Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.06.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of I-95 Nissan

Episode Date: May 6, 2023

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

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's 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. Hey, guess what? I'm really here in the studio. This is live. I want to thank all of you that have stuck with us for the past three weeks. I had an unexpected accident. I broke my Achilles tendon. I guess I should say I severed my Achilles tendon, and I got a boot on them.

And I got the boot for probably another three or four weeks. But the show stars today. Thank you so much for tuning us in. We just got to make sure they don't use this show as a rerun at any point in the future. Yeah, we'll be sure that they use this as a rerun. Right, exactly. You just assured everybody it was live. So anyway, here we are back, and it's just good as ever.

I mean, we really miss doing the show, and I hope you, regulars out there, if you didn't listen to the real ones, I hope you missed this too. We've got a lot of stuff to cover with you this morning, and we're at the turning point of this crazy, crazy market that we've been experiencing for over three years now. The COVID pandemic, the supply chain interruption, economic chaos, car dealers getting filthy, rich i mean filthy rich i've got a rent in the automotive news this week that a car dealer just paid a record price for a home in palm beach florida a record by now if you're not in this area or you don't know that much about palm beach let me tell you there are no cheap homes in palm beach but we have a car dealer in fact a local car dealer and we'll talk about it later that paid a hundred and fifty million dollars for a home

and it's unbelievable the gluttony that we've experienced over the past three years and dealers are getting rich. Rick? The best part is I heard it's not even really a home. It's an apartment above a jewelry

store. You heard wrong. It is a home. Oh, yes it is. Okay. Yes, it is. I must have heard of a different one then. It might be another car dealer that bought that one. Anyway, thanks for being here. We got the whole crew. I got Nancy Stewart to my left, as you all know, she's co-founder of the show. We usually

say we've been doing this show for 20 years. I've got to tell you a little side story here. We've been doing this show for 20 years. The shows are the studios on the second floor, and we always take the elevator. That elevator has run fine for 20 years. This morning, guess what? I got a severed Achilles tendon and a boot on my foot, and the elevator doesn't work. Now, I smell foul play, and I'm going to be investigating Ed Napleton in his dealers. I think an

evil dealer... Sabotage. The elevator to keep me off the air. Anyway, I had to say that. Of course, I'm only joking. You know what their mistake was? No. Do they really think they can stop you? Well, I surprised myself. You're unstoppable. I got up. I got up the stairs.

These boots were made for walking. Anyway, Nancy Stewart, these are strong female advocate and I know you ladies in the audience and missed her you new callers will know why you missed her shouldn't have missed her but she'll tell you this all about this in a minute but it's a matter of looking at how women view life how women view business I oh we have a phone call and we always stop everything we do with phone calls so we will now welcome our

first caller or Nancy Stewart will Yes, absolutely. But first I want to save $50, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call toll free at 877-960. If you others want to text us this morning, you can do so at 772-497-6530. We are going to go to Jennifer, who is a first-time caller from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Jennifer. Good morning. How are you? We're well. Thank you. Thanks for calling Earl on Cars. You are a first female caller this morning. Therefore, you win yourself $50. So if you'll stay on the line when we're finished talking, you can give your contact information to Jeremy and he'll give it to me and I'll send you that check. Perfect. Great. So what can we do for you? Okay. First of all, thank you for taking my call this morning. I purchased a Jeep

2023 Wrangler hybrid. And I know, Earl, how you feel about jeeps, but this is my sixth one. I wish I had a Jeep franchise. They're a hot car. I love a Jeep. This is my first hybrid. Ordered it, took possession like December,

and in January, I notice that I'm short. so I sit very high up and I noticed not long after I took possession that I was kind of down a little bit lower in the seat now the seat are manual okay so there's nothing electronic in the seat and sure enough

I would use the lever and sure enough I was going down and I would have to raise myself back up so I reached out to the dealership where I bought it and they said bring it bring it back in let's take a look at it so i bought it down in delray i took it to our friends right around the corner here in napleton and i ended up taking it back there three times and i three times i got you know first i got a shrugging of the shoulders there's nothing wrong with it uh then i got well that's just the way it is then i got you know well maybe it's this

And so after I was getting absolutely nowhere, I called Jeep, and they said, it was actually like a Jeep, Jeep Wave, they call it. They said, you need to take it back to where you purchased it. Okay, fine. So I make the appointment down there, take it in, and I explained to them, listen, someone short needs to sit in this car. You need to keep it for at least two days. okay i said because that's what it's happening it's happening over a course of one and a half to two days and um so they took it they told me they see exactly what's going on and that they're going to keep it overnight and they're going to see what they can do great fantastic the following day

i get a phone call oddly enough telling me there's nothing wrong with it it's just the way it is wait that the seat is settling to the highest gear i said wait a minute why would the seat go all the way up and not lock in that's just the way it is that's the way it's not meant to go up that high why does it i don't know it's just the way it is and it's meant to slowly go down to the right position over two days uh-huh and every jeep does this i said really Jennifer, what you just described is probably one of the most chronic problems that car dealership service departments have. So there's two things that I recommend you do. You should contact Jeep, you know, that's just Atlantis is the corporate name directly, and register your complaint, not just by phone, but confirm it in writing.

When you do that, they'll have to contact the Jeep dealer. This might require a technical support from the manufacturer, and even though Napleton is not competent there to fix it, they might send in a factory rep to show them how to fix it. The other thing you can do is take it to a different Jeep dealer, because it sounds to me like you have a legitimate gripe. I would use this in my verbiage when I'm communicating with Jeep and when I was communicating with dealers, that this is a safety issue with you. Safety issues get everybody's attention because then lawyers get involved.

If you were to have an accident, heaven forbid, and the reason of the accident is your visibility wasn't good enough because the seat was too low and they sold you this car knowing who was buying it, then it would really be a lot of trouble for the dealer and possibly the manufacturer. So when you communicate, say, I can't drive safely because my seat,

will not elevate to the maximum lock-in to the maximum level. And by the way, it's interesting. I didn't know until the other day in Automotive News that Jeep didn't have power seats. I thought all cars had power seats. So you have a manual seat. And this hybrid, by the way, that you bought is quite popular. Is that a plug-in hybrid, Jennifer, you got, or is it just a regular hybrid? No, it is a plug-in.

Yeah, and I love it. That's the hottest car out there. And, you know, I do say negative things about Jeeps, but there are a lot of great things who are talking about this vehicle. The vehicle you have, I think, potentially, you're going to love it because the preliminary reception from all the customers that have bought it have been fantastic. Jeep said that they spent a long time on this because they wanted to get it exactly right. So I think getting the factory involved and maybe a new dealer is the answer to your problem.

Well, let me just, I did take it to two dealers. I took it to Napleston around a corner first because they were closer. And then I took it down to Schumacher in Del Rey, which is where I purchased it. Oh, okay. When I told Schumacher, I feel it's a safety issue. They shut me right down. Really? And then they wouldn't take my phone.

Yes, then they wouldn't take my phone. The safety, or the service department refused to call me back. Wow. Well, that's really interesting, Jennifer. I might include Channel 5 or the local media in this because that's terrible. Rick has waving up here. Yeah, I would do one little bit of homework first. Just to kind of load up the weapons even more, take a ruler and at one specific point on your seat,

measure from the seat to the floor when it's at that maximum height and do that each day for about a week. and see, does it go down just a certain amount and stop and remain there, or does it continue to go down? Because if it continues to go down over the course of an entire week, then you definitely have a safety issue because at that point, this seat can no longer be considered solidly locked in place if it's continually dropping. It's always moving. And you could be put in a position where you're totally out of control of your car in an accident. So I would measure that exact spot and take video or photos of it each time to document it. That's good advice, Jennifer. Be sure when you communicate, because as you say, they wouldn't talk to you,

communicate in writing email or even text, and they do use. Don't let them stop you from using that safety issue because it is a safety issue. And when you are on record of having a safety issue, they have to help you. So communicate that in riding to Stalantis and to Schumacher and to Napleton, all three dealers that you visited. And then Rick's advice is good, too, but I'm really sorry to go through this. The good news is, from everything I've heard about this new Jeep, it's an amazing vehicle. And you've got to get this thing fixed, obviously, but I think you made a good buy. You're going to love that once they get that seat fixed.

And Jennifer, great. Jennifer, I just want to let you know that, you know, as Earl said, you really bought a great vehicle. And, you know, it's really annoying that with such an important feature that you need, that you were shot done like you were, and you spent money on a vehicle, you want all the safety features, and here you are driving your, and I'm short, and I know I need visibility. We all do. At any rate, that is a safety issue. And am I to assume right now, Jennifer, that the position that you're driving in is at its lowest? Well, every day I have to jack it back up all the way to the highest.

Okay. Every day. And so? And I have been taking video every single day because I feel like, one, they don't believe me. And I'm like, you know, why would I go? through, I mean, I've been dealing with this since January. Why would I be going through all of this if it wasn't a true issue? Absolutely.

Part of it, Jennifer, and all the folks listening now, when you have a dispute with a dealer, for that matter, any business, be sure to convert it into words, written words. And that's the best thing about email and text today. Once you go on record, then suddenly they take you more seriously. But it's easy to ignore somebody verbally. But when that comes out in court and you have a written document supporting it, it gets their attention. So I think you will be getting an immediate response when you go to writing. And Jennifer, we really want you to stay in touch with us and follow up and, you know, let us know what happened.

I will. And if I could just say one more thing, I don't want to keep up to take up too much of your time. But Nancy, thank you for being an advocate for females. And if there are any females listening, just do your homework and don't let a male-driven industry deter you. Just stick with it. You know, females are a lot smarter, and we have a whole lot of resources so that we can do our homework. And you just really have to stick up for yourself. Nancy, thank you.

I couldn't have said it any better. Jennifer. And the women know today that in this industry, I'll tell you what, it's a financial disaster for car dealers not to recognize us. We have moved in to the 21st century, and not everyone has gotten that memo, but they're getting it loud and clear by women like you. Yep. Thank you so much. And like you. Thank you. Thank you. Stay on the line. Give Jeremy your information. Okay, we are going to go to Mike, and Mike's calling us from Jupiter. Good morning, Mike.

Good morning, Nancy. Good morning, Earl. Good morning. I hope you're feeling better, Earl. Much better. Thank you for asking. I have a warranty question. Sure. I purchased my Lexus at Auto Nation in West Palm Beach. And I'm wondering, can I come in to your dealership for service and not void the warranty?

Yes, you can bring it in for service or any toilet dealer. A warranty work has to be done by a Lexus dealer. But you probably are not going to have a lot of warranty work. And maintenance, I always recommend not just for Lexus owners, but if you bought an Infinity, I'd say take it to a Nissan dealer. And if you bought a Cadillac, take it to a Chevrolet. dealer. The manufacturers, expensive brands always cost a lot more money. They know that Lexus buyers have more money than Toyota buyers, so they charge more for everything. So yeah,

do your maintenance at a toilet dealership and any non-warranty repairs, but everything warranty is not going to cost you anything, so take it back to Palm Beach Lexus. And they're not going to give me any pushback if I had any warranty No, no. We would have the record. And if you didn't want to use my dealership or another Toyota dealership, all manufacturers like Toyota dealers, Honda's, any dealership has a record of your repair. What you have to be careful of is you use an independent repair or you do it yourself. You could even get credit for doing maintenance yourself if you have a written record. It's not as important to the manufacturer as long as you have it in writing.

But, yeah, get a copy of the repair ticket wherever you go. Right, and I also own a hybrid, and I'm very happy with it. I would never attempt to do any type of work in the vehicle myself. I would have only a Toyota or a Lexus mechanic or have them work on it, or you folks. And I do appreciate your help today. Well, thank you, Mike. I appreciate the call very much. Thank you, Mike.

Okay, bye-bye. Stay in touch. 877-960-960, or you can text us at 772-492-497-6-530. And don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. And I do have to mention this also that's really important for all of you out there. And if you, you know, find that a dealer is breaking the law, you know, you can take and you can go to W.W.W. Florida Law Protecting Carbuyers.com. That's www. Florida Law Protecting Car Dealers.com. Take advantage of that. Don't let them take

advantage of you. Let your voice be heard. 877-960. 9960. Now back? Well, we're not going to go back to the recovering car dealer. We're going to give him a little break. we are going to go to the roadrunner, and that's Roadrunner, Steve. He is a regular caller, and we're always so happy to hear from him and for him to share his energy with us. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. I'm glad you're back. I had two boring weekends without talking to you.

Oh, thank you. But the best is good. Okay, the lady with the jeep, when I sit in my road room, it's a low seat. I put a pillow underneath me to raise me up. that's a good idea are they getting rid of AM radios and cars that's what they're doing

and actually you can still access AM via the streaming and many of the newer cars now have streaming capacity so you can stream a radio Wi-Fi or radio

AM indirectly but yeah they're taking the basic old-fashioned AM off. Most cars now. Here's the other thing. This is more important. I was listening to a retired fire marshal, and he was talking about the batteries in the electric cars.

Now, we all know a fire needs oxygen to breathe, correct? Yep. He says when these batteries burn, they create their own oxygen with this. So is there any firemen out there? can add war to this story about this? We got any firemen out there? Rick works with the firemen.

Well, the lithium batteries that are in the cars now, in the electric cars, and in a lot of the hybrid cars also, they're a sealed unit for the most part, but once they begin burning, they burn at such a temperature that, yes, oxygen is actually one of the off gases, and it literally can feed itself. The rules are for firemen, when they approach these vehicles, they cannot always tell, even if the car is on fire,

except by using temperature guns on them to read the temperature of the car, and then they just, all they can do is just keep dowsing it with water to reduce the heat until it puts it out. And even once the car goes to an impound yard, then it has to be kept away from other vehicles for a minimum of a week. Thanks, Rick. So it's, yeah, it's quite a situation. So they don't, they use water. They wouldn't use like a foam type stuff?

No, because you can't get it into the battery where the fire is. You know, Steve, a Tesla caught fire locally here at the Tesla dealership on Oak Cherby Boulevard. It was sitting on the front line and nobody was anywhere around it and it burst into flames. I had the fire department. I think it was a total loss. So I hate to say that because I'm a Tesla advocate and Nancy and I drive it. Tesla but the fact of the battery matter is lithium batteries occasionally this happens and that was I'm hoping they come up with a solution I don't know that was it doesn't happen a lot but that's easy for me to say all it takes is one time for your car to catch you on fire and

that was the middle of the night and there were several cars several Teslas at that Tesla dealership to caught fire so these people that own Tesla is I suggest you don't park them in the garage next to your house i suggest you park them outside or apart if you have an enemy park in his driveway so every time i parked the tesla um i tell you what i just you know i'm doing a lot of driving these days and i plug it in i turn around and i look at her and i said don't catch fire tonight you know i mean maybe it's crazy for me to think like that but there's so many fires starting let me put this in perspective for for those listening and you too steve and everybody If you look at the number of fires in hybrids and EVs,

percentage-wise, they have fewer fires than combustion engine cars. So it's a percentage game we play. I mean, we all know that during a thunderstorm, there's a chance we get hit by lightning, and there's nothing we can do about it. So when you're driving a car, there is a chance of fire, an injury, and death, but if you buy a combustion engine car, your chance to die in the fire percentage-wise or higher than if you have an electric vehicle.

So it's, you know, it still makes me uncomfortable to read about these lithium batteries, but I've got to go with the statistics. Okay, okay. I'm glad everybody's back. Stay safe and well. Have a good weekend. Thank you, Steve. Bye, bye-bye.

Look forward to hearing from you again. Hey, Earl, which do you fear more driving with me in the Tesla? or the Tesla catching fire? Or the battery. I'm not going to discuss that on the air, but I have to. Nancy has picked on me for my driving habits. Now I can't drive,

so she's not only my nurse, but she's my chauffeur. So she's been driving me around. And I have some stories to tell about how good she drives. So we'll talk about that off the air. I guess it's a Tesla. Is it your left foot or right foot that was injured?

Your right foot? Right foot, yeah. So you have also an instinct to try like ghost break when you're in the passenger seat when somebody else is driving right so it'd be painful for you ghost break how about the screaming and the hollering

that's funny there's a love good grief Nancy as I say it isn't good grief no it is definitely not definitely not hey it's a Tesla you know you've got to put her on the road you've got to put her to the test

I was thinking about that the Jeep with the seat what's a chance you think that is a future recall? I mean, if it's something that's happening if they're saying that's just the way it does, they all go up to a high position and slowly settle, at some point, I mean, it's got to be enough people who are shorted in a statured. That's analogous to the situation that we had with Toyota

with melting dashes, the shiny dashes. And the way we got, I'm not hate to brag, but we got Toyota to do a recall on the Toyota, because, because the dashes were cracking, and the way we got their attention is we said it was a safety issue. And when safety came up, they had a meeting of the lawyers, and they said, good grief, we better fix that. And it had begun to get some coverage in the media. We had a lot of customers, even independent, were contacting the local media describing it. And then they came out and we showed them the dashes that we had taken off, and they could see what the, you know, what the

material turned into. Most complaints were just, gosh, I got a new car here and just a a couple of years later, the dash is cracking. But what got my attention when one customer said, you know, it's hard for me to see because the dash actually melts and the sun reflects off the melted dash. I said, bingo, that's where we're going with this. And it worked. Hopefully people listening to the show who might have experienced the same thing

can make the same calls that Jennifer's doing and maybe they'll get the same kind of attention, get that going, get a critical mass, and something will get done. Great here. You heard it from Stu. 877-9-60-99-60 you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30 and you can go to anonymousfeedback.com and Rick has something to say. Speaking just of Jeeps, have you heard of the new tradition that is going viral with Jeep owners in their community? Oh, thanks. I don't know.

It's called ducking with a D, D-U-C-K-I-N-G. And what's happening is Jeep owners are getting little rubber ducks with a little card on explaining what it is. And if they see another Jeep that they really like the Jeep, they like the upgrades, they think it looks really nice, they'll put it on the door handle of this Jeep. And the idea is it's a compliment to someone saying, hey, I like your vehicle. The little card explains it. And it encourages them to go buy rubber ducks of their own and spread them around on jeeps that they like. I just thought it was an acute, friendly thing that the Jeep owners are doing in their community.

Yeah, an acknowledgement. And it's spreading like crazy. It's kind of crazy. It's nice to have something spread like crazy that's sweet. So, listen to the show people think we're Jeep dealers, weren't we? Yeah. Come on down and check out the ringler Sahara. Yeah, let me, we've been saying too much nice about Jeep.

Let's knock it down. Let me, all you potential buyers out there, If you fall in love with a Jeep, it's a really cool car. I'm tempted to buy a Jeep because it looks so cool. Unfortunately, if you do the deep analysis, and I recommend consumer reports, you'll find out that from a safety, a maintenance, a resale, I back off resale. They probably have good resale. But from a safety and operation maintenance standpoint, a lot of other reasons,

they rank very low. So they don't have a good rating. in terms of reliability and the cost of operation of the rest of it, but they sure do look good on the road. So let's get off the Jeep subject. What else we go? Yeah, back to the ladies, $50 for the next new lady caller. I hope you're all out there listening,

and you heard what Jennifer said, and it's, you know, women often get ignored or patronized, and they're, you know, they're buying experience, leasing, service, you know, whatever. it doesn't go so well, but not all the dealers know that it's a new day, it's a new age, and it is the 21st century, and we do do our homework because it's a minefield out there. So give me a call, $50 for the next new lady caller, 877960, 9960, where you can text us at 772-497-6530. We're going to stay with the phones, and we're going to go to Bob. I believe in Del Rey.

Good morning, Bob. Good morning. How are you all doing? We're well, thank you. Good. I'm glad you're feeling better. Thank you. I have a question for Rick.

I recently bought a 2018 Camry, and I got to tell you, I absolutely love it. However, the screen where the radio and so forth, every now and then, it goes dark on me. It's just like if I get Tim, then it gets Pride again. Tim and Friday, can any clue?

Yep. There's a software update available through Toyota for that. If you stop at the dealership, they can perform that update, and it should take care of that problem for you. Oh. That was easy. That's a good one. That was easy.

Bob, Rick gave you the exact right advice. For those listening, what Rick described is something in the trades is called the technical repair bolton. TRB, is that what it is? TSB, technical service bulletin. And this is an internal thing between the manufacturer and the dealer. The public never knows about that. So what this is, they call also hidden warranty. That's one of the words that the disgusted consumers and car owners used to distinguish.

describe this. The manufacturer knows there's a problem, but they don't want to pay to fix it unless the customer complains. Every manufacturer does this. So when you go into a car dealership for repair, always ask to see the technical repair, the TSBs, technical service bulletins on your car. They can put the VIN number in their computer and it'll pop out the technical service bulletins. We were told by, Toyota a while back because when we were aware of a technical service issue, we would tell our customers. Toyota says you can't do that. You can't fix a car unless the customer complains. And I guarantee you if Toyota does it, Honda and everybody else, General Motors and all the Ford dealers, they do the same thing. If the customer doesn't complain, let him ride.

If he complains and notices the problem, then you can fix it free under the technical service bulletin is the hidden warranty. They don't want you to know about it. The regular warranty is in writing in your honors manual and you'd be surprised at the number of technical service buildings on any car.

I mean how many there are thousands and thousands of technical service bulletins if you look at all the current cars on the road. So remember that. Technical service bulletin hidden warranty and

oftentimes the dealer doesn't know about himself. The service advisor you're talking to doesn't know about it. There's so many of them, you have to actually ask them to reference it in the computer. It comes up automatically now with... Well, yeah, they will when we run a health check, but all the technical service bulletins within a couple days of them going through Toyota, they're available on the internet as well for customer I... Oh, great idea.

Yeah, just say, give the year-make model. your car and say that you have an issue with whatever and then say are there any technical service bulletins on this and Rick just said you can pop it up there you'll know about it print it out and bring it into the dealer because he probably doesn't know about it and the manufacturer doesn't want you to know about it but they will fix it free oh that's the first thing I look for oh you're smart I mean uh Rick makes his living repairing cars and if he can find a car that has a legitimate need to repair especially when it's it's free to the customer, he'll say, he'll tell the customer,

hey, you didn't mention this, but we could do this for you, and Toyota will pay for it. So, TSP, Technical Service Bullison. Right, I wrote that down. I wrote that down. Thank you for that. And I did have a question, but I'm at the age where it slips away now and again, sorry. We'll call back.

It happens to me all the time. Have a great day, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Stay in touch. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-4976530. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. We are going to stay with the phones this morning, and we're going to talk to Marty,

who's giving us a call from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Marty. Welcome back. Good morning. Glad you're back. Hope Earl is doing better. He is. Okay, two comments.

first comment with the crazy people now with guns, I would tell Rick, I don't want to put something on somebody's car because you don't know if they see you coming up to their car whether they'll shoot you. Very true. That's the first thing. So I'd stay away from anybody's car. And starting July 1st in Florida, people do not need to go for a pistol carry permit. They can get it without.

I'd stay away from anybody's car. But here's my Toyota question. Okay. Okay. I'm waiting now. I'm in my 15th month waiting for my Camry XLE hybrid. Somebody told me, though, if you're driving, let's say you're going for a 200-mile trip, so now the car is running on gasoline, are you still getting a lot better mileage because you have

hybrid or is it going to run like just a gasoline car you get better balance because it's a hybrid you're you're sometimes it uses a battery it doesn't use the gasoline all the time so in city driving with a braking and deceleration acceleration you're generating more power into your battery and so that's the reason you get better gas mileage with the hybrid it has a combustion engine but it also runs off the electric motor and the combination of the two gives you better mileage than a straight combustion engine so though but if you're driving let's say on the term pike and you're going a couple hundred miles you're still going to

get better mileage even though you're driving straight oh you know not but you won't be using the battery you'll be using a right you'll be using just the if you keep it at a safe you know steady speed the only time if you're on the turnpike that the battery would cut in is if you had to stop and start again or going to a service plaza. But on a straight cruise control type of trip, like at 55 or 60 miles an hour, you're doing strictly combustion engine, and the battery's just sitting there, the electric motor is just sitting there doing nothing.

So what I'm saying is for that trip, you're really not getting any benefit of hybrid. That's true, yes. Okay. All right. Somebody told me that I didn't know whether it's true or not. Well, you, it's, but on every trip, I mean, if you stop for gas, if you stop to go, use the restroom, if you stop to sidestee, I don't know too many people that take a trip and never take their foot off, to take it off cruise control. Anytime you're off cruise control, you're probably decelering, accelerating, or stopping, and you always get to help the little kick from the battery and the electric motor when that happens. Okay. And also on the camera, do get there rejuvant.

regenerative breaking, too, on a Camry hybrid? Yes. Okay. All right. All right, very good. Glad again, you're back and live. Thanks, Marty. We missed you, too, by the way.

All right. And, Marty, thanks for your patience. Yeah. Thank you for your patience. I feel your pain. All right. Have a good day. Have a great weekend.

We're going to go to Ron, who's calling us from Summerfield, Florida. Good morning, Ron. Good morning. I have a question for Rick. Rick, I have a 2022 Rav4 Hybrid Limited. It came with wheels that are two shades of gray, not a polished, high-gloss wheel. I don't like that dark look on my wheels, and I know it's kind of a silly thing, but I like something that's kind of brilliant. And so I went on eBay, and out on the West Coast, they have a tire dealer out there who apparently takes wheels off new cars and then gives people maybe custom wheels. They have original factory wheels that seem to be a high-gloss aluminum or high-gloss finish on the wheel. Do they sell a different wheel for cars out on the West Coast than they did?

here in Florida? That may actually be an option available by their distributor or it could be that Southeast Toyota put on the wheels that are on yours and it may be the factory wheels have a higher gloss. It's hard to really say because wheels can be, they can swap all over the place anymore and it's a very straightforward situation to do where we can simply reprogram the tire sensors and boom you're all set and going again but if you if you prefer to have a different set of wheels that's one of the easier straightforward things you can do to dress up your

vehicle and make it more personalized also more expensive things to do not true yeah you know the wheel is identical to mine it's just that you know a lot of new cars have that black look and it's you know, not polished. I'm old school. I like something that has a little bit more chrome to it. Right. So these wheels, I've looked at two sets of them now. And just looking at the picture, they look like they're just a high gloss chrome wheel. The same identical wheel, but just different. So I thought maybe it was a weather thing here or something else that they used a different type of wheel. It may be just that's. Southeast Toyota is our distributor. And they quite often like to put a lot of their accessories

onto vehicles just because they can. It's just one of the things they do. Ron, I just had a crazy idea. What if you went online or through the online sources, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, and the rest of it, and explain your situation, or maybe go to a chat room for people that have a raphors also of your make and wheels say you want to swap wheels.

I'd like to swap wheels with you. Maybe you find someone that's got the wheels you got, would rather have your wheels and you'd rather have their wheels. You might be both save money that way. That's a great idea. I think I'll do that. Well, either can be your friend. There we go.

As long as the rims are the same size, the only thing you've got to do is, and it actually, since they're going to break down and swap the time, tires anyways, the sensors can simply be swapped over to the new wheels, and they don't even need to be reprogrammed that way. Yeah, yeah. Well, Rick, I'm sorry, Earl, you upset my weekend for two weeks. I didn't know what to do with myself during the normal showtime.

I had to go find something to do. Awesome, nicest compliment I've had. Thank you. And so I'm really glad you're back here. You really upset my schedule for the week. that happened to a few of us you think you upset your schedule have you ever tried to sleep with a boot on

and ask your wife if she's ever slept with anybody with a boot on Nancy's black and blue and I finally took the boot off when I sleep now but that first three weeks was really tough it's been a special journey

really makes us to appreciate girl I've got you beat So when I was younger, I was hit by a car, and my blade was broken in such a fashion that I had to stay in a cast, a solid cast, for a whole year. Oh, my. So I feel your pain. Wow. I feel like I was hit by a car this morning.

It was a pleasure talking to you, Ron. Let us know what happened, what you decided. I will do. I'll get back to you and let you know. Bye-bye. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to John in Palm City. he definitely is a regular caller been with us through thick and thin welcome john good morning

good morning i have a question for rick uh rick actually all cars um gasoline powered cars are running on electric current and that's through a alternator now a question i have for you is if i'm say on 95 going in the middle of nowhere and all of a sudden the fan belt or the rub the belt for the alternator breaks or the alternator freezes up will my engine completely stopped or is there enough for it to run on the battery you can actually run on the battery probably for depending on the the health of the battery itself 15 20 maybe even 30 minutes and this actually happened to me one morning i got in my truck started the engine I heard a weird noise under the hood, a slap and a flap.

And my battery light came on, and I realized that my alternator belt had just broken. And I didn't hesitate. I popped it in gear, and I started driving. I figured, well, if it dies, I'll just get it towed to the shop. And I made it to the dealership 25 miles on the turnpike, made it all the way to the dealership with plenty of battery power, put a new belt on that afternoon, and it was fine. Rick is a gambler.

I never knew that. I took a chance. And that one won. What I want to ask you is if a car has like 140,000 miles on it, and it's going to wear out the alternator eventually, what is the average life that an alternator today will last on today's standards? And if it goes, or can it be tested before? You know, you can check the what amperage, I guess it produces.

What is the average life of an alternator? An alternator can easily be tested. But unless it's actually on its last legs, it's going to show up as good. And there's really no average lifespan on them. I mean, the one in my truck right now has been going now for 10 years, 160,000 miles, just fine. Are they part of the power train? warranty, the alternator? No, three or 36,000. On just about

all cars. If they last that long, they ought to put them on the power train warranty. Alternators, we don't do a whole lot of them on Toyotas, and most other cars now, alternators are pretty solid, but the real winner is the healthier battery, because

the more healthy battery you have, the less hard the alternator has to work to charge up the battery as well as provide electrical power for the whole car while it's driving, and therefore helps the alternator last longer. Now, in the old days, before the alternator, they had a generator and a regulator, and you could extend the generator life with three-and-one oil.

They were like oil cups on the front and back, which if you just put a small amount of oil in it, it would extend the life of the generator, but it looks like an alternator other than testing, there's no way really to extend the life of it, am I correct? Right. And those were, that oil was actually to lubricate the bearings, and a generator was simply designed. It would only charge on what was called a single phase 12 volts DC, whereas an alternator is actually creating three-phase AC current, and the built-in regulator then steps it over to DC and charges the battery backup with DC current. Okay. It has its own rectifier bridge built in. Just one of the fast thing, too, for Earl, I asked my daughter, who's a fashion designer, and she travels all over the world, why the ladies love the Buick so much? She said, Dad, it strictly looks in design.

And the proof that she says is, in China, which America sells, GM sells, like 3 million American cars a year, the number one seller in China of the American cars is Buick, Cadillac, and then Chevy. but Buick in China outsells the Chevy by more than three to one. Amazing. So her opinion as a 47-year-old fashion designer is women love the Buick because of looks and design. Yeah, and you can't understand it, and I can't understand it, but Nancy probably understands. And that's one of our main points about the reason Nancy is so important to this show

is because women do see things. I can't imagine, I look at a Buick, I see a Buick, I see a car, blah, I walk around it. A woman sees a Buick, and they say, I really like that car, and they buy it, and they do buy it. So, you know, we men have to realize that half the planet is made up of females. They see things differently. They understand things differently. They speak differently. and they're very important to your economy, and we need them.

I was looking at why Chinese like Buick's, and it's considered an elite status for a long time historically. Back early on, when only party elites could drive, that's what they were driving, and it became a status symbol. So the average age for a Buick driver in China is 32, and it's over 65 in America. But I'm sure it's changed. but that's, I guess, how it got started.

Yeah. Yeah, and John, let me add this to it. What I'm hearing here in the studio is, you know, a woman just likes the car. She looks at it and she likes it. Not true today. We've moved, as I said, into the 21st century, and a woman is looking right through that car.

She's not only looking at it aesthetically, but she is looking at the interior. and she's imagining what she wants. And once she pops the hood, opens the doors, she sees what she wants. And those brands that I read a couple of weeks ago about female car buyers, that Buick, 55% of women purchase that Buick. Number two, Missibishi. Number three, the mini.

Four, the Lexus. So there is a few cars that we do like, and it's for your own personal needs and for your own personal taste. And I'm glad she's happy. I agree with you. The woman has a lot to do with the purchase of an automobile. Absolutely. Give her my best. Welcome back.

Thank you. Welcome back. Thank you. You can stay tuned for our mystery shopping report that's going to be coming up. And there's a little flashback. What we decided to do was go with something from last month. You'll enjoy it. They're all fabulous, and Stu does a great job.

The word doesn't even do it any justice. He just really puts it together, and he just makes it, you know, more interesting, I'll say. And Amy, well, Amy is next as our... caller and how'd you like that Jonathan I slid yeah hey we're going to go to John in West Palm Beach good morning John hey good morning welcome in this whole subject about the Buick and then and them getting women engineers you know to move things along so it's women friendly one of the things that keeps popping in mind I remember is it was a woman I believe that Ford had done this many years ago, and they bring in these groups, and they

put them around the truck and say, what could we do to make this better for you? And one of the women had said, well, I'd like to be able to walk up to my SUV or the truck, and my arms are loaded with groceries, it would open automatically or something. And that's when they came up with that, you know, waving your foot underneath the bumper and opening the trunk or the tailgate. That came out of that. That's pretty cool. They came out of that.

And I don't remember which company it was, but I think it's great that I think more, I believe they do. It's just better for them. You know, getting the customer input on what they need and that, but they need to take and put them in a place where they're looking at the vehicle and deciding, you know, hey, you know, what makes this better?

Yeah, they're calling it, a female focus group. Yeah, you're right. And, John, that was an interesting article on Ford, and I was just leaping through my nose to see if I could find it. But thanks for mentioning that. It was definitely an interesting article as to how they put that all together with women, as you mentioned. You know, they could take it too far like they did on the Simpsons when Homer Simpsons designed the perfect car.

The Homer. I think we should let women focus groups come up with the input now because otherwise we'll get Homer Simpson cars. And then one last question. I have a friend I work with at school. Her car was one of the casualties of the past tornado. and right now they're in the middle of is it going to be totaled or not how can she go about I'm telling her listen make sure it gets told you don't want that car repaired and you're sitting with a car that has like maybe a rebuilt title how do you guys know on your end

how someone goes about not forcing but really suggesting this car is totaled you guys need to Totally. John, that's a great idea, a thought. You're absolutely right. Too many people don't think about it. They trust their insurance company. You're good hands with Allstate and, you know, like a neighbor next door and all the warm, schmoozy stuff you hear from your insurance companies.

They're hardcore business people and they're out to make a profit like all business people are. Sometimes you have to argue with them. Sometimes you have to hire an attorney. The rule of thumb, it's not a rule of thumb, I believe it's an established rule, that when a vehicle has greater than 75% damage, it has to be totaled. And I think all the insurance companies have a guideline like that. The argument is, is it 75%. So now you have to argue if it's close, if you have a lot of damage on your car, I would take it upon myself to get some independent authorities on car values. to give me a number of the value of that car before and after the accident.

And if it did experience 75% or close to it, then you should insist, put your foot down with your insurance company. And then if that doesn't work, you call an attorney. There are a lot of attorneys out there that specialize in this, and they make a living by just going after insurance company. So you're right. Once that car had a good whack and you've been an accident, it's devalued and that's another reason why you don't want to have to drive it for two more years

and then trade it in because that wreck is going to cost a couple thousand dollars just because it was a wreck even if it was fixed to perfection a wreck car is always going to be less than one that has never been in an accident he wants to know how is anything he can do to kind of push the decision in that direction like can you talk to the insurance agent or the body shop and try and push them You're the owner of the car, you own the policy, the insurance company works for you, you start with them. And then if you don't get the answer that you like, I'm sorry, we don't think it's totaled, it's only 50%. I would get, I would go to the repair shop, I would talk to an attorney. If it's enough to bother you, it's worth a phone call to an attorney.

Well, what I'm going to do is if it hasn't been taken care of, because she told you, me this on Monday. Everything was still fresh, you know, with her, as far as the whole thing. So I'm going to have her contact you guys next week. She can be the first time caller. She can get her 50. And she can ask questions if there's a tree fella. I can't imagine it. I think we're losing you on the connection there. Yeah, you're not clear. Are you on speaker? I think he's in a bad cell area on the cell phone.

Yeah. Well, I guess if you can hear us talk and give you a second and our call back. I got, I'm here. I can hear you now. What I was saying was, it was fresh on Monday that I found out about this. I'm going to have recall your show. If they haven't, wherever they're at in the process, like it's a tree fell on her car.

So I can't imagine it not being less than 75%, because you've crushed in the roof. So anyways, she'll be a first-time caller if I can get her to call you. Okay. I'd appreciate that. Yeah. Well, you might get a whole bunch of things from Jupra High School. I'd appreciate that.

All right. Very good. All right, we'll see you later. Have a great weekend, John. And I saw some of the video, the tornado, a PGA in US one, for the folks who are not in Florida, that's really unusual for us to get tornadoes that do damage like that. Saw a video of the cars getting tossed in the air, like he described, with people in it. And we know somebody through somebody whose uncle was in the car.

He was uninjured, but it got lifted up. That's amazing right there. Yeah, it was crazy. Look on YouTube if you're interested. I was, and I took a look at it. And, you know, between the floods in Fort Lauderdale, all this up this way, unusual weather pattern. Yeah, it was very strange.

Very. Yeah. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 7727-49-2-497-6-530. We're going to take a break on the phone calls because we don't have any, and we're going to get to Stu and to Rick. All right. Well, we have a text. Amory's got a text for us.

She says, good morning. I hope everyone's feeling better. You were missed. Thanks. Glad you're back. I'll repeat my question so you don't have to hunt for my original text. On Wednesday, April 14th, 20203, South Florida's high-speed train, Bright Line,

struck a car carrier, a manufacturer's car carrier that was on the tracks in Hollywood, Florida. I didn't hear about this. Video shows the car carrier split in two with new vehicles flying off the carrier. on impact. News reports did not say where those vehicles were bound for. That makes me wonder. Of course, it made him worry wonder. One, assuming those vehicles were bound for a car dealer, whose insurance, if any, covers the loss of those vehicles, the transport company, the manufacturer the dealer. Well, I can tell you, the dealer had already paid for those vehicles because that was, they ship them after you pay for him. And I get the second question, I'll let Earl do this,

because this is something I would probably refer to him if they smashed into our car carrier. I'm not that's that sounds pretty tragic I hope no one was hurt and I got something to say about bright line after all this is over there's something something about a lot to say about bright line yeah number two how does insurance and shipping work for vehicles going from the manufacturer to dealers whether it's by ship or car carrier thanks and welcome back yeah it's uh Florida and I can't speak for all 50 states I keep forgetting we're international but uh in Florida you cannot sell a car, a new car that has greater than 1% of the MSRP value in damage. And you'd be surprised the number of cars that are damaged. Think about it. As far as cars come now from Japan or other countries and they come by boat, trains, planes and automobiles.

I mean, there are loading cars, off trucks, on the train, railroad cars. And during that process, there's a lot of chance for damage. surprisingly high number of cars are damaged so if you repair it not by trains though not not usually by trains well cars don't come by they're not damaged by trains they're not damaged by the damage getting on and off the train yeah i was talking about the train that smashed through all the cars on and off the boat and things like that i saw the video footage of that yeah the tractor trailer actually high centered on the tracks and couldn't move yeah and it just power with well the point i'm A point I was trying to make, I know that was a lot of fun to see those cars land around,

but you have to, I'm trying to let the listeners know how to be sure when you buy a car, you should always have a check, even a new car, and you should have the representation that there's been no repairs to the car. You should know if there was any damage to the car before you buy it. And that's a great question, whether it was damaged in a train wreck or it was damaged by the, truck driver when he took the car off the truck and delivered to the dealer or was damaged by a salesman who took it on a joyride out on 995 so there's a lot of things you don't know the history of that car until you buy it so have it checked out and be sure there's no damage

at least get a statement from the dealer that there has no been there have been no repairs on this car and we want to know um whose insurance covers it is uh is it on the dealer's insurance the manufacturers or the transporters insurance? Most dealers have very high deductibles on things like that. So if we have a car that is damaged, we repair it. Our insurance wouldn't cover it. But it isn't so important who covers. It's important that when you buy the car, even if it was fixed to perfection,

someone's going to pick up on that when you trade it in and it'll be less. So you want to buy a new car that's worth everything you paid for it, not a deductible because of a damage that you couldn't see. And just Amrich, just from just the other part of your second question, too, before it leaves the actual, at least for Toyota, when it leaves on the car carrier to us, we've paid for it, but everybody's insured to the nines. You've got the car carrier insured, the manufacturing insured, and we're insured.

Before that happens, like when you're saying on the ships at sea and all that, manufacture and the transporters, the ship company, everybody's highly insured. Like when you told us about the Porsches that sank in the Atlantic Ocean, I'm sure they were. A lot of insurance covered that. We're a distributor. We don't buy our cars as a Toyota dealership from Toyota directly to manufacture Southeast Toyota distributors. We buy our cars from them. They buy their cars from Toyota.

and when the cars come into Southeast Toyota, they will do damage repair on cars too. Now, they tell us when they do it, and sometimes they'll even bid on cars that have damage. But if people think of a new car as being pristine, perfect, you'd be surprised how many of them aren't. A lot of them have damage. Well, along those lines, unless we have any on the phone,

Bob had texted us and says, my issue is that in the last two Toyota vehicles, he bought new, both had the front tires wear badly. He wants it to do to the alignment not being correct. He wants to know what percentage of new cars come from the factory with the alignment not correct. And when buying a new vehicle, it would be advisable to request it to be checked before accepting the new one. And that's from Bob. 10%. Um, we, my dealership got into a argument with Toyota over this. A long time ago. A long time ago. and we were getting customers coming back with tires worn out and they bought the car new, you know, six, eight months ago.

And it just didn't make sense. And so we began checking, and then we were charging Toyota for aligning cars. And they got angry at us because they said, we're not going to pay you to do an alignment on a new car. And if the customer complains and brings it back in, then you could do the alignment, and we'll reimburse the customer. So we got to do a big fight about that.

We finally won the argument. It got pretty nasty there for a while, but we check every car for alignment when it comes in new for that very reason. And they'll do it under warranty. They don't want people to know about it. Yeah, exactly. All right. We have another text. Oh, we have a phone.

No, but this is an opportunity for me. everybody was talking about warranties and such Earl's latest column if you want to take a look at it you can go to Earl on cars and you can read the dealer won't repair your car under warranty and if you pick up the hometown news you'll find it there and also in the Florida Weekly so take advantage of that it's a great read the dealer won't repair your car

under warranty that's not fair okay back to Stu Okay. This is from this loss of San Diego. I had a question about hidden fees that we talk about frequently. I'm helping my mother-in-law in a search for a 2023 Kia Nero, which is a new body style hybrid version and proving to be in pretty high demand in our market. When I went to check out one of the dealers,

in addition to the regular sticker, they had the regular sticker, they had an additional sticker, which added in some fees such as nitrogen in the tires, paint sealants, and window and door jam protectors. All of these were overpriced and unnecessary. When I went to a second dealer, they had similar charges, and also on top of that, a market adjustment of $5,000 on top of the price of the car. When I asked the dealers whether they could remove these add-ons, they said they were already installed, but they had some flexibility on the price. A third key dealer had similar additional fees added on, all of which totaled over $2,000. His question is, if dealers are refusing to remove these unnecessary dealer add-ons, what kind of options do I have?

It seems like because of demand for this car, they're all adding on additional fees or market adjustments. Thanks in advance, love the show. What can he do? Well, Stu, you answer that. That's a question that a lot of people have. It is tough because what we've been illustrating over the last, well, it's going on two years now, I think, since the market has upended. This has been very commonplace. So there is this high demand, low supply.

Originally, it started with the manufacturing interruptions chip shortages due to the COVID pandemic. And now it's kind of, it's still jammed up. There's an ominous feedback question that I don't think. be able to get to, but I'll kind of slip the answer in here. He says, well, what's going on? First, the answer is it was a chip shortage. He thinks there's collusion between the dealers and the manufacturers because everybody's making more money. The dealers are clearly making more money, and what you're seeing here is the manifestation of that. They can get away with it because there are people that just have to buy cars right now. My advice is if you can possibly

wait, have your mother-in-law wait until the market cools down. that's probably the best bet because finding a dealer that is limiting themselves, having a pricing policy like very few dealers are sticking to MSRP or lower and not adding on those dealer-added equipment. But so you're in California. The law I know out there limits the dealer fees to a set amount. It might be $100 or $150 or something. I don't know what the law is in California on dealer-installed options.

or addendums like that. So in Florida, it's legal, and it's probably illegal all over the whole country. So the best advice is to wait. The second is just to go on an internet search for her or help her and find a dealer, a Kia dealer that is not charging over MSRP. We haven't found one yet,

and we've been mystery shopping dealers for, well, we've been for 20 years, but in the last two years during this phenomenon. Yeah, you've got a lot of dealers out there in San Diego area, and there's got a whole other Kia dealers Stu's idea about going online I wouldn't go into any key dealership until I went online

and ask for an out-the-door price from half a dozen or more dealers and then when you get to your lowest half-the-door price go buy it from him. Yeah, and if she can wait until 2024, 2025, she'll probably get a great deal on one. And Stu, market adjustment, are we going to see that for a long time?

Well, that slowly fade away and I'm laughing at myself or asking that question. They were using market adjustments before all this started, so then suddenly they had like a, it was like kind of legitimized a little bit by the inventory situation. But yeah, I think it'll probably dwindle down and just the hardcore dealers will be left still doing it. Unfortunate.

Okay, back to Stu and all the texts that are coming in and then we're going to get to Rick. Yeah, do you have any comments over there on YouTube, Rick? I'm going to find a fresh one here. I've actually got an interesting one from Donovan here, two of as a matter of fact. He says, speaking of women designers, the electric F-150 lightning, the chief engineer is a woman, and the current Ford Explorer was designed by a team of women. That's great.

They're getting smart. I mean, it took them a while to wake up, but the manufacturers got to figure it out. That's the article that we talked about. it might have been a month ago but it was very interesting, very interesting and I think you mentioned it and then I found it and read it to

everyone. And on the electric vehicle fire question from earlier, there was a study released from an insurance company last year that states that full electric vehicles were 64 times less likely to catch on

fire versus a gasoline vehicle. plug-in hybrids were the most likely to catch fire. Most plug-in hybrid electric vehicle batteries are small, but they're not liquid-cooled like electric vehicle batteries are. As the EVs switch to what's known as a LFP battery, which is a lithium-iron phosphate battery, the number of fires will likely fall because they're much more extremely safe. and he says you can practically pound nails into one of them

without having it catch fire. Whereas as a lot of people have seen with cell phones, people start playing with old cell phones and they try to dismantle the lithium battery into cell phone. Once exposed to oxygen, it immediately burst into flames. You may remember Samsung had an issue with one of their models where the batteries would catch fire spontaneously like that. So that's where lithium was such a dangerous thing, but now they're working on that design and getting them exponentially safer.

That's great. It makes for great news, and it's exciting. If you can get a picture, a car on fire, a lot of people tune into your channel. So I think that fires and cars are over, I mean, they're probably far more people that are injured than every other. way you can think of. Fires are very rare, but they're spectacular, and they make it for good video. Yes. Rick, I'm going to interrupt you, and we're going to go back to the phones. We have talked calling from Oklahoma.

Good morning, Chuck. Welcome. Good morning. How are you? Welcome back. Thank you. I just looked up the Carfax information on cars that were wrecked. I'll just go down quickly to the part where it says if you wrecked your car and your insurance, insurance company pays $10,000 to fix the vehicle. Your insurance won't report this to Carfax. So how would you that your car has been involved in the accident?

It won't, and this won't go up on Carfax. Yeah, anytime there's insurance involved, Carfax picks it up, the problem is they can't pick it up if their insurance didn't do the repair. If a car dealer's salesman ran a new car into a telephone pole, and it fell under his deductible with his insurance company, and he fixed it in his own body shop. Carfax would never know about it. So it's always a good idea to get a car you're buying,

checked over anybody, any collision repair expert, or even a regular mechanic can go over your car and pretty much give you a valid idea if it has been in an accident. Okay, I just wanted to let people know that Carfax is not 100% so you have a mechanic check the car and make sure that they

can see. Carfax is a great great tool. They're not perfect and they miss we've seen repairs too. I had a very angry customer in my dealership a couple months ago because we sold them a used car and we told them it had not been in an accident and we check all our car

we get a Carfax on all our cars and we check them ourselves. Well it had been in an accident carfax missed it and we missed it so it's always to double check when you if you're going to spend $40,000 $50,000 on a vehicle it's always a good idea to have somebody that you know and can trust go over the car and with a paint meter they have a paint meter today that's amazing you just quickly scan it all around the car and if the car's been painted anywhere they measure the depth of the paint so if the car's never been painted chances are in any way shape or form or portion

if it's never been painted, then it's probably never been in an accident. Card dealers use paint meters themselves when they do appraisals and trade-ins. Right. Also, I thought it was interesting on the battery issue because I have a lot of friends buying the EVs now, but, you know, the biggest complaint is that they're going to break down the highway or, you know, you can't get in charge quick enough. But what they failed to realize is that no. car, truck, or vehicle

will function without a battery. So you can have a combustion engine, you still have a battery. And just like said, the alternator, if your alternator goes out, your car's going to die, then you have to take it in, you have to waste for it to be repaired, and

band belt brakes, your car is not going to run for a little while, and the battery's going to die. You're going to have taking it and get charged, so you know, the same argument that they have, no, your battery's not going to last. Well, no battery's going to last. And every vehicle, combustion or EV needs batteries. Chuck, let me ask you a question.

What is the highest speed limit in Oklahoma? It's interesting. We are, well, I'm in rural eastern Oklahoma, near the Arkansas state line. We're 65 miles an hour on two-lane roads. But when you get on the four-lane roads in Oklahoma, you know, the divided highways, you can do 65 up to the turnpike, a 75-mile-an-hour speed limit. Yeah, that's not too bad. I hear about the states of the Midwest and other low-population areas that have unlimited,

or maybe I'm thinking about Germany. Actually, Montana, I believe, tried that for a while. They may still have it, but they say it's at the discretion of a law enforcement officer if you are traveling a safe speed for the conditions and for your vehicle. So there's no post-to-speed limit, no post-to-speed. I say, interesting. Well, they don't do that in Oklahoma, so you're probably glad about that, aren't you, Chuck? Well, I wish because it cross over in Arkansas all the time,

and their speed limits on their two length is only 55-mile an hour. Yeah, yeah. And we have a lot more accidents here because of our high speeds on the one-lane road, which is kind of sad. One lane, yeah, I'm sure. Well, thanks for calling, Chuck. I really appreciate it. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us this morning, Chuck.

Give us a call again. Our number is 877-960, or you can text us at 772-49-30. Back to Rick. Okay, let's see. We'll finish off with what we were saying from Donovan here. He says the new Tesla Model 3 and Ford Mustang Mach E now use that lithium ion phosphate battery for most all of their trims and let's see if he has any more here it's less energy dense but for most cars that people will buy the LP is the best option

because it's extremely stable and can be recharged thousands of times so it's really he's got all the best information there now well let me ask you a question Rick too why do you know of any or any manufacturers looking at lithium batteries for the basic battery at a combustion engine car. For a 12-volt battery?

Yeah. No. I think everybody is sticking with either a lead acid battery or a steel gel type battery for the hybrids. Because it costs. Right.

Yeah. I'm just thinking, to me, tires and batteries have always bothered me because here is a, you know you've got a short life to your tires

and you have a short life to your battery. Wouldn't it be nice if you could build a car that all the parts didn't have short life, all of them had a long life? The time probably will come. You and I both talk about tires, and you believe, like I do, there will be a tire one day

that you don't have to replace. Just a simple 3D printed tire that they print it right on. And there'll be a battery one day that doesn't have to be replaced. We just haven't figured it out. Oh, they will. Yeah.

And I am standing corrected here. Let's see. Johnny C. Fradley and Tom Steckle both say there are 80-mile-on-hour roads out west quite often, but Tom says Montana used to have reasonable and prudent speed limits. Now they have switched to 80 miles per hour. Oh, so they're on. So I think here in the U.S., 80 is going to be the maximum. But I think even the Audubon in Germany, they finally did put a maximum speed limit on it, but I don't know what that spec is.

So if anybody out there knows, what's the speed limit on the German auto bond? Google will beat everybody. Probably, yeah. Or Chad GPT will beat Google. Yeah, right. We finally have a superior colonel. Oh, wait, I always wondered why you called Colonel Google, not General Google. I don't know why.

Now I know why. Why? Because there's a new general in town that's ChatsyPT. Oh, it outranks. Okay, Rick, we're going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to George and he's calling us from Delaware. Good morning, George. Welcome. I'm glad to have you back.

Thank you. I got a question for Rick. I'm thinking about buying a new highlander. This four-cylinder turbo... like to know how it's going to stand up against the old six-cylinder and you have information on them we've only just seen turbos coming back on our cars for the new tundra the v6 tundra wound up with the turbos on it and they are switching all the v6s now for the other cars down to a four-cylinder turbo. I think the technology seems to have finally caught up. Time will tell, as with any brand

new technology that they're bringing out, you got to wait and see. You got to give a time. I don't think. I'll just interject this. I think with the EV revolution, I think concentration of engineers on improving combustion engines is limited. I think all the engineering scientific study is focused on EV because 10 years from now if you haven't got a really good EV to sell, you're going to be out of business. True. I'll go along with it.

But for right now, they seem to be pretty good. But as I say, time will tell what's going with these new turbos. Okay, so I guess I should wait another year or so to see if they get any kinks in them or whatever. I would say. I would say.

used that 22 I would say so best bet yes all right all right thank you very much thank you george thank you george thanks for joining us this morning okay we're going to go back to stew yeah i have some anonymous feedback over here um this is a good one it says i read today that some new car dealerships are labeling new cars with a few miles on the domitre as used cars and selling um and and selling them as used cars to bypass the msrp price I guess there are a few restrictions on the sales of a quote-unquote used car. You're right, and they're not sales restrictions. They're advertising restrictions, and dealers have been doing that for a while now

to get around the advertising restrictions. They would buy cars from themselves. It's not just because it has a couple of miles on the admoner. It's because they're actually private. Yeah, manufacturers have a rule that some manufacturers like Toyota, you can't advertise a car below a certain price. and Toyota tells their dealers that they can't advertise a car below invoice, which is BS. And it's also completely moot, and it's been moot for the last couple of years because I'm selling cars.

Now, to do it now to sell it for more, I don't think that's why they're doing that because right now it's interesting. There are restrictions manufacturers have on price average, but there's no restrictions what they sell it for. They don't like it, supposedly, but, like, as we've seen in our mystery shops, deals are selling for thousands, sometimes tens of thousands over MSRP. On text, we have a text from Paul. This is a good one. He says, hi, guys, welcome back. Question. FEMA estimates 4,000 cars were damaged during the Fort Lauderdale flood.

How does this affect the local car market? Oh, watch out. I mean, flood cars are, they don't disappear. They sneak around from state to state, from dealer to dealer. Sometimes they're exported. You hope they're exported as long as you're not living in the country. They're exported, too. But there's something about a flood car that attracts the crooks out there.

You can take a car that's been in a flood. You can fix it up real nice. First of all, you can buy a car that's been a flood for virtually nothing. and then you spend a few bucks on it cosmetically. Put some blipstick on that pig. Yeah, and then you sell it to a sucker. And it's just, I bet the percentage of cars that are totaled that are damaged in floods,

I bet you half of them are back on the market at some point. That's pretty soon. Yeah, pretty soon. In Florida, we have a lot of ships leaving port in Miami and Fort Lauderdale for points overseas, South America, Europe, all over the place. And there's not, no one's going to question somebody buying a bunch of flood cars and put them on a boat and send them to Venezuela.

And in Venezuela, they don't have the protection that we have here in the United States. And it's probably buyer beware. A lot of states in South America or countries in South America, they do that, yeah. So always get any car you buy new or used, checked. over by someone, an expert who is beholden to you, not the dealer. You want your expert, not his expert, to tell you that car has no damage on it from a flood or anything else. And that message goes way beyond Fort Lauderdale folks, because like Earl said, we're in

a global economy, but realistically, those cars are going to go to auctions immediately, and then they're going to fan out all over the country. So whether you're in Boston or Montana or Fort Lauderdale, it's going to be an issue. Now, locally in Fort Lauderdale, there will be an impact to there's going to be a very localized surge in demand, which is going to give used car dealers an upper hand and locally. So my word advice to people in Fort Lauderdale who had their cars totaled is to broaden your horizons and look beyond Fort Lauderdale, look all over Florida or even beyond, because, we're already dealing with a weird used car market with uncertain inventories.

And right now you have 4,000 people in a zip code who suddenly needs a replacement car. So just beware of that. And back to you. Also, the other thing that's going to happen, I forgot, is when you have a lot of people with simultaneous insurance claims, those of you, you're probably already experiencing it now, delays in getting your car fixed or even getting responses from your insurance companies. So like you said, broaden your horizons. There are repair shops outside of your local area,

so you could get your car fixed as far away as you want. So just keep that fine. Let me cover something because we're getting down to half an hour to go on the show. We want to be sure to get our mystery shopping report or reports. We have two of them. I'll explain that later. But I had a call yesterday from a man named Zach. like C-A-C-K, Zach Sheffska.

And you regular listeners have heard us talk about Ray and Zach Schof-K who have a company, Y-Y-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-S-A-N-O-E-A-R-E-E-E-R-E-E-G, C-A-R-E-E, C-A-R-E-E. And Zach called me about this new company that he's formed, Car-E-E-E-E-E- and it is going to be one like true car or Costco, it will be, they will designate approved dealers that will treat you with courtesy, transparency, give you a full out-the-door price, an honest price, no hidden fees, no dealer install accessories, no dealer addendums, all the nasty stuff, if you've been listening for a while that we talk about on this radio show week after week, they're going to try to find dealers in your area and it's car edge.com,

www.com, www.caredge, C-A-R-E-D-G-E-D-G-com. And Zach Schapska is showing us the honor of being the first car dealer that they're going to have recommended, and Zach is coming into the dealership. He'll be flying into our area, North Palm Beach, to talk to us to our managers, to our salespeople to look over our processes because he still knows us pretty well. But that's the way it's going to be as he established this network. You also have CarEdge.com and Zach Shevska, and they have authorities, experts, online, available to advise you on where and how you should buy a car.

This is very exciting. We've known them for a while. and we followed what they do, and they're honest, transparent people. So just remember and write this down, if you can write it down, Car Edge, C-A-R-E-D-G-E-D-G-C-A-R-E-D-G-C-E-D-C-E-E-D-E-R-E, and you still can use this service, even though they don't have the designated dealers. They have experts that will negotiate or show you how to negotiate if you have to negotiate and where to go to be treated fairly anywhere in the country when you buy a car.

and I hope Zach's listening now and we'll have him on the air he's been on before but we'll have him on again once he gets this up and rolling but just make a note Car Edge C-A-R-E-D-G dot com

check them out and let us know what you think give us a call but we don't give our endorsements out lightly and we have to be very careful we've endorsed Costco.com auto buying program with caveats And we talked about the fact they don't inspect their dealers rigidly the way they should. And we talked about truecar.com, another source.

We have our comments about them, too. I told Ray Sheffska, or Zach, I mean, yesterday when I talk to them, I say, Zach, your challenge isn't going to be selecting the dealers. Your challenge is going to be policing the dealers. Because you might have an honest dealer, a general manager, that you deal with. everybody has good intentions. Meanwhile, you've got a few crooked salespeople that take advantage of the customer,

and the dealer doesn't even know about it. So that's a challenge, and he agreed. So this is exciting to get in on the ground floor of a pilot program. This might be the answer, caredge.com. Great information. I just love receiving their newsletters, and you can watch it on YouTube.

You can go to Facebook. it's very informative if if you're going out there to purchase a vehicle and let's see we are at 935 would you would you like or would you like to go for the we can start yeah we can do well rather than do that let's let's get started I'd like to cover the new shopping report and then and then talk about the one that we thought we had we had okay because we got off the air for three weeks there was a little confusion on which shopping reports would be available and I didn't pick up the one that we'd actually done

because it was done like three weeks ago and I will do that one as a backup until I found the one that we will cover shortly. I had chosen Mr. Shopping Report of Mullinax Ford in West Palm Beach area, Palm Beach County area that we did in October of 2021. And that was during the height of the COVID pandemic, the supply chain shortage, microchip, everything's going nuts. Cardinals are charged at $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 over a sticker.

And Molanix had always been on our approved buying list. They kind of wrote the book. I mean, they really did. There are several dealerships, I think, all of them in Florida. And the one price, the no-dealer fee, the no-dealer-installed accessories, the no addendums, they have a little bit of a dealer fee, but it's not noticeable, kind of like J.M. Lexus that we talk about, and kid them about it because it's so small. I'll sum it up.

Basically, I'm endorsing our A-Ford dealer, Malnix Ford. Not because of the shop we did today. We've done them recently, but at the height of the pandemic, they presented an honest, transparent experience to our shopper. And they sold the car for right around sticker price, which at that time was amazing. And so kudos. They're on a recommended list.

If you want to buy a Ford in Florida, you should buy it from Mullinix. They have them in northern Florida, and I think in southern Florida. I think we've got one down in Fort Lauderdale, one in West Palm Beach, and one up around Jacksonville somewhere. So Mollinix Ford, thank you for the way you do business, and you're endorsed with the one few A's we've given any car dealer on our mystery shopping report. Now, the real shopping report that we did, was it three weeks ago, too? April 12th, April 12th, yeah. Mystery Shop, I haven't read that. this myself, Stu wrote it, and Agent Lightning, of course, did the report.

April 12, 2003, mystery shop of I-95 Nissan. Now, I-95 Nissan is a Terry Taylor store. Is that right, Stu? I believe so. Yeah, and he's the largest privately owned chain of dealerships in the country. Now, the largest number and the biggest is Lithia, and I think number two is probably auto-nation, or Sonic or one of those.

But Terry Taylor is not public. He owns them all privately, and this is the one he owns in the West Bond Beach area. Speaking of the first person is if I were Agent Lightning, I arrived mid-afternoon amidst heavy rain as I walked to the front door I fumbled with my golf umbrella, was greeted from across the showroom floor by young salesman who ordered, do you have an appointment with anyone today?

I looked around to see who he was talking. to. He put his hand up, motioned for us to come over to where he was sitting. I would call that being a little cocky, but maybe that's just me. He continued to sit behind the desk, introduced himself as Orlando, asking if I'd ever been in before. I replied a while back, I believe. He asked for my phone number, pulled me up in the system, and then he asked, what brought me in today? I said, funny story. My husband and I recently rented an SUV. to drive to Georgia. We were supposed to get up for Explorer, but it ended up with an armada instead. Now, before I go further to the report, I forgot to say that we would like you to vote on this

report at the end of this, and we go A, B, C, D, or F. We agreed on the curve, and we know that there are no perfect car dealers. So an A is just the best car dealers there are. Even the A dealers can have a few flaws, and a C or D dealer can be pretty bad, but car dealers are pretty bad anyway, so give us a score of ABC, DRF on this report from I-95 Nissan. I'll continue with a report now. He'll call in or text in or email or however you want to do it at the end of the show. He laughed and said that he doesn't get many requests for our modest because when people are looking to spend upwards of $60,000 or $70 on a vehicle. They usually go for Yukon's.

How do you pronounce denalus? Denalis. Denalis? Denalis. Denali. De Nali. Like the mountain. Yeah.

Escalades, et cetera, and end up skipping over Nissan Armadas. Yes, that Nissan doesn't get nearly as much credit as it deserves. And we don't want to tell me that, honestly, he personally can afford one. He's only ever sold once as he worked there. I told him we honestly fell in love with the Armada. Couldn't believe how great it had on our trip. He said he has a few in stock. I would pull one up under the cover so we could...

Under the cover, okay, so we could go look at it. I'm surprised that he would have several of anything in stock, but inventories are building dramatically. The two largest manufacturer, sellers of cars and publicly held companies have over a 30-day supply, by the way, and Lithia, the largest publicly owned car company, has a 50-day supply of cars. That's amazing. So, folks, the time is very close where you can start getting a good deal on a car.

And maybe even today, if it's from a lithium dealer, that's a lot of cars. There must be a reason they're not selling them very fast. Yeah, because they junk the price up to this guy, yeah. But they're going to... Eventually, it's going to collapse, right? Eventually, it's all going to come down like a deck of car. Once outside, he went over all the features of the 2002 Armada, which included a split row with TVs on the back of the headrest. That is fancy.

The MSRP was $70,465, and there was an addendum label. The addendum increased the price to $80,350 and included, ooh, I hadn't read this. $4,995. That's a quote, by the way. For supply chain hardship. You can't make this stuff up. You're supposed to feel really bad for the hardship that that dealer is going through. I love it.

$5,000 for supply chain hardship. And $39.95 for things like Lifetime Nitroville and Lifetime Curl. That's 3,995 in case they weren't. 3,995, yeah. And if you're just tuned in, we're a mystery shop, I-95 for Nissan, a Terry Taylor dealership in the West Palm Beach area. Unbelievable. This guy is worse than Napleton. He went on to say this is the highest trim level, and to be honest with me, many salespeople try to sell it with a market adjustment.

But he would work hard for me today to get it closer to the MSRP. So he started to waffle already. Yes, it's a few in stock. Okay. I ask them what kind of warranty it has. You said their vehicles all come with three-year, 36,000 mile warranty. But then they cover the power train for as long as you own it.

I didn't know that. Is that accurate? I don't know if that's a dealership thing or Nissan thing. I don't think it's a Nissan. Power train is usually a five-year or a little bit longer. But we could Google that, I guess, or figure it out. But lifetime power train warranty or Nissan, maybe. We went on a drive.

I asked them what they, the next model down was, as different from this one and what the price difference is. Orlando replied, I'm not going to lie to you. That's good. Coming from Orlando, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to lie to you. I don't sell them any of these, but when we get back, I can print out the specs, and you can compare them. I asked if he had any there. He replied that he didn't, so I said, never mind.

We're looking to buy sooner rather than wait. Back inside, we walked over to his desk. He asked if I was planning or buying or leasing to which I replied, buying. Then I asked how my credit is. I said, great. He asked me how much I'd be putting down. These are all standard operating procedure qualifying questions. And I mentioned that I saw online that they have some 0% annual percentage trade specials.

He said yes on certain vehicles. But to be honest with you, he didn't know if this one qualifies. He continued, I'm not going to lie to you. Personally, I couldn't afford the payment on that, but more power to you as you can't. He then said, you'll be back shortly with a price sheet for me. Now, anybody that repeatedly says, I'm not going to lie to you. It's probably lying to you. That's my take on that.

As I promised, a few minutes later, he returned with a worksheet. The top line was MSRP, $70,465. Then he took off, bam, right off. 4475 discount before adding $39.95 for the lifetime value program. Off comes, on goes a discount, off goes the discount, pretty much. And then he's got $287 in taxable fees, $995 dock fee, $8.95 for a perma plate, rust and dust, we used to call it the old days, fabric protection and sealant, paint seal, and all that nonsense.

You have I got it all. The actual price was $72,166, which is only 1,701 over MSRP. After going over the pricing with me, he said he was proud that he was able to discount it to what it showed online, $65,590, and he didn't. I mean, the price wasn't. He was trying to say, look, it's the online price,

but it's not after you add all the stuff in. Yeah. It's $7,000 higher than that. but he's not going to lie to you no wait a minute he's not going to lie to you oh by the way Nissan does not have a lifetime power and he another lie so and uh here we go but then he went on to say that the next 3990 three thousand nine or ninety he could likely get for me at half at half off he also indicated that the permaplate could come off two bam what was that permit plate 895 gone okay he said it's optional but if you don't

include it you won't have the lifetime coverage I said oh I thought that was part of buying from the dealership he said no the 3995 covers any for every everything in this brochure for a minimal $100 copay deductible and be a brochure promoting the lifetime value package okay I'm getting dizzy yeah Now, if you pay me this, you get the $100 copay deductible, but it's optional. But if you don't get it, you don't get the coverage. I'm not going to lie to you. You also mention the, you know, it's amazing.

He's out doing Napleson this whole thing. And this I-95 Nissan is absolutely amazing. And a lot of the dealers, as the inventories bill, are taking off their addendums, taking off their perma plate and the rest of it. But I believe what's going to happen is I-95 Nissan and certain other dealers are going to leave these huge markups on because every now and then a sucker comes in and they don't know that car dealers are evil

and they actually buy a car. I mean, we know of people before the pandemic issue that were paying $10,000 over a sticker to dealerships because they asked for it. and people don't understand that dealers are crooked. And if you don't, you're going to get holed. This is what the way I-95 Nissan is conducting business. Orlando then asked me, how soon I plan on making a decision?

I said, hopefully it was the next day or two. He then stood up, shook my hand. Thank me for coming in today. He handed me his business card and said to call him anytime. He said he's almost certain. You get me the unlimited miles warranty for Avlov and looks forward to seeing me soon. I didn't even, I haven't read this, P.S. He said, to be honest with you, and or I'm not going to lie to you, so many times he was very kind and not at all pushy.

Well, that's a kind word from Agent Lightning. And I think that conducts that we've got the addendums here with the addendum label and the rest of it. But there you have it, and we can start taking the votes in. And it's interesting. It just occurred to me as I read the second report that there are a lot of dealers out there that had these huge addendum laborers and the rest of it before the pandemic thing ever hit.

And that was her schick. That was their method of doing business. Price the car so high so when the occasional victim comes in, and you've heard me talk about victims. I define victims as the very young people, maybe their first car. I hate to use the word naive, but we were all naive when we were younger.

When we first started out, you know, you're a sit and duck for a lying and cheating car sales person. So you don't want to discount anything because you might get the young person or the very old person. And I use that as an example, and I'm not saying anything negative about women. But you do know that women that were born in the 40s and 50s who were up in a different culture. The man was the boss. The man, you know, he had the job. Oftentimes, the women stayed at home. And all the major purchases were done by men back in the 40s and 50s.

And they learned that way. And so today, you have a 75, 80-year-old widow. She's never bought a car before. And she's smart, but she's never been in the business of making those type of decisions. They're the ones that get hammered for $10,000 over a sticker. and the I-95 Nissan's are the ones that do that. So that's the class of never behave themselves, but you will see prices on the other dealers

that realize because the supply's gone up, the prices should come down. And we need to count the votes. Okay, let's see. Jonathan and Wellington, this dealership gets a hardship F from me. Enough said. the grade chain hardship versus the supply chain

hardship for I-95 Nissan is an F and that's from Bob Emory says $5,000 for supply chain hardship I'll show you your hardship to your bottom line just watch me walk F from a highly annoyed non-customer yeah

I'm kind of hovering around the DF thing although the deal turned out to be okay. I mean, just a whole bunch of circus and garbage you have to get through to get to that price. But had Adrian Lightning been a victim, she could have paid that price. Exactly. Yeah, it's going to be a low-grade. I'm going to give them a D-minus.

Passing just for having a reasonably priced car in the market, even though it's still crazy to be 17 over. 100 over, but there was a lot of, he gets credit for being kind and not pushy. Yeah, and a lot of dealers, I say a lot, maybe 40, 50%, percent, are selling cars below MSRP now. So we're going to have to adjust our thinking. We used to say, well, you only charge 1,000 over MSRP. Right now, dealers are very few are charging a lot over MSRP. now, percentage-wise.

Rick? I've got Negan 1. D-plus, no lie. T-cash, F, not going to lie. Over here, we've got Rocky Blocketeel. I won't lie to you.

You only get an F. Johnny Z. Freedly, D-minus. As Prince Charles is being crowned king today, I shall place a dunce cap on I-95 Nissan. I like that. that one. It's so regal.

Donovan, I'm not going to lie to you. F. Brian Sondatko, I'm not going to lie to you. My grade is an F. Man, your guys are so much cooler. Steve Ward, a G. A G. A G. A G.

A B, C, G. F G. He put them. Oh. For me, if you're looking for a Nissan, just battle up Put your armor on, and go in there with the right information. I think you can get away with it, but a D just for their antics.

But you got a chance there. Yeah. And if you go in there, be sure to ask for Orlando because he's not going to lie to you. Exactly. Nancy, I think you're up. Hmm? Okay, folks. Some mystery shopping reports just make you go.

hmm so with that said supply chain supply chain shortage f okay the salesman that hollered across the showroom he too gets an F I won't lie to you that gets an F they get a F F F F F F F F F F recovering car dealer what do you say I'm going to give them to that. Maybe I'm just in the bad mood, but I usually am a high score in here, but being off for three weeks and with this big boot on my foot. It probably feels like a foot. I'm in a bad mood. When do you walk down those steps?

Yeah. Yeah, guys, what happened to the elevators? And I also watch this dealer on television doing his commercials and ropes me the wrong way, too. So I'm probably letting emotion get to me, but I'm human, right? So my foot hurts, and I give them enough. Well, you know, we could always revisit it. We always talk about it again.

I can change my mind later, yeah. I just, we still have a couple of minutes. I didn't. I wasn't positive enough at the beginning of the show or during the show, but there is truly a change in pricing. And I can say now that as long as you follow the rules that you learned on the show, and you're careful. You can really get a much better price today

than you could have a year ago and use the tools that you've learned on this show or otherwise or use CarEdge.com, give them a try and then let us know how it went Ray and Zach Schofschfka, the owners of CarEge.com. I love to see a few of you give them a try. we're going to be an approved dealer by them shortly. Yeah, Bob did.

He texted something in here. Hang on a second. I think he looked at because there's different packages. There's a subscribe thing, and then there's a free thing. So he says, tell early it's went to Car Edge and brought up a lot of toy dealers just north of your dealership that I know have a lot of additional markups. That's why I went on to the site to see if it was the right one.

That's just, I think it looks like they list everything. before you sign up or do anything, it lists all the cars out there. There's no, it doesn't look like there's recommendations on it. But we're going to find out more as we. Yeah, I think, I think they're going to modify their whole program. If this new program, Bush, when I talk to Zach Shevska, I said,

I mentioned this earlier in the show, it's going to be difficult. You can sign up a dealership who is well-intended and wants to do everything right and agrees to all the rules. But when he runs into it, Orlando who isn't going to lie to you, then that's where your problem is. So you have to police it, and that's labor intensive.

I don't know how, that's Costco's problem, that's true car's problem, and that's going to be Carriage's problem. If they can police it and fire one of their dealers that disobeying the rules and warn customers and be open to customers that use Car Edge and say, I went into I-95 Nissan, and they really took advantage of me, and then respond and correct it. So we'll find out how that goes. Are we home just about out of time now? I think so.

I think that that's going to be a great thing. That's the Car Edge Report preview. It's just very, very helpful. So stay tuned for that. We're going to be on an interesting journey with Zach Shevska. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us this morning. You're an important part of the show. We certainly enjoy your company.

And stay tuned next week. We'll be right here at 8 a.m. Have a great weekend. Stay safe.