Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.04.2024 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Toyota of Hollywood, FL.

Episode Date: May 4, 2024

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning goes to south Florida to visits a large volume Toyota dealer to see how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander Limited that is in stock. 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, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “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”

Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female business. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us is my son, Stu Stewart, our LinkedIn Cyber, space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report.

He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, this is Earl Stewart live. You're just listening to my recorded introduction. I'd like to welcome all of you, especially the newbies. We have a huge following of regular callers. and listeners. And we've been doing this show for a long, long time. But the name of the game is

growth. The name of the name is helping other people around the planet to avoid being taken advantage of when you're buying or leasing a car or when you're maintaining or repairing your car. So that's what we do here. I mean, it's pretty basic. We're not, nothing exotic about Earl Stewart on cars. It's just to help you. We are representing, the consumers and what is a unique retail industry worldwide. Just about any other product you buy retail today is, what is the word, by 21st century standards, by more of a civilized consumer-educated kind of a flavor to it. If you've been into an Apple store or Costco or Walmart or, I mean most of the big retail

of the world, had figured out, if you treat the customer right and you're transparent and honest, they will be the path to your door. They will come in and honor you and reward you with their business. Well, the Cardinals have a different way of doing it. They have you a gun to your head. They have locked themselves in with state franchise laws in all 50 states. and they're a protected species. They're not vulnerable to even their own manufacturers with whom they have contracts. Every dealer has a franchise with a manufacturer,

be it General Motors, Toyota, Honda, Ford. These are contractual agreements, but the manufacturers have very little power to control or correct the behavior of car dealers. And even if they wanted to, the state, all 50 states, whether you're in Colorado or Florida or Texas, wherever you are, the state associations, the automobile dealer state and national associations, political action committees, over the years, many years, 100 years, they've been lobbying in protective laws and statutes that keep them from being. you know, disciplined for being punished for bad behavior. So it is unique. Think of it. If you think I'm exaggerating, think about what you buy.

I mean, you're probably buying a lot of stuff on Amazon. You're probably buying things from Costco and Walmart and Target and Apple. I mean, think about the retail stores that you frequent, grocery stores, wherever you go. And is there any retailer that you can think of that you fear? I mean, people are afraid. You know, the old joke, I'd rather have a root canal than go into a car dealership and buy a car. Well, there's a lot of truth to that. So that's why we're here.

And you heard the introduction. We also talk a lot about maintaining and repairing your car. And the cars today, the good news is the cars today are built better. The maintenance is minimal compared to what it used to. be 20 years ago. The reliability, the safety, all these things are good. I mean, I sound like I'm espousing a lot of bad news. The good news is the manufacturers have gotten their acts together and they know what they're doing. They are building good products. But you still need to know what you need to have fix and what you don't need to have fix. And we have in

the studio here, you regulars know him, Rick Kearney, especially the YouTubers, Rick Kearney, a certified diagnostic master technician who can answer any question I say any question it might he might have to check with a few resources he knows where to go you know finding out answers today isn't so much having it all in your head it's knowing where to find the answer so we we almost literally find all the answers Rick has most of them short away because when you've been doing the same thing for 25, 26 years, and going to school almost constantly, which Rick is doing, to stay up with the technology on the new vehicles, he can answer. So instead of taking a chance and

drive it into independent repair facility, whether it's Firestone or PEP Boys or a car dealership or your favorite mechanic, and just saying, hey, I got a noise here. Can you fix that for me, please? and then you give them a sign of repair order, which is basically a blank check and let them have fun. And they can repair anything they want to tell you they fixed it or didn't fix it. You're going to get charged a lot of money. So if you have something you're not really comfortable with going in and asking someone and trusting someone to do the right thing by,

call the show. You'd be surprised the number of diagnoses we make on this show. and we have a lot of people that have called in described the noise or rattled a smell in their car they're worried about and they didn't know should I trade the car in? Should I sell the car? Should I buy another car? Should I bring it into a repair shop?

All these questions go through. But once you go into the repair shop then you're at their mercy. Phone call. 877-960. That's our call-in number. 877 960 9960 and if you're online YouTube YouTube.com forward slash

roll on cars I say YouTube because Rick Kearney monitors the YouTube channel and some of our biggest and most informed followers by the way are on YouTube YouTube.com

forward slash Rollin Cars you post a YouTube and Rick sees it right away he'll wave at me and he'll say we got a YouTube question about repairing cars and we stop what we're doing. We let Rick describe it. If you call 877-960-99-60,

Nancy Stewart sitting to my left here in the studio. She's my co-host. She's my partner. She's my wife. And she has been doing this with us for many, many years. The thing that impresses me most and the thing that I'm so grateful to Nancy for is the fact she took our audience, which was basically, I won't say, basically, it was an all male audience. 20 years ago, all we had were guys calling, and there weren't many guys calling. Actually, we're on the air for half an hour. This is John from Palm City.

Right. John was the only one. John from Palm City. Don't forget Jonathan. But now we're giving a lot of ladies calling, and I tell you what, we've got some smart women out there, and if you are a female, and you've been listening to the show,

because we know you listen. We just, women are not, what's the word? It's probably a bad word, but they're not aggressive as men. I mean, it's a little terrifying, isn't it, to pick up the phone and call a live radio show? I mean, what you say is talk is going out to thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of listeners. So live radio can be intimidating.

You ladies don't be intimidated at all. If you'll call 877-960-99-60, Nancy will put you on the line. If you haven't called the show before, she has a very special prize, a reward. You regular listeners know this. And it sounds too good to be true, but it's not, I promise you.

Nancy personally handles this. A special reward. If you haven't called the show before, and you're a female, and you call 877-960-99-60, Nancy will tell you what that is. In fact, I'll ask Nancy to tell you what that is right now. I'm going to turn the mic over to you, Nancy, and it's all yours.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. And that special promotion that are always speaking of is for the first time, well, two of the first time female listeners and callers. The first two new lady callers will receive $50 as our way of showing appreciation for your support. We value your input and aim to build a strong female audience. So take advantage of that this morning. Give us a call and you might want to just say hello or you may want to share your experience in purchasing, leasing, servicing,

and we would appreciate if you did just that. So don't miss out on this opportunity and give us a call toll free at 877-960-910. And we'll talk a little bit this morning about hanging on to your old car. There was an interesting article this week in the Wall Street Journal. And as prices sore, drivers cling to their old cars. And it's a very interesting and in-depth article. I'll take and share that with you later on. We have Lassie, our dog of the week, this morning, and she'll come to us via, there you go, there's Lassie, via, via, good-looking doggy.

Video, isn't she? She's a good-looking doggy. She's six months old. So, stay tuned for all of that and so much more, and take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. Now back to the recovering car dealer. You know, our regular list is to know that we represent Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and there are a lot of people out there trying to get you to give a dog a home. And it is, if I were going to be adopting a dog, I didn't want to go someplace where I knew I could trust the establishment. And I don't put down any of the other shelters, any of the other dog area, shelters that take care of these dogs, take them off the streets, people turn them in, they abandon them.

All of them are good because they're all trying to find homes. But if you're going to adopt a dog, the reason we support Big Dog Ranch Rescue is because they treat their dogs as if they were their children. I mean, they get as good a treatment and a safe of treatment. And the Big Dog Ranch Rescue, which has hundreds of dogs, it's like a resort, hotel. They have play areas. They have a maternity ward. They have a town for puppies, literally, a lot of little homes that they build to keep the puppies. There's nobody in cages, nobody, no dog in cages. And they have veterinarians. They have trainers. They decide this dog likes cats.

This dog doesn't like cats. This dog plays well with children. This dog doesn't. This dog doesn't. dog that so when you go in there all the homework is done you're not walking around the dog pound and saying and see a dog in a cage and you see uh you know sorrowful look on the dog's face and you take that dog it's a big commitment when you when you adopt a dog i mean that's part of your family you got that dog for life hopefully and so with big dog ranch your screen too big dog ranch will is going to investigate you i'll warn you right now if they don't think you're fit to be a mom and pop for their dogs, then you don't qualify. So when you come home with a dog for Big Dog Ranch, you really do have a dog for life. You've got the dog you want.

You have a dog you can be happy with, and the dog knows he can be happy with you. Well, maybe the dog doesn't know, but he trusts that he can be happy with you. I think he does. I'm going to interrupt you, and we're going to go to the phones. That's a great organization, by the way. Laurie Simmons does a great job, along with all of her volunteers. We're going to go to Pete, who's been holding in West Palm Beach. Good morning, Pete. Good morning. I have a 2013 Dodge-Darago, and it shuts off in the middle of the road.

It was a recall item. It put a relay in it. It shut off on Southern Boulevard, and it was horrible. Then the transmission wouldn't function, so I had to pull it off the side of the road, shut it off, turn on the ignition, start up the car, and then it went back right into gear. I've had no problem. Now, it's been shutting off every time. I make a sharp turn, but very rarely.

And so I looked it up online, like you said, and they had a recall. It said throttle body. But they said they put in a relay, and that was it. It still does the same thing. I don't want to name the dealer, but it's... Well, Rick is thinking. He's rubbing his chin. That means he's thinking.

My first thought, again, I would double-check, see if there's any other potential causes on the Internet. If anybody's found a similar condition. But if not, I'd be going right back to that dealer and say, hey you need to double check your work on this relay you know on what you did for this recall and make sure it was done properly because the condition is still occurring and that's something on Dodge that's that's something they need to be checking on because that's you know if they did the repair to correct this

issue and it didn't fix it they need to be getting their their field tech specialist out their engineers and find out what's going on. And Pete, one thing also, I agree with Rick's suggestion 100%. I always believe that when you have an issue like this with your vehicle and it involves a dealer who worked on the vehicle, it's always good to, one, put your conversation in writing. What you discuss verbally, confirm with a note or an email or a text. Also, include the manufacturer. If you can call the 800 number of the manufacturer, describe your problem. It goes into an official complaint, and all car dealers get these official complaints,

and the manufacturer holds them responsible for clearing the complaint. If you don't do that, I'm not saying the dealer is going to deliberately ignore you, But I know one thing, if the manufacturer is in the loop, they can't ignore you because the manufacturer will not give up. He will want to see that that case, they call them customer cases, the case is resolved. So if you go back and if the manufacturer and the dealer both know that you're communicating with both of them, there'll be a lot more focus on getting it fixed. what's the number of gods

well the number you get you get the number just go online and they have every manufacturer has an 800 number and it's toll free you just call and they ask you

go ahead Brooke it's 1-800 4-2-3 6-3-4-3 that's Rick Google Rick, you're the best. You're the best. I was going to say I'm a first time caller, but I'm not a female, so I guess I don't get 50 bucks.

Well, call us back, Pete, let us know how it worked out. All right, I listen to your show when it comes on if I'm around. I find it very fascinating. Thanks again for doing what you do. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thanks, Pete. give us a call again we love your company we're going to go to rick who's calling us uh from jupiter

rick you're sitting right here oh you're jibbiter okay i've got a split personality good morning rick how are you hi can you hear me okay thanks for joining us rick we can hear you loud and clear okay um i've got a two two thousand and eighteen kia optima and at about 80,000 miles I started burning three quarts of oil every thousand miles. I brought it into Kia. They did a test, a thousand mile test to make sure that's what was happening, and it was happening. Then they did a combustion test on it,

and it seemed to fix the problem for about 10,000 miles. I'm now at 120,000 miles, and I'm still burning three quarts of oil. I know Kia has had engine problems in the past. I'm fighting with them to try to get some recourse, and it's been very, very difficult. Is this a problem that you've encountered before? I personally, I find Kia's to be questionable as they get older. Their quality is really, it's come up a long ways from when they first started, but it's still not near to what some other manufacturers are.

My best advice in this case is to get back with their service department, request to speak with their next level management, you know, with their district rep. And keep in mind the two words that I use for any situation like this, polite persistence. Yeah, and the district rep is the manufacturer from Kia's representative. So the dealer is beholden to Kia manufacturer. and the when they get into a technical problem they can't deal with they're supposed to call

the manufacturers representative and these guys are really really schooled and qualified on the kia product so if you can get a kia factory representative technician to uh get involved in the loop here with your issue uh you'll get the best advice you can get well i i've called customer service I have a case number. They call me, they say they'll call me back. I have sent them all my invoices showing all the problems that have gone on over the last couple of thousand miles. And unless I keep on top of them, they don't get back to me. It's been very frustrating.

It's been a month of not getting any responses from them at all. Who's not getting back to you? the dealer or is it the manufacturer? This is customer service and they've jacked it up to supposedly a top management personnel

but you know the last time the guy called me was three weeks ago and he hasn't called me back since then here's a suggestion I just gave the previous caller Pete the same suggestion it's amazing what putting something in writing will do

now I don't know if you're to texting or email, but that's the easiest way to do it. If you have to write a letter, that's good. But when you have a discussion on something an important issue like this, the discussions that have a written confirmation get prioritized over the phone calls. It's easy not to return a phone call, and as long as you don't hear back from the person I made the call, the problem goes away for you, not for the person that has a problem. But when you have a letter or a text or an email, you know that there's documentation that on a certain date this customer called with a complaint.

And if you don't take care of them and if they're thinking in their back of their heads, if this goes to court or if this goes to the Department of Motor Vehicles, or this becomes a serious issue, and this customer has this document that says he's called three times and this is all documented and I ignored him. they're in serious trouble. So put it in writing, and you'll get a faster response. All right. I guess I'll try anything at this point. Thanks so much for your health. I appreciate it. You're welcome, Rick. 877-960. And don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. You can text us at 772-497-60. We're going to go to Claire. She calls us from Boca, and she is a first-time female caller. Wow. Welcome, Claire.

Hi, how are you? We're well, thank you. You've won yourself $50 this morning as a first-time female caller, and I want to thank you for supporting our platform here, encouraging ladies to call. What can we do for you this morning? I have a question about the key, you know, the key, the key, you know, the key, the car. If your battery dies and you can't get into the car, so you take it.

take out the key and you take the handle off. When you get in, can you start the car or is it just dead? Yes. What you would do is take the remote itself and usually you want to use the side, the backside of it that has the emblem on it, like for a Toyota, you have a Toyota emblem, Honda Honda emblem, and hold that right up against the power button, step on the brake and press that power switch.

And the little chip that's inside the key will be determined. right there at that switch, and it will start the car normally. Oh, one thing less to worry about. Thank you. Still going to replace the battery, though. Yeah, I'm assuming you're talking about the battery in the remote itself. Oh, yes. Yeah. And the easiest way to get that done, if you stop in at a dealership,

go directly to the parts counter. They normally keep those little batteries in stock for them, and they're like five or six dollars less than ten dollars and they'll replace it for you right there they the guys will keep the little the little screwdriver set handy and they can change that battery out right there in two minutes time so rick's saying go ahead park don't go into the service drive you don't have to wait in line just parking in the parking lot walk into the parts counter if you get the service drive you'll end up with a three hundred dollar bill right straight for the parks department yeah and they'll be there for six or eight hours or more and they'll put it in for

you. Yeah, they'll install that battery. You'll be in and out in 10 minutes. Oh, oh, that's good. And if you can't get to a car, it'll do it again, right? It'll start it up again. At that point, yeah. Yep, after that. Once you have that battery replaced, your car will work just fine for you. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Claire, I want to thank you again for calling Earl Stewart on cars, and I'd like to ask you to leave your contact information with Jeremy in the control room, he'll give that to me and I'll get that check out to you.

Thank you. And, you know, I want to remind you how many female listeners right now were listening to you and you've given them the courage to call in. There's a lot of ladies who would rather text or, you know, maybe call me, but calling the show, it just shows how involved women are in this male-dominated, well, this auto industry, and I stutter when I say that because it's the 21st century. And I'm from the old school back in the 50s, and things have changed a little, but not that much, not from where I'm sitting. So thank you again.

Please spread the word. Your program is great. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. We are going to go to Doug in Boca. Good morning, Doug. Hello, good morning. Welcome.

Welcome. I hope you guys are having a great day. We are. It's been a while since we talked. What? A few weeks. Our hour? Or it has been two hours.

How's the family? How's your cats? Okay, let's get to what the show's about. Everything's fine. I've been busy doing my music, so I'm always performing somewhere, and that's fun, you know. Yeah, your music is great. I've tuned in to watch you and your wife. I'm waiting for a song about Erlon Cars. You have anything like that for us? That's what I'm working on. Yeah. He's collaborating with Lance. Ah, there you go.

And then Ella is going to join in with a meow beat. There you go. So anyhow, I love the Toyota D.R. It's just, you know, it's like getting in a carnival right every day. I have a question for someone there. So the transmission is. is different than when I've been used to in a Honda

and so sometimes when I ship it's not grinding it's just being like a notchiness and usually it's only in either third or fourth gear I wanted to ask about that I try to look up online to see if anyone else

was having something like that and there are a few people that were talking about that, and they said, oh, you need to change this. You need to change the shifter to a different, you know, the knob to some sort of shorter, more direct thing. And it's like, yeah, I'm not going to do that. Yeah, I wouldn't modify the shifter because that can lead to concerns of possible loss of warranty down the road.

Modifying transmissions, not really a good idea on a, on a, car that you want to keep the warranty in effect and the GRs they're unfortunately they're kind of rare right now um i've only been able to drive one or two my recommendation if it's not really feeling right i would get into the the dealership when you get a chance go for a ride with the technician and explain to them what you're feeling so that way they can try to really get a comparison. And if they have a similar vehicle that they can compare it to, you know, they may be able to do that. But otherwise, at least that way the technician understands exactly what you're looking for. But you'll really want to make sure that the, when you're

going to talk to the service writer who's writing it up, let them know that you want to drive with the technician so they will understand what you're looking for. And Doug up, let me jump in on this too because for other people listening, I know you're talking about our dealership, but anytime you bring a car in with a somewhat difficult to diagnose issue, and I say difficult to diagnose isn't necessarily that, but sometimes describing, a good technician will know what the problem is when they experience it themselves. And you have experience. So the two you have to be together in the car. Now, when you do that,

unfortunately sometimes you get an answer, well, they all do this. And that's an easy way to get rid of a problem. And so then what you say is, I'd like to try to drive another car saying you're making a model and see if they really do, if they all really do that. And, of course, if they all really do that,

You just bought yourself a car that's the way it's going to be. But a lot of times it's not the same. But as Rick says, when you hear something or smell something or feel something in the car, all since, you know, if you've got a noise in a car and you've got a technician that can't hear very well, then he might not hear it. Or maybe you don't hear too well, and the technician does hear. So there's a lot of good reasons. Two people in the car, one of them being a trained technician, is a very good idea.

Okay, that sounds good, and hopefully the dealership would have another GR that I could... Yeah, that's going to be a problem with a GR. Do we have another GRs in stock? No, we don't. You got to wait for a GR. We do. No, you have to wait for a GR. Yeah, right.

One would have to order one. Yeah. So one more thing. Let me just make this point. It's not grinding at all, but it's like you feel some sort of resistance. That's really what it is, and that is definitely not any grinding. I'm just concerned that, you know, I could damage it, but maybe not. I don't know, but I will bring it in, and that's a great idea of bringing technicians.

Yeah, well, Rectus wants to drive it, that's all. Yeah, and I would love him, too. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, in a case like that, though, I, well, Well, Earl and Stu, if you guys would like plug your ears for a moment, take it out and drive it really hard and kind of bang on it a few times. If it does break, it's covered under warranty. Ooh, that's a good point.

That's on your podcast, you realize that. Yeah. You mean, bear in mind, bear in mind, the initials GR stand for Toyota's Gazoo Racing. These are meant to be nearly a race car. It is designed to handle an aggressive shifting pattern. So if there is something going on and you are shifting a little more aggressively than, say, the average driver, and it does break, but you should not be able to break a shifter,

simply by driving down the road and shifting in a proper manner. you should not be able to so if something does start to break on it then that's on Toyota that is a warrantable condition and they must cover it briskly yes Doug get back with us

on that road report we would really appreciate it unfortunately I have a lot of calls backed up do you have any other questions no I was just going to say Gazoo it's from the Flintstone character that's an alien

Right. The alien that may the force be with you. Thanks, Doug. Give us a call again. See you at sunrise. We are going to go to Bob, who's calling us from Lake Park. Good morning, Bob. Good morning. Happy Cinco de Mayo weekend, everyone. Oh, thank you.

Thank you. May the fourth be with you. May the fourth be with you. Welcome back, Stu. Thank you very much. I'm still waiting to you. We shopped at Bell Glade dealership. Okay, I'll send her out to the swamp. Belgrade, yeah, the Apple Swamps.

I have a two-part question for Rick. My battery is going to be five years old in November. Did I be proactive or reactive? And the second part of the question is the negative battery cable on this car, my Mustang, is constantly getting corroded. It's been that ever since I bought the car new. it's quite annoying it has to be cleaned every so often and uh you know i i read somewhere where sometimes they use this dielectric grease uh but i put that stuff on before it really

hasn't changed the uh hasn't changed anything and i was wondering uh somebody told me if you do a lot of just local driving which i do that makes it to cake up like that or it could be the alternator uh belt is a little loose and the battery undercharges and it gets kicked up up what do you think now on the first first count for the five years on the battery you're starting to get a little up there in age I would watch for signs that those little the little warning signs that the battery started to give out you know if you turn the key and it seems like it hesitates a little bit trying to start you know keep watch for those and if it does start to seem a

little hinky go ahead and get it replaced then as for that terminal and the cable. The corrosion is oxidation. So it's sometimes certain ones are just a little more susceptible. My advice there is two parts. One of them is plain old water and an old toothbrush. Spray it with water, scrub it with the toothbrush, spray it some more. Water will break away all that oxidation. Let it sit and dry for about 10 or 15 minutes. And then the next part is a you'd like a $3 solution, axle grease. Just a simple little bucket of axle grease. And again, that toothbrush.

Don't use your wife's toothbrush, please. Well, that's up to you. My wife doesn't know, it won't hurt her. And you just basically, you rub that axle grease on, give it a good thick layer over the whole thing, because if the oxygen cannot get to the metal and cannot get into there, it cannot oxidize. you basically are creating a shield to prevent that corrosion.

So with it bi-electric grease? No, I just use regular axle grease that's on the shelf at any auto parts store and it will create a waterproof barrier that keeps water, moisture, and oxygen from getting into that spot, getting onto that cable in the terminal, just put a nice thick layer on there and basically it's like if you took a piece of metal and you scrubbed it down perfectly, you know, sanded it down and you set it outside for a couple days versus a piece of metal that you sand it down

and then paint it and put it outside. The one that has paint on it is not going to rust because the paint keeps the oxygen away from it. The one that's all clean, shiny metal is going to rust because the oxygen can affect it. it's just the negative table how about vaseline Vaseline of work

but it may tend to break down under higher temperature well people don't have axel grease laying around the house so he's just trying to right and that's why I say you literally can buy a tub like a one or two pound tub of axle grease from the auto parts

store for like $3. Yeah but you can get a jar of Vaseline out of the medicine cabinet but the only problem with Vaseline is it can tend to break down as heat gets to it because it's not meant to be as temperature resistant and you can get temperatures of two 300 degrees under the hood while you're driving down the road and that engine's running i got you yeah use the right stuff okay bob that's why we have rick here

hope he answered all your questions he's got actual grief that's his medicine cabinet by the way yeah stay away from your wife i have it under my pillow hey um thank you for calling bob i'm gonna get if you do you have another question what give us a call again 877960 or you can text us at 772-497

6530 you know we're always talking about Consumer Report but did you know just in 2024 Consumer Report purchased 40 new cars and they come in all sizes meaning it could be a small car, it could be an SUV, it could be a luxury sedan, and every one of those cars are, guess what, safer because of Consumer Report and all the work that they do.

And they buy those cars from a dealer at retail. They don't use their leverage. They don't go in and say, hey, if you'll let me buy this Corvette, a special deal will give you a good report. they don't even know they're from consumer reports they go in and they they just buy at the price the salesman sells them they probably get gouged when they buy these cars but there's absolutely no beholden to any manufacturer or dealer when consumer reports test the car good information 877 960 9060 ladies I have one more well crisp $50 bill in my hand to give you as a second call this morning. So give us a call 877-960-99-60 waiting to hear from you. We're going to go to Roadrunner Steve. Good morning, Roadrunner, Steve. How are you? Good morning, everybody's. How's everybody doing? Good. Great. I'm great. Me-me. Okay. On my roadrunner, I have these deep water stains, okay? I tried everything. I even went to a chemical guys, hard water stain remover, save your money

it don't work. Then I went to my friend at the auto body. He told me, Steve, get sandpaper, 2,000 grit and wet sand it. I said, well, I'm not doing that because I'd be afraid to do it with that.

So what do you think about these hard water stains that are in the paint? Ooh, they're tough. Sometimes that they do that sand or clay, Yeah, the clay bar. It doesn't work. It doesn't work.

Don't you have to. Can you sand off that? You might. Just like the upper layer. A machine. Using a buffing machine with a compound might have a, you didn't go mechanical, did you, Steve?

No, no, I used the old elbow grease. Yeah. I mean, a compound with a buffer. It's a pretty high, you know, speed thing. I might, but, you know. Yeah, unfortunately, that's, that's one that body work is is an art form I mean I can teach anyone how to repair a car

how to read wiring diagrams I could take anyone and teach them to do what I do Steve if you have a body shop you can trust or a body repair person someone that you know I just take your car and say look at this is there is this going to cost me a fortune or do you think you can get this off well what Steve doesn't want to do is the sanding thing and and that's another avenue we go no no I'm saying if you wanted to you could take it to a detail place I don't know who you can trust I know um you know our guys I mean they don't do old you know cars like that usually but they will do a wet sand for areas that you have fallout or or hard water stands like that I'm going to fall back on my old statements

I'm going to say get online to the local car forums and especially one group I'd recommend hitting up for information Google the asphalt angels Yeah, I know them I've got their car show Yeah And find out who they would recommend

for car care for paint and body work Because to me The body work I tried a few things Doing that myself And I learned one hard lesson That is an art form That I am not an artist in

I can't teach someone to do that when they have artistry. If it's a true artist, you can't teach that ability. That's an ingrained artistic ability. Right. Okay, after the car is wet-shanded and it does come out, would it be good to get the car clear-coded again? I'd seriously consider that, yeah.

You're going to take down a lot, yeah, getting the wet-sending process is going to take down a lot of your existing clear. Yes, it was painted in 1992. I mean, the paint list of that... It's time, anyway. It's time. So, Steve, here's Google right here. Vinegar is a natural cleaning agent

that can effectively dissolve mineral deposits. Create a mixture of equal parts, vinegar and water, and spray bubble. Give that a try. Make a salad on your hood. You stole my material. Okay, guys, Alia, back off. Now...

I tried that. Including you, Roadrunner, Steve. Hold on a second. in here. Chat, GBT, and I know you just said that you tried this, this, and this. Have you tried spaghetti sauce? Hold on a second. Chat GBT, GBT, water spots can be stubborn, but you can try a few methods to remove them. First, try washing your car with a car shampoo and water. If that doesn't work, you can try using a mixture of vinegar and water, or we'll just mentioned that, or a specialized water spot

remover. Apply the solution to a clean microfiber cloth and gently rub the water spots in a circular motion. Afterward, rinse and dry the area thoroughly. What do you

think? I tried the vinegar and water. It didn't work. Okay. And I used cleaning vinegar and then I went to the regular white Finnicer, so that didn't work even with a clay bar. How about balsamic vinegar? A what?

Balsamic. A little glaze. A little balsamic reduction. All right, guys. You're making me hungry here. I'm on a cooking show now. Okay, Steve. I used to have a...

That's all we got. I divorced her, and the car is quiet now. That's all. All right, everybody has to. Have a safe day. Enjoy. You too. You too. Bye.

The fourth be with you. I want some garlic bread now. Again, again, again. 877-960. A laura's right down the road. 9960. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Don't forget, we'd love to hear from you.

Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Text us at 772-497-6530. We're going to go to George, who is holding. He's Excuse me He's calling us from Boca Good morning, George Hey, how are you guys doing?

First time caller I have a quick question Hey George, before you ask any questions How did you find us? Oh, from the radio, from the radio station And then from people that have purchased from you Okay So you just accidentally tuned into the oldie

channel and the oldest station and you heard us right let's just say i've been listening to that station for a very long time we'll leave it okay i want your age okay george what can we do for you here's from 70 okay um i have a 2012 Toyota Venza with a 107000 original miles and uh about a week ago i was driving the car and the car just went dead just engine stops dead. So to make a long story short, we checked it with the mechanics with the probe that they use into the ports. And it shows that there was no communication at all with the computer. So what they did was there's a whole protocol that needs to be done before you deem the computer dead. But it turns out that the computer died. The computer did die on the car. And I just found that

just to be very unusual for Toyota at 107,000 miles for that to happen. Rick, did you have any comments on that? If this were 1999 and you told me that a Toyota computer had died, I would look at you and say, yeah, you've been doing something you shouldn't do because, no, Toyota computers don't die. But in today's world, yeah, I have seen computers. In almost brand new cars, the computers just quit. They've changed the processing on these things, the manufacturing of them.

And unfortunately, our computers are not as bulletproof as they once were. And yeah, they can just suddenly stop working. Sometimes it might be as simple as just a circuit degraded inside and corroded through. Or I've even seen it as weird. Now, this sounds crazy, but bear with it. with me because Florida is the lightning capital of the world and if lightning strikes near your car it doesn't even have to be an actual strike on the car but just close to the car the electromagnetic pulse created by it can actually cause a

computer to fail days later I've seen this happen so it's it happened also with a neighbor's car yeah it's unfortunate but yeah sometimes sometimes our computers actually do die. You can't reboot it like you can't have a PC at home? No, because it's actually a mechanical hardware failure in the computer. So just like with your home computer, if it does have a hardware failure, then it's got to be replaced. And of course, the whole thing's got to be replaced.

You can't repair it. No, because it's just a circuit board in a steel box. Now, the interesting part here is I would go online on like eBay. and look for sellers selling computers from a company called LKQ. This is a nationwide company that gets computers, other electronic devices from cars that have been recycled. They've gone to the junkyard. And a lot of times they will give you a warranty on that computer, and you can get a brand new. Now, what year did you say yours was?

2012. 2012. 2012, I believe all you would really have to have programmed in it is the VIN number, and a dealership should be able to do that. They may be able to get you a recycled computer at a nice savings over the cost of a new one, because sometimes the new ones aren't even available to get at this age. Correct, yes, yes, you're absolutely right. And I'm working with a private mechanic that has located a secondary computer, and they're very difficult to find.

Yeah. You know, you hear people say, oh, Toyota's a great car. But if you go on YouTube, you see thousands of people having the same problems with many different cars. It doesn't matter what brand it is. So it is something you're correct that does happen. Yeah. It's just that the car has been so rock solid. And this happens.

it happened to me because if my wife was driving it with her elderly mom, you know, that wouldn't have been a pretty situation. Right. That can be a very bad thing. But, you know, as for talking of quality, if you really, if you have ever looked at some of the cars on the road around you, you will see that some of the oldest cars that a lot of them are still running are older Toyotas and older Honda. things like the Camrys and Corolla's, the Accords and the Civics.

I mean, these are cars that should have been in the junkyard after 15, 18, 20 years. And yet a lot of these 12, 15, 20-year-old cars, they're still out there running around. And it's crazy. They just, they, there's just a greater majority. These computers aren't as expensive as I thought they were. I'm looking through Amazon, they're around 300 bucks. Right. So what would, if, if George had one for 300 bucks and took it into having installed,

what would the labor be? I'm going to go on a limb and say two hours labor, so probably about $300 is the most. So you're like 600 bucks. Yeah, and if they have the proper, yeah. Yeah, and if they have the proper scan tool, they can program in the VIN number and do the handshakes for it, then you'd be all set. Yeah, yeah. No, you're right.

A friend of mine has an old Camry car or Corolla. And he says the hood weighs about 150 pounds when you lift it up. So, yeah, they are built heavier, the older car. Yeah. Absolutely. Just a little side out. I also have a 2015 Jeep Wrangler, and I know what people say about these cars, but rock solid, rock solid, not even a squeak in the car.

been a very, very good car. What year did you say it was? 2015. 20-2015 Jeep Wrangler. We had one. It's a good thing you don't have a 2018 or 20-21. I'm looking at Consumer Reports, worst-used cars, and they say that the Jeep Wrangler,

2018, 2021, and 2020 are the worst-used cars you can buy. So you've got a good one. Yeah, and George's price is sore. that definitely is worth holding on to those old cars they come in handy yeah yeah i said to my mechanic after we fix it do i hold on to it he goes hey they last forever i go okay we hold on to it there you go i don't want to i don't want to be laid in conversation anymore i know you got a lot of callers thank you guys so much i've been dying to call in and i finally did it congrats thank you so much glad to hear from you it was great hearing from you george give us a call again 877 960 9960

Excuse me Let's go to James Who has been holding James is calling us from Pointe Beach Good morning, everybody Good morning James How are you all doing? I hope everybody's well Yeah, we are, thank you

Good, listen, I have a 2001 Mustang convertible Look at And the gentleman with the hard water spots made me realize I should ask your advice, it's the original top, and it's showing some signs of age, and I was wondering if anybody had any tips on cleaning up, refurbishing it, that kind of thing?

With the canvas tops, I'd be very careful with the age of them. No, it's the vinyl. Oh, more careful. Yeah, even more careful. I would look for the commercial products online. Make sure you investigate them thoroughly as to, you know, what the best quality is for products that you can find. And again, one of my favorite go-toes, go online and look for forum sites that are for, like, you know, classic car, classic Mustang sites. And find the, talk to those guys, find out what products they like to use for cleaning them.

and that is your best bet because I know I'm a go-getter for jump on a foreign forum site because you're talking to people all around the world and they will figure out how to get that fixed how to get it cleaned up for you. Yeah, because you know how vinyl age is?

Yep, yeah, it gets the... It looks dried out and... Yep, I'd be very careful with Armourall. I had had experience with Armoral, years ago. Yeah, it makes a dash crack. Yep. It did on mine.

And so I don't even dream of putting it on that old top. And it's still tight. It's still no tears or anything. It's just starting to get that plastic gray look. Yeah. Isn't that word like that it's getting that, like it's actually wearing a little bit and you're seeing like the original dye or whatever the coloring to it is? Yeah, it's starting to get that top layer.

I'm wondering if there's a, that's something. And for Google search, where you'd look if there is a restoration process, like some sort of, like you said, a commercial product that is put out on, it almost dies it. I know there's a product back to black, but I didn't know if there would be something to use on a. That's more meant for the trim. I mean, you might try it a little spot on your top, just somewhere down low where you're not going to see it very much. But, yeah, again, I'd be careful with that. Yeah, yeah, that's why I called you all. I've just been trying to just keep it clean with water.

Right. Maybe one other question. I'm looking for a good silicone spray product for my on my cars, for my door gaskets, all that kind of stuff. You know of anything that doesn't have a petroleum pressurization to it? Ooh, not off the top of my head. And for that, I usually recommend the, uh, It's like you get like the lubricant is a paste and just use a little toothbrush or something to work that in on those gaskets because we have found that spraying silicone sprays inside the doors can actually mess with any electronics in there.

So like your window switches and the like that silicone can get in there and wreak havoc with it. Hey, I found a product. Write this down. It's called 303 Aerospace Protectant. Sounds pretty, 303 aerospace, it sounds very, you know, very strong. Very scientific. It's a vinyl top protectant. And it's, and this is an AI that came on, it says it void armor all on. I just Google that.

They got half a dozen, they got a dozen or more of silicon sprays without any petroleum. Yeah. So there you go. Um, on one of, on, on Rick's recommendation on that paste, what is that paste? Just like a silicon lubricate paste for rubber gaskets and the like. You can find it like Amazon. Okay. Let me see how you look that up for you real quick.

Yeah, I'm looking actually at 303 Protectin. They have their own store on Amazon. So I think all the stuff they have, they have a bunch of different products. But, yeah, it's on Amazon. It's 15 bucks for a bottle. All right, great, guys. I appreciate the help. No problem.

Oh, you're welcome, James. Thanks for calling. Everybody's on their phones and the computers right now trying to find stuff for your talk. Let me know over the radio. I'll be listening. Oh, will you? Okay, great. Under the paste, yeah.

We'll take advantage of that. Yeah, right here on Amazon, they've got four lifetime industrial silicone, multi-purpose lubricant, and it's just a simple little paste with the brush in the lid of the can. And it's $11 for a four-ounce. What's the name of it? It's for lifetime industrial silicone, multi-purpose lubricant. Thank you. Yeah.

Awesome. Have a great weekend. You're going to. You too. Here, Jim. Thank you. Do you do the same? Now, we just need to remember all that for the next person with a roof problem.

We can just whip it out like we know. Absolutely. We know. There's so many specialties in the silicone sprays here that are water, proof and there's so many YouTube's that I'm looking at right now to show you how to use them and not, you know, directly spray whatever you're trying to fix. Okay, folks, our number here, let me get my headphones back on, 877-960-99-60, and you can text us at 772-4976530.

We're going to go to Mark, who's been holding. Good morning, Mark. Good morning. How are you? Hey, Mark. Thanks for holding. You're welcome. My question is about this extended warranty. I have a 2019 Toyota Avalon, and I was sent a request to call in to this number.

But your letterhead, the Earl Stewart letter. head is on here, okay? And when I called the number, they had no idea who Earl Stewart was, or Josh Stewart. They just knew you were a Toyota dealership. I'm just wondering if it was a scam. It was a scam on us, and I've had other complaints on this. The company that sends that mail out is the Toyota Distributorship's holding company, Jim Moran and Associates. And they are the ones that. Right, that's who they said, uh, right, yeah, right. So I can, I don't mean to touch you off, but.

So I've got another, a customer of ours called me. I called, I called the, the regional manager for Jim ran and associates and told them that I didn't appreciate that letter. He told him to stop immediately. And it was all, they told him to stop it immediately. And the worst thing about it is my son Josh was signing the letter and his signature was shown on the letter. So they misrepresented who we are, what we do.

And we've stopped it thanks to customers like you that knew enough to call us and tell us about it. But our marketing got away from us. I accept full responsibility for that because I should check anything that our company sends out with our signature on it, and I didn't check it. So if I had read it, I would not have allowed the letter to go out. Well, I said to them, I'm not doing anything over the phone. Send me a written letter, you know, with the items in any brochure about the plan, all right?

And then when I got the letter, and again, this letter is dated April 22nd. I don't know when you spoke to them, but it seems like they're still sending it out. And it says it's Century Warrancy Services. Yeah, we spoke to them. It was in the last week. I think it was last Thursday or Friday. And so that predated our conversation with J&I. Yeah, and it's administered.

out of Jacksonville, Florida. And we're well aware of all the details. Yeah, we dropped the ball there. And, you know, the embarrassing thing to me, I'm embarrassed as a hell out of me because one thing I've always said is if you're solicited to buy an extended warranty by mail or text or anything like that, ignore it.

And so here I am giving our listeners advice that I'm violating myself with my own dealership. So I can't tell you how embarrassed I was that that happened, and I do apologize. I'm just wondering, I got the brochure, and it is basically an extended mechanical warranty. It is the same, yeah, they're the same warranties that we do offer for sale in the dealership. So the product is real is how they sold it with a fear base. You know, watch out, your car's out of warranty, act now sort of thing, which is not our style.

So, but thank you for letting. us know and uh i mean yeah thank you that's why we have great listeners and great customers yeah just just one more i'm just wondering because i i have this avalon and it's got like 18 000 200 miles on it and i love it and i really want to keep it but uh my warranty that i had bought from the dealership is going to run out in august and i said well they're going to give you an additional 70 000 miles on that, and they're going to charge you $4,200 for 84 months, you know, 70,000 miles. And they said, well, the down payment is $2.19, and then it's $165 a month for the next 24 months. And I'm wondering, you know, the way something can break down in a car today, that I guess

if it's major, that if it costs you about $5.85,000, it's, yeah, it's something that you have to consider, generally speaking, you know, Earl doesn't advise. He says if you can self-insure on a car, in other words, just be prepared for a repair, especially on a new. You bought a good product. You maintained the product according to the factory recommended maintenance schedule, and you don't need an extended warranty. The reason we sell, and warranties is the reason people sell fire insurance and life insurance and car insurance. Insurance

buys peace of mind. You have some control when you buy a car. If you go out and you buy a marginal car, if you don't do your homework and you buy a 2018 Jeep Wrangler, which Consumer Report says is...

No, no, it wouldn't touch you. Then if you accidentally bought one, you might want to consider buying an extended warranty. Except for the insurers know the same things. You're going to spend an arm and a leg for that warranty. Yeah. So if you buy a good product and then take care of it, and, of course, as Stu says, if you don't take care of it, the warranty's not going to protect you anyway because they're going to demand that they see the maintenance that you performed on the car. If you don't have

receipts for the factory record of maintenance, then your warranty is null and void. Well, that's all on computer now, so you don't have to keep the receipts anymore. Well, they have it in the computer. Mark, your concerns are valid and the decision. Charlie's garage, I mean... That's right, but he can't do warranty work. Do you have any other questions? Oh, no, you know, oil changes.

Yeah, I make it to work, yeah. So anyway, my advice to you is don't buy the warranty. Yeah. Would your dealership sell the same warranty? Yeah, we do. We sell the same warranty. We sell, we sell warranties. You know, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know,

My personal philosophy is if I can afford to pay something that happens to my house or to myself or medically or I try to carry big deductibles on things that are vital. Like I have to have fire insurance, but I have to have health insurance. I try to have higher deductibles. The warranty companies are insurance companies is what they really are. And Warren Buffett, he's one of the richest men in the world and he made it all through his insurance company. So the insurance companies, the warranty companies, make a huge profit. I say, bank it yourself. You know, if you don't mind paying $150 a month, take $150 a month and put it in the bank and earn interest.

And in the end, after three or four years, if you have something does happen, you probably made enough in compounded interest to pay for the repairs. That's my personal philosophy about warranties. But yes, we do sell those warranties. At the same price. At the same time, yeah. I, you know, if I sold a car, used car, for example, and the customer, if people insist on having insurance, and if I can't provide the product, then they will go to my competition, who will sell it to them.

So I sell them a good warranty, a fair warranty, a balance warranty, and my personal philosophy is I wouldn't buy it, but I am selling it, yes. Okay. All right. Thank you for the information. Thank you, Mark. Give us a call again. and I hope we were able to help you.

Let's go to Frank, who's a regular caller from Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank. Hey, good morning, my goodness. Sorry about that. I was kind of dozing off, listening to everybody. All right, I got a variety of stuff. I'll try and catch it all very quickly. First and foremost, I enjoy listening to Earl Stewart with his sunrise.

So you guys have a beautiful view. it reminds me when we were staying in a marathon on the campground for a few months watching the sunset so we got at the end of the day you guys got at the front of the day and the other day we took our the vice Audi up to the store for alignment because the front

tires were out prematurely at 14,000 miles and so we got the alignment and you guys actually do in alignment with an air ride suspension at your dealership or is that going to have to stay at Audi I would keep that at Audi because we may not have the specifications in our machine for Audi's. We should have, and we probably could muddle our way through it, but I think we have one tech in our shop that is rather familiar with German cars,

and most everybody else, the techs are going to run for all the hills by the hills, by the time you get there, you're not going to find too many texts that actually will want to really work on them. But the warning, based on what Rick just said, is that Audi's, Mercedes, BMWs, these cars, they're luxury cars, and if you go to an Audi dealer,

you're going to pay through the nose. So, as Rick said, there are shops that specialize, independent. I definitely look for an independent, European repair facility, independent, that has good Google rating, has good Better Business Bureau, that may be recommended by a friend.

But if you go into an Audi dealer or any European manufacturing dealer, they charge an arm and a leg. Yeah, well, we bought this car new. It's two years old, so while we still got warranty, we're going to keep it with that. Oh, great. going back to Lexus, which he had before.

But having said that, other couple real quick things. This son is my highest out. I did send you guys some pictures of some trucks for Rick to look at. Anyway, I want to thank you guys for helping me with the title work for my son's truck. I spoke to Patty. I understand that's all finally done. I'm going to come in next week and square up or something. I don't know if there's much charge on that or not,

but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. We're glad we could help out, Frank, and thank you for the call. No, real quick, real quick, one more thing for me. We went on a road the other day, out of Stewart called Indian Street, and it turns into Highway 714, and it's all covered of trees for about 12 miles. Have you guys ever been on that or heard about that? No. It's a really beautiful ride.

It ends up on 710, which is Indian Town Road, out near Okachobi. but it's a two-lane highway it takes it back in Florida how it used to be when we grew up. Oh, is that the Martin Memorial Highway? I believe it is. Yeah, yeah, I've driven that a couple times. Beautiful, the trees overlapping

the whole road. Yep, it's if you were to take, for those listening, if you went north on 995 just up into Martin County a little bit, it's the Martin Memorial Highway that then goes west over to Okachobe City.

and this road is it's a tree-lined road where the trees are just covering the road it's beautiful sounds pretty makes it nice drive Rick is now with the Chamber of Commerce so make notation Frank it's been great talking to it I got two more calls backed up

and we are getting ready to go to some techs and some YouTubers yeah 303 is a good product by the way thank you I'll make a notation of that, too. Good morning, John. John's calling us from Palm City.

Good morning. An inexpensive way for the man that call with the problem on his battery terminal, this is what I use. You go, and it's a cheap way to take care of it. It's a cloth to disc. It's on a card that's mounted. There's a red and a green one. Red is for the positive green. It fits.

It's a cloth. fiber cloth, round disc, very inexpensive, and it goes underneath the battery cable between the battery and the cable, and it's a corrosion-proof insured that helps save the battery. Yeah, I've seen those and used them. You just got to be real careful

than when you do use them, make sure the terminal still gets all the way down onto the battery, so you get a good fit with it. Yes, I've used it for years, and they're a little hard to find in the auto stores. But the second thing I want to say was Rick said, great advice. I'm not putting that battery into the remote. These round batteries that you buy for the home remotes, and they fill other electronics, very dangerous to leave them around

because kids can find it, and they swallow it a round battery, and it's fatal to them, and internal organ damage and everything. If you do buy, they sell them at Walgreen. You can put them in yourself, but you need a mini-school driver for the car remote. But many of the home remotes, you slide the panel and put them in. Just don't leave that disk, that battery laying around because if a child sees it, they have a tendency to put that it's shiny, and it looks like candy to them, and it could be consumed, and it's very dangerous, that type of battery.

and also places, all of parts stores, carry it, they'll put it in even for you, and a battery in bulbs is a chain that'll put that in very inexpensively, too. Yes. Great advice, John. Yeah, question on leaving those batteries laying loose. It is, definitely. Thanks for the call. All right. Thank you guys for recognizing me for a long-time club.

Yes. You've been with us a very long. time. You're going to enjoy our mystery shop this morning. That mystery shop was done by Agent Lightning, Toyota of Hollywood. So stay tuned for that. I look forward. Thanks, John. We love you, John. We do. Aw, wasn't that sweet of Rick. Rick's amazing. Okay, guys, Stu, Rick. How about some Facebook? I have a quick question. Can we please repeat the directions for the tree-lined highway and Stewart. Was it Martin Memorial Highway?

Yes. Martin Memorial Highway. Just go on Google Maps and put in Martin Memorial Highway. Okay. You will love it. Take your cameras. You'll love it. All right. Okay, I got one from Amory.

She says, good morning. Confession lately. I've been reading multiple financial columnists. What's wrong with you? Multiple financial columnists writing about what scenarios. Some strike me as full of fancy economic. theories and others sound like they're connected to reality. You are, we are definitely corrected to the real world.

So here goes with a what if the U.S. dollar was devalued scenario. Okay. Now, Toyota is a worldwide automaker. A lot of Toyota vehicles at your dealership are made here in the U.S. or some are not. So, one, roughly about what percentage of the vehicles that your dealership are manufactured abroad? About half.

Not in Japan, but we have about half are manufactured in the United States. And then Japan's about another 20%. But if you're counting Mexico and... If you're counting everything else, about half is out. But even with that, I think, not trying to make commercial a toy, it's still the most American-made vehicle. I think Mercedes might even be just behind that. Anyway, so about half are manufactured abroad.

Based on your decades of business experience, what do you predict could happen to car dealers here if in America, if the U.S. dollar was devalued? Well, that would make imports more expensive. Next question, would foreign-built cars be more expensive? Yeah, generally, when the dollar is weaker, imports are more expensive. Would U.S. manufactured goods be less expensive and easier to export? All in theory, yes, but there's all sorts of problems when the dollar is devalued like that.

Or could number five, could Murphy's Law, anything that go wrong will go wrong, at the worst possible time, combined with the possibility of unintended consequences and things just turn to one giant headache. I mean, I've seen stuff about that. I mean, you can't really just devalue the dollar. I mean, it's not a, you can do things to cause it to devalue. I mean, you could slash interest rates and you could do. You can have a policy that will devalue it, and the U.S. policy has always been to have

a strong dollar. So I think that, and right now the dollar is strong as heck. And then I don't think it's going to get any... And you can't devalue a currency. I mean, I'm manipulist, too. But then if you do that, then you enter into like trade war territory and I think there's a lot of unintended consequences for manipulating currency. So I don't think that's going to happen in the United States, but, you know, but yeah,

some hypotheticals could happen. We don't know anything about economics. We don't. Right. I took a couple of economic classes in my freshman in my freshman and my freshman and sophomore year. That was it. Oh, by the way, real quick, is the Martin Memorial Highway? Is that west of the Turnpike? It's west of our 95 and turnpike both at that point and then goes out to Okachobe City. There you go. Okay, I'm all caught up.

How about some messages over there from those nuts on YouTube? You don't get the, you don't get the what? Actually, I've even got another one going now. I just want to hear from Donovan. I haven't seen him yet this morning. He may have taken the day off. Okay, Donovan. You're on notice. A fellow named Mike, I'm hoping he's listening right now, make it quick and easy.

I'm still going to email you back though, Mike. He sent me an email asking about power steering fluid in his mother's 05 Avalon. Apparently he's noticed it's missing fluid, but he doesn't see where it's going, and he wants to know what's the best fluid to use in it. to use in it, if you can't get regular power steering fluid, which works fine in any system, Toyota's are designed to handle automatic transmission fluid. And I just recommend plain old Dexron. It's the least expensive. Just pour it in and keep it topped up. If you can't see where the fluid is going, the lines themselves don't appear to be leaking, which with the 05 Avalon, take a flashlight, open the hood, and shine it down on the passenger side front area.

From where the engine is, you're going to look at the frame rails of the car and look for the metal and rubber lines there. Those are usually the spot where it leaks, and the fluid drips out in such a lot. a manner that it gets blown away by the air as you're driving the car so you won't usually see puddles underneath there but those lines are usually the first place I look for leaks on those and if not it could be leaking into the rubber boots on either end of the power steering rack but that's where I would start looking for those leaks all right here's a non-spean I just I just jumped over there's a couple of them oh okay yeah yeah um Because my login, there's a lot of spam in the login, but it filters in my inbox better.

This is an anonymous feedback message about our mystery shop to Garber, Buick, recently. They said, Garber Automotive Group has three stores in the Greater Jacksonville, and Greater Jacksonville, Florida. A few more in Florida, a couple in Rochester, New York, and Chicago area, too. They started off in Sagina, Michigan, where they still have a presence. They've been around for a while over 100 years. I think we noted that at one point. But have only been recently expanded. I think they got the Jacksonville store around 25 years ago, but not positive.

It's sad to see how they handled your mystery shopper at the Buick dealer. An F grade seems reasonable after watching this video. It appears they're looking for a home run, but in any case, nobody was impressed with their sales practices. We weren't here. It sure feels like it isn't easy buying a vehicle. in Florida unless you go to Earl and that's his opinion thanks for posting up guys

and look forward to the next one well you're welcome and it sounds like you might have a little knowledge of the car business like maybe a dealer or somebody involved the next one more anonymous feedback what gets me about car dealerships

is that with all the federal and state regulations and laws trying to protect consumers nothing works they totally ignore consumer protection laws with no penalties, or just change the wording to comply. Once in a while, a lawsuit will find a dealer guilty of cheating and then pay a fine for them. It's just the cost of doing business.

That is true. That's what we were talking about in Appleton, and they're historically high fine from the federal government. Anyway, he closes out here or she closes out with, they're all scum. Oh, boy. And that's, you know, that's fair. Okay. Any other?

Here's one that came in just at 727 this morning. Isn't it a reason I think this is important is because we talk about it every single week, especially on the mystery shopping report. Isn't it illegal to remove the required MSRP sticker before the sale? There's no exceptions. First. A couple of weeks. we looked it up for sure okay hey um here's something uh about the penalty for removing the monroney

label removing a maroni label also this is from chat gbt removing a monroony label also known as a window sticker from a new car window before selling the vehicle is a violation of federal law The relevant regulations are outlined in Chapter 28, Sections 1231, 1233 of Title 15 of the United States Code. Dealers who remove or alter this label face a penalty, a penalty, ladies and gentlemen, of $1,000. And keep in mind, these labels provide crucial information. They're extremely important, including manufacturers' suggested retail price, fuel economy, and so much more. So that fits together with the earlier comment about dealers flagrantly ignoring it. We do the mystery shop on this show.

Almost every single shop, the Minroni label, the MSRP, has been removed. Now, I'll give a little bit away of a secret, but the two. the mystery shop that we got coming up, the mystery, the Mononi label is removed. This particular dealer probably has hundreds and hundreds of cars in stock, and

they're all removed, only the monorny labels moved, and they find $1,000 apiece. Now that's that would be a nice little amount of money for the government to collect, not only to get the dealers to do what the law says they're supposed to. And don't we have a budget

deficit that we need to kind of Phil, let's start fining people. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, the government's always looking for money. I can point out dozens and dozens of car dealerships where they could bring in enough fine money to lower our taxes. Yeah, that could be a plan. We should start pushing that. That could be put into pretty good use.

But you know what? It's only a thousand a car, you know. Only a thousand a car. Yeah, and this dealership's probably making eight or nine. It's, you know, it's this cost to do. business like the $1,000 a car. But if they have 500 cars and stock, one little visit would bring $500,000 into the U.S. Treasury. And also, you know, Senator Munrooney, I'm sure you've heard me speak of him before, but, you know, he served in Oklahoma from 1951 to 1959,

and he's responsible, most importantly, he is responsible for putting this law, you know, into, I don't know, how can we find out how many dealerships have been fined? Well, just look at our Mr. Shopping reports. Oh, nobody's been fined. Exactly. You know, I was going to say maybe two. I'd never seen the Fed at the dealership looking around.

I got to get my uniform out of mothballs. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I think that, let me see here, it is 929. I think we need to go to, it's in the air, Rick. I think we need to go to Big Dog Ranch, not literally, but we have Lassie, and she is just as cute as a button. And she is about four years old, and weighs about 52. Poupons. And she's just so cute. And she came to us from, I believe it may have been Alabama. I'm not sure. Anybody know? She's looking for a forever home. And she's just, well, filled with a lot of warmth and charm. And Jonathan's going to roll that video. Roll it. Take a look and listen.

Victoria and I work at Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and I want to introduce you to your last year. She's about four and a half years old, about 50 pounds. She's a mixed free, and she came to us from Alabama as an owner's surrender with her puppies or all adopted already. So it's her turn to find her forever home. She's very smart, knows her basic commands, and needs a little bit of training on leash walking, but she's super smart, she'll catch on quick. She'll make a perfect family dog for you.

She's very dog friendly as well, super sweet girl. sweet girl so I think you guys should consider coming to big dog ranch and meeting her and taking her home to be your furry friend all right what a sweetheart she looks like a hound dog mix I was saying it for your folks you heard lassie it's she's not a collie um she looks like a lab hound dog and she's got the like beagle markings almost like a gold like a yellow lab but with beagle light beagle markings on the back she is a mixed breed from uh Alabama wow Cool dog. And ladies and gentlemen, my daughter remind you that

that we pay the adoption fees. I'm jumping in for all these sick people. When you adopt our sponsored dog through us, we take care of the adoption fees. There's a lot of expenses that goes into getting the dogs ready for adopting and housing them, some indefinitely. And you get charged a few hundred dollars based on the breed, the age of the dog and how long they've been at the ranch.

But we take care of that for you. And you get a dog that's ready to go with all its shots, neutered, spayed, bathed, cleaned, and it's just a great deal. I'm going out there. That's why we do business with big ranch. We do what we do. My wife says I can't go out there. Because you're going to come home with four or five dogs.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Anyway, it's a win-win situation. Registration fees are paid for the dog of the week. And, of course, don't forget confessions of a recovering car dealer. And, you know, the book is purchased by you, and the donation is, well, it's all of the proceeds. Let me put it that way. All of the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch.

Did you know you can buy used books? I looked at the book the other day just to be sure it was okay on Amazon, and they're selling used books, too. So you could buy used books for like $8 or $10. Is it? And I think Stu, two weeks ago, said that he had noticed that the new book was $18 or... Yeah, it had been increased. They had reduced the price of it.

Yeah, reduced, that's right. Yeah, so at any rate, ladies and gentlemen, go to Earl and Cars or Amazon, you can purchase the book, you know, whether it is, you know, a used book, a new book, all proceeds go to Big Dog Branch. We are going to go to our mystery shop, which is Toyota of Hollywood, where Agent Lightning did a great job again, and of course, stews. It's $16.12. It is? On Amazon right now. Yeah, it's $16.12.

Yeah. We were talking about how Amazon price is, and I don't think it was that when we looked last time. Is that a new book or used book? That is new. Well, there's 15 new and used offers. In two weeks ago, Stu, the book was $18, so they keep fluctuating. You can get them used for $8.6. 72 cents or 473 there's a bunch of them so and all proceeds do go to big dog

branch okay um also uh through uh stew's elegant uh writing uh he has really made this uh this mystery shop Toyota of Hollywood uh worth reading and um turn it over to by the way this is Hollywood Florida A lot of people don't know about Hollywood, Florida. And we were, what I was getting ready to say, and I, you know, escaped my mind, was that we went to Coconut Creek last week. And it seems like the tide is turning in the south end of Florida. Well, the further south you go, the more vicious the cartilage has become. A wild one say that.

Key West is pretty dull. But they have a tweed. And homestead. You go south. You keep going south. If you hit Miami and that's, then it's bad. And then you're in the clear. If you're going further south, then it's nice.

Yeah. So anyway, Toyota Hollywood is a huge dealership. It's one of the largest in the United States. One time they were number one, very short period of time. Long ago, Toyota in California has been number one forever. But Toyota of Hollywood, they're in the top three or four, usually two or three, which means they sell thousands and thousands and thousands of new. Toyota's every year. It's not unusual during availability of cars for Toyota Hollywood to sell

a thousand cars or more in one month. So they're huge. Here's Agent Lightning's report speaking in the first person. I arrived late in the evening and walked into the dealership. I wonder how late that was. Do you have any idea? I got to find out. I don't know. I arrived late in the evening and walked through the dealership, I had to pass about 15 salespeople. That's the reason I asked. I think they closed late, like 11 or maybe even midnight. I mean, to have 15 salespeople late in the evening in a car dealership will tell you something about the size.

It means they're selling cars at night. But she walked by 15 salespeople. There were more salespeople inside, but no one said as much as hello to me. I approached a customer service desk, and a young girl greeted me with a smile, but didn't say anything. I then asked, do you know if you have any hybrid Grand Highlanders, hybrid Grand Highlanders available? She asked me to please give her a minute and then call for someone to come up front.

I stood there waiting. They had a one-man band, one-man band, playing music at the front door, along with an enormous Christmas tree. When I saw that, I thought I had the wrong mystery shopping report, maybe from the, anyway, but they had a Christmas tree. Did they have an open bar? Maybe, I don't know. Probably for this.

But this place is huge. After about five minutes, a young, eager salesman approached me, a big smile, extended his hands for a handshake, and he himself is Stan. And he said he's on the midnight shift because they close at midnight. Oh, okay. Every day of the week, except for Sunday. Isn't that amazing? I just, you know. Sunday they close at 9 p.m.

Yeah. What brought you in today, Stan? ask, I'll be in need of another car next week as I'll be adding a newly licensed driver to our household, I replied. Do you have any hybrid Grand Highlanders in stock? Unfortunately, we don't, he replied. I have customers waiting for four months and longer. They're also being marked up, 5,000, 6,000, even 10,000 above sticker because of how hard they are to come by. But I do have several regular Grand Hybrids. in stock, I mean Grand Highlanders in stock, which you'd be interested.

I'll just comment here. It was right up front and almost bragging that they marked these cars up. You know, for folks out there listening in the business, and we beat up people for charging a lot of money for over-sticker for cars, I have an issue with that, and our dealership doesn't do that. But from a business standpoint, supply and demand is a fundamental of economics, and you can't argue that. Short supply, high demand means high price. So when you do that, and you really have a short supply, and you really have high demand,

what the buyer will pay is, by definition, in the economics book, a fair price. Because our dealership chooses to draw the line in MSRP, that's a personal choice. So I'm not, I don't give a bad grade for a dealer openly charging a high price as long as he's open. That's the key word transparency. Okay, continuing with a report is one to switch me from a hybrid Grand Highlander to a regular. And the course is, that's not our first choice, but yes, we will take one. Time is on my side. I said, Stan asked me to follow him, so he's not on my side, I said, so Stan asked me to follow him

so he could show me what's available in the non-hybrid Grand Highlanders. We headed to an elevator, went to their parking garage. They had several non-hybrid grand Highlanders in stock. I picked a black one, a limited model with an MSRP, $54,559. There was an addendum, too. It added window tent for $3.99. A market value pinstriads, neither the Monroney label nor the addendum were where they were supposed to be. Now, if you were listening 10 minutes ago, we talked about the federal fine.

Now, that's $1,000. And we have, I don't remember visiting a dealer in South Florida. We must have that had their addendum label, had their Monroeony labels on the car. They're all violating. And if the federal, if the budget department or the tax revenue or people who, anybody from the government listening, there's millions and millions of dollars for your picking right here in South Florida. All you've got to do, hop in a car and start taking pictures of cars. You can collect millions of dollars in revenue of what you all says, my taxes and your taxes,

and that's what you rather do. The reason for the law, the reason I'm supposed to remove it is so the customer has complete assurance that the information they're looking at is for the car they're looking at. And honestly, in a lot of dealerships, I mean, I can see even at our dealership when we can get sloppy with some of the housekeeping things, how minor animals could get shuffled around at a big dealership like this, and somebody might end up making a mistake. I don't think they're taking them off purposely to confuse people. I think they're just very sloppy. Well, some are taking it off purposely. Some don't. I mean,

anyway, it's had an addendum too, and it's alongside the window sticker, wherever the window sticker is lying. Look like a seat. I was trying to determine from the picture. The addendum added, this is a standard. You're regular listeners, pardon me for boring you, but standard operating procedure.

Window 10, 399, that's 399. that's $399.99, a market value adjustment of $4,995, that's because they think they should charge more money for the car. And $199 for door-edge guards, which probably cost the dealer $50. Pinstripes maybe cost the dealer $50, and it's $199 for the two of them. Neither of the Monroe label of the addendum were where they were supposed to be, as I just said. So we went for a test drive, and I was sold. like the car. I'd love to see the numbers on this, but I see the window sticker has a markup, I noted. Not on these. I'll take care of you. So it did have a markup, but here we go with the

negotiation. So Stan's going to take care of me. Stan, the salesman. Stan the man. And the man, Stan the man. He also pointed out changing the subject. It's a four cylinder, which gets a spitter gas mileage. I asked if they come up with all weather mats. I was in the impression his trim level did, I'm sure we can throw those in for you if you decide to buy today, he replied. Did we ever check to see if the bats come? Not, unlimited, yes,

they do. Probably not all weather mats, I mean, standard mats, whatever that way. I'm just basically my personal experience because Emily has limited. Anyway, we went back inside, I commented on all the decorations. What do you have in a hoe-down? Stantlas said every month they do something new.

and big. We went to his desk, Stan's desk, and he asked for my number, pulled me up in their system. Stan confirmed my name and information. He then excused himself to go get me a price sheet, asking about my credit score to get me a good quote.

He returned with his worksheet. I'll give them Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know why. Anyway, he brought the sheet. I'm sorry. That's a bad pace. Okay. Take that out.

The cash purchase consisted of three lines. Okay. So am I on the right place here? The cash purpose of three lines. Okay, the market value, after they kicked it up about $6,000, $5.59,000. Discount, $5,000, market up, not market down. Sale price, $54,000, $5.59. And, of course, that's MSRP, and that's not really the sale price

because wait until you hear what comes next. I ask if you give me some more details, like what he's hiding on the sale price. Three numbers. There's nothing in it. Stan accused himself and said he would see what he could do. Stan also mentioned that all Toytas come with four years, 45,000 miles of free maintenance. That's not true. And that's not true. No, they come with two years and 25,000 miles of free maintenance.

Toyota Guard, which they put on their cars, adds more maintenance. and it's not free. If you're charging it sticker, you're paying $699 for the free maintenance. What Stu was talking about is all the cars in the southeast United States, five southeast three through distributorship, Jim Moran's Southeast toilet distributors,

and they add something called Toyogard, which they make a large profit on, a very large profit on, and they charge the dealers about $250 for this, and then the dealer sells it for like $6.99, and they make a big fat hit, and you think it is really a part of the factory maintenance. It's not factory maintenance at all.

And presenting it this way actually goes against the way Toyota says you're supposed to sell it, and it's not true because it's not free and not even close, and not all Toyota's come with it. It's an option. You don't have to get it. And this is pretty much a deception that is done by all Southeast Toyota dealers. This is almost all of them have this on their cars. I sat and waited for about 14 minutes before Stan returned with a new price sheet.

This will look like your typical dealer at Workstreet. The top line was labeled market value, $5.59. There was the $5,000 discount. And then here are the fees, which were not fees, which is profit, which is a markup on the price, which he did not have on the price that he said was the price. price so they tell you this is a price and you can say okay that's the price plus tax and tag but this is the price plus junk fees and here we are more junk fees and everybody does this we're great on the curve but everybody

virtually all car dealers in Florida do this $899 in dealer fees a little joke here who said dealer flees which is very funny and $650 in title fees which is more junk. I made my real price, $56,108. So now we're up to $1,549 over MSRP. I asked, is this the best you can do, Stan? How soon are you going to buy? Stan responding. Hopefully this weekend I said, the answer is, I'll tell you what, you come back and see me tomorrow, Saturday, and I'm almost certain, almost certain, I can get you another $3,000 to $5,000 off. $3,500 off. So that's the standard, get them back in the door technique. You can't let them out with a real price, because if you let them, meaning you,

the buyer, out with a real price, you will do something outrageous. You will take the real price and you'll shop and compare it. And car buyers are not allowed to do that. You can only buy from the dealer that you go into the first time. So they're not going to give you the real price because they don't want their real price to be. As I say this, it just sounds so absurd.

That's the system, folks. So if you want the real price at Hollywood, Toyota, you've got to go back in. And then he might be able to give another $3,000 to $3,500 off. So when you go into another dealership, a Toyota dealership, you're thinking, well, maybe I can buy that for $3,500 less. It plays on like a person's like gambling senses in their brain. It's like, I'm going to roll this dice and something good's going to come up.

And the guy that you left to go get to $3,500, which you probably won't get, he tells you the same thing. If you come back, I have one of the, one dealer we shop one time, he would have his, uh, he would have his, uh, he would say to the customer if you're streaming me I'm taking out my business card now he'd say he'd hold up the business card he says

I've got your best price written here and I'll show it to you when you come back right I mean is that childish maybe that worked in the 40s anyway

he explained that he would have more sales managers on and if I bring the sheet back with me he will get a great deal from another manager whether it's possible It's working as managers. And that's what, that's what it is, it's Russian roulette, the price is, you can get three different prices, probably from three different salespeople.

On the same day. And then you've got three different managers. There is no price. It's just the price that you end up with. And it's a crazy game. And if you like that, then come on down to South Florida. Yeah. If you love to haggle and you love to argue and you love to negotiate South Florida is the negotiation.

grounds of champions for the car buyer. So with that said, remember, as I say every week after the mystery shopping report, we grade of the curve. You cannot give a dealer an F, a failing grade, if all the other dealers are doing the same thing. And the grade based on how much more than outrageous stuff are dealers doing than the other dealers. That way you get an average. So an average dealer is not doing a very smart, nice job, transparent jobs. You give me a C.

A great dealer, which you see once in a blue moon, you give me an A. We have practically none of those. F, same thing. We don't have very few Fs, although we do give Fs when there is something that is blatantly illegal. And we can't use Benroney labels because all dealers take the bernone labels off. So we'd have to fail all dealers on the money. on the real label. Do they get points for the Christmas tree?

There's a Christmas tree. That's why I asked about the open bar. And the whole Wild West Saloon. If that stand, if that stand, that Christmas tree is five or six stands tall. Wow. Well, maybe four. That's huge. Ladies and gentlemen, you can text your vote at, I got the text number, 7-7-2, 4-9.

The pain has taken over. Oh, no. Well, the show is almost done. We're wrapping this up. We have some grades coming in. Jonathan and Palm Coast, I'll give this dealership an F to the junk fees, hidden costs, and ridiculous games. Everybody does this, then everybody deserves an F.

And that's a good point. Some teachers don't grade on the curve, and everybody gets an F. from Bob Toyota of Hollywood has a Christmas tree in May and I am giving them a lump of coal F for their Christmas stocking Okay

All right Steve Beep beep I think Yes this is Roadrunner Steve If they had an open bar I would have bought the car Roadrunner Steve Where's the grade? Steve Okay

I feel like we We definitely have a disconnect with our audience on the grading but it's hard to, you have to. That was nothing big. What they did, that's typical. And it was actually kind of pleasant. You know, it wasn't pressure.

It was just the same stuff. Yeah, the only place you could buy cars are a car dealership, so if we flunked all the car dealers, you wouldn't have a car. Right. Exactly. The whole point in the show is not to funnel everybody back to us because we don't sell Hondas and Mercedes, you know. But anyway, but as far as buying a Toyota, I wouldn't have had a bad time there.

I'm going to give them a C because it's just, you know, that's what happens, South Florida. Okay, I've got Cliff's Picks says, addendum, not for me. I would walk away. I would never go to a dealer prior to calling for the out-the-door price. Also, must send the final out-the-door price. D. D. Okay.

Sorry about that, folks. Tom Steggle. No Monroney, junk fees, and return trip requested. Take the bright line to West Palm Beach and buy EST. D. Mark Smith, D for disappointing. Mark Ryan, D minus. Brian said Latko, I don't like the market adjustments.

They deserve a D. Joseph Kelleher, D minus. Johnny Z. Fradley, F plus. Plus, plus. Okay. This pick says, I wonder if Earl would pick you up. He might.

Jeffrey Bandis says D. Darren Seichen, D. For me, I'm agreeing with Stu. I think they're average middle of the road, especially for that area of South Florida. Give them just a flat sea. Yeah, they got great decorations. Maybe they should have spent that money.

on training salespeople how to be human beings a little more and treating customers right. True. Yeah, I'm going to go, and that's you go first. First, I want to say to the ladies, you know, you too can vote, and I'm encouraging you. If not now, next week we have a mystery shopping report every single week, and your vote is extremely important

and how you were treated. and what you paid for a car, whether you leased it, whether you bought it, whether it was used. So, let's all get involved, ladies. Please, I'm still building the platform, even with grades. My grade is a D, a D as in David. I'm going to go with a C, and it's, understanding this is South Florida. Maybe this dealership in another geographical location, I might have come up with a lower grade. But when you think about Sodom and Gomorra of South Florida, they're in the heart of this district.

One thing we didn't do, and we needed to ask Agent Lightning to always check advertisements. I was going to say one of the things they do because they are at, like you said, they're at the center of that area. And they drive the market with their advertising because they're also very, for a long time, they did the, you know, this pre-pandemic and advertising to use cars as new cars and very low on a table of prices. So that forces everybody around them,

and it's a ripple effect. And it corrupts the whole market. Yeah, going into the past, when we shopped Hollywood Toyota before, we would look at advertisements and they were particularly cunning and deceiving in a way they very cleverly, with the fine print and other areas, fooled a lot of people about the worst thing they used to do,

and I don't know that they do this anymore, maybe not. But a few years back, they were advertising new cars, the impression of a new car when it was really a used car. And they were actually titling rental cars and with no miles on them and using one of those as a bait and switch. So you buy a title car automatically, whether it's got no miles on it or not. Once the car's been titled, you are suffering depreciation,

and the price you pay is usually too much. But I'm going to stick with my C. For the experience. They have a D-minus rating on the Better Business Bureau. Really? Yeah. Amazing. That means that they don't receive.

respond to the complaints. That's the only way you can get lower than an A. If you respond to all your complaints, you get an A plus. If you don't respond, they start lowering your grade. We'll have to check some of the other dealers. Usually, they also have a one out of five average review. Stars. Wow. But, you know, Agent Lightning had a nice time. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Do we have any more time? We do. Yeah, I just had one thing I want to say about because personally Nancy and I

and Stu know Jim Farley because he was with Toyota years ago and we personally we know him he headed up the Sion division a very moral honest, transparent kind of a guy he's now president of Ford

and they're attacking him in all the book of news because Ford's losing a lot of money look a little beyond the fact that Ford is losing money. The reason for it is losing money in this article in the automotive news is they spent

$3 billion on repairing cars, new cars, trucks actually, with a recall campaign. And they didn't deliver them to the dealers, and they couldn't. So they basically had trucks. They would not sell to the dealers

to make a profit until they finally fixed them. And it costs them $3 billion. dollars. Now, you might say what's terrible, they have all these cars that weren't built right, but I say the fact that they had the courage to look

at the stockholders in the eye and Wall Street in the eye and say, I'm not going to sell these. How many manufacturers sell these cars and they have recalls and they say the hell with it and they don't even fix them after they deliver them. Chances are, if you can get the recall car delivered, you'll never

see it again. Seventy-five percent of the cars never... He knows. that. Great information. He knew that as well. Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget to go to big dog ranch rescue.org. Take a look at Lassie. She's waiting for a home.

We'll be right back here next week. Same time on the Oldies Channel. Have a great weekend, and we'll see you then. Bye-bye.