Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.12.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Grieco Chevrolet Delray Beach

Episode Date: May 12, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits Grieco Chevrolet of Delray Beach to purchase a car from the Costco Auto Buying Program. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.trueoldiesfla.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “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”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. We're back, your auto team, the team in the studio here. My name is Earl, also known as a recovering car dealer. I'm just going to go around the table and tell you who we got with us because we can answer most of all of your questions.

We'll hopefully be able to educate you, entertain you a little bit. You've heard of me, I'm the local Toyota dealer, but this is not an infomercial. I've been a car dealer since 1968. I've written a book, Confessions of a recovering car dealer, because I've recovered from the way I used to sell cars, and now I'm trying to be honest and transparent. I get a little bit better every day. This show is kind of like part of my therapy to maintain my honesty and integrity in the car business. But this is not an infomercial.

I don't pay for this. This is a consumer advocacy show, basically explaining how not to get ripped off by car dealer. And to my immediate right is Rick Kearney, who is a certified diagnostic master technician. I know that's a mouthful, but he's an expert. He's been doing this for over 20 years. He worked for me for 20 years. And before that, he was a car buff, and he studied cars a good percentage of his adult life. we call him an auto computer scientist because he seems to be working on computers today

the cars of today versus the cars of 25 years ago are really rolling computers so Rick Kearney can answer any of your questions he's got some great advice for you on buying not buying but maintaining and repairing your car he can help to do it yourselfers he can probably diagnose some problems you may have with your car any maker model If he doesn't get it right away, he'll Google it. And if he can't Google it or get it right away, he'll get back to you with an answer. But Rick is 99% of the answers.

And to Rick's right is Nancy Stewart, who is also my wife, and she is a consumer advocate for women. Actually, she's a consumer advocate for everybody. She'll tell the women out there how to buy a car, or lease a car, without being ripped off. She's got a lot of great advice. As a matter of fact, Nancy has a lot of, As an offer for our female listeners, we try to increase our number of female listeners and callers.

So, Nancy, how much are we paying today for a first-time female caller? Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As Earl said, I am here to let the ladies know that the first two new lady callers can win yourselves $50 each. and I'm also here to let you ladies know that we make up more than 51% of the population and guess what, girls, you're involved in most of the car purchases. So with that said, give us a call toll free at 877-960-9960 or you can text us at 772-497-6530.

And remember, ladies and gentlemen, you are a very important part of the show. We love hearing from all of you. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Thank you. You first time lady callers, as Nancy said, 50 bucks cash. There's no conditions. I know you're used to fine print and conditions,

but this kind of a reaction when you hear an offer on the air, but this radio offer on the air is sincere. And we have a sincere reason for wanting to hear more women callers. We don't have enough. The women don't seem to be as inclined to call the show. We probably have more women callers than most shows. I'm probably saying if we looked at the average, probably 35%. We want to get it up to 50%.

So 50 bucks, cash, no conditions, for the first time you call the show if you're a female. Now, going around the horn here, Stu Stewart is on my left and to Nancy's right. Howdy. And Stu is my son. And hence the last name. He has got his Mac computer in front of him, and his fingers are frantically tickling the keys. He's our cyber connection with cyberspace.

He shoots our message out into cyberspace via Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat and probably a lot of others that I don't even know about. But you can reach us with a lot of other means if you don't catch the show or you have to leave the show early. Let me ask Stu to tell you how you can pick up the show. We have a video recording. We have audio recordings. We have all sorts of ways you can hear what has said here in case you're not timely.

That's right. Well, right now we are live on Facebook, and you can see that at Facebook.com slash Earl Stu. That is Earl's personal Facebook page. And it's also on Facebook at Facebook.com slash Earl on Cars. It's Simulcast. So you can watch it both places. You can go to earl-oncars.com, and you can read all Earl's blogs,

and there's links to everything we talk about on the show, how to check your car for recalls, the good dealer, bad dealer list, and our list goes on. So like Earl said, there's lots of ways to reach us, and you can find us about anywhere online. Thanks, too. By the way, my personal Facebook page, which, of course, says Facebook.com,

or slash Earl Stu, S-T-E-W, That's my personal Facebook page. And this morning, I'm going to say hi. A little shout out to all of my Sunrise Club members. Nancy Stewart and I are also known as Mr. and Mrs. Sunrise. And every morning we're on the beach videoing the sunrise. And this morning we had an absolutely incredible sunrise. So all you Sunrise Club members that caught the sunrise,

you hopefully can also follow us on the radio show if you have a few minutes this morning because we're live, Facebook video. right now you can see how beautiful Nancy is you can see how handsome I am and just go to well you can just turn on to my Facebook page let's not go crazy yeah okay ladies and gentlemen 877 960 9960 it is going to be a fabulous show for the next two hours you can entertain us with your stories of purchasing a vehicle leasing a vehicle good stories bad stories we want them all right here at earl Stewart on Cars. So give us a call. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-49-6-5-30. We have got a fantastic show-ahead, as we always do. We're going to go to John, who's calling, and he's a regular from Palm City. Good

morning, John. Good morning to everyone. Today, it's kind of a sad story, but I want to thank you for pointing out on a Corvette about the automatic the door release. My friend had a later Corvette, needed even know about that. Now, for a sad story, some of the luxury high-end cars have an accessory call a SCAD, SCAD. That means soft-closing automatic door sensor. Unfortunately, a 61-year-old man from Valley Stream, Long Island, he has a large lawsuit with BMW. He had his fingers severed in his BMW X-5 SUV. That's terrible.

He's claiming defective selenoid. It's sad, but, you know, somebody's automatic items that they're putting in can create further problems. So, I just want to, you know, I also thought about this, too. When people's SUV, the rear deck lid has something like maybe call it similar to that, When you do close it, it has like a screw turning device. And I'm just wondering if somebody could, maybe a child's finger or something could get caught in that. You know, on a garage door on a house, there's an automatic sensor that if a child or something should go and the door's coming down, it sensors and the door will reverse itself where it'll stop closing. but I want to know if Rick has any comment about this SCAD, this soft closing automatic door sensor,

and if anything can be done, that they have a safety on it. I'll wait to hear from you. Absolutely. Thank you, John. As a matter of fact, most of our automatic doors that have that slow-closed rear hatch or the automatic power hatch or the automatic sliding doors that will open. just from touching the handle or using a remote. They have two features designed to help protect against that issue.

The first one is a touch sensor. There's actually a rubber grommet on the edge of the door that just the lightest little touch against that, it's got an electrical contacts inside, and the slightest touch against it will cause that door to reverse operation and open completely back up. Kind of like an elevator door. You can't really get your fingers caught an elevator door too bad.

And then, of course, the other backup device they have, which is what he originally had in the first Siena's of power doors, is the motor, the electric motor that closes the door has a sensor on it that detects the amperage draw. And if it detects a physical barrier that causes that amperage draw to suddenly begin increasing, it will automatically reverse that door back open. Well, this BMW that cut the man's fingers off, apparently there was a failure. with a sensor or something. It would have to be. I can't imagine BMW or any manufacturer having no safety device. In fact, hopefully there'd be a backup fail-safe because I can't, you're not going to sell a whole lot of cars and people have their fingers cut off when the door closes.

No. This should be interesting to follow that lawsuit. John, was this a passenger door? It was in the New York Post, and that's he's claiming, it probably does have that safety, you say, but his lawyer is claiming a defective part, defective censor. It would have had to fail in order to do that. Yeah. Well, let's a second question I have for Earl.

A friend of mine wants to buy a 67 Ford. It's on I-75 in Georgia. And it's at a dealer, and he's claiming that he has a Carfax on it. Isn't that impossible? How far back the Carfax reports go? What year approximately? Well, I don't think they go back to 67. I don't think Carfax existed in 1967, but maybe the Ford was repaired more recently.

If he's got it, if he still has it around, maybe it was in an accident. It could have been an accident last year, in which case there would be a Carfax report. Well, I call the guy because my friend wants me to go up and look at it. And it turns out to be, it's Rick probably knows about this. Ford has a system that you pay for. It's called a Marty report, M-A-R-T-I. And what that is, that's a Ford, it's not done by an out Ford, but an outside research that tells you everything about an older Ford Mustang, oh, no, not in 65 or 66, but start 67 and on up, and it tells you everything that the car, you know, with numbers in the factory, where it was built and the accessories. So that's basically what it is, but it's not a car fax as such the way we know it.

Well, thank. John, let me ask you a question. Interesting. I'm on a board of directors of First City Bank of Commerce. I'm also on their loan committee. And we had a client that borrowed money on an antique car. It was an older car. And the question is, how can we establish a value on that car? There's not really a book is there that you can go to. I'm sure that people that spend millions of dollars or hundreds of thousand dollars if these antique auto auctions must have some source of information. What would be the best valid source of information for my bank to be able to establish the value of an antique vehicle? Well, you've asked the right guy, because I'm collecting cars

and following collector cars for 55 years. The Bible of the industry, the absolute Bible, that many go on, is called Collect the Car Price Guide. Okay? That's the one that basically use. Also, Haggerty Insurance Company has a book that they pull out that's very reliable and very good. But this collector car price guide is put out by Krause Publications in Iola, Wisconsin. Well, that is great information. I will buy that. I guess the thing comes out, what, monthly or weekly? Bonds and Noble should have it. No, it's yearly, but there's also a price card that they put out that comes out monthly. And there's

280,000 prices in it. Every car from 1899 to 2010, and it is the Bible of the industry. It's used for major auctions, and it's one that's most respected. How about that car?

Let me share I got this right. I wrote down Collector Car Price Guide. Guide, right. Perfect. Okay. You can get it on the internet. You know, look it up. but it's Kraus Publications in Iola, Wisconsin. I think somewhere I got a phone number. Yeah, 800-258-0-9-29-2-9.

Visit them online, www. That's the Bible of the industry, and that's the one that's accepted by insurance companies and top collectors. Is that Krauss-K-R-A-U-S-S? Right, no, K-R-A-U-S-E. Yes, E. Very good. Right. Well, thank you.

And that's the one that you want to use. Thanks, John. Well, I appreciate that very much. You didn't realize that I'd be asking you questions when you called in, but thank you very much. You know a lot about it. Well, you happen to hit my field, and I told my friend not to buy originally last month was the Barrett Jackson auction, which was a big success down here in Palm Beach. And the success of it was 150 cars that were right from your area to John Stalupi. and boy those cars they really went for top mostly 50s and 60s

I mean real big numbers but they were mint cars I mean cars it's spent like 100,000 on some of them to restore them John thank you very much great call as usual and you're one of our best and most regular callers Rick has a comment yeah John just as a kind of side note when the Siena's first came out with those power slide doors we had a lady customer ask about she was concerned about her children's hands getting caught in those doors. And so I offered to demonstrate for her.

I had her set the door to where it was closing, and I took my pinky finger and stuck just my pinky finger up there and let the door close on my finger, and it gave just the lightest pinch, and then immediately backed right up. Well, it's a good thing you weren't a mechanic at the BMW dealership that sold that car. They might be calling me Ricky Ninefingers. Exactly.

Well, in defense of BMW, everything has a defect on it, and I imagine this had to be definitely one in a million cases that had happened. Well, I will say BMW drivers are a little bit different on the road. I'm afraid of BMW drivers. When I see one of my... $70,000 car. Thanks, John. Great call.

Talk to you next week. Have a good day, folks. Thanks, John. Always a great call. He always has so much information for us. Ladies and gentlemen, we are right here. the oldies station and guess what you're not going to hear any music this morning but you are going to hear the recovering car dealer if you just tuned in this is

Earl Stewart on cars so give us a call toll free and remember ladies I have $50 for each one of you and for the first two new lady callers so give us a call at toll free at 877 960 9960 or you can text us at 7 772-497-6-5-30. No, I'll give it back to the recovering car dealer. Thanks, Nancy. We have a text from Tina. Tina from Benita Springs.

And she is one of our best callers. I won't say female because she's one of our best, most knowledgeable callers, male or female. I honestly have, I know very few people that have her knowledge, general knowledge, about car mechanics and sales and a lot of other things. Very smart gal. Tina says, in this interesting article about a Michigan Chevy dealership who was shut down for 15 days by the Michigan Secretary of State for repeatedly failing to provide customers' titles is required by law. Patsy Lou Chevrolet in Flint, Michigan. That's not an uncommon problem, unfortunately.

When car dealers have a cash flow problem, this is when it happens. And if a car dealer is having difficulty financially, one of the things they do is they don't pay off their trade-ins. You see, when you trade in a car, typically there's a balance-load. You might trade in a car that had thousands of dollars. You could have $20,000, $25,000 owed the bank. So when the buyer of the car trades that used car in, the dealer is supposed to pay the car off to the bank. Well, if there's no money in the bank, the dealer's bank, they can't pay it off.

So what they do is they just keep the car on the used car lot and don't pay it off. And then another trade incomes, pretty soon they've got millions of dollars worth of cars that they haven't paid off. And the problem is that the person who bought the car is liable to the bank. And usually that's the way the problem is revealed because the person that bought the new car two months ago gets some late notice from the bank. Why haven't you made your payments on the car you finance with us? So this Flint, Michigan, car dealership, Patsy Lou Shabrolet, apparently Patsy Lou has got a case of the shorts.

And I think it's not paying their bills. They shut her down for three weeks. I won't name any names because I just don't want to name this name, but I have a friend, and he got into a bad financial. trouble, and he was a car dealer in Florida. This is his name Carl Stark? No, I won't. But he paid everybody off, but he had to serve him a few years

in the slammer. And I feel bad for the guy, but it sneaks up on you. And sometimes a car dealer doesn't know what's going on. It can be in his accounting office. Pretty soon you find out that happens. So, thanks very much, Tina. Great article, very interesting article. And a heads up to our listeners, because you're listening to

us, Earl Stewart on cars because you're looking for some tips. Here's a tip that Tina's tax generates. When you trade your car in, be very sure that it is paid off and tell your bank. Tell your bank, I traded that car in and ABC Chevrolet should be paying that car off because I paid for the new car and included in the price of the new car was the payoff that that car dealer is supposed to use to pay off my car. Give everybody a heads up. That way you won't be surprised a few months later. Absolutely. So many ways to be careful whenever you're trading in a, excuse me, a used vehicle. Ladies and gentlemen, you are an important part of the show. Tina just proved that. Give us a call toll-free at 877-9-60-9-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30.

We're going to go to Al, who's calling from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Al. Good morning. How are you? We're well, thank you. How you been? Yeah, I'm doing fine, and it's just incidentally that I heard a broadcast, but I didn't get it completely. I know you're concerned about the fact that the legislation is here and the powers that be don't seem to be doing anything about correcting some of the abuses. However, I heard something in terms of the administration,

which seems to be very concerned about eliminating anything that Obama did. And one of the things that was on the books were some sort of lending protection that was given to people who were borrowing on cars. And what they'd said was that that's no longer necessary. It's a burden on the banks, so we're eliminating this protection. Did you hear anything about this, or can you explain a little bit more about what that was? Al, you're absolutely right. And it's something bad.

It was an agency that was doing a service. It was basically was the agency's purpose was to, and examine and if Stu or Rick or Nancy will Google this CL, I want to say consumer lending something or other consumer lending

Yeah, that one that Elizabeth Warren put in the Consumer Lending Protection Act Yeah, exactly. It's supposed to be sure that the lending institutions that lend you money when you buy a car are not discriminating in any way, shape, or form. Right, right, right.

You know, through, it came up Interestingly enough, during, you mentioned the Obama administration, it came up in Texas, a near Air Force base, I believe. And the young folks that were buying cars, the young men in uniform, and, you know, most people when they join the service, they're young, probably haven't bought a car before. And these people were being taken advantage of by the lenders because they were so unsophisticated. first time you buy a car, you're not exactly the sharpest tack around to be able to buy a car. So these young kids in the service were ending up with almost user as interest rates, being added extended service contracts and GAAP contracts and disability and, you know, nitrogen in the tires and all the other things that these car dealers will add to somebody that doesn't understand financing.

So that's how this agency was born because taking advantage of the service people. And, of course, it expanded out to all minorities, women and blacks and Hispanics and things of this nature. And what they do is they go into a lender and they say, okay, show me your books. You made this number of loans. This class of people may be in this neighborhood and this religion or this color skin or whatever ethnic thing it may be. and if there is a discrimination, then they find the institution or then make them do it rights. Do you found it? Oh, well, it's the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and it's under that.

Card dealers get quarterly letters from their lenders that they work with, and they give them the breakdown of the ethnicity, of the rate markup because they're giving to various groups of people, like you said. So it'll tell you that on average you are charging two percentage points higher than the African American community or a Latino. know, and also it depends on where you're on the country. If you're in, on the West Coast, you're going to see a lot of, like, Asian, if you're, see if you're discriminating on people from Asian backgrounds.

So, yeah, it's still ongoing. It's, I don't know if it's going to be changed, but it's definitely, it's regulation. Well, it is a regulation. And, you know, as a businessman, one of the reasons that I think that this is a good show is I'm a car dealer. And I say that somewhat apologetically. I mean, I know my image isn't the best. And as a car dealer and as a businessman, I don't like regulations, and I don't like to have to fill this form out every two or three months. It's a burden on me.

It's a burden on my business. But sometimes you have to pay the price so you get fairness in the marketplace. And if I were an African American and I was afraid that because I was an African American, I was going to be paying a higher interest rate just because of the color of my skin, that wouldn't be very good. So sometimes regulations are necessary. too much regulation that's wrong i consider the consumer financial protection bureau something that is very necessary and i'm very sorry to see that the current administration wants to wipe it out i think it's i think it's going to hurt the people that are being discriminated against yeah no i love the phrase though an undue burden on the banks like banks seem to have such such uh a limited ability to take care of

They are in a position much more than the consumer is to take care of things rather than the other way around. But, listen, this seems to be the tenor of the administration as such. Yes. And I guess you've got to live with it. Well, I wear two hats. I mentioned earlier, I'm a banker. I'm an owner and a director of a bank, and I'm also the owner and director of a cardiolship. So I can speak equally to both those.

Right. As a banker, it is a burden. but I understand the reason for it and it's a good thing. As a dealer, it's a burden and I say it's a good thing. So I think I can look at it fairly and I hope that somehow or other, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB, can continue

to do what they do, which is a good job. Al, thank you very much for the call and pointing that out. Okay. You're welcome. We're going to go straight to Tina who's calling from Benita Springs. Good morning, Tina. Hi, how are you guys doing this morning? Hi, Tina, great text. Thank you to telling us about this Chevrolet dealership that was not paying the cars off.

Yes, that's very shocking, and I can imagine it would be an awful wake-up call for a customer finding out from the bank, hey, wait a second, this car's not paid off. Exactly. And then that puts them in a horrible position, but speaking of things of that nature happening, I was reading an article online the other day about 96-month car lump. No. They're not very common. You're not going to find them in banks very much, but not.

96-month car loans, I thought, oh, my goodness. Now, I understand that cars are getting more expensive. Yeah, I understand that cars are getting more expensive, but I'm thinking, can you imagine the boon this could be for an unscrupulous car dealer? Because somebody might have this car on note for eight years and decide after five years here, I want to trade it in, and then they have to roll that balance into the new balance. They could be so taken advantage of it's a 96-month car loan.

My opinion, I say, run to the hell, run away from a 96-month car loan. Heck, run away from a 72-month car loan. The problem is a lot of people don't even know. No, not at all. Yeah. Yeah, my opinion, don't sign a card note for longer than 16 months. If you do that, I think you're just putting yourself in the hall. Well, Tina, I totally agree with you.

Unfortunately, you know, sometimes I say on the show, we're preaching to the choir. You and most of our listeners are fairly sophisticated. and most people would know if they were signing an installment sales contract for a 96-month car loan. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't. Some people, you know, I call them the victims. They're the very young buyers. We talked about kids in the military, never bought a car before, elderly people that are not as sharp as they were when they were 25. We're talking about people without the education that they may have been deprived of.

We're talking about people that are not, English is not their language in the kind. and everybody's talking to him in English. How'd you like to be in Germany in Berlin or trying to buy something and you don't speak German? So all these people, when they go into a car dealership, they don't know they're signing a contract for 96 months. All they know is the payment is very low. They look at their budget.

They know how much they make a month or a week. And they say, well, I can afford that. They just don't realize they're going to have to afford that for the next eight years. So the victims are still taking advantage of by this. Leases, by the way, are just as bad. believe it or not, I talk to people all the time that leased a car and they thought they bought it. A lot of elderly people, this is a common bait and switch to elderly buyers.

They come in, I say buyers, they think they're buying a car, and they sign the contract, and they realize they've leased it. I've talked to women that have paid $10,000 over the price they should have paid for that lease, not even knowing they were leasing the car. I'll add to that, the poor suspecting, unsuspecting. widows. I mean, they've never even looked at a contract, not alone signed one. So, you know, I really, my heart goes out to them. And, you know, there's just a lot of people that are taken advantage of. Yeah, that just goes to show, like you always say, Earl, make sure when you buy a car you bring somebody with, you never buy a car by yourself. Definitely. I have bought a couple of cars by myself, but even me, I would never buy a car by myself again. I did this last time.

Not a good idea. I mean, I got a good deal because I grabbed the keys and I almost got up out of my chair. That was the only thing that saved me. But those guys were trying to sell me down the river. So I stopped it, thank goodness. Well, you're sure. Another thing I was going to say along the same line, if there's a certain model of car that you're looking for,

make sure you really do your research on it because some of these cars have specialty parts. And let me explain that. By a specialty part, I mean, say, for instance, you know, every car has tires, we hope. Every car has tires. Some cars, especially high-end cars, they tend to have tires that are a very unique size. And Rick, hopefully you chime in on me with this one. But with a specialty-sized tire, sometimes the only place you can get that tires at the dealership. And they're going to charge a premium for it.

So that's something you really need to be aware of some of these vehicles. That's absolutely true. I mean, as silly as this sounds, when Teslas were first coming out just a few years ago, and they had their P90, they actually had a 22-inch, or I beg a pardon, a 21-inch tire and wheel, and I've seen 20s, I've seen 22s, never seen a 21-inch tire, and I'd be willing to bet that's probably the only brand and model of tire, that you'll ever be able to get for that car and now they've quit making that P90

and I doubt very much that they'll have a 21-inch wheel on any other car. Wow. So that would be one that again, someone would have to watch for. Yeah, the tires vary so much at cost. You can really be surprised. I always think of a tire maybe costs $100, $125. They've got tires out there that cost $3 and $400 each.

So when you're buying the car, you need to know what the cost of the tires is when you have to replace them. And like you say, Tina, if you have to go back to the dealer to replace them, that would really be a problem. Yeah, exactly. I have a client that has an older Corvette, I think, his Corvettes is 2004, 2005, and he shed tears every time. He has to buy tires.

Oh, my goodness, you can't believe how much I spent on just one tire. Like, you know, $3.504 tires is, well, you know, you pay, you play, and he loves his car. So it's kind of like one of those things he accepts. I mean, when I had my Miata, if I wanted to get 20550-15s, I would spend maybe $4.50 on the whole set, which is, you know, a little bit of change. But I love the way that size looked, and I love the way it performed, so I didn't mind paying a little bit more. Well, Tina, thanks for that. As usual, a great call, and your text are unbelievable, and we don't know what we do without you calling a text on the show.

Thank you so much. Oh, one more thing. I'm going to save everybody money right now. Hopefully everybody's listening. On NBC-2.com, there was a little public service announcement about license plate frames. Now, I know that dealers put license plate frames on all their cars for advertisement for the speaking that's perfectly fine. But if a cop pulls you over and he's in the bad mood, if you have a license plate frame on your license plate and it in any way obscures any of the writing on your license plate, it can be over $100 fine. You're right.

So people, please get out to screwdrivers and take off those. dealer plate. Yeah, absolutely right, Tina. Thank you, Tina. That's a good tip. I appreciate the heads up. That law has been on the books for a while. It's not rigidly enforced, but it can be, and as you say, if it does, it could cost you 100 bucks. And it has been.

It has been enforced. We talked about this about six years ago, and how many have been fined on the road for just that. Unfortunate. Tina, thanks so much for the phone call. We really appreciate your information that you share with us, and that

you're spending the two hours with us. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call. Ladies, $50 for each one of you. $877. Excuse me, $50 for the first two new lady callers. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We're going to go straight to Dawn. He's one of our favorite callers.

We haven't heard from him in a while. Good morning, Dawn. Hey, good morning, everybody. Good morning. Over here in LaBelle, we have a dealer who owns all the new car dealerships, which is Chrysler and Ford dealership. And I heard this week from a young lady who traded in her car, and they didn't pay off the car.

So she is now wondering what she can do, because as you mentioned before, the loan company is calling her and saying, Where's your payment? So she's forced to make the payment. Don, boy, have I got the answer to this? There's one place that that lady can call that will strike fear in the heart of that dealer.

It's called the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. One of the most rigidly enforced rules by the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles is that the car must be paid off promptly. And I think it's within 30 days. If you don't pay it off within 30 days, you can lose your motor vehicle retail license. And we hope that this dealer is just being sloppy. We hope that he hasn't run out of cash. But it's a red flag.

It's a danger signal. And I think Stu is Googling it right now. We have a website that you can go to to get a form from the Department of Motor Vehicles. That website is Car Dealer. complaints.com, www.cardealer complaints, plural, I believe, dot com. And that will have a form that can download and take it to the department or mail it to the department of motor vehicles, and they'll be all over that dealer. That's one of the things that they hate, and it's one of the most frequent problems they have.

Now, how would the customer recover her payments that she's making on the vehicle that the dealer is supposed to take care of? Well, that is a sad fact. What I was talking about earlier when Tina had texted us that incident where they suspended a dealer for three weeks, the customer is still responsible. So what the customer should do, every customer, when they buy a car, they should contact their bank

if they owe money on their car, the trade-in, and they should tell their banker that I'm trading my car in tomorrow to ABC Chevrolet, My payoff is $5,000. Don't release the title to ABC Chevrolet and call them and tell them that they expect the payoff. That alerts the dealership that they're being watched and they're much more likely to take care of it. If you really want to be ultra-cautious, then you wouldn't even sign the contract and take delivery of the car until they know you'd pay your car off. But this is not a common occurrence, but not uncommon either. Yeah, it would seem like the dealer can have a monetary advantage by being slowed to pay off the loan with the payoff figure.

And then when they do pay it off, it's going to be a lower number because the customer has made another couple payments. Well, usually what happens is the customer won't make the payment. And because the customer, they know they bought the car. and so they're not going to be making the payment. That's usually the way the trouble begins because they get a late notice from the bank. And that's when they finally call the bank and say, what do you mean?

I traded that car in two months ago. And that's when it gets too late and that if the dealership has no money, then the customer stuck. They have to make the payments because the dealer never paid the car off. So that's how the customer gets hurt. The best way to do is just do it up in advance.

so that the bank checks with the dealership and knows to expect the payoff from the dealership. But you're right. Bank will continue, legally, the customer, even though they traded the car, and legally they're still obligated to the bank to make the payments until the car is paid off. Yeah, I'd recommend it to the lady to keep making the payment

so she didn't ruin her credit rating. Could that be a disaster if she misses the payments and then she's got a really bad mark on her credit? Good point. Yeah. You're absolutely right. You can see where she's reluctant to do that, but you're absolutely right. The bank, unfortunately, business people or business people, not a lot of empathy, not a lot of compassion.

All the bank knows is if you don't make your payments is hurting me, I'm going to report you to the Credit Bureau, and there it goes on your credit report, and then it hurts you, too. So the best thing to do is, unfortunately, is you have to hire an attorney, and the whole thing gets messy. So take care of it up front before it happens. It doesn't happen that commonly. And you said something earlier. A lot of car dealers kind of do this on purpose

because it's called cash flow. It's called liquidity. Car dealers, they pay off, you know, a big car dealer pays off hundreds of cars a month. So they're paying all sometimes hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. And they can float that. That's the term in the banking industry and business, your float, your financial float.

You can have a million dollars float by just being a little bit late and paying your bills. And one of the big bills is to the banks paying off titles to cars. That's the reason the Department of Motor Vehicles will come down with both feet. So the first thing she should do is called the DMV. And I almost guarantee you when the DMV contacts the dealer, and they will, they will immediately pay that car off. And they will also pay the back payment because they're liable for the back payments to the bank.

Okay. All right. Well, thank you, Earl, and we look forward to your shopping report this morning. Love your calls, Don. Yes, Doc. So, I always hit on myself, why didn't I think of that?

So thanks very much for the call. Thanks for being part of the show, Don. What was that, Florida Car Dealer Complaints? Dot com. So, ladies and gentlemen, When there's a will, there is a way, and there's a lot of options to bring some attention to what Earl was just talking about. We're going to go to Lori from Palm Beach Gardens, and welcome to the show, Lori. Thank you.

New caller. I just wanted to say, number one, just brought a new car from you guys is Sienna, X-L-A. Love it. Thank you. And I got the best service, bar none. It was awesome service. I have a question for you, not used to this. The auto-on-off gas saver, how does that work and does it really save gas?

This is Rick, and yes, it does save a little bit of fuel. It works best in the Stop and Go City driving. And basically, it's kind of golf cart technology. This actually started from a golf cart and maintenance vehicles that they designed them to start the engine on the gas-powered ones only when you stepped on the accelerator. And somebody finally realized there was a way to make this work with the larger vehicles and larger engines. It uses a special battery and starter motor. And when you stop at a traffic light, if the conditions are correct, You know, the A.C. doesn't need the extra power, and everything is all, all the ducks are in a row, basically.

The computer will shut the engine off while you're sitting there to save fuel, and then when you get ready to start moving again, as soon as you step on the gas, you'll hardly even feel the change as that engine restarts and away you go. And about how much gas would you say you save using it? It's going to depend on the driver. Lori, I was just going to say that in South Florida, it might save you a lot of gas. If you're living near the coast or the intercoastal, there's a lot of bridges down here. How long have you had your car idle at a bridge? Nancy and I were going to a restaurant the other day, and we hit three bridges between our home and the restaurant.

I would say we probably had cars sitting there idling going nowhere for at least 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes. So that burns a lot of gas in South Florida. So it depends on your circumstances. If you only hit one or two stoplights or bridges in your daily activities, it probably doesn't save you much. But if you live in South Florida, my guess is it can save you a lot of gas. And even just stopping in a red light. Okay.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Hey, Lori. This is Nancy Stewart. If you hang on, we can get your contact information. and send you out a check for that $50, and that's our way of thanking you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on cars. How do you like that?

That sounds awesome, thank you. Okay, so give us your information and give us a call again and spread the word. Our number is 877960, or you can text us at 772-4976530. And Earl's latest blog this week is Open Letter to AutoManual. manufacturers, and you can read that at Earl and Cars. If you haven't picked up the hometown news or the Florida Weekly, it's a very interesting column, as they all are. And at Erwin Cars, you can, you know, you can read all of his, all of his blogs.

877960 or 772. You can text us at 772-497-6530. We have, you know, we have a mystery shopping report coming up, and of course, you make the show. So we're waiting to hear from a few of you and what you have to share with us, 877960-960-7-2-49-6-5-30. Now back to the recovering car dealer. We'd especially like to hear from Costco members who have bought a car in the Costco Auto Buying Program. If you listen to our show last week, we mystery shop Schumacher Chevrolet, and they are part and a member of the Costco Auto Buying Program. I did a lot of talking last week about the fact that the Costco Auto Buying Program is not doing for its members what it should,

and the fact that the Costco Auto Buying Program is not really operated by Costco, it's operated by a separate company. They call themselves a Costco Auto Buying Program. Costco calls them the Costco Auto Buying Program, but they call them the Costco Auto Buying Program. The company is really a different company. It's called the Affinity Development Group out of San Diego. And the Affinity Development Group is a third party unrelated to Costco Auto Buying. The Costco Auto Buying Program contracts with the Affinity Development Group. I just got a text here.

Let me interrupt myself. And this is Jeff in Jupiter. And I appreciate the text very much, Jeff. Jeff's text says I'm Jeff and live in Jupiter I've seen folks get killed when their vehicle goes full throttle and they don't know what to do but panic

I had a 2002 Hyundai Santa Fe that did that was able to handle it by putting it neutral and turning the key off our new cars set up to just turn the key off I hope you reported that Hyundai incident to the National Highway Traffic

Safety Association certainly to Hyundai manufacturer into the Hyundai dealer. I haven't heard of that. This is reminiscent of the old sudden acceleration for Toyota's a few years back. And the ultimate decision on that, it was independently studied by NASA engineers and a lot of other independent third parties to determine that there was no malfunction of the Toyotas. It was actually the car accelerating brake being depressed simultaneously.

And since then, there has been a lot of changes. and the way the cars are built. So it's very difficult to do that. And if you do it, it will not suddenly accelerate. Rick, can you stop a car today by putting it in neutral and turning the key off? Absolutely. Although, truthfully, the best option, because now pretty much every modern car,

now that they're all computer-driven, the way the engines are run, when you step on the brake, the gas pedal is automatically overridden by the computer. Yes. And it puts the engine back at idle speed automatically. Yes. Well, technically you can stop the car. I would highly recommend it against it

because, as Rick says, you don't need to anymore. The brake, you step on the brake, it's going to stop the car as long as your brakes work. When you turn the engine off, you lose your hydraulic and your power steering. So it would be very, very difficult to steer the car well without power steering assistance and power brakes. Yep.

So thanks very much. much for the text and be sure to report this Hyundai you're having the problem with and if you want to text us again, our text number is 772-4976530 that's 772

4976530. We're going to go to Simone who's a first-time caller from Riviera Beach. Good morning, Simone. Hi, good morning. I'm so happy to have through. I have $50 for you.

oh thank you so if you stay on the line you can give us our your information and we'll get that check out to you what can we do for you this morning yes i was calling because i heard a caller mentioned something about the cars that they're making today with the automatic systems um they that they could be more prone to causing incidents or accidents but um do you still carry stick shift, manual shifting cars? Yes, we do. Most manufacturers do

provide cars with manual transmissions. They're not as many models are used to. Typically, they're the lower price models, but sometimes the performance cars have stick shifts available. And about the only other one would be pickup trucks, some of the pickups.

Oh, nice. Yeah, the automatic transmissions are pretty good, but some people just like to shift gears. Do you carry the Honda Accords or just the Toyota? Well, my dealership has a used car department like most dealerships, and they do carry all makes and models. So if you're looking for a new Honda Accord, you'd have to go to a Honda dealer.

Where do you live, Simone? Riviera. I don't think Rivera B. Yeah, you've got Edmore's Honda on Blue Heron Boulevard. You've got Del Rey Honda and Del Rey. But where's your location? because I always see you on television like you'll have an ad that, say, Earl Stewart, picking up a phone, and we just love that. Well, thank you, someone.

I could sell you a used Honda accord, as I say, I'm not a Honda dealer, and I could, if you want to buy a new one, you'd have to go to a Honda dealer. Oh, but you carry all kinds of cars. I do, Simone, yes. Okay, that's nice to know. Well, thank you very much. I wouldn't want something brand new. Well, thank you, Simone. Very nice of you to call, and we've got so.

We got a check of 50 bucks for you. Stay on the line. And our call on, we'll get your contact information. Sure. Thanks, Simone. We hope to hear from you again. Spread the word. Okay.

We are at almost an hour already. And gosh, we've had a lot of callers, a lot of texts. And we appreciate you because, you know, we're very thankful that you tune in on Saturday morning to listen to Earl Stewart on Cars right here at the Old East Channel, and we're very thankful for you. So give us a call, 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-49-0. Okay, we're going to go to Cheryl, who's a first-time caller, and we're going to make an exception because we are at, well, this is our third female caller,

and we're all so happy. We normally just give out $50 for the first two callers, but this morning there's going to be an exception. Cheryl is calling from Palm Beach Gardens, and she, too, is a first-time caller. Congratulations, Cheryl. Welcome. Oh, thank you very much.

You're welcome. I'd like you to stay on the line so that you can give us your contact information, and we'll get that check out to you what can we do for you this morning I've been having a problem filling up my gas tank in my truck probably within the first two seconds of filling up I'm getting backflow now it's gotten to the point where the gas is literally fitting back out like the hose isn't even having enough time to go off and then I'm getting back flow of gas that just start viewing back out of the gas

tank. So I was basically wondering, I've just never had this problem before and what's going on or if you might have any suggestions for me on that. Yeah, usually there's going to be one of two things occurring. The first one is possibly something is obstructing the filler neck where maybe some, I've actually seen cases where folks were using a funnel to, fill up their gas with, you know, gas from a can, and the sticker on the funnel actually slipped off from the adhesive coming loose and it got caught down in that filler neck. Or if somebody put something in the filler neck, it may be blocking up that spot so the gas isn't making it into the tank. Or the other thing that could possibly cause it is all our fuel tanks now have what's

called a relief valve that as you're filling the tank with gasoline, the vapors, that are in that tank are not allowed to escape into the atmosphere. They have to be collected in the charcoal canister. And if the valve for that is not opening properly, then that would cause it to build up too much pressure and that fluid, liquid gas, would be pushed back up that hose. What type of vehicle is this that we're talking about? I've got a Cadillac Escalate.

Yeah, that's something you're going to want to have checked by the dealership. they're going to need to check that filler neck and make sure that nothing's obstructing the fuel flow into the tank and then check that emission system to make sure those valves are actually letting that fuel vapor go into the charcoal canister where it belongs. Okay. Federal emission laws won't allow those vapors to be released into the atmosphere anymore. They have to be collected. Okay. All right. Yeah, it's just one of those things I couldn't quite figure out what the heck was going.

on on. Cheryl, thanks very much for the call. We really appreciate it. Yeah, I really appreciate the information. Thank you so much. Stay on the line. We got 50 bucks for you.

Don't forget, need to get your contact information. Okay, great. Thanks again. I really appreciate it. You're welcome. Cheryl, spread the word. I have a question for the recovering car dealer about our $100 you mentioned. You mentioned that earlier about our listeners falling in on their Costco purchase.

Thank you for reminding me. Nancy. I want to talk to some Costco members. If you're a member of the Costco Auto Buying Program and you bought a car through Costco, I'd love to have you call the show. I started to get this a little while ago. I spoke with Rick Borg. Rick Borg is the executive vice president of a company called Affinity Development Group, which manages and runs the Costco Auto Buying Program, separate company. And we had a long conversation yesterday evening. I'd like to hear from Costco members, and I will pay $100 to the charity of your choice. Big Dog Ranch Rescue would be the charity of my choice.

But if a Costco member who has had an experience with the Costco Auto Buying Program will call the show and relate their experience, good, bad, or indifferent, I think the Costco company is one of the greatest companies on the planet. I think their brand image is one of the strongest, most honest, transparent images. The Costco Auto Buying Program is another issue. And I went after the Costco Auto Buying Program last week on the show because of what happened with Schumacher Chevrolet. Schumacher Chevrolet was not including all of their dealer fees in the Costco price.

And that's what my discussion with Rick Borg was about. He was a little defensive about it, but after a while we came to realize and we have a tentative agreement that he will watch the South Florida. Florida dealers especially, more carefully, who are Costco auto dealers, and that they will have to adhere to all the rules of the Costco auto buying program. Rick Borg probably will be listening to this show or watching the show because I told him that we would cover the information having to do with the Costco auto buying program. He took offense at the fact that I referred to his company, the Affinity

Development Group, A-F-F-F-I-N-I-T-Y, Affinity Development Group, is the phony Costco auto-buying program. That's an unfortunate choice of terms. I apologize for calling them phony. What I meant to

say is that the Affinity Development Group runs the Costco auto-buying program, and they are no way affiliated in any way, shape, or form, management, ownership, or otherwise, with the Costco group, which is one of the strongest brands on the planet Earth in terms of retail. So I think they could do a better job of identifying themselves as being the real seller of the car,

of being the real third-party source of selling cars for the Costco Auto Group. They don't clearly define that. And the other thing that Rick Borg and his Affinity Development Group don't do is they don't, in my opinion, police their dealers very well. He says they do mystery shop their dealers, and I told them if they're not doing a very good job of mystery shopping, their dealers. Because in South Florida, virtually, I'm going to take the virtually out of there, in South Florida, every time we shopped a car dealer on the Costco auto buying program, they violated the rules. Now, the Costco auto buying program, which is really the Affinity Development Group auto buying program, which Costco advertises for them. What the Costco out-of-mine program has is a list, a Costco price list, that the car their members buy has to have the Costco price on that list.

In my opinion and what I told Rick Borg that all of the dealer fees that the dealers charges in South Florida, the car dealer fees are well over $1,000. We have dealers in South Florida charging over $3,000 for dealer fees. they are not including this extra profit in the Costco price and I explained that to Rick Borg he said that he didn't agree with that

and he writ to me the Schumacher Chevrolet because he'd seen the show where I had Mr. Shop's Schumacher Chevrolet last week he said look Schumacher Chevrolet disclosed their $799 dealer fee I said well he disclosed the $799 dealer fee

but they did not disclose their other dealer fees that have different names they had a tag agency fee and electronic filing fee and there was about two hundred dollars of extra fees that they omitted and none of the fees the 799 or the other two hundred dollars in fees were included in the Costco price he said they were shown at the top of the Costco press sheet now in our mystery shops we found that in most cases the car dealers never show the price sheet to their Costco member in our experience.

And Rick Borg, I know you're listening right now, and I told you this last night in our conversation, we are going to step up our mystery shops of Costco dealers in South Florida. We're going to be shopping them. I'm going to send you a copy of it. I'll be seeing it to the Florida Attorney General's office. I'll be sending it to the blog.

It'll be displayed to the public. I'll be giving it to Costco. to Costco company, and I'll be sending it to Mark D'Garberian, D'Garbedian, excuse me, Mark D'Garbedian, who is the National Marketing Manager for Costco, and don't confuse Costco with the Affinity Development Group. So, Mark D'Garbedian will be getting a copy of the Mr. Shopping Reports. Mr. Borg, Rick Borg, will be getting a copy. We'll have a displayed public for everybody to get. So the world will see,

what people do when they go through the Costco auto buying program and try to buy a car in South Florida. So that's the reason I like to hear from you Costco members out there. I would love to talk to you if I'm not speaking accurately. If you had a good experience with a Costco auto buying program, we'd like to hear about it. I'd also like to hear if you saw the Costco price sheet when you bought the car.

I know that you were quoted a price from a Costco representative were a car dealer salesman who purported be a Costco member representative, but did you actually see the price sheet that he got the price off of? And if you did see the price sheet, did the price sheet have written the number of dealer fees that you paid at the top of the sheet? I think not. In some cases, my guess is they never display more than one dealer fee. the extra dealer fees, which can total another $1,000, in addition to the main dealer fee,

are never included in the price. That was the case with Schumacher Buick. There was $200 in extra dealer fees weren't disclosed. So this is what I'd like to hear from. I pay $100 to your favorite charity. If you don't have a favorite charity, I'll give it to the Big Dog Ranch Rescue that is my favorite charity. So Costco members, please call us 877-960-9960. number you can talk to us on

877-960 9960 if you want to text us you Costco members 772-497-6530 Texas at 772 497-6-530 and I'll pay $100 to your favorite charity which could be you by the way

I'll give you the $100. I want to hear a Costco member's experience in the Costco Auto Buying Program and Rick Borg I think I've covered this fairly. I did tell Rick Borg that the video of this show last week where I said that the Affinity Development Corporation was the phony Costco,

I told them that I would delete that YouTube video. And I will do that. But we're going to replace it with this video of what I'm saying right now. And I am, again, openly challenging the real Costco. I'm openly challenging the Affinity Development, group which is contracted with by Costco to materially seriously change the way they disclose dealer fees in the Costco price it's unfair to the Costco members and

that's the reason I want a Costco member to call and see what their experience was did you see the Costco price sheet if so did it disclose the dealer fees that you had to pay on the car did you talk at all about how they're establishing these Costco prices The way they establish the Costco prices, and this is from our experience, they say that they are looking at the invoices of what the dealers charge. I don't believe that. No.

I believe they are taking the feedback from their field people that call the dealers and say, what is your price that you're charging for a Honda Civic, for a Honda Corde, for all the vehicles in the Honda line or the Toyota or the Chevrolet line, and they're taking that price and they are using that when they call the next dealer. I think it's hearsay that they're getting these prices rough. That's our experience. So that's our

experience. I didn't know what Rick had to say about it, Rick Borg. Rick said that they are taking the information from the buyer's orders of the car dealers. And that's something that needs to be clarified. I don't believe that's the case. Even if they were going by the... He's being told that. It's just not happening. He's being told that, yeah.

I think the people in the field are not accurately reporting to Rick Borg. So there we are. We've got ourselves a real hornet nest here. We've exposed something. I've got a lot of reasons for being upset about this. You can hear by my voice that I'm emotional about this. Slightly agitated.

Slightly agitated. Slightly agitated. I love Costco. I truly mean that. And a lot of people that see me at the Costco store, the warehouse, they call them, on North Lake Boulevard very frequently. They know me. Costco people know me.

I know a lot of Costco members. We've been shopping there. My company buys his products from Costco. Nancy and I buy our Costco's personally from Costco. I hate to see the brand being damaged by the affinity development group. The brand. Yeah, exactly. And why do things have to be so complicated?

And guess what? That's a rhetoric question. Let me answer it. I want to go someplace. It's not rhetoric. Let me answer that. It's complicated because. the car dealers understand it.

It's complicated because the customers can't understand it. And that's what car dealers like. They like complicated issues. They don't want transparency and simplicity. The simplicity is this. You got a Costco membership price. Put the out-the-door

price. That's the price the Costco member should pay. Why should the Costco member have to pay the additional profit to the dealer in the thousands of dollars without knowing they're paying it? It's complicated. It shouldn't be complicated.

Now, here's another thing that Rick Borg and I talked about, Rick Borg being the Affinity Development Group employee who is working for the Costco Auto Buying Program. He said to me that he's told by his dealers in Florida that if the dealer charges one member or one person a dealer fee, they have to charge all of their members or customer dealers fees. Wrong, wrong. That is not true.

Wait a minute. Pick me up off the floor, would you? Exactly. That's what the car dealers tell their customers. What he alluded to has to do with, and we had this specific conversation, there is a civil rule. There's EEOC rules. There are rules that say that if you sell a minority a car at one price and you sell somebody else a car at a different price, you could be subject to civil suit because you are discriminating. Women have to pay the same price for cars as men and African Americans have to pay the same price as whites.

Hispanics have to pay the same price. If you're Jewish or Christian or Muslim, you have to pay the same price. Got nothing to do with dealer fees. If you charge one person in dealer fee, you don't have to charge the next person in dealer fee. It's up to you. But this is what Rick Borg thought. And so that tells you something right there.

He's being misinformed by his car dealers. Absolutely. I'm just going to throw this out there. How many consumers go into Costco and know that they are dealing with affinity development, the affinity development group, this car auto program? Well, I'd like to, I'd love to, hear from a Costco member and answer that question. I think the answer is nobody. but let's share from the Costco members

100 bucks to a Costco member that's had an experience with their auto buying program 100 bucks to your favorite charity or to my favorite charity, Big Dog Ranch Rescue. I want to pay $100 just to call the show 877-960-99-60. That's 877-9-60 and you can text us.

I'll pay 100 bucks for the text if you give me the information that we're looking for, which is did you see the Costco membership price sheet. If you saw the Costco membership price sheet, did it fully disclosed their dealer fees? You can text to 772

497-6530. That's 772-497-6530. Now let me tell you one more subject of conversation that Rick Borg of the Affinity Development Group, aka Costco auto-buying program, discussed. I said to him, the Florida law says that you must include,

all dealer fees in the advertised price for the car I said on your Costco membership list you are telling Costco members that we have a special price for you if you come into our Costco dealers we have a special price you can go on and look at the special price if you like the special price you can buy the car I say that's an advertised price he's well no that's not an advertisement that's just the price for our Costco members I think when you go out to a group of people and say, I got a price for you, and you come into the car dealership,

and you show them the price, and they say, I will buy the car, or I won't buy the car, that you've advertised that price. I believe that's an advertisement. And Rick Borg of Affinity Development Group, a.k.a. Costco Auto Bank Program, if you're doing that, and I'm right, you're breaking the law. You're breaking the law in Florida.

And maybe Pam Bondi ought to know about it. She's our Florida Attorney General. let's see what she doesn't care she doesn't care right i've been talking to her she doesn't we're going to we're going to delete the uh video that you didn't like where i called the affinity development group the phony Costco we're going to delete that and it will be replaced with this video which i hope you like better although i don't think you will like it better sounds like a plan but on a serious note let me bring the level down a little bit because i am i am angry now and i notice you've been putting your hand up to

to me so that I don't get involved with my passion because you don't want me to... I will work with Rick Borg to improve what he's doing in Florida. I told Rick... That's a plan. I said, I'm not looking for perfection. I just want an improvement

in the way you disclose to Costco members, the dealer fees that are being added to the Costco price. I want to be sure that the Costco members to go through the Costco Auto Buy program know about the $1,000 and extra profit that's added to the

Costco price. If you can assure me that's being done, I'll get off your back and I'll get off the back of the Affinity Development Group and the Costco Auto Buying Program. And it keeps the consumer, you know, well, how can I put it? They really believe in the consumer, the Costco brand, and you just don't want to violate that at all. Where do I go when I want to purchase something? I take a look at the Consumer Report. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to do anything else, I don't have to go any further. So whenever you purchase a vehicle through this car program,

you want to know with all your heart that the Costco brand is protecting you and giving you what you want. Well, thank you for mentioning the Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports' auto buying program does include all non-government fees and the Consumer Reports

price. When you buy a car through the Consumer Reports' auto buying program, the dealer fees, all the dealer fees, dealer install accessories, everything except government fees are included in that price. Now, the Consumer Report's Auto Buying Program also happens to be the True Car Auto Buying Program. This is what True Car rules are. Interesting debate that we had, and I'm talking about my debate with Rick Borg of the Affinity Development Group,

aka Costco Auto Buying Program, we debate a true car. I said, Rick, why don't you do what True Car does is include everything except government fees, sales tax and license plate. Put all your dealer fees like TrueCard does and the True Car price. Put all those dealer fees into the Costco price. He said the True Car program

is a joke. The dealers abuse the program. They don't do that. I said, Rick, you're right. A lot of them do. In fact, that's your problem with the Costco other buying program. We went back and forth. I said, Rick, you and I both know that, conservatively

speaking, over half of the dealers are dishonest. He says, I would agree with that. He's not going to like me saying that because the car dealers don't like to hear that. He's from the industry. Yeah, he's from the industry. Rick, before he got into the Affinity Development Group,

worked for a car dealership. I can say True Car, True Car discloses it as clearly as it can be. It even discloses the dealer-installed equipment. Rick worked for the Autoland from 1990 and 1992. which sounds to me like a car dealership, used car dealership,

and now he's with the Affinity Development Group. But the fact of the matter is the True Car Program and the Consumer Reports Program, intent is good. Consumer Reports, I mean, who can question Consumer Reports? I get worried the Consumer Reports will find out that the True Car Auto Buying Program is not enforcing it as well as they should. And I agree, I'm a true car dealer. I used to be on the True Car National Dealer Council.

I fought with Chip Perry a lot, and I fought with Scott Painter, the previous CEO, about the fact that their car dealers were not adhering to the rules of the program. But at least True Car has rules that are good, and Consumer Reports had rules that are good. So I told Rick Borg, include all of your profits to the dealer in the Costco price. All the profit. You don't have to include the sales tax.

or their license plate, government fees are excluded. That's okay. Costco auto buying program include all the profit to the dealer, meaning all the dealer fees. True car intent to do that. Do the dealers follow through? Not necessarily. And consumer reports are they say...

But it's harder to mess with. It's a lot clear for the consumers. It is. If I call true car, I call consumer reports, and I'm either Earl Stewart or I'm an advocate, or I'm a customer, and I tell them that somebody took advantage

of them and did not follow the consumer report or the true car rules. They're all over that dealer. They'll cancel the dealer, discipline the dealer, and you will get your money back if they overcharge you. They have the rules. Costco auto buying program Affinity Development Group doesn't

have those rules. They do not require the extra profit, also known as dealer fees, be included in the Costco price. That's just flat wrong, Rick Borg. It's flat wrong. We got some texts. Okay, fantastic.

Look at the text here. And I got more to send you. I don't want to clutter your phone. Yeah. Do we have a text on me? No, you don't want to do that. Do we have texts on the Costco Auto Buying Program? No, not yet.

Somebody else beat you. Oh, I got a photo here of a doggy. It's a cute photo. A grateful. So this dog rescue photo, knowing how you help all Big Dog Ranch. Thought you would enjoy a happy, appreciate dog. It was always a great job. You said, thank you very much.

That is a really cute picture. Yeah, we should see that. More dogs. And I sent you another one just now. Okay. This is probably for Rick. Oh, Ricky. Here you go. I'll let you read it off my phone. Okay. Let's see.

Subject 2017 Highlander Limited. I purchased a new Highlander in your dealership in July, and I'm having trouble using my iPhone in the vehicle hands free with N-Tune. Callers are hearing themselves. I've changed the speakers' balance to the rear lowered the volume and adjusted the volume my phone without a change for the caller how can

this be corrected thank you mary g um mary i hope you're listening on this one the first thing that i would recommend is stop in at our dealership or pretty much any toyota dealership and let them know you're having an issue and see if there are any radio updates software updates uh just like your iPhone gets automatic updates quite often you know it you'll you'll you'll you'll You'll see it suddenly say that it needs to update and it'll restart. The radio in your car now has updates as well. However, they cannot be done automatically. You have to go to the dealership and we have to plug your computer in and update the radio that way.

The other thing you can try is, of course, I know this gets a little more tricky, is deleting your phone from the car and delete the car from your phone, basically reboot the pairing system. That solves everything. Reboot. Quite often it will. And the other thing that I'd recommend you try is turn down the volume, not of the speakers, but of the microphone. And you'll need to look in the settings in the radio.

Each one's just a little bit different. But look in the settings for the radio and turn down the microphone power just a little bit. And that quite often will solve that issue of them hearing themselves being repeated back. Rick, I got a question. And some of the cars now, I know a few Toyotas do, other manufacturers are having these connected cars. Is there a time coming soon where you'll be able to do these updates over the air like your phone where you don't have to take to the car dealership, it just does it for you? Yes, that's actually one of the next steps.

That's coming very soon. As a matter of fact, one of the biggest issues we have with cars is the check engine light. And right now, the 2018 Camry has the capability. that you can connect your phone to the car, and you have to authorize this. This is only done if the customer wants to do this. If the check engine light turns on on your car, that information would automatically be sent to Toyota and to your local dealership that you have chosen and programmed in,

and that dealer could then have information about why that check engine light came on. It's not a mystery light anymore. Well, if it's something as simple as a gas cap, they can call you up and say, hey, you know, did you just get fuel? If so, check your gas cap. If it's loose, we can turn that light off right now. remotely. Remotely without you ever even having you stop and tighten the gas cap.

We turn the light off and you're all set and done. That is cool. That's the new technology coming. Is our next technology? Yeah, this is a follow up on the Hyundai with the sudden acceleration problem. Yeah. Thanks, Earl, after they towed my Santa Fe to the dealer, The problem was that the cruise control cable broke.

I have a Pacifica now, 07, and it'll die sometimes and I'm able to put it in neutral and start it while coasting and restart it. Saw on TV about a recall for that on newer cars, but they said no on mine. So thanks again. So this acceleration problem was a broken cruise control cable. That's interesting. That's kind of scary. Yeah.

Well, I wasn't expecting that. As crazy as it sounds, I actually saw a case where a car's engine accelerated, wildly out of control for the customer because a rat or a mouse had gotten in the air cleaner and chewed a hole through the filter and the material from that filter got sucked up into the throttle body

and stuck it wide open. Oh, wow. It was the craziest thing I had seen and it's so I mean, unfortunately odd things do happen with cars. You know, it's this world can be a little tricky sometimes. There's a lot of things that can happen.

I have a story that'll top that. I'd just like to be driving on 45th Street and lose your steering wheel and the car's out of control and hits a pole. I would not like that. Your steering wheel came off in your hands.

That's terrifying. I'm driving along 44th. I got a steering wheel. That brings new meeting to the loose nut behind the wheel. Where are you Costco members out there? I know you're out there. There are a lot of Costco members listening to this show. Don't be shy. I mean,

Do you have a favorite charity? I want to pay you hundred bucks. If you bought a car through the Costco Auto Buying Program and you will relate your experience to us by calling us at 877-9-60-9-60, that's 877-9-60, 960, call the show and I'll give you 100 bucks. Donate to your charity. Or if you don't want to go through the rig-a-roll of donating the money, I will give the $100 to Big Dog Grants Rescue, which is my favorite charity.

We want to hear about your experience with the Costco auto buying program. Reason being that we're having a dispute with Rick Borg of the Affinity Development Group who manages the Costco Auto Buying Program and the way they are revealing dealer fees to Costco members that buy in the Costco Automine Program. The dealer fees are not being included in the Costco price. the dealer fees are sometimes not being mentioned at all and when they do disclose it they don't put it in the price they put it at the top of the price sheet according to rig Borg

but in our experience we haven't seen that happen in our mystery shops in fact what we see in our mystery shops in most cases in South Florida Costco other members never see the Costco member price sheet transparency so Costco members I know you're out there We're only a few miles away from a Costco on North Lake Boulevard. There's got to be hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of Costco members listening to the show. Do we have to do a live remote broadcast from Costco? What a great idea.

Wouldn't that be something? All right, I'll get the car started up. That's, yeah. Well, we'll talk to the management here at True Oldies and see if we can do a live remote Costco. Of course, we'll have to ask Costco, too. We'll get some chickens while we're there. Yeah. Come on, 100 bucks for your charity.

Costco members, call the show, 877-960-99-60. That's 877-960-960. Or if you're not a Costco member, and you know somebody who is a Costco member, call them and say, you want to make 100 bucks? This guy, Earl Stewart, is giving you 100 bucks. Just call 877-960-99-60 and talk about your experience with the Costco auto buying program. Let me tweet hashtag free money at Earl Stewart on the cars.

Hey, how, you know, I was thinking about it. We don't do enough with hashtags. Hashtag dealer fee Costco auto buying program. We could get that going maybe. We'll work on it. 877-960-99-60 or text us at 772-497-3530. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, from, well, Greco Chevrolet Delray Beach is our mystery shopping report. We're going to be going to that shortly.

I see where we have about 30 minutes left to the show, and ladies and gentlemen, you're a huge part of the show. Please continue to give us a call. Lines are clear right now. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-4976530. And, well, we're waiting to hear from those Costco consumers, the ones who, I want to go to, you know, Costco and, well, purchase a vehicle and feel like as if that they're, well, they're home, so to speak. It's sort of like just feeling good going to Costco and knowing that you're getting a good price, an honest price, transparency. Now back to the recovering car dealer.

Okay, I'm going to do my commercials. Do you? Can you grab my book for me? I want to do a book commercial. I wrote a book called Confessions of Recovering Car Dealer. Thank you very much. And this is on Amazon. You can buy it on Amazon.

Confessions of a recovering car dealer. It's a handbook on kind of how to do it book on how to buy a car, lease a car without being ripped off by your car dealer. And if you buy the book on Amazon, 100% of the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Big Dog Ranch Rescue is my favorite charity. That's the reason I said, if Costco members will call the show, I'll donate $100 to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Big Dog Ranch Rescue is the largest no-kill shelter. We do not euthanize our dogs.

They're the largest in Florida, certainly South Florida. We have a lot of doggies out there. By the way, we have little dogs, too. We say Big Dog Ranch Rescue, but we rescue little dogs. And mid-sized dogs. and mid-sized, small, medium, and large. So buy Confessions of Recovering Car Dealer on Amazon, and the donation of 100%, not just a profit,

but 100% of what you pay will go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. I think we have a caller. We do have a caller, and he's calling from Stewart. It's Michael. Welcome to the show, Michael. Nice to hear from you. Same here. Good morning.

The reason why I'm calling, I'm a Costco member. Yeah. And I've been looking at Volvos, and are you going to certain dealers' websites? They're discounting them on a $60,000 car. They're discounting them about $15,800. All of a sudden, I said, I'm a Costco member, and they dropped the price by $5,000. And no. Well, that's good.

That's good. Yeah, I mean, I have not shopped it on true value. I've not looked at true value on it. I don't know if true value is comparable. Michael, the point is the Costco Auto Buying Program is really a good thing, but it needs to be a better thing.

You probably haven't decided to buy the Volvo yet, and you probably haven't been into the dealership. But should you decide, when you go into the Volvo dealership with your Costco card, first insist on speaking with the Costco representative,

that is named on the Costco website. Have you been online to the Costco website? No, I have not. Okay, that's very important. And I fear a lot of people like you just hear about the program and don't go online. When you go online, they will show you one, two, three, maybe several names of Costco representatives. And they will instruct you online to look for the Costco price sheet when you go in. So they might give you the name Bill Jones.

He's a Costco representative at the Volvo dealer. You go in the Volvo dealer, you speak to Bill Jones, you verify that he is a Costco representative, and then you say, may I see the sheet, the price sheet. The model Volvo that you want to buy will be on that price sheet, and then they will have a price there that will be a discount from invoice. The invoice is not the MSRP, of course. It's a lower price.

It still packs a lot of profit in, and the discount can be $2,000, $3,000, whatever the Costco price is now here's the problem the problem is this price does not also show the Volvo dealers dealer fees and I say that plural because most dealers in South Florida have several dealer fees these dealer fees total over a thousand dollars we know dealer fees of some dealers over $3,000 so the discounted price that you see on the sheet if you're lucky enough to see the sheet will not have the dealer fees subtracted from that price.

So when you buy it, it's the Costco price. They add thousands of dollars of dealer fees. That is why we want you and all Costco members to be very cautious because you will be taken advantage of under the Costco auto-buying

program if you do not understand this and see the Costco price sheet. And Michael, thank you. What is your favorite charity? Yours. The same one. Big dog. I am going to donate $100 in your name to the Costco,

to the Big Dog Ranch Rescue. Big Dog Ranch Rescue, $100 in Michael's name. Thank you very, very much for the... One other thing, if you don't mind. I bought a Corvette. I could not buy it in Florida. I had to buy it in New Jersey. And I shipped it down to Florida,

and it was still $5,000 cheaper than I could buy in Florida. Well, good for you. That's smart. Shopping. Corvettes are very, very hard to come by for Chevrolet dealers. And certain Chevrolet dealers, I mentioned this last week, are favored. And for one reason or another, politically or otherwise. And car dealers will sometimes get thousands of dollars over MSRP for a Corvette because there's a greater demand than supply. You were smart enough to find a dealer in New Jersey that was able to give you a significant discount. And when you're buying an expensive car like a Corvette, you should shop all over, Michael. And I salute you as being a very educated consumer. Thank you.

Thank you for the call. Michael, could you stay on the line and give us your contact information just in case we need it? And congratulations for being, well, a very knowledgeable consumer. And thank you for tuning in, Earl Stewart on Cars. Have a great day. Thank you. You too. Bye-bye.

John's calling from West Palm Beach, and we are going to take his call right now. Hey, John. How can we help you? Oh, good morning. Good morning. I wanted to congratulate you for your efforts in trying to shine some light on some of these fees that the car dealers assess you. Thank you. I'm a Costco member, but I am not going to be using the program because I've decided that I can't afford the type of car that I want. So I'm going to shop used cars.

And again, as you know, that is an effort. Yeah. You know, Costco has an auto buying program for use cars as well. Oh, all right. I wasn't aware of that. I appreciate that. I will check that out. What I'm looking for is currently a Ford expedition,

and my wife wants to limit it, so I've got to find a limited. And one of the dealers that I'm looking at is awfully solely, and I'm just wondering if you've ever, you know, looked at them to do business. Yeah, I know them well, John. They're one of the largest used car dealers in Florida, probably the country. Certainly Florida. I think they outsell CarMax. They do, yeah.

Offlease-only.com are honest and that they comply with the law. The thing you have to watch out for at off-lease-only.com is the fact that they buy a lot of cars, they buy virtually all their cars at auctions. And they buy the cheaper cars at auctions is the one that have been damaged. They buy cars with frame damage

and cars that have been in accidents that a lot of car dealers would not normally want to retail on their lots. So when you buy a car at off-lease-only.com, there is no guarantee. I believe they have a five-day exchange. They do with some limitations, mileage and conditioning. But you need to have the car checked out thoroughly before you buy it. You need to see the Carfax Report. Carfax Report will tell you pretty much what you want to know.

Nothing beats having a mechanic go over a car. but you need to know what really happened of that car before you bought it. The prices are very good at offlease only.com. You will find probably a Ford Expedition Limited at offlease only.com

at much less money than you will at most other car dealers. Anywhere else. Anywhere else. The problem is that a car you'll want to own for three or four years because a lot of times

they have serious problems that are hidden. Cosmetically, they usually look pretty good. But it's what you see, you get at offleaseonly.com. They go by the book. You bought the car, you own the car, end the conversation. I mean, there's some danger, but if you do the right due diligence, like you suggest. You do the due diligence, you can get a really good buy. Sometimes the damage doesn't really have any effect on the car's driveability later on. Exactly. Sometimes it does,

so just be careful. That's all. Yeah. Frame damage used to be a lot more serious than it is today. With the unibodies, what they call frame damage is disputable. I frankly think they should redefine the entire frame damage criteria. Yeah, they should. Yeah, they should. It's, it can appear serious. A Carfax report. It's a very broad brush. Yeah. So it's buyer beware

with all place only.com, but I would definitely shop them and just as Stu said, do your due diligence. Mechanic check the car and the Carfax report. Right. They do at least, they published the Carfax report right online

so you can go read it. Yeah. Even prior to going to the dealership, and you might have seen some that they even indicate frame damage, or they'll say damage, no airbag deployed, something like that. So, you're right. You know, it's a warning flag to say, this car may be okay, but check it out thoroughly. Exactly. John, one other warning, if you're going to finance the car, when you go into the all-policeonly.com finance department, be real careful.

keep your hand on your wallet, keep your eyes open, have a... Bring your own finances. Or better yet, go to your own bank or credit union because they really are, they're really aggressive in the finance department. They will attempt to sell you a lot of products, they call them. They'll attempt to charge you a higher interest rate. They have the highest price finance managers in the industry. the finance managers, they call on business managers, make what, $2,300,000 a year?

North of that. Ask to see where the finance managers park their cars and then go find the Bentley's and Lamborghinis their drive. If you find out that the F&I finance business manager that off Leas-Nalli is driving a Rolls-Royce, you know you've got a problem. But they really go after you in the finance department.

It's buyer beware and financier beware. You really ought to arrange your own financing. Oh, definitely. I'm going to go through my credit union. There you go. Very smart. Like 40 years ago. I walk in on the papers and it's usually pretty easy.

Good. And if you want an extended warranty or something, you can get a better deal through your credit union than you can at one of those. Exactly. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors going on back there. Boy, do we have an educated consumer here. We do. Yeah. John, I'll tell you what.

you have done your homework through the years you're not going to get taken advantage of but you can also go to www florida car dealer excuse me uh good dealer bad dealer list dot com and you can you can take a look at all of the uh well all of the shopping reports and the dealerships that uh we've been involved with and uh this will give you an idea uh you know that where you can go where you're not going to be taken advantage of That's fantastic, and I appreciate it. I've learned something, even though, as you said, I'm fairly educated, but one of the things I didn't realize that you could get a used car through Costco's as well. So I love Costco's too. I live pretty close to one now, and I go there and get gas and everything. They're the best.

When you go to Costco on the use car program also, be sure you see the Costco price sheet. Be sure that you deal with the Costco representative displayed online. and be sure that all of the dealer's fees, the extra fees, are added to the Costco price because they won't be. You have to be sure the price you pay will be their dealer fees on top of the Costco price, which is the big issue I have. Right. Your best bet's probably off-lease only by just doing your due diligence.

You'll probably get the better deal there. But I'd love to see when you're doing a search or whatever that there's a way that you could get the dealers that don't charge the extra fees. Normally, you have to go figure that out and sort it out and sometimes even call them to find, you know. We got to do that. That's going to be, we have something called our top five focus objectives. That'll be one of our top five focus objectives to get all the dealer fees of all the car dealers that we shop. And we'll rank them between highest dealer fee to the lowest dealer fee.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any that doesn't have a dealer fee anymore. Yeah, very few. We have a few that charge small dealers fees. I think CarMax has a relatively small dealer fee. $199. $199. They're probably the lowest. But a Mullanex Ford used not to charge a dealer fee.

We shopped them, found out Mulnex Ford has a relatively small dealer fee. But we'll rank them. Number one will be Al Hendrickson, Toyota, and Coconut Creek for $3,500. And at the bottom of the list will be CarMax? I'm going to yeah probably probably but we'll do that John thank you very much for the call yeah John thanks for being part of the show we hope to hear from you again

you know I think that's a good rule of thumb I appreciate your effort thanks a lot you're quite welcome anybody tries to say anything asked to see what kind of car they drive that's a good idea exactly how about at the bottom of that list $75 for a dealer fee let's see who has that

I don't know nobody Not in Florida. Unless you want to move to California, and they have a cap. They have a cap on their dealer fee. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to remind you if you are unable to listen to our live show where you want to listen to any of our past shows, you can always subscribe to Errol Stewart on Cars podcast on your smartphone or tablet

using any of the following podcast apps. And that's Apple, SoundCloud, Google Play, Google. Google Play Music, Stitcher Radio, tune-in radio, and also pocketcasts, and overcasts. So if you would like to watch highlights from our show, go to

YouTube.com slash Earl on Cars. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I think we're going to get to the mystery shopping report. Guico, Chevrolet, Delray Beach. Over the last 10 years or so, we've missed to shop hundreds of dealers.

We've investigated largely, large publicly owned dealerships like AutoNation, tiny mom and pop, like Aubrey's AutoShare. That was literally a mom and pop, I believe. We always have a purpose to see if the car dealer will disclose the existence of a to cut airbag or to see at what extent a salesperson will exploit a naive and unprepared car shopper. A favorite of ours has always been finding a car, a car ad that just looks too good to be true, gigantic discount, ridiculously low monthly payment.

And nearly every case like these are shopping. have unraveled the scam, exposing the ways car car dealers get out of actually honoring the problems in the ad, a classic bait-and-switch. Lately, however, it's become more difficult to find these extraordinary advertisements. They still exist, but changes in the way card dealers advertise, less newspaper and television, and marketing restrictions imposed by manufacturers have made them more scarce. I like to think maybe Earl Stewart on Cars' show has had some effect too. So when we stumbled upon an ad for a brand new Chevy Cruise being advertised by Greco, Chevrolet, and Delray Beach, we jumped to the chance to check out a possible old-fashioned bait and switch.

We've shopped about a half dozen Greco dealerships over the years. They are all on the do not recommend list, every one of them. You spoiled it. Spoiler alert. They are all on the do not recommend list found at gooddealerbedderlist.com. also at Earl on Cars.com. Believe me, they've done it all. Deceptive ads, high pressure.

Grico is the new Napleton. Or maybe Napleton is the old Grico. I don't know. They're both. They're both pretty bad. This time, the ad offered $5,000 off a new 2018 Chevy Cruise, a small car akin to the Ford Focus for Honda Civic. That sounds like a pretty big discount for a car

in the low $20,000 price range, although if rebates for a vehicle, it wouldn't be unheard of. However, given Grico's track record, we decided to send an Agent X to make sure. Speaking of the first person, like I'm the shopper, I pulled into Grico Chevrolet shortly after the sales department opened at 9 a.m. Park tried to find a new 2018 Chevy Cruze on the lot. I wanted for about 10 minutes unable to locate a cruise and failing to get the attention of any salespeople. I went inside to find help.

I met Steven right away. In his introduction, I learned he was a salesperson, he was brand new. Hear that all the time. Mr. Shopping, of course, huge turnover in car dealerships with salespeople. Almost commonplace, the salesperson had only been there a short time. This case, he'd only been there three weeks. Stephen asked what I was looking for, and I told him I wanted to get a new cruise. I didn't mention the offer.

He sat me down at a table, took out a paper questionnaire, and began to gather information about me. His technique was clinical, and it felt like an interrogation. He wrote down my answers until I got frustrated and I stopped him. Hey, can I take a look at the car? I could get the information later. I give you the information later. Stephen said he was supposed to get the whole form filled out, but he would go check with his managers see if he could skip.

So he's kind of like a mechanical. This is a train. They go through. They say, Stephen, this is what you do. You know, exactly. Do exactly what I tell you. So he's being a robot. That's what new salespeople do.

So he went to see if he could skip ahead of what they told him to do. I asked him to hurry, said I didn't have a ton of time. He said he would go talk to Javier, his manager. After five minutes, Stephen returned, said, let's go. We went outside, I followed him across the lot. He walked from one section to the other. I noticed that Stevens seemed lost. First day out night, he's been there three weeks.

He shouldn't get lost. He asked if he could go run and ask Javier where the cruises were. So I said, okay, and I stood there listening to a huddle of salespeople shooting the breeze while I waited for Stephen to get back. I apologize. This is not one of our better shopping reports, so, but. It's pretty funny. It is funny, yeah. It's not educational, but it's funny.

He finally came outside with a key in his hand. He said he was sorry. He could not find where the cruises were. He asked me to wait a little more, and it would run fine and then bring it to me. He sprinted it away again. and I waited some more. I timed them this time, 15 minutes, 15 minutes and 4 seconds, until they pulled up in front of me in a new 2018 show.

And this is important, though, because people go through this. Yeah, I don't. This doesn't happen when you go to the grocery store. I know, I know. Or Costco. I know. Good points, too. Good point.

But we're not here to improve the sales techniques of Cardo Lechard. We're here to improve the integrity. Yes. We took it out for a test drive. We didn't say much to each other on the ride. Stephen probably didn't know anything. So there wasn't much he could say. He was excited about the completion of Grico's new facility

next to their Ford store. That's interesting, a Chevy and Ford store side by side. Interesting concept. Not a bad idea. On the way back, I'm not kidding you here, Stephen informed me that we better get some gas. Oh, boy. It is funny.

I mean, it's funny to us because we're in the business and we're lab at how incompetent can you get. Meanwhile, Mike Rico's saying, why don't we sell more cars at Graco Chevrolet? I know John and Howard are enjoying this right now. So it's because your salespeople don't know where the cars are and your other people don't know to put gas in the cars when you take a customer out.

Does Mr. Greco know where he is? Eventually we were seated again at the same table. Stephen pulled out the half-completed questionnaire. I'd forgotten about that. I let him ask anyway, answered all the rest of the questions. He laid the paper down and asked me what kind of payment I wanted. I replied that I told them already. I was paying cash.

I showed him on the questionnaire where I said that. Stephen said he needed to check something with Javier, got up and left to return, and asked me if I was writing a check or getting financing with a bank or credit union. I said it was the latter. I need to speed things up, so I told Stephen that I appreciated that he was new, but I needed to get their best price, all written up on the Marswater. I told him to go ask Javier for the price. he was gone just for a few minutes

before returning and telling me Javier needed to speak with me he led me to Javier's office Javier didn't want to go to him he wanted him to come to Javier bring him to me bring Mohammed to the mountain I was a little nervous

on the walk over Javier told me he had bad news he just learned there was a stop sale just learn stop sale on the cruises there was a major fuel filter fuel pump risk with a fire on the model I wanted to buy

so I just took a test drive and a car you could get on fire it's okay to take your customer for a test drive but we can't sell it so he was unable to write me up today I told Javier I couldn't take delivery today anyway I just needed the price the numbers he said he couldn't do that

maybe if you give the price on the car the car will burst into flame possibly I'm not sure why why is it unsafe to give the price of it I don't know and I don't think Javier knows that I don't think it is illegal to give the price of the car. I said I was in the Chevy store in Lake Worth, and they gave me a buyer's order for the same model.

Javier held his ground. I asked for a minute to call my wife in. Reality, I called Earl Stewart on cars, headquarters, and asked what I should do. I was told to push ahead. I told Javier and Stephen that my wife told me not to leave without an out-the-door price. I told him he was just going to stay there.

That's what I told him. I told him. price, don't go. I told him that I'd seen an ad for $5,000 off. I'm his wife. He needed to get a buyer's order with the deal for the credit union. Javier repeated that he couldn't print a buyer's order because of the stop sale. I counted with the same argument. I asked, hypothetically, can I get $5,000 on? Aviar says yes, but I cannot sell you the car.

He added, there was a $2,000 factory rebate, included the discount that everyone qualified for. I asked him if you give him me in writing, and he said he would, pulled out of pad of paper, green sharpie pen, he wrote MSRP, 20,000, 465, below that he wrote discounted of price 15,465. He made some calculations on his phone, then wrote 18-459 out the door. He said out the door included their $799 dealer fee, which he probably informed me was one of the lowest. Well, good for you, Javier. He said he would call me when the stop sale was finished, and if the rebate was still applicable

I apologize from the shopping report folks we should have shopped another dealership but we did it too late Rick just for the fun of it I looked at the NHTSA website there are no recalls listed

for the 28 Chevy Cruise the Chevy inventory list for the local area around Lake Worth West Palm where I live shows 100 Chevy cruises available for sale and I just did a online chat with, I'll just call her T, and she said, informed me that they have

no information in their resources about any stop sale or recall, but I'd need to speak with the local dealer concerning more information. Well, maybe the jokes are not. I thought about this. I just didn't think they were smart enough to spot us, and if they did spot us, they would just keep the secret. We've never been there before. Well, you know, it's a small world. South Florida's a small world. We've got some confusion. Car sales people work, Javier, might have been working at a Schumacher Chevrolet last week. Or maybe the Chevrolet and all the dealers are networking and saying who our shoppers are describing them.

They might have secret photos of them on the walls. You mean kind of like the post office? If they lied about the stop sale on the cruise, then I would have to say we were busted. So I apologize. I salute you, Grico Chevrolet, for spotting our shopper. Yes, Mr. Greco. If that's what happened. But we're going to be back and you won't spot it.

them next time we used one of our old shoppers and we will be back at mystery shop you and i'll tell you who else we're going to mr shop all you Costco dealers we're coming in we're coming in and we're going to look at your Costco price sheet and we're going to be calling my good friend Rick borg in san diego at affinity development group and we're going to be sending him copies of the mystery shopping report or costo dealers all over south florida so buyer i should say seller beware say seller beware in Latin? Stu can look that up. Vendor, emphor.

No, caveat. Vendor? Maybe. And I, this will be go down in history is the Costco auto buying program, aka affinity development group, Costco

show, where we turn the tide for you Costco members out there because we're going to fix this, folks. We're going to fix it, so you were not deceived by the Costco on the buy program. You've been warned. We're going to pursue this any way we have to

to see that when you buy a car at the Costco member price, it includes all a profit for the dealer. It will not include tag and tax, but that'll be it. It'll be modeled after the Consumer Reports program, the true car program, and it will be rigidly enforced.

So you Costco members will be protected. And the start is with Rick Borg in the Affinity Development Group. And Rick and I will have additional discussion And as I say, we're going to be going mystery shopping all over South Florida. Cafe Venditor. Okay, car dealers, you've been warned there is going to be a coup d'etat. Be prepared.

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you had as much fun as we did this morning. Again, we can't thank you enough for tuning in to Earl Stewart on cars. And to all of the mothers out there, I truly want to wish all of you a very happy Mother's Day. So we'll see you next week.