Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.19.2018 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of West Palm Beach Kia

Episode Date: May 19, 2018

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent X visits West Palm Beach Kia to purchase a car from the Costco Auto Buying Program. Earl Stewart is one of the most successful car dealers in the nation. This podcast gives you the benefit of his 40+ years as a car dealer and helps you turn the terror of buying, leasing, or servicing a car into a triumphant experience. Listen to the Earl Stewart on Cars radio program every Saturday morning live from 8am to 10 am eastern time, or online on http://www.trueoldiesfla.com. Call in with your questions during the live show toll free at [phone]. You can also send a text to Earl and his expert team during the live show at [phone]. We are now on Facebook Live every Saturday between 8am and 10am. Go to facebook.com/earloncars to also watch it live or to watch a replay in case you missed it. Uncover additional automotive tips and facts at http://www.earlstewartoncars.com and follow Earl's tweets @EarlonCars. Watch Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart. Reach them with your questions at 877-960. Here's Earl and Nancy. Good morning, everybody. Well, that was a close call. I looked at the control room and said, there's a show on yet? And Colin said yes. And I didn't have my headphones on, so I didn't hear the music.

I forgot why we were here. We're here, and we are Earl Stewart on Cars. This is the True Oldies Channel, and we are not True Oldies. although I am a little elderly, but I'm not a true oldie. I'm an automobile dealer. I'm a recovering automobile dealer, and my name is Earl, and we're here every Saturday at this time, 8 to 10. We've been doing this not at the same time,

but we've been doing this for over 10 years. It's how to do it show. How to buy a car without being ripped off by a car dealer. Also, how to maintain, repair your car. We're kind of candid. We're to the point, sometimes a little blunt. People sometimes say we're too blunt, mainly car dealers, and a lot of employees of car dealers say that. But we're all not on a negative show.

We have a list of recommended car dealers. And you can access that list by going to www. www.goddielder, baddealer, list.com. And we get that list by mystery shopping car dealers. Another reason why we're not very popular with car dealers is we send in a secret shopper every week. Are we going to some car dealership in South Florida? We're undercover. Pretend to buy or lease a car.

Talk to the salesman. Usually the sales manager. Sometimes the finance manager. We tell it like it is. We name names. We name car dealerships. We tell you who the sales manager was. We tell you what the sales manager said, what the salesman said.

We respond to advertisements sometimes, and we let you know if you can buy a car at that dealership for the advertised price. Sometimes we go in as Costco members. We did that last week, this week actually, and we're going to be doing a lot of that. We have a what you could call a, well, expose. Exposure. It's kind of like a, what is it, a investigative reporting thing. Exposet.

Yeah, expose. We have found out that the Costco auto buying program, number one, isn't really run by Costco. It's run by a company called the Alliance Development Group. group in the San Diego. Affinity. Affinity. Affinity. Affinity.

Point is, nobody ever heard of it. Whether it's Alliance or Affinity, you haven't heard of it. You've heard of Costco. And the reason Costco is involved is because Costco has got a sterling name. They have a name that you just say Costco. It's like saying Apple, you know, trust, transparency, honesty, low prices. So the Affinity Development Corporation, Nancy, do you have to lead to? It's like saying consumer rebrand.

Oh, yes. Consumer Reports is another example of a sterling. You trust automatically. If somebody says this came out of consumer reports, it's the Bible. You believe it. The Bible is another thing with a good brand. But the Affinity Development Group is not. They call themselves the College of Auto Buying Program, and we find out there's a lot left to be desired, transparency, and honesty. We shop a car dealership the day before yesterday, actually.

It was West Palm Beach, Kia, I'll tell you that much. And we went in, and we were actually under the disguise of a real Costco member. But before I get too specific, let's go on about what the show is all about. I was going to say that it isn't all about buying or leasing the car. It's also about maintaining and repairing. And it's an informative show. We've got Rick Kearney sitting next to me. Rick is a certified diagnostic master technician, and he knows all about how to fix cars and maintain cars or repair anything.

He's really good. He's been doing it for 20-plus years. He goes to school all the time. He's always taking an online class. Sometimes he leaves town to go to school. The technology on new vehicles now is exploding. When we come into this studio every week, one of the first things we usually chit-chat about before the show starts is, hey, does you hear about the new thing that cars can do now? We're talking about a car that can use your app or your Apple phone watch to start it. you can open, close the windows, you can turn the air conditioning on. Every week there's an exploding technology.

So that's the reason Rick has to go to school all the time. And I defy you to come up with a question about your car that he cannot answer. And sitting next to Rick is Nancy Stewart, my wife, my co-host. And Nancy is our female advocate. She's a strong advocate for women's rights. And if you don't think that women are being discriminated against, you've never heard of hashtag me too. I used to call it pound sign me too,

and my son said that's for old guys. It's hashtag me too. And that's what the ladies are talking about because they have been pushed around a lot. One of the things they get pushed around about is positions in employment. I read an article in the paper this morning that in the Fortune 500 companies,

how many women do you think are the CEOs? How many women do you think lead Fortune 500 companies. Any guesses? Not enough. You're close. 3%. Okay, you're all close. 4.6%. I win. You did.

4.6%. Give that man a Cupid doll. And you know, it seems pretty low, but things are getting better for women in this male dominated. I'm not going to say the male dominated sales

force in the auto industry, but, you know, the whole spectrum of things. Women are, you know, becoming stronger, and they're being put in these positions that they never were in before. So things are getting a little better. Well, you're going to be speaking before a women's group tomorrow, aren't you, Nancy? Yes, we will be at the Valencia in Valencia Falls.

Valencia Falls. Valencia Shores. Valencia Shores. I was going to call Valencia Falls. Valencia Shores, Women's Club in Boynton? Yes, it's in Boynton, and we're going to be there tomorrow morning, and I'll be talking to the ladies. Rick Kearney will be there, I'll be there,

and then she'll be talking to a group of women, and we're going to be talking about what you can do to make your life a little easier when you're buying or leasing a car or maintaining or repairing your car. Unfortunately, women have a little tougher task of that, partly because there's very few women employed a car dealerships. I mean, if there's only 4.6 CEOs in the Fortune 500, you walk into a car dealership. Oftentimes, you never see a woman.

And Salesforce, the service department, the parts department, you see more women in the accounting department because that's where women are supposed to be, right? That's the way it's been looked at for so many years. There are certain jobs that women can't perform. Men say, subtly I'm starting to see women seals. I'm seeing women pilots. We flew from the Bahamas to West Palm Beach with a woman. woman pilot, not too long ago. So women

are coming along. We want to help that and we also want to help you women out there make it easier for you when you come into buy a car. This is what the show is all about. Nancy? Yes, and if you just tuned in, you're listening to Earl Stewart. Earl Stewart

on cars right here at 95.9 106.9 FM. And you are in a very important part of the show. And we want to thank you for tuning in. Give us a call. We'd love to hear from you. 877-960, or, if you're a little bashful, Texas, 772-497-6530. Back to the recovering car dealer.

I'm going to repeat those numbers of the risk of boring our regular listeners who probably have the number either memorized or written down in front of them. Those of you who don't have the number memorized or written down, please write it down unless, of course, you're driving. Please don't write anything down while you're driving. the audio number, the number you can call us on and speak to us is 877-9-60-9-9-6-0. That's 877-9-60-99-60. Text. Text. We get a lot of text. Text are kind of nice because if you're doing something, you can text us, and we get to it, maybe not right away, but in five minutes. or, you know, we get to it pretty quick.

The text number is 772-497-6530. That's area code, 772-497-6530. And if we miss it, we'll get it next week. It goes right to my son Stu's cell phone, his Apple, cell phone. Oh, it goes to his Mac computer. By the way, I forgot to talk to about my son. My son, Earl Douglas Stewart III. I'm Earl Douglas Stewart, by the way.

But Stu Stewart is our cyber guy. And we are really having a strong impact with communicating digitally. And we're just talking about YouTube a few minutes ago. We're taking clips of this show and we're posting it on YouTube on the YouTube channel and we're getting hundreds, maybe thousands of views. So we're getting a great amount of awareness

not just from our blog, which is posted online. It's posted on Facebook. Facebook. You can access the blog at earl on cars.com, Earl Stewart on Cars.com. Take your pick. We have hundreds, hundreds of those blogs. But the YouTube, but Stu's also doing tweets, Instagrams. You don't do Snapchat, do you? Not really. That's for the kids. Because the Snapchat disappears right after you post it. You can do a story and you can watch it, a little video vignette. But on YouTube, the easiest way to find this is just to search Earl on Cars on YouTube. Okay, yeah. And our channel will come up and you see all the videos there. it come up if they do it on their smartphone or do they have, they will. Yeah, you get it on your phone, on your computer. It's really easy. I was going to give

the address, but just go on the YouTube and search Earl on Cars. And you can find the YouTube channel. Our most recent postings and our postings, by the way, I have to mention Jonathan, who is our technical advisor, our cyber advisor, he's waving at us from the control room. He's doing an incredibly good job of getting us into cyberspace, especially on the YouTube. He's got all the cameras set up. Well, you used to be, without camera. Now I'm looking at myself. We're live. I should have gone, I should have spent more time in makeup this morning.

You look great. Anyway, the video is magic. The video is magic. And don't take what I look like for, I'm really a lot smarter than I look. That's why I keep back in the camera up from you. We're live right now on Facebook. So if you go to Facebook.com

slash Earl on Cars, Facebook.com slash Earl D. Stewart. or just if you're Earl's Facebook friend member of the International Sunrise Club, it's live on his page too. My Sunrise Club members, every morning Nancy and I do a live Facebook video of the sunrise. Didn't have one this morning, too cloudy, but every morning Nancy and I are out on that beach

and we're videoing the sunrise. So I can't tell you exactly what time. It was at 6.30 this morning. Yeah, it was early. I'm in charge of crowd control. Yes, she is, absolutely. So Facebook, but let's go back to the YouTube for a minute. These YouTube said Jonathan

was so he captured them the good part of what we were talking about with respect to the Costco thing. Costco to me is a great expose because Costco is literally Nancy and My's favorite retail store.

We go into Costco almost every week we order online from Costco. Why? Because Costco will not mark up their prices more than 15%. Sometimes they're marked up a lot less. Story I remember about Costco is they had some Italian-style pants that flew off the shelves, flew off the shelves.

I don't remember the price, but I'm going to say there were $50 a pair of men's pants. And they ran out. Now the manufacturing company from whom Costco buys directly is in Italy somewhere, they cut the prices to Costco by 25 percent. Now there's a windfall for Costco, right? Why? Because they know the pants sell so fast. They couldn't keep them in stock.

So they ordered a whole other batch, thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of pairs with Costco's all over the United States. Now, did they sell them at the same price, which they knew they would fly off the shelves for? No. They reduced the price by the amount of the price was reduced to them by the manufacturer by 25 percent. That story has stuck with me ever since.

I always remember that about Costco. The other thing I always remember about Costco, you can get a roasted chicken for $4.99. I can't forget that. I cannot forget that. Every time I hear about people starving to death, I think about I got to tell them that they can buy a chicken for $4.99 that will feed three people. Or a hot dog for $0.99. Oh, no, it's a buck and a half.

Well, you know, I don't want to rain on your parade. You do it all the time. But. Please, that was supposed to be funny. We are live. So if you're watching live, you could have seen that look. Yeah, exactly. Rain on my parade, honey.

Okay. It's still there if you want to tune in now. Back to a serious subject on Costco. That was a beautiful story that you shared. My story isn't so beautiful. Whenever I want to go and I want to go to my computer and I want to start ordering products from Costco, there are some products that are marked up,

and it is shocking that they are marked up like they are. And you and I sat together, and we realized that. We checked out the prices. You had even asked me for the receipt from the last time we were. Let me clarify that because that wasn't the Costco website we were on. Well, we were on Amazon. Exactly. Yeah, we were on Amazon.

So, Amazon is known for doing that. Costco does not mark up their prices. They will not mark up any price over 15%. So what I do, and it just sounds like a commercial for Costco, is not. Maybe I'm feeling guilty because I've attacked Costco. Yes. And I'm trying to make up for that. But the fact the matter is, if I see a product,

out on Amazon, if I see a product at Target or Walmart. I go to Costco. If Costco has it, I buy it from them because it's always lower price. Anyway, Costco is an icon of integrity and transparency to me. I have said that,

and I made it clear. Costco has, what is the word, ordained a company called the Affinity. Is it Affinity to? Affinity. Affinity group. They are a development group, and they are a marketing company in San Diego, California.

And what they do is they find other companies with honest, transparent, well-known brands like Costco, like Apple. You mentioned consumer reports. I mean, you all know the companies out there you trust. And then they go to them and they say, let us market a product for you. and you pay us a piece of the action of what you get charged the ultimate consumer for it. So car dealers pay Costco a fee. What is it, around $1,500 a month to? Per warehouse, $1,100 per warehouse.

$1,100 per warehouse. So for every Costco store you represent, you have to pay Costco. The car dealer does $1,100. We represent, my dealership represents three, so we pay them $3,300 a month. for the purpose of them telling their members, if you want to buy a car from Earl Stewart Toyota, then Earl Stewart to Toyota is a Costco approved member. And what does that say to the customer? Integrity, transparency, honesty, a low price.

Now, what Costco doesn't know, I hopefully, they don't know it, is that the Alliance Development Group, also known as a Costco auto buying program, is playing games with the Costco brand name. And when you go into a Costco dealer, they're adding a dealer, fees they're adding dealer installed accessories to the Costco price and that is a reason that we have really raised a furor and I'm finally back to what started this rant with the YouTube that we posted on the internet and we have almost a thousand views on I think both of the YouTube videos that we posted so

you could go to that YouTube video and hear the whole the whole story about Costco and the affinity development corporation i don't know why i want to keep seeing alliance affinity development corporation and uh and you will see that uh please we have a caller his name is frank and he's calling from jupiter farms welcome to the show frank hey frank well good morning nancy good morning earl and all the rest of the gang um i got to tell you i absolutely enjoy listening to your show as i found out there's many more people than myself. But we'll get to that. Over the last few weeks, you've been talking about the lease deals and the small print. And so last night, I came home from, and I had on the

evening news, on a 30-minute newscast, there was six different ads for six different car companies, $169 a month, $129 a month. And then you're right, it's on there for one second or less. But by freezing your DVR, you can read the fine print if they even put the fine print. I had pictures on my phone I was going to send in, but I'm getting ready to make a drive down to Miami. So anyway, long story short, only one actually came up with all the different fees. Yes, it's like $3,000 down, $29.99. God knows it's not $3,000, it's $2,999, plus dealers' fees, plus this, plus that.

And then they had the caveat saying, if you don't like what you saw, it could be a misprint, and we don't stand by any misprint. But it was remarkable as far as, just like you said. I mean, if people have a DVR, this is fun. I mean, I sat there last night reading all these different little commercials, and most of them now don't need to give the details. You just say, you've got to see the dealer. Exactly, yeah.

Yeah, that's what we have to do on the mystery shopping reports, Frank, because you have to freeze frame what it's on there. The amazing thing is everybody sees that, and this is fairly common. It's not at all in common. You know, the Federal Trade Commission people see it. The legislators and federal and state legislators see it. The state attorneys, everybody sees this fine print.

And these auto commercials, and this is not auto, it's all the retailers. And why waste the time of putting the fine print on there when you can't read it? It's actually just a total joke until someone like you or me freeze frames it and reads it and realizes it is the ultimate deception. And everybody's playing along, everybody's playing the game, and nobody wants to say that the emperor has no clothes. So we're saying, you know, the emperor has no clothes. The advertisers that are supposed to be regulated by the Federal Trade Commission and all the other federal and state regulators are just not doing their job. And the big question is, why aren't they doing their job? Yeah, very true.

Now, to a very positive, quick thing, the other night I was invited to a free dinner. Okay, free is for me. It was a wealth seminar, at which point the speaker was very articulate and very nice. And then you got to the point where you bring 100,000, we invest the whole 100,000. I don't get $100 fees. I don't get $1,000 fees. I just don't get fees And at which point

I couldn't help myself And I raised my hand And I said Well you should use the slogan There are no dealer fees And someone in the audience said Oh that's Earl Stewart I said you're right

It's Earl Stewart At which point This group of about 20-something people Half them recognize your name Your dealership And even the more ironic thing At the end of the show This couple A's came

Well your voice Are you Earl Stewart You sound like Earl Stewart And I go, geez, I said, no, I could make an impression on these old people so well. Well, Frankie, you made my way. You have a very good rapport out in there. There's a lot of people listening, and I told them about your show, so you're probably going to be getting a lot of calls today.

Wonderful. Because we shall see. Well, Frank, that's great. On another note, and I'll be real quick. I'll take your time. We love you. We love you. They had a little of Veterans Appreciation thing where they had some Navy seals down,

and they had some snacks, and it was interesting we were in there, and I actually met Ashley Schumacher. I guess she's taken over some. And when I mention your name, they thought well of you. And I said, actually, Earl thinks pretty well of your dealership. Not so much as the one across the street called Napleton, and they all had a good laugh about that. So you're very well received in the public's eye,

and what you're doing is very noteworthy. And, oh, by the way, I was the one who sent you the picture of that dog that was just before he was going to be put down two days later, a little eagle on the way home with that look on his eyes of the master of driving in Ohio. Bless your heart, yeah. I think he talked about that picture last week. But, yeah, we talked about Big Dog Ranch at that investment thing, too.

So hopefully some people are going there. But having said that, I got to get going because I got to make a long drive. Okay, Frank. Keep up the good work. I really enjoy your show, and thanks again. You've got to do me a favor. Please call every week because we love you. You're very articulate.

You're very smart, and you're very observant. anybody that go to the trouble to freeze frame the fine print on an automobile commercial is my kind of guy. So please call again. Thank you so much. Well, I truly, real quick, I truly enjoy that one lady that calls from up north. Tina, Tina, from Bonita Springs. Tina, yes. Oh, she is our ticket.

My goodness. You should have her and I go around do some mystery shopping. They wouldn't know either one of us. We could just tear them apart. That's a great idea. We'll take you up on that. Great idea. We will take you up.

We're looking for more mystery shoppers, so thanks. for the offer. And Frank, if you're serious, please leave your contact information with Colin, who's at the controls, and we'll get you out there, get you shopping.

Oh, I will take you up on that, absolutely. All righty. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend. You too. Bye-bye. 877-960-9960, and we've got a lot of calls. callers out there. Hopefully they're going to call in. Frank is a great caller. He mentioned another great caller, Tina, 877-960-99-60, or you can text this is 772-497-6530. The text number is 772-497-6530.

Speaking of callers, we would really appreciate Costco members to call. This is going to be kind of a Costco show. I believe we have a lot of Costco executives watching, probably a lot of Affinity Development Corporation, Costco Water Buying Program members watching. And we really would like to hear from the horse's mouth. I had a Facebook friend who bought a car at Costco and said that the Costco buying experience was quite good, and he always uses the Costco auto buying program. He's bought his last six cars through the Costco. auto buying program. I asked him the question. This dialogue is all on Facebook. I said, when you

when you bought it, did you see the official Costco member price sheet? He said, no, I never asked for it. And this is the point that I made to the Costco folks that I've talked to, both the Costco parent company and the Affinity Development Corporation Costco Auto Buying Program. And I told them that most of the people that are buying cars to the Costco program are not seeing the sheet. Typically, purchase or the contact is made by phone to the dealership the person will call the dealership and say I'm a Costco member I understand you have special pricing for Costco members they say we sure do come right in and that's usually the extent of the the way the Costco members are buying cars unfortunately

when that happens there's a lot can go wrong number one somebody who is not an official Costco representative will take that customer and make a lot of money on them and sell them the car for much much much more than the Costco price sometimes if the Costco member does get hold of the person they don't take the time to show them the price sheet and if you do see the price sheet you don't take the time to read the fine print you just heard frank from jupiter farms talking about the fine print the Costco auto buying program member sheet member sheet has a lot of fine print on it too so we'd love to hear from you Costco members now if you bought a car through the cost of

auto buying program, you would really be doing us a favor here at Earl Stodon Cars if you would take the time to call the show and relate to your experience. You will be talking not just to us and the other normal listeners to Earl Storan Cars, you'll be talking to Costco.

Because I feel sure if they don't, if they're not listening to the show right now, they're probably going to listen to the podcast or the YouTube rendition. This show is recorded, and I know that there will be several Costco executives and Affinity

executives that will be watching this show, listening to this show. So you can be heard. I'm not putting down Costco. I said earlier on the show just tuned in. Costco is an amazing company. I love Costco. I mean, I think

Costco, I think all companies should price their products, treat their customers the way Costco does. But Costco is affiliated themselves with a group that is not doing the right thing by you, the Costco members. Love to hear from you. I made this offer last week. I'll make it again this week.

Let's make it for the first 10 callers, Costco members. Now, we'll ask you to verify your membership information with Colin in the control room after the call. And if you're an official Costco member, and we verify it, and you call the show, and you mention your auto buying experience that you bought a car through Costco, good or bad. My guess is it'll be good. I think what you'll find out is you had a pleasant experience.

but you didn't know some things and that's what we're trying to expose we're going to think that you didn't know probably that the Costco dealer added his dealer fee or fees to the Costco member price we're probably you probably didn't know that the Costco dealer added dealer installed accessory prices to the Costco member price we also believe you're not going to realize that you didn't see the price sheet or speak to the Costco representative so Call and tell us about your good or bad experience if you're a Costco member, and I will donate $100 to your favorite charity. You can, if you don't want to name your favorite charity, you don't have a favorite charity,

then I will donate it to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. $100 to the first 10 Costco members who have bought a car through the Costco Auto Buy program, $100 cash to your charity or to Big Dog Ranch Rescue if you would choose to donate it to my charity. And that's an offer to entice you to call Help Yourself, Help Us, Help All the Listeners, Help All Costco members, and help Costco. Because when Costco hears from you, you hear it from the horse's mouth. When they hear their members calling Earl Stewart on Cars and talking about their Costco buying experience, it's going to get their attention. And the ultimate purpose of all this is to change the way Costco administers the program through the Affinity Group, which is not being done properly. The Costco price should be the price you pay plus government fees only.

Althador price plus government fees only. No dealer fees, no dealer installed accessories. Not happening that way, Costco executives at the listing, not happening that way. So Costco members, I'll say it one more time, $100,000 to your favorite charity if you bought a car through the Costco program and you call the show and it relate to your experience. The numbers are 877-960-99-60. Write the number down, please. Think about it.

877-9-60-99-60, and you can text this at 772-49-2-497-6-5-30. That's text 772-497-65-30. We'd sure like to hear from you. Turn it over to Nancy Stewart, my co-host here. What do you got to talk about, Nancy? Thank you very much. Well, I'd like to extend an invitation to Michael, who called last week, and he shared his story with us about Costco,

and we'd love to talk to you again, so if you're listening, Michael, give us a call. And also just a reminder, if you're unable to listen to our live show or you want to listen to any other past shows, you can always subscribe to the Earl Stewart on Cars podcast on your smartphone. your smartphone or your tablet using the following podcast apps, Apple App Podcasts, SoundCloud, Google, Stitcher Radio, Tune-in Radio, PocketCast, and Overcast. And if you would like to watch highlights from our show, go to YouTube.com slash Erl on Cars. And also, for you ladies that are listening, the first two new lady callers, $50 for each one of you.

So give us a call. We want to thank you very much for listening to Earl Stewart on cars. On a Saturday morning, I know you've got a whole lot to do, and we appreciate your dedication. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I didn't want to frighten off our regular listeners. I know I'm getting pretty excited about this Costco issue,

so don't get me wrong. welcome any callers for any reason. We don't talk as much about repairs and maintenance as we should, and that's the reason that we have Rick Kearney here, because he can answer about all your questions. You only buy a car every four or five years, but you maintain your car all the time. You repair your car, unfortunately, sometimes, and you need to know how not to be taken advantage of. There are a lot of car dealers out there, and there are a lot of independent shops. The independent shops have problems, and I'll tell you one little issue. I'll throw out at you that you probably didn't know.

Every time you have your car repaired, the shop that repaired it has a little dealer fee at the bottom of the invoice. You know you pay a dealer fee, at least if you listen to the show, you know you pay a dealer fee when you buy a car. Did you know that you're paying a little bitty dealer fee compared to the big one when you buy one? You're paying a smaller dealer fee

when you have your car repaired or service. It's at the bottom of the invoice. They don't tell you what it is. There's no disclosure. It has various names like dealer fees. The various names are hazardous waste disposal fee, miscellaneous fee, small tools, nuts, bolts. Shop fees. It's limited only by the imagination of the service department.

Environmental fees. Environmental fees. Yeah, environmental. We have another caller. He's calling from Wellington, and that is Jerry. Welcome to the show, Jerry. Good morning. Good morning.

I have a question for Rick. We have two Priuses, and one is an 06, and one is a 12. Okay. And I've discovered that if I am traveling, say, 45 miles an hour, and I'm coming up to a red light, if I put the gear shift in the B position, it will slow the car down. I don't use the brakes, and it'll charge the battery sooner. Now, am I doing any harm? Absolutely not.

Have you ever driven in the mountains ever? You know, been up north. A long time ago. Okay. You know those times when you're coming down the side of a mountain. And if you were driving a stick shift and you wanted to slow the car to keep it under control coming down a long hill, you would down shift the car. And let the engine, it's called engine braking. And it lets the motive force of the engine help slow the car down.

same thing with an automatic transmission the computer for the automatic transmission would automatically downshift the car to help slow the car without really affecting the way the using your brakes or affecting the way the car runs it just uses that drag to help slow it down well one other quick comparison

do you remember blue roof season after the hurricanes when everybody had their generators up and running and you plugged in something heavy duty on that generator and you heard the generator kind of bogged down. Oh, yes. All right, well, that's exactly what your Prius is doing. It's actually putting a heavy draw on the electric motors that are acting as a generator

and creating a huge amount of power back to the battery and at the same time, because your wheels are turning to spin that generator, it creates a drag and it slows the car down. so it's using that kinetic energy of the car driving to create electricity and slow the car at the same time and it's called regenerative braking it costs you nothing to do it does absolutely no damage and gives you free electricity to drive the car on that's good to know it's actually a feature designed into the car and it's a fantastic thing to have right i'm surprised no one ever mentions that uh when you're buying it Good point, Jerry.

It should be talked about more because it's one of the major features of a hybrid vehicle. I drive a Prius, thank you for telling me what that B means. I knew what it meant, but you're right. Nobody talks about it because it's really not used that much, I guess, in Florida. Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Jerry.

Bye. I believe we had an Alan Napier went into the Nissan dealership and talking about the new leaf with a new, model leaf and I don't what are the details about that that's a they have an e-pedal mode that goes in where you can drive without using a brake pedal so it kind of works like a toy electric

car you take off the accelerator and it stops the car and um but I think the discussion was are they getting rid of the brake pedal all together they're not they're just it's just a kind of a neat way to drive the car temporarily so basically you could just if you don't coast

which you don't want to coast with necessarily with electric you can't coast with an electric motor So if you're on the electric motor and you depress the accelerator, you engage the electric motor. Instead of hitting the brake, you slow down, just lower your, you slowly take your foot off the accelerator. If you take your foot off the accelerator, suddenly what happens? I think the computer knows what you're doing. It's not going to stop the car suddenly. But it reminds me of a video game, more like it than driving the car.

Interesting. We've got a text, and I'm so happy to have a text is our first text. this morning and I'm going to give that text number out again just to be sure you all have it. Write it down if you don't have anything to text us about right now, you will before 10 o'clock rolls around. I'm sure. Text number is area code 772. Here we code 772-497-6530. 772-497-6530. Here's the text I just received. As a Costco member, I thought it was actually being

represented by Costco, not the affinity development company. This caused me to let my guard down, and I can see why. When dealing with their dealers, I feel this is deceptive. The Costco affinity relationship should be clearly stated up front. Of course, of course. And this is, to me, the ultimate deception here is allowing your name to be used. You know, there's nothing more important to a company or to an individual than their name. And when you lend your name out, you should be sure who you lend it to.

You lend your name to the wrong company or the wrong person. It takes a long time to build a reputation. There's somebody that made this. This is a quote. I'm paraphrasing a quote, but something like, I think it takes you 40 years or 50 years to build a reputation and only one day to tear it down. And if you loan your name, which Costco did to the Affinity Development Corporation, you've taken a big chance.

That's the reason, I guess I'm excited about this. I've always used Costco as an example. When I'm talking to car dealers, and I'm talking about retailing and the ethics and honesty and transparency, I say, look at Costco. And suddenly, I find out what's going on with Costco. I hope and pray that Costco has no knowledge of this.

You know, there's something we've heard, you hear it in the news all the time, plausible deniability. You know, you have somebody, high up in government. I won't name any names, but somebody high up in government. And suddenly that person is accused of something really bad. But he didn't do it. Somebody down the pecking order, someone down to the organizational chart did it. Now the question is, did the top guy know what the guy in the middle or the guy on the bottom was doing? What did he know and when did he know it? What did he know and when did he know it? And Harry Truman, we were talking about this in the car. are. Nancy and I, on the way to work, on the way to the show, this is at work, this is fun.

And we said, Harry Truman, the buck stops here. So Costco is Harry Truman. And Costco, the buck stops with you. You loaned your name to the Affinity Development Corporation. Okay, I have a question for you. I'm going to interrupt you. I'd like to know how long the Affinity Development Group has been associated with Costco's car buying program.

I'm going to, yes, 1922. Not a long time. And today, we're talking about it. Last week we talked about it and answer this question. How many consumers know that they are

buying through the affinity development? Very few. Well, we have one texter who clearly didn't know. I'm going to say, nobody knew. We didn't know. I just knew

I had an idea we knew it wasn't Costco directly what I thought was it was a subsidiary I thought it was part of Costco but you know big corporations have like car dealerships

they have a parts department they have a service department they have a new car sales department Walmart has got separate departments and sometimes they're wholly owned subsidiaries my company has some wholly owned subsidiaries.

I never knew that the company that was administering and responsible for the Costco Auto Bike program has no relationship with Costco other than apparently some kind of a contract. And I don't even know that they got a contract. Here's a question. Why has it been such a, well, hidden secret? Why hasn't there been some kind of exposure for the Affinity Development Group?

Why has it been talked about? Why doesn't the consumer know? The Affinity Development Group, that's what they do. In other words, they are an unknown company in San Diego, and they go to, I don't know who they go to. I know they go to Costco, but they have a lot of other clients. Costco was not the only client of the Affinity Development Company. So they go to somebody that has a good name. They could go to Apple, they could go to Nordstroms,

they could go to any company, and they say, here's a proposal for you. We will put an additional $5 million or $2 million in the bank for you every year, every month, whatever it may be, and we will market this product. And we want your name. We want to use your name. to market this product. They could be selling oranges. They could be selling Costco oranges.

The affinity development groups is this is a Costco orange. And then Costco gets 25 cents on the dollar and they get 75 cents is the affinity development. So that's what they do. It's a very smart plan. They know brands sell. Transparency, honesty, integrity, brand sales. When I buy an apple product, I know I'm probably paying a little bit too much. When I go into Nordstrom's, I know I know I'm, I'm sure I'm paying a little bit too much. There are a lot of stores that you go to that you pay a little bit more than you would and you take the brand. Costco, you have your quality and low price too.

Costco is the ultimate company because they have the low price and the quality and the integrity. Yeah, I feel that this here is a real can of worms that's been opened. And you talk about affinity and them being, you know, way and, I'm a lot. I don't know, a well-kept secret. Affinity is being very well compensated, whether they're with Costco, whether they're with Norstroms, whether they're over at the pet shop,

they're being very well compensated. And there's no transparency. Well, let's take a call here. We need to have someone call us, and again, we're so focused on this Costco thing. Call us for any reason. Call us to say hi. And you ladies out there, 50 bucks, cold cash.

If you haven't called the show before, if you haven't called Earl Stewart and cars and you're female, 50 bucks. That's just to encourage women to call. We want women participants. First of all, your sharpest attack, arguably our best caller, Tina from Bonita Springs, knows more about cars, retailing, buying, leasing, maintaining, repairing. She's extremely well-read, extremely smart.

So we want more female buyers and female callers. So please call 877-9-60-960, $50 bucks cash if you haven't called the show before. And I repeat my offer to Costco members who bought a car, $100 bucks to your favorite charity. $100. And if you don't have a favorite charity, we'll give it to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. By the way, Big Dog Ranch Rescue, as long as I have to maintain my continuity here, is the largest no-kill shelter in Florida. We have over 500 dogs available for adoption.

We're located on Okochobe Boulevard, West, in Laxahabee Grows. That's a mouthful. Laxahatchie Groves. And we have some excellent dogs out there. We have small dogs, too. We say big dog ranch, but we also have little bitty dogs. We've got a lot of chihuahuas, truly.

We have chihuahuas. Mid-sized dogs. We have mid-size. It's just like all of car dealers. We have large. Crossover dogs? Crossover dogs. Most of them are crossovers.

Yeah. And these dogs, by the way, are extremely well cared for. They're neutered. They've gone through a quarantine. They're dewormed. They have no physical maladies. If they have any habits, bad habits, we train them. These dogs are, they've gone through screening like you've never seen a dog be screened before.

They're all good dogs, and they have a guarantee. It's amazing. You know, it's really amazing the dogs that come through the dealership and how behave they are. And you take into consideration the history of the dogs and where they've been, for instance, Puerto Rico, you know, in the storms and hurricanes and, you know, or the, maybe abuse. But it's an amazing charity if you haven't heard of it. And it's the Big Dog Ranch. and we've been partnered with it for, oh, I'd say, just about three years. Check out our website, Big Dog Ranch Rescue, www.

We're very proud. BDRR.org. And ladies and gentlemen, if you didn't get a chance to read Earl's column, I'm telling you, you've got to pick up the hometown news or the Florida Weekly because it is a very interesting, very interesting column. And the column is Costco's auto buying program. Costco's Achilles heel, great read. And there's so many other columns that you can read at Erwan Cars.

Back to the recovering car dealer. 877-960-90-960. We're not getting as many calls as we normally do. Do you know why? Why is that, Nancy? They're all watching Harry and Megan. I've got to not. I thought they were already married.

About an hour ago, I think. Oh, I did so, yeah. That's going to go on all day. Is that right? Do the women have to wear those silly hats? I mean, there's some very beautiful women. I read an interesting article about it, but I'm not going to talk about it now. You know, I was almost tempted to wear my hat.

I have a hat that I wear on Mother's Day. I wear Easter, and you make fun of me. Do you look like Pippa? Pippa. That's a compliment. Thank you. I'll take that. Ladies and gentlemen, again, thank you. for listening, give us a call.

Prove me wrong. You're not listening and you're not watching the Royal Wedding. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Here's a serious issue that we should talk about, and I've talked about it at length for about two years, the Dakota Airbag. I was really not surprised, but it was really kind of saddening to learn that Florida

Florida is number one in deaths, injuries, and instances of the Takata Airbag. The Takata airbag failures occur in Florida more so than any other state. Not surprising to consider our heat and humidity. And if you've been on an island somewhere, if you have been out of town somewhere, and haven't heard about the Takata airbag thing, it's a terrible situation. Auto-manufacturer by the name of Takata, Japanese, obviously, since bankrupt, Once the word got out that they were building time bombs instead of airbags, they're basically airbags with unstable accelerant in the inflator,

something called ammonium nitrate that in high heat humidity conditions blows up, blows up in your face, kills a lot of people. And in Florida, it's happening more than any other state. So why isn't there's something being done about it? why doesn't Governor Rick Scott put out an executive order making it illegal to sell a car with the fact he took out of airbag? I mean, that's a no-brainer, right?

Senator Scott, who he wants to be, Governor Rick Scott, wants to be Senator Scott. If you want to be senator and you want some votes, why don't you tell the citizens of Florida that you're going to make it illegal for a car dealer to sell you a car that can kill them? I mean, that'd be a nice start, wouldn't it? I'd love that.

And no other, to be fair, No other governor's done that. No other governor in the 50 states. But Rick Scott, Governor Scott, you are the governor of Florida. There are more deaths in Florida than any other state. More of your citizens and your potential voters are dying because they have a Takata airbag. We've shot many car dealerships that have had Takata airbags in their inventory. We go in.

And sometimes we ask them if they have anything dangerous. We always ask him. Sometimes we specifically ask about recalls. And in more cases than not, we find out that they lie about it. So, Rick Scott, make it illegal in Florida to sell a tecotta ear bag equipped car. I do have to say that this is another well-kept secret. Pam Bondi, Scott, Senator, Governor, whatever. It's just been a well-kept secret.

There hasn't been enough exposure. people are dying, especially in Florida. Ladies and gentlemen, give us a call. We'd love to hear from you. You know we are here to go over the good, the bad, and the ugly. 877-960, 9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We've been waiting for a special caller. She has arrived.

And that is Tina from Benita Springs. Welcome to the show. Hi, everybody. How are y'all doing this morning? Where have you been? I've been good. I just got finished watching the Royal Wedding, and it's going to segue into the subject that I think is sort of relevant.

But when Megan Markle was in the car with her mother, she was in an older Rolls-Royce. That's right, 1957. Oh, just beautiful. Those older, the older Rolls Royce was gorgeous. Yeah. But this brings about a question I have, and I'd love to hear Rick Chimmon, and it's an Earl, too. But auto design has really changed.

Years ago, luxury cars were works of art. They were absolutely stunning. And now I'm on the road, and everything's kind of boxy, and it's mundane, and it just doesn't have a pizzazz. Like, if you see a brand-new Rolls Royce on the road now, you think, what? Somebody paid 200,000 to that. I mean, it seems like auto designers, I mean, I get that it's aerodynamics and fuel efficiency and all that. But, you know, there was the golden age of automobile ownership and everything. I mean, even a 57 Chevy was like just absolutely stunning.

And we don't see that anymore. It's kind of sad, really. Tina, you have spoken to my heart. The 57 Belair, a convertible 57 Belair in the Lakespur Blue, would have been my absolute favorite car. Granted, I would have wanted the Rochester fuel injection in it, but I mean, we're talking, that car, the classic design of the style of that car was gorgeous.

You look back at some of the old antique cars and just the style of them, the way they, the curves, the way they made those cars look. And nowadays, it seems like, Everybody, it's hard to find a car that really stands out with its appearance. There are a few exceptions. I got to admit, the new Honda Civic, that type R, it's a nice looking car. Granted, kind of looks like a spaceship, and it seems to be that's what they're trying to appeal to the millennials

and actually try to get the millennials interested in cars again. But, yeah, it seems like America's love affair with cars. has reached a divorce point. Yeah, I know. It may be over. I'm sorry. Two brands of cars, I think, show nicely and have a unique style. Mazuradis and Alfa Romeo's.

I think Alpha Romano's stunning. But, you know, I really would rather have an Austin Healy and the Cheval asset with the wheels in the back. Some of those old ones, just the style and appearance on them was fantastic. myself I it's tough to pick a new model car anymore of any new car and say yeah that is a gorgeous car I do like some of the new retro styles they've come out with but even then no so I honestly I agree with you somebody needs to really step up and design a car that just looks different and unique and at the same time is attractive you're saying it's a It's attractive to you and Tina, but the problem is the car is no longer becoming an icon. It's not something that people look forward to the millennials, the people that soon will be the Gen X and Gen Y, and people that will be doing all the buying, they don't care about cars anymore. Yeah, that's the problem.

If they want something beautiful. Remember a few years ago when the Dodge Charger came out, and all the Dodge Mopar fans were all over it, and then it came out, and it's kind of like, disappointment. it. I thought it was disappointing anyway because the original Dodge Charter was such a cool car. And I'm not saying the new ones aren't, they are, but they're just different, but not necessarily in the

way that I expected. Utilitarian, we're looking for something that'll get us here from A to B as seamlessly and trouble-free as possible. We want to be comfort. We want the car to do what cars we're supposed to do from the very beginning, but back in the day,

going back to the Model T, it became a status symbol, it became part. you identified with your car, you were known for the type of car you drove, and it was a whole different thing. And today, you know, we're evolving into the point where cars will be nothing more than something that will get us there for made to be as quickly and safely as possible. Exactly. Now, that kind of segues into another thing I was thinking of with seeing the old Rolls-Royce. There were also some Mercedes there, and it used to be years ago that the Mercedes was the epitome of a luxury car.

Not only that, but it was not uncommon for people to put 200,000, 300,000, 500,000, a million miles on these cars. And now, Mercedes is basically a show away vehicle. I had a former co-worker. She had a Mercedes. She had it for an unprecedented 120,000 miles. And as soon as it hit that 120,000 mile march, everything just went to heck on it. The suspension went. The turbo was about ready to be rebuilt.

It wasn't worth seeking anymore. So, you know, we're thinking that's really dropped the ball. They're not what they used to be, it's a shame. Yeah. We need a man like Harley Earl again. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Tina, thank you very much.

That's certainly the sentiment of a lot of people that are listening to the show. We have an older demographic, and we have a lot of folks out there that remember the way cars used to be and wish they still were. But the times they're changing. And I think 25 years from now, I don't even think people will be owning cars. I think people will be, it'll be time sharing. You won't want to own a car. And we'll have our infrastructure in for driverless cars, autonomous cars. You'll walk out of your house and you'll say, here, Charlie, that'll be the name of your car.

Charlie will come out of the garage, stop in front of you, the door open. You'll hop in. You'll get out to your computer or your smartphone or your book or whatever you want to do. go to sleep, and Charlie will take it to Taco Bell or to the publics or wherever you want to go. Hey, Tina, I have a question for you. That Phantom, that Rolls-Royce Phantom, that is so beautiful in the Royal Wedding. That's in 1950s, isn't it? That was made in 1950?

I don't know. I didn't get the year of the vehicle. I mean, it floated down the road like the angel. It's beautiful. I said 1957, but I believe it is a 1950, and it certainly is beautiful. Tina, thanks for the call. Oh, thank you for letting me talk. I appreciate here and from you this morning.

Have a great weekend. We appreciate you. Thank you. Give us a call toll-free at 877-960, or you can text us at 772-49-30, and you can text us at 772-497-30. And we are going to go to our regular caller, and that is John, and John is from Palm City. Welcome to the show, John. Good morning to everyone. Got a car that's an answer to Tina's question.

We're all going to rush out and buy it. It's a, there's only going to make 500 of them over the next seven years. Sit down for this one. It goes 285 miles per hour. Fastest car that's known, all right? it's called the Bugatti Chiron C-H-I-R-O-N It's 15 times the price of a Bentley

Which is a 3 million million now car It has There's only 500 going to be made It's just to give you an idea The Michelin tires on that car Of over $5,000 a piece And oil change Cost $20,000

But it does have a four-year warranty unbelievable how many will buy this car of the 500 but they do they're aware of that there are demand for a different car and this is you know Volkswagen owns Bugatti I don't know if people know that they did have a car in the past Bogotty Viron which was 10 years ago that cost 2.3 million but Bogarty has an interesting history because going back to the 30s. They had a car then called a Bugatti Royale, Model 41, and those days it cost $55,000 in the 30s, no less. Only six were made. They were all in existence today. Nobody knows the price because they're so rare, and they do not change hands. But there was a gambling, which is the biggest collector in the world,

Bill Harrah, who won Harrah's resorts. He had two of them. And if he lived, he died during open heart surgery. He wanted to buy all six that were in existence. So it's just an interesting thing to know that they're still going to make a car that's different. And like, who really needs 285 miles per hour, a car that goes 285 miles per hour? One other thing I want to mention also, a car is the second biggest outlay of cash of money that you can make in life. And really, today more than ever, do your homework on what you buy. The reason is they're discontinuing many, many models.

For instance, Chevy is going to discontinue the Sonic, Volkswagen already discontinued the Beetle, Ford, many models, including the fiesta, tourists, fusion, and others that not have been announced yet. So you've got to be very careful. Stay with the old reliable. that's been around for a long time, have good ratings from consumer reports, and do not take a chance on new models that come out, even if it's General Motors or Ford or Chrysler. And you don't want to get stuck

like the poor people at a city with Saturn's, Osmobile, and Pontiacs. But as much as you can, stay with the old-reliables, don't take chances, especially new models that come out, make sure they're tried and true. That's what I want to mention today.

Consumer report says the same thing. You should always wait a year or two when a brand new model comes out. That's good advice. As a matter of fact, John Ford just announced plans recently that they're going to stop producing all passenger cars except a couple versions of the Ford Focus and the Ford Mustang. Hopefully, John's still listening on us. but yeah, they're actually, Ford now says they're going to be concentrating on SUVs rather than actual sedan passenger cars.

Okay, 87-960-99-60, toll-free, 877-960, and we're getting a bunch of text in, 772-497-6530. That text number again is 772-497-6530. So, I'm going to interrupt you. Can you imagine going 285 miles an hour? Can you imagine that? No. You can't?

I've done that. Have you? In an airplane. Yeah. Guess what? Earl's going to have to, Earl will have to purchase, I'm going to purchase that car for Earl because he's going to have to go 285 miles to get away from me. He'll be there in an hour.

After this show. Okay, we've got to. Okay, Mr. Cardi. We have a text, hi, I'm thinking about buying a Honda CRV, where should I go, or should I buy Toyota? Who's on our recommended Honda list? I believe it's Johnson Honda in Delaware. It is. I think Stewart, but let me double see here.

Stewart, Florida, Johnson Honda is on our recommended dealer list. Hopefully if you're in this area, that would be it. For Toyota, you know, I think, unfortunately, Earl Stewart Toyota is. We don't put ourselves on the list because that would be self-serving. I would say... Oh, no, we're on the list. Oh, we are on the list? Okay, go to Earl Stewart-T Toyota if you want to buy it.

But we have... Edmores Honda currently is on the list. Oh, N-Morse is on there also. And as far as the CRV or the Toyota, the Honda or the Toyota, Honda is just about as good a car. Some models, Honda's are better than Toyota's. Some models, Toyasas are better than Hondas. and you can't forget about Subaru.

All the Japanese in Korean brands build good cars, but if I were looking for a model, I would compare the Honda CRV with the Toyota what? The RAV-4. The RAV-4. So look at the RAB-4. Go to Consumer Reports and see which has a better rating, the Honda-CRV or the Toyota RAP-4.

And if you're not in the listing area, And some people, or not, you're not in the market area of Palm Beach County or Martin County. You should just go to True Car and find the recommended dealer. We're recommending. Be careful. There is one Honda on the Do Not Recommend list, and that's Bramon Honda and Green Acres. Okay, great. Okay, that's good.

That's good news. Don't buy your Honda from Brayman. You can buy it from Ed Morris Honda or Johnson Honda. Ed Morris is in Riviera Beach. Sure. On Blue Herron Boulevard. Blue Heron Boulevard and, of course, Johns and Honda on US One in Stewart, Florida, Martin County. But if you go to True Car, we hope we can once again recommend Costco auto buying program.

But right now, Truecar.com, requires the dealers, quote the true car price, excluding any funny business. No dealer installed options and no dealer fees. The True Car price has none of that. The only thing the true car you have to add to the true car price are government fees, which are your sales tax and your license plate. So whether you want to buy a Honda, a Toyota, Mazda, Chevrolet, go to truecar.com. And I hope soon we can recommend the Costco Auto Buying Program again, but right now they're in limbo.

We're holding that in abeyance, still we see if we can get some controls. Costco members are now paying dealer fees. Costco members are now paying for dealer-installed accessories. This is not the way it should be. You don't pay those fees with Truecar. Now, with that said, I have to admonish Truecar also. There is no such thing as perfection. True Car has some car dealers out there that are taking advantage of customers.

Costco does too. Very hard to say exactly what happens when someone walks into a car dealership and says, I'm a True Car member. Give me the True Car price. Because if you don't protect yourself, they're going to give you a higher price. but if you get the true car price online and you take that true car price into the dealership and insist you will very likely get a really good price Costco it's a different story absolutely ladies and gentlemen I have to stress to you that knowledge is power

and before you go anywhere to purchase a vehicle you know you've got to do your homework I don't care whether it's Costco true car it's just amazing. It's a minefield out there. And if you don't protect yourself, you are going to be taken advantage of. And also, I'd like to let you know that we do have that mystery shop coming up, and you want to stay tuned for that. It is a doozy. And you will appreciate all the information because we're here to help you. Again, you're a very important part of the show. give us a call toll free at 877960 or you can text us at 772-497-60 and ladies don't forget $50 for the first two new lady callers we are trying to build a platform here for the ladies

and we will welcome any of your stories good or bad because we're here to go over the good the bad and the ugly. Now back to Mr. Car Dealer. Mr. Car Dealer. Okay, we've got another text here. This one's for Rick. I'll read it to you, Rick.

It says, some cars are moving to electric power steering and water pumps. Benz, Mercedes-Benz, plans to sell cars with a 48-volt battery system that uses a combination start generator, which I believe is somehow positioned between the transmission and the engine. In my opinion,

increases the purchase cost and possibly it may dramatically increase the maintenance cost. This increased cost seems to negate potential fuel savings. What is your opinion? That's from Steve. Well, a lot of new cars now are going to electric power steering and electric water pumps simply because the computer can control those items more fine-tuned. If you're driving on the highway and you're going straight down the road, road, why should a power steering pump be turning and drawing power off the engine and costing

you fuel economy? Same thing with the electric water pump. If you're getting plenty of cooling, you can slow that water pump down and it doesn't need to draw power away from the engine by way of a drive belt. Well, this new system that they're talking about with that other one, the 48-volt battery system. I'm not familiar with that. That one, who knows, they may be trying something new and it may be a step towards a complete electric vehicle for them. That may be just one of their evolutions as they try them out. But the main reason for switching away from a mechanically powered power steering and water pump and other accessories like that, like the air conditioning compressor, is because the computer can fine-tune them more and it does

save fuel economy and with not having to run full force all the time, it actually makes them last a little bit longer. Those electronic components can function quite efficiently. As a matter of fact, the electric power steering saves no fluid, no belt. It actually saves a bit of money on the car and they're pretty bulletproof. Well, thanks for that text, Steve. I hope we answered your question. If you have any follow-up, just text us again. I've got a humorous text here in two parts. It says thanks for the info, Earl and Nancy. Great show

today. Enjoyed it a lot. You should have worn your hat too, Nancy. And I guess he's alluding to the royal wedding. Oh, thank you. Then the follow-up text is, I'm having a hard time with the iPhone here, but it says something about my rubber ducky.

Here it is. It says you and your hat and Earl with his rubber duck. Okay, how do they know I had a rubber duck? I think I announced that on one of our sunrises and that swim that you were going to take and you were going to wear a special bathing suit. It's a surprise if everyone is listening. My speedo, I do not have a speedo. I'll be in charge of that and the rubber ducky and I'll also be in charge of crowd control. Okay.

I got a text. We have a serious text. You've probably eight texts in there, I think. Hi, I'm looking at leasing a car, anything I should be aware of before going to a dealer. How does a purchase price translate to a lease payment? Well, we need another two-hour show to cover leasing, but let me give the basics. I always recommend buying a car rather than leasing a car for the main reason of the simplicity and the difficulty for the dealer to take advantage of you.

It's too easy to be taking advantage of with a lease. Leases are very complex, and you'll find the manufacturers and the dealers are all pushing, pushing, trying to get you to lease rather than purchase. Matter of fact, some of the very unscrupulous dealers are actually leasing you a car and you think you bought the car, but you leased it. Leasing is much more profitable to the automobile manufacturers and the dealers. It's more profitable the auto manufacturers, counterintuitively, maybe. because they know that that leasing customer is like 50% more likely to come back to

them for another car of their brand and of the car of their make the same thing is true with the dealer you're more likely to go back why because you lease the car you have to bring the car back so you have to come back that gives them another shot at you leases are far more complex to understand there's a lot more fees involved with leasing you start out with a with a acquisition fee they call it typically $7,800 dollars sometimes the car dealer splits that with the leasing company and then during the lease you may be accumulating excess mileage could be 25 cents a mile could be 18 cents could be 50 cents I've seen them as high it's 50 cents a mile

so that's a charge you might not be aware of why because it's in the fine print and then there's a lease termination fee when you turn the car in they typically have the termination fee waived if you will lease another car from them or buy another car from the same manufacturer and dealer and finally you know like wait this more finally there's a above average wear and tear fee so if they tread on your tires is too low you have a stain on your poultry a ding a scrape something wrong with the maybe extra miles whatever it may be there will be a charge for excess wear and tear I've had fights with Toyota because of the

at a leasing company charging our customers' fees when they shouldn't charge fees. Sometimes you can have your car in a minor accident, have it painted. It can be an excellent paint job, but if the paint meter shows the car has been painted, the leasing company will charge you for that. How about being over the number of miles that you have driven? It's really a complicated transaction, and you certainly do have to know what you're doing and you have to do your homework. You know, I can't tell you the number of people that I have spoken to that didn't even know they leased a car.

They thought they bought it, and there's such confusion during that transaction. So, ladies and gentlemen, it certainly does pay to do your homework. And would like to hear from you, if you've leased a vehicle recently, give us a call toll-free at 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-60. We can now finish answering the question that we had in leasing. How does a purchase price translate to a lease payment? The purchase price is something you should have negotiated before you lease the car. I always say you should buy the car before you lease it. Of course, that's literally, not literally, but figuratively.

Once you negotiate the lowest purchase price, that becomes what they call the capitalized cost in a lease. The capitalized cost is the cost of the car to the leasing cost. company and the cost of the car to the leasing company should be the cost of the car if you were to buy it if you don't know what the capitalized cost is the dealer can inflate the capitalized cost and that is more profit to the dealer there's other factors that affect the payment and of course there's a residual value not much you can do about that there's also the lease rate the lease rate can be raised they can market up so you need to just shop and compare if you're going to lease a car. Treat it just like a purchase. Go to, first of all, decide the exact car you want.

You want to know the brand, make, and year, obviously. New or used, obviously. You want to find out the accessories. Basically, you want to have the same MSRP for the same make car. Once you have defined the MSRP, you want to get the biggest discount of the MSRP. That is the price of the car. Now you say, I'm talking about leasing. Right. Take that price. Go to the person, that will lease you the car and say, this is the price, I want the capitalized cost of my lease to be. Then you get that number. Now you have to take that and you go and you shop it with three competing dealers. So it's a lot more work. It's a lot more likelihood for being deceived, but you can still get a good deal on a lease if you want to go to all the trouble. If your lack of days ago, they can really take advantage of you.

Great information right here, Ed Earl Stewart on Cars, if you just tuned in. We are here for you, the consumer, and as I said earlier, we go over the good, the bad, and the ugly, and we definitely have a great shopping report for you. You want to stay tuned for that. And ladies, I'm waiting to hear from you, $50 for the first two new lady callers. And also, as Earl stated earlier, you were donating $100 to Big Dog Ranch. And would you like to talk about that again? The Big Dog Ranch for the favorite cherry to Costco members that have had a buying experience to the Costco auto buying program. So we had a lot of Costco warehouses in South Florida.

If you're a Costco member and you have bought a car through the Costco auto buying program, we'd love to hear from you. And to induce you to do that, I want to make a $100 contribution to the first 10 Costco auto member buyers that will come up and relate their experience. We're interested in a few things. We want to find out if you ever saw the Costco member price sheet, which is supposed to be shown to all Costco members. We want to know if you realize that the Costco dealer added a dealer fee. Were you aware that he also added the cost of dealer installed accessories? We want to see what transparency and honesty that dealer exhibited.

And we know we have a bunch of Costco members, I mean Costco executives are listening, Also, the Alliance Development Corporation. Affinity. Affinity. I'll just, I get hung up on this thing. It doesn't make any difference because nobody ever heard of them anyway. Yeah, Affinity. I have an affinity for the Affinity Development Corporation,

the Affinity Development Corporation and San Diego, which is the Costco Auto Buying Program that nobody knows about. So please call us for $100 contribution to your favorite charity if you're a Costco member and you have bought a car through the Costco Auto Buying Program. Now we have a text. I will read that text to you. And the text number is, here it goes, 772-497-6530,

772-4976-5-30. Text is, Earl, just listening to your radio program, we have a 2015 Honda CRV and a 2007 Honda Corps. Are you recommending Johnson, Honda, and Stewart for Service? Thanks for all you do. Yes, I would recommend Johnson, Honda, and Stewart, and I would also recommend Ed Morris Honda. We don't have any. Service, we don't know.

Yeah, service is, we're making a leap of logic here. We say that if they treat you more fairly in sales, we believe they'll treat you more fairly in service. That could be wrong. But any time you go into a recommended, Earl Stewart, recommended dealer, is still buyer beware, because we don't have any perfect dealers. We don't really have any real good dealers. We don't see a lot of consistency. We don't see a lot of consistency.

So what we do, I mean, we could say we're just going to go by the book, A, B, C, D, you fail, you're not on the list. In which case, we'd have no car dealers on our list. So we have to recommend somebody. The Honda dealers would recommend Ed Morsonda in Riviera Beach on Bowern Boulevard and the Johnson Honda and Martin County in Stewart, Florida on US One. so be careful when you walk in there into the service department and be sure you get an estimate anytime you go into any service department get an estimate Florida law requires that the service department

stick to the estimate within 10 percent if you don't get an estimate it's like giving the service department a blind check if you have a highly costly repair get a second opinion even a third opinion just like you would when you're buying a car check with a better better business in Peerick, check with the County Office of Consumer Affairs, and look at the Google rating, look at the Yelp rating if they have one. There are a number of ways you can check out car dealers, and we recommend that you use all of them. You know, I missed at the beginning of the show what I usually talk about, the Gallup annual poll on honesty and ethics and professions.

Great poll they've been doing it every year since 1977, the Gallup organization. And car dealers always come out near the bottom. Every time we speak before a group, Nancy and I are speaking before the women's club at Valencia Falls. Valencia Shores. And Boynton Beach, we're going to be talking. I will have a handout of the Gallup Annual Poll on Honesty and Ethics and Professions. So, inspire, beware, whether you're having your car serviced, or whether you're buying or leasing a car. Be careful when you walk into a car dealership.

877-9-60-960 if you want to call us. Got another text coming. Got another text coming. Fantastic. Here we go. Give me one second. Somebody sing. Well, let me talk about a little something while the text comes through.

Something we haven't talked about that was in the local news, and that has to do with carbon monoxide poisoning. We've talked about it on this show a year ago, two years ago. This is a problem. It's a little bit like a teher bag where you wonder, why doesn't somebody do something about it? The remote key, we could call it the smart key, the car that the key that you carry in your pocket that can open your car from 20 feet away. Most of the old timers that are listening know about the key used to stick in the ignition and start the car.

Now we have smart keys. The smart keys, unfortunately, allow you to drive your car into your garage at night and you leave the key in the car and the car keeps running. and you go inside your house and you go to bed and your car is still running in the garage and the carbon monoxide circulates into the house there have been many many deaths because of this for all makes of cars some cars are more careful in their design than others i believe that the ultimate design should make that impossible for that to happen make it impossible for you to leave your key in your car with the engine running and go into the house and go to sleep I believe that's the ultimate design.

A lot of this is going on in Florida. Senator Nelson in Florida now has been talking in the National Highway Traffic Association about making the manufacturers do something uniformly to all cars so that you cannot do this. There are a number of deaths in Florida where this has happened. All electric cars will not have that problem. Exactly. Exactly.

And another great reason why we are looking forward to that time coming. Here's the text. that I was talking about. Earl, I've enjoyed your show any time I get up a little early on Saturday. I was on your webpage and found a mistake. Well, thank you very much. We look for criticism and comments.

We're not looking for just pets on the back. And one of your articles you told of a reporter asking John Dillinger, why he robbed banks, he allegedly replied because that's where the money is. What's wrong here? Glenn and St. Louis. It isn't John Dillinger. It was somebody else told me about this.

that. Who said, it's where the money is? I don't know. Sir Edmund Hillary? No, no, that's what I said. That was because it's there. Bonnie and clown. Why did you climb? Yeah, Google it. Thank you very much for that text. You know, someone, I've been saying that a lot, and then somebody else told me

I was wrong, and I forgot to change it. I need to make that change. John Dillinger did not say he robs banks because... Willie Sutton. Uh, Willie Sutton. Willie Sutton. Thank you for that text. And that was Glenn in St. Louis. Do you say Willie Nelson? That's right.

Willie Sutton. Willie Sutton. Glenn and St. Louis, and I love it that you're in St. Louis. St. Louis, we're streaming. No, I'm sorry. I'm going to contradict myself. Snope says he did not say that. Snoop Dogg.

Snoop Dogg said he didn't say it. But we thought he said it. I don't know who said it. Google's hard. Definitely is. You think it's really easy? It's hard. Ladies and gentlemen, let me mention to you this consumer report, the auto issue, 2018 auto issue. So much information. We're always talking earlier about the options that you have to acquire some knowledge. There's so many options.

And Consumer Report is a great place to go. So if you don't have that 2018 auto issue, get your hands on it because it has the best used cars. It has a best used cars. It has a recall and safety updates. It also has best new cars for under $30,000. So pick that issue up. Give us a call tool-free. You are an important part of the show at 877-960. And you can also text us. We've received a lot of text at 772-497-6530. Now back to the recovering car dealer. I want to ask you a little bit about this carbon monoxide problem because we talked at length and I think you'd done some Googling on that subject.

What is the safest car out there now manufacturer's device for preventing this for driving your car in the garage with a wireless remote key leaving it in the car? I've done that. Nancy's done that. I think everybody's done that. Sometimes they have a warning buzzer or a warning beep

you can hear. One of the problems is elderly people, people with hearing impairments sometimes can't hear the warning buzzer but we do have a caller but before, right after we go to the caller Rick I'd like to ask you about that question. We have Tim

in Palm Beach. Thanks for calling the show Tim. How can we help you today? Hey, how are you doing this morning? Great. In this rainy morning. Hey, I've been listening to your show for several months now. I just found it on the radio. I thought it's great to start off with listening to you guys.

I had a comment, because you great dealers and all this, I had a very serious problem with Roger Dean Chevrolet that I broke down on 9-95 and a 2012 Chevy in Pallet, and I towed it. I was on the Belvedere curve, and Roger Dean was the closest, so I towed it there. And I had warranty on it, you know, whatever, the warranty just expired by 5,000 miles.

but they told me, after the computer hookup that I had to pay for, of course, but they told me I had three of fuel pumps that needed replaced. And I'm like, three, I never heard of a car having three. They wanted $2,700 for it. Wow. And I was like, well, I got a tow truck and towed it out of there. They tried to lock it when he does it have it back. I paid the bills and everything.

but have you ever heard of the Chevy Impala 2012 having three fuel pumps? Rick, I can almost answer that one, but you're the expert. That sounds a little fishy there because the Chevy Impala was a very basic gasoline engine system. Right. I didn't have anything special to it. As far as I know, no, they would have had a single fuel pump, which would have been located in the fuel tank itself and no I'm not seeing anything special

on Google about it either I got to tell you that sounds like somebody's playing games there because there's only just a single pump in the fuel tank that runs the fuel up to the engine maybe they want to give them backup pumps that could be or maybe they're looking to I think somebody was really trying to pull your credit card out and just max it out.

That's what I thought. That's why I had it towed out and towed it back to my son's house. And I told them before this all started, I said, look, I have a strange feeling because every time I go to a fuel station and gas up, I hit the tripometer and I pay attention to the mileage, every gas tank. Okay. And I said something's wrong because the gas gas gas gas. just barely under a quarter of tank but I'm at my maximum mileage and I was like I'm sorry I'm getting on 95 and it's raining just bear with me and I said can you least put fuel in it you know put some gas like because I have a feeling that

something's wrong with the gas gauge and they did not do that and that was all that was wrong with it I went and put five gallons of gas in it after you know I don't know what happened to the gas gauge, but that was my feeling, and that's why I towed it out of there. And so that came close to cost me a lot of money. Yeah, I would be suspicious of your fuel sending unit. Basically, what you'd have to do is get a mechanic to check this. They would remove the unit from the tank and measure the resistance with the float at the bottom level, and then measure it when it's raised all the way up to see if it's sending the right signals up to the gauge, but that really sounds like that sending unit has got an issue, and it's not sending

the proper information up to your combination meter. Of course, the other very simple fact you could do is just calculate it by your miles and just make sure you go only to where you know you're about two-thirds low and then top it up each time. That would be the shade tree method for avoiding that issue. But yeah, that's... Tammy, you mentioned the car was how far out of warranty? Yeah, it just, I do that all the time. I don't let it get to a corner of a tank. I mean, I just got to 110,000 miles.

Okay, you're way out of water. A great car, I mean, I'm comfortable with it. And just the FYI, I went by your shop over there on US One and North Lake, or Palm Beach Lakes, North Lake. Yes. And you're doing a lot of construction there. You're expanding? Yeah, we are.

We probably be doing that for another few months. We're mainly increasing the size of our service area. But, you know, you give us a heads up on Roger Dean Chevrolet. We haven't done a shop of them in a while, and we have not done a service department shop. We haven't. So you just gave me an idea, Tim, is to send a mystery shopper in with a Chevrolet. Yeah, we got them on the recommended list right now.

Yeah. When something like this happens, it's either incompetence or it's thievery, and we don't know which. Either one's pretty bad for the recipient of that. But in this case, if it's premeditated, we'll send somebody in. We'll have a problem set up with a car, which can be fixed simply. We'll have Rick consult with us and say this is something simple. It should be fixed and found. Can you sabotage a fuel pump for us?

And we'll see what Roger Dean Chevrolet says, and we'll do it again on the air. Yeah, and just another, do it on a Friday, and they supposedly closed the service at 5 o'clock, and I left to work early thinking because something didn't feel right, you know, because I went to work, and I company trucks, I could take them back and forth. I showed up early because it was a Friday, and they were closing at 4.30 at a half an hour early.

I said, no, wait a minute. You know, everybody was leaving, nobody wouldn't do anything. And I'm like, you know, come on, man, the sign I'm looking at this is 5 o'clock. And it's, you know, giving my car back. You know what? If you want to have some fun, Roger Dean's daughter, Janie Dean, last I heard, she was running Roger Dean Chevrolet. Of course, Roger Dean passed a long time ago, and you know the baseball stadium's name after him.

But if you want to have some fun, call Janie Dean and tell them that the people that are operating her store closed early on Friday. She probably didn't know about that. Yeah. I mean, I didn't want to cause problems because this happened to you. year ago. I was still frustrated. I saved the paperwork and I even took pictures of the sign and I was going to send an email you know across the board email to everybody so everybody would see it and I just thought no I'll leave it alone but then it just irks me that there's you know people like that you know and Roger Dean I grew up here in West Palm I'm 58 years old

so you know I bought several cars from them my actual next car I've already planned and that's why I went to your shop last week as I'm looking at the Toyota Camry. And that's going to be my next card. I've already decided on that. And I like the way you're saying about Costco having selling them for you guys. I did never know that. So I'm a member of Costco too. So I thought that's great.

But I'm just not ready to buy the car right now. You know, I'm going to wait maybe 12 to 18 months. Thanks for a great call. Not just a great call, but you gave us an idea to start doing some service. Shops, and Roger Dean will be our next target. Thanks so much. Call again the show. Call again next week, please. Keep listening. We're about to get to

the Costco shop. And thanks for sharing your experience with us, Tim, and we hope to hear from you again. We're going to go to St. Louis. We're going to go to Glenn, and welcome to the show, Glenn. Thank you. Like I said, in my text, I'm in

St. Louis, so I've got to get up a little earlier to listen to your show. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. The question about with John Dillinger and Willie Sutton, there's more to it than that, really. Willie Sutton, I think Rick mentioned something about it wasn't really said. Willie Sutton always denied saying it. He said a reporter said that to punch up his story. But there's an interesting story about it that the last time.

Willie Sutton was captured or arrested after he had broken out of prison. There was a civilian walking along the sidewalk and saw him and recognized him and called the police. That's how he was caught. Uh-huh. He was his name was Schubert. And in New York, I believe it was New York, Albert Anastasia, who was a big mob guy at the head of murder, incorporated. Oh, boy. was so incensed

that this guy was a rat he knew nothing about him but ordered him killed and two weeks later he was killed. Wow. I want to tell you know your history, your gangster history. Glenn, thanks very much for bringing that to our attention. That is very, very interesting.

And I love the fact that you're all the way in St. Louis and get up early to listen to the show. I'm glad to get our message out as far away as that. Please call again and text us again. I'd love to hear from St. Louis. and keep up the good work, girl. Thank you, Glenn. Have a great day.

Thank you, sir. I think that it is time for our mystery shop of Costco Auto Program from West Palm Beach, Kia. We'll get on that right now. As Nancy just said, we mystery shopped a dealership using the Costco Auto Program to try to learn several things, and that was West Palm Beach Kia. Would the dealership follow the rules of the Costco Auto Buying Program and use the, and authorize Costco rep, show our shopper the Costco membership-only price sheet, and honor the Costco price.

With the flaws in the Costco Auto Program, even if the dealer filed the rules ultimately work against the favor of our mystery shopper, need to get the answer to those questions. Among the flaws with the program that we've discussed on this show include the problem with dealer fees. Now, that's the big thing that we were upset about. The Costco dealer may have a very low price, but will eventually surprise the customer with a large dealer fee or multiple dealer fees. In fact, most dealers now have multiple dealer fees. Another reason why this is such a big problem, and this is kind of an insider thing, is how the Costco Auto Program establishes its member only price on any particular model.

They survey the dealers by phone and asked the dealer what they're selling the car for. They rely solely on the good faith testimony of their dealers. I mean, that's like relying on the Fox to watch the in-house. I laugh reading that. It is. How much do you sell the car for? Oh, I'm saying that one. They use this program to determine what an acceptable price is for Costco members.

Costco certified dealers who post this price will get referrals from the Costco Auto Program. Those who don't will be passed up and see referrals sent to their competitors. course, the dealers who are surveyed and are not mentioning that they're adding a thousand or more dollars in additional profit in the form of these various fees, they're the ones with the lowest price. The bigger the dealer fee, the more profit they make so they can artificially lower the Costco price. This is a deception that Costco doesn't see or that Affinity Auto Development Corporation

doesn't see. The customer doesn't see. Nobody sees it because the dealers just. lie about the price, and they lie about the dealer fee, and they artificially lower the price. Another problem that we haven't really touched on, this came as a surprise to us, in the context of the Costco Auto Program,

is dealer-installed options and addenda. We've discussed these on the show before, but in a different context, but the way Costco handles these is very consumer-friendly. Just to remind you, many... I'm friendly. Just to remind you, many dealers were installed, several cheap and sometimes worthless items on the cars and they're lost.

Almost all dealers are doing this, actually. These are like adhesive pinstripes, not the kind you paint on, but adhesive. Mudguards, paint sealant, which is a.k.a. wax, nitrogen-filled tires. I mean, I've done two or three blogs on how worthless nitrogen is in the tires. Consumer reports are reasonably. Typically, we'll see about $200 worth, and that's in terms of what it costs. dealer options installed, but the dealers mark these up absurdly. Like they'll take $200 worth of cost of them and charge $1,000, $2,000, even $3,000.

The world's record, by the way, it was West Palm Beach Kia. They once had a $10,000 addendum. That included a market adjustment addendum. But you can mark on a dealer installed accessory. You can charge anything you want. The Costco Auto Program addresses dealer installed equipment and addenda. They guarantee the Costco members get to pay. only 50% of the price for these unwanted items.

So I'm going to have a product worthless, and I'm going to charge you $1,000 for it, and I'm going to discount it to you for $500. What a deal. That is frightening. Think about that. A dealer installs $150 worth of garbage on a car, marks it up to $2,000,

and the Costco member pays only $1,000. It just boggles the mind. So using a real Costco membership, we inquired about buying a new, 2018 Kia Optima E.X. We were referred to West Palm Beach, Kia, a Terry Taylor dealership. Terry Taylor owns several stores in this area now, including a Nissan store and a Toyota store. And this store is on military trail, West Palm. The confirmation email we received indicated that we were to work with one of the authorized Costco reps.

Bruce Tomchon is one. Paul Sewell, Richard Gowley, Luke Minor, Charles. DAI or Elizabeth Price. So they gave you a list of Costco approved representatives at the dealership to work with. One of the reps would show our shopper, the Costco member only price sheet, the vehicle invoice, and ultimately have the price honored. We know that West Palm Beach, Nissan has a large dealer fee over $1,000, and we were curious to see how they would handle this, or even if they would follow the Costco program at all.

In many cases, in fact, most people that are on the Costco program, don't go online on Costco. If you're a Costco member listening, you've got to go online. Be sure you go online. You just can't call the dealership, and this is what most of you do. You just call the dealership and say, do you have special prices

for Costco members? And they always say, sure. You go to Costco.com and there's a link under services, and that's how you find it. Costco.com. Always go there. And then you will see the list of Costco recommended representatives. Have that list and ask,

for one of those. Make an appointment to be sure one of those is there. Sometimes there's only one or two. In this case, there are about a half a dozen. But go through those first two steps where else you really will definitely be taken advantage of. So we dispatched Agent X, our favorite

undercover Asian. I arrived at West Palm Beach, Kia, speaking as if I were Agent X, I arrived at West Palm Beach Kia around 3.45 p.m. during a heavy downpour. I ran from my car into the showroom walking the wasn't an option today. I was greeted by K-V-O-N, who asked me what I was shopping for.

I gave him my A-list, the name on the Costco membership that we used, and I said I was there to buy an Optima through the Costco Auto Program. Kayvon immediately said to wait until he found a manager. He returned with a man named Paul Sewell. I just read Paul Sewell's name on the list of Costco approved representatives, who introduced himself as an authorized Costco rep, And indeed, he was on the list, came on, excused himself, and left me with Paul Sewell. Paul treated me better than any salesperson I've ever encountered on a mystery shop. Now, I'll repeat that. Agent X is our big mystery shopper.

He shopped, I don't know how many, many, many car dealers. 100, probably. Hundreds of them. Agent X said Paul Sewell treated him better than any salesperson I've ever encountered on a mystery shop. So, kudos to Paul, Paul Sewell. He thanked me for being a part of the Costco Auto Program and for choosing him in West Palm Beach, Kia, to do business. He explained it would be a transparent process, and I would see pricing right away. Paul referred to a piece of paper he was holding and said, my name, and said he understood I wanted a new 2018 Optima EX.

I said, that was right. Next, he asked me what color I wanted, I said white or silver. He asked me for my driver's license and Costco membership card, because I was using another person's Costco membership, I couldn't show a Costco cards, so I stood up and reached for my rear pocket and said, oh crap, I left it. Agent X is an outstanding actor. He's really gotten himself out of some tight spots.

Oh, yeah. He has. Paul assured me that would not be a problem. We both had email confirmations from Costco, so that made Agent X look legit. We sat down at his desk, so he asked me, as he asked me questions, entered into the computer. He did this quickly, then said he would be back

with pricing and the keys to take a look at the car. I commented on his efficiency, and he said, I do this with integrity every day. Nice touch. Real quick, I just got an email from Paul confirming wanting to know if Agent X would be coming in with his wife to drive the car today. Paul, you should email. I said, tune on the radio. I'll say hi to Paul, and I'll tell him what a good job he did. Okay, so Paul's doing his job. Congratulations again, Paul Sewell. We sat down. Paul returned and showed me what appeared to be. the factory invoice of the car.

It showed an MSRP of $26,645 and an invoice of $24,967. He said the Costco price for this model was $1,500 below invoice. Showed it to me on the screen, and I took a picture. Agent Eck took a picture. I was happy with that, and I told him so. Paul suggested we drive the car while a manager prints out the price sheet and have everything totaled up. He asked me for the first time, I was paying for it. I said I was writing a check for the whole amount.

He said that was no problem. But he needed to let the manager know that that I was paying cash. He came right back and we walked out to the car. The MSRP on the Monroney label matched what I saw on the invoice. There was also an addendum sticker on the car, $1,095 for a pinstripe, nitrogen, nitrofil, and mudguards. Just for the fun of it, I looked up the retail price on 3M pinstripe, which is the top-of-the-line brand you can get in adhesive pinstripes, and a 150-foot roll of it is about $30 retail, and the mudguards, factory mudguards for a 2018 Kia Optima are selling for $70. Retail. That's not wholesale price.

That's retail price. We're looking at maybe $150 worth of nonsense. Exactly. We took a brief test drive. We returned to Paul's desk and he ran to get the pricing sheet. He was back in a minute with something called the Costco member only price sheet and a printed worksheet buyer's order on it. It showed me that they were discounting MSRP by $3,178,

then adding $547.50 for the dealer-added option. So there's the got you. Now, first of all, what's my business? Beach Kia is doing what the Costco Auto Buying Program, aka Affinity Development Corporation, is administering for the Costco Auto Buying Program. So the guilty party here is Costco Auto Buying Program, not West Palm Beach Kia. They're going by the rules. They're doing all right.

I don't like the rules, but Costco Auto Buying Program, Affinity Development Group made the rules. In my head, I quickly calculated that $547.50 was exactly 50% of the $1,000. $95 addendum price, which research showed probably cost the dealer $200. So he marked it up five times, and then they cut it in a half. Still a huge profit, so Costco aided and abetted this deception. I subtracted the $545 in unwanted dealer options for the selling price of $24,0.20.50 to get my base selling price of $23,467. It was $1,500 below invoice. exactly what the price was supposed to be.

Next, they subtracted a $4,000 manufacturer's rebate, bringing my total to $20,014.50. Now that is a very attractive thing. It does say on the Costco price sheet that they are supposed to take off all rebates. Dealer cash and customer cash are supposed to be subtracted from the Costco price. It's all in the fine print. don't read this stuff. I saw that in smaller print, below the pricing, was the disclaimer. Price does not include any tax, license, or, here it is, $1,0.18.50 dock fee.

So there's a dealer fee. Now we have everything we're afraid of. The dealer fees are being added to the Costco price. The dealer addendum fees are being added to the Costco price. I thank Paul, and I told him I would need to take a day to discuss this with my wife. Paul didn't plench and he said just to call him when I was ready, I asked him about the rebate and if I should worry about it expiring, he said I'd be fine and that it didn't expire until the 31st. That was it. Quite an interesting shop.

An outstanding salesperson, Paul Sewell, I hope, I think Paul will probably hear this show because he can go to the podcast, go to earlancars.com and listen to the podcast. He can even do the YouTube, watch the YouTube. Paul, congratulations. We'd love to talk to you at Earl Sturt, Toyota. I said I hope he goes to our employment application website. Exactly. We need honest people like you in this business.

And I'm even going to say the same thing for West Palm Beach Kia. Under the new ownership, Terry Taylor, I'd like to see integrity and honesty and transparency continue. Part of that will be to try to deal honestly in spite of the Costco auto buying program. But everything you did was above board. It was by the rules that somebody set that should not have been set. That was the Costco auto buying program. We have copies of all the documentation here. We have the Costco buying program sheet.

We have the dealer addendum sheet with the extra worthless products added for a total of $1,095. One of the best shopping reports I've seen most thorough. So we got all the information and documentation. We even have a price from Beth Smith Kia because we did some true car shopping and other shopping to find out if, in fact, the Costco price was as good a price as it should have been. And I believe the answer was you could have bought the car from Best Smith Kia for less money. Yeah, well, the average true car price was higher than West Palm Kia's Costco price by about $500. bucks but the lowest true car price was Beth Smith Kia and it was

quite it was over it was a thousand dollars less and included all their fees yes so we come to the conclusion here that the Costco auto buying program here needs to be revamped we come to the conclusion that when you're using true car or Costco

you still need to get competitive prices you just heard Stu say that there were three true car prices we got and Best Smith Kia had the lowest true car price By $1,100. By $1,100.100. Now, with that said, Bessmith Kia is one of our most unscrupulous dealers.

Only go there through a true car. And if you go there, the true car, they will probably still try to take advantage of it. That's true. That doesn't mean anything. They're showing you that. So if you're going to use a true car price, you need to have it printed out. The good thing about true cars, as I said earlier, is they try to make the dealer. The rules are the dealer cannot add dealer fees or dealer installed accessories to the true car price.

So print the true car price off your PC or your smartphone, take the printed copy out or have it on your smartphone when you walk into BestMuth, Kia, and say, this is the true car price, will you sell me the car for that price? If they say no, it has to speak to a manager, ask to speak to the true car representative, and if they still won't, then you get on the phone and you call True Car on their toll-free number and you say, Beth Smith's Kia, is not adhering to the program, and they will force Truecar, they will force Best Smith Kia do it here to the program. Or ask for Frank. Or, yeah, exactly. As for Frank Gonzalez, who is a general manager, and tell him Earl sent you. He's a nice guy.

He's a nice guy. He is a nice guy. Frank Gonzalez, who is the part owner and the general manager of Best Smith Kia and Best Smith Toyota, I might add. So there you have it. I mean, this is almost like an academic. We have to do a score here. And we need to score the salesperson, and we need to score West Palm Beach Kia.

So, Stu, you want to go first? Well, I think it's obvious. Paul gets an A-plus. I want to give West Palm Kia a B, a B. And the Costco Auto Buy-M program, Nancy's pantomiming F. So they get an F in this case. Okay, Nancy, you're next. I agree with Stu.

Paul was just fantastic. I love Paul. That's all I have to say. Rick, I'm actually going to change it a little bit. I'm going to give Kia an A-minus because I think West Palm, Kia, followed the rules that were set for them.

I don't see where they did anything deceptive or wrong. Granted, their addendum was a little high-pricy, but like you have said in the past, you know, if we fail everybody, you know, we're kind of part of the problem at that point. We need to be showing people, you know, giving them the truth, but at least giving them some recommendations and saying, if you want a Kia, yeah, I would go to West Palm Kia and I would ask

for Paul Sewell and say, hey, you know, I want to work with you because I think you're an honest person. Exactly. Well, Paul Sewell might not be working there because I'm going to try to hire Paul Sewell because he did such a great job. And that is a great job, Paul. Congratulations. I want Rick Borg, who is the Executive Vice President of the Affinity Development Group.

I'm sending a copy of the Shopping Report to prove some of my points. I'm also going to send Mark Durgaard Bidion. That's a mouthful, Mark Durgaard Bidion, who is the Executive Vice President of Marketing for Costco, the real Costco. And the Affinity Development Group is the company. in San Diego that Costco hires to administer the Costco auto buying program. I once referred to the affinity development group as the phony Costco, and Rick Borg got offended of that, so we edited that YouTube and took phony Costco out, and I apologize to Rick Borg. You're not the phony Costco.

You are a separate corporation hired to administer the auto buying program for Costco. So that wraps it up, and we've got West Palm Beach Key on our recommendation. middle list. Yep. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, if you've been with us the whole two hours you've heard us,

sharing honesty. It's all honest, all the information that we share with you. I want to take a moment to thank you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on Cars right here

at the True Oldies Channel, and I hope that you will join us next week. Have a great weekend. Momoyle-Wong-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-ha.