Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.23.2020 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Advantage Ford

Episode Date: May 23, 2020

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits Advantage Ford in Stuart, Florida to see if he can purchase a Ford F-150 pickup truck at the very attractive discount advertised 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. “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 LinkedIn. 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. This is Earl Stewart, live and in color in the studio with Rick Kearney, Stu Stewart. And, of course, Nancy Stewart, my co-host. And we're here to help you avoid being ripped off by a car dealer. During these trying times of the coronavirus, we've seen that the intensity of deception, in fact, the innovativeness of deception by car dealers, is really increased. And we've always said, buyer beware. I have a new motto for you, buyer beware squared.

That's what we're doing during the coronavirus. Buyer beware squared. The deception out there is increasing. Desperation breeds desperate motives and actions, and we've seen some new plans and tricks that we haven't seen before. It's a contradiction because there's a real opportunity at the present time to get a good deal on a car if you want to buy a car. And the other side of the coin is the car dealers are losing money.

Their car salespeople are desperate to sell car. cars, car salespeople are paid on commission, typically 25% of the profit they make. In other words, the higher they rise the price of the car, the more money they make. And on the advertised cars, oftentimes they get paid nothing, or a small token commission. So the bait and switch advertising is out there everywhere. You can't find a car dealer that is not somewhat guilty of bait and switch advertising. Even the manufacturers are guilty of that. Get them in the door.

Come on in. And if you don't do your homework and if you're not prepared, you end up paying thousands of dollars more for a car than you have to. So that's what we do here. Unless I forget the service end, on a smaller scale, the service end is every bit as deceptive. Rick Kearney is our certified diagnostic master technician. And we encourage you to call him about any problems you're having with your car.

during this corona crisis, a lot of people are staying home a little bit more. We stay home, Nancy and I are staying home a lot more. We love coming out to the radio station because we get out of the house. You don't want to go to a car dealership normally just because you don't like to be abused. Now you don't want to go because you're worried about the coronavirus. If you have a question about how your cars are running, operating, there may be something that you can do. A little tweak, maybe diagnose it yourself.

fix it yourself or at least find out whether it's serious enough that you can postpone the repair call Rick Kearney at 877 960 9960 again Rick Kearney certified diagnostic master technician and I say in my introduction and I mean it you won't be able to find much that he doesn't know I mean he's not a thousand percent but he's he's why he's batten nine ninety nine eight seven seven 960 9960 and if you're a little timid

and you don't want to go live on the radio on the air, we have a text number. Write this down when you have a question for Stu or for Nancy or for me or for Rick. Text number is 772 4976530. Again, that text number

772 497 6530. And just in case you don't know this, I talked to a man this morning on the beach while I was filming the sunrise, and he said, I said, I got to get going because I got the radio show, and you want to know why I had the blue shirt on because nobody can see me on the radio. Well, the blue shirt is my trademark. So you can't see me on the radio. Facebook. Facebook.com forward slash Earl on Cars. How about YouTube? YouTube.com forward slash Earl on Cars. Twitter, where else we're Periscope, we're all over the cyberspace internet, and you can even stream us at www.w.w.w.com. So you got the video. You can look at us. If you feel like it, we have some exhibits. You know, we show you pictures and, you know, you can look at my beautiful masked face. I feel like stick them up. Give me your wallet. I don't know.

Anyway, ah, but I digress. Let me go around the other way. Normally I start with Rick. Let me ask Nancy Stewart, she's my wife. She's my co-host, and she is also the female advocate for the show, who has brought our audience up over the past 17 years in terms of female listeners from zero. I'm telling you the truth of, zero. We had nobody call us of the male gender.

And Nancy came and started pushing and pushing and pushing And they realized that this was a show that even females Can be shown respect and gather information Should we start bribing the dudes to call? Exactly Nancy? Tell the gals out there what you're going to do for them To encourage the female callers

Good morning everyone Boy, this morning my mask is kind of cramping my style Anywho, welcome everyone Thank you for joining us We certainly enjoy your company. For the ladies, we have $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call. We'd love to hear from you at 877-960, 960, or you can text us 772-992-97530.

And don't forget, www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We have a whole lot to get to for the next two hours, and we hope we can, well, interest you in one of the subjects that we're going to cover, and your questions are very important. You can, as we all said, text us, you can call us, you can Facebook us, YouTube, Twitter, everything. 877-960-9960. We have a great mystery shopping report.

Bottomless pit, I call it. Anyhow, we're going to go to Buddy, who's been. been holding from West Palm Beach. Good morning, buddy. Good morning. How are you? Been a while. How are you doing? Good. I have a question. Earl is on the beach early, early, early in the morning. What is early? What time is he there? Is he there at five o'clock in the morning? It's for the sunrise. We've been doing the international sunrise for, oh, I guess maybe about 13 years. 628 this morning. And every morning, every morning it's and I'm right behind them.

That's a beautiful way, beautiful, peaceful way to start the day. It is. We love it, yeah. It is. It is. It's very interesting. And it's turtle season, buddy. We got all the mama locker heads coming up laying in the nest.

We had about six or eight fresh nests. I was standing right next to one of them, and it's really kind of cool. We invite anybody to tune in to the sunrise every morning. We're on Facebook. We had the mama turtles come up this morning. a lot of them. We had a rainbow. We had everything this morning. It was great, and especially Mr. and Mrs. Sunrise. I'm a long-time listener, and you good folks do a lot of good. At the moment, I'm a little frustrated. I'm in the last stages of the car buying process,

and it's painful. It really is. And one of the reasons why I really are. And one of the reasons why I really hold onto a car far, far longer than I should, because I try to avoid the pain of buying a new car. I hear you. So my situation is I have been negotiating, and for a long period of time, the dealer, which I'm not going to mention, was firm at $48,000, wouldn't go lower than $48,000, which is the out-the-door price. uh suddenly it the car went from 48,000 to 42 no 6,000 this is somebody that wouldn't budge so i um i wanted to get

the quote and i wanted everything in writing and uh i'm looking at the quote and um literally scratching my head there is there are a lot of irregularities there i think and one of the uh and i want to throw a couple of things at you, and if you could, tell me, is this a real price, or is this questionable, or is this a rip-off? Okay. May I do that? Please, yes. Okay.

Some of the terminology is very original, original. First leading with a private tag agency fee, $98. Focus. Then followed by electronic registration filing fees. Fogous. $279. License registration fees, $5.50. Maybe.

Probably. You think they're okay, legit? Well, no. The private tag agency, this is Stu, by the way, buddy. Private tag agency fee is a mini-dealer fee. It's 100% profit to the dealer. That's bogus. So is the electronic filing fee.

The tag registration fee, depending on what's in that lump sum, the tag registration fee is the title registration fee, that's legitimate. Typically for a brand new tag, you're looking, and it depends on the vehicle and how close it is to your birthday, but $3 or $400 for a transfer, anywhere from $150 to $250. So $500 is kind of pushing it, but it doesn't sound insane. But the first two you read, that's just a hidden, bogus. dealer fee. Okay, so the private tag agency fee 98, that should be taken out the electronic

registration filing fee 279 gone. What should stay? It's the licensed registration fee for 550? Correct, but just get some documentation. The Department of Motor Vehicles will actually have a document that shows exactly what is being charged to the dealer that

you're paying as a pass-through fee to them. So ask you to see the documentation from the DMV. really yep the other stuff is just they're just itemizing a cost now so the dealer is likely using a private tag agency to do the work it's that they're outsourcing the registration to them and they pay a fee but that's just a cost to do in business the fact that they're breaking it out and adding it to the price well the actual fee happens to be around $10 or $11 so it's like any other expense say car dealer incurs that's his expense which he's supposed to take into consideration when

he prices his car you don't pass your expenses through to the buyer after you quote them a price, which if that were true, you could put the telephone bill, you're advertising, the salesman's commission, the rent. I mean, you don't pass expenses through after the advertised price, so that's what the electronic filing fee is, not only is a private tag agency an expense, but it's much lower. He marks the expense of, it's 1,000%. He pays 10 bucks. He's charged you $100. So it's bogus.

A sure test of the registration and license fee is whether or not sales tax is being paid on it. Any fee that they charge you by any name, if there's sales tax charge on it, it's bogus. If there's no sales tax charge on it, it's legitimate because the government, the state of Florida, does not require sales tax be paid on their charges like license and registration. I see. Okay. There's another way they're trying to get me. The price of the car is 42,192, but they're charging me a sales tax on $44,386, which is a difference of $1,194 between the actual price that they want and the tax. and the taxable price. Did you ever hear of anything like that? Either that's a mistake.

A stupid or honest mistake. If the actual selling price, the actual selling price is $42,192 and they charge your sales tax on an extra $2,000, that's fraud. That's dishonest. They're saying to you that you're paying sales tax and they're taking it in as profit.

But if Stu said it could be additional dealer, fees, which probably part of it is because usually the dealer fee in South Florida is much higher than you described. The $98 and the $279, that's only less than $400. And dealers fees down here, you rarely see one less than $1,000. So somewhere there's some more dealer fees hidden. Is there anything else that looks suspicious to you? Yeah, there's a billing and handling.

They don't call it a dealer fee. call it a billing and handling thing. Oh, that's right. And that's $995. There you go. Bingo, there you are. So now you're looking at $1,300 which is typical for South Florida.

But the $2,000 is still unexplained. And we're really surprised in some of the stupid things that we see mistakes, arithmetic and otherwise in the calculations. We never know whether it's premeditated fraud or just stupidity. The key is to be sure you know the true selling price. You know, Buddy, what a little verbiage that I use, and I recommend, and it seems to work with a lot of people, you can actually be a little bit deceptive yourself.

You can say to the salesperson or the dealer or whoever, okay, the out-the-door price is $42,192. I'm at my bank right now, or I'm at my credit union, and they're getting ready to cut me a cashier. check, and I'm going to bring that in and hand it to you. I want to be sure that 42,192 is a total price that I can hand you the check for, get in that car, and take it home. And usually you hear a homina, homina, homina, homina, and a stutter, because that gets them. So when they say that out-to-door price is what you can drive the car home for,

you know they've got all their trickery included in the bottom line. Oh, I'm sure. They've got a full bag of tricks here. So what you constantly say is never, ever pay a dealer fee. So I should try to get this $9.95 billing and handling fee off, right? Well, buddy, you know, the dealer fee is just profit to the dealer and the billing and handling and the private tag agency electronic client. It's all part of the markup.

And they call it different things to trick you so they can sloth. light it in after you come in on the advertisement or after they close to the price. They're entitled to make as much profit as they can get away with. You just want to be sure this all included in the Althodore price. Once you have the Althador price, the sure way to keep them honest is to check with two other dealers. So you might tell me what brand vehicle you're buying? I would rather not. Okay.

Let's say you're buying a Buick. and just for sake of discussion. There's at least three Buick dealers within a half an hour drive if you're living in Palm Beach County. So you should take the price of the exact year-make model Buick with the same equipment

and you should get the out-the-door price from all three dealers. And you don't care whether they include the electronic filing fee or the dealer fees or not. What they call it is still markup. You want the one with the lowest markup and that's where you want to buy your car. If you start playing the title game with them and dealer fee, they'll say, I have to charge a dealer fee because the law requires me to charge everybody a dealer fee if I charge one person.

It's untrue, but that's the party line that the dealers use. And they have a lot of other reasons. They'll say, oh, electronic filing fee, we have to pay that. And then you get into an argument. So I find it's more efficient just to take away that argument from them and just get the, you know, out-the-door price, and then you go to three different dealers, and you go to the last one, you say, look, Buick dealer, ABC has offered me $42, $192. If you can beat that deal, I will buy the vehicle from you.

Out the door, I'm going to write your check or my credit union will. I'm going to bring it to you, and I'm going to drive the car home. When you set the rules, then you can pick the dealer with it has truly the lowest price. isn't there some internet sites you could find out what people have paid for the same car you can you know it's it's difficult it's not real accurate uh feeling calculating the true dealer cost on the car is very difficult stew has a i like consumer report uh buddy at um truecar dot com used to um actually show the transaction data of the actual purchase for any given model and it broke down all the

fees, dealer added equipment, and then over time, I guess a true car was losing business by dealers. There's a lot of pushback. They didn't like to be that transparent. Surprise, surprise. And so now they're showing averages and things like that. It's much harder to see the actual, you know, what you ask, what are people paying for the car?

It puts you in a really helpful ballpark, I think. I think you can get an idea you're in the range when you see the averages, but it doesn't show the actual transaction data and it's not as useful as it once was. So there is still some legwork that you've got to do when you're getting out the door price. You're really playing the dealer's game again when you try to calculate his exact cost. Cost varies from region to region. You know, the Southeast Toyota dealer price on a Toyota is different than the one in the Gulf states. The one of the Gulf states is different than the one in California.

Dealer incentives happen. They go on and off every month. And then they have customer incentives which go on and off every month. And it becomes such a volatile price of such a volatile consideration that you take a snapshot at one point in time, you get three competitive prices out the door, and that's the simplest, most efficient way to do it. If they can trick you into believing that you know their cost, they'll show you the invoice.

The invoice isn't their cost. That's another reason why it's so confusing. When a dealer sells you a card invoice, he can be making four, five, six, seven, thousand dollars and that's his invoice. It's so bogus and deceptive out there that selling a car on invoice is like a home run nowadays

exactly buddy I can make it really easy for you even though there are a lot of avenues that you can explore as to what everyone's paying for the same car the same type of car go to Erlan cars and download that affidavit

that I often talk about we all talk about and that is the out-the-door price. Download that, and boy, I'll tell you what, you've got complete control of what you want. Walk into the dealership with that, and it'll take you, well, it'll take you where you're supposed to go, the out-the-door price, final out-the-door price.

And if they don't want to sign it, asta la vista. That's it. Walk out. That's good. I mean, I think, Stu did a consumer report in TrueCard did they partner up together for comparing prices? Yeah, TrueCar partnered up with a lot of different outfits, including Consumer Reports, USAA, a bunch of different lead forums.

But basically, they all funneled it through the TrueCore program. Yeah, they've really expanded, definitely. Okay, buddy, listen, thank you very much. Thank you for me, and hopefully you're full on this award. looking at that they're really trying to nickel and dime me. This isn't a trade-in, but there's a battery fee for $5. That's legit. A battery fee?

That is legitimate. And there's a Florida waste fee for $1.50? I don't think buddy can hear us. No, $1.50 and $5 are legitimate state fees, and that is acceptable to pay. The list is endless. Earl's either fishing or he's telling me, we're running out of time. So, buddy, I have one last bit of advice for you. Yes.

Write the Attorney General, write her, Ashley Moody, and tell her, please support Earl Stewart. Buddy, it was great hearing from you. Give us a call again. Good. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Have a great weekend. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-49-30.

And don't forget, WWW, your anonymous. feedback.com. We'd love to hear from you. I do have a very small caveat to your general rule of thumb about sales tax on fees. Buddy brought up the Florida waste tire and battery fee total is $6.50. That is subject to sales tax and it is legitimate. And so the exposure there is about 30 cents. Exactly. That's the reason I said it's a very small caveat. It's the least of your problems. Okay. 877-960-99-60 to reach us on the old-fashioned telephone. 877, 960, 9960.

And if you're female, the first two new female callers get $50 cash. No strings attach, simply unconditional. We don't want more female calls. So if you're female, and you're within the sound of our voice, and you haven't called the show before, it's $50. And all you have to do is call us at $877, 960,9960. I think we have a YouTube over here from Rick,

and Rick hasn't been doing much talking. What's up? We do. Meme Poker's just asking, do you think that Toyota will offer steep customer cash discounts in the near future because of slumping sales due to COVID-19? They are, and they're offering a lot of them. What is the new discount on the Superstores do?

Just announced on Thursday, Toyota put out $3,000 of dealer cash on new super sales 2020 supras. The 2021s are coming out in July, and they're not selling fast anyway, so they're really trying to incentivize it. $3,000 sounds like a lot of money, but as small potatoes compared to the rebates out there.

It's a lot for Toyota. Well, it's a lot for Toyota, but in general, there are $7,000 rebates out there, especially on trucks, Ford, F-150, Silverado, The trucks are just huge, huge customer incentives, and that doesn't count the dealer incentives. So now is the time, and the next actually a couple of weeks, maybe three weeks, it's a good time to buy a car, but as I say, buyer beware squared, caveat mTOR squared, be doubly exponentially careful when you're buying.

But you can get a great discount, and you get dealer rebates, you get customer rebates, low financing, long-term financing, but you have to be very, very careful. So like the last couple days of May and the last couple days of June being as those, the end of the month, and the end of the sixth month, the end of the half, year half. Yeah, not the end of June,

because June is going to be a short supply month. A lot of the manufacturers are running short. Right now, there's adequate dealer inventory, but it's shrinking. and at the end of June inventory will be tight and the dealers will be raising prices and the manufacturers will be backing

off on the incentive so right now we have the best of all worlds I mean this is a terrible thing to say during the corona crisis but in terms of buying a new vehicle or a used vehicle you've actually got a lot of things on your side if you can navigate that minefield

of dealer deception they're desperate, they're losing money and when they see it's kind of like a rabbit walking in into a wolf pack. You know, a picture what happens to a rabbit when the wolves have been in the fence-stand cage for 60 days and they have nothing to eat

and in walks the rabbit. Well, you're the rabbit, so you better be prepared and you better be fast. But if you're a rabbit with fangs, this is the time to strike. Exactly. Okay, what about the... Okay, well, we're going to take a break

and go to Warren, who's been holding and he's given us a call from Pompano Beach. Good morning, Warren. Good morning, guys. How are you? Good morning, Warren. Okay, I just like I told you last week. Yeah. They just opened up the car dealers yesterday.

So you could go in and buy a car if you want starting yesterday. But I have a question for you. I don't know if you had anything like this. I'm sure you have. I have a friend who has a lease on a Lincoln. And what happened is about a year ago, got on a bad ass. accident. Somebody backed into her when she was picking her grandson up from school. It did $12,000 with the damage to the car. The insurance company wouldn't total if they fixed it,

but it's been a nightmare since then. And she's got about nine months left on the lease, and she hasn't driven it since March. The last time she drove it was she's all kinds of noises, it's been a nightmare. So she just wants to get rid of the car and get another one. And like I said, She's got about $3,500 left on the lease, whatever. And she called the salesman, and, of course, the salesman said, oh, don't worry about it. You could drive out with a brand-new car. You wouldn't have to put any money down.

We'll tow it from you, blah, blah, blah. She called me because, you know, I listen to your program. I want to know what's the best way to handle that. She wants me to go to the dealer with her. She owes about nine months on the lease. She doesn't care. She just write a check to get rid of the car. That's how much of a problem she has on it.

And I was just wondering, like, what should the dealer do for her? He'd give her a couple months on the old lease. You know, like, how do we know what his, what kind of flimflam he's going to do? Because he says, oh, don't worry about it. You could drive out with the car, without any money down, nothing. We'll take care of everything. Well, she's playing with fire there because this dealer's not being honest with her. They're rolling the nine payments that she owes into the lease.

Now, it's possible the leasing company can forgive one. or two or maybe even three months payments. Nine payments, they won't forgive. The best thing for her to do is get the car fixed. Be sure she gets a good loaner car and wait it out. The nice thing about having a lease when you have a pretty bad hit on a car is that you're not responsible for that damage, and the leasing company has to eat it. During this market, I'd keep that car, have a repair, but be sure they gave me a good loaner. They will, will tell her that everything's okay, but when she looks at the paperwork carefully, she will see that they took the lease payments, added them in to the new lease,

to the new purchase, and she starts out having to pay far more for the new lease car than she did for the first lease car. Well, here's the thing, though. She's retired, and I don't want to go into financing. She just wants to get rid of the car. I mean, she hasn't driven it to mark. She doesn't, like, it's the, which is the point where, like, because it was, like, $12,000 with the damage, and it was backed into the engine, and, like, even though it looks aesthetically okay, but he's been having all kinds of problems with it. It just, like, doesn't even care.

She has to write out a check and drive out, you know, write the check out for the remaining amount, and drive out with the new car. She's at this period in life because, I don't care. I don't want to deal with the car anymore. So, is there anything that the deal with would do for anything, like, one or two months? he might shave off on the old lease? Well, the dealer has no say-so, as far as shaving off on the lease. Anything he shaves off, the dealer does, he's adding back in. If she's not going to buy another vehicle and he shaves off and pays payments,

that's not going to happen. But if she's buying something else from that dealer, anything that he concedes on her current lease, she's paying hidden now by packing it into the price of the, other vehicle. You know, sometimes you just get stuck, and when you buy a lease, you're stuck, and if you sign for a 36- or 48-month lease, you've got to make 36 or 48 payments. When you buy another vehicle or lease another vehicle from that same manufacturer, then they

will sometimes concede lease payments to encourage you to buy or lease another vehicle. If you buy a different vehicle, they'll actually penalize you by charging you more. than what you owe on the lease. But, Warren, I'm sorry to say there's no way out of that. She owes those lease payments, and the dealer cannot do anything for her. The leasing company is the only one that can concede on the lease. And they're not going to do that because she's not going to lease another car.

Well, she is planning to lease another car. Oh, okay. She spoke to the dealer. She did it right. She spoke to the dealer, and the dealer said, you know, we'll take care of everything, you know, we'll even tow it from, you know. She wants nothing to do with the car. She hasn't driven it since Mark. She needs to get to. She needs to get specific. She can't say, when the dealer says, I'll take care of everything, don't worry about it. That's when you reach for your wallet or turn around and run for your car. She needs specifics. If I were her, I would speak directly, or maybe you could on her behalf, call the leasing company explain the situation and say what is what concessions are there any concessions in lease payments because I'm going to lease another car through your leasing company from this dealer what will you do to uh in terms of waiving any payments that I have if I buy

another vehicle now or at least another vehicle now if they say nothing then there's nothing the dealer can do because all he's going to do is pass along with the leasing company will do I have a feeling that with nine payments left, they're not going to give her any concessions, but call the leasing company and verify that. There may be one or two lease payments that they might concede. Right, right, because she's, like I said, she just wants to get rid of the car.

She's in a nightmare. She said she loved the car, but it's the accident. I understand. And she says, you're just tired of fighting with the insurance company and tidying it and fighting with the repairs and so and so. The other question is, on that lease, So let's say she was paying $400 a month, and, you know, she put like $3,500 down. So what I think he's saying to her is, look, no money down, well, that's another $100 a month.

And if we eat the least, it's another $100 a month. So I said, so you look at the base of about $600 a month if you're walking out without paying anything. And I'm looking at it the right way in that respect? Yeah. And as I said to a caller just before, your strongest weapon when you're buying a car negotiating or leasing a car, are his competition. Is this a Lincoln we're talking about? Yeah, it's a Lincoln.

Yeah. She should go to two other Lincoln dealers and get the best deal with all the parameters remaining fixed. The exact same vehicle she wants to lease next and the exact down payment, the exact term, 36 months or whatever, make three identical deals

to three different Lincoln dealers and get the best payment, all parameters being fixed. That's the way she's going to get the best deal on the next car she leases. Because I might go with it as maybe next week. That'd be great. It's good to know.

You gave your information that there's really not a lot of latitude you could do with nine payments left. And so you know that going in. She may just have to eat that and not have to tell her that. So I appreciate that. And like I said, the dealers opened up here in New Jersey and had big signs. while I was driving yesterday, we're open,

we're open for service, we're open for buying, used car dealers, so maybe, like you said, all those cars will start to go, and there'll be as many as they were before. They're hungry. They're going to be like a pack of wolves, and your friend is the rabbit, as I said earlier, so tell her to be real, real carefully. You go with her,

bring your shotgun. Oh, jeez. All right. Thank you, Warren. Well, like I said, you just told me some information I didn't know, and I appreciate it. Good luck, guys. Thank you very much. Thanks, Warren. We hope to hear from you again.

Thanks, Warren. If you don't want to take your shotgun, I have a better idea. You know, the Attorney General, she can do so much for you. And with Floridian spending millions of dollars on cars, I'll tell you, you know, what an investment. It's equal or if not better than housing. So you can help us. And earlier I said write a letter. I was showing my age. But indeed, you can go to your PC, you can use your cell phone, you can do a number of different ways.

And get in touch with Ashley Moody. Let her know about this deceptive advertisement and these car dealers that are taking advantage of all of the consumers. It's really important for you to help us to fight this. Give us a call at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-4-9-9. 976530. Don't forget, www.W. Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

Now back to the recovering car dealer. Text, anonymous feedback. I can't wait. I was feeling all alone, and no one was paying attention to me. All right. We'll start with Anne-Marie in a text. She sent something,

we've been going back and forth here a little bit. She said, Good morning, I hope everyone as well. Please, could you remind people to be careful with bottles of hand sanitizer in their cars? The evening news show The interior of a driver's side door melted because the sun and a hot car caused the bottle of hand sanitizer to overheat and catch fire.

Really? Wow. Well, before we move on, hand sanitizer is supposed to be 70% alcohol and can catch fire. Please stay safe, everyone. So let me address this. Yes, hand sanitizer is alcohol and it is flammable. But this story, which went worldwide, I think it started in Brazil, is an internet rumor and it's been debunked. There hasn't been a documented case of a hand sanitizer spontaneously combustible. Not to say it can't be, we've seen weird things. Even at the dealership, we had somebody with a burned, a large section of burnt sun visor in their car, and it turns out they had a mirror that focused the sunlight and actually caught. So could that happen? If a bottle of hand sanitizer was right there, you could have had a fire. But in this case, there's a picture going all over the internet, and it's been picked up by local news. And it's also been, local news outfits have retracted the story all over the country. So.

But still be careful, and listen, it got me when I saw it, and I just, I'm a skeptical guy, so I searched it, and Snob's has debunked it and other internet sites as well. Anybody have been drinking the hand sanitizer? I am sure. I'm thinking in prison. That's 140 proof, 70% alcohol. You want to tell us? Yeah, yeah. Well, I was going to say, we could tell the story of Earl drinking and Aqua Velva in the Coast Guard boot camp. It was a statute of limitations up on it?

You didn't actually drink it, did you? selling it, right? My friend puts Smirnoff in it and put green food coloring and mail it to me and I was in bootkin and I would take the aquavela, I guess it was blue. Yeah. And I would, you know, take a shot. They thought I was crazy. Aqua Velva.

I didn't know it was my childhood. I'd go in the bathroom. I was back when I was evil. I started young. You know it would have been evil if you were selling it. That's that would have been. Yeah, Lurley, I'm going to interrupt us too and we're going to go to Doug who's holding in Boka. Yo, Doug.

Hey, Doug. Hey, how are you? Doing good. Hey, Doug. How's the family? Good, I wanted to tell you the final outcome on the Honda. Oh, the lighten car. Yeah.

Yeah, so State Farm gave us a check, and then Honda gave us a check, too. It was crazy. How did you come out? I mean, did they overlap? Did you actually make a little profit on the deal? Yes, I did. Oh, congratulations. Congratulations. I'll tell you what. I'm going to get you a medal of some kind because anybody, anybody that can outsmart an insurance company and a car dealer gets the Congressional Medal, the Earl Stewart Congressional Medal. And we're going to get you one. That is amazing. We'll call it.

The way they're smart. Oh. Can I mention the car dealership? Can I mention the car dealership? Sure. Oh, yeah, please. Okay, so I went to Delray Honda. Okay. And I told them that I wanted, you know, a new lease, but I didn't want to put any money down, and I didn't want any hidden things, and I didn't want any of this. And so the first time I walked out, and then they called me up, they said, okay, we'll give you that deal. I go, really? And so Tim and I were like, we didn't believe them, but they did. They gave us a really great deal.

And so now I have a new car. Well, congratulations. So it worked out really well, and Ollie refuses to wear a mat. Ollie is Doug's kitty cat, by the way, for you folks who don't know, Dougie. He's, what is he, 20 years old, 21? 21. 21-year-old kitty cat who watches sunrises. I kid you not.

I have a video of Ollie watching the sunrise, I mean avidly watching it on the PC, and while I was, Mrs. Sunrise and I were doing our morning sunrise thing, and there's Ollie. So, well, amazing care. Ollie loves you guys. He loves these guys. But he said that he won't wear a mask. I told him that he can't go to the public.

But will he wear a leash? Cats are fickle creatures. Molly's set in his ways, and Doug, you're very persistent. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, you guys have a wonderful day.

Okay. Thanks. Meow. That's for Ali. And say hi to send Boris. It's always great to hear from you. 877-960 and 772 is a text number 497-6-9-30. And I mentioned earlier that we have $50 for the first two new lady callers.

So, ladies, give me a hauler. If you have any questions for any of the panel, we're right here for you. $50 for the first two new lady callers. And I want to take a minute and give a shout out to Tina. And, well, anyone who knows Tina, get in touch with her. Benita Springs, Tina from Benina Springs. Yeah, find out how she's doing. Greatest female call is, period.

And we miss her, and we hope she's okay. Well, a miracle's happened. Stop the show. Uh-oh. Okay. Tina. Tina, Tina, Tina, hello. Yeah, we need music or something.

Hey. Hi, how are you guys doing? Welcome back, Tina. thank you there we go you make every thanks Mike you make every set of

you make every set of thank you so much for thank you so much for that I appreciate it well my purpose and college today is kind of

the public service announcement sort of rainy season has in Florida and all that are listening to my state and we're going to talk

about Florida for just a minute and we know We need to buy bottles of Rainex, and we also need to turn their tires. Now, the Rain Xx, because it's a safety thing, rainix is great. It sheets away the rain, but you should never drive above the limit of the quality of your tires, so you should also make sure your tires in great shape for the separate rainy season. It feels like rainy season came early this year. Yeah, that was true, yeah.

No. Last year, it started May 11th. This year, it started about a couple of weeks later. Oh, okay. Well, that rainex is good stuff, that's all I can say. I love it. I've got it on my windshield. And I love it, but I just don't turn my windshield wipers on,

because the windshield wipers are more distracting in a certain level of rain than the rain itself. And that rainex just beads it up, and it just rolls that off. I thought you have potato on your windshield. Yeah, that doesn't work. That's right. Well, the only time rainex is not that great is if you're behind the big truck and you get that mist, then it's not.

so effective. But the rest of the time, it's really a lifesaver, and it really does increase the visibility. Yeah, totally. Well, thank you, Tina. Where have you been? Yeah, we were worried about you. I was going to send out a search party because we depend on you.

And our female listenership dropped off because, you know, you and Nancy are the champions. Yeah, and we're... That's not good. Ladies, come on. We need to get on a stick, ladies. We missed you. So did the other callers. You know, every other caller was asking where Tina was. and, you know, we starts, you know, having all these, like, very frightening speculations. Yeah, everyone was texting us, and, Tina, did you get my message?

I left you a messenger? Facebook messenger. I don't think I did. I don't think I did. I don't recall seeing that. Otherwise, I would have replied immediately. But, you know, I probably got stuck in that whole, Florida unemployment hole, and that was just, like, a part-time job into itself.

Yeah, terrible. I stayed up a lot of my time. I've navigated it. I'm okay, so it's all good. Good. Thank you so much for calling, Jena. Oh, thank you. Thank you for thinking of me. Everybody that likes to hear me, which I really, really appreciate, I love y'all so much. We'll see you next week, right?

Thank you for thinking of me. I really appreciate it. You're not going to leave us hanging next week, are you? No. I'm going to try to call in, but I did notice this morning that I had a hard time getting in the phone line with busy, and that's good, because that means lots of people calling it, and that makes me happy. Yeah. Thanks, Tina. Really nice to hear from you. Okay. Thank you very much, you know.

Thank you. Talk to you next week. His phone's right. Is that my phone? Is that my phone? All right. 877-960-960. 772-497-39-60.

My bad. You just gave someone's phone number away. Remember ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. And Tina called to reinforce that $50 for the first two new lady callers. Down back to Stu. Yeah, let's jump over to anonymous feedback. We have a highly secure, encrypted way to get messages to us that you are completely anonymous, and it's your anonymous feedback.com.

We'll go to one that just came in. Says, hello there. There's very little reason to go out and risk your health to buy a car. I see mainly young people venturing back out. That's my theme music, folks. We're trying it out today. I can't believe this is happening to me. Rick can probably turn the silence up.

That was my key finder in my pocket. I bent over. Oh, jeez. It's very nice song. I'm being sabotaged. I thought it was my new late motif that was my theme song. It was a very pleasant melody. It's a gadget man.

All right, back to business, folks. Jesus. Hey. All right. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Let's get Earl on camera for sure doing this. This is really entertaining. Jonathan, I hope you have all this going on.

Of course. This is going to be a star clip on the bloomer reel. Just pretend like I'm not here. That's all right. I'll continue. Hi, folks. You're listening to Earl's Corner, Kitty Corner. Okay, are we ready?

You got things under control now? Pretend like I'm not here. We're always ready. All right, here we go. There is, this is anonymous feedback, says there is very little reason to go out and risk your health to buy a car. I see mainly younger people venturing back out. This is typical of invincible thinking. My wife and peer group are mainly seniors, 60 plus.

We'll be content waiting for a period of time when there is less risk. Unfortunately, the more these reckless people ignore the health guidance, the longer my age group will stay away from dealerships and other retail establishes. The home delivery promise is also not very appealing. I don't want a salesperson at my house either. Well, I think that sentiment is probably shared by a lot of people. There is definitely a certain feeling of insubility that young, invincibility that young people feel.

They can't imagine their own mortality. And obviously, especially with this COVID-19, that seniors are at a higher risk of having a worse case and getting sicker. So I think that's a very reasonable thing to say. reasonable thing to say. And we're seeing it, I think, at our dealership and I think all over the place. And it's going to be a little while before things get back to normal 100%. Did you hear the beginning part? Or were you fumbling from the... Home delivers? No. It was a gentleman, Anonymous Seek, said that he and his wife and his peer group, they're all seniors, have no

interest in going into any car dealerships to risk their health. They see mainly younger people going out there and they said they're content to wait until a safer period of time. Yeah, we talked earlier before the show started. At our dealership, we are asking and highly recommending people wear masks. All of our employees wear masks, all the salespeople, everybody wears masks, that's in any kind of contact with anybody else, and we're even wearing gloves and to do sanitation and disinfecting and all that. Customers, we didn't know what to say, and there was a debate whether we should require

all customers to wear masks. or to strongly recommend. So we went with a strongly recommend and then we designated another area where if you do not wear a mask, you have to remain in the other area. And now we're reconsidering and thinking maybe we should go to a positive

restriction where you cannot come in even as you're a customer without wearing a mask. So we're going through that right now. What we're saying with other dealers is really bad. every mystery shopping report we've done in the past what month the salespeople aren't wearing masks the salespeople are wearing masks and the customers

many cases are not wearing masks well you know the new CDC guidance is saying that it is now they consider it primarily transmitted you know by person to person through the air and the surface transmission is a it doesn't really do it so it's and you can but it's the main

is by air and that's why the masks are important Yeah, so I, you know, what's your opinion out there, you folks that are nervous and about going into any retail establishment? Would you prefer to go to a retail establishment where they would not let you in the door unless you wore your mask? And if you're going to the Walgreens, if you're going to Walmart or car dealerships, wherever it is, would you rather go to one that had a strict prohibit, how was you going to say? Prohibition. Prohibition against someone going to. in without a mask. In other words, they said, go home. You can't come in. Or would you rather go to one

that said, it's up to you, but we recommend it. We don't know which is best. Yeah, different retailers are handling it differently. You have like targets requiring it. Costco's requiring it. Walmart is strongly recommending it. Oh, Walmart. I thought they were requiring it. Yeah, that's why I saw that too and we talked about it. Then I went back to their webpage to see their actual policy and it is a strong recommendation on a requirement. So, you know, it's a cultural thing. Yeah. Exactly. We're going to go to St. Louis, where Glenn is holding. Good morning, Glenn. Good morning, Nancy. Hey, I'm a first-time female caller. When can I expect my $50? Just stay on the line, give your information to Mike, and send us a copy of your driver's license.

I know I don't sound like it. I think I have you on the list. Have you been on the list before? Yes, ma'am, I have. I mean, I called in before. Okay, you got me. I've been on the same list. I haven't called in for a couple years. It was two years ago that I took all of your advice, and I bought two, four escapes, one for my wife, one for my son. And taking your advice, I finished feeling less violated than I ever have,

but still not, you know. Buddy called in earlier, and I feel. his pain. Yeah. Because even if you know, if I take all your advice, it's still painful. Yeah. And I'm in a great position. I don't need a vehicle, but I thought nowadays I could use a new truck.

I don't have to, but I thought this would be a good time. And I've been negotiating with one dealer. And the problem is, and there's no real. There's no other dealers that have this truck. It's a very simple truck. And so I can't really pick dealer against a dealer. But anyway, their Internet price was, let me look, 24-354, okay? MSRP was like $32,000.

Sounds like a great deal. And after all my finagling, Ford has a $5,000. cash incentive. I got them to waive their $179 processing fee, and they came up with a price of $25-132, which is still $800 higher than their Internet price. And so I've dealt with them on the phone,

and they knocked it down to 24. or let's see, 24, 5, which really, I would be happy with that, but it's still over their internet price. Sure. And so I shot them 24 even. They haven't called back. And I'm just going to stick with it. You're a tough negotiator, and it sounds like you're winning the game.

You know, the only thing I suggest, Glenn, is, is be sure that you go to a couple other dealers of the same make. You say they're the only one that has a truck, that particular truck? Well, yeah, it's unusual to find, it's a Ford 150, and almost everything on anyone's lot has four-door or club cab, and I just want a simple, eight-foot bed truck, Yeah. With all the amenities, with power windows and, and crews and whatnot.

And they're just not out there. Yeah. Yeah, the truck. But that's okay. Yeah. If I can get it for 24, I think I'd be happy. One, a couple of more points. I could take up the rest of the show, hero.

They're offering 84 months financing. Oh, that sounds good, doesn't it? Yeah. But when you do the math, if you take the 84-month financing, you lose the $5,000 in factory and centers. Zero percent for 84? Bingo, yeah. And so when you do the math, if I did a 36-month loan at four to four-and-a-half, you're talking about $1,500 savings. Yeah.

Or the link, you know, even at 60 months, you're talking $2,500. Sure. So if you take the 84-month financing, you're leaving $2,500, $3,500 on the table. Yeah, still has a point. Yeah, I was going to say this is going to be a big topic in the upcoming mystery shopping report, and that's a good question to ask. I think generally speaking, I think the cash incentives, you know, tend to, you know, they serve you better than the 0%, especially for those long terms.

And another factor is this, you might change your mind. You know, 84 months, seven years is a long time. Once you lock yourself in for the 0%, if you cut that in half and in four years, decide, or three and a half years decide, you want to trade out, you'll lose the incentive because the incentive was a 0%. If you take your incentive up front in cash, you've got it in your pocket, you had it in your savings, and that's locked in. It's big in. It's big in. Exactly. one more thing talking to the salesman and he's kind of tried to justify their internet price

by saying well they threw in another $2,500 in Ford incentives and it took me a little while to find them but there's a five all of these five different offers for $500 each So if I was a medical professional, if I belonged to the Farm Bureau, I was a college student, if I was a first responder, and I was in the military, I would qualify for $2,500. That's all you've got to do. That's all you've got to do. Unbelievable. Yeah, it's scary what they will do. And they met their match and then some.

So I love hearing success stories, and I love hearing guys that say head to head, toe to toe and come out on top. These dealers are, desperation can work for you two ways. They've got to sell the car. They have to. They're losing money. You take away selling the car for too much, but they'd still rather sell it for too little than not sell it at all. And you won, and congratulations. Well, hey, Earl, one more question or just an observation.

You know, I've listened to you for a few years now, and your business model seems to be offer a low price and stick with it. Yeah. To me, seems to be the same business model Saturn had. You know, there's our price to come in, and how are you making it work when they didn't? Well, you know, it's a long-term thing. I tried one price 25 years ago with, I had a Pontiac dealership. More than that.

35 years ago. I tried for 40. Time lies. About 40-some years ago. It was a lot of time. And I almost went broke. And you can't just, for a car dealer to say I'm going on one price and you're true to it, which a lot of dealers say they're true to it, but they're not.

If you're true to it, it's tough. And you have to build the trust of the people to believe that you're really one price. you know, fortunately we've been around for 47 years of the same location, and we build a brand, we build a trust, and so we have believability and transparency, and it works for us. But I don't blame the dealers today that don't do it. I tried it for two years in my Pontiac dealership, and I almost went broke. I just, I lost money, and I was stubborn, and I wouldn't quit. And for me to go back and do one price many, many years later was very scary.

and we did it. We were still afraid. We suddenly found out we'd build a brand reputation for trust. And we dipped our toes into it very gently. We started off as a temporary thing. We tried it for a month. It worked. We did it for another month, another month, and then we finally decided to make it permanent.

It's hard to do. I mean, there are a lot of wolves out there. The dealers are competing against each other, and think about it for a minute if you can put your retail, you're selling something. You put your best price on the Internet, truly, the the door price. You put your best price there. What's to prevent your competitor from getting

the price that you're charging and beating it by $20 or $50. So you really expose yourself and you do lose business to the people that will do that. You have to accept that and realize if I offer a true price and I'm honest, then people will honor that transparency and trust me and buy from me. But we lose a lot of business because people will actually shop our price. Unfortunately, when they shop the price, sometimes they don't do it very carefully, and they think they're beating the price, but then the dealer sticks in,

the dealer fees, and the dealer installed accessories, and they, in fact, end up paying more. So, it's tough doing being a one-price dealer in today's market. I understand. In Missouri, the last

two vehicles I bought, they had a $75 real, something, dock fee, whatever. this dealer had a 179. Nothing like. You guys are the Wild West. There's one dealer in Coconut Creek. He's a Toyota dealer that has over $2,000.

In fact, closer to $3,000 in fees. And he's one of the largest dealers in the United States. He's number five or six volume dealer in the United States, and he gets away with packing in $2,000 or $3,000. And his volume, that adds up. Making a lot of money. and some months I'll sell 1,000 new Toyotas, and 600 is fairly common. I think I know a couple of dealers in the St. Louis area, the J. Wolf Group.

I'm sure you might have heard of them. Yes, sir. I knew that there is low dealer fees out there. Is it regulated out there in Missouri? I looked it up one time previously when I listened to you guys, and there is some regulation, but I don't recall what it was. is there consistency in what they can call the fees are they all they have to be named you know documentation fee or is it like is it consistent stew i don't know i can't remember i'll look at it a while hey have you guys ever thought about giving cars away

and just charging fees we did um actually no joke uh we ran an ad years ago um for a brand new toyota camry for one dollar but we We had a $25,000 dealer fee. And that we did that, obviously, to illustrate the absurdity of the dealer fee. We thought a parody of the thing we actually thought it would maybe attract attention, but it didn't attract much attention. We can't do that now. Now they have Toyota's their pricing rules, but I enjoyed doing that. Back in our evil days before what you just mentioned, Stu, you could buy a car for a dollar.

That was a million years ago. a lot of in and outs with the car business. Glenn, thank you so much for calling us. It was nice to hear from you. Don't be a stranger. Thank you for all your health. You're quite welcome. Give us a call toll free at 877960-9960, or you can text us at 772-772-497-3530.

And remember, we have the mystery shopping report coming up from Advantage Ford of Stewart and go to Earl on Cars. You can see his latest column and read so many more of the past. Why do car dealers lie about their prices? And again, maybe you'll get tired of hearing about me and Attorney General Ashley Moody. Help us. Give us a hand and go to your PC, go to your cell phone. Any way you can to communicate with Ashley Moody. She holds a lot of power for the state of Florida and mentioned to her the shenanigans that's going on

with this deceptive advertisement and the terrible things that are going on in most of the car dealers. We need to get a telephone number for Ashley and so we'll do some research in next week when we taunt her about enforcing her regulations we can give a number.

Absolutely. I'd like to achieve that. Stu put that on our to-do list. I'm doing it right now. Very good. Okay. Again, I'll mention ladies. I got it right here. Yeah, we got this Google thing here.

We got me lady on the line from Lake Worth. Okay. Real quick, we have a number for Florida General's office. It's area code 850-414-3300. Give me that again. Could you repeat that again? 850-4-14-3300. Oh, fantastic.

I love good. 850. 414, 3300. That is not her cell phone. That is the switchboard for the Office of the Florida Attorney General. Okay, we need to repeat that over and over and over again. Okay, we're going to go to Me Lady in Lake Worth. Yes, good afternoon.

How are you guys doing? Good morning. Are you the first time caller? Yes. You just won yourself? $50. $50. You just won yourself $50.

Oh, yes. If you stay on the line and share your information with Mike in the control room, I'll get the $50 out to you. That would be great. Thank you. You're quite welcome. What can we do for you this morning? Well, I currently have a 2015 Ford Escape, and I want to go ahead, like, turn it in and buy a new car, but I'm so confused about all the prices and whether it'll be a better deal to, like, lease it or. just straight out own it.

I mean, I have good credit. I don't have any I don't have any issues with my credit or anything like that, but I wanted to see like what would be the better deal or what would be better to like turn it in and how much money more or less it will give for my car in order for me to

buy another car. Well, you know, you did the right thing by calling the show. Until we get some more specifics, the best advice I can give it. Let me ask you, are you a member of Costco by any chance? Not, no.

I mean, I know people with it, but not. Yeah. I ask because they have a pretty decent car buying program, which does give you a very low price. I think just in general terms, you need to pick out the exact car that you want. We recommend consumer reports is your best, most unbiased analyst of car buying.

You can go to the library, you can get consumer reports there, the annual auto buying edition. You can go online, consumer report.org, and they offer the best information to choose the car you want. They also have a car buying program. So write down the consumer reports, that's your best source of information on the best car

in terms of quality, reliability, affordability, and then also they have a car buying program. So for someone like you that's just getting started, that's where I'd start. And then you can call us back next week or any time. And if you have some specifics, once you've started looking at different dealerships, you can call us back and we'll give you some more advice.

and milady i i'm going to chime in here uh you know consumer report has so much information about buying cars and whether they're used whether they're new uh you know what is the best car pick for your driving style there is so much in in may's latest edition uh they have a lot of information in there so Earl's giving you the right information here and we hope that we have helped you and you'll stay in touch. Melady, did you say that you had a trade-in? Yes, that's what I was referring to, yes.

I have my, oh my, excuse me, my family is to NFTU and I do have a current thing, but what I'm saying is I don't know whether what they will be giving for the 2015 basically at the trade in, you know what I mean? Yeah, you know, my advice as far as a trading is concerned is that that is always kept separate. And I'd go to three different dealerships and I'd get a price on that car. Don't let that be part of the decision factor and, you know, mixing with buying another car. You know, there's more money in that car that you're driving than you think.

Just all you have to do is go out there and or call. there's several ways of getting a price for that vehicle okay then okay all righty then thank you very much for your help don't forget your information don't sign anything and don't commit to anything and when you think you have something in the way of a price and a vehicle you want to buy call us back and just

don't commit until you double check with us we'll give you and once you get into it a little bit deeper we can give you some more specific advice but right now you should be very careful yeah I am I don't want to get myself in a bind yeah exactly and milady you can go to Erlon cars and you can download that affidavit that's on his website and it's it really seals you in to an honest price and an out-the-door price and if you take that into the

dealership if you get that far you get them to sign that you're you are you are leave with the out-the-door price and no other charges. Lots of luck to you. Stay in touch with us. Thank you. You're welcome. 877-960. And the text number of 772-4976530.

I forgot that Lorraine last week told me to slow down on repeating that number. I think that Rick's got some YouTubes. Actually, I got one that just fits in perfectly here. John Strine says, I'd been emailing with Earl on my experience lately trying to help my daughter purchase a new car.

In the email, I made fun of the tire and battery fee. I didn't know it was legit. He says, but I did the out-the-door pricing strategy, and it worked to perfection. Interestingly enough, the dealer with the most fees came in as the dealer with the lowest out-the-door price. They just discounted the price of the car more and more. to make up for the fees exactly now that's a classic that really drives home the point that fees are nothing more than profit we fall into the trap when we get into the definition of fees and start talking about fees and to argue over

and over again about a dealer fee electronic filing fee doc fee you're playing their game and they can explain why they can't do it or they can waive the fee but you're wasting your breath. All you care about is that out-the-door price and let them charge any fee they want to as long as they're competitive. The out-the-door price, you know, back in when I was evil,

going back many, many years ago, I had a Pontiac and a Monster dealership and things like that. We even used to trick the other dealers in the way we would do it is someone would come in with a price on a car and they'd say, your competition, Del Rey Pontiac, says they'll sell you this Catalina for $4,500.

And we would know that they were probably going to jack the price up with their dealer fees and other Mickey Mouse. So we would call Del Rey Pontiac and pretend to be a bank. And I'd say, may I speak to the salesperson? I talk to salesperson or the sales manager. And I'm pretending to be the bank. I say, Bill, this is Frank Smith, and I'm the loan manager at the First National Bank. And I've got Bill Brown in my office right here, and I'm getting ready to give him a cashier's check. And I understand he's buying a Catalina from you.

We need to know the bottom line, out-the-door price. I'll make the checkout, and he'll be down to see you. And meanwhile, I have Delray Pontiac on the speaker phone. And I hear the homina, hama, hama, hama, well, let me this and let me that, hem-ha-haw, and I'd say, excuse me, are you going to give us the price so I can fill this check-out? Oh, you mean, that isn't the final price. I'm going to start doing that today. Yeah, I mean, it works like a charm. It works like a charm. Memories. Hey, by the way, memories, I just remember something.

30 years ago, you told me that you'd love to go clothes shopping. Yes, I did that. You were lying. You were a real haughty. excuse me hey we're going to go to new york city mark's waiting to talk to us good morning mark good morning how are you we're well thank you thank you for calling earle on cars

thank you Earl how are you I'm doing pretty well considering everything how about you mark good I'm actually a nurse from Orlando up here in New York City working on the COVID unit I see you unit with the COVID patient well God bless you I tell you what God bless you The world needs more people like you, Mark. Be careful.

I know you will be. I will be. So, listen, Earl, it's taking me 40 years to realize I should actually be leasing and not buying. Every time I buy a car, I get rid of it in two years. So I think I'm a perfect lease candidate. Would you agree? I agree, as long as you're careful, because they can get you easier with the lease that's a little bit more untransparent. Is that a word?

Opaic is probably the right word, but be very, very careful. Yeah, essentially my question is, though, with leasing deals, just like buying a car, they can vary quite a bit between dealers if you're looking at the same car? Sure, absolutely, yeah. Okay. There's so many variables with a lease. You have the term 3648, you have the residual value. They have the normal dealer fees, the hidden fees, plus they have the lease acquisition fee, which is, something at the less sore charges and then when you turn the lease in they

will lease disposition fee and then they have a mileage limitation which awfully usually doesn't even come up in the conversation and you could be leasing a car with a 12,000 mile limit or a 10,000 mile limit or a 15,000 mile limit and if you put 30,000 miles a year on the car at 12 cents a mile or 15, 18 or I've seen a 25 cents a mile you can be looking at thousands of dollars in over it so those are all the links things that you don't have to encounter with a purchase that you do with the lease. So typically when you see these ads, let's say whatever, 2995 down, $199 a month,

that's not necessarily what you're going to be getting when you walk into the deal. It is, it positively is not. They never put the lease price that you can drive home for, just like the cash price that you can drive home for. The monthly payment always incurs lots of health. hidden fine print. And typically, as I say, I had one, I had one advertisement from a dealer a couple of years ago in Delray, Florida, and they had a 5,000 mile limitation, $5,000 a year driving limitation, and $0.25 a mile above that. How many suckers came in and signed on the dotted line, and three or four years later, we're looking at a $10,000 mileage

overage fee. When you return the car, there's a lease disposition fee, which means if you don't lease another car from them or buy another car of the same make from this leasing company or a dealer, then you have a penalty, $350, $400. And then they go over the car with a fine tooth comb and their judgment, they send you a bill for what is above average normal wear and Very subjective. And often we've seen customers come back with my dealership that had the car painted a beautiful paint job. In fact, sometimes we painted the car. You look at it, it looks like a brand new car, but because they put a paint meter on it, they charge a customer $2,000 because the car had been in an accident. Now you can win the argument a lot of times, but some people don't know that and they lose the argument. So a lease is just so full of potential dangers. It's sharp.

If you're sharp and you're educated and you're careful, a lease can be a great way to drive a car. Right, which I believe I am, but I was always under the impression when you have a lease vehicle, it just relieves you have a lot of headaches, you know? It does. I can see that. One of the best advantages if you do wreck a lease car, you are able to turn it back in and not have any obligation. If you have it repaired, which you should buy a good body shop from the insurance that you have to have on these car. And it doesn't cost you anything.

If you own that car, having any kind of an accident, serious accident, even though it's fully repaired, and a car looks like no, the fact that's been an accident gigs it for $2,000, $4,000. So your trade-in value is diminished. Still at a point. Actually, we had, there was an anonymous feedback on that exact same topic because this came up. last week with a caller. There is something that, well, the anonymous feedback said that you incorrectly stated something. I believe you were talking about diminished value.

You're not exposed to that. That's the leasing company. They own the vehicle, so they're one, and they have forced place gap insurance to cover them. If you do put down a large down payment, though, and the car is totaled, you will be out that down payment. That doesn't lower the loan amount or anything. That just lowers their selling price. So if you say you come in, you see one of those ads for a super low payment, and you put $8,000 down and you wreck the car next week.

What I was talking about was we have had leasing companies charging our customers because it was above normal wear and tear because it had been in an accident. Yes, there's that. But I'm referring to a down payment that goes away forever. So don't put a big down payment down on the lease. So it is possible to find a lease where you can get into it with, money down. Sure. That's the way you should live. That's why leasing was invented is for liquidity people that started out with businesses didn't want to put money out. They didn't want to mess up

their balance sheet. They just won the monthly payment. And that's the way leasing was born. And then the manufacturers turned it into a way to advertise low-down payments. And the way they do the low-down payment is by asking in the fine print you put $5,000 down and you don't know that until you go into lease the car. Two more questions, I'll be out of your hair. So that disposition fee at the end, could that actually do you negotiate it out of the contract

or that's just standard? No, if you, they waive the disposition fee if you lease that same, from that same manufacturer to the same leasing company. Right, but if you don't, then you got to, that's you're stuck with it. You could

negotiate it with the selling price of it with the salesperson and the manager. You can say, listen, I'm not going to lease another car, but I don't want to pay this fee. Can you apply that discount now, and you could save a little bit? Yeah, we'll get your final price first before you do that, because they'll flimp plan me if you. Of course. Last question, Earl, you got any good deals on leases at your dealership this month? Any what's on sale?

Any good, any lease deals? Yeah, it's easy. Mark, fact, here's what you do. Go to our website, earlstuart, Toyota.com, and pick out the vehicle that you're looking for and we have our out-the-door price and out-the-door lease payment uh yeah again you'd have to you'd have to turn that into a lease payment or you could call me and i'd tell you what it was super easy yeah and uh but for remember when you're negotiating a lease the lease payment comes from the capitalized cost the selling price is the capitalized cost on a

lease so get the uh get to get our lowest price on the vehicle you want go to your dealer and New York and say, this is what I can get the car for. And in New York, you should get a better deal because they're paying about $1,000 less for the car. We buy our cars from the Southeast Toyota distributors, and the average cost to us is $1,000 more than the guy in New York buying directly from Toyota. So at least you have a starting point in the capitalized cost or the selling price from our vehicle, and you can get them.

that off of our lease, off of our website. Yeah, no, I'm actually going to be, I'm going to be out of here in two more weeks. I'm coming back home in Orlando, so I just want to come directly to your dealership. Well, you just call Stu or May or Nancy, and we'll take care of you. All right. Sounds like a plan. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Mark. Look forward to hearing from you, Mark. Good luck with your trip. 877-960, where you can text us at 772-497-60.

I'm going to get to Amber's text, and she asks what are some of the biggest scams that we can look for whenever we're purchasing a car. There's one that comes to my mind, and there's only one car available at ad price. Only one car available at ad price. Or I'm going to say this is the lowest price. Earl, do you have something to add to it? Well, that's our Mr. Shopping Report coming up shortly. You'll hear a good example of that very thing. Okay, Amber, stay in touch.

Let us know how things went. 877-9-69-960-77-249-6-5-30. And we are going to go to Howard. I know Stu's got some more Facebook messages, but we're going to go to Howard, who's a regular caller. Hi, Howard. Good morning. people. How are you all doing?

Pretty good. Pretty good. We're surviving this coronavirus thing pretty well. Our morale is about what, 7080? Not 100. 79. I'm glad to hear that. Everything everything's coming back to

normalcy, I hope. I do, too. Yeah, I want to speak to Rick because I have a question about the oil drain plug. Rick, it just took a big right here. and he's getting through his face mask.

I'm right here. There it is. Did you hear the question? You're breaking up, Howard. Okay. You hear me? Okay, now I got you, Howard. Go ahead.

The oil frame block that has magnified the metallic particles. If the most drain plug out, you can see all these metallic files. Do you ever hear of this? Okay, I lost a lot of what you're saying, but what I think is you're asking about the drain plug that has a magnet in it, and it's picking up little bits of metal particles. Is that it? Yes, exactly.

Yes, they've ever hear of it. Yes. As a matter of fact, it's very popular. Transmission pans actually have magnets. in them to help pick up those little particles, and a lot of cars, the drain plug will have magnets on it to pick up those particles. Most of those on the average car is just, it's flash metal little particles that are left over when they built the engine that are working their way out, and it's usually not a big issue. However, if you've got a car with 25, 30, 40,000 miles

on it and you've done several oil changes and you pull that drain plug out and there's a lot of metal particles on there, then you've probably got something starting to break up or get damaged inside the engine there. And that would be something you'd want to have a mechanic you'd look at to identify. Is there something really bad going on? Okay, one other question. Do you hear me clearly now? Yeah, now we got you.

Okay. re-facing rotors I have a Toyota 30,000 miles about 50,000 I think I'll need a break up but I'm trying to figure it out most people say about 50, 50, 55,000

you need a break show but I have to refaced or new orders put on I'm sorry I've lost you again what was the final question part reface rotors or new rotors put on If you're 40 or 50,000 miles, I would say they're totally safe to be resurfaced.

Okay, great. And when you resurfaces, can you tell how much it's left of the surface? In other words, if it's going to be not sufficient or it will heat up because it's thin, you can tell if you have an upsert, correct? Yes, because Toyota gives us a specification of what the minimum thicknesses that that rotor can be, and we measure it beforehand, and we know about how much metal we're going to grind off with the machine, and then we can measure it afterwards to make sure that it's still within that specification. Okay, one other question.

A friend of mine wants to do the job soon, and he wants to buy, a non-to-liator that I answered this question. If he poses a rod or, let's say, a rod or a disk, whatever you call it, should it be a Toyota one or can you go with a different part?

I think what you're asking on this one is your friend wants to buy rotors for his car and wants to know if he should get the factory Toyota rotors. I would I would always recommend the factory rotors. They're a bit higher quality of the steel that's used in them.

They're going to last longer and they're less likely to warp with the heat. And of course, one of the biggest issues that causes those rotors to get damaged like that is when you're driving and your brakes get heated up from being used and then you hit one of those puddles that we get in the Florida summertime and that cold water hits it, suddenly that metal. just gets all messed up. So the factory rotors are always to better quality. Thank you. Good information. Have a good day.

Thank you, Howard. Appreciate it. Okay, Stuart. I got a doozy for you all. This is a text that came in from somebody who was searching for a used Silverado. Texted me earlier in the week, and I promised we'd get to it on the show today. He says, still looking for my Silverado. I saw a 2018 LT on H. Gregg's Webster. website, H. Greg is the independent use car dealer that we're seeing pop up all over the place,

big volume dealer, saw a 2018 L.T. Silverado on their website for 26,997 with 5,300 miles. Carfax was mostly clean but says it was abandoned and purchased at auction. The sales lady said that means they stopped making payments and the bank repoed it. As a law enforcement officer, I was able to dig a little deeper and found that the car was abandoned in Boynton Beach and found without an engine, transmission, or interior. Of course, they played it off and said their buyer at auction inspected it. This is the worst I have ever seen. And that might be amongst the worst that I have ever seen, too.

H. Grigg, huh? Yeah. There's an interesting here. Brian from the West Coast of California, that's our little inside joke. Send us an article about a Hyundai dealer in California that during the Corona crisis as dealership shut down, ran out of space at their dealership property, and hired a tow company to start towing customer cars off their lot to impound yards without informing the customers. And a bunch of them wound up paying these hefty daily storage charges to the storage lot.

So just inconsiderate bad car dealer behavior. And let's see, what else we got here? Oh, this is a good one for you, Earl. It says, I owe around $13,000 on my 2018 Yaris. And I would really like to change it for a bigger car. The car is under my parents' credit, and moving to a 2020 corolla means taking around a $5,000 negative to my new account, so they're upside down. I also want to build credit for me, but I'm the one making the payments. Do you think it's worth it?

What's your advice? Well, you have to go in and see what the deal is first. I mean, we don't know if he's talking about having experience co-sign for him or not, whether he could even be financed. or not. The $5,000 in negative equity, that's just something that you hate to do. I mean, if you do it, sometimes you do it because you have to, but it's going to make it that much harder to get out of the car you bought. The negative equity will be following you the rest of your life if you're not careful. One of the reasons that leasing is such a burden. I did a blog called Don't Get Trapped in a Lease. Remember when you lease a car and the same

holds true with going into a car with negative equity, it tends to follow you forever. You get to the point where you want to trade or have to trade, but you have that huge load of negative equity. When you lease a car, you're building zero equity, and you have no down payment. So you'll never have another down payment with a trade in once you start out that way. Yeah. I would say if the main goal was just to get yourself established credit-wise, maybe wait a little bit if it's true that you have $5,000 in negative equity and there's no

pressing need pay down the loan you're making the payments on behalf of your parents on their account so continue making some payments pay that down and don't burden yourself when you get onto your own with your, you know, establishing your credit you're starting with a waiter

on your neck or drive the car with a negative equity until it has positive equity or break even. Great advice guys. I'm going to read a message, a text message from Joanne from South Carolina, and she wants to know how she can keep her car, the interior, at least, safe from the coronavirus. Joanne, we're running a little short on time, so I'm going to be brief. You can go to the June edition of the Consumer Report, and there's all kinds of ideas there, and you can use your PC for some advice, too. Thank you for the text message.

We are going to take, and we're going to go to West Palm Beach where Joan is holding. Good morning, Joan. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Are you a first-time caller, Joan? Yes, ma'am. I am. Okay. You just won yourself $50 for calling Earl on cars. If you'll stay on the line, you can give your information to Mike in the control room when we're done talking. Thank you.

You're welcome. That's great. What can we do for you? Okay. I have a 2005 Toyota Corolla. It runs good, but every time whenever I have to have work done, it seems like it's quite expensive. And the check engine light has come on, and I would like to know before I take it back in exactly what does that imply. Well, Rick could tell you pretty quickly.

First question, have you recently topped up your gas tank, recently gotten gas? I usually keep it filled, but, you know, here lately I haven't been driving much, so I would say right now it's like three-fourths of a tank of gas. Okay, so it's probably not the gas cap. Now, it could still be the seal on the gas cap of the most. common thing that causes a check engine light is when you're getting gas and you don't get the gas cap click quite tight enough. So the first thing to check is just check that gas cap. Take it loose. It should feel kind of snug coming off and then tighten up, you know, make sure it's nice and tight. And if it feels like it was left loose, just wait and drive the car for a little

while. And if that's all it was, the light will turn off by itself. The other thing you can do is stop by at any advanced auto parts or discount auto parts. Any of the, let's see, what's some of the others? Pep boys. Well, pep boys I'd avoid because they're going to want to charge you for it. They do. That's what they told me that there would be a charge if they checked into it. And I have been taken my car there.

And so I was just wondering, you know, what it implies. when it says check engine light. Right. Well, there's a bunch of different sensors that can turn that light on. Your car's kind of like a dog. When he's talking to you, your dog can only say woof.

But that woof can mean any different number of things. So go to just a parts place, a parts store, like Advanced Auto Parts and our AutoZone. And they have little code pullers that they keep behind the counter. And for free, they will come out and they will plug it in and tell you what that code is. And if it's just something simple, they can let you know what part might need to be replaced

and at least give you the chance that you have for knowledge before you go anywhere to get it repaired. Or if it's something that you can pretty much just ignore. And on an older car, sometimes it's better just to let it go and keep driving it. But if you stop in one of those places and they tell you what the code is, and you give us a call next week, I can let you know for sure what's going on. Oh, great. Thank you all so much.

Yes. Stay on the line, Joan. Thank you, Joan. Stay on the line so we can get your contact information and we'll get that check for $50 out to you. And more importantly than that, Joan, spread the word. We're trying to build a platform here for the ladies. They are important also.

Stay in touch. Let us know how things turned out, what you found out, about your, check your engine like. I will. I certainly will. Thank you so much. You're quite welcome. Have a great weekend. God bless. All right. Thank you. How much time do we need for the mystery shopping report? It's kind of a long one, but I got a quick question for Rick.

It sounds simple. This is from Bob. Bob says he has a 2018 round four, and there is a slight hesitation when he switches from reverse to drive. It doesn't bother me, but it's noticeable. Is it a problem? It's actually kind of a normal thing that they will hesitate now. because there's electronic controls that want to make sure that the transmission isn't getting a severe shock. If it is something that you're concerned about, the best thing to do is stop it at your dealership for the service department and ask them, is there a chance that they have a similar vehicle, say, on a used car lot or something, that you can take for a drive and compare it. If it feels the same, it's the same.

Okay, sounds good. And just real quick, we've had some feedback. You ask our listeners to chime in. on whether they felt it's more important to go into business that requires customers wearing a mask. The consensus is yes. They would prefer that. We did have some views. For example, Linda on Facebook says she has a condition where it makes it very difficult for her to breathe. Tina from Benina was listening, and she recommended it. She says there are a lot of people with that.

Tina would prefer. She works at a salon. So they require her customers, and she feels more comfortable that way. But she says, get a doctor's note. There's a lot of people out there that might have a respiratory issue that might make it difficult for them to breathe. And I'm sure a reasonable business will make accommodations for somebody with a legitimate medical reason not to wear a mask. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about that before, but I have a chronic sinus, and it's really taxing on me when I have the mask on for a long time.

And I haven't thought about that. I wonder if there's any sort of a... I agree, and it's definitely a comfort issue. and I think it really has to do with the length of time. You know, running into a grocery store and picking up a few groceries with a mask on is, you know, it's not too bad, but sitting in the studio here for two hours. It does get a little bit hard, and a car dealership can take a lot of time sometimes. Yeah. That's a great point, Stu.

Okay, well, let's get the mystery shopping report, and all we can do is if we have some more texts come in, phones will be turned off, but you can text us at 772. 497-6530 and don't forget folks you can you believe I've been doing this show for 17 years and I don't know what the text number those things happen hey guys that you can you too can vote for the mystery shopping report we'd love to hear your vote and how you feel about these mystery shops okay so get your text in 772 4976530 and we'll pick up a couple after the mystery shopping report is over We mystery shopped

Advantage Ford of Stewart We've had such good look over the last few weeks With Treasure Coast car dealers And they're exuberant advertising We thought we'd give it another shot For today's show There are a lot of car dealers on US1 Between Stewart Ford and Fort Pierce

That's automotive row If you drive up and down there There's just a whole bunch of them A lot of them are Bill Wallace dealerships, by the way He seems to own What, half the dealerships in the Martin County area. And we shopped him many times.

We decided to go alphabetically down the list of Treasure Coast car dealers. For you folks out of the area, Treasure Coast is a little north of Palm Beach County and it's south of Orlando. It's on the coast. Kind of a quiet, I won't say rural, but it's kind of a laid-back community.

A beechy kind of town. Yeah, yeah. Nice, beautiful area up there. First on the list, alphabetically, was Advantage Ford of Stewart. We've investigated Advantage Ford a couple times before. The dealership is owned by Irving Matthews, and Matthews Automotive Group, a small group. He's got three locations. And, you know, I've forgotten.

He's very low-key. He doesn't use his name like a lot of deals like we do, you know. Yeah. He got shot in Orlando several years ago. Really? Yeah, it was, I don't think. I don't think they ever solved the crime, but he recovered, okay, but he got in the news about, say, five or six years ago. Wow.

Could have been a distraught customer. It could have been. Could have been anybody. We don't have a shot Irving, and Irving, we're glad you got better, but Advantage Ford failed our tecotta test in the previous shop, but still made it on our recommended dealer list. First, we visit its website, Advantage Ford, and Stewart. How did it make that thing stop bringing, will you? I got the sound off, I got everything off. Navigated to the new car specials

when we saw their Memorial Day sales event Offer $17,000 off. That's huge. That's huge. We knew we needed to look into this and it's so easy when we're trying to find advertisements. You know, you can almost close your eyes. and go like this, and any advertisement is deceptive.

But we go for the whoppers, the $17,000 discount. The ad printed about actual size on this report, and here's what it appeared to read. This is looking at your PC or your smartphone screen. It appeared to read F-150s, trucks, four trucks, F-150s, $17,000 off MSRP. But it was hard to read. to be hard to read. You want to have that impression when you're going through your online shopping. So you grab their attention, $17,000 off. Oh, I'm going to get $17,000 off

on my F-150. Scrutinizing further, we could read the words up to fine print and 2019. Hard to believe, you know, there's 2,021's on the market now. Oh, yeah. And here we have 2019's and a Ford F-150s up to $17,000 off MSRP. Shame on any car dealer that has a two-year-old car on his lot. I mean, this is one year. Yeah, that 2019 could have hit the lot in 2018. Yeah, it could have, yeah. But I'll say one thing, real quick, this ad, which is in the report,

and if you held it up to the camera, it was, I mean, it was really hard to read. It was awful. and even the up to usually you can click on these things and that blows up. You clicked on it and it was still small. Still hard to see. Yeah, I'm trying to thumb through and find it but I can't find it.

Oh, no, that's not it. Anyway, oh, there it. No, that's not the ad. That's what wires were. Okay. Now, this particular ad was also linked to view inventory and indicate there were 57 to choose from.

It's evidenced by the number 57 in parentheses now this is all what is purported to be and it's not what it is and you're never going to see what it is in the advertisement and i'm preaching to the choir for most of you there was fine print and very fine print okay we blew up the print here's the here's the blown up print stock number t191527 msrp 53 000 110 sale price 36 000 110. Price does not include tax, tag, title, dealer fee.

Residency restrictions may apply. I still don't know, and I read the whole report. I don't know what that means. It means that if you live on 32nd Street, it applies, but if you live on 33rd Street, it doesn't apply. I only odd numbered streets.

And that's kind of scary, too, because residency, what do they call that, redlining? That could be very discriminatory. Redlining. So if you're in a poverty neighborhood or you're in an affluent neighborhood, you can't do that. You can't do that. You cannot discriminate pricing based on where you live. Fort Motor Credit Financing may be required to receive all applicable, may be required to receive all applicable incentives. Not all will qualify. Uh-oh. 17,000 off MRSRP. I'm reading the fine print. Includes all. re-bates and dealer discounts. See dealer for complete details, offer expires May 31st, 2020. So when you see an advertised price, there's no sense in seeing an ad from the manufacturer

or the dealer saying cash rebates, dealer rebates, or anything like that, because the advertised price has got everything included that you can possibly take off the price and then some, because they will have qualifications that you couldn't possibly qualify for. The stock number indicated only one vehicle. That's what, when you see something like T-19-1527, that's dealer talk for, we only got one, and the chances of you finding that car or buying it are slim and none. And so that's a red flag in the fine print when you see anything like T-19-1527. That's a stock number.

one car they should say only one available at this price but they don't do that isn't that illegal I don't think so Ashley Moody would say oh they disclosed there was only one I said where's the disclosure she says there it is

T191527 what is that what about FTC regulations about having a reasonable number well that's true yeah federal it should be a but you You're supposed to disclose the number.

If there's five, you say five, there's ten, you say ten. Then you have an argument, is that reasonable? But when you say T-191527, you don't know, assumes that there's plenty of them. And if you don't have one, we'll order one for you or a dealer trade. But they won't do that. Yeah, and Amber, I hope you're listening to this mystery shopping report because it applies to you. Ford Motor Credit Finance must be required to receive all Apple Credit. That's another gotcha.

I mean, suppose you want to finance with your credit union or your bank. You might have a really good rate. You can't finance with your bank. You can't finance with your credit union. If you want to get these discounts, you have to finance with Ford Motor Credit. And trust me, they make money when they lease you the car or sell you the car, finance it. All will qualify, $17,000 off MSRP, includes all factory rebates dealer, gets now a C dealer, for complete detail, blah, blah, blah. All right, the stock number only had one vehicle, and that's, as Stu said earlier.

The rule is, Federal Trade Commission says, you must have a reasonable availability of products, cars, whatever it is, when you advertise the price in the paper online or wherever. At this point, of course, we had a sinking suspicion that there was not going to be 57. Oh, we do. Yeah. It was not going to be Heinz 57 variety. No. They're not going to be there.

The disclaimer told us to see the dealer for complete detail, so we did. We said Agent Thunder. We took them literally. Let's go find out. I am Agent Thunder. I'm not Agent Thunder. I'm just speaking in the first person. I just beat the rain when I pulled into the parking lot at Agent Advantage Ford on you

Russ Wynne, Stewart. I skipped the car salesman mating dance. Stu got a big laugh out of that last week, so he threw it in again. I love that. It is funny. It's a mating dance. It would have been really weird to do that dance in the thunderstorm that he arrived in. They would have called the police.

We'll go do a video. We'll do a video. We'll do a YouTube. We've got to do a video. It reminds me of, like, I think these old shows, like in the 70s Monty Python or something where a guy dressed up as a woman and pretend, or like Bugs Bunny. He dresses up and he tries to entice the, yeah.

I was meant right away by a salesperson, Laurel, unusual to see a female salesperson, and we need more female salespeople. We try at our dealership very hard. We got a bunch. Yeah, we got a bunch, but we want to be, we want to have half, 50-50. Laurel asked me how I was doing, what brought me in, Laurel was not wearing a protective face covering. Here we go. We talked about this several times during the show. was not wearing a face mask.

In the middle of the coronavirus, how? How is that possible? Neither were any other employees. Advantage Ford. What a stupid thing to do. It isn't deceptive. It isn't a way to get your money. It's a way not to get your money,

because are you going into a car dealership where the employees, the salespeople, don't wear face masks? And the reason I'm perturbed about this is we've been shopping for the past month or so, and we haven't had a car dealer yet that we found where the sale of one was wearing a mask. I think we had earlier, but it's been several weeks. Oh, did we? Like early on, yeah. Okay, good.

Which one was that? Oh, I got to look it up, but it was, yeah, we did see it. So nobody's worn it. There were several sets of customers, all of whom were wearing masks. So there you, the customers are wearing a mask. Maybe the salesman said, well, I don't need to wear a mask. The customers wearing a mask. What a joke.

Laurel led me to a desk and began the interrogation pleasantly. We finally got around to the ad that came in on. Laurel seemed skeptical and asked me where I'd seen the offer, $17,000 of MSRP of a new Ford F-150. I mean, it was like she's never seen the ad, which she probably hadn't. I said I'd seen it on her dealership's website on her new vehicle specials

I pulled the page up on my phone shoulder Laurel studied my screen she said it looks like this special is only on a specific truck and the chances of it being here isn't likely I'm always amazed they don't apologize they don't say whoops they don't say

my bad I'm embarrassed they just say yeah you didn't really think that truck was going to be here did you just the way it is I'm not just the advertisement right plus a discount, this is Laurel speaking. Laurel says, plus the discount is probably available only on the higher end

F-150 models. She speaks the truth. So we were startled by a well-timed loud thunder clap. I used the opportunity to equip. I suppose I have a better chance of getting struck by lightning and getting that deal. Huh? Laurel didn't laugh. She asked if I had read the fine print. I snickered, asked if she was referring to the fly-line.

fine print that was effectively impossible to read. Laurel report, well, it's on an exact truck. Not every truck, one truck. Can you check to see if you haven't, I asked? I'll check, she says Laurel. Oral began pecking her keyboard and reported that the advertised F-150 was at her sister dealership way up in North Florida. Now, I'm going to repeat that.

The truck was not in this dealership that was advertising it. although they said it was. It was on, in a dealership owned by the same guy up in North Florida, the guy that got shot. A few years back, yeah. Irvin got shot.

I asked if it was something that could get transferred here. Now, you're not going to believe this. Okay. I asked Laurel, the salesperson, if this one truck that they advertised and said was here, but was at another dealership

owned by the same guy, I asked if they could get that F-150 transferred here. She said, nope, it's not possible. Now, that is absolutely defiant, bald-faced, deception, lying. I hate to call it, I hate the word lie. Yeah, I hate to call anybody a liar, but Laurel, it's just not a nice thing to do. Let's put it that way. Laurel went on to recommend taking advantage of the 0% financing that Ford was offering.

she said that some models have something like $15,000 off when you combine all the rebates with 0% worked out better for most people. Okay, what's the next step I ask? Laurel advised we should pick out the F-150 I wanted to get. There's a switch. The bait was really crude. I wanted to get.

We discussed what I was looking for, a truck, and settled on a 4xLT model with an MSRP of 49-10. She said she was showing me the finance options with a 0% the cash option with a cash option I would get some big rebates

to discount would be nearly as big as the one in the ad I said that that would be good but I was more interested in the bigger discount than the zero interest I said I may pay my truck off early

and wanted to take advantage of the incidenties up front which is smart but I did not want to finance at the best rate I did want to finance at the best rate so I want my cake and eat it too

I want the discount and I want to get the best rate. We got ready to find the truck if you take a test drive. It was storming badly. We waited eventually. I said I'd skip the test drive. I said I was familiar with the model and I'd be comfortable proceeding without driving it. That's a big mistake if you're a buyer always drive.

I see a truck. We returned to Laurel's desk. She asked me how much money I wanted to as a down payment. $3,000, I said. She stood up, let me work the figures. I waited for return with two worksheets, one that used a zero percentage. The other was a cash option using a hefty rebate.

Oral said, although she knew, I preferred the cash option. She had both scenarios for me to look over. Cash option started with $5,291 discount off MSRP, 4910. Then they took $7750 in rebates. The discounted price was $35, $9.69. A taxable fee of $5 was added. Then a $5.99 dock fee, sales tax. That's a low dock fee for Florida.

Sales tax in $757 and non-tax fees, which we have to assume we're accurate, but we don't know. Out the door was $40, $39.88. My payment for 72 months was, and $3,000 down was $689. No interest rate was printed on the worksheet, just APR subject to equity and credit requirements. 0% financing auction gave me a payment of $6.68 with $3,000 for 72 months. It also broke down the cash selling price. This time, the discount was just $2.50, making the sale price $46.750. Some fees were added, and the outdoor price was $51,594, $51,000, $51.94.

As I finished studying the worksheets, emergency alerts begin blurring on the phones. Tornado warnings. Very exciting shopping. I said I would like to take the proposals home. me decided I stood up and thanked the salesperson I think I called her off guard or sure she managed she said she would follow up with me the next day rather than going through the whole epilogue stew you summarize I'll summarize real quick so they hidden discount yes so um you got a bunch of rebates on the cash deal and it looked really good if you're writing a check for it that would

have been a better deal the zero percent looked pretty good but he also told her that she want he wanted to finance um so he came up with that payment of six hundred eighty nine dollars Well, if you were going to finance what he was financing on the cash deal is $37,000, if you were to finance $37,000 at a okay interest rate of, say, 5%, your payment would be much lower than the $668 she quoted in the 0%. They inflated the payment price to Agent Thunder by $100, and we get to introduce a new car dealer term to you. It's called Leg.

So on the sales floor, when they estimate a payment, they inflate that payment to give some room to the F&I manager to charge more interest rate, to sell more products and all sorts of stuff, and that's called Legg. Now, this was done very clumsily because if I were an evil sales manager, I would tell the salesperson, tell them the payment was $20 less than the 0%

because it'd be a no-brainer. Like, listen, you're getting the huge rebates and your payments lower, but they went for, they got greedy, and they added about $7,200 of room for the FNI manager. So this is such an evil report. We really don't even have to take a vote, but we will. That was a great breakdown.

It was so bad. It's worse than any shopping report we've seen in a long, long time. A blatant deception, misinformation, and then the idea of loading up the payment so that the F&I manager could sneak things on the contract, probably wouldn't even know they bought. It's one of the worst we've seen in a long time. Advantage Ford on U.S. 1, Martin County, and Stewart, Florida. We will take a vote on that because we're running out of time. Got any votes in yet? I'm going to use Linda's big FFF, I'm sorry, huge FFFFFs.

Yeah. Absolutely. And to all of you that are listening, I have two words. Attorney General. Please get in touch with the Attorney General, Ashley Moody. 850414330 Ashley Moody Attorney General Area Code 850

4143300 Mark Smith with an F Karen with an F Donovan with an F Mark Ryan and Mr. Hand both F's Shame on you, Advantage Ford in Stewart, Florida, a terrible, terrible behavior. Ladies and

gentlemen, thank you for tuning in, Earl Stewart on cars. We do appreciate you. We'll be right back here next week. Have a wonderful weekend.