Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.07.2022 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Roundtree-Moore Ford of Lake City

Episode Date: May 7, 2022

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels to Lake City to see if a small town Ford dealer will charge as much over sticker for a new 2022 Ford Edge as the big city dealers are charging. 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 CyberSiber. space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show.

Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back. We're happy. We're unusually happy this morning. I'm not sure why Nancy is this squirming around, jumping up and down. And we love the show. and I got to remember to tell you folks out there because a lot of you are new listeners

it just happened to flash by us on your dial or on Facebook or YouTube or wherever you are out there in cyberspace and say who is this well here's who we are we're a group of folks that for many many years have been talking about

advise you advising you how to buy a car or lease a car without being ripped off by your car dealer. I mean, it sounds a little crude, and I use that because it's succinct to the point. This is what we do. The car business is a tough business.

It's tough for you, the consumer. You probably never had a real pleasant experience buying your car. Think about it. I mean, think about your favorite store, Costco, Target, Publix, you know, Apple. Think about your favorite store. than compare it the last time you bought a car or had your car repaired. So, I want you to understand, you new listeners, that we do have the qualifications in this studio.

Rick Kearney, sitting at my right, is a technician, auto technician. And he's worked for my dealership, and yes, I do have a car dealership. He's worked for my car dealership for over a quarter century. And he sees it every single day. He fixes cars, and he fixes mainly Toyotas, but he fixes all different kinds of cars, too. Very qualified. So we've been there, and we've done that. My son, Stu, he's been in the car business for many years.

My wife Nancy, she's by co-os, she's been involved with us for 30 years or more. We're a family operation, by the way, which is unusual. And we take what we do seriously. We love what we do. And we're insiders, speaking to you who are the outsiders. The car dealership has evolved differently than all other businesses because of, well, there's a lot of reasons. I don't want to get into that now. But a car dealership is doing business today the way they did 50, 60, 70 years ago.

I think the car franchise system has been around since shortly after about Henry Ford time, I guess. Over 100 years. Over 100 years. So it's frozen in time. I mean, it's an anachronism. And when you buy a car, you say, what? I mean, what happened? You go into buy a car.

You can't get a price. They won't give you the best price unless you agree to buy it then. And if they give you a price, it's not really the price. They're adding junk fees. They're adding dealer installed, worthless accessories. They're flam-flam in your round. And then they're financing the car and making exorbitant profits, averaging over $2,000 just to finance their car. So that's who we are, that's what we do.

And if you're driving down the highway and you're interested, hey, give us a call. If you're not interested, put on another station. The problem with buying a car is you don't think about it. Oh, and we have two people holding, and Nancy just told me about that because we prioritize phone calls. So I'm going to shut up right now, and we're going to our first caller, and then our second caller, and we encourage you to do that quickly. 877-960-99-60. 877-9-60-99-60.

Please call us at 877-9-60-9-9-6. Next day, and now, Nancy, will introduce our first caller. Yes, I will. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this special Mother's Day edition of Earl Stewart on Cars. And to start the show off, we do have a first-time female caller. But first, let me tell you this. We are offering $50 for the first two female callers. And we have a...

New. Yeah, the first new. And we also have a special this morning as to, you know, if you're a mother and you're a first time female caller, that too is real important. Our number, as Earl said, 877-960, and we're going to go straight to Ann. If you're a mother and you're a first-time female caller, you get $100 instead of $50. Is that right? That's right. We did talk about that. That's right. That's pretty. important. Okay. So remember, ladies, if you're a mom and you're a first-time caller, you're going to win yourself $100 this morning, not 50. That'll help you out in these crazy times. Mother's Day special. Yes. Anne, good morning and welcome. Good morning. You are a first-time caller, and you, are you a mom? Yes, I am. I have a son. Okay, you just won yourself $100 instead of the normal 50 that we give out every week.

Oh, well, happy Mother's Day to everyone. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Our producer, Elise, will get your information, and she'll get it to me, and I'll get that check out to you. Happy Mother's Day. What can we do for you this morning? Yes, I have a 2018 Hyundai Sonata.

And I have been in with the sonatas for 19 years, and I've been happy until now. The paint is coming off of the roof and off of the hood. And I have been two months dealing with the dealership on North Lake Boulevard, and they just give me a runaround, and I'm a senior citizen by myself, and it's very upsetting. They tell me I'm still under warranty for this white paint from 2018, but I can't get anywhere. They said, oh, yeah, yeah. But every time I go in, I go to the dealership.

They take pictures. They file a claim. Then I go back two weeks later to check on it, and they say, oh, no claim has been filed. And I just don't know what to do. And I have a friend that buys his cars from you, and he says, call them. this number, they can help you decide what to do. Here I am. They make it sound real easy, and I want to tell you what, this is no consolation,

but you are not the only one with pain problems. There's a lot of pain problems out there, but this dealership that you're dealing with, you know, whether you're a woman, a man, doesn't matter. They're going to slow the process down. They have their reasons, I guess. but there are ways to get around it. And therefore, I'm going to turn this over to the recovering car dealer. And unfortunately, you're dealing with one of the most infamous car dealers in the United States.

The Napleton Auto Group has been charged by the Federal Trade Commission and attorney generals with stealing money from adding hidden junk fees and things to cars and overcharging, and they settled for, I think, $10 million after they stole, what was it, $20 million, not a bad deal. $70 million. $70 million. They stole $70 and settled for $10. So my advice changed to find another Hyundai dealer.

I know that's difficult, and we'll try to help you there. Stu, we'll check around and see who the nearest Hyundai dealer to Napleton on North Lake Boulevard is. Manufacturers are very skeptical and suspicious of their dealers when it comes to warranty work. And they're extremely suspicious of Napleton Hyundai in his group because they were involved in a big lawsuit with, say they, the Napleton Auto Group was in a lawsuit with the Hyundai manufacturer over fraudulent warranty claims.

They were charged by Hyundai with blowing up their engines to collect the warranty work. Custom would come in with a perfectly good engine, and Naples would blow up the engine, and they would charge Hyundai thousands of dollars in warranty reimbursement. And so you're probably dealing with, the dealer is not. believed by the manufacturer. I would suggest that you go to another Hyundai dealer, and Stu's got one for you, I think. Well, Del Rey Hyundai in Del Rey, I mean, sounds like it's far away, but the next closest Hyundai dealer to the Napleton on North Lake is the Napleton one in West Palm Beach. So, if you go on North, is there anyone? I think there, we have, I think Wallace has some

places up in Stewart. I'll double check. And, but the Delray Hyundai is actually the highest rated Hyundai on our recommended dealers. It's actually got a C-rate. And I don't know if that's going to be a challenge for you. It's a long way to go. Wallace. Wallace, Hyundai, and Stuart or the Del Rey Honda. Do you? Del Rey Hyundai.

Who owns the Delray Hyundai? I'm not sure. Anyways, but we checked them out and they're a pretty good outfit. You could call them first and explain your situation. And say you're having difficulty with Napleton and ask them, they're going to have pictures of your car. Did Napleton take any pictures of your roof? Yes, they did, yes, sir.

Do you have copies? Not of what they took, but I can take some. Yeah, they're going to, if you go to Wallace Hyundai or if you go to Del Riehondi, they're going to want to have pictures. And, yeah, it should be a no-brainer. It should be easy. There are a lot of paint-warrant issues out there. Toyota has a lot of them, and all the manufacturers are having issues,

particularly in Florida with the sun, the horizontal surfaces oftentimes fade, and there's a lot of pain and warranty work has to be done. But that's my advice to you. If you have difficulty, call us back and we'll help any way we can. Okay, well, this has been a big help to me, and thank you very much. You're welcome, Ann. And thank you for calling. Please spread the word.

We're building a platform here for everyone, but we're trying to encourage us. some ladies to get involved. Our numbers have climbed, but would like to see it just to get a little bit higher. You know, Del Rey, Del Rey, I looked up at its own... I read the word. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Ann. I didn't know Ann was still on the line.

I'm sorry. Stu has some information for you, Ann. That's okay. It can follow up after the call. Yeah, would you do that? Would you do that, Ann? Would you follow up and give us a call? And, you know, let us know whether or not you ended up in Del Rey or you went to Wallace

to get this. Yes, I will. I'll do that. Thank you. Okay. Have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy that $100 and happy Mother's Day. Well, that makes this kind of better, but thank you very much and happy day to everybody. Thank you. Okay, stay well. 877-960-99-60 or you can text us at 772-497-60. And I think Stu has something to add. Yeah, Del Rey's owner, I haven't heard of this group. It's, I haven't heard of this group. It's called the Super Store Auto Group. Have you heard of them? No.

The CEO is John Sloopy Jr. Really? Yeah, so I don't know how many stores. I must have recently purchased it. Yeah, this is, there's a business wire report about them, I think, acquiring Del Rey Genesis, Del Rey Honda, Del Rey, Accura. But I don't know how many other dealerships, the Superstore Auto Group of Del Rey actually owns, but I'll look into it some more.

Yeah, they're very large, and John Sloopy Jr. is really, acquiring dealership rapidly. We're acquainted with his father, and we know his father, John Salopi, Sr. He was local for a long time, mainly based in New York now. Very interesting.

Okay. It changed hands a lot. Yeah, exactly. Superstore. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ladies and gentlemen, you can subscribe to Earl Stewart on Cars podcast using any of the following podcast apps from your iPhone,

your Android, smartphone. You can subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher Radio, and SoundCloud app. So take advantage of that. There's a lot of ways that you can get in touch with us. You can send your YouTube to Rick. You can send your text to Earl or excuse me from Stu. Don't we have another call or holding? And you can also give me a call at 877-960. We're going to go straight to Howard, who's been holding, and he's a regular caller from Jupiter.

Good morning. Good morning. I hope you're all well. We had a nice time at Jupiter this morning. They got up 6 o'clock and walked around. They had a raise here. It had to do with the turtles, and it was very interesting. Trouble Trout.

They blocked off the days. Right. They blocked off the U.S.1, and it was very interesting. I went to your dealership yesterday. I had a problem with Toyota Safety Connect. Safety Connect is what it does. If you get into an accident and your airbag is deployed, it's notified. It's notified, and they send health.

and if you have a problem and the airbag doesn't go off but you're stuck, there's a button that you press and you get in touch of them and they know where you are and they come and help you. So what happened is that I have a different credit card that I was

going to put on it and was having trouble so I wanted to do a dealership and I spoke to a new person there receptionist Diane Dorsey She was able to access all my information and get the new credit card on the Safety Connect program. However, I found out, and she found out that Safety Connect is going to stop October 31st. And what I don't know is if it's going to start up again or is it completely finished. So that's a question I have for you people.

What's the story with Safety Connect now? I'm going to look into a little more. I think it's going to a subscription service. It was a complementary thing, but I'll do a little research because I knew it was sunsitting, and I'll get back to you on that. Yeah, there's interesting on that subject that you brought up. Toiless, Safety Connect, is definitely going to continue, and as Stu says, it'll probably be subscription.

They're enhancing the services, and I was really, pleasantly surprised when I was talking with a Toyota representative the other day that one of the one of the new benefits of Toyota Safety Connect and this goes with Honda this goes with all the manufacturers now the digital age of this whole software phenomena we're going in the benefits to the drivers even and to the dealers too the benefit that he pointed out to me was that if you're driving a Toyota or a Lexus and you you're on the safety connect system and you're in an accident, they will direct you to the nearest

Toyota or Lexus certified collision center, which will help ensure that your vehicle is repaired with OE and parts. Love the insurance companies are prone to try to put aftermarket parties or Chinese parts or maybe in Taiwan or Korea or someplace that are not safety checked and which can, if it's a crash part, a hood, a bumper, a fender can be dangerous. So things like this, by the direct communication from the manufacturer of the car to the dealer and to you, with maybe not even you having to be involved, is going to make your car safer. Rick had a point.

Some of them are also trying to push for used parts, recycled from the junk. Exactly, yeah. You have to watch it with the insurance company. But anyway, safety connect. Unfortunately, you're probably going to have to pay for it. Yeah, the main, I'm not sure about that yet. The main reason it's going down, it's happening all over the country with 3G technology. So all the safety connect was based on 3G, and that's coming to an end.

Nothing supports it. There is a next generation safety connect. That's what I had read about. And I don't have much information on that. It could be free. I don't know, but it will have to be on the 5G network. That'll be 5G, yeah. Bye, good.

Thanks very much, Howard. That's a great question. And thanks for complimenting Diane Dorsey. it's nice to have people that will go above and beyond. She's a receptionist. She's the best. And she does a really good job. Appreciate the compliment.

We'll pass that along to her. Okay. Thank you very much. Have a good day, guys. You too. Give us a call again, Howard. We're going to go to Mike, who is calling us from Alexa Hatchez. Good morning, Mike.

Good morning. On podcast, and I get you guys during the week on some of your prior shows. And if so, what would I try for the podcast? Nancy can list all of them, but if you just have the Apple iPhone podcast app or any of the popular podcast applications, SoundCloud. Yeah, you can, as Stu said, there's a number of them, and there's a Stitcher radio, there's a SoundCloud app. You have Google Podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and you can access

these from your iPhone or your Android smartphone. Well, how about Alexa? I think with Alexa, I believe you can play podcast through Alexa if you teach your Alexa the skill. And I'm not sure if I ever set mine up, but I do think I have the ability to hook my Alexa device to my podcast app or the other app. So check into that. If you look on your Alexa app for skills and you search for podcasts,

I'm pretty sure you should be able to. to hook your Alexa up to a great information to us try say Alexa play Earl on Cars podcast I mean she's very smart she might find it and she uh it's amazing uh I have to keep testing my Alexa because she learns things that I didn't even know she knew about so just say Alexa make me dinner whoa right what she doing she'll even come back with a cute response so she can't make dinner Alexa's been bossing us around Mike she's taken over our home If you have the podcast on your phone. Hold on, Mike.

I said we'll pick that up and play it. If you have the podcast, I think Jonathan said if you had the podcast on your phone, it will pick that up. Well, that's another way to do it. I'm legally blind and I don't use a phone. I'm sorry. Okay. I do use Alexa. Okay.

I think you should be able to do that. Alexa has lots of skills, so I guess start talking to Alexa and let us know if it work because we'd love to be able to tell all the listeners that works. Yes, Alexa's opening up our. side view mirrors on the Tesla and we thought we had to use another I don't know, there's so many names

but I was behind the wheel I mistakenly said Alexa and she opened up the so she has a lot of skills She could also open up if you said Daffy Duck because she accepts any name Tesla, it's a Tesla You've called her more than Daffy Duck Yes I have

That's another show Mike What else can we do for you? My second question is about the catalytic converters. Oh, my favorite topic. What's the approximate cost on that truck to replace a catalytic converter that's been stolen? That's going to vary quite widely, but figure pretty close to $1,000 or more. Yeah, up to $2,000. And depending upon how many catalytic converters you have, you could have two on some course.

And there's also the fact that depending on what parts were cut, when they stole it, where they cut them, that price can go anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 to $3,000. Where do you live, Mike? Oh, Laxahatchie. Okay, yeah, I'm curious. I know in Houston there having a crime wave, Houston, Texas. It's a huge, I'm not sure why that particular area's hit. But, yeah, it's the prices of palladium and the rare earth elements are going up.

and there's an article in automotive news something you might want to think about and was new to me and I'm going to discuss it with my people at the dealership that some people are starting now to put paint their catalytic converters in bright colors in other words something like green or or day glow orange or something like that And then also put the serial number of the car on it in such a manner that it can't be, or very difficult to be removed. It's kind of like the same philosophy when you put a VIN etch your windows with a VIN number. The crook goes to the easier target. So if your Cadillac converter is bright orange and has a VIN number on it,

when he gets underneath your car and he starts to take it off, he says to hell with this, the one over there doesn't have the... this to worry about. Actually, when I used to work on job sites, back on it when I painted, we used to paint our tools, bright pink, to keep the other construction workers from walking off with our screwdrivers and our hammers. Good idea. Well, thank you. You're welcome.

Thanks for call, Mike. Have a good day. Stay in touch. Car theft is up. Catalytic converters are up, and we know why. Anyway, we're going to stick with the phones, and we're going to go to Michael. who's giving us a call from Jupiter. Good morning, Michael.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. So I had a question. A few weeks ago, you had mentioned that you guys believe that Cadillac might be going by wayside in the next few years. Do you still think that's true? It's hard to say, and I'm probably picked on Cadillac, but I don't, I don't mean to.

There are going to be a huge number of brand names, models, makes, that are going to disappear. Of course, we have the rapid change to electric hybrid, and we're going to have autonomous vehicles. So there's a consolidation of manufacturers, makes, and models. Cadillac has been around a long, long time. It might exist as a nameplate. Cadillac is still a strong brand. but so was Pontiac and so was Oldsmobile. These brands no longer exist.

So it's just, I haven't got a crystal ball, and I won't be around to find out if I'm right or wrong. But in 20 years, you will probably see only two or three auto manufacturers, and they won't be auto manufacturers, there'll be software manufacturers. And you'll probably see very few brands and permutations of makes and model. models and colors. It's going to be a different world. And I just don't think the real, the Cadillac, as we know it today, isn't going to survive. Okay. No, I thought it was you talking about it earlier. That's terrific. Thanks so much. Thanks for call.

You're welcome, Michael. Give us a call again. Our number here is 877960. And you can text us at 772-4976530. We're going to stick with the phones and we're going to talk to Wes from west palm beach good morning was everybody doing right we're doing well thank you for calling very good i have uh two points one one point would be at when was the last time are you going to do a little um a survey of napleton acura oh mr shop of napleton acre uh once the last time we did that's too three months? Looking it up right now. Oops, I've searched in the wrong thing. It might have been a while. Has it? Yeah, I mean, I know we've done quite a few Napleton dealerships recently. Now, let's see here. Yeah, it's tempting not to concentrate on Naples and dealerships because

I hate to use the word entertaining because it's really tragic what they do. But they're getting so much national publicity now with the Federal Trade Commission and the Attorney General's office and and the huge fines and and uh accusations uh lawsuits uh it's like uh you know it's exciting to go into a naples dealers uh last time we went into napleton acura as i recall they were they were better than far better than the other napleton dealersuits was 2019 2019 wow so it's been a while yeah we got to go back thanks for thanks for the heads up that's too long we need to shop them again? Well, I know they weren't they weren't listed in the lawsuit. They were not good.

They were not good. I'm reading my summary, classic bait and switch, and yeah, so it sounds like it was not a good experience. But we'll go back. We'll find out that's old. This is old information. So we'll go back and you get a refreshed point of view of Napleton, Accura. Great. My other point is I was in with my 2020 to Tacoma about three weeks ago from my six-month service and I had a little problem with timing and I used the red phone and it was busy but I think whoever you just said was your receptionist said here use my phone and I think I talked to Josh and I got out of there

like right away but since then I've gotten emails from Earl Stewart Toyota about what's your problem how can we help you did we give you all the information you need? Can we help you buy a car? Are those computer generated? I mean, I got one this morning. I got one a week ago. We do have an AI with our, and it goes to email correspondence, and generally it's for communications, like back and forth, just like making sure that people have been taken care of. So, yeah, there is an AI generated communications thing that we use through our... Okay, when is it generated, Stu? Because I didn't know about that. somebody sends in a request for a price on a vehicle that comes back says if it's after

hours hang tight somebody will get with you and then it automatically goes back about maybe the next day and says hey did Stephanie get in touch with you and it says no it goes to us so it basically it's like a kind of it monitors the communication makes sure everybody is doing their job yeah I'd like to take a look at that and see what the language is I've had that comment before I didn't know this is the same one did you send us an email about this I think I did. Yeah, this is the same person. This was just a few days ago last week, right?

Yeah, I'm a little bit like you, I think, when it comes to computer-generated emails. I get too much email. I get so many emails now that... Oh, this is only in response to people. It's not an outbound thing, yeah. I know that. But what I'm saying is that I've moved to text because I get so many emails. And it seems like every time I contact a store or anybody, and I'm online a lot like everybody,

and every time I call somebody, I get called back, and I don't want to get called back. So it's something we should look at it. I'm glad you reminded me. I see it's a good intent, and I think we meant well, but I'm not so sure it's a good idea. So thanks for the heads up on that. yeah no problem just wanted to alert you I was to make sure it wasn't a scam no that's not the other reason that I get concerned

is if there's I'm not sure what the number one thing I complain about most but junk email I mean I'm using my trash button and my junk button and my what is the other one clutter button more and more I'm trying to I'm trying to clean out my inbox more and more and so I know exactly how you feel

and I think we need to take a look at that be sure we're not annoying our customers and that was a good point West you know whether or not it would be a scam and there's so much email that is generated from feedback and it's hard to keep track of everything and then to re-educate your computer

for it not to go into your clutter or your junk so there's a lot of work there thanks for the heads up okay well thanks for Okay. Have a great day, and I love your dealership. Thank you, Wes.

Thank you so much, Wes. Stay in touch. You can get in touch with us also through Your Anonymous Feedback. That's www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com, and Stu will read it right here on the air. We have been very, very busy on the phones this morning, a little more than usual. And that number is 8779-60-99-60. Don't forget, ladies, not only are we celebrating Mother's Day, but if you are a first-time caller and you are a mom, you can win yourself $100 this morning, only this morning, because it's Mother's Day weekend. We are going to go to Gary in West Palm Beach, and the others that are holding will be right with you.

Good morning, Gary. Good morning My first car 52 years ago was from Doug Stewart And I had just gotten out of the Army And it was a new 90

Pontiac Ticket 500 Red Wow And that's when it was down on South Texas Yeah that's right right across from the care free theater and another time three years ago i got a car at napeson it was a new car i have no problem with the car but i spent five hours there and it was probably the most humiliating five hours of my whole life it was even worse in vietnam wow

and i just felt so filthy when i walked out of the place I felt like they just pulled me down the river. So I remember your comments at the first part of the today's broadcast about how going to a dollar car dealership can be so traumatic. Yeah. It's a shame that our attorney general doesn't take action on that. I wrote a blog article on a newspaper column about that. But here's a car dealer we have locally.

And also he's nationally. He's got, he's in the top 10 volume. dealers in the country and he's been charged with some pretty serious crimes and he settled it didn't know we settled with the Federal Trade Commission but thanks for sharing that

with us and I'm sorry that you had that experience radio program I appreciate it. Thank you so much Thank you so much Gary our lines are lit up we're going to go to Phil and Lake Worth good morning Phil

Hey good morning how I know you all doing. Great. Great. Hey, listen, I have a question. With a parasitic, maybe I'm not saying right, a parasitic problem. In other words, when I go check out the alternator, the generator, the alternator, the starter, the battery, everything's fine. And someone says you have

a parasite on that. And then what happens is, I went through a battery, I went through a starter, I went through an alternator, and this as your, what's going on is something is drawing juice out of there. Do you explain that to me? Because I'm not getting ready to put a, I just put a new battery starter and alternator, and it seems to be doing the same thing. So what is a parasite?

What you're actually talking about is a parasitic draw. And what this is is something in your car, some component that is supposed to turn off. when you turn the car off, is remaining on, or it's drawing more power from the battery than it should be, more electricity. Generally speaking, if you hooked up an ammeter in line with your battery, when you turn everything off, you should see no more than about 30 milliamps of draw, 30 to 60 million amps generally, and that's what they call the keep a live memory for the computers. They will need a certain amount of power to keep like the clocks up to date,

keep the memories alive on the computer and that. But anything more than that is drawing too much, and that's actually going to run your battery down overnight or over the period of a day or two. So what a technician will normally do to diagnose this is we'll hook up an ammeter, watch for that parasitic draw, and see how big that number gets, and then we basically just start pulling fuses one at a time, until that draw suddenly disappears, and we trace that fused circuit to find out what component is pulling so much extra power.

And it can be a kind of a long, tedious process, because you're basically just exploring the electrical system on the car to try to figure out what is staying on and what is drawing that extra power. What approximately would that process cost, Rick? It can go anywhere from $2 or $300 to $1,000 or more. because it's based on how long it takes the mechanic to track this down and find it. Sometimes it's a very simple process, maybe just one light bulb remaining on. Matter of fact, what I would do first is close your car all up, shut everything off, and then I would look in through the windows everywhere you can and see if there's any lights or anything like that that may be staying on,

a dome light or a courtesy light somewhere. even the door pin switch, you know, shake the doors without hitting the door handle. You know, if you take it into a service department, put a cap on the diagnostic and say, I've got a parasitic problem there with my car, electrical leak, don't know where it is, but I don't want to spend a lot of money on it. Can you check it out for me? And they say, yeah, we'll do that. I say, well, how much, how little is this going to cause me?

don't ask them how much. And I cap it at $100 or what you feel comfortable with. If you don't cap it and they're going to come back and give you a bill for $1,000 and still, they might still not have found it. So you can't have an open-in diagnostic, but take it someplace to hopefully to the, probably to the guy that manufacturer, a dealer, if you can, and cap it, cap the diagnostic McAfee. Well, I know that when I take the key off the ignition, the buzzer on the ignition is still buzzing. So now that you say that, probably that would be it. So probably would have to put a new ignition with the key and all that, correct? What's the car we're talking about? It's a 98 Ford van.

Hmm. Um, the first thing I would try to I would check that ignition switch and see, because if that key reminder buzzer is staying on, I would go after that ignition switch and check the wiring to it, see what's going on there. It could be as simple as just disconnect that buzzer and get rid of the buzzer. And that would get rid of it. And you don't want to spend $1,000 on a 24-year-old vehicle either. No, no, no, no, no, no, I mean, this is my work, man. I mean, the body's good, the engine is good, everything's good.

I mean, keep up shape. But anyways. And, you know, the second question I've got to ask is, it has to do with cars, but, like, right now I'm in the car now, but the lady that talks on, radio, her voice is excellent. But when you guys start, you have, like, a base sound. It's like, I got a... I think we lost your phone call.

Yeah, you know, you're breaking up. You must be in a little bad cell area. Phil, could you restate the question? Yeah, we lost you. Drop the call, I'm sorry. I think what he was saying is that Nancy's voice is coming through normal, but ours is maybe too much low tone on the signal or something. Oh, I didn't understand that.

Distorted? Okay, we are going to, Marty, are you still with us? No. Hello. Marty, hey, I thought I lost you. Hold on for a second. John, hold on. We'll be right with you. Well, we have an enormous amount of phone calls this morning. Good morning, Marty. How are things going? I got a question for either Earl or Stu. Okay. Can they tell me why on the high-end Camrys, or any Camry, they've never put in a memory seat? I have no idea. I know that's in the Avalon. on. I know even in the

higher end models, you're absolutely right. I'm at a loss for words. I don't know. Yeah, that's a good question. Supplying demand, that's answered to everything. I think people if they feel like they can get

by without something to keep the price down, they don't offer it. And for example, I don't, I've had memory seats in every car I drive, but I don't ever use it. And to me, it's so easy to readjust the seat. If Nancy drives a car, pop, I know how to adjust it.

Here's really easy. All you do is you put it all that you put the button until it stops moving in every direction. Yeah, I know. It's far back. There can be an advantage, Marty, and a disadvantage. With two people driving the same car. I'm driving the Tesla. Earl's driving the Tesla. And automatically it comes up and says, you know, there is programmed for Earl, then I have to readjust it. So good question. Marty, I think it's, I guess they have to like separate the luxury items, so if they reserved it for the Avalon, for the flagship cars, or the highest end equipment, I don't know why they consider memory seats to be like Uber luxury. It's just a convenience, you know. It's not like, you know, marble inlays or gold.

Yeah, I look at it this way. When you build a car, it's probably pretty cheap to put it in. Yeah. And you add it to the sticker anyways, whatever it is. Now, I know even the Avalon, which I've had, you had to have the high-end Avalon to even get the memory. But I think they're all hit the nail on the head, Marty, like, they're having no problem selling Camry's. Camry is probably the second-best selling car in the world, so why do it? And then to try and tempt people to go up the Avalon, probably the lowest selling Toyota vehicle we have. It doesn't make sense.

So they should put it in everything. Right. And they did away with the Avalon, right, for 22 is the last year. We're in the last cycle ever of the Avalon, unless they decide to surprise us and bring it back. future. I'm counting my moments in my Avalon because there's someone out there that's looking for one and well there are no more except mine. Now everybody knows it. Okay Marty. With the Camry's I guess even without the memory seat. Yeah. Thanks so much. Give us a call again. We're going to go to John in Palm City and I'm going to ask my first time female caller just to hang in

there. Good morning, John. Good morning. Happy Mother's Day to Nancy and all the mothers. Thank you. The topic, you're welcome. The topic came up again about catalytic converters. It's all over the news on the Internet. There's a new use that they're using them for. Believe it or not, it's the manufactured drugs. It's all on the Internet. I don't understand the process. It started in Africa and it's something to do with the honeycomb part of it and they converted into drugs and they're on the increase in theft. My daughter lives in Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn and that's a good neighborhood. Her friend had it stolen four cars on that same block overnight and her friend

has a Honda Civic and it caused the way it was cut. They have additional pipes involved and it was a $3,000 bill, and she only $500 deductible. But the place that repaired it, she had to pay for it, it's what they call a catalytic converter lock. I don't know how that works, whether it's welded around it or what, but it's worth probably looking into, and it's called specifically a catalytic converter lock. Does Rick know anything about that?

Yeah, there's a bunch of different devices out there that they wrap cables or cages around the catalytic converter, they lock them in place, they put steel plates underneath the body of the car to try to prevent access. There's been a ton of different things that people are using to try to prevent that. As for the catalytic converters being used for drugs, I honestly have no clue about that. And truthfully, I don't don't even want to know. I know they're stealing them and I know how to replace them and I know how to offer advice on how to prevent it, but what they're doing with them once they get them, I don't even want to know anymore. It's crazy.

But would you recommend a catalytic converter lock? Yeah, it's not a bad idea if you're responsible for the cost of those repairs on your car and you want to avoid, you know, having to the hassle of getting the car repaired, going through your insurance company for a settlement. Yeah, I think it'd be a pretty reasonable idea. I've got a picture, John, you're probably not streaming it. I've got a picture in the automotive news, article on catalytic converteables. Here's an aluminum or steel shield that is installed, and if you're streaming, you can see.

It's probably a lot cheaper, or maybe not, I'm not sure, than the lock. But we were talking about that earlier in the show, how to make something you don't want stolen undesirable to a thief. One way is to paint it, put a VIN number on it, and here's a shield that some dealers are putting on a Cadillac converter. You know, the chances of your Cadillac converter being stolen, depending on where you live and where you park your car and what. neighborhood you live in, you know, it's pretty rare. It just, it just doesn't happen. Houston's having a rash of these kind of thefts, but, you know, like everything else, sometimes you overreact. If you had to spend $100 to protect your catalytic converter, you're probably paying too much. If you could do it for less than that, it might be worth,

worth it. I mean, what it comes down to basically is just the idea that if they want to get it, They're going to get it. And if you make yours just a little more difficult than the guy next to you, they'll go to him. Yes. Well, thanks for the advice about the Cadillac lock. Okay. Thank you, John. And thank you, John, for letting us know that people can crush up and snort their catalytic converters because that's what they're doing.

Interesting. It's called Bombay, and it's pretty horrific sounding. So don't do that. It's going to kill you, kids. Stay away. Don't stay away from catalytic converters. You know, one of those metals that's in the Gatilly converter, I'm looking at this automotive news article, rhodium. How much does rhodium cost per ounce now?

I don't know. I think that's the active ingredient, though. $16,000 per ounce. In other words, that's more than diamonds, I think. Yeah. Where do you sell this stuff now? It's like, you know, even the junkyards now are being told they're not allowed to buy them unless they have provenance of where it came from. Yeah.

and so it's not like you're going to the pawn shop yeah hey listen I got an ounce of palladium is only nine hundred nineteen dollars an ounce rodeium and uh palladium is only 2200 but rhodium you want to get that rhodium 16,000 dollars an ounce wow rodeium rodium rodium oh okay let's move along yeah how about those special metals that are in my knees I'm going to have to get some insurance we are going to I'll tell you we've had so many phone calls this morning and I'll tell you what I say every week how important you are to the show. Don, but quit bothering us. We've got a show to do here. You know, you're a great audience and you fill our heads with, you know, information we don't even have. Look at John from Palm City,

he just called. Amazing. Every week, he gives us something new to wrap our heads around. We are going to go to our second new female caller. And I believe, her name is Heloise. Have I pronounced it correctly? Yes, you did. Oh, great. Heloise, are you a mom? I'm at home.

Are you a mother? Yes, she is. I am a mother, yes. Congratulations. You didn't win $50. You won yourself $100 this morning. Mother's Day special, Heloise. That's great.

Congratulations, and our producer, Elise, She'll take your information And we're trying to build a platform here And you have just helped with that So happy Mother's Day and congratulations What can we help you with this morning? I have a simple question I assume because everybody's saying not to buy cars

At this moment We have two old cars And obviously Soon or later we're going to have to look for something new I would like to know if you have an idea, when will be the best time for us to start looking for a car, or should we wait for next year, you know, calendar year? Hello, where it's the best thing for you to do is wait a year.

Take good care of your older cars, and I don't know if you're low mileage, high mileage driver, but if you're a low mileage driver, it's probably a lot easier to take care of. You need to get the car checked out for safety reasons every six, months or 10,000 miles, and you probably don't put 10,000 miles on your car. But prices are extremely high now, whether you buy a used car or a new car with this pandemic and microchip shortage and a lot of other shortages, the prices are sky high. Failability is very low. Wait until the end of the year and maybe early next year, you'll get a much better deal on a car. Today, though, if you don't need a car, if you've got two cars, maybe you don't need two cars. Maybe you don't

need two cars. If you sell one of those two cars today, you can make a good profit because they're paying thousands of dollars more for used cars today than they ever did before. So it's a seller's market, and I'd rather sit tight and wait

before I became a buyer. I see. All right. And Heloise, Earl has a great article that he wrote quite some time ago. Well, at least since this inventory shortage and COVID and everything.

And it really focuses on your old car and how important it is to take care of it and for you to realize you're sitting on a gold mine at this point in time. And if you can do that, it's well worth it. I thank you for calling and I hope you spread the word. And we're building a platform here, as I told you earlier. So please spread the word. And have a great weekend. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thanks to you. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-3-0, and we are going to go back to the recovering car dealer. Well, go to the school. We've probably got a whole backlog of anonymous feedbacks and text. Yeah, the phones have been crazy. We'll kick it off with Amory's text. Amri says, good morning.

Today's question center on where did they, vehicle manufacturers put it, and why did they put it there? Once in a while, one gets an unfamiliar car like a rental vehicle and can't quickly find where the common controls are, like the lights and the window switches are. Very familiar situation. In 1994, my sister rented a car in France to drive around the country. She doesn't remember the maker of the model, but when she got to a toll booth, she couldn't find the switch to lower the window. She had to open the door and get out in order to pay the toll. For some reason, I think this has happened to me before.

Oh, everybody, yeah. Anyway, later, after searching, she found the switch to open the window. It was in the center console, not on the side door as expected. So, one, in your estimation, why would a car manufacturer put the window controls on the center console? Two, could putting the switch on the door possibly cause problems if the driver opens the door when it's raining hard? Three, have you ever seen any switches located on the door get shorted out by rain? I remember I had a friend had an old sob in high school, and she had window switch. which is in the center console.

I don't know why they put them on the door. We're supposed to be a car advice show, but I don't know it's. MR2 spiders. Oh, is the Toyota MR2 spider. Oh, yeah. The window switches in the center console. The reason they do that is because they don't think, and it's stupid, and they need to devote more time to consumer input.

I remember a long, long time ago, before Toyota introduced a sienna into this country, They had the car driven through all 50 states. It took them a year and they took notes, the engineers and the drivers, and they carefully took notes as to what the car needed in different areas and environments and terrains. And the SENA back then was probably one of the most well thought out introduced cars. Now cars are being introduced so quickly every day that they do stupid things. I'm driving a Tesla. I love a Tesla plaid.

and Elon Musk is my hero, he's a genius, but he's got some of the stupidest design in there. Nancy drives the car, so she'll back me up on this. It has a yoke steering wheel, like an airplane, and that's okay, but the horn is on the yoke, and the turn signals are on the yoke, and when you turn the car, think about it, the horn can be on your left or it can be on your right, it can be above you, it can be below you. So when you need your horn, typically, you need it pretty quickly. And every time I need my horn, I start slapping everything near me, including Nancy, trying to find where the horn is. And the turn signals are important, too.

So if you're taking a 45-degree turn, your turn signal is up here. And if you're taking a hard turn, you can't find your turn signal at all. Plus, it's a black yoke, and the controls are black also. So stupidity and Anne-Marie, once again, the best question of the day. Thank you very much. Mama-meal. Okay, I got a question from Bob. It's probably for Rick, but I know the answer too.

Good morning. I know you don't promote your dealership on your program, but my question is, can Apple Play be added to my 2017 Sienna, and can you do it at your dealership? You can add Apple Play. There's an aftermarket thing to, isn't there to put in? on a headset? Actually, certain Toyota's

Apple CarPlay can be added by way of a software update. Okay. Do you know about the 2017 Rav or Sienna? I'm sorry? 2017, I don't think so. I think the 17 is too old. I think you'd have to get an aftermarket. 18 or 19 and above.

Yeah. For a 17, you would have to go to an aftermarket, either an aftermarket device that would add it as a dongle or a different radio unit. And Rick, I think he's advised in the past, go to Best Buy. They got the best deal. You've got the installation, and you can get a nice unit for less than what cost you to have the modification.

Well, the best advantage there is that you're going from a 2017 technology radio to a 2022 technology radio, and five years change in technology is massive. Huge, yeah, exactly. Okay. Next. Okay. I think we spoke to Ann on the phone, because we have a text here about the white paint coming off on her Hyundai. Okay, so we have some anonymous feedbacks.

We'll jump over. This came in last week. I don't know if I read it on the air, but it came in again, so somebody wants us to read it. It says, Earl, you are guilty as you admitted. 70% profit. Oh, we did read this on the air because I corrected the said it was 73% increase year every year. It says you're back to your old ways, but you address this. He feels guilty.

You know, it's funny. I'm starting to automotive news I used to I didn't even read it a lot of times years ago because it was totally self-serving to the car dealers and the car manufacturers and never took the

consumer into consideration and they came out with an op-ad a few weeks ago that just absolutely got my attention because it called out the Napleson group and called out all dealers that are adding junk fees and saying listen boys op-ed and automotive news a trade

Journal of the industry, the retail and the wholesale industry worldwide. So listen, you're screwing the customers and you can't be doing this, you're going to end up having the manufacturer sell the cars directly just like Tesla does. And here's another op-ed getting to the point. In today's automotive news, NADA obscuring dealer financials is a disservice. And I talked about this last week briefly, but I didn't have any idea that the automotive news would jump on it too. Maybe they'll listen to the show.

I don't know. But they're saying transparency is important in the National Automobile Dealers Association. And just because dealers are making obscene profits today, double profits, I mean millions of dollars. They're with a supply and demand situation and the pandemic-induced microchip shortage, car dealers are just getting filthy rich and so are the manufacturers and NADA is trying to hide that and there's an op-ed

here it is I've pulled it up to those who stream and you can see the I think you can see yeah their opinion you can get that online probably if you're interested but every auto manufacturer

every car dealer and many of the managers and those functions are reading this every week. It's a weekly. So thanks very much for the anonymous feedback and calling me out on making too much money. I mean, I do. I feel guilty

about it. And you know, in the automotive news I do have to point out that it is an interesting magazine and the reason for that is because it's for the consumer also. It just really opens up the door to information you wouldn't normally have and it helps you to understand this inventory

shortage and it just helps you understand. and whether to purchase a vehicle or whether to hang on to that old vehicle. Now back to Sue. Another anonymous feedback says, thank you, Earl, for addressing like a mensch, your interrupting of Rick. Today's show is much better. I think I know who the anonymous feedback came from now.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. Well, I don't want to out. Oh, okay, don't out of them. No, you know, it is. Moise? Was it Moiscia? Huh?

Never mind. Go on. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. No, I'm saying that. I wish we had more anonymous feedback like that because I think it's healthy to be called out.

I think transparency trumps embarrassment or are getting angry about something. And if you say something about me because it's not true, I want you to do that anyway. I mean, I don't make up something that you know it's not true if you want to do it. But total honesty and transparency is so important. I'm just starting to understand that now later in my life.

and this is a I'm very excited about my new book Redemption of a Recovering Car Dealer and we just finished chapters 9 and 10 and oh by the way I haven't told I mentioned this to Stu or Nancy but my ghostwriter

John Van Zile is his name I do I dictate to him twice a week for an hour or so and he suggested that my last three blogs on Erlan Cars might make good ending chapters. So my last three blogs on Erlon Cars are open letter to Ashley Moody,

open letter to car dealers, and the third one, open letter to auto manufacturers. So the state attorney general, the manufacturers, and to whoever, I forgot what I said. Manufacturers, manufacturers, manufacturers, manufacturers, and state attorneys. So anyway, transparency and honesty is an amazing thing, redemption. I put that in the title of my book because I just loved being honest. I got so honest with my, I think Nancy was listening to my conversation with John Manzile, who is my ghostwriter. And I was just pouring forth, I was gushing out honesty and transparency. And before he hung up, he said, Earl, I think we better have an attorney read this book before we publish it.

And I said, I think you're right. I think you're right. But Stu is looking at me knowingly because he knows what I think about attorneys, and he knows how I go with it. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they don't look at it. But, you know, I also told him, a lot of this is inside. I apologize to people that are listening to too much inside stuff. here, but there's a attorney that we use a lot, his name is Alex Kirkin, and he's the attorney

for the South Florida Dealers Association, and he is an advocate for dealers. And when the manufacturers attack the dealers, or the consumer attacks the dealers, or a dog attacks a dealer, anybody attack on dealer, Alex Kirkin is a go-to guy. And he's a good guy, and he's kind of like He's kind of like Ted Smith, who's the president of the Florida Oil Dealers Association. We're friendly adversaries. Ted Smith is a very smart guy. Alex Kirkin is a very smart guy. And we can talk and laugh and enjoy each other's missions in life.

And so I will let Alex Kirkland read my book. And I will listen to all the things he says, I shouldn't say. Then I'm going to do it anyway. But I'm having fun. Listen. But, you know, it's, I'm having fun. You can tell. In that moment in our office at home, it was quite a moment when I heard the attorney's name being mentioned.

And what came to my mind was that it is just, well, the recovering car dealer has come very far. And at this late stage at the game, I don't think he's ready to serve any time in the slammer. Part of his fact that if they give me life imprisonment, and he's something, I think, bad. I mean, you know. So I guess that was a bad joke. All right, I got more anonymous feedback here. It says, you, sir, have restored my faith in car dealerships. Well, that's not the, well, don't have too much faith in car dealerships. You, sir, have restored my faith in car dealerships, and I look forward to procuring a corolla from your lot. I was going to swing by this weekend to get a 2022 blue LE, but I wasn't able to secure transportation. I'm in no rush, and will more than likely get

July. Keep up the great work. And, sir, I'm looking forward to doing business with you in a few weeks' time. Word of your business practices have reached as far south as Miami-Dade, I thought you should know. Well, you know, okay. Now, here's another, I just have to be, I have to confess because my redemption kicked in. That call was really good for business. I mean, the man's buying a car, and he's thanking me for being honest, and he's coming and buying a car, so I'm making money off my honesty so you have your cake and you eat it too you're honest you treat people right and i my joke with my sons and my wife and and and all the managers in my dealership is the fact that that uh don't spread the word we have the secret to success don't tell the other dealers

if you're honest and transparent it's good for business don't tell them that because then they'll be it'll be cutting into our business so we have a we have an honesty franchise guys. So in the middle of the night, I wake up and I say, am I really a nice guy or am I just a really good businessman? Our hidden secret. I don't know. Maybe I'll go to my grave, never knowing the answer. Or maybe. I doubt that. Maybe they're one and the same. Wouldn't that be wonderful if all businesses, Apple figured it out a long time ago, all businesses, Costco figured it out, they figured out if you really treat people honestly they will be the path to your door like you're a mousetrap a better mousetrap i should say exactly okay i'm on a ran 877960 877 960 or you can text us at 772 49760 take advantage of your anonymous feedback dot com I think that we're going to get a YouTube or two we've got a couple here I Negan 1 says, he's in Arizona.

I noticed the local dealership in my town, the Ram Dodge dealership, is full of new vehicles, trucks and jeeps. But the Ford dealer is very empty. Ford outselling Dodge definitely seems like it. People willing to wait on a Ford truck maybe. Can you try to do a mystery shop on full-sized pickups? I can tell you that if you see some lots with cars and some with zero cars, it's really up to the business model of that dealer.

Some dealers, including some Toyota dealers, and this is how I know about it, are bringing cars in to be on the lot, and they sell them for the highest possible price. There are people out there that will not listen to the advice on the show, and we'll have to have a car right now, and we'll pay any price to get it. So the Dodge dealer is probably playing that game, and the Ford dealer is probably doing pre-orders and delivering them as they come in. Car buyers, unfortunately, have a disease called instant gratification, an emotional disease that can't be cured.

And when you see a shiny new Jeep and you're standing real close to it, it's like, you know, like a beautiful woman, if you're a man, and you've got to have it. And you pay whatever it takes. And you come out of the ether maybe a week later and say, my God, did I pay that much for that Jeep. But you can't do that on an ordered car. So the dealers are smart enough to know if they want to get $10,000 or $15,000 over MSRP. You've got to have that shiny new vehicle there. Now, they're not only cheating the customers, they're cheating the manufacturers because a lot of these dealers, and Stu knows this, a lot of these dealers have reported that

car or Jeep being sold to the manufacturer a month ago. I mean, they probably reported that Jeep is being sold to the manufacturer as soon as they got invoice for it, and that means that the manufacturer thinks you sold the car, and they'll send you another one. That's the way cars are shipped allocated to

car dealers is on how fast they sell them. So they lie to the manufacturers, say I sold the car, they keep it on the lot and then when the customer comes in, they can sell to them for thousands over sticker. If you order the car, a lot of things can happen. First of all,

you can cancel the order. You don't have to take it. Prices come down. You can insist on getting a lower price. You don't have that control. But when you spot deliver a car, you have it all. So that's why some dealers have cars in stock and other dealers don't. And this one is from Donovan. He says, speaking of catalytic converter theft in the state of the world today, with the price of copper going up, people are cutting off the cables from Tesla superchargers and other EV chargers.

This is becoming a big common problem that few people are talking about. There's a lot of copper in those cables and each cable can be worth as much as $10 worth of recycled copper. He says, so that's something you might want to watch for if you're looking for a charger. Nancy, we're going to have to aim our webcams,

security cams at our ring gutter. We have a copper ring gutter. And he says, now I'm not sure how they're doing this, but Earl, the horn in your Tesla will be enabled shortly with the center airbag in an update. Oh. So apparently they can do an update where your... That was an oversight.

Center button can actually beat your horn on your Tesla. But how are they going to put an airbag in my yoke? The yoke's on John, on Elon. Oh, it's yoke's on you, man. There's an airbag in there. I got, yeah, you can't. I mean, I got a yoke. There's no way you can put...

There's an airbag in there. There's an airbag in my yoke. I hope there was an airbag in your yoke. Oh, I never thought about it. There should be an airbag in your yoke. It must be a little bit of your bag. They pack it up all tight into the little thing. I'll check when I go down.

It's a Takata airbag, though, unfortunately. Uh-oh. Help me. Sorry. Okay. I got a text. He's not getting near that yoke. I have a text that says,

Textor says, I also got taken by Napleton, but let the callers know to check unclaimed money in the state. I found a couple of thousand dollars they sold. So maybe that's where Napleton's putting it. is putting it is in the Florida in the Treasury. So if Napleton ripped you off, just go to town. No, actually, I go, the Florida Department of Financial Services does have an unclaimed property website, and it's worth checking out, you know, but I don't know if it's,

if the junk fees that you paid the Napleton go there, but check it out. Check it out. You might have some money. How they classify it. Stu, we're going to go back to the phones where Amy is holding. Good morning, Amy. Welcome to the show Amy

Are you there? Hey Yes I am Good morning Amy This is Nancy Stewart Are you a first time caller? Yes I am Are you a mom

No but I listen to your son Okay Saturday in my car The reason that I ask is because We're celebrating Mother's Day this weekend I heard that this morning And you've won yourself $50

but if you were a mom you would have won $100 but $50 is a pretty good deal That's better than nothing So welcome Stay on the line and talk to Elise She's our female producer She'll get your information

Pass it alone to me and I'll get that check out to you Okay How can we do for you this morning Well I have a 1998 Chevy blazer And it's You know it's fully loaded, and the right, the passenger side rear door, I went to the grocery store, took my grocery bag out, went and got groceries, put it in, the door opened, closed fine, got home, closed

the door, went to open it again, and the latch wouldn't open to open the door. It just wouldn't open. So I tried to do it from inside, and it wouldn't open at all. It just won't budge. so I took it to a guy that has worked on my car before and he said well we'll have to order you a new latch of which they don't make those latches anymore because they're lift-up latches

I think they quit after they made them in 1998 because I don't see one car that has one and he said in order to put it on we're going to have to break your car door Now, I don't quite understand that. Well, the problem is once that latch is closed, you know, that's all contained inside the door itself. So to get access to it, he's going to have to go in through the door panel without opening the door. So unfortunately, sometimes things are going to get broken just because there's no access to get into that latch.

it's a process it's if he's lucky he may be able to get the door panel off and be able to get in access to that latch and disconnect it somehow break it apart inside and not damage too much additional items but it's it's going to depend upon the design of that door latch as to how much stuff has to get broken in order to get that door open so he can replace that latch well I looked at it carefully and it doesn't appear like there are any screws that come off. Like in some cars, you know, those panels you can unscrew and take off that panel to work on a car or replace a latch or something like it. It appears like the whole thing is one solid piece. It's part of the door almost. Right. There's

going to be hidden screws. They're usually little plastic panels or plugs that cover the heads of the screws. They do that so it looks all nice and pretty. And then the rest of it is held with clips that are going to be just metal or plastic clips that lock into place in that door panel. But like I say, it's the getting that door panel off of the door without being able to open the door at all. Because the door is jammed shut, you can't open it. So he's going to have to kind of literally go in from the inside, working inside the car to try to get that panel loose. It can be quite a process. Amy, the good news is I found a 1998 Chevy Blazer hood latch on eBay for 50 bucks.

So that's not so bad. Well, that's a hood latch. She needs a door latch. Oh, okay. I found one on eBay, but he found a place he could order one. But the whole issue, and the inside latch is easy to find. They had tons of those. But the outside one, they couldn't seem to find.

He did find a source. He said he could find one. and I found one on, what is it, carparts.com. Good for you. 1998 Chevy Blazer Base exterior door handle, rear driver's side, smooth black, 1549. But the fact remains,

do I know that this is the right one? No, I don't. How important is it to you, Amy, that that door open and close? You got you, you said it was your passenger's side, rear door. How often do you use that? No, it's the driver's side rear door. How often do you use that door?

Well, I used to use it all the time. Yeah, but I'm saying if you don't use it now all the time, it's probably not going to be worth. You're driving a 24-year-old car, and you don't want to spend hundreds of dollars fixing that door. So if I hire you, I just say a bye-bye door and keep it closed all the time, and don't worry about it. yeah i've just put a new um battery and a new starter in it yeah getting to the point where i'm putting more money into it than the car is worse you definitely need the battery but i don't think you need that right rear door left rear door but left rear door yeah yeah but i mean you know my bank people say you know it's time to look at another car and i said to her i said now it's

not the time to buy a car and i talked to the Well, automation where I bought it, my dealer guy, Fred Friese, and he didn't even have any inventory, and it said a new blazer would cost me almost $37,000 plus tax, which would bring it up to $40 something. Keep that old blazer running, and about six months or eight months, take another look at used car prices, but I think you're in pretty good shape right now. just try not to think about that left rear door yeah it's not a breakdown issue it's not something is going to leave you stuck alongside the road and it's not the fact that the door won't close it's just that that door won't open and i i myself if it were my vehicle i wouldn't even fix it you know unless you absolutely had to i i wouldn't you don't think i should spend the money on it because even though they have the latch which may be the

the cheapest thing and the whole deal of fixing it, the labor is what's going to... Right. That job's going to get very labor intensive and very likely, like I say, other parts are going to get broken and that's going to raise that bill up even more. So I wouldn't even do it. I would say, no, leave it B. I can't. I don't want to spend money on the car. It's already cost me a person to keep it as it is. No, I wouldn't spend money on that. If it was something to do with the engine or transmission, that made it to where you couldn't drive the car, then I would consider it.

But otherwise, for a door that you've got three other doors on the car that you can use, I wouldn't even bother with it. Okay. Well, I listen to your show every Saturday. I'm from Detroit. I'm a car person, always have been, and I've always driven Toyos. I had a Selika when they first came out, the rounded model.

Love my little Selica until I moved to Florida, and it scared me to drive it. on 95, so I went and bought that Seve Blazer, and I almost think it was the worst choice I've ever made. I wanted a four-runner, but I couldn't afford the for a four-runner. So I settled for the blazer,

and look what I got. Thanks, Amy. I really appreciate to call. I love my Toyota. Oh, thank you. A bumper sticker that said I love my Toyota. Thank you. Thank you so much, Amy. I really hope that we're able to help you this morning. You were. You were. You're not, because I really have

no one to advise me on whether to do this or not. Yeah, and that's why we're here, Amy. You stay in touch with us and we'll help you along the way. Rick is the best of the best. So have yourself a wonderful weekend. Will you send me information? I'm getting a hold of you

and stuff. Certainly you can stay on the line and you get that from Eloise. Okay. All right. She can let you know how to get in touch with all of us. If you're a mom, happy mother's day to you. Thank you so much. I am indeed. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-6-530 we're going to go to julie who has been holding good morning julie

good morning um i had a question about electric vehicles yes hi um let's say you live in the third floor of a condo is your only choice for charging a car is to go to a charging station and what are they charged it depends on what what are you talking about which what make electric vehicle you think about buying Julie I'm I'm probably not going to buy when it was just a hypothetical I was thinking you know if you go garage you can do that garage set up where you have charged right in your garage but you know if you're in a upper floor of the building or even a condo in the first floor yeah I wasn't sure how you charge it well if if you live in a condo and this is going

to be an issue that's going to arise just more and more frequently as electric vehicles become more common. It should be an issue that's brought up to the condo association for the parking garage or the outside parking, however you have it, to install charging stations. And they are not ridiculously expensive. I think I have a home one for about $700. I think I had installed the charger was $700 and so that's how it would have to be done. If you couldn't get one installed at your

condo, if you had a Tesla, you could locate the local, the closest charging stations, the superchargers, but there's also besides Tesla, there's other independent charging networks like ChargePoint, which is a popular one. And if you have an app on your

phone, it'll locate all the chargers, any charger nearby, on your phone. And you'll be another thing. Most people are thinking in terms of charging when they're going on a long trips. Because you don't, right now, most of your electric vehicles are going to get you, get around 300 miles to a charge. So you don't have to charge it every day or every other day. And as long as you can find a charging station, if you're not a high volume, high mileage driver,

once a week. It isn't a big deal. So if you have to charge once a week, you're going to be going by a charging station nine out of ten times. I mean, around Palm Beach County, I live in an area that, you know, and I live far from a charging station. It's about 10 miles. So you're never going to be more than about 10 miles from a charging station in Palm Beach County. I don't know where you live, but that's not going to be an issue. Yeah, I've seen it at the outlet malls in West Palm.

I have seen them there. Yeah. What do they cost? How do they charge? How do they, yeah, how much do they cost for charging? They charge by the kilowatt hour, and the average is around 13 cents per kilowatt hour, and that doesn't mean anything. How much you or me? That's what I'm saying, how they do it.

It's about a month, about $30, $40 a month to charge the car in the electrical costs. And that depends on how much you drive it. That's way better than gas. That's less than a third of what I'm paying to fill up my tank right now. Much better. Because I got out of an electric car right when gas went to $4.50 a gallon. That's how smart I am. So it's really, it is a fuel safe, it's cheaper than gas and it's a lot more convenient than people think.

But it's totally natural to be apprehensive about it because it's a completely different way to get around. And, you know, I stressed out about it the first time I took the Tesla on a road trip because, you know, usually don't think about that sort of thing. You know, yeah, I'll find a gas station. But I did a little pre-planning and it turned out to be very smooth and it worked out. It was great. And so I'm a believer. I don't think that the challenges or the things that we're worried about that are going to, they'll be overcome and they'll be solved bit by bit and sometimes we don't have the answer for everything. But it's a pretty safe bet now to get an electric car.

And I can tell you, Amy, that I'm sorry, Julie, that speaking, you know, from experience in driving, I am driving an electric car now and I'm driving the Tesla. and I was very reluctant in the beginning and it's going to save you an enormous amount of money if you figure that out, you know, dollar-wise a year. It's just amazing. You just don't think about it. And you can become very used to driving the electric car, you know, with getting on the road and getting out there.

So you can overcome all those fears I have. Okay, well, thanks for the update. You have yourself a great week. Our telephone number is 877-960-99-60, and you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. We are going to go to Jeannie. I believe Jeannie's calling us from... I don't know if you're staring up. Please go away.

Jeannie? Hi. Hi. Welcome to the show. Thank you. You're calling us from North Palm Beach? I am. Oh, good morning.

What can we do for you this morning? Good morning, Jeannie. So I bought a new Porsche Macon, which I love, it's a great car. And a day later, I got an email from Force saying that because of a chip shortage, they couldn't provide the electronic steering column that I paid for. So they were giving me a $500 sales voucher to use towards the purchase of my new Macon. But I had already paid for it, so the sales voucher was of no value. So I called for North America, and they said, well, you can use it for service, but the service is included on the three-year lease.

So that was of no value. Anyway, we went back and forth and back and forth, and they say they'll have someone call me back, and this has been going on since April 12th with no resolution. Wow. I'm wondering if you have any ideas. I know that's a very common thing that's going on now with the global microchip shortage, that some manufacturers are delivering vehicles without all the equipment. With the promise, usually what I've heard is with the promise,

when it becomes available, that component they'll install it later. It sounded like Porsche did it with the voucher. Gosh, I mean, I don't know, they owe you $500, but there's no way really to redeem it because the service is free and you've already bought the car. I would just see how you could take it up the chain of command to see you to convert that to cash somehow. to see if they can change it from a $500 voucher to, you know, a check.

But I wouldn't know where to begin. Maybe the general manager of the dealership. Have you tried going up to the folks that run it? Yes. And they tell me that I have to take it up on Porsche. And they're saying it's Porsche, right? Right. Hey, Earl, this sounds like a very familiar situation.

You have a situation where you need the dealership to advocate for you and the manufacturer is dragging their fee on her $500 voucher. Yeah, I think that you need to start putting things in writing for starters. I'm not sure whether you have or not, but phone calls and even verbal face-to-face don't cut it anymore. You have to be, I think, text or emails, always make your request and save copies of your request. When they know you're keeping a paper file.

file on your issue, you get attention a lot quicker. I'd also call Porsche directly. Did you say you call Porsche directly? I do. Well, so the letter is signed by a man who doesn't have a phone number at Porsche, but I know he's a course in Atlanta, but they have no phone number for him.

And they've let me leave messages at a voicemail box, but nothing has ever returned. There are other areas you might try. One that always gets a response is my favorite is the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. The Florida Department of Motor Vehicles has life and death power over car dealerships. They have the license that a car dealer has to sell cars used or new or both is determined by the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. They have a complaint form. You can download it from my blog site, Erloncars.com.

or you could get it online and file a complaint with the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles tell them specifically what happens. You can be sure that a complaint will be sent to that dealer. Now, you know, the Better Business Bureau and the County Office of Consumer Affairs and a lot of other complaints, nobody pays attention to them. But when a dealer knows, anybody in a dealership knows, that the DMV, the FDMV, has, issue to complain, it gets immediate response. And at the very least, it might make them, you know,

push harder to get Porsche to respond to you. It will have, it will have the owner of the dealership involved. He will be involved because he will have to know about it. And I, speaking as a dealer for 50 years, anytime I get a complaint for the Florida apartment motor vehicles, it keeps me awake at night and I look at it and I take care of it immediately. Okay, that's good advice. I'll try that. Okay, well, thank you.

Sorry, it is really frustrating. When there's faceless people, sometimes it's easier to deal with a tough car dealership, but when you get the manufacturer, and they're just hidden behind, like he said, you've got a name, but there's no way you're ever going to find this guy's phone number. Good luck, Jeannie, and I hope you stay in touch with us. Okay, I'll let you know what happens. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to our last caller, Mark, who is a regular from Palm Beach Gardens.

Good morning, Mark. Good morning to all of you, and happy Mother's Day, Nancy. Thank you, Mark. I got just two things. One turn real quick with the lady that has a Chevy Fargo. There could possibly, Rick, couldn't there possibly be a problem with the child restraint switch on the latch, whether, you know, people load groceries in and out of a car, and sometimes the switch on the inside of the jam. actually on the latch there's a switch to prevent if you have a small child in the car

and you're driving down the road it prevents them from opening the door from the inside and I know it's supposed to open from the outside but if that switch is an intermediate position rather than open or closed that possibly could be an issue what do you think that is certainly a possibility the problem being that those switches, generally when the door is closed, it's inaccessible. It's actually back in behind the door jam at that point, and you almost cannot get to it at all, even with little hooks and levers, little tools. You can't get it. Yeah, you just, you cannot get access to it. What most likely has happened is age, rust, corrosion, and that latch basically has jammed itself

in a mid-lock position. It's almost like if you ever did that old trick where you were trying to open the door right at the same time that someone was playing with the door lock and it catches that door lock in a mid-way position, it'll jam up the lock. And usually you could get those to free up. But if it's jammed up inside and just from corrosion in that locked itself, it's done.

And there's just really no other access. You know, the only other thing I've got a possibility is, you know, the biggest thing is going to be opening the interior trim panel with the door closed. Right. And trying to gain access to that latch. But anyway, that was just a question. My other biggest thing is, you know, with petroleum-based automobiles, you know, driving gasoline engines, you know, you have an alternator that work jointly with the battery

that as you're driving the car, it charges the battery, you know, with everything working properly. Now, how come, this may sound like a silly question to you guys that know about electrical vehicles, why on an all-electric vehicle couldn't the manufacturer coming, come up with an alternator type situation to where, you know, we talk about all these problems getting to charging stations on time if you don't have one at home or at your condo association, why don't they have a device on an electric car as you drive it? It would help charge the batteries on your electric vehicle, thus giving you longer mileage stretches.

Does anybody have an idea on that, or am I just my brain stuck in neutral? Basically, with the way they're designed, the electric motors that drive the wheels, When you let off the accelerator and the car is coasting, those motors switch to generators and they actually use the spinning force to create electricity to help recharge the system. It's called regenerative braking. The problem is what you're going to encounter, and this has been throughout history, people have always looked for this, perpetual motion or free energy, and it simply cannot exist because the drag created. by a generator that is being spun will slow that car down so much that you're not going to produce

enough electricity to equal the amount of energy you've lost by slowing the car down. So unfortunately, trust me, it's been tried. People have tried hooking alternators up to the wheels by way of belts, trying to create free energy.

Mark, you probably heard about the... And it just won't work. You've probably heard about the inductance coils in the highways, and this is catching on, and that does exactly what you're talking about as the car drives over, all electric EV, drives over a road with an inductance coil buried underneath the surface. You're charging the car.

If you stayed on those roads the whole time you own the car, you'd never have to worry about charging your battery. So, yeah, there is a way to charge your battery, but you can't do it from within the battery itself. You have to do it from outside. and who cares if it's outside as long as you're driving while it's happening you never know what's happening.

Yeah, like if you travel from Florida to New York, you know, and you stay on the roadways to have that then, you know, you don't have to worry about stopping it, Ramada in, and plugging in. You have your Florida, fully charged in Florida, fully charged in New York. And eventually, I mean, let's face it,

I'm sure major interstate highways will all have inductance coils at some point in time. going to be a huge expense, but I thought that was an interesting question, and I had no clue. So anyway, I'll hang up so you guys and get the mystery shopping report. Thank you, Mark. Have a nice weekend.

Thank you. You do the same. Look forward to hearing from you. As Mark said, we are going to get to the mystery shopping report. And for all of you who are trying to call us, our phones are frozen. And right now, you can get in touch with us by texting us in voting on the mystery shopping report. Your vote is extremely important.

We've got some time for text or YouTube's if we have any. Got one last one here on YouTube by E.C. Olson says, is Car Right used cars in trouble? The one near me in Fort Pierce has almost no cars on the lot. Car what? It's car right, C-A-R-R-I-T-E. Yeah, I'm not familiar with them used to. Car-right, use car. I wouldn't say it would be awful hard to be in trouble today if you're a car dealer.

I don't know. Haven't you? Probably a situation, like we've seen, not a lot of use car lots, just there's very few cars available. And when you get them, they sell them and the cars aren't coming in. They have one, but they'll sell it for a million dollars and make a lot of money. I've got an automotive news article here that I think I want to mention just because it amuses me. I don't know if it'll amuse anybody else. Nissan is kind of a troubled auto manufacturer.

They just don't do well. The dealers don't like Nissan. Nissan doesn't like the dealers. Nissan doesn't sell very many cars in the grand scheme of things compared to Honda, Toyota, anybody, really, Subaru. They're just not doing so well. well. And I used to joke a long time ago. It wasn't really a joke. I really believed it. I'm old enough to remember when Dotson was the name of the Nissan. And it used to be a popular car. It was like right up there competing with Toyota and Honda. 280X. Yeah. And Dodson. So some genius

in Nissan came up. Well, let's change it. Dodson name to Nissan. Nobody knew what the hell it was. And so they stopped buying the cars. Now, I didn't know this until I read this article in automotive news, but someone finally figured out that the problem with one of the big problems with Nissan Sales was that they should have never changed the name 30 years ago or whatever it was. It's like New Coke, but they didn't go back. So there was a revival in an effort, and they, in India and some other countries, they changed the name back to Dotson, and I never knew that. Now, the problem is, this is the reason I laugh at it, and poor, Needs.

The guy that came up and was sponsoring that idea that was pushing that year was the CEO of Nissan. And, of course, that guy's name was Carlos Gohn, and they put him in jail. He did. The good news is he escaped. And he's in hiding in Lebanon. In Lebanon. True story. I mean, you can't make this stuff up.

He was smuggled out in speaker crates in a private jet. And they did, the guys that helped them escape, they're in jail. But Carlos is warming his feet in Lebanon. In the Mediterranean. In the Mediterranean. But nice try. Carlos, if you're listening, because we are international. Carlos, if you're listening, it was a great idea.

And it would have worked, and I'm so sorry that you can't return home. But it should be Dotson. We'll never forget you. You know, right when they were doing that switchover, they came out with a series of commercials that had this like older oriental fellow and he just had this this very calm voice and one of the commercials I remember is him with this little dog in this Dotson pickup and saying dogs love trucks and it just it was one of it for some reason that commercial with the dog and then

driving off into the sunset and this Dotson is stuck with me and and And to this day, I still remember that commercial. It's weird how certain commercials can tag on so hard. Exactly. Okay, folks, we have reached a time for the mystery shopping report. As I said earlier, your vote is very important. You can do that by texting us at 772-497-6530. And the mystery shopping report comes from, well, as Stu put it, just a little town that

nestled in the northern part of Florida, and that little town is called Lake City. And the mystery shopper report comes to us from Roundtree Moore Ford. So back to the recovering car dealer and our mystery shop. Oh, I'm not the only one that never heard of Round Tree Moore Ford. When I read the title to Stu's report, I thought maybe it was Pennsylvania. I had no idea where Round Tree Moore was. I had heard of it because I knew of a Round Tree Moore Ford was. Moore, Toyota.

So Lake City, we don't know how much, we don't know much about this small town dealership, but we're mystery shopped a lot of dealerships just like this one. Round Tree Moore, small family-owned dealer group that dominates the car bus in Lake City. And they've

got Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Nissan, and Kia. They just pretty much got the whole town wrapped up, Lake City, a very small little place. I guess, I never heard of it before. Lake Park, I've never heard of them before either, but they're close, so now I know where Lake Park is. I see Lake City on street highway signs, like when you're up going to your Gainesville, Lake City next exit.

Round Tree Moore is part of a dying breed of family-owned dealerships, the type that was once on the car rows in cities across America. Round Tree Moore and Lake City could just as well be the Wallace Group and Stewart, the Schumacher Group and West Palm Beach. or the Earl Stewart group in North Palm Beach, but large dealer groups like AutoNation are rapidly becoming the face of the retail car business. Kind of sad, you know, just, it was kind of, it's a family-owned business. You know, father-son, father-daughter, more father-son than daughter. But it sounds warm and fuzzy. It's a real nice.

Quaint, yeah, that's the word. Mystery Shopping reports that family dealership to produce a while. range of results because the styles of these businesses are as varied as the personalities of their owners. Small town, family-owned dealerships tend to treat our mystery shoppers more kindly and are less likely to engage in the more depraved tactics. Rout three more forward checks both boxes, family-owned and small town. They also are operating under the same inventory environment as all car dealers, which makes

possible to hike prices with virtually no limits. The only limit being self-restraint. I like that very much. The only limit being self-restraint. You can charge anything you want if you're a car dealer. There's no legal cap. And if you can sell a guy, a car for a million dollars that cost you $10,000, it's strictly legal. I think it's immoral.

I think it's unethical, but it's strictly legal. The primary goal of our mystery shops of the last few months has essentially been to find car dealers who are practicing self-restraint, you know, ethics, morality. If you've been listening recently, you know we aren't too successful, haven't been too successful. Agent Lightning headed up to North Florida, hoping to add another dealer with solid enough ethics to control the sales department to our list of good guys.

Here's the report, speaking on the first person, when I entered the showroom, the receptionist was busy, speaking on the phone, so I wandered a bit. Hoping to get the attention of a salesperson. I think we've all done that, and I think in different stores, hoping somebody will pay attention. Eventually, Joe came over and asked how he could help. I said I was there to get a new Ford Edge or an escape.

Joe said they had no escapes, but there were two or three edges that may be available. We could see two edges parked nearby. We made our way over. I walked around the great one, and Joe asked if I wanted to see this one. I said yes, and Joe went to find the key. there was no Benroney label visible it happens a lot

happens a lot too often Joe said it had just come in and they hadn't had a chance to put it on I guess they do put them in the glove compartments Maybe during the PDI Like we're familiar if you're listening When Artoid has come in They're prepared at the port

so they come in with the stickers on them So maybe at Ford they do it at the dealership I don't know The law says they're supposed to be affixed to the window until the customer removes it. This is never done, but okay. I'm tired of talking about it. That's just never going to happen.

He opened the door, reached between the seats, and had me the Menorne level, and the addendum. Here we go. The infamous addendum. You can't have one without the other. The MSRCP was 44,485. That's the Monroney. They had a $3,000 marketing.

adjustment, the infamous market adjustment, and $2,895 protection, exterior paint warranty, rain repellent, headlight UV protection, cabin sanitation, interior microbial microbial, anti-theft, veneaging, nitrate, I'm running out of breath, nitrous in the tires, $2,500 collision credit for 90 days. Welcome, kid. Car Care products. I didn't understand that when it says you crash your car in the first three months. Yeah, they will give you the $2,500 of you cries your car. Well, that's the incentive to drive unsafely. That's right, yeah, because I'm going to get that guy. Anyway, I just, when I read this, I saw the brainstorming session of the advertising agency or the dealership, probably the dealership,

they probably do all their own marketing. And they had a bunch of people in the room. They said, Okay. Now, we want to screw the customer out of a few thousand dollars. We need to come up with some stuff that cost us nothing that we can put on the window sticker of the addendum sticker. How about Ranex? We can put some Ranex in it. I like that. And anybody else? Headlight UV protection. Yeah, I like that. Well, I don't have anything to give them. How about we tell them if they pop a tire, we'll give them 50 bucks. Anyway, there we are. So now the addendum, the price instead of 44, 485 is now up to 50,000.

three hundred eight dollars there's small town okay we are seeing a devious deceptive behavior in a small town I asked him at the endem items were negotiable Joe said no he told me his mother I'm I have a strange sense of humor Joe said though he told me his mother had bought a new edge and she had to pay for the market adjustment and round tree board that's I mean it's not funny and it makes me think terrible things. And on Mother's Day, we've been of all times to use your mom like that.

I mean, did Joe really do that to his mother? And would he do it to your mother or does he do it to you? And he would mark it up. I mean, it's just, I get it. It's called sick humor. The reason I'm laughing, that's sick humor. It's really terrible. Did he really sell his mother a car and charge her $5,000 over his sticker?

I guess he did. Either that or he's lying. Either way, it's a bad thing. He's not a very good son. I would have found another dealership for my mom. We took the vehicle on a short test drive. Joe asked me how soon I plan on buying. I said, today, if the numbers are right, that's what they want to hear.

They want that emotional involvement. We went inside, found a desk, Joe questioned me, and entered my answers into his computer. Then he asked if I was ready to see a breakdown of the numbers. I waited for Joe for only five minutes. He sat down at the desk, showed me a worksheet. The total purchase price was the amount on the addendum, $50,000380. Then they added $1,098 in junk fees.

The real price now was $51,478. Let's round that off. $7,000, $693, $7,000 over MSRP. and just this little town called Round Tree Moore in Lake City Round Tree Moore hit me for seven grand

over a sticker I asked Joe if this was his best price I said his offer was too steep Joe wasn't sure if it was his best deal I mean I don't know what he said there there was no detail I don't know I don't know

talk to the boss He just left to talk to the boss He was back David was the boss in four minutes he had that David. David summarized the issue for him. He said he'd love to earn my business.

They always say earned, but he was told I wanted to see a better deal. He asked if this was correct. I said, yes, and let him know I needed to get my husband on board before I could move forward. David said he understood and presented a new worksheet. This one had a discount of $3,500. Boy, that's in the industry, we call that dropping your pants. You don't ever drop your pants.

You always move slowly. When you're playing the silly game, you ask for a price, and you come down $175. Then you go back, and then you come down another $200. You don't ever drop precipitously. That is known in the vernacular as the pants drop. Right. You don't do that. And it comes as a very crude source to that.

It shocks people, and that's the word. You don't want to shock people. You scare people when you drop your pants. They have the same junk fees. So my new price was $47,978, $3,493 over MSRP. So they've come all the way down from $6,000 over MSRP to $3,500 over MSRP, precipitous. David asked me if we were close. He said he didn't want to lose my business and said he may have some more wiggle room.

Once my husband came in, they always leave the wiggle room to get you back. you can't get an Althodore price from a car dealer in the USA, or the world, for that matter. You can't get. They always want to leave you with a feeling that I can do better. Otherwise, you're not going to come back. Sad, sad statement on our industry. And that's our mystery shopping report. I don't know where we stand time-wise, but I think we got time.

Let's hear some votes come in. We were surprised, Lake City, small town, northern Florida, family-owned, with this type of behavior, and the question is, was it an anomaly, is charging thousands of dollars or a sticker enough to put a person in who a failing grade? Is there something else they did that was truly wrong, illegal? That's what you have to think about when you come up with your vote. Well, I think that we are fooling ourselves when we picture these little towns like Mayberry, all innocent.

It doesn't matter where you are. You know, greed finds a way. Opie is very mad at you right now. Opie might be mad at me, but Opie can't resist. The sheriff. Yeah, Andy and Opie cannot resist the temptations that the current market situations are presenting the dealers. And they can't control themselves. And I got eight grades coming here.

I got F minus. Mark gives them, it says 50,000 for an edge is ludicrous, F double minus. And maybe that's what it is because you're expecting something to be wholesome and clean and it's not. we have a text here who said this could have been a C but the wiggle room took it down to an F and Amory says small town dealer big city sleeves it might not be illegal but the behavior deserves a big fat F I'm not ready to fail them but I do think it's a little bit worse than what we've seen I'm going to give them a D because I was too nice last week okay Rick well I've got Kirk in West by God Virginia most disappointing non-negotiable add-ons like

nitrogen, which is 78% of the air we breathe. A solid F minus. Happy Mother's Day. And I've got Tom Seckle with an F. There are no mullinacs. Tim Gilliland, I'd put this dealership in my rear view, Pronto, F. Donovan Lewis, I'd give them a D-minus. They came down 3,500 bucks. I think you could get that for 50,000 out the door if you really tried. And let's see. Brian said, Lacko, Joe, this is no way to treat your mother, D. Tom Steckle also says the mystery shop West Haney Chevrolet in Live Oak, as a suggestion. Says there are a no-fee dealer. But he also had one other comment, and I got to bring this one up, the CEO for Dotson Nissan.

Carlos. Yep. He says he opened an Ableton dealership in Beirut. I named it after Napleton, Dotson, and Beirut. And my vote for this one is, it's a D because they're playing the same games as everybody else, but it's not like they were really hiding anything, except the Munrooney's sitting down in the console. But they were straightforward with, hey, we're just going to ransack your wallet for you. That's right.

Enjoy it. Yeah. Well, it's disappointing on so many levels of ransacking your wallet, Mayberry, the Monroney label, all of us in all the comments, and I give them an F. Yeah. You know, I'm going to give them a low grade, but I'm not going to fail them. Because like Rick was saying, and all the dealers, if you check it right now, we haven't found, how many have we found, that are even, limiting it to MSRP, even the ones with MSRP are only close to MSRP. I don't think we found any, I think we had in Pennsylvania, we had the dealer that was,

had the fees, sold to MSRP but had a dealer fee on top of that. I'm going to give them a D. I guess maybe I'm just in a bad mood. I probably should give them a higher grade, but they didn't do anything illegal. They just, unfortunately, they just didn't have any moral scruples, any ethical scruples. I mean, the fact, the story sticking with me about about the mother the fact that Joe charged his mother thousands of dollars over his dicker why would he do that why would you even mention that well not everybody knows their mother yeah I mean people have bad relationship with their moms you know he might hate his mom I yeah anyway so we'll do

that I and I just have this silly thought I do I have time for silly thought what the theme song from from Mayberry Can you hear that in you? Can we put that on whole music for our, for our dealership? It makes everybody happy or drives people insane. I love the sound. Anyway, is there, anybody got anything before we head to the close out here? Any, any thoughts?

Oh, I have a thought. Okay. We can talk about that when Roney lives. This is open for the studio or, you texters can text me. If you have LoJack installed in your car, and I asked Josh Stewart this the other day because I had the customer called me, went into Napleton, and they charged him $999 for LoJack, and then he started thinking, where is my LoJack? And so he called Napleson back, and they said, we can't tell you. It's a secret. And they said, well, maybe you could call LoJack. So he called LoJack, and LoJack says, we can't tell you. And he even had the VIN. So what do you do?

Well, that's to prevent thieves from calling up and finding out. So you've got people, dealers all over the country are saying, we just charged $900 for LoJack, and you have to believe them because he can't tell you where it is. And you'll only know if your car gets stolen, and then if they don't recover it, that's the only time you find out. Then they could say, well, the LoJack broke. I thought it was hilarious.

Josh looked up LoJack, and it says, we might not be able to give you any information if you call. I'm like, this is ridiculous. There's got to be a way. Anyway. Anybody have no the answer to the LoJack? What is? There's a word for the LoJack.

It's a theft tracking. It's a conundrum. Oh, yeah, yeah. I would think the simplest way. Can you hear a tree fall in the forest if there's no one there to hear it? Right. So if you have LoJack. You can't see it.

And you can't see it. How can you prove it's there? The whole point of LoJack is that it's a tracking system. So if you call. LoJack. They won't tell you. And you say, here's my VIN number. I am the legal owner. This shows that I you know, paid for the loggjack. It's not going to fly. Can you tell you what is the location of my vehicle? They tell you they won't. If they can tell you the location of your vehicle, we're running out of time. Hey, listen, I have something to add to that folks. You heard the question that Earl just asked you. We'll be back here next week.

Please, Texas, please. You can get in touch with us a million ways. Earl has been, we've been talking about this for days. Please answer the question, okay? Thank you for participating. Everyone, have a great Mother's Day out there. Have a great weekend, and we'll be right back here next week, right here at 8 a.m. Go!