Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.22.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Napleton Northlake Kia

Episode Date: May 22, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Napleton Northlake Kia in Palm Beach Gardens to see if she purchase the 2021 Kia Sportage LX for the advertised price on their website. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female business. We also have Rick Kearney, an expert on how to keep your car running right. I dare you to ask a question that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us as my son, Stu Stewart, our linked to cyber. space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show.

Well, good morning, everybody. Your auto retail, how not to get ripped up by car dealer team, sitting here in the studio already. Poised to help you this evening or this morning isn't it? It's not evening. I didn't get a very good night's sleep last night, and I thought it was evening. We're here to not only inform you and educate you,

but also entertain you occasionally. You listen to the recorded introduction, and we touched on our mystery shopping report. I'm going to say that you will be definitely entertained by our mystery shopping report. It's exciting. It's adventurousome to us because we're very candid when we do a mystery shop. We don't pull any punches.

We tell it exactly like it is. And this is live radio. So a little adrenaline flows we enjoy it very much. So look forward to that in the second half of the show. We mystery shop a different car dealership every week, doing it for years and years and years. We archive them on Erloncars.com. You can go there any time. and look at the good dealer, bad dealer list.

We have a list of virtually every make car, at least in the Florida area, and we have a recommended dealer for several, actually. We fail very few dealers completely because we grade on the curve. So when you're thinking about buying your next car, check earluncars.com and check the mystery shopping reports.

You've got a dealer in your area that will help you out there. Now, speaking of buying cars, I'm a recovering car dealer, and I have a car dealership. This is not an infomercial, and I'm about to prove it to you because if you buy a car now, you're crazy. It's a seller's market out there. As a buyer, you are at a disadvantage for two very good reasons. First of all, the prices are sky high because of supply and demand. And the selection is very narrow. You have fewer cars to choose from,

whether you're buying a new car or used car. So take it from a car dealer. Don't buy a car unless you have to. If you're going to buy a car, then this show is like vital medication. You need to understand if you ever learned how to buy a car. Today is a time to learn. because if you go out there today, the bait and switch advertising is more acute than we've seen it in a long, long time.

And I've been at this business for a half a century. The bait and switch advertising is extreme. And the salespeople and the dealers have a legitimate excuse. The fact of the matter is, yeah, you argue about the price. car dealer says, car salesman says, yeah, price is real high. That's because we don't have very many cars. And he's telling the truth. So you're thinking to yourself, why am I here?

Well, maybe that's a good question to ask yourself. If you need a car, then you have to be extremely careful. And this is show will help you do that. And we'll tell you how to get as good a price as you can on a car. But even that good price, Costco price, a true car price, consumer reports price, prices are higher. Even the good prices are higher. So please understand that. Now, there's a little bit of a silver lining.

If you have an extra used car in the family, now is the time to sell it. And we'll talk about that later too. You don't want a car sitting around that you're not using. If you can sell it, you can get a top price. for a used car today. Car dealers are, so can you. They're getting top prices on the new cars, too. You can't sell new cars,

but only car dealer franchised can sell a new car. So that kind of covers the focus of the show, and then I have to divert to the fact that it's not all about buying and selling, it's about maintaining and repairing. And I'm looking at Rick Kearney, who was a certified diagnostic master technician, he's been doing that for over a quarter of century

he's been through a lot of evolution on the car business and he's now talking computers and Bluetooth and all the other high-tech factors that make cars expensive today I mean we forget about it it's a great thing safer than they've ever been but also more expensive than they've ever been and more expensive to repair there's so much computer stuff on a car today

that if you damage something or something fails, it just costs more. Computers cost a lot of money. And you will pay the price just like you will if you buy a car. Everything's costing more today. Pandemic, after effect,

we're back on the street, we're taking our masks off, we're out shopping, and we're doing that before. Now, you have to be very, very, very careful. If you want to reach us, we have a lot ways to reach us on this show. Most common, the preferred, really, although limited in terms of our capacity to accept audio phone calls, just the old-fashioned telephone, 877-960-960.

Please write the number down. If you haven't got a question, you will. I promise, if you listen to the show for a few minutes, 877-960-9960. We see that. We see that. phone number light up. Nancy Stewart, my co-host over here, will say, okay, boys, we got a phone call, and we prioritize phone calls. Text, 772-4976530. Stu's over there, backlogging text, my son, and he's right on top of it. We'll get to all your text, probably, by the end of the show, but we'll stockpile them in case we have a lot of phone calls. YouTube or on YouTube.com forward slash

Erlung Cars there's a YouTube man to my right Rick Kearney if you have a mechanical or a computer or a maintenance or repair question and you send a YouTube goes right to you Rick he sees it right away see that gives him a chance in case he doesn't know the answer

to Google of them pretend like he knew the answer I'm only giving way corporate radio secrets Plus, in my age, I have memories. Oh, boy, it's gone anymore. One out of a hundred he doesn't know. He's 99%. So Rick will give you the answers on your maintenance and repairs. And the rest of us will all jump in.

Nancy and Stu and I and Rick on the buying part. I'm listening to Rick. I'm learning from Rick. Rick's learning from the salespeople. Hey, quick PSA. Did you see the report on Kia's right now? anyone that has a Kia check for any

open safety recalls on your car because Kia's, they are being advised, park your car outside, away from your house because they're having a big issue with them catching fire even when they're sitting still. That's a scary problem.

It's an actual brake fluid leak that gets into the electrical wiring that can start a fire in the car even while it's turned off and sitting still. What years and models are Let me look up the full of timing on that, but yeah, it's a big one. There's 100,000 vehicles or more on this. It's been a long time since they've used the old pull it over to the side of the road.

I hope they have lots of loaner cars, and that's the kind of advice you'll hear on this show. But usually they have Kia's to loan. Yeah, Keos that catch up fire. But the point being that you have to sometimes ask for things from car dealers and manufacturers and if you push for these things, you can get them. But if they're telling you, pull your car over the road and don't drive it, then they're required, by law, to give you something to drive, and you can push them if they don't want to offer it right away.

Last time I heard something like that, Ray La Hood in 2010 said, pull your Toyota over because of these sudden acceleration, yeah. It's the Kia Optima, 2013 to 2015, and the Kia Sorrento, 2014 to 2015. Okay, well, there's that up. So that's quite a few cars out there, but if you're driving one of those, park it. The Optima and the Sorrento.

Yep. Okay. Breaking news from Rick Kearney on Kia's. So let's talk about the female callers and talk about the great job that Nancy Stewart has been doing over the many years that we've been doing this show to increase our female audience.

And it adds a whole new dimension to the show. I find female callers to be more candid, to be more honest about their questions. You know, us guys, you know, it's a guy thing. You know, we don't like to ask directions. We don't like to ask questions about things that men, macho, are supposed to know about. you know, fixing cars and maintaining and buying, you know, we guys, we got all the answers.

And that's the reason we get taken advantage of it because we think we have all the answers, but we don't. The women are more honest about it. And that's the reason we love what Nancy's done to create a female audience for the show. Because a lot of you ladies will call and ask a question that the guy which is too proud to ask. And he's glad that you asked a question, but he just didn't want to admit it. go into a car dealership or an independent repair shop and they tell you you need this this and this you say why and then they say because of this then you say why again there's an old Japanese what is that the five whys it's a Japanese cultural thing when you ask a question and you get an answer you keep asking why and then you get to the core truth of the whole matter so ladies I'm going to let you listen to Nancy Stewart here my co-host she has a a very special offer because we need more and more of you ladies calling the show thank you good morning everyone and welcome and i want to take a moment to thank all of you for tuning in

earl stewart on cars you are an important part of the show uh ladies uh did you know that women influence 85 percent of overall buying the buying decision and uh you are in a very very important part of the auto industry financially, and for these auto dealers who don't recognize that, well, it certainly is a disaster for them. So with that said, I thank you for tuning in, and ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call. Share with us your purchasing or servicing experience, and it's very important that you call the show and be part of the show. As I said, you're an important part of the auto industry.

877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30, and you can take advantage of www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, we're going to get some text and some anonymous feedbacks. I need to mention the URL

for an ability that we afford all of our listeners and watchers that no other show I know of offers total anonymity. Anonymous anonymity. Got it right. time. Where else can you call a show or contact a show or communicate with a radio show and be

totally anonymous? Exactly. I guess we have a caller. I'm going to interrupt you. Mike is calling us for the first time from Lake Worth. Wow. Good morning, Mike. Good morning. I've been listening to your show for probably the last year and I've got good information and I was a little shocked this morning when you said that this is not a good time to buy a car and I just bought one. Well, I don't know if it made a good move or not, but. If you needed the car, Mike, you buy a car. Cars are important and if you listen to the show for a year, you probably did a good job and buying it the best price you could. My admonition of the beginning of the show was to be careless today is to really, really

take a bigger chance than ever before because of the lack of supply and the high demand and the high prices. But if you have to buy a car, you have to buy a car. My guess is you made a good buy. Well, thanks to your show, I've learned a lot about where to go and where not to go.

So I took heed, and my wife and I went, and we knew what we wanted. And I was surprised. I haven't bought a new car in a while just simply because I hate dealing with a car salesman. Sure. I mean, not all, but, and we went to a dealership on Wednesday, and we went up a look, and two and a half hours later, we walked out of there with a car.

It was a pleasant experience. The people I dealt with, the salespeople, and the credit guys and the whole thing were very good. And I even met the owner of the dealership and his wife. it or not. Wow. And it was a Toyota dealer up in the north end, Earl Stewart, where I bought my car. I was catching on about 30 seconds ago. I've heard of them.

I was not ready for, I mean, it was just, it was, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know. And the salesman I had, I can't remember his name, but he was a big gentleman, I believe, of Haitian descent. He had a bit of an accent, and a real, real good guy. And then the fellow that took care of the other end of it, he was great. Didn't try to upsell me on anything. You know, he did show me a couple of things that he said, you take it or leave it. Good idea, though. And that was the extended warranty thing in the gap insurance.

So I did get that. but I walked out of there with a couple of extras and below my monthly payment that I had my wife and I had zeroed in on what we could do and I was again I was waiting for the other shoe to drop you know I it was like it was a very pleasant experience which I have not had much of that in the past dealing with you know like when you send your your agent thunder out you have been listening to the show for a while Agent Thunder yeah I did have to mention to your people there a couple of times

don't make me call it Agent Thunder in here they all know well they don't know is uh no they don't know the code name yeah right but uh I actually met you and your wife it was around noon time and uh you had the dog that you had there for the doggy day and uh but anyway I wanted to pass that along to you. Well, thank you, Mike. I'm glad you didn't listen to the show a month ago.

You might not have come in and bought the car. But if you need a car, you buy a car, and you're a prepared guy. I mean, you've been through the Earl Sterling Car's postgraduate course, and I'm sure you got the right deal. And it's, I'll tell you the truth, just to be totally transparent, honest, we probably charge you more for the car today than we would of a year ago. because of the fact of the supply and demand. I don't criticize sales, car dealers, or any businessman,

they're charging more when the supply is low and the demand is high. That's capitalism. That's a free enterprise system. Where I criticize car dealers and other business people is for concealing the true price and tricking customers into paying more than they realize they're paying. But when you can shop and compare, as you did, Mike, and do your homework

and you buy a car and you're happy with the experience, then that's a free enterprise system. Had you waited six months, you'd probably got a better price. But you're going to have the use of that car and the enjoyment of that car for six months. So thank you very much, and thanks for the call.

The best part of it is my wife is very happy with the car, so it makes my life easy. Very important. Mike, before you go, I'm sure you're very in. impressed with not only Agent Thunder, but our mystery shopper that does a fabulous job, and she is Agent Lightning.

That's right. I couldn't think of her name. I wanted to mention her, and it definitely was a pleasure seeing you on Wednesday, and I thank you for your call, and good-ows to your wife. I'm glad she's enjoying her ride. All righty, thank you very much. Bye-bye. You're quite welcome.

877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-3-0. Don't forget, www. www.Uroanonymous feedback.com. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Okay, let's get to some text, anonymous feedbacks, or whatever we got in the hopper. As is tradition, we'll start off with Anne-Marie's text. Amory says, good morning. If anyone is interested in the history of cars, There's a new two-part documentary coming up on TV. It's called The Cars That Built the World, and it will premiere on the History Channel on Sunday, May 23rd.

That's Tamara at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, and then the second installment will be on Monday, May 24th, at 9 p.m. Run and track editors, another automotive journalist or feature. The documentary reportedly includes tales of intrigue, racing grudges, rivalries, engineering breakthroughs, and little-known tales like the story of how Such Hiro Honda got his start working for Toyota. This documentary sounds interesting, so I thought I'd mentioned it. It sounds very interesting, and I'm going to schedule my DVR.

Absolutely, absolutely. That's tomorrow at 9 o'clock and Monday at 9 o'clock on the history channel. There were some amazing cars. I had the benefit. My father was born in 1892, and so I was back before there were really any cars, and he kind of came up through the whole car revolution evolution and revolution and he told me about the cars that he drove is a young man

and the car that impressed him more than anything else was a Stanley steamer and he said it was almost the perfect car because it had incredible power and acceleration high speed it hailed the world land speed

record for a long long time but a steam engine you know we look at it now as archaic back in the day it was and think about it no pollution except from the coal that was eating the water except for the coal

but I mean imagine that being refined over a century with computers we could very well have very sophisticated steam engine cars that we wouldn't think it was weird you know maybe the coal thing exactly it's almost like to

the steam engine car was like what the electric car will be to us now I mean it'll be a total revolution. So steam engine long, long, long way. Absolutely. We are going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to Robin, who

is a first time caller. Cool. From Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Robin. Good morning. How's everyone doing? Great. Very well. Excellent. I just had a question about an old van. Okay.

It's weird because it starts all the time and unless it rains and then it will not start until it dries and then and when it dries up again it starts i don't know if it's going into the engine or what's happening uh what's the year make and model well it's pretty old it's a 1990 1990 tmc Chevrolet okay so it's a like a full-sized conversion van yes okay Uh, my first thought, if you're getting an issue where it doesn't run in the rain, obviously you, sounds like you got a water leak getting into the wiring harness and shorting something out. Um, wiring harness? Yeah, it's, there would have to be some, some spot where water is actually getting into the electrical system.

And it's, it's causing a short that's shutting down a relay or something that's not letting the van run. basically the way to start a mechanic would have to actually get the car in and have it running and kind of simulate rain start running some water on different places and put it in the car water and see well actually you'd need to do it when you could have the hood up and watching it to see where the water suddenly hit that made it stop running and then that would give you your indicator of what you're looking for where you need to look but that's yeah that sounds like a water leak into an electrical system Because then once it dries out, then, of course, that short circuit goes away and it can run again.

Robin, how long after it stops because it got wet, can you start it again? Pretty much if the sun comes out, it will start about an hour and a half later, two hours later when it drives. Sounds like evaporation saved the day, yeah? Yeah, you need to take it in and have a, get a quotation ahead of time, Robin, where ever you take the car and say here's my problem and I need a diagnosis on this we think it's an electrical short how much will you charge me to diagnose the problem before you fix it hopefully they won't charge you anything but there is time involved and you need to get a number put on it because sometimes diagnosing can be a very lengthy process oh and then it can get up there in price you think yeah yeah yeah okay I got you just as long as you know it don't be

because they have your car and when they tell you that's the charge and you haven't asked for a quote then you're obligated so always ask up front i'll be asked up front okay good thank you so much otherwise it runs beautifully does it uh robin this is as old as it is yeah yeah it's uh it's up there robin uh i wanted to ask you you know that sounds like a pretty serious situation does that happen uh when you're on the road and it's say it's raining does it does it if i'm out and i'm and i'm if you're already if it's already running then it doesn't happen if you're driving but if if you're parked and you're at a walmart or somewhere and then it will then it happens oh i say okay well i hope we've answered your question and uh robin i want to thank you for being the first

a female caller this morning. You play a very important part in this show, and we definitely appreciate it. And that $50 will be out to you once you contact me. Have a wonderful day. Thank you so much. And you too, and I love your show, and I love all your voices. Thanks, Roland. Thank you.

For a great weekend. You too. Bye-bye. Okay, folks. Don't forget www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Take advantage of that. Where else can you go and hear a show like this

where we answer all your questions, and guess what? It's free. If it's free, it's for me. Don't forget YouTube. I see Rick over here. He's got no sign-up, so YouTube's... We'll go back to...

Go right to Rick. All right. We can show him over to Brian, California. He's going to update us on the Mustang situation that he had. It says, I have a really bad transmission, well, hold on a second, just an update a few weeks ago I told you about how to really bad transmission wine in my 2018 Mustang GT started a month ago, but only in first through third gear, this transmission has a class action lawsuit against it. So as you may recall, I got horrible treatment for one dealer. You guys recommend that I tried another Ford dealer, better experience there.

Instead of completely blowing me off, they told me they opened up a claim with Ford's warranty department, and here we are a month later with no resolution. I get an update about once a week for them with a new excuse for nothing happening. At least you're getting updated. I recently had a talk with the service director from the first dealer and went back there this past Monday for further diagnosis. I go in and they have the same lead master tech or hardlines mechanic ride in the car has been with me before he sits there stone cold face in the passenger seat for 10 minutes as I make the transmission scream and whine.

He won't say a word until they pull into the dealership. He then says, I've been in this car several times, and I'm telling you, once again, everything is normal. You need to trust me, and since you don't, I recommend you go somewhere else. How's that for service? This car has had four trips to a Ford service dealer for this issue, and not once has the car been taken back to be put on a lift, hooked up to a scan tool, nothing, only a quick test drive. Dealer number one says it's normal, dealer says it's too, it's not normal at all. I hate when a company won't stand behind their product.

In reality, these cars get their manual transmission swapped out all the time due to a high failure rate. I'm sure mine is broken, but the service department are probably just told to let it go until the car won't operate at all, or you fall out of warranties that the customer pays 100% for it, whatever comes first. You know, Brian, what I would recommend, I hope you're listening, when you have two dealers, and that's really disappointing. You can't agree with each other. And you've also contacted Ford. I think you should file a Lemon Law complaint.

I think you're still in the warranty on that Mustang 2018. And not that you're going to get your money back to your satisfaction because under Lemon Law, you get a pro-rated. So they're going to charge you for the refund that you get if you win the case against the amount of time you've used that Mustang. But it does get everybody's attention. and it seems to me now Ford just hasn't

somebody needs to slap them in the face and say look we have a customer out here we've admitted of the problem and my dealers can't fix it so get their attention maybe you fire a shot across their bow with I don't want to file a Lemon Law Tim but you leave me no choice Rick am I right in my belief that

if you file the Lemon Law are they given one more chance to fix it and maybe that would be their their impetus to get a new transmission in that car that will correct that issue exactly yes so so I guess their attention and the lawyers from forward have to get involved at that point you stop talking to the dealer yeah the dealer can't talk you about it they're not going to talk to the dealer anymore yeah it's a last it's a last resort to file a lemon law and and before you file it threaten because once you file it is to said it's incommunicado.

The dealer won't talk to you and neither will the manufacturer they will only deal through their representatives which is awkward. But threatened. Fire shot across the bow. I will file the lemon law unless you get me satisfaction on this admitted

problem you have with the Ford Mustang. You have two Mustang, you have two Ford dealers that are disagreeing with each other and I'm caught in the middle. Let them answer that one and then fire the shot if you have to. Good advice. I hope Brian's up. It's 5 o'clock at 530 there. Wow, he's pretty sharp. Okay, folks, we're going back to the phones and we're going to talk to John from Palm City.

He's definitely a regular caller and we appreciate him because he's always got so much information for us. Good morning, John. Good morning to everyone. Have a question for Rick and probably a little automotive history. I recently drove and wanted an experience. a turbocharge 2021. Can Rick explain when we grew up Earl and I supercharges? We're expensive, but cars were supercharged, not turbocharge. Can Rick explain the difference between supercharge and turbocharge? Good question.

Absolutely. A turbocharger is a device that is connected to the car in such a way that the exhaust is run through one side on a propell. That spins another side for the impeller that forces extra air into the engine so that it gets more air in the engine and the engine can run faster and harder. A supercharger, however, is known as a blower, basically, and it sits on top of the engine and has a belt that drives that impeller system. And they look cooler. And forces air into the engine. Superchargers really look cooler, but they're not better.

Well, they actually are better because turbochargers run at a much higher RPM because you're trying to feed it by the exhaust flow. And in the past, because they also had to be oiled by the engine oil, if the bearings started to fail in the turbocharger, it could suddenly burst and you'd lose all your engine oil. You could lose the entire engine because of it. Well, when you say they're better, they're recycling the engine's inefficiency because they're taking, because they're taking. They're taking energy that it would normally just blow out the exhaust and uses that. So it makes the energy the engine more efficient percentage-wise. Absolutely, on a turbocharger. Yes.

Then a supercharger, on the other hand. Now you answered it, why so many are not turbocharged. Believe it or not, this car was a three-cylinder turbocharge. Brand-new. Any idea what maker could be? Three-cylinder turbocharger, three-cylinder. Trying to think, I... Mini Cooper.

Ah, the Cooper, I almost said Fiat. That would have been close. Highest grade of gas, not the middle grade. Yep. The 90-93. Well, here's a little tidbit for you, John. But the car was a real performer. And I'll tell you what, go on nostalgia.

I remember when it came out in the 80s, I drove at a Buick dealer, and it was one of the hottest cars probably ever built in the fastest. It was a Buick Riegel. It was a GNX. It was a turbo charge, six-cylinder. It was in the mid-80s it came out. It would beat any car on the road, including a corvette. That was the Grand National.

Right, Grand National. That's exactly it. We had a turbocharger in it. But Earl and I grew up in an era. The year we were born, they were multi-cylinder cars. It really meant nothing. I mean, that year, 1940, Cadillac built the last V-16 engine. because from the 30s on, they built an 8, V8, V12, and V16.

But it was mostly prestige because as far as going fast or anything, I never drove one, but, I mean, they were over 5,000 pounds. Jaguar had a multi-cylinder car, I think. V12, yeah, someone still does. That was in the type E. For many years. It started with Marmon, and there was many others. But, I mean, it phased out because it was nothing.

But the reason I mentioned the era that Earl and I grew up in, especially in the 50s, when they came out with fuel injection, multi-carb operators, and Cadillac even was a leader. Not only with the 12th and the 16 cylinders, Cadillac was in 1970. They came out with a 500 cubic inch engine, which lasted for six years. It was nothing but a gas burner. Oh, man. And then everybody rushed out in 70s. because Cadillac says I'm not going to build any more convertibles and they rushed out and paid above list for 14,000 of them

but it was a 500 cubic inch engine and my friend had one and I used to use it. It was nothing but a gas burner and a lead sled. What was your eight miles a gallon, eight or nine miles to the gallon? If you're lucky. Sounds like we all remembers it very well. Get a few puny, actually. They were crazy buying this stupid thing. Dual four barrel carbure

Well, hey, John. What I want to say was, how improved today, Texler has a model, just came out. It'll beat any car, any gasoline engine. I got mine on order, John. I got mine in the parking lot. Well, let me tell you something. I stopped in this week. I always like a kid in the candy store.

They have them. They have them in the second floor. And also, and now on the main floor of PGU, on Palm Beach Gardens. And they're selling them. Let me tell you something. And guess what the conversation was? They were talking,

the salesman over there was talking about how world steward owns one. You're in the line light with that car. When will they see my next blog, John? I'm going to expose Elon Musk for charging dealer fees. They charged me $1,100

dealer fee, a hidden fee on the Tesla. Mr. Clean, you know, Mr. Nice guy, he's a, yeah. Real quick, just when you're pricing out of these Teslas, when you look at the bottom line price, it includes your estimated gas savings, but then there's an asterisk. That's not really the lowered price. You're actually paying higher, but, you know, it's the car business. Hey, John, here's a little tidbit for you. Starting next year, Toyota's phasing out the V8s and going to a turbo v6 in their tundrous.

That's right, this year, later this year. Wow, that's very interesting. But I'll tell what, I was very impressed with this mini Cooper. I mean, really, for three cylinders, wow, what performance. Unbelievable. And we came such a long way. It's just an even numbers for cylinders. It's weird to hear a three cylinder. It is. I agree with

you. But now we're really topping it off with the electric. Oh, yeah. Hey, John. Yes. I have something to share with you. You know, my dad didn't care what it cost to run that car that you spoke about, and I was part of that error, and I loved

being a passenger in the 40s and in the 50s. There was nothing like it. You were a very small passenger in the 40s. I was indeed. She's still a small passenger. Thank you, Steve. We went through the area when my six-sillner Chevroleter put fett and headers on it, dual exhaust, smitty mufflers. Earl's been through that era.

Oh, man. Make them go a little faster, and for what? And my dad wouldn't drive anything but a Cadillac. Four on the floor, twin carbs, 4.5 rear end. Pause of traction. Zero to 60 and 5.9 seconds. These are all things I heard in movies. Here's a walk down, memory lane.

What were the things called on the side of the car where you could step on? Finish skirts. Running boards. The running boards. My dad used to put me on the running board and he'd speed away. To punish you? And I loved it. That's when he used to push her out of the car and she'd hang on to the running room.

Oh, no. I was pretty aggressive back then, too. So I just held on and I said, hit the gas. Well, John, thanks for that trip to yesterday. I wish you were beating everything now with the electric. Yeah. Everybody's getting on board, John. Absolutely.

It's like the vaccine. Yes. Thank you so much, John. We love hearing from you. Okay. You guys, I'm waiting for the reach up and repeat. Oh, it's going to be a doozy. Better sit down for this one.

877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. And we are going to go back to Stu. Sure. Okay, this comes from Dennis. This is regarding service records and buying a car. I have several decade history of having service done at a particular dealer, several thousand dollars. Does this provide any leverage in negotiating a deal with the new vehicle? Should a dealer consider this?

Like I said, that's from Dennis. Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. Service records are great. Full disclosure transparency when they're selling a new car or buying a used car. And, yeah, service records, talk to the owner. If you can talk to the original owner, just establish a reporter with them. What a great way to find out what's going on. The reason I a lot of times think people should exercise their option to purchase their lease is because you know that car.

You drove that car like it was yours and you took care of it or if you didn't take care of it, you know you didn't take care of it. Nice to know what you're buying and that's what service records are. And also just your long history with the dealership. Every dealer has a computer system that will, they can pull your name up and it'll give them an instant customer value. Now, that's kind of a silly thing, you know, when they're weighing and whether they get a deal. But if you can show, they'll see how much money you've spent there. They'll consider you, quote, unquote, a good customer and maybe give you a break. But you've got to bring it up and talk about it.

Another reason to think about keeping your old car instead of trading. I mean, particularly today when prices are sky high, you've got a car. Maybe it's got 150,000 miles on. And somebody says, you need a car. You've got over 100,000 miles. Well, let me tell you something. And Rick Kearney has a car probably with 200,000 miles on it. Every time I talk to him, whatever he's driving, he's got a huge amount of miles on it.

And if you take care of your car, they last forever today. Maybe get an equity line of credit on your car with all the equity. Everybody is. Keep the car. You took care of it because you know you took care of it. And you're driving for another year. Prices come down and you want that shiny new car. Go buy it.

But you get a much better deal a year from now than you will today. You know, I don't think I've ever met anyone like Rick who takes care of. their vehicle like he does no it's really cool i like to i mean it's amazing look at your cars and drugs right right now my pickups only at 135 000 but i'll come back to us come back to me in another year yeah we are going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to nick who's calling us from boston good morning good morning earl nancy stewart and rick listen i actually have two things today so The first thing I wanted to share was, I have seen here in the Boston area, there is a Toyota dealership called Atlantic Toyota, which is in Lynn, Massachusetts, that is offering $100 for somebody to ground, return a leased vehicle. And I just found that, you know, as a sign of the times, right, with the shortage and all.

but it just to me seems like, well, obviously they want to then retail the unit, but in normal times, if somebody returns a ground unit, that imposes an admin cost on the dealership that's doing it, that they have to process the return, hold the car until, you know, TFS comes and picks it up if they elect not to buy it. And I don't know, I just figured I'd share, given all the... Well, Nick, that's a very... good observation something everyone will be a stu was he was smiling me because we're also

offering incentive to have people bring their lease cars back into the dealership because as you say the shortage of used cars car dealers always used to use that as a ruse as a trick I need your used car I need your used cars kind of like crying wolf now you don't believe them for the first time they're telling the truth and now they're telling the truth of the car dealers do need your used car, but they hope you don't know how much your used car is worth. And that is a danger because, yes, they'll pay you $100 to bring your lease return in and return to them, but they might not know that they can exercise their option to buy the car. If they don't exercise the option, then you have the dealer has the opportunity to take the car in below market.

And regarding what you said about the cost of having lease returns being taken to grounded the dealerships, I never really understood why other dealerships turned at least end customers away. We always encouraged it. I mean, dealerships also spend a ton of money just to get people to come into their showroom. And then to have somebody who's at the end of their lease who needs a new car to come in their showroom, we always thought it was a good thing, so we encouraged it. Well, those people might not like it because maybe they have to take it. some time with them all they want to do is return the lease car most dealerships we

have a person who handles that so it doesn't really impose that that cost but it does benefit in the long run we we started doing last week offering a hundred dollar Amazon gift cards for people to return their leases because we want we want first crack at trying to buy that car from the leasing company exactly what I lease is I leave January you know or January after season and then I can return it in late December a few days before the end of year. So if I've been in possession of the car, January 1st, they won't have to pay personal property tax on it for that year.

So I have about three years or 35 and a half months to use of the car and then just return it and then coexist on one of my other cars and then go out and shop for a new lease in January. and the other thing you can do, and I think I called it a little while ago about this, is that, you know, you can go and have it appraised. I've done that several times in pocketed equity and gotten out early, so, and avoided the lease in charge. Yeah, it's time to be careful without lease return, and you're doing exactly the right thing, and just be aware of the market value compared to the residual when you make that final decision. And the dealers love those cars.

short of use and new cars. All dealers are looking for ways to get more used cars in. So I do have one question for Rick's attorney this week, also, if that's okay. My mom took her 2016 Prius with about 27,000 miles. She's not going to drive very much. The fortuary model ends. They are saying that she needs a hybrid throttle body cleaning and fuel. injection service. So it was at a reputable Toyota dealer. And then they're also recommending for the AC

a fresh and clean disinfectant service, which is $139.95. And they're saying that also includes a cabot air filter claims. It's Rick. I mean, the car is otherwise in very good condition.

This is the first time this dealership's ever said that anything needs to be done to it. I'm just curious from Rick having, you know, worked on any pre-eye over the years on the merits of having either of these stuff. On the cars that don't get driven a whole lot of miles, the injector flush and the induction service can help to remove some of the carbon buildup in the engine. But it actually, there's actually another way that you can actually make that occur. And that's basically just take the car out and go for a good, like an hour to an hour and a half drive and that gives the engine a chance to really get up to

operating temperature and help work that carbon out. If you're not really seeing any driveability issues, I wouldn't be too concerned about doing it. The AC refresh is more of a thing for here in South Florida where we get so much humidity and air conditioners can start to get a little bit of a musty smell. That sometimes, you know, if you have that, then I'd recommend try the refresh, but otherwise it's not a really needed thing. Is it in the owner's manual? No, it is. Okay, simple answer, the short answer, Nick, is if it's not in your previous owner's

manual, don't have it done. It's most likely a way for the dealer to make money. And you can rationalize it, you can justify it, Rick was justifying it, it can be needed, but a rule of thumb that will never get you in trouble. if you're having no symptoms or drivability problems only do what the owner's manual recommends.

Nothing more. Okay, because yeah, they, you know, those were the two things of the service advisor had called out to her. And then the other thing on the report, like they generate a whole I don't know if it's from

Fiatto or whatever they're using the service drive, but they're also saying replace in butter who went 109.95? That's due at 100,000 miles. Okay. I think we can pass on that one.

Yeah. You know, Nick, I'm like you. I've never read an owner's manual in my life, and I feel kind of like a hypocrite up here telling people to read their owner's manual. I'm laughing. Even if you don't read the owner's manual, you could, you can certainly look for the recommended

maintenance, and that's not that long, believe me. That's the problem the dealers are having is the recommended owner's maintenance is so little that you'll have a hard time finding at the owner's manual because it's only a few words. And that's the reason they're telling you to have stuff done that you don't need because they're starving to death. The cars are too good today. Maintenance requirements are too small. You want to hear something cool? Sure. The Tesla owner's manual is in the screen. Anything you will look up, you just search. Amazing. Wow. Thank you, Nick.

I'll call again soon, and you guys have a great weekend, stay safe out there, and have a great upcoming Father's Day to all the dads on the show, and I hope you had a good Mother's Day, Nancy. Thanks, Nick. Thank you very much. Thank you, Nick. Give us a call again. Excuse me, I'm going to mention real quick Earl's latest column from the hometown news,

which is definitely apropos. for the times that we're in and used car prices soar at an all-time high. Wholesale prices, hang on to your hats, up 54.3%. Amazing. If you want to read that article, you can go to Erlan Cars and you can pull that up just like so many of his other columns. and you can also pick up the hometown news and read that column. I'm going to go to, well, 877960-9960 if you want to reach us, and you can also text us at 772-497-6530.

And as I said before, don't forget, www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We're going to go to Buffalo, New York, and we're going to talk to Kevin. Good morning, Calvin. Good morning, team. Good morning. Your energy today. Thanks.

And I would say synergy, but I can't tell synergy. Listen, I have a similar question to the gentleman with the Ford Mustang. My wife's friend had the BMW, and it's got a check engine late on in a long time, and I've called before on this, and the deal is not really responding very well. And in New York State, if you have a check engine light on, you can't pass the annual inspection just for the emission issue. Now we're dealing with corporate,

but corporate isn't moving very well either on this issue, and the car is still in the shop for two months now, and they can't seem to find a problem. Again, listening to the Ford Mustang gentlemen, you say maybe scream lemon law, I don't want to get confrontational with them, but maybe it's time to become a barracuda and try to get something done here.

I'd like to hear your thoughts. Kevin, you know, what I said earlier to the fellow from California is rather than actually file a lemon law complaint, the best thing to do sometimes is say, in a pleasant manner, say, you know, I don't like confrontation, and I want to do this amicably. I don't want to have to file a lemon law complaint, but I will if I have to get the manufacturer's attention. And sometimes just that, and I would put it in an email, but do it. it in a positive way without threatening and, you know, swearing and that kind of stuff, it's always good to remain pleasant with people and get their attention. And then if that doesn't do it, then you file. And it costs you nothing. I mean, you don't even have to have an

attorney to file a Lemon Law complaint. But the threat usually is enough. So what happens with the Lemon Law filing? Does it make the manufacturer look bad, or does it create an issue for them? Yeah, it makes the manufacturer. All manufacturers have the statistics. They watch and they have objectives and benchmarks, and nobody, no manufacturer likes to have it. Once the complaint is filed, then it's on the record, and they have no choice but to address it. But because it's a legal issue, all manufacturers and dealers are, their attorneys advise them, no more conversation directly with your customer.

So when you file, actually file, the dealer will not discuss the repair with you anymore, and the manufacturer won't. They will say, bring the car in, and then you do it, and they fix it, and that's it, or they can't fix it. But there's no communication anymore. It comes at a cost to both you and the manufacturer. The manufacturer doesn't want to buy it back, but they will if you're successful, but they're not going to buy it. You're not going to get paid what you paid for it. They're going to factor in the use of the vehicle, so it would be an appreciated value.

But they still don't want to come out of pocket for that either. Because of the times right now that the use car market is very, very high, would it be an appreciative value at this time? I don't know what they used to calculate the value. I would doubt it. I don't think that you would get it. They would probably, maybe there's a formula they used, a mileage thing that they use. I don't think they're going to use.

I could be wrong. Yeah, the pro rata that they use in Florida, and every state has a different lemon law slightly. But in Florida, they don't look at the market value of the vehicle. They look at the pro rata based on usage. So they have a formula that is acceptable to the state, and they say they have 30,000 miles. have had the car for two years, therefore we're going to give you 50% of your money back. And that's written in the law, has nothing to do with the market. So the shortage of used cars wouldn't help you.

Okay. Thank you. Another question. The advantage or disadvantage having a turbocharger on your car? It's turbocharger. On modern engines, it's actually getting to be a big advantage because it improves your fuel economy. it also makes the car more efficient with a smaller engine and therefore makes the car lighter

just basically it's a much better system because they've really worked out the kinks on the new turbos. Is there a history of breakdowns with them or they've been proved on that too? In the past, way back there were issues with turbos but they've worked them out. The quality now is much, much better. all righty thank you and have a great breakfast team all right thank you take care

bye bye thanks so much Kevin we love hearing from Buffalo New York yes okay back to Sto dokey we have a text here I get listening to the conversation you're describing with the the buying styles of men versus women that says you hit the nail on the head Earl my boyfriend was more concerned with me believing he was controlling the car buying situation than in actually getting the best deal. In three car purchases I was involved in he overpaid, got taken in by

all the finance BS and overpaid for warranties and paint sealant. Every time he acted like he won we're not together anymore. That's from Jackie in North Palm Beach. Ouch. I was a visual.

Part of my confessions I confess as a recovering cardinal, I confess it as a recovering man, I'm trying to, I'm trying to look at life a little differently. And we men, we got all the answers, you know, it's a mantra thing. Relax, honey, I got this. I mean, every time, you know, mechanics, you know, explain something to me. I said, oh, yeah, mm-hmm, yeah.

And I used to, I mean, just pretend, because if I had to ask a question, that was a sign of weakness. So we're afraid of being, we're afraid, yeah. I'm a victim, I'm an enlightened guy, but I don't, I don't ask for directions. I still regress, though. Well, now with Apple Maps, that's saved my life. Okay, I got to interrupt you guys. Well, first of all, to Stu, wow, what an enlightening.

I can't believe he said that. He asks for directions. No, no, no, no, I don't. Well, I'll tell you how good Stu. Oh, I thought I heard you say you too. I'll tell you how good Stu was on directions. He got lost the other day, taking me to lunch. Wait, wait, I misunderstood.

Wait, that's true. Hey, Jackie. In the parking lot. Has your ex-boyfriend, has he ever asked for directions? That's a rhetoric. I guarantee you. That's rhetorical. Okay.

I understand completely. We can't move on. I have to take an attack this topic because men, it's apples and oranges, and it's an unbelievable situation in the 21st century. And this is how guys roll. We confess, and you're beating us down now. and this has got to stop. Are you asking me to put away my baseball bat? Yes, please.

Oh, please. Okay, ladies, I have $50 right here. $50 for one more female caller. Take advantage. You want to attack this topic that my, well, boss shut me down on? Come on, give us a call. I can't wait. My palms are sweating.

I got $50 right here. Give us a call. 877, 960, 99. 60. You too. Here's one from Donovan Lewis and I'm going to read this word for word. Uh-oh. Oh yeah.

Hold on folks. Here we go. I have a large annoyance with the recovering car dealer. Oh boy. You have a 2019 Tesla Model 3 at your dealership right now for a 39,988 with 33,000 miles. You can buy a better brand new. better brand new one from Tesla today for $2 more $39,990. You're doing exactly what every one of these other horrible local dealers are doing. I have seen so many people get taken advantage of buying

a used Tesla for more than a new Tesla costs and it makes no sense. It's not right and it's something I would not have thought you would have done to this extent. Despite what you think of Elon, a used Tesla is never worth as much as a new one. You know, it's my... That's not true. Let me explain the difference between price gouging, which is what you're accusing me of, and competitive pricing and supply and demand, a free enterprise.

I have always said, for as long as I can recall on this show and before, that I don't begrudge car dealers charging... a lot of money for a car. If they want to charge a high price for a car, I have no complaint. I have the complaint when they fool the public and the buyer into thinking they're not paying that high price. But when you have, it's always been this way

with any product, including automobiles, when you have a short supply and high demand, prices rise. Where I draw the line is lying to customers, telling them there's a low price and then adding hidden fees and dealer installed accessories on top of the advertised promise price. Let's get to Tesla specifically.

We talked about this on the show last week, I think, about how a used Tesla and some used cars today can sell for nearly the same amount, maybe even more than the new car. It's all about supply. And the price, a product is worth what the supply and demand says it's worth. Diamonds, refrigerators, cars, popcorn, everything you buy. Yeah, toilet paper.

During the early part of the pandemic, when there was this psychological belief that the world was going to be without toilet tissue, how much would you have paid for the last available roll of toilet tissue? $20, $50, I don't know. And so, therefore, you paid what was quoted and you paid the price that you know it was, and you had the freedom of choice to say yes or no. So the real price is what the market says it is with full transparency. With even more transparency,

the Model 3 that we have for sale is a long range, I'm sorry, mid-range, and you can buy that on Tesla, right now for $48,990, $10,000 more than we're asking for it, and you'll get it probably sometime at the end of the year. Yeah, and that was the other good thing. Instant gratification. You will pay more for a product today. I was talking before the show with Jonathan,

and we were talking about the price of these objects that are available to put your air tag, your Apple air tag on different things. and the air tag is a fantastic technical achievement by Apple, but they didn't come up with the right kind of attachments to put to your keys, to your notebook, to your iPhone, to whatever you don't want to lose. And so somebody came up with a great idea,

and I paid $8 for something that probably should have cost $2 to manufacture. And I'm very happy because I have something that really works, and the price will come down, in a few months, but I wanted it today. So that's my answer, supply and demand, transparency. You can't, a business man cannot be criticized as long as he's being fully transparent with his customers.

And just another important point is the actual, the wholesale market on that vehicle is $45,000. So the fact that matter is no one can, you can't price gouge if your cost basis, what you pay for the car is higher. If you have a normal markup on that, the cost goes up to the dealer, and that is passed along. It doesn't mean the profit is enormous in every case. And Donovan just put another comment here that says,

Tesla does not sell a mid-range anymore. That car you're selling has a range lower than a standard range plus today. Incorrect, but we don't have to have a debate. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want you to call Stu after the show, and he's more familiar with the specific. and he can discuss it with you. Absolutely.

Yeah, definitely clear things up. Okay. I got one more here from some Sam. He says, a while back, I asked about Texas property tax that they were asking him to pay on a lease return. He says, any resolution

as to why I should pay property tax on a leased car when the finance company owns the car. He says, I ended up paying to avoid legal issues, but it's unfair. Any favorable resolution for consumers like me, any lawyer or legal advice that might have called in on the show that Mike could comment on that? Yeah, that's a issue that can't be addressed until you know how the law in Texas is written. At first blush, I say property is something you own and property taxes cannot apply to something that somebody else owns.

And that would be my first reaction. But I would also want to see the Texas law on the way they wrote. with their property taxes, you know, a state can write a law in any way they want to. Now, you can attack the law through the federal courts and make it unconstitutional and make the Texas change their law. But it's going to be a long road to hoe to go after a Texas law that in writing says they can put property tax on a lease vehicle. So I can see the rationale. They say, well, you didn't own it, but in the formula was a three-year lease.

so we're only taxing you on your ownership for three years and therefore you are the practical owner even though not the legal owner Texas law will determine the answer and one last one Charles Reeves says what is the most reliable car manufacturer in 2021 Toyota Honda or Hyundai not Hyundai Honda or Toyota I would say and speaking about here's something I before the show's over

in today's automotive news, headlines, winds lift, Japan's automaker, but not Nissan. Kind of a scary headline automotive news. You folks out there that have Nissan's, you folks out there that are thinking of buying a Nissan, Nissan is in serious financial trouble, and they have lost money three years in a row, and during a time period when all the other manufacturers are making money hand over fist. So new profit records are being set by most manufacturers. Nissan is hemorrhaging cash, losing money. Be careful out there.

You might end up with an Osmobile or a Pontiac if you know what I mean. Not around anymore. And it's even worse because General Motors is still around. But in this case here, if you have a Nissan, they go out of business. And we know that this is going to be the trend. There's too many manufacturers, and it's being consolidated. And 10 years from now, you will not have probably more than 70% of the number of manufacturers that exist today. And Nissan probably will be the one that is not around in 10 years.

Just a guess. Be careful. Okay. More information. 472-4976530 and just a little teaser, ladies and gentlemen, gosh, I wish I could share with you the psychology of the cars that we buy. Wow, what a topic. I posted it on my Facebook page if you want to take a look. It is definitely worth watching. We're going to Dan Ridge, Tennessee, where we're going to be talking to Casey. Good morning, Casey. Thanks for your patience. You bet. No problem. I've got a question for, I think it would be directed at Rick. You guys were mentioning about him having high mileage cars. I've got two Toyotas. One is an 07 tundra, and it's got 175,000 miles on it. And the other one is a 2011 rev4 with the V6, and it's got 150,000 miles on it.

and I've never had a problem with either car that both run like tops even to this day and but I'm worried about having two high mileage cars especially during this time where you really can't get a new one so I wanted to get your all's opinion to find out if I have something to worry about or if I should just be thanking thank God that I have two cars that are you know maintenance free at this point or issue free i should say well i mean i don't have a crystal ball to really tell the future but barring an accident or crash or something else that you know that comes up like that i see no reason why either of those vehicles shouldn't go at least another 100 000 miles and truth be told if you if you kind of watch the roads when you're driving you'd be amazed at how

many old, old, old Toyotas are still running out there and all makes. They're great. It isn't just toilets. You've got, in my opinion, you have a more reliable vehicle in these two vehicles

than you would if you bought the car is new. It's a fact of life that no two vehicles are created equal. You have two tunders that come off the assembly line, they're different. They have different specific care, different tolerances. When you manufacture a product, there's no such thing as two exactly

identical vehicles. You have gotten, you've got a good RAV and you've got a good tundra, too good, and you've taken care of them, and they have 175,000 and 150,000 miles respectively. That actually should give you more sense of reliability and the fact that you have great products than if you bought the car two years ago, the trucks two years ago. So yeah, you can hang on to those for another 100, 200,000 miles. Just keep doing what you're doing. Follow the owner's

manual, take care of them, and you're better off. I wouldn't buy a new car today. Even think about it. well that that really does make me feel better about the situation because you're you guys are in the business and been around them a long time it it's one of those things where you see everybody have lower mileage cars and you're thinking boy I'm I'm in trouble here but you're exactly right you have them and you take care of them and they seem to last you know you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop again the people I don't know how you are, but when I was younger, if I had 50,000 miles on my car, I started to worry, and

I should. And the banks didn't like to finance the cars. If you traded in, they had over 50,000. And they started to break when they had over 50,000. And the world's changed. And the cars today are like a fine, expensive Swiss watch compared to what we built 25 and 30 years ago. And you've got a couple of fairly late model vehicles that are really well. manufactured and you've taken care of them so yeah don't think like you did 25 30 years ago think like the way these cars are coming today hondas toyotas general motor products high quality low maintenance low repair very good i appreciate your answers have a great day guys we'll call again thank you so much yeah thanks so much

kisi and we love hearing from all of you in tennessee our number here is 877-960-99-60 and I want to mention to you one of the many things that the recovering card dealer has created and that is a place for senior citizens to go for online assistance and they're we're asking for volunteers for online assistance we do have a I'll mention that in a second we do have a large large elderly population and the more of us are going to the internet for that purchase and it's a safe place to go you keep yourself protected and you pay a much lower price for your vehicle so it really makes a whole lot of sense so if any of you out there are well savvy and you want to help us out please sign up because we do need volunteers for online assistance for senior car buyers. 877-960-9960, www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com

and Earl's got his hat on. And the reason he has his hat on is because he is looking for volunteers where you can help him to kind of sort out these crooks, putting it mildly. And it's called Earl's Vigilantes. And you can help people in your community. You can help a whole lot of people more than you know because not everyone is that savvy. Quite a few of us are because of all the information you've learned right here.

But it's Earl's vigilantes and you can go there and volunteer at Earl on Cars. Now back to Stu. Sure. We have a text here from Bob and Stewart. Probably a question for Rick. Good morning. My question is, is it better to use non-ethanol, unleaded gas, and current cars?

Nope. Modern cars are totally flying, yeah, totally fine, excuse me, with the ethanol. Most stations are still at a maximum of 10% ethanol. Some of them are starting to get the 15%, but your car, you can see right on the gas cap, it will tell you whether that is safe or whether you need to keep it at, 10% and for your newest cars, you're fine. Okay, very good. And they charge an arm and a leg for that too, so I don't,

you use what the illness manual recommends and don't spend extra to make your car allows longer. Okay, dokey. Let's jump over some anonymous feedback. We haven't heard that yet. Okay. I don't know if you got, did you guys get to this last week? It came in, it looks like maybe right after the show.

It says, I'm fed up with the game. games that Florida dealers play with their customers. I'm not one that supports more government and business, but we need stronger consumer laws that are enforced in dealer fees that are capped or eliminated. And I think that you're speaking to the choir. That's kind of what we've been screaming about for 18, 17, 18 years now. Yeah. Enforce the laws are all the books, and they don't do it. Here we are. No. All right. More anonymous feedback. So if I can't wait to buy a I can't wait my car was totaled how do I manage to not get ripped off by overpaying I read that the inventory shortages will last all year and maybe more

go to the internet start right there what do you think well you're gonna pay more for the car today by whether they go to the internet or not if you if you go to the internet you have the best chance of getting the lowest higher price but if you total your car you've got no choice I always I said before if you have to buy a car obviously you have to buy the car you totaled your other car so um you just go buy online uh listen to earl on cars uh read the blog uh don't go car shopping alone you will pay a higher price but it won't be an outrageous price arm yourself with knowledge ladies and gentlemen it's a way to go all right more anonymous feedback earl you've spoken about carfax in the

past and that the reports can be inaccurate what do you think of the following written guarantee on the Carfax website. Quote, salvage, junk, rebuilt, fire, flood, hail, lemon, not actual mileage, exceeds mechanical limits. Guaranteed. None of these major title problems were reported by the state, by State Department Motor Vehicles. If you find that any of these title problems are reported by a DMV

and not included in this report, Carfax will buy this vehicle back. So, that doesn't, yes, if they make a mistake, if the state DMV report something, to them and they failed to put it on the report, but if they didn't get the report, so when we say that there's inaccuracies on Carfax, that doesn't mean that Carfax is necessarily a person, the entity that's screwed up, they might not just, they might not have the information. If the insurance company doesn't file the report properly or law enforcement does it, it won't make it onto the Carfax report.

So it's the same with anything, garbage in, garbage out, but Carfax will guarantee it. I don't know why I'm defending Carfax. Well, it's not going to happen. And if the state reported, Carfax, you know, they're automated. And I'm sure it's just an automatic process when they have a total car or a flood car. It just happens to go into the data. And so they're giving you a guarantee where they're never going to have to pay. But as Stu says, if, in fact, something happened that they weren't aware of,

then that's a whole different story. We've had cars that they report us have damage that weren't damaged. And so they're human beings and they operate the computers they use and occasionally they will make a mistake. That's right. Okay, more anonymous feedback. Four word statement, electric cars cause cancer. Everything causes cancer.

I know gasoline causes cancer. it tells you at the gas pump. I don't know. No, they don't. I mean, there might be, I'm sure there are warning labels on it from California. You know, it's funny because, you know, you don't know if they're joking or not. That could be just a hysterical joke. Yeah.

I mean, I, well, I think. Or it could be somebody to believe it. I'll take it partially seriously and say the fact that their electric cars do not make them cause cancer any more than the gas car you're probably writing it right now. If you're going to get cancer from a car, it's going to be from the plastic. plastics and the solvins and the gasoline and the other crap that's in there. But I don't think electrical fields are doing it. I think science is pretty much definitively demonstrated that that doesn't happen. Yeah, we have to be able to sort things out here because if you get into,

which is the cancer situation, gosh, you can just crawl under a rock to satisfy your mind because you can really go crazy about what causes cancer. So we need to get, well, we need to get our fax straight. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-530, and we are going back to the phones where we have Joe from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Joe. Good morning, gang. How are we today?

We're great. Good. I hope the wind starts to die down. I have a pet peeve. Brought my car in. It doesn't matter. Make model gear. Doesn't matter service station. But private mechanics, high-end, bring my car in for synthetic oil change. Get the oil change. Have a coupon. But, of course, it's always, well, we're going to do all the checks for you. And by the way, there's 4% condensation in your brain. great fluid and your air conditioning filter needs to be changed. So a $69 synthetic oil chain goes to a $499 bill. Yeah, that's what the danger is with the car

dealers starving to death on maintenance and repairs and the today's vehicles are getting toward maintenance free and the electric car will be virtually maintenance free. cars we have today require a tenth of the maintenance that they did 25, 30 years ago. And so the car dealers are having to make up stuff to keep their service departments viable, alive, and profitable. And they're coming up with all sorts of persuasive arguments to convince you to buy something you don't need. Owners manual, stick to the owner's manual. If it's not in your owner's manual, don't have it done. Well, what's the question then on your own?

your service. In other words, with the Mercedes, you need an X amount of miles to have your A service, and that X amount of mile is your B service. Do you really need those prescribed services? When you go to Mercedes, of course, they're $17,800 for basically a check-up. Well, you try not to have your Mercedes maintained as a Mercedes dealer because they're used to rich guys, and they got a lot of money, and they charge a lot of money. So take your Chevrolet to a good independent mechanic somewhere. They have a lot of foreign car technicians out there on their own, and check reputation, check ASC certification,

and have somebody besides a Mercedes dealer. I say the same thing for Cadillacs, for Infinities, for Lexus. Don't go to an electric car dealer. And as far as your main deal, that's the owner's manual. Good independent mechanic, reliable, show them the owner's manual. This is the 35,000 mile inspection.

Please do it. Milege or time. It's usually whichever it comes first. Well, one quick story related to that, Erling gang, is brought the car in for service, and it was a purchased an extended warranty service contract.

So you go in there, And, of course, the service doesn't include tires. The funny thing is, though, I had just put four brand new tires on the car and then brought it in for the scheduled service. And they came back at me and said, oh, by the way, really need tires on your car. I haven't put a hundred miles yet. The little sticker was still on the rubber. Okay, haven't worn off yet. Yeah.

And they have the deduction to suggest that I needed tires. Yeah. These people are commissioned, and they get a, that was probably a spiff on tires that day. And I had the sales meeting and all the service advisors get together and say, okay, 50-buck bonus. I mean, buy the sales a set of tires today on top of your normal commission. So guess what? Everybody comes in to that service drive needs new tires. even the ones that already have new tires

I'll tell you Earl, thanks for being a reputable dude and Stu, its company. Thank you for running a great dealership. Thanks. It's nice to know that somebody's got the consumers back. Thank you very much. Amazing.

Amazing. I'll tell you, some of this information still doesn't cease to amaze me. Back to Stu. All right, this was probably read last week, but I want to read it again because I agree with this anonymous feedback sub-bender.

Rick has the greatest voice like a wise old cartoon character. I think, you know, my son is an animator and I agree with this and I would like to volunteer you for voiceover work.

You might be in a cartoon one day. Okay. All right. He can do it. I'm serious. You've got a great voice. There's going to come a point where as an auto mechanic

I'll just be too old and broken to do it. See, I've got to have a second career faced. People tell me I have a good voice. Is Rick's voice better than my voice? Yours is great as well. I'm not making this up. Everybody in here except for me has a great radio voice.

Oh, you've got a good voice. Oh, you've got a great radio voice. How about Jonathan? I've never heard Jonathan on the radio. I've heard him behind me. Hey, real quick, so our service manager just sent a picture to me. It's a picture, and I sent it to Jonathan so he can put it up on the screen. So if you're watching the show, you can see this.

Just an illustration of how bad the inventory situation is. This is that CarMax in Boynton Beach, which is usually busting at the seams with cars. They have no cars. Wow. Well, they have some cars. I mean, I'm going to say have no cars, but they have a tiny fraction of what they normally stock. You want to sell your car, go to CarMax. They will pay, if you're lucky, all the money for your car.

If you don't need the car, don't sell it, and then have to buy another one. commercial don't do that great to us. Hey, sell that used car. You'll get so much for it that you'll be able to make a down payment on your next home. We have anonymous feedback here. A little more serious. It says, my husband passed, and I'm worried about the Camry lease that we have. I have no use for it, but am I obligated to make the rest of the payments?

There's still a year left on the term. Can I just return it? The lease company is Southeast Toyota Finance. Any advice would be appreciated. normally my standard advice would be don't worry about it if you're not on the lease and it was just your husband they have no interest in pursuing you or your husband's estate it will go as a default on his credit and not sound crass but that doesn't matter anymore so that you could do that but new advice in this current crazy time we are you might be able to walk away with some cash by having someone a dealer or private buyer buy the car from the leasing company So there's a payoff that you have, and in these crazy inventory shortage times, it might be worth more than your payoff. And normal times we wouldn't say that with a year left, but you might actually walk out with a thousand, a couple of thousand or more cash after you turn it in.

That could help out. So that's my advice. Look at your residual value, and that is your option to purchase it at that with a fee of a few hundred dollars that they will probably charge you with dealer fees. Yeah, just be careful. there's still pitfalls to watch out for. If you want to call me or email me, you can reach me at Stu at E-S-Toyota.com, and I can guide you through that or give me a call.

Okay, we're going to go back to the phones, where we have our first female caller, and she's calling from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Pam. Good morning. How are you? We're well, thank you. Congratulations. You won yourself $50 this morning. Thank you very much.

You're welcome. Nice. What can we do for you? I have a 2000 Avalon and my husband and I both work for Toyota in Massachusetts for 15 years. And it's a really nice car. We work for two-faction Toyota and we have a light on in our 2000 Avalon that says Z-S-C and then another light that says Z-S-C off and we don't know what it is. Vehicle stability control.

Absolutely correct. Okay. Vehicle Stability Control is basically a subsystem to the ABS system, the anti-lock brakes, and it's what helps control your car when you're in an anti-lock brake situation, say if the car goes to them to a skid or a slide. Most likely, if I had to guess, I would say there's a possibility of a wheel speed sensor or something else like that has occurred, and so it's thrown on this warning light. And the reason it says VSC off as well is it's telling you that that system, while it's detecting that problem, it is disabled.

I have one. Is there a possibility that the VSC button was turned off? Because that would save the same thing, right? It would save VSC off, but it would not have the VSC warning light. Okay. Gotcha. So there is a malfunction in the system somewhere. It had to be checked by a mechanic to find out, you know, what the code is and what's going on with the system.

Okay. Thank you very, very much. Thank you for the dollar. And it's a 2000 Avalon, correct? Yes. So the very good chance that you're still under warranty and so you shouldn't have to worry about that. Oh, well, thank you so much.

A 2000? I'm sorry, I thought you said, I'm thinking 20, oh, my God. It's 21 years old. Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's old enough to drink. Yes. I picture two and zeros. We got somebody on the phone here.

Hey, Pam, Pam, I want to thank you for calling, and I'd love for you to spread the word, as you heard in the beginning of the show I don't have time to go into all of it we're at 930 right now getting ready for the mystery shopping report but we all appreciate your call and you have become part of

this building a platform for ladies right here at Earl Stewart on cars and I'll get that $50 out to you and by the way you're driving a great car I absolutely love it I thank you very much and you all have a nice day Thank you so much, Pam. The 20-year warranty.

I got lights flashing, and I got to tell everybody that we'll have to pick up where we left off as far as phone calls are concerned because we've shut the lines down right now because we have to give time for the mystery shopping report, which is from Napleton. And we're going to catch up a little bit on text and YouTube, too. So stay tuned for that, and we're going to go back to Rick and Stu. Got one good one here. Sung Sam, he's asking any comments on buying a car from off-lease dealer in Florida? They're in Orlando in many parts of Florida.

I'm guessing off-lease only. They charge tax for Florida there when I buy from them. And when I go to my own state, which probably is Texas, where he's from, when I register there, I have to pay tax to register and ask for a refund from my state. Any comments, please, how to avoid aside from not buying from off- off-lease dealer in Florida. Well, not knowing the state, so it is an off-lease. Texas DMV is difficult, I can tell you that much.

You were involved in one recently. Remember, we had this title situation, so I don't know what their rules are. In most cases, in most states, when you're buying, they will collect the sales tax for where you're registering it unless that state's not reciprocal, in which case you don't pay sales tax in Florida and Texas would charge your sales tax. So I don't know what's going on there. You definitely shouldn't have been charged sales tax twice. Well, yeah, that's the only thing you can do is talk to the dealer,

and they have a title clerk, and their job of these title clerks is to converse with, they should be knowledgeable of all the states, and let her work with the DM. in Texas, if you bought the car from them, they owe you that to try to get that straightened down. Absolutely. And they're a big operation. Like some small, like independent use car lots, they don't even do the title work or the

tag work for you. They just, it's COD. Offlease only does. And so they're a big operation, and I'm sure they have the resources to fix it. And I have the cell phone number of the owner, so that doesn't work. Call us back. You got backup. And I'll give you the cell phone number.

All right. I got one last text, and then I'm calling. up. This is from Scott and Del Rey. Earl reminded me of ending up with a Pontiac. I owned and loved my Pontiac Aztec. I wish I still had it on the road. Funny enough, when the Boxy V6 Aztec first came out in 2001, the critics panned the design as the ugliest car on the road. It was ugly. Yet, yet, by 2002, almost every manufacturer had come out with a similar boxy vehicle. And in fact, Pontiac had just invented the very start of the SUV market. And not entirely true, but there was a design trend, whether it was spurred by Pontiac or

by weird cars that already exist in Japan. We'll never know. But yes, there was a trend of Kia Sol, Zion XB, Nissan Cube, all these weird boxy cars came out, and ugly cars became a thing for a little while, for a little while. All right, I'm all caught up. Okay. Let's get to the Mr. Shopping Report. Did you have a YouTube left over? Actually, one comment I answered online, but Ernesto says, if someone wants to buy a used Toyota from a private party or a non-to-oieter dealership, which would you recommend?

Or which is a better pre-purchase inspection, a Toyota dealership or an independent repair shop? Well, the dealership is not going to give you a fair honest, decision. What he means is if you're going to buy from say the Ford dealer, you want to buy a Toyota from a Ford dealer, should you take it to a Toyota dealership

for an inspection or to an independent repair shop? Well, it'd be better to a Toyota dealer, but again, you don't want to pay a lot of money. So the idea is to get anybody can do an overall inspection. A toilet dealer could do a better one, but they also might charge

an obscene amount of money. So I get a good technician and Toyota dealer preferably, but anybody to check it over in this. Price it out and compare the prices, but the dealer's going to have the more trained for that model. They'll know a couple hundred, 100, 200 bucks. They should be able to do something for you.

Okay, folks, we'd love for you to get involved with our mystery shopping report and, well, post your vote by techs and let us know how you feel about, well, the hard work, I should say, that went into the mystery shop. operating board, as it always does every week. And Stu's excellent expertise in putting it all together. Okay, Mr. Shop of Napleton and North Lake Kia, like wild animals fighting for the last scraps. I like that, Stu. Scraps of meat, car dealers have grown increasingly aggressive, his inventories continue to dwindle to historic close. Week after week, our Mr. Shop investigations

reveal price gouging and other anti-consumer behavior justified and excused by the supply crime. So we, you know, nothing better than a crook when they really have a good reason they can throw at their mark to take advantage of them. And this is a true reason. There is a short supply. And they will be charging you more money. The sin is not telling you how much more they're going to charge you and leading you to believe that you can buy that vehicle for, far less than you actually can. Even generally well-behaved dealers like Wallace Nissan last week

have joined in to this feeding frenzy. To be clear, there's a real upward pressure on prices because of a real shortage. This is classic supply and demand, but price gouging, bait and switch and dishonesty is another thing. So really nothing's changed. the lack of morals and the

excessive deceptive practices are still there. Now they just have something that sounds good because it's true. We have a short supply. And you can walk into any car dealership, used her new now, and they'll say, oh yeah, this car does cost a lot of money because we have a short supply of them.

And that's true. That's the reason I say, don't buy a car today unless you have to. you're going to pay more money. If you have to buy a car, somebody called in earlier in the show, had his car total. Didn't have a car. Had to buy a car. Be careful.

You'll minimize the extra cost and you will only be paying for the lack of supply, not the bait and switch, which is what the dealer's doing. My advice has been consistent. If you can't wait to buy a new used car, wait.

If you can't wait, then listen to this radio show, pay close attention to what we're covering in these mystery shopping reports, uncovering. This week we hit one of the bad boys again, Ed Napleton. If you remember, two weeks ago, we gave the, I call them Grecos, they call them Greco's, but Daddy Greco says, Greco is a way to pronounce it. The sons say, Greco, I'm going with Daddy. Greco, a shot at redemption.

They almost made it. Despite checking all the boxes, misleading ads, addendum, hidden fees. We barely pass Grico Chevrolet with a D minus. Our scores were not unanimous. Several people were trying to fail. We gave a chance. Lowest score before failure, a D minus, and we will be back to Grico. Since we failed Napleton's North Palm Beach Hyundai three weeks ago, it would only be fair to give Ed Napleton the same opportunity. So, we picked out another location and sent in Agent Lightning, our female shopper. Prior to heading to the dealership, Agent Lightning, checked out Northlakekekea.com,

found her target vehicle, a new 2021 Kia Sportage, LX, with an MSRP of 25,420. It was listed for sale with an internet price of 2440, just a $1,000 discount. There you are. Always want to get the internet price when you're shopping. Okay, here's a report, speaking as if I were, Agent Lightning. I entered the showroom just as they opened up

the sales department at 9 a.m. I was greeted by the receptionist who asked me if I had an appointment. I said, I didn't, and she offered to get someone to help me. She quickly found Winsley. I told Winsley about the sportage and seen online said I thought the price was attractive. I told him I helped to drive at home this morning.

Winsley led me to his desk, wasted no time before beginning a series of probing questions like what I did for a living. We made small talk about real estate and the car business before I got us back to the subject, my new Kia Sportage. Winsley suggested we find the vehicle and asked if I'd rather walk the lot, or stay inside and look on the computer i chose to walk a lot now advice to everyone always look at the car you're going to buy granted most people don't look at the car on the lot they see the maybe one on the showroom and they say we have just one one just like it always look at the car

you're going to buy before you get into discussing price because the Maroni label is your only reliable measurement of a discount of how good a price you're getting. Not the addendum label, and that's the reason you want to look at it, because if there's just a Monaroni label and there are no dealer installed accessories, there won't be an addendum label. Usually there is, and the addendum is much higher than the MSRP. And the MSRP is too much to pay for a car. So don't sit in the showroom and let the salesman go out, go with them, and look at the car you're going to buy. Or one exactly like it. The MSRP on the Monroney label matched what I saw online and what I'd seen on Winsley's computer, but there was an addendum sticker.

in this case we found out about it Napleton wanted another this is a doozy $2,710 for Xylon silver level some kind of paint rust and dust

BS Shadow Mark I don't even know what shadow mark is splash cards we know what those were do they still have a splash car? Yeah, yeah

nitrogen tire package we know what that is one-year maintenance which is free from the manufacturer anyway and wheel locks which probably are cheap and you don't want them and they're more trouble than what they're worth

so that's what you're paying $2,710 over a sticker for that pile of dealer installed garbage Winsley asked if I wanted to take it for a test drive I said I did he asked if I wanted to take it on 995 this is interesting

because he'd have to get a dealer plate. He walked me back to the desk, asked for my driver's license, and walked off to speak with the sales manager. I thought it was interesting that they only felt like they had to have a tag on it if they were going to be on $9.95, but on North Lake, they can get away with it.

It's kind of like a subset of, we don't enforce laws. And this is what happens. If you know, every time I go a demo ride on North Lake, I'm okay. But when I go on I 95, they get me a ticket. So you only do what you're going to get arrested for if you violate the law. And that's why the dealers get away with what they get away with.

When we returned, I told Wensley that this was the one I wanted. So I hoped he could give me a good deal. He walked in back to his desk, asked for my driver's license, and walked off to speak with a sales manager. He returned with a worksheet with a lot of numbers on. selling price. MSRP was 25,420. They added $3,246, added $3,246 for the same addendum that only were supposed to be $2,710. Now this time they added nitrophil 695. So the nitrophil went way up from $199. Then they added $1,098 for dealer dock service fee, hidden fee. The splash guards went up another $50, too.

Oh, did they? Yeah. This is a wild-bile list. $129 e-tag fee. This sounds like it's a legitimate DMV, Department of Motor Vehicle. It's not. It's profit to the dealer. And then there was also a $149 private tag agency.

$1.29 tag, e-tag filing fee, and $149 private tax. All nonsense, smoke and mirrors, hidden fees. Rick, you had another? Yeah, they did knock $5 off the wheel locks. They went from $1.24 to $119. So it's just total confusion, not premeditated. Anyway, total hidden fees, $4,622 in hidden add-ons. and the Naples

Effective Sale price, $30,042. So I, Agent Lightning, expressed dismay and exclaimed, this is almost $5,000 over a sticker. Unbelievable. It's blind demand. Okay. Lindsay said, well, there are some ads

I could try to take off, but most of the stuff is already installed. I like a way you call it stuff. Most of this stuff is already installed. He doesn't like it either because it makes his job harder. He said he had to check with his boss. Winsley returned two minutes later with his manager, whose name I didn't get.

The manager wanted to know what he needed to do to make this deal happen. The same old, same old, old school party line. What do I have to do to sell your car? What do I have to do? I said, for starters, I hadn't planned to pay over MSRP. The sales manager retorted that this was the market price on the vehicle because of global inventory shortages.

Global, I like that. I said, I understood supply and demand, but this was excessive. The sales manager said, well, ma'am, what price would you be willing to pay? This is the would you take. And he already tried that before. Just give me a number. Give me a number. Old school.

I replied that I wanted to take off all the extras. He turned to the computer, start typing, and said, I can get you down $2,000 more. So here we go. We had the roller coaster up. Now we're coming down. I told the sales manager, he was wasting my time. Again, he asked me what price I wanted to pay.

I want to pay a dollar. They want to get you engaged in the game. What do you want to pay? it up and said, no, thank you. I'm not playing your game. Sales manager tried to coax me and sitting back down, but I wasn't having any of it. I left. Walked out, bam, out of there. However, about an hour later, I realized that Winsley had never returned my driver's license. And, yeah, that's one of the reasons they take the driver's license. Not always, but in this case here. So I left. I didn't have my driver's license.

and I had to go back. I went back to Napolet, North Lake, Kiev, found Woonzley hanging out with a group of salespeople. He said the sales manager had my license. Now, that makes it a little bit more likely that why did he have it? Because if I've asked Wensley back, he'd say, it gives him a stagger, a little time, say, well, the manager's got it, and they keep you there a little longer, unless you forget what I did. And then I left, and now I'm back. He asked me to wait and went into the office. Okay, I'm back now. I stood there for a couple minutes, and the sales manager came out of the office. He knew I was coming back.

He was holding a sheet of paper and said, let me show you what I can do for you today. I said, no, thanks. I'm not interested. He asked me, please, take a look. So I'm back, you know. This time the price was MSRP, 25,000, 420. He didn't add any of the addendum items, just the three-dealer fees, totaling 1,376 bucks.

So he's way down now after I had to come back. So the good deal was just $1,376 over MSRP. That's a good deal. 1376 over full sticker. I told the manager you should have started with that, which they should have, and then come down from there. I turned to leave, the sales manager told me I couldn't take his internal document. So I took a picture with my phone and said, thanks, and left. Again, here's the epilogue.

Naples to North Lake, I went for all the money, that's for sure. But how bad was the behavior really? Was this price gouging or a seller's market? So there's a big difference. And you're the judge. You're the jury, and I will be beginning hearing from you folks. I will show you this one picture that Agent Lightning took for us

and you can see where the ink is these are all the hidden fees and this is kind of a new record look at all the circled hidden fees there huge huge number I don't think it's a record because I think three weeks ago when we were at Napleton Hyundai

I think they had the same thing but it was priced more and it was like 8,000 total that was a doozy so anyway there we are and here we are voting time napleton kea one of the bad boys what he said all right we got some coming in already jonathan and wellington said napleton say no more f they've earned it amory gives them an effort keeping and playing games with her license f minus for the old school games on top of keeping of her license bob gave him an x for napleton because they they include

xylon and let's say anything over facebook over here nothing yet listen i when i the epilogue i asked that question was it really that bad and i'm wondering if i'm just getting tainted here with all this bad hardened well i mean did anybody say lie i mean in this in this case there was no ad that came i mean i know their internet price was for a thousand dollars under msrp but she didn't really didn't mention that uh so i didn't see a bait and switch i I didn't see a ton of high pressure other than the sales manager maybe a little bit. And, yeah, they had excessive fees and added equipment, but that kind of sounds like par for the course.

So I reluctantly am going to come in with a D grade, a passing, but a low, low passing grade. Oh, Linda came in, sorry. Linda gave them, I'm going to count these. It looks like there are seven Fs. Well, there's an F and then six Fs. She just started hitting the keyboard. And then J on Facebook gives them an F too. So I'm outvoted, but I'm going with a D.

And by the way, happy birthday, Linda. I know that's coming up soon. Oh, yeah, happy birthday. I've got Tom Gilliland with a D-minus, too much abuse. Karen says, I would tell him to stuff it, F. Larry says, I'll buck the trend, same as most auto dealers, a C. And I've got, let's see, Mark from St. Louis with an F, Mark Smith with a D-minus, Ernesto with a D-minus, and Tom has just won the Internet.

I'm giving an advertised grade of A, but with my hidden ratings, the out-the-door grade is F. Right. And for me, it's a D-minus, because, I mean, they're doing what everybody else does. But if you get your ducks in a row and you do your homework, I think you can at least get a reasonable price. Who was the guy that said A and then the Ducks? That was Tom Stokel. He says, I'm giving an advertised grade of A. I love it.

But with my hidden ratings, the out-the-door grade. grade is F. Tom, I love your sense of humor. That is funny. He wins the Internet today. Absolutely, yeah. Miss the Sunrise? Well, first of all, I want to thank Agent Lightning for her expertise.

It's remarkable. And Stu's creative writing, which makes these mystery shopping reports, well, it keeps everybody's attention. That's for sure, because these people don't deserve any more. airtime than what they have received. And I find their behavior unconscionable, and I don't know what grade I could give them. We're in a time right now where, gosh, almighty, taking advantage of consumers in so many different ways, I can't, I'm a loss for words. F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F.

Thank you. sound like Lynn? Well, I go through the same thing as Stu did. I think reluctantly, I'm going to give them a D-minus. I probably should give them a D. It's just the same all stuff that everybody's doing. The question, and Marie Delgado could be right about the premeditated driver's license thing. I would fail them if I thought that were the case. It's suspicious, but not not totally damning. She did forget it. I mean, Agent Lightning did forget it.

If she had said, oh, I forgot my, where's my license? They would have got it for, I believe. So it's just terrible, but it's a curve. It is. We have a comment here from Jonathan. He says, the listeners might be tough on these dealerships, but it's you folks, that's us, that taught us over the years not to take any garbage from them.

A dealership is either reputable, or they're not period yeah well there's just so few reputable and the problem is there parts of the state of florida uh mainly in south florida that you're really uh there's this very few dealers to choose from because there are very few that that will give you a fair and we also we we trust our listeners to make their own judgments if you see i mean most of the reason the main reason why we do the curve thing is we don't want to come across and say there is not a single place you can buy a car, and that's just not true, and that's not fair. So if you guys see a D, you know, that's a passing grade, but, you know, use your judgment.

That's not a good dealer. If you see a dealer with the B, you feel good about it. It's so important that you not go into a car dealership and negotiate the price. If you're the world's greatest negotiator and you have fun doing that, there's a few guys like that, mainly guys, then go in and have a ball. Buster chops, and you'll get a good deal. But for 99.9% of the listeners do it all online. And the people that we see in our personal experiences that get torn up real bad and take advantage of,

almost without exception, do it in the dealership. And they sign the papers, and they take the car home, and then it's too late to do anything. Take your time, do it online. You can't get hurt that bad. always always and find someone that's the reason we have the vigilantes to help you if you can't do it yourself go to a vigilante vigilanti vigilante dot com and find someone that can help you by that vehicle online okay all right this is a good show

wasn't it I think it was fantastic for Ed Napleton my message to you I guess you're not making enough money I don't No, money doesn't corrupt character. It reveals it. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in Daryl Stewart on Cars. We had another wonderful show, and you do make the show. We'll see you right back here next Saturday morning. 8 o'clock.

Have a wonderful weekend. Let's Go ahead.