Agent Thunder to investigate. Here's a report.

I'm Agent Thunder. I'm not Agent Thunder. I'm speaking as if I were Agent Thunder. I walked into the showroom around 2 p.m. I'm sorry. I just thought of something. If you take the $7,000 of asking down, divide it up over 36 months, that is $194.

So mentally, you're really doing $269 a month and not, so anyway. It's criminal. One way to look at it. It is criminal. And I'll tell you, we've got a little bit of time. I'm going to say this. The fine print,

I said earlier, and I alluded to make it legal. Actually, the fine print doesn't make it legal because the Federal Trade Commission, which is a legal entity, says that anything that you change to payment or price of a product with, doesn't have to be a car,

has to be displayed conspicuously and clearly next to the price or the payment. And so that's a violation. This advertisement violates the Federal Trade Commission's laws. So fine print often violates laws, but the people don't know about it, people don't care about it, the regulators don't enforce it. As I were Agent Thunder,

I walked into the showroom around 2 p.m. Right away, I was greeted by a salesman named Todd. Todd was energetic, look happy to see me. Kind of like your dog when you come home. Wagon is tail. He asked what brought me in. I said it was an offer on their website. I told him my story.

My wife recently stopped working to homeschool our kids. Agent Thunder is a millennial, and you know, this is a millennial thing, homeschooling. I like his ingenuity when he comes up. with his story. This meant we were down to a one-income family and he did a really affordable payment to make ends meet. I said I was leery of buying a used car, but I didn't think I could afford the payment on a new one, so I was really excited to see their offer of $69 a month for a brand new Mazda. Todd looked grim. He stopped back. He stopped wagging his tail. Todd looked grim. I'm here for the $69 a month payment in this like a deer in the headlights. He's tucked his tail

between his legs. And salespeople, a lot of them are good guys and good gals and they work for bad people and they're out there to make a living and they say to themselves, why do you put these ads in the paper? It is so embarrassing that I have to lie to these people. And that was Todd looking grim. I think Todd was just afraid the deer and the headlights. Here we go. I asked what's wrong. Did the offer expire? He said it hadn't expired, but it was very hard to get to that payment. I told him I was confused and asked, why do they advertise it if it's impossible to do? Todd said, nothing's impossible with some money down. I guess Todd's right. If you got enough money, virtually nothing is impossible. But you can't buy love with money. I don't

want to go there. Rick's got his hand up. If you've got $150,000 down, you can get a Lamborghini for $69 a month. That's exactly right. I said that I hadn't planned to put a lot of money down. I had savings, but didn't want to tap into it unless I had to. I asked him how much money he was talking about. Todd said we should put off the conversation because he was unsure if the advertising car

was still available. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Oh, man. He offers some water and asked, he didn't even give a Coke or a beer. He offered water and asked me to wait for him to check in to see if it was in stock. When he returned, he said he had bad

news. Surprise, surprise. surprise the car was not in stock he's also said he believed it's been there for quite a while so it was there for quite a while yeah no it hadn't been there for i hadn't been there for that's confessing yeah and and by the way i didn't include this in there because there's too many details but he said he also told him it was the base model with like nothing on it was not a desirable i mean just the classic evil bait and switch it'll be interesting and we did this before with grickle when they own the dealership. I'm not sure of the new owner's name.

They ran a bait and switch car, the same car, for weeks, and we kept talking about it on the radio show, and they still have the bait and switch car. And also there are other locations for advertising. They were all, like, four stores are advertising the same car. Exactly. They were all advertising the same bait and switch car. That didn't exist.

It didn't exist. Fortunately, Todd had a plan. He said he had another car in mind for me. He suggested a CX3. It was a hatchback. but it was only a little more than the Monster 3, he said, a little more, and it had a good lease program. We found the car, 2019, CX3 and Metallie Gray. Todd went through the whole presentation demonstration thing.

We took it for a test drive. Back of the dealership, Todd ran a trial closed. This is what car dealers, salespeople call. If I could, would you? Yeah, yeah, just test them. Test the water. Are they ready to buy? You do the trial close. So he said, he asked me, if all the numbers look right to me, would I make a deal today?

I said I would. He reminded me that we weren't talking about a $69 month payment anymore. I said, I was aware of that. He asked him if we were still okay, and he said, we're still okay. Todd offered me a seat at his desk, left to speak to his manager. Here we're game playing again. He returned with a payment of $161 with $6,000 down. So I came in for $69 payment and no down, and I'm now talking about $161 with $6,000 down.

This was for 36 months' lease with a $10,000 allowed per year. I told Todd that was too much. Todd asked me, what was too much, the monthly payment or the down payment? I said the down payment was too much. I said I had already accepted the fact I wasn't getting a $69 payment, and as long as I was below 200, I would do the deal. Todd went to get Dave, the manager. Dave had a lease worksheet that he put on the desk between us.

It had a lease payment grid that illustrated what my payment would be with different down payments. He pointed to the one in the middle. He said with $5,000 down, I could be at $191 a month. So now I'm up from 69 to $191 with $5,000 down. With a big down payment, yeah. Huge down payment. I told him what I told Todd I had savings, but I'd rather not use it unless I had to. I asked me, excuse me, while I called to ask my wife.

Walked across the showroom, pretending to call from my phone. I returned to Todd and Dave and said, they had a deal. I picked up the worksheet so that we'd be right back that night. I would be back that night with my wife. This appeared to surprise them. I'm unclear if they were surprised. I can see why they were surprised. Really?

He doesn't look like that big a sucker. He said he was going to buy. He'll be back. Talk about deer in the headlights. Oh? Anyway, this is classic bait and squish. It reminds me, and I mentioned this earlier, of the previous owner of Mazda Palm Beach, Griko,

do a lot of bait and switch. I mentioned a Nancy in the car on the way to the radio station that I think distressed cars like Mazda. Mazda has a hard time selling cars. And most Mazza dealers struggle, and they get a little bit more desperate. Clearly, this Mazza dealership is very desperate in the way advertised. Broke a lot of rules, a lot of laws, and they are pretty obviously desperate together. So we can go ahead and grade this store, this dealership with your post on Facebook, YouTube, or text, or however you want to do it.

and we will put them either on a recommend dealer list or do not buy from this dealer list. We can start with Rick. You want to go ahead and put a score on this? He's struggling. How could you struggle with this one? I just got to give it to the F. I mean, I can't even give a curve on this.

It's enough. It was total bait and switch. Yes. There were no rules that didn't break, I can see. I don't even have to ask the black widow, Nancy. Nancy, what do you think about this? Well, I think that greedy people lack empathy. And I think that these greedy thieves deserve an F.

There you go. Well, I'll start with our listeners and viewers. We have some coming in from text and on Facebook. Linda, I knew what she was going to say. Big Fat F for lying too much. Then we have some texts here, John Gism and F. Deanna gives them Wow an F and Allison gives them an F

and this was just some old school This was an old school mystery shop And they get an F from me too You know interestingly We have been sued by off-leaseonly.com And then we haven't been sued We've been threatened with a lawsuit We've been warned.

We've been warned by an attorney. Our attorney wrote their attorney back And the letter, I wish I'd have brought it with me But basically the letter said Oh, okay Christian Dorisman the Esquire, that's off-lease-only.com. Dear to Mr. Dorisman, I've been invited with your correspondence by April 9, 2019, addressed

to Earl Stewart. In response to your correspondence, Mr. Stewart stands by the accuracy of the statements he made in the radio broadcast and subsequent YouTube video of approximately one year ago entitled Mystery Shopping Report, Off-Lease Only. Mr. Stewart stated in the March 2018 radio broadcast that Carfax Report did advise for the Takata Recall. Mr. Stewart's broadcast accurately stated that while the recall was referenced in the Carfax report, the salesman advised the mystery shopper that there were no safety issues with the subject vehicle.

Further contrary to the statement of your correspondence, Mr. Stewart did, in fact, as he does for every broadcast, disclose that he is an automobile dealer. Please note that off-lease only is referred to as one of Mr. Stewart's recommended dealers on his good dealer-bed-dealer list. sincerely, Gary Duckle, who's our attorney. So, once again, we hope we don't get sued. Offleys only might sue us, but the fact of the matter is, the truth is a perfect defense against libel and sanders.

So as long as we tell the truth as we have with Palm Beach, Mazda, or is that Mazda of Palm Beach? Either way, Mazda, Palm Beach, we're telling the truth. And they did some things that were deceptive. Yeah. And we'd be happy to have that argument on the record in public in a public informant. Because we would ask for a jury trial.

Right. We would want a jury trial and we would want a videoed jury trial. Yes. And we would YouTube it. Live TV. Maybe we can get Judge Lance Ito to preside. Exactly. So we've got a couple of minutes to go, maybe one minute.

And I think we had a pretty good show today. We had a fantastic show. And ladies and gentlemen, remember, I think Stu can bring you up speed as to where you can find a tool for an honest price from a car dealer at last. And you said that... Let's go into earloncars.com. Oh, okay. And we have important links. And the top one says the...

Download the out-of-the-door form. And it's a beauty. Just click. You download this baby, take it with you, and I'm sure you will get a lot of attention. Yeah. This is Nancy Stewart, reminding you that we will be back right here next week. And we're looking forward to talking to all of you.

Thank you all for joining in. You're a very important part of the show. Have a great weekend, everyone.