Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.09.2020 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Napleton’s Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram

Episode Date: May 9, 2020

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agents Thunder and Tempest visit Napleton’s Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram to see if he can purchase a 2020 Jeep Renegade Sport with the very attractive financing offer featured in their advertisement. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car. 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 LinkedIn cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our mystery shopping report. He dispatches our secret shopper. to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership.

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. We're back. Your automotive, how not to get ripped off by a car dealer team. And we're anxious to get going. We love what we do. This is almost like a recreation. I'm not sure if I wouldn't do this, even if nobody listened.

But here we are. For you, newbies, my name is Earl. I'm a recovering car dealer. I've been doing this for 17 years, meaning standing in front of this video or microphone and telling people how to buy a car without being ripped off. We started 17 years ago with Nancy Stewart, my co-host on this show, and we evolved from a half-hour show to an hour, an hour, two hours every Saturday, and here we are.

I've got a little mask on, you probably notice that, and we're trying to avoid the COVID-19 like everyone else. We have a disinfected studio, and we're all wearing masks, we're all wearing gloves, and we're being careful. I know you are too. So a lot of people are buying cars. I was really interested. I am a car dealer and I have a toilet dealership.

This is not an infomercial. I have to tell you that. That is a consumer advocacy show to help you. You will not hear me hyping my car dealership. I tell you that I have a car dealership because if you're going to get advice on how not to get ripped off, you have to add it from someone that knows what he's doing. And I've been doing this for over 50 years,

meaning selling cars. I've had multiple dealerships. And I know all the tricks of the trade. I've been there, and I've done that. And so there's nothing the car dealers can pull on you that I don't know about, because at one time I wasn't such a nice guy. I actually broke the rules and rationalized it.

Didn't think of myself as a bad person, but I was doing bad things. And ethically, I'm ashamed of a lot of things I did in the past, 25 plus years ago. I've cleaned up my act and run what I consider to be an honest, transparent business. But Erloniardos haven't done the same thing, and that's the purpose of this show. one of the best things we do on this show is the mystery shopping report and it's unique unprecedented nobody on radio television online I know of no one that does what we do with mystery shops we send in an undercover shopper every week doing it for years we have hundreds and hundreds in our archives which you can access by the way at earluncars.com

hundreds and hundreds of mystery shopping reports we've friends pretend to buy or lease a car, and I'm going to slide my mask down just a little bit here because I think it's affecting my legibility, and I'll put it back on in a minute. Mr. Shopper goes in, talks to a different dealership in South Florida, sometimes even further north, every week, and we tell you exactly what happens. We go through the whole purchase process to the time when we have a finalized price. we name names, the dealership, we name the car dealer, and then we write it all up and we put it online and we vote on

the dealer, the good dealers pass, they get a recommended, they get on a recommended dealer list, the dealers that don't pass, we put them on do not buy from this dealer list and it's accessible to you. So this is kind of a cool thing and it is one thing that you

should check out if you select a dealer to buy a car from. Now what I alluded to a minute ago, is the fact the way the car business is coming back really surprises me. I'm not sure how universal this is around the country and the world, but I can tell you in South Florida, the car dealers are selling far more cars in May

than they did in April. In fact, the letter half of April, it really picked up. In May almost looks like a normal month at our dealership, which you could have knocked me over with a feather if you just said that before. I just didn't believe what happened, but people are buying cars, so you need us.

And we'd love to have you call us. That's what they show is all about. And the call-in number, I'll give you the text number two, is 877-9-60-99-60. Our text number is 772-497-6530. One more time. Call-in number, 877-9-60-99-60, and the text number is 772-497-6530.

In the studio with me now, because this is not the Lone Ranger thing, we have an automotive team. Immediately to my right, I have Rick Kearney, who is a certified diagnostic master technician, and he knows everything, possibly not literally, but virtually everything about cars mechanically, electronically, computerized. And I encourage you to call in,

have any questions about your car, things you don't know how to work. Cars are complicated today. They make a funny noise, funny rattle. Or maybe you're thinking about having a repair done. Prices too high. We can help you with all those things. And next to Rick is my son, Stu Stewart. Stu is our cyber guy.

He understands, we're transmitting, by the way, YouTube, Twitter. We're on Facebook. Of course, obviously, we're on the good old-fashioned radio. and you can access it many, many ways. He's in charge of that, he's done a great job. The most exciting thing he does is he's our mystery shopping expert. Stu is the spymaster general. He selects the undercover agents to go out, and he is their handler.

And he determines which dealership do we shop and brings you that. It'll be in the second half of the show, our mystery shopping report. And next to Stu is Nancy Stewart. It's Nancy Stewart. Now, Nancy Stewart, equestinely, Stuart, no, she's my wife. She's also my co-host, and she's also a founder of this show,

which we did 17 years ago on a radio called Seabue Radio back then, and it was only half an hour show, and it was just me and Nancy. And she's been with me through all these years. She's been with the show, and we've evolved to what we are today. Nancy is part of the sales team,

more of the how not to buy a lease her buy her lease a car she's an expert on that but she's more of an expert and her specialty is female advocacy

when we started this show 17 years ago I don't think we had any female callers all the calls for guys cars seem to be like a guy thing back in those times so Nancy came with the show and year after year

we've gotten more and more female callers she's a consumer advocate especially for females and i'm going to ask nancy to introduce herself now show you that pretty face with a mask on it and to uh tell the female listeners out there how much we value them and how we will reward them so nancy it's all yours good morning everyone and thank you for tuning in darrell stewart on cars so uh for the ladies uh and we sure had a run of of ladies last week they opened the show and continued to ask questions and make their presence known so this week ladies i'm waiting to hear from you again and i have 50 dollars for the first

two new lady callers give us a call at 877 960 9960 if you just want to say hello or if you have a question $50 for the first two new lady callers and we've got a very interesting show this morning as Earl said and you know I'd like to hear from a few of the folks as to these car scams that are out there and I'd like you to give us a call and let us know what you encountered this past week. And don't forget, www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. www.

Your Anonymous Feedback.com. 877-960. And you can text us at 772-497-6530. And we are going to go to our first caller, and that is George from my favorite hometown Pennsylvania. Good morning, George. Hey, George, you with us?

Yep, right here. Oh, fantastic. What's going on? How things in Pennsylvania? Cold. We live in southern Pennsylvania, and it's in the 30, one or two degrees. Wow. Oh, my goodness. Oh, yeah. But bright and sunny.

Hey, I have a question for Rick. Yeah. Question for Rick. go ahead earlier this week i inadvertently uh ran the battery out of juice let the headlights on on my 2010 sion tc and i put my jump pack on it luckily it was in the garage i put the jump pack on and drum fired right up ran fine the thing is though somewhere from the engine being this real high pitch whistle sounded like a teapot going crazy So I sat there and whistled, whistled, whistled. I had to leave the house.

I got in a car, drove, came back, put about 10, 15 miles on it, came back and the noise was gone. It didn't sound like a belt or anything else. I just wondered if it was probably the alternator, charging the battery or something. What do you do I? Audio's on there. Excuse me, George.

I was just telling. So, Rick, what do you think? That's a... A teapot and a cyan. Yeah, I've never heard... I've never heard that noise described from a cyan, and it immediately followed his battery going dead. Rick is performing some computer work on our computers right now,

so he's doing double duty. My first thought on that, of course, would be a belt, but it is possible that the alternator was actually being stressed a little bit by having had the battery worn down so much. But if the noise went away and you haven't heard it again, I'd kind of have to go with the idea of wait and see if it happens again. Let the car charge up for a good long while and then just give it a good test here.

See if that noise comes back. If it doesn't, I wouldn't get too concerned on it right now. Should he check his battery with a load test, maybe? Yeah, I'd definitely stop by one of the local auto parts. parts source, they'll do a load test on that battery for free. And as long as that battery passes a load test, you should be all right with that. Yeah, I have my, I have my own thinger, and it's fine now. I've said after I drove at 10 miles, 15 miles, there was no more noise. It hasn't come back. Just curious. Well, I appreciate the call. George. Tell me as long as I take advantage of

talking to somebody from another state. I don't know when's the last, when you bought the or how often you bought cars, but we have a terrible problem in Florida with dealer fees. They're extremely high averaging in South Florida over $1,000. That's a hidden charge they add to the advertised price of a car. What about dealer fees in Pennsylvania? Have you had to battle that? Has it been a problem for you buying cars? Yeah, there are fees.

I know this is really on my mind, too. I see stuff online, different websites. I tell you, the last time I bought a car was four years ago. I bought a used pickup from a Toyota dealer here in town, the only one. And it had a $166 dealer fee on it. That's a bargain, probably, in Florida standards. Yeah, I didn't, oh, crap, profit. But I paid it, and that's the last thing.

And then car before that was 2013, I bought a new Hyundai. And I really don't remember. So I'm not the one day asked by this. Well, for $166, I mean, the dealers, I don't think that's right. But it's one thing to add $166 to the price of a car. But when you had $2,000, I think you're pushing the envelope there. We're trying to do something about it in Florida. Well, George, thanks very much for the call.

I know Nancy's happy. She's a Pennsylvania gal, Pittsburgh gal. So we love to have your call back. originally. Very good. Very good. Okay. Please call again.

Thank you so much. It's great to hear from you, George. Give us a call again. Okay. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-49-60. Or you can text us at 772-49-765-30. We've got a great mystery shopping report coming up from Napleton's Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram. You don't want to miss this one.

And I think we were about to get to Stu. Uh-oh. There you go. Stu, Mr. We have an introduction of... Oh, no, no. I am, this is, we are in a golden age of car dealer deception. I mean, this is, I'm just going to be, I'm going to be honest with everybody.

It was getting really hard. And seriously, it was a frustrating. It was a source of stress every single week for us to find a mystery shopping target. That wasn't the same old thing that we've been doing. I mean, we, one of the themes we've done is the Takata Airbag recall crisis, and that's really important. And just so you all know, we're not done with that. Right now, we're kind of shelving it temporarily so we can focus on this new surge of crazy cartylar advertising. But I know this is a terrible situation, and we're in a global crisis.

But one silver lining is that it's a little bit easier for Stu Stewart every week to find an ad to investigate. And I'm telling you, right now, it's when there's uncertainty, when there's uncertainty, when people are kind of out of their comfort zones. Car dealers are a very innovative and wily lot. And some of the most creative commercials in the history of American business came from American car dealers. Now, this shopping report that you did

was unique in the sense that I've been doing this for 50 years. I've never seen some of the things that Napleton pulled. He even surprised me. He came up with some new, very, very deceptive techniques that I've never heard of. That's rare. So you stay tuned for that shopping report at the end of the show. Yeah, the ground underneath the saw has shifted and the card dealers were right there

to take advantage of it. So stay tuned. I'm pretty proud of the report and I'm just thrilled. Well, I don't want to come across of enjoying something that's bad. I'm just saying from a professional standpoint. Well, it's entertainment. I mean, this show is not all, it's not a college lecture. This is something that we do to, it's fun. It is. And we have to be happy. We have to entertain. And let me tell you, this is a true life drama that will entertain you at the end of the show. We got any text or calls or anonymous feedbacks? We do have calls. We do have calls. Fantastic. We do have calls. And Kristen is calling us from South Carolina. Good morning. Good morning. Hey. Are you a first-time caller?

I am. Oh, wow. Congratulations, Kristen. You just won yourself $50. Yay. Yay. I actually listen to you all the time when my husband does, and I'm just in the back where I'm just kind of listening. Oh, wonderful. Hey, stay on the line, and you can give your contact information to Michael in our control room. What can we do for you today? Well, I am actually in the market for a new vehicle, and so my husband and I have been doing some research, and I thought I'd call about two things. I had a question, but I also had a comment because he's been asking for the out-the-door price, and one of the dealerships actually told him that the price depended on your credit, and I was actually quite appalled by that. I mean, how a price should be a price, whatever it is. It should not depend upon your credit. If you're financing, it's a different story because they're looking at the interest rate and such, but the price of the car shouldn't change dependent on your credit.

So I was kind of irritated with that, so they totally lost my business. Yeah, that's terrible. It actually gets into like a murky situation because, let's take a car dealer by himself. If he chose to raise the price of a vehicle that you saw for a certain price based on your credit, first of all, that's illegal. You can't be tied to that. When it gets into manufacture incentives, it gets a little bit more confusing because they will often offer side-by-side incentives. One will be a low-interest rate incentive and the other will be a cash incentive.

But they usually don't let you combine the two. Sometimes they do. But for the most part, you're either going to get the cash incentive or the low-interest rate. So in a way, that's what's happening, and it's sanctioned by the manufacturers, and it's allowed by the FTC. I think that there's another issue, and this has to do with selling cars to people with some credit difficulties, certain banks will charge a large fee to the dealer for them to approve the loan, and now that's legal. What the dealer can't do is add that to the price of your car, so that has to be added to the price prior to you even, talking to the dealer. But it's almost impossible to prove or disprove that the price was added

because car dealers don't post their prices. Customer comes in with bad credit and there has to be situation where it goes to a special finance lender. There is a $2,000 fee. Now you have to trust the dealer not to take that $2,000 fee that he has to pay the lender into consideration when he prices the car to the buyer. So I would say in 99 times out of a hundred thousand dollars, that is being passed along, and as Stu said, that is illegal. I would recommend to you and anyone out there that has marginal credit or whatever, negotiate. Don't fall into the trap of getting a credit application and getting a credit score before you even get the price of the car.

Let the dealer assume that you have good credit and negotiate the best price you can. of the tips from this show with true car or Costco or any other way you can with three competitive bids and get your best price now if you do have marginal credit then at least you have a relative basis of knowing if the price goes up and it's less likely to go up when they know they've given you the price that you could pay if you had good credit keep the credit score to the very last part when you're ready to sign And Kristen, you know, to add to this, there are so many pieces of the puzzle and there's so many ways that they can create confusion. And I have a tool listed on Irwan cars and it's an affidavit and it's going to get you the out-the-door price, the honest out-the-door price.

And if you download that, you'll see the directions right there on how you can present this to the manager, to the salesperson that's dealing with you. But it just etches that in glass, the out-the-door price. It's so important to do so much homework before you walk into the dealership. And another tip is to go to the Internet. they don't know who they're dealing with. It's sort of a safe haven to start your research. I hope we were all able to help you this morning. Do you have any other questions?

Absolutely. I do actually question. Yes, I do. I talked to my bank prior to going to the dealership, and so I've got a pre-approval check, so I just have to write in the number. but I'm not sure if that's the way to go or if I would actually get a better deal if they finance. Like, you've seen lots of people have the zero interest rate, but I'm not sure if they would jack up the price or when to even bring that up.

No, you can use that to your advantage, Kristen, and you definitely get a better deal if you will just... You can let them assume during a negotiation that you're going to finance with them. But when the time comes to close a deal and buy the car, you say to them, I'm financing this through my credit union. I'm going to my credit union now and pick the check up, and I'll be back in two hours. Please give me your out-the-door price. And that's the price that Nancy just alluded to that they have to sign an affidavit that this is the price.

The out-the-door price definition is the price that you can write the checkout for or your credit union. rights to check out for and you sign and that is what you expect to them to give you so you've got two weapons here you've got the affidavit which you'd like in the sign and even if they don't sign it you can say tell me the number that I put on the check and I'm going to bring it to you and then I'm going to get in my car and drive it home that's the number that number has to be an outdoor price so yeah get that credit union check after you have the price okay wonderful thank you christin very much for the call please call again we love female callers and love to hear from again and spread the word uh Kristen and let your friends know that they

can give earl stewart a call um Earl Stewart on cars and they can win themselves $50 just by calling in we're trying to build a platform here for the ladies because as Earl alluded to earlier in our introduction, there was a time when it was just all men. And I used to call it the Boys Club. So spread the word and give us a call again. And have a wonderful weekend. Stay in the line. Michael, we'll get to your contact information. Thank you very much. Okay, 877-960-99-60. That's 877-960. And text us at 772-497653. Again, that text number. 772 4976530 and I bet

we have some text piling up don't we still? We do. I'm going to start with the freshest one because sometimes we don't get to all of them we carry them to the next weekend and I'm going to start with the newest one now and hopefully we can get to these no name on this one

it's a text looking to buy a used Hertz car this is a rental car that's being offered so by the Hertz rental company I don't think they offer a warranty can you recommend an aftermarket warranty? The only aftermarket warranty that I know that is reputable is the AAA, the Automobile Association of America warranty.

I know that's a reputable one. There are millions of them out there on TV, on the radio, online advertising. We checked out CarShield and we saw some things that were troublesome. It looked like they excluded a lot of things that you would expect to be covered by an extended warranty, which is actually a service contract. It's not an actual warranty. But AAA, I can't advise on pricing, and it also depends on where you live. In Florida, there's going to be a set price because it's a regulated insurance product.

Outside of Florida, it can be the Wild West. And I recommend that you think about if you need an extended warranty. If it gives you peace of mind, if you're going to stay awake nights because you don't have an extended warranty, then spend the money. But if you're buying a good car, and that car you're buying it from Hertz, you should take it to your independent mechanic, have it checked over carefully. If you've checked it out in Consumer Reports and you're buying a highly reliable car, like a Honda, Nissan, if you're buying a highly reliable car,

and you've had it checked out by a mechanic, you can save yourself a lot of money. These extended service contracts can cost a lot of money, $3,000. And you have to be careful when you buy them because sometimes you buy the contract, you find out the problem that you had where the car wasn't covered. So it's expensive, it's time-consuming, and if you buy a really good car, you probably don't need it. The insurance companies always come out ahead. The extended warranty companies always come out ahead. They take in far more money than they pay out in premiums.

Another thing to keep in mind is if you're looking at a Hertz renter car, most rental cars are current model years cars, which means there's still a substantial amount of factory warranty remaining on it. And so depending on how long you plan on driving the car, you might have, you know, two and a half years, four years of warranty, depending on the bank of the car. By the way, I'd be surprised if Hertz didn't offer a warranty. Double check with them. I like Hertz and I like Enterprise. They're rental car companies for buying used cars.

They're kind of like CarMax. They're respectable. They're big companies. They're publicly owned. There's not the level of shenanigence and deceptive behavior that you see with a lot of car dealers. So if you're buying a used car, you could do a lot worse than Hertz, Avis, or Enterprise. and typically they have their lowest price posted on the car

and if they offer an extended warranty, it's probably legitimate, meaning it's not a rip-off or you're just paying $2,000 for a power train warranty that's worth nothing. But if you do buy it from Hertz or anybody, read the warranty carefully, especially the part that says

it does not cover these items because you'll be surprised if the things it does not cover, typically the most expensive things on the car that you really hope they did cover. That's right. And there's a follow-up question from the same texter. It says, I also notice a $900 upgrade fee with soft cloth seats, mirror, et cetera.

Should I have to pay this for a used vehicle? It seems like they would already have been charged. I'm not familiar with that. That doesn't sound like something I would want to pay for. If you could text back in a little bit more specific. Like we said, Hertz and the other rental companies are, tend to be, their main business is renting cars and selling them, helps them get rid of it and turn over their fleet.

It could be a... Repeat what you said that charge was with your mask on. I didn't quite. You can't see my lips moving. No, I can't see your lips moving. It's a $900 upgrade fee for soft cloth seats, mirror, et cetera. I think that, it surprised me that Hertz would do that. That sounds to me like a dealer install.

Yeah, deceptive. If the advertised price that you came in on did not include that, and they're going to add that, that's like a dealer-installed accessory thing, which is not a good practice. So shame on Hertz for doing that, and I would object to it. Yeah.

Okay. The next text is, Earl, when checking out and testing a used car prior to purchase, it is easy to do if you have a list to follow. If you don't have a list, chances are you're going to miss most of the parameters needed for a complete and definitive test. Do you know where a list can be obtained? And if you can, can someone on your staff prepare this aforementioned complete and definitive list and post it online? And that's from Joe.

That's a great idea. Let's do that. You know, there's nothing that can beat a qualified, reliable technician. And that's the reason I say, it's good to have a list. And when you get a checked. If you don't know the technician, then you could give him the list, or if you do it yourself, or when Rick buys a car, he has a list up in his head, so he doesn't worry about that. That's right. But I think it's a good thing. Can you put that on your to-do list, Stu, and we'll come up with the things that you should check. Rick and you put your heads together and come up with a checklist. Yeah, Rick, just email me your list, and then there's a few things I'm sure I can throw in there. Most dealers that sell cars have a checklist. They call it their gold check

or something like that and they have a list that the technician is supposed to go over when they do the car. The thing that scares me is when you look at these lists they have 25 points that they check and when I look at the list someone's drawn a line

through all 24 of them, I feel if he just checked them individually had a little grease on the sheet maybe a you know a fingerprint and it looked like the sheeted but when they see a squeaking clean sheet with a line drawn through 24 items I wonder if they really checked all

That's a great idea for a deceptive dealer, you know, just like pre-printed, grease-stained, you know, forms that look like they really went through the ringer. Exactly, yeah. Now, let's switch over to anonymous feedback, and we want to remind you that you can send us any comments or questions completely anonymously encrypted. Seriously, it's used by companies like, who uses as Amazon, other big companies. Adobe. Yeah, they use them for whistleblower. So if you want to be a whistleblower, you can use Your Anonymous Feedback.com. comes right to us and there's no way we can find out who you are.

So if you want to say something nasty, go right ahead. But this one is not nasty. This is actually kind of nice. Watched a YouTube ad for your dealership, Earl, which was professional with no shouting. Then I watched the ads you post from other dealers that are deceptive, which all seem to be presented with an extremely loud voice in shouting. Seems that shouting and deceptive advertising may be connected for whatever reason. I know why.

it's the ad they want to distract you from the details that negate the ad and they're trying to create an emotional reaction of excitement they want to hype it they want to build it up as my father calls it they engage in puffery and uh it's a loud thing it wants to it wants to be entertaining it wants to you to focus on the excitement of it um the ad that we put out there uh that's me talking And, yeah, we want to take a motion for the most part out of it. We want to deliver a message. And it's just our style, but we don't yell. Well, you'd be surprised how the loud-talking ads at work.

And, you know, if you're careful, a Rigo, that's Palm Beach County, actually in Broward County and Martin County, too, have three or four dealerships. They do a loud, sort of a comedic thing. two brothers, Jim and John O'Rigo. And they're actually entertaining. And there's some used car ads out there. So you can be aggressive and yell and actually at the same time get people to laugh.

If you take it to the point where you can have the potential customers laughing with you, then you've won them over. If you're really, if you're shouting at them and they feel intimidated, then you're losing them. But there's an arc to advertising. I've got to hand it to some of these. screaming ads. They seem to work. The origos have channeled a successful comedy formula that's gone back to Dean Martin and a boy back to the 40s. It's the straight man, goofy guy routine. One guy is serious and the other guy is

acting like a goofball and that dynamic makes it really entertaining. We know it would be really interesting as a deceptive car dealer ad delivered in a very calming voice. Like only at ABC dealerships, zero percent financing for 84 months. Zero payments for six months. Okay, one more, and I think we can we'll move on. Your anonymous feedback came and says,

Hi, and thanks for all you guys do. I bought a new 2019 Honda Ridgeline truck in April from a used car dealership. The truck had five miles on it. I was confused when I saw the mileage on their website, and I thought it was a typo. I guess Honda has these trucks set aside and classed as fleet

vehicles, and with the coronavirus pandemic, they didn't need them and ended up auctioning them off, hence how the used car dealership got them. And I got a good deal in the truck, as I'm sure the dealership got a good deal as well at the auction. They had CRVs and other cars as well for sale with no miles. It's just crazy how I was able to buy a new car at a used car dealership. Wow. That's interesting. I'm not unheard of because car dealers sometimes actually sell new cars use new cars at the auction once it's been titled it could have been titled accidentally i mean someone bought the car didn't like it changed their mind but five miles that's very curious i'd like to know more about that if you would uh give us some details

text us uh was that anonymous feedback yeah that was anonymous i'd do another anonymous feedback if you give us some details i'd like to investigate that it sounds highly suspicious to me I mean, I see how it's possible. But, you know, this anonymous commenter seems like he or heard did their homework. So, yeah, we'll find out. But, yeah, we'd love some more information. Absolutely. Okay, excuse me, guys.

We're going to go to Warren, who's giving us a call from Pompano Beach. Good morning, Warren. Good morning, guys. How are you? Hey, Warren. Great. I just wanted to say, you know, as I said last week, I'm stuck up in northern New Jersey. And the local New York station did a report yesterday that you can't sell cars here in the tri-state area.

And they did a helicopter. I don't know if they did it. And they were shown Port Newark, which is the largest place where they import the cars from Europe, that there's stacked so many thousands of cars are stacked in Port Newark. And I would imagine you tell me that when it finally opens up, they're going to have to get rid of those cars. I mean, there was a thousandth of them, and it was just an amazing sight to see. That's interesting. I didn't realize that, but that's going to create a very unique opportunity, I think, for the buyers.

You know, the reverse is going to happen in other parts of the country where cars are being sold now. The dealers in areas that have remained open because auto dealers were considered a vital business. They're going to be running short of cars before too much. much longer. A lot of manufacturers shut down, but European cars that are being shipped in and stockpiled to the port, that's something that I think if you're careful, you could really get yourself a good buy. The dealers will use that to their advantage, and they'll advertise, you know, we're overstock, we've got to get rid of these cars, we're slashing prices at the same time. They'll try to sell it to you for too much money, but they will be able to sell

to you at a good price. And I'd keep an eye on that. here in the market for a European car. Yeah, I mean, they just showed them from the helicopter view. I mean, it looked like, it's hard to tell because it's a helicopter in Ohio. Obviously, they're not putting any more cars, shipping any more cars, but the cars that they're already there look like thousands. The other comment I wanted to make was that this was about six months ago, a friend of mine called up a used car dealership here in New Jersey.

And the guy told him the car was like $20,000. That's what it is. He wasn't a used car deal. He was a regular dealership. He was selling his make at about 20 grand. So he went in there, and he said, now at the door price, yada, yada, y'alli came to finalizing the price, the guy said, he looked at the thing, and said,

what's $1,000 extra you charge him? He said, what is this for? So he goes, well, we did a thousand-point inspection or something, and my friend was like, it wasn't a dealist, but he called it, like, some kind of inspection, because my dear friend was furious, and he walked out and then by the car. Good for him, yeah.

He called him, and he split the difference. He wanted the car, so he paid $500 out. But that was the gimmick that they over here. They didn't call it a dealer fee, but they called it a $1,000, whatever, 100-point inspection. That's a new one, yeah. They do it same thing in Florida, Warren. They make up names.

If I sat down and really thought about it, I could probably come over 25 or 30 different names for the hidden fee. It used to be called a dealer fee, then people caught on to dealer fee, so now they call it something else. Some dealers are actually, in Florida, they're advertising, we don't charge a dealer fee, and then they'll take the same $2,000 or $1,000 and call it an electronic filing fee or a dock fee or a miscellaneous fee or something like that. But, you know, they have quite vivid imaginations.

I haven't heard that particular label yet, but your friend did exactly the right thing. Yeah, eventually, like I said, he was mad, but the dealer called him, and he called me, and I said, well, look, you like the car, you know, he wanted to split the difference, finally. He paid $500 more. It was a good deal that I thought, you know, you want the car, $500 and not going to make a difference in July. Yeah. And the last time I wanted to make was I had an extended warranty, and I did it for the reason that you said. It was peace of mind because I drive between New Jersey and Florida, sometimes I make two or three trips a year. and the thought of getting stuck on I-95

in somebody's garage that I don't know was enough to get me the warranty and it was very good about it because one time I did get stuck actually wasn't on the road but I got stuck in Florida and the deal had fixed the water pump and the starter went on me and when they fixed it

there's no problem but it came from the manufacturer I get it. No I think you know I buy insurance too I mean everybody buys insurance and insurance, extended service contracts, you're betting against the house, you're betting against the insurance company. The insurance company wins in the long run, but individually, you can really save yourself a lot of money if you have a breakdown that is covered.

So I hear you, I sleep better a night. I have insurance on my home. I have life insurance. I have this kind of insurance. That's the way insurance companies thrive, giving the buyer's peace of mind. Yeah, it's what you said is peace of mind because you know that, you know, that, you You may not even use it or whatever the case may be, but I said when I'm going back to fourth of Florida, and I'm driving 1,250 miles, with a peace of mind to know there's something happen.

You could take it to any quarter, Lincoln dealer, you know, up and down the 95 quarter, and you said, okay, I'm not going to spend it. And so that was worth X amount of dollars to me, so I just wanted to let you know. But it came from the manufacturer, and again, one of these other places. And I thought they honored the warranty. there was no problem, yaddi-di-di-a-ad-on, and they took care of the problem. Thank you, guys.

What a great show. I enjoy it. It's a lot of good information. Well, thank you, and call again when they start selling those cars that are loading up at the port, those European cars. I'd love to maybe hear about an advertisement and how they're selling those. I hadn't thought about that, but the tri-state area, as you say, they're not selling cars, and these cars are coming in.

It'll be an interesting thing. If you'll call, again, I'd appreciate it. Yeah, they're not selling. not selling any cards here. So I know, I know I have a cousin as a lawyer, and he represents, in fact, he does some work with a Toyota dealers right here in New Jersey. And he just said the guy is going crazy because he could only sell online. And he's got X number of dollars tied up in his car. And he still has one here, one there, you know, online or something. But it's nothing to where, you know, he needs to keep the business going. He's like counting, you know,

like the train that they open up and they could sell cars. But it's got to be scary. We went through that a little bit here. We didn't know for sure. And the Florida Automobile Dealers Association was fighting to get us recognized as a vital business. And so fortunately we got that. But as you say, some states like New Jersey, New York did not get that. It's got to be really tough on the dealers.

Warren, thanks again. But you're looking for your call when those cars started getting dumped in the market up there. Yeah. Thank you so much, Warren. Let's it up. Have a great weekend. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-960, or you can text us at 77272-497-6-530, and don't forget, take advantage of wwwW Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

I have a text from Jennifer, and Jennifer says, Nancy, I'm getting ready to buy a car, and I feel very nervous. Well, Jennifer, I don't blame you. There are a lot of people that feel the same way. And I can advise you to, first of all, do all your research. The first thing that I would check out is what you can afford and what would accommodate you and your family. That's really very, very important.

You can just narrow down that list. and concentrate on that car that would be conducive, as I said, to you and your family. The other would be for you to make sure that you got your financing out of the way. Check with the credit union. Check with a local bank. And that'll, you know, put you on the straight and narrow also. And when you walk into that dealership, make sure that you are, well, confident look confident and relaxed because you know these salespeople they do this every single day

and they're paid to be experts so if you show them that you are confident and that you are knowledgeable well there'll be no problem so and there are a few other things that you could do but you can go to Erlon cars and you can research exactly what you need to do before going out and purchasing a vehicle and please don't go out alone. I hope I answers your question.

Okay. You're having YouTube's over there, Rick? You've been awful quiet. We do have a couple. Steve is asking, he says, Rick, I have a P-0-446 evaporative emissions vent system code on my 2003 Pontiac Vibe.

Do I need to fix this for any reason other than to pass an emission steps? I see the ugliest car ever built the Pontiac Vibe. It is. Excuse me for saying that. It is. I feel vindicated because I was a Pontiac dealer one time. Yeah, you probably sold four of them. Actually, you may be thinking of the Aztec, but the vibe is actually a clone of the Matrix.

Oh, okay. I was thinking of it. I was thinking of the Aztec was the ugliest car. I stand corrected. Yeah, they were pretty horrible. back with breaking bed though yeah yeah but the reality of it is know that p0446 code generally just means that there's a small problem with the emission system my first guess would be it's probably the charcoal canister uh you'd get a different set of codes for a gas cap or a major leak in the evaporative system so i would say unless you do have to pass emissions tests on a car that old

I wouldn't look to spend a lot of money on that. Rick, is there a place they could go, there's got to be, if you Google a trouble code, that is there anywhere, an encyclopedia of trouble codes online that people could do, access? Yeah, almost every code that is available in a diagnostic trouble code, you'll find it online. They'll list what that code is and the most common causes of it.

Say if it was a P-0455, which is what they call a gross leak, the first thing to look for is your gas cap. That's disgusting. It sounds bad. But all it really usually is is a loose gas cap or the gas cap isn't clicking down tight. It's not stealing properly. Gross. 30 bucks for a new gas cap and you're done. And that light will actually, once you've corrected it, that light will turn off after a couple of days.

Gotcha. But for his car, being as it is quite an old car, I wouldn't put a lot of money into that myself. Got another YouTube over there? And we do. Mark Ryan says, and one of our Iowa folks, we have several folks from Iowa that listen every week. I like that. I like Iowa. Nice people. I like Iowaans. Yeah. Question for Stu or Earl. Do you know how many of the U.S.-based car manufacturers have resumed production, GM, Ford, Toyota. Hyundai, Honda. Also, will there be a delay in the launch of the 2021 models? Well, the only one I can speak authoritatively on is Toyota.

Shane maybe Earl knows he reads more of the automotive news stuff than I do. Toyota did about a month long production cut and is restarting again. It's still going to have an impact on the dealer inventories, so it did delay everything. I can't tell you, it's too soon to tell you about the delay on the 2021 models. I think they're still going by the production calendar. The first one is the Krola. We actually have those allocated now, which is kind of crazy. Here we are in May, and we have 2021 vehicles, which we'll be seeing in June, I think.

And next is the 2021 Super, which is a very low-volume car, but that's coming out in the summer as well, late June, early July. I think most of them have either started up or are in the process. I think everyone is recognizing now that the demand to open up the country again is going and they're seeing pockets like South Florida where the dealers have never stopped selling and the business is picked up considerably. The next phenomenon you're going to see is going to be a shortage. So I think the car manufacturers, if there are any that haven't started up, they're just about to

and they're going to be building cars as fast as they can because there's going to be. be a pin-up demand and it's right now there's a pretty good supply of cars and it's a good time to buy a car when there's availability when it gets tight it's the prices go up supply and demand yeah and Ernesto is asking how much more in-depth is the certified pre-owned inspection compared to a regular used car inspection well one of the first things that I can tell you from ours is that tires have to have more tread. They have to be newer tires. The tires all have to be matching brands and matching model. In other words, the tires are identical all the way around versus a normally used car could have, say, two Goodyers on the front and two Michelins on the

back. The other thing is the brakes must be a much higher level remaining on the brakes. all the filters and fluids have to be perfect, clean, changed if necessary. And so it's a little closer to a new car than the average used car. Yeah, the certified inspections, that's the reason to buy a certified car is because if the dealer does the inspection, the fly in the ointment is the fact that a lot of dealers don't do the inspections. And oftentimes the mechanic, the technician that does the inspection, inspections is on the low end of the pay scale. And you need a qualified person and a reliable person to go through that check sheet.

The other inspections that you refer to, if they're not certified and established by the manufacturer, or just whatever the dealer decides he wants to do. And he can inspect anything or nothing. He can say it's inspected because if you inspect the steering wheel, that car has been inspected. So I would always lean toward a certified. pre-owned car, but I would also verify that that car, in fact, had the things checked that they said were checked. Exactly.

Hey, Rick, you might be able to answer more. On the certified checklist for Toyota, it also includes things that are just, you know, beyond just mechanical stuff. Like, isn't there things like you have to have a certain number of keys? You can't have aftermarket things like mats or things like that. Aftermarket items are acceptable. Uncertified? Certain things.

Okay. such as a pinstripe, such things as like a tonneau cover or a bed cover on a pickup truck, maybe a front bumper grill or something, door edge guards, certain little things can be acceptable for aftermarket items if they're not going to affect the way that vehicle operates. Other aftermarket items do have to be removed. And of course, one of the other big things that we also watch for is such things as, the radio software has to be updated to the latest level. The car gets a complete computer scan as well with the scan tool

to make sure that all the engine calibrations are up to the latest levels, and the battery is tested. Everything is checked. But the other big advantage is that certified checks are done by... Certified Toyota is going to be inspected by a Toyota technician who's very familiar with those cars and knows them inside and out. versus a Honda cannot be certified at a Toyota at a dealership. A Honda is certified at a Honda dealership by a Honda technician that knows them.

Theoretically. Yes, that's a big question. Once the last time we had an audit on our certified cars, too. I'm going to say at least a year, I think. So it isn't something that's really watched carefully and shame on all the manufacturers for not monitoring it. And if you're not, and when they do inspect, all you do is get a slap on the hand. So be careful, folks. Even as a certified car, take it to your mechanic.

Pay $150 and be sure that the car is good. Great advice. Listen, we're going to go to Joan. She's patiently been waiting, and she's calling us from the Palm Coast. Joan? I hope you're still holding. I am. We apologize for you holding for so long.

Are you a first-time caller? I am a first-time caller. You are? Very good. Yes, I am. Oh, that's wonderful. I'm excited. Hey, listen, you just won yourself $50.

Oh, my gosh, really? Oh, my gosh. I don't know about that. Isn't that wonderful? Yes, thank you. Yeah, well, thank you for calling and helping me to build this platform that we need to build for the ladies okay so stay on the line and you can give your contact information to michael in our control room what can we do for you this morning well i have a 2014 honda sonata and about a year ago

i was in fort mires and i was almost out of gas and so i had to pull into a kind of a grungy looking gas station, because I just didn't have an option. And ever since then, ever since I filled my tank up then, when my tank gets very low, I get the check engine light goes on. And when I fill it back up, it goes off. And this has been going on for a year. And I don't know if I have an engine problem or maybe sludge in my gas tank or I'm just guessing. Sounds like a question for Rick. Yeah. My first thought is if it does seem like it occurred right after you filled up from a gas

station with questionable fuel, I would actually be concerned about possible there's some sort of contamination down in that tank. I would actually consider the idea of talking with the, has a mechanic looked at the car for this issue? No, he's not. Because it always goes away, I haven't really done anything about it. Right. Well, with a check engine light, the information is stored in the computer. So the next time that light comes on, I would get it into a mechanic and have them find out what the code is.

it could just be a coincidence but on the other hand it might be something some small problem that could get bigger over time might be something easy to fix now that could get more expensive later so I would get that checked out at least to find out what's going

on okay well it has been going on for a year so I guess maybe it's not something that's going to ever go away unless I get it fixed they shouldn't charge you just to do the

put the no I mean just to pull the code as a matter of fact if all you did was going to say one of the like a discount auto parts or pet boys well not pet boys they're they're going to want to try to get you in the shop and fixed

but like advanced auto parts what these other the small just auto parts store they'll pull that code for free and give you an idea of what that code is and they may be able to give you a basic idea

of what's going on. But if you want to call back next week, if you get them, find out what that code is and call us back next week and let us know what the code is, we might give you a little better idea of what's going on. Well, I truly appreciate that. Thank you so much.

And, Joan, we appreciate you. Thank you so much for giving us a call. And don't forget, stay on the line so you can give your contact information to Michael. Thank you. You're welcome. Give us a call toll-free. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30.

Okay, text. Oh, yeah. They're coming in. We got some anonymous feedback coming in, too. We have some critics, so I love getting to this. We have to get to this. Good. Okay, but this is a text.

I need to get a new car. I had already extended my lease month-a-month for three months and could not get any more extensions. My wife and I live in Atlanta, and we are very uncomfortable going to a dealership because we are seniors and do not want to risk catching the coronavirus. My daughter suggested we take advantage of online buying that all the car dealerships up here are promoting.

The fact is it's all hype. We tried several dealerships. All they wanted to do was get us on the phone and start the old car dealer crap with us. The closest thing we found was a Honda dealership who was willing to have a salesman come to our house to show us the car. How is this online buying?

It doesn't sound like online buying to me. Well, they say what they have to say to get you come in the door. Online buying is hyped. It's been hyped now for years. Basically, it's almost impossible

to buy a car online. A few dealers do and a few dealers are honest about it. One thing before I forget to mention to you, I'm surprised that you can't get your lease extended. Have you asked your leasing company since the coronavirus

coronavirus epidemic hit because the leasing companies are being extremely generous and extending leases now. I think if I were you, I'm a senior, if I wouldn't want to go into a car dealership today and buy a car and I wouldn't want to be tricked into it, I'm thinking I could do it online and then they try to lure me in. I'd call that leasing company back and I'd say, listen, when this coronavirus thing settles down, I want to buy a car or I want to lease another car, but please give me and I would say if you got a 30-day extension

you should get at least another 30 days without a problem you might even get another 60 days okay all right that's good advice by the way also just real quick there's a lot of buzzwords you're going to hear being floated around by card dealers

online buying contact list buying no touch buying just make sure it really is that that's all I got to say great advice we have Frank on the line and he's giving us a call from Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank.

Hey, Frank. Well, good morning. Good morning, Earl, Nancy Stewart. I give you a little feedback and a big thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Two weeks ago. Earl reached out to a friend of his in Utah from my daughter at Brown Toyota. She had a drive two and a half hours. but the deal and the purchase went so well. The price was phenomenal, and she's very, very thankful. And I just got to say, you guys really helped tremendously. Well, Stu called the dealer personally, didn't you, Stu? Yeah, I spoke to Larry.

And by the way, real quick, on a side note, he told me that their dealership is having their best April sales month ever. Really? Yeah. Wow. Interesting. Maybe it's because they're doing the right thing. Yeah.

Could be. Thanks, Frank. Yeah, the Deerle Clee was only $2.99. I didn't have the heart to tell him what they are. He knows. He knows we're in a group together, so we see each other a few times a year, and we talk about things like that. He's a good guy, man.

I really thank you. But real quick, on some of those stuff, you've been talking about, lease cars. I have a lease car that is due back in about two weeks, and the leasing company said they can give me six months extension. Really? No problem. Wow. That's who Chase.

And then you trigger something else about certified. Because I'm tempted to keep this car, though I don't really need it. It's probably more than at least it. I should have followed your advice. Maybe I should have bought it, but I'm glad I leased it. I have a 30,000-mile lease, and I only put 8,000 miles on the car. So, I mean, someone's getting themselves a real deal. But they have altered to sell me the car at a lower price in the buyout payment,

was originally and they said we can certify it for you and get the extra warranty and extra mileage and because it's all the way over on the other side of state of florida now they said we can just certify it for you over the boom yeah which i thought was kind of well they're they're sort of defrauding their manufacturer by doing that sure because the whole point of this big fancy inspection is that before the manufacturer puts a warranty on it they want to make sure that it's in good working order and there's not going to be a big expense to down the road for them. So if they do it over the phone without an inspection,

they're defrauding their manufacturer, and they get trouble for that. Yeah, no, that's why I didn't mention the journalism. But actually, I've had the car, and I mean, the car's a phenomenal shape. It's just, it was a chapter in my life to just have something really fast and powerful, and I really don't need it anymore.

So anyway, but thank you again for Stu, especially for your help out in Arizona. No problem, Frank. You're welcome, Frank. Thanks for the call. You're one of our regular best calls. We appreciate it. Yeah, we love hearing from you, Frank. Have a wonderful weekend. 877960. Or you can text us at 7724976530. Don't forget. Take advantage of www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Rick is flashing his YouTube sign over there.

Well, I've got an interesting one from Slim Chance. He says, buying a car from a dealer, my bank says the lien still shows so they can't finance that vehicle. Should I be concerned? Yeah, I would. And Slim, I got your email right here. Slim emailed me on another topic, and I'm glad to have an educated guy like you as a consumer. You've had some very interesting questions. I'd be concerned, certainly, if your lien hasn't been paid off on your car.

And unfortunately, this is something that happens during economic recessions. Dealers get illiquid. They run out of cash, and they can't afford to pay cars off. So theoretically, they will sell a car, and the payments still need to be made to the lending institution that recorded the lien. And that's a messy situation. Dealers go to jail for that. I know some dealers that have gone to jail for that.

So you need to be careful. You need to check with the dealer, find out why the car wasn't paid off, and put your foot down. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets to well. If you're the first to go and demand the car be paid off, you might get it paid off. Whereas if he's been doing it a lot, which he probably has, you just don't do it one time. Or maybe it was a mistake. It could be a mistake. But the bottom line is Slim is definitely a thing to be concerned about.

By the way, Slim's last name is Chance, and I love his name. Slim Chance. No. Right. Really? No. That's his email name or his YouTube name. But it's a cool name.

I love it. Slim Chance. And I've got an email I might read later if we have time. He's a very sophisticated, sharp car buyer. And I've got Karen, who's asking, because of the COVID situation, and this one may be a little specific and hard for us to answer, but can a person buy a car from you, I'm assuming private sale, if they live in Michigan right now? Oh, sure.

It happens all the time. Florida is a, you know, we're a tourist state, and we have people from all over come down from all in Canada, New York, all over. and yeah we sell people cars from other states the question being where do we title and register the car all the states have reciprocity agreements so Michigan works with Florida and so on so forth you can buy a car in Florida get a temporary tag

driving home and then actually register the car in your home state which you're typically required to register the car where you live if you live there six months or longer your residence legally that's where you should register your car. And I think she might actually have been wondering is with the COVID situation, can they still do private sales in the state of Michigan where that state is so shut down? I believe so.

I think the restriction would be on the dealership, and it doesn't affect a transaction between two individuals. Oh, yeah. And the last one I have right here is Kyle Smeltz, good morning. Why are lease residual percentages set so high in Florida? The residual on my Highlander is around $6,000 higher than a Blue Book estimation of a three-year-old Highlander. Who eats that? Manufacture. Yeah, Stu.

It's an incentive. They do it to sell the car. They do it to lease the car, manufacturers, and dealers low leasing. So they might offer a $2,000 rebate or they might offer a high residual. So by offering the higher residual, that makes it lower payment and more attractive for you to lease the car. As I say, leasing is preferable to selling cars for both dealers and manufacturers because they both make more money that way. And the only negative is you have an option to buy. Too much money.

It's going to hurt your position. That's part of their calculation. Exactly. So it's just another incentive that manufacturers will spend a lot of money trying to get you to buy a car. It might be a rebate. It might be a low interest rate. It might be a residual enhancement, which is what they call them. but yeah so most people don't buy their lease returns the few do help mitigate some of that expense of the manufacturer

but it helps them sell cars and and their calculus that they're going to make more money and sell more cars doing it that way that's right okay uh any callers now okay uh 877 960 960 and you can text us at 772 497 6530 and don't forget we have that mystery shopping report coming up and uh it's a doozy also take advantage of www.W.W. Your Anonymous Feedback.com and that I forgot to mention that mystery shopping report

is from Napleton. Tell them about the shopping report as far as wearing masks, Nancy. I was thinking about that earlier when the elderly couple was saying that I'm afraid to go in and buy a car. You'd think that the dealerships

would at least have gloves and masks and things like that. Yeah, exactly. in this particular mystery shopping report that wasn't the case and the mystery shopper had to request that the salesperson put a mask on in order to take a test drive shocking to me was shocking

and you know this isn't just this doesn't apply just to Napleton the same thing happened at Ace Hardware and there were probably four or five people that were walking around without masks and we all know how important it is to wear one but back to the mystery shopping report you would have thought that this person this salesperson would have had one on because obviously he wasn't interested in selling a car so put your mask on exactly okay soon some more text well I have a good one lined up

from anonymous feedback, and I'm going to put that, they're all funny. Well, some of them are serious. I'll just read them. Earl, the only reason you know about all these corrupt practices is because you did them yourself. You're a G.D. Hippocrist.

Well, I plead that. That's the point of the show, guys. But I'm not a hypocrite because I confess. You're a hypocrite. I admit that I used to do terrible things many years ago. And how many people didn't make mistakes in their younger life? And when I started the business, I was part of the problem.

And I used to advertise cars at lower prices I could sell them for, bait and switch, and I did it all. I learned well. I even had dealer fees. You should write a book about all that stuff. So what are you supposed to say to a guy that did bad things, and then he changed, and he confessed? I mean, I think I should get a little bit of a break. how many people are perfect are you perfect and the people that I'm 79 years old

to say that I didn't do some bad things in 79 years then I'd be a hypocrite but when I confess I admit to being a crook but I refuse to be called a hypocrite where's your book hold that up to the camera that's the whole your entire

where his own ditch is the right he's confessed give him a break guys confessions of a recovering cardio I have admitted it and if you take a look that's a very clever book cover I'm in a confessional booth

and I'm talking to a priest You're wearing the same shirt too I'm confessing You got the same shirt on Yeah Okay let's Let's keep going All right

There seems to be a theme of these coming in And first one says Glad to see your chin is protected from COVID Earl Oh boy I'm my mouth should be And I have a hard time With this mask

I'm going to get one of the masks. Stu tells me that our body shop has a mask. He's got one on, and I need to get one like him because I'm having a problem breathing and talking. I know Rick has the same problem, and we both need to get those masks that have a little puff. You've got to pinch that little wire thing over your nose. That's how you do.

But you caught me, and I should be more careful. Earl, Stoo wants you to get a mask the same color as your shirt. He wants me to cut up one of your shirts. And a hat, like a, like a, like a ski hat yeah i thought maybe a couple of red phones on it yeah be a little bit use your imagination i got to bust out my sewing machine all right continuing the mask theme we have another anonymous feedback says y'all put your mask on the right way covered nose and mouth yeah you're right that's easy to do and we're in the studio and the distance we've taken

advantage of that putting that into place we have our masks on we have our hand sanitizer We have our Lysol wipes, and we are taking precautions every single one of us. But back to Earl talking about the uncomfortable feeling, and we really don't have to have it on, but we do. It is terribly uncomfortable to be able to breathe. And Stu, you owe me a mask. Okay. No problem at all. Hey, real quick, I want to get to another text, and this is from,

Joan and she's from North Carolina and she says that she said just tell me why the car dealers are still trying to take advantage of the consumers by selling us nitrogen. Pardon me? So my answer because they can't. But nitrogen has no use. She also says that the car salesman told her that there would be a longer life, and she wouldn't have to replace them as often. The nitrogen, they're using the fact that NASCAR and that airlines and that the space shuttle in the tires, they put nitrogen. And they do that because at high altitudes, at 40,000 feet, it helps the expansion contraction factor because of the super cold.

NASCAR, they're doing 200 miles an hour, and at high speeds, the heat is very high. That is a factor. Space shuttle has got both. You're coming from zero pressure. Plus, in NASCAR, aren't they like measuring you win based on fractions of a second? I mean, if you get the tiny, in professional sports, the tiniest advantage, it actually pays off. Your car doesn't really. Consumer report said it at all.

It's worthless. If you want to put nitrogen in your tires, go ahead. but just don't pay for it. That's why reason I like Costco, one of my problems with Costco is they put nitrogen in your tires free, so you can't argue because it's free, but they do it, so you'll come back and get more nitrogen. And you don't need more nitrogen, but that's the only thing I can say negative about Costco. And, John, I'm really glad that you caught that. And, you know, the dealers are going to continue to try to, you know, sell you these, this nitrogen that's worthless.

So just stand your ground, is all I can say. We are going to go to our favorite caller from Palm City. You guys know who it is? Good morning. John. Hello, John. Good morning to everybody. I just want to put the automotive title to continue.

When I say sit down for this one, I say sit down for this one. We are. But anyhow, I have all good news today. And this is Earl mentioned it about car sales. including his place their way up. RV sales are way, way up. Big demand for RVs. Also, we're getting many companies

are giving us car insurance discounts because they know we don't use the car as much. And even things like bicycle, bicycle repairs way up. But here's an important thing, and we're going to benefit from this. When I grew up, drive-in movies, were the biggest thing. I used to love them.

Definitely. I grew up in the New York City area, so there wasn't much space for him. But Howard, who probably calls you regularly, might remember in Whitestone in the Bronx, was they called it the White Stone Drive-In. People came from everywhere, and then there was another one over the city line on Long Island.

It was a sunrise driving. But here's the advantage of the drive-ins. Coming back, and by the way, one in Ocala opened up already, you can have things like church service, because the driving is only at night when it gets dark, so during the day they could have functions like a church service and maybe other functions.

So maybe there's some benefits with the virus. Absolutely. I just want to mention. You know, interesting. There's a movie that's coming out, and I've never seen this in a movie, some movie, the King of Staten Island says, opening online and then driving theaters around the country. It's just amazing that it goes back, like you said, John, back in your day,

Well, back in my day, I mean, that was the thing to do. We went to the drive-in. And back in those days, we could just put our PJs on, pop our popcorn, you know, just pack ourselves up and just have a ball and just feel so safe. I took Stu to the Driving movie when he was one year old to watch Barbarrella. I don't remember, but that's part of the legend. Jane Vonda. Yeah, soft porn movie from my first movie.

Well, we'll all welcome that back, but then there's two things that I want to address that you mentioned today, the power of shouting, let me tell you how effective that could be. Also, in the New York area, there was an appliance company, and the owner himself was called Crazy Eddie. He yelled and screamed on top of his lungs beyond belief, and he yelled the statement, Crazy Eddie is insane, and believe it or not, that advertising brought people into his appliance stores. It was so effective as unbelievable. And when I tell you with his ads, he shouted on top

of his lungs over and over again. Crazy Eddie is insane. Didn't he go to jail? Yes, he did later on. He was caught absconding fun of something to another country. And the second thing I want to address too

is a caution. Call Icon owns Hertz. Hertz is bankrupt. By midsummer, they will be declaring total bankruptcy because they're $1.5 billion are shortfall. Why is there a shortfall? He paid $10 billion in financing

to buy 500 cars. This is back and used those assets as securities. So unless somebody, and I know the government is not going to be bailing them out, bails them out, and all the finance people say that that company will be totally, totally bankrupt by midsummer.

Wow, I didn't know that. A word of caution on bankers, on Hertz. You don't like to hear news like that. That was the number one company. I mean, when O.J. Simpson used to advertise for their car rental, it was unbelievable. It was in the heydays. Wow. So unless they get a bailout, they're going to go under.

Boy, oh, boy. And thank God we do have some good news, though. Like I say, the drive-in movies and car insurance discounts we're getting. and these RV sales, they needed a shot like that. They were done in the doldrums, but boy, they picked up tremendously, and that's some good news. I'd take a ride in a land yacht ever going in a plane right now any day. Boy, I'll tell you what, John, we need some good news.

Yes, let's wait for those drive-ins to open up. Oh, wow. We had a ball. Those were the good old days. Hey, John, thank you so much for calling. Okay, one of the fast thing, too. The dealer shop last week, oh boy, I sure would like, but it's never going to happen. Manufacturing revoked the franchise of these dealers. They did it once here in Stewart. And then that same deal, I believe, has an ad running with that Frank Gonzalez.

He talks about Kia distributor. He talks about Kia prices, but they say a disclaimer on the bottom, not valid in Stewart. I mean, what kind of nonsense is that? If you've got a deal up in Porteer's, why in the world is it not on it and Stuart? Tells you something right away about their

mode of a business. I'll tell you what, that's a good one. Yeah, he, I think he ran the one where you had to be a first responder, or was that Vero Beach. That was... That was four years ago. I mean, Toyota.

You find print to get to 74 months, zero percent. 84 months, 0%, you had to be a first responder. That was in the fine print. Man, oh, man. Is that the same deal, by the way that used to own the Ford dealership in Lake Park? Yeah. And sold it?

Yeah, sold it to Mullinix. Right? Well, are they also, they're very big at the Ford Racing? I don't know. Nick Smith is the son of Bell Smith, who is the founder, and Nick Smith is pretty much retired. I think Frank Gonzalez is, I mean, Hernandez is a...

Gonzalez, yeah. Yeah, is a owner. He's probably 25%. Maybe more than that, I don't know. But Nick Smith is retired. He's just out catching sailfish in Mexico. Right. Well, there's a place in Stewart.

It's not open to the public. It's right off the exit, and it's Smith Auto Ford Racing. And somebody told me he was at one time a real big Ford dealership throughout Florida, and that's him that runs it. And it's a bunch of race cars and Ford products for racing. So I don't know if it's the same people.

Could be. Okay, John, thanks again for the call. Nancy and I mean it when you say you're our best caller and our most reliable. So don't be estranged your calls again next week, please. And John. Thank you, guys. John, I'm still thinking about Tina. I know you asked about her too.

So Tina, if you're out there and you're listening, would love to hear from you. We're worrying about you, Tina. I hope you're okay. Yes, let's hope. Number one female caller. Yeah, exactly. Thank you, guys. Thank you, John.

Have a great weekend. 877960. And you can text us at 772-4976530. And also your anonymous feedback.com. Okay, text. Okay, we got anonymous feedback. Earl, we often knock on Jeep and Chrysler for the lack of quality and questionable safety, now the jeeps are sexy. I think we can all agree on that.

Wouldn't a collaboration between FCA and another OEM make a better vehicle? FCA, which is the Fiat Chrysler company, could bring the Jeep sexy exterior and interior details, while another OEM takes care of the quality and safety under the sexy cladding. What do you think? Thanks, a loyal listener. Yeah, I think that you're going to see a lot of mergers. I think you're going to see mergers with automotive companies and with software companies. There's too many manufacturers, and after this pandemic, ricks its havoc on the world,

you're going to see a huge, a few survivors. There's not going to be a lot of them. But I agree. I think, you know, you go with your strong suit. You've got good at building interiors, good at software, good at, you know, electronics. Cars are going to be something that you won't recognize 20 years from the day. They won't be cars.

By the way, we look at it today. Yeah, that's a common practice. You know, you've got all sorts of collaborations. Mazda's and Fords, Mazda's and Toyota's, Toyota and BMW. So it's a common practice. I hope someone from FCA is listening. All right, we have a text here. So it's from Mike in Houston.

He says, I'm considering buying a Jeep track hawk, most likely new, and these are low inventory vehicles. How would you adapt your three-bid approach to buying without going a thousand miles outside of the area? Well, you know, actually, you can probably get prices 1,000 miles and use them to negotiate the price locally. If you can stay closer than 1,000, but I tell people in Florida, because, you know, Florida's a long, narrow state.

If you have a really good price in Tampa and you live in West Palm Beach, it's not beyond the realm of logic that you would drive to Tampa to save $1,000 or $5,000. $500. So that's a beautiful thing about online distance really is a factor. You get the price. The dealer that's a thousand miles away probably would be more inclined to give you a low price. Here's where being a dealer helps. Stu and I have this conversation all the time. We're trying to price our cars and we put our price on the cars and it's for our local market. And the conversation we have is, why wouldn't we have a lower price in Miami? You know, we're in North We're in North Palm Beach, about 100 miles north of Miami.

People from Miami aren't going to come up and buy a car from us, so why don't we just give them a dynamite price if you live in Miami? We haven't done that yet, but I think dealers think that way. And we're less inclined because we put our lowest price on all the cars. So most of the others don't do that. So if you're going to be shopping around to get a really good price, go 1,000 miles. Your local dealer doesn't know that your local dealer doesn't know that your not willing to drive a thousand miles to get that price.

Exactly, yeah. You can print an email with a quoted price if they send you a buyer's order, it would it be better, and show it to your local dealer. He's not going to pass up on a deal. Just for fun, somebody out there ought to do this. I ought to do it, but I just don't seem to have the time. Take any car, you know, Honda, a Nissan, a Ford, one particularly your McMount car,

and then make it a project to go out and get online bids for out the door prices. and see what the difference in price would be, I mean, you could do 50, you could do 100. If you want to spend an hour... Copy and pay, you want to spend an hour, copy and paste. Copy and paste. Boom, boom, boom. And just see what the out-the-door price.

That'd be a fun exercise. I'll bet you you'll see thousands of dollars difference and for how much work. And like Stu says, not even an hour, you could save yourself thousands of dollars. Yeah, the miracle of modern day technology. Use online to your advantage. I mean, you know, as Stu said, you know you're not going to drive to Syracuse to buy that Honda,

but the guys in North Palm Beach, Braymond Honda, they don't know that. And you don't even have to tell them exactly where it is, but just here's my price. And try it. You'll like it. All right, we got another one. This is from Kyle in Pennsylvania. I'm sorry, not in Pennsylvania, but this is from Kyle. I know you guys have been doing shopping reports for years.

Do any dealers not charged dealer fees in South Florida besides Earl Stewart? It drives me insane being from Pennsylvania. The answer that is no. I really think the answer is no. Every now and then we thought. Right. And then we found out that it was deception. They had something they named differently.

Now, easy-owned car sales in North Palm Beach on U.S. 1 is a small-use car a lot. I forgot about them. They did not have any dealer fees. It was sales tax and tag. And I think the tag was COD on demand on delivery. Now there was in I think a popka Florida. And that is in the center of the state somewhere in the I won't say the boonies because I'll offend the Apopkins. But Mullinex has a dealership in a popka Florida. We mystery shop them and there was no dealer fees of any kind. They did it. we actually mystery shop then yeah okay oh yeah we went there and then um the mullin x dealerships here in south florida they they do advertise advertise that they don't have a dealer fee but they do

have these other electronic filing thing and on one of their buyers orders i think on the last mystery shop it says dealer fee on it so we're not quite sure what's going on there but the answer is i'd say 99.9% answer is no okay one more question in texts um what is total loss protection wrap on leased car. Thank you. Bob and Wildwood, New Jersey. Talk about gap. That's gap. And all that is is it protects you should your car be totaled out either by an accident or by theft and not recovered between the amount that's owed and the amount of the vehicle is worth. Now most leasing companies put that on there anyway because it's their asset. You're just more or less renting it. So they have guaranteed loss protection on their car. That's gap protection. If you finance a car

and you don't put any money down and you're going to be in a negative equity situation for a few years it's something you might want to consider but it protects you from having to come out of pocket on the event that your car gets totaled. But just like extended service contracts, it's buyer beware.

Gap insurance can be insanely profitable for car dealers. All car dealers sell Gap insurance. The problem is they sell it when you don't need it and they don't fully explain it. And the prices vary. So you can buy gap insurance outside the dealership. Don't be pressured into buying gap insurance

until you fully understand your position and do you need it and is the price competitive. For example, if you were trading in a car that had negative equity and you rolled that into your new loan, you're at high risk if there is a situation. But like you said, do your homework ahead of time. It'd be a good idea to get some competitive prices before you go into their finance department

because they'll do a really good and very compelling sales job on it. Yes. Okay. I have a text from Lori from Pennsylvania, and she wants to know when the best time would be to purchase a new car. I'll let Earl take this one in just a second, but off the top of my head, I would think that it would be October, November, December,

and also I would give thought, to daylight, make sure you go shopping during the day so you can take a good look at that car. And the other tip is to advise you. The dealership is not a place to fall in love. Don't fall in love with a certain vehicle. It'll get you into a whole lot of trouble. And to that, Earl, what do you have? You gave good advice.

I would add at the end of the month, It sounds like an old wives tale or urban legend, but you actually get a better price at the end of the month. The end of the year is even better priced because of the competition among the different dealers. And you should think right now about buying a car. This is an interesting time for dealers. This is a time when a lot of them are sweating the economics of it. Our dealership lost a lot of money last month. And I can't remember, and I know Stu can't remember the last time we ever lost money in a month.

So it's kind of scary. We didn't lay off any of our employees. A lot of dealers are laying off employees. We were able to get the PPP loan, and that we're paying everybody. But some dealers didn't do it that way, and you have a lot of dealers are afraid about, worried about survival. What do you think about, because we're going to see some vehicle shortages, certainly with some manufacturers coming up as they sell the cars, and also with the halt in production, supply and demand.

Do you see dealers increasing their prices that make up for the, you know, if they only have 60% of the cars, they normally stock? Well, the shortage, the prices are going to go up. Right now, there's not a shortage, but there will be very soon. So you're probably better off to buy into the situation where there's not a shortage, and the dealers are trying to get back up to speed again. Yeah, exactly. Lori, I hope we all answered your question.

And spread the word. Give us a call. First-time callers win themselves. First-time lady callers win themselves $50. And I'm going to mention, while it's on my mind, Earl's latest columns where you can go to Earl on cars and pull up all of them. And the first one is the Attorney General Ashley Moody.

We all know who she is. And enforcing Florida's laws regarding advertising honest car prices, you think it would have been done a long time ago, but indeed it hasn't. And speaking of honest car prices, Lori, I forgot to mention to you, be careful of those hidden fees. And trust me, they are hidden. The second column that Earl wrote was your car's intent. can be as coronavirus resistant as the cabin interiors of billionaires.

Yes, billionaires there in these private jets. So take advantage of along cars and pull up whichever column meet your needs. 877960, or you can text us at 772-49760. We are going to go to the phone lines where, John is calling us from West Palm Beach. Hi, John. Hey, hello. I have a question.

Okay. We have a lease vehicle. It's going to be up in two months, a Honda. But when is going to be the most opportune time for us right now? Like right now I'm seeing, you know, dealer sends us zero percent financing, which is great because you don't have to go on it. We have excellent credit. One would be, and my wife and I are both teachers, so we're still getting a paycheck and we're teaching out of the house, and we won't need two vehicles, especially going

into the next school year if we're still teaching out of the house. So that's the limit that I'm in as far as it's a good dilemma. But I think we're going to need a second car at one point. when would be the you know you just talked about a car shortage when would be the best time to buy and when's going to be the first time to stay away as far as these next several months uh you know for me turning in this car so i don't mind being the 350 uh to turn it in and not get something else uh because i'm not a leased person we did it to get out of debt and it helped and it worked for us and it helped us get out of debt because the payments were lower and uh and so we're not going to lease again It was just an instant mean. Well, I think that, first of all, don't let the lease return be pressure you into making a fast decision. On the other hand, we're talking earlier in the show. There are good inventory availability now of vehicles, and the pressure is on the dealers to try to make deals and sell cars.

So it's a good buying environment now, other than the fact that we have the COVID-19 issue, and a lot of people like you and me are afraid about going into retail stores and being around other people. You can get an extension on your lease. We just heard someone that got a six-month extension on their lease. 30 days is automatic almost.

60 is common. 90 is probably fairly common. Do your homework and you can stay home and you can check consumer reports online and you can do some online shopping until you find the car that you want to buy and you can actually do most of your shopping in comparison online before you have to go out.

But if you wait too long, if you wait 60 days, the shortage is going to kick in. And depending on the car you're buying, low supply, high demand means higher prices that you're going to pay. So if I were you, I try to make a move in the next 30 days, maybe toward the end of May would be a good time. and you have the end of the month going for you and you have time to do your research and your comparisons

and you can get an extension on your lease so you don't have to rush to bring it back. No, it's not, the lease is not due until July. Oh, okay. Well, then there is no pressure. They can turn it in early. Yeah. If you turn it in early, then if they'll allow you to do that, then they're going to ask you to buy the same main car. A lease or buy the same main car. They don't waive any pay.

payments on your lease unless you are one of their customers. So if you're happy with the make car you're buying now, that's the way to go. Okay, very good. All right. Thank you so much. Thanks for the call, John. Take care. Okay. We're getting near Mr. Shopping Report time, aren't we? Yeah, but we got some, we have some texts that are coming in. I think we have a YouTube or two. Yeah, let's do those first. We got one here that I think you'll definitely like this one or else. John Sanchez says, I took my truck to get serviced, and they broke one of my volume control buttons on my steering wheel. Now, they want me to pay for the repair. What can I do? Well, you try to get through somebody up the ladder.

I can't believe that the owner or the general manager would put up with something like that. You've got someone that's just not being fairer with you. If you take it up to the owner-general manager, you still get a no. I'm not going to recommend you get a lawyer. The price of a lawyer is going to be greater than what you're going to get from what they want you to pay or won't pay. I'd file a complaint with a better business bureau, county office of consumer affairs. I might even go to the Attorney General's office, but I'd call the manufacturer. If you make enough noise, you can oftentimes skip the attention and they'll take care of you.

Okay. Okay, so we had a follow-up from Bob in Wildwood, New Jersey. He says it's not Gap insurance. It's called RAP, not Gap. It's $2,500 towards the replacement vehicle. Total loss protection wrap, and that's from Bob. So I apologize for, we went off on the Gap discussion. So I had to Google that because I'm not familiar with it.

I suspected it's another type of insurance product, and it is. As a matter of fact, I'm going to text you this link because we don't have time to go through the whole thing. there is some warnings of it by the New York State of New York State of New York is warning on it and it is an insurance product and basically it allows you, it gives you prearranged

approval with the lender and I think you might have to buy that vehicle your next, in other words if you crash your lease car you can go back to the same dealer and use this $2,500 to help you get a new car so I'm going to send you this link and then you can read it and maybe next week we can discuss a little bit more

I'll read some more on it. Yeah I and with what we're talking about you have diminished value and this is something that your insurance company can go to bet for you on in our market here we use Gordon used to be Gordon a dollar and they're betting a thousand if you wreck a new car and they want to replace it with a used car without taking into consideration the fact the diminished value of your car they can usually get that recovered for a diminished value should be covered by your insurance company, unless they specifically exclude it, which is something you should look at in the policy before you buy your insurance. Correct. And the last text comes from Steve in New Jersey,

longtime texter. FYI came across an I-I-H-S test video of a 2019 Jeep Wrangler, and the front-side collision test it flipped on its side. The manufacturer insisted on a second test, do over, and that Jeep flipped as well. They may look nice, but they don't appear to be safe. I thought your listeners should know about it. Thanks, Steve. Yeah, we talk about that almost every week. People think I'm trying to assassinate Jeep, but I say Jeep is a beautiful car, it's a sexy car. They sell a lot of cars that's keeping Chrysler alive, but it's unsafe, it's high maintenance, high repair. It's just, you just have to take the good, the bad, and the ugly

altogether. And let me tell you, there's a lot of jeeps on the road. I'm tempted to buy one myself they look so cool but I wouldn't I am I would expose my family to the safety the Rubicon there's a couple out there that I'm salivating over these things yeah you wouldn't you wouldn't expose who to what let's forget the coronavirus yeah there's no doors in it wouldn't take too long for you to be pulled over I got to squeeze this one in real quick this is a juzzi okay Jackie asked why did my sales associate insist on knowing what I want to pay per month for my vehicle? Well, Jackie, I'll make this short and sweet.

He's a very dishonest person, number one, and number two, run. Now, the recovering car dealer has our mystery shopping report, and that is Napleton, Chrysler Dodge, Jeep Ram. Well, that's a mouthful. Well, it's called CDJ. Sue was alluded to this earlier in the show. We feel a little guilty that when we have a Naplen shop, we enjoy it, but we shouldn't because it's really terrible.

It's almost comical. It's not comical if you're the victim, but I guess we see it, and it's just so ludicrous that it's somewhat enjoyable to read and talk about. We probably shop Naples at dealerships more than any other. I couldn't even exact number. but I'd say at least a dozen times. We keep going back because of they're so good at being bad.

They are experts at deception, masters of deceit. And the worlds of Obi, I like this, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. What a beautiful quote that is. Okay, that's a little bit of an exaggeration. But the truth is they hold more spots on her do not buy, do not buy a car from this dealer list than anybody else. It's almost a rule of thumb.

If it says Napleton, go somewhere else. In keeping with the last show's theme, we set out this week to find a deceptive car dealer ad that leveraged the COVID-19 pandemic. Last Saturday, reported on the Beth Smith Toyota ad promoting 0% for 84 months and uncovered a frankly offensive scheme, about as offensive as you can get, as a matter of fact. I threw the Franklin and a little double entendre. exploited and incentive available only listen to this and as john from bomb city says you better sit down for this one to get this 70% 84 months you had to be a first responder you had to be a cop you had to be a paramedic

to get this for unbelievable that they would stoop that low we hope to find another example of this sort of ad and the first earlier we thought of was at ableton and we fully expected to find the gold standard of the car dealer COVID-19 ads on one of their websites. Amazingly, we didn't find much. The most prominent one was from Napleton, Kia, with an offer of 0% up to 75 months, not 74, 75, and 120-day payment deferral. This is a legitimate offer from Kia, not much different than Toyota's 0% for 60 months with a 90-day payment deferral. But we did find something pretty damn astonishing. That Napleton CDJ was listing a new, a new 2020 Jeep Renegade for sale on its website with discounts of around $8,500. $8,500. And these are huge discounts on vehicles that list for just $23,000 or $24,000.

But that's 35%. And you just don't see that. That's a super red flag there. A good price than a new 2020 Jeep Renegade would be about $20,000. Napleton was advertising for under $16,000. Okay, www. Ain't Gonna Happen.com. The one we selected and had an MSRP of $24,215.15 that was discounted down to $15,676, unbelievably low. This amounted to $8,539, as I said, a 35% discount. Sounds too good to be true, and of course it is. we noticed something intriguing displayed in small print but the large red sale price

the words conditional incentives and various amounts each labeled cash offer so we clicked the conditional incentives were cash rebates only available to certain small groups of people now hang on your hats there was a thousand dollars for a living in a certain area of economic development.

I've never heard that. You didn't mean neither. And by the way, I got to interject, I went back to get more details when I wrote this up. That has been removed off the website, just the first screen. So I couldn't dig into it a little bit more. What does that even mean?

Somebody probably said, what? I mean, if you live in this neighborhood, you're going to get a special price. Unbelievable. There was $1,000 for mobility, mobility assistance what does that mean that is like a lot of manufacturers if you're going to put some sort of equipment like a wheelchair lift or a ramp on your car yeah so they would have to be disabled correct so they could say you have to live in this area

and be disabled correct okay and you're now I know you're not believing this this is Napleton Kia CDJ Kia there was $500 for realtors so you've got to live in a neighborhood have a disability and be a realtor and finally you've got to be on active duty in the military now how can you be active duty in the military if you're disabled and a realtor and a realtor right and live in a specific that's why we laugh folks I mean some some dealers are so deceptive and evil that they cross over the line and become funny so right off the bat we knew $3,000 would be added back to the price. We'd need to go to the dealership to find out how Napleson would get out of selling a brand

new Jeep Renegade for so lower price. We sent in Agent Thunder and Agent Tempest, a female shopper. Agent Tempest and I, I am speaking if I were Agent Thunder, and I arrived at Naples CDJ just after lunch. We entered the showroom and were quickly greeted by a pleasant young man named Marcus. He asked us how our day was going, and what it was had brought us in. He was not wearing a mask. Now Nancy talked about that earlier. Most of the employees were not wearing masks. Now that is irresponsible. That is indicative of a bad business person. We told him we'd seen the new renegades listed online in the mid-15s. Marcus told us to follow him to his desk. We sat down and Marcus immediately advised us that many of Naples' offer came with qualifications,

got right into it, that we would have to meet. He referred us to a sheet of paper that was pinned to the wall entitled rebate qualifications. I've never seen this. This is, again, a Napleton exclusive. The Napleton listed ten different rebates, and here they were. National Realtor Association, never seen this. This is new. A Mapleton exclusive. Military bonus, we've seen that. You have to be active duty in the military. Employee Advantage, friends and family. We've seen that one.

owner conquest. Another one. Non-fayat Chrysler, what's the A mean? A conquest. I mean, you're not driving there, make a car. Pull-ahead program conquest. I don't even know what that is. Non-prime retail bonus. I don't know what that is. TDM certification mailer. We don't know what that is. Automobility. We talked about that. You're disabled. First responder loyalty discount program. That's what Bettsmith Toyota did that we mystery shop last week. You have to be a first responder to get the discount. Think about it. You're sitting here saying that you don't even know what that's all about.

You don't understand that. Can you imagine the consumer? It is so sad. Adrian Tempus told Marcus that she didn't know what all of those meant. But she didn't think. think we qualified for any of them. Even, you know, she said it was the low price that brought us in and asked if there was anything to do to help us out. Marcus responded by saying, let's drive it first. If you just tuned in, we're doing a mystery shop of Napleton, Kia. They're in West Palm

Beach, right? No, this is Napolent, CDJ on North Lake Boulevard. Oh, CDJ. I'm sorry. Oh, I like that. They got something different deals. Yeah, a CDJ on North Lake Boulevard. Okay. So I said, let's drive it first to get close to this deal. We'll need to find a base model. What color do you like? Agent Tempah said a base model was all we wanted. She said, we preferred white. Marcus then collected our driver's licenses,

asked us questions about our personal information. They would enter his computer. Then he left to get the keys. Outside of the car, Marcus impressed us with his walk-around presentation. Then he suggested we take it for a spin. I asked if it was going with us and he said he was. Agent Tempice and I looked at each other and she said

I was wondering if you could possibly find a mask to wear while you're in the car. Marcus said, of course. He headed back in the show of him and came back wearing a mask which proved they passed out mask. Probably they told them to wear a mask and they just didn't do it.

We drove the renegade up and down North Lake Boulevard while Marcus talked nonstop, a return, immediately got his trial closed question. How do you like it? If the numbers are right with this car, would you buy this car today? Angel's Tempice answered, well, we're not qualified for any of the rebates. Let me work my magic, Marcus interrupted. Here he goes. Mr. White shoe, gold chains. That's what we used to say in the old days. You old timers are recognized it.

Let me see if I got this right. So Marcus left and he went out to his car and went into his car and went into the trunk, got a wheelchair out, brought it into the showroom, and put the Tempest. Have a seat. You qualify. That's right. So, me in this house.

Agent Hintzapard, we are not qualified for any of these rebates. So that's when he did the work of magic. We waited for Marcus to pin up a proposal. When he returned, he put a worksheet on the desk and said, even without those other rebates, I was able to work out a great deal for you. Now, this is where it just goes, unbelievable. Watch the price go.

The price was printed as 24,215.15, Margaret said, we're going to give you $2,356 discount right off the bed. Then you get a rebate of $3,250. Now we're sure with a wow, wow. Wow. That's over $5,000. They're just throwing right out of me. This isn't going to be too bad.

Yes, it is. I asked them what the reboot was for. Margaret said his boss finagled the friends and family rebate. for us, whoopi-doo. I said, thanks. This brought out our adjusted price to 18609. Then he said he had to add the Napleton Experience Package. The Experience Package is where we screw you and take advantage of you. The Napleton Expe and Steal. I'm only kidding. It sounds like a band. And that's a Napleson Experience Package, which added $1960 to the price. It didn't even say what it was all about. Adrian Tempett said, what's that?

It's a package of oil changes and maintenance for your car. Well, maintenance is nominal on a new vehicle today. The first two years is maybe a couple hundred dollars. Asia Tempert said that was something we'd like. Playing along. Yeah, playing along, exactly. Marks continued brushing past a dealer fee while saying something along the lines or their taxes, title fees, bottom line, just scooted right over the dealer fees.

Bottom line, you're $25,703. What he skipped over was the addition of $1,695 for a destination fee. Now, that's the freight. That's the freight from the manufacturer, Jeep, to the dealer, and it's in the invoice, it's in the list price. It's in the quoted MSRP. And they added it back in again. They added the freight twice.

So it's nothing more than a hidden fee. I question that it might even be a violation of federal law. The dealer fee, the sneaky dealer fee, which is supposed to be included in the court of price, advertised price, is $899. They call that a documentation fee. And then a whopping $935 for license and title, and there's no way the license and title. That has to be an inflated $600, maybe $500, maybe $500. which makes them especially bad because they're cheating the state of Florida

because they're not charging sales tax and in a $935 license and title there are some fees that should be taxed and they're not paying the tax to the state of Florida. Marcus asked how it looked to us Agent Tembis and I looked at each other shrugging and said I think we have a deal we had to wrap it up. Agent Tempest agreed that the numbers look good but said she'd like to spend some time to meditate before signing our lives away. Ha-ha. Oh, just for a few hours, she replied.

And we got up. And Tempice picking me to get up, too. I got up. I said, we'll be back before five. And, of course, we weren't. We left, and that's it, folks. That's one of the worst I've seen. Pretty bad.

We said that last week about Best Myth. That's why I said we're two in a row that were just snake. It's a golden age. Yeah. The times have changed. We do have five minutes, and we've got time for the votes to come in, and this is the time. I don't want to prejudice this, but I will.

This is the times when I wish there was a lower grade than an F. It's absolutely disgusting what Napleton did. Who wants to start with a... The ones that we got so far, we have Whitney with the... Oh, I'm sorry, I wrote that done wrong. Jimmy with an F, Rob with an F, Shakira with an F-minus, and Larry with a D-plus. Come on, Larry.

Where? Nice guy, Larry. Larry, you didn't listen to the shopping report. Okay. Well, how about you was Rick getting? So far, nothing coming in except Frank saying they were thunderstruck, which led to a tempest in a teapot. Such a dynamic duo.

Nancy, I don't need to ask you, but I know. They're steam hurting out of Nancy's mask. You're emotional. There's smoke shooting out of it behind her surgical mask. Yeah, my hair's on fire. Maybe somebody better hit these. mute button. And, you know, I just, my goodness gracious, how awful, how terrible. I hope nothing bad happens to these people over at CDJ. I really do. F. Yeah. You know, I hear something bad that

could happen. I'm going to hold up my latest blog. It's a letter to Ashley Moody, the Attorney General of the state of Florida. She's the number one law enforcement. officer and this is my current blog and I'll be sure she gets a copy of it I did the same thing with Pam Bondi and I think Bill McCollum before Pam Bondi the Attorney General of the state of Florida was something like this is happening with a car dealer chronic violation of a lot of law you really really need to you really need to look into this they claimed that the complaints aren't being made but something like this needs to be stopped with

through without a complaint. Ashley, let you check into it, please. And if nothing else, you're violating three laws, Dodge. You got one there, Rick? Well, now we've got Karen, Nate, Mark Bryan, John Strine, Ernesto, Steve, Mark Weiss, and Wayne, all coming in with F. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, there should be a fine and discipline administer to this. Naples, Chrysler D. Job, Chrysler, G. Dodge in North Palm Beach. Linda replies with a multitude of F's. It looks like a capital F followed by 11 lowercase Fs. Yeah. It's pronounced F.

Interesting. And desperation brings on this sort of activity too, by the way. And I warn all the listeners out there. If you're buying during this time, there's some great bargains, but desperate dealers, it can work against you if you're not careful and don't do your homework. Perfect. Great

information. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on cars, and we definitely enjoy your company. Stay tuned next week at the same time. We'll be right here. Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful super moms out there.