Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.04.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of JM Lexus

Episode Date: May 4, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits JM Lexus, the world's largest Lexus dealer in South Florida to see if they honor their one price, no hassle, no fees pledge. 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. I hope you believe me when I tell you that I really truly look forward to the show. I hope you do, too. It's just a lot of fun. I mean, the week goes by so fast, and when Saturday arrives, Nancy and I are just all pumped up. I know Stu and Rick are pumped up, too, and we love to do it.

what we do. I got to tell you, because we have a lot of new folks that join our family every Saturday morning, that we're a different show. I know everybody says they're different, but we are unique. There's not another radio show. I don't know of a TV show anywhere that does what we do. And what we do is a candid analysis, scoring, training, recommending how to buy a car without being ripped off by a car dealer. I had to use that word, ripped off, it sounds crass. But to be taken advantage of, car dealers are operating as if they were still in 1955. It is really an amazing phenomenon for a lot of reasons.

And there is a reason for that, by the way. They're not locked in a time warp. It's nothing scientific. It's just the fact that they're so protected by some archaic laws that have been put on the books in 50 states that allow them to pretty much do what they like and they do take advantage of people. The Gallup Annual Poll on Honesty and Ethics and Professions

verifies this, and this Gallup poll has been taken every year since 1977. And every year, I know your regulars are tired of hearing this, but every year, car dealers are at the bottom of the list. 2018, dead last in honesty and ethics. Car dealerships. So when you go into a car dealership, you just never know. And more often than not, I'm sad to say, you're taking advantage of.

So this show exists because the second biggest purchase you make in your life probably is an automobile, and you have to buy one every four or five or six years. Some people keep them longer than that. But when you do buy one, you're talking tens of thousands of dollars. And you just don't want to make a big mistake. I'm talking a $5,000 mistake, a $2,000 mistake. I've had people call me that have paid $10,000 and more for the car than they should have. Fair market value oftentimes is just a word in the minds of the car dealers.

When you walk into a car dealership today, the salespeople are paid on commission. 99.9% of the car dealerships. Typical commission is 25% of the markup that they can add to that car. That's right. It's an adversarial relationship between the car salesperson and you, the buyer. They are pitted against you. It's combat in the ring. They try to charge as much as they can, and you try to buy it for as little as you can.

Or if you're smart, you try to buy it for a little as you can. If you believe the car salesman, then you end up paying this huge profit. 25%. Think about this for a minute. You're going to buy a Chevrolet, and you're going to buy whatever model Chevrolet. You want to buy an Impala. and you go into the car dealership and you buy a specific model, let's say he's got an MSRP of $29,500. Now, would you believe that if they sold five of those Impala's today when you went in, that there'd be five different prices paid?

That's right. Because chances are there'd be five different salespeople. Each salespeople, each salesperson has his own individual talent as to how we can. mark up the car to sell you as much as you can. So five different prices paid for that same car on the same day. And that's the way it is in every car dealership in the country virtually. I have to throw virtually in there. There's some car dealerships out there now that are doing an honest, putting their lowest price on each car.

Very few. What would it be to do? One tenth of one percent, maybe? Yeah, if that. Yeah. If that, yeah. Matter of fact, our mystery shopping report today is very interesting. because we chopped one of the most reputable, large, perceived to be honest.

And I, let me, I retract that, they are honest. They are really a good car dealership. And they profess to be one price. They profess to be no dealer fee. And we found a glitch. And they're not a big glitch, but we found a glitch. So a lot of car dealerships that think they're doing the right thing aren't doing the right thing. and many car dealerships that tell you

they're doing the right thing, don't do the right thing. And that's why we're here. I don't want to get off on a buying and leasing thing because it's also about maintaining and repairing. This gentleman's sitting in my ride. His name is Rick Kearney. And before the show started, he fixed my microphone for me. This guy can fix anything.

And I'm telling you, people have that innate ability. And Rick's been with me for 25 plus years, and there's nothing much he doesn't know about cars. He knows about, you know, he knew about the cars when they were mechanical, and now he knows about cars when they're computerized. And if you have a problem with your car, you call 877-960, and Rick can answer the question for you. Or you can text us at 772. What's the text number?

772-497-3530. That's 772-497-3530. Rick can answer any question. And next to Rick is Nancy Stewart. and then she has got consumer reports in her hand. It's kind of like her Bible. And we got so excited yesterday because when out the mailbox, ma'am, there's our two hard copies.

And we get consumer reports online, too. But we like to have the hard copies. We're just old-fashioned books. We like to read. What was even more exciting is that you came up from the mailbox and you handed me my consumer report and your consumer report, which eliminates a lot of arguing back and forth

and really bad things happening. You used to. to have to hide the knives and things like that. But at any rate, before we got into the Game of Thrones, we went through the Consumer Report. And ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you what, if you haven't subscribed, if you haven't gone to your PC and checked out of Consumer Report, you can find that.

Anything. They rate anything and everything in Lake Girl said, it's our Bible. And ladies, if you're listening, please give us a call. Give us a call. You can win yourself $50. The first two new lady callers, that's 877-960-99-60. And next in line here to the folks in the studio, the team is Stu Stewart. Howdy?

He's my son. And he is, I don't know how to surprise me. He knows how much about the car business as I do. He just hasn't been doing it as long. And he sees things through different glasses. And I like it. his frames. I like your frames today. Compliments of Warby Parker.

But he's our link to the cyber world. And he's a runway model. Somebody take the microphone away from Andrew. And we're on Instagram, we're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we are all over. And this is what the guy does.

Yeah. Yeah. He's a more technical consultant from the sales side, just like Ricky is from the mechanical and the computerized side. because cars are moving along so quickly in technology, I lose track at it. I get in my car, and I can only figure out about half the buttons.

So this is the team. You've got the Earl Strun Cars team. We love for you to call. I see a caller has already called. Yeah. And ladies and gentlemen, Earl didn't mention it, but I, too, can fix a few things, whether it be in his car, my car, or in the home.

I am taking a bow. Give us a call, 877. 960 9960 and we are going to go to our wonderful wonderful female caller Tina who spends Saturdays right here with us good morning Tina good morning everybody how are you doing great hello Tina hi and I want to say a special shout out to everybody on Facebook this morning good morning and have a great one and I hope you enjoy the show today because as always it's going to be a fabulous show Well, that's what we're planning on.

I'm holding you to high expectations. The pressure's on. Anyway, the reason why I'm calling this morning is because, you know, I love Scottie Kilmer. He's great. He's changed the channel. He's changed the format on his YouTube channel a little bit. And I like it because he rapid fires two questions. And if you have a short attention span like I do,

it's great to just listen to his videos for three to five minutes. and then get the info that you're looking for. But this video that he posted just recently is really interesting because he went in on CarMax. He was saying emphatically, do not buy a car from CarMax. You're going to pay way too much money. In some cases, you're better off buying new

as opposed to buying at CarMax. Interesting. I can't agree with that, Tina. You know, CarMax is one of our good guys. and they're not perfect, but they do pretty much everything that they should do right, meaning they do mark their cars with their lowest price and gives you the opportunity to shop and compare.

So if you have a car that you feel is overpriced, just don't buy it. The other car dealers that are selling used cars don't afford you the right to shop and compare it because they won't give you a firm price until you tell them you're ready to buy. CarMax also, I think they, Went back with a small dealer fee, didn't they still?

I think so, yeah. They used to have no dealer fee. Now they have a small dealer fee. It's like $1.99 or something like that. But they're pretty honest. I think the world would be a lot happier if everybody sold used cars the way CarMax did. Now, CarMax on the dangerous recall list, they're still selling cars with dangerous recalls. But I believe...

I know that we have found one there, to be honest with you, I don't think... It's been a while since we've been. since we've been back, so we don't know. I retract that. We need to verify that. I do know that they will certainly disclose it, and we have to find out whether they will have it repaired ahead of time or ask you to have it repaired.

But I just have to disagree with folks that would say CarMax is not a good place to buy used car. Well, no, does it depend upon where in the country you live, like obviously some car maxes are going to be much better than others, or are they pretty much standard throughout their whole system with their dealerships? Yeah, they're more standard than non-standard, but you're absolutely right. Any dealership owned by one entity will vary from entity to entity. We've seen that with Mullinix Ford, and we've seen that with AutoNation. So you can't have absolute continuity.

when you have, you know, Hunters and, I guess, Carmex probably has thousands of stores. Rick, you've had a point? Well, it's possible. It might have just been the person that Scotty Kilmer dealt with the day that he was there. Yeah. Sometimes you might get a guy that just, you know, are a person that is just not their best day. And things just don't go right sometimes. I will say one thing about CarMax that people don't know.

This is kind of an insider thing. CarMax advertises they'll buy your car. You don't have to buy a car from them, and they should bring your car in, they'll appraise it, they'll give you a cash price, they'll pay for it, and they lock that price for five days. And then you can come back if you don't want to make a decision that same day. Now, on the surface, that sounds like a great thing. Here's the insider information I'm going to give you. CarMax has a very sophisticated artificial intelligence, analog kind of a computerized system of appraising cars.

And as we said earlier, they have hundreds and hundreds of car dealerships. And if they have a 2018 White Camry, used White Camry, Toyota White Camry, and they have too many of those, let's say they got, they're covered up, they traded too many in. And you come in with a 2018 White Camry to get appraise, they will give you an appraisal that will be way below, which you could get practically anywhere else. and they do that to balance their inventory.

You can't blame them, but I think the in-he window that they'll pay you a fair price might be wrong. On the other hand, if they don't have any White Camrys and they want them, and you come in with a 2018 used White Camry, they will appraise that car for more than you could probably otherwise sell it for wholesale. So I would advise anybody shopping their used car trade-in or just their car that they want to sell to go to CarMax, but always shop it with other car dealerships, use cars departments.

Yeah, as always, it pays to shop. I mean, I think many people that buy cars, especially on the weekend like this, when they really need a vehicle, if they fall in love with something right away, they might not be inclined to be patient and shop. But that's the key. Be patient shop, think about it,

especially when you're dropping this much money. This is like the second most important purchase, going to make in your life as a car. The first is a home. Wise words, Tina. You're not going to buy just any home. You don't want to buy just any car, even if it looks pretty on the outside and you fall in love with it. Don't let yourself fall in love with the vehicle. That's what people get into trouble. Great advice, Tina. Thank you very much for calling. And as always, you have got something extremely interesting. And we thank you very much. I hope you can call again next week.

We love to hear from you pointing out those two very important investments, buying a home. and buying a car. Thank you so much and have a wonderful weekend. Thanks y'all too. Have a good one. Thanks, Tina. Okay, we're going to go to our first female caller, first time female caller, and she is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That's where I come from, Pittsburgh. Good morning, Samantha. Good morning, guys. How are you feeling? We're great. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me today. Thank you for calling. Interesting.

I was calling today. My step-pub listens to your show every Saturday morning. So he inclined me to call today. It's my birthday, so we're over here in AC, and I wanted to talk about my first-time car experience with my 2012-for-focused. Oh, wonderful. Happy birthday. Happy birthday.

Happy birthday. Thank you. I appreciate it. Well, that was... No, keep going, Nancy. Let's hear it. Yes, I'd go get a load out of this one. So, when I first...

Originally from Philadelphia, currently live in Allentown, I needed a car to get around because in the city, you know, you have buses and trains, and just public transportation is so much more accessible. But in Allentown, you definitely need a car to get around. So when I first moved out here, my mom and my step-up took me to go get a car, and we ended up getting a 2112 Ford.

And that car had this insane transmission issues. I mean, it was jerking everywhere I went. I mean, there was this one time where I almost got into an accident because I was on a hill and it seems like, I guess, the transmission, I don't know, I guess it just slipped too much, but that's, apparently that's a thing with that car. You know, apparently that's, it just comes with the, with the car. And every time I would take it back, they would just give it a different recall

call or they would switch the transmission module, but it was always an issue. And, you know, I would never go back to that car if I'm being quite honest. I already told my mom, I was like, you know what, I'm not doing Ford anymore. I had such a bad experience with that car. Well, Samantha, I'll say this, you know, Ford does build some good cars, and you can't just go buy one experience. And consumer reports, I know people get tired on Nancy and me talking about consumer reports, but if you check consumer reports before you buy your next vehicle used or new, you

and really find out those that have the least problems and the ones you're more inclined to like. Yeah, I definitely believe that. Angel, my stepfather, he has gone through so many Ford cars. Ford is his brand. So he gave me the same advice, the exact same advice. I think he actually might have taken it from you. Yes. Samantha, your car buying experience can be flawless.

All you need to do is take, well, one of the things you need to do is just to take a look at that consumer report. and that is going to arm you with all kinds of information, whether it's new or whether it's used. And there are so many women-friendly deal with you are going to have a great experience. Oh, heck yeah. I'm going to look into those. Any of those in our area over here in Pennsylvania? I would say most of them are today. You know, what you have to be careful of when you go into a cardio chip is not so much,

being disrespected as a woman, that is pretty old school. And the car dealers have learned today, that's really dumb. If you want to sell a car and make a lot of money, you have to have the person you're trying to sell a car too like you. And when you treat somebody with disrespect for any reason, it's hard to make a lot of money on that person. So I wouldn't be so concerned about whether you're a male or female. I'd be concerned about whether you're going to be taken advantage of,

and that's where you have to mind your P's and Q's and be careful. And I know you sound like a sharp lady, and it's going to be hard to take advantage of Samantha. Just be careful. You know. I appreciate that. Plus, I take wherever we go a car shop, and Angel is like the car, the car man in our family. So we just went and got my uncle a vehicle. And as soon as we went in there, he already knew all the numbers, and he knew all about the car.

So I don't think anyone can take me for a full as long as good. Good for you. Well, good for you, Samantha. It sounds like as if you're in full control. and you're calling us on your birthday please stay on the line and you can give Rudy who's in our control room

your contact information and we'll get a $50 checkout to you there you go happy happy happy birthday this is the birthday keep on listening and spread the word thanks Samantha

yes well thank you guys Awesome. Thank you. Bye-bye. Give us a call toll-free at 877-9-60-99-60. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Rick. You know, you said it was going to be a good positive day today.

There we go. That's right. I'm loving it. I did. I declared this national non-negativity day. No negativity on May 4th. And it's easy to remember because tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo. So the day before Cinco de Mayo, nobody has a negative thought.

Very negative comment. That's right. You've got to get in a good mood for... Yep. Ladies and gentlemen, we have prepared for the show this morning and that holiday. If you can see real close here, everyone's got a bottle or a cup, we are enjoying our tequila. I was looking around. What are you going to say?

Nobody, I don't have a cup. I have a venty roast. Well, we got a couple texts I see on Stu's note pad there. Yeah, we do. We have a couple that came in early on, and the first one, is from oh I don't think of a name on this one but I said oh no I'm sorry it's Arma G from Tampa

I took my 2006 Honda CRV and found that it was my power steering pump leaking $1,000 to fix belt had oil all over it too anyway had already spent $1,000 at a local repair shop I told him I thought was the pump anyway leased a Honda CRV

talk to us about leasing pros and cons thank you so much for all your advice. That's from Irma. Very good. So she wants to hear about leasing, pros and cons. Very good. Pros and cons? Well, the pros and cons are that rule of thumb, buy the car and don't lease it.

I like to give simple answers. Sometimes they're simplistic, and they're not totally accurate, but if you do your research and shop and compare a price on a car, you're more likely to get a good price than if you lease. lease has too many hidden Mime Hidden booby traps is a word I'm searching for And I could go through that list

And I could put you to sleep Yeah, that's endless When you're buying a car You get three competitive prices On an out-the-door price And you are going to get a good deal Simple as that With a lease, there's too many ways

They can manipulate you But if you're sophisticated and sharp And you do your homework You can get just as good a deal on a lease as you can On a purchase price There is no inherent advantage over either. It used to be years ago people lease cars because of cash flow,

meaning it was a lease cash out of pocket. That was businesses largely. They also like leases because they didn't show on their balance sheets, negatively affecting their borrowing ability for the banks. So there are a lot of business kind of things with leases. Those don't exist anymore because everybody, the car dealers, the manufacturers, when they advertise a lease price, hidden in the fine print, is a large down payment.

So if you're going to come $5,000 out of pocket or $10,000 out of pocket, what's the advantage of leasing anymore? No cash flow advantage. So go ahead and buy the car. That way you build equity. Boy, did we cover that topic at the seminar? And the worst part of leasing for seniors like us,

most of the people that I spoke to were stuck in a lease because their significant other passed away and they were unable to get out of it. So there's a lot to be said about, Listen. Okay, if you're going to post on Facebook, we're at Facebook.com forward slash earl on cars. Facebook.com forward slash earl on cars. You can tweet us, and of course, any way you want to periscope is another way.

And YouTube, YouTube is big. Do we have another text there still? Yeah, we have a couple more. One just popped in. This is Hi, Earl, Steve from New Jersey. I listen to your show every Saturday morning and follow your blog. Thanks for protecting us consumers. FYI on YouTube, there's a guy named Steve Richards who teaches old school car sales techniques.

I just feud his customer threatens to shop around video. It's dreadful to watch, but highly educational to better understand what to look out for. Please continue to fight the good fight. It's funny. There's an insider network, you know, social media, we think about it as our weapons to arm us and knowledge and protect us. But car salesmen are using it too. So there's a group called 30 sales a month, 30 cars a month. And I monitor that.

I'm a member, and I just go in to see what's going on. And the chit-chat between professional car salespeople is just like what was mentioned by the texture there. They tell people how to take advantage of other people when they're buying a car. And how do you counter the argument? If someone comes into buying a car, imagine wanting to take a couple extra days to think about buying a $40,000 product. I mean, they expect you, and they want you, and they will pressure you to buy the car the same day you walk in. So what this gentleman was referring to is, if you're a car salesman, how do you trick that buyer into buying right away? Because what's going to happen if he walks out?

Oh, it's terrible. He's going to get lower prices, if you give him a price, which you probably want. Lost all control. A lot of fun. So I think I stumbled onto a video. It might be the same guy. I was just messing around on YouTube, and there was a guy that was explaining the four-square selling technique. Really?

And he had it on a whiteboard, and he just, he nailed it. But I don't think it was for sales people. It was a consumer advice thing. He says, this is how you get ripped off of that car dealership. And it was a really thought, I'm going to look it up so we can share it with the listeners. Interesting. Off the top of my head, I can't remember who put it up there. But we do have another text that came in.

This is from Karen. I think we spoke about this last week, but it's a good question. we can talk about it again. It says if I buy a car that takes premium gas, will it harm the engine if I use regular gas? And we had kind of a little debate between Earl and Rick on that, and so I'll turn it over to these guys, and we can open the debate up again.

Well, I'll say my bit is that you can't hurt a car if you have to use regular gas and premium. You can affect its performance, and it could affect some fuel economy, but in terms of blowing the engine up, it's not going to happen. And my advice is, and I'm a layperson, I'm going to let the expert come in on this. If you don't hear any pings or you don't detect any engine problems or performance problems,

go ahead and use the regular. And I suppose if you kept the car for 20 years, that might be in effect. But Rick, what's your comment? Actually, you've got the nail on the head. The only thing you're going to see is a minor loss in performance. and if you're driving a car that you want peak performance from it, then you would need to use that premium fuel, and I'd recommend you use it all the time

to avoid any issues with the computer getting its learned memory values set to where it's going to run on that lower fuel. Would that affect fuel economy also? It can have a negative effect on the fuel economy, but again, we're talking a half a percent, maybe a 1% fuel economy change. So if you're obvious as to save money, and there's a significant difference between regular and high test. You're going to save more by using regular.

You're going to save money, yeah. You know, you just, I got to, this is totally off the subject, but Nancy and I were talking yesterday, and there was something in Consumer Reports that just blew my mind. I think it'll blow your mind, too. Did you know that if you're driving a car, some reports tested this, with a bicycle rack on a bicycle on it, guess what percentage fuel economy you suffer as a result? 25%. you can't answer Nancy

because you know. I'm going to say 30% you're both very close 36% wow whoa that's a lot more

than I thought can you believe and you see them all over I'll bet you these people out there with these bikes on their cars

and the racks 36% that's over a third I mean if you're going on a trip forget about it cost you a fortune I guess it's the

airflow across that thing holding you back and the weight if was any other source but consumer report I wouldn't believe it but they tested it and they know. Well, we've talked about it so many times, you know.

There are people that have their trunks loaded, and they just don't realize how it impacts their fuel economy. And then with the things that they stack on the roof, it's just incredible. Yeah, personal experience, 30 years ago, I took a cross-country trip in a corolla, which even back then got great gas mileage. We had a U-Haul, like one of those box-storage things up on the roof. And it cut the fuel economy.

economy and a half. You know, it usually would take me. I could get the Gainesville from West Palm Beach on a full tank of gas. I had to fill up halfway, so it cut it 50%. Yep. Wow. I was a crazy teenager then. It's the weight and the airflow. You're still crazy. How are we doing on the text? Anybody got a text? We're caught up. Do we have any on YouTube? Not so far. A couple comments, but just folks saying good morning, checking in, saying hi. We do have a call. I didn't see Robin. We've got a great show going on, ladies and gentlemen, as usual and stay tuned for that mystery shopping report and so much more 877960 960 we are going to go to Stewart where Robin is waiting to speak to us and she's a first-time caller good morning

Robin hi how are you hey good morning we're well thank you do I need to turn my speaker off we hear you pretty clearly Robin do you have any comments about the show or questions or, you know, you qualify for first-time call or $50 cash just because you're called. But if you have anything you'd like to chit-chat with us about, we'd love to hear. Yeah, I have a few questions, but I'll just try one. When I went to get my little change a couple months ago, they fucked all the oil out somehow instead of just draining it. And I just wondered, is that good for the car to do?

That's the first time They ever did it that way Like a vacuum thing? Where did you go for that service, Robin? Well, I don't know if I should say It was one of those local You know, those local Independent Jufri-Lubber

Well, we'll change places Many, many years ago I saw Where some companies had made a device That you supposedly put a tube down through the dipstick of the engine and it would supposedly it would siphon all the oil out

my concern about that is you're trying to get a very small tube down through a very small metal tube that's got twists and turns to it and I'd just be concerned about how well it would work and whether it would actually get all the oil out because that old dirty oil is kind of thick my preference really is for remove the drain plug like it's supposed to let the old oil drain

replace the gasket and put the drain plug back in and change the filter and move on but yeah robin i'd say don't go back to that place this guy here rick kearney has been in the business 25 plus years and if he hasn't ever heard of something chances are something you shouldn't be having done to your car i recall being approached by a vendor asking about it and then getting the advice of our technicians that said no no don't do that that's not a good way to change oil I don't like the idea of that yeah I just don't feel like it would

it's gimmicky I think yeah it's not going to be guaranteed to get as much of the oil out as it should be let let gravity do it you're probably charging you extra for it too they're probably trying to justify a higher charge than you should make but thanks very much

Robin that's valuable information we haven't heard of that and if any of folks out there have been taken advantage of in that manner, stay away from. Use the old-fashioned way to drain your oil, which is just take the drain plug out and let the oil run out the...

Right. Okay. Yeah, and it took them like really long to do it, too. It was like half an hour just to get it all out. Wow. So it wasn't... Do you mind telling us what they charged you for that oil change? I think it was just a normal price that I would have paid,

but I don't think they charged me any extra, but it was really took a long time and I went somewhere else the next time I don't blame you Robin were you able to watch them perform that that oil change well yeah I was sitting in my car while they were doing it and I saw them I'll ask them why they were doing it that way and they said they were doing that to all the kind of exotic cars and mine's just the key of sported so it's not really exotic, I didn't think. That almost sounds like they're trying to save money by doing a bit of a shade tree method

that although it doesn't do a proper job for you, maybe it saves them a little bit of money because they don't have to have somebody down in the bottom of the car trying to get to the drain plug and remove it and all that. So, yeah, that sounds, I think that would fall under that category of if it sounds too good to be true that one probably is and I'd stay away from that

Okay All I can say is the name of the company starts with a V Okay V Valvalier Stu Stu's on the case now

I'm just guessing Robin is that right up there in your neighborhood up there in Stewart Well I work in Stewart And I live in uh lower lake park okay so you had that my lake park you had that done in delray well lake park um it's close to pommies garden okay okay interesting anything else we can help you with today robin

uh well well my tire pressure monitoring system um why does that always go when it gets cold it always lights up and and I've got to go put air in my tires every other day in the cold weather. Yeah, unfortunately, that's science. When the air gets cold, it gets more compact. It's simply temperature versus pressure, and so the pressure goes down. We see a slew of these. Every time we get an air temperature drop in the wintertime, cars come in continuous with tire light on,

and all we do is bump the pressures up a little bit, and you're fine. Okay. It's a normal thing. Yeah, that's great that you're keeping an eye on that tire pressure, Robin. That has a whole lot of benefits. Robin, thank you so much for calling. And don't forget, stay on the line and give us your contact information.

And please, spread the word. We're trying to build a platform here for the ladies also. Have a great weekend. Thank you for all your information. You're quite welcome. We're going to go to John. in Palm City, who is one of our favorite callers. Good morning, John.

Good morning to everyone. Hey, John. My concern today is to appeal to listeners with two very important recalls. Some people know about it. Others don't. Well, first one is the Cadillac SRX, which is the SUV, from 2010 to 2015. The recall is problem with the, to do with the headlights. It's a defective component that when you're driving, with the headlights on, they totally fail or they dim.

This has been going on for a while, and GM is not issuing a regular recall. So last month in Detroit, the people grouped together, and they put a lawsuit class action, and it's a big problem. I mean, it covers from five years, 2010 to 2015, and it's pretty serious that some of them even afraid to use their cars because all of a sudden you're driving on and you have no headlights. So shame on GM for not issuing a full reef call on it. The second one, it's been going on since 2017, is the BMW, the three series, the five series, and the Z-4s of the 2-0-0-6. model years. They actually catch on fire. This is worse in South Florida. It's something to do with moisture. Rick could probably explain it more. The moisture gets into a crankcase ventilation system

valve heater, which is plastic. The plastic deteriorates, and it leads to a short, and whether the car is running or it's shut off in your garage, it goes on fire. And on May 28th, this month, which is a Tuesday, 925,000 notices are being sent to the owners of these cars. But the big problem is many of these 206 cars have changed hands, and I don't think they're going to find or locate all the new owners of it. They won't. It's a serious problem, and the car totally burns, goes on fire, and it makes no difference whether it's running at the time,

or it's shut off and it's in your garage at night, it burns. So I just want to put a red flag, a caution to the people. But it's serious enough to get a 925,000 car notice out. And this started in 2017, which BMW was aware of this, and they had complaints at that time of 185,000 vehicles, and very serious. So I just want to point it out to people These two major recalls

Yeah, BMW Barbecue Well, it's like Playing Russian roulette buying a car these days, John I can't believe that There's never been more recalls Since I've been a car dealer Over 50 years

I've never seen anything like it And it's a percentage thing too Just not absolute numbers And every car that comes out Seems like no matter With the manufacturer There's recalls everywhere And then NHTSA

National Highway Traffic Safety, they're not defining some of these things as serious enough for recalls. You mentioned the headlamp on the Cadillac John. What could be more dangerous than driving on a pitch dark night and you're going around a corner and sudden your headlights go out? Not only can't the other cars see you, you can't see the other cars. I don't know what's going on. Somebody needs to take control of this whole recall thing and get some order on it.

A lot of lives are being lost as a result of it. Absolutely. and to make it worse I mean these are not cheap cars this is not a key or a Hyundai I mean this is Cadillacs and BMWs so it's very serious exactly well John thank you so much

thanks for the update John I was looking for a picture we had we had a picture of John and Nancy and I at the Seniors versus crime and I can't find the picture but I'll find it we're going to stream this on Facebook I know you're not on Facebook John but

we'll stream it so everybody will know what a handsome guy you are I was so happy to see what John looked like. Yeah. You look great, John, by the way. Well, I'll tell you, he drove all the way from Palm City. It was just, we were so impressed. So nice. That he thought so much of us.

John, thanks so much and have a great weekend, and thanks for that update. And there's some information in the June edition of Consumer Report about headlights, and they've been in the news a lot, and it's a dangerous situation that needs fixed. We're going to go to Boca, and we're going to talk to John. Good morning, John. well it's joe but that's close good morning everyone hey earl what i would like to know is taking the average car excluding cubes and Lamborghinis what does the dealer expect to make as a net net net net profit in other words that's including variable costs fixed costs uh whole backs everything

when you do your books at the end of the year and you take your profit and divided by the number of cars sold what does a dealer expect to make as his bottom line profit Well, that's a great question. Stu just sent me a note here. For Toyota, it's $400. And I know that sounds incredulous. How could a car dealer only make $400? The sad part about that $400 is that that $400 is an average made up of this customer

that paid that dealer a $5,000 profit and this other person that paid him $100 profit. it's an average. And so net profit after commissions and after expenses is only $400. It is mind-boggling. There's a gross profit figure that's higher than that. But when you add all the overhead and the other expenses, the average Toyota dealer only makes $400 on a new car. You mentioned Lamborghini.

That's a different story. Mercedes. That's what I say. You have to exclude them. Yeah. Luxury car. I would say, you know, for imports, I mean, this is a different story. just my field of expertise, you know, Honda, Toyota, things like that, around $400.

There's some doing better than that. But remember this, they really holds you in the F&I department. So we're saying that you only, we're not counting the financial insurance profit in that number. So when we save $400, they'll make a thousand. No, no, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about. We are. Oh, that includes.

That's the end of the day. Everybody gets paid. That's what you take home. Okay. So after you're counting F&I. Okay. Earl, I have to say this, Earl, I have, I love your show and And I believe everything that you had said since I start watching you day one.

But this, I really truly cannot believe. That's it. You got your name down as John is Joe, right? Joe, yes. Joe. Here's why, and I know a lot of people find that hard to believe. The car manufacturers are largely responsible for this. car manufacturers they make 100%

of the price when they sell a car to a car dealer. They build the car, they set the price. We don't haggle and hassle with Toyota as a Toyota dealer. You don't negotiate with General Motors if you're a General Motors dealer. The price of the car is the price of the car. General

Motors and a lot of the other manufacturers will make as much as $10,000 or $14,000 on the price of the car when they sell it to the dealer, especially on your vans, SUVs, pickup trucks. That's where they make the big money.

They don't make the money in the cars, the sedans, but they make them on the big money. Now, because that's where they make so much money, they've got to sell more cars. And to sell more cars, they have to pressure the dealers to sell more cars. So if you want to be a car dealer, you have got to hit your quota.

Every car dealer, based on his geographical location, population density, where he has his business, has a quota at my dealership our quota is what average about 275 cars a month

yeah about 275 cars a month if we average 275 cars a month we are at 100% of our quota if you don't hit your quota then you are penalized by Toyota and all the other manufacturers do the same thing so the other car dealers

that hit their quota are being paid bonuses If you hit 110% of your objective, you had even more of a bonus. If you had 120% of your objective, you get even more of a bonus. So the dealers are fighting each other tooth and nail to sell cars. And this is good for the buyer. And that's the reason the average Toyota profit is only $400. If a car dealer sells 100 cars, and you multiply it by 400, and he's got this edifice that he spent $8 million for, the number is just

don't reconcile with each other. Well, Joe, don't forget about the service department, the Parsh Department. Yeah, just, you know, all the overhead, that's an expense. So that's after the rent is paid, the electric bills paid every commission, every technician, everything, at the end of the day, the profit to the dealer is roughly $400 a car before TOTUS. That's why my question was net, net, net, net, net, that's taking everything into consideration. And that's not even after taxes. I don't want to believe that's before Texas.

But thank you, anyhow, for the time. Joe, last saying, thank you for the call, just should add that that $400 does not include income tax. So you had to pay Uncle Sam 30% of that. So you're really, the net net, as you say, is about $320. Correct. Just full disclosure last year at the end of 2018, our average, our profit per new Toyota last year was $443. That was pretty close. And we're in a group here, and we measure ourselves against other Toyota dealers.

The benchmark was $477. So we were a little bit lower than what we should be. And Toyota is lower than almost any other car. Oh, sure. Any other manufacturer, because Toyota, as a manufacturer, is more aggressive, and they are volume-minded. They have a good product, and that's the reason the actual net profit is low. Now, don't get the idea you folks listening out there that if you go in and buy a Toyota,

you're only going to pay the dealer a $400 net profit. That's not going to happen unless you negotiate, get an out-the-door price and shop and get paid. So you're going to pay, you could pay that dealer a $4,000 profit if you're not careful. Rick. If they listen to our show enough and pay attention and do what you tell them to do, they may pay a $300 profit. Exactly.

That is true. And also just to bear in mind, a lot of that for Toyota dealers, a lot of that profit is coming from incentives. and they're not necessarily on markups on the cars. So we have a very large portion of our profit comes from Toyota. Yeah, most of our, all of our profit, basically. If you take the performance challenge money, most of it anyway. So, Joe, thanks for calling.

That was an excellent question. Thank you for taking the time. I appreciate it. Give us a call again, Joe. We're going to go to West Palm Beach where John is holding. Good morning, John. How can we help you? John and West Palm Beach, do we still have you there?

If not, we apologize for disconnecting you. If you'll call back in, we would love to talk to you. Hey, the phone might be ringing now. Hi, John. I'm here. Hey, good. How can we help you? I'm here.

Okay, I don't necessarily have a question for this week, but I am inquisitive about the callers last week. Linda, she was shopping for that Marano platinum, and she mentioned that she had. a transam. If she's listening, I would love to find out what year transam she had and what she's going to use it for a trade in. Oh, Linda, if you're out there, send me a text. 772-4976530 or call in. And I've called before, and I've never had a chance to tell you that. I've helped you in two years with your quota, because you've won my, trust and that's where we won't be shopping in two years when we go to get a few more cars well thank

you very much and if you're looking for a transam or any other kind of a strange car low supply high-demand car auto trader as long as you expand your geographic search area you'll probably find just about any car i still remember the day you pulled up in the driveway and i was probably eight years old and there was a black transam with a giant firebird on um sticker on the hood just like Smoky and the Bandit. Spoky and Man, yeah. Best day of my life. Okay.

What memories, that's great. 877. I forgot the number. 960, 9960. We're going to go to Marv, who's been holding in Loxahatchi. Welcome to the show, Marv. Hi, good morning. Good morning.

I was at your seminar, and I really enjoyed it. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. I think this is probably for Rick. It's a quick question. Rick, we have a 2,700. specific, four-door sedan, the sun visors are broken. The sun visors flop down. They won't stay up. They don't have that spring that holds them up. Is that unusual or what?

Actually, that's not. That's an issue we've seen on a lot of Toyotas, especially on Camry. The sun visors, that tension piece, the supposed to hold it up in place, fails. And unfortunately, the only real fixed-for- is replaced the SunVisor. That's what I was told, and you can't get them anyway, but at the dealer. Right, yep. There's a chance, Marv, that you might be able to get a used one. I mean, there's some very sophisticated, we used to call them junkyards, but now they're these big, big companies.

They're recycle yards. The suit might have found one here for you. Well, Jonathan and the control room who does our live video feed, he sent me a website, says it's Hemmings. It's the world's largest collector, car collector marketplace. So you can go on there and look for parts for classic cars on it. And it's Hemmings.com. It's H-E-M-M-I-N-G-S dot com.

Well, I would, Marf, what I do, I'd go on Google. If you've got somebody in the family that's Google Savvy or your Google Savity, I just put in SunVisor 2007 Honda Civic and see what pops up. It is so amazing what Google can find for you. You might be able to find a use one at a real good price. Because I'll tell you, I called Honda, and they wanted, are you ready? Arm and a leg. $84 apiece.

Wow. Crazy. Yeah. That is absolutely insane. Hey, Marv, if you want a real treat? Well, I have you on the phone. Maybe you could tell me why are parts prices, and for that matter, service prices so expensive, at the dealer?

We wonder the same thing as a dealer. The manufacturers make a huge markup on parts, and it's because they can, and they have a captive audience. They build the cars, they build the parts, and if you want to buy an original equipment part, you have to pay the price. The markup and the average dealership for a part is 40%. That's a huge markup, and a lot of dealers will mark up their parts over 40%. Yeah, they have a parts pricing matrix, and the markup is based on, like, how fast the parts are sold. So if you have a part that's not used a whole lot, like maybe a water pump, that could be marked up hundreds of percent. And, like, oil filter, not so much.

Exactly. If you get on the, if you're buying anything, whether it's a Sunvisor or any part on a car, it is mandatory that you do a lot of phone shopping. Get on that phone, call every Honda dealer, you know, something small, they can ship it to you. I'd call Honda dealers in Orlando or wherever you want to call them. If you get five different prices on a part on a new Honda or used Honda for that matter, or any car, you'll probably get five different prices. Every parts department has a different price. Now, there's a great place to buy parts, and it is the biggest in the country, and my mind's going blank. Yes.

And we'll get this for you. We struggle with this about once a month. Rock Auto is a good one. Rock Auto, hey, bless your heart. The youngest guy got the answer. I needed a... Are you under me? I needed a windshield washer pump for a Kia.

Oh, yeah. A windshield washer pump is a tiny little thing. They wanted 50 bucks at the dealer. So I did go with Rock Auto and I got it. There you go. Rock Auto and even Amazon, Marv, has got some prices. I have inside information being fed to me secretly. My text messages.

So J.C. Whitney was one. We talk about that sometimes on the air. And also Jonathan said, there's one called you needapart.com. And it's just with the letter you needapart.com. And you put it in a part, and dealers will contact you with an offer. It allows you to price shop. Wow. Yeah.

You needapart.com. I love it. That was pretty cool. Yeah. Marvin, you see what synergy is? You called here with an excellent question. The manufacturers are gouging the public on parts prices. They're gouging the dealers.

You know, my biggest bet peeve is. what they charge for remote keys, you know, for a... Jeff Doss is loading his shotgun right now. Yeah. He's coming over to the studio. That's our parts manager. But we found a machine that can make those keys for us cheaper than Toyota's sold to us.

The one that always gets me, hubcaps. Hubcaps, yeah. Simple, wheel-cover hubcaps that you can go to Walmart or discount auto parts, and for $30, you buy a set of four, but you go in and try to buy a hubcap that's a 15, inch hubcap that it has that Toyota emblem on it and is made to look like the other three on your car

try a hundred dollars in some cases or more for a hubcap folks terrible that's crazy Mark great question thank you very much you know the the car the exterior the car is red the interior is like

a tan or a beige and it would have to match yeah the color would have to match yeah it's okay thank you very much. I appreciate it. I'll get back to you another time. I appreciate it. I'll appreciate it. Mark. Have a great day. Please do. 877-960, or you can text us, and we would love to hear from you when we talk about the Mystery Shopperman Report. You can text us with your thoughts, 772-4976530.

Rick, is the Hubcap location still on military trail? It was huge. The Hubcap warehouse? Yeah. Are they still there? They're bright pink building. Yep. They've been there for a lifetime. Okay, back to the recovering card. Is that where the kids sell all the humpcaps they steal on the street?

Yep. Okay. Now, we got a bunch of text over there, don't we still? Yeah, we got a few that piled up. First one comes from Barry G in Palm Beach Gardens. Barry says gas prices are going up again. National average is $2.89. In Florida, it's a little lower. $2.78, but in Palm Beach County, it's higher.

$2.85 cents. with summer driving season, approaching, what tips can you give to help improve fuel efficiency? Take your bicycle rack and bicycle off your car. Yeah. That's probably what prompted is. If you just tuned in, I was knocked over. I couldn't believe when I read Consumer Report's latest issue, a bicycle rack with a bicycle on it on a car decreases your fuel economy by 36%. But, you know, there's a lot of things you can do.

You drive sanely. unlike the way I drive you accelerate slowly when you're approaching a stoplight you don't rush up and stop the car you coast to the stoplight which makes me very mad if I'm behind you but

if you don't mind It's May the 4th By the 4th You're fine No negativity day May the 4th be with you I think we all know if we drive If we drive slowly

steadily No jerks no accelerations and no sudden deceleration, you can save a lot. Rick Kearney, who often test cars for our customers, will drive their car home and back, and we'll have customers coming in and saying that they're only giving 25 miles per gallon. Rick will test the car, and you'll get 32 miles per gallon.

It's just a matter of knowing how to drive. Absolutely. The number one thing, put your car on a diet. Take the junk out of your trunk. if there's something you're carrying around in the car that you don't absolutely need it that day bodies take it well those now those bodies

just get in touch with me afterwards after the show I've got a friend out in the Everglades there we can get rid of those for you but except for like you know the things that you need your spare tire you know the basics if you're carrying a lot of extra weight in your car that's going to cut your fuel economy And like Earl said, that bike rack on the back with the bicycle.

Forget about it. Hey. You know, it's amazing how your car is affected by drivers. Everyone that drives your car. I mean, such wear and tear on your car. I was reading an article to you yesterday about a gentleman who couldn't afford a car. So he went out and he bought a BMW and he rented it out to everyone on this earth. and that's how he made his car payment.

Very interesting. Wear and tear. Ride sharing ahead of his time. Yeah. Okay, and we got some more text over here. Yep, we have a follow-up. This is Barry G. This is Barry G. about who asks us about gas.

Follow-up question, love bugs. How can you prevent them from sticking? I think Barry's going on a trip this summer. Love bugs. How can you prevent them from sticking to the car and how can you clean them off without damaging your pain? number one thing before you go on a trip detail your car or have it detailed

with a good coat of carnuba wax and any time that you stop find a hose and rinse off the car and if you're on the turnpike and they have those sprayers. Carnuba is not a brand name. Carnuba is an ingredient. It's an ingredient. C-A-R-N-U-B-A and it's an ingredient wax

the more carnuba C-A-R-N-U-B-A. in the wax the better the wax is yep now my own personal preference and i've got a silly reason for this i like mothers california gold car wax and the simple reason it's a good high quality wax but if i'm going to be out there myself putting this stuff on rubbing it on waiting polishing it back off it has a nice cherry fragrance to it a lovely name so it's a pleasant fragrance what's not to like about mothers exactly but get the love bugs off quickly a good a good good coat of wax as a protector and then wash them off quickly

don't let them stay on your car and it's the best you can do unfortunately nature's little destructive well I won't go any farther with my descriptions there but okay we got another text over here we did this is from Johnny and Riviera Beach

John says Earl what do you know about car drop car drop who claims to be the largest independent car buying center in South Florida and will guarantee to give you more money for your car than their competitor, CarMax. Interesting phenomenon we're seeing now with buying people's cars. A lot of them are doing some heavy advertising.

We found out the other day that Carvana, is this right, Stu, Carvana was paying crazy money for cars. It was a fair amount, but what was crazy about it was that they picked it up. We spoke to a guy that we know with an associated company, and he decided to sell his Tacoma to Carvana. He did it on his phone. He said he had a great experience. It was super easy to do.

And then they gave him a number within two minutes of him entering the information. And then he set up a pick-up date of Saturday. And he felt he needed to change his tires and fix a crack in his windshield before they got there. Well, the guy showed up from Carvana, had him sign some paperwork, gave him a check, never looked at the car, so he feels like it was unnecessary from the change of tires. So, it's crazy. The answer is, with all these car buying services, including CarMax and Carvana, and what

was the one that the text are? Car drop. Car drop. And there's another one, we buy any car.com. They're just proliferating. Partially because of big data, we have now, for the first time in my life, as a car dealer, enough data available in all used car sales and transactions. that most car dealers, including us, were buying cars online, sight unseen.

If you'd ask me 25 years ago, if I'd buy a used car online, side unseen, I'd say, you're out of your mind. But that's the way car dealers are buying cars. Used cars, of all things, have become a commodity, and you can safely buy a car online now. And with the agreement that the price will be validated by certain criteria, you're safe to buy it because it has to fit the description that you write the check for so you are protected so what's happening is people are aggressively going out there and trying to buy cars and then turning around and reselling them it's like a commodity so it's like apples you know

everybody knows what or soybeans or wheat you have futures markets you know what it's worth so by wheeling and dealing and buying cars today you can buy them from company a or dealer a sell them to dealer B or company B, and if you move fast enough, you can make a profit by flipping the car. And this benefits you, the consumer. So when you're trading in a car now, you have no excuse not to get several bids. Get a bid from Carvana, get a bid from CarMax, get a bid from the make, manufacturer, dealer, use car department. You can get half a dozen or more bids and take the high bid. bid and you're really getting a good value

for your used car. That's right. 877-960-99-60 or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. Now back to Stu. We have our regular text her in, Anne-Marie. She says, good morning. Good morning. Airlines have black boxes on their planes.

I was wondering, since there are so many computers and cars nowadays, do new cars have the equivalent of black boxes that tracks what's going on with the car? And how it's driven. Thanks, Anne-Marie. We sure do. Oh, yes. We talk about Toyotas.

Rick is very familiar with Toyotas, but all the manufacturer has some form of a black box on the car. There's a lot of controversy about the black boxes because it's a privacy issue. Insurance companies are big on having black boxes because if you have a black box that the insurance company wants you to use, then they can tell you how fast you drive the car. If there was an accident, did you hit the brakes?

What did you do? They know everything about the operation of the car. Now, they don't have a cockpick voice recorder unless you install Amazon Alexa in your car. Right. Can you install Amazon Alexa in your car? Yeah, there's some cars that's being offered, yeah. Or Dewey.

Huh? Or Dewey? You don't know. So the lawyers are involved in this, the manufacturers involved in this, the owners involved in this. So Ann Marie, depends on. the car manufacturer and what they do for a while going way back they were very secretive about it

and they would install the black box and nobody knew where it was even the dealers didn't know where it was and the manufacturers were doing it surreptitiously to gather data and learn for research but now it's fairly commonplace and you can pretty much bet your car's got a black box we just don't know how intrusive or invasive it is Alexa slam on the brakes and the other of it is, a lot of that information also is locked away in that computer to where even I as a technician cannot access

it. There are only certain people with the proper computer access that can get in there and connect to talk to it. Or hackers. Or some of those hackers maybe, yep. That's a serious thing. They can't do that. Hey Annie, thanks for the techs.

We love hearing from you. Now, Stu, have you acquired all of this experience because you have teenagers? I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, all right. So we have, actually, this is just a follow-up. And this comes from Joe, who, who had called in about the net profit, um, for, for the dealers. And Joe's still a little bit skeptical. I mean, well, when I hear the number, yeah, my, my, I mean, I, I did make a mistake. I was wrong about the net profit. I went back to look, um, the 434 dollars a car. That was incorrect. It was, it was, um, that was our monthly figure for December. Um, um, for the whole year of 2018. Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, It was $198 per car, which I know that Earl doesn't want to hear because that's not very good, but that's where it was. I told Joe to come by the dealership. I'll show them a financial statement. He can do the math himself.

Nowhere in the world will you hear this information. I even hate to talk about this information because it sounds Joe doesn't believe it. I can tell, and the average listener probably shouldn't believe it. Here we are talking all the time about being taken advantage of by car dealers, and we're telling you that the net profit on a car. is so low. Now, I've got to ask still a question. I should know this. When we say net profit, that is including all bonuses. Yes. And there's nothing there's nothing there. This is looking at the new car. How about floor plan assistance? Including that. This is looking at our new car department for every car that we sold and you generate a certain amount

of gross profit. And then you pay your sales people. You pay your overhead. You pay your everything else at the end of the day. Last year we have it. Even a car dealer. Well, before taxes, you only, that was before taxes, you still had to pay your, yeah. It's, it is a hard-to-believe thing that car dealers, and many of them lose money in the new car department, and they make it up in the used car department and the service department and the parts department. The parts department, by the way, is the biggest money-maker. And, of course, body shops make money, not much, but there's a lot of departments that you can make money in in a car dealership. new car department and strictly enough is a very tough place to make a profit but don't go running into a car dealer's

believing you're going to buy a car and only pay the car dealer a $300 profit that's not going to happen no the average gross profit is about $2,000 maybe $1,800 bucks yeah okay so we're all caught up okay we got some YouTube stuff over here yeah uh remi d is asking do you really build equity in a lease if you don't use all your miles. And Frank actually chimed and he says, Remy, it doesn't change the residual or buyout price, but by using less miles,

your car may have a higher market value than the residual value. True. That's exactly right. And that's something you should always be aware of. We have a lot of folks in South Florida that put very little miles on the cars, and the leased a car, and the leasing company

anticipated in a 36-month lease they were going to put maybe 36,000 miles on the car, 1,000 miles a month. And they'll come back with phenomenally low mileage, five, six thousand miles. You take a three-year-old car with 6,000 miles on it. What does that jack up the appraised

values to do? I'm sorry, I was doing something. That's a great appreciation. Let's take a three-year-old used car, and this is a general question, any make-model, three-year-old car that should normally have 36,000 miles. It's only got 6,000 miles. Throw away the books.

What would be the bump on that? Oh, it would be huge. Well, it depends on the car. $1,000. At least. I mean, sometimes you can couple of thousand. If you're something really low, that's what we say. We say, throw out the book on that.

It's a one-of-a-kind car. Yeah. Put all the money in it. So the answer to this text is always be acutely aware of a low mileage car that you own, that you lease or that you buy. Because when you trade it in or when you turn the lease in, you can't just get that equity out unless you opt for your purchase price. your residual value and if you can buy it below the market which chances are you could

with ultra low mileage you have indirectly build equity ladies and gentlemen I know you're enjoying this morning and our show gosh so much information it's just amazing and it's free information

so I want to thank you for tuning in I hope that we're helping you out we'd love to have you help us out by giving giving us a call at 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-497-6530. And I'm going to get to Jackie's email that she sent me, and Jackie has a question. She's actively looking for an SUV, and what she has to say here is that it's obvious that there's prejudice. every time she goes into a dealership to take a look at the inventory, and they don't treat her very nice.

And she says that she's been told by many women that they have had the same experience, the same problem, and they're not taken seriously, and that they should be accompanied by a man. And my response to that, Jackie, is that, you know, we're moving in a great direction as women, And there are more dealerships out there that are female-friendly. And if you look, you can find them. And if you do your homework before you go to the dealership, by going into your own home, go to your computer, go to the Internet, there's a whole lot of ways of not getting taken advantage of

by arming yourself with a whole lot of knowledge. It's easy. Well, thank you. And that's good advice. would say your biggest concern these days is being ripped off or taken advantage of male or female. And the car dealers today are mostly up to speed on if you treat somebody with disrespect, they'll turn around and leave, which is what you should do, whether you're man, woman, or whatever. When you go into a car dealership, you've got to be treated with courtesy.

And if they don't treat you courtesy, leave. And most car dealers have figured that out. But what they haven't figured out are the hidden fees and some of the other shenanigans like Baiton's Switch advertising. I want to talk just briefly about the latest consumer reports, the hidden risk of used cars. And I'm so happy to see consumer reports doing this. They should have done it years ago. We're talking about the Takata Airbag recall. You regular listeners are tired of hearing me talk about it.

I just want to give you a little statistic to let you realize how huge this problem is. And the concern, this is the graphic of the number of cars. on the road, I'm going to read this to you, that have the defective Takada airbag unfixed. Now Honda is a leader. Honda has 5.8 million cars on the road now. Use cars. 5.8 million Hondas on the road with defective Takata airbags that can kill you explosive shrapnel.

If you're going to buy a Honda and it's a used car, go to safercar.gov. for car.gov. Buyer beware. The car dealers won't tell you. They don't have to disclose it. They can sell you a car with a hand grenade in it that can blow up and kill you

and they don't have to tell you about it. I've got a whole list here second. We have a caller and we don't want to get to that caller. The second most is Chrysler. I didn't realize that. 5.4 million Chrysler's. 5.8 million

Hondas. And, yes. Yeah, that latest consumer report is really amazing. Maybe later on I can get to that article that you and I were talking about last night about that sticky sap that eats right through your paint.

We're going to go to Michelle, who's a first-time caller from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Michelle. Oh, good morning. How are you guys? Oh, we're doing great. You just won yourself $50, Michelle. Stay on the line and give Rudy your contact information when we're finished.

Okay. What can we do for you? Well, I just wanted to say good morning because I was channel surfing, and I found you guys. I was telling the gentleman before that I used to listen with my parents, click and clack about car talk, and you guys are now going to replace that for me, so I thank you. Well, we're not as good as clicking and clack, but we try. Well, yeah, but at least this way it's more contemporary because most of those are on cars that I never had. But it was nice to listen to them together, discussing all the fallouts and all the,

behind the scenes but um yeah they knew a lot yeah but i just want to let you know that i did purchase a year and a half ago a used car 2008 camry um 11 000 miles on it but again i when you're talking about profits and dealership i always wanted to make sure that i made the right deal i am happy with the vehicle but i know what used cars as you said is more of a profit build up than that yes there's a higher profit made on used cars but even that is coming down. And really the digital explosion, the information explosion benefits to consumers, because they can now find out what the value of these vehicles are. Yeah, every car dealer that I know uses some kind of inventory pricing program and it compares it to like what cars are being sold

or at least being offered for sale out, you know, in the wider market. And so there's a concept everybody uses that they call it velocity. In other words, they said you want to sell them as fast as you can. That's how you're going to wind up better at the end of the day. So used car profits are coming. They're a little bit higher, but they're much closer to the new car profits now. Exactly. Could you recommend if in the future that somebody purchases a used vehicle or do you think that's because the profit is there versus it? Does you know how you say don't buy a used car because as soon as you walk it off the lot, your depreciation value is, you know, again, these are all the things I've heard growing up and they're like

to stay away from used cars. So I kind of did the used car. route because I was going back and forth, back and forth. When I found this particular vehicle, I had to jump on it. Well, you know, even if you pay it a little bit more for a good vehicle, you'll get a lot of pleasure out of it. Camberon's got good resale value when you trade it in or sell it. You'll get a good price for it, relatively speaking. I would recommend it with a used car.

I'd recommend you buy it from CarMax or Carvana is a new company that's come online. They sell cars at very reasonable prices. Actually, they're losing money. They're selling cars at such reasonable prices. The Carvana's losing money. CarMax is not losing money, but you walk into a CarMax slot. They have the nearest one to this radio station is in Boynton off of I-95. They have large inventory of cars.

They have car dealerships all over the country. They're computerized so that they can look at an inventory in a Miami store, or Orlando store, and bring those cars to you. And they have their lowest price on the vehicle. and they're usually very good prices. But all things being equal, Michelle, I think a used car is a better buy than a new car.

Yeah, it's still the same. Just to give you a quick example, like we've had people approach us who bought a car from a dealer and they weren't treated right and they want to know how they get out of the deal and at the point's too late to return the car. So the best case scenario

when you appraise a car that's a brand new car just after you purchase it could be a couple of thousand dollars behind the net cost of that car. So that's the depreciation that you're looking at. So buying a used car is still the way to go as long as you

take all the precautions. And my last question is this. It's just from the standpoint of new car, used car. And whenever I hear people say I bought a new car, but it had 4,000 miles of a dealership, I've always heard that a new car

should have zero miles on it, brand new never driven. So what's the verbiage? Why did they, you know what I mean? I'm trying to understand that part. Yeah, it's crazy. that works, Michelle, actually there's I don't ever remember saying a new car was zero miles.

There's somebody drove that car somewhere. Usually comes in with, you know, five to ten miles on. Yeah. They're driven from the time they leave the manufacturer. They drive them off the assembly line and then they drive them to a truck. Sometimes they're on a boat. They come into a port and then they're

driven on a truck down. Car dealers have to are supposed to check the car out and drive it to inspect it. Huge number of cars are what they call dealer traded. You go into one Ford dealership and you're looking for a particular description of car color and that car dealer, Ford dealer doesn't have it, but there's one in Orlando. So they will trade cars back and forth.

And when that cars comes from Orlando, it's usually driven. So 100 miles, 200 miles, even 300 miles is not unusual. When you get up to 4,000 miles, as you said, that's unusual. and I would be careful of buying a car with thousands of miles on it that they called a new car. It should be, they should tell you what the car was used for. Right.

If it's a demo, yeah. Most manufacturers will give you a bump in new car warranty. I'm not sure where the cutoff goes. If they report it as a demonstrator. So if it's a casual thing they did and they just drove it around, if they report it to the manufacturer, you have some protection there.

But if it's listed as a new car, it should be less than that. On most buyer's orders, there will be a distinction between a new car, used car, and demonstrator. So if they check it new, you really shouldn't have more than a few dozen miles on it. Exactly. And you can. Michelle, you can also say if you feel uncomfortable. Some people say, look, it's a new car.

I've never bought a new car before. Or when I buy a new car, I want to have no miles on them. And we say to them, well, you can't get no miles, but this car has got 320. 25 miles. We know how you feel. If you wait, we'll get you one that has only less than 100 miles on it. So you can make that a contention of your purchase, just like the price. And you should, if it makes you feel uneasy, it's got too many miles on it. Yeah. Okay. I'm just wondering. Thank you again. Great information. Michelle, thanks so much for calling and spread the work.

No, thank you. And tell all your lady friends to give us a call on Saturday morning, and they two can win themselves $50. I hope that we were able to help you out. Yes, you are. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend. Got some more text. Yes, we do.

This is amusing. This came in from Lenny, and Lenny texted the show a gosh, a couple of months ago, and we've, behind the scenes have been carrying on a conversation. So what happened with Lenny is he bought a Krola, and I think it's, well, it's out of state, it's not in Florida. And he wanted to know if he got a good deal on it. Anyway, so he told me it's a brand new 2019 Krola Sessions. C, a nice model, and he paid $17,500 out the door.

I didn't believe him because that would represent a major loss to whoever sold it because I have access to... But if it's outside of Southeast Toyota? No, it's in Southeast Toyota. In Southeast, yeah, so it's in the southeast somewhere. It might be North Carolina. But anyway, so I looked at it, and Lenny, I admit I was skeptical. I made Lenny send me pictures of his buyer's order, the final paperwork, and at the end

of the day, he did it. He bought that car, I'm sorry, for $17,800 off the door after taxes, after everything. And the dealer had to have lost $1,500, I don't have the details in front of me doing that. So Lenny was listening to the conversation. It was in the Atlanta market. Okay. So very aggressive car sales market. So Lenny was listening to our conversation on the net profit for dealers.

And even after I assured him, he got the deal. deal of the century, if not the millennia. He says, I still don't believe the dealer didn't make good money off him. And I just told him, I said, there is no way they made any money on you. I'd bet my life on it. Do you know what day of the month he bought the car? What day?

Lenny, you're listening right now. What day of the month and what day did you buy the car? I can't see the date on your car. The reason I ask that question is there's something called stair-step financing that most of the manufacturers or at least half of them, I'd say, engage in.

It's a very, very predatory, nasty, I don't like it process as a car dealer. And the stair-step financing means that a car dealer has a quota, and it could be a 30-day quota, it could be a 90-day quota. The manufacturer's variant. And you will earn towards this, if you hit your quota, you earn so much per car. It could be $100 a car, it could be $200 a car, whatever the manufacturer chooses. If you have a volume dealer selling three, four, five hundred cars a month, you can see how that could amass to a lot of money. So let's take a 90-day cycle, and maybe a volume car dealer had an objective of 1,000 cars that you had to sell in 90 days. Let's say the kickback was $200 per car.

You accrue $200 on 1,000 cars. So that's $200,000 that you get when you sold that 1,000th car. If you sell 999 cars, you don't get any money at all. If you sell that thousandth car, you get $200,000. Now, if Lenny happened to be walking in to buy that carola from this toilet dealer, and he was negotiating, the toilet dealer could have given him that car, charged him zero, a dollar. And a toilet dealer would do that in that hypothetical situation.

and that is the reason that car buying is so scary it is so confusing not just to the buyers but confusing to the dealers themselves car dealers honestly don't know what their real cost on the car is many times the manufacturers play a heavy role in the crazy car business that we see today it's consumer unfriendly it's car dealer unfriendly and chaotic is probably the best word to describe it. So, Lenny, I hope you're listening. I'd love to find out that you bought it at the end of the month.

He didn't. He bought it on the 13th of March. Oh, wow. So much for that. Right. So much for that theory. Well, no, hold on. No, no, no.

March is the last month of the first quarter. This is in Atlanta, so this is a southeast Toyota dealership. So the big quarterly incentive that you mentioned, the 90-day-1, applied so they could. could have been, and that represented a ton of money. So they are clawed for that quarterly objective. That's a good point. So he says, we got two weeks to go, man, you get it?

We turned down no deal. Nobody walks out that door because a quarter million dollars hangs in the balance to this dealership. Or more. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. We have a caller. We have a caller.

Yeah, we have a caller. We have another caller from Pennsylvania. Good morning, George. Good morning. How are you? Inversburg, Pennsylvania. Welcome. Thanks. Hey, I saw on your, I was listening to your podcast, and the lady called in about buying a new car and had a thousand miles on it.

You said there's difference between, of course, new used and demonstrator. Well, I had an experience, I hate to admit it, almost 40 years ago with a demonstrator, and I was in the market for a new car. I went to a little mom of Pop Toyota store. in the town near here. They didn't have the large Bobby Ray Hall, which is right up the road from me on stuff. But so there was an 81 Selica GT.

I fell in love with it. And it had like 4,000 miles on it. And I said, where to get this mile from the owner? Well, it's a demonstrator. So I figured it was a demonstrator at this dealership. a bought that made the deal bought the car we went on vacation immediately when i came back i sat down to detail it and i noticed the whole passenger side of the car had orange peel paint and sand marks so i went back to the to the dealer and i said hey listen i thought you said this was a demonstrator

yeah it is i says the sides it's the whole thing's been sides white why why did should tell me. Wow. So they said, we'll get back to you. He called me a few hours later and said, yes, it's a demonstrator, but at that time, the importer for this part of the country was an outfit called Mid-Atlantic Toyota out of Dundalk, Maryland. It had been an executive demonstrator for the headshed, and one of the guys' wives had completely creamed the whole right side of the car.

Well, that's not uncommon. It was a demonstrator for their body shop. There's a law in Florida that says a car sold as new or demonstrator has to disclose any damage over 1% of the MSRP. And I'm sure they violated that rule because it sounds to me like that damage was way. I don't know that Pennsylvania has that law, but I believe most states do. You have to disclose damage to a new vehicle beyond a certain amount. of damage.

But demonstrators, car dealers called anything with miles on it, the less scrupulous car dealers, anything that's got miles on it. It might have been a rental car for the dealership. It might have been the wife's, the dealer's wife's car. It might have been the dealer's girlfriend's car. Might have been the dealer's car. They're going to call it a demonstrator because demonstrator sounds better. And as Stu said earlier, if you register with a manufacturer, that it is.

is a demonstrator, then they will extend the warranty. I don't know if you remember. I think back in that time, the warranty was only one year, 12,000 miles. Probably they didn't even extend the warranty for you. But nowadays, they will if it is really a demonstrator registered with the manufacturer. Yeah, they more or less told me to hit the road. Yeah. I checked in with the state consumer protection agency, and they are required to disclose

damage. But they claimed they had absolutely no knowledge of this, and they never discovered it. And I said, well, you've got some clown there at the dealership that's supposed to check these things when it comes off the truck. And the owner says, yeah, that's me. Yeah, it's 40 years ago. You really bring back memories. I've been on the business since 1968, and I look back at some of the things I did that I thought was perfectly normal. And it's embarrassing.

I mean, I have things that I'm ashamed to admit I did back in the 60s and 70s. Everybody did it, rolling back speedometers, odometers, bait and switch advertising, just absolutely crazy. So the car business has improved. It just hasn't improved nearly as much as all other retail. But some of the stuff that went on 40 or 50 years ago was just mind-boggling. Yeah, well, I had other. problems with the car, mechanical stuff. He got so tired of seeing me.

He just told me never to come back. Oh, boy. He didn't. Okay, well, thank you. Call again, please. We love out-of-state calls. And thank you very much, George. Especially from Pennsylvania.

Thanks for the funnies. Yeah, I just told Lenny, I said, I go, you're my hero, but I'm glad you didn't buy from us. Exactly. You said keep it positive and upbeat. That's right. May the 4th. Exactly.

Give us a call again. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us with your thoughts on the mystery shopping report at 772-4976530. And don't forget, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. I didn't mention that earlier. That is very important. Your Anonymous Feedback.com would love to hear from you. you don't know who you are and we can't report who you are because we don't know who you are a lot of people have things they'd like to suggest to us that they're rather not be identified

with so www.youranonymousfeetback.com I believe we have a caller. We do. We have Murray on the line and she's calling us from Jupiter. Good morning, Murray. Good morning. First, let me say, I love your show. I am not a first time caller. The information you give is just so important to all of us, so thank you. Thank you. Now, my husband and I have a leased car that we're turning in. We would like to buy it back, but the leasing company wants about $20,000 for it. Is there any way we can buy the car back for less? No, Marie, I'm sorry. They are legally prohibited from doing anything with a leased car other than allowing you to exercise your option to purchase at that residual value and that's a contractual right you could buy it but it

have to be at that price they have to take the car to a public auction or car dealer auction and sell it for the to the high bidder used to be that these cars were sold to back to dealers and there were shenanigans happening with the people not getting fair prices for the car so now all leasing companies take their car to the auction or sell it to the lessee at the option price. And you can't negotiate the price. Right. Okay, well, now on to step two.

So now we're going to go out and buy a new car. I've listened to your program, and I know that we should go to three different dealerships, get prices so that we compare apples to apples. Yes. Now, do we contact Costco? Do we go on Costco.com their website first so that we deal with the Costco person

at the dealership, or should we just go in, you know, with my little old hat and look like a little old lady and talk to somebody to get some idea of what they charge? What do we do? You positively go to Costco. The most important thing you can do on the Costco Auto Buying Program is go directly by their instructions. Go to their website, Costcootobying.com, and put your membership number in, put your zip code in, that you will give you the dealers that are participating members in the Costco Auto Buying Program.

It will also give you the certified representatives for each dealership. And when you have that information, I'm assuming by this time that you know exactly what car you want to buy. You should know the Yermain model, you should know the options and equipment, and know exactly the MSRP of that car. so you now have the MSRP is a Apple versus Apple you always know you're comparing

the exact same car when you get different prices when you go into the Costco dealership you get the Costco membership represented by name if he's not there don't speak to anybody else but this is day off come back the next day

call in advance and also when you call in advance I would highly recommend that you talk to that Costco auto member representative and get the Costco price over the phone. This saves you a lot of aggravation. Insist that you go to the Costco sheet and give you the price over the phone. He says, y'all want you to come in, argue with them a little bit. Say, listen, I want to see the price over the phone first.

That price should be the lowest price they sell that car for to anyone. and they have a dealer fee, probably. They probably have dealer-installed accessories. Find out what those are and add those to that Costco price. If they won't give it to the phone, shame on them. At that point, I'd call Costco and report them. Wow. Then I'd go into the dealership as a last resort, but armed with all that information.

Okay, now, where do I get this information? Just do I go on the computer and start just looking at cars and finding things out? Oh, so you haven't decided what car you want to buy yet? Well, we either want a Toyota Highlander or we want a Jeep, one of the two. Okay. Okay, Stu? Yeah, on the Costco Auto.com, you can search any car, any new car out there, and you just select your make model and the level, the model, the trim level for the car.

And then it will, in your zip code, and it's going to find the closest, dealer to you, the closest authorized dealer. They're all associated with the Costco warehouse. Good point. Nancy, you have to take advantage of consumer report that I'm always pushing, and that's an amazing bit of information. It's a great way to get started, and there's a lot of reviews, a lot of ratings, and it's going to help you out tremendously. So, as Stu and Nancy said, you can go to different

dealers by putting in different make model cars. I just was concerned that you had it, if you got to narrowed down to two, that's fine. You don't want to be too loosey-goosey when you're talking to a car salesman about cars. That's where they make their money is when they get you to switch to a different vehicle from the one that you've already researched. But if you stick with the Costco auto buying program, every car they have in inventory should be, or most of all of them, should be on their price list. and if you buy it at that price and you get the disclosure of the dealer-installed options

and the dealer fee added to that price, it should be a good price. Wonderful. Now, you just mentioned a little while ago about timing when you buy the car. Our lease is up June 15th. Should we try to buy it like the end of May? All things being equal, you'll get a lower price on average at the end of the month. You should do all your research. advance. If your lease is up, you say it in June 15th?

Correct, yes. I would, sometimes the leasing company will extend the lease for you for a couple of weeks. I wouldn't let that push you. I would say, I'd like to keep the car. You can go month to month. Month to month. And that way it gives you plenty of time. And then if you go month to month, do your research during the month and then exercise your going there to sign on the dotted line. It's the end of the month. month. You can get prices while you're shopping during the month, but just don't sign on the

dotted line till the end of the month, too. And also, just be aware that when you signed your lease, you made your first payment that day. So you've already paid that last month, so you might as well get your money's worth. Don't turn it in too early. Too early, exactly. Don't turn it in early. Wonderful. Thank you again. We love your show, my husband, and I. You have a great day. Thank you, Mary. Give us a call again. Let us know what happened. And as I said earlier, you can text us with... We've got three texts here. With your...

And we're on that time because we've got the mystery shopping report. With your rating on the mystery shopping report, 772-4976530. Now we're going to go to Stu. Rick's got a few piled up on YouTube. Well, we got one here that I... I love this one because we're in such a fun, positive mood today. Dino Cardella is asking,

in your opinion what is the best car sales movie ever made use cars hands down boom next question Kurt Russell I remember that one

it was awesome all right this is a quick one this is from Sue on our Facebook live stream this is probably for Rick says well leaving my car running in park for an hour plus harm the car no

not really no just waste of gas yeah you're just using gas up But no. Okay. The next one is from, well, we had answered her question earlier, and it was about leasing. But she wanted to know. She says, she wants to know what happens at the end of the lease.

I already answered her on that about re-leasing or paying a disposition fee. But she wanted to know, they, on her lease, she traded in a 2006 Honda CRV. They gave them $2,600 and they wanted $1,000 more from her. why? She says, why so much money down for leasing and where does that money go? And I think that's a great question. Well, sure. The more money down and the more if you trade a car in, it lowers the payment. And it also allows them a greater leeway to make greater profit. And oftentimes they undervalue your trade in and a lease. And for some reason, people don't think about the fact When they put $10,000 down, it has a huge lowering of the payment effect, but it just doesn't

lower it as much as it could, and that means more profit to the dealer. And the thing is, you don't get that money back. You're not building equity in the car, so that doesn't benefit you. Now, on the flip side, real quick, you're not exposed to, like, big depreciation events such as a wreck. So if you wreck the car and it's fixed, you don't suffer that depreciation. The leasing company does. But still, it's a risky business.

and if you're not fully comfortable and confident going on the lease, buy the car. Are we caught up on Texas 940? And let's get to the mystery shopping report, which is our main event. And people stay on, stay on, just to get to this mystery shopping report. We shopped the largest Lexus dealer in the world. Everybody says they're the largest something in the world. This is really the largest Lexus Steelers. JM Lexus.

J.M. stands for Jim Moran. Jim Moran used to own the toilet dealership, now was a state, I mean, distributed ship for the Southeast United States, and the Jim Moran estate now owns J.M. Lexus, and they sell a lot of Lexus. Two years ago, J.M. Lexus joined the Lexus Plus program. It's a pilot initiative that began with a handful of Lexus dealers that sought to revamp the luxury dealership experience with a promise of fixed transparent pricing and a single point of contact with customers. Basically, Lexus is trying to introduce a one-price selling model. One price is a negotiation-free process that promises a fair discounted price without the need for haggling.

The idea is to offer complete transparency in a less stressful and drawn-out way. It's a process that every other retailer in the world is a tough. adopted except card dealership. So this sounds like it's a breakthrough and retail, but it's just catching up. But Kellogg's has been doing it for 200 years. Exactly. The one price selling model is older than you may think. And speaking for myself, I tried it out at Stuart Pontiac back in 1990, and it didn't work. It just about when it drove me out of business. It was terrible. I put one price, lowest price, on all the Pontiacs, and I was losing money hand over a fist.

Didn't work. That's another story. I can tell you why that, some other show, but it just wasn't, it hadn't found its time and acceptability yet. It wasn't until 2012 when I had sold the Pontiac store a long time ago, and we tried it at the Toyota dealership, and it's been working since 2012 for me. Lexus Plus adds a modern twist to the one price by adding a one-person or a single point-of-contact component. This means that customers will deal with only one person during the transaction. They don't have to mess with sales managers, closing managers, F&I managers,

you know the game playing that you go through when you go into almost any cartilanship. With a single point of contact, one person. It calls itself a sales manager at GM Lexus. No desk manager, no closing manager, no F&I manager. Confusing to the customer. Confusing to the dealership, really. And this sounds like a great idea. I love it.

In our experience, mystery shopping, hundreds of car dealers in all over Florida. You missed a very important part there. Ah, very important. Lexus Plus also makes another promise to the customers of its participating dealers. No hidden fees. Remember that. Yeah. No hidden seas. We mystery shop hundreds of car dealers.

A lot of them claim that they're one price, but they really don't do it. And we've talked to the ones that say they're pretty much one price, and we don't even know what that means. Right. The ones that say they're one price aren't one price. We've said, can we get a better price? Well, we're pretty much one price. They use the phrase, sadly, to get you on the door. they do the same thing with dealer fees too by the way

they'll say no dealer fees but they really have dealer fees you really can't trust almost any car dealer anyway we know and respect jm lexas they've been around a long time they're very honest

it's a prototype kind of it's like a it's like a lesson in how cars should be sold they've always been head and shoulders a bit all my friends I know that want to buy a Lexus, I say, go to J.M. Lexus to buy it. So we decided to mystery shop them.

And full disclosure, you're a customer. I'm a customer. I bought a Lexus. I bought several Lexus from JM Lexus. Here's a report. Speaking of the first person, I didn't really go in there. Agent Thunder. I arrived at the palatial, and it is palatial, J.M. Lexus and Margate.

I thought Coconut Creek, Margate, Coconut Creek. It's pretty close. just around 11 a.m. And per my mission orders, began to explore the lot. On target, my target vehicle was a Lexus RX-350 instead of mid-sized SUV,

and I found a row of them quickly, a huge volume. They have a lot of cars in stock. I wandered between the vehicles by myself for a few minutes until I was approached by a salesperson named David. David said, hello,

we introduced ourselves. After a minute of a small talk, David asked if I would like to come inside. I agreed, and as we walked to the showroom. He asked if I'd like to, anything to drink, water, soda, espresso. I said, I'd love an espresso. And this was he went in, David, made

me an espresso. In a nifty looking espresso machine. He escorted me to his desk. We sat down, David, began to tell me about what made JML, J.M. Lexus, Jim Moran, Lexus, different. He explained that he would be my only point of contact during

the whole process. There wouldn't be any back and forth. Our sales managers coming in to close a deal. He went on to say that I wouldn't be handed off to anyone no other salespeople or F&I managed. He said that at JM Lexus his title and all the other sales

people were sales managers. David talked about how GM Lexus genuinely cared about the customers and they wanted to provide a completely different experience than other car dealerships. He talked about trust and transparency. He said he was trained

in all aspects of the transaction including finance. I was impressed that usually when we get in there, the bombardment of qualifying questions, the, you know, are you financing, fill this out, didn't happen here. They talked about what he was going to experience that day. Yeah. No trial closes, no nonsense. Okay. David went on to explain pricing and said they use historical sales and availability to help determine how they establish their one price. And he also said they did not have dealer fees of any kind. You know, one price, and at our dealership, I don't like to talk about my dealership,

but I hammer them all the time to say, don't you say one price, say our lowest price. Ironically, Toyota prohibits us from advertising the lowest price, but we can't say our lowest price. So the thing you need to remember when you're going into someone that professes to have one price, just be sure that one price is their lowest price. I mean, otherwise, what's the point? Right? We'd like to give you our one highest price. Exactly. David, when moved on to business, asked me what I was interested in getting. I told him I wanted to buy a new RX-350, preferably silver. I said I was interested in a few options, including some safety upgrades like auto-breaking. They scrolled through a computer screen. Showed me a silver one with an MSRP of

$52,725. He described the options it had and asked if it was what I was looking for. I said it was. David went on to talk about the car, basically giving me the vehicle presentation of features and benefits while we cited this desk. A nice touch, considering how hot it was and muggy outside. He offered to go get the car and show me. He left, returned after a few minutes, and led me outside. He showed me around the car and the controls.

We took it for a test drive. was pleasant David was polite and engaging he did a great job building rapport between us back inside David asked me how I liked it I said I loved it he asked if I was planning to purchase today and I told him I was hoping to get something to take with me to show my wife before making my final decision I told him I'd been to Palm Beach Lexus and didn't have a great time there this is interesting Because usually this is when you hit the wall. You're not going to buy the car.

You're not going to make a decision today. Yeah, things turn at that point. Yeah, things get messy. David said, David said, that would be fine. It's okay that I go home and show my wife. He'd get me whatever I needed to take home to review with my wife. He said, there was no pressure. Everything was entirely up to me.

Folks, this is the way it should be. The way it should be. We returned to his desk. and David began working on his computer. He angled the screen. That was impressive. It is. Angled the screen so I could see everything he was doing.

It looked like a manager's only screen. That is something that, you know, for your eyes only, for the manager, for the salesman. Unheard of. Things like true cost and F&I and all the secret stuff that car dealers don't want you to know about. David asked if I was banked cash, financially or leasing. Fair question. I said I wanted to finance and I plan to put $10,000 down. I said I had really good credit and asked what kind of a rate to expect. He said with good credit, I'd qualify for the 0.9, 9 tenths of a percent, 0.9 percent program from Lexus. And remember folks, if it's a manufacturer's program, it's legit. It's a dealer program, probably not. I said that sounded good. David renewed my numbers. He discounted the MS. by $5,686, giving me a sale price of $47,039. He had a sales tax. Now, I just remember something. There was no addendum label on the car. Was there Toyo guard on the car?

No, they don't offer that with Lexus. There was an addendum label, by the way, but it was for window tent on that particular car. Yeah. Okay. Window tent. I wonder if the window tent. But it was for 160 bucks. which is, well, you would pay for windattent. Anyway, okay, fair enough. He added sales tax, legitimate Florida tire and battery fee, $6.50. And here's the surprise. Drumroll, please. Sorry, Rudy, you already.

It's a big surprise. It's a big surprise, but it's a whole surprise. $59 electronic registration filing fee. So I asked David what the deal was with the electronic filing fee. I asked him if that was a dealer for, fee. He said it wasn't a dealer fee. I asked him if he was sure. He replied that this electronic registration file fee used to be $200 and they reduced it to $59 and it's just $59 and it's legitimately used to pay for electronic filing. Now what we have here is a salesperson that doesn't

understand. I do not believe that this was premeditated. I think that he really believed this. We know that the electronic filing fee costs less than $59. And

this is something J.M. Lexus needs to work on. But it's so small. $59. Why do they do it? Carelessness. Anybody carelessness. He asked if I had any questions and I said, I just wanted to know

what my payment would be with a $10,000 down and the 9 tenths of a percent. He said he'd get a payment worksheet for me along with the buyer's order to take home. He said he needed to run to the finance office to print everything. I asked him if there was a finance manager and he said they have a finance director and that he deals with the bank. David reminded me that it would be him who would do my final paperwork and review warranties and things like that with me. David was only gone for a few minutes before returning with a worksheet and the

The buyer's order, the worksheet showed that my payment would be $684 with $10,000 down, and that's a nine-tenths of a percent, beautifully low interest rate for 60 months. I scanned the sheet for any hidden charges. The other thing I saw was the e-filing fee. The buyer's order lined up exactly as David had reviewed earlier on the computer. I thanked him and left him with buy documents for my wife. I had spent a little more than an hour, a short time. and that's it folks I've got the buyer's order here and interestingly enough on the

buyer's order the prime print's too small for you to read but that's what it looks like and I'm going to read the point where they have the electronic registration filing fee of $59 they have an asterisk and the asterisk says these charges represent cost and profit to the dealer for items such as inspecting, cleaning, and adjusting vehicle, and preparing documents related to the sale. Sounds very familiar. And that is the legal disclosure required for the dealer fee. Yep.

So the salesman was asked if that was a dealer fee. He said no. J.M. Lexus advertises no dealer fees, but in the fine print, they tell you they do have a dealer fee. this is just a mistake and even the biggest Lexus dealer in the world can make a mistake

so I We want to help them out We want to help them out And we are going to help them out You're going to make a phone call on Monday Yeah I will I know the folks at Jam Lexus I bought my last Lexus

From Jam Lexus And they didn't charge me An electronic filing thing Nope we just checks your buyers order They Well that might not be they knew better. Well, they knew it's a joke

because for years I've been buying Lexus and then when they did charge a dealer fee, they used to charge it and I would call the head guy down there and I would say well you saw him in the car with other dealers fee and he will laugh and say sure. So there you are. And I thought that was kind of interesting. We're going to vote now

on J.M. Lexus, the biggest Lexus dealer in the world. Yeah, we have some grades coming in and it's almost unanimous. We have Linda on Facebook live feed Is that supposed to be a drum roll? That was the worst drum roll I ever heard in my life, Rudy. Got our attention.

Next week, I thought something was going wrong. All right. Linda gives them a fabulous A-plus. Gay gives them an A. Leon gives them an A. Melissa gives them an A. And Ann gives them an A-plus. And I'm going to concur with this sentiment.

I'm giving them an A. That's me? Jim Moran, what can I say? I miss them. great guy. Great dealership, A-plus. Class Act, A. I'm not giving them an A-plus because of that little teeny glitch there. But let me tell you something, if you want to buy a Lexus,

buy your Lexus at J.M. Lexus, I would fly from Kentucky to buy a car from J.M. Lexus. Now, remember this. We didn't do this. We probably should have. But we should probably take the price on that RX-350, call Palm Beach Lexus, and see if we can get an out-the-door price that we'll beat it. One good thing about a one-price dealer, there's two good things about a one-price dealer. You're probably going to get a good price

because if he doesn't put a good price on his cars, he's not going to sell any cars. But you can also take that good price and maybe get a better price from another Lexus dealer. Or you could be appreciative of the incredible experience they gave you and give the one-price dealer the debt-to-business. But I'm not an altruistic person. And I would shop and compare even

not all these fat cats buying lexas is well you're right for and and fat cats don't care about the fifty nine dollars electronic if they do it but it's the principal thing it's a moral rick frank on youtube gives an a also oh so there you have it folks uh the highest score ever received by a cardinal show ever and uh we uh salute jm lexas we salute uh all the employees down there yeah jim dunn ed she he jim done great job Yeah, we don't restrict ourselves either. We have shopped other luxury brands, Infinity, Accura, Cadillac. Have we ever sending to one over to, like, the Jaguar or McLaren?

Yeah, we did Jaguar up and store it. They did terrible. I would love to see Agent Thunder go into the McLaren place down there on Okachovia, where the big Jaguar dealership is. If only we could videotape Agent Thunder getting in and out of a McLaren, one of those supercars, that would be awesome in itself. Well, Agent Thunder's a spelt guy. He could slip it out pretty easily. But he's also kind of tall.

How are we doing it on time? Two minutes. And ladies and gentlemen, surprise, some Saturday you are going to hear from a female who did a mystery shop. I know that you're all anxious in waiting. and Stu promised me. I have it lined up. I got sick this week. I have an excuse.

We're rolling. Yeah, poor Stu, he had some, well, poor baby. I had the Jersey mics flu. Oh, sorry. Just kidding. No, I love Jersey mics. Terrible. I want to thank Jonathan and Rudy for, you know, all the work they do right beside us in the control room.

And they really hold things together. And from all of us here at Earl Stewart, order on cars we want to thank you for tuning in because as i always say you make the show have a great weekend