Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.08.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Grieco Chevrolet of Delray Beach

Episode Date: May 8, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Grieco Chevrolet of Delray Beach to see if she can purchase the 2021 Chevrolet Trailblazer featured on their website at the promotional price. 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 as my son, Stu Stewart, our linked to cyberspace 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 self-forwarded dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody.

Well, we're here. Another two hours, two hours in the studio. And we're doing something we love doing. and that's helping you avoid being taken advantage of when you buy a lease, maintain, or repair your car. You heard in the introduction? I'm not alone. We have a studio full of knowledgeable people. I was going to say experts. We are. I just don't want to sound too bragging about what we do and how we do it. Rick Kearney, I have to call him an expert. He's the best auto repair person I know, and he's been doing it for a quarter of a century. and he doesn't look that old, but he has been.

And in fact, he's been doing it with me for that long. I do look that old. If you have a question on a car, I guarantee you, Rick Kearney, whether it's the electronics or the mechanics or anything at all mechanically, repair-wise, he can answer. And when I say always, there's nothing as always, 99.9. And if we don't have the answer, we'll find it for you.

We have a silent partner on the show. We call him Colonel Google. And Colonel Google, when Rick can't answer it, which isn't very often, Colonel Google can. So chances are almost 100% if you call this show about the problem with your car, a clunk, a rattle, a squeak, noise, a smell, you know, performance of some kind. You might save yourself a lot of money going into a car dealership that's going to try to show you something you don't need. you might just want to call Rick. 877-960-99-60. And Rick Kearney, you're going to answer your question.

877-960-99-60. And the rest of us, my son, Stu Stewart, my wife, Nancy Stewart, and myself, we're kind of into the sales end of things, leasing. We're going to help you in that category. We really should have three Rick's in one of us because you get your car service and maintain and repair it for more often than you buy a car. Of course, when you buy a car, you spend a ton of money,

and oftentimes way too much. But we've got your back, and we can answer your questions. I've got a hat sitting here beside me, and Nancy has one beside her. I didn't put it on this time because it kind of puts a shadow in my beautiful face, my beautiful maskless face, I might add. And that's a vigilante hat. And this is something that you give. It's a freebie, a gift from Earl and Cars, if you join and are accepted.

And we need qualified members, and we have a team of vigilantes all over the country. Not big enough yet, we're small, but we're growing. Knowledgeable people who are knowledgeable online, too, because that's a really good way to assist your neighbors. A lot of people out there aren't so cyber-savvy. So we're probably going to spread the word and make something occur. in the automobile business that should have occurred 50 years ago. I mean, cars have been being retailed, correct me if I'm wrong, about 100 years? I mean, Henry, when do we first have the first dealers?

It's close to 100 years, and they're still pretty much, actually, when they probably started retailing them, it was more honest than they are now. They reached a... You have an old newspaper clipping of your father getting a sales manager job with the Dodge Brother, I think it was like 1917 or something. So we're well past 100 years now. And your dad was doing it back then. Unbelievable, yeah.

I think there were more honest back there, 1917. During World War I, yeah. Yeah, World War I. Great. Wow. There's some trivia for you. That's amazing. The Dodge Brothers.

Yeah. Just went on to be called Dodge. Yeah, right. Colonel Google to the rescue, 1898, was what was believed to be the first automobile dealership in the United States by a guy named Kohler, K-O-L-L-E-R. Oh, I loved Colonel Google, and I love Rick. Thank you. I didn't think of a new one.

1892, 189, let's see here. 98. William Metzker, but 1898, William Metzker, and I think it might have been a Kohler car the way it sounds here. I'm reading it real quick here. Before they went to making faucets. Yep. Okay, let's get back to a business here, yeah.

But anyway, that's what we do. do. It hasn't changed for car dealers since I usually say the 50s because that's kind of like when I was aware I was in high school, but my father was a dealer. And then in the 60s, I came into business with my father in 1968 and I became a car dealer then. It was a Pontiac dealership back then. And I saw how we did business. It was pretty rough and tumble. And I enjoyed it. And I was a, you know, I was rough and tumbling with the best of them. And the evil, most evil of the all and I was very accomplished at what I did for a long time and suddenly you might say I got a religion and I realized what I was doing and I've evolved today to I like to think an honest

transparent individual and my son wouldn't have come into the business with me or my wife wouldn't have even had any part of it I don't Rick wouldn't have been part of it but we decided we do it the right way and that's the reason I call myself a recovering car dealer so I can tell you the truth. I've been there and done that. I can tell you what they're doing because I used to do it. I mean, I wrote the book on bait and switch advertising, and we've got a dozy of a bait and switch in today's mystery shopping report. So we've got the knowledge. All you have to do is access that knowledge by calling us at 877-960-99-60. That's 877-960. And we prioritize phone calls. they're special, they're more personal.

Text, 772, 4976530. Again, that text number is 772-497-6530. Now remember, so we prioritize the telephone, we do, but we get to pretty much all the text every time. It's just not right away, because we might go to a phone call instead of reading a text, but by the end of the show, we've read all of the text usually. And we have a unique access.

I mentioned it last because it's become the most popular, and I almost don't have to mention it. That's an anonymous way to communicate with us. We don't know who you are, where you are. All we know is what you have to say. Dangerous on this end, especially live radio, but we read them all. I mean, if you want to attack me,

I might blank out the profanities and the obscenities, but I'll get your general message across if you send us an anonymous feedback, at, this is a URL, your anonymous feedback.com. Y-O-U-R, A-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S, feedback. F-E-E-D, everybody knows how to spell Feedback.com.

Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Love to hear from you, and we will respond, and we will probably answer your question. So, let me go from the other way. I usually go to Rick first. I'll go to Nancy Stewart, my co-host, co-founder of this show two decades ago, one of the little bitty half-hour show. And she's a very, very important part of the show because she's built a female audience for the show that we never had. Now we have it.

And we have some extremely articulate female textors and callers, and we're building that show. And Nancy is going to tell you right now about something she does special. Most of you know about it. but those that don't spread the word. Nancy, tell them about the unbelievably, almost incredible offer for the female first-time callers. Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

And that offer that Earl spoke of is for the ladies' first two new lady callers. You win yourself $50 this morning. Take advantage of that. I know you can use it this weekend. And that telephone number is 877-960-99-6. you can take advantage of Your Anonymous Feedback, as are all stated, www.W.W.Uranaoosfeedback.com. And you can also text us at 772-497-6530.

And as I said, we have a really great show ahead. So we are going to go to the telephones because Marty has been waiting for a little bit. Oh! And thanks for your patience, Maury. Morty's a regular caller. good morning good morning how's everybody doing well thank you good i have a question for rick on your backup a rear cross traffic alert is there any way to make that louder unfortunately not the the beepers on those are just a single volume okay so really there's no warning lights or warning

sounds rather that you can make louder no you know let me you know I again I'm like because I it's fun not to know things and I learned something new every day I didn't know the answer to that but it strikes me as peculiar and when I find something that I don't agree with or don't understand and Marty I agree with you some people would like them louder some people will like them softer some people would like them off that might be illegal but Rick, let's Google that, maybe do a little research, and even call the manufacturer. And there might be a way it can be accomplished, but I think that's a great question, Martin.

Thank you. Yeah, the reason why I ask, a lot of times it's 100 degrees in your car, and when you start out, the air conditioning is blasting, and that's the time you back up, and that's the time somebody's coming in the back of your car. Yep, I hear you. So, all right, I'll wait to hear if you get another answer. Great question, Marty. Please call.

We love calls like that. That's something that not only other listeners were interested in, but even me, I didn't know the answer. And so when Rick told me, I said, let's see if we can't find the solution. Thanks, Marty. Call again, please. Okay, bye-bye. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-30. row. We have a great mystery shopping report, and it's kind of what I called it this morning,

a Mother's Day tribute. We didn't think about that, but yeah, it is, yeah. And it's really going to be very interesting. Agent Mama. There you go. I give credit. That was very funny, Stu. By the way, that was one of your better. Stu writes my material, I'm just a pretty face that reads these reports, and this.

is one of his best i love his his creativity i'm not not changing the facts i mean uh it's very very entertaining but it's accurate oh yeah yeah yeah it's got to be true and funny yes before we get to back to oh before we get to stew we're going to go back to the phones again we have scott who's calling us from dale ray good morning scott there's a happy guy I just got off work, so I'm happy. My question for you guys is, it's funny because I always call it because it's something that isn't always happening. It's intermittent. So I have an airbag symbol that is showing up on my dash intermittently, and it's not always on, and it usually comes on at a high speed.

Are they looking at speed, or is it just looking at contact? When you got an airbag warning light coming on, even intermittently, it should store a code in the computer that the technician should be able to pull up those codes to find out what's going on. Airbags are generally not tracking speed except just at a moment of collision, but even then, they're normally set off by impact sensors. So something sounds like you've got a loose connection. And maybe what's happening is at higher speeds, vibrations are causing that connection to wobble a bit. But that definitely sounds like a wiring issue to me. I'll have to put my reader on there and see if there's a code in there.

Oh, you've got a reader. Wow, that's cool. I was just thinking that, you know. He says the diagnostic tool will show it up, and it's nice that you have your own reader. That's great. I wanted to tell everyone that's listening also If they go home and they go to their Xfinity And say watch Earl Stewart

And you have an internet access type TV You'll get your YouTube live to watch on your television I didn't know that Pretty faces without masks on Wow I'm gonna do it myself Wait a minute I can't do it because I'm here You watch the replay

You can watch the replay There you go But I went home last week While I was listening And I said You know I wanted to hear Or I guess watch The report that you had

Of the car buying And I went home and just tried it And my Exfinity Hold you guys right up Wow Makes me feel famous Oh yeah Yeah

I can watch it with Apple TV With the YouTube that. Stay safe. I really appreciate all your help. Well, thank you very much, Scott. You're a great caller. Thank you. I love finding out stuff like that. Really cool. Have a fantastic day. Yeah, give us a call again. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. 877-960-960, or you can text us at 772-497-30. Now we're going to get to Stu. Yeah, I was just going to comment on the mystery shop that we have for you this week. We're starting to detect a phenomenon that we should have seen coming, which is the effect of the inventory shortage on

car dealer behavior. We saw like unprecedented disturbances to the industry last year with the pandemic, and we saw all sorts of bad behavior kind of coming to the surface. Now, in the last several mystery shops, the salesperson has really emphasized the fact that they have no cars to sell, and it's a big setup for the exorbitant prices and fees that you might expect to get later. So it's kind of interesting. When you hear the reports, you know, I'm not really convinced that some of these salespeople are really dialed into Ward automotive or automotive news, but they seem to know an awful lot about the inventory shortage.

Of course, because they see there's less cars, but I am sure that's the topic of the sales meetings, and that's the marching orders, is like we're getting all the money, boys. Exactly. And so that's what's happening. So you'll see a little bit about that. That's a common vernacular for car dealers. Yeah. All the money. The sales manager says the salesman, we're going to get all the money on this deal.

That means every cent you have, you're going to pay. That's right. You're going to pay for that car, right? As a matter of fact, I've got a couple of YouTube comments right along that line. Nagin-1 says, I see on the news they're calling the chip shortage an auto apocalypse. Pictures of thousands of trucks in storage waiting for modules. Plant shut down. They're saying it could last two years, and he says consumers will be paying a high.

price for cars because manufacturers are not going to make base models, only the upper trim levels, which increases their profit. Actually, the smart money, I just go, I want to say that before people panic and car dealers panic. The smart money is saying that this will last months, not years, and that stand by for an overreaction. It happens every time there's a shortage, then it comes on over. then it comes on oversupply. So this is Earl's forecast. Later in 2021, you will find a surplus of the very cars that you're seeing a shortage of today,

and the prices will plummet. So if you need a car today, buy it, but be real careful and listen to this show. If you don't need a car, wait and buy one much cheaper in a few months. And another comment here from Ben Chesterman. He says, Biden in charge is why new cars cost more. I'm paying more to import American cars to Australia. Factories closed since May, used auction prices are higher.

The government takes more profit under Biden as the president. Wow. Interesting. Exporting cars to Australia. But that's a long trip. From his comment, he says he's importing American cars to Australia. So he may be in Australia. Importing. Wow. Cool. Interesting. That's interesting.

Okay. Back to Stu. All right. We'll go to the first text of the day from Anne-Marie. Amory says, good morning. I've been meaning to ask us for a long time, but I keep on forgetting when Saturday morning rolls around. So here it goes, before I forget again.

Common Wisden for years has said that it's not good to refuel your car if the tanker truck at the gas station refilling the station's gas tanks because the addition of new fuel stirs up sediment in the tanks that could mess up your car. Was this ever true? Please clarify. Thank you. I've never thought of that. I never heard of that.

Have you heard that? Oh, yeah. It's one of the stories that's been around for quite a while. Is it true? Once upon a time it actually was. It could cause issues with that. However, right now with the modern pumps, the filters in those pumps, and because gasoline stations, of course, would be liable for damage to your car if something like that happened. Plus, the filters that are in the tank anyways, you're pretty safe for many forms of sediment.

Rick, let me ask you a question. I haven't had a complaint. I haven't heard about a customer that had debris in their, you know, dunking up their engine from their fuel in a long time. Have you heard of those complaints? It's, this story has been around for many, many years. No, I'm saying. In our dealership. I've never heard of it. No. Yeah. Have you heard, how many complaints are you getting on contaminated gasoline today compared to? with five years ago, 10 years ago. Now, sediment type contamination like that? None. Really none. There you are. It used to be, going back, I'm guessing, 10 years, there was you, every month, I have a customer call, and we had a routine recommendation for them.

Be sure to get the name of the gas station. When you bought your last tank of gas, save your receipts, the gas station is liable. I haven't had to have that conversation with anybody that's called me a customer. customer, and I talked to a lot of customers in a long, long time. When I say that once upon a time that might, that would have been the case, I'm talking back 30s, 40s, 50s when the technology for, I'm talking way back. You've only been around 25 years. I'll tell you what happened 50 years ago.

Okay. And I bet you had those complaints back then. Okay. All right, let's get back to Stu. Okay, we'll go into another text here. Let's see. Oops, I had a picture up, and I was preparing for a. a texter that sent a picture for us.

Higher-owned team, can you talk a little about factory invoice? Why in the world would manufacturers put the holdback on the invoice if it's sensitive profit information for the dealer? Same for employee pricing, et cetera. With the margins so low between MSRP and invoice, is the invoice really the new MSRP from a consumer negotiating standpoint? Finally, without opening your accounting books to the world, how does Earl Stewart, Toyota typically handle requests when customers

ask to see invoice. P.S., if I lived in Florida, I'd buy a Toyota from Earl's Tour. Just because how honest and friendly you seem. Thanks, and that's from Tom in Chicago. Can I answer that question? Yeah, yeah. That's one of my favorite questions. I answer it a lot, but not enough. And attention to all manufacturers

and attorneys for manufacturers. The holdback is a conspiracy between the car dealer and the manufacturer. The holdback originated 50, 60, 70 years ago, probably from the beginning, as purportedly the manufacturers, it was a device the manufacturers had to hold back the profit on the car and give it to the dealer a year later. And the dealers were his mercy. So the manufacturer would sell the car dealer, a car, and he would take several hundred dollars a percentage of the value of the car. and he would keep it. The dealer's money, and a year later, he would let the dealer have the money back. And when the dealer said, why are you doing this? Because we want to help you not go broke.

We're worried about your liquidity, and therefore we will hold this, and we're not going to pay interest on it. And so you multiply that times all their dealers, they're holding hundreds of millions of dollars of the dealer's money, and then giving it back to them at the end of the year. Now the dealers started to complain, and they started to give the money back to them quarterly, and they screamed even louder, and they gave it back to them monthly. Then the dealer said, you know, that's not a bad deal, because I have now $1,000 packed into my invoice, and it really doesn't cost me that. I get the money back at the end of the month. I'm just going to show it to my customer and say, this is what I paid for the car, and it's a lie. He didn't pay that for the car.

So the holdback is started with an attack, unfair attack on a dealer, and then they turned it around to an unfair attack on you, the buyer. And holdback, some attorney out there that wants the world's greatest class action suit to go out to the manufacturers, all the manufacturers, because they all have holdback, and all the dealers, because they all get the holdback back back. And you could have a class action suit that would dwarf any class action suit that ever came down. bike. And a second part to that question. I don't know why they show that information, the holdback on the invoice, but I don't think it's every manufacturer. We got the Agent Lightning got an invoice from Napleton Hyundai, and it didn't list the holdback

on that invoice. It does on the toyed invoice. And the second part of your question is, yeah, if somebody asks us at our dealership to see the invoice, we show it to them, but we use it also as an educational tool to say, yeah, even doesn't matter where you sell it, we point out that there's an additional profit. Here's how we educate them. We show them the invoice, and we're selling two-thirds of our cars, at least we were, before the pandemic. I mean, before the microchip shortage, two-thirds of our cars are sold, and generally below invoice.

So we post our lowest price online, and we call our lowest price, and we put it on all of our cars. So when a customer has to see the invoice, we love it. We show them the invoice. We're selling them the car hundreds of dollars below the invoice, and it does two things. that shows them what the good price he's getting. It also shows them where a rip-off, the invoice is. Most dealers that show the invoice say, look, I'm only going to charge you $500 over my cost. And here's the invoice, my cost.

He's lying to you. The invoice not only has holdback in it, it has other profit packed in, advertising money that's reimbursed, interest to finance the dealer's cars on the lot called floor plan baked into it, insurance. But it's all holdback. It's all hold back, but there's two kinds of holdback. There's the manufacturer holds it back and the other people, you know, they put different labels on it. Right.

Well, they were actually kind of ahead of the game going to, you know, dealers started renaming the dealer fee. So you had hold back and then it began hold pack and floor plan assistance and the hold back and then this and then accessory hold back. Exactly. So long answer to a good question. Great question. And I thank you for answering.

So many people don't understand that. Well, folks, if you feel the interest, here in the studio is because, well, the recovering card dealer feels pretty passionate about what he does and the word that he spreads. Of course, I had a lot of tacos to eat last night. I had tacos yesterday. And transparency, it is major. It's number one.

I want to remind the ladies that if you want to share a story with us this morning about your service, about about your experience in purchasing or leasing a vehicle, or if you just have a comment you'd like to share with us, please, if you can win yourself $50 this morning. First two, new lady callers, $50. Take advantage of that for Mother's Day. Arguably, our best texter is Anne-Marie Delgado, and we need more Anne-Marie Delgado's out there.

So whether you need answers or you have answers, If you're a female, we need you to call the show, and we need more female callers and texters and anonymous feedback in the hole. You heard it, folks. You heard it. Also, you know, we offer, you know, a lot of things here on Earl Sturvon cars. One of them is to, you know, ask for volunteers that will help a lot of people, not just seniors, that can't maneuver their way around the Internet when they go there to purchase a vehicle. vehicle so we're looking for we're looking for volunteers to assist us and you can go to Earl on cars and check all that out and Earl's vigilantes whoops Earl's vigilantes you know you don't have to be an auto expert to help out you'd be

helping you know the consumers in your neighborhood to purchase a vehicle so anyway we've got earl's vigilantes we've got we're looking for volunteers for how to maneuver your way around the internet and stay tuned there's a lot of stuff going on here back to stew all right our next text comes from ernesto who's been listening to this show and participating in the show i think since the beginning he got a a mailer an advertisement direct mail from a kea dealership and he shared it with us so jonathan can put it up on the screen Ernesto's question is, is there any truth to this? And I know that Ernesto knows that the answer is there is no truth to this.

So what I liked about it was it's one of these mail pieces that's designed to look to fool people and they're thinking that the owner or the general manager is personally writing a personal note to them. But these are all printed up by a company that sells these to dealers. Incredibly realistic. Oh, yeah. So it looks like it's on, it's Jenkins Kia. of Gainesville and it's I think it's Gainesville Georgia by the way Jenkins Kia of Gainesville Georgia and it looks like letterhead and it's a letter that's

printed out but written on it and what looks like ballpoint pen at the very top it says I'm selling at dead cost and dead cost is underlined the body of the email and is introduces himself as Antonio Caranza the general manager at Jenkins Ki of Gainesville he's a huge opportunity basically says you can come in I will sell you any brand new Kia vehicle on the lot for absolute dead cost. You read that correctly. Dead cost pay exactly what we pay on each new vehicle. Dead cost is only the beginning. In addition, you will get rates as low as 0.9% APR and so forth and so on. And then there's another handwritten note and ballpoint pen that says

call and that's for Antonio at his phone number to set an appointment. I'll personally give you a $20 gift card just to show you how much you'll save, which is probably what he'll save $20. That's probably it. So, and Aaron So, thank you, but you know, and I know you know that you know, that this is not for real. Like Earl says, do not believe any car dealer advertising. You know, we laugh at that, and then we have to remember that people do respond, and people are taking advantage of. We were laughing last week about the $99 a month payment to buy a new car, and we laugh at that. But, you know, the victims of our society, I mean, these are good people.

Maybe they don't have the education. Maybe they don't speak to language very well. maybe they're elderly and maybe their husband while all their cars and family he passed away so there's a real sad story for people that respond to things like that and you picture an elderly woman and by the way who reads snail mail anymore right i mean i you throw away 99% of the stuff in your mailbox and some people don't get much junk mail because they don't order things by catalog or online and they don't know their address and when a when an elderly woman or man for that matter when they get when they get something it might be their social security check and if they don't get their mail every day they get really worried and she goes out and she picks up that mailer and it's a Kia dealer and she says oh listen isn't this nice and it says important notice and this is from the general manager of the dealership and he's going to sell me a new Kia

at cost i'm going to go down there it really happens folks why do they use direct mail because it flies under the radar and car dealers can target not only their victims and they know they have mailing lists they can buy for a lot of money that shows them the people that are more susceptible and they can find elderly people they can find people that are not educated they can find people that don't speak English the language very well they they know who to target and they also know not to send one to the attorney general or to the they have names scrub that list, hard. And so an online ad is much more likely to be criticized or legal action taken.

Direct mail, it's below the radar. They're very, very safe, and they get away with it. And when you see a direct mail from any car dealer, any car dealer, don't even read it through the trash. I mean, it's going to be worse than anything you see on TV or online. I got great advice. if you ever see anything that says it's from the return address is from program headquarters

throw it in the recycling bin program headquarters is a phrase that's used by nearly every direct marketing campaign that's coming from program headquarters sounds official throw it in the garbage recycling bin

this is one of my pet peeves this personal handwritten letter whatever it is you know there's a lot of people out there they're going to walk right down to that mailbox and what do they think oh wow someone's really

thinking about me today. Look, I got a personal letter. There are a lot of people that are living by themselves, and it's so deceiving. And now it's on Instagram, it's on Facebook. It's everywhere. We're approached by vendors, marketing, you know, to sell these things. There was one I saw where they actually, each letter had a post-it note with a handwritten ballpoint pen note from the owner. And a post-it note, so people who are not sophisticated, we don't realize that this is easily printed by a printing company. It seems legit. Rick had a point. I was just going to say it works for lining the birdcage.

Exactly. I know we're beating this up. I'm going to shut everybody up after I say this, and we'll get on to another text or email or YouTube. But the dilemma you have now, if something looks realistic and they have a return address or something like a handwritten approach,

you're afraid to throw it away. I have personally thrown away checks. I mean, real checks. because the other side of that issue is the really sneaky people that have to send you a refund check they'll make it look innocuous they'll look at make it look like this is a very important and they and a high percentage of people throw it away and they never cash a check so it forces you to offer to open these things so who's next next okay I got to interrupt Nancy's next John, thank you.

John is waiting to talk with us from Palm City. Great. Hey, John. Our favorite caller. Good morning to everyone. It's ironic that you mentioned a Kia dealer, selling them at prices that he said, it's a fact.

There's a model of a Kia called Telleride. That's a mid-sized SUV. They're getting, the demand is so great for that. They're getting not only full sticker, but above full sticker on that car. So I just want to mention that about this deal of putting in discounting on Kiers. But what I want to talk about today is, and I'm not anti-electric cars, I'm all for it. But what my objection is for the price.

And what I say about price, if quoted to Edmonds.com, the average new car now is above $40,000. That's the average. The average used car is above $20,000. Now, on a new car, you can add probably another 10 or maybe 15,000 when you're going to go, like in General Motors, after 20, 35, you had no choice again. I'm against that for one reason. If a person still wants to buy a gasoline car, let them buy it. They're just cutting us off completely and say, look, Mr. Government, basically, you have to have an electric car. But the idea behind it is the expense of them.

unless the price comes way down, people are not going to afford it. For instance, a new car loan, again, according to Edmonds, a new car loan average is $576 a month. A used car is $432. The average interest rates now, on a new car, it's 4.3%. On a used car, it's 8.4%. So what it is is the direct effect of electric cars what will it do to us in the future, price-wise, unless they're mass-produced at a much cheaper price.

And by the way, one thing I'm objecting to, all of the batteries on the electric cars are made in China. Now, right now, on our automobiles, we have all manufacturers of our car batteries now are made in the United States. You know, there's so many companies, electrolyte, interstate, excite. I can't go down to one I mentioned was Johnson Control, makes it for many manufacturers. So if all these batteries now are from the United States, what in the world? Oh, we had mercy of all the electric car batteries coming from China. That's a major problem, on my opinion. and also the electric car, some of the negatives, are safety.

It's very scary in Florida. Most of all houses have the car garage attached to the house. So you've been reading about you shut your car off, and overnight it catches fire. This is a very scary situation. It's a safety factor. And it's very frightening because, not only your car burns, but your whole house could be burning while you're slurray.

sleeping. John, the answer is John. The cost of the electric to recharge that car. Nobody's mentioned too much about that. It's not like you go to the airport and you get free electric for your cell phone when you plug it in. This is going to cost somebody. And the major factor is what's going on? You take a state like California to get in 50 cents a gallon state tax on the price,

which is way over $4, by the way, in California. and not only state taxes, but federal and local tax will be out. No more gasoline tax. John, John, let me interrupt you here. No, I think you do dislike electric cars, and there are a lot of reasons, and there are good reasons, but these are reasons today and not in the future. All the issues that you address will be cured by time. Tesla is an example

Tesla has been manufacturing electric cars for a long time and their cars are competitive and the volume of Tesla is rising incredibly and volume cures all the problems of cost when Toyota came out with a Prius

in the early 90s 2007 in Japan, 2001 U.S. They were losing money on every Prius and they built them anyway and they lost money and they had to be competitive. They were higher price and they should have been but they still were selling a lot of them. And as demand rose, production rose and the cost came

down. Tesla lost money too, right? Yeah, Tesla lost money. So it's volume built. Volume cures all the sins of cost and price and that's what's going to happen because electric cars, John, are coming whether we like it or not. The reason so many batteries are being built in China is because they cost less money. Americans designed the batteries, and iPhones, a lot of iPhones are built in China. Chinese manufacturing

is less expensive. Cost is a factor in pricing cars and pricing iPhones. So we're going to have overseas manufacturing and when U.S. manufacturing will be competitive, they'll be built here. Apple is now manufacturing

phones in the USA, and they're building new plants to do it. So it's a global economy. And today, electric cars, with the exception of Tesla, are overpriced, but those prices will come down in the future. And you're going to be driving an electric car. John, I know you don't like it, or maybe you'll hang on to your combustion engine car. But that is the wave of the future, and that's the way it's going to be. And there's some rough roads between now and then, but that's where we're going to be in 10 years.

Well, I agree with you. I'm not anti-electric. I mean, this is actually running on the wall. This is here for now today. But it's just a fact of price, as today's prices, they're much too high. You're right. And they've got to come way down. You're right.

Because the consumer will not be able to afford the payments or the price of those cars as it stands today. And that's my objection. But you can buy a Tesla for $50,000. And I just heard Rick say that the average cost of a new car is a little over 40. and eventually be able to buy Tesla for less than $50,000. Remember, they're getting the credits from the government, which helps them price it lower, too. So, no, I hear you, John.

You make a very good point. And today, I'd buy a combustion engine car probably. They're competitive with Tesla's, but pretty soon they won't be. By the way, how did your son do? He had a Tesla that he was borrowing from Monday and Tuesday? Yeah, how's it going, Sue? Sitting down there in the parking lot, I just can't wait to get back in it.

It's really cool. Is it? It's really cool, yeah. How much is that car cost? Brand new, about around 150,000. How much is it now? Well, we got it for under 90. So it was, and it's less than a year old.

So it took a big, big. That's a high-end Tesla. It's a high-end Tesla. And, yeah, so it'll be sold probably around 95,000, I would guess, maybe 100. Yeah. I'm so excited. Can I just sit in it? Yes, you can.

car of the future here it is now yeah thank you John great call you are really informative please call every week we love you thank you bye bye have a great weekend okay we're going to stay with the phones we've got Linda who was patiently waiting from Palm Beach Gardens good morning Linda good morning Nancy welcome I got a question I got a question for I guess Earl or any of you Why don't you advertise on TV anymore? I have not seen since I've been down here in the past couple weeks

that advertisement from Earl Stewart. We will. We haven't been on TV, and we've changed a lot of our advertising around. We're going very heavy digital. We find that that's been very successful for us, and we have a new marketing company called Congruent, and they're outstanding they're just they're just coming on board now and we expect to see television advertising one of the reasons being and folks are my age watch more television than

most people and we find that TV advertising is not as effective as it once was but it's still effective part if you use it partly but you have to use it smart and right and that's what we're doing yeah because in Georgia every time you turn to on they're like back-to-back advertisements for Toyota's oh yeah it's like it's same way down here too yeah yeah TV will be a part of it and it should it'll continue to be a part of advertising but there's cool new stuff like you know for you ever heard of the cord cutters the people that get rid of cable and they use internet TV we're figuring out a way to get in there to just we just want to

you know have an effective marketing strategy and TV is part of it but but so much digital yeah yeah I hear you okay I was a curious because those ones up there is like crazy. I hate seeing them. I'll burn them off. You'll see Earl's beautiful face on TV pretty soon. I'm being extreme right now.

Yeah, I'm watching it on iPad and I got you on the phone. And I think I might have to have a big bad F today the way you're talking about. I almost use your name in the mystery shopping report but I didn't want to alienate or other listeners you'll hear if you're listening to the report you'll hear the part where your name would fit perfectly in the sentence so you'll you'll recognize it thanks Linda thank you Linda

thank you Linda $50 for the first two new lady callers $50 you have to have something to say out there one of the ladies that are listening I know there's a lot of ladies listening that are very bashful. They talk to me, hey, I need a Mother's Day gift, something significant. I need two new lady callers. $50.877-960. Okay. I'm sorry. I was thinking about the Mother's Day gift I got for my wife. I'll tell you about it later. Okay, I got her a pie kakin. It's a cake baked into, or pie baked into a cake. Anyway, order online. It looks delicious.

We're going to eat it for breakfast tomorrow. All right. This is, I think, Earl, you're going to get a tick. You're going to really like this one. It's a text from Jim in Riviera Beach, and he says, I just found out that I can listen to your program on my Alexa device. And I said, hey, that's cool. What did you say?

Alexa play Earl and Cars? He said, yes. He didn't listen to all of it, but I think you're able to get past and present shows. I prefer to watch on my phone. So you can tell Alexa. to play around cars and there you go. We have wall-to-wall, Alexis, around the house. Nancy and I have so many of Lexas that they hear each other.

So you've asked Alexa to do something and you hear like a chorus of Alexes all around the house. Speaking back, it's kind of confusing. I think there's a setting you can do to fix that. When you're not at home, they talk to each other, you know. I do, yeah. About you.

Yeah, well, what's the first thing we say when we get up in the morning, honey? Alexa. Alexa, turn on the bedroom lamp. Alexa turned on the tea kettle. Exactly. Oh, I need to do that for my tea kettle. Oh, yeah, I love it.

John is calling us from Palm Beach, West Palm Beach. And welcome back, John. Hey, hello. Hello. Good Saturday to you. John, the previous caller, the one of talking about the electric cars. I guess this is a public service announcement or whatever. But he mentioned the charging stations, like at the airport,

at the malls, I just wanted to warn, or just give a heads up, that if you use those devices to charge up the phone, yeah, it's free, but it may not be in your best interest or a good idea unless you have a strong VPN or something, because when you plug your phone in, you don't know what they're pulling off. Just like when we pull into your dealership, I drive in backwards to the service department so you can't read my license plate to pull that soft credit report. yeah we don't have one of those by the way you don't we do not we do not have that you don't okay very good so you can drive you can you can you can nose in next time so you're the guys back

in the service drive we're wondering hey i got us i got a i got a solution for it because you got rick's attention i know rick's like what's going on rick might have installed a license place kind of i don't know about but i don't think he would do that um yeah i'm learning about a lot because I just got this Tesla so we do have charging stations at the dealership they're made by charge point and they're like they're all over the country and you get a charge point account and then you you know attach a credit card to it and you can go some places charge some places it's free they also send you like a credit card like a little like a ATM little card that you can use which you don't have to use your phone if you're going to use the charge point

stations you just hold up this card that's not attached to your phone so that way they can't go in and read your inner thoughts we can monitor how many electric cars are by how many uh we will have a record of that we have a total yeah and get that information we'll talk about it next week i can pull up on the screen but it's not that often because we haven't been visible on the map so we haven't the other other reason is like it's mainly probably for our electric cars um because you don't want like a bunch of uh those pots taken up um but there's all sorts of things you can charge for it you can have make a reservation only there's it's really cool we're going to figure out the best way we can do it um but yeah you don't have to use your phone when you charge at least on that on that

model well what i what i was what i was talking about is those charging stations where you know you take you put your phone in and it charges it because you don't have a oh the phone chargers i thought we were talking about electric car charges i got electric cars on the brain i i didn't think about that until you had said that but whatever information you plug into your electric car and you start charging they can pull that but it was those electric phone charges stations that you don't have. When you plug into that, they can pull the information off your phone. And you have to be careful of what you have on your phone.

And we, you know, we keep passwords in that. Yeah. But it's just, like I said, it's right. I didn't know that. I'm amazed. I don't know how they do that. We have the charges stations at the dealership, too. Yeah, but I think what he's talking about is these special machines that you put your phone and you lock it in and it charges your phone.

Not with a plug-in. Right. Oh, you walk away. Okay. They're bringing into an electrical output on the wall. They look like a vending machine sort of thing. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I've never seen one.

Well, I've never put my phone in one of those, so I wouldn't do it for all sorts of reasons. I wouldn't do it. Well, and I didn't think about the data thing. It just seems kind of gross. Well, John, thank you. That's informative, and now I know who's been back in my service drive, and I'll say hi to you next time. That must be John.

No, you'll never know, because now he knows that we're not. not scanning so then it's okay we're going to be watching for you John I'll tell you what John I promise if we ever do it I will announce it on the air that we're scanning we haven't done it yet very good well that's it for me we'll see you guys later go again we love you bye bye okay folks give us a call toll free at 877 960 or you can text us at 772 4976530 I think Rick has some YouTube's for us I've got a couple here. The first one's a little long, but it's, I'm going to read it word for word because it's from Ben Chesterman, the guy in Australia. I want to be able to finish my mystery shopping report?

I think so. Okay. I basically says wholesale prices went up for American cars from corporation is we have a 5% custom duty in Australia at port, which pushes up the car prices once imported. He said, let's see, I'll cut through a little bit of this. He says the media that he's noticed mentions turnover costs, not net profit after regulations business tax and purchase taxes. And he says his business has been breaking even for the last three years. But in his belief, he feels it's a government issue with the American government causing their prices to run higher. Then he goes on to say with electric cars, he says, they're hand built, which is why they're expensive. expensive. Well, most of them now are machine built. But electric cars are a pain to fix.

He says, we got a Camry hybrid at auction. They couldn't fix even after sending it to a special mechanic. And he says, let's see, just kind of finish this off, just portions of it. Basic Tesla Model S in Australia is $130,000 base price, which I actually looked it up for here. Base price on a Model S is around $75,000 to $80,000 here in the U.S.S. US. And Donovan comes in with an iPhone. When you plug in at a public charger, the phone will only allow power. You have to tell the phone to allow for data. So what the caller is saying doesn't really matter for an iPhone.

And a VPN won't fix that because VPNs are for internet access. Android, however, could be a different story. So we're kind of strayed a bit with the phone charging thing. Yeah. And the exporting from Australia. Yep. So I think I'll just skip that, and we'll go back to... Okay, we're going to go back to the phones, and we have Dick giving us a call from Jupiter, and he's called us before. Welcome back, Dick.

Oh, good morning. How are you all doing? Great. Great. Calling, I just give a little background. I happen to be a graduate engineer, and I own a Tesla for two years. I wanted to respond to Howard is an interesting call. but I believe he's putting out some erroneous information. Number one, batteries are manufactured in the United States for tested cars.

He has his own battery factory. They allowed it all battery for electric cars that are coming from China. Well, that's not the case. Okay, that's good. I didn't know. I'm glad you cleared that up. I thought they were made in the United States too, and I'm glad you checked on that. No, he didn't even build more factories and he's got a new design battery

radiator building the factory for that. The other thing is, if you check into the data, I believe the safety record for Tesla out strips anything. And you go look at the entire spectrum. As an engineer, I know you appreciate the Tesla, and my son's driving one.

Nancy and I almost bought one. I think it's one of the most amazing automobiles ever made. And I think Elon Musk might be nutty, but he's a genius. and he's got something here. Even Wall Street's come around. They used to laugh at him.

They used to laugh at the stock, and they used to laugh at the company, and now they're wondering what's going to happen with all the other manufacturers. So, yeah, it's a, the Tesla is one hell of a car. He's genuine genius, you're right. And I'm 84, and I bought a lot of cars over the years. I think maybe one to you once or twice.

But anyway, the Tesla is absolutely the best car I've ever driven, and it's won every time you get in it. It's like getting on, I mean, even after two years. Yeah. And I can't, I've got a reservation, and there were the ones with the pickup trucks, because this thing is something else. He can't believe it. I love.

Those people that talk electric cars need to go drive one. But if you haven't driven one, don't talk. I love hearing it from an 84-year-old guy. I'm 80, and, you know, most of my friends, are pretty much set in their ways. You're a guy that evolved and changed with the times. And it's not easy, is it? It's, you know, when you and I were kids, you know,

the cars were almost like a different machine. And we went through a lot. And from, my first car was a 1951 Pontiac. What was your first car? 36 Ford, Coop. On V8. And there was just a little bit of different. between that and the Tesla, right?

I mean, yeah. I'll tell you. It's something else. Yeah. You've got a full total appreciation of what Elon Musk has done, and I love hearing it from an old guy like me.

Yeah, one last point that I mentioned about the fires in garages. The only Tesla that have problems with fires is the ones that make the headlines. A gas cars burn like crazy every day. It's not a good

not a good data point. Excellent point. Excellent point. By the way, also, I have a, I've been following Tesla since it's almost day one. I'm a retired rocket engineer. Oh. The SpaceX side is my thing, too. Good for you.

I've been following it daily from day one, and I just thought I'd make a couple of comments, and enjoy talking with you. I'd love to have you call again. I'm an electric car fan, so if something comes up, that I can explain the electric cars, I'm pretty far into it. Good name. I heard your name is Skip. Is that your name? Dick. And I just want to thank you.

You know, I graduated. I have a, I majored in physics in school, and I was an electronics engineer back in the early 60s. And so you and I have a similar background back when computers were as big as your house and programming was with punch cards. Yeah, they built a house and put up super air condition. Yeah, and you and I have, we're privileged to see the world change like no other piece of time in history. And you were able to go from almost the dark ages into the age of enlightenment, and we're not even halfway there. So it's exciting. You're like me, you grew up with a slide rule. There you go.

I got a slide roll at home. I still have it in my office. and it was a K&E Loglog duplex DESE Dessie Trigg. Oh, yep. I had the same one. Nobody knows what that is, except you and me. I know the first pipe computer I got was HP. And it was $395.

It wouldn't be much more than they had some track. We wouldn't even take logs. And I thought I'd give my right arm for one of those things. Hey, you and I need to get together and have lunch and swap lies. I'd love to talk to you personally. You could do that. Please call again for sure. Okay.

Bye-bye. Thanks, my friend. Bye-bye. Thanks, Dick. Don't be a stranger. 877-960. Or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers.

Don't forget, www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We'd love to hear from you on that link. What's got to YouTube, by me? Yeah, Nagan 1 has a fantastic comment here. Who? He's this N-G-1, one of our regulars on YouTube here. How do you spell that?

N-E-G-A-N. Oh, I thought you said naked. It's N-E-G-N-E-N. Okay. You said naked, huh? That's N-Egan. Oh, no, no, not that. I live in a small town in Arizona that is building the lucid cars.

The factory is huge. The cars, they are fast. I see the prototypes driving in town. The factory is starting production in two weeks. So I just, I had to look this up, see what it was. Lucid is a luxury electric car starting around $70,000 with a over 500-mile range and over 1,000 horsepower on this electric car. Never heard of it. It's a brand, apparently a brand new electric car that's starting production in two weeks.

Wow, cool. This is interesting. Interesting. Okay. Let's go. We have a text here from Matt in Connecticut. and he says I'm going to buy out my 2018 Colorado lease the dealer wants me to pay for an inspection because they're required to he says it will cost me $120 are these inspections just another way

to get me to do service and that's from Matt in Connecticut I don't know if by law how it varies by state for example well we don't charge for this but if somebody's buying out their lease we still do a safety inspection because when we when they buy out their lease they're actually buying it we'll on record as the selling dealer. So if there was any sort of liability, we just want to make sure that even if it was an unknown one. Now, we don't charge for that. Other dealers, we used to, I think,

years ago we'd check $100. So most dealers are probably charging around that. Our reason is just because we want to go on record that it's a safe car before we are on record as the selling dealer. I don't know if that's the motivation or if it's a scam other dealers used to charge more money. I think $100 for an inspection is not an unreasonable amount to charge or $120.

But I don't know if they're backed by law in... Whether it's legal or not, I think it's stupid. I think that, especially today... Well, to charge or to do a safety inspection. To charge... Yeah, yeah, yeah. To charge. The reason I say it's stupid is because today, with high prices of used cars,

and especially lease returns, the dealers are begging to have those lease returns. If they can get the lease return and buy it at the residual value, oftentimes now, because of the inflated price of used cars, the residual value is a bargain. But these are for people who are buying the car and leaving in the car. So they're not buying for use car inventory. They're the reason he's a misunderstanding is because he's buying his own car and he's going to leave in it.

He goes, why do I have to inspect it, pay to have inspected? Well, I understand that, but I'm just saying that the dealer that charges for it is scaring away people that, you know, dissuade. Oh, it's a bad idea, yeah. If I had a lease car and I had to take it back to a Honda dealer, and Ed Morris Honda was going to charge me, $120 to inspect my car, but Greenacre's Honda was not going to charge me anything. I would go to the dealer didn't charge me anything, and then that dealer would have an opportunity to buy my car, but maybe below market. No, no, the whole thing is the guy's buying his own car.

You and I are arguing, but he doesn't know who wants to buy their car and who doesn't. So if he post the dealer. Okay. See, if the dealer posts online that we have a charge of $120. They don't do that. Well, I know, but if they call on the phone, they say yes, and they don't know when a person calls on the phone whether or not they're going to buy their car. Interesting.

I get to your thing on a different order. You're on a different level. Now I understand. Okay. Understanding is a beautiful thing. We are going to go to our first female new caller, and that's Melissa. Congratulations, Melissa. You won yourself $50.

Thanks for calling Earl Stewart on cars. Welcome. Hi. Thank you. Thank you so much. Very much. One question I had was how long does the Tesla battery hold up in cold weather? Much better today than usual. I mean, they have the most arguably the most advanced battery. And I'm going to throw a number out here. I don't know. I would say that even in very cold weather, it's only going to hit the, the amount of charging time by maybe cost you a few hours. Yeah, I know that it warms the battery because I know in the ludicrous plus mode on the car, which I'm too afraid to try, it heats up the battery for better battery performance.

So I imagine there's something, but that uses power as well. So I don't know what it reduces it by, but it definitely does. Just a quick word point here. Lexus now calls their ludicrous mode plaid and plaid plus from spaceballs oh yeah we're digressing and we have a call sorry sorry I'll ask I'll ask Google after we get off the phone and we'll announce it on the show because I don't know the actual amount and I guess also depends on battery because like the one that I'm you know playing around with right now is it's the long range so when it's off it's like 350 360 miles range on a charge but there's ones Model Y, some of the other ones have a lower range, so I know they use different batteries. Melissa, when the cars first, electric cars first came out,

it was about a 50% penalty. And if you lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, you were serious trouble during the winter. But since then, I think they retained close to 90% of their range, even in cold weather. Great point. Hey, Melissa, can you answer this question? Are you ready for an electric car?

Oh, absolutely. Actually, the other day, I went into the Lucid museum. I know they're not, they're getting ready for production, but it's kind of Tesla's competitor. Can you guys comment on what you think about that? Okay. The Lucid gift. Rick was just talking about it. Yeah. Well, I didn't even hear about it until five minutes ago. Yeah. Megan One just put another comment here that he says, Lucid is going to be running a commercial tonight during Saturday, that. Saturday late night or whatever, the SLN, when Elon Musk is hosting the show. They're going to run their commercial while he's doing the host.

Yeah, exactly. It's got it in a lot of press. Here's something, I want to give you a little tidbit that you guys probably, this is something we didn't even know, the group that I was with, that, you know, we all have generators to power our house if the light goes out, et cetera, et cetera. You can take your car, your lucid car, and actually, power your home

yeah the power went out cool yeah you can do that with Tesla too yeah that's really cool yeah but I just thought you know that's something something you don't even think of right in terms of your car and you don't need about running your car in the garage where the door closed either

that's right what an amazing time Melissa isn't it I mean gosh here we are sitting talking about a electric cars. We were talking about those a couple of years ago, and there were so many people who really weren't interested, and let me tell you what, the list has gotten very long of the consumers that are very interested in electric car. I am. I think if you fast forward, we're all, we all can say yes to this, but I feel like, remember

the show, the Jetsons? I'm kind of dating myself, but it was a, you know, brr, right? Hello, that's, Nancy, that's how I'm going to come over and we're going to have, we're going to put on face masks and go, hey, I'm coming over for a petty, and I come over with my car and I just pull up, and I just get out. I like that. You do that very well. I like the way you roll. That's better. Rick tried that last week, I think. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Well, thanks for. This has been fun. Maybe I should call in every Saturday. Please do. think that's a great idea we'll give you your own segment yeah i have a hey i i have you plugged in my phone now so it might not it's going to be hard not to call you oh thank you so much that's

great news um melissa it was a pleasure have a beautiful mother's day yes you too okay thank you so much 877 960 or you can text us at 772 49776 6530. Now back to Stowe. Okay, got a text. It says, chiming in on the EV controversy. Currently, China controls 75% of the EV battery market, but the U.S. is poised to make inroads, especially if infrastructure gets passed. And there's a follow-up text. Also, prices will keep coming down as competition keeps rising, and we can see that nearly every manufacturer is entering the market. Production, competition, demand, and a big government

push to clean energy will drive prices way down. Yeah, one of the biggest problems, I hate to digress, but with electric batteries is the ecological problem, and that problem will, too, be solved. A whole industry is going to have to go out. There's also the issue of the rare earth elements that are made in China. There's also the issue of slave labor using to mine some of these elements, and how do we dispose of the batteries. There's a lot of real issues that need to be addressed, but they're going to be addressed. All we need is one lithium asteroid, and then we're good. And they're going to be addressed and it will be solved.

And like it or not, the electric car is coming and the autonomous car is coming. And that's the way it's going to be. And it will be done clean. It will be done economically. It will be done efficiently. And it'll be a huge improvement on our lives. Yes, going places. We are going to go back to the phones where Mimi is holding from West Palm Beach.

Good morning, Mimi. Welcome back. Oh, good morning. Thank you so much. It's so nice to know you're there when I need you. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. I have a 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan, and what happens is now, well, I made a pretty fast turn, I guess, faster than it's used to. My mercury could make very good turns. Anyway, the ABS and the car with the swervy marks came up on the dash, and there was a beep, a couple of beeps. Anyway, so I was trying to be more careful after that and slow down before the curbs.

And then it did it again, but I didn't go on a curve. It was more like going over potholes, and then it started to beep on me and show up on the dash every day. time I went over one of those bumps for slowing us down and now it just stays on the little ABS sign and the cars with the swerby lines it doesn't beep anymore I just see it when I start the van it's still there so I needed to know what do you think is going on my first thought is you probably have a wheel speed sensor that started to get a little some resistance issues maybe the sensor started to go bad and maybe it was just coincidence that it was on a curve

or maybe that pressure maybe caused something to get damaged in the wiring or something but you're going to need to go to a good mechanic that can pull the codes on it and find out what's going on with your aBS system most likely i would bet it's going to be one of the wheel speed sensors and the codes would verify that of course and they'd be able to get that taken care of for you is this an expensive job it depends on what they find without knowing what codes are in there if it's just a sensor it could be as little as three to four hundred dollars if it's something more major ABS systems can get very expensive it could be a couple thousand dollars if there's a problem with the computer

Is there any way that she could get a free diagnosis in a part store or other parts store? Unlikely because most ABS codes, you can't get those with just those little generic pullers. I got you. You'd have to go to a mechanic that has a full scan tool. And then I ask ahead of time what it's going to cost for the diagnosis to scan, and then you'll have that charge you're going to be stuck with, and then you can make a decision once the diagnosis is made about the repair where you can shop different mechanics to find where you get a fair price yeah okay well thank you so much you're always very informative I appreciate it oh thank a wonderful day everybody thank you maybe give us a call again we love hearing from you oh thank you so much bye-bye you're welcome let me mention one thing before we get off her question uh in the very latest issue of consumer reports. Oh, Nancy's got it right there. This is the June issue. I hate it when they date of the magazine so far in advance. The June issue, excellent article on cars and their reliability and the maintenance costs and repair costs. They also have estimates of the different types of repairs. So if you have to have something like Melissa was talking about, I haven't read the order completely.

completely because it just came in yesterday, but it shows you approximations of what different repairs cost, breaks and so on and so forth. So it gives you a starting point, and then when you get a bid from a mechanic or your dealer as to what this process on the transmission, air conditioning, or whatever it would be, you might be able to check consumer reports

to get what a fair price is. Yeah, that's the June edition. June, yeah. And as Earl said, there's so much information. in the last couple, well, there's always great information in Consumer Report, but the last couple of consumer reports have really hit home, meaning on some of the topics that we've covered here, but there's so many consumers that go out there and purchase a vehicle, and they don't think about the comfort of the passenger seat. That's number one, and we've talked about that a lot. Number two, what it's going to cost you to keep that car on the road and those are really some you know topics that you should really factor in when you're purchasing leasing a vehicle just just a heads up but that June edition is fantastic and the May the April edition is going to give you a lot of information on used cars and the

well cars that are under $20,000 so we're going to go back to Stu or no we're not we're going back to the phones and we're moving fast. That's all right. That's good radio. How did Mimi do that? I don't know. Now that wouldn't Mimi. I think it was Melissa. Oh, that was Melissa. I think so. Oh, Rick does it better.

There we go. Oh, I love it. Got the Doppler effect in there. Nice. Okay, we're going to go to Kent, who's calling us from Lake Worth. Good morning, Kent. Good morning. Thank you for your service. I have a two-part question. We encourage the granddaughter up in Ohio to buy a used carola.

It's a 2015. It has 50,000 miles on it, and it was in need of a battery. And one of the local stores put the battery in for her. And because it sits outside in the cold, and she's now online learning in her senior year at high school, She doesn't have a chance to turn that engine over more than, I would say she forgets to do it. And the car sits for a couple weeks and goes out, it's a dead battery. And that battery has been recharged in the house with a battery charger about four times now, and we have the same occurrence.

Should I worry that it's something more than just the battery that's dying because of the cold? what do you feel about it? It sounds to me like if it's sitting for several weeks and going dead, that's actually just the normal draw on the battery. What you might consider is a trickle charger that would keep a small charge going into the battery. There are even some you can buy that have a solar panel that you can mount in the back window.

So as long as you're getting some sunlight on the car, it would help to keep that battery charged up. Hmm. So when you're driving around, you're charging the burner. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, if that was not it, is there something that would draw on a new battery? It would have been a pollinator not recharging it, or is there some electrical thing I should be concerned about? Again, because it's sitting for so long, there's certain computers have to keep their memory alive. So, you know, there's always going to be a small draw on the battery.

But if your alternator was to have a problem, normally it would put an indicator light on the dash. But otherwise, if you stop in a local parts store, they can actually put a scanner on the battery, basically. And while the car is running, it will tell them if the alternator is producing properly and charging the battery. Excellent. I wanted to know that. That's free. No charge. Free. You've answered part one, part two. I'm a Scotty Climber fan.

A billion people on YouTube, I watch them, and it's encouraged me to look at the Toyota line more than any other car. Now, I've had a Prius for 10 years, and he's saying that when you reach that 10-year period on that battery, on that Prius, you should have a concern. Do you guys agree with him on that? Pretty much Prius is... Well, that's a warranty limit, so that's a good time.

Yeah, that's where you're reaching the end of the warranty, but one thing to bear on... You're out of the warranty at 10 years. Yeah, it's getting to the end of it. The hybrid battery on that, we've seen that most of them, the lifespan is somewhere around in the range of 150 to 200,000 miles. So at 10 years with the age and the mileage, it may be time to start looking at trading that one in, looking at a different car. What's a replacement cost on a rebuild now? A hybrid battery from a dealership is going to run you probably around $3,500. So you've got to, that would be a $3,500 hit if you had to replace that battery,

and then you have to look at the value of your 10-year-old hybrid, and then a Prius, as you said, and then make a decision. So that's good advice, and I will heed to that. Thank you for taking my call and have a nice day. Sam, thank you. Have a great weekend, Ken. 877-9-60-99-60. Ugun, Texas at 772-497-676530.

Charlene text me, and Rick, she asked if she gets into her friends Highlander and charges her phone. Does all of her information from her phone get down? Nope. No. Nope. She was convinced that all of her information was being put into her friends' Highlander. No, no.

Ain't going to happen.com. With a charge. Oh, there you go, Charlie. You're safe. Whatever you have. Whatever you're carrying in your phone, it didn't get downloaded. Right. Unless somebody added her phone to the system and then prompted it to sync contacts and information. You have to go through a whole process to add it so it wouldn't happen spontaneously. Oh, that's good to know. Well, when Nancy plugs her phone in, she's in the car

with me, because she's on... Already set up. Yeah, it's already set up. Yeah. So you can. but you have to be, as Stu says you have to be connected before that. Yeah, you have to go through us in a process. And what happens whenever I do get into your car and try to charge my phone before you charge your phone because you're eliminated? Every time your daughter's calling me when I'm driving, I hear the phone ringing all the time. That's right.

No, I don't think that was the problem. But anyway, that's another show. All right, we have some anonymous feedback. Okay, what is the reason that car dealers need to know your age? do seniors get a tax break in Florida? And true is no. And the reason for it, at first I was thinking, you know what? Unless you're doing a credit application, you don't really need that, but that's not true.

So in Florida, at least, your registration, your vehicle registration is renewed on your birthday every year. So the state, the DMV needs to know what your birthday is. Oh, but the month, they don't need to do the year. The year isn't it? But I think the other issue is probably because computer fields, it calls for a birthday, and if you put it an invalid thing, it probably wouldn't accept it. But it's not required to buy a car. I mean, to actually just buy a car.

You don't even have a driver's license to buy a car. What requires the birth year? I'm not sure on the year. I just know that you also supply your, you don't have to supply your driver's license unless you're doing a loan. If you're just buying a car straight out, you don't need that. I don't know. That's a good question.

I just know that the reason they want your birthday, month and day, is because of the registration. Okay. Let's see. More anonymous feedback. This is directly for Earl Stewart. Toyota question that says does a new car transferred as part of a dealer inventory swap qualify for your Tires for Life program? Yes, all new and used Toyota's qualify for the Tires for Life

program no matter where we get them or how we get them. More anonymous feedback. Earl, what, in your opinion, is the absolute worst stay away car on the roads today? Stay away from buying type of car? That's how I interpret it. Yeah. Oh, gosh, that's tough. I'd say Fiat. Nancy's got the answer right there in that magazine yeah it's we we definitely have I mean there's so much information like I stated earlier you know about what to buy what not to buy and prices and it's definitely worth your while to pick up your consumer report because it got the as two said the best and the worst if he has trucks and SUVs

the fiat is the Ugo of the 21st century it's a shame that's such a story of history You know, they've been around for probably a hundred years. Even Fiat and the Chrysler admitted it because they're, you know, they're backing away off. They came out. They required dealers to build separate showrooms for the Fiat and invests a lot of money and nobody bought any Fiat. And forced the dealers to even lengthen the name from Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Ram, Jeep, you know, it's like, come on. It's shorten that thing. All right.

This is a feel-good anonymous feedback. Earl, I listen to your shopping reports each week, and it seems odd. how some dealers make it so unpleasant. This is my experience buying a new 2021 Toyota Crolla, LE, a week ago from a Toyota dealer in Bloomington, Minnesota. Picked the vehicle and started the process online three days before Saturday and told them up front I would be writing a check, and the salesman did all the work to have it ready to sign, pay, and drive on the following Saturday. MSRP, $20,000 and rebates, state sales tax, $1,200 and change, total license and fees, $339, that's it. No dealer installed options.

Numbers are from the bill of sale. They registered the car online with the state of Minnesota and received the license plate number. They had a machine that could stamp the license plate number, so they installed the license plates and formats when they sent the car back for a detail. The salesman then took me to the car, explained things, and paired my smartphone to the car. The entire process took less than one hour. And you've just described what car buying should be. And it weren't so cold in Minnesota.

I'd move there. We'd encourage all of our listeners to relocate. What's the name of the dealership? To the Bloomington? Yeah, can you tell us the name? We'd like to give them a plug. It's in Bloomington, Minnesota. Oh, Minnesota, yeah, Bloomington.

I would say there's probably only one Toyota dealer in Bloomington, Minnesota. So go there. Well, it's the name of it. Yeah. So go there. Go to their website. Google them and buy your Toytas. You know, from that.

It feels so good to hear that because sometimes I think there aren't any honest car dealers. And I'm, you know, I don't really mean that. but it's just so nice to hear it please tell us good positive experiences like we just heard if you had a pleasant experience wherever you are we need balance please call we need balance because the lately the mystery shopping parts are getting ugly we need we need something to cheer us up but you did something right too you did it online and you talked about what you had to write your checkout for and you started that process outright not to say that this dealer wouldn't have done it anyway that way but you start the process and try to complete the process except for picking up

the car online you are your your chances of getting a fair price honest price or enhanced a thousand percent that's right and i've located the dealer it is walser toyota and bloomington minnesota walzer walzer we love you walzer folks if you're living if you live up there give them a shot see that's free advertising for walzer and they deserve it yes absolutely You know, back to Consumer Report, gosh, I love this magazine. Can you believe the Consumer Report, how they shine, they tested these vehicles for tall and short drivers? I mean, how sweet is that? How many of us have gotten into a vehicle, including myself, and became very uncomfortable because of the seat, the pedal, and all of that?

Pick up that June edition, and also, as Stu said earlier, they've got the, best and the worst topics that you can take a look at before you run out there or purchase your vehicle. 877960 or you can text us at 772-497-60. Well, I'm impressed with Walsner Officer. I'll get off their website. They use the same website provider as we do. Very nice website. More anonymous feedback. Good morning. Does Toyota make their own hybrid battery or do they buy it from another company. I heard I thought I heard Ford is going to make their own hybrid battery. Yeah, Toyota has a

joint venture with Panasonic. It's called Prime Earth EV. It's made in Japan, not China, and so they do make their own hybrid batteries. Those are the nickel hydride, the ones that are currently the lithium ions, I'm not sure where that would be, probably Panasonic as they make those. Toyota got a late start and the

autonomous field also and they just bought Lyft. You know, the other Uber, Lyft, I bought their autonomous car division and they're going to be basically they fell behind and they're going to have to be buying software companies and of course they'll take over

and they'll end up being the primary prime mover of all the things they buy. Can I just a little thing on the Tesla is kind of cool it's not a commercial for Toyota but in the Tesla the autopilot that's in there the one I'm driving it's pretty cool it's not full self-driving. It doesn't like start and stop and navigation.

but you basically tell it to put into autopilot and it'll steer as you go down the road follow the lanes it'll slow down the cars in front of you and it's pretty cool that's already in that's the same thing in some of the Toyota cars that we have it's called lane trace it does the exact same thing it goes from a stop to a start and it follows traffic so autonomous cars you might even be driving one that has a feature you haven't tapped into yet so there's it's a different level of it but it's pretty cool and it's already here all right see last text and that's good because we're approaching 930 says so now that the u.s auto industry including the unions has requested congress to prioritize and fund the chip shortage what in your

opinion are the odds something will be done and that's from brad b i um i alluded earlier in the show that i'm forecasting the chip shortage will be essentially over by the end of 2021 and that we will have the reverse situation of a surplus of vehicles and the prices will plummet. So that's a prediction. I don't have 100% certainty of that. But as I said earlier in the show, if you don't need to buy a car today, postpone it until the end of this year. You've got two things going for you at the end of the year. You have the 222s that are coming out.

And you also have the possibility of a great availability so you're not exploited. Today, I promise you, you're going to be paying a record price for a used car and a record price for a new car because of supply and demand, and the supply is minimal on new and used cars. It's a seller's market. The dealers are in control, and they are, their deviousness and tricks to get you in the door. Baton switch advertising will be something like you've never seen before. They don't have, the largest car dealership, the largest Toyota dealership in the world is in, is, at this time, is in, 45 minutes south of here. Yeah, it's Al Hendricks and Toyota. And I believe they have 45 cars on the ground. No, they have like 120-ish as of a couple of days.

And normally they have a thousand. Easy. Yeah. So they have one-tenth of their normal inventory. And why know what it is, we have 45 months. more cars than they do. Yeah. And so they are an example of what's going on here. I've never seen anything like this, a shortage. We haven't seen a shortage like this for years and years and years. This dwarfs back, the last big one really affected Toyota, but other Japanese manufacturers that was in the tsunami in March 2011.

And that was the last time, we remember like a big, well, sorry, the last time was when there was production shut down because of the pandemic last spring. and going into the summer. Or if I want to go way back as a Toyota dealer, it was when they hit a huge tariff on all imports. Is that in the 80s? I had one car on my. That was the 80s?

Yeah, one car. Oh, boy. All right, I think we're ready. We sold that one for a ton of money. I bet you did. You sold it for $700,000. We made the whole month. Got a real sucker in there.

That's the extreme example of supply and demand. Yeah, that could happen. All right. We're ready for it, the mystery shopping report. Okay. I got the phones turned off Yes, the phones are turned off So ladies and gentlemen

It's your turn to vote on the Mystery Shopping Report And we went out to Graco Chevrolet So listen up And we're going to have a good time with this one And it's a special Mother's Day edition Oh yes, I forgot, Mother's Day edition A Mother's Day tribute

And if they were, if you were going to call us You can still text us Because we might have some room at the end of the show To get your text in or anonymous feedback We just don't the call-in phones are turned down But you get so much time You could ad lib all you want Oh good

Oh boy Okay All right Our bad boys This is Stu wrote this And I compliment him early in the show This is one of the best Short stories

He really did a good job on this And he's got talent He's a good writer But it's factual Don't get me This is not fiction This is good You know live real story kind of narration

Our bad boys with the car biz tour continues this week with Greco Chevrolet in Delray Beach, Florida. Last week, I'm glad you through Florida in there because people are listening all over, right? Last week, our investigation of Napleton's North Lake Hyundai uncovered supreme examples of the worst car business has to offer. Deceptive advertising, endless, bank in Porth Hagling, and better sit down for this one, folks.

Hang on your hats. $8,300. in hidden fees hidden fees 8,300 dollars you know we should have an award you know tongue-and-cheek award right for the greatest amount of hidden fees I got a thing what the trophy will look like you know I think a large screw I could think yeah I was going to think that would be good I thought something even more like a big gold-plated screw that's exactly okay we gave Naples North Lake Hyundai a big fat well-desert F that was for you Linda

Yeah. And in our years of mystery shopping, a few dealers have known a, shown a knack for coming in under the curve when judged against their peers. Under our grading system, a dealer can get a C for simply avoiding extreme anti-consumer behavior, getting an F is something special. And Nancy and I were talking about this in the car coming in. And, you know, she gets adamant. How can we give these people a C, when they do this and i said listen if we didn't have passing grades nobody should buy a car in florida we wouldn't have a list and people aren't going to leave the state in most cases to buy a car no one's going to minnesota no you know they should right but they won't um anyway where am i oh yeah check out our rankings on good dealer baddeal list.com this is the one we're talking about there aren't a lot of Fs out of the 85 dealers listed that's a lot of dealers in it of the 85 dealers listed only 11 that's what 15% yeah I have F grades of those so 85% we passed of those 11 Fs three of them belong to Unableton that's a pretty big share well considering he has several dealerships too yeah they I don't think they all went to one yeah no they're all separate locations separate locations Curiously, the Greco's currently have, every time I say Greco, I think it should be Greek. It's Greco, I think you're correct.

Yeah, but I just, how can you pronounce I, E, that's his name? He can pronounce it any way he wants to, okay. The Grecoes currently have no failing grades. Greco Chevrolet has a C minus, Greco Ford has a C, and Greco Kia has a C. They're okay guys, and on the curve. I'll have to start using that more often. People ask me, how is your steak? I'll give it a C on the curve,

but you should throw it in the trash can. I mean, I couldn't even chew it. Compared to most, yeah. So why do we group the Grecos and Naples together? Because we have a long memory here at Erland Cars. Some of the worst mystery shops ever took place at a Greco dealership. The Grecoes were responsible for the infamous ghost car. Kept being advertised despite serious doubts.

There was no doubt that positively didn't exist. It was a ghost. I got a hedge here and there to keep us on us, you know. Well, yeah, right. It probably was somewhere. They sold it a long time ago. There was a photograph of it, so it existed at one point. They advertised a car below what they paid for it,

and they had at different dealerships in different geographical locations, kept sending mister shoppers out and they kept using the same car just sold and it was a ghost car didn't exist anyway it's true that the last round of grickle mystery shops have demonstrated a big improvement and behavior it's fair to say that these reports have shown that these guys are no worse than the average south florida card dealer that's like saying the most honest guy in sing sing i mean these guys these dealerships here in south florida are are so bad you know it's He's so good at being bad.

Yeah, I'm so glad that I'm a car dealer, and I've been there and done that, because if I moved here from Minnesota, Bloomingdale, Bloomington, Bloomington, Minnesota, if I moved here, I'd have a heart attack. They'd move back. Yeah, I moved back. I would go into a Napleson or a Greco store, and they'd probably have to resuscitate me. I hope they have AEDs in the dealership. Yeah.

That would be unfair of us to keep equating. with the likes of Naples, we're talking about Greco, if they've truly redeemed themselves. After all, this show is about redemption. That's one of my favorite phrases, stupid, in there. I love that. So we dispatched Agent Lightning to Mr. Shop, the Greco dealership,

was the lowest grade on good dealer, baddealerlist.com, and on Greco Chevrolet. I've got about seven stores down here now, don't they? Yeah, all in Del right now. Here's a report. I was thinking as if I were Agent Lightning, who was our female shopper.

My first step in the investigation of Greco Chevrolet was submitting a request for a price quote for a new 2021 Chevrolet Trailblazer LS. The vehicle was listed online per sale at Greco Chevrolet del Rey.com. There wasn't an online price listed as far as I could tell. It seemed like there was a glitch on their site.

And it was very interesting glitch. We have a picture here, and you can't. can't see the or read it even online but very interesting they have the MSRP was 22 975 and the Greco discount was 22 795 and I assume they were not advertising the car for zero dollars but who knows and and they had a cash back of 1139 which meant they were gonna pay you to take the car and we'll give them credit for just a stupid typo yeah there's something going on there and you'll

see the fine print disclosure is not responsible for typos so they're even covered on that I waited for a few minutes on agent lightning the female shopper I went for a few minutes before I received a response from Amanda and that was the online person she asked for my phone number I've intentionally not provided my phone number and we highly recommend this when you do your online shopping either don't give them the phone number or make-out-up a phone number. I responded by stating that I preferred to communicate by email. That was the last I heard from Amanda. And you can see this was an automated service probably, possibly in the

dealership, but more likely an automated service. And they're instructed if they won't give you the phone number, we don't want to hear from them again. So that was it. Phone numbers are vital, especially to the aggressive dealers that want to harass you. Years ago, I remember being at a seminar for best practices for dealers, and they said you prioritize your internet leads with phone numbers and you put the ones without to the back of the line. Because you're going to get somebody on the phone and you have a higher chance of a reel in a minute. You have to take away their God-given American right to shop and compare prices. You can't let them have that right to chop your price with another seller of that product of that car. So you have to get them in the dealership, and you have to take control,

and you have to be sure that they don't leave without buying. And if they leave without buying, you have to be sure don't give them your best price. You want them to come back for your best price. That is the MO of 99.9% of all car dealers. Anyway, I responded, I wouldn't refer it to my phone number. I responded by saying that I preferred to communicate by email. That was the last heard from Amanda. Okay, this is the part I love.

Mother's Day tomorrow. Our best holiday. Truly, our best holiday. Saluting and remembering the most important people on the planet Earth, mothers. Yes. My mom was in town visiting last week, so I took her along to join the mission. She would be the buyer, and I was there to assist. Turning the page.

Oh, I can lick my fingers now. I thought I had my mask on. I love not having the little things. Yeah. It's the little things. It's the little things. Sneezing, blowing your nose. Picking your nose.

Picking your nose. God, I can't believe you said that. We arrived at Greco Chevrolet, 11 a.m. And we're immediately greeted by Stuyvens. I don't know. When I wrote it, I heard Stiffons in my head. Oh, Stiffin's, okay. Okay, Stevens.

As we approached the front, that's a strange name. As we approached the front door, he asked, what brought us in? My mom, well, we'll call her Agent Mama. This is Stu's work. I mean, I love it. Agent Mama. This is my mother, and I'm Agent Lightning. Agent Lightning, you took her mother, and that's really cool.

Agent Mama said she was relocating back in town and need the vehicle right away. I showed Stevens, the listing for the Trail Brazier, on my phone, and said Agent Mama had settled on this one. Yes, this is the way, right where we could run out. Oh, right, where we could run. Yeah. Or right, where we could run. Yeah, hold on the lot. We saw him outside looking around.

That was a typo in case. I'm not, it wasn't a mini-stroke. I just, a typo. Then he returned, said he'd pick us up in the golf cart in front of the showroom. He turned and ran out back outside. Sure enough, Stevens pulled up in the golf cart. Just a few minutes later, he drove us into a large parking garage. that the Chevy dealership shares with Greco Ford,

Chevy Board, I mean, Greco Ford, and Greco Chevrolet. On the way Stevens informed us that the trailblazer we saw, now he tells us, and this is what I'm talking about, low supply, high demand, microchip problems, the trailblazer they advertised was not in stock. It was in transit. Now, in all fairness, I think Stu missed this, but it said that in microprint,

Oh, I didn't see it. On the ad. I missed that. Yeah. On the ad, it said in transit, and you had to have, of course I always carry my magnifying glass, but actually I was able to read it with my bifocals. But nobody else reads it. I'm the only one that reads fine print because that's what I do.

I'm the recovering car dealer. He said he hoped it would be there soon. We don't know what that means. But instead, he suggested, let's go see what we can find. Now, this is a car salesman's dream. A real shortage, bona fide shortage, you've read about it in the newspaper, seen it on television, you know there's a shortage, and he knows it too, because he sells cars on commission, and he doesn't have any cars to sell. So, hang on your hats. You're going to pay all the money, a lot of money, if you buy a new car today, and they're going to have an excuse.

He's going to look at it in the eye and say, yeah, this car costs a lot of money, but where else are you going to buy it? We don't have any cars, and neither are the other dealers. So you're out there, and you're asking for it. So I'm just giving you fair warning. Here it goes. Stevens explained that a worldwide microchip shortage is hurting production of new cars. He said everyone is pre-ordering because there are just no cars, and he's telling the truth. He said that Chevrolet, which is rare for a car salesman, a car salesman loved to tell the truth to screw.

as opposed to happen to lie. So he's telling you a truth. I explained that Ford Nissan and Honda are all in the same boat. Stevens was quiet as he drove us around looking for a trailbraiser. He couldn't find any. Without a word, he turned the golf car around, began to descend to the ground floor. Didn't say a word.

Then he spotted a porter. You know, one of the workers that cleans cars and picks up cars and delivers cars. and he says there's no trailblazers what 201s do we have that's close to a trailbraiser this porter should be getting the commission I mean

salesman I don't know what cars he has a sock and what cars he doesn't have a sign we have a porter that knows better than anybody that's true yeah we should give him a raise he's the right guy exactly don't mention the name I'll have to give him a raise okay it was Willie

oh no I'm kidding the porter pointed up and replied equinox on the roof tell them the salesman what the salesman ought to know seven drove us up to the roof of the parking garage in our golf card we found new 2021 equinox ls is it equinox or equinox oh you got me on the pronunciations again which by the way sorry real quick for an interruption we have a texter from who sent it is okay uh oh i missed it uh scott sorry scott no ray says uh f y mr grico is the father started the deal ship, he always told us it's pronounced Greco.

When his sons took over, they wanted the name Americanized, so they started advertising it on TV as Greco. Ooh. It's a change. Yeah. Interesting. I'm going to have fun with that. All right.

Back to Grico Chevrolet. Is Mr. Grico Sr. still alive? I don't know. I don't know. I hope he's alive. Yeah.

Well, I'm sure he's aware. Maybe he blessed it. Because I'm going to start saying Grico now. Go ahead. Let's go back to the Greek Chevrolet. Daddy. Dadies are always right. That's right.

Is that right, Sue? That's absolutely right. That's right. okay okay here we go with grico uh stevens i think go ahead mr start go ahead mr start we got equinoleks that was my running jokes when i was a kid when we when when my sons came along and people asked me what do you go son's going to call you i said mr stewart we're boss steph and throw us to the roof of the parking garage okay yeah we found a new L.S. I just said that, didn't I?

Well, the next sentence, yeah. Okay, next time, yeah. The MSRP on the one we found was 28,280 compared to 22, 795 for the trailblazer. Okay. It's a bigger, it's a bigger, more expensive. Yeah, so $6,000 more and so top of the line compared to the trailblazer. Shevins said that we'd run into the same

inventory situation wherever we went. There you go. You know, you might not like the fact we don't have the car you want. You might not like the fact that the car I'm showing you is $6,000 more than you want to pay but if you go anywhere else they're going to tell you the same thing and it's probably true but here we go so and suggested we seriously consider stepping up to the equinox especially

because agent mama needed a car and I can't know but every time I say agent mama he said he said the only other option was to order one and that could take weeks or months agent mama I got to stop that I'm getting silly there was an addendum sticker on the Equinox it added another $1,495

it's already $6,000 higher here we go $1495 more of the Grico Advantage broker there you got Greek go yeah 695 a clear shield geez 995 or Zurich

84 month pain protection smoke and mirrors, BS, virtually worthless, dealer-installed accessories, but that's what they are. RICO's asking price was $31,465. Stendens seemed to choose up. Maybe that's Americanized, too, I don't know, because it should be Stevens. His dad might be upset. Could be. By the time we went on to the test drive, he was actually very polite and patiently explained all the features to Agent Mama.

I didn't laugh at that time. On the test drive, we both asked questions about what kind of discounts, off-list, price we could expect, and if there were any manufacturer specials and rebates. Steve was explained he can't really speak to any of that. It's his job to find the right car for us. Sales managers handle the numbers. Isn't that strange? You go to a store, and just customary, we're not going to tell you the price.

The sales manager knows the price, but he didn't tell me either. so the person you're talking who doesn't know the price and the only person knows is a sales manager and they won't let you talk to him until they're ready to let you talk to him and you still don't talk to him probably the salesman goes back and forth and when you really turn up the heat

and you're trying to leave that's when the manager comes out of his hole and tries to get you to stay there and you're going to find out in this case here later in the report that they're going to say even the manager doesn't know the price the business manager the if and I'm manager really knows the price and now you know you're in trouble it's all about control exactly the adjusted price was 24,603 but then came I just did all that

I think you skipped that oh skip the experience package we returned to the lot yeah oh yeah we returned a lot went back inside and sevens I went to get the numbers at 1158 a.m. he was back with the worksheet 11 1219 that wasn't agent mama that was agent lightning yeah she's got the stop watch. I advise her to him to pick up the pace because I had kids to go pick up uh-huh. That's true. And

Stevens apologized. I don't know. The top I'm Steve. Have you been drinking? Did you give me some of those brownies that you've been buying? I don't know what it is. The adjusted price was $24,000.

$6.03.003 but then came the ads. 249. I should do that. I think it went through that. And 1495 market adjustment, coincidentally the same price as Greco, experience package. Okay, that's why it sounded familiar. And an $899 protection package. This is so ludicrous.

Total purchase price came to $27,246, but then came more ads. $220.45 in taxable fees, which is another euphemism, a code for dealer fee. taxable fees it really sounds good doesn't it I like that tax I would believe it oh these are our taxable fees you're not going to say we have no dealer fees

they advertise that car dealers advertise no dealer fees but we do have taxable fees and we have a dock fee don't have a dealer fee we have a dock fee that's $8.99 dealer dock yeah there you go

total bogus add-ons $38 621 okay agent mama read the worksheet asked me what I thought I didn't hold back I called out all the add-ons and accused Stevens of jacking up the price of the car just to make more money on us also I was surprised you go girl I was I was surprised by he sir Steven said with everything going on right now it's really not much of a markup and he looked her in the eye yeah and it's true probably I mean compared to napleton hey here you're Here's the newspaper, headlines, microchip shortage creates huge supply shortage,

high demand causes high prices, headlines, Wall Street Journal, New York Times. Here, so, yeah, I'm jacking the price up, and that's the way it is everywhere. You might as well buy from me. The other deal is going to do the same thing to you. And I told you you shouldn't have been out trying to buy a car anyway today, okay? Oh, boy. anybody questioning the fact that I'm a recovered car dealer now I'm recovering every now and then I lapse but you got to watch me that's what that's when we

slap you yeah Stevens asked us if we could get those items taken off would we have a deal there is still he's playing the game agent mama was bold and said let's see what you got see what you can come up with and that we call that back in the day and if I could would you and you tell the salesperson, did you do the if I could, would you? And that is, if I could, and you can fill in the blank, and you can say the car is below cost, any number you want. If I could do this, would you buy it today? If I could, would you? If I could, would you? It had a standard operating procedure. It was in 1968 when I started in the business, and they do it today.

This time, however, they only added, okay, did I miss this? The top line was again, 28,280 MSRP. The same odd rebate came off, the adjusted price, and it was the same 24603. This time, however, they only added the 249 Zurich Shield BS, the 1495 market adjustment

BS, and they left off the 899 appearance package. So they had an 899 appearance package and an 899 dock fee? 999. 999. Okay, I'm getting my 99's confused. They added the same other bogus fee, making the out-the-door price $30,033.

Kind of a round number there. $986 lower than the first deal they brought us. And, I mean, the confusion. I'm confused, you're confused. That's all part of the equation. Confuse them. If I could, would you? Tell them that there's a microchip shortage.

The guy's doing a great job. That's Stibbens. Agent Mama is going to have no partner. of this. I looked at Agent Mama and said, this is BS. Agent Lightning, that's me. Mama, this is BS. We should go. Agent Mama played along. We stood up to leave and Stivis asked us to wait just a minute so we could get his manager. We were already at the door by the time Stevens made it to the manager's desk. Ohm. Agent Mama and I were out of there. Yes. What time is it? Okay.

Yes, how do you do, detain? If the Grecoes were on the road to redemption, the inventory, crisis of 2021, put up a big detour, although it's a big fact, a fact, that market forces are driving prices higher. Unscrupulous dealers will seek to take unfair advantage of the situation and try to grossly overcharge. Their customers' true words were never spoken. Folks, it is more dangerous to buy a car today than it should be or has ever been in recent memory. for me and be careful only by a car if you have to

we've got to take some votes and remember we're great on the curve don't let a motion overcome you I'm just going to let it I'm speaking from the heart here but let's hear what the listeners have to say first first

Mark says F throw them to the wolves Bob says this may look like a D but if you look at it with a magnifying glass it's an F from that we have a F-minus from Martha on Facebook and I'm sure

oh Steve gives them a D-minus it's a passing grade but a very very poor one still waiting for Linda I know what it's going to be hey I'm letting my emotions take control of me giving them an F as well for taking advantage of emotion is a very strong thing I mean in marriage and buying a car

and the important decisions of our life and it's just not a good idea to live it happened but we're human and i'm glad we have a motion because i wouldn't want to be a robot rick what's up i've got mark from st louis with an f from him and a d minus from his mother me and st louis louis meet me at the furne ernesto says f minus grading fee f out the door grade f minus f minus donovan f for fee tom with a d minus a bit higher than napleton and mark ryan with an f and b t tech it's a big fat f and from me well i'm going with an f oh and i've got wayne also with a we'll save you thousands really big f you know i'm glad everybody's

silly even our callers and we all are giddy today there's something in the There is. Love is in the air. There's not a cloud in the sky. No. It's springtime. Jay gives him an F, and then Linda, she was waiting for the very end. She says, here comes the big fat F.

There we go. Mrs. Sunrise. On and on and on. A big fat F. Boy, I tell you're really putting me in a lot of pressure. I said I can't let a motion. I get the best of us. And I just...

I'm getting ready to edit the site. what's it going to be I want to tell you I got to do D-minus I mean I hate to do it but I I hate to do it I mean there was nothing illegal here

there was same old same old and it was Right last week they did the double dip on the manufactured destination fee And we only have seven Fs out of thousands of these reports and so So we have to hand those Fs out carefully.

But I'm just saying this, Greco, and you sons there, honor the father. Don't call yourself Greco anymore as Greco, because that's the way daddy wanted it. And change your advertising. It's disrespectful. I mean, after I'm going, I'm sure Stu is not going to change the name of the dealership to a Smith. Stewie Toyota. Stewie Toyota. So honor your father.

honor your father it's greeko chevalet all right you like that one you know if you do stewy stuart Toyota if you do stewie Toyota

nobody's going to confuse us with Toyota of Stewart that's true and maybe we can buy the rights to a family guy stewie as our mascot there you go that'd be great

excellent one minute let's plug the big dog ranch rescue oh yeah at course the brochure that's your way big dog ranch risk

www www. www.bd. There you are, folks. There it is. That is the most effective, successful, biggest, no-kill shelter in the United States. We sell, sell. We give away for an adoption fee. Right, we rent dogs. We adopt.

I just killed sales right there. We don't sell dogs. We have a dealer, a doggy fee. Deer flea. We do, $250 adoption fee, and we pay the adoption fee on the dog of the week. Okay, it's official. I got to slap you. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in, Earl Stewart on Cars.

Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there that's celebrating Mother's Day. We'll be right back here next week. Same time, 8 o'clock. See you then.