Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.25.2019 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Delray Honda Part II

Episode Date: May 25, 2019

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. New Agent 26, a female mystery shopper, visits Delray Honda, to see how a female buyer will compare to Agent Thunder, a male using the Costco Auto Buying Program. 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”

Welcome to Earl Stewart on Cars with Earl and Nancy Stewart, Stu Stewart, and Rick Kearney. Reach them with your questions at 877-9-6-0-960, and now here's Earl Stewart. Good morning, everybody. Weeks fly by, don't they? I think the older you get, the faster time goes, that might even be a theory of relativity somewhere. I need to work on that, but I can't believe that the week has gone by, and Earl on Cars is here again along with Earl, that's me, Rick Kearney, Nancy Stewart and Stu Stewart.

And we're team, an automotive team, I guess you'd call us. But we have a unique mission in life, and that is to help you avoid being ripped off by car dealers. It's kind of a rude, crude statement, isn't it? Ripped off? I don't really like it, but it

says it. It's succinct. It's a violent word. Kind of violent. You're exactly right. But I do it to get your attention, and I lead off most shows with the Gallup annual pole. on honesty and ethics and professions.

It's really a shameful thing that one profession ranks at the bottom for so many years. Since 1977, the Gallup annual poll on honesty and ethics and professions is ranked car dealers dead last. Last year we were dead last. Now, there were a few years

where we bobbed up to next to last or third from last. We compete for the honor of being last, I say facetiously, with lobbyists and congressmen, politicians. Lawyers are down there somewhere. But us car dealers, by golly, we're down there the most. We are down at the very bottom. I am a car dealer. In full transparency, I have to tell you, it's part of the reason I do

this show. I'm a little embarrassed. My father was a car dealer. I'm a car dealer. My son sitting to my left here is a car dealer. It's a family profession. Nancy Stewart, my wife is a car dealer. Rick Kernney's not a car dealer, but he's in the car dealer business. And there's a lot of people out there that take pride in what they do. Rick, Nancy Stu, myself, my other two sons. We all take pride in what we do. And we don't like it being polluted. And that's what's happening with the Gallup annual poll.

I go to a party. I go to a dinner with people. You know, you're out in public or Costco or someplace. You meet somebody and they say, what do you do? Do you hesitate when someone asks you what you do? I hesitate. because I know I'm an honest person, but I know what people think of our profession. So, part of the reason we do this show is to help clean up Dodge,

Dodge being the USA auto retail business, and we're trying to get dealers' attentions and get your attentions. We're trying to educate you, the consumers, the car buyers, although most of you are pretty well educated now. Sometimes I feel like I'm preaching to the choir. There are a lot of folks out there that are taking advantage of. we ask you to spread the word help your friends, acquaintances, parents, grandparents that may be out there being taken advantage of. You might have some friends that are not, English is not there in native language, some young friends buying their first car.

There are a lot of people out there that are truly taken advantage of, and you, the educated consumer, and most of you listen to the show are, can help your friends and avoid being ripped off by a car dealer. It's not all about buying or leasing either. I mentioned Rick Kearney. Rick is a certified diagnostic master technician. What that means is he knows just about everything there is to know about the electronics, the computerization mechanics still, some, about cars. And if you have a strange noise or a click or a steering phenomenon, you can't quite figure out, you call Rick.

I won't guarantee he can answer it, but I'll give you 99% he can answer it. and he's got a laptop computer right there and says, my son, Stu, we can Google faster than a speeding bullet. So if we don't have all the answers, you're looking at some world-class Googlers here. Nancy Stewart, by the way, I'll let a little cat out of the bag here. We have a female shopper finally, thanks to Nancy Stewart. Nancy's been after us to use a mystery shopper female. And it's not that we don't want to have female shoppers. we openly invite those listening to volunteer to do mystery shops for us.

Women are a little bit more reserved and hesitant to go in and do a mystery shop than men, and rightfully so. Women sometimes are just not treated right, and so we found a very good mystery shopper, thanks to Nancy's reminding us. And then she's a female advocate, you know, hashtag Me Too, almost at Pound Me Too, shows I'm an old guy, hashtag Me Too, movement in this country. And she is leading the charge to give women equal courtesy and respect to anybody else that walks into a car dealership. And she's doing a really good job of it. She's built up our female followers.

We had a huge number of female callers last week. I believe we had almost 50, maybe greater than 50%. And I'll let Nancy tell you herself what she's offering first time new female callers. Nancy? Good morning, everyone. Yeah, we're pretty high tech here. Everybody's got computers. We got our rocket books.

We are ready to go. Good morning, everyone. Give us a call toll free at 877-960, 9960, or you can text us. 772-497-6530 and what Earl was referring to was the $50 verse 2 new female callers we have $50 for you give us a call say hi or well share your car buying experience with us 877 960 9960 and again that The text number is 772-497-6-5-3-0. We're going to have a fantastic show, a fantastic mystery shopping report. So sit back, have a cup of coffee if you are able to.

Maybe you're sitting in Starbucks right now where I wished I was. I got my Starbucks right here. And Stu's going to rub it in. He's got a Starbucks. Okay, back to the recovering car dealer. Stu's during mention is our cyber guy. he's the one that connects us with the whole cyber world, which is very exciting because we have people from all over the world

that can listen to us. Stu, I forget all the different cyber things. YouTube, I remember that. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram are the main ones. And, well, that's pretty much a periscope, sorry. For those who are not watching the live Facebook feed, or I'll just pantomime a periscope coming out of the water, very good. Well, it's exciting because, I mean, radio has just been audio,

and now radio is video because we're streaming like crazy. In fact, you can just go to Erlon Cars, stream. You can streamerlancars.com. www. www. www. streamerlancars.com. So if you're just sitting there with a laptop or a smartphone,

you don't have to go to Periscope, YouTube, or Facebook. What we like are the posts because now we get a lot of posts on YouTube. Rick is taking care of the YouTube, so we've already got a post on YouTube, and Stu takes care of the post on Facebook, and somebody's doing Twitter, and somebody's doing Periscope. So why don't we go right to the first YouTube post? What is that, Rick? Well, this one may actually be a carryover from last week,

but I figure we'll bring this out anyways. Raymond from Massachusetts is asking, if I buy a car in another state, will I have to pay sales tax twice? very good question it is uh chances are you won't if you uh if you're careful you won't most states have a reciprocity fee and florida does and most do i think it may be two or three states you might have to fight about but 99% of the time you only have to pay sales tags if they don't have a reciprocity agreement you can get a you can get a temporary tag

to register your car in the state that's going to hold your feet to the fire and make you pay the sales tax but never Never pay it twice. I think we might have a caller coming in. But in the interim, let me mention something so important that I'm going to mention it several times during this show. Now, you're going to have to sit down for this one, folks, or how about hold on to your hats for this one. I'm looking the car dealers and the car dealer employees in the eye now in the world because we are worldwide. I am betting you $100,000 cash out of my pocket.

it that you're afraid or you will not be able to prove to me and to our radio audience that the dealer fee should not be made illegal. The dealer fee is illegal in Florida and a lot of other states. And I am lobbying. I've been lobbying for years and years to make the dealer fee illegal. If a car dealer will join me on this radio station, WSVU, 95.9 FM, true oldies and sit in the studio and debate me for one hour and have our listeners vote on the winner. If you win, I will pay you $100,000 cash.

Of course, if you win, you have to pay me $100,000, which I pledge to give to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. So my $100,000 will go to charity. Now, spread the word. There we go. And I talked to Lori Simmons, the founder and CEO, Big Dog Ranch Rescue. you, and she's rooting us on. So, Rudy, yeah, rooting in song. And I repeat that.

All car dealers, if you're a franchise car dealer, your name has to be legally on the franchise agreement. I want a real car dealer. And if you will appear on this radio show with me and debate the fact that you're doing the right thing with the dealer fee and it should remain legal, if you get a vote saying, you're right, I will pay you $100,000.

That's a pretty strong incentive. don't see how you can turn this down now you've had my cell phone number which i'll give you right now if you don't have a 561 358 1474 that's my personal cell phone [phone] if you've got the courage to face me on this radio station and it will be about a one-hour debate the hundred thousand dollars i'm putting up next week with our attorney in escrow so i will have my $100,000 pledged, frozen in escrow, so I can't take it back. You will put your $100,000 in escrow. We will debate on WSVU 95.9 FM, 106.9 FM, true oldies.

It'll be 8 to 10 some Saturday, however we can make it. As soon as we get a challenger. As soon as we get a challenger. So challenge us, spread the word. If you're afraid, maybe you know somebody that's a really good debater, find somebody with the silver tongue out there, a really strong car dealer. Anybody. There's a lot of them.

Anybody. You have to be a real car dealer. We can't be, you know, we can't have phony car dealers. You have to have your name on the factory franchise agreement to prove that you're a real car dealer. And we will vote on this show at the end of the one hour of debate. Rick? What about like a used car dealer, someone from CarMax or something?

I would prefer new car dealers. I haven't ruled out used car dealers. But the reason I like a new car dealer is because a new car dealer is because a new car dealer is a car dealer is a used car dealer and we have problems with both new and used car challengers and we would like someone that covered the spectrum not just the used car spectrum besides new car dealers they got a lot more money than used car dealers and it's unlikely that a used car dealer would would challenge me but hey if a big used car dealer like car max but that's an interesting point okay there's uh if you missed any of the details on the challenge that are all just

spoke about. You can go to Earl on cars and you can pull up that $100,000 dealer fee challenge and you can get all the details, his telephone number. That's what it looks like. You can read the blog. For those

people that are thinking about the challenge, I do explain my position on the dealer fee with a link so you can go and see my position. I've written multiple blogs on the dealer fee. Phones are kind of quiet. I think I'll give that number out again. Okay.

7-7-960, or you can text us if you're a little shy at 7-7-I'm sorry, 772-497-6530. And don't forget, you can voice your opinion on Your Anonymous Feedback.com, even about the $100,000 dealer fee challenge. So take advantage of that. Back to the recovering car dealer. And let's not forget Facebook. It's Facebook.com port slash earl on cars. We get most of our posts are from Facebook.com forward slash earl on cars. And we also have the YouTubes.

We get quite a few of those too. And, of course, the regular text number, which a lot of people prefer, which is a little easier, 772-4976530. I have another interesting comment that I'll throw out there. We talk about nitrogen and tires. and it goes on and on and on. You'd think at some point in time the car dealers would be a little bit shamed about that.

But most of them are still trying to sell you nitrogen in the tires. Consumer Reports came out with a new article. Nancy called it to my attention yesterday. And they did a massive test of nitrogen tires a couple years ago, found nitrogen to be worthless. And I learned in this new Consumer Reports article that NHTSA, National Highway Traffic Association, has also debunked nitrogen and tires.

So if you're buying a car, be sure you look on the addendip sticker, also known as the Phony androni, be sure they try to sell you nitrogen. And whatever you do, if they tell you, they can sell you nitrogen, just say no. Nitrogen is worthless.

You know, what they talk about is, in this consumer reports, they put nitrogen in every American sold tire, consumer reports did, and they filled up, some had every American sole tire with nitrogen

and another batch of every American sole tire with regular air, which is 78% nitrogen. And one year later, you know what the difference in pressure was? 1.2 PSI. 1.2 PSI after a year. I like Rick's reaction.

And the pressure is the whole thing because they relate pressure to tireware and safety. Now there is one thing interestingly enough, this is purely there is some fact to the fact that if you fill an air tire with pure nitrogen, after about 10 or 12 years, you will have

less deterioration and the tire filled with nitrogen, but you can't drive on a tire for 10 or 12 years because you're going to get dry rod. And it's deteriorating on the inside. Exactly. Every tire I've ever seen that the tread wears from

the outside. I mean, You know, I'm going to mention real quick before I forget, you know, to make your car buying experience just a little easier, but save you a whole lot of money. I invented a tool recently, and you can go to Ruan cars, and you can download that tool, and that's a tool for an honest price, out-the-door price. And it's, well, would you say it's a binding? It's an affidavit, and it's a sworn. statement that the car dealership is not adding any dealer-installed accessories or any non-government

fees. So you get them to swear on a Bible or whatever they want to swear on and sign on a piece of paper, a legal document that they are not adding dealer fees or they're not adding dealer installed accessories. Great. Great information. Yes, we do. 877-960.

9960, or you can text us at 772-497. 676530, and we have a female caller to get our show started off, and she's a first-time caller. Good morning, Sandra. Hi, how are you? Oh, great. Thank you for the call. No problem. What's on your mind, Sandra?

Do you have any questions for us? Anything about buying or leasing or maintaining, repairing your car that you'd like to ask us? Yes, I have a 2008 toy-year-old car. Toyota Salara as a convertible. And I'd like to get another convertible, but I just was wondering if and when

they're ever going to come out with another convertible. Well, Sandra, we are coming out a toilet manufacturer with another convertible, but it doesn't resemble your solara convertible at all. It's much smaller. They're calling it a supra, and it is

kind of a racing car, a two-passenger car, basically. Probably, yeah. And the solar A car convertible, let me say this, lucky you because it is one of the most popular used cars on the market. The time comes when you want to trade that in. The car dealers, you should shop with several, by the way, will offer you a very high price for that because it's a high-demand, low-supply used car. Toyota made a big mistake in my personal opinion in dropping that from the line of cars.

But take good care of that solar convertible, and whatever you buy next, it has a lot. a very, very high resale value. Yeah, I know my husband takes so good care of it. It looks beautiful. It's red with the black top, and I always get comments on it when I go anywhere. Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that.

It might even become an antique one day, and it might be one day, I'm not promising anything, could be worth more than you paid for it. Well, I'm having 11 years now, so it's getting pretty close, I think. Wow. You're killing me, Sandra. I'll tell you what, what a beauty. Hang on to that. Yeah, it's gorgeous.

Yeah, that is just beautiful. And I myself, I can't understand why they've been discontinued. But everybody wants one. So you've got a little pot of gold there. Yeah, well, that's a good thing to know. Thank you so much for your info. Sandra, stay on the line and give Rudy your contact information so I can send you out that check. You just won yourself $50.

Thank you. We're going to go to Michael, who's calling from Palm Beach Gardens. Good morning, Michael. Yes, good morning. How are you? We're well, thank you. I've got a question about car batteries. Is there any type of way in terms of life of a car battery? I mean, there many variables, heat, and so on, but is there an average for how long a car batteries should last? I'm going to guess, and Rick will give you a better answer.

I'm going to say three to four years. Okay, because my fifth thing got one, it's a little under three years, and the battery light lit up on her dash, so I told her to bring it to the place where she got it and see what they say. Don't they have a thing on the actual battery, I guess the date that it was installed or something? Isn't that on the battery? There's a date on the battery.

Oh, there should be a date of a manufacturer, and that would be, I guess they started degrading a little bit as soon as they're, if you got to buy a battery on the shelf, they've been on the shelf for you, that's not good either, is it? No. Right. Absolutely.

Most batteries are good three to five years of normal use. Pretty much all of them now will have a sticker on the battery that tells the date when it was produced and delivered to the sales spot. And most places try to keep a good high turnover. So the old batteries will be sent back to the manual. manufacturer and they'll recycle them. But you said the car in question, you said the battery light was coming on while you're driving it? My sister said that yesterday. She observed there's a battery light on her dash that lit up. I don't know, but that's what she said. Right. Well, if it lit up

while she was driving, then odds are that's not the battery. That's usually a sign that the alternator has got an issue and that it's not charging enough to be able to recharge the battery and run all the electronics on the car. So I would want to have that alternator checked out. Check out the alternator, hey? Yep. All right. Thanks. I appreciate your show. It's very informative. I listen

to it every week. Thanks, Martin. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Give us a call. Take care now. Thanks. Have a great weekend. 877-960-90-60, or you can text us at 772-497-60.

Now back to the recovering car dealer. I see some text, but I also see our Rudy writing on his little board there, so it might be a caller. It is a caller. He's writing it down, and while we're writing it down, I will remind $100,000 challenge to all you car dealers if you'll debate me on the legality of the dealer fee. $100,000 cash, I put mine up next week in escrow. We're going to go to Howard. Oh, Howard's calling from the Bronx.

There you go. Hey, Howard. Good morning, Howard. Good morning I am now in the Bronx It's a sunny day It's a beautiful 75 degree day In the Bronx today

Oh nice And I hope you guys Are enjoying the weather in Florida Oh it's beautiful Actually I miss Florida You know Because Florida has things that we don't have in New York Allegedly

People are respectful You know And they're great restaurants Here in New York You got to be careful a little bit So that's the story with me. I have a question for Rick. Is he in the house today?

He definitely is. It's not a house without Rick. Okay. Rick of House Kearney. Yeah. Rick, I took your advice and I got rid of that tire with that worm and close to the sidewalk. So I went into a firestone and,

they replaced the tire and he told me that the tire on the other side the front was a little low so I replaced that tire too then he told me my brakes are low

and he showed me I think I have about 5,000 miles more in the brake and he said he could put in the brakes the Wagner brake paired in the front and I said

how much would that cost me he said $69 what about cutting the rotors he says they don't have to be cut I said wait a second I was told by many people that when you replace the road you should have the

when you replace the pads you should have the road is cut what do you say Rick my opinion and it's really my opinion but also backed up by a lot of other sources the first thing is if you have any sort of

break pulsation then you need to have the rotors cut in order to get rid of that pulsation and that is when you step on the brakes like when you're at highway speeds 5560 if you step on the brake and that steering wheel shutters and shakes or the back of the car shutters and shakes a little bit when you're braking then that means the rotors are a little out around they need to be resurfaced otherwise when you're just replacing the pads we usually recommend resurfacing the rotors so that the pads will seat in nicely and have a good fresh surface for their beginning wear, it helps prevent glazing on the pads, and it makes them

last a lot longer. Well, what could happen if, I don't have a problem with pulsating or anything. What could happen if I had the pads replaced without the resurfacing the rotors? What scenarios are there with that? Pretty much the worst case scenario is a lot of squealing noises. You know, when you step on the brakes, you'll hear it. these high-pitched squealing noise and just that aggravating annoying noise. So if you're hard of hearing, it's not a problem.

Exactly. Or if you've got a good radio, turn it up and there you go. What's that cost to replace rotors approximately? To replace them can be a couple hundred dollars depending on the quality of the rotors. And you buy some earplugs for, you know, 50 cents. Yeah. But to have them resurfaced, maybe 100 bucks. Oh, 100 bucks, okay.

Because resurfacing, all we're doing is just grinding them on the machine and putting a new surface on it. Sounds like dealer's choice, Howard. You can do either way and see if you want to save a few bucks. I gamble without the rotors if it were me. Okay, now the brake shoes, I'm dating, the brake pads are Wagner brake pairs. They could break pairs, and the tech told me that Toyota does not make brake pairs. They have another company made.

Who makes a break pads for Toyota? A company called Akio. And Wagner... Is it better than Wagner? Now, wait a minute. The CEO of Toyota is named Akio. You don't suppose he owned... No, I couldn't make.

No way. Well, it could be as common as the word John in America, but actually Wagner makes a very good quality pad. For aftermarket, I would probably pick Waxon. is one of the top brands. They're a very good high quality. The tech told me it's ceramic. There's Toyota used ceramic brake pads.

We do. And the reason being is the semi-metallic pads that they used to recommend years ago. The semi-metallic pads would wear down the brake rotor more. It would actually wear that rotor out. And when a rotor costs $120 and the pads were only $30 to $40, I'd rather put a couple sets of pads on and not damage those rotors. Now, something's very funny because this guy told me that the job would cost me $69. Now, that doesn't seem right.

That's cheap. So I think they may be using cheap pads for that price. So what do you say, Rick? Well, the Wagner pads are really, although they're a good quality, they're not very expensive. And they're probably buying them in bulk, so they're getting a nice. discount from their supplier so the the pads are costing them probably about ten or twenty dollars and it only takes about a half hour to 45 minutes to throw a set of pads on a car you just found an honest mechanic Howard you can't

believe it right you did you got somebody that wanted to treat you right because he wants you to keep coming back to him and so he's gonna treat you right give his name and we go drum up some business wars people in the Bronx got a problem with your brakes. Let's hear his name, Howard. Okay, it's Mavis Tire. Mavis Tire. Mavis Tire. On Broadway.

On Broadway. Anybody's in the Bronx. I got a good buy on tires. I got the Comho, Korean Tire, which you replaced by your company, Earl, replaced on me

on the warranty. I got the same tires in the front. I could take a chance driving on tires down back to Florida in November. So I had to have the tires replaced and the tech told me I need brake pads and he showed me

exactly how thin those pads were. So I have to make a decision now whether to take a chance and drive down in November and have you replaced it or, you know, because it could scratch the road is, you know, they're so thin.

Howard, don't take a chance, Howard. We love you. No. And we don't want anything to happen to you. Go ahead. You go ahead and get those tires. We don't want you to save for sound. Stay alive. Exactly. Okay.

Earl, you mean you're giving me permission? Yeah. I don't think that's a regular thing. You're a friend that you're a friend of the customer. I can't afford to lose you. Okay. You'll never lose me as long as I'm alive. Thank you for you.

Have a good day. Thanks, all right. Happy Memorial Day. Thank you so much. Tell sorry we said hello. Yeah. My grandma's from the Bronx. Grandma Eadie.

Oh. Yeah, yeah. Great place. Grandpa Mel's from Brooklyn. Yeah. If you just tuned in, I'm going to give you that telephone number, and you can reach us by a phone or by text, and that is 877-960. If you're a little shy, send us over a text, 772-497-6530.

We're going to go to Miami, and we have Aces. That is... Aziz. I hope I pronounce your name right. Aziz, Aziz. Aziz. Well, thank you for holding so long, Aziz. We appreciate it.

Yes, there's an incident happen with West Kansas of Toyota. I have a friend of mine. He took his Toyota Canza for oil change. And they changed the oil, but they didn't touch the filter. And he marked the filter. And when the car came out, and he looked at it, and he called the manager, he said, And I pay for all change, including the filter, why they nobody touch the filter? And he looked at it, he said, hmm, you know, let's come here, you know, I'm going to do something

for you. So he gave him two years, all change, free. But that's dishonest, you know. Basically, I don't take, I do my old change myself. I don't take it to the dealer. That's why when they take it inside, you don't know what's going to happen. And also, they may do something that. is not necessarily to be repaired, but they tell you,

oh, this is going bad, and this is, look, come here, you know, and he needs to replace it, and especially, I'm talking about, they take advantage of women. They make it, like, going crazy. It's not safe to drive. And they charge, you know, $1,000, you know, that's wrong. Yeah. Well, Ziz, you're fortunate that you're mechanically inclined

and as much maintenance as you can do yourself. That's fantastic. and to find an honest mechanic, like we just talked to Howard from the Bronx, he found a place where he could have his brakes worked on and buy tires. You know, it's like finding a diamond or a nugget, gold nugget. When you find an honest mechanic, honest service department, and not to mention also competent and knowing what they're doing, that's great. In this case here, I would have to say this,

at least when you called it to their attention, And they did apologize and confess and offer two years free oil changes as to whether it was dishonest or just a stupid mistake. It really doesn't make much difference to the person who's a victim, whether it's stupidity or dishonesty. But both exist, unfortunately, in service departments, both independent and car dealerships. And I'm glad your friend was astute enough to check and find out that that happened. It's always a good idea. I always recommend that you ask the service department to see the parts that they replace, even on oil filter. Now, granted, it's easy to have a dirty oil filter they can show you.

But the fact that you ask for that puts them a heads up and alert, this guy is going to be pretty tough if we try to take advantage of them. And when you alert them to the fact that you're skeptical of what they may be doing, they might be a little bit more careful and honest about the way they treat you. Yeah, you're right. Aziz, thank you. I'm glad we're reaching Miami. I'm glad you listened to us. Spread the word down there. Miami is kind of the Wild Wild West.

I listen to your show all over the day. Every day I listen to your show. You know, I love it. Thank you. The car dealers, the further south you go, the more dangerous it gets in terms of servicing and buying and leasing. Not to say Palm Beach County isn't dangerous, or Martin County, for that matter,

but Broward is more dangerous. and Date County is really the epicenter of the Wild Wild West. So good luck to you down there, Aziz. Let me tell you something. One day, I bought a long time. I bought an Odyssey, and then they play with the mileage, you know, but it was like a wildfire from all for up, you know, and so really, and it was my fault.

I didn't check no tarfax, nothing, you know. So and then when I found out later on, you know, friend of mine, you know, he pulled the car. pack, they told me, look, they changed the mile here, you know, it goes back. Wow. It says here, you know, and yeah, it's a lot of corruption, you know, especially in Miami area. Now you know. How you know.

And it's really, uh, very bad. Yeah. So. Very bad. And after that, I learned my lesson, you know, I said, that's it. I'm not buying anything from outside of, unless to check it or to check it to check the mechanic, check the car pack, or just go to the, uh, big dealer, you know, Now, yeah, you get to pay a little more, and that, you know, you have a peace of mind that my car is good.

You know, it's not going to break down the next day. Aziz, thank you very much. Great call. And as I say, spread the word in Miami. We love to have more Miami listeners because they need our help down there probably more than they do up in this part of the woods. Absolutely. And Azas, spread the word to your lady friends. They can win themselves $50 by calling the show.

I give away every Saturday morning to two new free $50. to a new caller. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Give us a call again. 877-960-99-60. Where you can text us at 772-497-6530. We're going to go to Tina.

And Tina, as I always say, every Saturday, is a regular caller. She needs intro music. Yeah, we could get a drum roll or something. We'll get a drum roll for her. Okay. Okay, good morning, Tina. Good morning. If you're going to play intro music for me,

it's got to be Charlie Daniels band. The Devil went down to Georgia. That's one of my favorite songs. There we go. I love it. I love it. Rick, I haven't got a chance to talk to you in a while. And I was just watching a Scotty Kilmer Channel video about the Czech engine light.

And I kind of agree with some I kind of don't. But I was wondering if you, and I already know the answer to this, but, okay, there's people that are traveling down the road no more. Memorial Day weekend, and I hope everybody stays safe, but what should you do when you see the check engine light come on? Do you freak out and pull over and go to this dealership, or do you get the code read, or do you just kind of calm down and get your bearings and go from there? Depends on your temperament. I would head immediately for the nearest nuclear fallout shelter and prepare for the end of the world.

I'm just kidding I'm just kidding the first thing is don't panic just simply listen to your car for a few moments as you're driving if the car seems to be running normally continue on don't panic

and stop at a local auto parts store and have them come out with a little code puller and check what the code is 95% of the time a check engine light is a loose gas cap. And you can always just check the gas cap, make sure it's clicked tightly into place. If it seems like it was loose or you forgot to put it in place, any of those little auto shops can take care of just clearing that code out for you for free. The part stores, like an auto zone.

Otherwise, if it's a more involved issue, if your car is running normally, if it seems to be running just fine, it's not going to be a big breakdown issue. Remember, your car has probably I'm going to say anywhere from 3 to 500 different reasons why that light can come on and it can only come on and speak to you in one voice just to turn on that one light. So it can be a bunch of different reasons. Some are very minor, some are a little more important, but just stop and check it out at your convenience. If the car is running rough or something seems to be operating bad with the car,

then you'll want to get to a dealership as quickly as possible or a good qualified mechanic to have them check it out and find out what's going on. Yeah, one of my coworkers, her husband decided to drive their act. It was a used accurate T.L. He decided to drive from Benita Springs to Tampa with the car not running right because the check engine light was on. And long story short,

they ended up having to get a rebuilt transmission put in the car. She was ready to kill him. She was so upset. Yeah. Hopefully so. If it's acting up and something feels wrong, that's when you know, okay, this could be a more major problem. Yeah. Yeah, don't cause yourself a $3,600 mistake.

Definitely not. And actually, that's not too bad a price for a transmission rebuild. It could go a lot more expensive on some cars. Yeah, that's very true, especially with these CVT transmissions, and that's a whole other topic, a whole other subject we could probably talk the whole show about CVTs. Yes, absolutely. Definitely. You know, the first time that my light came on, it was just, it was amazing. I just got out of my car and did what Rick has suggested, because sometimes it can be very minor. And I wiggle that gas cap, and I felt like a rocket scientist because everything was fine. But like you said,

it can be very, very serious. Tina, do you have any other questions? No, the only other thing I would like to bring up is that Tesla has their butts in a sling again because the autopilot feature is not working as it should, and it's causing a lot of concerns. So that's another subject for discussion, especially since we've been talking on and off about autonomous cars the last few months periodically. It's just food for thought there. Well, thank you. Elon Musk is a little nervous these days. His stock isn't doing well. His debts are climbing. when the province are dropping, the cars are breaking.

I watched that car drive through the tunnel, though. That was pretty neat. Yeah, true. He's getting a lot of attention. That crazy guy. Okay, Tina, thanks so much, and we look forward to hearing from you next week, and have a lovely Memorial Day weekend. Hi, Tina.

Thank you. And ladies, please call. I can't do this by myself. Honestly. Is that the truth, Tina, or what? Ladies, did you hear that from Tina? Yes, she did. 960, 960, give us a call.

First two new lady callers, you win yourself $50. I've given away 50. She opened the show this morning. That was Sandra. And we're going to go to Tim, who's been holding, and he's calling from Jensen Beach. Good morning, Tim. Yeah, good morning, everyone.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Yeah, I actually text you guys my question already, so you can have it ahead of time, but I'll readirate. My wife is interested in purchasing a new Hyundai, Sanofi. We have a 2014 Chevy Equinox with about 86,000 miles on it, both CarMax, and Hyundai said they'd give me $6,000 for it.

They'd trade in at Hyundai, flat out $6,000 from CarMax. I'm just curious if you can give any advice. And when you walk into the dealership, they're all over you. So I have my best way of protecting myself to get a fair price for the new vehicle. Sure. You do when you get there, yeah. Do your homework. Tim, I get some more prices on your trade-in.

CarMax is a good place to start. car max can sometimes give you a very way too low price they have an algorithm that they use to appraise cars with and the algorithm works good and bad if they really need your car they can pay you a higher price than average but if they don't need your car you can get lower price so be sure to check what uh what was the make your trade in did you say Chevy Equinox it's a Chevy Equinox 2014 it does have some unfortunate scratches someone at the airport decided I don't like, I guess, the way I parked my car

and decided to key it. It does be. It would need a paint job. So, you know, it has that factor to it. Hey, Tim, just keep in mind. Like Earl's advice is priceless. You have a bid from CarMax, you have one from the

Hyundai dealership. Try and get at least one more, but also bear in mind that when you, if you're getting a new Hyundai from the dealership, you're going to be saving on the sales tax and the difference. So so that CarMax is giving you $6,000. The Hyundai store, it's more like $6,400 because in total savings off the new car.

There are a couple other sources now that we didn't used to have, and I'll take this opportunity to tell our audience as well as you, there's an outfit called we buy anycar.com. Just the phrase, we buy anycar.com, www.w.w.w.webuyanycar.com. and we checked them we'll talk about it later in the show but they offer competitive prices for cars they just buy cars and resell them or sell them at auction or whatever they do uh there's also uh carvana carvana it's a big uh they went public uh they're traded on the new york stock exchange

and they buy cars too so you could go to carvana you can go to we buy any car dot com it's really uh a seller's market out here with trade-ins now you can really maximize the value you do the exact right thing you want car max they're valuable and you try the other two we buy any car com carvana and then go to another chevalet dealer use car manager say i've got too many cars in the family i don't want to buy a car from you but i'd love to sell you my truck and what will you allow me and i'm going to go to another Chevrolet dealer to get another price if yours is high i will buy it from you. That will maximize the value of your trade-in. And as far as purchasing the Hyundai from the new car, you just use competition. Go to three-car Hyundai dealers, get the

out-the-door price, and take the lowest price. And there's always true car. You're not a member of Costco, are you, Tim? No, no, I'm not. Okay, Costco is a good place to get a really good car price but uh you can always go to truecar.com and get an online price to compare uh the price that you paid to the Hyundai dealer okay never going cold go there first yeah it might even be worth the x the 60 dollars to get a one-year membership at Costco i'd say just to get that discount on the car you could probably save a lot more than that yeah absolutely well tim thanks very much and calls back if you have any more questions and you sound like an educator's good consumer, you know what you're doing.

And we'd love to hear it back for me next week. Sounds like you're all prepared. Thanks for giving us a call. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-30. And we have our second female caller of the day.

First time. And that's Lindsay, and she's a first-time caller. Lindsay, if you stay on the line after we're finished and give Rudy your contact information, I'll get the check out to you. Good morning and welcome. Good morning. How are you today? We're well, thank you.

So I was calling because I have a Toyota Camry, and it's a V6. I was wondering, how long do you think my engine will last? How many miles? Well, I'll let you talk to the expert in a second, but. We have technicians driving vehicles that are 3,400,000 miles. We have customers. We have one customer that has over 900,000 miles. What your camera is it, Lindsay?

It's an 08. 08. Those vehicles now last so much longer than they did 20 years ago. If you follow the factory recommended maintenance, not the dealer recommended, by the way, what the factory owner's manner tells you to do, and you do that religiously, being a session, especially careful about oil changes, you do that. I'm going to say you could safely put 300 plus thousand miles on that vehicle, and I'll ask Rick to confirm that.

Confirmed. Yeah, don't take it off road, though. Yeah, and I'll tell you what, Lindsay, if you treat, you treat that car right, that car will treat you right. That is an amazing vehicle you have. She's ready for a lot more miles. Yeah, how many miles do you have now? I have 179,000. Oh, boy.

I'm going strong. Yeah, that's like nothing. Yeah, I mean, we keep it up in regular maintenance. And I try to do all the work myself with the help of my boyfriend, of course, you know. Oh, how nice. Some things I'm just not strong enough to fix. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that's great news for our lady listeners. We're going to make you our champion. I'm trying. We got a gal named Tina. Sounds like you're doing a good job. We got a gal named Tina that calls us almost every week. And we love people like you, the ladies, that know how to take care of the car and shop and compare. So, again, thank you very much for calling.

And stay on the line. Rudy will give you Rudy your contact information, and you get 50 bucks. Coal Cash coming this week. Yep. Hey, Lindsay, give us a call again. Let us know how you're doing with your Camry. Your 2008, and before you go, is your name spelled with an A or an E? It's spelled with an E.

E, okay. You're the first Lindsay that I know is spelled with an E. Have a great Memorial Day weekend, Lindsay, and thanks for calling. Thank you. Bye-bye now. Bye-bye. We're going to go to Karen, who is a first-time caller. We're on a roll.

And she's calling from Jupiter. And Karen, we're going to give you $50 as a first-time caller, even though we only usually, you know, give out two first new lady callers, $50. How do you like that? You're lucky. Karen, do we... Hello, Karen. We still have you there?

Good morning. Hi, Earl. Hi, Nancy. Can you hear me? Good morning, Karen. You won yourself $50. Woo! Awesome.

I can't believe I'm winning $50 to call you for help. Uh-huh. What can we do? You stay on the line after we're done, and you can give Rudy your contact information. Wonderful. Okay. What can we do for you? So anyway, I have a Honda 2007 pilot, and I've had some recent issues with it.

I have had two mechanics work on it. This is probably for your mechanics, so I'm one of those people that tries to fix. my car, but when things get difficult, I need mechanics. So what happened was the serpentine belt fell off. They put a new one on and it bent the tensioner. So

he fixed the tensioner. Then a bolt got stuck in the engine. He was able to get that out. So that was like a month ago. Not to mention, like, the guy was awesome. The car was in there for a week. He got the bolt out, whatever. So now what's going on is my AC

is only working when I drive the car. When it's at idle, or like I'm sitting there, it doesn't blow cold air. So when I went back to the mechanic, I'm like, did what you did, did that affect the air conditioning? And, like, he didn't answer me. So I was like, you know, do I bring my car back? Like, so I feel like I'm kind of lost with, like, my mechanics. He's like, well, it could be a number of things. Like, you know what I mean?

And it's like, so I go back to the, I just feel lost with mechanics, you know, I feel like, and then my one friend who's another mechanic would like, be careful because mechanics you're doing this. They'll like, you'll bring your car to a shop. It's like something going on where they take Freon out of your AC. And then when you come back, they say you need a whole other AC unit, you know. It's like a scam going on. Yeah, yeah. So anyway.

I'll tell you what, it's a place to really be careful with. And boy, I'll tell you what, we've got somebody here by the name of. Rick, who can answer all your questions, honestly. Awesome. I need Rick. Rick, Rick, Rick. The first thing, Karen, that has probably happened is on a 2007, your air conditioner has probably lost a little bit of Fri-on over the years, and it's normal that some

is going to seep out tiny little amounts. What I would recommend is go to a good, reputable shop, and have them completely evacuate system they'll recycle the free on out evacuate it all vacuum it down and recharge it to the proper levels they'll add a little bit of ultraviolet dye to the system so if there are any leaks it'll make it easier to see them later and I'd recommend you drive the car for a couple of months and see evaluate the AC yourself to see if it stays cold if it does beautiful you got no worries wait and see how long it takes. On older cars, that's my first recommendation. Don't spend more than about $150 to have them

do that recharge. A lot of places will do it even less. And if the air stays cold for a good long time, then you're fine. If it does have a leak, it'll usually show up within a few weeks that it'll start blowing warm again. But that would be the place to start. And that'll show if you have a big leak or if it's just that that tiny little minor seepage and the other issue that you might have showing up that if it still acts like it's colder when you're driving and not as cold when you're sitting still is the cooling fans may not be operating properly to pull air across that condenser out in front of the radiator and that of course would need to be evaluated then but I would start first with simply have the system evacuate and recharge and then see how it works for you there.

Yeah, I noticed like yesterday when I was coming back from Miami, it wasn't working at all on the turnpike. I had the window. So now it's not even like working when I'm driving, so, you know, so that's where I'm at. But thank you so much for clarifying. Jeez, I feel so much better that you could clarify that. I'm, like, getting a runaround. Yeah. You know.

Call us back and let us know what to work. Not a good place to be when you need a, you know, you need a person who knows what they're doing. Right. Thank you so. Exactly. Thank you so much, Karen. All right. Talk to you guys soon.

Yeah, stay in touch. Let us know what happened. Stay on the line to give Rudy your information. Yeah. I want to take a moment to thank Jonathan and Rudy for all their help over there in the control station. They make us all work just a little bit better. Well, a whole lot better. Thanks, thanks, guys.

Give us a call toll-free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. And don't forget, you can take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. You can go there and remain totally anonymous. Tell us what you think. Tell us how you feel. We're going to go to Barney, who's holding, and he's calling from Boynton Beach. Good morning, Barney.

Hey, Barney. Got a question for us? Yes. Thanks for taking my call. I bought a RAF for Toyota two years ago, and what I did is I called three different dealerships that I wanted their out-the-door price. and some of them were a little hesitant to give me the exact out-the-door. But Earl Stewart over there on North Lake in Riviera,

they without hesitation gave me the out-the-door price, and they beat everybody by at least $1,500. So I was ecstatic, and I bought the car there. My question is, I heard you earlier talking about cost. Costco. Am I better off going through Costco to go to your dealership? Actually, you are, Barney, and I want, because I always worry about people, think this is an infomercial as opposed to a consumer advocacy show, I want to swear on the Bible that I didn't ask you to call and plug my dealership, but I'm glad you got a good price from us,

and I appreciate your calling in. Costco, to answer your question, has a rule in their contract. agreement with their dealers. Certified Costco dealers. You have to be approved. You have to sign up with Costco. You have to swear that you will sell your car at a lower price to a Costco member than you do anybody else. So yes, Costco price is lower than the price that we sell to the average customer for. It depends on the model and the in the time as to how much lower. But it has to be. somewhat lower in all cases. If it's not lower, Costco will call up and tell you you need to lower your price. But as Rick said earlier, if you're not a Costco member, for 65 bucks a year, you're better off to

join Costco. $65 and then follow the rules with Costco. Mostly important is you go to the Costco website, you input your member number. You go to Costco.com. Auto.com.

Costco dot com put your membership number in they will give you the name of the certified dealers in your market and they will give you instructions what to do which is to go to the certified approved car salesperson at that dealership asked to see the Costco price sheet and if you have any problems after the visit to the car dealer you call Costco and they'll go to that for you call the dealer and make things right so Costco was a great way to buy a car I didn't mean to go on and on, but I wanted to make myself clear. Is that answer your question, Barney?

And is your dealership on that list? Our dealership is in actually North Palm Beach, Lake Park City Limit Line there. It's not in Riviera, but it's in North Palm Beach. North Palm Beach. Oh, okay. And it is on North Lake, right? No, it's just off on North Lake. One block south.

One block south on US One. And this is not a commercial, but thank you for the call. this is not a commercial i don't even know any of you that's very flattering i have to tell you it's flattering but i know there are a lot of cardios listening to this show right now that says aha the the blankety blank put him up to this that's probably one of his employees to call the show but barney thank you come in show your Costco membership card and you will get a price lower than i will sell a car to to anybody yeah barney you sound

like an educated consumer And we appreciate your phone call. Stay in touch with us. And have a great weekend. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. I think that Ollie is in the house.

I'm not sure. Hey, good morning, Doug. Good morning, Doug. Hey, good morning. Hey. Allie says meow to me out. Meal right back to Holly. Easy, Rudy.

There's a cat on the phone. what's up i heard a dial tone for a second i think the call got dropped i think uh the dog scared ollie is what i think it's that to be no we didn't drop the goal oh i'm there how are you guys this morning good yes we're fine okay so i um i listened to you guys about changing my gas to not premium, but the plus, whatever it is. And you're right.

It seems to be working okay, but what I do notice, and I don't know if it's, I notice that there's not as much power as the premium gas. Is that just my being like sensitive, or

is it possible that there's a little bit of a lack of power compared to the premium. Rick is a thinking hard. My guess would be, and I'll let the expert here to my right, confirm but you know this, my

guess is a psychological thing. I can remember when I was younger, and I would always try to get the highest test gas in my car, and I had an old beater, 1951, Pontiac, six-cylinder, and I go out there and pay a fortune for a high test.

Sunoco, back in those days, at 260, and I don't know what the 260 meant, and then rumor had it that you could actually move it, force it beyond the 260 and get a very secret kind of gas called 280. And when I put that in there, I thought my old 51 Pontiac drove like a rocket. He's a maniac, maniac, that's for sure. It's like eating weaties. Rick will give you the real answer.

Half confirmed. And that is that the higher premium fuel in cars that are designed, for it will lose a little bit of power if you step down to the lower grade fuels but it's a small amount and the psychological aspect of doing that you will if you're expecting to feel it you're going to feel it but it's more it's such a small decrease most people are not going to be able to feel it well yeah sim says that i am psychologically messed up Well, that's the reason you and I are so friendly. I mean, I knew there was something about you that I could identify with.

Well, thank you. Thank you, guys. Oh, you're welcome. I hope you have a great weekend. You too, Doug. Thank you. Thanks, Ollie. We'll talk to you tomorrow morning.

Give us a call tool-free. And, Jeannie, if you're listening, please give us a call back. Sorry, the lines were busy. our telephone number here where you can reach us is 877960 9960 and the lines are really lit up today so if you anyone has gotten a busy signal just keep trying and that text number is 772-4976530 don't forget we have a hundred thousand dollar dealer fee challenge going on wow it's exciting and you can download all the information at earl on cars.com you can read all about it we're going to go to john and he's a regular caller from home city good morning john what you want today i'm full of good news but the first thing i just like to make a comment two weeks ago about anonymous call about expansion of earl's dealership i think the person should come here to stew at florida and they would see the expansion of the

Toyota dealer with a brand new building under construction. What a tremendous size. So he has to remember that when dealers sell cars, they have to expand. And Wallace Group, Auto Group, with five different brands, has expanded almost every one of them here in Stewart. And currently now the Audi and the Infinity Dealers are expansion with new buildings going on. So I just want to say that, you know, that anonymous comment that went into the show. and again, what it is, if you're selling cars, you have no choice. You'll have to expand. And put bigger buildings, and bigger car lots.

But the good news is here, I want to tell you, on a used car, okay, and you will find it in consumers. My friend lives in Broward County, and he needs a car reliable in the fact that it's a station car only, two and a half miles from his house, he drives to public transportation. So I said to him, you're very good on a computer. for three different used cars. You don't find these in consumers now. Look for a Pontiac, an Oldsmobile, and a setter.

Well, he struck gold. He did buy a 209 Pontiac, G5. That's a 2.2-liter engine. 46,000 miles, private party, $3,500. So I just want to tell people, Pontiac, as Earl knows, it ended in 2010. and he did have an Oldsmobile lined up that had more mileage. I told him basically, don't take that.

That was 3,600, 54,000 miles. Just shows you these cars were around, and because they're not made anymore, people are skeptical, but they're good running cars, and there's nothing wrong with him. He had them checked out, you know, his Pontiac before he did purchase it, and he even had a Saturn lined up. The last Saturn was 209. This was a 201,000, and that was $78,000, $3,200.

So my point is, especially somebody like him, that just needs a station car. It sits out all day long in the sun, and, you know, he doesn't really care about paint or anything on it. That there are some good buys on cars that would discontinued. Second thing I want to say to good news, and it's coming to every area in Florida. This is the fifth now, Wawa gas station, that's just been approved on Route 1, on Cold Road, and they're going to have one entire pump, especially for the non-ethanol gas. You know how important that is for people that have the boats, and Stewart is a boated town. Everybody close the O-WWW.

I just want it. Another one is ready to open now any day only in downtown Stewart, and this is, what, Wow, number five for Barton County. Great food, too. Great food. That is the good news, and they are a great station with fresh gas and great food. Everybody loves to say in Wawa, too. And I know it's coming.

They roll over the state of Florida. It's a Pennsylvania outfit, and I, myself, gas up on them. The first one, it was built here, on Route 1 and Monterey Road. And we should say that Wawa is not related anyway to the Chinese company of Wauway, which is in trouble with the United States. No, that's an Indian name, and when I was Pennsylvania, I used to go here a lot, and that was the origin of it in Pennsylvania. By the way, the good news I want to say, on this holiday weekend,

I'm a veteran myself of Vietnam era, but I thank God I wasn't sent over to Vietnam, and I'm looking out the window. I have my flag flying highly, and it's an important holiday, and we have to remember the veterans. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, John. Thank you for your service, John. Thank you, John.

And also, real quick, just to answer your addressing thing about dealers expanding, it is true that, yes, selling, growing your business, you have to expand. But the other thing that most people don't know is that the manufacturers force you to expand. So even if you're not growing your business, they basically say you have to modernize and increase the size. Very good point, Stu. Very good point. But doing business the right way, it all comes around and comes together. if you're doing it the right way.

That's us. Okay, we're going to go to Jeannie, who's been holding, and this is our second attempt to get through to us. I'm glad that you gave us a call back, Jeannie. Thanks. What can we do for you? Well, yesterday my husband came from Okechobee loaded with love bugs. Now, he just took them off the finish of the car,

but he's wondering, should he take them off the radiator? Good question. Yes. go to your local coin operated car wash and just open the hood and very carefully use that pressure sprayer to try to get as much as you can out of the radiator. Oh sure, so the air can come through.

What am I thinking? It helps improve the airflow, keeps your engine cool, and they're not likely to actually damage the radiator, but if you get enough of them on there, they can block it up to cause some cooling issues. Wow. Okay, that's great to know.

How about should he also change the air filter? Not really as important because the air intake is usually protected to where the love bugs can't really get around to get in there. So that's not really as big an issue. Great. Thank you so much. Oh, you're welcome, Jeannie. It's our pleasure.

It is lug bug season. Give us a call again. Definitely, enjoying the show. so much. Thank you so much. 877960 or you can text us at 772-4976530. We're really backing up on these text here. Stu hasn't been able to get to it in quite a while. Feeling neglected. Yeah, hacking away. I'm getting text on my phone that I can't reply to. So let's try to chop down some of these text here. All right. We're going in rapid fire fashion. Rick, I am interested in buying a 2019 Tacoma or Highlander with a 3.5 V6 or a 2.7 inline I-4. Can you please tell me if these engines use direct injection,

port injection, or both? Also, has the dual injection truly resolve the carbon buildup issues? The V6 uses both direct and port injection. The four-cylinder uses just the port injection, I believe. The dual injection system has improved some of the carbon build-up. The biggest thing is that it has made it to where a much smaller engine can produce more power than the larger engines, and they're very fuel efficient and still very powerful. All right. Sounds like a good answer to me. I have no idea what you guys were talking about, but there you go.

We have Joan on the line. Okay. So we'll cut to a live caller. We have Joan on the line from Royal Palm Beach. Thank you for giving us a call here at Earl Stewart on Cars. What can we do for you? Good morning. Good morning.

Yes, a couple of things. I heard the lady, I'm in the car, was in the car, and I heard the lady saying about mechanics. So I took my car up to a dealer, who is nationwide, by the way, but it's a small place in Royal Palm Beach, up that way, I'll say. And I asked them to, my air wasn't as cold as it should be. And I have a 2009 Hyundai Fanata. And so I said, would you just please check the air conditioning and make sure I'm not low on Fri-on?

So they did, but they let all the first out and fled the system, whatever they did, but all I asked them do was check the Fri-on. So they come in there and they said, oh, it'll be $289. And I said, no, your door says free air conditioning. check and he says oh but we left the free on out i said that's not my problem good for you your problem yeah what are they so so he says well we have to get paid for being and i said look i'm 77 years old and i know you think i'm a lady and i don't know a lot but i do so you put the free on back in and i'm not going to pay you good for you uh but i said no There is no, but your door says free air condition checking.

Do you ever read your own door? Yeah. And so I didn't pay. Good for you. Well, Jeannie, thanks for leading the way. You know, we do have to stand up and our voices have to be heard. Joan, I'm sorry, Joan. Do you want to mention the name of the dealer?

I know if you don't, that's fine, but I think he deserves a little smack in the face after what he did to you. A little poke. A little poke. Actually, I did. It was Tilton. And actually, I did call them the home office, and they called him and told him, you don't do anything with her. You advertise that way, so you let her have that way. And I said, I know I'm older, and you think you can take me because I'm a lady,

but it doesn't work that way because I was married to a mechanic for years, and my son is a thing. It just doesn't have to be close enough for me to, you know, have him check it. So they never did anything, so. Well, congratulations, and we love the call. You know what we're going to do? We're going to make an exception, Joan. You are our fourth female caller, but you haven't called before. We're going to pay you $50 cash just because we love you,

and you are such an example for all women out there to stand up for what they should do, their rights. And if you'll give Rudy your contact information before you hang up, just hang on the phone. Nancy, we'll send you a check for 50 bucks. Well, thank you very much. You're welcome. Thanks for the great story. And thanks for standing your ground. And you sound like an educated consumer. That's for sure, especially with having a husband who is a mechanic. So spread the word. We're trying to, well, lay a platform here for the female audience, and we encourage them to give us a call every Saturday morning. Thank you again.

Thank you. Bye-bye. We're going to go to Lori. Lori is giving us a call from Stewart. Good morning, Lori. How can we help you? Yes, good morning. My name is Lori, and I have a question for you.

My car has fairly new tires on it, and it's only used for local driving. I've heard that in Florida, you can get dry rot before the tread wears down, and that they'll need to be replaced. But how will I know when I take it into the dealer that the dry rot is legitimate, and I'm not being taken advantage of? Rick, I think Rick can answer that question for you. Become a Missourian. show me state. Say, show me the dry rot because it'll be very simple. They'll take you to your car.

They'll show you cracks in the rubber on the sidewall and in between the tread. And if those cracks are just minor little surface things and just little bitty marks in there, don't worry about it. But if the cracks kind of look like a miniature version of the Grand Canyon and they're starting to get deep, then it's time to go ahead and have those tires replaced. I would also recommend going on to Google and just Googling dry rot on tires, and then you'll see pictures of unsafe tires with unsafe dry rot, so you can familiarize yourself with what it looks like. So when they show you, you know, they're not showing you something that's superficial. Absolutely.

Okay. There you go. Okay. Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Thanks for the call, Lori. Please call again. Okay, thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. 877-960, or you can text us, and Stu has a whole lot of text that are stacking up over there. 772-4976530. All right, the next text is a follow-up from last week. It says, customer beware. Last week, I mentioned that a big box tire company said I needed to get four new wheels due to air leakage on all four tires to the tune of $600. I decided to get a second opinion, and the person there said I didn't need four new wheels. He fixed the issue, and it only cost me $60.

Being an elderly lady, I think I was being taken advantage of from the first tire dealer. So always get a second opinion. Yep. Or even a third sometimes. Okay. And we have another one here. This is from Lenny, by the way, Lenny is a longtime listener and texter in Atlanta. His sister lives in Tampa is looking for a 2017 or 2018.

Lexus NX300. Any recommendations on how to get a good deal? And can you recommend a dealer? J.M. Lexus in Coconut Creek. She's over in Tampa. Oh, Tampa? I would still buy it from J.M. Lexus and Coconut Creek. They might even deliver the car. Whatever you do, call J.M. Lexus.

They will give you their lowest price over the phone. They're a one-price dealer. And if you don't buy the car from them, take it to the Tampa Lexus dealer. and say, give me an out-the-door price that matches or ask them to beat the price, but at least match it, and that will give you a good fair price. But J.M. Lexus is the largest volume Lexus dealer in the world, and they recently went to one price, and they do put their lowest price on every car. So wherever you want to buy a Lexus, call J.M. Lexus, if they deliver, buy it from them.

If they won't deliver to where you are, take their price in and shop it with the local Lexus dealer. I think we have a caller. Yes, we do. have a caller and ladies and gentlemen we're here for you as consumer advocates and uh wow all this information is uh just uh free and uh fantastic and even the uh well knowledge that you share with us every saturday morning we don't know at all uh so give us a call toll free at 877 960 9960 or you can text us at 772 49760 adam if you were disconnected give us a call back.

Yeah, absolutely. We're going to go back to Stu. All right. Who's got some texts for us? All right, Rick, you have a critic. Says, I have to disagree with Rick and going to the hand car wash to pressure wash your radiator.

The aluminum radiers are way too weak and you'll bend the fins. Over to me, the best this might be voiced a text. To get some purple cleaner and your garden hose, just let it soak and hose it out so you don't damage the radiator. Just my opinion.

and a valid one I should have mentioned keep that pressure sprayer well back away from the radiator so you don't take a chance on bending those fins that's right hey for some reason I got bumped out of the Facebook we had a couple comments there let me log back in and if you want to continue I'll get to these I have a text here and then I'm Rick's got a text too I thought I had a problem getting through on the phone the question is what's sort of a discount should I get off a two 2019 car as compared to waiting till the 220's come off 220 comes out there is no discount that applies to all different cars brands models discounts very enormously discounts can be as little as 6% in terms of actual total markup and they can have other cars with discounts as high as 50% literally so never look at a discount in general applied across the spectrum of all makes and models and years of cars. You can look at discounts from the same make car, same accessories, the same MSRP and the ronial label, oranges and oranges, apples and apples, find out exactly the brand and year and the accessories with the same androoney label and then compare discounts.

That's the best way to buy a car. As far, the difference between 2019, 2020, there'd be very little difference. when the 2020s come out maybe for the first two or three weeks dealers will hold harder to the higher price but with a competition it's your best friend competition among dealers

in a couple months after the 2020s 2020s come out the prices will start to drop considerably so buy the best discount you could get on the exact same car yeah and also you know you go to true car because when you go to true car looking for a new car deal they'll list all the incentives

because the incentives are going to play a big role on what kind of discount you're going to get. The dealer's going to do his discount, and they usually get help from the manufacturer. Great information. So we've got some text here, or some comments actually on Facebook. One's from Steve, who's watching the live feed, he says, Florida used to have an impact fee. It was similar to a sales tax when you import your car from out of state. And I don't think that we have an impact fee anymore. I do know that in your vehicle registration, on a new vehicle registration, that's something called New Wheels on the Road. That's $225, and that makes it part of your registration fee.

the other parts of the weight of your vehicle, and it's prorated by your birthday and when you register it. But I'm too young to remember an impact fee. Do you know if there was one? For a little impact fee, no, that's just a cute name. On a new vehicle that you bring in from out of state. A new vehicle that you bring in? I don't, I know it's not such a fee.

I don't never remember that. Also from Facebook. Maybe California. Yeah, possibly, yeah. Not in Florida. Steve on Facebook says, I think that Costco uses nitrogen. They had signs up saying they used nitrogen, but Costco was free, so that's fine. Yeah, you know, nobody's perfect.

Nancy and I love Costco. Everybody loves Costco. They're an amazing company, but nobody's perfect. It bothers me every time I think of the fact that Costco does put nitrogen in their tires that they sell. But they don't charge you for it. So consumer report says nitrogen is worth zero, and that's exactly. what Costco charges is. But what bothers me about Costco is they put the nitrogen in your tires and they put a little green cap on the stem and they tell you that every time you come

back in for service, they will add nitrogen to your tires for you free. So it's a little hook. Yeah. And they want you to come back in and they get you back in for service. So it's kind of like a petty little thing. But I think it's above Costco. I think, I don't think Costco. That's not really necessary. They should not do that, but it's so petty and nobody's perfect. They need to get out of the nitrogen business. Another comment on Facebook, we had one comment about our fish tank. I don't want to row you up. I'm looking forward to. We had a delay on the big old fish tank. From Facebook, personal preference, I would replace the rotors. We were talking about breaks earlier. I would

replace the rotors, never cut them. I may have been prejudiced by watching a mechanic cut the rotors with a hand tool rather than remove them and resurface them on a lathe. What do you think, Rick? I've never heard of a hand tool for cutting rotors except an on-car brake lathe, which is actually the newest technology and the best way to resurface the rotor. And that's what we use at the shop, is it cuts the rotor, but on the car. Now, a lot of folks do prefer to replace rotors, but that's usually up north where road salt and other conditions degrade those rotors so much that they do need to be replaced. Okay.

We have another one for Facebook. Seems that they have battery life down to a science. 36-month battery lasts 34 to 37 months. 48-month battery lasts 43 to 50 months. A 60-month battery lasts 54 to 65 months. The question is, which battery comes in your new car? Most new cars come with a three-year, 36,000-mile battery. Which is the warranty?

No coincidence, I wouldn't think. Yeah, yep. But it's a battery manufacturer warrantage the battery. I'm happy to announce we're caught up with text. Okay, great. You know, I want to make a real quick announcement. Ladies and gentlemen, if you call and you can't get through, it's due to our popularity. We have had an enormous amount of telephone calls, and sometimes we can take all of them.

But if you call back, we'll take your call. 877-960 and the text number is 7-7-249-7-6-5-30 and I got to say that we have another female caller and she's female number 8 this morning so we've really got a record and thank you Karen from Lake Worth what can we do for you this morning

Hi, good to talk to you all this morning Thank you. Yeah, I want to tell you I appreciate all the efforts you're doing to inform us when we're going out to buy a new car. That's exactly what I'm getting ready to do. I'm prepared by a CRV, a 2019 CRV. I have a 2009 Honda cord to trade in, and I've done some of the pre-work that you've suggested.

I've gone to TrueCard, and I've got three printouts on the, pricing, and I just got a couple questions before I go into the Lions then and start this process. Well, you've really done your homework. Well, I've been listening to you, so I want to be prepared when I go in. So on the true car output, the pricing, it lists the MSRP, and then it has the vehicle delivery choice. and then a total MSRP. And I remember you're saying about not, you know, paying for dealer freight charges, is that, should that be included or not? Well, it should be included in the MSRP of the vehicle.

If they try to add it to your sale price or itemize it on the buyer's order, they're double-dipping, and that is actually illegal. Okay. Okay. All right. And as far as my trade-in, I got a 2009 Honda Accord. At what point should I bring that up? How would I work that into the whole process? I would just say that you're going to shop and get prices on your trade-in, and the dealer that you're buying it from is welcome to bid on your trade-in. And as Stu said earlier in the show, you always have to take into account in Florida to 6%. Nancy's waving at me. Hi. Hi. I just wanted to add my two cents, Karen, and that trade-in.

It's so important to keep it separate. Now back to Earl. Because the 6% on the trade-in value, let's say you had a $20,000 trade-in value, 6% is $1,200. And that would be what you'd have to get from a third party in addition to to cover the sales tax that you advantage that you lose when you trade it in. But you've got other sources now. We talked about it earlier in the show, Carvana, National Company, C-A-R-V-A-N-A, will give you a bit on your car. And there's a company that's doing a lot of advertising in this area. We Buy Anycar.com.

You can check with them. They'll give you a price. And then, of course, you should shop your cord with three Honda dealers and go to the used car managers, say, I don't want to buy a car from you. I want to sell my car. You give me the highest price that you want to buy to put my car. car, my accord on your lot, and I'm going to shop two other Honda dealers, that'll maximize the value of your trade in.

And as I said earlier, it has to take enough more to what the trading end dealer would give you to cover the 6%. It's also a good idea to maybe just not mention you have a trade until towards the end, because that's one of those moving variables. Yeah, if you just, even if you don't even say you had a trade, I mean, you could even fit and say you don't, and then negotiate the price on the car. and then you bring it up because nothing drives a car salesman more crazy than that. They popped a trade-in on me, so that's a good tactic.

I hope we've given you all the information you needed. Yeah, I've got one other question. If I'm going to be walking out of the dealership going to another dealership to compare prices, what would I ask them for? Off the door price. You want to be sure you ask for an off-the-door price. that you want to know that the only thing would be added to the price would be government fees which is your sales tax and your license plate now you you

might have a hard time getting that if you're dealing through true car you know what the true car prices so if you're dealing with it through true car you should be talking to the true car representative that is listed on their website for that particular dealership and that person that certified true car salesperson should know that they cannot they have to include all their dealer fees and their dealer install accessories in the final true car price so when you go to other dealers besides a true car dealer you have that and you have to get their out-the-door price to match the true car dealer price okay all right and Karen one other thing that I'll share with you to save you a little bit of money.

You can go to erloncars.com, and I've got a little invention there, and it's a tool for an honest price rate, well, the final out-the-door price. And it's more or less an affidavit that you can download, and you can take with you, and you can ask that person who's, you know, trying to sell your car and slip in, you know, all these fees,

this will you will ask them to sign this and you will also ask them to put all the fees and all the information that they're not going to charge you how does that sound okay save you a whole lot of money that's great that's great i i really appreciate it thank you so much thank you give us a call again we've got a call from juan in west palm beach hey one good morning one Did we lose your Juan? Are you still on the phone? Hello. Hi, Juan. Hey, Juan.

My name is Juan. I have a 19, I mean, in 2016, Kia 40. I have a flat, flat tire. And when I went back there looking, there is no spare tire or jack or anything. I bought this car brand new. When I went to Kia, Kia told me that they do not provide jacks or spare tires any longer. And I request for them to put one back on. They say if I want one, it's going to cost me $280.

Wow. Then I find out that supposedly Florida has a law that you must have an spare tire in your car. So what do I do? Why not? Did you buy the car used or new? Brand new. No.

If Keyes policy is, in fact, they don't have to... Most new keyers do not have spare tires. But no jack and no tire. I think that that's just a trend in the industry one. And a lot of the manufacturers are no longer furnishing spare tires.

Usually if they don't furnish a spare tires, tire, they furnish either a miniature tire or they furnish a inflator kit. I'm surprised that Kia offers none of that, but if that's the case, I don't think it's a very good thing for Kia sales. I know why they would do it to save money and lower the price of the car and lower the weight also. But if that's accurate, I'm a little surprised that Kia would do such a thing. It's not a good thing for sales. I can see the point of not having a full-size spare. Many manufacturers are going to that

because cars are getting smaller. Smaller, and the weight of the car is a big factor in conforming with the CAFE requirements, the miles per gallon requirements that you have to confirm to. But to offer nothing to someone that might be stranded on the highway, I think is a big mistake.

It's a big big thing. And there is no law, and then in the style of Florida, I don't think so. That is mandatory to have a spare? I don't think so. Not to my knowledge, Juan. I will research that.

We can Google that. I googled it. We have Googled it. But there is no law that requires a spare tire or even the jack and the inflator or a donut. What about the little donut? Yeah, the donut. So it's not the law of one. I'm very sorry.

And all you folks out listening there buying Kia is remember that. And make that part of your negotiation when you're buying the car. Just tell them you got to have something. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for the call. Unfortunately, even if you bought a spare tire, there's no place to put it,

so you're going to have to put it in a plastic bag in the trunk or in the back seats. That's not very convenient. Okay. We're getting near the mystery shopping time, and do we have any text to catch up on? Oh, yes, we do. Concerning dry route on tires, this is from Jim and Revere Beach. If you're purchasing new tires for a vehicle that's not going to be driven all the time, ask to see the date on the sidewall of the tire if it's been stored for three years.

or more years, you can have dry rot in a very short period of time. Yep. Next one, this is for Rick. It says, Rick, can you please explain the purpose and function of the ECT switch in the Tacoma? Well, using the ECT all the time, cause any damage to the transmission. Thank you. It will not damage the transmission, and the only real function of it is it will delay the shift points when you put it in power mode to let the vehicle stay in the same gear a little bit long,

longer and make it feel a little more powerful to you. Sounds good. Other than that, no other effect. Okay. Here's another one. I'm trying to sell my car, downsizing. How do you differentiate between all the car buying places? Is it even worth it?

I saw an ad on TV for We Buy Any Car, had a bad experience with CarMax years ago. I think that, unfortunately, you probably have bad experiences with a lot of the car companies. CarMax is a good company, and they should treat you right. I always say you're not necessarily going to get the highest trade-in price if you're selling your car. But it'll be an honest price. Say, we'll pay it. You just need to check it. And we talked earlier about other sources.

We Buy Anycar.com. Strange name, but we buy anycar.com. Go online. You can even call them. They have actual locations. There's also Carvana. You can call them. They're online.

They're a national company. And we've had good experience. We've actually shopped these companies. and we found competitive pricing on used cars. Yeah, I don't think we're going to have enough time to get into a detailed thing, but I can say that somebody that we respect very much helped investigate one of these things, and he says they are a first-class A-triple-plus operation. It's a used car seller's market.

If you have a trade-in or you just want to sell your car, the time has never been better for you to get competitive pricing, but you have to shop and compare. We had a caller a couple weeks ago. he was buying a car and he called 16 dealers ended up got an amazing price absolutely amazing price so if you've got the time and you want to get the most for you's car

today is today you have never had more opportunity and options car max we buy any car dot com carvana and the make brand of the car that you're selling go to the used car department they're buying cars you go shop and compare competition is your friend I'm going to give you a little industry secret.

When salespeople are trained to deal with customers who are looking to sell their car, when they say they're going to, quote, just sell it on their own, you're supposed to advise them, say, do you really want to waste all? Isn't your time worth something? You have strangers coming to your house. Do you really want to go through all that, anything they can get you to do to trade it in or sell it to the dealer? That's not the case anymore.

You have a computer and a phone in front of you. You can sell it anywhere. Well, the car, we buy any car.com, advertisement says that the average person who trades the car into the dealer pays $900 more, meaning he gets $900 less for his trade in. I believe that because part of the game, when you're trying to maximize your profit on the car, car dealers call it the vernacular, steal your trade. Every car dealer, if he knows you're not going to shop and compare the price of your trade, he will lowball you as another vernacular. offer you less for your vehicle than the wholesale value really is and they use that stealing your trade they add that profit back into what the profit is on the new car the car salesperson gets paid 25% of the profit that he makes when he sells you a car if he can steal your trade by a thousand

dollars that's another 250 dollar profit in the commission to the guy that sells you the car always shop and compare trade in values on your car which you can sell you your car form. We can shut down the show and just basically just have a loop saying, shop and compare, get free bids. That's our answer for it, but it's true. Finally, the last thing we have, and this is from our longtime Facebook fan,

listener, watcher, member of the International Sunrise Club, Linda, today she turns 70 today, and she has a special request. She would like her oldest singer, happy birthday. Maybe not the whole song. The double. Hey, I'm going to double it because today's my wife's

birthday. Oh, there you go. All the birthday kids. Linda gets you sing. Linda wants me to sing.

Linda wants me to home. This is for you, Linda. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. Dear Linda. You just knocked me in. Happy birthday to you.

You hit that now. That was nice. He loved my signal at. Okay. You owe me one, Linda. Yeah, Linda. Sunrise Club member. The devil made me do that.

Mystery Shop of Del Rey Honda, Part 2, Costco Follow-up. Mystery Shop of Del Rey Honda, Part 2, Costco Follow-up. About a month ago, we repeated, still used the word reprised because he's a musician, our investigation into the Costco Auto Program. This program administered by Affinity Auto Programs on behalf of Costco Wholesale Corporation, is one of the best ways for buyers to get deals on new and sometimes use vehicles. Costco doesn't actually manage the auto program. A separate company does.

A lot of people don't know that. And it's called the Affinity Group. However, since the program is managed by the consumer level, by car dealers, caution must be taken by car shoppers to avoid being taken advantage of it. See, that's a weak link in the chain. Costco is a company without reproach. They are rocket Gibraltar. They will never take advantage of you.

They'll never lie to you. The car dealers will. and that's the weak link of the chain. In April, we shopped two dealers in Delray Beach, Edmore's Delray Toyota, and Delray Honda. They're a Berkshire Hathaway Corporation. Berkshire Hathaway is owned by, well, control, by Warren Buffett, one of my heroes. Edmore's Del Rey Toyota passed with flying colors

and went by the book every step of the way. Del Rey Honda, not so, not so. Not so much. Not so much. Del Rey Honda shot from the hip. and offered a hand-written Costco member price on a new 2019 Honda Pilot with no way to verify it if it was real. And you're supposed to see the written price sheet, the Costco official price sheet. Also, according to the Costco Auto Program, dealer-installed accessories are to be included at no extra charge to the Costco member.

Del Rey Honda discounted the list price of their unwanted and virtually worthless accessories, but didn't include them at no charge as required. Another reason we suspected that the salesperson in Del Rey Honda did not give our shopper, Agent Thunder, the real Costco price, because we checked the price on the pilot, Honda pilot at TrueCar.com. Delry Honda came up as the authorized true car dealer on our search, and their true car price was quite a bit lower than the supposed Costco price that they gave us. Another violation of the Costco Auto Program rule,

And the Costco Auto Program rule saying they have to give you the lowest price is actually amazing. Dealers hate it. Think about it. You sell cars, all car dealers, vary the price. Every person that walks in in a week or a month pays a different price for the exact same car. That's amazing. So if you're on the Costco Auto Buying program and you sign the contract, you're committed by contract to find out the lowest price that you sold that month.

model car for and sell it for less to the Costco member and that can be painful and it attempts and Costco doesn't understand that I'm afraid it really puts the pressure on the Costco member the dealer doesn't want to sell the car for the lowest price and they fight and they struggle and they squeal and that's what we click on the chain we turn to del rhoda Honda to see if our shopper would be subjected to another common trick used by Costco dealers who don't follow the rules. In this scenario, the customer does not go through the official process, which begins on the Costco Auto Web Program, Costco.com.

When the customer fails to do this, the dealer can easily make up any price and claim, it's the Costco price. Easy to say. Hard to enforce. As a matter of fact, from my own experience, many Costco members do it this way. In our dealership, and total transparency, I'm a car dealer. Most of the people who come into our car dealership on the their Costco members just say I'm a Costco member and they expect they're going to get the price they haven't gone through the website we even had one salesman that didn't go and follow the program and didn't show them the written Costco price you have to be careful even well-meaning dealers can not intentionally not follow the program I hear. When a Costco

member mentioned their Costco customer mentions their Costco membership deal, the scrupulous dealer will advise them to go to Costco auto.com if he didn't do it and go through the appropriate steps. This ensures

transparency and the ability of the Costco Auto program to follow up and sure the price was provided. When you go on that Costcooto.com website and you register, they know you're out there. You're on record. You're on record. You're in the minefield. You're out through shopping with our car dealers. And so you have that halo of protection. If you don't go there,

you're on your own. It was this scenario that we tested this week. We dispatched a brand new mystery shopper, a shopping agent, and our first female shopper in almost three years. Shame on us. We're going to try to do more. Her codename, Agent 26. By the way, I'll tell you right now, she was treated with courtesy and respect. And this is one of the reasons we want to use more female shoppers. Treated with courtesy and respect. Here's the report. I'll speak in the first person.

That's very important. As if I were Agent 26. I arrived at the dealership at 8, 14, at 11, 47 a.m. Very precise of Agent 26. I parked my car a few parking spots away from the entrance. Surprisingly, there was no salesperson. anywhere outside near the front entrance I walked in, approached

the receptionist and asked for the restrooms that's how we're shopping in case you just tuned in mystery shopping Honda Delray Honda Berkshire Hathaway. I walked back to the reception desk, asked to speak to a salesperson she asked me if I was working

with anyone or spoke to anyone before I replied no she's told me to give her a second and walked away from her desk. She came back and told me Figener, Figener, would be right with me. By the way, Figener used to work for our dealership. That is correct. Stu remember that years ago, Figener.

Very nice man. He's an exceptionally nice man. Except a very nice man. I waited less than five minutes, and a sales specialist approached me and introduced himself as Fagner. He asked for my name, and I told him. He handed me his business card, led me to his desk, and initiated a conversation.

Fenger said, how's your day going? Agent 26 said, it's going well. Figner said, what brought you in today? I said, I'm interested in the Honda pilot, EX, two-wheel drive. Figner wanted to know if I'd shopped on Del Rey's Honda's website prior to coming in, I told him I had. And the reason he asked is, probably, most likely. To save himself some embarrassment. Exactly.

Car dealers all have a two-tier pricing system. they have a high price it's called the walk-in prospect if you walk in and you don't go to the website you pay the high price if you do go to the website online and look at the pricing you pay the low price two-tier pricing very simple for everyone to remember if you don't know how to use a computer and you don't know how to use a smartphone to shop and compare prices find a friend a son, daughter, grandkid, granddaughter. Find somebody that's familiar

because you are really going to pay thousands, possibly, at least hundreds more for a car if you go online. I'll send my 11-year-old with you. There we are. Figner began to search the website

for available pilots. There were two white diamond available on the lot, Delray Honda. He was curious about why I wanted the pilot due to it being a big SUV I told him I like big cars I like to sit up high while driving at this point he gave me the benefits of having a big car like how it was more likely to be safer in an accident vigner asked me what features I consider important to have this began a conversation about the standard equipment and options on the pilot

he asked me if I wanted to go on a test drive I said I did and we went outside to find the finally found the SUV. It's pretty dirty. I had a lot of dead bugs on it, probably little bugs. Figner said it had just arrived and came off the truck. The window sticker showed an MSRP of 33,375. But there was another sticker, shame. There was a phonymonerone. That's right.

They added another sticker that had $2,827 added to the price for items like Cahoo. I looked it up. You know I looked it up. It's a GPS tracking system, like a security system. Cahoo, connected card technology. Appearance package, pinstripes, storage cards, nonsense. No nitrogen, I guess, or maybe, didn't mention it.

That's a phony Monorone, added profit. They stick it on next to the Monroney label. Beware, most dealers have this. Real quick, so that Cahoo thing, so I think on the picture, sure it was about $1,000 they added for that. Just so you know, go on Amazon.com, you can get something called Moto Safety for $15. You can get the unit.

Unbelievable. And if you want to have a service, you can pay $19 a month. Wow. Yeah. Well, you're going to have to have this service, too, probably. Oh, sure, $1,000 plus your monthly. Yeah, yeah. We got in this Honda, and we drove to the front entrance, asked for my driver's license on

the way. Figiner did. Made a copy. He told me to make myself comfort to get ready to go on the test drive. Figner came back and instructed me to adjust the mirrors at my front seat we left the test drive was short and pleasant We went back to the dealership to discuss potentially buying as you put it and again this is Delray Honda and we're doing a Costco Auto program shop back at his desk Fegner asked me a bunch of questions about how I was going to pay for it I told me that I had financing secured through my credit union and that my parents were giving me money for down payment

a young female shopper age of 26 he asked if i would give him the chance to do the financing with the dealership doing his job where do they make more money than a selling of the car and the finance department feganer was trying to get the opportunity to make more money by financing the car doing his job i said that my parents explicitly wanted me not to do that parents apparently He listened to this show. Figner didn't press further. He said he assumed if I had a payment in mind with my credit union and asked where I expected to be price-wise.

I said I expected not to pay MSRP and wanted them to put together an aggressive deal. That's another reason for the phony and roney. He can discount the car to MSRP and you think you're paying less than MSRP, but you're not. I'm throwing that cahoo for free. Yeah, cahoo. I said I was at Costco.

member, boom, we sprung on the Costco membership. They hate that. I sprung the fact that I'm a Costco member and I asked if I would get a special discount. Figner said, if I was a Costco member, then he would give me the Costco price. And they all will say that. Question is, is it the Costco price? He said the dealership has a contract with Costco and has to give me a special discount. He said there was a large discount that no one could touch. That's true. It was a little he does give you that discount. Fegner started talking about how good a deal it was and began to ramble into other topics

like how the car business is these days. Oh, Fegner. Is that the old Fegner? That's the old Fegner. Yeah. I was losing interest in aware that the time was getting away from us, so I said that I needed to get going.

Otherwise, I'd be late for work. He asked me where I worked. I said, Jared's Jewelers. Very politely, Fegner said, he didn't want me to be late. Offered to email me his offer. I said, I could spend a little more time and would really like to see my deal now. He said, okay, jumped up to get my package deal, as he put it.

Figner returned with a worksheet that itemized the price and other charges. The MSRP was 34-375. Customer savings, 5,377. And my sale price, 29, 99.98. They added 57768 for dealer-install options. 18 dollars and 50 cents agency fee 899 899 pre-delivery service fees and $239 electronic filing fee this is all BS folks the 1850 the 899 the 239 are all hidden fees dealer fees and the 57768 for dealer and sold options apparently they were giving them the cost

which is bogus cost on the what was it a $2,800, $2,800 for the phony Monroney. Sales tax and registration was also added. Nowhere on the document was Costco mentioned. That's a warning sign right there, folks. Out the door price 33, 933. I asked him if this was the Costco deal and Faganer said it was. He mentioned again that no one could touch it. I assume this means that no other dealers would sell the car for that low price.

I asked about the fees and Fentinger said that they were all standard fees, not true. They were Del Rey Honda fees. Well, in a manner of speaking. Yeah, they're standard in the fact that everybody does dealer fees. Everybody does dealers and told options, but they all charge different prices. And they're not standard. I asked about the job, blah, blah, blah. I thanked him.

We said our goodbyes and I left. Okay. first as a nice and polite his finger was he did not follow the Costco auto buying process he did not direct me to go to the website as a shopper and the register and he failed to show me my Costco membership only price sheet now that's a big one folks that document exists it was a Costco certified dealer it's an official document Costco calls regularly to check the prices and if you're too high, they make that Costco dealer lower the price. The Costco price sheet is legitimate

if they update it like they're supposed to. And they have to. Otherwise, Costco will be all over them. Agent 26 discount was better than Agent Thunders by about $5.50. Asian Thunders was an earlier Costco shopper at Del Rey Honda. However, Agent Thunder wasn't charged anything for dealer install options. In this case here, they did charge a discounted price, albeit it was still charging and Costco says you cannot charge anything for dealer installed options 577 68 is what they charge this shopper agent 26 so in fact both agent 26 and agent thunder paid almost the exact same price that's interesting kind of makes you believe that they did go off the price sheet

but they never showed it which they should have they didn't follow the rules rules of course while delivery Honda gets points for consistency we still feel they failed the Costco tests on both procedural grounds as well as pricing by adding dealer install options okay interestingly encouragingly we discovered that the true car price this time was about $50 higher the price given to agent 26 last week it was $500 better so a lot of inconsistency here a lot of reason not to trust and verify verify verify you don't have to worry about it if you go by the book and so what Costco tells you but so few Costco shoppers do and we know

that from experience as I said earlier so here we are at the end of the shopping report and while the shops come in online you can you can send us in Texas at 772 497 650 or you want a Facebook or do it on YouTube, vote. We're going to vote internally. I have to remind you one more time about the $1,000 debate challenge. I want the word to spread.

100,000. 100,000. Yes. Psychologically. You're trying to get out of it now, aren't you? I was afraid. The $1.00 debate challenge. Really?

He digested it all of a sudden. By the way, we were talking about this last week. I suggested we lower the price. Yeah, and then you said, oh, by the way, you wanted to go to a million. I had a text here. I can't find it, but I think he was, look it up, Stu, it's anonymous feedback, and I'll read that.

But $100,000 to the car dealer that will challenge me in a debate on this show, on true oldies. Here's the anonymous that had to do with it. Sounds like a battle of the loudmouth rich guys. Can't wait. The battle is a loudmouth rich guy. This loudmouth rich guy is challenging all the other loudmouth rich guys

out there but we've had another comment on Facebook says $100,000 I wish I was a car dealer. Yeah we're going to donate if I win the $100,000 goes to Big Dog Ranch Rescue if you win the other dealer wins and beats me in the debate

saying the car dealer should have legalized dealer fees then you get $100,000 you car dealers so you got to call me or email me and let's get started and we will set the date. It'll be on this show. It'll be on the show. Earl Stewart on Cars, we'll have one hour for the debate, and I will post this online, Earl on Cars,

and this will be our challenge to you to make the dealer fee illegal in Florida. Now, we're running out of time here. One other serious business do we have? I think that we should get Linda's vote. It's her birthday. Yeah, let's do the votes. I have Linda's vote.

Okay, Linda, you're still listening. I'll save her for last. We have six grades from online. Karen gives them a C minus, John gives them a C, Louisa, an F, Mary G, a D, Halen, a C, and then Linda, birthday girl, gives them a big, huge F. Feeling generous on your birthday, Linda? Go ahead, Nancy.

Real quick, D. I've got a YouTube grade of a D and myself a D. I'm going to give them a C. I'm with you on that. Okay. Okay, Del Rey, Honda, we pass you. I think you get some loose ends there. You need to wrap up, and we will be back.

Berkshire Hathaway Company, Warren Buff would expect you to operate to a much higher standard. But you're about average, in my opinion, and you're an average car dealer. We put you on the recommended list. And Agent 26 will be back out there to visit those car dealerships. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us this morning. And I just want to take a moment and remind you to recognize the... the American fallen heroes. Everyone knows that Monday is Memorial Day.

We have a whole lot to be thankful for. Thanks for tuning in to Earl Stewart on Cars, and we will be right back here next Saturday morning. Bye-bye. Welcome! Oh, no more than you.