Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.17.2025 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Okeechobee CDJR of Okeechobee, FL.

Episode Date: May 17, 2025

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels to the small town of Okeechobee in central Florida to visit a local CDJR dealer and see how much over sticker price they will want for a left over 2024 Dodge Hornet Hybrid on their showroom floor. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “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”

Hello, I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female listeners. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also, this is my son, Stu Stewart. our link to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, text messaging, and our encrypted anonymous feedback service. Stu is also the Slymaster Director of our mystery shopping report.

He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting the car dealership. And now on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, here we are, North Bond Beach, Florida. You're how to buy a car or lease a car or maintain a car without being taken advantage of. I've been doing this show for a long, long time. And, you know, I went back the other day and listened to some older shows.

I'll be talking about this later on, why I did that, has something to do with Amazon, has something to do with my second book. But I was going back in history, and Jonathan, our producer here, sent me a couple of podcasts. And I listened to myself, he says, you'll enjoy this. And I listened to myself about 15 years ago or so.

And I'm embarrassed to tell you, it sounds like I'm saying the same thing over and over again. I mean, I don't memorize it, I promise you. You know, I didn't realize that 15 years ago, I was telling you how much fun we had on this show. I usually do that now. and I was talking to you about you are the most important part of the show. And, you know, to hear, when I realize I've been doing it every week for 15 years,

maybe you figured that out. I don't need to say it again. But the truth being told, our audience is different. We've got people that have been with us for 15 years, Earl Stewart on Cars. And we have some marketer callers that have been with us for. longer than that, YouTubers, Facebookers. We've really got a base, a hardcore base of listeners that are actually amazing folks. But we get new people every week, and that's what it's all about. So I, pardon me, you are loyal members of this team here. I consider you a part of the

show. I mean, you're not in the studio with Nancy and Rick and Jonathan, me, and Stu, but you may as well be and the ones that have been with us so long you contribute so much and anyway when I keep telling you or assuming that you are listening to the show we have a lot of new listeners and we got tens of thousands of people coming in I have to remind myself for every person that calls the show there's a few thousand that don't and you know you know most people aren't gonna risk what you're risking. I mean, you're live, you're live in front of tens of thousands of people around the world. Yeah, people, a lot of people don't like to do that. Maintain your anonymity,

or at least maintain the comfort of your home or car wherever you're listening. And I also get too excited, I think, when I do my introduction, and I say things are changing and things are exciting. And it's just me, but it's been crazy. out there with what's going on with automobiles I mean I feel like I mean Henry Ford I mean it was exciting back then when he invented a production line assembly and a car that could be afforded by the average family but look where we are today good God we're talking about self-driving cars I wonder what Henry Ford would say if he heard that how about all electric vehicles no

gasoline no combustion engines what would he have to say about that way that our core focus though is to make life easier for you and that really hasn't changed in over a hundred years so she help is on the horizon the name of that help one of the big helps is Amazon and we're gonna be talking more than usual about Amazon this morning because we're we're on Nancy talk about that we're all going to be talking about it because we want to be an Amazon dealer we want to be a partner with Amazon Amazon is the second largest I think they compete with Walmart for the number one retail crown and they're

an amazing outfit worldwide and huge percentage more than half of everything people buy is through Amazon so cars are no different and And we want to be, we want you to be able to buy cars from Earl Stewart. And Amazon's got a deal going with Hyundai now. But they want to expand it. They say they are going to expand it. So we're going to ask your support to help us become an Amazon dealer. And I think that's pretty cool, pretty exciting.

At any rate, as I said before, we've got a huge amount to talk about sitting next to me as Rick Kearney, the world's best auto technician. And I may have exaggerated slightly. There may be somebody in Italy or China. I don't know where they are, but I don't know who they are. He's the best. He can answer anything about the electronics, software, mechanics of your vehicle. And he corrected me a week or two ago.

He says he's been with me for 30 years. time goes so fast I think I said 20 or 25 and anyway Rick is here and even though I talk about all these exotic things like Amazon and electric vehicles and how to buy a car without being overcharged most of the people that call the show are calling Rick and Rick is he's there he's going to save you a ton of money you can't drive into an independent mechanics establishment or a car dealership and get out of there without paying something, but you can get your car diagnosed right here live on radio or streaming or Facebook or YouTube. Get your car diagnosed free. And Rick's pretty darn good considering he's not there with a stethoscope or anything at your own. You describe it. He'll guide you through it. You'll say, what's it smell like? What's it sound like? How often does it happen? what type of a year, make a bottle car, you know, he'll ask you the question,

just like a doctor would ask you, if you were having an exam, and he'll come up with the right answer, usually. I mean, sometimes it's the two or three possibilities, but at the very least, he'll save you a lot of money, because when you, if you're going into a dealership or an independent repair, you know what Rick is going to tell you, ask these questions, and this is what you respond to their answer. answer so save yourself some money call Rick Kearney or go to YouTube.com

forward slash your loan cars and Rick monitors that has a huge following by the way my son Stu by the way will be here shortly he's part of the show too Stu is in our dealership we have a Toyota dealership at Northbound Beach and so he knows more of the day-to-day stuff that's going on and there's a lot of day-to-day stuff going on with the tariffs with the recalls with the electric vehicles, with glitches in the supply chain, shortages of parts. So Stu Stewart will be here shortly. And, of course, my partner in this madness that we've been pursuing for 20 years, Nancy Stewart, my wife and my partner,

and a very, very important part of the show because she is the female advocate. And she is, when we got here, she was talking to a woman caller and reminding the woman call her to please help her build the audience, a female audience for Earl's door and cars. And she's solely responsible, and I mean that, she is personally responsible for making it 50-50. And I can't thank her enough for that. And the ladies out there can't thank her enough either. So I'm going to turn the microphone over to Nancy Stewart and see what she has on her mind. Thank you. Wow.

You talked about 15 years ago. Can you believe it? Yeah. And to everyone out there, you know, it just proves how committed we are, how driven we are, and how much it means to us to be right here in this studio. You know, in spite all of you know with medical issues that, well, we're beyond our control. Anyway, thank you so much for judgment. joining us this morning and I want to thank all the ladies that are listening. I want to

thank Sarah for her call this morning and she always reassures me that she'll be speaking to other women encouraging them to call the show and win $50. Yes, women can win $50 the first two ladies to call the show you have to call for the first time and you can win yourself $50. So take advantage of that. Also, this news about Amazon and Earl Stewart, what do you think out there? Give us a call. Do you feel that Earl Stewart's commitment,

his transparency to all of his, I'm going to say followers, I'm not going to just say car buyers, but just everyone. His transparency, it really aligns perfectly, perfectly with Amazon's reputation. Give us a call. Let us know what you think.

Earl Stewart would be the first Toyota dealer. First dealer, not Hyundai. Pardon me? Toyota dealer. Yeah, we would be the first non-Hundee dealer. Exactly. Give us a call. How do you feel about this?

877-960 9960 and you can also text us this morning at 772-4976530 take advantage of your anonymous feedback and you know

no one knows who you are so you can take advantage of that your anonymous feedback.com we have a mystery shopping report to get to so much more to get to and I'm not going to say any more except take advantage of that phone number toll free 877 960 960 we're going to go right to the phones where john from palm city has been holding good morning john good morning last week earl mentioned a pickup

truck company that's new called slate my question for rick is do you think the future we already have the best EV in the world, Tesla, absolutely in the world, 80% American parts, not 100% perfect, but really nothing is. Rick, do you think the future will be EV, not pickup trucks, but regular large, over-the-road trucks, and buses? What's your opinion? Absolutely. As a matter of fact, the number one hybrid in the world is running on the steel rails, every time you drive around locomotive engines use electric motors to spin the wheels they have diesel and other powers to create the electricity but electric motors create instant torque the

moment you give power to it so you have that massive amount of power to get that load moving so a lot of things just something that people don't realize is that trains are all hybrids and one of the You know, we're in South Florida. A lot of folks have boats. So you need a vehicle that can have a lot of torque to get your boat in and out of the water. Rick, I'm not, you know, I'm not an engineer by any means. But it just occurred to me when you said that is that they run on steel rails. And you've often talked about the rails embedded in highways that will continuously charge.

wouldn't the nation's system of rails be a perfect conduit to be able to continually charge a battery in a train? It's worth considering it, and obviously subways run on that inner city trains. You've already got the framework laid. Right. The big drawback that you have there, though, is a safety factor of vehicles that have to cross over. railroad tracks and the idea that you've got so much electricity running like with subway trains no worse than an 80 mile hour train hitting you true but when there's no train on those tracks at that moment yeah and you've still got that third rail well that's easy enough that that would be easy enough to yeah to disconnect and then keep it you wouldn't have it up where the car would come

contact but anyway sorry to divert uh we got john asking questions but i just thought your answer was so interesting that uh i mean electric loaders just are the real hero here i mention that because a giant truck builder called nicola went totally bankrupt in 2020 they were valued at 30 billion but again it wasn't so much for what they manufactured the CEO his name i think was Trevor Milton was sent four years to prison, and it was fraud involved misleading the investors. But it was such a hot company at the beginning. General Motors even invested like 19% in that company, so it basically wasn't the fault of the truck. It was fraud to the investors. Yeah, there's always going to be problems trying to get any new technology to break into the

world, when you've got diesel trucks have been running on the roads for a hundred years now, it's going to be tough for these new companies to come in and get this new technology in. However, now, interesting here with that company, Nikola, that was

actually named after Nikola Tesla, which I mean, I love the coincidence, you know, the planning there. By the way, quick note here from Donovan on YouTube, he says for the caller, he is in Europe, EV buses and long-haul trucks are taking over quickly.

It's about dollars and cents at the end of the day, and the per mile cost is far lower in an EV truck. His opinion, he says, is just going to take about 20 years to fully get there in America. And that obviously is very, very true. It's going to take time to change that American mentality. We as a people are rather, well, we're stubborn. And I'll say it because, yeah, I'm stubborn as I'll get out. How about creatures of habit?

Yeah, and that. But I believe once this technology, once electric motors, EVs, and even hybrids, start really kicking in with these diesel trucks and the guys that own them and drive them, once they start seeing this on the road and experience it, there's going to be a revolution on the highways and I think it's just going to go that way thank you to answer me my question anytime thank you John thanks for tuning in every week we're going to go to Bob and Bob is calling us from Big Worth I believe morning Bob how are you today I'm doing great

Listen, my boss bought a Audi, Cuatro. I think it's a mid-size or smaller SUV electric, and she loves the electric. But I took her to the deal with the other thing. She got 35,000 miles on her car, and they're telling her she almost needs another second set of tires. Does that sound right, that she's only getting 17,000 miles out of a set of tires? generally when you buy a brand new car the first set of tires that are on it from the factory it's it's a dirty little secret that they they don't really advertise much the auto manufacturers and the tire companies get together they have special tires that they put on those cars right from

the factory that are a soft compound tread the reason for it is that when you get in this new car that you've just spent anywhere from 25 to 30,000 to 50,000, 100,000 for that car, it's going to ride nice and soft and smooth because of those soft new tires and once you

kind of get used to it and how it's riding like that and those tires they wear out quickly. I've seen them down to the wear bars in 10,000 miles and it depends on driving habits but yeah so they once they wear out and then you buy

the next set of replacement tires, these are the ones that are intended, the last. These are the ones that are going to get you 30, 40,000 miles or more, and they're a harder compound. So for that second set of tires to wear out quickly, I'd be looking at what tires were put on the vehicle and looking at her driving habits. Because trust me, driving habits, number one reason why tires wear out too quickly. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because she told me that they said it's in the caution range.

So they might just be trying to sell a lady, a set of tires she doesn't need. Now that's very possible. And the easy way to tell, turn your front wheels all the way to one side so you can see across the tread of the tire. And if you look, you've got the hills and valleys, the little valleys in between the treads. Going around the tire, there are these little bars that run across through the tread. and they're raised up just a little bit so if you look very closely you'll see this little lump

down in those little valleys and that's the treadware indicator when that shows up as a solid line all the way across you need to replace those tires or get a second opinion it's like anything else you always get a second opinion

if you're talking about expensive any size at all absolutely yeah I've got a 2024 blazer with 30,000 miles on it Nice still got plenty of thread. So I'll just tell her to check her tire by the wear bar

and maybe they're just trying to rip her off because she's a female. I don't know. Thank you, guys. Thanks for your input. That's very interesting. Ladies, I have to remind you you can win yourself $50 this morning.

Yes, $50 for the first two new lady callers. And remember what an important part we play. Excuse me. We play in this auto industry. It's huge. There's not a lot of people out there that realize what an impact we have on these dealerships. And with that said, remember, $50 for the first two new lady

of callers. We're going to go to Marty, who's calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Marty. How are you today? Good. How are you, Nancy? Great. I have a question, I guess, for Earl because Stu's probably not there yet. Right. He'll be in at 9. Okay. With the Amazon deal, as far as what I read, you have to put a $500 deposit down. The next question I have is, I don't know if you do the financing over the phone or you do it in the office once you get the, once you see the car.

But here's my question. normally you can test drive the car when it's on the lot you can test drive it and if you for some reason don't like it or don't want it do you get your deposit back yeah and so you get a deposit back now but the gimmick is like anything else the dealers do when they get sneaky the receipt that you get be sure the receipt says a refundable deposit that's the rule that's a law if a if a if a dealership that wants to keep your deposit they have to tell you that they are going to keep the deposit and the only way they can do that is to either do it verbally or put it on the receipt

but yeah typically a deposit on a product as long as you don't take delivery the product you can test drive a vehicle that's not delivery but if you sign the papers and take delivery of a product then you're not going to get your money back but you the test drive is is free as long as the dealer doesn't tell you at a time funny you should mention that because as we were writing in Nancy was doing little research on on chat GBT and something I never heard of before there are luxury car dealers now that will charge you for a test drive you know and we both were kind of a startled at that, and then we started to think,

and Nancy says, well, you know, if you're looking at a $300,000 Rolls-Royce and some kid rides in on a bicycle, you can understand why they might be reluctant to say, hey, take it out and bring it back whenever you feel like. So, yeah, they probably ask the kid for a deposit, but I digress. Answer your question, Marty? Well, what I wanted to know, though, if you know is a fact,

since you're going through Amazon, will they put that on the receipt or do you have to ask Amazon to do it? It's going to have to be the dealer that does that because Amazon, all Amazon does is tell you the price that the dealer has agreed to sell the car for. So they give you that out-the-door price. Now, if you're financing, you go directly through Amazon. you're not doing any financing with a dealer unless you choose to. So Amazon is, there's two good things about it. You're going to get a good price and you're going to get a fair financing. I should say there are three good things about it.

The third thing is you're not obligated in any way. So when you go online to Amazon and you get all the information, the dealer, your contact of the dealership, how much the car is, et cetera, et cetera, you can go to eight other dealers and give them Amazon's price and ask them if they want to meet it, even if they're not an Amazon dealer.

So on Amazon gives you a low price that you can shop and compare, which is a valuable thing to have because you can't get it anywhere else. And then if, in fact, after you shop and compare, the Amazon price was the lowest price in your market for Hyundai's,

then you go to the Hyundai dealer and he gives you the price, but you can go to any Hyundai dealer. The only thing that you've got is the Amazon price. Now the dealer is paying Amazon a monthly fee for the right to be an Amazon dealer. And as Nancy said, we're signing up to be an Amazon dealer. And one of the things they will give us is 90 days free sign-up charges. So it'll give us 90 days to be able to work through Amazon.

And if we like it, then we leave. If we don't like it, then we continue to pay that monthly fee. All right. Well, I guess what I would do is an astute, what I think I'm an astute shopper. I would definitely check the price out at other dealers. Yes. And see if it's a better deal. Yeah.

And to me, if any Hyundai, except for maybe Napleton, if you can get a lower price than Amazon, you ought to go to that dealer. Exactly. As long as you were alert, because it's amazing, you're sharp, you listen to the show. I mean, we say on the show we're preaching to the choir, so when we're talking to Marty, you know, Marty knows the angles. There are a lot of people out there. We call them the victims, and they're elderly. They're non-English speaking, and that's not their first language. They don't have the education.

A lot of people out there, most of people, actually, that go into car dealerships, are not prepared. And so you can go to Amazon and get what you think is really a good price, and then you go into a dealership that gives you a lower price, and you say, that's great. I'll buy it. meanwhile unbeknownst to you because you're a victim they slide in junk fees dealer installed accessories they underappraise your trade in there's a million tricks which you know because you listen to the show but in answer to your earlier comment you're better off just to use amazon to get a better price and if you're marty that's that's absolutely true if you're a person that has a

bought a car before, and you don't know the tricks that are played on you, you have to be very, very careful with that Amazon price, because they'll make you believe you got it or better than that price, but you didn't, and you don't find out about it until we say in the trade, until the ether wears off, and somebody says, do you realize you overpaid the Amazon price by $3,000, and you say no, and they show you the fine print? How do you do a trade-in with the Amazon deals? Well, with the Amazon, they will tell you, and they don't buy the cars, but they will tell you to sell your trade separately.

So that's a different deal altogether. You go to Cars.com, you go to Carvana, you go to CarMax, which is probably the best. We buy anycar.com. There's half a dozen or more. It's become a big deal now and used cars. to buy cars from customers directly. So if you go to five different sources or even three different sources and get bids on your trade-in,

you're getting really good money on that trade-in. Probably more than the dealer will offer you. But if the dealer does offer you more, just like we talk about with Amazon, go ahead and sell it to the dealer. Yeah. Well, also, if you just buy it or sell it outright, you're not getting the sales tax effect that you would

on a trade and at a dealership. Yeah. If you could go through that aggravation, I mean, there are a lot of people out there, young women and things like that. They don't want to run an ad and online and have some guy knock on the door and say, can we take a ride in your car? I mean, before I buy it,

I mean, a lot of people don't want that kind of hassle. But if you can sell your car personally and be careful and get more money, that's the way to go. Yeah. Now, when you're dealership now, the way you have a fixed price that you sell it for. Is that the same price that you're going to... I mean, I don't want to...

Yes, it is, yeah. Yeah, we're going to decide what we think is a fair price in the market, and that's how we do it. We look at actual transactions of cars in our market. We know the market price, we know the good price, we know the bad price. We try to price our vehicle. low enough to attract attention, but high enough where we can make a profit. I mean, the dealers that are claiming they're giving the cars away, they're lying.

I mean, I've got a big overhead. I've got to pay Rick and Nancy and my sons. I've got to pay the landlord. Of course, I'm the landlord, but I have to pay for advertising. Electricity. Yeah, and if I sold my cars at my cost, which all the dealers tell you they're doing, I'd be bankrupt in three weeks. So unlike all the other dealers,

I make a profit when I sell the car. And I admit it. And I give you the lowest profit I can afford to give you, and I won't give a lower price to anybody, and I won't give a higher price to anybody. And that affords you the opportunity. Because you come into my dealership, and this is the way Amazon operates,

and we just talk about it, you come to my dealership, I give you a price on a new hybrid camera, memory and you and that's the outdoor price what you should do and what we tell customers who come into our dealership to do we say now take it to another two or three Toyota dealers and if you can get a lower price out the door buy the car from the other dealer because unlike all the other dealers we don't sell for the lowest price all the time we do we do enough to make a nice profit and sell a lot of cars we do it we I'm proud of our team they do a good job if

If I'm not selling enough cars, I'll likely either fire my advertising agency and hire another one or I'll just, or I'll lower my prices or maybe both. So that's what business is all about, making a profit. Okay, so just one other quick question for you. If you become an Amazon dealer, but I decide I want to trade in my car at your dealership, will I get the savings of the sales tax? Oh, sure. That's up to me. the dealer themselves because you're differential

you pay your sales tax differential so yeah that's up to you and that's a very smart observation because the dealer does have an edge because when he trades it in if you sell your car to car max then you lose that edge

so a thousand dollar differential at a 6% sales tax is 600 bucks so you've got to take that into account when you're comparing prices right all right great question Marty thank you very much thanks for your feedback Marty okay enjoy your consumer report

oh thanks again Nancy you're welcome okay we're going to go to Howard who has been waiting patiently good morning Howard good morning beautiful day in the neighborhood it is yes I have to speak to Rick about something very important okay Rick

you remember when you told me about three or four years ago there's a problem with the 040 white paint you remember that yeah okay what was the problem with that paint basically the 040 paint would it had no clear coat on it and it would turn to chalk it was the only paint that didn't have clear code on it no there was one other the red of those years and the reason for that is that there are some very strong fines that manufacturers pay if you violate emission controls, just like if they make a car that has excessive emissions pollution, they

pay a large fine to the federal government. They also pay a large fine to the federal government from emissions from their paint facilities. And you can imagine the amount of emissions from painting millions of cars. cars. And so the EPA can come by and say you've got 14 plants, you've exceeded the emission controls, and so we're going to find you $100 for every car. And Toyota got caught with her pants down on this. They were selling too many cars and painted too many cars, so they could either stop building the cars and selling them, or they could find out a way to cut their emissions.

So what they did is stop clear-coating the car. And that was pretty sneaky, in my opinion. And they didn't tell their customers this, and they didn't tell their dealers this. And so we're selling these white and red cars and without the clear-coat. And we probably, you know, the body shop manager might have noticed, but most people didn't know that that had happened

until all of a sudden all these white cars and red cars, come in and they've been driving the car for a year or two in the hot Florida sun and they look like they've been baked in a high temperature oven faded like crazy and we had to paint the entire car in charge a customer thousands of

dollars. Yeah, I noticed there was no clear coat. When I got touch your paint, they usually give you two parts to touch your paint. One is the touch your paint, the other is a clear coat. But when you get 040, you don't get the other thing. There's no clear

code. Okay, let me tell you what happened to me. I got very good news, and I'm going to give you an infomercial. When I saw Travis for service a couple days ago, he says there's a recall. So I said, oh, I figure something, mechanical problem. He says, no, there's a recall on your paint, 040. I said, okay, so what are you going to do, paint, spot paint certain things? He says, no, we're going to paint your whole car. I said, what? He says, we're going to take it down to the metal, and we're going to paint the car. I said, how much do you charge? See, Travis said, zero.

So, Earl, did you know about this? I did not know about that. Did you, Rick? No, I hadn't heard of that one, because... Now, remember when I say, the customer makes the show, Howard, you're educating the dealer now. Thank you very much.

Let me tell you, I hate to give you an infomercial, but I don't think any other dealership would inform me of these things that Rick told me, and I was on top of it. I kept on asking, what's the story with 0-4-0? They said, well, wait, see what's happening. Because I knew at one point they were going to repair certain things that rusted out.

Fortunately, in my car, I just had very slight, almost imperceivable rust on the top of my car. But what I did is I sand it down and I primed it and I painted it and it became out perfect. But it was just come back. So anyway, I have the car in, and I have a 2024 loner, a Camry, which is great. And I noticed it has more pep. The thing rides like a tank. I mean, in a good way, it has also, when I go up a hill, to go into my condo, in a slight hill, I can take my foot off the brake, and the car holds.

you know, the holes without me having to play. Is that one of the features of the 2024 Camry? Not really. What you're doing is you're actually allowing the transmission to give just enough power to the wheels that is trying to overcome that hill, but the slope of the hill is just enough that it's holding you steady.

So you're reaching like that happy medium, that balancing point. Now, we do have a lot of our cars are equipped with what's called hill, assist and what happens there is say you're parked on an incline your you're stopped on an incline that's really steep and even in an automatic transmission car it would start to roll backwards a little bit and you're holding on the brake pedal what you can do is if you have hill start assist you when the light

changes or is about to change you're watching for it you would step on the brake pedal just a little extra hard kind of give it just a little extra push hard and it'll beep and illuminate the light to tell you that you've engaged this hill start assist and the computer will actually keep the brakes applied and it will hold them for about five seconds to give you time to release your foot from the pedal transfer your foot over to the gas pedal and be ready to accelerate just a little bit so you can start up the hill and your car will not roll backwards at all thanks Rick we all learned

and start up again to get you going. Great information. Yeah, one other question. When I open up my door, the interior lights don't go on. I'm trying to figure this one out. I can't figure out where that button is to push so that at night when I open the door, I want those interior lights to go on. So how do I get that?

Over to the left of your steering wheel, you should see a little knob with a light bulb on it, and they'll have, like, lines above it, gradations, and you should be able to adjust that. That'll control your interior light, but also look at the light itself to make sure that you don't have it switched totally off. The interior light may have a position switch that will be either for door, on, or off.

And if you switch it to door, obviously it turns on when you open the doors, but if you put it totally off, it will not come on even when you open the doors. Okay, where exactly is this? on your camry the knob should be over to the left of the steering wheel or it'll actually be a switch on that center dome light above your head

yeah on the center dome light over there okay very good all right thanks very much and you guys have a good day and you may be very happy today I'm going to get a new paint job and one other question after the paint job I cannot wax the car until how long I think they usually recommend about two or three months to give it time for that paint to fully cure. But double check with the body men when you have it painted.

Yeah, that's a good idea. By the way, that body shop is great. The guys treated me so nicely. Thank you. Yeah, what happened is that I left something, I left my umbrella and a couple of other things, and I came back the next day, and they said, no problem. and they drove me over to the car and I got my stuff and the guy was a gentleman. Thank you, thank you so much, Howard.

We're going to sign you up to do a commercial for us, Howard. No, no, I miss Alan Napier. He was the best. He was. We miss Alan. It's a Dan Trap now. We've got a new body shop manager. Alan retired.

Okay, I know that. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome, Howard. Thanks for the big present. Okay. Bye. Thank you.

Thank you very much. He's pretty excited about that paint job. You know, isn't it funny. Isn't it funny that, you know, it sounds like a cliche. It sounds like a flattery when I talk about how customers make the show and how I learn every show something new. Now, Rick and I both learned that we have a recall campaign on paint for white paint, code 040. So I trust Howard, I think he's accurate in that, and of course we'll double check. But the point is, for you folks out there, these are technical recalls.

What do they call them again? It's not a safety recall. It's actually what they call an LSC. It's a limited extension to your warranty. Well, yeah, okay. The point being that when you go into a car dealership and you bought a car from them somebody else, a relevant to late model or otherwise, always ask if there are any notifications. A technical repair bulletin, TRB, is most common, and also common is the fact that the dealerships

don't know what all of their TRBs are, and they don't look unless you ask them. And there, as Rick just described, there are other recalls that are warranty type things that the manufacturers intend to keep secret and I'll you know I'll look anybody in the eye even at Toyota and say they could do a much better job of publicizing these things but they're in business to make money like I just mentioned earlier I'm in business to make money so I guess I can't always blame Toyota or Ford or Honda or all the manufacturers if they're not going to be front page line we're recalling in our white cars because we didn't clear-code them.

I mean, that's like a confession. Maybe it should be made. There's an argument. But the bottom line is you have to ask. And sometimes the service advisor, the service manager might not know. Heck, Rick is, you know,

he's a technician that knows everything. He didn't know about that. And when you consider the number of these bulletins we get, the number of cars we sell, maybe it's impossible to remember all those so make a point when you go into a car dealer to check their records or computer about your year-year-make model car

your VIN number for that matter and say is there anything from Honda, Ford, Toyota, whatever make car it is is there anything in there that I need to know about my car that needs to be fixed and that will pay you well because sometimes you drive the car for five years and you've got two or three things that are wrong with it

You didn't know about them, and it devalues a car. It could be dangerous. A lot of things. Ask, what does the manufacturer know about my car that I should know? Okay. Okay. That's an interesting discussion. Ladies and gentlemen, if you didn't tune in earlier, Earl was mentioning Amazon.

Just a little teaser. I won't go into detail. but give us a call 877-960-99-60 you can text us at 772-497-6-5-3-0. You know, last week I mentioned Mazda's advanced safeties, a safety tech that aims for zero fatalities by 2040. Is that amazing? So we took it a step further, and Earl and I were kind of dissecting, you know, what causes all these accidents is the rate is pretty high anyway what we found in the consumer report was the approximate excuse me approximate percentage of all motor vehicle deaths that involve drunk drivers

it's very telling according to the data for 2022 13,524 13,524 people died. They died as a result of alcohol. Alcohol impaired driving. That shocked me. I didn't realize like a third of accidents involve alcohol. And it's just so uncommon that you hear about it. If it's a DUI and something that's killed, you read about it,

But how many, you notice the verbiage there, involved alcohol. And I don't want to get off on a tangent. We could talk about the whole show about this, but I'm just shocked that 13 to 14,000 people every year are in alcohol-involved actions. I mean, that means you might have had one or two drinks. You're not legally drunk, but that was part of it. Well, to what I was about to see. say was the fact that you used to be able to see commercials, many of them on TV, and what they

would emphasize is not just driving drunk, but driving buzzed. And it really put an emphasis on a lot of people, a lot of drivers who say, you know, I'm okay. I only had one drink. But that one drink could affect each and every person differently. You know, for instance, me, you know, at 108 pounds, that could be a lot, a lot of alcohol for me. So you really have to take into consideration, you know, you can't drive buzzed and you can't drive drunk. So Mazda's just, they're looking at, as I said, their target date is 2040 to have zero fatalities. Our number Here is 877-960-99-60, Texas, 772-49765530, and take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. We're going to go back to the phones, and we're going to talk to Mary, who's calling us from Palm Beach Gardens, and we're happy to say she is a first-time caller.

Good morning, Mary. Good morning. Hi. Hi, Mary. You're a first-time caller, and you won yourself. $50 before we get started after we're finished talking please stay on the line and talk to Jeremy and the control room he'll get your contact information and he'll pass it along to me and that will allow me to send you a $50 check okay that's great thank you so much both my husband and I are long-time customers of your dealership and I have a question here um my

has been, was inquiring about getting an oil change, and in the past, we've always been able to, uh, honored other dealerships coupons, but as recently, we've been told that you no longer do that, uh, honor other dealerships coupons. Can you give me a little reason why that is? Uh, part of it, uh, and I'm going to have to look at this because I don't know the exact reasoning other dealers will give out phony incentives for their customers and the when I say phony they may legally comply with fine print but to me that's not compliance when you try to sneak something in we look at the coupons that people bring in and they're innocent victims and they

come in and they get something that makes them believe they're getting a large discount or a refund of some kind on a particular service. And when we look at the fine print, we realize it is not legitimate. So there's so much of this going on that we, in this case here, and I'm speaking from, I'm not in the dealership right now because of my health situation. but I'll check. The reason I like to have Stu here because he's in every day. He'll be in, he said at 9 o'clock, so if I get this wrong, we'll double check with him.

But if you have a coupon and you presented it and we refused to accept it, you're talking to me now. You can either call me directly or when you go back in, ask the service advisor. or one of the stewards that are there, or Mark Feldman, who is our service manager, why is it that you will not accept this coupon and have it explained? It should have been explained in the first place, but we do, and we have allowed coupons to be applied,

but we can't, without reservation, do that because we're not kind of trick you like the other dealer that put the misleading coupon out, but we shouldn't explain why. And I apologize for your convenience, and I don't blame you for being, man. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, I don't even know what the trick is, but because of the inconvenience to you, I'm going, if I'll have your contact information because Nancy's going to mail you at 50 bucks. I'm going to say that you can apply that coupon because I said so.

and I'll tell them, and I'll tell the service managers. So you've got a double bonus for calling us. 50 bucks plus I'm going to pay for the coupon. Hey, Mary, thank you so much. I have to point out to you that you're an important part of the show this morning because you're the first new female caller. And you can't imagine the number of women who need encouraged to call the show. You know, some of us are pretty shy, and that's a number.

Another reason why everybody takes advantage of your anonymous feedback.com, they're not as, how shall I put it, you know, comfortable in their skin and being on the air, you definitely are, and you're an educated consumer. So spread the word that we're building a platform here for the ladies. Yes, I will. Thank you so much, Mary. Have a great weekend. Thank you. And I'll hold on. Thank you.

Oh, thank you. Okay, we have no calls. Do you want to get to the advertisement that we sent to Jonathan? But I shouldn't have ignored. I have been a dealer, as you know, since 1968. And the automotive news is a dealer trade journal. Every car dealer, every manufacturer, anybody in the auto retail or manufacturing business reads the automotive news.

It's a weekly publication. I've never seen a headline like this, and I've never seen such confusion and shock in the automotive industry. I'm going to hold this up for those to hopefully be able to see this. And basically the headline says, Reputation in Tatters. And this is Automotive News, April the 3rd. I think, or I mean...

April 28th. April 28th. And it's talking about the tariffs. And there's... Practically, the whole automotive news is devoted to the disruption. I'll read you the first paragraph of the feature front page.

The reputation of the U.S. as a stable, trusted trade partner is unraveling. As President Donald Trump's tariffs erode The global order, that's a mouthful, erode the global order that automotive manufacturers have relied on to make and sell vehicles and parts. And the country, once an anchor to world trade, is unlikely to regain trust anytime soon. Industry executives experts said, it's all over this publication, but the latest April 28th of the automotive. news says all the manufacturers and the dealers are in a state of panic and it's going to affect you the listeners out there we've gone almost half the show without talking about terrorists but

it's on everybody's mind it will affect the price of the car you pay by it'll affect the used car prices as well it's going to it's going to create confusion in the manufacturing and the dealers If you think the advertising was bad now, the advertising will be even worse and more deceptive later. There are retailers out there. You may have seen in the headlines, Amazon was thinking about pricing their products. And of course, we've been talking about selling new cars on Amazon.

Amazon's been talking about pricing their products with a separate disclosure for the tariff charge on the product they sell. The president got wind of this, and I'm guessing, but he probably called Jeff Bezos and said, you don't want to do that because I'll be all over you.

I don't know what happened, but Amazon withdrew their decision to do that. So the dealers, the manufacturers of all products, really, automobiles or terrorists are affecting a greater percentage of the economy than anything else and the dealers don't know what how to price the cars how to discount the cars the manufacturers don't know how much it's going to cost them to build the cars the parts are either going to be

charged or not charged there was a late bulletin that said that if the parts are made in Canada or Mexico, there will be no charge. But if the parts are made outside of Mexico, and if I'm confused that I'm a car dealer and the manufacturers are confused, you want to be confused. So keep it in mind and watch your back and check the latest news

and be sure that the dealers that you're dealing with and the manufacturers you're dealing with are giving you a fair shake on these tariffs. So good luck, that's all I can tell you, and we'll get back to normal business, but I had to cover that. Absolutely. You know, I have to mention the front page of the automotive news and mention Mary Barra. I mean, what an impact she has made as the chair and chief executive of General Motors. It's an amazing time for her, and I believe that Earl, correct me if I'm wrong,

wasn't it Dan Ackerson or something like that I'm not sure I know his first name was Dan who was in you know that position from 2010 until she took over and then before that there was another

gentleman correct yeah my point is that Mary came along yes I refer to her by her first name she came along changed everything and she has been an asset to General Motors and my hat is off to her with a job that she has done. Our number here is 877-960-99-60

and you can also text us at 772-4976530. We'll have our mystery shopping report coming up just about at 930 and we have so much more to get to. Back to you, Earl. Yeah, our listeners, a lot of our, particularly our YouTube listeners, we'll be glad to hear this. I was embarrassed, really, I announced that my new book was coming out two or three years ago. And my timing was bad.

We were almost, we wound up the book, and Nancy had written the forward, and we were just getting the bugs out. and suddenly we didn't publish it. And there are a lot of reasons for it. The good news is we're back in business to get my new book out. In case you don't know, here's the old book, and this is Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer. I wrote this several years ago, and it's a how-to-do book.

We don't sell this for a profit. It's available on Amazon for about $20, bucks and all the proceeds, 100% of the proceeds, go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, which is one of the largest no-kill shelters for dogs in the whole world. And every penny that we get from selling this book on Amazon goes to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. So it's not a proper thing. The new book will be called redemption of the recovering car dealer. And the reason, reason it was delayed is that the there are a lot of reasons the whole COVID epidemic that we went through the the retailing revolution the the electric vehicle the likelihood that there would be laws changed the way of retail also known as Amazon and I suddenly realized as I was finishing getting

you ready to publish this book that by the time it was actually in the bookstores or online or wherever you get your books probably online by the time it got there it would be obsolete so there have been more changes in the past three years in the automobile business that there have been in the past that there have been in the passed in the 20 preceding that. So I had a book that was going to be 23 years old that I was going to put out and call a new book. So it will be a new book. And redemption of the recovering car dealer. I'm not going to give you a date right now, but I'm in touch with my ghostwriter who takes the product that I write or I dictate and puts it into acceptable form. And I'm in

conversations with him now. Jonathan here in the studio. It's been kind enough to go back and send me podcasts of the radio show going back, you know, 15 years. So we can kind of pick up about the time the radical changes begin to come. We'll have your comments and Ricks and Nancy's and Suez and my comments about electric vehicles, about autonomous vehicles, about ammo. selling the cars about the fact that probably 90% of the name manufacturers that you know today will not be in business by the time you buy the book and the

fact that you won't be driving the car the car be driving you so this will happen Rick just a quick comment here from Johnny Z. Freedly who for him he's all the way up in the Carolina somewhere yeah he says it took longer for Earl's new book to come out than the cyber truck it did it did I we're waiting for the roast I should have said something I was I was I kept thinking that next week next month you know how you rationalized and of course I got sick and that was that was a part of it that was a ladder part of it but when when things slow down I woke up one morning I said good God the automobile retail business and

and manufacturing business is not the business that I was in when I wrote the book confessions of recovery car dealer or redemption of the recovering car dealer so how can I put a book out and not address what's happened in the past three years and I'd be put a fourth book out our third book out and a third book out And, you know, when you get to be 84 years old, you can't really tell people when the third book is coming out. So, anyway, I'm wrong. You're right. And I got, I should have, I should have said something earlier.

But I'm excited about that. And I'll still be writing the book when we're hopefully approved as an Amazon dealer. I'd like to make that in my last chapter with your help. And next week, we're going to talk, we're going to be talking to you about. our affiliation with Amazon. We're going to ask Jeff Bezos to bring us on board as the first non-Hunday dealership. Hopefully he can learn a little bit about us.

What I'm gonna do is take a full page ad out in the Washington Post, ASAP. And as a lot of you know, Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. So my full page ad in the Washington Post. the Washington Post will be an open letter to Jeff Bezos. And, of course, we're approaching them through the other channels too, but, hey, the guy is, you know, the biggest retail of the world, and he has somebody else who reads his mail and answers his bill,

and his phone calls and things like that. But I got to believe, with a full-page ad, dear Jeff, this is Earl, how about giving me a shot and make a dealer. I think somebody will mention it to him, and he may even call me. I don't know if you know this, but I know his mother, or I knew his mother, I think she passed. But years and years ago, I wanna say 25 years ago when he was just selling books,

he bought his mother a Camry from my dealership. And his mother lives in Palm Beach, and she came in, and he paid for the Camry for his mother, and we deliver it to her. And of course, she's probably driving a Rolls-Royce now if she's still with us. and what an amazing time when he was selling books he just bought a camera for his mother

amazing time I have a prediction I think that a third book will be written and I think that it'll happen probably when we're in our 90s what do you think about that and you know so like Earl said so much happened with COVID with the interruption of the chain supply

with tariffs with everything and I'll tell you what? I sat the other evening reading the rough draft, and I thought, goodness, so much has happened in these five years. So much has changed. And at the end of the day, we don't lack information to put in that book because there's so much. You know, we may... Problem will be making it too thick. It may be a hardback. Anyway, folks, give us a call. Let us know what you think, you know, about driving our electric vehicle. Would you be interested in driving autonomously? How do you feel about Amazon's

platform in selling cars? There's a company, Jeff Bezo, who was really, I mean, ahead of his time. And this transparency, it just aligns with Earl Stewart, and it is going to be magical. 877 960 9060 and I'm going to get to this one call that we have and then Earl is going to talk about the special purchase uh-huh what was that 1981 on the Grand Prix I think it was $7,026 oh goodness gracious I'm looking at this and I'm just shaking my head so much has changed We're going to go to Charles, who's calling us from North Palm Beach. Good morning, Charles. Good morning.

Good morning, all. I live right literally down the street from you. And I'm sort of wedged in between the Parker Bridge and the PGA Bridge, which means that I was interested in seeing what the stop start was all about. And something that I discovered was that it's not really a mileage improvement issue, but an emission control thing. You know, when you see 30, 40, 50, 60 cars that are just piled up waiting for a single boat to come through, it really is irritating to watch and imagine all of the stuff that's going into the atmosphere. But anyway, my bigger point is dealing with volvos and the three-point seatbelt. We've been a long time Volvo buyer and really appreciate the product. Just a little history, which you might find interesting,

and that is that back in the 1950s, the Volvo CEO lost a relative in a car crash. And he brought on a guy who had designed sub-fighter jets by name of Nils Bowen, B-O-H-L-E-N. And he invented the three-point seatbelt. in 1959 and Volvo gave that patent to the world for free and at the time of Boland's death it's estimated that he had saved a million lives that was back in 2002 and since then I think the number has been updated to about a million and a half people I'm always astounded that people won't put their seatbelt on Earl you're you're a guy who majored in physics in college if I recall correctly. Yes, right.

And so just imagine everything that's in the car, the car, and all of the contents are moving along at 65 miles an hour, and it slams into an immemable object at 65 miles an hour. And you're not wearing a seatbelt.

Where does that put you? Yeah, through the windshield on the hood of the car. Yeah, I mean, it's a rhetorical question. Yeah. But, you know, why somebody would feel that they shouldn't wear a seatbelt is just astonishing to me. And I just hope that the message gets out to people that wearing a seatbelt is, well, I won't say suicidal, but just plain dumb. I didn't know that about Volvo or the CEO of Volvo doing that.

I mean, the guy ought to have a monument. Can you think of anything that saved more lives and seatbelts on automobiles? I can't. He ought to be a smallpox. vaccine. Yeah. What's that? Smallpox vaccine.

Yeah. Maybe it's up there. It's up there. Okay. Well, we'll think about Dr. Jenner. That's right. Thanks very much for taking the call, but that stop start thing, I just drove a rental

with that, and I was intrigued by that. Sometimes it stops, and sometimes it stays on. It's interesting. Charles, maybe Rick has a comment on the Stop Start. Yeah, the reason is. stays on at times at traffic lights has to do with your need for air conditioning and whether it needs to charge the battery more for the electric state it's all computer controlled and it's if you're really horrible if you like it for some

strange reason you can activate it by pushing the brake pedal down further so if you had a light and it doesn't stop you know it's a little a little notice will come up so you can depress the brake pedal to activate yeah and I do that accidentally and I get mad at myself. Yeah, and the other thing that I learned from somebody the other day was that if you put it in sport mode, sometimes that overrides the stop-start feature also. As a matter of fact, yes. Negan 1 on our YouTube channel had mentioned that his Ford Raptors and a lot of other vehicles

have a sport mode. If you put your vehicle in sport mode, that usually overrides that start-stop feature. I got a sport mode. I'm going to put it on as soon as of the shows. Yeah. Well, the final thought is that book, Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer, has just been a fantastic addition to my library. I've shared it with all of my family, my three sons, and if you had to condense it into a radical Reader's Digest version, I would say the most important thing that I have learned from Earl Stewart is final out-the-door price. That to me was just the biggest help of anything.

But I'm looking forward to 2.0 and looking forward to sharing that with our sons. Thanks, Charles. Keep up the good work. Thank you, Charles. Thanks for listening. You know, I ask myself, I don't think that there's been a time during the time that we've been doing a radio show from the beginning

that I've ever asked anyone to call in and give me a valid reason for not using a seatbelt. I have a thought. And I'm sorry, continue. It's interesting, I went to chat, GBT, and there's a lot of reasons that they don't. The valid reason, excuse me, if I'm insulting people out there, but it's stupidity.

And I was stupid, you know, we learn, we live and we learn. So back in 1968, when I started in the business, we thought seat belts were really stupid. They were inconvenient. They stuck you in the back, and if you had them on, they hurt your chest. I mean, we were just stupid. And I look at, I was how old than 30 or so? And how could I not realize that when you hit a tree and go through the windshield that you're going to get hurt?

I have an idea. My thought is, and it's not stupidity, because clearly you're not as stupidity. person. I was them. No. You were, you were, you were, you was, you've done a lot of smart things by then. I think it's a lack of imagination and people have the, the idea that I'm a driver. I've never gotten in an accident. I'm a good driver and I, that's not going to happen to me. And they can't imagine the infinite possibilities where you don't even see it coming or you have no role in the, and, and being able to prevent it. So if you can't imagine the, the, you can't imagine the bad things that could possibly happen maybe you feel comfortable not wearing it but you know

you know that's bad things can happen that's a good point uh because you get behind the wheel of the car and not for me yeah and i use my seatbelt uh but you say hey listen i'm just going up the street it's two minutes i don't need this uncomfortable restrictive seatbelt and you know you said imagination use your imagination as to what the outcome of such a decision. Even on a lot like a law or, I mean, people might just have the attitude like I'm a really good driver. And I've had that, it's almost a chauvinistic thought process. I really thought that I was superior to other drivers and that unless inferior drivers were the ones to get in accidents.

And I'm 57 now and I've never been in a car accident. I've never crashed into anything. Is there any wood around here? you can knock on. Yeah, this is particle board. So I go, and that's not a testament to how good a drive room. It's a testament, and I'm just statistically lucky. That hasn't happened to me yet.

It is, if you can imagine, one of the other things that Chad GBT mentions is just being, you know, forgetful. Now, there are so many alerts in the vehicles that we drive today. It's not like it was, Earl, when you were jumping in behind a wheel, and you were 30 years old I mean there's bing bing bong bong everything you know going off alerting you to say hey put that seatbelt on

so so much for seatbelts we're going to move along because the lines have lit up and we are going to go to dawn in Jupiter good morning Dawn hey good morning just a quick seatbelt story I've been wearing one since the 80s

when I had a Ford on a Mustang GT with T-tops because my My best friend's football coach got ejected through teetops of a Corvette on the way to the Keys. So I've been wearing a seatbelt for a very, very long time. What used to drive me crazy, I had an aunt, unfortunately, she passed away. But she was in a car accident, and the windshield came in. She was not wearing a seatbelt. So she ended up in the floorboards of her car, and she said, if I had a seatbelt, I would have died.

So I'm like, Aunt Shirley, that's a very, very rare case. She didn't wear your seatbelt. that was her idea that it would have killed her if she had a seatbelt on so i think i remember hearing stories like similar to that you know reasons like well if they were wearing a seatbelt you would have died yeah that's a good one yeah but you know like like like you said the statistics bear out the fact put your seatbelt on another thing which kills me is when my passengers do not and that dinging drives me crazy so i make everybody wear a seatbelt doesn't these cars are so smart nowadays and thank god because there's a lot of crazy people on

the road right yeah oh whole lot my car tells me which seat belt is on buckled used to do in the past so i could yell at any particular kid you in the middle don thanks so much for the call uh you know there's one thing i didn't mention and that's reinforcing the law reinforcing the seat belt law and uh to my knowledge it's not really paid attention to that much uh but it's uh it's really important to make you know, the drivers aware that if you don't use your seatbelt, you know, you're going to be fined. But like I said, reinforcing it is at the end of the day. They're not really, you know, reinforcing it. So with that said, we're going to give you a phone number and a text number, and the phone number is 877-960-99-60, and the text number, you'll need that text number to vote.

on our mystery shopping report, and that is 772-4976530. We're going to go to Frank, who's a regular caller from Jupiter Farms. Good morning, Frank. Oh, good morning to you guys. It's always a pleasure listening to the show and getting memories come flashing back in my head from years going by. But I'll do a quick seatbelt thing, and then I got my one joke I got to share with you. but um um the seat belts when i went through a really bad divorce many years ago and when the kids would come up

sporadically to visit from miami um we'd live in jupor farms and i would have stuff in the truck or the car for the chickens or something so i would just move the vehicle like a hundred feet from the front driveway to the back where the animals were and then time i did that with the car the kids would hop in with me and they all put their seatbelts on for that 100 foot drive and i go Holy cow. So it did work. I mean, it was good. They were taught that.

It was forced on an older generation, and it's just natural for younger kids. Yeah. But anyway, since today is May 3rd, and you know that on Monday is Cinco de Mayo, I figured you had to hear Prank's version of how that all began, if you got just a quick moment. Of course. It began back in a Mexican seaside town, famous for their hoagies, with a very special mayonnaise that they would get from Ireland,

once a year. Well as May 5th of that year the ship was arriving with their special mayonnaise and it hit a rock and sank and unfortunately as it was sinking they realized all the mayonnaise was wrong and the town prior ran

through the town Singo de Mayo single de Mayo and now they make burritos and tacos and so that's the Franks version of course we look at things differently out here in the farms, so. That's good. Hey, do you put mayonnaise on your burritos, Frank? All I got to see is I like the hot sauce. Oh, I know. Yeah, but anyway, yeah, we, one quick one. I had to go up through Stewart the other day because 95 was so shut down from a wreck that we got off US 1 in Hope Sound and went all the way up to Northern Stewart. And on the drive, we went by this huge flag. I mean,

I could see it when I went over the hill, you know, a half a mile away. Have you ever a mystery shop That's that Toyota dealership up there in Stewart. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's been a while since we did. I think last year was the last time we did it. Yeah. All the time they were, yeah, there were our neighbors. Okay.

Anyway, with that, and one last thing, a couple weeks ago we talked about the injure marsh and stuff, I went through a spurt late last year. I was only going to treat myself to a 56 Chevrolet with a 327, really looking nice down in Miami. and we went to test drive it, and I showed up there driving my, you know, Mercedes-Benz, air conditioning, power steering, and all that. They get in this car, no power steering. I mean, you're trying to turn that new steering wheel. No air conditioning, and I'm going on, but the car is beautiful.

And the guy said, okay, come on back, and I got the money. It was a very good price. I probably could have made some money reselling it, but they cleaned the engine and they wouldn't run because the wires got all wet, and they're sparking and jumping it. then it really sank and I don't need to spend that kind of money for a car I can't really drive so but I love those old shoe boxes

oh my goodness it was an incredible car but anyway so instead we got a Lexus instead so there's my good choice we appreciate your call you guys have a wonderful weekend you're too

for those that don't know the 55 56 57 Chevys were known as shoebox chevies And they're small. Just for the, oh, no, these were, they were good-sized cars. They're just boxy, square. Yeah, but they were kind of squared off looking. But they're very fast.

And beautiful cars. You get one with a dual clods. Yes. Oh, God. Six-shift. The fastest car at Palm Beach High School in 1958 was a 56 Chevy Bell Air with dual clods, poor on the floor. Until you got your GTO.

It sure was. Until you got your GTO, right? Well, yeah, I got the GTO. And then, of course, if you got your GTO. You ejected Pontier. And that beat the 56 Bel Air. Yeah. I drove that Bel Air back then when I lived in Pittsburgh.

You know, here, I want to mention something. Who said that there are not ladies listening to the show? I just got four texts saying, saying, ironically, they just got into their car. And they said, thanks for reminding us, we just put our seat belt on. So there you go. Hey, the phone lines are shut down, folks. so we're not taking any more calls.

But jot down the text number of 772-4976530. You'll need it to vote on the mystery shopper report. Earl, that ad that we mauled over when you were a bad dealer, you were going to talk about the freight on that vehicle. I believe that it was the freight. Yeah. So anyway, would you like to talk about that? Yeah, we got an old customer found a newspaper ad from Stuart Pontiac, I think, 1956 or 57 or 58, something like.

Yeah, the word, excuse me, the wording was plus freight. Yeah, 81. That's what you had in your ad. Yeah, so I was, that's back when I was lying, cheating, and stealing like all the other dealers. And hence my book, Confessions of a Recovery Cardone. So I would run a big ad of the Palm Beach Post, and I would give this unattainable, low price. What was the price?

$1,7,026. Or $7,026. $7,026 for a Pontiac Grand Prix. And then the fine print was plus a freight. And, of course, that's not only unethical and illegal. It's also a violation of a federal law, because if you, when you do the freight, that becomes a manufacturing thing, so it's a federal, also. Maybe you didn't know.

More like I didn't care. I mean, I... So how do you explain? See, this is why I pat myself on the back. If I were holier than now that walked into town with my white suit, blaming all the dealers for what they do, that would be one thing. But because I was a really bad guy like they were, I know how they felt. I didn't feel any guilt at all. I was happy.

I was successful. You want to know why? I was the number one Pontiac dealer. Besides that. Yeah, yeah. Because when it's the way it's done, you feel safety in numbers. It's just the way, but this is how we do it. And they get blind to the big picture.

It's a little bit like the Olympic athletes that use. stimulants. And these are red-blooded American, all other countries, and they have to win their race from childhood. I got to win. I won an Olympic gold medal, and they take a shot of drugs and they win, and they think there's nothing wrong with it. Well, or other competitors feel that if they don't do it, then I'm at a disadvantage. I had to be a liar and a cheater because everybody around me was a liar. If I didn't lie and cheat, then again. licensee. That's so what it was all about. Everybody's doing it. So I'll do it. It's like the 70s. Well, Johnny D. Freidly wants to know if that, did that price tag, the $7,026, did that include the nitrogen filled tires?

We didn't know about nitrogen. If I'd known about nitrogen, I would have. You could have been the one that you, I mean, with your background, you could have invented it. Yeah, I had the first F&I department, the first box anywhere. My father called me in one day and said, what is this? He says, you've got more profit in the financing of the car than you did on sale of the car. And I says, yeah, he said, well, you can't do that. And I said, why not? And I'm the one that turned my father into a dishonest man too because he had a son that was doing the kind of thing. If I was around, I would have said that is ephemeral because they can cancel all that stuff.

I go and car gross is real, make car gross. Anyway, so where are we? I don't know. We're talking to each other. Do we have any callers? The phone lines are closed. Okay. Once you get to Ann Marie, you have the kickoff text.

Good morning, Ann Marie. We so appreciate your text every single Saturday morning. Thanks for leading us to the text. I've got it right here. And as a matter of fact, this is an interesting question. because it ties in with something we were discussing earlier. Good morning. Yesterday I saw a truck with chrome bumpers

and realized it was the only vehicle with any chrome in the entire Costco parking lot. It brought me back to the days long ago when all vehicles were awash with chrome. When did chrome disappear and why? I don't know, but Earl's got a chrome cyber truck. Not really, but similar. Hey, Rick, what about the cover?

Earl has a stainless steel polished. Cybertruck? What about the days of the gold package? Was that amazing back then? Everybody had to have a gold package. Now we're talking about. Here's what happened. Now, bear in mind, this actually kind of connects back again with those old Chevy's that we were talking about.

Back in the day, you didn't have chrome, they would take stainless steel trim and polish it to make it nice and shiny, just like what Earl did with the cyber truck. And that was a great way. However, it took constant polishing to keep it shiny. chrome became invented when they would literally metal plate various types of metal onto the steel and the final being a code of chromium which stayed nice and shiny and reflective for a long long time

however chromium steel that was an incredibly chemical filled process that was incredibly dangerous and bad for the environment and the EPA finally said whoa there's just no this is way too dangerous we got to stop this we're making horrible horrible chemicals doing this so they tried to change the process to make it a lot safer and the

drawback was you wound up with chrome that would rust almost instantly it would peel and it looked horrible and the manufacturers all decided hey wait a minute do we keep spending money trying to make Chrome and make it last and we keep having to replace it in a warranty or we do we just make a steel bumper and put a plastic coating over it that we paint and it looks really cool and we get rid of chrome and chrome actually went away

for that number one reason because of environmental aspects of it the more you know hey so right now because chrome is kind of making a comeback I see it on more and more vehicles and less structural things you don't see like a chrome bumper but you

see chrome pieces insets right that is polished steel with a with a coating to keep it from exactly and as the technology changes and our technology improves they're finding ways to create that that shiny silver reflective

effect on different materials yeah like a wrap do it safely so yeah we may see that there's thousands of people out here listening to us and all the young people all the lower generations are thinking we're talking about Chrome on the on the browser yeah Google

Kids, yeah. They don't know what Chrome is. We're talking about cars. We're talking about the things that big old machine in your dad's driveway. It's a car. Get outside. Drive it. Get your face out of the screen, kid.

All right. I hope Amory felt that was a sufficient discussion. Yeah. I mean, in Amory, it is starting to come back. I don't know if you got to these anonymous feedbacks last week. I wasn't in the studio. Did you get a discussion about Elon Musk as a disruptor? This came on Saturday.

No. At 9. Okay. This is anonymous feedback. We don't know who it came from. And they are referring to a caller named Paul. It says, Paul had a lot of points, but he has missed a key point. Elon Musk is a disruptor and an innovator that will continue.

All the other car companies are followers in the EV world. I've driven Tesla's, BMWs, Kiyas, and other EVs. The others do not have the same feel as a Tesla. Is he speaking emotionally or the steering wheel? They are close but still playing catch-up. They are nowhere near Tesla on self-driving. Okay, some work still to do there, but it will get there. If he really understood the EV world, he would be praising Tesla for innovation.

if you want an EV and want to be a follower and want to be a follower don't get a Tesla I mean Tesla you can't I don't think anybody's denies that it's a great EV right? I mean there's issues here and there nobody that's knowledgeable but I mean it's an emotional thing Yeah definitely I mean like I mean

Definitely very political Tesla's a great product I mean I'm not going to get political here But I understand that But I don't I mean those people who are turning against Tesla. A lot of them own Teslas, they just feel bad. Well, they're mad at Elon Musk because of a Doge.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just talking about, let's talk about the car. Yeah, right, but they can't separate the two. They can't decide. No, I understand that, but I just don't think that there's any attacks. Well, when you stop and think about, my emotion is not to be banned in the world. And if you lose your job because of Doge, and Elon Musk is the one that came up. Oh, I'm not criticizing that. I just don't, I just don't, I go, say, listen, I don't want to be, I'm not going to help

this guy that I feel is hurting me. or hurting other people. But if you talk about the car, it's just, it's like a magic machine. Henry Ford was an anti-Semite. Yeah, yeah, I don't like him. But yeah, the Tesla's a great car, but there are other great EVs as well. So the Tesla broke, he broke the ground and paved the way. And at the end of the day, you know, politics should not play into, you know, whether you like a Tesla or any other electric vehicle.

If Elon left tomorrow, I mean, then it's safe to buy a Tesla. It suddenly becomes a great car, you know, but that's how irrational. Irrational, absolutely. Rick. A note came in from Donovan here. He says, for this person, if you go drive a B-Y-D or a Zhaomi, the Chinese EVs, and then tell me that Tesla is ahead still. Now, the B-Y-D and the Zhaomi, these are. vehicles that we

simply can't get here in the U.S. yet. And that may very well change. But yeah, I fully believe that other countries and other places may very well have vehicles that are even technologically advanced ahead of ours. I've read about some of the Chinese ones.

Well, that's a good comment, and we should get some information on that. The first thing that popped into my mind are Tesla sales down in China now. If the Chinese manufacturers are building a better product, is that reflected in the sales of Tesla in China? And that's the first thing I'd like to check.

And Donovan is always, I haven't driven those. I salute Donovan for having driven them. And do we have any dealers or can we buy those vehicles around here? No. I doubt it. I very much doubt it. Donovan, let us know how you drove those. Probably in Europe.

I know there's BIDs as I saw in Europe. And then I guess anywhere else If you're in Southeast Asia You're going to India, Vietnam Well, from Donovan's post history He might very well have been in China And driven one even recently That's true, you can still go to China

We're not at war yet He seems to be quite the world trotter I still want to go there before it's too late Yeah Yeah, sales and Tesla's China's down Notably 49.2% year over year this year So Well, that could be well

There's the product The Chinese are building a better product. You know. And supporting that product. I hate to see anybody get a lead on everybody else that can't be overcome in a reasonable amount of time. Competition. You know, it sounds strange because we have a Toyota dealership. I love it when Honda comes out with a better product than Toyota.

I've been a Toyota dealer for almost 50 years. And it's never happened. And Honda will build a better. van, they'll build a better van, they'll build a better economy car, and the next year, Toyota, or two years later, they'll build a better one. And then Honda, I mean, we have a better product today as a result of that competition than either manufacturer would have. So I think Elon Mustings the same way. He wants competition to keep him and his company sharp because you've got to stay ahead. it's always who is the baseball player that says don't ever look behind you someone might be gaining

that was a that wasn't jesse owens no no i was just he was a baseball player a pitcher i think okay we're going to have to move forward uh with a mystery shopping report there's text messages there's youtube jonathan uh how much time do we have death three minutes three minutes okay guys three minutes until the mystery shop uh okay let me just check we have three minutes minutes left, period. Three minutes? I mean, before we get to it. Yeah.

All right, did you guys get to this mystery shop? Let's see. There was one. No matter how good the price, no matter how transparent you are, customers will still sell a dealer salesperson out for a couple of dollars more. Yes.

Okay, that was from an employee at a car dealership, which is a frustration expressed. I'm sure you guys talked about it last week, so I'll move on. And folks, I didn't mention, but the mystery shopping report will be coming up. And Asian Lightning did go to Daytona Beach. And that is Stu Gary Yeoman's dealership? Yeah, Gary Yeoman Ford.

Yeah, there you go. So stay tuned for that, Stu. Okay, this one came in after the show last week. It's anonymous feedback. It says, wow, what an attitude at Del Rey Hyundai. And I guess we were discussing the mystery shop. and it's the dealership defining the type of acceptable payment, not Amazon. L.O. accidentally asked for too much.

It seems everyone I know is accidentally getting overcharged at a car dealership in both sales and service. It's very common. I think they're referring to the deposit because Agent Lightning paid a 500 deposit online, and then the sum, the total due did not reflect that, and she had to remind them. And you're right. I mean, that probably wasn't oversight. You know, I forgot about that, and it was Marty that called the $500 you pay doesn't go to Amazon. It goes to the dealer, and it is refundable if you change your mind.

I was thinking that Marty was worried he wouldn't get his $500 back on an Amazon transaction. Okay. No, it's just like ordering a car. Somebody says, we'll get the car ready for you, can we have a deposit? it. And also, we were talking before you came in about getting signed up with Amazon and Stu's handling that for us and Josh's. Josh's on top of it. Yeah. And we're signed the paperwork. And then starting next week, we will be asking you for support to go through the Jeff Bezos and other top executives with Amazon to consider us as a first non-Hundee dealer

with Amazon. I mean, you know, we're, I think we're qualified because if you listen to the show, you know we're honest people. And also the fact that we have shopped and we know your program's good. We shopped a Hyundai dealer through Amazon. And it was the best thing for the consumer that we've seen. Yeah. And it's better than Costco. It's better than True Car. It's probably better than consumer reports and it is a really good thing for you but if only Hyundai dealers

are signed up what goods are going to do 95% of the country right is that their penetration only 5% I think probably something like that yeah I mean toilet is 10 so 15 okay so would you like to do the mystery shoppering

report? Nah I don't want to do it. Actually I do the way we're eating up the It doesn't look like as if it's going to happen. I stayed up until like 9 o'clock last night. Rick just showed me a satchel page that said, Oh, satchel page. If you hear footsteps behind you,

don't look back, someone might be gaining on you. So that's what the reason he was such a great pitcher as he was scared that someone was going to catch him. And if you think you're the greatest pitcher in the world and you let up, guess what? Right. You got to keep on and keeping on. All right, mystery shopping report time, right?

Yes, indeedy. You want to, do you want to vote on the Mystery Shopping Report? You can go to 772-497-6530. As I said earlier, the Mystery Shopping Report is from Gary Eumann's, and that is a Ford dealership in Daytona Beach. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Okay. Well, it's Gary Yeoman Ford in Daytona.

I'm not familiar with those folks, and we didn't do a lot of research but Daytona is not considered South Florida and the further north we go the more honest and transparent the dealerships seem to be and let's see it isn't always the case

I'll speak of the first person as if I were Agent Lightning I arrived early in the afternoon and was greeted while checking out the 2024 Ford F-150s parked right out front by a salesman named J.C. I warn you this time of year that, you know, we're, there's still a lot of 2024 cars out there and they might not have any miles on them, but they're used cars. Trust me, when you trade that car in, if you bought it in five years, it's going to be six years old, not five years old.

So it's, they look at the year of the car. The books do. They don't know. To help illustrate this, you know, we did the Amazon Hyundai shop, and we appraised it, and we had a few experts. It wasn't, this wasn't flippant, put the value of this new vehicle at $19,000. And the cost, and a good fair price for that new would have been around $24,000 like Agent Lightning had. So that's really, you know, imagine if that dialed a year back one year, it would have been.

A $5,000 depreciation. It would have been like $16,000. I say when you drive it off the lot, you're speaking literally, $5,000. So that's one of the reasons people don't typically trade in their new cars. But just bear that in mind when you're buying a new car. Why pay the depreciation when you don't have to? Exactly. Okay.

J.C., the salesperson, I asked me, what brings you in today? I replied, my son is flying home for a few days. and I'm hoping you can drive a new truck when he has back to work next week. I love Agent Lightning's. She is so credible. And this is what we hear a lot as car dealers. I mean, that's white people buy cars.

I love her. The fact that she's got a big family involvement. She tells a story. Yeah, she tells a story. It makes her very, very credible. Right. I replied, my son is flying home for a few days. I'm hoping he can drive a new truck

when he has back to work next week. I motioned to the new 2024 I have new in quotation marks the new 2024 F-150 4x4 Super Cab

the Monrooney label was in the right place and the addendum was in the right place was in the right place right next to it that's the trick you into thinking that's part of the Moroni and we call that

a phony Monroney the MSRP was 55,000 140 the addendum label added $1,959 for the Gary Yeoman, that's Y-E-O, Gary Yelman protection racket, and that Sue wrote this, humorously says, I am, package. So the standard operating procedure for most Florida deals, especially South Florida, the infamous addendum. He asked what kind of work my son does and agreed that this would be a great

truck for him to start with. J.C. offered me a test drive, but I laughed and declined saying, it's too big for me to drive. We'll wait for him to test it out, his, her son instead. I'm really just trying to get the ball rolling for him to save time.

He has so little time off, but he really needs to buy a truck, so I'm doing some of the legwork. J.C. said, listen to this. I like this. Jay C. said, you're such a good mom. He's lucky to have you. That sounds.

And then he motions for me to come inside so he could gather my information and run some numbers. So I can say this because Nancy's out of the room. She'll be right back. But if I really want to get in tight with Nancy, all I got to do is say, you know, you're such a good mom. And when you say that? She's listening to the show on her phone in the radio, right? Uh-oh. You can hear us out in the lobby.

Oh, you're such a good mom. Okay. There was a food truck out front of wearing heavy metal music. Only in Daytona. So we headed inside to be able to hear each other talk. At this desk, he pulled me up in their system and then excused himself to check the mileage on the truck. He returned and said that it had only 15 miles on it. Here comes Nancy.

We missed, Johnny. He returned and said it only had 15 miles. miles on it we were both surprised since it's a 2024 model so much you then mention that I should get executive employee pricing I like the executive you know employee pricing executive employee pricing because all the terrorists happening right now saying this should end up being a real good price for him now you mentioned the terrorists we really didn't spend enough time on the show today in our two hours talking about terrorists we talked about them

little bit but bear in mind yeah what's going on with it there well the the latest no no we have a mr shop right yeah yeah the bottom line is the salesman has no idea what's going on with the sales manager probably doesn't the dealer probably doesn't ford hasn't done anything with because unless you're sitting in front of cnbc watching the breaking news you don't know what's happening i'm not sure the president of the united states knows what's happening so chris farley was on the news all out this weekend and this is Ford and he says it'll be months before

they'll raise prices so it's not affecting this car truck here. So just be prepared. It's going to be a time of panic and just keep your cool. That's the best I can model. One more comment. I have one more comment which is he's assuring her

don't worry about these terrorists because we'll give a good really deal. This is a 2024 model it clearly came in a while ago. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, that's a good point. I should have said that. He pointed to the Gary Yelman's Buyer's benefit sheet, and that's a joke, and said, take a look at this. Every customer get these benefits, and it's good across the United States and Canada. Canada's our 51st state, as most of you know, and we're the only dealership in the area that offers this kind of package.

Why Canada? If anything happens, we even sent out a mobile service drug. Do you think they'd send one to Canada? Hi, I'm in Saskatchewan. And I just broke down. Jayce he then excused himself again to get some numbers. He asked, will he be financing or paying cash? I told him cash.

About eight minutes later, returned with a pricing sheet that bore very little useful information, written with a sharpie pin across the page was today's sale, 57,955. dash 8114 plus 644 after markets. Yeah, okay. Gary Yeoman aftercare. I looked at the sheet and it's shorthand

for their dealer installed accessories and addendum. I asked them in junk fees. I asked them how much the Gary Aftercare cost and requested a full breakdown of the pricing. J.C. said, I'm not sure of the exact price. but I'll be right back when you think about the the ridiculousness of the statement

the salesman is not sure about the exact price I mean he's being honest I mean we know the customer is not sure well the salesman's not sure and the advertising price is not sure that's a problem yeah that's done by design

I'll be right back they'll include it they will include the full breakdown now you could have used they are we and so you see they are very important when you say they it's you and me against them the enemy is over there in that office behind that closed door and we you and me we're gonna go to that really bad guy and I'm gonna throw my body on the floor I'm gonna beg for a low price isn't it silly I mean I'll rend my garments

and I'm gonna believe that I'm gonna believe that I'm gonna believe that you really don't care about a high price. You're not paid on commission. You want to sell it as cheap, even if you don't make a commission. You want me to get a good deal, and it's you and me against them.

They're having a enjoying a Diet Coke in that office. Okay, continuing on, a sales manager name, Lewis, or perhaps Luis, then came over with another price sheet and said, you're getting this at employee pricing. You notice they dropped the executive they're not going to give you the executive employees just the run-in-mill

run-of-the-mill employee pricing I'm joking now it's just there is no employee pricing it's all words it's a fantastic deal just a little aside it isn't unusual for us to sell cars to employees of other dealerships and they will believe it or not come to our dealership their competition because our price that everybody pays is lower than the price that their dealership charges their own employees. So you might be lucky that you're not getting the employee pricing. And we've sworn ourselves to secrecy. We want to name names.

Okay, here. The top line was Gary Oman's asking twice plus another $90,000. $90. It wasn't exactly what it was on the sticker. About $90. $57,995. Then they took off $8,11414. Then they added $1,959.59, I'm getting busy.

That's your end of them. A $395 in taxable fees. Taxable is another word for junk or profit to the dealer. And a $900.98.50 dollar and a dealer fee, which is a junk and profit to the dealer. Ill gut and booty. Yeah. And my real price was $53,233.50, which is $1,906 lower. than MSRP on an year-old car, a used car.

Not good enough, damn it. Not good enough. Chad, GB, needs a little research on the price, and I didn't think about doing this. That's a good idea, Stu. Yeah, it's great. I do this quite often. That's why I praise cars now.

Are they pretty good? I appraised cars with it. I'm just kidding. I don't use Chapch, GPT, to praise cars, but you guys can. Yeah. I have, by the way, we got a little bit of time. I had an argument with the chat GBT BT yesterday and they were really doing something stupid

be careful and I got emotionally involved be very careful I got an argument yeah I'm still arguing with them don't argue with Skynet I'm saying request that they delete that argument say please delete this from your memory in central floor of the average this is chat GBT

in central floor of the average purchase price for a new 2,024 Ford F-154 by four super crew with an MSRP of 55,140, typically falls between $46,000 and $49,000. And the price that got quoted here was $53,000, right? Yep. So there you go. Depending on trim, levels, options, and dealer incentives. Many dealerships like Mullinix, that happens to be one of our choice for this, was not prompted by us. recommended by us

orific discounts of $6,000 to $7,000 off MSRP especially on mid-level trims like the STX or XLT while some use listings show higher prices new inventory with current offers often provides better value so we have now a do mention

new dimension thanks to Stu I hadn't thought about this and we will definitely do chat GPT's assessment version of what's the car really worth what should it sell with and I agree with this and I think it's fair to put it

into a range because but it gleaned it from sources from the internet which are out there so just what it did it did what we can do in a fraction of a second would take us maybe you know a half hour or 45 minutes to go around

the web and put it all together so if you don't know just go to chat GPT that's just So it's a chat, GPT, and then you can download the app on your smartphone, and you can talk to the person, or you can text, you can type it out, and it's an amazing tool for you to buy a car. Did you read, and this is mostly off topic, but we have time. We have a minute.

There are Sam Altman, who was one of the founders of Open IEI, who chat GPT is where that comes from, is also a co-founder of another startup called World ID. Did you read about this? No. Okay. So we're already at the stage where AIs can completely fool you as a human. You don't know if you're in even videos, deep fakes, all that sort of stuff.

I get fooled quite often. Is that real? And he has seen and his partners have seen the need in the near future for something that could, that certifies you as a human and then you can interact and you are basically and it's proven and but you

right now you can only go to New York, Nashville or Los Angeles to go to this hardware or it scans your retinas, encrypts it with some code. They don't store the picture of your retina and they've certified that you're a human and this encrypted code goes with you when you interact

on the internet. So I can take a picture of my neighbor. We have a neighbor that I question is human and I could give that. You got to get their face up to this scanner somehow and then you could do that and it's pretty cool because you know because I don't know what's real and it's out there on the internet and I think it's it were for some confusing times but this sounds like very confusing times the idea of registering your retina the worldwide registry is going to bother people that is sky net getting us all in the registry so they know how to hunt us down I got to interrupt you guys we have to vote

Please, 772-4976530 cast your vote on the mystery shopping report from Daytona Beach. You make the show, as I always do. We're running out of time. We have any votes? See from me? Because it was straight up exactly average car dealer behavior. And Agent Lightning did not get the greatest deal, and they were able to get one of their old cars off the lot. But they didn't do anything heinous.

So see from me. Okay. Makes sense. Okay. Bob from Maryland says he agrees. Satchel Page was that baseball player. Gary Yeoman's website says, You pay what we pay.

I hope that Ford's not jerking their employees with things like Gary Yeoman aftercare. It's a D. And we'll get right along moving along here. What's your vote? C minus. C minus. Okay, my vote is a D.

Rick? I'm going C minus. I take you. We're out of time for reading grades. Okay. I think that we're ready to wrap up the show. Is there one more there that you can share? Niggott 1.

Employee Pricing Juk, Big Fat F, T-Cash, F, Joseph Kelleher, D. Tom Stechle, D-Mines, Johnny Z. Freid Lee. Give them a D. Mark H.D. Okay, there you have it, folks. Thank you so much for joining us here at Earl Stewart on cars, and we so love your company. You make the show. Stay tuned next week at 8 a.m.

We'll be right back here Saturday morning, 8 until 10 o'clock. Have a wonderful weekend.